She wriggled against him, her lips parting into a yawn. Buffy opened her eyes. "Still here. Good."

"Did you think I'd leave?"

She smiled. "I dreamed that you and I were going to get married. It was a good dream."

"Was it, now?"

She didn't answer; he could feel her thinking. Then she whispered, "Spike you never were married before, were you? When you were alive? Did you leave behind a wife when you were turned?"

"No pet. I loved a girl, but she refused me. An' the less said about that, the better."

She blinked. "Was that your undoing?"

"Was the making of me."

She blinked some more, processing this. "So if this other woman had said yes, we'd never have met. You'd have lived and died—"

"Long ago."

"Huh. I don't want to think about it, because I can't imagine my life anymore without you in it."

He wished there was a way to take a spoken line and freeze it into the air, so he could hear it and see it again and again, whenever he wanted to. He'd never have imagined the slayer would say such to him, and mean it. He knew she meant it.

Buffy went on, "When I was young, I used to imagine getting married to Angel. I saw us in a big church, and me in a foofy white dress, yards and yards of tulle and lace, and a veil. I never really thought about what would happen afterwards, though. I guess because I knew it was just a fantasy. I didn't think about what we'd do, how we'd live. I knew it would never happen."

"How d'you want to live, Slayer?"

She sighed. "No one has ever asked me that before."

"Think you're exaggeratin'."

"Well, maybe, but it never felt like my answer would make a damn bit of difference. I'm always swept along by circumstances—my mom, the next apocalypse, mom's death, another apocalypse, the end of Sunnydale, then Giles deciding we should use the castle. What's that bit in Alice in Wonderland, when the Red Queen says, it's as fast as you can run, just to stay in the same place. I never get to stop running, to choose."

"It matters to me. How you want to live. Have your choice."

"If I said I wanted to retire from the slayage and open a nail salon in Dubuque—?"

"Been to Dubuque. You wouldn't care for it." He petted her hair. "Not likin' the idea of L.A.?"

"I didn't say that."

"Want you to say it if it's true. You an' me can't be partners if we don't tussle things out."

"I like the idea of letting you lead for a while. It's only fair, right? You've followed me for years. You followed me to your death."

"If L.A. feels like death to you, Slayer, we'll settle somewhere else. We can talk about it. Nothin's decided for now, yeah?"

"Right now we're taking our pleasure," she agreed. As she spoke, her stomach gave off a sharp growl.

"When was the last time you ate?"

She frowned.

"Can't remember, can you? That's no good. You stay here, I'll bring you your breakfast."

"No, I'll come too. We'll do it together."

Once they were in the kitchen, it was barely a moment before she'd scrambled up onto the counter and retrieved the phone from where he'd thrown it. She danced away when he tried to snatch it from her, and her laugh was worth being denied. He made no more attempt to stop her, and burrowed into the refrigerator. While he assembled a big skilletful of eggs and sausages, Buffy made her call. He hadn't heard the sisters sound so girlish and excited together since before Buffy's death—Dawn's voice was a happy buzzing out of the mobile's tiny speaker, otherwise incomprehensible to him over the spitting of the fry-up. Buffy wandered away as she talked, into the sitting room, but a minute or so later she came back, still talking—it sounded like she was on with Xander now—and came to stand behind him as he worked at the stove, resting a hand on his waist. She said, "Spike can't quite believe he's connected with so much happiness. He's not used to making anyone happy."

He realized this was true. There had been a kind of happiness, cruel and sharp, that he'd shared with Dru, when things were going their way and she was being kind to him. But it wasn't a feeling he'd been nostalgic for, since receiving his soul. To find the last happiness he'd really known as such, other than his fierce sacrifice in Sunnydale, he had to cast back to the days when he'd been a student, before his mother took sick, before he ever saw Miss Cecily Addams. And he hadn't made either of those ladies happy, in the end, at all.

"I need to go now," Buffy said into the phone. "Spike's cooking my breakfast." There was something in the way she said this last sentence, something sweet, a little surprised, a little smug, that got to him with a whooomph. He turned to her, and she reached up to encircle his neck, to kiss him, with a smoothness as if they'd practised it together over and over. She held his head in her hands, drawing him down to press her lips against his temples. "All's well in there?" she whispered. "Everything more or less right side up again?"

"More or less. Don't let me burn these eggs."

She stepped back. He slipped the whole mess sizzling from the pan onto a plate. Poured out coffee, sat her down. She began to eat, ignoring the flatware, using her hand. Bringing his own chair close beside her, he caught her hand, sucked her greasy fingers into his mouth.

"There's blood for you in the fridge."

"Am I botherin' you?"

"No." Laughing, she began to eat instead with her left hand. Still sucking her fingers, Spike gathered her across into his lap. She settled against him with a little sigh, still working on the food as he caressed her, teasing her breasts until the nipples were tight, petting her flanks and belly with slow appreciative strokes.

"Are you trying to drive me crazy?" she said.

"Could eat you up."

"You could. I'd like it." She turned to look at him then, her eyes wide and serious. "Am I bringing this up too soon?"

"N-no."

"Spike, you don't have to. But I want you to know, you can. If it would feel good to you. If you want me that way."

He'd have blushed if he had the blood. "Noted."

"Now don't you be shy about it. I won't bring it up again until you do." She broke a sausage with her thumb nail, fed him a piece. He ran a hand across her thigh, cupped her sex. She spread her legs, still scooping bits of egg from the plate to her mouth, even as he explored her with his fingers. Her clit was hard within its soft curly pooch; he ran a digit through the bacon grease on her plate and brought it back to roll against the taut flesh. Buffy laughed again, wriggling, reaching for him. He was wearing a towel looped around his waist; his hardening cock was trapped beneath it, against her ass. "I think," she confided, "that I ought to be fucked."

"Do you?"

"As long as I'm sitting here. Yes, I do."

He lifted her up by the waist; she pulled the towel away, rolling the crown of his prick between the greasy tips of her fingers, giving it an exquisite tug before she guided it to the mouth of her cunt, and sank slowly down, squeezing and relaxing, wiggling, leaning back against him so he took her weight on his chest, her tangle of hair brushing deliciously over his bare skin.

"Christ. Christ."

"You like that?"

"Your cunny. Yeah. Christ. Like your cunny."

She turned her head, and they were kissing. He strummed her tight clit, the motion making her clench him harder, a tense rhythmic milking that he had to bite his tongue to withstand.

"My beautiful Spike." She whispered the words against his lips, feeding him. "My sweetheart. My sweet man. My husband."

He spent with a long shudder.