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*** I want to thank everyone who voted for my fic. I can't believe I won and it is a real honor to know that you all are enjoying this story. Thanks! ***

Buffy looked at Spike and gave him pained smile. “Because his wife begged me not to kill the father of her unborn child. It was suppose to be their last mission together and even though I knew what I had to do…I just couldn’t. With the rest of the team’s help we unearthed the sarcophagus and locked him away again. That was my last mission and less than three months later I heard it had all been for nothing. Samantha lost the baby and then she took her own life.”

“I’m not saying what you did was right but I can understand why you made that choice, honey.” Giles told her softly hoping to ease some of the obvious pain in her voice. “It was an act of compassion and I can’t blame you for following your heart.”

“It was an act of guilt not one out of compassion.” Buffy admitted, banishing her father’s illusions of it being a noble act. “After I signed on with the Initiative, Riley and I got involved. I didn’t know he was married until Sam snagged a transfer into our unit nearly three years later. We never told her and when she asked me not to kill him…I thought it was the only way I could make up for what I did to her.”

“You weren’t the one who was married Buffy, so that means your not the one to blame.” Spike told her calmly.

Buffy thought about Sam‘s anguished pleas not to kill him as she brought the blade down near his throat. She had been ready to kill her lover while Sam begged for her only love. “Sure it was, because I was still seeing him when he died. He offered to divorce her as soon as I knew the truth but I didn’t mind being the other woman. He was the kind of guy all girls are supposed to fall in love with and I was no exception. He was my ticket into a normal life and I was prepared to settle down and ignore the fact that our sex life was about as exciting as melting ice-cream. Out of bed he was amazing, someone you could talk to or depend on, but in bed he was only good. When I found out about his wife, it was gave me the fire I had been looking for and none of the obligations. I knew he loved both of us, but I didn’t really love him, just the idea of him. So I should have just stepped back and let her have him and by not killing him, I had my chance to make amends.”

She forced herself to meet Giles eyes. She didn’t care what Hank thought of her but she did care about what Giles thought of her actions. She had known what she doing and if she couldn’t meet his eyes then that proved she was ashamed. She wasn’t but now it was painfully obvious she wasn’t a perfect daughter and the story wasn‘t over yet. “To make matters worse, she and I became friends. During the day I was her best friend but then at night I would sneak away for a quick tryst with her husband. So I think it is safe to say that I deserve whatever happens to me.”

“Bollocks, you weren’t the one who was married. Hate to disillusion you luv, but you’re not the first woman to fall in with a married man. But the real question is would you have started up with him at all if you had know he was married?” Spike asked quickly, uncomfortable for her. He could see how hard it was to admit these things to her fathers but for him it wasn’t that big of a deal. He had fallen for a married bird once and he knew first hand what it was like to find out that they belonged to someone else. No one walked out of that kind of situation unscathed and if this Riley sot had been so perfect, he wouldn’t have lied to get Buffy into his bed, Spike decided, more than willing to blame him entirely.

She didn’t even have to think about it. “No but that doesn’t change anything. I know what I did was wrong but since it is my fault, I owe you an apology Hank. It was unfair of me to instantly assume all of this was because of you.”

“Usually it is, so no harm done.” Hank said with an elegant shrug. After centuries of watching humans, he could clearly see how his choices had affected her. She had been right when she said he had ruined her chance at a normal life but he would do whatever it took to help her find the kind of life she wanted. Whether she liked it or not, he was her father and now was his chance to prove it, he thought to himself. “So how are you planning on dealing with Living Death?”

“I’m going to kill him the way I should have all those years ago.” Buffy stopped and looked at Giles expectantly. “So does anyone have any idea how? I was leaning towards good old fashioned violence but I don‘t know if that will really work.”

“He isn’t immortal, but he is powerful. Jenny and I will try to discover anything else that might be of use to you. Weaknesses and the like.” Giles stopped for a few moments to look at her. She was a strong warrior yet she was so incredibly fragile on the inside that he was constantly amazed by her. He couldn’t condone her affair or condemn her for it but he could put her at ease. “What you did doesn’t make you a bad person Buffy, just flawed and weak like the rest of us. It may be hard to believe but those very things are what make us human. The fact that you can honestly admit to your mistakes, makes me proud of you. In my own youth, I made a lot of missteps and it took me years to admit to them.”

“You’re not disappointed in me?” Buffy asked hesitantly.

“It’s not something I expected of you but it is your life Buffy. You alone must make your way through it and despite your recent revelations, nothing could make me care for you any less.”

Forgetting that Hank was watching and hearing every word, she reached her hand out to Giles on the vid monitor. “Thanks dad.”

Spike noticed the brief flash of pain in Hank’s eyes. She was clearly his one weakness and that was something they had in common. “Hank, could you use your connections to discover anything on him as well?”

