“Yes, Buffy. Yes. Yes, she’s secure. Yes, Buffy, I’m sure! Listen. Buffy . . . Buffy, listen! I’ve got a wonderful surprise for you!! You won’t believe it when you see! A golden, well musc . . .”

Spike grabbed the phone away from Andrew and covered the mouthpiece.

“One more bloody word and I’ll throttle you until your eyeballs pop out of your head!” Spike threatened Andrew as they waited for the plane to take off from L.A.

“Ok, ok!” Andrew said, holding his hand out for the phone.

Spike held a finger up to him in warning. “I mean it, not another bloody word!”

Andrew shrugged and rolled his eyes as he stood up, one hand on his hip and his other hand outstretched for the phone. Spike handed it back to him and Andrew continued, “Buffy? Sorry, musta been a bad . . . crrrrcrrr . . . con . . . crrrkrrr . . . nection. Is it better now? Good. Yeah . . . you’ll see when we get there . . . Yeah. Yes, I’m SURE she’s secure. Ok. Ok. Bye.”

Andrew gave Spike a look like “happy now?” as he put the phone away, plopped down in a seat across the aisle from Spike and fastened his seatbelt before the plane began to taxi for take-off.

Spike still wasn’t sure this was a good idea. He looked out the window and the pregnant Buffy from the other dimension was watching the plane from the private hanger where they’d boarded. He knew she would kick his ass if he tried to get off the plane now.

“Fortune favors the brave,” she’d told him. “And above all else, I know you’re brave.”

Spike blew out a long breath and closed his eyes. He wasn’t so sure about that just now.

Andrew filled him in on everything that was going on with the Scoobies on the flight over. Giles had taken over the Council and the Scoobies, along with the original Slayers that had trained in Sunnydale, were scouring the globe for other newly empowered Slayers.

They had a campus in Rome, as well as one just outside of London, where they brought them for training. They had recruited many new Watchers, as well, and Giles was working with them, before matching them with a Slayer, and sending them into the field.

Dawn was attending university in Rome while Buffy worked training the new Slayers there.

Spike listened to Andrew prattle on about all the Scoobies. He was happy to hear that they all seemed to be elsewhere at the moment, so it would just be Buffy and Dawn who would meet them in Rome. That would be better . . . Buffy alone, without the scrutiny of her friends, had always been better for Spike in the past.

When the plane landed in Rome, it taxied to another private hanger and stopped. Apparently, the Council under Giles’ direction was a lot less stingy with their money.

Spike stood up and moved to the window on the other side of the plane next to Andrew. There he saw Buffy and Dawn, along with a man, obviously Italian, standing next to them waiting.

Buffy laughed at something the man had said and leaned against him as she shook her head and said something back that made the man laugh, too. Spike’s stomach knotted. She’s moved on. I knew this was a bloody awful idea!

“Who’s that, then?” Spike asked Andrew. “You didn’t mention her new beau.”

Andrew looked out the window and a huge grin spread across his face. “Ramón!!” he squealed in delight, his eyes wide with excitement as he bounced happily in his seat. “It’s Ramón!” he repeated as he stood up, grabbed Spike in a hug and jumped excitedly up and down against him.

“Bloody hell, Andrew! Get off!” Spike said curtly as he pushed Andrew away. “Who the bloody hell is Ramón? Sounds like a nancy-boy name to me.”

“He’s my friend! He totally agrees that Timothy Dalton should get an Oscar and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!” Andrew informed him excitedly as he turned back to the window and waved out at the group on the ground.

Spike snorted. “Yeah, thought it was a nancy-boy name. Everybody knows Sean Connery would whip Timothy Dalton’s pansy ass.”

“Would not!” Andrew retorted as he turned away from the window and back to Spike, his hands going to his hips.

“Would too!” Spike argued back, his own hands matching Andrew’s on his hips.

“Not!”

“Too!”

“Not!”

“Bloody hell . . .” Spike muttered under his breath as he shook his head, rolled his eyes and dropped the subject.  Like arguing with a bloody boxa rocks.

Spike stood to the side and looked out the window again, carefully out of view of the people on the ground. Buffy was laughing and talking animatedly with Ramón and Dawn. She looked good. She’d let her hair grow. It fell long down her back now and danced like golden silk every time she moved.

The memory of the first time he’d seen her, when he’d come to Sunnydale to kill the Slayer and find a cure for Dru, filled Spike’s mind. Buffy had been dancing with Harris and Red at the Bronze. She had captured his heart then, even without him realizing it at the time. She had laughed at something one of her friends said and the whole room seemed to light up with the joy of her. He loved to see her smile and laugh . . . something that she had done very little of those last two years in Sunnydale.

Tears stung the back of Spike’s eyes as he watched her and he blinked them back. She was laughing again. This is what he went into the Hellmouth for . . . to make a world where Buffy could laugh again - so she could have the happy life that she deserved.

“C’mon!” Andrew exclaimed, grabbing Spike’s arm and tugging him towards the now open door of the plane.

