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CHAPTER 4
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Angel said all the right things about her home in the making. Buffy and Dawn had to start from nothing since everything they had owned was in the bottom of that crater in California. All their memories and mementos under the rubble, along with the graves of their mother, Tara, and the unplanned resting places of Anya and Spike. Also the bodies of more young girls than Buffy wanted to remember. She'd not had the heart to return there and found no amusement in the official story of a freak plate movement leading to a city-size sinkhole.

Yes, Spike HAD made HER earth move, but there had been no earthquake that day. That great gaping wound in the California landscape was only slightly smaller than the hole in her heart at the cost of it all."OK, past is past, now onto tomorrow," Buffy reminded herself and smiled up at Angel.

Somehow he seemed too tall as she put her arms around his neck and drew him down for a kiss. His lips were as cool and passionate as she remembered, but not quite as soft as in memory. His lower lip didn't beg to be caught between her teeth as she thought it had. The soft curling hair that should be at the nape of his neck wasn't there either. Wait, that was Spike's sensuous lip, nape, curls and comfortable height she was remembering!

‘Stop it now, Buffy!’ she demanded of herself.

Angel was so gentle in his touch, so careful not to go too fast or scare her in any way. Buffy couldn't stop herself from remembering the raw passion and hunger of Spike's touch. He never treated her like some china doll that might break if he showed her his desire. She was all woman in his arms and he was all man...her man. ‘Damn it, Buffy, Spike is gone! Angel is here. Get a grip," she screamed at herself mentally.

Angel could feel Buffy stiffen a bit under his touch and reminded himself to slow down for his little girl. He really needed to ease out of this situation. He didn't want to make Buffy feel rejected, far from it. He just didn't dare let this blissful moment progress to anything tragic. He knew he should run, not walk, and do it now before it was too late.

God, she felt good in his arms. ‘To have Cordy here again.......SHIT! Where did that come from?’ Buffy, he meant Buffy, damn it.. He'd lost Cordy, but now he had his Buffy back in his arms and he wasn't going to blow the moment by letting memories of his last love interfere with the here and now.

Somehow during their separate musings the star-crossed lovers had moved into Buffy's bedroom without being aware of the movement.

"Jeez, where had Buffy learned THAT?" Angel wondered at the change in her kisses. He decided he really didn't want to know after all, as he had similar thoughts about what she was now doing with her hands.

Soon all thoughts left both their conscious minds as the world narrowed to one of touch, taste and feel only. They both had their eyes shut tightly as they reached with desperation for the comfort that their history represented. They fell to the bed and gave in to the need they both had to connect with each other and with love itself.

~~~

Willow was beginning to panic. "Come on. How long can a man last anyway?" she said aloud to no one but herself. "Goddess, did he turn into Angelus and kill Buffy? Oh, shit…oh, shit…I should never have let her talk me into this," she cried.

~~~



"But…but you're still Angel!" Buffy exclaimed in confusion. "How....why...I mean I'm glad and all, but, well....you know," she stammered.

Angel found himself at a loss for words. Everything had seemed perfect enough. What the hell was going on anyway? "Is something wrong with the curse? Wait....not WRONG...um....right, yeah, right with the curse?" he wondered.

The pair looked at each other rather sheepishly and began to awkwardly dress. "Well, Buffy, I probably should go back to the hotel," Angel muttered in embarrassment. Buffy didn't even try to stop him. She merely began walking towards the small living room.

Suddenly the room exploded, along with the front door, as a frantic Giles and Willow burst in. "Buffy! Oh my goddess, you're alive!" puffed Willow. Giles thrust a cross in Angel's face and sought to reassure Buffy by saying, "Don't panic, I have him stopped here."

"Will! Giles! What do you think you're doing?" asked Buffy as her face began to redden. This evening was not turning out as expected in any form.

"Willow began to worry. She rang me and told me of your rash idea....you didn't call her and we assumed that Angelus was back with a vengence, so to speak," Giles began to explain.

"You didn't call me, Buff, and…and…and I tried calling you, but you didn't answer, so I thought…I decided....well, I didn't want to face Angelus alone, so...," Willow continued, nearly stumbling over the words that spilled out rapid fire.

"God, Buffy, does everyone know what we...?" Angel trailed off. If vampires could blush, he'd be deep scarlet by now.

"No, no, Angel. I only told Willow so she could put your soul back if we…you know…WHEN we had our perfect moment again," Buffy said in her own defense.

"Well," Angel answered with no small amount of anger-tinged sadness in his voice, "I guess we've both discovered our 'perfect moment' came and went years ago, didn't we, Buffy?"

