Author's note: I have ust found out i was nominated for 'Love's Last glimpse' please check it out and vote for me! Oh and Everyone who have been aching for Spuffy fluff and semi-smuttage, its close by, i promise. So sorry for the late update. i know that its been eons but I'll try and be more prompt. School is bloody killing me. Here's to all you wankers who have actual summer breaks! I know everyone pretty much knew about Oz, that wasn't meant to be a huge twist... i just can't resist him. I heard somewhere that Seth Green popped onto Buffy After not watching for a long while and caught the tail end of 'Once more with Feeling' and was like "JAMES! SARAH! what are you doing?" hahahaha, so i incorporated that in my fic!

Enjoy.

Chapter XXXVIII - Old Friends and New Feelings

The first this she did was punch him clean on the nose. Not very hard, but still enough to leave him smarting.

"Milady!" cried Rosemary, aghast that her young charge would be so callous in the welcome of a man she considered to be her guest.

"No, uh-" Oz considered the woman he was addressing for a long moment and decided that some more of the respect-y thing was needed here. "Miss, I deserved that." A pause and then what might have been a shadow of an expression. "I think."

Buffy nodded.

"That is for showing up out of nowhere and then confusing Willow and then leaving without a so much as good bye Buffy." She pointed glare. "Or a thank you. I did save your toush, you know?"

"Hi, Buffy." He quirked his lips. "And thanks."

Her facial expression didn't change, she nodded once.

"Oz." she said rather curtly.

Oz returned the gesture, the nod, albeit less curtly, letting his gaze wonder to the slayer's companions.

"Spike?" he asked mildly surprised, which was for Oz a rather big deal.

"H'lo there, mate." spike said.

Oz paused for a second.

"Hi." he said after a while then he looked over to the other blonde girl who had a strange look on her face. "And you are?"

Alex realized that he was talking to her.

"Alex." she said.

"Nice to meet you." he said.

Alex smiled.

"Pleasure is all mine." she murmured politely. She sent a grin over to Rosemary who came dangerously close to rolling her eyes.

"Why were you all wolf-y last night?" asked Buffy.

Spike turned to her and looked like he was about to make a comment about Full Moons and werewolves but Oz beat him to it.

"Been big with the control." He said.

Buffy nodded.

"Tibet." She said sagely.

Spike nodded.

"Right," he said. "Emotional control, charms and all that."

Oz nodded.

"Little negative stimuli," he said. "Really, all that's needed to bring out the wolf."

"Last night?" Buffy quereied.

"Assulted by a vampire." The werewolf replied. "I think I managed to bite its head off, but I'm not so sure. Left a funky taste in my mouth though."

Buffy nodded

"So what's going on here?" Oz asked, turning back to Buffy.

Buffy looked a little sheepish.

"It's a long story."

To get his point across that he wanted to hear it, Oz sat down, and he watched the other waiting for them to sit down.

What he saw surprised him, to say the very least. (Although none of this showed on his face, of course.)

He noticed that Spike was still standing; Buffy stopped glaring at Oz and strode over to her chair at Spike's right hand. She did not sit, however, until Spike pulled the chair out for her. After she had done this, he sat himself.

Buffy took a deep breath.

"Well," she said. "For starters, These bad people took us and prodded us and put us in two big white cells that reeked of that clean-y thing."

Oz nodded.

"I remember going through someone like that."

Both Spike and Buffy nodded remembering their own experiences at the hands of the initiative and then Lewis. They were silent for a moment, before Buffy went on.

"And also," she said, "I'm a duchess."

Now the shock registered on Oz's face. Real honest to goodness shock.

"You're a what now?"

Buffy grimaced.

"Spike and I, well, Spike anyway, own this place, I just leech of him." She paused. "But we are kinda married."

They gave Oz the tour first of the entire manor and the grounds, and then broke for lunch, which Rosemary had served in the atrium, a sunny room over looking the gardens. Then they lead him to one of the more comfortable-and less stiff-drawing rooms, one of the smaller ones to catch up on what had happened to them over the last few years.

Oz spoke first, taking all of ten seconds.

His manner had not changed a bit and Buffy felt herself grow nostalgic, and a little homesick. Oz reminded her of Willow and it hurt to no longer have Willow around. Buffy pushed these thoughts away, she was protecting them. remember?

She realized oz was look at her expectantly.

"So, your deal?"

Buffy stalled for time, calling for afternoon tea where they discussed the house, after that Buffy began to tell oz exactly what happened.

Recounting the entire tale took longer than expected, when Buffy finished, she looked out the window and realized that it was only little before sunset. Oz, who looked thoroughly stunned, just stared at them.

"Oz, you okay?" Buffy asked.

The werewolf nodded.

"I think I need to take a nap." he said sounding dazed. "If that's okay?"

