TITLE: Bets Are Off
AUTHOR: Leni
DISCLAIMER: I wish.
WORDCOUNT: 1785
SUMMARY: Post NFA. Here's the thing, I'm trying to find my take of post NFA B/A, this is Take #3. (#1 goes for BML and #2 for H-letter love. Stay tuned. LOL!)
THANK YOU: To Kristi for the title.
FEEDBACK: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

written for stillmygirl. Challenge: 'My kind of rain'.

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Nobody thought that it would work. They weren't sure what would happen after Angel came to them, but they'd never considered that a relationship between their friend and the vampire would be rekindled and made to last. There'd been a betting pool, even, about when the two of them would try and when they'd break up. Xander had won as his answers were 'never' and 'won't have to because they won't get back together'.

He said he'd known since he'd seen Buffy's face when she first saw Angel after so long: Coldness. In the months since, everyone had stepped in at one time or another in the middle of their 'arguments', all-out fights were more like it. Angel said that they endangered the girls too much; Buffy said that the girls were Slayers and if she'd done the work, then they could do it. And that was the mildest of it. In the end, of course, Angel would go on his own to face whatever evil was threatening them and Buffy would curse loudly through the weapons room as she chose which ones to take. She always said that one day she'd find him ash and it'd be all his fault.

He said that he didn't much care.

Everybody believed him, Buffy included, and no one said a word as both warriors came back sweaty and bloody, but always winners.

The both of them fought so much during their strategy meetings that even Giles had had to lecture them on team-work. Buffy had pouted and eyed the vampire angrily; Angel had rolled his eyes as he'd never dared back in Sunnydale and sat back moodily. But they were always right. Which Dawn considered infuriating and even Willow groused about. People who had such different approaches to battle shouldn't make almost-perfect plans and back up plans.

But Buffy and Angel worked together, at least where Apocalypses were related. Otherwise they were estranged; Buffy's coldness was met with Angel's indifference to anything that wasn't fighting. Each went their own way in their personal lives and everybody thought of it as normal - it'd been so long! - and better - it'd been so much!

Catalyst. That had been Willow's definition for Spike's arrival.

It wasn't that he did anything. In fact, he seemed to have matured somewhere between exploding in the Hellmouth's crater and showing up at their doorstep. Not much, since he still enjoyed needling Xander or Giles until they were ready to stake the vampire. But enough that he remained untouched as he made himself a place among them.

It was what he didn't do. He didn't disregard Angel's opinions, and even though he often mocked the older vampire, they always saw things the same way and acted accordingly. He didn't hit on Buffy – much, and whenever she brought home a new boyfriend, he paid as much attention to the man as Angel had done: None at all. That attitude had raised a few eyebrows in Angel, but in Spike? It was downright confusing.

Buffy had been the most confused of them. And with good reason, weren't those two supposed to have feelings for her? If everyone had heard Andrew's story of how the two vampires had insistently tried to see her in Rome, now barely anyone believed the boy. Both Angel and Spike treated Buffy with respect, a fellow warrior that must be taken into consideration. But nothing else.

Where before Angel had allowed her to shadow him – and he'd actually said that; everybody had evacuated the common room in the next thirty seconds – now it was Spike who always went with him while Buffy was to stay at the quarters and train the new Slayers.

Needless to say, their friend hadn't been pleased. In fact, pleased had been the last word in her vocabulary as she stared open-mouthed at her ex boyfriend a second before she launched a mighty tirade on him. To no avail; Angel had only shrugged, turned around and calmly left the room to his rounds of patrol.

Spike had followed him; throwing behind him a small compliment at Buffy about how good she looked when angry. He'd laughed openly as he dodged the lamp she'd hurled in his direction.

From that night on, Buffy had tried to be more... approachable. They were surprised the first time she didn't fight with Angel to the bitter end about a particular move. Or when she proposed that they trained together, again. Surprise had turned into worry when Angel accepted and when Buffy's boyfriends and Nina's visits began to dwindle over the months, they looked into each others' faces and knew it: Doom was coming and it wore romance's mask.

Indeed, it came.

A demon ready to swallow the earth into hell, take 342. Buffy, Angel and Spike in the frontlines while everybody else played back-up. Buffy had insisted that they let at least the older Slayers into it; but Spike had single-handedly wiped the floor with them while Angel raised an eyebrow and asked Buffy how many funerals she wanted to attend the next weekend. Everybody had winced; they still weren't pulling any shots. But since Spike was still smirking as he sent to the mat a very stubborn Kennedy, they'd grudgingly seen the vampires' point.

