When Lightning Strikes

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed as always, and sorry about the wait. RL interrupted (don't' you hate it when that happens?).

Disclaimer: I own nada.

It's funny how your entire life can change in a few seconds. Buffy Summers knew, at twenty five, exactly how frequently it did happen, but still, when she caught that glimmer on her ring finger, her heart skipped a beat and preceded to fly to her throat.

Resting on her left hand's ring finger was a small gold band with a square-cut diamond, then on either side of it, two small round rubies, spinning her hand to examine the band more closely, she noticed a tiny inscription on the back of the band it said: Nunc Scio Quit Sit Amor covering the entire thick band. She knew it was one of his favourite quotes, in one of their hazy talks while they lay in bed together, completely sated and happy, he had been murmuring memorized poetry to her, and the line by Virgil had floated in somehow: Now I Know What Love Is.

Buffy slipped it back onto the ring finger of her left hand, examining it carefully once more before taking off after Spike and tackling him onto one of the kitchen chairs, landing on his lap. She covered his face with kisses, finally settling on his lips for a slow, long, languorous kiss, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. When she finally pulled back, she rested her forehead against his breathing heavily and keeping her eyes closed.

"Were you going to ask me?" she murmured finally, her lips touching his as she spoke, brushing softly, not quite kisses, but not quite accidental either.

"I was going to, tonight, but with your dad here I figured I'd never get you alone so..." he trailed off, running his hand up and down her cheek softly, "and I know you can't resist me." He gave her his trademark cocky smirk.

"OK, so maybe it was kind of guaranteed I would say yes. But still," she grinned, "déjà vu." Then she looked at his left hand, where the skull ring he'd given her when five years ago was on his smallest finger. "Glad you went with a more feminine look this time."

"You see the quote, love?" He pulled her hand from his neck and brought it to his lips before flipping it over, "now I know what love is." He quoted, then kissed her again on the lips, "it was high time I made a respectable woman out of you."

"Did Dawn help you pick out the ring?" Buffy asked, turning so she was resting against him instead of straddling him, all thoughts of her father in the other room gone.

"Yeah, the Bit had a fun time emptying my wallet," Spike smiled, "you like?" Buffy just smiled and bent her head back to kiss him underneath his chin.

"I would have liked it if you'd given me the skull and you know that."

"Yeah, I do," Spike admitted, as close to sheepish as he ever came, "but a bloke needs a compliment once in a while on his fiancée's baby sister's taste," he smiled down at her as they both relished in the sound of the word 'fiancée'.

"I love you," Buffy said, playing with his hands, which had come to rest on her abdomen.

"You're in love with my hands," Spike remarked, Buffy was forever playing with his long pale fingers, or tracing the faint lines along his palms, and he had no clue why.

"I'm in love with all of you, I'm just focusing on them right now," she argued, pulling one up to kiss each finger individually. "I'll move on eventually, remember, it was your hair for a while? I was always playing with it. I'm considering your eyebrows next, I love the scar," she smiled and turned to trace it with her fingers and then her tongue. "Oddly satisfying." She decreed, relaxing against him once more. "But I still like your hands. And then there're your shoulders they're good too. And the hollows of your cheeks are nice. You've got the thickest eyelashes, stunning. I don't mind your feet, but they're not quite on the top ten. Thighs, definitely. Ass," she ticked them off on her hands. "And of course my favourite," she smiled lightly, waiting for the chance at innuendo she had just given him.

"Think I know what that is," he said, taking it cheerfully.

"Most definitely number two, but no," she wiggled in his lap a bit for the benefit of the body part in question,

"your eyes. They're gorgeous."

"Thanks, love. But I'm not feeling very manly after that," Buffy laughed appreciatively. "Care to help me feel a bit more macho?"

"As much as I'd love to screw you into our mattress," a pause to delight in the image, "we're going to have to wait until later. Go change. I've got a gift for you, too. But you're going to have to wait for that, too" she got off of him as she spoke and kissed his lips one more time before she left. "Be handsome and noble for me." She called back.

"I love that woman," Spike murmured to the empty kitchen after she had left.

