Buffy wearily opened the door and walked into her living room, sinking down onto the sofa and leaning her head back against the back of it, covering her face with her hands and releasing a sigh. Though the living room had been deserted when she entered, the soft sounds of conversation that she had only been vaguely aware of suddenly ceased, and within moments her sister and her boyfriend were at her sides.

“Buffy!” Dawn said in a voice of anxious surprise as she took a seat on the couch next to her. “You’re back!” She paused, reaching a tentative hand to touch her sister’s arm, trying to catch her eye as Buffy raised her head, still looking straight ahead. “Did you – is he…?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to finish the question.

Spike just sat down on her other side and put his arm around her gently without saying a word. She looked up slowly into his open, vulnerable blue eyes, so full of concern for her that her heart filled with an unnamed but deep and aching emotion. She drank in the obvious love and adoration she saw in that clear gaze, drawing strength from it as her own green eyes softened with a sort of awestruck tenderness for him.

How could she ever have thought him unworthy of her love? Now, she hardly felt that she deserved him at all.

“B-buffy?” her sister’s small, frightened voice, cautiously prompting her for the answer to her hesitant question, drew her attention momentarily away from Spike.

She shook her head slowly, as she turned her gaze upon her little sister. “No. Warren’s still alive. I – I couldn’t,” she admitted, almost ashamed of the fact that she had been unable to exact the vengeance Spike deserved.

. She sighed heavily; the whole situation was just so confusing and uncertain. “We’re gonna have to figure something out. But not tonight. I’m just – I’m just too worn out to think anymore tonight.”

Dawn breathed out her relief slowly, surprised that she even felt it. She had wanted nothing more than Warren’s death, revenge for how he had hurt Spike, for weeks now. But somehow, the idea of her sister’s taking his life had deeply troubled her, shaken her even.

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” she said quietly, and quite sincerely. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“I know, Dawnie,” her sister replied gently, and a little sadly. “Don’t think I can’t see where you’re coming from…why you did it, because I can. I wanted to kill him myself. I just – just got there, and – and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

She glanced over at Spike out of the corner of her eye, and saw that he had lowered his eyes, a troubled expression on his face. She wondered what he was thinking. She did not want him to feel as if she valued Warren’s life above the suffering he had endured. Was that it? She wondered if he was possibly still worried about the lie he had told her, and her feelings about it.

After a few quiet moments, the little family broke apart to go to bed for the night, all of them considerably exhausted after the emotionally taxing events of the evening. Dawn went into her bedroom and closed the door, and Buffy took Spike’s hand gently in hers, giving him a slightly tentative, nervous smile as she led him by the hand toward her own bedroom.

He looked at her wonderingly, uncertainly, but did not say a word, until they were in the bedroom and she had closed the door.

“What is it, love?” he asked her softly, searching her eyes when she turned to face him. “What…”

He was struck speechless by the love shining in her eyes through her tears, as she met his gaze bravely. She moved slowly toward him, taking both of his hands in hers and not saying anything for a few moments.

When she did speak, her words were slow and deliberate, emphasizing each one to be sure he understood it. “I love you so much. Do you know that, Spike? I really love you. And nothing is ever going to change that.”

His breath caught in his throat, and he looked away, his own eyes welling with tears of shame. He could see in her gaze that she was aware of the doubts that had been plaguing him, and that was why she was saying this.

Tenderly but insistently she reached a hand to turn his face back toward hers, then pulled his head down gently into a slow, tender kiss. When their lips parted, she met his eyes firmly and went on, a single tear escaping to slide down her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry, Baby. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry that I’ve made it so you have to be afraid this is all going to just disappear. But it’s not. It’s real…and it’s forever, Spike.”

There was an earnestness in her eyes that was infinitely reassuring to him as she continued, softly but clearly and with conviction. “We’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, Spike…and we’re going to love each other, but we’re going to disagree, and we’re going to hurt each other accidentally, and we’re not always going to make the right decisions…but that won’t change what we’ve got, Spike. I will always love you. Always,” she promised.

She could see the uncertainty in his eyes, and her own grew shadowed with regret as she whispered, “I’m so sorry I’ve made that so hard for you to believe.”

