XIII
It was hard to imagine there had ever been a time when she didn’t look forward to sleep, though logically, Buffy knew it had happened. She well remembered the agony of only a few weeks ago—curling up with her pillow every night, her cheeks stained with tears and the hole in her heart so deep her chest ached with every breath. She remembered crippling pain and violent crying jags. She remembered gray. She remembered bleak. She remembered thinking it would never end, and she would never know life without such pain again.
She remembered; it just felt years away. It felt like a horrid nightmare. Something that couldn’t truly happen.
Especially now.
Spike loved her.
A week had passed since Valentine’s Day. Since the magical day they spent in her bed. The pleasured burn of Spike’s touch had yet to fade, and though every cell in her body ached for him, she felt at last that she could breathe freely. Every tear she’d shed, every pain she’d suffered, every ache she’d endured…it was all behind her. Her heartache had somehow transformed into joy. She saw him when she slept. He was always there. Always waiting for her.
Always with love in his eyes.
And while she immediately missed having him within reach, Buffy similarly treasured the dreams they shared. The dreams had given her everything. Absolutely everything. And if dreams were all she had for now, she would enjoy every minute.
“We have to be careful now,” he whispered the first night. The first night with the words between them. Her memories were reshaped after the day they spent together. From now on, their first time together would always coincide with the first time she heard him whisper his love for her. When the shadows lurking around her future were finally banished, and she knew once and for all that she wasn’t in this alone.
Their relationship to this point had been tumultuous at best. There had been cold and warmth. Tears and kisses. Lovemaking so raw and passionate her insides melted at the mere thought. It had been wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time. It had brought her where she was.
It had led them to their first night. The first night of wherever the future would take them. All she knew now was that Spike loved her. She owed her happiness to the dreams. The thing which had once been a curse. The thing she knew she couldn’t live without.
Especially when she had no idea when she would see him again.
“Careful?” she replied, frowning up at him. He was poised above her on the bed, lazily playing with one of her breasts and his hard cock rubbing her inner thigh with methodic slowness which told her he knew exactly what he was doing to her. “Why?”
“Angelus knows somethin’.”
A cold shiver commanded her body. “He knows?” she repeated, her heart suddenly galloping. “How—”
Spike grinned and pinched her nipple, his eyes widening hungrily when she moaned and arched off the bed. “He doesn’ know rot about us, sweetling,” he purred.
“You just said—”
“He knows somethin’,” Spike clarified. “Doesn’ know what the bugger to do about it. Doesn’ know if it means anythin’. I told you already that he wagered I was playin’ you, right?”
Buffy paused thoughtfully, and the beat of silence was enough to invoke a rush of panic behind her lover’s eyes. She grinned quickly to banish his obvious fears and lifted her head to capture his lips in a tender, reassuring kiss. “I remember you telling me,” she replied softly. “And I know it’s not true.”
“Yeah?” Spike replied nervously, his lips grazing hers.
“You love me.”
It was a strange thing, saying those words to his face with nothing but knowledge. She’d expected at least some fear, but there was none. There was no fear whatsoever. She knew he wasn’t going to rebuke it. Wasn’t going to retreat within himself and hide away until she started talking about something else. She’d seen his eyes and felt his honesty. She felt his love for her in every touch. Behind every kiss. His love shone now and he made no attempt to hide it. And she knew in looking at him that there was absolutely nothing to fear.
A soft smile tugged at his mouth and he kissed her again. The taste of him made every nerve in her body tingle. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Don’ I know it.” He grinned and nipped playfully at her lips. “You’re gorgeous.”
“Am not.”
“Oi! I’m the bloke who’s in love with you, so don’ argue with me.” Spike pinched her nipple again with an unrepentant smirk. “Point bein’, kitten, I came back to the sodding factory drenched in your heavenly scent. You were all over me.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Ummm…sorry?”
The heat which stormed his eyes had her insides melting into goo. “Don’t be,” he replied hoarsely. She was astonished at the wealth of emotion in his voice; how he could react with such fervor to the slightest insinuation. The softest hint. “Don’t ever apologize for that. I couldn’t wash you off me. It was bloody hard enough leavin’ your side as it was.”
