The Last Slow Hours of Morning
by wisteria

Sixty-three minutes in a car with her should be enough reacclimation time, right? Those first few moments had been so overwhelming, but he figured they would settle in soon enough.

Instead, he keeps glancing at the highway ahead to remind himself that they're on terra firma and not hurtling off a cliff into the deep blue sea.

No happiness clause. Just a soul. He'd made damned sure of that back in the cave. But being with her now brightens and tightens his body. He grips the soul with bony white fingers, as he feels it flying from the way she brushes against him with each jolt of the car.

Five months abroad, and he'd thought he was over her. Oh, not completely. That would never happen. But he was convinced that he could exist without her, since she would never, ever take him back. He'd be fine on his own. Expected it.

That resolve had lasted a grand total of ten seconds when he saw her again.

"Where are we going?" she asks for the third time.

Up to now, he's been all mysterious, acting like this is some big surprise party. Truth is, he knows sod-all about where they're headed. An hour ago he'd found her leaning against his car. He had stared at her like she was a mirage.

And she is, really. Doesn't feel quite real.

He's the same Spike. She's not the same Buffy.

Not this woman who keeps touching him. Who looks at him like just maybe she really does care for him just a little bit. The one who acts like she wants to talk to him instead of running far away, virtue fluttering.

But it feels like her.

He comes clean. "Dunno. I'm just driving."

"Won't we get lost?"

"Nope. Got a bloody good sense of direction."

Spike doesn't trust himself to look over at her, but he can sense her smile as she says, "Does that make you Rand-McVampy?"

His first actual chuckle since he got back to Sunnydale, and he lets it shift into a full-blown laugh. It feels good. On the tip of his tongue is 'My compass always points north toward you,' but he holds it back. Perhaps later.

Instead, he says, "Anywhere you wanna go?"

Not missing a beat, she replies, "New York City."

Spike can't help but stare at her now. "Pardon?"

"I'm kidding. Bad idea, anyway. You'd kill me before we even got across the state line."

The steering wheel jerks under his hands and his heart sinks. Oh, Buffy. I thought you were...

As if she knows what's panicking him, she continues, "I'm a sucky backseat driver. No license, but I get all bossy and turn-here-wait-watch-out-for-that-oh-nevermind." The words tumble out with something resembling shaky humor. "I'd make you so crazy that you'd end up whacking me upside the head and shoving me in the trunk."

Ah. Kinda better. "You're doing just fine so far, pet."

The endearment feels strange slipping through his lips, but she either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "So, why New York?"

"Beats me. I've never been there. Looks really cool in all those 'Sex in the City' reruns."

"Since when do you get HBO?"

"Since last month when Anya did some fancy budget tangoing. It's still a little too expensive, but at least now Dawn doesn't act like I'm Cruella DeVille." Her hand inches over toward him, then stops short. Good thing, too. He trusts himself to look at her now, but not to touch her again. His lips still tingle from having kissed her earlier. If she took his hand, he'd want to take her in the backseat. Not the time for that yet.

So he focuses on the conversation. Premium cable, huh? Shouldn't get his hopes high, but maybe someday she would invite–

"You'll have to come over sometime and watch it with us. We've even got BBC America and some channel that plays all that classic rock stuff you're into."

He puts his right hand down on the seat next to her. Not touching, but it's a start.

"Yeah, maybe sometime I will."

She thinks about his soul a lot. Sometimes it's all she thinks about as she lies in bed and waits for sleep to make an appearance before shoving off in search of more interesting pursuits.

Doesn't get much sleep these days, really. She didn't all summer, though she found ways to mask the effects. Sacrificing a few movie rentals in favor of a good tube of concealer was a necessary evil.

The night before Spike came back, Dawn asked if she was depressed.

Buffy thought about it for a while, then she decided that no, she wasn't. "A bit bummed out, I think, but that's just soul-sucking job and money stuff. Y'know, the normal problems that everyone deals with." She'd reached out and grabbed her sister's hand. "I'm glad to be here with you. I'm definitely up with people right now. I'm liking life on earth." Doesn't stop me from wanting more, though, she silently added.

One July night she sat on the back porch and realized that what she wanted was Spike. Not just in a naked-and-writhing way, but in a my-happiness-depends-on-him-being-here way.

And then, thirteen days ago, there he was. Spike version 4.0, with a soul upgrade.

When she thinks about his soul these days, she wonders why he thought he needed it. Sure, he's told her – or, at least, he has insinuated it. That first night back, he'd followed her upstairs to her bedroom when she'd insisted. Had to give him the coat back. As he strode down the hall behind her, she felt rather than heard him stop short when they passed the bathroom. She looked at him over her shoulder and saw his face leached white. He'd always been pale, of course, but in that moment he'd looked drained of a soul. Only later did she learn that he had a soul to be drained out of him.

