Good evening, One and All,
Okay, so I did manage to squeak out another chapter this week. Good thing as next week is looking a bit hectic and two chapter-y. I will do my best for you.
The story is beginning to draw to a close, a final burst of action and angst before the happy ending. So, I decided to go easy on you again and give you a little shot of Spuffy since I've so horribly ignored your needs in the next few chapters. I do hope that this is a pleasant reward.
Thank you for all the kind feedback and please, keep it coming!
Look for the next chapter on Wednesday.
*Cheery Vibes*, Nimue
"As sick as it sounds, in my little head, there's a little Sunnydale, and a widdle Spike and a widdle Buffy and Spike wubs Buffy." James Marsters 14 July 2002
Title: Missing You (Chapter Twenty-Seven of The One)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG -13
Pairing: Buffy/Spike. Most major characters included.
Feedback: Yes, please
For instant notification of fic releases, straight to your mailbox, please visit Always_Everyday@yahoogroups.com . Also, please visit the wonderful fan listing that Rachel put together. Sign up today and link to your website (or just sign up to say hi!). The fan listing can be found at .
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing. (With, of course, the exception of Emma and William, who belong to Buffy and Spike)
Summary: Spike explains the meaning of Buffy's actions the prior evening. They spend one last day with the kids before the cure wears off and The One's future becomes uncertain.
Missing You
Buffy snuggled against the warm body habitually as it stretched on the bed next to her. Burying her face in his chest. Letting her arms tangle through his. Pushing her body as close as she could without becoming one. He smiled, feeling her hair tickle his bare chest. Buffy. The girl that would give him his beginning and his end and every moment in between.
"Got to wake up now, Love," Spike whispered, kissing the crown of her head. She hummed in response, a small smile breaking on her lips and her body scooting impossibly closer. He could feel his own betray him, warming to her touch. This was hardly the time. Spike willed control and managed it. Barely.
"C'mon, Pet. "It was like bending steel to be so close to her, to smell her smell and feel her body so warm next to his and not touch her. Not comfort her. Not be with her. But she needed to see the kids. She needed to be their mum today more than he needed to spend her remaining hours tangled in pooled sweat and joyous pleasure. Spike chuckled at himself. Never thought he could be that altruistic.
"Five more minutes, "she muttered, her small hands roaming his body in her half slumber. "Yummy Vampire."
Spike shook his head and chuckled. Wondered if she was just making her typical remark or if she liked her little taste of him last night. He knew it was the former, but the latter wasn't really a bad thing either in his own little Vampire mind. "No, Pet. Rise and shine."
Green eyes flickered lazily open and pretty coral lips spread in a feline smile. "Do I hafta?"
"Umhmm," Spike hummed, kissing her forehead. "Emma and Will want to see you."
Her face became very serious as she traced circles on his chest. "Are they okay?"
"Fine, Love, why?" Spike answered, smoothing her hair down her back. The memories of the night before came crashing down on her. He felt it like a piano dropping from a skyscraper and falling into her tired mind. "They don't know, Love. They're fine."
Buffy's eyes fluttered up to his throat, her fingers tracing the bandages. "Is it bad?"
"Half way to healed," Spike answered, smiling softly. It was a lie. Slayer healing, which seemed to be his top shelf brand at the moment, was not quite up to speed with its Vampire counterpart. It was healing, but not as fast as it would have before this had happened.
"Really?" Buffy asked, hopeful.
"Be fine, Pet," Spike comforted, pulling Buffy onto his chest, her cheek pressed to his. "Just fine." Softly, his lips pressed against hers. Buffy stiffened at first, fear and guilt closing around her like a vice. But the feather softness of his hands on her back, the sweetness of his lips pressed to hers, the small sounds of comfort sliding from his throat like warm dark chocolate, relaxed her. Spike was still hers. She was still his. This wouldn't change it.
Nothing would.
"You up for 'Meet the Kiddies'? Think they'd like to spend a little time with their mum," Spike whispered, his lips brushing to hers as his mouth formed the words.
"Yeah," Buffy answered, smiling against his skin. "Where are they?"
"Glinda took them for breakfast. Be back shortly. Thought you'd want a little time to."
Buffy pulled her face away enough to look into his eyes. "You promise me that you don't hate me?"
