Chapter Nine:

"You don't have to do this." Spike's voice was tight, vowels clipped and consonants half-strangled, always a sure sign that he was upset.

"Yeah, I really do," Buffy said, taking a few involuntary steps towards him. He'd retreated as far as he could and still be in the same room, and the loss of him had left her feeling tense and off-kilter, like her inner equilibrium had been skewed a few degrees.

He didn't back away from her approach, but he wasn't exactly running to meet her, either. "Not yet," he said stubbornly. "We've plenty of time left."

Buffy nodded pointedly at the sun streaming in through the broken window. "Liar." She smiled to take the sting out of the word. "It's been light for hours. You gonna tell me you couldn't smell when the sun rose?"

"I can smell something, all right." He was coming towards her now, defiantly naked, having refused to get dressed when she did. He looked impossibly white in the stark morning light, the pale perfection of his skin shining almost iridescent, like a pearl. "Fear. You're not ready."

"That's just leftover Polgara parts," Buffy said, her smile broader, more cajoling this time. "I think you missed a few spots." There wasn't even a glimmer of response from him. His usually mobile features were set in a broody scowl that reminded her of another vampire who specialized in difficult morning afters. Her smile faded. "You knew it was coming, Spike. That I was gonna have to do this, sooner or later."

"Let it be later, then. We could skive off for a couple of days--humanity can survive without you that long." His tone was softer, not quite pleading, but close. "I've still got the DeSoto stashed over in the warehouse district--we'll drive up the coast, find someplace quiet." He'd closed the rest of the distance between them and was reaching out to her, pushing back her now hopelessly tangled hair and cradling her head in one cool hand. Buffy leaned into his touch almost gratefully. "Two days, Buffy," he whispered. Strong, sure fingers slid down and began to massage the tiny, taut muscles at the nape of her neck. She sighed softly, feeling all that raw inner tension ease into a warm, gooey contentment that reached all the way to her toes. "Two days away from the stench of the Hellmouth, away from . . . everything. We'll both be the better for it."

It had been Buffy's sad experience that running away never made anything better. Still, Spike's offer was more than a little tempting, and not just because he was currently turning her to marshmallow fluff with one practiced hand. Mystic desert meetings and heavenly dimensions aside, it had been a long time since she'd been anywhere but Sunnydale. And it had been even longer since life in the little town on the big evil had been anything but daily tedium punctuated by the occasional terror or tragedy. She'd like to get out of here. More to the point, she'd like to get out of here with him, to climb into that awful old deathtrap with her demon lover and gleefully watch the stupid "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign fade to nothing in the rearview mirror. There were places where the Slayer and William the Bloody wouldn't be seen, spots up around Big Sur you'd swear not even God could find.

The two of them, sitting on a rocky, isolated beach with only the stars for company, watching moonlight dance over the inky nighttime waters of the Pacific. She's in his arms, held as securely as a turtle is held by its shell, and his lips are against her ear, naming all the constellations for her in his dark caramel voice. His cold, pale form looks hard and bright as platinum in the spectral light, but the hands roving over her body are soft, just like the voice in her ear is soft. She knows that she can fall asleep right now and he will watch over her until the sun rises. Or, she can turn around and take him right here, fill her eyes with the glow of gleaming white flesh against gleaming white sands while he fills her up, makes her cry out her rapture into the bloodless face of the moon. . .

A little dazed, Buffy shook her head to clear the images, which had descended on her with all the force and clarity of a vision. She made a slight retreating motion, trying to conceal the sudden, aching hunger the fantasy had stirred, but it was too late: Vampires smell lust as easily as fear or sunrise. Spike closed in, eyes gone dark with need, and kissed her like he was going to devour her from the mouth down. And that was all it took for the warmth inside her to boil into a scalding heat. Buffy gave a half-smothered moan and pulled him close, running her hands down the smooth s-curve of his spine and grasping the tight globes of his ass, while the reasonable portion of her brain was pleading like an Enron executive, telling her that this was no way to get a grip on the situation.

Then his searching mouth left hers, cool lips gliding down, down over her neck until they reached the two fresh marks right above her pulse, and his tongue began gently tasting the wounded flesh, exploring the still-tender slits. And it all came rushing back, how it felt last night when he wasn't gentle, how it was when he put those marks on her, and all reason was drowned in a red wash of want. It was too late to find higher ground, too late to think about anything but the feel of his mouth on her skin. It'll be hours before I touch him again, she thought desperately. Maybe days. A few more minutes now won't hurt. . .

