From the moment she laid eyes on him, Buffy knew he was the kind of man she could happily spend the rest of her life with. Compact, well-muscled and with the face of an angel, he sent her 15 year old heart into a wild frenzy every time she saw him.



The first day they had been introduced, she had desperately tried to hide her inner swoonage, which was actually more outer than inner, and had resulted in her being all tongue-tied girl.



She hated herself that day.



Spike, on the other hand, had been as smooth as rich, sweet honey, and just as luscious. What she would have given to lick honey of that sexy body!



His baritone voice washed over her with its silky caress that she was able to focus solely on that and block out her mother’s sickeningly girlish laughter that prickled at Buffy’s senses in the background.



The more she had gotten to know him over the following weeks and months, the deeper her passion grew. He wasn’t just some peroxided fool, as so many seemed to believe.



He was more. He was special.



He exuded bad-boy charm from every pore in his body, yet she knew he possessed a heart of gold. She had seen it so many times when he held her drying the tears which leaked down her cheeks as a manifestation of her ever growing teenage angst.



Of course, he didn’t know that a large amount of that angst was as a direct result of his actions. Just the act of his being there was enough to send her back into her spiraling depression.



Buffy had the support of her friends in her life, which provided some small comfort, even though they sensed she was becoming more withdrawn from them.



Her best friends, Willow and Xander, tried to wheedle an answer out of her every time they questioned her on her pain.



Her boyfriend, Owen, tried to reconnect with her, but she rebuffed all his attempts.



Her mother met with the toughest barrier, and eventually gave up trying, leaving Spike to pick up the pieces of Buffy’s heart. He had no idea that he was merely standing in the rubble of her emotions and crunching them further underfoot.



Of course no one knew of her feelings for him. There was no way that she could ever let anyone know. God, what would they think? They would all judge her…her friends, her Mom…not to mention herself. She was her own harshest critic. But she wanted him.



And as much as she loved Spike Rayne, she knew they could never be together.



Her love would remain unrequited.



He would remain her stepfather.



And nothing could change that.

Saturday nights were always the worst of the worst.



They were the nights that pierced Buffy’s delicate heart like a huge pickaxe, chipping away at her sanity and her senses.



Saturday night was date night.



Every week she would watch her mother dress up in her finery, like a sheep donning clothing that even a lamb would have struggled to pull off, and Buffy’s resentment grew deeper.



And here it was again.



Hearing their laughter as Spike encircled Joyce in his arms and declared how beautiful his wife was sickened her to the very pit of her stomach.



Those loving looks and tender touches were the hardest to observe.



They were the tiny little pickaxes eating away at her.



It wasn’t that Buffy didn’t want to see her mother happy. Of course she did. But she didn’t want to see her happy with Spike.



She didn’t want to see anyone but herself happy with Spike.



Yes, maybe it was selfish, and even cruel, but she wanted him, and not just in a teenage crush kind of way.



Her body craved the feel of him against her, their flesh gliding together in the deepest throws of passion as she moaned his name in shuddering ecstasy. The need to feel him over her, under her was becoming almost unbearable. Each passing day made her want him more.



Many times she could swear that just a meager glance from Spike was like a velvet touch, reaching all of her most intimate regions.



He had been a member of her family for over a year now, and their daily interaction had only fanned the flames of her ever growing passion.



She knew that one day her fantasies would be realized. It just could not be any other way!



Unfortunately, her Mom’s raucous laughter followed by Spike’s honeyed chuckle jerked her back to the harsh reality of life.



And, God, did life suck!



“You look stunning, love.” Spike gushed, admiring his wife, as she flounced around in her new black dress.



“Oh, you!” Joyce smiled, straightening the tie that sat under the collar of her husband’s fancy new blue dress shirt. It was “poncy” and “fit for nancyboys to wear” according to Spike but it made Joyce happy and that was what counted to him.



Joyce had never smiled like that when she had been married to Buffy’s father. Of course that had been 14 years of pure, unadulterated hell. Well, there was some adultery, on Hank’s part at least.



Joyce had been only 18 when she had gotten married to Hank Summers and less than a year later she had found herself a mother for the first and only time.



For years she had doted on Buffy, trying to compensate for the lack of attention her husband gave to the little girl.



When her parents’ marriage had broken down, though, the blame had been laid solely at Joyce’s feet by the bitter teenage girl, instead of where it deserved to be.



At the feet of Hank and his 23 year old secretary.



Everything had become so much worse when Joyce met and married Spike though. Everyone of the older Summers’ efforts to bond with her daughter were rebuffed, causing the tension in the house to build to boiling point.



But watching them fawn over each other now just made her want to stand up and shout and scream, rant and rage, and then kill everyone in her path.



Of course, instead of the bloodshed she craved, Buffy just glared and glowered at the pair, but it just evoked rolled eyes and a playful wink from her stepdad, followed by a “Don’t wait up!” as they strolled out the door.



God… she knew she should not be checking out that bitable ass! He was her stepdad! But that didn’t stop her wanting him.



When they finally left the house to enjoy whatever kind of “couples time” they spent together, Buffy began her own Saturday night ritual. One that had become ingrained in her life for the past several months.



After all, it wasn’t as if her friends were all that friendly these days. It seemed they had gotten bored with Spacey-Buffy, and moved on to people who actually returned their calls, or listened to them when they spoke. Even her boyfriend had been MIA for a while.



Buffy couldn’t remember if they had broken up or not. Not that she really cared.



Now was not the time to think about her former best friends, or Owen or anyone else.



Now was Buffy time.



It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that what she was about to do was wrong on so many levels, but it didn’t stop her from sneaking up the stairs into the bedroom that her mother shared with Spike and pulling one of his worn shirts from the laundry basket.



As she pressed the shirt to her nose, and deeply inhaled, she could have sworn there was nothing sweeter than Eau de Spike in the whole entire world. His scent was a sensual mixture of smoky tobacco, bitter leather and the remnants of his cologne, all underscored by the unique scent of his own aroma.



If she could have bottled that scent it would surpass anything Jean-Baptiste Grenouille could even have dreamed of.



With the shirt still in hand, she made her way into her own bedroom, kicking the door shut behind her, and sauntering over to the mirror.



Despite her many insecurities Buffy knew she was somewhat attractive. Her figure was slender with subtle curves in all the right places. Long honey-blonde waved cascaded down her petite shoulders, almost to her waist.



Keeping her eyes fixed on the image in the mirror she ran one delicate hand gently over her tanned tummy, the other still gripping the Spike-scented garment.



Letting out another quiet moan at the fragrance, she maneuvered herself to her bed, haphazardly falling back onto the silky covers, letting the shirt slip from her hands onto the bed next to her.



She started to caress one breast and then the other, weighing them in her hands, running her fingers over her pert nipples, and down her sensitive sides. The sounds of her increasingly loud moans and desperate panting filled her ears in the otherwise silent room.



She could feel the desperation building inside of her, like a volcano making ready to erupt, the molten lava of her passion bubbling under the surface.

With every unfulfilled touch, the frustration and tension coiled inside her, searing through her veins like white hot heat. It was as if she was burning from the inside out.



And all of a sudden it was like her hands were no longer her own. Instead of her own petite paws, she imagined a pair of much larger rougher ones were making her way down her body, peeling away her clothing leaving trails of almost painful fire in their wake.



Slipping her hands between her thighs, she envisaged a blond head with razor sharp cheekbones bobbing between her small breasts, leaving wet kisses across them. He would worship her body like it was his alter.



The wetness was pooling on her bedspread, and she truly believed that if she didn’t find her release soon then she would combust and die.



In her fantasy Spike was licking furiously at her most intimate parts, his lips pursing as he ran them over her mound, his tongue finding its way inside of her.



In reality her own fingers were furiously rubbing at her most intimate parts, taking her soaring higher toward the heavens.



The moment that she reached her pinnacle of ecstasy, it was Spike’s name that she gasped and Spike’s face that she saw.



But when she opened her eyes, there was nothing but a cold empty room.



She was alone.



Like always.



Feeling tears prickling behind her eyes as the harsh truth once again overtook her, she curled up in a ball, only the faint scent of the man that she loved managing to console her.



It wasn’t long before sleep managed to finally offer its own tend comfort.



The jarring shouts of a voice jolted Buffy out of her dreamless sleep. She sat up, still half dazed and looked around for the source of the disturbance.



A frisson of excitement spread through her when she saw the figure standing at the end of her bed, half shrouded in darkness.



“Spike?” Realized her state of undress she tugged the covers up to conceal her nudity.



“Buffy?” His voice sounded almost distraught, rough with tears, both shed and unshed. It unnerved her, chilling her blood. She had never seen him life this before. Never.



“Spike? What’s wrong?”



“Oh God, Buffy!” Although barely able to see him through the dark, she could have sworn she heard him sob, and suddenly the color started to seep out of her world.



“What is it?” This time her voice was colder, harsher, more mature than she had ever heard it herself.



To be honest, Buffy wasn’t sure that he was even aware of her presence. He seemed dazed, like he was stuck in some nightmare that he hadn’t yet woken up from.



“We were in the restaurant.” He ran his hands through his hair, and stepped forward, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “And there was a man…he wanted…I don’t know…money. He….there was a gun.”



At his foreboding words the chill that had been building turned to ice inside her.



“Spike, where’s Mom?” Her head felt fuzzy, her limbs like cotton.



It was as if he couldn’t really hear her. His eyes weren’t focused on her. At that second it was like he snapped back to reality and surged forward toward her.



She saw it.



Blood.



Soaked through his nice new dress shirt.



“Oh God!” Buffy felt the bile rising in her throat at the sight of him, and clapped her hand over her mouth to prevent it spilling forth.



“He went… bloody berserk. I tried to protect her. I buggering well tried! But she took a shot to the head…”



He rose to his feet in one fluid motion, channeling his anger into his pacing.



“I sodding well tried. I couldn’t…I couldn’t save her.”



His tortured eyes met Buffy’s in a clash of the purest pain imaginable.



“Is she…?”



“I’m sorry, pet.” He cleared his throat. “She’s gone.”



And just like that Buffy Summers’ world dissolved.

The house felt so cold, so empty. It was like a tomb.

In the three weeks since she had learned of her mother’s death, Buffy felt like her heart had become a tomb too.

Frozen. Numb.

Even the pain of breathing was unfamiliar, like a foreign sensation that killed her by keeping her alive.

All she wanted was the bastard who slaughtered her mother like a dog behind bars. Of course the police didn’t have any leads on the crime. Joyce had been one of two people who had died, the other being the restaurant manager.

But in spite of numerous eye witness accounts of the well-built, tall, dark-haired gunman, the cops didn’t have any tangible leads yet.

They didn’t even have a motive. It seemed that the killings hadn’t been money based as they first suspected, but apart from eliminating that theory, they were coming up empty.

God, they were hopeless. She would probably have better luck getting out on the street and trying to find the suspect herself.

Or…maybe not. Somehow she didn’t see herself as a budding Scooby Doo.

And she definitely didn’t imagine that she would find herself making any snappy cartoon quips in the near future.

Did it get any worse than this?

That very first night, after Spike had broken the news to her, Buffy thought she had hit rock bottom. The tears had flowed freely, tricking down her sallow face and mingling with the blood that was encrusted onto Spike’s shirt as he gathered her in his arms and let her cry out her pain.

He had whispered his apologies into her ear, sobbing out his own sorrow with her. Over and over he told her how he blamed himself. She responded with whispered reassurances that she didn’t fault him for anything that had happened. After all how could he have known that would ever happen? It was bad luck, fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it.

In those moments she felt a closeness to Spike that all the nighttime fantasies in the world couldn’t replicate in a millennium.

“I did love her, you know.” He confessed through his tears, drawing back from her to look into her own puffy eyes.

“I know.” Her voice was a mix of sadness and thankfulness that her mother had been truly loved, but yet she couldn’t help the tinge of bitterness that bled through her words.

However, he either didn’t notice, or ignored that because he drew her back into his warm embrace and buried his face in her neck.

They needed each other right now.

“I love you too.” Spike’s words were so quiet that she hardly heard them. But she knew what he had said. He had told her he loved her.

And he did.

Just not in the way she would have wished. She was a daughter to him, but she didn’t think he saw her as a lover. It hit her like a train.

Of course that was not something she believed would change anytime soon. So instead she settled for crying over the loss of her mother.

Crying over how she wished she had picked up her wet towels from the bathroom floor. Crying over how she wished she hadn’t fought with Joyce over her parents’ divorce. Crying over the fact that her most stimulating fantasy was the thought of bedding her mother’s husband.

But that night the tears had dried up.

It was as if her entire ability to feel anything had left her body with the sobs that wretchedly wracked it that night. And now all that was left was an empty shell.

Spike wasn’t faring much better. He was so…distant. Since she had first met him, their relationship, aside from her girlish fantasies, had been defined by mutual playfully snarky banter. But now it was defined by icy silences and painful awkwardness.

He spent most of the time locked in the small office he had set up in their house, the sound of clicking of a keyboard and the occasional hushed conversations the only sounds emanating from the room.

Spike had taken leave from the martial arts studio that he owned, and of course, his employees had been understanding. They nodded and told him they knew how hard grief was.

Perhaps they just didn’t want to witness his impending breakdown that they all feared.

And Buffy didn’t even want to think about the drinking he was doing, but even she couldn’t spent too much time in denial about that when she saw the whiskey bottles piling up in the trash like tiny reminders that he was crumbling on the inside.

But despite the rancid quagmire that her home life was becoming, still she continued to try and be Normal-Buffy and go about her day, go to school, try to ignore the sympathetic looks from all the other kids. She didn’t want their pity. No amount of pity could raise her mother from her grave.

In the past few months, she had gradually become a loner, and this just sealed it all.

But in the harsh light of day, she could ignore the blatant realities, pretend that her life didn’t suck balls to the fucking nth degree.

Yeah, that was her…Buffy Queen of Denial.

It was, however, times like now, in the dark, with only the morbid truth to keep her company that everything started to sink in.

Yet, still she couldn’t feel. It was just like watching a movie of someone else’s life.

Clearly this movie was not a comedy.

When it became obvious that sleep was not coming to her that night, she finally peeled herself off of her bed and threw a robe over her shoulders, carefully making her way downstairs without pausing to flick on the light.

She was almost at the foot of the stairs when the sound of hushed whispers coming from the kitchen reached her ears.

“What the bloody hell do you mean he’s disappeared?”

Spike’s voice.

His accent and intonation could never be confused with another’s.

Buffy thought he had gone to bed. Or gone out drinking. When he wasn’t at home the only other thing he seemed to do was frequent some of the local dives.

Buffy frowned as she peered around the corner of the kitchen, still hidden in the shadows to see her stepfather wildly pacing, his palm plastered to his forehead. His usually perfectly quaffed peroxide locks were wildly curly, not a hint of gel in sight. He wore rumpled jeans and a T-shirt that looked like it had seen better days. Not that Buffy could criticize right now, she thought, as she looked down at her own crumpled pajamas.

“Of course I sodding know it was!…Well, saw him didn’t I?...Yeah, I’m not some bloody wet behind the ears git, I know exactly why…”

His voice was irate, his movements jerky and agitated. It couldn’t be more obvious that Spike was royally pissed off.

His little spy felt a tiny spark of happiness ignite inside her heart at that thought. She could barely remember the last time she had seen him with sure fire. Not since her mother had been…murdered.

Feeling a little guilty about intruding on Spike’s private business, Buffy desperately tried to suppress her innate curiosity, but she couldn’t help but with that she could hear the other side of the conversation.

Buffy stifled a gasp as Spike’s pacing brought him a little too close for comfort, and she was about to retreat to the sanctuary of her bedroom when she heard some fateful words.

“No, I need to make sure that my stepdaughter never finds out.”

Spinning on her heel, she stepped out into the light of the kitchen, shards of agony in the stare that she leveled at her stepfather.

There was no way she was letting this go that easy.

Sometimes it can be so strange, the way the human mind works and the random things that can pop into your head at the most inappropriate of times. Usually it seems to happen during those times when you should be focusing on the big picture and not on the most insignificant details.

However, as Buffy continued to stare meaningfully at Spike, and watched him blanch as he registered her presence in the kitchen, all she could think about was that she had always thought the man’s pasty looking skin couldn’t get any paler until that moment.

She could tell that she had scared him, but she didn’t really care. He was purposely keeping something from her. And she was determined to find out what it was.

Never tearing his gaze away from her, he rasped a hurried goodbye into his cell and flipped it shut, before slipping it back into his pocket.

“Well?” If words could kill, Spike would have been pinned to the wall bleeding out from that single utterance.

“Well what?” He finally looked away from her, shuffling his feet and sticking his hands into his jeans pockets.

“Well…I’m not an idiot. What the hell was that all about? And I want the truth. What are you hiding from me Spike?”

With a sigh he leaned against the kitchen table, running careless hands through his already mussed hair.

“It’s nothing.”

“Yeah, because you always try to make sure that I don’t find out nothing.”

“I said it’s bloody well nothing!”

Buffy froze as he thumped the table with his fist so violently, she was sure she heard it crack. With a scornful half-chuckle, she slowly approached him.

“I’m not scared of you, Spike.”

“I don’t want you to be.” He admitted quietly. “You’re the only bloody thing that I have left, Buffy. Before you knew me, I was…I was nothing to write home about, let’s put it like that. But with you and your…and Joyce, I could be a good man. I am a good man.”

She was almost close enough now to feel his breath on her, but one look into his eyes stopped her cold. As she looked into his eyes, she saw how tortured they appeared, as if even admitting anything about his past was unleashing long repressed emotions. But he was right when he told her she was all he had left.

And he was all she had left now too.

It wasn’t as if her real father was coming to the rescue anytime soon, and there was no one else now.

“If this is going to work. Us. As a…family. Then I need to be able to trust you, and I can’t if you’re lying to me, keeping secrets from me, hiding things. God, Spike, don’t you get it? I just lost…”

The silence seemed to stretch on forever, like it was a living, breathing being with a beating heart. Neither of the pair were sure how long it had been when Spike finally cleared his throat and spoke.

“It’s debts, Buffy. That’s what I didn’t want you to know about.” Keeping his eyes studiously averted from her own, he continued in low even tones. “I have some money worries, nothing serious, nothing that I can’t sodding well work out, but nothing that I wanted you to find out about. You just lost your Mum, and I didn’t want you worrying about my buggering problems, alright?”

“Debts? What kinds of debts?”

“Old ones.” A bitter laugh escaped his lips, and he stood to retrieve a bottle of Jack from one of the kitchen cabinets, taking a long swig before swinging round to look at her, his eyes wild. “Long time ago, before I met you or your Mum, I was a bit of a sod. Strike that, I was the kind of bloody bastard you would cross the street to get away from. Turns out some things aren’t so easy to run from though, pet.”

Taking another gulp of whiskey he sat back down in the chair, turning away from her so that she didn’t notice the guilty expression plastered on his face. He knew that if he gazed right into her eyes, he wouldn’t be able to hold back the full truth from spilling forth like a leaky faucet. This way was better.

Scratch that.

This way was easier.

“I want you to be proud of me, love. I don’t want to sodding well disappoint you. If you knew…what I was, what I’ve done, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me.”

“Spike…”

“Don’t say anything. I know what a royal fuck up I am. I just…can’t lose you too.”

In one swift movement, she crouched down to where he sat on the chair and wrapped her arms around him, letting him bury his face in the crook of her neck, feeling his hot tears spill endlessly on her skin.

As his body sobbed harder, he pulled her into his lap and her own salty tears threatened to spill. They clung to each other like they were the only two people left in the world. Like they were each other’s oxygen, their bodies molded to one another.

As the tears began to subside, Buffy finally noticed the position she was in. Her legs were splayed as she straddled her stepdad’s lap, her breasts pushed against his chest. Only thin layers of cotton and denim separated their own skin. For the first time in weeks, since her world had fallen apart with grief, Buffy began to feel stirrings of lust deep in the pit of her stomach. She knew just how wrong that was. This wasn’t about sex, it was about comfort and bonding, but her body’s own involuntary reaction was out of her control.

Underneath her butt, she could feel Spike’s own involuntary reaction growing and a tiny wiggle brought a quiet groan from him. Pressing her nose to his collar, she inhaled his scent, the scent she loved so much, the scent that had brought her off so many times when she’d slipped her hands into her soaked panties and imagined they were his hands and mouth. He was the scent of pure masculinity, with traces of cologne, cigarette smoke and whiskey. As his thumb started to work circles on the slightly exposed skin of her hip, she couldn’t hold back a moan of her own, jolting forward to hit his own swollen arousal.

The feel of his lips, as they cascaded along her neck, was like heaven. They made her forget everything else in her life. Her grief and Spike’s secrets and lies just melted away into oblivion. Right now there was just her and lips of Spike. Open mouthed kisses peppered her jaw line, and she craned her neck to allow him better access to her sensitive flesh.

“Mmm, Spike…”

Buffy’s whispered moan suddenly brought the world back into focus for Spike, and the kitchen tile impacted hard against her hip, as she found herself tossed to the floor. One glance at Spike and at the remorse pasted on his face over what had almost happened, and her own reality came crashing back.

Scrambling to her feet, she tried to compose herself, but it wasn’t easy with the memory of his lips burning trails of liquid fire against her.

“Spike…”

“No! Just…don’t. What we…That can never bloody well happen again.”

“Nothing happened! It was just…comfort.”

“Little too close for comfort. You’re my daughter, Buffy. You’re my dead wife’s child.” Each word struck her like a knife to the stomach, and she genuinely thought she would keel under the heart wrenching agony of hearing it. “And I…I think we should keep our relationship more appropriate from now on. You’re just a kid, pet, and…it shouldn’t have happened.”

“I’m not a kid, Spike, I’m almost seventeen years old. You think you know me? Well you don’t. You don’t know anything about me, or what I want or what I need. So don’t you dare get all judge-y on me. You’re not my real father and you have no idea how glad I am about that. Even my real dad…the dad that doesn’t give a damn about me…could do a better job than you can.”

With her eyes flashing fire, the pain of womanly rejection mixed with the grief she already held etched into them, she cast him one last look, before storming out of the room, and running up to her room like the hounds of hell were on her heels.

Sighing, Spike considered following her and trying to chat it out but he didn’t have the strength. Making his way back to the table, he went for his whiskey, only to see the bottle turned on its side, the precious amber liquid spilling onto the floor.

“Bloody fucking hell!” He roared, picking up the bottle and slinging it against the wall. As it shattered, the poet in him couldn’t help but think that those shards were some kind of metaphor for his life.

Everything was screwed.

During the course of her short life, Buffy had lived in some pretty tense situations. Like when her parents had been on the verge of divorce and the atmosphere had dropped way below freezing, or the past few months when Buffy’s fantasies about her mother’s husband had strained any kind of kinship she felt with the older woman. But nothing compared to the atmosphere between Spike and Buffy since their little bump and grind session the previous week.







For all the warmth they had been getting off of each other, they might as well have been living in freaking Siberia.







Not that they had seen each other much. When she wasn’t at school, she spent her time holed up in her room, trying not to let any of the pain that she felt over Spike, or over the loss of her Mom seep through the hard façade she had constructed. Spike spent most of his time drunk out of his skull or out, no doubt littering the local bars with his unwanted presence.







What made it exponentially worse were the dreams of Spike touching her that plagued the few hours of sleep she had every night. His large hands running over her body, relentlessly taking her to insurmountable heights, over and over again, until every nerve cell in her body cried out for the inevitable release. Every night these dreams came and every night they ended the same way. With her lying on the cold floor and him reminding her that nothing could ever come of what they shared together. That a few pecks on her neck was the extent of the passion that could peak between them. That she was nothing more than a child to him.







Even with the soul shattering ending that she endured to those dreams, she still preferred them to the ones where she impotently watched a faceless man gun down her mother. Those were the nights that she woke screaming. Moments later, just like clockwork she always heard the creak of the floorboards as Spike crept outside her room to peer through the crack in the door to check on her. However much she despised him right now, something about that was infinitely reassuring.







Sitting at the kitchen table alone, pushing food around her plate, she loathed the way the thoughts once again bombarded her, like viruses breaking down the walls she was trying to build around herself. Sometimes she wished she could shut everything off, and just escape from life.







It was moments like those that the peaceful repose of death seemed more than a little tempting.







It was already dark outside, and Spike still wasn’t home, she realized as she glanced out of the window. Which was definitely of the good. Because she so did not want to see him. She was on the hating Spike train. No, she was the fucking driver of the hating Spike train, and if Spike wanted to stay out and drink himself into one of his alcohol induced comas, then she did not care at all. No Siree.







Setting her fork down and picking up her barely touched plate of tuna and potatoes, she brushed her casual sweatpants down, and went to scrape the cold congealed food off into the trash. In all honesty it had tasted like salty cardboard, but that’s what she got cooking for herself. Under no circumstances, however, would she eat anything that Spike prepared for her.







There was no way she was putting anything of his in her mouth.







Wait…that thought sounded way less dirty in her head.







With an exaggerated sigh, she dumped the empty plate into the sink and was about to make her way to her bedroom when she heard the chime of the doorbell. Frowning slightly she turned and cautiously pulled open the door, trying to hide her grimace when she saw the shyly nervous face of her visitor.







“Willow.” She greeted flatly, not trying to hide her lack of enthusiasm to see her recently conspicuously absent friend standing there.







Of course, logically Buffy knew that it was a little helping of insane with a side of unfair to be mad at her former best friend for allowing herself to be pushed away by Buffy’s cold aloofness, but recently the rational side of life wasn’t the side that Buffy had walked on.







The redhead offered a little half smile, and wrung her hands as the nerves coursed through her.







“Buffy! Hi, listen, I was just in the…um…neighborhood, and I thought I’d stop by. And, well, I know I haven’t exactly been around lately. I’ve been all Bad-Friend-Willow. But I really want to make it right. And you know, with me the guilt stops me from doing anything else, and I can’t even study, and…”







“Willow!” Buffy raised her voice to interrupt the guilty tirade of the other girl’s ramblings. “You’re babbling. And it’s okay. Really.” She heaved a sigh and raked her fingers through her messy hair. “Do you…want to come in for a coffee?”







Willow nodded, and for the first time in a while Buffy felt a genuine smile dance over her lips, as she opened the door wider to allow her friend inside.







Several minutes later they were seated at the kitchen table both sipping on their steaming cups of coffee and trying to fight the awkwardness that was rapidly descending upon them again.







“Buffy, I really wanted to say I’m sorry. Not just for not being around lately, but for what happened to…to your Mom. She was a great lady.” The timid apology touched Buffy’s heart and she nodded.







“She was a great lady. We didn’t always get along, but she was my Mom and I’m gonna miss her. I think…no, I know I’m not ready to talk about it. It still doesn’t feel real yet. Can’t exactly say I’m looking forward to the day that it does feel real.”







“I think everyone was shocked.” Willow agreed. “I hope they catch the guy that did it. It’s ooky to think he’s still out there somewhere.”







“Thanks for reminding me. “ Buffy drawled dryly, feeling her whole body tense.







“Sorry.” The redhead grimaced, and flashed her friend an apologetic smile.







“It’s okay, you can’t worry about walking on eggshells with me. I’m not gonna break. I’m all solidy and unbreaky. See?” She rapped on her head with her knuckles, drawing a tight smile from her companion.







“I know. But you’ve been through a hard time. And even before that, we didn’t see you for so long, and we all missed you. I missed having these girly talks. I’ve tried with Anya, but she just talks about penises, and Xander doesn’t really have the boobies for girl-talk.”







Buffy giggled, and patted Willow’s hand.







“You know, they all missed you too, Buffy.” She continued. “If you wanted…everyone will be at the Bronze tonight, and I know they would love to see you.”







“I don’t think so, Wills. Right now me and the fun-times are kinda unmixy, and I don’t wanna come and ruin all of your nights. I’m much better being stay at home Wallowy-Buffy at the moment.”







“Well, when you’re feeling better, you’ll come with us right?”







Seeing the hopeful expression on Willow’s face, Buffy gave a firm nod.







“Wild horses won’t keep me away.”







Seemingly appeased, Willow gulped down a mouthful of her coffee, almost spitting it right back out in fright, when a black clad figure crashed through the back door, almost barreling into the countertop.







The stench of alcohol and stale cigarette smoke filled the room immediately and Buffy winced as she took in the state of the man standing in front of her, especially with the budding awareness of the matching frown that marred her friend’s face.







