Chapter 5


“Spike! You’re kissing Spike!” Xander gasped.

Buffy leaped to her feet. Spike got up more slowly, glanced at her flustered face, then turned without speaking and went to recover his duster from the top of the gate. He was leaving it up to her how she wanted to play this.

“It’s that spell again!” Xander was exclaiming. “Willow’s spell! It didn’t come off!”

Buffy took a deep breath. “It’s not a spell, Xander. I wanted to kiss Spike.”

“Well, he is hot,” muttered Anya. “Wouldn’t mind kissing Spike myself.”

Spike grinned at her. “Thanks, luv.”

“And that vampire staying power,” she sighed regretfully. “So many orgasms...”

Both Buffy and Spike laughed.

“Buffy, are you out of your mind?” Xander yelled, not even hearing this byplay in his horror at Buffy’s behavior. “That’s Spike! Vampire! Evil! No soul! Killer!”

“Yeah, yeah. Heard all those words before. But he’s not killing anyone but demons now and he’s helping me. So back off.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t...!”

“I’m a grown woman. I can do what I like.”

“You can’t get involved with a vampire!”

“Have before and no one objected.”

“And look what happened! We had an apocalypse, Giles got tortured and Jenny Calendar died!”

“That was way below the belt,” Buffy growled. “No one could have predicted that. Spike doesn’t have a curse. I don’t have to worry about him going all evil on me.”

“Because he already is!”

“He’s reformed,” said Buffy dryly. Both she and Spike grinned.

“Reformed? Spike?” Xander stared at her. “It’s a thrall, isn’t it? He’s done something to you.”

“Don’t have a thrall,” said Spike scornfully. “Never had the touch. Dru was the one who did.”

“This has nothing to do with you, Xander,” Buffy said flatly. “It’s none of your business.”

“I’m your friend! You’re acting crazy! I can’t let that happen!” He glared at Spike. “You did something. I know you did. I’ll fix you!”

He jerked a stake from his coat pocket and leaped at Spike. Buffy knocked him away and struck the stake from his hand.

“You leave Spike alone! You hurt him, Xander, and I’ll hurt you! That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.”

“No,” said Xander, sagging against one of the concrete pillars of Shady Rest’s gate. “No. This can’t be happening. I won’t let...Gotta stop this.”

“What I choose to do with my life is my business, not yours, Xander.” She turned to Spike. “Let’s call it a night and go get cleaned up. I’m all over mud. We’re close to Revello Drive. Mom won’t mind us using her shower.”

“Yeah, okay.” He glanced at Xander still leaning against the pillar and muttering to himself. “He’s not going to leave it where it is, pet.”

“I know.”

As if in confirmation of that, Xander yelled, “This is not over, Spike!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Spike dismissively over his shoulder as he and Buffy walked off. He was grinning a little. “Life should get interesting from now on. Gonna be a cat and mouse game, it looks like. Think I’d better change my crypt. Wanker knows where I live. Don’ wanna wake up and find a stake heading at my heart.”

“Um.”

Buffy was very silent the rest of the way to Revello Drive. Spike glanced at her and was quiet himself, because it was obvious that she was thinking hard.

“It’s no good,” she said abruptly as she opened the door of the house. “I can’t see any way around it. Changing your crypt won’t keep you safe, Spike. Xander, and probably Giles as well, won’t give up. They’ll just keep tracking you down and you have no way to defend yourself. You’ve got to leave Sunnydale.”

“No.”

“They’ll find you and they’ll stake you, Spike. You’ve got to leave.”

“I told you once, pet. I don’t leave.”

“You have to! It’s not safe for you here!”

“‘Something always happens.’ That’s what you said. Yeah, well, I don’t care. I’m not like those other wankers, pet. I don’t leave. You’d have to dust me.”

“They will dust you, Spike!”

“They can try. It won’t be easy. Haven’t lived this long without picking up a few tricks on the way. I’m not leaving.”

“Spike!”

“I love you, Buffy.” He put out a hand and cupped her cheek very delicately. “I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. What am I going to do out there somewhere when my heart’s here in Sunnydale with you?”

“You can exist!” She grabbed his T-shirt and shook him hard. There were tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to see you dust!”

He stroked a thumb over her eye. “Tears. For me. Care just a little, don’t you?” He kissed her very gently. “You just made it worthwhile. Not going to leave, pet.”

“Spike...”

