**PART ONE**
CHAPTER THREE:

She drifted to consciousness as a passive passenger on a plane of weightless feeling that transcended her dreamless state and bought her reluctantly back into herself. The familiar remembrance triggered the familiar muscle-clenching squirm only this time something was different and she stalled into complete stillness at what her body was telling her. Opening her eyes she focused upon the mass of tousled blonde curls nestled at her shoulder and as her senses awaken fully she became more and more aware of his weight spread over her and -

He was still inside her? Static images of the afternoon deluged her brain and panic rose in her, filling her stiffened muscles with kinetic potential.

She didn't have time to contemplate her options as he stirred, awakened - no doubt - by her change in countenance and the thumping in her chest. He emitted a soft sound somewhere between a groan and a purr and nestled into her warmth. She couldn't hold back the small smile that flitted across her lips as she watched him or deny the yearning that was filling her body with waves of heat emanating from her groin.

She gasped as involuntarily he responded to her stimulus and he expanded to fill her. A hand began to wander the expanse of her torso, came to rest on her right breast and began to softly knead her flesh. Her breath deepened as she was lulled under into the depths of passion. Her internal muscles contracted spasmodically around him and he responded with motion, sliding almost fully out of her before re-emerging.

Closing her eyes she gave into the sensations that were washing over her. Slipping an arm around his neck and a leg around his thigh she met him motion for motion. She glanced down at his head, still submerged in the nook of her shoulder and wondered vaguely if he was even fully awake.

She got her answer when all of a sudden, he jolted and ceased all momentum. She held her breath as his head lifted and twisted slightly and he sniffed at the skin of her neck. The muscles in his arms hardened as he lifted himself up onto his elbows and regarded her with widening eyes.

Silence sealed them in a bubble of notching pressure and she forgot how to breathe. She tried and failed to apply a neutral expression as his eyes wandered over her, taking in his precariously placed hand, their nakedness and finally the extent of their intertwined state. She nervously bit at her lip waiting for the answers that only his face could provide.

The time it took his face to turn back up to hers seemed like it could be measured only in eternities and when they were eye-to-eye it took another eternity for them both to focus. But as their eyes met the effect was immediate. His eyes were smiling and the sight warmed her. All she could see was the blue and it surrounded her, flooded her. A sensation of both falling into and away from him took her and her brain swam as a strange kind of sea-sickness rocked her insides to the point of mild queasiness only to be quelled by real motion as they began to move together once more.

A quick glance at the clock reassured her for the umpteenth time that it was indeed patrol hour. Her body clock had been severely disorientated by their exhaustive activities and unnatural sleep patterns. (Well maybe not unnatural for him.) She stole another glance at him, as he lay sleeping in her bed. He looked anything but unnatural if you could get past the not-breathing thing. But even so, every so often he would shift slightly and air would hitch momentarily in his chest until a deadly still of equilibrium drifted back over him like soft blossom.

She shook herself from her increasingly tempting thoughts and quietly toed out of her room. With her back against the door she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, earthing herself against the wood. It was of no use as upon opening her eyes she was confronted with evidence to support her fevered memories. Skewed picture frames lined the walls and many more littered the floor, knocked off their hangings by their almost violent, desperate stumbles they had made on the way to her bedroom. Putting the pictures back to rights she contemplated the stairs with dread.

She had reason to fear, as every step seemed to mock her by triggering new recollections. Her back twinged where the edges of steps had dug into her spine and as she moved sore, chaffed patches on her thighs complained against her jeans. At the foot of the stairs she was confronted with the biggest trigger of all. His duster shed - like all of their clothes - in hasty, desperate passion. Picking up the leather she was about to place it over the banister post when some instinct and more than a shred of curiosity made her rethink.

Standing firm she draped the material over her shoulders and threaded her arms though. The result was as ridiculous as she had expected. It completely engulfed her in mass, the arms hanging down way past her hands and the hem scraping the floor. She smiled as she wrapped the folds around herself, breathing in the scent that enveloped her. His scent. She thought how ironic it was that this afternoon had been the first time she had seen him without his coat. (Is he even Spike without this coat?) It was just so entirely... him. (He wouldn't want to be without it then... would he?)

Grasping a handful of stakes from her stash she made her way out of the door.

By the time she made it the last cemetery on her rounds, she had perfected an air of forced nonchalance that she used to ignore the blatant and amused stares of passers-by. (Have they never seen a bad fashion decision before?) She marched determinedly on with her mission at hand. The two newly risen vampires were nothing nearly representing a challenge and disheartened, she soon headed back for home, reapplying her very own brand resolve face.

There were some passers-by she could not simply ignore.

"Buffy? Buffy is that you under there?"

She groaned internally and turned slowly around to face an understandably confused Xander and Anya.

She attempted a casual greeting. "Hi guys."

"Hey Buff. Almost didn't recognise you there for a moment -"

"Yes what the hell - and I stress the word hell here - are you wearing? It makes you look fat." Anya perfectly demonstrated what she had in common with Cordelia.

"Anya!" Xander breathed in an exacerbated sigh he seemed to reserve only for admonishing his girlfriend.

"What? I was only passing comment. -- She'll thank me tomorrow morning when she sees that coat in the harsh light of day -"

(Not much chance of that, seen as I'll only ever see him in indirect light.) "Thankyou. Anya. Really. But I have already realised my grave error and was just in the process of returning home in order to bury my head in shame."