“But if Angel knows—”
“He doesn’t.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed. “But you just said—”
“He knows what he thinks he knows, kitten,” Spike replied, kissing the corner of her mouth to placate her. “He’s figured as much of it out as he ever will. He knows about you…you an’ your…with me.”
She went rigid and did her best not to melt when his lips took chart down her throat. As addictive as his touch was—as much as she loved the feel of his kisses against her skin—she knew his words far outweighed the immediacy in pleasure as far as significance went. Spike was so certain Angel didn’t know anything. He was so certain. Certainty such as his frightened her. And now that she had everything to lose, Buffy wasn’t in the mood to gamble against the odds. Spike was with her now, but if Angel really was wise to what was truly going on, the man she loved could find himself nothing more than a pile of dust. The thought alone made her stomach turn and her cells ache. The thought alone could reduce her to tears. If Spike was overly confident he could end up losing his life.
And Buffy knew she’d never recover. Not after this.
“You really think that’s all there is to it?” she asked softly, trying and failing to hold in a gasp when his mouth reached the breast he’d been playing with. He sucked her aching nipple between his teeth, his hand turning to her neglected breast as his knee persuaded her legs to part for him. “You…think…he just…thinks you’re…playing?”
“Settin’ you up,” Spike agreed, flicking her nipple with his tongue. “Makin’ you so bleeding hot for me that the kill will be all the sweeter.” He grinned, his eyes dancing. “You are hot for me, aren’t you, kitten?”
She gasped and nodded hard before she could help herself. Helping herself was not an option when his mouth and hands were on her. When the hard length of his cock was rubbing a sensuous path against her pussy. He never once came close to penetrating her, and the anticipation of his body’s invasion was almost sweeter than the actual thing. Almost.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” Spike murmured, his hand abandoning her breast to slide down her abdomen. “Seein’ you like this…”
Buffy threw her head back and moaned. What right did he have to tease her about what she did to him when he was doing his damnedest to drive her crazy?
“Spike…” she mewled. “W-we should…i-if he knows—”
“He doesn’t.” Spike’s teeth scaled along the tender flesh of her breast. “He doesn’t, baby.”
“H-how do—”
His fingers grazed her clit, the head of his cock slipping between her soaking pussy lips. Her body split with pleasure, need commanding her every nerve. Logic and reason, in such instances, became expendable. All she knew was that it had been forever since she’d had him inside her. Whatever was on her mind could wait. It could. She needed him like she needed nothing else.
“Shhh,” he whispered, his lips making a wet path back to her mouth. “Forget I mentioned it. Everything’s all right. Just let me love you.”
Then he sank balls-deep inside her, and all peripheral concerns blinked out of existence.
That had been a week ago. They hadn’t mentioned Angel since. Likewise, Angel hadn’t made a peep. Life continued as it had; Buffy went to school every day. She did her training, went for patrols, staked the bad guys and went home to meet her lover in her dreams. Most often, she would find Spike sitting on the bed. He’d look up the minute she popped into the room and melt her with his smile. They’d fall into each other’s arms, battling hands competing to see who could disrobe the other the fastest.
Their nights were blissful. The events falling in between sleep and awakening often calm. Sure, there would be a vamp or two. Vamps who said they were messengers from Angelus, but never the man himself. Buffy kept training if only to keep vigil, for even as she grew more and more complacent with the quiet state of affairs, she knew Angel wouldn’t keep silent forever.
She knew he was biding his time. Waiting for her to grow completely secure in her glass house. Even if she never saw him, she knew he was there. He was always in shadows with a waiting stone in his hand.
Spike shook her foundation every night. He whispered words she’d never thought to hear from anyone. He loved her body as though he’d been placed on this world to do nothing else. He held her when she slept, and even though she had to face the mornings alone, she took solace in the knowledge that eventually her dreams would again be reality. The bliss she’d had on Valentine’s Day would one day be hers every day. All the time.
They were just waiting for Angel to make a move.
Though if Angel didn’t move soon, Buffy privately avowed she would.
*~*~*
The next day, Angel moved in a big way.
Buffy was still numb when she made it to the room. She still had yet to really cry. Tears had filled her eyes—tears of shock, tears of pure reaction—but for some reason she found herself in a dull limbo between shock and devastation. She didn’t remember falling asleep and didn’t know whether or not she was grateful when Spike’s head shot upward. Relief purer than anything she’d ever seen crashed behind his eyes, and before she knew what was happening, he was right up against her.
