Before Sunrise

Email: Zkenobia@hotmail.com

Couple: W/S, will eventually be W/S/A

Disclaimer: Barely own the clothes I’m wearing now, certainly don’t own Buffy

Summary: Willow moves on without even realising it

Spoilers: Season 4 and 5 as in Spike has the chip, Angel and Cordelia are in L.A and Riley makes a cameo

Rating: Starts off as and R, but some parts will be NC17

Notes: My story, my rules. 1 Tara doesn’t exist, I don’t like her and I don’t think she’s good enough for Willow. 2 Spike never fell in love with Buffy; she’s not good enough for him. 3 Dawn doesn’t exist, I like Dawn but I had enough trouble including all the other characters so she had to go. I also messed round with the time line an ickle bit

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Part one

Willow shifted in her sleep. Wherever she was laying it was uncomfortable and she was getting a pain in the back of her neck, but this only plagued her mind for a moment as she quickly fell back deeper into her sleep. She had been sleeping better over the past month.

For the first few months after Oz's departure she would lay there for hours curled up in a ball of pain crying silently into her pillow, not wanting to disturb Buffy's sleep with the noise. Her last thought when she finally did drift off would always be a quiet plea to the powers that be that she wouldn't wake up again. But she always did.

The feminist within told her that it was ridiculous to get that way over a guy, that she should just rise above it, but its difficult to rise above anything when all you really want to do is crawl underneath the lowest rock and die. With Oz she was something else, she had never loved and been loved back before and that completely changed the way she saw herself. She was wanted; she was desirable, like the women on the covers of those magazines that Xander liked to read, only not as skanky. When Oz left he took all that with him, that and a bit more.

It’s a bad cliché, but time does heal. She would like to say that she got through it all with the help of her friends, but well, that would be a big evil demon-sized lie. The end of her love just happened to coincide with the start of everyone else's. Buffy had thrown herself head first in love with Riley and she was happy that she had managed to move past Angel and everything. But she had resented the way that her pain had been put to the bottom of the priority list, Willow had stopped counting the amount of times Buffy had seen Riley turning up ten minutes late for a date as a bigger issue than her losing the love of her life, but it didn't matter.

Then there was Xander and Anya. She had frowned at this at first, being that she was all ex demony and all. But she had grown fond of Anya, it was obvious how happy she made Xander, and she was honest and funny, despite her disturbing fascination with money and orgasms.

So on her own she did it; she got through the whole love 'n' loss thing alive, which surprised the hell out of her. Day by day it just hurt less, until one day she went to sleep thinking about transportation spells rather that rocks and death.

Right now she was dreaming about a less hellmouthy time, Xanders tenth birthday. He didn't have a party but she and Jessie had spent their allowances on a ton of chocolaty food and thrown him a surprise picnic in the park near their home. At some point, after the last Twinkie had disappeared into Xanders Tardis like mouth, they had started to play kiss-chase, well they hadn't just started to play, Xander had lunged at her with a mouth full of food, spraying it everywhere as he yelled 'kiss-chase!' and she had squealed and took off running. She ran through the park as the two of them chased her, screaming at them to stop but secretly liking the attention, especially from Xander. She ran as fast as she could through the playground but Xander caught up with her, she darted backwards out of the way but caught her foot on the railings of a fence and fell backwards towards the concrete. However instead of the sharp pain in the back of her head that she remembered feeling at the time, her landing was soft. She leaned back against the soft ground and closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable feeling of two ten year old boys landing on top of her.

"Er, pet"

<"What? Where did they go?">

"Wakey, wakey red"

She felt a soft jabbing in her ribs. As she slowly opened her eyes she found that a pair of bright blue eyes had replaced the bright blue sky. "I never played kiss chase with you".

"My loss luv. Not that I mind having a pretty girls head in my lap, but you are kinda ruining the big bad image if you know what I mean".

"Huh?"

Willow sat straight upright, becoming aware of her surroundings. She was in Giles's living room. On the sofa opposite sat Xander who was trying to wipe chocolate sauce off the front cover of a very old and expensive looking book without attracting the attention of Giles, who was listening to Anya explain why he should pay her more money. She blushed. "Sorry Spike, I er, must have dozed off for a... How long was I out?"

"Just a few minutes. Might wanna have a word with your stylist before you crash out again though luv, its almost as bad as Buffy's"

"Huh?" She mumbled as she reached up and touched her hair, the back of which was sticking up like a red fountain. She blushed again.

"Hey wills, back in the land of the living" Xander said through a mouthful of Twinkie

"Almost", she yawned. "So what did I miss?"

"Uh Will, Anyas been keeping Giles busy in a business meeting for the last ten minutes so what do you think the chances are of me and dead boy Jnr coming up with anything useful?"

"Well..."

"Hey" Spike snapped "I resent been lumped into the same category as the never ending sugar pit over there"

"Did you come up with anything then?" Willow smiled at the vampire

"Well, not as such luv, but then I was a bit preoccupied with being your pillow wasn't I".

Willow blushed a deeper shade of red. "Shut up Blondie". Spike grabbed his chest in mock pain.

"Red! You wound me with your stake-like words, how will I ever recover"

Willow grinned mischievously. She stared at the book lying on Spikes lap, muttering a quiet incantation the book flipped and hit Spike on the nose.

"Ow"!

Giles and Anya stopped their conversation and turned round to see spike holding his nose in pain.

"What did we miss"? Anya asked her boyfriend

"Will just did the bad Wicca thing to Spike" he giggled, "Nice one Wills

Willow grinned innocently "What"?

Spike looked at her with mock anger "Luv that was pure bitch"

"Really? I actually did bitch"

"Yes" he said wiggling his nose, "And If that hadn’t actually caused me pain I might be proud"

The scene was broken by the sound of the door banging open and a weary slayer stomping through the door, closely followed by an angry looking Riley.

"Nothing"! Exclaimed Riley sitting down next to Xander

"Nothing? No demonic activity?" Giles said tearing himself away from a ranting Anya

"Oh there was activity" Buffy huffed plonking herself down next to Spike, who cringed and shuffled along the sofa closer to Willow. "Activity overdrive"

"Well then what’s the problem"?

"They all got away. I don’t get it"

"Wait!" Anya said "I was complaining to Giles about something, but I can’t remember what was"

Ignoring her Buffy continued "there were six of them in that big crypty thing on the other side of the cemetery"

"Six of what?"

"How the hell should I know? I can’t be the muscle and the brains you know"

"Yeah, she's only a slayer mate, next you'll be expecting her to walk and talk at the same time"

Willow gave him a sharp dig in the ribs. Buffy ignored him and continued, "So they were in there doing y'know, demony things, so we burst through the doors and then...

"They ran off pissing themselves with laughter"? Spike blew a cloud of smoke out in Buffys direction as Xander and Giles tried to suppress their grins. Buffy was about to lay into him when Riley cut her off

"That’s exactly what happened, except for laughing and pissing thing of course"

"Damn this human train of thought thing, I still can’t remember what I was talking about"

"So what’s the plan Giles? Buffy sighed "You guys gonna go into research mode"?

"Well you haven’t exactly given us a lot to go on Buffy, but I suppose we have to start somewhere"

"Giles was I ranting to you about sex"? Anya cut in

"I’m sorry?"

"Or orgasms, perhaps we were arguing about orgasms"?

"I very much doubt it Anya. Buffy, I think the best idea is for you to do one last sweep of the area where you saw the demons.

"I doubt they'll be back there, not unless their really kinky and like having their butt kicked slayer style"

"Well I suppose you have a point. In that case I guess you can stay here and help with research"

"MONEY!" Anya exclaimed loudly, making Giles jump and drop his glasses into his tea. "That was it money! Giles I want more!"

"Anya for the last time I cant afford to pay you more, and I happen to think I’m very generous with your wages"

"But Giles I need more pretty things. I was in Buffy's bedroom the other day and she has far more pretty things than me. I am a human female and a such I need pretty things, my femaleness is defined by it and as my employer by refusing to increase my pay you are denying by femininity to reach its full potential".

"Er Chubs I think your girlfriend is about to combust" Spike eyed Anya warily

"Honey calm down" Xander cooed to his girlfriend as he wrapped his arm round her shoulder. "I’m sure that if he had the money he'd pay you a million dollars a minute, right Giles"?

"Hmmmm" Giles mumbled as he continued to clean tea off of his glasses

"Well now I’m going to be miserable for hours" She grinned at Xander seductively as an idea came into her head. "You know, I'd accept orgasms as currency, I mean sure you cant buy pretty things with them but..."

Xander choked on his Twinkie "You want Giles to give you orgasms"? It was Giles’s turn to choke

"No silly I want you to give me extra orgasms, as compensation for me not getting a pay rise"

"Oh"

"Um Giles" Buffy interrupted "If you don’t mind Id kinda like to take off, the slayings really taken it out of me"

"I thought you said they buggerd off" Spike interrupted "you didn’t bloody well slay anything"

"Butt out fang. Listen Giles I’ve been out all night and Id really like to get some sleep y'know, after all a sleepy slayer is a sloppy slayer right"?

"You mean you wanna go home and get horizontal with Pricilla queen of camouflage over there" Spike smirked

"You think your so goddam funny don’t you Spike"?

"I’m fucking hilarious luv"

"Yeah your a big joke alright, Mr. badass Vampire, cant bite and his honey runs over to the other side of the world to get away from him. What are you Spike, impotent in all areas"?

Spike stood up and was about to begin laying in to the slayer when she turned her back to him and carried on talking to Giles "I just wanna go early tonight, I'll be back tomorrow, fresh and revived and in full research mode. Anyway its not like your gonna be doin all the work alone, you’ve got Xander and Willow, you don’t mind staying late tonight do you Will-"

She turned round to see Willow fast asleep with her head thrown back against the sofa

"Willow"?

"Mmmmm" She mumbled in her sleep

"WILLOW"!

She sat bolt upright "The frogs are coming"! She glanced around the room to see five amused faces and one un-amused slayer. "Oh, I fell asleep again didn’t I"?

"So Will now your awake you feeling like a little research party"?

"Buffy don't be ridiculous" Giles started "Its perfectly obvious that Willow is in no state to research anything. Willow why don’t you go home and get some sleep?"

"No, I mean if you need me"

Giles smiled "Willow if I need anyone to fall asleep and drool all over a book Ill give you a call. Buffy why don’t you walk her home"

"No it's okay Buffy you don’t have to"

"Are you sure"? Buffy asked hopefully

"Yeah, I got my pointy stick and badass Wicca thing going on, Ill be fine"

Willow got up and started to pack away her things "So Anya are we still meeting tomorrow"?

Anya pulled herself away from Xanders face "What oh, of course, stock buying for the magic box, I wouldn’t miss out on the chance to spend someone else’s money, even if the things aren’t pretty"

"Okay well Ill see you all tomorrow night"

As she made her way to the door she noticed that Spike had put his duster on and was holding the front door open for her. "Er Spike"

"I’m walking you home luv, no arguments"

"Spike its okay"

"Look", he said patting his coat in search of his cigarettes. "You know, and I know that the moment your gone the watcher and the ex-demons sextoy will force me to come after you to make sure you get home alright. So either I walk with you and we can keep each other company or I leave after you and follow you home walking 20 paces behind you. So what’s it to be"?

"Oh, lets go"

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Willow was actually glad of the good company as she walked home, the night was cold and the talking stopped her teeth from chattering. She looked at the Blonde vampire next to her who was almost unrecognisable as the demon who had threatened to shove a broken bottle in her face almost two years ago. Sure he looked exactly the same what with the no ageing thing and the fact that he only seemed to own two sets of clothes, but something was different now, it was like he had evolved. "The big bad my ass" she mumbled

"What was that luv"?

"Oh nothing, just thinking out loud"

"Yeah right" He had heard exactly what she said. "You know I used to rip people arms off for lesser insults than that

"Used to"?

"Well you know, I’ve lost the taste for it, and the amount you lot tend to insult me I’d say I’d of run out of removable limbs pretty quickly, so I’d get bored"

"Bet that chip doesn’t help much either"

He narrowed his eyes at her "Your pushing your luck luv, anymore talk like that and I might have to bump your name closer to the top of the hate list, right after slutty, the commando, and Tom Cruise".

"Why"?

"Coz I’m evil"

"But why Tom Cruise"?

"Did you see that interview with a vampire film"? Made us all look like frilly shirted poufs with ponytails. A total insult to the species"

Willow giggled, "Well I guess with what I know now that film does seem a little silly"

"Exactly. Now from Dusk till Dawn, that’s a vampire film, lots of blood 'n' gore and a kick arse soundtrack"

Within ten minutes they had reached the front door of Willows house

"Well I guess I'd better be off then luv, don’t wanna scare the parents now do I?"

"C'mon Spike you know better than that, when was the last time you turned up and they were actually here"

There was a slight sadness in her voice when she said this. Spike watched her put the key in the door "Wouldn’t you rather stay at the dorms, I'm sure slutty will be back soon"

"No, she doesn’t stay there that much now. Anyway, one empty place is the same as another. You coming in"?

Willow switched on the lights and threw down her bag. Her mood seemed to become slightly sombre since they had got through the door. "I'm just going to get changed, help yourself to anything in the fridge, or there’s a T.V upstairs in my room if you wanna watch something", and with that she left the room.

Spike made his way to the fridge hoping to find something nice and alcoholic. Instead he found lots of green leafy things and something called carrot juice, which scared the hell out of him. "The T.V it is then" he said aloud to the empty kitchen.

Spike was a little surprised by Willows bedroom, he was also surprised when he realised that he had never seen it before what with the amount of times he had been to her house. Her room wasn’t like other young girls bedrooms that he had seen; Buffy's room for instance was all pinks and lace, filled with posters of nancy looking blokes in various states of undress. The first thing he noticed about Willows room was that it was covered in pictures of things that she really liked, not just blokes that she felt like shagging. There were movie posters from films that were actually good and prints from classic paintings. He then noticed the corner of the wall by the window, which was covered in photos. He leaned in to take a closer look just as Willow entered the room.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Willow screamed as she entered the room

"Bloody hell! What’s up with you"?

"Oh" She said leaning on a chair to catch her breath. "I-forgot, you- I forgot you were here"

"Scared you did I "? He said grinning from ear to ear

"No. Well maybe a little, but not in a 'big bad' kinda way so don’t get all excited. What are you looking at"?

"Your photos. Who are the kiddies?"

"Who"? She leaned towards the picture "Oh, that’s me Xander and Jessie. That picture was taken when Jessie’s dad took us all to the zoo when we were eight".

"What about this one, who are these guys?"

"Oh that’s my mom and dad"

"Huh, so that’s what they look like"

"Yeah, I keep it up there to remind myself of that sometimes"

"Quite an impressive collection you've got here"

"Xander says I'm stuck in the dark ages, but I think there much nicer than home movies"

His blue eyes wandered over the rest of the photos of Willow and the rest of the Scooby gang throughout the years until his eye caught on two hand drawn pictures under the light switch. "Uhhh, what’s this pet?"

"What’s what"? She leaned over in the direction that His eyes were fixed to see him looking at two small drawings, one of Angel and another of Spike. "Oh", she blushed

"Oh?"

"Well, you see, uh, last time I was in L.A Angel he, uh, well he said that he used to draw and so I got Cordy to nag him into showing me some of his stuff. He had loads of you, and ones that you'd drawn of him and so I asked him if I could have some, well two".

"Why?"

"Because this is my friends and family photo wall and you and Angel you, well despite the fact that you've both tried to kill me on occasions your now, I see you as friends and you have that no reflection thing so I cant take a photo, although there is this spell somewhere but then..."

He cut her off mid babble, "I’m not angry if that’s what your thinking. I’m just surprised"

"Oh. Why?"

Spike didn’t really know what to say. He could hear his demon laughing at him, making fun of the fact that a human female felt safe enough around him to invite him into her bedroom and call him her friend. But there was another part of him, the part that he usually ignored, that suddenly felt very content and comfortable.

"Well it's not one of his best pictures of me, but I guess it’s better than the oiled up teenybopper pictures that you girls usually have on your walls."

Willow giggled as she lay back on the bed

"Pity about the picture of the pouf though. I couldn’t get him to pose properly that day for blood nor money, even without the soul there’s still a bit of the brooding gelled git about him isn’t there"? He plonked himself down on the bed next to her

"Leave him alone, Cordelia says he speaks very highly of you y'know"

"Really"? He was shocked at this revelation

"Well highly is probably the wrong way to put it, more fondly. Like when you first came back on the scene on Thanksgiving and he came down here because of Cordelias visions. I wasnt exactly thrilled to have you back but Angel was the one who convinced us to give you a chance"

Spike snorted, "Peaches isnt fond pet, that’s just the guilt talking"

"Why would he be guilty?" She let her head lean against his shoulder

"Its hard to explain to someone who's not a vampire. You know like in those old movies about Christmas"?

"Yeah" she replied not exactly sure where this was going

"Well at Christmas dinner you always have the dad sitting at the head of the table, carving the meat and dishing it out to the family. Well that’s what he was like. He created all of us, except for Darla of course. But he was our teacher, our protector, we all looked up to him. Don’t get me wrong he wasnt the boss of me or anything, he was sort of a father figure."

"What happened?"

"Well the problem with Angelus is that he loves a challenge, it’s his fatal flaw see? He just loved to taste the blood of royalty, important people, the forbidden, an the silly sod just had to go after that damn Gypsy Princess"

"Oh" Willow muttered as the point dawned on her

"One minute he was there and the next, buggered off to go an brood an' be all soulful in an alleyway behind a dustbin. He couldn’t stand the sight of us, we reminded him of everything he hated, his worst acts of evil."

"What about Darla?"

"She couldn’t give a fuck pet, she disappeared about two seconds after Angelus did"

"I’m sorry"

"What in hell for?" He looked at her quizzically

"You were abandoned, I can imagine it’s not very nice"

It suddenly dawned on Spike that the little chit might sort of understand what he was going on about, after all from what he'd observed her parents seemed to abandon her on a regular basis

"No its not luv"

"Do you think you two will ever be like family again?"

"No" Came his blunt yet sad reply. There was a pause before he spoke again, "Anyway he's changed a bit too much for my liking, I mean that whole gay scenes not for me, cute little thing like me I'd get eaten alive. Anyway, I couldn’t afford the hair gel bills"

Willow giggled "Hey, there’s nothing wrong with Angels sense of style"

"Says the girl dressed like a Teletubby," he said referring to her fluffy yellow Pyjamas. "Bet the pouf would love them, I can see him in them prancing round L.A dressed like La la fighting the forces of evil"

After the laughter surrounding that mental picture had died down there was a silence while Willow debated on whether to ask a certain question. "Spike?"

"Yeah"?

"Do you still love him"? She felt his body tense but looked up to see his face expressionless

"What gave you the idea that I ever did?"

"Well" She yawned "Unless you really care about something, you never give it more than a sentence worth of words, and since you’ve managed to spend the last five minutes talking about Angel..."

"Stop it luv, you’re beginning to scare me, an I'm not easily scared". He felt her cheek move against his shoulder as she smiled. He paused for a moment as he tried to think of a way to answer without sounding like a total pouf. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of deep breathing; Willow had fallen into a deep sleep against his shoulder. Grinning he gently lifted her up, placed her head on the pillow and covered her up with a blanket, cursing himself for his lame actions as he did so.

He leant against her bedroom doorway and lit a cigarette. She was such a strange creature; appearances were definitely deceptive. She looked like such a defenceless beautiful creature lying there on the bed, but he knew from experience how much power she had, it’s just that she didn’t flaunt it in everyone’s faces like that mouthy slayer. She had gone through exactly the same thing he had, the love of her life had left her. He could see the pain that had been on her face whenever she'd walked into a room but she'd gritted her teeth and forced herself to live through it. What had he done, tried to stake himself, kidnapped the little witch and tried to make her to do a love spell and then spent six months getting pissed, pathetic.

Willow turned in her sleep. "Goodnight Red" he muttered from the doorway. Eyes still closed Willow stretched her hand out from under the blanket and waved it in the direction of the light switch. "Night Spike" she mumbled as the lights went out.

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Part two

Willow could smell cigarettes, and there was a bright light glowing behind her eyelids. Daylight she thought. Daylight? SPIKE! She leapt out of bed to the curtains yanking them shut then turned around expecting to be faced with either a very pissed off Spike or worse, a pile of dust.

After fifteen minutes searching round the room for a pile of dust she felt safe in the knowledge that he must have gone home the night before. She threw herself back down on the bed <Goddess I hate this house, always so damn empty, but then it wasn’t always like this was it? > Willow had to give herself credit for the fact that she’d actually managed to get through the whole Oz thing, but she had to admit that things weren’t the same. The emptiness was still there, like a person falling in love with her was some sort of fluke, a one off. But that wasn’t the sad thing, the sad thing was that it didn’t she’d just come to accept that no one would fall in love with her again. <I guess I should count myself lucky, some people go their entire lives without it and at least I had my moment>

The room felt darker than usual, the four walls were getting to her. When she was little she used to love having her own room, especially because it meant that she could get up early to watch the sun rise which was one of her favourite pastimes. She had always loved sunrises and rainstorms, snow, lightening and the stars, all amazing forms of nature. Maybe that’s why she had embraced witchcraft so easily.

When Oz came along she had a new reason to love sunrises, because when the sun rose at the end of a full moon night it meant she would be with him again. She still sat and watched them of course; it was hard to give up the habit of a lifetime no matter how miserable it was made you, but nowadays even the view outside of her room was getting her down.

It was then that her eyes were drawn to a flashing red light in the corner of the room, the answering machine. "Damn! Anya!" She exclaimed as she jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom to get changed.