Again he looked down, trying to hide the hurt and fear that were still so close to the surface, though he tried so hard to bury them. “You – you didn’t,” he attempted in a whisper, but his voice faltered. They both knew it wasn’t true.

“Yes, I did,” she whispered back, her voice aching with the honesty of her guilt. “I hurt you, Spike. Over and over again. I used you, and hurt you, and treated you so badly. And you didn’t deserve that. You deserved for me to love you like you’ve loved me. Like I love you now.”

He couldn’t respond, couldn’t speak past the lump that had risen in his throat, absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. From the anger and worry he had felt for Dawn earlier, to his fear of Buffy’s reaction when she found out about the chip and the lie he had told her, to the intense unease and fear for her, when she had gone after Warren, terrified that she was about to do something that would haunt her for the rest of her life – the whole day had been a turbulent emotional roller coaster ride for him.

Buffy’s open honesty, the way she had somehow managed to see through his disguise to the pain he had tried so hard to conceal from her, for so long, caught him off guard and drove his prepared responses from his head in an instant. He was simply too emotionally exhausted and vulnerable at this point to keep up the façade any longer.

His silence was all the evidence she needed to know that he was still carrying around the hurt from the things she had done to him herself, on top of the emotions he was dealing with from his more recent ordeal. She could see the doubt in his eyes, and knew that he was having trouble accepting the truth of her words; he still did not see himself as worthy of the love she was promising.

“Maybe if I’d have admitted to you that I loved you – back then,” she went on, haltingly, her guilty tears openly streaking her face now. “It would have been different. So many things…would never have happened. You wouldn’t have – have left town, and…”

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head, still not looking at her, his voice low with the difficulty of speaking about his past. But he had to cut off this incorrect train of thought she was riding, blaming herself for the ordeal he had been through. “It would have still happened, Buffy. You can’t blame yourself for this. Warren had the whole thing planned out, and he would have still made it happen. He had the controller for the chip all ready when he caught me. He would have found me alone somehow, and…”

“But maybe you would have been…stronger…” She struggled against her tears to make him understand. If not for her previous abuses against him, perhaps he could have withstood Warren’s torture, and would not be the broken creature he now was.

“It would have taken longer,” he broke in, knowing what she was going to say, and he looked up to meet her eyes, his own vulnerable with the pain of memory and welling with tears. “for me to…to break…but…it still would have ended up this way, love. It’s not your fault.”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes searching his with a softness, a compassion in them that made him feel exposed and vulnerable, though he trusted her not to take advantage of that – not anymore. Somehow, knowing that she was seeing through the front he had tried to present to her did not make him feel ashamed; rather it was a tremendous relief, not to have to hide anymore.

She put one arm around him, pulling him gently closer to her, tenderly stroking his cheek with the back of her other hand, as she said softly, sorrowfully, “Maybe so. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything that happened with Warren. Maybe what he did *wasn’t* my fault.”

She paused, meeting his gaze firmly, determined to acknowledge fully her part in the pain he was struggling with. “But so many things were,” she whispered finally, shaking her head sadly. “I hurt you, Spike. So much, for so long. I made you – I made you vulnerable to him,” she finally managed to say the words she had been thinking, her face twisting and crumpling as she sobbed out the truth. “I don’t know how you can not hate me for the way I’ve treated you.”

He stared at her, his mouth open slightly in surprise as he shook his head slowly, his tearful eyes wide with disbelief. “Buffy,” he whispered, feeling somehow stronger in the face of her weakness. He wanted to dispel her fears, which were utterly groundless in his eyes. “Buffy, how could I hate you? I’ve always loved you…how much more, now that you’ve…you’ve *saved* me?”

There was so much power, so much meaning in the simple word. He could not imagine being anything but grateful to her for what she had done for him, pulling him out of a hopeless situation, brutal agony of torment that he had seen stretching before him without any possible end…until she had shown up.

She had taken him out of the house of bondage and tenderly, kindly ministered to his injuries, comforting the savage wounds inflicted on his brutalized body, giving him the blessed gifts of warmth and safety after so long bereft of them.

But she had not stopped there, had not been satisfied with simply tending to his physical wounds. Patiently, tenderly, she had led him along the path toward emotional recovery as well. Over and over she reassured him that he was safe, free…*loved*…even when he found it impossible to believe. She had proven it consistently to him with her words, and with her gentle touch. He was hers, and she loved him.

