Choices

Thank you guys for the reviews! It was nice to come home to them. I had a great time meeting James...he really is so sweet and nice and such a flirt! LOL. Anyway, I'm hoping to have another chapter out tonight, but here is the last part of 26. Review please!

"I wanted you to know that what Spike said isn't true: I wasn't playing you. Either of you. That was not my intent, never even crossed my mind to do something like that. Considering how long you've known me, you should know I'm not malicious like that. Especially to you two."

Angel shrugged, "no, but you'll just lie us. Lead both of us on and then drop a bomb like you're in love with both of us. What kind of crap is that, Buffy?"

"Okay, I did NOT lead you on. In order for me to be 'leading you on', I would have had to dangled myself in front of you and then tell you that you couldn't hav--ok--okay, maybe I led Spike on a wee bit, but it wasn't like that! I didn't tell him that he could NEVER have it, just that I wasn't ready yet to take that step."

"I really don't want to hear about you and Spike, Buffy. Just the fact that you were intimate with him, that you had an affair going on behind my back--"

"I don't like the word affair. It makes it sound...sneaky."

"It was sneaky Buffy! You lied to me. Deliberately. Intentionally. Whether the malicious intent was there or not, it does not change the fact that lying to me is malicious. You know I hate liars!"

"You hate liars, Spike hates it when I use magick on him. Why don't you just make a list of all the things I do and have done wrong so that anytime I feel the urge to make any sort of move, I can consult my list. God, you're impossible. You're both impossible!"

"You make it sound as if I'm in the wrong because I hate that you lied to me."

"No, I--" She broke off frustrated. Running a hand through her hair, she was visibly trying to regroup. She sighed. "I understand that you're mad at me for lying to you. I didn't want to Angel. I didn't. I'm sorry I did it, but it's done now and I can't take it back. I lied because...because I thought I was protecting you from getting hurt. I wanted to tell you but I was consumed by this fear that you would disapprove so much that you would leave me."

"Did you ever plan on telling me?"

"Yes, of course. I was going to tell you--well, Spike and I were going to tell you after the showing. Except it didn't quite work out that way..."

"No, really?"

She tossed him a look, "when I saw you at the club with Faith, something inside me snapped. I was jealous."

"So you came over and danced with me," he whispered and looked down at the floor. Then, he looked back up at her, trying to reign in the feelings invoked in him at the memory of that dance. It was then that he had thought maybe he had a chance. The tender way she had held him as they danced, holding him as if she were shielding him from further 'attacks' from the likes of Faith. She had been staking her claim, with her body and with her words. He knew they'd always been protective of each other, but that moment had went above and beyond the normal protectiveness they had for eacher.her.

Simply, she had been jealous and that was the first spark of hope Angel had. "You ran away from me," he said accusingly. "Then when I told you...you said you loved me too."

"Because I do, Angel," she told him earnestly.

Angel shook his head. "Then you take it all away by telling me you love him too. How can you do that, Buffy? How can you love both of us? You were intimate with him and then you try with me...it's not fair, Buffy!"

"I thought all was fair in love and war," she muttered.

"You're being a brat right now."

"I wasn't thinking."

"When you tried to have sex with me?"

"Yes."

"Gee, thanks."

"Oh but if we had done it and then you found out, that would have been okay?"

"No, but remember I stopped you."

"I know that. I don't think I would have been able to go through with it though. I couldn't do that to Spike."

"Of course not. He's given you your first orgasm hasn't he? So, then you owe him your virginity. I mean, you might as well be fair Buffy. You love him first, you get physical with him first, he might as well BE your first for everything."

"It's not like that."

"What exactly were you planning, Buffy? I'd just be there to have seconds?"

"No. Thanks for making me sound like a tramp by the way."

"You're not a--" he broke off, this time it was he that was frustrated and trying to get himself together. "Then you tell me you you were planning."

"That's just it, Angel. I wasn't planning anything! I was...I was scrambling around trying to be the best girlfriend I could be to Spike, which wasn't good enough because there was something missing."

"If you tell me it was me that was missing, I might be inclined to bite you."

"Then I won't say it. But it's the truth."

"And if I had told you first? Would he have been missing?"

She nodded. "I need both of you or I'm not complete."

"What is it you want from us exactly then?"

"The funny thing is, I had no idea until the shit hit the fan what it was that I wanted. I didn't have time to process what was happening. Everything was happening so quickly. I knew I had to tell you both the truth and hope that you'd forgive me. Beyond that, I didn't have a 'plan', not an idea in my head."

"And now?"

"Now...what I want is what hurts both of you."

"So, you want both of us as your lovers." It was a statement, not a question.

"It's not just about that, Angel. It's not about who I have sex with first, which one made me orgasm first, which one told me who loved me first. Or even which one I told I loved first. To me, all of that which is so relevant to you is so irrelevant to me when it comes to how I feel about both of you.
For me, it's about how I love both of you so much and I don't want to lose you," she swiped at the tears that were starting to fall. "I made mistakes, I know that. I can't be sorry enough for lying to you, for keeping Spike from you. I'm NOT sorry though for loving both of you. I was for a long time after that, but not anymore. Don't get me wrong, my head fully realizes how complicated it is and the ramifications of it. It?s my heart that doesn?t know the difference. It doesn't love one above the other, it doesn't tell me who should 'pop my cherry'. All it tells me is that it loves both of you and it wants the chance to be able to do that."

"And if that's not possible?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I'm pretty new at this being in love thing. Never mind being in love with two. I've always looked to my mom for answers when I was growing up. Then, it was the three of you. I lost my mom so for a while now it's been you and Spike. The two people I look to for help are the two people I need help with, so I'm at a loss.
You guys act as if I hall tll the answers, and I don't. For the longest time both of you tried to tell me how much of an innocent I was. I fought that, but now I see that it's true. Nothing could have prepared me for what it's like to be in love and try to do right by the one's you?re in love with. It's hard. I'm not some type of worldly lover, Angel. In the matter of two days though, you've both conquered the feat of making me feel like some kind of court out out for the glory of winning the hearts of two men and flaunting it in both their faces. That's not me, Angel, and I think you know that. I would hope that you know that.
So, you tell me. You tell me what I can do to make it better."

Angel sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. How could she make it better? She could not love Spike, she could not have been physical with him, she could not have told him that she loved him while she was with Spike. She could just love HIM. All those were not plausible, now were they?

"I don't know, Buffy. I just don't know."

TBC...