Authors' note: Hey everyone! Wow this chapter has been my fastest yet and have you noticed the chapters getting slightly longer…Yay for me! Thanks again to all my lovely reviewers!

Chapter 11 – Reunion

Buffy stood there taken aback as Spike spoke. "No, you've got that wrong slayer, I listen a lot more closely than you think." The way he said 'slayer' made her flinch, it was like they'd suddenly gone back in time four years and he was standing there ready to kill her, but then he just turned his back and walked out. Buffy was in shock, she felt numb, after everything had just started to go well in matter of seconds her life was a disaster again. She could feel the tears on her face but didn't have the energy to wipe them away. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head to see Dawn looking concerned.

"Buffy…are you alright?" she said softly.

"I…I…don't know." Buffy couldn't even think; she felt like she should run after him but she wouldn't know what to say, what did he mean anyway? 'I listen a lot more closely than you think.' Her mind was racing and nothing made sense, Dawn practically led her back over to the table where they sat down, the rest of the gang were very quiet, Willow and Xander making odd glances at each other and then back to Buffy.

"Buffy?" Dawn asked trying to get her sister to open up. Tears were still running down her cheeks as she turned to Dawn.

"Oh Dawn…I can't believe what just happened, how did it all suddenly get out of control… he was so angry."

"I know…. I don't know what happened." Dawn said not really knowing what to say.

"I thought I was finally happy and then everything gets messed up with one little argument, why does this always happen to me? Why can't something just go my way for once?"

"I'm sure it'll be o.k. Buffy, it was only a little argument." Willow said trying to comfort her friend.

"Yeah Buff, you and Spike will be smooching again in no time!" Xander said, thinking did I really just say that, bad visual, urgh.

Buffy looked to her friends gratefully for their words of reassurance knowing they were still adjusting to her and Spike and that this must be quite hard for all of them to be witness to an uneasy argument and aftermath.

"Have you slept together yet? Because then you can reel him back in with sex, even if you haven't had sex in fact. I've found it works very effectively." Anya said brightly, earning her usual bemused looks from everyone around. Although her comment was meant to be helpful for Buffy it only made her hurt more, reminding her of what they had shared only a couple of hours ago.

"Spike loves you Buffy, we've all seen how much." Dawn said remembering how distraught Spike was after Buffy died. "I'm sure once you talk to each other everything will be fine."

"I don't know Dawn… things just went from being perfect to this…" Buffy said despairing about her hopeless love life.

"Relationships are never perfect Buffy, you should know that by now, you're always going to have little fights, you've just got to both know that you love each other enough to eventually get back together again." Willow said thinking about her and Tara.

Buffy was stunned at Willow's honest and straight forward advice when her relationship had just fallen apart. In fact everyone looked quite in awe of Willow; it was like she had regressed three years to the innocent but determined best friend Buffy knew so well.

"Now I would go and find Spike to apologise and make up." She said with pure resolve, lifting Buffy's spirits.

"You're right Will, there's just something I gotta do first." And with that Buffy went to phone, ready to tell Giles everything.

That night Willow went out with Amy, but she just couldn't enjoy herself even when they both used they're magic to make the bronze a fun house. All she could think about was Tara, the way Spike and Buffy had fought and the words Willow had used to comfort Buffy kept coming back to her. Her fights with Tara had started out as small ones or so she thought, Tara just didn't understand the way she used magic, she was taking everything so seriously, so part of Willow believed it was better now they weren't seeing each other…but she missed her so much.

"Hey I know where we can have even more fun!" Amy said bringing Willow out of her thoughts.

"O.k." Willow said trying to be enthusiastic; she would do anything right about now to forget her troubles.

Buffy's conversation with Giles had been a lot stranger than she had thought. She had expected him to tell her off in some way, at least point out that Spike was a vampire and she was being stupid having a relationship with him, but when she finally told him straight out after dodging the subject for a while by asking how he was and telling him about their new demon there was just a very long silence and then some strange laughter. Buffy had felt insulted, Giles had actually laughed at her.

"Giles! I'm serious!" The laughter stopped abruptly at Buffy's hurt exclamation.

"I know you are, it just hit me how ridiculous our lives are. I mean you're the slayer and you've fallen in love with another vampire."

"I didn't say I was in-"

"But you are, aren't you?" Giles said very seriously.

"Yes." Buffy admitted quietly. "Why aren't you more surprised?" She asked,

"I don't know…I suppose I just saw how you were with each other before I left." Giles said as he took off his glasses and began to clean them.

"I didn't think it was that obvious." Buffy said slightly embarrassed.

"Well I wasn't sure, in fact I was going to talk to you about it before I went but we weren't on very good terms then…I was actually mainly surprised that you called me at all. I didn't think you would want to talk to me yet."

