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Chapter Eighteen

Dawn was threatening to break over the horizon when the small group finally reached the Watcher’s apartment. Giles and Willow staggered toward the couch, groaning and insisting they were never going to walk anywhere ever again. Only slightly less tired, Spike threw himself into the easy chair and automatically opened his arms so that Buffy could sit on his lap and fold herself into them. For a long time the only sounds to be heard were the soft snores of the Watcher and the occasional sleepy snort from Willow.

Buffy snuggled into Spike’s chest, enjoying the safe feeling she always got when his arms were around her. She idly wondered how someone who set her whole body tingling, could at the same time make it feel so secure and comfortable.

( ‘S cause you know I’ll never hurt you, love. Even the Slayer in you knows you’re safe with me, no matter how much your “spidey senses” tell you you’re cuddlin’ a vampire.)

(Not just any vampire. MY vampire.)

She felt his inward smile.

(Your vampire) he agreed, kissing the top of her head. They soon joined Giles and Willow in some much-needed restorative sleep.

Which only lasted until Xander and Anya came crashing through the front door, shouting for Giles or Buffy. They stopped abruptly when the four drowsy people all raised their heads and blinked at them.

“Xander,” Giles said in his most patient voice, “Is it at all possible for you to speak in a normal tone of voice? We’ve had quite a long and eventful night and I feel sure I speak for all of us when I say…what the bloody hell do you want?”

“We…that is…I…Joyce was worried…and you…no answer on phone…and couldn’t find Willow…and…Willow, why is Buffy back on the evil undead’s lap?”

“Uh…I guess…cause Giles and I were taking up the whole couch?” Willow tried bravely.

Xander looked back and forth from between his two closest female friends, noticing for the first time that Buff was gently stroking the arm that lightly encircled her body.

“Buffy? You know William is really Spike, right?” His question was really a plea for denial of what he was seeing.

She sat up with an exaggerated sigh and said, “Xander, Spike and I are…we’re… together and I need for you to try to be okay with it. Can you do that for me?”

“What? No! No, I won’t do that for you. You’re my friend and I won’t have you being taken advantage of by a soulless demon. Without that chip, he’d have killed us all by now. He’s just trying to get close to you in case he gets his vampire rocks back and then he’s going to kill you!”

The young man was waving his hands about hysterically as he ranted at the unfazed girl still curled up on the vampire’s lap. Spike gave him his best evil leer over Buffy’s head, then doubled over when she drove her elbow into his stomach.

“Ow, pet! What was that for?” he laughed, rubbing his sore mid section.

“You know very well what it was for,” she grumbled. “I’m trying to calm him down and you’re making stupid faces behind me.”

(He’s not gonna calm down, love. He’s jealous. I could be wearin’ wings and a halo and he’d still be mad.)

She rolled her eyes and tried again.

“Xander, I know this is a surprise to you…although I’m not really sure why…but I’m asking you to understand and to try to accept Spike the way you would any other boy friend of mine.”

“That is not a boyfriend. That is a mistake. A carry-over from the spell. An Angel substitute—“

His rant was interrupted by a furious snarl from the vampire, and only Buffy’s grip on his arms kept him in the chair as he went to leap at the rapidly retreating boy.

“Stop it! Just stop it, both of you!” Buffy’s voice was wavering between anger and tears.

“You,” she pointed to Xander, “need to get over yourself. This is my life and I will have in it whoever I choose. I’m not giving you a hard time for dating an ex-demon who has killed and maimed thousands of men before we trapped her here by breaking her talisman.”

“And you,” she turned on the smirking vampire, “you need to stop going all fangy every time somebody says something you don’t like. You’re going to hear Angel’s name from time to time. Get used to it.”

Giles sat up with a groan and glared at Xander who was standing in open-mouthed shock as Buffy’s words sank in.

“I suppose, since we are all here and awake, NOW,” another glare at the fuming young boy emphasized how angry he was at being awakened so abruptly, “we may as well get this out of the way.”

