Part 3

The witch ran to her friend in concern, but Buffy shook off the haze in her brain, and patted Willow on the arm.

"It's ok, Wil, it's no big."

"SCREW that! He was just about to have a midnight snack in full view of the neighborhood, which has got to think that this house is strange enough already!!"

Which had to be true, what with Hell God’s shooting out the doors and screeching down the street at all hours…

Spike tried to get up off the couch, but found that Willow had somehow rendered that impossible, so after he found out that he could stand up on it at least, he began pacing back and forth like a caged tiger.

His demon had subsided, but he wasn't sure how long he could keep it down. He loved Buffy, and would never hurt her, but he was damned if he'd take this sitting down. No pun intended, he thought.

As Willow soothed Buffy, she looked at her, with a stern, substitute teacher expression.

"You told him, didn't you? You just blurted it out, all Buffy like, without explaining it?"

"I'm sorry, Wil, it just needed to be said, and it seemed like a good time, he was so happy about the spell and all..."

Willow sometimes felt that Buffy was incredibly immature.

They had discussed this whole problem in length, days before this, and the tiny blonde had promised to break it to Spike gently, explain it first, and then ease the rest onto his love crazed brain, not just toss it at him like a tub of holy water!!

She knew that her friend cared for the vampire, and that it was hurting her, as well, to stop seeing him, but there were limits to her patience.

Willow shook her head sadly.

"Buffy, excuse me if I'm stretching the whole best friend clause all out of proportion, but....you're a DOOFUS."

Buffy didn't reply, but her eyes widened.

Willow grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her to the couch.

"There! Now you just stand here and tell him WHY, and hurry, before the spell gets weak enough to let him down, and he eats you. And I may not stop him!"

Willow stomped off to clean up the second glass that she'd broken that day, not counting the beer bottle that Glory had landed on just east of the driveway.

Buffy stood, her eyes downcast, afraid to look up at Spike. He'd stopped his pacing but was silent, standing at one end of the couch, his back to her.

As she opened her mouth to speak, his leather duster landed smack on top of her head, and covered her up.

Well, at least he hadn't lost his sense of humor completely.

She gathered the coat around her and drank in the scent of her vampire, for she had come to think of him as hers. She loved the odor of tobacco and, there was just no other way to put it, sex.

He oozed it out of his pores, if they did that anymore. She was lost in thought, wondering about that, when she felt his stare.

"What?"

"Bloody hell, woman! If you're gonna dump me, just do it, and be bloody quick about it. Maybe that stupid bint Harmony is still around somewhere, if I care to look her up."

Spike was dying inside, but refused to go down like a Poof.

Buffy ignored most of it, although the Harmony part raised the hair on the back of her neck. He didn't mean a word of it.

She took his hands and turned him around to face her, and looked up at him, pleading with her wide, tear filled eyes, for his understanding.

He tried to grab her, but found out he was powerless to do so, while she was able to stroke his arm, and pat his hand, HE was unable to even pull away!

Spike had been angry before, but now he was totally pissed.

He glared at Willow, who was smiling now, as she finished wiping up the coke and shattered glass. She'd left Buffy able to knock him on his ass if she wanted to, while HE was powerless to stop her.

"WITCH!" He yelled at her, unable to come up with anything more fitting, and still respectful of her power.

She giggled as she carried the dustpan past the pair. "I know I am, but what are you?"

She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and said, "Now behave, both of you, and hash this out!" Then she left them alone again.

Spike finally met Buffy's gaze and melted, as he always did, at her tears.

"Buffy, luv, how the fuck did you think I'd feel, you sayin' what you said?"

She laid her cheek against the back of one of his hands, and closed her eyes. It would be so easy to just do as her desire was bidding her at this moment.

His position on the couch was so that she was very near his midsection, and as she dropped his hand and laid her cheek against his lower abdomen her eyes opened, and she beheld the fly of his jeans.

Her favorite, faded, black, button fly jeans, that had the middle button missing and, with very little effort on her part, would allow her tongue to slip inside, and....

Willow's face suddenly bumped noses with Buffy's, scaring her to death, and disappointing Spike beyond the telling.

Except that two seconds later he was getting some other images that almost made up for it, even though he knew a threesome would never happen.

Willow glared up at him for a moment, as if she knew just what he was thinking, and he walked to the other end of the couch and sat down, clearly in a huff.