Spike was dressed in a ripped T-shirt, his chest stained with a scattering of bruises. His face was similarly injured, and a little blood was crusted onto his black jeans.







Buffy jumped to her feet and angrily strutted over to him.







“Have you been fighting?” She demanded, with no preamble. His eyes locked onto hers, and he sneered.







“What sodding business is it of yours, little girl?” He pushed his face toward hers, only inches separating them, and she violently jerked away from him.







“Ugh, you’re drunk and disgusting!” She exclaimed as she caught a whiff of his heavily boozy breath. “And I don’t care what you do. But if you get yourself killed in one of those stupid fights you seem so freaking fond of lately, don’t come crying to me.”







“Yeah, better you’d rather it was something else other than crying that I did to you.” He intoned in a low velvety voice into her ear, quietly enough that only she could hear.







Jerking her head wildly, she seemed to make Spike aware that she wasn’t alone in the room, and she hid her flushed face as he sauntered over to Willow and plopped down into an empty seat at the table.







“Red!” He exclaimed as if he were greeting an old friend. “Haven’t seen you around here in a while. Thought you two had had a little falling out. Not that I’d have been bloody well surprised. Little Buffy here’s not an easy bint to get along with.” Slurred words merged into a blurry laugh.







“Spike! Shut up!” He turned to Buffy to see her face flaming with both embarrassment and anger.







“Just telling my good friend, Willow-tree here a few home truths.”







“Willow is not your friend.”







“She didn’t seem to be yours either recently. I wonder what it was you did to drive her away.”







“Oh, yeah, because I’m the only one who drives people away, huh, Spike?”







“Maybe not, but you seem to do a buggering good job of it, you stupid chit.”







Willow watched in a mélange of awe and fear at the back and forth arguing between the pair. If she didn’t know better she would have thought they were an old married couple, as she watched the heat and tension rise to almost breaking point between them. She felt more than a little uncomfortable. It was like getting stuck in a frisky couple’s closet on their wedding night. There was gonna be some stuff you didn’t want to see, but you just couldn’t look away.







“Uh…guys? Guys? Guys!”







The noise came to a halt as both their heads whipped toward Willow.







“Yeah, okay, you guys clearly have…um…issues that you need to talk about, so I’m just gonna go.” She began to back away. “I can see myself out.”







“No girly night for you two chits then, pet? Would have thought that you would wanna paint each others’ nails and talk about your teenybopper crushes.”







“We’re not 12, Spike, and…anyway…we’re going out tonight.” Buffy announced, tossing Willow a meaningful look that she failed to quite catch.







“But I thought you said you didn’t want to…” The petite redhead started but Buffy interrupted with a loud, slightly crazed guffaw.







“No! Willow, you must have gotten confused. I told you how I couldn’t wait to go out tonight. Remember?” The edge to Buffy’s voice told her that there was no other choice but to nod and smile as feasibly as possible.







Buffy was glad that her friend seemed to have gotten with the picture now, even if her acting skills were a little sketchy. She didn’t care right now anyway. All she wanted to was to get out of the damn house and awat from the man that could infuriate her and stimulate her lusty senses in the space of a single sentence.







With false joviality, the blonde girl skipped over to the stairs.







“I’m going to get ready. Be right down.”







Not realizing her stepfather had his eyes glued to her every movement, she jogged up the stairs.







When Buffy was gone Spike tried to hide the weary sigh that threatened to escape from his lips. Looking up he was surprised to see the teenager in front of him studying him carefully. Suddenly feeling like a bug under a microscope, he searched his brain for something to say.







“Did you do something to your hair?” He asked, visibly flinching at his own inanity.







“Um…I had it trimmed.” She replied wearing a peculiar expression.







“It looks good. Bouncy.”







“Thanks.”







She glanced at her watch, and then at her empty coffee cup.







“I like yours too.” At his questioning look she expanded. “Your hair. It’s very…1970s.”







“Yeah.” He tapped on the table.







Silence stretched between them, and in spite of the occasional comment exchanged between them, this seemed worse than Chinese water torture.







God, would this never end? Where the bleeding hell was the bint?







As if his prayers were answered, a few moments later the pair heard the creaking of the stairs and breathed audible sighs of relief.







However, when she came into view, she left them both speechless.







In only a half hour, Buffy had transformed herself from couch potato to wanton sex goddess. Her body was clad with a tight fitting blood red dress that was so short, Spike wondered if it wasn’t illegal. Black leather boots strewn with oversized buckles stretched up to her knees. Her pouting lips were as rouged as her dress, and her eyes were smoky and sensual. To complete the look her hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders.







Just looking at her, Spike could feel his mouth had become as dry as cotton. And his brain felt just as cottony as his mouth.







Realizing the effect she was having on him, he also realized the effect she would have on any other straight male in the entire town, and slipped effortlessly into the tried and tested parental mode.







“You’re not going out dressed like that.” He told her, almost petulantly.







“As if you’re gonna stop me.” She shot back venomously. “I’m just a kid, right Spike? So see this as a fucking childish rebellion.”







“Don’t you dare walk out that door, Buffy. I bloody well mean it!”







Ignoring his stuttering fury, she turned to her friend. “Come on Wills. Let’s make this a night to remember.”







For a moment she thought he might grab her and physically stop her leaving. Either that or have a heart attack. But he did neither, simply clenching and unclenching his fists at his side to keep them from punching a hole in the wall.







Without any further acknowledgment, Buffy defiantly linked arms with her friend, and pulled her out of the kitchen, slamming the front door as they left.







Why the bloody hell did she have to dress like that?







More to the point who the bloody hell did she think she was, defying his authority?







He planned to have that out with her. She needed a good spanking…maybe with handcuffs…and a leather bustier.







No! No good could come of that kind of thinking. Well…he might have a wank or two over it later.







But that didn’t count.







Since their relationship had passed the boundaries of stepfather to stepdaughter, Spike had really been trying to avoid thinking about her in any way but as a daughter. However, seeing her tonight had proved that his feelings were anything but fatherly. As soon as he saw her, all his good work of avoiding her and drinking away the emotions were shattered, and he felt that passion bubbling to the surface once again. He didn’t think that he had ever felt that kind of thing for Buffy while Joyce was alive. But he wondered if he ever felt that way for Joyce. In fact he wasn’t sure if he had ever known that raw kind of passion that had almost engulfed him when she had been merely wiggling on his lap the other night.







And the fighting between them…well hell if it didn’t make him a million times hotter to exchange heated words with her, and to see her get frustrated, and mad, all flushed in her face. The same way she would look writhing underneath him in his bed.







He felt like he was being punished in some way. And although he knew he deserved punishment for his sins, this was the cruelest kind of punishment that could be dished out to him.







Yeah, it was fucked up on so many levels that he couldn’t even count, and he was well aware of that. But even worse, he also knew that if the labyrinth of secrets he was hiding ever unraveled, then Buffy would never forgive him.







Glancing down to the erection straining at his pants from the image that was burned into his mind of his forbidden stepdaughter dressed as a potential porn star, Spike growled.







“Bugger!”







Time for that bloody wank.

Spike Rayne had never fooled himself into thinking he was a rational man. His blood had never exactly rushed in the direction of his brain. And right now he was fairly sure that there wasn’t a drop of blood left in his head, if the erection straining his zipper was any kind of indication.



As he made his way to his room, he paused, hesitating slightly outside Buffy’s bedroom. Despite his patent lack of rationality, he knew that jerking himself off on his teenage stepdaughter’s bed was probably well within the boundaries of what could be classified as crazy.



Unfortunately, that tiny voice that alerted him to the fact that this was wrong was ignored.



Sitting on the edge of her bed, inhaling the Buffy scent that lingered in her room, he slowly massaged his throbbing erection through the thick rough material.



He wondered how many times Buffy had laid on this very bed with her legs spread, and worked herself into a frenzy of lust.



In one quick movement, he pulled his T-shirt over his head, revealing his lean muscles as they rippled under his lithe moves. His nails gently scratched down his own chest, running softly over his nails, eliciting a groan, and they peaked under his own ministrations. He couldn’t help but wish that the hands that played with his body belonged to someone else. A petite, blonde and often wildly annoying someone else.



What would he give right now to feel her lips pucker around his sensitive nipples as her tongue flicked out over them?



Oh, man, he would give just about anything.



With a groan, he carefully drew down the zipper, moaning out loud as he freed himself from the confines of his prison. The cool air felt so good on his overheated skin, and he leaned back against the stack of pillows, maneuvering his jeans down his legs, leaving him naked on the silk coverlet of Buffy’s bed.



Fisting his left hand around the jutting hard rod, he leisurely pumped his hand up and down, seeing a pearly drop of precum pool at the head of his cock.



In his own vivid imagination, however, the scenario was more of a two person act.



His own stepdaughter, dressed in the killer outfit that she had been wearing before she left the house, sauntered over to him, letting the straps of her figure-hugging dress slip down her shoulders.



With a wanton smile, she played with the hem of her dress, sliding it up her thighs to reveal her lacy panties underneath.



Letting out a lusty growl, Spike grabbed her and pulled her down to the bed, crushing his lips to hers, feeling her nails clawing at the back of his neck, drawing blood, as she lost control of herself.



Without anymore waiting, he tore the dress from her body, and quickly disposed of her bra and panties, leaving her bare to his gaze, except for her boots. Those, he wanted to leave on.



Running a hand down her body, and dipping it between her thighs, he felt the thick elixir of her juices and gasped in awe at the thought they were all for him.



“Oh, Spike!” She moaned, her cherry lips swollen and pouting, begging to be kissed. “Let me do something for you, Spike.”



Flashing him a sly smile, she kissed her way down his chest, her teeth grazing each of his nipples. When she reached his belly button she dipped her tongue inside, and swirled it around as he writhed under her touch.



“You know I’ve always wanted to suck your huge, hard dick, you sexy, big bad man.”



“Do it, Buffy. Suck me hard.”



No longer able to resist, she licked the head of his cock, almost sending him bucking off of the bed. Feeling himself engulfed in the wet furnace of her mouth, he began to babble incoherently, spilling forth declarations of need and pleasure, telling her what an angel she was, how beautiful and perfect she was and how blood amazing she made him feel.



With one hand firmly holding the base of his penis, the other began to cup and massage his heavy balls, and all the time Buffy never removed her mouth from his cock. She worked him up and down, her tongue twirling around his slit on every upstroke. Every so often she drove him wild with the slightest scrape of her teeth on him.



As his breathing became nothing more than ragged pants, his words nothing more than a chanting homage to her name, he felt the release of white-hot pleasure fill his whole being. With one final cry he came in her mouth.



Removing her mouth from his now softening member, she licked her lips and grinned saucily at him.



“Did you like that…Daddy?”



With a roar, Spike pumped his hand one last time up and down his dick, opening his eyes to see thick streams of ropey semen spurt onto his bare stomach.



“Bloody fuck!” He cried, collapsing against the pillows on Buffy’s bed, completely spent.



In his head, he felt another brick in the barricade against his burgeoning attracting to Buffy chip away. With his orgasmic release, the guilt and pain had all come rushing back to him, and he couldn’t deny how wrong all this was. He just wanted more of those moments when he could forget everything.



Moments when he could fantasize about coming with Buffy’s lips wrapped out his most sensitive parts.



Fuck.



He needed a drink. A strong one.

Although it had been months since Buffy had set foot near the Bronze, it was clear that the place hadn’t changed at all. It was still a mass of hyperactive teenagers grinding against each others’ sweaty bodies as they writhed to angsty pop music. It was sad to say that in spite of its lackluster ambience it really was the only club in Sunnydale even remotely worth visiting.





Making their way inside Buffy and Willow headed to the bar, trying to fight their way through the crowd gathered there. Buffy glanced around, feeling a shiver course down her spine. Ever since she had stepped out of the house she had been plagued with an uneasy feeling. It was the kind of prickly feeling you get right between your shoulders when you know you’re being watched, but you can’t pinpoint the source.





“What do you want to drink?” Willow shouted, trying to be heard over the pounding music.





“Just a diet coke.” The blonde responded equally loudly. With a nod, Willow turned back to the bar, and procured them both a drink, before scouring the club with her eyes, searching for the rest of her friends. She gave an excited shriek as she spotted them, and tugged on Buffy’s arm in a way that reminded the blonde of a child on Christmas morning.





That was one of the things she had always loved about Willow, the way that she was able to find pleasure in the most ordinary and mundane facts of life. Ever since they met, Willow had been vibrant and positive, often providing the yin to Buffy’s much more negative yang. With a start, she realized that in her self-enforced isolation of the last few months, she had truly missed that.





Reaching the table, Willow flashed everyone sitting there a beaming smile, which they returned. However, when all eyes turned to Buffy, she felt a little less welcome, and turned her face to the floor, studiously evasive of their eyes.





Xander, Anya and Oz were staring at her with varying degrees of wariness. Oz seemed kind of indifferent and Anya appeared a peculiar mixture of bored and curious but Xander looked the least pleased to see her there.





“Well Buffy, long time no see. I thought you had forgotten about us.” He declared scathingly, raising his voice to be heard over the music.





“Xan…”





“We care about you, Buff, and you treat us this way. And then what? It’s okay to suddenly let us back into Buffy Town?”





She opened her mouth to respond, hating being on the receiving end of the boy’s anger, but Xander interrupted before she could choke out even a single word.





“No, save it, Buffy. You’re here because Willow wanted you here. Because she misses you. God knows why after how selfish you’ve been lately.”





“Xander.” Anya’s warning voice broke through his haze of fury and he slouched back in his seat. However, the damage was done and Buffy looked as if she was about to burst into tears.





It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that Xander was one of those people who held grudges and got mad over the small things, but she thought he might have been a little bit more understanding with her. The cold look in his eyes and the hateful words had floored her.





Trying to cut through the tension, Willow patted Buffy on the arm.





“Why don’t we go dance.” The redheaded teen suggested. “I mean, not that my dancing skills are very…dancey…but it’s fun. Right, Buffy?” She ended breathlessly, and pasted a smile onto her lips.





“Actually, I need to go to the bathroom.” Buffy told her, without raising her gaze from the ground. Sensing that her friend was getting up to accompany her, she stayed her with her hand. “It’s okay, you stay here. I won’t be long.” Reluctantly, Willow nodded, and watched as her friend made her way through the pulsating crowd toward the restrooms.





“Xander, that was not fair.” Willow admonished the boy once Buffy was out of sight.





“Listen, Wills. I get it, I really do. You want us to forgive and forget. But she acts like we’re lepers for months and then expects to be welcomed back like the prodigal Buffy. I can’t just do that. It’s going to take some time.”





With a sigh, Willow slumped in her seat.





This was turning out way less fun than she thought it would be.





As she left the table, Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized how stifling this would be. In the time since her depression over Spike had first kicked in and she had estranged herself from her friends, she had gradually forgotten how judgmental some of them could be.





Well, when she said some of them, she really meant Xander.





Since they day they had met, he had put her on some kind of pedestal, as if she was superhero Buffy. And every time she made even the smallest mistake, he punished her with his words or with stony silences, that made her feel about two feet tall.





But this was worse than before.





He hadn’t even offered her his condolences over her Mom.





Pausing by the bar, she leaned against it, resting her temple on her closed fist, letting her eyes drift shut. With the music taking over her senses, and the smell of booze thick in the air, for a moment she felt like she could lose herself in this place. Like she could forget who she was and everything that had happened lately.





The only other time she had felt that recently was when she was ensconced on Spike’s lap with his velvety lips making their way down her neck.





“Not the best place to take a nap, standing at the bar.”





Buffy’s eyes shot open at the sound of the intrusive voice, to come face to face with a dark-haired man standing a few mere inches from her. He towered over her and she shuffled back a little, uncomfortable at his proximity.





“Do I know you?” She asked petulantly. His eyes flicked over her rapidly taking in her subtle curves and sexy outfit, and he successfully managed to hide his lecherous leer.





“Not yet.” He replied with a grin. “Maybe we should rectify that. I’m Angel.” He held out a hand, but dropped it almost instantly when she glared at it as if it was some kind of biochemical weapon.





“That’s a name?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from bleeding through into her voice, but he didn’t take offense, and let out a deep laugh.





“It is. Not the name my mother gave me, but good enough just the same. And yours would be…?”





Buffy hesitated. Her mother had always warned her during childhood about talking to strangers. And while she was no longer a child, this guy was definitely a stranger, and an older one at that. From the looks of him he was probably in his mid-30s, and there was something about him that seemed a little off. He appeared to lack that unidentifiable spark that seemed missing from some people and made them seem cold and unapproachable.





On the other hand he was dressed well, and looked mild mannered and polite, if not warm and gentle. No, this guy seemed just fine. And she did pride herself on being an excellent judge of character.





“I’m Buffy.” She finally told him.





“That’s a name?” He mimicked her earlier words with a friendly smile, and with a matching smile of her own spreading across her lips, she immediately warmed to him.





For a while they continued chatting. He told her that he was in town on business, as well as looking up an old friend. He seemed…sweet. And his flirting was a nice change from Spike’s cold glares and admonishments about how she was just a child. For the first time in a while she felt wanted. Instead of being a scrawny teen, she was a woman, and a desirable one if the looks Angel was giving her were any kind of indication.





Here was an older guy who was clearly showing an interest in her, and it suckered her in like a fly crawling into a spider’s web.





Their pleasant conversation was interrupted when Willow came bounding up to the bar, her fair face etched with anxiety.





“Uh, Buffy, we were wondering what happened to you. I was worried.” Willow told her, chewing on her bottom lip as she checked out the man standing at her friend’s side.





“Oh, Wills, sorry, I got talking to Angel, and I got totally sidetracked. Color me bad Buffy. And, oh, by the way, Angel this is my friend, Willow. Willow, this is Angel. He’s in town for a while on business.”





Willow graced him with a reluctant nod, which he returned, before turning back to Buffy.





“Are you coming back to the table?”





“I don’t think so.” Buffy exhaled wearily. “They don’t want me there…”





“They do!”





“No, Wills, they don’t. Especially Xander. You know what he’s like when he gets like that, and I just can’t…okay? And I don’t want to be the one who spoils their night, or your night. ” Seeing the despondent look forming on Willow’s pale face, Buffy placed a comforting palm on her friend’s shoulder. “I will make an effort, okay? Just, not right now. Xander needs…time, I guess.”





“Alright, just…” Her eyes flickered over to Angel. “Just be careful.”





“I will. I promise.” With a quick vow to call each other in the morning, they exchanged a warm hug, and Buffy felt thankful for the human contact that seemed missing from her for so long.





Reassured, Willow said her goodbyes to Buffy and Angel, and weaved her way back to join her friends.





“Would you like a drink?” He asked her with a smile, as he watched Willow retreat.





“Um, okay, sure. I’ll have a diet coke.”





“Wouldn’t you prefer to try something different?” Angel wondered. Before she could answer, Angel smirked at her. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll surprise you.”





Making his way down the bar, he located the bartender and leaning over, he managed to attract the man’s attention.





“Beer for me, and a nice strong Long Island Iced Tea for the lady.” He asked the shorter man behind the bar in a hushed whisper.





“She over 21?” The bartender asked, casting a suspicious look in Buffy’s direction where she was standing farther down the bar.





“Yeah, of course. She just looks young.” He lied smoothly.





With a shrug the bartender poured the drinks and Angel tossed him a twenty-dollar bill, picking up the drinks and making his way back to the younger girl.





He handed Buffy the tall glass, beads of condensation rolling down the side and pooling on her fingertips as she took hold of it.





“What is it?” She asked, sniffing it with more than a hint of suspicion.





“Just iced tea. Cheers.” He raised his beer in salute and chugged a swig. His smile grew wider as she took a long swallow of the liquid in her own glass.





“I like it.” She announced, smacking her lips. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she tipped the glass to her lips for another gulp.





Four iced teas later, and Buffy was swaying on her feet. For some reason everything seemed unbelievably funny. She felt as if all the secrets of the universe had suddenly been unlocked and she was invincible.





Was this why Spike drank so much?





God! Now was so not the time to think about him. Not when she had the company of a good looking guy who didn’t treat her like some dumb five year old kid who didn’t know its own mind. Immediately she pushed all thoughts of the man who had been the object of her affections for more than a year out of her head and tried to concentrate on the moment in which she was currently living.





However, as she was not used to drinking, and her blood was filled with way more alcohol than was mixy with the Buffy constitution, that was easier said than done.





Tripping over her own feet, she almost stumbled to the floor, but Angel reached out his arms to catch her.





“I think someone’s a little tipsy.” He told her.





“Schomeone being you.” She pouted in reply.





“Come on, Buff. I’ll walk you home.”





“I don’t wanna go shmone…mone…home. Ha! Home kinda rhymes with bone, ya know?” She giggled. “Bone! Like a…” She lowered her voice. “Like a…penis.” She broke out into another fit of uncontrollable giggling, and Angel sighed, getting frustrated. Getting the girl this drunk hadn’t been his intention at all. He thought he could get her a little tipsy and then…





Well that plan was right out of the window now. It would have to be Plan B.





“Well, it’s time to go, okay. So haul ass and let’s move.” He demanded. She raised sad eyes to him at the harsh tone, but didn’t object further and allowed herself to be dragged out of the club. Vaguely in the back of her mind it registered that wandering the streets at night, drunk and alone with a stranger probably wasn’t in “The Teenager’s Handbook of Sensible Things to Do”. Somewhere along the line it appeared that she had missed receiving her copy.





But she tried to suppress the growing feeling of concern as Angel led her through the labyrinth of dark alleys that Sunnydale was peppered with.





In her chest the growing fist of foreboding flexed itself, and she tried to tell herself that she was just being stupid.





Surely nothing bad could happen.





Right?

For the past few hours Spike had been feeling incredibly unsettled. There was something that just hadn’t been sitting right with him since he arrived home. Of course, he was still grieving for the loss of his wife so he figured that accounted for some of it.



Although they had their problems, he had cared for Joyce in a way that he had never cared about anyone except for his mother before. Maybe that was part of the problem. Although they were similar ages, only 3 years apart, she had been very maternal toward him. When he lost his own mother, he lost that comfort and she was there to give it to him.



In the end, however, he believed he failed her.



And it hurt like hell.



The fact that her murderer was still out there, and that there was no way the man who gunned down his wife would ever go to jail also felt like a knife to the gut every time he thought about it.



Not that Spike just planned to let him get away with it. He knew that the reckoning day would come sooner or later, and he would make that man suffer, but that was a whole other story.



Of course it wasn’t just residual grief and guilt over the death of his wife that was eating at him. He also knew that a part of his distress was the thoughts he had been having about Buffy and his ever growing sexual attraction to her. He seemed to have so little self control that every time his mind flickered over thoughts of her his dick stood to attention.



Her body was like an altar at which he longed to worship. Unfortunately, it was a forbidden altar. Not just because of her age, but also because she was his stepdaughter, and hell if he didn’t have to remind himself of that fact repeatedly.



Still, it didn’t force his dick to stand down.



But alongside all that, there was something else niggling at the back of his mind that he just couldn’t put his finger on, like a voice that’s familiar but you just cannot place. However, with his mind fogged up with alcohol, now wasn’t the time to try and identify it.



He wasn’t drunk enough yet though, and in all honesty he wasn’t even sure what his limits were these days. And it wasn’t as if he had much else to do, alone and lonely with only his dirty forbidden thoughts to keep him company. Not that he would ever act on any of them.



Who was he kidding? He already had bloody well acted on them several nights before. Still he wanted Buffy, despite all the factors which should have made it impossible. A huge part of him wished she was right here right now. If he could take her in his arms and kiss the hell out of her, he couldn’t help but believe that the world would melt away, the same way it had the other night.



Except he couldn’t ever act on it. For both their sakes. Because if he did then he would damn them both.



He hated having all this time to think and reflect, and alcohol fuelled thoughts never ended well.



Yes, time was his enemy and so was the clock on his office wall. Spike was sure of it. Ticking out the seconds of his solitude until Buffy returned home, like a general marching to its own painful tune. He was torn between wanting her to come back and not wanting to have to face her, and he knew that either scenario would be equally painful.



It was close to midnight and it had been over 3 hours since Buffy had left. Pouring himself another drink, and downing it in a single swallow, he grimaced and lit up a cigarette. He’d tried to quit so many times, but, along with drinking, it was one of the only habits from his previous life that he hadn’t be able to surrender.



He just wanted to take his mind off the girl who dominated his thoughts so thoroughly recently.



Pouring himself another drink, which he quickly finished, he made his way back to the bedroom, heading straight for the closet. Kneeling down at the back he pulled out a small wooden box that he had kept concealed there ever since he moved into Revello Drive.



It was rare that he looked in it, but lately his past seemed to be catching up with him and he knew that he would be forced to confront it, sooner rather than later.



Sitting down on the bed, he gingerly opened the lid of the teak box, filmy tears clouding his vision as he saw the first photo on the pile inside it.



It was a beautiful picture depicting Drusilla and Darla in the dimming twilight, sitting by a fire on the beach. He lovingly traced their faces lamenting their lost happiness…and his own.



The two women were hugging tenderly, vibrant smiles illuminating their faces. Darla’s bubbly demeanor and Dru’s darker beauty offset each other. It was before everything went bad for them. That day, more than a decade ago, had been one of the best days in his whole life.



And also one of the worst.



It was that day that Darla had met the man who managed to systematically destroy them all.



Feeling his breath hitch in his chest, he laid that picture to one side and delved farther into the box, encountering several photos from that time. But the farther he went the more sinister they became. It was almost like watching a TV show of his life, seeing how they degenerated from happy, vivacious young people, to drug-addled and desperate degenerates.



The ones at the bottom of the stack physically pained him to look at.



Some of them showed Dru splayed out on a grimy bed, half full bottle of wine swaying in her hands as she laughed maniacally.



Others showed Darla sitting on the hood of her lover’s old ’67 Plymouth coldly staring right into the lens of the camera as she came down from one of their pill binges.



And the worst ones showed him, thinking he was badass as he snorted lines of blow from a dirty table, clad in the rebellious attire of a man who had simply stopped caring about anything except for where his next fix was coming from.



He had a lot of blanks from that time, and no matter how much he wished he could remember, it was as if someone had taken an eraser to his memory and randomly slashed at it.



It was a grueling time for Spike, and the period that followed was even worse.



But Spike had thought that part of his life was over.



Until a few weeks ago. Then it all came rushing back as he saw the silvery flash of a gun leveled at his wife. In his mind’s eye he could picture the mocking sneer on the face of the shooter. The shot still echoed in his head, and the image reverberated in his mind every single time that he closed his eyes.



God, everything that had happened was his own fault. Darla, Dru, Joyce…he had ruined everything and there was no one else left to blame. Well there was one person left other than Spike who did deserve to have the fault laid at his door, but unfortunately to all intents and purposes, he was untouchable. At least as far as Spike was concerned.



With an animalistic roar, all the tension bubbling up inside him exploded and he picked up the box, launching it against the wall.



“Bloody fuckin’ hell!” He yelled, unbridled rage dimming his vision with its fiery haze. “Soddin’ god-damn buggerin’ bastards!”



A certain satisfaction settled within him as it splintered wildly, the contents scattering all over the carpet.



Taking deep panting breaths he waiting for the haze to dissipate, and for some kind of rationality to seep back into his psyche.



That rational voice sounded suspiciously like Joyce when it sounded in his head.



Yes, it was true, he had done things which had hurt other people, but he was sick of wallowing in his own misery. However, so much had changed since those days that he hated to think back to the person he was then. When he thought of the things he’d done and the things that he’d been made to do.



It was a tangled web and he was right at the center of it, stuck like a magnet on a refrigerator. He didn’t want to get anyone else involved in this, and in his heart he prayed that it was over and done with. That vengeance had been served. But there was someone else hurting because of the things that he had done in the past.



Buffy.



So many terrible things had happened to all the people who he loved in the past and the last thing that he wanted was for something to happen to her.



Not that he loved her in any way but the absolutely appropriate way.



Of course not.



Fuck, he was screwed.



It hadn’t even been a month since his wife died, and he was thinking about her daughter…her own bloody flesh and blood…in that way. Lust was one thing, something that was clearly undeniable on both sides from him and Buffy. But love was a whole other animal altogether and he was sure that he definitely was nowhere near ready to face that though. Can true love really even happen so fast? Spike was positive that he had only felt fatherly affection toward the girl before Joyce was killed.



And he wasn’t even sure if what he was feeling came close to love. It was probably just lust.