“What’s going on?” Joyce’s voice asked behind them.

They both jumped and turned. They had both been so absorbed in their argument that they hadn’t realized that she had been in the livingroom the whole time.

“Mom!”

“Is there something you haven’t been telling me, Buffy?”

Spike ducked his head and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, giving Buffy a rueful, laughing, sideways look. “Guess the game’s up, luv.”

Buffy closed her eyes and groaned. “Oh, God, this is getting more complicated by the minute.”

“Am I right in thinking the two of you are involved?” asked Joyce dryly.

“Um, yeah. Sort of.”

“I was wondering why you’ve been so happy the last couple of weeks.” Joyce sighed. “Well, it’s not what I would have wanted. I was hoping for grandchildren and a normal life for you. But I guess Slayers never do have a normal life and, who knows, the human boy you might have picked might not have had viable swimmers anyway either. No guarantee about that really. And I do like you, Spike. Very much. So...”

Spike was laughing helplessly and Buffy looked totally flummoxed.

“Am I right in thinking you approve, Joyce?” Spike asked, using Joyce’s own phrasing with amusement.

“You make Buffy happy,” said Joyce simply. “And you seem to really care for her. So, yes, I do approve.”

“I love her,” said Spike as simply.

“Don’t say that,” said Buffy feebly.

“You see the problem,” Spike said to Joyce.

“Mm,” Joyce nodded. “But that will resolve itself one way or the other. There’s another problem, isn’t there?”

“Xander saw us kissing,” Buffy sighed. “Giles and the Scoobies won’t be happy about it. Xander and Giles will want to stake Spike. I want Spike to leave Sunnydale and he won’t go.”

“But surely this has nothing to do with them,” Joyce said, frowning.

“They won’t see it that way,” said Spike ruefully. “You know how they’re always interfering with Buffy’s life.”

“Yes, I have noticed that. Why do you let them, dear? It’s your life. They all seem to do what they want without asking your permission. Why shouldn’t you?”

“I have to let them. They’re my friends...” Buffy stopped. That sounded lame even to her. Why was she allowing the Scoobies to dictate her choices? And Giles wasn’t even her official Watcher anymore, having been fired by the Council.

“They can’t let a Slayer get involved with someone who’s just a thing.” Spike explained to Joyce. “Vamp without a soul here. Evil. Should be put down like a rabid dog.”

“You don’t really seem that evil to me, dear,” Joyce told him and he grinned and winced dramatically.

“Don’t have to be mean, Joyce.”

Buffy’s eyes had widened. “For my own good. Again for my own good. I am so fucking sick of this ‘my own good’ business!”

“Language, Buffy,” said Joyce severely.

“Duck,” muttered Spike to Joyce. “Blood in her eye.”

“Whatever I say, whatever I do, they’re still going to find a way to get rid of Spike and I can’t stop them!”

“We’ll figure something out,” said Joyce soothingly. “Why don’t the two of you get cleaned up first though? You’re all over mud.”

Buffy looked down at herself. “Good idea. Spike, you take the shower in the master bedroom and I’ll head for the other.”

“You left a pair of your jeans here, Spike,” Joyce said. “So you can change into that. But I don’t have a shirt for you unless I’ve still got one of Hank’s tees somewhere. I can look.”

“Don’t bother, Joyce.” Spike held up the duster he had been carrying over his arm. “I’ll just wear this until I get back to my crypt.”

Half an hour later, Buffy was blow-drying her hair when she heard a car pull up in front of the house. It was Giles’ Peugeot, with him behind the wheel and Xander in the passenger seat, Willow shoehorned on his lap. Anya was nowhere in sight. Buffy guessed that Anya, caught between Xander and her own fellow-feeling towards Spike as another demon, had decided to stay out of whatever confrontation the Scoobies had planned. They all got out of the car, then Giles went around to the trunk and pulled out two crossbows, one for him and one for Xander.

Buffy went quickly into the master bedroom. Spike was sitting on the bed, in a clean pair of jeans but no shirt, pulling on his Docs.

“Giles, Willow and Xander are here.” She picked up his duster from where he had dropped it on a chair and tossed it at him. “With crossbows.”

Spike laughed. “Gunning for me, are they?”

“Looks like. Go. Out the window. Down the tree. I’ll try to keep them here long enough for you to get whatever you need out of your crypt. Stay low for a while, okay?”

