LIGHT AT THE END OF A VERY LONG TUNNEL

Spike leaned closer to the television screen and squinted at the fuzzy picture. It seemed that his pilfered cable hookup was malfunctioning again. Or maybe it was just the VCR that he had ’borrowed’ from the local Mall.

"Bugger it all! I must be losing my touch." He poked at some buttons and frowned. He could just make out the opening credits of his favorite daytime soap, ’Passions’. He used to lose sleep catching it during the day, thus the need for a VCR, but the show had become a habit, and he actually felt a bit panicked at the thought of missing an episode.

He scowled. How much lower could a vampire sink?

Perhaps, he thought, he could slip into the Slayers’ house if they were all out somewhere, and see if Joyce had taped it. She loved it as much as he did. Hell, if Joyce was at home she’d probably watch it with him…..maybe get out the cocoa and the…….

He jerked in surprise as the door to the crypt burst open and hit the stone wall with

a crash, the vibration causing the TV set to teeter on its' duct-taped stand. Spike

steadied it with one hand while groping for a weapon with the other, but only came

up with an empty beer bottle.

He leaped to his feet and whirled to face the door, landing in a defensive stance. When he saw that his killer demon was only the Slayer wearing her usual pissed off expression, he relaxed and walked over and flopped into the nearby chair.

"Door's open! Come on in!" he said, with a grand sweep of his hand. He took a sip from the not quite empty bottle, making a face at the bitter taste.

Seconds later he found himself tackled and flying through the air.

He landed hard on the stone floor underneath the tiny blonde Slayer. Buffy's hand was like a vice around his throat, her body straddling his in a way that could have been quite enjoyable if not for the fact that the stake she gripped in her other hand was jabbing him in the chest.

She was breathing heavily and he wondered if she'd sprinted all the way here from her house.

Spike couldn’t be sure that she'd come from home but he figured it was possible since he’d seen her there, and he'd only just left his worn spot in the grass below her bedroom window about an hour before, due to running out of cigs.

He stayed completely still, not wanting to startle her into doing anything that he might die to regret.

"Buffy?" He queried, and to his horror, his voice sounded all squeaky. He tried again, still frozen. "Slayer?" It sounded a bit like Lauren Bacall that time, which wasn’t great but would have to do.

Buffy glared down into his face for a moment longer and then shifted a bit and blinked down at him as if just realizing that she needed to do something besides lie there. Spike relaxed a little, partly due to the warm fuzzy feelings he was having below the belt buckle, but mostly because the stake had shifted a bit.

"What did I do this time, Slayer?"

It wasn’t as if he was able to take a leak in the bushes around her house, for Christ’s sake. He wasn’t even sure she knew he was out there nearly every night.

He chanced a wriggle, and tried not to look too comfortable, even if there *was* a stake poised close to his heart.

"So, Blondie. You gonna get down to business here, or is this just a practice run?" He moved his hips suggestively. "Or is it something else you wanted?"

Realizing that she was giving him a happy, Buffy put her feet down, and stood up. Stashing her stake in her back pocket, she stepped over his still prone body , stalked to his chair and sat down in his recently vacated impression, noting that it was of course, not warm. She resumed glaring at him.

Becoming uncomfortable under her gaze, he arose from the floor in as dignifying a manner as possible and fished a pack of cigs from his back pocket. Lighting one and tossing the match, he blew the smoke in her general direction, and smiled.

"Y’know, Luv, it never ceases to amaze me, the differences between us. You carry a nasty sharp, bloody great splinter in your back pocket, while I have but a pack of smokes. Makes one wonder just who *is* the ‘Big Bad’, now doesn’t it?"

In spite of herself, Buffy nearly grinned back at him, which was especially hard not to do when she saw his hand tremble as he lit the cigarette. Big Bad, indeed.

"Cut the chit-chat, Spike." Buffy jumped up from the chair and stood before him, her arms folded in what she hoped was a stern pose, not realizing how it enhanced Spikes’ view down her shirt. "I’m here for some answers."

Spike was a bit rattled from the scenery but did his best to look her in the eye. Finally he gave up and snorted in disgust with himself. "Bloody close your shirt front, or step back a few, if you want me to pay attention."

