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Author's Chapter Notes:
Another day...another update. Hope you like this one!
Buffy’s head was pounding as she stood under the shower. It was six o’clock in the morning and she had been unable to sleep ever since the startling realisation of her true feelings for Spike.

She’d spent several hours standing out on the balcony looking out over the estate, wishing desperately that she could go back to being blissfully ignorant of the truth.

She knew she only had herself to blame – after all, she’d been the one to suggest their little arrangement in the first place. If she hadn’t, there would’ve never been anything more between them than a night of incredible sex and she would’ve avoided this disaster. Damn her treacherous body for wanting more. She’d honestly believed that her broken heart had been irreparable and that it would’ve been impossible for her to develop feelings for Spike.

But she had. She loved him. More than she could hope to explain. She’d fooled herself into believing that they could just have sex without having an emotional relationship and she should have known better. She could almost laugh at the irony – most people spent their whole lives searching for that all-consuming love and she’d give anything not to feel this way.

She had loved and lost Angel and it had nearly killed her – by opening herself up to loving Spike, she was opening herself up to the eventuality of one day losing him too and she couldn’t go through that pain again. The thought of losing Spike terrified her even now when she was only on the verge of discovering the depth of her feelings and she knew that if she allowed herself to explore them, she wouldn’t be able to survive the loss.

She had to nip this in the bud now. She could tell Spike that there was an emergency at the gallery and that she needed to return to L.A. She was sure Eduardo or even Cordy would drive her to the airport – there had to be a commercial flight to LAX sometime today.

Putting some distance between her and Spike was the only option.


“No!”

Spike jerked awake, the nightmare still fresh in his mind. It was a nightmare that had been on vivid replay throughout the night.

Him and Buffy together...getting married. She was beautiful, a vision, a goddess. Everything was perfect. Until he heard the shout from behind him.

“I object!”

Ethan standing at the end of the aisle, his eyes dark with rage. And when Spike turned back to Buffy, he saw Drusilla standing beside him, wearing the wedding dress.

And then he would fall to his knees, crying and cursing fate for everything. For taking away his best friend, for the endless guilt he would never be free from and for the feelings he had for Buffy – feelings he didn’t want to have and that she would never reciprocate.

He had been wrong to think he was immune to love. He loved Buffy, he had fallen in love with her – even after the agreement he’d made with her. He should’ve done what he’d planned to do the morning after their first encounter in London – he should have thanked her for an amazing night and gone on his merry way. If he’d done that, he wouldn’t be here right now having to deal with these wretched feelings.

And regardless of whether he was capable of having feelings for Buffy, it would be wrong for him to even contemplate exploring those feelings, when Ethan would never again know happiness or love.

The idea of spending the next few days trying to hide the truth from Buffy sounded like the worst kind of torture imaginable. He needed to think of something, anything he could use to justify curtailing their vacation – he could always pretend there was an emergency in London, something that he was personally required to handle.

If he could just get some space from her, then maybe he’d be able to bury his feelings.


When Buffy emerged from the bathroom, she found Spike up, dressed and talking on his cell phone.

“Okay, just make sure she’s ready to go in the next couple of hours,” he said, before disconnecting the call.

Still unsure as to how to go about telling the inevitable lie that would get her on a plane back to L.A., she went straight to the closet and pulled on some clothes.

“Buffy?” She turned around to face him, concentrating on fastening the clasp on her wristwatch. “Something’s come up and I have to go back to London.”

Buffy released a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She was off the hook – if Spike was cutting their trip short then she didn’t have to.

“I would suggest you stay here, but I'd be able to make it back.”

She looked up, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I actually need to get back too. Willow called – something’s come up to do with Tara’s exhibition.”

A chilling thought suddenly entered Spike’s head. What if she’d guessed the truth about his feelings and wanted to make it clear to him that she didn’t return them? But he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. How would she have guessed? He hadn’t done anything that might cause her to suspect the truth. It was just a coincidence.

“Okay, well we’d both better pack and get ready to go, then.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, pulling her suitcase from the closet.

An hour later, they left the estate behind as they made their way back to the airport with Eduardo at the wheel. Buffy closed her eyes and pretended to sleep so that she wouldn’t be forced to talk to Spike. She had no idea what to say to him.

Once they’d boarded the plane and they were in the air, Buffy pleaded a headache and headed for the sleeping quarters, remaining there for the majority of the flight. Just after noon, Pacific Time, the plane touched down at Van Nuys and Spike escorted Buffy to the waiting limousine that he’d arranged to drive her back to her apartment.

“I had a really good time,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Me too,” he replied. “I’ll call you.”

He had no intention of doing so, but she didn’t have to know that. He would claim to be too busy to fly out or for her to come and stay and hopefully their affair would just fizzle out naturally.

“Great.”

Buffy’s thoughts mirrored Spike’s. She would make excuses not to see him until whatever they’d had died a quiet death.

Not wanting to clue him in to what she was thinking and feeling, she reached up and placed a light kiss on his mouth.

“Goodbye, Spike.”

“Bye, Buffy.”

It was farewell that they both intended to be forever.


Thirteen and a half hours later, Spike arrived back at his London apartment. Leaving his bags in the foyer, he walked into the sitting room and collapsed into one of the leather armchairs.

His brain was going a mile a minute and yet none of his thoughts made sense. Nothing made sense. Usually he had a pretty good idea of the direction his life was going, yet at this very moment his future just looked like a gaping black hole – he didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

Well, there was one thing he wanted…no, needed. He knew what would make him feel better, what would take away the pain and the guilt and the unwanted feelings – at least for a little while.

Standing up, he walked over to the cabinet on the other side of the room, opened it and took out an unopened bottle of bourbon.





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