Awards for The Writing on the Wall

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Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (For language, violent imagery, disturbing content, and sexual situations)
Timeline: Post-The Gift, AU.
Summary: There was no body to bury. There was no funeral. There was nothing but the three rules and the knowledge that a thousand years of torment was nothing compared to a world without her in it. Spike embarks on a journey through the Gates of Hell to rescue the one he loves, but in order to save her, he must risk losing himself.

Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. They are being used out of respect and affection, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.

It would be a night funeral. The others wouldn’t like it—it would invite any manner of creatures and alert the demon underworld the truth of what had occurred. The truth her friends kept protected. Buffy was gone. She was gone, and the world couldn’t know. The world couldn’t know the Hellmouth was unprotected. The world couldn’t know its champion was in the ground. Not with the other slayer serving twenty-five-to-life in a cell somewhere in Los Angeles county, and the Scoobies were clueless whether or not Buffy’s death would trigger another girl’s destiny. In the laws of the universe, she hadn’t been the active Slayer when she jumped; her brief foray into death years ago had stripped her of the formal title. And yet, despite everything, hers was the name demons feared. No other slayer could wish to compare. She was a legend. Buffy was a legend, and the world couldn’t know she was gone.

For that reason, a night funeral was dangerous. Night funerals attracted attention, and Buffy’s friends were nearly as recognizable as the Slayer herself. If word got out that Buffy was gone, the Hellmouth would become a bona fide war zone, the likes of which the Scoobies couldn’t picture in their worst nightmares.

It was dangerous but necessary. If Spike couldn’t attend, there was no telling what he might do with himself. If he couldn’t look at her one more time. If he couldn’t say his goodbyes. His body was crippled with starvation, his eyes hollow from sobbing and his throat choked with the tears he couldn’t cry. He’d cried himself dry. He couldn’t cry anymore.

Gone. Gone. She was gone.

No, no, no…

“Buffy wanted you to have this…”

Spike didn’t know to whom the voice belonged. He didn’t even know where he was. The room was shapeless, the faces around him blurred and unfamiliar. Buffy wanted him to have something? It didn’t seem right.

None of this seemed right.

“Who’s there?” he asked. He barely recognized his own voice. “Willow?”

Something heavy sank into his hand. Something soft and wet. Something cold. A high shriek deafened his ears, every cell in his body freezing in horror. He couldn’t see it. Couldn’t smell it. Couldn’t do anything but hold. However, blind as he was, there was no questioning the tender weight cradled in his palm. He knew exactly what it was. He’d held too many to mistake it for anything else.

“You did your best,” the voice said. “No one blames you.”

Panic speared his insides. No. No. None of this was right. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be at all. This was a place of death and loss, where Buffy was being laid into the ground. But it wasn’t right. There wasn’t supposed to be a funeral. There couldn’t be a funeral. She wasn’t dead. Her body was missing but she wasn’t dead. And he wasn’t near anything resembling normality.

Spike’s fingers tightened around the Slayer’s heart as his own shattered again. No. This wasn’t how it happened.

He hadn’t had the chance.

“‘m not supposed to be here!” he screamed. “This isn’t right! This isn’t fucking right! I’m gettin’ there. She needs me!”

“You did your best,” the voice said again. “All is well.”

“No, all is not sodding well,” Spike snarled, throwing the heart to the ground and willing himself not to wince at the splattering echo. “That’s not hers. You’re not here. I’m not here. She’s—”

“Gone.”

“Gone,” he agreed harshly. “Not dead. I’m getting her back.”

“You tried.”

The voice faded, rolling into a faint, haunting melody which grew more and more distant with each syllable. It calmed to a hush before ultimately falling into a void he could not follow. The ground beneath his feet began to tremble, throwing him off balance as the disfigured world around him descended into a spiraling pool of darkness. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t. He hadn’t been given a chance. They hadn’t let him try. Try, try, try…

It couldn’t be real.

And it wasn’t. Spike slowly became aware of several things. The cold, jagged stone against his back. The pounding throb hammering his head. Every stretch of his body was sore, tiny pinpricks stinging the heels of his palms where the rope had burned harsh lines into his skin.

Everything was fuzzy and distorted.

He had no idea what happened or how much time had passed. The last thing he remembered was nothing overly remarkable—nothing that would naturally lead to waking up on the cold cave floor with a bastard of a headache and a stomach twisted with knots, haunted by false memories and fears of things that would never come to pass.

There wouldn’t be a burial. So long as Spike survived, there wouldn’t be a burial. He’d fight to free her with his last drop of energy, with the last ounce of strength in his body. He didn’t care what it cost. What he had to sacrifice was immaterial. All that mattered was Buffy.

“Bloody hell,” he groaned, sitting up with a grimace.

“You’re telling me.”

Spike sighed, glancing over his shoulder. “Mind telling me what happened?”

Larry shrugged casually from where he stood cross-armed, leaning against a small alcove. “Not uncommon,” he replied. “Everyone passes out after they get to Hell.”

“‘m not a person,” the vampire retorted. “Is there a reason?”

“Well, it is Hell. We do get some bad press.”

“Not sure if you noticed, mate, but I’m not your typical tourist.”

Larry blinked. At least it looked like a blink. Difficult to tell when the demon didn’t possess conventional eyelids. “And I suppose that matters?” he drawled dryly. “Hell is Hell, no matter how you flip it.”

“Hell looks a bloody lot like a bat cave.”

“And I say again, it doesn’t matter. The journey’s greater than the destination. You got here and you knew what it was, even if the entry hall doesn’t look how you pictured it. Cheer up, man. It happens to everyone.” Larry offered another shrug. “Are you ready for the first trial?”

“Guess I better be, right?”

“You’re always free to turn around and walk away. No one would blame you, certainly.”

Spike’s eyes darkened, his mind dragging him back to the world he’d seen in his dreams, the one where Buffy’s home was in the ground. His heart twisted and filled with renewed determination. “Sorry to send you back to the filing room,” he replied snidely. “But what’s another few millennia when you’re in Hell, right?”

Larry smirked unpleasantly. “You’d be surprised.”

“Somethin’ tells me I wouldn’t.” The vampire sighed and shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck to worry out the kinks. He wasn’t a bloke of refined tastes, but there was a great difference between sleeping on a sarcophagus and sleeping on a stony floor. Didn’t much help matters that he’d grown accustomed to a soft cushy mattress over the past few months. “Right then,” he said with a nod. “Let’s get going.”

“There’s no shame in quitting,” Larry assured him. “Not many have gotten even this far. The thought of the unknown scares them away. You—”

“Don’ scare.”

“Don’t scare, as I think we’ve established into overkill.”

“An’ you’re looking more an’ more like a git who’s worried about keeping his job,” Spike retorted. “Figure you finally looked me up in your books, is that it? Found out I’m also not the sort to leave the woman I love in her own sodding nightmares when I know I have the power to get her back.”

Larry’s huge, greasy shoulders heaved upward. “I’m not too concerned,” he said. “Yeah, you’re nuts about this girl, but the trials turn men into mice, and mice into cheese, if you get my drift. And they get harder the further you go.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Of course they do. Isn’t leveling up the idea?”

“I just don’t think you understand how difficult it will be.”

The vampire’s jaw tightened. “I think you better shut your gob before I rip out your tongue an’ shove it down your throat.”

“Someone’s touchy.”

“You’re tellin’ me I don’t get how impossible it’s gonna be to take the Slayer out of Hell?” Spike took a step forward, eyes blaring dangerously. “The girl jumped off a tower to save the world an’ fell into a world where her worst fears are her reality. An’ yeah, she’s the enemy. She has a stake up her arse the size of a giant sodding redwood. I don’t care. I love her, an’ I’m not going back unless she’s with me.”

A still beat settled between them. Larry favored him with a long, appraising look. “Good to get that off your chest, big guy?”

“Gotta get it through your thick skull somehow. You keep saying it won’ happen.”

“Well, give me some credit,” the demon replied. “I did tell you I wasn’t going to make things easy for you. It’s my job to make sure she doesn’t budge. I gotta give you a fighting chance, sure, but I’m not going to be idle about it. And yeah, I get that you love her.”

Spike’s nostrils flared. “Don’ say it like that. Like it’s nothing.”

“Never said it was nothing.”

“You sodding—”

Larry held up a claw. “Gonna stop you there. First: I’m not easy to offend. I mean, look at me.” He stretched his scaly, log-sized arms. “Do you imagine there’s anything I haven’t heard? Secondly: I know you’re serious. Anyone stupid enough to climb into Hell has to be serious…or insane, but you were never the nutty vamp, so I’ll take what’s behind Door Number One. In the end, I guess I’m just jaded. I’ve seen too many people swear their undying love for their honeys. Give them ten minutes in a trial and they’re swearing there’s nothing they wouldn’t do to get back home, no matter the cost.”

The explanation did little to smother Spike’s outrage, yet there was little to be gained by screaming at the top of his nonbreathing lungs. If anything it would prove the git was worming his way into the vampire’s subconscious, burying a seed of doubt where doubt should not exist. Larry’s prophesies aside, Spike remained steadfast, though there was no denying the fear that he would fail. The fear that he would collapse and die along the way. That he wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand whatever it was the guardian wanted to throw at him.

His own strength worried him. While he vowed to give every ounce he had to get to Buffy, he worried he wouldn’t have enough.

That was where his fears ended. The other possibility failed to resonate. The one featuring him crying uncle and returning to the world without Buffy. Returning a failure. They could shove a stake through his chest and he wouldn’t beg for mercy. They could toss him into the sun and he wouldn’t cover his eyes. They could ask him to bathe in holy water and he wouldn’t flinch. There was nothing he wouldn’t endure.

There was no price too high.

But he couldn’t allow himself to lose his temper again. He couldn’t let Larry see his weakness, even if it was glaringly obvious. “You’re not my favorite person right now,” he ground out, hands curling into fists. A gross understatement of laughable proportions, but he had nothing else to offer.

He needed to maintain focus.

“I’ll have to blog my despair,” Larry retorted, rolling his crimson eyes. Sarcasm, however, seemed misplaced for the demon, whose otherwise cheery disposition couldn’t manage an acidic tone. “All right then, Big Guy. If you’ll follow me, we’ll get you started with the first trial. And whoo boy, is it a doozy!”

Spike inhaled sharply and forced a nod. “Can’t hardly wait.”

At first glance, there was nothing to the trial. Nothing at all. No tangible objective and no way of meeting the objective; nothing but a starting point and an imaginary finish line. After leading Spike through several narrow tunnels, Larry had stopped so abruptly the vampire nearly collided with his foul-smelling back. The arrival had been anticlimactic but the aftermath was just puzzling. What sat before him was not a trial at all. He didn’t know what it was.

