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“Hey” Buffy sat down next to a dejected Faith, “how you doing?”

“I lost two hundred and twenty seven girls,” Faith told her, her voice even, expression blank.

“I know, I’m sorry” Buffy touched the other girls knee gently, “You did your best Faith, we all did”

“I know” Faith rolled her shoulders, “Always casualties in war, right B?”

“Doesn’t help does it?” Buffy asked catching the darker girls eyes sympathetically.

“Really doesn’t” She sighed rubbing at her face, “These girls are family. Only family I ever really had”

“I know, and they know too. They would’ve followed you anywhere Faith. They still would. They know you’ll always do your best by them, and that’s the most any of us can do”

Faith gave a watery smile, “yeah” she paused for a moment before standing up, “I’m gonna do the rounds, check on the wounded”

Buffy nodded and watched the Slayer leave, if anyone was proof a person could change, it was Faith. She let a smile quirk her lips, well no actually it was Spike, but really not the time to split hairs.

She frowned, that reminded her she needed to give Spike back his coat.

………………….

“Buffster” Xander greeted as she walked into the canteen, “you gonna join us for a victory donut?”

Buffy gave the rather sorry looking collection of treats a sceptical look, “maybe later. I was trying to find Spike, you guys seen him”

“Yeah just a minute ago” Dawn answered, “he popped in, he was acting well weird, even for Spike.”

Alarm bells rang noisily in the slayers head, “Weird how?” she pressed

“Just weird. Gave me a hug and said he’d see me soon. Well duh! Buffy where are you going?”

……………….

Buffy thought she had run fast when Xander had told her to chase after Riley, now she realised she’d barely been jogging. If she had felt even a fraction of the urgency than that she felt now she would’ve arrived long before the helicopter took off. Rounding a corner of the car park she saw him, hot-wiring a motorbike over by the far fence.

“Spike” she yelled desperately sprinting towards him, “Spike”

He straightened up his back to her, “Buffy” he said her name like he always did, with such feeling and weight that it almost undid her.

“What are you doing?” she asked gesturing wildly at the bike, “where are you going?”

He sighed and faced her, why did she have to make this even harder, coming chasing after him wearing his coat and looking so adorably lost. “I told you Buffy, I have to go. There are” he paused “things. I need to do”

“What things?” she asked knowing deep down what he was planning but needing confirmation, “Where?”

He sighed again and stepped towards her “Buffy” he whispered, his fingers coming up to run gently down the side of her face, love pouring into the gesture like a waterfall, “I gotta go, I’ve heard of a place where I can fix my little problem”

“What problem? There’s not problem,” she denied hotly, her own hands grasping at his biceps.

“Buffy” his voice held a note of gentle chiding, “You know I can’t stay here like this, can’t be around you or the little bit like this.”

She shook her head opening her mouth to speak, but he placed a gentle finger on her lip’s “I reckon you know what I got planned, saw what I had written back in the motel didn’t ya? You know I have to, Buffy it’s the only way”

“No Spike” she protested weakly, he would do it for her, get his soul back, turn his whole life upside down change his very nature, he’d do it for her, because he loved her.

He silenced her with a gentle kiss, his lips brushing tenderly over hers. “I gotta go lamb. Take care of the nibblet for me”

She nodded mutely her watery eyes boring into his, shaking her head as if to clear it she stepped back and stripped off his coat and handed it to him. “You might need this,” she told him with a wan smile.

“Spike” she tried one last half hearted protest while he pulled on the coat, “you don’t have to do this, you don’t know what it’ll do to you, you don’t remember…” she trailed off as she looked at him standing there in his duster, looking so very much like the dangerous Spike she had once demanded he be despite his soul.

“Yeah I do” he told her chucking her gently under the chin, “I remember everything. All came rushing back during red’s spell.”

“Then why?” she questioned, tears flowing down her face, how could he be doing this, knowing how much a soul would hurt him, how weak it would make him, how God damn hard it would be to live with all the things he’d done.

“Because in the end” he told her gently running his hands down her arms to clasp her hands in his. “In the end it was worth it”

He released her hands and swung his leg over the bike in a swirl of black leather. She watched silently while he touched two exposed wires together and the engine roared into life.

What did he mean ‘worth it?’ in the end it was worth it? Realisation almost knocked the breath from her, it had been worth it, ‘I love you’, ‘No you don’t but…’

Oh God he was really doing it, doing it because if he had a soul then she could love him, really love him, the way he loved her. He was doing it because without a soul he was beneath her, an evil, disgusting thing, just like she had never tired of telling him.

Her head shot up, she could make him out racing along the sweeping curve of the road to her left. He was doing it so she could love him. She ran right, leaping over the high fence in a single bound and racing down across the open ground towards the tree line. She pushed through the trees ignoring the sting of twigs and branches lashing at her face, she could see the road through the trees where it swung back round on itself, hear the roar of the motorbike to growing louder to her left. She sped up as she reached the embankment hurtling down the steep slope at break neck speed towards the road, a collision course with the speeding bike, as her feet hit the tarmac she jumped, barrelling into the bikes rider, knocking them both clean away from the machine, as it went sliding riderless down the road.