Again and again the ghosts of his captivity had hooked their vicious claws into him and tried to drag him back down into the misery of darkness. Again and again she had fought them back, driving them away and tugging him gently back with her into the light.

How could he possibly hate her, blame her for anything, when she was nothing less than his savior?

All of this was clear in those impossibly blue eyes as he gazed at her, adoring and thankful, the depth of his love for her impossible to miss.

His profound gratitude only made her guilt stand out, glaringly obvious in her sight. “If it wasn’t for me,” she whispered, looking down. “You might not have needed to be saved.”

“Oh, Buffy,” he whispered, reaching a hand down to gently lift her chin, making her face him. When she looked up, her emerald eyes were glistening with tears, and full of a deep, sorrowful remorse. “I’ve always needed you to save me. I’ve always…needed *you*.”

The stark honesty in his tender words took her breath away as she stared into his eyes, full of an emotion too deep to put into words.

“Spike,” she whispered. “I’ve never needed anyone else like I need you. I didn’t want to admit it…I wanted to think that I could make it on my own…so I pushed you away…” She hesitated, but held his gaze bravely, willing him to see the truth in her eyes. “…but all that did was make me see more…how much I couldn’t make it without you. And I hated that…so I hurt you.” Her voice broke and her shoulders shook with sobs, as she found that she could not go on.

He took her gently in his arms, embracing her and holding her close to him, running his fingers comfortingly through her hair. “Buffy, it’s over,” he whispered, softly shushing her. “It’s in the past…we’ve both hurt each other, but it’s…it’s forgiven now…it’s over, love.”

She pulled away slightly, looking up into his eyes with a determined fire through the tears that shone in them. “I need you to know,” she went on firmly, shaking her head at his attempts to assuage her guilt. “I need you to know how sorry I am. I am so…so…sorry, Spike. And I’m never…*never*…going to hurt you again. You are everything to me, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you.”

The words were simple, but spoken with a powerful passion that left him breathless as his eyes took in the intensity with which she felt them, so obvious in her open eyes. There was no denying how deeply she really meant what she was saying to him.

And he simply had no words.

So, slowly, tenderly, he lowered his lips to hers, accepting her promise and her love with a silent token of his own. He pulled her closer to him, his hand behind her head, stroking through her hair as he held her there, claiming what she had just sworn to be his. The kiss deepened as his arms slid around her, possessing her as his own, until they finally parted, both of them breathless and gasping.

He recovered first, and whispered tenderly, “Buffy…I love you. I – I want to show you…” He couldn’t finish the thought in words, but his soft, strong hands began urgently tugging her toward the bed.

She nodded, still gasping with her rising need for him, her eyes closed, and allowed him to push her gently down beneath him on the bed. Slowly, softly, he left a trail of feather-light kisses down her throat, following the low v-shaped neckline of her shirt until the buttons became a hindrance.

His hands trembling with urgency, he unbuttoned the shirt and slid it back off of her shoulders, as she just lay there, pliant and yielding to his gentle dominance as her hands lightly traced down his sides to rest on his hips in nothing more than a caress – not insistent or demanding, though by now she was desperate with her desire for him.

He was desperate too, in a different way, to show her that the hurts that lay behind them were just that – behind them, and in the past. He loved her, and harbored no anger or bitterness for the mistakes she had made.

He had certainly made enough of his own.

Each of them had reached a place tonight where words could no longer serve them. She wanted him to know how much she meant to him, how painfully sorry she was for her many cruel and careless offenses against him in the past. She wanted to give herself to him completely, to somehow prove that her love was real, honest, lasting.

And he wanted her to know that he already knew all of that. He had forgiven her long before she had asked him to; at any rate, the past pain she had caused him quickly paled in comparison to the generous gifts she had lavished upon him in the past month – freedom, security, but most of all the healing kindness of her love. He wanted to thank her, wanted to express to her how deeply he loved her and how he would always be grateful for what she had done for him – and words were simply not enough.

He knew where he wanted to take her tonight; it was where she wanted to go as well…and she was more than willing to allow him to lead the way.