PERFECTLY IMPERFECT


Angel's office door banged open– both sides– and Buffy shoved in, Harmony just behind her. "I'm sorry, Boss, she wouldn't stop! And she's, well, she's the Slayer. So I didn't stop her."

"It's okay, Harmony." Angel didn't bother to look at his assistant, because Buffy stood there, tiny and delicate and taking up the whole room with her power. "You can go."

A resentful Harmony left, closing the doors behind her. "Hi, Buffy," Angel said, leaning back in his chair, suddenly shy. "You just came in from Rome?"

"Duh. Yeah. What did you think?"

She stalked to the window, keeping her back to him. The blood-red sunset bathed her tanned skin. Angel's heart sank. She was angry. Still angry. Where was his dear little golden girl, his sacrificial lamb? Gone, all gone. This was the Slayer. Not his Buffy at all.

"Well," he tried again, "it's great seeing you."

Finally she turned, her face hard and grim. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you? That I was in Rome? We tried to find you, but–"

"Yes. I heard. The bartender told me all about the hot guy looking for me. The one with the blonde hair and the sapphire eyes and the cheeks so hollow you could drink champagne out of them." She paused, then added, "The one who is supposed to be dead."

Angel gripped the arms of his chair. "The bartender didn't say anything about me?"

"Yeah, sure. She said there was some guy with Mr. Hottie. So– why didn't you tell me? Spike's alive and here with you– and you didn't think I'd want to know?"

The despair was creeping up him, from the toes, to the ankles, and pretty soon it was going to reach his head. His best bet was to get her out of his office before then. "It's– it's complicated. And he could have called you if he wanted."

"Oh, he wanted to." Buffy's face was implacable. "I know Spike. I know how he feels about me. I–" She broke off then, resolution giving way to uncertainty. Then resolution again. "I want to see him. Now. Where is he?"

Angel waited for the jealousy, the anguish, to fill him. But there was just the familiar despair. "I'll get his address." He stabbed at the intercom, and a moment later Harmony came in, brandishing a slip of paper.

"You're too late, Slayer," she said, handing over the address, then spinning on her heel and exiting.

Buffy stared at the address. "What does she mean, too late?"

Angel turned his chair so he could gaze out at the sunset. He thought about saying that Spike was dead, for real this time, and that's why Buffy was too late. But maybe the truth was better. "Oh, he's been saying all day that he's got a hot date tonight. He's moved on, see."

Buffy gave a huff, then said, "We'll see about that."

"Moved on," Angel muttered as he heard the door slammed behind her. After a moment he turned back to his desk and picked up the phone, dialing a number he only now realized he had memorized. "Hey, Nina. I changed my mind. I'm up for that gallery tour tonight after all. Meet you at 8?"





Buffy heard Spike before she saw him. She was crossing the floodlit courtyard of the apartment block when she heard that familiar low growl– heard it in her secret places, in her secret memories. It was coming from behind a high wooden fence that surrounded the swimming pool. She crossed to the gate and was opening it when she heard his voice, "That's right, baby. This just might mend my broken heart."

For an instant Buffy thought he must have sensed her, that he was speaking to her– but then she pushed open the gate and saw him pale in the floodlights, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. He was in the hot tub, with one woman applying her lips to his bare chest, and another one nibbling at his ear. They were both dark and lissome and bikinied, and they were simultaneously sliding their hands under the water.

"Stop that!" Buffy yelled, and Spike's eyes flew open, and the women looked up– they weren't twins, she thought with some relief, but they might as well be, with sensual sophisticated faces and wide mouths made for fellatio.

They were all staring at her. The Slayer took charge. "Get away from him," she said, pointing at one woman and then the other. "Or I'll rip your earrings right out of your ears."

As one, they turned to Spike, and he said calmly, "Best do what she says, ladies. She's stronger than she looks. And mean too."

