Disclaimer: I own nothing except my computer. ME owns everything Buffy
Spoilers: same as before
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. It has been pointed out to me that I tend to be wordy and use long paragraphs. You're right, but this is my first attempt at writing fanfic. The last thing that I wrote would have been a paper for a college course. Chap. 3 was written before I got the reviews for chap. 2, therefore the continuation of long, verbose paragraphs. Also, I realized after posting that I went seriously overboard with Buffy's "I love..." speech. I just thought that after all of the venom she spewed last season, he deserved alot of sugar. Anyway, I hope this chapter will come out a little better. Thanks.
Chapter 4
By the time everyone got inside, Spike and Buffy were sitting on the couch talking quietly. The potentials, used to seeing the two being rather intimate, were unfazed by the sight and headed off to the kitchen. The Scoobies, however, sensed a definite change in the air and sat down in the living room.
Buffy rose and headed to the kitchen. She asked the girls if they enjoyed their afternoon off and received a chorus of yeses from the teenagers.
"Great. Glad you got to unwind, but now its back to the trenches. We'll be heading out for patrol in a few hours." Buffy looked toward the oldest potential Slayer. "Kennedy, would you please take everyone down to the basement and warm up. We'll be down in a while."
Kennedy nodded and the girls headed to the basement.
Buffy took a deep breath and headed to back to the living room. Everyone looked at her curiously as she walked across the room. She decided to jump in with both feet and sat down next to Spike on the couch and tossed her feet over his lap. She was leaning partly against Spike and partly against the corner of the couch, her position comfortable and relaxed, but also intended to send a message.
'Message received,' she thought as everyone's eyes widened considerably.
"So, Spike and I had a long talk this afternoon and we got alot of issues resolved." She said with a Spike-like smirk on her face. "I finally realized that life is too short for me to not be able to have at least a little bit of happiness with the man I love"
She looked around at her friends/family, "I love you all, and I respect you, that's why I'm telling you now. But, I want you all to know that no matter what you say; you're not going to convince me to risk what I've found just to make any of you happy."
She looked around the room waiting for anyone to speak. They all seemed rather stunned, and then Any spoke up.
"Well, I can certainly understand. I mean I am very well aware of Spike's capabilities at..."
"Anya!" Every person in the room shouted at once. Anya looked hurt, but she stopped talking.
"I can't really say I'm all that surprised either," said Willow. "I mean with the whole 'we need Spike' and getting the chip removed, and the 'why does everyone in this house think I'm still in love with Spike'. Not really a big shock there. Of course, you know the out there in the open part is new.
"And, hey, at least with Spike we don't have to worry about a happiness clause and the chip is already gone and we're all still here, so that's of the good, right?"
"You're right Willow. Spike is one guy we don't have to worry about going evil after sex with me. In fact, he's the only guy to actually go all soul-having good guy after sex with me."
Dawn and Xander looked at each other and everyone could tell what they were thinking.
"Guys, I know that you still have issues with what happened last spring, but Spike and I have talked about it, and we've forgiven each other..."
"You've forgiven each other?" Dawn asked. "How is there anything for him to forgive? He tried to rape you, right?"
"Yes." Spike said. "And personally, I haven't bloody well forgiven myself for that yet. But your sis has seen fit to forgive me, and pointed out that I don't get to choose whether she does or not. I'm not expecting anyone else here to forgive me, but I do know that what I did was truly terrible. Even before I got the soul, I knew that what I did was unforgivable. That's why I got my soul back. So that I would never try to do anything so bloody wrong again." He looked down at the floor, ashamed; his hand unconsciously rubbing small patterns on Buffy's back, seeking comfort in contact with her.
"Okay, yes, Spike did try to rape me, but you guys don't really know what happened between us last year. I was so horrible to him. You guys remember what a bitch I was last year, and don't deny it, I remember. Well, what you guys saw was Angelic Buffy compared to how I treated Spike.
"Do you remember the bruises on Spike's face at my birthday party last year?" She saw the look of shock, then horror on their faces as she realized that they did remember. "I did that to him, nearly a week earlier. Do you know why?" She asked rhetorically. "Because he was with me when I thought that I killed that girl Katrina and he knew that it wasn't really my fault. He saw how everything went wonky and I couldn't tell what was real. So, he tried to protect me. He tried to stop me from turning myself in and I beat him so badly, he could barely move.
"So, what Spike did was wrong, but I was hardly an innocent victim. And that was far from the only time that I beat him or humiliated him."