When Spike appeared in the living room a few minutes later, he was presented with one of the strangest sights he'd seen in over a century. Dawn and Hank Summers sitting by the fire and throwing bits of newspaper in, laughing, while Andrew had Dee sitting on his lap (he noticed that Dawn was occasionally taking a moment to glower at them), and Buffy and Willow were in the corner, giggling and examining Buffy's ring. Buffy noticed him coming into the room first and gestured for him to come over.

"You look good," she said, looking him over appraisingly. He was wearing one of his three (she knew, she'd counted once when she'd been in a bit of a Cordelia mood) non-black shirts, this one a light blue that brought out his eyes, he wasn't wearing a t-shirt under it, and his pale collarbone was revealed, just begging to be kissed.

"Thanks, Slayer, you don't look so bad yourself," he nodded at Willow before settling beside Buffy on the couch.

"You told the Bit yet? She's been going on about how I should just 'get up the guts' to ask you since I bought the ring."

"I just told Will, I figure I'll introduce you as my fiancé to Dad and let him figure it all out on his own," she smiled up at him, "love calling you that."

"Love you," he smiled back at her, leaning down for a quick peck, before he noticed that Hank had finally realized he'd come into the room and was standing in front of him, trying to look fearsome. However, it's a bit pointless to try to scare a man whose favourite hobby was once skewering people with railroad spikes. Hank Summers didn't know that, so continued to try and stare Spike down, hoping to illicit at least a greeting. Buffy sighed heavily, wondering if she could have actually cut the air between her father and her lover with a knife, and if she should try- or just have one handy in case Spike needed to be restrained.

"Dad, this is my fiancé, Spike. Spike, this is my dad," she said, finding Spike's hand to hold in a bid to calm him to some level of civility. They continued to glare at each other, Buffy realized she should have made Spike promise to at least try to get her father to like him. "Say something, one of you," she snapped finally.

"So, you finally popped the question," Dee said after another uncomfortable pause, during which everyone swore Spike's eyes had flashed yellow for a minute.

"Yeah," Spike said quickly, tearing his eyes away from Hank Summers. Maybe he was being overprotective, but the demon in him wanted to tell this man that these were his women and this was his family, Hank had lost his chance. And yes, that was his Victorian mentality coming out, but he didn't care. And, no, he wasn't counting Andrew- he didn't care what happened to him. Or at least that's what he was going to keep telling himself. "Got up the nerve."

"Finally," Dawn grumbled. Spike and Buffy both assumed that the bigger problem was not the fact that her father was there, but the Dee and Andrew touching that was currently going on, so didn't really react to the total lack of enthusiasm on her part.

"Oh! This will be so romantic the vamp-" Andrew was presented with three glaring people, all of whom he knew would have no trouble, moral or otherwise, with killing him. Well, he reflected, maybe Dee would have some moral trouble killing her husband, then he snickered and realized he was still being glared at ferociously. "-ish woman and the very strait-laced good-husband-material man?"

"Vampish?" Dawn said after another awkward pause. "Is that a real word, Andrew?" So what if she was speaking to him, the married-to-Spike's-sister thing hadn't really been his idea and it wasn't as if they were in a relationship- yet. Right, strike that one from the record. She was just horny, Andrew was male, not in love with her sister, not Xander and lived in her house, that was it. Sum-total of their relationship.

"Think so, Spike?" Andrew interrupted Spike's continuing staring match with Buffy's father, Buffy next to him was fidgeting nervously.

"Yeah, Spike, is it a real word? Spike's really good with err, word-y stuff," Buffy smiled up at her father and got a look from Spike that just screamed 'are you absolutely barmy, pet?'

"Don't think it is, Bit, no," Spike said, looking away from Hank, who stalked off towards the fireplace to sit with Dawn again. Spike made a mental note to have Dawn be extra nice to her sister after Hank left, he knew it had to hurt his fiancée that Hank felt entitled, and was given, Dawn's love and respect when she herself was constantly working for it. Willow got up to go sit on the floor by Dawn and help with the fire, as the father and 'daughter' team had been failing hopelessly. Remembering Buffy he held out an arm, which she slid under, letting her head fall just close enough to his ear to whisper in it.