Spike raised an eyebrow, blue pools full of the same look of love and adoration that they always possessed. Never changing. Constant. In battle, in bed, making dinner, changing a diaper, beating the hell out of a demon or slamming them through an abandoned house, those eyes were always the same. Love. "Never could. Never want to. No regrets," Spike answered simply.
Buffy nodded, trying to accept that. Trying to hold back the tears. She leaned forward, placing a small kiss on the bandages over his throat. He closed his eyes and groaned. Quickly, she drew her head away.
"Oh, God, did that hurt?" Buffy asked, mortified, scrambling back.
His hands shot up, grabbing her bare shoulders and pulling her back down to him. "No, Love," Spike answered with a wicked grin. "Shouldn't have done that, though."
Her face was shocked, nervous, guilt ridden, her eyes pooling with tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so."
Before she could complete the sentence, his lips closed over hers again, drinking her in, drowning in her. "You shouldn't have done that," Spike growled, nearly breathless, "because you marked me. You made me yours again, Pet. Claimed me back. Your lips against it."
Her eyes grew wide. "I what?"
Spike blinked, not sure of how much to tell her. "When you bit me, Buffy, we were."
A twinge went through her. A good twinge. She remembered exactly what they had been doing at the time. "Yeah," she whispered, her chin resting against his.
"You love me," he continued, matter of factly. It made her smile. About time he got it through his thick skull.
"Yeah," she confirmed.
"So, even though the words weren't said, the claim was remade," Spike said hesitantly, hoping she would see that for what it was. Beautiful. Meaningful. Important. Maybe she could see the good in the horror that would plague her about last night.
Buffy didn't speak, making his heart pound in his chest. She was going to panic. He could feel it. Her hands slid slowly to his bandage, peeling the gauze from the skin and studying the jagged, healing wound in his neck. Her brow furrowed and she winced as her fingers traced the edges. Spike's heart beat faster, terrified that she would lose it. Seeing the damage would wound her even more. He could feel her mind process the horror of it, the guilt clamping down again. He held her tighter.
"Buffy?" Spike asked, watching her emerald eyes begin to spill silent tears, her fingers as soft as silk against his neck.
She looked at him. Studied his face for a moment, before returning her eyes to the mark. Slowly, reverently, she leaned down and nuzzled the whole skin around it, making his eyes roll back and his body stiffen with lust and love. A small, pink tongue darted out and began to lap the edges of the wound, sealing it, cleaning it, and possessing it. Once she had worked her way over ever inch of skin, she stopped, looking at his darkened eyes for a moment, and then turning her attention back to the wound. Slowly, gingerly, she placed her mouth over it, and then kissed it softly.
"Mine," she murmured against his skin.
His body tightened like a piano wire at her claim, every muscle becoming hard and drawn to her. Spike's glazed eyes grew wide, looking down at her small, perfect face, watching her caress the wound with mouth and fingers, all the while, her soft breath whispering "mine" over and over again into his skin.
"Yours," Spike repeated, his voice almost too breathy to hear over the emotion. She had done it. She had let herself succumb, willingly, to the Vampire long enough to give him the one thing that she could have never given as a human. The marks they had had always gone both ways, but the symbolism of this was not lost on him. She'd let herself be what she never wanted to be long enough to give him what he'd wanted from her.
Buffy looked up at him and smiled. "I need to shower."
Those were words he hadn't expected after something so intimate.
"O...okay, Love," Spike stuttered, body thrumming with lust and adoration.
She lifted herself off of him slowly, the thin muscles of her fit body rippling under golden peach skin. Feline in every way. Her wicked smile had not left her face as she placed a parting kiss on his neck, making his body shudder. "Mine."
"Yours," he repeated, completely, in every way, at her mercy.
Her naked body slid gracefully to its feet on the floor, standing next to the bed. She extended her hand to him. "I didn't mean alone," she whispered, devilish smile growing.
Spike returned it, a newfound adoration glittering in the perfect blue of his eyes. "Do you. You understand.?"
"Come with me," Buffy purred, pulling him to his feet. "Not much time and I want to spend a few minutes alone with you."
Spike wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her ear. "Want more than a few minutes."
"Come with me," she purred again.
