Title: The Way Things Were

Author: LaFluff

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon (and numerous other parties I'm sure) this was just written as a bit of fun.

Author's Notes: Spuffy time travel, a post Chosen Buffy goes back to s5 (Only Riley will be leaving a little later than in canon)

All feedback welcome good, bad, constructive… everyone is entitled to an opinion.

I have also updated first chapter – I'm afraid I could not restrain my inner editor…

Thanks and Acknowledgements:

SpikeFan4Life95 – you are my first ever reviewer, thanks for taking the time to read my story, and for being so nice!

Thanks Vera Snape-Evans for pointing out to me that Riley should have left by this point – I'll work harder on my Buffy knowledge! But I'm gonna need him for this story so will be shuffling timelines a little, hope you can forgive ;)

ginar369, thanks for the comments, your question is answered in the first few lines of this new chapter and I think you'll like the way this turns out in the end.

Thanks eleventhwarrior125, more coming soon I promise!

from last chapter…

"That mumble was beyond even vamp hearing pet, want to give English a go?"

She laughed, that was the Spike she remembered, an edge of fun and mockery even when he was being nice. She raised her face from his now rather damp t-shirt to look at him, "I. Love. You." She enunciated, smiling at him with real humour in her face.

"What!" Riley's yell made them jump, slayer and vampire senses failing to warn them of his entrance, each focusing only on the other.

"Oh, bugger," Spike and Buffy said together.

The Way Things Were – Part Two

April 2001

There was silence in the room broken only by the quiet click of the front door as it drifted slowly shut behind Riley.

"Buffy!" Riley actually spluttered as his jaw worked, trying to find words in reaction to the scene presented to him.

"Riley" she started turning towards him, but not before giving Spike what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

"What are you doing?" he shouted, noting the comforting gesture. "How could you do this? And you!" He pointed at Spike. "You get away from her."

Riley grabbed at Spike's collar drawing him up and flung a punishing right hook. There was a crack as it connected with Spike's nose and the vampire fell to the floor. Buffy interceded quickly grabbing Riley's arm and holding it firmly behind him preventing him from doing any more violence.

"I thought you promised no more broken noses?" Spike snarked up at her, making no move to stand again.

"Riley! You know he can't fight back!" she admonished. "Please stop, it's not his fault."

Buffy didn't really know how to explain this, in her mind Riley was history, gone more than six years and not much regretted she thought guiltily. But from his point of view she was cheating on him. With Spike. That had to hurt.

"Riley, I'm sorry," she released his arm. "It's not as bad as it looks. I'm not your Buffy… Well I am your Buffy but future Buffy really. So I'm not cheating because we broke up six years ago even though I'm back here now." She stopped herself with difficulty, Riley was looking far from happy with the disjointed explanation and she didn't want to make her foot-in-mouth bout any worse than it already was.

"You want to go through that again pet?" asked Spike, standing and carefully keeping Buffy between himself and Captain Cardboard, it didn't look like the boy was going to try and hurt the Slayer, so no need to offer himself up for a beating just yet.

"Sorry! I know that didn't make sense," Buffy sighed releasing her hold on Riley when he made no further move to hurt Spike. "I'll try to explain properly if you want to hear, but just to be clear from the beginning, I can't be your girlfriend anymore Riley. I know this is sudden for you but I'm… different and I just can't love you in that way."

"You don't love me anymore? Just like that?" Riley spat through gritted teeth. "When this morning you were saying the opposite? How the hell does that work?"

"It's a mojo thing, six years in the future I asked… I ask… Damn it! How is that whole tense thing supposed to work when you're in the past?" The look on Riley's face stopped her again and she continued, trying to keep her explanation as clear as possible. "Anyway, I asked the powers-that-be to send me back in time, there's something I have to do… something I have to change here. They couldn't send my body back so they sent my mind and voilà, time travel Buffy…

In the future we aren't together and haven't been for a long time, I love someone else so I can't be with you like that. I understand if you don't want to be friends now, not after this," she winced at her own words.

