So you're scared to show your feelings
Baby I do understand
Well I don't make a promise I can't keep
And I vow to be a real good friend

In those big green eyes I see a glow of love
I just hope I'm the one you're dreaming of

Let me be the one to love you
Let me be the one to care
Let me be the one to light your flame
Oh baby Oh baby
Let me be the one

We spend all our time together
We can't stand to sleep alone
When you say you have to leave for now
I miss you before you're gone

All along we thought this was absurd (absurd)
Every moment we spend goes by too fast
Darling Darling take this chance with me
'Cause I have eyes only for you
Oh baby

Let me be the one to love you
Let me be the one to care
Let me be the one to light your flame
Oh baby Oh baby
Let me be the one
Let me be the one to love you
Let me be the one to care
Let me be the one to light your flame
Oh baby Oh baby
Let me be the one
For you

Don't be scared to show your feelings
'Cause baby I do understand
And I don't make promises that I can't keep
And I vow to be a real good man
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Willow waited until the last of the fireworks had cascaded like
electric confetti from the night sky before scrambling up from her
place on the ground. She moved to the picnic table, smiling to herself
at the whispers of endearment between Buffy and Riley and the soft
sounds of smooching between Anya and Xander that broke the new
stillness of the late night.

Feeling only a mild twinge of sorrow, which she quickly pushed away,
she scooped up the last of the picnic remains and shoved them into a
garbage bag. She had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t spend the
evening dwelling on her losses--Oz, who was who knew where, seeking his
own sort of inner peace, and Tara, who had left campus in barely-unshed
tears after Willow had finally admitted, both to herself and to the
blonde witch, that as much as their friendship meant to the redhead, it
would never be more than that.

Spike stepped over to Willow’s side and, with a look of understanding
which none but the closest of observers would have noticed, gently took
the bulging plastic garbage bag from her hands and deposited it next to
the roofed porch of the cabin that the gang had rented in order to
watch the fourth of July fireworks as they exploded over the lake.
Giles closed the lid on the cooler of soft drinks and stood up in time
to see the soft, fleeting smile that passed between the vampire and the
redhead.

“It’s late,” Willow spoke quietly so as not to disturb the other young
lovers. “I think I’ll turn in.”

Spike’s eyes followed her as she moved up the steps and disappeared
beyond the cabin door. A scant moment later, he followed wordlessly
behind her, and the ex-watcher smiled to himself with a slight nod of
the head.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Willow lay propped up against the pillows trying, and failing
miserably, to concentrate on the words in the book she was reading when
a single, sharp rap sounded on the bedroom door. It opened a crack, and
Buffy’s smiling face peeked into the room.

“Hey,” Willow smiled as her friend stepped inside.

“Hey,” Buffy answered. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

A frown puckered the slayer’s brow, “You sure? You disappeared pretty
quickly. I was afraid you were feeling left out--”

“No,” the redhead shook her head. “It’s just--hard sometimes, you know?
Anyway, it’s my problem. I’ll--”

“If it’s your problem, it’s mine, too,” Buffy told her, moving to sit
on the edge of the bed and taking the hand that Willow extended to her.
“I hate that you’re lonely, Will.”

“I’m not. Most of the time,” she smiled.

“You still miss him.”

“I’ll always miss him,” Willow responded. “But I know why he had to
leave. It took me awhile to be able to see it all clearly, but I do,
now. Oz would have left, eventually, no matter what. We can’t stay kids
forever. He needed things--answers--that I couldn’t give him. I’ll
always love him, but it’s--different--now.”

Buffy nodded in sympathetic understanding, “Growing up sucks.”

Willow smiled sadly, “The Hellmouth and Never Land are worlds apart.”

“You going to be okay?” the slayer asked.

“Yep,” she insisted more brightly. “I love you for worrying, but I’ll
be okay. Honestly.”

“Okay,” Buffy nodded and gave her a quick hug before standing and going
back to the door. “See you in the morning.”

Willow set the book on the night stand and flicked off the light before
scooting down under the thin blanket on the bed. When a second, softer,
rap sounded on the door, she did not respond, but merely waited for the
door to open, as she knew that it would. She kept her back turned
toward the door as it closed, followed by the quiet rustle of clothing
dropping onto the floor. A moment later, the mattress dipped beneath
her, gently jostling her, as Spike’s cold body settled down very close
to her. Without thought, the small redhead snuggled against him, and he
placed a soft kiss on her forehead and folded his arms tightly around
her.

Her lips lifted to meet his, her body tingling with a familiar
anticipation as she awaited the release she knew he would bring her.
Their lovemaking was sometimes frantic and desperate, sometimes slow
and agonizing. Tonight it was soft and unhurried, made gentle and quiet
by the necessity of secrecy and the simple need to be held, and for the
overwhelming desire for one’s body to be cherished and worshipped. When
Spike, at last, moved out of her, lying back on the bed and pulling her
close into the cool strength of his arms, Willow placed a tender kiss
in the hollow of his throat and let her trembling body gradually relax
and drift off to sleep as his fingers moved slowly and gently through
her hair.

