Disclaimer: This chapter contains explicit adult content. Please proceed with caution.

A/N: This chapter has since been through several drafts/revisions, not to mention the changes/suggestions suggested by my betas. I tried something a little different and without exploring it…for two reasons, really.

1) I think I’m going to take an interpretation on Slayer-lore I introduced here and stick it into a WIP I’m outlining (yes, another. Quiet everyone pokes out tongue)
2) This story is more or less complete, and to turn it into something else based on what I introduced would be a vast deviation from what I set out to write…even if it’s something I brought on myself (again, quiet everyone). This isn’t to say I won’t revisit this ‘verse in another prompt fic. I might. But this story is complete.

My endless thanks to Megan, Tami, Mari, ElizaBuffy, and Jenny for being the bestest betas in the whole wide world.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read/review this story. I hope you found it worthwhile. :)

Many, many, many thanks to elizabuffy for betaing this, even after the fact, and making me actually like it instead of merely being “okay” with what I had. snuggles

V

“Spike?”

He lazily opened one eye, attempting and failing to fight off the giddy smile which seemed to be in a permanent state upon his lips. For the first time in years—or ever, truthfully—he was completely relaxed. He was at peace. He was sublimely and incandescently happy. Exhaustion filled his every cell, his skin was a canvass of claw marks, his throat decorated with ardent little lovebites. One would think he’d be accustomed to marks on his neck after all these years, but he honestly had no recollection of being on the receiving end of a hickey. The day had worn away slowly; it had taken hours for them to wear each other into post-coital fatigue. They were currently on their sides, facing each other, Buffy’s leg curled over his. His cock remained buried within her body. Neither wanted to part—the connection of simply lying together was too needed to forfeit.

Whatever Buffy wanted to say faltered at the sight of his grin. Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “What?”

“I din’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

“My face doesn’ talk.” He paused, his brows bunching together contemplatively. “All right, so it does, but—”

“You’re Grinny McGrinny.”

“I’m who?”

“Mr. Grins-Alot.”

“Can’t really blame me, love. Think I’m gonna freeze this way.” He leaned in, his mouth suddenly desperate for a nibble of hers. Of course, nibbles only reminded him of how they’d spent the better part of the day and sent electric shocks to his cock. Shocks she felt, judging by her sharp gasp as he twitched and grew within her.

“This way?” she asked breathlessly, her muscles contracting.

“Oh fuck.”

“And here I thought that’s what we’ve been doing all day,” she retorted, her eyes flashing with challenge. Then, almost as an afterthought, a frown twisted her lips and furrowed her brow. “You think it’ll always be like this? The much sex-having and the…sex-having? ‘Cause I’ve only done the marathon thing once or…once. You spoiled me today.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Buffy, pet…it’s gonna take a long sodding time to wear the bloom off this rose. I’m thinking a few millennia. Even then, we’ll probably jus’…”

He paused and shivered, the hand resting on her hip tightening possessively, drawing her closer. They didn’t even have centuries ahead of them. Millennia were out of the question. And while this knowledge was intuitive, the sudden understanding of what this truly meant was something for which he could have never prepared.

He decided it didn’t matter. If they had forever or—it pained him to think—if they only had today, he’d love her until the sun went out. Until and beyond.

The second she wasn’t here anymore, he wouldn’t be here, either. Simple as that.

Until then—in the many minutes between this one and the end of the road—he’d have to let her know how this was everything. How the simple bliss of holding her in the solitude of his crypt would follow him long after he was dust.

They had forever in some form, anyway. If not this one.

“You went all quiet,” Buffy murmured, raising a hand to his cheek. “Whatcha thinking?”

Spike drew in a sharp breath and met her eyes, a soft smile tugging at his lips. “That I love you,” he replied truthfully, kissing her.

“Liar.”

He arched a brow. “I know you don’t mean that.”

“What?” Her face scrunched up adorably before she favored him with an eye-roll, and though it was at his expense, he absolutely loved it. This was Buffy. Buffy with her eye-rolls and her snippy comments and her blonde-moments. Buffy with her perfect little imperfections. She was in his arms, in his bed, and she’d let him into her body. Into her heart. And here he kept expecting to wake up. “Oh, no, you dope. Believe me, if I take anything from this world, it’s going to be the knowledge that you are of the Buffy-smitten.”

Spike grinned. “Bloody well smitten.”

“It wasn’t what you were thinking, though.”

“Was so.”

