The former vampire caught the rapid thud-thud-thud of Buffy's feet on the stairs as she made full use of her slayer speed, while completely neglecting her slayer stealth. He reached over and picked up an issue of Excalibur from the 'unread' pile on top of the bedside cabinet, threw himself onto the bed, narrowly missing the two cats who had been waiting there for him, and tried to make it look like he hadn't been pacing the floor for the last five minutes. 'God's sake! For a tiny little thing she can't half make a racket... An' note to self: Never trust a woman to keep a secret... even if she does remind you of Joyce.' Then the bedroom door was open and Buffy was standing right there in the doorway in front of him, limned in the yellowish glow of the landing light.

Spike debated reaching over to switch on the bedside lamp so that he could see her better, but decided he preferred the cover of darkness to shroud his own all too obvious human reactions from her view. He should have known the slayer wouldn't play by anyone's rules but her own. She hit the switch by the doorway, and the main light came on. Spike's only consolation was that the energy-efficient bulb would take a few moments to reach maximum brightness.

Buffy scuffed at the carpet with her toe as she moved as far as the end of the bed mere inches from his bare feet and still a million miles away. The cats dashed off the bed to left and right, sprinting around the stranger in their midst to make their escape through the open door. "So you're human now?" she asked, doing what she thought was a creditable job of appearing calm and keeping her emotions under tight rein.

Spike propped himself up on his elbows and then shifted back until he only reclined slightly against the pillows. "Looks that way... All warm and fuzzy. Well, warm and sweaty if you want to be more accurate..." Buffy's teeth pressed into her lower lip as she tried to control the way her muscles clenched at the words alone. "But it's not like you need to worry. I don't need a baby sitter. First day was a bit rough, what with all the bits that hadn't been workin' decidin' to protest a bit, but it looks like that was just the settlin' in period. I'm no soldier boy. Vampire strength all present and correct. So, you don't need to feel responsible for me."

Buffy ignored his attempts to distance himself, cautiously moving around the side of the bed as she asked her next question. "Vampire healing?"

He gave a shrug. "Well, the cuts I got when I helped clear up the broken glass healed up pretty quick."

By the time Spike made his reply she sat on the edge of the bed, facing him from no more than a foot away, so close and the high-gloss of her dusty pink lips so enticing that all he would have to do was lean forward.

For a second the slayer looked contemplative, leaving Spike wondering if perhaps her thoughts were moving in the same direction, then that perfect mouth formed a perfect, "Oh!" and before he knew it his jaw burned from the lightning touch of her palm. It stung, but it wasn't going to leave a bruise. It wouldn't have even if he'd been no more than your average human. He guessed his psyche was kind of lagging behind on the whole 'not a vampire' thing though, because he found himself more aroused than anything else... and some instinct told him that if Buffy had expected any other response she wouldn't have laid a finger on him. That last year, together but apart, she hadn't touched him this way, would have been too afraid of where it might take them.

He let his fingertips brush over the tiny handprint of sensitised flesh, automatically testing its responsiveness to touch. "And what was that for?"

"That's for not giving me the chance straight away to prove I was telling the truth."

Another crack of flesh on flesh and Spike's amused smile became a grin, complete with tongue curled up behind his teeth.

Hazel eyes shouldn't be able to burn, but Buffy's were lit up like the Emerald City with a mixture of hurt, anger and desire. "And that was for me having to listen to Harmony moaning about how, now that you were dead, she wishes she hadn't tried to rip your throat out when you were having sex on the desk after you got your body back in the mail."

Spike's remorse was instant and obvious, quelling even his libido, albeit temporarily. The blush that spread to his cheeks swamped the marks left by her digits, swallowing them whole. "Sorry, love. Don't suppose you'll let me claim temporary insanity due to hormone overload?"