“I am already on it. The second I discover anything I will transmit it to you. My entire staff is working the problem and they are the best money can buy, so we’ll know something by nightfall.” Hank told him, carefully avoiding his daughter’s eyes. He didn’t want to see the love she held there for Giles and he had no right to expect to see it there for him. Someday, he hoped he would but until that day nothing mattered but keeping her safe.

“Thanks Hank,” Buffy said giving him an easy smile. She was far from ready to sign up for a father-daughter picnic but she was slowly warming up to the man who had given her life.

Not trusting his voice, he nodded and clicked off the connection before the first tear left his eyes. I’ll make it up to you baby, he silently vowed before shuffling through his papers and getting to work.

Shortly after Hank broke the connection so did Giles, leaving her alone with Spike. They sat alone a few moments in the uncomfortable silence and then she asked the question that was foremost on her mind. “So what about you…do you still want to give this relationship idea a try?”

“I’m not going anywhere luv and maybe if I tell you that enough, you‘ll finally believe me.” He ruffled his hand through her hair and pulled her close for a tender kiss. She melted against him like wax and he had no doubt that she was satisfied with their sex life…but it didn’t hurt to get a few things straight. “I am going to be the only man who ever makes you burn this way. From now on there isn’t anyone else for either of us.”

She pulled away as if he had slapped her. “I may have slept with a married man but I don‘t cheat on my lovers. I wasn‘t even with anyone else while I was with him even though he went home to Sam every night.”

He shook his head and brushed her hair back off of her face. “None of that matters to me. I ended up in the same situation myself but like you I don’t stray. I didn’t say that because I doubted you, I said it because I wanted you to know that you’re the only one who matters to me. If Riley had mattered you would have never tolerated him being with her. I want to matter to you.”

“She was his wife first, so it was kinda hard to complain.” Buffy teased, hoping to lighten the mood.

He was used to her running away when their conversations became intense, but this time he wasn‘t having it. “A scrap of paper isn’t enough to bind two people together. It takes more than that and even if he wanted you, his love for her should have stopped him. But it didn’t and you didn’t love him enough to fight for him. I’d fight for you luv and that’s what love is all about. That‘s stronger than any piece of paper or band of silver.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand you.” Buffy searched his face, trying to unravel the puzzle before her but nothing seemed to add up. “You are a legendary slayer but you have the heart of a poet.”

“I lead with my heat Buffy, it’s one of my strengths and something tells me it’s one of yours as well. My sister and I grew up in one of the homeless centers in England. Our parents dropped us off one day and headed off to a life without children. Dru’s always been special and my snooty parents thought she was an embarrassment to their perfect gene pool.”

He snorted and pursed his lips. “Originally they intended to keep me, being the heir apparent and all but I refused to leave her. When I turned eighteen I became her legal guardian. At the time she was sixteen and I was working several jobs to earn enough money to pay the rent and keep us from starving. Two years later they died, leaving me enough money to last us both several lifetimes. I moved to a flat in New York hoping to give Dru a fresh start. One day she went out to paint in the park across the street and she was attacked by a rogue shifter. I waited for the local slayer to bring her attacker down but after a month it was still out there while she was in a shifter complex trying to adjust to her newfound beast. I became a vampire to give her some justice.”

“But didn’t you know that vampires and lycans don’t get along? The beast and the demon feel compelled to fight for dominance if they are contained in the same space for any period of time. Why not just become a lycanthrope?”

“I wasn’t about to become the same thing that had nearly killed her. But I didn’t know about the nature of the relationship between the two. Luckily Dru’s powers grew with the change and she has absolute control over her beast. She is nearly one-hundred and seventy five years old but she doesn’t appear a day over twenty, which is why most people assume she is a vampire. Everyone knows that lycanthropes age slower than the average human but I think her other powers are helping to amplify the inherit abilities of the wolf. But she now spends ninety percent of her time in a world that others can’t see and the rest of the time she is completely lucid and in this world.” He broke off for a moment, overcome by emotion and reached out to take her hand. “She’s trapped in between worlds just like you and I.

“You’re to strong to be trapped anywhere Spike.” She brushed her hand through his curls, like you would when you were comforting a small child. “The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it, but you have. I refuse to believe that fate alone defines who we are inside. Every choice and every action can re-write the story of our lives. I alone will decide where I want to be.”

“Where is that pet?”

“Right here in your arms.” She slid off of her seat and glided onto his lap. She kissed her way down his neck, letting the taste of his skin chase away the bitter recollections of their pasts.

She could lose herself in his body, the finely honed angles of his chest and the sharp lines of his hips pressing against her thighs. It was so easy, almost like she could slip out of her skin and find solace beneath his. She didn’t consider herself the kind of woman he needed to be protected or sheltered but she found his innate ability to soothe her oddly erotic. He made her feel safe in a world determined to destroy her and it was something she never knew she wanted to feel.

Stunned, she met his eyes and was unsure of what would happen next.





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