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After about two hours of grovelling and listening about how some ugly, troll like male had tried to come on to her, Anya had finally forgiven Willow for being so late for their shopping trip. In fact for the last hour the two of them had actually managed to have fun as they went about the magic fair looking for the magical items that Giles had written on his shopping list. By mid-day Anya had decided that she could not go on and dragged a reluctant Willow away from the magic fair and into the nearest coffee shop. "Damn these mortal feet"! She exclaimed, "Back in my vengeance days I would've just floated in here taken whatever I'd wanted and then floated gracefully away again. Now my feet hurt, and I have to pay. Two Mocha chino’s please". She sat down and began to rub her feet as Willow brought over the drinks.

"Well I thought it was fun, I mean there was all those really cool people who’ve been into this stuff for years. I got some neat ideas"

"Well yes it's always fun to spend money. But why is it that everything that’s fun is always so tiring? Shopping, sex... Well there the only two I can think of"

"I think its just mother natures way of stopping you from being greedy"

"Well I want to speak to this Mother Nature person, her ideas are crappy".

Willow laughed at Anya's serious tone "You know maybe you could try celibacy, it could help you save your energy for all that important spending". Willow giggled mentally at the thought of Anya telling Xander that she wanted to be celibate

"Oh no! I read about that in one of those female orientated magazines, women giving up sex indeed, its wrong"

"Well I do it"

"No, no, you see you haven’t given it up, you just don’t have an orgasm friend, there’s a big difference. Maybe you should get one".

Willow was getting embarrassed at the turn that the conversation had taken, "Its not that simple Anya, I mean there’s love to consider"

"Oh come on, did Buffy love that Parker person? I’m not even sure that she loves Riley. But if loves the only problem then why don’t you just find someone to fall in love with"?

Willow stared at her wondering if she actually believed what’s she was saying " Anya I..." But it was no use, Anya was on a mission.

"Well Giles is out of the question, he's a lot older than you and you two have a father daughter thing going on, way too creepy. How about Spike"?

"What?" What about him?"

"The two of you have something, I think it's called chemistry"

Willow blushed, <How could she even think that? It the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard> "Anya its not a easy as that

"Why? Because he's a vampire?" She exclaimed a little too loudly, Willow noted as a few heads turned in the coffee shop. "You know just because Buffy couldn’t keep one it doesn’t mean you cant"

"Well that's one problem"

"Don’t you find him attractive?"

"Well…"

"Because if you haven’t already noticed, he is very attractive. He has a cute ass, way cuter than Xanders, but don’t tell him I said that. The point is I'm sure he could give you many orgasms"

"Anya! That’s not the point; I mean even if I did like him, he might not like me. I have a feeling I’m not quite his type"

"Well how do you know?"

"You never met Drusilla did you?"

"Who?"

"His ex, they were together for over a hundred years. She was a bit of a fruit loop, talked to the stars and thought they talked back"

"Sounds charming, nothing like you but charming"

"Anyway, if you ignore the whole psycho thing, she was beautiful, tall, dark hair, she had the eyes the walk. She was all power and grace. Somehow I don’t think that describes me, Buffy maybe but..."

Anya cut her off mid sentence with a sharp bang on the table, which sent their empty cups flying and heads turning in their direction, "DAMMIT!"

"What’s wrong?" Willow leaned back, fearful that her demon powers had suddenly returned

"What is wrong with us? You go on about Buffys power and beauty but what about us? I know that I'm hot, Xander tells me so everyday! And just because that silly wolf person left you it doesn’t mean that your ugly, your beautiful I can tell that even without being a lesbian!"

"Thank you, I think"

"And power! I wielded the power of the wish for a millennia, and you’re a witch! How powerful is that? All Buffy has aside from the vampire dusting thing is the ability to open stuck pickle jars"

Just as she finished the object of her rant walked through the door carrying several shopping bags. Seeing them from the door she came over and plopped down next to Willow. "Hey guys, how long have you been in here? I looked all over the fair for you"

"Anyas feet hurt so we came in about an hour ago" Willow answered. "So d'ya buy anything at the magic fair?"

"What these? God no, I’m not spending my money on dull magic stuff. I went clothes shopping. What d'ya think?" She said pulling a low cut blue strappy satin top from her bag

"Uhhh nice" Willow replied

"Thanks, I’m gonna wear it tonight for my date with Riley"

"But I thought you were patrolling tonight, then going to Giles's with us to research?"

"Well it's a slay date! And you don’t need Riley and me there for research, you know I'm no good at that, I just chatter and get in the way. Besides, I’m not wearing this top round Spike"

"What’s that supposed to mean"? Willow asked as Anya gave her a knowing look

"Well you know how he is, all roaming undead eyes, gives me the creeps"

Willow could tell that Anya was about to go back into vengeance demon rant mode. She tapped her leg under the table signalling for her to hold back. "Buffy Spikes on our side now, you could try"

"Oh c’mon Will, I know you two are all pally now, which is way creepy by the way. But this is Spike, and if I cant make fun of the bleached loser anymore then what’s the point in living?"

Willow paled and gathered he things together. "Listen, I have to go. Anya I'll drop the things by at Giles's if you want?"

"Thanks, you okay?" She asked casting an evil glare at the slayer who was sipping as her coffee obliviously

"Fine, I've just, I'll see you guys later"

"By Wills" Buffy said to Willows retreating back, before turning to Anya, "Have you noticed her acting odd lately?"

Anya glared at the slayer wondering what sort of foolish powers that be would ever make her the chosen one.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Spike lay back against the headboard and closed his eyes. Three sodding hours till sunset. He'd spent a lot of time over the last year or so sat in the same position, waiting for the sun to set and examining his unlife. At first it had all been very depressing, he'd think about all the stuff he used to do when he, Dru and Angelus had been a family. He'd shut his eyes and listen to echoes of a century of screaming go round in his head, the sweet taste of his first slayers blood and the bright lights of the fires and chaos they’d had created across Europe, and how it had all ended with one little gypsy curse.

Then there was Dru, his firey dark princess. A century of terror they has brought down on the planet, only for her to bugger off with a chaos demon the moment he tries to save her from a slayers stake. Then if he hadn’t been kicked in the stomach enough, he ends up back in Sunnyhell, defanged and working for the fucking slayer. It was enough to make a vamp brood like a pouf, THE Pouf in fact, but not quite.

But for the last couple of months none of that had been bothering him. He wasnt sure when it had happened exactly. Maybe it was the first time he went to sleep without thinking about Dru? Maybe it was the first time he'd actually had a conversation with Giles without calling him a git? Or the first time he'd genuinely laughed at one of Xanders jokes. He thought about the first time the little witch had fallen asleep on his lap, that was the moment. It was one of the first times a human had touched him and he hadn’t wanted to wretch and rip their head off. He closed his eyes as he remembered it clearly, her small hands playing with the sleeve of his jacket as she slept; she had made him feel needed.

He opened his eyes and reached over to his mug of blood without even looking. It was an age-old cliché, in every comic book, every movie, the big bad always had a fatal flaw, and his was that he needed to belong, he needed a purpose.

His mind drifted back to Red. In his opinion she was the most undervalued woman he had ever met. He had never really noticed her at first, well not while she was always covered up by that big blonde bombsite of a Slayer, always making herself the focus of the sodding universe. When she wasnt there Red would actually talk, and unlike the others used to do, she would talk to him, not at him. She always made the effort no matter how nasty he was to her. They found that they had things in common, primarily of course the fact that they had both lost their first loves, but instead of wallowing in self-pity the way that two broken hearted people tend to do they sort of brought each other to the surface again. She was the only human, well the only person if he was honest with himself, that actually managed to make him pour his problems out, although he still reckoned she was using some kind of mind controlling magic mumbo jumbo on him, William the Bloody did not willingly seek out a shrink.

He thought about how she would laugh at his jokes, and as time went by she made him laugh two; he was one of the few members of the Scooby gang who actually understood her geometry jokes. <Ugh! > He shuddered, <Did I just bloody well describe myself as a member of the sodding Scooby gang? > <You fucking well did y'know, you’re a butt whipped nancy slayerette> his demon taunted him. "Oh fuck off!" He yelled out to the empty room, pulling a blanket over his head. God now he was talking to thin air just like his ex, maybe he did need a shrink.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Part three

Willow woke wondering where the hell she'd fallen asleep; the crick in her neck was killing her. Opening her eyes she saw herself face to face with a gold demon with huge fangs. Screaming she launched herself off the couch sending the demon flying. Standing in the middle of the room she tried to get her bearings <Wheres it gone? > Glancing down at her feet she saw the book she had been reading earlier, on the front cover was a picture of a demon with large fangs printed in gold. It must have slipped onto her face while she was asleep <Oh God get a grip Willow, after all the crap you've seen you still pee yourself over a picture of a demon! >. She suddenly realised that she was standing in the middle of the magic box, <I must have fallen asleep after I'd dropped the supplies off. God I've been doing that a lot recently, maybe it’s a vitamin thing>. A loud, sharp ringing sound filled the room making willow squeak. "Its the phone Rosenberg, just the phone", she muttered as she went off to answer. "Hello"

"Well finally, the elusive Willow Rosenberg"

"Cordy, how did you know I was here"?

"Well you weren’t at your dorm or your house, where else would you be? Actually we were starting to worry. Maybe it’s time you joined us in the twentieth century and got yourself a cell phone, actually forget I said that, I think I’ve just sorted out your Christmas present"

Willow chuckled as she said this. It was strange how things had changed. Once there was a time when Cordelia would have probably spent hours daydreaming that Willow would get ripped apart by a vampire, now she was actually worried about such a scenario. She could here a male voice in the background.

"Is she there? Cordy let me talk to her?"

"Back off brood boy I'm talking here"

"Cordy" Willow smiled, "that’s no way to talk to your boss"

"Oh please, you think he'd ever actually fire me? He knows this place would just fall apart if I were gone". Willow was sure she could hear laughter in the background. "He's just in a bad mood anyway, going ballistic because he thought something had happened…" Cordelia was cut off as the phone was yanked away from her ear. In the background Willow could hear Cordy shriek, "rude much!"

"Willow?"

"Angel! Hey, how are things?"

He sighed, "There fine now. I was worried about you"

"Why?

"Well when’s someone’s hard to reach on the hellmouth you don’t instantly just assume that there not home"

"Sorry, I fell asleep at the magic shop, I keep doing that"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah I think so. Why didn’t you just email me like you normally do?"

The line went quiet as Angel began to whisper, "Well actually that was why I called in the first place", his voice got quieter, "Cordelia did something to the computer and none of us can work out what. The things jammed, it won’t do anything. I was wondering if you could come down here sometime and take a look at it. "

"Sure I can come down anytime. Oh wait, we're working on a big demon problem right now, but maybe in a few days." Suddenly there was a hollering noise in the background

"Hey I heard every word of that! I'll have you know that that stupid machine broke of it's own accord, I was just minding my own business painting my nails and it started beeping at me!"

Willow heard a key move in the door of the magic shop; she panicked fearing it was Buffy. She wasnt sure why she felt the need to keep the fact that she still kept in close contact with Cordelia a secret, after all it wasn’t like she and Angel had become close or anything. But Cordy was still a link to her ex and as such she was sure that Buffy wouldn’t approve. "Listen Angel I er, gotta go bye"

"What’s wrong?"

"Nothing er, pans of water boiling over. Speak to you later". She hung up the phone just in time to hear the door of the magic shop slam shut

"Honeys I'm home!"

She breathed a sigh of relief, Spike. Walking out into the shop she saw him throw his duster onto the back of a chair and plop himself down "Thank God, it's just you"

He jumped, surprised at her being there, but pleasantly surprised. "Expecting someone else luv?"

"I thought you were Buffy"

"Take that back!"

"No" she said sliding into the chair next to him, "I was worried that you were Buffy, I was on the phone to Angel see and, well I don’t think she'd like it much if she new that we talked, y'know, away from the whole fight against evil thing".

Spike fiddled with his packet of cigarettes wondering why she tiptoed around the damn slayer so much. "So what did the brooding twat want? Need you to take his soul in for a tune up?"

"Nah, he was just worried about me. So how has your day been?"

"Oh same old same old. Cowering in my crypt unable to go outside for fear of turning into dust, the usual". He paused. "Pet why do you worry so much about what that bloody slayer thinks all the time?"

"Huh?" She said, avoiding the question as she retreated to the kitchen.

He watched her walk, noting how she didn’t wiggle purposely like the slayer. "I mean not that I approve of you being all up close and personal with my sire and that bit of fluff that works for him, but what’s your problem with the slayer knowing. Don’t think she'll get jealous do you?"

"No!" She yelled from the kitchen, "I mean why would she be jealous? Its not like I talk to Angel that much anyway and even if I did he wouldn’t look at me like that. I just don’t wanna give Buffy a reason to get mad".

"Guess you have a point, a pissed off slayer is an annoying one after all, not that I've ever known her to be anything else".

He couldn’t help thinking about what she had just said, 'Angel wouldn’t look at her like that'. He probably wouldn’t <after all> he thought running his hand through his own hair, <the guy seems to have a thing for blondes>. But that wasnt how she had said it, she hadn’t said that she wasnt his type; she had implied that he wouldn't look at her like that, like she was unattractive or something, and that bothered him.

He heard the microwave beep and a few seconds later Willow returned and placed a mug in front of him, she picked up a book from the middle of the room and sat back down next to him and began to flick through the pages. Spike watched her as she examined each page; it was like he could actually hear her brain working. He examined her face over the rim of his mug, trying to be discrete. She was defiantly beautiful he had always thought so. It was the kind of beauty that would last forever, even as a sixty-year-old when pretty girls like the slayer were rank old crones she would still have it. It was also a true beauty, up close like this he could tell that she wore very little makeup, which was the source of the slayers beauty and he’d have to admit, Drusilla’s too, she had never been a stunner in the mornings.

Usually Willow was used to him staring, he did it all the time. At first it would always make her uncomfortable, but that was until she got used to the fact that he wasnt purposely staring at her or anything else, he just did it in a 'I'm a big bad vamp an I'll look at who and whatever I like' kinda way. But this time she was uncomfortable and it was all Anya's fault. Spike was Spike, sure he was a different Spike now, being that he wasnt always in grrr mode and he wasnt trying to eat them all the time and plotting their death. Now he was one of them, although she'd never say that to his face. He was honest to her and he listened, he was funny and she knew that she genuinely cared about what happened to him, but that was as far as it went. Sure, she knew he wasn’t ugly, but she’d never really paid attention to how he looked, that was until this moment when she wanted to try and pay attention but couldn’t because he was staring at her.

Drusilla, despite being evil and insane, was very lucky; he had obviously been devoted to her, and then their was the fact that he could make you laugh and the fact that he was smart, all of these are defiantly high scorers on the potential partner check list, not that she wanted him like that or anything. What was it Anya had said? ‘I’ll bet he could give you orgasms’, without realising it, an image drifted into her head, an image which brought a smile to her face.

"What are you grinning about?" Spike cut into her thoughts, placing a hand on her shoulder

"What? Aggghhhhhhhh"!!! She shrieked as she turned to face him, remembering what she had been thinking about a moment before

"Calm down pet, why so freaked?" He noticed that she was blushing

"I, er, so, you scared me you, Vampire"

Spike taken back by this, she was scared, of bloody what that’s what he’d like to know? "Red I’m sat about a foot away from you and you knew I was here". He didn’t like this, she wasn’t comfortable around him, that’s why she had that odd look on her face before she started grinning, she was probably thinking about that incident with the broken bottle. I mean how long does it take for something to get put in the ancient history tray huh? Bloody women.

Just at that moment the front door opened and Giles wondered in closely followed by Buffy, Anya and Xander.

"Wow" Buffy said approaching the table "You two are eager"

"Eager? Who’s eager for what?" Willow stuttered, blushing again

"Research, love to do the demon thing doncha Will"

"Do demons, what!?"

"Are you okay, Will? You look upset. Did he upset you?" She began to stalk towards Spike"

"Put your handbag away slayer"

"No" Willow broke in "No, he didn’t do anything. Uh, why did you ask if I like to do demons"? That last comment brought a smirk to Spikes face

Giles broke into the baffling conversation "Well er, Its probably a good thing that you are in the mood for researching, we have a new lead"

"On what"? Willow asked coming back to reality

"Those demons that did a roadrunner impression last night" answered Buffy

"Yeah" Xander yelled emerging from the kitchen with an open packet of cereal "Giles thinks that they might be part of some sect trying to raise some new evil in Sunnydale"

Anya sighed, "Well I just can’t see how you’ve all been doing this for so long, it’s boring. Demons come; demons try to raise bigger demons, dull, dull, dull."
 
 

"Apocalypses aren’t known for their entertainment value Anya" Giles grumbled as he handed her a large book.
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Willow noticed that the mood had improved considerably after Buffy went out to patrol. It had all kicked off with the usual arguments between Buffy and Spike, although they seemed worse this time since Spike, who always seemed to enjoy a good spat with Buffy, did not really seem in the mood and so his retorts were filled with a little more venom than usual. But once it was just the five of them the research party got into full swing, well, it wasn’t quite a research party, more five people with books in front of them, there wasn’t a huge amount of research going on. About an hour previously Giles and Spike had stared having an argument about Jimi Hendrix, whilst the rest of them looked on amused. Currently Giles was rummaging around in various boxes of vinyl in an attempt to prove his point.

"He bloody well did watcher so there’s no point getting out your pathetic excuse for a record collection" Spike smirked as he blew out a cloud of smoke

"Look here, I have the sodding album somewhere and when I find it I’ll prove to you without a doubt that Jimi Hendrix did not set fire to the American flag at the end of Star spangled Banner its just ludicrous"

"Spike how the hell would you know anyway" Xander asked throwing a Cookie in his direction, which Spike caught with one hand

"Because A. I have a kickarse music collection B. I know my musical history and C. I was there," He said before smugly biting into the cookie

"Well so was I, I just missed the Hendrix bit"

"You what"?

"Well it was a very long three days and unlike you Spike I am a human being"

"Ha!" Spike yelled getting to his feet, "I don’t bloody believe it, you fell asleep didn’t you"?

"Yes well…"

"One of the most amazing concerts of the last century, one of the greatest performers ever and you decided to get some shut eye during Hendrix’s set. What was it Rupert? All that dancing round campfires and painting flowers round your navel ware you out?"

Xander spat out a mouthful of cookie, "Pleeeease!"

Willow looked up confused from her place on the couch next to Spike "Uh, can I ask a question? Well how is you finding and playing the song gonna prove your point Giles"

"Excuse me"?

"Well to prove that he didn’t do it you’d need film footage or something, I mean it’s not like you can hear someone burning a flag"

"Ahh yes well", he paused as he looked down at the pile of records in front of him, "you may have a point"

"One point for the walking dead while the aging hippy is yet to score!" Xander laughed spraying yet more cookie crumbs on the book in front of him

Spike smirked smugly as he lit another cigarette before turning to willow, "Nice to have you on my side luv".

Willow felt herself blush as she stared up his face. <His eyes are blue> She thought, <Well I always knew that they were blue, but not that they were that blue>. At that moment she found it hard to believe that there was actually a demon inside of him, their was so much warmth in that face, the kind that she had only seen in Angels, but even that disappeared when he lost his soul and became Angelus. She felt herself wanting to touch the skin on his cheek, just to see how warm it felt, <Wow, when they say your body hangs off your cheekbones, with some people they aren’t kidding> She thought as she studied the area that she had wanted to touch <Whoever came up with that statement must have met him and… Oh God oh God, I’ve just spent the last minute staring at him, staring at spike!!! >.

Spike had stopped smiling at her almost as soon as he had started when he’d noticed the look of intense concentration on her face. <Oh for fuck sake she’s not still bloody scared; I mean she plonked herself on the couch next to me! > But it didn’t take him long to realise that there was no sign of fear on her face, more of a look of intrigue and…" Spikes thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Anya voice coming from across the room
 
 

"Who is this Jimi Hendrix? Is it some sort of Demon"? Everyone, including Spike and Willow turned towards Anya in complete and utter confusion.
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The research party didn’t last much longer after that. Buffy turned up just in time to stop Anya receiving a long lecture from Giles about the life and times of Jimi Hendrix. Willow had sat quietly throughout most of Buffy’s account of that night’s patrol, which apparently had been far more eventful than the previous nights. She had encountered the six demons again only this time they had actually fought back which meant that she had gotten a good look at their appearance. Buffy noted that each demon had a mark branded into their foreheads, although that wasn’t of great concern to her at that moment in time. " They attacked me Giles, I mean they just lunged, didn’t try and make funny first or anything, it totally went against the rules".

A look of intense concentration crossed Giles’s face, "This all sounds very familiar. I have a feeling I’ve heard of this"

"Well what is it?" Buffy asked bored

"Well the mark you described on the demons foreheads sounds familiar, I think I’ll have to consult the books on this one"

"Are you sure Giles, you don’t need us"? Asked Willow hopefully

"Yes you can all go, except for you Buffy, I’ll need you to go through some of the details of the attack"

"What!" Hey no fair Giles, I go out do all the butt kicking, how come I have to stay after class, Willow’ll stay and help you Wontya Will?"

"Buffy!" Giles yelled before Willow could answer, "How on earth can Willow help me if she wasn’t even there? Now get settled, we may be some time".