“Are you all right?” Spike demanded, taking her face in his hands, his lips furiously brushing kisses across her skin. “Are you burned? Did you get hurt? Tell me you’re all right!”
It took a few seconds for her thoughts to catch up with reality. Her skin was a little singed from the proximity of fire. She’d seen Spike tonight in the flesh—flames as wide as a gorge separating them. She’d seen the look on his face and felt an impossible cold shiver race down her spine when their eyes clashed. He’d been quickly wheeled away by Drusilla, and the divide between them had seemed endless.
She’d forced her thoughts away from Spike almost immediately. She hadn’t come to the factory to see him. She’d come to prevent Giles’s suicide attack. And yet, seeing the man she loved so clearly sided with the vampires responsible for her surrogate father’s grief—for the hole in the world where Jenny Calendar once resided—hurt her more than any of the blows Angelus had dealt her tonight.
“Tell me you’re all right, Buffy. I bloody swear—”
Buffy’s lips parted, her dominant instinct pouncing immediately on reassurance, but no sound came out. She couldn’t tell him she was all right—not when she knew she was anything but all right. A woman was dead because of her. A woman her watcher loved. A woman Buffy knew and saw every day. A woman whose biggest sin was concealing her true name and purpose in the hope of preventing the very thing that had happened from happening.
Jenny Calendar was dead, and it was all her fault.
“Did you know?” Buffy demanded, tears at last spilling. She didn’t know how or why it happened now—why it took seeing Spike to make her inner dam break—but without warning, she was crying hard, thick tears splashing down her cheeks with no sense of control. “Did you—”
“No.”
It was the answer she’d expected—the answer she believed—but for whatever reason, her temper wasn’t pacified with his assurance. All at once she felt she was standing at the edge of a canyon and her nerves were just short enough to provoke a jump. Nothing she knew made sense anymore. A friend was dead. Someone she knew. Not a faceless name in the obituary. Someone she knew. A teacher. Giles’s girlfriend.
“Did you?” Buffy screamed, logic and outrage colliding in a detonation of senseless fury. “Did you know? Did you know?”
“No,” Spike repeated calmly, his hands coming up.
She heard him but the words didn’t register. And at that moment, the face of the man she loved dissolved into something unrecognizable. Something which, at the moment, epitomized every facet of darkness the world had shown her tonight. Her fists found Spike’s chest, but even blind as she was, her swings lacked conviction. Spike didn’t fight her; he didn’t even try to move away. He just stood as her inner fire roared to explosion, and waited with calm understanding until she was too weakened with grief to support herself.
“He killed—”
The empathy on her lover’s face was almost more unbearable than the pain weighing her heart. “I know, baby,” he murmured, his voice as steady as his eyes. The desperation she’d seen upon entering the room had long since faded. There was nothing but calm.
“How could—”
He seized her wrists and jerked her forward until she was pressed against his chest, his mouth finding hers in a blink. Buffy’s mind collapsed and her body fell pliant in his arms, fight abandoning her for the cool want of comfort only Spike’s kiss could provide. In careless seconds, she was battling him with her kisses, teeth nipping at his lips and her tongue assaulting his in mindless need. She tried to jerk her wrists out of his grip—her mind on a one-track to remove his clothing—but he refused to release her. He just kissed her, sapping what little fight remained in her tired bones. He kissed her and the earth ceased moving.
Time no longer held meaning. Buffy didn’t remember their lips parting. Didn’t remember the kiss Spike brushed across her brow or the caring way he guided her head to his shoulder. She didn’t remember anything beyond his kisses and the warmth he could give her in a world that was nothing but cold.
“I din’t know till he got back,” Spike murmured, his voice soft and comforting, even as he reintroduced reality into the small haven he’d constructed around them. “I din’t know.”
Buffy didn’t reply beyond nodding into his shoulder.
“’m so sorry.” He kissed her temple. “So sorry, sweetheart.”
She nodded again, but her mind was spinning. She knew Spike thought he meant it, and as far as her welfare was concerned, he did. But there was a huge gap between being sorry about how it affected her and being sorry at all that a woman was dead. And despite how much she loved Spike, the distance between what he felt and what she wanted him to feel was, at that moment, striking.
