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Chapter 4

A moment of shear surprise caught them both. His hand was still raised at the door, her stake raised behind her.
They stared, neither of them breathing, their eyes locked on each other. The sound of the stake clattering to the floor broke the moment for both of them.

Buffy drew in a ragged breath. Her gaze dropped to the Doc Martins on his feet and traveled upwards over his legs, his narrow hips, his strong chest and back up into his wonderful blue eyes. Her mouth dropped open but words refused to come through the tightness in her throat. She was sure that she was dreaming. This wasn't possible; he couldn't really be here.

He felt himself drowning in her warm green eyes. This is where he knew he was supposed to be. It felt like a part of him had been missing ever since he popped out of that amulet in Peaches' office. The part of him he didn't even know was gone until this very second seeing her here. How the hell did he think he could ever really live without her? He was a fool. He could feel the acceleration of her heartbeat, her blood coursing through her veins. Looking at her, he could see the red tracks the tears had made on her face and he thought he had never seen anything as beautiful as this goddess standing before him. It was then that he knew, knew he was never leaving her side again.

" 'Ello Luv." was all he could manage to choke out.

She still gaped at him; trying to let all of it sink in. Hadn't she just been telling herself that he was gone forever, that she was never going to see him again? Her brain refused to focus. She knew he had spoken but she couldn't hear the words. The dizziness in her head was getting faster, her thoughts spinning out of control. It was too much; she was beyond trying to cope and she felt her legs start to give way.

He saw her start to fall, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. He reached out and caught her as she dropped. Picking her up he carried her into the room closing the door behind him. Walking to the bed, he laid her on it gently resting her head on the pillows. He kneeled down beside her, his hand stroking her face pushing her hair behind her ear.

"Buffy luv." He said it as his hand reached for hers. He held it tenderly, his thumb stroking the back of her hand.

Her eyes fluttered open. She looked up trying to focus her gaze. She wondered what the hell had just happened. She felt the coolness of his hand on hers and turned her head towards him. That’s right he was here, here with her right now.

"Am I dreaming?" she whispered.

"No pet I'm here." It always amazed her how he always said what she was thinking. She reached her other hand up and touched his cheek.

"How?"

"Are you okay?" He asked concern lacing his voice.

"What happened?" She could not even begin to imagine why she was laying on the bed all of a sudden.

"You seem to have blacked out."

"Well that's a new one." She wondered how she was managing to talk right then. She started to get up and thought better of it, instead raising herself to sit up against the headboard.

He looked at her, head cocked to one side, trying to figure all this out. He knew that he hadn't been able to predict how she would react to his return but this new turn of events was something he couldn't grasp.

She gazed down at him, the bewilderment she was feeling sparkling in her eyes. If it was true, if he was really here what was going on. Her feelings of fear and confusion started to scream inside her making her feel out of control.

Spike stared tenderly into her eyes reading the emotions running wildly through them. And then suddenly there it was, the wall that she always hid behind came crashing down making her unreadable even to him. He knew that the open emotion he had seen was something he wouldn't have normally witnessed.

Buffy could feel the slayer in her taking over trying to gain control of her emotions and the situation she was in. Sometimes it was what her friends hated the most about her. How that part of her wouldn't let them in; that the protective barriers always came crashing down after she felt anything painful. She fought against it now, not wanting to let it push her around knowing that she needed the emotional part of her to get through this. Tired of how it always made her still hurt afterward when she was alone. She didn't want to push him away and she knew that it would make her. It was only trying to shield her from the pain and hurt she was feeling. But it was too late, she was already in too much pain and hurt so much that pushing him away would kill her.

He could see the look of determination cross her face as she struggled for control. The silence in the room was deafening. He had wanted to scream for joy at seeing her, touching her again. But he held it in letting her battle with her own thoughts, as he knew she needed to.

She finally gave him a small sad smile.

"How?" she asked again voice a little stronger. She folded her legs Indian style and gestured for him to sit on the other part of the bed.

He nodded and shrugged off his duster and tossed it onto a nearby chair. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned so he could face her.