“Right.” He yanked on his duster, then kissed her quick and hard. “See you later, luv.”

The doorbell rang. Joyce had apparently seen who their visitors were as well, because she called up at once, “Buffy? Should I...?”

Buffy ran down the stairs. “Let them in, Mom.”

“Where’s Spike?” demanded Xander the minute he stepped through the door.

Buffy yanked the crossbow out of his hands and broke it over her knee. Then she did the same thing to the one that Giles was carrying. They both gaped at her, shocked to the core.

“Any stakes you might also be carrying stay in your pockets,” she said with cold fury. “I see one, I shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

“See? See?” Xander gasped to Giles. “He’s done something to her!”

“Spike has done nothing to me that I haven’t wanted him to do,” said Buffy flatly. “I am not under a thrall, not out of my mind, and right now I am seriously pissed by the three of you barging in here and planning to murder someone whose only crime is that he’s sleeping with me.”

“Sleeping?” exclaimed Giles. “I didn’t believe Xander when he accused you of that! Buffy, have you lost all sense of who you are?”

“You didn’t believe Xander? Then why the crossbows? You were planning on murdering Spike just for kissing me?”

“Murder?” snarled Xander. “He’s a vamp! Dusting a vamp’s not murder!”

“Killing a defenseless creature who can’t hurt you is murder. And the action of a bully and a coward. He can’t even fight back and you were going to do that to him,” she said furiously. “I’m ashamed of you!”

“You’re ashamed! You’re sleeping with a vamp—again! It was bad enough with Angel! But with Spike? That’s...that’s just disgusting!”

“Who the hell are you to judge me, Xander? There you are, sleeping with a vengeance demon who’s killed thousands of people...”

“That’s different! She’s human now!”

“And is Oz human?” Joyce asked behind them. “He’s a werewolf, but I don’t see any of you going after him with silver bullets.”

Everyone stared at her, then Buffy started to laugh.

“That’s...” began Willow, horrified.

“Different.” said Joyce. “Again different. Why?”

“But...”

“Xander can’t keep away from demongirls, Willow falls in love with a werewolf, but no one tries to intervene there. Buffy doesn’t say a word, certainly doesn’t try to run your lives. Why are you all interfering with hers?”

“Buffy’s the Slayer,” said Giles, but some of the wind seemed to have gone out of him with Joyce’s opposition and he seemed not quite as zealous and self-righteous as before. “She can’t involve herself with a vampire.”

“She involved herself with Angel and no one objected to that.”

“I did,” muttered Xander.

“I don’t like Angel,” said Giles. “And I have reason not to. But he has a soul.”

“Do werewolves have souls? And if so, do those souls go missing three or four days a month when the moon is full? Willow, if it was determined that werewolves don’t have souls, would you kill Oz if he came back?”

“Never!” gasped Willow. “I love him!”

Joyce looked at all of them. “So the real difference is that Oz is your friend and Spike is not. Oz is one of you, a known quantity, and Spike is a stranger, an outsider you don’t bother to get to know. That’s very...insular of you.”

“That’s not it at all!” Xander exclaimed. “Spike’s evil!”

“And that can’t change?”

“No!”

“But he is changing, Xander. He protected me, he’s helping Buffy...”

“But...but it’s Spike!”

“What’s wrong with Spike? I like Spike,” Joyce said. “I didn’t like Angel, but I do like Spike.”

“A naive personal preference is not the issue here,” said Giles.

Joyce drew herself up to her full height, her eyes flashing. “Don’t condescend to me, Rupert Giles! Naive? I may be naive about demons and magic and all this other foolishness of yours! But I’m not naive about anything else. I’ve managed to bring up my daughter all by myself these last few years, and keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I’m a darned fine business woman and my gallery is successful. Can you say as much, Mr. Giles?”

It was a measure of how angry Joyce was that she flung Giles’ unemployment in his face. Giles winced and deflated.

“Spike has behaved decently to me. And he’s been helping Buffy in her duties on the Hellmouth. That chip in his head may be the reason that he’s doing it, but the fact remains that he is doing it. You see a vampire, evil, without a soul. I see a man who’s trying to change, who is doing good. And that soul business? Angel seems to have a problem with it, running around killing all and sundry when he loses it. Spike certainly doesn’t act that way, even though he doesn’t have a soul!”

“If that chip were gone...”