Well, not entirely. What it was seemed rather self-explanatory. But he had no idea how to proceed.

No idea whatsoever.

The channel broke into a larger crevice, the stone floor stretching a good ten feet or so before falling into a pool of black water. The spread between the walls stood at approximately four meters, stretching just far enough to make the tunnel-inspired claustrophobia ease while still emphasizing the fact that Spike was far from home. At the end of the pool was a wall carved from cave rock. There was no opening. No ostensible goal. The pathway simply ended.

“Shouldn’t have taken that right at Albuquerque,” the vampire muttered, rubbing his jaw.

“I always preferred Daffy Duck to Bugs Bunny,” Larry retorted. “I thought he got a bad rap.”

“Fascinating,” Spike noted dryly. “You should write a book.”

“No need to get touchy, now.”

Ignoring him, the vampire waved at the pool. “What the bloody hell is this?”

“It’s a body of water.”

“An’ it’s my trial?”

The demon nodded slowly. “Well…yes. I think it’s rather self-explanatory.”

“Self-explanatory. You want me to take a bath?”

Larry snorted and shook his huge head. “No. We’re Hell. What do we care about cleanliness? No, your goal is rather simple. This is the path that takes you to Buffy. It’s about a half-mile long, give or take a few feet. To get there, you just have to…well, get there. Starting here.”

Spike’s eyes were fastened on the wall. “An’ getting across the pool is the firs’ test.”

“That’s right.”

“Gotta say, mate, after you talked it up so much I’m a li’l disappointed.”

Larry favored him with a skeptical glance. “Do you not see the huge slab of stone?”

“Doesn’ worry me.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but there was definitely some level of relief. After everything the demon had said, a dead-end swimming hole seemed too good to be true. All he needed to do was get around the barrier—then he was on his way. On closer inspection, it might be even easier. Perhaps the wall wasn’t a wall at all, rather a door. Perhaps there was a lever of some sort. The kind he saw in old noir films. The secret book the on-screen dame pulled in the old crone’s library to get to the manor’s hidden chambers. The trick-candle in a castle’s dungeon that made walls spin around.

It didn’t seem right, but he wasn’t going to voice his misgivings.

“I did mention this is the only path to your slayer, didn’t I?” the demon guide said. “It’s not like you can cut back and take a short-cut.”

Spike shook his head, huffed out a deep breath, and took a step forward. “See you on the other side, Larry.”

A closer inspection of the wall didn’t yield new results. There weren’t any telling creases to indicate it doubled as a door and he saw clearly that it stretched below the surface of the water. And while hopes of immediate success faded accordingly, he refused to be put off. He now had a rough idea of where he was. Of where Buffy was. Buffy was beyond the wall. Buffy was waiting for him. In just a few short hours he could be with her. He could see her face. Bask in her smile. Hold her if she let him. Christ, he could be getting pummeled into the ground by the woman he loved and he would revel in every second. He could be with her and there was no greater prize than that.

Spike stepped up to the edge, peering into the black pool. “Jus’ water, then?”

“Your plain ole H2O,” Larry agreed. “We don’t get much light down here. Not that it would matter, right? As long as it gets you to Buffy.”

He nodded. “As long as it gets me to Buffy.”

“Okay, then. Feel free to proceed at any time. She ain’t getting any less-tortured, you know.”

A dark shudder commanded the vampire’s body and before he could help himself, a growl had tumbled through his lips. It was an intentional ploy, but it worked nonetheless. Larry wanted him to rush. Wanted him to get sloppy. Wanted to instill an unneeded sense of urgency to trip him up and cost him the mission.

Buffy.

Spike shifted his weight from one foot to the other before kneeling before the pool. He had to keep his thoughts with Buffy.

Buffy was the prize. She was the light.

And he would get to her.

Thus with a sigh, he dipped in a finger to test the water.

And immediately pulled back as his flesh started to sizzle.

“Bloody hell!” Spike barked, leaping to his feet and shaking off the pain. He whirled around to the demon with a fierce snarl. “You stupid git, might’ve bloody mentioned—”

Larry blinked innocently. “What?”

“Plain ole water?”

“Holy water is plain water. It just happens to be, y’know, holy.”

“This is Hell.”

“So you noticed.”

“Holy water—”

“Is nothing but water consecrated by some earthbound dress-wearing putz,” Larry acquiesced. “And yet, it makes your skin burn. I honestly thought you had this figured. What fun would it be if the water wasn’t blessed?”

Spike snarled and waved at the dead-end. “I’ll bloody dissolve before I even touch the sodding wall.”

“I’m here to help if you need anything.”

With a disgusted grunt, the vampire turned back to the pool and clamped his jaw shut.

Don’t accept what you’re offered.

He was pretty certain advice fell under that guideline, which meant there was nothing he could do. Nothing but sit and hope an answer bled through the cracks of his broken psyche.

A sigh rattled his bones. Spike sank to the ground and settled on his knees.

Might as well get comfortable. He was going to be here for a while.

No matter how hard he stared at it, the wall wasn’t going anywhere. It remained wedged across the pool. Sturdy. Steadfast. Unmoving. A stony dead-end in a journey that had barely begun. There was an answer—he knew there was an answer. An answer much simpler than the problem would indicate. He just couldn’t see it. He couldn’t get close enough to formulate a plan.

Couldn’t get close enough to see what exactly what he was dealing with here.

“Not as easy as it seems, now is it?” Larry observed from the sidelines, munching on something only a creature of his breed could find appealing. “All that tough talk…just gone.”

“Sod off,” Spike muttered, casting a hand through his tousled hair. His eyes remained transfixed on the stretch where the stone met water. The wall very clearly dipped below the surface, but how far? This angle didn’t provide the greatest view, but he wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of sacrificing his skin to investigate. He only had so much of it, and something told him he’d need it in the future. If the first trial melted off his flesh the next might demand his entrails. Those were things not easily replaced.

Not to say he wouldn’t heal. Skin, precious as it was, would grow back. Entrails might be a little trickier, but as long as his heart remained untouched and his head stayed attached, he didn’t think he would crumble to dust. It might make eating and all other pleasurable pursuits a little more difficult, sure, but he could manage.

“I gotta see how far that wall goes,” he said to himself. And there was only one way to do it.

He had to dive in.

“How far do you think you’ll make it before you start to fry?” Larry called. “One extra crispy vamp, comin’ up!”

Spike’s jaw tightened. Again, he willed himself to ignore the demon and instead returned his attention to the pool. It wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was he. There was only forward from here. Pain was just a sensation—one with which he was intimately familiar. Pain he could survive.

The price was worth the reward. It was. He was here for a reason.

He was here for Buffy.

“Jus’ water,” Spike murmured again, reaching for the hem of his tee before pausing. On second thought, disrobing before taking the very literal dive didn’t sound as good in reality as it had in theory. Clothing might slow him down but it provided a layer between his skin and the vat of acid into which he was about to leap. Better to remain dressed.

He just wished he’d thought of bringing scuba gear.

“Yeah,” Larry agreed from the sidelines, smiling unpleasantly. “Just water. Just your plain ole, vamp-scorching water. You think many people would boil a pot just to dump it all over themselves?” The demon paused and waved a scaly appendage at the wall. “Not to mention, that’s a dead-end.”

A cold blast of indignation seized Spike’s spine and held. “You know what you’re not doing?” he ground out.

“Helping?”

“For starters.”

Larry shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s not in my job description.”

“Your…right. The job. That’s what keeps it from being personal, yeah?” Spike replied, eyes again fixed on the wall. “You keep Buffy an’ you keep your job. Doesn’t matter that she jumped—”

“—to save the world?” the guardian cut in. “I’m a creature from Hell. The world ends and it’s Black Friday down here, only it’s our customers who get trampled. And golly, the job opportunities. Did I mention the job opportunities? New, exciting hell dimensions, plus we get to double our population. Earth just keeps getting bigger and meaner, and we reap the benefits if it ends.” Larry smirked. “Meanwhile the only person who can save your world from certain doom just happens to be the little slip of a girl we have holed up for the next eternity. So yeah…I’d call it personal.”

The festering rage simmering in Spike’s belly quickly fired his nerves. Every muscle in his body tightened, and he instructed himself with empty words not to do something colossally stupid. He had to keep his focus on the wall. On the task at hand. If Larry managed to distract him, it could cost him everything.

However, knowledge could only get him so far. It couldn’t prevent his mouth from running.

“Don’t you know anything, you git?” Spike snarled, whirling around completely. “One girl snuffs it, the other—”

“Rots in jail. Don’t you know anything?”

The vampire froze, seized for a horrible instant by the memory of a nightmare. “But—”

“Faith’s the girl, kiddo. She’s the Chosen One, and all that. And since your girl was all noble and other soft, squishy humans decided to play interference, Faith didn’t get the death she had coming. So she sits, wasting away all that glorious strength while things get worse and worse.” Larry nodded to the barricaded tunnel. “Little Buffy was a reserve. She was the one who lived when she shouldn’t, but she was the only chance the world had for survival. Now she’s here…do you really need me to spell it out for you?”

Spike shook his head hard, willing himself to stop shaking. It didn’t work. “She didn’t die. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“Ah, but she did jump knowingly and willingly into a sea of hell-dimensions.” Larry grinned unkindly. “Besides, since when does anyone get what they deserve?”

“You sodding—”

“And it’s not like any of this matters, anyway. You’re here for a reason, right? Her righteous protector—righter of wrongs, defender of justice, the Slayer’s grand salvation…unless you’re giving up already.”

“You’re pathetic.”

“And yet, I’m not the one about to sacrifice my skin for a booty call.”

There was nothing in that minute but white noise. Everything drowned away, and before logic could scream its warning, Spike was moving. Moving too quickly for his mind to slow his feet, for the bells deafening his ears to strike through the wall of rage caging him inside. It didn’t matter what happened next, in that blind streak of insanity his outrage needed a channel, and the demon standing between him and Buffy was the best target.

He wanted Larry to bleed. He wanted Larry to suffer.

As Buffy suffered.

He never got the chance. The smack of the demon’s retaliatory fist didn’t register until the ground beneath Spike’s feet fell from under him. It wasn’t until his heels slipped over the rocky ledge that panic sliced through the black hatred permeating his vision and he realized, a second too late, he couldn’t prevent himself from falling over the edge.

“Oh bollocks.”