It still doesn't make sense to her. What happened in the bathroom – that was bad. An Everest of wrong. Not that you didn't do wrong things to him, or that he hadn't done tons worse before you ever met him. She knew that intellectually, but her gut wouldn't cooperate. The nonsensical part was that he'd been coasting along, doing pretty well up to then. She never would've admitted it, but he'd almost been a bonafide Good Guy last year, no matter how many times she told him otherwise. He'd taken care of her, and Dawn before that. He'd kept her from sinking back into the grave. He'd made her want to live again – even as she told him over and over that it couldn't be with him.

No, the part she didn't understand was why one bad thing – and yes, it was bad with a capital "B" – would make him change his entire nature and become something he loathed. She'd heard him mock Angel's soul dozens of times. Spike actually choosing to get one despite that just didn't add up. She wonders if she's not doing the math correctly.

Well, he's here. The car's quiet. She'd told herself last summer that if he ever came back, she was going to actually talk to him for a change. When they would just sit around and talk after she was resurrected, she felt almost good. Maybe they could get that back.

Yet instead of idle chitchat, when she opens her mouth to speak, she finds herself asking, "Why?"

"Why?" he parrots, obviously confused.

"Yeah. I want to know why you did it." She doesn't say the S-word, but the purse of his lips tells her he knows. He's a smart one, and she's not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

That's why she doesn't believe him when he replies, "Dunno why."

"I don't believe you."

"Didn't expect you would." The lights of a passing car flash on the half-smile playing on his lips.

They're quiet for a half-mile or so, then she says, "Y'know, even before you told me, I could tell. I don't even know how, but I could just feel it."

"Oh." Another pause. "So, how does it feel?"

"Different."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She wants to touch him, to feel the different-ness against her palm, but she keeps her hands in her lap. "I don't really know why or how, except maybe it's just that you feel more whole than you did before."

His brow furrows, and for a second she sees a hint of his game face along with the frustration in his voice as he says, "I'm the same man, thing, whatever."

"Man." And yes, she knows this now. It was the man she missed all summer, not the 'thing' she kept telling both of them that he was.

If another car hadn't passed, she would have missed the grin that sped across his face at sixty miles per hour. The thrum of repressed emotion fills the car as he says, his voice barely even, "Right, pet. Man."

They're quiet again now, and she's glad. Things are happening too quickly. She remembers being at the gas station an hour ago. Words were a foreign concept to her. The feel of his fingers laced through hers was a language she never knew she spoke, and she'd wanted to buy a dictionary, write a novella in it. Touching him was so much easier than talking to him, no matter how much she'd wanted it all summer.

Best make good on that promise, Buff, she thinks.

"You didn't answer my question. Why did you get a soul?"

He flinches just a little bit, the way he did three nights ago when she stopped mid-patrol and asked him the same question. A demon had hop-skipped past with a blinking, "Yes, I'm a distraction" sign over its head. No avoidance mechanisms tonight. Just try and avoid it now, Spike.

And he rises to the challenge. "I wanted – no, I needed one."

"Just because of –" She stops herself before she can say, 'what happened in the bathroom?' He's always been the guy who won't flinch from the tough stuff. It's one of his most irritating qualities. The bathroom thing, though... it's still a brick wall between them. So she takes a different tack. "You used to make fun of Angel for having a soul. You'd always act like having one was disgusting or something."

His mercury reflexes return. "And you kept harping on about how repulsive I was for not having one."

"Did not!"

"Want me to quote?"

"Hmph."

The weirdness of it taps her knee. Serious subject matter, yet they're bickering like twelve-year-olds. Of course, he's always been the Lost Boy who never grew up. Her too. They could build a two-bedroom bungalow in Never-Never Land.

But he sounds very grown up when he says, "I got it for you, love, because of what happened last time you saw me."

Oh. She can almost hear the bricks tumbling to the ground.

It still doesn't make sense. To change his entire nature because of that? She can't possibly hold that much power over him, can she? She doesn't think she wants to. No, there has to be something else to it.

She prods some more. "You took a pretty huge chance, expecting me to just welcome you back when you saw me again."

"What's life, though, besides temptation and taking chances? Without that, you're not really living, are you?" He sounds almost dreamy and poetic.

"But you're not." She stops and thinks about that. "Or do you think you're really living?"

Though she's looking up at his profile as he drives, she sees his right hand inch across the seat toward her. It stops just short of her thigh.

Spike's voice holds a hint of a smile as he says, "I know I'm not really living, Buffy. That's why the soul was worth the risk, though. Even if you never took me back, I knew that if I had a soul, I could at least be with you. Platonic or whatever." His fingers curl up but still don't touch her. "And when you're near me, I feel like I'm really living."

Oh.

She understands.

