Thanks for all your feedback and support guys! Here's the next part. I'm pretty sure it's the last part but I'm contemplating a sequel or something. Oh and this is set after Older and Far Away still.
Part Two: Shades Of Gray
Take your straight line for a curve
Make it stretch, the same old line
Try to find if it was worth what you spent
Why you're guilty for the way
You're feeling now
It's almost like being free
-- Matchbox Twenty "You Won't Be Mine"
"An!" Xander complained for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. Anya was walking next to him, cross and stake in hand as he lugged a light axe over his shoulder. The moon glistened on the ex-demon's recently bleached blond hair as they trudged through the cemetery together, bickering about their upcoming nuptials. "We're on patrol. Can we please not talk about the wedding?"
Anya ignored him and continued to babble about flowers. "Do you like roses, Xander? Or would you prefer lilies. Lilies are very traditional flowers. They symbolize purity. I like lilies."
Spike, who was watching the couple from the shadows since they had started patrolling earlier that night, finally decided that he had had enough of lurking and was getting sick and tired of being subjected to the demon girls' incessant chatter. Her voice could wake up the dead. Literally. Stepping behind them, he raised his fist never intending to hit the boy therefore causing him no pain. Sensing something, the brunet turned around, axe in hand. Xander stopped and let out a sigh as Spike cocked his scarred eyebrow. "Nice reflex, Harris."
"Great! Evil Dead is here," Xander muttered and the hefted the axe on his shoulder again.
"Hello Spike," Anya greeted cheerfully. "I staked a vampire tonight. We're patrolling."
"I know," Spike answered as he reached into his duster for a cigarette. After lighting it, he continued to walk with the couple. "Slayer asked me to keep an eye on the two of you."
"Remind me to thank her," Xander replied through gritted teeth.
"Yes," Anya answered with a firm nod and the started to dig into her purse. She retrieved a sleek, cream-colored envelope and handed it over to him, a bright smile on her face. Cautiously, Spike took it from her, taking a moment to catch Xander's look of disbelief. His name was scribbled elegantly on the cover and he slid his hand inside to pull out the card. He looked up at Anya. She nodded and smiled brightly. "It's an invitation to the wedding. You can bring a guest."
"Anya!" Xander sputtered finally able to reclaim his voice. "You just invited Captain Peroxide to our wedding! You didn't even tell me!"
Spike rolled his eyes as Anya explained. "We're having demons at the wedding. Are you saying that you don't want Hallie there? She's my friend Xander Harris! You can't expect me to just forget - "
Spike stopped listening to the couple and slid the invitation card into the pocket of his duster. He briefly wondered what Buffy would have to say about the invite but then brushed it off. It's not her bleeding wedding. It's a free country. He was about to open his mouth and tell the soon-to-be newlyweds to shut up, but his eyes caught sight of a figure moving past a tombstone. "Heads up, mates. We got company."
He counted six vampires and they were circling them. Anya immediately held the cross out in front of her and Xander was ready with his axe. Spike stood patiently, cigarette dangling from his lips, assessing the competition and waiting for someone to make the first move. He was itching for a good fight, and one that came in the non-verbal-Slayer-bashing-then-beating-him-into-a-pulp-while-he-let-her variety. The largest vampire looked at him and then sneered. "You're Spike. I've heard of you. Traitor."
"A bloke's gotta live his unlife to the fullest," Spike answered calmly, as the vampires growled. "You gonna make something of it?"
"Hey Dead boy, can we just get to the fighting?" Xander asked impatiently.
"Yeah, sure," the large one answered and then rushed towards Spike, while the others attacked the humans.
Spike easily dodged the vampire and then swiftly punched it in the face. It came towards him again this time, trying to knock Spike off the ground. The bleached blond easily jumped and kicked the oaf in the stomach, making it howl in pain and fall to the ground. Grabbing a nearby branch from the ground, Spike quickly staked his enemy. "See you in hell."
When he turned around, he saw that two vampires were pinning down Anya who was struggling ferociously. The other held Xander back, who was trying to break free. His expression was one of horror and fear as he watched the two vamps trying to bite his fiancée. "No! Anya!"