The witch turned to Buffy, who had pasted an innocent expression on her face.

"Buffy! What happened to 'talking'?"

"But Wil, it's hard!" She blushed.

"I mean, that's not what I meant, but, you know what I mean, right?"

Her voice was high and squeaky.

"Huh?"

Willow was unused to being the one with the ready answers. She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.

"Buffy, TELL him WHY."

At her friend's pleading look, Willow sighed, and went into the dining room and came back dragging a chair from the dinner table. She sat it beside Spike, and plopped down in it.

He turned his face away, into the cushions on the couch. She wiggled her index finger in front of his nose.

"See this digit, Spike?"

"I see it, and I'd like to bite it off, right about now."

"That's good. It's good that you feel free enough to tell me your feelings like this. So in return, I'm gonna tell you about mine, before I explain what Buffy can't seem to, and you're gonna listen to me, or this little finger will send you somewhere much more unpleasant than this couch....are you following me?"

"Sod off!"

"Again, I'm proud of you for expressing yourself, and here's how it is. The next time I see you showing any fang, it had better be because the biggest, scariest, most evil of all demons on the planet is about to attack someone, or the world is about to end, or, or....."

"Don't forget the sex." He smirked, eyeing her now.

"Scuse me?" Willow squeaked.

"When Buffy and I have sex, there's going to be a bit of fang. Didn't she tell you? Figured she did, what with you ladies gossiping all the time."

Willow and her hair were matching accessories.

"Spike, I don't need to know everything about you and Buffy's private lives..."

"Especially since there isn't any from now on." Spike practically spit the words in Buffy's direction.

Buffy's head snapped up and she looked at him, still hurting, but she said nothing, and remained where she was.

This infuriated Spike and he continued.

"Yeah. You mean you don't need to hear how she gets all excited, like, and then at just the right moment, right before she comes, she tells me she'll never leave me, and then she makes this sound, and then I go game face and I...."

"Too. Much. Information!!!"

Willow fled the room, and the sound of a coke bottle being opened floated out of the kitchen again.

Buffy sighed. She would have to tell him. After all, she owed him that much.

She didn't approach him, and instead, stayed a good distance away, where she could think more clearly.

"When I said I couldn't see you any more, I didn't mean forever."

Spike felt a faint hope stir, but was afraid to have it dashed. He kept silent.

Buffy couldn't stand it, finally, and went to him. She looked down at him where he sat on the couch, his knees drawn up to his chin, and saw the hurt he was trying to hide behind harsh words.

Without taking her eyes off him, she yelled toward the kitchen.

"Willow! Lose this spell. Now."

It was her commanding, Slayer mode, and it had banished the tiny blonde sex maniac to the rear of her brain.

Willow's pinky finger peeped around the doorway, flicked just a little, and Spike's feet shot off the couch nearly knocking Buffy down.

"Sorry." Willow mumbled from the kitchen.

Spike pulled his feet back up where they'd been, and wrapped his arms around them, still unwilling to touch Buffy, and she didn't blame him a bit.

She smiled at him, and then sobered. Getting down on her knees in front of him, she continued.

"Do you know what 'tunnel vision' is, Spike?" She said, in a soft voice, which brought his eyes immediately to hers.

And he knew, just with that look, what she meant. He'd had it himself, for much longer than she. Sometimes he thought he'd invented it.

"I get it. I see what you're trying to say, but..."

"No, Spike, it has to be this way. Until Willow, or Giles, or even me or you.....SOMEONE.... comes up with a way to stop Glory, permanently, you and I are too big a danger to each other, let alone Dawn and the rest."

She paused and reached out to run her finger down his chest, caressing the soft material of his t-shirt as if it were the finest silk.

"When I think of what could have happened to Dawn, or to Mom, while we were too busy making out somewhere, it's more than I can bear, and I'm not blaming you, not altogether anyway."

She leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek, and waited for her words to sink in.

She was right, and he knew it. He was also tremendously relieved that she wasn't just casting him aside for some other reason.

He knew that the pull between them was so strong right now, it was blinding them to anything else around them, be that the ringing of a telephone, or the sound of a Hell God, sneaking off down an alley.

If he hadn't caught it...that faint sound, and turned his head, that and the stench of the bitch's perfume, they might have come home to a disaster that night. As it was, they had barely gotten Dawn and Joyce out of the house in time.