They grumbled and muttered and flounced out of the hot tub, then grabbed thick white towels to cover their bareness. They filed past Buffy, and one looked back and said, "When you get rid of the bitch, Spike, give us a call."

He didn't answer. He was regarding Buffy with that wondering stare, and as she glared back, he said, "This can't be a dream. If I were dreaming, you wouldn't have shown up till we were finished."

"It's not a dream." And she stalked to the hot tub and reached down and grabbed his hand and pulled him up onto the tile. He was, she was relieved to note, wearing a suit– black, of course, harsh against the marble skin of his belly and thighs. He stood there, dripping water, watching her, and she realized she was still holding his hand, and dropped it. He didn't reach for the towel, or move, or say anything, and she almost cried. There he was.

"Spike." That came out very soft. And she wasn't feeling soft, no, she wasn't. "Why didn't you call me?"

Now he moved, reached for the towel, slowly, very slowly, started drying himself off. Chest. Arms. One foot, and then the other. When he was done, he tilted his head to the side, and said, "Well, I don't know. First few months, I couldn't use the phone. I was a ghost, see. Came back minus the body."

"Angel could have called me." She tried to be madder at Spike than she was at Angel. Tried hard. But she thought of Spike, so physical, so solid, forced to be a ghost, and it was hard to find the anger.

"Yeah, well, he would rather pretend I didn't exist. Easy enough, considering I was incorporeal."

She reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Pretty corporeal now." She turned his hand over and saw a scar all the way across his forearm– just a thin line. But he was a vampire, and almost never scarred. She touched the line with her finger, and felt his cool flesh shrink from her.

He pulled away and went back to towelling off. "I was going to call. No. I was going to just show up. Got a boat ticket."

"A boat? From California to Italy?"

"Yeah." He smiled, just for a second– that flashing smile she hadn't seen for... well, years. "I'd be getting there right about now." Tossing the towel down on a chair, he said, "Chickened out. Didn't know what you'd say."

"What I'd say? What I'd say?" Buffy stared at him and then pushed back through the gate. "Where's your apartment?"

Silently he led her through the courtyard to a brick staircase and down to a door. "Still living in a basement, I see," she said, and immediately felt guilty.

"Easy to keep the sunlight out," he answered mildly, opening the door and letting her past.

The lamplit flat was clean and spare and hardly furnished– a nice TV and peripherals (she did a quick scan and counted a VCR, a DVD, and three different game machines, neatly arranged under the TV table), a leather couch, a hooked rug over hardwood. Two narrow windows covered with heavy velvet drapes. It was neater than she expected, and so barren it made her throat hurt.

He'd gone into the little kitchen. "Can I get you a cup of tea?"

She assented, just because she needed suddenly to say something, anything, positive. She was so angry, so angry, so glad– if she let loose, she'd say something she regretted. So she waited till he brought in the tea makings, and stayed silent while they waited for the tea to steep. Finally, as he was pouring her a cup, she said, "You must have known I'd be glad to hear you were alive."

He left his cup sitting on the empty coffee table and went into a side room. "Yeah, well–" his voice was subdued. "I guess hearing you were glad wasn't worth the hurt."

"But– " stupid vampire. "But why would that hurt?"

He emerged, pulling a black t-shirt over his head. It might have been the t-shirt he died in; it looked just the same. The jeans too. He looked lean and dangerous and she couldn't really blame those girls in the hot tub. "Just wanted more than glad."

She hardened her attitude, her voice. "Well, here we are. And you're getting more than glad. You're getting mad. I mean–" she took a sip of her tea and swallowed it down. Then she amended, "I mean, I'm mad. Mad that you didn't let me know that –" Her voice broke here, and she took another sip, and wouldn't look at him.

"Sorry. But– but it worked out okay for you. You met someone. Got involved. Got happy."

He was standing in the door to the bedroom, and she finally looked over at him, from his bare feet to his threadbare jeans, up to that t-shirt, up to his so-familiar face. He could never hide his feelings, and there they were, in his hurt mouth and his cloudy eyes.