Yeah, you enjoy those few minutes, Buff, the cynical voice inside her head, the one that always sounded so much like Faith, answered. 'Cause when your friends come busting in here looking for you and see this, see everything, you'll be touching his dust. Think it'll hurt then?

And as suddenly as it had gathered the drowning tide receded, hot desire pushed back by chill fear. With one sharp, swift motion Buffy twisted out of his arms and backed away, putting a prudent six steps between their bodies. "Stop it, Spike," she said in a voice that wasn't nearly as steady as she would have liked. Wrenching herself away from him had been like tearing the bandage off a seeping wound. "Please don't make things harder."

"Too late for that, love," he said, eyes flicking downwards, to where the effect of their collision on him was glaringly obvious. His mouth quirked into a smile, but this time she was the one who couldn't respond. She knew that schoolboy smirk, remembered it from a half-dozen confrontations that made her blood run cold to think of now. It was the expression he wore when he was at his most insanely reckless, when he was treading on paper-thin ice and jumping up and down for the pleasure of hearing it crack. Buffy saw then that despite the sulks and seductions of the last half-hour, he understood perfectly well why she had to leave. Hell, he was the one who'd brought home the harsh reality of the situation to her a few hours ago. But that mad, rash streak in his make-up, that part of him that dared daylight and danced with slayers, was now pushing him to defy her friends and damn the consequences. It was part of the riddle which was Spike that he could have both the wisdom to see what a powder-keg they were sitting on, and the stupidity to strike sparks at every opportunity. The realization was enough to make her cry from sheer frustration, but there was no more time for hysterics.

"Yeah, it is too late," she said tiredly. Fingers shaking, she adjusted her collar, pulling it up to her throat and arranging her tousled tresses over it. "I can't put this off any longer. I have to go home." With weary resolution, she turned and headed towards the door, but Spike, moving with an eerie inhuman speed she'd never seen him use before, got ahead of her and blocked the way out. She stopped on the top stair and regarded him resentfully. He was going to make it hard, and she didn't have the time or the heart for another round of slap-and-tickle. Before she could do more than glare at him, however, he spun around and threw the door wide, moving in another sudden blur of motion to avoid the bright morning rays that flooded into the gloom. He indicated the exit with a courtly, mocking wave of his hand. The impish grin was still on his face, but there was an edge to it now.

"Go on then. Be about your business." His voice held a jeering note she hadn't heard since before Glory's last stand. "But I wager you're back by sundown."

Raw and drained as she was, Buffy was in no mood to be baited, especially by him. For a second she felt a flash of the old fierce malice, the familiar urge to knock that smug smile off his lips, if she had to draw blood to do it. "How do you know I want any more of this?" She made a vague, sweeping gesture, indicating his pale, bare body, the dusky crypt, the whole crazy dark carnival of their strange connection. "Once I'm gone, what makes you think I'll ever come back?"

Instead of flinging back the lewd suggestion or defensive insult she'd expected, Spike went momentarily silent. His face was very still, eyes opaque with the inscrutable look she knew meant he was weighing something heavy in that clever, contrary brain of his. His answer, when it finally came, was almost anticlimactic.

"You always do."

********

Spike was right about one thing. I am so not ready for this.

Buffy sat hunched on the cold stone steps of her back porch, listening to the pleasant hum of voices coming through the open kitchen window, trying to gather her resolve.

After the high-drama with Spike first thing, the rest of the day had looked pretty simple: engage in precisely two minutes of mindless morning chit-chat with the first housemate encountered, thereby reassuring all interested parties that everything was on the up-and-up. Then, make a graceful exit upstairs to scrub off the assorted fluids now dried to a crack glaze on various parts of her epidermis, before collapsing in bed to, if she were lucky, hibernate until Spring. Upon arriving home, however, the sight of Xander's car parked in the driveway had informed her that, as usual, her simple plans were going to prove more complicated than she'd expected.

