Later that night (wee hours of the next morning after the date)…

Spike stubbed his cigarette out and dropped the butt into one of the garbage receptacles on the beach. He was filled with nervous energy and wished to God he hadn’t agreed to have Buffy ‘home’ by midnight. The good-night kisses they’d shared had done nothing except rev up his libido, and now he was left standing alone in the dark, looking out over the gently lapping waves with no relief in sight.

His whole body tingled – and not from the Hellmouth. His skin prickled with random bouts of gooseflesh. The little bumps rose and fell and raced over his skin as if they had horny, little minds of their own. He rubbed his arms through his shirt-sleeves, trying to get them to stop, but it did little good.

He sighed and patted down the pockets of his tux, looking for another pack of cigarettes, but finding none. Then he remembered that he’d left the carton Buffy had bought him in town that day in her room.

Spike turned his eyes to the hotel and quickly found Buffy and Joan’s room. Their window was dark; they’d already gone to bed. Spike smirked and pulled the room key out of his pocket. He’d just slip in and grab the smokes and … well … maybe … His cock jumped in his dress pants at the possibilities that came after the ‘maybe’. Maybe Buffy was still awake. Maybe she was just as horny as he was. Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Yeah, it was the night before his wedding, and, yeah, he’d planned on staying away from her until they were man and wife out of some strange sense of nobility, but sod it!

**~**

Earlier that night, 11:59 pm…

Buffy danced through the door to the room she was now sharing only with Joan, her lips swollen with Spike’s heavenly good-night kisses. Her skin tingled and her body hummed with excitement. She was getting married! Tomorrow night!

“Look!” Buffy squealed, holding her left hand out to Joan, who had waited up, as she had learned via her research was appropriate to do.

Joan looked at the ring, her brow furrowed. “I am perplexed. Does size matter or does it not?”

Buffy laughed and pulled her hand back. “It matters in some things – not in baubles. In this case, it really is the thought that counts.”

Joan nodded. “So it does matter in penises, but not in diamonds?”

Buffy giggled and spun around giddily, her skirt flaring out like Cinderella’s. “Yep … size matters in penises and hearts, and Spike is well endowed with both.

“Dance with me!” Buffy requested gleefully, reaching her hands out to Joan.

“There is no music,” Joan pointed out, taking Buffy’s hands and standing up from the couch.

Buffy waltzed with Joan over to the small clock-radio on the table and clicked it on. When she heard the music coming from it, she squealed like a teenager at a Beatles’ concert.

“It’s like … karma or kismet or something,” Buffy exclaimed as she pulled Joan close and began dancing slowly around the small, open floor of the room.

♫Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

“This is the song I wanted to have played at our wedding when Spike and I were under that spell,” she explained to her friend as they slow-danced, their bodies swaying against each other gently.

♫It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

“You were previously engaged to Spike?” Joan asked as she settled her arms around Buffy’s waist and swayed to the slow beat with her friend.

“Yeah – but … it wasn’t like this time. That was a Willow spell-gone-wonky – this is real. It’s totally different.”

“And you are to be wed tomorrow night?” Joan continued as they danced to the sappy, romantic song. The two women’s hips swayed in time to the slow song, their bodies brushing against each other with each small step.

“Yeah … God, can you believe it?” Buffy gushed, her eyes wide as platters.

“Is there a reason I should not believe it? Are you attempting to deceive me?” Joan wondered, tilting her head and looking at her twin-friend.

Buffy laughed. “No … it’s just … unbelievable!”

♫Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

 

“What will be my new role when you and Spike are married?” Joan wondered.

Buffy furrowed her brow and stopped dancing as the song ended, pulling back a bit from her friend. “What do you mean?”

“Although there are many variations, in countries were polygamy is illegal, typical wedding vows require each person to ‘forsake all others’.  I have been researching this custom, as well.”

Buffy shook her head. “No … Joan … nothing will change,” Buffy assured her. “I told you earlier, Spike loves us both.”

“But he is marrying you and you are marrying him,” Joan pointed out despondently, stepping back from Buffy. “‘Forsaking all others.’”

Buffy sighed. She grabbed one of Joan’s hands and kept her from moving too far away. “Joan, I need you. Spike needs you. He loves you. You’re my best friend and …” Buffy bit her bottom lip, her emotions whirling wildly as she considered her next words. “And … I love you. We’re like … like a really good hot fudge sundae.”