“She was…” Buffy shook her head and sniffed hard, pulling back. “She was…Giles, she was—”
“She was his girl. I know that, Slayer. Angelus left her in his bed for a reason.”
She shivered hard at mention of her once-kinda-boyfriend, her mind flashing back to the fire. To Spike’s face through the flames. To the passive way he’d sat in the wheelchair when she knew damned well he could’ve bolted to his feet, staked Dru, and helped her end everything tonight. It was hard to reconcile the tenderness he showed her here to the reality of the outside.
And before she could stop herself, her voice was suddenly determined to call him on it.
“You didn’t do anything to stop him,” she whispered.
“I didn’t know, love. I swear I didn’t.”
“Tonight,” Buffy clarified, raising her head to meet his eyes, wordlessly daring him to play dumb. “Giles was there to inflict major damage. Angel tried to kill him, then me. You didn’t—”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “You really think that?”
“I saw! Don’t lie to—”
“I’m not sodding lying, you irritating chit.” He seized her chin when she tried to look away in anger, his gaze matching the stubborn passion on his face and the strength in his voice. “Dru wheeled me away the second—”
“And you can walk! I’ve seen you walk! Don’t tell me it never occurred to you to, oh I dunno, get out of the chair and—”
“The bitch knocked me out!”
Buffy’s jaw fell slack and her eyes went wide. A moment spaced with incredulity, relief, and—most absurd of all—hope spread between them. Drusilla knocked Spike out? Was that even possible? There hadn’t seemed to be a struggle when she wheeled him out of the room, but then, Buffy hadn’t seen them up close. She’d seen them with fire racing along the rafters, with Angelus swinging at her and Giles collapsing to the ground. She hadn’t paid them more than a fleeting glance’s worth of attention.
“Kn-knocked out?”
Spike nodded furiously, though his anger was now focused elsewhere. “Brutal bint,” he hissed, his voice pure venom. “The second you came in, I knew…but a part of me was hopin’ your watcher would off Angelus an’ that’d be the end of it. He was doin’ a right good job, too. But Christ, it happened fast. The room went up, the old man stormed in, an’ by the time I saw you, Dru popped me in the head an’ the lights went out. Woke up on the sodding ground god-knows-how later, covered head-to-toe in ash an’ worried my arse off about you. If Angelus hadn’t been flapping his trap over how he’d make a bloody mess of you the next time he saw you, I would’ve bolted to your house to make sure you were all right. Bugger the consequences.”
Buffy frowned and worried a lip between her teeth. She hadn’t seen Drusilla strike Spike, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t occurred. Their eyes had connected only for a fleeting second—a second which had felt like hours, yes, but a second nonetheless. And all it really took to decide the truth from Spike was the look on his face. He was open and earnest, his eyes imploring her for trust. There was nothing deceitful in any stretch of his expression, and while Buffy knew it was dangerous to take a demon’s word at face value, this instance had nothing to do with trusting a demon and everything to do with trusting Spike.
Spike wouldn’t lie to her. He never had. Not even when the truth had broken her. He wouldn’t lie to her now.
“Okay.”
He arched a brow. “Okay?”
“Okay. I believe you.”
An ostensible breath of relief rolled off his shoulders, but the shadow in his eyes refused to fade. “Bloody load off, that,” he pointed out dryly. “How could you sodding think I’d—”
“Spike—”
“After everythin’—”
Another wave of cold crashed inside, and she suddenly found herself at the other end of the scale. “I didn’t know! I thought I lost you before and then you tore my heart out—”
“That was before—”
“You loved me. Yeah, I know. But still, you can’t blame a girl for thinking it.”
Spike shook his head roughly. “No.”
“I—”
“It wasn’t before I loved you, you daft twig.” He stared at her intently for a few seconds before sacrificing a laugh and rolling his eyes heavenward. And though his hold on her never loosened, she suddenly felt distant from him. Distant and somehow close all at once. “God. Do you really think I only started loving you the second I said the words?”
Buffy’s mouth ran dry.
“I’ve been in love with you for months. Before you said it. Fuck, before you even thought of saying it. Before the organ fell.” Spike shook his head with another sharp, humorless laugh and ran a hand through his platinum-colored hair. “I hated it in the beginnin’. I’ve never lied to you about that. I hated the way I felt about you—the way you made me feel. I wanted out. An’ then I got out an’ I realized all I really wanted…all I’d ever wanted…was you.”
