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Awards for It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
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Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (for sexual
content and strong language)
Timeline: Season 6 (Post
Gone)
Summary: Torn and numb after her fall from Heaven, Buffy is
haunted by ghosts of her past, and confronted with the truth of her future.
Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and
Mutant enemy. They are being used for entertainment purposes out of love and
admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is
intended.
Author’s Note: I know…me with the WIPs, right? I just have a
weakness for Christmas fics. I don’t know if TdA or my other WIP (Strawberry
Fields, as written under my pseudonym) will be put on hiatus or not. My muse
seems to want to work on this…and I’m gonna go where my muse takes me. All I
know is, if my other WIPs are put on hiatus, it’ll be very brief. I
promise!
Thanks to
megan_petafor betaing for
me.
This fic is dedicated to
coquinespike. It’s not
much, I know…but Merry Christmas, sweetie! *glomps*
Buffy Summers was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever
about that. She’d been dead for three months, buried a good six feet below the
soil. Life around her grave had gone on, as life always did. People mourned,
people cried, but eventually, people moved on. She’d lain dead for over a
hundred days. A hundred and forty-seven days, to be exact.
Buffy Summers
was as dead as a doornail.
Only that was before. She was not dead now.
Not on the outside. Instead, she was gazing out a rainy window pane as Tara
helped Dawn decorate their Christmas tree. Her body was worn and tired. She’d
slept all summer, but she couldn’t overcome her fatigue. Every inch of her was
numb.
She knew she should be thinking about Christmas presents or
something to do with the holidays, but the impending loom of the most
wonderful time of the year only furthered her depression. It didn’t help
that her mind was with someone it shouldn’t be with. Her mind was with the one
person that could make her feel anything but dead. The one person she couldn’t
see, because he was dead himself. And even in the wake of her delayed afterlife,
her life was guarded by a script that the Powers had pre-approved. She’d used
her detour to rest-in-peace as an excuse for temporary insanity; it
couldn’t be like that anymore.
Spike was dead, and so was she. Two dead
people couldn’t make life.
Especially with only her broken soul to guard
them both from total destruction.
“Hey, Buffy!” Dawn singsonged,
giggling as Tara wrapped a gold rope of garland around her. “Wanna help us put
the star on?”
Buffy offered a half-shrug, not tearing her eyes away from
the rain-splattered window. “You guys have done all the work,” she reasoned
softly. “Besides…height issues.”
The giggling stopped immediately, as did
the garland-wrapping. Buffy fought off a groan. Great. Just what she needed.
More reasons to feel guilty for not being a beacon of seasonal bliss.
“Well,” Dawn replied, sticking her nose in the air. “Bah humbug to you,
too.”
Tara forced a shrill laugh at that, her desperate attempt to
relocate the fun making Buffy’s heart ache.
“Any idiot who goes about
with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and
buried with a stake of holly through his heart,” the blonde witch quipped, then
blushed furiously and glanced down. “S-sorry. I’m just in a festive
mood.”
“So you decided to quote Scrooge?” Buffy asked, arching a
brow.
“She’s just going off what you give her,” Dawn spat, snatching the
gold star from the box of decorations. “Since you’re too much of a Grinch to
help out, I’m going to go get a chair to stand on. If I fall over and
crack my head open, it’s on your conscience.”
The distress that filled
Tara’s eyes only made Buffy feel worse. Her lack of a Christmas spirit wasn’t
helping matters, and the blonde was caught in the crossfire. Were it anyone
but Tara, Buffy might not have minded. But it wasn’t anyone but
Tara. It was Tara. And of her friends, Tara was the only one that had
personally apologized for the hell that she’d put her through—in her role in
bringing her back. And while she assured Buffy that she definitely wasn’t sad
that she wasn’t dead anymore, it gutted her to think about what she was going
through.
The fact that she was going through a rather severe rough-patch
with Willow, but still made sure to come over for quality time with Dawn,
quickly elevated her to Buffy’s new and improved list of best-friends. Tara was
the only one who understood her.
That’s not true.
She
shivered and gazed longingly in the direction of Restfield
Cemetery.
Spike.
Buffy bit her lip. Her body had a
tendency to tremble when she thought of him. Especially now. Now that she knew
how his hands felt on her skin, how his lips tasted in the height of lovemaking.
How wonderful his body felt against hers; how he fit inside her in a way that
made her feel whole.
But it was wrong, and she was fooling herself to
think otherwise. Spike made the hurt go away, yes, but it wasn’t where she was
supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to crave his arms around her or his silky
kisses. She wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t who she was. And
eventually—eventually—she would remember that, and she’d hate herself for what
she’d done.
Right now, she hated herself for other reasons.
“I’m
sorry,” Buffy murmured softly. She didn’t know who she was speaking to: the
girls in the room, or the vampire half a town away. “I’m just not in the spirit
this year.”
Dawn snorted as she dragged a kitchen chair loudly across the
hardwood floor. She was doing it intentionally—hoping, undoubtedly, to leave a
mark and raise some sort of a reaction from her less-than-emoting sister. Buffy
wished she had the energy to care, but she didn’t.
“Yeah,” the young
girl snapped. “Not like there’s, oh say, a reason to be happy this
year.”
“Dawnie,” Tara pleaded. “Let’s just put the star
on.”
“Sure. Wouldn’t want to interrupt the yuletide
pity-party.”
“Dawn—”
Buffy rolled to her feet at that, forcing
herself away from the window. The bleak terrain only made her crave Spike more,
and that was a road she could not go down again. She was too broken, and he was
soulless. He could heal her temporarily with his body, but she needed a soul.
She needed a soul, else hers could never heal.
And that was
that.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced, heading toward the staircase
without awaiting a response.
“Buffy—” Tara protested.
“I’m tired,
and it’s not helping…my being down here. I’m just the rain on the parade.” She
paused, her hand on the railing. “Have a good Christmas.”
She said it
because she very much planned to sleep all through tomorrow.
If she
thought about how happy she was supposed to be, she was sure she would break
completely.
Her room was disturbingly quiet. When life existed in any space,
there was usually sound. Usually breathing. Usually creaks and cricks and some
indication to give away the fact that, yes, someone lived here. But there was
none in her room. There was nothing. Buffy lay in bed, studying the ceiling, and
listened to nothing.
She couldn’t even hear the rain.
Perhaps, had
she cared more, she would have thought it strange that she could feel so
fatigued after a summer of being dead. The mechanics of the human were wondrous
at times. Before the Tower, before the jump, she’d lived for adrenaline.
Adrenaline had been her drug, such to the point where she didn’t remember
drowsiness or exhaustion. The threat of Glory had prevented exhaustion. If she
succumbed to her physical limitations, Dawn would die. She’d known that then,
thus, even tired, she hadn’t slept.
Now, though, now that she’d been
dead, all she wanted to do was sleep.
And as always, sleep found her.
Sleep didn’t care that it was Christmas Eve. Sleep didn’t care that her sister
was angry or that her only measure of solace nowadays was a vampire that she
could never have. A vampire without a soul. A vampire that couldn’t heal her the
way she needed.
Sleep didn’t care about anything. It came to her without
bias, and took her away in a matter of minutes.
That was, until, her
alarm clock shrilled three times. Just three.
One. Two. Three.
And Buffy shot awake.
Three years earlier, under a dying lot of Christmas trees, Buffy had
come face-to-face with the ghost of Jenny Calendar. Then calling herself the
First Evil, the visage of Giles’s dead girlfriend had launched into a James
Bond-like explanation of her evil ambitions, leading to Buffy’s tearful plea
that Angel not dust himself.
The girl that had sobbed for her former love
was dead. And while she would undoubtedly feel a pang if this version of Jenny
Calendar warned her that Angel was about to dust himself, Buffy couldn’t see
herself sobbing over him ever again. The meeting with him had been uncomfortable
enough. Sitting in a dingy café half between Sunnydale and Los Angeles, looking
at Angel and wondering when she’d stopped loving him. When she’d become so
jaded.
She hadn’t thought of Angel at all until that phone call. She’d
thought of Giles, her friends, Dawn, and Spike. She’d thought of Spike every
day—ever since seeing him at the bottom of the stairs. Since he’d taken her
hands in his and told her how long she’d been gone.
But she hadn’t
thought of Angel. And she didn’t really think about him now. Oh, she pretended
she did; she hid behind that doomed relationship to protect herself from Spike,
but her mind and her heart was far from Angel’s. Angel couldn’t touch her
anymore.
Her thoughts were too often consumed with Spike.
Said
consumption was why her immediate reaction to Jenny Calendar’s presence was cold
distress. If the ghost was here now to announce that Spike had decided to dust
himself, Buffy could only hope that she could run fast enough.
After all,
Dawn would be devastated if Spike died.
“What are you doing here?” Buffy
asked the apparition, blinking, unwilling to admit how hard her heart thundered.
Jenny Calendar was very, very still. It was not the Jenny Calendar that
she remembered; not in life, not even as the First Evil. There was softness
about her that only those that had touched Heaven could recognize, and for a
brief second, Buffy found herself overwhelmed by the most prominent wave of
homesickness that she’d ever known.
“Is that it?” Jenny asked
skeptically. “Ghost standing in the middle of your room and all I get is bored
detachment.”
“I’m surprised I could work up that much.”
“I can’t
even get a little chill?”
“Ms. Calendar…you’re a ghost. Ghosts are at the
very bottom of my easily-wigged list.”
The apparition sighed and waved a
dismissive hand. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she mused. “Paralyzing fear or
apathy.”
Buffy shrugged, offering a half-smile. “Maybe if I wasn’t the
Slayer.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better.”
“As it is, I’m not
sure I can trust that you’re here at all.”
The ghost arched a perfect
brow. “Oh?”
“Well, disregarding the fact that the last time we talked,
you were trying to talk me into letting my then-boyfriend dust, I am recently
non-dead girl and not prone to trust anyone.” Buffy shrugged again. “Or, my
personal favorite, I’m dreaming.”
“You think you’re dreaming?”
“An
overused excuse, maybe, but it makes sense. After all, anything can affect one’s
senses. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheat. You may be an
undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an
underdone potato.” She paused then with a frown. “There’s more of gravy than of
grave about you.”
Silence consumed her. That line sounded too familiar
to be random.
“Okay,” she said a minute later. “I don’t remember much
from my English classes, but I’m pretty sure that I just quoted Dickens.
And…mostly accurately.”
The ghost nodded.
“Okay. That’s kinda
wigsome.”
“That’s just the beginning,” Jenny replied, “so you might want
to improve your knee-knocking. Some of these guys are liable to get offended if
their ethereal presence isn’t met with fear—or at the very least—a little
awe.”
There was so much about that sentiment that did not rest well with
her. “These guys?” Buffy echoed, wide-eyed. “What are you talking
about?”
“You will be haunted by three spirits tonight.”
“Haunted?
I think I’ve had enough of that.”
“Oh, so the ghost thing is working on
you now?” Jenny demanded, stifling a pleased laugh. “Did quoting Dickens make
you a believer?”
“I didn’t say I was afraid. I’ve just had enough.”
“Well, there’s little I can do about that,” the ghost replied, but there
was little in her tone that betrayed any true sense of contrition. “They’ll be
here soon. The first one will come when the clock tolls one…and the second at
two…and so forth.”
Buffy frowned. “Where’s the originality in
that?”
“It’s not my job to come up with new methods. I’m just the
messenger.”
“But…honestly! Aren’t you all at risk for copyright
infringement or something?”
Jenny seared her with a look. “I want you to
think long and hard about how much time I spend in my afterlife worrying about
copy-infringement.”
“Probably none at all.”
“That would be
correct.” She offered a small smile. “Buffy…tonight isn’t about fault or blame.
I know our methods are a little…well, unoriginal, but the Powers felt that you
needed a kick.”
Buffy snorted ineloquently. “As if I haven’t been kicked
repeatedly ever since my bestest buds mojo’d me back from the beyond. Sure.
Fine. Bring on the kicking. I think I’m too numb now to feel anything as it
is.”
“You understand that I didn’t mean an actual kicking,
right?”
“I’ve been kicked pretty much every way there is to be
kicked.”
And she’d done some kicking, too.
Spike.
She hadn’t seen him in days—not since the invisible aerobics in his
crypt. He’d kicked her out because he couldn’t have all of her. He
couldn’t have her where others had. He couldn’t be the guy she took to the
Bronze, or the one that accompanied her to parties. They couldn’t hold hands or
kiss in public or do anything that announced they were together.
Spike
wanted her to be with him, and she couldn’t. And the more he pursued her, the
more she kicked. She kicked until he bled, but he never stopped whispering how
much he loved her.
He loved her, and he hadn’t been by to see her since
that day in his crypt. Where he’d made love to her as she tried hard just to
fuck him, all the while loving the fact that she could see his face and he
couldn’t see hers. Patrols since then had been unsettlingly silent. Spike hadn’t
popped out from behind a crypt or barraged into her house under a smoking
blanket. He hadn’t come to her at all.
Because he couldn’t have her. Not
all of her.
Buffy shivered and glanced up again, starting a bit when she
realized that the apparition was still there.
“The Powers offer no
sympathy for the way things are,” Jenny said without prompt, giving her the
unsettling feeling that her thoughts were on full display. And that
notion was far more terrifying than anything a common ghost could conjure up.
“Human deeds are left in human hands. It’s what one does with what’s left that
makes any difference.”
Then Jenny paused thoughtfully and added, “You’re
confused and hurt, but you’re not alone.”
It had been a long while since
Buffy found herself overwhelmed with emotion, thus the sensation of tears
prickling at her eyes went unnoticed for several long seconds. And before she
could wipe her tears away, the ghost began to fade into the dark.
“Expect
the first ghost when the bell tolls one,” Jenny reminded her, true to
form.
Then she was gone.
And Buffy, once more, sat in
silence.
Buffy hadn’t thought that she’d be able to fall asleep again; after
all, being told that she was going to be haunted by three spirits wasn’t exactly
the ideal note to go to bed on. Thus, when her alarm clock shrilled loudly at
one in the morning, it scared her out of her skin and she matched its pitch with
a shriek of her own.
Then her sleep-filled eyes landed on the short,
dark-haired man in her room, and she screamed again. Screamed and tumbled in a
haphazard mess to the ground, her legs tangled in a mass of blankets.
“No need for that, love,” the man said, his voice accented in a vaguely
familiar Irish brogue. “Though I can’t say I mind the view.”
She scowled
at him and climbed wearily to her feet, tugging the comforter up with her. She
wasn’t wearing anything too revealing, but having a man in her room that she
didn’t know made her feel, rather unsurprisingly, very self-conscious. “What the
hell is this?” she demanded, tucking the blanket up under her arms indignantly.
“Who are you?”
The man spread his hands with a helpless grin. “The Ghost
of Christmas Past,” he retorted with a simple shrug. “Or something of the like.
I’m here to show you Christmases of the past. Guess that qualifies me for the
role.”
Buffy blinked stupidly, tightening the bedspread around her body,
recollection sweeping in. Oh yes. Jenny Calendar’s warning. Three ghosts. Bell
tolls one, and all that jazz. Her own personalized version of A Christmas
Carol, because the Powers didn’t think her life was screwy enough. “Am I
supposed to know you or what?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t think Scrooge knew
his ghosts.”
“Yeah well, you’re not Scrooge, darling,” the man pointed
out. “And I’m not here exactly because of a lack of Christmas spirit. If
anything, I think the Powers could understand why you’re not decking halls and
singing carols at the top of your lungs.”
“One would think,” she
agreed, doing her best to keep her chin up. “But you didn’t answer my
question…do I know you?”
“We met once,” the ghost confirmed, nodding
shortly. “You were in love with a different vampire then.”
Objection
flared within her chest at the implication that she was in love with a vampire
now, but the ghost was speaking again before she could correct him.
“I’m
a halfling,” he explained, grinning and offering a helpless shrug. “Half-human,
half Brachen demon.”
“You’re a demon?”
“Only on my father’s side.”
He took her hand and shook it hard. “Buffy Summers, right? I’m Doyle. Just
Doyle.”
“Doyle.” The name was familiar, but she couldn’t place the face.
“I’m sorry…I don’t—”
“Remember me? No hard feelings, love.”
She
smiled a half-smile. “Being dead…faces you don’t know kinda mesh together. It
took me a while to remember my own sister.”
Not technically, but it’d
felt like forever. She’d been ready to leap to her death on the Tower again
before she fully recognized Dawn. Before she remembered who she was and that she
loved her at all. That she had a sister she cared about—the only family left in
the barren world that she truly cared about. No, it hadn’t been long.
It
had been lifetimes.
“I died,” Doyle offered sympathetically, shrugging
another half-shrug; sheepish, as though he needed to explain himself. “A while
ago, actually. Saving the world.”
Buffy smiled again, but there was no
feeling behind it. Seemed she and Doyle had that much in common. “Saving the
world?”
“Well…Los Angeles,” he amended. “Eventually the world, I suppose.
The Scourge wanted to take out everything. Their little glowy-gizmo would’ve
eventually been used to cleanse the world of…well, everything essentially
non-demon. Vampires, halflings like yours truly…and, of course, the entire human
race.”
Wow. That was surprising. An apocalypse, of sorts, that she’d
never heard of. In Los Angeles. How many potential apocalypses were there, at
any given time? How were they all averted? Did the Watcher’s Council keep close
watch of all the hellmouths or places of otherworldly activity? How many
ends-of-the-world had Angel averted on his own?
The fact that she didn’t
know made her insides numb even further.
How many times would she have
to die before she got to rest?
“Enough about me, though,” Doyle said,
stepped forward. “You and me, missy, have a lot to do and only an hour in which
to do it.”
“An hour?”
He nodded. “If we’re to follow format. Best
be on our way. I don’t want to keep the Ghost of Christmas Present waiting.
Rumor has it, she packs a mean punch.” As though feeling an imminent blow simply
at the mention, Doyle frowned and rubbed his nose. “So, my dear Slayer, if you
would so kindly take my arm, and we’ll be on our way.”
He held said arm
out expectantly, and with a timely gust of wind, the bedroom window blew
open.
Buffy’s eyes widened and she glanced down in horror, the blanket
falling from her arms. “I gotta change,” she objected. “I can’t go
out—”
“Now’s not a time for vanity,” Doyle retorted, much too merrily.
“’Sides, ghosts can’t critique your wardrobe.”
“So says you,” she
grumbled.
“Neither can shadows, and that’s all you’ll be seeing tonight.
Come now, love. Time and tide waits for no man…or slayer.”
Buffy sighed
but decided not to argue. The sooner she got the show on the road, the sooner
the morality play would end, and she would either wake up or get to resume the
unwelcome-restart of her life with a new cheery outlook. Neither seemed
particularly likely, but she wasn’t looking to extend the evening anymore than
necessary. Thus, with a tired nod, she abandoned thought of changing and took
Doyle’s arm.
“Thata girl,” he commended, leading her to the open window.
“Now…hold on tight.”
She did. And she slammed her eyes closed for good
measure.
Buffy honestly had no idea what to expect. The gut-clenching
sensation of a long fall. The wind biting at her face as her body soared above a
sleepy town. The pull of the past at her skin as the ghost turned back the hands
of time and dragged her into a world so far behind her that it might as well
have been lived by someone else. She didn’t know, and all renditions of A
Christmas Carol handled the time-jump differently. So whatever was to happen
at the will of the Powers had to be large and flamboyant. They were, after all,
the most self-absorbed lot of higher beings that the world could conjure
up.
“Buffy?” Doyle prodded, giving her arm a good nudge. “Open your
eyes.”
The air against her skin was cold. Not cold like a crypt—Buffy
knew that sort of cold. Ever since she clawed her way through her coffin, the
only place where she felt whole was inside a tomb. But she wasn’t in a tomb now.
Her eyes peeled open slowly, and her heart about stopped.
She was
in the factory. The one that had burned down.
Only it wasn’t burnt. It
was very much in-working-order. There were vamps all over the place. Vamps she
clearly remembered dusting—vamps that she’d encountered a dozen times. The small
one with the glasses. Dalton. She remembered Dalton so well. He was years in the
past—had dusted at some point, she could only imagine—and yet there he was.
Standing in front of her as though not a day had gone by.
God, how jaded
was she if she found herself pining for the vamps of the old days?
“Where are we?” Buffy asked, her voice barely above a
whisper.
“You know where we are.”
“Yeah, but…why?” There wasn’t
anything here that she needed to see. The factory hadn’t burned until after
Jenny Calendar’s death. Buffy remembered everything that happened that year in
vivid detail, and there was nothing she particularly cared to relive. “If this
is the Powers telling me to run after Angel, you can forget it. Been there, done
that, got the t-shirt. Besides, I think Cordy has dibs.”
Doyle winced,
but didn’t say anything. Well, for a minute or two. Like so many others in her
life, the ghost really didn’t have a mute button. “Love, do you see Angel around
in this picture?”
“Well, no—”
“So let this be the first lesson.
Don’t be jumping to conclusions, you hear?” He grasped her wrist without warning
and dragged her toward the nearest corridor. “And don’t look so nervous. It’s
not like they can see you.”
She knew that. She’d seen enough portrayals
of A Christmas Carol to know how the game went. But knowing it and
believing it were two very different things. For all intents and purposes, she
was walking down a hallway, dressed in nothing but silk pajama bottoms and a
camisole that made her look much perkier than she felt.
But the vamps
didn’t know that. They couldn’t see her. They were memories. Nothing
more.
Only they didn’t look like memories. There was nothing to suggest
that the vamps around her were mere shadows of the past. Everything was so real.
So tangible. She couldn’t imagine her hand falling through the wall at her back,
anymore than she could swallow the fact that she could walk right past a group
of fang-happy vamps and not even earn a bored glance.
“Where are we
going?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
This was the
factory. If she wasn’t here to see Angelus, she was here to see
Spike.
Doyle turned a sharp corner that opened to a flight of stairs
she’d never before explored. Granted, she’d never had much time to snoop around
the factory. Once or twice, sure, but too often it was crawling with vamps. The
only time that she’d had unlimited access, she’d been in a hurry to stop Angelus
and the Judge from wiping out all of Sunnydale. But she couldn’t say, knowing
Spike as she did now, that she was surprised. He had an affinity for underground
chambers.
The way he looked at her now always begged the silent question:
wanna go downstairs?
Buffy shivered, trailing Doyle tacitly as he
pushed a door open.
Spike.
He was lounging in a recliner,
his eyes glued to a television. He was shirtless—drool—and his left hand
rested just at the waistband of his notoriously tight jeans. His fingertips just
grazed his equally notorious bulge.
For whatever reason, her first
reaction was one of astonishment. Vampires didn’t age—they couldn’t—but Spike,
this Spike, looked…different. When she was seventeen, he’d seemed ancient. More
so than his years would suggest—more so than she ever would have guessed. And to
this day, she didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Spike acted like an old, decrepit
vamp. If anything, his attitude concealed his age. He was the perpetual kid who
refused to learn from his mistakes.
He’d seemed old to her then. And
now…
God, how wrong she’d been. Just looking at his shadow, he was so
young. That burden in his eyes was missing. The weight of his love that
kept him trapped between living and dying was nowhere to be found. The part of
him that she’d put there—the pain that she saw every time their gazes clashed in
that split second before he hid himself behind a smirk and a comment that was
sure to earn him a bloody nose. That wasn’t there.
This Spike—his truly
evil counterpart—was free. No remorse. No guilt. No suffering. No longing. No
love.
This was a Spike that didn’t love her.
Doyle snickered and
rolled his eyes. “Women,” he drawled.
Buffy almost jumped. She’d
forgotten that she wasn’t alone. “What?” she demanded.
“You’re not as
difficult to read as you’d like to think, doll.”
“Hey!”
The ghost
just rolled his eyes again, pointing demonstrably. “That man,” he said, a
strange edge in his voice, “is head over heels, out of his mind, bleeding his
non-soul out in love with you. Even there. Right there. Can’t you
tell?”
Buffy stared at Doyle for a long second, blinked, then glanced to
Spike incredulously.
“Can’t I tell?” she repeated dryly. “Oh yeah. It’s
so transparent.”
“He’s in love with you!”
“He’s sitting in a
rocker, Doyle. If he’s in love with anyone, I think it’s La-Z-Boy.”
The
ghost looked at her dumbly. “You sure you’re not a natural blonde?”
Buffy
frowned, immediately fisting a handful of hair. “Hey!”
“Have you even
glanced at the telly?” Doyle gestured to the screen that had Spike’s
undivided attention. “He’s in denial now. Much like some other people in this
room that shall remain incorporeal and nameless, but right there. Right from the
beginning. Love doesn’t start the way you think it does, girlie. Especially not
love worth fightin’ for.”
She tried to do something other than stare at
him numbly, but there was little else to reach for. “Are you implying,” she
began slowly, “that the Powers decided to make me visit my past—and presumably
my present and future—a la Dickens because of Spike?”
Doyle
frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “No,” he said, though
his tone didn’t inspire much comfort. “Not only because of him, no. You’ve got
your head twisted ‘round—doesn’t hurt that a lot of what you’re goin’ through
would ease if you took off your blinders. We know you’re in pain, Buffy, but
there’s only so much of that that you can pin on the PTB. You’re screwed up in a
variety of ways.”
A shrill, hopeless laugh tore at her throat. She tossed
her arms up in despair. “Fantastic,” she laughed, an unwanted prickling of tears
stinging her eyes. “Just what every girl wants to hear.”
“You think that
love means letting go,” Doyle said softly. “It does…to romantics and poets and
songwriters. To heroes and nobles and men of valor, and all that rot. But to
friends? Letting go is hard. Yes, they messed up. They truly did.” He paused,
drew in a breath, and pointed at the phantom in the rocker. “He didn’t. He and
your sis…they’re the ones you’re punishing for what your chums did to you. Your
friends with their souls, right? Spike and Dawn wouldn’t’ve wanted this for you.
That’s not to say that your friends did…but Spike’s been around and dead
long enough to know that it feels like to come back from that. It isn’t a trip,
even for a vamp. A livin’, breathing human?” Doyle whistled and shook his head.