She pursed her lips and placed a hand on his chest, gently pushing him onto his back and rolling with him so their bodies didn’t disconnect. The slight movement coaxed a groan from his lips, his cock instantly erect. Spike whimpered and seized her hips. “God,” he purred, lifting her off him if only to feel the tortured bliss of sinking inside her again. “There is nothing in the world better than this.”

“The whole world, huh?” Buffy replied, her own words strangled but not without the teasing edge he adored.

“Been all over the place,” he agreed, tonguing her nipple. “Live as long as I have…”

“I will.”

Spike sighed contentedly, raising his head to fill his mouth with one of her breasts. Every slide of her molten quim around him introduced him to a new level of bliss. Thus it took a few seconds for her words to settle and sink into his blood, then a few more before they triggered some mechanism of understanding. He inhaled sharply and released her breast, his hopeful eyes searching hers. “What?” he whispered. “What did…Buffy?”

A soft, unreadable light fell across her face. “There’s something…I need to tell you.”

Spike held perfectly still, caught in the thin space between planes. There was no reality. His hands held her hips, his cock buried balls-deep inside her, his eyes devoured her eyes. His brain scrambled to piece together some sense of recognition, but none presented itself and he was at a loss..

Especially since in his experience, the concepts never went hand-in-hand. Yet Buffy was in his arms and she loved him.

Anything was possible now.

“When I left,” she continued, gently pushing him back to the bed to put her body out of his mouth’s reach. “When I went…to…to LA…” But then her hips were rolling against his, the pink lips of her pussy slipping up and down his flesh and leaving him drenched with her essence, and his mouth was too busy moaning incoherent nothings to experience a pang of loss. He could lick her nipples later—right now, his hands would do as an adequate substitute.

“Ah,” he hummed encouragingly.

“I didn’t…come…”

His eyes flashed dangerously. “You better not have come. I’ll rip his eyes out.”

“What? Ah—Spike. Ugh. No.”

“Too. Right.”

“I didn’t…come home…immediately.”

Spike had never before appreciated how difficult it was to carry on a conversation when every nerve in his body was humming with pleasure and all he wanted to do was flip her over and pound her into the mattress. For a bloke as old as he, he could definitely add this to a growing list of Buffy-instigated firsts. His efforts should be rewarded; with the way her pussy squeezed him, retaining any of what she said was a triumph.

“You didn’t?” he managed to pant.

She shook her head. “I went…for answers. I went to the…desert.”

That made no bloody sense. He was probably buzzed on being inside her. On the blissful burn which seared through his body every time his slick cock plunged into her wet depths. His eyes were suddenly occupied with the bounce of her breasts again, the tiny devils which teased his mouth and warmed his hands. She was a nymph, and she was squeezing him so tight there was no way he wouldn’t pop for good.

“Desert?” he managed to pant.

Apparently, whatever she needed to say fell to the wayside of pleasure. Buffy’s eyes rolled back and she nodded, barely hearing him, her body bucking feverishly as her tempo increased. “I love this,” she gasped, her teeth grazing her lower lip in a manner which ought to be outlawed. “You…inside…you’re touching…everything.”

He positively burned. “You’re perfect. So perfect.”

“Perfect?” she teased, steadying herself with a hand at his shoulder. “Now there’s a pedestal for you.”

“No pedestal,” Spike argued. The word was ugly and unwarranted. She’d spent too many years on a pedestal, revered for who she was supposed to be and not who she was. Her friends might not mean it, but they did it all the same. The best of good intentions, after all, were the ideal stepping stones to Hell. “You’re perfect…for me, love. Perfect…for me.”

Buffy blinked hard, her hips swirling, crashing, taking him as far inside as physics would allow. Spike blinked and gasped, his eyes directed to the sight of his cock, drenched with her and disappearing inside her body. God, the view alone was going to be his undoing. She swallowed him hungrily and every plunge only made her ride him harder. Her walls hugged him, squeezed him so tight the heavens were bound to fall. There was no question he was right. She was perfect.

“Perfect for me,” he whispered again, sliding a hand down her abdomen until he was caressing her soft, bare mound. Then his fingers were around her clit, massaging her both gently and with desperation he couldn’t hide. “So hot an’ perfect for me.”

“So good,” she moaned. “Oh…Spike…”

“Love you.”

A soft smile brightened her face. “You keep saying that.”

“I’ll always say it.”