“But it isn’t gone, is it? You might be justified in killing him if the chip were gone. I don’t agree, unless he harms someone. But that would give you some justification. But it isn’t gone. It’s right there. And as long as it’s there, you have no excuse whatsoever to harm him!”

She glared at all of them and even Xander quailed.

“Naive? I might be naive, but what I see is that for the first time in a very long while my daughter is happy. Spike may be a vampire and evil and without a soul, but he’s made Buffy happy! While all of you just lay burdens on her and harass her and think you have the right to tell her what to do with her life. And none of you, not even you, Rupert Giles, because you’re not a Watcher anymore, have the right to do that!”

“Go, Mom!” said Buffy softly. She looked around at all of them. “Okay. Bottom line. No one hurts Spike. If any one of you lays a finger on him, I’m done. You won’t have a Slayer anymore. I’ll quit.”

“You can’t mean that!” Giles gasped.

“I never wanted to be a Slayer, Giles. I wouldn’t mind at all having an excuse to quit. I don’t know what I feel about Spike. I’d like to have the opportunity to find out. Without interference or pressure from any of you.”

There was a charged silence. Then Giles made a small, resigned gesture.

“All right,” he said heavily.

Xander stared at him, then sagged back against the wall, defeated. Willow looked relieved and Buffy guessed that her heart hadn’t been in this.

“I’m sorry to be inhospitable,” said Joyce when no one seemed to know what to do next. “But it’s late and I have to work tomorrow. So if you don’t mind...”

“We’re going,” nodded Giles and they all did, Willow looking anxiously back at Buffy and Joyce as she went.

“I’ll see you back at the dorm, Will,” said Buffy and Willow looked happier when both Buffy and Joyce smiled at her.

“Well, that’s that,” said Joyce with satisfaction as she closed the front door behind them.

“They’re not done,” said Buffy.

“What!”

“Willow’s come around, but then she was hesitating right from the beginning. I don’t think she really wanted to be here, except the other two convinced her that an intervention was necessary.”

“You mean, after all that...!”

“You were magnificent, Mom, but they’ll say you’re just being emotional, not rational.” She smiled crookedly at Joyce. “They think Spike’s won you over with his fatal charm. You haven’t convinced them. Both Xander and Giles have closed minds on that subject.”

“But, honey, Giles gave in.”

“Only because I threatened him. An agreement made under force is null and void. He’ll be trying to find a way around it.”

“So Spike’s still in danger.”

Buffy nodded. “That threat’s not really a threat. Giles knows I can’t stop being the Slayer. If a Slayer’s needed for some reason, I’m going to jump in. I won’t be able to help myself and he knows that. The threat will give him pause though. He won’t do anything openly harmful to Spike, just in case I really meant it. It’ll be something sneaky and that will take a little while to figure out.”

“Oh, no,” sighed Joyce.

“There’s got to be a way,” growled Buffy. “I just have to find it.”

The next few days were uneventful. Giles and Xander kept giving Buffy sorrowful, reproachful looks whenever they ran across each other—which suggested that they hadn’t come up with any plan yet, otherwise Xander would never have been able to keep from looking smug. Buffy and Spike had fallen back into the habit of having dinner at Joyce’s before going out on patrol and Willow dropped in a couple of times to join them. Willow was getting along fine with Spike. Things seemed to be going well.

Too well, thought Spike. It was the calm before the storm. Don’t think he hadn’t noticed how much on edge Buffy was. Even her anger and her defiance of the Scoobies was brittle. She cared about their opinions and they would beat her down in the end. He had no hopes otherwise. He had known from the moment Xander and Anya saw them that he wouldn’t be allowed to stay with Buffy very much longer.

Joyce and Willow were of the opinion that Giles and Xander had accepted the inevitable. Buffy was still wary, but beginning to relax. Spike didn’t relax. He just redoubled his efforts to finish extending the escape route from his crypt to the sewers and didn’t sleep easy until he had that completed. Even without that chip in his head that kept him from defending himself from Giles or Xander if they came after him, he considered any place with only one exit a trap. When he finally broke through into the sewers, he let out a breath of relief.

Only just in time, he thought, running into Xander and Anya while buying a pack of smokes at the corner store. Anya gave him a rueful look and Xander gave him a wide berth. But there was a small, satisfied smile on Xander’s face that Spike recognized. It was a ‘something’s coming to get ya, asshole’ look. Xander never could keep things to himself. Looked like Watcher had come up with a plan.