"Will!" Buffy glared at Willow as her watcher left the room, "help me out here"

"Oh stop whining Slayer" Spike sighed, "what the hell makes you think that Willow wants to hang around here all evening just so you can go jumping into army boys pants?" Buffy opened her mouth to retort but Spike continued, "Oh I get it, Captain cardboard stood you up did he? You know just when you sign someone off as being a tasteless pillock they always go ahead and surprise you"

"Spike" Willow whispered, not wanting a confrontation

"I think its up to Willow what she does Spike, and if Willow wants to help out a friend then…"

"No!" Yelled out Anya startling everyone in the room, "Willow cant stay, because, well… I’m staying at the dorm with her tonight, yes! I found a spell today at the fair and, she promised to help me with it"

"What?" Xander looked confused, "You don’t do spells"

"I used to, I used to do spells all the time, that’s why I was asked to become a vengeance Demon. I was, what is that silly expression you use? Ah yes Badass Wicca that was me. So come Willow" She said grabbing Willows arm and dragging her towards the door, "We have badass Wicca to do"
 
 

The two of them left. "Women" Xander shrugged as he walked out closely followed by Spike.
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Part four
 
 

Spike yelped as his foot connected with the hard metal of a park bench. "FUCK!" he shouted as he hopped around the park in pain, glad that no one was around to witness him in this unmanly state. Spike was in the foulest of bad moods, a mood that had started long before his foot had ever connected angrily with the bench.
 
 

About an hour previously he and Xander had walked Willow and Anya to the dorms after Anya had insisted on following through with her lie to Buffy about spending the night at Willows. After reluctantly leaving the girls he returned to the unusually cold darkness of his crypt. He pulled off his clothes leaving them in a trail towards his bed, got under the covers, closed his eyes and tried not to think about the weirdness that was the current state of his unlife.
 
 

Somewhere in the world between being awake and asleep, Spike turned over and sighed contently as his arm made contact with a soft wall of what felt like warm skin. Realising that this was not a typical characteristic of his bed he opened his eyes and found himself looking into a pair of familiar green ones. He pushed away the confusion clouding his brain as he let his eyes wonder over the intoxicating sheet covered female lying next to him.
 
 

Without warning she leaned forward and softly locked her lips with his, tracing her tongue across his fangs. His demon screamed for release as he tasted the warmth of her mouth and smelt the arousal pulsing off of her. Manoeuvring himself over her he grabbed the back of her head to take control of the kiss and she groaned at his sudden force.
 
 

After a few moments she pulled away from him breathlessly. Releasing the grip on her neck Spike ran his hand over the flushed skin of her cheeks and across the red hair which fanned back over his pillow, "perfect" he whispered
 
 

"Please" she whispered back
 
 

Knowing an invitation when he heard one, he sat back on his knees in front of her and slowly pulled the sheet from her body, inhaling sharply as the sheet exposed the deathly white skin of her small breasts which rose and fell as she breathed deeply, pale as that of any vampire, but with a red blush of arousal, warmth and beauty that no vampire could ever achieve.
 
 

When the sheet was completely lost he took in the perfect naked form before him. Running his hand along her smooth skin from her throat to her navel she let out a low moan of anticipation. <Oh yeah, she wants me> he thought leaning forward and edging his way up her body with the tip of his tongue, pausing at her breasts as his mouth caught hold of one of her nipples and ground it gently between his teeth. All the time he kept is hands gripped to waist, pinning her to the bed.
 
 

As she squirmed beneath the touch of his mouth she wound her fingers tightly into his hair, Spike smiled at the pleasurable pain she was causing him as he kissed the soft flesh between her breasts before moving on to work on her other nipple. She responded by raising her leg to stroke back and forth between his legs, Spike released her nipple and let out a low growl at the feeling of her smooth warm skin against his cock. Just as soon as she had begun she removed her leg and moved down the bed to lock her legs around his waist and pulled him towards her. Spike smiled with pride as his cock pressed against the immense wetness that was spreading between her legs
 
 

"Please" she hissed again quietly, pressing him towards her more firmly
 
 

<Damn! The little chit gets worked up fast> he thought, not expecting her to be ready so soon and quietly surprised that he felt so ready himself. < I wonder if she’ll let you taste her? > His demon whispered inside of him, and as if she could hear his thoughts she tilted her head, exposing the skin of her long throat to his eyes. He thought he might come there and then as he imagined her crimson blood dripping down that pale flesh, the spicy taste of it on his tongue and the sweet sound of him making her come beneath him.
 
 

He rushed forward and scooped her towards him, positioning her so that his cock was pushed against her entrance. He pulled her forward into a grinding kiss as he stroked his cock against her clit, relishing in the sound of her low moans and the feeling of warm moist flesh against his cock. Starting at her neck he dragged his tongue firmly up her neck until he reached her ear, he could feel her hot breath blowing against the other side of his neck.
 
 

"Ready pet?" He whispered gently into her ear
 
 

"Spike pleeease," she begged, the sound of which was music to his ears.
 
 

"Willow…"
 
 

Spike breathed in sharply and unnecessarily as he sat bolt up right in bed. <What the fuck?! Where the fuck? > His eyes darted around the room as he tried to make sense of the situation. Seeing the empty space in the bed next to him and the outline of his frustrated hard on through the sheet he suddenly remembered. <Where the hell did she go? No! That could not have been a dream, maybe this is the dream and in a minute I’ll wake back up in my bed with the beautiful warm red heard covering my…> "WHAT THE FUCK AM I SAYING?!!" he yelled leaping out of bed and pulling on his jeans. <What the hell is wrong with me?! She’s a bloody human, she’s just lunch on legs and here I am having dirty dreams about her. Need some air, need to kick some demon arse> He thought as he threw on his duster and stepped out into the cold night, slamming the door behind him.
 
 

Spike stomped along the streets of Sunnydale, not entirely sure where he was going but determined not to stop walking until Willows image had disappeared from his mind. But it wasn’t just the dream that bothered him; it was the way he had acted in the dream. Sure, he had shagged humans before, but he’d never even found out their names, just fucked them, came, possibly tortured them, always killed them and moved on. But in this dream he hadn’t wanted to cause her pain, well not the sort of pain she wouldn’t have liked anyway. He had wanted her to feel good, he wanted her to be happy, to scream his name in pleasure and he had loved every second of it. "FUCK!" He screamed as he kicked a park bench in anger and then proceeded to hop around then fall to the ground in pain.
 
 

"What the bloody hell is wrong with me?" He screamed at the empty park before picking himself up and stomping off in another direction, still not paying attention to where he was going. "All right so I help the slayer and her groupies, dealt with that and moved on. And I know that I care about the little witch, no point in denying that no matter how stupid it sounds. But what the hell is happening to me now? Am I just destined to turn into a big soulful tree hugging human loving pouf? Ha! Father like son alright" He shuddered at the thought of his sire as he reached into his pockets for his cigarettes, he withdrew a packet and on finding them empty threw the packet to the ground and looked up at the sky, "Alright mate" he said addressing the almighty, "You hate me and I hate you, but now your just taking the piss and… And where the fuck am I?"
 
 

He glanced around as he tried to take in his surroundings; a feeling of dread entered his long dead heart as it dawned on him that he had been standing in exactly the same place less than two hours previously. "OH FOR FUCK SAKE!" He screamed as he realised that he was standing outside of Willows dorms.
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Willow wasnt sure why she had let Anya talk her into this, but somewhere between leaving Giles and arriving at the dorms she had to admit that she had gotten caught up in Anyas excitement about the prospect of a girls night in.

"I've never actually been to one before, and from what I can gather they’re an essential part of my growth as a human female. And since you’re the only human female around here that I can stand..."

"Well I guess it could be fun" Willow smiled sadly as she thought about how long it had been since she and Buffy had last spent some time together.

"Er honey", Xander cut in, snaking an arm around her waist and grinning in what he thought was a seductive way, "Weren't you saying earlier that I was supposed to start giving you a little extra of something? I thought we might start tonight"

"Oh yes yes, but we can do that tomorrow night, and because we missed tonight you can give me extra, extra orgasms. You should go home and conserve your energy, or better still why don’t you and Spike go and have your own boys night in?"

"What?! Waste a perfectly good evening watching the neutered puppy over there drool over my veins? I'd rather spend an evening with Giles goin through his record collection."

Willow noticed that spike did rise to Xanders jibes like he normally would. In-fact he had been in some sort of strange broody mood for most of the walk back to the dorms. But then she hadn’t exactly been very sociable with him either. To be honest she had felt quite strange around him, especially after that staring incident which she was still embarrassed about.

After saying a quiet goodbye to Spike, she and Anya made there way upstairs to the dorms to begin their girly night in. Almost as soon as it had started Willow was wishing it would end, primarily because Anya insisted on doing everything by the book. She'd rummaged through Buffy's collection of Cosmopolitan’s (or the human femaleness bible as Anya called it) until she came across an article called 'how to create the perfect girls night in'. Anya had insisted that they sit and watch Pretty Woman, a film which she wasnt a fan of, whilst wearing face packs and eating ice cream, the latter being the only part Willow enjoyed.

Currently she was sat in a chair by the window whilst Anya, despite Willows protests, was sitting on the floor in front of her painting her toenails a bright red colour whilst ranting about the film they had just watched.

"Well I don’t get what her problem was"

"Anya" Willow sighed, "She was a prostitute"

"Exactly, not only did she get lots of sex, but she got money for it too. Do you think maybe I should become a prostitute"?

"Uh, I can’t really see Xander being too happy about you sleeping with other men for cash"

"Oh no silly, I was talking about making Xander pay to have sex with me"

"Uh, once again I think he might have issues"

"Men can be so difficult. Them and their issues, I mean look at Spike this evening, my Xander was trying his best to annoy him and did he have the decency to be horrible back? No. What is up with him?"

Willow looked down guiltily at her toes "I think that might have been my fault. I think I wigged him out earlier"

"How?"

"Well I was sort of staring at him, and before you ask I don’t know why I was"

"Sounds like someone’s finally discovered the sexy undead one" Anya added blowing on the nail polish

"This is wrong, I keep looking at him differently, like its the same old Spike, but its not, like there’s this other thing that I've never seen before, or maybe its always been there but until you mentioned it the other day I never noticed and then..."

"You're babbling, please stop"

"Sorry, we really don’t have to talk about this"

"Actually we do" Anya said picking up the copy of Cosmopolitan. "According to this at some point in the evening we should be talking about men"

At that moment the door banged open making Anya jump and spill nail varnish all over the magazine. Buffy stomped in and threw herself down on a bed. "Well thanks Will, you could've stepped in and saved me but no."

"I take it you didn’t have fun" Willow mumbled

"About as fun as detention with Giles could be. It was all prophecy this and ritual that, God I'm bored"

"Well cant you go and be bored somewhere else?" Anya chipped in

"Excuse me?"

"We're having a girls night in and you cant be here. Look" Anya held up the varnish stained magazine to Buffy's face so she could see the picture with the article. "There are only two women in the picture, and in this room there are three, you have to leave"

"Have you been going through my things?" Buffy stood up angrily, "That’s my magazine, and what’s this that you've got all over it?"

"Oh don’t whine I needed it. Why are you still here?"

As the two of them started arguing loudly, Willow turned round in her chair and leaned against the window ledge not wanting to get involved. Something was really wrong with her, and she had a bad feeling in her gut that she knew what it was. She knew these feelings; she remembered the way she had looked at Oz, the attention to detail, liking his hands, babbling around him. Okay so she babbled around everyone but that wasnt the point.

Why oh why did she never learn? She had promised her self that she would never do it again. The thing with Oz had almost broken her in two emotionally, and now she could feel it all starting again. But then this would be worse. Spike was a Vampire and she had seen all the pain that Buffy had gone through, not that that meant it would go the same way for her. But worse than that was the fact that for a girl like her he was completely unattainable. <Great> She thought as her eyes welled up with tears <Way to kid yourself Willow, thinking your unrequited love days were over. Its gonna be like Xander all over again>

Her sadness was interrupted by a sound coming from the ground outside the window. Over the sound of Buffy and Anya yelling she was sure she could make out the sound of someone swearing, and she was sure that she knew the owner of that voice. She stood up "Uh, anyone want a soda or something? I’m going down to the machine".

"What?" Buffy paused mid rant

"I'm going downstairs to get a soda because I want a special sort of soda, the kind that we don’t have up here" <Oh God that sounded stupid>
 
 

"Sure whatever" Buffy shrugged before leaning over to Anya, who was eyeing Willow suspiciously, and ripping the magazine out of her hands. As the row erupted again, Willow took the opportunity to run out of the room.
 
 

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Spike slumped against the steps of the building. "I bloody well give up," he muttered aloud as he let his head fall into his hands. <I think about her, I dream about her and then I end up wondering off and end up outside of her sodding house. Useless is what I am>

His attention was suddenly caught by a sent that carried on the breeze, something warm, like soft spicy incense, like…

"Spike?"

"GAAAHH!!" He jumped up and turned round to find himself staring at the one person in the world that he really didn’t, and yet really did want to see. "Bloody hell Red! What in Gods name did you do that for?"

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you"

"You didn’t," He added quickly as he sat back down

She moved closer to him. "I heard you yelling from my window, I thought it was you but… Do you mind if I sit?"

"There your steps luv" He said hesitantly

"Are you okay?" She asked sitting next to him

"I’m fine. Just needed some air. I guess it’s a bit far fetched to think that you might have a fag on you?" She giggled, "Guess not" He smiled as he saw the grin on her face that had replaced the worried frown. It was then that he noticed her lack of footwear and her brightly painted toes, "I take it that was the demon girls work?"

"What? Oh yeah, She insisted it was part of some female bonding ritual whereby one woman must paint the others nails"

"Not your usual sort of colour" he said, mentally admonishing himself as the words came out of his mouth for actually being aware of what colours she usually painted her nails.

"Anya picked it"

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, both of them feeling awkward and not knowing what to say to the other. Eventually Willow could stand it no longer and broke the silence. "Spike what’s going on?"

"What do you mean?" He said staring at the ground

"Things are weird."

"Yes pet that they are, but then that’s the Hellmouth for you"

"I mean weird between… Well, us". She saw his body stiffen as she the last word. "Have I done something to annoy you? Earlier on at Giles’s I didn’t mean…"

"Don’t"

"What? What have I done?"

"You haven’t done anything Red." He turned to look at her, "I’m just worried about what you might be about to do"

"I don’t understand"

"Best that it stay that way". He stood up to leave

"NO!" Willow yelled at him, then looked embarrassed at the thought of someone hearing her. Spike suppressed a grin at the firey beauty that came out of her when she was angry. "Well what I mean is, you can’t just walk out in the middle of an argument, well a conversation before nothing gets sorted out. I don’t even know what needs to be sorted out…" She trailed off as she realised that he had been staring at her throughout her babble.

He began to walk slowly back towards her, "You have no idea how bad it might be if I stay pet"

"Are you chipless?" She asked worriedly

"No" he stated, still watching her face

She sighed and leant back against the doorframe. "Then what’s happening?"

"You tell me"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Can you hear how annoying you are? Why cant you just answer the damn question? I mean why would I be asking you if you knew what was going on if I could just answer the question myself? I don’t need this y’know buster, I was having a perfectly good crappy evening upstairs, I didn’t need to come down here and be cold just so you could give me lots of one word answers and mess with my head. What is the point in…"

Willow was sure she was about to make a really good point. To be honest she wasn’t really sure at first why she had stopped talking, then it came to her, she couldn’t talk because she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t speak because Spike was covering her mouth, covering her mouth with… His mouth? <Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God! >

Spike could take it no more. As he moved he told himself that he was only doing it to stop her babbling, but this had been on his mind long before she had started talking. He rushed forward and took her mouth with his own, pinning her to the doorframe with the force of his kiss. His sanity and fear vanished as he allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of her mouth and the feeling of her skin as his fingers stroked round the back of her neck. As he pressed further into her he felt her respond, a small sigh escaped from her into his mouth as she pressed back into him.

< Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God… He’s kissing me!! Spike is kissing me! Should stop, should make him stop, must make him stop!! > Willow let her mind go on auto-babble as her head hit the doorframe and his fingers found the sensitive area on the back of her neck making her stomach do a back flip < really don’t wanna though>.

Spike pulled away and Willow felt the cold night air suddenly hit her mouth. Cautiously opening her eyes she saw Spike looking at her with a look on his face that was somewhere between shock and horror. It wasn’t as bad as the look that had been on his face that time when he realised he had been engaged to the slayer, but it came pretty close.

"Sorry" He whispered

"For what? What’s wrong"? Okay so technically there were many things wrong with what had just happened. Willow started to panic. <Was he drunk? Had he just sobered up and realised whom he’d been kissing? Was she that bad a bad kisser that she could even freak out a vampire? >

Suddenly the sound of Buffy’s voice could be heard calling from one of the windows above. "Willow! You down there?"

"I’ve got to go" Spike took a step backwards from willow, avoiding her eyes

"Wiiillloww! I know you’re down there! Watcha doin?"

Spike took the opportunity to run like the wind in the other direction out of Buffy’s line of sight. He knew it was the cowardly thing to do, but he felt like his brain was on fire. He wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened and he needed to make sense of it, something he couldn’t do whilst she was standing in front of him just making him want to do it again. He felt like a bastard, but no matter how much he told himself that he always liked being a bastard it didn’t make him feel any better.
 
 

Willow lent back on the doorframe that only a few moments ago felt wonderful, now it just made her neck hurt. Her eyes were filling up with tears as she watched him run off. "They’re all going to run away," she whispered to the cold night before turning and running back into the building.
 
 

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Part Five

It felt like she had been hiding under her duvet forever. In reality in had only been the best part of three days but at that moment she intended for it to be forever. She could feel it starting in the pit of her stomach, that horrible, twisting gut wrenching feeling- Love. But not the nice kind of love, not the butterflies, fireworks, rose tinted kind, this was the unrequited kind. It had taken her less than a week to fall in love and in less than a week she knew that there was no hope, seeing as how the object of her affection had run for the Sunnydale hills after just one kiss.

Somehow she'd managed to avoid almost everyone for the best part of three days, they all bought the flu excuse, but she knew that they wouldn’t quite buy her going down with a ten-year flu. She'd slept through most of it, curled up in a little ball under the duvet in her dorm; disturbed only occasionally by the odd ‘blink-and-you’d-miss-it’ appearance from Buffy. To be honest, aside form the emotional pain, she did feel pretty crappy, but she put that down to the idea of seeing Spike again making her feel physically sick.

<How did I let myself fall this far again? > She sat up and looked in the mirror, grimacing at her face which was red and puffy from excess crying <Nothing special, you knew you weren’t attractive, people don’t want you, you knew that and yet? >. The feeling of the kiss began to creep into her brain and a grin spread across her tear stained face and a warmth through her body. No one had kissed her like that before, Spike had kissed her like his life depended on it, and he just drew her in. Everything disappeared and it was just the two of them. No one had ever made the world disappear for her before.

On realising where her thoughts had led her she threw herself face down on her pillow, letting out a growl of frustration as she cursed herself for romanticising about it. <It. Meant. Nothing! >.

The screeching sound of the telephone interrupted her sobs. "Go away", Willow mumbled into her pillow. The phone continued. "I'm dead! The dead don’t use phones, well the undead do but I still don’t wanna talk to you whoever you are!" After two minutes the phone continued to ring. Willow reached out for the receiver without lifting her head from the pillow, "What?" she growled

"Buffy"? The caller stuttered into the phone

"Giles, is that you? This is Willow."

"Oh, from the tone of your voice I assumed you were Buffy, I always seem to be interrupting something she’s doing with a phone call or…"

"Giles, Buffy’s not here."

"Ahh yes well it was you I wanted to talk to. But first, how are you feeling?"

"Still in the land of crap but I wouldn’t quite say I’m dying now."

"I’ll take that as being a good sign. The thing is if you are feeling better then do you think you could possibly make an appearance this evening? I’ve made a huge amount of progress researching those demons that Buffy encountered the other night and there’s some new information I think you all should hear, and we could always use an extra hand with research."

"What about the others? They’re always super willing to research, in their own special ways."

Giles sighed, "Well yes, Xander’s been doing an excellent job of eating me out of house and home over the last few days, and when he’s not doing that he’s half-way down Anya’s throat."

"What about Buffy and Spike?"

"Actually none of us have seen Spike for the last few days. I called him yesterday to try and get him to help and he; well let’s just say his response wasn’t exactly positive. He’ll be here tonight though; Buffy’s gone to see him now to make sure of it. So can we expect to see you?"

Willow’s head buried deeper in the pillow as it dawned on her that in no sensible reality could she hide forever. It may as well be now rather than never. "I’ll be there," She mumbled into the soft cotton of the pillow.

"Pardon?"
 
 

"I said I’ll be there!" she yelled into the receiver and slammed down the phone, leaving Giles to wonder what on Earth he had said to offend the girl.
 
 

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Less than an hour later Willow found herself staring at a close up image of Giles's front door as she rested her forehead against it, trying to gather the courage to go in. Somehow during the walk there she'd managed to stop herself wanting to puke and some strange kind of numbness had settled over her, she put it down to being all cried out after three days of sobbing into her pillow. But that still didn’t mean that she wanted to be standing there. Taking a deep breath she knocked three times using her forehead.

"Willow," Giles beamed down brightly at her as he opened the door. "We've missed you around here"; He held the door open at arms length so she could duck under and into the shop.

"So I see," she mumbled as her eyes took in the disorganised research area of the shop; books lying open in messy piles surrounded the table, as well as various empty food cartons. It was sweet to know that things seemed to fall apart without her.

Giles hurried round the table throwing the empty packets into a bag whilst attempting to straighten the books, "Er, yes well... We've all been very busy with research and what not."

"Where is everyone anyway?" Willow asked as she sat at the table.

At that moment there was an awful screeching noise outside the shop, it sounded sort of like someone yelling at someone at the top of his or her voice. Giles closed his eyes as he braced himself for the storm to hit.

"Just get in there!" Buffy yelled as the front door banged opened and Spike came flying in, connecting sharply with the doorframe on the way. Willow stiffened, but didn't raise her head to look at him once.

