Happy Endings

Description: A Buffy/Spike fic. It hadn’t occurred to me to write a sequel to Home Sick until several readers on fanfiction.net asked for it. Who was I to refuse? Here it is.

Disclaimer: The characters from Buffy are not mine, sadly. They belong to the good people at Fox, the WB, UPN and of course the God of all things Buffy, Joss Whedon.

Spoilers: For season six, through Older and Farther Away.

Rated: PG

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Buffy was laying in bed when Spike came into her room.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

She hastened to shut off the TV, lest Spike should discover her watching Passions.

“Get out,” she told him.

“Now that’s very not friendly,” he muttered.

She could tell she had hurt the vampire’s feelings. “I’m sorry, it’s just I’m all … sick and in my PJ’s and everything.”

He laughed. That’s what she was worried about?

“Sweetheart, even in your PJ’s without a stitch of makeup and your hair all wonky, you’re still a thousand times more beautiful than any other girl alive.”

“What about Dru?”

He had missed something there. “Huh?”

“You said ‘any other girl *alive*’. Dru’s not alive.”

Spike sensed he was treading on dangerous territory. “Comparing you and Dru would be like comparing apples and oranges.”

“Except that apples don’t stake oranges,” Buffy pointed out.

“Not even if the oranges really, really pissed them off?”

Buffy started laughing hysterically. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” she said through a fit of giggles.

Spike smiled. The girl never laughed nearly as often as she should.

Her laughs turned to coughs, and he grew concerned again.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” she reassured him. “Stupid cold.”

“Stay right there,” he told her.

Buffy rushed over to the mirror. She had slept on her hair funny. Damn! She brushed it, attempting to transform it to the height of cuteness, but settled for keeping it from sticking out every which-way.

She plopped back on the bed just as Spike came in bearing a glass of orange juice.

“Speaking of oranges … here you go,” he said, handing it to her, “Fresh squeezed.”

Buffy was impressed. “You squeezed this yourself?”

“No,” he admitted, “but someone in Florida did. Drink up.”

She sipped the orange juice. It certainly beat the Hell out of the watered-down cokes at the Doublemeat Palace.

“So,” she said, “You never did finish that story of yours.”

“Oh that,” he said. “I can take a stab at the ending. Here goes:

“The prince and the princess continued to meet in the shadows to snog like mad, but they both realized that it couldn’t last forever. Hiding what they were doing from the world was making both of them unhappy. The secret was slowly killing them.”

Buffy frowned. The story was hitting a little too close to home with her. “I know all about that,” she mumbled under her breath.

“The prince begged her to tell her royal subjects. Surely they would realize the change in him, and over time come to accept their love.

“But the princess was afraid. Strong as she was in spirit, she was also vulnerable in her heart. Too many knights before him had won her fancy and then left on crusades, never to return. She thought that what her and the prince were doing was wrong. She was right in a way, but it was the hiding, not the snogging that was wrong. She wanted proof that his love was pure. She wanted proof that he was pure.

“He tried to convince her and show her the light. ‘Let me climb the highest mountain for you,’ he said.

“Blinded as she was by her fears, she could not be swayed.

“’Let me sail the farthest ocean for you,’ he said.

“Still she could not be swayed.

“’Let me devote my very life and death to following you,’ he said.

“But still she was not swayed.

“The prince realized that she would never accept him for what he was. They could never truly be together. It broke his heart, for he his love was pure and the strength of it had made him pure.

“He made a wish and turned into and blackbird, flying away in the dead of night. The princess never heard from him again, and forevermore wondered what had happened to her love.”

Buffy sat in stunned silence for a moment, before finally opening her mouth to speak.

“That sucked!” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re story. It was so sad. You’re supposed to be cheering me up. Where’s my happily ever after?”

“You never said it had to be a happy ending, Pet.”

“That’s just because I figured that it would be. Great, now I‘m sick *and* depressed.”

Spike raised an eyebrow critically. “I suppose you could do better?”

“Damned right I could!” she answered. Buffy chugged the rest of her OJ in a big gulp.

“Now for the *real* ending. The princess did care for the prince, more than she cared to admit, even to herself. She was wary of her love, for she knew that what had changed to good from evil could always change back to evil again.”

“Let me assure you that this prince would never-“ Spike interrupted.

She shot him a dirty look. “Shush! I’m telling the story now, got it!

“Were the prince to turn evil again, all that she loved -- her family, her friends and her kingdom -- would be in grave danger. She decided there was only one way to access his intentions for sure. She would test him.

“She told him to go away. She said it was over and she never wanted to see him again. She banished him from the kingdom.”

Spike frowned. This story was definitely not turning out to his liking. Buffy saw his frown and explained, “She told him to leave because she had to see if he would be good without her.

“The princess had a crystal ball high up in her tower-“

“No towers in the kingdom, Luv.”

“-Which she built because towers are pretty and every princess should have one!” she said, sticking her tongue out at Spike. “Through the crystal ball she watched the prince closely. To her amazement he did not return to his evil ways, but continued doing acts of kindness and goodness for others. He *had* changed. It was almost as if he had grown a soul, or at least a conscience.

“Finally the princess could stand it no longer. She went to the prince and told him it had all been a test. She told him-“ Buffy’s lower lip began to tremble. “She told him that she loved him, and she couldn’t live without him.”

Spike’s realized that Buffy was crying. He jumped in to finish the story. For once she did not object. “The prince told her that there was nothing to fear, because she would never be without him. He was hers, for then and always.”

“And she kissed him,” Buffy said through sobs, “and they lived happily ever after.”

Spike put his arms around her. “Shhhh … don’t cry.”

“Spike, do believe in happy endings in real life?”

“I do,” he told her, “but you can’t sit around waiting for the narrator to hand them out, you have to write them yourself.”

Buffy pulled closed to her and kissed him passionately. He kissed her back and whispered in her ear, “You are my happily ever after, Princess.”