He hit the water with a harsh, unforgiving splash, and then there was nothing but pain. Torture in its purest form. It ripped through him, stripping him of every defense and rendering him a kicking mess of scalding flesh. Festering hot boils stretched across his body, fizzling feverishly until they popped, reformed, and popped again. Sharp pinpricks of scalding agony devoured his skin, burning deep into tissue and eating him from the outside in. It was a canvas of motion, thinning his flesh as layers dissolved, and baring raw muscle to the harsh whirlpool of toxic water. It sliced through his brain, disconnecting movement from thought. All he knew was he had to get out. Had to get to freedom. Nothing else mattered.

He had to survive.

Spike kicked his way back to the surface, releasing a hoarse, raucous cry as drops of liquid flesh slipped off his bones and puddled into the water. He could see the pink of his muscles. Saw the blood-red veins patterning his arms, naked and unprotected. He couldn’t feel his lips or his fingernails. His hair was rendered a mat of burnt fuzz, scalp scalded and fried. How he pulled himself to freedom, he didn’t know. The strength wasn’t his.

Stone sliced against him. All went black.

He awoke hours later with a throbbing headache and a harsh buzz surfing his veins. Not three seconds had passed before things crystallized and hardened into fact. His skin was molten, but it existed. Where before he’d seen his blackened insides, he saw nothing but his body as it should be. Flesh again lined his arms and legs, again stretched across his belly, again mapped him head-to-toe. Invisible flames licked his scalp, but a touch of his hand determined his hair had grown back as well. Aside from the pain in his head and his sore, ravaged muscles, he felt all right.

Felt like he hadn’t nearly boiled to death.

“The fuck…” Spike murmured, wincing as he sat up. The stone floor around him was splattered with freshly-dried blood. His blood. Blood which had poured freely from his body just hours before. Just hours. He’d nearly dissolved entirely…and yet here he sat. Healed. Scorched, but healed.

He ought to be dead.

Ought to be dust.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made a lick of sense. The vampire grimaced and fought to his feet. The water was still there, as was the wall. And he was still on the wrong side of it.

But he was alive.

Spike glanced down to his hand, eyes roaming over the scar he received when he was eight—the one that had never healed—to the last flakes of black nail polish and the age lines etched in his skin.

Healed.

“I can’t die,” he whispered, turning back to the pool. “Jus’ gotta get to the other side.”

“You think so, huh?”

Larry was back, evidently. Or perhaps he’d never left. Spike didn’t know, and at the moment he didn’t care. His mind was running too fast to do an about face and address the demon at his back.

“Just gotta get to the other side,” Spike repeated. “Without cryin’ uncle. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Can’t kill me. Jus’ get me close enough. None of this can kill me.”

It made sense in a strange way. A way he wouldn’t question. And it had to be the real test: the knowledge that no matter how bad things grew, he couldn’t see an end without surviving it. Either he survived or he failed. If he cried for help or screamed it was too much, the trials would end and he’d lose Buffy forever. Death was not an option. Death was too easy. If they offered him death, he wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to torture. As long as he was here they could do whatever they willed to his body; if he failed, they had his defeat wrapped in a bow.

If he died, they still kept the Slayer, but lost his crippling devastation.

Despair tasted sweet. Spike, of all vamps, ought to know.

“Can’t kill me.”

Larry sighed heavily. “Okay, fine,” he conceded, thundering forward. “So you can’t technically—what’s the word?— die. Not down here. Not while you’re protected by our contract. And yeah, once people find that out, they’re typically thrilled as a politician at a whorehouse…but it ain’t all sugar and puppies. Not being able to die is a terrible fate at times.”

Like Buffy. Buffy was trapped in Hell. She hadn’t the luxury of death. Spike forced back an instinctive growl and shook his head, taking a step forward.

Life would be so much easier if he learned how to block out blokes who pissed him off.

“Take that dive and you’ll be screaming for a death that won’t come,” Larry advised. “You know that. You barely lasted thirty seconds the first time; what makes you think this is any different?”

“I can’t die.”

“I tell you, that doesn’t make any difference.”

Spike shrugged. Didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

He just had to get around the wall.

And the more he thought about it, the more simplistic the answer became. He was looking at it too hard—expecting a complicated solution when there was none. The pathway continued on the other side of the pond. The wall was all that stood between him and the rest of the tunnel. If an opening existed and wasn’t above the water, it had to be below.

He’d have to swim deep into the pool to get to the other side.

And he had to do it without screaming his defeat.

Buffy.

He had to keep thinking of Buffy.

“Right then,” Spike murmured, rolling his shoulders. “Jus’ water. It’s just water.”

“Yeah,” Larry drawled. “Remember how well that little pep talk worked last time?”

Ignoring him, the vampire drew near the edge again. It was startling how innocuous something so sinister could look. Since his siring, there hadn’t been much reason to gulp down water, but he did so from time to time, as he found it was an additive for keeping his body in shape. He’d traveled the world to see oceans: to watch the sun rise over the Pacific and set over the Atlantic. He’d dived into lakes in his skivvies with Dru cackling wildly at his side, her midnight hair streaking wildly across her alabaster skin. And while he’d had a run in or two with holy water, it had never been anything to alter his perception. He didn’t hesitate when it came to showering or drinking or swimming or anything else he felt like doing on any given day. Water was water. It wasn’t dangerous…not to him. Vampires couldn’t drown, after all. What worry did he have?

Water would never look the same. Lapping so innocently against the stony ledge, bubbling little warnings of what was to come. He knew what was to come. In seconds his skin would be stripped off his body. In seconds he would be as close to death as he’d ever been.

In seconds he would wish for dust while begging for the strength to push onward.

“Here goes nothing,” he whispered.

And squeezing his eyes shut, he dove in.

Pain was secondary. He had to remember that. Pain was a sensation that would fade once he made it to the other side. Water shifted and skin melted, and while he felt himself fading into a seemingly endless, unforgiving sea, he knew the other side existed. He knew he had to make it through.

For Buffy. He had to make it through for Buffy.

Flesh peeled layer by layer off his body, but he kept swimming. Boils blistered his body, but he kept swimming. His eyes were burned shut, but he kept swimming. Down, down. Down as far as he could take himself. Down until the wall was against his hand—his hand which sawed itself to the bone with every unforgiving stroke. He no longer had fingerprints and the soft, cushiony muscle that protected his palm had been ripped away. The water reddened with blood, and when he pressed himself again the wall, he felt the soft tissue in his arms cut clean through.

But he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t call for help. Couldn’t scream.

He had to keep moving.

And when he went down far enough to be proven right, to tear through the opening which lingered just a yard off the lake-floor, the thrill of victory was enough to drown out the pain.

How he made it back to the surface, he didn’t know. Nor did he know how he found the strength to swim to the shore. It took three tries to lift his weary, fragile bones out of the water, and when his body collided with the rocky ground, when he found himself deeper in Hell than he’d ever been, he dragged a gulp of air into his charred lungs and forced his twisted, lipless mouth into a grin.

He’d done it. He’d done it. He’d survived the first task.

He’d survived.

Thick, harsh bursts erupted through Spike’s blackened throat, and it took a few seconds for even him to realize he was laughing. That he had anything to laugh about. He was crippled and crisp, but even now he could feel the cells in his body going into hyper-drive, preparing him for his next task.

Oh God. He had another task. Another task when all he wanted was rest.

He needed rest.

No. Can’t rest.

“Rest…”

Have to get to Buffy…

“You did well,” Larry said, his voice distant, if real at all. If the demon was actually near, he didn’t reveal himself, and Spike couldn’t tell as his eyes were welded shut. There wasn’t an inch of him which hadn’t melted like hot wax. “Yes, yes,” the elusive guardian continued. “You did very well.”

“Raahhh….”

“Oh, I’d save that voice if I were you.” The ground hummed with the weight of a footstep, betraying Larry’s position. Not that it mattered. If the demon wanted to kill him, there was nothing Spike could do to stop it. Even at full strength, it’d take a bloody rocket launcher to stop the beast…and Harris wasn’t around to whip one out of his ass.

Good thing guardians couldn’t attack, just spout orders.

And defend themselves if the Champion they were slated to annoy got stupid.

“Unless, that is, you’re asking for something.” Larry took another step forward. “You can ask for anything you like, you know. A glass of blood. Hell, a whole town of tasty humans to munch. You gotta be hungry after losing all that blood…and Buffy would—”
“Aoooh.”

A pause. “No, huh?”

Don’t accept what you’re offered.

Hunger could rattle his insides, and he knew it would. His body was too twisted with pain to identify one sensation from the next, but he knew his stomach would begin screaming once it remembered it was hungry. And while the thought of blood had his fangs tingling, had his demon roaring with delight, Spike hadn’t forgotten. There were things he couldn’t accept. He couldn’t have blood. Not here. Not when it was offered. He hadn’t just sacrificed his skin to lose everything now. Don’t accept what you’re offered. He would never forget.

“All right, then,” Larry replied with a heavy sigh. “Suit yourself.”

Then he was gone again, leaving the vampire to the dark.

“It’s okay, now. Everything is okay.”

Silence lied. Spike knew this better than anyone. When the night had deepened to its darkest, when most of the earth’s creatures burrowed in for rest, the silence would lie. It would whisper promises the day wouldn’t keep. It would speak of things his dreams had concocted and fade as soon as the slightest sliver of light speared its shadowy cocoon. Spike knew it well. He knew the silence lied.

And he knew it was lying now. Somewhere between asleep and awake. Between the dreams he’d had in getting here and lying on the stone floor as his body pieced itself back together. He knew it was lying. It had to be lying.

Nothing was okay.

“Go…away…”

“It’s all right.”

“Stop it.”

“Look at me. We can go now. We can get out of here. We have to get out of here.”

He didn’t want to look—didn’t want to open his eyes.

She had the voice of a siren, and it was too good to be true.

Too bloody good.

“Not…real…”

“Look at me and tell me I’m not real.”

The ethereal whisper faded into silence, cushioning his fall with white strands of hope. Spike swallowed hard and turned his face up. It couldn’t be real—Christ, it couldn’t be. After all he’d been through, it couldn’t happen like this. They wouldn’t just hand her to him.

“We gotta roll, Spike. Now. Get off your pale ass and get moving. I don’t know how much time…I don’t know if we have any, but I’d rather not stick around to find out how right I am.” She sighed. “Get up!”

Warmth consumed him but he railed against it. This couldn’t be real—it couldn’t be real. And he couldn’t let himself believe. Couldn’t let himself believe he’d made it…and yet that was her voice. It was her voice. No one could fake that voice. That tone. That righteous irritation.

Save the girl from Hell and she doesn’t issue a thank you. It was her. It was Buffy.

A dam broke inside. God. It was Buffy.

The silence hadn’t lied.

“Buffy,” Spike choked, forcing his eyes open, willing her not to disappear.

And she didn’t.

“Buffy.”

