Angel sat in his office, pretending to do paperwork and research and such, but really doing nothing more than shuffling papers and books around on his desk. The sounds from outside his office had died away, and he knew that everyone else had gone to bed. Every now and then he glanced with irritation upward, in the direction of the stairs, before sighing and returning his badly fragmented attention to his desk.

Despite his knowledge that Spike trusted Tara more than anyone right now...despite the fact that his childe was perfectly safe in the bedroom upstairs with her...Angel could not escape the overwhelming desire to go to his childe, to protect him somehow.

Or perhaps it was *because* of that last fact...Angel really wasn't sure anymore.

*He's where he wants to be...she can help him more than you can right now...just...just leave them alone...* his better judgment advised him.

Casting better judgment aside, Angel rose abruptly from his chair with a frustrated growl, and threw open the door to his office, heading toward the stairs.

********************************

In the moment when Tara's soft, warm lips covered his with tenderness and compassion, Spike thought that he had never been so happy.

Of course, after weeks of savage torture and degradation, the slightest shred of affection and hope was enough to bring about a state of near-euphoria.

In the past, Spike had been accustomed to being the one to initiate any sort of tenderness in his physical relationships. He had experienced the misfortune of consistently finding himself in relationships with partners who saw fit only to use him, to hurt him for their own pleasure and the gratification of their needs. To be actively cherished, to have such affection lavished upon him, was an entirely new feeling for Spike, and one that he never wanted to let go of.

He felt a deep trembling sensation in his stomach, a sense of nervous apprehension, as if at any moment he might find this sweet comfort and closeness torn away from him. Without realizing it, he pulled Tara closer to him, returning her kiss with a desperate intensity.

"Tara," he gasped, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against hers when she pulled back to draw a breath. "Tara, please...please..."

"What, Sweetheart?" Tara whispered breathlessly, her soft gray eyes searching his expression with concern. "What is it? Please what?"

"D-don't...don't l-leave me..."

"Never," Tara replied without hesitation, one hand resting firmly on the back of his head in an intensely personal, possessive gesture that was reassuring rather than threatening. "Never, Spike. I'm not going to leave you..."

"Love you," Spike whispered, relief nearly overwhelming him with her words. "Love you s-so much, Tara..."

"I love you, Spike," Tara echoed. "I love you...and I'm here for you, as long as you want me, Sweetie..."

Spike nodded eagerly, his eyes still closed, his head bowed slightly as he breathed out the words, "Want you...y-yes...want you, Tara..."

Tara responded to the clear invitation in his voice, leaning in to kiss him again, tenderly, but with a passion and intensity that she had rarely felt before. When she felt his shaky, tentative hands slipping cautiously upward to rest at her hips, however, Tara mentally checked herself, aware that he was still nervous and uncertain.

The last thing she wanted to do was to pressure Spike into something he didn't really want to do, and she knew that the overwhelming sense of gratitude he felt for her might prevent him from speaking up.

"It's okay," she whispered, her hands descending to cover his gently. "It's all right, Spike...you don't have to..."

"W-want to, Tara...want to...to be with you..." Spike murmured, venturing a soft, tentative kiss against the column of her throat, eliciting a quiet gasp, before Tara managed to regain control enough to pull slightly away from his mouth‘s tender caress.

"Only as far as you're ready, Spike," Tara insisted gently but firmly. "Nothing more. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"I-I know," Spike assured her softly, his eyes downcast as he drew back away from her for a moment, his hands still clutching her close to him, resting at her hips. "I just...I want to...to be what *you* need, too, Tara. You've just...you've done so much, and I just...have to...I can't just bloody take and take from you and not..."

"Hush." Tara's firm yet kind voice stilled his protests, and he looked up at her uncertainly as she went on, "Of course you can, Spike. You've given for long enough...and now it's time for you to get something back. Okay? It's all right for you to just...to *need* right now, you know? That's okay. You're a giver, I know that. You just accept it when the person you care about hurts you or uses you or is unfair to you, because you believe so strongly that they *need* you, even if they don't see it...that they'd fall apart, destroy themselves, without you there to help them. And you're usually right."

Spike swallowed hard, unable to meet her gaze in the face of her painfully accurate assessment, fighting back the tears that filled his eyes, unwilling to let another one fall, when she had already been witness to so many of his emotional breakdowns.

Tara's voice was hushed, affectionate, as her soft fingertips gently caressed his cheek, tracing lightly across his parted lips. "You deserve to be the one who's cared for and looked after for a change, Spike. You need that right now...and you have the right to need that. You have the right to *ask* for that...to expect it. And it's exactly what I'm going to give you, Sweetheart."

