Disclaimer: Like I've said, they belong to Joss, not me. Don't sue, you'll only get paper - and even that's been written on.
Spoilers: Anything that Giles missed, up to 'Older and Far Away'
Notes: I decided to post this one since the last chapter is so short, and this is really just a continuation. Mostly, it's just dialogue, with Buffy and Giles talking about the things he's missed. Everyone should be happy, though: I put in a little Buffy-angst, which is cleared up by a little Spike-love at the end. Yay!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Well, my job here is done," Dawn said with a smug smile on her face, then headed off to terrorize someone else in the house. Buffy gave a little smile as she watched her sister leave. Ever since that little 'incident' before her doctor's appointment, Dawn had been behaving herself fairly well. Part of it, Buffy was pretty sure, was because Dawn felt she had to be more responsible now, because of the baby.
"Spike can hit you without his chip going off?" Buffy closed her eyes for a moment. Of course Giles would notice that. She looked back at him and nodded. "Yeah," she said softly. "It's a long story--" she stopped when he gave her a look as if to say, 'remember who you're talking to.' Taking a deep breath, but not quite sighing, she explained, "It seems the spell Willow performed to bring me back did something to my body. It changed it just enough for Spike's chip to not activate. I had Tara research it for me, and she said it was basically just a bad sunburn, or something."
Giles nodded. "Yes, if I'm correct in the mechanics of the, the spell, it actually reanimated your body and, and attached your soul to it, for lack of a better term."
Buffy arched an eyebrow. "You mean, I'm a zombie?"
Giles closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, no, zombies don't have souls. They don't think, they merely do their Master's bidding."
Buffy rose both eyebrows at that. "So...I'm a zombie with a soul?" Why did that sound so familiar?
"You are not a zombie!" Giles said in frustration. Taking a deep breath, he decided to change the subject slightly. "Why did you have Tara research the spell, instead of just asking Willow?"
Why did he keep asking her the hard questions? Buffy decided to skip the whole 'Willow isn't doing magic anymore' thing and explain her main reason. "I thought. . . well, I thought something was wrong with me. Aside from the whole 'Spike hitting me' thing, I thought there was some reason. . ." Ugh. She was going to have to explain to him about the whole fighting thing. And this was Giles. She was embarrassed enough that her friends and sister knew that she'd been sleeping with Spike. But with Giles, it was like talking about sex with your father. "See, after we got into this huge fight, Spike and I. . . ended up sleeping together." She was NOT going to say sex. "I thought I'd come back wrong, and I knew Willow felt bad enough for pulling me out of... my peace, I didn't want to tell her, 'Hey, not only do I not appreciate your spell, but I think you did something wrong!'" She paused, then decided she'd told him so much already, she might as well explain it all. Softly, she said, "I thought the thing that let Spike hit me was the same thing that was making me lose control with him." She glanced to the floor. "But the fact is, I didn't want to be in control. I wanted to be with someone who really loved me. My friends all say they love me, and they missed me when I was dead, but . . . . two weeks after coming back, and they acted like everything was normal, when I didn't feel like that." She shrugged, finally meeting his eyes again. "Spike never takes me for granted."
"He loves you," Giles found himself saying. He had never liked Spike, and beside Xander, had been the most vehement that what Spike felt was only obsession with Buffy. He had also agreed with Xander that after Buffy had returned, Spike had started his little obsession again, completely ignoring the fact that Spike had been extremely advantageous to them over the summer. Sometime, when he'd been thinking over his 'visit' to Sunnydale that first time, to see Buffy resurrected, he'd realized that he'd forgotten that Xander could be - and quite frequently was - completely wrong about things. The boy was insightful about worldly affairs, he granted, but when dealing with the supernatural, Xander knew very little that his ex-demon fiancée didn't tell him.
"He used to." Buffy's murmured words made Giles frown. "W-what do you mean?"
Buffy shrugged, staring at her hands, outstretched over her knees. "I *mean*, he used to love me. We used to fight, we used to--. But ever since I told him I was pregnant . . . he hasn't touched me." She whispered the last part, seemingly more to herself than Giles. She went on in a louder, though still subdued voice, "I thought, when we first started this little 'tryst', that it was just a thing. 'An itch I couldn't scratch,' he called it. I honestly thought that's what it was. But then . . . I couldn't stop. And, more importantly, I didn't want to. I felt ... I *felt* when I was with Spike." She paused, thinking over her next words carefully. "I don't love Spike - I don't think - but, I need him. Strangely enough, he's the only one I feel truly safe with. He can protect himself, so I don't always have to save him from demons or vampires. And he doesn't have a soul, so it's not like he's gonna lose it when we're together. I depend on him to hit me with the hard facts and not sugarcoat things, trying to go easy on my feelings, but whisk me away when life becomes too hard. And, I //thought//, he would always do that for me. But the more time passes, and he keeps staying away . . . the more I think he was just having a fun romp in the hay. And now, he's gotten bored. It's no fun being together if all your friends know about it, apparently." It took all the danger out of having sex everywhere from his crypt to outside the DoubleMeat Palace, to her very own backyard. Apparently, he'd never heard the saying about closing the barn door after the horses were already loose.
