Disclaimers: All of the characters in this story belong to Joss Whedon.

Chapter one: Stars

The summer was nearly coming to an end and it had certainly felt like a long summer. After they had defeated Glory everyone wanted to go and celebrate, everyone that is except for Buffy and Spike. All the slayer wanted to do was curl up in a corner and die and Spike, well he hated seeing her like this, not only did he have his own pain to deal with he wanted to ease Buffy's too. She just ignored everything around her and for the first week or so she didn't come out of her room or talk to anyone and after that she insisted that she was fine, but it was clearly not true. Dawn had constantly asked her about Rosa and all she answered with was "She was just a girl," this hurt Dawn as she knew that Rosa was more than that. Her friends had decided to just let her be and that she would talk about it eventually. A week turned into a month and she started speaking to Spike about their daughter. The first night she had just entered the crypt and broke down. They were there until the sun had rose. Night after night they would talk a bit more, how they could of stopped it or got Willow to do a spell to change it but they quickly reasoned that The Powers That Be would probably of tarnished their attempts anyway. Buffy had called her mom to tell her that it was all over with Glory and that it was safe to come home, but Joyce had told them that their aunt was ill and that she would have to stay longer than expected, this was okay with the slayer as she didn't really want to face the Spanish inquisition.

Buffy and Spike had already been in three graveyards tonight and had fought three different kinds of demon vampire, vampire and vampire. The slayer was getting tired of fighting the same species as they entered Spike's graveyard. With out a shadow of a doubt it was always demon free there and she loved that. She was sure he did it on purpose, bringing her to his graveyard last just so that she could get a bit of piece and quiet. Buffy had a denim skirt on and a white and pink flowery top on as it was still pretty hot and Spike ran up to a crypt and sat on the roof. He popped his head over the top to see the slayer walking towards it at a slow pace.

"Are you gonna stay down there or are you joining me?" he asked

Buffy smiled and began to climb up, the vampire grabbed her handed and pulled her up.

"Joining, see," she smiled

As she smiled at him he was staring dreamily at her as she lay back and blurted something out.

"So fucking beautiful,"

It made her giggle that a confessed poet couldn't think of something more romantic to say about the heavens, then she realised he wasn't looking at them but he was looking at her. It struck a chord deep in her, it was a brutal statement clear and free from unnecessary words, it was pure feelings. She turned her head to face him and saw in his eyes no sign of regret at telling her that way, he didn't want to play games with words that were only half meant, he was being honest with her.

"Nah." She smiled warmly at him as her insides felt like she had just leapt into a volcano, body hot and flushed.

Spike smiled at the thought that she could only weakly deny his words to her, he could feel her temperature rise and see her cheeks colour deeply even in the fading light of the moon. So many men had played games with her, saying things they never meant and tricking her into giving. Spike didn't want that, he wanted her to know what he felt and wasn't scared to put it into words that weren't blurred by heart and flowers. She needed someone to be honest with her to help her grow by feeling what people are meant to feel. He knew she hadn't loved Riley, the man had been a fool too busy with noise and half spoken truths to say what he really felt about her. If he had, maybe Spike wouldn't be lying here next to Buffy now, he was thankful the man had been an idiot.

"Spike?" She had returned her gaze to the stars.

"Yes pet."

"Dawn loves sitting on the back porch and whenever I go out there I feel so stupid, she always wants to know what the stars are called and I don't know." Her voice sounded almost apologetic. "I tell her silly names like 'the pig' and 'the W', I'm pretty sure she knows I'm joking, only I would love to be able to tell her their real names."

"I'm presuming you would like to know the names of constellations rather than stars, if it's names of stars you're after I'm not your man, love." His eyes were fixed on the constellation she had obviously christened as 'the W'.

"See, dumb Buffy calling them stars and not constel-thingies."

"Constellations. See the one you've dubbed 'the W'?" He pointed directly to it, just slightly off centre above their heads.

"Yeh, I see it." Buffy shuffled closer so she could follow his finger across the sky, her head coming to rest by his shoulder. She could hear him swallow hard.

"That's Cassiopeia and you see below it there's two long sets of stars that lay almost opposite each other like a giant but slightly bent arrow across the sky?" He pointed out each line of stars, she squinted up the length of his arm and followed his lead.

"Kinda."

"That's Andromeda; the thing I love most about this area is…" He got cut off mid sentence by Buffy's giggle then turned to her and raised his eyebrow. "If I was allowed to continue?"

"Sorry, just you really love looking at the stars. It's all romantic and poetic."

"Okay, no more stars for you if you intend to take the piss out the vampire here." His face was serious and knotted into a frown, Buffy realised she'd overstepped the mark a little.

"Sorry." She held his wrist and made his hand point out the stars of Andromeda again. "Continue."

