Doing the Right Thing

CHAPTER 2


“So, did you tell Willow that Spike is alive?” Fred asked Angel the question he didn’t want to hear.

“No, I thought I’d talk to Spike first. I told her you could start researching the robot.” Buy the Sorcery Department a little research time.

“Oh.” Fred blinked. “Well, it would be the right thing to do, right? Talk to Spike?”

“That’s what I thought.”

As soon as she left, Angel poured himself a stiff drink. He was doing the right thing, right? Keeping Spike away from Buffy, so she could have a normal life?

Then why did he feel so guilty? Should he let them be. . . together? No! That was insane.

*****


“Did you get a chance to talk with Spike? About Buffy?” Fred asked Angel the next day.

“Yeah,” Angel answered slowly. Well, he had talked to Spike. About Buffy. A couple of months ago. They had both agreed that there was no way she could have a normal life and fat grandchildren with a vampire lover. “He’s reluctant to let her know....thinks she’ll have a better chance at a normal life without him. But he’s sorry she’s grieving.”

Not entirely a lie, right? Spike did feel that way. That’s why he hadn’t run off to Buffy as fast as his boots could go.

Fred nodded, and then began to tell him about the materials and funds she would need for the project. “I’ll have to go way over budget to pull it off, Angel. I wondered how a college kid like Warren could do it, but Andrew told me he swiped all the research and most of the materials from a professor he worked for.”

Angel nodded. He wanted this conversation over before Fred could get suspicious. “Anything you want is your’s, Fred. This project is my number one priority. So get right to work on it.”

Fred wandered off, her brain abuzz with diagrams and equations.

******

Buffy shut and locked her bedroom door, even though Dawn was at school. She needed maximum privacy today. had had taken a medical leave of absence from the Slayer Academy, with pay. Yay Giles.

She’d done everything they had asked–well, demanded. Went to the council’s Clinic for Slayers, where she’d been poked and prodded and syphoned of enough blood to make a decent meal for a vampire. She got the birth control shot, watched the videos, read the pamphlets, and attended a session of grief counseling.

She wondered if Faith had to go through all this, in Cleveland. Probably not, because Faith didn’t have a sister. And Faith was, well, street smart. Unlike Buffy.

Before leaving for school, Dawn had muttered something about how she didn’t want her to feel bad, and maybe this would help her get over the rough patch. Then she’d shoved a box into Buffy’s hands, and hurried off.

Buffy opened the box and dumped the contents onto her bed. A vibrator. At least it was a good size, and covered with something kind of like skin. Lubricant, very sweet smelling. She bet Willow had been the one to buy this stuff.

Well, that was humiliating.

The next item was a photo album. Buffy flipped it open and her heart entered her throat. She couldn’t breathe.

It was a photo of Spike, taken while he’d been smirking, dressed like James Dean. Another, older photo, from a distance, in a restaurant, wearing an old fashioned suit. One of a hippie Spike, wearing a leather fringy vest over bare skin, and pouting. Another, very old, a formal pose.

Watcher’s Council pictures of William the Bloody.

Buffy cried, ugly gasping sobs that made her shake, tears like she hadn’t shed for her mother, or for Tara, or any of those little girls she had buried, or for Anya, or Spike. She’d been too busy, too full of responsibility, the last hope for the fate of the world, to cry much. She’d had to try to beat Glory, and later, Willow. Then there had been the First, too much to do, in too desperate of circumstances. . . and Spike, who had been her rock through those awful times–except when she had forced him out of her life– now he was gone, and she felt like there was a gaping hole in her life. A growing wound. She missed him now more than she had the first month he’d been gone.

There was something wrong about that, the missing getting worse instead of better. Even Buffy knew that. The counselor had taken a ton of notes, and hmm hmmed a lot.

So now instead of feeling crazy, horny and sad, she also felt guilty and freakish. Gosh it was rewarding, doing the right thing.