“He would’ve stopped Willow if he’d known what was happening. As much as he
loves you, he would’ve stopped her.”
Buffy’s head snapped back to the
ghost so fast she felt a pang of whiplash. “What?”
The ghost offered her
nothing but a skeptical look. “That one you gotta figure out for yourself,” he
said. “Along with this…” He paused. “Forgiveness is harder than letting go, but
it’s worth the pain of burying resentment. Forgiveness is the ultimate
godsend.”
“You’re saying I should forgive my friends?”
Doyle
snickered appreciatively. “More than the words, doll. Words are easy. And you
gotta forgive more than just your friends.” He nodded at Spike. “Him, for being
what you need when you don’t want to need it. Yourself, for wanting something
you think you shouldn’t want.”
Buffy shivered and rubbed her arms, her
eyes landing again on the vampire in the recliner.
So different.
A trembling breath pressed against her lips, and she shivered again.
Just standing there, watching him, made her body tighten with a familiar
yearning that she was growing to both crave and resent. He was so beautiful;
more so than she would ever admit aloud. More so than she’d allowed herself to
think until that moment. Most thoughts like that were beaten down the second
they surfaced, but she couldn’t deny it while staring down a
memory.
Spike was beautiful, looking as he did now. Looking so vibrant
and full of life. He was gorgeous. Of course, he was beautiful in her
world. In the present. He was beautiful, but broken. She’d broken him. There was
no life in his eyes; there was only sadness. Only dejection. Only things that
she was sure he didn’t want her to see—things that he couldn’t hide.
Her
Spike was haunted, and she’d made him that way.
The thought weighed her
heart down with sorrow. In that instant, she hated the Powers and the ghosts and
every ethereal thing that was responsible for making her relive the past.
This was something she’d wanted to ignore. Something she’d never wanted to see.
Spike was broken, and it was because of her.
She’d robbed him of his
light.
Spike shifted and sighed, his hand dipping closer to his erection.
And she saw, for the first time, exactly what he was watching.
And her
world stopped.
He was watching her.
Her thoughts must have
been gifted the ability to breathe life, for the very next second, Spike’s
pelvis arched just slightly off the rocker. “Slayer,” he purred, almost
subconsciously, his eyes widening as her on-screen counterpart threw a wicked
punch at some vamp lackey. “Gotta give you credit…your moves are enough to drive
a sane man to the sodding edge.”
“Why is he watching me?” Buffy asked,
her voice barely a whisper. “Doyle?”
“Know thy enemy,” the ghost replied,
shrugging.
“He…he taped me?” Her mind was suddenly a collage of
memories—flashes to half a dozen grueling battles. How he seemed to anticipate
her every move. How much fun fighting him was, because she never knew
what to expect. He never fell into the common traps that sent most vamps
to dustville. He was innovative. Challenging.
She’d been his project, and
he’d done his homework.
He was watching her.
“Slayer,”
Spike purred again, though this time, his voice was tight with a familiar
stirring of arousal. Buffy knew that voice well. Knew how he loved to make her
shiver when she was under him, when those masterful hands of his were trailing
hotly across her body. Spike-when-horny was dangerous, and addictive. She loved
the helplessness in his eyes whenever she touched him, or the way he’d gasp and
thrust upward if her fingers dipped south of the border.
He was hers. He
belonged to her. And she’d broken him.
His fingers plucked deftly at the
buttons of his jeans, and before she could gasp her surprise, his thick cock was
in his hand.
“And here’s where it gets a little too graphic for my
tastes,” Doyle said cheerfully, turning his back. “Don’t get me wrong, I
encourage nudity wherever I go…female nudity. But watching a man beating the
bishop doesn’t really turn my crank.” Then, to make his point about how much
this didn’t appeal to him, he started whistling the Andy Griffith
theme.
It didn’t matter. Buffy barely heard him; she was too enamored
with what she was witnessing. Too enamored with the waves of torn bliss that
crashed over her vampire’s face as his fingers trailed his length from base to
tip. She licked her lips hungrily and pressed her thighs together. She’d never
allowed herself to indulge in his body before—not because she didn’t want to,
rather because she did. She wanted to know him as no woman had—as
she’d known no man before him. And knowing that, knowing that she wanted
it, solidified it as something wrong. Something that made their relationship too
personal. Something she couldn’t have.
The night that they’d knocked the
building down, Spike had done all the exploring. He’d teased her pussy with his
tongue, manipulated her clit until she was sure it would stop working, and
worshipped every inch of her skin with every inch of his. And he’d never asked
her for anything. Never fisted her hair and shoved her mouth southward. Never
asked her to suck him off, though she’d known from the way his eyes glazed over
every time her mouth moved provocatively that he’d wanted it.
But he
hadn’t done anything about it. He’d made the night about her. That night, and
the impromptu sexathon while she was inviso-girl. And she knew why.
It
was the same reason that their morning-after had gone so poorly. Spike turned
into an ass only after she turned into a bitch, and she hated knowing that. She
hated being the one responsible.
Buffy hated that she hadn’t explored
him. That right now, watching him masturbate, was the most she’d ever allowed
herself to indulge in his body, beyond using it to get off.
She wished
Doyle would vanish and that the memory would become tangible. She needed Spike
inside her. Right now.
“So fucking hot,” the vampire moaned, fisting his
cock entirely. “Oh God, yeah.”
“Oh God,” she whimpered in
agreement.
“Just tell me when it’s over,” Doyle singsonged, resuming his
whistling.
“Bet you’re nice an’ tight,” Spike snarled, throwing his head
back. “Like wet velvet. Only you’d be hot.” He whimpered and squeezed his balls
once before curling his hand around his cock once more, taking a fast rhythm
that nearly did her over. “’Course you would, you dirty bitch. You’d burn me
alive.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Buffy knew that she should be
mortified. The idea that Spike wanted her even then—evil as he was and hating
her as he did—should have made her stomach roll with disgust. Only it didn’t.
Instead, she was dripping with need; every moan that touched the air went
straight to her clit, and she needed him like she never had. It was only by
virtue of Doyle’s presence that she wasn’t rubbing herself in a frenzy to reach
fruition along with Spike’s shadow.
Spike’s shadow, four years
prior.
When he’d hated her. But hating her didn’t stop him from wanting
her. From stroking his cock in a way that belonged in a dirty Playgirl letter to
the editor. It didn’t stop him from watching her. Watching her until his eyes
screwed shut and his hips bucked madly off the chair, thick ropes of semen
flying alongside his euphoric roar of completion.
“Oh God.”
“I’m guessing it’s over,” Doyle said. “Just tell me when he zips
up.”
The words were wasted. Buffy was somewhere else. Somewhere between
the past and the present, watching a vampire that loved her—or would,
eventually—come down from his high. She watched, fascinated, as he tucked his
cock back behind the zipper and wiped his hands on his jeans. As he rose to his
feet and hit the pause button on the television.
It paused on her face.
“Ahhh,” Doyle said, suddenly at her side again. “Watch
this.”
Like she could do anything but.
The look on Spike’s face
had her enraptured. There was life, still. Life unlike anything she’d ever seen.
He looked more alive than her friends ever had, even when they were young and
idealistic. He looked so alive it made her insides ache.
And he looked it
while looking at her likeness on the television. Her teenage face, flushed with
exertion, smiling through a cloud of vamp dust.
“Slayer,” he murmured,
the reverence in his voice unmistakable. His fingers touched the screen, running
down her cheeks and across her mouth. Those vibrant eyes soaked her in
completely.
For that instant, there was no hatred. Only
respect.
Well, respect and desire.
The moment, however, couldn’t
last. Before Buffy could summon words to her lips, someone bounded into the room
behind her.
“Master Spike, the mistress wanted me to remind you that the
party’s starting soon.”
Sometime later, she would guffaw madly at the
master part of his former moniker. Right now she was too enchanted with
the way the light in his eyes drowned into something painfully akin to guilt and
self-awareness. Spike growled at the intruder and barked something about
Christmas being tomorrow, not today, and that Dru should try to get on
American time for a change.
Then he looked even guiltier, and agreed with
a stoic nod to be upstairs shortly.
It was only after the lackey was gone
that Spike snarled angrily at the frozen image of Buffy’s face and sent the
television crashing to the floor.
“He doesn’t want to want you,” Doyle
murmured, soaking the scene up like an avid movie-goer. “Sound familiar, love?
Think that he’d be angry if he didn’t feel something?”
Buffy
didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She was staring at Spike’s face as he stared at the
ruined television.
He looked broken. Haunted.
And as always, past
or present, it was because of her.
“There’s more?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, love. You two have
a lot of history. Takes more than one stop to soak it all in.”
Buffy
moaned. She didn’t know if she could survive another stop. Her legs were still
trembling from the last, her heart sore and her mind unable to shake the image
of Spike looking as he did. So hopeless. So alone. Even in a world where he was
supposed to belong. A world before Angelus, where Drusilla was still his
queen.
He’d wanted her then. God, he’d wanted her from the
start.
The knowledge had her completely thrown, and she didn’t know if
she could take more than she’d already seen. And here Doyle was, dragging her
forward two years from their last stop.
“Where are we going?”
“To
another Christmas.”
Well, she could have told him that much. That was how
this game was played, after all. She did the mystical hopscotch through her
past, saw her present, and learned something terribly unpleasant about her
future. Something sure to turn her negative-nancy thinking cap around and make
her realize the error of her ways.
The trouble was, there was no
scenario—no matter how gruesome or gut-wrenching—provided by her wonderfully
overactive imagination that did much to frighten her at all. There was a loom of
sadness in her life as it was, and no amount of thinking or wishing could make
it otherwise. If she died again, she died. And then Willow would raise her and
Spike would be there for her and Dawn would still hate her and she’d find
herself in a cycle of a life-not-lived.
But then again, her rationale
reasoned, there were worse things than dying.
There was the pain of
losing someone else. The pain of losing someone she cared about. Someone she
loved.
Despite how ever much Dawn hated her right now, Buffy knew, in her
heart of hearts, that she’d jump off the Tower for her sister again. And it had
nothing to do with missing Heaven.
She loved her sister. To lose Dawn
would be to lose herself.
But there was no one else. Not Xander or Willow
or Anya or Giles or even Tara, who currently occupied the slot labeled best
friend. If the future was that her friends would die, she would hurt, she
would mourn, but she wouldn’t break. Death was a part of life. She knew that
now, and it wasn’t something to fear.
Even so, it was a tad presumptuous
to think that her current attitude wouldn’t improve. She’d only been
unliving-girl for a few months; to assert that her gloomy disposition would
never alleviate was the most depressing thought she’d ever had.
More so,
she wasn’t ready to forgive them yet. And if she had to bury each of them while
resenting what they’d done to her, that was her cross to bear, and she would
deal with it.
There was only Dawn.
And Spike.
Buffy’s
heart did the twitchy-ache thing again, and she tried desperately to ignore it.
Instead, she glanced up and blinked in surprise.
“We’re in
town.”
“Most of your life takes place in town,” Doyle retorted
reasonably. “Unless you and Spike took a road-trip that the Powers don’t know
about, you can bet most of what you’ll see tonight takes place in Sunnydale.”
Well, that settled at least one issue. Buffy sighed and rolled her
shoulders dejectedly. “So it is, then,” she mused.
“Is
what?”
“About him. About Spike. This whole night is about
Spike.”
Doyle grinned. “The night’s about what you believe it’s about,”
he replied. “We’re following Spike because he’s what consumes you right now.
Your unbelievable bias against demons—”
“Hey! Slayer here!”
“Yeah,
and half-demon here. Kinda glad I’m already dead, so’s I don’t have to
worry about you axing my head off.”
“That’s different.”
His brows
perked with interest. “So there’s a difference in what sort of demons you’re
dealin’ with? Why, then, do you think that every vampire is the same?” Doyle
paused, rocking excitedly on his heels as her mind failed to provide a
reasonable retort. “They aren’t. Angelus, per example? You think he’d’ve
sat back passively if some army gents had shoved a chip up his righteous arse?
You think you ever would’ve let your guard down as much as you have
around your man there.”
Buffy blinked and whirled around at the ghost’s
direction, her eyes immediately soaking in the oddly soothing sight of Spike
marching intently down one of Sunnydale’s downtown sidewalks. And immediately,
her gut clenched as her skin grew tight with excitement. There wasn’t a thing
about him that didn’t ooze confident sex-appeal. The way he walked, the way his
eyes surveyed those around him, the way his duster billowed in a way that most
cinemas couldn’t pull off. He was, in a word, delicious.
And just
looking at him, she knew that Doyle was right. She’d started trusting Spike long
before he fell in love with her. She’d started trusting him after the spell—the
spell that had first introduced her to his sensuous kisses. She remembered
sitting on his lap, her ass cradling his erection, her back pressed against his
rumbling chest as his amorous mouth worshipped her throat and lips and whatever
else she let him explore.
She’d started trusting him after that. Not
entirely, by any means, but she hadn’t worried about him, or what he was capable
of. There was any number of ways that Spike could have killed her, chip or no
chip. He was, after all, a master vampire, and he hadn’t made it this far on
luck alone. He hadn’t hired demons or vamps to destroy her. He hadn’t bargained
with a warlock to render her powerless. He hadn’t poisoned her food. And once,
even though demons were on his could-kill list, he’d gone as far as to
not harm or hurt Giles when the watcher came down with a case of the
Fyarls.
Spike was different. He’d always been different.
“You’re
beatin’ yourself up over bein’ with someone that you don’t think can feel,”
Doyle said. “Based on what, exactly? All the times that he hasn’t saved
your life? The tears he didn’t shed over the summer? The way he
didn’t protect you and your kid sis from the bitch-from-hell last year?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Vamps aren’t all the same, love. The Powers
oughta send a cosmic slap-upside-the-head of all the morons that allowed that
stereotype to gain credence. If vampires are the inverse of humans, then the
logical argument would be that all souls are the same. There are good ones and
there are bad ones. Same as demons.”
She swallowed a groan. “You talk
like Spike’s been a saint for the past two hundred years. Hello! It’s not like
my ‘he’s a killer’ observation fell out of the clear blue sky. He killed. He
enjoyed it. No one held a stake to his chest to make him do it.”
“So no
one deserves a second chance? This is a man who didn’t know better until you
came along. He was taught to kill.”
“As all demons are.”
“No,”
Doyle snapped, “all vampires are. It’s in their blood. It’s what’s
natural to them. And he shut that out. Not just for you. You can’t
remember this summer, of course, but…” He paused meaningfully. “Ignoring what
nature demands of you is damned hard. Angel’s doin’ it, yeah, but that
bloke…your Spike, he does it without incentive. I can’t help but respect that.
Take it from someone who’s been there. I ignored my demon side so long it got
innocents killed. It’s not easy.”
Buffy offered a small,
respectful nod. “That’s different,” she said softly. “You’re not a
vampire.”
“No, but I am a demon. I think I have a bit more
experience in all things demon than you.” Doyle pointed at the vampire,
who had stopped his sexy-march down the sidewalk and was staring intently into a
store window. “Do you think he’s evil?”
“He’s a vamp—”
“No, that’s
not an answer. That’s what he is.”
“But what he is defines certain
aspects of who he is. Yes, I think he’s evil.” Buffy paused, worrying a lip
between her teeth. “But I don’t think he wants to be.”
Admitting that was
big. More than big: it was huge. And she didn’t realize what she was confessing
until the words left her mouth and touched the air. Until she crossed one of the
many lines she’d established in her head. If Spike didn’t want to be
evil, what did that mean for her? Even acknowledging that he had the faculties
to care about that—to desire something so fundamentally against his
nature—conceded something much larger; something she wasn’t ready to
relinquish.
At the same time, though, she knew it was true. And it felt
wonderful to get the words out, despite what it meant. Despite how much her
world could change with one little admission, there was a certain measure of
relief in saying the words at all.
Spike didn’t want to be evil. He
didn’t want to be evil because he knew it hurt her—he knew, on some level, that
their relationship hurt her because of what he was. It was another thing he
tried futilely to keep from her. Another thing that he hadn’t buried deep
enough.
Another thing that she ignored, because to credit him with such
knowledge was dangerous, and he was already dangerous enough.
To her,
anyway. He was dangerous to her.
Buffy was grateful when Doyle let her
admission slide without inspection. “Right,” he said, shifting and taking her
wrist. “Let’s go see what the Big Bad Vamp’s up to, yeah?”
Her head shot
up just in time to hear a store-bell ring and the coat-tails of Spike’s duster
disappear. He’d gone into a shop.
Spike was…shopping?
“What the—”
“You’ll never know unless we follow him,” Doyle answered, and dragged
her toward the shop before she could offer a reply.
The sensation of
stepping through walls was something not even the most jaded of slayers could
take lightly. Buffy blinked and shook her head and rubbed her arms, though she
wasn’t sure if her skin was actually tingling or if she was just imagining
things. “You should warn people before you do that,” she grumbled. “Those of us
of the non-ghost nation are more accustomed to, oh say, doors.”
Doyle didn’t reply; instead, he pressed his index finger to his
lips. “You’re missin’ the show,” he whispered, nodding at the cash-wrap.
And instantly, all objection faded. In easy seconds, she was completely
enamored.
Spike was hunched over the counter, looking at something
intently. “’S a mite pricey for a dangly, innit?” he asked.
Buffy
shivered. The effect that his voice had on her couldn’t be
ignored.
“Emeralds, along with rubies and sapphires, are the three most
valuable, most precious stones on earth,” the shopkeeper objected, blinking
rapidly as though he was personally affronted. “I assure you, that is a very
generous price for such a rare jewel.”
“Not sayin’ it’s not worth the
cost, mate. Mighty fine rock.”
“Yes,” came the haughty retort. “Yes, it
is.”
“I’m more partial to blue or red myself, but the lady in question…”
Spike paused, lightly running his forefinger across the cut of the stone. “This
would bring out her eyes.”
“Your girlfriend has green eyes?”
That
lent her vampire pause. He blinked and barked a laugh, his right hand stroking
his chin as though to smother the amused smirk that stretched his lips. “Not my
girlfriend,” he replied, shaking his head. “Not even close. Point of fact, I
haven’t the foggiest why I’m in here at all.”
The clerk balked like a man
whose next meal depended on the sale of this very item. “I’m sure the lady
you’re shopping for is worth it,” he insisted readily.
Spike snickered.
“Not really,” he retorted, batting a hand dismissively. “Bloody well guarantee
you’ve never met a more holier-than-thou-stake-up-the-arse bitch in all your
life.” He paused again, tilting his head in contemplation. “Though it really
would bring out her eyes.”
Buffy rolled her eyes, doing her best to
conceal the nagging pain that struck her pride. She didn’t know why the words
hurt; she and Doyle were in the past, after all, and she’d heard worse from the
vampire in question—spoken directly to her face. It had never hurt then. “Why do
I get the feeling he’s talking about me?” she asked dryly, doing her best to
conceal the sting.
“You think that Spike would be shopping for a necklace
for you?” Doyle retorted.
“Psycho obsession?”
“The year’s 1999,
love.” When it was obvious that the math hadn’t computed, the ghost sighed and
shifted. “It’s been two weeks since the Will Be Done spell. Three weeks since he
came to you for help.”
Buffy blinked. More blank staring.
“Oh,
don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about the Indian siege. That sucker gave me one
bastard of a headache, and all I had to do was have the vision!” Doyle made a
face and pressed an open palm to his forehead, as though the reminder alone was
enough to make the ache return. “You remember the siege, right?”
It took
a few seconds for the realization to sink in, and even then, it was terribly
hard to swallow. “This…” She turned back to Spike, her eyes going wide and her
hand flying to her chest. “Oh my God.”
“You’re shopping for someone that
does not return your affections?” the shopkeeper inquired cautiously,
painstakingly aware that any sudden movements would cost him a hefty commission.
“No affection to be returned,” Spike replied. “Can’t wait to get this
buggering chip outta my skull so I can off the bint good an’ proper.”
Buffy barely heard him. She’d managed to move far enough to the right so
that her view of the counter was no longer impeded. And when her eyes landed on
the emerald in question, she froze entirely in astonishment.
“Oh my
God.”
“Look familiar?” Doyle whispered in her ear, startling her out of
her skin and earning him a well-deserved whack on the shoulder.
“Don’t do
that!” she hissed.
“Talk?”
“Sneak!”
“I was right
here!”
Buffy huffed and pointed. “You were over there two seconds ago!
Just…make a sound or something if you’re gonna be all with the moving.
Got it?”
Her demand prompted little more than an incredulous glance.
“What part of ghost can’t you get through your head?” he retorted in
kind. “And stop redirecting your frustration at me! You’re upset ‘cause of the
necklace.”
“Riley told me that he bought me that necklace!” She
whirled around again, pointing now at the emerald in question. “That…he gave me
that…two years ago.”
“Well, obviously, he didn’t.”
The scene, of
course, had no pause button, and Buffy’s bickering with her Ghost of Christmas
Past came at the price of the shopkeeper’s reaction to Spike’s rather blunt
declaration. That being that he wanted to kill her—Buffy—but buy her pretty
things in the meantime.
However, what the shopkeeper lacked in etiquette,
he more than made up for in general Sunnydale knowledge. There was no mistaking
the widening of his eyes, nor the way he kept glancing to the hanging mirror on
the opposing wall. The hanging mirror that cast only his reflection. “Umm,” he
said. “E-emeralds are…representative of…luck…”
“So the leprechaun on the
cereal commercial tells me.”
“—and hope. And…protection from
evil.”
That seemed to perk the vampire’s interest. “Yeah?” he replied,
arching a brow. “Fancy that.”
“Are you interested…in protecting her?” The
shopkeeper swallowed hard. “From evil?”
“Until I can off her myself, I
s’pose,” Spike agreed with a nod. “Yeah. Want the Slayer nice an’ squirming till
her soldier boys undo whatever they did upstairs.” He tossed a careless glance
upward, and grinned wickedly at the frightful look on the other man’s face.
“Emeralds can’t warn me off, y’know. Sellin’ it to me’s not gonna make my skin
burn or any of that rot. I expect the warding-off-evil bit’s in the
superstition. Sapphires represent royalty, for example. An’ rubies…passion an’
lust.”
There was another pause, then, and Spike’s eyes fogged over then
in a look that Buffy knew well. Very well. It was a look he’d given her a
thousand times. A look that made her tremble, made her ache, made her painfully
wet and incapable of doing anything but beg him to take her just a little
harder. To keep her body in fiery motion so that her mind didn’t have a chance
to keep up. Oh yes. Buffy knew that look well.
“You know about precious
stones?” the shopkeeper asked timidly.
It took a minute for the hazy
glaze to vacate Spike’s eyes. “Well, you gotta pass the time somehow. ‘Sides, I
was with a woman who loved all things sparkly for well over a century. An’ when
you’re at the side of a princess, you treat her royally.”
Buffy swallowed
hard. That was so not a pang of jealousy. No, it was not. Next question
please.
“A-and do you think that…that a ruby or a sapphire, then, would
better fit the, umm, lady in question?”
Spike glanced up slowly.
“Slayer’s definitely royal. Royal blood, an’ all that. Or somethin’ of the like.
An’ red…” He began to drift back into a place of lusty goodness, but quickly
snapped out of it. “Red…yeah, she’s a creature of passion, all right. Bloody
gorgeous in her element.”
“W-would you prefer to look at a ruby,
then?”
The vampire sighed and straightened, his hands sliding into the
pockets of his duster. “It’d prob’ly make more sense,” he conceded, though his
eyes had wandered back to the emerald on the counter, and that wondrously soft
countenance that Buffy secretly adored flooded him whole. “But…the emerald…her
eyes…”
“Wards off evil,” the shopkeeper agreed.
“Yeah…”
The look on his face was something that Buffy would never forget. If she
lived a thousand years or more, she would never forget this. Never forget the
moment she’d plucked from the past—the moment she’d relived—and the tender,
excited look on Spike’s face. It was a look that was universal—something she’d
know anywhere. Something she’d experienced more times than she could
count.
The look that came with the knowledge that a perfect gift had been
located. She’d never seen Spike look like that. So pleased. So excited.
And this was when he’d hated her.
“How many times do I have to
tell you?” Doyle demanded, startling her once more with the random intrusion of
his voice. “He loves you.”
Spike reached for a wallet—Spike has
a wallet?—and fished out four one-hundred dollar bills and two fifties.
“Want it gift-wrapped,” he said, tossing the cash onto the counter. “Somethin’
nice.”
The shopkeeper nodded eagerly. “To and from?”
“I’ll take
care of that part.”
Buffy didn’t want to see what happened next. She already knew. She
already knew, yet Doyle was going to force her to watch anyway. Not that she
needed him to tell her that.
She already knew what happened, and she
hated herself for it.
“Come on, doll. It’s not like you had reason to
believe otherwise.”
The second after Spike made the purchase, the store
around them had melted away, and she found herself standing in the living room
of Giles’s old apartment. The one he’d lived in before.
Before she died.
The scene was already in progression. She saw herself sitting beside
Giles’s very Charlie Brown-like Christmas tree, laughing at something Willow had
said while making a face at Xander. Spike was sitting in a chair at the
Watcher’s table, drinking pig’s blood from the novelty mug that had since become
his.
Past-Buffy didn’t notice the way that Spike was staring at her.
Past-Buffy had, for the most part, ignored the resident vampire all evening. Now
they were seated around the Christmas tree in preparation for the traditional
holiday exchange, and while Buffy knew what was coming, Past-Buffy remained
wondrously oblivious.
Of so many things.
“I don’t want to
see this,” she announced uselessly. “Please, Doyle.”
The look on her
guide’s face was grim with understanding. “I’m sorry, love,” he replied
sincerely. “This is a nonnegotiable deal.”
Her insides twisted with
dread, but she nodded without complaint. There was nothing that could be done.
Wishing it otherwise wouldn’t change the past.
“This was before Riley,”
Buffy objected. “Actually, this was when Riley and I were in the early phases.