Without waiting for the order, Rosemary appeared out of nowhere and steered Oz of to one of the ground floor guest rooms.

Alex looked after him and then back at Spike and Buffy. She rose wordlessly and glided out of the room. On her way out she picked up William, who bounced in his walker. Alex had poured some cheerios there earlier and he was now poping them into his mouth one by one.

Buffy and Spike both sat silently, alone in the room. Staring at each other. Tension so palpable Spike very nearly cringed.

"You have no right to pry into my business." Buffy snapped.

Spike cocked an eyebrow.

"What're you-"

"Don't you play dumb with me, Spike." she went on starting to get worked up. "Because I am so not in the mood!"

He didn't reply.

Buffy got up walked over to his side of the table and slapped him.

"What?" she demanded. "No smart-ass remark? No snarky 'what're you in the mood for, slayer?' no stupid psychoanalyses that tie me up into a nice little package that you think is so easy?"

Spike still didn't say anything just stared back at her with his annoyingly beautiful blue eyes.

"Argh, I am so tired of you and all your little" she made a vague hand gesture, unable to put what she wanted to say into words. "I cannot believe I am stressing this bad over you. You are so beyond not worth it."

Spike still sat there, unmoving his face was completely unreadable.

This seemed to piss Buffy off even more.

"And somehow you manage to talk about my problems?" Buffy gave a sort of strangled cry. "Even the strong need to be weak sometimes? Yeah, whatever, Spike, let me tell you something. The strong need to be strong. That is sort of why they are called strong in the first place."

She grabbed his throat.

"God, I could kill you so easily." she mused out loud. "Just kill you and then a whole chunk of my problem will just float away. The fighting I can deal with."

Spike's face was a mask of impassivity. He finally spoke.

"But wanting a vampire you can't?"

Buffy let him go as if he had burned her.

"Wanting a vampire?" she asked, she made a distinct raspberry noise. "Don't you think that that's just a little bit if wishful thinking, Spike?"

Spike rolled his eyes.

"Then what's with the self righteous act, Slayer?" he asked. "If I do nothing to, make you feel nothing then you why are you trying to push me away so desperately?"

He smirked more because it was expected than because he wanted to. Really he watched with the same amount of unease and amusement as she closed herself off. It was like watching someone build a wall around her. She pressed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest and crossed her legs.

Closed.

"Face it, slayer." he added. "You want me."

"I do not want you Spike." she insisted trying to convince herself just as much as she wanted to convince him. "God, why am I even trying to convince you of this? You are just a stupid vampire!"

Spike's face didn't loose its leer.

"You may think I'm dirt, Slayer, but you are the one who likes to roll around in it."

Buffy cried out in out rage. She shoved Spike aside.

"You are beneath me." she spat through clenched teeth.

Suddenly, before she could even blink Buffy felt herself being smack against the dinning room wall. Spike was holding there with inhuman strength, she struggled in his grip but found he was too strong; this scared her more than she would have liked.

He was looking at her now, his gaze held something she had never seen in his eyes before.

She whimpered unconsciously.

"You want me, slayer, beneath you or otherwise." Spike hissed, glaring at her through narrow golden eyes. "I can smell it all over you. You want me more that you've wanted anyone in your life."

At this Buffy began struggling again.

"No. anything that happened between us was a mistake that happened once. And never again." she insisted. "Get it through you bleached, stubborn head. I. Do. Not. Want. You."

To her surprise, Spike smirked.

"Then stop me."

He leaned forward and fused his lips to hers in a fierce kiss.

Buffy resisted for about a millisecond, then she slid her arms around Spike's neck and kissed him back just as feverishly.

She was lost; she could feel him sliding his hands up and down her body, pulling her close to him as he devoured her with his mouth. Then his hands slid up into her long hair. She was lost in the intensity of his electric blue eyes, they were still boring into her, drilling into her soul even when they fell shut with passion and her own eyes had closed she could still feel them.

She had never been kissed like she was being kissed now, it was filled with need and hunger and passion, from both parties. He held on to her like he was afraid she was going to ripped away. Kissed her as if she was his life force.

She had never known kissing could be like this before, intimate and powerful and exciting and tender all at once. It seemed to be the embodiment of the word intense.

Finally when she needed to breathe Buffy Broke off.

"Oh god, Spike," she managed to moan, "I want you."

He tilted her head back until they were eye to eye, his eyes were dark with desire and stormy from frustration. Then he descended on her throat nipping and kissing and driving her mad.

"Christ, slayer," he murmured against her neck. "I love you."

He didn't seem to realize that he said the three words that scared her more than any hell beast ever could.

Buffy broke away abruptly, breaking the spell of the kiss. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. She looked like a deer caught in headlights, then she turned and bolted from the room, slamming the door after her.