She hadn't meant to take him all the way to the ground, she really hadn't. Hadn't meant to send them both tumbling top over teakettle into her mother's little flower garden along the edge of the yard. He had been expecting it, expecting to be tackled, to be hit. She could tell. She could see it in his face and in his eyes, feel it in his muscles as they locked beneath her, but there was nothing she could do about it.

Call it over-exuberance on her part.

But the relief, the pure, thank-you-god relief that had flooded through her when he had stepped out of the trees into her backyard was overwhelming.

Subsequently, she threw herself at him with complete abandon, an exhausting liberation she hadn't known she needed sweeping through her like storm winds when she came to rest straddling his hips, grabbing him by the lapels and burying her face in the crook of his neck as she plastered herself to his chest, pressing him down to the earth in a desperate bid to get as close as she possibly could.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped, sobbing into his shoulder as the emotions that had been brewing and roiling in her chest all day swelled forth and sent her into a hysterical crying jag. "Spike, I… I… I…"

"The soddin' hell?" she heard him mutter under his breath between gasps. "Buffy?"

She was cognizant enough to feel his hands curl around her upper arms, feel him begin to push her away as he ducked his head in an effort to see her face, and it sent a splash of hot, violent fear through her whole body.

"No!" she cried, pulling him even closer. "Don't… just… Please Spike, please! Don't… don't leave again, don't… I can't… I can't…"

"Ok, ok," he murmured, and she could hear his fear at the unknown that stood between them. "Let's just…"

Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he curled upright beneath her, bringing them both into a sitting position as his hands ran lightly up and down her back, trying to gentle her as her whole body shook.

"Breathe, Buffy," he said firmly in her ear, the words rumbling in his chest under her hands. "Come on luv. Gotta breathe."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she chanted, hiccupping with her sobs.

"Sod it," she heard him mutter, and then he was pushing her hair roughly back from her face, grabbing her chin and forcing her to lift her face to his. "Slayer, you are the most infuriating, inconstant bint I've ever met. You push and you push and you've no idea what you want, and you kick a bloke when he's down…"

Buffy flinched in his lap, shrinking in on herself with every truth he snarled at her, because it was true. All of it. Every terrible thing, all the words she'd ever thrown at him like knives to keep him away. Her heart was clutching in her chest, jumping all over the place with the fear of what was coming. He was about to push her away, she knew it, about to tell her that she was finally going to get her wish because he was gone…

"And bloody hell if I don't still love you."

Time stopped in that moment.

Her heart froze, she froze, unable to look away from the deep blue of his gaze that was so strong and yet so gentle as he looked on her with a saddest of smiles.

"I love you," he murmured again, his thumb stroking the side of her face as he moved to cup her cheekbone. "And I'm stupid for doin' it but seems I've got a jones for lovin' the ones who don't love me back."

"I…"

She choked on the words. She wasn't sure what she'd meant to say; certainly it wasn't her intent to tell him he was wrong. That she did love him back. Because she didn't. Couldn't. That… wasn't what this was.

Was it?

Exhausted, scared, relieved beyond measure, she settled for lunging forward and grabbing him around the neck, pulling him in for a hard, unrelenting hug that had her face tucked beneath the curve of his jaw, her tears hot against his skin. Slowly his arms came up around her again as he returned the embrace, not so hard, not so sure this time, and she knew that he still didn't understand.

And she needed him to.

She needed that.

She just didn't know how to tell him. Give him that.

So she gave him what she could.

"Thank you," she choked, and into those two words she tried to put everything. Everything she felt, and everything she wanted, and just… everything.

"Christ Buffy, for what?" he replied, and his voice was thick and tight like he was holding on to his control by a thread. Like he too was ready to cry.

Finally ready to let go, finally convinced that he wasn't going to disappear out from beneath her, she sat up and swiped at her face with the sleeve of her borrowed sweater, sniffled and pushed her hair back behind her ear.

"For coming back," she said quietly, and she couldn't stand the way he looked at her then, the intensity of his stare, so instead she reached out a hand and petted the soft leather of his jacket, eyes fixed on her hand as she smoothed his lapel just over his heart. "For coming back."

Spike didn't move, didn't reply. Faced with the sudden fear that this might be her last chance, she forced the rest of it out in one quick, desperate go, her voice trembling with every word.

"After everything I did," she warbled, "Everything I said… I… I was horrible to you, said horrible things… And you're right, I do push you away. Over and over and you still come back. You were gone and you're still here. I needed, needed you and came back and…"

"Wait, Buffy, what… What are you on about luv? What's wrong?"