He turned to the two powerful blonds occupying his biggest chair and said in his best Watcher voice, “I presume I’m going to hear that the chip was removed some time ago and we only learned of it today due to the circumstances?”

He fixed Buffy with a hard look and added, “And I am assuming from your reaction today that you did not know about this situation, not that you decided to keep it from me for some unfathomable reason?”

Spike gave an audible sigh and sat up straighter, still holding Buffy lightly as though she might slip away if he didn’t maintain contact.

“Got the chip taken out in LA while I was away. It’s been gone for weeks. Needed to give the Slayer time to find out I could control m’self so she wouldn’t try to put me down like a rabid dog when she found out. So, no, she didn’t know about it.”

“Interesting that you could hide that kind of information from someone who can read your mind,” Giles said. His tone was mild, but his look was sharp as he watched their reaction for some indication that they were lying, but all he saw was a guilty shrug from Buffy.

“I…we…it doesn’t work that…I mean, I have to…he has to…” she gave up trying to explain and just waited for her Watcher to give her some idea how much he had figured out. He didn’t disappoint.

“Exactly when did you claim my Slayer, Spike?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Buffy’s guilty start told him his guess was correct and he groaned inwardly, even as he maintained his steady gaze at the girl he thought of as a daughter and the vampire he had actually begun to trust. Only the fact that the vampire so far hadn’t seemed to use the claim in any way except to help them get Buffy out of the lab, kept him from leaping for the nearest stake.

“It was during the spell, Giles,” Buffy spoke up before Spike could say anything. She heard Willow’s guilty gasp, and she sent her friend a reassuring smile before she continued. “And, it wasn’t just him. I claimed him back.”

The Watcher’s groan this time was audible. “When were you planning to tell me that you had…bound…” he couldn’t bring himself to say “mated”, “yourself to a master vampire? Did it not occur to you that this was information I needed to have?”

Buffy flushed and ducked her head.

“I…we…were going to tell you, but we weren’t sure at first if it would last. I mean, we haven’t…I mean, we did, but that was the spell and since then we…”she trailed off and looked at Spike for help.

“Oh, dear Lord.” Gile’s verbal dismay was followed by Xander’s “What? They what the what?”

Giles turned to glare at Xander and Anya. “You two couldn’t keep your pants on long enough to keep my Slayer from being claimed by a vampire? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Anya shrugged and muttered, “We didn’t do anything but give Buffy and Spike a chance to work out all that sexual tension that’s always there when they’re in the same room. And, how can it hurt her to be mated to a master vampire? It seems to me he’s perfect for a slayer – with the super strength and violent temper and all. They’re made for each other.”

Xander’s face had paled, even though he didn’t really understand what a claim was. But he had no trouble reading between the lines of Buffy’s babbling to understand that while he and Anya had been out of the room, Buffy and Spike had had sex. That much he got.

He was heading toward the chair containing Buffy and the vampire he was determined to rid the world of, when something of the earlier part of the conversation percolated to the front of his brain and he slowed, lowering the stake in his hand.

“There’s no chip? Spike can kill?” There was an edge to his voice that bordered on hysteria.

One look at the vampire’s cold stare answered his question, and he retreated behind the Watcher.

“Well, that settles it. She has to kill him now. Giles, why isn’t she killing him?”

The other people in the room ignored his whining and continued to stare at the vampire and the increasingly distressed slayer. Spike’s hand was rhythmically stroking her arm in an attempt to calm his mate. When no one had anything else to say or ask, Spike addressed Giles directly.

“You know how I feel about her, Watcher. I would never hurt her, or anyone she cares about,” he added with a significant glare at Xander. “If she doesn’t want the claim, all she has to do is send me away. I think it will fade with time if I’m not here and we don’t… if we don’t do anything to renew it. But it’s Buffy’s choice; not yours and certainly not their’s,” he finished, waving his hand at the Scoobies, all now standing behind the Watcher.