Yeah, good idea, Spike. Keep telling yourself that.



After the things he’d said to her the other night he doubted she would ever let him touch her again anyway.



What if she was out there, in that club, grinding her sweet body against some other man? What if some undeserving little git was tasting the sweat that pooled at the hollow of her collar bone or molding his lips to her sweet ones at this very moment?



Groaning, he rose to his feet from the floor, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over him. Stumbling down the stairs, he grabbed his leather duster from the banister and threw it on.



Buffy was out there, alone and angry, still stinging from both the loss of her mother and the way he had treated her recently. She was out there alone when there was a murderer with a grudge against him running around.



“Bloody hell!” He swore as the realization hit him. If Angel was still around here then Buffy was in serious danger. An image of her dead body flashed before his eyes and he almost doubled over in pain at the thought.



Not willing to wait another moment, he headed out the door and into the cool night air.



He was going to get his girl.



However, he still had no idea just what he was going to do when he found her.

When he stepped out of the house, he slowly made his way down the driveway. Spike wasn’t certain where Buffy had gone, but he assumed that she would be mostly likely to have gone to the Bronze.







He was about to head in that direction when he saw a sight that stopped him cold in his tracks.







A black 1967 Plymouth GTX Convertible.







The huge car was parked a little farther down the street but close enough for the man to identify immediately.







Spike would know that car anywhere. It still haunted his nightmares.







God! He’d seen it earlier when he’d gotten home, but his mind was so clogged up with other things that it hadn’t really registered with him.







No wonder that niggling feeling had been gnawing at his senses all evening.







And it only meant one thing if that car was here…Angelus was around.







And that meant Buffy was in danger.







“Bugger!”







He tore out into the night like the hounds of hell were hot on his heels. Momentarily, as he gasped for breath, Spike wondered if he should have quit smoking, but now was clearly not the time to contemplate it. Remembering the potential danger Buffy was in as he ominously passed one of Sunnydale’s many cemeteries he ran with renewed vigor toward the area of Sunnydale where the only half decent club in town was located.







When he got to the club, he barely acknowledged the doormen before entering.







The Bronze was dark and dusty; full of sweaty bodies and Spike felt a rush of nausea hit him as he realized that a combination of the shock of seeing Angel’s car and the night air had sobered him up.







Being sober was an unwelcome feeling these days.







Frantically surveying the patrons he eventually spotted Buffy’s little red haired friend sitting alongside some other people and weaved his way through the throbbing mass of people to get to them.







As soon as he got there he noted that Buffy was not with them, and his chest tightened even more than before.







Something wasn’t right, and if she was somehow with Angel…







Well he knew just what that man was capable of.







At the table he was immediately greeted the curious frown of a blonde haired girl that Spike didn’t recognize and the hostile glare of a brown haired boy that Spike vaguely remembered seeing around when he had first started dating Joyce. Returning the glare just as icily he bent down, clasping a hand onto Willow’s shoulder, making her startle in fright and whip her head around so fast she almost made herself dizzy.







“Spike!” Willow exclaimed, shocked to see him standing there. “What’s wrong?”







“Where’s Buffy?” He shouted, determined to be heard above the hellacious din.







“Buffy?” The girl flushed, realizing that she didn’t know exactly where her friend was. She hadn’t seen her since she left her alone with the creepy guy at the bar. “Um…well…here’s the thing…”







“Bloody well tell me now, Red!” He demanded, losing all semblance of patience.







His eyes were wide, not hiding the fear that clouded them, and his breathing was quick, small pants coming out rapidly as he waited for the answer.







“She…met…a guy. I think…maybe she left with him.” Willow stammered out, nervous at the behavior of the desperate man in front of her. To be fair, she didn’t really know Spike Rayne very well, so seeing him act like a wild animal about to rip its prey to shreds was naturally a little troubling for the teen.







“Who? Who was the sodding git?”







“I didn’t know him. I mean, I never saw him around before, so I don’t think he’s from around here. He was older, kind of strange looking…really tall, dark hair sticking straight up, dressed all in black.”







There are moments in life when it feels as if the world around you freezes, and all that exists is yourself and your pain. When Spike heard the description that Willow gave him, he experienced one of those moments, and audibly gulped, trying not to fall to pieces. Composing himself, he spoke very slowly.







“Did you get his name?”







“Yes! It was A..Angel.”







Not even bothering to toss a thank you in Willow’s direction, Spike turned and ran.







Barging people out of the way, he finally managed to exit the club and launched himself into the rabbits’ warren of alleyways that lay just outside the Bronze.







He was very familiar with old Angelus’ modus operandi, and so he was aware this was just the kind of place that Angelus would revel in. That sick bastard loved a game, and taking Buffy somewhere like this, making her veins fill with terror was just the kind of way that Angelus would love to torment a girl like her.







God! How could he have been so fucking stupid?!







After what happened to Joyce…he just let Buffy wander around town like she was as safe as bloody houses, and spent the time drowning his own sorrows in whiskey, leaving her to the wolves.







Or rather…one wolf in particular.







Spike vehemently endeavored to stay calm, and not to let the trepidation that he felt deep within himself get the better of him, but it was far from easy.







That’s when he heard it.







A single scream.







And he took off running once again in its direction.







He heard them before he saw them…Angel’s nasty mocking laugh and Buffy’s pleas, and a familiar red haze descended over him.







“Stop! Don’t touch me!” Buffy shrieked, pounding her tiny curled up hands against the man’s chest, tears streaming relentlessly down her flushed face.







“Come on, Buff! You know you want it. A girl like you doesn’t dress like a little slut like this unless she wants a good fucking.”







As Spike neared them he saw Buffy pushed up against the wall, Angel fisting her hair in his meaty fist while he used the other hand to paw at her. Angel’s knee was wedged between Buffy’s legs as he kept her pinned, and she was trying to wriggle away from him with all her strength.







Spike didn’t hesitate as he dragged Angelus off the girl in one swift move, spun him round and cocked his fist back. The taller man didn’t even have a chance to blink as Spike’s fist ploughed into his jaw, sending Angel flying back into the wall, a harsh crack sounding as he hit the brick.







Buffy screamed, turning toward Spike in shock. She had no idea what he was doing here, but all the anger and resentment that had build up since their almost-kiss faded away and the void that it left was filled with the passion for him that she had suppressed so much recently.







Seeing Angel was trying to get back to a standing position, Buffy back away to the other side of the alley. She didn’t want to be anywhere near the man who had tried to assault her. And she wouldn’t shed a tear if Spike beat the living shit out of the bastard either.







When Angel pulled himself back together, having only been phased for a moment, he realized just who was beating on him. He cupped his injured face tenderly with his fingers, stumbling a little as he got back to his feet. Laughing he stepped closer to Spike who was clenching his jaw in fury at his opponent.







“Well well well! If it isn’t Willy-boy! Didn’t expect you to be out taking a stroll this late at night. Then again, I would actually recommend it.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially and cocked his head toward Buffy, who was watching the scene with a mixture of shock and fear. “Never know what kind of whores you will find on the streets around here.”







Even though Spike knew that the other man was purposefully inciting him, he couldn’t help but be provoked. All the issues he had with Angel, old and new, came violently bubbling to the surface, and before Angel could say another word, Spike poured the anger from those issues into punch after punch, whaling on his old enemy mercilessly, until the other man was backed up against the bricks of the wall.







“Spike! Spike!” It took him time to register where the voice was coming from, before he realized it was Buffy who was shouting him. Glancing down he saw his knuckles covered with blood.







Angel’s blood.







The other man’s mangled face was covered in cuts and bruises, and his hair was matted to his forehead with the sticky red liquid. But he was still grinning meanly at Spike, a knowing expression fixed onto his face.







Finally Buffy laid a comforting hand on his arm, and he dropped his fists. The moment that Spike stopped punching him, Angel spit a glob of blood in his face.







Sensing he was about to restart the tirade, Buffy grabbed onto his arm, not exactly sure why she was pulling him away from Angel. It wasn’t that she wanted to protect the dark haired sociopath, but she couldn’t let Spike kill him. She didn’t want to be partly responsible for the death of another human being, no matter how evil he was.







“Need a woman to protect you still, Willy?” Angel taunted provocatively, his eyes flickering over Buffy’s tense form. “Do you think she would still be here if she knew just what you are, and what you’ve done?”







“Get out of here!” Spike warned, interrupted Angel’s spew of his own individual brand of venom. “Leave before I bloody well finish the job.”







Angel smirked.







“Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done that, would it, Willy?”







Seeing that Spike was about to attack him again, Angel held up his hands in mock surrender, smirking at the shorter man.







“Now now! Little girl like Buff shouldn’t be exposed to all this violence. Don’t you agree Willy?”







He looked the pair in front of him over thoughtfully and the twin expressions of disgust and hatred on both Buffy’s and Spike’s faces made Angelus feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He knew that he’d done what he set out to do tonight.







Not that a taste of Buffy’s teenage pussy wouldn’t have been a nice bonus, but his main objective was to rile both of them up.







And judging by their postures and expressions, he’d succeeded without a doubt.







He liked to do things artfully, savor their destruction. The best downfalls came gradually.







Before Spike could make another move in his direction, Angel decided to flee. He might be evil, but he wasn’t totally stupid.







“See you around!” He yelled over his shoulder as he disappeared into the shadows.







Buffy and Spike stared after him, the shock of what had happened starting to sink in.







“Shouldn’t we call the cops?” Buffy turned to Spike, her face still swollen and stained from the tears.







“No! No bleeding police.” Spike said, before feeling all the heightened emotions come crashing down onto him.







“Why not?” She asked, genuinely bewildered. “He needs to pay for what he did. We can’t just let him walk. What if he does it to some other girl?” The guy had attacked her, and yet Spike didn’t want to involve the law. Then it struck her.







Spike knew Angel. And Angel knew Spike. Angel had called him “Willy” which meant that had to have been acquainted at some point. There were very few people who knew that Spike’s real name was William, after all. Although judging by the bloodshed, it was clearly not amicable.







“Why don’t you want the cops involved, Spike? I know you’re hiding something, and I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what you know…”







“Leave it be would you, Buffy.”







“No! I won’t leave it.” Buffy huffed. “Your buddy could have raped me and you won’t turn him in. You’re all denial-y!”







“He’s not my bloody buddy! He’s a rat-arsed git, and I would love to see him doing a good stint of porridge, but we can’t go to the police.”







“Why…”







“Just bloody well trust me!” Spike exclaimed harshly before softening his voice. “We will work it out, but you have to trust me on this one. Please?”







His puppy dog expression and genuine plea struck a chord in her and she slowly nodded. She would trust that he knew what was best, in spite of her own instincts. In this case, she knew that she didn’t have a choice.







She simply had to trust that somehow Spike would ensure that justice was done. She just wished she knew how he was planning to make that happen.







Although curiosity and suspicion still bombarded her, she pushed the questions to the back of her mind for now as she looked at Spike’s face, twisted with residual fear coupled with relief.







Clasping onto her upper arms he looked like he was going to cry. “God, Buffy, are you okay?” All the emotions of the evening were poured into that one question and Buffy felt her heart skip a beat.







Spike looked her over, tenderly checking for any injuries. Luckily, although Angel had roughed her up a little and scared her, the situation could have been a lot worse, and Spike had arrived before any real damage had been done.







She knew she shouldn’t have taken a stupid chance like that, but she’d been drunk and upset with Spike. And Angel had seemed so nice.







Okay, so maybe she was less of a great character judge than she had thought.







She nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think I would be but you got here before he…” Buffy ran her hand over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose to stem the tears that were trying to flow once again, before she looked straight into his eyes.







It was amazing the way it struck her right there and then. His eyes were so open, so full of life, so kind. They were so different from Angel’s evil orbs. When she gazed into his deep blue eyes, it was as if she was looking right into his soul.







"What the hell were you doing out here with him anyway?" Asked Spike, trying to rein in his feelings.








"I just...I was dumb, okay? He seemed nice and then he gave me this tea, which I think was more than actual tea, because I went all tipsy-Buffy and then...then he said he would walk me home...and he pushed me up against the wall." She heaved in a shuddering breath as the weight of what almost happened hit her like a freight train.








Angel almost raped her. And Spike was her unlikely savior.








Garnering her emotions, she smiled at him. “Thank you, Spike. If you hadn’t come along…” Buffy trailed off, and sighed. Both of them knew what the outcome would have been if he hadn’t come when he did.







And then it hit him.







Buffy could have died, really died. Angel could have slaughtered her like cattle and left her to rot in a filthy alley, while Spike pontificated about the rights and wrongs of caring about the girl in a less than fatherly way.







Spike had suppressed his sexual urges toward Buffy for the past several weeks, telling himself it was wrong to do it now because Joyce’s memory was still so fresh, and that she was too young to be with him.







But she could have died and then she would never age another day, and he would never get another chance.







“Your hands…” She said, breaking into his thoughts. He looked down at his bloodied fists and smiled in grim satisfaction as he recalled the damage he’d done to Angel’s smug face. “We should get home, wrap them up.”







Spike nodded, but he didn’t seem to be able to move as she took one of his hands in hers and traced the palm gently, before turning it over and repeating the same gesture with his knuckles.







Hovering hesitantly he slowly approached her until they were almost chest to chest, his eyes focused lustfully on her lips. He was giving her every chance to get away or say no, but she returned his stare in the same manner. Everything about his posture oozed sensuality, and her body unconsciously responded.







Maybe this wasn’t the best time to kiss her, after the two of them had been in such a highly charged situation, emotions still running high.







But Spike could not muster up the will to care less.







The look that Spike was giving her sent her heart thudding wildly inside her breast, beating as if it would break through any moment. Even in all of her wildest, most sensuous fantasies Spike had never looked at her in quite this way, as if she was the center of everything, and without her he would fade away and die.







Then it all happened so fast.







Without a thought for the consequences, Spike crushed his soft full lips to hers, his velvety lips massaging her own before his tongue slid into Buffy’s mouth to intertwine with hers.







His arms came around her, pulling her body flush against his. Her hands wove their way into his hair, loosening the gel, and Spike moaned as her nails scraped the sensitive flesh of his scalp.







He knew he could happily take her right there and then.







Locked in their passionate embrace, the rest of the world faded away.







Finally they tasted each other.







And there had never been a taste quite so sweet.

The kiss seemed to go on forever and yet last for no time at all. It was a tiny glimpse into their passion, but the tighter their lips fused, the more obvious it became to both of them that they had only just briefly touched on what they could have together.



They finally broke apart, both gasping with a combination of arousal and lack of breath.



“Wow!” Buffy panted, her arms still woven around Spike’s neck.



“Buffy…” Spike said slowly.



Her eyes widened at his tone. It was so cautious and fear coursed through her that he might regret kissing her like that.



After everything she had been through during the course of the night…strike that…through the course of the last few months…being safely ensconced in Spike’s arms made her feel safe, wanted and needed. If he rejected her now, she was not sure that she would ever recover.



Seemingly sensing her anxiety, Spike shook his head, and cupped her check lovingly with his palm, running his fingers down her jaw line in a comforting gesture.



“I wasn’t about to say anything bad.” He smiled, his eyes sparkling mischievously in the moonlight. “I just don’t want to go any further in this bloody alley. If…if we do go further, I want it to be somewhere I can treat you like the princess you deserve to be treated as. Won’t be one of those bloody sods who only gives a rat’s arse for getting his own end away.”



“I know.” Buffy whispered.



“Thing is…if we don’t stop right now, nothing in this whole bleeding world will stop me from spreading you wide like a feast for me, tasting every delectable inch of your body, and then burying myself deep inside of you until you scream my name over and over as you come.”



Buffy felt an intense shudder ripple its way through her leaving a trail of fire in its wake in response to Spike’s overtly dirty talk. Her blood seemed too hot in her veins; her skin was tingling uncontrollably; and her mouth as dry as a desert in the midday sun.



No one had ever spoken to her in that way and to hear those words come from Spike’s mouth made her wonder if she had somehow died and found herself in heaven.



“Maybe we should go home.” Buffy offered, desperate to let him play with her body the way he had described.



Bestowing one more heart-stopping his on her lips, Spike grabbed her hand and they set off toward their home. Right now they were both drowning in a lake of fire, and neither Buffy nor Spike wanted to be saved.



Neither of them was quite sure just how they made it home. Every few moments, their libidos forced them to stop and kiss and touch each other heedless of the disapproving stares that might have been tossed their way by tipsy partygoers making their way home.



When they finally reached Revello Drive, Spike fumbled in his pocket for the house key, keeping his lips fused to Buffy’s.



As they stumbled through the door, Buffy suddenly found herself slammed back against the inside of the wood by a very aroused Spike, and gasped out loud as he lifted her up, settling between her parted legs.



“Can’t…wait…” He panted. “I need to have you right now, pet. Need to be inside you, feel your soft wet pussy surrounding me.”



“Wait!” Buffy stilled him with a soft hand on his chest. “I don’t know if I can…if I’m ready to…you know.”



Spike held in a huge sigh and gritted his teeth to get back some control. He was a man with needs, and no matter how much he cared for the girl, having her grinding all over him like she had ben doing, and then asking him to wait was like pure torture. The aroused part of Spike wanted to try and persuade her and cajole her, but a sudden recollection of what had happened to her earlier with Angelus halted him, and he reluctantly nodded.



“We don’t have to go further than you’re ready for, pet.” He said. “But, if you’ll let me, I’d love to feel your lovely delicious pussy inside my mouth. I want to taste you, love. Can you let me have that?”



Feeling her panties flood with moisture, Buffy nodded almost imperceptibly and pulled him closer to her, grinding her wet center against his jeans. Spike tried not to come right there and then inside his pants, loathe to warn her that if she continued to do that, he wasn’t sure that he could heed her words of wanting to wait.



She was vaguely aware that her skirt had not ridden up exposing her blood-red thong to Spike, and he gazed down as the erotic sight through a thrill filled haze.



He broke his lips away from hers and trailed kisses down her neck. This, right now, was pure want and need. The desperation was heightened by what had happened earlier, and they needed each other to reassure themselves. In each other they found passion and safety, a strange paradoxical mixture that worked perfectly for the two of them.



Spike’s fingers glided up her thighs, gently tracing a path from her knees upwards, and she moaned at the barely-there brush of his seemingly magical hands. Stopping his fingers just short of the crotch of her panties he drew his head back, searching her eyes for permission to go further.



“I’ve wanted this for…so long.” Buffy admitted gritting her teeth as the pleasure threatened to overwhelm as he traced her panty covered mound with a single finger.



“You’ve wanted me?” Spike asked, low and husky.



“God, yes! Please, Spike. Please! Touch me.” Buffy had never been the begging kind, but right now she didn’t care. All she wanted was to feel his hands on her and inside of her. She was lost to the passion and only Spike could find her now.



“Do you lie in bed, touching yourself and thinking of me?” He asked, remembering the times he had done exactly that lately.



Buffy blushed a bright red, and stubbornly refused to meet his eyes until he withdrew his finger from touching her.



“I…sometimes.” Came her quiet admission and he smiled.



“Would you like me to touch your sweet little pussy like that, pet? Rub you until your juices drip down my fingers?”



Her loins were burning, and her whole body seemed to throb and pulse in time with her racing heart beat. No longer did she have blood in her veins, she was sure. It had turned to liquid fire, and Spike was the only one who could quell it. Giving him an almost imperceptible nod, Buffy leaned forward and captured his lips. He hoisted her up and walked the pair of them over to the couch, his tongue still massaging hers.



Setting her down on the old brown sofa, he peeled away the panties that kept him from his treasure, lifting them to his face and inhaling her musky scent. His eyes rolled back in his head as he smelled her juices and Buffy grimaced at the action, feeling as if she should be disgusted, but deep down she couldn’t avoid being a touch turned on by the fact that her scent aroused him so intensely.



Tucking the panties into the back of his jeans, he ran his fingers up and down her slit, coating his fingers with her wetness.



“Has anyone else ever tasted you here?” She was momentarily startled by the possessiveness in his voice and shook her head in the negative.



Pleased with her answer, he attacked her with his mouth, sucking and licking like a man starved of water that had finally discovered his desert oasis.



“You taste bloody incredible!” He told her in awe, the vibrations of his voice moistening her even more. “I could spend my whole life tasting you, and it wouldn’t be a single bloody minute wasted.”



It was funny how her taste alone could satisfy every need he had. That had never happened before with any other partner. He couldn’t wait for the day when she would let him sink into her, making them one entity, but for now, her taste was everything he needed and more.



It didn’t take long before she was screwing her eyes tightly shut, her toes curling wildly as the shudders of her orgasm rocked through her body. She grasped the back of the couch with flailing hands, trying to find purchase as she started to come down from the pleasure.



When she eventually opened her eyes, she was greeted with Spike’s beaming grin.



“So did my kitten like?” He asked her and Buffy shook her head in the affirmative.



“But, actually, I think you’re the kitten here.” Buffy laughed at Spike’s perplexed situation even though she was cherry colored herself at what she was about to say. “You were the one making with the…lapping.”



Spike laughed along with her. He truly didn’t expect Buffy to ever say something so provocatively sexual yet strangely innocent to him. But he couldn’t deny he liked it.



He flashed back to the memory of his fantasy of earlier that very evening. God, it seemed like a lifetime ago now, but it had really only been hours before that he had imagined her sucking his cock…and calling him Daddy.



Raising an eyebrow, he wondered if she would be up for a little role-play, as he knew without a doubt he would be more than…up. But seeing her here spread out and ready for him, he decided it could easily wait for later.



“Do you want to…go upstairs?” Buffy asked shyly, breaking into his dirty little thoughts. Without bothering to respond, he scooped her body up in his arms, eliciting a delighted shriek from the teen as she clung to his biceps. Aside from her panties, she was still fully clothed, but all her exposed skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her hair was mussed and her face was still a little slack from the orgasm he had given her.



He cleared the stairs quickly, zipping past his own bedroom, and depositing her own her own bed.



“Spike?”



“Yeah, love?”



“I’m…I still don’t think I’m ready to do any more. Not yet. I mean, what you did for me already was totally…totally! But the next step…” She sighed and propped herself up on one elbow, while Spike plopped down next to her with a matching sigh of his own.



“Pet, I already told you. I don’t want to do anything more than what you’re bloody well ready for, okay? We go at your pace and what all. I’m not some git who can’t a little while wait to get a shag off the girl he…cares about. We are just talking a little while aren’t we?”



Buffy rolled her eyes but still smiled gratefully at him.



“Just a teeny weeny little while.” She reassured him. “There’s some other stuff we need to talk about first anyway…” She continued carefully, knowing she was entering dangerous waters, judging by Spike’s last response to the topic. “I need to know what the deal is with that Angel guy.”



As soon as the name left her lips, Spike rose to his feet as if he had been electrically shocked.



“There’s nothing to tell you, love.”



“He knew you. I think that’s definitely more of a something.”



“I’ve seen him about town recently, so I know that he’s a bloody dodgy bugger. He usually hangs out down at Willy’s Bar. I don’t think he’s been around long.” Spike lied as smoothly as he could, hoping she couldn’t see the falsehood in his face. “I went down to the Bronze for a drink and I got the shit scared out of me when I heard from your mate, that little ginger bird, that you’d been spending the sodding evening with him.”



“I wasn’t spending the evening…sodding or otherwise…with him. We just got to talking. And that is so totally not the point here! He called you Willy…as in William, right? How did he know your name?”



Spike grimaced at how astute the girl in front of him was. He had hoped in all the commotion that Buffy had failed to notice Angelus’ use of his real first name.



“I don’t bloody well know how he found out! There’s a lot of people in town who know my name, even my real one. It’s not rocket science, pet.” He ground his jaw, praying that the questions would stop. He didn’t want to lie to her anymore, but how could he tell her the truth?



If he did then they would be over before they even started, and now that he had finally given in to his desires, his emotions toward her were snowballing rapidly. Now that he had tasted her, watched her stay strong in the face of adversity, and experience just how smart this little girl in front of him was, he could no longer deny that he felt something more than lust for her.



But if he didn’t tell her…then it would all be based on a lie.



Deciding to take matters into his own hands…literally, he grabbed her and pulled her off the bed and into his arms, kissing her breathless. For a moment she resisted, but that didn’t last long as she melted into the kiss. Together they sank down onto the bed with him cradled between her slender thighs.



A little voice in the back of her head nagged at her that she shouldn’t be distracted, and that she should fight for answers, but the Buffy that had fallen in love with Spike on the day they first met was currently kicking logical-Buffy’s ass.



Stripping off his own clothes Spike relished the look of undiluted lust that clouded his lover’s face. He gently relieved her of her clothes, before burying his face between her thighs once again, bringing her over and over to the brink of unbridled ecstasy.



The blue hour came and went, night became day, and Buffy screamed out her release many times as she clung to her lover for dear life.



So many things had changed tonight. Some changed for the worse and some for the better. However, if one thing was certain it was that nothing would ever be the same again.



But if either of them had known what was still to come, they would have savored those moments even more dearly.

Buffy peeled her sticky, sweat covered body off of Spike’s and lay down next to him. Every cell in her body was still humming from the orgasms he gave her. Never had she felt so alive.

In the time since she lost her Mom a layer of ice had been encasing her heart, but Spike was chipping away at it, piece by piece. Actually even before her mother’s death that ice had been freezing around her. She had spent so long in self-enforced isolation, hating the fact that she loved a man she could never have and hating herself for feeling that way in the first place.

But Spike made her melt and thawed the numbness within, and she dearly hoped that one day she could do something as deeply profound and meaningful for him.

Exhaling a satisfied sigh, Buffy burrowed into the crook of her lover’s shoulder, placing a sweet kiss on his chest. She laid her hand gently on his abdomen, tracing fluid circles.

A little giggle escaped her lips, and Spike raised his head to look at her in mock annoyance.

“Having a bird laugh at him right after he’s been eating her pussy for hours isn’t exactly what a bloke wants to hear.”

Buffy’s eyes twinkled and she placed a peck on his arm.

“I wasn’t laughing at you. I was just thinking how this is the last thing I expected tonight. Or ever, I guess. I didn’t think you’d ever…”

Spike bobbed his head.

“Me too. There’s a part of me that knows we probably shouldn’t do this. You’re underage for a start, and I’m your legal sodding guardian.” He exhaled heavily. “But I just can’t seem to care about any of that stuff. I’m a git but it was bloody brilliant. You know that, don’t you?”

“It was for me.” Buffy agreed. “But you didn’t exactly…get anything.” She said, an adorable blush staining her cheeks, as she cast her eyes away from his. An answering chuckled rumbled through his chest, and damn it if that sound didn’t turn her on all over again.

“Trust me, pet. Tonight, having you here like this…it was everything I needed.”

The pair shared a tender moment, their eyes locking and a mutual understanding passing between them.

“Spike?”

“Yes, pet?”

“Do you think…I mean…if Mom knew what we did…what we’re doing…do you think she would be mad?” A hint of fear colored her voice as she asked the question. No matter how much she wanted to be with Spike, if she thought that their union would be dishonoring her Mom’s memory, she would rather endure the pain of not being with him.

Spike bit his lip, contemplating how to answer her question.

“I think she would want us both to be happy, love. She loved you more than anything you know. You were her world, even when the two of you went through the hard times.” He told her honestly.

“She talked about me with you?” Buffy asked curiously.

“All the time. She was proud of the bloody brilliant young woman she saw you becoming.”

Buffy nodded thoughtfully, letting the information sink in.

“Spike, did you…were you…?”

“Was I what, kitten?”

“Were you in love with her?” She blurted out in one thunderous exhale.

He knew that the way he answered that question could be very detrimental to their budding relationship if he wasn’t careful, and he didn’t want to ruin the rapport they had now. In fact he wasn’t sure that either answer that he could give would really provide a salve for Buffy’s pain at the loss of her mother or the anguish she felt over whether or not being with him was right.

He knew that despite her overt desire for him, Buffy had her reservations now that things between them were a reality.

“I did love your Mum.” Spike told her, swallowing down the lump forming in his throat. “I still do, and I probably always will.”

Buffy’s face fell. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy that her mother was loved in life and would continue to be posthumously, but rather that if his heart was filled with her Mom’s memory then there would be no space for her.

And his answer didn’t help with the guilt that was starting to worm its way into her heart. Loving him from afar and in fantasies was one thing.

But being in his arms…she just wanted to know that it didn’t make her a bad person.

That it didn’t make her a bad daughter.

