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.

Morning chased away the shadows night had cast, leaving him with no evidence of what he'd seen. The name was gone, twisted again into a foreign form of hieroglyphics. Spike truly hadn't expected anything else. What had happened hadn't been based in reality—not his and not even Buffy's. It was something beyond reality, and while he didn't understand exactly what he'd seen, he wasn't daft enough to minimize its significance.

Buffy was trying to tell him something. She didn't know how or what, but she was trying to tell him something. And last night, even asleep in his arms, she had. She'd spoken.

Without words or direction, she'd spoken.

Spike sighed, his eyes drifting from the walls to the sleeping wonder in his arms. She hadn't made a sound all night, at least none loud enough to penetrate the thick fog of sleep which had blurred his senses and scoffed at his meager attempts to resist. Sleep was a luxury he had long taken for granted; it had been a necessity in the cave—a way to escape the ghosts and the long endless hours between centuries. When he slept now, they were hard, dreamless sleeps. No visits from phantoms, no faux-Buffy waiting within his mind, nothing but deep, relentless darkness, and for that he was grateful.

He wondered if Buffy dreamt at all. He wondered what she saw. If anything, her dreams since his arrival were likely a confusing collage of images. Perhaps that was what had beaten on her worn brain the day before. Images of a life she'd forgotten, awakened by a face lost in time.

Fuck, he hoped so. The list of alternatives was too bloody daunting. Buffy had already proved impervious to aging…but she was still human. In this twisted, horrid place where she had never died, she remained fragile and breakable even under layers of fortified slayer muscle. There was no telling what he'd brought with him from the outside. What her cells had forgotten how to fight.

That was the most terrifying possibility, and, he told himself, likewise the least probable. There were a million things a place like this could do to the human mind. A million horrible things.

Things he truly didn't wish to consider, but couldn't help but play over and over. It was easier when he focused on the walls.

Christ, he was so sodding sick of worrying.

One thing at a time was likely the easiest way to get through the day, and carnal concerns were more pleasant, if not agonizing, to entertain. He'd already decided to take her back to the warehouse where they had washed off a few days back, which meant atop everything else, the day would be another trial on his restraint. However, they were both well past due for another shower, and he knew she wouldn't go unless he took her.

Spike sighed and shook his head, tenderly lifting Buffy's arm from where it was thrown across his chest. Might be better if he had that wank he'd promised himself yesterday. Ease the tension, get his mind off things—if only for a minute—and take the burn off what promised to be an excruciating day.

Touching her…

Another hard breath trembled through his body and, as quietly as he could, he managed to untangle himself from her arms and retreat into a secluded corner.

It had been ages since he first stole off for a wank. He'd been under his mum's roof then, perplexed by his body and horny as fuck. The stiffy in his trousers had been a consistent condition for some time, but never had he thought of doing anything about it…not until he discovered how bloody good it felt. Of course, at the time, he'd been all prim and proper and horrified with himself, but that didn't stop him from doing it three times a day, perhaps twice once he hit twenty.

Spike snickered softly and shook his head as he lowered his zipper. The last year above ground, the year Buffy jumped, he'd relied on his hand every sodding night, with or without Harmony beside him. No amount of release could ease the burn. He could pull his dick until it broke and he'd still ache for more. Every night, every fucking night…all for the want of Buffy.

Nothing much had changed—not where she was concerned. Only now he knew how she smelled when she came. He knew the sounds she made, how her eyes grew distant and hazy, how she gasped and clung and responded so wildly he could barely keep her in his arms. This was a world where Buffy was truly with him, even if she couldn't understand what he did to her or how deeply it affected him. He had her now…and he couldn't touch her as he wanted.

Fucking conscience. Three hundred years could erode a man completely, but the understanding of right and wrong hadn't faded. It wasn't supposed to be there at all yet it refused to go away.

And if he was completely honest with himself, he didn't want it to go away. There was something undeniably heady in knowing he was doing right by her. In giving her what she wanted, what she needed, without taking anything for himself. It was the right thing to do.

Spike sighed, his eyes falling on the blonde angel sleeping so peacefully on the makeshift cot. Fuck, he hoped it was the right thing. It was all he could give.