This speech had done nothing for Riley's temper and Spike hovering almost protectively behind her put him even further on edge, the vamp could even make standing still provoking. "So you love that?" he jabbed an angry finder at Spike, whose reply was a threatening growl that rolled around the room.

"Yes," Buffy answered with a bit of snap to her voice "I love Spike. And now Riley I think you had better go. We can talk again when you are calmer if you like."

Spike's call of "Hop it wanker" chased him from the house.

"So Slayer," Spike moved lightning quick, grabbing Buffy's shoulders and gripping them tightly preventing her from moving. "You love me?"

She smiled again, he was quirking that scarred eyebrow at her and she loved it. The scar the mark of the death of a previous slayer and she still loved it, god now she was actually starting to act like Spike, talk about love's bitch.

"Yeah Spike, I love you."

A smile slowly stole over his face as he leaned in to kiss her, he wasn't gentle, still holding her shoulders the force of the kiss pushed her head back. She responded in kind, her hands coming up to pull him closer by the lapels of his duster.

Eventually he broke the kiss, unnerving her slightly with a calculating look, "Getting late Slayer, about time for you to be tucked up in bed."

Buffy stared up at him incredulous, he was sending her off to bed, to sleep, rather than dragging her to bed for something most definitely not sleep. "I'll come by after sunset tomorrow, we'll go patrolling?" He continued, making his last statement a question.

"You want to leave? Now?" Her tone clearly said that she thought this must be a sign of the next apocalypse.

He looked sheepish, "No, but yer mum Slayer…" he trailed off. "Probably don't want…"

She grabbed him and kissed him again, if anything this kiss was more violent than the first, "That was six years ago for me Spike. I don't want to go to bed like a good little girl."

"Really? Well then," his grin was pure evil.

Riley made a bee line for the UC Sunnydale campus and his dorm, he was working on autopilot not really thinking about his route or destination. His Buffy was gone, her mind replaced by some insane future version mad enough to love a monster. Not just any monster, hostile 17, Spike. They were probably… ugh! The idea of him touching her, even for a simple kiss made his skin crawl. His Buffy would have considered that a violation, the whole thing felt wrong, time travel and vampire romance. He shuddered again, how could she? Wait! Willow! If this was magic Willow might be able to do something to help, to help his Buffy get back to herself.

Ten minutes later he was knocking on the door of the dorm room Willow shared with Tara, "Willow," he said with relief when she answered. "You've got to help…"

After the three of them had worked through the night's revelations, Riley wanted to discuss their options, "So what do we do? Can we help her?" he pleaded.

"Well I don't know," Willow looked worried. "I mean she's still Buffy, I mean she's not possessed or anything. Oh my god, what if she's possessed!"

"I…It's OK," soothed Tara. "I'm sure she's not possessed."

"She could be possessed?" Riley broke in, sounding almost relieved. "That would explain it all. I mean she hates Spike, she kills monsters like him every day, there's no way she could love something evil, is there?" he demanded.

Tara rubbed Willow's back soothingly when she whimpered in reaction to Riley's words. "W… we can check, there's a s… spell to identify possession, I'm sure G…Giles has the books we'd need."

Willow relaxed a little at this and leant into Tara's hands, taking comfort from the quiet girl, "Great idea baby," she said. "We'll go and see Giles first thing in the morning before we go back to Buff's place with Xander."

"But even if she's not possessed she's not our Buffy, we need our Buffy back!" Insisted Riley, "She wouldn't want him to touch her like that, what if she comes back and she…she didn't want it, She'd feel …"

Willow paled again as he trailed off turning scared eyes to Tara "Baby?"

"W… we should talk to her f… first, w… we can check she's n… not possessed or under d…duress and t… then see what she w… wants to d… do," she stammered badly, Riley's intense expression making her very nervous but she was determined that no-one should do anything to Buffy without her consent. Her aura had been so colourful earlier today, when she'd been clinging to Spike and crying. Her emotions showed through fully developed and balanced, very different from the tightly controlled warrior-girl emotions her aura normally revealed. Tara liked Buffy and she wanted her to be happy, if Spike made Buffy happy and Buffy made Spike happy Tara would do everything she could to make sure they got what they wanted from each other, whatever that might be.