Gas. Food. Lodging. Lots of promises, but none of them pan out. Not many gas stations open this late at night, it seems. On their fifth try, they find a huge truck stop.

He'd grumbled when she told him she wanted to find someplace with a bathroom and maybe a Coke. "Got plenty of gas left, and we were just at that Texaco two hours ago." Then he'd laughed. "God, you're just like a little kid."

The laughing feels natural now. After the confession festival, the topics shifted to her long description of what happened in Sunnydale over the five months he was gone, followed by him telling her about the places he'd gone. She didn't tell him the whole story, nor – she assumes – did he. They never quite do.

He pulls up next to a huge eighteen-wheeler and stops the car. She waits for him to get out, but he doesn't. She's antsy right now. Words hover in the air inside; they won't let her breathe.

It's too much. She finally proclaims a need to pee, and the door slams behind her as she stalks toward the entrance. His footsteps echo across the pavement. He always follows her.

She makes quick work of the bathroom. When she comes out, she finds him standing in front of the refrigerated beverage cases, examining the selection of Coca-Cola products. Funny, she'd expected him to make a beeline for the booze. Instead, he seems to be weighing the merits of Diet Coke vs. Sprite.

Watching him like this is a strange experience. As manic as he usually is, right now he just stands there, completely still. No coat, and the black t-shirt hugs the planes of his back. She remembers tracing each muscle within one night last winter, caught in a game of make-believe. Yes, I can touch him and want him and oh god I want him. I can do this and it won't mean anything. I'll walk away afterward and he'll leave me alone until I come to him again, because this fairytale world isn't real.

When he closes the cooler door and turns around to face her, she looks away. Things are supposed to be different between them now, but something about the idea of him knowing that she was staring at him makes her self-conscious. It's okay for him to know that she wants him, even likes him. Still, it feels too private for her to share just yet.

"Fancy anything?"

She gives him a dubious glance. "That 20 ounce isn't going to fit in your pocket, you know."

His eyes narrow, and she realizes her blunder. He paid for the gas two hours ago. He has money now; though she doesn't know the source, she gets the vibe that it's legit.

Irritation gives way to puffed-up bravado so quickly that she wonders if she imagined it. But when he quips, "Tryin' on a new look tonight. Thought I'd go wild and slip the clerk some cash for it," she hears remnants of hurt in his voice.

This, too, is a strange experience. Spike is a vampire. He steals, not really because of a lack of funding, but because it's just his thing. Yet tonight he's acting hurt because she just assumed he was a one-trick pony.

Maybe that's another soul thing. Buffy knows she should applaud it – positive reinforcement, and all that. Put a gold star sticker on his forehead. Is it a sign of his corruption of her that she almost wishes he'd just steal the stupid Sprite? That's the kind of guy he is, not some upstanding citizen who checks prices and exhibits consumer confidence. She wonders if this is the way things will go from now on. Will the New Spike shove off all that old recklessness? She kind of misses the devil-may-care attitude – the way that devil he was just didn't care.

Can't tell him that, though – positive reinforcement, Buff – so she shrugs and teases, "Corporate America thanks you for your patronage." As she saunters over to the fountain drinks, she calls out to him, "Anything I want, huh? Wow, I feel the need for a Buffy buffet."

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she cringes. God, could her quippy skills be any more pathetic tonight? Spike seems to find it funny, though, so maybe it's okay.

Laughing, he comes over to stand next to her at the fountain and hands her a huge plastic cup. As she fills it with ice, he says, "Tell me you're not going for a suicide."

She freezes. His turn on the Inappropriate Comment Express. Death jokes: not a good idea.

He quickly covers it up. "Isn't that what you kids call that thing where you put one of each flavor in the cup?"

Buffy tosses her head in mock irritation. If he could shrug off her earlier screw-up, she can do the same for him. "That wins the Oscar for eeeuw. I'm a Diet Dr. Pepper girl tonight."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him lean back against the wall in that sexy way that may or may not be intentional. He pays for things now. He's quieter, more aware of action and reaction. But that loose-limbed sexiness will always be Spike, on purpose or not.

Beverage in hand, she wanders around the truck stop, carrying on an internal debate on whether to take him up on his offer. One thing Mom always taught her was not to sponge off people; she's hungry, though. She's in a store full of treats that her current budget doesn't much like.

Maybe just a few things....

As she surveys the place, she can't help but laugh. It's like a trucker Valhalla. There's a small movie theater, a booth selling knives and electronics, a barber, even some ugly clothes for sale. When she sees the door leading to the showers, she quickly turns away. There be monsters of the hairy, gimme-cap-wearing variety.

Buffy pauses on the way to the junk food, and when she looks down she sees laundry detergent and bleach. A quick glance over at Spike, who's loitering at a display of yucky-looking pickled eggs. The bleach reminds her of one of Spike's biggest changes: an inch of darker roots above the platinum hair. It's carefully washed, with a hint of gel to straighten out the curls she wishes she could see. Still image-conscious, after all, but the hair perplexes her.

