A/N Stuck in the mud on WPtH Yuck

I have an idea to turn this thoughtful ficlet (that I came up with when I was too hot cuddling my husband. Well as hot as a british summer night gets :) into a proper B/S story. What you think?

Thanks to April for doing her grammar thing, i tried out some semi colons on my own and she say's I got them right so i'm very proud of myself.

Hope you enjoy

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She rolls away from him, sleepily disentangling herself from his arms to lie in dreaming isolation across an impassable ocean of linen. He doesn't pull her back into his embrace or flow with her in the perfect synchronicity of sleeping lovers, just sighs and rolls onto his back to contemplate the shadowed ceiling and listen to the faint, muffled sound of her breathing.

He used to try to hold her, keep her safely cocooned in his arms, pull her close against his broad chest and share the air she breathed. She would hold still for a few moments, just long enough so as not to be hurtful, then slip across the bed, spreading her heated skin against the cool cotton of their sheets and mumbling that it was too hot. Even now, in these cool Californian winter nights she shrugs off his embrace, shying away from the sticky contact of his warm body, to throw one leg wantonly out from under the covers and let the cold night air caress her skin. Only then is she able to sleep.

By day their relationship is perfection itself. They walk together in the sun; she smiles up at him, that devastatingly radiant smile that is her signature and her gift. She holds his hand, stands on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his. She slips her deceptively frail arms around his waist and lays her head on his chest when they dance. But by night she is a stranger to him. She hunts alone; it's new. He used walk beside her, but now he hasn't the strength. Despite his size, despite that he works out every day, despite that he has two centuries of fighting experience, he is fragile. In her dark and violent world he is weak and breakable and so she shields him from her world, and hunts alone.

She slips into their bed when her hunt is finished and kisses him with a grave and studied gentleness. Often they make love, but it lacks the playful affection of their afternoon communions. There is a guarded melancholy to her, a latent sadness that pervades her nights. At night, she is a stranger to him.

Sleep eludes him, as it always does when she distances herself from him. He wonders if perhaps it is at night that she thinks of another, of one whose chilled embrace would cool her fiery skin. If perhaps the night air's chill is to her a ghostly reminiscence of that icy lover’s touch. He feels his brow crease with the thought. No. If she dreams of cold dead skin it is his own, it is a dream of a different time when love was new and she was innocence itself, of a long forgotten world where demons she faced where not her own.

He sighs and runs a large hand across his face, feeling the now familiar warmth of his own breath. It is strange how in two hundred years of death he never quite got used to the redundancy of breathing, but in less than a year of life he has completely forgotten how it felt to not need air.

Perhaps that is the cause of her withdrawal; maybe it is at night that she feels most strongly that they are different. He is certainly aware of her unnaturalness. She is too strong; he knows that she must temper the power of her tiny body in order to make love with him. She is too fast; just yesterday she caught a glass that he had clumsily knocked from the kitchen table, with a preternatural speed that had been at best disconcerting. He feels his understanding of her shadowy world slip away from him day by day. He remembers that there was a time when he had understood, when her nature had been a lustrous reflection of his own, but he feels that kinship diminish with every caress of warm sunlight on his skin.

It is not that he loves her any less; he loves her perhaps more now than he ever has. But he is also aware that, for all that love, they are not a pair. They are too different and his skin is too warm for her to bear.

She mumbles something in her sleep, so softly his dull human ears cannot be sure of what he hears, but he imagines it is a name - a name that neither of them will utter in the daylight. She never speaks his name, perhaps because she never thinks of him. She certainly never loved him; he is past now and far from her thoughts. He hopes this is the reason, but suspects it is not. He has his own reasons for avoiding the other’s name. He hates to lie to her, and any mention of him would be a lie: a good lie, if there can be such a thing, but a lie nonetheless. There is guilt, too, a feeling that his silence is a betrayal of the other. It is not, of course; he swore when they parted that he would keep his secret, yet he knows his motives for keeping that promise are not noble and so he avoids his name just as she does.

He rolls away from her, pulling the cover over his shoulder so that it lifts from the bed, allowing cool air to flow between them. She murmurs again and this time he is sure it is a name. Perhaps it is time to break his oath and his silence, to tell her what she has always had a right to know. Perhaps tomorrow, when they wake together in the sunlight, he will tell her. Perhaps.

A/N April again turned the proofing around so quickly I could post today. Big thatks as always to her
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Even in winter the Californian sunshine is bright and warm. She remembers that in Italy the December sun had been pale and cold, like him. No. She mustn't think of him. She tries never to think of him; he is past, long since lost to her and so she doesn't allow her self to think of him. At least not in the daylight.

She reaches out to slip her hand into the large warm one of the man beside her. Her man, and now truly a man. It had been prophesied: the Sanshu, vampire with a soul, champion for good, pivotal role in apocalypse, big reward, yada yada yada. So he is human now, a living breathing human, with a pulse and body heat. He feels her tense and looks down questioningly at her. She gives him a tight smile and grits her teeth against the sudden sensation of burning in her hand. She feels perspiration gather between their coupled palms and fights the urge to tug her hand away and let the winter air cool and dry her skin.

"Ooh, look," she covers clumsily, pulling her hand from his and pointing towards the familiar coffee shop window. "Winter warmer." She grins at him and steps backwards towards the cafe. "Two for one on hot chocolaty goodness. This offer cannot be ignored."

She has marshmallows in her hot chocolate; she has found lately that she enjoys the sweetness of them. It is a sinful treat and at twenty-four even a slayer should be more careful about the excess of calories, but she doesn’t care. There is something comforting about the childish indulgence; it reminds her of her mother, and, of course, of him. Not that she allows herself to think of him. Still, she enjoys the mindless familiarity of enjoying the over-sweetened drink, just as he had.

"Buffy?" His voice startles her from her forbidden reminiscence. He knows her well enough to recognise the guilty nervousness in her eyes.

He looks so vulnerable as he touches her hand, his dark eyes asking questions she will never answer. It is better for him not to know; she even doubts that he truly wants to know. He looks younger; it's strange. In the last year, he has aged for the first time in two centuries and yet he looks younger. She likes to think it is because he is new; his body and soul have been reborn, new and innocent and untarnished. It is strange to think of him as light, but he is - he is a child of the sunlight now, bright and sanguine. She knows that she is not.

A glance at her watch tells her it is gone three and she smiles at the thought. The sun only has a few more hours of lordship left, before it relinquishes its throne to the silver night watchman of the sky. She smiles at her own clumsily poetic thoughts; he would have been proud.

She has come to enjoy winter. She likes that the days are short and the nights are long. The night is her time, after all, just as it was his. It is at night that she indulges her memories of him. She hunts alone. She doesn’t have to, she has a thousand sisters now with whom to share the night. But she prefers to hunt alone; she'd rather have his memory to watch her back anyway.

"Buffy?" His voice disrupts the lazy circling of her mind, and she shakes herself. This is why she must keep the other in the night: because, if she lets him, he will invade her days. He will reach out into the sunlight and pull her back to him, surround her with the ethereal coolness of her memory until the present loses meaning and all there is is that lost forbidden time with him. This is why she tries so hard not to think of him. Because she knows that if she does, he will consume her and she will have nothing left to give to the wonderful, warm human being in front of her.

She smiles sadly at her companion. It is not that she doesn’t love him. She loves him now perhaps more than she ever has, but she senses that she is losing him. That she who first drew him to the light is now losing him to that same brightness. She does not enjoy the irony that it is she now who is too dark for him. But she understands that it is true.

She has resolved that she will not fight his leaving; she is ready, perhaps even a little impatient, for the day when the divergence of their natures takes him too far away from her and he has no choice left but to step fully into the light. She will not try to keep him with her, will not try to bind him to her darkness, nor will she try to follow him. There is no place for her out there in his bright new world of vivid hope and vibrant life. She is, after all, a creature of night, of dark and righteous violence.

There is no resentment left in her, no bitterness. The night is no longer the insidious accomplice of an unwelcome calling. It is her refuge, her comfort; it is her time. Her dogged mind once again returns to him. Despite her best efforts, it gets harder each day to keep him locked away in the night. She hears his voice in her mind. He knew her so well; she understands only now that no one else has ever known her as well he did.

"Buffy." He is so concerned, so loving, she feels tears fill her eyes. Perhaps she is a fool to let him go so easily. Shouldn’t she fight for a love like this? Perhaps. Perhaps she would if she did not feel so ready to spend her days alone and share her nights with just the ghost of love. It is strange, she thinks, that the other’s phantom caresses, conjured by her mind to ride on chill night air and cool cotton sheets, are more real to her now than her living lover’s warm and open arms.

"Are you okay?" He is right to be concerned. She is so very far away from him right now, so deeply lost. Does he know where she is? With whom? If he does, he never speaks of it, never mentions the other’s name, and she is grateful for it. Perhaps one day she will tell him everything. Perhaps, when he is ready to leave her, she will tell him that it is okay, that he can go now, that she will not be alone in the night. But for now, she will preserve their charade and lie to him.

"I'm fine, Angel," she assures him with a regretful smile. She hates to lie to him, but it is a good lie, if there can be such a thing. "Just thinking about mom, that's all."


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A/N Im experimenting with tense for this story, normaly Id write in the past third person so this is new for me. All constructive comments are of course welcome.

Thanks to those whoe reviewed

Shippy, are you calling my story pointless? Stamps her paws and pouts. Maybe itll make more sense to you now, if you didnt watch Angel it would have been confusing, and it was deliberately ambiguous. Thanks for the compliment about the writing though :)

Pin - Glad you like, and you sahll have more, this storyll probably be a slow burner hope youll stay with me.

Oh Lizzy you know you love it R rated. Thanks for being careful of my muse, but its a stubborn and indolent beast and you should feel free to crack the whip on it.

And the gold star goes to Enchantress for figuring it out, now you know who that someone is too. Im so flatered that you thought about it and reviewed a second time xx

Take care
TheBear

Two Chapters which the lovely April got proofed for me this weekend, also thanks to her for trying to explain the difference between paash perfect and past tense. I think I got it, I'm doing alright so far and if I slip, I know she's there to catch me.

A/N I have sound Spuffy based reasons for the B/A and for Carlotta, have faith.
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He believes that Carlotta is an angel - a dark angel of night, but an angel nonetheless. He runs his pale fingers through her thick, silky hair, enjoying the contrast of his ashen skin against the ebony tresses. If he is right, and he always is, it is gone three. They have been asleep for hours, exhausted from the night’s long hunt and the passionate lovemaking that followed. Lovemaking. He ponders the word. He had believed he’d made love before. He had certainly poured waterfalls of love into the act. But Carlotta taught him, with all the guileless wisdom of youth, that he had not. He understands now that first you must be loved. He had never made love until she took him to her bed.

He considers waking her. She wouldn’t mind; she is always hungry for him. She loves him far more than he deserves. He feels it in every gentle brush of her full lips, every caress of her warm fingers or desperate rake of nails across his back. He has never been loved like this before. Her love is truly unconditional; she asks only that he be himself, and desires only his happiness. She shifts against him in her sleep, murmuring his name in a soft breath. She is dreaming of him again; she tells him that she always dreams of him.

The day is hot and sticky and a thin layer of sweat shimmers over her mocha skin. He likes it, just as he likes the burning warmth of her body as she presses against him. She is so alive, his Lotta, so vibrant and human. He can hear the air whispering in her lungs, hear her powerful blood rushing through her veins. He likes that she is so alive. She says she likes the cool stillness of him; she drapes her flushed body over his, maximising the contact of her skin on his. She says she likes that his skin cools hers even as it warms beneath her touch. But then Lotta likes everything about him, and that is still a little baffling.

It is not that she is besotted with him. He would hate it if that were the case, would hate if she were blinded by infatuation to his many flaws. She is not. She sees him more clearly than any other woman has; she knows his failings, his weaknesses, his faults, and yet she loves him. Despite that he is not perfect, maybe even because of it, she loves him. He used to tell her she should leave him, that she could do better, that he could never deserve her love. But she would laugh and tell him that love, like forgiveness, is not won on merit; it is a gift, and must be freely given. She is wise beyond her nineteen years.

She rolls onto her back, exposing her full breasts with their large dusky nipples. She is undeniably beautiful. He looks down her firm curvaceous body. He hates to compare her to the Buffy, but the contrast is so blinding that he finds he often does.

They are polar opposites in colouring: where Buffy was all honey and gold, Lotta has coffee-coloured skin and loose black curls. Both girls are slender and toned, an advantage of their twin callings he supposes, but Lotta carries a soft layer of fat over her frame that softens her hips and belly, making her appear full and ripe. Buffy was always too thin, but then that’s Californian girls for you: gotta be a size 4. It’s possible that Buffy has put on weight - don't they say that girls do that when they're content, when they've settled down?

He curses himself for thinking of her, but she is never far from his thoughts. Carlotta tells him often that he should contact her. She has offered more than once to return with him to California. He knows she worries for him, worries that he is not content, that her shadow follows them. Even here in their jungle retreat, Buffy is present.

He has told her all about the first slayer he loved. She is, after all, his friend and confidant. There are no lies or secrets between them. She knows every sordid detail of his egregious past. She knows his fears, his regrets, and most frighteningly of all, his hopes. She alone knows what sacrifice he made for Buffy, the true nature of his final gift to her. She doesn’t judge him for what he was, or for what he has now become.

Lotta has decided that she does not like Angel, whom she says was less worthy of that hallowed reward than he would have been. She calls him a coward for making his oath of silence. He finds himself defending his onetime mentor, repeating that even Angel did not know about his sacrifice, that it is out of loyalty that he holds his tongue. “Pah,” she spat the first time he said it. “What nonsense you talk.”

She turns on her side again and he finds himself looking into huge deep brown eyes, with their long, dark lashes and sparkling devotion. "Morning, luv," he greets her, affectionately pushing her tousled hair away from her face. She glances at her watch and gives him an amused smile. "Boa tarde, amado?"

And here she is, smiling sleepily at him, his own personal angel of salvation. His Carlotta, the girl who got him over Buffy. And he is over Buffy. Oh, he thinks of her, of course. There is not a day or night that goes by that she doesn’t pass through his mind. But this beautiful girl has gathered up the pieces of his shattered heart and in less than a year made it whole again, made it possible for him to love for the first time without fear.

It isn’t that he doesn’t still love Buffy; he loves her now perhaps more than he ever has. But Lotta has fixed his heart so well that he can love her without desire or expectation, love her as unconditionally as his angel loves him. It’s true that he gave Buffy up willingly, that he made a hard and selfless sacrifice so that she could have the happiness she deserves, but before Lotta it was a bitter gesture made in pain, hopelessness and fear. Now he looks back on what he did so that she could live her dreams with no regret, no aching sense of loss, of what might have been. He is happy here in the jungle with his dark and beautiful angel. He needs nothing more.

"I was thinking," he tells the bright-eyed girl at his side. "What say we head out early, get this bloody Turgora killed quick smart, and then head into town?" He rolls them over so she is lying beneath him, her radiant smile telling him she likes the idea. Still, he enjoys the unnecessary labour of cajoling her. He trails kisses over her neck. "Hmmm? A little dancing, a little Cachaca?" Propping himself up on his elbows, he grins down at her. "Fancy it, pet?"

"Umm." She mumbles her approval as his cool hands move over her hot skin, sending messages of tingling pleasure and erotic promise to her rapidly waking brain. He peppers her shoulder with soft, chaste kisses, and her heart aches with love for him even as her body heats with passion. It is in these moments that she knows he loves her.

"Um-hm," she agrees, her accented voice deep and husky with sleep and desire. "Early," she says with a coquettish look as he raises his eyes to hers, "but not yet."


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Thanks to Pin and CordyKitten for reviewing

Pin - Glad you like, hope nobody will hate Carlotta, she is necessary and I want her to be likeable

Hey CordyKitten - I'm certainly no B/A shipper (see me in Spuffy realm) but I always think that Buffy can't really be with Spike until she's over Angel, otherwise Spike will be second best. So heres my attempt to resolve the dilema

She loves to watch him move. She often finds herself captivated by him. She should be more careful; more than once her distraction has left her vulnerable to attack. But something about the swirl of leather, the flash of pale skin and hair as he fights, always manages to steal her attention.

He is beautiful to her, not just as a man, although what woman could deny that his body and face are more appealing than most? She loves his eyes, so startlingly blue, so different from the warm brown eyes of her people. She loves his swagger, his predatory grace, his “big bad” attitude. She smiles to herself. Big bad? She is almost as tall as he is. If she wears heels, they stand eye to eye.

But his beauty goes deeper than the long dead body he wears or the sexy facade. He is to her the closest thing to perfect she will ever know. Despite what he is, despite what he lacks, he is to her the very definition of love.

He was so very broken when they first met, so hurt and angry, so bitter and hopeless. She had known the moment she saw him, propping up the bar in a sleazy club in Fortaleza, that he was in pain. She had known what he was - how could she not? It was, after all, her nature to know, and yet she had still ached with a desire to steal the weary sadness from his eyes, to take it into herself just to spare him.

They have been side by side ever since. Ever since she stood before him in that smoke filled room and wordlessly held out her hand to him, at once thrilled and terrified that he would take it. They had danced together in silence, both too grateful for the other’s acceptance to question it. They had not made love that first night, even though she had taken him to her Spartan rooms and lain down with him on her unmade bed.

She remembers how natural it had seemed, when he raised an arm in invitation, to lay her head upon his chest and let sleep take her. That was nearly a year and a thousand miles ago, but since that night she has not slept anywhere else. When they woke that first morning, she had made strong fresh coffee and they had talked of life and love and loss until the sun set again and he had joined her on her nightly hunt. She has not hunted alone since.

She looks down at the dead Turgora and smiles as she catches the end of a petulant complaint: "…a spectator sport. It's your bloody calling, girl, not mine." But that is a lie; it is his calling to dance in the darkness. If it were not then he would not look so beautiful as he fights.

She grins unrepentantly at him; despite his griping, she knows he is happy to share the burden of her duty. "Take me dancing," she demands, knowing he will oblige her in anything. He grins and holds out his arm for her. "Yes Anjo."

They make a striking couple and she is has come to enjoy the attention they receive when they venture out of their tiny village on the jungles edge and ride his stolen motor bike to town. In this land of dark skin and ebony hair, he is - to say the least - eye catching, and she knows her Hispanic beauty complements his sculpted paleness perfectly.

As he promised her, they drink Cachaca and do the samba until the sun threatens the eastern horizon, then they make their way to a cheap hotel and fall drunk and laughing into each other's arms. There is nothing in this world she likes better than feeling him inside her, feeling his love for her, his trust and gratitude as he moves with her on the worn sheets of a rented bed. It is in these moments that she likes to pretend that he is truly hers, but she is no fool, and she knows that he is not. Oh, he loves her - she never doubts it; she is, after all, “the girl who got him over Buffy,” and for that alone he will love her for eternity. But he is not hers, not really, and despite the painful ache she feels, she is already steeling herself for the time when she will lose him.

She is resolved to let him go easily, with a kiss and a promise of friendship. She won’t fight his leaving when he finally discovers whatever it is that is missing in his life here with her. She will even help him find it, because she loves him. Loves him truly selflessly, and if she must one day let him go so that he can be complete, then she will let him go. When he pledges his love for her against the warm skin of her neck, she almost cries at the bittersweet sound. "I love you, too," she breathes, knowing his demon ears will have no trouble hearing the sincerity of the whispered words.

He moves suddenly off her, leaning over the side of the bed to retrieve something from the pocket of his hastily discarded jeans. He dangles a silver chain before her eyes, its butterfly wing jewel glinting in the low dawn light. She laughs in delighted surprise. It is the same necklace she’d admired on a wealthy-looking puta at the bar last night. She hadn’t mentioned it, but he must have noticed - he always notices, her thoughtful pickpocket. She does not care that the gift is stolen. He is what he is and she has no desire to change him.

She sits up and turns her back to him, lifting her hair to accept his offering and when the cool metal lands against the hot flesh of her throat, she is reminded of his blessed coolness and swears silently that she will never take it off.

It is a perfect moment, but it is short lived because someone is here. Someone has found them and her lover's body is tense with recognition. The man studies them both, him in his low slung jeans and bare chest, her in his long black t-shirt. He is a handsome man, at least for his age, with grey-flecked hair and pale eyes. When he speaks, his tone is familiar yet far from friendly, and she steps to Spike's shoulder, ready to put herself between her love and this uninvited threat. "Hello, Spike."

A/N another double bill and another quick turn around by my fabulas proof reader April who not only fixes my grammer but encourages me along the way. Big thanks go to her.

Dirtribution: I was asked this week if I was happy for other to archive my story. Happy, I'm over the bloody moon mate. Anyone who wants to can channel their inner Faith on any of my stories. Want. Take. Have. But if you let me know I can get on with being hugely flattered.

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It was one thing to be told that Spike had been resurrected, but quite another to see the vampire with his own eyes. He watches him as he shifts in his seat, carefully cushioning his young lover’s head against his shoulder, and tries to decide whether or not he is glad that the rumours of the vampire's demise seem to have been exaggerated.

It had not been difficult to convince the pair to return with him to California. Spike had resisted at first. "Ah-ah, no bloody way," the vampire had insisted adamantly. He'd been agitated, almost seeming afraid.

"Spike." It had been the girl, Carlotta, who had first tried to persuade him, her hand placed gently on her lover’s arm. "It is time."

He'd turned, pleading then, gripping her shoulders and begging her. "Please, pet, we don’t wanna go digging up the past. We're all right here, you and me; we don’t need this."

"I think we do, amando." She had given him a sweet smile and touched his face. "Besides, do you not wish to see the nibblet again?" The familiar nickname had sounded strange in Carlotta's heavy accent, but Spike's face had softened with affection and longing and he had smiled sadly.

"God, yes," he'd breathed, closing his eyes for a moment before shaking his head and looking down. "But I can't, pet. It's too much; please don’t ask me to. Please, let’s just stay here."

She had seemed a little disappointed but had pulled him close as she acquiesced. "As you wish, my love."

He'd pulled back with a relieved sigh and a boyish smile. "Thank you."

The scene had been touching and he had felt guilty regret to be the bearer of such awful news. "I'm afraid you may wish to reconsider that decision. I have some very disturbing news that will affect you both."

He is bought back to the present by a quiet question from the vampire. "She's stunning, ain't she?" His voice is soft and he doesn’t take his eyes off the girl in his arms, but Giles senses that the question is not rhetorical, that Spike is seeking some kind of reassurance.

"Yes, she is quite beautiful and appears very strong." Now that the vampire looks at him, he finds himself surprised by the fear in his blue eyes and feels compelled to offer some comfort. "We will get to the bottom of this, Spike. Nothing will happen to her."

"Bloody right." His voice is full of the desperate determination that is born of the fact that failure is inconceivable. "I won't let anything happen to her." He strokes her cheek and Giles is again struck by the tenderness of the gesture, just as he had been back at the hotel.

He'd touched her that way as Giles spoke, trying to get the pair’s attention. "It is imperative that Carlotta return with me," he'd told them. "There have been unforeseen complications with the, er, with the slayers created during Willow's spell."

That had done it. Spike's head had shot up, eyes fixing on the watcher. "What complications?" he'd asked, his voice hard.

"It seems that power granted to the potentials during that spell is affecting the girls. Some er, you might say side effects." Spike's frown and Carlotta's worried look had been enough to force him to give in to the impulse to remove his glasses. He'd run his handkerchief over the lenses, stalling for time, putting off the inevitable moment when they would have to know.

"What side effects?" The question had been asked in a low voice, but the demand and the soft growl that laced it were unmistakable.

He'd looked up and spoken to the vampire, unable to bring himself to meet the girl’s warm brown eyes. "It's killing them."

"So." Spike laces his fingers through sleeping slayer's hair, keeping his eyes down as he asks, "Buffy know about all this?"

"Yes, yes of course. She and Faith have both been informed and should be making their way to our training facility in southern California. She'll be there by the time we arrive." The in-flight alcohol that burns his throat is more than welcome. It has been, after all, a very long day.

"Think she'll be pissed off with me?" Spike's question is so ridiculous that a bark of dry laughter escapes him and he indulges himself in a caustic retort.

"That you failed to tell her you were alive? That you allowed her to continue to grieve for you when news of your revival could have stopped her pain?" He raises an eyebrow and is rewarded with a sheepish look from the vampire. "That you lied to her and coerced her boyfriend into lying to her? Knowing Buffy, I think it is fair to assume she will be a little put out, yes."

He nods, accepting the watcher’s answer, then flashes him a wry grin. "Best keep Lotta away when Buffy kicks my ass or things could turn ugly."

"She is protective of you?" He glances again at the sleeping girl, glad that Spike's new consort seems so far unaffected by the malaise that has incapacitated so many of the new slayers.

Spike’s chuckle is wry and affectionate. "Could say that. Couple of months back, a gang of humans jumped me while I was a little bit the worse for wear - you know what Cachaca can be like – anyway, these gits were having a rare old time of it kicking yours truly unconscious until my angel turned up and broke every one of their legs." He laughs at the memory. "Didn’t matter to her that they were human: something threatens me, she breaks it." He touches her face again, and Giles is reminded of the tender protectiveness he showed Dawn while Buffy was in the ground. When he looks back up, there are tears in his eyes. "Goes both ways. Nothing touches my girl."


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A/N the usual round of thank yous

Hey Enchantress, glad you like

O-k Shippy, Im going to try and take that as a compliment, if I squint and tip my head left it almost looks like one ;-)
I know what you mean about not reading S/other stories I dont usually but you can understand peoples motivation for writing them, we havent ever seen Spike treated well by a woman, so we write in characters to treat him the way we'd all just love to treat him. :)

Ok Millsy you're allowed to hate Angel, but Carlotta's a nice girl and she treats Spike right, give her a break ;-) Hints a Spuffy for you inext and more to come

Lizzy - Were you going to spank my muse, you kinky minx you. Im glad you get it, have you been in my head again?

He is alive. She closes her eyes again and rolls the thought over in her mind. He is alive, has been alive all this time, and no one thought to tell her. Angel has already felt the lash of her tongue and when she sees Andrew she's going to throttle the little nerd. He is alive, and no one thought to tell her. He didn’t tell her.

Angel has told her as best he can the reasoning behind the decision, but Spike's rather dubious reasoning, retold through Angel's grudging respect for him, is difficult to follow and she finds herself, yet again, angry with her lover. It is not as if Angel were ever concerned with Spike's wishes. If he did not tell her it is because he has his own motivations, but then that much is obvious. She sent him away hours ago, telling him that she needed time to think. His hangdog look and pleading, repentant eyes had been making her just about angry enough to do physical harm, and his reasoning that all had turned out for the best had played on her already jangling nerves. So she had sent him away and sat alone with her circling thoughts. He is alive, and no one thought to tell her.

There are other things for her to consider—slayers are sick; some are even dead or dying. Yet she finds her mind returns always to that one single thought: he is alive.

And he is coming here. He is on a plane, flying over Mexico, due to land in LA in less than two hours. Giles is bringing him here, with a slayer. He had told her there were stories of a rogue slayer operating out of the Brazilian rain forest with her vampire consort. A vampire described as having bleach blonde hair and a black leather trench coat. Only then had Andrew and Angel spilled their closely guarded secret.

He is coming here, he and his slayer. She doesn’t know if, when she sees him, she will kiss him or punch him, whether joy at his return will outweigh anger at his betrayal. She tries to understand his motivation, if not his reasoning, and on this point Angel was clear: he did it for her, because he wanted her to be happy. So perhaps she will not beat him too badly, but that is yet to be seen. Perhaps it will depend on this slayer of his.

A slayer. Her replacement, she thinks bitterly; another slayer in his bed. She is certain she will despise the girl. She pictures the rogue as a Hispanic Faith with dubious morals and overt sexuality. She knows she is jealous, that she is letting envy make her bitter and distrustful. But she never claimed to be perfect and perhaps jealousy is a fault of hers.

Spike is not hers, she reminds herself, has not been hers for many years, and he has every right to find what happiness he can. But still she feels the bitter twist of jealousy that he could find that happiness with someone else, someone who isn’t her.

Angel's words come back to her, "He didn't want to make things harder for you. He figured you'd earned your happiness, that you'd earned this." He'd clutched her small hand in his two large warm ones and given her a loving smile. She had fought the impulse to pull her hand away but had not been able to return the smile, and the look of hurt on his face had left her feeling uncomfortably guilty.

She plays the scene of their reunion over in her mind. Perhaps he will smile at her, that tentative half smile that he always gives her when he is unsure of himself. She might smile back, and he will relax and flash her that dazzling, genuine. smile that she has so rarely seen.

Or maybe he will come here penitent and contrite apologising for lying to her and she, enraged, will land a solid punch on his nose before throwing herself into the welcome of his cool embrace.

She works the scene over and over. She is director of her imagination, tweaking and perfecting each scene on the stage of her mind until each one is in its own way perfect and even she cannot decide which she prefers. She creates scenarios that are angry and violent, or sweet and tearful; she imagines meetings that are resigned and regretfully sad, others that are, despite herself, passionate.

She takes a deep breath and stands. It is time to join the others downstairs and await their arrival. He is alive, and he will be here soon.



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A/N I know this one is short, but the way Im doing this with switching persepectives means some chapters probably will be, still I posted two at once so that gets me some credit right?

As always my terrible grammer is corrected and made readable by the lovely April so three cheers for her.

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It is good to see everyone together; it has been so very long since they spent any serious time together, spread thin as they are across the globe, chasing down slayers. At her side, Kennedy sips water incessantly and she finds she must fight down the rising panic that threatens to overtake her. Dehydration is only the first stage, a very early symptom, and Kennedy is strong. They have plenty of time.

She distracts herself by letting her eyes wander around the room studying old friends and, she amends when she sees Faith leaning casually against the door frame, enemies. Faith looks good, with Principal Wood at her side. She has put on weight, but she carries it well and some of the defensive tension is gone from her body.

Xander is here, too, and her heart aches a little for him, for the sadness that even two years later still haunts his one eye, despite his efforts to hide it behind flippant comments and corny jokes, although these days even those are fewer than they once were, and there is a bitterness to him that she doubts time will ever completely erase.

Dawn is also here, taking a year out before university. She is dedicating herself to helping Giles with the running of the new council and the study of demon languages. She is quite the lady now, elegant and composed, with an unassuming confidence born of surviving Sunnydale. She hands Kennedy a third glass of water and gives the quiet slayer a small smile, which her girlfriend returns with an appreciative one of her own. Kennedy is so different now, matured and humbled by two years of active service and the attendant spectre of death at her shoulder. She is quiet and pensive, and reserves judgement where once she was first to condemn and disparage the efforts of others; she has grown into a better person, a person she can love without reservation.

Dawn glances nervously across the room and Willow follows her gaze to the slayer. Strange how in a world full of slayers, only Buffy is called “the” slayer. She is nervous, pacing the room like a caged tiger, glancing repeatedly at her watch. Willow understands her tension. Giles will be here any moment, and, moreover, so will Spike. She finds herself smiling at the thought and shakes her head; trust Spike not to stay dead.

Angel watches his girlfriend's agitation intently. He wears a deep frown that Willow has not seen from him since he arrived in Rome over a year ago, human and smiling in the bright sunshine. She had been visiting Buffy when he arrived and had considered herself privileged to witness the touching reunion of the star-crossed soulmates. They have been a picture perfect couple ever since, and she hopes for both their sakes that Spike's return will not disrupt their equilibrium.

The sound of an engine and the slamming of car doors announces the arrival of Giles and his party, and the room tenses palpably with expectation. A glance at her best friend shows her to be frozen in place, retreated into the corner and staring in terrified expectation at the door. Angel is at her side offering support, but Willow doubts that she is even aware of his presence, so focused is she on the impassive wood.

The door opens to reveal an extremely tired-looking Giles, dark eyed and rumpled from travel. He acknowledges the welcoming committee with a polite nod and steps aside to allow the other to trail in behind him.

Spike looks the same—of course he looks the same: hello, vampire—but somehow she is still surprised. She had expected him to have changed as they have all changed, to be different, to be older. For a moment he looks surprised by the gathering of familiar faces in the foyer of the old hotel that acts as the slayer training facility for North America, but he covers quickly, scanning the room with an amused smirk.

"Well, well, well," he drawls, "if it isn’t the old gang, all turned out to welcome little old me."

For a moment silence reigns, as if no one can quite think of a response to that. It is Dawn who reacts first. She is a woman now, but confronted with the reality of her surrogate big brother and one-time teen crush, she regresses and lets out a shrill, excited squeal as she launches herself across the room and into his arms. He gathers her up and pulls her in close, and Willow is struck by the blissful expression of adoration on his face as he closes his eyes and breathes in the young woman's familiar scent.

After a few moments they pull apart slightly, and he tucks a strand of her now shoulder length hair behind her ear. "Missed you, nibblet," he tells her in a low, sincere voice that Willow can only just catch. Tears spring up in Dawn's blue eyes and she bites her lip and tries to smile; a nod of her head is all she can manage to tell him she returns the sentiment, before she buries herself once again in his embrace.

"Hello, Spike." Willow adds her own greeting. "Good to see you're not so much with the dead anymore."

"What's with that, blondie?" Faith asks, her voice friendly and teasing. "Shoulda come clean on that. Figure we all owe you a drink. Kinda a thank you for saving all our asses."

"Well, if you’re buying, pet..." He flashes her a cheeky grin before turning to the redhead. "Hey, Red."

Dawn steps away from him and places her hands on her hips to regard him with haughty reproach. "Be grateful I'm just glad you're alive, 'cos otherwise I'd be so pissed that you never told us."

"I'm sorry, bit." His apology is sincere, his eyes conveying the depth of his regret. "I had my reasons."

