Part 3: London Spring
The daffodils were in bloom in Green Park, waving in the slight breeze, and Dawn listened patiently, or at least pretended to, as he recited from Wordsworth:
I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
“Very poncy,” she pronounced, tossing a handful of bread to the pigeons. “I wish Nigel would bring me flowers.”
Nigel was the junior watcher who currently entranced her, though not enough to make her make the first move. “He has to come to me,” she told him. “That way he’ll value me more.”
“I’m glad your sister didn’t wait for me to come to her.” Not that Dawn ought to be emulating her sister.
“Uh, yeah, after twenty-nine years of you chasing her, she finally magnanimously turned and walked a few steps towards you.” Dawn glanced back over her shoulder at him. “I mean, her flying over the Pole to the arctic was kind of dramatic. And you’re here, and that’s good. But it wasn’t like she had to worry about you rejecting her.”
Spike picked moodily at the strap of her backpack, which sat beside him on the park bench. “I could have rejected her if I wanted to.”
“Sure, Spike. You are so totally in control. Or is it in thrall?” She came back to the bench and flung herself down and heaved a theatrical sigh. “No one is ever going to love me like you love Buffy.”
“Count yourself lucky on that score, bit. Takes a demon to love this hard.” He reached over and tugged at her shiny long hair. “But someone will love you very well pretty soon. And once I check out his bona fides, I might let you go out with him.”
She made the pro forma protest that she could go out with whomever she pleased, and neither of them mentioned that by the time this devoted fellow came around, Spike would be long gone. “Give me some money, Spike. I want to buy an ice.”
Like an indulgent big brother, he felt in his pocket and pulled out a quid, and handed it to her, and hoped that would be enough for a treat at the little stand by the street. He wasn’t sure about prices anymore. The pound was holding pretty steady, and so was the Euro, but the disaster in the US had caused galloping inflation in some sectors. And he could only liberate so much of Angel’s cash (left so temptingly on the bureau) before he got caught.
He watched Dawn stalk across the misty green like she had something to prove, and when she was in queue at the stand (dancing restlessly from one foot to another– she was too much the American to wait patiently), he strolled over to the bed of daffodils. Without pausing, he reached down and broke off one (the one right next to the sign, “Please leave these flowers to bring delight to us all”) and took it back to the bench. He unbuckled Dawn’s backpack and slid the flower into the main compartment, on top of her Sumerian dictionary. He’d just fastened the bag when Dawn reappeared with her paper cup and two plastic spoons.
He got the last bite of ice, then just to show who was boss, she left the cup and spoons on the bench as she walked away. He was still too British to leave it there, so he sighed and picked the trash up and followed her. Once they got to the street, he made her wait as he made a great show of disposing of the rubbish in the barrel. “No wonder you Americans have such a bad reputation.”
“We got to the moon,” she said defiantly, and then fell silent. America as she had known it was over. All the humans had fled the west and left the demons in charge, and the rest of the country was being run by a cabal of elected dictators.
“Yeah.” They reached the mews that led to their building’s back entrance, and he said, “Listen. Buffy and me, we’re going to take a couple days, drive north to the Lake District. You keep an eye on Angel, okay? Call me if he’s, you know, more miserable than usual.”
“Oh, right. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll say that I’m going to call you and have you come back and do your cheerful happy example thing, and Angel’ll get all panicky and promise me he won’t be miserable, if only I’ll spare him having to listen to you sing all your favorite happy songs.”
“Good tactic, bit. And take a photo of him trying to smile, will you? Just so I’ll have something to remember him by.”
Dawn made a stricken expression, her mouth stretching like a rubber band.
“Yeah, just like that.”
Dawn’s mouth went back to its normal sulky droop. “I can’t believe you’re going and leaving him with us.”
“Not much good to me, is he, human that he is? You be nice to him, niblet. He’s been through a lot.”
“So have you,” she grumbled, “and you don’t complain whenever I play my CDs too loud. Well, you do, but only because you don’t like Good Charlotte.”
And then, friends again, they resumed their walk back to the Watchers’ Council building. “It’s funny,” she remarked, “that you’re leaving just when Buffy relents and lets you live with us.”
So much for friends. “She’s just giving me space on my holiday.”
“Space in her bed.”
“It’s a big bed, bit.”
“So you’re leaving again. It’s like payback, right? For all the times she left you?”