Leaning down, she picks up the bottle of Clorox. Definitely not suitable for a dye job, but then he's never been Orthodox. Her hands juggle it as she thinks about whether to drop a hint. God, the hair looks good like that. She can still feel it under her fingers as she kissed him earlier.

It looks great, but it's not him. She's caught between wanting the old Spike back and adjusting to the new one.

When he begins to walk over toward her, she puts the bleach back and heads to the junk food. They joke a little about flavors and preservatives and how much chocolate one can eat before overdose. When he shoves a package of Sno-Balls in her hand with the excuse of needing a little flesh on her bones, she finally laughs.

He stares at her, dumbfounded, and she can't help but put her palm on his chest. Do you feel me laughing, Spike? You always wanted me to be happy. I'm happy now.

She truly believes it. She knows she shouldn't be happy and that it won't last forever, but he's back and here with her tonight. And that's all it takes for her to feel this firecracker of happiness exploding in her heart.

It's like she told Dawn two weeks ago: life is good, but that didn't stop her from wanting more. Her happiness depended on him being here, and now he is.

His hands twitch a bit as she pulls him into her arms. God, he must think she's gone crazy. Doesn't matter, though, because his hands move to rest on her hips and he starts to laugh too, just a little.

In the candy aisle of a truck stop on I-5, she looks up at him and says, "I love you."

The old Spike who did horrible things even as he said he loved me, and the new Spike who doesn't seem to know who he is anymore. The Spike who became something he hated, just so he could become what he thought I needed. I love them all.

And she knows she shouldn't trust him, shouldn't let herself get carried away. She knows that the brick wall between them will always be there, and that they have far too many issues for a simple, perhaps ill-realized 'I love you' to solve everything. But saying the words feels right, so she says them again.

She drums her fingertips on his back and waits for him to repeat the words to her like he did so many times last winter and spring.

He says nothing.

The world stops spinning, and her hands drop to her sides. Looking up at the ceiling, he bites his lip and says, "Let's get out of here."

He's halfway to the cashier before her legs stop shaking long enough for her to follow.

Oh, shit, she thinks. I screwed it all up, and how the hell did I manage to do that?

He turns toward her and holds out his hand for the junk food. As she stares back at him, her whole body tingles in a bad way. She has to remind herself to breathe.

Confusion and shame give way to anger. If they weren't in a public place, she'd shove her palm into his chest. She'd yell at him for making her think that he wanted her to say she loved him. Then she'd storm off in a huff.

When she gets close enough to see his face clearly, she's surprised that it doesn't reflect her anger. Mostly, he looks confused, though he's trying to hide it. He pushes some cash across the counter to the clerk, then, his voice low and hoarse, he turns back to Buffy.

"Let's go."

Stupid. So goddamned stupid. Her for thinking that she could just say she loved him like it was no big deal, and him for wanting like hell to believe her.

Her out-of-the-blue shriek nearly sends his nerves into orbit. Startled, he looks up and sees that the car has swerved onto the other side of the two-lane highway. With a yank on the steering wheel, he gets it back on course. Glances over to see that she's biting her lip, her fists clenched and body taut. He can tell she wants to say something, but they've both been silent since the truck stop.

He's been shaking for the past fifteen miles, and it's all her fault. The silence is about to drive him crazy. She's supposed to explain herself to him, not just toss those words out the same way she would order a pizza or tease a friend.

The worst of it is that he knows he's supposed to be happy she said it. It's all too confusing. Makes his head hurt.

He steals another glance at her. She has leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Gives him a chance to look at her.

If she loves him, it should be obvious, right? No, wait, that makes no sense. He knew – knew – that she loved him last spring. Tried everything he could to get her to realize it. Then he went too far and shot it all to hell. All that time away from her, it'd been easy to convince himself that she didn't love him. If the soul could just make him better, maybe someday she would.

Her lips purse a little, like she's kissing the air. He can hear each small breath and the sough of her eyelashes brushing over the tops of her cheeks. He wonders if she is as aware of him as he is of her.

Bugger that. He shrugs and looks back at the road. Not going to get anywhere while watching her, and not just because he doesn't have a clue where the hell they're going. She'd told him to drive, and he did. They've been going in loose circles, away from the coast and now toward it. He's passed four signs for beach turnoffs, and with each one he wants to stop. Can't, though. If they can just keep moving, that's a distraction. If they stop, they'll have to talk.

God, when did he get scared of talking to her? He hates himself for getting this way. He hates her for being the reason.

This silence has gone on long enough. She's obviously not going to make the first move, so it might as well be him.

Gripping the steering wheel more tightly, he asks, "What made you suddenly decide that you love me?"

