Play Me

The afternoon after Willow had done that stupid and cruel spell that removed all of their memories, Spike awoke much earlier than usual. For several seconds he heard absolutely nothing at all, which wasn't unusual in a graveyard, and his crypt is well in the back, far from the ambient noises of the town. But after those first several seconds he almost swore he could hear something. Not a real sound, more of a 'feeling' that he could hear something. He sat up suddenly and the action startled Tara, who had been sitting on the cold concrete floor, arms wrapped around her bent legs, curling herself into a tiny ball and silently crying, head buried in the only protective embrace she had been able to find - her own.

I don't know if I heard her or not. I don't think I did. She didn't make a sound, so I don't think that's what woke me. It wasn't yet dusk, so I should have still been sleepin'. But I wasn't. I was awake now and wondering why Tara of all people, was crying on the floor of my crypt.

Spike turned, forgetting to bring the sheet with him since he was wiping the sleep out of his eyes, and came to the obvious conclusion. "Is it Red? She need savin'?"

It was the only thing I could think of that would have brought Glinda running to the Big Bad.

She looked up and was confused at seeing him there. She'd been sitting there crying for so long now, since just after sunrise. When she found him asleep, she'd considered waking him, but her compassion for him, and knowing he'd gone through the same terror of not knowing who or what you are, and then being attacked by vampires - just the night before, like they all had. She knew he must be tired; after all, it was he and Buffy who'd put themselves at risk to save the lives of the rest of them in the Magic Box. Not knowing he was a master vampire, not knowing he had the skills and strength and stamina to defeat their would-be murderers; thinking he was just a human like the rest of them - and yet he had still willingly threw himself in harm's way - to save the lives of a group of strangers.

She considered leaving, but she knew she had nowhere else to go. The only friends she had that she could talk to, that would understand that magick is real and it's possible to have your memory wiped clean for a few hours, were Dawn and Buffy and Xander and Anya and Giles; Willow's friends as well, and would probably be more angry at Tara for leaving. She might have gone to Giles, but he was gone, back to England.

She really wanted to talk to her mother, so she cast a circle and meditated, hoping for some guidance from the beyond. She knew she couldn't talk to her mother directly, but she hoped that within her protective circle, she may find some supernatural assistance. All she got was a very clear image of Spike. She sought and searched, but his form was all she found, everywhere she turned. So as the first rays of the sun broke the horizon, she left the Motel 6 room she had rented after moving out of the Summers' house, and walked to Restfield Cemetery, Spike's residence.

She looked up at me and seemed kind of confused at seeing me standing there. Nutters, if you ask me - it was my crypt.

She turned and gazed at Spike's face, in his eyes and saw only compassion and concern. She shook her head in a tentative 'no', trying valiantly to clear the tears and sadness from her throat. To buy herself some time, she reached for her jacket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her face with, one of the five she had left from those her grandmother had given her for her seventh birthday. They were all embroidered with a richly detailed pansy, still Tara's favorite flower, and her initials TEM for Tara Erin Maclay.

She pulled out a handkerchief to wipe her eyes and nose with. That struck him as strange; no one uses cloth handkerchiefs anymore. And this was a beautiful linen one with an embroidered flower and the initials 'T. E. M.' and expensive lace around the edge.

Well, it used to be expensive back when I was -

But I'm gettin' off the point. I wonder what the E. stands for: Emily? Elisabeth?

When Spike found his voice again, he was about to ask why she was there, if the red witch was fine, when a horrifying thought penetrated the recesses of his mind. "Buffy? She's not-"

I couldn't voice it. She'd just come back. I was finally getting to her; she was finally letting me in - sort of.

Not really.

But a bloke can dream can't he? One kiss and a half hour makeout session do not a relationship make. I know that now. But at the time, at that moment while Tara sat on my floor crying, I was afraid I had lost the woman of my dreams - again.

"N-n-n-no. N-n-not Buffy. W-w-w-w-" Tara tried to find her voice but it was getting more difficult with the realisation that this, coming to the crypt of the vampire formerly known as William the Bloody to cry her heart out, might not have been the best idea. He looked really scary - or maybe it was scared, when he thought something had happened to Buffy. He helped her out of her nervous stuttering by prompting, "Willow?" He shook his head, trying to rid it of the last vestiges of fog left over from sleep. "You said she was all right."

Wished the bint would make up her mind.

Tara cleared her throat, gathered her courage and began what she had come here for. To talk to someone, to get it all out, to do something - anything - to make even a tiny piece of this hurt go away.

