He stood in the shadows watching her tap her foot in time with the 40s sounding big band tune. The red leather high heels she was wearing beautifully complimented her bridesmaid’s dress. Hideous on all the other girls, it somehow didn't look ugly on her. Her hair was tied up and back. The humid evening had created a soft moistness on her brow and shoulders. God, he thought, she is so bloody beautiful.

She was alone at her table. He watched as she craned her neck around the room looking for something. He wondered who or what she was looking for and then he saw her wistfully sigh towards the dance floor.

He clenched his fists. He couldn't do it, but he wanted to so much. Memories of past humiliations ran through his mind: "You're beneath me." "It would never be you…" He bit back the sound of the bitter words in his head. "The hell with it," he muttered to himself. "Carpe bloody diem and all that."

He strode out from the shadows towards his mortal enemy.

"Will you dance with me, Slayer?" He bowed slightly, almost sarcastically at the slim, young woman sitting at the table.

"Spike? Have you been drinking? I mean some ‘thing’ rather than some ‘one’?" Buffy looked up into his eyes amused, but attentive.

"Not much, I haven't been to a wedding in a hundred years. I wanted to keep my wits about me." He nodded towards the head table where Xander and Anya were playfully stuffing cake into each other's mouths. "What a lotta fuss about nothing," he snorted derisively. "Wouldn't catch me playing this game."

The slayer took another sip of her champagne. "Not much chance anyone'll marry you. Don't worry."

Pain flashed across his face and was gone before she noticed it. "I should bloody hope not!" He paused. "However, I do like the dancin'. So, Slayer, will you dance with me?" His blue eyes squinted into a smile. He was determined to try, though he knew she would say ‘no’.

She answered him, but it sounded as if she were talking to herself. "Yes, I think I will. I think I will after all." She set down her glass, stood gracefully and folded her hand into Spike's. She tilted a look up into his eyes and he saw something there that made him more afraid than he had ever been. Smiling gently, she turned and drew him onto the dance floor.

Momentarily stunned, Spike followed her, horribly conscious of the looks that followed them.

She led him to the dance floor forcefully, but once there Spike recovered his wits and drew her tightly into his arms. Her arms slid up onto his shoulders as he gathered her in. She was so tiny he felt like he was dancing with a bird, a bird who could drive a stake through him at any moment. He chuckled to himself. I must be off my chump! I'm dancing with the Slayer. The Slayer. What am I doing? He lowered his eyes to her face and her laughing eyes reminded him. He was dancing with the Slayer, Buffy, the woman who haunted both his dreams and his reality. She was in his arms, their bodies moving slowly as one. He inhaled deeply to stimulate yet another sense, hoping it would drive him to accept that he was not having a dream.

"Spike." His name always sounded better when she said it.

"Yeah, cutie?" He did his best to affect his normal casual persona, but her next words shot a jolt of surprise right through him.

"Why do you keep trying?" She sounded genuinely curious. Her words brought back the horrible scene when he'd first confessed his love for her; he winced at the memory of her disgust and contempt. He opened his mouth to make a cruel and biting retort

But when he looked down at her she looked, he realized with a start, vulnerable and open. He swallowed the bitter answer: "Because you are the most amazing woman I've ever met." There. He'd said something nice. He cringed internally waiting for the putdown, the insult he knew would follow.

But there was only silence. He couldn't look at her, so they danced on, Spike intently studying his surroundings over her shoulder.

A moment later he felt her lay her head tentatively against his chest.

He wished that she would stake him quickly. To die, to turn into the blessed numbness of dust, at this perfect moment, would release him forever from the unbearable torture of loving her.

Instead he felt her embrace tighten as one hand traced the lobe of his ear.

"Spike?"

"Yeah, Buffy?" He almost choked on the words, waiting for the shoe or the penny or whatever the hell it was that dropped when reality crashes a person back into this world.

"I don't hate you." He could hardly hear her whisper. "I don't hate you anymore. I'm sorry for the way things have been between us. I… I don't know… a year is a long time. So many things have happened." The sadness in her words was palpable, and he thought of Joyce. "I've changed. It's harder to hate now. And I don't hate you. I feel something… else." She paused and raised her head from his chest to look into his face. "I'm not sure what it is. At least, I think I might know… but… I still need time to sort it out." She smiled and he thought the whole room must notice the glow that surrounded that smile. "Will you give me time to figure it out?"

He hardly trusted himself to speak. He groaned softly and held her tightly, lowering his head to breathe the words through her soft hair into her ear. "Darling, anything you want - time, my future, my life - anything I can give you, is yours."

He drew his head back and realized that she was going to kiss him. He was so hungry for her, so afraid he would scare her or hurt her with his desire that he held himself back. But when their faces met, it was Buffy who unleashed the passion of all those years of denial. She devoured his mouth with urgent lust. He groaned again and abandoned care, inhaling her, tasting her and exploring every inch of her warm mouth. They stood still, their arms, bodies and mouths entwined, neither noticing nor caring that the music had moved on to something up-tempo.

After what seemed like several decades, they drew apart slightly and smiled into each other's eyes.

"Thanks for the dance, Slayer." He bowed to her, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"The dance is just beginning, Spike." She took his hand and walked him off the floor.

The End

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