"Ow! For fuck’s sake slayer, I’m quite capable of walking through a bloody door without your masochistic idea of help."

"Oh yeah right, like you would have come round here of your own accord if I hadn't dragged you kicking and screaming like a girl away from your TV. I mean even Willows dragged herself out of her sick bed to be here. Quit whining, the TV will still be there when you get back."

Spike froze as he saw the red head sitting at the table. He hadn’t noticed her when he'd first stumbled in; he’d been a bit preoccupied what with being run down by that dump truck of a slayer and all. He noticed that she wouldn’t look at him <Not like you can blame her after your roadrunner performance the other evening, she probably thinks you don’t give a fuck>.

Spike had spent the last three days in a similar way to Willow. Well, without the crying. Cooped up in his crypt he'd replayed that kiss in his mind many times, he almost kicked himself for running away and over the course of the last three days he'd had to stop himself from leaving the crypt and going to her a hundred times. <But where would that get you? A stake in the chest from slutty? No, no point in being all Kamikaze about this>.

He hated the fact that she was probably sitting there right now thinking this was all a big joke to him, he needed a chance to explain. He winced at the words going through him, <explain myself? Whipped is what you are boy>.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts, he didn’t register the sound of Giles asking him if he was okay. Something about her called out to him and blocked out everything else, she was calling to him right now and she didn’t even know it. He needed to get out of there; he needed to get out before something bad happened. He took a step backwards towards the door, which at that moment flew open and slammed into his arm as Xander and Anya made their entrance.

"All bow before the mighty Xander! Bringer of calorific treats and other cavity inducing items."

"He brought doughnuts." Anya translated

"Nice shot Xand." Buffy said referring to the seriously pissed off vampire who was rubbing his arm.

"Oh sorry about that Spike. I’d give ya a doughnut but they didn’t have the blood filled kind. But I did get you this" he dangled a brown bag in front of his face, "Fresh from Willy’s, y’see, treats for everyone". Spike snatched the bag out of his hand and headed for the kitchen leaving Xander watching him in disbelief. "Thank you Xander," he mocked "huh, the manners of the undead these days, what’s his problem?"

Willow didn’t need this. It was perfectly clear to her that her presence was making him uncomfortable and it was getting really difficult to keep up the act of being happy research Willow. It was time to get all of this over and done with. "So Giles what was it you wanted to talk about? That demon thing"

"Ah yes well, we’ve actually found out quite a bit while you’ve been away"

"We? It was me, I found it" Xander chipped in

"Yes well…"

"Just making sure you tell it like it is G-Man"

"Well the point is that it would seem that those demons Buffy encountered the other evening might be a lot more dangerous than we first thought"

"Which ones?" Buffy asked searched through a box of doughnuts, trying to find her favourite kind.

"The ones that attacked you the other night. They belong to a species known as the Hitikans." Giles placed a book on the table and pointed to a picture of a symbol"

"That’s it," Buffy said, "That’s the mark they had on their foreheads"

"Looks like the Star Trek symbol" Xander added through a mouthful of cream

Anya suddenly looked up from her bored position at the table "I’ve seen these, while I was a vengeance demon there was this woman in Indonesia who’s husband had run off with her sister and… Well anyway, these can’t be the Demons you saw."

"Why not?" Buffy asked

"Because these demons are big homebody’s, they’re only found in Indonesia and it’d have to be something pretty big to make them come here."

"Don’t think I’ve ever heard of em," Spike added from the doorway of the kitchen making Willow jump.

"So what’s their deal?" Buffy asked

"Well the Hitikans are broken up into different groups, I believe it happened after a holy war over a five centuries ago. Each group is composed of no more than six demons, all of which have different markings and ceremonial dress to show that they are different from the other groups."

"Yeah but what I meant is what do these guys want here in Sunnydale" Buffy repeated, "Doesn’t it say in the book"?

"Well no, all the books have a limited amount of information on the Hitikans and since we are dealing with one of maybe a thousand different groups there isn’t going to be anything specific listed here. Although I did manage to get in contact with a friend of mine who has a copy of the Hitikan bible, which should provide us with more detail on the different Hitikan sects. It should arrive here in about a week."

Buffy stood up and stretched, "Well I guess without the information there’s not much that we can do tonight?"

"On the contrary" Giles stood and removed his glasses, "There’s plenty to do"

"Like what?"

"We patrol Buffy. We may not know what needs to be protected, but there are still a group of demons here up to no good. I suggest you all go out and try and find the branded demons, find out what there up to, slay them if possible".

"Oh well, I guess a little slay-action is better than nothing. Coming Will?"

Willow went to speak but was interrupted by an unexpected voice, "Don’t be bloody ridiculous, the girls been in ill for the past few days". Spike suddenly realised the ridiculousness of what he’d just said as five pairs of eyes stared at him as though he were wearing an evening gown with a parrot sitting on his shoulder. "I mean she’s ill", he added quickly, "She’ll just hold us back, get in the way while we’re trying to kick the crap out of something". He regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth.

Willow stood and ignoring Spike turned to face the slayer, "I’ll be fine"

"You sure Will? I mean God strike me down for saying it but Spike has a point"
 
 

"I’ll. Be. Fine. Just let me get my stuff", she stomped off past Spike, making sure she bashed into his sore arm as she did so.
 
 

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<Welcome to the worst patrol in history> Willow thought to herself as they walked through the dark cemetery. Under normal circumstances the group would be in constant chatter mode, mostly consisting of she and Spike quietly mocking the others when they said something dumb, as they often did. Currently the only sound to be heard was from Buffy who was inanely whining at Giles. Next to them were Xander and Anya who walked along silently arm in arm. Spike was ahead of the group, stomping along as though he were looking for a fight, a constant stream of cigarette smoke blew back from him as he walked along chain-smoking.

Willow hung at the back of the gang, not really wanting to get forced into taking sides in yet another Buffy/Giles argument and having no wish to go up front with Spike like she normally would have done. She pulled her coat tighter around herself as she wished, not for the first time that she had just let Spike win the illness argument.

An arm suddenly came from nowhere and snaked through hers, she turned to find Anya beaming at her like a nurse smiling at an elderly patient, it made her laugh the way she tried to mimic human behaviour when trying to be comforting, and in a way it worked.

"I’m going to pretend that I’m not offended by the fact that you haven’t told me any of the Spike details and just be comforting"

"Wha, what?" Willow was shocked. Was she making it that obvious?

"Oh don’t worry, none of them have noticed" She waved a hand nonchalantly in front of her. "I’ve just been studying you both"

"Really?"

"Oh yes, very closely, you might even say obsessively. And I smell tension."

"Wow, you’ve been smelling us too, I feel honoured."

"What happened?"

"Oh nothing, except me making a huge fool out of myself, well actually I’m not sure how I did make a fool out of myself since I’m not even the one who did anything in the first place and… Oh God", her resolve began to slip and she bowed her to the floor as tears began to slip involuntarily from her eyes.

"Do I need to let loose a little vengeance on his ass, because even in mortal form I’m sure I could still do it. I’d take a little longer and it probably wouldn’t be as spectacular. The demon within never really goes away you know." she said smiling proudly.

"Hey! Willow," Buffy called out from in front of her "I need back up."

"What?"

"My watcher is picking on me," she pouted playfully. Spike sighed loudly and rolled his eyes skyward.

"Buffy I am not picking on you", Giles said wearily, "I am merely being honest with you. It’s obvious that your slaying duties haven’t been your highest priority of late."

"Well I’ve had important life stuff, Buffy stuff, which on occasion conflicts with Slay stuff, tell him Willow."

Willows mind raced to find answer as Buffy made a pleading face behind Giles’s back. "Well y’know, you’ve been out a lot…"

"Well that is exactly my point" Giles turned to Buffy; ignoring the look she was giving Willow.

"Oh come on be real Buffy", Anya yelled from Willow’s side, "There’s no point in asking Willow, she never sees you. You’re always out doing this and that".

"Yeah, out doing that slay thing. Anyway how would you know, what are you? Willow’s best buddy now, her lawyer? Willow what have you been saying about me?"

Willow decided to remain silent as Anya stepped forward, "All I’m saying, and by ‘I’m’ I mean me, is that you shouldn’t expect us to cover for you when you lie to Giles, that’s all".

"So what about those demons huh?" Xander shouted above the group in an attempt to steer them all away from an argument, "Any idea when the pesky little critters are gonna make their grand entrance?"

Xander’s comments were ignored as the girls began to fire insults at one another. Willow stepped back away from them as her attempts to defend herself against Buffy’s accusations were drowned out by even more ridiculous accusations.

Spike noticed how Willow seemed to shrink during the argument, like a small rabbit in Buffy’s headlights, but at the same time she looked like something might explode from her. It was obvious that she was trying with everything that she had to hold back. Without thinking, he swallowed unnecessarily as his legs made his way to her side; his protesting brain didn’t really have much choice in the matter. She froze as she felt him approach, but not once did she look up from the ground.

"You all right here then"? He asked also avoiding her gaze

"Fine" She replied rubbing the sleeve of her jacket against the side of her face

Spike glanced over to the rest of the group; Buffy and Anya were just hitting the peak of their heated argument as Xander and Giles danced about them trying to calm everyone down. Taking a huge risk in thinking he wouldn’t be noticed he turned to face her for the first time in the last three days. Hesitantly he reached out his hand to her chin and tilted her head up so that she was facing him. He looked into her eyes for a moment, "Always the bad liar". He said letting a small smile appear on his face, which Willow mistook as a mocking grin.

She brushed his hand away, "What are you, bored? You don’t have to talk to me in fact I, I’d prefer it if you didn’t."

Spike dropped his hand from her face. For a second, before she bowed her head again he opened his mouth to say something, she was sure she saw something flash across his face some kind of emotion; he recovered so quickly she almost didn’t notice it.

"Have it your own way Red" he stepped back and began to light a cigarette. "You know you don’t have to…"

He was cut off by a loud shriek. They turned to see Anya darting out of the way as a large demon lunged at her from the bushes. Within seconds five more demons, all carrying heavy swords descended on the group. Spike’s instincts took over, he slipped into game face and threw himself at Willow, pushing her out of the way and into a nearby bush before running straight into the middle of the fierce fight beginning in front of him.

Willow was panicking, and the more she panicked and struggled the more her legs became tangled in the branches of the bush. She could hear the sounds of punches and the swishing of blades but had no idea what was going on. Freeing an arm she bushed aside the branches. The first thing she saw was Xander- somehow staying alive whilst fighting two demons at once. Buffy’s voice was a constant in the background of the fight, mocking the demon she was pummelling with every punch.

Spike came into view behind Xander, he had obviously just made a kill as the tall blade he held above his head dripped with blood. He darted around and turned his attention to one of the demons attacking Xander. He held the sword down by his side and in one swift fluid movement, grabbed the demon’s neck with his free hand and with a heavy force spun him round and cracked his neck against a tree. He dropped his broken body in a heap on the floor. She could see why he loved this; he was so damned good at it.

Her view suddenly disappeared as something heavy landed in front of her. The something groaned wearily, "Giles!" Willow yelped, "You okay?"

"Absolutely fine, nothing that a week in intensive care won’t solve"

Willow struggled madly to free herself. Pulling herself clear of the branches she stood up and surveyed the scene. The battle was still raging but everyone appeared to be in one piece.

Suddenly the demons began to back away from the people they were fighting, in unison they all began to look around as if they had heard or smelt some thing. Before the gang had time to react to the change in circumstance the three remaining demons ran in Willows direction. A collective force like a truck rammed into her and pinned her by the throat to the side of a tree. Sharp claws began to pierce the flesh of her neck and constrict her airflow as the pressure forced fresh tears from her tightly closed eyes; she knew she was about to pass out. Using all her remaining energy she forced her eyes open and found herself facing the blurry image of the symbol from the book she had read earlier, painfully burnt into the rough skin on the demons forehead. Slowly it raised its hand and placed the tip of one of its claws on her temple, it gently pressed down as it drew its claw across her skin leaving a line of blood as the skin broke.

A large, pale hand came from nowhere and gripped around the demons neck, pulling it back from her face. The pressure lifted and air flooded back into her lungs. She felt her knees give way as she impacted with the ground and the feeling of arms circling her. Opening her eyes she saw the anxious faces of Anya and Xander. "You are alive aren’t you"? Anya yelled at her

"Will, talk to me!" Xander freaked, shaking her. "Oh my God, I think she’s gone into some kind of shock," he said referring to her staring in a trance like state over his left shoulder. Willows attention had been grabbed by Spike who was ferociously laying into the demon who had attacked her. The demon didn’t really stand a chance against the blows that the vampire was raining down on it. She watched his face intently, rage filled eyes flashed with gold as he ripped the demons torso to bloody shreds before hurling him across the graveyard, blood sprayed across the grey stone of a tomb with the impact of it’s landing.

As Buffy frantically fought with the other two, Spike sauntered past her towards the dying form of the demon. With frightening ease Spike lifted it off the ground and pinned it by the throat against the tomb as it had done to Willow. Tightening his grip he moved his face to within an inch of the demons nose, "I don’t give a flying fuck what you and your little gargoyle troop want, but round here there are rules", he lowered his voice to a whisper, "You don’t touch the red head, understand?" Blood splattered out of the demons mouth as it made an attempt to speak. Spike leaned closer, "I don’t like repeating myself mate, but in your case I’ll make an exception. You don’t touch her, SHE. IS. MINE!" He emphasised each of the last three words with a punch before picking up the demons own sword and slamming it into its gut to finish him off.

Seeing the violent demise of their comrade, the other two demons backed away from their fight with the slayer and ran off into the cemetery. Buffy quickly turned and went after them, closely followed by a limping watcher.

Spike turned and walked over to Willow who was still lying in Anya's arms. He knelt in front of her and removed her from Anya’s arms and into his as he nervously checked her injuries whilst Xander looked on like an expectant mother, "So what’s the diagnosis doc? She gonna live?"

"Nothin that a little time wont heal"

"My head hurts." Willow mumbled against his jacket

Spike smiled down at her "That'll be that pesky tree that made contact with the back of your head luv."

"You smell of cigarettes." She murmured before going limp in his arms

Xander stood up, "She gonna be okay?"

"Its just the shock that’s got to her" he said stroking the hair out of her eyes

Xander watched Spike as if he were hallucinating as he witnessed the tender care he took over Willow. He knew he should object but he couldn’t ignore the feeling that she would be safe in his hands. He stood up, "I’m gonna go after Buffy. Get the girls back to Giles". Spike nodded and Xander rushed off in the direction that Buffy and Giles had gone. Anya stood up as soon as he was out of sight.

"Where the hell are you going?" he asked as he struggled to his feet with Willow
 
 

"To stop Xander doing his superman impression. What’s the point in having a dead boyfriend?" She gave spike a knowing smile and ran off on a mission to save her boyfriend’s life.
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Spike ran as fast as he could back to Giles house. He knew he didn’t really have to run; it certainly wasn’t the easiest thing to do whilst carrying a fully-grown human. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that more of those demons would appear out of nowhere at any moment, he wasn’t scared for himself of course, he could take the ugly sods down with one hand tied behind his back. His fears were for the safety of the unconscious red head lying in his arms, no way were they getting their hands on her.

So deep in thought was he that he didn’t notice when the unconscious Redhead suddenly came back to life. "Spike what’s going on?" She mumbled into his neck

He shivered at the feeling of her breath on his neck "We’re getting out of here pet."

She suddenly realised where she was and how fast they were going, "Are you kidnapping me again?"

"For fuck sake, you fainted and I’m helping you. Hard to believe I know, can barely bloody well believe it myself."

"Well don’t then."

"Look don’t get all…"

"Spike just put me down! I can walk by myself!" Spike carefully helped her stand on her feet. At first she came over a bit dizzy and Spike tried to help steady her but she slapped his hands away. "See?" pulling herself to her full height as she tried to hold on to her dignity. "I’m fine."

"So you keep saying. Look can we just get off the streets please, I don’t fancy trying to explain to the Slayer why some demons turned you into Witch paste."

Within minutes they had arrived at Giles empty house. Willow slipped the key in the door and let them both inside, throwing herself down on the sofa as she entered the house. She said nothing to Spike, who leaned up against the wall on the other side of the room and lit a cigarette. He was attempting to put as much distance between them as possible.

His brain was racing, for the first time in three days he had her just where he wanted her, alone. This was his chance to explain everything to her, to make things go back to the way they were. Problem was that his brain would let the words come out, it didn’t just want things to go back to the way they were, it wanted more. "How’re you doing?"

"Fine." She said without looking up

"Would you stop saying that?"

"What have I done?"

"I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine," he said trying to mimic her voice, "I swear you say that one more time and chip or no chip I’ll, I’ll…" He winced and grabbed his side, "Well you get the picture".

Willow stood up, "What’s wrong?"

"Nothin, just took a bit of a bash from that demon git"

She walked up to him and pulled his jacket away revealing a deep gash in his side which was soaking his shirt with blood, "Goddess this is deep"

Spike pulled his jacket back over it, "Like I said it’s nothing. Won’t last long, vampire healing remember?"

"Screw vampire healing, come with me." She said going off into the bathroom. Spike stubbed his cigarette in one of Giles plants and followed her. Willow was rummaging round in a medical kit searching for bandages and antiseptic. When she found what she was looking for she turned to Spike who was standing in the doorway. "Sit" She ordered

"Y’know there’s no need for this."

Willow stepped over to the toilet and slammed the lid down, "Sit!"

He removed his jacket and did as he was told. "And the shirt" She said as she turned back to the medical kit. When she turned back she wasn’t really prepared for the sight that greeted her. Spike, shirtless and sitting only two feet away from her. She blushed as remembered a few of the dreams she’d had over the last three days that had started with him in this state of undress. She shook her head, <You hate him remember. He bad guy you the injured party. There’s no sexiness here. Oh God, yes there is>.

She took a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bath opposite him. "Lean back," she instructed, not looking him in the face. He silently obeyed and she started cleaning the wound. Spike closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the wall as he marvelled in the feeling of warm fingertips dancing over his skin, knowing that he should probably make the most of it as in the real world this was the only time he’d ever feel it. He was concentrating very hard on convincing himself that this was just a relaxation thing so as not to awaken certain areas of his body, there was no way he could hide an erection with her being so close to him.

He began to search his mind for some of the least sexy things he could imagine. Former American Presidents, that time he walked in on Xander when he was taking a shower, kissing the Slayer… But his mind kept wandering to the woman who’s hands were on him at that moment, the feeling of her warm mouth, that smell, the fact that she was right in front of him. He screwed his eyes up tightly and concentrated on the white spots forming behind his lids.

"Am I hurting you?"

"What?" He asked without opening his eyes

"Its just that you look like you’re in pain."

"I’m fine."

Willow laughed bitterly at his response

"Is there a problem?"

"I'm fine, I’m fine, I’m fine." She said in a whiney voice, "You seem to have a few double standards going on there."

"Do what I say, not what I do luv."

"Talking of what you say. What was that 'She is mine' crap you said to that demon earlier?"

<What is she talking about? > He searched his brain, <Oh crap I did say that> "That? That was just something you say before you bash some sods brains out. Makes it a bit more personal y'know."

Willow slammed down the bottle of antiseptic and picked up the bandages. She had her head bowed her as she worked and her hair covered her face, he could just make out the thin ‘U’ shaped scratch on her temple where the demon had marked her. Without thinking he reached with his hand and brushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. Once again she slapped his hands away. "Don’t," she snapped pulling herself back from him.

With lightening reflexes his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist tightly. "This stops now", he said slowly as he looked up at her face

"What?" She said not returning his gaze

"Willow look at me!" slowly she turned her face towards him. He could hear her heart pounding with a mixture of fear and anticipation. "Now talk to me."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"Just tell me what’s going on in that overactive brain of yours."

After a moments silence, she finally mumbled, "I want this to stop"

"Want what to stop?" he said, not really sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

"I want it to stop, no more than that, I want it to go back to how it was before, before..."

"I kissed you," he whispered as his face fell

"I don’t like being played Spike. You kissed me, you ran away and now everything’s messed up. We can’t talk to each other anymore, everything’s awkward; I have all these weird feelings and my brains like this mad parade of confusion. All that because of one stupid kiss, which you started by the way." Her resolve faded and tears began to fall onto her cheeks.

Spikes anger boiled over and he leapt to his feet, "Well, if that’s how you feel you can fuck off now! Or maybe I will" He stomped off past her and picked up his jacket ready to leave.

"I miss you Spike" He froze in the doorway. "I miss having you, someone to talk to, someone that seems to get me. I didn’t hate the kiss; I wanted it so badly without even knowing it. But it’s taken you away from me."

As she spoke Spike slowly turned and sat back down in front of her. Everything she had just said lifted a heavy weight off of his dead heart, in her own Willow words she had just confirmed that she felt the same way he did. She was human and that didn’t repulse him, this was new territory. He was suddenly introduced to the strange sensation of being happy and scared at the same time. He held her face in his hands, "I’m still here baby."

"We can’t do this can we?" she whispered sadly.

The logical part of his brain forced him reluctantly to reply, "No." whilst the rest of his body screamed for another answer.

She took a deep breath and began to wipe her eyes, "Well, at least we know" She smiled sadly. "I should uh, I should finish this up," she said gesturing to the cut on his side. She stood up to return to the medical kit.

No matter how much Spike knew that whatever was beginning was doomed, everything inside him screamed that this wasn’t the end. His arm shot out and re-gripped her wrist pulling her down sharply into his lap. Grabbing the back of her head he pulled her into him and kissed her deeply and slowly, making sure he explored every inch of her mouth in-case this was the last time he ever got to experience it. She wasn’t fighting him she was just letting herself be taken; he liked that in a girl.