~~~~~
Buffy sat on the living room floor, laughing hysterically while Will tried to chase Emma but kept falling off balance because of the cast. Spike must have shot his hand out a hundred times to steady the boy, but he persisted despite the giant yellow roadblock to his success. That made Spike smile. Watching it was like watching what he went through chasing Buffy for all of those years.
There was no doubt. Temporary or not, the cure had worked. Spike hadn't tried to take her outside, but she sat in a patch of sunlight, now tackled by her son and rolling on the floor in mock defeat, the daylight making her hair glisten like spun gold and the smile making her look as young as the first moment they had met. When he saw her dancing. She was beautiful. Always. His golden goddess.
The kids had been a brilliant idea. Her mood had changed in just the few hours she had been awake from sullen and afraid, to vixen, to perfectly content. His Buffy. Always moody and just the way he liked her.
The thought struck him as the two tots curled around their mum on the floor, sleepy from what seemed to be a huge breakfast courtesy of the good Witch and an hour of heavy play, that this may be it. He tried to shake it from his mind, but like a virus, it returned. There were no guarantees in life. Especially not in theirs. Nothing that said that this *would* end and that they would have another afternoon like this. It could be the last. Could be the last time he could see his sleepy tots snuggle into her and her laying there smiling like the world was all right.
It would be all right again.
Had to be.
If not, he'd feed her every night. Give her every day. Take it. Take the torture. Teach her to be. Make it okay again.
But he just really wanted Buffy back. He never realized that the frailty of her humanity was nearly as important to her, to his, existence as the Slayer. More. It was that frailty, that humanity, that had reminded him how real love, the love of ages and lifetimes and quiet moments in the sunshine, was supposed to be. He'd always had the capacity to love. Truly. Madly. Deeply. But her humanity was what made that love constant and steady and just as real making breakfast as it was making love.
Spike had to have that back. Had to make it right.
"Think I tired them out," Buffy whispered, the smile still stretched across soft coral lips.
Spike shook his head. "What, Pet?"
Her eyebrow quirked. "You OK? Got all Far Away Man on me."
He chuckled although it only came out a short exhale. "Just got lost watching you, Love. Won't happen again."
Her smile broadened. "I like it when you look like that."
Spike eased off the couch and stretched out on the floor next to her, sandwiching a drowsy Emma between them. William was curled like a cat on her other side, yellow arm draped haphazardly over his mum. "Why's that?" Spike asked, leaning in to find her cheek.
Buffy closed her eyes, savouring the feel of his lips against hers. "You look all dreamy and poetic."
He rolled his eyes. "William the First flashbacks, Pet?"
"You do have a lot of him in you. Whether or not you like to admit it," she chided, nuzzling her cheek against his nose. "What were you thinking about?"
"You," Spike answered. She rolled her head, her eyes inches from his.
"What about me?"
Spike sighed, knowing this would just add fuel to the waxing poetic fire. "What I love about you."
Buffy smiled. "More of him than you'll ever admit," she taunted playfully.
"That's enough outta you, Love," Spike responded, nipping her nose. "Or I'll have to remind you of the rest of the package later."
A sly grin broke across her features. "Not a punishment. I.uh. like your package."
"Naughty Slayer," he grinned, planting his lips softly against hers. She sighed into his mouth.
"Wish we could have more days like this. Kinda miss the whole domestic bliss what with the Slaying and the saving the World and suddenly getting all Vamp-ish."
He kissed her again. "Lots of days like this to come, Love," Spike encouraged, despite his own fears. "Many even better. Some a bit worse."
Buffy sighed. "That's life, I guess."
"Ours," Spike chuckled. "Got a bit more excitement than your run of the mill existence."
She shrugged. "Better than your run of the mill life anyway. I mean, we get all the comforts of regular people moments mixed in with the fun and excitement of Prophesies and Apocalypses. What more could a girl want?"
Again, Spike chuckled. "I couldn't ask for better."
"Do you." She paused, trying to think of the right words. "Do you... I mean. never mind."
"Ask, Love. Think you know that I'd pretty much answer anything," Spike prodded. "If for no other reason that I love the sound of my own voice."
Buffy chuckled loudly making Emma stir next to her. Spike stroked the little girl's arm and she drifted back off, her back pressed to her father's chest and her arm draped over her mum, just above Will's. "Sorry, just. well, true."