Almost immediately, she begins to speak, like she's been waiting for this. "One night back in June, I was dusting some vamps in your cemetery. No biggie. I watched them go poof, and suddenly I saw your face instead of theirs. That's when it hit me: you were gone, and I had no idea where you were. Maybe you were dust too, and I'd never know it."

The words tumble forth like skipping pebbles. It's as if the dam on her emotions has burst, and she has to say everything she possibly can. "Dawn found me there the next morning. I guess I'd fallen asleep. She said I looked like I'd been crying, but I don't remember that part. When we got home, I realized that I didn't have any photos of you. Nothing that was yours, except that coat you'd left."

Her voice is more calm than he would have expected. He's been so frustrated and pissed off, but she talks with a surety that surprises him, coming from her. It makes him glad, though; if she sounded even the least bit uncertain or upset, believing her would be nigh-impossible.

Before he can form a response, she keeps going. "All summer, I kept having these imaginary conversations with you, both good and not-so-good. It's like I was holding on to what little I had left, because you'd been gone for months. Didn't look like you'd be coming back."

She's melting him, damn it. She's reaching inside him, to that place where he will always love her with a blinding fury, and drawing that emotion out because now it has a mate. His voice a surprising whisper, he tells her, "I came back, though, didn't I?"

Spike takes his eyes off the road long enough to see her smiling over at him. It's not a huge smile, but it's enough. "And that's when you realized you loved me?"

She nods, and he wants to keep looking at her, but they're still hurtling down the road. So he lets her keep talking.

"One night, Dawn asked me if I was depressed. I told her that I was happy, and for the most part, I was. But it hit me that something was missing."

Me, he wants to say. Little soap-bubbles of hope begin to bloom in his chest. Now he's just too stunned to speak.

"Anya hooked me up with one of the new Magic Box suppliers. Honestly, I can't even remember his name. He was a pretty good guy, though. We went out one night and had a decent time. But the whole night, I kept comparing him to you. The next day I realize that you were what was missing."

Voice barely a whisper, he says, "Oh, Buffy...." He wants to reach for her hand, but it still feels too early for that.

She graces him with a smile and a low laugh. "Okay, that makes it sound so easy, right? I mean, it's not like I was totally big with the Spike love. I fought it. Made a huge list – seriously, on paper and everything – of why it was such a bad idea. You probably know all the reasons. Some of them were really, really valid ones."

God, yes. He knows. He'd made his own mental lists of why they weren't good for each other. Didn't stop him from coming back to her.

A deep breath, then she says, "Finally, I just stopped fighting it. I love you. Probably would never see you again, but there it was."

Spike's surprised to notice that his hands aren't shaking anymore. All summer, he beat himself up over what he'd done to her and what he'd let her do to him. Getting over that felt like the biggest mountain in the world. He wants so damned much to believe her, to just shrug off the past and give in. The list is too deep in his mind to let him.

"Do you still love me?" he hears her say over the hum of the engine.

The answer is the same as ever. "I'll always love you. Sometimes I wish I didn't."

"Why?"

Oh, this is going to hurt. "Because you and I – we're not good. This whole thing is wrong. The damned soul made me see myself for what I really am, and I'm no good for you."

She reaches over and puts her hand on his knee. He flinches, but he lets it stay there. "Maybe you're not. Maybe I'm no good for you either. I'm the queen of mood swings. I screw things up because I have this huge mental block against things being good. They always seem to fall apart. The people I love always leave me."

Spike feels his hands begin to shiver again. "I'm sorry about that, pet. The leaving you, I mean."

Small fingers clench his knee a little harder. "No, you had to leave. We wouldn't be here right now if you'd stayed. Back then, things were way too bad. For a while there, I hated you." She pauses. "You know what, though? I didn't think you'd come back. You did. Now it's like all the puzzle pieces are in place."

"That's all I've ever wanted, pet. Just for you to be happy." He lets his right hand rest over hers. Even without looking at her, he can see her smile.

She turns her hand over to lace her fingers with his. "It's easier to just give up, you know? The two of us are pretty screwed up. This thing between us might not last very long." He hears her lungs fill with a deep breath. "One thing I learned this summer is that it's better to just take happiness where you can find it. I spent too much time fighting it, and I'm sick of being miserable. You didn't make me happy last year, but now I think you can, because I love you."

He's trembling again, but it's a good thing. The nagging voice in the back of his head tells him not to trust her. She's too mercurial. Mixed signals, say one thing and mean another, and all that. But god, he wants to believe her. The temptation is too strong, and he wants to fall into her arms and forget everything but what she has told him tonight.

The headlights bounce off another sign to the beach. He slows the car and turns onto the path.

Emotions reel through his mind. He wants to pin them down like butterflies, but they're formless and fluid. Lust. That's definitely there. Maybe a little hope and a lot of love. Above all, fear. It's everywhere, prickling his skin.