“Finally,” Buffy replied with a long sigh, lips twisting into a tired, grateful smile. “Welcome back.”

God, it was her. It was really her.

There had been a moment when she welcomed him into her home. A huge moment—the sort of moment that didn’t care about time, or obstacles, or anything else that might interfere with its significance. Until Willow had told him Buffy’s invitation hadn’t been random—had instead been planned—Spike had assumed it probably didn’t mean anything to her. After all, inviting him inside was easier than handing weapons over the doorway, minimizing the time spent in the house. It would get them to Dawn sooner. And there was always the fact that she could banish him from her home at any time she liked. In the end, even if Buffy had wanted him back, the invitation itself probably hadn’t meant a lick to her.

To Spike, it had meant the world. Those seconds existed as affirmation that he had done something right. In the time between the colossally stupid idea of chaining her up and threatening her with his murderous ex, to allowing a god to torture the stuffing out of him, he’d evolved into something more than a vampire was meant to be. Something worthy of her space, if not Buffy herself. The days leading up to the invitation had intimated the same; she’d brought Dawn to him for protection, she’d come to him about the Winnebago, and she’d told him she needed his help…trusting he wouldn’t ask for anything in return. She’d defended him when her friends jumped down her throat at his presence, and she’d held his hands, if a bit roughly, to inspect the place where he’d held off a sword to save her life. The Buffy of Old wouldn’t have cared enough to even acknowledge he’d been hurt. The Buffy of New—the Buffy he’d seen emerge after her kiss of gratitude, cared enough to…well, care.

That last night, she’d invited him into her house. And she hadn’t bristled and stormed away when he began speaking, when he revealed how much her gesture, small as it was, meant to him. When he acknowledged she would never love him. Being treated like a man, though…that meant the world.

Spike hadn’t remembered that after she jumped. That morning, standing in the shadows to avoid the sun, eyes fixated on the square of concrete where her body should have lain—where Buffy should have been. Tears scalding his cheeks, his body shaking with harsh, terrible sobs, he hadn’t remembered anything of what had passed. All he had was the sure knowledge of what was to come.

Buffy was gone. She was gone, and he would get her back. His promise solidified in those horrible moments following the time when the world didn’t end. He’d known then he would travel to the ends of the earth and beyond to bring her back where she belonged. It didn’t matter how far he had to go. It didn’t matter how long the journey took. It didn’t matter what he had to sacrifice.

He would get to Buffy and he would bring her back. Back into a world that wouldn’t give her rest.

A world she had been willing to die for.

The journey to the center of the world had so consumed him that Spike hadn’t fathomed what he would do when he actually saw her. How he would react. How every twisted feeling, every breathless emotion he had ever entertained would evolve into a harsh, excruciating mass of raw energy. How even hearing her voice would trigger tears. He’d come so far in such a short amount of time, and here she was. Her beautiful face cascaded by shadows. Her soft skin just inches from his fingers, hair tumbling over her shoulders. Buffy. Buffy. She was here. She was with him.

And he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find words—could barely remember the words he wanted to find. His skin was on fire, still sizzling from the aftereffects of holy water. Every nerve in his body ached, tenderized to the point where even blinking hurt. But it was all right. Everything was all right, because Buffy was with him.

Buffy was with him.

“Buffy…”

“Gotta get a move on,” she was saying hurriedly. “The demon’ll be back at any minute.”

Spike inhaled sharply. “Larry.”

“That’s the guy.”

“The guardian.”

She paused to favor him with an arched brow before rolling her beautiful green eyes. “That’s right,” she agreed slowly. “The guardian. The one we really don’t wanna run in to down here. Come on.” She extended a hand. “We gotta run.”

Nothing. He couldn’t move. Just seeing her had fried what little was left of cognitive thought. “Buffy…God…”

“Now would be good.”

“Are you hurt?” Spike asked instead. It took a few long seconds, but feeling eventually returned to his numbed senses, encouraging him to his feet. He blinked at her rapidly, waiting for the shadows to stake their claim. They did not. Buffy stood before him as though she had never disappeared at all. Beautiful. Irritated. Ready to leave.

Ready for him to lead her to the surface.

Perhaps it didn’t matter that none of this made sense. Rationally he knew he was still in the tunnel. Still two trials shy of earning entrance into Buffy’s personal Hell. What did it matter, after all, if she was right here?

And that was the bitch. The alternative was too painful to consider. It wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right. And he knew it was deliberate. This was too sweet to be real. Too much what he wanted to have it so easily handed to him. A thousand different instances, stolen moments, and painful regrets spanned their relationship. Since he saw her dancing in the Bronze—watched proudly as she killed the Annointed’s lackey. Since he devoured her confused face as her eyes drank him in for the first time. A thousand moments. A thousand things he’d do over again if given the chance.

She’d kissed him. She’d invited him into her home. She’d treated him like a man. And then he’d lost her.

He’d lost her.

The hope in his chest was too brilliant to crush, but the longer Spike looked at her, the more aware he became of his reality. Two tasks left. Two left before he could see her. Before he exited the tangle of caverns and entered a reality Buffy had created.

Not the girl standing before him, because this wasn’t truly Buffy. This Buffy was unchanged. This Buffy was a constructed caricature. Captured in a memory—a snapshot in time. It was the picture of Buffy he’d known for so long, not the one who had emerged in the last days. This Buffy lacked warmth. Lacked heart. Lacked gratitude. She was beautiful, of course, for she wore Buffy’s face, but she was also cold. And Buffy, the true Buffy, was never cold.

Even when she shut him out, she did it with enough heat to power the sun. Buffy wasn’t cold.

And this wasn’t Buffy.

Hell had provided him with what he wanted most, and ripped it away just as quickly. Tears stung his eyes, directing his gaze downward so she wouldn’t see them spill. He wouldn’t cry here. Not in front of one of them.

They were using Buffy’s image for a reason. They knew what giving her to him would do.

She was his test. His greatest trial.

“You were here?” Spike asked softly, doing his damndest to hide how hard he was trembling. “Just…here.”

“Waiting,” Buffy agreed.

“The others said you were with…that you’d fallen into a hell dimension. One you created.”

She made a face and waved a hand. “Nope. Just here. Just…caught between realities, I guess. But you got to me, Spike. I can’t thank you enough.” A light burned her gaze, twisting and turning dark. And in that second, the proverbial ceiling came crashing down. The hollowed chambers of her eyes reflected a dark, endless nothing. Nothing. No kindness. No warmth. No soul.

There was no soul in her eyes.

Something crashed within him, screaming its outrage. Knowing it didn’t make the proof any less painful. Any less heart-breaking. It was still her face. Her face. Her likeness. Larry and his friends had stolen her image and plopped her in front of him, a glass of water for a man who was minutes away from dying of thirst. And they dared assume he wouldn’t notice.

Pure, black rage hardened his veins, and his thoughts must have been broadcasted for the Buffy-mask rolled her soulless eyes and tossed her head back. “No,” she retorted in the Slayer’s stolen voice, moving forward in the Slayer’s body. “We knew you’d know. I wasn’t exactly discreet.”

Spike shook his head, feet moving before his brain could catch up. “Get out of my way,” he snarled, brushing passed her with hard, unrelenting fury.

“We just thought you’d like to see a version more like yourself.” She appeared before him in a blink, her arms spread. “Call me Buffy 2.0. Better. More advanced. Guilt-free. Not hampered by the pesky little conscience that kept your girl from enjoying your more…” A disgusting beat passed between them as she raked her eyes over his body, licking her lips, “carnal attributes. Think of the fun we could have. You. Me. The world wouldn’t know what hit it. We’d paint it red, and enjoy every minute.”

A low snarl rolled through his lips, his fangs itching, demon roaring. “Out of my way.”

The mask pouted Buffy’s pout. “You don’t wanna play?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“No, sorry, sweetie.” She tapped his chest, scorching him with her touch. “That’d be you. Here I am. The epitome of any man’s fantasy. Having it all, right? You could have it all. Have me. Have your precious Buffy. Have the world at your mercy. Hell, get that chip out of your head, while we’re at it. There’s nothing we can’t do down here, baby. And you don’t even want a taste?” The mask tsked and shook her head, sighing heavily. “Nope. Sorry. Pathetic’s really the word you want to define you.”

He stared at her for a long minute before breaking away with a harsh, incredulous laugh. “This is it, then?” he demanded. “This is what you gits decided to send me? A mock, skank-slayer all dressed to please an’ thinks the wrapping is what matters?” Spike shook his head, eyes blazing. “The wrapping’s nothing but pretty paper an’ bows. I had the wrapping, pet. I bloody well shagged the wrapping. I don’t want Buffy’s face, I want Buffy. An’ I won’t settle for some two-bit trick.”

“You really think you got a chance with the real thing?”

“No,” Spike barked. “Because she is the real thing. An’ the real thing’s too bloody good for me. Too good for you. She belongs to the world, an’ that’s what I’m gonna give her.”

He was gone, then. A whirl of movement, feet carrying him as far from the imposter’s face as they could bear. He moved without thought, without direction, without anything save for the knowledge that he had to get away. Get away from her, from the false image of the Slayer’s face. Away from the taunting rhetoric delivered with the Slayer’s voice. Away from everything that presented an image of what he didn’t have.

How much further he still had to go.

The hunger gnawing at his insides went ignored, as did the ache of his muscles and the weariness in his bones. The only thing that mattered was putting space between him and the mask—the only thing that mattered was moving deeper through the tunnel. He would do his best to ignore the shattered pieces of forgotten hope that lay scattered along his psyche, mourning the loss of the impossible. While it had been obvious—and it had been from the start, he couldn’t help the raw, unadulterated hatred from spreading through his body.

They had dared use her face. They had dared use her to test him.

They had dared give him hope.

God, he was such an idiot, such a bloody blind git. He’d wanted it too badly. He’d wanted to believe and therefore had allowed himself to be played for a fool. He’d heard her voice and, though he’d known it was impossible, he’d allowed himself a sliver of hope. For one blessed moment he’d envisioned it was over. The long, grueling days followed by nights without her. Without Buffy. The familiar pathway to the Summers’ home, long and empty. The town filled with people who didn’t know to mourn for the girl who had saved their lives by forfeiting her own.

He’d imagined warmth in a world left cold. And they’d played him for a fool.

“Second trial,” Spike murmured, stumbling against the cavern wall. “I passed the second trial.”

“You did, indeed.”

It took some effort, but the vampire found the strength to roll his eyes. “‘Lo Larry,” he drawled. “Was wonderin’ when you’d be back.”

The guardian flashed a particularly ugly grin. He had materialized from nowhere, standing just a few feet ahead with a nondescript glass curled in his claw. Something told Spike he didn’t want to know what it was. “Just can’t get enough of me, can you?”