Nothing happened that night, but Spike’s radar was still on high alert. Which was why when the stake slashed at him as he was leaving the crypt the next night, he was able to avoid it. He ducked it with blinding speed, then threw himself into a diving roll that brought him up on his feet in a clear area of ground uncluttered by tombstones.

“Angel,” he said, smiling. “Watcher give you the glad tidings?”

“You son of a bitch,” said Angel between his gritted teeth. “How dare you put your filthy hands on her!”

“Ah, but she wanted it, Grandpa. Consensual sex. Know you’re not familiar with that concept. Angelus always liked rape, didn’t he?”

He was aware of Giles and Xander standing in the shadows some distance away. Watcher might hate Angel because of Jenny Calendar’s death; but Giles was nothing if not pragmatic. He would use any tool that came to hand. Spike reminded himself to keep one eye on the two of them, just in case they ran up and staked him in the back while he was occupied with Angel. Their concept of honor didn’t extend itself to vampires. But he thought they would leave it to Angel. Buffy’s threat still held good.

“I’m not Angelus!” Angel was snarling.

“Could have fooled me.” He gave Angel a nasty smile. “My girl’s one hot little number. Got tired of sitting around like a nun, waiting for you to get it up. Wanted to be shown the ropes. I really had fun showing her.”

He was using words like the darts the horsemen in a bullfight drove into the shoulders of a bull, enraging and weakening him for the matador. He had always gone up against Angelus in hot blood before, in a blind, unthinking heat of rage, and that had put him at a disadvantage against Angelus’ cold malevolence. This time Spike was icy cold and thinking clearly, and he intended to win. Drive Angel into a blind fury and take him down.

“She’s mine!” Angel yelled.

“Had her once and think she’s yours? I’ve had her a hundred times.” And she’s not mine, he thought sadly; I’m hers. But Angel didn’t know that.

Angel snarled into gameface. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Yeah, yeah. Still won’t make her yours.”

“I love her!”

“Sure don’t act like it. And what has that to do with it anyway? It’s not what you feel that matters. It’s what she feels.”

“She loves me!”

“But she’s fucking me.”

Angel roared in blind rage and threw himself at Spike. Spike got in one good shot, a solid body-blow, then slid away smoothly.

“You had it all and you threw it away. Wanker.” He easily rode the blow Angel smashed at him. “And now you’re all dog in the manger about it.”

Angel was bigger, stronger, had the longer reach. But Spike was no longer the raw novice that he had been when he and Angel squared off before, and he had spent the last hundred and twenty years fighting while Angel groveled in the sewers, beating his breast and eating rats. Angel had brushed up on his fighting skills the last couple of years, but Spike had spent decades studying it, making it an art form. And, unlike Angel who saw it as a necessity not a pleasure, Spike loved fighting.

He took the savage blows deliberately, because that allowed him to get in close enough to reach the nerve clusters in solid, precise shots that, even on a vamp, were painful. Angel meant to kill. The stake in his hand nearly connected several times before Spike got in an elbow strike at Angel’s wrist that made him drop it. Angel let it go almost with relief. What he really wanted was to rip Spike’s head off with his bare hands; he was that enraged.

And all the time Spike was talking, taunting, needling Angel, keeping him on the boil. He was angling for that one blow he needed, that one opening, calmly enduring every murderous punch Angel threw at him. Angel was powerful and, when his timing was right, his hands and feet held the force of an axe. Against that, there was no simple blocking in defense. The parry must either be a deflection or a disturbance of balance by pre-emptive strike. Spike deflected or rode the blow so that all of its force wouldn’t reach him.

Then there it was—the opening that he needed. The heel of his boot smashed against Angel’s knee-cap. Angel’s leg folded under him and he crashed sideways onto his knees. Spike’s hand slashed obliquely down in a shuto strike, the edge of his hand hammering against the side of Angel’s neck, just under his ear. It was a blow that would have killed an ordinary human. It paralyzed Angel. He fell forward onto his face, unable to move.

Then Spike’s knee was in the small of his back and Spike was holding the point of the stake he had recovered between Angel’s shoulderblades.

“I should kill you,” Spike said. “I hate your guts, Peaches, both as Angel and as Angelus. But she wouldn’t like it. God knows what she sees in you. All you do is hurt her. Can’t even count how many times you’ve done a number on her. And she keeps on letting you.”