She knew what to do. She pushed the tea aside and rose and methodically began stripping– her sandals first, then her linen slacks, and her linen blouse, and her silk panties, and finally her bra. And all that time he didn't breathe. Well, of course, he didn't need to breathe. But he never moved– and Spike was always in motion– but he never moved now. She felt him though, felt every vampire molecule straining towards her. And so, as if he were a magnet and she were made of steel, she walked towards him and molded her body against him. And she waited until finally he put his arms around her.

"I came as soon as I heard you were alive. What's that mean?"

"I don't know," he said. "I can't think when you're naked."

"I don't think you've very good at thinking anytime," she murmured into his shirt. "I missed you."

And that's all it took. He pulled her tight and took a ragged breath and pretty soon he was naked too, and they didn't make it all the way to his narrow bed. "You are so easy," she said afterwards, propping herself up on her elbow to see his face, ivory in the moonlight.

"I know," he said, turning away from her. "I meant to – to hold off. To be all cold and resisting. I forget why that seemed like a good idea."

"Me too. I meant to be all angry and grim and make you beg."

He turned back to her, and he was smiling, and it was that sweet wry smile she loved the best of all his smiles, and she kissed his mouth and felt the smile under her lips. "Spike," she whispered. "I missed you."

She had to stop saying that. The trouble is, it made him happy to hear it. And it made him hold her closer.

"I missed you too, pet. So much. Can't say how much."

"Angel said you'd moved on."

He stirred under her body, a guilty squirm she recognized. "I was trying to move on. Hadn't, you know, gotten that far yet. Tonight was going to be... Bastille Day."

"Bast–?"

"Liberation. Going to leave the past behind."

"Oh. And you needed two women, huh?"

"Well, needed at least two. To get over you. I was going to try three if this didn't work."

That made her smile. Made her laugh. Made her mad. "You're mine. Don't you know that?"

Now he was still under her hands. Then, quietly, he said, "Got one word to say about that. The Immortal."

It was two words, but she didn't think she ought to say it out loud. Instead, she pulled away, at least two inches from him, resting her rump on the hard wooden floor. "Yeah, well. You knew I was alive. I thought you were dead."

His hand came tentatively over, touched her on the hip. "But the Immortal. Why?"

"He was – " she stared at the distant bed. "Perfect."

His fingers moved, stroking her hip. Gentle. His fingertips were calloused, and she wondered why. Was he playing the guitar again? Or doing carpentry like Xander? Or just playing a lot of video games? She closed her eyes and just felt him.

"Why would you leave him, then? For me?"

For imperfect Spike. For difficult, impossible, emotional Spike. He was so stupid. But she guessed it was her fault, that he didn't expect much from her.

And so, perversely, she kept her back to him. "I can't imagine. Because he's perfect. He's perfectly rich. He kept trying to buy me diamonds."

"You should have taken them," Spike said. "And pawned them."

"That would be wrong. And he's perfectly suave. He always knows what wine to choose. And he'd always recommend an entree for me at dinner, and he was always right."

His hand had dropped away, and he was still again, except she heard him breathing in that unnecessary way of his. In and out. He always forgot that he didn't have to breathe.

"He is just perfect, you know. He's not too distant, and not too encroaching. And he's confident, but he doesn't brag." She thought about the Immortal, his impeccable hair, his manicured hands. He never bit his fingernails to the quick when he got nervous– he never got nervous. And he never had bedhead, and his eyebrows were perfectly groomed, without any scars bisecting them. And he never swore and he spoke an elegant Euro-English. "He listens to music but never too loud. And he drives fast, but not too fast. And he reads only books that got good reviews in the Times Literary Review. And he knows all the right people, and he never would even think of taking his girlfriend to a demon bar to play kitten poker. And he watches a movie once, and that's it; even if he likes it, he doesn't watch it over and over and over."

"Bloody wanker," Spike muttered.