Buffys’ face turned bright red and she dropped her arms to her sides, but remained where she was, which suddenly seemed way too close. "Sorry."

"You should be."

"What?!"

"Comin’ in here, half dressed, at this hour…."

"I am *not* half dressed, and it’s not that late, and besides…..". She trailed off as she saw by his smirk that he was baiting her and changing the subject, something that he excelled at.

"I want my shirt back, and I want it right now." She glared up at him.

Spike took a deep drag off of his cigarette, wondering as he often did, how he was able to do that, and replied, "Gone and lost some clothing somewhere Slayer? Been playing it a bit fast and loose, eh?"

Buffy continued. "I don’t have time to banter this back and forth with you, Spike. My favorite sweatshirt is missing. The one that says ‘I Love L.A.’ on it. I want it back now, or your next home will be a dust buster."

Spike smiled, his half smoked cig hanging from one corner of his mouth. "The blue one with the frayed sleeves, all soft and smelling of fabric softener?"

"That’s it."

"The one that you can wear wrong side out if you want to?"

"Yes."

"And it kind of slips down on one shoulder real sexy like….when you wear it?"

"That’s the one….Uh….I mean, not the sexy part, but…..Just give it to me!"

"Haven’t seen it."

She ignored his low laughter, but her cheeks were pinking up nicely. "Spike, Angel sent me that shirt for my birthday. It can’t possibly mean anything to you."

The blonde Vampire snorted and flicked some ashes onto the toe of Buffy’s shoe.

"Why should it mean anything to me? If the big ‘Poof’ wants to send you an article of clothing instead of a dozen roses or a phone call, that’s your problem." He made a mental note to himself to burn the shirt, first chance he got. Angel, indeed.

Now he wasn’t going to bother to reveal that it had been her baby sister, the Nibblet, who had left the shirt in his crypt in the first place. Let her stew.

Buffy felt her blood pressure climbing. Looking over Spikes’ shoulder she spied the missing cotton garment on top of the chunk of stone the vampire often napped upon.

She shoved past him and grabbed it, waving it triumphantly over her head.

"Gee, I wonder what this is, you lying sack of……"

In three long strides Spike was nose to nose with the Slayer, tossing his spent cig to the floor.

"Let’s not resort to name calling, *Elizabeth*, or I’ll be forced to join in as well!" Then he foolishly added, "‘Little Miss Can’t Keep a Man‘!"

The swift punch landed him on the stone floor, blood from his nose splattering his shirt front. The nose. Why was it *always* the nose? Did she have a fixation?

Buffy stood shaking her hand, amazed at how hard she’d hit him. She hadn’t meant to, and suddenly wished she hadn’t even come to the crypt at all. Why did he bring out the bitch in her? He was only replying to her in the only way he knew how, and he hadn’t really deserved a bloody nose. But she was not about to let him sense a chink in her armor.

"Get up from there and tell me, if you can form words that are not lies, *why*

you seem to have half of my wardrobe in your crypt?" Yes, she knew about his little clothing fetish, but was having a hard time accepting it, anyway.

Spike was tired. She was always hitting him, sometimes before he could even get out a word of explanation, and it was getting monotonous.

"I like the view from the floor just fine, thank you very much. Knew I’d be down here soon’s you came through the bloody door." He folded his arms behind his head. "So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just stay down here and make it harder for you to reach me."

Buffy sighed. Suddenly the whole thing was almost funny. Her recent past was a blur of things that she mostly did not want to remember.

Riley leaving her, Glory a constant threat to her family, the possibility of Drusilla still being nearby, and this stuff with Spike….feelings she was having towards him that she didn’t care to examine, not to mention the ones that he’d declared for her. She could blow Spike’s off as the wild fantasies of a sick vampire mind, but her own were harder to analyze.

She thought of the little Buffy Shrine that she had discovered in his ‘basement’ just before he had chained her up down there and made her listen to his proclamation of love. He was ‘drownin’ in her’, indeed!

She nearly smiled, and then remembered the fact that he had fed from a human, and hadn’t tried to stop the death in the first place. A new development in the chipped vampire file.

That was most definitely *not* funny.

Buffy walked slowly to where he lay looking up at the ceiling and stared down at him.