To Spike's surprise Buffy dragged him down to the basement, "Bit subterranean for you Slayer," he leered.

"Subterranean can be good, I like your crypt, at least the downstairs bit. This isn't great but I can't leave Dawn alone in the house and we can't use my room."

"Why not?"

"Dawnie will hear us," she grinned at him pushing him up against the wall and sliding her hands underneath his duster.

He pulled her closer slipping one of his legs between hers making her skirt hitch up on her thighs, he reached down to stroke the smooth skin and push the skirt even higher, growling. She growled herself in reply, forcing his duster off of his shoulders and onto the floor while kissing his neck, when she bit him he dug his fingers into her thigh hard enough to leave bruises.

"Slayer…" he hissed as she continued to gently kiss and bite at him, she hitched herself higher and wrapped one leg around his hips pulling him even closer and causing a lot of very intimate friction.

Both of his hands were now under her skirt, high on her thighs, holding her in place. She couldn't have moved away even had she wanted to. She was fumbling at his t-shirt, dragging it up and over his head impatiently before going right back to kissing him, trailing her lips from neck down to chest, her hands joined in alternately stroking over his chest and raking at his back.

It had been too long since she had last had this and she had forgotten just how good it felt, how he made her let go and just enjoy the moment, she couldn't wait anymore. Her hand fell to his fly, she deftly unfastened the button and zip and pushed the jeans down his hips slightly, then he was in her. His already vice like grip tightened, one hand moving up to her neck to drag her lips to his.

She had a flashback to their first time, in the house that fell down. She entertained a brief thought that as that house was still standing in this time, they could go for take two! She would show Spike what a slayer could really do. Then when Spike's talented hands distracted her she suddenly wasn't thinking at all.

Buffy lay on the narrow camp-bed covered by Spike's duster and stretched out against his side, breathing deeply and allowing herself the moment of peace. Spike had proven every bit as insatiable as she remembered, although he'd been a hint more tender and gentle especially after she had encouraged the behaviour, something that she'd never done before.

Spike's hand was brushing lightly up and down her arm as he held her against him, "Alright luv?"

"Mm hm, good." She murmured sleepily.

He chucked provocatively, "So what's the big bad?" he asked the question that had been running through his mind for the last few minutes.

"Is this where I'm supposed to say he's right here in this bed with me?" she joked.

He laughed, the loud and uninhibited laugh she adored, "Nice pet, but I meant the big bad that the powers-that-be sent you back to beat on, what's the mission."

"Huh?"

"Very eloquent pet."

"But there's no big mission or anything, I wasn't sent, I asked to come back."

"Bloody hell, what for? Isn't there a hell god out there trying to kill you? You obviously beat her before, in the your future I mean… I see what you mean about tenses Slayer, I don't think that made any bloody sense! Anyway why volunteer to do the whole hell-god thing again? You've got a screw loose pet." He shifted slightly so he could get a clear view of her face.

"Came back to get you actually," she replied, still sleepy and trying to burrow back into his side.

"Mislaid me somewhere did you? Careless Slayer," he mocked.

"So not funny. You died, saving the world," she smiled at his look of horror knowing he wasn't bothered by his death but by the thought he might save the world. "Wasn't happy without you, come back."

"Well that explains you crying all over my favourite t-shirt anyway," he paused. "When do I die?"

"Not going to die, not going to let you die. There will be major slayage of anything that tries to dust you," there was a good deal of steel in her tone.

"You came back in time to stop me from dying?"

"Yep"

"Bloody hell," he tightened his grip on her, bint really did love him. That was a heady feeling, that was… nice.

Spike drifted happily into sleep, Buffy held close. It had been a revealing night and he'd had one of his most pressing questions answered. Fucking a slayer was definitely better than eating one.