“C’mon!” Spike glared at Buffy. “Go for it! Fight like you mean it.” They had been in Wolfram and Hart’s training room for a good half hour, and despite Spike’s best efforts Buffy really wasn’t trying.
She glared back. “I am! I do mean it!”
“No. You’re not. That last punch wouldn’t have floored Andrew!”
“I...” She sighed. “I told you I don’t want to fight you.” She tried pouting. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Spike wasn’t letting her off that easily. “Vampire. Doesn’t hurt.” He considered and shrugged. “Much. C’mon, pet! You’re getting soft.”
“I’m not soft.” She folded her arms and glared at him.
“Soft and comfortable.” He watched her through narrowed eyes.
“Comfortable? What do you mean ‘comfortable’?” She frowned at him. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Well," he shrugged, “Personally I like to see a nice bit of arse on a bird, but some people…”
“You’re saying my butt’s big?” She twisted and peered over her shoulder. “It is not big!”
“No, pet.” He circled her slowly. “’Course not. It’s very nice.”
“You…” She turned to glare at him. “I am so gonna kick your ass.”
“You’ve lost it, slayer.” The grin was a challenge.
“Oh, you think?”
They continued to circle each other, Spike grinning, Buffy watching him.
“Probably was about time you stepped down, huh? Let someone else take over. Someone younger… you know… fitter… smaller arse… Ouf!” He found himself flat on his back on the floor, jaw aching. Hadn’t seen that one coming. He laughed delightedly. “That’s my girl!” He leapt back onto his feet and launched a swing at her. She blocked his fist effortlessly, her foot making contact with his midriff at the same time. “Not bad… considering.” He rubbed his stomach and grinned as she circled him, balanced and ready.
“Considering the butt?” She raised an eyebrow then launched an attack. He gave a whoop of delight and fought back. No holds barred this time, each giving as good as they got until finally a wrong move had her on her stomach on the floor, her arms pinned behind her back. Spike straddled her as she struggled ineffectually. “Will you get off!”
“Say ‘uncle’.” He grinned.
“Will not!” She redoubled her efforts to shake him off. “Ouch! OK, OK. UNCLE!”
He flipped her over on her back, keeping her underneath him and looked down at her with a grin. “No you don’t.” Her fist flew up and he blocked the punch, pinning her arms back against the floor. “Well, that was disappointingly easy.”
She struggled half-heartedly. “And the point of this little display is?”
“The point of this… look, the Mary thing? What if she’d had her one good day, huh? If she’d got close? You think you’d have taken her?”
“Yes!” She glared at him then frowned. “I… yes…” she sounded less certain.
“When did you last patrol?” He frowned as she looked away with a shrug. “OK. When did you last train?”
“I don’t train, OK?” She wriggled. “Do you think you could get off me now?”
“Nope. Like it here. Stop changing the subject. Why?”
“Because…” she was lost for words. “I…” I’d forgotten who I was… “I told you why.”
“Because Morty didn’t like it? Bollocks! C’mon, Buffy – this is me. Like you’d let him tell you what to do.”
She was quiet for a moment, biting her lip. Then she sighed. “No. It was me. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I was tired, Spike, you know? Years of being the one to fight the good fight come rain or shine or… or apocalypse. Everybody just expected me to carry on, despite everything that happened.” She shook her head.
“And did you?” He moved to lie down at her side, propped himself on one elbow.
“I patrolled in England. I mean, it wasn’t like SunnyD, there weren’t hoards of them, but there were enough to keep me busy on the odd night. And sometimes I’d take one of the new slayers along. And one night,” she paused, “One night we were surprised – band of vampires, and it was OK, we were doing OK, and then there was another vampire, just coming out of the shadows and he…” She closed her eyes briefly... he had this short blond hair and this leather jacket and the accent and for a moment… “And I froze and the girl went down. She was very young, you know?” She caught Spike’s stricken look. “Oh, she didn’t… I mean, it was OK in the end. But it was too close. It scared me – made me think that maybe whatever drove me before wasn’t there anymore, and maybe I’d lost it. So when I came to Rome, the thing with Morty… that was my excuse to myself to just stop… stop being the Slayer… and then there seemed no point in training.”
“Love, you may not be the one and only any more, but you’re still the Slayer, and out there – there’s plenty know you. You can’t afford to let it go. You can’t afford to slip up.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “I can’t afford for you to slip up. Not losing you now.” He shook his head. “So, you’re stepping away from the whole thing? You really think you can do that?”
“No. No, I don’t. Not now.” She frowned in thought. “Giles is working on rebuilding the Council. They’ve asked me to go back, to work with them and with the new slayers. I… wasn’t ready before, but maybe now.” She looked up at him. “I could help, really make a difference.”
Spike shrugged. “You should go. To England. Go help Giles. Go help the others.”
“We should go.”
“Oh, yeah. And Giles is going to love that.” Spike snorted. “This is the moron that tried to have me wasted, remember?”
“I don’t care what Giles wants. I want you and I’m not going without you. Besides, you’ve got all the inside information. You know loads of stuff I’ll bet the council never knew.”
“What, so you’re asking me to rat on my kind? You wanna just think about that one? Got some loyalty, you know.”
“You kill your kind!”
“Well, yeah. Sometimes.” He frowned. “But I’m no grass.”
“You helped train the potentials. You gave them all sorts of tips then.”
“Only enough so they wouldn’t get their stupid selves offed by the first fledgling vamp they met! Give them a fighting chance, like.” He shrugged. “Didn’t tell them everything…” he muttered, pouting.