"I know," she answers with gentle understanding, and Willow is once again struck by how much she has matured in the last two years.

Free from Dawn's embrace, Spike is finally able to turn to the girl who has consumed his senses since he stepped into the room. She has retreated further into the corner, watching him with rabbity eyes. They stare at each other for the longest time and Willow has all but given up on either of them being able to form a greeting when Buffy finally speaks. "Spike?" His name is a breathy question on her lips and the already impossibly heavy atmosphere thickens around them. Spike's face is a picture of stunned terror, eyes wide and wary, lips slightly parted as if he wishes to speak but words will not form.

He takes a step back, ready to bolt, and the onlookers hold their collective breath in anticipation. But suddenly there is a girl at his side, dark and voluptuous, with long, slender limbs and waves of dark, cascading curls. She has large and rich brown eyes and full-bowed lips and Willow knows she does not have to be gay to recognise that this girl is beautiful. Her hand comes to rest in the dip of Spike's lower back in a gesture that has everything to do with support and nothing whatsoever to do with possession, and Willow decides instantly that she likes this girl.

The vampire straightens, drawing strength from the contact and manages a glimmer of a smile. "Hello, Buffy."

For a moment it looks as if Buffy will speak again, then her hand flies to cover her mouth in a futile attempt to contain the loud, broken sob that erupts from her. Then she is gone, fleeing the scene with Angel in hot pursuit and Dawn's voice ringing out through the hall: "Buffy!"


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A/N Hope this doesn't dissapoint S and B talk next chapter


Nice people leave reviews and TheBear laughs and scratches her big round furry belly.

Shippy, well thankyou then, for the compliment. I know you don't like Spike loving someone else, but he needs to to be a more rounded person, and to the same extent? we'll see

tayhaangel - Hello, bear waves a paw in greeting. Welcome to my story, Glad you like

Pin - You like Carlotta well your in teh minority, but I'm glad she trreats Spike like I'd treat him if I could get my hands on one ;)

Ooh Vamps now that's an offer, the plumber I like the plumber. That glimpse of grubby t shirt, ooohhh!!!

A/N April is so much more than a proof reader... If any one spots a clever pun in this chapter, credit her :)

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"Just give me a minute, Angel. I'll be right down." She struggles to keep her voice even; she can't talk to anyone right now, least of all him. The cold water she splashes on her tear-streaked face does little to remedy the redness of her eyes, and she frowns accusingly at her pale, blotchy reflection. Typical that she's doing a fair impression of a bloated, washed-up corpse just when Spike turns up with Miss South America 2005.

Another soft knock on the door and her temper snaps. It's unusual and it surprises her. She and Angel so rarely argue, so rarely even snap at one another. "For God's sake, Angel, I said I'd be down in a minute," she barks, voice frustrated and angry. Why won't he let it go? It's not like him to push.

"No problem, pet. You take your time." She jumps in surprise and is wrenching open the door before she even has time think about her actions.

He stumbles, grasping the doorframe to keep from falling on her, and she can't help but smirk at his inelegant floundering. What kind of moron leans against a door he just knocked on? His grin is a little embarrassed as he finds his balance. "'Lo, pet. Can we talk?"

She considers his request for a moment. She'd hoped to put off the inevitable conversation for a little longer, but she knows she'll have to face him soon, so she steps back and waves him inside. He flashes the small lopsided smile that she pictured so many times in her mind’s eye as she anticipated their reunion. And it is so very vulnerable, so hopeful and so very much his own that she is compelled to return it.

They study each other for a long moment. He looks the same; it's comforting. To know that despite the lies and the separation, despite the pages of painful history they have written between them, he remains the one constant in the unpredictable course of her life. He breaks the silence with and awkward apology. "I guess 'sorry' isn't gonna cut it then?" he asks sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, glancing up at her through his lashes.

"Not really," she agrees, crossing her arms and fixing him with a accusing look that demands explanations she has no intention of accepting.

"You wanna kick my ass?" He is only half joking, but he makes the suggestion with a boyish hopefulness that makes her smile despite herself.

"If I did, you'd deserve it. You know that, right?" Her unladylike snort makes him grin, but it is gone in a moment and his eyes are soft and sincere again.

"I know," he begins tentatively. "But you get it, right? You get why I did it?" He is so vulnerable at this moment, so apprehensive, that all she can do is nod, because his eyes tell her what Angel's confused explanation could not. That his betrayal was an act of love. He begs forgiveness and understanding with his eyes and she finds she is incapable of withholding either from him now.

"I get it," she assures him, and the relief on his face is worth the slight dishonesty. "I don't like it, but I get it." And perhaps she is starting to.

He breathes a sigh of relief and seems to decide an attempt to lighten the mood is in order. "So, trouble in paradise?" he asks with a devilish smirk. "You and the big poof scrapping like cats and dogs?"

She rolls her eyes and smiles - happy to be slipping into the easy familiarity of their banter - and gives the expected response. "Hardly," she tells him with a haughty toss of her head. "Paradise is trouble free and perfect, as always."

He softens again and she feels herself thrown by his pendulous moods. "I'm glad," he tells her, and his eyes sparkle with gentle affection. "I always was, in theory like, but I gotta admit it's a surprise to see it works in practice." He gives her another wicked grin. "You've still got the worst taste in men, slayer, but I'm happy that you’re happy."

She feels her smile begin to fade and fights to hold it in place, keeping her tone light and friendly as she replies. "And you?" she eyes him speculatively. "You happy? Your slayer's a very pretty girl."

"Yeah." His expression is distant and affectionate as he thinks of the other woman.

Jealousy rises, sour and unwelcome, its cold fingers twisting in her gut and she feels her smile turn brittle and hopes her eyes do not betray the bitter turn of her thoughts.

"Carlotta's an angel. Don't know where I'd be without her."

"Well, then, I'm happy." Her face is beginning to hurt from the effort of smiling, but she tilts her head and holds fast to the façade. "That you’re happy."

His laughter is bright and genuine and the sound washes over her like a warm relaxing wave. "Well, isn’t this nice?" he drawls sarcastically, humour dancing in his eyes.

She laughs, too, at the ridiculousness that they should be having this conversation. "Yeah, go us with the mature well-wishing."

He grins back, and for a moment there is no tension between them. It is as if years have not passed, as if all those hurts had not been conceived and borne.

"You ready to come down, then?” he asks with a tilt of his head. “Watcher’s about to give us the skinny on this slayer disease." Worry clouds his expression and she feels for him.

"Right. Go on. I'll be right there."



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A/N Wow loads of reviews for the last chapter, I'm glad it wen't down well, I know all this S/Other stuff is trying for all of you. Hold tight it wont last for ever.

Pin - Buffy has two methods of dealing Punch and Ignore, we'll see how she goes

Thanks CordyKitten not too much of a surprise that Buffy ran away it is kinda her MO

tayhaangel - I just thought kennnedy had to grow up or Willow wouldn't still be with her, plus I don't know if I'd be able to write her so I changed her :)

Thanks Vamps, Spike with another woman, who wouldn't sob :)


TheBear would pat all the lovely reviewers on the head but she has big clumsy paws and doesn't know her own strength

A/N just a short one but I promise to have more tomorrow teh wonderful April has already proofed a load of chapters an their just waiting to be posted

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"You okay?" Her voice startles her pensive friend and she gives the edgy slayer an apologetic smile as she steps more fully into the room.

"Fine, yeah, just catching up with Spike. You know, making with the talking, no big, just talking is all." Buffy is edgy, the rambling and poor sentence structure a giveaway. Willow sits beside the slayer and silently invites her to share.

"I'm fine, Will. It's just kinda intense seeing him again, that's all."

The broad grin plastered on her friend’s face doesn’t fool her for a second and she raises and eyebrow and waits. She has long since realised that Buffy can withstand almost any amount of questioning; her defenses are impenetrable to the most persistent and perspicacious of probing. But faced with a knowing expression and an expectant silence, the slayer will break within minutes.

"Stop that," Buffy huffs irritably, but she can sense that the slayer is weakening, so she holds her tongue and waits for the inevitable cave in.

"It's nothing, really. He' s alive and that's a good thing. I mean, sure, I'm still kinda pissed that no one told me, and Angel is still totally in the dog house, but it's good and I'm glad to see him." There is more to come and she has become proficient enough in reading the slayer’s mood to know exactly when to prompt and when to wait, when to push and when to back off.

"But?" An invitation.

"No, it's great. I mean, he was being nice—really nice—even about Angel. Which is actually kinda disturbing. He's happy for me and I'm happy for him. Everybody's happy." She is breaking and all Willow can do is let her shatter and be there afterwards to help her reassemble herself. Tears spill over in Buffy's pained green eyes as she looks imploringly at her friend, eyes filled with questions she knows Willow doesn't have the answers to and yet she is compelled to ask anyway. "So if he's happy and I'm happy, why does it just hurt so much?"

"Oh, Buffy." It has been such a very long time since she last saw her friend so forlorn, since she last felt so helpless in the face of Buffy's pain.

"I don’t understand." Buffy's confusion is almost pitiful. "I have everything I ever wanted. I have Angel—human, for Christ’s sake." Tears are flowing freely now, pouring unchecked down her pretty face. "But it hurts so much. I see him again and I just ache."

All she can do is place a comforting hand on her friend’s back as Buffy scrubs at her face with rough, jerky movements and gives a brittle, embarrassed laugh. "God, I'm sorry. Look at me being stupid and self absorbed again, when you have Kennedy to worry about."

"Kennedy'll be fine," she dismisses abruptly. She cannot for a single moment lose faith in the conviction that her girlfriend will be okay. Thankfully, Buffy seems to realise that she is not ready to talk about it and makes a clumsy attempt to lighten the mood.

"So, do I look okay?" She gestures at her blotchy, tear-stained face with a rueful smile.

"Oh, lovely." Willow gives her a wry grin. "But perhaps just a little cold water. Why are you bothered anyway?"

"I'm not." At her knowing raised eyebrow, the slayer rolls her eyes and looks away. "Okay, okay. Just don't want to look a complete wreck in front of Sluttetta."

She can't help but laugh at the juvenile name calling. "Its Carlotta, as you well know." Her friend’s disgruntled huff prompts her to tease. "She is very beautiful, isn’t she?"

"Huh." Buffy makes a disparaging noise as they exit the room. "Can you say obvious? She's probably a real bitch, too. She looked bossy to me; did she look bossy to you?"

Buffy looks hopeful, wide-eyed and childlike, but she just shakes her head and smiles indulgently. "Actually, when she said hello she seemed really nice."

"Hmm." A good-natured grumble. "Fine, take her side, but don't expect me to like her."

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Cheers CordyKitten, I'm about 5 chapters ahead of myself and there is some spuffy in the not too distant future I promise

A/N Thanks of course to April who is being far more effective at proofing these chapters than I am being at posting them.

I realised that if I will sometimes with to switch persepective within a scene/chapter so I have resurected the ubiquitous
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to indicate this

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She is watching him. Oh, she tries to hide it, pretends that she is listening to her watcher as he calls the meeting to order and makes the necessary introductions, but her gaze flickers always back to him. When Giles introduces the Hispanic beauty sitting comfortably between his spread legs, she has an excuse to openly study the couple and her eyes trail over the girl appraisingly. Does she think of this woman as a rival? No, he is being foolish. He is being irrationally insecure. Buffy has no reason to contend with Carlotta.

He chastises himself for such folly. He has, after all, no call to be worried. Buffy is, and always has been, undeniably his girl. Her brief liaison with Spike was nothing more than an unhappy fling, a tainted comfort in a desperate time. His Buffy, his bright, beautiful, shining Buffy did not love the vampire. Spike himself had told him as much when they had forged their strange and tentative friendship in LA. Yet there is something about seeing Spike that disturbs him. He sees in the other’s graceful feline movements and easy confidence, in the predatory intensity of his gaze, something that he himself has lost. Something that has been exchanged for a beating heart and endless summer days spent lying beside her on hot Californian beaches. Something dark and compelling and, even he must admit, attractive.

He drags his attention back to the watcher. This is important. Slayers are dying; a nameless, creeping malaise is affecting almost all the girls. An incurable illness that spans around three months and, as Giles describes, five distinct stages.

Stage one: Dehydration and a reddening of the eyes and gums. Stage two: Headaches and an itching red rash across the arms and torso. Stage three: Loss of appetite, light-headedness and fainting. Stage four: Blistering of the skin, severe pain and vomiting. Stage five: Coma.

No one talks about what comes next, not with Kennedy and Carlotta in the room. They have lost four girls and nine are in a critical condition. Hundreds more are exhibiting symptoms of the later stages of what they are calling the “disease” for want of a more accurate description. And all slayers, barring what they have categorised as “the immunes,” and it seems Carlotta, are showing the early warning signs of “infection.”

The immunes—a handful of slayers immune to the ravages of this disease. Girls fitting a distinct age profile. It does not take a genius to come to the conclusion they have reached: that these girls are the true slayers, the potentials that would have been called had Willow not cheated destiny through the power of the scythe. Well, it seems destiny isn't taking it lying down.

Carlotta does not fit the profile. She is too old, was seventeen when Willow performed the changing spell, too old already at that time to replace Buffy or Faith. Try as they might to fit her into the pattern of the immunes’ age profile, she remains a square peg, refusing to slot into that particular round hole.

"So, say Carlotta isn't immune." Buffy is taking charge. She is at this moment truly the slayer and he feels the distance between them stretch until he fears that their bond will break. He knows that it will not, for she always manages to come back to him with perfect elasticity. "Then perhaps there's another reason why she's not displaying symptoms. I don't know something that's holding off the disease."

"Oh, like diet or climate." Willow's usual enthusiasm for research has been sharpened to almost hysterical levels by her girlfriend’s condition.

"Yes, quite," Giles agrees. "If we could identify what is preventing Carlotta from exhibiting symptoms, we could perhaps begin to better understand the nature of the disease. Although I must admit feeling quite out of my depth in this medical milieu."

"But it's not medical, is it?" Kennedy's voice is calm and assured. People listen now when she speaks; she only speaks when she has something to say. He didn't know her as a potential in Sunnydale, but he has been told she was little more than a brat. Now she is a slayer and her words carry weight. "It's mystical."

A glance at Buffy shows that she is looking at him again, watching him run his hands up Carlotta's bare arms and place a comforting kiss on her shoulder. Understanding blossoms on her face and he recognises the instant that realisation hits, a moment of intuitive perception that she would claim was the instinct of her calling but that he believes is of Buffy herself.

"It's the blood," she whispers, little more than a breath, a contemplative murmur that barely disturbs the air. And yet the room stills, waiting for her to continue. She glances around urgently, making eye contact with the key players: Willow, Xander, Spike, Faith and eventually Giles. "It's the blood," she repeats more firmly.

A moment’s pause and she continues, excited by her discovery, emphatic in the certainty that she is right. "It's something to do with the blood. I don't know, like there's too much power in it and their bodies can't handle it. It's the blood, Giles, I know it is."

And even after all these years, he questions her certainty, learning and logic still regnant over instinct in his scholarly mind. "An interesting theory, but why do you believe it's the blood?"

"Oh, I know this." Dawn raises her hand like an excited child. "Because it's always the blood." She looks at the vampire as she speaks, clearly pleased with herself, and he smirks affectionately at her.

"Be that as it may." Giles’s voice is stern as he attempts to maintain order. "It's hardly proof. And it does not explain why Carlotta appears unaffected. Perha—"

"No, it does." He should know better by now than to question her when she is this certain. "It explains it exactly." She holds her watcher’s gaze before turning to the vampire. "It's because she's anaemic. Isn't she, Spike?"

Spike’s jaw twitches and he meets her eyes determinedly. Something passes between them, some secret communication that he is not privy to, and she gives a barely perceptible nod.

"Really, Buffy, how can you possibly know that?" Giles’s exasperated voice is cut off when Carlotta stands, head held proudly as she answers the question with a defiant flick of her hair. The dark waves fall back off her shoulder as she tilts her head and exposes the still-pink bite marks that mar the slender column of her throat.

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"Spike, you sick fuck." Xander's disgusted voice shatters the stunned silence of the room; the Brazilian slayer’s eyes narrow and her body tenses as if ready to attack. Buffy fears for a moment that she will have to intercept the young slayer, when Spike appears at her back, one hand wrapping around her hip in gentle restraint, the other skimming over the mocha skin of her bare arm. The girl relaxes visibly and her own hand reaches up to cup his face over her shoulder.

"Finally got yourself a little slayer chew toy, eh?" His face is contorted in a loatheful sneer and she can barely recognise her friend at all. "So this was your sick little wet dream all that time you were macking on Buffy, making out like you loved her." He spits the word “loved” out as if it where rotten flesh in his mouth.

"Xander." She tries to intervene. Spike’s expression is for the moment passive and he has yet to respond, but she knows him well enough to know there is only so much he will take for harmony’s sake; moreover, the slayer in his arms is bristling with barely-contained rage. He whispers something in her ear and she relaxes a little, but she fears it is only a brief respite; she needs to calm Xander down and quickly. "Xander, that's enough."

The young man's malicious gaze lands on her now and disgust drips from his eyes. He snorts and she feels his contempt burning through her skin. "And even now you defend him, still thinking that this worthless piece of shit is actually worth something." It’s an accusation. He is bitter and hateful and betrayed, and she cannot understand it. Why now? Why suddenly now does his latent hatred of the vampire boil over into vicious malignity? It is more than a few fading bite marks on a stranger's neck, but she cannot tell and right now she doesn't care. That after all this time and everything that has happened, he can still speak this way to and about Spike angers her to the point of violence.

"I said that's enough, Xander." Her voice is pure threat before it breaks to emotional disbelieve. "God, what is wrong with you?"

He gives her one last accusing look before turning his eyes, seething with hatred, to regard Spike with disdain. "You're not worth it." And he is gone, stalking towards the door.

"Xander!" she calls angrily after him, but he ignores her and her voice collides only with the slamming door.

"Let him be, Slayer." Spike's voice is full of compassionate understanding and his eyes full of pity as he watches the now closed door. "The boy's just angry is all."

"Angry!" She doesn't understand, and she turns her frustrated anger on the vampire. "What right does he have to be angry with you now?"

A sad smile touches his lips and he pulls the girl in his arms close. Immediately she recognises the symbolism of the embrace. He is anchoring himself, grasping tightly to the life that this girl represents. "I'm alive, ain't I?"

She doesn't understand. Xander knows what Spike did for them, what he sacrificed. Knows it is not the vampire's fault that he has been resurrected. Why even after all that happened in the hellmouth… In the hellmouth. She screws her eyes closed as she completes the vampire's sentence: "And she's not."

He is looking at her when her eyes slide reluctantly open and she feels so close to him; across the painful atmosphere of the silent meeting room, despite the beautiful young slayer cradled against his chest and Angel's large hand stroking her shoulder in a gesture of comfort and support, she feels close to him.

In this moment of painful understanding and the bitter realisation that her best friend is still so utterly broken, the only comfort she can find is in the blueness of his eyes. And so she stares, she loses herself in the familiar solace of him and stares into his cobalt eyes until the ache in her chest dims and she can manage a tight smile and a tiny nod. Then it is back to business.


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A/N I'm being very slack on thanking the lovely people that leave reviews, but I can barely find time to post (I hate work) I hope anyway that they know how much I appreciate them.

Kissess (sloppy ones) for all and I promis a double helping of prophecy tomorrow

A/N As promised more today. April, god bless her, has proofed so effectively that I have plenty of chapters waiting in the wings. But there's a big scary work thing looming for next week and I doubt I'll get too much time to write, so I'll just drip feed you the chapters I've already finished.

If you like Buffy's little internal rant in this chapter you can thank Thursday , her review inspired it :)

I miss Cali and I worry about her, she was always reviewing all my stories, every chapter then she just stopped. If you're out there Cali drop us a review so we know you're okay.

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He watches Carlotta and Dawn doing a fair impression of a house on fire and smiles broadly at the pair. He's been hoping they'd get on; Dawn is one of the few people left that he counts as family. He once counted Angel in that exclusive and unfortunate club, but in the three days he has spent at the slayer training centre his grandsire has been distant to the point of rudeness. Spike had sought him out two nights ago and had invited him to share a drink. He'd hoped they could catch up, that Angel would be able to tell him about Buffy.

Angel had turned him down without explanation and walked away. Ungrateful bastard. Not that Angel even knew how much he owed Spike—the sacrifice he’d made in that dingy LA basement room on the eve of a suicidal face-off with the Wolf, Ram and Hart. But it still hurts, more than he wants to admit. He had thought that during that year in LA they’d managed to hastily reconstruct the rickety bridges between them. They had been, after all, two creatures unique in the world. He had believed he had finally won the long-craved respect of his grandsire.

But it seems here those times meant nothing. Here, instinct holds sway, and Angel's infant humanity recognises Spike for what he is: threat, predator, enemy, and even two centuries of knowledge cannot temper the intensity of his mistrust.

The girls laugh as Dawn manages a new personal best of five keepy-ups. Carlotta looks stunning in her bright yellow Brazilian footy shirt, stone washed jeans and bare feet as she rolls the football under her foot and flicks it into the air with practiced grace. Showboating for Dawn's benefit, she bounces the leather sphere off her forehead and knees before catching it on the back of her neck, David Beckham style.

Dawn laughs and claps and Carlotta grins proudly. He had forgotten that they are roughly the same age; that despite her timeless wisdom and luscious curves Lotta is still so very much a child.

"Showing off again, girl?" he drawls, and Carlotta flicks the Vs in his direction with a grin. He taught her that. He likes the two-fingered salute much better than what the Americans call “the bird.” Bloody daft name if you ask him anyway.

She kicks the ball in his direction and he controls it easily. They have played this game often in the cramped space of their rooms in the modest jungle lodge, a simple competition—who can keep the ball in the air for longest—but made more interesting by the others lewd attempts at distraction.

A few beats and he headers the ball to Dawn, who catches it gracelessly and drops it onto her knee, her face a study of concentration as she begins to bounce the ball.

"Soccer?" Her voice startles him. He hadn't even sensed her approach, so wrapped up had he been in watching his girls at play.

Distracted, Dawn loses control of the ball and frowns accusingly at her sister. "It's football," she corrects irritably. "They were playing this long before American football was invented."

Buffy turns amused, incredulous eyes on him. "What are you doing to my sister?" He bites his lip and gives her his best penitent school boy look, complete with innocent blink, and her mouth quirks as she attempts to hold a stern expression.

"I was about to sneak out for patrol. Giles is distracted with his books. and I think I can get past him and Angel without the usual lectures," she tells them, and his ears prick. After three days stuck in the hotel without a decent spot of violence, patrol sounds fantastic. "You two wanna tag along? Bit of unsanctioned patrolling?"

He turns to see twin looks of disappointment on Dawn’s and Carlotta's faces. Dawn sticks out her lower lips and Lotta blinks her big brown eyes at him and pouts, "Dawn has rented ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ and she was going to straighten my hair."

"Sounds like a thrilling evening, pet. Wish I could stay and play, but I better watch the slayer’s back. Wouldn't want any nasties taking a bite outta her," he says as he backs away from the awful prospect of girly night in. It is one of his most closely-guarded secrets that Dawn has more than once trapped him into letting her paint his nails.

Buffy, vindictive little minx that she is, grins at him with malicious playfulness as she steps away. "Oh no, Spike, I couldn't drag you away. Why don't you stay? Your nails need doing anyway." She waves him away casually. "It's no big, I usually patrol alone anyway. Vamp activity’s way down these days. You stay; have fun."

"No no, slayer. Can't be too careful, not with all these slayers out of action. I better come along. Sorry, girls, you'll have to manage without me tonight." The three of them are wearing matching expressions of amused mockery, but merciful angels that they are, they let it go.

Dawn, may God bless her, takes pity on him. "Oh wow, you have got to see the weapons room in this place!" She runs towards him excitedly and grabs his hand. "You two wait here," she tells the suddenly uneasy-looking slayers. "We'll be back in a minute."

Carlotta gives him a panicked look at the prospect of being alone with Buffy, and the blonde looks no more comfortable with the suggestion, but Dawn is tugging on his hand and he can see no way out. Besides, they'll have to talk sooner or later. "Will you be okay? Do you want me to stay?" he asks clumsily in her native tongue.

She seems to relax a little at his concern and gives him a mock exasperated look. "It's fine," she insists. "Just go." And as an afterthought as he leaves, she shouts after him: "and stop butchering my language!"

……………………….

She can do this. She can have a civilised conversation with Spike's girlfriend for a few minutes. She just has to break the ice, say something to end the awkward silence. "So, Spike's Spanish not too hot, then?"

Carlotta gives her an amused look, perfect eyebrow arched, full sensuous lips quirking upwards. Why the hell couldn't Spike have turned up with a plain girl, or an airhead like Harmony, or even a loony like Dru? Oh no, Spike has to hook up with little Miss Perfect of Perfectville. Not only is the girl younger and prettier than she is, she's also taller, cleverer - lots of knowledge helpful in the long hours of research that have filled their days since Spike and Carlotta's arrival - and has a dry sense humour that has endeared her to everyone. Well, everyone except Buffy. There had been a point yesterday when she would have cheerfully strangled Carlotta with her own perfect hair.

She'd been ecstatic when she'd been passing Spike and Carlotta's room - which is completely reasonable as it's on the way from parts of the building to other parts of the building - and had heard the couple arguing loudly. She'd taken great pleasure in stopping for a moment to listen to Spike's exasperated, "Bloody hell, girl, what is it you want from me?" followed by the very satisfying sound of loud, agitated Spanish and breaking glass. Of course, she'd been less pleased when on her way back from other parts of the building an hour later she'd heard the unmistakable sounds of making up.

"I believe Spike's Spanish is excellent." The answer is accompanied by a small laugh that she can only interpret as condescending. "But in Brazil we speak Portuguese."

"Oh." Could she be any stupider? Hello, I'm Buffy and I'll be your moron for the evening.

The silence is long and heavy, and she is seriously considering doing a cut and run when Carlotta speaks. "I have not yet had an opportunity to tell you what an honour it is to meet you."

"Huh?" Oh, very eloquent, Buffy. Which one of you has English as a first language again?

"I have heard so much about you, many tales of your great victories." The girl's smile is softer now, and she detects a slight nervousness in it. It had not occurred to her at all that perhaps Carlotta, too, felt a sense of inferiority in her presence. As if telepathic, Carlotta continues. "I must admit to being a little, er, how would you say, intimidated in meeting you."

"Huh?" No, this won't do. Come on, Buffy, make a sentence. You can do it. "Intimidated? Of me?" Okay, not great but it's something.

Another small laugh, but not condescending. Obviously she misread that one. "Of course. You are Buffy Summers, perhaps the greatest slayer of all time, and of course the love of Spike's life."

"What? No!" Awkward, very awkward. This is not the way this conversation should be going. "No, not really. I mean, sure, he had a thing for me, or we—we had a thing, but nothing like that. More of a crush, really. Yeah, he just had a crush. All gone now."

Carlotta frowns slightly but her eyes are patient. "Buffy." She holds out a hand and shakes her head slowly. "Before I am Spike's lover, I am his friend and his confidante. He has kept no part of his life secret from me, and when he speaks of you…"

"He speaks of me?" She closes her eyes and shakes her head, annoyed at herself. "I mean, he talks about me?"

"He talks of little else." The answer is instant and unreserved, and she knows it is the truth. Spike has told Carlotta about her, about their relationship, such as it was. She wonders if he has told her everything, and is suddenly ashamed. Does this girl know about the way she treated him? The abuse, the pain she caused him. Has Spike told her what he did to her on the cold tiles of her bathroom floor?

Carlotta seems to sense her distress and lays a hand on her arm. "It was, I think, a difficult time for both of you." Isn't that just the understatement of the year? Her eyes close involuntarily against the painful memories, and Carlotta takes pity on her and changes the subject.

"Of course, he also spoke a great deal of the nibblet. I am sorry, of Dawn." She smiles affectionately, and Buffy must acknowledge that the two are quickly becoming great friends. "There are no two people more important to him in the world; it is why I encouraged him to return."

"You encouraged him…"

"All set then, pet?" Spike's voice cuts off her question and she manages to pull her attention to the vampire just in time to catch the sword he sends spinning towards her.

She shares a look with Carlotta and manages to offer a small smile before following her vampire—no, she must remember he is no longer hers; he is Carlotta's—out into the night.

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A/N Thanks to the lovely people who bothered to review.

CordyKitten - big love to you for leaving reviews, I don't think anything is going to be straightforward on the disease or relationship front. I'm just not going to let anyone off easy I'm afriad, I have angst waiting in the wings.

tayhaangel - if you're looking for things to fall apart keep reading there is angst and darkness by thebucket load in the chapters I'm working on at the moment.

Thanks for the long and lovely review Pin, it's nice to read reviews when people have obviously thought about the story and really taken some time to give their opinion.

Oh don't pout Vamps it'll come in it's own good time, but Spike and Buffy are off patrolling so...Cheers for the review xxxx

A/N April is the girl with the grammar, I just work here

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Bored, bored, bored. How the hell the slayer didn't go completely out of her tree patrolling in sunny California was beyond him. Two. Two measly fledglings, that's all they'd managed to find. With slayers in every population centre on the planet, you had to head out into the country to get any real action. In the rain forests of Brazil there was plenty of demon activity, but here, bored, bored, bored.

Or at least he would have been if he hadn't been walking next to Buffy Summers. Not that the conversation has been particularly scintillating. Mainly they've talked shop. Apparently, some slayers have showed signs of slowing the disease with the regular extraction of blood, but the prognosis for most is still not good. Still it has apparently given Giles and Willow somewhere to begin, and they are making some progress researching ancient African blood magic. But it’s nice to be out alone with her. They've hardly had a moment alone since their brief talk on the day he arrived—not with Angel shadowing her every move.

There are things he wants to say to her, things he wants to ask. He wants to know what she plans to do with the life he's given her, if his gift to her is making her as happy as he wants her to be. Despite himself, he wants to know if she still cares about him, if she really is as jealous of Carlotta as the looks he's caught her shooting his new girlfriend suggest. But the conversation is easy and the company pleasant, and if they are to be friends now there is no point in digging up the past. So he walks beside her, toys with a couple of fledglings with her and just enjoys being her friend.

Then all of a sudden she's done it; she's changed the rules. Maybe she hasn't even realised she's done it, but she has. Stopping abruptly, she turns to him and grins mischievously. "I'm bored," she announces. "Wanna fight?"

And so now they’re fighting, trading kicks and punches, friendly jibes and good-natured banter all across the empty cemetery. And he can't think of anything he'd rather be doing at this moment. She catches him on the jaw with a sweet hook that sends him stumbling to the side, and grins unrepentantly at him as he spits blood on the ground. And he can't resist it—oh, he knows he shouldn't get sucked in; they’re just sparring, just friends working out some energy with a bit of sparring, but he can't resist it. "Baby," he drawls as he turns to her, "that wasn't nice. Looks like there's a little girl here that needs to be taught a lesson." And he shouldn't have laced the words with innuendo or let his eyes run salaciously over her body, but it was she who invited him to dance, and these are the only steps he knows.

She is only surprised for a moment, her pretty green eyes widening for an instant, then she purses her lips and sets her expression to defiance. "You think you got what it takes, vampire?" Her voice is harsh and challenging but her eyes tell him that this is a game and he understands that she has missed this, missed the real challenge of facing a worthy opponent one-on-one in the night. Perhaps that is why she patrols alone, perhaps she is just hoping for someone closely resembling the Spike who first strolled into Sunnyhell to swagger into her line of fire.

"Oh yeah," he drawls, and this is some strange role-play in which they are actors playing the parts of themselves "I done a couple of slayers in my time." He takes a step towards her, biting his lip and looking up through his lashes, coy and evil all at once. It’s one of his best looks; hasn't had a chance to use it for a while.

She doesn't respond but her eyes are drawn to his mouth, and for an instant she seems distracted. Then she announces that she is back in the game with a lightning-fast kick to his stomach that has him doubling over in exaggerated pain. She should know better, but perhaps she is out of practice, and she closes too quickly, seeing an opening that is not really there, and is thrown hard into a nearby crypt for her error.

"Slayer." He covers his concern with crowing scorn. "Looks like someone's losing her touch." Okay, let's see how she does when she's pissed off. "Getting sloppy in your old age?" Her head snaps up at that, shocked offence in her eyes. "Perhaps you should think about retiring, 'cos honestly, the strain’s starting to show."

Oh, she's pissed now, and her attack is sloppy in her anger. A few simple blocks and he has his opening, a well-placed uppercut and she hits the ground with a moan. He is on her instantly, game face slipping into place as he descends on her, straddling her hips to pin her body beneath his as he mimes a bite to her neck. "Got ya," he whispers into her ear before pulling back victoriously to look at her face. He feels his smile fade along with his fangs when he meets her eyes, huge, green and unreadably intense.

Their faces are inches apart and he has her hands pinned above her head; her curved hips are pressing into his thighs and it has been so long since he held her. She has been nothing more than a memory and a dream for so long that he is frozen by her sudden reality. "Spike." She whispers his name and her breath is warm against his lips. Her eyes watch his carefully and he is caught up in her gaze and then she moves. No she can't be, oh God yes she is; she is moving her head slowly upwards, bringing her mouth even closer to his, all the while watching his eyes.

Her eyes fall shut and there is nothing he can do but mimic her actions and then her lips are warm and sweet against his. Buffy is kissing him and he can't even respond because he is too shocked, because this is over and she can't possibly be kissing him. Her tongue tentatively brushes against his lips and he can't help but part them and let her in, can't help but answer the slight movements of her lips as she coaxes him gently into the kiss.