In a flash, Spike was at Anya's side, throwing one vampire off of her and punching the other in the face. As the ex-demon struggled to the stand up, he picked up Xander's abandoned axe and rushed towards the other vampire. Xander's eyes widened as Spike approached, axe in hand. Frustrated when the human didn't get his intention, Spike yelled out. "Duck, whelp!"
The brunet bent his head just as the axe propelled forward, cutting off the vamps head and turning his body to dust. Once Xander was free, Spike turned around to dispatch the two remaining vamps, when a little figure hurled at one from behind a tombstone.
He watched as the Slayer delivered a series of roundhouse kicks, pummeling the now incapacitated creature to the ground before finally staking it. The last one rushed forward, grabbing her from behind. She easily flipped it over but it was quick and on top her again. Spike contemplated helping her but she looked like she was having…fun. He hadn't seen her so hyped up about slaying since she had come back and something about the way she was handling herself with the undead creature told him to back off and let her fight.
In a minute, the last vampire was dust and Buffy was standing, brushing off the dust. She smiled brightly at Xander and Anya, who had been watching with the same admiration that Spike felt. "Hi guys!"
"Whoa," Xander looked at her appreciatively. "The Buffster in full-ass-kicking-vampire-slayer action. Sure missed that."
"Yes, you were really good," Anya said encouragingly. "It's your job to slay. I am glad that you showed up to slay. We can't slay vampires like you can."
Buffy smiled as she caught on Anya's meaning. "Thanks for patrolling, you two. Next time I'll try to get here earlier. Why don't you guys head home? Spike and I will take over."
He was surprised that she had acknowledged his presence. He wasn't surprised that she hadn't even bothered to ask if he wanted to help her finish patrol.
Xander and Anya nodded, both of them looking over at him. The demon girl spoke, of course. "Thank you for saving me, Spike."
"'S'not a problem, pet," Spike replied as he lit another cigarette.
Xander shrugged. "I'd like for you to come to the wedding."
The vampire smirked. "I'll be there. If nothing's on the telly."
Once the couple was out of eyesight and earshot, Buffy turned to him. Her face was flushed from the fight and her eyes were glazed over from the satisfaction of the kill although her shoulders sagged a little from what he supposed to a tiring day at work. He wasn't sure what she wanted from him exactly tonight, but it didn't look like she was going to take too kindly to him if he suggested that they go back to his crypt. "I saw what you did."
He raised his eyebrow and took a drag from his cigarette before throwing it to the ground. He took a minute to take in her attire; comprised of snug black jeans, a black T-shirt and a leather jacket and then met her eyes again. Stormy hazel connected with intense blue. "Yeah, what of it?"
"That was…good," she finished lamely, "of you."
"I'm not good, love."
The passion was gone from her eyes and was now replaced by annoyance. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head as if trying to clear away her thoughts. His brows drew together. Sighing, she crossed her arms beneath her chest, causing her breasts to perk up and Spike's own jeans to grow restrictive. "Then why did you do it?"
'Cause I'm a sodding wanker, that's why. He shrugged and started to close the distance between them. "You asked me too."
She looked at him, not taking a step back as he approached her but her eyes were intently searching his face - as if she were trying took for something, as if she were hoping that she would find something. He stood in front of her, his leather duster brushing lightly against her jacket. He grinned slightly as her heartbeat became erratic. Every time without fail, he thought to himself, his grin widening. Her voice came out breathless and uncertain. "What are you doing?"
He reached up and brushed her hair out of her face. Her breathing hitched and he smiled, knowing that she had chopped off her long, golden tresses because he said he loved it. He let his fingers trail down the side of her face. "Nothing, pet."
She took a step away from him, her eyes set in stone and he knew that her defenses were going up. He let his hand fall to his side and ran his tongue over his teeth, looking at her through lowered lashes. She glanced away. He smirked and then reached into his duster for another cigarette. As he lit it, she turned around, started to walk away and called him from over her shoulder. "We should finish patrol."
"Right then," Spike answered as he fell in step with her. She kept a safe distance from him, staring straight ahead and twirling her stake in her hand. He wondered if she was contemplating on putting the wood through his heart and he figured that the notion had probably crossed her mind. After all, he thought wryly, it'd be a bloody brilliant way to get rid of me once and for all. The only way. Just then a vampire tumbled out from behind a tombstone and before either of them could blink, Buffy rammed the stake into its undead heart. Spike stopped, exhaled smoke and stared at her evenly. "You're getting your passion back, I see."