Spike looked up at her, awe and adoration in his troubled, conflicted eyes. "Tara...that means so bloody much...you've no idea, love, but...but, vampire here...I *know* that you...you want more from me. I can sense it...and...and I want to..."

"I can wait..."

"But you shouldn't have to..."

"No," Tara cut him off firmly, her eyes blazing with that familiar smoldering anger, that expression of righteous rage that he knew was not directed at him, but at the one who had broken him. "See...that's where you're wrong. I most definitely *should* have to wait, until you are ready, Spike...because it's *your* choice how far you want to go. You have the right to make that choice."

"B-but..." Spike stammered, looking away again, shaking his head in confusion, his eyes full of a haunted dismay, his damaged heart unable to accept that he was worthy of such consideration. "But Tara...I'm not even...I mean...I'm not hardly good enough..."

"I don't care what you are, Spike. I don't care what you've done," Tara interrupted, one hand firmly cupping his cheek, tilting his head upward toward her and refusing to allow him to look away from her again as she told him what she knew he needed to hear. "You have the right...*always*...to decide what you want to do with your body. Do you understand me? *Nobody* has the right to try to push you into..."

"I...I know you're not trying to push me, Tara," Spike insisted, his voice a low, hoarse whisper. "B-but...but what if you don't want to...I mean...what if you...get tired of waiting?"

Those hushed, fearful words, an open and painfully honest admission of Spike's terrible insecurity, tore Tara's heart to pieces in her chest. Tears fell from her eyes as she leaned in close, holding his gaze intently until the last possible second, when her mouth met his in a slow, deliberate, thorough kiss.

Spike responded hungrily, desperately, his hands at her hips moving slowly, caressing her body as he turned them slightly in an attempt to reverse their positions, to take the upper hand and give Tara the pleasure he so completely believed she deserved from him. In his painful experience, a kiss was never simply for the sake of the kiss. It had always been a sign of his partner's desire for more from him.

And despite her arguments, Spike was determined that Tara would have what she desired from him.

Tara was just as determined that she would not...not yet.

Not until Spike was really sure that he was ready to give it.

Blindly, her hands fumbled for his, gently catching them, pulling them away from her body and raising them to meet, locked with hers, between their bodies...all without breaking the tender, intimate kiss they were sharing. Then, slowly, she pulled back, the warm smile of affection on her face reassuring him from his ever-present fears that he had yet again done something wrong, made some mistake that had caused her to withdraw from him.

Her eyes searched his for a long moment, reflecting a sorrowful understanding that made him want to look away. Tara was too perceptive, saw too much of his pain and shame, for Spike to feel comfortable meeting her knowing gaze. He was deeply ashamed of what he had become, and terrified that Tara was only deceiving herself about her feelings for him. When she realized how thoroughly broken and damaged he really was, how far beyond repair...she would run in the opposite direction.

Tara knew that he believed this...and had to make him see that it was not so.

"Look at me, Spike."

The ingrained habit of obedience was too strong to allow him to refuse, and Spike reluctantly raised his eyes to hers, finding himself reassured and comforted in spite of himself by the love and patient understanding he saw there.

"No one in your whole entire life has ever been willing to wait for you before, have they, Spike?" Tara observed, shaking her head in regretful disbelief. "Never. You've always been made to believe that...that you're not good enough, somehow. That if you don't give someone exactly what they want, exactly when they want it, you'll be abandoned...or worse."

Spike closed his eyes, but not before his tears had escaped them, swallowing back a hard, painful knot in his throat, his own bitter pain of over a century of rejection and abuse. He felt once again that he could not bear to face her...until her whispered words stunned him into staring.

"I'll wait for you, Spike...as long as it takes...I'll wait for you."

Disbelieving, confused, Spike shook his head. "But...but Tara...I...I'm not even sure...it could be...could be months...years...I'm not even bloody sure I'll *ever*..."

"You will," Tara assured him. "But if you never do...I'll still wait. I'll be whatever you need me to be for as long as you need it. Because I love you, Spike. I love you, and that's what you do when you love someone."

Spike's shoulders shook as his emotions overtook him, and he bowed his head, a cry of confused feelings...relief, gratitude, shame, disbelief...torn from his throat in a hoarse sob.

"*Why*? Why, Tara? Why should you...why would...?"

