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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to everyone who stuck through to the end and double thanks to everyone who commented.

I appreciate your feedback and hope to hear what you think of the ending!
She let him hold her, that was a first.

She was sitting between his legs, resting her arms on them like he was a Lazy-Boy recliner. Spike stroked Buffy's hair until her sobs had slowed to sniffles.

“What is it, love,” he asked.

“This dress cost us a week's worth of groceries, and I was stupid for buying it and even more stupid for letting you rip it off of me,” she said.

“Can buy you another dress, pet,” he said.

“Don't want another dress, it's not about that,” she said.

“No, I get it. Wish you could be free from the worry and the want,” he said.

“Yeah. Now I have to walk home naked, unless you've still got a stash of my clothes that you've been huffing,” Buffy said.

“Got rid of that lot after...and then you were back. Had you, didn't need it,” Spike said. His voice took on a soft, wistful lilt that made Buffy's heart crunch.

“You don't have me,” Buffy said. She stood up, gloriously cold, hoping to freeze out all the warm fuzzies she was feeling for him right then.

“Not what you said last night,” he said, and stood up with startling speed. He grabbed his jeans off the floor and yanked them on.

“Let's not have this same argument now, I need to get back,” Buffy said with a sigh. Spike picked his leather duster off of his chair and threw it at her. She caught it with a deft movement.

“If I wear that, everyone will know I was with you,” Buffy said.

“It's all you've got, love, and you've cut your hair. Can't use that for cover when you're riding your white horse home,” he said.

“Horse?”

“Just go. Run into somebody, tell them a demon melted off your frock and after some prodding my chivalry kicked in, wouldn't let you wander off naked,” Spike said.

Buffy put on the coat; the lining slipped against her skin. It felt so intimate and dirty to be wearing Spike's coat, like he was touching her whole body with each sway of the leather. Spike watched her adjust it with his mouth slightly open. Riveting, it was. He wanted to take her again right there, his slayer donning his armor.

Buffy walked to the door, then paused before she reentered the outside world.

“Thank you,” she said, and then was gone.

She didn't see anyone familiar on her way home and the house was mercifully empty upon her return. Buffy hung Spike's leather in the back of her closet, took a shower and tried to put the night's failure out of her mind.

Buffy thought Spike would be by that evening to pick up his coat, but he didn't show. After patrolling, she went into his crypt and found him sitting on his chair watching a rerun of Falcon Crest.

“Hey,” she said.

“Here for a little cold comfort?” he asked, without turning from the television.

“No, just wanted to return your thing,” she said, walking down to him. Buffy had his duster neatly folded in the black back pack she was carrying.

Spike looked up at her and smiled.

“Got something for you, too,” he said. Spike got up and pulled an envelope out of his back pocket. He handed it to Buffy.

She peeled open the flap and found a neat stack of bills.

“S'for the dress, don't want the bit to starve,” he said.

“I can't take this, you probably stole it or did something worse to get it,” she said.

He held up both his hands to show her that his fingers were bare.

“Hocked my rings, pet,” Spike said.

They stood in silence for a beat. Spike was shocked when Buffy seized him in a tight hug.

“Spike! I never thought I'd be so happy that somebody pawned my engagement ring,” she said.

Spike laughed, surprised that she was hugging him like he was one of the Scoobies. He was shocked she remembered a detail like the engagement ring from the time they were under Willow's love spell, something he'd completely forgotten until then.

That night instead of frantic sex, they went to the grocery store. Buffy insisted they buy a bottle of dye for him, though he wanted to nick it off the shelf, and he went home with her.

“It's time you and Dawn had another beauty night,” Buffy said.

Dawn was glad to see her sister home so early and went into a tizzy trying to find her polish so she could touch up his chipping nails.

Spike was sitting in a kitchen chair, his head over the sink. Dawn was peeling the plastic gloves off of the paper instructions and Buffy was simply watching him. It was so foolish, so small and yet all he wanted at that moment. All he ever wanted.

If money was what his girls needed, he could get that. Spike had a line on a few things, not so savory but lucrative things. Some ghastly little Suvolte demon eggs that would put the Summers women in a thousand silk dresses in every imaginable shade.

If he could make that come through, he could tear them off of Buffy three times a day and throw them out like tissues without batting an eye.

Buffy watched as Dawn chattered cheerfully with Spike and rubbed the dye into his hair. The smile he gave her little sister was so genuine, so sweet.

Maybe Willow was right. Maybe he could change, fundamentally change. Dawn went into the other room, leaving her alone with Spike. In that brief moment as he was lying with his eyes closed, the Jiffy-Pop, plastic hairnet on his head, he never looked more appealing to her.

Buffy kissed him, softly. She couldn't speak, had no idea what she'd say, so Buffy went to look for Dawn.
Spike smelled her, felt her for a second; warmth pressed against his lips.

Then she was gone, just like the sun behind a cloud.


Chapter End Notes:
I'm sorry it's a sad ending, but this is the ending I conceived when I started writing the story.



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