It is only moments, but it could just as easily have been hours, before his mind rails against the wrongness of it. She is not his girl. She is happy here in the Californian sunshine, living out her dream with the love of her life. She must be because he has given up so much so that she could be. He has sacrificed everything, given up the one thing that was ever truly his so that she could have her perfect life, and that does not involve snogging vampires in deserted graveyards behind her boyfriend's back.

He is off her as fast as his unnatural speed will allow, staring down at her where she lies flushed and breathless on the ground. She is up almost as quickly, brushing herself off. Face flaming, mortification in every flustered movement as she begins her babbled apology. Looking anywhere and everywhere other than at him. "Oh God. Oh God, I'm sorry." She runs her hands through her hair in agitation. "Oh, God, Spike, I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I—oh, God."

Right, damage control. This is okay; this can be fixed. "Buffy." She freezes at the sound of her name and looks warily at him, and there is so much fear in her eyes. He knows where the fear comes from, knows exactly what must be going through her mind: that he will try to use this against her, use it to disrupt her perfect life with Angel and bring her back under his power. She could not be more wrong. He will never exert his will on her again. He knows now what he is to Buffy, and, more importantly, what he is not. He has already made this choice; over a year ago in Los Angeles, he made this choice.

"It's okay," he reassures her softly. "Just a bit of sparring got outta hand is all. That and you being all glad that old Spike's not as dead as you thought. That's all. Nothing happened here, pet." He studies her intently, trying to make her understand that she is absolved of this. "Come on, let's head back."


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A/N Big thanks to theusual review suspects.

Pin - Thnaks :) glad you're enjoying it, I think Dawn and Carlotta have simpler outlooks, not so much with the defensiveness and angst. Buffy is trying out a new sort of denial, this is pretend to be happy denial as aooposed to kick it in the head denial

I'm sorry CordyKitten, hope this little kiss helps ease your pain.

Enchantress - Not back together exactly but a little bit of kissy kissy. Glad you like xx

We all kinda want Spiike to have someone perfect and kind don't we vamps? But what we really want is for him to have an improved Buffy, so I'm trying to improve her and make her nicer

Welcome oh lady of spike, walking in the sun? he's all shanshu'd silly (made human if you don't watch angel) thanks for reviewing xxx

Love and kisses to all

A/N thanks to April of course, she mends my grammar

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"Buffy." She jumps guiltily at the sound of Angel's voice. Mercifully, she is now alone, Spike having fled the moment they arrived back at the hotel, running off to find his slayer—and really, who could blame him after Buffy the super slut made a pass at him in the graveyard? Oh, she'd got the message loud and clear: “nothing happened here, pet,” and the intense look—all right, she got it already. Why hadn't he just come out with it and said, “keep your mouth shut”? What did he think, she was going to try and break him and Carlotta up?

"Hey." That's best, sentences of one syllable so as not to give herself away.

"Giles called a meeting. Dawn told us you went patrolling." His voice is full of disappointment and a trace of anger, and for an irrational moment she is afraid that he knows what she did. "Buffy, how many times have we talked about this? You shouldn't patrol alone; if you want to patrol, you should join one of the teams. It's safer." He sighs and shakes his head. "Well, at least you had Spike to watch your back this time."

She feels her eyes widen at the vampire's name and curses herself for being so readable. "Yeah, he's good with the back-watching." She turns away, flustered. "Are they waiting for us?"

Willow’s explanations are always confusing, but today Buffy is completely lost. Although she doesn't know if the cause is the rambling commentary on the nature of African blood magic or the sense of guilt that bites at her every time she looks at Angel or Carlotta. Or the memories of the kiss she shared just an hour ago with the vampire who is now studiously avoiding her gaze. God, she's such an idiot. Things were going so well with Spike and the whole getting-along-and-being-friends thing. But just mix up a few innuendos and a bit of rough 'n' tumble, throw in a sexy smirk, and she's trying to stick her tongue down his throat. Stupid, slutty Buffy.

"Most of the ingredients are pretty run of the mill." Finally, Willow is getting to the nitty gritty. "But the spell calls on the blood of 'one that should not be.' It's not clear, but it seems to be to do with vampirism and it talks about an 'abomination.'"

"The spell is complex and volatile," Giles continues, and she tries to concentrate on the matter at hand. "Despite Dawn's best efforts, the translation is a little unclear and we are by no means certain our suggestion will work. However, I can see no harm in trying."

"Suggestion? What suggestion?" Something in her watcher’s tone has alarm bells ringing riotously in her head.

"We think we might be able to use Spike's blood." Willow once again takes up the baton. "I'm not certain it'd work, but vampire with a soul, pretty high on the list of things that shouldn't be. And no offence, Spike, but you may even fall into the abomination category, you being all against nature and stuff." She shrugs and gives the vampire a small, apologetic smile.

Following her friend’s gaze, she sees Spike and Carlotta visibly tense, the vampire’s expression pained, his lover’s worried. It is the latter who speaks. "Spike's blood will not be of use to you in this spell," she informs them in a tone that demands they drop the subject.

No such luck. "It's a long shot, I know, I'm in total straw grabbing mode," Willow presses, "but it's worth a go. Vampire with a soul's really the closest we got to an abom…"

"You heard the girl, Red." Spike cuts her off without looking up, his face set in an expression of insecurity, barely concealed by defiance, a look she knows better than she'd like to. "I don't qualify."

By the looks on the faces around the room, she is a beat behind everyone else in realising the implication of Spike's confession. Shock, suspicion, maybe a little fear. Oh, God. “I don't qualify,” “vampire with a soul.” Oh God, it's gone. The soul he fought for in Africa, the soul he returned from the dead with intact, the soul that made him something more than a monster. His soul is gone and she can't even think, because he's just the same as he always was, because he's here with his slayer girlfriend helping them research and hanging out with her sister, and, oh God, she kissed him just an hour ago and it was Spike and it was the same—he was the same.

"So you know." There is almost relief in his voice, an exhausted sadness that makes her long to touch him. "Evil, disgusting thing." The words are not directed specifically at her, but she feels as if he is rubbing them directly into her face. "Monster."

She wants to say something, do something, but she can't move or think. Carlotta beats her to it anyway. She has his face in her hands and she is looking determinedly into his eyes. "No, amando," she whispers emphatically. "Never that. I've known monsters; all my life I've known them. You are not one of them, not anymore."

Carlotta pulls him towards the door. "Come now, my love. Come rest with me," and she is suddenly so grateful for the girl. So grateful that there is someone here who will stand with him, comfort him. Someone who has the courage to love him just as he is, someone brave, someone far braver than she is.

"What?" It is Xander's voice that breaks the silence, stopping the couple at the door. "So we're just gonna let that thing stay here to murder us all in our sleep?" He turns to her and his expression is pure challenge. "Buffy, I think something needs to be done and I think we've got enough slayers here to do it."

"Xander, please." The last thing she wants right now is a confrontation with Xander about this. "Spike's on our side okay? Has he given us any reason not to trust him?"

"We don't need a reason not to trust that." He points disgustedly at Spike. "Come on, Buffy, we know this one. You told us often enough when Angel came back from his little killing spree. Soul good, soulless bad." He steps towards her, and he is so angry she doubts he even knows what he is angry about. "The soul's gone, Buff, so all you got there is an evil, murdering bastard." He gives her a look and she knows what’s coming; he is wheeling out his big gun, maximum damage coming up. "Or did you forget the night he tried to rape you?"

And just like that, everything stops, everyone is still and silent and there is only her. She is the only one who can speak and she has to say something because otherwise they will all just stay like this, frozen forever in this moment. "No, Xander, I didn't forget," she tells him through clenched teeth. "But I forgave." She keeps her eyes on Xander, but her hearing is tuned to the sharp intake of breath from the vampire and the barely audible, "Buffy?" that follows.

"Don't say another word, Xander, I'm warning you." She keeps her eyes on her friend as she speaks again. "Go to bed, Spike. There's no problem here." And she could cry because Xander is looking at her like she is dirt, and he has never looked at her like that before. She hears the door close behind her and almost sighs in relief.

Spike is gone but his slayer has stayed behind, and her eyes are burning with ice-cold fury. "I have no enemies here," she tells them, her eyes slowly scanning the group. "But if I perceive that that which I love is threatened, I will strike first, and it will be decisive." She is looking at Xander when she issues the threat, and then she is gone, going to her love's side all passion, faith and loyalty, and Buffy has never felt so deficient.

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A/N I know, I know, but I love Spike soulless and I want him loved just that way, so in all of my stroies I have to find a way to get rid of the soul, he doesn't need it to love and he shouldn't need it to be loved! Deep breaths Bear, try an dkeep calm!

I love reviews, but I think there as rewarding for the reviewer as for the author, try it you might like it.

Thanks CordyKitten, misunderstanding keeps the wheels of prose turning, so Buffy and Spike will continue to think at cross purposes until the big finale xx

You just want me to write some dirty sex scene in the graveyard don't ya enchantress? Sorry you'll have to wait, let the tension marinate a while longer xx

Thanks to Pin too for her emails xxxx

Kissess for all, but be careful when kissing thebear sometimes she gets over excited and bites!

A/N Sorry about the delay I've had a killer week at work, deadline yuck

As always thanks to April my wonderful proof reader.

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Carlotta has his head cradled against her chest and is running her fingers through his hair, when the expected knock sounds against the door and Buffy's whispered voice calls through. "Hey, are you guys still up?"

He looks up at his lover and shakes his head, warning her to be silent, to let it be just this once. But she is hot-headed and stubborn when she has a mind to be, and she disentangles herself from him and gets up off the bed. "We're up," she calls. "Come in, Buffy."

He shoots her a murderous glance before turning warily to face the original slayer. "Xander's gone," she says pointlessly, but he understands her need to say something. "He was really upset. I don't think it's all about you, he just…" She trails off as if uncertain how to continue, or perhaps she has just run out of excuses for her friend.

"I think perhaps I will go and find Dawn," Carlotta announces. She gives his hand a firm, reassuring squeeze and abandons him to the inevitable confrontation. He crosses his arms and begins mentally counting down to the moment when she will unleash the worst of her disdain on him, waiting for the threats and abuse, waiting for her to start throwing punches and insults his way.

She surprises him with an awkward apology, "I'm sorry about Xander, he…"

"You taught them the tune slayer" he cuts her off; he is readying his defences, hardening himself against her. "Can't blame them now if they dance to it."

She doesn't answer, just gives thoughtful nod and sits down on the edge of the bed, patting the space next to her in invitation. "What happened?" she asks cautiously once he is beside her.

He glances at her then leans forward, elbows on his knees, to begin the story. "Guess you know all about Shanshu, right?" he asks rhetorically. "The vampire with a soul collects all his coupons and gets to be a real boy.

"Well, when yours truly turns up in LA, all soul-having and ready to atone, it seems the prophecy got its knickers in a right twist. Couldn't cope with two applicants or some such. There was this whole thing with reality unravelling and a cup of Mountain Dew." He waves off the question he can see forming on her lips. "Doesn't matter anyway, the senior partners managed to smooth everything over for a while, keep the fabric of the universe from breaking down and what all.

"Anyway, the night before the big showdown with Wolfram and Hart, I got to thinking, 'We got a bit of an apocalypse coming and two souled vamps lining up to get all pivotal with it,' so I went to see Wes. Not that Wes cared about much at the time, but he'd had the same idea, done a bit of bookwork and come to the same rather unpleasant conclusion.

"So I had myself a bit of a problem. Couldn't have two souled vamps in the big scrap. And I had to fight." He looks away as if embarrassed to admit this part. "These people were the closest I'd had to friends in a long time. So I did what I always do when I can't think what's right. I asked myself, 'What'd Buffy want me to do?'"

He can't help but give her a small nervous smile at the shocked look on her face. "So I got thinking about you, and Angel, and the Shanshu, and I realised I could give you something, something real."

She shakes her head, pretty face scrunched up endearingly in confusion, and he takes a deep, unnecessary breath and explains. "There was a vampire going to get human that night one way or another. It was just a matter of which one. So I thought of you and Angel and the whole nauseating star-crossed lovers thing you two got going, and I knew what to do for the best." Another deep sigh and he's ready to get to the good part.

"Wes helped me. He knew some people who knew a demon who knew a soul eater. We did the ritual in my apartment—well, basement—and bang, no more soul, no more problem. Reality got to stay ravelled up the way we like it, I got to star in the big fight scene, Angel got to be human, and you got Angel. All nice and tidy-like."

Her expression is priceless; he can see the wheels in her head turning. She is working through his little speech, filling in the blanks and joining the dots and all that bollocks. She is working her way slowly to the inevitable conclusion: that he gave up his soul for her, so that she could have her dream.

He holds the breath he doesn't need and waits for her reaction, unsure of what to expect. Tears? Gratitude? Maybe both. What he does not expect is a hard, stinging slap across his cheek.

She is on her feet glaring accusingly at him. "You did what? God, Spike, I expected better from you!"

Her reaction is so extreme, so completely nonsensical, that all he can do is shake his head and squint uncomprehendingly at her.

"How dare you? You of all people; God, I never thought you'd do that to me.” She is pacing angrily now, her whole body resonating with rage. It doesn't make sense, and suddenly he doesn't care; he's just as angry as she is, unreasonable little ingrate that she is.

"Do that to you?" he repeats incredulously as he comes to his feet and advances on her menacingly. "Do what, Buffy? Give up everything I had, everything I was, for you? Turn my back on all the things I wanted so you could have the things you wanted?"

She holds her ground, jaw set, eyes narrowed. "Decide for me. Go behind my back, make decisions for me like I'm some stupid little girl who can't think for herself."

"I gave you the normal life you wanted so bloody bad. Look at you now—living the sodding dream, you and Peaches doing the happily ever after. I made a choice, Buffy. A bloody hard choice just to be certain that you'd have this, that you could be happy."

"And what about my choice?" She is right in his face now, staring up fiercely at him. "Don't I have the right to choose?"

He steps away and gives her a look that says she is being deliberately awkward and obtuse. "Okay," he challenges. "Say I'd given you the choice: me or Angel, human and heading to Rome. Who would you have chosen?"

She swallows hard and there are suddenly tears brimming over in her big expressive eyes. She takes a shaky breath and looks directly at him through a blurring mass of tears, and she knows in this moment that he deserves an honest answer.

"Angel," she whispers hoarsely, "I'd have chosen Angel."

There are tears in his eyes now, too, turning the blue to liquid, and he doesn't speak for a moment, just shrugs and looks at her with and expression of bitter resignation. "There you go, then," he murmurs as he pushes past her.

She waits, holds her tongue until her whispered confession will be drowned out by the slamming of the door. Waits until he is sure not to hear her, because what good would it do anyway if he did. She screws her eyes shut against the tears that are flowing now in salty rivers of regret down her burning cheeks. "I'd have been wrong."

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A/N another short one I'm afraid but that was the natural place to break, theres lots more in the pipe line but I've gone back and done some re writing so it'll be a couple of days.

Thanks as always for the wonderful reviews, I'm happy everyone seems to be on the souless spike train.

Cheers Ahigh, Carlotta's been getting some stick over at BS central for being too perfect. I'm glad you're with me on the 'Spike deserves too perfect' line of thought xx

Ah ha CordyKitten I know what you want, you want nice fluffy romance before the end. I shall do my best to provide it, but there'll be more upset first I'm afraid. And that Spike chose to change Angel was forced to, why didn't anyone onthe show realise that?

Well Lizy can spankings ever be a bad thing? ;) Hey you let your soft mushy side out for a minute there and I thought you were a 'demented pervert' your words :)

Hello Ebontier glad youlike, hurting Angel hmm, I'll think about it. I'm sure it'd be a popular story line anyway ;)

Cecily ohh flattered . glad to see you're on board with the drag it out and make it hurt (oh no I think that's Lizy LOL). I've got quite a lbit of story panning out so it won't be ending anytime soon



Woa that was alot of reviews thanks so much kisses for all

A/N I added this chapter after the original flow of events confused my fabulous proof reader April/ Hopefully clarity has now been restored. Let me know

the SpuffyRealm through no fault of it's own lost this chapter on thursday of last week so you may or may not have seen it before .
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He is dimly aware that everything is different. There is an air of anticipation about this place, a discordant sense of the inevitable. Perhaps if he were still as he once was, his preternatural senses would be able to pinpoint the cause, but now he feels it only in the white-grey moments between sleep and wakefulness, a strange ethereal understanding that is gone with the opening of his eyes. Something is coming, something big, and the world is shifting in preparation, readying itself.

Buffy has certainly been different since the night she patrolled with Spike, the night they discovered that the demon in their midst is no longer muzzled by human conscience. She has been alternately pensive and distant or excessively carefree and affectionate.

In the matter of Spike, she has exercised her rarely-exploited authority and issued the order that they all continue to make the vampire welcome. It irks him that she is so hard headed on the subject, refusing to allow even the slightest hint that the vampire is not to be trusted.

"This is a waste of bloody time." The vampire in question shatters the absorbed silence of the library with his usual carelessness, causing Giles to flinch visibly as the obviously valuable manuscript he had been reading hits the table with a loud thwack. "I'm gonna go out and get me some dinner."

He is not certain whether it is the underlying implication in the vampire's words, or the amused indulgent smile that Buffy flashes at him that causes his hackles to rise. "I don't think so." Although what he could do about it in this fragile human body, he isn't sure. "You can't possibly imagine we'd let you to go out hunting."

For three days Spike has tolerated Xander's persistent baiting and veiled threats with a mocking sneer and disinterested sarcasm. He has waved off Buffy's embarrassed, apologetic looks and generally ignored the boy with reasonable good humour, so perhaps the violence of his reaction to this accusation can be explained as merely the snapping of a notoriously short temper. But he is not Xander, and he has known Spike long enough to recognise the hurt swimming in his guarded cobalt eyes, to see past the flaking mask of anger to the raw insecurity beneath.

"What the bloody hell are you trying to say, mate?" The familiarity comes out like a curse as Spike advances on him, eyes igniting with sudden fury. "It doesn't bloody matter, does it? What I do is never fucking good enough for you. You were my sire, man! You were…" He spins away, his duster a swirling accomplice to the display of melodrama. "Well, sod it. I've spent too many bloody years trying to make you… Bugger it and bugger you. I don't need your fucking approval!"

It is then that Buffy chooses to intervene, placing herself bodily between them, her hand resting on Spike's chest in gentle restraint. She leaves her hand there far longer than necessary, looking up at the vampire with soft, solemn eyes. "Don't, Spike. It's okay, I trust you. We trust you."

When his body relaxes, she pulls her hand back—surely it is ridiculously jealous of him to imagine that she does so with reluctance—then her demeanour changes and she rounds on him angrily. "For God's sake, Angel, you of all people should know he's on our side. Remember the big Wolfram and Hart face off? He was right there, risking everything, just like you were."

"It doesn't matter, Buffy." How to make her understand? He remembers the strange opposing kinship of slayer and vampire, but she is as far removed from the raging hunger of the demon as she can be. How can a creature of light possibly understand that Spike cannot be judged now as souled beings are judged, on their words on actions? He must be judged solely on the evil which animates his long dead carcass. "He can never really be on our side, not without a soul. And I of all people should know that."

"He's not you, Angel." She is dismissing and exasperated, with perhaps just a hint of accusation as if she no longer believes that he is not accountable for Angelus' crimes. She must recognise the wounded shock in his eyes because her own soften with regret and she shakes her head slowly as if to deny her own words, her lips beginning to form an apology.

"About bloody time someone pointed that out." Spike interrupts, cutting off anything she might have said, and her impatient glare turns to the vampire. "You hear that, Angel? Huh? Not bloody you. Maybe you need a soul to stop Angelus from torturing his nearest and dearest…"

"Spike, please," she tries diplomatically.

He ignores her and ploughs on grinning in petty triumph. "But then again the soul wasn't much of a guarantee, was it? I remember a story about a basement fulla dead lawyers and something about a deal with an evil law firm that ended with some of the best people I ever met dying in various horrible ways. So if you wa—"

"Spike." This time her voice is a sharp reprimand, and he stops his tirade and looks questioningly at her, for all the world an innocent school boy with no idea that he's done wrong. She shakes her head and fights the smile that threatens her stern expression. "Can I have a word with you?" She indicates with her head that they should go out, and he follows her, obedient as ever.

………………

She is suddenly unsure why she brought him out here. Perhaps to defuse the situation, perhaps to chastise him for attacking Angel. Or perhaps the small, divisive part of her that knows him at least as well as Angel does, the part that recognised the hurt behind his anger, brought him here to offer comfort and reassurance. The point is pretty much moot, though, as soon as he opens his mouth, already confrontational.

"What's up, slayer? Did I scare your little boyfriend?" he mocks snidely "Peaches is a big boy; he can take it. Two centuries of killing'll toughen you right up."

"You'd know," she bites back, a glib automatic response that makes him sneer unpleasantly at her.

"Wouldn't I just?" he drawls. "'Bout the only thing me and your little snuggle bunny got in common, but that's not the point."

"So what is the point?" Suddenly she remembers why she used to punch him in the face so often. The man just keeps redefining annoying. "Is there even a point? Or is it just a chance to have a go at Angel?"

"Hey now, wasn't me that started it." He narrows his eyes and steps in and around her so that she has to twist her neck uncomfortably to face him. "Peaches the Wonderful was the one throwing accusations around, but then he can say whatever the hell he likes, can't he? 'Cos he's human."

"God, what is wrong with you?" She throws her hands up in exasperation. "You don't think you were even a little bit harsh in there?"

"Harsh!" He shakes his head in frustrated disbelief. "And he wasn't? Besides, I didn't say anything that wasn't bloody true. The great poof got 'em killed just so he could be the one that brought down the senior partners—good people, Buffy. All of 'em."

"Spike, stop it! You know why he made that deal and it wasn't just about bringing down Wolfram and Hart. It was about Conner. Maybe it wasn't the best thing he could have done, and he should have given the others a proper choice, but Conner is his family—"

"So am I!" The response seems almost accidental, and his anger fades into embarrassed and grudging honesty. "He's all I got left of family, and I'm sick and tired of not being good enough for him. Not evil enough for Angelus, not pure and lily-bloody-white enough for Angel back in LA, not human enough for him now."

He sighs and sinks with boneless grace onto the second step of the broad, sweeping staircase of the hotel lobby. Her anger flees with his, and she is drawn to sit beside him. It feels oddly familiar, like her back porch on Revello, but now it is her turn to listen, to be a good and supportive friend. Heaven knows she owes him a sympathetic ear for all the nights he let her unburden her troubles on him.

"Sometimes I feel like I spent my whole bloody life not being good enough." It is a soft admission, tired and resigned as if he has slowly come to believe in his own inadequacy. "Angel, Drusilla, you. Always coming up short no matter what I do. It's not enough."

"It's enough." And even she isn't sure if she is offering forgiveness or requesting it. Had it always been enough? He'd been trying—oh, yeah, he'd really messed up most of the time, but he'd always been trying and she'd never given him even the merest scrap of credit for it. How did her hand find its way onto his cheek?

His eyes harden and she feels him stiffen under her gentle caress. "I'm not him." His expression is guarded and suspicious, but he doesn't move away.

Her hand drops and she frowns in confusion. "What? Not who?”

His jaw clenches and he shakes his head annoyed at her lack of understanding. "William," he continues more softly. "I'm not the man you left in the hellmouth, the man you said… I'm not a man at all." He looks away at the last, and the tension seems to drain suddenly from his body.

His skin is cool under her fingers as her hand finds his cheek again in the gentle insistence that he meet her eyes. "It's enough."

Another shake of his head and a humourless huff of laughter: "Hardly." He looks into nothing with a deep sigh. "Never was." Then he smiles suddenly and her heart twists with the knowledge that the warmth of it is not for her. "'Cept for my Anjo, of course."

Another heavy sigh and he leans back on his elbow and studies the ceiling with distracted interest. "Lost a another Slayer today, yeah?"

And there it is again, the ever-present spectre of the disease that haunts this place. "Two," she corrects him, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she feels the weight of responsibility for the girls' condition settle heavily on her shoulders again. If she had not had Willow do the spell…

"Hey now, none of that." It seems he is still almost telepathic when it comes to her emotions. "No way you coulda known. No choice even if you had."

"I know." Intellectually, of course she does, but in her gut she cultivates the growing guilt. With every death, with every girl who slips painfully into coma, with every disappearing pack of Ibuprofen, she is feeding it, helping it grow until she fears there will be no room left inside her for anything else.

"The brat's getting the headaches, too." She didn't know that. God, Willow must be desperate. She buries her head in her hands, fighting off the despair welling in her heart, the drowning hopelessness of it. Their research is not going well, and with every hour and day that passes they risk losing another girl to the ravages of this mystical disease.

"I was thinking." His eyes are sad and serious and inexplicably resigned when she looks at him, and she feels an almost fearful compulsion to lighten the mood, to chase that despondent look from his eyes.

"Careful," she jokes weakly, but he doesn't smile, and she doesn't blame him because Carlotta is among those threatened.

"Red could do Angelus' curse on me, get me all souled up again, then we could try the spell."

She frowns, turning the suggestion over in her mind, surprised now that no one thought of it before. But it had been so hard on him, the weight of his crimes had left him so uncharacteristically weak, and it is only now that she sees him free of it again that she understands how it had sapped the life from him, how it had dulled his vibrant rainbow of colour until he seemed a faded watercolour image of himself. She doesn't want him to do it and she knows that it is a selfish thought, but she can't help but be saddened by the idea of dimming the raging brightness of him. "You'd do that?"

"Will I get a soul for the woman I love? You know I will." He looks at her and the determination in his eyes is absolute. "She's the only person who ever loved me, Buffy. She's my family now. How could I not?"

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A/N thanks for the reviews. I'm hope Buffy's confession about choosing Angel didn't upset to many people but we have to be realistic, we all saw End of Days (grr I hated that episode) and she really would have chosen Angel back then.

Thanks to CordyKitten and Pin for reviewing the last chapter, I wrote little messages when I posted this first time, but now they're gone.

A/N Thanks as always go to the wonderful April, if I write this story just for her it's time well spent xx

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She can feel the panic rising in her throat, begging to be let loose; she bites her lip and looks down, fearing that in a moment she will scream. They are talking about a curse: old Romany vengeance magic.

It has taken them four days and the death of two more slayers to bring them to this point. The last straw had been when Kennedy first began getting the headaches and Willow's manic worry had begun to turn to hysteria. The blood extractions had done only a little to help, and only then to slayers exhibiting very early symptoms, and all the leads on other spells had proved to be nothing more than red herrings.

And so now they are talking about a curse, a curse that will restore her lover's soul and perhaps make his blood fit the original spell. But it is a long shot. Dawn and Willow have translated a little more of the original text: "None would create and none would receive," it reads. "That which should not be, that which cannot live. Opposed and yet as one, this great abomination." It is hardly a perfect description of Spike, but the text talks of vampric power and they have no other options. And as Spike says, "had a soul before, don't really mind having one again." It's not that simple, of course. She knows what a burden his soul had been, how it had wounded and weakened him.

The witch, Willow, has performed the curse before—she remembers that from Spike's stories—but now she is talking about altering the spell. "I think to fit in with the whole 'abomination,' it needs to be more than a curse. I think the soul has to be taken willingly, but it's no big. I just have to change a few ingredients and a couple of words."

Fear is pulsing through her body in time with the rapid pounding of her heart. Instinct tells her that this is not right, that there is danger here, that he is in danger here. She grips his hand tighter, and if he were human he would have cried out in pain. He is not; he merely looks down at her and lets his eyes ask her what is wrong. She can't tell him because she doesn't know, but instinct tells her there is danger here and she has learned to trust her instinct.

Buffy is pacing the floor, shooting questions at the redhead, and she realises that the other slayer feels it, too. That this is not some flight of fancy but a legitimate and intuitive concern. "You said when you cursed Angel in LA you had to find his soul first because it had been stolen, right?"

The redhead nods and Buffy continues agitatedly. "His specific soul; it had to be his own soul?"

"Well, yes," the redhead answers with a perplexed nod. "If you were to use another person’s soul, well, there's no telling what might happen."

"Giles." Buffy turns her attention abruptly to the watcher and she feels herself relax. Buffy is taking care of this; she won't let anything happen to Spike. She almost smiles at the thought—when Spike told her tales of this tiny blond-haired girl, Carlotta had marvelled at the unquestioning faith that he and others had put in her. Now, watching her take command, she feels that same unquestioning trust. "Does a soul eater do what it sounds like it does?"

"Um, yeah. The soul eater feeds off the soul, and of course destroys it in the process." He takes off his glasses and studies his slayer carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"Because we need another plan," Buffy tells them authoritatively. "Spike’s soul isn't just lost, it's gone. We can't do the curse."

The subject is closed and she could almost cry with relief.

"What if you did use another soul?" Her eyes widen in shock at her lover’s question. Why now would he be asking this?

"Well, certainly insanity, and there's a fifty/fifty chance that it'd kill you," the redhead answers, and she can tell that Willow is desperate, that she does not believe that Spike's blood will work but she is willing to try anything to save her girlfriend.

She takes another gulp of water. Her throat has been dry all day, a sort of rough tickle she hasn't been able to shift. Spike is looking at her now, face clouded with worry, and then he looks over at Kennedy sitting behind the redhead massaging her temples with both hands. "Right, we'll do it. Red, have you got everything you need?"

"No, Spike!" Buffy's urgent refusal comes in perfect sync with her own "Amando, no!"

"It'll take me a day to get ready," Willow answers, her voice steely calm.

"God, Willow." Buffy shoots a disbelieving scowl at her friend. "Forget it, okay? This is not happening; we will find another way."

"No we won't, Buffy." His voice is unnaturally calm for a man who has just volunteered for a suicide mission, and she knows with a horrible sinking certainty that nothing will stop him from going through with this. Just like every time he threw himself headlong at the demons they faced on patrol, every time he put his body between her and an arcing blade or slashing talon, he will do whatever it takes to protect her.

"We don't have time and this thing is killing them," he says firmly, wrapping his arms around her waist tightly so that she can feel his body shudder against her. "It's killing them all."

……………………….

Carlotta pulls violently out of his arms, swinging round to face him with flying hair and blazing eyes. "No!" she insists hotly, and he has seen this look in her eyes before: righteous indignation and untempered anger. Buffy has been known to wear a similar expression; maybe it's a slayer thing.

"No. I won't let you," she insists vehemently. "I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me."

He tries to calm her, hands outstretched, palms down and patting the air in a placating gesture. "We don't have any choice, pet. This thing'll kill more than just you if we don't stop it."

"Pah," she spits derisively. "What do you care for the lives of strangers? And what proof do we have that this will work?" She whirls accusingly on the little witch. "Are you certain? Tell me, are you certain that it will work?"

"Er, no," Willow admits, timid in the face of his slayer’s anger.

"Doesn't matter either way. We gotta try. I won't stand by and watch you die, pet." He is trying to remain calm and reasoning, but his own temper is rising to meet hers, and pretty soon they'll be at each other's throats.

"You always do this." She is almost crying now. "This macho hero bullshit. Putting yourself between me and danger. Telling me what to do." She takes a pace away from him, then rounds on him again fear making her desperate and resentful. "Tell me why is it you who must sacrifice, why is it you who must decide which one of us lives and which one dies? Hah, tell me that."

"Because you’re just a fucking child!" She looks for a moment as if he has slapped her, then her fiery Hispanic temper snaps and she is hissing and spitting at him in agitated Portuguese. She is talking too quickly to understand every word, but he gets the idea. He is an arsehole – that she says in English – who considers her a vacuous simpleton only good enough for his bed.

Acutely aware that all eyes are on them, he takes her arm and tries to lead her to the door. But she pulls away. "Screw you, Spike!" she spits, and she is gone, leaving him to trail after her with an infuriated cry of her name.

Buffy finds him an hour later, leaning tiredly against the locked door to his room as he pleads ineffectively with Carlotta to let him in. "Want me to try to talk to her?" she offers helpfully, but he just shakes his head. He's known the girl long enough to know that when she's in one of these moods there's no way to get her out of it.

"Nah." He gives a defeated sigh. "She'll calm down eventually. Bloody women. You two are as bad as each other, you know that?" He softens the words with an affectionate smile that is meant for both of them. What is it with him and high maintenance birds?

"Well, you'll find that we girls don't much like being told what to do." She gives him a crooked smile and invites him with a nod of her head to walk with her. Well, it's better than talking to the door for another hour. When her arm slips through his just a few strides down the hall, he almost stumbles in surprise, and by the sound of her tinkling laugh, he doesn't cover it well. "It doesn't matter how well-meaning you are or how amazingly selfless the thing you do is, a girl—particularly a slayer—likes to decide for herself." And now he knows she isn't talking about Carlotta.

"Come on." She tugs on his arm. "I'll make you a hot chocolate."

……………………..

"Pretty good," he compliments later when they are sitting side by side in the communal kitchen sipping thick, warm chocolate, and she finds herself ridiculously pleased that the drink meets his approval. She has, after all, been making this drink for him for the last two years.

"The secret is to use cocoa and milk, not drinking chocolate," she confides. "And of course you gotta have the little marshmallows." That earns her a smile; he seems pleased that she remembers his preference, doesn't know that there is nothing she has forgotten.

"She'll come ‘round." She tries to comfort him when he is silent for a moment, then feels the need to chastise him good-naturedly. "She's just pissed is all. I mean, 'you're just a f-ing kid'? Spike, what where you thinking?"

"You should know better than anyone that when it comes to me and women, thinking doesn't necessarily come before speaking."

"Oh yeah. I mean, the number of times I was this close—" She holds up her hand, finger and thumb held millimetres apart in illustration, "—to just giving in to you, and you'd say the stupidest thing, make me all mad again."

There is humour in her eyes and he lets out a huff of a laugh through his nose. "Yeah, well, it's funny. Give me a girl I don't give a shit about and I can sweet talk her into anything, but the ones I love…" He trails off with a wry grin. "I'm working on it, though."