Spike rolled his eyes. "Just ask."
Buffy took a deep breath. "You. You've lived a long time. Almost a bunch of different lives. I mean, first you were William. Then William the Bloody. Spike, Scourge of Europe. Spike of Sunnydale." She giggled, having a vision of a little Spike skipping through the tulips in pigtails. He rolled his eyes, feeling the image and groaning.
"To the point, this millennium, Pet," Spike pushed.
"Oh, yeah," Buffy continued, still giggling. "Anyway, now you're all Captain Suburbia, William Windsor. Husband. Father of two. Driving the nice middle class SUV to the supermarket for diapers."
Spike cringed, thinking of how domestic his life had become, and then smiled, thinking how much he loved where he was at this moment. "Your point," he prodded again, this time with less impatience.
"So," she went on, hesitantly, "Do you miss it?"
"Miss what, Love?" Spike asked, tucking Emma more comfortably against him and moving closer to Buffy.
"Any of it? Your other lives? Victorian England.?"
"Full of poncy poofs and I was a hopeless git. Don't miss a thing," Spike blurted to Buffy's amusement.
"Spike and Dru burn and pillage Europe?" Buffy asked, finding his hand with hers.
"Think of it as Vampire, the Teenage Years, Pet," Spike commented. "Blowing off steam. Rebelling. Fell in with the wrong crowd."
Buffy smiled. "Chipped Spike of Sunnydale?"
"Other than the obvious disgust with the mental images that that conjures, wasn't all that bad considering I was a leashed puppy getting kicked by its master. " Buffy frowned as the words slid from his mouth. "But, least she was a pretty master doing her job and she came round." His hand caressed her face, and she knew she had been wrong. More than that, she knew she had been forgiven.
"You know, I'm sorry."
Spike cut off that train to guilt with a soft kiss. "Had to be that Vampire to get to now. Don't mind a moment."
She was silent, watching the honesty swirl around in his eyes with the love and the adoration. There were more emotions in one blink of his long eyelashes than there were in many people's entire lives. "So, do you miss any of it?"
His brow furrowed. "You asking me if I'd rather be in any of those places, doing any of those things, rather than be here?"
Buffy nodded, biting her bottom lip. "Yeah."
"No," he answered swiftly and surely. "Not a minute. Not a second. Doesn't cross my mind."
"It has to cross your mind," Buffy whispered, her face almost flush to his now, her breath blowing softly against his mouth.
Spike shook his head, his nose rubbing hers. "It doesn't, honestly. Don't want to be anywhere else. Don't regret anything that happened before. Don't want to change it back because everything that happened brought me to you. Brought me here. Gave me your love and gave me the tots. How could I, in a million years, ever want to change a thing? I'd die again to save this life."
Tears pooled in her eyes. "But if you died, then you wouldn't get to live it."
Again, his palm caressed her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. "Not planning on it, Love. But I'd rather die here, in this life; with you then have to go back to any other. And I'd rather be looking down on you knowing that you were still living it, than to let you down again."
"You never let me down," Buffy choked out, tears starting to spill. "You never."
"Shh, Pet," Spike comforted, kissing the trail of a tear down her cheek. "Don't look back. Got too much ahead. Mites growing up. School. Panic over the whole teenage experiment. First dates and proms and college and that horrid day when. I can't even say it."
A smile broke through Buffy's tears. "What?"
A huge, stage sigh erupted from Spike's mouth. "No, no. It's too rancid to even think."
"What?" Buffy asked, pushing his chest gently with the palm of her hand.
Again, Spike sighed. "That horrid day when we become in laws to the Harris clan."
Buffy burst into giggles, shaking her head. "Now that's a nightmare. Worse than any apocalypse."
"No need to tell me, Love," Spike groaned. "Have to be nice to the git so as not to hurt River's feelings."
"Ooh, and what if they had kids? They'd be all genetically mixy with you and me and Xander and Takina."
Spike shuddered at that thought. "Right then, time to clean out the old brain. Got some naughty video upstairs, care to join?"
Buffy chuckled, batting him again. "You always can make me laugh. You always bring me back."
"Selfish, really," Spike replied, settling back in next to her.
"How?"
"Like you," he answered, nuzzling her ear. "Love you."
"Always?"
"Every day."