Sniffing, she wiped tears from her cheeks and hugged her middle, shifting around so that she was sitting cross-legged on the ground but he didn't pull away. Instead he just drew up his knees, let her lean back against him as she sat between them, drawing the strength from him that she needed to get through this.

"It's my mom," she whispered in the dark, and behind her she felt Spike freeze.

"Joyce?" he choked, and Buffy felt her fear for her mom jump again in response to his. "Buffy, what…"

"It was the shadow," she continued, barely able to speak the words. "On the catscan. Do you…"

"I remember," he responded quietly, and a hysterical giggle cracked out of her, because of course he did.

"Is she…"

The question was tentative, but he couldn't seem to finish.

"She had an aneurism." The words burned in her throat and she almost wasn't able to force them out. "I found her on the couch. Called an ambulance. She's… she's in the hospital."

"What did the doctors say?"

"They're doing surgery tonight. They have to take out the rest of the tumor but they don't know if… They wouldn't let me stay. They wouldn't let me see her and I only had the money for one call but Giles didn't answer and then I had to pick up Dawn and…"

"Easy," Spike rumbled, low and gentle, and one hand came out to wrap around her ankle while the other stroked her hair. Her breath was coming fast and hard again as were the tears, and she could feel herself clutching at the grass beneath her in an attempt to ground herself but it was his hands on her, that cool skin on skin contact that calmed her rapidly beating heart. "Easy Slayer."

"I don't know what to do Spike," she whispered in the dark, collapsing back against him in utter emotional and physical fatigue. "I don't know what to do without her, I…"

"Hey. Don't talk like that. Joyce is a strong lady, know that for a fact. Doctors will do their part and she'll do hers."

"And me?" she asked, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. "What's my part? What am I supposed to do?"

"Right now?" he asked, and she could almost see his eyebrow quirk even though she was staring at her shoes. "Right now, you're part's to get some sleep."

"I can't sleep," she replied in a dead voice, but he was already getting to his feet and pulling her gently up to hers. "I can't. I need to… I need to watch Dawn, and the phone, and…"

"You need to sleep," he repeated, gently but firmly. "You're dead on your feet Slayer."

"So are you," she muttered as he guided her up the porch steps and into the house.

"Oh haha. Come on, inside. I've got good hearing, can listen for the phone just as well as you."

"Dawn…" she mumbled, suddenly too tired for anything more than a token protest as she wobbled on her feet.

"Looks like the Bit is out but good," he answered, poking his head into the living room where Dawn was still asleep on the couch. "I'll carry her up; she'll sleep better in her own bed."

She didn't have time to reply before he was crossing over to the slumbering teenager, scooping her gently into his arms. She was surprised to hear Dawn murmur his name, to see her wrap an arm around his neck when he hushed her and told her to go back to sleep. It made her feel warm and quiet inside, calmed the storm within her head and within her heart, and as she followed him up the stairs and watched him tuck her sister into bed, brush her hair back and rumble something that made her sigh and snuggle down beneath the quilt, she had to wonder once again what this feeling was.

Turning out the bedside lamp, Spike's eyes flared briefly in the dark, sending a jolt of tingles through her belly, and then he was stepping out into the hallway and pulling the door halfway closed behind himself, taking her gently by the shoulders and turning her down towards her own bedroom door.

"I need to wait for the phone," she mumbled, her eyes flicking dully towards her alarm clock as she lost momentum near the foot of her bed. Spike was rustling around behind her but didn't respond, only appeared at her side and pushed a soft pair of flannel pants and a cotton t-shirt into her hands. Her gaze immediately jumped up to meet his but he had already turned his back, giving her the privacy to slip into pajamas that she wouldn't have expected of him. Unable to put up any resistance in the face of that quiet chivalry, she quickly swapped out her clothes and mumbled quiet permission for him to turn around again.

"Come on pet," he rumbled quietly, pushing her gently towards the bed and pulling back the comforter. "Get some sleep. I'll wait on the phone, all right?"

She didn't remember getting into the bed. She didn't remember crossing to the side of it, sitting down on the mattress. All she knew was that one minute she was glued to the floor, stubbornly determined to stay awake, and the next her head was crashing onto the pillows, heavy with the weight of her world and sinking into the dark like falling to the bottom of a pool. Sleep began to claim her but something in the back of her mind surged forward, told her to pull him down to her side and hold on so that she would know he hadn't gone, but she only had the energy to reach out and clutch blindly for his hand.

Cool fingers grasped hers and smoothed her hair back from her face, a chaste kiss pressed gently and tentatively to her forehead.

"Go to sleep," he whispered. "It'll be better tomorrow."

"Promise?" she mumbled.

"Promise. Somehow. Tomorrow will be better."