Author's note: Hey everyone! sorry for the mix up but i had to adjust thetime line of the story first. okay... this is supposed to happen back when the scoobies are all in their late teens because Buffy is still about 17 ro 18 in this chapter. I'll have to repost the Scoobie chapter later, which is really okay because i totally forgot to mention ANGEL-okay i hate the guy but it opens the floor for fun Angel bashing and he plays a major role later on.. sor please don't kill me. but this is the real chapter nine.

also... results from the polls are in and the kid shall be a GIRL! for all of you who are disappointed and didn't vote, tough. for all you who wanted a boy and did vote then i have a fic called TAKEN that is a boy baby fic. the story line of Taken is, however, very different from this one, and on with the story...

Chapter IX – Roma: When in Rome Do as The American Tourists Do and Mimic The Romans

Spike and Buffy stumbled into the room at six in the morning. Spike had to literally dive through the threshold of the hotel room to keep away from the sun's deadly rays.

Buffy followed after him, quickly shutting the door behind her.

There was only a little tiny bit of him that was on fire and he put that out quickly muttering curses under his breath.

Buffy only managed to hear a pissed off sounding, "should have hhgjfu sodding brought the gradas-frada-ghifffn!"

He stood and quickly whipped of his black t-shirt exposing his pale abdomen, chiseled perfection marred by designs cut into him by three parallel sharp implements, claw marks from the-

"Camberaw Demon." He sneered, as he quickly dressed his wounds with their limited first aid kit.

Buffy sighed looking down at her own ruined clothing stained with purple demon goo, ripped in some places and smattered with brown-red smudges that appeared to be her own blood.

They were both on their constitutionals, she was at a cemetery dusting as many vamps as she could find and Spike was off somewhere after a non-innocent victim.

Spike had better pickings, after all this was not the hell mouth, and Rome's seedier districts held many more predators of the flesh and blood and breathing variety.

So she was about to call it a night when suddenly, a demon jumped at her. It was not particularly large, looked humanoid and didn't seem all that harmful save for its claws, but she had dealt with worse.

She also couldn't be more wrong.

The demon was lighting fast and even with her slayer abilities she could hardly keep up with its rapid assaults. It was slowly tiring her out, until Spike had come along freshly sated from feeding and quickly jumped into the fray. It was he who finally finished the demon of as Buffy had nearly collapsed from the blood loss and the beating.

The battle had raged on for longer than they both had realized and the dawn was close at hand by the time they made their way back to their hotel.

"Are you okay?" Buffy asked quietly, she watched as he clumsily tried to clean some harder to reach cuts. He hissed in pain as he poured a little too much cleaning agent.

"Here," she said taking the white bottle from him. "Let me do that."

He was hesitant for a few minutes, but relented and wisely let her tend to him. Her touch was surprisingly gentle, but Spike did not let his guard down the entire time her hands were in contact with his skin.

She felt the tension in back and was about to ask about it when her words were completely stolen from her. She looked up to see his crystal blue gaze on her so intently that she could almost feel them burning into her skin.

The power of blue eyes are highly underrated.

Not a second later, she mentally recanted that thought because 'Blue' was just not the word to describe Spike eyes. They burned her, and they swirled with so many colours and shades that she could almost hear the winds of tropical storms and the waterfalls as she kept his gaze.

She was locked. She could not look away, not even if she wanted to, and she didn't want to.

Then suddenly without warning, he descended on her, kissing her gently at first but his kiss soon evolved into something more demanding. It was moments before she realized why. It was because she was kissing him back and she didn't even realize it. She had settled on his lap and his hands had tangled in her hair.

He pulled her closer and kissed her deeper.

Buffy's mind went blank, completely blank.

She had never known a kiss could be like this. It was as if she was totally giving herself over to him. Ultimate surrender. She just let go.

He finally broke away when he felt her need to breathe. She took in the oxygen in great big heaping gulps and along with it, a bit of her sanity.

"Oh God," she murmured breathlessly. "We shouldn't be doing this."

Spike smirked.

"And yet we are."

Buffy pushed him away.

"We can't."

He pouted.

In the second Buffy wanted nothing more than to take that lower lip in her mouth and kiss him long and hard, but she restrained herself. She somehow managed to sit motionless and willed that she would be less affected by him if she just stared at one point between his eyes.

"Why not?" he asked huskily.

"Because it's wrong."

Buffy knew as soon as those three words left her mouth that they were not what she should have said.

Anything else would have been better.

Spike closed off instantly.

"Oh, I see." He said lowly, the tension had returned to his limbs.