To be contd.
Okay, so I did manage to squeak out another chapter this week. Good thing as next week is looking a bit hectic and two chapter-y. I will do my best for you.
The story is beginning to draw to a close, a final burst of action and angst before the happy ending. So, I decided to go easy on you again and give you a little shot of Spuffy since I've so horribly ignored your needs in the next few chapters. I do hope that this is a pleasant reward.
Thank you for all the kind feedback and please, keep it coming!
Look for the next chapter on Wednesday.
*Cheery Vibes*, Nimue
"As sick as it sounds, in my little head, there's a little Sunnydale, and a widdle Spike and a widdle Buffy and Spike wubs Buffy." James Marsters 14 July 2002
Title: Missing You (Chapter Twenty-Seven of The One)
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG -13
Pairing: Buffy/Spike. Most major characters included.
Feedback: Yes, please
For instant notification of fic releases, straight to your mailbox, please visit Always_Everyday@yahoogroups.com . Also, please visit the wonderful fan listing that Rachel put together. Sign up today and link to your website (or just sign up to say hi!). The fan listing can be found at .
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing. (With, of course, the exception of Emma and William, who belong to Buffy and Spike)
Summary: Spike explains the meaning of Buffy's actions the prior evening. They spend one last day with the kids before the cure wears off and The One's future becomes uncertain.
Missing You
Buffy snuggled against the warm body habitually as it stretched on the bed next to her. Burying her face in his chest. Letting her arms tangle through his. Pushing her body as close as she could without becoming one. He smiled, feeling her hair tickle his bare chest. Buffy. The girl that would give him his beginning and his end and every moment in between.
"Got to wake up now, Love," Spike whispered, kissing the crown of her head. She hummed in response, a small smile breaking on her lips and her body scooting impossibly closer. He could feel his own betray him, warming to her touch. This was hardly the time. Spike willed control and managed it. Barely.
"C'mon, Pet. "It was like bending steel to be so close to her, to smell her smell and feel her body so warm next to his and not touch her. Not comfort her. Not be with her. But she needed to see the kids. She needed to be their mum today more than he needed to spend her remaining hours tangled in pooled sweat and joyous pleasure. Spike chuckled at himself. Never thought he could be that altruistic.
"Five more minutes, "she muttered, her small hands roaming his body in her half slumber. "Yummy Vampire."
Spike shook his head and chuckled. Wondered if she was just making her typical remark or if she liked her little taste of him last night. He knew it was the former, but the latter wasn't really a bad thing either in his own little Vampire mind. "No, Pet. Rise and shine."
Green eyes flickered lazily open and pretty coral lips spread in a feline smile. "Do I hafta?"
"Umhmm," Spike hummed, kissing her forehead. "Emma and Will want to see you."
Her face became very serious as she traced circles on his chest. "Are they okay?"
"Fine, Love, why?" Spike answered, smoothing her hair down her back. The memories of the night before came crashing down on her. He felt it like a piano dropping from a skyscraper and falling into her tired mind. "They don't know, Love. They're fine."
Buffy's eyes fluttered up to his throat, her fingers tracing the bandages. "Is it bad?"
"Half way to healed," Spike answered, smiling softly. It was a lie. Slayer healing, which seemed to be his top shelf brand at the moment, was not quite up to speed with its Vampire counterpart. It was healing, but not as fast as it would have before this had happened.
"Really?" Buffy asked, hopeful.
"Be fine, Pet," Spike comforted, pulling Buffy onto his chest, her cheek pressed to his. "Just fine." Softly, his lips pressed against hers. Buffy stiffened at first, fear and guilt closing around her like a vice. But the feather softness of his hands on her back, the sweetness of his lips pressed to hers, the small sounds of comfort sliding from his throat like warm dark chocolate, relaxed her. Spike was still hers. She was still his. This wouldn't change it.
Nothing would.
"You up for 'Meet the Kiddies'? Think they'd like to spend a little time with their mum," Spike whispered, his lips brushing to hers as his mouth formed the words.
"Yeah," Buffy answered, smiling against his skin. "Where are they?"
"Glinda took them for breakfast. Be back shortly. Thought you'd want a little time to."
Buffy pulled her face away enough to look into his eyes. "You promise me that you don't hate me?"