Giles didn't know what to tell Buffy. Fortunately, he was fairly certain that she didn't want advice, she merely needed to relieve herself of those thoughts, get them out in the open, as it were. But to watch her in such obvious agony. . . he wondered just how much she 'didn't love' Spike.
* * * * * *
OUTSIDE
* * * * * *
Spike sat numbly, staring off into the darkness of the yard, not really seeing anything. The cigarette he hadn't been allowed to smoke inside had long ago burned down and now merely smoldered at the filter, a long butt of ash hanging off.
It was warm for that early in the year, which was the reason he guessed the window in the front room was left open a good two inches. A normal human would probably have to strain to even differentiate the male from the female voice murmuring inside. A vampire, however, had acute hearing, and he could make out the voices of the Watcher and Buffy perfectly.
She needed him. He knew that, even if he hadn't put it into so many words. But he hadn't realized ... he hadn't realized that they hadn't been together since she'd told him she was expecting. It had only been what, two weeks at the outside, if even that, and a hectic two weeks, so it really shouldn't have been a big deal. But considering that they'd found time to sneak away almost every night before that, and now her friends //knew// about them . . . he could understand why she would think he'd lost interest.
But he hadn't. Of course he hadn't! Spike frowned. Why hadn't he tried to sneak her away from her friends for a little late-night debauchery? It struck him then: the baby. He'd been so thrown by the news that he was going to be a father - after over a hundred years of knowing it wasn't possible, and not even caring - that he'd been sort of shell-shocked. He thought he'd gotten over it, past it, as he so easily rolled with the other proverbial punches life landed, but deep down, he was still reeling. He was going to be a father. And in the process, he was ignoring the mother of his child completely.
((Well,)) he thought resolutely, flicking the wasted cigarette into the yard as he stood up, ((that's one problem I can fix right now.))
^*^*^*^*^*^
The front door opened, and Spike stepped around Giles and said brusquely to Buffy, "Come on, let's patrol."
Buffy gave a confused frown and glanced at her watch. "Now? It's late. I need to make a place for Giles, get Dawn into bed--"
Spike shook his head. "Rupert can take care of Nibblet, let Red fix a place. Any vamps or nasties out tonight will think they're home-free if they haven't been caught yet. Perfect time to go patrol."
Realizing he wasn't going to give up, Buffy stood, gave Giles an apologetic look and shrugged. "I guess I'll see you later." She was going to say more, but Spike grabbed her hand and tugged her around the Englishman.
*^*^*^*^*^*
"I thought you didn't want me to slay," Buffy said, some minutes later as they trekked through a cemetery. Spike still led her impatiently by the hand, and her shoulder was beginning to ache from her arm being stretched between them. Was he really in that much of a hurry to get the night over with?
Spike spared a glance behind him at her. "I thought you //did// want to slay. Make up your mind, girl. And, by the way, you aren't gonna slay anything."
Buffy frowned, now thoroughly confused. "But, back at the house--"
Spike waved his free hand in dismissal. "Just an excuse to get you away. Really, luv, take a look around. Surely //somethin'// must look familiar to ya."
Frowning, Buffy glanced around at the various trees and headstones, and the occasional mausoleum. Sure enough, she realized it was familiar. In an instant, she saw that they were in the cemetery that housed Spike's crypt ... and it looked like they were making a bee-line straight for it. "Why are we going to your crypt?"
Spike rolled his eyes. She really believed all that garbage about him being bored, didn't she? Knowing where they were headed, and that they had a perfect excuse to be there for a while, and she still didn't think he wanted her. Finally seeing it, he sped up a little. He didn't want to waste anymore time than he had to. "We're going to my crypt . . ." he dodged some large headstones, "so that I can show you . . ." he slowed as they approached the door, "just how much . . ." he pulled her against him, "I am NOT bored with you." He smashed his mouth against hers, kissing her passionately and giving her no alternative but to do the same. "I love you, Buffy," he said breathlessly when he pulled back, planting kisses along her jaw and the column of her neck. "I love you so bloody much, and nothing is ever gonna change that."
Buffy moaned at that, lifting her hands and catching her fingers in his hair. "Spike. . ."