“Spike,” said Buffy coldly behind them.

“See?” said Spike, then threw the stake away and got up. He looked at Buffy resignedly. She was in a cold fury and he knew with absolute, despairing surety that any chance he had with her had just flown out of the window. “You heard.”

“All of it.”

He nodded, not even bothering to protest that every word he said had been meant to enrage Angel. There was no point. He moved away from both of them and sat down wearily on a tombstone, not looking at them.

Angel recovered the use of his limbs and staggered to his feet. He turned and glared at Buffy.

“Why? Why him?”

She didn’t answer, just looked him up and down.

“You meant to kill him, didn’t you?” she said. She cast a contemptuous glance to where Giles and Xander were trying to hide in the shadows. “Those two tell you that Spike and I are involved and you come running out here to kill him. You didn’t care anything about my feelings.”

“You can’t have feelings for him!”

“Sleep with someone, you have feelings for him. Can’t help it. Even if they’re only the mildest possible, one still has feelings. But you didn’t care what I might feel. You didn’t care that I might be hurt. Spike cared. He let you live, even though he has every justification for killing you. And he did that because he cared about how I might feel about it.”

“Spike!” he snarled. “How could you take up with Spike?”

“Because he loves me.”

“Spike? He doesn’t have a soul. He can’t love!”

“You and the Council. You both keep trying to sell that crock of shit. You can’t love without the soul, Angel. Spike does perfectly well without it. He loved Dru for a hundred and twenty years. Don’t even try to deny that.”

“Buffy...”

“You keep interfering, Angel. You walk out of my life, but you won’t let me live it my way. You keep on coming back, trying to run my life the way you want it. You have no right! And if you say it’s for my own good, I swear to God I’ll kill you where you stand!”

They stared at each other. Then Angel changed tactics suddenly and put on the wounded, puppy-dog eyes.

“You couldn’t wait?”

Buffy’s brows rose. “Wait for what?”

“There’s this prophecy. Wes translated it. It says that a vampire with a soul will shanshu once he fulfills his destiny. Become human. That’s his reward.”

“And that’s you.”

“I’m the only vampire with a soul around.” His eyes were shining. “Just think, Buffy! I’d be human! We could be together!”

“But you were human already, Angel. Just a little while ago. And you rejected it.”

Angel looked at her in shock. “You know about that? But how? No one was supposed to know!”

“I came back from L.A. feeling strange. Like there was a spell on me. So I had a psychic look into it for me. And guess what she told me? That you were human for a day, but then you had the Oracles turn back time so you wouldn’t be human anymore. So why are you now obsessing about turning human again?”

“Because...because...Buffy, we could be together!”

“We were, but you took it back.”

“Buffy, we love each other!”

“No,” said Buffy flatly. “I wonder if we ever did. I don’t know about you, Angel. I don’t really understand what you seem to think is love. Love is caring about the other person, putting that person’s needs ahead of one’s own. Spike does that.” She smiled at Spike rising to his feet, his eyes alight.

“Buffy, wait!” Angel said desperately.

“All you care about is yourself, Angel. Your pride, your feelings. I don’t love you anymore. That turning back time thing? That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.”

“Buffy!”

“No! Go away, Angel. I don’t want to look at you right now. I’m so angry, I might do you some damage!”

She spun away, then found herself staring at a lush, dark-haired woman standing behind her. Everybody jumped.

“What...?”

The woman smiled widely at Buffy.

“Yes. Perfect,” she said. “When Anya first contacted me, I thought there was no real chance of vengeance here. But she was quite right. All that anger in you! There really is potential in this situation.”

“Vengeance demon.” Spike jerked forward protectively. “Pet, be careful!”

The woman transferred her smile to him. “Hello, William.”

Spike blinked. “Cecily?”

“Well, Halfrek, really. But call me Hallie.” She smiled at Buffy. “You know Anya, so you know what I can do. You want vengeance on Angel here. I can give you any wish, any wish you want against him.”

“No!” exclaimed Angel, but Halfrek just flicked a finger and he froze in place, unable to move.

“No interruptions, please. This is up to the lady. She wants vengeance on you and I really think she deserves to have it.”

“No!” Spike said sharply. “Pet, listen. If there’s anyone I’d like to see roasting in hell it’s Angel. But vengeance isn’t healthy. There’s always a backlash on your psyche. It’s not good for you.”