Spike raised an eyebrow, blue pools full of the same look of love and adoration that they always possessed. Never changing. Constant. In battle, in bed, making dinner, changing a diaper, beating the hell out of a demon or slamming them through an abandoned house, those eyes were always the same. Love. "Never could. Never want to. No regrets," Spike answered simply.
Buffy nodded, trying to accept that. Trying to hold back the tears. She leaned forward, placing a small kiss on the bandages over his throat. He closed his eyes and groaned. Quickly, she drew her head away.
"Oh, God, did that hurt?" Buffy asked, mortified, scrambling back.
His hands shot up, grabbing her bare shoulders and pulling her back down to him. "No, Love," Spike answered with a wicked grin. "Shouldn't have done that, though."
Her face was shocked, nervous, guilt ridden, her eyes pooling with tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so."
Before she could complete the sentence, his lips closed over hers again, drinking her in, drowning in her. "You shouldn't have done that," Spike growled, nearly breathless, "because you marked me. You made me yours again, Pet. Claimed me back. Your lips against it."
Her eyes grew wide. "I what?"
Spike blinked, not sure of how much to tell her. "When you bit me, Buffy, we were."
A twinge went through her. A good twinge. She remembered exactly what they had been doing at the time. "Yeah," she whispered, her chin resting against his.
"You love me," he continued, matter of factly. It made her smile. About time he got it through his thick skull.
"Yeah," she confirmed.
"So, even though the words weren't said, the claim was remade," Spike said hesitantly, hoping she would see that for what it was. Beautiful. Meaningful. Important. Maybe she could see the good in the horror that would plague her about last night.
Buffy didn't speak, making his heart pound in his chest. She was going to panic. He could feel it. Her hands slid slowly to his bandage, peeling the gauze from the skin and studying the jagged, healing wound in his neck. Her brow furrowed and she winced as her fingers traced the edges. Spike's heart beat faster, terrified that she would lose it. Seeing the damage would wound her even more. He could feel her mind process the horror of it, the guilt clamping down again. He held her tighter.
"Buffy?" Spike asked, watching her emerald eyes begin to spill silent tears, her fingers as soft as silk against his neck.
She looked at him. Studied his face for a moment, before returning her eyes to the mark. Slowly, reverently, she leaned down and nuzzled the whole skin around it, making his eyes roll back and his body stiffen with lust and love. A small, pink tongue darted out and began to lap the edges of the wound, sealing it, cleaning it, and possessing it. Once she had worked her way over ever inch of skin, she stopped, looking at his darkened eyes for a moment, and then turning her attention back to the wound. Slowly, gingerly, she placed her mouth over it, and then kissed it softly.
"Mine," she murmured against his skin.
His body tightened like a piano wire at her claim, every muscle becoming hard and drawn to her. Spike's glazed eyes grew wide, looking down at her small, perfect face, watching her caress the wound with mouth and fingers, all the while, her soft breath whispering "mine" over and over again into his skin.
"Yours," Spike repeated, his voice almost too breathy to hear over the emotion. She had done it. She had let herself succumb, willingly, to the Vampire long enough to give him the one thing that she could have never given as a human. The marks they had had always gone both ways, but the symbolism of this was not lost on him. She'd let herself be what she never wanted to be long enough to give him what he'd wanted from her.
Buffy looked up at him and smiled. "I need to shower."
Those were words he hadn't expected after something so intimate.
"O...okay, Love," Spike stuttered, body thrumming with lust and adoration.
She lifted herself off of him slowly, the thin muscles of her fit body rippling under golden peach skin. Feline in every way. Her wicked smile had not left her face as she placed a parting kiss on his neck, making his body shudder. "Mine."
"Yours," he repeated, completely, in every way, at her mercy.
Her naked body slid gracefully to its feet on the floor, standing next to the bed. She extended her hand to him. "I didn't mean alone," she whispered, devilish smile growing.
Spike returned it, a newfound adoration glittering in the perfect blue of his eyes. "Do you. You understand.?"
"Come with me," Buffy purred, pulling him to his feet. "Not much time and I want to spend a few minutes alone with you."
Spike wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her ear. "Want more than a few minutes."
"Come with me," she purred again.
