:CHAPTER 2:

A few months later: Spike, using all of the resources, tracked Julia living in an apartment in Jupiter. She works in the day as a real estate secretary and has no current love life or close friends. After trying three times, Spike finally gets outside her door. Number 1405. –

If you've ever really lived, you could understand what Spike was feeling at that moment. That feeling where every part of you wants to melt, when it would be so much easier to run away at that moment. But, you stand there anyway, waiting. Just waiting until you'll have enough courage. For Spike, he stood there a little to long, staring at his feet. Suddenly, the doorknob of number 1405 started to turn, and out came a figure, cloaked in black, with a golden halo about her head. Spike couldn't move, he couldn't open his mouth. Maybe she wouldn't see him; maybe she'd just walk down her stairs and pretend she was blind.

But she didn't. She stuck the key in her pocket, and looked up. Her whole body froze, even her fingers could not move. He was right there, her world, everything she had wished for and every wish that had not come true. Before anything could happen, tears welled up in her blue-grey eyes. Her black high-heel hit the next step, and before she could climb down another, he was there. He held her close, and she wrapped his arms so tightly around his neck he might suffocate. But it didn't matter to him. He could die right there, a happy man. She sobbed in his shoulder, and Spike wasn't exactly sure why. If she had hated him, why would she embrace it now?

When they finally pulled apart, Spike, smiled. A real smile, from deep inside the soul. He held her face in his hands, while gently wiping away the tears that threatened to stain her porcelain skin.

"I'm so sorry Julia," he said to her gently. It was the first thing he had said to her in ten years.

"Why? How could you be sorry?"

"I didn't-I never came to find you. I left you here, wherever. I was stupid, I sat around and dreamed about you and—"

"I don't care. Just seeing you now made it all worthwhile."

"I love you Julia, I never stopped. Every time I saw a rose, it made me think of you. So beautiful, but dangerous. That's what you were… you were dangerous. But, it doesn't matter, it never matters because now all I can see is the beauty, and not this beauty," he said, wiping her face.

"This."

Like it had occurred in so many daydreams, Spike looked into her as if he were reading a book without words. She didn't have to say anything; she just needed to kiss him back. And that's just what she did. Julia didn't care that Spike never came looking for her, it didn't matter. She found herself wanting every part of him. Not just his body, but his mind, his love.

"Do you have to leave?" Julia suddenly asked.

"No…" said Spike, his eyebrows rose.

"I-I want you to stay with me for a while," she requested.

"Nothing would make me happier," he said, gripping her hands tightly.