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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for the reviews!!! I'm glad not everyone was driven away by the angst.

This chapter is a bit short but I wanted to hurry and get it out there without attatching anything else to it for you guys.

Thanks a ton and please keep telling me what you think. THANKS
Buffy had given herself two days to pull everything together and get some rest before coming out to butt her nose into Angel's business. For some reason she couldn't shake the feeling that this was not going to be a cake walk.

Whistler had spent another half hour telling her some of the things the LA crew had experienced the last six months. She knew a little about the year before from what Willow had told her after her little excursion.

She had rested fitfully the first night not even the dream was allowed to take hold as the thoughts in her head swirled out of control. There was too much to think about and sleep proved elusive once again.

But eventually sheer exhaustion has a way of catching up to you even if you have the extra stamina that comes with the slayer package. She had been watching a little TV when her eyes wouldn't stay open anymore and she was too afraid that if she moved the spell would be broken and she would be wide awake once again.

Letting herself drift off she settled comfortably into the softness of the couch.

Too soon she felt her eyes take in the familiar surroundings of the cavern again. Mentally she knew she must have groaned as her brain repeated the fact that once again she was dreaming.

She felt the weight of the dagger in her hands and felt a cool stir of air blow through her hair. There he was big red and ugly as usual one hand holding the sword she had really come to hate.

Her dream self had begun the strange dance of their fight on its own. The moves she made flowing from her without any thought. A few blocks and punches and she began to feel that sensation that told her the fatal distraction was in the room. This time she fought the urge to look centering herself against her foe.

She needn't have bothered it seemed the outcome took as little thought as the fight itself did. The hot slicing pain that stretched from her sternum to just below her belly button made her instinctively reach for her middle.

Whistler's words came back to her then. Unfinished business, maybe she had something else she was supposed to see in this little fiasco that played itself out in her mind. She fought against the pain instead concentrating on her surroundings and the movements of the now triumphant demon.

She could see him then out of the corner of her eye.

"Buffy!" He hadn't been able to see her before then she gathered and it was apparent as she watched his approach that he had been wounded also. Although nowhere near what she was dealing with.

She was gasping at air as the pain deepened searing her in white-hot agony. Her head was starting to become light with the loss of blood that she could feel oozing out between her fingers as she clung to herself desperately.

He had dropped to her side his blue eyes wet with fear at her condition.

"Oh God luv. Hold on. Just hold on for me."

"Hurts."

"I know pet but you've got to try." She watched fascinated at the single tear that began to track down his face. "Can't lose you again."

She reached out with a bloodied hand and rested it against his cheek.

"I'm sorry." It took so much effort for the words to come out.

He leaned closer in to her touch and she felt herself begin to slip away.

"Spike. I love you." Buffy felt her eyes grow heavy and knew that this was probably her last breath.

She sat up with a start.

She was shaking her body reacting to pain that wasn't really there. It had felt real enough though and the feeling of taking her last breath for the third time was wigging her out to the extreme.

But that wasn't what her mind was reacting to.

Buffy could, she realized, just zip what she had seen to the back of her mind and take the trip back into denial land. It was somewhere she had always been comfortable and it would be an easy enough escape.

Now however there was another part of her that was tired of shying away from her real feelings. She had left herself caged up for so long that the thought of a genuine feeling making its way from her sheltered heart buffered a little place in her soul. That place wanted to experience more than the isolation and despair that had been its constant companion. It wanted hope and friendship and warmth and love.

She was torn. Was it possible that the dream had been right and she actually did love Spike? It was probably likely that she did love him in some way. She cared about him and it wouldn't be that far a stretch for her to see the closeness they had shared turn into something deeper like love. But that was the love of close friendships.

If that was the case she was sure that it wouldn't have been that hard for her to see it in her dream. Sure she was denial girl but that would be ridiculous.

No now she was going into really dangerous territory for a battered heart.

Was she in love with him? The thought of analyzing the feeling was a tad more than frightening. Coming to terms with something of that magnitude would undoubtedly lead to much heartache and sorrow.

She thought back to that exact moment in the dream. The words had been said with a deep yearning and a tenderness she had never thought to possess. She had told him that she was sorry but it wasn't for the events that had recently taken place.

She had been sorry because she was leaving him, because she had been dying once again.

Gathering her courage she plowed through her memories of their times together. Thought back to their first meeting in the alley behind the Bronze, the night he had come to her for a truce to fight Angelus, the glee he had in the fight for the Gem of Amara, the day he had asked for help after getting chipped and the memories came faster still.

The joy she had felt during Willow's Will be done spell, the disappointment she had felt when he had helped Adam, her gratitude for the way he protected her sister, the comfort she had taken when her mother had become sick and faster they still came.

The support when her mother had died, a turning point in their dealings when he had started to become her emotional rock. The feeling of awe when she had discovered the torture he had taken to hide her sister from a demented hell god with bad hair.

The blur after she had come back to life. She dug deep inside and pulled out the fragmented feelings she had about the way they had been. Knowing how he felt about her, that he loved her, even though out loud she denied him the right to such a feeling. Using him to make her body feel something even if her heart could not. But it did. The guilt at using him as something other then the person he was, more like a tool. It was worse than having the Buffy Bot built because she was not seeking mindless release from a machine, but someone with thoughts and feelings. Guilt because she knew that it was her heart that was defective. Demeaning him every moment when they weren't having sex to make her feel better about the fact he was more of a person then she was. Pushing him even at the last as he realized the terrible mistake he was making, digging in that last cruel comment.

Then finding him mad down in the school basement her heart breaking as she watched him hang on a cross burning. And it had been her heart that had made the tears fall from her eyes as she discovered about his soul.

It was a bittersweet thing for her to notice that she had always cared for him in some way.

But it didn't answer the question. Was she in love with Spike? Her thoughts dwelled on her feelings since she had first learned of Drusilla's dusting.

She had wanted so desperately to comfort him, to take away the pain and shelter him in her arms. The pain she had felt as she watched him slide deeper into his own depression taking on a physical quality. The yearning to be able to do the right thing that pushed her to seek out the answers she couldn't find on her own. The grief of the confrontation to get him to Angel.

Now it was mingled with the despair that while that night helped him become better it had torn the fragile friendship they had to shreds. The emptiness she felt in her day-to-day existence without him being there and the sharp ache that came knowing that he didn't want to talk to her.

She concentrated on what she missed the most about him. There was the look of affection in his eyes when they talked and the way he could make her laugh. The way her heart skipped when he smirked at her. The warmth she felt when he told her he loved her.

Realization was like a splash of cold water.

She was in love with Spike.





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