"It's okay." Anya reached out to touch her arm in conspiring friendship. "Things are never as bad as they seem--Oh, I mean -"

The blow was blunted but still there and undeniable and she reeled at the reminder of her grief. She was seized by a desire to be home and fixing her stare on the road markings was all she could do to stop herself making a break for it.

"Anya, you know how we were discussing that silly notion of thinking before you speak? Well this is one of those examples I couldn't think of at the time." She knew that if she looked up he would meet her eyes with such sorrow and so she kept her eyes fixed downwards collecting enough energy to summon a false smile. "Are you -"

"Yeah, fine." She looked up with said smile. "I'll see you two at the magic shop tomorrow. Okay? Good." She waved stiffly, almost too enthusiastically seizing her opportunity to escape. She turned and began to move away, her mind focusing heavily on each step. As she turned the corner of Main Street she heaved a sigh of relief and the tension drained from her shoulders as the tears came. She welcomed the rain that began to pour and disguised her tears. With equal amounts of fear and dread she made her way, slowly to an empty home that was both her haven and her constant reminder. Only it wasn't empty was it? Was it?

Her feet picked up their pace as the rain came down harder and she wrapped herself closer in the shelter of the coat.

It surprised her enough to stop her in her tracks. She didn't know what she had been expecting but somehow this wasn't it.

She stood in the middle of her road watching him through the distorting pelts of rain as he emerged from under the bonnet of his car and flung the hood down with a forceful and frustrated yell of : "Bloody Hell!"

His hair was plastered in loose curls to his forehead and he smoothed it back with raked fingers as he stood staring indignantly at the rusting heap that passed as his car. His anger seemed to ebb away with the drips from his shirt and it was then that he became aware of her.

Her breath caught in throat as he turned his head to look at her from his solid stance. They stood firm and unyielding on their respective spots, neither knowing what to say. It was she who broke the silence.

"You're soaked."

"Uh-huh. You too."

She gestured towards the car. "You were leaving."

"Well, yeah, planning on. Seems the car has other ideas."

"Without your coat? You were leaving without your coat?"

"I guess something's should be left behind. Looks better on you anyway." His eyes dropped to the ground and his hair flopped forward once more.

"Stick around?" She didn't know where she had found the voice the words were out of her mouth before the thought had even formed. Maybe Anya was having an effect on her. Maybe she liked it.

His brow knitted as if he too was questioning her words and he looked back at her, his body turning to fully face her. "What until you get bored and decide to stake me?"

"I thought that's what you wanted."

"Not anymore. Not... after..."

"Then, what?--Where? -"

"Where do we go from here?"

She nodded and he mirrored her passive shrug.

"You know what I am... what I do. And what you do. We couldn't be more incompatible -"

"Oh? I thought we were very compatible." She interrupted as a means to steer the conversation away from its inevitable destination. Away from what was inevitably going to come between them.

He smiled, he couldn't help himself and so did she. They both took a step closer and stalled.

"I-I can't think of tomorrow, or the next day. All I can do is concentrate on today and getting through this day. -- I can't even begin to comprehend the future. I'm the Slayer - I don't have a future."

He scoffed then and one look was all she needed to tell him to explain himself.

"I'm a Vampire, Love... All I have is future--Unless you decide to punctuate my full stop with a piece of wood that is."

Another shared smile. Another step. Another stall.

"Well then give me a future and I'll give you a present." She cringed at how that sounded and, trust him, he picked her up on it.

"A present, huh? What, like time or a gift?"

Another step, he was touchable now. Within reach but her arms were weighed down at her sides.

"Well time could be my gift. I have this inescapable feeling that it's a limited-term offer. That I don't have a lot of it left."

There was something in his eyes that responded to that and a hand came out and clutched at her cheek before dropping back to his side. They stood in silence for a few thousand eternities.

"What time is it?"

"What?"

"Time, Slayer. You have a watch under there?"

"Oh, umm." She dug under the draping cuffs of his coat and eventually found her wrist. Struggling to read the hands in the dark and wet, she eventually made out. "Eleven fifty-five."

"Eleven fifty-five? Well there you go. Don't think of it as tomorrow. Think of it as five minutes from now. What do you want from those five minutes, Love?"

She cleared the space between them and placed a hand against his hard chest. "You."

"Are you sure. Because you don't just say that and take it back. There's no going back from here. I mean -"

"Is that a promise?"

He looked down at her uncomprehendingly. As if he thought she may disappear any second. Be erased and wash away in streaks of rain. His hand returned to her cheek. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"Then for God's sake, kiss me."

And as he moved in those eternities stretched out between them once more but also ahead of them and all around them, climbing and circling above them as their passion soared once more.

"You were lying." She gasped as they parted lips and rested forehead against forehead.

"What? When?"

"When you said you were just passing through. You were on your way to kill me."

He laughed and nodded slightly, careful not to jar her. "Yeah, I guess I was. And yeah, I guess I did."

"What?!" Panic surged through her and she backed away only to elicit another chuckle from him.

"Poetic metaphor, Love?"

A blank stare was her only viable response and she took refuge in it. He smiled and placed his hands on her shoulders, willing her forward towards the house. She walked freely with him, relaxing slightly against his chest.

"Maybe you'd better explain this 'poetic metaphor' thing to me... With a practical demonstration, of course." She opened the door and stepped inside, grabbing a handful of his sodden shirt and dragging him forcefully in after her.

"I think that can be arranged." He smiled into another kiss and reached behind him and closed the door on all the unanswered and unanswerable questions that barked at the threshold, seeking admittance.

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