Her next thought had been an unnerving one: that after their conversation last night, Tara had told the rest of the tribe about the situation, and they were now holding a pow-wow to decide how to deal with their chief's latest catastrophe. The idea of facing the combined grief, guilt and good intentions of her friends and family in one fell swoop had almost been enough to make her turn right around and find out just how far and fast Spike's DeSoto could go. But she'd held onto her presence of mind long enough to sneak around the back of the house and eavesdrop at the open window, and, after a couple of tense minutes, discovered from the cheerful tone of the conversation and the overpowering scent of fried foods that there was no need to head for parts unknown just yet. Tara had, as she'd hoped, had the courtesy not to go blabbing about the spell snafu to the other Scoobies behind her back. This wasn't a strategy session, this was breakfast--quite a breakfast, by the smell of it. Willow must be feeling better and shaking off excess guilt by rattling those pots and pans.

Buffy laid her head against the rough wooden railing and sighed deeply. The knowledge that her friends were currently eating eggs instead of crow had made her feel only marginally better. The raw anxiousness from earlier that morning had grown steadily worse during the long walk home, until now it felt like all her cells were humming like high-tension wires. Her head throbbed and her stomach roiled and she didn't even like to focus on what was happening south of that. All she wanted to do, after some much needed hygiene time, was to lay down somewhere dark and quiet until her body decided to forgive her for the last twenty-four hours. Playing shiny happy Buffy for the whole gang during Sunday brunch wasn't a rosy prospect.

But since the untimely demise of the Bot had left her without a body double to perform this sort of unpleasant social duty, there was no point sitting here any longer. With another heavy sigh, Buffy hauled herself up and, squaring her shoulders and pasting what she hoped was a convincing post-patrol smile on her face, opened the back door.

As she'd anticipated, Willow, dressed in fuzzy pink pajamas and looking pale but otherwise normal, was standing at the stove, surrounded by enough many and varied breakfast dishes to satisfy an entire Initiative platoon. Xander, Dawn, and Anya were clustered around the center island with plates piled high, talking a mile a minute while trying to do justice to the witch's culinary excesses. It was a happy, homey scene, with the sun shining in through the checked curtains, the smell of butter and fresh-squeezed orange juice in the air, and her nearest and dearest looking up at her with warm, welcoming smiles on their faces. The picture would have tugged at Buffy yesterday, but this morning she felt oddly unmoved by it.

"Hey, there she is," Xander said around a mouthful of huevos rancheros. "Where ya been, Buff? We were about to start sending out search parties."

Buffy glanced at the clock. 10:06--damn. It was even later than she'd thought. "Oh. . .well. . .on the way home this morning I ran into a pack of, uh, Gavrok demons partying down at Peaceful Acres. What with the slaughter and the tidying up I guess I lost track of time."

"I thought Gavroks were solitary nocturnal hunters," Willow said puzzledly, handing Buffy a glass of juice.

Shit. This is what happened when you spent the walk of shame brooding instead of getting your story straight. "Oh. . .well, they must've lost track of time, too," she said, fiddling nervously with the rim of her juice glass. "You know how ever since Starbucks started with the quadruple espresso shots the nightcrawlers in Sunnydale have suddenly gotten all perky," she concluded rather lamely.

"Damn demons. No respect for office hours," Xander remarked sympathetically. "You know, it's for just this sort of thing that a hard-working servant of good like yourself deserves to be compensated."

"Xander. . ." Willow said warningly, shaking her spatula at him.

"Oh, c'mon, Will," Xander replied. "Giles said he'd be stuck in committee till the wee hours, London time. You don't think he'd want her to wait till tonight to find out the good news?"

"There's good news?" Buffy said with some disbelief. "How did that happen?"

"The Council's meeting happened," Dawn piped up. "This is so cool!" She gave an excited little wriggle as she sliced into a thick stack of waffles.

"I guess there's no sense not telling you everything now," Willow said, throwing the other two a reproachful look. "Giles called about an hour ago and told me the Council had met this morning--well, their morning--and they've finally agreed to give you a salary. And you won't believe how much it is!" She grinned broadly and named a figure that made Buffy's eyes widen. "That's not even including the medical benefits."

"I can't believe it," Buffy said slowly. "Giles said yesterday they weren't anywhere near a decision yet."

"Oh, he just didn't want to get your hopes up in case the decision didn't go your way," Willow replied. "But his little plan last night worked like a charm. Better than a charm would have worked, probably."

"Plan?" Buffy said dubiously. "I thought Mr. Life-of-the-Party was busy doing the 8-track flashback with his Oxford buddies last night."