Joan’s brows rose. “I am certain that I do not have the flavor, consistency, texture, aroma, or temperature of a hot fudge sundae,” she pointed out.

Buffy shook her head. “No … I mean … to make a hot fudge sundae you need ice cream and hot fudge – two things – like me and Spike. But, to make a really good one you have to add nuts. You’re the nuts!”

“I am not certain calling me ‘nuts’ is appropriate or desirable,” Joan objected. "That is considered an insult in most English speaking countries."

Buffy breathed out a noisy, dismayed breath and shook her head. “Joan, trust me. Nothing will change,” she assured her friend again, tugging on her hand and pulling her even closer.

Where their hands met, Buffy could feel an almost electric charge passing between them. It sent a shiver down her spine and prickled her already overly-sensitized skin, as well as other burning, yearning, aching parts of her anatomy.

“We’re a really good hot fudge sundae,” Buffy repeated, her voice softening as her breathing suddenly became more labored.

Buffy’s body buzzed with pent-up energy. The emanations from the Hellmouth were nothing compared to the giddy, tingling need that Spike had stirred in her tonight. The good-night kisses outside the hotel room door had only fanned the flames of Buffy’s desire, and slow-dancing with Joan had done nothing to quench them.

“Do you perceive a pleasant sibilating hum in your sensory-receptors?” Joan asked quietly, leaning in closer to Buffy.

Buffy looked up and her eyes met Joan’s – so familiar, yet so different. The two women remained locked under each other’s spell for many long moments as the tension between them grew by leaps and bounds. Buffy’s chest began to heave with nervous desire while all the air in the room seemed to become charged with the invisible power emanating from the two Slayers.

“Yes,” Buffy answered at last – a breathy, labored reply. Tentatively, Buffy put a hand behind Joan’s neck and pulled her nearer still … close enough to kiss. Buffy’s lips hovered over the Bot’s for a few breathless moments before she gently touched her mouth to her friend’s, her smoldering desire rekindling into a crackling bonfire in her core.

Joan responded to the kiss, parting her lips to welcome Buffy’s tongue into her warm, soft mouth as her sensory buffers began to heat up and overflow.  Joan moaned when Buffy deepened the kiss, and every drive, microchip, bit, and byte whirled and pulsed with a sibilating buzz of need.

“Please make my sensory preceptor buffers overload,” Joan pleaded as the two blondes began stumbling together toward the bed, barely breaking the kiss as they went.

Buffy moaned her agreement as they tumbled onto the mattress, tugging at zippers and buttons in a sudden, blind passion.

**~**

Spike silently slid his key into the lock of Buffy and Joan’s room and turned the latch. He pressed the door open slowly and slipped in without a sound. The moment he was inside with the door closed firmly at his back, however, he froze in his tracks.

The whole room was dark, there were no lights on, but he could see well enough … and smell and hear. Bloody hell!

Spike crept through the small living area over to the open door of the bedroom, carefully avoiding the discarded shoes, stockings, and other clothing that littered the floor. Spike stopped in the doorway, his heart in his throat. He wouldn’t have been able to breathe if his life had depended on it – luckily it didn’t.

His two beautiful Buffys were a sight to behold: angels tangled each other’s arms. Their blissful moans and quavering gasps were a symphony of pleasure. The aroma of their desire and release as intoxicating as a bed of fresh, fragrant roses.

Spike must’ve made a sound – a gasp, a moan, a gulp – because two sets of green eyes turned on him as one. He wasn’t sure if he should flee or fall into their arms, so he simply stood there like a marble statue in the darkness.

After the surprise of seeing someone in the doorway passed, Buffy disentangled herself from Joan and rose from the bed. She picked her pink, sparkly dress up off the floor and carefully settled it over the back of a chair, smoothing it gently, before she made her way to Spike.