The pubs were just opening for the evening, and he passed one he used to drink at when he came down from Oxford– it looked exactly the same, the sign saying Rose and Crown split a few inches from the bottom just as he remembered. He needed a drink now. Dawn was old enough– but no. Best handle her question unaided by alcohol. “I just have a fight to fight. I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.”
“You do notice,” Dawn said, “that your poetry habit gets worse the longer you’re in London.”
“Yeah. Drinking tea, eating Marmite, watching Eastenders. And reciting poetry. London vices.”
Dawn walked along beside him, her arm brushing his. “You think it’s all about honor.”
He sighed. “I don’t know what to call it. Just know I have to do it. Buffy understands. “
“You mean she says she understands. ‘Course you won’t be here when she’s off in a corner crying because she’s alone.”
It tugged at him, that prospect. But Buffy was the Slayer. She understood the exigencies of war. “She’s not alone. Got you and Rupert and her friends. And she’ll have a new boyfriend soon enough, once it becomes known she’s free again.”
“Oh, right. You’re all for that, huh? I don’t think so.”
“Not my call. I’m not going to be like Angel was, expecting her to go on forever believing she can love only me. We both know that’s not true. She’ll find someone new. And that’s good.”
It sounded hollow even to him, and he believed it. Buffy had to go on living. That’s what he wanted most of all, that his girls were as happy as they could be, even if he couldn’t see it.
Dawn stuck out her chin. “Well, I’m not moving on. I won’t ever get another friend like you. I promise. And you promise too. We’re the only ones for us, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, and let her take his hand. “Not like there’s any replacement for the likes of you.”
She turned up her face at him, smiling. “The real Dawn. Accept no substitutes.” And then, she whispered, “I can’t believe you’re going,” and ran ahead, her hair streaming behind her.
She was beautiful, and didn’t believe it, and that was half her charm. She wasn’t like Buffy, who knew to the decimal point how pretty she was on any given day. Dawn was coltish and insecure in her arrogant way, and he wished he had a few years to be near so he could select some nice boy who would make her believe that she was more than just an accident.
She’d stopped at the light to wait for him. He came up beside her and bumped her with his hip. “Hey. Want to tell you.”
“What?” She wouldn’t look at him. She’d never been one to hide her feelings.
And neither was he. Quickly, before she could get away, he said, “I’m glad you happened. World’s a better place with you in it.”
She stopped short in the middle of the walk, the other pedestrians eddying around her, and threw her arms around him. He wasn’t ready for the onslaught, and staggered back a pace into the brick wall of a printer’s shop. “Hey, now,” he said inadequately, patting her back.
“You too. I’m glad you happened too,” she whispered, and then swiped her wet cheek across his t-shirt front, leaving a blotch behind.
He and Buffy spent the day in bed in their little rental cottage, examining maps of the Rockies and arguing amiably about tactics. As soon as the sun went down, they took the rowboat out on the broad silvery lake. The twilight was so still that they could hear the little waves hit the pebbled beach. Buffy rowed, her thin strong arms glistening in the faint moonlight, and Spike lay back and watched her, trailing his hand over the side.
He felt a stirring of the water around his fingers and closed them quickly, and with a shout of triumph, brought the trout up and held it up, silver and wriggling, for her to admire.
“Ewww, Spike,” she said, pulling both up to chest and leaning back away from him. “Throw it back!”
“You liked trout well enough last night at that inn, when it was fried up so nice and covered with little almonds.”
“Well, it wasn’t all alive and slimy then. Throw it back.”
Sullenly he cast the fish back into the lake, where it wriggled once and struck out for safer waters. He remembered his time in the Initiative cellblock, and how he felt when he escaped, and felt better. Freedom was a good.
“And rinse that hand,” his little tyrant added, “or it’s not going anywhere in the vicinity of my pants.”
So he grinned and made a big show of leaning over and dipping not just his hand but his whole arm into the lake. And balanced like that, he was easy prey for the likes of the slayer, who pulled one oar hard, so the boat shot around, and he tumbled into the water.
It was deep, and dark, and cold, and for a second or two he forgot he didn’t need to breathe and probably couldn’t drown, and then he remembered, and decided to stay put, a few feet under the surface. He went into game-face to see better in the darkness, and looked up and saw the silver hull of the rowboat. It was moving forward, and then stopped, and then he heard a cry, muffled by the water. “Spike?”