"Not hurt," Tara started, trying to find the right words. "it's just… I left, I couldn't stay there."

"Well you can't stay here!" he replied in a panic. His reputation was already almost gone within the demon community in Sunnydale. If Glinda moved in, the laughter would be heard 'round the globe. Any demon within fifty yards of her could smell her goodness, her purity, her innocent heart, her… What was that smell? Not even close to innoce -

"N-n-no. Just… just wanted to talk. Someone to talk to. S -someone who's not a S - scooby." At his unconsciously hurt look, she revised, "Like me, I mean. Not a real Scooby. Sort of outside -"

"Yeah, I get it," he interrupted her with a wave of his hand. When he reached for his pants, Tara eep'd and covered her eyes. When he chuckled at her behavior, she scooted herself around so that her back was to him as well. When he was zipping up the fly, he said, "All safe for your blushing eyes, Luv." And she twisted around to look between the fingers covering her eyes to make sure his idea of "safe" was the same as her idea of "safe". She saw him do up the button at the waist and she turned around more fully and dropped her hands. "Thought you didn't like blokes? Why so embarrassed? Not like you're gonna get turned on or an -" He stopped when an unfamiliar smell hit his nostrils.

Glinda's been holding out on me. Wonder if Red knows she swings both ways?

Spike wisely decided to give up that very intriguing train of thought and get back to why she was here. If her and Red'd just split, he didn't think her first move would be to come here and jump his bones. Nice as that thought might be. "Talk, huh?" He reached for his cigarettes and lit one as he sat cross-legged on the floor with her. After a deep inhale - nicotine always helped him clear his head - and exhale, "Whatcha wanna talk about?"

"I-I-I d-don't know. Nothing. Everything." Her voice stopped for a moment as she took in Spike's appearance. Black jeans, no shirt, bare feet, just-out-of-bed hair that wasn't gelled straight back. In fact, it had soft curls that looked so soft and touchable, she almost reached out to touch it. "L-l-las-last n-night."

Spike looked down, not sure what to say. He remembered last night all too well. Buffy. Kissing Buffy…

But that's probably not the part of the night that she meant.

"Amnesia?" he offered, hoping to get this over with so he could go back to… whatever he was going to do today.

"Y-yes." She said. "I-it w-was W-willow."

Spike stubbed out his cigarette on the side of the bier, nodding. "I figured. Red's prob'ly been havin' heart palpitations since Buffy sang her little secretive heart out. What was she tryin' to do, anyway? Or was group amnesia the aim of her experiment?"

Tara smiled. He seemed to understand. "N-no. W-we had a f-fight, her and I, an argum-ment. She did it b-before, the spell, the for-forgetting spell. On me. I found out. I-I think sh-she was trying to make it st-stronger. So both of us would f-forget. Both Buffy and I."

Spike smiled knowingly. He knew that spell. Dru used to use it all the time. She liked to… but that's off the point. "Uses Lethe's Bramble?" he asked.

"Y-yes. You know the sp-spell?" She took a step back.

"Don't worry love, don't know it personally, Dru used to use it all the time."

"Oh." She visibly relaxed and he took her hand and led her over to his one chair, got her comfortable and then got her a bottle of water from the refrigerator. As she unscrewed the cap, he sat on the table that, until early this morning, had held his television set. He had traded it to Clem for the twenty Siamese that he owed Teeth. Debt paid in full.

He looked at her expectantly, so she continued on with whatever it was she had come here to say.

"I, um, I left Willow last night. I m-moved out."

"Good for you." Her head shot up. He wasn't mad at her?

"Y-you think I did the right thing?"

"Course, love. You can't let them step all over you; in the end, it'll kill ya. Not lit'rally o' course." She smiled again and he realised that he'd never seen Tara smile before today. A little grin that day he'd punched her in the nose, yeah, but no real smile.

"I know. My, my family was like that."

"I remember." A thought occurred to him. "Red did that to you, did that mind control spell… and she knows, she knows your family and what they did to you, how they tried to control you-" He couldn't believe the girl could be that cruel. "Tara, luv, don't go back. No matter what she says, no matter what she does, don't do it. That kind of-" he broke off, unsure of how to put this. "That bitch! I'll kill her myself. Hurt 'er a little first. Hurt 'er a lot first," he mumbled but Tara heard it; then said out loud, "Let's just say I have some knowledge of the cruelty that kind of person is capable of. You don't want to go there."