But he wasn't a bloody saint. He needed intimacy, too. He'd needed it for a long time, and if his hand was all he could get, he'd take it. Made sense it was better to touch her with a load shot rather than a cannon ready to fire.

“Like riding a bicycle,” Spike murmured. It was strange the way memories worked. How some things felt so natural, whereas others had to be relearned. The steely cool flesh against his left palm felt natural. Cradling his swelling cock felt natural. Fixing his mind on Buffy felt natural and—even though he'd never before had the chance to have off when within viewing range—watching her sleep, staring at the gentle rise and fall of her breasts as he stroked himself felt…right.

And the sounds in his ears…those felt right, too. The whimpers, the sighs, the memory of her scent, the way she'd flexed around his fingers, her slippery flesh drawing him deeper, oh yes, deeper into her body. Her pussy clamping hard around him, every muscle tensing before she finally spiraled into orgasm. Her feminine juices on his skin, her body trembling against his. Yes, God yes, that felt right. It felt so fucking right. And he'd have it again. Again and again, if she asked him. Buffy pressed hard against him, clutching at him as he stroked her clitoris and thrust his fingers into her.

An image of her pressed against the shower wall, holding his face to her pussy struck him from nowhere. Spike gasped, head careening back, hand furiously pumping his cock. If he concentrated hard enough, he could taste her. Feel her vaginal lips caressing his mouth, feel her silken flesh against his tongue, and feel her slippery clit between his lips.

She felt so good, so warm, so his…

Her scent was too strong to be an illusion. Spike's eyes flew open, locking on hers. There was no telling how long she'd been standing there watching him, and while warning bells immediately chimed, stopping was not an option. His body sizzled and sparked, his jaw tightening, his gaze steadying on her face, fist stroking his cock harder, faster. She was so close—so close—and he couldn't stop.

“Buffy…”

She didn't make a sound. Her eyes were fixed on his penis.

“Buffy…Buffy…sorry, love. I can't…I need…”

If she heard him, she gave no indication. Her tongue took a sultry swipe of her lower lip, curious eyes wide and hungry, and Spike nearly came undone.

“Yes. Like that. Feel you, pet. Holding me. Touching me. Sucking me. Wanna feel you suck me so bad. Your mouth…your tongue…your…Buffy.”

She inhaled sharply and closed another step between them. Now he could feel the heat rolling off her skin, hear the pounding of her heart, taste air thickened with the heady aroma of her arousal. Oh Christ, this was turning her on. Watching him pump his prick, watching him moan and gasp, watching his muscles flex as his blood began to burn, watching him as he grew closer…closer… He felt every beat of her body, he felt everything. Everything. Rich slayer honey rushed between her legs, and he felt it. He could nearly taste it. She was hot and he burned. He couldn't stop. God help him, he didn't want to stop.

“Slayer…”

She took a step forward, and every nerve in his body jumped.

“No!” Spike panted, pulling at himself furiously. “Stay there!”

The words meant nothing. Buffy took another step, and another. She was so close, and he couldn't take it. Watching her watch him, drinking in her eyes, her fucking closeness…it did him in. Fireworks blazing across his skin, Spike tossed his head back, shuddered, and came for the first time in three centuries. And this, this was something he had forgotten. The aching fulfillment that came from pleasure, the way his body tensed and unwound. He'd forgotten this. It was wonderful…wonderful, terrifying, confusing as hell, and his. This moment was entirely his. Buffy watching, his hand jerking, his body trembling…it was all his.

All mine.

The post-coital slump, however, didn't get a chance to set in. Reality pushed at the doors of fantasy, shoving inside and bringing all its consequences with it. Yes, he'd just masturbated in front of Buffy. Yes, he had known she was there. No, he hadn't tried to send her away. No, there was no way this was all right, even by his standards. He'd taken advantage of her. He'd let it go too far. He'd allowed himself…allowed her…

And that wasn't even the worst of it. It took opening his eyes and realizing he'd sprayed his spendings on Buffy's hands and stomach before he remembered he was supposed to catch it. And immediately, bliss was shoved aside for shame and horror. “Fuck! Pet, I'm sorry. I—”

Buffy didn't hear a word he said. Instead, she frowned and swiped a drop of his semen onto her forefinger.