And that she was worthy of being truly loved and adored.

“But…” he continued, breaking into her sorrowful reverie, “I’m not truly sure that I was in love.”

She looked at him with confusion.

“What does that even mean? Splainy please?”

“It means that I’ve had a tough bloody life, kiddo. Things have never been an easy ride for me. At every turn it’s like there’s someone lurking in the sodding shadows waiting to play another round of Kick the Spike, and all that bollocks. But when I met your Mum, she made me feel safe. She was a beautiful woman, no doubt, but…in some ways Joyce felt like safety to me. Not…passion.”

“Oookay!” Buffy held a hand up. “You can stop there. I get the…very graphic…idea.”

“I don’t want to upset you with any of this. I know it’s bleeding difficult for both of us. But I know you want to remember Joyce’s memory. Maybe we can honor it together.”

“Thank you.” She muttered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She snuffled and leaned into him, instinctively seeking comfort from this kind hearted and wonderful man.

In truth part of the reason she had asked the questions was to torment herself. Yet the answers she had gotten had strangely helped her.

Spike was glad that Buffy didn't ask any more about it. For a moment he had been terrified that she would ask about how he felt about her.

However, he knew that he was nowhere near ready to voice his own burgeoning emotions for his stepdaughter to her.

He kissed her gently and rested his forehead against Buffy’s.

Smacking her lips, she involuntarily yawned breaking the moment.

“Tired kitten?”

“Mhm. It’s been a long night that started off not so much with the fun and ended very much with the awesome.”

Spike smiled, curling his tongue behind his teeth in a way that oozed sensuality.

“And once again, the English language thanks you very much for butchering it to death.”

“Says Mr. Oh Bloody Hell What A Bunch of Buggering Bollocks?” Buffy scowled, but it was a playful gesture and Spike felt his heart swell. This girl was young and innocent, almost a child in so many ways, but he had also seen her strength tonight, and it had flawed him with its valiant immeasurability.

Now that he had her, he wasn’t sure that he could ever let her go. Even the mere thought drove daggers into his heart.

“Want to sleep?” He asked, as she let out another wide yawn.

“Not sleepy.” She lied with a giggle, snuggling closer, before trying to suppress another yawn. “Ugh, okay, I guess I am all sleepy-heady. But I kinda need to…” She glanced away and hushed her voice to a whisper. “I really need to pee.”

Spike chuckled at her embarrassment over admitting her need to normal bodily functions. It was strange, but he felt that in confiding that in him, she had trusted him with another piece of herself. Yes, it was simple, but it meant something to him.

Never had Spike suspected that peeing could be so poignant.

Sitting up, she hoisted her nude body out of the bed, oblivious to the way Spike’s cock once again hardened as she stretched. Her small breasts bobbed gently as she stood up, drying out Spike’s mouth and making his palms sweaty.

Unable to resist, he gave her a little thwap on her ass as she went to walk away, causing her to cast him a scowl over her shoulder, followed by a small smile that showed him that she wasn’t truly mad. In fact, the lust that shone through her gaze told him that she was feeling quite the opposite of mad.

Making her way out of the room before he could drag her back into bed and take her over and over again, she ambled down the hallway, past the bedroom that was now Spike’s…the bedroom that he had once shared with her mother. She leaned against the doorway, casually surveying the room and trying to keep at bay the barrage of memories that sought to assail her.

A little pang hit her as the memory of her mother’s smiling face floated in front of her consciousness. So many times they had sat on that bed and laughed and joked. And so many times they had torn each other apart in there, flinging harsh and hateful words at each other.

God how much she wished she could take those words back now.

Once again that night she wondered if this was the right thing to do…being with Spike. Just like he had said himself, he was still her stepfather, and she was still underage. If anyone found out then he would go to jail and she would be left alone, either shipped off to her biological father’s or…well she didn’t even know, and she definitely didn’t want to think about it.

But Buffy believed that Spike was right that her mother would have desired a happy life for her sole daughter. It was not as though she felt she was betraying her Mom’s memory either. Her mother had loved Spike and she had loved her, and she hoped that Joyce would have been happy to see her daughter cared for by a good man, even if it was her widower.

She knew that she was still young and that so many people would probably just consider what they had a teenage crush on her part and possibly a midlife grief fueled crisis on Spike’s side. But with every moment she spent with him she could feel her feelings evolving, becoming more profound.

She knew that she truly loved him now.

She just wasn’t sure if she could ever tell him.

Maybe she was rushing into this, but tonight, she had almost been raped, and if Spike hadn’t found her when he did, then she might have died. She didn’t know exactly what this Angel guy was capable of, and Spike was definitely hiding something about him, but she knew that he was no amateur. He was one of the big boys and to fight him, Buffy had a feeling that they would have to try and bring out the big guns.

She was just about to turn out of the room toward the bathroom when a beam of morning sunlight glistened over something on the floor. Her eyes widened as she glanced down only to see pictures strewn across the ground. She hadn’t even noticed them at first, but then her thoughts had been otherwise occupied.

Bending down she picked up one of the photos in which Spike was pouting into the camera, wearing his usual black jeans and top. His hair was still the same as now but his attire was way more blingy! He wore heavy silver chains, and safety pins on his ripped T-shirt.

And was that an eyebrow piercing?

This clearly much younger version of Spike was flanked by two attractive women, a blonde and a brunette, who were hugging him. A shriek of jealousy sounded within her but she dampened it down. After all, maybe these women were just friends of his.

Buffy wondered when the photograph had been snapped. It had to have been several years ago if his appearance was anything to go by. It occurred to her just how little she knew about Spike’s life before he met her Mom. It would be nice to know more…and if he left pictures all over the floor then it couldn’t exactly be considered snooping.

She didn’t recognize the scenery in the photo and leaning closer she studied it a little more to see if she could identify anything.

Then suddenly her heart careened tempestuously inside her chest as she noticed. A brown haired figure puffing on a cigarette, standing a few feet behind the trio in the picture almost physically jumped out at her. Despite the fact that this man was wearing sunglasses, and that he was obviously much younger there, she could have identified him anywhere after what had happened earlier in the evening.

Angel.

Holy shit!

Spike had lied to her.

He sold her a bunch of bullshit that Angel was new in town and she’d believed it like a naïve idiot.

It was hurt that hit her first, like a truck careering over her fragile heart, uncaring as it busted it into shards that might never truly mend.

Did he really think she was stupid? Apparently so!

In her veins her blood began to boil with fury as she realized that in spite of everything that happened between them, he still couldn’t trust her. In his mind she was just a child and not a partner and that pissed her off so fucking bad.

Striding out of Spike’s bedroom and back into her own she tried to rationalize the situation. Of course she had guessed that the two of them had some kind of history, but seeing it here in plain color brought it to life.

She was sick of waiting for answers. She wanted them now.

Tonight she had invited Spike to taste her body, opened herself up to him with everything that she had, and now she wanted him to give her the same courtesy.

As she entered her bedroom the smile that was gracing Spike’s face immediately fell when he saw the expression on hers.

“Love, what’s…?”

Buffy shoved the picture in his face furiously, cutting off the rest of his question.

“I knew you knew him!” She exclaimed. “This picture isn’t recent, Spike. This must be at least ten years old. So cut the crap and just be honest for once in your life. That’s Angel. This picture is old. I don’t have to be a god damn math genius to work it out.”

Seeing him open his mouth, she interjected before he could tell her to trust him, which she knew was what he was about to say.

“And don’t tell me that I need to put faith in you, or trust that you know what you’re doing. All you’ve done is lie to me. Weird late phone calls about how you don’t want me to know the truth and lame-ass cover stories.

I should have known something was up then. But no! Like a fool, I did trust you. Then there’s psycho old acquaintances running around and still…here’s me…Trusty-Buffy. And now this?! I give you my body…and my heart…and I think I deserve some honesty!”

Some of the fight drained out of her and her voice took on a pleading quality. “We’re in this together now. And so help me, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I will make you tell me.”

Fire flashed behind her eyes, and Spike felt a frisson of pride course through him at the gumption of this tiny girl.

For so long he had tried to hide everything, tangling them both up in the sticky clutches of this painful web, but he couldn’t do that anymore. He knew it was time to give her the bloody show and tell that she wanted.

And it was bloody… to say the least.

He just hoped that once she heard the gruesomely unhappy truth, she wouldn’t hate him for it.

Because he knew now that if he lost her, he would lose everything.

“Well?” Buffy planted her hands on her hips, a stern expression etched onto her face. Her tiny foot was tapping an irritated tune against the ground as she waited for his response. However, her nudity dampened the effect of her pose a little, but she was still damn scary for a little blonde chick.







“Okay, you’re right. I should have bloody told you.” He admitted with a heavy hearted sigh.







“But you didn’t think I’m smart enough to understand?” Buffy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from exploding into a rant once again.







“No! That’s not it! Don’t do that thing I know you bloody bints love to do.”







“What thing?”







“Where you twist everything round so it seems the sodding way that you want to see it.”







“You ass!”







“Don’t get your knickers in a bunch, love. The reason I didn’t tell you has nothing to do with your smarts. You’re a clever little chit. Too bloody clever for your own good sometimes.”







Buffy ignored the backhanded compliment and waved her arms with a flourish.







“Right…so you just see me as a kid who needs to be protected then?”







Spike grit his teeth before hissing out another frustrated negative through them.







“No, Buffy! I don’t see you as a fool, or a kid, you silly bint. I think we both proved tonight that you’re a woman.” He allowed a smirk to grace his lips for a moment before sobering again. “The reason I didn’t tell you the truth is to protect myself. Because when I tell you, then you’re going to hate me for being the nasty bugger that I used to be. I know what it’s like to lose everything, love. It happened before. I managed to survive that. But I couldn’t bloody well survive losing you, pet.”







Her demeanor softened and she sunk down to the bed, laying a hand on his chest.







“You can trust me, Spike. I won’t hate you, whatever it is that you’re hiding.”







His expression was doubtful, but he was cornered here. If he told Buffy then he might lose her, but if he didn’t then he would lose her for sure.







“Well I should probably start at the beginning then.” He scrubbed a hand roughly over his face, and sat up, fidgeting to try and stall what he had to say.







“I came to California 12 years ago, to live with my cousin. Her name is…was…Darla. She was a sweet little chit, lovely girl. After growing up in London with a Dad like mine, being around someone as caring as her was a big bloody revelation, pet.”







He pointed to the blonde girl in the picture Buffy had found.







“That’s her.”







“She’s real pretty.” Buffy smiled softly, and Spike nodded.







“Yeah, she was a great beauty. Good heart too. But Darla always wanted to please others and be accepted. In a lot of ways it destroyed her…and us.”







“Who’s the other girl?” Buffy asked curiously when she noticed his eyes lingering.







“That’s Drusilla.” A pang of something unidentifiable crossed his face. “She was my girlfriend back then. My first girlfriend really. Back home I was a punk and a loser to most people. They all saw me as the kid who acted out, dying his hair and wearing leather because his Dad was the local baddie.







But she saw something in me that I didn’t even realize existed. She was English, like me, but funnily enough I met her over here. Her mother had been a bit of a tyrant and she moved over to the States to live with her uncle when she was 16. I guess she was what you would call an emo, suffering from all the things she went through because of her loony Mum. But her heart was made of bloody gold. She was even the one who gave me the nickname ‘Spike’.







She and Darla were best mates. They did everything together…bloody inseparable they were. Shopped together, ate together, even went to church together.







And when I came over here, Dru and me…we just clicked. It seemed like I had everything I wanted and nothing would ever change that.”







He paused, his mind transporting him back to the time when all three of them had lived in bliss inside the innocent walls of Darla’s small Los Angeles apartment.







Shaking his head clear he raised tortured eyes to Buffy and she squeezed his hand in hers, reassuring him enough to continue.







“They were both so innocent. Then one day everything changed. I remember it like yesterday even though it was ten years ago. We went up to San Francisco for the week. It was summer and Dru had never been. She wanted to see it so bloody much so I drove us all up there in this old Desoto I got my hands on. I bloody loved that car. We went out to some club and…I don’t even know how they got talking, but Darla met this bloke. Didn’t know what a nasty piece of work he was then, but I could see there was something that wasn’t bloody well right in his eyes.”







“Angel?” Buffy asked.







“Yeah. This photo was taken the first night we met and he had Darla hooked like a trout from then on. Bastard was a bad influence on her, getting her to drink more than she ever had in her whole life before. Same with Drusilla. For some reason the pair of them worshipped that great git like he was their God. And I admit I was a bit jealous, especially about the way Dru was around him, fawning over the ponce when she was supposed to be my girl. But when it came time to get back to LA, I thought that was the end of it.”







“But it wasn’t.” Buffy stated rhetorically.







“No. It wasn’t.” Spike scowled at the memory. “He wasn’t just about to piss off and leave us alone. Liam Angelus is a right royal git and he clings like a bloody barnacle. I used to wonder if he was a vampire, sucking the life out of anyone he met. So, yeah, we hadn’t shaken him off and two bitty weeks later he turned up. And that was the beginning of the end.”










Los Angeles 10 years earlier







“Oh my god! Angel?” Darla shrieked, laughing excitedly as she jumped into his arms. He was the last person she had expected to find on the other side of her open apartment door.







“I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d stop by.” Angel grinned coyly, sending her heart flip-flopping in her breast.







“Come in! Come in!” She ushered the man inside, and led him to the couch.







“Spike and Dru went out to catch a movie, but they should be back any minute. I know they would love to see you again. We had such fun in San Fran! Although I’m still recovering from it, I never drink like that usually. I’m not sure if we should make the drinking a regular thing.” Darla gushed, completely missing Angel’s bored expression at her ramblings.







Luckily for both of them the door opened at that moment and a giggling Dru walked in hand in hand with Spike who was smiling adoringly at his girlfriend. But when they saw the figure reclining on the worn leather couch the pair stopped cold in their tracks.







Dru’s face illuminated with a beaming smile of excitement, but Spike’s grew cold, a nasty frown marring his brow.







“Peaches. Didn’t think we’d have the displeasure of seeing you again.” Spike scowled.







“Oh, come on Willy-boy. You can’t tell me you aren’t pleased to see me. I know your ladies are...more than pleased.” Angel smiled at the other man with faux cordiality.







“You must be confusing pleasure with disgust, pal. Can see why you might make that mistake. I’m sure it happens with most of the bloody chits you take to bed.”







Angel’s face darkened ominously, but Darla fluttered over to them wanting to break the tension.







“Come on now, boys. Let’s not fight. We’re all friends here.” She smiled at her cousin hopefully, and Spike sighed, fumbling with a cigarette before finally nodding.







“Fine.” He conceded with a resigned wave of his hand.







“Angel?” Darla placed her hands on her hips, wanting to hear the same agreement from him.







“Fine by me too.” Angel responded. “Besides…it might be nice to have another man around all the time. Sometimes there’s…things…you can do with a man that you just can’t with a woman.”







“Ooh! This is so exciting!” Drusilla clapped her hands, happy that the boys were getting along. She flopped down on the couch next to Angel and hugged him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re staying. We want you to stay forever and ever and ever!”







Spike’s perpetual scowl deepened as he watched Dru wrap her arms around another man, but he didn’t want to inflame the tension and upset his cousin, Darla, even more so he stayed silent. Any fool could see that Darla’s feelings for Angel already ran deep, and while he wanted to punch the taller man’s lights out, he felt he owed it to his cousin to let her have some happiness with whoever she chose to be with.







“Don’t worry about that darling.” Angel said. “I plan on staying a long time.” He loosened himself from the dark-haired woman’s grip. “Now…who’s for drinks?”







Finally a suggestion that Spike could get on board with.







Several hours and several bottles later, all four of them were feeling the effect of the alcohol. It was buzzing through their veins like a hive of bees, and through his beer goggles, even Angel seemed amusing to Spike.







“What do you say we crank this party up a notch?” Angel suggested, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small baggie.







Drusilla looked drunkenly at the white baggie and laughed shrilly. “Ooh naughty Daddy has brought some sugar to the tea party!”







On the rare occasions when she drank, Dru always went a little nutsy, and usually Spike found it endearing, but he was too annoyed with Angel to be mollified by her childlike riddles right now.







“You brought sodding drugs into our apartment?!” Spike raged. “Are you bloody well bug-shagging crazy?”







Angel merely smiled in response. “Now now Willy-Boy, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”







“Bollocks!” He shouted irately, glowering at Angel. “First off, the name is Spike. Learn it. Even a tiny brain like yours, Peaches, must be able to retain a little shred of information like that. And second off, none of us will be using drugs.”







Spike’s chest was heaving in anger, and Darla shot him a sympathetic look. She knew just what her cousin had been through growing up with his father, Ethan, and understood why he was reluctant to take them himself.







Ethan had lived for drugs, uncaring of his small son or wife, and built up an insurmountable mound of debt. Eventually Ethan’s drug induced beatings had driven Spike’s mother way and left the teenager to pretty much fend for himself. The day that Spike finally escaped from that house was the best of his life. So seeing Angel with this bag full of cocaine was like a slap in the face.







“I went to all this trouble of getting the best stuff and none of you want to have a little try?” Angel said cajolingly, flashing the two women his best puppy-dog eyes. “Darla? You don’t want to try even a little bit? It would make for a…fun night.”







The blonde hesitated, her eyes nervously darting between the two men. She was torn between her loyalty to Spike and wanting Angel to like her.







“Okay,” she finally agreed, “but just a little.”







Angel nodded understandingly and turned to Dru.







“How about you, Princess?”







“Oh yes, I think it will be better than all the tea and cakes in the land!” Dru cooed, the alcohol dulling her senses.







“Dru, no!” exclaimed Spike in horror. He couldn’t just sit by and watch this happen.







“It’s time to face the music, Willy. The girls have made their choice.” Somehow Spike didn’t think that Angel was talking solely about trying the drugs.







Anger coursing through him, Spike picked up his jacket from the arm of the couch and flung it over his shoulder. Not prepared to stay another moment, he strode toward the door.







“Sod the lot of you!” He yelled, before leaving the apartment, the door slamming behind him.







If they wanted Angel then bugger them!







He would do just fine alone.

Buffy wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Listening to Spike’s story was heart-wrenching for her. She had never even suspected he had endured such a terrible childhood. Or that he had lost his cousin and his girlfriend to Angel and his drugs.



It certainly put her own self-pity party into perspective.



“So you didn’t go back after that?” Buffy inquired.



Spike, who had tears of his own making tracks down his face, raised his head. There was shame written all over it and Buffy regarded him sympathetically. She wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss those salty tears away, but she had a feeling that he needed to tell her the rest. It was easy to see just how much of a burden his past was to him.



“I did go back, love. I had nowhere else to bloody go. I didn’t know another buggering soul in the city. I thought about going back to England. My cousin, Wesley, he would have taken me in I suppose. But I didn’t want to go back and admit I was a fucking failure. Everything seemed arse about face and there was nothing I could do to make it right.”



“So what did you do, Spike?”



“I stayed away for a few weeks, living rough mostly, but I was so worried about them and then when I got back to apartment…he was still there. He’d basically moved himself in by then. It had only been a few weeks, but the damage had already been done. The girls…they’d been using every day since I left and they were good and proper hooked.”



“Did you try to…help them?”



“Hah! Yeah, but you can’t help someone unless they want to be helped. I saw that with my Da. The worst thing was…they started to change. Darla became cold, like an ice queen. She was always so warm and giving, but between her fixation on that great nancy-boy and her cravings for the coke and all the other bloody rubbish he was pumping them with, she hardened. And Drusilla…it struck her the worst. Drink had always made her a bit loopy but…with the drugs she turned downright barmy. Angel enjoyed that part the most, I think. He loved watching them crumble because of him. And he loved watching me stand by, not able to do anything. It went on for months. The same old, same old. During those months I really thought I’d learned the true meaning of hell.”



“God, Spike! I’m so sorry.”



“Me too. I thought…maybe it would be okay though. I thought…I thought I could save them. What I didn’t realize was just how much of a weak-willed ponce I was myself.”



Los Angeles 9 years earlier



“Ohh! Angel! Mmm! Don’t stop.”



Spike felt the bile rise in his throat as he entered the door of the apartment only to be greeted with Darla’s husky screams. It seemed this had become a regular occurrence now every time he returned home.



For the past several months this had become normal.



He didn’t really even know what normal meant anymore.



He briefly wondered where Drusilla was but assumed she was passed out on the terrace or that she had gone wandering the streets. These days she was so unpredictable. He wished he could muster the strength to care. A year ago he would have searched for her, but now he was pleased to have a little hiatus from her drugged ranting.



Not that he spent much time here now. Recently he had tried to spend as little time as possible in the cramped space, but eventually he always came back.



Lying down on the couch, exhausted from life, he covered his ears with his hands. He didn’t want to hear this. He regarded the coffee table in disgust, still covered with smudged lines of cocaine and other paraphernalia. At least there was some beer, he noted thankfully, and opened one of the bottles. It was slightly warm but it would do for now.



Spike knew that he was drinking too much recently. He spent half of his time in bars in order to stay away from the torments of this place. But he didn’t care. It was better than descending into the drug-addicted state in which Darla and Dru now lived. If he could just think straight he was convinced that he could come up with a plan to get them away from Angel anyway. They could get clean and go back to their old life. They would again be the sweet girls he once knew.



The sounds reached their crescendo before they finally died down. And Spike was glad for the temporary reprieve. But it wasn’t long before he heard renewed moans.



“Ohh Daddy! Do me harder!”



Spike froze at that scream. That wasn’t Darla’s voice.



It was Drusilla.



“Bollocks!”



Afterward he barely remembered how he got from the couch to the bedroom. Flinging open the door, he was horrified by the scene in front of him.



Angel was pounding into Drusilla from behind, while Darla lay underneath her best friend and suckled on her milky white breasts.



As they became aware of the figure standing in the doorway, three heads turned in his direction, but they didn’t stop, and in fact, Dru moaned even louder, arching her back to allow Angel deeper into her body.



“What the bloody hell is all this?” Spike cried, aware that tears of fury and anguish were leaking from his eyes. “How long has this been going on, you bunch of bastards?”



Angel’s malevolent laugh cut through the moans filling the room from the two women, and Spike tore his eyes from the scene. It was one of those things that was hard to stop rubbernecking even when you were disgusted by what you saw.



“Not joining us then, Spike?” Angel mocked callously, still sheathed inside Drusilla.



“You take your hands off her!” Spike threatened but Angel ignored him and pumped his hips harder.



Winding a meaty hand around Drusilla’s pale throat, Angel cocked an eyebrow in challenge, tightening it just a touch. While Darla and Dru might not have seen just how dangerous this man was, it was clear to Spike, and that small gesture alone proved it. Spike knew that if he tried to attack Angel, the other man would snap his dark princess’s throat without even batting an eyelid.



“How can you do this to me?” Spike asked his girlfriend pleadingly, ignoring the man who was currently still fucking her.



“Oh Spike! My dark knight! Don’t you see this is what is written in the stars?” She hushed her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They tell me that Daddy knows what’s best for me. And he does, don’t you Daddy?”



“That I do Princess.” Angel agreed renewing his thrusts with vigor.



“Dru, love, he’s not good for you!” Spike tried again.



“That’s her decision to make.” Darla told him sternly, staring at him soullessly. He could see no traces of the kind girl he once knew within her face.



Her former self had been washed away.



“Yeah, Willy. It’s her decision. So unless you want to make good use of that pretty mouth of yours, I suggest you beat it.” Spike heard Angel’s words, but he had already turned to leave.



In that moment, something shifted within him. All his life he had fought…against his father and the poverty they lived in, against his own inner demons, and now against Angelus. He just couldn’t do it anymore. It was time to give up.



All he needed was something to quell the pain. He wanted to drink himself into a permanent coma so that he would never have to confront the agony that came with life ever again. It was too much, and somehow Spike doubted that even several bottles of whiskey would do anything to dull the hurt within his chest. He looked at the table in front of him, covered in white powder, and just for a moment he wondered how much worse it could be if he gave in. sinking down onto the couch he buried his head in his hands.



“I could make it all better, my William.” He jumped in surprise at Dru’s voice. “I could make all the pain float away like dust in the sunshine.”



“Thought you were in there shagging Captain Forehead.” He replied bitterly, purposely not looking at her nude form as she glided gracefully in his direction.



“Darla took my place. The pixies in my head whispered secrets to me. They told me that you want to be like us, deep down…that you want the pain to go away.”



“Not gonna touch the drugs, Dru.” He said lacking the conviction that he had before. She smiled mysteriously at the wobble in his voice, and crawled onto the couch beside him, nibbling at his ear.



“I…can’t…” He swallowed hard as her hands wandered down over his body.



“Yes, you can, my Spike. Once you try it you can float on the wings of angels and dance on the clouds. You can be free…like me.”



He glanced from Dru to the coffee table and back. Maybe he should just give in. He knew that he could make it all go away.



The old expression of if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em echoed in his head, while he regarded the lines of blow lying out on the table, left over from his companions last session.



Taking a swig of his open beer that he had left on the table, he kneeled down, and garnered his courage.



If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.



Picking up the dollar bill, Dru rolled it and sniffed a line of the white powdery substance, a grin spreading on her face as she looked back to him.



“Try it, my Spike. Do it for Princess?”



If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.



Hesitantly taking the dollar bill from her he copied her movements of moments previously, inhaling the coke and feeling it clog at the back of his throat. He wanted to cough and choke for a second but as the drug worked its way into his system, he started to feel better.



Much better.



Suddenly all that trivial stuff no longer mattered. In fact he could hardly even remember what had pained him so much.



In reality it was all an illusion, a pretty painting that glossed over the things that were falling apart.



But for Spike it felt like a cure. He couldn’t remember why he’d stalled so long.



What he didn’t know was that his life was about to get a whole lot worse.



With Dru’s giggling in his ear, and her lips on his neck, he inhaled another line.



One life ended and he was reborn into darkness.

The bedroom was eerily silent, except for the sounds of sobbing as Spike openly wept. Wavering uncertainly for only a moment, Buffy crawled forward, settling in Spike’s lap.



The peroxide blond raised a grateful tear-stained face to her and encircled her with his arms, pulling her closer. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled her familiar scent. She smelled like juicy berries and sweet vanilla to him.



It was so long since he had dredged up these old memories. For too long he’d buried them beneath layers of guilt and now they were pouring from him.



Buffy ran her hands up and down his back in an almost motherly gesture. It was a little weird to be comforting her stepfather like this, but right now he craved it and she would do anything to help him.



Taking her face between his palms he caressed her right cheekbone with his thumb, before moving forward and sealing her lips with his. He tugged on her bottom lip with his teeth and she moaned softly. However, this sweet embrace wasn’t about sexual urges. It was about comfort which both of them so sorely needed right now.



They rested their foreheads together for a moment, and Spike sighed.



“There’s more to tell you, Buffy. I need you to hear the rest. And then if you want to tell me to bugger off…”



“That won’t happen!” She exclaimed emphatically. “Whatever happened in the past won’t make me lo…care for you any less. Color me Miss Understanding.” She quipped to cover her faux pas of moments earlier.



Thankfully he ignored what she had almost admitted, and he took a deep breath.



“Well buckle yourself in kiddies.” He said with thick cynicism. “Because here’s where the ride gets rough.”



Los Angeles Five years earlier





The apartment air was smoky and thick like a death shroud for the damned. Surfaces that had once been pristinely cared for were now soiled with the residue of years of misuse and abuse, kind of like the people who lived there.



A single shaky figure was sitting on a tattered black leather couch that had seen much better days. But Spike was barely paying attention to anything else as he tightened a tourniquet around his arm with his teeth, grunting at the exertion. His bony hands were shaky from needing a fix and they trembled as he picked up the needle. He was so thin it was painful to look at him, but he rarely looked in mirrors these days unless he was doing lines off of them.



In the bedroom he heard rumbling moans from one of Darla’s johns as she performed whatever her sex act of the day was. Once upon a time it would have bothered Spike that his own flesh and blood was selling her body to lowlife strangers for cash, but now all he cared about was where his next fix was to be found.



And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t worked the streets a time or two to get money for what he needed. He did what he had to do.



The first time he did that he had scrubbed his skin raw afterward. But it got easier. The drugs made it easier. They took away the pain.



A lot had changed for Spike in the past four years, since he sniffed his first line on a whim. He was a man with an addictive personality and it wasn’t long before he was hooked on the coke. From there he moved to smoking rocks, smoking heroin and finally injecting it.



