A/N: I am SOOOO sorry about the delay's in this! I was away abit longer then expected but I'm back now! Bcak to my computer which I missed like crazy (that probably makes me sound a little bit sad...) So I have finished this story but I am gonna give it to you in stages the first of which being right now. Enjoy!

By the way.. A MASSIVE MASSIVE thank you for all the reviews! It was the second best present I got! ( The first was the Buffy Box! WOOHOO!) I send my love and truly heartfelt thanks to every single one of you who reviewed thank you!

Disclaimer: Seeing as its Christmas (or at least it was when i wrote this) I will refrain from being sarcastic and just say that I own nothing.

As soon as Buffy looked into Xander's eyes, she wished she had paid more attention in biology class because she would have asked her teacher if there were any other choices other than fight or flight. But, she had to admit, flight was looking pretty good right now.

"You and Spike?" Dawn asked still in shock.

Buffy looked into Spike's eyesand saw the hope in them, hope that she wouldn't break his heart by passing up such an obvious chance to come clean.

"It's…complicated" Buffy managed to get out still keeping her gaze on Spike hoping against hope that what she saw there would be enough to keep her strong through this revelation.

Spike bore his gaze deeper then he ever had into Buffy, willing her to feel the love he had for her, trying to let her know that he was there and that if she denied this now, there was no going back.

"What's so complicated? It's you and Spike big with the smoochies, I'm not a kid Buffy, it's obvious even to my tiny teen eyes you got something going on" Dawn said crossing her arms trying to cover her shock by looking not bothered about it.

"I…" Buffy stuttered as she willed herself to hold on to Spike's gaze, don't let go she thought, if I can just hold this for a little bit longer maybe they will all go away…

"Buffy, what the hell are you doing kissing Spike like that? Are you two involved?" Xander seemed to only just snap out of the trance the kiss had sent him into and he stood up.

Dawn gave him a "duh" look and rolled her eyes.

Buffy broke the gaze to face Xander; she saw the shock and the hurt there and instantly felt ashamed.

"Xander look I know this is a shock but…" Buffy tried to explain

"A shock? No! I mean it's not like we haven't seen this before" Xander interrupted "You risking all of our lives, inviting a vampire into your home and into you bed never thinking what's going to happen when he turns on all of us"

Buffy glared at Xander. "Do NOT compare him to Angel! I can't believe you would bring him into this! This is totally different!"

"Bloody right I'm nothing like that ponce" Spike muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"Your right, at least Angel had a soul, I'm not saying I like the guy, but at least he had some claim to being good" Xander sneered at Spike

"So when he lost his soul, killed people and almost destroyed the world was he good then?" Dawn added angry at Xander for attacking Spike.

"Angel was different" Buffy spoke quietly " I'm not saying that Spike is like Angel and I'm certainly not denying what he is, but he's helped us, been there, killed demons when he didn't have to"

"Yeah because the government shoved a chip up his brain! What happens when that comes out? You don't think he wouldn't kill everyone of us if he had the chance?" Xander asked Buffy, while also shooting death glares at Spike.

"You maybe!" Spike snorted and walked up to Xander. "But despite what you might think I wouldn't hurt anyone else here and I certainly wouldn't touch Buffy"

"Spike's right Xander" Willow said getting up and speaking for the first time.

Xander turned to look at Willow amazed. "You're siding with him now? Don't tell me you two have been at it behind my back as well"

"Hey that's not fair" Tara said in a very stern tone "You may not like what Buffy is doing but it's her decision and if you're her friend then you should support her"

Spike looked at Tara amazed that one of Buffy's friends aside from Dawn was actually standing up for them. Suddenly something clicked in his brain.

"Cramp!"

"What?" Buffy looked at Spike confused.

"That time with the house arrest thing you said something to me and it always…you knew didn't you? About me and Buffy" Spike said to Tara looking at her in wonder

Willow looked at Tara hurt and shocked "You knew?" She almost whispered

"W-when Buffy told me she said to keep it a secret," Tara looked into Willow's eyes and felt a rush of guilt. "I wanted to tell you" She squeezed Willow's hand.

Spike turned and looked at Buffy."You actually told one of your friends about us? How come you didn't say anything?" Buffy looked uncomfortable.

Xander looked between Spike and Tara confused. "Wait how did you know that she knew?"

"Something she said to me, when I was with Buffy and she walked in on us. Said I had a cramp but she picked up on it. Guess she knew what we were really doing" Spike shrugged.