~~~~~
Buffy sat on the living room floor, laughing hysterically while Will tried to chase Emma but kept falling off balance because of the cast. Spike must have shot his hand out a hundred times to steady the boy, but he persisted despite the giant yellow roadblock to his success. That made Spike smile. Watching it was like watching what he went through chasing Buffy for all of those years.
There was no doubt. Temporary or not, the cure had worked. Spike hadn't tried to take her outside, but she sat in a patch of sunlight, now tackled by her son and rolling on the floor in mock defeat, the daylight making her hair glisten like spun gold and the smile making her look as young as the first moment they had met. When he saw her dancing. She was beautiful. Always. His golden goddess.
The kids had been a brilliant idea. Her mood had changed in just the few hours she had been awake from sullen and afraid, to vixen, to perfectly content. His Buffy. Always moody and just the way he liked her.
The thought struck him as the two tots curled around their mum on the floor, sleepy from what seemed to be a huge breakfast courtesy of the good Witch and an hour of heavy play, that this may be it. He tried to shake it from his mind, but like a virus, it returned. There were no guarantees in life. Especially not in theirs. Nothing that said that this *would* end and that they would have another afternoon like this. It could be the last. Could be the last time he could see his sleepy tots snuggle into her and her laying there smiling like the world was all right.
It would be all right again.
Had to be.
If not, he'd feed her every night. Give her every day. Take it. Take the torture. Teach her to be. Make it okay again.
But he just really wanted Buffy back. He never realized that the frailty of her humanity was nearly as important to her, to his, existence as the Slayer. More. It was that frailty, that humanity, that had reminded him how real love, the love of ages and lifetimes and quiet moments in the sunshine, was supposed to be. He'd always had the capacity to love. Truly. Madly. Deeply. But her humanity was what made that love constant and steady and just as real making breakfast as it was making love.
Spike had to have that back. Had to make it right.
"Think I tired them out," Buffy whispered, the smile still stretched across soft coral lips.
Spike shook his head. "What, Pet?"
Her eyebrow quirked. "You OK? Got all Far Away Man on me."
He chuckled although it only came out a short exhale. "Just got lost watching you, Love. Won't happen again."
Her smile broadened. "I like it when you look like that."
Spike eased off the couch and stretched out on the floor next to her, sandwiching a drowsy Emma between them. William was curled like a cat on her other side, yellow arm draped haphazardly over his mum. "Why's that?" Spike asked, leaning in to find her cheek.
Buffy closed her eyes, savouring the feel of his lips against hers. "You look all dreamy and poetic."
He rolled his eyes. "William the First flashbacks, Pet?"
"You do have a lot of him in you. Whether or not you like to admit it," she chided, nuzzling her cheek against his nose. "What were you thinking about?"
"You," Spike answered. She rolled her head, her eyes inches from his.
"What about me?"
Spike sighed, knowing this would just add fuel to the waxing poetic fire. "What I love about you."
Buffy smiled. "More of him than you'll ever admit," she taunted playfully.
"That's enough outta you, Love," Spike responded, nipping her nose. "Or I'll have to remind you of the rest of the package later."
A sly grin broke across her features. "Not a punishment. I.uh. like your package."
"Naughty Slayer," he grinned, planting his lips softly against hers. She sighed into his mouth.
"Wish we could have more days like this. Kinda miss the whole domestic bliss what with the Slaying and the saving the World and suddenly getting all Vamp-ish."
He kissed her again. "Lots of days like this to come, Love," Spike encouraged, despite his own fears. "Many even better. Some a bit worse."
Buffy sighed. "That's life, I guess."
"Ours," Spike chuckled. "Got a bit more excitement than your run of the mill existence."
She shrugged. "Better than your run of the mill life anyway. I mean, we get all the comforts of regular people moments mixed in with the fun and excitement of Prophesies and Apocalypses. What more could a girl want?"
Again, Spike chuckled. "I couldn't ask for better."
"Do you." She paused, trying to think of the right words. "Do you... I mean. never mind."
"Ask, Love. Think you know that I'd pretty much answer anything," Spike prodded. "If for no other reason that I love the sound of my own voice."
Buffy chuckled loudly making Emma stir next to her. Spike stroked the little girl's arm and she drifted back off, her back pressed to her father's chest and her arm draped over her mum, just above Will's. "Sorry, just. well, true."
