Sorry this is so short – there will be more shortly, it just needs to be beta'd :D

Ok – I just realised quite traumatically that I never posted the second chapter of this fic! I don't know how you guys understood it at all coz it's a big chapter! Lol – so yeah, its there if you wanna go. I also suggest reading this from the beginning as its been a bit of a big gap since updates :D I'm sooo sorry about that but life sorta is mean.

Hope you like this – any guesses on which guy its gonna be – those who've seen KKHH, bear in mind I've not stuck to it much at all so the ending is not the one I'll do in any case… who is it gonna be!?

Thank you so much for your reviews I was worried I'd lost you :D A special thanks goes out to Cassiel for one hell of a review – thanks so much.

And just to clarify – Spike and Willow are not a couple, it was more like, Spike was all that hit her, they she realised Willow was there to – she didn't even notice Peter arrived with them!

Hope you like this and of course, please review!!

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"…pass the salad please…."

"...here ya go..."

"…classes with a French chief?…"

"…poulet means chicken…."

Buffy's head spun with sensory overload. The large family dinner table was bursting at its seams (pleasing Giles immensely), causing Buffy's headache to deteriorate. Xander, Anya, Haile, Poppy, Angel, Cordelia (and Connor), Peter, Liz, Dawn, Willow, Spike, Giles, Brian and Buffy were painting a bustling picture that took more than a moment to take in.

He was there. He was in love with her apparently.

Why did two and two not equal four?

"Pass the greens, luv."

Why was the world silent?

"Huh?"

"Pass the greens, luv."

The room seemed to freeze. Everyone was watching as the vampire looked coolly and casually at the Slayer who seemed to have trouble breathing. Brian furrowed his eyebrows and his gaze flicked between the members of a family he never knew existed as they openly gaped at Spike and Buffy.

"Sure."

She handed him the bowl.

"Thanks."

Grabbing the salad tonsils, he put some on his plate and the silence was broken. Someone coughed, conversations continued and the vampire's gaze remained on his food. Buffy's lower lip trembled and she didn't think she would be able to handle the intensity…when he looked up. And his look said it.

It couldn't be love.

It wasn't…was it?

No…no…

Because if that was love, things would happen.

-~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~~*~***~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The room was a hazy apricot fit for a Hallmark moment. The kids were giggling beside the fireplace, Sergio and Warner intertwined between them. The adults were seated on large engulfing sofas talking quietly between each other with Felia the cat slinking along arms and laps. Gentle strums of guitar tones could be heard tingling in from the opened window as a busker on the street serenaded the neighbourhood into its slumber.

"Buffy?"

"Mmm?" she turned her head lazily and smiled at Brian.

"Can we go for a quick walk?"

"Sure."

They slipped out and Spike couldn't help but stare after her retreating figure. He sighed and turned back into the room, to find everyone staring at him.

"Wha'?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"..whats going on?"

Buffy felt a twang run through her body. "With what?"

"You. The sudden appearance of the past that you 'left behind and wont let affect the future' must be doing something. I'm not stupid Buffy, you've been wired ever since camp. Ever since the camp where you run into your long lost friend Spike. Who you keep having awkward silences with and because of whom you suddenly see all your other friends. Who is he? An ex? The man you've been running from? The reason it's taken you so long to trust me? I deserve to know Buffy because I don't fancy marrying someone else's 'woman'."

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"… nothings going on. We're not anything. Yes, I've bloody fallen for her…again. Maybe I never stopped completely, I don't know. But its her wedding. Yer all talkin' bollocks."

"But Spike, you love her."

"She's different. She's changed, I thought…I thought I'd found the old her, but she isn't the old her. My best friend Buffy is now soon-to-be-married-school-teacher Buffy. The past is the past…"

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"…people move on, Brian."

"Not from loving people."

"Brian."

"Were you in love with Spike?"

The question hung.

"Yes."

"Are you in love with Spike?"

He stopped them walking, the busker a few feet away, the air itself seemed to drip and the moment built with Buffy staring into the eyes of a man that she loved

"No."

He looked at her, disbelievingly, and she smiled, believing her won words.

"Brian, I'm in love with you. I moved on, I moved away. Time changes people, we're both different. Our friends just, well, they always expected that we'd have some huge realisation and then end up growing old together. But we didn't. And they live in the past – the last memory they have of me. But I'm..."

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"…not who I was. I've changed; we're both so different now. I love the old Buffy, my memory of Buffy. This person, she's not her. This is who Buffy really is now. And she's…"

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"…happy. So happy. I've found the man for me and he's you."

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"…so its over. There's nothing left to say."

The room fell silent and Spike smiled. They would never understand – they understood the pain he felt no doubt; the poignant, panging ache inside of him. The ripping, clenching heartache at watching her marry – that was understood, that's the part that's always understood. But he knew, in his gut, in every fibre of his being that she was different now. That the world was different now.

Because as time goes by, things happen.

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I've got lots of exams

I'm as scared as I was in 'Silence of the lambs'

Please give me a review

So that when I go 'ooh'

Its coz I'm so happy

Not coz I'm…not.