She didn't turn, but she reached her hand back, slid it down his side to his hip. "He's perfect. What can I say?" She touched him, very lightly, and his erection sprang right into her hand. "Perfect. Not too small–" she closed her hand over the breadth of him, and he groaned. "And not too big." She ran her thumb over the big vein, felt it throb. "You're not perfect," she said sadly. "You're too big."

Then he was right up against her, hard against her, his mouth on her neck. And he was whispering, and she had to strain to hear him. "Why are you here, Slayer?"

"Because I love you," she said, and then, fierce, "and if you tell me I don't really, I'm going to be really mad. Really really mad. Because I heard you were alive, and I left the perfect boyfriend to come here and find you, and – and I broke up with him by email, and that probably means he won't ever take me back, even if I come dragging back and beg him, not that I'm ever going to do anything like that. And he was perfect, and I'll never have a boyfriend like that again, and I gave him up for you, so if you say I don't love you, I– I–" she clenched her fist and pressed it against his side, and finished, "I'll be really mad."

"Okay," he said, and he tugged at her shoulder until she was lying flat, gazing up at him, and he bent and kissed her, and she sighed against his mouth.

"You believe me this time?"

His kiss travelled from her mouth to her throat to her breast, and when he finally got to her nipple, he told it, "Yes," and rested his head on her belly and his hand on her leg, and he said, "I love you too."

And she reached down and entwined her fingers in his, and said, "I know it. I always knew it. And it means –"

Everything. But she couldn't make the words. "I could set my watch by him. In the morning he calls me dear, and in the afternoon he calls me darling. And whenever I wondered what he'd do, I just had to think about what the perfect boyfriend would do, and that's what he'd do. He never surprised me. Never. I thought it was great. I wanted something predictable. I didn't want an unpredictable boyfriend. I wanted security and safety and all that. Because my last boyfriend died and he died laughing, but he died saying I didn't love him, and I didn't ever want that again."

She was crying, tears running down her cheeks and into her mouth, and he squeezed her hand, and she went on, "And I haven't been surprised in months, until the bartender told me a hot blonde guy with great cheekbones was looking for me. And that surprised me, because hey, I thought you were dusted, but what surprised me more was going home and not finding you waiting there. Because if there's one thing I can predict about you, and it's the only thing, it's that you'll want me and come get me and wait for me. And you didn't. And I surprised myself and didn't even pack– these are the only clothes I've got– I'm lucky I remembered my passport– and went to the airport and bought a one-way ticket, and here I am, and I was mean to Angel and wanted to stake Harmony and those girls of yours are just really lucky –"

"You surprised me too," he said.

"Good," she replied with a shaky laugh. "Because I think I was getting really boring there for awhile. And really bored."

The doorbell rang, and Spike, grumbling, disentangled himself, and pulled on his jeans, and went to the door. He returned holding a bottle of champagne festooned with green ribbons. He dropped down on the floor and handed it to her. "From the perfect boyfriend. He's got better spies than Angel does. You think it's going to explode?"

She shook her head, reading the card. Best wishes, it said in a discreet script she recognized as the Immortal's. Of course he would write the card himself, and ship the gift by charter so it got here in time. He was perfect, after all.

"He wouldn't booby-trap it. So– do you want to take it outside and break it against the tree?"

Spike grabbed it out of her hands and putting it between his legs, popped off the cork. "This champers probably cost two hundred quid, pet," he said, and put the mouth of the bottle to his mouth, and drank off the bubbling flow. Then he held it up to her lips. It was like drinking moonlight. "We better enjoy it while we can. Because if you're sticking with me, you're not going to get much of this expensive stuff."

"It's perfect," she whispered, and she made him lie down, and she poured just a tiny bit onto his cheek, and it was true, the hollow was perfect for holding champagne. "Perfect."

And he wasn't, far from it. He was the most imperfect boyfriend she'd ever had, and she wasn't ever going to let him go.