Spike pulled back away from him and sat back down in the seat. “No. Just have them take me back to L.A. now.”

“What!? You haven’t even seen Buffy and Dawn!” Andrew whined, stomping one foot down and waving his arm towards the group outside the window.

“Seen enough,” Spike said as he re-fastened his seatbelt and leaned back in the seat with his eyes closed.

Andrew reached down and started to unfasten the seatbelt from around Spike’s hips and, without opening his eyes, Spike caught his hand in an iron grip.

“You better be goin' for the seatbelt, Andrew . . . ‘cause anythin’ else would be very bad for you,” Spike said in a low, threatening voice.

Andrew huffed and pulled his hand away from Spike. Putting both hands on his hips Andrew said, “If you don’t come down and see Buffy and Dawn, I’ll call Angel and have him send that other Buffy over here to kick . . . your . . . ass.”

Spike narrowed his eyes at Andrew. “You wouldn’ dare.”

“I dare! I very well dare!” Andrew informed him as he raised his chin in defiance and squared his shoulders . . . well, attempted to square his shoulders . . . and folded his arms across his chest.

Spike blew out a breath and unfastened the seatbelt. “Fine . . . bloody well, fine,” he said, standing up. “You first . . .” Spike said, waving his arm towards the door.

“Oh no, Mr. 'I’ll get YOU off the plane and shut the door and be a big scaredy-cat-vampire and hide in here',” Andrew said backing up. “YOU first.”

Bloody hell, Spike thought. Apparently Andrew had learned a thing or two since he’d last seen him.

Spike sighed and started for the door. Fortune favors the brave . . .

Spike watched Buffy and Dawn as he descended the stairs from the plane to the ground. Their faces were first awash in confusion and then concern . . . was this The First coming back again?

Neither one approached him as he reached the ground.

“LOOK! Look what I found in L.A.!!”Andrew exclaimed from behind him. “SPIKE! It’s Spike!” Andrew told them, grinning from ear to ear, as he patted a hand on Spike’s shoulder and then across Spike's solid chest to show that it wasn’t The First. “He came back!”

“Spike?” Dawn and Buffy both said as they started moving towards him.

Dawn took off running and threw herself at Spike, grabbing him in a hug and nearly knocking him down. “SPIKE! Oh my God! It’s really you!” she exclaimed as he returned her hug.

“Yeah, it’s really me Niblett . . . although, not much of a Niblett anymore, are you, pet?”

Dawn pulled back to look at him. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed again. Turning back to Buffy, who had walked up behind her, she said, “LOOK! Buffy! It’s Spike!”

Dawn gave Spike another quick hug and pulled away to leave Spike face to face with Buffy. Buffy had her arms folded across her chest and her head tilted to the side, looking at him warily. “Spike? Is it really you?”

“Yeah, it really is, luv,” he told her as he took her in. She looked even better close up than she had from the plane. All the stress and worry and sadness of the last years in Sunnydale had been replaced with a peacefulness and it made her glow from within.  She was even more beautiful than he remembered.

“How?” Buffy asked, her brows knit in confusion.

“Long story . . . the amulet . . . it took me out of the Hellmouth and dropped me in L.A. with Angel . . . which, is a hell all of its own . . .” Spike told her with a small smile.

“When?”

“Shortly after . . . you know . . .” Spike's voice trailed off and he shrugged, they both new shortly after what.

“Why . . . why didn’t you come find . . . us?” Buffy asked with concern furrowing her brow.

Spike shrugged. “Didn’ know if you’d want me to . . .” he told her softly, dropping his eyes to the ground and stuffing his hands down into the pockets of his duster.

Buffy reached her hand out and laid it gently on his cheek. When he looked back up at her, she had tears in her eyes but a small smile on her lips. “You’re such a dope sometimes, Spike.”

“Don't you know that I love you?  I need you? You've always known me better than I've known myself.  How could you doubt that I would want you here?” Buffy asked softly as the tears spilled from her eyes.

Spike closed his eyes to fight back the tears that threatened him. He put one hand over hers on his cheek and turned to drop a tender kiss on her palm. His eyes glistened with joy when he opened them and looked at her.

“I love you, Buffy,” he said softly. "I've loved you since the first day I saw you . . . I'll always love you."

Buffy laughed through her tears and stepped up to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted up on her toes to take his lips in a tender kiss. It was the kind of kiss that Spike had dreamt of getting from her for years . . . soft, caring and full of love . . . not the rushed and frantic kisses that they'd shared before.

He wrapped his arms around her as she pressed her body against his and deepened the kiss. Her tongue slipped between his lips to taste him and his tongue swirled around hers in a slow dance as the world around them melted away.

Buffy had had nightmares about that day in the Hellmouth nearly every night since then . . . but it wasn’t the Turok-Han or The First that had filled her dreams, it was Spike’s words to her . . . “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” She had realized too late what she felt for Spike; how much she loved and needed him - how he completed her. She cried for him every night and wished and prayed that she could have just one more chance to tell him, to show him, how very much he meant to her.