If she were truly the Slayer, she should have staked Spike long ago. If she were to drop dead on the spot at this very moment, wouldn’t he drain her dry as swiftly as he had that poor guy at the Bronze? *Why* did she always walk away? Well, ok, she usually slugged him first, but still……Her eyes narrowed.

Spike tensed at the expression on her face, and wondered what was going through her mind, and if at last, this might be the end of the line for him. If her patience had finally run out. Or if she was just going to stomp him in the eye with her pointy heels.

When she sat down cross legged just behind him and took his head into her lap, it scared the hell out of him.

Not that it wasn’t comfortable. Extremely so. Oh yeah, there was lots of warmth and comfy feelings pooling into mostly one region.

But while that alone would have been more than enough for the ‘old Spike’, there was suddenly a ‘new and improved’ version who was sensing that this was new territory for both of them.

In other words, (new Spike explained to old Spike who could be a bit dense) despite all her protesting to the contrary, Buffy was wavering in her resolve to hate him. What else could this mild version of a lap dance mean? Why wasn’t she dropping his head on the floor about now, just to hear it thump? Just to remind him that he existed only for her amusement?

And why was she just sitting there staring into space with his head in her lap allowing his mind time to come up with wild fantasies?

As if in answer, she slapped his cheek lightly with one hand while keeping the other firmly under his chin, which forced him to look up at her.

"Wakey, wakey." She smiled grimly down at him.

"Huh?" was his brilliant reply.

"Sorry, I thought you’d fallen asleep. Your eyes were all glazed over like you were dead. Oh yeah, you are. I keep forgetting that part."

"Oh, HA HA. That’s very droll, isn’t it? Aren’t you just the funniest little thing? Excuse me you silly bint, but you just knocked me across the bloody room and most of my last meal is leaking out, which, due to you clutching my head in your powerful slayer-grip, I can’t lick back up. Do you mind?" He looked pointedly down at the hand that gripped his chin.

She looked down at him for a moment and allowed her expression to soften. "Spike, I have all day. And if it takes that long, you are going to explain to me why you keep following me, stealing my clothes, popping up wherever I go…."

She paused, then continued. "When I give you NO sign of any affection. When I break down your door constantly, and then follow it up by breaking your head! When I *de-invite* you from my home! Why? Why do you want me to abuse you? Are you a sicko? Do you get off on it?"

Spike smiled up at her as she looked down at him, their faces only inches away from each other. This was his chance. At last he could tell her how he felt, and this time, she wasn’t even chained up. With wide, innocent blue eyes, he spoke.

"Y’know, Slayer, a woman your age needs to be more careful. Do you have any idea what gravity does to your face in that position?" Bloody Hell. The old version of Spike just hadn’t been able to resist that one. He closed his eyes and made a face, waiting for the blow that was sure to make him see stars.

Buffy gave him what he expected. Disgusted that she had even tried to talk to him at all, she leaped to her feet and let his head fall back to the floor with a thud.

Then she gave him what he was *not* expecting. Before he could pick himself back up she landed on his chest, straddled him, and kissed him as hard as she could. It wasn’t a peck, or a Scooby-type smooch, but a bruising hard kiss that continued until she ran out of air and realized that the blood on his face was on her tongue. Which meant it was all over her own face, as well.

"Eyeeew!!!" She sat up, still seated on him, wiping at her face wildly.

Spike didn’t know if he should be offended or not. At least she wasn’t spitting his blood out, not that it was his own blood, anyway, and she had kissed him, and he wasn’t staked, and *Buffy had kissed him!*

No witches spell this time.

He’d likely have lain there all day thinking about it, but as she wriggled around on him he began having even more interesting thoughts and sensations.

And besides,….. He was fairly sure that he’d heard one of his ribs crack. Buffy had his midsection in a vice like grip with her thighs. Such a tiny package, with such power. It never ceased to amaze him.

"Slayer." She ignored him and kept rubbing her face. "Buffy!" She peered down at him with the cutest little blood mustache.

"WHAT?"

"You’re crushin’ my bleedin’ rib cage. Either get off, or come back down here and finish what you started!"