The hurt and anger faded away as he spoke. After all, it wasn't like she had kept herself pure in memory of him and better to put everything out in the open now. Her eyes dropped to her hands where she absently rubbed away the burn in her right palm, massaging it with her left thumb. "I- well- I thought you were gone." Then, there was the silky rasp of long, firm fingers, the delicacy of the touch so Spike that its memory seemed embedded in her soul. They brushed her cheek with a jarring warmth before they reached her hairline. Her eyes flicked up to see his face and it was so much closer than she expected, his eyes making promises of forgiveness, even though he didn't know what she'd done. So easy to lean that last inch between them that it was totally terrifying.

She pulled away with a jerk, trying to pull together a light-hearted mask while she watched his hand pull back at her rejection as if he'd been burned, hoping he would understand. "And where on earth did you go when you trashed Sunnydale? The undeliverable mail office?" Her conciliatory smile was weak, every bit as afraid of losing him as losing herself in him.

As usual, her apparent withdrawal made him defensive, and she had to move rapidly to pour oil on troubled waters. "You do know that if you'd actually believed what I told you that day, I'd kinda like to think you would have been in touch as soon as you got back and then when your body arrived you wouldn't have had to make do with some skanky vamp ho."

Spike looked weary even as he tilted his head slightly to one side to consider her. He automatically felt for his cigarettes before he remembered leaving them on the kitchen counter. "It's a nice theory, pet, ignorin' the minor fact you can't bear for me to touch you in a way that implies anything other than comfort, and assumin' I had believed you, probably even true... But we both know that were that the case you wouldn't have stuck your tongue down Tall, Dark and Brooding's throat the second he hit town..."

Buffy sighed, knowing that she would have to pay for that flinch later, but cognisant also that their real problems dated back to Sunnydale, to whatever had made him doubt that should he have called that first day in L.A. she would have dragged her sister on the next available flight from wherever they had been at the time. "Forget the touching thing for now. We can get to that in a minute. Do you really think that this is about Angel? I might have kissed him, but I spent the night in your arms. Both those last two nights. Didn't you understand what that meant to me?"

Still the pain and the sadness wouldn't leave those all too expressive blue eyes. "Seemed like once you made sure he was safe... Well, I guess I was just convenient..."

Buffy reached for the comic he still somehow held in one hand, tugging gently until it slid from his fingers to place it with the others on top of the nearby cabinet. Then, with a three hundred and sixty degree spin that sent a waft of shampoo scent to Spike's nose, she twisted so that she could throw one leg over his waist, using her other knee as a pivot point. She leant in to kiss him, anxious to prove using the one language where they never had any misunderstandings that he couldn't have been more wrong.

Well before her lips could reach their intended target, his hands closed around her upper arms like bands of steel, not crushing her, but holding her firmly in place. If the fact that he had retained his vampire strength had ever been in doubt, then it wasn't any longer. Eyes as dark as midnight stared straight into hers, searching for answers. "What is this, slayer?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, I don't fly halfway round the world and seven hundred miles back again at a moment's notice for someone who's convenient, and just in case you're wondering, I heard you were dead... again about thirty six hours ago. I left Angel in L.A., currently nursing several bruises, and that was just for not telling me you were back. Once I spoke to Wes, I was sort of thinking wheelchair. I'm in New Mexico...

Okay, so the original plan was find whatever killed you and beat the crap out of it... Doesn't mean that now I know you're back I won't stay right here until I make you believe what I told you." Buffy thought she could drown in the hesitant awe that was revealed in his eyes.

Spike's voice came out soft and husky, as if maybe he was just beginning to dare to believe her. "What was that, pet?"

Buffy smiled, looking down into his eyes and keeping her tone matter-of-fact as if what she was saying to him was already a matter of public record. "I love you." Then, as she saw a fresh glimmer of warmth in his gaze, she wriggled on top of him until she straddled the swelling held tight in his jeans, continuing in a more teasing tone. "Want me to prove it?"