They all sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then Willow cleared her throat, "but that was just last year, right, because you were so unhappy. That's not what your relationship is like now, is it?"
Buffy smiled. "No, that's not what our relationship is like now. Now, we're good." She couldn't help that naughty little grin that surfaced, "in so many ways."
Spike tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh when Xander made a choking sound and nearly fell off the chair.
"Harris, you've been real quiet so far. I really hope that you're not trying to figure out how fast you can get to that brilliant weapons chest you gave Buffy last year."
"Surprisingly, no. I mean, so not loving the mental picture I just got, but..." he paused. He looked at his best friend, and former crush settled so comfortably against her demon lover- no, her lover, and sighed.
"I'm not thrilled, but as has been pointed out to me, I fell in love with a woman who chose, twice, to become a demon. And even after the second time she made that choice, I still felt the same. You actually chose to harness your demon with a soul, I have to respect that. I've also seen how much you've changed. I guess everything that has happened has forced me to finally see that everything is not black and white. As long as you treat her with the love and the respect that she deserves, I guess I can accept your relationship.
"And, like Buffy and Willow pointed out earlier, at least we know that you're not going to go all evil and try to kill us all." He looked at Buffy.
"Since we've all mentioned him indirectly, I'm going to ask directly...What about Angel? I mean you were all 'love of my life' with him for so long. He was even the reason you and Riley didn't work out..."
"Okay, stop right there." Buffy sighed in frustration.
"We need to get closure on the whole Riley situation once and for all. I wanted to love Riley. He was my 'normal guy', the key to my 'normal life', but I didn't love him, and it wasn't because of Angel. It took me a while to figure it all out, because, well I tend to be Denial Girl sometimes..." At this Spike snorted in an undignified manner, but at Buffy's look, he sat up straight and put on his most innocent look.
Buffy swatted his chest, then smiled and continued. "Riley wanted to love me, too. We had alot in common with the demon fighting and all. He even managed to convince himself that he was in love, but he didn't love me either, not really."
"But he did..."Xander began.
"Xan, if there is one thing that I've finally learned about love, it's that to truly love someone, you have to accept them, warts and all. Riley couldn't do that. He couldn't accept my past relationship with Angel and he couldn't accept my strength. And I'm not just talking about the fact that I could toss him across the room with no effort. I'm also talking about that fact that he needed me to need him. And I didn't.
"When Mom got sick, I needed to stay strong. I had to hold things together for her and for Dawn...and for me. I couldn't just let myself fall apart, because if I did, then I would have given up. Everything was so hard that year and I had to stay strong and focused, because if I gave in, I don't think I would have been able to pull myself back out. I mean look what happened when Glory took Dawn.
"The problem was, Riley wanted, needed for me to give in, to fall apart. He needed to be the one to pull me back out, to put me back together. But I couldn't do that. I don't think he would have been able to anyway.
"So, he became angry and resentful. But, instead of taking out on just me, he put all of us in danger."
Xander opened his mouth again to protest, but Buffy held up her hand to stop him.
"Think about it Xander. How many times did he 'forget' about patrolling with you guys? What do you think he was doing?" Shock and disgust suddenly registered on Xander and Willow's faces.
"Also, he was paying those vamps to bite him. What if one of his little whores had decided that she really liked him and thought he'd make a good vamp. Then we would have had a government trained super vamp who knew everything about us. And since he was our friend and my boyfriend, would any of us have thought twice about inviting him into our homes? And the hospital, hello, public building.
"Riley either didn't think, or didn't care, about the possible consequences when he was getting off on the biting. Then he blamed me for his selfish, childish behavior and had the nerve to issue me an ultimatum, 'get over it by midnight or I'm history'.
"That's not love. If he really loved me he would have been able to accept me as I am and he would never have so thoughtlessly risked my life, the lives of my friends and family, or his own life, just to get off on the adrenaline rush." She looked at Xander. "I know that we both wanted for me to find 'Joe Normal' and have a nice normal life, but that's not going to happen. I've accepted that and I'm happier now. I hope you can be happy for me."
She took a deep breath, "Now, to answer your original question. Angel and I are over. Way over. A part of me still loves him, just as I'm sure a part of him still loves me, but we aren't 'in love' anymore and haven't been for a long time.
"I never told you guys what happened when I went to meet him. So, I'll tell you now. We talked about what had happened prior to my death, why he wasn't anywhere around when the whole Glory mess went down. He told me about Darla being back and Drusilla siring her."
She felt Spike stiffen against her, "How much do you know?"
