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Every time she saw him as the week went on was another test of her patience. The nights were stretched, and dawn was always slow to creep along the horizon. The sun was a blessing as well as a curse. Buffy received physical pains now when he left, like her stomach had just been hit with a rock propelled from a slingshot. That, along with so much else, was driving her mad. And as the skies changed from blue, to cotton candy colors followed by dark midnight, everyday, her anger and disputes warred against unsettled craving.

Thursday night she spoke to him again. In a begging plea Buffy asked him to leave, to really stay the hell away from her. Facing the man on her back porch, wearing a sweater too hot for the California weather and a pair of cotton shorts, Buffy stared at his expression that showed not one sign of giving up.

"Just go, please." Her voice was steady and quiet, despite the feverish sensation in every nerve. "I don't want you in my life, why won't you accept that?"

"Because," he growled, "I can't. We both-"

"We can ignore it!" she shouted. "We don't have to do anything about this dumb mating... connection, we can let it go and pretend it never even existed!"

She had been doing more and more research. The discoveries, everything that came to light about vampire claims, went against her arguments. She read that separation, once meeting your mate, was impossible without severe loneliness, longing and pain. She still wanted to kick this aggravating fiend out of her life, but he wouldn't budge, and for some reason deep down, she was grateful.

Whether he knew it or not didn't seem to affect his opinions. "You stubborn twit," he said under his breath, but she heard. Sighing roughly, he seemed to count to three before continuing. "It's already happened, we can't undo it. Neither of us. There's nothing in this sodding universe that can, it's irreversible. We'll both go crazy if we-"

"If we what?" she interrupted. "If we don't finish it? 'Create a relationship'?" Buffy spoke as if such an idea was laughable. "If we don't 'claim' each other? How do you know?!"

He rubbed his hands over his face, muffling- judging by how loud it was even with his hands covering his lips- a very dramatic groan."Christ, you're driving me around the bend!"

"Oh!" she shouted indignantly. "I'm driving you crazy?! Who showed up in whose backyard and unloaded this big, weird, supernatural life change, huh?! Anne Rice wasn't all that imaginative after all, apparently, and vampires actually exist- And oh yeah, I'm connected to one of them!" Buffy made a heavy sound of disgust. "You've got a lot of nerve-"

"I have nerve?! Oh that's rich!" He rolled his eyes to the moon before pointing at her. "You're the one who's running scared! You won't even consider-"

"Running scared? I don't know you! You're a stranger to me! And you just show up on my doorstep one night and unveil this huge Stephen King lifestyle plan that I'm supposed to jump into. It's like, 'Hey Buffy, we're destined to be together and you have to let me feed on you.' Like I'm some platelet flavored popsicle or something. So excuse me for being cautious!"

He rolled his eyes, it was one of those moves that caused a back bend and a display of true exhaustion. " 'Cautious,' I could understand. You're avoiding this entirely."

She nearly punched him, she seriously wanted to, but honesty and something else prevented her.

Avoiding the other thing, Buffy recognized honesty and what it said, and she rolled her eyes at it in the way an older sibling does when they avoid listening to the unexpected wisdom of their little sister. He was correct, she was avoiding this crazy circumstance and trying to get out of it. Could you blame her?

Buffy wasn't sure. She wanted another opinion, because a huge part of her felt guilty and logic kept yelling about listening to her gut instead of her fears. Still, it wasn't time to admit that yet, and so once again she shouted at the monster in her backyard."Yes!" she exclaimed, "Because I don't want you-!" Buffy suddenly lost balance, swaying into the doorframe as her stomach churned and burning heat poured through it.

*What the hell?* She fell against the wood, cold hands wrapping around her arms in a gentle caress to help steady her. She looked up into his worried eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"My stomach..." she released a quick breath. "I think it's okay now, but... it felt, I don't know, it was like someone stuck a hot poker inside me."

He stilled abruptly. She saw. "What?" Buffy couldn't hide the nervousness in her voice.

"You're feeling the pains already?"

"Huh? Wh-What pains?"