Buffy reached a hand out and Spike’s hand lifted up to meet hers on reflex. Without a word, Buffy tilted her head toward the bed, a silent invitation. Spike swallowed and nodded, taking a tentative step forward. Of all the images his mind had conjured prior to coming into their room, this had not been one of them. He honestly thought the days of having both his beauties were long past, and he'd been fine with that. He only needed Buffy – she was all he'd ever truly desired ... but ... well... he certainly didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Spike swallowed hard and blinked, looking between Buffy and Joan, trying to assure himself that he wasn't hallucinating or dreaming. Nothing changed; they were still here, still covered with the fragrance of arousal, still looking at him expectantly. His cock grew even harder, threatening the thin fabric of the tuxedo pants, as he watched Joan rise from the bed and silently glide up next to Buffy. In a moment, both of his beautiful girls were undressing him, removing his fancy, rented tux piece by piece. The tie he’d struggled with so valiantly fell to the floor, followed by the cummerbund, his shirt, his over-stressed slacks…

Lips began to kiss his soft, alabaster skin as it was slowly revealed. Teeth nibbled and tongues licked as he was guided forward to the bed. The gooseflesh that had been temporarily shocked into silence returned with a vengeance, tingling his body from head to toe.

As Spike lay down on the bed, Buffy and Joan remained standing a moment. Buffy pulled Joan’s lips to hers again as Spike watched, mesmerized, their bare bodies pressed together in an intimate embrace.

When the kiss broke, Buffy leaned her forehead against Joan’s, never breaking the connection of their flesh. “I told you … nothing has changed. Nothing will change – you’re part of us,” Buffy assured their android partner.

Joan pulled back and looked from Buffy to Spike and back again. “You will not forsake me after your vows?”

Buffy shook her head. “No. I promise – there will be no forsaking,” Buffy assured her sincerely.

“We are a hot fudge sundae, with nuts?” Joan asked, looking at Buffy with somber eyes. A sliver of light from outside provided just enough illumination in the dark of room for Buffy to see that Joan was perfectly serious.

Buffy smiled and nodded. “We are,” she agreed.

“Can Spike be the nuts? That is a slang reference for the male sex gland. Therefore, I suggest that would be more appropriate, as he actually has testicles and I do not.”

Buffy pulled her lips between her teeth to keep from laughing out loud. “Okay …” she agreed after a moment, regaining her composure. “I’ll be the ice cream, Spike can be the nuts, and you can be the fudge.”

Joan nodded excitedly. “I am looking forward to pouring myself over you again.”

Buffy did laugh at that and turned her gaze back to Spike, who was looking at them with utter confusion. “Now, c’mon … I think we had some theory we were gonna test out,” Buffy reminded Joan, her tone teasing. “Something about the way to a man’s heart?”

Joan smiled. “Yes. I enjoy scientific experiments. Do you also enjoy science?”

Buffy grinned. “Oh, yeah,” she purred, wagging her brows. “I’m all about the science.”

**~**

Two days later…

Buffy couldn’t wipe the utterly ridiculous grin off her face if someone knocked all her teeth out. She sat in the window-seat of a 747 watching the luggage being loaded onto the plane. Her grin grew even wider, if that was possible, when she saw the coffin-shaped shipping crate being lifted up onto the conveyer belt by several of the baggage handlers. She sighed, the last of her niggling worries fading. Spike and Joan were onboard with her now. They’d be in the States in a few hours and they could begin their new life.

Although it would be an uncomfortable few hours for Spike, they’d decided it would be better that he ride along with Joan in Buffy's oversized-baggage than take the boat and meet them later. Just in case the Council somehow found Buffy again, he didn’t want to leave her side for the two to three weeks it would take for him to travel across the ocean with Saul on the boat.

As Buffy waited for the plane to be readied for departure, she thought of everything there was to do, and grew even more excited by the prospect of shopping for a house with Spike and Joan, of furnishing it, of decorating the nursery for the babies. They could just be a normal, if eccentric, family. No one there would know them. No one would know she was the ex-Slayer, that Joan was a robot, or that Spike was a vampire. No one would know anything about their pasts. No one would care. They could be anyone they wanted to be – a clean slate, a life do-over.

As the workers below closed the luggage hatch, Buffy closed her eyes and leaned back against her seat to await take-off. As had happened nearly every time she closed her eyes since she became Mrs. Pratt, the wedding replayed in her mind.

It had been simple, but elegantly memorable. Spike had taken care of everything from the local official that presided, to the location, to the flowers and décor.  All she’d had to do was show up, say ‘I do’, kiss her husband, and shove cake into his face … then lick it off.

