Disclaimer:  The story's mine - the characters aren't.  Don't sue me.  Please. 

Spoilers:  None.  Glory is mentioned...but only in passing. 

Distribution:  Isabelle's CarnalSins, Trish's Heat.Desire., eventually Kelly's and My NoBarrier.  Anyone else, sure - definitely, but please ask first and let me know where it's going so I can be humbled by your kindness.  Thanks. 

Summery:  Set ten years in the future.  It's a special night for a Slayer and a vampire.  A yearly event, so to speak.  Buffy is in for the fight of her life...again.  B/S because if not, what's the point? 

Rated: NC-17 

Notes:  I want to thank everyone out there who told me I could write more than just Eternity.  I guess now we'll just have to see, won't we? 

Dedications:  This one is totally, thoroughly, for Queenie.  Enjoy, luv.

Special Thanks To:  Kelly, because you're the reason for all of it.  Helen, my long lost twin separated at birth (*eg*).  Isabelle, a staunch supporter, sounding board, and true friend.  Trish, without you I'd be dreaming up stories in my head, too afraid to put them out there.  And to OGD and everyone kind enough to leave me amazing reviews.  Truly, you are the inspiration. 

 

 

The Anniversary

 

Part One

 

A petite blonde woman stepped elegantly from her Mercedes sports coupe after screeching rather inelegantly to a halt in the driveway of her home.  Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back demurely in a beautiful, antique, cloisonné hair clasp and she was clothed expensively in navy Armani slacks and a cream-colored silk blouse.  Moving with fluid grace, she removed her leather portfolio from the tiny space behind the driver's seat and closed the door, hitting the button on her key ring to lock the car behind her. 

 

At the sound of the locks being engaged, the woman spun around and moved hastily up the walkway of the house on Revello Drive.  A quick glance at the slender, gold-banded, Rolex watch at her wrist had her cursing softly under her breath.

 

She was running late.

 

Fitting the house key into the lock on the front door, the psychologist mumbled unintelligibly under her breath.  Had any of her patients heard her, troubled teens all of them, they would have thought she'd finally gone around the bend.

 

Half of them were convinced she was already.  She was certainly the oddest mental health professional they'd ever seen before, and they'd all seen many.

 

Most of the teens had often questioned just how broad a term 'professional' was when referring to the rather unorthodox methods this petite woman used in dealing with them.  But they could never argue with one very important detail.  Her methods worked. 

 

Ms. Summers was a woman on a mission when it came to kids who had nowhere else to turn.  Kids just steps away from either killing or being killed.  How did she do it?  Well, when the 'Untouchables' - as the worst of the worst were called before falling under the guidance of the small woman - first came to her office, an office set up more like a workout room than an actual office despite the very beautiful, large, oak desk in one corner, she was always dressed not as she was now, but in ragged sweatpants and a tee shirt that had seen better days.

 

And when those sullen, angry kids were sent to her for their refusal to abide by anyone's rules but their own, the first thing she did was fight them.  And win. 

 

No one could ever say that she hurt anything more than their pride, she never hit them, and in truth, after winning on the mats, Ms. Summers spent endless hours using a combination of physical training and the more accepted psychological regimen to bring her kids around.  And each and every one of them had turned their lives around with remarkable speed.  She hadn't lost one yet.

 

But if any of them heard their beloved counselor ranting about the rigidity of vampire schedules and the inflexibility of one particular, bleach-blonde, fanged fiend as she let herself into her home, they would have thought that the thirty-one year old had taken one too many blows to the head in that odd office of hers.

 

For Buffy, it was just another day on the job - and not the one that her kids had affectionately labeled 'The Torture Trail'.

 

Knowing there would be no one home to hear her, she didn't bother calling out a greeting in the house that she'd lived in for the past sixteen years.  She just tossed her portfolio down on the floor next to the door and started stripping out of her delicate blouse even as she rushed up the stairs to the master bedroom.

 

In less than fifteen minutes, a new Buffy record if she did say so herself, a totally different person descended those same stairs. 