"Just what Dru told me when she showed up that night that I told you I loved you in my own bloody brilliant way." Spike replied. "Probably about as much as you do. Darla back, newly vamped, evil lawyers responsible for the whole mess, Angel going really dark gray. That about cover it?" Buffy nodded.
They both relaxed slightly and Buffy continued. "Anyway, long story short, he talked about the 'gruesome twosome', some evil law firm in LA, and getting stuck in some bizarro world where Cordelia was a princess. I told him about Riley, my money problems, and my lack of future plans, pretty much everything except about being in Heaven.
"But, while we were talking I noticed the way he talked about Cordelia and the look he got in his eyes when he talked about her. It was the same look he used to get when he looked at me. I don't think he suspected that I was starting to develop feelings for Spike, but he could tell that I had feelings for someone. That's when we both realized that it was really over. It was kind of sad, but we accepted it.
"And you know I've realized that even without that stupid happiness clause, Angel and I probably wouldn't have worked out anyway."
"What? I'm serious." She exclaimed when she saw the skeptical looks on everyone's faces. "Seriously, he was totally overprotective. He had a little bit of that same need that Riley had, to be needed by me. Plus, he was so large with the secretiveness and being all Cryptic Guy. And, he kept making decision about my life without consulting me. He decided that he knew what was best for me better than I did and then just acted accordingly, without any concern for my opinions.
"That was frustrating when I was 16, now, it would be totally unacceptable. It was like he didn't trust me or think that I was bright enough to make my own decisions."
She smiled warmly at all of her friends and leaned her head against Spike's chest. "Spike and I may have gotten off to a really rocky start, but we accept each other, we trust each other, and while we do try to protect each other, we also realize that we are both strong enough to take care of ourselves. We can both be who we are, and I think that together we are even better than we are alone. And I think that's what love should be like."
She smiled happily when she saw everyone look at each other and then look at Spike and her and smile.
"Great, now that that is settled. Xander, I have a favor to ask you as a carpenter, and please don't wig"
Xander looked at her warily, "What?"
"How hard would it be to partition off the basement so that we could have a training area and a bedroom-like area that would fit a full-size bed and maybe a dresser?"
Xander groaned slightly at the image, but told her it wouldn't be too difficult and agreed to start on the project the next day.
With that first hurdle out of the way, Spike and Buffy headed to the basement to break the news to their trainees and then head out on patrol
TBC
Spoilers: same as before
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. It has been pointed out to me that I tend to be wordy and use long paragraphs. You're right, but this is my first attempt at writing fanfic. The last thing that I wrote would have been a paper for a college course. Chap. 3 was written before I got the reviews for chap. 2, therefore the continuation of long, verbose paragraphs. Also, I realized after posting that I went seriously overboard with Buffy's "I love..." speech. I just thought that after all of the venom she spewed last season, he deserved alot of sugar. Anyway, I hope this chapter will come out a little better. Thanks.
Chapter 4
By the time everyone got inside, Spike and Buffy were sitting on the couch talking quietly. The potentials, used to seeing the two being rather intimate, were unfazed by the sight and headed off to the kitchen. The Scoobies, however, sensed a definite change in the air and sat down in the living room.
Buffy rose and headed to the kitchen. She asked the girls if they enjoyed their afternoon off and received a chorus of yeses from the teenagers.
"Great. Glad you got to unwind, but now its back to the trenches. We'll be heading out for patrol in a few hours." Buffy looked toward the oldest potential Slayer. "Kennedy, would you please take everyone down to the basement and warm up. We'll be down in a while."
Kennedy nodded and the girls headed to the basement.
Buffy took a deep breath and headed to back to the living room. Everyone looked at her curiously as she walked across the room. She decided to jump in with both feet and sat down next to Spike on the couch and tossed her feet over his lap. She was leaning partly against Spike and partly against the corner of the couch, her position comfortable and relaxed, but also intended to send a message.
'Message received,' she thought as everyone's eyes widened considerably.
"So, Spike and I had a long talk this afternoon and we got alot of issues resolved." She said with a Spike-like smirk on her face. "I finally realized that life is too short for me to not be able to have at least a little bit of happiness with the man I love"
She looked around at her friends/family, "I love you all, and I respect you, that's why I'm telling you now. But, I want you all to know that no matter what you say; you're not going to convince me to risk what I've found just to make any of you happy."
She looked around the room waiting for anyone to speak. They all seemed rather stunned, and then Any spoke up.
"Well, I can certainly understand. I mean I am very well aware of Spike's capabilities at..."
"Anya!" Every person in the room shouted at once. Anya looked hurt, but she stopped talking.