He knew his slayer. He waited. And after a minute, there was a splash, and her little body plummeted past him, and he reached out and snagged her arm and pulled her up with him to the surface.
She was spluttering and smacking at him, and he pulled her close, and she whispered against his neck, “Brute. You ruined my hair.”
He efficiently removed her t-shirt and tossed it into the boat waiting politely a yard away. Then he pulled off her shorts, and she squirmed against him, her legs going around his waist, her hands undoing his buttons. “Aren’t you cold?” he murmured, gathering her in.
“I’m a slayer. When I have a vampire in my sights, I don’t feel the cold.”
But she was shivering, so they made it quick, and soon, with only a few mishaps, they tumbled back into the rowboat and made for the cottage and a hot shower. And they stayed up most of the night in front of the fire, whittling stakes and reminiscing about demons gone by, and Spike leaned back against the wing chair and kept his bare foot right next to hers. This was a happy time he’d remember in the future, when times weren’t so happy and Buffy was far away.
She was happy too, laughing and touching him and humming snatches of Dave Matthews songs. (As a sign of his devotion, he let her put that CD on the stereo.) She was really happy. It made him happy to see her so happy. He was happy, yeah, that she could be so happy, considering everything. Considering that they’d finally found some joy together in this benighted world. Considering that they were going to be apart very soon.
“Good that you can laugh, pet.”
She screwed up her face in the sort of expression Dawn used so often. “Well, yeah. It’s because you’re so funny.”
“I mean, considering.”
She squitched her toes to tickle his ankle. “You’re thinking about the future. Well, don’t. Let’s just enjoy the moment.”
“Want you to enjoy the future too,” he said stubbornly.
“I will. Don’t you worry. I’ve learned that from you. Just take pleasure, and don’t borrow sorrow.”
She smiled at him, all beamish, and he smiled back, because sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and all that, and tomorrow would come whether they laughed or wept. And he did want her to be happy, now and in the future, wanted her to be happy with him and without him.
It was just that she didn’t seem to worry at all. He’d think she’d worry. Look ahead with dread. Expect the worst. Imagine the long empty days without him and, you know, blubber up and cling to him and beg him to stay.
But instead she carved her initials and his in a heart on the blunt side of the stake, and set it with a smile into the nylon weapons bag, and hummed along with the poncy song, and talked about how she hoped he’d actually get to use their whittlings when he got back to the States.
His hair was a disaster, and the dunk in the lake didn’t help any. It was tangled and curly and rough, and he didn’t like to think what it would be like in a few weeks, far from Buffy’s nancy-girl conditioner. So once they got back to London, he made his way to a barber, one who knew enough not to expect a reflection in the mirror, and had it all cut off.
It was a mistake, he figured– the barber kept talking nervously about a refund if that’s what Spike wanted. Spike ran his hand over the bristles and shook his head. He made his way back to the Watchers’ building, telling himself that it was better this way, better that Buffy be mad and disgusted. Make it easier to leave in the end. The receptionist’s open mouth and the pointed fingers of the junior Watchers as he walked in, well, he counted on that. They never liked him being there anyway, tolerated him only because Buffy would kick their asses if they complained. Now they had something to talk about.
So he walked into Buffy’s office, prepared for the worst, and that’s what he got. Buffy took one look, and then another, and then glared at him. “Why didn’t you wait to do that?” she demanded, her hands on her hips. “Why now?”
He started to explain about the knots and tangles, but she was up in his face– against his body, pushing him against the door so it closed with a slam that vibrated through him. “Why didn’t you wait?” she said, pulling at the buttons on his shirt. “You know Giles and Andrew are going to be here any minute for that meeting.” She tugged the shirt free and started on his zipper. “We’ll have to hurry.”
“Wait–”
“We don’t have time to wait.”
But he managed to ask, “It’s okay then?”
And she kissed him, both hands rubbing at the little bit of stubble left behind on his head, and she whispered, “You look really bad. And hot. Mmm. Hurry. Get out of those jeans, damnit.”
It was good he had his back against the door, and her weight on him, because pretty soon– too soon– the door knob turned, and someone tried to shove it open, and Buffy had to yell, “Hang on, just a minute, wait!” while they stuffed themselves back into their clothes. By long habit, Spike went to smooth his hair, and got whiskers instead, and Buffy giggled and pulled down her blouse and threw open the door.