There were no words. Nothing that could accurately summarize the astonishment flooding her veins. Buffy stared at him blankly, her heart thundering and her mind speeding rapidly out of control. Her body began to shake. Shapes blurred and colors merged as the walls around her began spinning. The concept was too large for her to grasp. She’d had Spike’s love all along? All along?
“I din’t wanna love you,” Spike continued softly. “Not at firs’. But after…after you disappeared on me, I knew I was hopeless for you. Absolutely hopeless. An’ I’m sorry I din’t tell you sooner. I din’t…” He broke off and sighed again. “’m sorry, love. I shouldn’t ask so much of you when I’ve given you so little. I jus’…I’d hope you’d know I’d be there, fightin’ the good fight with you if I could. The second I saw you t’night, all I could think about was getting to you. Dru knew it immediately, of course. She’s known it all along. The last thing I saw was you kicking the wanker in the head. Everything went dark after that.”
Buffy just stared at him, her chest heaving in a way that would put most heroines to shame. She knew she should be following everything he was saying now, but in the blur of everything that had occurred—the darkness surrounding Ms. Calendar’s death—hearing his affirmation made her collapse all over again. This bit of warmth in a world of cold meant everything to her. It meant absolutely everything.
“Oh God…”
“You with me?” Spike murmured, gently running his fingers through her hair. “Sweetheart?”
“I’m with you.”
“’m sorry about the teacher, love, I really am.”
Buffy nodded, trembling hard. “I…”
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Spike’s hands slid to the hem of her shirt—an actual shirt this time; she’d fallen asleep in her clothing. “Do I need to—”
She shook her head. Her mind refused to move beyond the point of his confession. She didn’t want to think of the reality pounding around her. She didn’t want to think about what she’d have to face when she awoke. Right now, all she wanted to think about was the mind-boggling notion that Spike had loved her all along. That the fears which had chased her for months had never truly had a leg to stand on. Spike had loved her. Before the organ. Before he’d tried to shove her out. Before…
“Buffy?” His fingers slid across her belly, never venturing northward. “I don’t wanna strip you to make sure you’re all right, but—”
She blinked stupidly and glanced up. “You don’t?”
What a thoroughly ridiculous thing to latch onto in light of such events.
Spike smiled wryly. “If you get naked, I’ll get naked, an’ I’ll wanna shag you silly.”
“Not really seeing the problem there.”
“’S not what you need right now.” He kissed her softly, flattening his palm against her stomach. “When we make love, I don’ want this between us. I want you completely with me.” Spike grinned, almost managing to look shy. “I want to give you more than…I wanna give you comfort beyond jus’…well, sex.”
The words had her melting into a Buffy-puddle of Buffy-goo. “Spike—”
“But that’s gonna be bloody hard if I have to strip you down to your skivvies to make sure the wanker din’t hurt you.”
“He didn’t.”
The words rang with false truth. Angel hadn’t hurt her. He hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t so much as left a bruise on her skin. Sure, he’d gotten in a few good kicks and punches, but she’d barely felt them. She’d been too busy kicking his ass.
Had Giles not been unconscious and in need of saving, Angel would be dust.
No, Angel hadn’t hurt her. Not physically.
But she was aching inside. She was aching in ways which required no explanation.
Of course, Spike already knew that. And though he undoubtedly heard the inherent lie in her words, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he brushed his lips against her temple again and murmured how much he loved her into her hair. He didn’t press her for promises she couldn’t make. For the moment, he words he was looking for, and it was enough.
And when she awoke, she would be alone.
The thought had tears forming in her eyes all over again. And before she could stop herself, she whispered, “I want this to be real again. I want this to be real so much.”
“It will be soon,” Spike promised her. “It will be.”
The words provided little comfort. With the chasm formed by Ms. Calendar’s murder, soon might as well have translated into never.
Beyond the tears and the sorrow, the hatred and the outrage, lay terror.
She was terrified something would happen to Spike before this was over. He was surrounded by enemies in the guise of an ally. And despite his assurances, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Angel knew the truth about them.
She wanted Spike out. She wanted him out now.
It was just a matter of convincing him.