Buffy stood up and moved off of him swiftly in one fluid motion. She stalked back to his favorite chair and sat down in it heavily, all the fight gone out of her. Where the hell had that come from? She’d kissed him, yes, but it wasn’t just a kiss. It was almost like she’d wanted to punish him with it, but she realized that the feeling she had now was not disgust, or even shock, but a kind of resignation. Her eyes widened and she moaned softly. Was it possible that she *did* have feelings for him? Was he right, after all?

And was she ever going to wipe this blood off of her face?

Spike scooted over to sit at her feet. Strike while the iron is hot. Or, in this case, while the stake is pocketed. Buffy had crossed her legs and was swinging one booted foot dangerously close to his ear. He grabbed it and stilled it, trying to keep his expression neutral.

"So, Slayer. What do we do next?" Spike had some ideas that he was going to keep to himself for the time being. They involved Slayer sweat. Lots of Slayer sweat.

"Shut up, Spike." She was wondering why she hadn’t run out the door this time. Usually when she finished bashing things out with Spike, she stomped out of the crypt either in a huff or in victory, but the key word here was *out*. Why was she still there?

"Actually, I thought I was pretty quiet, under the circumstances. I didn’t yell ‘rape’, or anything, did I?" He pretended to examine the sole of her shoe.

She found herself smiling back, pushing her inner questions aside for the moment.

"Well, Spike, that hardly surprises me, knowing how easy you are."

Spike sat with his jaw gaping for a moment, then replied. "Isn’t that the bloody pot calling the kettle black?! I’m not the only one with an odd love life y’know! And I won’t even bring the bleedin’ great Poofter into this."

Buffy stopped smiling. "You’d better not. I left my dust buster at home."

Spike snorted, continuing to hold her booted foot, his fingers stroking the leather. He’d broken the unspoken rule. Never talk about Angel. "You can drop the threats, Slayer. If I had a nickel for every time……"

She jerked her foot from his grasp and bonked him on the head with it.

"OW!"

They continued to sit there for a few breaths (hers, not his) and she sighed. He was right, and there was no denying it. But she knew it wasn’t love. She glanced at him as he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and licked the blood off. He turned away so she wouldn’t see. Oh God. It just *couldn’t* be love!

She changed the subject a bit. "So, the sweatshirt, all my other missing clothing, you just slip into my home whenever you like and take what you want. Don’t you find that a little bit wrong?"

Her eyes widened. "Hey! I didn’t miss that shirt till today! How did you get in? You *can’t* get in!"

Oh dear. Buffy was glaring at him again. He decided that even if the bite sized one *had* left the stupid shirt in his crypt, he might as well come clean with the rest of it.

He folded his hands in his lap, and tried to look as innocent as a choirboy.

"Well, Slayer, there’s a fox in your hen house…..or is that a mole in your garden? Anyway, it seems that I have a sympathetic ear at your house. Did you really think you could keep me out? If it hadn’t been one, it would have been the other. Joyce always enjoyed those little talks. The hot chocolate. The marshmallows…………"

Buffy, distracted by the thought that Spike looked just like an evil choirboy realized what the vampire was getting at and tensed up in her seat.

"What? Who? When did this happen? You’re making it up! You talked Dawn into forgiving you, and she’s bringing you things, isn’t she?"

"I talked the nibblet into doing more than that, Buffy."

She ignored the shiver. The one that ran clear down to her toes after making a stop in another area, at his use of her name. "What do you mean?" She hoped her voice wasn’t shaky.

He put his chin on her knee ignoring her involuntary flinch and looked up at her, his feelings for her written all over his face.

"Come on, Luv. Your baby sister may be brand new at this ‘life’ thing, but she isn’t stupid. She knows damned well I’d never hurt you, or her, or your mom. I extend that to your bloody little Scooby gang, Giles, and even Xander. And believe me, *that* aint’ easy. If you only knew how often I’ve thought about breaking *his* neck. ‘Evil Dead‘, indeed!!"

"So, in your own comforting little way, you’re trying to tell me that Dawn invited you into the house?" Buffy sagged in the chair. This was it. This was the breaking point. She had tried and tried to instill in Dawn a sense of fear, where Spike was concerned, but apparently, she hadn’t gotten through. What if they were both wrong?

Yes, *both* wrong, because Buffy had given up. She truly did not believe that Spike would ever harm her, or her family and friends.

