Down the stairs they walked, hand in hand. As they reached the bottom, heads turned, eyes stared, mouths gaped, but no one said a word. They were all too shocked to say anything.

Spike turned to look at his love. "Buffy? Perhaps we shouldn't."

"Okay, what's going on?" interrupted Xander suddenly, the silence having been broken. "Buffy, you go upstairs to put the vamp down to sleep and next thing we know you two are all lovey? What gives?"

Tara understood. She had been the one that Buffy had come to about her problems with Spike, and she knew what had happened upstairs. Buffy had had a lot to sort out in her life. She had been loveless for too long. But this had been only because she had denied herself love. Once she had opened herself up to the possibility, Buffy had been able to see what had truly been right in front of her nose the whole time. "I'm happy for you, Buffy."

Xander snorted. Buffy turned abruptly towards the sound, and said, "Xander, deal. All of you know I've been having problems. Well, we all have a major problem now, and it's time to be honest with each other. Spike and I have been.have been sleeping together for awhile now. But I was using him. I recently told him I was going to leave him, because I didn't love him, but deep down I really did love him. I just couldn't trust myself to love him. Look what he did for me tonight, you guys...he resisted that monster to save me at the price of his own sanity. Dawn, don't you remember when he refused even after being tortured to tell Glory who you were? He's fought with us awhile now. I think it's time we open all our hearts to him."

During her whole speech, everyone had continued to stare, including Spike, until one after another they began to accept what was going on. Xander still couldn't believe what was happening, but he loved his friend dearly, and decided to trust her. Willow and Tara had taken hands again, and both Dawn and Anya had bestowed smiles upon Spike. Spike, however, could only stare at Buffy. His dreams were really coming true.

After a moment, Buffy shook off the silence and said, "We can't do this alone. We're going to need more help than we already have. We need major firepower, like Watcher power, vampire power. Guess we'll have to make a few calls."

She started to walk out of the room with Spike before turning around. "Time to get in touch with a few old friends."

************************************************************************

Xander, Anya, Dawn, Willow, and Tara were left around the table in the living room, staring at each other. They didn't really know what to make of the situation.

"So." began Dawn.

"How long do you think they were doing it?" blurted out Anya, in typical Anya fashion. They all stared at her. "I mean seriously. When do you think it started?"

"That night you went with Amy to the Bronze, Willow, and Tara stayed with me.Buffy didn't come home either," said Dawn. "I bet it started then."

"Yes," said Tara. "That was the first time." She looked down at her hands, nervous again, and then at Willow. "I wanted to tell you guys, I knew you were all worried about her lately, but I'd promised her I wouldn't tell anyone, and I respected her wishes. I saw her at the Doublemeat Palace, and she was all upset, and later she broke down here and started crying and told me everything."

Willow smiled at her newly reunited love. "I think it's romantic. I mean, okay, he used to kill people including two slayers and he's tried to kill me and the rest of us on multiple occasions.but I really think he loves her. Did you see the way he was looking at her just now? He couldn't believe she was saying all that stuff, and he was really impressed."

Xander snorted again. "How can you all take this so lightly? He's a vampire, for crying out loud!"

"You said the same thing about Angel," said Dawn.

"And I'm still not his biggest fan, especially after he turned all Angelus on us. But at least when he was good, he could be trusted to be good, cause he had that soul. Does Spikey-poo have a soul? Noooooo. I think Buffy's just walking into another trap, falling in love again with a bad guy."

Anya turned to Xander, disappointed. "Wouldn't you expect her then to say the same thing about me? I used to be a bad guy, a vengeance demon. I didn't get any special make-me-good whammy like Angel did, just my powers were taken away. That's the same deal with Spike. Do you trust me?"

"It's not the same."

"It's exactly the same. No one's perfect. You're right, we can't promise that Spike's truly changed. But Buffy's right too. Look at all the good things he's done for us since he joined our group. He's fought a million battles on our side. He's saved Dawn more than once, and he's done his best to prove himself to Buffy for over a year now. I think he's worth a benefit of a doubt."

Xander sighed. "I guess you're right. I don't like it. But I did a terrible thing to Buffy once before. I could have told her about the re- souling spell being done on Angel, and just because I didn't like him I didn't, and look how that turned out. This is her chance for happiness again, and I can't hold her back because of my misgivings. Nothing's telling me not to trust him, it's just my history with him. Okay. Okay. I'm good."

The group looked around at each other. Indeed, none of them were perfect. Xander hadn't told Buffy about Angel's re-souling. Dawn was a thief. Anya was a former vengeance demon. Tara had hid secrets about her family even from her lover. Willow had a serious magicks problem, which with Tara's help would hopefully get better. Yup, none of them were perfect. But they could forgive each other. They would all need to learn to work together anyway, especially when the cavalry hopefully came to help soon. Speaking of which.

"Should we see if Buffy got through to Giles and Angel?" asked Anya. They got up and turned towards the kitchen.