 

This person was clad in tight fitting, black leather pants and a close-cropped, matching black leather jacket over a white tank top that molded to her body like a second skin.  Her hair was no longer pulled back; it fanned her face and bushed her shoulders in soft waves.  In her hand, not a portfolio, but a sharp wooden stake.  The professionally modest makeup she had been wearing had given way to dramatic black eyeliner and glossy red lipstick.  Gone was the respected counselor and in her place was a startlingly young looking Slayer.

 

And she was prepared for the fight of her life. 

 

If she hurried, she'd make it to the cemetery on time and her opponent wouldn't need to know that she'd fallen behind today.  One less thing for him to taunt her with as they battled to the end.

 

Not bothering to drive, she locked the front door behind her and ran down the streets of Sunnydale on her way to the cemetery.  It was a well-worn path, one she'd taken more times than she could count in her lengthy sojourn as the Vampire Slayer, but this time was different.  This was a battle that she knew was coming, had prepared for, had always prepared for.

 

Tonight was Buffy's anniversary, her tenth anniversary.  And soon she would be fighting for her life against the same vampire she fought on this one day each and every year for the past ten.  Spike.

 

Buffy grinned as she ran, not afraid of the battle that was coming, but thrilled by it.  Her blood heated as she used the short jog to warm up, to limber muscles that had never really gotten the chance to tighten between working with her kids and her patrolling duties.

 

And as she ran, her memories pulled her back in time to the first.  She thought back on that first fight.  The fight that had started this all.  The fight that set Buffy on a path vastly different than she'd ever thought she would have, mostly because she'd never truly believed she'd be alive to see this much of her life stretch out behind her. 

 

But because of the war that had been waged ten years ago, she had.  And there was never a day in her life that she didn't thank whatever, whoever, was responsible for making it possible for her.  For making it possible for Spike.  For leading the vampire down the path necessary for getting that government chip deactivated.

 

Buffy knew that if he hadn't, if the chip had never been shut down in vampire's brain, then Spike would never have attacked her that night so long ago and she would never have accepted that true change was possible for a vampire without a soul. 

 

She would have missed out on a decade of love and companionship and life.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

At twenty-one, Buffy's life had settled into as much of a routine as was possible for a young woman who fought demons and Hell God's as an interestingly dangerous hobby.  She had put the Glory incident behind her, all of the Scooby gang had, and she'd picked up her life with a sister that she loved more than anything, friends she'd die to protect, and a vampire she'd finally accepted as a friend.

 

Everything had been going along fine, or so she'd thought.  Dawn was doing well in school, Giles was helping with many of the details of managing their household, and when he was unavailable, or the shop was taking up too much of his time to be around as much as he'd like, Spike was always there.  Always there.  He'd become almost an institution. 

 

Dawn cared for him, and her friends finally stopped worrying that he had some nefarious ulterior motive in being nice to the Summers girls.  Buffy, well, to Buffy he was just Spike.  Dependable.  Trustworthy.  A friend.

 

She hadn't had the foggiest idea how stupid she'd been in relegating him to such a bland category until he disappeared one night. 

 

He had told Dawn he'd stop by for one of their bi-weekly self-defense training sessions.  It would have been something Buffy felt responsible for, teaching Dawn how to protect herself from Sunnydale's nasties, but Spike had offered, and Buffy was on overload at the time, with a full course load at school and with raising an almost sixteen year old hormone bomb.  She'd been grateful to her friend for the help.

 

But he didn't show that night.

 

Nor did he come by the next night, or the night after that.  And Buffy's temper had flared to outrageous proportions with each day he was missing in action.  She cursed the day she'd ever met him, she was furious that he'd disappointed Dawn, that he'd blown the trust that had grown grudgingly between them. 

 

For eight long days, no one wanted to be on her bad side - which was the only side she had at that point.  Even her friends started to feel the Slayer's temper.

 

It was finally Xander that made her realize that it wasn't anger she was feeling, it wasn't hatred of the vampire as she'd so loudly and repeatedly proclaimed over and over since he vanished.  It was fear.

 

And when she could finally admit to herself that she was terrified that something bad had happened to him, she could finally go and try to do something about it.  She started looking for him.