"The party was the plan," Xander said, helping himself to more bacon. "One of the buddies was a Council member with swing vote on the salary thing. Ole Ripper was able to take him aside and make him see the error of the Council's cheapskate ways."

"It's hard to imagine Council members having friends," Willow said thoughtfully as she stirred more pancake batter. "I always thought they were like, you know, monks. Monks without friends."

"Apparently after four hours of classic rock and Cuervo shots they get a whole lot friendlier," Xander said with a knowing grin.

"Giles was even able to snag you an expense account, you know, for costs incurred in the line of carnage?" Dawn put in. "So next time a big scaly thing bleeds slime all over one of my shirts you borrowed, the Council's gonna have to pay me back for it."

"Speaking of blood, are you okay, Buffy?" Anya asked, speaking for the first time. She had looked up from her Denver omelette and was surveying the Slayer critically. "You're looking slimier than usual this morning."

Buffy gave a startled little jerk. Even discounting Spike's theatrics, getting dressed this morning had been a bit of a challenge. The tank top she'd been wearing during the confrontation in the cemetery had proved a hopeless, stinking mess fit only for burning, which the vampire, wrinkling his hypersensitive nose, had vowed to do as soon as possible. Her thick cotton sweatshirt, which had been torn off during their sparring session, had emerged wrinkled but relatively unscathed, but the same couldn't be said for the matching sweatpants. Borrowing something from him had been out for obvious reasons, so she'd finally had to make due with pulling on the slightly musty sweatshirt and hoping nobody noticed that from the thighs down she looked like a Jackson Pollock print. Obviously, it hadn't worked. Buffy fingered the hem of the huge top nervously, making a conscious effort not to tug her collar up further. "Don't worry, none of it's mine," she said with a jittery little laugh. "Those Gavroks are juicy suckers."

"All right! Looks like the Council's in hock to the Slayer already," Xander said, rubbing his hands together greedily. "Let the creative accounting begin."

"So if we're not poor anymore, I guess I'll be getting an increase in my allowance? I mean, I've got expenses, too. Like concert tickets?" Dawn said, with a meaningful glance at her sister.

"We'll see," Buffy said vaguely, staring into the pulpy depths of her glass. There was no way she was getting into fiscal negotiations with Dawn in her current state, which was quickly degrading from slightly indisposed to downright lousy. The sun coming through the window seemed to be stabbing directly between her eyes, making her whole head throb like a rotten tooth, and her stomach was turning slow cartwheels from the thick yellow smell of grease coating the air. She could sense the others looking at her eagerly, expecting her to be excited or triumphant or at least relieved at the good news, but all she felt was strung out. Hoping it would ease the queasiness a little, Buffy took a sip of juice and tried to comb her woolly thoughts for the appropriate sentiments. "Well, this is great," she said finally, praying she sounded livelier than she felt. "It's nice to know I won't be having to ship Dawnie off to the sneaker sweatshop after all."

"An after-school job? You gotta be kidding," Dawn said disgustedly.

"Wait, we haven't even told you the best part yet," Willow said, setting down the batter bowl and crossing her arms smugly. "Get this--Giles negotiated a lifetime contract. So they can't ever pull any of that annual evaluation crapola on you like they did last year."

"A life contract." Buffy repeated slowly.

"That's right."

"As in, for the rest of my life?"

"Um, yeah," Willow replied, her forehead wrinkling slightly. "They're committed until you. . .well, for as long as you're the Slayer."

"Till death do we part, huh?" Buffy said, losing it altogether and bursting into hysterical giggles. The thought of those stuffed shirts at the Council being obligated to keep her in shoes for all of eternity was just too much this morning. She laughed and laughed, until her face hurt and her eyes teared up. Every time she thought she was calming down, she'd picture Quentin Travers in a wheelchair and a beard down to his knees shuffling through a stack of her Bebe receipts and that would set her off again.

Finally, after a few moments, she got a hold of herself enough to wipe her eyes and take another sip of juice. She looked up from her glass to find her friends staring at her like she'd just sprouted antlers. Big, slimy antlers. Willow and Xander exchanged a quick, careful glance that made Buffy's antic humor fade as quickly as if they'd bleached it.

I can't do this, she thought wearily.

"I believe the Slayer has become giddy with hunger," Xander said after a brief, uncomfortable silence. "Get the woman some breakfast, Will."