"Well, it must be working to get you a girl like Carlotta," she compliments graciously. "I know for a fact you didn't chain her up with your ex and threaten to kill them both, so that's progress."

He laughs then. It's good to be able to joke about this stuff; things that were so painful just a year ago have somehow morphed into fond and amusing memories. "Hey, vampire here. That was pretty damn romantic."

"You can't just say it with flowers?" Then again, if she thinks of it from a vampire perspective—and if she's honest, she has thought about it—it was quite the grand gesture, just hopelessly misguided.

But this is nice, just teasing and joking, sharing their past over hot chocolate, and the warm affectionate looks he is giving her have a strangely addictive quality. "Tell me you didn't use the old, 'only thing better than killing a...'"

"That was supposed to be a compliment," he grumbles, cutting her off.

"Well, in that case," she says, barely able to keep from laughing as she smirks at him, "Flattered."

"Ha bloody ha." He is sullen and teasing all at once, an intoxicating blend of childish petulance and humour. "You know what I meant. That was some great sex. You can't deny that."

"The best," she answers automatically, too caught up in the pleasant banter to watch her words. Her hand flies to her mouth with realisation, as his eyebrow arches and gleeful interest sparks in his eyes.

"The best?" He drawls the question out with practised suggestiveness, and his tongue curls behind his teeth in seductive challenge.

For a moment she is mortified, then she rises to the challenge, rolling her eyes skyward and shaking her head. "Oh yeah." She loses focus for a moment as memories of long hours spent in his crypt bombard her, then she tosses her hair haughtily over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow. "But you tell Angel that and I'll stake you."

They both laugh again and this is nice—better than nice, just taking a break from all the pressures of life just being together without confrontation or misunderstanding, this is perfect. So why does she have to do it? Why can't she just enjoy it instead of letting her stupid big mouth run away with her?

"I missed you." And with that confession the atmosphere instantly changes: she can feel the air thicken to treacle around them, can feel her own heartbeat gallop as he turns to meet her eyes, smile fading and a small frown appearing on his face.

Oh my God, was he this close a minute ago? Surely he couldn't have been. But neither of them has moved and suddenly she is close enough to kiss him, close enough that she can feel cool air rushing across her cheek as he lets out a shaky breath.

He is close enough that he can effortlessly reach a hand to touch her face, and run his cool fingers across her cheek and into her hair. "Missed you, too." It is only a whisper, but he is so close that she has no difficulty hearing him. "More than you know."

And she really shouldn't, because she has already tried this and it didn't go so well, but she can't help it. They are opposite poles and the attraction is irresistible. She moves first, just as she did in the graveyard, but this time he comes to meet her, this time his hand is tangling in her hair, pulling her in as their lips meet. This time his mouth is as greedy and demanding on hers as it ever was.

Her hands come up to grasp his shoulders and she hangs on desperately, pulling herself closer so that their chests are crushed together and she has to twist in her seat until she is almost in his lap. And oh god, oh god it's right, it's utterly and completely wrong and some part of her brain knows it, but at this moment it is just so right.

She crawls fully into his lap, hands roaming greedily over his body, the firm muscles of his back and shoulders through the thin cotton of his worn t-shirt, the cool bare skin of his arms, his chest, his neck and into his hair, coarse and brittle from decades of bleaching. His hands are moving, too, from her hair and down her back to clasp her ass and pull her flush against him, across her hips to lift her and….

Suddenly she is on her feet facing him and he is pulling away and running his hands over his face. "Oh, bloody hell. Carlotta."

Realisation hits her like a trainload of guilt. "Angel," she murmurs, bringing her hand to cover her mouth.

"I, um..." He gestures with his head towards the door. "I should go."

"Yeah, um, right. Yeah."

He turns to leave, his back to her, when her voice stops him. "Spike." She doesn't want to have to say this, but she can't just let him walk away like this. "Are we cool?"

His eyes are pained when he looks over his shoulder, despite the small trying smile on his lips. "When were we ever?"

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A/n Hope you all enjoyed that little bit of Spuffy

A/N the first section of this chapter I added after April had sent the proofed version back to me so it hasn't been proofed. Any and all grammer and spelling error are therefore entirely the fault of TheBear and no blame can be layed at April's door.

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He will tell Carlotta as soon as soon as he gets back to their room, although this thought is enough to slow his brisk strides to a ponderous dawdle. He will tell her because she is his angel and they have never had any secrets, there is no rumination of the heart he has not shared with her, and she is under no illusions about his feeling for Buffy.

He does not attempt to reason that his honesty is in anyway selfless or noble, such virtues are far beyond him now and he goes in search as much of comfort as he does forgiveness. And he knows that she will offer it willingly, that she who has witnessed jealousy in all it's ugliest forms will no more let it touch her now that Buffy is real in their lives than she did when she lay with him on tangled sheets and listen as he told her of his love for the memory of a girl in a far off country

He wonders if Buffy will also confess her digression to her lover. He doubts it. Buffy has never been anything if not afraid of condemnation. Aside from the obvious possible ramifications of admitting her slight infidelity, there is the added shame that it was committed with a creature such has he. No. Buffy won't be making any confessions tonight, or any night.

There had been, up until the moment she whispered so fervently that she had missed him, a strange sense of anticlimax in her reaction to him. Aside from the brief flaring of her anger at his clandestine behaviour she has welcomed his return – and soulless at that – with an affectionate ease that is almost unnerving. At first he had attributed it the contentment he imagined she had found in her new life with Angel. But if that is the case - and her warmth towards him has it's roots in winsome indifference - then he is at a loss to explain why she has not once but twice kissed him in the few scant moments they have been alone.

And with thoughts of her kisses comes the unwelcome question of what it has meant to her, what he perhaps still means to her. He shakes his head, even if there were some crippled phoenix of affection buried in the long cold ashes of their relationship it is hardly likely to rise now, not now that she has Angel. And yet, he is compelled to ask himself, if she did want him…? No it is beyond ridiculous to even think of it, but if she did, then what would he want?

No he mustn't think like that, he has Carlotta and she is good to him, she is beautiful and vibrant in her love for him and there is no one he would sooner share his life with. Well no one but perhaps Buffy.

……………………………………………..

Her plan is morbid genius; it is heroic and it is madness, but most of all it is horribly desperate and so is her choice of accomplice.

She had come to her earlier, slipped away from her room while Spike was distracted, come to her with a plan knowing that she would offer her help, that she alone was powerful enough and reckless enough to help her do this unthinkable thing.

Lotta reasoned that their actions were not merely in the interests of saving their lovers, but for the good of all her sister slayers, but she is not fooled. She has seen the haunted, anxious look in Carlotta's eyes too often in her own bathroom mirror not to recognise that she is crazed with the need to protect her lover. And this is the girl's way: "If I perceive if that which I love is threatened, I will strike first and it will be decisive." Isn't that what she'd said? Oh, this isn't quite how she had anticipated the threat would pan out, but there is no denying that this pre-emptive strike will be nothing if not decisive, one way or another.

The plan is simplicity itself: a carefully-timed sleeping spell cast from the neighbouring room, a vial of stolen blood and a razor blade is all it will take. That and of course dauntless courage and a heinous crime of utter selflessness.

She hates herself for agreeing, hates that she has been driven to such abhorrent selfishness, but Kennedy is dying and she never believed Spike's blood would satisfy the spell.

Her hands shake as she sets up the spell. This is wrong; this is the wrongest thing she has ever done—well, ever done while in her right mind. But even that she questions. Perhaps she has actually become insane, been driven to this madness by Kennedy's worsening condition. She is so afraid for her girlfriend that she is willing to abandon totally her once treasured morality, but she is not so far gone that she can find the means to justify this.

She waits in the oppressive quiet of the room next to theirs, her heart thumping with dread slowness, nausea churning in her stomach. She heard him return a few minutes ago and now she hears his low rumbling voice, every word clear through the paper-thin walls of the old hotel.

"Luv, I got something I need to tell you," he says, and there is nervousness in his voice. "I, er... Buffy. She kissed me, and I..." Her eyes widen in surprise: why would Buffy do something like that? "I didn't stop her, pet. I should've and I didn't. I'm so sorry, baby."

"Hush amando, it's okay."

"No, it's not, pet. I just, she was there and she was Buffy, and I couldn't… God, luv, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry, my love. I know. I know everything. Hush now. I promise everything is going to be all right." She hears the sound of their bedsprings creaking to accommodate their weight as Carlotta pulls him down to her. "Just make love to me."

And there is nothing she can do but wait, face flaming in embarrassment at the noises coming through the wall, and listen for Carlotta's signal. When it finally comes it is preceded by a loud feral growl. "Spike!" The pleasured scream sounds in her mind like a death knell. It is time to begin.

And once the spell is cast, there is nothing to do but silently clear away the ingredients and slip unnoticed to her own room, thankful that Kennedy is sleeping more heavily since she started getting the headaches, and wait for the tell-tale sounds that it is done.

She lies on her bed, counting the minutes till her spell will wear off, stomach churning with fear and guilt. And when it comes the sound shatters the silence of the hotel like a hammer on crystal. It is a howl, a raw, animalistic proclamation of pain like the cry of a wolf in agony, and she is certain that those on the other side of the building who are not woken by the sound will dream strange and frightening dreams in its wake. She pauses for a moment, having no desire to be first on the scene, telling a confused and sleepy Kennedy that everything is fine: "Stay, go back to sleep," then follows the tortured sound to its source.

Angel is the first person she sees, leaning heavily against the wall in the corridor, face ashen, eyes shocked and full of tears, a surprisingly human reaction to horror she knows he has seen within that room.

Dawn is just inside the bedroom, hand over her mouth, tears pouring down her face. Shocked blue eyes flicker towards her as she enters the room, then back to the bathroom door, through which she can hear that the agonised howl has quelled to a heart wrenching sobbing that sends grief and anguish resonating through the walls of the darkened room.

Another few shaky steps and the putrid fruit of her shameful labour is revealed. And oh god, she hadn't realised there would be so much blood, that the white tiles of the floor would be completely coated in viscous pooling red, that it would be matted in his platinum hair and streaked all over the alabaster skin of his bare chest.

Buffy is with him, kneeling helplessly at his side in that sticky sea of congealing blood where he rocks his lover’s cold limp body in his arms and begs her between racking sobs to come back to him.

"There's a note." Dawn’s shaky, tearful voice disturbs the macabre tableau of the bathroom.

Buffy studies the desolated vampire for a moment, her huge green eyes full of impotent sympathy. "Read it," she commands softly.

"'Spike, '" Dawn begins, voice small and broken. "'Love you always. See you soon.' That's all it says."

…………………………

Something sparks in her mind. The note is not right, everything here is not right. The slayer in her rises, strong and single-minded, and she is no longer just a woman shocked and sickened by a horrific suicide, she is more than just a girl paralysed in the face of a loved one’s pain. She is the slayer and she has work to do here.

"Spike," she whispers in his ear. "You have to let her go for a little while, okay? You need to tell me what happened." He shakes his head against Carlotta's silky black hair, but she insists, gently pulling him away. "Willow and Giles'll look after for a minute okay? Just come with me."

Dazed, he lowers her body reverently to the floor and kisses her forehead. "Be back in a minute, pet," he tells her as he straightens the large black t-shirt she is wearing to better cover her thighs.

"Giles," Buffy whispers to the man who has just arrived at the redhead’s shoulder. "You and Willow stay with her. Have a look around for anything suspicious, okay?"

"Spike, I'm sorry, but you have to tell me what happened."

Confusion is written all over his tear stained face. "I don't know. We were making love, and…" He shakes his head in helpless bewilderment. "I don't remember anything else. I must have fallen asleep."

It doesn't make sense. Spike doesn't just fall asleep after sex like some big useless Riley. He's always awake last, and even if he did—hello, vampire. No way he'd sleep through the sound—not to mention the smell—of his lover bleeding to death on the bathroom floor.

"Buffy." Giles appears in the bathroom door, a small glass jar in his hand, empty but stained with red. "We found this next to the b…" He trails off with a nervous glance at the vampire. "Next to her, and she has a fresh bite."

"Okay, thanks, Giles." she turns back to the vampire standing by numbly. "You bit her tonight?" she asks, consciously trying to ensure that the question cannot be mistaken for an accusation.

"Yeah, we do, most times." He shakes his head and the tears begin to flow again. "She likes it, always says it make her feel closer to me." He looks anxiously over he shoulder towards the bathroom. "I need to get back to her, she doesn't like me to leave her for too long."

And this bemused nonacceptance is the worst of all. She doesn't know what to do, how to make him understand without worsening the pain. But she needn't worry, because if there is one thing Spike understands, it is death. He stumbles to the bed and sits down heavily as if his legs have just stopped working, as though his body has caught up with the desolation in his eyes and simply acknowledged the pointlessness of maintaining the effort of function. And all she can do is watch helplessly as he runs his hand over the sheets where they had made love together such a very short time ago. "Why would she do it, Buffy?" he asks without looking up from where his hand smoothes the rumbled cotton. "I made her happy. I thought I made her happy."

"You did. I know you did." She shakes her head and bites her lip. There is a puzzle here, and the answer should be obvious but she somehow can't piece it together. The bite, the slashed wrists, the empty vile of blood, the strange note, Spike's uncharacteristic lethargy, the large syringe beside the bed. Wait, the syringe? Suddenly everything is clear, and she understands perfectly what has happened. Even as the powerful essence at her core recoils in horror at the very idea, her mind moves forward logically and she turns his arm to reveal the small red needle mark against his pale skin.

"Oh, God."

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A/N So sorry for the wait, I've been tweeking. I have two more chapters mostly finished which I want to get finished and off to April this week and hopefylly I'll have one or both posted before the weekend.

TheBear is currently aching all over, there isn't a muscle in her furry body that isn't sore. Just did my Kung Fu Black Sash grading this weekend, lots of sparring and more jumping kicks than anyone should ever be made to do. Two days of hell, an absolute beasting, but I felt great afterwards.


Thanks to the reviewers, sorry to do this to you all just as you were warming to Carlotta.

Thanks Heidi I've been struggling to find new stories to read (Kallysten, Kantarya and Eyridice (?) are updating regularly but it's not enouTh! I just discovered NihilistBear who writes great Spike/Buffy or S/D or S/T or S/... so if you haven't read any of that it's worth a go)

Hey Pin, Glad you like the difficulty of the situation and please don't worry the events of this chapter won't give anyone an easy way out, in fact things might get harder.

Scary growl Vamps, Bear tries to growl back but it comes out like a whimper and she hides under a big log!

A/N Thanks to April of course for being - and I steal this description from Larilyn - a splendiferous proof reader.

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"He's getting the body cleaned up." Willow’s voice is low, almost strangled, as she emerges from the bedroom with Giles. “He won't let anybody help, but he's calmer now."

"Thanks, Will." They can't discuss this here. Angel has been doing a good job of sending the curious young slayers back to bed; even so, this is delicate and they need privacy. "In here." She indicates a neighbouring room and they trail in after her, and damn it to hell, Xander's here and that's the last thing they need.

"Buffy?" Dawn’s voice is small and shaky and she is looking at her for answers. What has happened and why? Why would a happy, beautiful, vibrant girl like Carlotta take her own life?

"I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I think…"

It's no surprise that it is Xander who interrupts. "I think it's pretty obvious what happened. He killed her."

"No." She shakes her head in an attempt to bring order to her muddled thoughts. "He wouldn't. Besides, it doesn't make sense."

"Oh, it makes perfect sense. He killed her and tried to make it look like suicide. Or do you buy that crap about sleeping right through it?"

"No, I mean I know he wouldn't do this. But the sleeping part, that doesn't make sense. No way a vampire could sleep with all that slayer blood around." She frowns. Even now that she has fitted together the pieces of this detestable jigsaw in her mind, she still rails against her own impossible conclusions. "I think he was drugged or something. Someone else must…"

"Jesus, Buffy, can you hear yourself?" Xander shakes his head in disgust. "A girl is dead in there, fresh bite in her neck--"

"That didn't kill her." But her protest falls on deaf ears. Xander convinced himself of the vampire's guilt a long time ago and now he has a crime to match his verdict.

"And you still trying to defend him. Come on, Buff, you're doing it again, making excuses, exceptions, and you're not even screwing him anymore." He pauses and regards her with suspicious disdain. "Or are you?" If he'd slapped her it would've hurt less and, God, why is Angel looking at her like that?

"Xander, that's enough." Thank God for Giles, calm and authoritative. "We have no idea what happened in that room and it'll do no good to jump to any conclusions. Now Buffy, can you tell us what you found?"

"Yeah. Spike had a mark on his arm, like a puncture just here." She indicated the soft flesh on the underside of her own elbow. "And there was a syringe by the bed. Someone took blood from him and there was that empty vial in the bathroom that had had blood in it." She shakes her head. "None of it makes sense."

"Unless he killed her, and all this is just to throw us off the scent."

"No, Xander." Angel is such a good man, despite his mistrust, despite the shadow of jealousy and suspicion that has stalked them since she had publicly taken Spike's side over his. Despite all of that, he is a good, honest man. "Spike's a lot of things but he's not stupid. If he'd done this, he'd be long gone."

"And the note. It said, 'see you soon.' I think..." She pauses; no one else has followed her to this impossible conclusion—well, of course not, because it's insanity. "I think she somehow drugged Spike and took the blood. I think she slit her wrists and then I think she drank it." Aghast, uncomprehending looks greet her revelation. "I think she turned herself into a vampire."

"Buffy, that is impossible. She's a slayer." Giles tries to reason. "You yourself know how abhorrent, how inconceivable such an act would be, even to the most corrupt or disturbed of the chosen."

"I know. Everything inside me tells me it's not possible, that a slayer couldn't do this." She shakes her head and chews at her lip. "And Spike once told me it's the same for vampires: killing slayers, that's fine, but none of them would ever consider turning one. It's just—I don't think wrong even covers it; unthinkable, I guess."

"I say it doesn't matter." Xander again. Why can't he just back off for a minute? "I say we got two vampires in there and I say we deal with them."

"No!" There is panic in Willow's voice, and something else that she can't identify, but it is enough to arouse her suspicion.

"Willow?" She lets the question come out hard and accusing. "What do you know?"

Willow’s eyes flash nervously around the room, and for an instant it appears that she will avoid the question. Then she shuts her eyes and begins her confession. "She did it, you’re right. Just like you said, only she didn't put Spike to sleep." A long, pregnant pause. "I did."

"What?" she exclaims in sync with her watcher. "Good God, Willow, why would you do that?"

"She came to me. She knew Spike's blood wasn't going to work in the spell, and she wasn't going to let him die trying. She said she had the answer, she said she knew what the spell wanted. A true vampiric abomination, something utterly detestable to both sides."

"A vamperised slayer?" Horrible, sinking confirmation.

"She had me cast a sleeping spell. I waited in the next room for her signal. Just after he bit her, I cast it. She did the rest."

"I should turn your girlfriend, witch." The room stills at the malevolent calm of the vampire's voice as he comes more fully into the room, advancing slowly on the watery-eyed redhead. "I should turn her and feed you to her before I stake her."

She should intervene, protect Willow from the demon that threatens her, but in this instant she feels no kinship with her oldest friend. And perhaps Spike deserves his revenge. Didn't Willow claim the same herself just four years ago when she stripped the skin from a still-living body with her magic?

At any rate, the sickness broiling in her gut is paralysing. She is beyond horrified, beyond disgusted with Willow. For once her heart and her calling are of one mind; the witch has done something unforgivable and she isn't sure she could move to her friend’s aid even if the vampire had his fangs at her throat.

"You should, but you won't." Willow should not sound so certain, so sure of her own power. "You won’t because you know you still need me."

"I do at that." He regards her with calculated disdain. "You can do your hocus-pocus on the chains?"

"Yes."

"Chains? What chains?" She feels as if events are rushing past like the flashing images she remembers seeing during a particularly hammy drowning scene on some awful made-for-TV flick.

"Right. We'll need something to keep calm her: potion, trinket, whatever." His businesslike attitude is almost more frightening than his grief, and if she did not know him quite so well, she would imagine he cared nothing for the dead girl in the next room.

"I can do that."

"Pray that you can, 'cos you let her down now, it'll be your girl I go after." As always, the most effective threats are those made with icy calm. So much more menacing that way.

"Spike, what are you talking about?" Finally she manages to get his attention, the shrill panic in her voice just enough to make him turn his dark, obdurate eyes on her.

"You can't describe the hunger when you rise, slayer, the desperate uncontrollable desire to feed. You don't think—you can't. All you can do is find the nearest living body and drink until the world turns red around you and you understand that now you are a God." She hates the cool detachment of his voice, hates to recognise the ice cold masquerade of coping that crippled her for so many painful years.

"In three nights’ time," he continues, and if his voice falters a little he covers it well, "Lotta'll rise, and I don't fancy any of our chances of stopping her doing something she might not be able to live with."

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A/N On the subject of how long it takes a vampire to rise:

Now vampire come out of graves and in europe it takes at least three days to get someone buried, so I'm going with that becuase vampire legends do come from the old world.

However on Buffy while most vampires come out of graves (and I assume you don't get people buried the same night) there have been occassion on the show where vampires have risen the same night (that annointed one episode in season one) and even in just a few hours (helpless). This is evidence I shall mostly be ignoring :)


Big thanks to everyone who reviewed

Hey Vamps, I know the whole Willow does bad storyline is a bit tired, but it's instrumental in getting me where I want to go. Glad you liked.

Does this clear thiings up for you CordyKitten? Although giving him Carlottas soul would have been an interesting idea, a soul that was already connected to him maybe could have been at peace if it were merged with him....

Hia Enchantress Is that a hint for more spuffy touchy touchy? Yeah course it is, all in good time my child all in good time. ;)

A/N as always big thanks to April for mending my grammer :)

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He can count perfectly the eight careful steps that will take her from his bed again tonight.

Step one: She whispers his name, softly enough so as not to wake him, but loud enough that he would hear her if he were not sleeping.

Step two: She shifts to the edge of the bed, carefully redistributing her weight so that her movements won't rock him into wakefulness.

Step three: She gently frees herself from the comforter, then holds her breath and waits for the tell tale sounds that she has disturbed him.

Step four: She carefully rolls off the bed, freezing as the mattress creaks loudly in the silent room, and stands motionless over him for a moment

Step five: She creeps to the door with all the stealth of her calling.

Step six: She turns the door handle so slowly it doesn't make even the slightest sound and carefully pulls open the door.

Step seven: She whispers his name once more to be certain she hasn't roused him and she can escape unnoticed.

Step eight: She is gone, disappearing silently down the hall towards the back stairs that will take her to the basement and to him.

She did this in the early hours of yesterday morning after they had helped Spike hang Carlotta's body, washed and dressed prettily in deep blue Levis and her worn 1996 Brazilian football shirt, in the magically strengthened chains in the basement. Spike had sat down on the floor opposite her body, his back against the cold damp stone and readied himself for the vigil he will keep until she wakes again.

Giles had ushered them away, tugging insistently on Buffy's arm when it had looked as if she would move to stay with the vampire. "Go back to bed, Buffy," he'd whispered gently. "There's nothing you can do for either of them."

He'd been surprised that she'd complied so readily, allowing him to guide her up the rickety stairs with nothing more than a single mournful glance over her shoulder. He realises now she had always had the intention to return; she merely wished to keep the peace around her ex-lover and his dead girl.

She was back in his bed by the time he woke, and in the morning she gave nothing away. She ate. She comforted Dawn and studiously ignored Willow. She warmed blood and took it to the basement, then retrieved it untouched an hour later. She nodded pensively when Giles informed her that he believed Carlotta was right in her assumption that her blood will now satisfy the spell. She warmed another mug of blood and took it to the basement, only to once again return an hour later to find it untouched. She organised the few remaining slayers still fit enough to patrol and welcomed back Faith and the small party she had led on an expedition to kill a nest of Marock demons in Idaho. At eleven in the evening, she delivered a final mug of blood to the basement before joining him in their bed and silently resisting his lone attempt to hold her.

He guesses that by now she will be approaching the basement door and pictures her slipping quietly down the stairs. In his mind’s eye, he sees her looking worriedly at the motionless vampire, sees her lean against the wall and slide down until she is sitting beside him, knees drawn up to her chest, eyes fixed on his profile. She won't say anything. She'll wait, and eventually he'll speak. It is there that his imagination runs aground. What can Spike say? What comfort could Buffy offer? What secrets will they share with the stale, musty air?

The need to know is overwhelming, but he doesn't move. He could hardly eavesdrop on them. Either one of them would know he was there long before he came into earshot; with their sharp instincts and heightened senses, they would hear even the softest tread on the stairs two flight above them. So he must wait till morning and hope she'll tell him herself. He trusts her to do that at least.

……………………………………..

He hasn't moved at all since she left him alone just as dawn coloured the eastern sky nearly twenty-four hours ago. If he were human, his bones would ache from the cold and his muscles would have seized from inactivity. But he isn't human. He is as dead as the limp body hanging before him, and yet it is easy to forget that.

She doesn't speak, knows there is nothing she can say; no platitudes or trite words of condolence can comfort him now. All she can do is wait. Wait and watch his profile until he is ready to speak to her. She watches him for an hour, until her bones ache and her muscles seize, but she doesn't move and she doesn't speak. He'll talk when he's ready.

"Why?" he says eventually, and she jerks slightly at the suddenness of the sound.

Why? How can she answer that? How can she even begin to address the unfathomable hugeness of the question? He turns to her and she wishes there were tears in his eyes, because that at least would be a sign that underneath the pain he is not completely broken. But looking into his eyes now she has the unsettling feeling that she is looking into a mirror, one that defies the relentless trudging of time to reflect the hollowness of her own expression in the awful year of her resurrection.

It is her fervent wish in this instant that she were him, that she could for just a little while steal his impetuous eloquence, his infuriating ability to say exactly what needs to be said at exactly the moment it should be said. He is still looking at her, silently prompting her for an answer with desolate, guilt-ridden eyes that she knows are soulless but feels now more strongly than ever reflect an ocean of feeling.

"Because she had to." The words come and she must trust that they will be enough. "Because she's brave and strong and selfless and everything else a slayer should be." She looks intently at him as she speaks, as if she can ease his pain by the sheer force of her will. "But most of all, because she loves you."

Guilt and self-loathing flare brightly in his eyes at her words and she belatedly realises how, to him, it must sound almost like an accusation, or perhaps a confirmation of culpability.

"No," she denies vehemently. "No, don't you dare think that this is your fault. It's not."

"Isn't it?" He shakes his head. "Carlotta's a good girl and a good slayer, but she's not the martyr-complex hero type. She's not doing this for the bloody sisterhood or the faceless innocents. She's seen too much, knows as well as anyone there's no such bloody thing."

She had been curious about this before, and she feels the need to steer him away from further self-recrimination. "Yeah," she murmurs softly. "I wondered...she said she knew monsters all her life. I got the feeling she wasn't talking about vampires."

"Hardly." He seems grateful for the distraction, or perhaps for the chance to talk about Carlotta. "She's an orphan. Spent her life in homes and foster care. People aren't all they should be, you know, and she's always been beautiful. The women were jealous, and the men...well, you can imagine." He makes a show of perking up and it is painful to watch. "Say, maybe when she wakes up me and her'll go on a rampage. Track 'em down and rip their throats out. Or kill 'em real interesting like, get my girl a nickname. How'd you like pick axe?"

"Spike, don't." She lays her hand on his arm, wishing she could physically draw his pain into herself. Is this how he felt? she wonders. Is that why he let her beat him so badly? "It won't be like that."

"It won't?" He lets his pain come out in bitter sarcasm, and the familiarity, the obvious defensiveness, makes her heart ache for him. "Oh, that's all right then. Was a bit worried she was gonna wake up an evil creature of the night with a taste for human blood."

She holds his gaze and he deflates. She can almost see the protective walls crumbing around him. "How do you know?" He is almost begging, and it is strange that it has always been this way between them, even when she was too blind and too damaged to understand their push and pull of strength and weakness, their pendulum deference to the other’s wisdom.

She sits back and sighs, readying herself for her parable. "Remember that night we teamed up against Angelus? You beat up a policeman and my mom found out about me being the slayer."

He nods. Of course he remembers; it was a pivotal moment for them both.

"Well, after you left, I think it kinda sunk in with my mom and she didn't handle it so well. She said 'It stops now,' as if I was dating a drug dealer or skipping school." The memory is fresh and real in her mind. She can see her mother’s face, the stern reprimand that barely covered her fear as she clung like any other Sunnydale resident to the life raft of denial.

"You know what I said?" she asks rhetorically. His expression tells her that he is listening. "I said, 'No, it doesn't stop. It never stops.'" She puffs out air and shakes her head. "I had no idea back then how right I was. Once you're the slayer, you're always the slayer. Even death can't change that. I'm not saying she'll be the same. She'll be a vampire, but she'll still be the slayer."

"And therein lies the problem." He looks impassively at Carlotta, his face a mask of desolate stoicism. "You can't be both."

There's nothing to say to that, most of all because she knows that he is right, so she merely nods and lets the silence settle over them again.

"Why'd you kiss me?" The question is so sudden, so completely out of context, that for a moment she can't process it and she finds herself blinking stupidly at him.

"I...um...I don't know." It's the best she can come up with. Certainly she can't tell him the truth: that he has haunted her heart for so long now that she finds the sudden reality of him irresistible. And there is no way on earth, particularly now, here, in the presence of his new girlfriend’s unhearing corpse, that she could tell him it is because she loves him now as she never imagined she would be able to when she still had the right.

"Right." He tilts his head back and eyes her thoughtfully for a moment before once again turning to his front and studying Carlotta. "It's bloody ridiculous," he says, and for a moment she assumes he is still talking about their brace of stolen kisses. "I'm a vampire. Shouldn't I be glad? She's like me now."

…………………

It's strange how even after all this time he still believes that Buffy will have the answers. Despite that she hardly knows Carlotta, despite that he she has not known him in two long years, he still believes that she will know enough to give him the answers that elude him.

He’s unsure why he asked her about the kisses. It is hardly important in the light of what has happened since. But it has bothered him all day, intruding on his thoughts as he played out Carlotta's rising in his mind, trying to envisage what he will see when she opens her eyes. He has played out the scenario a thousand times, disturbed unwelcome fantasies of her smooth skin contorted into a snarling mask of ridges and fangs and feral, golden eyes. The only thing he is certain he will not see are the warm depths of his Anjo's soul.

So it had been in these moments between, when his mind recoiled in horror at his own worst imaginings, that he found himself invaded by thoughts of Buffy's sunshine and steel kisses. Her answer was a little curious. He had expected an excuse, perhaps an apology—not the threats and denials of years before, but no less painful. He doesn't press, isn't even sure if he wants to, even if his saviour were not dead by her own hand, even if he were not exhausted by grief, uncertainty and guilt. Even then, he isn't sure if he would allow himself the bitter taste of hope.

It won't be long now. Maybe even tonight, but probably not, not with the approaching dawn sending warning tingles over his skin. No, she won't rise tonight, but it won't be long. Part of him is impatient for it. Anything, even the reality of her irrevocable metamorphosis, would be better than this waiting. He feels himself trapped in limbo—the expectant dread of grief without finality—and almost wishes she were truly dead. At least then there would be some certainty. Guilt and sorrow chase in on the heels of that unfaithful thought, and he feels his body shudder violently.

She touches his knee, but he doesn't turn to look at her. He knows that if he does, he risks drowning in the seductive comfort she is offering, and he cannot let that happen. He must be awake and watchful for his dark angel’s rise, but weak as he is, he cannot resist the solace of taking her hand in his.

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A/N Thanks to everyone who bothered to review, really hell swith my enthusiasm for writting, I know I should do it for me, but it's just so nice to get reviews.

On the subject of which, B/S Central has double the number of reviews for this story. Come on Spuffyrealm, are you gonna let them kick your butts like that?

It's tacky to beg for reviews so I thought i'd try appealing to your competetive natures ;)

Hey Pin, sorry to confuse you babe. Glad you like my Xander I'm proud of him :)

Hello cgh, your users name is just a gutterl noise, love it I'm welsh all are words are like that! Or maybe there your initials, anyway thanks for reviewing glad you like! I'll try not to make the wait for the Spuffy be too long.

Hey CordyKitten, If i'd just killed Carlotta off then Spike would have gone to Buffy be default, and your spuffy heart would have hated that, so it'll take a bit longer but it'll be worth it.

A/N - Any correctness of grammer and/or spelling contained here in is the sole property of the proof reader (April). The author claims no legal ownership there of.

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For once it seemed that fate was on her side, conspiring with her duplicitous lover coincidence to ensure that she was at his side at the moment she rose. That she was there to support him when she woke screaming like the damned creature she had become.

She had lingered at his side far longer than she planned, until the sun was fully risen and her stomach rumbled its esurient demand for breakfast. Wary of Angel's growing suspicion and unwilling to face the prying questions of the others, she had meant to leave hours before and slip unnoticed back into her lover's bed. But Spike's hand had warmed within her own and despite the ache of cold and inactivity she had found herself incapable of relinquishing its comfort.

It had only been when he had released her hand to scrub at the sluggish flow of tears that had finally broken through his emotional torpor that she had felt herself released from the captivation of his closeness. "I should go," she'd told him in a funereal whisper. "Will you be ok?"

He'd nodded absently and she’d stood to leave, a little hurt, unsure if he had been aware of her at all. His voice had stopped her halfway up the stairs. "Buffy," he'd murmured in a voice so hoarse it sounded as if it hadn't been used for months. "Thanks." And if her heart had swelled a little, then she would make no apology for it.

Angel had been awake, showered and waiting when she returned to their room, his face characteristically blank, and she'd felt a twinge of annoyance at his lack of expression. "Where did you go?" he'd asked, and the slight accusation in his monotone had irked her.