Suddenly she pulled back. He had obviously forgotten about the whole human’s need to breath thing.

"What’s wrong?"

"Are you about to run away again?"

His face morphed into a seductive grin, "I’m not going anywhere".

He scooped her closer towards him and descended on her mouth once again. He was less tender with her this time; soft kisses were replaced by a roughness that verged on pain, good pain, the kind that silenced all the alarm bells going off in her head.

Willow responded feverishly, pushing her body against him until you couldn’t have got a sheet of paper between them. His rough hands ran up her legs on either side of his lap, he paused as he reached the hem of her skirt that was riding high on her thighs, as if to ask for permission. Willow laughed mentally at the idea of the 'big bad' asking for permission to put his hand up a girl’s skirt. Willow leant back from him to allow him easier access. He ran his hands up to the top of her thighs and gripped them tightly, grinding her against his erection.

Slowly he pulled away from her mouth; he wanted to watch her face as he changed tactics. Removing one hand from under her skirt he ran his hand up her stomach to her breast and began to play with her hardening nipple thought the shirt, while with his other hand he slowly massaged her clit through her underwear.

Slowly she began to lose all of her inhibitions as she shivered with the sensations his hands were giving her. As heat steadily began to rise through her body her breaths deepened into low moans, which Spike was obviously revelling in as evidence of his effect on her. Needing a closer contact she slowly began to undo her shirt as she rocked against his hand, aching for more pressure.

Spike began to get impatient as he witnessed her slowly undressing herself. Timing her thrusts, he waited until she pulled her hips back then pulled her wet panties to one side, as she rocked forwards again he thrust two fingers inside her with ease. She whimpered and arched against him as her hands fell from her shirt in shock at the pleasant surprise. Spike, spurred on by her sounds, reached up and ripped her shirt open, exposing a sheet of flawless pale skin to his eyes. He leaned forward and ran his tongue across the top of her breasts that peaked above her bra, taking in her scent.

As his hand moved up to caress her breast he traced a line of soft kisses up to her collar bone before replacing his lips with his tongue, he made his way to her neck, mimicking his dream. He could feel the sweet metallic taste of blood as his tongue swept over one of the healing cuts that the demon had made on her neck, he paused underneath her jaw and felt her pulse beat frantically against his lips, calling to him. His mind was wandering what the hell to do next; he wanted her badly, but there was no way he was going to take her here on the watchers bathroom floor, shags in strange places were fine the third or forth time, but he wanted her to remember this first time forever, not just whenever she used the watcher’s toilet.

He removed his hand from between her legs, pleased to hear her sounds of protest as he did so.

"Spike Wha…"

"Shhhh." he said placing a hand on her mouth, "All in good time luv"

"But," she panted

"Shhhh." he traced her lips with his thumb, marvelling at all the untapped passion that was coming out of her, all of it directed at him. He could lose himself in her, in the best possible way, but not yet. He wanted her to realise what she was getting into, to realise that what ever she had had from a lover before would be nothing like this. He didn’t want her to be going into this because she was in love with a fantasy; he needed her to be in love the reality.

"Is something wrong?" she asked calming down

He laughed "Things are so bloody right" He pulled her down until her forehead was touching his, "A little too right for my liking."

"Spike?"

"Yeah."

"What’s that noise"?

"Huh?" He looked at her, more watching her face than listening to the words coming out of her mouth.

"Oh dear lord!" Willow and Spike turned toward the open bathroom doorway to find Giles staring at them as if the hellmouth had just opened up in the very spot they were sitting. Willow froze, knowing that she should stand up but not quite sure how to get her terrified brain to send a message to her feet. Spike held onto her waist protectively.

"What’s up Giles"? A voice called from somewhere in the apartment. Xander suddenly came into view in front of Giles. At first he didn’t seem to register what was going on, as if his eyes were playing some sort of trick on him.

It was then that Buffy decided to see what the problem was. "You guys, what is it? Big spider in the tub?" She paused in the doorway for a moment looking at Giles before her head turned in the direction of Willow and Spike. "What the hell!" She rushed forward and yanked Willow off of Spikes lap. Willow desperately tried to cover her chest with her open shirt as Spike jumped to his feet.

"BASTARD" Buffy screamed as she knocked the vampire to the floor in blind rage. "What, does that chip of yours have some sort of built in rape loophole?" She picked him up and slammed the side of his face against the wall

"Buffy! NO!" Willow screamed, latching onto the slayers shoulders in an attempted to pull her back.

Buffy turned to her confused, "What the hell do you mean No?"

"He didn’t, I mean he wasn’t doing that"

"Oh God" Xander mumbled from the door way as the truth hit him, "The two of you, you two…" His eyes darted back and forth between them

Buffy let go of Spike. "How long?" She said without emotion in her voice

"God you just hate to left out of the loop don’t you?" Spike spat at her, "Nothing’s been going Slayer, nothing until now."

"Was I talking to you?"

"It’s the truth Buffy" Willow stammered as she re-buttoned her shirt

"Well it stops now!" She grabbed Willows arm and dragged her into the living room past a still stunned Xander and Giles. "I don’t care when what you two think is starting but I’m here to tell you that its not gonna continue."

Spike followed them "That’s not your decision slayer"

"Oh really, well obviously Willow isn’t of sound mind to know what she should do"

"Now come on Buffy" Giles said as he perched on the arm of his sofa, "Lets just all calm down and try and get some perspective on this. Now we’re all a little shocked and well, alarmed at Willows actions but…"

"Damn right I’m shocked and alarmed, and pissed off."

At this moment Anya stepped through the front door, "Well thanks for waiting for me, you could all be dead now for all I knew. I was very worried". She paused and looked around the room, "Okay who’s arguing with who now?" No one said anything. She looked at the topless Spike then over at the dishevelled Willow and quickly added it all up. "Yay! You guys finally started getting it on, I’m so pleased for you both". She walked over to Willow and gave her a big hug.

"Anya honey, this isn’t the time" Xander said

"What?"

"Willow is it true?" Xander said ignoring his girlfriend. Willow just stared back at him, the look in her eyes confirming everything. Xander looked away from her and slumped down on the sofa.

Buffy stepped into the middle of the room, "Now here’s what’s gonna happen"

"Excuse me?" Spike glared at her

Buffy ignored him; "I’m going to take Willow back to the dorms. Tomorrow we’re all going to meet and research like always. But this doesn’t happen again", she turned to face Spike. "I will not allow you to use my best friend whatever perverted little game you’ve got going on, I’m onto you Spike, even if she’s not".

"What!" Anya yelled before Spike could, "Who made you boss of the world, you have no right. Xander tell her!" Xander continued to stare at the floor in front of him and just shock his head.

Buffy continued, "We just carry on as a team, but you two don’t work alone together. Whatever it is that you’ve got into Willow’s system gets out now."

"Buffy." Willow whispered from the corner of the room

"It’s the only way Willow, it’s for your own good", she turned back to Spike, "If you try and see her outside of office hours, then your relationship with Mr Pointy is gonna get really intimate, understand?"

Spike sniggered, trying to hide how tense he was, "Strange, you don’t look like Willow’s dad and yet."

Buffys hand snapped out and grabbed him round the throat, "Do you understand?"

"You can’t do this Slayer." he choked out

"Spike…"

"Buffy, let’s just go home," Willow mumbled

"Fine." she released her grip on Spike’s neck.

"I’m sorry," Willow mumbled to the room. "I’m really sorry," she mumbled again with a fleeting glance in Spikes direction.
 
 

Willow slipped quietly out of the front door, closely followed by Buffy.
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 Part Six

It was the longest walk home of her entire life. She knew that Buffy would be upset, she had every right to be, its not every day you walk in to find your best friend in the arms of a vampire that had dedicated a great deal of time and effort in trying to erase you from existence.

So she decided that the best way to deal with it was to just kept quiet and let Buffy talk, well yell at her while she retreated inside of her spinning brain.

"I should kill him, I mean I should. And you! I know that things have been rough for you lately with Oz and everything but Spike? I should have known I should have seen what he was up to, bastard!"

By the time they reached the halls Willow wanted nothing more than to just find a quiet spot to break down and cry. Willow rushed into their room before the still ranting Buffy, quickly gathered her things and fled to the bathroom. As soon as she was alone and the door was locked she fell to the ground and wept with confusion. No matter what Buffy's demands were she knew that she couldn’t just stop what had started, didn’t want to stop it. Just an hour previously it had all been so amazing, she hadn’t been herself; no she was herself. She hadn’t had to pretend to be something else, with Oz she had always felt embarrassed when she was aroused or naked, she'd bite her lip till it bled to keep herself silent, the covers pulled up around herself. Yet with Spike she had let herself go, he had seen her and not been disgusted, quite the opposite in fact.

The smile that had been brought on from these thoughts quickly faded as she realised the situation she was in now. She had lost it all, she had lost him; Buffy would make sure of that. And the others, who knows what they were thinking about 'nice' little Willow.

Something began to thump on the door behind her. "Willow, hurry up in there", Buffy yelled bringing her back to reality.

"I'll just be a minute," She yelled back in her best 'I’m okay' voice. She went to the sink and turned on the taps. She wiped the steam that was appearing on the mirror in front of her away and stared at her self. She felt different; come to think of it she looked different too. "Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better", she said to her reflection

"Willow! Who are you talking to in there?"

"No one" She whispered as she watched her reflection disappear under a layer of steam
 
 

<Welcome to the most surreal research party in the history of the hellmouth> Xander thought as he surveyed the scene before him. It had been a week since the bombshell had dropped and somehow the group had all avoided being in the same place at the same time. That was until tonight when Giles constant phone calls had finally got annoying enough to make go everyone round to his place for a research party.

Xander wasn’t sure if he had ever felt more uncomfortable in his entire life; sure, if some random demon came bursting through the doors at that moment everything would seem fine, but to a trained observer like himself, well, freak show. He looked up at Willow leaning on the arm of the chair opposite him. She had been avoiding any kind of conversation by pretending to be engrossed by some page in a random demon book for the past half an hour. But the strangest one there was Buffy, who breezed in and out making constant chatter like the world was peachy and she was in control of everything, and everyone.

He turned back to Willow. He'd left about a hundred messages for her over the last week and she hadn’t got back to him once. She was mad at him, and he deserved it. He should have backed her up, she needed him and he blew it, as Anya had constantly been reminding him.

The truth was, he didn’t know how to deal with it. When he'd walked in and seen her in Spike’s arms about to do the bad thing, his brain had blown, total mental block. Part of him wanted to scream and smash Spike’s face in but the other part, the part that scared him the most, wasn’t surprised. Deep down he'd seen it coming; hell he'd seen it developing. He'd watched Spike go from hated enemy to the bad smell that hung around Giles house to actually being someone he liked to hang out with <Wow there’s a revelation! I gotta get out of here>.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang as Spike made his entrance. In an instant Buffy was out of the kitchen facing him. "Spike" She nodded as she sat down next to Willow on the sofa as if it were a warning.

"Spike!" Anya smiled at him genuinely. He nodded back at her then turned to face Buffy and for a split second his eyes flashed next to her to Willows rigid form which was still bent over a book, her expression unreadable behind the hand that she rested her cheek on. His brain tried to will her to look up at him, but he knew she wouldn’t because of the thing occupying the space next to her. "Slayer" he said through gritted teeth as he tried to hold on to his calm

"You're late."

"For what?" he said bluntly

Giles decided to interject for Willow’s sake before things got nasty. "Well, you haven’t missed much, but then there’s not a lot we can do until that book arrives. Although we did find something… Ahh, where’s that book gone? Xander you had it, it’s that book on rare eastern demons."

"A book on demons? Well, that narrows it down" he said rummaging round the books spread across his lap.

"Here."

Spike turned to find a book waving in front of him, and attached to that book was Willow. She looked up, but not at him. He’d missed that face, despite carrying it in his mind constantly wherever he went. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes <Probably that damn Slayer nagging her till all hours>. He felt the unwanted eyes of Buffy burning into him, daring him to make a move. "Cheers" he said as he took the book from her, unconsciously stretching out his fingers to touch her but being denied as she quickly shrunk away. Spike turned and sat next to Anya on the other side of the room

Buffy stood up, "So Giles, any chance of us getting out of here in the PM?"

"Buffy" Giles stood to face her

"C'mon, your not gonna win on this one, you said there’s not much we can do until that bible thingy arrives."

"Well no what I actually said was... Oh go on, just go"

"See? I told you that’s what you said. Yay! Bronze time"

Spike watched as they went to leave. Willow was at the back of the group, struggling with a pile of books. Choosing his moment carefully he walked forward and placed the book she had handed him earlier on the top of the pile she carried in her arms. She turned quickly in surprise. "Thanks for that", he let his arm drop, lightly brushing the skin on the inside of her arm as he did so. She looked at his face for the first time in a week, the cut on her temple was healing, but she looked tired. He held her gaze for a split second before tearing himself away and retreating to the kitchen.

He heard the door slam and fell back against the kitchen doorframe, letting out the unneeded breath that he had held in his lungs since he had arrived. <Too fucking hard! > He thought lighting a cigarette. Since it had happened he’d spent the week wanting her, dreaming about her and staring up at her sodding window and now two minutes with her wasn’t enough. Her smell still lingered in the apartment, at least at his place there was no evidence of her to drive him mad. Hell he couldn’t even go for a piss at Giles place now without being reminded of her. "I’m off" He yelled out to the watcher as he stomped into the living room, "Stuff to do"

"Actually Spike, I was wandering if you might hang on for a minute, I need a word."

"What about?" He asked, already having a good idea

"Just take a seat, I’ll be back in a moment," He said before disappearing into the kitchen

<Great! > Spike thought dropping into a chair, <a fatherly lecture from the watcher>

Giles returned a few moments later carrying two glasses, he handed one to Spike who eyed the glass cautiously. "It’s Scotch."

"I can smell that, just wondering if the glass is covered in some of that mystical vampire poison you lot seem to like so much." Spike took the glass and settled back on the sofa, eyeing Giles suspiciously.

"I wanted to talk to you about your intentions."

"Oh here it comes" Spike slammed his drink down, splashing it across the table top, "Willow’s daddy number two’s about to give me the 'stay away from my little girl’ speech? Well you can shove it watcher, because to be honest I’m havin one hell of a bad week and I don’t need it."

"When your quite finished". Spike sat back and picked up his drink. "Good, then I'll get to the point. I want to ask you about your intentions towards Willow, and the rest of us"

"Excuse me?"

"I’m not asking you to tell me what is or is not going on between you and Willow, in fact I think I'd prefer to be kept in the dark on that one."

"But what your saying is that you want it to stop"

"Is there any possibility of your shutting up for a minute? Against my better judgement I put up with Buffy and Angel being together for the best part of two years, if you and Willow happen to end up together well, while I have my reservations, I can learn to live with it".

"Huh?" Spike said visibly confused.

"My concern is about your chip."

"What of it?"

"Well when it inevitably stops working what do you intend to do?"

"Oh I get it, your worried that one day your gonna come home and find little piles of Scooby gang spread across your living room carpet right?"

"Something like that."

Spike leaned forward and unconsciously began wiping the spilt Scotch off the table, deep in thought. "Okay let me put it this way, you’re not the same person you were twenty years ago right? You were all rebel without a clue back then."

"Get to the point Spike."

"My point is that that’s not who you are now. People, demons, vampires, we all change. I mean I'm not saying that mad killing rampages would be off the cards, I’m never gonna win soul of the year contest but trust me, you lot won’t be on the menu. I'm not in the habit of eating people I actually like, and by like I mean tolerate."

Giles held up his hand, "Er, yes. I get the point". Giles was surprised at Spike’s degree of honesty, as was Spike himself. Giles stared at the blonde vampire trying to find anything in his expression that would reveal that the vampire was lying. He found none. "When I, er, saw you two the other day, I was shocked but I wasn’t surprised. If I'm honest with myself I saw it coming."

"Well, you could've warned me mate."

Giles knocked back the rest of his drink. "Maybe I’ve been living on the hellmouth for too long but I’ve come to the conclusion that happiness is a rarity these days, so it shouldn’t really matter who she finds it with. She means the world to me Spike."

<Know that feeling> Spike thought

"Is there much point in giving you the 'hurt her and I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp' speech"?

"Not really. Wouldn’t carry much weight anyway, I’ve seen you fight remember."

"I'm serious Spike. I’ve seen her get hurt, I don’t want to see it again"
 
 

Spike placed his empty glass down on the table and stood up to leave, "You better say something to that Slayer of yours then."
 
 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Willow folded her arms and leaned forward on the pile of books on the table in front of her. <I must look like such an idiot. I’m the nerd who brings her books to the club>. Buffy had insisted that they go straight to the bronze saying that if they went to the dorms first to drop off their things then Willow would find some way of weaselling out of partying with them.

Through the pulsing glow of the dance floor lights Willows eyes rested on the dance floor where her friends were gathered. She wondered what he’d been doing for the past week, whether he’d thought about her as much as she had been thinking of him. She had tried to ignore it but Buffy’s words about Spike using her had planted a seed of doubt in her brain that had spent the week growing into a big ball of angst in her stomach. But when he had touched her earlier, in just that second that little sign had reassured her. <Damn! And I thought unrequited love was bad, its nothing compared to the forbidden kind>

Sighing she sat back in her chair and pulled a book off the top of the pile. <May as well research, no point in wasting an evening. Maybe Buffy will just get annoyed and let me go home>. As she opened the book a piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and turned it over expecting it to be an old library ticket, but there in familiar messy serial killer handwriting was a note to her:

Get to the watchers an hour early

Seven words, but they brought the first smile in a week to Willows face.
 

Part Seven

Every night for the next week, Willow would always arrive an hour early for research at Giles house or at the Magic Box to find Spike waiting for her. He would sit nervously on Giles couch before she arrived each night, his eyes skipping between the door and the clock. He was always worried that she would be late or that the Slayer would find some conscientious bone in her body and arrive early, he dreaded the loss of any precious time with his Willow. Apart from this one hour every night Willow was never really left alone. Buffy seemed to have given herself the title of Willows shadow and if she wasn’t with her she made damn sure someone else was. He was just lucky that he seemed to have the watcher on his side.

Giles reaction to their routine surprised Willow, it was like an unspoken agreement. As soon as she arrived each night he would disappear into another room telling them that there was something he had to look up. He'd always reappear an hour or so later when the time for the others to arrive approached, always making himself comfortable so it looked like he had been with them all the time or calling Willow into the next room to help him with research.

Over the week Willow had become closer to Spike than she ever had with anyone else. Their meetings weren’t about sex, despite the desire that was there between them when they sat across from one another each night. Spike knew it would be too risky to get too close to her in case the Slayer walked in unexpectedly, and Willow didn’t want to take advantage of Giles generosity towards their situation.

For an hour a night they would sit and talk. Spike encouraged Willow to explain who she was to him; he wanted to understand every piece of her. Sometimes he would sit for ten minutes straight just watching her as she talked, taking in her words and mannerisms like he was trying to print her into his mind, and he in turn slowly let her inside of him.

On this particular night she had arrived at the magic box early. Spike’s eyes were trained on the door as she breezed in wearing a combination of purples, oranges and greens, which she only just managed to make work, carrying her intoxicating smell with her. Giles appeared briefly to greet Willow and point out some books that might be useful to look through before mumbling something about being in the middle of translating something from Indonesian to English and making an exit.

Within half an hour Willow was coming to the end of an animated tale about her encounter with her vampire self. She had mentioned it in passing a little earlier when Spike had told her what a beautiful vampire he thought she would make; she was quick to disagree with him. However as she described her vampire self, Spike could see flashes of intrigue in her head as if a thousand unanswered questions were bubbling in her brain. When she had finished she sat back nervously as she waited for his reaction. After a few moments of contemplation he said, “Weak soul.”

“What?”

He sat back as he began to explain, “You can tell a lot about who the human was from the vampire. Usually the more mindlessly vicious they seem then the weaker they were as a human.”

Willow leaned forward, eyes wide with intrigue. Spike knew how curious she was about Vampires, curious for more than the stuffy human perspective that she found in Giles’ books. She was scared of the vampire world, but the look on her face told him that she was also drawn to it. He went on: “You see when a human is sired, the demon doesn’t just get in there and take over, there’s a battle between soul an’ demon.”

“Good and evil.” Willow whispered

“If you like. The demon always wins of course,” he said lighting a cigarette with practised ease, barely pausing his speech, “But if the soul’s strong then the essence of it is left behind. Those are the vampires that live for centuries see? Because the soul won’t let the demon get carried away and make careless mistakes. That’s what makes the difference between a master and a minion.”

Willow thought about this for a moment, “But what about Angelus? He lived for centuries and he was…”

“A lucky bastard”, Spike cut in. “You know what Angelus was before he was turned? He was a drunk, an unemployed drunk with the soul of an unemployed drunk, demon didn’t have to fight too hard with that one. What kept him going for so long was a combination of luck and his family, us.”

Willow paused for a moment as her mind latched on to something, “So what your saying is, I have a weak soul?”

“No, I’m saying the other you had a weak soul.”

“But…”

“Alternate universe, alternate you. I know how strong your soul is, and I think you do to.” Willow looked at him blankly, “Why do you think you’ve managed to speed up the witch promotional ladder so quickly huh? In my time I’ve seen Witch’s spend a lifetime leaning how to do what you’ve learnt in only a few years. Power, you have it girl and I smell it a mile off.”

Willow slumped back on the sofa as she took in what he was saying to her. No one had ever really acknowledged her as having any kind of power before. Hell, she never even acknowledged it herself. Power was reserved for the Slayers and the demons and the President. “But what about you”?

“Oh I’m very powerful,” he said with a sly grin

“What I mean is, you’ve lived, well been undead for a long time and you were ah, are this master vampire.” she stammered, blushing.