"I can't really say I'm all that surprised either," said Willow. "I mean with the whole 'we need Spike' and getting the chip removed, and the 'why does everyone in this house think I'm still in love with Spike'. Not really a big shock there. Of course, you know the out there in the open part is new.
"And, hey, at least with Spike we don't have to worry about a happiness clause and the chip is already gone and we're all still here, so that's of the good, right?"
"You're right Willow. Spike is one guy we don't have to worry about going evil after sex with me. In fact, he's the only guy to actually go all soul-having good guy after sex with me."
Dawn and Xander looked at each other and everyone could tell what they were thinking.
"Guys, I know that you still have issues with what happened last spring, but Spike and I have talked about it, and we've forgiven each other..."
"You've forgiven each other?" Dawn asked. "How is there anything for him to forgive? He tried to rape you, right?"
"Yes." Spike said. "And personally, I haven't bloody well forgiven myself for that yet. But your sis has seen fit to forgive me, and pointed out that I don't get to choose whether she does or not. I'm not expecting anyone else here to forgive me, but I do know that what I did was truly terrible. Even before I got the soul, I knew that what I did was unforgivable. That's why I got my soul back. So that I would never try to do anything so bloody wrong again." He looked down at the floor, ashamed; his hand unconsciously rubbing small patterns on Buffy's back, seeking comfort in contact with her.
"Okay, yes, Spike did try to rape me, but you guys don't really know what happened between us last year. I was so horrible to him. You guys remember what a bitch I was last year, and don't deny it, I remember. Well, what you guys saw was Angelic Buffy compared to how I treated Spike.
"Do you remember the bruises on Spike's face at my birthday party last year?" She saw the look of shock, then horror on their faces as she realized that they did remember. "I did that to him, nearly a week earlier. Do you know why?" She asked rhetorically. "Because he was with me when I thought that I killed that girl Katrina and he knew that it wasn't really my fault. He saw how everything went wonky and I couldn't tell what was real. So, he tried to protect me. He tried to stop me from turning myself in and I beat him so badly, he could barely move.
"So, what Spike did was wrong, but I was hardly an innocent victim. And that was far from the only time that I beat him or humiliated him."
They all sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then Willow cleared her throat, "but that was just last year, right, because you were so unhappy. That's not what your relationship is like now, is it?"
Buffy smiled. "No, that's not what our relationship is like now. Now, we're good." She couldn't help that naughty little grin that surfaced, "in so many ways."
Spike tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh when Xander made a choking sound and nearly fell off the chair.
"Harris, you've been real quiet so far. I really hope that you're not trying to figure out how fast you can get to that brilliant weapons chest you gave Buffy last year."
"Surprisingly, no. I mean, so not loving the mental picture I just got, but..." he paused. He looked at his best friend, and former crush settled so comfortably against her demon lover- no, her lover, and sighed.
"I'm not thrilled, but as has been pointed out to me, I fell in love with a woman who chose, twice, to become a demon. And even after the second time she made that choice, I still felt the same. You actually chose to harness your demon with a soul, I have to respect that. I've also seen how much you've changed. I guess everything that has happened has forced me to finally see that everything is not black and white. As long as you treat her with the love and the respect that she deserves, I guess I can accept your relationship.
"And, like Buffy and Willow pointed out earlier, at least we know that you're not going to go all evil and try to kill us all." He looked at Buffy.
"Since we've all mentioned him indirectly, I'm going to ask directly...What about Angel? I mean you were all 'love of my life' with him for so long. He was even the reason you and Riley didn't work out..."
"Okay, stop right there." Buffy sighed in frustration.
"We need to get closure on the whole Riley situation once and for all. I wanted to love Riley. He was my 'normal guy', the key to my 'normal life', but I didn't love him, and it wasn't because of Angel. It took me a while to figure it all out, because, well I tend to be Denial Girl sometimes..." At this Spike snorted in an undignified manner, but at Buffy's look, he sat up straight and put on his most innocent look.
Buffy swatted his chest, then smiled and continued. "Riley wanted to love me, too. We had alot in common with the demon fighting and all. He even managed to convince himself that he was in love, but he didn't love me either, not really."
"But he did..."Xander began.
"Xan, if there is one thing that I've finally learned about love, it's that to truly love someone, you have to accept them, warts and all. Riley couldn't do that. He couldn't accept my past relationship with Angel and he couldn't accept my strength. And I'm not just talking about the fact that I could toss him across the room with no effort. I'm also talking about that fact that he needed me to need him. And I didn't.
