“L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don’t break it
Love was made for me and you”
“LOVE” by “Nat King Cole”
The bus was coming to a stop as Buffy slowly opened her eyes. She looked out the window and saw a large motel sign.
“What time is it?” She asked groggily closing her eyes again.
“’Bout 4.30am luv,” Spike answered. They had been driving for most of the night, with a few “stop, revive, survive” stops now and then, with Giles and Robin taking turns driving. Spike had managed to catch a few hours sleep, but the previous day’s events were still fresh in his mind. He looked fondly down at the girl still lying in his lap, and tightened his arms around her, realizing just how lucky he was to be here. There were so many bad things that could’ve happened not just to him, but to her as well… to everyone… ‘Well, not everyone did get out…’ he reminded himself as a tear slowly made its way down his cheek. He brushed it away and took a moment to recompose himself. He’d always liked Anya, she always told everything like it was, she never sugar coated anything, no matter how gruesome or rude it was, Xander always cut her down about it, but he liked her for it. It was better than telling lies all day anyway. But no one would have to worry about that anymore…
He held back a sob at the thought, he tried to hold himself together though, now was not the time or the place, there would be time to properly grieve for the ones they’d lost when they were safely in England. He promised himself that he would make a proper memorial, something big and pretty for everyone to see, so that everyone would know the ones who lost it all to protect others.
Meanwhile Giles was booking rooms for everyone. He managed to get plenty of rooms close together, with 3 or 4 people in each, except for one.
Everyone was standing up, making their way off the bus, waiting for Giles to give them a key, Buffy with Spike following close behind her were the last to get off.
“Uhh… Buffy… Spike…” Giles said awkwardly. “I thought… I thought you two might like to share a room… by yourselves… you know without all the slayers getting in the way… I realize you two have been through a lot today, and I thought you might like some time alone…”
“Thanks Giles,” Buffy said sleepily. She gave him a quick hug, then returned to Spike’s arms. He accepted the key from Giles, and then picked up Buffy, cradling her in his arms.
“Thanks… Buffy needs as much sleep as she can get, an’ she ain’t gonna get it with a bunch o’ slayers chatterin’ away…
“Yes… well, we’ll be spending all day here most likely; obviously we can’t go anywhere while the sun’s up. I know you’ll make sure she sleeps well Spike”
“Thanks Rupert… I really appreciate it… and I will… g’night”
“Goodnight”
Spike carried Buffy all the way inside, threw back the covers and gently layed her down on the double bed. He then snuggled up beside her, pulling her as close as he could to his chest. It wasn’t very long before he heard her heartbeat slowdown and knew she was asleep. He then closed his eyes and let everything but his thoughts of Buffy disappear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Noo…no, Angel don’t… stop it…” Buffy’s restlessness increased, she started tossing and turning. “Noo, don’t… no please… Spike… please come on… you don’t… it doesn’t matter…”
“Noooooo!” Buffy sat up, startled with sweat beginning to form on her brow. She looked beside her expecting to see him, hoping to reassure herself, repeating over and over that it was just a dream, ‘he’s alright, he’s here’. But she found the bed cold and empty… and she’d never felt more alone and scared in her entire life.
“Spike!” She shouted desperately. Praying to herself that what she’d been dreaming hadn’t been a reality. She had memories of him being there after… but her dream had seemed so vivid… so real…
“Spike!” She shouted again jumping out of bed, getting more worried and scared by the second.
All of a sudden the front door flew open with Spike nearly knocking it off its hinges in his hurry.
“Buffy!” Spike shouted. A million thoughts were running through his mind, all different scenarios of horrible things happening to her that would make her cry out like that.
He came to an abrupt stop and was slightly confused to see the room empty except for her.
“Buffy?”
Buffy let out a sigh of relief and ran to him like she hadn’t seen him for a whole year.
“I had… I thought… and you were… Angel made you… I was so scared…” she managed to get out between sobs.