“Giles! And Andrew! Look who’s here for the meeting!”
Andrew took one look at Spike and dropped his folder.
Rupert took one look and scowled and muttered, “No wonder no one is getting any work done out there. Or in here.”
He set his files on the teak conference table and looked back over his shoulder. “Spike, your shirt is buttoned up wrong. And you seem to have misplaced your hair.”
Spike, who had a soul and was redeemed now, didn’t make any comments about Rupert’s own missing hair. He just let the silence stretch on so that everyone knew he could make such comments if he wasn’t, you know, all redeemed and souled up.
“Looking, uh, good, bro,” Andrew said, scooting past Buffy then stopping stockstill, staring at the table and back at the two of them.
“No, you prat,”Spike said, shoving his shirt back into his jeans and casting a significant look back at the door.
Rupert wasn’t paying attention, at least until Andrew started giggling. But he focused as Buffy and Spike took their seats at the table. “Nice of you to join us,” he said. “Now Spike, here is a cave map of the Glenwood area. I suspect the most likely nest for the Wiegand contingent would be here–”
Spike tried to concentrate, but Buffy was leaning against him, pretending to want a closer look at the map, and her hand was on his neck, teasing at the shorn hair and driving him mad, especially with her other hand, under the table, working its way up his thigh.
Rupert, with an exasperated noise, shoved the maps across the table and rose. “Just study them, and let me know if you have any questions.”
He headed for the door, but stopped there and shook his head. “Oh, to be young again,” he said, then shot a glance at Spike. “Or just to look that way.”
Andrew piped up, “Mr. Giles, did you look like Spike when you were young?”
Rupert snorted. “No, Andrew, sorry to disappoint you, but I have never looked like a Leicester Square rent boy.” He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Well, perhaps for a month or two, when I first came down from Oxford. But then I was recalled to my duty–”
“And put on the tweeds.” Andrew nodded sagely and followed Rupert to the door. But then he dashed back and bent to whisper in Spike’s ear, “Leave me the name of your hairdresser, okay, Spike?”
The door closed, and Buffy slid onto Spike’s lap. “Now where were we?”
The next day– the penultimate day– he found Angel in the research library, which had been rebuilt to look like it looked in the old days. Spike couldn’t smell Wesley here, after so long, but this is where the junior Watcher would have hung out. Angel must be finding comfort in that.
Giles had put Angel to work, just to keep him occupied. He was supposed to be drawing pictures of all the demons he’d seen that apocalypse night, but instead he was sketching the ones he’d lost.
Spike stood in the doorway and watched him shading in a charcoal picture of Gunn. Other black-and-white sketches were strewn around the table– Fred smiling (she didn’t look anything like Blue, Spike told himself), and Wesley frowning. Lorne– gray instead of green. Cordelia, pretty and fierce. The boy named Connor.
“Hey.”
Angel looked up. Stared at him for a moment, then went back to his sketch.
Spike tried again. “We’re going out to the pub. Xander and Rupert and me. Andrew, if he promises not to pass out.”
“Your last night here, is it?”
“Second-to-last.” He would spend the last evening with Buffy and Dawn, and the last night just with Buffy. “Anyway. You want to go, we’ll be leaving in a half hour or so.”
“Let me finish up here.” Angel licked the point of his pencil and applied it to Gunn’s left eye. Dark, dark, Gunn’s eyes were. But they brightened when he smiled, which was pretty often, considering that he worked at W&H. Spike missed him most of them all. Charlie had been a good drinking buddy. And a good fighting buddy too.
Angel was a real artist. Always had been. He used to sketch his victims, back when he had victims. He still sketched the dead. But there was love now, in every stroke.
Poor Angel. No light left in the world for him.
Sketch finished, Angel slid it to the side. “You look different.”
“Got a haircut. Tired of dealing with the tangles.”
“Sit down.”
After a moment– just long enough to make the point that Spike was still Spike, and no one got to tell him what to do (except Dawn)– he took a seat across the table. “What?”
Angel rummaged around in a portfolio bag at his feet and pulled out a folder. “Here.” He slid another sketch across the table.
Spike’s heart yanked with an unexpected pleasure. It was him– a century or more ago, but him nonetheless, his pale hair pulled back in an untidy queue, his face innocent and arrogant. “Wow.”