“I’ll always want it,” Buffy replied. Then her muscles were contracting around his cock, gripping him so sweetly there was no room for thought beyond the euphoric shudders claiming him. She leaned forward until her breasts were against his chest, the move seating him deeper inside her perfect body. Her mouth consumed his. Swallowing him. Ripping at him with a kiss colored in need he knew intimately, sucking hard on his tongue and licking his lips so desperately, he nearly melted. Her pussy clenched around him, and then she was spasming hard, drenching him and welcoming the flood of his own release.

“Spike…”

He cradled her to his chest. “I’ve got you. Always got you, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” Buffy murmured, kissing one of his nipples. “God. Do you think it’ll always be like that?”

A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Second time you’ve asked me that, pet.”

“Under the circumstances, I think it’s a fair question.”

Spike grinned. “Point. But here I’ll jus’ tell you again: it only gets better from here.”

“Better?”

“This is only the beginning, love. Can’t help but get better.”

She giggled. “Are you saying there’s room for improvement?”

The question didn’t deserve an answer. Didn’t stop him from providing one. “Buffy, you kill me as it is. This is how I’m gonna dust, I guarantee it. Death by shagging.”

“And you want me to kill you more?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “You’re intentionally misunderstanding me.”

She wiggled and his cock twitched within her. “Maybe.”

“The better comes with learning what we like,” he explained, kissing her brow. “What you like…what we like together. I wanna find out everything.”

“I’m not very creative. I think you already know everything I like.”

His fingers trailed down her back, relishing the shivers which followed his touch. “How can I when you don’t even know what you like?”

“I know what I like!”

“You said you didn’t fancy having me fuck your quim with my mouth, either. Think we found out—”

She blushed furiously. “Shut up!”

“You’re so bloody cute,” Spike whispered. “No shame in enjoying being eaten.”

Buffy made a face and shifted so she could properly slap his shoulder. “There is when you say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“All…dirty.”

He chuckled. “Well, it’s pretty messy, love. I—”

“Spike!”

Her protests did little more than make him laugh harder, his body buzzing with renewed lust as she wiggled and subconsciously squeezed him within her. And when her eyes widened in recognition, his heart constricted. She was too adorable for words.

And it turned him on like nothing else.

“Holy crap,” she said breathlessly, lifting herself off his chest, her pussy hugging him so tenderly he honestly didn’t know whether or not it was intentional. “Does that thing have an off-switch?”

“Around you?” Spike replied, smirking, unable to keep himself from pinching her clit and arching deeper inside her. “I gotta focus most my energy on keepin’ from getting hard every time you breathe.”

“Mmmm,” she murmured. This time when she squeezed him, he knew it was intentional. The sparkle in her eyes couldn’t be mistaken. “Why would you wanna?”

He leered. “If I didn’t at least make an effort, you’d be shackled to my bed for the rest of your life.”

“Worse ways to go.”

“Buffy…” Spike inhaled sharply and seized her by the hips again, forcing her movements to a halt and doing his best to ignore her pout. “Keep that up, an’ we’ll end up shagging each other into exhaustion.”

“Not seeing the negative.”

When she said it like that, he had difficulty seeing it as well. Thankfully, his mind stepped up for him. “You need to tell me what you…” His brow furrowed. “Somethin’ about a desert?”

Buffy’s playfulness immediately evaporated. “I didn’t tell you?”

“We got carried away.”

“Oh.” She flushed. “Well…ummm, I didn’t come straight home after LA.”

“I got that much.”

“I needed answers.” She paused, worrying a lip between her teeth. “There…in order to tell you this, I might have to refer to some of the things we talked about last night. The things you didn’t like.”

He nodded carefully. “’S all right. I’ll manage.”

“I know…but I was worried. I think that’s why I wanted to tell you in…while we were…doing stuff.”

Doing stuff. She was too cute for words. He’d never known anyone who could blush after doing what they’d done all morning. There wasn’t an inch of her he hadn’t tasted. Not a sliver of skin his fingers hadn’t touched; not a sacred place on her body his mouth hadn’t worshipped. The walls between them were demolished, and yet she still struggled in putting their sex-life into words.

Her endearing language almost distracted him from the words themselves, or rather, the implication he’d translated in her rambling. However, his guesses with Buffy tended to be on the mark, thus he let his instincts ride this one out. As it was, her words didn’t strike him as too ambiguous: she’d attempted to tell him in mid-shag as a physical reminder that no matter what she said in regards to the past, however recent it was, Spike was who she loved.

God, he hoped that was what she meant.

“When we talked last night,” he murmured, reaching up and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “I didn’t know you loved me. I didn’t think we’d…I never thought you’d be here. That we’d…be together. Not like this. Not with you…loving me.”

