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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 :)





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