Joan had been almost as excited as Buffy about the ceremony, since, as the bridesmaid, she’d been able to wear her fancy, new dress. The whole thing had been one surprise after another for Buffy. After leaving her and Joan’s bed the morning of their wedding, Spike had left directions to take the cable car to the top of the Rock at 8pm, and Buffy hadn’t seen him again that whole day.

She’d considered buying another new dress for her wedding gown, but instead simply accessorized the pink gown from their ‘first date’, adding a wreath of dried, pastel wildflowers in her hair and getting a new spray of the dusty pink roses for her bouquet. She and Joan took the empty cable car up to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar at 8pm sharp, deciding that it wouldn’t be right to be late for her own wedding.

At the top, she found Spike and the official waiting near the edge of the cliff. The whole area around the two men was surrounded by an irregular horseshoe of fat, white and pink pillar candles in varying heights. There must’ve been a thousand of them – although Buffy hadn’t actually counted. Where Spike had gotten so many, she had no idea. The whole area glowed with the soft, golden rays of the candles. The air was still, surprisingly so, and a low fog had begun to flow in from the ocean, surrounding the ground and water beneath their precipice with a blanket of soft white haze. It felt like they were above the clouds – on top of the world – perhaps in heaven itself. It certainly seemed like they were the only people in the whole world at that moment, shrouded from everyone and everything else that had existed before by the diaphanous mist.

Spike was dressed in his tux again, looking just as dapper as he had the night before. A single pink rose again adorning his lapel.

If she lived to be a hundred, Buffy would never forget the look of absolute awe that he showered over her as she and Joan walked slowly from the cable car station out to the edge of the world to join him. She didn’t actually hear the words the official said – or if she did, she didn’t recall them now – everything was being blocked out by the joyous contentment that Spike was pouring over her.

She remembered him sliding the wedding band onto her finger as he promised to love and cherish her. His hands trembled, and so did hers. She was afraid he would drop it, but he didn’t. Then it was her turn and she did drop his ring! She looked around frantically for it, afraid it would roll right off the edge of the world. Oh, God! But Joan retrieved it before anything like that happened and, on the second try, with a nervous titter and a promise of her own, Buffy had managed to slide it onto his finger.

And then they were kissing. The fog had risen up even higher and they were engulfed by a halo of diffused light from the candles. Standing in the clouds, surrounded by an angelic glow of soft light, their lips met for the first time as husband and wife. Buffy melted against him, and Spike slowly leaned her back into a low dip, supporting her with strong arms, as his lips made love to hers in the cloud of radiance.

In the next moment Joan was showering them with fragrant, pink rose petals and small, dried bits of lavender flowers. Buffy began to giggle against Spike’s lips as the delicate flowers tickled her skin, fell down the front of her dress, and settled into her hair.

Then she was standing in front of him again, their eyes locked together there in the glowing clouds. He muttered a single word to her: “Effulgent.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but the way he said it, with such reverence, such amazement … almost worship, it made her heart swell to the breaking point in her chest.

“I love you, Mr. Pratt,” Buffy had replied to his single word.

“I love you, Mrs. Pratt,” he’d responded, his eyes deep, azure pools, glittering with joy.

Buffy then turned and reached a hand out to Joan, pulling her into their embrace as the presiding government official headed for the cable car. “I have something I want to give to both of you,” Buffy had announced.

Spike looked at her quizzically as Buffy pulled out of his embrace and retrieved her bouquet from a nearby rolling cart, which also held the cake waiting to be cut. She pulled out a pink ribbon from the center of the bouquet, lifting three rings up with it.

“These are like us,” Buffy explained, setting her bouquet back down and untying the ribbon to free the three rings. Each ring was formed out of three interlocking bands, each a different color: yellow, white, and rose 14k gold. The individual bands rolled around each other, but they couldn’t be pulled apart or separated.

“They’re each separate but also one,” Buffy continued, holding them up for the others to see. “Just like we are.

“I know these last few … well, months really, haven’t been much of a party-palooza for either of you. I want you to know how much I appreciate you standing by me, and let you know that I’ll always stand by both of you.”

Buffy took Joan’s right hand and slid one of the trio of rings onto her twin’s ring finger. “This is my promise that you’ll always be part of us.”