He thought back to all of the times lately that they had been completely distracted by each other to the point that nothing else registered.

Some of it was amusing.

He remembered Buffy, gazing at him with adoration and not a little bit of lust, and setting the tea tray in mid air instead of on the table, thus wetting down Giles and causing the entire room to laugh so hard that the whole Scooby meeting was pointless from there on. Giles had just sat there with a long suffering look, all proper and

British, reaching out a hand for a towel.

And then there was the night that he was babysitting Dawn, and Buffy came home early to find them playing poker.

The naughty kind.

Of course, he'd have never let Nibblet take off any clothing, and he was rigging the game so that she won most of the time, but he figured it was the fact that 'his' clothing was down to his jeans, that Buffy objected to. Loudly.

As they had argued about it, then were laughing and kissing only a few seconds later, Dawn had slipped out the door and gone to a friend's house, a fact that they didn't discover until two hours later when they were about to fall asleep in Buffy's room.

He was utterly disgusted with himself, and with both of them, really, for playing in a fool's paradise with no thought to the consequences.

He looked at her, his heart in his blue eyes, and said, "What do we do?"

Part 4

Buffy got up on the couch and took Spike in her arms. She had known this would be hard, but not that it might be impossible. The Spike of old would never have put others ahead of himself and his feelings in this way. If only there was another solution....

Spike clutched her to him and nuzzled her neck, his heart so heavy that for once, there were no thoughts of sex. He felt her pain, and was sorry, but glad that he wasn't alone in his anguish.

Whatever she decided, he would stand by it. Of course, if she felt that they had to part permanently, he wasn't sure he'd be so gracious about it.

He felt Buffy tense up, and pulled away for a moment.

"What is it, Pet?"

"Spike....when Glory's minions came to the crypt, and dragged you off that time..."

Spike became twice as tense as Buffy. He had managed, through great artistry, to keep the Buffy Bot out of all their conversations up until this point.

Buffy had never mentioned the bot, after his encounter with Glory, and it was an unwritten law, that the robot was a dead issue.

After all, it was just after he had come into possession of the thing, that Buffy had begun to accept him. He'd never forget that kiss....

It had been a kiss of gratitude, and granted, although she seemed to ignore it after that, and continue her whole bursting into his crypt at all hours routine....he felt that there had been, even then, a spark of her true feelings in it, and that she had known it too.

As if knowing his thoughts, Buffy smiled at him. "Relax. This isn't about 'skirt girl'."

Spike grinned at her.

"What, then."

He kissed her forehead, his lips moving down to the tip of her nose, which he nipped lightly, pulling away to look into her eyes, surprised to find them sparkling with mirth.

"When those crusty Hobbits grabbed you and hauled you off...you and Xander were nowhere near the entrance to the cave, right?"

"Nope. Kept Xander away from it too. Didn't want him finding the....er, new toy that was hiding down there. Where I kept her. All the time. And never took her out except on Holidays. To combat the lonely hours."

"Spike, shut up and stop making excuses. Don't you see? Glory has no idea about your underground hideout. It's perfect! I don't see why I didn't think of it before! I've known about it since the shrine!"

Spike groaned. There she went again, bringing up past uglies to toss into his face.

But Buffy went on, warming to her idea and becoming more enthusiastic as she planned it out.

Spike listened to her with interest, as soon as he realized she wasn't going to linger on anything he was embarrassed about. He nodded, beginning to smile now, as she told him that the perfect place to hide her mother and Dawn, was at his crypt, only this time, under the main floor.

He was still smiling as she went to the phone and called Xander's house. He listened to her telling Xander to get Joyce and Dawn, and meet them at Spike's place, his grin getting wider as he heard the sputtering at the other end of the line. Xander wasn't taking this too well.

It would be good for the whelp, to get another taste of Buffy's devotion to him, Spike thought, as he regained some of his swagger.

Then he heard something else she told him, and dropped the pack of cigs he'd pulled out of his pocket, in alarm.

He hadn't heard that. He hadn't just heard Buffy telling Xander that the boy was going to be staying there too. In his crypt. And Anya. And Tara. And Willow. Not to mention Dawn and Joyce, but that was a given. Bloody Hell!

"Buffy, luv, I don't think I want Xander and the others snooping about the place, y'know?"