And beside him all the way, Angel had encouraged him, a demonic cheerleader for his downfall into hell. He’d hooked him up and pimped him out. Angel even used Spike himself, but a fix wiped away the burning shame.



Angel had systematically taken everything away from Spike in these past few years. First he had taken Darla away. His once kind and gentle cousin was now a hard-hearted bitch prepared to sell herself for drugs to anyone who offered her enough money.



Then he had taken Dru. Angel had no feelings for Dru, that much was always obvious, but the man was a master of manipulation and he loved to toy with the woman. She was a broken doll, molded to worship Angel. Spike only got a taste of the woman he loved when Angel was bored of her. But mostly she was a weapon for Angel to use against him.



And she let herself be used that way.



Spike hated her just a little for that.



But even though he lamented those losses, even worse Angel had stripped Spike of his dignity. He had made him do the most unthinkable things. Acts that Spike had committed because he couldn’t see any other way than the path Angel laid out for him. He knew they were wrong and yet he did them without question.



And Spike hated himself a lot for that.



A sudden commotion forced Spike’s eyes open and he watched a middle aged man career out from Darla’s bedroom through the living room at top speed.



He heard Dru let out a shriek and winced.



“She’s not breathing!” Dru screamed at Spike. “Why didn’t the pixies warn me? The stars are angry at their princess, just like the Black Knight. He didn’t know the horse would eat all his cakes!”



Trying to rouse himself into some kind of coherent state, Spike stood from the couch, wobbling unsteadily and made his way over to Dru.



“What’s wrong love?” He inquired.



“It’s Darla! She’s dead, Spike. She’s gone to play with the angels. Not Daddy though. He’s a fallen angel, naughty and bad.” She started barking and growling, but Spike was no longer paying any attention to her.



He ran past her into the bedroom, seeing Darla lying sprawled on top of a bundle of rumpled sheets, used needles scattered around her lifeless body. Lurching forward he kneeled at his cousin’s side, frantically feeling for a pulse. He eventually found a thready beat and sighed in relief that she was still alive.



If only just.



Without waiting any longer, he scooped her up in his arms, determined to get her to a hospital. His car was down in the parking lot, and although he knew he was doped up, it didn’t occur to him for a moment that he was in no fit state to drive.



All he was thinking about was that they couldn’t call the paramedics, because if they did, then their stash would be discovered and it would be confiscated.



His cousin, lying motionless and pale in his arms, had overdosed from those very drugs, and yet his thoughts were dominated by ways to preserve that stash.



He prepared to leave the apartment with the girl, but Dru blocked his way.



“We’ve got no bloody time for your games right now, Dru. I need to get Darla to the hospital, so get out of the sodding way.”



“Not without me!” The dark haired woman whined, pouting. Her skeletal face contorted into a mask of tears when he started to shake his head. “I want! I want! I want! The stars will punish you for being a bad boy if you say no to Princess!”



Groaning, he finally gave in and ushered her out of the door, still cradling Darla.



When they reached his old Desoto, the trio hustled inside and he sparked the engine into life, roaring out of the parking lot and onto the open road in the direction of the nearest hospital.



He blinked and shook his head, trying hopelessly to clear his vision as the glare of the streetlights blurred and fizzed in front of him. In his ears Drusilla’s endless wails reverberated and for a moment he screwed his eyes tightly shut against the onslaught battering his every sense.



Then everything happened before he knew it. The car started to weave violently but Spike couldn’t seem to regain control. His ears echoed with the panicked screams of Drusilla and he tried to block it out but he couldn’t shut it off.



Everything rippled from red to black.



The car started to spin out of control.



He didn’t even see the curb as the tire clipped it but he felt them launch into the air, tumbling over and over, before everything went dark.



When Spike opened his eyes, he figured he’d only been out moments, but a throbbing pain in his skull almost blinded him as he tried to focus.



The black Desoto was lying on its right side, Darla slumped against where the window used to be. He craned his neck and saw Drusilla lying still in the back, her limbs twisted at an unnatural angle.



“Bollocks!” He exclaimed. After a few minutes of trying to rouse Dru, knowing that Darla would not wake even if he tried because of the amount of drugs flowing through her system, he pushed open the driver’s door above him, and scrambled out.



His only hope right now was to try and run for help, and the night air hit him dizzyingly hard as he clambered out onto the deserted road.



Later he would go through every motion he made over and over, trying to figure out what he should have done differently. He would flog himself to shreds over the fact that he didn’t suspect that the gas tank was leaking, so he didn’t even try and pull the girls from the wreckage.



He set off in the direction of the main road, but even several yards away, when the explosion happened it blew him clear off his feet and on the ground.



It was like watching a movie scene unfold in front of him as he turned back to the car only to see fireballs sparking from it. The whole thing was ablaze. The part of him that had been the old Spike would have gone and risked life and limb to try and save the girls, but old Spike was dead and gone, buried under the junk he pumped into his veins.



Turning away, he ran.



The next few days were a blur for him. He spent them mostly hiding out in an old abandoned hospital in East LA. Funnily enough, he spent his time there half passed out in what used to be the psych ward, injecting a round of junk he somehow managed to buy along the way to getting there.



One day, long after, he would see the irony in that.



He found some supplies that weren’t exactly still good, but were acceptable to use and bandaged up the worst of his injuries. At least there were no broken bones or anything life threatening.



In truth, he didn’t know just how long he stayed there. Every moment blurred into the next and it all interspersed with flashed of Drusilla lying twisted and broken in the car, and Darla’s lifeless eyes as he saw her splayed on the bed.



He knew he shouldn’t have driven.



He knew he should have tried to get them out.



He knew that he should have saved them long ago before turning into the same kind of man that he despised his father for being.



Grief and pain mingled together and for the first time in a long time the drugs didn’t help the welcome numbness descend over his psyche.



Wetness coated his face and it was so unfamiliar a feeling that at first he wondered if he wasn’t still bleeding. But then he knew. Inside his heart was bleeding, crying for everything he’d lost and everything he could never get back.



Under the weight and burden of the guilt and grief, he felt something shift within him.



No longer could he live like this.



With new resolve, he headed back to the apartment that he had shared with two women he loved and one man he loathed.



He was sick of being Angel’s whipping boy. That man had taken so much from him. But now that was over and done.



Spike stuck to the small roads, not wanting to be picked up by the cops. He didn’t even know if they were looking for him in connection with the accident, but he couldn’t risk it, especially with the amount of opiates flowing through him still.



When he arrived back at the apartment, the smell of dirt hit him immediately.



Why had he never noticed just how grungy this place was?



Had he become so accustomed to living in this filth that instead of hating it, he’d assimilated with it?



Inside it was dark, but a voice rang out from the darkness before he could even flip a light switch.



“It’s been all over the news, what you’ve done Willy-boy.” Angel’s voice was low and menacing, but Spike refused to flinch. “To tell you the truth, boy, I didn’t even think you’d come back. You’ve never been the type to have the guts to face the music.”



“I’m not scared of you, Peaches. I don’t need to do a runner to get away from your sodding ugly mug. I can happily look you right in your tremendous forehead and tell you that I’m bloody well leaving.”



Angel cackled, and rose from the couch, the slither of moonlight peeking in from the opening in the drapes illuminating one half of his face. For a moment he reminded Spike of some kind of fictional macabre monster from children’s fairytales.



Strike that.



He was a monster.



And he was very real.



“So Willy decides to grow some balls, does he?” Angel mocked condescendingly, rubbing his chin with his fingertips. “I wouldn’t be too arrogant, boy. I know what you did, and the police might not be looking specifically for you right now, but I can point them in the right direction of the man responsible for the murder of those two poor girls.”



Spike had to physically restrain himself from launching forward and pounding the obnoxious crap out of the man in front of him.



“I didn’t murder them.” He hissed through clenched teeth. “What happened…Darla was sick…an overdose and the car went out of control…”



He paused, trying to compose himself. The last thing that he wanted to do was to burst into sobs in front of Angelus. Angelus was like a viper and any sign of weakness would be a reason for him to strike.



“Why do you care anyway, Angelus?” Spike spit bitterly. “You didn’t love them. You didn’t even care a bloody toss about those two birds. And now…you’re all grief stricken.”



Angel laughed heartily, flopping back down to the sofa.



“You…you think I’m grief stricken? Little idiot! I care because you’ve taken something from me. Darla was my best whore. She was making me money than any of the others, and that’s saying a lot considering how much of it went up her nose and into her veins. And Dru…my Dru…she was my favorite little doll. I know she was your princess or whatever trash the two of you spouted to each other. But she was my best fuck toy. Do you know how long it takes to break someone as well as I broke Dru?”



Many times in Spike’s life he had felt an uncontrollable anger well up inside him. He couldn’t count the number of bruised knuckles he’d suffered from punching walls.



But never before had he felt any kind of fury that equaled the one burning in his body at this moment.



With an animalistic roar, he cocked his fist back and drove it into Angel’s supercilious face. He’d never physically attacked the taller man before, and both of them were shocked.



However, Angelus was not one to let someone get away with that. He returned the punch and it turned into a mammoth tussle. They crashed through furniture, heedless of the damage they were doing to the apartment or themselves.



Somehow Spike managed to get the upper hand and straddled his opponent, vigorously driving his tight fist into Angel’s face until all that was left was a bloody mess.



Panting hard he climbed off the other man. He knew that if he had continued any longer he would have killed Angel. He hated the man, but he already had enough blood on his hands, and he wasn’t sure that he could cope with adding any more.



He never knew that one day he would wish he’d ended it right there and then.



Angel spit out a chunk of blood, coughing violently.



“I could have you sent to prison, you little fuck!” Angel yelled angrily. “You think you can do that to me? You’re a murderer, Willy. You should be punished for what you’ve done.”



“You’re the real scumbag here, you bloody ponce.”



Breathing hard, Angelus’ face contorted into a sinister travesty of a smile.



“You know, I don’t think I’m going to call the police on you right now, boy. That would be too easy. I’m going to wait, and dish out a little punishment of my own. You took something of mine, and that means you owe me a blood debt, William. But you won’t know when it’s coming. And you’re going to have to spend the rest of your pathetic existence looking over your shoulder for just when the ax is going to fall.”



To his credit, Spike held his gaze firm, before finally letting it drop away, lifting his chin and turning and leaving the apartment.



He didn’t know where he was going or what was to come.



But one thing was for sure.



He was done with the life he’d been living.



He could change things.



And although it would never bring back Darla and Drusilla maybe he could start to make amends for all the damage he’d done.

Inside the bedroom it was deathly quiet. The only sound was the joyful chirping of the birds outside the bedroom window. Innocence like the sweet song of birds was lost on Spike. He’d seen too much, been through more than most people face in a lifetime, and now he was about to find out if he was going to lose the best thing that had ever happened to him.

With bated breath Spike waited for Buffy’s verdict on what he’d confessed to her, feeling as if he was teetering between being sent to the gallows or offered a reprieve.

She was still ensconced on his lap, her cheek resting against his chest. Throughout his recollection of his past he had clung to her tiny body, like a drowning man holding tightly to the rock that mores him.

“So, what happened after that?” She asked carefully, not yet commenting on what she’d heard.

He’d admitted to her that he’d killed two people, if unintentionally.

Something like that takes a little time for a girl to digest.

He puffed out a breath and rested his chin on the top of her head. “First I had to get away from the Great Git. Bleeding bastard had enough info on me to put me away for a long time. He probably still could if he wanted to.” Spike told her shamefully.

“That’s why you didn’t want to go to the cops? I mean you’re not some kind of fugitive are you?”

“Not a bloody fugitive but Angelus is vindictive and dangerous. He’s a nasty piece of work, lamb and if he wants to he will find a way to get me sent down for what happened that night with Dru and Darla.”

“How come the police never worked it out?”

“Bobbies obviously were no bloody use.”

“Yeah.” Buffy sighed. “Like with Mom? I mean what the hell will it take to find out who…who killed her?”

Spike averted his eyes, hoping that the guilt of what he knew didn’t show through and changed the subject.

“So yeah, anyway, after I got away from Angelus, I lived rough for a while.” He admitted. “Tried to wean myself off the drugs, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t bloody do it alone. Eventually I managed to find my cousin Wesley. He was living in LA by that time, working for a law firm. He’d been over here from London on business and met some Texan chit who he got all googly-eyed over and so he stayed for her.”

Buffy nodded, silently urging him to continue.

“Wes…he was brilliant. He didn’t ask too many questions but I needed someone to talk to and he gave me an ear to listen.” He absently ran a hand through Buffy’s blonde locks and she tilted her head leaning into the gesture. “He’s the only other one apart from us…and of course Angelus… who knows the truth about how buggered up my life was.”

“I’m glad you had someone.”

“Without Wes, I don’t know where I’d be. He’s looking into the Angelus thing even now. I spoke to him the other night, asked him to find out where the ponce is staying, what he’s been doing these last few years. Helps to have a bloody lawyer in the family sometimes.”

A realization hit Buffy.

“You were talking to this Wes guy on the telephone the other night.”

He nodded.

“So all this is what you didn’t want me to find out? You were scared I would judge you?” Buffy said incredulously.

“Yeah, not just scared, but ashamed, kitten.” He hung his head. “I was a bad man and what I did back then will always be a part of me. I might change, but the things I did will never change.”

He carefully avoided the other part of her question. In his heart he knew that the very last secret that he was hiding from her was the worst of all, but he couldn’t bring himself to reveal that one to her.

Not yet anyway.

When she found out what he’d caused…

“Wes has been good to me. Not just recently, but back then too.”

“So he helped you?”

“Yeah, got me into rehab, helped me move to Sunnydale and financed the dojo.”

“How did you end up all martial arty? I mean kinda big difference from…what you were doing before.”

“When I was a kid it was my passion. I loved judo, karate, all that jazz. Before my Mum left us she used to take me every bloody week to practice, and then after we would go and get some fish and chips from the local chippy. It was…bloody wonderful.”

“It sounds nice…and very very British.” She smirked playfully nudging his shoulder with the heel of her hand. “How old were you when she…left?”

“I was thirteen. Boy that age needs his Mum, but she couldn’t take any more beatings off my Da, so she ran away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too, love. Me too.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, both contemplating everything that had happened. Spike combed his fingers through her hair, and she drew tiny shapes over his bare chest.

They had not just bared their bodies to each other that night.

They had also bared their souls.

“You know, I’ve been clean almost four years now.” He told her proudly breaking into the quiet. “Didn’t think I could bloody well do it, but now I know I would never touch that junk again. Probably shouldn’t drink so much…or smoke so much either, for that matter, but I stayed clean.”

Buffy wiggled in his lap, twisting to face him. Looking him dead in the eyes, she smoothed the frown lines in his forehead with her fingers.

“You did it because you’re a good man, Spike. I know you blame yourself for what happened to Darla and Dru, but it’s not your fault.”

He made to turn away, but she wouldn’t let him.

“No, listen to me Spike. I’m not gonna let you get all avoidy on me now, okay? I might only be a teenager, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I’m more than just some dumb kid. I know that sometimes people make bad choices and regret the things that they do, but the only direction we can go is forward. You have to let the guilt go, otherwise it’s gonna pull you down.” Buffy told him, sounding wise beyond her years.

His eyes filled with tears as his chest heaved in a tremendous sob.

“I was supposed to protect them!” He yelled, his whole body trembling. “They were my responsibility. I let them get hooked on the drugs, I let them do the…things that they did. And I got them killed. You don’t know how bad it was, Buffy. I did some stuff that was so bloody disgusting I still can’t look myself in the mirror because of it.”

“You have to try to let it go. If you don’t then it will kill you too. And I don’t want to lose you, Spike. Not now.”

“I don’t know if I can, pet.”

“You can, Spike.” She gazed at him with pure open honesty. “I believe in you.”

His face morphed into an expression of awe. The dullness and sorrow dissipated almost instantaneously, being replaced with elation.

“You do?”

“I do!” She confirmed without hesitation. “I bloody well do!”

They shared a smile at her use of his terminology, and she placed a kiss on his shoulder.

As she snuggled into him, he suddenly became very aware of their mutual state of undress.

Before, their nudity had been irrelevant. Everything had been so emotionally charged, the past rearing its ugly head in such a way that while he recounted his story, neither of them had been affected by their shared nakedness.

However, now there were certain body parts that were starting to respond to her. And if the moisture he could feel on his thigh was any indication, she was also starting to regain the lustiness that had dominated her earlier.

Her tongue sneaked out of her mouth and flicked over his nipple which was begging to be licked in front of her. She grinned surreptitiously as the little jump he gave at the electrifying feeling.

She was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to reaffirm life. After hearing about all that death and destruction, she needed to feel him.

Why keep waiting when there might not even be a tomorrow?

“I want you.” She gasped into his chest.

“Buffy, love, what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry.” The blonde teen pulled back nervously chewing on her lower lip. “I just…everything that’s happened recently…I feel like I need you right now. I know I said that I wanted to wait. But I don’t think that’s gonna cut it. I need you, Spike. And I wanna give you something too.”

He sneered at her. “I don’t need your pity. If you’re saying you want to do this because you feel bloody sorry for poor old nancy-boy Spike. ‘Never gets a break, always comes last, poor stupid idiot.’ Well you can bugger off and find some other poor sap to lavish your bloody pity on okay?”

“No! That’s not it at all!” Buffy groaned with exasperation, adding a cursory eye roll to the mix. “God, I don’t know how to phrase it. I’ve never been wordy-girl and now would be the perfect time when I could really use a good ole dose of wordiness.

But, I guess what I’m trying to say is that if there’s one thing I’ve learned from everything that’s happened and everything you’ve told me, it’s that life is freakin’ short as hell. We could die tomorrow, you know? Especially Angel the Nutjob wanting to kill us or torture us, or do whatever else is in vogue this season for the sociopathic sector of society.

Yeah I do feel bad that you went through all that shit. It sucks major league ass. But this has nothing to do with feeling sorry for you Spike. I want to be with you…because I want this more than I ever wanted anything. And I want it now because no one knows if they will have a tomorrow. Least of all us.”

Her eyes were so open and honest, sparkling with indignity and want.

That was the moment that Spike Rayne knew that he had fallen hopelessly and completely in love with Buffy Summers. She was a perfect mess of contradictions, an angel and a devil, all wrapped into one hot little package.

The outside world was still waiting to beat them down at every turn, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered because he had everything he needed right here and now.

Grabbing her face with his palms, he crushed their lips together, pouring the passion he felt into the embrace. She returned it readily, snaking her fingernails down his back, like she was marking her mate.

There were so many things he wanted to do to her. He wanted to lick his way up her body, take each pink puckered nipple into his mouth, and suckle on it until she popped with pleasure. He wanted to see her on her knees in front of him with her red pouty lips wrapped around his cock.

He wanted to do it all, be the one to teach her everything and take her to heights she could never even have dreamed existed.

This wasn’t the time for foreplay though.

Right now he wanted to bury himself deep inside her, and she had already told him that she wanted the same.

Reaching a hand between them, he entered her with a finger to test her readiness for him. She was already dripping wet, writing on top of him like a bitch in heat.

“Please, Spike. I need you!” She pleaded guilelessly.

“You want your Spike to fuck you, Buffy?” He asked in a rumbling baritone.

“Now, please, do it now.”

He rolled them over so she was underneath him, and crawled on top of her, leaving kisses down her clavicle before trailing his lips back up her neck and nibbling on her ear lobe.

His huge throbbing cock, already as hard as steel, pulsed in her hand as she reached down to pump it slowly.

“Mmph…” Spike nearly choked with pleasure as he felt her warm little hand encircle his dick.

He palmed one of her breasts and then trailed his hand down her side eliciting an aroused shiver from the girl as he reached her bare mound, open and glistening with her juices.

She was like a summer rose, her petals unfolding before his eyes.

All of the sudden the realization that they weren’t using protection occurred to him.

“Buffy…we should…use something.”

Ugh, why did he feel like a bloody 15 year old boy about to have his first ever shag?

Understanding his meaning, she smiled softly. “I’m on the pill.” She assured him. “And I’m clean. You are too, right?”

Nodding in affirmation, he rose up a little and wrapped his own hand over the one of hers that was still pumping at his cock. Guiding his penis to her entrance, he glided over her slit, bottom to top, top to bottom, smiling at the wanton expression on her face.

No longer able to wait, he positioned himself above her, and sank down, entering her in one smooth stroke.

Both of them exhaled simultaneous moans, and the pair stilled, as he tried not to come inside her in that first moment and she adjusted to the size of him inside her body.

“Gotta move, pet.” He told her as he started to slowly thrust inside her, her creamy juices coating his dick. Hooking her legs over his arms, he pushed them up so they were positioned over his shoulders and he could plunge deeper inside her.

“Bloody amazing this is lamb.” He gasped, speeding up his thrusts. Arching her hips up to meet him, she started to wail in bliss.

He made to love to her in the most wonderful way, worming his hand between the two of them to rub her most sensitive bundle of nerves as he felt his own orgasm approaching.

When they reached the highest heights of sheer rapture, their gazes locked. In that second it was as if their souls melded together, becoming one and joining them beyond the physical world.

His seed poured out inside of her pussy and cries of ecstasy poured from both their mouths.

In the aftermath of the waves of pleasure they had ridden, they lay together, in each other’s arms, more satisfied than ever before.

Spike curled his tongue as he smiled at her, and it turned her to Buffy-goo. He was hers now.

Buffy wasn’t going to delude herself thinking that things would be easy from now on, but together they could face anything.

Drowsiness started to pull her into the state that exists between wakefulness and unconsciousness, but there was still something that was eating at her…and not in the good way…but she couldn’t work out what it was.

Now was not the time to try and concentrate on it, after the most amazing sex, but it occurred to her that she was missing something in all of this. Spike had been honest with her now, given himself to her in mind and body, so why did it seem like there was still something that he was holding back?

Maybe after a good sleep she would be able to put her finger on just where this little niggling sensation was coming from. But yeah…now was really really not the time to think about it, when she was lying satisfied in the arms of the man she loved.

Now that she knew just how precious life was, she wanted to spend all hers with Spike.

She felt like nothing could tear them apart.

Together the drifted into the first restful sleep either of them had enjoyed in a long time.

For now, the world seemed a brighter place.

By the time Buffy awoke, it was already getting dark again outside. She couldn’t believe that she’d slept away the day. She knew that she should probably get up, and actually be productive, even though it was Saturday.

However, it was the lapping between her legs that immediately drew all her attention.

Lifting the covers she saw Spike’s head busily working away between her legs.

“Spike!” She moaned.

“Someone’s awake!” He smiled with a singsong voice, climbing up to kiss her on her lips. She could taste her own juices on his tongue, but it only turned her on more.

Never before, even during the time when she had periodically rubbed herself to gratuitous images of Spike, had she been so constantly turned on.

“I need you.” She whispered.

“I need you too.”

“I want to taste you.” She smiled as he a bolt of yearning crossed his face.

Turning onto his back, he instructed Buffy to climb up toward the headboard. For a moment she looked confused, but he grabbed her thighs and spread them, positioning his face between them.

With unleashed passion he set about busily eating her, working his warm, wet tongue into her sending her into a frenzied mess of lust and need.

Feeling his tongue inside of her, Buffy could not resist the large dick that bobbed in front of her face so temptingly. The head was so swollen that it had taken on a purple hue, and peals of liquid were steadily seeping from the end.

She swallowed him up in one motion with her mouth, keeping a firm grip on the base with both her hands as she worked him.

The bedroom was filled with the noises of licking, sucking and moaning as they once more took each other to heaven.

When they finally came in each others’ mouths they shuddered against each other, before floating back to earth, light as feathers.

She maneuvered her body so she could lie down in his arms.

“Now that’s the best bloody way to wake up.” He laughed, his eyes twinkling when her tinkling giggles joined his.

“I definitely second that.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you for that…and for last night…and this morning.”

“It was my bloody pleasure…or both of our pleasures I should say.”

She burrowed into him, a light blush coloring her cheeks.

“I wasn’t just talking about the sex.” She whispered, still keeping her head against his chest, so he could feel the vibrations through his body when she spoke. “I mean about being honest with me. I know how hard that stuff must have been to tell me. But I’m glad you told me everything.”

Ignoring the frisson of guilt that ran through him at the word ‘everything’ he tried to focus on the good things that had happened in the past day.

He gazed at the girl…no…at the woman in front of him. She was still flushed from pleasure, ripe and hot. He knew he was a lucky guy to have a girl like her. A small voice inside of him had worried that he would regret it all in the harsh light of day. But he didn’t regret a thing.

Being with her…being inside of her…was the best thing that had happened in the whole course of his life. She was sunshine to him and until he touched her, he hadn’t even realized he had been living in the darkness for so long.

Spike was glad that he’d told Buffy about his past. It lifted a burden that had weighed on his shoulders for too long now. He was free.

Well not quite free.

Angelus was still out there.

And his final secret that he kept from the girl was still bubbling just below the surface.

But he was determined not to let that evil troll or anything connected with him to spoil his time alone with Buffy.

And right now Buffy was doing something delicious to his left nipple with her tongue.

“What are you doing, love?” Spike smirked.

“Nothing.” She smiled daintily, the picture of wanton innocence. Such a contradiction his little Buffy was.

He wasn’t even sure when he’d started thinking of her as his.

But she was.

And nothing would change that as far as he was concerned.

“You’re a saucy little minx, aren’t you, pet?” Spike said, cupping one of the fleshy globes of her ass, and tugging her to him.

“Is that bad?” She bantered playfully.

“Hmm, well…naughty girls need to be punished.”

For a moment, Spike hesitated. He couldn’t deny that he wasn’t darkly fascinated by the more extreme elements of sexuality, like spanking, bondage and even pain-play. But he didn’t want to intimidate Buffy by mentioning those things.

She was so young.

Still…he’d rarely met a girl who didn’t like a spanking when she let herself go.

Of course, none of those girls were like Buffy.

Deciding to take the chance, he brought the flat of his palm down on her ass cheeks with a light blow. Her ass tensed and the rest of her body tightened. She looked up at him, stunned, before a grin slowly formed.

“Wow. If I need a spanking then I must have been a bad…naughty…girl.” She laughed, rising to her knees and leaning across him to give better access to her perfectly formed butt.

Okay…maybe she was a little less innocent that he thought.

“Does my girl need to be punished?”

“Mhm yes! Please Spike.”

Spike couldn’t help but think that Buffy was exaggerating for him, getting into playing a character that was clearly appealing to a man like him.

But it was so close to many of his forbidden fantasies about the girl that he hardened like a rod of steel.

There was just one thing missing.

He wanted to hear her call him Daddy.

“Don’t worry baby.” He cooed. “Daddy’s gonna take good care of you.”

She cocked her head to the side and glanced at his face. Many times before Buffy had read in her trashy magazines and on the net that some guys got off on being called Daddy, but she had never experienced them.

Of course her entire experience was limited to high school boys that were lucky if they didn’t come in their pants solely from seeing a girl’s boobs.

With a saucy expression on her face, she arched her back.

“Yes, please, punish me Daddy!”

Spike had to strain not to come right there and then.

With a succession of light thwacks he brought his hand down on each cheek, alternating between them. With every blow, Buffy moaned. As he saw her ass blushing red, he ran a hand over it, smoothing the soreness from it. The gentle touches felt like heaven after the spanking for Buffy and she could feel moisture coating the inside of her thighs.

Oh yeah, she could definitely get into this.

Spike smiled in awe at the girl in front of him, on all fours on the bed, her ass red, her pussy gleaming with pearls of her own juices.

Spreading her ass cheeks Spike adjusted his position and crouched behind her, tracing her crack with his tongue. This was another first for Buffy, and her response to it showed Spike that it was, without doubt, something he would want to do again.

He moved downward, towards her pussy, nudging apart her thighs so that he could work his tongue inside. Within seconds she was spilling the juices of her orgasm into his mouth and screaming his name to the heavens.

Not giving her time to come down from the previous orgasm, he rose up and entered her from behind in one quick stroke, draping a hand around her stomach to pull her back tightly toward him.

Buffy was flailing wildly, her system overloaded with the intense pleasure rushing through her body. Nothing existed but the feeling of Spike plunging his meaty cock deep within her. They sweat mingled, dripping off of them as they worked together to reach the pinnacle they sought. While his dick thrust hard inside her, his fingers reached around and rubbed her slit, stimulating her doubly.