“Don’t even go there pet. If you remember I said that that is how it usually works, I just happen to be one of the few exceptions to that rule. Anyway, I went after two slayers and rained Spike down upon their pretty little heads, how reckless is that? I’m like those tossers on the Discovery Channel that go swimming with sharks, completely reckless. No soul.”

An expression had settled on Willows face that made him deeply uncomfortable, it was like a cross between her resolve face and the expression she makes when she’s about to explain something really complicated. As much as he adored her intelligence he sometimes wished that she would put that brain of hers on a leash. “Come on, out with it”

“What”? She said with the worst acting skills in the world, skills that soon gave up as his demanding blue eyes bore into her. She sighed, “Do you really want to know what I think?” He kept staring back at her, “Now I know your gonna take this as an insult, but I’m not meaning it as one, the opposite actually. It’s just what I think.”

“Red.”

She took a deep breath, “Well I think, I think that when Angelus sired you, when the demon took over your body, I think that you were left with more soul than you make out, maybe even more than you realise”.

A cold chill ran up his already cold spine as the words left her lips. For the first time in his unlife he felt weak.

Willow glanced at the clock on the wall as she considered her next move. They hardly had any time left, but as long as Giles gave them the usual early warning she should be all right.

Spike was surprised out of his train of thought as he saw her rise and move towards him, she sat down close to him on the sofa never taking her eyes off of him as her hand gently reached out and brushed his arm, as he had done to her less than a week before.

“Do you hate me?”

“No, I feel sorry for you” He replied uneasily, not used to the close proximity between them after what felt like months

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know what your doing, hell I don’t even think I do. The other day was a mistake you know.”

Willow back away from him an inch, dreading his explanation, “Meaning?”

“You have no idea what you’re getting into. When you look at me do you just see a lover like dog boy? I’m never going to be a ‘take him home to mummy and daddy’ type of bloke, no matter how much soul you think might be in here.”, he said thumping his chest for emphasis. “So if you’re after a dream then I suggest you wake up now.”
He wasn’t sure whether he was telling her the truth, part of him just wanted to get her back for that soul comment, but the other part wanted to slap some truth in her.

An angry expression settled on Willows face, <I mean just how naïve does he think I am? > “Spike, I know what you are.” she began, her anger just bubbling under her calm tone. “You’re a demon who can kill without remorse. I know that if you wanted to you could destroy me, even with the chip. But whether you like it or not you were a man, and a bit of him is still in they’re somewhere.” She said waving her hand in his direction for emphasis. “I don’t know why, I know its all bad and wrong but I like both sides of you because together they make up the big you and I wouldn’t want you to be anything else.”

Out of her babble he managed to just about pick up what she was trying to say. She giving him her acceptance, more than that, she even liked what he was. Dru had never loved him completely; Dru loved his demon end of story, it was something that he’d come to accept over the years. Yet right here a female human had understood and accepted him in a matter of, well Satan-knows how long she had been over-analysing him. She knew things that his lover for over a century had never even attempted to understand. She sat opposite him, beautiful, wide-eyed an innocent but with an insight into others that no one gave her credit for. Maybe that’s what had drawn him to her; she was a picture of power and innocence; a rare and intoxicating combination. His demon screamed for her blood and body, his soul for her mind and love; another intoxicating combination.

For the last five minutes of their hour his mind turned as he watched her, and she watched back.

“Ah! Aha! Got it, got it, got it!" Giles exclaimed through a mouthful of paper as he burst into the room, carefully trying not to spill the cup of tea perched on the books he was carrying. Oblivious to the tension filled air of the room he pulled up a chair next to the sofa. Spike stood up slowly trying not to draw attention to how close he and Willow had been sitting

Willow glanced at the clock on the wall, five minutes past. The others would arrive soon and her time with Spike would be over. In a way it would be easier if she wasn’t able to see Spike at all, at least then maybe she'd have some chance at getting over everything, but seeing him for just a short time each night was like some kind of torture. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful for what she had. She adored the short time they had together each night; sometimes she thought it was the only thing that got her through every day. But as time went on it became harder to deal with the pain that she felt when the others arrived, harder to say goodbye. She knew that this couldn’t go on much longer.

Willow tore her mind from the future and back to the present. "So Giles, what’ve you got?"

"Well…" he began

At that moment Buffy Anya and Xander arrived. "Okay, we're here, where do you want us? Let me guess, sat in front of a book?” Xander said with false cheerfulness.

Spike sighed and stared up at the ceiling in despair. An hour was not enough

Xander picked up a half full can of soda off the table before perching on the arm of the sofa next to Spike; he tried to put an arm around Anya's waist as he did so. "No touching,” she snapped causing all heads to turn towards her.

"What’s your deal?" Buffy asked

"I'm punishing him, for being an ass." she nodded towards him and folded her arms defiantly across her chest.

"Xander, what did you do?"

He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by his girlfriend, "I may be new to this human interaction business, which is very confusing by the way. But I know that being two faced to your own friends is wrong. Willow..."

"So Giles how about that important new information you were about to tell us about?” Willow cut in. The last thing she needed was for Anya to make some big crusading speech on her behalf, no matter how good her intentions were. She flashed Anya an apologetic smile

"Ah yes well I've managed to get a bit more detail on the history of the Hitikans and I do believe I've found the particular sect which is currently inhabiting Sunnydale and their reasons for being here."

"Don’t tell me," said Buffy, "Apocalypse?"

"Well for once thankfully no. The particular sect we are dealing with are a rather nasty group called the Pengayom. Most Hitikan groups aren’t really that dangerous, in fact most of them have died out because of it." Giles looked round the room at the blank expressions and realised that the only person he was making sense to was himself. He started again, “The Hitikans can’t repopulate the way we do.”

“They can’t have sex?” Anya asked

“Well I don’t know about that but I do know that it doesn’t lead to children. Hitikans repopulate by choosing other things to become part of them, in a similar way to vampires.”

“Minions.” Spike whispered calmly through the mounting tension in the room

“More or less.”, Giles nodded

“And I take it that these demons don’t ask permission before they decide to make a new toy.” Xander said as he caught up with the situation.

“Well most Hitikan groups don’t like to change a person against their will, that’s why so many of them have died out. Unfortunately the Pengayom are not so considerate.”

Buffy stood up and walked over to Giles, “So once again I’ll ask the question, why here? Aren’t there any Indonesians left in Indonesia for them to change?”

“Buffy the difference is that unlike Vampires the Hitikans can’t just change people left, right and centre, it takes months even years of ritual and energy gathering to enable them to change just one human, so I imagine that they would want to choose that human carefully. I’m guessing that they’ve come to the hellmouth because of its potent energy, believing that they’ll find the perfect new recruit here.”

"So who is it?" Xander asked, "I mean I'm guessing that the lucky human isn’t going to be wondering round with a t-shirt saying ‘I’m powerful pick me’.”

"Well translating this bible is a slow process so I’m not entirely sure what the groups’ tastes in humans are yet, I’m not entirely sure how they change them."

 “So some poor human is gonna get labelled for a demon make over and they don’t even know it yet.” Xander mumbled, “Can’t we just get Willow to do a spell or something?” Xander was scared at the thought of one of them ending up as a demon.

“A spell?” Giles said, as his forehead creased into deep thought mode, “Now there’s an interesting idea, a finding spell, something that will reveal the entities true form to us. Do you think you can find something Willow?”

“Hmmmm?” Willow said absentmindedly, not really hearing what he had been saying as she stared at the book that Giles had been reading. She lightly traced the symbol on the front of the book with her index finger, which seemed to tingle above the gold metal.

“Willow?” Giles asked again becoming concerned over the red heads trance like state

Spike watched her trance with a curious gaze, he could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t just daydreaming. Without thinking about the reactions of those present he reached across the table and lifted her hand from the books surface. Willow felt a rush of blood shoot back into her brain as her mind came back to reality. She looked up to see a room full of curious faces staring at her as if she had just grown a second head and Spike holding her hand in front of everyone. "Sorry", She mumbled trying to look everywhere but at Spike’s face, "I guess I zoned out there for a minute."

Buffy reacted quickly to the situation she saw developing, she rushed forward and ripped Willow’s hand away from Spikes and placed it in her own. “Are you okay, I mean to be that engrossed in one of Giles books you must be really sick.”

“No I’m good. Giles you we’re saying something to me?” Willow said pulling her hand from Buffy’s.

“Ahh, yes a spell, I’d like you to look for some sort of seeking spell that we could adapt to find this… Well, whatever it is.”

“Sure, I’ll get right on it.” She replied with mock cheerfulness, “I’ll just go and look through some of the books we have here.” She stood up and wandered over to the steps that led to where the more dangerous witchcraft books were stored.

“Well, excellent.” Giles said clapping his hands together, “Now Buffy I think that the best thing would be for you to go patrolling, see if you can seek and destroy any more of the Pengayom demons before someone gets marked”

“Which ones were they again?” Buffy asked as she reached for her coat

Giles sighed, “The bad guys Buffy, they’re the bad guys”.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The knot of tension in Willow’s shoulders released as she heard the door slam behind her, signalling that the world had gone out to patrol, <alone at last! >. She was tired of trying to pretend that she was happy Willow all the time, or of people thinking that she was innocent Willow, needy Willow, do-everything Willow or whatever brand of Willow she was supposed to be advertising that day. <Eternity on my lonesome, bliss! > She thought to herself as she slammed the books about on the shelves.

"Leave them poor books alone Red, what did they ever do to you?"

Startled, she spun round to see Spike leaning nonchalantly against the banister at the bottom of the steps. He was looking every inch the leading man from a black and white movie as he casually dropped his cigarette and ground it out with the heal of his boot on the bottom step. "You, you, you’re supposed to be out killing things, with Buffy and…"

"Wasnt invited. The Slayer and the rest of em’ just walked right past me like I wasn’t even there. Thought I'd come and see if you were alright after your little dizzy spell just then."

"Oh, well I wasn’t dizzy, I was just distracted." Willow said as she pretended to turn her attention back to the bookshelf.

Spike eyed her slender form as she turned her back to him, radiating anger with every movement. He smiled, wondering if she realised how enticing her anger was to him. "I take it your still mad at me."

"Mad, why would I be mad?" She spat without turning round, "I mean just because you just seem to think that I'm some silly infatuated little girl."

"Why would I think that?" He replied as he slowly crept up the steps toward her.

"I remember what you said, 'I feel sorry for you' and 'you’re after a dream'. I mean I hate to disappoint you Spike but I am not some screaming sixteen year-old groupie and you are not in a boy band."

"Thank fuck for that, on both accounts!"

Willow spun round at the close proximity of his voice to find herself nose-to-chest with Spike, "Don’t do that! You scared me."

His smile grew even wider as she said this, "So go on then Red, tell me what’s got your knickers in such a twist?"

"I just told you what got my knickers… What’s wrong with me. I don’t like being treated like some naive little girl, I mean what was that stupid speech about anyway?"

"It was a warning,” He said as he leant gently into her, resting his arm on the shelf above her head in a way that he hoped would be intimidating yet sexy.

"Pathetic," she said pushing him away with such force that he had to grab hold of the banisters to stop himself falling backwards down the stairs, "I don’t need a warning sticker to tell me what a complete, a complete... Vampire you are". She turned back to he shelf, a little embarrassed at how un-witty her retort had come out.

Undeterred and a little shocked by her sudden strength he walked back up to her, this time keeping an inch of distance between himself and her back. “For all your experience fighting demons, you have no idea what it would be like to have one as a lover do you.”

She was a little thrown by his directness, “But it’s not just a demon, its you.” She whispered

Feeling that he should be safe from any further violent outbursts from her, he placed a hand on her lightly swaying waist to steady her as he leaned towards her ear, “I am the demon. You are right, the man is still in me, but the demons in here,” He pulled her body gently backwards into his chest as he finished, “and we both want you”.

She shivered at the images his words conjured up in her brain, “Is it bad? Is that why you’re warning me?”

He chuckled, “Far from it Red”, He removed his hand from her waist and sneaked it under her top, she shrunk back from him for a second as the feeling of his ice cold fingers startled her warm body, but soon relaxed to his touch as his rough nails began lazily tracing a figure of eight pattern across her stomach, “No matter what I ever do to you; touch you, scare you, love you or cause you pain, I can promise that you will enjoy every second of it.” He placed a gentle kiss of promise on her neck, “I could make you scream Red.”

“Are you going to?” She said through shaky breath.

He smiled, “Only if you beg me nicely.”

Trembling, Willow placed her small hands on his. “What happens now?”

He was a little taken back by her question, more than anything because he didn’t know how to answer it. Up until that moment he had been confident and in control, his mind had been preoccupied with the thought of ravishing her up against the bookshelves. He hated thinking about the future, being reminded that there was one. She turned around in his arms to face him, “Be honest with me Spike, is there any way that this will work?”

Instead of speaking he decided to avoid the inevitable for just a moment as he leaned in to kiss her, pressing his towering frame into the warmth of hers his fingers entwining themselves in her hair. He noted to himself that this was only the third time he had ever kissed her, each time better than the last.

Slowly she pulled away from him, never once taking her eyes from his, “You don’t know, do you.” It was more of a statement than a question, like she could read his mind. Her eyes broke contact with his as she buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso, like he was the only thing stopping her falling off a tall building. He wasn’t sure what to do next, all he could think about was holding on to the human in front of him, yet knowing that he probably couldn’t.

When the door handle turned he was the first to hear it, but he didn’t let go. The sense of foreboding in his mind just knew that whatever as about to come through the door was about to make matters a whole lot worse.

As Willow registered the sound she pushed herself away from his embrace. “What? Wha, why?” She said in panic. She pushed past him and ran down the steps in to the main shop, running her fingers through her hair in an attempt to herself look less flustered. Spike remained in his place on the balcony with his back to the shop

“Buffy!” Willow exclaimed in an overly cheerful tone as the Slayer entered the shop, “What happened cos doesn’t the slaying usually take more than ten seconds?” The huge grin that was stuck to Buffy’s face was making her anxious, more because of the fact that Xander and Anya, who were standing on either side of the front door behind her, were carrying expressions of complete doom.

“You are not gonna believe it” Buffy said rushing up to her and grabbing her hands in her own, “We were just wandering down the street and, well you are not gonna believe what we found.”

“What?”

A beaming Buffy turned towards the door, “I think you should come in now!”

Willow turned towards the door just as the most important face from her past walked through it, “Oz” She whispered

“Hey” he said almost inaudibly from the doorway, this was not exactly how he wanted his comeback to go, he could have done without the big build up from Buffy

Willow’s brain began to have it’s own personal meltdown as it tried to catch up with the events of the last ten seconds, “When did you get back in?”

“Pretty much now”, he said uncomfortably. He took her in, she had changed, still as beautiful as when he had left but there was something older about her.

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence before Xander stepped in, “Oz, man, hate to sound Grandma but you don’t call, you don’t write”

“Yeah, sorry”

“So you are staying right?” Buffy said moving in front of a visibly angry Xander, “You’re not just passing through.”

“Lets not bombard Oz with questions right off” Giles cut in, “Can I get you something? Tea?”

“No thanks Giles, I’ll pass” Oz replied before moving closer to Willow

Willow turned and for a second flashed her eyes to the balcony, hoping that Spike had made some sort of an exit. But he was still there, his expression unreadable as he took in the uncomfortable scene before him. Buffy was the only one in the room to notice her movement and turned towards the balcony that Willow had run from when they had arrived, she had forgotten that they had left Spike behind. She glanced back to Willow as her mind began to realise what had been going on between them before she had returned. She turned back to Spike, a look of hate on her face as she flashed him her best victory smile. It was then that Oz noticed Spike’s presence

“Uh, I don’t mean to alarm anyone or make myself look stupid but we are all aware that Spike is here right?”

“Ah yes.” Giles said moving forward taking off his glasses, “He works with us now”

“Don’t worry about him.”, Buffy added, never taking her eyes off Spike, “He’s nobody”

“Right, I guess things have changed while I’ve been gone.” Oz murmured before turning his attention back to Willow, “Look, I’m going over to Devon’s to see if I can crash. But I was hoping we could talk.”

“Now?” Willow replied

“If you’re good”

Her mind raced for a way to delay the inevitable ‘talk’, “Well now is uh, bad, you know there’s a big Demon thing at the moment and I need to find a spell…”

“Willow!” Buffy was beaming at her again, “Look take a break, you guys have stuff to deal with. I sure we can hold the Wicca fort for one evening”

“But…”

“Come on” She interrupted as she picked up Willow’s coat and walked to the open doorway, “We can handle stuff, go out, talk, that’s a Slayer command”

Defeated, Willow walked to the doorway and took her coat from the Slayer, “Well I guess I’ll see you all later”, She glanced up at Spike who was avoiding her gaze, deeply engrossed in watching his shoes. She turned away sadly and walked out into the cold night,

“It’s good to see you guys. Really.” Oz added quickly before following Willow

Buffy shut the door behind them, “Well, that went well”

“Buffy, do you really think that was wise?” said Giles

“What?” Buffy said feigning ignorance

“Making Willow talk to Oz when she obviously wasn’t ready.”

“Oh come one.” Buffy groaned, “You know what she’s like, she would have taken forever to make a decision. I just gave her a good hard push in the right direction.”

Spike had reached the end. Enough anger and tension had built up inside of him to withstand the pain caused by a thousand chips in his head, it was either leave now or tear every human in a mile radius to shreds, starting with the Slayer and ending with the wolf. He leapt over the side of the balcony landing feet first on the shop floor, then without a word to anyone he left the shop through the back door. The surrounding shelves shook as he slammed it shut.

“What’s his problem?” Buffy said to no one in particular as a self-satisfied grin settled on her face.
 

Part Eight

Willow pulled her coat tighter around her body; her knuckles began to turn white with the force that she was gripping it with. It wasn’t that she was cold, more that she needed something to hold on to stop her from losing control. She must be mad, here she was walking along side the one time love of her life, praying for some unforeseen force to magically transport her to anywhere but here. Since the night he had driven off she had created a thousand scenarios about his return in her head and in each one she was sure she was always happier than this.

“Are you cold?” He asked breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“Not really, the coat helps.”

“It’s okay, we won’t be out for long,” he said, smiling back at her genuinely.

“Oh, okay. Why?” she asked confused.

“I want to show you something.”

They walked in silence towards the open grounds of the college campus. Willow felt herself grow more and more uncomfortable with every step; all she wanted to do was run back to the Magic Box to see if Spike was okay. She thought about when she had walked in on Verucca and Oz that day, the pain she had felt. Was that how Spike was feeling now?  So deep in thought was she that she didn’t notice when Oz had stopped walking until she turned around and saw that she was alone. “Oz?”

“Back here.” She turned to see him standing a few feet behind her in a large open space by the halls.

As she walked back towards him she couldn’t help but notice the look of hope on his face as he watched her, it made her guilt levels go into overdrive, “Oz, I can’t believe that this is happening, like it’s a dream or something”

“Its real,” he replied, smiling, “Look up”

“What?” She asked, confused

“Look at the sky.”

She looked up at the clear bright sky. At first she didn’t register why he was asking her to do it, until she realised that the light reflecting on her face wasn’t coming from the street lamps but from a large full moon. She turned back to him in shock.

“Guess you stopped keeping track of them after I left.”

She looked at him, the human him, then back at the moon, “Full moon”

“A full moon”, he smiled

She looked back up at the moon, but this time the excitement inside of her had been replaced by the sinking realisation of why he was back. He had come back for her; he had done all of this for her. She trembled as he placed a hand on her arm.

“Willow.”

“This is… I mean this is wonderful for you,” she said honestly but sadly.

“Will, I went through a lot of changes while we were apart.”

“Yeah… I know the feeling.”

“And I want to hear everything, I want to tell you everything.” She shuddered as he said this, “But there’s something I want to know, is there… Is there any new guy?”

“Why?” she asked nervously

He took hold of her hand, “I know what I put you through. And I’m not going to push… But I’m a different person than when I left, I can be what you need now and that’s what I want, that’s why I’m here.”

She wished she had the courage to run, or to tell him the truth. She could feel her spine crumbling with every word that he uttered. This had been better than any scenario that she had ever created in her head and if he had only come back a month or two sooner then she would have still been the same broken Willow he’d left behind. But she wasn’t, Spike had fixed her. Spike.

 She stared back at him in wonder, “How did you do it?”

“It’s a long story.”

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Part Nine

Her scream echoed round the room as Willow sat bolt upright in bed. If it wasn’t for the fact that screams, groans, shouts of joy and other worrying miscellaneous sounds were commonplace at the dorms she might have been worried that someone might call the police.

She took a deep breath as she wiped the sweat off of her forehead and tried to pull herself together. The nightmare she had been having was still fresh in her mind, demons, the same ones that had attacked her the other night. Except this time Spike didn’t save her. He was there, as was Angel, but they couldn’t help her. It was like they were stuck behind some invisible force field as the demons invaded her body and her mind.

She dragged herself out of bed and over to the sink to make herself a glass of water. As the cool liquid sank down her throat the mists of the nightmare began to clear and she came back to reality. Only reality turned out to be as scary as the nightmare. Sitting back down on the bed her mind raced over the events of the last 24 hours, hell, the last few weeks.

By all accounts her evening with Oz had gone well. He had told her all about his travels across the world and how he’d learnt to control the Wolfiness and she in turn had given him the heavily edited version of what she’d been up to since he’d left. It was the perfect, happy reunion, except for the little fact that the whole time she wanted to be elsewhere, with a certain vampire, wrapped up in a certain pair of arms. She looked down to see that her hand was trembling so much that she was splashing water all over her leg. Setting the glass aside on the nightstand she glanced at the clock and saw that it was four in the afternoon, she had after all spent most of the night talking to her ex boyfriend.