"You did it in this house? Where? Never mind I don't want to know there are too many mental images" Xander covered his eyes as if trying to block out the images that were now flooding his brain.

"We did not do anything in the house." Buffy assured Xander. "Tara just saw us at a bad moment that's all. Nothing would have happened" Spike just raised an eyebrow.

"Oh that's reassuring. To know thatyou two have been sleeping together everywhere in Sunnydale but this house is a real calming thought" Xander said sarcastically, his hands now away from his eyes.

"It was difficult. I was going through something, I still am. Spike was just…there" Buffy struggled to define why her and Spike had started this in the first place.

"And you couldn't have come to us" Xander didn't say it as a question, more as a revelation.

"So are you guys are like together now? But I don't get it, you didn't want him to come here in the first place" Dawn said trying to make sense of the whole situation.

Buffy sighed and looked at her sister. "That was only because I didn't want you to find out about us, I didn't want something like this to happen"

"But you and Spike were still gonna carry on seeing each other?" Willow asked.

Buffy was silent and she looked down at the floor for a second. "No"

Spike was stunned and really pissed off at this. She could not believe she could blatantly lie like that. Or is she lying? A very evil voice said in the back of his mind. How do you know that she wasn't going to break up with you anyway? I mean come on, what better way to do it? Invite the sad pathetic vampire over for Christmas and then stamp on his heart in front of people who hate him? All these thoughts ran through Spike's mind in the second after Buffy had spoken. He then decided that he wasn't going to stay and be humiliated, he'd rather get drunk and do it at Willies. Spike just walked to the door and threw it open so hard it came off the hinges and he strode out.

Buffy turned round and watched him go.

"Shouldn't you go check on your boyfriend?" Xander said to Buffy's back.

Buffy ran out of the door without thinking and Xander's mouth dropped. Dawn walked in front of Xander.

"You might wanna close your mouth Xander; you wouldn't want your foot to fall out"

Spike was at the end of the path.

"Spike!" Buffy shouted from the steps of her porch.

Spike stopped and turned round. "Shouldn't you be inside? Don't want to tangle Xander's panties"

"I didn't mean what I said in there"

"Funny, cause it looked to me like you just broke up with me. But then again we never really had anything to begin with did we? I was just your ticket to oblivion"

Buffy stayed silent but walked towards him, Spike watching her all the way until she was right in front of him.

"It was more then that"

"Oh please don't try and dress this up, we both know that you hated yourself for what you were doing, why else would you use your famous slayer speed to get out as soon as you were done?" Spike's tone was angry and resentful.

Buffy didn't know what to do. She needed Spike that much was true, but the rest was all grey area just like they're whole relationship. She looked into his eyes and felt like running away and taking Spike with her, to hell with her friends.

Just then a snowball hit Buffy full on in her face. She tried to spit out all the water that had just invaded her mouth.

In spite of himself, Spike sniggered. She looked so cute with her face all screwed up like that. He turned his head at the sound of other giggles and saw Dawn laughing her head off on the top of the steps. He then realised that the entire lawn was covered in snow. He looked up and found that gentle flakes where falling. He closed his eyes for a second and a snowball hit his face. This time it was Buffy's turn to laugh. And at that moment, they both forgot why they were fighting.

"Oh you are so gonna get it" He smirked at Buffy.

Buffy was about to reply when both of them were hit with more snowballs.

"Right that's it" Spike said and both he and Buffy turned to look at Dawn who stopped laughing when she saw them looking at her. They both grinned evilly at each other then at Dawn and they picked up some snow and threw it at her before she knew what was happening. Dawn wiped the snow from her face to see both of them laughing.

"Oh you are so dead!" Dawn shouted.

"Already dead luv"

The three of them then had a very noisy snowball fight in the freezing cold, laughing and throwing puns at each other.

"All I'm saying is, it's wrong. I mean come on its Spike!" Xander exclaimed as he sat with Willow and Tara in the living room.

"OK so maybe the whole being dead thing doesn't earn Spike major brownie points but still he's nice and he does love Buffy" Willow tried to reason.

"Stalks her more like" Xander muttered.

"Xander, he does not stalk her" Willow said frowning at Xander.

"Yeah but…" Xander stopped when he heard Dawn scream. All of them jumped up to go to the window to see Spike on top of Dawn.

"I knew it!" Xander made for the door but was stopped by Willow's arm

"No wait look, they're playing" Xander stared through the window to see Dawn push off Spike and sit up before throwing a snowball at him while Buffy laughed.

"Now how many evil vampires do you know do that?" Tara asked Xander.

Xander was silent.

So? Do we like?