New Beginnings

New Beginnings

Part 10

Willow pounded back down the stairs, the same way she had ascended them. "Giles! Giles!" She ran right up to him and attempted to whisper into his ear. "She…she…kissed him!" Her body jumped around like a Mexican bean.

"Wait. W-w-what?"

Willow could not contain her anxiety and blurted it out. "Buffy…our Buffy…Slayer Buffy…kissed…Spike!"

"Well, sweety, I'm sure she feels some gratitude toward him for, um…for…"

"Can it, Tara!" Willow looked completely unrepentant for yelling at her lover.

"No, let's think about this logically. Tara's right." Willow's eyes grew large as Giles spoke. "She and Spike spent some very intense time together. I'm sure it was just a friendly peck, yes?" He removed his glasses in a very Gilesian manner and cleaned them with an old handkerchief.

"Giles, she told him he'd never be lonely again. What the hell does that mean? That she wants to go out for a burger with him sometime? No! I'll tell you what it means. She loves him. I mean, she told me some of the things she learned about him in the last few hours and she sure seemed…googly eyed to me!"

"Maybe that's the Buffybot!" Xander was grasping for straws but received glares for his troubles.

"Ahhh! Giles, help."

"Um, Willow. What exactly do you have against him anyway?" Anya was afraid to look up at Willow's face, but she managed to squeak out her question while staring down at her diamond ring.

"Am I the only sane one in here, people?!"

"No. No, you are not. I think we will all agree that one vampire l-l-lover," Giles attempted to compose himself again, "was one too many."

"No. Um, I don't agree." The glares now focused on Anya. "Well, I used to be a demon. I'm starting to take all this Spike-bashing personally. I mean, I haven't killed anyone, or even thought about it, for months and months now. You don't all shun Xander for loving me! People do change, you know."

"But, Anya. Buffy has a track record with dangerously bad relationships." Xander gave her his patented condescending look.

"Let's not forget your highly successful past relationships, Alexander." Xander could have sworn he saw Anya's eyes glowing red. He closed his eyes, shook his head, then upon reopening, her eyes were their regular brown.

-Clink-

They all looked toward the sound and saw a lens on the floor, and a half empty glasses frame held tightly in Giles' hands between the cloth. "I think I need a drink." He walked toward the kitchen as if in a daze, making it ¾ of the way there before he realized that only minors lived in the house. "Willow. Can you please make me blind again?"

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Buffy turned her head briskly to look at him. Though her words came out angry, the look in her eyes was anything but. "So, you were listening the whole time!?"

This was the first time she had not shrunk away from his touch. The feel of her warm wrist in his hand was almost intoxicating. Electric shocks traveled up his arm, making the hairs on his body stand on end. A sinister smile crossed his lips for a moment as he briefly considered playing by telling her he had heard the whole thing. But he eventually thought better of it. Further evidence of his fall into Angel the Poof-dom.

"No, just that last part." The radiance of his smile embarrassed her a bit.

"Oh."

Spike sat up, then pulled her gingerly onto the bed with him. She complied and sat, but hung her head and remained silent.

The vampire, smile intact, tilted his head in order to see her face below the cascade of soft locks. "Don't worry, luv. I won't tell anyone." He hoped that was all that was bothering her. If her actions were spawned from a different truth, say one such as the declaration of love was not real, then he knew his now delicate heart would not soon overcome it. Her unwillingness to reveal her sentiments for yet another vampire to her friends was understandable. Heck, even her reluctance to admit it to herself was something he could deal with. But he had allowed himself over the last day to believe that Buffy had begun to see him as something other than trash, a menace, a murderer. If any one took that slight hope away from him…

"Buffy?"

She raised her head slowly and met his eyes with hers. Spike felt this moment last for minutes, when in reality, it was seconds. He had never felt such fear in his life. Not when he faced the business end of a stake or the same end of a set of fangs. This woman simply terrified him. With one word or look, she could rip him to shreds. Ironic. She could never manage to kill him before…not in all the knock down, drag out fights they had had, each one swearing death to the other. They would spit and scream and bleed, but she could never hurt him. Now that she had wormed her way into his heart, all it would take was a word or a motion. Just a word.