Flirtage, no kissing. And he still wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t engaged or
insane…or a combination of the two.” She paused. “And to be fair, he didn’t
really say that it was from him. I just…I assumed.”
Doyle offered
an encouraging nod. “But he didn’t correct you.”
“Maybe he didn’t know
how.”
“Don’t know about that. The words, ‘that’s not from me’ come to
mind.”
Buffy scowled and sat back, turning her eyes to the unfolding
scene before them. The sooner she got this over with, the better.
She
glanced to Spike and winced.
For everyone.
“I wanted to
purchase Xander a Swedish-made penis enlarger,” Anya was saying
matter-of-factly, nodding her enthusiasm. “Like the one they manufacture in that
film about the ugly British spy with bad teeth.”
Spike snickered at that,
his blue eyes sparkling. “What’s this? Wonder Boy not fill you up
properly?”
“Hey!” cried Xander, affronted. “Ahn! Do you have to say those
things in front of the impotent one?”
“Leas’ I don’t need a penis
enlarger.”
Buffy watched Past-Buffy squirm uncomfortably at that. She
knew exactly what she was thinking. Memories of sitting on Spike’s lap just two
weeks prior were more than enough to get her cheeks flushed and her pussy wet.
She knew how large he was. His erection had spent the evening nestled against
her ass, thrusting upward every few seconds just because he loved the way she
moaned.
The day following the faux-engagement, Buffy had mentioned the
possibility of a memory-eraser spell to block everything out. It was something
she’d never done. Never could do. Every time she thought about not
remembering how Spike felt against her, a small, sick part of her cried out in
protest. She’d learned to ignore it after a while—after Riley—but it had
remained with her just the same.
“I guess we’ll just have to take your
word on that, won’t we?” There was a pause, and Xander held up a hand before
Anya could make the inevitable suggestion. “And that’s not an invitation,
so keep it in your pants.”
“It’s a bloody wonder the lot of you have
managed to live this long.”
There were times, even then, that Buffy
couldn’t help but agree with him. Not that she’d ever say it.
“Oh,
there’s another present!” Willow cried gleefully, snagging a small, meticulously
wrapped box from under the tree. She inspected the tag, then turned to
Past-Buffy with a grin. “For you.”
It was gorgeous—it was the sort of
thing that Buffy never received, thus the astonishment on Past-Buffy’s
face was not at all feigned. The wrapping paper was green with streaks of red
and silver, and the bow, rather than store-bought, was ribboned in a fashion
that couldn’t be anything but homemade.
“It doesn’t say who it’s
from. Who…?” Past-Buffy wet her lips and glanced to Willow. “Did
you…?”
The redhead shook her head. “Not me.”
She turned her eyes
to Xander, who was similarly under Anya’s hawk-like, borderline accusatory
stare. “Me either,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe—”
“I already gave her the
crossbow, Xander,” Giles murmured from where he was strewn across his sofa, a
wet cloth pressed to his head. “A bloody expensive one at that. There’s only so
much a man can afford when he has no steady income.”
No one bothered
glancing to Spike, whose eyes were glued on Past-Buffy’s face.
Past-Buffy
shifted uncomfortably. “It has my name on it,” she observed, pointing like a
child. “So it really must be mine.”
“I’d say so,” the vampire drawled
smoothly, leaning back. “No one else in the sodding world has a name as
ridiculous as yours.”
She smirked. “Bite me. Oh wait…that’s
right…”
“Shove it, you miserable tart.”
No one noticed the
apprehension wrought through Spike’s body, of course, or the way his hands were
shaking. He kept a watchful eye on her, trading glances between the package in
her lap and her face.
“I want to slap her—me,” Buffy whispered, rubbing
her arms. “I can’t believe I missed it.”
“It’ll be over in a few seconds,
love,” Doyle said soothingly. Not that the knowledge made anything better; it
was simply out there, and she appreciated it.
Willow edged closer to
Past-Buffy and whispered, “Maybe it’s from Riley.”
“Riley?” she
repeated.
Spike’s head snapped up.
“Yeah. Like…‘hey, I like you
but I’m too gosh-darned nervous to put my name on your present.’”
“When
has Riley ever been here?” Buffy demanded. “We had a picnic. That’s it. And I
had to tell him that I wasn’t engaged. I’ve never brought him home to meet the
Watcher or anything.”
“There are plenty of our high school alumns at UC
Sunnydale,” Xander replied reasonably. “Maybe he asked around and they mentioned
Giles. You know…’cause toward the end, there, your ‘I’m the Slayer’ thing was
less a secret and more a way to keep a big snake from destroying the
town.”
“Bleeding tragedy, that was,” Spike murmured, shifting noisily in
his seat.
Past-Buffy ignored him, but Buffy didn’t. Buffy couldn’t tear
her eyes away from him. The nervousness was still very much present, but it was
slowly fading into hurt disappointment. All because of her.
“I couldn’t
have known,” she whispered furiously, blinking as hot tears pricked at her eyes.
“Doyle, I couldn’t have known. There’s no way I could’ve known. Why show
me this?”
“It’s necessary,” he replied ambiguously.
“What for? To
make me feel like an even bigger bitch?”
Doyle shrugged. “There’s a price
that comes with knowledge.”
That didn’t mean anything. Buffy watched
helplessly as her past counterpart tore into the wrapping. As the room fell
still at the small, unmistakable shape of a jewelry box.
“Oh my God,”
Past-Buffy murmured, gasping loudly when she popped the lid open. “Oh my
God!”
“What is it?” Anya demanded.
“Ohmigod, is that
real?” Willow scooted over quickly, her eyes widening in astonishment. “Holy
moley, that’s real!”
“You can tell just by looking?” Xander asked,
quirking a brow. “And what is it we’re looking at?”
“An
emerald.”
“A necklace,” Past-Buffy said, numb with bewilderment. “Riley
got me an…a real emerald necklace.”
“Again, I say we know it’s
real…how?”
“It’s real,” Spike barked, but no one was paying
attention to him.
No one but Buffy. The Buffy he couldn’t see.
“Well, that’s a little presumptuous,” Anya snickered, sitting back
contentedly when she was convinced that Xander wasn’t trying to woo one of his
female friends. “You’re not even going out to previously assigned destinations
at mutually agreed-upon times.”
“Dating,” the room corrected.
“Yes, that word.”
“I can’t believe it,” Past-Buffy repeated, her
eyes wide. “I-I can’t believe it.”
“And we know it’s from Riley?” Xander
asked.
“Who else would it be from?” Willow retorted. “Or…”
“What
about the occasionally evil ex-boyfriend in Los Angeles?” Anya ventured. “The
one that was here on Thanksgiving.”
Buffy froze at that. Both of them;
past and present.
So did Spike.
“A-Angel?” Past-Buffy squeaked
inelegantly. “Oh my God…”
And that was it for Spike. The proverbial last
straw. Buffy watched helplessly as he leapt to his feet and stormed down the
hall.
She followed him instinctively. She needed to be there. To see
him. To touch him and let him know that she knew now, and she was so sorry for
everything. For not knowing then, even if knowing was impossible. She
needed to be with him like she needed nothing else.
“Don’t follow me,
Doyle,” Buffy whispered, running through the closed door without thought.
This was personal.
The scene inside the bathroom broke her
heart. Spike was hunched over the counter, gripping the ledge so hard she was
surprised that it didn’t crack. He was breathing hard, his whole body trembling,
the pain in his eyes nearly doing her in. Every few seconds, he glanced up the
empty mirror that hung above the sink, as though willing his image to appear so
that he could have something to curse at.
“Wanker,” he snarled, but the
word choked on a sob.
Buffy didn’t realize that she was crying until she
gasped for breath. It was too much. Everything was too much. She was standing
there and he was hurting—hurting because of her—and she couldn’t do anything.
She couldn’t touch him or tell him how sorry she was. She couldn’t tell him that
everything would be all right, because she wasn’t convinced that it would be.
She could do nothing but stand there and watch him break. Because of her. Always
and forever because of her.
She was the reason he grieved; no matter the
cause, she was the symptom.
“You stupid, stupid wanker. What the fuck did
you think was gonna happen?”
“Oh Spike…”
“Spike!”
The call
of his name was followed by several rudely loud close-fisted pounds on the
bathroom door. Buffy winced at the sound of her own voice. If anything, she’d
like to be corporeal for just one second so she could pop herself in the nose
for being so careless.
Spike didn’t answer. He was too busy reigning in
control.
“Spike! For Pete’s sake, open up.”
“Fuck off,
Slayer.”
“Get out.”
“Make me.”
“I want to see how
the necklace looks on. Will says it brings out my eyes—it’ll take like two
seconds, and then you can get back to whatever you’re doing in there.” She
paused. “Presuming it’s nothing nasty or falls under the ‘I’ll have to stake you
for this’ category.”
Spike trembled and closed his eyes. “I’d wager the
rock looks much like any other piece of trash you wear around that dainty throat
of yours,” he spat. “Leave a vamp in peace.”
“So help me, Spike, I’m
gonna—”
That was it. Something within him broke. Buffy saw it—she knew it
was coming, of course, but she could have identified that look on his face
anywhere in any situation. Like all the other looks and glances singular to
Spike; she knew them all, and she knew them well.
Past-Buffy’s screams
and complaints continued on the other side of the door as Spike raised his arms
and smashed his fists into the mirror with ferocity unlike anything she’d ever
seen. He cried out as he did it—whether in anger or pain, Buffy didn’t know. All
she knew was that she had driven him to this. She had made him miserable. His
hands were bleeding and his eyes were red, and while Past-Buffy screamed and
nagged on the other side of the door, Buffy stood and watched.
Watched
Spike. Watched his face. Watched him until he ultimately snarled something nasty
and pushed his way back into the hallway. Back into the hall where the Scoobies
had crowded to investigate what the fuss was about. Where Past-Buffy began
screaming anew when she saw the mess he’d made.
Where Doyle stood,
waiting.
“Come on,” he said softly. “We’re almost done.”
Almost.
Almost.
Buffy turned her eyes to the bloody shards of mirror that
littered the bathroom floor.
Almost.
“No more,” she
begged, her voice hoarse. When she glanced up, there was nothing but sympathy in
Doyle’s gaze, and somehow that made everything worse. “I can’t watch
anymore.”
“Almost done,” he said again, nodding in contrition.
The
words provided little comfort.
Death had cost her the memory of little things. The way her mother
hummed while making wassail. The way their Christmas tree was always a little
lopsided. The way Buffy would tease Dawn with I know what you’re getting for
Christmas as the gifts piled in the living room. The way that they would
gather on either side of their mother on Christmas Eve and listen to Joyce’s
always dramatic read of The Night Before Christmas.
She’d thought
of none of these things earlier. Watching Tara and Dawn decorate the tree had
left her feeling hollow and unmoved, rather than weepy and emotional. She hadn’t
even stopped to consider that this was her first Christmas without Joyce. She
hadn’t stopped to cry, and that bothered her.
Standing in the living room
of her home, looking at the Christmas tree that she and Dawn had decorated with
their mother, and suddenly everything changed.
“Mom,” she whispered,
grief crushing her chest. Hot tears pricked at her eyes, her gut clenching.
“I’m sorry,” Doyle said softly, patting her shoulder. “We won’t be here
long.”
Buffy wiped her eyes and shook her head. “I want to go
home.”
“You are home.”
“No, I mean…my room. My time. I
can’t take this, Doyle. Please.”
He shook his head and offered an
apologetic sigh. “No can do, love,” he replied. “I’m not the one that makes up
the rules. And this stop is brief.”
“And it’s the last one,
right?”
His answering silence was not inspiring.
Buffy’s eyes
narrowed, her heart sinking. There were no Christmases past this one. There was
this, and then nothing. Nothing until the Ghost of Christmas Present arrived,
ready and willing to rub salt in an open wound. “Where?” she demanded, her voice
catching. “This is it. I died after this.”
“It’s not a Christmas,” Doyle
explained softly. “But the Powers want you to see it.”
“If it’s not a
Christmas and this is a Christmas-themed haunting, can’t I just blackball it?”
She was bordering on whiny, and that bothered her, but she knew her emotional
limitations. After being bottled inside herself for so long, subjecting herself
to a torrent of emotional hijacks had worn down her resolve. She was breaking,
and Buffy hated breaking. “Please don’t make me do anymore.”
“If I could,
kiddo, I would. You better believe it.” Doyle sighed, his hand rubbing
absentminded, soothing circles into her back. “This shouldn’t take
long.”
It was then that her eyes landed on the girl curled on the sofa.
Another mirror image of herself. Past-Buffy, wrapped in blanket, fast asleep in
front of the family television.
“Good movie,” Doyle observed, nodding at
the screen.
Buffy snickered and shook her head. She was staring at the
shadow of herself. The girl that had jumped. She remembered falling asleep on
Christmas Eve, exhausted from a long cry and the swelling knowledge that she was
fighting a losing battle. That her sister was something other than her sister,
and that Glory was too powerful to defeat.
And even then, even
remembering how miserable she’d been that Christmas, she found herself envying
the memory. There was no despair, only depression. And Buffy knew the
distinction between despair and depression.
The singing on the
television somehow made everything worse.
“Buffalo gals, won’t you
come out tonight, won’t you come out tonight, won’t you come out tonight.
Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight. And dance by the light of the moon.”
“Always loved It’s A Wonderful Life,” the ghost at her side
continued. “Seemed to put things in perspective.”
Her vision blurred. She
wasn’t going to last. “Doyle—”
She never got the thought out, which was
just as well because she didn’t really know what she wanted to say. Instead,
Buffy seized the out and whirled around just as the front door swung open. An
irritable-looking Dawn paraded inward, making sure to be as noisy as possible so
as to let the whole house know that she was severely displeased.
“You
didn’t have to follow me,” she grumbled loudly. “I know the way to my own
house.”
“Forgive a bloke for walkin’ a girl home,” Spike replied, rolling
his eyes as he stepped across the threshold. That much provided Buffy with a
timeframe. The last year had been such a confusing jumble that she couldn’t
remember if she’d locked the vampire from her house before or after the
holidays.
If Spike had access to her house, then this scene was before
the entire ‘love me or I’ll feed you to my ex’ incident. And it hit her from
nowhere that she was looking, for the first time since the shadow-play began, at
a Spike that loved her. She’d finally made it to a memory wherein Spike loved
her.
Sorrow collided with relief. The burden in his eyes was suffocating.
How she had ever missed it was beyond her comprehension.
“I can handle my
own,” Dawn retorted indignantly, crossing her arms. “I don’t need a
babysitter.”
“Do I look like a sodding babysitter to you?”
“You
sure do act like one most of the time.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “I find it
unlikely that any ninny your mum would hire would tag-team in a game of
larceny.”
“So you’re a lax babysitter. You still didn’t let me do
anything fun.”
Buffy snickered. She tried to summon anger, she really
did; stealing was wrong in all forms, but her irritation was subdued by the
notion that Spike had looked out for Dawn. There really wasn’t any doubt in her
mind of what she was witnessing. In the months before Dawn discovered the truth
behind her lineage, she’d done everything she could to get herself into any and
every jam feasible for a girl her age. It was a miracle that she’d never managed
to break a bone or do anything else drastic enough to land her in the ICU.
Much of what Dawn had done was crying out for attention. Buffy wasn’t so
blind that she couldn’t see that. And while she was a little peeved that Spike
had evidently done nothing to dissuade the girl from getting into trouble, she
couldn’t help the warm fuzzies that touched her heart. Spike was looking out for
Dawn.
“Look, Bite Size,” Spike snapped, making an obvious strain not to
be too loud. He hadn’t so much as looked in Past-Buffy’s direction, but from his
body language, it was obvious that he knew she was present. “Big Sis has enough
on her plate to worry about without you goin’ movie of the week on her with
every sodding turn. You wanna get into trouble, I’m all for it. Jus’ make sure
you come to the Big Bad before landin’ yourself in something you can’t
handle.”
“Like what? The mall night-watchman?” The girl had the audacity
to roll her eyes at him. “You think I couldn’t have handled that?”
“You
think your mum would fancy a call from the police station?”
“Good
shoplifters don’t get caught,” Dawn argued, crossing her arms and tossing her
hair. She looked every bit the part of a child trying to be an adult, and it
warmed Buffy’s heart in ways she couldn’t have predicted.
The carefree
child had died the same night she did.
“Then, by your own admission,
you’re a bloody pathetic shoplifter.”
“You’re the one that got us
caught! Who’s pathetic now?”
Spike’s eyes flashed the way they
did when he was on his last nerve, and he held up a hand in some last effort to
regain his composure. “Look,” he said slowly, “there’s an arse-backwards
violence-prone bint on the loose. One that doesn’t particularly think fondly of
the Slayer, yeah? Nabbing her kid sis would be jus’ the thing that would make
her holiday merry an’ bright, you hear?”
Dawn had suddenly
found something about her shoes very interesting.
“You get the itch to
do some bad,” the vampire continued heatedly, “you come to me. You got
it?”
She mumbled something.
“Loud an’ clear. I can’t hear
you.”
“That is such a crock. Vampire hearing much?”
“You want me
to wake up Big Sis an’ let her know what you were up to?”
The girl’s head
shot up, her eyes wide with protest. “Y-you wouldn’t! You were there with me!
You were…you were my accomplice!”
“Yeah, an’ I’m evil. The Slayer already
hates me, so it’s not like I’ll get an empty threat I wouldn’t eventually get
anyway. But you?” Spike’s eyes sparkled as he leaned back, stroking his chin
speculatively. “I’d hate to be in your shoes if she ever wizened up to how you
spend your evenings.”
The outrage on Dawn’s face was so vibrant that
Buffy had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “You ass!”
“Evil,” he
corrected cheerily, his eyes dancing with flecks of aforementioned evil as she
huffed indignantly and rushed upstairs. There was nothing like watching him when
he enjoyed himself. His grin was infectious—so much that Buffy often found
herself feigning a coughing or sneezing fit to disguise her mirth.
Just
as quickly, though, he grew somber, and turned his attention at last to the girl
on the couch.
Buffy trembled. “Doyle,” she whispered. “I didn’t…like
punch him across the room or anything, did I?”
The ghost chuckled. “One
would think that’d be something you’d remember.”
“I don’t know. A
sleep-deprived slayer is a grumpy slayer, and occasionally happy with the
swinging of fists.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about
here.”
Spike stopped a few feet away from her, studying her with such
intensity that, even now—standing as a bystander—sent shivers across her skin as
her insides trembled. His eyes were heavy with longing, his expression bathed in
reverence. It was a look she knew well.
She’d seen it after kissing his
bruised lips. She’d seen it when she welcomed him back into her home. She’d seen
it when she’d walked down the stairs the night that he told her how long she’d
been gone.
She hadn’t seen it since she first impaled herself on his
cock. When she finally succumbed and submerged fully into a sort of asylum on
earth. But it hadn’t happened after that—after that look. That wondrous look of
love and awe. The look that made her feel like a fraud. She wasn’t someone who
deserved such devotion.
He didn’t put her on a pedestal. He loved her as
she was, and she hadn’t the first idea why.
Spike’s hands were balled
into fists at his sides. There wasn’t an inch of him that didn’t tremble, and
the pain-drenched conflict in his eyes struck her hard. He was warring with
himself—fighting a losing battle, and because of her.
She saw the same
thing every time she looked in the mirror.
Every time she thought of
him, and how he was everything she shouldn’t want. How wrong it was to be with
him. How disgusting she was—what a massive cosmic disappointment she’d turned
out to be. She couldn’t even die properly. Even after she’d taken her bow and
stepped behind the falling curtain, her friends had pulled her out for an
encore. She was a joke. And because of that, she’d turned her life into a joke
as well.
Her feelings for Spike were wrong. The girl in the mirror
reminded her of that every night.
Her feelings…
The thought
dissolved as Spike stepped closer to her shadow. Behind him, the movie rolled
on.
“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want?”
He
exhaled slowly, a disobedient hand straying to her face, tenderly brushing
fallen tendrils aside.
“You-you want the moon? Just say the word and
I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”
A gentle smile
graced his gorgeous face.
“Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I'll give
you the moon, Mary.”
Spike straightened and sighed, pulling on the
quilt that was draped along the back of the sofa. “Happy Christmas, sweetheart,”
he murmured, dragging the coverlet over her body, hesitating, then gently
caressing her brow with his lips.
Then he turned around and
left.
And with tears streaming down her face, Buffy could only stare.
“Doyle,” she whispered. “Please…”
“It’s almost over.”
“It needs to
be over now.”
Just as her observation touched the air, the ground
shifted beneath her feet as the Powers prepared the final time-jump. It was a
slow rotation, and in a blink, everything changed. The tree vanished, Past-Buffy
melted into thin air, lights flickered off as others flickered on. People came
and went at a speed she couldn’t follow.
When the scene stilled again,
Dawn was hunched over on the couch, her arms folded in her lap, a frighteningly
blank look on her face. Tara was beside her, rubbing her back and speaking words
that Buffy couldn’t hear.
Something was very wrong
here.
“Doyle—”
The doorbell rang and her heart leapt into her
throat. Whatever she was about to say was quickly forgotten.
“That’s
him,” Willow announced, emerging from the kitchen with a dishrag in her hand.
“I’ll get it.”
Buffy didn’t realize she was holding her breath until
Doyle clamped a hand on her shoulder. “Be wary, love,” he whispered. “This is
gonna be hard for you.”
As bruised as she felt, Buffy fought off a
snicker. That much was laughable. Hard on her? Like the evening had been a cake
walk up until this point.
The next second, though, she understood and
appreciated his warning.
Spike’s usually tight-fitting tee hung off his
broken body. His eyes were large and hollow, his skin so pale that he was nearly
invisible under the glow of the porch light. There was no life in him at all. He
was just there, just existing. A portrait of a man drowning in sorrow, come to
life on her porch. He was there. Had he been anything less than a vampire, the
earth would have claimed him by now.
“Doyle…”
“Just
watch.”
As if she had a choice.
“Thank you for coming,” Willow
said softly. “I’m really, really sorry to bother you…but we didn’t know what
else to do.”
Spike nodded without meeting her eyes. “Yeah. Where is
she?”
The redhead stepped aside, welcoming him in with a gesture. “In the
living room.”
He shoved past her without replying, and when he fully
stepped into view, Buffy nearly collapsed to her knees. She would have, had
Doyle not been beside her. Spike was a tower of strength—her tower of
strength—and he was broken. Her tower of strength was broken. She’d never seen
Spike like this—so empty and defeated. Not with the sting of rejection or the
smack of a biting insult. He’d never personified the living dead; no vampire
truly had. But now, in her home, with his ribcages poking through his tee when
he moved, he was nothing but an animated corpse, and from the look on his face,
he didn’t know why he still moved at all.
“Tara, Willow,” Spike said
softly, sitting at the edge of the coffee table. “Could you two bugger off for a
bit?”
The girls readily agreed—too readily. Buffy had never seen them act
that way around him. Like he was an ally. Like he was a friend. It certainly
wasn’t a courtesy that had extended beyond her resurrection. Willow hardly
mentioned Spike, and if she did, it was usually something snide. Tara barely
spoke at all, and never about vampires. Never about anything related to slaying
or world-saveage—ostensibly nothing that could remind Buffy of the world she’d
been brought back to save. A world that, evidently, couldn’t survive if she
died.
Resentment poisoned her stomach. Spike was good enough for them
only if she was dead?
“Dawn,” Spike said softly, his heavy eyes taking
the girl in. “Can you look at me?”
Dawn just sat, blank and numb with no
response. She didn’t even meet his gaze.
“Willow tells me you haven’t
been eating.”
“Neither have you,” she replied. There was no accusation in
her voice. It was an observation and nothing more.
Spike blinked but
didn’t reel in defense. There was nothing to defend; he knew it just as she did.
Just as Buffy did. He hadn’t eaten since the jump.
Since Buffy’s
gift.
“I know,” he said after a long minute, a heavy sigh crashing down
on his shoulders. “It hasn’t been easy, has it?”
“I don’t even know how
you can look at me.” Dawn shook hard, at last turning her tear-filled eyes
upward. “She jumped because of me. If it weren’t for me, she’d be here. She’d
still be here.”
The words obviously had him rattled, but Spike refused to
take the bait. “You think so?”
“I know so!”
“You think Buffy
would’ve been able to go on if she’d let you die?”
Dawn bristled,
breaking eye-contact again. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t…no, stop
it.” Spike seized a handful of hair and jerked her face back up. “Don’t fuck
with me, Bit. I can’t bloody take it. You think I don’t know what you’re goin’
through? You don’t think…it was me, too. I didn’t get there fast enough. If I’d
done something different…if I’d never gone to that bastard Doc to begin
with…even if I didn’t make it, I could’ve saved her. Saved you. Saved you
both. You think that doesn’t haunt me every sodding second? I’m here an’
she’s not.”
“You weren’t the Key,” Dawn objected, tears streaming down
her cheeks. “She jumped—”
“She jumped because she’s Buffy, an’ we all
know how Buffy is.” A painful smile split his lips. “She gets some zany idea
lodged in that thick head of hers, an’ there’s no turnin’ her around from it.
She said she wasn’t losing anyone…an’ she didn’t.” He shivered hard, blinking
rapidly to avoid an onslaught of tears. “We lost her.”
“Because of me.”
Anger sparked his eyes at that. Not
much, but enough. “So you think that’s it?” he demanded roughly. “You think you
can give up? I bloody well swore to protect you, Bit. An’ as long as I have to
be around, you have to be around. Suck it up an’ deal.”
And just
like that, something in Dawn snapped. Something powerful. Something that, like
so many things about her sister, Buffy had never seen before. And it crippled
her completely. “You don’t get it!” the girl screamed. “It was supposed
to be me. From the very beginning, it was supposed to be me. The
monks made me. They didn’t make you, Spike. You did your best—and what
did I do? I got Buffy killed. She jumped because of me. And now you want me
to…you want me to, what? Eat cereal that’s supposed to be hers? Watch television
in the place she used to sit? Do my homework, because Buffy won’t ever get a
chance to…how can you expect me to do the things she should be
doing?”