“Hey sleepy head”, Buffy said as she poked her head through the door, “I take it we were up all night?”

“Uh yeah” she replied, startled by yet another one of Buffy’s surprise entrances, “Where were you?”

“Oh I stayed at Riley’s last night,” She said sitting on the end of Willow’s bed, “just in-case you and Oz needed a little privacy.”

“Buffy we just talked, he didn’t even come back here.”

Buffy looked confused, “Well are aren’t you two back together?”

“Buffy I…”

“Look,” Buffy started in a soothing tone, “I know that he hurt you and that you’ve been going through stuff lately.”

Willow eyed her warily, “What do you mean ‘stuff’?”

“Oh come on, the whole Spike thing”, She laughed, “I mean that just proves that you haven’t been yourself. Anyway things with you and Oz don’t have to be like they were, you two can start again. I really think that you two should give it another shot.” Willow noticed that the last part of that statement was said in her ‘Slayers order’ tone of voice, “Anyway, I’m not stopping, just came by to dump my bag. You stopping by Giles later?”

“I don’t know”, Willow replied

“Well, give me a call and let me know where you are”, She got up and headed for the door, pausing before she left, “just think about what I said okay?”

“Sure.”

When the door closed she pulled her arms around herself as she tried to hold back the inevitable flow of tears. She wasn’t even giving her a choice; no matter how friendly Buffy’s words had been the message underneath was still ‘you and Oz are a couple’. It was all so unfair.

The phone began to ring. She dreaded who would be on the other end of the line; most likely it would be Oz wondering when they could meet up again, something she truly wasn’t ready for. Sighing, she made her way to the phone, pausing before she answered to take a deep breath in the hope that she might be able to raise her perkiness levels for the benefit of whoever was on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Willow, that is you right?” Cordelia asked

“Cordy, thank God” a relieved Willow answered

“Nice opening Willow, if only Angel would welcome me like that whenever I called him, although generally when I call Angel I’m phoning in sick”

“So what’s up?” Willow said in the perkiest voice she could muster.

“Oh I just had to call someone, I swear I am about to die of boredom in here. And hey, its Angels bill. Hang on a minute, what’s wrong?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong?”

“C’mon, the tone of your voice so obviously says that happy Willow has left the building.”

“I’m fine”, Willow said with the least conviction ever.

“Who’s the actress here? Me. And as an actress I can tell you, the non-actress, that you suck at it. So I’ll ask you again, what’s wrong?"

She tried to keep up the act to Cordelia, but as Cordy herself so bluntly put it she sucked at acting and the tears began to flow freely as she told her everything. To be honest it felt good to get it all out, everything that had happened, her feelings for Spike, Oz coming back. For forty-five minutes Cordelia actually managed to stay quiet as Willow poured her heart out.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Spike ground out his tenth cigarette of the hour into one of Giles plants. He felt ridiculous pacing round the Watcher’s front room when what he should’ve been doing was taking out his anger on the throats of the Sunnydale community. He paced back and forth through the Watchers living room, completely ignoring the presence of Giles who was hunched at the table over a book. Every now and then he would glance over at the clock, an action that only helped to increase the darkness of his mood.

“Spike in the name of all that is holy would you stop pacing round like an expectant father!” Giles yelled, “You’re giving me a headache”

“Where the bloody hell is she?” He said ignoring him as he continued to pace, “She always gets here an hour early. Always!”

“How should I know? Just give her some time, yesterday must have been very traumatic for her so I’m sure the last thing she wants to do is research.”

Spike glanced back up at the clock. In ten minutes the Slayer’s band of merry men would arrive. He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes.

“No!” Giles yelled, “Absolutely not, you’ve been here for an hour and in that time I’ve watched you consume half of that packet. Kindly have some respect for those of us who can still get cancer and give it a rest.”

“Fine!” Spike yelled back as he got up and made for the front door, making sure he knocked over a pile of books as he did so. He didn’t need this crap off of the Watcher and the rest of em’. What he needed a plan, he needed the chip out of his head, and he needed to rip the faces off that bastard wolf and the bitch Slayer then ride off out of this rancid town with his witch. But none of that was going to happen. Defeated by his own brain he slumped down against the wall outside the front door and held his head in his hands, pressing them painfully into his temples as he attempted to push away the thoughts that tried to penetrate his brain. That bastard wolf could be making love to his witch right at that moment, touching her, making her moan. A variety of images flashed before his eyes making his retina burn.

“NO!” He screamed, jumping up and kicking the wall before resuming his pacing. His Red was not that gullible, she wouldn’t let that bastard sweet talk his way back into her bed so easily, not after what he did to her. But once again his brain was flooded with doubt as he remembered that the wolf now had a powerful ally, the Slayer. He knew that that damn slut would do everything in her power to push Willow back into the arms of the Wolf, not because it was in her own best interest, but because she knew it would break him.

He stomped over to the main road and peered out into the darkness. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. Maybe there was some hope in him that Red and the Wolf would be on walkabouts or something and he might be able to catch a glimpse of them, but all that was outside was an empty and depressing Sunnydale. Hell, he hated this place, he had no idea why he even stayed here, even with the chip he could take care of himself, buy his own blood. Sure he got on with the rest of them to a point, but the only thing that had ever brought him a moments joy since he’d returned and got chipped was her, and now he didn’t even have that. Maybe if the chip had never been there he wouldn’t have to be dealing with this crap. He probably would have killed her before he got to know her anyway. Part of him just wanted to grit his teeth through the pain and kill her now, at least then all of this would be over.

“Well if it isn’t the jilted lover!”

Spike sighed and rolled back his shoulders, determined not to let the bitch get to him, or at least not let her know she was. “Good evening Slutty” He smiled, as he turned round to face her. Xander who was standing in her shadow waved a weak greeting.

Buffy folded her arms in defiance at his chirpiness, determined to break him, “I’m surprised you showed, shouldn’t you be off somewhere crying into a pint of blood?”

“Now why would I do a nancy boy thing like that? I think you must be confusing me with your ex.”

Buffy smirked as she walked closer to him, “Oh well obviously you haven’t heard the good news. Willow and Oz had a good long talk yesterday; they were alone together most of the night. You should have seen her this morning, she looked positively; how do you say it? Shagged out?”

 She searched his unemotional face for any sign that she was getting to him, and then she saw it; that slight clenching of the jaw as he tried to chew back his wrath. Oh yeah, she’d hit him good. “I doubt you’ll be seeing them here tonight if that’s what you came for, they’ve got a lot of catching up to do”. She said as she walked past him and into the Watcher’s home with a satisfied smirk on her face

“What?!” Xander screeched as he caught on to what Buffy was implying, “No! She wouldn’t, I mean Willows no bed hopper. She wouldn’t just… No!”

Spike had had enough, whether he believed her or not he was dangerously close to losing his cool and calm face. He pushed past Xander and walked as casually as he could away from the Watchers’.

“Spike!” Xander yelled, “She’s joking man it didn’t happen!”

When he turned the corner of the street away from their line of sight he fell back against a tree, the Slayer’s words still ringing in his ears. He had almost let her get to him, he had almost believed…

As he fumbled round in his pocket for his cigarettes there was a loud rumble of thunder in the sky above, “That’s it mate”, he said addressing the sky as he lit his cigarette, “Gimme all you got.” He felt his tense muscles relax as he exhaled a deep lungful of smoke against the glass window of a van parked in front of him, the smoke reflected but he didn’t, making it look like it came from nowhere. That was one of the many things he had never been able to get used to when he became a vampire. As much as he loved his demon state he hated the little things that set him apart from the human race, the no sunlight, the no reflection. Maybe if he had these Willow would find it easier to be with him. Of course the fact that his main source of nourishment came from the very liquid than ran through her veins didn’t help either.

He turned and looked out at the dark Sunnydale road; she deserved better than this, better than what he, the wolf, the Slayer and the bloody Hellmouth had to offer her. Before he realised what he was doing his fist connected harshly with the featureless glass, causing a spider web pattern of cracks to spread across the window. He retracted his fist to inspect the damage; blood slowly began to drip between his fingers, washed away by the rain that had begun to pour down from the sky. It hurt, but it didn’t even begin to match the pain he felt in his chest as he had hoped.

As he turned back down the street and began to make his way back to the crypt, he realised that he finally had an answer for Willow’s question.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

“Beethoven!” Willow yelled loudly at he T.V, not really paying attention to the other contestants on the game show. She sat by the window staring out through the heavy rain at the people running for cover on the ground below her. She turned away from the window and back to the T.V, “Karl Marx” She said to the screen before the host had even finished the question.

A soft tapping on the front door interrupted the next question. Willow quickly turned the T.V down hoping that whoever the visitor was would think that no one was home.

“Willow, it’s Xander!” came the voice from outside. “I know your in, I saw you sitting at the window.”

Willow cursed herself under her breath before yelling at him to come in. The door swung open and a dripping wet Xander stood in the doorway. “Hey!” he answered as cheerfully as he could through a mouthful of water.

Willow narrowed her eyes at him in distrust, “I take it Anya forced you to come here.”

“Hey I’m capable of thinking for myself. Now are you gonna invite this wet remorseful puppy in?”

Willow turned away from him and resumed her position by the window, “Come in if you want, it’s not like you’re a vampire.”

Xander came in, shaking water everywhere like a shaggy dog. “So how are you holding up?”

Willow shrugged as she pretended to be deeply engrossed in the T.V. Xander strode across the front room and began waving a hand in front of her face. “What are you doing?” she shrieked.

“Oh so you can see me, I was just wandering whether this place had been possessed so that I was invisible. We know how these campus buildings just love the dark side.” Once again Willow didn’t reply.

“Okay so your mad at me, I get that. But in case you didn’t notice, I’m here trying to apologise. I made the first move and now were living in some strange, parallel universe where I’m the sensible one and you’re being stupid.” he paused and held up a hand as Willow glared at him, “ Okay I think that came out wrong. Look would you just turn the damn TV off.”

At that moment the T.V suddenly died and the lights flickered out, leaving the two of them in total darkness. Xander held up his hands and began staring at them in wonder, “Oh my God, I have Super Powers!”

“I think not,” Willow said as she turned and looked at the window, “See? The lights are out everywhere.”

“It could still be me, my power could be big and mighty, big enough to take out the whole town… It’s the storm isn’t it?”

Willow nodded.

“Oh”, he said disappointedly.

Willow leaned over to her bedside table and picked up the phone, “Phones are out too.”

“It could have been me”, he said ignoring her, “I could have power, on the Hellmouth everyone gets to be Superman, but not Xander, oh no.”

“Xander why are you here?” she said, cutting into his mumbling

“What? Oh, for you. I just thought you might need someone to talk to, what with the whole Oz thing and…”

“Spike?” Willow finished for him. “You don’t have to worry about me now Xander. I just spoke to Cordy before you got here.”

“Did you tell her everything?” He asked as he removed his damp coat and threw it on Buffy’s bed.

Willow nodded, “She was really good, she just let me babble on and cry my eyes out for ages.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing much, I mean she was shocked. She used the phrase ‘screw Buffy’ a lot”

"Sounds like the Cordy we all love to know and hate." He smiled

"Hey!" Willow snapped, not sharing in the joke, "Cordelia’s been good to me, at least she didn’t hang up the phone like she was disgusted with me."

Xander looked at the floor and ran his hands through his damp hair, "I wasn’t disgusted with you, I was just shocked and I reacted like a jerk. I mean how would you react if you suddenly found out that I was getting jiggy with a demon that used to want nothing more than to bathe in our blood?"

Willow looked at him as if he were mad, "From what I hear you get jiggy with a demon on a regular basis."

"Ex-demon!" He yelled pointing a finger at her, "She doesn’t do the demon thing anymore"

Willow rolled her eyes, "Xander, I like Anya you know that, but the truth is that the only reason she stopped torturing men was because someone else took away her powers, which is almost the same thing that happened to Spike."

Xander shrunk away from the argument in defeat and returned to shaking the water from his hair. Willow felt her anger towards him slide away. He was after all just worrying about her, just as she had done when he'd first started dating Anya. She moved away from the window and picked up a towel from the side of her bed, she smiled warmly as she sat down and handed it to him.

"Xander things are different now. When we first met Buffy and found out about the demon world things were simple, demon bad, human good. But the lines are all blurred now, we've met bad humans like Ethan Rayne and then there have been demons like Angel and Spike and Anya. And then there’s Oz who wasn’t always human."

“So how are things between you two?”

“I don’t know. I’m happy for him, he’s cured his wolf problem.”

“What!” Xander said in shock, “How?”

“He travelled a lot, met some people who taught him about inner calm and stuff.  So now he’s just Oz all the time, no wolf, it was everything I’d ever dreamed about.”

“Was?” he whispered at her as he gently put an arm around her waist, noting that she was beginning to get stressed as she spoke, “Why do I get the feeling that everybody’s favourite blonde dead guy features in all of that somewhere”

Willow felt herself begin to lose it again; silent tears began to drip down her face as she spoke, “None of this was supposed to happen, I know that it can’t happen, all I know is that I want it to.”

Xander pulled her into him as she began to sob into his already soaked shirt. He hated seeing her so broken like this, he also hated the fact that there was nothing he could do to make it better. There was no way he could magically turn this situation around, make Oz disappear or change the Slayer’s mind. If he could then he would. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you Will. I just freaked out at the thought of you and Spike being together, and then I got even more freaked out when I realised that I wasn’t more freaked out, if that makes any sense to you. I mean I actually kinda like the guy, in a weird loathing and disgust kinda way.”

Willow couldn’t help but laugh at his double standards, “It’s alright, you’re doing the big brother best friend thing, it’s nice to be protected”. She moved out of his embrace and began to wipe her face with her sleeve. Xander studied her for a moment while he pondered whether to ask a certain question.

“Will?”

“Uh huh?” She sniffed

“Are you in love with him?”

She dropped her face to stare intently at the crumpled tissue in her hand as she pondered his question.

“You don’t have to answer me. I know there’s not much chance of you and Spike being able to be together so you probably don’t wanna think about it. I just don’t want you to feel forced to get back with Oz just because it’s what Buffy wants.”

“I really thought that she’d understand, after Angel,” she whispered

“Yeah well sometimes people surprise you, and not always in a good way. You and Oz just… Oh god, something’s just come back to me!”

“What?”

Xander began to rub his temples, “Buffy, Spike, Ah! Buffy told Spike that you and Oz were back together, well actually she more implied it, well actually she implied that you two might have spent last night having sex.” Willow stood up and walked towards the window while Xander continued to rant behind her. “I tried to tell him that she was joking or something but he just stormed off I…”

“Xander” Willow cut in, “Are you and Anya going to research at Giles tonight?”

“Well I was going but I came here instead, and Anya’s refusing to be in the same room as Buffy, hell, she hardly wants to be in the same room as me.”

Willow turned around to face him, “I need you and Anya to do me a favour.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to cover for me, for as long as it takes. If Buffy asks I need her to think that I’m with you and Anya,” She said as she ran to the cupboard to get her coat.

“And where will you be?” he asked pointlessly, already having a good idea where she was going.
 

~Part 10~

Rain stung Willows face as she ran through the dark and empty streets of Sunnydale. If any demon, or human for that matter wanted to attack her at that moment she would have been an easy target, completely unaware as she was of the world around her. The few people that she did pass would stop for a moment and stare at the strange and thoroughly soaked girl who appeared to have decided to go jogging during a heavy rainstorm, but she didn’t notice them. She didn’t really even register the heavy rain blurring her vision or the fact that it was so dark and that she was out by herself without a weapon. She was scared, but not because of the danger she might have been in, she was scared of the reaction of the certain someone she was running to.

For the first time in her life she had a slight idea about how Buffy might have felt. She had always sympathised with her but to be honest she had never quite comprehended the whole ‘human with a vampire’ thing. With the exception of Angel, to her vampires had always been vicious animals, especially after Jessie. They had let a vampire into their lives once before and one of them had fallen in love with him, who would have thought that history would repeat itself and that it would repeat itself around her.

As she entered the graveyard she realised that she wasn’t entirely sure where she was going. Despite their friendship, Spike had never invited her or anyone else back, she guessed he preferred the more habitable setting of Giles’ place and she never once tried to get an invite. Realising that she would have to do it the hard way she turned off the main path and made her way across the waterlogged and muddy grass through the gravestones toward the crypts. When she reached the first door she began to bang and kick loudly on the door, after a few moments with no answer she made her way to the next.

As she ran from the fifth, apparently vacant crypt in the graveyard she had begun to get desperate, she was also feeling like crap. The cold dampness that was crawling through her as her wet clothes clung to her skin and the exhaustion she felt from running just helped increase the feeling of doom growing in her mind.

As she reached the sixth crypt she desperately kicked and hammered at the door with her fists, yelling out his name. After a minute her hammering slowed down to a less frantic pace as she began to register that it was yet another empty crypt. Defeated, she backed away and turned to begin yet another trek towards what would probably be yet another empty crypt. Tears melted into the rainwater on her face as every empty stone building made her heart sink lower into her stomach. What if he had gone? What if, when Oz turned up and Buffy had told him that they’d spent the night together he’d just decided that she was some sort of skanky scarlet woman? That she wasn’t worth the bother. What if…

"BUGGER OFF!"

She spun around to face the familiar angry tone. Standing barefoot on the waterlogged grass was Spike. He scowled at the empty dark, searching for whatever practical joker had been hammering on his door, completely oblivious to the rain pounding down on his head. He looked a mess; his hair was stuck up in little clumps, all of which appeared to be trying to get away from each other and while he was dressed, he may as well not have bothered as his shirt was just about being held together by one button in the centre of his chest.

He took a step away from his door, peering round in the direction where Willow was standing, safely hidden in the shadows. From this angle she could see that he was holding a bottle of something down by his side, she couldn’t quite make out what was written on the label, but she seriously doubted that the word ‘juice’ would be written anywhere.

"Whoever you are I know that your there", he shouted at the darkness. "You have a choice, you can come here now and I’ll rip your heart out, or you can make me come and get you. If I were you I’d go for option A as option B usually ends in me ripping your limbs off and letting you bleed to death. But since I’m me I’d love you to go for the second option."

Despite the general panic she was feeling she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his long-winded speech. Although she knew that there was no way he could carry out his threat, she thought it was probably the best time to make an entrance.

As she walked out from under the cover of the shadows and the identity of the supposed joker was revealed, Spike’s expression melted from anger bewilderment, then back to cold expressionless. "Well, well, well. Look what the rain has washed my way."

"Spike," she murmured unsure of exactly what to say now that she had found him, "I’ve been trying to find you."

"Well now you have."

Her eyes drifted back to the bottle down by his side, "Are you..."

"Wasted? Pissed? Drunk? No. I was attempting to get there but then someone started trying to bash my door in and interrupted the delicate process." He paused and took a long swig from the full bottle for dramatic effect. Sighing in mock contentment he continued, "Now, why don’t you tell me what you want and then we can both go back to what or who ever we were doing before?"

Flinching at his choice of words she suddenly remembered the point of her being there, "Nothing happened, we were together all night but it was just talking. No 'doing' of any kind."

He peered at her through narrowed eyes, partly to disguise any expression of relief that might involuntarily appear on his face and partly to study her face for any sign of a lie. Normally he would have been able to smell their coupling on her instantly but like this, standing ten feet apart in the pouring rain it was close to impossible.

"He’s not a wolf anymore. Well he is, but he's learnt to control it. No more wolf during a full moon, no more wolf ever I guess."

What the hell was she saying to him? The wolf’s been neutered so I'll be off now? This was what she had wanted for so long, had he been such a bloody fool to think that things had changed? His voice still cold but this time with a distinct lack of humour he asked again, "What do you want?"

Willow took yet another step out from her dark hiding place and into the dim moonlight. Spike was finally able to get a good look at her drenched form. She looked like a drowned rat, although 'rat' was probably a bad word to use in reference to a woman that you thought was one of the most enticing creatures in the world. "Can we talk inside? I'm kinda drowning here." she said with a weak smile.

Spike looked away from her face as he nodded toward the open doorway. As she passed him he caught a wave of her scent on the air. It was weak, but he could definitely smell the wolf mixed in with her own deliciously spicy and pure scent. Whether it was of their coupling or just from brief contact he couldn’t tell but it left a bitter taste in his mouth, like acid and anger. He released the bottle and let it smash on the ground as he turned to follow her inside.

Almost as soon as she entered the crypt the door slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness. Suddenly feeling scared she spun round in the darkness trying to focus. Her heartbeat thundered erratically above the silence as she took a deep and calming breath

"Spike?"

From out of nowhere, something came at her hard and fast. It was so quick that Willow stupidly wondered for a second how it could have been possible for some random demon to get passed Spike and get to her. The invisible force spun her around, faster than her legs could keep up with, leaving her hanging in her attacker’s arms. She could hear the impact and scraping of something being kicked out of the way before hard concrete impacted with her back, forcing a scream from her lips.

It wasn’t until cold fingers slipped around her neck that it dawned on her who her attacker was. Spike’s shaking fingers pressed into the flesh of her neck as she struggled beneath him, digging her nails into the arm that was clamped to her throat. He wasn’t pushing hard enough to make her choke but enough to scare her into thinking that this might be the last minute of her life. Where was the chip when you needed it? Why wasn’t he in pain? She released her hand from his arm and began to rummage frantically in her pocket. Finding the small crystal she held it in her palm and smashed her hand down hard on the side of the surface she was pinned to, yelling "Fiat Lux!" Illuminated smoke began to snake from between her fingers and rose above their heads, circling together to form a ball, which slowly brightened and lit up the space they were standing in.