Even after her eyelids fluttered closed and her breathing took on the
slow rhythm of sleep, the vampire lay awake, his head nestled against
hers, his eyes staring into the darkness as his mind refused to quiet.
Apart from their surroundings, this night was not so different from the
many others they had shared. Even her urgent need to be tenderly taken,
to be reassured that she was both desirable and desired was not new to
him. She had come to him, the first time, several weeks ago, before
college had been recessed for the summer. It had been raining, and she
had stood outside the dank, chilly crypt hardly knowing herself what
she was doing there.

But he had known. The moment he had looked into her empty eyes, had
seen the grim pallor of her face contrasted against the flaming locks
of hair dampened against her cheeks by the cold heavy rain, had seen
the confusion and pain in her eyes--he knew. He had listened in silence
as she reassured herself that she had, indeed, put the pain of Oz’s
departure to rest. The confrontation with Tara had been a source of
new pain. Although Willow had done her best to let that young woman
down carefully and gently, she knew that Tara had been hurt terribly.

As Spike had listened to her rambling discourse that night, he had
realized she had been speaking more to herself than to him. Afraid that
Buffy would be ill at ease and feeling wholly incapable of discussing
it with Xander or, heaven forbid, Giles, she had sought out the only
other person she could think of. Perhaps it was the increasingly faint
sting of similar anguish which had compelled the vampire to listen to
her without sarcastic commentary or biting criticism.

She had, three hours later, finally talked herself out of false doubts
borne of guilt and into a dully aching sense of relief, and it had been
a natural progression for the words to turn to silence and the silence
to turn to a human need to reach out. He had watched her for so long,
over so many weeks, harboring a growing sense of want which he had
masked from everyone, save himself. He had had neither thought nor
desire to deny her when her arms reached out for him in silent appeal.
He had simply taken her close to him, held her gently, and spoke a
silent prayer of thanks to the gods below when, after months of
waiting, her small body lay expectantly under his for the first time
that night.

After that first needy and exhausting coupling, they had met
surreptitiously in the crypt, or--more frequently--in her dorm room,
when Buffy spent her nights in Riley’s bed. After classes ended for the
semester and Willow had returned to her empty home, it had been much
easier for the redhead and the vampire to share her bed, which they had
done until scattered nights spent together had progressed into spending
every night together.

He thought to himself that he probably should have been angry that she
had been unapologetically using him--a body, albeit not a warm one--to
chase away the unbearable sense of aloneness. However, it was the
emotion behind her eyes--an emotion she could not even admit to
herself--that stayed his temper and tempered his patience. She didn’t
want somebody; she wanted *him*. And even though she might not be able
to say so aloud, he saw it in her eyes, heard it in her intonation when
she called out to him as her body surrendered to his own.

He had never told her he loved her, even when he had finally admitted
that capitulation to himself, but he suspected that, over the course of
the weeks, she had recognized that reality when she looked into his
eyes. She must have done, as many unspoken minutes as they had spent
staring silently into one another’s eyes. The fact that she had neither
immediately nor gradually pushed him away was more telling of her own
state of emotion than words ever could. It was enough, for now. The
warmth of her smile when directed at him when they were alone, or in
those stolen moments when others were near; the way hers eyes sparkled
when he whispered her name or let the tips of his fingers brush
secretly
over her back, out of sight and out of understanding of her friends,
spoke volumes to him. The words could wait. Possibly forever, if need
be, as long as she wanted him, needed him, came to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Spike set Willow’s suitcase just inside the door and cast the redhead a
quick, reluctant glance before following Giles back outside. He felt
the familiar deep twinge of regret brought on by the sunrise when she
would leave their bed, leave him behind. Now, however, it was not the
sunlight that separated them, but the slayer’s insistence that she
stay behind to help Willow unpack and spend a few hours with her best
friend before heading out to patrol and then back to her own house.

Giles opened the car door, his eyes following Spike as he continued
past the vehicle to cross the dark street. The man watched him until
the vampire was swallowed up in the darkness, then turned his gaze back
toward Willow’s house where, through the window, he could see Buffy
picking up Willow’s suitcase to follow the redhead up the stairs. He
wondered for a moment that the young blonde woman, who herself had been
so intensely in love, could be so completely oblivious to the same sort
of emotion in others with whom she spent so much of her time.

Giles had recognized the look in Spike’s eyes weeks ago, and he was
certain that, little by little, the same emotion was beginning to spark
behind Willow’s expressive eyes. His initial reaction had been to speak
to her about the situation, but after much thought, he forbore
broaching the subject. Could he warn her of the dangers of falling in
love with a vampire? Could he caution her against giving her heart to a
creature who stole others’ lives for his own existence? What could he
say to her that she did not already know? However young she might be,
her experiences of living on a Hellmouth had made her wise beyond her
years. And Spike was as relatively safe as he had ever been. Whether
that condition remained so in the future had yet to be seen.