 

That's when it happened.

 

Just outside of his crypt that night, as she was getting ready to slam her way inside to look around for possible clues to his whereabouts, that familiar accented voice spun her around in her tracks.

 

"Slayer!  Just the girl I was looking for.  And how're you tonight, luv?"

 

When she saw him step out of the shadows of a tree off to her left, her heart skipped a beat in her chest.  Clothed in his normal wear, black tee, black jeans, black boots, long black leather jacket, he looked just like he always had...except for one small thing.  He was in full game face.  It had been so long since Buffy had seen him with the bumpy forehead and fangs that it almost didn't register.

 

"Spike, where the hell have you been?  I...Dawn's been worried about you!  You told her you were going to help her learn some new moves last we- "

 

"Shut your yap, Slayer.  What is it about you, anyway?  Do you just like the sound of your own voice so much that you can't help but drone on endlessly like that?  No bloody wonder you can't keep a man."

 

Ten years later, Buffy still remembered how his words had hurt her feelings.

 

"What...Spike, are you drunk?"  She hadn't wanted him to know how this new - well not new, exactly, more like a return of the old - Spike bothered her.

 

"Yup, I do believe so.  Drunk, Slayer.  Though not on spirits, mind.  Power.  Pure power, luv." 

 

The vampire had stalked over to her, stepping fluidly and purposefully forward.  There was an animalistic feline grace in his movements.

 

When he was mere inches from the tiny girl in front of him, he smiled, and his demon gold eyes bored into her with cold ruthlessness.  "You see, pet, there's been a change in my life of late.  That lovely little chip I've been burdened with for so long?  Well...lets just say I don't think the little plastic bugger will be comin' between us any longer."

 

Buffy stared up into those eyes and felt fear pool in her stomach and grip her heart in its bony grasp.  Her worst fears had just been realized.  Spike had been de-chipped.  Her friend, the person she'd come to rely on for the past several months, was gone. 

 

Something in her broke a little when she realized that she'd been right all that time ago - in a warehouse one night before thinggs had taken such an awful turn in her life.

 

He really was just like a serial killer in prison.

 

Except now, somehow, he'd gotten paroled.

 

She had pushed away the sorrow and anguish.  She had known that this day would come, after all.  There had never been any doubt in Buffy's mind that, one day, Spike would get that chip out...or disabled...and they would finally have to finish that dance they'd started so long ago.  She just never thought it would come so soon.

 

Glaring up at him with all the hostility her Slayer side could muster, she said icily, "So, I finally get to kill you."

 

Leaning over, whispering in her ear, he made sure to force a bit of air from his dead lungs to stir the wisps of hair at her neck.  "Oh, you get to try, pet.  You do get to try."

 

That was all the warning she was given, Spike used his crowding position as leverage and grabbed her by the shoulders.  His hands bit painfully into her skin before he picked her up and threw her bodily back into the stone wall of his crypt.

 

Surprised at the suddenness of the attack, Buffy didn't rebound until he'd stepped forward and slammed his left fist into her face.  She could see that there were no longer any ill effects at hurting humans and she allowed the Slayer in her to take over completely.  She didn't even bother with the witty puns that were normally her trademark.  If the Big Bad was set to kill her, she wasn't going to be able to spare a thought for being amusing.

 

Buffy spun and brought her outstretched arm around to collide painfully - for him - into the side of his head. 

 

Stepping back at the blow, Spike felt the spinning roundhouse kick that followed the punch without actually seeing it coming.  He shook his head to clear it and growled low in his throat. 

 

The bloodlust that Buffy saw spring to his golden eyes turned her stomach.  When he just leered at her, she knew this was one fight that was long from over.

 

"That's right, Slayer!  That's the tune I like to dance to!  Let's go then, pet.  I don't think you're bleedin' quite enough for my taste - so to speak."

 

"Bring it on, Spike.  You think you can take me?  Bring it on."

 

There was nothing left in her but the Slayer, and this fight was going to be to the death of one of them.  She knew it.  She accepted it.  Her heart broke because of it.