“Oh! Oh! Oh my God! Please! Yes! Oh yes!” Buffy babbled as her inner muscles started to spasm, contracting around his dick, and pulling him into a simultaneous orgasm along with his girl.

Their whole worlds shattered from the intense pleasure and came back together in a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors that only they could see.

Slumping against her, he rested his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, trying to compose himself. After several moments, he pulled out of her pussy with a groan, feeling the anxiety of separation from her acutely.

Both of them were too tired to even bother to clean up as they snuggled back down into the pillows together.

With dawn only a few hours away they drifted off into slumber, wrapped together in body and soul.

In Spike dreams he saw visions of Buffy in her little cheerleader outfit doing all sorts of naughty things for him.

Oh yeah, he still had a lot to teach her.

And as far as he was concerned, they had all the time in the world to do it.

The sky was just lightening when Buffy rolled over and opened her eyes. Stretching her stiff muscles, she winced a little, realizing she ached all over. Luckily she ached in all the right places and her entire being felt satiated.

Apparently eight straight hours of sex was good for the constitution.

Rolling over she leaned towards Spike and licked a line up his neck, amused as he swatted at her sleepily. She murmured happily as his beautiful baby blues snapped open and almost felt her heart warm at the sentiment she saw in them.

“Sleep well?” She asked, absently combing out her bed head with her fingers.

“Like the dead.” He confirmed. “Feeling peckish, love?”

“Is that like British for hungry? Cause if it is then I’m very much in the yes camp. I think someone cut my throat and forgot to tell my tummy.”

A laugh rumbled through his chest.

“Well…you did…exert yourself…” He leered from behind hooded eyes, and she felt herself getting wet all over again.

She wondered if it was normal to respond to a man so easily. All he had to do was bat his eyes and curl his tongue and she was his all over again.

But hell, if this was abnormal, then screw normal!

“It was…it was amazing, Spike.”

“Up for another round?”

“Just as soon as my legs start working again.” She quipped and he chuckled, piercing her with a smoldering gaze.

“Well better get my little goddess fed then. Want you back in the best bloody order as soon as possible. Although…” He trailed off.

“Although…?”

“Well, you don’t need to use your legs to give me my breakfast.”

“Huh? What do…?”

She let out a moan as he dived under the covers, planting his face between her legs. He wanted to indulge in a feast, and she wasn’t about to stop him.

They didn’t leave the bedroom for another two hours.

When the pair finally made it down to the kitchen, Spike clad in only his black jeans, and Buffy wearing his T-shirt, she sat down at the table and he headed over to the stove.

“Pancakes alright for you, pet?” He asked.

“Sure. Whatever is good.” Buffy replied distractedly, checking the messages left on her cell. She had a bunch of missed calls from Willow and felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t answered the redhead’s calls the previous day.

But in all fairness she had been distracted by a gorgeous horny guy.

“Problem?” Spike flipped the pancake with expert skill.

“Nothing major, just need to call Willow. I guess she was super worried after what happened the other night. She’s been buzzing my cell like crazy.”

“Of course she bloody cares about you. She’s your mate, ain’t she?”

Their conversation was interrupted by the shrill ring tone of a telephone.

“Mine.” Spike sighed, pressing the ‘accept call’ button and putting the cell to his ear. ‘Wesley’ he mouthed, having glanced at the display.

“Wes, mate! How’s it going?” Spike greeted, the phone held to his ear with his shoulder as he shoveled pancakes onto a plate and placed them in front of Buffy.

“Hello, William.” Wesley said jovially on the other end of the line. “How are you?”

“Not bad, mate.” He looked affectionately at Buffy who was happily drowning her pancakes in syrup. “Actually I’m a lot better now.”

“Good to hear, William. Actually I want to let you know. I have some disturbing news. Liam Angelus is still in Sunnydale.”

Spike groaned wearily. “Yeah, I already know that he’s still in bloody Sunnydale. He attacked Buffy night before last.”

“Oh dear lord!” Wes cried out. “Is she injured?”

“No she’s fine, just a bit shaken. Bloody sod didn’t do any lasting damage to her.”

“That’s a relief.” Wes told his cousin sincerely and Spike grinned. So often, Wes reminded him of his own mother. Their mothers had been sisters, and while Spike’s mother had married down in class, Wesley’s had married up, wedding an aristocrat with a title and lands.

But despite his superior breeding, Wesley was down to earth. He was a good man, and Spike was glad to have him onside.

“I’ll inform you when I have more information. But be careful, William. You know better than anyone what a dangerous fellow Liam Angelus is.”

“I know, pal. Thanks.” Spike said, shutting off the call.

“That was Wes.” He said unnecessarily as he slid into a chair opposite Buffy, stealing a bite of one of her pancakes.

“Hey!” She exclaimed with a pout as he popped it into his mouth. He felt stirrings in his lower regions at the sight of those pouty lips and tried to tone down his arousal with thoughts of a naked Angleus dancing while gelling his hair into its ridiculous little point.

Unfortunately, nude Angelus was a sight that had killed his arousal for real many times over.

Buffy was just about to open her mouth when her cell began to ring.

“Like Piccadilly bloody Circus in here today, eh pet?” Spike smirked as Buffy answered her call.

Buffy smiled and put the telephone to her ear.

“Hey Will.”

“Buffy!” The redhead sighed with relief. “I’ve been trying to reach you for a whole day. I almost came over but then I thought what if something bad had happened and then I’d be intruding and maybe that would make the bad thing worse which would make me feel even worse than I already felt because of the bad thing which might or might not have even happened….”

“Wills! Willow!” Buffy interrupted. “You’re babbling, sweetie.”

“Right. Stopping babbling. Sorry.”

Buffy giggled. “It’s okay. So what’s up?”

“I really just wanted to make sure that you’re okay. When Spike came barging into the Bronze looking for you, I really thought something was wrong.”

“It kinda was, Willow. But it’s gonna be all okay soon.”

“Phew. Good. I’m on board with the gladness.”

“Me too.”

“Actually, I was calling because I wondered if you might want to meet me at the Espresso Pump. No pressure. Just…some girls’ time.”

“I…I don’t think so.” Buffy hedged. “I’m not sure if I should be out right now. There are some things going on and…well bad stuff could happen. I know the Espresso Pump isn’t exactly far, but I don’t want to be all fate-tempty.” Buffy cringed at what she had said. Even to her own ears she sounded like she was suffering from some crazy paranoia, so she didn’t even want to consider what Willow might be thinking of her.

Her head whipped up when she felt the phone grabbed from her hand by Spike.

“Actually, Red, Buffy would love to meet you there. She’ll be there in an hour.” His eyes flickered over his girl who was now on her feet, wildly motioning for him to give her back the phone, lingering on the curve of her breasts and her shapely hips. “Make that two hours, pet.”

“Uh, okay. I guess I’ll see her there.” Willow replied with confusion, before hanging up.

“What the hell was that?!” Buffy demanded, grabbing her cell from Spike’s slack fist. “Are you crazy telling her I will meet her there? What if Angel is around? I could put her in danger too!”

“Angelus won’t be out and about in some bloody coffee shop in the middle of the day, love. I know the bloke, and trust me, he fancies himself more of a dramatic ‘under the cover over darkness’ type. It helps his image.”

Buffy huffed and crossed her arms across her chest.

“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt because of him…or because we lead him to them.” She sighed, wrapping her arms around his torso and resting her head on his chest.

“I have a feeling that even if something did happen, that girl is more of a scrapper that you’re giving her credit for. But whatever happens, we will bring Angelus down soon.”

“Yeah, we just need to find him first…which is totally easy considering the fact that we’ve narrowed his whereabouts to ‘somewhere in town’. Gotta love specificity.”

“And we’ll find that bleeding arse. But we can’t stop living because of him. You’re going to go out and enjoy your day, right?”

“Yes, Master!” She mocked derisively.

“Ooh! Master? I like the sound of that.”

“You’re such a pervert!” She giggled.

“Oh baby! You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.

He picked her up in a fireman’s lift, swinging her over his shoulder, heedless of her shocked shrieks.

Heading up the stairs with this girl slapping his ass to put her down he felt all the blood rushing downward.

“Better tell Red you’ll meet her in three hours.” He warned Buffy as he entered her room, slamming the door shut.

“Actually make that four.”

When Buffy finally arrived at the Espresso Pump, 5 hours later and not quite able to walk straight, Willow was already there sitting at a table and sipping a latte.

“Buffy!” The redhead cried happily as she caught sight of her friend.

Speeding up her pace, Buffy arrived at the table and wrapped Willow in a warm hug.

Willow pushed the extra cup of coffee she had procured for her friends over to her.

“It’s a double mocha with an extra shot of espresso.” Willow told her.

“Yum!” The blonde grinned. “That’s my favorite.”

“I know. I hope it’s not cold though.”

“Yeah, about that…Sorry I’m late.” Buffy apologized, hoping that the blush that stained her cheeks at the thought of why she was late wasn’t too obvious.

“It’s okay. I got your text letting me know.” Willow fixed her eyes on her friend nervously. “But…are you okay?”

“Yes! Of course, I’m totally of the good…a thousand gallons of good. That’s me…good…Buffy.”

“Really? Because when you babble, I can think it’s only of the bad.” Willow posited.

Buffy racked her brain for something to say.

“Xander!” She shouted, a little louder than she meant too. A few other patrons looked around at the disturbance, and she stared into her coffee, red-faced.

Willow glanced around wondering if her male friend had entered the café but as she didn’t see him she frowned.

“What about Xander?” Willow asked.

“I’m upset about him. How mad he was with me the other night. It’s…hard. We were friends once.”

As she spoke, she realized it really did hurt her, the way that one of her closest friends had treated her. Because of everything that had occurred since his verbal torrent of abuse toward her, she hadn’t really thought about it.

But it was painful in the worst kind of way.

“Buffy, Xan can be like that sometimes. You know, he finds it hard to forgive and forget. You just have to give him time. I’m not trying to make excuses for him, but he feels like you abandoned us. Like you abandoned him. And he’s hurt, so like a little boy he’s acting out. But he’ll get over it.”

“Will he, Will?”

“Yes! All his life, Xander has been…left behind. Like in 5th grade, way before you ever came to Sunnydale, he was best friends with this boy called Jesse. The two of them were inseparable. And then one day Jesse told us that his family was moving away to the East Coast. Xander was devastated but they used to write each other every single week, but one day the replies stopped coming. Xander never knew why. ”

“That’s awful.” Buffy murmured with sincerity.

“And it’s not just that, Buffy. There’s other stuff too. He keeps it all bottled up inside, because that’s the Xander way. But he’s hurting. He’s spent his whole life with his parents not giving a darn about him. And then Jesse…And now…”

“…and now me…” The blonde finished trailing off sadly. “He’s not the only one who’s lost things though.”

“I know, and I’m not trying to excuse what he said to you the other night. But I’m just trying to make you see why he says these things.”

Gulping down her cold coffee, Buffy nodded. In all honesty, she had only raised the subject of Xander to try and stave off Willow’s probing questions, but now it had dredged up a whole other set of issues that the teen didn’t want to face.

Avoidance, thy name is Buffy.

Willow coughed lightly to draw her friend’s attention back to her.

“So now that you’ve avoided the elephant in the room for the past thirty minutes, are you ever going to tell me what’s actually wrong? I know it’s not just that you’re upset about Xander. Because whatever this it, it’s been going on for months. And see this? This is my resolve face.” Willow pasted on a stern look. “I’m not going to let this go. Buff, maybe I can help you. I want to help you. I’m not gonna get all judgey, no matter what it is.”

Heaving a sigh, Buffy searched Willow’s face, wondering if she could confide in her friend about what had happened with Spike.

Once upon a time they had told each other everything. They were like sisters and shared their secrets accordingly.

But this thing with Spike, even before they had gotten together, had been a secret that lodged in Buffy’s heart and never seemed like something she could tell to anyone else.

Nevertheless, things were different now. She and Spike were together, at least in body and spirit if not in words. And she knew that if she was to tell Willow then a huge burden would be lifted from her. Right now she felt like the secret of her love for Spike was bubbling inside of her and if she didn’t release it then she would simply explode.

But telling Willow would let the cat out of the proverbial bag. And what if someone else found out then somehow? Spike was in his thirties and she was in her teens. She didn’t think that most people would take kindly to the local Judo instructor bedding jailbait.

Particularly when said jailbait was his dead wife’s daughter.

Then again, she was pretty sure that Willow would keep it to herself. That didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t somehow find out though.

Taking a deep breath, she made her decision.

“Will, I have something to tell you.” She kept her voice purposely low, leaning in toward her friend.

Willow frowned concernedly at the petite blonde. Willow wasn’t a stupid girl. She had long suspected something was wrong with her friend, but she really didn’t know what it was.

At first, when Buffy’s mom had gotten married to Spike, Willow assumed that Buffy was just mad at all the changes that were taking place. Buffy had no control over the things that were happening, and whenever anyone brought up Spike, or the marriage, Buffy became distant and snappy.

But as time passed, and Buffy began to isolate herself more from her friends, Willow’s worry about her deepened.

“What is it, Buff? You know you can tell me anything.”

“It’s about Spike.” Buffy sighed, resting her head in her hands. She didn’t want to see the look of disgust that would inevitably form on her friend’s face once she knew the truth.

Buffy was having sex with her stepfather.

Somehow she didn’t think Willow would be all on board that train.

“Okay. Phew!” She blew out the air clogging her lungs. Suddenly Buffy felt hot, suffocated and like things were closing in on her. Sharing her feelings had never been a strong point of Buffy.

Repression had always been the answer.

But right now she needed the support of her friend…her best friend.

Mustering all her courage, she began.

“Wills, I know you’re probably not going to approve. I’m still not even sure that I approve.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “But a while ago, I started having feelings for Spike.”

Buffy saw Willow move to interrupt but stopped her by raising her hand.

“Wait! Please just let me tell you. I need to get this out, Will. When I first met him, I knew that I liked him. But he was dating my Mom, and I was so mad about it. Mad at him, at Mom, at the whole world. But most of all, I was mad at myself. Because I knew that it was wrong to fall for my own stepfather.

I couldn’t face being around other people. I kept thinking that somehow someone would guess the truth of how I felt and what I was thinking, like it was just written all over my totally guilty face. And I figured if you did find out somehow that you would wig. So I distanced myself from you guys. And it hurt me more than you could know. But I felt so much like there was something wrong with me, and that I was all screwy inside.”

Willow chewed on a pale fingernail, looked curious yet concerned.

“So you two…had an affair?”

“No! Nothing happened with me and Spike while Mom was still…here. He just saw me as ‘Joyce’s Stepdaughter’ I guess and I thought that was all it would ever be.”

“I guess it’s more than that now…?”

“Since Mom…it’s been so hard. The cops still have no idea what happened. They don’t even have a motive, let alone a suspect. All they have is a vague description from a few witnesses and that’s not exactly getting them anywhere. The pain of losing her, and knowing that still no one is being punished for what they did to her…it was ripping me apart. It still is. And Spike, he was there and he was hurting, just like me.

I’m not gonna go into details, because, you know, there’s such a thing as oversharing…but the other night when I left the Bronze with that guy, Angel, he attacked me.”

“Spike attacked you?!” Willow gasped in horror.

“What? No! God no! I meant Angel attacked me.”

“Oh my God!” Willow bellowed. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“He tried. He was going to…to rape me.” Buffy watched Willow blanch, becoming even paler than normal. “But Spike…he found us. He beat the hell out of Angel. He saved me, Wills.”

“He came looking for you in the Bronze. How did he even know you were in trouble?”

“He has some kind of history with Angel. It’s a thing. He found out the guy was in town and went kinda nutballs. Which I guess is lucky for me. But anyway, he stopped anything bad before it happened.”

“I see.”

“Then we went home, and some…stuff happened. We talked and then….we kinda…made love.” Buffy confessed, her blush matching the color of her best friend’s hair.

Willow flushed a similar shade of red when she heard the confession.

“You had sex with Spike?!” She blurted out.

“Holy crap! You had sex with your stepdad?!” A voice echoed from behind.

Buffy and Willow spun round to see Anya standing there, her mouth gaping open in shock even as her eyes sparkled inquisitively. The currently-brunette girl eyed the other two curiously.

“Well?” Anya asked.

“This is very not good.” Buffy sighed.

Why was nothing in her life ever simple?

“Well?” Anya cocked her head to one side, waiting for an answer.

Busted.

Buffy had always hated being backed into a corner with anything, but now she knew that she didn’t have any choice but to confide in Anya as well as Willow.

When Anya wanted to know something she was like a dog with a bone and Buffy was pretty sure that the frank young woman wasn’t about to let some juicy sex gossip slip through her skinny little fingers.

Buffy sighed, and motioned for Anya to sit down, which the brunette happily did with a little flourish.

Once she was seated, she leaned forward impatiently in a way that reminded Buffy of a puppy her father had gotten her for her fourth birthday. It was clear that she was eager to know everything.

“Listen, Anya.” Buffy said sternly. “If I tell you this you have got to promise that you will never repeat a word to anyone.”

“Ooh, like a secret? A girl-talk secret? I love those. And I love this…the girl-talk thing. Because we’re gal pals, like Cosmo is always talking about.” Anya smiled wistfully. “You would be Carrie, Buffy.” She gestured to the blonde with a wave of her hand. “And Willow you are Miranda, although you have more than a dash of Charlotte. Obviously I’d be Samantha, because we both love sex. And we both have copious amounts of sex…the hot, wild, sweaty kind of copulation.”

Anya grinned while Willow looked at the other girl perplexed. Buffy just shrugged.

“I’m talking about Sex and the City!” Anya clarified with a hefty sigh, slapping her palms against her thighs. “Don’t you people know anything?”

“This isn’t a TV show, Ahn. This is real life and it’s serious. If you tell anyone what you just heard then Spike could get into real trouble.” Buffy warned her.

“I know, I know.” Anya said. “I’m actually very good at keeping secrets. Like the time Amy told me that Larry is actually gay, I never told another living soul.” She paused thoughtfully. “Except for you two. But that doesn’t count…on account of the gal-pal thing.”

“Anya…” Buffy growled in frustration. “I’m not kidding. You can’t tell anyone, ever!”

“I won’t tell anyone!” She assured Buffy, who didn’t look convinced. “Now we need to hear all the details!”

“We really, really don’t!” Willow insisted, flushing an even darker shade of crimson.

“Of course we do!” Anya waved off Willow’s disinterest with a flick of her hand.

Didn’t these people understand the concept of gal-pal sharing?

“Now,” Anya continued matter-of-factly as she studied Buffy. “Does he have a large penis?”

“Anya!” Buffy cried, slapping her head into her hands. She could feel every cell in her body violently cringing.

“Oh dear God!” Willow buried her face in her hands, her face flushed with embarrassment.

“What?” Anya said, seemingly unperturbed. “A large member is very important on a man. How else can he hit your G-spot? G-spot orgasms are the very best kind of orgasm, I’ll have you know. When Xander and me…”

“Oookay!” Willow interrupted stutteringly. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we don’t need to hear any stories that contain you, Xander and G…G…spots.”

“Right there with you, Wills.” Buffy agreed.

“No you’re right.” Anya conceded. “We were talking about Buffy, Spike and G-spots.”

“Oh god.” Buffy bit her bottom lip, not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry.

“So how long has this torrid affair been going on?” Anya inquired. “Oh my God! Were you two boinking each other behind your mother’s back?”

“No! There was nothing of the…boinking…kind. And it’s not…torrid. It only just happened, two nights ago.” Buffy assured her.

“How did it happen?”

Buffy exhaled a puff of air and began to repeat the story of Angel’s attack and Spike rescuing her to Anya. Anya nodded along with the story. Her face contorting into horror as Buffy described how Angel had almost raped her and romantic softness with a hint of jealousy coloring her expression as she talked about how Spike had kicked the other man’s ass for what he’d tried to do.

Both Anya and Willow’s faces melted in awe as she talked about their first real kiss.

“When we kissed it was like in one of those real sappy chick flicks.” She laughed. “It’s not as if I’ve never been kissed before, but I’ve never been kissed like that. He made my insides uber-melty.”

The other two girls sighed wistfully, and Buffy continued.

“There was some…petting when we got home, which was really nice. And then we talked a lot. He told me…some private stuff. And I guess we got caught up in the moment. Not that I regret it! But I was going to wait to…go all the way with him. I guess I couldn’t. I needed him and he…needed me. It was a whole big needing thing. But when we…did it I felt like we were making love, like it was more than just sex.” Buffy concluded.

“Was he good?” Anya asked.

Keeping her eyes down to try and minimize her blush, she nodded.

“He was amazing!”

“Oooh!” Anya squealed, almost flying out of her seat in all the excitement. With Buffy finally spilling the details, she really needed to know more about Spike’s size now! “And he’s big?”

Buffy felt her face become impossibly redder before she eventually nodded again.

“Huge!” She finally admitted under her breath.

Anya fanned herself with her hand and her eyes darted excitedly from Buffy to Willow, the latter looking as if she was about to liquefy from the embarrassment, and back to Buffy.

“But wait!” Exclaimed Anya suddenly. “What if he’s having a mid-life crisis? You might be one of those ‘young bits of fluff’ you always hear about older men dating.”

“It’s not a mid-life crisis! And I’m not…fluff.” Buffy said. “Can you even have a mid-life crisis at 30-something?”

“I guess not, unless it’s early onset. But I guess the chances are slim.” Anya granted reluctantly. She smiled again. “It is romantic though.”

Buffy agreed wholeheartedly with her friend.

She was glad that she’d told Anya. While Willow had blushed her way through the story in virtual silence apart from the occasional squeak, Anya had been vocal, if maybe a little too vocal, during it.

Still, Anya’s lack of disgust at what she was hearing reassured Buffy a little in her choices.

Anya was the most frank and least tactful person Buffy knew, and if she wasn’t squicked by the whole situation, then maybe it really wasn’t so bad after all.

“So this Angel guy…” Anya started. “Is he dangerous?”

“Yes,” Buffy admitted seriously. “If he approaches you then stay away from him, okay? He’s not a nice person.”

“He didn’t look like a nice person.” Anya said. At Buffy’s puzzled look, she clarified. “Willow pointed him out when you two were canoodling at the bar and I thought to myself that he looks like the kind of man that’s wronged more than one woman in his time. Definite Neanderthal brow! I genuinely cannot understand why any man would gel his hair straight up when his forehead is so largely oversized?”

Buffy struggled to hold back a fit of giggles at Anya’s tactless description, but finally they burst through, and all three girls dissolved into one of those contagious fits of laughter, egging each other on. After a little while none of them could even remember just why they started laughing in the first place.

It felt so damn good to laugh.

For the last couple of months Buffy had found laughter a rare commodity in her life. Most of the time she felt nothing, and on those rare occasions when her feelings did poke their ugly head through the layer of ice she surrounded her heart with, it led to crying jags locked in the bathroom away from prying eyes.

The only thing that had really made her feel anything significant was her budding romance with Spike, and in some ways she was still a little wary with treading that new terrain.

But this laughter, it was part of the heeling process.

She finally had her friends back.

And they had her back too.

When the giggles finally subsided, Anya glanced at her watch.

“I have to go. Xander’s going to give me orgasms in twenty minutes and unless you girls can provide me with orgasms of an equal or better standard then I’m afraid I can’t stay.”

Buffy ignored the pang of loss when she heard Xander’s name. Apparently their estranged friendship was only now just sinking in for her.

And it really stung.

However, she rallied and grinned at the other girl with a mixture of humor and distaste at her oversharing.

“Oh..okay. Well thanks for listening.” Buffy smiled, wrapping Anya in an impromptu hug.

Anya beamed back at her. It was so rare to be praised for her help and it felt good. She always thought Buffy disliked her, but it seemed as if the other girl was warming to her.

Turning to leave, Anya paused, pulling an object from her purse, and handing it to Buffy.

“I think you should take this.” Anya told her.

Buffy glanced down at the pocket knife that Anya had given to her.

“It’s for protection.” Anya clarified. “I always carry one, because everyone knows about all the unexplained deaths in Sunnydale, and this town is not safe.”

“I can’t take it, Anya. What about protecting yourself?” Buffy said.

“Oh don’t worry about that.” Anya said dismissively. “I have another 99 of them at home.”

“Why do you have 99 more pocket knives?” Willow asked with bewilderment.

“Oh, because they are much better value if you buy them in wholesale quantities.” Anya replied with her ‘I’m being frugal…ask me how’ smile.

“But you don’t need wholesale amounts of pocket knives!” Willow insisted.

Anya poked her nose into the air and sniffed.

“Well apparently, I do. Because if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to give that one to Buffy for protection. And then she could get hurt and die and I would have to spend money on a funeral dress that I could only wear once.”

Both Buffy and Willow wrinkled their noses at the display of weird Anya-esque logic, but neither commented further.

Instead, Buffy expressed her gratitude to Anya and slipped the small knife into her back pocket.

Anya was right.

You can never be too careful.

The three girls strolled out of the Espresso Pump together, exchanging brief hugs and promises to call each other soon, before all going in separate directions.

Buffy paused for a second, wondering if she should warn her friends to be extra vigilant just in case they encountered any…less than savory characters. But realizing it was still light out she dismissed that thought and carried on her way.

As Buffy ambled back to Revello Drive, her head filled with thoughts of Spike, she felt lighter, like there was finally a spring in her step again.

Yep, things were definitely looking up.

If only she had seen the pair of chocolate brown eyes watching the girls with a sinister glare from the shadows, Buffy might not have been quite so optimistic.

Despite his insistence that Buffy go out for the afternoon with her friends, he couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.





After all there was a psychopathic killer running around town with a yen to do his girl some harm.





A large part of him wished that he’d finished off Angelus when he’d had the chance. He didn’t know why he hadn’t.





Maybe it was the part of him that was still naïve 12 year old William who thought that reading poetry to his mother would somehow provide a salve for her newly broken collarbone and twisted shoulder.





That part of Spike couldn’t kill off another person, no matter what they did.





He wondered if that was his soul.





And damaged or not his soul was still surviving strongly within him.





He poured himself a cup of coffee, purposely restraining himself from reaching for the whiskey bottle on the countertop, and sat down at the table. He glanced up at the clock and figured Buffy should be home soon.





He couldn’t wait to have her in his arms again.





Never before had Spike dreamed that sex could be so universally fulfilling. Every person he had shared his bed with before had been about satisfying one particular need, be it either comfort, safety, passion, pain, money or drugs.





No one had ever been his everything before, not even Drusilla, although he hadn’t realized that at the time.





But Buffy was everything to him when she opened her body to his own.





She was passion, unabridged and beautiful. She was comfort and home.





She was love.





And the last one was the hardest to admit.





Not just because every time he ever loved someone they went away, but also because their relationship would still be considered taboo by so many people.





No matter how beautiful the music they made together might be, strangers would probably view it as a discordant cacophony of sins.





Jumping up when he heard the lock turn in the front door, he wrapped Buffy in a passionate embrace before she was even over the threshold.





“I missed you.” He mumbled into her hair, breathing in the sweet scent of vanilla and berries that surrounded her like a fragrant cloud.





“I missed you too.” She replied honestly, pecking him on the lips.





“Have a good time with your mate, love?” He asked, shutting the door behind her as she walked into the living room.





“Oh, yeah! It was…really nice. It felt good to be able to share stuff with them, you know. Like…I’ve missed that recently.”





“Them?” Spike asked. “I thought you were just meeting up with Red.”





“No, Anya was there too.” Buffy said absently as she took her coat off and sank down onto the couch. “That girl has big ears. She overheard me and Will talking about you.”





“She overheard you talking about me?” Spike tensed with alertness. “What did you say about me?”





“I just told them…that we’re…that we…you know.”





Seeing the thunderous look on her lover’s face, Buffy blanched.





“Should I not have done that?” She inquired in a small voice.





“Let’s see…” Spike sneered, his voice thick with sarcastic irony. “Should you have told your sodding mates that you’re sleeping with your stepfather who’s twice your bloody age, even though you’re still underage? Hmm I think that’s a bloody no-brainer! What do you think, Buffy?”





She shrank back into the couch cushions, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes and blinked in a fruitless attempt to clear her vision.





“I’m sorry.” Buffy said with a pleading edge to her voice. “I didn’t even think…”





“And that’s your whole bloody problem, pet. You don’t think! I trusted you and now you’ve gone off and told your little gang about us. How long will it be before the whole sodding town knows?”





Spike didn’t know why it enraged him so much as the curtain of fury descended in front of his eyes.