His eyes were a sea of pain. “Stop it.”
“She jumped and
it’s—”
“Stop it.”
“Everything…all of it—”
“Stop it!”
The roar that tore at Spike’s throat shook the house to its foundation, his
lithe, starving body bounding upward in a blink. Sorrow seeped into fury, and
the demon that he’d tried so hard to suppress—the one that he’d tamed for
her—burst forward before he could pull the leash.
He was angry. He was
furious. He was broken with grief, half-existing, and
furious.
“How dare you?” he hissed. “How dare
you?”
“Spike?”
“You’re right. Okay? You’re right. She did
jump for you. She jumped in your place. If it weren’t for you, she’d…” He broke
off, shaking his head incredulously. “She gave you something precious. It wasn’t
to save the world, Dawn. It was to save you. She jumped to save
you.An’ how do you repay her? You mope. You sit here an’ feel sorry for
yourself because you can’t be dead. She died so that you could
live, an’ you’re killing yourself. Do you care so little for her
that you’re willing to—”
Dawn was on her feet the next instant, her face
a mess of tears. “You bastard!” she shrieked. “How can you say that? How can…I
loved her—”
He snickered. “You have a funny way of showin’
it.”
“How can you tell me to live when all you want to do is
die?”
“Because she didn’t jump for me,” Spike ground out. “She jumped for
you. You were her whole bloody world, an’ if you think I’m gonna
disrespect her memory by letting you waste away, you have another thing
comin’. I love her too much to let you do this to yourself. To let you spit on
what she gave you. You little ungrateful—”
“Spike?”
Dawn’s voice
had broken. And the next second, she launched into his arms, burying her face in
his shoulder as her body collapsed into tears. It was over then. Everything was
over. In easy seconds, they were crying together. Holding each other as they
sobbed.
Buffy’s legs buckled and her knees hit the floor hard. This
wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. She needed to be there—she needed to go to
them. She needed to be anywhere but caught in limbo. They were breaking—her
sister, Spike—the ones she cared about were breaking, and she couldn’t touch
them. She couldn’t reach for them and make it better.
“This is cruel,”
she managed through her tears, glaring at Doyle with spite she didn’t feel. “How
can the Powers show me this?”
“How can they not?” he replied
enigmatically. “You’ve been thinking all along that it was about you—and it has
been, to a point. But bringing you back to life…as selfish as that was, it’s no
more selfish than what you’re putting them through. And we needed you to see
that.” He gestured to her sister and the weeping vampire. “These are the shadows
of the things that have been. They are what they are.”
Buffy wiped at her
eyes. The scene had calmed. Spike was now rocking Dawn in his arms, looking
every bit the part of a protective brother. And despite his angry words—the
things he’d shouted—it was impossible to miss the concern in his eyes. The part
of him that loved Dawn as though she was his blood—as though she was just as
much his sister as she was Buffy’s.
He cared for her, and there was no
hiding from that.
“You can’t give up now,” Spike murmured into the girl’s
hair. “You’re better than that, Sweet Bit. She wouldn’t want this for
you.”
“Or for you,” Dawn argued, wiping her nose absently on his shirt.
“She wouldn’t want you to starve yourself.”
Objection flared in the
vampire’s eyes, but he nodded to pacify her. “Right,” he said. “Then both of us
should get our act together, yeah? Starting with…this bloody starving yourself
bit needs to end.”
“I’ll stop if you stop.”
A weak grin spread
across his lips, and he nodded slowly. “You pull a rough deal,
munchkin.”
A rough deal. A Summers’ deal.
That much remained
unsaid.
The rest happened quickly. Spike led Dawn into the kitchen and
watched as she ate a sandwich. He spoke briefly to Willow and Tara, letting them
know what had transpired, even though he knew that they required no report. He
promised to be by the next evening to make sure that Dawn ate, and to watch out
for her if the Scoobies needed to get something done.
Willow thanked him
profusely. Tara hugged him, tears in her eyes. And then he left.
And
Buffy and Doyle followed. Wordlessly, side-by-side, they walked with Spike to
the cemetery.
Doyle didn’t follow him inside the crypt, but Buffy did.
And she said nothing. Not as Spike lit his candles. Not as he undressed. Not as
her eyes drew in the broken, defeated sight of his gorgeous body, unimpeded by
clothing. Not as he collapsed on his bed downstairs, holding his head in his
hands.
Not even as he started crying.
She couldn’t say anything.
Her tears wouldn’t let her.
So she stood. And watched. And wept. And
somehow, without realizing it, she found herself alone. She watched Spike until
he wasn’t there anymore. Until the crypt faded into shadows, and she found
herself sitting on her bed.
She was home. She was finally home.
“Oh God,” Buffy whispered into her hands, breaking again. “Oh
God.”
It was over. Her wounded heart sighed in relief. Finally, it was
over.
It was over…for a few minutes anyway.
Until the
alarm clock on her nightstand announced the two o’clock hour.
In a blink, the gut-clenching fear that had chased her all last year
came storming back. The sleepless nights. The endless days. The never-ending
panic over where Dawn was and who she was with. The way that she’d constantly
mapped out the quickest route to the hospital wherever she went. Buffy had never
faced a foe like Glory. In every battle she’d fought, while a very real part of
her rushed with the possibility of death, she’d always known, in the end, that
she would emerge the victor.
The Master had ruined her fear of death.
How could she fear what she’d already experienced? What she’d walked away from
with only the shadow of a scar to show for it? Angel had gone evil and she’d
never doubted that she could defeat him. The Mayor had nearly wiped Sunnydale
off the map, but she’d always known, deep down, that he wouldn’t succeed. The
Initiative had barely earned a shiver.
Then Glory came along, and
everything changed.
Glory came along, and Buffy realized that she was
mortal.
Glory came along, and Buffy at last learned the meaning of
fear.
Fear had nipped her heels all year, but similarly, fear had
died with her. When Buffy jumped, she’d taken her fear along for the ride. There
was no fear in the fall. Not of breaking. Not of losing. Not even of death.
There was no fear at all. And in the weeks since Willow and friends tore her
from Heaven, fear had lived elsewhere. There was nothing but complete dullness
of her emotions.
Unless she was with Spike. Spike had a way of reviving
her emotions—just not the ones he wanted. Not the ones he probably
deserved.
A part of Buffy was certain that those emotions—love,
compassion, kindness—remained dead. Perhaps Heaven had claimed her better angels
before the fall. Perhaps she only took with her what would be welcome in
Hell.
It was Glory’s fault, of course. Everything was Glory’s fault. But
Glory, like all others, had been defeated. She was dead. She was dead like the
Master was dead. Like the Mayor was dead. Like Maggie Walsh was dead.
Only not, because she was standing in the middle of Buffy’s
room.
And with her, she’d returned the Slayer’s fear.
Buffy was on
her feet before she could blink, her chest tightening and a gasp clawing at her
throat. Her body was worn and tired. Her eyes were still red and raw from
crying. And Glory was in her room.
“Oh my God!” the hellgod drawled, her
nose wrinkling in distaste. “I gotta tell you, honey, I’ve seen my share of
dumps, but this one is really something special. You know? There are some
decorators in Hell that could use a few pointers
There was no room to
think. No time for consideration. Buffy rushed at the Beast before her mind
could catch up with her. Panic was her master, and she wasn’t about to let it
down. If she could immobilize Glory, perhaps she had a shot of getting Dawn to
safety.
Perhaps.
Of course, there was also the chance that
Glory was incorporeal, and therefore couldn’t be beaten to a pulp—at least as
much of a pulp as a slayer could manage without a troll-god’s hammer. Instead of
tackling the hellgod, Buffy ran right through her and smashed headfirst into her
bedroom wall.
“Well,” Glory drawled, rolling her eyes. “That was
effective.”
Buffy rolled miserably onto her back, clutching at her
swollen head. “Owie.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re really,
really stupid? ‘Cause you really need to get that memo.”
“What
the…”
Glory sighed impatiently and rolled her eyes. “Look, girlie, I
don’t have time for this. Get up off your useless ass. We got a lot of boring
shit to get through and a painfully long hour in which to do it. You wanna run
into walls? Do it on your own time.”
Realization struck her like a
bullet. Buffy moaned. “Ghost of Christmas Present?”
“Can’t get anything
past you, can we?”
“Do the Powers hate me this much?”
Glory’s gaze
averted to her nails. “I’d say so, yeah,” she replied absently.
“You seem
strangely…more together than the last time I kicked your ass.”
“You’d be
amazed what not being trapped inside a meaty flesh-bag will do for you.
You know, on top of being dead.” She threw her hands up in the air and huffed.
“Are you ready or what?”
“You know,” Buffy grunted, climbing to her feet,
a hand pressed to her stomach. “I was this close to forgetting how much I hate
your breathing guts.”
“I’m just touched that you think of me at all.”
Glory gave her a painfully familiar once-over, a condescending smirk tugging at
her lips. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Buffy fought the urge to frown
and jump to the defense of her yummy sushi pajama-bottoms. “Shut up,” she shot
back weakly.
“Were you this much of a clothing disaster last year? I
remember it being rather pathetic, but not downright sad.”
“This
is sleepwear!”
Glory rolled her eyes again. “And, what, that’s supposed
to be an excuse? I had minions with more fashion sense.”
There was
nothing worse, Buffy decided, than being provoked by a dead hellgod on Christmas
Eve. She choked down the instinctive rebuttal, deciding to preserve her dignity.
As long as people couldn’t see her yummy sushi pajama-bottoms and mismatched
camisole, she didn’t give a good damn what the bitch thought.
“I
remember that the Ghost of Christmas Present was the one I liked,” Buffy said.
“That’s not gonna be you, is it?”
“It’s not looking that way.” Glory
tossed her hair and waved at the bedroom door, and it flew open in a pinch.
“Outward we go.”
“Why you?”
“Why not me? I’m the one that killed
you.”
“I killed me.”
The hellgod merely grinned and tapped
her fingers against her hip. “Come on, precious,” she said. “The sooner we
leave, the sooner it’s over for both of us. ‘Cause really? Choosing between an
eternity of hellfire and torment and hanging around your mopey, skinny ass all
day? Not really much of a toss-up.”
Buffy swallowed a groan. “I can’t
tell you how much I’m looking forward to this.”
Following Glory down the
hallway of her own home was, perhaps, the strangest feeling in the world. More
than watching the dark sky turn bright in a flash; more than watching her sister
and Willow speed down the hallway as though someone had clicked fast-forward.
More than knowing that she was walking in the present without being seen.
Buffy was following the creature that had caused her death. She was
following the creature that had made her jump.
“This won’t take long,”
Glory said, blowing her crimped hair out of her eyes, her tone mind-numbingly
uninterested. “Only two stops. And they’re both quick.”
Somehow, she
doubted that. Doyle had only made her leap a few times, all for supposedly quick
stops, and somehow it’d taken up the whole night.
“It took an hour,
sweet-cheeks, and the hour would’ve gone a lot faster if you two hadn’t blabbed
endlessly the whole fucking time.”
“I have this bad habit of saying
things out loud,” Buffy moaned.
“When you’ve been dead for any length of
time, you have trouble distinguishing between words and thoughts.”
“As
you should know.”
Glory waved a dismissive hand and rolled her eyes for
the umpteenth time in five minutes. “Doesn’t matter. We’re not going to
take that long. Know why? It’s quite simple, actually. Somehow, I don’t see us
being bosom buddies.”
“I can’t tell you how much I already miss
Doyle.”
“You know what? Not my problem.” Glory gestured to the dining
room, where the Scoobies were gathered around a strikingly pathetic Christmas
breakfast. “Now go in and learn something so I can get back to
Hell.”
Buffy bit her lip and counted to ten. She had a feeling that she
was going to have to mentally replay the running-into-the-wall bit several times
to keep herself from doing something rash and stupid. Stupid on the level of
attempting to rip off Glory’s non-corporeal arm and beat her with it until she
became deader than she was already.
“My God,” the hellgod drawled in
disgust, her nose wrinkling. “What the hell is that, and who lets him wear
it?”
Buffy’s eyes landed on Xander, who was passing Dawn a plateful of
burnt bacon. He was dressed in one of his obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirts,
laughing at something way too hard, which led her to believe that he’d just
cracked an uncomfortable joke. The entire gang was present. Even Tara, who was
seated so far away from Willow that she practically required her own zip-code.
The table, though, was empty. Very empty. For the first time in years,
there was no Giles. Hell, there was no Buffy.
There was no Spike,
either.
“Where am I?” Buffy asked, her voice barely above a
whisper.
“Well, gee golly, Slayer, I’m not sure. I know how much
life you’ve brought to the party since they made a zombie out of you. I can’t
imagine where you might be.”
“Hey, I—”
“You’re upstairs, dumbass.”
Glory flashed a nasty grin, her eyes sparkling. “You’re hilarious as
depressed-girl, I might add. Had I any choice, you’d be stuck in your perpetual
hell as long as possible.”
Buffy was about to ask why the bitch didn’t
have a choice, but decided to bite her tongue. In the end, she didn’t care
enough to merit continuing a conversation with the beast. Instead, she turned
her attention to the table.
To the people that had dragged her from
paradise.
“Somehow,” Willow was saying, digging into a sloppy pile of
hastily-made hash browns, “I’m not feeling one with the Christmas spirit this
year.”
“That might be the Jewish thing,” Xander suggested. His tone was
falsely jovial and the light in his eyes was out of show rather than feeling.
“You know…the worship of Santa never really—”
“What are you talking
about?” Anya demanded, blinking. “Willow is obviously referring to the fact that
we’re sitting at Buffy’s house, minus Buffy, who is upstairs wishing that we’d
left her in her coffin. That and the fact that she and her lesbian lover have
been without the orgasms lately doesn’t really put anyone into a festive
spirit.” She paused. “Would it help if I told you that Santa Claus—”
“Is
a demon. Who eviscerates children.” Xander laughed and patted his fiancée on the
back. “We heard this heartwarming tale last year, Ahn.”
“I just thought
I’d put things into perspective.”
“Oh, believe me,” Dawn chimed in,
stabbing at a biscuit with her fork. “We’re up to our asses in
perspective.”
“Dawn!” Tara chided. “Language.”
“Oh please. I’m
sixteen years old. I think I can say ass.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “And
it’s not like anyone’s here to tell me not to, right? I mean, Mom’s dead. Dad’s
living up the cliché with his fourth or fifth secretary. And my sister is
upstairs, wishing she were dead instead of down here.”
Buffy bit her
lip. She was suddenly very glad she was invisible.
And wishing she were
alone. The next second, Glory mocked a melodramatic gasp and clutched at her
heart, staggering as though she’d been shot. “Oh my! Is the whiny one going to
start whining?” She snickered and shook her head. “I really don’t know why you
didn’t let me kill the brat. It would’ve saved you the trouble of dying and your
friends the headache of putting up with your newly-raised self.”
In the
normal world, Glory would have a face-full of slayer-fist for that remark.
Granted, in the normal world, Glory was dead as dead could be. They weren’t in
the normal world. They were in a dreamlike limbo, and unlike Doyle, Glory
couldn’t be touched.
The Powers had likely recognized that sending Glory
to her would cause a problem. That would also explain why there were no
leaps-of-faith out her bedroom window, or anything that necessitated contact.
Thus attempting to beat the hellgod for even looking at Dawn was a wasted
effort.
“Buffy doesn’t wish she was dead,” Willow sputtered hurriedly.
“The other day, wh-when she was all Inviso-Buffy, and we found out that she
might turn into Buffy-pudding. Remember? She said that she…well, she insinuated,
anyway, that dying wasn’t on her Christmas list. Or being dead. Or—”
Dawn’s eyes fell closed. “Stop.”
“And she’s been better. Really!
She—”
“Willow, stop.”
“—’s very much with the better.
And—”
“Stop!”
There really was nothing comparable to the
scream of an upset teenage-girl. No one in the room failed to flinch. It was a
miracle that the shriek hadn’t upset every dog within a ten-block
radius.
“Buffy doesn’t care,” the girl said slowly. “She
doesn’t.”
“Dawn—”
“Don’t argue.” Dawn glanced down and laughed
miserably, shaking her head. “I mean, why should she? She didn’t have to deal
with her not being here this summer. She didn’t have to wake up and
think…she didn’t have to deal with any of it. And I’m sorry, but I won’t
be sorry that she’s not dead. I won’t wish with her that she’d never come back.
She doesn’t know what it was like for us. For me.” She paused. “She
doesn’t care.”
“You’re wrong, sweetie,” Tara replied softly. “I-it’s
just…your sister’s been through a lot. A whole lot. A-and what she does…or
doesn’t do…it’s not intentional. She’s…we can’t know what it was like for her,
you know? And yeah, she’s taking it out on…well, all of us, but she—”
“I
didn’t bring her back,” Dawn ground out. “You guys didn’t say a word to
me. Or Spike.”
“Yeah,” Xander said, muffling a snicker, “’cause
Spike’s the kinda guy we wanted in-the-know on this thing.”
“Stop
it.”
“What? I don’t see the problem of not telling Buffy’s number
one stalker that his favorite hobby might be back among the living.”
A
shadow crossed Buffy’s face, and all the anger she’d previously targeted at
Glory found itself centered on one of her closest friends. How dare he? How dare
he pass judgments like that? Especially given what she knew now. Especially
given what Spike had done for them. For all of them.
Spike had saved
Dawn all summer. Every night over the summer. He’d gotten her to eat again. He’d
gotten her to stop blaming herself. And this was how they repaid
him?
“Not like you’ve been singing his praises, sister,” Glory chided,
studying her fingernails again. “Don’t see what right you have to get
upset.”
Thankfully, Dawn wasn’t afraid to say everything that Buffy
couldn’t. “So he was good enough to sit with me while you guys were out
slaying demons with the Buffybot…not to mention raising my sister from
the dead, but not to tell him about Buffy?” The girl leaned back and crossed her
arms, thoroughly unimpressed. “He’s good enough to sit with the teenager but not
to be told Scooby Gang secrets. Not even when he saved your asses…how many times
this summer?”
“Language,” Tara whispered again, but her eyes were too
filled with shame for the admonition to be effective.
“Yeah, and where
has he been since she got back?” Xander spat. “Lurking. Following her around.
Not giving a crap about the gang because, oh wait, he’s a vampire, and
his favorite obsession isn’t so much with the dead anymore.”
Anya stilled
and rested a hand atop his. “Xander—”
“You have no right to talk
about him like that.” Dawn’s eyes sparkled with tears. “He’s the only one
that cares.”
“That’s crap.”
“Buffy wishes she was dead. You guys
avoided me all summer like the plague unless Spike wasn’t around to baby-sit.”
The girl shook her head, trembling hard. “He was the only one who could stand to
be around me. Who told me the truth at all. And now that Buffy’s back, you
guys…you just don’t care who you hurt as long as you get your way, do you?”
Tara looked about ready to cry, and she was the only one that Buffy
could feel sorry for. The rest of them sat, open-mouthed, staring at Dawn as if
she were a stranger. And Dawn, in true teenage form, chose that moment to excuse
herself from the table and rush upstairs.
The painful part wasn’t
watching their faces. No, Buffy almost enjoyed that.
The painful part
came with the knowledge that Dawn wasn’t truly upset with the Scoobies. Not
really. Not like that, anyway. Dawn was upset with her, and her
friends had simply fallen in the crossfire.
Dawn wasn’t to blame for
anything; even if she were, Buffy couldn’t be mad at her. She couldn’t be mad at
her sister for wanting her to be alive. That was asking too much. Especially
knowing what Dawn had been through. Beyond the apocalypses. Beyond being the
Key. Beyond the Tower. Buffy had never once seen her sister look as haunted as
she had in the memory that Doyle had showed her. The vision of her sister, her
young, once exuberant sister, looking so defeated was enough to cripple the
toughest resolve.
“Come on,” Glory said, nodding at the door. “We’re out
of here.”
Buffy blinked and shook her head. “What?”
“Out. We’re
gonna go visit your vampire, and then I’m on my way.”
She blinked again.
“Really? This is really it?”
“Hard as it might be to believe, Whiny the
Vampire Slayer, one day is surprisingly easier to cover than four years.” She
snapped her fingers and the front door flew open. It, of course, was for effect;
the shadows at the dinner table didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Rather, they sat;
Willow and Xander doing their best to look innocuous as Tara and Anya traded
knowing glances.
Buffy didn’t let herself linger. She was too much in
need for Spike. She needed to see him now; see how he’d be spending this
Christmas, knowing now how he’d spent the Christmases in the past. How would
this year be different?
How broken was he now that he’d touched her
wounded soul?
It was something she didn’t want to see, but needed all
the same. Every year had caused Spike pain in one form or another, and every
year it was her fault. And she needed to know how to stop it. She needed to know
what could be done to keep him from colliding with devastation. Thus Buffy
hurried over the threshold, not even bothering to blink in surprise when she
landed directly in Spike’s crypt.
No sense in walking, she supposed,
when a ghost could warp from place-to-place.
“Ugh!” the hellgod
complained, wiping her hands on her skank-wear. “The things I do…”
But
Buffy wasn’t listening. Her eyes were glued on Spike.
Despite how good he
looked, there was nothing that could ever hope to eradicate the image of him
half-starved and weeping. Just a short while ago, she’d been with him
downstairs, watching him as he cried for her. Watching his broken body tremble
because she was gone. He’d punished himself so wretchedly for so many things.
What must he think now? Now that she’d let him into her body while
keeping her heart out of reach?
He’d sat with her and told her that he’d
saved her. Not when it counted, of course, but every night since the night she
jumped. Hundreds of times. Plenty of different ways. A new way every night.
Every night, he said, he saved her.
And she’d believed him.
Spike
was sitting on a sarcophagus, holding a book. He was talking to someone—that
demon he hung out with—but his eyes were glued to the book on his lap. And in
true fashion, his eyes were so drawn, so haunted, that just looking at him
nearly broke her all over again.
“He’s such a pain in the ass,” Glory
grunted. “You have any idea how much I tortured that lunkhead? And I’m not
talking that sissy stuff; I’ve seen much tougher men—family men—driven to kill
their own children over this kind of torture. I mean, hello, god
here.”
Buffy shivered. She didn’t need to be reminded of that. She’d been
there for that.
For the look in his gorgeous, wounded eyes as she brushed
her lips across his. As she thanked him for giving her something
real.
And here she was, not even a year later, denying that anything he
provided could ever be real.
“Never made sense to me,” Glory continued,
twirling a lock of hair around her index finger. “Still doesn’t, really. What
does he see in you, exactly?”
Buffy exhaled slowly, tears stinging
her eyes. She really had no idea. Perhaps she would someday. Perhaps. Right now,
all she knew was that Spike was sitting on a coffin, holding a book, and talking
with a demon.
About her.
“What’d you get her?” the demon
asked.
Spike glanced up wearily, his bleary eyes drenched with
exhaustion. The emotional sort of exhaustion—the sort that eventually took a
very physical toll. “Couple things,” he said. “Not sure…fuck, Clem, I’m such a
git. I can’t…’s not like she’s gonna want it, right?”
The overly-cheery
demon companion slapped him hard on the back. Too hard not to hurt, but Spike
didn’t even flinch. “Oh, come on, big fella,” he said. “I might not know much
about human women, but I’ve seen every movie they’ve ever played on
Lifetime.”
“That’s the sort of thing you might not wanna spread around,
mate.”
“Point being, from what I’ve seen, women love
presents.”
The vampire laughed dryly. “Not from me, they don’t. Never
bloody fails.”
“Well, what’d you get her?”
Spike hesitated, then
waved the book in the air. “Not somethin’ I got her,” he said softly. “Somethin’
I made.”
“Oh my God,” Buffy whispered, wiping at her eyes. “Oh my
God.”
“Yeah,” Glory agreed. “How cheap is that?”
Spike flipped the
book open. “’S nothin’ special,” he continued. “Well, won’t be to her, anyway. I
jus’…over the years, I’ve been keepin’…this.”
“What?”
“Poetry.” He
paused. “For her.”
Clem blinked dumbly. “You write poetry?”
“I
might mention that if word ever gets out, I’ll strangle you with your own skin.”
Spike turned his eyes back to the book in question. “’S not like it’s important,
anyway,” he said. “Jus’…something I’ve kept for some bleeding insane
reason.”
“That whole book?”
“I’ve known her for a while, mate.
Bloke gets a lot to write about.” Spike paused again, another long sigh rolling
off his shoulders. “’S not a good idea. She’d read the firs’ few an’ stake me.”
“Why?”
“’Cause when I met her, I wasn’t in love with her. An’
those poems aren’t exactly romantic. More along the lines of ‘want to shag but
oughta kill.’” He laughed miserably and tossed the book onto the stone floor,
shaking his head. “I’m off my rocker,” he said loudly. “’S not like the Slayer
wants romance anyway, right? Even if she didn’t choke on the firs’ poems, she’d
laugh her righteous ass off at the rest.”
Clem’s hands came up in
protest. “Dude. Hot chicks dig guys who write them poetry.”
“You get this
from watching Lifetime?”
“Well, that and Shakespeare in Love.”
“She won’t like it, mate. An’ even if she did…” Spike broke off,
breathing hard. “She’ll pop by sometime. I dunno when, but she will. An’ we’ll
shag, an’ it’ll be brilliant. She…but that’s all it’ll be. She doesn’t want
poetry. She doesn’t…” He paused again, blinking back tears that he obviously
didn’t want Clem to see. “But I gotta get her somethin’. I don’t care if
she…Maybe I’ll give her my mum’s ring. On a necklace. A long chain, yeah? I
gotta get her something…”
Clem made a face. “Why?”
“Because I love
her. And it’s Christmas.”
“Christmas is an excuse to act
illogically?”
“I can’t believe, with all the sodding flicks that you
watch, that you don’t understand Christmas.”
“There are many,
many things about you and Buffy that I don’t get.” Clem motioned to the book on
the floor. “You’re not gonna give her the poetry.”