"I was with Spike," she'd snapped. Damn it, she'd done nothing wrong and she wasn't about to squirm. "I figured he'd need a bit of support. It's not like he's getting any from his family." She wasn't sure then if it was she or Angel who was most surprised at her outburst. She honestly hadn't realised how angry she was at her boyfriend for his abandonment of Spike.

"Buffy." His tone had been soft and reasoning, and that had done little to improve her mood. "He's not my family anymore. I'm not responsible for him."

For a moment she'd wanted to argue, to ask when he’d pronounced himself absolved of responsibility for his kin. Had wanted to ask if not him, then who—who was Spike to turn to? But then she'd felt an exhausted indifference come over her and she'd shaken her head at him, too tired to fight the disdainful sneer she'd felt curling her lips. "No, I guess he's not," she'd agreed coolly. "You know, maybe he's better off that way." Angel hadn't followed her when she left.

She'd found Faith and Dawn in the kitchen when she went in search of nourishment, her sister’s face full of undisguised grief and concern. "How is he?" she'd asked tentatively, and Faith had tilted her head and softened her expression as they waited for her answer.

"I don't know," she'd admitted, suddenly emotional in the presence of sympathetic ears. "He's so...I don't know, so broken. He's not even crying. He's trying to be brave but I can see it's killing him and I can't help him. I just feel so useless."

She hadn't meant to be so candid, especially not in front of Dawn, but the words had come anyway and when Dawn wrapped an arm tightly around her shoulders with a small sigh and a gentle, "Oh Buffy," and Faith had poured her a coffee and produced a croissant, she'd been able to mange a wan, tearful smile and was glad she'd let them in.

"You're doing all you can, B," Faith had assured her in a tone that anyone who didn't know her might have mistake for dismissive. But her huge doe eyes had been all understanding and support.

It has been so much easier to get along with Faith since Sunnydale, though whether it is due to a tempering of the brunette's rebellious spirit or her own mellowing, she isn't sure. Or maybe in a world full of slayers, they didn't feel as competitive as once they did. Whatever the cause, she is grateful now for Faith's friendship.

Willow had come into the kitchen a little while later, on her way back from the infirmary, laden with painkillers and searching for bottled water. She'd felt an intense desire to be elsewhere, and when Willow had tried to talk to her, she'd stood abruptly and left without a glance at the redhead.

Moving through the hotel, she'd been waylaid by an agitated Giles bringing the unwelcome news that Cassy, whom Buffy guiltily remembered as annoyingly sullen and indolent, had slipped into a coma during the night and that Kennedy was likely to follow her sooner rather than later. The meeting had delayed her for several minutes, and when she finally managed to make it down to the briefing room, the assembled slayers had been querulous and argumentative, unwilling to extend their slaying duties to cover for the dwindling numbers of active slayers.

By the time she'd finally made it back the kitchen, it was nearly midday and she was anxious to check on Spike. The microwave had seemed to take forever to warm the blood she had bought for him, and she'd found herself drumming her fingers impatiently on the counter top.

"Buffy." Xander's voice grated on her straining nerves, and she'd kept her back to him in an effort to control her temper as she'd asked him what she could do for him

"Had a long talk with Faith and Dawn last night," he'd told her, and his voice had had that deep richness to it he always got when he needed to say something important. "Well, Dawn talked, I listened and Faith threatened." He'd given a small nervous laugh and as she'd turned to face him she'd been surprised to see him looking awkward and penitent. Their eyes had met and he'd sighed, one of those big whole-body sighs that lift your shoulders. "I've been an ass," he admitted sheepishly.

Affection and history had tugged at her heart, and she'd felt her mouth turn up despite her determination to stay mad at him. "Try more like a big jerk." She'd crossed her arms and fixed him with look of childish accusation.

He'd nodded and made another try for a smile. "Guilty." For a moment he'd studied his shoes before looking at her again, his eyes so warm and sincere that she felt the final traces of resentment thaw like summer snow. "I'm sorry, Buffy."

"I know." Somehow, forgiving Xander had always been ridiculously easy. "It's okay."

"I shouldn't have taken everything out on you." His tight-lipped smile had turned rueful as he'd continued with slight reluctance. "Or on Spike. It's just she—"

"I know." She'd cut him off. No need to drag the painful confession from him. "We know. It's ok."

And so it was gone twelve when she finally returned to the basement, a mug of tepid pig’s blood in her hands. "It got a bit cold," she'd apologised quietly as she'd set the mug down beside him. "I doesn't look too appetising." A moment’s thought and she'd amended. "Not that blood ever looks very appetising. Well, not to me, but…" She'd broken off, embarrassed by her ramblings, but she needn't have worried; he was miles away from her, lost in his own thoughts, his own grief and trepidation.

"Spike." His name and a hand on his shoulder had been enough to bring him back to her, and she'd offered him a small smile. "Hey."

"Buffy?" He'd shaken his head as if clearing his thoughts and placed his hand over hers as it slid down his bicep. The contact had seemed to take them both by surprise and they'd stilled in place, eyes locked, fingers moving to twine together.

She couldn't have moved then even if she'd wanted to. She'd felt connected to him so deeply in that instant that she had been certain nothing could intrude on the moment. It was then that Carlotta had screamed.

…………………………………………………

It is time for her to open her eyes. She understands this deep in her core of her being: it is time to wake up, time to become. The tiny muscles of her eyelids are numb and sluggish, unwilling servants of her slowly-awakening mind, and it seems an almost Herculean effort to finally force them open.

Spike. She sees him clearly even in the dim light, and the familiar sensations of love flow over her, along with a strong instinctive voice that names him "sire," and for a moment she feels complete peace; Love, kinship and devotion suffuse her being and she wonders for a moment if she has been blessed with heaven.

Then her eyes slide to his left, to the small blonde girl huddled against him, her head tilted to look into his eyes, her small hand intertwined with his. With twin cries of recognition she feels herself fracture, as if her nature, so united just a moment ago, is now torn brutally in two. The slayer: heaven’s bright and chosen daughter; it burns her eyes to look at it, hurts her sensitive ears to hear the relentless pounding of its powerful heart. It must be destroyed—she must destroy it, tear ragged holes in its hideous hallowed carcass and let its sanctified blood drench her skin. Destroy it, kill it, make it scream and burn and suffer. She must destroy it.

The slayer: sister, warrior, protector. They are kindred, the same. No, never the same—destroy it. They are the same; their blood sings with the same passion of destiny. They were created to protect—no, to cleanse: to wipe away all that is vile and dark.

Vile and dark, like the squirming parasite she can feel melding itself into her body, into her mind. It is a malevolent, formless thing devoid of intelligence but not of purpose. And what purpose has it? What malicious certainty of design? Drink, Kill, Corrupt.

In a moment of agonising clarity, she understands what it is to be both nothing and everything, to exist as some twin-headed Orthos or antithetic Gemini. She understands clearly for just the briefest of moments the contradiction that she has become, the irreconcilable fragmentation of her being, and she screams.

……………………….


A/N Another chappy, I'm ticking along steadily with this story.

Many thanks to the good people of Reviewland

Hey Vamps, ooh can I have a Spike shaped reward? please, I'll be good all year.

Hi Pin. I try not to let my readers slack off too much. Mature Buffy takes a bit of getting used to doesn't she, I might write something based in season two soon just so I can play with really childish Buffy.

Hey CordyKitten, honestly I'm as much in teh dark as you ;) My writting is what we call in the world of poorly designed software, organic in development. I was reading Kalystens fabulous Heaven's Key and at chapter 12 she said 'half way there, only twelve more chapters' i have no idea anyone was that structured in their approach.

Prophecygirl, yeah I've always though tthe Buffy get turned flicks were kinda weak (there are of course a few dark and extremely well written exceptions) I think that although source of power in slayers and vampires are in some ways kindred this makes it more important that the essence of the slayer be as far removed from the demonic as possible. so yeah unsupportable conflict

A/N I am a bad and wicked bear, who deserves to be throughly birched for her lazyness. You all are well within your rights to spit in my general direction. I am really sorry about the lack of updates I got a bit bogged down with this chapter and work kept getting in the way.

Thanks to Patti and cgordon20(?) who emailed me to kick me up the bum. Special thanks as always to my fabulous proof reader April who was there to promptly turn the chapter around once I finally finished it.

Extra Special thanks to whoever nominated Prophecy & Warmth at the Spuffy awards. Do you like how I slipped in that I got nominated?

He, he, I got nominated. Woohoo yeah. Me. Nominated at the Spuffy awards, sharing nomination space with the great Kantayra, and Kallystan. With the authors I love like Euridyce, Thursday, Bogwitch, pperlandgirl and too many more to mention.

I got NOMINATED, you can vote for me if you want, I mean if you really really want, it doesn't take long. So you could, maybe a little vote for me?

Right I've made you wait long enough fo rthe chapter so here we are (And I really am sorry about the wait):

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He just stares at her, watching her thrash wildly against her chains with an expression of numb horror. It is clear that whatever Spike had expected when Carlotta rose, this was not it.

Her screams are interspersed with loud, feral growls and inhuman screeches and, worse still, brief moments of pitiful whimpering. She jerks against the magically enhanced chains with enough force to shake the iron pillars that hold them and draw blood around her wrists. God, how could there be any blood left in her? Surely it had all drained onto the bathroom floor.

"Anjo?" His breathy question is barely audible, even to her standing so close to his side, almost but not quite touching, yet it is enough to still Carlotta's desperate struggles for a moment and she tilts her head, confusion clearly evident on her distorted features. The ridges melt away revealing her beautiful, pleading face, her loss-filled ebony eyes.

"Spike," she whispers, and a watery smile tugs almost imperceptible at his lips. "Sire."

She watches hope shatter on his face with a regretful sense of déjà vu. Lotta is straining towards him now, ridges once again distorting the smooth, mocha skin of her face, turning it sallow and lifeless. "Sire." There is lust and hunger in her voice. Then she staggers back with a whimper and the screaming starts again.

……………………..

Willow is to blame for this. The thought is alien to him. Even after everything that has gone before, despite that she has proved more than once that she is capable of far worse, still his mind struggles to apportion blame to his oldest friend. Willow is to blame for this. If it were not for her selfish duplicity he would not be staring at the horrifying, heart wrenching scene before him.

She has suggested they leave and Giles is supporting her. She has a point; it is their presence above all others that seems to agitate the newly-vamperised slayer. Lotta strains against her chains, keening and growling in an odd display of animalistic devotion. Her glowing yellow eyes are fixed on Spike, the only intelligible sound among her growls and mewls is "Sire." When her attention focuses on Buffy, the reaction is no less extreme, alternately hissing and spitting menacingly, and screaming and whimpering in fear and horror.

Willow is right; for Carlotta's own sake they should probably leave while she casts the calming spell and they attempt to feed her the potion-laced blood the witch has hurriedly prepared. But even that she is right doesn't make her suggestion any less unseemly: she is, after all, to blame for this.

Carlotta lets out a loud, anguished wail, and he feels his own body jerk in fright. "Please, Spike." It is Giles who is now remonstrating with the vampire. "Just for a little while. Just until we can calm her."

"What you gonna do to her?" he asks softly, his eyes fixed on the keening vampire, his hand clamped over Buffy's where it lies against his arm.

"We won't hurt her, Spike, I promise." The reassuring words that do little to temper the mistrust written on Spike's face and, more surprisingly, on Buffy's. "The plan is to sedate her with the calming spell, just enough so that we can give her the sedating potion. She needs to feed. Once she's had some blood and she's calmer you can come back down."

"He's right, Spike. It's not helping her, us being here." Buffy's voice is so soft he can barely hear her, and he supposes he isn't meant to. The words are for Spike, gentle, reassuring, intimate. Her tone, her body language, all of it is a declaration of solidarity. There can be little doubt whose side Buffy is on in this.

He lets his eyes return to Willow as she begins to lay the contents of her bag on the a low table against the far wall, her back turned to Spike and Buffy, and tries hard to see her as he always had. Sweet, good Willow, who always had everyone's best interests at heart. Caring Willow who would never deliberately hurt any creature. But the scales have fallen from his eyes, and when he sees her surreptitiously take a syringe from her bag, he feels no desire to cover for her.

"What you got there, Will?" he asks, letting accusation colour the bright tone of his voice. She jumps a bit and turns instinctively towards him, just enough for the others to see what she is holding.

Perhaps it was a mistake to expose her in front of Spike. The vampire's grief-reddened eyes are filled with rage, and despite his disillusionment with Willow, he suddenly feels very real fear for her. But it is Buffy, not Spike, who attacks first.

"My God, Willow." Her tone is full of shocked disappointment and he must wonder disloyally that Buffy can still be surprised by Willow's digressions. "You can't even wait a few hours, can you? Where the hell is your consideration?" Consideration for Carlotta? For Spike? Consideration he himself had hardly showed, but which even he sees now cannot conscionably be withheld.

She ducks her head, shame faced. "I'm sorry, Buffy," she murmurs, "but Kennedy's getting worse, and I just…" She trails off, gesturing helplessly with her hand, syringe still clutched between her fingers.

"I know, Will." Buffy nods understandingly and touches her shoulder. "But not so fast, okay? It's not fair. Carlotta's a mess and this is really hard on Spike." She rubs her hand up and down Willow's arm in vigorous comfort and gives a tight smile. "Just give it a couple of hours."

"In a couple of hours another slayer could be dead," Willow insists, her eyes pleading. "We can't risk that; we have to get the blood for the spell." She's off now, all babble and persuasion, reason and moral trickery. "The easiest time to get the blood is when she's all spaced out. I know it's not so much with the thoughtful but it—hello, vampires: it's not like they have feelings we can hurt."

Buffy's eyes widen in disbelief and her hand comes up open palmed. She is going to slap Willow. Buffy is going to slap Willow. His stomach turns in recognition of the fact. Oh, he knows that the slap will be gentle, that her slayer strength will be contained, but still he feels like he is watching in slow motion as their friendship dissolves forever before his very eyes.

Spike catches her hand on the down stroke and turns her away from Willow, pulling her into his arms as the strain of the last few days breaches her emotional defences and she lets out a small, strangled whimper and buries her head in his chest.

Carlotta chooses this moment to come out of her whimpering state and begin thrashing against the chains, shaking the whole room with the force of her struggles and shredding the air with her inhuman screeching.

He has to do something, for Buffy fighting back tears in Spike's arms, for poor tortured Carlotta, even for Spike himself looking lost and desolate as he cradles Buffy's small frame against his chest and stares ashen faced at his screaming girlfriend.

"Go," he murmurs, moving closer so as they turn their combined attention to him. "Go on, I'll make sure she's okay." Buffy's face is a picture of surprise and gratitude as if she never could have expected such thoughtfulness from him. Surprised, yes, and rightly so, but trusting also, and thankful. Spike gives him the slightest of nods and he feels suddenly unworthy of their unconditional confidence and swears silently that he won't let either of them down. "I won't let them touch her, I promise."

………………………..

He had been far enough away from the basement when it started that her screams were muffled and eerie, an unknown, distant horror that only the foolish or the audaciously brave would investigate. He finds now that he is neither. After two centuries of nightmare it is surprising to understand now that he is a victim of natural human fear: fear of sounds in the night, of darkened stairs and distant, inhuman screaming.

He finds himself warmly cocooned in his restored humanity, finds himself withdrawing a little more each day from the reality of the horrors he has seen, the horrors Buffy and her friends still willingly face day after day. He had lingered upstairs, walled safely in his room, door shut tight against the faint sound, until he had been unable to ignore the rumbling of his stomach or the pressure in his bladder any longer and had ventured out to fulfil those inherent human needs that he has become so accustomed to in so short a time.

The walk back from the bathroom takes him closer to the back stairs than he would like and his steps quicken as he hastens out of earshot of her now intermittent cries.

Reaching the door of his room it is a closer sound that halts him, a low mumbled conversation, the words unclear but the voices unmistakable. Buffy and Spike, together in his room. He freezes, cursing his heart for pounding so loudly in his chest as he leans left to see them framed by the slightly open door.

Spike is sitting on his bed, head dropped despairingly into his hands, grief and dejection screaming from his posture. Buffy is kneeling in front of him, between his knees, her hands on his thighs, her profile intense with concern and shared pain.

She is murmuring something to him in a soft, comforting voice. He can't make out the words, but Spike meets her eyes for a moment before dropping his head again with an audible sigh. They are distracted, their supernatural senses dulled by grief and worry. They don't know he's there, don't sense him take a tentative step forward into hearing range of their soft, and intensely private conversation.

He shouldn't listen; he should respect Spike's grief, Buffy's need to be there for her friend, but he is insecure when it comes to the vampire and he finds the need to know what they are saying far outweighs the tinge of conscience.

"They'll calm her down, Spike, and then you'll be able to talk to her." Buffy's voice is firm and gentle, filled with determined promise. "It'll be okay."

"No it won't, slayer." How can Spike make the moniker sound so familiar, so that in his ears it sounds more like a lover's sobriquet than the title of her calling? "You don't get it. She…" He breaks off and shakes his head against the uselessness of it. "I'm her sire now, she'll never stop craving me, not ever. And she never did, not Carlotta. I told you before, she's the only person who ever loved me just for me. Bloody hell, Buffy, I can't explain it."

He remembers enough to understand what the vampire is saying, remembers, a little vaguely now, what it is to be bound to your sire. He remembers loving Darla against his will. Even after his soul, he remembers the hold she had on him. The irresistible pull of her: mother, mistress, sire. And he knows enough about Spike to understand that, for him, obligated love is worse than no love at all, that he would never have chosen to bind Carlotta to him, that it is hollow and meaningless in his eyes.

Buffy couldn't understand, doesn't know what it is to be a vampire, eternally compelled to desire to your maker.

She can not understand, and he doubts too whether Spike, who has never sired more than a minion, can understand yet what it is to—godlike—breathe life into a lifeless thing. That as the architect of another being, you can never love that being as anything other than an extension of yourself, never again be equal with your creation. It is not the love of a parent, of mothers or fathers who would die for their children. It is the proprietary, superior love of the architect, love of a thing created in your own image, and that is no love at all.

Or perhaps she does understand, because her hands are travelling up his denim thighs, skimming over his ribs and chest. There is nothing sexual in her touch as she forces him to look at her. And perhaps it would have been easier for him if it had been. This is far more intimate; her eyes are speaking to the vampire, silent communication he has never shared with her.

"No," she says, in a voice at once gentle and almost unbearably earnest. "Spike, you're wrong. You're not that difficult to love."

The words could be meant only in comfort and compassion, but in his ears they sound like a declaration and a betrayal. Spike shatters against her words and then he is sobbing in her arms and she is guiding him back onto the bed. Onto his bed. Curling him, unresisting, against her, wrapping her slim arms around his shaking body and tangling her legs with his as if trying to maximise contact.

She is beautiful now: fealty, compassion, and kindness. Watching her turn herself over completely to the comfort of another, he sees everything he ever loved about her. And he can't decide which he hates more, her charity or his lack of it.


.......................................

A/N Thanks to my loyal reviewers

Cordy Kitten - So sorry about the wait. Angels a dud, he really doesn't get it, and as he moves futher from his vampire roots it might get worse.

Prophecygirrl - Sorry to disappoint on the updates front. Glad you felt Carlotta's confilct worked, I wasn't sure I'd got it accross quite right

Hey Pin -Thanks so much for your encouragement. Yeah I've always thought it odd that vampires charge manically at the slayer even knowing that she'll kill them. Spike went in search of slayers to kill. I think it's a much part of their instinct to hunt slayers as it is the other way round. I like Faith and Dawn they're less demanding of Buffy than the friends so sometimes they provide good balance for her.


PROMISE - I will endeavour to write faster and not leave another big gap between chapters.

If I fail to deliver on this promise feel free to throw things at me (or email and complain) I work well under preasure

Kissess for all and thanks for your patience

The(Bad)Bear

A/N sorry about the delay, I posted this on B/S central then forgot to put it here. On the plus side you get two chapters now :) Thanks to April as always
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The hunger is not gone. It still gnaws at her gut, still rages its incessant demands in her throat. She realises now that the hunger will never be gone, that she will never be sated. But the cold pig's blood in her stomach has eased the desperation of it a little and she can see something beyond that clawing, red need.

She is calm, reasoned. She feels the pain in her gut, the raging of the dark, slithering thing within her as it throws the full weight of its corruption against the righteous fortress of her essence, but she is removed from it, almost serene in her cocoon of unnatural calm.

One thought is clear. One ever-repeating phrase that her mind declares over and over: "I am that which should not be." This handful of simple words is the only certainty she understands. Later, the thought will bring with it despair, perhaps again the raging madness to which she woke, but, for the present, they are merely a curious and inescapable truth. "I am that which should not be."

Her cotton wool mind has enough clarity now for her to understand that she entered into this rashly. With the arrogance and indestructible vanity of youth. She had thought this act a noble sacrifice of love, something heroic and courageous. Now she realises it was not; it was ugly and foolish and maybe even at its core selfish. Certainly it was ill-advised.

He is coming back. She can sense him moving towards her. He is above her now and to her right, but he is moving this way, and that thought brings a warmth to her belly that reheated animal blood could not. With his return she feels the thing within her focus its will on him. He is more necessary to it than the violence and destruction it craves, even more compelling than its red raw thirst. He is sire and he is coming to her again.

He is also Spike, but that seems less important now. That she loved him as a man just days ago is irrelevant: this is something more than love. Love is a fragile, transitory thing compared with what she feels now. She is his, bound eternally to him. Or is this something less? There is no free will in this, no choice. She has sold herself to him for a few sips of his blood. Abandoned the soul he loved so much in her and subjugated herself to him, his grateful slave and possession. As this temporary coherence of thought slips away, to be replaced by the mindless peace of sedation, she thinks briefly that perhaps he will hate her for that most of all.

………………………………

Carlotta is unmarked and quiet when they returned. True to his word, the boy had kept the watcher and his witch away from her, and true to their word they have been able to calm her.

She watches him through her lashes, eyes hazy with magic and intense with devotion. She watches him as he moves tentatively towards her, afraid to move to fast, to make a noise or gesture that will send her again into screaming insanity.

"Anjo?" Even that whispered question sounds loud and jarring in the stillness of the basement. "Lotta?"

She bows her head and lets out a low submissive growl. It is instinct, an almost involuntary reaction to her sire's presence, and he struggles to beat back the rising tide of despair. He tries to focus on his love for the woman she was, but his demon too is reacting to their kinship. She is his, she exists because he created her, she is unformed clay and he the potter. He takes a step back. This is not how it should be, she had been his love, his saviour, the only woman in the world who could have rescued him from the emotional sinking sand that was loving Buffy Summers, the only person since his gentle mother who loved him simply for himself.

Buffy is talking with the witch in agitated whispers. He could easily hear them if he were not so consumed with the knowledge of losing Lotta. Ironic how it is in the moment that he recognises she is his forever that he realises he has truly lost her.

"Steph won't last more than an hour, Buffy." Willow's voice rises and he can't help but hear them now. "We have to do the spell now."

"Willow, we can't." Buffy's voice is torn, her desire to spare him warring with the gravity of the slayer situation. There is no need for her to suffer this moral dilemma. Nothing will change within the next few hours or days that will make this any easier. It is time for them to reap the rewards of Carlotta's sacrifice.

He holds out his hand without looking at the girls, and it is Buffy who understands, always seems to understand. She places the syringe, warm from having spent the last few minutes clutched in Willow's moist palm, in his hand and steps back, ushering Willow and the boy out of the basement. This is something he must do alone and, again, she understands that.

Lotta growls weakly in her chest when his hand touches the cold skin of her arm, and he almost shrinks away from the clammy lifelessness of it. How could she bear to touch him before? How had she, so full of warmth and life, been able to stand the feel of his dead skin against her own?

He ignores the repulsed shudder that runs through his body and strokes the underside of her elbow. "All right, pet," he coos softly, and is at once vividly reminded of taking care of Dru all those years. "Just a little prick." He slides the needle into the clotted vein, watching her intently for signs of fear or distress. She doesn't seem to notice the needle as she slips deeper into the witch's magical sedation.

A small frown flashes across her forehead, but the expression is gone in an instant and her face is blank as she blinks her vacant eyes once and tells him in a soft, unemotional voice, "I am that which should not be."

…………………………..

The spell had worked. With a few drops of Carlotta's demonised blood, Willow has stripped the girls of their power just as easily as she had granted it two years before. Almost immediately, the few slayers still in the early stages of the disease had been cured, many more began to show improvement, and three of the sixteen coma victims were awake within the hour.

She had entertained the hope that the spell would also be Carlotta's saving, that she too would be robbed of the slayer within. She'd be a vampire then, but at least she would be sane. Of course it hadn't.

Spike had been subdued when she'd joined him again in the basement as he watched over Carlotta with forlorn eyes. Numbly wiping away the thin line of spittle that occasional ran over her sagging lower lip and onto her chin, or adjusting her uncoordinated body in its chains enough that he could make her comfortable on the old cot they had salvaged for her from one of the hotel's outbuildings.

His touches had been gentle, and his softly murmured words: "There, luv, let's clean that up for you." "Come on now, pet. Lie you down here, all comfy like." "There, much better. Pretty as a picture," had been full of heartbreaking compassion.

But it had been impossible not to notice that he never let his eyes linger on her face, that for all the gentleness and sympathy of his hands when he touched her, there was no tenderness in the gestures. Gone was the reverent care with which he had handled her dead body, replaced with an almost professional detachment that no amount of murmured endearments could conceal. She also noticed that he didn't once call her by name, or his preferred "Anjo."

She had offered her support, silently asking him with a gentle brush of her fingers over his hand if he wanted her to stay. He had shaken his head and given her the glimmer of a smile that didn't get near his eyes and she had left him to his grief.

"Another girl woke up." Angel's voice pulls her attention back to the present and she frowns as she tries to focus on what he is saying.

"Who?" She doesn't look at him as they both potter about their room, going through the robotic routine of getting ready for bed.

"I think Willow said her name was Cassy."

Cassy: rude, lazy Cassy who had always treated her calling with contempt. Sulky, unhelpful and graceless Cassy is awake, and is going to be fine. Well, isn't that fan-fucking-tastic. She wasn't even half the slayer—half the person—Carlotta was. Cassy is going to be fine. Carlotta is chained in a dank basement dribbling on herself, but Cassy is going to be fine.

"Great," she bites out, not bothering to hide her disdain. Wow, isn't life just the fairest thing?

She sees him approach in the mirror of her dressing table, so she is ready when his hands land on her shoulders and she can clamp down hard on the instinctive desire to tense under his touch. She has been neglecting him. She knows that since Spike came back, even before this awful business with Carlotta, she has been treating him badly. She remembers how, confused and insecure by the arrival of Spike and his beautiful girlfriend, she had blown hot and cold, one minute clinging and desperate for reassurance, the next withdrawn and crabby.

Since Carlotta's death. Can she call it that? She feels she must. She saw her body, after all. She has barely spent more than an hour or two with Angel, so preoccupied has she been with Spike's needs. So when his touch on her neck turns sensuous in intent, she fights down the urge to pull away and turns to face him with a welcoming smile.

"You okay, baby?" he asks, soft and concerned, his voice and expression inviting her to unburden on him, to let him in, to let him help. She can't. This terrible thing is Spike's and his alone, so she simply nods sadly and allows him to lay his lips over hers.

It is strange, and she has thought this for a long time, that Angel seems so much smaller than Spike. She can't remember now if it has always been this way, if in Sunnydale all those years ago, arrogant brash Spike had seemed to fill the room, with his bravado and gruesomely imaginative threats, while deep soulful Angel had blended almost invisibly into the shadows.

Certainly she has felt this way since Angel's return to humanity, and she feels it now as he lays her back across their bed and covers her body with his own. He is small and fragile and human. She could break him so easily in accidental passion, but she is by now so used to restraining herself that he is probably quite safe.

She long ago stopped fantasising about Spike when she and Angel are together. Between Spike's demise in the hellmouth and Angel's Shanshu, she had taken a few lovers, most notably The Immortal, and had never once slept with one of them without wishing, fantasising, that it were Spike in her bed. But with Angel it had seemed wrong to give herself over to the comfort of those illusions. Not just unfair to Angel, whom she had always loved, but somehow a disservice to Spike. He had, after all, hated Angel with a fiery passion.

So she had learned to keep her fantasies for late night patrols when she would slip into some abandoned crypt that smelt of old earth and let her own hands, chilled by the night air, become his against her skin.

But Spike is back, real and alive, and she has felt his lips on hers more than once since his return, has felt his cold hands skimming—oh so disappointingly briefly—over her skin. It is impossible now not to think of him as Angel moves within her, his back hunched so that he can reach down and trail uncomfortably hot kisses along her throat.

Impossible not to remember how much better Spike's slight body fitted in the cradle of her own slim hips. How when they lay together she could look into his stormy eyes rather that find her nose pressed against a bulky chest. Impossible not to marvel at how small this huge man feels in comparison to her skinny 5'10" vampire.

She feels him begin to tire and can't help but notice the unease in his eyes when she flips them over with an effortless flick of her powerful hips. She slows her pace, going deliberately, frustratingly, slow and gentle, and is too slow to banish her adulterous wish that it could be Spike beneath her.

He comes without warning and pulls her body down against him with a sigh. Surely he knows that something is wrong, has been wrong from the start even when she had been so sure that all her wishes had come true. She sighs in response and realises that she will have to let him go.

He is a good man and he deserves better than half a heart. He deserves a real love, not this illusion of memory and affection. Tonight she will let him hold her; for once, she will enjoy the warmth of his body rather than retreat from it. Tomorrow she will let him go.


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A/N sorry about Buffy and Angel doing it (shudder). Disturbing but necessary I'm afraid.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed

A/N Not the quickest chapter turn around ever but ticking along at the moment. Hope you Like

As always thanks to April for being a fantabulous proof reader :)

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"I love you." She hates to break the kiss but she simply must tell her lover how she feels; she is so relieved that they can be together again. "I'm so glad you're okay now."

"Me too." The dark eyes sparkle with jubilation. "All thanks to you. You're so clever. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have you."

She feels herself flush at the compliment and looks coyly away. "Well, not just thanks to me. Really it was Carlotta." Guilt clouds her good mood and she sighs heavily.

"Then I'll make a point of thanking her personally just as soon as you and I make up for all that lost time while I was sick." Kennedy's kiss is sensuous and joyful, an expression of life that she wants nothing more than to lose herself in completely. There has been so much death. Would it be so bad to celebrate life here with her girlfriend?

Guilt twists again in her gut and she slumps away from Kennedy's searching hands. "What's wrong, baby?" Concern narrows her eyes and a small frown mars the perfect skin of her forehead.

"You can't thank Carlotta." She shakes her head and chews on her lip nervously. What will Kennedy think of her now? "Well, you could, but it wouldn't do much good. Carlotta's gone insane."

Her girlfriend shakes her head uncomprehendingly and she rushes on with the explanation. "Carlotta turned herself into a vampire to save you—all of you. But she's mad now. We've got her sedated and chained in the basement."

For long moments Kennedy just looks confused, blinking and shaking her head. "How could she do that? I mean, make herself a vampire? Surely Spike wouldn't have helped her. He loves her."

"No, Spike didn't help her." Deep breath and come clean, that's all she could do now. Kennedy would find out one way or another anyway. "I did. I know it was an awful thing to do, but she knew how to stop the disease and I was so scared for you."

It seems to take a few moments for her words to sink in then Kennedy is on her feet and backing away eyes full of disbelieving anger. "You did what?"

"I helped her" she rushes the confession. "I had to, it was the only thing that would save you. I didn't want to but she was going to do it anyway and I had to help her, I had to save you" her voice is a pleading whine even in her own ears as she leans forward to try and grasp her lovers hand.

Kennedy snatches her hand away and stares at her with flashing tear filled eyes. "God Willow how could you?" she shakes her head and takes another step back. She was a slayer, don't you have the slightest idea what that means?"

"Please baby, don't be mad I had to do something for you. I did it for you"

"And it makes me sick. I can't even look at you." Kennedy's disdainful expression is painful to see after everything she went through to save her. "I'm going don't follow me"

The tears come as soon as the door closes, pain, rejection and guilt making her eyes flow with tears. Now that the manic worry is gone, now that Kennedy is okay, there is nothing keeping her from the reality of what she has done to Carlotta, and there is nothing to do but bury her head in the pillow and cry.

…………………………..

"I'm not certain how much more we can do." Giles' voice is weary and it's understandable that he doesn't have a lot of energy left to think about this. The slayers have been stripped of their power. Only the immunes—those truly destined for the calling—have retained their strength. She isn't clear on the details of the spell Willow performed, and she's fairly sure she doesn't want to be. Someone tried to explain how the power in Carlotta's vamperised blood—and that thought alone is enough to make her shudder—was used to stabilise the imbalance of power within the infected slayers. She doesn't understand but she suspects the spell was done in desperation rather than confidence, and it was probably more due to luck than judgement that it hadn't killed them all.

"Well, we have to do something." She may not be a slayer anymore but she still has the confidence and authority of the calling. "We can't leave her—what, did Buffy say? —comatosed."

"I'm with ya, man." Faith, leaning languidly against the far wall, adds her husky drawl to the cause. "We owe this chick big time."

She turns her face expectantly to Giles. If anyone can find a solution it is the watcher; she has learned to respect him over the last three years and has complete faith in him now. "Do we know why she's so crazy? Maybe that's a good place to start. If we understand that, we can help."

"I really don't think you can. Carlotta is insane because of the essential opposition between the powers that her body now houses. There can be no amity between her demon and slayer parts. The demon is essential: it keeps her alive, or undead. And if the spell that saved you didn't remove the slayer essence, I doubt there is anything else we can do."