He bent and scooped up the cigs, replacing them into his back pocket, not catching the last of her conversation with Xander.

Buffy hung up the phone, and turned to him, her eyes gleaming with mischief . If he was upset now, just think how happy he'd be when he found out that Giles would be a part of the gathering.

"You'll be there. So stop worrying about things, and grab your coat. We're going. Now."

Spike was doing his motor boat impression again, sputtering and trying not to look like a complete idiot.

"Wh...what d'ya mean, I'll BE there? You can't mean that......"

The whole picture became very clear. They were all going to hide below his crypt, and although he was happy that he wasn't losing the love of his life, he 'really' didn't want Xander seeing his private things.

And there would be no time to get there first and stow away any of his possessions. Oh, he could just SEE the disapproving stares already.

Buffy danced over to him, grinning like a demented monkey. She kissed him on the lips, her tongue running over his teeth, and as he opened his mouth and joined her, he began to smile into the kiss.

It might just be a temporary solution, at that. He and Buffy could always disappear upstairs, and get away from the others periodically.

And the caves led all over, so the lover Wiccas could get out to get any needed supplies for their spells, food, whatever, until they came up with something that would finally get rid of Glory for good.

After which, Spike planned an extended session of shagging that would smash all of his former records into tiny little pieces.

But before that......there was now, this moment, and he wished that Willow wasn't still hiding in the kitchen.

Buffy broke the kiss, biting him on the lower lip that her sister so greatly admired and yelled into the kitchen.

"Willow! Get your ass in gear! We have a plan!"

The grinning witch popped around the doorway so suddenly that Buffy wondered if she'd been observing the whole time.

She bounced up to the couple.

"Good! You see, Buffy, he understood. I told you that if you just didn't blurt it out, he'd....."

The witch looked at them and really saw them this time.

"Hey....what's the what? There should be big huffin' and much sulkin' right about now, unless you two managed to make out again....and if that's what happened then I give up! It's like being a chaperone for Xander!"

Buffy and Spike were listening, but only at about half speed.

Willow eyed the two as their looks toward each other were becoming more and more heated, and just as they went in for the lip, she intervened.

Hopping up and down like a mad, well, witch, she waved her arms at the pair, wildly.

"HEY! Concerned best friend, worried innocent bystander, and pissed off witch over here! ENOUGH! "

Buffy and Spike froze, and Buffy had the good grace to look a little sorry, while Spike just smirked a bit nastily at Willow and put one hand on the Slayer's ass.

Willow rolled her eyes upward. This was even worse than when it had been a spell....she was beginning to think she'd have to do another one to undo the reality.

"Guys, a little explanation here? Buffy, when you mentioned a 'plan', I, along with the rest of our audience, if any by now, assumed that you meant that Spike had agreed to back off at least until we get Glory taken care of for good. If not 'permanently', because frankly, this makes me a little nauseous...."

Willow had uttered the last sentence under her breath, and Spike heard her very well, had his feelings hurt a bit, and tightened his hold on Buffy's rear.

"How bout' YOU just sod off 'permanently' because this is making 'me' feel bloody good right about now?"

Buffy frowned up at him, and started to remind him that this was just what she had been telling him. That they were a little too caught up in each other and the rest of the world was having trouble keeping up.

As Spike's hand began massaging her bottom in delightful ways, however, she considered telling Willow to sod off, too.

Willow didn't wait for help from the smitten Slayer, and waved her hand at Buffy's butt.

Spike let go with a yelp, and the expression on Buffy's face was priceless....a mixture of shock and discomfort, and then a glare at her best friend.

"Willow!! What the hell did you just do?"

Spike was shaking his hand in pain, and put his fingers to his lips, sucking on them, eyeing the witch warily.

Willow clapped a hand over her mouth, and then tried to assume a more dignified posture.

"I just heated things up a little, that's all." She said, in a sulky voice.

"It didn't hurt anything."

Spike glared at her, clearly disagreeing.

"Heated things up? You bloody well shocked the shit out of me!"

Willow, surprised, said nothing. Her intent had been to make Buffy's posterior so hot that Spike couldn't hang on to it. 'Note to self', she thought, 'work on that one some more'.

Buffy grabbed Spike's hand and checked it for damage, noting the redness there, and kissed his palm.

Spike made a little whimpering noise, just for good measure, and stuck his tongue out at the witch while Buffy was preoccupied with his hand.