“No. I can’t,” Spike
replied, his voice small. “I already…I already had my heart stomped on by
someone I thought I loved over poetry. If Buffy…I couldn’t take it if she…if she
did…”
Slowly, words faded into silence. The scene continued, of course,
but there was no sound behind it. Buffy just watched. She watched her vampire.
She couldn’t look away if she tried. Not when his eyes were so haunted. Not when
his body was so broken. He never showed her this side of him—not when they were
together. When they were together, he was always a pillar of strength and
attitude. He was always prepared. He was never so shaken. So
unsure. Not with her.
He hid himself when he was with her, and she
knew why. Oh God, she knew why.
“So, you gonna run over when it’s morning
and give your guy a pity-fuck?”
Buffy whirled around, her eyes flashing.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
Glory was seated
atop another sarcophagus, her ankles crossed, a twisted smile tugging at her
lips. “Oh, come on,” she drawled. “You don’t think I’m falling for all this
crap, are you? We show you a few scenes from your laughably pathetic life and,
naturally, you find that you’ve been a whiny bitch with your head up your ass.
So…what? You feel sorry for him? You’ve seen what he’s been through, but
obviously, that’s not gonna change anything. Still a vampire,
right?”
“Shut up.”
“And he is rather pitiful. I mean, look
at him. Have you seen a more pathetic vampire? Yeah, he definitely
deserves the pity-fuck.”
“Why the hell do you care?”
Glory made a
face. “Umm, reality check? I got yanked out of a perfectly good eternity of
torment with a side-order of fire and brimstone to teach you a valuable
lesson. I don’t care. I’m here ‘cause the Powers have me in some cosmic
timeout. And while helping you out is just the punch my afterlife so does not
need, I have to admit that it’s incredibly entertaining watching you go
through the motions only to know the outcome.”
In all her life,
Buffy was quite certain that she’d never felt so angry. Never. She was literally
shaking from head-to-toe with outrage. Her blood was hot. Her skin was clammy.
And Glory was sitting there. Glory was telling her that she knew Buffy better
than Buffy knew herself. How dare she? How dare she presume to know
anything about her?
“Uh oh,” the hellgod singsonged devilishly.
“Struck a nerve.”
“I do not pity Spike.”
“Coulda fooled
me.”
“He’s…I see him. I haven’t seen him before. I haven’t let
myself see him. I see him now.”
“Oh!” Glory clutched her heart. “That’s
so romantic, I almost forgot to gag.”
“I see him,” Buffy repeated. “And
it’s not because of what you’ve shown me—my God, you arrogant maniac. I’m
torn up over what I’ve done. You think Spike shedding a few tears would
affect me at all if I didn’t care for him? If I didn’t…if I didn’t…” She
broke off and shook her head. That line of thinking was dangerous. “Whatever’s
happened, he’s suffered because of me.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“And
if anything, I pity myself.”
“And gosh-golly, isn’t that
surprising?”
“I didn’t see him before.”
“So you keep saying.”
Glory rolled her head back. “Trying to convince me? ‘Cause I gotta tell
you…there’s no way I could possibly care less. And either way, it’s not
gonna work. What’s your plan? Rush over and tell him that you saw what a mean
girl you’ve been to him and expect him to fall to his knees? I’ve tortured that
bastard. He has more dignity than that.”
“I don’t pity him,” Buffy
repeated, her voice growing hoarse, her eyes welling with tears again. God, this
was terrible. The last thing she wanted was to let Glory see her cry. But the
words were clenching—haunting, and she couldn’t get past them.
It wasn’t
pity. It wasn’t. Buffy knew pity. She’d felt pity before, and what she was
feeling right now was certainly not pity. There was no one way to
describe what she was feeling. It was the same as wandering for years with her
eyes and ears closed, only to have someone teach her how to open them. It was
willingly looking in the other direction and trying so hard to convince herself
of a lie so that she didn’t have to stare down the truth.
She’d wanted
so hard to ignore him as a man and know him only as a monster. It was easier
then. Easier to keep herself distanced. Easier to keep herself disgusted. Easier
to hate herself for what she did with him, because if he was anything less than
a demon, then she was the monster.
There was no hiding from truth after
tonight. She was the one that ran to him, teased him, and abused him. She’d
taken advantage of his love to make herself feel, all the while swearing that it
couldn’t hurt him because vampires weren’t capable of feelings. And in the
process, she’d somehow managed to ignore the pain in his eyes or the strain in
his voice. The way he’d touched her that first night after he thought she’d
fallen asleep. The way he begged her wordlessly to be gentle with his heart but
rough with his body. The way she ignored him because she didn’t want to see the
truth. Buffy didn’t want him to be what she wanted, only what she needed. She
didn’t want to see him as anything but a vampire because then she might love
him.
Spike wasn’t a monster. She was.
She was the one that was
killing them both.
She was the one without a soul.
And she was
about to say it—to Glory, to whomever; she didn’t care. She needed to get the
words out there. Glory couldn’t touch her. Not anymore. Glory was dead. And for
the first time—for the first real time—Buffy was not.
I am not dead.
The words ached for life, but fell just as quickly when Buffy looked
up.
And found herself gazing into her own eyes.
“Who are you?”
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come spread her
hands, a distant, hauntingly numb look on her face. “I am No One,” she replied.
“I am the Past. I am the Present. I am the Future.”
The woman in front of
her was less than a shadow. Less than a ghost. She stood without standing; she
spoke without speaking. Her eyes were round and hollow, her skin pale and her
hair near black. Her black slacks curtained around her thin legs. Her black
blouse concealed a starving stomach. There was blackness all around her. Yet
somehow, she didn’t look old or sick. She didn’t look weak or frail. She looked
stoic. Emotionless. She looked as though she’d walked through lifetimes, gaining
wisdom while losing herself.
She was the most frightening thing that
Buffy had ever seen.
“You’re…”
“I am what Was. I am what Is. I am
what Will Be.”
“You’re…me.”
“I am the Slayer.” The Slayer
paused at that, blinking her dark eyes. “I am what you will
become.”
Terror chilled her insides and Buffy found herself shaking her
head vehemently before her mind was crushed in the impact of what that meant. “I
can’t…you’re…”
“I am not Death,” the Slayer replied. “I am
Life.”
“No.”
“I am Life Eternal.” The Slayer paused and inclined
her head ever-so-slightly, her ethereal eyes flickering with interest. She
turned then, and pointed at the evolving scene. “I am to show you what is to
come.”
The crypt around them melted slowly into a world of shadow. Into a
place bleaker than a tomb. Whereas Spike’s crypt was usually candlelit and cozy,
the room she stood in now was nothing but cold darkness. There was a window
above a desk, half-concealed by blinds so that only slivers of moonlight peeled
inward. Atop the desk was a lamp with a torn lampshade; the desk itself was
covered with sheets of notebook paper. In the corner was a single bed, the
covers tangled in a state that Buffy knew well.
She knew the way she
tangled her blankets. That was definitely a Buffy-tangle special.
“What
is this?” she asked, but she was terrified of the answer. In every single movie
version of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s visit to the future was punched
with the knowledge of his imminent death, and how little the world would miss
him. But she was not standing in a room that felt of death. No, this place was
very much lived in. By her.
“This is what Will Be.”
“What
will—”
And then she saw herself, and the world stopped.
Ostensibly, very little had changed. Unlike the Ghost of Christmas Yet
To Come, the shadow of her future still possessed richly blonde hair and a tan.
She wore a pair of dark-wash jeans and a gray tee. There was blood in her hair,
and a cut above her lip. Her hands were dirty and there was a splotch of mud on
her right thigh. Her eyes were distant and haunted, but not entirely without
life. Rather, she looked hollow. She looked completely gutted.
“She goes
by Anne,” the Slayer said as the shadow moved across the floor, plopping tiredly
into her desk-chair. “She has for a long while now.”
The name summoned
memories of clinking plates and businessmen whose hobbies included pinching her
ass and ignoring their wedding bands. Buffy shuddered. She’d sworn to herself,
after leaving LA, that she would never go by Anne again.
“Where am
I?” Buffy asked softly, swallowing hard. Her eyes were glued to the sad woman at
the desk. “When is this?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the Slayer replied. “This
is what Will Be.”
“But I—”
“She lives in England, if that’s what
you want to know.” The Slayer paused, and the silence that consumed them was
thick enough to cut. “She has for decades. A few years back, she took up
residence as a local cemetery caretaker. It keeps her closer to the obligation.
To what she faces every time the sun falls. And every day is like this. It
doesn’t matter that the day is Christmas. She has stopped looking at the
calendar.”
“Decades?” Buffy echoed, her eyes widening. The girl didn’t
look decades older. Aside from the aged wisdom in her eyes, her youthful
features would place her no older than thirty—that much, even, was a stretch.
“When…when is this?”
The Slayer ignored her, gesturing instead to the
sheets of paper scattered across the desk. “This is what she does when she
returns from the hunt,” she said. “She writes. She writes to him.”
Buffy
was drenched in cold; her heart at once pounding and frozen in fear. She knew
immediately to whom the Slayer referred, but she needed to hear it. She needed
to hear it, and she dreaded it all at once. It wasn’t possible. If Spike was
around, he wouldn’t let her be alone. He wouldn’t. He would fight heaven and
earth for her.
Which meant…
“He’s gone,” Buffy gasped, her vision
blurring as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. A roar of emotion she’d thought
long dead engulfed her chest. At once, her skin was burning and reality drowned
out for the hysterical shrieking in her head. She couldn’t feel—she couldn’t
feel because she felt too much. Because, at that moment, she felt everything and
nothing. She was lambasted with loss and sorrow.
Spike was forever. He
was the only true constant in her life. And he was gone.
And it
hit her then. It hit her out of nowhere. A dangerous truth that she’d fought
with everything she was; a truth that she couldn’t escape.
Buffy loved
him. God, she really loved him. She loved him hopelessly. There was no sense to
how she loved him; she just did. The barriers she’d carefully placed around her
heart were gone, and she was consumed. She was thoroughly consumed. With love.
She loved him. She loved Spike.
She had for a long time.
And in
the future, he was gone.
“How?” she demanded, the word choked out behind
her hand as sobs seized her shoulders. As she frantically searched for something
to hold onto as the world yanked the carpet from under her feet.
“How?”
“He did not believe her. And when he came back, his love for her
kept him away. He could not stand to be hurt again. He could not stand to be
anything less than what he was in her eyes.” The Slayer trembled when she
sighed; it was the first inkling of emotion that she had shown, and it had the
impact of an avalanche. “She waited too long. And by the time that she
discovered that he’d come back, it was too late.”
The only way it could
have been too late was if Spike had fallen out of love with her. And for some
reason, that struck her even harder than the thought of his death.
“Oh,”
Buffy whispered, numb. She didn’t know what to say; if there was anything to
say.
Then something happened. Something that hadn’t happened on any stop
before this.
The shadow turned around, and spoke.
“I had these
ideas in my head,” she said softly—so softly that Buffy wasn’t sure whether she
was speaking to them or not. “Things I’d say to him. You know? What I could do
to get him to believe me.”
“What she could sacrifice,” the Slayer
agreed.
Anne nodded. “But it was too late. He was gone. The world gave
him back and took him away before I knew. Before anyone told me. He was here and
he could’ve…had I known. Had he believed me.”
Buffy was consumed with the
duality of relief and shame. How could she be so happy that Spike hadn’t fallen
in love with someone else? Someone who would, undoubtedly, give him what he
deserved. Give him everything that he deserved. Everything that she
hadn’t.
Then she knew. Even as she asked, “What didn’t he believe?” she
knew the answer. She knew.
She hadn’t thought it possible for Anne to
look even more haunted, but she did. The bleak despair in her eyes drifted off,
and a trembling sigh rolled down her back. “The thing he wanted. The thing I
didn’t give him until it was too late. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a chance,
right? I had every chance all that year. I could’ve told him when he draped
himself over the cross for me. When he told me that it would always be about me.
When he begged me to stake him. When he told me that he loved me because I was
the one. When…that last night…” Anne glanced down and shivered again. “I could
have told him any number times. I didn’t, though. I was too afraid to love
again.”
“Then he died,” the Slayer supplied. “He died saving the
world.”
“And when he came back, he didn’t come after me.” Anne laughed
shortly and shook her head. There was no humor in her voice. It was sad and
drawn. “He thought that I would never see him better than I did as he burned up
in front of me. He didn’t believe that I loved him.”
The Slayer shrugged
apathetically. “And why should he have?”
“I didn’t tell him until it was
too late.” Anne paused. “Granted, that stupid The Immortal stunt that
Andrew pulled didn’t help matters much. I’ve never forgiven him for that. God,
Andrew’s been dead for years, and I’ve never forgiven him. He made Spike believe
that…that I could…after what…” She shuddered, shaking her head again. “By the
time I learned that Spike was alive, it was too late. There was an apocalypse,
and no one ever heard from him again.”
“We never found his ashes,” the
Slayer continued. “But we knew he was gone.”
It wasn’t the tears on
Anne’s face that broke Buffy’s heart; it was the lack of tears. She was speaking
with such fervor. Such intensity. Such passion. But she wasn’t crying. She was
saying things that would tear anyone apart, and she wasn’t crying. If this was
the future she had, Buffy didn’t think she’d ever stop crying. “Angel swore that
he died loving me. And that…I don’t think he meant it, but he said that Spike
would’ve come for me…had he made it.”
The Slayer nodded. “But he
didn’t.”
“He didn’t,” Anne agreed. “He died a hero’s death…twice. Loving
me.”
“Loving me,” the Slayer echoed.
“But not believing he was
loved in turn.” Anne sighed heavily and leaned back, motioning to her desk. “I
thought he’d come back for years. After that, I was so sure he’d be back
someday. I had Willow search every known dimension for him. Hell, I even had her
discover a few so that she could search those, too. And I had so many things to
tell him. I was determined that he would never again have reason to doubt that I
loved him. I had so many things…”
“Things that accumulated,” the Slayer
continued. “Things I revised. Things I edited in my head a thousand times. I
thought about it so much that I wrote everything down. And soon, those thoughts
became letters. Letters to him.”
“My eternity has been spent writing
letters and guarding what he twice sacrificed himself to save.” Anne smiled
sadly, but there were still no tears. “I haven’t been alone. Not all the way. I
had Dawn for a long time. I had Willow and Xander, too. I had Kennedy longer
than I wanted her. And I’ve had lovers. A few. Men to pass the time. Men I tried
to love, but couldn’t.”
“I’ve spent eternity longing for him,” the Slayer
whispered. “Loving him.”
“There is no one else.”
“Eternity?” Buffy
whispered, hating the weakness in her voice. But the concept was too large to
grasp. Juggling this talk of forever along with the revelation that Spike
had died twice and didn’t believe that she’d loved him—along with the revelation
that she did. That she, right now, loved Spike. “God, what happened?
Did…I can’t…”
The Slayer and Anne mirrored a small, sardonic
smile.
“Well,” the latter said, her voice almost wistful. “It’s not like
he didn’t warn me. He always told me that we were two sides of the same
coin.”
At that, the Slayer tossed Buffy a nondescript coin.
“And
we are. I slay vampires because that’s what I am. I am the slayer of vampires.
Vampires first—I kill demons as well, but I am not called a demon slayer.” Anne
shrugged again. “We are made of the same. Vampires have demons. I have a
soul.”
“And since there are so many slayers, it becomes harder to die,”
the Slayer whispered. The words made no sense, but Buffy wasn’t listening to
her. Her eyes were glued to the coin.
The faces on either side were
different, of course, but at the core there was little difference. They were the
same. The same substance. The same essence.
There was a side for
vampires and a side for slayers.
They were the same.
“Vampires
only die if you kill them,” Anne said. “As it is for them, so it is for
us.”
The Slayer nodded. “We are eternal. We are more than human but less
than demon. Our power comes from them.”
“And since there are so many of
us now, dying becomes a choice rather than an obligation.” Anne paused. “But I
can’t give up. Not when he died to protect this. This is my punishment, you
see?”
“To live alone,” the Slayer supplied.
“I become less human
every day. I said once that being the Slayer meant losing the part of me that
felt. That I was becoming harder every day. And then the First Slayer said that
I was full of love.” Anne nodded distantly, her eyes wide and sad. “And she was
right. I was. I loved so much for such a long time.”
“And then they died.
One by one.”
“I lost Giles first. And though I hadn’t forgiven him, it
still hurt.”
“And the more I lost, the less I wanted to love. I had no
interest in men after a certain point. Angel visited me from time to time, but
he was so far removed from my heart that I barely recognized him.” The Slayer
sighed heavily. “So I stopped loving. I kept Dawn and my friends in my heart. I
still love Spike, of course, but he is gone, too.”
“And I do find,
without love, that I grow harder.” Anne stiffened. “And death is my
gift.”
“But life is my curse. Without love, life is empty. Life becomes
this.”
“Had Spike believed me,” Anne murmured, “had he believed
me…”
“Had I not abused him,” the Slayer echoed. “Had I not forced him
away…”
“He sought a soul for me, you know.” Anne wiped at her eyes then,
but she was still not crying. The motion looked cold, almost out of habit. As
though she’d lost the part of herself that could weep. “He sought a soul for me
so that he wouldn’t be a monster.”
“It took me years, even beyond his
second death, to understand that a man that seeks a soul as Spike did already
has one.” The Slayer blinked her dark, unforgiving eyes. “Perhaps not the sort
that I thought he needed, but it’s there. In some form, it was there all
along.”
Without realizing it, Buffy had crashed to her knees in tears.
She cried so hard that the ground shook. Thick, heavy sobs tore at her throat,
her skin burning, her insides ripped to shreds. She couldn’t hear anymore. Not
of what was to come. Not of this. Not of anything. Not of the soul Spike
would one day win for her, only to turn around and die twice without believing
that she loved him. She’d only just realized that she did. Only minutes before;
and then they’d started speaking. The ghost at her side and the shadow at the
desk. Buffy had embraced her love for Spike only to have it ripped away.
An eternity…of this.
“Please no,” she sobbed, the words strung
out and barely discernible. “I’ll do anything. Please. I…”
The Slayer
blinked at her dispassionately. “Do you see now?” she asked. “Do you
see?”
Buffy nodded so hard that her head hurt, her nails scratching at
the wood floor. “Please no. Please!” Desperation clawed at her throat. “I’m not
who I was. I’m not. Why tell me this if I’m past all hope?”
“Are you
saying that you love him?” the Slayer asked.
“Yes!” The word rushed past
her lips in a barrage of liberation, and her body flushed cool with relief. It
was out there now. It was out there. The world knew it, if nothing else. “I love
him. Oh God, I love him so much. And I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.
For not believing him. For hurting him. For making him…oh God, just tell me it’s
not too late. Please!”
“Are we certain that she truly loves him?”
Anne asked, cocking her head. “Are we sure she is not only afraid of what is to
come? Spike deserves more than desperation. I will not have her…myself…breaking
his heart again.”
“No,” the Slayer replied. “She loved him before I
showed her this. I felt her realize it.”
Buffy barely heard them. Her
mind was a blur of realization. Of feeling. And suddenly, she understood what
Doyle had meant when he spoke of forgiveness. It was more than a word. It
was everything. And in order to be forgiven, she had to forgive.
And in
that moment, she knew she already had. It was no great revelation, rather just a
snippet of knowledge. She’d lived, died, suffered through a painful
resurrection, and somehow she lived still. Now was a time for forgiveness.
Life, in the end, was precious. And a life without love wasn’t worth
living. A life without love became a curse.
She would never live a
curse. Never. Not when she had the power to stop it. Buffy shook her head
again, sniffing hard and wiped futilely at her eyes. “I love them, too. All of
them. Dawnie. Willow. Tara. Xander. God, even Anya. I love them so much.
And I know…God…please just tell me it’s not too late to change this. God,
please! Why show me this if I can’t change it?” She slammed an open palm
against the floor so hard that she punched a hole through the wood, but she
didn’t care. “Damn you both! Goddamn you both!”
There was nothing
for a long minute but the harshness of her sobs as she collapsed completely onto
her side, crying tears as thick as blood. Every inch of her shook.
Her
sobs quieted even if her screaming heart did not. “Please,” she pleaded softly.
“I won’t forget this. The lessons…what the ghosts have taught me. I just want to
live again. God, please, let me live again.”
There was no
response. There was nothing at all. Silence settled around her.
Until she
realized that the floor she’d been beating against was no longer a floor, but a
mattress. That her face was buried in a tear-drenched pillow. That the cold
around her had vanished, and she was, instead, covered in warmth.
When
Buffy glanced up, sunlight was streaming into her room. She choked back a
grateful sob, light touching her skin.
Morning had come at last.
A/N: It seems whenever I say something, the
opposite happens…so this will definitely NOT be finished by Christmas.
*snickers* However, if that indeed turns out to be the case, at least I’m
leaving you with this before the holiday. Hopefully it’ll serve as more of a
“Christmas-spirit-picker-upper.”
My eternal thanks to everyone for your
reviews and comments. I really had no idea that anyone would actually, you know,
like this…as the idea of a Dickens-style Buffy-tale was a little bizarre (to
me), and I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. You guys have been so wonderful;
thank you.
And thanks again to
megan_peta,
yutamiyu, and
dusty273 for betaing,
and again to
yutamiyu for filling those
lonely, Internet-less hours with phone-talkies and ideas for this and the final
chapters.
Ohh! And thank you to
underthis_shade for
the banner/icon! *loves*
Okay. Off to my insanely bright and early, not
to mention long shift at Lane Bryant.
She stared for a long time at the open window, basking in the
streams of sunlight that ribboned her skin. She stood perfectly still, worried
beyond reason that if she blinked she would find herself in the cottage again.
That she would find herself slowly chipping away as her insides hardened—as her
heart became little more than granite and her soul withered into nothing.
The morning had actually come.
The warmth that flowed in her
veins was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Pure, unadulterated bliss
burst through every cell, and before she could stop herself, she’d whooped loud
enough to signal the next apocalypse.
“It’s morning!” she squealed, her
chest tightening with excitement, sharp tingles pricking her insides. “It’s
morning! It’s morning!”
Then she was bouncing—quite literally—on her bed
as unintelligible screams of glee peeled off her lips. She was giggling. She was
smiling. She was as happy as she could ever remember being, even with
tear-stained cheeks and eyes that were still sore from crying. None of that
mattered now. It was morning. It was morning, and her future remained unplanned.
Unblemished.
It was Christmas morning, and she was alive. She was in
love. She was…
“Bouncing.”
Buffy froze and whirled around, her
eyes going wide. A very jaw-on-floor Dawn stood beside Willow, who was much in
the same state. They stared at her as though she had lobsters crawling out of
her ears. Were Buffy a gambling woman, she’d put money on how long Dawn could
refrain from bolting for the nearest phone to have men in white coats cart her
off.
“Bouncing,” Willow said again, trying to make the word fit in her
mouth. “You’re…bouncing.”
Buffy couldn’t be bothered with explanations
right now. She was too happy to waste time. Instead, she bounded off the bed and
ambushed her friend in a hug to end all hugs. “Willow!” she cried. “Merry
Christmas!”
“I’m scared,” Willow squeaked.
“Me too,” Dawn echoed,
shrieking when Buffy yanked her into the hug. “What the hell has gotten into
you?”
Buffy rocked on her feet excitedly, releasing them with a near
sheepish grin. “It’s Christmas!” she said, and left it at that to explain
everything. “It’s Christmas. And I’m here…I’m…”
The look on Dawn’s face
was a mixture of incredulity, anger, and hope. “You’re here,” she echoed,
arching a brow. “You’re…all alive. As in not dead.”
“I know!” Buffy
kissed her sister’s cheek on a whim, then whirled around and began rifling
through her belongings. “Listen…I was thinking we might postpone the big group
thing till later.”
Willow gnawed on her lower lip. “Buffy…you’re scaring
us.” She paused. “Are you on drugs?”
“Are you messing with us?” Dawn
countered, inherent resentment buried in her voice. “’Cause I swear to God, I
will never forgive you if you’re just…that’s cruel.”
Buffy shook her
head, not bothering to glance up. Not even her sister’s contractual
kill-the-mood attempts could ruin her day. “Not messing with you. I can’t
explain…well, anything. You wouldn’t believe me if I tried. Just believe
that you’re gonna see a different Buffy around here from now on.” She fished out
a pair of faded jeans and a couple pairs of panties. “What do you think? Green
or red?”
“Green or red?” Willow echoed dazedly. “For what?”
“I’m
gonna go see Spike,” she replied.
Dawn froze. “You’re seeing
Spike?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Yes and no,” Buffy replied
calmly, wiggling into her jeans and not-so discreetly shoving the panties into
the front pocket. “I’m very much not out of my mind, Will. In fact, I’m
thinking clearly for the first time in months. Red or green
top?”
There was no response. They just stared at her
blankly.
“Okay. I’m gonna go ahead and take your stunned silence as a
vote for red. Excellent decision, by the way. Spike likes red.” Buffy grinned,
peeled off her sleep-cami and slid a red blouse over her shoulders. “Oh yes.
Excellent decision. Besides, too much green might be overkill.”
Still no
response. Had she not known any better, she would have sworn that she had two
living mannequins in her room. But that didn’t bother her—nothing bothered her.
Not their stoicism or disbelief, or even Dawn’s heated almost-accusation. Buffy
felt nothing but respite. Nothing but the excitement that rolled through her
chest. She was so happy she could barely keep from laughing. Everything had
vanished. Everything. The pain of resurrection. The endless, sinking sensation
of loss. The guilt that had begun to gnaw her away—for her treatment of Spike,
for being with Spike, and for hiding it from her friends. It was gone now.
Everything was gone. All the blackness. All the despair. All the self-loathing
and pity.
“Call the gang,” Buffy said, stopping briefly in front of the
mirror to fluff out her hair. Her ridiculously short hair—the hair that she’d
cut off because Spike liked it long. But there was no time to mull that over
now. Time spent here was time wasted with the man she loved. “Let’s make
it…dinner, around eight?” She paused for a second to allow them a word in, but
rolled right along when they didn’t lunge at the opportunity. “Fabulous. See you
guys later.”