As sad as she was at someone putting into words exactly what she had been feeling but afraid to voice, even in her own mind, Tara was rather pleased that he was willing to get angry at Willow on her behalf.

Tara switched topics, this was getting too painful.

"So what did those guys want last night? The ones at the Magic Box?"

"Oh them," he said, dismissing them with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry, love, you won't be seeing them again. Was a loan shark I owed some k - uh, something to. I paid him off."

"Didn't you and Buffy kill him? He-he's a demon, right?"

"Yeah, but harmless to anyone but a few Siamese. He's all right, I s'pose. We didn't kill 'im. Staked most of his muscle, but the spell wore off just then an' well, Buffy had other things on 'er mind. We let 'im go." A small smile worked its way to his lips, thinking about what the result of Buffy's worried mind had been.

"What?"

"What?"

"What, that smile, what. I saw that," Tara teased. "What?"

"It's nothin' really, just-" he broke off; he couldn't believe he'd been about to tell her, Buffy'd stake him for sure. But would she? After all they'd spent a good thirty minutes makin' out in The Bronze last night. Before she'd slapped him and walked out.

"Spike?"

"Just, well, Buffy was all upset last night, after the spell and all and then Giles leavin' again. She, uh, she just-"

Just what? Just wanted to make out with me? Just wanted me to hold her? Just happened to stick her tongue down my throat?

Tara had a feeling she knew where he was headed with this and she felt she had to stop it. He was a master vampire with a notoriously bad temper, but he'd also been her friend and listened when she needed someone to talk to.

"I didn't start either one, I'll have ya know. Both times, she star-"

"Buffy will never love you, Spike."

How's that for blunt and to the point? Anya's got nothing on this girl.

"What? I may be dead, but I'm a right catch."

"No, Spike. I mean, yes, any girl would be thrilled to have your love and attention. But not Buffy. Buffy's not just 'any girl'. She's the Slayer, capital S, she's devoted her life to committing genocide on your species. And she broke that vow once. She fell in love with a vampire. Deeply, passionately in love with another vampire. And he broke her heart."

She had very soft, warm hands and she reached out with them and held mine.

"And he left her. When Buffy looks at you, Spike, she doesn't see you, not really. She sees her ex-enemy. You've changed, we all saw it when Buffy was... away. The chip helped you see things differently and you're not who you were. You're still the Big Bad, you're just not evil. Not in a destroy the world and kill innocent people kind of way. If your chip stopped working, you'd probably go after child abusers and wife beaters. Drain a murderer or two. And Buffy sees that you've changed, but she doesn't know how much. She still sees you as a killer - someone strong, who can help her when she needs it. She sees someone as strong as she is - and I think that's important to her. For helping her fight. And yes, every girl wants to feel safe and protected with the one she loves. Even Buffy. But it can't be you - it can't be a vampire. When she looks at you, she sees Angel."

All of this spoken in the soft, compassionate voice of another not-quite-Scooby.

We should get Anya and form a club.

But what she said was sinking in.

It's always easier to see if you're on the outside looking in, I s'pose. Didn't mean I had to like it. I knew it, well, some of it - but I was more than willing to keep those thoughts buried. Since she'd dished out some truth for me, I figured I'd do the same for her. Plus, it would make her feel as shitty as I now felt. Fair's fair.

I'm an asshole, I know.

"Same with Red, ya know," he told her.

She looked hurt and confused, so he held her hand tighter and explained.

"Red was nothing in high school. The little smart girl that everyone dumped on. She lived her life for other people, did what anyone told her to do. And then she met the wolf cub and he thought the sun rose and set in her eyes. But he didn't say it, was the quiet type. And then he left. And suddenly there's someone new who thinks the sun rises and sets in her eyes. And she's the quiet type. Red thought she could create another wolf cub."

Spike looked at Tara and felt like a heel. He tried to sooth the hurt, turning her face so she wouldn't misunderstand him.

"But you're stronger than that. You're your own person and Red couldn't make you into the image of devoted lovesick lapdog. And she felt threatened by you, I'll wager. You've got more experience than her, been places, done things. Had the guts to leave your family and step out on your own. Red did the only thing she could think of - she studied. Figure she thought if she got more powerful than you on the magick front, you'd step back in line and start following the leader again."

Silent tears ran down her face. Bingo. He had been guessing, he didn't think he'd hit a bullseye. For some reason, making her cry didn't feel as good as he thought it would.