"It'll knock you off your giggling girl high horse when I tell you." He quickly moved his hand so he had switched positions and was now holding her wrist. "See the bottom right point of the W and how it almost lines up with those two points in Andromeda?"

She was squinting hard face screwed up in concentration but he resisted laughing at her.

"Yeah."

"Well, just along the invisible line we've made between them, south of the bottom right point of the W about a third of the way to the two stars of Andromeda is the Andromeda galaxy. It's visible to the naked eye of humans, like a small fuzzy cloud."

"Wow." She breathed on catching sight of it, utterly amazed she couldn't find words to express how she felt. All the times she had sat out under the stars pointing at the W with Dawn and she'd never realised there was a galaxy there. Dawn would have been impressed if she had told her that.

"It's our closest galaxy you know, several million light years away but still close enough to see with your eyes."

"Spike I really never knew that there was so much more to you than just killing and bad poetry, you're the most soulful person I know and ironically you haven't got one."

It made him smile at her, there were a million things she could have said in reaction to what he showed her and she had said the one thing he hadn't even thought of.

"What's that, mom said it was the Milky Way." She streaked her hand across the sky.

"That's because it is the Milky Way." He realised she had sidled even closer to him he could feel her breath on his neck when she turned to face him.

"What is it?"

"Didn't you go to school?"

"I was busy, apocalypses don't wait you know. Now spill."

"Okay." He took hold of her arm again and pointed her hand along the length of the Milky Way. "That is our glorious side on view of our galaxy. It's a spiral galaxy and we're on the edge of one of its many arms, this is our view across it. If we were nearer the middle the whole sky would be full of dense stars and horribly bright if we could see the centre. Down in Brazil it was denser there are a lot more stars that side of our planet."

Buffy didn't like him talking about Brazil, next thing you know he would be talking about Drusilla. She turned to look at him; his eyes were firmly fixed on their hands. He looked like a pale glowing angel next to her, guiding her in the heavens. His lips parted in an unnecessary act of breathing his eyes looked black in the failing light of the moon on the horizon.

"So gorgeous." The words slipped out unexpectedly in a whisper giving her no time to back peddle so she froze.

Spike turned his head to look at her, his eyes were narrowed as though he was trying to figure out whether she had meant the Milky Way or him. The look in her eyes said it all, panic and fear mixing with a little amount of hope that the moment would pass comfortably.

"Nah." Spike echoed her previous words and looked back at the stars, his insides burning up. Buffy sighed in relief, not so bad after all.

"Where do we hop next captain."

"Anywhere so long as you don't call me what the whelp does."

"Ha, I know that one that's Orion. Mom told me that too." She swung their joined hands triumphantly in its direction. "Bet you can't tell me anything interesting about that one."

"How did I just know you would know which one the hunter was? See him with his arm outstretched ready to loose an arrow?" Moving her hand he traced Orion's arm. "Well, here's something interesting, see the three stars that make up his belt?"

"Uh huh." She nodded.

"Just below those is his sword." He moved her hand down to it and bought his head close to hers so he could make sure he was in the right area. She smelt like cherry lip gloss. "That pink-blue looking one in the middle there. That's the great nebula, very pretty indeed and one of the biggest you can see up there."

"Again with the wow. Really, if you took out the slaying tonight would be perfection. All peaceful and relaxing with the stars."

"And the girl you love." He smiled at her. "I think the slaying adds to the evening personally."

She poked him in the arm and laughed. "For a moment there I thought you were just the hopeless romantic but you're still the vampire I've always known." Spike chuckled at this comment and turned his head back to her and found tears were running down her cheeks. He furrowed his brow softly and put his hand under her chin and lift her head up so that her hazel/green eyes met his clear, blue eyes.

"Hey...what's wrong?"

Buffy sniffled and hesitated in answering. They had grown so close in the past few weeks that she told him almost everything that she was feeling and that was happening, almost.

"I wonder if-if she is in heaven or hell...god I-we hardly got to know her and it feels like we'd known her for all her life, ya know?" Spike stroked her hair and wiped the tears away and she smiled softly at how gentle he was being with her, his voice but a soft whisper.

"I know exactly what you mean, there isn't a day that goes by when i don't bloody keep thinkin' that there might have been something we could of done but we can't keep looking into the past, all we can do is remember her pet...plus i don't think The Powers That Be would let her go to hell not after the trouble they went through to make her," he said soothingly

She nodded in agreement and looked at looked at her watch. 12AM.

"I should get going...Dawn will be worried,"

"Yea...I'll see you around then?" the vampire asked and she was just sat there staring at him. Buffy bit her lip and then leant in and kiss him tenderly on the lips. She let her tongue play with his as they kissed. Spike put his arms around her and pulled her closer to him, while Buffy put hers around his neck. They pulled away slowly and the slayer looked into his eyes, smiled and then hopped off the crypt roof.

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