"We have to do something," she repeats more forcefully. Willow did this terrible wrong to save her, and it is up to her now to right it.

"She's right." Buffy's voice, calm and sure, brings the room to attention and she finds herself reminded of Sunnydale. Of Buffy, the chosen one, alone and detached, a strong and commanding general. How has Buffy slipped back so seamlessly into that old identity while she is still floundering in her lack of power?

"We do have to help Carlotta. Kennedy, go and get Willow. We'll need her for this." Buffy must misread her hesitation as an attempt to protect her girlfriend, because her mouth hardens and her eyes flash dangerously. "Get her, Kennedy," she orders curtly. "She did this; she's damn well going to help fix it."

"Buffy." Giles stands and faces her; the watcher at least is not cowed by his slayer's authority. "I appreciate what you are trying to do, and doubtless we have an obligation—a debt of gratitude—to Carlotta, but perhaps the more pressing matter is that we now have only a handful of slayers left. It is not unreasonable to expect a demon backlash after such a long period of slayer domination."

"We've got fourteen." Buffy dismisses his concerns. "That's still twelve more than there used to be. Faith, can you and Robin cover getting the girls organised? Contact Mr Patterson in London. I know he's unbelievably stuffy but he's good. He can sort things out on the Europe side. I think he's got two girls out there, and Maria's dying to go home; she can take Emily back with her, too. That leaves you eight fully-fledged slayers to share between Cleveland and the rest of the Americas."

"I got it, B. You and the old guard just concentrate on paying our debt, okay?"

Buffy smiles gratefully at the dark slayer before turning to Giles again, obviously satisfied that slayer business is taken care of.

"Buffy—" She interrupts the blonde before she can speak. "What about the rest of us?" Buffy surely doesn't think it is over for them. "I mean us, us non-immunes. What about us?"

"You go home, I guess." Buffy looks as if the answer were obvious. "You got un-chosen. Congratulations, you get to have a life."

"I don't think so." She is suddenly angry with the elder slayer. Does all they've contributed in the last three years suddenly count for nothing? "We may not be super strong anymore but we're still slayers. I can't see many of us walking away from the fight now. Normal life? Are you joking? What would any of us want with one of those?"

Something she has said has struck a nerve with Buffy: her pretty face is creased with deep thought. The faint lines around her eyes and mouth that mark the passage of time are cutting deeper. Then she seems to come to a decision, or perhaps it is a realisation. She nods once and turns again to Faith. "Talk to the ex-slayers, get volunteers. Those who wanna keep fighting can form tactical support groups for the slayers."

"Buffy, really, I think…" But Buffy isn't about to listen to her watcher's protests.

"Faith and Patterson can handle it." Her voice brooks no argument. "As soon as we've found a way to help Carlotta, we'll join them." Again she turns to Faith. "I know you and Robin like to do your nomad thing, so as soon as I can I'll come to Cleveland to take over the hellmouth."

This more than anything stuns Giles into silence and he looks for a moment like he will continue the argument. She must admit she is as surprised as the watcher. While Buffy has been active since the destruction of Sunnydale, she has been a figurehead, a guide and mentor. That she is so willing to return to the frontline is something of a shock.

"Buffy—"

"Later, Giles." Her voice is unnecessarily harsh; she seems to realise it immediately and softens as she turns to him. "I'm sorry, Giles. We'll talk about it later, I promise. Right now, we need to concentrate on helping Carlotta."

"I'll get Willow." She is ready for action. They need to do this and quickly; the thought of leaving a fellow slayer to such a fate is abhorrent to her.

"Thanks, Kennedy. Get Dawn, too, and Xander."

…………………………………………….

She's a coward. She should have done it this morning when they woke up. She had been resolved to. It was time to make a break. Better for both of them if she made it quick and clean. But then Angel had woken up and smiled lovingly at her and thanked her for a wonderful night, and he had told her she was everything to him and promised her things would work themselves out.

He'd looked so happy, so full of renewed hope, that she had turned tail and fled like the big emotional scaredy cat she was, unable to face the agony of breaking his heart. She'd longed to go to the basement, had wanted to be close to him, even though she knew nothing could happen between them, even though she didn't know even how he felt about her now. She had wanted so badly to go to him, just to be close, close enough to know she could reach out and touch him.

She sighs and glances round the room: they are all here, rallying round, searching for the solutions just like the old days, but not. Xander's jokes are tired and jaded, and his eyes are hollow. Giles looks just plain old; his hair is more than flecked with grey now and the lines around his eyes which had lent him a rakish older man attractiveness are now just weathered creases in his skin.

And Willow. Even as she hates Willow for what she has done, still she can't help but understand. Flawed as her actions have been, her motives are all too easy to understand, trade a loved ones life for a stranger's? No contest really, she herself would have let the whole world burn to save Dawn not so very long ago. It is these moral inadequacies that make us human she supposes.

No it is not Willow's actions that keep the anger burning in her it is her refusal to truly accept any blame. She has mumbled excuses, "Carlotta would have done it anyway", "It saved them all", "I had no choice". She twists and turns and tries to wriggle out from under the weight of her culpability when she should at least try and bear the responsibility. Surely she owes them all that much.

With a sigh, she gets up and wanders to the adjoining library. This book isn't helping; none of the books are helping. This is unprecedented, unimaginable. No one has experienced or hypothesised about a slayer vamp. They are treading new ground with this. And it feels like quagmire under her feet.

"Buffy?" Giles' voice startles her from her thoughts and she spins to face him. "I wanted to ask you if you are quite sure about your decision to return to Cleveland. Even in the current circumstances, there are still enough slayers that you could—"

"Giles." She cuts him off and gives him a wan smile. "It's okay. I should go."

"My dear," he remonstrates softly. "I don't think even now anyone could doubt that you've earned your retirement. Let Faith and the others carry the torch. There's no need to disrupt your life any further."

She feels a wry smile tug at her lips as she flashes back to Kennedy's words. "My normal life?" She can't help but chuckle. How come Kennedy got it after such a short time and she'd been so wrong for so many years? "What the hell would I do with one of those?"

He seems to be having trouble understanding what she is saying, and she can understand that. Even she hadn't understood that the normal life she'd craved was not for her until she'd walked a mile in those comfortable but unfulfilling shoes.

Giles is speaking again and she focuses on what he is asking her. "Have you spoken to Angel about this?"

And suddenly he's exactly the right person to tell, quiet and non-judgemental, he is just what she needs. She also knows that if she tells him now then he'll know and she won't be able to back out later.

She shakes her head slowly and takes a deep breath. "No, I haven't." Meeting his eyes, she knows she won't have to spell it out. Giles is perceptive enough, he'll get it. "It won't affect Angel; he won't be coming with me."

"Oh, I...er..." A moment of confusion and then the expected understanding nod. "Ah, I see. And can we assume this decision has something to do with Spike's return?"

She gives him a rueful smile and shakes her head again. "Everything and nothing." He sits down on the steps to her right and she follows his cue and joins him. "There's nothing going on. I mean, with Carlotta and everything, and it's been years and I don't even know if he…" She closes her eyes and sucks in her cheeks in an effort to stop the flow of words. She really hadn't realised how desperately she needed to talk about this to someone. It should have been Angel or Willow, but neither of them could have her confidence in this. "I was losing him anyway, Giles. Angel, I mean. I've known for a while that it wasn't going to last. I love him, you know, with that little bit of me that's still sixteen years old and all starry-eyed."

He inclines his head and silently tells her he's listening. So she studies her nail polish and continues more easily. "But it's not real. It's not me. Not anymore. I've died since then. I've lost people. I've faced the worst of myself and the people I love. I've faced everything the hellmouth can throw at me and I'm still standing. I'm more the slayer now than I've ever been. The hellmouth—any hellmouth—is always going to be where I belong. It took me a while, but I'm okay with it now."

"And Spike?"

"I love him." A momentous confession, and yet it slips from her tongue with almost careless ease. "I always did, I think. Took a while to realise it, but I think I did." She slips into contemplative silence for a while but he doesn't ask her to say more, merely waits for her to continue. "It was okay when I thought he was dead. Well, no, it wasn't; it was terrible, but I could just love the memory and the grief and it was okay to carry on because, trite as it sounds, that's what he wanted for me. Then I saw him again and it wasn't okay anymore. It wasn't fair on Angel, or on me. I haven't told Angel yet. It's so hard, but I will. I'd rather be on my own than with the wrong guy."

"My dear girl" she hadn't realised she was crying, soft unobtrusive tears, resigned and subdued under the rough pad of his thumb as he wipes them away with fatherly care..

"It's okay Giles" and her smile is sad but genuine because perhaps it is okay. Okay to love and loose. She is reconciled to live without love, to offer up friendship and support in its stead and ask nothing in return. She is in the mood for letting things go. There is after all nothing worth having that can be held in place by force.

"I'm gonna check on Spike and Carlotta. You guys keep working on it."


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A/N - Sorry about the conspicuous lack of Spike in thsi chapter he's in it a lot next chapter I promise.

Thanks to all those who reviewed

Especially Pin who wrote me a fantastic long long email with lots of positive feedback and encouragement. Oh damn I think I didn't put the last chapter on Spuffy realm, they've been waiting ages. whoops!


Thanks to Samica, Vamps, prophecygirl, Beth and Cordy Kitten for reviewing. Sorry again about the delay in getting these two chapters to you. Thanks fro all your patience

A/N Hooray for April who provides these "punctuation-enhanced" versions for your enjoyment.

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He was sitting on the floor outside the basement door when Buffy came to him, smelling faintly of tears, and the smile he had tried to welcome her with had come out as a grimace. He'd had to leave the basement. Hadn't been able to stay there a moment longer with her vacant eyes on him.

He'd loved her for so many reasons. Loved her in gratitude for all she'd given him. Respected her strength and wisdom the uncomplicated morality that made it so easy for her to live with loving him and with her calling. The way she saw him in vibrant colours when he'd been convinced he was nothing more than a spectrum of lusterless grey.

Buffy is settling herself next to him, side on against the wall, her head tilted to lean against the plaster as she watches him. It has always been different with Buffy; never in all the years that she has captivated him has he been able to think of a single good reason for loving Buffy Summers. Oh, he could fill pages with reasons not to. Could list her faults for days and give a million reasons why he should hate her. But not one single reason why he should love her. Why he does love her still with such all-consuming passion?

"How you doing?" she asks, and even though she's been so good to him since his return he still finds himself surprised by the gentleness of her question and the depth of concern in her pink-rimmed eyes.

"You been crying?" It's not really a question; he can smell the linger scent of salt water on her skin.

The surprise registers in her eyes for just an instant and then she nods, making her hair ruck up against the wall. "Yeah. Got all weepy on Giles." She tries to lighten the mood but it's half hearted at best. "He did pretty well, considering he's British. Didn't clean his glasses once."

It's a sham, this light banter, but God knows it's better than the alternative, so he joins in. "Spent too long in the colonies then. Next thing you know he'll be all talking-about-his-feelings and great nauseating group hugs."

"I think he's got a long way to go before he talks about his feelings. But he can listen now without mumbling 'oh dear' and 'quite, quite.'" She attempts a British accent and it's a poor enough effort to make the vampire smile slightly.

She waits a moment, her sparkling green eyes locked on his, just staring into him as if she's trying to decide something about him. It's not as disconcerting as he'd have imagined; it's actually strangely comforting.

"You should take a break. You've hardly slept in days. Come and get some sleep. She'll be okay for a couple of hours; I'll have Xander check on her." She stands up and offers him her hand. It's tempting; he's so tired, bone achingly mind numbingly tired. And did she say come and get some sleep or go and get some?

She's looking expectantly at him, her little hand with its girly sugar pink nails still stretched out to him. "Come on," she invites more forcefully. "You kinda need to shower, too."

He takes her hand and she hauls him to his feet with that effortless strength that always made him feel deliciously weak and incredibly powerful all at once. "You just come here to criticise my personal hygiene, pet?" he asks sardonically, and she gives him a cheeky grin.

"That's kinda the idea. Come on, stinky." And with that she leads him away by the hand.

…………………..

Her mind works quickly as they climb the back stairs. Spike needs a shower but she can't take him back to the room where he and Carlotta stayed together, certainly can't expect him to use that bathroom. She isn't sure which of the free rooms have running water, not to mention towels and soap. They could just start wandering from room to room but she doesn't really want to draw his attention to where they're not going.

That leaves her own room. Her and Angel's room, she corrects herself mentally. She can't take him there; it wouldn't be right. But it's not like Angel would know. He's gone into town with Kennedy to get supplies and sort out travel arrangements for Maria and Emily, and won't be back for hours. Damn it, she's even thinking like an adulterer now. He's just coming back for a shower and a sleep. Perfectly innocent. He can do that in her room.

"Your room, pet?" he asks as they step inside, and she's glad she changed the sheets this morning, would hate the room to reek of her and Angel having sex.

He looks uncomfortable so she plays it cool and lets go of his hand as they enter the room. "Yep," she throws over her shoulder with deliberate casualness. "I gotta get a change of clothes. You go shower. It's through there." She points to the bathroom without turning to look at him. Perhaps her room was a mistake. He might read too much into it, might think she wants something from him.

She turns around ready to apologise, to suggest they look for a free room, but he is already disappearing into the en suite and she can relax and flop down on the fresh linen of her bed.

A moment later she is waking up without having been aware of going to sleep, and he is in front of her, crouching by the bed in just his jeans, smelling of steam and soap. Her eyes latch on to his and she feels a shudder of fear ripple through her body.

He has been so sad and vulnerable, so human in his grief, that she had almost forgotten that he is soulless. She remembers now that he is a hundred percent demon. Perhaps the shower was a mistake. She had hoped to give him distance, even a little respite. What she has given him is time to think. She dreads to think where his mind has gone as she takes in his coiled muscles and hard, glinting eyes. There is nothing vulnerable about him now.

"Spike?" she questions softly, and his eyes flash with danger. She can almost see the anger burning just beneath the icy calm of his exterior. He is compelling like this, with ice-cold fire in his magnetic eyes. It is like this that he first captivated her, even while she denied it with every fibre of her being. And now she must admit to herself that while she loved him in that last year in Sunnydale, it was in spite of and not because of the convenient excuse of his restored soul.

"I could kill the witch," he tells her in an almost conspiratorial whisper. "Been thinking about how best to do it. Don't want it all over too soon; gotta see she suffers."

"You won't," she replies, her voice sounding with more conviction than she feels. "And even if you tried, I'd stop you."

His lips curl into a disdainful sneer. "Course you would." She can almost feel his anger redirecting on her. It's okay, she can take it; will willingly do so if it could help him even for a moment. Her mind flashes back to a dark Sunnydale alley, what had he said? "Put it all on me, that's my girl."

She stands, forcing him to straighten and step back. "Defender of all things pure and innocent. That's you, luv, ain't it?" He pushes her hair off her face in a parody of tenderness, his eyes flashing poison, his hand rough in the tangled strands.

"She's not innocent." Where the hell had that come from? She was supposed to be defending her friend, not condemning her. But the voice of the slayer within her, dark and primal, calls for vengeance as surely as his demon does. The witch wronged all slayers when she did this.

"But you'll protect her anyway, 'cos she's human and we're not." It's not a question, but his hard eyes demand that she answer.

"Yes." And it's true. Despite that she loves him, despite that at this moment she hates Willow, it's true.

"Still as sanctimonious a little bitch as you ever were." His callous words are like physical pain in her chest, but she can't back away from his anger. It calls to her with an irresistible, primal attraction. He pushes forward again but she's not about to step back from him like some frightened little girl.

"I do what I have to, what I was made to do. You know that." Her voice is low and sure, and even she can hear the power in it.

"Don't we all." There is venom in his voice and she knows what is coming even before she catches the movement of his arm in her peripheral vision. She'll let this one land, then all bets are off.

Her cheek stings with the force of his unrestrained backhand as she flies back across the bed. That's it, baby, lay it all on me. She understands him in this moment better than she has ever understood another person, understands his pain his brutally violent ways of dealing.

The bed is between them as she rises to her feet, and he is eyeing her with malicious intent. The pain in him is like poison in an open wound. It must be drawn out before it gets too deep and kills him the way it almost killed her.

"So that's it? She's gone, so you may as well stop caring about anything. Right?" She hates to have to attack him when he is hurt, but he needs this. A creature like Spike can only grieve for so long before he must let rage take over in order to survive. It's used to frighten her.

"Right." He surprises her when he lunges across the bed, lightening-fast hands grabbing her throat and pulling her across the innocent white linen until she is kneeling, facing him. "You try to be better, to be something, and the powers just bloody shit on you. I'm done with caring about anything; it's easier not to fucking bother."

The 'F' word surprises her more than it should. It's not like soulless demons usually watch their Ps and Qs; she's just unused to hearing him use it. "So you just stop? Just like that?" His hands are gripping her slender neck with choking force and she's forced to respond. Her forehead hits the bridge of his nose with a sickening crack and he rears away from her with a roar.

Regaining his equilibrium quickly, he throws a jab that has her own nose spilling a fine rivulet blood over her lip. He freezes suddenly, nostrils flaring, eyes riveted to the sluggish trail of red. She should wipe it off but the intensity of his stare is paralysing so she continues more softly.

"If it was that easy," she murmurs, and his eyes flash from her bloodied lip to her eyes just for a second. "If it was that easy, we'd all do it."

She comes to her knees on the mattress again, bringing their bodies closer together. He is still fixated on the trickle of blood that is almost running into her mouth, his hooded eyes dark with rage and hunger.

She shouldn't do it—it won't help either of them—but she remembers vividly how easy it could be to bury the desolate pain of loss beneath an avalanche of wanton sensation. Maybe she can give him a few moments of distraction, of hard and violent comfort. And, weak as she is, the prospect of that closeness—of any closeness with him—is too much to resist.

Slowly, deliberately, she licks the advancing stream of blood from her top lip, pulling her tongue slowly back into her mouth under his avid gaze. This time his growl holds no threat, only possessive hunger as his hand comes up around her back to grab a handful of her thick blond hair.

"I hate your games, slayer," he tells her in a deadly soft voice that is like a bucket of cold water on her lust-filled senses, and she would pull away but his hand is still gripping her hair. A quick rough jerk and she is off the bed and trapped between his body and the bathroom door and he is sucking the blood roughly from her upper lip.

She responds, just as she always has, pushing against his mouth, hard and demanding in a ruthless attempt to kiss away the pain in him. She shouldn't do it. It's wrong on more levels than she can count. Could hurt so many people. Will without doubt hurt at least the two of them, but she can't help it. It is part selfishness, part weakness and all lust, and it is wrong.

It's so wrong. It's not real. Her mind desperately tries to exert control. This isn't real to him, it's only so much cold comfort. But at this moment she doesn't care. If it's what he needs then let him take it from her body; she owes him that for all the times she took the same from him.

His hands are uncharacteristically clumsy as they find their way up beneath her shirt, rough unsophisticated caresses that at any other time would be anything but arousing. But it's him and even if his touch is artless and his kisses boorish they are his and it's still the only thing she wants.

God, she should stop this. It isn't even real: she could be anyone, any port of comfort in the emotional storm that has battered him ceaselessly for days. She almost pulls away but can't deny herself even this misbegotten scrap of intimacy.

"Buffy." There is desperation in his whispered voice, her name almost a plea, a cry for help as his rough careless hand pushes into the waistband of her jeans. She tastes tears on their joined lips and knows she must stop this. It's cheap and ugly and it will only make things worse for him. But her legs open of their own volition and she tugs at his belt loops with undignified neediness.

He stills suddenly and she can't stifle the frustrated noise that escapes her throat, then the sound of someone clearing his throat renders her equally immobile. It's Giles. She'd know that gruff sound anywhere. Saved by the bell then. Saved from herself. Spike pulls away and turns to face the watcher, leaving her leaning heavily against the wall for support.

"We think we may have something," he informs them calmly, as if he did not just find her crawling up his body like the high school slut on prom night. "Perhaps if you two could come to the library we could fill you in." Thank God for British reserve; she didn't think she could have taken a confrontation at that moment, and would have done anything to spare Spike one.

"We'll be right there, Giles. We'll just check on Carlotta on the way down"

....................................................

A/N hope all you bloody yanks had a good thanks gviving :)

Beth, you hard hearted girl you wanna stake poor Carlotta?

Pin - Xander has always been positive and mature intermittently on the show, I've tried to stick with that and not let anyone be a real baddy. Willow for instance. Would you have done the same for someone you loved? But as always she won't admit clupability. Altered Kennedy entirely to make her positive, I just hated her in th eshow so I reinvented her, she wasn't that important anyway :)

Samica, Buffy was letting more than Angel go she was also accepting that she couldn't have Spike and that she'd have to settle for friendship. Sniff poor Buffy

Jen - Grown up Buffy is quite nice to write, glimpses of it in the show give you something to work with .

Hello CordyK - I always saw the Spike Dru, Dru Angel, Angel Darla relationships and it seemed as if teh younger was compelled to love the sire but none of the Sire's even Darla who clearly loved Angel had a lot of respect for there offspring. It's interesting to play with that thought.

A/N big thanks as always go to April my fabulous beta who continues to put up with my extreme blondness ;)

And FYI April Birching is to be spanked with a birch twig. Very painful british public school discipline fun

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"Well, that was bracing." He steps back and regards the dead demon. Strange to think that this revolting thing might hold the key to Lotta's sanity.

"My God, it stinks." Buffy's bruised face is scrunched up in disgust. She tosses him her carved dagger without taking her eyes off the stinking mass of mutilated flesh at her feet. "You can get it. I'm not touching that thing."

"A minute ago you where hacking through its arm, now you can't go near it?" he asks as he drops to his knees by the creature's head and begins to dig at the bright blue crystal in its brow.

"Well, a minute ago it was trying to pull your head off. And, by the way, you're welcome." She sounds peeved but he knows better; she enjoys a good tussle as much as he does and that was quite a fight. The demon had been disinclined to die easily and they had virtually minced it with their pair of western broadswords before it finally keeled over. Strong, too. Probably would've removed his head if she hadn't stepped in. He grunts his appreciation noncommittally as he hacks at the leathery skin of its forehead.

"Hurry up," she gripes, impatiently tapping her booted foot. God, she's infuriating. But that's a thought he should avoid because that will inevitably lead his mind back to how infuriating she was in her room earlier that day.

He'd been so angry. Not with her, just with the unfairness of life, and of course with Willow. He'd been angry and she'd been there, all infuriating and beautiful, and there was only one way that could end. She'd felt so vibrant in his arms, so wilfully alive. All the things he has loved and hated in her for so long, all the things his Anjo has lost.

A sudden tide of grief makes his movements jerky and the knife slips across the crystal's hard surface to slice his other hand. "Bloody hell, that hurt." She's at his side in a moment, unbearably concerned as she gently takes the knife from him and resumes the task of prising the crystal from the unfortunate Rashmack's forehead.

Watching her now as he bandages his hand untidily in his own t-shirt, he is painfully aware of how much he still loves her. How, despite that everything is different now, nothing has really changed. She still shines brighter than any other woman he has ever met. Poor Lotta. She had shone, too—a different kind of brightness, warm and mellow, subtle shades of dancing lamp night to Buffy's scorching desert sun, but she had warmed his skin and illuminated his spirit just as surely.

His mind wanders to the Fortaleza club where they met, how her dark hair had sparkled like black gold under the flashing disco lights. He remembers all the thousand ways her ebony eyes had shone. With passion, love, and anger, with violent glee and so often with that guileless wisdom and understanding that was so uniquely hers. It is something she and Buffy have in common. Had in common. Lotta's eyes don't shine now; they glow with feral gold, or glint with madness, but they don't shine and he doubts even if they can restore her sanity that they will ever shine for him again.

"Ha!" A triumphant sound followed by a wet pop signals that the slayer has freed the Rashmack crystal. "Got it! Eww, gross. You take it; I'm not putting it in my pocket."

……………………………………….

"About earlier." Oh no. Damn it, he always has to do this. Can't just let her pretend nothing happened, never 'let's her hide from all the scary emotion she's become a master at avoiding.' "I…"

"No." She cuts him off. Whatever he has to say, it won't be good. "Don't. It's just… Forget it, okay? It was my fault." She can't bear the thought of hearing him say he's sorry. Doesn't want for him to be sorry. Sorry means wrong and she doesn't want it to be wrong.

"Bloody right it was." Her head snaps up in surprise, but there is melancholy teasing in his eyes. "Taking advantage, that's what it was. Flashing your blood at a vulnerable bloke. It's not nice. You should be ashamed."

She laughs and it's not as strained as she would have expected. He's letting her off again. Even now when it's his world that's crumbling, he's considerate enough to try and spare her feelings. "Yeah, well, I'm a minx like that."

"Ain't you just." It's a half-hearted leer but at least he's trying. Trying to re-establish their shifting roles.

She sidesteps the expected response. Their roles have changed. She doesn't want to play the stuck up bitch to his lecherous pig anymore. "You think it'll work?" she asks, gesturing towards his pocket with her broadsword.

"Guess we'll see." His voice holds a hopelessness that is out of place with the positive turn of events, and she struggles to understand it. Giles had been certain that the balancing properties of the Rashmack crystal could be used to create an equilibrium between Carlotta's dissonant natures. Willow is more than powerful enough to perform the blessing. She shudders slightly at the thought of her friend once again casting her misused magic over Carlotta, but they have little choice. There's no one else who can do it.

All in all it's looking a thousand times rosier for Spike and Carlotta. And she is glad about that. He just doesn't seem to be.

…………………………………….

Latin words wash over the suddenly quiet room, coating the raw silence left by the cessation of Carlotta's tortured cries with magical balm. She shivers with sensation as the energy makes the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She used to be so fascinated with magic, had watched Willow and Tara with awe as they wove their spells.

Thinking of Tara now makes her sad. So few of all the many people in her life that have loved her have actually been her friend. They had all been Buffy's friends, not hers. Oh, they'd cared about her—that was undeniably true—but only Tara and Spike had actually liked her back then.

Carlotta had liked her, too, and she'd liked Carlotta. She'd been so happy to be able to make friends with Spike's girlfriend, had pictured spending time with the couple when it had all been over. Messing about with Carlotta, teasing Spike. The two of them had even gone so far as to make plans. "You must come to South America," Carlotta had told her. "Spike and I have rooms on the jungle's edge. You will come and stay with us and I will show you the forest. And also the night life. We will go to Rio and dance with all the pretty boys." They'd laughed; it had sounded such fun. It wouldn't happen now.

Carlotta is quiet now and deadly still, and the bright blue crystal around her neck is glowing softly at its centre. They're all so sure that this will work and she hopes to God they're right. She didn't deserve what has happened to her. Nor does Spike.

A glance at the vampire tells her all she need to know about his feelings. His face is a mask of stoic calm, his posture rigid. She's seen him like this before and that thought is enough to bring the shudders back. She'd seen him like this when Buffy was gone.

Buffy's with him now, of course. Standing close by, her hand grasping his in a gesture of support. She knows the others wonder at her motives but she already knows. Has known for years, probably even before Buffy herself knew, that she is in love with Spike. She prides herself on her perception.

The crystal flares once with bright blue light then fades quickly to mirrored topaz. Lotta looks around them and her eyes say that she is sane.

……………………………………..

"Anjo?" He hates the hoarse hopefulness of his own voice. Hates that he has allowed himself for even a second to believe that she might be restored to herself again.

"Spike," she whispers, her voice filled with confused devotion. "My love, my sire."

He shouldn't have hoped, should have known she would be changed. Buffy's grip on his hand tightens and he feels a rush of love for her. He had been so wrong to think there was no reason to love her. She's been amazing since he came back, and he can almost imagine that this is what it is like to have real friends, people to support you when life pisses in your A Positive.

It's almost enough. To have her close to him like this. To believe that in some small way she has come to care for him. It's not the intense, burning love he feels for her, but it's something. He grips her hand tighter, trying to steal some of her incredible strength through the warm skin of her palm.

Carlotta tips her head to the side as if listening to a far off sound, her eyes distant, distracted by what she hears. "It is quieter now."

"The crystal around your neck," Willow explains, nervously gesturing towards her chest where the crystal hangs inches below the butterfly jewel he had given her that fateful night in that jungle town when Giles had come to destroy their carefully constructed lives. "It helps you keep balanced."

She looks confused for a moment then looks down at his stolen gift. "I will never take it off." She looks at him and her eyes fill with sadness. "You remember how we danced that night you took it for me?"

"I remember, luv." His hand slips from Buffy's as he steps towards his child, and he immediately feels the loss of her support. "You gotta keep the other one on, too, pet. It'll keep ya from going fruitcake on us again."

She nods pensively and moves weakly against the chains that bind her wrists. "End me."

For a moment he doesn't understand, just continues stroking her frigid cheek, then he realises what she is saying and denial rises in his mind. No. She can't be asking that. She's calmer now, better, the spell has worked. "Pet…"

"End me, I beg you," she implores, and he can't look at her, can't deny her anything and can't give her this. "Please. As you created me, you can finish me." She pauses for a moment and he finds himself captured by her pleading eyes again. "'And make a heaven of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well.'" They had read that play together one day in August, lying side by side on their love-jumbled bed, reciting lines, interrupted by kisses and playful arguments.

"No." He can feel tears escaping his eyes as he steps away from her, shaking his head in fearful rebuff. "No, please, Lotta."

He can hear the tell tale sound of Dawn's grief over to his right, soft almost silent sniffing, and when Buffy comes again to his side, key in hand, she, too, has salt-water crystals on her cheeks. It is as if his pain in the room is a physical thing, wrapping itself around each of them like a spider's web spun in mournful silk.

"Leave them," Lotta orders quietly when Buffy moves to release her chains. "At least until I have fed and rested. Leave me now, please, all of you. Let me sleep."

.................................................

A/N review thankyou time again. Cheers me dears

Pin - I can't resist S?B when they're violent and out of control. Quite a few reviews on BS central reffered to S6 as teh bad old days. Personnaly i loved the intensity of it. hate, love and passion. My more mature Buffy has grown up and realised that not all the people she saves deserve it.

Beth - Well Carlotta'a sane now and she agrees with you. More merciful for to kill her. What will they do?

Hey Cordykitten He's angry as well as sad, I'd found myself focusing on teh sad stuf then i thought . Hey how would demon spike react? Violently!


love to all. So who's ready for Christmas? I've been all finished with my shopping for months. How organised and smug am i?

A/N Cheers as always to the fantastic April proof reader extrondinaire

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"Spike." He stiffens at the sound of his name. He just wants to be alone. He's pretty sure he hurt Buffy's feelings earlier when he'd snapped at her to "leave me sodding be, woman!" He hadn't meant to, really; he knew she was trying to help, but at that moment her fussing had been just too much.

"Spike." That voice again. Absolutely the last person on the whole bloody planet he wants to speak to right now. Right at the moment that the last embers of hope are dying in his too oft broken heart, he can think of nothing he'd rather do less than make nice with the son of a bitch responsible for most of the fuck ups in his pathetic excuse for an afterlife.

"What the hell do you want, peaches?" He doesn't turn around as he addresses his grandsire, just keeps staring out of the darkened picture window and nursing his last Marlboro.

Another pack lands in his lap and he can't help but look up at the man standing at his shoulder. "Was in town," Angel explains dismissively. "Figured you'd be nearly out."

It's as close to an apology as he's likely to get, and somehow this awkward olive branch is far more touching than any eloquent display of repentance. "Cheers, mate." He curses the swell of emotion in his chest at the consideration. It seems that with Angel it will always be this way. He can hate the wanker with every fibre of his being, but even that can't stop him craving his affection and approval. Ain't family fantastic?

"Buffy told me what happened." Straight to the point. Humanity hasn't changed the old bastard as much as he'd probably like to think.

"Yeah?" He leans back against the sofa's leather back as Angel sits next to him and regards him with practiced disinterest.

"What will you do?" The sixty four million dollar question. What the hell can he do? Lotta isn't a horse with a broken leg; she can't just be put down. But when she had looked into his eyes and begged for death he'd known that –sane as she was- she had meant it, had wanted it.

"Buggered if I know." No way is he going to talk about this with Angel of all people. "She's not Lotta anymore, I know. But she is as well. You know?" Sod it. He's started now, may as well go the whole hog. Angel might be the right bloke to talk to after all. He is the only person here with even the slightest inkling of what it means to be turned.

"I know." He looks pensive for a moment then shakes his head, his face reflecting deep regret, and he knows what is coming. "Perhaps you should do it. She shouldn't have to live as one of those things."

"Charming." He lets out an offended snort. "Might wanna consider your audience before you start preaching that one, Angelus." He uses the name deliberately to wind Angel up, and takes petty pleasure in the human's almost imperceptible flinch.

"You know I can't," he continues. It's reminiscent of his year in LA, uncomfortable camaraderie interspersed with bitching and quiet moments of complete understanding. "While any part of her is still Lotta, you know I won't."

"I know." He finds himself looking up again as Angel stands. "You'll do the right thing." And he shouldn't be so happy about that tiny sliver of respect, but despite himself, he is.

………………………

"Is that the last of them?" Her voice startles him from his thoughts. He'd been thinking about the slayers, the ex-slayers. He'd been thinking about Carlotta still chained in the basement until they can be certain her reclaimed sanity is permanent. He'd been thinking about Buffy most of all. About her decision to return to active duty, about her self-destructive love for Spike. Even now the temptation to interfere is undeniable. She doesn't think straight where the vampire is concerned. She never has.

He could so easily destroy her. Could so easily turn her love against her. He doesn't worry for the world: if there is one thing he has learned about Buffy, it is that she is steadfast in doing her duty. But he worries for her. She isn't as strong as she appears.

"Earth to Giles." She waves a hand in front of his eyes and grins at his comical start. "Have they all gone?"