Spike didn’t noticed the newly lit room apart from the sudden orange glow behind his eye lids which had been tightly shut since he had slammed Willow against the table. Part of his brain was focused on his fingers pressing her throat, willing them to close tighter; one quick snap and it'll all be over, the moment of blinding pain that the chip could inflict would end a longer torment. But even as he half heartedly held on her he knew that he couldn’t to it and from the way that she had stopped struggling she knew it too, deep down there was no intention to hurt her, if there had been the chip would have gone off from the word go.

Without opening his eyes he slowly released the grip on her neck and let his shaky hand fall to her chest, which was still rising and falling frantically with scared breaths.

"I was telling the truth," she whispered in voice that he knew was only just holding itself together. He also knew that she wasn’t lying, he knew the moment he had grabbed her and found that his own scent was stronger on her body than the wolf’s. He had almost hoped that she had been lying, it would have hurt like hell but maybe it would have given him the extra surge of anger he needed to end all of this.

Slowly he backed away from her and fell backwards on his sofa. He held his head in his hands, hoping that she couldn’t see him.

As he had released her, Willow had side stepped away from him and leant back as close to the wall as she could, never taking her eyes off of him. They both remained still and silent as the light faded until all that surrounded Willow was black, featureless air and the sound of her own breathing, until Spike finally broke the silence.

"What do you want from me?"

"What?"

Silently he moved towards her until he was visible to her. "What… Do… You…. Want from… Me? You know this can’t happen."

For some reason she heard herself asking why even though she was sure that she had only thought it.

"Oh for fucks sake, you’re the one with all the O-levels or grades or whatever it is you call them. You’re in here", he said tapping himself on the side of the head, "and you bloody well shouldn’t be, it’s wrong." He suddenly began laughing hysterically, scaring her into trying to back further into the wall. "Listen to me, ‘it’s wrong’, its bad, ‘lets talk about this’. I’m goin’ insane. I’m like a walking, talking episode of some loved up, bleeding heart soap opera."

"I thought you liked those."

"You and I both know that there are only two ways to work this.’ he replied ignoring her. "Either I by some miracle become human, which I would never do even if it was possible because I happen to like me just as dead and bad as I am…"

"I wouldn’t want that."

"…Or two, you become a vampire, and we both know that’s out."

"Why?" Willow replied furrowing her brows. Almost immediately she realised what her question implied.

He stepped closer, his eyes locked onto her face, "Why? Would you be up for that Red?" he said in a smooth, condescending tone. "Because I’ll wager I could do it if you wanted it, a little loophole to get us past the chip problem." He placed his face within an inch of hers as he studied her face, which as he expected was struggling not to look horrified at the suggestion, "No, I thought not."

He backed away again and disappeared in to the darkness that her eyes had not yet become accustomed to. Pushing herself away from the wall she made her way in the general direction of the sofa where she hoped he had returned to. When she was sure that she was standing in front of him she took a deep breath and said, "I don't want anything from you, and I never did. It was always just, y' know, you." As her eyes adjusted to his position on the sofa she gently knelt in front of him, "I know I shouldn't be here, but it just got too hard. It's harder to leave every evening, to just pretend that everything's okay to everyone else is in the room. I'm sick of pretending, and so are you. And I know that's why you’re going to leave."

At this his dropped his hands from his head and turned to her with a look of shock on his face, "How did you...?"

"That’s what you’re going to do isn’t it? I mean there was never just two options, I kinda worked out that plan three was to kill me and now plan four is to leave." She waited for a moment to see if he would reply, when he didn't she continued, "Do you know where you'll go?"

"Best if I don't go into that," he said looking away from her again.

They both sat in silence as the rain came pounding down on the window outside, cutting through the tension within the crypt. Willow knew it was time for her to make an exit but she wasn’t quite sure how to make her move. There would be no tearful goodbyes like the last time a man walked out of her life. Crying was something she'd have to do when she was alone.

Rising from the sofa, she turned to Spike, "I think I should probably go now.". Spike nodded without looking up, "I, er, just want to use your bathroom for a moment, I need to get rid of some of this water before I go out and get wet again." She quickly ran around the sofa and disappeared into the bathroom.

When he was alone he sat frozen on the couch contemplating his next move, all the time trying to ignore the hiss in his brain telling him that he was making a huge mistake. He wasn't making a mistake, for perhaps the first time in two century's he was going the right thing, running away from a dangerous situation instead of jumping straight into the middle of it.

A sudden flash of lightning lit the darkened room, creating a beam of light through the crack underneath the door. It was calling to him, telling him what to do. He had to leave, he'd leave and then when she came out she'd just go with no last words or any other shit that he couldn't cope with. He glanced behind him to the door that she was behind. He'd watch her go of course, hide outside in the shadows as she walked away from him, it was a torture he couldn’t deny himself.

He saw himself pick up his coat and walk out of the door but it didn’t actually happen. He stood up and strode silently toward the dim shadow moving beneath the bathroom door. Pausing outside, he tried to listen to her soft sounds as she moved around the bathroom, telling himself that he just wanted that one last memento before he left. Above the constant rattle of the rain outside he could just make out the sound of her heartbeat, and the friction of cloth against skin. He dragged his hand down the doorframe in unison with her light strokes, trying to picture her beneath his hands.

Knowing that there was no way he could bring himself to walk away, he deeply exhaled all of his will and quietly turned the door handle.

She was standing with her back to him in front of the sink. Her head was bowed and pressed firmly into a towel that she held in her hands. As he edged silently towards her he noticed the salty fragrance of fresh tears hanging in the air around her and as he got closer he could see her shoulders shudder as she cried silently into the towel. Suddenly she lifted her head and exhaled sharply making him freeze within an inch of her back. She turned on the taps and began to splash her face with cold water in an attempt to hide the fact that she had been crying. Spike watched as each tiny little movement made her shirt stick to her damp skin in different places, all the way down to her loose purple skirt, which clung to her thighs like a second skin.

Turning off the taps she looked up and studied her reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink as she dried her face. She paused as she became aware the behind her in her reflection, empty space that didn’t seem quite as empty as it appeared. He was so close to her body at this point that he could see the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as her body stiffened.

"Spike", she whispered without turning around. "What are you doing?"

Gently he lifted a hand to the side of her head tucked her hair behind her ear so that he could see her face. "I don’t know," he whispered.

He reached down and gripped his hands gently around her wrists out of a sudden fear that she might back away from him. He placed a cool kiss on her neck and in an unconscious response she leant her head to one side.

"Spike." she said again

"Shhhh." He replied in a smooth voice, which wavered with uncertainty. Something about this situation made him nervous, like a schoolboy about to get his first fuck. Closing his eyes he let his demon push through his human features, bringing his confidence back with it. He flipped her around to face him, recognising the fear in her tear-swollen eyes as she came face to face with his demon form. But this quickly changed into her hardened resolve face. "I know what you’re trying to do."

"And what, pray tell, is that?"

"I don’t scare so easily anymore Spike." she leant towards him, "I'm not going anywhere." She let her statement hang in the air between them for a moment. It was difficult to gauge his reaction to anything through his demon face.

He leaned his head to one side as he let his demon slip back beneath his skin. Finally he leaned forward to her ear, "Mine", he whispered, before picking her up by the waist and sitting her down roughly on the sink. Before she had even a moment to gasp at the swift change in position he captured her mouth with his own.

For the first time in her life it suddenly hit her what the phrase "living in the moment" really meant as the rest of the world and all its can’ts and don’ts melted away. He pulled an inch away from her, sharply pulling her legs towards him so that he was firmly between her thighs. She quickly wrapped her legs around his waist to stop herself from falling to the floor; it also brought her into contact with his denim-clad erection, which was teasing her as it brushed back and forth over her panties. He pushed her arms in the air above her head and swiftly removed her top, dropping it unceremoniously on the floor next to the sink. He then quickly grabbed both of her hands and pinned them against the wall before she could cover herself up.

Spike felt his control over the situation rapidly slipping as he watched her chest rise and fall with fear while her legs drew him closer to her body in anticipation. Yet he still felt like she was hiding underneath some sort of veil of insecurity, hiding from him. He released his tight grip on her wrists and guided them around his neck before hoisting her up in to his arms.

"Spike where are we..." she began, but was silenced by Spike’s mouth on hers as he carried her into the blindly in to the next room.

When they finally reached the bedroom he pulled back from her mouth and placed her standing up on the edge of his bed so that he was at eye level with her stomach. He looked up at her and stroked her hair back from her face, letting his thumb drag lightly across her cheek. "Do you trust me?"

She nodded back at him and as a reward for her compliance he gently pulled the waistband of her skirt down a couple of centimetres and holding her waist placed a light kiss above her navel. "Good" he whispered, before ushering her backwards until she was standing with her back to the wall at the top of the bed. Never taking his eyes off of her face, he walked around the bed until he was standing opposite her. He leant forward on the bedstead; his shirt hanging lazily of one shoulder, oozing with his perfected intimidating stance as his eyes continued to toy with her. "Get undressed"

Her heart leapt up and got caught in her throat, "Huh?" she choked.

"Take your clothes off," he said slowly

She closed her eyes as she began to do what she was told. She reached behind her back, unhooked her bra and pulled it from her shoulders letting it fall to the floor in front of her. She sucked air nervously through her teeth as the moment hit her; she, Willow Rosenberg, the girl least likely to do anything to startle anyone was standing there, topless on a small stage for a demon audience of one.

"Open your eyes Willow."

When she had forced her eyes open she expected to be met with an expression of disappointment, or an open door banging in the breeze. Instead she saw him, standing in the same position but with his head leaning to one side watching her, fascinated. With added confidence she kicked off her shoes and began to pull the waistband of her skirt down over her hips.

Spike was taking in every movement of her body as she undressed, concentrating hard on his own actions as he tried to keep up his cool, calm exterior when all he wanted at that moment was to jump up there and tear into her.

As she let her skirt drop to the floor around her feet he climbed up over the bedstead and on to the bed. He stood about a foot away from her watching as her small perfect breasts rose and fell with quickening breaths. He could tell that her insecurities were kicking in; his eyes being all over her body were making her nervous. She broke his gaze and crossed her arms over her chest, he quickly stepped forward and pulled her arms apart, pinning them above her head against the wall. "There will be none of that". He leant in close to her, gripping both of her wrists with one hand so that the other could grab her ass gently and pull her flat against his body. "There will be no covering up or hiding, no biting your lip or staring at the ceiling, thinking that you’re doing everything wrong or pretending to have a good time." He pulled back to look at her face, and from the expression he was seeing he could tell that he'd hit a nerve.

He began to slowly but firmly made his way down her neck, placing light kisses on her neck as he moved. Releasing his grip on her wrists so that he could steady himself, and her, he made his way down to one of her breasts with his mouth. He paused and looked up at her, "If your enjoying it Willow, I want to hear it." He closed his lips around her nipple, almost instantly he felt her body react as it hardened against his tongue. She gasped at the sensation and tangled her fingers deeply through his hair as he began to roughly pinch at her breast with his teeth, gently working up the pressure.

She felt his other hand make its way down between her legs, gently pushing them apart. He tucked a finger under the elastic of her panties. Slowly he ran his finger back and forth beneath the material. He could hear her gasp lightly each time his finger caught her clit and soon he could feel her legs buckle slightly as she tried to increase the pressure down against his hand. He removed his mouth from her breast and moved up so that he could watch her face as he pressed two fingers inside of her. She closed her eyes and hissed as his cold fingers filled her, digging her blunt nails into the back of his neck. He began a slow torturous thrusting rhythm inside of her with his fingers, occasionally flicking his thumb over her sensitive bud of flesh. Grinning, he returned his attentions back to her other breast with his free hand, grinding her nipple between his fingers as his other hand slid in and out of her tight channel with increasing ease, feeling her thrust back against his hand.

Deciding that he wasn’t going to let her turn the situation on to a five-minute-fuck; he removed his hand, but kept it entwined in the waistband of her underwear. After silencing her low moan of protest with a kiss he pulled his hand back with a grunt of frustration and ripped her panties away from her skin, tossing them to the side. Holding her gaze he rolled his shoulders back and let his shirt fall to the floor behind him, then with a swift tug he opened the buttons on his fly. He watched as her wide eyes danced openly over his body, examining every muscle. "Stay standing", he ordered softly before falling to his knees in front of her, letting his hands slide down the curve of her body, which was slick with perspiration. Grabbing her ass he pulled her hips a few inches away from the wall towards him. Before she had a chance to register what was about to happen she felt a shock of electricity go through her as his tongue began to delve between her legs. At first he abandoned all sense of rhythm, it was like he was drinking her in, letting her sweet taste role across his tongue. She had never let anyone go down on her before through fear and embarrassment, none of which existed at that moment as her shallow breaths gave way to low moans of ecstasy as he strokes inside of her began to speed up and her legs began to buckle involuntarily beneath her. Her hand jutted out to the side of her body and her nails dug into the cold stonewall as she attempted to stop herself slipping further down the bed.

Finally, just as she felt in every way that she could hold on no longer, he grabbed her hips and pulled her down into his lap causing a high moan of shock to escape from her mouth. He crashed his mouth into hers before she had a chance to breath, sending her head flying backwards into the wall behind her. Willow barely registered the impact as her lips tore at his and her fingernails clawed across every inch of his exposed skin. Spike grinned beneath her assault on his mouth as he felt layers of insecurity peel away from her, leaving behind a perfect goddess who was rapidly destroying his plans for a long and slow seduction.

She gripped her arms around him and rocked her hips against his erection causing the denim to grate roughly against his cock. Gripping the back of her neck he fell backwards, carrying her with him so that she ended up on all fours above him, straddling his thighs. She watched his face in anxiously, the sudden pause in pace frustrating her. She then felt a tingle at the back of her thighs as his fingertips traced a line up her legs towards her ass cheeks, pausing when his fingers hit her soaked cleft. She moaned and pressed back against his fingers, forcing them to partially slide inside of her. Spike couldn’t suppress a grin at the expression of need on her face as his hand remained still, forcing her to do all the work of building herself up. Finally he stretched out his fingers so that he could casually massage her swollen bud with his thumb and was rewarded with and aching groan of pleasure and the feeling of her breasts slapping down onto his chest as her elbows gave way on either side of him.

He removed one hand from between her thighs and ran it up her body. Pausing at her rib cage he pushed her back up into a sitting position. Her body swayed rhythmically on top of him as his fingers continued to move inside of her. He pulled his hand back and thrust another finger inside of her, causing her close her eyes and gasp at the sudden pain of the intrusion. He kept his fingers still, waiting for her to adjust to the sudden change in size inside of her as he tenderly caressed the lower curve of her breast with the other thumb.

She timidly began to rock against his hand again as her discomfort subsided. The extra pressure inside of her making her exhausted breaths audible as each thrust filled her. Her body arched back as his fingers began to slip inside of her with greater ease, making her force herself harder against him to get what she needed. Spike thought he could sit and watch the show she was putting on for him for an eternity.

By this time his open jeans were hanging low on his hips, and the more wildly Willow moved against him, the further south they went. Willow could feel the wiry line of his pubic hair brushing against the back of her thighs; she shifted back along his legs so that she could see the dark line of hair above the waistband of his jeans. She looked back at Spike, who by this time had drawn back his arms and crossed them behind his head on the pillow, waiting for her next move. She hooked her fingers under his jeans and shift back, pulling his jeans with her. Spike groaned in relief as his cock sprang free from the tight confines of the denim.

Willow couldn’t help but openly gawk as she moved up his now naked body. He looked like a man, a perfectly formed chiselled sculpture. But setting him apart from any human male was his colourless skin; which looked paler than usual in the little light that was creeping in through the murky windows. She found that his less than human appearance didn’t concern her, quite the opposite in fact. She began to freely take in his body with her hands, dragging them down his marble stomach, stopping at the base of his cock.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the mattress as her soft fingers ran along it's length, enjoying the novel sensations of a warm hand around his cock. Snapping his eyes open he quickly grabbed her ass and pulled himself up till he was sitting in front of her and she sitting in his lap. Her face was a couple of inches above his, staring at him with a mixture of lust and apprehension. He raised a hand to her face, running it back and forth across her lower lip until she let it inside the moist warmth of her mouth. She could taste herself on his fingers, and smell the fresh tobacco on his skin. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling of his fingertips as his other hand moved back between her legs. He began pinching and squeezing at her clit more harshly that before, until she was biting down on his finger at the feeling of pleasurable pain.

Spike watched her come back to the brink in his arms, her volume increasing as his tireless fingers worked on her. He let his fingers slip from her mouth as she tilted backwards towards the ceiling, his hand coming to a rest on her delicate white throat. He could feel hot blood rushing through her veins under his fingers; she was truly a feast for all of his senses.

When he was sure that she was completely lost in herself he made his move. Positioning himself at her entrance he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her body sharply downwards, impaling himself smoothly inside of her. Her eyes flew open and she screamed at the sharp and sudden invasion, pulling herself forward until her forehead rested on his.

"Shhhh!" he whispered to her softly as he began to kiss her lips lightly. He knew he had scared her, she felt submissive in his arms, which was perfect. Slowly, he pulled out of her, causing a high-pitched sigh to escape from her mouth. He continued like this for a few moments, carefully sliding in and out of her until her muscles got used to his size. As he began to move inside of her more easily he could feel her body lifting as she tried to thrust back against him. He manoeuvred her legs around her waist and almost instantly felt them squeeze around him tightly as she tried to force him deeper.

Spike was using every ounce of his will to keep control of the situation and not just fuck the life out of her. Being inside a warm body was unbelievable, and the fact that it was her warm body with its amazing scent and beauty just made the whole experience more exquisite. He caught one of her swaying breasts in his mouth, swirling his tongue around her sensitive flesh as her fingers ran through his still damp hair.

Releasing her breast from her lips he looked up at her face. She looked right back at him, her face free of the usual pain and insecurity that she was always hidden behind. Her eyes were filled with an expression of hunger and greed, looking at him like a fledgling vampire looks at his first kill. It was a look that was just enough to send him over the edge. With a growl he pulled out of her and holding her round the waist, flipped them both over so that she was underneath him. Before she had time to adjust to suddenly facing the ceiling he plunged back into her.

He began to pound in to her with such a force that their bodies inched up the bed, until Willow could reach up an arm and grip onto the metal of the bedstead. Willow curled her body around his as if holding on for dear life as her hips rose off the bed to match him thrust for thrust. Her body was burning, like parts of her that she didn’t even know existed were finally coming alive. By this time she had no fear or sense of shame and so cried out and moved as the need took her.

Spike was close; he could feel it. But he was buggered if he was going to reach the finishing line before her. She wasn’t making it easy for him; every sound she emitted as she writhed beneath him was pushing him close to spilling over. Her face carried a trance-like expression, silently mouthing the first two letters of his name over and over again as he continued to fuck her into the mattress.

She gradually turned her head to one side, exposing the sheet of skin hiding her throbbing vein to his gaze. He wasn’t sure whether she was doing this on purpose and so kept his face at a distance from her neck. She twisted her face round to him, communicating her intensions with a single look. Unconsciously his demon face appeared in anticipation at what she was offering, but he still hesitated above her. Willow arched her upper body towards him, crushing her breasts against his chest and placing her face as the side of his so that his lips brushed against his neck. He ran his tongue along her smooth skin, tasting the salt of her perspiration like an appetiser for what lingered beneath the surface. Beneath him he felt her muscles convulse as the first wave of orgasm hit her body. She screamed and lurched backwards, but before she could get away he tugged her neck back towards his face and sunk his fangs deep into her skin.

Willow screamed again as the pain heightened the force as she came. Spike heaved her up off of the bed and into his arms and proceeded to slam her down onto him as he rode into her from below. The feeling as her faultless human blood flowed into his mouth was like someone had set his senses alight. With an untamed roar into her neck her came deep and hard inside of her still convulsing body; sending the two of them falling backwards onto the bed with intensity of his final thrust.

Spike withdrew his fangs carefully the moment he felt the side of his face hit the mattress. He knew that if he didn’t stop at that moment then he would not be able to. He lay there on top of her shaking body, unable to move, not wanting to move. He was feeling things inside of him that he hadn’t felt in two centuries; he felt warmth and he felt calm, but at the same time each dead nerve ending in his body ached.

Pushing himself up onto his elbows he hovered over Willow. Her eyes were closed and strands of hair were stuck to the flushed skin of forehead with beads of perspiration. She looked more perfect than any moment he had ever looked at her. He wasn’t looking at the Sunnydale slayerette girl at that moment, it was just her.

As he wiped the hair back from her forehead she opened her eyes, a single tear flowing from the corner of her eye down the side of her face as she did. As he traced the line of the tear with his finger he knew that it had nothing to do with pain or any kind of regret, it was for the now inevitable conclusion.

"So," she began in a raspy voice, "I guess that’s it then."

Spike continued to stare at her as if she had said nothing; he was pondering the concept of letting her go, and the goal of holding on to her for just that little bit longer.

He picked her up by the waist and pulled the two of them backward so that she was lying on top of him at the other end of the bed. Her body was limp through a combination of exhaustion and blood loss and she didn’t even attempt to move herself. She slipped to the side of him, her body moulding to the side of his as she rested her head on his shoulder, his arm curled beneath her. The pair lay in silence, listening to the night time sounds of the graveyard outside.

"Willow?" Spike said through the dark

"Yeah?" she whispered back

"Stay here with me until sunset tomorrow."

He felt her cheek move as she smiled against his shoulder. "Yeah."

His only reaction to her answer was to pull her closer to his body. Within moments he registered the deep breathing that signalled that she was asleep.

He stayed awake all through the night, thinking as he watched her sleep. He stayed awake until his instincts told him that the sun was rising and he was forced to put a stop to the first occasion that he had ever thought about the future and close his eyes.

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