Buffy tossed everything off her bed except the photos, and crawled under the covers. She rolled onto her stomach and snaked an arm under her bed. There it was, a half empty pint of vanilla schnapps. Well, it was only ten in the morning. She’d have to put it in her coffee. But it was either that or show up at Ian the- Spike-a-like’s dingy efficiency apartment.

Her head pounded from crying so hard, and she felt exhausted. Buffy shoved the empty bottle under her bed and flopped back on the pillows with the photo album. Her head was spinning, and she felt pleasantly warm. She hadn’t had a day off in a very long time. Even the weekends were busy with Slayer and Council related things.

I wish I could just be an ordinary girl, with a job and a couple of classes. Not the ‘Oldest Living Slayer.’ Being around all this slayer stuff makes it so hard to get over Spike’s death.

Dawn’s done with school in a month and will start college in the fall. She want’s to go to that Witch retreat with Willow for six weeks this summer, which is great with me.

I miss California. I want to go back, get a job, take some classes. No more slaying, no more . . .she fell asleep.


. . . Spike was on the beach, naked in the sun. He was closer to the water than she was, walking with that loose, feline grace that was characteristic of only him. The muscles in his back and buttocks rippled in the light. He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder, a smile curving his lips, his eyes glittering in the sunlight.

“You’re not supposed to be out in the sun, Spike.” She admonished him, but his smile just got bigger. He held out a hand to her, and she rushed and took it.

Their hands clasped, fingers intertwined , and he pulled her hand to his lips so he could kiss her finger tips. “You know that doesn’t matter anymore, love. Not now that we are joined. Your strengths are mine, and mine are you

His soft lips brushed against her fingers and sent shivers down her spine, and his voice was enough to melt her. “So you get to be in sunshine, now? What do I get?.”

“You get me, for always.” He pulled her close with the hand clasp, and she could see he was fully aroused.

“Always?” She slid her other hand up his stomach to his neck, and he shivered. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him softly, tracing his full lower lip with the tip of her tongue.

His arms curled around her and she felt so safe, so right. The kiss became passionate, and they gradually slipped down to the sand at the waters edge, while his lips and tongue found her nipples, his hands molded every part of her with gliding caresses, gentle touches that made her tremble.

Her own hands trailed over his smooth ivory flesh, possessing him. Her finger tips found his nipples and lingered there with soft strokes and pinches, making him gasp.

His fingers found her core, and stroked her, reveling in her warmth and wetness. he glided two fingers over her clit and relished the sound of her breath hitching. “Ride me,” he whispered.

He fell back on to the sand, his big hands gripping her hips and pulling her on top of him. She guided his rigid flesh into her and he helped her lower herself onto him. She shivered in delight as he filled her almost to overflowing.

His hands still gripped her hips and he moved them in a figure eight. She used her inner muscles to grip and release his cock, and he flung his head back, eyes shut, and grimaced. “Got to stop that now or I’ll never last,” he gasped.

“Someone’s a little out of control?” she teased, smiling

He heaved his hips upward, bucking her, and when she landed down on him he had placed his fingers so her clit would hit right-- there. Shards of ecstacy ran through her and she almost lost her balance, reeling backward until his free hand caught her.

“Someone’s a little off balance?” He gave a breathy chuckle.

Buffy didn’t feel like playing anymore. She stretched out over him so she could nuzzle his neck with open mouthed kisses. “I can’t help it. You make me crazy.”

“Me, too. Crazy for you. While we were apart I thought I was going to--”

“–Shh,” Buffy stopped him with her lips against his. “No more thinking about that. We’re together now.” She pushed down on his cock, hard.

“Oh, God,” he moaned and his eyes glittered behind his lashes as he drank in the sight of her kneeling naked over him.

Buffy woke up to find she had been using the vibrator during her dream, and her body was still reeling from an explosive orgasm. She turned it off and tossed it to the foot of her bed. As she dragged the covers back up to cover her now chilled body, she noticed her knees, which stung a little.

They were covered with tiny, red indentations, as if she had been kneeling in the sand.