"Um look Buffy..." He sighed loudly eyes rolling to the ceiling. "I don't know where to start."

She stared hard at him taking in his own confusion at what was before them. She thought for a minute. So many times, she had pictured this in her mind, the chance that she had never been given since he was taken from her that second time. This was so different from the hundred different ways she had ever imagined it. She reached across the bed and put a hand on his knee. She felt him jump at the contact.

"Spike, tell me about the alley." It seemed surreal to her saying his name.

The warmth of her hand on his knee seemed to calm him and he nodded at her.

"Bit o' nastiness there. Turns out that Angel was right 'bout it not being a fight any of us would walk away from." He turned his head away from her then. "If I'd have known you were having visions of that I would never 'ave agreed to go through with it. I never wanted to do anything to hurt you." He turned his eyes to her begging her to understand that. He'd hurt her enough to last a lifetime.

In her gaze was only understanding. "I know." A simple phrase but one that made his undead heart swell. She still believed him.

"Turns out the Powers that bloody be had a plan. Didn't want me and Forehead going out like that. So a couple of days ago poof here we are."

"Angel is alive too?"

"Yeah stupid poofter is still in L.A. Powers told him to stay."

"That’s good." He could hear the slight joy in her voice and that old pang of jealousy stabbed at him.

"Yeah" he mumbled.

"Spike..." her hand left his knee and grabbed his hand. "Why didn't you tell me? I mean before." He could hear the pain in her voice. That question was the one he had been dreading.

He unlocked her hand from his and began pacing the room.

"Pet I was a ghost for a good four months and after that... look you had started living your own life by then and things here...
Well I was okay with the fact that you had moved on and badness was going on there that I could help with. Figured you didn't need to know that I was undead again that it would complicate things too much for you." He stopped and turned to face her, seeing her eyes cloud with anger.

Buffy took a deep breath. She didn't need to yell at him. It wouldn't help here. She needed to be as calm as possible. One phrase seemed to need explaining.

"What do you mean moved on?" her voice was low.

"Well went to Rome 'member, you and the Immortal?" His hands gestured wildly in the air. "And what the hell did you see in him anyway?"

She could hear the pain in his voice. Buffy never wanted to cause him that ever again.

"I never... I mean I wasn't seeing him." He gave her a questioning look. "It was something I told Andrew to tell Angel. I had told him some things I shouldn't have and I wasn't ready to face him." She sighed heavily. "We knew he was coming to Rome so I lied.... I didn't know... really had no idea that..." she shook her head sadly, "I just wanted him to think that I could move on... " she saw him flinch "from him. I knew the second he saw me that he would know I had been wrong."

"You still love him don't you?" He couldn't bear the pain in his own voice; the jealousy that was clouding his vision.

"A part of me will always love him but that isn't what I meant." His shoulders sagged at the admission.

"Then what do you mean?"

"I never moved on Spike..." She moved herself to the front edge of the bed, her hand once again reaching out and grabbing his. "Everyone knew... didn't matter that I tried to hide it...." she sighed deeply then, her hand dropping his. "I had told him that I wasn't ready.... I couldn't even be with anyone until I had an understanding of who I was becoming." She stood up suddenly facing him. "But I knew... I just couldn't let myself...." she raised her own hands and dropped them in frustration. "Feelings and me just too unmixy."

He stepped closer to her barely a breath apart and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Tell me." the plea in his voice breaking the last of the barriers her heart was trying to hide behind.

"Do you remember the talk we had in the kitchen after I got the scythe?" He nodded. "I finally let myself think about what that night had meant. I didn't have a lot of choice after.... well I had lots of time to think about everything that happened. I guess I just needed the time to myself to concentrate on what I was feeling." Gently she put her hands around his forearms and sat him upon the bed. She kneeled in front of him then. "I never let myself grieve for you that first time. I spent almost a year in denial trying to bury myself in finding the new slayers and helping Giles set things up. I was just starting to... I don't know separate myself from all of them so I would be able to let my guard down." She gazed into his questioning eyes. "I was just starting to figure things out when the visions started."