Another plan that isn't following the map. When they got to the beach entrance, a metal gate across the road kept them from going further. Turning the car around, he'd driven back to the nearby town. Figured he'd just drive around some more, but she put her hand on his wrist and pointed with the other toward a chain motel. "Stop there," she'd said. "I'm tired."

As he'd passed the cash across the counter, the motel clerk gave him a dry stare. I know what you're here for, her gaze said. He can't blame her. Two people checking into a motel at half-three in the morning? He would've come to the same conclusion.

What are they here for, anyway? He doesn't know the answer, and Buffy's giving him mixed signals.

She sits on the bed, her back against the headboard and her legs stretched out. Bare feet flex and point. The shallow up-and-down of her chest gives away her trepidation. Maybe she wants to talk, 'cept she's hardly said anything since they walked through the door. Maybe she's on the bed for the more obvious reason. He still doesn't know what he'll do if she wants sex. He wants it so badly he can feel it in his gut, but after last winter....?

Spike leans against the wall between the door and window. The metal privacy latch digs into his shoulder. Slatted light filters through the curtains and casts knifelike swaths across the carpet and orangey bedspread.

Slowly, her chin bobbing a bit, she turns her head to face him. His vampire eyes are acute, yet he can't read her face in the darkness. Then her fist unfolds like a flower and lifts a few inches, reaching toward him.

"C'mere," she says in a clear voice. Across the dark room, he can see her jaw clench and eyes narrow a bit.

She wants this. He knows it. It's too soon, though. So damned much has happened.

"Are you sure?" he asks her.

A slow smile spreads over her face. "Yeah, I am."

God, he wants this so badly. Thought about it all the time during those five months away. It's what made him come back here – not the sex, per se, but just that heady feeling of having her nearby. He could live with not touching her if he could just be close to her. The soul softened his emotions, but it hasn't smothered them.

She stares at him, her face soft too, mixed with a touch of vulnerability that he's never seen in her. That is what finally melts him and carries him across the room. That's what he's always wanted from Buffy. Giving in is easy when she looks at him like that. He forgets about everything else and walks over to the bed.

She opens her arms to him, and he lets himself fall into her. In the back of his head, he hears a loud, tribal rhythm that can't possibly be pounding blood, but that's how it sounds. Over the sound of the beat, a voice yells, "This is a bad, bad idea." It's loud – deafening, even – but his body calls to her all the same.

Hands move up and down his back, and he puts his own hands on each of her cheeks. They stare at each other in the darkness. One of the slatted shards of light cuts a path along her arm and up the length of her hair.

Bad, bad idea.

But they've never been a pair given to resisting bad ideas, have they? They soldier onward, then beat themselves up in retrospect. Violence tempered only by this lust/love they shouldn't feel. That's just who they are. The soul might have tried to cure him of masochistic tendencies, but right now he wants to do this with her, even if it means self-flagellation with the morning paper.

She pulls him down for a kiss, and he thinks: love conquers all. It certainly conquered him, left him shirtless and bleeding on that cave floor, stripped of everything he'd been for a hundred-odd years, just for love of her. Just for the possibility of tasting her lips again, though back then that voice in his head had taunted that she'd never be able to take him back.

So he kisses her in return and lets this love she now says she feels conquer him again. Bad, bad idea, but oh god, it feels so good to be with her like this again. The room is warm, like a cocoon where they can exist outside of time and space and their shared history. He kisses her harder, as if pushing his tongue inside her mouth will scoop away everything but this very moment.

Her left hand moves around his hips to the front, then reaches down to cup him. She strokes up and down to the beat of that drum in his head, and he's getting –

No. Nothing's happening.

A little more pressure from her hand, and she pulls away from the kiss. He watches her eyes narrow and brow knit. Still nothing. No hardness, no arousal even though his mind still wants her so goddamned much.

The room is chilly now, as memories tear the membrane of the cocoon the two of them had built. He squeezes his eyes shut and yanks the cocoon closed again. God, he wants to make love to her now, because she says she loves him, and she'd looked at him with those eyes that made him feel precious.

As much as his brain wants it, his body is clothed in those memories. They smother him and make him shiver. They won't let him get hard. He wants to scream.

Her hand still rubs him. Her lips press kisses on his cheek, his neck, the hollow of his collarbone. She wants him. She loves him. This is everything he's ever wanted from her. To make love to her. To be inside –

Inside –

If he can get it up, slip inside her, they'll be okay. Cocooned and safe again. She always felt him so strongly when he was inside her.

Oh! Oh, God.

The memories scream now, and he grits his teeth and kisses her softly. She returns the kiss, soft and sweet like a lover. But he can feel her trembling under his hands.

"I want you, Spike," she whispers. Her voice sounds uncertain, like she's trying to convince herself.