Part of him was proud that she wanted her friends to know about the relationship…it meant that it was really real…and he didn’t really believe that her friends would spill the beans.





But all the tension and frustration of the past few weeks was spilling out of him, and he couldn’t put the cork back in.





“They won’t tell anyone!” She yelled. “They’re my friends.”





“All it takes is one slip, and I’m doing a fifteen to twenty stretch using soap on a bloody rope.”





“You’re such an asshole! I would never do anything to hurt you, and all you do is hurt me. If you hate me this much then why do you even want to be with me?”





“Shut your gob and stop acting like such a bloody kid! Is that it? Gonna spit your dummy out your pram every time you don’t like what I have to say to you?” He changed his voice to a high mocking falsetto tone. “Oh Spike! Why won’t you be nice to me? I haven’t done anything wrong!” He derided her. “Just let me shed a few tears and thump my fists against the floor and then you can forgive me.”





Buffy scowled at him.





“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Spike! Because I didn’t do anything wrong. So what if I told my friends about you? That’s what friends do. They tell each other things. Of course you wouldn’t know that because, oh yeah, you don’t have any friends. And I wonder why? Oh…yeah! Because you’re a fucking asshole!”





“Maybe I’m an ‘asshole’. But you’re a bloody vicious little bitch, and I can’t bear to look at you right now.”





His whole stance screamed of his fury and Buffy couldn’t stand to look at him either for another moment.





She hadn’t even done anything wrong. All she had done was confided in her friends. She needed someone to talk to, and this selfish man couldn’t comprehend that.





Jumping to her feet, she stormed past Spike, flashing him a glare and thundering up the stairs.





“Bugger!” He swore.





Now that Buffy had gone off in tears, his anger started to dissipate and he was engorged with fear as he realized just how much he’d hurt her.





Spike just hoped that he hadn’t done any permanent damage to their relationship.





With a heavy heart, he traced her footsteps up the stairs and knocked on her closed bedroom door. Hearing the quiet sobs from inside, he clenched his eyes shut, and knocked again louder this time.





“Go away!” Buffy shouted from the other side.





Heedless of her words, Spike opened the door, and felt his own heart contract at the sight of his girl lying face down on the bed, a little pink pig clutched tight to her chest as the tears flowed freely.





“I’m sorry.” He sat down next to her, wincing when she flinched away from his touch.





“You might be sorry, but it doesn’t change what you said.” Buffy muttered not even bothering to turn her head toward him.





“I didn’t bloody well mean it, love.” Spike sighed. “When you told me that you told your mates about us, I bloody panicked. I got these images of a bunch of bobbies coming in here to cart me off. I do understand that you’ve missed having your pals around, and that you need someone to talk to. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me…or us. I’m actually glad that you told them in a way. It proves this is really something….between us, sweetling. Please forgive me, love?”





Buffy shook her head, wiping her eyes, but she didn’t buck his hand off her shoulder when he laid it there this time.





Sensing that his girl was softening, he bent over her and peppered the back of her neck with tiny butterfly kisses.





At first she stiffened but as he worked a hand under her T-shirt she started to relax and lean into his ministrations. He trailed a hand gently down the outline of her ribcage eliciting a hushed mewl from the teenager.





Turning her in his embrace, he sealed their lips together until she was gasping and panting in his arms.





“I’m sorry too.” She mumbled against his lips. “I shouldn’t have said…what I said to you. I was wrong. I know what you’ve been through…”





“It’s ok, love.” He told her, peeling away her clothes and underwear with lustful desperation. “You’re a feisty little bint.”





She smiled, and hooked her fingers under the hem of Spike’s shirt before hoisting it over his head, revealing his rippling bare chest. His pale skin was gleaming in the soft light of dusk that filtered through the drapes, and she ran a hand over his skin, marveling at the lusty shiver that succeeded her caresses.





She clasped his zipper between her forefinger and thumb, drawing it down, maintaining eye contact with Spike the entire time, reveling in the flash of anticipation that flashed over his face as his engorged erection sprung free from his pants.





Spike kicked off his pants and guided Buffy’s hands to his throbbing cock, unable to contain a moan as her cool fingers made contact with his overheated flesh. She began to pump her fist up and down his member, running her thumb over the slit at the top.





“Fuck, Buffy. So bloody good at that!” He groaned with delight. “Use your mouth, love. Need to feel that cute little gob around my cock.”





Happily obliging him, she engulfed the purple weeping tip of his penis with her pouty cherry lips.





She sucked on the end like it was a candy lollipop before slipping her mouth farther down, swirling her tongue around the end every time she bobbed back up.





Buffy reached down and cupped his balls in her small hand, rolling them in her palm, before removing her mouth from his dick and sucking on each ball in turn, all the while continuing to tightly pump his pulsating penis with her small fists.





It wasn’t long before she had worked him into a gibbering frenzy. His hands were gripping her hair, massaging her scalp as she took him into her throat as far as she could without gagging.





“Fuck! Fuck…Buffy…love….Bloody buggering hell!”





Sensing he was getting close to coming, she removed her mouth and crawled up his body. Disappointed at the loss of the warm wet hea, his eyes shot open but seeing her intentions to ride him he returned the sexy smile she was shooting at him.





Straddling his slim hips with her own she impaled herself on his member and steadied herself with her hands flat on his chest, trailing sharp nails over his highly sensitized nipples.





Spike loved the fact that she was becoming so sexually aggressive. She wasn’t a shy little girl in the bedroom but a wildcat like him.





They were a perfect match.





He gripped her hips and helped to guide her movements as both of their orgasms appeared on the horizon.





Spike had already been close to coming when he entered Buffy, but she was also surprisingly close. He had felt just how wet his girl was when she sank down onto him, so clearly giving him head was just as huge a turn on for her as it was for him.





Moments later their worlds crashed together, like the tide coming in hard against the hot sand. They shrieked each others’ names with gasping zeal, before collapsing together, exhausted yet fully satisfied.





Still shivering from the passion, Buffy sighed in contentment.





However their peace was interrupted by the loud ring of her cell phone.





“Not gonna answer that love?” Spike asked her when she didn’t make a move to retrieve the phone from the pocket of her jeans, which lay discarded on the ground.





“It can wait.” Buffy told him. “Too snuggly to be move-y.”





Ten minutes, and four unanswered phone calls later, Buffy finally crawled out of the warm, comfy bed and away from warm, comfy Spike and accepted the call.





“Oh. Hey Will.” She greeted breezily, running a hand absently through her tangled, sweaty locks.





Spike studied her as she listened to her friend, his brow furrowing as her face paled and her hands picked up a subtle tremble.





“Oh my god!” Buffy exclaimed, listening to her friend’s garbled speech.





A minute later Buffy absently hung up the phone, her mouth gaping and silent sobs wracking through her.





“What is it, pet? What’s wrong?” He asked with concern, jumping out of the bed and rushing over to her.





She let herself be guided to sit down on the edge of the bed, small trembles still wracking her small form.





With big, tear-filled eyes she gazed up at him.





“That was Willow on the phone. She’s at the hospital right now with Xander.” Buffy informed him numbly. “It’s Anya. She’s been attacked.





She dissolved into tears and he cradled her shaking body to his, letting her wail out her pain.

All her life Buffy had hated hospitals. When she was a little girl, her favorite cousin had died in a hospital bed only feet away from where Buffy was shedding rivers of tears, and ever since then they had been a huge phobia for her.



She despised everything about them: how sterile-white they were; the smell; the cheeriness of the nurses even when they were staring into the face of tragedy.



In spite of that, Buffy had wanted to rush to Sunnydale General as soon as Willow had delivered the tragic news to her.



Through her tears, Willow had told her over the telephone that Anya had been attacked on her way to Xander’s house and that she was in hospital for her injuries. Willow and Xander were already at the hospital with the other girl, but the redhead had insisted that her friend wait until morning before she come racing down there.



In truth, a part of Buffy had been relieved that she had some time to mentally prepare. Not just for dealing with her phobia of hospitals, but also for what to say to her friend.



Buffy wasn’t good in situations where she needed to be sympathetic. Point her in the direction of someone who needed a verbal tearing-down and she was your girl. But give her someone who only needed a little empathy and she would invariably freeze up.



During the night, the comforting solace of sleep had evaded Buffy, but Spike had opened his arms to her and together they lay in the dark and silence, just clinging to each other.



Every time that another crying jag overtook her, he would bury his face in her hair and whisper reassurances to her.



When the light of dawn finally flooded through the drapes, the pair had showered together, washing each other down with tenderness. Neither was in any kind of state for it to develop into anything sexual, yet it had been the most intense form of intimacy for both.



But now the time had come to visit Anya and, clinging to Spike, Buffy entered Sunnydale General Hospital with trepidation.



She had to be strong though.



For Anya.



Buffy didn’t yet know all the details and Anya had apparently not been exactly coherent when Willow had arrived at the hospital, so the redhead hadn’t really been able to tell Buffy anything other than that she’d been attacked.



But the blonde had a ball of dread lying in the pit of her stomach that told her that Angel’s presence in town coinciding with Anya’s attack was more than just coincidence.



And if that was the case…



Buffy wrapped her arms tightly around her body while Spike went to find out where Anya’s room was. Leaning against the wall she kept her eyes fixed on her boots, not wanting to look around at the sick and dying.



She had experienced enough death already.



The waiting room was so full of sick and injured people and it made her stomach roil. All these souls had someone who cared about them. They belonged to someone. Yet their lives were so fragile that they could be taken away in a Sunnydale minute.



Just like her Mom’s life had been stolen from her.



Spike returned to her and interrupted her reverie. Sensing her discomfort, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled him to her.



“Your mate’s in room 1226.” He said, rubbing circles on her palm soothingly with his thumb.



The elevator was too silent apart from the whirr of machinery, which in itself kind of gave Buffy the creeps. She felt like she was walking the final mile to the gallows right now.



Of course, she wished she had more time to prepare herself, because the moment she stepped off of the elevator car, the barrage began.



“What the hell are you doing here?” A cold voice asked and Buffy’s head whipped up.



“Xander.” She said emotionlessly, her face blank as she stared at the young man in front of her.



He glared at her with cold eyes and the red circles and bags under those eyes stood out so boldly against his unusually pale skin that despite his cold manner toward her, she felt a rush of sympathy for him.



“What are you doing here, Buffy?”



“Willow called me…” The blonde started but he threw his arms in the air with a scoff.



“Oh so Willow called you, and now you two are best buddies again, you came running.”



Buffy and Spike pasted matching scowls on their faces at the boy, but he didn’t seem in the least fazed, and returned the glare with equal intensity.



“Actually, I came because I care about Anya and because I was upset to hear she was attacked.” Buffy insisted.



“Right, because you always cared so much about Anya before?” Xander sneered with venom. “You never liked her, even before…before you decided you were too good for the likes of us, and made with your little Houdini act.”



“Xan…that’s not what happened. Any of it.” She massaged her aching temples with her fingertips and took a deep breath while she tried to strengthen herself against his tirade. “Clearly there are many issues here. And I guess it’s gonna take some time to resolve them. But I’m here for Anya.”



“Well I don’t want you here. And I doubt Ahn does either.”



“I would say that’s up to the lady, not you, monkey boy.” Spike interjected fiercely. Buffy’s face was laced with relief when he spoke, even in spite of his jibe at the younger man, but Xander just kept his hostile stare in place as he surveyed the other guy.



“I don’t remember asking you, old man.” Xander said to Spike.



“You didn’t mate. But I couldn’t give a bloody flying fuck what you ask or don’t ask.”



Spike turned to Buffy tenderly and whispered in her ear.



“Your redheaded mate’s down the hall there. Why don’t you head on over to her. I want a word with the boy.”



Buffy looked alarmed at Spike’s words, but a soft hand on her back reassured her that he wouldn’t do anything stupid so she headed down the hallway toward where Willow was sitting on a chair.



Once Buffy was out of earshot Spike turned back to Xander who was still glowering at him in what the boy probably thought was a menacing way.



Unfortunately for Xander, Spike had some real experience with actual menacing people, and this child didn’t even come close.



“Listen mate,” Spike began in a low gravelly voice, “I know you have this ridiculous grudge against Buffy at the mo, but it stops now, or else.”



“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Xander maintained eye contact, not even flinching at Spike’s warning.



“No, I don’t. To be honest, I don’t care what you do unless it affects me. And if it affects Buffy then it does affect me. Now, see, you being a wanker towards that girl is hurting her, so you need to bloody well grow up and stop being a little boy.”



“Get over yourself, man. You’re her stepfather, not her freaking boyfriend.”



“I’m all she has right now. She’s just lost her Mum. Obviously you’re too much of a selfish little sod to make allowances for that though.”



Xander ran a hand through his already disheveled brown hair and sighed. He was so determined to hold on to his anger at Buffy, but he felt a little slip away at Spike’s words.



For the past months, Xander had been feeling abandoned and hurt by the girl. But deep down he knew she had her reasons. And she was going through a bad time right now.



Uncharacteristically, Xander conceded the point with a sigh.



“Fine. I’ll go easy on her.” He agreed.



Spike nodded approvingly before heading to the elevators in the direction Buffy had gone, leaving Xander alone to reflect on what had just transpired.



When Spike reached her he found her deep in conversation with Willow. Both girls were crying and he hurried over to her and pulled his girl into a comforting embrace.



“Oh god, Spike!” Buffy wailed. “It’s horrible. Anya was…she was…r.r.raped.”



His eyes turned cold and Willow flinched at the murderous glare in them.



“Did she identify the suspect yet?” Spike demanded.



“The cops are in with her now.” Willow informed him. “Me and Xander were in there with her earlier and they showed up and wanted to talk to her.”



“Did she tell you if she knew the person who attacked her?” He asked impatiently, the bad feeling spreading in his gut.



Willow shook her head in the affirmative.



“She told us that she recognized him from the other night in the Bronze. It was…Angel.”



“That fucking rat-arsed bugger!” He cried out, loosening himself from Buffy and lashing out at the wall with one of his boots.



“This is my fault.” Buffy said quietly.



“What? No, Buffy, this isn’t your fault at all!” Willow assured her friend.



“Yes it is!” She insisted. “Anya gave me her knife and otherwise she could have protected herself.”



“You can’t put this on yourself, Buffy. She told me and Xan this morning what happened. She was on her way over to Xander’s and Angel jumped her from behind. He had a knife, and he told her he would slit her throat if she didn’t…comply.”



Spike kicked at one of the chairs lining the corridor and growled. “That’s it. This ends now! I’m going after him myself.”



Spike was sick of that man hurting defenseless girls because it made him feel better about the pathetic asshole that he was. He’d done it for the last time when he hurt Buffy’s friend, and Spike was determined that it would end now.



“You’re going after him…alone.” Buffy mumbled with incredulity. “Are you insane?”



“No, I’m finally thinking straight.” He said. “I can’t let Angel hurt anyone else. This ends now.”



“Right so you’re going to go running around Sunnydale, unarmed, looking for a psychopath with a knife and God only knows what other weapons. Good plan Spikey!” Buffy said angrily. “Let me guess what you’re gonna do when you find him. Maybe you can give him a stern glaring at while he carves out your insides! That will teach him!”



“You’re forgetting I’m a black belt, pet. I can do more than glare at him. If I remember correctly you witnessed the whole sodding show last time.”



“I remember.” She whispered. “But that didn’t stop him, did it? There are only two things that will stop him. Either you kill him and go to prison, or we turn him in and he…retaliates by spilling everything he knows about…your past…and then you…”



“…go to bloody prison too.” Her lover finished with a groan.



“Maybe I can go. He won’t be expecting me.” Buffy said.



“Over my dead bloody body!” Spike scowled.



“Because I can’t handle it?”



“Because I won’t let my girl go after that nasty wanker all alone.”



“Meaning that you think I can’t handle it.” Buffy scowled. “I don’t need you to be all protect-y around me Spike.”



“Enough with the girl power bit, love. You’re not a bloody superhero. You’re a girl. A feisty one, I’ll bloody well give you that, but a girl nonetheless. And Angleus would have you for breakfast.”



The pair were still glowering at each other when the two cops came out of Anya’s room, both looking weary and concerned. They were whispering to each other in low tones as they passed the trio waiting in the hallway.



As they stepped into the elevator, another figure stepped off, and Spike, Buffy and Willow watched as Xander approached them, bearing donuts and coffee.



“I went down to the cafeteria to pick these up.” He said. “I thought maybe sugary goodness might cheer Ahn up. I got some for everyone.” He gave a lopsided half-smile to Buffy and she nodded at her old friend, acknowledging the gesture.



“I don’t think this is a boo-boo that will be fixed with donuts and coffee, Xan.” Willow told him sadly.



He gulped but didn’t say anything more. Xander Harris didn’t exactly feel well equipped to help his girlfriend get over the trauma of a rape. This was about as much as he felt he was capable of.



“Maybe I should talk to her?” Buffy offered.



“You?” Willow asked skeptically. In the time Willow had known the blonde, and no matter how much she loved her friend, she had never found her to be the most sympathetic of people.



Buffy also knew she wasn’t usually the kind to jump head first into emotional situations where she needed to show some kind of sympathy.



But Buffy knew something about loss and pain, and she had almost suffered the same fate at Angelus’ hands herself.



Maybe, after all her recent trauma, she was evolving.



Of course, this had nothing to do with the guilt that was welling up inside her, not only for not reporting him to the police when she was attacked, but also for being the lover of the man that had brought him to Sunnydale.



She just had to keep telling herself that.



“Yes, me. I really want to help her. She was there for me yesterday when I told her about…stuff. And I want to repay the favor.” Buffy said.



Three pairs of eyes turned toward Xander, as if somehow asking for his permission, and he hesitantly nodded.



“Maybe Buffy can help.” He said sounding a little unsure.



Buffy entered the room cautiously, as if there were snakes or live wires stashed somewhere that she didn’t want to accidentally step on.



Of course there were, but they were only the figurative kind.



Anya turned her pale drawn face to Buffy as she entered and tried for a smile that came off as more of a grimace.



The brunette’s face was peppered with bruises and one of her eyes was swollen shut. Her left arm was in a cast and her general demeanor screamed that of a victim.



The larger than life girl had been reduced to less than she had ever been by that bastard.



“How are you?” Buffy asked, immediately cursing herself internally for her stupid question.



“Not exactly peachy.” Anya replied wryly her eyes flickering to her plastered arm.



“I’m sorry, Anya.” Buffy said.



“For what?” Anya inquired.



“I feel like I brought this onto you. You’re my friend and Angel wants to hurt Spike through me. If it wasn’t for me…”



Anya sighed.



She hadn’t ever prided herself on being a very forgiving kind of girl. Grudges were much easier to keep than forgiveness was to award.



She still hated her father for the fact that he had left their maid to raise her more than he had. And she had a deep resentment toward her mother for leaving their family for the pool-boy when she was only a small child.



But she knew that Buffy needed to be forgiven here and now, because the guilt was written clearly on her face.



Sometimes we don’t always get what we need.



“You and your boyfriend did bring him here. Old friends, right? You said yourself he attacked you and yet you let him walk free.” Anya said tonelessly. “I don’t know why you didn’t make sure that he was locked up and I don’t know why this happened to me. I wish I did, because I don’t understand what I ever did that was so bad that I need to be punished this way. It was Angel that did this, you could have stopped him before he ever got the chance. I wish I could tell you that you’re absolved of any guilt in this, Buffy. But you’re not.”



Her lifeless eyes locked with Buffy’s and the blonde could see all the pain swimming around inside her. She could see the damaged soul that was wailing in agonizing torment inside Anya, and she fell apart herself.



She really understood just what she was responsible for. But she wasn't alone in this. Part of the guilt lay at Spike's door too.



Guilt was a bitch.

An awkward silence fell in the room and unable to continue to look at the judgment written all across Anya’s face, Buffy gave in to her instinct to bolt.

“I’m sorry, really sorry, Anya.” She said, before running out of the room, and straight into a strong chest.

When Buffy came careering into Spike, he was startled, but that surprise turned into worry when he saw how hard she was crying, her eyes and cheeks were puffy and her face was coated in a thin sheen of moisture.

It tugged at his heart in the most painful way to see her so unhappy.

“What’s the matter, pet?” He asked her with concern lacing his voice.

“It’s all my fault!” She mumbled into his chest. “All my fault!”

Spike felt his heart crumble at those words. He knew what it was like to shoulder the blame for something, to feel like you were the one who made that happen.

How could Buffy believe that she was responsible for this?

He didn’t want that for his Buffy.

He wasn’t sure what had gone on in that room, but apparently the talk with Anya hadn’t gone well judging by Buffy’s flustered state.

As she shook in his embrace, he wondered if she would ever be the same after everything that had happened recently.

Or would it all leave her irreparably scarred?

God, he hoped not.

He really hoped not.

“No, pet.” He told her as forcefully as he could. “You weren’t the one who did this. That bloody bastard hurt her, and I will not let you put this all on you.”

“She said…she blames me, Spike.”

Spike cupped her cheek and rubbed tiny circles on it with his thumb, clearing away some of her tears.

“She’s angry and hurt, and she’s lashing out at you, because that’s what people in pain do. But you didn’t do anything wrong here.” Spike said with vehemence.

She swiped at her eyes and nose with the back of her hand, sniffing sadly.

He was right.

People in pain do lash out.

And she was in pain right now.

Currently Spike was the nearest target.

“You’re right.” Buffy told him coldly, feeling her own need to lash out at someone bubble uncontrollably in her veins. “I wasn’t the one who brought him to town.”

She leveled a cold stare at him, and he flinched, hurt by her implied accusation. But right now he couldn’t muster the strength to argue with the girl, especially as he knew she was only lashing out at him because she was in pain herself.

“What? Got nothing to say? You were plenty vocal when you insisted we keep the cops out of this. We could have stopped him.” Buffy hissed.

“And you think that bloody poofter would have kept quiet about Dru and Darla and the accident if we grassed on him?”

“I think it shouldn’t have mattered. We had the chance to do the right thing and we blew it. Now my friend is lying in a hospital bed, scarred mentally and physically by what that asshole did to her. We can’t change that. But…I need some time to come to terms with it.”

“What are you saying, Buffy?”

“I’m saying we need to take a little time away from each other right now. Why don’t you go home?” She suggested wearily. “I need to stay here with Anya, even if she hates me. And you’re…not needed.”

Buffy wasn’t really sure why she was pushing him away when all she needed was for him to take her into his embrace and keep her there forever.

However, seeing him was a reminder that he was indirectly to blame for what had happened to Anya. And so was she, no matter how much logic negated that theory.

Spike had brought Angel to Sunnydale, although not intentionally, and he had stopped her from calling the cops when Angel attacked her.

The part of Buffy that needed a scapegoat to alleviate her own responsibility was able to easily jump onto the train that told her it was all Spike’s fault.

Otherwise she would have to turn the scathing criticism on herself again, and right now after what Anya had said she was barely holding it together.

“Not leaving you here all bloody alone, Buffy.” He said with finality. “Not with Angelus still out there and clearly bloody dangerous.”

“I’m not alone. The nurses are here and the doctors, and there’s cops crawling all over. I’ll be fine. I don’t need you here right now, Spike. Please, just go.”

He wavered for a moment, but the cold expression on her face and her hostile stance pushed his buttons enough that he felt his anger flare.

Spike needed to get the hell out of dodge before he said something he knew he would regret.

“Fine.” He said icily, moving to leave.

Spike stopped before he had even walked 5 feet away, his posture slumping. “If you need anything, just call me. I’ll be at home.”

Her expression softened enough that he knew all of this fury toward him was just her reaction to the trauma, and he was sure that it would all be okay in time.

Or at least he hoped so.

“Thank you.” She said, closing the distance between them, and caressing his lips with hers. “Really, I just need some time to get my head into some kind of order that’s not totally of the crazy kind.”

He hugged her to him and pecked the top of her head. Inside his emotions were screaming at him to finally confess the way he knew for sure he felt now.

He loved her.

But it wasn’t the right time to tell her.

They would have other, better opportunities that wouldn’t be so steeped in pain and regret to enjoy each other.

When Spike finally left, Buffy flopped into one of the chairs in the hallway, and buried her head in her hands.

Willow and Xander had both rushed into Anya’s room after she had come running out so she was all alone.

Not that she lamented the silence at the moment.

Her thoughts were so confused that she wasn’t sure that she would ever be able to untangle them.

She knew she should have left with Spike, and that she shouldn’t have let him go off thinking she was mad at him.

But it was like she needed to stay at the hospital to try and pardon her own sins.

In her mind her sins were plentiful.

She was drawn from her thoughts by the sound of the door opening, and she looked up to see Willow and Xander hovering in front of her.

“She wanted to know if you’re still here.” Willow told Buffy.

“Hoping I’m gone, is she?” Buffy said bitterly.

“Actually, she wants to talk to you.” Willow said. “She told us what happened between the two of you and right now she needs all the people around her who care about her. I think that you do, Buffy.”

Willow’s unwavering faith in her made her smile faintly and she stood up, wiping her clammy palms on the front of her pants.

Walking back into the room alone was hard for Buffy. After what had passed between her and Anya only a few minutes earlier she was still reeling.

And now that Spike had left, she felt bereft, like she had been abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without a life-raft.

“Hi.” Anya said.

“Hi.” Buffy fidgeted, wringing her hands together as she leaned against the doorjamb.

“I shouldn’t have blamed you.” Anya said without preamble. “I was angry and upset. The blame lies at the feet of the man who did this and he’s the one who deserves to be punished.”

Buffy nodded, urging Anya to continue.

“I know a lot of people see me as stupid.” Anya sighed. “They consider me the comic relief of the junior class. But inside I’m hurting now and I don’t know how to make it stop. I’ve always been in control and Angel took that away from me. I just want the pain to stop.”

“Anya, I know it hurts right now. And I can’t promise that it will ever stop hurting after something bad happens. When Angel attacked me, I guess I was lucky that Spike stopped him. I should have gone to the police, I know that, but there’s more to this than you know. But I swear to you, that Angel will get what he deserves, even if I have to dish out vengeance with my own two hands.”

“I want to get through this, Buffy. I want to get back everything he stole from me with his disgusting touch, and I need to…I need to know that he…won’t be able to do this to any other girl ever again.” She broke off as sobs tore through her.


Without hesitation, Buffy moved forward and sat on the edge of the bed, hugging the other girl close to her.

As the tears began to flow, the hurt started to erode, and in that moment a bond was formed that would transcend both space and time.

When Buffy finally exited the room she was confronted with the worried visages of Willow and Xander.

“We’re okay now.” She told them feeling the exhaustion catching up with her. “I think that the healing process has started.”

Xander gave her a sharp nod and disappeared into his girlfriend’s hospital room, but Willow hung back.

“Are you okay?” Willow asked.

“I feel like I’ve been put through the paces in a medieval torture chamber the past few weeks, but apart from that I’m peachy keen.” Buffy responded dryly. She sighed heavily. “But I will be okay. I just need to get some air or something, I think. It kinda feels like the walls are closing in on me here.”

She left Willow watching her anxiously as she strode away.

Reflecting on what Anya had said to her as she stepped onto the elevator and rode back down to the first floor, she realized that the other girl was right.

The blame should be laid at the feet of the perpetrator and Angel was the one who caused all this.

He was malicious and callous and he enjoyed making other people suffer. From everything she knew about him, it was clear that his true enjoyment came not from the final act of death, but rather from destroying the human spirit and breaking it down piece by piece.

Buffy believed that her spirit was stronger than Angelus had given her credit for and she really didn’t think that there was anything that he could do to break her.

The cool afternoon air was a balm to Buffy as she stepped out of one of the hospital’s back doors.

The door had led out to a secluded alley that was lined with dumpsters all exuding their own less than pleasant scent.

Still, in spite of the stench from the trash, the solitude was comforting for Buffy after the chaos that had battered her life recently.

She leaned against the wall and rested the back of her head against the cool brick. She let her eyes drift shut and let out a long cleansing breath.

However, her eyes snapped open when she heard the most sinister of voices.

“Hello lover.”

It’s amazing how sometimes something as simple as a voice can evoke the deepest fear in a person.

But hearing that man’s dark mocking tones sent a frisson of terror through her whole body, and she had to physically dampen it down to prevent herself from trembling.

“Angelus.” Buffy said coldly, surreptitiously looking around for a way past him and out of the alley.