“We won’ know until we try, now will we?”

“Awww, don’t be like that. You can’t expect us to play fairly, now can you?”

“Bit too much to ask, I suppose.” Spike staggered onward, doing his best not to growl when the scent hit him. Blood. Fresh blood. It was in the glass. Larry had a glass of blood. And God, it felt like years had passed since he’d eaten. Since he’d even sniffed, much less tasted blood that was not his own. The bagged stuff Rupert had shoved down his throat had long since drizzled into nothing. Perhaps his stomach had opened as he thrashed against the sizzling boil of holy water. Perhaps it was just what he needed to heal properly. Or perhaps he’d been a captive of Hell’s labyrinth longer than it seemed.

All he knew was he was starved, and Larry had blood.

Larry was offering him blood.

And he couldn’t take it. Couldn’t accept what was offered.

Pain sliced through his gums as his fangs descended. His eyes burned and his stomach growled, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t let anything slow him down.

Just one more test. One more.

One…

Larry grinned nastily and held up the glass. “Drink?”

Spike roared and shook his head, a knife cutting through his brain. Every instinct in his body was against him. Blood. Sweet blood. He needed blood. Without blood he would wither away into nothing—become a living corpse in every sense, but one who could never truly taste death. Caught in limbo without an exit. He’d seen it before. Seen vamps chained by righteous townspeople and made to starve for generations, time weathering their skin and insides until they were nothing but skeletons covered in raw, tender tissue. Never dead, for starvation couldn’t kill a vampire. And that was the real bitch. Starvation couldn’t kill.

Bloody hell. Thoughts like that would get him nowhere. He’d gone longer without food. The days following the Initiative’s playing around in his cranium had been the longest of his life. This was a sodding cake walk in comparison.

“No drink?” Larry called after him.

“Leave…me…alone.”

“No can do, buckaroo. You and me have unfinished business.”

Spike shook his head again and staggered onward. “No more,” he murmured, waving the demon off. “Leave—”

“Is that defeat I hear?”

Another snarl tore through the vampire’s throat, and against his better judgment, he whirled on his heel. “Do we…really need to go through this again?”

“The bit about you not giving up?” Larry ventured.

“I don’ give up.”

“Yeah, I thought that’s what you meant.”

“But I’m done with you. You, your li’l cronies, all of it. Whatever’s next is next. I don’ need you whisperin’ in my ear.”

Larry quirked his head. “See, here’s what’s funny about that. I didn’t realize you were the one drawing up the rules.”

“You sodding—”

“And here we go again with the insults. They really don’t work, you know.”

“You sent me Buffy!” Spike roared. “You tried to…with Buffy.”

“Technically it wasn’t Buffy,” he replied. “And here I thought that was the problem.”

“She—”

At last, the seemingly unmovable demon snapped. It was nothing remarkable. Nothing Spike could have predicted, but he was beyond the point of putting wagers on the table. One second Larry stood opposite him, bemused, and the next he’d rolled his putrid eyes and exclaimed: “Of course we sent you Buffy, you moron! What, you think we just started torturing people yesterday? She’s your greatest weakness. Your Achilles’ heel. Your faux fucking pas. You’ve made a good many mistakes in your life, my friend, but none so many and great as those made after your precious slayer came into your life. She’s the reason you’re here, right? The reason you’re letting us do whatever the crap we feel like—because you need to get to her. Do I need to remind you again where you are? This ain’t Disney World, pal, and we’re very good at what we do.”

Spike shook his head and turned again on his heel, rushing down the open tunnel. Rushing deeper into darkness, uncaring of what lay ahead. The pathway twisted and narrowed, expanded, and narrowed again. The third trial. He needed to get to the third trial. Buffy lay beyond the third trial, and he was so close. Christ, he was so close he could taste it.

Holy water had burned and he’d survived. Buffy had tormented, and he’d survived.

He didn’t care what lay before him so long as it got him where he needed to be. Hunger chased him and he ignored it. Fatigue nipped at his heels and he ignored it. Dizziness pounded against his brain and he ignored it. He ignored everything. Everything. He just needed to run.

Needed…needed…

Needed to get away.

“Close…”

And he was. He felt it. He felt how close he was.

The tunnel widened just a fraction, his weak eyes fixating on a nonexistent light. So close. So close…

And in an instant, everything changed. He didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late—wouldn’t have thought anything of it, even if he had. It was something small—something he’d felt before. Something so incredibly insignificant his brain would have failed to register. It was innocent enough. Things like this always were. Faint wisps of soft thread slipped over his arms and snagged his neck, roping around his legs before he could blink. And in a hair of an instant, the floor slipped from under him, jerking him to the fiercest halt he’d ever known. Spike howled, his head rocking back, a tortured gasp clawed for freedom as his mind raced, his starved stomach dropping from under him and his stilled heart thumping hard against his chest as though clamoring for freedom.

Spike blinked hard, gulping harsh breaths and craning his neck the best he could to figure out what the bloody hell had happened. His arms pressed against the restraints to little avail, his feet kicking, his body contorting, but nothing gave way. He was captured. Caught. Suspended awkwardly a good two inches off the ground.

Caught.

Then he knew he wasn’t alone. The guardian was back. The guardian had never left. He’d probably followed him through the shadows. Watching. Waiting. Laughing.

Knowing all along how much further the vampire had to travel.

“Yeah,” Larry said as he stepped out of the darkness. “This looks messy.”

Words abandoned him. Spike had nothing to offer but a stare.

“Third trial,” the demon explained. “This is it.”

Incredulity took him by storm. “This?” Spike demanded, straining against his binds. “This is the third test?”

“The spider-web. You’ve done really well. Incredibly well, actually. I can’t remember the last time someone made it this far.” Larry inclined his monstrous head, banging his claws together in something resembling applause. “Really, William, well done. Though I gotta say, I knew you’d do it all along. That hero complex of yours…you got it, and by gum you wanna put it to use. So you don’t give up. Not even when the odds are dead against you.”

Spike ignored him, eager legs twitching. Buffy was just a little further down the tunnel. He knew it. Christ, he could taste it. “What’s the test?” he demanded. “Tell me the sodding test.”

“The test?”

“Yes!”

Larry looked at him a minute longer, sighing heavily. “You never talk to me nicely,” he complained. “Would it kill you to say please every now and then?”

“Don’t fuck with me. What’s the test?”

“All right, all right. Mr. Touchy.” The demon blinked hard, shook his mammoth head again, and waved at him. “That’s a spider-web,” he explained. “Or…the rough equivalent.”

Spike’s eyes shot to his arm—to the white, filmy thread binding him in place. “All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll buy that.”

“And this being the third trial, we obviously want it to be the most difficult…”

“‘Course.”

“But really, I don’t think we ask too much.” Larry shrugged. “All you have to do is…well, hang out for a few days. Three days, to be exact. Three of your world’s days. No more. No less. I’ll check on you every now and then—”

“Three days?” Spike barked, unwittingly straining against his confines. “Buffy’s already waited—”

“And she can wait longer.”

“She needs me!”

“And providing you get this right, she’ll get you.” Another shrug. “I really don’t see what your deal is. After all, you’ve come this far. What’s three more days, huh?”

A sodding eternity. Spike’s eyes fluttered closed, forcing his temper back.

Three days. Just three more days.

Three days of knowing she was just a little further down the tunnel. And she needed him.

In the end, he had no choice. There had never been a choice. Buffy was the only option and he wouldn’t turn his back on her. She’d waited a week while her mates pieced together theories and methods and dug around old books for demonic fairytales. She’d waited as Larry toyed with her fate, constructing hoops and commanding Spike to jump. She’d waited for so long, and though it killed him, she would have to wait now.

He was the only hope she had, even if she didn’t know it.

He was all she had.

And to be saved, she would wait longer still.

He just hoped time hadn’t already cost them everything.

Silence.

God, silence killed.

Spike had learned long ago that the earth could never truly be silent. Even in the quietest part of night, something living stirred and created sound. Birds. Insects. Wind rolling through leaves. The rumble of a car driving through an underpass. A cat leaping out of an alleyway dumpster. There was always something. Always something—something to remind the world that it was still turning. Something to remind the world that silence was only a blanket for a terrain that never stopped screaming.

He’d never known true silence. Even before he clawed his way to freedom under a mound of fresh earth, he’d heard Drusilla singing in the distance. Murmuring lullabies, calling to him, coaxing him forward. Telling him what to do and beckoning him to join her so they could dance naked in the moonlight.

It had never truly been silent. Silence was where the dead lived.

In the tunnels of Hell, nothing moved. Nothing rustled. Nothing chirped. Nothing lived. The tunnels were absolutely silent, and silence was enough to kill.

“Three days,” Spike murmured, straining against the webbing. “Jus’ three days.”

After having come so far, there was a certain measure of frustration and anxiousness in the knowledge that he was in the last throes. Seconds couldn’t tick by fast enough. His mind turned itself over with image after image of what might await him after the trial was over. If Larry would just shake his hand, tell him he’d done it, and wish him well. If there would be any last attempt to stop him from doing what he’d come here to do.

And beyond that…

Buffy’s personal inferno lay just yards away. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it had to be so. He knew he had to be close. His heart twisted and his stomach clenched, fatigue wearing him down. Strange that he had nothing to do but rest—nothing to do, and yet it wasn’t forthcoming.

He couldn’t rest. He needed rest, but he couldn’t rest.

In three days he would be with Buffy. He would be in Buffy’s Hell, and he couldn’t rest knowing that.

Three days.

Just three days.

Day three came and went. There was no way of knowing, of course, when exactly the clock turned over the seventy-second hour. He just knew. He knew three days had gone by. He knew he should be free.

He should be, but he wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

And though his throat ached, it didn’t stop him from screaming.

Even if his voice did nothing but ripple along the cave walls, echoing down an uncaring passageway before dying out completely.

“Hey!” Spike shouted, borrowed strength fusing his muscles and pulling hard against the thin threads holding him in place. Nothing came of it—the web wasn’t loosening, wasn’t relenting, and he wasn’t going anywhere. “Hey! Larry!” He yielded, sucking in a deep breath. “It’s been three days! Three days! Where the bloody hell are you?”

Nothing. Nothing. He didn’t expect anything. Not after hours of being ignored.

Didn’t mean he would stop. He couldn’t stop. He’d served his time.

Buffy needed him.

Buffy was waiting, suffering, burning, and Spike was just a few precious feet from freedom.

And he wasn’t being answered.

“Hey!”

Sharp pinpricks scratched at his throat. His eyes watered. His chest ached. Insistent pangs of hunger roared through his starving body, but he ignored it. Ignored it as he did the dying echoes of his cries, as he did the strain in his arms, and just as he did the pain shooting through his legs. He ignored it.