He pulls back to look at her. When he glances down at his hands, he is surprised to see only two of them. Just one person here in bed with her, but it feels like he has split in two. One Spike is warm and gentle, trying to make love with the woman he adores. The other Spike feels red-hot pokers pulling his body apart by the seams, flaccid and pained.

His finger traces a path along the collar of her shirt, pulling it down to touch her breastbone.

When he looks up at her eyes, they are wide open in sudden panic. Under him, her body jerks like electricity.

The cocoon that kept memories and reality away shatters.

He skitters backward so fast that he nearly falls off the bed. His eyes focus in the darkness to find her curled against the headboard like a frayed rope.

They stare at one another in the midnight room. Each beat of her heart echoes in his head.

Time stretches taut, then snaps as she lunges forward. This is his end.

Oh, god, what did I do to you? His soul sobs.

She stops just short of him, though. And fuck, this is all too, too damned much.

The room key tears through his pocket and into the flesh of his thigh as he stalks over to the door and opens it to the night air. Before he pulls it shut, he hears another door inside slam.

He crumples onto the pavement outside the room, and he falls apart.

One night, a few weeks before he came back, Dawn had looked at her across the kitchen island.

"If Spike went evil again and you had to stake him, would you do it?" the girl asked in a voice that held sudden wisdom in the midst of teen angst.

"I don't know, Dawn," Buffy had replied. She'd hated herself for not being able to say, "Of course I would."

Tonight she stands under the shower spray, lips pursed against the water running down her face. It keeps her from breathing properly, not that she could if she even wanted to.

When the tears begin, she hardly notices them. Everything in her world is suddenly coming apart.

Why does my life have to be so damned difficult? she asks herself for the twelfth time.

God, she'd been so happy. The way he kept driving around in circles tonight had charmed her. He teased her over sodas. He held her hand and kissed her. He was here.

She'd told him she loved him, and she had meant it.

That same night, Dawn asked if she had forgiven Spike.

"It's complicated," was her reply. "Forgiving him shouldn't be easy, but it is because I can understand it in some twisted way. I did some terrible things to him too." Water courses over her closed eyelids as she remembers what she'd said. "Even though I shouldn't forgive him, there's this part of me that has to. I can't forget it, though." Because he is a demon. Because someday he might turn evil again. Because I might have to kill him – and oh, god, I can't do that.

Time brought peace, and she'd made hers. She loves him now. He came back to her, with a soul – god, he'd gotten a soul for her. How could she not forgive him, just by the sheer magnitude of what he'd done?

But she can't forget.

So easy to tell him to check into this motel. To lie down on the bed with him and begin to make love. She'd tried so hard. Touched him in all the right places, kissed him softly, focused on the private silk of his skin. Her mind wanted him, but her body rebelled.

When he'd tugged at her collar, everything came rushing back. The bite of the cold bathroom tile on her legs, the desperation in his voice, and the stunned panic. Fight or flight instinct kicked in. She flew.

What is this thing between us?

She needs to find him and talk this out. Curl up in the shower and cry. Use her fists and her face to get the justice she's supposed to want.

It's all too goddamned much. It will never be enough.

She shoves the shower curtain aside, desperate to get out of the sauna that chokes her. The tile chills her feet. When she looks down, it's the same tile of her bathroom floor. Sliding across it, grappling for purchase, thinking 'It's Spike, he would never –" Then he did.

Eyes closed, she wonders if Spike thought the same thing when she thrashed him in that alley months ago.

Humid air tries to choke her. After turning off the shower – she can't deal with it now – she grabs a towel and rubs herself as dry as she can. Her clothes are grungy, but they go back on anyway.

He's not in the room when she goes back in, not that she expects him to be there. She walks over to the window and pulls the drapes back just enough to see him crumpled against the car. His forehead rests on his knees, and his back shakes with sobs. He is so small.

Part of her wants to shove past him with a stony face and a makeshift stake in hand. "Take me home," she would growl, and he would take her, because he always does what she wants. Except once.

The bed is hard and itchy under her bare legs. Legs akimbo, her nails scratch at the skin until long lines of blood bloom.

She remembers three days ago, peeking through the door of his crypt like an urchin. Oblivious to her presence, he poured a tall glass of blood, the same way he would draw a draught of water. And she remembered what he was.

That had been the toughest part of coming to terms with what had happened just before he'd left. Easy to tell herself that it was the demon who'd pushed her down on the floor and tore at her body. But the demon wasn't the one who had said he'd wanted to die and spoke of great love.

Buffy slips under the bedspread and pulls it up to her chin. Thoughts cartwheel through her mind. She thinks she might go crazy from the need for some damned resolution.

Why do I have to think about this? Why can't I just love him?

She reaches for that summer peace with a trembling hand. What is this thing between us? She says the question aloud this time.

