Part 2
 

Buffy lay on her bathroom floor in a state of pain and fear. She had been hyperventilating for a few minutes but eventually became to scared to even do that. She was just lying there, staring at the ceiling like a corpse in the morgue.

Over and over again, the same words began to repeat in her head.

I do not love Spike I do not love Spike I do not love Spike

It was a dream she told herself, it meant nothing. It was like that time she dreamt of the office supply store in Vegas. It was not prophetic.

It was not prophetic and she did not want it to be. She already had a boyfriend.

Buffy had a good thing going with Riley, maybe even a permanent thing. She liked the way things were with him. She enjoyed how safe and risk free it was. She couldn't possible be in love with Spike because she was in love with Riley.

Yeah, that's right! I'm in love with Riley so I couldn't be in love with Spike.

She loved Riley. She was in love with Riley. She was deeply, deeply, deeply..

.NOT in love with Riley.

Her heart broke when she realized that was true. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, he wasn't enough for her. She'd felt it that night she sneaked out of their bed to kill vampires.

She remembered how she felt when she went searching for that Initiative doctor to cure him. "Oh look, I have to save my stupid boyfriend's life.again." It had only been a passing thought at the time but it was true, she was starting to resent him.

She did not want to be with him anymore. It had gotten old because
they were different people now.

Her eyes narrowed with anger. She may not have wanted to be with
Riley,

BUT THAT DID NOT MEAN SHE WANTED TO BE WITH SPIKE!

Metaphor, that's what the dream was, a metaphor. She was with Spike in that dream because she wanted to pretend what it would be like to be with someone else. He wasn't really the person she wanted to be with, it could've been anyone. She could've dreamed about having sex with Xander or Giles or even Willow, and that didn't mean she was in love with them either.

And she could never love Spike. Spike was evil, he was bad, and he was a thing. Spike was a bad, evil, thing with a thirst for blood and.

.possessed the sexiest body Buffy had ever seen.

She licked her lips when she remembered the time they were under the engagement spell and Spike let her sit on his lap. Even after the spell was broken she ran the memory of his taunt, toned body under her fingers over and over again. Sure he was evil but that didn't mean evil didn't work out. She would love to.

NO! There was nothing about Spike she loved. NOTHING.

This dream was a message from her own mind telling her that she was letting her relationship with her boyfriend slip and that she needed to work harder at being in love with Riley.

That was all it was.

And she was going to prove it.

********************

Spike sat back in his ratty old recliner and lit yet another cigarette. Harmony had left to go to an all night demon party in LA and probably wouldn't be back until the next evening. Which was good because now he could think about something productive.

Like what was the best way to butcher a little blonde girl.

Fuckin' slayer. Ruining all of his plans, keeping this goddamned chip in his head. He hated her so much that it was almost blinding, like he could think of nothing else but her dead broken body lying at his feet. She disgusted him. Made his skin crawl.

But that wasn't the worst part. So many other things qualified as "the worst part".

First off, He was living with his annoying "girlfriend" (if Harmony had even risen to that level).

He still couldn't kill people because that stupid doctor had double-crossed him.

But to top it off every single one of his old demon buddies either
pitied him or hated him for switching sides.

It was on nights like this that he wished that Drusilla had just sucked his pathetic ass dry and left him for dead in 1880. He just prayed that someone out there had the mercy in their fuckin' soul to put him out of his godforsaken misery.

In that second, the crypt door slammed open and standing in the
entrance holding a stake was Buffy. "I'm going t-to kill you!"

The vampire snorted at the convenience. Maybe I should pray more
often he thought.

"Stand up Spike or I'll make you die on your knees."

Spike rolled his eyes in aggravation. He could tell by the sound of shaky twist in her voice that she was just blowing steam about something else, maybe something solider boy had done after he'd high tailed it out of the hospital. All she was really going to do was beat on him for an hour or two then storm out the same way he came in. Frankly, he wasn't interested tonight unless she went all the way. "Go away, Slayer, I'm busy!"

"I'm serious!" she shouted as her face turned red and a fire light in her eyes. She stamped her foot on the ground and straightened her spine like a board. Her entire body was tense and ready for whatever Spike was going to throw at her.

Only, he wasn't throwing anything at her.

In fact he was even looking at her, he had turned his easy chair around so that his indifferent back was in full view of her angry stake. "Sing a new one, luv, I'm just not in the-"

Buffy roared and charged the vampire, tossing him and his chair two feet across the room. "I am not your 'Luv' !" She screamed over and over as her fists rained down on his face.

Despite all the pain he was experiencing, Spike wasn't really angry so much as annoyed. He was right, if she was going to kill him she would have done it by now.

Being careful not to set off the chip, he quickly block one of her punches and held it in midair. Spike looked deeply into her eyes with an intense glare "If you want me dead, slayer," He growled, "then insert this."

He grabbed the hand that was still holding Mr. Pointy and placed it over his chest,

".here." For added venom he spit out, "And do be quick about, 'LUV', I'd like to be roasting in hell before the next Ice Age."

Then he laid back and left it up to her.

****************

Buffy tried to force her hand to stake him. She tried to end the reign of the Slayer of Slayers. She tried very, very hard.

But then she looked into his eyes and realized she couldn't do it.

She saw something in his deep blue orbs that she knew all too well. A sadness and regret that paralleled her own. She realized that they had something in common, a lifetime of helplessness to the whim of fate.

Spike probably didn't ask to be turned into a vampire. He didn't want to be a killer and a member of the undead. He must have just been a nice Englishman who turned down the wrong dark alley and talked to the wrong dark haired girl. In a way he was just like her. She never wanted to be the Slayer, it just turned out that way.

They were kindred spirits, two sides of the same coin,

Soulmates. She shuddered with realization.

IT WAS TRUE!

Her lower lip trembled.

******************

Spike had waited with aggravation for the killing blow. He was already to curse the world with his last breath and save his spit for the devils eye.

He waited for a whole minute.

Then that minute turned into two minutes, then three.

"What is the fuckin' hold up Slayer?"

She was just hovering over him with an glazed look in her eye and an odd _expression on her face. Something that looked like.tenderness? No, more like pity. His blood boiled at the thought. Pity from your enemy was always the worst kind.

"Damnit! Just bloody." He was interrupted by the clatter of Mr. Pointy hitting the floor and a nearly sobbing Buffy running from the crypt.

Lying on the floor, Spike tried desperately to cure is own confusion. Weird girl, he thought,

For a second he could've sworn she was crying.

**********************

Buffy's body shook with tears and sobs. She curled into a little ball on her bathroom floor and wished that it wasn't true, no matter how much she knew it was.

Buffy Anne Summers was in love with a vampire,

Again.




Continued...