"Passion?" Her eyes went wide, obviously taking his statement as some sort of innuendo. She had the same deer-caught-in-the-headlights look she had worn on Halloween when he had asked her if she was up for "a rough and tumble".
"Get your mind out of the gutter, Slayer," Spike leered at her and took a puff of his cigarette. "I was talking about your passion for the kill, pet. The two vampires you killed back there got a taste of all that Slayer strength before they were dust." At her blank, almost scared expression he scoffed. "Come now, don't tell me you didn't enjoy that."
"It's my job," she replied with a nonchalant shrug, rooted to the spot.
"A job you happen to take great pleasure in carrying out. Even the whelp recognized your excitement." He took a step closer, reveling in the way her heartbeat and pulse quickened as he approached. "And I saw you, Slayer. I felt your excitement. I could smell your arousal."
Buffy looked away, disturbed. He could tell that he had just told her something that she didn't want to hear. He expected her to grow angry any minute and punch him in the face. Instead, when she looked at him her eyes troubled. She hugged herself as if she were trying to ward off coldness. "Once I almost killed a human."
"That girl? Buffy, I thought you - "
"Not Katrina," she cut him off and then walked over to the nearest mausoleum. She sat down on the steps and looked up at him, her eyes inviting him to sit beside her. He extinguished his cigarette and sat down next to her, barely touching her. She stared straight ahead and crossed her arms over her knees. "Faith."
Spike cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. "The other Slayer?"
"Yeah," Buffy replied her voice barely audible. She examined her hands and avoided his gaze, almost as if she were ashamed. He would've laughed at the irony of a Slayer confessing her secret to murderer, if he hadn't been so intrigued and worried about the woman beside him. "She poisoned Angel and the cure was Slayer's blood."
Spike clenched his fingers at his side, not liking the turn her story was taking but steeling himself to her words. "And?"
"I went to her, we fought and I stabbed her in the stomach." Her breathing was almost ragged and her hands were trembling slightly. "I can still remember that look on her face. Surprise, betrayal and pain. 'You killed me, B.' she said and then she fell into a truck and was taken to the hospital. She survived and came back with a vengeance but for that moment – that moment before I drove the knife through her, I really wanted to kill her. Not for Angel but for everything she had done, the people she had killed, for betraying my trust in her…I felt like a monster."
He let her words sink in and his eyes wandered to her neck, noticing the two scars there. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that one of those scars was a result of Angel's bite. She had let him drink from her to save his soul-having ass and a bout of jealousy hit him full force. Once again, his poofter of a grandsire had something that he desperately wanted. Angelus had come out on top again. He decided to focus on her pain instead of his and let out an unneeded breath. "You're not a monster, Buffy."
She let out a mirthless chuckle and she mocked him. "I thought I came back wrong, Spike. Don't I belong with you, in the dark? A monster with a monster?"
He sighed again, hanging his head for a minute. He knew his words were going to come back to bite him in the ass. When he looked at her, she was staring him straight in the eyes, her own stormy and demanding. "Slayer, I - "
"Don't say you're sorry," she warned and shot off the steps, standing in front of him. "I didn't come back a demon, I didn't come back soulless and I didn't come back wrong. So don't say you're sorry."
Now he was getting irritated. Buffy was taking him on an emotional roller coaster and he was just about ready to throw up – if he could, that is. He stood up and invaded her space, looking down at her with his patented leer. "So if you're not wrong, Slayer, then why do you come to me almost begging for release? If we're not kindred spirits then why am I the only one who makes you feel, pet?"
She stepped away from him for the third time that evening, as if burned. "I don't know."
Why don't you push her away, Spike?
As Druscilla words echoed in his ears he decided to approach her from another angle. "Why can't you kill me, Slayer?"
Her eyes flew to his, confusion marring her beautiful features. Her hand instinctively tightened around the stake in her hand. "What?"
"You've dusted millions of vampires, killed thousands of demons and fought bitchy hell gods. You said you wanted to kill Faith and you sent your beloved Angel to Hell to save the world…so my questions is, why can't you kill me?"