His face showed lines of concern, which made Buffy even more anxious. He said, "It's from the claim. You're going through withdrawal."

She thought on that for a moment, then stood up a little taller. The pain was gone now, like it had never been, and she felt soothed with him standing nearer. "So that means... what, I'll feel sick for a while until I'm just, used to not seeing you anymore?"

"Wrong," he nearly growled, though something in his eyes told her he wasn't angry. It was hurt she saw within the blue instead. "It works in the opposite way. You get them as an alert. The longer you're away from your mate without finalizing the claim, the worse they get."

"So I'm getting rushed into this now. Great," she muttered. Buffy groaned and inched away from him. "So why did you call them withdrawal pains?"

"Because you feel them when your body senses I'm about to leave you, or when I'm already gone..." He shook his head. "I'd been feeling them myself but I didn't think they'd affect you this quickly."

"Why not?" Buffy said resentfully, ignoring the pang of concern she felt at the idea of him being in any kind of pain. "We're connected aren't we? It should be logical to think that whatever affects you, when it affects you, will affect me."

He ignored her spiteful tone, and brushed a stray lock of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ear. "And vice versa, pet."

She looked down, trying not to focus on the warmth she'd heard in that accented voice. She caught it time and again, more often than she would like to admit. Buffy saw the way he looked at her, too, like he was staring at a precious gem that really got on his nerves for whatever reason a gem might, but was valuable to him nonetheless.

She counted her breaths while staring at the wood planks that made up the floor of her deck. If what he was saying was true, completely and without a doubt accurate, then she might actually be stuck.

Buffy didn't want to be in perpetual pain while trying to avoid him and what they supposedly shared. She also knew that seeing him just from time to time in order to prevent physical negatives would not work well.

Her mind rebelled against this dead end, this wall that had been put up. It blocked her options. It made Buffy realize that she couldn't get out of whatever it was that had them both ensnared, but instead, only avoid the trap for so long.

Her future had been dished out and set in front of her, and she didn't want it. Yet in reality, she did, just not consciously. "I don't like you," she said, vulnerability she hated to hear coming from her own mouth laced between the syllables in those words. "You're arrogant, pushy, and you're evil.

He stilled, a frown abruptly falling onto his handsome face. "How do you figure?"

"You told me to read; I did." Matter of fact yet still avoiding his eyes, she frowned as a shiver tiptoed across her shoulders and knees. "I learned about your kind. Vampires." When she said the word, he flinched, and Buffy recognized the icy tone she had used to pronounce it. "You've probably done tons of awful things."

He didn't reply, at first. Buffy heard the words repeat themselves, and noted the childish accusation she felt laid within them. Somehow she already knew, in another way besides simple deduction and the likelihood of it, that he was a killer. She knew he'd tortured victims and drained them of all their blood, while family members watched. She knew he'd done worse than anything she could ever imagine on her own. But that was the claim verifying; she wanted him to admit to it.

Another thing the claim verified, in a way she didn't even want to begin to question, was the reply he gave her. For when he did finally speak, he took a deep inhale first and let it out slowly, something like remorse shining in those too blue eyes. "You're right. But I don't hurt people anymore."

Buffy blinked her apparent surprise away fast, knowing that she should have felt more shocked, and would have if she didn't already have unseen and intangible knowledge that, against her weaker but better judgment, informed her he was not the same evil vampire he once had been.

He caught her confused look, and said, "I'm not going to lie to you, love. You're my mate, and while I still can, I don't want to."

That time, she was really caught off guard.

"I don't kill anymore. If I did... It would hurt you."

"You're immortal," Buffy said quietly, "You're evil." She ignored the burning in her gut that protested, the pounding in her brain that told her to admit she knew he wasn't like all the other vampires in the world. Because she had to know, for sure, rather than place her bets on chance. She wanted the words, so she pressed.

Buffy strode away from him and entered the safety of her kitchen, knowing that he could not enter without an invitation. "I can't be a part of that," she lied about what she knew again. "I can't... I'd rather die than let someone I'm supposedly connected to kill innocent people. I couldn't live with that."