And waited.

It had been three days and he was still here. He was still hanging uselessly while Buffy drowned in her nightmares.

Three days. It had been three days.

And he was still here.

Consciousness came and went. There were times he thought he slept for days. Weeks. Times when the pain in his body cemented and became a part of him—a part without which he might not survive. His weakened eyes didn’t notice when his skin began to thin. His crippled arms didn’t care when his muscles began to give. Nothing mattered. Nothing but time.

And he had time. He had a lot of time.

Couldn’t be easy, could it. Three days turned into something else. Three days in his world. On Earth. In Sunnydale. Three days there meant nothing to the world below. Three days in Hell might as well be forever.

It could be forever.

“Buffy…”

Time was a man’s worst enemy.

He just hadn’t realized it before, had taken it for granted as he’d watched the changing generations, the birth and evolution of technology. He’d seen more than he could ever have imagined; horse-drawn carriages turning into motor cars, flying without feathers, the birth of jazz and music without melody. So much had marked the passing of a century; two world wars, and a cold one. The redefinition of racism; concentration camps for Jews and Asians, genocides in countries no one seemed to care about. Scientists discovering how little it would take to blow apart the world, then sending men to the moon to kiss the stars. Walls going up and coming down. Unimaginable human slaughter broadcast worldwide and shared by all through colored tubes. Stamps and envelopes exchanged for printed words without paper.

He’d seen it all, had sat back and watched, not caring very much. He’d watched history unfold and make itself. He’d find someone to eat, turn on the telly, toss an arm around Dru and wait for the next day to arrive, only mildly interested in the disasters man wreaked upon itself.

He’d had time. He’d had so much of it.

And now he had more than he could stand: weeks, months, years. Good lord, years. Had it been years? He didn’t know. Time had no meaning. Time was without shape.

Time was endless, and he had as much of it as anyone ever would.

Hanging. Waiting as his insides rotted.

Waiting for something that didn’t come.

It helped to have her with him…and she was with him. She was always with him.

To see her, all he had to do was close his eyes.

All he had to do was close his eyes and he wasn’t alone anymore. She was there.

“It’s sweet, the way you won’t let go.”

It took a few minutes to realize the sound in the air belonged to a voice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard someone speak. And even after he realized it was a voice, the words themselves were fragmented, torn apart, without logic. He heard himself talk often, though it was never aloud. It was always internal.

He couldn’t risk his voice. It hurt too much to speak.

“Darling, right here.”

His head might as well have been weighed with lead. It rolled uselessly from side to side before the muscles in his neck strained and he successfully lifted it, leaving only the mechanics of raising his eyes. He hadn’t expected to see anyone in the cavern—after all, it had been long enough his mind might have begun playing tricks on him. Or better yet, perhaps it was another false face. Another faux Buffy to taunt his loyalty. To doubt his determination.

Another Buffy.

Not the one he wanted. The one he needed.

The one waiting.

Spike blinked at the shadows, seeing nothing. And before he could help himself, his jaw fell open, sore from inactivity, and his raspy voice clawed mercilessly at his throat. Whatever he said faded into a hard, crippling cough. His eyes strained but did not water; the fluid in his body drained away long ago. It took a second but he decided to try again, raising his eyes once more to the relentless dark.

Who’s there?

“You don’t remember? After all we shared…” Then a woman was there, taking form in the midst of the shadows, materializing from nothing at all. A woman: a pretty woman with eyes as pitiless as the silence. “Well,” she continued, shrugging a shoulder. “We didn’t share much, did we? You didn’t care for me, and God knows I couldn’t stand you.”

He stared at her and waited for his mind to switch on. It had been so long.

Darla.

The woman smiled. “That’s right, precious.”

You’re not real.

“Of course I’m not real.” She rubbed her belly, her head cocked to the side. “I’m…well, I think I’m in Mexico City, looking for a cure for the disease your grand-dad put in my belly. And you’re here. Just…what? Hanging around?”

Spike just stared at her, lacking the strength to shake his head. Darla. Christ, he’d almost forgotten what Darla looked like. And he knew she wasn’t here—wasn’t with him, but wasn’t in his head, either. His imagination might be vivid, but he certainly wouldn’t have conjured the vision of a relative he could barely stand.

She wasn’t here. And she wasn’t in him.

I’m dying.

Darla smiled a soft, nasty smile. “No, sweetheart. You’re not dying. You can’t die when you’re already dead. But you’re not going anywhere, are you? You’re just…here.” She spread her arms demonstratively. “Just here. Waiting. And here’s the truly funny part…you don’t need to be. You could be up there.” Her head inclined just slightly. “With your…would you call them friends? They’d understand. You tried. You failed. It happens every day.”

No.

“Why are you still waiting?”

Spike’s eyes fluttered shut, where awaited Buffy’s face.

Buffy was always with him. Always. When he closed his eyes she was there. Waiting with him. Waiting.

Because no matter how long he waited, she waited longer.

And he wouldn’t leave unless she was at his side.

It was strange. When he closed his eyes the scene often remained the same. The terrain of the tunnel he’d memorized so long ago. As far as his weak eyes could stretch, he saw in the plane of his mind. And most always when he retreated inward, she was waiting for him.

He knew she wasn’t real. He also knew she wasn’t one of them, one of the voices from the cave. One of the agents sent by…whoever, was pulling his strings to get him to give up. He knew because she was the perfect essence of a memory. His memory. She was preserved there for him, kept him company in the midst of his own nightmares. Her face unchanged, her hair just as he remembered, her eyes sparkling with the same warmth he’d known in the last days.

Buffy waited for him when he closed his eyes. When he closed his eyes, he was made whole.

“They’ve started, haven’t they?” she asked when he stepped inside himself.

Spike smiled wearily. “You’re always here.”

She shrugged. “I’m always with you, so yeah. How else do you think you’re gonna stay sane?”

“You keep me grounded, pet.”

Buffy grinned at him, her nose doing that cute scrunchy thing he’d always thought adorable, begrudgingly so or not. “Think I’ve heard somewhere that you’re your own best friend. Guess that’s where I come in.”

“I’ll take you any day compared to what’s out there,” he replied, nodding as though the world outside his subconscious was a place he could take her. As though she would—she could—be with him when he opened his eyes again. “You said they started. Reckon that means you figured they would.”

“No, we’ve been over this,” she replied somewhat sternly. “If I’m not here, it means you figured they would. I can’t know anything you don’t know already. Remember, buddy…this is your head.”

He nodded. “Right… An’ you’re here for me.”

“That-a boy.”

Spike sighed heavily and lowered his head, resignation shuddering through his body. “Figured it wasn’ enough to leave me alone as long as they have,” he said. “Knew they’d up the ante.”

“Yes, you did.” Buffy offered a tired smile, lifting her hair off her shoulders and pulling it into a ponytail. She did that often without even realizing it—fidgeted, busied her hands when she spoke, as though inactivity would render her useless. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a tie or that her hair would eventually fall back across her shoulders. She needed to keep busy. She always needed to be doing something.

“They had to try,” she continued. “I mean, you’ve been a puppet on a string for…do we even wanna know how long now?”

No, he really didn’t.

Buffy nodded. “You’re not going anywhere, and I think it’s finally getting through to them.”

A harsh laugh rocked his chest. “Let’s not get optimistic here.”

“If they want you to cave, they’re gonna get nasty. We’re okay with nasty, aren’t we?”

Spike looked up, inhaling deeply. Her eyes were perfect, everything about her was perfect. Every last detail, just as he’d committed them; every line on her face, every freckle, every scar which had faded but not healed completely. Perfection. His kind of perfect—and she always had been.

Perfect for him. Spike’s perfect.

And it killed him that she wasn’t real, that she wasn’t with him. Knowing that when he returned to reality—to the place existing outside his mind—Buffy would be gone. She would be gone because she wasn’t here. She was still so far from him.

So far, but if he opened his eyes, he’d see the way he needed to travel. He’d see the path that taunted him. The path he couldn’t walk.

Three days. Just three days.

Three long, long days.

It helped to think of hunger as a disease. Made the pain just a notch or two above unbearable rather than steer him to full-blown madness. Hunger could drive a man insane. He’d seen it. Watched it. Laughed at the misfortune of others as he went on his merry way, drank his fill, and lived his unlife.

Hunger could drive a man insane.

Hunger was a disease. It crippled. It made him weak. Made his body disintegrate. Made his muscles decay.

He couldn’t die. He couldn’t eat.

All he could do was wait.

“Y’know, I went to Hell once.”

Spike’s eyes had been sealed shut longer than he cared to consider. When the phantoms came, he heard them but didn’t watch. It often took days to remember their names, and longer to remember their faces. None of them mattered. The only one who mattered was the one in his head, the one at the end of the tunnel. The one waiting.

Today he decided to be ballsy. Today he decided to open his eyes.

He just didn’t realize what a trial it would be. His skin had faded so long ago, pressing like film against rotted bone. How he did it, he didn’t know. He didn’t even know if he had eyelids anymore. And it didn’t matter.

None of it mattered.

“Yep. I was in Hell. Wasn’t like this, though.”

A male this time. A male Spike knew. He’d been here before. Several times. And each time it grew more and more difficult to remember who he was.

Angel.

“Angelus,” the figment replied, rolling his eyes. “I figured you’d get it by now. Angelus. Not Angel. Angel’s…I dunno, helping the…puppies or children, or something to that effect. Whatever it is he does now. Vampire detective. A vampire who detects. Not Angel. Angel would be what she sees. You’re a different story.”

My…mistake.

“Back to what I was saying before you…” The figment’s jaw ticked, “forgot my name. I was in Hell once. Not like this. Mine was, oh, I dunno, useful. More actual torture. Guess they didn’t think you could stomach that. They left you to do yourself in. But in the meantime, I wonder what I’m doing to her where she is. Now Buffy’s a girl who knows how to make her Hell…worthy.”

Amazing how so much rage could filter through his fragile bones. It would probably render him in pieces had the web not held him together. He’d learned over the last few years that, while memory was a funny thing, it was also subjective. He remembered everything about where he was and why he was here. He remembered the agony after she jumped. Watching her fall through the sky and land nowhere—it was something he couldn’t forget, would never forget. As he wouldn’t forget the contours of her face or the ring of her voice. Buffy was the one thing he couldn’t forget.

The one thing he held on to.

“She lets me have my way with her, you know,” Angelus continued. “You know how many times a guy can rape a girl in the span of eternity? Guess we could find out. After all, this is about her worst fears…isn’t that what you thought? I’d be there, you can count on it. Over and over. Killing her as many times as I like. You’d be there, too, I’m sure. At least I’d think one of her worst fears would be dating you, don’t you? It sure as hell was up there.”