"Er, yes." The last of the slayers had left with Faith less than an hour ago, heading north towards the hellmouth.

"And the potential—um, ex-slayers. Whatever." Her expression of annoyance at her own confusion fills him with a familiar feeling of fatherly affection. He loves her so very much, wants so much more for her than Spike could ever give her. But he knows better than to say anything. She's a woman now and her choices are her own. "What's the take-up rate? Anyone sign up for a post slayer life of do-gooding?"

"Er, yes. Remarkable, actually." He can't help but smile proudly at the response from the girls. "Over eighty-five percent have volunteered for further service. Quite extraordinary dedication. I must admit to being quite surprised."

"They're good girls." It's not as trite a statement as it might sound. Her voice holds respect and he knows she feels the same glow of pride in these extraordinary young women.

"What about you, Buffy?" he asks, regretting that he must. "It seems Carlotta has been helped as best we can. There's really no need to maintain this facility any longer. What are your plans?"

"Hellmouth," she shrugs. "I just wanna be sure Spike's okay first. Spike and Carlotta, I mean." She shakes her head and her lips quirk, and he recognises instantly the moment she is about to make an honest statement. "I haven't told Angel yet," she confesses. "It's hard. I don't know how to start."

"The sooner the better I think, Buffy." It's clichéd advice but that doesn't make it less sound. "It'll be harder the longer you leave it. For both of you."

She nods. "Yeah, I know. That doesn't…." She stops mid-sentence and her whole body freezes. Motionless but humming with contained energy, it's amazing that he still finds himself surprised by the intensity of these moments of preternatural alertness.

"Buffy?" he whispers, but she just shakes her head, concentrating hard on some sound or sense that is beyond him.

She turns towards the lobby moments before a loud crash has him spinning around as well. Spike's body lands hard on the floor amidst the shattered glass of the window through which he's just flown.

Demons—Phlengrag, if his memory serves—pour through the shattered window. To the right, more demons—some Reckiv and a handful of Magic Eaters—burst through the open door, their leader dragging an unconscious Angel, whom he tosses at the Slayer's feet.

"The Age of Slayers is ended," it says through a mouth filled with flat, square teeth like crooked tomb stones. "Now let us take our bloody vengeance."

………………………………………

Through the tiny crack in the door, she can see that the fight is not going well. She can make out Buffy, obviously tiring, where she stands back to back with Spike in a circle of snarling demons. They're barely holding their own and the others, for all their bravery, have been of no help. Angel lies motionless against the far wall, blood pooling in his dark hair. She can't wonder now if he's dead or alive; her brain can't begin to process any question so massive with the fight still raging in the centre of the room.

Giles is out, too, slumped on the floor behind Buffy, barely conscious. Xander, gutsy as ever, is still fighting, but he won't last long now that a second demon has focused its attention on him. Kennedy had been fighting alongside him, but she's down now, too, thrown by a single careless backhand to her lover's side.

Willow, perhaps the only one with the power to help, them is no more use than the others. She had tried, had thrown back her head and unleashed the full force of her awesome sorcery on the enemy, but it had done no good. Demons, small and bony with bat wing skin, had stepped up and simply absorbed her power until their bodies crackled with energy and the witch lay motionless at their feet

Her eyes travel back to the melee in the room's centre in time to see her sister taken down by sheer weight of numbers. "Buffy!" Spike's cries, too, are lost as he disappears beneath a tide of demon claws.

There is no one left here with the power to take on this many invaders. No one except… But that's insane—she couldn't do it even if Dawn let her go. There'd still be too many. Spike's agonised cry and Buffy's desperate "No" are enough to make up her mind, and she is flying towards the back stairs.

Carlotta is already struggling against her chains when she arrives, her face a Halloween mask of ridges and fangs. "Release me." She growls the demand through jagged fangs, but then her struggles cease and her eyes turn brown and pleading. "They're hurting him."

There is no time to reconsider the decision. The fight is already lost above them and the key turns easily in the shackle on her right wrist. Before she can move to the left, Carlotta puts two hands on the chain and yanks it free with terrifying force. Then with a growl she is gone up the stairs in a burst of inhuman speed.

…………………….

He is going to die. He's going to die. Again. And she still hasn't told him she loves him. He burst free for a moment but there's so many of them that he is soon swallowed up again just as she is. She can hear his ferocious growling turn pained, even as blunt, jagged claws tear into the flesh of her back and she unleashes her own scream. They're all going to die and there's not a thing she can do about it.

In the chaos and confusion of the battle, it is strange that she has time for so many regrets. Not just Spike and Angel, but everything. She could have been a better sister to Dawn. Perhaps even a better Slayer: all the people she didn't save, all the demons she didn't stop play through her mind in perfect detail. Perhaps she should have forgiven Willow, thanked Xander. Told Giles one more time that he was all the father she'd ever needed.

She feels herself begin to give in, feels the strength beginning to fade from her battered body, and grits her teeth as she calls on every ounce of strength that remains. At least she's going down fighting. Him, too. He always said he would. She hears him growl and a demon lets out a piercing cry of agony. "That's right, baby," she thinks as she manages to snap the neck of one of her attackers. "Let's take some of the bastards with us."

……………………………………

Blood runs into his eyes and he isn't strong enough to raise a hand to wipe it away. What point is there anyway? They're not going to win this one. He'd warned of a backlash once the demon world got wind that the slayer army was no more, but even he hadn't anticipated the sheer weight of numbers in which they have attacked.

He can just see Buffy in front of him, battling valiantly as always. His wonderful girl. He'd called her a miracle once and he still believes it. No watcher—no father—could be prouder. A table shatters under her small body when she is thrown, rag-doll like, against it. She's slow to rise, too slow. She's tiring fast and the vampire is doing no better.

All is lost. After every apocalypse they have faced, the gods and paragons of evil she has defeated, she is to finally be beaten by a vengeful mob. It isn't right, it isn't fitting, and he won't watch it. He closes his eyes, letting the nausea swim over him, and readies himself for the inevitable.

One sound penetrates his semi-conscious mind, clearer than all others. A growl, louder and more savage than the combined snarls of the demon mob. It is chilling in its ferocity and it holds a power that would cow the bravest spirit.

His eyes open with pained foreboding and he sees, through a red veil of blood, a scene that for all its gruesome horror brings with it a glimmer of hope that they may yet survive.

Even in their supernatural world of extraordinary power, she is freakish and terrifying, wielding in easy swings of her arms a savage strength that send her enemies flying, swatting flies. In all the years he has fought the forces of darkness, he has never witnessed a battle so graphic. There is gruesome glee to this mayhem. She is lost in the glory of killing, a fox in the hen house.

Buffy and Spike stand by, motionless, their faces set in twin expressions of fascinated horror as she fills the room with cries of fear and agony. Tearing limbs clean off with short hard jerks or squeezing heads till they break like eggs in her hands and gore oozes out between her slender fingers. Fingers that reach through leather-armoured chests and stomachs to pull the contents free and leave clawed hands clutching hopelessly at spilling guts.

Her hands are implements of gory death, but it is her fangs that she favours. She rips the leader's throat out and spits chunks of his flesh over his crumpled corpse before turning to her next victim, mouth opening wide, impossibly wide, a gaping trap of jagged, blood-stained fangs that in a single bite takes the unfortunate creature's face clean off, leaving it gurgling its agony as it clutches at the ruined mess of blood and cartilage that were once its features.

The rest run. They're not stupid and their leader is dead, their forces destroyed. They run—those that can, those that she has not left crippled and dying amongst the dismembered remains of their comrades.

She watches them go, then turns with menacing slowness to face the exhausted pair of blonds. He cannot see her face from his position on the floor, but he can see theirs. Buffy's eyes are wide with fear, Spike's horrified and disbelieving. He knows both of them well enough that he can guess what they have seen on the lost slayer's demon face. The delicate balancing power of the Rashmack crystal is broken, no match for the bloodlust thrill of the kill. It is the demon, now, that rules in her fractured mind.

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A/N Sorry the chapters have slowed a bit but they are still trickling out so hopefully ypou guy's can bear with me (Ooh look a little punny)

Thanks to the lovely people reviewed namely

Beth, Jen and Cordy kitten who I would thank more fully if I had time for their continued encouragement and a big HELLO to Charlene who got started with this story on Of Fangs and Fairytale who were generous enough to include my story on their fabulous site.

A/N just a short chapter I'm afraid but it was a ntural break and I wanted to get it out. I have a chapter winging it's way to my fantastically efficient proof reader April today so hopefully that'll be up before Christmas too

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There is nothing of his lover left. Those tiny fragments that remained of the girl who loved him are buried now, too deep beneath the mindless savagery of the demon to be recognised.

She focuses on Buffy, feral eyes flashing gold in her blood-coated face. He understands what drives her now, has felt the same many times before. Before Buffy. Their kind cannot help but recognise the slayer for what she is, just as she will always know them. And with that recognition comes a compelling need to destroy. He felt it himself before, acted on it more than once. Of course, that was before Buffy.

His instincts have spun a hundred and eighty degrees since then and he places himself bodily between Buffy and the advancing threat. "Lotta, listen to me…" But his words are wasted. He doubts she can even hear them, let alone find reason in them. She tosses him aside, sending him skidding along the floor on his already shredded back and moves again on the slayer.

She is dauntless, his fearless Buffy: she has never faced an enemy she cannot defeat, has never once hesitated to enter the fray, and this is no different. She attacks first—well, it's her bloody style, ain't it?—launching herself at Carlotta with a barrage of fierce blows. She might as well have tickled her for all the effect her attack had on the slayer vamp, and she is soon thrown against the wall, the sickening crunch as her head connects with the stone filling the sudden strained silence of the room.

She's dazed, staggering to her feet as he comes to his, one hand braced weakly against the wall in an attempt to pull herself upright. Dawn is a little to his left. Behind Carlotta he can see the open door of the old dining room. Perhaps he can still help Buffy.

"Barricade the door, bit," he orders, not taking his eyes off Carlotta as she takes slow, measured steps towards the struggling slayer. "Don't open it, no matter what you hear."

With a battle cry that is more desperate than fierce, he charges full tilt at Carlotta, colliding with her side on and sending them both sprawling through the open door, praying all the while that Dawn will have the sense enough to do as she's bloody well told.

He hears the door slam shut and breathes a sigh of relief; then she is on him.

……………………………

"Get out of my way!" It's an order, there's no mistaking the menace in her voice. She knows that every nuance of her posture conveys angry threat. So why the hell aren't they getting out of her way?

"Buffy, no." It's Dawn who tries to reason with her. "He said to keep it shut."

"I don't care what he said. Now move, all of you, or I'll make you move."

She hates the quiet coming from behind the locked door, hates it even more than the dogfight growling that preceded it. Although that was short lived, whatever fight there had been hadn't lasted long.

"Buffy." Angel's between her and the door, standing guard with Giles and Dawn, one hand clutching a balled up rag against his still bleeding head. She's so very grateful to all the gods she can think of that these three people who mean so very much to her have made it through the fight alive. But she'll thank the deities later; right now, she's crazed with worry and it's making her angry.

"One more time." Her voice is low, but the step she takes towards her pseudo family is distinctly threatening. "Move."

"Ya better get outta the girl's way." Xander, sounding groggy and swaying on his feet, steps up behind her. "I think you're making her cranky."

"Spike said—" begins Dawn, with tears in her eyes, frightened and conflicted, trying desperately to keep her sister safe.

"Yeah, well, Spike's an egotistical drama queen with a hero complex." He gives a choking laugh that turns into a gurgling cough. "But he's not as tough as he thinks he is. I reckon he might need a bit of help in there."

She will make a point of thanking Xander for everything before the next apocalypse, but for now all she has time for is an appreciative glance as she pushes past Dawn and into the silent dining room.

………………………………….

It is a scene from Greek tragedy, or perhaps from heartbreak. A wretched tableau of regret and forgiveness. She is huddled against the wall, curled up on herself like a frightened child as she stares in wide-eyed horror at the broken body of the man she loves.

There is enough sanity in her eyes that she must surely know what she has done and to whom. Guilt, too, in her tear-filled ebony eyes as she rocks herself and shakes her head in a slow motion denial of her own deeds.

And dear Lord, what she has done? His cloths are shredded, exposing flayed skin and blood flowing freely—it seems from every inch of his body. His bare torso is a mass of deep gouges, gruesome signatures of her blood-caked nails. His face and hair, too, are so coated in his own blood that one can barely make out the blond, but it is his throat that has received the best of her attentions.

Where there should be smooth white skin there is instead red, mangled flesh. Severed tendons and arteries hang from the wound and blood bubbles like a gurgling crimson brook from his torn oesophagus. It is a small mercy that he doesn't need to breathe; his airways are ruined and a human would be dead from that if they were not already long dead from blood loss.

He rolls towards her, a gurgling mewl emanating from his tattered voice box as he stretches a hand towards her in plaintive conciliation, and he must acknowledge that for all his many, well documented faults, Spike has an amazing capacity for forgiveness. She watches his hand with conflicted eyes, horror and fear at what she has done, what she has become, warring with the instinctive desire to go to him.

Buffy makes the decision for her. He will wonder years from now if that tiny moment was perhaps more pivotal for all of them than they could ever have imagined. Perhaps, he will ask himself, if Buffy had remained still and silent, frozen like the rest of them in shocked horror, she would have taken Spike's hand. Perhaps they all, Buffy and Spike in particular, could have been spared the pain that followed. But for now he watches numbly as his Slayer lurches forward in ragged ungainly movements, her natural grace sacrificed to fear and pain.

She drops to her knees at his side, hands hovering in undecided concern over his wounded throat, lips mumbling nonsense pleas that he find the strength to be okay. It is enough to jolt the frightened girl into action and with one quick panicked glance around the room she makes her choice, bursting past them in a lightning quick run and throwing herself through the window, and after the crash, silence, bare feet quiet on gravel, and over the hotel's manicured lawns as she makes her escape.

"Leave her," Buffy orders when Xander turns to follow the girl. "We have to get everyone to the infirmary." She pulls the barely conscious vampire to his feet, despite what it must cost her battered body in effort, and leads the slow procession of walking wounded, all of them leaning on one another as so often before. He follows behind, head spinning with pain and confusion, and wonders what the hell they will do now.

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A/N Cheers for the nice reviews

Hey Vamps glad you liked.

Yes Beth as you see they live, but only just in Spike's case.

Sorry CordyKitten, crazed as she was she did hurt her sire. She's still at odds with herself and always will be, neither pure demon nor true slayer ergo insanity and ripping apart the only man she's ever loved then running off into the night.

Lots of love and sloppy Christmas kissess under the mistletoe for one and all.

xxxxxxxxxxx

A/N I had this proofed by the fantabulous April before Christmas then got confused and thought I'd already posted it so it sat around for the holidays doing nothing. Very much like teh lazy bear herself who concentrated on pigging out on Christmas choclate and drinking wine and did absolutely no writting. Bad!

More fab news in the land of P&W. It got nominated at Loves Last Glimpse for a couple of things but considering I'm up against the likes of Patti's Make My Day, Kantarya's Fevered and Kallysten's master piece Baby Steps I'm not gonna hold my breath for a prize. Still its fantastic to find myself in such company.

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She isn't sure if she finds the silence of the low-lit infirmary room comforting or troubling. Would the rhythmic beeping of an ECG monitor ease her worries with its grating lullaby? Probably not. And she needs no electronic trill to tell her Spike is still with them: he isn't dust and that is proof enough.

This won't kill him. Head still attached, no pesky splinters in the heart; sure, he's a mess, but this won't kill him. Somehow, though, that knowledge doesn't quell the sea-sick worry in her gut.

He's unconscious and for that at least she's grateful. Perhaps he'll stay that way until he's healed, until the jerry-rigged IV can pump enough stolen blood bags into him to heal his mangled body. Her own body aches in sympathy with his, stinging gouges and hastily dressed wounds sending out painful reminders that she too should be resting.

"Hey." Angel's soft voice doesn't startle her, despite that she hadn't heard him come in. She doubts there's enough adrenaline left in her exhausted body to muster up anything resembling a start.

"Hey." My God, was that her voice, so hoarse and lacklustre? She doesn't take her eyes off her vampire. She doesn't really want to deal with Angel now; she has a vigil to keep.

"How you doing?"

"Same." She lets her fingers ghost over the healing cuts on Spike's exposed forearm. "He hasn't woken up, but I think the blood's helping. The minor stuff looks like it's healing at least." She shakes her head and removes her hand. "I think he'll be okay. I just hope he doesn't wake up until he's healed up a bit more."

"That's great." His voice is softly amused, warm and affectionate as it wraps around her tired mind. "But I was asking about you."

"I'm fine." There is a briskness to her own voice that she hadn't expected, an almost dismissive curtness.

"No, you're not." He hasn't moved from the doorway, but suddenly he is oppressively close and his presence has ceased to be a comfort. Now she just wants him to leave. "You're hurt."

"Giles patched me up." She doesn't look at him and she knows she isn't being fair, but she's tired and sore and desperately worried for Spike. "I'm fine." And it strikes her that she's been using those two words as a shield for half her life.

"You need to rest," he insists gently. "Come to bed."

"You go. I need to stay here." She can be dogged when she has a mind to be.

"Buffy, don't be silly. What you need is to sleep." There's a slight exasperation to him now that he is perfectly entitled to feel. He's entitled to be confused and worried and jealous. She's supposed to be his girl and she can't even look away from her vampire for a moment to acknowledge him. "Buffy, there's nothing you can do here."

And just like that it is suddenly time to do it. She's been stalling, waiting for a good moment, just the right time so that she could soften the blow of their break up. But now, in this worst possible of moments, when they are both hurt and weak, she finds she can't hold off an instant longer.

"That's not why I need to stay." She doesn't doubt that he will understand exactly what she is not saying. He's far from stupid and he knows her as well as anyone does. "I'm sorry." The finality of it is at once heartbreaking and relieving, and she's certain he hears it all in her voice.

"Buffy?" And she hears in his voice, too, that this is agony for him, that he resist this knowledge even as he can't help but know. "Buffy, please, let's talk ab—"

"No, Angel." She shakes her head, eyes still riveted to Spike's disfigured face, still so handsome in her eyes, even through purple bruises and swollen lips. "There's nothing to say except that I'm sorry."

She hasn't looked at him once since he came into the room. She didn't know she was such a coward. But even without looking she knows that he is crying silent tears that seem to scent the air with salt, drowning out the pungent stench of antiseptic and stale blood.

"You love him." A fact, not a question, and all she can do is nod and tangle her fingertips in his bright blond hair.

"Yes," she murmurs, a breathy confession, an excuse—maybe even an apology.

"How long?" There is, she thinks, a sickness in all of us that makes us do this. Makes us pick at scabs and wobble teeth and court the pain of knowing every detail of a lover's defection.

She lets out the breath she'd been holding in a long defeated sigh. "Long time. Before…"

"Before us?" So few words to communicate such an awful lot of hurt.

"Yes." She looks at him now, faces his pained, betrayed eyes, his tear-stained face. "I'm sorry. I thought…" She scrunches up her face against the flow of unmeasured words and tries again to explain better that which she knows to be unexplainable. "I really thought it would always be us. I swear I did."

Suddenly a handful of words and heavy telling silences are not enough, and the words come in a jumbled stream of explanation. "I think I was still clinging to the dream of us. All those years I was so busy looking for you I just didn't see him coming. I honestly believed it was gonna be us." It is suddenly important to her that he know he had not been second choice, that when he had stood before her in that bright Roman sunlight, she had truly believed that she had finally been granted her happy ending.

She frowns and bites her lip. How can she explain to him that in her naivety she hadn't been able to see beyond that sunlit reunion kiss, that like a fairy tale princess she had believed the story ended there. Truth was, that's where the story should have begun, but she'd had no script for it and the ad-libs of life had not gone as she'd expected.

How can she tell him that she no longer believes in soul mates, that she has come to understand that love is not the perfect union of two hearts but a daily struggle of joyous and ignoble compromise? That she has grown to know that there can be more love in a raised voice or wounded jibe than in all the moonlight and roses in the world.

Would he understand what she now understands: that the true measure of love is that it endures, not just through easy, sun-filled days, but though harsh and angry reality. That in the moments that he makes your blood boil with rage, or when every little thing he does grates on your nerves, even in the moments when you utterly hate him, still you know you must love him, still you are only a look, a word, a touch away from love.

She has identified in the long hours of insomnia that have plagued her since Spike's death the very instant at which she first knew that she loved him, even as she had buried the knowledge beneath a torrent of denial.

It was not a huge moment as she would have expected. Not the first time they made love, not when he took the worst of Glory's torture for her or gave her the strength to face the First. It was not in the jealousy of watching him sleep with Anya or the pain of his failing as he pressed her into the cold tiles of her bathroom floor.

It was instead in a moment of mundane irritation on an inconsequential night just days before Warren had tried to make her believe that it was she who had killed the unfortunate Katrina.

He'd followed her on patrol again. Had interfered in a fight she was perfectly capable of handling, and had pissed her of royally with a spiteful comment about her choice of fragrance: "eau de doublemeat." He'd been annoying her to the point where she was ready to punch him and risk igniting the fire she was so carefully trying to control, when his mood had done a sudden one-eighty and he'd asked with obviously feigned nonchalance if Dawn had gotten through her history test okay.

She, of course, had forgotten about the test entirely, had once again neglected her sisterly responsibilities and not remembered to ask Dawn when she had bounced in from school that afternoon. Naturally, anger at her own shortcomings had turned to annoyance at the vampire, even as her heart had warmed with his capacity for consideration, and she'd punched him once hard in the nose and flounced off without a backward glance.

An inauspicious beginning for a love that would eventually eclipse even Angel in her heart, but a beginning none the less.

"I'm sorry, Angel." No, she won't be able to make him understand, and even if he did it would hardly bring him any comfort, so she keeps her explanations to herself and offers him only her regret and wishes that her eyes were not so dry when his are wet and red.

"Buffy." His voice is stronger now but rising with emotion, and she prays silently that he will let it go. "You deserve better than him, better than this."

Probably, but she wants nothing more. "So do you, Angel." And she is sincere in that sentiment, believes it deeply. A man such as Angel, who has done so much to become the man he is, deserves at very least to be loved without exception. "Can we talk about this tomorrow when we're not both so tired?"

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A/N No time to thank the lovely people who reviewed personally so just a sloppy big new years kiss to all and a Bear hug to boot.

A/N So so very sorry about the massive delay in getting this up. April fell off the world. Well actually she went on her holidays. She gave me plenty of warning but I'm a big moron and I didn't manage to get any chapters to her before she went. Anyway she turned this around as soon as she got back so enormous thanks go to her as usual.

On with the yarn. Finally

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"You shouldn't be up." Her voice is full of matronly chiding as she enters the room to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, awkwardly pulling on one of the clean black t-shirts that had miraculously appeared at his bedside.

He grunts in acknowledgement of her worry but continues dressing, reaching over for the new black socks that he knows he didn't buy and trying to ignore the still painful protests of his body.

"Ah-ah." She snatches the socks from his hands and fixes him with one of her most endearingly annoyed expressions. "No socks for you, mister," she tells him with concerned authority. "You are not going anywhere."

He grabs for the socks but she snatches them away, and he finds himself groaning in pain as broken ribs and shredded flesh cry out in angry protests at the sudden movement. "Luv," he rasps, his voice still raw and malformed through his broken throat. "Buffy, please."

Her face softens at the sound of his obvious pain and her little hands find their way on to his shoulders. They are warm and caring through the thin cotton, gently encouraging him to lie back down, and he finds himself almost submitting to her gentle insistence.

"No, pet." He pushes back despite the pain it causes, and forces himself to his feet. "I gotta get moving."

"Moving? You're moving? Where are you moving? Why?" Oh, she's lovely when she's confused, with her shiny pouting lips and perplexed frown.

His lips quirk in affection and he can't help but reach out to brush the peaches and cream skin of her cheek. "I gotta get a shift on. She's got enough of a bloody start on me as it is. Can't be lounging around here." He's too distracted looking around for his boots to notice the tears that have sprung up in her eyes. Only when she makes a strange little gasping sound does he notice that she is staring at him with big wet eyes.

"You're leaving?" He isn't used to hearing her voice so very small and unsure; it takes him by surprise and he finds himself at a loss as to how to react.

"I gotta," he tells her when finally he manages to speak. "She's out there, she's alone and she's a mess and we've seen what she's capable of. Don't think it's a great idea just to let her wander the streets, do you?"

Slayer mode. It's quite a sight to behold and he doubts he'll ever truly get used to it. Doubts he'll ever stop being surprised by the way she can go from frightened girl to warrior in charge in the blink of an eye. "You're right," she tells him firmly. "I'll get Willow to do a location spell, and then we can head out with at least some idea of where to start looking." She pauses. "We'll call Faith once we know where we're going and get her to send the nearest backup team."

"Buffy." It's little more than a croak but it stops her in full stream and she looks at him expectantly. "You're not coming with me. You can't."

Her eyes widen and her patented indignation flares brightly. "Oh, I think I can." She shakes her head angrily. "Because there is no way in hell I'm letting you just walk out of here on your own in that condition."

His own irritation rises to meet hers and he closes his eyes and grits his teeth for a second. "Not your call, pet." But she'll need more than that. She's a stubborn bint and she'll need a reason; fortunately, he has several. "Besides, not like you can just take off. It might take months to find her. If she doesn't wanna be found, it could take years."

"It doesn't matter." She seems adamant in her decision. "I'm coming with you."

"Didn't you hear me, you stupid bint?" She's being ridiculous, and if he has to piss her off to make her see sense then that's fine. Not like he hasn't done it before. "It could take years. You just gonna up and leave 'Bit and the Scoobs? You gonna leave your snuggle bunny behind? Because there is no sodding way in hell I'm going anywhere with the poof."

"I heard you." She has that look in her eye, a look Red would probably call 'resolved face' or something equally idiotic. "But I don't care, I'm still coming. Besides, I'm not with Angel anymore."

That little revelation hits him just as he's about to speak, and he closes his mouth with a surprised snap. Not with Angel? What the hell is she talking about? The two of them are bloody soul mates and all that bollocks. He gave up his own soul so the two of them could be together, so there is no buggering way they aren't together now. "What?"

"Angel and I are finished," she states matter-of-factly. "So there's no reason why I can't help you."

He's still stuck on the fact that she and Angel have broken up. The conversation has its own momentum and he's carried along with it. "Yes there is. You saw how she reacted to you. She's already out of her bloody gourd and the sight of a slayer ain't exactly conducive to calmness in vampires. So, no, you can't bloody well come and why the hell are you and Angel finished?"

Suddenly all the anger is gone from the room, drained out in a sudden swirl and replaced by that question hanging expectant in the air as it waits for whatever answer it might bring. She swallows hard and the golden skin of her throat catches his eye for a moment. She's nervous—hell, scratch that, she's scared. Whatever has happened between her and Angel, she's afraid to tell him and that just doesn't make any sense.

"We're finished because…" She breaks off and her eyes fix on her hands, which play nervously with the hem of her sweet cotton flowered blouse. Then she draws in breath and he can see her gathering her courage. "We're finished because I told him…" Another pause, but this time she stamps down on the fear so hard he can virtually see her do it. "I told him I'm in love with someone else."

……………………………………………..

So there it is, the revelation of the century. Her heart is pounding in her chest like a drummer boy on speed and she can barely hear anything over the rushing in her ears.

For a moment he wears a mask of confusion, squinting at her uncomprehendingly and she finds herself at once mentally willing him to catch up and wishing she hadn't opened her big stupid mouth. Any moment now he'll realise what she's trying to say and then she'll know one way or another if he still loves her.

But he has a gift for perception equalled only by his gift for misinterpretation. She sees his mistake in every line of his body: in the stiffening of his back, the expressionless mask of indifference brought down just a moment too late to cover the hurt on his face, the overly-casual way in which he casts his eyes away from hers on the pretence of searching the bedside table for his cigarettes.

"Well," he drawls as best he can through his broken larynx, hurt and disdain resonating in his voice. "All the more reason to stay put. Get some action with your new honey." He leers unpleasantly at her and she almost rolls her eyes at his predictability. "So, who's the unlucky chap? Anyone I know?"

And this is exactly one of those moments she had thought about while she broke Angel's heart. Because right now, with his infuriating century-old inferiority complex coming out to play, she finds herself wondering if he was put on the planet specifically to be a pain in her ass. Why the hell does she always end up on the receiving end of his insecure defensive crap? Oh, that's right: because she loves him. Because even now when she'd cheerfully kick his scrawny ass into the middle of next week, she loves him. Tenderness swells in her breast at his ill-handled vulnerability, and she finds herself smiling softly through her irritation.

She takes a step towards him and he leans back to watch her with guarded curiosity. "Silly vampire," she murmurs softly as she reaches out a hand to trace the bruises line of his jaw. "It's you. Who else could it be?"

Awe. Not a word she often has call to use but it's the only word that could be used to describe his expression, or maybe "wonder" would be better. She's not sure. Giles or Willow would probably know but she's never been big with the dictionary fun. All she knows is that his eyes are telling her all she needs to know, that yes he still loves her and yes her admission has touched him deep within his heart. He still loves her, and she could cry with relief.

"Buffy?" Awed. Yes, she's definitely going to go with awed; she can hear it in the tremble of his voice. She smiles through tears she hadn't realised she was shedding and nods her confirmation. She loves him.

Then, wrong, his face contorts with angry pain and he spins away from her just as his fingers had threatened to delve into her hair. He lets out a growl and throws his hands in the air in exasperated rage. "God, Buffy, you unbelievable bitch."

"What?" This was not the reaction she had been expecting. She had steeled herself for the possibility that he no longer loved her, had pictured with fear in her heart his soft regretful expression as he shook his head and told her he was so sorry but she just wasn't the one anymore. She was not prepared for this eruption of disbelieving anger.

"You can't—you bloody well can't do this to me now." He seems almost panicked by her confession, frustrated and scared.

"I don't understand." Her voice is so small she's surprised he can even hear her.

"You can't offer me everything I ever wanted—not when you know I can't take it. You can't do that, Buffy. It's just too bloody cruel." And now his face mirrors her own pain and she realises that, yes, she does have the worst timing in the world and no, of course he can't stay, and how stupid was she to hope that he could.

"I'm sorry." She bites down on her lip in a futile attempt to stop the flow of tears that she knows are turning her face wet and blotchy.

"She's my responsibility, Buffy. My girl, my child, my bloody fault that she's the way she is." He shakes his head and looks at her with resigned, tear-filled eyes. "Thought you of all bloody people would get it. It's a question of duty."

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A/N Loads of loevely reviews for the last chapter I guess everyone loved a bit of Angel dumpage ;)

Glowing praise indeed if I can warm your heart to Angel. Cheers Prophecygirl

Cheers Vamps sorry to make you feel sorry for everyone.

Hey Beth (Songgal) Softie.

Cheers Samica I was pleased with that too it was pretty real for me.

Thanks Jen. Buffy's definition of love in this chapter is of course the authors. Sometimes I want to strangle my husband then he'll rub my hair or call me little'en and I'm smitten all over again.

Cheers Cordy Kitten it was time to be honest I think

Cheers everyone. Updates soon I PROMISE xxxxx

A/N Thanks to April as always she get the chapters turned around quickity quick.

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She knows that she was crying when his lips met hers, that her tears turned the kiss salty and bitter. She was crying too when he'd laid her down with heartbreaking care on his narrow hospital bed and trailed reverent kisses over her throat.

She hadn't stopped crying, couldn't stem the tears even as she'd parted her legs in invitation and held his eyes with hers as he'd entered her. He'd hushed her and tried to kiss away the relentless flow of tears but she hadn't been able to stop, all she'd been able to do was smile sadly at him and whisper that she loved him.

She'd had a right to cry; her heart was breaking, after all. Not the clean, painful break that should accompany their parting, but an aching, bittersweet agony as it crumbled in his oh-so-gentle hands. He'd told her he had to go and she'd know it was the truth. He'd told her there was no place for her at his side when he left, and even as she understood his reasons, it had felt so much like rejection that she'd turned away from him to catch her pain in her open hands as she'd slumped down on the bed.

He'd moved to go then, her own tears mirrored in his azure eyes, and she hadn't looked up until his voice, hoarse from damage and tears, had broken through her dejection. "Take care, luv," he'd whispered, and somehow it had been far more than any eloquent declaration of love or regret.

She'd caught him at the door, her hands grasping his arm, eyes wide and pleading. "Stay," she'd begged, and his eyes had burned with sorrow even as he shook his head to deny her. "No. Tonight," she'd explained, guiding him unresisting back into the room. "Just stay tonight."

He'd acquiesced, of course, had pulled her to him and peppered kisses on the salty wetness of her face as she'd begun her whispered litany of "I love you"s.

"God, Buffy," he'd murmured against her skin. "Still love you so bloody much." His words had cemented certainty to the intuitive knowledge, and she wasn't sure if it had made it better or a thousand times worse.

He'd kissed her with a sort of desperate tenderness. He'd studied her face as he moved above her, and she'd known he was committing every detail to memory, marking each new laughter line and blemish onto his mental photograph of her. It was then that she had known he wasn't planning on coming back, and she'd cried a little harder and dug her nails into his arms until she'd created little crescent moons of red that she'd wished more than anything would leave scars on his flawless skin.

She'd sobbed as she came, calling out his name just as he'd grunted hers into her neck, and he'd rocked her until the tears had turned sluggish and she'd finally fallen asleep cradled against his chest.

It had been dark when she'd woken and instinct had told her that dawn was still many hours away. She hadn't said anything, had just watched him with silent resentment as he'd slipped on his duster in the low light seeping in under the door. He hadn't kissed her goodbye, and for that she was grateful. It would have been too much and she hadn't wanted to cry again. He'd just nodded and forced a grimace of a smile she couldn't match and then he'd been gone, and for all her good intentions, she had cried again.