“Well, that’s that then!” Xander refused to by shushed by Anya as he self-righteously indicated what Buffy’s clear duty was. “Tell him to get lost, Buffy.”

Spike waited confidently for Buffy to tell Xander to shut up, but when she did nothing but cringe against him, her eyes darting back and forth between her Watcher and her friends, his hand stilled and he dropped his arms.

(So, that’s it, love?) He couldn’t keep the disappointment and anger from her and didn’t really want to try.

(No! Yes…maybe…I don’t know!) Her voice was a wail in his head as she looked from her disapproving Watcher and friends to the crushed vampire on whose lap she was still sitting.

(Well, when you suss it out, you let me know, yeah?) He stood up and gently deposited her back on the chair.

“What are you doing?” her voice contained a note of panic as he strode toward the closet where they’d put his clothes and pulled out his leather coat.

“Spike,” the Watcher’s voice came quietly. “Please wait. I need…I want to explain something to you.”

The vampire stood by the door, stubbornly refusing to look at Buffy who was staring at him with eyes from which she refused to let the tears fall. He tried to put a mental wall between them, but he could feel her despair and knew she could feel his grief just as strongly.

Giles looked back and forth between Spike and Buffy, sensing their unhappiness, even as he cursed the day Willow had first played with magic. He took off his glasses and polished them vigorously.

“Buffy is not the first Slayer to be claimed by a vampire.” He ignored the startled gasps that greeted his announcement. “It happens. Sometimes it’s because the vampire wants to control the Slayer, sometimes it’s because he thinks….well, I don’t know what they’re thinking sometimes.” He gave a sigh, “And sometimes it’s because they are in love.” He refused to meet anyone’s eyes as he went on, although he didn’t miss Buffy’s surprised intake of breath. “The Council considers it a very dangerous situation. If they had any idea that William the Bloody had claimed a Slayer, they would send a team in to kill her. Immediately.”

There were gasps around the room as the true danger Buffy could be in became clear. Spike involuntarily stepped closer to her at the conclusion of the Watcher’s speech.

“They would kill their own Slayer? What kind of people do you work for, Watcher?”

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? I do not ‘work for’ them anymore and therefore, fortunately, am not obligated to report to them everything that Buffy does. However, it would be ingenuous of me to presume that they do not have their own sources of information in Sunnydale and it is only a question of time before the change in your…relationship…comes to their attention.”

“So, if I’m not here, there’s no problem, right? No reason for them to concern themselves with the Slayer guardin’ the Hellmouth for them.”

Spike’s voice was controlled and quiet. Only his eyes gave away what it cost him to suggest what Buffy could sense was coming.

(No, Spike. Don’t…)

Ignoring everyone else in the room, he turned to her and said softly, “Not gonna put you in danger, pet.”

“I’m in danger every night of my life,” she said, standing up and moving closer to him. “They tried to kill me once already. Didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”

(Don’t leave me.) The Slayer’s silent plea was all the more powerful for being brief and to the point.

(You think I WANT to go? That I’m not gonna go crazy wondering how you are, what you’re doin’, if you need me?)

While they carried on their internal exchange, the two would-be lovers moved closer together until she was wrapped in his arms, the leather coat half hiding her from the room. Her own arms were around his back. It would be hard to say who was clutching harder, but there was no question that normal humans would have been crushed by the forces. Buffy’s head was buried in his chest as she continued her silent argument. Spikes face was resting on her head and he inhaled the scent of her hair and skin as he argued back.

(You need some time to figure out what you want to do about us anyway, love. Give the claim some time and space to calm down and see if you still want me without that pullin’ on you.)

(Don’t try to tell me what I need. I need you. Here. With me.)

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, then lifted his own and tilted her chin up.

“Buffy, the Watcher’s right. If the Council of Wankers knew you were doin’ anything with William the Bloody except staking his—“

Willow had been watching her best friend and the vampire she was coming to view as a friend, until she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“That’s it!”





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