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Days passed quickly, weeks turned into months and the air outside grew cooler as the season’s prepared to change. Buffy had never felt so overwhelmed in her life. Between her daytime job at the high school, burning the midnight oil with the band trying to record their album and spending time with Riley, Buffy barely had any time to herself. She did, however, manage to sneak off to Caritas every Thursday. No one other than Lorne, of course, knew where Buffy disappeared to, but not even he knew her real reasons for always being there. She tried to tell herself that singing at the bar helped her professionally, but in the back of her mind Buffy knew her reasoning was a lie. Each Thursday night, she scanned the crowd relentlessly while she sang and hoped to catch a glimpse of white hair.

Her wishes were never granted.

She eventually had to face reality and finally gave up all hopes of ever finding her passionate stranger again, and threw herself completely into a serious relationship with Riley. They had been seeing each other exclusively now for almost five months and she had decided to take him with her for Christmas vacation to meet her family. As the days grew closer to their departure date, Buffy was getting seriously nervous about her first trip to England, since her mother had moved there after remarrying, as well as introducing Riley to her family. The only other person that she was romantically involved that had ever been introduced to her mother was Angel, which had gone very badly since Joyce had not been privy to the fact that he was several years older than her daughter until she met him. Based on the outcome of that meeting, Buffy was rather anxious about taking Riley with her.

She was, however, very excited about getting to see her mother, stepfather and especially her younger sister, Dawn. The three had moved to England a couple months after Dawn had graduated high school and announced that she had applied to Oxford on a whim and had been accepted. Their stepfather, Rupert Giles, was originally from London and had made a remark about how he would eventually like to return there to live. Buffy’s mother, Joyce, being very concerned about sending her youngest to live there and had decided that they would move there as well. Buffy had declined the offer to go with them, opting to finish college at UC Sunnydale and apply for the job opening at Hemery; where she had attended high school her freshmen year before her parent’s divorce.

Dawn had previously arranged to spend her summer break in Los Angeles with Buffy, but her trip this year had been cut short due to school obligations. Other than her short two week visit in June, Buffy hadn’t seen her nineteen year old sister since Christmas; which was also the last time she had seen her mother and Giles. She hoped that this visit would go well, since she had every intention of spending a long time with Riley and wanted her family to like him.



Somewhere along the last few months, Buffy had grown very close with the handsome actor and had possibly even fallen in love with him. In secret, Buffy had been scribbling their names together with dozens of hearts etched around it. And, if her suspicions were correct, she believed Riley returned her feelings. There were moments when he didn’t think she was paying attention to him that she would catch him staring googly-eyed at her. Knowing her feelings were returned had lifted a weight off Buffy’s shoulders that she didn’t even know was there. Now, her only concern was why there were still nights when she couldn’t fall asleep without dreaming about a certain sexy bleached stranger.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Clear on the other side of the country, in New York, Spike lounged on the sofa smoking a cigarette contemplating his next move. His contract had only committed him to one job for a period of six months where, at the end of that term, he could either stay on or leave. That was the great thing about doing contracted private security, he was his own boss and never got tied down to one place too long. Spike was only called for delicate matters; if a situation required a certain amount of finesse, then you called him. As a bonus, he was trained in various forms of martial arts and firearms. Therefore, if a client needed to be educated in self-defense, he took them under his wing, never giving up until they were well skilled. The personal attention that was required between Spike and his client allowed for a rather hefty paycheck at the end of his term. Even with the large sum of his paycheck, he was repeatedly requested with many clients as well as received numerous referrals all over the world.

He was currently faced with a tough decision this time; this job offer would require at least a year long contract overseas with little to no contact with outside relations. Part of him wanted to accept the offer, but the other side eagerly anticipated returning home…to find her.

