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Author's Chapter Notes:
just Chapter 55 and the Epilogue left....at least of this story, not sure about everything else ;)
Chapter 54

“What?”

Spike just kept looking at her in that way that not only caused her breath to catch but also kept her from being able to focus well enough to figure out just what it was he was thinking.

“What?” she asked again, more anxiously this time; being this close to him with him looking at her like that was unnerving to say the least.

“Really?”

“Really what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

And, though she hadn’t realized it until just then, she did. His chip. Or rather, her decision regarding said object.

“Uhm,” she said, not sure how to answer him.

“’Uhm’? That’s the best you can do? Least tell me if you meant what you said to Niblet.”

“But…I…I wasn’t going to tell you yet.”

“Right—well that’s good and all, but the thing is, luv, I heard it. So now there’s not really much choice, is there?”

“I…Not really, no. And it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you; I just wasn’t sure how to.”

“I’m thinking however you say it will be right.”

“Right,” Buffy laughed. “Guess you haven’t been paying that much attention then. But I’ll give it a try anyway: I didn’t think that you getting your chip out was the only way to—for lack of a better word--cure me. But I knew we wouldn’t ever be able to have a…real relationship if still had the chip. Either I’d spend who knows how long falling back on my denial thing of ‘he’s only doing it because he has to…not because he wants to’ or you’d think I only trusted you because you couldn’t hurt people—not because you wouldn’t.

So, yeah, for a number of reasons, you not having your chip would actually be in both of our best interests. Lying about it was the only way to do it. Giles never would have helped find Riley otherwise; nor would Riley have done it.

I’m not one hundred percent sure you would have either.”

“I…”

“You?” Buffy prompted teasingly.

Still not sure what to say to her—not sure how to react to the news she’d just delivered, Spike decided that kissing her would perhaps be an appropriate response. Sure as hell felt appropriate to him.

“I love you, Buffy,” he whispered after breaking the kiss to lean his forehead against hers, his gaze heated as it centered on her.

“Don’t leave,” she requested just as quietly tightening her arms around his neck.

“Never…I never said I was going to,” he didn’t know why she feared his leaving.

“You sounded like you might be. And then with the whole ‘I’ll be in the basement except for making dinner’ thing…I just…I wasn’t sure.”

“No worrying then, huh? I’ll be wherever you want me.”

”Wherever?” Buffy asked coyly.

”And whenever,” he confirmed.

After several seconds of Spike smiling at her, really smiling, Buffy’s good mood seemed to crack and her expression darkened.

“What is it?”

“What if I screw it up?” she wondered.

“Screw what up, kitten?”

“This,” she elaborated, hiding her head against his chest now. “Us. What if I don’t know what I’m doing? What if it was my fault with Angel and Riley? With Giles and Willow and Xander? What if there’s something wrong with me and that’s why so much has fallen apart?”

“If anything’s wrong with anyone, it’s with them, luv. They’re the one’s who’ve screwed up; not you. And even if you were to do something to screw this up…well, it wouldn’t work. I’m not giving up on you—not ever and certainly not as easily as they all did.”

“How can you love me? I was only ever horrible to you? How can you love me when I was like that to you and everyone that I tried so hard with…they all left me.”

“Love’s a funny thing, innit?”

“That’s your answer? Seriously?”

“Would love really be as great as it is if it were explainable?”

Buffy hadn’t ever thought of that. Maybe that was why things with Riley hadn’t ever worked out—she’d been so able to explain why they should.

“Since when are you so smart?”

“Always have been, didn’t you know? Just good at hiding it.”

“I’ll say,” Buffy joked, immediately regretting it when he started tickling her, his hold on her waist leaving her no room for escape.

“I do love you, Buffy,” he promised. “And I’m not going to leave you. Ever. I’m going to stay right where you want me—as long as that’s somewhere close to you. Otherwise I’m going to be here anyway.”

There was something Buffy needed to tell him while she knew she needed to tell him—before she convinced herself it was not necessary. “I know,” she began, “that I’m probably technically better enough to…I do want to be with you, Spike, I do. I just…I want the first time that we….I want to be feeling really like myself again before we…”

“If you’re not talking ‘bout us shagging you’d best tell me now ‘cause I can tell you, that’s where my brain’s gone.” Buffy decided then that she most definitely liked seeing Happy Spike. While just as sexy as, well, Sexy Spike, Happy Spike was also freaking adorable. Something she would never tell him, of course. At least not using those words.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” he confirmed, his smirk doing nothing to strengthen her resolve to wait.

“Then, is your brain having fun?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to hurry up and get better so the rest of you can join in the fun,” Buffy mused.

“Guess we will be joining the Bit for dinner then.”

“What?”

“Need to get your strength built back up, don’t we? Eating will definitely help that.” Without giving her the chance to answer, Spike backed slightly away from her and bent to hook an arm behind her legs, lifting her up, “Let’s go, then.”

“Spike!”

“What? ‘s not like I can trust you to keep your hands off my hot little body—drastic measures are called for here, pet.”

“You know,” she pointed out as he opened the bedroom door and carried her into the hall, “I’m not sick now; you can quit this carrying me everywhere deal.”

“Who said it had anything to do with you being sick?”

“You’re a s—“

“Am I going to have to institute a ‘no boys in your room’ policy again, Buffy? Though I guess Spike wouldn’t much count as a ‘boy’.”

“Mom?”

“Joyce?”

“You two sound surprised to see me.”



TBC…..



I hope you all had happy holidays :)





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