Spike rolled his eyes. "Just ask."
Buffy took a deep breath. "You. You've lived a long time. Almost a bunch of different lives. I mean, first you were William. Then William the Bloody. Spike, Scourge of Europe. Spike of Sunnydale." She giggled, having a vision of a little Spike skipping through the tulips in pigtails. He rolled his eyes, feeling the image and groaning.
"To the point, this millennium, Pet," Spike pushed.
"Oh, yeah," Buffy continued, still giggling. "Anyway, now you're all Captain Suburbia, William Windsor. Husband. Father of two. Driving the nice middle class SUV to the supermarket for diapers."
Spike cringed, thinking of how domestic his life had become, and then smiled, thinking how much he loved where he was at this moment. "Your point," he prodded again, this time with less impatience.
"So," she went on, hesitantly, "Do you miss it?"
"Miss what, Love?" Spike asked, tucking Emma more comfortably against him and moving closer to Buffy.
"Any of it? Your other lives? Victorian England.?"
"Full of poncy poofs and I was a hopeless git. Don't miss a thing," Spike blurted to Buffy's amusement.
"Spike and Dru burn and pillage Europe?" Buffy asked, finding his hand with hers.
"Think of it as Vampire, the Teenage Years, Pet," Spike commented. "Blowing off steam. Rebelling. Fell in with the wrong crowd."
Buffy smiled. "Chipped Spike of Sunnydale?"
"Other than the obvious disgust with the mental images that that conjures, wasn't all that bad considering I was a leashed puppy getting kicked by its master. " Buffy frowned as the words slid from his mouth. "But, least she was a pretty master doing her job and she came round." His hand caressed her face, and she knew she had been wrong. More than that, she knew she had been forgiven.
"You know, I'm sorry."
Spike cut off that train to guilt with a soft kiss. "Had to be that Vampire to get to now. Don't mind a moment."
She was silent, watching the honesty swirl around in his eyes with the love and the adoration. There were more emotions in one blink of his long eyelashes than there were in many people's entire lives. "So, do you miss any of it?"
His brow furrowed. "You asking me if I'd rather be in any of those places, doing any of those things, rather than be here?"
Buffy nodded, biting her bottom lip. "Yeah."
"No," he answered swiftly and surely. "Not a minute. Not a second. Doesn't cross my mind."
"It has to cross your mind," Buffy whispered, her face almost flush to his now, her breath blowing softly against his mouth.
Spike shook his head, his nose rubbing hers. "It doesn't, honestly. Don't want to be anywhere else. Don't regret anything that happened before. Don't want to change it back because everything that happened brought me to you. Brought me here. Gave me your love and gave me the tots. How could I, in a million years, ever want to change a thing? I'd die again to save this life."
Tears pooled in her eyes. "But if you died, then you wouldn't get to live it."
Again, his palm caressed her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. "Not planning on it, Love. But I'd rather die here, in this life; with you then have to go back to any other. And I'd rather be looking down on you knowing that you were still living it, than to let you down again."
"You never let me down," Buffy choked out, tears starting to spill. "You never."
"Shh, Pet," Spike comforted, kissing the trail of a tear down her cheek. "Don't look back. Got too much ahead. Mites growing up. School. Panic over the whole teenage experiment. First dates and proms and college and that horrid day when. I can't even say it."
A smile broke through Buffy's tears. "What?"
A huge, stage sigh erupted from Spike's mouth. "No, no. It's too rancid to even think."
"What?" Buffy asked, pushing his chest gently with the palm of her hand.
Again, Spike sighed. "That horrid day when we become in laws to the Harris clan."
Buffy burst into giggles, shaking her head. "Now that's a nightmare. Worse than any apocalypse."
"No need to tell me, Love," Spike groaned. "Have to be nice to the git so as not to hurt River's feelings."
"Ooh, and what if they had kids? They'd be all genetically mixy with you and me and Xander and Takina."
Spike shuddered at that thought. "Right then, time to clean out the old brain. Got some naughty video upstairs, care to join?"
Buffy chuckled, batting him again. "You always can make me laugh. You always bring me back."
"Selfish, really," Spike replied, settling back in next to her.
"How?"
"Like you," he answered, nuzzling her ear. "Love you."
"Always?"
"Every day."
To be contd.