Spike had been trying very hard not to turn back, eyes fixed on the road ahead concentrating hard on the feel of the wind rushing by, on the roar of the engine, anything but the tearful blonde he had left standing alone in the car park of slayer central. The impact had taken him by surprise, sending him rolling across the tarmac a small strong bundle of slayer rolling with him, their arms and legs entangled as they went, finally coming to rest on his back in the verge, with a winded Buffy Summers draped across his bruised body.

He groaned in response to the pain in his back and shoulder as he brought his arms up around her slight figure. “You okay pet?” he asked her softly

She pulled air painfully into her lungs letting it out in a slow deliberate breath, “yeah” she whispered.

“You gonna tell me what the bloody hell you think you’re doing?” he asked, his gentle voice belying the harshness of his words, “Coulda got yourself killed”

“I had to tell you something,” she admitted not willing to meet his eyes, “before you go, there’s something you need to know”

He sighed rolling her off him so they could sit side by side on the damp verge, “I think I know everything I need to” he told her impatience creeping into his voice, “I gotta do this”

“Ok” she whispered.

“Ok?” he asked incredulously, “You knock me off my bike at eighty miles an hour for ‘Ok’?”

She couldn’t help but giggle at his affronted tone, before she grew serious. “If you gotta do this, then ok, go I won’t try to stop you. But you have to be doing it for you” she paused looking deeply into his eyes, “not for me”

He frowned leaning back slightly to get a better look at her face, of course it was for her, everything he did was for her, what the bloody hell else would he want a soul for.

“That’s what I needed to tell you, don’t get a soul for me, don’t get a soul because you think it’ll make me love you” She watched pain fill his eyes and desperately wanted to touch him, chase the hurt away with gentle kisses, but she held back, he had to figure this out himself.

“Right” he turned away, couldn’t bear to look at her, knowing that despite what he thought he’d seen since his return he’d been right that day, ‘No you don’t, but thanks…’

He took a deep shaky breath, “Right then, I’ll just…” he began to stand, he had to get way from her, couldn’t bear being this close to her knowing how very far away he really was. Her hand stopped him. Gripping his arm with bruising force and yanking him back down.

“What I mean” she told him, grabbing his chin to pull his face around to look at her, she was gonna have to spell it out after all, “Is you don’t need a soul for me to love you” funny how until the moment she actually said the words out loud she hadn’t really believed them herself. There had been too much fear, prejudice too deeply ingrained in her mind, the instincts of her calling to strong in her consciousness for her to really believe it. But telling him now she knew it was true, knew that she did love him despite the barriers between them despite there opposing nature, she loved him, just as he was.

He met her eyes them, his own questioning and unsure, disbelief etched in the lines of his frown. “Buffy you can’t mean…” he trailed off looking so unbearable sad that a tear rolled down her cheek in sympathy, her admission wasn’t supposed to make him sad.

“Listen” he wiped the tears away with his thumb and held her face in his hands, “I know you felt something, when I came back, relief or gratitude or whatever, but you don’t have to pretend… I couldn’t ask you to…” he broke off and looked away, squeezing his eyes shut against the onset of his own tears.

He didn’t believe her, couldn’t blame him really she hadn’t exactly made it easy for either of them, she bit her lip, what the hell could she say that would make him believe her, she wished suddenly that their roles where reversed, he’d know what to say, he always did. An idea struck her, a few alteration and it’d work, and he’d know she remembered everything he’d said that night he’d know how much it had meant to her.

She placed a gentle hand on his cheek guiding his face back so she could meet his eyes “Hey, look at me. You’re not asking me for anything” She took a deep breath if this didn’t convince him nothing would

“When I say, ‘I love you,’ it's not because I’m grateful or I’m thinking of the souled version. It has nothing to do with me.” She paused watching recognition flicker in his dark blue eyes.

“I love what you are, what you do, how you try.” She was crying freely now holding his watery eyes with hers “I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are.”

She watched the awed expression on his handsome face, the nervous expectancy, as if his whole world hinged on what she would say next and realised she hadn’t covered all her bases. She buried her head in her hands and let out a bark of nervous laughter. Looking back at his confused frown she gave him a self depreciating smile, “I didn’t think this far ahead” she admitted self consciously, “I don’t suppose I can call you a hell of a woman?”

He laughed then rich joyful music to her ears, her hand came automatically to rest on his thigh, comfortable and intimate, “You are the one though” she told him seriously, “the one for me”

......

A/N Nearly there now, just one or two more installments.

Thanks Cali I was really pleased with that connection bit, so I'm glad you liked it, that chapter just wrote itself, probably why it was so long. Kisses as always for my favourite reader xxxxxxxxxx

Lizzy you shameless kiss ass. Ooh I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, bit more romance for you here hope you liked it





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