Spike just closed his eyes again, which took almost as much effort as had opening them. If he waited, Angel’s ghost would fade into the darkness and grant him a reprieve. The git would be back, undoubtedly; he always came back. The lot of them did. They took turns. Darla. Angelus. Dru. Even Harm had piped in once or twice. They used different words but said the same thing.

None of them got him to budge. He hung in his prison.

Wasting away.

And waiting.

There were times he slept for years, or at least it felt like it. He would fade away and wake up forever later only to find more of him missing. The last time, he felt his hair begin to drift away. When he woke up it was gone entirely, leaving his head feeling as if a thin mess of tissue barely covered his skull.

This was one of those times. He awoke years older. And still here.

Still hanging.

Still hanging.

And it would take forever to fall back asleep.

“Blood?”

There was a demon in front of him. A demon whose name he knew. A demon he did not have to wrestle his memory to recognize. It was the first time that had happened. The first time thoughts did not hurt. Spike knew him. He knew him immediately.

Larry.

The demon smiled encouragingly. “That’s right,” he agreed, thrusting his arm forward and dragging attention to the glass in his claw. “Blood?”

The disease called hunger reared its ugly head, cracking at his bones and making his stomach tighten to the point he thought it might actually fall from his body. His fangs pierced through what little tissue was left over his gums, pain shocking raw, tender nerves and triggering a silent scream that might well have rattled him to dust had it managed to escape. Hunger. God, he was so hungry.

So. Hungry.

“I bet you are,” Larry cooed. “Hell knows I’d be. So if you want something to drink, all you gotta do is ask.”

No. Can’t.

Fuck, it was so hard to remember why. He was sure he’d known at one point. Known why he couldn’t eat. Known why he couldn’t do anything but wait as his body weathered away. It had made sense once, not too long ago. It had made sense. There had been a reason for abstaining. A reason. And even with every corner of his body aching, with starvation carving through his insides, he knew he couldn’t. If it had been important once it was still important. The rules hadn’t changed.

No amount of decay could dull Buffy’s face.

This was for Buffy.

For Buffy.

She kept him sane. When he closed his eyes, she was there. She was the reason. She was all the reason he’d need.

All the reason.

A resigned sigh rolled through Larry’s bulky body, and he nodded his defeat. “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug, pouring the contents of the glass onto the stone, sending a whiff of fresh blood to the remnants of Spike’s taste buds. “Well, I got some good news.”

News. News was a good thing. News had to be a good thing. News meant it was over.

It was over. It was over. Relief swept over him. A tidal wave of pure, unadulterated relief.

It was over.

“Yes,” Larry agreed with a nod. “You did succeed. You survived Day One.”

And just like that, relief fell into something dark and ugly. Something Spike couldn’t wrap his mind around. The rest faded to a dull buzz. He didn’t hear. He understood, but he didn’t hear.

Day One. Day One.

Three days. Three days.

He remembered three days.

“Gotta say, I’m impressed. I really thought you’d cave around, oh, year fifty or so.” Larry shrugged. “Yeah, in case you didn’t have it figured…one day upstairs, a hundred years downstairs. So you got through Day One. Bravo. I mean it, bra-vo.” The guardian offered a nasty grin, wiping his claws and taking a step back. “If you get through Day Two, I think you just might make it. Until then…you can, you know, call if you need me. Otherwise, well, I’ll see you tomorrow, big guy.”

Despair seeped into his bones. Larry faded into the shadows.

Leaving Spike alone.

Leaving him with nothing but her face. Her face which gave him light in darkness.

Day One.

Buffy. He had to keep his thoughts with Buffy. Buffy.

A hundred years for a day. She’d been gone almost a millennia. A sodding millennia. He wasn’t going to cry foul. Not for three hundred measly years. He could survive. He could survive for her.

God, he hoped so.

It was strange how hunger never abated. He’d known all kinds of pain in his time; burnings, stabbings, bullets, holy relics, and more punches to the head than any ring fighter had ever taken. Even the worst of wounds faded after a while—the pain was fleeting. Always fleeting. Once his body adapted, he would forget. He would move on.

Hunger was a pain that didn’t let him forget.

He imagined himself as a skeleton covered with a thin layer of skin. What little he could see determined his blackened, rotted bones and his naked, exposed inner organs. The first time he’d tried to look had left him screaming silently, for his throat had long lost its ability to produce sound. His heavy head had swung southward, crusted eyes soaking in the sight of his shriveled heart protected by a slip of silk-fine flesh. When he breathed—which he didn’t anymore for the pain it caused—he’d watched his shrunken lungs expand and deflate with morbid curiosity. It was awful, and it was real. It was his reality.

He had no idea what had happened to his clothing. Had he had clothing? He couldn’t say. Perhaps the fabric had melted away in the pool of holy water—perhaps Larry had stripped him to further his humility. It was anyone’s guess. Likewise, his hair was gone as well. That was something he knew without knowing. Just as he knew the only thing keeping him alive at all was the webbing that had captured him in such a way that his fragile body was still intact.

Please…

He didn’t know for what he begged anymore. Rest, perhaps, but it often took years to find rest. True rest. The rest where he could retreat within himself and lie dormant until Larry visited again.

But even then, he feared rest. He feared how his mind might deteriorate if he allowed it to sleep. Without Buffy there to talk with him, what might happen when he shut himself down.

How the world could change.

What he might forget.

A constant echo in his head—a reminder. He needed this. Needed the repetition. Needed it to strike an inner chord. If he lost it, he would lose everything. He was supposed to lose everything. This test—the waiting—it was designed to capture him forever. They didn’t expect him to fail. No, no. That was too easy. Fail and he could go home. Piece of bloody cake.

Her memory was the only thing that held him here. Her memory, and his promise never to forget.

I’m Spike. I’m Spike. My name is Spike. Spike, Spike, Spike.

Over and over. He couldn’t forget his name. Couldn’t. The ghosts hadn’t visited in years. Hadn’t stepped out of the shadows to poke fun at his torment. Hadn’t the decency to remind him who he was.

I’m Spike. I’m Spike. I’m Spike.

He had to hold on to that. He had to remember.

Don’t forget your name. That’s what she said. Willow. Was her name Willow? She had red hair. I think she was Willow. Willow sounds right. She told me not to forget my name.

And so long as he kept repeating it, forget it he would not.

I’m Spike. Spike. Spike. My name is Spike. I’m Spike. I’m Spike…I’m…

“Spike.”

He opened his eyes slowly, wearily, knowing immediately he’d stepped within himself. It was always safer in here: safer, warmer, and there was no pain. No pain inside his head—not when he could again feel his fingers and toes, again sniff the air, stale as it was. Again see properly. Inside his head he was at his best.

Inside his head was where Buffy lived.

And Buffy helped him remember.

“That’s it,” he agreed tiredly, sagging in relief. The terrain might be the same as his prison, but at least, when he was withdrawn, he could move. Didn’t matter that his body never got this respite. He was always sore, of course, because reality remained just outside the door, but here, Spike could pretend to be all right.

When he was safe within his mind, he could pretend he was whole.

“Yeah, it. Your name. The thing you’re not supposed to forget.” Buffy crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. “You freaked me out just now.”


“Sorry, pet.”

“Don’t give me ‘sorry!’ Spike, let’s do this again. Willow told you…what?”

He turned his eyes downward, shamefaced. Christ, how she could make him feel like this when she was a figment of his own bloody imagination was beyond him. Yet he was grateful. Extremely grateful. Buffy kept him grounded—kept his eyes on the prize. Kept him in a place where he remembered what was at stake. It was so easy to forget otherwise.

So fucking easy.

“Not to forget my name.”

She nodded heatedly. “That’s right.”

“Been over a century, pet, by my count. Figure points for rememberin’ this long, yeah?”

“Well, if that jackass we call Larry has ever once told the truth, we got a little while longer to wait.” Her brows perked and her arms folded perfectly across her breasts. “Can you hold out that long?”

Spike smiled. It was so easy to smile when she was around. “For you? Love, for you, I could walk on water.”

“No need to get sappy,” she replied, lips twitching. “This is serious, William.”

“I know.” She only called him William when it was serious. “I know it is.”

“The first century nearly killed you.”

“Can’t kill me,” he retorted. “Killing would be too bloody merciful, now wouldn’t it? Same thing with the holy water. I remember that. There was a pool of it…I jumped in, burned mostly to death, an’ was right as sodding rain after a bit of shut-eye.” Spike sighed heavily and shook his head. “Can’t kill me. Vamps can’t die of starvation.”

There was a considerable pause. Buffy shuffled restlessly, her feet sliding against the rocky ground. She wanted to pace. He knew she wanted to pace. Pacing kept her in motion. Pacing allowed her to do what he could not—move. He couldn’t move; couldn’t feel the flow of air between his legs. Couldn’t feel anything other than useless and dead.

She was the part of him that kept on living when the rest wished for darkness. Buffy made him alive.

“You do look bad, don’t you?” she whispered, her eyes widening. “I mean…out there.”

Spike licked his lips. “Can’t see me out there?”

“No, because you can’t.”

“An’ you can’t know what I don’t know.”

She nodded. “Right.”

“Because you’re me, not real, an’ I’m alone.”

“You don’t have to be so morose,” she retorted grumpily. “It’s easier when we make-believe…otherwise…Spike, what the hell are you doing?”

He frowned and spread his arms. Might as well pretend he could, while they were pretending everything else. “‘m standing here. What?”

“You know you can leave whenever you like. Just pack up and go home. No one would blame you. For Pete’s sake, you’ve been hanging like a…a…a guy who hangs for over a hundred years.” Buffy shook her head and shivered. “You didn’t know what you were getting in to when you signed on for this gig.”

Spike laughed bitterly. “An’ you did?”

“Hello? Of the Chosen, here. I had an inkling.”

He arched a brow. She shuffled more.

“Well, I did! How many slayers live to see their sunset years, huh?”

“You will,” he said firmly. “Once this is over. I’ve waited this bloody long, Buffy. Don’t you start telling me I’m better off packing it up. I can’t leave you here. I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I love you.”

“You love me,” Buffy repeated, nodding and licking her lips. “Ever ask yourself why?”

A harsh laugh rumbled against Spike’s chest. “Aside from every bloody minute of my last year with you, you mean? Every second since that dream…up until the Tower? No, pet. Not anymore.”

“Look, I know you felt bad because I leapt, but—”

Another harsh laugh. He blinked at her incredulously. “Bad?” he repeated, then again, quieter to himself. “Bad she says. Yeah, kitten, I felt pretty bloody bad. I made you a promise, didn’t I? An’ I let it…I let you jump.”