She kissed him suddenly, hungrily. “I do,” she murmured against his lips. “I’m here. We’re together. I love you. And if you hear something you don’t like, remember that. I want this thing with you. With you, Spike…I want forever.”

Whether or not she knew the significance of her admission was beyond him. He didn’t have the chance to gape and melt in wonder. Too soon, she slid off his lap entirely, casting him an apologetic look when his cock slipped out of her.

“I went to the desert,” she said again. “The one where Giles took me before I died. Where I learned death is my gift.”

A long, strangled silence spread between him. Air lodged uselessly in his throat, the strain in his chest unmistakably the struggle of his heart against physics. He didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. Didn’t dare move. He needed her to keep talking; he needed her to say anything, lest she see how mentioning her death, even now, could reduce him to a blubbering mess.

“I was confused,” Buffy continued, her eyes distant. “I’d…I’d just seen Angel and, well, you know how that went. When he didn’t give me the peace I didn’t want to admit was a Spike-exclusive, I decided to go where I learned what my gift was. See if she had any answers as to why my gift was rejected.”

Spike licked his lips. “Who, pet?”

“The First Slayer.”

He blinked dumbly. “She lives in the desert?”

Buffy made a face, trying to hide a grin. “No, dummy. She was my spirit guide before I did—well, once before I died. She told me I was full of love and love would lead me to my gift. And she was right…I was…and it did…but then the world demanded a refund and I needed to know why. Why when it was so clear it was supposed…my time was up, Spike.”

“Slayer—”

“I didn’t have a death wish, but—”

“You’re not even twenty-one. That’s not time, pet.”

“It is for a slayer. It was time for me to give my gift. My ultimate gift.”

“An’ death was your gift,” he stated, unsure how he was supposed to react. No one had handed him a script.

“Yeah. I died—I jumped so Dawn wouldn’t.” A weak, heartbreaking smile cracked her lips. “She was going to, you know. She was going to jump. She thought she had to. But it’s my job…the world is mine to protect. I jumped for her. I jumped for you. I jumped for Willow and Xander and Tara and Giles and Anya. It’s my job—my gift to all of you.” She reached for his hand subconsciously, needing reassurance. “But I was…I’m back. And I didn’t…I still don’t understand anything. Not why. Not how. Not why you’re the only person I…Angel didn’t give me the peace I wanted, so I went to the desert. I just needed…I dunno. The bad never stops. I can’t…I can’t stop being the Slayer. And I needed to know why.” Buffy drew up shortly and looked up, conflict raging in her eyes. Yet she met his gaze and softened, leaning in to kiss his lips again. “I love you.”

Spike couldn’t help it; he smiled, a half-sigh, half-laugh tumbling through his throat. “I know, sweet. I love you, too.”

“I just… twenty-four hours ago, I never would’ve thought I’d ever say the words.”

“Right there with you.”

“I fought it. I fought it so hard.”

“I remember.”

She snorted inelegantly. “I would think so—it was yesterday.” A pause. She kissed him again. “The thing is…I didn’t know I loved you when I went to go see her. I didn’t know it, Spike.”

He nodded. “It’s all right,” he said honestly, because it was. He knew what she meant. He knew what she was saying. He knew, and it was all right because she was in his arms, trust in her eyes, and she loved him.

“Did she show?” he asked. “The First Slayer bird?”

“Yes.”

Spike swallowed hard and nodded. “An’ you two traded words?”

“No.” At Spike’s frown, Buffy elaborated, “She showed me.”

“Showed you?”

“She didn’t say a word. She just sat with me. And…” She broke off, trembling. “And I think…I think I just knew.”

“Knew what, kitten?”

Buffy pursed her lips and didn’t respond immediately, her brow furrowing and her hand gripping his. “I think she died, too. And came back. I don’t know how or why…but there was just…understanding.”

“What’s that?”

“I think the next slayer will be called when I’m twenty-five. Or when Faith turns twenty-five.” A small, uncertain smile twitched her lips. “I think…the number just feels right.”

His throat tightened and his eyes watered. Her words hung with mortality, but there was no death in her voice. None of it made sense—a slayer couldn’t be called unless the active bird kicked it. And he couldn’t let Buffy die. Not again. Not when he’d just found her. Not when she was finally his.

But she wasn’t finished talking, so Spike kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t protest. He wouldn’t cry foul. Not yet.

Not, at least, until she stopped speaking.