That's how Dawn had found her, huddled against the iron headboard with her knees drawn up to her chest and fat silent tears rolling unimpeded down her blotchy face. Mercifully, her sister hadn't asked her anything, had just seemed to understand without the need for explanation and she had been proud of her little Dawnie, all grown up and full of compassion.

"You okay?" Dawn asks gently, and she nods against her baby sister's chest, snuggling deeper into the warm nest of sympathy she finds there.

It's nice. It's nice to just let Dawn take care of her. They both took Comfort 101 at the Joyce Summers School of Mothering, but she thinks it's Dawn who will graduate with honours. "Ready for some cocoa?" Dawn asks, rubbing her back with a little vigorous burst.

She pulls back with a sniffle and wipes her runny nose along her sleeve, ignoring Dawn's appalled, "Gross, Buffy!"

"Hot chocolate," she demands with a tiny wavering smile. "Now, please."

……………………………….

He has no idea where he's going. She could have gone anywhere; she has a two-day start and is infinitely quicker and stronger than he is. And he desperately wants to turn back around crawl back into bed with Buffy and never get up again.

It's all her fault anyway. Her fault he grew this bloody conscience in the first place, without which he could cut Carlotta loose and leave her to whatever fate has in store for her. But no, his own personal inner Buffy Summers tells him that's wrong, that the only right thing to do is turn his back on all her elysian promises and do what little he can for his poor and tortured daughter. Looks like her martyr complex is bloody contagious.

She loves him. The thought intrudes on him for the millionth time since he left her. Buffy Summers loves him. He still can't quiet believe it, even though he saw it bright and clear in the numb anger of her devastated eyes as he left her. He left her. He's got to be the biggest bloody wanker on the planet. He left Buffy.

The urge to get back on his newly-acquired motorbike and race back to her is almost irresistible. They could find Lotta together just like she said. Yeah, that's right. He could take her away from all the people who matter to her on a mission that would probably get her ripped to shreds by his other girlfriend. "Brilliant. Great plan, Spike." Several heads turn as he berates himself aloud but he doesn't give a shit. "Why don't you do that? Git!"

"What the hell are you looking at?" The menace in his sudden growl is enough to make the little demon mumble an apology and turn its eyes to its drink.

"Want some information," he tells the barman, a scarred human with cold, murderous eyes and flat, shovel-like hands. "A girl—vampire—real strong, probably scared, bit crazy. You heard anything?"

The flinty eyes study him with hard appraisal for a moment; then the man speaks in a voice surprisingly soft for such a dangerous looking man. "I heard." With a subtle tilt of his head he draws them to the quiet end of the bar and leans forward so that they can talk in whispers.

"Heard about a crazy Spanish chick got cornered by a bunch of Flavroks looking for a bit of fun." He knows Flavrok fun and the growl that escapes him stops the barman for a second. "Don't stress, man," he continues, a sudden flash of amusement in his eyes. "They didn't get their fun and they lost more than their wedding tackle for their trouble. Word is they couldn't tell which bits were which when they found them."

It's a relief, but he knew she could defend herself. It's what she might do when she gets hungry that has him worried. "Any word on victims? She been hunting?"

"Not that I've heard, man. And I hear everything so if she is she's keeping it on the down low." That must mean she's not hunting. She's nowhere near sane enough to be a subtle hunter. There's hope for her then. Hope that she's not utterly lost, that part of her remains.

"Word is she skipped town last night headed west. Don't know if it's true."

"Cheers, mate." The crumpled bills hit the counter as he rises and he's gone too quickly to hear the muttered, "Good luck," the barman throws after him.

……………………………………..

She had hoped she would never see her sister this way again. Why is it, she asks herself for the thousandth time, that when things fall apart they fall apart so damned hard?

And Buffy is not the only one hurting. Directly or indirectly, they have all been affected by Spike's fleeting return into their lives.

Angel should leave. There is nothing for him here and yet he stays and clings to a love whose time has passed. Stays and tries to convince Buffy in a multitude of ways, from quiet support to demands and tearful pleading, that with Spike gone, her place—the only place she can belong—is with him. He won't succeed. She suspects he knows that much, and yet he tortures himself and Buffy by trying.

Willow and Kennedy, too, have been affected, and Buffy's granite-hard resentment does nothing to help the witch's already heavy conscience. They are leaving tomorrow, heading early towards the Hellmouth, travelling north to continue a fight neither of them would dream of abandoning.

She and Giles suffer by virtue of Buffy's pain. Giles is so concerned and gentle, and yet always, she suspects, fighting the relief that Spike is gone. His surrogate daughter's unsuitable suitor has left, and despite the fact that he feels her pain like his own and gives her nothing but sympathy, a part of him is glad.

Poor Buffy. So often those two sorrow-ridden words flow unwelcome through her mind. So sad, so angry. She wonders whether, if Spike had not stayed with her that last night, if he had just left to find his broken child, Buffy would have been okay. Perhaps she could have coped better if she had believed his love for her was dead.

She watches Buffy snap angrily at Angel, her voice harsh and resentful as if in that moment she actually hates him. Maybe she hates him for his lies, maybe for her own bad choice, or maybe she hates him for just not being Spike. No matter, it's gone as quickly as it comes and she is exhausted and regretful. "Sorry, Angel," she mumbles as she turns away.

A day or so ago she would have followed her sister, offered whatever comfort she could, but today she can't muster the strength. Can't face her sisters angry self pity or unpredictable moods. "God, Spike," she thinks, with less bitterness than might be expected. "You really screwed things up this time."

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A/N thanks to everyone who left me a lovely review

Mellisa - Why thankyou Miss Smith. Glad you approve.

Hey Cordy kitten - Kiss for you.

Easy Vamps you licorice kink mistress you.

Yeah Songal, no need to bash Angel he's an arrogant bloke but he's not a bad guy.

Thanks Jen your compliments make me preen.

A/N April is a star! Not only has she proofed this beautifully for me but she's going to set my next attempt to rights as well as she's already agreed to proof my next story "In Sheeps Clothing" coming soon (blatant plug ;)

Anyway...


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There is, she has come to understand, contentment to be found in almost any situation of life. She has learned in the two years since he left her that contentment is not a set of circumstances, a job, a home, a lover. No, contentment is a state of mind, an attitude of self.

It was a lesson hard learned in the first year after he left, a hard and dolorous year of impotent anger and numbing sorrow. A year of cracked porcelain smiles and unprovoked anger, of distancing herself from the very people she should have been drawing near.

She had been, as Giles told her when finally her behaviour exhausted his patience and he sat her down for the first in the series of hard talks she received at the end of that year, self-indulgent to the point of wickedness.

He had been right. His only mistake had been to indulge her himself for such a very long time. They all had, in fairness, none of them sure of how to deal with this hard, self-destructive version of her self.

It had been a tough year, one with too many lovers and not nearly enough love. A year of rushing headlong into danger not caring who was dragged along with her, of drinking foul-tasting spirits in tacky clubs filled with boys far too young for her, not one of which deserved the harsh education of her passing interest.

It was shortly after that talk with Giles—a long and serious lecture about consideration and responsibility that for the most part she ignored—that Faith and Wood had returned from their travels to settle on the Hellmouth. It was Faith who, finding her drunk and cantankerous, binge eating in an untidy apartment, summed up the entirety of Giles speech in one well-chosen phrase. "God, B, get a grip. It's been a year already."

Wake up call three had come in the unlikely form of Kennedy's clichéd but undeniably true appeal that, in continuing to ostracise Willow, she was hurting not only her girlfriend but herself as well, and, more importantly, all those around them. The two rings that left a missed call on the redhead's mobile was sufficient olive branch to bring Willow, nervous and hopeful, to her door, and that was enough for them both to know that they were better as friends than as enemies.

Finally, though, it was Xander who brought her to the resolution that she would not wallow a moment longer in the mire of self-pity that she had made her home for so many months.

"This is Claire," he'd introduced with a smile, a smile that for the first time in years had reached his one remaining eye. Claire hadn't lasted, of course, but the fact that she had existed was evidence enough that Xander was ready to at least attempt life without Anya. They'd made a pact that night over half a bottle of vinegary red wine, a pact to, "get over it and get on with it."

She hasn't had a one-night stand, a drink stronger than a glass of wine, or emptied the fridge since that night.

So here she is now musing on the finding of contentment as she watches Dawn and Xander in animated conversation with the latest in a handful of semi-serious girlfriends that have passed through Xander's life this year. She likes Rachel a lot; she is forthright without Anya's otherworldly bluntness and outspoken without being as openly rude as Cordelia, but she is enough like each of them that Buffy suspects she will last a good deal longer than her more recent predecessors.

There is contentment to be found, if you are ready to find it, in a job well done. In the occasional postcard from Angel, back in LA and working in PR with his fiancé, Emma. She likes to think that in a way he is living her normal life for her.

There is contentment in seeing Faith's swollen belly and Wood's proud smiles. In Dawn's academic achievement—and how come Dawn got all the brains? Contentment in finally letting go of anger and getting a friend back, in her watcher's pride and most of all in seeing the lives of her loved ones finally falling into place.

Love is not, as she once believed, a precursor to contentment, and perhaps she was meant to live her life without it. She has a sense now when she sees the happiness blooming around her like springtime flowers that everything is as it should be and she has found her place in the world.

"Hey, Buff." Xander's teasing voice interrupts her introspection. "I hear La-La Land's nice this time of year. Is it?"

"Ha ha." She smiles and rolls her eyes. "I was contemplating, not zoning. It's a whole different vibe."

His expression is serious and melancholy for a moment, but there is warmth and affection there, too, and she shakes her head at the implication. "No, Xander," she tells him silently. "I'm not thinking about him." But of course now she is thinking about him and as they pile into Xander's car she does zone out of their argument about which pizza place they should hit for lunch and lets her mind wander to the love she has come to realise she can live without.

She wonders if he has found his Lotta, if she is well enough that they can be together. If he cares for her like he cared for Drusilla for so many years and with so much devotion. For a long time she had been jealous of their imagined relationship, still too much in love with him to wish him happiness in another's arms, but she is older now and wiser, and she hopes that he has found whatever contentment his life can offer, just as she has.

She doesn't ask herself if he still thinks of her as she still thinks of him, because she knows that he must. He, too, she knows with absolute certainty, is as much in love with her now as he was when he walked away from her with his heart breaking in his eyes.

She talks about him now and then, with Dawn mostly and more recently with Willow and even Xander, who understands best of all that flawed love is perhaps the best love of all, and understands, too, that she may never let go of it. The others want her to move on, to date, "just for fun," and then maybe she'll "meet someone special."

She doesn't humour them. She won't date for fun or for any other reason. What would be the point? She has found her contentment, and no consolation-prize love will improve it. No, she is happy as she is with her slaying and her friends and her family around her. She wants nothing to disturb her now.

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A/N Reviews are like fine wine and I choose to savour them. Shame I don't have any cheese to enjoy with them.

Sorry if I hurt you Melissa let bear kiss it better xxx

Hey Annie, you know I didn't really feel the venom in that last "I hat Carlotta" you feeling okay ;)

Vamps - No sadness in this chappy just a kind of melancholy so you won't be needing your hanky.

Okay Songgal you gotta point Spike is proper cocky but you know I think that's what I love most about him.

Prophecygirl - The angst is winding down as too is the story I'm afraid. So glad you like it though.

CordyKitten - I knew when I posted the last one that the title gave it away and people would be all on no he shouldn't leave but he really kind of needs to. and see it hasn't doen Buffy any harm she's happy (ish)

Samica well unpredicatable is pretty much teh definition of Spike. I like the idea of her telling him making him angry, it kinda fitted them both so i went with it. Glad you liked

Kisses for all who read, Kisses, spanks and hanky panky for all who review. grrrrr

A/N Thanks as always to April, she's a rock.

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She remembers vividly the day Angel arrived in Rome. She had been at Buffy's apartment drinking fine Italian coffee and telling her friend about her latest expedition—Astral projection to a plane of existence far more abstract than our own and actually kinda trippy—when he'd knocked at her door.

Buffy had known immediately. Whether it had been a slayer thing or a Buffy and Angel thing she'd never been quite sure, but she'd known even before he pressed her hand against his chest that he was human.

It had been a beautiful scene, a perfect Hollywood moment of lovers reunited. She remembers that she had felt honoured to witness it. It had been an illusion as it turned out, but who knew that then?

This is not an illusion, of that she is sure. It is neither perfect nor moving; it is awkward and painful and she wishes deeply that she were anywhere but here.

They make a lopsided triangle of stunned disbelief. Her just the two steps she took back away from the open door, Buffy to her right and deeper within the room, and him framed in the doorway like some life-sized portrait of the returning prodigal.

No one has spoken since his bleak, "Hey Red," when she opened the door. No one has moved since she took two steps back and let Buffy see clearly what she surely must have heard. She's not sure how long they will stay like this, trapped in emotional amber, but surely someone must act soon or it will set and they will never escape.

"Buffy." By all rights, the word is spoken far too softly for the slayer to hear, but the silence is so dense that the sound must carry because her body jerks as if slightly shocked and her eyes widen to huge saucers in her suddenly pale face.

The word frees her a little and she makes to escape a scene in which she has no place, but Buffy's eyes catch her mid-retreat, wide and panicked, and she stops, waiting to offer what support her friend might need.

Slowly, Buffy's dry eyes leave her and swivel back to focus on the man in the doorway. "Spike." It's more a croak than a word, and it offers neither welcome nor rebuff.

He leans heavily against the invisible barrier that Buffy has not yet removed and sighs a sigh so exhausted and desolate that she pities him with almost physical intensity. How is it possible that he looks so old? With his wild, honey-brown hair and dark-rimmed eyes. He has a scar on his right cheek, bisecting his unnaturally jagged line of his ever-prominent cheekbones. A scar on un-dead flesh? A blessed blade, perhaps, or mystical adversary.

There is no way she can know where he has been, and yet his gaunt face and weary pose tell the tale of his travels more vividly than words ever could. He has suffered, and the defeat in his eyes declares that it has been for naught.

"I couldn't find her." He speaks the words as though he does not believe them, and there is an effect of guilt in the slump of his shoulders. "I looked everywhere," he continues as if in justification. "I couldn't find her."

…………………….

She looks well, or at least she would if the blood had not drained from her face, leaving her temporarily pale and ghostlike. She has put on weight and it suits her, just a little softening of the hard bony angles she'd worn when he'd last seen her. Perhaps she is content.

He had heard her laughter as he'd stood outside her door, and had almost turned away. If she is happy here, then what good can his returning bring? Perhaps she has moved on, perhaps the roundness of her hips is the product of candlelit dinners and sunshine picnics.

He wishes she'd say something. Even if she turns him away, it would be better than this strange, oppressive silence. His lips begin to move, to say her name again although he doesn't know what for, when she interrupts him with an unexpected statement.

"Your hair is brown," she blurts out, as if that could matter in the slightest right now.

He frowns, and annoyance pricks at the edges of his numbed mind. What the buggering hell kinda thing is that to say to a chap who's just turned up after two years of a living bloody hell chasing shadows to the nastiest corners of the globe? "Yeah." Her eyes flash at his sarcastic tone, and the blood returns to her face in a rush that colours her cheeks to pinked radiance.

"I should go." He'd forgotten Red was there. Forgotten, too, somewhere along the long road of his journey, that she is to blame for so much of their pain. Maybe he'd just run out of energy, and hating her was too much like hard work to bother with.

They both ignore her as she brushes effortlessly through the invisible wall that to him is such an impenetrable barrier between him and the girl who has dogged his footsteps all across the globe.

"I'm fine." Another strange, blurted statement, but this time so nonsensical that he merely raises and eyebrow and waits for whatever explanation the crazy bint might or might not deign to provide.

"I'm fine. Here, being the slayer, and I have my friends and Dawn and I'm fine." Ah, so that's what she means. There is no place for him here, no room in her life for the complications he will inevitably bring.

He nods and fails to force a smile. "Sure," he murmurs and straightens up. What the hell had he expected? That she'd be waiting, a Spike-shaped hole in her life ready for him to just slot into? Funny how when it comes to love, a century of life hasn't made him any smarter.

Her voice stops him as he begins to turn away. "A-and how the hell dare you?" She's fuming when he looks back at her, hands set firmly on her hips. "How dare you come back here just expecting me to be waiting?" She throws her hands up in the air and gives a bark of almost hysterical laughter. "I have a life, you know. I worked a lot of things out while you were gone. I can live without you. Look." She waves her hands expressively around her pristine apartment. "See me living without you?"

He nods, ashamed now of coming here, of hoping…what? That she hadn't been able to live without him. "Sorry." His boots are interesting, so he looks down at them as he mumbles his apology. Very interesting. Worn and battered from the longest of journeys. He'll need a new pair because, just like him, they are completely worn out, practically falling apart.

"Two years." All the anger is gone from her voice, and it breaks with the sudden appearance of tears. "You've been gone two years."

As if he needs reminding. He's counted the days away from her, marked each one and hated it. Two years of knowing she loved him and living without her, of searching for another lost love and hoping all the while that today won't be the day he finds her, because then, one day, maybe—just maybe—he can find his way back to Buffy.

"I know," is all he can say, and it doesn't seem enough for her because suddenly she's right in front of him and her little fists are darting through the barrier to pound girlishly against his chest.

He grabs at them but she pulls away, retreating behind whatever power blocks the door and keeps his kind away from hers. "So what am I?" she asks, tearful and indignant. "The booby prize?"

He's at a loss for a response. She can't think that he's come to her in default. Surely she knows better than to think she could ever be second best to him, a consolation for Carlotta lost. Doesn't she know? How can she not realise that she is everything—absolutely everything—to him? All the time that he searched, all the demons he fought along the way, all the leads he so diligently followed, he was wishing that he could just abandon his duty and come back to her.

"If I were a good man," he begins without knowing were he is going, "I would still be looking for her. If I were a strong man, I wouldn't have given up so easily."

She's listening and he wishes he had thought of some eloquent speech before he dragged his weary carcass to her door, a sinner at the Abby gates crying out for sanctuary. "I'm not a good man. I'm not a man at all. I'm weak and I'm selfish and, God help me, Buffy, I couldn't stay away from you."

The pools in her eyes break their banks and crystals glisten prettily on her cheeks. "Spike." And it's too good, too bloody good to be true, but there's love in her big wet eyes and her voice trembles as she reaches for him, leaning across the threshold to take his face in her hands and hold his eyes with hers. "Oh God, Spike."

……………………………..

Was his skin always this cold? He'd never seemed as dead to her as he did leaning against her open doorway and professing his failings like an oath of fidelity.

She'd been so shocked—so far past shocked—in seeing him that she'd reacted with a defensive anger that was no surprise to her. Because part of her had wanted it not to be true, had wanted for him not to really be here, because wherever there is Spike there is love, and with it pain and craziness.

And she had thought that she had moved past the craziness of love, that she was master of her own emotions. She is not. In the first instant of seeing him, the serene contentment of her life had shattered like delicate glass in her suddenly clumsy hands. And, yes, she'll admit that she had been afraid, that she'd wanted the calmness back. That she had thought for a moment that love, even this great tumultuous love of theirs, would not be worth the risks.

And then he'd told her he couldn't stay away and his gravelled voice had been conflicted, and she'd seen her own fear reflecting in his murky, deadened eyes, and she'd loved him with an intensity that stolen all the air from her body and known that if she didn't touch him, she'd never be able to catch her breath again.

His skin is so cold, unnatural even for him, as if he had spent too long outside in the Cleveland winter, and perhaps he has. Perhaps he has stood outside her door for days. His eyes are bleak and tearless and he has never seemed so dead to her.

But it's okay because he is her Lazarus and she has always been a miracle to him. She can see him come alive in her hands, feel his skin warming under her hot palms even as that flame, the brightest she has ever known, sparks again faintly in his eyes. She can bring him back to life and she will.

His lips, too, are cold under hers at first, though not for long, because her kiss has revived him and he is eager and hungry and alive. But when he reaches for her, the house declares that he is still dead and bars the way. Foolish place. Don't the walls and doors and windows know that she has resurrected him? That while she lives she will never let him be dead again? "Come in," she whispers, and he does, reaching for her with needy, greedy hands as he pushes her roughly back into the warmth of her life.

"Missed you," he murmurs against her skin as his cool kisses scorch her throat. "Missed you so bloody much."

She makes a hoarse, guttural sound of agreement and claws at him in illustration. God, how she has missed him, too. How could she have been so foolish as to believe her hard-won contentment was worth even a fraction of the love-crazed happiness and misery he can bring her?

Her top is torn, although it hardly matters. What matters are his hands, assured and demanding on her breast as he kisses her. What matters is that he is here and she was not fool enough to turn him away.

"I love you." She is glad to be the first to say it. Gladder still when he freezes at her words and pulls her crushingly close, whispering that he loves her still so very much. But passion can only be forgotten for so long; they have been apart for two long years after all, and within moments their hands are travelling again, needy and desperate and oh so very good.

He sits her on the sideboard and mumbles a muffled, "Love you," as he parts her legs and pushes up her skirt. It's hardly the stuff of fantasy, a hasty shag on her hall furniture, but candles and rose petals can wait. Right now all that matters his getting him inside her. She breaks the zipper of his jeans in her haste but it's okay because now she has him in her hand and she can guide him past her dislodged panties and draw him into her body so easily.

He stills awe-filled eyes locked on hers and it is so reminiscent of their first time that she can't help but smile. Different, though, too. Very different, because now they are in love and he is smiling, too, and when he begins to move inside her she could cry with happiness.

She does cry afterwards, when he holds her still-trembling body and pulls her with him to lie on the couch. Cries and laughs and slaps his arms as feebly as a kitten when he teases her about the soft curves she has acquired in his absence. She knows they look good on her and she knows that he loves them.

Then suddenly they become serious in perfect sync, and understanding flows between them in the silence. No, it will not be easy to make a life together, and yes, they have much to talk about, so much left to work through.

What was it he'd said once? "You'll fight and you'll shag and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver…" Right sentiment, wrong couple. Unless he was always talking about the two of them because she knows they will: she'll hate him almost as much as she loves him, they'll fight but not quite as often as they make love, and they'll make it work because it's worth it.

"I love you," she tells him with deliberate emphasis, and he smiles that boyish smile she adores so much.

"I love you, too, Buffy."


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A/N I got lots of great reviews for the last chapter unfortunately I don't have time to thank everyone personally. (Damn work)

So for all who reviewed a massive Bear Hug and a sloppy snog.

A/N Last chapter and epilogue going up today. Yay

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"Yuck!" Her pretty face scrunches up in exaggerated disgust. It's not as if she really minds, but she simply has to give them a hard time. "Every time I look at you two you're playing sucky face." She huffs and crosses her arms, knowing the twinkle in her eyes gives her away as so very pleased to see them together and happy at last. "Get a room already."

He smirks at her over her sister's shoulder, and she can't quite resist the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Sorry, pet." His apology is insincere in the extreme, but it's more than she'll get from Buffy, who seems fascinated by the side of his throat. She traces her fingers up and down his neck and places sweet, squeaking pecks randomly over the pale skin.

He's distracted easily and in a moment she's forgotten and they're kissing languidly again. She hides a smile behind a disgusted curl of her lip and a theatrical shudder.

"You three ready?" Willow asks as she strolls in and drops her bag carelessly on the floor by the door. She shrugs negligently and tips her head toward the kissing couple in explanation. "They at it again?" the witch asks with an indulgent smile.

"Do they ever stop?" she asks rhetorically. "It's disgusting." She raises her voice enough to capture their combined attention.

"You're just jealous," Buffy declares, disentangling herself from Spike's arms and pulling herself off his knee with obvious reluctance, "because I have a boyfriend and you don't." This is the Buffy she loves, playful and childish and oh-so-sickeningly happy.

"And thank you Harmony," she intones, voice dripping with sarcasm. "You think you and Blondie Bear—" she keeps talking over his offended, "Hey!" her expression a picture of long-suffering irritation, "can come up for air long enough to get to this meeting? Faith's due in like a month and we have to reassign the rotas."

"Ooh, goody, extra killing! We're in." She pulls Spike out of the chair with a jerk on his arm that has them nose-to-nose again.

"Blood thirsty little thing, ain't ya?" Spike asks in a sexy drawl, and she can practically see her sister melting.

"Ah ah." She inserts herself bodily between the pair. "None of that, now. You." She points at her sister. "Go and put your coat and shoes on." Buffy pouts at the order but trudges of obediently. "And you." She spins on Spike and places her hands on her hips. "Don't encourage her," she orders sternly. "Lots of important slayer work to do today, okay? So no being sexy around Buffy until she's finished."

"Sexy?" he asks, with what would be a seductive leer if his eyes weren't full of platonic affection.

"Get over yourself," she replies haughtily with a roll of her eyes.

He grins wide and genuine at her little blush and throws an arm around her shoulder. "Sorry, nibblet. I'll be on my best behaviour. Promise." He sketches a cross over his heart with an expression far too serious and innocent to be trusted.

……………………………………

"Me?" Her voice rises, loud and shrill in the next room. "I'm being unreasonable? You've got some cheek, mister." He rolls his eyes at Willow and turns his attention back to the musty pages in front of him.

"Is that right?" Spike's temper snapped about five minutes ago and now every word is laced with a loud growl. "I'm not the one who won't listen to bloody reason."

There is one thing to be said for living in earshot of the Buffy and Spike drama. It makes your own relationship look like a walk in the park. He grins at Rachel, who shakes her head and gives him an amused half smile that tells him she's thinking the same thing: "Rather them than us."

"Bitch!" The exclamation is accompanied by a loud crash. Ah, the time-honoured slayer and vampire method of resolving disagreement. Beat the crap out of each other, then shag like bunnies. Well, whatever works for them.

"Think we should head out before this gets X-rated?" Willow asks without looking up from her book. Yeah, it's a pattern; they've all seen it before. Perhaps it's unhealthy, perhaps for them it's perfectly natural. He's long since done with judging anyone; he has more than enough to worry about in his own life.

"I reckon," he agrees. Rachel is already putting on her coat. "Pizza?" he suggests hopefully. But her stern look tells him he's not in luck today. Damn controlling women. Still, he wouldn't swap it for anything; he was just born to be whipped.

"Pasta?" he asks with dejected acceptance, and she smiles that soft, tender smile that never fails to warm him from the inside out. Yeah, she's all right, his Rachel. So the diets she keeps putting him on are a bit of a drag, but it's not like he can't sneak out for donuts now and then.

"I love you," he tells her suddenly, and she lights up a little at the spontaneity of it.

"Yeah, yeah." Willow pushes between them, grabbing Rachel's hand and his collar. "Can do without the soppies from you two, too. Come on, let's go find Kennedy."

………………………………..

She likes this time best of all. This time just after making love that they just lie together, sometimes for a moment, sometimes until they fall asleep; it doesn't matter. This is the best time.

Maybe she likes it best because it was the worst time for them for so long. She remembers vividly the panic that used to infuse her mind when it was over. It was like she couldn't breathe, or maybe she was breathing too much and the oxygen was making her dizzy and nauseous.

She remembers how he'd try to hold her. Not tight, never tight enough to keep her in place. Less a demand than a plea, a simple, "stay with me," silently asked through the gentle pressure of his arms.

"No." Her body would scream its denial back at him in jerky, hasty movements. Up, dressed and out without a single look back. She'd looked at him once as she'd left, and it had been a mistake: lying on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, beautiful and naked and so utterly defeated. She'd known looking at him then that every time she left like that, she stole a little piece of him. She likes to think now that in these perfect moments of afterglow she is giving those pieces back.

"What you thinking?" His voice is a contented purr and he stretches catlike and languid against her.

"Lots of things." He cracks one eye open to peer at her questioningly. "That I love you and I'm sorry."

"Ah ah, pet, none of that. You know the rules." The rules, yes. Their golden rule. They made it at dawn or just after—she can't remember—but for dramatic effect she likes to say dawn on the morning after the night he'd come back. They hadn't made love after that first scrambling need for connection that had found them rutting frantically on her sideboard. There'd been far too much that they'd both needed to say.

"So this is the rule," he'd proposed after they'd talked—talked literally all night. She thinks they said more to one another that night than they had in all the time leading up to it. "No more sorrys." God knows he'd been right. They'd both apologized enough that night to last them a lifetime. Even one as long as his.

"Okay," she'd agreed. Then a thought had struck her and she'd frowned. "What about new sorrys?" He'd given her that look, annoying and adorable at once, that told her she'd lost him. "Like if I do something wrong tomorrow, I need to be able to say sorry. And you, too, because no way you aren't gonna screw up."

He'd looked offended but he'd indulged her all the same. "Okay," he'd corrected himself. "No more old sorrys. What's done is done. Deal?"

"Deal." She'd sealed it with a kiss, of course, and then they had made love again, slow and languid and filled with breathy declarations of love and promises of eternity. It was after that that she'd enjoyed her first afterglow with him, and had decided that it was that time that she liked best of all.

"My bad." She gives him a smile. He's half asleep already but he returns it for a moment before closing his eyes. She'll watch him sleep for a while before she joins him, just to enjoy the best time a little bit longer.

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Just the Epilogue to come now. And all my thankyou shout outs :)

A/N and the story ends. i really hope everyone enjoyed it.

Shout outs at the bottom. But I must thank April again, loudly and from teh top of the page and the bottom of my heart. She is not just important to my writing she is imperitive.

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There is a legend. A legend of a creature in the mountains, a creature so powerful that even the greatest of Dakhannah's knights will not face it.

They say that she was spawned in the age of slayers long before the Great Reckoning when men still walked the earth. Some say she was the last slayer, some that she was the first. Others say she was the offspring of the Great Slayer and her Demon lover.

No one knows the truth. She is legend and she is reality, for she has been seen. I myself have seen her. She comes in times of imbalance when the scales of dark and light tip too far. She comes and balance is restored. It was she who brought the demon horde of Caramine to its knees and saved my people from annihilation. It was she who, millennia before my birth, cut down the Sun Wizard and freed the dark servants of Ramina from his power.

Yes, she is real enough and removed by virtue of her great power from the shackles of good or evil. She merely is, and such concepts are beneath her. That is why my people call her "Estandia," which means, "Of both light and dark."

I was fascinated with her legend long before I caught a glimpse of her as my mother fled the massacre of the Caramine. I have asked many tribes and races for their version of the tale. Each is different, and I am resigned to never knowing for certain which is truth.

I have heard one tale, told by the elders of the Shanroc people, that she was a warrior of light punished by the powers for giving herself to a demon and cursed with immortality. Another story goes that she was once one of the gods, cast out for loving a mortal creature and set upon the earth to do the work of all the gods, good and evil alike.

I prefer to believe what you have read here. That she was loved once and loved well in return. That she sacrificed herself for love and it was that sacrifice that saved all who have come after her. Perhaps she knew when she hid from her perusing lover in the mineshafts of what was then Russia, when she evaded him in Istanbul, that one day it would be his love for the Great Slayer that would be the key to defeating the all-destroying power of the Gahna. Perhaps she did not, and she merely wished him happiness.

One thing is certain, and I know this because I have seen it, too: she still weeps for him. Only the brave and the foolish venture up the mountain. My mother tells me I am both. But I did go, and I saw her as clearly as I see my mother now, sitting by the fire much as she was then. She was as beautiful in the flesh as she is in the paintings of the great artists of the past. With her midnight hair and golden eyes, her feet and hands cloven like the fossils my brothers and I unearthed as children and mother told us were the bones of ancient goats.

I think she knew that I was there, but she did not drive me away. She sang a song in the strange tongue of creatures long since extinct, and even though I did not understand the words, I knew it was a sad song. A melancholy tale of lost love and loneliness. There were tears on her face as she sang to the stars, and I think that she was crying for him.

And as I listened I wondered at the strange twists and turns of fate and love, twin conspirators in our destruction and our redemption. And I asked myself is love fates greatest weapon in our subjugation? Or is it love in all its bewildering power that breaks the iron manacles of fate and gifts us mastery over our own destiny?

Mother says I am a foolish romantic but I don't care. I believe in Estandia and I believe in the Great Slayer and her Demon. I believe that love has saved the world before, and that it will save the world again one day. I believe it is the only force that can.


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A/N thanks to everyone who read particularly...

April of course, I want to say more but I will sum her up as Amazing! Bloody Amazing! xxxxxxxxx


Enchantress, Shippy, Lizzy, Millsy and tayhaangel who's reviews early on got me going with a fic i was a little usure of.

Pin who has been leaving reviews that made me want to write even if it was just for her. She's been there from the begining. xxxx

CordyKitten - There from the start virtually a review every chapter and always something encouraging an dintelligent to say. xxxx

Vamps and her own unique brand of encuragement. i shiver at the mere mention of her licorice whip. grrr

ProhecyGirl whow joined a little later on and added her voice to the inspiring cries of "Write faster Damn YOU!" And was actually reviewing the last cahp in teh time it took me to write these thank yous xx

Beth who morphed into songal but kept the reviews coming and called for a happy ending for all. Softie

The other beth. cheers for reviewing

Melisa, Samic an djen who lept in towards the end and made me really want ti finish the story.

Bynee, ahigh, cecily, eboniter, CGH, heidi, annie, charlene, jane and the lady of spike for taking the time to review. I love my regulars to distraction but its nice to see new names too.

Hope I haven't missed anyone. thank you all so much for reading.

My furry little heart swells with love for all of you. Even the lazy blighters who didn't bother to feed the hungry review monster :)

See you soon look out for my upcoming fics. The Lotty Bear (crazy Mary Sue with a differrence)

And In Sheeps Clothing.

Plug and story finished thankyou and goodnight