“Shhh… luv,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her, and slowly swaying as he hugged her tightly. “It’s alright… I’m here… I’m fine, nothin’ bad’s happened, I’m alright,” he pulled back to look into her eyes. “I’m here, pet.”
“You don’t know how scary it was to have such a… a horrible nightmare and then wake up and find you gone… I thought I’d lost you... I thought it was real…” Buffy said a tear falling down her face.
The tenderness in Buffy’s words broke his heart. He hated seeing her cry, and what’s worse, he hated being the one to make her cry.
“I’m so sorry Buffy,” Spike said, looking into her eyes, and wiping away the tears. “I didn’t mean to leave you so you’d wake up by yourself, only a total git would do that on purpose. I was just goin’ to check in with the watcher, see what the plan was for the rest of today… I didn’t mean to make you worry luv.” Although he hated seeing her upset, a small part of him was slightly thrilled that she was this worried about him. It made him feel special.
“You don’t know how scared I was when I heard you cry out like that… thought some nasty had gotten to you… I don’t know what I woulda done if it had…” he pulled her closer, tightening his embrace.
“Neither do I…” Buffy said quietly. “And I don’t wanna know… I don’t ever wanna lose you Spike.”
She pulled back so she could see his bright blue eyes, filled with love and tenderness. She paused for a moment and took a deep breathe.
“The other night I had an… epiphany. I realized something that I should’ve realized a long time ago… but I was scared, and… well, that doesn’t matter now. I was going to wait until after we got to England but… I can’t… I can’t wait any longer…”
She paused for another moment, and raised her hand to gently caress his cheek.
“Spike… I love you.”
Spike stared at her in amazement. He’d been hoping for this moment, he’d been hoping for it for bloody years now, imagining it in every way possible. But his imagination could never do the actual moment justice.
He’d never imagined Buffy saying it so soon either. He could tell she liked him a lot, and cared about him… but to actually love him… that was a thought he was still trying to get his head around.
He paused for a moment to let it sink in and closed his eyes.
“Wait… luv… can you say that again?”
“I love you Spike.”
“You really mean it?” He asked her in a teasing voice, his eyes still closed although he was only half joking.
She brought her other arm up around his neck, and started playing with his hair at the back of his head.
“I love you.” She punctuated her statement with a light kiss on his lips.
“Again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I LOVE YOU!”
He opened his eyes and immediately picked her up and twirled her around the room, letting out a cry of sheer happiness. He didn’t know any words that could describe how he felt about this girl…his girl… but he knew a few words that would come close.
“I love you Buffy.” He said tenderly as her feet touched the ground again.
Buffy didn’t think she had ever seen Spike so happy. She’d giggled like she was 7 years old again when he picked her up, and she couldn’t seem to get the smile off her face either.
“Would you like me to say it again?” She asked teasingly.
“Always…” He whispered with a smirk forming on his lips. “But I’ve got it forever imprinted in my memory now…”
“You don’t have to store it away somewhere safe in your head Spike… I can guarantee I’m gonna say it again… I love you... and again… I love you, and again every day…” She said, tenderly kissing him each time she said “I love you”, only pulling back far enough to talk.
Not satisfied with the nice, but very brief kisses she was dishing out, Spike decided to take action. He grabbed her waist, and leaned in for a proper kiss this time. Putting all his energy, his tenderness and his love into it.
“Oh God, Buffy,” he said as he pulled away to let her breathe. “I don’t care why, how or what the hell! I’m not even gonna question it! I’m just gonna love you…” He finished gently.
“You don’t want to know why I love you as much as I do?” She asked, her bottom lip sticking out irresistibly in a pout.
“Well,” Spike answered smugly. “I’m sure it has something to do with my irresistible charm, my good looks... my sexy body…” he smirked, running his hands down her back and over her rear, letting them rest just above the back pockets of her jeans.