"How close was I?" he asked, and it sounded more callous than he'd intended.

The tears came in a river and he pulled her onto his lap and let her cry. He thought about what she'd said about Buffy and himself.

But I didn't cry! I was miserable and unhappy, but I did not cry. I don't think.

She cried until she fell asleep in his arms and he lifted her onto his bed and pulled the blanket over her. Spike lay on top of the blanket next to her, thinking about everything that had happened in the last couple of days. His unlife was going nowhere. The one thing he had been existing for, the one thing he thought he was finally going to have, he now knew he would never have. Not without knowing that when she looked at him, she was wishing Spike was his sire. No man or vamp should have to put up with that!

So, what then? What would I do? Stay? Go? Still got the chip, so can't go. I'd never be a master of another town if I couldn't kill. Tell the truth, the killing got kind of boring after Dru left. Dru loved the blood, Angelus wanted a carbon-copy lunatic, so I became what they wanted. Who am I as a vampire without Drusilla? Dru and Angelus shaped me, made me into their image, never thought of what I'd want to do without them.

Yeah, this existential crap was boring the shite out of me too and I fell asleep.

I dreamt that day for the first time in forever. I dreamt that I was in the dark and there was something I wanted that was in the light. I kept trying to reach for it, but I could only reach out so far before my arm caught fire. I finally gave up and lay down to sleep. When I woke up, in the dream, there she was, the thing I had been reaching for. She came in out of the sun to me and was asleep beside me in my bed.

He woke, for real this time, when he felt soft, warm fingers gently caressing his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw Tara's blue eyes staring at him from the other side of the bed.

"I'm sorry," she apologised. "I didn't mean to hurt you. This was the only place I could think to go where someone would take me in. I needed - I needed - I don't know - something. And we're friends - sort of - and I thought maybe you could help me, give me something - advice, scotch, I don't know. And you did, help I mean. You gave me what I needed to see that I did the right thing. I wish I could do something for you."

"You have. You made me see what an ass I am. Thinking the slayer could fall in love with someone like me."

Her words were harsh but her voice was soft and compassionate. "Don't you see, Spike? You're not in love with her either. You never call her 'Buffy'. You don't see the girl, the woman. You see the thing, the Slayer, this powerful force that you've spent your vampire life trying to destroy. You can't destroy her, so you're trying to control her, in the best way you know how. With love. With tenderness and caring. You need to find someone who can see you, who can see you for who you really are. See past the fangs and the reputation to your good heart below the leather."

"Same for you," Spike said. "Next time find someone who wants you for you, not to make you into a doormat."

She relaxed into the pillow and asked, "So, what are we looking for in a significant other?"

She seemed to be in a little better mood, so he turned on his back and gazed at the ceiling, thinking. If this cheered her up, he'd go along with it.

"Trust," she said when he couldn't come up with anything.

"Respect," he added.

"Consideration"

"Friendship"

"Warmth," she said, running one finger across his cheekbone, just needing to touch someone, to touch… him. "Of the spirit, not the body" she added and he smiled at her.

"Physical warmth is good too," Spike said, brushing a hair off her face.

"Someone you can be yourself with, your whole self" she said.

"Someone you can talk to…"

"Tell anything to…"

The room got quiet and they spent several minutes just looking at each other before Tara got shy, turned on her back in an imitation of him and said, "Honesty."

"Wasn't that covered under 'trust'?"

"Not necessarily," she answered.

"Commitment," Spike continued on with their list.

"Devotion"

"Attraction," Spike said, watching her lips as she spoke.

"Someone who makes you feel safe, protected"

I could do that for you, he thought but said, "Desire" and rolled onto his side to face her.

"Kissing," she offered, rolling onto her side as well.

Him: "Cuddling"

Her: "Craving"

Him: "Foreplay"

Her: "Want"

Him: "Need"

The room got still as they stopped talking, each noticing that the other's breathing was a little ragged.

She's gay, Spike kept chanting to himself in his head. She's gay, she's gay, she's gay…

Finally Tara spoke and as she did, her eyes roamed his face. "Willow wasn't completely mine anyway. Not really. She was mine whenever she was not Buffy's or Xander's or Dawnie's and studying magick or studying for class. Willow was so busy taking care of everyone else that most of the time I was so far down on the list that… I just wanted someone for me, someone to give themselves completely to me - even if it's just for a little while."

