Mixed Signals

By: PhoenixJustice

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. I only own this story and make no profit from this.

Warning: Rated M for sexual content, language, etc.

Pairing: Spike/Buffy Summers (main), Willow/Tara, etc.

Setting: Bargaining pt 2/Afterlife, with spoilers up to Season 11 of Buffy, Season 11 of Angel and anything inbetween.

Summary: Two people who were never supposed to meet. She had seen everything, up to the Dragon that destroyed everything she loved. He had only the lasting memory of her words of love before he burned to cinders. Could they bridge the gap between them?

A/N: Flashbacks in italics.

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Chapter Seven - Breakthrough

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"Um, everything okay?" Willow asks, when they finally leave the training room.

They kind of glance at each other for a moment before Buffy nods.

"It's good." Buffy assures her. "But I'm going to make sure he gets settled at his crypt okay. I'll be back soon."

"Can't he go by himself?" Xander asks. "He's all of the..." He waves his hand at Spike. "Looking fine, you know?"

Spike shrugs. "Don't you know by now not to argue with the Slayer? She's stubborn."

Buffy snorts. "Says pot to kettle."

"Never denied it, luv." Spike says, smirking.

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"Weird. That was weird, right?" Xander asks the rest of them as Buffy and Spike leave (taking the way that led to the sewers even, so there was less chance of Spike having to be near sunlight.)

"Xander-" Willow starts.

"Why would it be? He is in love with her. And she obviously has some kind of feelings for him," Anya says, in an almost disinterested tone, flipping through some sort of magazine from her position at the store counter. "I don't see the issue."

"The issue," Xander says. "is that he's a soulless bloodsucker who is-"

"What's wrong with being a vampire?" Anya asks, to Xander but also in general as well. "I don't understand all of you and your obsession with it being 'wrong.'"

"Taking people's blood-" Giles starts now, before getting interupted by Anya.

"And what if it's willing? There's plenty of willing donors out there." Anya says, waving a hand. "What makes a human better than a vampire? Or any non human? I love you, Xander. And I tolerate the rest of you pretty well, but what makes you better than the rest of us?"

"Ahn, you're human too."

"I'm mortal," Anya says, blandly. Obviously not happy with that fact even now, if only for the fact that it meant she would continue to grow older. A fact which terrified her. "Not human. There is a difference. My powers were stripped from me. But I wasn't turned back human. I'm a Demon with no Vengeance Demon powers."

That statement stops Xander cold for a moment, surprised.

"I never thought of it that way, but you're right." Willow says.

"Of course I am." Anya breezes. "But that isn't the point here. The point is...your morality? Is that it? What makes humanity better?"

"The soul?" Xander asks, but his tone is much more unsure now.

"Humans aren't the only ones with souls. Demons can have them too. And we've seen that vampires can get them too. Demons, vampires...we might be driven more by more primal desires or wants with less thought of what people think of us, but we think. We feel." Anya says, tapping her chest for emphasis.

"I kept biting my tongue about it, since I didn't want to get into an argument, but my side is just as important as yours. You, all of you, continually think you know better in the face of those who are older than you, who have been in places, times you never have. You tell me I'm wrong. You tell Spike he is wrong. That vampires can't feel anything real. That demons can't try and be something different either."

"How would you know better than those who are the ones in those shoes, not you?" She continues, in a passionate tone, unable to stop herself now. "Why do you continually duck your head in the sand when it's things you don't want to hear, but they are true?"

"Ahn." Xander tries again, obviously stunned, as were the others, but Anya ignores him.

"I love. I may not do it in the way you like sometimes, but I love. So why can't someone like Spike? The soul doesn't do what you think it does. You take things for granted because you don't know what it's like to be Other, but we're not that different from you. And I can tell you that vampires can love as well as a demon can. As well as a human can. We might do it more selfishly or in our self-interest sometimes, but humans can do that too. But we love."

"Why are you defending, Spike?" Xander asks, bewildered.

"Because I love you, Xander Harris." Anya wails. "And you're being stupid!"

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Anya storms off after that, heading into the back storage room in a huff, leaving a stunned group quiet for a few moments.

