On The Inside

Author: Foggi Rating: R Pairing: Buffy/Spike Timeline: Starts in Season Six ("Life Serial" specifically) and will go through the end of the series. Summary: What if she had loved him the whole time? Disclaimer: I'm not Joss. I'm not ME. All of this is theirs.

One: Life Serial

She's laying in her bed now.

Spike put her there fifteen minutes ago.said something about her needing sleep and then left. But she isn't going to sleep, she never does. Spike knows that, he just ignores is because it makes her feel better when people treat her normally and he's always trying to make her feel better.

This is why she's so in love with him.

Not that this is a fact she shares with the rest of the world.but on the inside her heart belongs to him. On the inside when she talked to Angel the other day she didn't feel a thing. On the inside she's felt this way since the moment she saw him the night her friends brought her back to life. But the inside isn't a place that people around her would ever accept.the inside has never fitted into the sacred duties, and lifelong friends. Right now, the inside holds the girl that was just pulled out of eternal bliss, and the outside is the strong young woman who her friends have known since high school.

She doesn't want to be the inside girl, she doesn't want to be the parts of her she can't bear to let show. She wants to be the fake version.

That still doesn't stop her from wanting him.

He's everything that she's not supposed to be, and not supposed to want. He's a vampire of course and that's wrong, but more than that, he's feeling and passionate. He's also dead. But then, so was she once.

Two: Once More, With Feeling

It's fire when they kiss.passion and all that. And he's just so overwhelmingly surprised by the whole thing.the look in her eyes and the way she grabs onto him like he's the only thing keeping her there at all.

For a spilt-second he lets himself believe that this is how it's going to be from now on. That they'll kiss every day every chance they get and things will never be the same with the woman he loves from this moment on.

Then, he remembers the mantra he's taught himself over the years: she'll never love you.

When they break apart, it's like dying all over again.for both of them.

"Buffy."

"I have to go."

"Yeah." He sighs.

"I.I didn't."

Of course you didn't, he thinks and stomps away.

But she did.

Buffy walks around Sunnydale that night. There's no use going home.things there won't be okay for a while. And it's too much for her to take. As much as she loves them, her friends will sit around all night and feel guilty and moan about how terrible they feel, ignoring that Buffy is the one who's in pain here. But, at this point, her pain is pretty much ignored. They all think she's stronger than that. And to a certain extent she is stronger, but only because of years of experience with pain in general.

Spike gets that. Spike, whose lips are almost softer than that look he gives her while tilting his head. Spike, whose arms feel like heaven all over again, who makes her forget that there is all this pain. Who she can't be with because she's.something.scared, or crazy, or too busy trying to fit back into her old life: The life that wasn't resurrected a few weeks ago.

And she could have stayed in his arms forever.

But she could never love him, at least not out-loud.

She'd just have to find another way to get into his arms.