She was beautiful. Gentle, and sweet. Hair mussed from sleep and skin pale and smooth.

"Come," he said and she moved across the bed and lay beside him. He pulled up on one elbow and looked down into her storm-blue eyes. "Take me," he whispered.

Spike kissed her and she kissed me back. He kissed her like he'd always wanted to kiss Buffy but instinctively knew he'd never be allowed.

He kissed her like William had always wanted to kiss Cecily.

Soft, and slow, and gentle and tasted every bit of sweetness in her soul.

He was wrong. He kissed her like he wanted to kiss her. Her, Tara. Not Buffy, not Cecily. Tara. Kind, wonderful, beautiful, goddess and earth-mother Tara.

His tongue tasted her lips and she tasted his. He tasted her skin and her hair. His lips explored every curve of her face, the contours of her ears, the mole below her hairline on the back of her neck on the left side.

His cool hands felt her softness and her warmth, the silkiness of her hair that smelled like jasmine. He pulled the barrette out of her hair and let it cascade through his fingers.

It was like nothing I'd ever felt before. I don't mean her hair. I mean me. Being there with her, with Tara, who was there - with me. Not off in a fairyland or wishing I was someone else. Every moment moved with exquisite slowness.

Her enthusiastic yet unexperienced hands studied him as well and it was the most erotic thing he've ever experienced. Caressing his chin, his eyelids and ears, his lips. Spike reached out with his tongue and tasted her fingertips and she giggled an enchanting sound. When Tara's arms wrapped around his shoulders and her fingertips explored the back of his neck, he swears he felt his heart skip a beat. No one had ever been so tender with him.

I didn't love her and she didn't love me. I was pretty sure. But I don't think I loved Buffy or Dru or anyone else at that moment and I'm pretty sure she had decided to leave Red behind as well.

So where were these intensely passionate and erotic feelings coming from? When I was alive and thought myself a poet, I would have said that this would have been impossible. Passion and tenderness and incredible wonder in another person without being in love. Maybe it was a spell, maybe she had done some magick before I woke up - but no, she wouldn't. A woman who had just had her brain invaded wouldn't launch an attack on someone else.

Tara moved her hands and mouth to the hollow at the base of his neck and his jeans became even more uncomfortable. He figured it was time to see if she was heading in the same direction he was.

"Tara, luv, I want you. I want to make love to you. Don't say no, please don't say no."

She stopped for a moment and looked at him. With that same exquisite tenderness, she kissed him and then moved away and stood.

With those beautiful blue eyes never leaving his, she unbuttoned the front of her dress. When his brain started working again, he moved beside her and moved her hands away, taking over the task of undressing a goddess. He leaned in and breathed in the scent of the flesh he uncovered. He warmed his lips by kissing her heated skin that was being revealed.

When he reached her waist, he knelt before her and pulled the dress off her shoulders and let it fall to pool at her feet. Before he could reach to do it himself, her own hands moved to remove her pale green silky bra, so he concentrated on doing away with the matching knickers. He morphed for just a second and used a fang to tear them down the side. When he morphed back, her soft hand caressed his face and she said, "I know what you are, Spike. You don't have to hide from me."

I would have teared up then, if I was a cryin' sort of bloke. But I'm not!

"Later, Tara, Luv, later." His voice was raspy and cracked for some reason when he said that, so he added, "I want to make love to you, not ravage you - not yet anyways." She laughed again and his arms enfolded her waist and he held her warmth and softness to him, letting it remind him of what it was that he had been looking for. He'd been wanting it for so long that he had forgotten it existed.

Her scent invaded his senses and he felt a little drunk; she was so untainted it was intoxicating. Strong arms pulled him to his feet and her hands moved down his chest and undid the button on his jeans. As soon as she touched the zipper, the force of his erection pushed it open without her help. She pushed them down and he kicked them off and across the floor.

Then we did the most strange and wonderful thing.

They stood there and held each other. Her nude body pressed eroticly against his.

I can't describe the feelings and emotions. It was comfort. It was passion.

It was friendship and love and compassion and promise and he had the hardest hard-on he'd ever had in his unlife!

His mouth found hers again and this time the kisses weren't soft or gentle or smooth. He devoured her mouth with his. They kissed and bit and licked and sucked and tasted. They literally fell onto the bed in their urgency to be inside of each other.

I would have crawled inside her skin to be with her if I could have.