“I din't mean to, sweetheart, I…”

Her nose wrinkled, and before he realized her intentions, the finger disappeared inside into her mouth.

Spike's jaw hit the floor. “Buffy—oh…oh God…”

She made a face and shook her head, and while the look didn’t inspire confidence, there was nothing to suggest she hated the taste. He couldn’t, however, imagine her thinking the flavor was anything near enjoyable. Not that it mattered. Reality was cold and barren; it left him standing in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse, hardening cock in his hand and Buffy standing bewildered in front of him, soiled with his spendings. And she didn’t know what had happened, or what it meant. She didn’t know anything but the look on his face and her name on his lips. She didn't know how much seeing her lick his come off her fingers turned him on. She didn’t know how deeply things affected him.

Nor could she. Not like this.

“Let’s go, love,” Spike murmured, tucking his erection back inside his jeans and zipping the fly shut with a hiss. “Get cleaned up.”

Her eyes remained locked on his crotch, which only made his predicament worse. Buffy noticing him as a man would be the end of his restraint. The leash he'd wrapped around himself was short enough, and with her smiling and warm and receptive, it could break under a hard glance. The line he walked was bloody fine, but it was working for them…it had been working for them. Up until now, she'd been nothing but quaint and curious, and he couldn't let her curiosity blossom. Things had to stay the way they were. They had to.

No matter what.

It took listening for the whispers to notice them anymore. Strange how a few days could alter one's perception. When he’d arrived they had driven him nutty within the first few minutes of crossing the city barrier; now he barely heard them. They were always there, however. Always. Faceless voices following them no matter where they went, chasing them around corners and nipping at their heels with every turn. Today, however, noticing the ghosts didn't bother him. It was better than the gaping silence.

He missed the days when he could accuse Buffy of not being chatty. Words were entirely reliant upon him now, and he had none. His mind kept flashing back to the forbidden moments in the warehouse. The bliss he shouldn't have felt, the touches he shouldn't have stolen, and the urgent drive for a repeat performance. His cock was still stone-hard and given that his thoughts kept drifting to a wet, naked, dripping Buffy, he didn't expect that to change anytime soon. The fact that her arousal was still thick and potent didn't help matters, either.

Spike sighed heavily, mind searching for something to ramble about. A thousand bloody topics in the universe and he couldn't think of anything but her quim strangling him into oblivion. After so many years of pain and misery, his mind was intoxicated by the promise of something…of something…

“What do you suppose your chums are up to?” he asked randomly, then cringed. The last thing he wanted to discuss was her friends, but it was better than nothing. It'd provide a distraction at the very least. “Last I saw them, they…” His eyes darkened. That memory didn't rest well with him. “Well, they'd given up on me. Harris had, at least. 'Course, that could've been a parlor trick an' I wouldn't've known the bloody difference. Larry wanted me to toss it in, see. I was in the cave for so long I forgot everything except you, and that was the last thing. He showed me what had happened while I rotted away. How they didn't think I was trying anymore, when I'd waited so bloody long to…” Spike broke off and shook his head, irritated with himself for caring. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen it coming. Alliances with the enemy never ended well, at least in his case…though he supposed his first truce with Buffy was what had carried him this far. There was always an exception that proved the rule.

“I thought it might be different now,” he continued softly, hardly aware he was speaking at all. “Fuck, I'm thick. But they were treating me different in the end. Your watcher might never have taken a liking to me, but I thought I at least had his respect. An' the witches…they both were so warm. Even Anya. I think I remember her speaking a piece to Harris around the dinner table right before I left. Mind might be going, though…so much time has passed…” Spike lifted his head, eyes fixing on their destination. It might not be the only building in Hell with a shower, but he didn't particularly care to look around unless it became necessary. “But it hasn't for them, has it? Bet they've barely moved since what I saw. That'd be right, wouldn't it? A day there is a hundred sodding years here. They're probably still chattin' around the table, talking about how incompetent I am an' how they better get their shit together so they can rescue you themselves.” He barked a laugh. “Right. Love to see that. Whatever Larry'd throw at them for the first trial…mine was holy water. Figure for humans it'd be acid, don't you? Somethin' compatible at the very least. Think Xander could stomach it? Think…”