They didn't actually make it into the crypt until much later.
Spoilers: Anything that Giles missed, up to 'Older and Far Away'
Notes: I decided to post this one since the last chapter is so short, and this is really just a continuation. Mostly, it's just dialogue, with Buffy and Giles talking about the things he's missed. Everyone should be happy, though: I put in a little Buffy-angst, which is cleared up by a little Spike-love at the end. Yay!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Well, my job here is done," Dawn said with a smug smile on her face, then headed off to terrorize someone else in the house. Buffy gave a little smile as she watched her sister leave. Ever since that little 'incident' before her doctor's appointment, Dawn had been behaving herself fairly well. Part of it, Buffy was pretty sure, was because Dawn felt she had to be more responsible now, because of the baby.
"Spike can hit you without his chip going off?" Buffy closed her eyes for a moment. Of course Giles would notice that. She looked back at him and nodded. "Yeah," she said softly. "It's a long story--" she stopped when he gave her a look as if to say, 'remember who you're talking to.' Taking a deep breath, but not quite sighing, she explained, "It seems the spell Willow performed to bring me back did something to my body. It changed it just enough for Spike's chip to not activate. I had Tara research it for me, and she said it was basically just a bad sunburn, or something."
Giles nodded. "Yes, if I'm correct in the mechanics of the, the spell, it actually reanimated your body and, and attached your soul to it, for lack of a better term."
Buffy arched an eyebrow. "You mean, I'm a zombie?"
Giles closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, no, zombies don't have souls. They don't think, they merely do their Master's bidding."
Buffy rose both eyebrows at that. "So...I'm a zombie with a soul?" Why did that sound so familiar?
"You are not a zombie!" Giles said in frustration. Taking a deep breath, he decided to change the subject slightly. "Why did you have Tara research the spell, instead of just asking Willow?"
Why did he keep asking her the hard questions? Buffy decided to skip the whole 'Willow isn't doing magic anymore' thing and explain her main reason. "I thought. . . well, I thought something was wrong with me. Aside from the whole 'Spike hitting me' thing, I thought there was some reason. . ." Ugh. She was going to have to explain to him about the whole fighting thing. And this was Giles. She was embarrassed enough that her friends and sister knew that she'd been sleeping with Spike. But with Giles, it was like talking about sex with your father. "See, after we got into this huge fight, Spike and I. . . ended up sleeping together." She was NOT going to say sex. "I thought I'd come back wrong, and I knew Willow felt bad enough for pulling me out of... my peace, I didn't want to tell her, 'Hey, not only do I not appreciate your spell, but I think you did something wrong!'" She paused, then decided she'd told him so much already, she might as well explain it all. Softly, she said, "I thought the thing that let Spike hit me was the same thing that was making me lose control with him." She glanced to the floor. "But the fact is, I didn't want to be in control. I wanted to be with someone who really loved me. My friends all say they love me, and they missed me when I was dead, but . . . . two weeks after coming back, and they acted like everything was normal, when I didn't feel like that." She shrugged, finally meeting his eyes again. "Spike never takes me for granted."
"He loves you," Giles found himself saying. He had never liked Spike, and beside Xander, had been the most vehement that what Spike felt was only obsession with Buffy. He had also agreed with Xander that after Buffy had returned, Spike had started his little obsession again, completely ignoring the fact that Spike had been extremely advantageous to them over the summer. Sometime, when he'd been thinking over his 'visit' to Sunnydale that first time, to see Buffy resurrected, he'd realized that he'd forgotten that Xander could be - and quite frequently was - completely wrong about things. The boy was insightful about worldly affairs, he granted, but when dealing with the supernatural, Xander knew very little that his ex-demon fiancée didn't tell him.
"He used to." Buffy's murmured words made Giles frown. "W-what do you mean?"
Buffy shrugged, staring at her hands, outstretched over her knees. "I *mean*, he used to love me. We used to fight, we used to--. But ever since I told him I was pregnant . . . he hasn't touched me." She whispered the last part, seemingly more to herself than Giles. She went on in a louder, though still subdued voice, "I thought, when we first started this little 'tryst', that it was just a thing. 'An itch I couldn't scratch,' he called it. I honestly thought that's what it was. But then . . . I couldn't stop. And, more importantly, I didn't want to. I felt ... I *felt* when I was with Spike." She paused, thinking over her next words carefully. "I don't love Spike - I don't think - but, I need him. Strangely enough, he's the only one I feel truly safe with. He can protect himself, so I don't always have to save him from demons or vampires. And he doesn't have a soul, so it's not like he's gonna lose it when we're together. I depend on him to hit me with the hard facts and not sugarcoat things, trying to go easy on my feelings, but whisk me away when life becomes too hard. And, I //thought//, he would always do that for me. But the more time passes, and he keeps staying away . . . the more I think he was just having a fun romp in the hay. And now, he's gotten bored. It's no fun being together if all your friends know about it, apparently." It took all the danger out of having sex everywhere from his crypt to outside the DoubleMeat Palace, to her very own backyard. Apparently, he'd never heard the saying about closing the barn door after the horses were already loose.