His hands and mouth and lips and tongue ventured over every millimeter of her. No cell of her body escaped his attention. Tara showed him a side of her nature that he never dreamt existed. Her enthusiasm matched his own, her imagination and creativity were extensive and he savored every moment of it.

I didn't think until the moment I entered her that she may still be a virgin in this one area, being an ex-lesbian and all. Or I guess it's bisexual? Whatever.

The woman had done some type of phallus before him and he was grateful. He didn't have to hold back at all and she matched him thrust for thrust. In no time at all, he had her screaming his name and the surprising part is that it didn't take much longer for him to get off.

I can usually last for lit'rally days.

But luckily vampires have wonderful constitutions and he needs very little recovery time.

As Tara lay there in his arms, catching her breath, something happened. He was on top of her, and inside her, and she reached up to smooth down his hair.

He felt it and so did she, he could see it in her eyes, feel it in her skin.

The world suddenly fell away and they were the only two beings left in it. Nothing outside of that room had any meaning or significance any more.

I think this is what Angel must have felt when he lost his soul. Not the act of making love, but the feeling that comes after it. If you're in love.

One moment of perfection.

I knew then why I had become a vampire. I knew then why I had become the monster that Angelus and Drusilla needed me to be.

The same reason Tara's family had to be cruel and heartless bastards that drove her away.

It was all to get us to this moment.

One moment of perfection. Tara's hands didn't caress me; they played me. Like she was a virtuoso and I was a Stradivarius. Perfection.



She's been in his bed for three days straight and has no plans to leave it. Not permanently anyway. She fell asleep about three hours ago, but he's been restless. His skin is humming, his brain won't sit still. All of these words keep going through it. Words moving so strong and so fast that he finally has to pick up a pen and write.

I don't know if I'll show it to her or not, but it's better than anything I ever wrote when I was alive.

Aaaah! Can't sit here. Got an hour or so til sun up, think I'll go and get her some of those croissants she liked so much last summer. And some hot chocolate, she likes hot chocolate.

When he gets back, Tara is awake and wrapped in the blanket from their bed, sitting in his only chair and holding a piece of paper in her hand. It's got lots of mistakes and words crossed out, but in between the smudges, this is what it reads:

She was morning
And I was night time
I one day woke up
To find her lying
Beside my bed
I softly said
"Come take me"
For I've been lonely
In need of someone
As though I'd done
Someone wrong somewhere
I don't know where
Come lately

You are the sun, I am the moon
You are the words, I am the tune
Play me

Song she sang to me
Song she brang to me
Words that rang in me
Rhyme that sprang from me
Warmed the night
And what was right
Became me
And so it was
That I came to travel
Upon a road
That was thorned and narrow
Another place
Another grace
Would save me

You are the sun, I am the moon
You are the words, I am the tune
Play me

Epilogue:

Three weeks later Buffy and Willow are on patrol in Restfield Cemetery when they hear a scream and Willow recognizes it as Tara as they desperately dash across the graves. They stop when they see Spike pummeling the life out of a grey sloth-like demon. He hits and hits and hits it, missing several excellent opportunities to stake it. It looks like he's trying to torture it first. When it finally dissolves into goo, Spike runs to a gravestone and kneels. After a minute he rises, arms comfortingly around Tara, kissing her and offering words of comfort, assurances that he will always be there to save her. She seems at ease with him, at peace, happy even.

Millions of angry words form in Willow's throat, but none make it out before Spike leans over and picks up a bag of groceries.

"Don't run ahead like that again, Love. I know you like to make me chase you," his eyes fill with lust and he grins a very wicked grin, "And I love to catch you." His voice turns serious. "But not at night, not in the cemetery, hell, not anywhere in Sunnydale."

"I knew you'd save me, Spike. You were more scared than I was." She kisses him then, deep and passionate; reassuring him that she's fine, that he'd gotten there in time.

When she pulls away, he puts his arm around her, taking a step in the direction of his crypt before he stops and turns them both toward where Willow and Buffy are hiding.

The two friends step out of the shadows, letting Tara see them as well. Buffy starts to say something, but Spike gives a small shake of his head and she stops.

Willow gets out, "Ta-" before Tara turns her and Spike, walking away without saying anything. There's nothing to say. That part of her life is over.

Silently, Buffy and Willow walk toward Revello Drive. When they're almost there, Buffy finally sighs, "Looks like we lost them."

Willow nods, unhappy, but resigned. There's no denying what they had seen for themselves with their own eyes. Tara loves Spike and he loves her just as much. She stops.

"We?"

The End