Maybe she hadn’t worried about that for a long time now. And she was beginning to suspect that the government chip in his brain didn’t have anything to do with the trust that she had been placing in him more and more often these days.

But she didn’t love him. She just couldn’t. The thought of the people that died at the Bronze that night, at the hands of Drusilla, while Spike stood right there, was too fresh in her mind.

The one knowledge that kept her from doing her Slayer duty and staking Spike, even though he couldn’t outright kill anyone on his own, was that he could have at any time had all of the people she cared for killed by someone else. He could have eaten his way through the whole town, at any time since he’d discovered his power over other demons.

Sunnydale was loaded with willing, chicken shit minions.

She looked down at him. He looked back up. Was it possible, that with her influence, he might be coming into a new nature that was strong enough to defeat that of the Demon?

Could he really care for her without a soul? Or was there perhaps still a vestige of his human self, even his former soul, that could be cultivated?

God….she felt like Giles, sitting here trying to analyze all of this. She was even thinking some big words.

Dru was out of the picture for Spike now, not that Buffy thought for a minute that she wouldn’t try to get her ‘boy’ back at some point. *But* for now, he was sitting here with an open mind, and instead of ignoring her feelings which, though jumbled and confused, all pointed to caring *in some way* for this vampire sitting before her, she decided, at last, to take a small step in a new direction.

Besides…..her brain was starting to hurt.

But there was certainly no reason to let him know about it just yet. She put one foot on his chest and shoved him over backwards, jumping up out of the chair.

Stick with the familiar. He seemed to be used to it.

Spike sat up on his elbows and frowned at her. "So now what? We go another senseless round of fisticuffs at my expense?" He fingered his nose, gingerly. It had stopped bleeding but was still tender.

Buffy smiled at him over her shoulder as she walked to the door of the crypt.

"Spike, I’m going home to take a shower, and get your blood off of me. Do you want me to save the water so you can make yourself some tea later?"

Wondering if she was referring to the blood or to her own essence, Spike arose from the floor, thinking thoughts of ’Slayer tea’, and walked to the door where Buffy stood.

He noted, with his enhanced senses, that as he came to stand inches from her that her heart began to thump much faster. It was music that gave him hope.

He looked down at her as she looked up into his blue eyes, and with no warning, vamped out, his eyes flashing gold, and smiled so that his fangs showed.

To her credit, she didn’t flinch. "So what is this for? You testing me, or what?"

He stopped smiling. It was now or never. Might as well go for broke. "I’ve got a little confession to make, Slayer."

"And that is?" In spite of her new found trust, a little shiver went up her spine. There was something about his stance that was suddenly different. Yet it was familiar. And a bit threatening.

"The chip."

"Wh….what about it?"

"It stopped working awhile back."

"WHAT?"

He continued before his words could really sink in, though by the look on her face they already had. "I was taking a bus to.."

She interrupted him. Anything to stop this conversation from beginning, for she feared the end was something that she didn’t want to hear.

"Spike, you rode on a bus?"

"The Desoto needs some work, OK? Now, as I said, I was.."

"Whose money did you use, Xander’s?" Below the belt, but satisfying.

Spike closed his eyes, his face becoming human once more, half afraid that he would just rip her throat out and be done with it. He looked at her in exasperation. "Buffy, are you going to let me tell you this, or not?"

She had begun to feel very nervous, looking into his demon face, but now that he was just Spike again, she felt better. She folded her arms in front of her and leaned on the doorway. "Go ahead. Tell the tale. I’m all ears. At last, a story that I don’t have to pay cash for."

Spike smiled grimly. If she kept up that attitude, ears would be all that was left of her and he’d do it for free. "As I was saying, I caught a bus one night, after that little altercation we had with Glory, at the hospital. You remember, where I …"

"Slept through most of it." Buffy smirked, willing herself not to believe him.

"Whatever," he ground out through his teeth. "A guy on the bus got rowdy with me, kept badgering me for spare change and all…"

"Shoe’s on the other foot, huh? How’d that feel?" Buffy was having so much fun suddenly that the dried blood on her face was completely forgotten.

Spike sighed, and continued. "He kept it up until I grabbed him by his shirt and told him to knock it off."