She bounded out of the room too quickly for either of them
to react, which was just as well. She only had time to do a quick walk-through
the house and collect what she needed. Then she was gone.
There was
someplace she needed to be.
At first, she’d intended to play her role to a fault. She would bang
on the door, pretend to be angry for some fabricated offense, then completely
floor him with a profession of love. However, by the time the crypt was within
her line of vision, she’d pretty much dismissed that idea as bogus and nearly
cruel. It was, after all, too close to the current standing of their
relationship. Her tendency to abuse him, then cover the abuse with kisses and
riding his cock until they were both cross-eyed.
The best thing to do was
tell him how she felt, and pray that he believed her.
Love made
everything wonderful, but it also had the nasty habit of striking her with
uncertainty. So much to the effect that, rather than kick in Spike’s door as she
normally did, she found herself knocking almost timidly.
“’S
open.”
Buffy paused, then rolled her eyes. Of course Spike couldn’t just
open the door. Hello? Broad daylight, anyone? Apparently, love also made
one forget little things like vampires and sun were nonmixy. She inhaled deeply
and shook her head.
This was going to be difficult.
“It’s me,” she
said softly, slipping through the doorway. Spike was standing in the small area
that he’d molded into a kitchen, pouring himself a mugful of blood. She didn’t
miss the way he stiffened when he heard her voice, nor did she miss the way his
nostrils flared and his shoulders slumped just slightly, as though preparing
himself for a scolding.
He was both gorgeous and heartbreaking. And all
she wanted to do was pull him into her arms and beg for forgiveness.
“’Lo
Buffy,” he replied, not looking at her. “Gotta say…you showin’ up while the
sun’s out…”
A small smile itched at her lips. “I know. Of the massively
weird. I just needed to see you.” She swallowed hard, trying desperately to
ignore how hard her heart was pounding. “I needed…there’s something I
need…”
“Yeah?” Spike retorted shortly, his head snapping up. A spark of
electricity shot to her core when their eyes met. “Imagine my bloody surprise.
Haven’t been around in a few days an’—”
“Spike? You know that talking
thing you do that oftentimes results in your foot in your mouth? You might want
to not do that for a few minutes.” Buffy grinned slightly. “I guarantee you,
this is something you’ll want to hear. Okay? A-at least…that’s what I’m
hoping.”
He arched a brow. “Yeah?” he repeated, swagger fading.
She nodded and licked her lips. “Yeah.”
Then it was left to
saying the words, and she found herself completely and irrevocably lost. She’d
thought of everything on the way here—everything except how to announce that she
was in love with him. How to make him believe it. How to make him believe that
what she felt was genuine. She found herself, unwittingly, reaching for her
throat, her fingers grazing the silver chain concealed beneath her
blouse.
“God, I don’t know why I thought this would be easy,” she said,
laughing shortly. “It’s not. I can’t do anything the easy way, can
I?”
Spike sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Look, love, if you…you—”
“Let me start out with something…very much delayed.” She smiled
nervously and lifted the emerald from behind her blouse. “I haven’t worn it
often. It just didn’t…feel right. It never felt right. And Riley never asked me
to, obviously, and that bothered me. If he’d spent so much, you’d think he’d ask
me to. But he didn’t…and it never occurred to me why. Never once did it…I didn’t
know, you know?”
A crushing mixture of heartache and awe flooded his
eyes. Spike gasped a little and stepped back. “H-how…”
“I’m really,
really stupid sometimes.” Buffy licked her lips and shook her head. “I’m so
sorry for that. I should have known. I should’ve known immediately.”
Spike shook his head heavily. “You couldn’t…God, Slayer, how—”
“I
saw it. I mean, I saw you. I saw everything.” She glanced down the second the
words left her lips, half-horrified and half-relieved. She wanted no deception
between them, and while technically omitting the part about her nightly
excursion last night wasn’t a deception, she owed him a full explanation. She
just hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. “That is…well…I’ve been only a
little bit here since I got back. You know that more than
anyone.”
“Buffy—”
“And I’ve used you. In the first few days…after
I was back, you were wonderful.” She paused. “Oh, who am I kidding? You’ve been
wonderful…period. Ever since I got back. I’m the one who’s screwed things up. I
made with the mixed signals…I beat the crap out of you, then rode you like some
sex-deprived…something.” The silence between words was deafening. It was hard to
maintain eye contact, but she managed. She needed him to see that she was
serious. She needed him to see the truth in her words. The time for hiding was
over. “I’ve been…trying to convince myself that what you feel for me isn’t
real—”
“It is,” Spike swore ardently, his breathing hitched. She loved it
that he breathed. He breathed for her. It was something he gave her
without thinking, and she loved it. “Christ, don’t you think I’ve tried to fight
it? I love you. I love you so bleeding much, an’ if you’re here jus’
to—”
“I love you, too.”
The look he gave her was nothing short of
beautiful. In a flash, he embodied the ideal of astonished reverence. He stared
at her, chest heaving, his gaze peeling back layers without even trying. Tears
formed from nowhere, making the ocean in his eyes shine. “What?” he gasped.
“You…you love me?”
Unsurprisingly, her voice chose that moment to bow out
completely, and all she could do was nod.
“You love me…”
“I do,”
she managed to squeeze out. “I do love you, Spike. I love you…I have for a long
time. I just didn’t…I didn’t know it. And I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry for
everything. I—”
Words became obsolete. Spike bounded forward and jerked
her into his arms, his mouth swallowing her in the sweetest kiss she’d ever
known. He devoured and completed her in the same stroke, his hands framing her
face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks with small, loving circles as his tongue
slipped between her lips. And finally, Buffy collided headfirst with everything
she’d thought she’d lost. Warmth split her at every turn. Spike was kissing her
as he never had before—loving her without words. She tasted his tears and gave
him her own in turn. This was everything. The feel of him against her. The small
moans that rumbled through his chest. The way his kisses grew hard and desperate
while maintaining the softness that told her in no uncertain terms how much he
loved her.
“Tell me again,” he whispered against her lips. “Buffy, tell
me…”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
She pulled her lips from his
and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
“How long?” he demanded, nipping at
her earlobe. “How long have you loved me?”
“Forever. Just didn’t know it
until this morning.”
Spike’s eyes fluttered shut. He was trembling hard,
visibly trying to rein in control. Long, heavy breaths rolled off his chest, and
he was so gorgeous that she nearly burst into tears.
“Do you have any
idea how long I’ve…” He shivered. “I’ve wanted nothin’ more than…”
Buffy
offered a watery smile and pressed a finger to his lips, and nodded gently. “I
know,” she whispered. “Hard as it might seem…I know. Last night…I had…well,
let’s just say I had a…I saw things.”
Spike arched a brow. “You saw
things?”
“You. I…you know…” She broke off and shook her head. “I…there’s
really no way to say this without sounding crazy, you know? But I need you to…I
really love you. It’s real. No matter what I saw last night, the love has been
there for a long, long time. It just took what happened I saw to…open my
eyes.”
He nipped at her ear, quivering with wonder. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So, in essence, you’re sayin’ that you had some magical
mystery tour that made you realize that you’re in love with me?”
Buffy
winced and forced a nod.
Spike paused, his brow furrowing. Then his eyes
dropped to the emerald around her neck, and he shivered again. “An’ that’s how
you know about this?” he whispered, running his finger across the gem. “’Cause
you saw it?”
“I saw this and a lot of other
stuff.”
“Yeah?”
Buffy inhaled sharply. “I saw…well, pretty much
everything. Well…everything Christmas-wise. A-and I saw…I saw the necklace and
the way you tucked me in last year after I’d fallen asleep to It’s A
Wonderful Life. It was…well, you know Dickens? Yeah, that was pretty much
it. I saw everything. I had guides and they showed me stuff and oh my God, do I
really sound as crazy as I think I sound?”
“You forget that I have quite
a bit of experience in dealin’ with crazy,” Spike replied, kissing her temple.
“An’ sweetheart…that’s the sanest crazy I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re just
saying that.” Buffy released a trembling sigh. “I’m going to be honest. I need
you to know everything. It was…yeah, I think the Powers are really lacking in
originality, ‘cause it was very much…A Buffy Christmas Carol.”
“Past,
present, an’ future?”
“Yeah-huh.”
“Bet that was a
treat.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Her heart ached as her mind jerked
her back. The things the night had shown her would be with her forever, and
while she wouldn’t give up a single thing that she’d learned, remembering the
variations of pain that flashed across Spike’s face would hurt until the end of
time. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to talk about it for a while,” she
said softly. “Not fair, I know, since you had to live it…but the things I
saw…I’ve never felt anything like that. I’ve never…” She trailed off helplessly,
tears blinking in her eyes. There was little that she could say, but she wanted
to try. It had been so long since she’d relied on words, and while she wasn’t
surprised that they were failing her now, she was disappointed. There was so
much that he needed to know. So much that she needed to tell him. And there
weren’t enough words with which to say it. “I love you, Spike. I know it…I know
how it sounds. But it’s not…last night, I was…I was shown things that I
can’t…God, I…I’ve been so blind. Please—”
“I believe you.”
That
much nearly knocked her off her feet, and relief crushed her chest. “You
do?”
“Buffy…you might not have caught on…but I know you.” Spike smiled
softly, his eyes warm. There was such tenderness there—tenderness that she
hadn’t seen since she started abusing his body. Tenderness that she’d missed.
He’d given her all of himself, and she’d spat on it. And ever since then, he’d
hid behind a persona that was, in many ways, easy to vilify. She’d caused him to
hide this part of himself, and for that, she should be shot. “I know you. I know
you so bloody well that it drives me outta my mind. Those words…they aren’t
somethin’ you just throw around. You don’t say them unless you mean them.” He
trembled hard and placed his hand over her heart. “You haven’t said them to any
man…not since—”
“I know,” she whispered, her eyes blurring. “I
just…Glory, she told me that it was pity, and—”
“Glory?”
Buffy
nodded miserably. “Ghost of Christmas Present.”
Spike blinked hard.
“Glory was the Ghost of Christmas Present?”
“Have I mentioned the
part where the Powers really hate me?” She offered a pitiful smile as her brow
found his shoulder. “She said that I was just going to…’cause I felt so horrible
for all the things that she and Doyle showed me…she said that it was just pity.
And God, Spike, it’s not. It’s not. And I promise I don’t just
love you because I’m afraid. You’re what I want.”
“Buffy…”
“I love
you. I’m gonna say it until you’re sick of hearing it. A-and, you’re right. I
don’t just throw those words around. I—”
The next thing she knew, he’d
taken her face in his hands again and was kissing her nervous ramblings right
off her lips. “You know I’m yours forever,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Love or not. You know that. You know you could’ve stormed in here an’ told me
to drop my pants, an’ I would’ve. Right brassed as I was, I would’ve…because I
was so bleeding sure that that was as much as I was ever gonna get from
you.”
“That and you like sex.”
His lips quirked slightly. “That
part doesn’ hurt,” he admitted. “But I told you, yeah? I told you the last
time…I told you I wanted all of you. Christ, I booted you from my sodding crypt.
An’ I’ve been goin’ outta my mind these last few days…tryin’ to keep my
distance, even though I’ve missed you so much that I about drove myself into a
frenzy.”
“You missed me?” she repeated slowly, her eyes brimming with
another onslaught of tears. “How? God…why?”
She didn’t ask out of vanity;
she truly wanted to know. With as terrible as she was, as horrible as she’d
treated him, the very notion that he could miss her at all—her and, by
implication, all the cruelty she dished out—was awe-inspiring.
“Because
I love you,” Spike replied, his voice soft, his eyes swallowing her whole. “God
help me, Buffy, I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. An’ you can kick me an’
bruise me as much as you fancy…it’s never gonna stop. An’ that…you know that.
You know that about me. An’ that’s why I believe you. I never thought…I told you
once that I knew you’d never love me. But that din’t make me any less yours. I’m
yours. I’m all yours. I’ve always been yours…God, since the moment I saw you,
you stole me completely. It’s what drove Dru away. Fuck, it’s what drove
Harmony away. It’s always been you for me. Always. An’ even if it killed
me, having you in any small way was gonna have to be enough. So if you tell me
that you love me—”
“I do,” she whispered. “I really do.”
Spike
nodded tenderly, brushing his lips against hers. “An’ I believe you.”
“It
sounds crazy—”
“Yes, an’ in a world where I’m a vampire that loves the
enemy—a world where we’re often tryin’ to dodge the next apocalypse—the fact
that you were able to take a peek into the past doesn’ really faze me.” He
cupped her cheeks and claimed her lips again, pouring every breath of himself
into her with a kiss. “You love me.”
Buffy nodded emphatically. “I love
you.”
Spike’s eyes fluttered shut. “An’ you’re sure I’m not dreaming?” he
whispered, pressing a kiss to her throat. “I’ve had dreams like this
before…”
“You’re not dreaming.”
She claimed his lips again, then
broke away with a hysterical giggle as reality slammed into her and everything
came crashing down. He believed her. She was in Spike’s crypt, in his arms, and
he believed her. He knew that she loved him. He didn’t doubt her. He was
peppering her skin with soft, sweet kisses, his hands roaming over her body. She
wasn’t too late.
“I can’t believe this,” she whispered, tugging his head
up and kissing him again. “I thought I’d be too late.”
“Too late?” Spike
pulled back, grinning like a maniac. “Too late for what, sweetling?”
“For
you. I don’t know…the future—”
“Doesn’ bloody matter now.”
“You
weren’t with me in the future.”
He shrugged. “Jus’ hadn’t found you
yet.”
“Found me?”
“Figure if I wasn’ with you, means I was lost or
you were off hidin’ somewhere.” He grinned and kissed her. She loved the way he
did that. The way he kissed her between sentences. The way he kept touching
her—the way he had yet to let her go. She loved it almost as much as she loved
the lightness in his eyes. The one that said everything she was struggling to
put into words. He understood her. He was the first man to ever truly understand
her as a woman.
Nevertheless, while the words were pretty and filled her
with warmth beyond warmth, Buffy couldn’t trust that he knew what he was talking
about. He hadn’t been there to see the future that the Slayer and Anne had shown
her. He wasn’t there to hear all the horrible things that were to come—or
rather, the horrible things that had been charted in her future before the
Powers intervened. Now that she had this chance—this wondrous opportunity—there
was no way that she was going to throw it away.
“Don’t let me mess this
up,” she pleaded softly. “Please.”
“I won’t if you won’t.”
“You
weren’t with me in the future because you didn’t believe me. You didn’t believe
that I loved you.”
“Buffy…I do believe you. Sod the future—or
whatever it is you saw.” His lips caressed her temple reverently. “I love you,
an’ I’m not going anywhere. Not now. God, especially not now. If
you really love me…”
“I do.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“I’m
a wreck,” Buffy murmured, blinking hard. She hadn’t cried this much in years.
The night had been baptized in tears; the night had opened a gate she’d long ago
sealed shut. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m a complete
wreck.”
“With everythin’ you’ve been through—”
“That can only be
an excuse for so long.”
“It hasn’t been all that long, love,”
Spike replied softly. “You still got a few free passes, far as I’m
concerned.”
If she lived a thousand years, she would never understand how
she had made it through life those few short years between first meeting Spike
and coming to know the man he was now without seeing him at all. She’d known him
for so long, and she’d never seen him. Not really. Not as he truly was.
His nature demanded darkness, but he fought so hard to give her light.
He fought so hard…
She would never take him for granted again.
Never again.
Not for the future they had together now. The forever
that she would spend in his arms.
Strange as it was, the reality of the
eternity she had with him didn’t scare her at all.
She actually found it
rather comforting.
A/N: A couple things…this isn’t the last chapter,
as it ran so incredibly long that all the plot stuff has been moved to Part
Nine. But I promise the next part’s the final one…and I can say that with
confidence, because it’s finished and with my betas.
Also, for my
purposes (and for continuity in this story) the scene in “Gone” where Spike
tells Buffy she’s “cheating” (you know the one) was a referral to a handjob. Not
a blowjob. I always figured that scene was left open for interpretation, but my
betas suggested I clarify.
Hah. It’s only my author’s note and I’m
already talking about handjobs and blowjobs. I’m so dirty.
Thanks so
much to
yutamiyu and
megan_peta for their help
with this chapter. And, of course, thanks to the
megan_peta,
yutamiyu, and
dusty273 for betaing.
Thanks to
underthis_shade (here)
and
angelic_amy (here)
for the gorgeous artwork!
And since this fic is
coquinespike’s prezzie, I
just wanted to remind her how much I wubs her. *snuggles*
They talked forever. They talked about everything. She asked him
things she’d never thought to ask—things she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.
She listened to him as he spoke, relishing the way his eyes lit up when he was
narrating a particularly interesting story. The way his voice would heighten in
moments of excitement and drop when things became intense. He answered every
question honestly, even when she knew he didn’t want to. And it wasn’t all
pretty—she asked some doozies. But she didn’t flinch when he mentioned blood or
admitted how much fun he’d had in the life that he’d lived before he fell in
love with her. Instead, every word that tumbled from his lips only made her love
him more. The monster in his past was very much present in everything he said
and did, but the monster had been tamed by the man inside.
And the man
lived for her. She’d brought the man out. She didn’t know how or why, and would
never pretend to; as far as she was concerned, there was little in what he
offered that she deserved, but he wouldn’t give up until she accepted what he
wanted to give. He scoffed when she told him that she didn’t believe she was
worthy of him, and made more than one reference to the dream that he was
convinced he was living.
Eventually, as the day wore on, she told him of
the night before, omitting very little. How Doyle had led her through the past,
and how she strangely felt like she’d lost a best friend when he left her. Buffy
watched in amazement as Spike ducked in embarrassment when she described
watching him masturbate to her image on television. Spike was never embarrassed
in anything. He was confident and cocky, always so sure of himself, even when
all evidence suggested that he ought to be anything but. Seeing him shift
uncomfortably and stare intently at the floor only verified what she’d begun to
suspect all night: the confidence he exuberated, while entirely Spike, was often
heightened when he felt threatened. When his emotions were exposed. When he
wanted to protect himself.
That first morning would have gone so
differently had she not been the colossal bitch from hell. Had she rolled over,
purred a good morning between rounds of kissing his sinfully addictive lips. Had
she shown any amount of emotion beyond revulsion. Her actions had put him on the
offensive, and he’d quickly reverted into the worst version of the male ego in
order to guard his wounded pride.
That wasn’t to say that Spike’s ego was
a fabrication of self-doubt. After all, she’d managed to wipe the adorably
embarrassed look off his face just by leaning in and whispering that watching
him pump his cock made her achingly wet. That, had Doyle not been there, she
would have fingered herself until his name was a symphony on her lips.
No, Spike hadn’t looked embarrassed then. He’d looked…hot. And aroused.
His eyes darkened and a low growl reverberated through his chest.
“Fancy
a repeat?” he’d purred. “Sometime…I’ll show you mine if you show me
yours.”
Buffy knew without question that she was going to love this. She
was going to love this liberation that came with simply being with him.
She was going to love whispering dirty little things to him in public places
just to see his eyes widen and his nostrils flare. She was going to love
patrolling with him, because he made the dance interesting. Because she wanted
to see how hot she could make him by sparring before he shoved her against the
nearest mausoleum wall. She found herself looking forward to teasing him as they
averted apocalypse after apocalypse, and the earth-shattering make-up sex they’d
have after each fight.
But right now, she wanted to do something she’d
never done.
She wanted to tell him without words how much she loved him.
She wanted to give him everything that he’d given her. She wanted to know his
body as well as he knew hers.
“Clem’s gonna drop by this afternoon,”
Buffy whispered, her arms around his middle, her breasts pressed against his
back. “You might wanna…write him a note.”
“H-how do you know?” Spike
replied, exhaling deeply as her nails slowly slid down the length of his arms.
“Hey, today I’m gonna be a step ahead of everyone.”
“Enjoy it
while you can, sweetheart.”
“I intend to.” She nipped at his neck. “And I
don’t want to be interrupted. Write him a note?”
Spike quickly obliged,
though his work was cut out for him. The second he located a pad of paper and a
pen, Buffy wound her arms around him again and lowered her mouth to his skin.
Her tongue immediately occupied itself with the tantalizing flesh at the base of
his neck, her hands gently caressing his stomach. The moan that tore through his
lips was one of the most rewarding sounds she’d ever heard. She wanted to learn
everything—she wanted him to make that little noise over and over and over
again.
“Fuck, pet…”
Buffy giggled, her right hand dipping lower
until she was squeezing his erection through his jeans. “That’s the idea,” she
replied. “We should…go downstairs.” She paused then, words halting on her lips.
The next bit was important, no matter how cheesy it sounded to her ears. He
needed to hear it. He needed to hear it, and she needed to say it. They both
needed to know what it was now. Therefore, after a few seconds of building her
confidence, she released a steady breath and whispered, “Wanna make love with
you.”
It was, perhaps, the tamest language ever used in the bedroom, but
the effect it had was beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Spike moaned aloud
and twisted in her arms, his hands gripping her thighs as his lips consumed
hers. He devoured her completely, his tongue hungrily exploring every inch of
her mouth. How they made it downstairs, she would never know. Their lips
remained stubbornly fused together, which made for an interesting combination of
balance and coordination. This naturally resulted in a good amount of inelegant
stumbling flavored with laughter that made his eyes dance and her heart sing.
Once they reached the bed, though, Buffy’s mood changed entirely. She
broke her lips from his with a whimper of protest, her hands running down his
chest as a nervous sigh trembled through her body. She wasn’t good at this part.
Hell, she wasn’t good at any part. And while she knew that Spike would
love whatever she did—whatever she had to give—a larger part of her knew that
she would never be satisfied unless she was able to convey her feelings through
touch as well as words. She needed him to know exactly how she felt, no holds
barred.
“Thank you,” she whispered softly, unable to resist kissing him
again. It was his fault, really. She couldn’t be blamed if his lips were
addictive.
“For what?” Spike murmured, his eyes glazed with awe.
Buffy grinned and closed a hand around the emerald that hung between her
breasts. “This. It’s two years too late, but thank you. It…I can’t tell you what
it meant—means—to me.”
He smirked. “So much that you never wear
it.”
“I told you that it never felt right.”
“Your fault for
thinkin’ Captain Cardboard had taste.” The smirk stretched mischievously, and he
kissed her again before she could retort. “Buffy…I love you too much to worry
with the past. Bygones, an’ all that. The past is over. You’re here now.
With me. An’ somehow you love me. I…I can’t ask for anything more than
that.”
He was going to make her cry again, dammit. Buffy shook her head
to ward off the impending wave of fresh tears, fisting the soft cotton of his
tee and dragging it over his head. And for the first time since she’d known him,
she allowed her eyes to drag over his body with wanton shamelessness, vowing to
know every scar that time hadn’t let him forget. She wanted to show his body
love beyond anything he’d ever experienced—beyond anything she’d ever
experienced. With him, she was determined to learn how to live again.
Her fingers grazed his chest gently. There were simply no words for how
gorgeous he was.
And yet, she tried. “Wow.”
Spike grinned, albeit
a tad self-consciously, which only made her love him more. “Yeah?”
Buffy
nodded numbly, her eyes slowly trailing upward until she was drowning in his
again. “Big…big wow.”
“Nothin’ you haven’t seen, Slayer.”
She
shook her head as her mouth dropped to sample his skin. “Yes it is,” she replied
softly, brushing a soft kiss over his left nipple.
His reaction was
sharper than she’d imagined. Spike melted into a moan, his hips jerking forward
so that his erection was rubbing against her stomach, desperately seeking
friction. “Oh fuck,” he gasped. “You’re…you’re gonna drive me outta my
mind.”
“I just started.”
“I know. An’ it’s gonna drive me outta my
mind.” Spike’s head rolled back when her tongue lapped at him again, but to her
disappointment, he reined in control long enough to capture her face in his
hands. “Pet…look at me.”
She’d never stop looking. Whatever part of her
brain that had been turned off those few times that they’d been naked together
had finally switched on, and she was seeing everything for the first time. How
she’d ever missed how gorgeous he was, she’d never
know.
“Buffy?”
She blinked and met his eyes, slowly becoming aware
of the hands that caressed her face. “What?” she demanded ineloquently. Like a
child whose game had been interrupted.
“You don’t have to do
this.”
“Ogle your naked goodness? Oh, yes. I really do. And how is it
that I’ve gone this long without doing it before?”
Spike smirked. “You
have a talent for hiding your blushing eyes, remember?”
“Stupid eyes with
the non-blushing.”
The smile remained for a few seconds until he
remembered why he’d stopped her. “Buffy…” He broke off with a sigh, shaking his
head. “I know…Christ, I never thought I’d be saying this…I know you love
me. I can…I can feel…” At that, his eyes grew misty and the trembling breaths
that wracked his shoulders became more pronounced. He fought to remain on his
feet. “I know…I can feel that you love me. An’ I’ve never had anythin’ like it,
Buffy. Never.”
She grinned and nipped playfully at his skin. “Good
Christmas present, then?”
“The bloody best.”
“I got more for
you.”
“You’re all the present any man needs.” Spike grinned and kissed
her brow. “An’ you’re mine. You’re all mine.”
“Totally and
completely.”
“I love you.”
Buffy’s blood positively hummed. She
would never get over those words. Not now. Never again. Not now that she knew
what they meant. To him—to her. To them, and the future they had together.
Nor would she get over the teary look in his eyes that came every time
she whispered back, “I love you, too.”
“God, Buffy…”
“I wanna show
you how much.” She dipped her head again, her mouth teasing one of his nipples
again as her hand slid between them to caress the hard outline of his cock. “And
you can’t stop me.”
Spike laughed, and the ring was so strained that he
almost sounded nervous. “Point of fact, kitten—”
“Lie back on the
bed.”
No need asking him twice. He immediately flopped onto the mattress,
his wide eyes taking her in with such blatant awe and yearning that her knees
nearly buckled. Buffy inhaled sharply, her hands turning to her blouse. She
wasn’t going to get completely naked, because she knew that if she did, he’d
change the rules and make the day all about her. That was simply the way he was,
and while she loved him for it, she’d had enough time in the spotlight. She
wanted to taste him all over.