Afterwards they'd known that Buffy would never let the vampires live it down – and never was an amazingly long time for them – as Angel fell in the middle of the fight and only a very coordinated work between Buffy and Spike saved him. No, Buffy hadn't been happy on the way back home and she'd screamed at him quite explicitly that if he pulled that off once more, she'd be the one staking him because he obviously didn't care any for what it'd cost to her – to them, she'd corrected hastily – to lose a good fighter.

Then it'd been Angel's turn to try to be more accessible.

If everybody had seen the hints of a repeat of a Buffy&Angel saga before, now they were obvious as the two began patrolling together (Uh-huh. They knew that story.), their fights cut down to the necessary (A good thing that they still disagreed, since Angel's ideas would kamikaze them and Buffy's alone weren't that far off.), and when one early morning Dawn had caught Buffy coming up from the basement while she buttoned up her blouse, everyone had groaned and crossed their fingers so that their break-up didn't coincide with the End of the World, again.

A new betting pool had opened. This time whether it'd be Buffy or Angel to see reason and end it.

Willow and Xander unanimously said Buffy. Giles had actually put his trust on Angel. Dawn abstained, declaring that she liked the smile in her sister's face, and that it was kind of fun to threaten big bad vamps in case they hurt Buffy.

On the side, Spike rolled his eyes.

Since that embarrassing night at Rome, he and Angel had decided to let Buffy go. Well, not really. But if they'd told themselves that, in a couple of decades they may come to believe it - or the point would be moot. Then, after Wolfram&Hart tried to digest them and then threw them up, months had passed without anything really interesting to do. They'd separated, but he'd heard that the other vampire had headed to the new Council. Spike hadn't been hot on that idea; he was allergic to Scoobies. But then he'd thought it better and, really, was he gonna let Angel have all the fun? Wherever those guys went, Apocalypses Central took place. He'd gotten to like the good fight, and the lone avenger business was, well, lonely.

Being under the same roof, he and Angel had wordlessly decided that it was better to let Buffy live her life. Especially since she was already living it and didn't seem to care that they were sleeping in the basement while Hunk of the Month slept in her room. It had worked. Okay, since Angel got her back and he only got a passing thank you whenever he helped out, it hadn't. Now that Spike thought about it, they really should have talked it out, he and Angel. He would have appreciated knowing that both had actually meant 'let Buffy make her choice'. As in, choosing between them. It was unfair to try to win her back without looking to be out to win her back when one didn't know there was competition. Not that he'd told Angel of his real intention, either, but that was beside the point.

The point was that tonight Buffy was ensconced in Angel's arms on the couch, looking sleepy as they watched what passed for the newest hit on cable. Neither seemed to mind that there were around forty Slayers and one blonde vampire waiting to see their favourite soap opera on the TV they were holding hostage. It was ridiculous, of course. But try to feed a hundred people and see if you can buy a new TV. Giles hadn't even wanted to hear about Spike's option. What? They saved the world, why couldn't they 'forget' to pay for a new TV set?

The point was that it was raining outside, and Spike liked this copy of his old leather coat enough that he didn't want it to get wet for nothing. The point was that Buffy was muttering that she had to do patrol, even under the rain, but Angel didn't have to go with her. Finally, the point was that Angel could say something mushy like 'With you, this is my kind of rain.' and she'd buy it and they didn't care to be kissing a couple steps away from him.

Spike could have coughed, but he wasn't that needy. Instead he lit a cigarette and waited until Buffy raised her head to repeat that teenagers – even Slayer teenagers – weren't to inhale that stuff. She didn't. Too involved in her kiss, was she? So he finally shook his head, cursed to himself and loudly announced that they better tape his soap or next time he wouldn't risk his ass just to give them a free night.

As he left Slayer House, Spike couldn't help but sigh a little. It'd been better when Buffy wasn't giving him the time of day and she and Angel were rowing it around London. More fun for him, at least. Truth be told, though, he'd known all bets were lost when he'd seen Buffy's expression as she gave Angel that ultimatum in their last Apocalypses.

Well, okay, almost all bets. He'd said 'none' in that silly thing the gang had started, and like it or not, it looked as if he'd be the one to win.

The End
08/03/06