“Well, I admit… your uh… features are very appealing,” she said slowly and teasingly, running her hands down his chest, stopping just before she reached the button of his jeans. “And your charm… the way only you can make me feel… are very good reasons for loving someone like you… but…” she paused, taking a deep breathe, losing the silliness and getting prepared to spill her heart out. “There is more to it than that. I… I’ve loved you for so long…”
Spike gasped in awe, and continued to listen intently.
“I just… I never realized what love actually was. I’ve never known it before… the way I felt about Angel and Riley… they don’t even compare; they’ve never made me feel like I do now. I thought it was love, I honestly did at the time, but… that was before… before I met you. Before I gave you a chance to be the hero that you are. After I came back from heaven, I was so confused. The people that I was supposed to love I couldn’t stand to be around, and the one person that could make me feel happy, or anything at all… was someone who I was supposed to hate. As the slayer, it was my job to kill you… not kiss you and have wild sex with you everytime I saw you.”
Spike let out a small grin… but kept listening, not wanting to interrupt her.
“I know that you loved me back then-“
“Still do,” he exclaimed proudly.
“I know…” Buffy smiled. “I know that what you felt and feel right now is real, I know that now… of course, I would never have realized it back then. Angel set such a standard for me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. If he couldn’t love me without a soul, then why could you? But now I realize that it’s not about the soul, I mean, I’m sure it helps you to love me better, but not having one didn’t stop you from loving me. It’s the person behind the soul that really mattered. And then when you did come back all souled-up, and after you got over the first’s control… I started to think that maybe… maybe it could be different now, maybe we could actually have something…” She paused again, looking up to meet his eyes. “But what I know now is that, we could’ve had something 2 years ago too, it doesn’t automatically change that fact now that you have a soul…”
“You realize you’re one crazy chit for not realizing this years ago, luv,” he teased good-naturedly.
“I know…” she trailed off. “But you gotta understand when you came back I was still so scared, I didn’t want to use you again, and I wanted to be better for you, something that you deserved… The night you came to me, when everyone else didn’t want me that was when I believed you’d really changed.” She paused for a breath, looking for the right words to explain how she felt.
“I knew in my head that you’d changed… I could see it, but I still wouldn’t let myself believe it and let myself imagine what we could have together, until you just held me… in your arms… and made me feel safe and wanted. That’s when I realized how deep my love for you could go if I let myself fall. But I was so scared of getting a broken heart that, I decided to just block it off… until I saw you. One look at your face and all my resolve crumbled. I was sick of playing games, but I just didn’t know what to say, because I was so nervous about making that first leap of faith, that I just decided I’d rather not deal with it after all…until you convinced me otherwise…” she grinned, letting him know that was exactly what she’d wanted him to do.
“Well, I am known for having my moments of greatness,” he smiled smugly.
“Yeah,” Buffy said, the sarcasm just rolling off her tongue. “Would that be before or after every one of your evil plans failed?”
“Hey! My plans didn’t fail! They were just… postponed, that’s all!”
“Oh, so you still planning on killing me one day then?” She asked mock-suspiciously.
“Who said anything about killing? What if my evil plan was to... just… uh... catch a slayer…yeah, what if I had no intention of killing you at all ever, what if I just wanted a slayer all to myself?”
“Oh really now?”
“Uh huh. Seems to me that I caught myself a mighty fine looking slayer too…” he smiled cheekily.
“Mmmm….you sure did…” she said, leaning in for a kiss.
“See! Plan didn’t fail!”
He gently kissed her, but pulled away quickly.
“I believe you were in the middle of telling me how much you love me…”
“I sure was… where was I up to?”
“I think you were up to the part where I brilliantly convinced you to give me a chance…?”
“How could I forget…” she smiled brilliantly up at him. “?Yes, I decided to let you into my heart just a little bit more… and then the night that The First visited me… I couldn’t sleep… so I started pacing, and I was thinking about you, and I asked myself what love was. And I realized that every feeling I’d ever dreamed love to be was exactly what I felt when I was with you… I just didn’t realize that all those feelings about you, the way I cared about what you were going through, the way I always wanted to be around you, the way I could always trust you and count on you to be there, the way I always felt tingly feelings when I saw you-“
“You got tingly feelings?” Spike asked, feeling almost giddy at the thought that Buffy tingled over him.