Giles, not understanding the cause of the tense mood between Buffy and her proclaimed 'true love', spoke up with a question then. "Did you tell her about Spike, you bloody idiot?" he asked Angel. Really, Giles could think of nothing else that might cause Buffy and Angel to be so at odds with each other.

The room became dead silent as Angel went even more pale than usual.

Buffy recovered first. Looking from Angel to Giles and back again, she demanded, "What ABOUT Spike and what does he have to do with anything here?"

Willow simply squeaked out, "Spike?!"


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CHAPTER 5

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Giles poured yet another shot of single malt and prayed he could keep fuzzy as long as possible. Last night had been a nightmare.

He had started the night worried that his Slayer was either dead or turned at the hands of Angelus. If possible, the night only became worse as Buffy was now more angry than he had ever seen her. She was barely speaking to him or to Angel. She was also showing signs of intending to walk--no, run--right into the coils of that other vampire Giles just could not seem to pry away from his Slayer ...Spike.

God, not even being burned to ash could keep the bloody bastard away! Giles was beginning to believe that Spike was his own personal punishment from the Powers that Be for his Ripper years!

He had a hellish headache and hadn't even begun to experience the hangover sure to come. Perhaps if he remained drunk all of this would just go away.

He was glad to live in a detached home as his neighbors would surely despise him for all the yelling and the fair amount of cursing that had come from his usually quiet home last night.

The four people involved in this tawdry melodrama had gone to Giles' home--followed him, actually--to hash it all out after he had blurted out the unmentionable name. "Blast and damn. Now Spike is mucking up my life from across the bloody ocean," he groused. "Is there no end to this?" he pled with whatever Powers listened to the woes of middle-aged Watchers.

Slowly, Buffy had gotten the story from the two conspirators in silence, her angry insistence making sure they left out no detail, no matter how small. The two managed to put the best possible spin on the events that they chose to divulge, giving Buffy MOST of the story in a sanitized form.

Willow sat, her mouth gaping open, amazed at what she was hearing. She wasn't really surprised at Angel's highhanded decision to make choices for Buffy; he always had, after all. But she thought that Giles had learned his lesson after meeting Buffy's cold fury over the botched plan to kill Spike before that last battle. Apparently he hadn't.

"Over a year and a half...over a year and a half you've kept this from me!" Buffy practically screamed more than once. "Why the hell did you think I shouldn't know something as monumental as Spike resurrecting?" Buffy demanded from Angel and then Giles.

They both tried to explain the reasoning behind their mutual decision in favor of silence, but to no avail.

"And Spike, good thing for him he's not here right now or I'd send him someplace he'd NEVER resurrect from!" she continued. "You two, I can almost get you two ....you're both great at makin' the big decisions behind my back, planning my life out for me, but Spike…," she sputtered, then fled the room in tears.

Everyone decided to give Buffy a bit of time to collect herself - and possibly use the time to hide all the weapons in Giles' home.

Willow shook her head in disappointment at the two nervous men pacing in front of her. "Really, don't you think Buffy has earned the right to think for herself by now?" she chided them. "And Angel, if you're the one who convinced Spike to stay away, I'd have to say you're not a very good influence on him…shame on you! Shame on you both!" Willow pronounced. "You, you, MEN you...so it's okay for Buffy to go out every night and kill the big bads, but she needs the ‘clearer thinking’ of a manly man to make all those life choices for her? Glad I swore off guys!"

The two targets of the ladies’ wrath had the decency to look chagrined.

"Could you pour me one of those, Giles?" Angel begged his reluctant host, "or maybe two or three? Think we should phone Spike? Kinda warn him about the incoming storm....tell him to hide all the sharp wooden stuff?"

"No," said a vengeful Giles, "Why should WE have all the fun? Maybe she'll still be angry enough to stake him and we will all be better off." He defiantly stared back into Willow’s glower.

~~~

Buffy decided the best thing to do would be to do the surprising herself. Then she made sure that no one would spread word of her mission. "You boys are so good at keeping secrets that this shouldn't be too hard for you," she stated, staring at them both with icy cold eyes.

Angel never thought he'd ever feel sorry for Spike, but unless Buffy calmed down a lot before her flight landed, Spike was in for one hell of a ‘welcome back’. Then the less mature side of Angel chimed in with an evil laugh. He wished he could go back on his promise to keep quiet if only to get Fred or Gunn to videotape the reunion.

A brand new Hellmouth was about to open. Angel just hoped there'd be some of L.A. left to return to when it was all over.





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