"Play nice or you aren't getting any for a month," she hissed.

"Never said I had to, just said I had to be here," he grumbled, "and I'm here."

"Be here better," she commanded and Spike made a face.

"I'll make an effort if he does."

"Did you get the soul of a two-year-old?"

"Five, actually."

"No way do you have the maturity of a five year old."

"Miss But-Those-Are-My-Pillows has no right to get uppity on me."

"You were on my side of the bed!"

"'Cause it's a damn tiny bed and I was exhausted."

"Well, you don't have to sleep in the 'damn tiny bed' if you don't want to. The couch is perfectly comfortable, or so I'm told."

"Pfft, the boy harasses me when I'm on the couch."

"And what happened to evil creature of the night?"

"Slayer endurance." He whispered, leaning down to give her ear a quick nip.

"What did I say about being good?" Buffy said, but she leant her head aside to give him more access as he began to place kisses on her neck.

"I'm always, very, very good," he mumbled into her neck.

"Mm... no, my father's in the room... yeah, right there... Spike, honey, you've got to... oh!" Buffy gasped as he bit down softly on her jugular, had he guessed what his present was? "No, Spike, stop. Now." He continued, knowing that eventually she'd give in. "Spike." He murmured something unintelligible against her throat, "I love you, but you know how you don't ever want to have sex in front of Dawn and if you keep doing that I might just..." She paused, then pulled his ear up to whisper something into his ear.

"Closet, now," he hissed. Buffy realized that tempting the horny vampire may not have been the best idea- but the look on his face was just priceless...

"Bed, later," she replied, thinking more along the lines of 'floor, thirty seconds after we get alone'.

"Yeah, bloody right," Spike murmured relaxing against the back of the couch, having given up, his arm stayed lightly around Buffy's shoulder.

"Effort and I'll think about the closet thing," Buffy said to him.

"Agree to the closet now and I'll make effort," he spat back.

"You really know how to get a girl in the mood, don't you?"

"You want flowers and unicorns about a quickie in a closet?"

"Maybe."

"Fine, say yes and I'll give you the flowers. No unicorns though, always had a thing about those..."

"YOU'RE SCARED OF UNICORNS? You, the Big Bad? Unicorns?" Buffy started laughing at her fiancé, who was looking just a touch ticked off, as the rest of the people in the living room looked over at them, puzzled.

"Unicorns, Spike?" Dawn said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Thank you, Watcher Junior." Spike replied, then he looked at Andrew, who had just opened his mouth to make a comment.

"They are kind of creepy," Andrew said, after a moment of considering whether pissing Spike off was a good idea. Buffy was still laughing, her face now buried deep into Spike's chest as she tried to get her breath back.

"Unicorns?" Dina managed between bouts of laughter, "dear God, Spike!" Willow had collapsed on the floor, Spike was almost pouting on the couch as Buffy continued to giggle hopelessly into his chest. Hank was looking him over speculatively, as if to see how he'd react. Spike bit back the urge to throw Buffy on the couch and torture (known to the rest of the world as tickle and kiss) her until she apologized, or at least admitted that they were kind of strange looking, but he realized that Hank wouldn't exactly go for that, he knew from what Buffy and Dawn had told him that their father was, and always had been, reserved about physical affection. It wasn't actually that he wanted to impress the man, it was just that, in his own way, he respected him, mostly because of Joyce. If Joyce had loved this man once there had to be some good in him, or so Spike half reasoned, plus, no sex for a month sounded kind of scary.

Horny undead, here, folks, got to keep that in mind.

So Spike settled for looking as close to sheepish as he got and sending Dee and Willow evil glares trying to make them stop laughing. He hated himself for this, but after the painful two years when seeing Buffy laugh was a rarity, laughter from her, even at his expense, was a precious commodity to him, he could never chastise her for it.

"I love the fact that inside you're a toddler," Buffy murmured, when she had gotten out of her laughing spasm.

"And I love you."

"So, what does everyone want for dinner?" Hank said, loudly. Both Buffy and Spike realized that until he left, romantic moments were going to be in short order.