Three months later
"I don't think I'm supposed to do this," Buffy said, screwing up her nose. "In fact, I think it's one of those things that's never been done before." He'd asked her to do it a long time ago, but she'd told him he'd have to wait until now, until he got his strength up. But it was an awfully difficult position to put herself in, if she did say so herself.
She didn't think any Slayer had ever been married before.
"Stop being a chicken," Willow said, fastening a sapphire necklace around Buffy's neck. "There ya go. Something blue." She stepped back, a smile playing on her lips. "You know, sapphires are said to have magical qualities of peace and loyalty."
Buffy raised an eyebrow and snorted, the combination completely at odds with the wedding gown she wore and the feminine chignon her hair was pinned into. "Peace has become synonymous with 'boredom' for me. As in… 'man, I'm suffering from an overdose of peace.' And as for loyalty? You think I'd ever be disloyal to him? Not in this life." She shook her hands at her sides, trying to ignore the jitters that coursed through her stomach.
Willow put her hands to Buffy's shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze, knowing that her friend was tense. "Nor in the next. I can see that in your eyes." She kissed Buffy on each cheek and whispered 'Blessed be.'
"I think you saw it all along," Buffy said. "I distinctly remember a spell gone wrong in which this exact same thing happened."
"Not a spell this time," Willow persisted. "Just good old-fashioned reality." She cocked her head to listen to the music and let out a little 'eep.' "That's my cue," she said. "You're next."
As Buffy pressed her hands to her very uneasy stomach, she thought that reality had a strange way of manifesting itself.
"Looks like these cookies are done," she said, and went to face her destiny.
~~~
"Who gives this bride to be married?" The preacher cast his eyes around, confused. Buffy had walked down the aisle on Giles's arm, but he was seated already and not making any move to speak.
"I do." A voice came from the windowless, dark corner of the rented building.
It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to come to this point, and he still hadn't convinced his stubborn head that it was the right thing to do. But his heart filled to see her happy, to see her beaming, to see her on the arm of the man whom Angel had to admit wasn't the same being he'd gone on raids and massacres with. "I'm giving away the bride."
She hadn't asked him to do it, Buffy thought as she started to cry, turning back to Spike. But he'd volunteered, and the two halves of her heart had become whole again. It was possible to love two men, and even three, in different ways, for different reasons. It was possible to love three men and know that one of those three was the one to live out the rest of your life with.
It was, of course, hard to deny when higher powers in the universe decreed it as destiny.
"Do you, Elizabeth Anne Summers, take William Spike Angus Bryce to be your lawfully wedded husband?" The rest of the vows were slightly muffled by the laughter spreading contagiously through the room.
Spike heaved a sigh and shot a threatening look toward the folding chairs, but it had lost some of its effectiveness. He'd promised not to touch a bottle of bleach at least until after the wedding, and Buffy said the glasses were sexy. As a result, the look he gave was that of a displeased schoolmaster rather than a pissed-off, dangerous creature.
Sometimes he missed being threatening. Now, with everyone laughing at his middle name, was one of those times.
After the ceremony was over, they stood outside and kissed in the early fall sun, the falling leaves mixing with the birdseed that the eyepatched groomsman Xander was winging at them by the handful. Spike took his time, though his days of never needing to come up for air were long gone. It felt good to be able to kiss her in the open, in front of her friends, no secrets, no lies. No darkness.
Standing to the side, the best man stood with a bridesmaid, his romantic Frenchman's heart truly happy for his friend but a corner of it still longing.
"Look at how he looks at her," Kelly said in undertones to Laramie. "God, I'd give anything to have a man look at me like that." She bit her tongue as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She'd spent the last few months tripping over her feet and being completely unfocused around Laramie. It wouldn't do any good, the college student thought, to throw herself at him.
Laramie looked down at her, the masses of curly hair pulled out of her face in deference to the day, the big, naïve eyes never quite able to meet his without bringing a blush to her cheeks. He'd refused to be her Watcher, pleading that Buffy was doing a fine job of that. If he was going to repeat his mistakes, he preferred not to repeat them action-for-action.
"Kelly, I'm looking at you like that," he said quietly, not waiting for the statement to register with her before he brushed his lips over hers softly.
A middle-aged, balding man stood in the back of the crowd, his cheap suit slightly worn at the elbows and knees, his eyes myopic behind the thick lenses of his glasses. He watched the people milling around, the married couple climbing into a red convertible, the big ex-Watcher making time with the new Slayer, and he smiled.
The Hub liked to see things come full-circle. Satisfied with the scene before him, he vanished.
~~~
"Do you know how long it's been since I've been on a sunny beach?" Spike's eyes crossed behind his glasses as Buffy slid her body over his, curve fitting to concavity without a centimeter of error. She feathered her lips over his chest, delighting in the rapid heartbeat she felt under them.
"Mmmm," she hummed in thought as she let her hands roam at will. "It's probably been a very long time," she answered, closing her fingers over him and listening to him yelp in response.
"Actually," he said, struggling to speak without squeaking, "I've never been." And what a beach it was for his first time, a small, private Floridian cove.
"Well, consider this initiation," Buffy said brightly, kissing him tenderly.
"I have a confession to make, love," Spike said, running a hand through her hair and wondering how many places, precisely, he'd be trying to get sand out of later.
"What? Did William forget to turn in a library book back in his day?" Buffy smothered a laugh as she pressed a hand to her mouth. "Sorry. You were saying."
Spike narrowed his eyes, and Buffy could see the flicker of bad in him that she occasionally missed like crazy. "I was saying," he said, shifting his weight, making her eyes cross this time, "That I'm afraid I don't have quite the stamina I did back when."
Buffy laughed, linking her hands behind his head and snagging his lip between her teeth. "Well," she said consideringly, "We'll just have to practice."
"Agreed," Spike said, pressing his lips to her throat, feeling her life, their life, rush through her in waves. "Let's start here and now."
~*~*~*~*THE END~*~*~*~*