Spike released her arms, his fingers trailing down her sides until a hand on either hip stilled her movements and his answering smile didn't quite reach his more sombre eyes. "That's kind of a long term project. Might take a decade or two. You sure you want to make that sort of commitment?"

"If the answer to that was yes, would you come back to Rome with me? ...At least till Dawn finishes school. Then we could go wherever you want."

"Is it yes?"

Buffy hesitated, knowing he wanted more than she could easily promise, finding herself torn between her duty to Dawn and her feeling for Spike. "It's yes. I mean I can't leave Rome, but I guess if you want to live in L.A. I'll just have to cope with a bit of jet lag... if, well... if that's enough for you? For now, I mean. When Dawn goes to college I can pretty much live anywhere Giles has got one of his training centres."

Spike's languorous smile had Buffy fidgeting beneath his loosening grip. "Pet, tell me again a couple of times a day for the next fifty years, an' I'll move any damn where you want."

This time when Buffy leant in toward him, he made no move to prevent her. Instead, she paused just as she was about to cross the limit of clear vision, the point just before you have to close your eyes, where your lover is the entire world and you're seeing each other as close up as you ever will. Holding his gaze, she let show in her slightly ragged voice all she'd been through in the last couple of days, the renewed despair at his loss, the anger at whoever had taken him from her and the hope that now they could sort out everything that they had left unsaid and undone in Sunnydale. "I love you." She waited until she saw the last scrap of doubt disappear from his expression, at least for now, before she claimed the kiss that they had both been waiting for, open-mouthed but gentle at first, then teasing brushes of one tongue against another. Still so much him, but the warmth just a little alien.

When she pulled away she did it slowly, meeting his eyes once more. "Ya know, when a girl finds herself getting a little freaked out by the fact that her significant other all of a sudden has a body temperature, it'd kind of help calm her down if she wasn't the only person in the room who's said 'I love you'."

A second later she found herself flat on her back, right at the edge of the mattress, as Spike looked down into her eyes. "I love you," he told her, his voice husky with emotion. "Feel like I always have. Know that I always will." He ground his hips between her legs in a tiny figure eight and flashed her an almost evil grin. "Want me to prove it?"

* * * * *

New Mexico , early hours of the following morning

"Spike?" The slayer sounded sleepy and sated, and Spike's gentle strokes along her side as they lay facing each other, legs intertwined but bodies far enough apart to let them cool off a bit and so they could see each other while they were talking, were doing much to keep her that way.

"Uh-huh?"

"Did Angel warn you about not touching the medallion?"

Spike gave a snort. "Not bloody likely. All he told me was that some of the families had been fighting over it an' that he wanted to get it out of here before any of them found out where it was and came looking. Didn't say a peep about this makin' vampires dusty lark. Let's face it, lotus blossom, there was only one reason to send a vampire to pick that thing up as opposed to sending a human, an' that was to make the vampire dead, in which case, not a lot of point in warning him. 'Sides the thing went off soon as I touched the picture, not that we weren't about to open it up an' have a look see, anyway, but..."

"Wes found all this stuff about it... All about humans or humanity and love and stuff."

"Kinda know... Played poker with one of the guys from Wes's section a couple of times. Gave him a ring at home. Got him to check out the file. He spotted the missing bits. Took him a couple of nights to come up with the goods, seein' as how he had to do it at home, but he came through."

"What would Wes have to say about you subverting his people?"

"No need for him to ever know now, is there?" Spike drawled.

"So if Angel's gone all evil, trying to get you killed and stuff, what do we do about it? I'm still in favour of the whole wheelchair thing... I mean, staking's good but it's over too quick and he isn't going to come after you again, now. It's not like killing you now would do him any good?"

"Other than from sheer spite, you mean, 'cause I've got everything he thinks he ever wanted?" Spike looked thoughtful for a second and then gave a chuckle with a very slightly bitter twist. "It's alright, love. I know just what to do with him."