"Buffy I..."

She smiled at him "Took me a long time to figure out that I'm kind of an idiot," she shrugged. "What seems clear to everyone else around me... I'm always the last one to figure it out." She laid her hands on his knees. "Angel and I moved on a long time ago." He covered her hands with his. "I couldn't move on from you." His sharp intake of breath sounded through the still room startling both of them. She stood up then, pacing in the same tracks he had made just a few moments before.

He couldn't think, couldn't form any words. She couldn't mean what she was saying. It wasn't possible.

"It hurt you know. When you wouldn't believe me there in the Hellmouth. I didn't know what to do with that. For a while I was thinking that you were right, that maybe it was a way to make myself feel better about you dying down there. But then it just pissed me off. I mean where does anyone get off telling me how I feel? " She glared at him, his heart, if it had been beating, would have stopped right then. "It took me so long to know what I was feeling as it is I don't need anyone second guessing it."

"Pet."

She raised a hand to stop him. "But what really hurt was when I found out you were alive and you didn't tell me. I wondered about everything then. I thought about a moment like this you know. About what I would say... how I would react... how you would. I felt cheated. Like that last chance had been stolen from me." She kneeled back in front of him. "I meant what I said then and I mean it now."

"Buffy you don't have to." he started.

"Don't you tell me that. I have to. I waited so long that you didn't believe me and you were gone. Waited so long a second time that you had died again. If I wait this time, God knows what would happen. No I need to tell you." Her voice dropped low again. "I want to tell you," she sighed. "That night was the first time I had ever let anyone that close to me. The real me. Everyone else just sees the surface, the Buffy that they want to see. Your the only one that’s ever really seen who I am. The parts of me their all too scared to acknowledge. I finally had to ask myself how you could do that. Why had I let you in. Finally realized that it was because I had stopped trying to hide that part of myself from you, stopped trying to block out how you felt about me. That night I felt that strength because I let myself feel how much you believed in me, how much you loved me." Tears had started falling from her eyes then.

"I will always love you." His voice was deep, choked with emotion.

"I know." She smiled into his eyes again seeing his tears threaten there. "It took me forever to see that the reason I could let myself feel what you did was because I felt it too." And with those words the tears began to fall from his eyes. ” So hence me being an idiot." He smiled at her through his tears. She reached her hand up and wiped a tear from his cheek. "That was the reason I couldn't move on. All I could do was feel this overwhelming regret." She stood again looking down at him.

"I treated you rotten Spike. I took advantage of your feelings for me from the beginning. And that last year knowing the hell you had put yourself in for me, I couldn't even be there for you. I was so selfish telling you to stay just so I could feel better. I don't even know how you can bear to look at me."

He stood up and put his arms around her waist holding her tight to him. "I stayed because you asked me to. I had a choice too."

"I've always mistreated you and all you've ever done is tried to show me you loved me." She turned and buried her face into his shoulder.

Sighing, he reached his finger under her chin to make her look at him. "Buffy none of that matters now. I love you."

Her eyes flashed with anger. "But it does matter! It killed me every time I thought about how I treated you. It kept me up at night and made me cry at all hours of the day." She looked deep in his eyes, both of them with tears flowing freely now. "I love you Spike,” she whispered.

The words fell on him like the most beautiful song he'd ever heard. A sob escaped his lips as they both clutched at each other crying. He didn't know what was happening here. He knew that she should have been mad, should have ranted, hell should of hit him in the nose like she usually did. He had never seen her this vulnerable before, so naked to all of her feelings, so expressive with her words. Gently he maneuvered them back towards the bed so they were sitting again. He stroked her hair, murmuring sounds of comfort at her. He didn't know how long they had sat like that both of them letting their tears wash away all the pain and regret. As his own tears quieted, he noticed that hers had as well.

Carefully he pulled her back over the bed so they could lie down. She curled into his side and his hands began stroking her side. Comforted they both let sleep take them over.





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