"Yeah, well we kinda needed your help with the demon, proving my point that you shouldn't have left!" Buffy said only half seriously, her anger towards Giles had subsided now, and she understood why he had left, even though she still didn't agree with it. She had had enough of people leaving her 'for her own good.' If she hadn't had Spike helping her get through Giles's departure she didn't know what she would have done. Pain then shot through her as she suddenly thought she might lose him and she quickly said goodbye to Giles.

"I'll call you back if I find anything concerning your demon."

"Thanks Giles." Buffy said gratefully.

And with that the supposedly terrifying talk to her father figure had ended. Now her mind was only set on finding Spike. She made her way to the nearest cemetery convinced he would be looking for another fight, although a physical one this time. After a few minutes she suddenly caught the scent of cigarettes and turned to her left to find Spike leaning against the side of a mausoleum, his head was down, eyes staring into the ground as he spoke.

"So Slayer, how are we going to fix this one?" he said in a low voice. He hadn't even looked at Buffy yet and it scared her.

"You heard my conversation with Dawn didn't you?" Buffy said as she moved closer to him. Spike's last comment in the shop 'I listen a lot more closely than you think.' had confused her and now she could only think of one thing he had meant by it.

"Well vampire hearing, it was kind of hard to miss." He said bitterly.

"Why did it make you so mad? I didn't say anything bad about you or us." Buffy said searching Spike's eyes so that he would look at her. They were very close now, only a foot or so apart, Spike looked up at Buffy's gaze and his mood softened as their eyes met.

"I wasn't mad because of that…well…not really… it's just…why didn't you want to tell Giles?" Spike said backing out of what he had planned to say. Buffy had to stop herself from shouting again and control her voice so that it was calm and steady.

"I didn't not want to tell him. I was just a bit scared of telling him."

"Why?... Is it because you're ashamed of this, of what we have?"

"I already told you no. I love you." She said as she reached up and touched his face. "It's just that I thought Giles would be all judging and I would have to get into another argument with him."

"What do you mean you thought?" Spike said confused of her use of the past tense.

"Oh…" she said smiling. "I've told him, he knows everything."

Spike smiled slightly looking pleased but there was still some uncertainly in his eyes. Buffy had noted the moment before when he kept hesitating and then seemed to change the subject by asking a childish question. She leant up to his face again but this time lightly brushed her lips against his in a chaste kiss that was so tender it took Spike's breath away, if he actually had to breath that would have been a problem, luckily for Spike he stayed standing…just.

"Talk to me." Buffy practically pleaded.

"When you and the bit were talking…you didn't really seem that enthusiastic about us." Spike confessed what was on his mind and felt like a prize poof for doing it; to get upset about such a little thing wasn't like him at all but now he was with Buffy the thought that things might not work out and he could lose her terrified him.

"Well I think Dawn was being enthusiastic enough for the both of us!" From the look on Spike's face Buffy realised she shouldn't be joking around at this point. "Sorry." She said to compensate. "But if you heard everything you'll know Dawn was just getting so excited…I felt pressured, it had nothing to do with you and me, it was about me and Dawn." Buffy said as she looked at him closely trying to gage his response to her explanation, he looked so vulnerable, like a young boy who was having his heart broken, at moments like these Buffy realised how many layers there were to Spike, he could be all bad and seductive, which was one hell of a turn on but at the same time he was loving and sensitive which turned her on even more. His expression changed though as she looked at him, relief seemed to take hold of Spike and he wrapped his arms around her holding on tightly.

"So we're good now?" Buffy asked muffled by Spike's shoulder.

"We're very good." Spike said as he pulled out of their embrace to look at her.

"You know you really need to start trusting me or were going to argue like this every time we rent a video together." Buffy said trying to lighten up the conversation from what had been very intense.

"We're going to rent videos together?" Spike asked continuing their light-hearted words to each other, glad that they were finally comfortable again.

"Well yeah, that's what couple's do sometimes isn't when they have an evening in together… and were a couple now….boyfriend and girlfriend." She said smiling as she linked arms with Spike in a playful way. She was glad she had called them a couple, they hadn't yet defined what they had together but now she had made Spike understand that she thought of them as having a real relationship. They began walking through the cemetery together Buffy enjoying the innocence of the situation. Spike's mind was racing though; she just said boyfriend and girlfriend! He couldn't believe how lucky he was, especially when he could have almost thrown this away a few minutes earlier by getting angry over nothing. Now everything felt fantastic, he had a Slayer on his arm who loved him; all he had to hope now was that their next argument was no where near as extreme. He was sure they would have many insignificant disputes, it was the way they were together and they both enjoyed ribbing each other. Spike's mind left that trail of thought as he felt light fingertips on his neck and turned to Buffy who appeared to be getting restless, right now he only had more making up to think about and he could tell that this reconciliation was going to be a lot more pleasurable.