DISCLAIMER: Whedon's characters, any recognizable dialogue, and the canon events of their storyline are not mine.

A/N:

Thanks from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read, follow, and review.

CHAPTER 3

kindness, missteps, & a soul

"In the first weeks, you're the only one I can really talk to – you know, be really honest with. None of them can even understand being a slayer, something other than a regular human. But on top of that, none of them has been dead. You just let me feel and say whatever I needed to. For a while, I wondered if I might … well, that I might've come back 'wrong' somehow. But it's important for you to know that I'm fine – other than PTSD of sorts, I'm fine. Tara does this thing where she could look at my cells and I'm fine. But if I act weird about it, you should suggest that I talk to her. She's more understanding during all of that than the others."

Buffy knew that this next chunk of information had to be introduced properly and phrased right – or else she could hurt Spike. Worse than that, she could cause an argument that would waste precious time.

"During those early months, although you're easier for me to be around than the others, there are some things about our relationship that weren't exactly healthy. And when I finally got my head back together, I felt I needed to push you away. That was about five months after I get back. These may not all be precise time periods. Maybe you should make a timeline on a piece of paper after tonight. Some of this won't be in chronological order as I talk. Sorry, about that, but they didn't give me any time to prepare before the time travel leap. Where was I? Oh yeah – let me skip ahead for a minute. When you do finally win my heart, you do it with kindness and humor, by being my friend and my partner, by allowing me to be the best version of myself. I begin to realize that I'm happiest and at my best when I'm with you ... and I can't imagine my life without you. Unfortunately, we make some missteps getting there. Since I can't talk to myself at this point in the timeline, I'm going to have to tell you what you should and shouldn't do – however, that doesn't mean that you were the only one to make mistakes."

"Let me stop you right there." Spike interjected. "Thoughtful of you to take some of the blame, pet. But I think we both know that the fault had to be mostly mine."

"Trust me, there was plenty of blame to go around." Buffy shook her head and then continued, "You remember when we first kissed? When we were under Willow's 'my will be done' spell? Then, at some point you became obsessed with me and try to convince me you loved me. And here we are now." She sighed heavily. "About a month after I come back, there's a spell over everyone in Sunnydale – everybody singing and dancing – musical extravaganza evil. In the midst of that, we both express things to each other – mostly out of our pain — and I finally tell the rest of the group that I wasn't in hell. Just as the spell is ending, we kiss. But I was still scared of my own feelings – too much going on in my head and heart at the same time. You want to talk about it, but I'm not ready. Not long after that, we have a mini kiss-fest at the Bronze – no spell, mutually consensual, and incredibly intense. At that point, I'm more than a bit overwhelmed by my feelings. And well … my confusion and anger get aimed at you."

She moved closer to him, as if proximity and an attempt to assure him through touch would make this any easier. "No matter what … if I become more aggressive while patrolling or pick fights with you or whatever … you know, erratic behavior and strangeness of all sorts … Be a gentleman. Win me over with kindness. That doesn't mean being a doormat or a lapdog. In my timeline, I did some things – the back and forth, indecisive, flighty thing – that I think provoked you into trying to … I guess the best way to describe it is: you try to bring me over to the dark side of the Force. And for a while it gave me somewhere to channel my pent-up anger or whatever, but in the end, I regretted my behavior. And since that behavior involved you, I felt that I had to cut you out of my life in order to find balance again. Don't get me wrong – the sex was great! But—"

Spike perked up. "We had – I mean, will have – sex?! More than once? And it was great? What am I saying?! Of course, it was."

Buffy giggled and blushed slightly as she recalled the night they demolished that house and the following morning. "Your description of our first night together was 'a bloody revelation,' I believe."

"What did I do to bollocks things between us?"

"During those days, our relationship was almost entirely about sex – as often, as aggressive, and as public as we could do it. You pushed our relationship too much, too fast. But the biggest problem was that I needed to feel alive, feel anything. And you were there – more than willing and incredibly able. But I didn't love you. Not yet. So not only did I not feel right about my behavior in general, I knew that I was using you. I knew that it meant something different to you than it meant to me. I knew that it wasn't a healthy relationship. So I ended it. You took it hard. I think at some level you felt that you weren't worthy of being loved by me. You felt you had to do something extreme – you went somewhere, not sure where exactly, and went through demon trials to get your soul back. When you returned to Sunnydale, you were racked with guilt – you know, for things you had done during your years as a vampire – and you nearly went mad." Her tone was loving, but firm, as she said, "If you still feel like you need to go get your soul … about a year from now – it does come in handy two years from now. It empowers you to use ... well, I'll call it a tool, a weapon of sorts. And you help save the world. But we might be able to figure out another way. Anyway, if you do go through all the trouble and the very painful trials to get your soul, just promise me that you'll come find me when you get back to Sunnydale … so I could help you through it." She waited for him to respond to her request.

"If it's that important to you … though I don't really know what it is I'm promising. Or if I'll be able to choose to do that if, as you say, I nearly go mad."

"Just try. You have to promise me you'll try. If we aren't on good terms when you're leaving, talk to Tara and tell her what you're doing and why. Maybe even play her this tape – anything to convince her to help you when you return, so she can help you talk to me. You'll need my help – trust me on this. There's a big bad that shows up around that time – The First – and it tries to take advantage of your … condition. It actually gets you feeding again, even with the chip in your head." She grabbed his arm when she exclaimed, "Oh, the chip! I almost forgot to tell you that piece of it."

She took a second to glance at the clock. There was 1:32:11 remaining. He wasn't interrupting her that much and she had been babbling frantically, so she was covering a lot of territory rather quickly.

"About a month and a half after I return, you notice that the chip doesn't go off if you hit me. You pretended at the time that it did work and faked being in pain, deciding to keep it to yourself for the time being. But I strongly suggest you find a way to 'figure it out' sooner than that, rather than have that be one of the reasons I start to think I came back wrong somehow. As I said, suggest that I have Tara check me out. What she said in my timeline was that I had some sort of deep cellular tan after having been dead. Somehow your chip knew that I was different than an ordinary living being, so it didn't work on me anymore. About a year and a half from now, we have guys from the Initiative take out the chip because it started to malfunction. But in the meantime, once you figure out that it doesn't work on me… you can spar with me. It'll make me a better fighter. You and I didn't get to the point of being sparring partners until later in my timeline, but if you introduce it sooner, it'll give me a place to work out my anger in a more healthy way. It's also a way for us to spend time together without everyone being too flustered. They'll have reservations once they realize that you could hurt me, but it's very important to me that they begin to accept and trust you. I don't want to feel like I have to hide our relationship from them."

Spike looks at her with empathy, love, respect, and gratitude. "You really have spent quite a bit of time thinking about what went wrong. Decided you think it's worth fixing. Do I mean that much to you? That you would come here not just to tell me that you love me and give me hope, not just to tell me ..." He raised one eyebrow and growled the next few words, "that the sex will be great. But you have come to show me the expressway to your heart. How in the world am I supposed to focus on the battle tonight, pet?"

"When the clock runs out, our time will be up," she pointed at the clock, "and your Buffy will go upstairs to get changed. You'll have a few minutes to get your act together before it's time to leave. Gather your thoughts while you gather weapons, I guess." They kissed for a minute before she pulled away saying, "We need to get back to your regularly scheduled briefing."

"There's more?"

"Oh, yeah! Just like clockwork – there's another end-of-the-school-year apocalyptic event in SunnyD …"

A/N: Thanks so much for reading!