Tara's hand slid around to rest at the back of his head, running soothingly through his hair as she leaned forward until their foreheads were touching, and whispered her response, sincere and honest and full of a longing and love that even Spike's skeptical heart could not deny.

"Because you're worth it, Spike," she told him. "You deserve it...and you're worth the wait."

Spike just stared at her in awe for a few long moments, and Tara watched as the adoration in his eyes visibly deepened. "Tara," he whispered finally, his voice thick with emotion. "Love, I..."

Suddenly, the door slammed open with a loud bang...and Tara watched with dismay as, for the moment at least, all her progress was undone. Spike flinched violently, closing in on himself and drawing away from her across the bed, wide, panicked eyes locked onto the doorway...

...where Angel stood, his dark eyes flashing with flecks of gold, glaring at them.

"What's going on?" he practically growled when he saw his childe's state, and of course misunderstood it. "Spike, are you okay?"

Spike was obviously trying to calm himself, now that he mentally knew there was no threat, but his physical reaction of fear was a bit slower to fade. He nodded rapidly, his shoulders slumping with mingled relief and shame, his arms crossed over his chest in a defensive gesture as he reluctantly allowed Tara to put her arms around him again.

"He was!" the blonde witch snapped at Angel, her eyes narrowed in anger. "What do you think you're doing, Angel? My God, don't you have *any* common courtesy? Or sense, for that matter? After what he's been through, you have the *nerve* to do something like this?"

Feeling more than a little defensive...not to mention possessive...Angel retorted in a low, dangerous voice, "I could say the same to you, you...you..."

"You might not wanna finish that sentence, mate."

Both Tara and Angel turned surprised expressions on Spike, who was giving his sire a warning glare.

"Excuse me?" Angel sputtered in disbelief.

"You heard me, Peaches. You haven't said it yet, but I've got the basic bloody idea of what you were gonna say...and I'm telling you that if you'd like to keep all your bits intact, you might not wanna say it."

Tara felt an exultant thrill at the first real aggression she had seen from Spike in far too long, but she kept quiet, not wanting to make him self-conscious and cause it to come to an abrupt end.

"You can't hurt me," Angel blurted out, aware as soon as he said it that it sounded far more petulant and defiant than he would have liked. "No violence in here, remember?"

"Right," Spike drawled in a voice that sounded wonderfully like himself before Buffy had so shattered him. "But you and me both know, we won't always *be* in here, will we? And unless you want to have to worry about the bloody implications of *that* for awhile, you‘d best watch what you have to say about my lady."

There was a tense moment in which neither vampire seemed willing to give any ground...before Angel finally, visibly wilted, his shoulders slumping as he released a heavy sigh.

"I'm sorry," he admitted, his tone completely changed. "I didn't mean to...I mean...I guess I just...wanted to be sure you were okay, and then...when I saw...I guess it just...took me off guard, is all. I'm...sorry...and...and..."

His voice trailed off as he realized all at once that neither Tara nor Spike was even aware that he was talking at all.

Tara was staring at Spike with elation and wonder, unbelievably thrilled with what he had just unintentionally revealed; and Spike was gazing into her eyes, just processing what he had said himself...and more importantly, the manner in which he had said it. And behind the wonder, the awe, in their eyes, was a rising mutual desire, strengthened by his momentary assertion against his sire, in defense of the woman he loved.

"Spike," Tara whispered. "You're amazing...you know that?" Her voice was low and husky, heavy with affection and desire.

"It's you," Spike insisted in a tone of wondering surprise, as if stating some great revelation that had just come to him that moment. "You bring it out of me, love. You make me...you make me feel so bloody..." He shook his head, at a loss, and then decided that where words could not suffice, he would have to find another way to show her what he meant.

He leaned in to capture her lips once more in a slow, tantalizing kiss...the first that he had initiated between them.

Angel stood in the doorway, blinking at the increasingly intimate tableau before him for a moment, before clearing his throat and trying again to gain their attention, if only briefly.

"Okay, so, um...I'm sorry, and...and you guys seem a little...preoccupied, so...so I'm just gonna...go. Now. And...I'm sorry. I'll just...see you guys tomorrow. Or maybe a month or so from now...however long it takes to get over the...the humiliation. Okay. I'll just be...leaving. Now. Goodnight."

Not surprisingly, neither Tara or Spike responded to his rambling speech.

Giving up, fully aware that they had not heard a word he had spoken, Angel left the room, closing the door quietly behind him, leaving his childe and his new-found love to quietly revel in the beauty and peace of simply cherishing one another as he returned to his office and closed that door much less quietly.