“The First Slayer never really died,” Buffy continued, her voice soft but certain. “I mean, she was infused with power by men…who took demon power and gave it to her, knowing she had a soul and was good, and would use her power for good. And when she…when she died, she chose who she wanted to give her power to.” She glanced up. “I think she chooses everyone.”

The words surfaced from nowhere. “I thought you said…she died once, but then din’t die? So how’s…that doesn’ figure, pet. Girls can’t be called unless—”

“I’ve died twice now, Spike. When the Master killed me, Kendra was called. And then Faith after Kendra died. We thought it was all so…new, but I don’t think so.” Buffy sighed. “I think it was old. I think it just hadn’t happened since the First Slayer died and then came back. I don’t know how I know this. I just do. She showed me. She sat there and showed me and I knew. When she came back…I don’t know how or why she died, or why she came back. Hell, I might have completely misunderstood her.”

Spike inclined his head thoughtfully. Perhaps it was the strain of wishful thinking against his chest, but experience had taught him mystical mind trips, even unprecedented, tended to put one on the right path. If Buffy had returned from the desert with clarity, he wasn’t about to contest whatever she’d discovered.

This was the world in which they lived, and God knows he’d seen stranger things.

“I don’ think so, love,” he told her, offering encouragement in a tender stroke of her cheek. “If you saw it, you saw it.”

“Yeah, but the powers of Buffy-translation being what they are…”

“This isn’t a Buffy thing,” he clarified. “’S a slayer thing, right? She came to you because you’re the Slayer.”

Buffy bit her lip and nodded, though the frown refused to fade. “She came to me because I went there…to the desert.”

“So you’re saying if I decided to chat this bird up, she’d appear for me, too? Tell me my fortune?” He cocked a brow, grinning when she dipped her head in concession. “Yeah. That’s what you get for arguin’ with me.”

“A sardonic brow-arch?”

Spike chuckled. “Well, I was gonna say logic, but whatever works.” He paused, then leaned over and kissed her brow. “So what happened? The bird kicked it an’ came back? Is that the end?”

“Pretty much…yes…” The silence which followed betrayed her lie, and her face hardened. “Only…in a sense of it not being the end.”

“So, no then?”

Buffy nodded. “No…right. She thought she was free, but a slayer is never free. Never. And she chose what to do with her…she chose. She died once and she didn’t die again. And she chose…maybe not the girl, but the things she wanted the girl to be. We do with the power what we will, of course. The First Slayer can’t make us be anyone other than who we are, but I think she chooses.” There was a beat. “She never died a second time...but she had nothing to hold her here. She…she kind of…became something else. She evolved. She…transcended this world and became something else.”

Several long seconds settled between them. “Yeah, okay,” Spike prompted softly. “Where does the twenty-five come in, sweetness?”

“That’s when it…ten years, I’ll have been the Slayer ten years when I turn twenty-five. Or the moment when my ten years of duty is up. I’ll be done.” His eyes widened and she smiled tenderly, shaking her head before he could protest. “I won’t die,” she promised, squeezing his hand. “But I’ll be done. I think…I think I’ll become like the First Slayer.”

A chill raced down his spine. Spike forced another nod. “Mythic?”

“No. Just…I’ll be someone to guide other slayers. But I won’t be the one to…I’ll be done. I can’t be the Slayer forever if I’m human, and I can’t be completely human if I’m the Slayer.” Buffy exhaled slowly. “She didn’t have anything but her…duty. She didn’t…and she resented it. It’s why she tried to kill me in my sleep.”

Spike blinked. “She what?”

“Long story. It was years ago.”

“She tried to kill you?”

“She was jealous. She didn’t have what I have. She only had the earth.” Buffy met his eyes again. “But I have friends. And I have family. And I have you. I have you to…to keep me here. I don’t just need the earth. Not like she did.”

“Buffy…pet…what are you saying?”

She broke off and cast him an adorably flustered glance. “I’m sorry. Am I being all rambly?”

He grinned. “No. Jus’ don’t wanna break out into my happy dance until you get to the punchline.”

“There is no punchli—happy dance?” Buffy’s brows hit her hairline. “You have a happy dance?”

His insides ruffled with a sense of embarrassment he hadn’t felt since the days of reciting poetry in stuffy old London halls. “Err…no.”

Whatever rush of discomfiture dissipated in a blink. It was hard to be rattled over something which brought light to her eyes. “Oh my God, you so do.”

“Do not…” He broke off with a hopeless laugh. “Buffy, please just tell me—”

“I’m yours.”