"Coming right up," Willow said a little too cheerily. "What'll it be, Buffy?" Using the spatula as a pointer, she indicated the piles of goodies heaped on the counter next to the stove. "We've got eggs and potatoes any way you want, plus bacon and sausages, plus pancakes and these great sticky buns that Xander brought. Or if none of that sounds good I could make you something else. Dawn ate the last of the waffles but if you give me a few minutes--"

"No, thanks, just juice is fine," Buffy said quickly, another slick of nausea coating her insides at the thought of ingesting any part of what she'd been smelling for the last five minutes.

"But you have to eat something. This is a celebration feast," Willow said in that same too-chipper tone. She smiled, her sweet, wheedling Willow smile, the one that always made her look soft and harmless as a baby seal. The sight of it set Buffy's already aching teeth on edge.

"To celebrate what? That I'm not a loser, or that you're not a crackhead anymore?" she shot back before she could stop herself.

"Buffy!" Xander said sharply.

Willow's coaxing smile collapsed, eyes going huge and wounded as a kicked spaniel's. Buffy glanced around and noticed the others were looking at her like she now had a pitchfork and a jaunty tail to go with her new horns. Crap. She mentally took a deep breath and tried to recoup.

"Sorry, bad joke," she said, not really feeling sorry at all, but realizing it probably wasn't a good idea to advertise that fact to the room at a large. "Must be the low blood sugar talking. Maybe I will have something."

"Okay," Willow said flatly, all the nursery brightness gone from her voice. "Name your poison."

Buffy took a look at the assembled dishes on the counter. Right now, it all seemed about as appealing as actual poison would have been. "Pancakes," she said after half a minute, figuring they were less likely to induce projectile vomiting than the other choices. "Pancakes are fine." Willow nodded wordlessly, big hurt eyes gone narrow with a searching look Buffy didn't like at all. Double crap. While her friend was fixing her a plate, she mentally groped around for something less Cordelia-like to say.

"How are you holding up, Will?" she asked at last. The words tasted as fake and stale as old margarine. She put a hand on her friend's shoulder to up the freshness factor.

Willow stopped what she was doing and just looked at her, that careful, concentrating expression still on her face, as if she were weighing both the question and the gesture on some inner sincerity scale. Buffy met her gaze as calmly as she could, trying to call up a reasonable facsimile of the concerned look she'd worn when they'd sat together on a cold bathroom floor about a thousand years ago. It must have been more convincing than her words, because after a moment Willow's face cleared. "I'm better," she replied softly. Then her lips curled into a self-deprecating smirk. "Holding everything down, finally. After you left yesterday I went to bed and slept for like twenty hours and when I woke up this morning, poof!" She made a sharp, wand-like movement with the spatula. "The shakes and sickies were gone, just like that."

"Just like that, huh?" Buffy dropped her hand.

"Yep--I feel normal today. Don't think there's going to be any long-term effects." She handed Buffy a plate piled high with perfect golden circles.

"Good for you," Buffy said tonelessly. Clutching her still half-full glass of juice, she took the pancakes and sat down before she could give in to the sudden, overwhelming urge to fling them back in the witch's face. As she began grimly pouring apricot syrup over her flapjacks, Anya turned to her with her sunniest smile.

"Congratulations on your return to the middle class, Buffy."

"Um, thanks."

"I hope you will keep your new financial stability in mind when choosing a wedding present for Xander and me. He insisted we put a few cheaper items on the registry for his more impoverished friends and relatives, but now you'll be able to get us something we actually like."

"Does that mean you don't really want the E-Z Can?" Dawn said, looking worried.

"No, no, that's right at the top of our wish list. Anya and I anticipate needing easy access to many cans during our married life together," Xander replied hurriedly, shooting Anya a warning glare. "So, An, any word on the flowers yet?" he said, hastily changing the subject.

"Yes--good news. Azmodius at Fleurs du Mal informed me yesterday that this long before the ceremony, there should be no problem switching from roses to lilies as our keynote flower."

"Azmodius?" Xander scowled as he dug into a mountainous pile of home fries. "You know, I'm so not loving that half our wedding is being brought to us by the Dark Side of the Force."

"Xander, many of these vendors have been loyal customers of the Magic Box for years. If we don't give them our business in return, we could lose their patronage. And we have college funds for the children to think about."