Thoughts of her supple skin and golden locks had devoured his mind. He was consumed with her passionate kisses and throaty moans of arousal, even after all this time. Many nights had been spent lying in bed, unable to sleep, his erection throbbing under the sheets, aching for her touch. Mentally, he cursed himself repeatedly for not finding out her name. Now he had no idea how he was going to find her when and if he returned back home. A thought flashed through his mind, one so simple that he felt the need to smack himself in the forehead, that someone at Caritas might know who she was. Surely, someone that beautiful and talented would have caught the eye of more than just him, right? Finishing off the last of his scotch, he walked across the room and refilled his glass, his decision was finally made.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bright and early one Saturday morning, while Spike was on the other side of the country debating his next step, Buffy rolled out of bed cursing Lorne for scheduling a session at the studio at such an ungodly hour. But, she knew that the hours had to be put in, since the band had decided to put two more tracks on their album, which was set to release in a few weeks. Due to the time constraints, the recordings needed to be done as soon as possible, preferably sometime that week.

After the decision had been made to add more tracks to their debut album, Buffy had mustered up the courage to give her doting manager copies of some of the songs she had written over the summer. Lorne had called the day before, as she was leaving the high school, and asked her to stop by the office to see what the others thought about using her material, prior to them going in to the studio. While she was eager to hear their opinions, Buffy was also sporting a serious case of nerves because they might not like her work. After a quick shower, Buffy got dressed, not bothering with fussing with her makeup and hair since it was so early in the morning. Quickly grabbing a pop tart and bottle of water, she was out the door and on her way to the meeting.

Half an hour later, she sat cross legged on the floor with her back pressed up against the couch and eagerly awaited a response from her friends. They each had a copy of the lyrics and were spaced out around the office studying her work intently. After several agonizing minutes, which caused her nails to now be chewed down to the quick, Buffy got the validation that she needed when the group decided to give the new songs a shot. Unable to contain her excitement, Buffy squealed with happiness and clapped her hands like a child who had just received the one present they had longed for on Christmas morning.

Faith was shocked at the passion in the song; it was very obvious that Buffy had written it with someone in mind and she wondered who it was. When she asked Buffy about it, she didn’t get the response that she had hoped for. The petite blonde had only reddened and mumbled that it was just something she had floating around in her head. Then followed up with a load of bull by saying that the song wasn’t about anyone in particular, it was just a song. Eyeing her friend closely, Faith quickly deduced that she was lying. Of course, she had grown close enough to Buffy over the past few months that she knew what would happen if she pushed the matter any further, especially in front of the guys. So, Faith let the matter go for now; deciding that she would grill Buffy later for details, wondering if it had anything to do with the hickey she’d briefly sported over the summer.

Buffy was elated at the response from the band. They had loved the lyrics and had set forth putting it to music. As expected, the process had taken all day and most of the night, but the musical genius, Oz, had finally worked it all out. Around one in the morning they wrapped up the session, deciding to come back in the morning to start practicing. If all went well, they hoped to have it recorded by the next weekend.

Exhaustion was tugging heavily at her limbs as she pulled in to the driveway, where she spotted Riley’s car already taking up one half of the concrete slab in front of her one story bungalow style home. As she climbed out of her Jeep and gathered up the materials that had scattered across the backseat during the drive home, she wondered how long he’d been waiting for her and felt bad about the notion of him just hanging about while she worked, especially since time had gotten away from them while they worked on the new material and had spent far longer than anticipated in the studio. As she headed up the sidewalk, she made a mental note to let him know when she’d be working super late, so he could find something to do to occupy himself other than lounging around her house, which couldn’t be very entertaining.

Pushing open the front door, she sat her guitar down by the foyer table and laid the notebooks in her arms on top of it before heading off in search of Riley. When she turned the corner into the living room, Buffy noticed rose petals scattered across the floor and dozens of candles placed around the dimly lit room. Puzzled, she stepped lightly on the petals and made her way fully into the living room, and finally noticed Riley…down on one knee in front of the fireplace.

“Buffy Anne Summers, I know that we haven’t known each other for very long, but I know enough about you to realize that I want to spend the rest of my life with you in my arms. Will you marry me?” Riley asked, his eyes sparkling and full of love for the woman before him.





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