Buffy had started about 23 sentences in her head. None of them seemed quite right to say at this moment. Perhaps the reason was that she wasn't exactly sure of what she was feeling. Her gut cramped from the anxiety of what was happening. Her heart throbbed from the pain of all her failed past loves. Her head ached from all she had learned about the previous beast, William the Bloody. Her back hurt from…well, okay, that was from the 20 story fall. In the end, she said nothing.

Buffy's soft hand reached up and cradled Spike's chin, intensifying their gaze.

Once again, sparks made their way through his body. Almost instinctively, he took her cheek in his hand. Then, suddenly, they were the only two beings left in the entire world. The color in the wallpaper faded, the dresser and chair dissipated, and Mr. Gordo lost his pink until he disappeared along with the rest. They were suspended in time, locked into each other. For a moment, it felt as if Buffy were still inside Spike. The distance between them shrunk and shrunk until…

Warm cherry lips met cold pale ones. They had kissed each other before, but not like this. Buffy extended her tongue to taste his lips. He was like candy to her: sweet, smooth and impossible to resist. She slowly sucked at his lower lip, exciting Spike beyond the ability to think clearly. His tongue answered in kind, tasting her for what he hoped would not be the last time. Buffy widened her exploration of him and begged for entrance into his cool mouth. As she tentatively entered, she nicked herself on a sharp fang.

Immediately, she withdrew, throwing herself back to stare at his bumpy face and yellow eyes. Buffy mumbled something that even she didn't really hear. But Spike heard it clear as a bell.

"What am I doing?"

His face instantly reaffixed itself to human form. Then the terror circulated throughout his body.

"You…please don't do this, Buffy."

"What am I doing?" She spoke louder and more forcefully, fear in her eyes.

His eyes pleaded with her and his arms shot out to hold her in place. "You are doing what you want to do…what your body is telling you to do. I love you, Buffy. You can't deny your attraction to me any longer."

She had never seen him so helpless before. He was actually pleading with her. In the back of her head, she wondered if she had ever seen that behavior in a vampire before.

"I…I'm so scared, Spike."

"What? You're scared?"

"I've done this before, you know. I can't do it again." She shook her head.

His eyes flickered yellow for just a second as he firmed up his grip on her shoulders. "You're not doing it again, Buffy. I'm not bloody Angel, alright?! I'm not going to leave you ever. Ever! Got that?" He shook her lightly and her eyes became a bit glossy. "I'm not that prick who took you, then left. I'm not Captain Cardboard. I'm not leaving for the jungle because loving you is too hard. I. Am. Not. Leaving. You. I've been in love with you for so long. You're all I ever think about. You're all I've ever bloody wanted. I've let go of all I ever knew and I've changed to become someone I never knew was there…someone who was forgotten decades ago." He stared in her eyes, not seeing any change.

"And one soddin' night of bliss with you is not going to turn me into an animal, Buffy! What you see before you is me…ALL ME. I've got my bloody heart out here in front of you. It belongs to you. Now it's up to you to decided what you do with it, but I'll tell you this. I'll never hurt you, I'll never leave you, and I'll always love you." He finally let her go. His head bowed down slightly. "And you can't tell me you don't love me, because I've seen inside you and I know better."

Buffy sat still for a while, then sighed. "It'll only turn out badly. Buffy doesn't exactly have the best track record for healthy relationships. In the best case scenario, you'll end up dead."

"Then I died knowing the love of the most incredible woman I have ever met. And you know that means something coming from a 130 year old." Spike ventured to smirk a little.

Before he knew what was coming, Buffy's lips were upon his again.

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A small figure peeked through a crack in the door. "Oh, shit."

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They relished each other for minutes until Buffy finally surfaced for air and uttered one little phrase. "I can't hide this from them anymore."

To Be Continued