Buffy gave a snort of laughter. “Vampire morality! Colour me confused.” Spike gave her a hurt look and she relented. “You could come train the new slayers. Like you did before. You could help with stuff on demons… OK… not vampires…” She put her hand up to his face. “I mean it, Spike. I’m going nowhere without you.”
He smiled. “Might be nice to go back to Blighty again.” The smile took on an edge. “And maybe I can straighten things out with old Rupert.”
“No straightening!” Buffy frowned at him. “No vendettas.”
“Would I?” Wide-eyed innocence.
“Well - yes.”
“Best behaviour. Promise.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Hmm. Why do I find that less than believable? Still,” she smiled “it’ll be good to see everyone again. Dawn and Andrew…”
Spike grimaced. “Do we have to take Andrew?”
“He’s not safe to be left. Besides, I think he’s all set to follow you to the ends of the earth. Little bit of a cru…”
“Don’t!” Spike pointed a finger at her. “Don’t even think it.”
She grinned. “And Willow; it’ll be so cool to see Willow…” She looked up at him, smiling softly. “And maybe…” she gave him a shove, unbalancing him, and surged to her feet. “Maybe I’ll get me a worthy opponent to spar with.”
“Worthy, is it?” Spike was on his feet too. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”
“And why would I enjoy that?” They were circling each other again, eyes locked.
“Nice bit of body contact. You know you love it.” He grinned, raised a teasing eyebrow.
“Oh, you think?”
“Oh, I know.” Tongue against teeth, head tilted.
She grinned back savagely. “This room’s soundproof, right?”
“Yeah…” He eyed her suspiciously.
“And the door’s locked?”
“Yeah…”
“So,” her hand moved to the waistband of her trouser “no-one will hear you scream.” She watched him under lowered lashes as she slowly undid the zip. “I’ll give you body contact,” she growled.
*******
Later, they walked hand-in-hand through the lights and shadows of a Roman night, just another young couple in love, one among many. They passed unnoticed, save for admiring glances, anonymous, no-one to know them or to judge them. And it was easy to live for the moment – for the feel of his hand in hers, the touch of his lips, the sound of his voice – and it felt good.
He slid an arm around her waist. “You want to stop for a coffee?” They were passing a small café, tables invitingly lit by candles, the smell of fresh espresso in the air.
“Uh-uh. All coffee’d out. Pietro kept feeding me more and more of the stuff while I waited for you. It was very nice coffee, but I don’t think I’ll be coming down from this caffeine high any time soon.” Buffy smiled and glanced up at Spike. “So, what was so private that Ilona had to lock you away in her office?”
“Offered me a job.” Spike shrugged.
“She what?” Buffy stopped dead and turned to look up at him open-mouthed. “You are kidding me, right?”
“No. Said she might have a position for me.”
“Oh, I’ll bet she has.” Buffy snorted.
Spike frowned. “What are you talking about? Oh, wait!” The frown turned to a smug grin. “You’re jealous!”
“I am so not jealous!”
“Are too! Little bit of the old green eye.”
“Don’t flatter yourself! There is no green eye. Besides, why should I be jealous? No reason to be jealous.” She frowned and looked up at him. “Have I?”
He looked straight ahead, grinning. “Trevi.”
“Huh? Who’s Trevi?”
“Not who, what. Over there. Trevi Fountain.” He led her down the narrow street and suddenly they were in a Piazza alive with the sound of water from an immense and impressively lit fountain. Buffy gasped. “Wow!”
“You’ve never seen this?” Spike shook his head. “How long have you been in Rome? Did you ever go out?”
“Never did the tourist thing much. We did the shopping thing a lot. But not so much the historical thing. I bought the guides, even read them - but never quite made it here.”
“Well, I guess the works of the great masters do pale into insignificance beside a well crafted Prada handbag.” Spike snorted.
“Shh!” She wrapped her arms around herself against the cooler air of the open Piazza and walked up to the wall of the fountain. “Would you look at that?” she sighed.
“You cold?” He wrapped his arms around her from behind.
“A little.”
“Here.” He took off his duster and wrapped it around her shoulders. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, giggling when she realised her hand were no where near the sleeve ends, and pulled the soft, worn leather closer. It smelt of Spike – bittersweet, smoky, a complex mixture of a hundred faint memories, heady and seductive.
She leaned against him, watching the play of waters in the Fountain. “Pretty!”
“Bit baroque for my tastes. Do with a bit less of the twiddles and stuff.” He examined it critically.
“Twiddles and stuff? Philistine!” She laughed. “This is supposed to be the most beautiful fountain in Rome!”
“Whole lot less pretty without Anita Ekberg cavorting in it.” Buffy looked at him blankly. “La Dolce Vita? You haven’t seen La Dolce Vita? Fellini?” He raised his eyes heavenwards. “Your education is sadly lacking.”
“Hmph. Well, I do know one thing. If you want to come back to Rome you have to throw a coin into the fountain. Give.” She held out her arm, sleeve flapping.
“What? I’m not wasting hard earned cash chucking it into some poncy fountain!”
“Hard earned?” She gave a snort of laughter. “Don’t be so mean.”
“Here.” He looked around and then quickly reached over the wall of the fountain, grabbing a stray coin from the water. “There you go. What?” He grinned at her raised eyebrow. “Go on. Throw it over your left shoulder.” She shook her head, turned and threw the coin. He watched it fall with a splash back into the waters of the fountain. “Right. Now you have to do the second thing, to make sure it works.”
“Second thing?”
“Well, yeah.” He put his arms around her. “Kiss a gorgeous and athletic stranger.”
“I guess they don’t come much stranger than you.” She whispered as his mouth found hers.
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