“Mm,” said Buffy thoughtfully. “Any wish at all?”

“Any wish,” Halfrek nodded, smiling.

“Buffy!”

“Shut up, Spike. I’m thinking.” She nodded suddenly and decisively. “Got it.”

Halfrek beamed. “Lay it on me.”

“Buffy!” four voices yelled. Giles and Xander were running forward. Halfrek flicked a finger at them too and they froze before they could reach the group.

“I wish,” said Buffy clearly, “that you would take that chip out of Spike’s head.”

“But that’s not...Oh, subtle! I like it,” nodded Halfrek. “And I do owe you one, William.”

“No!” Xander yelled. “Buffy, take it back! He’ll start eating people again!”

“That wish looks like it has even more potential for trouble than I expected,” remarked Halfrek approvingly. “Excellent.”

“Wouldn’t eat people,” said Spike scornfully. “Don’t need to. Got Slayer blood on tap.”

“Buffy! You let him drink from you!” Giles gasped.

“It’s a real rush,” grinned Buffy.

Giles and Xander were looking appalled. Angel looked hurt to the quick. Halfrek made a little movement of her hand.

“Ow!” exclaimed Spike. Something tinkled on the ground, a tiny piece of plastic and metal about the size of a dime. He looked down at it dazedly. “It’s so small!”

Buffy put out a foot and crushed the chip into the ground. It splintered into sharp-edged shards.

“Just to make sure.” She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders. “Chains are off. You don’t need me any longer, Spike.”

His lips tightened. “I’ll always need you, pet. But you don’t need me.”

“I need you,” she said softly. “You make me come alive. You give me a reason to live. I’m not just going through the day, feeling miserable, having nothing but duty and obligation. You make me happy. Do you love me, Spike?”

“I love you,” he said intensely. “You know I do.”

She took his face tenderly into her hands and kissed him. “I love you too.”

“Buffy!” His arms swept about her, crushing her to him.

“Learned that now. Learned that when I saw you fighting Angel and thought he might kill you. Couldn’t have borne it if you’d been killed.” She wrapped her arms about his neck, leaning into him, brushed her lips down the strong cord running down the side of his neck. “You said you’d let me claim you once. Will you let me claim you now?”

“God, yes! Anything. You know that.”

“Buffy!” Angel yelled.

Halfrek snapped her fingers. Angel’s mouth still moved, but no sound came out.

“I did say no interruptions, didn’t I?” She smiled at Buffy and Spike. “This is so sweet.”

They weren’t listening to her, weren’t listening to anything else, totally focused on each other.

Buffy pulled the neck of Spike’s T-shirt aside. “There, right?”

“Yeah,” sighed Spike on a lost breath.

She smiled and bit him hard at the junction of his neck and shoulder, sucked at the blood that welled up.

“Mine.”

“Yours,” he breathed.

She tilted her head to expose her own neck and his eyes widened.

“No!” yelled Giles and Xander at the same time.

Halfrek sighed and snapped her fingers. “Really. They never learn.”

In the sudden silence, Spike bent to Buffy’s neck. “You’re sure?” he murmured.

“Yes. I want this. Want to belong to you. Want you to belong to me.”

His fangs slid into the bitemark already on her neck and they both shuddered in pleasure as he drew delicately at her blood. He only took a couple of sips, then retracted his fangs and licked the wound to seal it.

“Mine,” he whispered.

“Yes. Yours,” she smiled.

They could both feel the click as something locked irrevocably into place between them. They leaned their foreheads together, holding each other tightly.

Hallie flicked her hand. The invisible bonds that had held Angel, Giles and Xander fell away. Angel gave one final glare at an oblivious Buffy and Spike, then spun on his heel and fled away. Hallie looked after him thoughtfully.

“Yes, a good vengeance,” she remarked. “He’ll never forget this his whole life. And he’s a vampire. He’ll live a long, long time.”

Giles had sagged down onto a tombstone. “What you’ve done, what you’ve done,” he muttered plaintively.

“What have they done?” Xander asked, bewildered.

“They’ve claimed each other. Linked their lives together. A Slayer claiming and claimed by a vampire...”

“But what does that mean?”

“It’s like a marriage, except more so.” Buffy turned her head to smile at them. “You can’t hurt him now. If you kill him, you kill me.”

Xander’s jaw dropped. “She’s kidding, right?” he said to Giles, then was horrified when Giles shook his head.