He could see Buffy was dying to add something, and hurried to get his story told.

"It didn’t hurt me. Not even a twinge in the old noggin. So I turned him so that none of the other passengers could see, and I gave him my true face. Still nothing! Not so much as a tiny migraine! Then I told him he’d better watch out, that there are things about in the night that might eat an asshole like him, and how I was about to miss my stop….It was priceless the way his eyes were buggin‘ out….." Spike looked a little dreamy at this point.

"Spike, before you go on with this tale, I have to know…..*where* were you going on the bus?"

"Going? That’s not important."

"It is to me. I wanna know."

He growled softly in impatience. "I was going to the blood bank, downtown."

"Ah HA! Making a little withdrawal?" She ignored the feeling she got as his growl reverberated in the crypt. A strangely erotic sound, suddenly, in such a place.

She wore such a triumphant expression that Spike nearly hated to disappoint her.

"Nope. I was making a deposit."

"Huh?"

"I sell my own blood now and again, for cigarette money. Started doing that as soon as I realized the chip was kaput."

"You what? How the hell do you do that?"

"Easy. When I’m nice and full, well fed, I drop in and get some money for my blood. It works if I’m careful not to do it too often." And stay clear of eating Winos, he thought.

Buffy picked up her jaw from the floor. "Don’t they ever try to get your pulse, or *anything*? They’d find you out in a minute!"

Spike smiled. "Buffy, I’m not the first vampire to ever slip into a blood bank for a little nip. I just put my own twist on it, is all. I’ve got a friend down there who just takes the blood with no questions, or examinations, and gives me the cash."

A new thought entered her head. "And of course, you don’t make off with anything but the cash."

Spike looked a bit nervous. "Don’t know what you mean."

He really didn’t. Maybe she was referring to his ’friend’ at the morgue, being a rather ‘loose’ woman who did indeed give him more than his supper, but she had no way of knowing that, did she? With the Slayer, you could never be too sure.

She stared up at him with raised eyebrows.

"Oh alright. I slip into the back sometimes and grab a few bags of blood. Bloke’s gotta eat." And you can’t always find evil doers, or lawyers and politicians to eat when you need them, he thought again.

This was familiar territory. This was the Spike that Buffy knew. There was definitely a lot of work ahead, that is, unless he really was sans-chip. Then there was a big problem.

Strike that….a huge insurmountable problem. "Pray do continue."

Spike didn’t like the look in her eye, but forged ahead. "This is all beside the point, Buffy, what I’m trying to tell you is that the chip stopped working. It must have been when that skank, Glory, knocked the shit out of me that night….who knows? A lot’s happened to me lately. Bloody robots throwing me through windows….."

Buffy giggled, then caught herself and put forth her ’resolve’ face, an expression she had learned from her friend, Willow. If that one failed, she’d use one of Giles’.

"So prove it to me."

Well, he hadn’t expected this. Now what? There were so many ways to comply with her request. Some of them would really be fun. Of course, he would be too dusty to notice, but still it was tempting.

He smiled, a small sexy smile. "I guess I could just bite you…." He couldn’t help letting his gaze fall downward, to her neck, where the pulse was throbbing enticingly and now fairly racing as he spoke.

"And I guess I could just stake your ass. Try again, fang boy."

So much for that.

"If you won’t let me bite you, and I was kind of just kidding about that, then I guess there’s only one other, fairly bloodless way to show you that I’m telling you the truth."

He looked down into her beautiful, hazel eyes, drew back his fist and punched her right in the nose!

Hell, it had worked once before, though not quite in the same way, and Willows’ lover’s nose hadn’t even bled like Buffy’s was, at the moment.

Oops. He quickly grabbed her, and hugged her to him, mumbling words of comfort as he kissed her nose, eyes, forehead, and after the barest hesitation, her lips. He lightly brushed them with his own, shuddering as her blood touched his tongue.

Buffy just hung there in his embrace, the pain from the blow fading as she allowed herself to feel his kiss. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was pretty damned good.

Then he blew that for her when she felt his tongue begin licking her face, cleaning it of the blood, both old and her own as well.