"The ch - "
"Bollocks," Spike cut her off angrily. "I'm still an evil, disgusting thing. You slay evil disgusting things. Yet here I stand, still undead. And my chip doesn't even work on you anymore so there's nothing left to say, is there, love?"
She stared at him determinedly and then shrugged. "I guess not."
He growled and rushed towards her and pulled her to him, just enough so that her body pressed against his. His fingers dug into the leather of her jacket and a scowl darkened his features. "You don't think I know how bloody wrong this is? Do you know how difficult this all-consuming love for you is for me? How it goes against everything I am? Don't you think I know how this will end for us?"
She stared at him, his anger mirrored there. "There is no 'us', Spike."
He dug into her deeper and pulled her even closer, roughly to him. In an instant, his mouth opened over hers demanding entrance. She obliged willingly, leaning her body against his and kissing him back with equal ferocity. He plundered her mouth, scarped his teeth against her lips and caressed her tongue with his own until she was whimpering. Remembering that she needed to breathe, he tore his lips away from her and looked down at her flushed face. "You can't tell me that you didn't feel anything, pet. Because I can feel everything you feel. Fight me and fuck me, Slayer. Just don't lie to me."
She pushed him away, with anger and indignation. He stumbled backwards and the back of his legs hit a tombstone. Fixing him with a death glare, she flailed her arms in the air in a dramatic gesture. "What do you want me to say, Spike? That I love you?"
Even though he knew what her answer was, he plunged forward. "Do you?"
She hesitated for a moment and looked away. "I don't. And I don't know why I keep coming back to you. I don't have all the answers, Spike." She looked at him again and put her hands on her hips. "You once told me that I had tragic taste in men. It doesn't get any more tragic than this. You're a vampire, Spike."
"Thanks for the bleeding reminder," he replied sarcastically.
"And what about that chip comes out, huh, Spike? Where will that leave things, then? Can you honestly tell me that you won't give into your bloodlust? That you'll stop killing and biting?"
The blond in the red sweater from the alleyway popped into his mind. He looked her straight in the eye. "No, I can't because I can't predict the bleeding future. You have to trust in my love for you, Slayer. 'Sides not like you haven't loved my kind before. And don't you start on Peaches and his sodding soul. I love you without one."
"How? How can you love me without one?" she asked exasperatedly.
She made me feel like a human being. That's not the kind of thing you just forgive.
Suddenly, her feelings became clear to him. "So this is what it's about, is it? Angelus loved you without one, pet. When he was obsessing about killing you and ending this world he loved you. That's why he hated you. You made him love someone after almost three centuries of pain, death and destruction and he couldn't forgive you for it."
Buffy's eyes were wide and almost disbelieving. Her arms came around her own waist, hugging herself again from the harsh truth and the fact that it had come out of his mouth. When he voice came out, it was small and tired. "That's not how humans love."
"You're right," he answered with a nod. "Your mum, li'l sis, those mates of yours and even your Watcher love you in a different way. Maybe that's why it's so hard for you to accept what you feel because it's different from what you're supposed to feel."
"I don't know what I feel."
He sighed again and then rubbed his temple. The girl needed a monster in her man - and a man in her monster. He realized that she needed to figure that out on her own. "You figure that out, pet and clue me in." He stepped closer to her, invading her space. "However this ends, it won't be pretty. Love and hate is messy just like good and evil, love. There are shades of gray and irrational feelings. It's not perfect."
She looked up at him, pleadingly. "I need to stay away from you for a while. I need you to stay away, too. Promise me that you will."
He thought briefly of the last promise he made to her and considered that he wasn't good at keeping promises. He nodded, anyway. "I'm not going to leave, Buffy." Her head snapped up and she looked surprised. He reached for her hand with the stake and brought the sharp object to his chest, déjà vu flooring him. "You'll have to kill me first. And there's a reason as to why you haven't already."
"Spike - " He silenced her with his lips, pressing them softly against her own, just like she had after Glory had beaten him up. Foolishly, he let his hands cup her face and tried to make the moment last a little longer.
"I love you," he whispered softly. He stepped away from her meeting her conflicted gaze with one of assurance. Then he turned and left her standing under the silver glow of the moonlight and the eerie silence of the dead.