“It’s the truth. We can’t touch him. Oh, Buffy!” he mourned. “Why did you do it?”

“Because I love Spike.” She wrapped her arms even tighter around Spike and he kissed her hair. “My partner. My mate. Get used to it.”

“We’ll have to,” sighed Giles and got to his feet. “Let’s go home, Xander.”

Halfrek smiled as she watched them walk numbly away.

“That went very well,” she said with satisfaction. “Are we even now, Spike?”

Spike smiled faintly. “Oh, yeah.”

“I really didn’t intend for Dru to turn you.” Halfrek grinned at Buffy. “We’ve both paid off a couple of debts. Vengeance isn’t so bad, is it?”

Buffy laughed. “No. Thank you, Hallie.”

“De nada. Made mega points by doing a wish for a Slayer. I think I’ll drop in on Anya and tell her how things ended up.”

She swept her arms in a dramatic gesture and vanished.

“We owe Anya big time,” Spike remarked.

“But don’t rub it in where Xander can hear. Wouldn’t want to get her into trouble.”

They kissed slowly, lingeringly.

“Ohh,” Buffy sighed. “What’s happening?”

She could feel him, not only physically here in her arms, but the sense of him vividly in her mind, her body, as if her every cell was permeated with the essence of Spike.

“The claim,” he said. “And I can feel you, inextricably mixed with me. Doesn’t matter where we are in the world, how much distance there is between us, we’ll still feel each other. Might even be able to talk to each other in our heads after a while. Happens sometimes.”

Never to be lonely, she thought. Never to have to worry about abandonment. To belong utterly to someone and have him belong utterly to her.

“Yes,” he said.

“You heard that?”

“Felt it.”

He kissed her deeply, their tongues sliding together. She shivered and melted against him. She could feel him, but she could also feel his pleasure, feel him feeling her. So many layers of sensation.

“Oh, God!”

“Like coming home,” he whispered, and she felt that longing in him, for home, for belonging, find fulfillment and turn into pure joy. A hundred and twenty years he had yearned for that, so much longer than she.

“Love you,” she said and felt his happiness flare out, a blaze of warmth and tenderness enveloping her. “Spike, if we don’t head for the crypt this minute, I’m gonna jump your bones right here!”

He laughed delightedly and scooped her up. “Promises, promises.”

In no time, they were in his bed, naked bodies sliding and coiling around each other, hands kneading and caressing and worshiping each other, every touch reverberating across the claim in seismic tremors that built and built until every nerve ending in their bodies was on fire.

“Love you,” she murmured against his mouth. “Love you so much.”

“Oh, God!” His forehead dropped against hers and she saw his face, utterly open and naked to her, helpless in its joy. “Buffy, I love you so much. Always wanted to be loved. Never was.”

“Are now.”

“Bloody miracle.” He shook his head in wonder. “How the hell did it happen? How did we get here?”

She ran her fingertips over the hard, beautiful planes of his face, slid her hands across the clean, strong lines of his body.

“I think...by trusting each other.” She kissed him softly. “By opening up to each other.”

“Yes.”

He came into her smoothly and their nerve ends flared. The claim flared too, stripping away all defenses, laying them open and naked to each other, minds sinking into each other like hands interlocking, bodies fusing as they strained together. One being.

His fangs slid into the claim mark and a surge of rapture shot through her as he sipped her blood. The claim picked up her pleasure and threw it to him, picked up his and threw it to her, sensation ricocheting back and forth in mind-blowing passes. She clenched on him as he pistoned into her, felt him shudder and pulse within her, bit the claim mark on his neck and felt him blank right out in white-hot ecstasy just as her brain shorted out in a flare of blinding fireworks.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, coming back to herself. “I don’t know where you stop and I begin.”

They were clinging together helplessly.

“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “Lose myself in you anyway.”

She kissed the corner of his eye as he sighed with contentment against her cheek.

“Both of us were lost, I think. But now we’re found.”

Both of them lost, lonely, searching. Enemies and yet feeling the pull. Inevitably drawn to each other because they were essentially the same. Mirror images, the shadow sides of each other, every line and bend matching perfectly.

Partners. Mates. Nothing could stand before the two of them. Whatever they faced in the future, they would defeat—the two of them standing together, shoulder to shoulder.

Nothing in the future but joy. They laughed in triumph against each other’s mouths.


The End