She drew in a tight breath as she realized she was trapped with a lunatic who was capable of the most unspeakable evils. The pounding in her chest was almost physically painful, but she steeled herself outwardly and raised her chin. Apparently her front was not enough to fool a seasoned psychopath like Angel, however.

“Now, now, Buff. Don’t look so scared.” He laughed but there was no humor in the sound. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to chat.”

“Like you did with Anya?” She said harshly, raising her chin one again in defiance.

He chuckled.

“That was her name?” He asked disinterestedly. “I wouldn’t have bothered with her if I knew was a pathetic ride she would be. I’m sure you would be much better, eh, Buff?”

She grimaced in disgust at his slimy leer.

“Pity you’ll never get to find out.” She sneered, mentally reprimanding herself for purposely provoking the crazy man.

“Come on now, sweet-thing. Don’t you wish you could have a ride with a real man instead of a pathetic little fuck like Willy-boy?” Seeing her look of shock and surprise at the fact he was aware of her relationship with Spike, he laughed. “You think I didn’t see the way he was looking at you the other night? It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the two of you are fucking.”

“That’s none of your business, asshole.” She yelled.

“Everything Willy does is my business, babe. I made him my bitch a long time ago. Mhmm…I can still remember how those lips felt wrapped around my…”

“Shut up! You’re disgusting. You use and abuse people and think that’s okay.”

“And you’re the sick and twisted little bitch who’s letting her step father stick it to her. I know everything about you, Buffy Summers, and you really should be ashamed of yourself.” He told her with false sincerity, reveling in the shameful flush that flooded her cheeks.

However, she was not about to let him get the better of her.

“I don’t care what you say about me, Angelus. You can get all judgey and, hey, I could listen to you…if I valued the opinion of a sociopathic loser with really bad taste in hairstyles.”

His eyes darkened and he came closer to her, making her feel even more claustrophobic in his presence.

He leaned close to her ear so she could smell the beer on his breath and whispered in hushed tones.

“And do you know just what you’re in bed with? You talk to me as if I’m scum and you let that man into your bed but he’s not just a man. He’s a murderer. He’s killed three women, babe.”

“He told me all about his past. I know everything about him and about you. And you know what? He comes out as the better man whichever way I look at it.” She pushed him away from her with all her might and stiffened her posture. “Also…three women? I knew you were dumb but if your math skills suck to the point that you can’t count to two then you really do need to go stab yourself in the neck.”

A flash of pleasure shot through his dark eyes as he realized that Buffy really didn’t know.

He should have guessed that if she was aware of the truth then she wouldn’t be just standing around in an alley insulting him and defending Spike.

“This is too perfect!” He exclaimed, a chilling laugh bursting from his throat. “Willy didn’t tell you? That little wuss has always been pathetic. Your little lover is the reason Mommy-dearest is dead.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Spike loved my mother.”

Angelus puffed out a sigh, before locking their gazes in a way that made Buffy feel like she was caught in the Devil’s trap without a way out.

“If you know everything then you know that your boyfriend broke my two favorite toys, and he knew that he owed me. I would have even let him pay…in kind.

A few months ago I finally tracked the slippery little weasel down and I went to see him at his judo club. Boy done good, I gotta say. And that really pissed me off.”

Angel paused dramatically, but Buffy just rolled her eyes, feigning indifference.

“Willy was his usual annoying self when he saw me and I don’t take kindly to that kind of attitude. Not sure if the boy is cocky or just stupid. I told him that it was time to claim my debt, but your boyfriend has a big ego and he didn’t think there was anything I could do so he ignored me. Until I showed him that I meant business. I took away the thing I thought meant the most to him. And Mommy makes three.”

The dawning horror on Buffy’s face showed her that she finally understood.

When Buffy heard those words the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place for her even as the rest of her world shattered into innumerous shards.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t connected the dots earlier because now it was glaringly obvious to her.

Angel was the one who murdered her mother.

He had slaughtered her because of Spike.

And Spike had purposely kept the truth from her.

“You murdered my mom, you fucking bastard!”

With an animalistic scream she launched herself at Angel, clawing, scratching and biting at him. It didn’t matter that he had size on his side, because she had pure, unadulterated fury on hers.

She got a good swift kick in to his shin before her managed to restrain her, pinning her hands behind her back and heaving her against his chest, one of his arms banding tightly round her stomach.

She struggled in his grasp, but she couldn’t free herself from the huge guy’s hold.

“You’re not going to win against me, Buff.” He jeered, keeping her pinned against him. “You see…Spike’s debt isn’t quite cleared. I might have killed your mother, but as it turns out she wasn’t the most important thing in his life, after all.”

Buffy renewed her struggled, fear coursing through her at his words. She didn’t want to die in a stinky alley at the hands of a psychopath who needed putting down.

“You’re like a mouse to a cat, lover. And I’m a big cat.” He laughed, amused at her resistance. “Mmm, keep wiggling like that.”

“You’ll regret everything you’ve done, Angelus. You will be punished, even if I don’t get to do it.”

He caressed her neck with his fingertips with faux tenderness, but the movement of his hand loosened his grip on her, and she was able to slam her head back into his face, hearing the crunch of his nose.

Angel reeled back in shock and pain, his hand automatically going to his face to wipe away the blood that flowed from his damaged nose, and before he could get a hold of her again, she spun around and delivered a swift kick to his crotch. Angelus doubled over in pain, raining down a torrent of profanity on the young girl, but seeing her opening she dodged under his flailing arms.

Not even hesitating or looking back, she took off at a run away from the man who would have happily snapped her neck moments earlier.

The world seemed to be a blur as she careered down the quiet streets, her pulse throbbing in her temples. The journey home seemed to take forever, but she finally turned onto the street where she lived. Feeling the bile in her throat when she eventually found herself back on Revello Drive, she slowed to a jog.

She surveyed the house which had so many memories, both good and bad, and steeled herself to enter.

During the confrontation with Angelus she had learned so much that tore at her heart, but all she had cared about in those seconds was avenging what he had done to her mother, and then preserving her own life.

Now things were finally sinking in.

Spike, the man who she had fallen for, had lied to her.

Maybe Angel was the one who pulled the trigger, but Spike was the reason her Mom was a rotting corpse, six feet under the ground.

Her earlier conversation with Anya about blame came flooding back to her. Spike was the one who brought Angel to Sunnydale. Spike knew he was in Sunnydale but his own fear of punishment and prison, along with his own apparent arrogance had meant that he allowed that evil thing to continue to wander free, harming people at his leisure.

And worst of all he had withheld the whole truth from her.

That man had held her in his arms, looked into her eyes, and kept a life-changing secret from her.

And she didn’t think that was something she could ever forgive.

As soon as Spike left the hospital he tried to dampen the sadness and regret festering in his belly. He wouldn’t even acknowledge that the uncomfortable stone in his gut was heavy guilt.





The peroxide blond had wandered around for a little while, before returning home, just musing on everything that had occurred in recent months and trying to sort his thoughts into some kind of reasonable, logical order.





Unfortunately, the moment he walked through the front door, he had fallen on old habits and cracked open a bottle of whiskey.





Drowning his sorrows was the best way to drive down the guilt that he didn’t want to admit even existed.





In all honesty, he was regretting not only what Angelus had done, but the fact that he had walked away from Buffy when she needed him to be her rock. He knew that he should have suppressed his own feelings earlier and stood alongside her when she needed his support, but hearing her imply that he was to blame in all of this stabbed him right in his heart.





Even if it was partly true.





Okay, so maybe that guilt wasn’t as deeply buried as he would have wished.





He thought back to the fateful day, several months ago, when he had been sitting in his office at the dojo and the door had swung open to reveal Angelus in front of him. It was like something from one of his worst nightmares.





Nightmares of the dark-haired man still sporadically plagued him, but he’d always hoped that he would never actually encounter him in the flesh ever again.





However, he’d refused to let the evil thing in front of him intimidate him. Amping-up his own swagger, he’d put on a front of confidence for Angel’s benefit, pretending that he was impervious to Angel’s attempts to harm him.





Joyce had been the one who ended up bearing the brunt of Angelus’ wrath over that. The night that Angelus marched into the quiet, peaceful restaurant and shot his wife at point-blank range would be emblazoned into his mind and soul until the day that he took his last breath on this earth, before waltzing out.





Spike could visualize the smirk on the lumbering brunet’s face as he pulled the trigger and he knew that no matter what he did, nothing could wash that from his mind.





It was, in fact, classic Angelus and his ego knew no bounds. It wasn’t as if the police had never tried to get Angelus convicted for other crimes before but the murderer didn’t need to worry about the cops most of the time, because anyone who had ever agreed to testify against him wound up dead.





Angelus wasn’t scared of anyone, and Spike knew now that he should have taken precautions, especially knowing how hell bent on revenge the other man was.





Why is retrospect always twenty-twenty?





To be honest, Spike had thought that if anything, Angelus would turn Spike over to the cops for what had happened with Drusilla and Darla. Spike didn’t doubt that Angelus had some kind of evidence that would ensure Spike spent a long time in prison. The brunet wasn’t stupid, but he was cunning and callous, and Spike’s underestimation of him had cost an innocent woman her life.





And it had cost the woman he was now in love with her mother.





Part of him craved the absolution that telling Buffy would give him, but the larger part was terrified that if he admitted that he knew all along that Angel was the culprit then their relationship would be devastated.





The sound of the backdoor opening sliced through his reverie and he rose up off of the couch, setting his empty whiskey glass down on the coffee table.





However, he wasn’t prepared for Buffy’s coldness when she marched into the room, eyes blazing. He knew that she’d been upset but he thought they had achieved some kind of truce before he departed from the hospital.





“What’s the matter, pet?”





“I ran into Angelus.” Buffy told him straightforwardly, studying his expression. His face twisted into a moue of concern when he heard her words, and he rushed forward to her, running his hands over her as if to check for injuries.





“Are you alright? He didn’t hurt you did he?”





“He tried.” Buffy scoffed bitterly. “I got away before he could do anything. He’s not quite as tough as he thinks.”





Spike moved to kiss her but Buffy took a step back, pushing his hands away from her body and swallowed audibly as she prepared to ask him a question that she knew would change their relationship forever.





“Why didn’t you tell me that Angelus was the one who killed my mother?” She had intended the question to be sharp and strong but instead it came out in a small whisper.





He could see the vulnerability in her eyes and his heart broke for the lost little girl in front of him.





“I…don’t know.” Spike admitted.





“So it’s true then? You knew Angelus was in town before he…did that…and you knew he murdered Mom but you kept it from me?”





He scrubbed a hand over his tired face and pinched the bridge of his nose.





“I guess the ponce really went to town on you. Must have told you everything.”





“You should have been the one to tell me, Spike! I trusted you.”





“I didn’t know how to tell you that, pet. I was bloody well afraid.” Spike said.





“Well you should have ‘bloody well’ tried!” Buffy yelled, wishing she could drive her fist into his chin.





Seeing him standing here, trying to make excuses for it was like an open flame to a canister of gasoline and wrath simmered inside her. She felt like any minute they would pour out of her burning them both up from the inside out.





Suddenly her skin felt too tight and it was as if a million insects were crawling underneath it. Never before had she experienced blind rage like this.





Not even when she first found out that her Mom was dead.





Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them back, refusing to show him weakness. In the space of a moment he had become the enemy and it was ripping her to pieces.





As if it had a life of its own her right hand reached back and delivered a hefty slap to Spike’s face. He winced at the pain, screwing his eyes shut to fight back tears of his own.





“Buffy…”





“No! You don’t get to ‘Buffy’ me! So do tell, Spikey. What was this? Were you trying to protect Angel? Was this all some stupid scheme? Maybe you were working together. Mom did have some huge insurance policies after all. Kill her and then fuck me? Was that it? Were you planning to share me with Angel?” By the end of her tirade she was shrieking at him. Her face was red and puffy, as she panted out wheezy, distressed breaths.





“What?” He uttered with disbelief. “Have you gone off your bleeding bird? I would never work with that sod! And I would never have let Joyce get hurt if I knew that he would go after her. I thought he’d come after me, but not her. I should have known but I didn’t and God help me, Buffy, I’ll regret that until the day they put me six feet under the bloody ground. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how to!”





“No. I don’t think that’s the truth. You didn’t tell me because you didn’t trust me, Spike. I believed in you and you threw that right back in my face!”





“No! I just…wanted to protect you. I knew that if you knew the truth you would have…”





“Would have what? Hated you? Well I guess you were right there because now I do know the truth and guess what? I do hate you!”





“Baby, no…”





“I can’t believe I ever let you touch me. You let my mother die, Spike, and then you lied about it. You let me fall…let me care about you when you knew there was this big secret in between us and it’s as if you don’t even care. I think that you didn’t want to protect me…you wanted to protect yourself.”





Spike turned to the girl that he loved, openly weeping and reached for her but she took a step back away from him. She couldn’t bear to have him touch her right now.





“Yeah, I did want to protect myself. I was afraid, a coward. And I’m a sodding wanker for not telling you. But we can’t let this come between us. We can get through it.”





“We can’t.” Buffy murmured with genuine sorrow. “You’re a disgusting evil liar. You’re really no different than Angelus.”





Spinning away from him, she strode into the kitchen and made toward the backdoor, but Spike knew that he couldn’t let her leave like this.





He felt as if he was losing her but he was powerless to stop her from slipping through his fingers. It was like grasping at a mist.





With a fraught attempt to make her listen he latched onto her arm, his fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist, trying to jerk her to him.





Tugging her arm from his desperate grip she headed toward the back door, yanking the door open.





“Please, Buffy. I’m sorry! Don’t do this!” He dropped to his knees in front of her, pleading with red-rimmed eyes for her forgiveness.





She whipped around and with seething hatred, she turned contemptuous eyes on him, still gripping the doorframe with white knuckles.





“Leave me alone. Just let me go!” She insisted.





In a last, panicked attempt, he tried to cling onto her ankles.





“It’s dangerous out there, love. Angelus…”





“I don’t fucking care! Right now I would rather die at Angelus’ hands than spend another moment near to you.”





“Please….Buffy…please!” Spike sobbed, but Buffy merely kicked her feet, freeing her ankles from his grip.





“I hate you, Spike.” Buffy hissed coldly. “I don’t ever want to see you again. Don’t follow me and don’t contact me. You let my mother die, but I wish you were the one who was dead.”





He watched her go, powerless to do anything else. When the door slammed it felt like a bullet to his heart.





In fact, he wished it was a bullet.





Because Spike didn’t think that he could continue to live in a world where Buffy hated him.





Buffy didn’t know how long she spent walking the streets, but the air was starting to cool with the impending chill of evening when she finally sat down on a swing in the park, absently rocking forward and back, her mind in turmoil. She scraped her feet absently along the ground, gripping the cold metal of the swing with shaky hands.





In her pocket she felt her cell phone vibrate again and a glance at the display told her that Spike once again wanted to talk to her. All afternoon she had been ignoring his calls. Clearly he wasn’t able to understand that she never wanted to see him again. She didn’t care if she had to leave Sunnydale and go live with her aunt in Illinois as long as she didn’t have to be in his vicinity ever again.





Feeling a sudden burst of anger, she accepted the call and put the receiver to her ear, intending to tell him just what she was feeling.





“What part of ‘never wanna talk to you again’ did you not understand?” She spit into the phone.





There was a moment’s silence before she got a response.





“Now, now, Buff. I don’t think I like your tone.” She had been expecting to her the rough tones of Spike’s British accent but the mocking sound of Angel’s American one was not what she had expected.





“Angelus.” She said with a mixture of confusion and hostility. “How the hell do you have Spike’s cell?”





He laughed.





“It was easy. Really, too easy.” Angelus paused. “Your boy is an idiot, Buff. Although let’s be fair, he was drunk and…crying when I found him.” Angelus snickered meanly and Buffy felt herself bristle even further.





“A small piece of pipe and a drunken Willy do an unconscious moron make.” Angel riddled. “Really, Sunnydale is just not the kind of place where you can leave your backdoors unlocked these days. No telling what kind of people can sneak in and murder you in your own home.”





In spite of her anger at Spike and the harsh words that she had flung at him only hours earlier, she felt her love for the blond man surge once again in her heart as the fear dampened the fury and the thought of him being in danger at Angelus’ malevolently meaty hands really got her hackles up.





“If you touch him, I swear I will kill you.” Buffy threatened, but Angel seemed less than worried and laughed again.





“I won’t hurt him…if you swoop in and save him, Supergirl. If you’re not here within the next ten minutes then lover boy is as dead as…well as dead as your mommy.”





“You disgusting piece of shit! I will make sure that you rot in hell.” Buffy gripped her telephone so tightly that her knuckles turned white but once again Angelus only gave her a breezy, unconcerned response.





“Ten minutes, babe.” He paused. “Oh, and if you give the cops so much as a wave on your way over here, Willy-boy will be dead before you can blink.”





Before she had a chance to respond the line beeped and she realized he had hung up. Buffy shook her head trying to clear it and took a few deep breaths.





Steeling her resolve she took off at a run toward Revello Drive.





It was time to face the music.

With her breath stinging her lungs, Buffy ran up toward the backdoor of her home. The teenager steeled herself as she stood outside the house gathering her courage to enter. She heaved several deep breaths before settling her hand on the backdoor.



She had no idea exactly what awaited her inside these walls. All she knew was that this was truly where it ended. She knew that someone would be leaving these walls in a body bag.



Buffy just wasn’t sure who.



Slipping in the backdoor, she walked through the kitchen and into the hallway, staying as alert as she could in the deafening silence of the house. Suddenly she felt an arm wrap around her middle, her hands pulled behind her back in a painfully tight grip. She let out an unintentional whimper, biting her lip to try and stifle it.



“Hello Buff. Miss me?”



Although he was behind her, she recognized Angelus’ voice and his bulky grip immediately and her face contorted into a mask of revulsion. She didn’t bother to struggle as he forced her forward into the living room because she was well aware that he wasn’t taking chances now he had her in his grasp again.



However she gasped in horror when she saw Spike in there, tied to a chair. His hands were secured so tightly behind the back of the wooden seat that it looked as if his shoulders were being wrenched from their sockets.



The blond man’s face was covered in contusions; dried blood was crusted just above his eyes where it had leaked from a nasty looking gash on his head.



Suddenly, although she was still mad at him, she really wanted to retract all the hateful things she had spit at him hours earlier.



Gazing at him, he looked back at her and she could the misery in his eyes…misery that came from a more profound source than just being tied to a chair by a lunatic. She could feel that same misery flood her chest at that very moment and wanted nothing more than to rush to him and kiss away both of their anguish and anger.



However, now was not the time to think about forgiveness or what had happened before.



The simple fact was that no matter how angry she was with Spike, they had to be united as a team to defeat Angelus.



A pained moan escaped his lips when he tugged at his bindings and Buffy felt a shard of hurt drive itself through her heart.



“Spike!” She cried, trying to rush to him even though she was still restrained by Angelus.



“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Buff.” Angelus sneered, pushing her forward into the room and tossing her onto the couch. He whipped a large, nasty looking knife from his belt and waved it at her. “If you do bad things then bad things will happen to you.”



Although her stomach clenched with fear she disguised it well and forced out a fake laugh.



“Is that supposed to scare me, Angelus?” She mocked, acting more courageous than she felt. “Because honestly? That big ole knife there makes it look like you’re waving around something long and substantial because other areas in your life are sadly lacking.”



Angelus looked confused and shot a glare in Spike’s direction when the blond man let a chuckle leak from his bruised lips.



Buffy sighed.



“Ugh, seriously, how are you not in prison? You’re not exactly gonna be vying for criminal mastermind of the year, are you?” She sneered. “I was talking about using the knife to compensate for your…miniature sized junk.”



This time Spike barked a full blown laugh and Angelus marched over to him and backhanded the restrained man across his already injured face with seething anger. However, it didn’t knock the smirk off of Spike’s face even as he spit out a glob of blood.



“She’s got you there, mate!” Spike said.



“Shut up both of you!” Angelus yelled lividly. “Before I cut out your tongues.”



Buffy and Spike both quieted at his threat, but Spike wanted a distraction that took Angelus’ scrutiny away from him.



Since Angelus had tied him to the chair, he had been surreptitiously sawing away his ropes against a small sharp nail protruding from the back of the seat. He had managed to fray it about halfway through but he knew that if the dark haired man discovered what he was doing before he was able to free himself then it wouldn’t end well for either him or Buffy.



Luckily, or maybe unluckily, Angelus’ attention was primarily focused on the teenage girl.



“So, Buff, how do you think Willy is going to feel when I fuck that little pussy of yours right in front of him?” He gave a rasping laugh as he tugged her from her seat on the couch and slashed open her shirt with the knife, yanking it off her and leaving her exposed to his gaze in just her bra.



Spike grunted in anger as he saw what Angel had done but the bulky man didn’t even glance in his direction.



“Once you get a taste of a real man you won’t want to go back to that pathetic little nothing, Buff.” Angel said in a stage whisper. “Drusilla, that was Willy’s old squeeze if you don’t know, she used to love what I did to her. She told me that when I was inside her she couldn’t even remember who Willy-boy was.” He chuckled at her discomfort and at Spike’s low unintentional growl.



“Spike told me all about Drusilla, Angelus. And he told me that she was majorly nutballs, although he said it in a more British-y kind of way. So honestly, I don’t think her glowing review of your assets is something to brag about. Because, really, I think anyone would have to be crazy to have an interest in you.” Buffy hissed through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the disgust the felt at Angelus’ touch on the exposed skin of her stomach.



“Oh, little girl, you have no idea what you’re talking about. But then, you are naïve aren’t you?” Angel said mysteriously.



“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked defiantly.



He giggled in a manner that made him appear a little insane.



“You really don’t get it, do you, Blondie?” Angel smirked. “Drusilla was the love of Spike’s life. She was the only one who he ever wanted and when he lost her by his own hand that was worse than any punishment I could dish out. Your mother was nothing to him. If she had been then he would have told the cops about me no matter what the consequences might have been. Or maybe he would even have tried harder to save her.”



“He loved my Mom!” She insisted



“The same way that he loves you?” Angel roughly cupped one of her breasts eliciting a shriek from her and a shout of anger from Spike.



“What there is between me and Spike is none of your damn business, asshole!” Buffy said, jerking her body away from his fingers.



“Yeah, stay out of it, Peaches!” Spike yelled. “Buffy means more to me than a tiny brain like yours could ever hope to bloody well comprehend.”



“Ooh! Then it will hurt you even more when you see me fucking her, won’t it, Willy?” Angel sneered nastily, tossing Buffy against the living room wall and pinning her with his large frame.



“Get off me!” She screamed. “Get off of me you asshole.”



Spike struggled wildly in his bonds, sawing the ropes even more rapidly against the nail, feeling thread after thread snap.



There was no way he would let Angel win this one.



However, Spike hadn’t taken into account the resourcefulness of his girl and he watched with trepidation and awe as she started wriggling her leg to free it from where Angelus had both her legs hemmed in with his own. She was able to get a little momentum and jerked her foot backward before bringing it rapidly forward to deliver a heavy kick to Angel’s crotch. The brunet howled like a wolf in pain and doubled over, letting go of the girl, and she pulled away from him, breathing hard.



Buffy launched herself at Angelus the moment she got free from his grip, latching onto his exposed neck with her teeth and biting down.



“You fucking little whore!” He shouted, drawing his hand upwards and hurling a heavy backhand across her face. She stumbled and fell heavily against the ground, her head ricocheting off the wall, and she slipped into darkness.



In his chair Spike watched Angelus violently slap his girl and with one final animalistic show of strength broke the frayed cords of the rope that was securing his hands. With two short strides, he grabbed at Angelus before he could hurt Buffy any further and let his fist sail into the other man’s jaw.



However, the beating that Angelus had given Spike earlier had taken its toll on the smaller man, and he was far from full strength, so the punch merely stunned Angelus rather than doing any serious harm.



Before Spike could stop him Angelus pulled his long thick knife from his belt and jumped on top of Spike, knocking them both to the ground.



The two men rolled on the floor, each tussling for the upper hand. Angelus slashed wildly at his opponent with the ugly looking blade before Spike was able to smash the darker man’s wrist against the ground and knock it from his hand.



The Englishman picked the other man up by the scruff of his shirt and banged his head against the ground, letting out a satisfied cry as Angel screwed his eyes momentarily shut.



However, Angel wasn’t going to be defeated that easily. Managing to angle his elbow at Spike’s ribcage he slammed it into the soft tissue between his ribs, knocking the air out of Spike.



Angel howled a smug whoop of victory as he shoved Spike onto his back and grabbed the knife where it was lying on the floor, gleaming in the dull light of dusk, plunging it toward Spike’s chest.



Just before the blade connected with his flesh, Spike caught a hold of it, feeling it slice through the outer layer of skin on his hands. Gritting his teeth he tried tenaciously to push it away from him.



On the other side of the room, Buffy blinked her eyes open, pain radiating through her head and neck. Her cheek was throbbing and her shoulder was sore from where she had hit the ground.



For a moment the girl was disorientated, but the sounds of a struggle brought her crashing back to reality and she heaved herself upright to be confronted with a gut wrenching tableau.



She saw Angel on top of a fraught Spike, trying to force a sharp blade in to him. Spike might have been a black belt, but he was already injured and exhausted and Angel had the upper hand by his pure physical mass alone.



Oh God!



Spike was going to die!



Unable to contain her emotions she let out a small cry but neither man noticed.



Buffy knew that she had to do something.



In that moment she obtained a perfect clarity.



No matter what had passed between her and Spike and no matter what he had done or how angry she was at him, the love she felt for him transcended all of that. It was stronger than the things that conspired to tear them apart.



She knew now what she had to do.



Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans she felt the small knife that Anya had given her and pulled it out. Dizzily struggling to her feet she bounded toward Angelus.



With a war cry she brought it down viciously and plunged it into the leathery skin of his neck, feeling it penetrate the flesh as if it was butter.



Angelus’ head twisted backward and she could see the shock evident on his face. He howled out a gurgling wail as the blood gushed from the hole in his neck, and tried to scramble in her direction, blindly grabbing at the girl.



Buffy leveled fire-filled eyes at him.



“That’s for my mother, asshole.”



With a final gasp, he collapsed on top of Spike and quaked a little before becoming still.



Buffy felt her heart swell with a mélange of emotions as she realized that Angelus was dead and that it was finally over, before it occurred to her that Spike was lying motionless underneath the larger man.



With a panicked yell, she rolled Angelus off of the man she loved, but she felt her mouth fill with bile at what she saw.



The knife that Spike and Angelus had been wrestling with was protruding from Spike’s belly, blood leaking from the wound. Spike was pallid and still and immediately she dropped to her knees, cradling him in her arms and wildly endeavoring to rouse him.



“Spike! Spike!” She screamed, feeling relief flush through her when he opened his eyes, and turned his head to face her.



“Buffy?” He said confused. “I thought you were gone and never coming back.”



She shook her head, blinking back tears.



“I’ll always come back, Spike. I’m…god…I’m so sorry. Please, just don’t leave me, okay?”



“Not long for this world, I don’t think, love.” He told her resignedly, shivering as if he was cold.



“No! Don’t say that!” Buffy shrieked. Her mind was a blurry whirl and she tried to focus her thoughts. “I’m gonna get some help, baby. Everything’s going to be fine.”



She fumbled for the telephone and dialed 911, garbling her need for help to the operator. The assurances of the lady on the other end of the line for her to stay calm did nothing to help her, and she dropped the phone, crawling back to Spike who was gasping for breath.



“They’re on their way.” She told him.



“So…cold…pet.”



“Help is coming.”



The bitter tang of his blood filled her nostrils with its metallic scent and she almost gagged, but swallowed hard and gripped his hands in hers.



“Buffy. I need…to tell…you.” He choked out and she leaned closer to hear his quiet words. “I’ve done…a lot of…bad things. I’m not a…good man. You…make me better. I…love…you.”



Tears flooded her eyes and leaked down her cheeks at his heartfelt desperation.



Laying her head on his chest, feeling the faltering beat of his heart underneath her, she sent a silent prayer to whatever power there was who could help.



“I love you too.” She told him, seeing the small smile on his face before he slipped into unconsciousness.



She couldn’t lose him.



When she heard the shallow pants of his breath slow almost to a halt and felt his heart stutter limply beneath his breast she howled out a bloodcurdling wail that would have chilled the veins of the most stoic man.



Outside she heard the piercing wail of sirens as they cut through her hysteria, but it seemed like it was just too late.



Her own heart shattered into a million pieces.