After that there were some hours that melded for her into a volcanic physical meltdown, their passion flaring up into the kind of propulsive heat she remembered from their sessions in his old crypt, when they'd grapple and grab and struggle together as if the great need was to climb inside each other's bodies. They were on the floor in the study, where Giles' threadbare old Persian rugs were piled three or four thick. Spike had her screwed to the floor, her legs opened wide and high, grinding and swiveling into her, a tight sharp pumping barrage that rubbed up her arousal into an almost unbearable abrasive urge. When she wasn't gnawing on whatever part of him she could reach, she heard herself groaning and crying out as if the sounds came from somewhere else. When she caught sight of his face, his eyes were gold, staring through her. Language had left them, crowded out by propulsive force. She twisted beneath him, around him, meeting each of his thrusts with a tight inner wringing; he made a noise as he fucked her like a wolf, like she imagined a wolf would sound, covering a bitch. Sweat covered her as if she'd been dipped; ticklish rivulets running down her flanks, into her armpits, seeping through her hair. Her face was awash with sweat and tears; Spike didn't so much kiss her as sip her, she felt his teeth along her cheeks, her jaw, against her mouth. Each place he touched her burned and itched, aflame with need. The rugs bunched up under back, scratchy and burning.

Later she couldn't remember how they'd gotten there, but they were back in bed, wreathed in silence except for the dripping of water from the eaves and gutters, and her own ragged breathing. Spike was wrapped around her, his body still cool and dry despite his exertions, his cock still hard, pressed into the sore seam of her. She sobbed a little, from exhaustion and the inexhaustability of their desire. Gratitude beat through her with her pulse. Her body ached, she was sore and tender between her legs, and yet she didn't want him to stop touching her. She realized that her wrists, where he'd held her down, were braceleted with darkening bruises.

She showed them to him. "You know I belong to you." She was glad he knew it, that he didn't hold back. "I love being a cunt for you. I love being your fuck." She'd never spoken this way to him; the words sparked a light in his eyes. He took her hands in his, kissed the palms and the rings of bruising with an opposite, apposite delicacy.

"An' I love bein' your big hard cock."

She snuggled closer, and they lay listening to the silence.

After a while, Spike said, "Rain's stopped. Can feel the moonlight."

Without discussion, they rose, dressed. Went out into the last quadrant of night, ostensibly to patrol for any late, hungry, rain-averse demons, but really to walk down the center of the quiet streets, hand in hand, looking up at the emergent stars, breathing the fresh wet air. Everything was closed and sleeping, and there was no one, alive or undead, outdoors except for them.

"Bath's a pretty town, but too quiet."

"I guess that's what Giles likes about it."

"Ever been to Paris, Slayer?"

"You know I haven't."

"Will take you there, for our honeymoon. Maybe, if you like it, we can stay a bit. Plenty of work there for the likes of us, I reckon."

"You're taking me on a honeymoon? To Paris?"

"Didn't I just say?"

"I keep thinking maybe this is a dream. A wonderful dream."

They paused by a low stone wall, ringing a wooded square. Spike drew her into his arms. "We're wide awake."

She leaned against him. The wind played with her hair. He stroked it down, tangling his fingers in it. "Slayer," he whispered. "My sweet girl. You're my sweet own girl."

There was some relief in kissing, for the overfullness of her feelings, kisses that brought the tears welling up.

"It's been hard for you," Spike said, "but I'll make things good for you yet awhile. You'll see, pet. Gonna make you so happy."

"I am happy. It wasn't that hard ... you were there."

"All those crazy shards of me."

"I liked them all. You were so full of surprises." She raised her face, showed him her smile. "All that poetry. All that gentleness. And Arabic. And I learned your true name. I think in a way, we met for the first time. I liked everything about you. I even liked ... it was kind of good, getting to talk to old-school Spike again, for a little while."

"He beat you up."

"I let that happen. I had my reasons, I know you understand why."

"I know, yeah. Poor girl, wantin' to be good to the likes of me."

"It's all your tenderness that makes it so amazing when ... when this happens." She held up her bruised wrist. "I need both. I'm so lucky, I get both."

They kissed some more. On the far side of the square, a dog barked, and the wind went calm.

"How shall I marry you? Would you like to do it at the castle?"

"Could we? And then everyone can be there. Do you ... do you have anyone you want to invite?" She felt herself blushing. "I'm sorry. Your friends ... your friends are gone."

"They are. I'll make do with yours. Willow an' the Bit are my good friends. When can we do it?"

"I need to find something to wear. And ... make a few arrangements. You know. Ten days?"

"Suits me."

She smiled. "Suits me, Mrs Pratt."

"Always hated that name."

"It's a perfectly good name. William Henry Pratt. Buffy Anne Summers Pratt. I like it fine." She squeezed his hand. "You were the one, a few weeks ago, who didn't want to be Spike. You shaved off your yellow hair, and changed your clothes, and wanted to be known by your real name."

"Yeah."

"Did you change back only for me? Because I want you to know, I don't require you to look and act a certain way, if it doesn't fit you anymore."

"I know it. Nah, I did it for myself. Comfortable with it."

"You were very uncomfortable, when ... when you saw yourself. When you realized what you are."

"Yeah. Well, there's always a bit of me feel's the horror of it. Bein' undead, all those crimes on me. But at the same time ... I wouldn't trade it away."

"Like Angel wanted to."

"Right. I'm not like Angel. He signed away his last chance for that sans-shoe, a few days before he went down. He thought maybe the gift would pass to me, if I survived, but I wouldn't have wanted it."

She pondered. "Why? Because you think you couldn't be good for me, if you were a live man?"

"Everythin's about you," he teased.

"Okay. Okay!"

"Well, it is that, a bit. Strength, an' a kind of freedom. An' I wasn't a happy fellow, when I was alive. Not much there I'm nostalgic for." He sniffed the air. "Be gettin' light soon. Let's go back. We're both hungry, too."