In any case, the former watcher had no misgivings that Spike’s feelings
for Willow were genuine. He had not known for certain whether the
vampire and the redhead had taken their mutual attraction to a physical
level, but he had no doubt whatsoever just exactly where the blonde
vampire had slept last night in the lakeside cabin. That realization
hadn’t shocked him as much as he thought it probably should have.
Shaking himself from his silent musing, Giles slid into the car and
drove away from the house.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Spike stepped out of the shadow of the trees and watched until the
slayer’s slender form disappeared from view before making his way
across the street and back onto Willow’s front porch. He reached for
the doorknob and found it, unsurprisingly, unlocked. He entered in
silence, closing and locking the door behind him, before making his way
up to her bedroom.

Willow had just pulled off her T-shirt and turned to him, ruffling her
hair with her fingers, as he opened the door and stepped inside. His
eyes traveled from the rounded curves of her breasts, up her pale
smooth throat, to her temptingly red lips which were grinning ever so
slightly. Her eyes mirrored her smile as blue locked with green, and he
moved toward her and took her into his arms.

“Is she coming back?” he asked, his mouth close to her ear.

She shook her head, “She’s sleeping in tomorrow.”

He cupped her face, drawing her eyes back to his, and lowered his head
until his lips hovered just above hers, “Good. So are we.”

Her smile widened before his mouth descended to take hers in a
breath-stealing kiss, and with practiced ease, he removed the remainder
of her clothes, then watched her with undisguised desire as she crawled
into bed. He quickly shed his own clothing and joined her there, taking
her mouth hungrily.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They lay awake, nestled close to each other, their bodies sated and
lazy, her small warm hand resting against his chest while his fingers
played aimlessly through the molten copper of her hair.

“Willow,” his soft voice broke the silence almost reluctantly.

She tilted her head a bit to look up at him.

“I--” he stopped, and she could see the brief hesitation in his eyes
before he started again. “I lo--”

Her hand moved upward, and she pressed her fingertips gently against
his lips as she hushed him quietly, “Shhh.”

He shook his head, placed his hand over hers, kissed the tips of her
fingers before drawing them away from his mouth.

“I need to say this. I think we both need to hear it,” he smiled softly
at the flicker of doubt in her eyes. “I love you, Willow.”

“I’m not sure I needed to hear that,” she told him.

“Aren’t you?” he questioned. “What is it? Are you afraid you can’t
trust me?”

She grinned slightly, “I’d be crazy to trust you.”

He chuckled and tried a different tack, “Are you crazy?”

Willow laughed softly, “Probably.”

Spike smoothed her hair away from her face and pressed a kiss to her
forehead, “Crazy isn’t what I see in your eyes.”

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Fear.”

“Well, what do you expect? I’m shagging a vampire, if I may borrow an
expression,” she said, only half-jokingly.

“You may,” he smiled. “But that isn’t what you’re afraid of. Is it?”

She side-stepped the question, “Why are we having this conversation all
of a sudden?”

He cocked an eyebrow, “One month, three weeks, and four days is *not*
all of a sudden.”

“No, I suppose not,” she conceded.

“Answer the question.”

“I forget what it was.”

He chuckled, an altogether appealing sound that never failed to send a
delicious shiver down her spine, “What are you afraid of, luv?”

“You?” she responded hopefully. Perhaps he would buy that.

He shook his head, “Not after all this time. Try again.”

“I don’t want to love you,” she answered more softly, her voice laden
with apprehension.

“A bit late for that, isn’t it?” he challenged knowingly.

She closed her eyes and buried her head in his shoulder as if the very
thing that she feared could, at the same time, shield her. His arms
tightened around her with reassuring understanding.

“You do love me,” it wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” the muffled sigh tickled warmly against his skin.

“And that frightens you.”

“Of course it does,” she replied.

“Why?”

She lifted her head to look up at him, “Because you’ll break my heart.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because that’s what we do--people, I mean. We break each other’s
hearts.”

“You planning on breaking mine?” he asked, grinning.

“No. I think--” she faltered, swallowed hard, then dove in, “--I could
love you forever.”

“Well, there you are, then,” he reasoned. “I won’t break your heart,
Willow.”

“What if that implant goes flooey?”

He smiled widely, “Then you really will love me forever.”

She giggled in spite of what should have been a threat.

“But I won’t break your heart,” he repeated. “I promise. I love you.”

Her eyes searched his for a moment before she nodded slowly, “Okay. But
can we keep all this between the two of us--at least for now?”

“Giles already knows, pet,” he told her.

“I figured that out, too,” she nodded. “I can’t understand why he’s
being so--so unreasonably reasonable about it. But the others, Buffy
and Xander, I don’t think they should know. Not now. Not yet.”

“Not a problem for me, luv,” he agreed readily. “I like the idea of
shagging you senseless, of loving you breathless, right under the
slayer’s ignorant, up-turned nose.”

She shook her head, but her grin belied her attempt at consternation,
“You would.”

He laughed softly and shifted her body under his, kissing her deeply as
he moved over her, “Tell me, Willow. I need to hear you say it.”

She rested her palm against his cheek, her thumb softly caressing the
contour of his chiseled cheekbone, and she placed a quick, soft kiss on
his lips before murmuring, “I love you, Spike.”

Her legs parted to him, and he whispered soft kisses along her throat
to her ear, “I love you, pet. Forever.”

“Forever,” she echoed before his mouth took hers, and their bodies
melded together.

End.