Xander paled a little at that last statement, but continued doggedly. "I just worry when I hear things like the restaurant catering our reception is owned by monsters who eat people."

Anya rolled her eyes impatiently. "The Ano-Movic tribes haven't partaken of human flesh since the Middle Ages, and even then it was only for ceremonial purposes, and anyway they're giving us ten percent off."

"Well, that changes everything," Xander said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "As long as we get a discount, who cares where the prime rib really comes from?"

"Guess I'll be checking off that vegetarian option on the menu card," Willow said under her breath. Dawn, her face gone slightly green, nodded frantically in agreement.

"Even better, they're providing chair cover rental for free," Anya said happily, continuing as if she hadn't heard the previous two remarks. "Did I tell you all about the linen chair covers? According to Modern Bride, they're the latest thing. . ."

Buffy hit the inner mute button on the rest of the conversation, even less interested now in the details of Xander and Anya's Big Event than she'd been a few days ago. Propping her head in one hand, she picked morosely at her stack of pancakes, which were swimming in the half-bottle of syrup she'd poured over them in her distracted anger at Willow. The result was not appetizing, but she knew she should try to eat something before her continued resistance earned her another one of those group-gropey looks. She resolutely took a bite, trying not to grimace at the cloying sweetness and mushy texture, chewing and swallowing with grim persistence. Three more mouthfuls went down that way, but the fourth seemed to grow bigger with every chew, and she finally had to admit defeat and spit it into her napkin. She looked around quickly to see if anybody had noticed, but the others were apparently too deep in a heated discussion of a DJ versus a live band for the reception to further comment on her lack-of-eating habits.

Buffy set down her fork and gazed sullenly into the soggy landscape of her plate, feeling her pulse pounding like a ball peen hammer against the sides of her skull, beating in time with the sick churning in her stomach. Crooking her hand over her eyes, she tried to partially shield herself from the merciless sunlight, which seemed determined to punch through her squinted eyelids like a laser pointer and flash-fry her corneas. She squeezed her other hand into a fist inside the dangling sleeve of her sweatshirt, making a desperate, futile effort to still her overstrained nerves, which were vibrating like guitar strings that had been wound too tight. It was so loud in here, so bright, the varied voices of her friends blending into a meaningless cacophony that grated harshly on her ears, while their faces faded into sinister silhouettes in the encroaching light. The inner wooziness that had plagued her since early that morning was circling further and further out, until the entire room looked not just bright but bent, turning in slow, skewed circles like a warped LP. Round and round and round it went, everything going past harsh and jumbled as a fever dream, until Buffy thought she'd scream from the horrible dizzy wrongness of it all.

I need you, Spike.

The words arose suddenly, like bubbles of calm in the seething chaos inside. Yes, she needed him, needed him to make it all stop, to take the hard, bright, violent world away when living in it became a walking nightmare that never, ever ended--

Keep me from falling this time

Oh God the feel of him

And that's why she's screaming, not from the pain, not even from the pleasure though both are there, but from the sheer rightness of it, the utter delirium of fulfillment, what a junkie feels when the needle slides home, the ecstasy of knowing that what you've needed so badly wanted so desperately is finally yours and its too late to take it back, it's inside you and even if it kills you it's worth it for this one moment of fullness when you've been hungry and hollow for so long--

Then he begins to feed, and Buffy stops screaming, stops because the feel of it is too much for words, too much even for sound, because it's as if he's pierced down into the frozen center of her, that dark congealed place no one's ever been able to reach, and he's drawing out all the pain and rage and fear, draining it, draining her until there's nothing left inside but him him HIM he's flowing through her like quicksilver, cool and liquid and lethal and the feel of it the feel of him is glorious, an icy agony fused so tightly with a searing bliss that she can't tell where one ends and the other begins, all she knows is that she would do anything, anything to make this last, because this is IT, this is what she needed, a feeling that blasts through her senses like radiation and floods to the very core of her, filling her and filling her until she's bursting with it, flying up like a roman candle and exploding into a thousand shining sparks, and it's finally, finally enough.