“Actually, you made a promise to protect Dawn. Dawn’s still alive, isn’t she?”

“No thanks to me. I could’ve beaten the bloody doc, pet. I know I could have.”

Buffy smiled warmly. “Isn’t it great the way your memory sharpens when we go over this?”

He wished he could smile back and mean it; nothing could eradicate the knowledge that he would return to his world alone, starving, and less than half a man. Whatever he remembered here, he remembered because of her. Because it was tied to her. Tied to Buffy as she lived within him. It had nothing to do with memories returning or knowledge he kept from himself until he wasn’t fully conscious; it was because the day she’d disappeared would forever be engrained in his mind. The cold slab of empty concrete where she should have lain—no, that and everything relating to it would be with him forever.

“It’s you,” he replied instead, shrugging half-heartedly. “Of course I remember it.”

Her smile faded a bit, a more serious countenance taking over. “I just…I wonder if it’s really worth it, you know? You say you love me, but Spike…you know that I—the other, not-so-pleasant I—you know I’m not going to just fall into your arms or anything. I’m downright bitchy at times.”

That comment earned a laugh. “Bloody right, you are.”

“But you love me.”

“I love you. An’ I don’t care what you give me in return. I don’t care if I don’t even get a thanks.” A pause. “Well, yeah, that might brass me off a bit, but Christ, love, I’m not in this for me, an’ if I am, it’s because I know that whatever I suffer here is nothing compared to the few days I lived in a world without you.”

“Sappy,” she accused again.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t called a bloody awful poet for nothin’.”

“You wrote poetry?” she asked, her nose crinkling.

“Think so, yeah. It gets fuzzy after a while, my memory. But that sounds right.” Spike broke off with a shudder. “I mean it, though. What I said. Living through this is bloody torment, but I know there’s an’ end. It will end eventually. But if I go back without you, knowing I gave up…you’re worth it, Buffy.”

She looked at him for a long, quiet moment, her eyes dark and contemplative. “Am I?”

“I told you, I love you.”

“Yeah, I know that, but which me do you love? I know you love talking with me now—as I am right here when I’m with you. But the other girl, the real one, the one you’re trying to reach…she’s not me.”

Spike reared as though slapped. “Of course she is.”

“I’m your ideal.”

“Rot.”

“I live in your head, Spike, I think I’m on even ground here.”

“My ideal is you,” he retorted, muscles clenching with long forgotten irritation. “Jus’ as you are. Just as bloody infuriating as you are. If I wanted you to be any different, you would be.”

“You’re reaching.”

“An’ you’re daft.” Spike turned away before his anger became visible. “I love Buffy. I love her because she’s exactly like this. Like you. You think you know things—how I feel, what I’d do, an’ you don’t have the firs’ fucking clue. She’s brilliant, but God, the clumsiest girl I’ve ever seen. Resourceful. Beautiful. Funny in her own way. You really gotta listen, y’know? Sometimes she doesn’ know she said something clever…other times, her eyes light up an’ it’s bloody Fourth of July, the way she smiles. She doesn’ think she’s smart, but she is, an’ it’s so…an’ she’s kind. To me when I din’t deserve it, to her friends who rarely deserve it…to everyone. Caring…God, she cares so much. She loves with everythin’ she is, an’ she doesn’t know how special that is. Doesn’ know how rare. An’ even if she irritates me to no bloody end, I’ll love her until I’m dust.”

A long silence settled between them before Buffy’s lips quirked, tugging upward into a soft grin. “Well, when you put it like that, I do sound pretty amazing.”

If anything, her concession only fueled his tantrum. “An’ you’re her! You’re so bloody convinced that no man will ever love you. The real you. You think it’s impossible to be loved without being put on a pedestal—the way your precious exes did. You don’t get that from me an’ you never will. There’s a reason you’re in my mind the way you are, kitten.” He shook his head heavily. “I had the fantasy. I had you without your personality in my arms, in my bed, an’ it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough for me. That piece of wirin’ would’ve done anything for me, an’ she did…an’ yeah, I liked it on a purely carnal level, but that’s where it ends. She wasn’t enough, an’ she never could be. She had your face…but she wasn’t enough. Having her didn’t make me want Buffy any less. God, if anything, it just made me realize how lonely I was. How I’d never have what I really wanted. I never wanted the bot. I want you. I want Buffy jus’ as she is. Nothing else will do for me. Nothing else. An’ if I have to wait here three thousand years, it’ll be worth it.”

The look in her eyes wasn’t unlike the one she’d given him in his crypt over a century before. The day he’d told her—thinking she was a machine—that Glory could kill him if it meant keeping Buffy and her sister safe. The warmth. The gratitude. The softness. She was so giving. She was always giving. Always.

And she wasn’t real. None of this was real.

Spike smiled gently, relaxing his shoulders. “See?” he said. “If you were the fantasy, that would’ve been your cue to leap into my arms an’ demand a good shagging.”

She glanced down with a laugh, wiping at her eyes. “Point.”

“I have you here as I’d want you in reality. I love you. I love Buffy. Jus’ as she is.” Spike looked at her for a second longer before breaking away, shaking his head with a short chuckle. “God, no bloody fantasy could drive me outta my mind like you do.”

Buffy shrugged. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

“Infuriatin’ chit…”

“Hey!”

Spike offered a thoroughly unapologetic shrug. “Well, you are, pet. No use bein’ nice for the sake of manners. I am evil, remember?”

Her faux-indignation fell into a fond smile, reaching up to cup his cheek with a tenderness which would—in other circumstances—have nearly sent him to his knees. “Yeah,” she agreed softly. “Yeah,” she agreed softly. “Evil.”

The word was spoken with soft irony. He appreciated it.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“An’ I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Buffy nodded. “I know, Spike,” she replied. “I know.”

He looked at her as long as he could before reality began pounding against the walls protecting him. It would be so easy to overlook where he was; he could say whatever he wanted in here. To the Buffy who kept him company in the long, cold hours of his sentence. It was refreshing, in a way, spilling every word of everything he’d wanted to tell her in their last year together, but at the same time, there was no forgetting it wasn’t real. The conversations he had here wouldn’t carry over into reality. Perhaps he’d get to relive them with the real Buffy; he didn’t know. He had no way of knowing.

But he’d die for the chance.

Once upon a time he’d relished every minute. Every minute of every day he lived. Every minute was exciting—every minute led to the next. A surprise. Life in motion. He’d laugh and cry and shake his head before diving in again. Time was ever-changing. Time forgave. Time surprised. He loved living because he never knew what would come of it. What he would see. What would happen next.

That had been a long time ago. A different place. A different world. A different life.

Every minute was the same.

Every bloody second was the same.

Nothing ever changed.

“Pretty boy, all alone in the dark.”

That voice. He knew that voice. He’d once followed that voice over continents and oceans. He would have followed it to the stars had it asked. After all, its owner had once been his world; his whole bloody universe, his reason for living. His reason for everything. And even if he couldn’t remember her name, or what she looked like, it struck a deep enough chord to ensnare his attention.

She always did when she visited.

“Could snip your strings, if you like,” she continued softly, moving closer. He couldn’t see her—his eyes had been closed for years now, and he didn’t care to open them. His world didn’t get better the more he looked at it; his mind was a much safer place. “Could let the dolly walk on its own. Would you like that, dolly?”

Go. Away.

She whimpered her puppy whimper that had once been one of his greatest weaknesses. “Don’t want any crumpets? I could get you something tasty, my sweet. I could fill that rumble in your belly.”

He was sure she could. For a price. A hefty price.

A price he was unwilling to pay.

“Make the stars cry. Such a strong boy once…till the morning took you.” She sniffled pitifully. “Can’t help. Can’t touch you. Why won’t you let me touch you, William?”

The thought of her skin on him made him hiss. Spike flinched inwardly and willed himself into the darkest corner of his mind. Away from her—away from her voice. Away from everything that could touch him.

Silence was better than visits from phantoms.

He lived for talks with her. For seeing her. For merely being in a place where he could watch her face. Though seeing her grew more difficult over time. Sometimes she didn’t come—sometimes he was too weary to summon her face. Sometimes he waited for hours. Waited for her to step from the shadows of his mind and fuel him with the warmth and hope he needed to keep him company through the lonely days. Sometimes he waited forever.

She didn’t always come. He didn’t know why—perhaps he wasn’t strong enough to bring her forward. Perhaps his mind was abandoning him at long last. Perhaps a thousand different things.

And then, a ray of sunlight through building clouds, she would be there when he least expected it. Smiling. Welcoming. Reminding him.

Her name was one he would never forget. Even if he lost his own, Buffy would remain with him.

Can’t lose…can’t forget…

It was difficult holding on when his brain threatened to shut down. When he wanted it to shut down. When he wanted nothingness more than anything else.

When he wanted the deep sleep of a thousand years to get him through his trial.

Spike. Spike. Spike. My name is Spike.

“Spike,” she whispered, running her imaginary hands through his nonexistent hair. Her touch was so soothing. So warm. He loved her for her warmth. “Spike. Hold on. Hold on, Spike. It can’t be much longer. We’re almost there.”

God, if only it were so.

My name is Spike. My name is Spike. Spike. Spike. My name is Spike.

“My, my, my, doesn’t time fly?”

That voice. He knew that voice. It was the same he’d heard so long ago and required no introduction. He recognized it immediately, as well he should; he’d been waiting to hear it again for a century.

“Nothing to drink?” Larry asked, waving a glass of blood under Spike’s nose. It wasn’t as bad as before. His ability to smell had dwindled significantly over the past hundred years, though as his demon knew instinctively what it was, he wasn’t spared the pain of his fangs twitching or the agonizing twist of his withered stomach.

Hunger had never been so demanding as it was now. When he had the hint of what he wanted within grasp. When he knew he had to turn it down.

My name is Spike.

“Good,” the guardian cooed, thoroughly insincere. “You remembered.”

Can’t…drink…

“What, this? Surely one little sip won’t hurt.”

One little sip would kill. Hunger only hurt.

An inward laugh. Hunger only hurt.

When after a few seconds Spike failed to take Larry up on his offer, the guardian sighed heavily and, as he had a hundred years earlier, spilled the contents onto the stone floor before the starving vampire. “Well,” he said. “That was certainly a waste.”

Not…my problem.

“No,” Larry acquiesced. “It’s not. So, Day Two. You made it. Think you’re ready for another?”

Spike didn’t reply. A reply wasn’t needed—not when the answer was obvious.

Two hundred years. He could push forward. He could endure. And he would.

After all, what was one more day?

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