The tiny blonde dropped the vampire's hand.

"I saw that, Spike." She said, without looking at him and walked up to Willow, a disapproving frown on her face.

"Save the weird stuff for Glory, remember, Wil? You remember her, right? The one that 'deserves' a flaming ass, OKAY?"

Willow gulped, but stood up to her friend. "I'm sorry, Buffy, but it just looked like you were ignoring the problem.....and playing with it, too."

Willow said the last, giving Spike a dirty look to which he only smirked back at her and looked overconfident, as usual.

"I didn't mean to hurt YOU, Buffy."

Spike just grinned at her. "Come on, Red, you know you like me, so stop being such a bitch about it and listen to Buffy for a minute. You might learn something, if you'd stop flappin' yer gums for a bleedin' second."

"Besides," he continued, "Buffy's always had a hot little bod, so, unless you want a person to think that 'you' may be getting interested, if not a bit jealous, you'd better lay off the hysterics."

Willow looked pleadingly at Buffy.

"Can I 'please' turn him into something?"

"NO."

Buffy was having a hard time being stern, because the whole thing was about to make her burst into giggles, and if she started she'd never stop.

"Ok, look. This is what we're gonna do, and just listen to me, and don't interrupt, and DON'T turn Spike into anything, or shrivel any of his parts, 'kay?"

Spike reflexively covered his crotch, caught himself, and pulled out a cig, instead, keeping one eye on the witch as he lit it. He wondered if she'd been spanked lately....gave it some thought, and decided that Tara wasn't the spanking type.

‘Might have to intervene on Willow's behalf one day‘, he further decided, and his face lit up with such a happy, evil expression, that Willow took a step back.

Buffy turned her head swiftly back to look at Spike but he was just standing there, taking an innocent puff from his cig.

Smoking… In the house.

"Spike! Get that weed out on the porch, 'now' please!"

"S'not weed. I left the Mexican agriculture at the crypt, remember? After you tried it with me when we killed that big...."

He stopped talking as Buffy's eyes got big as saucers, and she shook her head frantically at him.

He hastily took the cig and left for the safety of the porch.

Willow was aghast. It was worse than she had previously thought!

Spike was turning her best friend into a pot head!

Unbidden, scenes from all the campy films she'd ever seen came flooding into her head, with 'Reefer Madness' right out in front.

Buffy glared after him, and closed her eyes, trying for some patience.

She turned and faced Willow with a bright smile.

"OKAY. Here's the sitch. We are all going to Spike's place to hide out until we come up with a way to finish off the Hell Bitch, once and for all, not that I'm not proud of the way you painted a new center line on the streets of Sunnydale!"

Willow pushed the other to the back of her head for later. Buffy was right, and besides....she and Tara had a little stash of their own, if the truth be known.

"Oh, alright. Wipe that Buffy-Bot smile off your face, and lets get on with whatever you and Mister Clarol have planned. I guess I should know by now, when I'm licked."

Willow reddened, as she heard Spike make a nasty comment from the porch, at which, Buffy's wide smile got even more strained, until she dropped it altogether.

The tiny blonde knew that this was not going to be easy. She was about to get all of her friends into somewhat cramped quarters together, with a smart assed vampire that most of them hadn’t learned to live with as yet.

Hell, ‘she’ was still learning Spike 101, never mind the rest.

"Um... Let's just go, now, ok?"

Willow nodded, smiling at Spike as she and Buffy walked past him on the porch. She waved a finger, surreptitiously, in the vampire's direction, and kept walking.

Spike yelped in pain as the half-smoked cigarette suddenly burned up to his fingers. And of course, it had to be the same hand, which still smarted from the previous stunt.

Reminding himself that Buffy wouldn't always be around to pull his parts out of the fire, he resolved to try a bit harder not to annoy the witch.

Besides, he was very fond of Willow, and didn’t really want to hurt her feelings. He grinned as he thought about how cute it was, her giving him the finger and tossing a spell his way at the same time.

If the whole world had that power, there’d be no one in it!

He hopped over the railing, his duster billowing around him, and dropped to the grass, joining them as they walked, keeping Buffy between himself and Willow, whom he noticed, was ignoring him completely.

Better add ‘Try ‘harder’ not to hurt the witch’s feelings’ to his new resolution…