 

Spike lunged at her and she brought up her fist to meet him.  Pivoting after the blow landed, she grabbed him by his jacket and used his momentum and her strength to shove him, head first, into the crypt wall. 

 

Spike dropped like stone but he didn't stay down, he rolled out of the way of an incoming kick aimed at his ribs and leapt to his feet in time to block a vicious-looking uppercut.  Grabbing the incoming fist, he yanked the Slayer forward and head-butted her hard.

 

Staggered by the blow, Buffy paused for a brief moment then dropped into a cartwheel and brought one booted foot down on the top of Spike's head.

 

It didn't matter, no matter what she did, the vampire kept coming.

 

They fought hard.  It was bloody, it was painful, and it was long.  Both took injuries that would have landed either of them in the hospital if they'd been human, or just human.  Buffy even managed to stake Spike at one point, but a quick twist of his body as the blow landed had prevented it from being a dusty ending.

 

For almost thirty minutes they fought, tooth and nail, to stay alive.  But the Slayer was weakening.  She was tiring.  And she couldn't believe that Spike just kept coming at her.  She'd hit, kicked, thrown, and even staked him - but he just kept coming.  That was when she admitted to herself that she may just be in real trouble.

 

And she knew real fear.

 

But then Spike slipped up.  He made a mistake and the Slayer in her saw it.  He had thrown a punch that she ducked under, but this time he didn't do such a good job keeping his balance.  She saw the tilt of his body and used it, kicking out the knee of his left leg, the leg that was supporting all of his weight. 

 

Spike crumbled to his knees, bellowing in pain and rage and Buffy didn't waste any time in spinning around with a kick that sent him flying backwards.  He lay for a minute, flat on his back, and for the first time he didn't rise.

 

Power and victory coursed through the Slayer's veins and she stalked to where his body had fallen.  Straddling his hips, she sat on his stomach and grinned coldly down into his bruised face.  Her stake jabbed him in the chest, directly over his dead heart.

 

"You should have known, Spike.  You can't beat me.  You finally bit off more than you can chew."

 

Buffy could never actually say she remembered what happened next.  One minute she was preparing to send Spike on his way to a dusty hell, the next his hand had shot out, grabbed her wrist tightly - pulling the stake away from his chest - and he'd rolled his body out from underneath her.

 

Before she could blink, it was she that was lying with her back on the ground, it was she who felt the pressing weight of an enemy on her chest, and it was she who was about to be killed.

 

Buffy stared up into the gleaming eyes of a killer and shuddered.  She knew that he'd played her.  He was waiting for her to do just what she did.  And now she was going to die for it.

 

Spike grinned at her realization that it was over.  She lost.  "Always been your problem, Slayer.  Overconfidence.  One day it just may get you killed."

 

She was furious in her defeat, and not willing to go calmly into the long, cold night. 

 

"Shut up, Spike.  You won.  Congratulations.  Why don't you just finish it so I don't have to look at you any more.  Looks like you get to have that one good day, after all."

 

He stared at her, the fire in her eyes.  He may have won, but she was in no way defeated. 

 

Spike bared his long canines at her and lunged for her throat.

 

And licked the salty wetness of her sweat that had formed there.

 

Buffy's eyes, eyes that had squeezed tightly closed of their own volition in preparation of the coming bite, flew wide when she felt only the cool wetness of his tongue against her heated flesh.

 

When Spike raised his head from her neck, he shook off his demon visage and stared down into the wide, confused eyes of the woman he loved.  Gone was the monster, there was nothing but the man shining brightly in twin pools of blue and he smiled at her slightly.

 

"Don't think you heard me, luv.  I said, 'One day it just may get you killed.'  Didn't say anythin' about that day bein' today."

 

Buffy didn't understand.  She sputtered at him in confusion.

 

"Wh-what?  Spike?  What the hell...get off me!"

 

"Oh, I don't think so, Buffy.  Not just yet, anyway.  One, I happen to like this particular position, what with finally bein' between your legs and what all, and two...well..." his amused and sarcastic expression faded away and he stared down at her with all seriousness, "this is the only way I know that you'll really listen to what I have to say."

 

~ Continue to Part 2 ~

 

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