Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS or Angel, blah blah blah. They belong to Joss, all bow before Joss.

Author's Notes: Thank you again to those of you who reviewed. I've been having a rough week, one day sick in bed and I got a small bout of writer's block, but I pulled this chapter out, it's a bit more upbeat than the last few, I'm finally starting to pull out of that dark writing mood, yay! Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 8

Spike woke during the next night to find his arms cold and empty, but he could still smell her lingering throughout the crypt. His angel had come to him and he had torn her apart. In fact, he could still taste the slightest remnant of her blood on his lips. Sighing he leaned his head back down this time onto his arms that he crossed behind his head and stared up at the cement on the top of his crypt. "I'm drownin in you Summers. I'm bloody drownin in ya."

Letting himself up, he walked over to his fridge, opening the door and pulling out a package of blood and tearing into it with his huge incisors. "Bloody hell girl." He put down the package. "Taste of your blood makes a bloke not want to go back."



Knowing that what had happened the night before was to never happen again, never should have happened in the first place, Buffy felt disgusted with herself, but at the same time, she had never felt this peace that lay inside of her. The memory, memories, of Angel drifted through her head and she felt ashamed, like she had cheated on him, but why? He had left her. She hadn't felt this way with Riley, but then again, with Riley, she hadn't really felt as whole as she had with just one night with Spike.

What if Angel found out? Spike was like his little brother, more technically his grandchild. And she'd slept with him, was married to him in fact, something that she and Angel both had wished would have happened between the two of them, but the curse and Angel's own sense of proper had put a stop to that.

She thought of Angel, his tall, dark, handsome looks. His dark brown eyes always managed to see straight through her and he had been what she had needed, at the age of sixteen. She had desperately been missing her father and according to psychologists (Riley had at one time pointed it out to her) that she had been searching for a father figure in her life. Giles and Angel had made up that father figure. Now it was Giles, he was her father now, because family wasn't about blood, it was about love.

Angel, he was old, very old, and very old fashioned. Could she have a life that she could enjoy if she went back to him? She was constantly brought back into the world of the dark and the sinister by her job and Angel, his soul always kept him there. It was his nature to remain hidden in the shadows. Always about the drama, it was always about the drama. Tears fell freely and often when she was with him, she didn't need that, if she did she would shove a stake through her own heart from depression. As it was she was barely staying afloat.

Spike, on the other hand, was one to live in the 'light.' He was younger and adapted to the ages. He loved life, exploring the nuances of a new era, reveling in the changes. He would forever remain someone who looked for the good in life. Why be immortal and not stay young at heart? With him she would be able to escape the world for periods of time and enjoy herself, like she used to. But Spike also had another side to him. Dynamic in his being he could be caring, or carefree. He knew the difference and when to be which one. Last night, when he held her, grasping, for a brief moment she had seen him look inside of her, see her true being and she had seen sympathy and understanding. Then when she had woken up, his arms wrapped around her, she had just about wept at the caring that he showed in that simple act of wrapping his arms around her.

She walked into the bathroom and turned on the knobs of her shower, letting the water fall in cascades, the steam already rising. Divesting herself of her robe she stepped inside and leaned against the cold tile, imagining it was one of her vampire lovers: Angel in his stern compassion and gentle kisses or Spike in his creative unyielding passion that roped her in and held her there. The heat of the water pounded against her and she closed her eyes, imagining that both of them were there with her now. She switched the water to a colder position and it felt like she was sandwiched between the two; two cold bodies holding one heated one between them. Kisses across her body, the feel of their hardness, hundreds of years of experience and love that the both of them showered upon her and only her. Steam rose from her body and she not once did she let her hands wander to her nether regions, only let them caress her breasts and stomach, imagining they were their hands, everywhere at once.

The room had become a sauna and her moans reverberated off of the tile walls. Both vampires in her mind's eye fought for dominance of the other to claim her as their own. They took turns claiming her, the other one showering her with attentions and both had their teeth deeply imbedded in her neck, bringing her to heights that she had never experienced. The two vampires finished and pulled away from her as she fell over the edge of her orgasm. They kissed her and slowly disappeared from her mind's eye and she was left there, in the shower, completely sated, and from only a fantasy. It had felt so real, and as she let the water continue to run cold over her heated body she sighed. "I'm in trouble."

Quickly finishing her shower, she attempted to rid her mind of her thoughts. If Angel or Spike ever knew... But that wasn't the biggest of her problems. The problem was deciding whom she truly loved, her first love who held her heart, or her newest lover, enemy for so long and her... husband. Both elicited feelings within Buffy, and both she could never truly have a future with; hell, it was the lesser of two evils at this point.

Towel drying her hair as she walked around her home in a white terry cotton robe, she mulled over the problem, over and over. Just when she thought that she had her mind made up something else came up. But the first thing was first, she had to get a divorce. Immediately. Picking up the phone she called Willow, her best friend and the one partially responsible for this whole mess, but she had learned not to hold it against her. A year ago the poor girl had been mourning the loss of Oz, but now she had Tara and she was once again happy.