“That’s Angelus’s boy,” Angel said. It was kind of obscure, but most everything Angel said these days was obscure. He was like a Zen vampire. Zen former vampire, anyway.
“Surprised you didn’t dust me, look like that on my face.”
“I tried often enough. You ran too fast.” Angel pulled another sheet out of his drawing pad and laid it on the table in front of him. “You’d laugh as you ran. Jump over walls and trashbarrels and slices of sunlight. Call back insults.” He picked up his pencil and said, “I should have dusted you. Worst minion ever.”
“Never. Master vampire in making, that’s what I was.”
Angel fell silent, gazing speculatively at him. “You look like a soccer hooligan, your hair all shorn like that.”
“Yeah, well. Rupert said I looked like a Leicester Square rent boy.”
“So how does he know what a Leicester Square rent boy looks like?” He studied Spike again. “A skinny thug. That’s you. No one’d ever believe you went to Oxford.” He said the university’s name with that familiar scornful emphasis. Sometimes… sometimes he seemed more Angelus than Angel. Paradoxical, now that he was human.
It was all so comradely that Spike ventured the sort of comment that he knew would get a rise. “Doesn’t matter what you and Rupert think. Matters what Buffy thinks. And she thinks–”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, that’s just what she thinks.” Spike grinned, and Angel’s hand started to move across the blank page.
“Sit still, damnit.”
It was so gratifying, Angel sketching him, that Spike tried to comply. But his jaw itched, and then his earlobe started twitching, and his finger– all by itself– started tapping on the walnut table, and Angel heaved a theatrical sigh. “There’s something to be said for working from photographs. Not that you even sit still long enough to take a good photo. Just don’t move your head, okay?”
And so Spike stared straight ahead, his mouth set, his earlobe set. Hurry, hurry, he thought very hard. His head itched, the new stubble dancing across his nerves. But this was important. This was what Angel wanted, and he might never see Angel again.
But there was a clock in his head, the ticking kind, that always kept track of how long it was going to be till the pub opened for the evening. And so he kept his head still, but shifted his eyes to see Angel’s paper. A face was taking shape there, quickly, under the pencil’s strokes.
“Well, that’s the best I can do,” Angel said, setting down the pencil and shoving the paper over.
Spike took it up and gazed at the face that gazed back at him– the face of a Big Bad. Kind of a young, thin, fragile Big Bad. But still bad. “It’s pretty good.” He put a hand up to his cheekbone, then his stubbled hair, and compared them to the sketch. “Haven’t been able to see myself, you know, since I cut off the hair. No wonder everyone’s trying to drag me into corners and yank off my clothes.”
Angel snorted, but in the end it turned into a laugh. “Who’s everyone?”
“Well, not everyone.” Spike considered the sketch and then reluctantly slid it back. “Just Buf–”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Angel went back into his portfolio and pulled out a manila envelope. He gathered up all the sketches, save the two of Spike, and straightened them into a neat packet. Then he slipped them into the envelope and held it out. “These are for you to take with you.”
Spike took the envelope. His throat was too tight for speaking for a minute, but finally he said, “But– but you sure you don’t want them?”
“Nah. I have others. Want you to have their pictures. Remind you why you’re fighting.”
“Yeah.” Spike held the envelope, running his thumbs over the ridge of paper inside. “Thanks. What about, you know, the ones of me?”
Angel cast a jaundiced look at the picture of NewSpike, and handed it over. “Give that to Buffy. I take it she’ll appreciate it more than anyone else.”
“And the other–”
“The other.” Angel put his hand on the sketch of Spike when he was hardly more than William. “I think I’ll keep that for myself.”
Spike didn’t protest when Buffy insisted on riding along on the plane to drop him off. They’d get another few hours together. So Dawn drove them to the corporate jetport and promised to pick Buffy up the next day. She hugged Spike hard and then let him go, gave Buffy a quick kiss, and ran back out in the rain to her car.
“She was quick about it,” Spike said gruffly. “Good.” He told himself he had the satellite phone, and he could call Dawn up every week or so, just to keep up with the footie scores.
“Yes,” Buffy said, “hurts less that way, right? I’ll be quick about it too, don’t worry.”
He didn’t worry. She was being real easy about his leaving. No embarrassing tears, no wails, nothing that would shake his determination. No matter what Dawn had said, Buffy was okay with this. She was ready to let him go, and that was good.