He stepped closer, seemingly able to see the crack in her armor, despite her declarations, and fearing it might close up. "I'm telling you the truth. I haven't killed, or fed on the living, since I found you." He knew she must be giving him a line to grab, a crumb, some sort of acceptance if she was delivering ultimatums. "I can't."

Before she could ask what he meant, he continued. "Vamps with human mates can't kill people," he explained. "You need to be soulless to accomplish what I do, but being connected to you- a human, with a soul -would harm you. Severely."

Something fell into place, and an invisible breath of relief left her, cathartic to her shoulders; yet more questions arose with the rising of that weight. "Not you?" she asked, slightly confused. "It still wouldn't hurt you?"

"Hurting you, hurts me," he said fiercely, offense nearly ringing like wind chimes in the air. "I'm wired to avoid doing that at all costs."

She didn't know why it bothered her, but along with liberation Buffy suddenly felt disappointed. "You mean," she began, not able to help herself from verifying, "you wouldn't stop because I asked you to, but because you had to?"

Spike paused. His brow crinkled as he studied her, understanding trying to break through while kind consideration hung right on his face. He said, in a voice laced with gentle uncertainty, "You haven't asked me yet."

Buffy looked startled and shook her head. "I wasn't planning to."

His lips pursed and he sighed. "Well then, it doesn't matter."

"Right. It doesn't matter." She looked down. Relief coursed through her veins again, fresh and soothing. He'd given himself, them, her, an out.

"But I've stopped killing, and I'll live off of blood-bags from now on."

She looked up again and ignored the second sensation to hit her, a feeling of gratitude. "You won't have to," she said in a voice full of strain. Her arms crossed over her chest. "We aren't mated."

"We're connected, and sooner or later, we'll make it permanent."

She glared at his stern expression, knowing something she hadn't understood before.

He didn't care if she had another man in her life. He didn't expect anybody else to pose a threat, and he would steal her for himself if he had to. She felt it in her bones and saw it in his eyes. "What if I want to get married someday?"

He took it completely the wrong way and looked at her like she was crazy. To give the guy a little credit, he didn't argue with what he thought were girlish hopes and dreams, but said, "It wouldn't exactly be necessary... the claim is a stronger bond than exchanging rings and all, but if you wanted to we could..."

She cut off his awkward and hesitant offering with a wave of her hand. "Whoa, throwing up a stop sign. I mean, what if I want to get married to a human? Someone not meaning you. What if I wanted kids one day?"

He grabbed her faster than she could blink, lifting her body an inch off the floor while his stare drilled into hers, his fingers wrapped around her arms. He tugged her closer and was so near she had to lean her head back. Buffy scowled as her heart beat faster.

"Nobody else," he growled. There was possessiveness in his eyes that she had never seen directed at her before, and despite everything, a part of her warmed inside. "Besides," he said, and somehow Buffy heard him over the roaring in her ears, "you won't want anyone else now that you have me."

She breathed deeply, narrowing her eyes at his arrogance. "I thought you said love has nothing to do with a claim."

He glowered. "Love, no. Sex, yes. You won't want anybody else touching you. Just like I won't want anyone else laying a hand on me."

She stayed quiet, realizing he wasn't speaking highly of himself or trying to trick her. He was being honest, and cruelly so, because Buffy felt a door close in her mind. Though the loss was not great, it had always been nice to have pathways to follow.

She really felt she'd just signed her name to an unforeseen contract, delivering her soul into someone else's hands.

He finally set her down, but didn't let go. She felt the grip on her arms loosen as his thumbs began rubbing tiny circles into the wool covering her skin. "More to the point, I won't let any other man get near you."

"Wow, caveman much?" Buffy remarked, one eyebrow quirking.

"Oh, right. Since I don't want some pillock touching you, I'm unreasonable."

"Yeah," she said, "considering I'm not your girl to touch or defend."

"Wrong, Goldilocks," he declared, and then he was glowering again.