Spike inhaled sharply. There was no chance he’d heard her. No matter what the night had given him. No matter what she’d said. No matter anything; he couldn’t have understood. Not what she said. Not what she truly meant. Her words were too wonderful to be taken literally. She couldn’t mean it.

And yet, her eyes told a different story.

“You’re what?” he rasped.

“I’m yours. For…well, kinda ever…if that’s okay with you.” The widening of his eyes and the sputter on his lips evidently did a better job conveying how okay it was with him than he ever could, for she grinned and placed her hand over his mouth before he could intervene with words. “And yeah,” she continued matter-of-factly, “with the wiggins and the mind-numbing fear and the…but I have you, don’t I? I have my friends…and my sister…and I have you. I have you. I’ll just…focus on tomorrow. And the day after that. I’m scared out of my mind, but…there’s something else. There’s…peace.”

He murmured her name against her palm. She grinned and lowered her hand to the mattress, her eyes shining. “Now,” she said, leaning forward and brushing a kiss across his lips. “How about that happy dance?”

Spike wasn’t certain, but something told him the dance to which she referred had nothing to do with tackling her to the mattress and mauling her with hungry, elated kisses.

Though for the way she gasped and held him as he sank inside her, something told him she didn’t mind.

She’s mine. She’s mine. Oh God, she’s mine.

“I’m yours,” she agreed. “As long as you never leave.”

“I’ll never leave,” Spike gasped, kissing her desperately. He would never grow accustomed to her warmth. The way she melted him over and over but only made him harder. She was perfect, his goddess, and she was his.

Mine.

“I love you,” he told her, whispering kisses across her face. “Buffy…”

“I love you, too,” she said softly, and he believed her.

Spike whimpered and buried his face in the crook of her neck, pressing himself into her warmth, his hips pistoning, cock delving into her wet depths with desperation he knew would never ebb.

He would always be hungry for her. Always.

And somehow, she was his forever.

Buffy tossed him an amused glance and squeezed his hand. “And here I could’ve sworn that was my line.”

“’m just saying you don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“This isn’t about proving anything. This is about not hiding.” Her smile was bright enough to light the heavens. “I’m not going to go from the happy place I’ve been at since you found me last night to being all…depress-o girl.”

Spike grinned. “You know there’s a happy medium, right?”

“Not anymore. The world will suffer the wrath of Buffy Pout if I have to keep from touching you.”

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind was a comprehensive list of things he’d never thought he’d ever hear her say. Her voicing reluctance not to put her hands all over him was definitely in the top ten. “Well, you might wanna be prepared for a scream-fest the second they see your hand in mine.”

“They better be prepared to have their asses massively of the kicked if they get anywhere near staking-distance. No one touches the Boyfriend of Buffy.” She paused, then elaborated. “Except for Buffy.”

He chuckled, brushing a kiss across her brow as they turned the corner and rounded on the Magic Box. Admittedly, he’d been thrown off his game when Buffy announced she wanted to drag him to the Scooby meeting. Wearing each other into post-coital exhaustion in the confines of his crypt was one thing; even with words of love between them, having their relationship flaunted in front of her chums was at the very end of his line of expectations.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.

She turned to meet his lips with a kiss. “I love you, too.”

“I love hearing that.”

“You’ll be hearing it a lot.”

They drew to a halt together. The door was ahead. The only thing remaining was to walk through it.

Spike inhaled sharply. “Are you ready, love?”

She smiled and touched a hand to her throat, gently caressing her bite mark. The one he’d given her before they left. Because she asked. Because she wanted this. Because she wanted him.

Because she loved him.

“I’m more than ready,” Buffy told him honestly. “I’m yours.” She rose up on her tiptoes and graced the matching human bite on his throat with a soft, loving kiss. “And you’re mine.”

His vision blurred. “Buffy…”

“Come on,” she whispered. “It’s time.”

She was right. It was time. It was time for them. No hiding.

She loved him. He loved her. There was no need to hide.

“I go in on your side, I leave on your side. No matter what happens.”

Spike nodded jerkily, doing his best to keep from breaking into tears. It was so hard—so bloody hard when everything he’d wanted was literally in his hands. There was nothing in the whole of his life which could have prepared him for this. Nothing. But here she was. Smiling at him. Kissing him. Loving him.

She was on his side.

“Buffy—”

“Shhh.” She kissed him again, smiling. “I know.”

A pause. A breath. They reached for the door together.

And together, hand-in-hand, they walked through

fin