He slid out from under her walked to the other side of the room to retrieve the shirt he had discarded.

"Spike, Look-"

"You see the way I look at it," he interrupted, turning back to glare at her with his now diamond hard gaze. "Is that I'm good enough to save your life but not to really be in it."

"Spike, I'm still the slayer." She said imploring him to understand, hoping that she could some how understand herself, just so she could present her case. "And you are still a vampire.

"What's the bloody point?"

It was the first time either had made mention of their respective titles, species and chosen duties in weeks.

"You don't have a soul!"

She had been expecting, a curse, perhaps some broken furniture, definitely some of Spike getting his growl-ies on.

He did nothing of that sort.

He burst out laughing.

"That's it?" he said. "That is you major reason? That is the credo by which you live?"

Buffy had no idea what to say.

"Sometimes I wonder how you made it this far, slayer." He said. "Living off the watcher-swill that Dinglebert of yours feeds you."

"Spike-"

He ignored her, grabbing a box of cigarettes from his duster. Buffy watched him fiddle with it for a moment before putting one between his lips and taking a drag.

"Vampire's may not have 'souls' the way the great poofster did, but that doesn't mean we need to be slaughtered like so much cattle."

"You kill humans." Buffy said defiantly.

"And you kill vampires, slayer." He said. Buffy winced at the nickname and the venom Spike had treated it with. "Vamps kill vamps, humans kill humans, vamps kill humans, humans kill vamps, big circle of life-thing. It's a balance, Slayer."

He took a step towards her, she stepped back. His eyes were blazing now, and she found that once again she could no more look away than she could vamp out.

"You and your self righteous pedestal." He spat, Buffy recoiled. "Was Hitler a vampire? No. That didn't stop him from killing eight million people. There are rapists that are human, Slayer, murderers. Likewise there are vampires that just sit around at night, get blood from blood banks and watch telly. You've met a small population of vamps at their worst-their first few days and fledglings-and you think you know us all. Humans can be just as bloodthirsty-they don't even need it to survive, Hell, they even have the souls that are so bloody important to you. Not everything is as easy as black and white, princess."

Buffy found herself pressed up against the sliding door that separated the room from the balcony. She was afraid. Afraid of what Spike was saying, at his intensity and anger, but also the raw truth in all of it. How he was making her think, reject the rigid structure that had been drilled into her.

She needed to get away from him.

She opened it and stepped out into the sunlight, where she knew Spike could not follow her.

"You kill people." She said defiantly. Attempting to slam the door in his face and escape from the onslaught with dignity.

Spike caught the door easily.

"No, pet, I killed people." He corrected in a low, tight voice. "I stopped, because you asked me to."

"I-" she hesitated, he looked less angry now. Less like a master vampire, more like a jilted lover, and it was ruining her righteous anger. "I don't believe you."

He tilted his head.

"Don't you?" he asked. "You let me go alone, this month, love, you went on you own merry way and didn't monitor me, I sleep next to you every night. You know I won't do anything to harm you."

Buffy was standing in the sunlight now, shaking with the reality of his words.

"I don't trust you." She repeated.

She realized she had no say in this. Instinct had taken over. It always did when Spike was involved, her brain didn't do what it told her. She was a woman possessed. It scared her and I pissed her off. "And I hate you! You are a sick, twisted, thing and you are beneath me."

With a savage roar, Spike was on her, grabbing her and pinning her against the outer wall of the building.

Buffy looked up him, surprised. She glanced up at the sun and back at him.

Spike shook off his demon and smirked.

"Makes things a little more interesting, huh?"

"How-"

He kissed her then. Buffy fought for all of two seconds before giving in.

Being the slayer was exhausting. Living up to the watcher's standards was exhausting, all that animosity and hate and tension was exhausting.

This, right here, with Spike pressing himself against her, this felt right. It felt good. It Replenished her. Rejuvenated her, Spike asked nothing from her except to open her eyes, to think. She wasn't the chosen one to him. In fact, she kinda hoped she was just the one. Without the Chosen part.

In that moment, it was all that mattered to Buffy. He was all that mattered.

She broke away.

"I don't trust you." She knew she was fooling herself now.

Spike claimed her lips again, pushing his leg between hers.

"Of course not."

Buffy moaned into his mouth.

"I don't want you."

Spike kissed down her neck nibbling on her pulse point. Having a vampire at fatal proximity should have set of alarm bells but none came. The slayer-sense was not tingling. It did nothing more than turn her on.

"Prove it."

After that, he took her back into their room, and they didn't leave for quite a while.