She wriggled out of his grip, and- Suddenly gasped. It was a frightful noise and she backed up into the island. "You're inside."

Spike looked around him and down at his big boots, the ones that looked so out of place in her neat little kitchen of white and brown. He met her eyes. "It's the claim."

"We're not mates yet!" She shouted, backing further away, putting space between them. "This whole time you've been able to come into my house?"

He nodded, holding up a hand of neutrality as his expression softened. "I never snuck in, just to clarify."

"But you're able to. You're..." She felt real fear course through her blood and this time, it wasn't welcome. She felt her own hands tremble. "I thought- I thought vampires couldn't enter without an invitation."

His brows met in the middle, true worry obvious in his eyes as he tried to calm her down. "Others can't, and won't. But since I'm your mate, or am going to be, the rules are a bit different, love. I'm not going to drain you in your sleep, so there's no need for me to be kept out."

Buffy turned around and ran her fingers through her hair, knocking the loose ponytail out. She passed a big jar of cooking utensils and grabbed the first wooden thing she saw, then faced him again with her weapon at the ready.

He just rose an eyebrow at her. "You going to stir me to death?"

She looked at her giant wooden spoon, and threw it. He dodged the flying object but that didn't even register in her frazzled brain. The clatter of the utensil hitting the tile went unheard. Anger had assaulted Buffy's senses like a harsh splash of cold water. "What is your plan?!" she shouted. "What are you trying to do to me?!"

He rolled his eyes, it was the type that required whole body movement. "I'm not going to hurt you!" He tried to reassure. Want shone clear in his expression, a need for her to understand that he offered promise and devotion. Never pain. "I would never hurt you."

"You already are!" He didn't move, not an inch, but somewhere pain swam within the blue of his eyes and glimmered like a diamond under water. Buffy only felt and noticed what she herself experienced: the sensation of decisions and choice slipping through her fingertips. "You come into my life and decide to take over- You tell me what I can and can't have-"

"You can have anything you want!" he said. "I won't ever hold you back from something you want, Buffy, I vow it."

Her teeth ground, her voice became quieter and as stiff as her spine. "Except for having a life without you, right?"

His jaw locked up and he drew back, standing straight and tall. She watched his Adam's apple bob. Hurt ran across his face and then was gone the next second. "It's the one thing I can't give you."

"So I'm stuck with you." It was a statement, not a question. Resentment weighted down her already shaky voice.

"We're stuck with each other," he clarified, more pain in his eyes that again, was quickly hidden by an expression of granite.

She placed her elbow on the countertop and rested her forehead in her palm, suddenly exhausted. Her heartbeat faltered when she heard him step closer. "Don't."

He stopped. Silence situated in the air for nearly a minute until he said, "I'm going to leave, but I'll be back in a couple days."

She wondered why days mattered, and why he wasn't coming back tomorrow, but she didn't ask. She couldn't form words with her tongue feeling so heavy. The finality of tonight's conversations and yelling had brought her to this sense of inevitability. Buffy didn't believe in the inevitable, and still, something told her that everything was going to change, one way or another. She simply had a choice in when, but not how.

"Buffy?"

"Okay," the woman replied to his earlier statement. "Go. I'll see you later."

He turned around and walked through the doorway. In the middle of closing it off, he turned his head and murmured very quietly, over his shoulder to her, "I'll be good to you."

Buffy didn't answer that, and he didn't expect her to. The monster just closed the backdoor and left the yard, disappearing into the night like a ghost, leaving his words behind like a pathetic shoulder pat. She didn't know that his heart was lighter and, though he understood that she was lost and too far away to reach, her quick "I'll see you later" comment had warmed him thoroughly. Buffy would only realize the acceptance her own words had beheld much later, when she was lying alone in bed.

She fell asleep with crumpled sheets, having the urge to cry but unable to shed even one tear. Her world was changing and she didn't truly know how, or if disaster would come. Yet her senses were all strangely calm.

Her heart, however, had never been more petrified.

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END NOTES:
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