"Well," Willow says. "I guess she feels better after getting all of that off her chest."

"And she's right." Tara says quietly, leaving the others to turn to look at her. She nearly wilts under the sudden pressure of eyes, but the Tara that they had first met was not the Tara of now and she stiffens her shoulders and resolve in a way that she never could have done before she had met them, met Willow.

"I never wanted to say anything either, but...maybe it's because I wasn't here in the beginning, but I have never seen Spike, or other vampires, in the way you all have either. Maybe because I never witnessed things like Angelus first hand or Spike at his worst in Sunnydale, but all I have ever seen are walking, talking, feeling, beings when looking at vampires. Just like humans. They may be the animate dead, but they're still alive in their way and filled with emotions just like the rest of us. It may be more selfishly centered sometimes, like Anya said, but...that doesn't mean it isn't as important, as real, as a human's feelings."

"I can sympathize with Anya and with Spike. I know what it's like to be an outsider."

"Baby," Willow says, grabbing Tara's hand.

Tara squeezes her hand. "I don't feel the way I used to about it. Just stating a fact. I had to find my place in the group, just like Anya did. But all of you have never given Spike the chance to find his, even when he's since proven he deserves a place in it."

"He loves her." Tara tells them. "And...I can't say what the depth of her feelings are, not completely. Only she can. But there is love there, don't you think?"

"Xander," Tara says, addressing him. He starts. It was very rare she addressed him directly. "What do you want for Buffy, for your friends, more than anything? Not," She continues, as he starts to speak. "With your feelings of Spike or any one else in the mix. Put those aside. What do you want for those you care about?"

He swallows, looking uncomfortable for a moment, before speaking.

"I..." He sighs. "I just want everyone to be happy."

"Then let her be happy."

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"I think they suspect something. The rest of them, I mean." Spike tells her, when they reach his crypt. They had come through the sewers, which hadn't been fun, but she wasn't about to risk Spike to sunlight, even for a moment. Not after finally getting him back again.

"Probably." She says, coming to sit on the edge of his bed. It was as big and comfy feeling as she remembered. Maybe even more so, given that she was no longer in the mindset she was the first go around, when she'd rather have sex with Spike on the floor than even look at the bed. Because back then, it made her think of intimacy, caring, and she had shied away from that. She had wasted so much time back then. Time she could have had with him. So much time wasted...

"Doesn't bother you?"

She gives him a look. "Uh...no. We've long since passed the Buffy Is Wrongfully Ashamed of Her Feelings for William Pratt at the last stop of this train. We've now arrived at the Buffy Loves You More Than She Can Ever Put Into Words stop. And it's a stop we can never leave. Just so you know."

"Is that right?" He whispers.

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He kneels down in front of her, taking her hands in his. The coolness of his hands against her warm skin only grounds her further, reminding her that this was Spike in front of her. That she was truly with the person she loved more than anything or anyone. The person that she had promised her life to.

"Your life?" He says softly.

Had she said that aloud?

"You've given me your heart." Spike says. He looks up at her. "Will you give me your future?"

Her breath catches. "William-"

"I don't-" He swallows. "I still swim against the tide of my own insecurities." In that moment he sounded neither of William, the human poet, or Spike, the passionate vampire, but something inbetween. "But if you'll let me...I'll spend the rest of my eternity making you happy."

"Only if you let me make you just as happy." She kisses his trembling hands. "Give me your heart and I promise I won't ever bruise it. Give me...give me your everything."

"You already have it." He kisses her hands now, their hands tangled together as much as their hearts had become. "Anything I have. Anything I will ever have." He kisses her hands again, reverently.

He leans up, his mouth taking hers with such a gentleness that it nearly brings tears to her eyes. If somehow, in all these years of knowing him and loving him, she somehow doubted his feelings for her, this moment would have told her with such utter certainty the truth of his love of her. The sincerity.

"Marry me?" He asks softly against her mouth. Trembling as he trembled, as she trembled.

"Yes."

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I hope you enjoyed this!

Let me know what you thought!

-PhoenixJustice