As insane as it is, she wants him here. She knows now that it's way too soon for sex, and she wishes she'd realized that an hour ago. But she just wants to see him again.

Though she knows she shouldn't, Buffy makes a promise to herself. Love is a funny thing, with a power stronger than theirs combined. "Love, give, forgive," the First Slayer told her long ago. She thinks maybe she can.

Walking back into that motel room will be beyond difficult. Not as hard as coming back to Sunnydale after months away, or approaching her the first time. Africa was easy. He knew what he wanted, and he went after it. Singular focus, and all that.

This, though? Not easy. Painful and raw, and not just because of the soul.

Time was what they'd needed, and they had all summer. Took him until August to accept and understand what he'd done. He'd almost forgiven himself; at the very least, he'd made some sense of peace with it.

It had all been the demon's fault. Oh, sure, the demon's still inside him, but the soul is much stronger. He brooded June and July away, until he figured that out about the demon.

Before, his will hadn't been free. He'd struggled like blazes to contain it for the past year, yet it was still there, obliterating that tenuous grasp on self-control. That's why the thing with her that night had happened. The soul is helping him atone.

Atonement. Such a strange thing too. Spike feels guilty for the past, but not so much for the generalized vampire thing. He was meant to kill; hell, he was hardwired to enjoy it. What's done is done. Not a damned thing he can do to atone for all the murders and mayhem.

He can do something about what happened with Buffy, though. Should stay away from her, but he's too selfish for that.

He leans back against the tire and stares at the world around him. Easier to do that than to think about what might be on Buffy's mind right now.

A woman pumps gas across the street. An old bank sign trumpets the time: 5:22 a.m. Daylight will be coming soon. He should go inside.

He wants to believe everything she told him about loving him now. She had to have meant it. Doesn't say things like that everyday, which lets him hope. Maybe if he can just get up the guts to go back inside, they could sit down and talk this out. They really, really need to talk, if they even have the vocabulary to be honest with one another.

When his head drops to rest on his palms for the ninth time since he walked out here, he groans. Brooding again. Damn.

So, standing up and squaring his shoulders, he walks back over to the door of their room. The metal handle is cold against his palm. Faint scratches on the wood around the keyhole. This isn't a safe place. 'Course, the two of them can defend themselves against anything. They just can't seem to protect themselves from each other.

He leans forward and presses his ear to the door. Waits to hear the sound of tears or thrown objects. It's so quiet inside, though. This is almost worse: it leads to fear of what she might be doing.

He shoves the fear down into the pit of his hollow stomach. He's always fed off fear, but now it echoes inside him. Hurts like hell.

Finally, he pulls the key out of his pocket and uses it to open the door.

Through the darkness, he sees Buffy curled up on the bed, the covers pulled back. He hears the slow, even breathing of her sleep, and the light sweat she always had whenever she'd deign to sleep next to him.

She looks small, wounded. Memories of that long-ago night rush back. Her weakness as they grappled on the floor as he tried to force himself inside her. Then her power as she kicked him across the room. He'd deserved it.

Seeing her like that, he wants to crawl away and lick his wounds. He can't, though. Gotta face up to things now. The hour outside made him more rational and accepting of what had happen. She's asleep, so maybe she feels the same now. She wouldn't sleep like that if she didn't trust him, right?

The footsteps must have awakened her, because she opens her eyes and sits up a bit. "Spike," she says. Not a question.

He nods.

Buffy scoots over a bit and puts her palm on the empty space next to her, as if issuing an invitation. He searches her face for recrimination or fear, but all he sees is a hesitant peace.

They're supposed to talk this out, yet now he is mute. Hope flares in him again. So he finally goes over to sit on the edge of the bed. Her hair is wet. She still wears her t-shirt and underwear. Her jeans lie in a heap on the floor.

She is welcoming him back in her bed.

In a low voice, she says, "Let's forgive each other, Spike."

"I did a long time ago, love." A small smile flickers in the corners of his mouth.

Kicking off his shoes, he lies down next to her. Still a foot between them, but it's a start. They won't go any further tonight. Sex is a long way down the road; he knows that now. They'd bollixed everything up last year by diving headfirst into that dark sexual lake before they were ready for it. He's been given a new chance at having her again. He can wait if she can.

When he's finally settled, he closes his eyes. Not comfortable yet, but he's getting there.

She moves over to put her head on his shoulder. Her voice barely a whisper, she says, "I love you, you know."

"Me too, pet."

Though he can't see it, he senses the sunrise outside the window. He'll lie here with her for now, and maybe things will be okay when they wake up.

One long finger traces her forearm when she reaches for his hand.

They stay there together, touching now. Waiting for something more.

The End.

Special thanks to Kelly and Laura for helping with a few scenes, and to all those who participated in gang beta! For the record, I cribbed the title from a line in the song "Into Temptation" by Crowded House :)