Giles didn't know what to tell Buffy. Fortunately, he was fairly certain that she didn't want advice, she merely needed to relieve herself of those thoughts, get them out in the open, as it were. But to watch her in such obvious agony. . . he wondered just how much she 'didn't love' Spike.
* * * * * *
OUTSIDE
* * * * * *
Spike sat numbly, staring off into the darkness of the yard, not really seeing anything. The cigarette he hadn't been allowed to smoke inside had long ago burned down and now merely smoldered at the filter, a long butt of ash hanging off.
It was warm for that early in the year, which was the reason he guessed the window in the front room was left open a good two inches. A normal human would probably have to strain to even differentiate the male from the female voice murmuring inside. A vampire, however, had acute hearing, and he could make out the voices of the Watcher and Buffy perfectly.
She needed him. He knew that, even if he hadn't put it into so many words. But he hadn't realized ... he hadn't realized that they hadn't been together since she'd told him she was expecting. It had only been what, two weeks at the outside, if even that, and a hectic two weeks, so it really shouldn't have been a big deal. But considering that they'd found time to sneak away almost every night before that, and now her friends //knew// about them . . . he could understand why she would think he'd lost interest.
But he hadn't. Of course he hadn't! Spike frowned. Why hadn't he tried to sneak her away from her friends for a little late-night debauchery? It struck him then: the baby. He'd been so thrown by the news that he was going to be a father - after over a hundred years of knowing it wasn't possible, and not even caring - that he'd been sort of shell-shocked. He thought he'd gotten over it, past it, as he so easily rolled with the other proverbial punches life landed, but deep down, he was still reeling. He was going to be a father. And in the process, he was ignoring the mother of his child completely.
((Well,)) he thought resolutely, flicking the wasted cigarette into the yard as he stood up, ((that's one problem I can fix right now.))
^*^*^*^*^*^
The front door opened, and Spike stepped around Giles and said brusquely to Buffy, "Come on, let's patrol."
Buffy gave a confused frown and glanced at her watch. "Now? It's late. I need to make a place for Giles, get Dawn into bed--"
Spike shook his head. "Rupert can take care of Nibblet, let Red fix a place. Any vamps or nasties out tonight will think they're home-free if they haven't been caught yet. Perfect time to go patrol."
Realizing he wasn't going to give up, Buffy stood, gave Giles an apologetic look and shrugged. "I guess I'll see you later." She was going to say more, but Spike grabbed her hand and tugged her around the Englishman.
*^*^*^*^*^*
"I thought you didn't want me to slay," Buffy said, some minutes later as they trekked through a cemetery. Spike still led her impatiently by the hand, and her shoulder was beginning to ache from her arm being stretched between them. Was he really in that much of a hurry to get the night over with?
Spike spared a glance behind him at her. "I thought you //did// want to slay. Make up your mind, girl. And, by the way, you aren't gonna slay anything."
Buffy frowned, now thoroughly confused. "But, back at the house--"
Spike waved his free hand in dismissal. "Just an excuse to get you away. Really, luv, take a look around. Surely //somethin'// must look familiar to ya."
Frowning, Buffy glanced around at the various trees and headstones, and the occasional mausoleum. Sure enough, she realized it was familiar. In an instant, she saw that they were in the cemetery that housed Spike's crypt ... and it looked like they were making a bee-line straight for it. "Why are we going to your crypt?"
Spike rolled his eyes. She really believed all that garbage about him being bored, didn't she? Knowing where they were headed, and that they had a perfect excuse to be there for a while, and she still didn't think he wanted her. Finally seeing it, he sped up a little. He didn't want to waste anymore time than he had to. "We're going to my crypt . . ." he dodged some large headstones, "so that I can show you . . ." he slowed as they approached the door, "just how much . . ." he pulled her against him, "I am NOT bored with you." He smashed his mouth against hers, kissing her passionately and giving her no alternative but to do the same. "I love you, Buffy," he said breathlessly when he pulled back, planting kisses along her jaw and the column of her neck. "I love you so bloody much, and nothing is ever gonna change that."
Buffy moaned at that, lifting her hands and catching her fingers in his hair. "Spike. . ."
They didn't actually make it into the crypt until much later.