As the pilot started the engines, they got settled in the aft of the jet. It wasn’t quite as posh as the W&H plane, but nice enough, with a private cabin and a pull-down double bed. Once they were airborne, they slipped under the covers and nestled there, and Spike reminded himself that it meant something that she was flying all this way to see him off. Meant that she was reconciled to his leaving, and determined to do it right, without misery and despair, both of them acknowledging their past together, and ready for the future apart.
Buffy was so down with it, in fact, that she fell asleep in his arms. She looked so peaceful there that he couldn’t bear to wake her up even when the pilot announced they’d crossed the pole and then the Arctic Circle. There wasn’t much time left, and he wanted to make love one more time, but he just held her, and watched her face, and counted her quiet breaths.
Finally she stirred and opened her eyes and smiled that drowsy smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I love you,” she murmured. “A whole lot.”
She’d been saying that lately, in an easy, casual way that didn’t leave much room for denial. She loved him, and could say it straight out the way she’d been never able to say in all those years he stayed by her side. It was because, he thought as he gathered her close, because he was leaving. She always loved best the one who left. He knew that, and forgave it, and loved her the still even while she broke his heart this one last time.
He got his last kiss in just as the pilot announced their descent, and then it was time to sit up and get ready and stare out the window at the dark gray and white peaks. Buffy held onto his arm and pointed at the long narrow valley and the glistening of jetway. “There’s the airport.” She nestled closer. “I don’t see a welcoming committee of demons.”
“Mostly farther south. I’ll start down that way soon as I find a truck I can requisition.”
The tarmac was rutted, and grass was growing in the cracks. The jet bumped a little as it crossed to the little terminal, and then ground to a halt.
They’d timed the arrival for just after sunset, and the light was golden and kind as Spike emerged from the plane. The pilot was already unloading the baggage compartment from the belly of the plane. Buffy went to help, and Spike stood there, annoyed with her and battling it badly. She should be here next to him, kissing him goodbye, and instead she was bantering with the pilot and manhandling the luggage.
So Spike concentrated on counting the bags– six with weapons, and four with supplies. That was all of them. But Buffy was still at the pilot’s side, pulling another pair of bags from the plane. She hauled them over to Spike’s pile and set them down.
“A present for me?”
“Sure.” She picked up one bag and pushed it at him. “Open it and see.”
The zipper was stuck, and he struggled with it, glad for the distraction from the coming farewell. Finally he got it open, and stuck his hand in, and felt something silky and smooth, and yanked it out. He stood there staring at a tiny pair of red panties, and then looked up to see Buffy smiling, and the pilot behind her, watching with interest.
“Thanks,” Buffy said, and the pilot turned and mounted the steps.
Spike stuffed the panties back into the bag, uncertain, afraid to speak. Afraid to hope. The stairs rose with a quiet hum, and Buffy took his arm and moved him back away from the jet. And then with a shrill whine, the jet backed away and took off.
When it was gone from the sky and there was no way to call it back, Buffy came into his arms. “You dummy. Did you really think I was going to let you fight alone?”
Spike couldn’t think. “Uh. Yeah. I guess so. Buffy–”
“Shh. No arguments.” She kissed him quick, once, twice, on the lips. “For years you fought alongside me in my fight. Now I’m going to fight yours.”
“But–” No arguments, she’d said, and her face told him she meant it. “What about Dawn?”
“She knows. She’s fine with it. Got school, and Giles and Andrew and Xander watching out for her. And the jet’s coming back to get us for a break in a few months.”
“You set this all up.” He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “When?”
“From the start. When I figured out that you meant it, that you were going to come back here, I decided I’d come with you.”
“So all this time–”
“Yeah.” She grinned up at him. “See, you don’t know me as well as you think.”
“You can still surprise me.” He put his cheek against her silky hair and breathed in. “Does this mean I’m in charge?”
“Only in bed. Then I’ll be at your command.”
“Now that I’ll have to see. More used to you ordering me to kiss that and touch this–“
She smacked him in the chest, but since he was holding her so close, she didn’t have much leverage and it didn’t hurt. Much. Then she subsided against him and said, “Got your back, vampire.” And then, very quietly, “I love you.”
He let it seep in, the truth of it, the fact of her in his arms. Still with him. Always with him. “Okay,” he said, “Now I believe you.”