But still he doesn't stop, still he goes deeper, until great pale flowers are blossoming before her eyes and her head is filling with a soft white noise that smothers all thought, until the frantic beat of her heart grows sluggish and her breath is struggling in her throat like a trapped thing and she knows if he goes any further she won't be coming back. But she is so ready to go, to let oblivion wrap around her like a warm black blanket, and she lets her hands fall away from his shoulders, lets her breath stop and her heart still as everything goes soft and dim. Then she feels a strange, sudden tension in his body, and he's pulling back, slipping out of her, the connection between them breaking with a near audible snap! And if she could move or speak or breathe at that moment she'd cry out at the loss of him. She can hear his voice calling to her, growing sharper, more frantic, feel his hands on her shoulders shaking her roughly, but it's as if it's all happening to someone else who is very, very far away. The gentle light surrounding her begins to fade, diffusing into an easy darkness she dimly recalls from a place she can hardly bear to remember, and she gives into it gladly, her eyes drifting slowly shut. . .

And then something inside her rebounds, like a spring that's been pulled too far recoiling with dangerous speed, and the warm dark nothingness inside her is suddenly overflowed by a red-gold surge of scorching energy that seems to come from deep inside her chest, as if her heart had burst into flame. The energy flows out, out, out, crushing the deadly flowers blooming before her vision, clearing out the buzzing white noise in her head, jolting through her languid limbs like an electric shock. She sits bolt upright, eyes flying open, the world snapping back into a focus so sharp it's like she's seeing everything in four dimensions. She takes a deep, tidal breath and fixes her gaze on the creature in front of her, who is still clutching her shoulders and staring at her with an expression of bewildered awe. Seen with her too-clear eyes, he seems gaunt and tired, bleached hair sticking up in odd curlicues all over his head, the lost look on his pale features making him look fey and strange and all of about twelve years old. In that moment of absolute clarity, he is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

She smiles and touches his face gently, as if to smooth away the shock, and feels a moment of soft astonishment when she discovers that his skin is almost human temperature, is still warm with borrowed life. He covers her hand with his own and opens his mouth as if to speak, struggles for a moment, but can't seem to get any words out. And she realizes with an even greater astonishment that she has done what no other being, demon or human, has accomplished in 120 years: she's struck William the Bloody speechless. Her smile turns into a grin, and a little bubble of laughter wells up from the warm gold brightness inside her, and then he is grinning back, not the sly smirk she's used to, but a true smile, an expression so seldom on his face before tonight but one she vows to inspire more often, because he's so stunning in this rare instant of happiness it doesn't even matter that his teeth are still stained scarlet. A new spurt of emotion, which she hasn't experienced for longer than she wants to think about, swirls into the lightness inside, and it's partly joy, and partly peace, and partly something she doesn't want to name because she didn't think she could ever feel that again for anyone, especially not him, and she's half-afraid to say it even to herself, so she lets it go for now and just enjoys the view.

She notices then that there is other redness on him besides what's still painting his mouth, that she's drawn new lines on his shoulders in the midst of her rapture, deep crimson scratches that glisten in the uncertain light. She is so overcome with this heady rush of feeling that she wants to take care of him, to lick the wounds clean, to swallow down his salty essence and then twine herself around him like a great sleek cat, to curl up with him in the warm darkness like the two lovely, dangerous beasts that they are. She makes a small movement forward, but Spike is quicker than she is and he's kissing her, reclining them both back onto the ruined sheets like the hero in one of those movies she makes fun of but secretly loves. And it feels different from his usual anxious, aggressive style, a kiss as soft and sweet and eager as the boy William must have been all those years ago. But its flavor is familiar, blood and ashes and old, old darkness, the tang of the demon, the taste of Spike.

He breaks the kiss and looks deeply into her eyes, and his gaze is somehow different, too. It takes her a moment to figure out what it is, but then it hits her. The starved look in his eyes, the insatiable hunger that's always been there since his return to Sunnydale three years ago, is gone.

"This thing of ours, it cuts both ways," he says softly, in a voice as lush and dark as the blood staining his shoulders. "You're mine, Slayer."

And that's when it hit her: a shudder of longing so intense it was a physical pain, beginning in her throat and reverberating downwards until it crashed into the pit of her belly, making that already queasy organ clench like a hot, slick fist. The shock of it startled her off the stool, her hands flying to her stomach in an instinctive, protective gesture, in the process knocking her juice glass off the island and sending it crashing to the floor. It shattered into a thousand pieces on the hard ceramic tiles, spraying liquid and glass splinters everywhere. Buffy sank to her knees in front of the overturned stool, arms still clutching her middle, but the pang had stopped as suddenly as it appeared. She stared dazedly at the spreading puddle on the floor, watching the fragments of glass twinkling in the sunlight.