Turnabout, after all, was very fair
play.
“I forgot to put a bra on,” she said conversationally as her red
blouse slid off her arms and to the floor, her pert breasts suddenly the center
of Spike’s attention. “Sorry. I was just in a hurry.”
“That’s
um…yeah.”
“Spike?”
“God, you’re gorgeous.” He licked his lips
hungrily, his left hand claiming a handful before she could stop him. “These are
mine, right?” he purred, pebbling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Your lovely little titties are mine.”
Buffy nodded enthusiastically,
biting back a moan. “Uh huh.”
“Bring ‘em here, then. Ole Spikey wants a
taste.”
She was this close to giving in. This close. Her
breasts ached and her legs were wobbling and if she got any hotter or wetter
between her thighs, Sunnydale was going to be introduced to monsoon season. He
had the power to do that to her. He could reduce her to nothing more than a
babbling mess of slayer goo simply by touching her. By raking those devilish
eyes over her body and running that equally devilish tongue over his teeth. Her
skin was aflame; there wasn’t an inch of her that didn’t burn with need. She
needed his cock inside her. She needed to know how he felt with the words
between them—with love instead of shame and guilt in her heart.
But more
than that, she needed to taste him. She needed to taste every delicious inch of
him. So instead of leaning in and giving him a mouthful of her breast, she
flattened her palms against his chest and shoved him back to the mattress.
“Sorry, sweetie,” she replied, her voice dripping with false-contrition.
“You’re not gonna win that easily.”
The yellow, lust-driven burn in his
eyes was enough to set the crypt on fire. “You’d like to think so,” he growled,
licking his lips. Then he paused, blinked, and softened inexplicably. “An’…did
you jus’ call me sweetie?”
Buffy attempted a nonchalant shrug,
fighting to ignore the way her insides shook. She was never good at the pet-name
thing, but she wanted something for Spike. After all, he gave her so many. “Just
trying it on,” she said, palming her breasts. “These aren’t going to distract
you, are they?”
“Minx.”
“’Cause I could put a shirt on
if—”
“Don’t you dare. Give ‘em here.”
She grinned and shook her
head. Instead, she made quick work of his boots and dragged his jeans down his
legs, her wide, hungry eyes popping upward eagerly as his erection sprang free.
Last night’s memory, while it had given her plenty to drool over, seemingly
hadn’t done him justice. Perhaps that was because she hadn’t been able to touch
the shadow as he wanked off to her image. Perhaps because there was forced
distance between them. She of the present and he of the non-living past.
Now there was nothing between them at all. No hatred. No punches. No
angry words or careless lies. He was not a shadow of the past, and she was not a
broken slayer, bent on self-destruction by any means available. She was just
Buffy, and she was in love. She’d forgotten what In Love Buffy felt like.
Perhaps that was because she’d never felt like this. Not once.
Not with any man in her life. Her love for Spike was beyond the childish love
she’d harbored for Angel—that first-love thing that was done and overdone, and
in her past where it belonged. That love had taught her the line between fantasy
and reality. Spike gave her something hard and real, and it was stronger than
anything she’d ever experienced.
Buffy drew in a quivering breath and
knelt on the floor, her right hand curling shyly around his cock. “I wanna taste
you here,” she whispered, enjoying the exhilarated widening of his eyes and the
half-growl, half-moan that ripped through his throat. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind?” Spike rasped, thrusting his hips upward. “God, Buffy,
please…”
She grinned, hoping that her eyes reflected more confidence than
she felt. It had been a long time since she tried pleasing a man with her mouth.
Her last attempt hadn’t exactly gone swimmingly, as her tendency to forget her
own strength had a knack for catching her off guard. She’d never forget the way
Riley had squealed and about hit the ceiling when she’d squeezed his sac just a
hair too hard. Since then, she’d avoided oral exploration.
The memory was
enough to douse even the appearance of self-assurance. Buffy swallowed hard. “If
you don’t like it, let me know,” she said quickly, half-hoping he wouldn’t hear,
but needing it out there so that she could at least say that she’d warned him.
“I’ll stop.”
Spike’s eyes widened. “Not like it?” he repeated
incredulously. “Sweetheart…”
“I haven’t…ummm…”
He sat up on his
elbows, his eyes swallowing her whole. “You haven’t done this?” he ventured
softly, his voice barely-guarded with hope.
And it was the hope in his
voice that made her want to lie and tell him that no, she hadn’t done
this before. After all, he was her first in so many other things—things that
she’d done but hadn’t experienced. Why not this as well? But then,
she was similarly determined never to lie to him again. Not about anything like
this—not about anything greater than birthday and Christmas presents and fun
things to lie about in order to preserve surprises.
“I wish I hadn’t,”
she said instead, ducking her eyes bashfully. “I really wish I
hadn’t.”
Spike graced her with a soft smile, palming her cheek
reverently. “It’s all right, sweetling,” he said. “You
don’t—”
“Well…maybe you could…I was never confident in asking
for…pointers. You know?” Buffy said, then paused and blinked hard. She couldn’t
believe she was actually talking about this. She was perched between his legs,
her hand stroking his cock slowly, and discussing the nature of her past
experience in blowjobs. Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any
stranger. “And…ummm…well, it turns out that I don’t know my own
strength.”
“You mean you hurt some poor
chump.”
“Yes.”
“Wanker.”
Buffy arched a brow. “He’s the
wanker?”
“For makin’ you feel any less than perfect, yes.” Spike’s eyes
rolled up as her fingers brushed the aching head of his cock, and his hips
thrust upward again. “B-Buffy…please…”
“What if you don’t like
it?”
“Impossible.”
“But—”
“Jus’ go with it, baby.” His
fingers threaded through her hair, coaxing her gaze upward until their eyes met.
“I love you.”
The words were all she needed. With Spike, there was no
reason to fear. He did love her. He’d love her even if she gave the worst head
in the world, and he’d teach her how to improve. What was there to lose?
And then it hit her from nowhere.
For the first time…there was
nothing. There was nothing to lose. Nothing. Spike wasn’t
going anywhere. He loved her as she was. There was no pedestal—no bar of
unrealistic expectations; nothing to fear if she failed, because there would be
a tomorrow. Buffy exhaled slowly, tension rolling off her shoulders, and lowered
her mouth to his cock.
“I love you, too,” she whispered, licking
experimentally at his velvety head. It nearly shocked her out of her skin when
he gasped, flopping again back onto the bed with the longest, sexiest moan she’d
ever heard. She didn’t know if he was reacting to the words or to her actions;
all she knew was that she wanted to replicate that response as much as possible.
“You like this, then?” she ventured softly, sucking delicately at his
head with renewed fervor. Her right hand remained rigidly coiled around his
length, pumping him in a motion that seemed nearly robotic to her, despite the
warm reaction she received. “This is okay?”
“You’re so fucking perfect,
it drives me outta my mind.” Spike’s fingers wove through her hair once more,
massaging her scalp lovingly. “Don’t be afraid to hurt me, baby.”
Buffy
glanced up, trembling. While the notion was romantic, the words took on a
completely different meaning. “I’m through hurting you,” she whispered, drawing
him deeper into her mouth before he could reply, and giving his cock a good,
hard suck.
“Oh fuck.” Spike growled and jerked violently.
“Buffy?”
“Yeah?”
“Do whatever you want. God, I’m
yours.”
The words were enough to fuel her confidence, and with a small
murmur of complaint, her lips released him, wandering gently down the side of
his length, her hand curling around him again to stroke him where her mouth
couldn’t reach. He trembled and sighed when she pressed his erection to his
stomach, her mouth slowly taking to the underside of his length with soft,
heartfelt kisses. She wanted to start off slow; she wanted to give him plenty of
time to tell her that she wasn’t doing it right before she ended up hurting him,
or worse. Not that Spike would hurt as easily as Riley did, or be as awkward
about it. Rather, her first time with Spike was enough evidence that he enjoyed
pain mixed with pleasure. She just wasn’t sure if this was the sort of pain that
would do it for him.
When her lips reached his sac, she hesitated for a
beat, then went with her instincts and drew his tender skin between her lips.
“Buffy?”
“Mhmm?”
“God…God, please.” His hand closed around
her wrist, encouraging her to tighten her grip on his cock. “God, I love you. I
love you so much. Such a hot little mouth. So fucking perfect an’ you don’t even
know it.”
She released his balls and drew his cock back into her mouth.
“Am not,” she replied, her skin reddening. God, she couldn’t remember the last
time she’d blushed, and knowing that she still could—that she was human enough
to blush—made her so insanely happy that she drew him in so deep that his head
bumped the back of her throat, causing her to swallow instinctively.
“Oh
fuck!”
His enthusiasm only increased her fervor. She slid back
until the tip of him was at her lips once more, her hand dropping to his balls
again and rolling them gently against her palm. “I’m improvising,” she warned
him.
“You’re wonderful.” He hissed in pleasure. “Oh God. Suck me. Take me
all the way in, pet.”
Buffy wasn’t about to stop and question him. That
was more direction than any man had ever given her. She nodded and licked his
head again, then slid her lips around him, welcoming his cock deep into her
mouth. It was, admittedly, a bizarre sensation—one she hadn’t thought she’d
experience beyond the one or two humiliating attempts in the past. However,
despite her nervousness, she wasn’t ashamed of her inexperience. There was a
sort of exhilaration in learning with him.
She wanted him to teach her
everything she’d been too shy or prudish to explore in the past. With the man
she loved, there should be no limit to their lovemaking. None whatsoever.
“That’s it, kitten,” he purred. “Christ, you feel so good. So
warm.”
“Mmm?”
The vibrations of her lips around him had Spike
throwing his head back and screwing his eyes shut. His fingers closed around her
hand, his thumb caressing gentle circles against the inside of her wrist. And
the gentility behind his touch had tears welling in her eyes again. He loved her
with everything he did—everything. He let her know in so many small ways. How
she’d ever missed it, she’d never know; all she knew was that she was never
going to miss it again.
Her eyes were glued to his face, soaking him in.
She absorbed every little gasp. Every sigh. Every time his eyes met hers. Every
time he smiled into her heated face. Her tongue mapped every inch of his length,
dancing over his head and delving to taste his sensitive slit as her hands
massaged his sac. The murmurs and moans and purrs that rumbled through his chest
slowly built up her confidence. Soon, she developed a rhythm that felt natural
and comfortable. A rhythm that had him moaning and squirming and thrusting his
cock deeper into her throat every time her lips slid to his sensitive head. She
sucked and nibbled, licked and laved. She drew him in as far as she could, her
hand circling what she couldn’t take inside her mouth to squeeze as her throat
muscles contracted around him. There was nothing in the world like the look on
his face. And she was determined to see it there as often as possible. She would
become so talented at driving him crazy with her mouth that the memory alone
would drive him insane.
“You’re perfect,” he gasped as she pressed his
cock to his stomach again, her tongue taking to the underside before welcoming
him back into her mouth. “God, you’re so perfect.”
“Liar,” she replied,
grinning and suckling sweetly at his spongy head. “I suck.”
“I’ll
say.”
Buffy giggled and ran her tongue from the base of his cock to the
tip. “I’ll learn how to do this better,” she promised.
Spike moaned.
“Practice all you want, baby,” he gasped encouragingly. “I’m your willing guinea
pig.”
“Emphasis on pig.”
“You like pigs,” he countered. “Baby,
please. Need to come. Need you.” He reached for her, curling his hands around
her upper arms to drag her up the length of his body. He paused and frowned at
the presence of her jeans, tugging persistently at the waistband. “Why aren’t
you naked?”
“To avoid temptation,” Buffy replied breathlessly. “Hold
on…”
“Need you. Need your gorgeous li’l pussy strangling me.”
She
quirked a brow and giggled again. “Gorgeous, eh?” she retorted incredulously,
kicking her shoes off as Spike pried at the clasp of her jeans and impatiently
tore the offending material down her legs. “Oh, wait! I have a present for
you.”
Spike growled and ripped away the red lace that guarded her pussy,
his eyes brightening with hunger. “Yeah, you do,” he purred, cupping her
intimately, his fingers exploring her sopping flesh with cool expertise that
drove her completely out of her mind. “Christ, you’re so wet.”
“Mhmm,”
she agreed, stifling a moan. He made it hard to remember the smallest
things—like how to form words. “No, wait…”
“Wait?” Spike replied, his
lips wandering down her neck, nipping at her skin with blunt teeth. “Don’t
wanna. Wanna be inside you now.”
“I have…present.”
“An’ I tell you
again…you’re all the present any man needs.”
Buffy grinned and
shook her head, sliding off his waist and reaching for her discarded jeans.
“That may be,” she replied cheekily, “but I have presents. For
you.”
“Presents better than shagging me all day?”
“I’ll let you be
the judge.”
Spike seared her with a heated look, his eyes raking down her
body with uninhibited yearning. And while it wasn’t all that different from the
way he looked at her before, the dreary despair behind his gaze had vanished
completely. He didn’t avert his eyes to avoid being caught staring, and when she
smirked at him, he smirked back and blew her a kiss.
“Perv,” she teased
good-naturedly.
“I’m a perv ‘cause I like lookin’ at my…” Spike paused,
then frowned. “Is it…it’s safe to call you my girlfriend, innit? That’s not
somethin’ that’s gonna have you…well, kickin’ me in the head an’ runnin’ for
the—”
Buffy stiffened slightly, slammed with a mixture of excitement and
shame. It was going to take a while, she knew, before Spike was comfortable with
the change in their relationship. But she hated knowing that she’d given him
reason to doubt her in the first place; that the look she’d seen in every shadow
that the Powers had shown her was because of what she’d done to him. And even
though Spike knew that she loved him, she similarly knew that it was going to
take a while to make things right.
But she was going to have a hell of a
time helping him build his confidence.
“Sillyhead,” she retorted,
laughing at the look he gave her.
“Baby—”
“But to answer your
question without the use of really, really stupid nicknames…I’m your
girlfriend.” She paused in thought, because she knew that one word would never
be enough to describe what they were to each other. “I’m your lover.” Buffy
beamed at the dreamy look that stormed his eyes and couldn’t keep herself from
kissing his lips off. And then, partly because it was true and partly because
she knew how he’d react, she added, “I’m your…slayer.”
Spike blinked
dumbly, then grinned and brushed a kiss against her throat. “Say that part
again,” he purred.
“Which part?”
He smirked. “You know which
part.”
This might turn into one of her favorite games if she wasn’t
careful. “I’m your girlfriend.”
“Mmm.” Spike grinned, sliding a hand up
her inner thigh. “I like the sound of that.”
“I thought you might.”
“Now how about you tell me what I wanted to hear?”
Buffy blinked
innocently. “You didn’t wanna hear that I’m your
girlfriend?”
“Slayer…”
“I’m your that, too.”
“Fuck
yeah, you are.” Spike’s fingers slid over her clit, and she exploded with need.
The way he touched her—the way he stroked her to a fiery frenzy but soothed her
with calmness and warmth in the same caress—moved her in more ways than she
could bear. He massaged her gently, watching her with such intensity that her
insides quivered. “You are so gorgeous,” he whispered, brushing his lips against
the pulse-point of her throat. “Are you sure this is real?”
Buffy grinned
and kissed him, melting at the feel of his tongue sliding against hers. “It’s
very real,” she whispered. “I promise…it’s so very real.”
His gaze
widened, blazing with amber. “You like it when I rub your clit, don’t you?” he
growled, his thumb stroking her into oblivion. “I can hear your heart racing.
Your eyes…fuck. I love your eyes. An’ the way your breathing hitches when I
touch you jus’…like…that.”
“Unh…”
“You drive me wild. I’ll never
get enough of you. Never.” He kissed her again as she shifted above him,
wrapping a hand around his cock to position him at her opening, rubbing himself
against her folds. “Never.”
Her eyes watered again. She really needed to
get over this crying thing before he realized how unstable an emotionally
vulnerable Buffy was. “I love you,” she whispered. She had nothing else to
say—nothing that could summarize her feelings more than those precious words.
And from the look on his face, it was all that needed to be said.
“I love
you too, baby,” Spike whispered reverently. “God, I love you so much.”
She’d never felt it before as she did when he said it. Not once. Hell,
Angel had told her that he’d loved her, and while her body had trembled and her
teenage heart had swooned, she’d never felt the words as she did now. As
she did every time that Spike whispered how much he loved her. She felt his
voice licking her insides, warming every part of her that had ever been cold,
and she’d never felt so cherished. Why she’d ever fought this, she’d never
know.
“I was so stupid,” she sighed, sinking onto his cock with a moan of
completion. A thousand years could pass and she would never get over how he felt
inside her. He was stretching her in ways she didn’t know that she could
stretch, filling her emptiness with warmth and making her wonder if she’d ever
truly been empty in the first place. How two people ostensibly separated by
generations could be so right for each other, she didn’t know. She could only
thank the Powers for bringing her this far. For sending her the cosmic wake-up
call. For making her realize that there were worse things about living than
being alive to begin with.
She wanted to tell him all that, but all she
managed was a long, “Oh God.”
“Fuck,” he agreed breathlessly, a long
whimper tearing through his lips. “You always feel so
good.”
“Spike…”
His hands settled on her hips. “You’re perfect,”
he gasped. “God, you’re so fucking perfect.”
She flattened her palms
against his chest, trembling hard. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. It
wasn’t like they hadn’t done this dance before. She’d ridden him hard their
first night together, all the while murmuring little nasty words that would
shame her in the light of day. Now with the words between them, with the love
she’d exhausted herself repressing now flushing her insides, everything seemed
different. And while she wanted to show him everything she couldn’t yet trust
with words, it seemed Buffy couldn’t trust her body to speak for her,
either.
But God, she was determined to try.
“Hold on,” she
whispered, lifting herself slowly off his erection before sinking back down
again. The way his skin slid against hers positively turned her blood molten.
She’d never let herself enjoy it before—not really. Not like this. While she’d
always reached fruition, and had the sore throat to prove it by morning, she’d
never allowed herself to meet Spike’s eyes. To revel in the knowledge that he
was giving her something that no one else could. Now, as she experimented, her
hips rocking against him in search of the right rhythm, she wondered yet again
how she’d made it this far without tripping over her own stupidity.
“You
feel so good,” Buffy whispered, her experimental thrusts gaining momentum. Slow
and sweet could only get her so far. Just a few hours ago, she hadn’t thought it
possible that Spike would welcome her back into his bed. Now that she was with
him—now with his cock sliding in and out of her slick passage, she needed to
feel him as she never had. “Oh God…”
The words that fell from her lips
had the right effect. His eyes widened with astonishment as his hands fell to
her hips. “Christ, pet,” he gasped, thrusting upward. “More. Tell me
more.”
“More?”
“Tell me…”
“What?”
“How I feel.”
Spike’s eyes glowed yellow, squeezing her hips. “Jus’ try.”
Buffy’s heart
raced. The whole dirty-talk thing was another settlement in foreign territory.
While she’d done her share that first night, everything was different now. She
wasn’t that sort of girl—at least she hadn’t been in the past, and certainly not
with men she cared about, or wanted to care about. Now that she was no longer
fighting her feelings for Spike, she found herself absolutely petrified at what
he might say should she humiliate herself.
And yet, that didn’t stop the
words from coming. “You…you fill me up,” she said, then winced. It had to be the
tackiest line ever, but he didn’t seem to mind. Rather, his head was tossed back
again and his eyes were screwed shut. There was no sound other than the harsh
breaths tumbling from his lips and the wet smack of their bodies colliding.
Buffy inhaled sharply. Perhaps if she rode him hard enough, he wouldn’t remember
a thing. “You fill me…like no one else.”
His fingers dug deeper into her
hips. “More.”
“Hold my ass.”
Spike’s eyes popped open at that.
“What?” he demanded, even as his hands slipped to where she wanted them. “Like
this?”
“Uh huh.”
“You like this?”
There was no sense
answering with words what she could answer with a well-timed whimper. Buffy
nodded hard and bounced on his cock with renewed vigor. She loved the feel of
his hands holding her as she rode him, almost as much as she loved the
pleasured, half-tormented waves that crashed across his gorgeous face.
“What else do you like, pet?” he rumbled, squeezing her ass. “Tell
me.”
She tried to come up with words; she really did. But for the feel of
his cock thrusting inside her aching pussy, for the way he caressed her skin,
for the way his eyes swallowed her heart, words became obsolete. She wanted to
drive him as insane as he drove her; she wanted to drive him mad enough that the
words he was so skilled at weaving failed him as well.
“Come on,
sweetling,” he coaxed, lifting his head and capturing one of her nipples in that
magical mouth of his. “Lemme know what you like. You like it when I lick your
gorgeous li’l titties?”
Buffy tossed her head back and gasped, smashing
her pussy against him. “Oh God, yes!”
“An’ I know you like it when I
stroke your clit.” His tongue flicked her nipple as his left hand slipped over
her thigh, his fingers finding her sensitive pearl and pinching her with a rough
growl. “Like this?”
“Oh God!”
He grinned and nipped at her skin.
“Thought so.”
Perhaps it was the arrogance in his voice that made her do
it. Perhaps it was sheer curiosity. Or perhaps she had no reason whatsoever—in
the end, Buffy didn’t really know. And if she was completely honest, she didn’t
care, either. As it was, she had little time to think before she seized him by
the shoulders and sank her teeth hard into the base of his neck.
“Bloody
fuck,” Spike gasped, his hips bucking and his cock jabbing so far into
her that she wondered if they’d ever manage to part again. “My God.”
His reaction was worth the taste of blood on her lips. “You like
that?” she demanded harshly.
“Slayer. My Slayer. My Buffy. Mine.
Mine. Mine.” He arched off the bed with a strangled moan. “Fuck, you ride
me so good. Drive me right outta my mind. My Slayer. Buffy…”
Her nerves
buzzed with ecstasy as her body hastened in pace. Every part of her that felt
broken and shattered from her fall was slowly stitching back together. The world
glowed and her skin hummed. His cock was sliding rhythmically inside her body,
and everything around her was ablaze. She rode him with new desperation. With a
need to send him spiraling so deep that he never forgot who he belonged to.
That he was hers, just as much as she was his.
“You’re mine,
too,” she gasped, her eyes wide. “You’re mine, Spike.”
“Oh God,
yes.”
The fact that he wasn’t going to put up a fight did little to
dissuade her. “You’re mine,” Buffy growled again, reaching for her discarded
jeans. She did her best to ignore the way he swelled within her as she stretched
and reached, just as she did her best to ignore his tortured moan.
“Slayer—”
It took less than a second to find what she was looking
for. “And you’re gonna take your Christmas present now.”
Spike frowned
and quickly found himself with a mouthful of red panties.
“Part one,
anyway,” Buffy whispered, seizing his wrists and pinning his hands back to the
mattress. She leaned forward until her nipples skated across his chest, until
his eyes were burning with such impassioned intensity that her gut clenched and
she found herself teetering dangerously close to the edge. “I thought it’d be…a
nice…gesture,” she managed to get out, pressing her lips to his neck and
peppering a line of kisses across his skin until her mouth was wrapped around
the mark that had immortalized him a century ago.
“Muffpphh,” he
growled, smashing upward so hard that she nearly saw stars.
“Oh God,”
she moaned into his throat. “Oh my God.”
Spike snarled in agreement and
flipped her over. The suddenness of the movement had his erection stabbing even
deeper within her, and before Buffy could even squeak in surprise, the panties
were gone and he was mauling her mouth with his. “My kinky li’l Slayer,” he
rumbled against her lips. “Gonna make you pay.”
Then he slipped out of
her and slid unceremoniously down her body, until his face was buried in her
pussy.
Buffy sat up sharply. “What are you—”
Spike answered her
with a stern tsk, parting her vaginal lips and treating her pink, wet skin with
a long lick. “I swear, baby,” he berated, his tongue giving her clit a good tap.
“If you don’t know by now…”
“Oh my God.”
“That’s it…” He grinned,
his fingers rubbing her tenderly as his mouth returned to her hole. “Not that
I’m objecting, love,” he purred, nuzzling her pussy reverently, his tongue
slipping inside her for a hair of a second before his eyes wandered up her body
once more. “But do you mind explaining the knickers?”
Buffy blinked
stupidly. He really didn’t expect her to form a coherent thought with his tongue
inside her, did he?
Spike flashed another grin, his thumb settling over
her clit as that way-too-talented organ in his mouth pushed deeper inside her.
Apparently he very much did expect her to form coherent thoughts. Not
only that, he expected those thoughts to manifest into some form of verbal
communication that actually made sense. All while he was playing with her clit
and lapping at her pussy and smiling at her because he knew exactly what he was
doing.
“Present,” she managed to gasp, thrusting against his mouth with
need that nearly drove her blind. “Yours.”
“Yeah, I get that.” He waggled
his brows, his tongue delving deeper within her. “I don’t need you to explain
the stuff I…get.”
“Unh…”
“Fuck, but you taste good.” His teeth
scraped gently against her folds. Blunt teeth, but the thought of what he
could do made her stomach twist with the oddest sensation of exhilaration
and fear that she’d ever experienced. And while she knew that he would never
hurt her, the knowledge that he could made her fall apart at the seams
with lust.
“I…do?”
“You know you do, pet. I could drink your
honey all day.” Spike’s eyes twinkled at her, his tongue abandoning her opening
as his mouth latched onto her clit. “So,” he purred around her flesh, his
fingers slipping inside her body. “Tell me.”
“Ooooh…”
“You make
the sexiest noises. You know that?”
“Spike…” Buffy was arched so far off
the mattress that she could probably be detected by satellites. “Oh God.
Panties…umm…thought you’d…ooohhh…like them.”
“I like ‘em better on
you than on myself, kitten,” he retorted cheekily, suckling sweetly on her clit.
“It’s a bloody load more fun takin’ them off you.” His drenched fingers
pumped inside her, and his eyes remained faithfully glued to her burning face.
“What makes you think I’d fancy women’s
knickers?”
“’Cause…they’re…mine.”
“That does give them a certain
advantage.”