She nearly stopped him but for a strange sort of lassitude that was creeping over her body. As his tongue bathed her face she began to experience a comfort that she had never felt before, followed by a willingness to allow him to do more.

But what was more? His bite? Was this a form of ‘thrall’, as she had experienced with Dracula only recently? Would he now take advantage of her and plunge his teeth into her neck?

Hopefully not. The other scars were never going to fade as it was! She weakly pushed at him with one hand.

Spike looked down at the tiny hand that he had often seen plunge a wooden stake into others of his kind, rendering them into dust. He knew how powerful it was, but now it felt like a limp noodle on his chest.

He looked back into her eyes and saw the confusion there. "Buffy." He tilted her chin up and kissed her again, a gentle, non demanding kiss. Then he put his lips to her ear and whispered into it. "It’s a no brainer. I love you."

Love. That was the word that did it. It broke through the haze in her brain and reminded her that she’d heard it before. Several times, in fact, and with the exception of Riley and one other guy that she hesitated to think of as human, it had always been a word spoken from the lips of a vampire. Lastly from *this* vampire, while she was romantically chained up under his crypt!

Spike realized that his time to gain points was over for the moment, as Buffy placed both hands firmly on his chest and shoved him away with all of her might, and he landed, once more, on the floor.

"Bloody Hell, Slayer! Couldn’t you just once knock me onto something soft?" He got to his feet and moved toward her again, but she held up a hand, palm toward him.

"Stop right there."

Spike halted in his tracks. He looked beseechingly at her.

"Now don’t get strung out over it all over again. I’ve had to come to grips with my feelings for *you*, too. It’s just as difficult for me to fall in love with a Happy Meal, y’know." In her case, he suspected, it would have been more like a Big Mac.

Buffy gathered her resolve. She wasn’t ready. She needed time. Time to get over Riley, whose memory faded when she was near Spike.

Time to put aside the feelings she still had for Angel, whose memory faded when she was near Spike.

And time to sort out the feelings she had for Spike, which grew big time when she was near Spike.

Her head began to hurt again, and not from Spikes’ punch. Before he could say or do anything again, she whirled and nearly ran from the crypt.

Spike listened as her footsteps faded away into the cemetery beyond the tomb. He sighed and pulled out his pack of smokes. Lighting one, he pulled the smoke into his lungs, which were reserved just for that, and tossed the match away, exhaling a plume of vapor which looked almost beautiful in the moonlight from the open doorway.

He should be sad. He should be reaching for his bottle of whiskey to drown it out as he often had before. But this time, it was different. She’d be back. True, she always came back, but this time, she would have her mind made up, one way or the other, because now, she knew there was no chip.

She knew he cared for her. He had felt her give in to that knowledge, and even if she didn’t share his love, *yet*, he knew, that beyond the shadow of a doubt, she did care.

He knew it for certain, because after he had nearly broken her nose, (which he’d be hearing about later no doubt, as soon as she got a look in a mirror) while he was kissing her, he had felt the stake pressing at his breast with enough force to break the skin.

And he had heard it hit the floor a minute later.

The girl who had once stabbed her beloved with a sword, and sent him to hell, knowing he had a soul and loved her but sent him anyway to save others, had allowed Spike to live. Had enough trust in him to let him exist among everyone she held dear and take a horrible chance.

A few years ago, hell, a few *months* ago, he’d have paid her back by using her till he was bored and then casting her aside, another dead Slayer. Another notch in his belt. But things were different now. He was different.

The Slayer was different.

He ground out the cig with the toe of his Doc’, and smiled. "She’s comin’ around," he said softly.

He quickly looked around to make sure that no one was nearby to see him, and did something that Xander would have loved to get on video tape.

His own version of the Snoopy Dance. It looked a bit different with fangs.

Then he pulled himself together, and walked off into what was left of the evening to find himself something to eat, his leather duster blowing back in the breeze, looking much like the ‘big bad’ of the old days.

But knowing that he wasn’t. Not any more. Well, not too much anyway. Oh bloody hell, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

He smiled a shadow of his former evil grin. Maybe there was a lawyer staying late at an office downtown. Too bad he didn’t have time for a trip to L.A. He’d heard that the ones there were quite tasty.

His pace quickened and he began to whistle, ‘My Way’.

The End……….Or not……….

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