You could feel it just then, couldn't you?

". . .okay? Jesus. . ."

The wrongness.

". . .happened? Buffy!"

She could hear movement around her, a confused babble of voices flying over her head, and then there were big, warm hands on her shoulders, shaking her urgently. Swallowing hard, Buffy blinked her eyes a few times and tried to focus on the person now kneeling in front of her. It was so like the position she had been in last night that for a minute she's not quite sure she's awake.

"Huh? What?" She asked dazedly.

"I said, are you okay?" Xander almost shouted, his hands still clasping her shoulders like she was a helium balloon prone to floating away. "What the hell happened?"

"Oh." Buffy shook her head, trying frantically to gather her scattered wits in the aftermath of her fugue. It was like trying to think through cotton batting. "Yeah, yeah, fine. Just a, um, cramp." She tried on a smile that felt wobbly as a toddler on rollerblades. "This is what happens when you don't stretch out after a good night's slay." She started to rise, her muscles feeling as shaky as her expression. Xander caught her by the wrists, easing her up gently.

"Careful, there's glass shards all over the floor."

"I'm fine, Xander," Buffy said tightly, resisting the urge to squirm away from his touch.

Xander didn't appear to be listening, however. He'd released her left wrist but kept hold of her right, and was now pushing back the overlong sleeve of the sweatshirt, which had covered her hands to the first joint up to now. Buffy tried to pull away but it was too late: he'd already exposed the careful layers of bandaging swathing her injured hand. There were stiff, rusty-brown splotches scattered all over the formerly snowy fabric--some of last night's more strenuous exercises with the Spike must have reopened the wounds.

"You gonna tell us this isn't your blood, either?" Xander asked in a too-quiet voice.

Buffy snatched her hands out of his like he was contagious. "You know, nothing like a horde of overcaffeinated hell beasts to ruin a girl's manicure," she replied, laughing to try to cover the guilty twitch, but the sound came out as jagged as the glass littering the floor. She glanced around nervously, and saw four faces turned to her with the same dangerous questions in them.

"I'm fine," Buffy repeated querulously. "There's nothing wrong with me that a hot bath and a nap won't cure." Which might or might not be true given what had just happened, but she wasn't going to puzzle that out standing here with her friends looking at her like they were about five seconds away from getting out the butterfly net and the big canvas shirt with stylish wrap-around sleeves. The thought made her suddenly self-conscious, and she pulled the long sleeves of her sweatshirt back down with a quick, jerky movement, covering the gory evidence of last night's activities.

Xander just went on gazing at her hands, like he could still see the bloody bandages through the heavy cotton cuffs. "Nice field dressing. Whoever patched you up knew what he was doing," he said almost casually.

Buffy recoiled like she'd been stung, a fear as cold and sharp as an icicle penetrating the thick hot fuzziness inside. He raised his head and met her gaze then, the serious look in his brown eyes belying his careless tone. The silence in the room was suddenly as thick and heavy as the smell of grease in the air. Buffy searched her brain frantically for another glib explanation of everything or anything, but there was nothing in her head now but paralyzed fear. It felt like there were sharp edges everywhere, and if she said or did the wrong thing she'd cut herself to ribbons on them.

Don't explain then, practical-cynical voice spoke up. Shut up and get out of here before you fuck this up any worse than you already have.

As usual, the voice was right. Maybe running away didn't make things better, but sometimes hanging around could be a helluva lot worse. The time had definitely come for the graceful exit upstairs. Or, given the last few minutes, the painfully awkward exit upstairs. In any case, an exit. "I'm sorry," she said, not sure what she was apologizing for but figuring it couldn't hurt. "But it's been a really long night and I'm really beginning to have that not-so-fresh feeling what with the slime and the blood and all so I'm just gonna go take care of that and maybe catch forty winks and. . .okay then." She cut herself off mid-babble and fled the room, knowing she was leaving a big mess behind her--in more ways than one--but not caring. Right then, it was taking every ounce of care she possessed to turn left at the staircase instead of dashing straight out the front door and ending this pitiful charade once and for all.

I wager you're back by sundown.

At this rate, she wasn't going to make it till noon.

********

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