The battle was over. Morphy, Bendy and their assorted Legion-of-Hell buddies had been vanquished. The front lawn of 1630 Revello Drive was littered with demon parts, some of which were slowly becoming dust, goo, and/or briquettes. The Scoobies stood and stared at the destruction as the sun came out from behind the clouds: a beautiful, sunny May afternoon. A standard Hellmouth apocalypse aftermath.

Buffy sat down on the front step and rested her head in her hands. Dawn came and sat beside her. "Are you okay?" Dawn asked, but this simply sent Buffy into tears. Sobbing loudly, she replied, "No, I'm not okay, and I'll never be okay!"

Giles frowned and sat down on Buffy's other side. Realizing that he would finally play her father, he reached around her, pulled her to him and let her cry into his chest. She cried a long, long time - longer than he had ever seen her cry before. Slowly the others began to sit down on the porch; they did not want to leave the Slayer.

Finally, Buffy lifted her head and sniffed. "Sorry, Giles," she said, looking at the mess she had made of his shirt. "Everything's wrong now and I can't ever make it right again!"

"Sh, sh. What did you do? Maybe there's a way to fix it that you haven't thought of yet."

Buffy choked on her tears. "I staked Spike, and now he's gone forever, and I can't ever tell him that I love him!"

"Um, Buffy?" said Xander in a low tone. "You might want to look up. Like, right now."

As if linked, the two Summers sisters raised their heads and looked down the sidewalk. In the background, they heard Willow exclaim, "Oh, my god!" and Anya stuttered, unable to say much of anything.

There, on the sidewalk, in the middle of a sun-shiny day, stood Spike.

He carried a small duffel bag in one hand and reached the other up to run it through his now honey-colored hair. The lack of dye doesn't matter in the midday sun, thought Dawn briefly, the light's making it almost white as it ever was. He looked tired and thin, but healthy; his skin glowed with a pleasant tan - something that the girls had never before seen on him.

"Spike?" whispered Buffy. At his nod, she stood and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him in such an embrace that he dropped his bag. Soon the hug turned into something more and she kissed him, kissed him truly and deeply the way he had always hoped she would kiss him. Between kisses, she whispered, "Oh, god, I thought I'd lost you forever, don't ever go away again, I love you so much, oh, god, don't ever leave me again..."

"So, Spike..." drawled Xander after a few minutes of hugging and kissing. "Decide that taking a midday stroll was a good idea and Mother Nature finally agreed with you?"

Spike laughed. "Something like that. Something like that."

***

"...And so I had all these scarab beetles crawling up and down me, and even some on the inside. Definitely am not recommending that part of the ordeals. But I passed all of the demon's tests and so he had to grant my wish."

"Hmpf," interjected Anya. "A simple wish directed at moi would have been done sooner. I also do not require vengeance seekers to pass tests; that's a little too King Arthur for me."

Spike nodded, taking a sip of his cocoa, a peace offering from Dawn. "Agreed, but that's the way this guy works, so I said 'To hell with it," and took on his tests."

"What did you ask for?" asked Willow.

"I wanted to be....er...I wanted him to change me, to make me what Buffy deserves."

"And the heartbeat and the non-fatal reactions to Mr. Sun are part of the package?" asked Xander almost sarcastically.

Spike nodded, taking Buffy's hand in his once more. "As best I can tell, I might be a Slayer now. Human, but capable of bending rebar into pretty shapes. A Slayer - albeit male and all that that ties into the possession of a Y-chromosome."

"A Slayer?" she whispered, to which he nodded solemnly. "A Slayer."

"Wow," said Dawn.

"I'm just glad I can see you again," said Buffy. "I have missed you so much!"

"And I am sorry about that, love. But the important thing is that we can start anew, right now. Is that all right, Buffy? Can we please do that now?"

"Of course," she whispered, giving him a kiss. "What I can't get after is thinking I staked you a few weeks ago and I was so certain it was you. Totally impossible. Cause here we are, standing in the dining room and you're alive - in more ways than one...."

***

In the deepest, blackest, rudest level of Hell sat a number of demons. One demon in particular stood at their very center. Morphy held his ever-changing head up high. "I tried. I got the Slayer to think she had murdered her lover, that nasty do-gooder vampire! I think that was some Emmy-inspiring acting. Pretending he had a soul, and was crazy, and started killing people…"

All around him, the others laughed at him. What a fake! He actually thought he had been so successful...

***

"…thought you had staked me last month?" asked Spike incredulously. "But, love, I wasn’t even anywhere near Sunnydale until yesterday."

"Damn it!" Buffy exclaimed. "I should have known!"

"Wait, wait a second," said Xander. "I’m lost."

"It must have been Morphy," said Buffy ominously. "That lying pile of evil garbage! Argh! I’m so glad I kicked his ass!"

"Who or what is Morphy?" asked Spike, whose question launched an extensive discussion on how one should never trust ghosts claiming to have returned from the grave, and particularly if they died on the Hellmouth, as Joyce, Tara and Cassie had. And how insurance does not cover act of poltergeist and thus they had been without a stereo and a microwave ever since.

"So, if you weren’t in Sunnydale, where were you? I mean, you went to Africa and did those tests, but what about the rest of the year?" asked Dawn, cuddling up to the ex-vampire.

Everyone leaned in to listen for Spike’s answer.

"England," he said simply and pulled an envelope from his duffel bag. He handed it to Buffy. She gave him a puzzled look, but he simply smiled at her. She ripped open the envelope with a flourish and extracted the two pieces of paper inside, folded neatly.

"I’m getting paid? I’m getting paid!" Buffy and Dawn got up and started dancing around the room. Giles reached across the couch and took the papers his Slayer had dropped. "Dear Lord…" he said in shock. "They never paid me this much."

Spike smirked. "You didn’t have me negotiating for you."

"You did this?" asked Giles. "How…?"

"I said I went to England. Bingley’s a…distant relative of mine, it turns out. Went and explained that if they wanted to keep the Slayer they had, and if they ever wanted anything out of me, then they better damn well start paying us, and it’d better be more than enough to take care of the Nibblet, too."

Buffy and Dawn stopped and looked at him. "You’re getting paid to be a Slayer too?" asked Dawn.

"Of course. I’m human now. Can’t live in my crypt, or buy cheap blood at the butcher’s anymore. Of course I need real money."

"No more kittens as currency?" said Buffy.

"No more kittens." At that statement she rushed back at him and embraced him even more tightly than before. "I love you," she whispered.

He smiled.

[The End]