“Of the worst kind…”
“Who woulda thought… the hottest slayer… getting tinglies in her tummy… because of me…who woulda thought…” Spike said, very pleased with himself.
“Well, who wouldn’t! You are a hottie you know…” she said shamelessly. “But I never would’ve thought all those feelings equaled love… not until I sat down and really thought about it, and thought about what I was feeling for you… then it was like the light just turned on inside my head. I just knew that it was love. I looked at you… and all I could think about was how much I loved you… how much I love you Spike!”
She kissed him again, she didn’t even know how long it lasted, the second his tongue touched hers she gave up all hope of trying to think…
“I love you,” Spike said almost dreamily, he said, barely pulling away so that only their foreheads were touching. "Buffy, I love you, more than... anything ever... I love you so much; it feels like... love isn't a strong enough word to describe my feelings about you."
“It’s enough…” Buffy replied softly. “And I love you…so much Spike. I’m gonna keep that promise I made you. Just so you know when we get to England, I’m gonna be asking you every possible question about you.” She smiled cheerily.
“Trust me, Pet, there’s not a lot to tell. I was human, I loved me mum, I was a bloody awful poet, Dru sired me, I became evil, scourge of Europe blah blah… came to Sunnydale, fell in love with you.”
“You wrote poetry?”
“Well, like I said, I attempted to write poetry… it never turned out so well though…and I said all that stuff and all you caught was that?”
“Well, I didn’t know that you wrote poetry, so it kinda stuck out…. and I’ll be the judge of how good it is. Maybe you just didn’t have anything to inspire you…”
“Well, I certainly do now.”
“Mmmm… I hope so,” she said leaning in for yet another kiss.
“But Spike, I know there’s a lot more to you than that. I know. There’s all the feelings, all the thoughts… all the things you’ve experienced… I wanna know…”
“Feelings…” he muttered looking away. “Gonna turn me into a right bloody ponce you are!”
“Absolutely! What are you gonna do about it?” She wiggled one eyebrow.
“Well, for starters I’ll have to punish you…”
“Ooohhh… do you promise?” She asked, with a cheeky grin plastered all over her face.
“Absolutely… and you know I never break my promises, baby…” he grinned evilly.
They shared another heart melting kiss, just bursting with passion and lust.
“If there wasn’t a watcher and a room full of underage slayers next door…” Spike said huskily.
Buffy sighed and pulled away.
“So, what did Giles say?” Buffy said quickly pulling herself together, knowing this wasn’t the right time.
“Watcher’s booked us all on the next flight to England, said a mate fixed him up with a nice deal on a big house out in the country. Should be plenty big enough to train the slayers.”
“When do we leave?”
“As soon as the flammable part of the day is over,” Spike checked his watch. “About half an hour should do it.”
“Buffy… it means a lot to me that you wanna get to know me… and in England I think I know the area that we’re staying, and there’s this really nice place, I thought maybe me and you could go there? I don’t know if it’s still as nice as it used to be, but… I mean, if you wanna go?”
Buffy smiled at his nervousness and couldn’t pass it up.
“Are you asking me out on a date, Spike?” She teased, stepping closer and putting her arms around his neck.
“Sure am,” he replied, his confidence returning as he placed his hands on her waist.
“A date… you and me… I like the sound of that…” Buffy gave him her biggest brightest smile.
“Yeah…we’ve never really done this before…”
“I guess in our relationship we kinda skipped this part…”
“I’ll say…”
“Well, this time we won’t. I’d love to go on a date with you Spike,” she smiled tenderly.
He smiled back at her, he was sure his heart would be beating uncontrollably just from the anticipation… if it could that is… but he let that thought slip and just did what came naturally to him. He kissed the woman he loved.
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I don't own Buffy (but I'd do anything to own Spike) No infringements intended. Fun only :)