Willow lay on the bed with her lover, Tara. The silken purple sheets laid askew on the bed as the two women held onto one another, their hands sliding over each other's bodies eliciting moans from one another. Willow's lips moved across her love's neck and down across her collarbone just as the phone started to ring. Sitting up, both girls fixed their hair and as Willow started to ignore Tara pushed her back, a worried, shy look across her face. "W-what i-if i-it's Buffy?"

Smiling and pushing her love's hair back with a deft hand, Willow picked up the phone and smiled. "Hello? Oh hey Buffy. No, you didn't interrupt anything. I promise, now what's going on? Don't pull that, I know you too well, now spill."



"Okay, well, um, do you remember how I kinda wigged on you like a week or so ago? Well there was a reason for it. Do you remember a year ago when you had just broken up with Oz and you cast that 'Will Be Done' spell and it went kinda... bad? Well apparently your reversal spell didn't quite fix ALL of it." Buffy twirled a piece of damp hair around her finger as she said this to Willow. Sitting down on her bed she waited for Willow's reaction.



"What do you mean? Buffy, you're getting as bad as Angel when it comes to talking in riddles that no one can understand. It reversed everything. You and Spike went back to your normal bickering, Giles got his sight back and Xander stopped being a demon magnet. I don't see what could have not reversed itself." Willow had a puzzled look on her face and Tara wrapped her arms around her love's waist.

"Well, Spike and I are married." There, she had said it, and now she was waiting for the inevitable laughter that would come across the phone, instead there was only silence, wait, no, there was the laughter. The slayer rolled her eyes and waited for the laughing to subside.



Finally gaining control of herself Willow took a deep breath and started again to speak, "Buffy, you can't be serious right? I mean married? I did that reversal spell... oh, wait... um... I think I might see now what happened. See, the spell reversal undid everything that I did, but the marriage wasn't part of the spell, you two must have snuck off and done that, right? So it wasn't part of the spell, it still held and well you two are legally married. Strange. And it's too late now to get an annulment, I mean what court would believe that you had no idea you were married for a year and your husband is an evil, soulless, albeit chipped vampire who feeds on blood? Buffy, don't growl at me. I'll see what I can do, maybe I can reverse this whole thing, if not, it's gonna have to be divorce court. I can get one of my friends from mine and Tara's wicca group who is in pre-law to draw up some divorce papers and you and Spike can sign them, then file them with the government and voila, no longer married. Oh, and don't tell Xander." She giggled thinking about what the carpenter's reaction would be, probably one of complete horror.



Buffy nodded, "Alright Will, oh and one other thing, but it will probably have to wait until you and I can have a girls' night. Um, we just have to talk. My love life needs to be picked apart and then sewn back together."

Promising to get together and talk about Buffy's deterioration love life the two girls hung up the phones. Willow pulled out her magic books and she informed Tara on the newest, disaster, well not disaster, this was more of a misdemeanor as far as disasters were concerned. Buffy, on the other hand got dressed and started to make dinner for her family, her mother and her sister.

On the other side of town however, Spike was drowning his sorrows in another bottle of Jack Daniels, his leather duster throw haphazardly across his TV. "Can't be what she wants. Can't be her bloody Angel. Can't ever be bloody good enough!"

He looked around, things had been quiet since he had dusted Harmony and the vampire wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. "Hell, I wonder how my bleedin poof of sire, Peaches, is doin? Probably havin a good ole time in sunny LA, with all them actors and actresses, just begging for savin, probably doing his soul good to save all them... souls. And Cordelia! Now that's a pairing. Two brunettes, now she'd be good for him, maybe give him some fashion sense, the bleedin poof could use it too. Maybe pull him into the 21st century with the rest of us. And 'ell, even I could see that she's got a killer body. He never had good luck with those blondes anyhow, Darla and Buffy and all. Should show a bloke not to go chasin after them blonde, gonna get him into trouble. In fact, I should make a point of visitin good ole Angel one 'o these days, maybe tell him the error of his ways, oh now that'd be fun." His speech was getting slurred and he stood up on shaky legs, parading around his crypt, continuing on with his speech directed at no one. "Bet that pofta would love ta hear his precious little Buffy is married to bloody ole me. That'd just be... peachy. And you know what? I'm gonna show um both, both him and his high and mighty princess. I'm gonna show um just what ole Spikey is. I'm gonna be the man that she wants, that he isn't. I'm gonna do it and she's gonna come runnin into me arms and I'm gonna have me one good day. Cause that's all I really need, just one good day. And it'd make it all worth it. Yup, gonna have me one good day." He grinned and looked around at the empty crypt for someone to laugh with him and he sat down deterred from his speech after the realization hit him that the whole thing was futile. "Bloody 'ell, I need a dog. And I'm gonna git me one, just as soon as I... wake up..." His head fell back and he promptly passed out in his recliner, bottle still held tightly in his hand, muttering to himself, "One good day, one good day, that's all I want, it's all I need... all I need... Buffy..."

A.N. *begging* please review!!!