Summary: No spoilers here. My own near future denial-verse. After 'Chosen' but with amendments: Spike and Sunnydale ride again! Dreams and meditations and the nature of love.
Disclaimer: I do not own the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel (The Series). All of the characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, et al.
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What a thoughtful boy.

Buffy looked toward the horizon: a line of trees, the fullness of clouds. Her eyes drank in Spike's calm demeanor. His smile was so lovely.

"This is the best idea you've ever had," she lazed, dipping her toes into the lake. He placed a chunk of cantaloupe in her mouth and then one in his own. Her brow furled slightly as she was hit by a revelation.

Of course, he should be eating fruit!

"Did we pack the chocolate sauce?"

"Mmm hmm," he affirmed, licking his fingers. He picked up a section of pear. A cooling breeze swept across the lake. Buffy could watch him eat that pear forever. Her face twitched.

"My nose is itchy."

Buffy opened her eyes lazily and looked around. Picnic cooler, wallpaper, dresser, laundry hamper. Forget that, I can do laundry tomorrow.

"Mmm," she dreamed.

Gradually she became aware of her body's familiar positioning. The spread of her legs, knees opened and turned out. Gazing down her body
and still mostly asleep she saw his tousled blonde hair with a hint of forehead. One hand held her hip joint in place.

"Hmm," she dozed. "I hope you brought the sunscreen."

"Don't worry, love. I've got it."

Her eyes opened again, blinking. The physical sensations flowed through her in ripples accompanying the slow broadening of her clitoris. His tongue drew methodically up and down her responsive tissues. His fingers brushed meditatively inside her, finding that spot, lingering in the fullness there.

Soft squeaks and slurps filled her mind, and sent shivers through her breasts, her lips and her abdomen.

Buffy lay motionless save for a faint pelvic sway she could so nothing to halt. All thoughts returned to the picnic. There would be no stopping, no smiling, no 'good morning'. Words would come later with juice and coffee and cantaloupe.

Now was sensation. Riding the wind of his mouth out to sea, past the furthest islands, past the clouds and the moon to the very end of her mind. Beyond where, there be dragons.

Spike hadn't planned on waking her, so absorbed as he was in his quiet supplication. How long now? Twenty minutes? Three hours? He'd been careful not to strain her hip joints and repositioned her legs many, many times.

Time lost its solidness. Her breath, her heartbeat, his cool tongue and fingers: wandering buoys in an infinite space. And then a sound from afar, a rumbling promise, a train or earthquake coming for her. For them.

Buffy opened her eyes sharply and sat up. Spike lifted his head to look at her. Her face flexed, knowing what was to come.

"No," she cried out, "I can't...I..."

Buffy was startled by the sudden view of a wheat field before her. It filled her to the horizon with a reassuring familiarity. It was just like the one she saw as a girl on that boring car trip with her mom. The horrible one with Dawn crying and carsick and whining the whole way. That vacation from hell changed when she first saw the ocean of grass.

That's when the world fell away.

All she remembered of that trip was the wheat field, the ebb and flow of the land itself under the wind's breath. The undulations that sang to the horizon and beyond into space. The oscillations that sang through her. The flow that was without end.

Buffy was in the field and she was the field, and the flow.

Her eyes blinked loudly at Spike as she arched in a jerk and flowed. Out of her body. Onto the sheets. Onto his hands. Into his mouth. There was no sound, no gasp, no words. Her mouth contorted with emotion. It was a deep and penetrating sorrow.

Some things can only be met with tears.

Spike stretched out beside her, taking her into his arms and wiping away her tears.

"I...it's...I..." Without words she could only weep and bury her face in his neck.

"I know, love," he whispered, "I know."

Later that morning when Buffy was out running errands, Spike stripped the bed and took the full hamper to the basement. He did four loads. He found Dawn's hamper and laundered her clothes. Two loads.

Hours later, when he returned to their bed he dressed it anew. Only then did he lay down and let sleep claim him.

*

Spike put the empty cantaloupe container back in the cooler. "Raspberries?" he offered with a tilt of his head.