"When Mom got sick, I needed to stay strong. I had to hold things together for her and for Dawn...and for me. I couldn't just let myself fall apart, because if I did, then I would have given up. Everything was so hard that year and I had to stay strong and focused, because if I gave in, I don't think I would have been able to pull myself back out. I mean look what happened when Glory took Dawn.
"The problem was, Riley wanted, needed for me to give in, to fall apart. He needed to be the one to pull me back out, to put me back together. But I couldn't do that. I don't think he would have been able to anyway.
"So, he became angry and resentful. But, instead of taking out on just me, he put all of us in danger."
Xander opened his mouth again to protest, but Buffy held up her hand to stop him.
"Think about it Xander. How many times did he 'forget' about patrolling with you guys? What do you think he was doing?" Shock and disgust suddenly registered on Xander and Willow's faces.
"Also, he was paying those vamps to bite him. What if one of his little whores had decided that she really liked him and thought he'd make a good vamp. Then we would have had a government trained super vamp who knew everything about us. And since he was our friend and my boyfriend, would any of us have thought twice about inviting him into our homes? And the hospital, hello, public building.
"Riley either didn't think, or didn't care, about the possible consequences when he was getting off on the biting. Then he blamed me for his selfish, childish behavior and had the nerve to issue me an ultimatum, 'get over it by midnight or I'm history'.
"That's not love. If he really loved me he would have been able to accept me as I am and he would never have so thoughtlessly risked my life, the lives of my friends and family, or his own life, just to get off on the adrenaline rush." She looked at Xander. "I know that we both wanted for me to find 'Joe Normal' and have a nice normal life, but that's not going to happen. I've accepted that and I'm happier now. I hope you can be happy for me."
She took a deep breath, "Now, to answer your original question. Angel and I are over. Way over. A part of me still loves him, just as I'm sure a part of him still loves me, but we aren't 'in love' anymore and haven't been for a long time.
"I never told you guys what happened when I went to meet him. So, I'll tell you now. We talked about what had happened prior to my death, why he wasn't anywhere around when the whole Glory mess went down. He told me about Darla being back and Drusilla siring her."
She felt Spike stiffen against her, "How much do you know?"
"Just what Dru told me when she showed up that night that I told you I loved you in my own bloody brilliant way." Spike replied. "Probably about as much as you do. Darla back, newly vamped, evil lawyers responsible for the whole mess, Angel going really dark gray. That about cover it?" Buffy nodded.
They both relaxed slightly and Buffy continued. "Anyway, long story short, he talked about the 'gruesome twosome', some evil law firm in LA, and getting stuck in some bizarro world where Cordelia was a princess. I told him about Riley, my money problems, and my lack of future plans, pretty much everything except about being in Heaven.
"But, while we were talking I noticed the way he talked about Cordelia and the look he got in his eyes when he talked about her. It was the same look he used to get when he looked at me. I don't think he suspected that I was starting to develop feelings for Spike, but he could tell that I had feelings for someone. That's when we both realized that it was really over. It was kind of sad, but we accepted it.
"And you know I've realized that even without that stupid happiness clause, Angel and I probably wouldn't have worked out anyway."
"What? I'm serious." She exclaimed when she saw the skeptical looks on everyone's faces. "Seriously, he was totally overprotective. He had a little bit of that same need that Riley had, to be needed by me. Plus, he was so large with the secretiveness and being all Cryptic Guy. And, he kept making decision about my life without consulting me. He decided that he knew what was best for me better than I did and then just acted accordingly, without any concern for my opinions.
"That was frustrating when I was 16, now, it would be totally unacceptable. It was like he didn't trust me or think that I was bright enough to make my own decisions."
She smiled warmly at all of her friends and leaned her head against Spike's chest. "Spike and I may have gotten off to a really rocky start, but we accept each other, we trust each other, and while we do try to protect each other, we also realize that we are both strong enough to take care of ourselves. We can both be who we are, and I think that together we are even better than we are alone. And I think that's what love should be like."
She smiled happily when she saw everyone look at each other and then look at Spike and her and smile.
"Great, now that that is settled. Xander, I have a favor to ask you as a carpenter, and please don't wig"
Xander looked at her warily, "What?"
"How hard would it be to partition off the basement so that we could have a training area and a bedroom-like area that would fit a full-size bed and maybe a dresser?"
Xander groaned slightly at the image, but told her it wouldn't be too difficult and agreed to start on the project the next day.
With that first hurdle out of the way, Spike and Buffy headed to the basement to break the news to their trainees and then head out on patrol
TBC