“And…you…steal them…”
Spike arched a brow, his tongue
indulging in a sinfully long lick of her clit. “So you’re gonna give me
somethin’ I steal?”
“It’s a gesture!”
He chuckled and nipped at
her affectionately. “It sure is.”
“Hey!” Buffy scowled good-naturedly,
grabbing his wrist. “Come up here.”
“I like it down here.”
“Yeah,
I like you down there, too.” She giggled at the dirty look he burned her with,
and while her pussy ached for him to finish what he’d started, that didn’t stop
her from fisting a handful of his hair and dragging him back up her body. Until
his cock was nudging her drenched folds. “I like you up here
better.”
Spike smirked, wrapping his left hand around his erection and
guiding it until his velvety head was rubbing her clit. “I think you like me
anywhere,” he teased, dropping a kiss against the corner of her mouth. “Isn’t
that right?”
“Oh God, yes.” She seized his cheeks and brought his lips to
hers, swallowing him in a long, desperate kiss. “Uhhh.”
“You like that?”
he rasped, rotating his hips. “Christ…”
“Spike! Inside me!”
His
eyes turned molten. “Never refuse a begging slayer,” he purred, sliding within
her once more. “My favorite motto.”
“Oohhhh…”
Spike moaned and his
head dropped to her shoulder. “You’re so warm,” he murmured, his hips jerking
forward sharply. “You’re so fucking warm. So hot. Burn me up, is what you do. Oh
God, kitten, squeeze me.”
She did. She clenched her muscles tight around
his cock and focused on the feel of him moving within her. On how hard she shook
when his lips brushed every inch of skin that he could reach. On the intimacy of
his brow pressed to hers, his eyes swallowing her with such intensity that
objects around her blurred into meaningless shapes. Until all she could hear
were their mingled pants, the slap of his balls against her ass and their bodies
against a rickety mattress. Until the jabbing of his cock had her insides
bursting and the words that tumbled off his lips became a litany of deferential
whispers.
“I love you,” Spike growled, his hand slipping between their
bodies, his fingers finding her clit. “God, Buffy, I love you so
much.”
And that was it. The words. The way he massaged her intimately
while taking her to the stars and back. The way his mouth loved and ravished her
in the same stroke—it was too much. Another hoarse gasp rolled through her and
pleasure split every vein. Her blood boiled; her skin about melted off her
bones. Spike’s fingers were rubbing her clit as his cock struck that perfect
spot within her, sending her spiraling with ecstasy. His name peeled off her
lips as her cells exploded. And before she could stop herself, her mouth lunged
for him again, her teeth sinking into his shoulder, her vaginal muscles
clenching hard around him.
The animalesque roar that tore through
Spike’s throat went straight to her center. She pulled back just as his eyes
went yellow and his fangs descended. And before she could even manage a gasp, he
dove forward and sank his incisors just above her breast.
“Oh my
GOD!”
“My God,” Spike panted, his head snapping back, his hips thrusting
madly as he spilled himself inside her. Her blood smeared his mouth, and somehow
it was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
And she’d tell him so once she
remembered her name. As it was, she could barely muster the strength to hold him
after he collapsed against her, his hips still rocking gently against hers. She
sighed when she felt his arms come up around her. When his lips brushed her
brow. When he murmured how much he loved her into her hair, and again asked for
reassurance that he wasn’t dreaming.
He wasn’t. God, he wasn’t. And
neither was she. Her skin was pricking and there wasn’t an inch of her body that
didn’t ache with pleasure. Spike was curled around her, his cock locked within
her body, and Buffy knew that she’d regained everything she’d thought she’d
lost. Turns out it wasn’t lost at all—just misplaced, and she’d found it
again.
She wasn’t too late. Spike was with her. She was in the arms of
the man she loved. The future was in her hands at last.
And she wasn’t
going to take him for granted.
There were some aspects of vampirism that would always be denoted
with a question mark in her mental catalogue. Spike’s penchant for breathing and
his enjoyment of human food was something that he owned, though he was hardly
the only vamp to frequent pubs or scarf down spicy buffalo wings. He also had a
way of seeming thoroughly oblivious to anything and everything around him while,
in fact, that was just his way of being observant. Or apathetic. Either way,
regardless of whether or not he made the conscious effort, Spike had a manner
about him that was quiet and vigilant, even when the rest of him was not.
Therefore, he always sensed the slightest change in his environment.
It
didn’t surprise her, then, when Spike’s arm tightened around her middle as she
made the slow transition from half-asleep to awake. She knew what he was
thinking. That the magic of their morning, now that day was rolling into night,
would fade and they would be right back at the beginning. That she would resume
her role of kicking him in the head and making a break for home.
The
knowledge was only slightly disheartening. While Buffy was moderately
disappointed that her repeated declarations of love and the efforts she’d made
to prove how she felt about him hadn’t thoroughly eradicated all of his
misgivings, she’d known to expect this. Romantic as the idea was, a few hours in
bed while whispering their love for each other couldn’t undo years full of hurt.
She still had a lot to make up to him. No matter what he said, she had a
lot to make up to him.
And an eternity in which to do it.
Buffy
sighed and shivered, her fingers wrapping around the emerald that still hung
around her neck. How exactly did one go about rectifying wrongs committed out of
ignorance rather than malice?
Spike flattened his palm against her
stomach, nuzzling her hair. “Sweetheart?” he murmured, his fingers gently
grazing her skin. “I know you’re awake. No sense in playin’ possum on me
now.”
There was a note of hopeful nervousness in his voice, and while it
was buried under love and playfulness, it somehow rang the loudest in her ears.
“I’m awake,” she replied, releasing the emerald. Her hand dropped to her belly,
her fingers weaving through his. “And I still love you.”
Spike chuckled
to cover a relieved sigh and kissed her shoulder. “Who’s worried?” he purred,
thrusting his swelling cock against her backside.
“Obviously not
you.”
“Obviously.”
“Especially since you told me that you weren’t
worried before I could ask if you were.” Buffy grinned and twisted in his arms,
pulling him down to taste his lips. There simply was no better way to wake up.
Spike’s lips were surely on loan from the devil, but she didn’t care. He made
sure that she burned in all the right places. “Mmmm…Spike lips. Lips of
Spike.”
He smirked and brushed said lips across her temple. “Not sure if
that sounds right if you’re not screamin’ it in disgust.”
“I can’t
believe you remember that.”
“Don’t be throwin’ stones, pet. You’re the
one that brought it up.”
Buffy grinned and kissed him again. “I guess I
am.” She paused, her eyes fluttering shut. And while she didn’t want to disrupt
the simple joy of lying beside him in extended post-coital bliss, there were
still matters to talk about. Things that she wanted on the table before they
packed up and marched back into the belly of the beast. While they’d discussed
pretty much everything upstairs, the matter of her immortality was something
that she’d omitted from the tale of her nightly excursion. And it wasn’t like
that was something she could ignore and hope he never noticed; something told
her that by the time they’d buried the last Scooby and she still hadn’t aged a
day, he would have caught on that there was something slightly off about her
aging process.
“I need to talk to you about something,” she said softly,
pressing her index finger to his lips to warn off another make-out session that
would undoubtedly lead to more rampant sinning of the extremely good kind. He’d
managed to distract her enough with those lips and hands of his. Not to mention
his cock. His cock was very good at distracting her. Hell, she’d had to give him
part one of his Christmas present while bouncing on said cock. Spike and his
powers of diversion weren’t going to win this round.
Spike blinked, good
humor abandoning his eyes immediately. “You still love me, right?” he joked
weakly. His nervousness was back with a vengeance; this time, there was no way
to miss it. “’Cause you jus’ said that you still love me.”
Buffy kissed
him before she could stop herself. “I love you,” she said. “I’ll love you
forever.”
“But…?”
She shook her head. “There are no buts about
that. Really, Spike, out of all the crazy crap I’ve gone through, that’s the one
thing I’m completely sure about.”
He arched a brow. “I’m the crazy crap
you’re sure about?”
“That didn’t come out the way I wanted it
to.”
“Crazy crap rarely does.”
She made a face and slapped his
shoulder playfully. “Okay, that was in such bad taste, it was…it was a
Xander-joke.”
“Low blow, pet.”
“Your fault for resorting to potty
humor.” She stuck her tongue at him, then quickly retracted before he could
snatch her up in another melt-worthy kiss. “What I have to tell you has nothing
to do with…well, it does, but it doesn’t change anything. At least, I don’t
think it will. But it is something you need to know.”
Spike nodded,
propping his cheek up on a closed fist. His eyes were bright with curiosity now,
and while she hadn’t successfully chased away every last flicker of doubt, she
was satisfied that the reflection wasn’t as potent as it had been just seconds
before.
“Okay,” he agreed softly.
There really wasn’t a good way
to segue into what she needed to say. To tell him that oh, by the way, she
wasn’t going to die anytime soon. Not if she played her cards right, anyway.
Together, they had an honest-to-god shot at eternity. At a happily
forever after—incredibly lame and improbable as that notion was.
“Wow,” she said, laughing nervously. “There isn’t a good way to say this
at all.”
“Sweetheart, when you begin like that…”
“I promise, it’s
not bad.”
“Then your pitch is startin’ on the wrong foot.”
Buffy
shook her head, holding up a hand. “Spike…when I was…when I was all with the
mind-trippy, Buffy Summers: This Is Your Life thing…the
future…”
Spike frowned. “I already told you that you have nothing to
worry about,” he said softly. “I don’t bloody care what you saw. I’m not going
anywhere. I’m yours.”
“You weren’t there.”
“Things have
changed.”
“You’d died, Spike.”
It was amazing how easily the
words came out, considering how hard she choked on the sob that followed. Just
thinking about the cottage made her skin cold and her insides grow numb. No
matter how far they made it together, Buffy knew that there was no magic great
enough to wipe that horrid place from her mind. And even so, she wouldn’t want
to relinquish her knowledge for anything. Remembering what the Slayer and Anne
had told her would make her treasure the future that she had now all the
more; giving it up meant giving back a part of herself. But she couldn’t help
the rivers of tears that scalded down her cheeks, anymore than she could help
the unintelligible words that hiccupped through her lips as her convulsing body
was drawn into her lover’s warm, soothing embrace.
She felt Spike’s
thumbs wiping her tears away, and she didn’t miss the way he trembled against
her. “All this…for me?” he whispered. “Buffy…”
“How many—” Sob. “—times—”
Hiccup. “—do I—” Sniff. “—have to tell—” Pant. “—you that—” Wail. “—I love you?”
Pause. “Doofus!”
Spike blinked stupidly. “Sweetheart, I—”
“You
died! You’d up and died. Not once, mind you, but twice.” Buffy sobbed again
miserably, wiping at her eyes. “The first time you didn’t…you didn’t believe
me.”
“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t believe that I loved you.”
“But I do believe—”
“And then you died. You…you…” She forced
herself to rein it in before her words became even more jumbled. “You…they
didn’t tell me everything, but…bad things happened, Spike. Really bad things.
Things that…at one point, you got a soul.”
He blinked incredulously. “A
what?”
“A soul. One you asked for.”
“You’re off your
nutter.”
Buffy shook her head, attempting a smile through her tears. “You
wanted it for me,” she said softly. “I was…I was the monster, and you wanted a
soul because you thought that’s what…”
It was impossible to talk about
vampires and souls without thinking about the one and only souled-vamp around.
Similarly, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. If Spike sought a soul for Buffy,
it would have been because he thought it was what she wanted, based on what
she’d had with Angel.
“Angel wasn’t dead.” The words formed from
nowhere; for some reason, it was important that Spike know this. “Angel wasn’t
dead…he was still around. But—and I really can’t stress this enough—I didn’t
want him. Not then. Not now.”
Spike snickered. “Yeah. An’ even if you
had, the great sod wouldn’t do anythin’ to muck up your perfectly normal life,
yeah?”
“No, it’s—”
“Buffy, drop it. That’s…you love me.” He
smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, leaning forward and brushing a
loving kiss across her brow. “That’s all that matters. You don’t owe me
explanations for things that haven’t happened.”
“I do,
though.”
“No—”
Buffy shook her head hard. “Angel and I weren’t
together because I didn’t want us together,” she interjected. “It had
nothing to do with how normal my life is not or…whatever. The sunlight
thing? I told you, I was pretty much keeping vamp-hours. I was living in
some…shack in England, by the cemetery.”
“Baby—”
“And…all of this
was about three hundred years from now.”
It was amazing how deathly quiet
a crypt could be. Strangely enough, even during times of silence between
them—comfortable and uncomfortable alike—she’d never noticed how much life
relied on sound. Not until that moment. Her life, after all, relied on what came
after the silence; it only made sense that the silence between her words and his
reaction would cut as it did.
Spike seemed frozen. Words formed and
dissipated behind his eyes. Finally, just as the air started to agitate her
skin, he blinked the numbness away and shook his head, drowning still in
astonishment.
“What?” he rasped ineloquently.
Buffy fought back a
poignant grin in spite of herself. Trust Spike to cap such a silence with such a
short, loaded rejoinder. “I’m…ummm…”
“You’re…eternal?”
She pursed
her lips and nodded. “Yeah.”
“What happened? God, Buffy, you weren’t…” He
paused again, his eyes fluttering shut this time, a ragged breath squeezing
through his lips. “You weren’t…like me, were you?”
While it was the
obvious conclusion to leap to, she couldn’t help the warmth that stretched her
veins. “That’s actually the first thing I asked…me.” She frowned. “I did mention
that I was the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, right?”
“Yeah. An’
feel free to mention it again.” He winked, though the joviality she was used to
seeing was nowhere to be found. “Two Buffys…yeah, that idea’s bein’ filed away
for now.”
She smiled grimly. “It was three, actually. There was me,
ghost-me, and future-me.”
“Saucy minx.”
“Whatever you’re
imagining…I envy. This was no party.”
Spike sobered immediately, nodding.
“I know, kitten,” he said softly. “So…’f you weren’t a vampire, then…”
Epiphanies were wondrous things, even if she wasn’t the one experiencing
it. She knew the second that he understood. The second that he got it. His
vibrant eyes widened and he sat up sharply. “Oh
God.”
“Spike—”
“Buffy, I’m…” He froze, his eyes falling shut
again. “God, I’m…”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. I can’t handle sorry.”
Buffy shook her head, sitting up as well and wrapping her arms around her legs.
“The thing is…that’s not what scares me. What scares me is…I was afraid that if
you knew that part—”
“That I’d think you were lying to me.”
She
nodded wretchedly. “Yes.”
“Buffy…Buffy, look at me.” He took her face in
his hands before she could object, his mouth consuming hers. God, she could lose
herself so easily in his kisses. The world could end around her and she wouldn’t
care. His tongue had a way of making the white noise fade into nothing. His
kisses were his poetry, and where she sorely lacked the ability to pour her
feelings into anything—be it words or caresses—Spike soared well above the
curve.
“I told you,” he murmured, pulling her fully into his lap. “I
told you, Buffy. I’m completely yours. You…telling me that you love me…that’s so
bloody much more than I ever thought I’d have. An’ I do believe you.
Point of fact, I’d wager that I believed you in the future the ghosties showed
you, too.”
She shook her head hard at that. “You didn’t. If you’d
believed me, you would’ve come for me, Spike.”
“What?”
“You…you
came back. In the future. There was the soul-getting and then an apocalypse and
you stopped it. You stopped the apocalypse…but you died.” God, she was crying
again. All the tears that she hadn’t shed over the past few weeks were catching
up with her now. Only she was in Spike’s embrace, astride his waist with his
hands running up and down her arms and his lips kissing her tears away. “Y-you
didn’t believe me. If you’d believed me, you would’ve come after me. I
know you, Spike. You would’ve…”
He kissed her brow. “You know
me, love. You don’t know this souled wanker in a future that’s never
gonna happen now.”
“Would you love me with a soul?”
The softness
in his eyes belied his words. “Should I answer that or just
stare?”
“Something bad happened, Spike. Something bad enough to make you
want to get a soul…” Buffy shivered, resting her brow against his chest.
“Something I did to you.”
“You can’t know that, baby.”
“Well, with
the way our relationship’s gone these past few years…it’s always me
hurting you.”
“An’ I’m still a vampire. Could’ve jus’ as easily been the
other way around.”
“But I—”
Spike mimed her earlier actions,
pressing a finger to her lips and smiling softly into her eyes. “Kitten…if you
keep on this…tryin’ to figure out what happened in a future that’s no longer in
motion, you’re gonna fall off your nutter. The future you saw is invalid because
of what we’re doing right now.”
“But what about Anne?”
“Anne’s
you, baby. So Anne is likely being shagged sideways by yours truly
as we speak.” Spike paused, pressing his brow to hers. “Buffy…I can’t tell you
much. I have no sodding idea why I—or wanker-souled-me—wouldn’t come after you
in any circumstance. I really don’t. But there had to be a reason, ‘cause
I love you so damn much it’s physically painful at times. An’ this business
about eternity…” He shivered. “You realize that you’ve given me…I’m gonna spend
the next century half-convinced that I dreamt myself into paradise…you know
that, right? You love me. God, you really love me. An’ now you’re telling me
that you’re…that we won’t have to say goodbye?”
The light in his eyes was
more than any woman could ever ask for. She bit her lip and shook her head. “Not
unless you get yourself killed again.”
“Sweetheart, a man doesn’t get
himself killed when he has this much to live for.”
“I swear if you die on
me and then come back and don’t come after me, I’m going to make you beg for
dust.”
“Therein defeating the purpose.” Spike grinned and kissed her
sweetly. “Neither Heaven nor Hell could hope to keep me away from you now.”
“Really?”
“Do you really need me to answer that?”
A faint
smile tickled her lips as she cast her eyes downward, her fingers gently
caressing his chest. “I guess I just don’t get it,” she admitted. “With as
terrible as I’ve been to you…how you can still…”
“I don’t give up easy,
love. An’ don’t go off makin’ me sound like I’ve been a saint. I’m not, Slayer.
I’m a rude, crude bloke. I’m evil to the root, but I’ll be good for you.” There
was a brief pause as he considered her, his head tilting inquisitively. “You
don’t…now that we’re bein’ so honest with each other, would you prefer me with a
soul?”
Buffy trembled hard, her gaze slowly trailing up his body until
their eyes were locked again. “Would you get one for me?”
There was no
mistaking the reluctance on his face; there was similarly no mistaking his
sincerity. She knew what his answer would be. Of course she knew what his answer
would be. If nothing else, the night had taught her that Spike was willing to go
through anything for her, whether he loved her or not. Thus when he said, “If
that’s what you want,” there was no surprise. She knew that he would. If she
told him right now that she needed a soul in his body to love him completely,
he’d be out the door in ten minutes.
Knowing that provided something
that Buffy couldn’t have anticipated. She was in the arms of a soulless vampire,
her legs astride his waist, his cock nestled against her ass. He didn’t hide
anything from her. He waited for an answer with his heart in his eyes. He would
do whatever she asked. He would make any sacrifice needed to fulfill her
happiness.
They were even. She loved him so much that she ached.
“Ball’s in your court, Slayer,” Spike murmured, his hand finding hers
where it rested against his chest.
“I know.” Buffy shook her head, her
gaze again dropping between them. “And…I…no.”
“No?”
“I told
you…you’re the one thing that I’m completely sure about. I know that I should
want you to have one…but I don’t. I love you now. And while I’m sure that
I would love you in any incarnation…” She glanced up shyly and nearly broke when
she saw the tears in his eyes. “I wouldn’t know you if you got a soul.
Not like I do now. And yeah…that leaves the window open for moral ambiguity. I’m
sure you’re gonna do things that make me wanna yank my hair out, and
vice-versa…but I don’t want you doing anything that takes away from who you are.
Besides…” Her hand inched northward until her palm was pressed against the
silent cavern of his heart. “You would. Do you have any idea how huge
that is? The fact that you would get a soul for me? That…in some
alternate timeline, you did?”
Spike shrugged self-consciously.
“Just means I’m whipped.”
“No…no, Spike, it’s so much more than
that.”
“Buffy—”
“She…the Slayer said that any man who seeks a soul
like you did already has one.” She paused. “And she was right.”
He
nodded, thick waves crashing in his eyes. “I have yours,” he rasped. “As long as
you’ll let me, Buffy.”
“I want you to move in with me.” The rapid change
in subject left Spike visibly dazed, but he didn’t pause to question her; he did
little more than favor her with a long look of awed astonishment. “I know with
the crazy fast, but I’m gonna want to wake up with you and go to bed with you
and do all sorts of other coupley things with you. And no, I’m not gonna hide.
Matter of fact, we need to get ready here soon so we can meet the gang for
Christmas dinner.”
“Buffy…”
“Is that okay? We can keep the crypt
for like a really morbid but oddly-cozy weekend getaway. I just…I want you with
me.”
“Oh God.”
The taste of his kisses would be with her forever.
His answer came in his kiss. The answer she’d had before the question breathed
air; the answer she needed all the same. There was no doubt when he kissed her
like that. Buffy would wake up with his flavor in her mouth every morning and
fall asleep in his arms every night. His lips caressed hers with passion she was
still certain that she didn’t deserve. His hands wandered across her body with
trembling veneration. He stroked her cheek, teased her breasts, trailed down her
arms, massaged her hips, all the while thoroughly loving her mouth.
“Do
we have time?” he asked when his fingers finally found her pussy, parting her
vaginal lips and dipping into her wet heat to stroke her clit. “I need you so
badly.”
Even if they hadn’t had time, she wasn’t about to break away.
Buffy nodded with desperation that she barely recognized, dragging his mouth
back to hers. Her legs tangled around his waist as he rolled her over, the head
of his cock sliding up and down her slit for a few agonizing seconds before he
finally sank inside her.
“So fucking perfect,” Spike gasped, finding and
squeezing her hand. “I love you so much.”
The world faded away as his
body began rocking against hers. As she clenched her muscles around him. As his
lips caressed her skin. As shapes melted into colors, and as those colors
spiraled and blurred.
The others could wait, as far as she was
concerned.
Spike was with her. They were laughing and crying, kissing
each other raw and loving each other’s bodies to exhaustion. This was time made
up for time taken for granted. There was no need to rush.
They had all
the time in the world.
While she wanted nothing more than to sit in Spike’s arms and listen
to him recite poetry from the book he’d made for her, Buffy knew that if she
didn’t show up relatively close to eight o’clock, the Scoobies would knock down
the crypt door. And though there would be no doubt as to the nature of her
relationship with Spike following tonight, she didn’t think that being
discovered in a tangle of naked goodness would do much to smooth the
Buffy-hates-Spike to Buffy-loves-Spike transition.
Not that Spike made
getting dressed easy. He was all with the nude much longer than she was. He
remained on the bed as she got ready, watching her intently while lazily
stroking his cock.
“You’re making this very hard,” she said, flushing
and wiggling into her jeans before she could toss responsibility out the
proverbial window and bounce back into his lap.
“You’re the one
making it hard, love,” Spike retorted with a wink. “Y’know we’re gonna have to
go all the way through this sodding dinner of yours without touching each other.
Think you can handle it?”
“We’ll find out.” Buffy grinned and slid her
blouse over her shoulders. “Come on. I wanna show off my ring.”
“Make
your chums panic, you mean.”
She shrugged. “Let them panic.”
Spike
smiled shyly and held up his left hand. “If that’s the case, mind if I show off
mine?”
His second Christmas present was a ring that had belonged to her
great-grandfather. Upon his death, the ring was passed to her mother and had
since fallen to Buffy’s ownership. She’d been surprised to find the ring
untouched after so many months, especially since Revello Drive hadn’t been her
home for a hundred and forty-seven days. Either Willow hadn’t discovered it in
her mother’s jewelry box, or hadn’t gotten around to passing the torch to
Dawn.
There was little in her life that held any true value. She’d known
what to expect from Spike, thanks to Glory, and had wanted to give him something
meaningful in turn. And aside from her mother’s jewelry, there was little in her
house that could even begin to compare with a family heirloom. The ring on her
finger was precious, and while the one she’d given him in turn couldn’t hope to
measure up in monetary value, the token had rendered him speechless.
“I
hope you do, ‘cause everyone is gonna get an eyeful of this baby.”
The
walk to her house was made in companionable silence with frequent kissing
breaks. Spike refused to let go of her hand, which was fine by her, because she
refused to let go of his. And amazingly, though she knew it would take some
getting used to for her friends, she wasn’t worried. She knew that she was
happy, and that anything worth having never came easy. Spike was at her side and
he always would be.
She loved him. He was her past, present, and
future.
And her friends were her family. No matter what they did or had
done, they were her family. She’d love them, too, no matter how much they
annoyed her. No matter how much they’d hurt her. She’d forgiven them, and
forgiving them gave her the greatest sense of peace she’d ever
known.
However, Buffy knew her friends well enough to know that they
wouldn’t take to the changes in her life with a smile and a nod. Thus, when she
and Spike reached the front porch, she turned immediately and dragged him down
for a hungry, loving kiss. Something to remind him that she loved him, no matter
what. No matter what happened after they crossed that threshold. And when
everything was through, she was sleeping in his arms tonight.
Neither
could have anticipated the door opening just as Spike moaned and slipped his
hand beneath her blouse.
“Oh my God,” a familiar voice deadpanned. “It’s
true.”
Buffy and Spike broke apart reluctantly just as Xander fainted
dead away in the doorway. And strangely enough, that much provided her with hope
that everything was going to be all right.
“Come on,” her vampire
murmured into her hair. “Help me drag the boy inside.”
“You need help?”
Buffy retorted playfully, arching a brow. “He doesn’t weigh that
much.”
“Give a bloke a break, Slayer. You’re stronger than I
am.”
“About time you admitted it.”
Spike smirked and nipped at her
lips.
Then Dawn came squealing down the staircase, followed by a
shy-but-grinning Tara, a still-astonished Willow, and a former vengeance demon
who greeted them by congratulating them on their recent orgasms and wishing them
many more in the future.
Buffy just grinned giddily as Spike hugged her
into his side.
At long last, she was finally alive.
fin