Buffy then looked at Spike and reached for his right hand. “And you will always be part of us,” she’d repeated, sliding the larger of the interlocking rings onto Spike’s right ring finger.

Finally, Buffy slid the last ring onto her own right ring finger, matching the other two. “I love you both. I  … I don’t know where I’d be right now without you. I don’t even want to think …”

Buffy was cutoff when both Spike and Joan enveloped her in their arms, hugging her between them tightly.

“Love you so much, Buffy,” Spike rumbled against the top of her head. “And you too, pet,” he added, looking up at Joan with adoration.

Joan smiled contentedly, twirling the interlocking rings on her finger with her thumb. She felt like she was a bride of sorts too. The thought had brought on a strange fluttering of the microchips in her chest, which left her feeling oddly giddy.

When the hug broke, Joan asked Spike, “Is it now the proper time to serve the cake?”

Spike nodded, giving Buffy one last hard squeeze before the couple followed Joan over to a tablecloth-covered rolling cart that had been waiting off to one side. Atop it sat a small, but beautifully decorated, wedding cake. It was iced in white fondant and the top was adorned with a bouquet of edible roses in various shades of pink.

With no room on top of the cake for anything but the roses, a small bride and groom cake-topper was perched on the platter next to the cake. Buffy had picked it up and laughed when she saw that the groom had a tiny bit of red paint touched to his lips and chin, just as she’d suggested all those years ago when they’d been planning their wedding under Willow’s wonky spell.

With the official now long departed, the three members of the wedding party had been left alone to partake in the cake – chocolate under the white icing – and imbibe in another glass of champagne.

Buffy had, of course, smeared the cake she fed Spike all over his beautiful mouth, just so she and Joan would have the chance to lick it all off him. Spike had been the consummate gentleman and fed her cake to her properly, although he did take the opportunity to kiss away a bit of icing that lingered on her lips afterwards.

Buffy opened her eyes when the plane jerked and began to move back from the gate. It hadn’t been the big church wedding of her fairy-tale fantasies, but it had been a wondrous, Hellmouth wedding. It had been magical and something that only Prince Charming himself could’ve pulled off.

The wedding night had been equally magical. With Joan standing guard at the lower cable car station, Spike produced a small, but comfortable, bedroll of thick foam covered in a silken sheet from beneath the tray that held the cake. Once alone, he’d proceeded to make love to Buffy in the clouds on top of the world in the very spot they’d just gotten married.

Buffy shivered at the memory as the plane taxied for take-off. It was at once the most romantic and most erotic and exotic place she’d ever had the pleasure of making love in. It had been a soft, gentle, and, most surprising, a silent seduction that had burned her right to the bone.

They’d taken their time undressing each other with reverent hands. Each button, each zipper, each article of clothing removed tenderly, lovingly.  They each touched and kissed the other as if they’d both been made of porcelain, fragile and breakable. It was gentle, soft, loving, adoring, and the silence in the clouds on the mountaintop made it all the sweeter.

All their love was conveyed with their touches, with kisses, with caresses; with their lips and hands, tongues and fingers, and with their bodies. There were no adequate words to be uttered in those moments – none could do justice to the feelings inside. They made love, it seemed, in the clouds at the very gates of heaven. Their joining was reverent and worshipful – as if he were a god and she his goddess.

They’d stayed there until the carpet of fog began to draw back out to sea, and the sun began to whisper its arrival against the eastern sky. It was a night Buffy would never, ever forget. Every remembered kiss and touch sent tingling fires through her body even now, and she shivered involuntarily with the memory.

As the plane accelerated down the runway, Buffy pulled her new ‘replacement’ passport from her pocket and opened it. Spike had apparently used a lot of ‘grease’ to get that for her. ‘Elizabeth Anne Pratt’ it read. She ran her fingers across the name reverently. “Mrs. Pratt,” she whispered aloud, trying to get used to the feel of it on her lips. “Mr. and Mrs. Pratt,” she murmured, touching a finger to the wedding band and engagement ring on her left hand.

As the plane rose into the blue sky and banked to the west, Buffy looked out the window and watched the Rock of Gibraltar slowly disappear from view. Her heart ached for the loss, but also rejoiced with the promise of a new life in a new place with her new husband, her best friend, and their children. She couldn’t stop the small smile from quirking the corners of her mouth.

“Mrs. Pratt.”

**~**