The tirade ended before it truly began, the words bitten off as he forced his anger aside. There was no point in getting worked up over what he couldn't control. The Scoobies would do what they would and fuck the rest. He couldn't warn them, couldn't stop them, couldn't do much of anything other than what he was doing. As it was, he wasn't sure any of it would make a lick of difference. Hope was in short supply; while he was determined to make their escape before any outside action could take place, the idealist inside had been poisoned by reason. There were no guarantees—no absolutes. Buffy had changed, possibly forever, and their one exit had vanished overnight. He would never concede defeat—defeat was a word Spike had yet to learn—but he couldn't pretend to be the hero anymore. He had to be realistic. There might never be an escape. He and Buffy might spend eternity within the confines of her imagination's worst nightmare—always looking, always fighting—but remaining here forever.

It was a bleak but distinct possibility.

“No use cryin' about that now,” Spike murmured, squeezing Buffy's hand and guiding her over the threshold. “Remember the way, ducks?”

She met his eyes with a hesitant smile, and when he didn't move, she took the lead. The familiar twists and turns were known to her now, and by the time they reached the bathroom, her expression was so damn hopeful it was miraculous he didn't combust in adoration. “That's right,” he assured her. “Now…arms up.”

Spike made quick work of her clothing. He figured the less time he gave his eyes to appreciate her naked form the less trouble he’d be in. However, with the way Buffy tugged his shirt over his head before practically tearing his jeans off his body, there was every chance he was wrong. Her eagerness fed into desire, reviving his now-softened cock with lust that hadn’t truly faded.

“You're gonna be the death of me,” he decided, shaking his head. His erection practically leapt out of his fly, straining toward her eager, curious fingers, and he had to stop her before her skin met his. If she touched him, if he felt her hands on him, he feared he'd lose what was left of his restraint.

There was only so much a man could take.

“No,” Spike whispered raggedly, shaking his head. “No, sweetheart. Let’s just wash up, yeah? In an’ out.”

The look in her eyes told him plainly that wasn’t going to work. Good. He didn’t want anything quick and simple; his hands ached for her flesh, his fingers yearned to caress her center, his mouth…he wanted to touch her everywhere, wanted to press kisses across every inch of her body. She wanted what he wanted—she wanted closeness. She wanted intimacy. She wanted it now.

His eyes fell to the nest of curls between her thighs, his tongue massaging his lips. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, gaze dragging up her body at a snail’s pace. “Every part of you, Slayer. So beautiful.” He shivered and shook his head, nodding at the shower. “Better get on with it. Twist the nozzle, pet.”

Buffy was already far ahead of him. Hard water beat down from the showerhead, neither warm nor cold, and he barely felt a thing.

He couldn’t stop staring.

“Hope you appreciate this when you remember,” he murmured, absently reaching for the bar of soap. The words were empty and ridiculous; he only spoke to fill the silence as he lathered his hands and did his best to remain calm, despite the fact that she was wet, naked, and in his arms. That if he angled his hips just right, pushed her against the wall and spread her thighs, he would be wrapped in paradise. “There now…doesn’t that feel better?”

Buffy licked her lips, her eyes dropping to his erection. She indicated his hand and made a gesture he couldn’t possibly confuse but managed to ignore all the same.

She wanted to be touched. He wanted to touch her. He’d told himself he would whenever she asked.

But after what had happened this morning, could he really trust himself?

Think of something else…now.

Not fucking possible.

“You’re so soft,” Spike heard himself saying, eyes glued to the path his hands took. He watched himself wash her arms and shoulders, felt himself rub her palms. He saw her face covered in soap suds, but nothing registered…not until he had a breast cradled in each hand. She was so small—so far from the woman who’d occupied his fantasies above ground. Buffy had always been a tiny slip of a girl, but here she was malnourished, skin barely clinging to her bones, and she was still the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

His cock ached. So did his fangs.

This was going to be his undoing.

“So soft,” he whispered again, thumbing her nipples absently, which did little to sate the desire to wrap his lips around her. “You were always soft, weren’t you? Bloody well bewitched me. How anyone could be so hard on the inside…but stay so soft?” A long whimper scratched at his throat. “I want you so much, Buffy. So much.”

She moaned and crooned against him. Her hand reached blindly for his cock, but he batted her away before her fingers had a chance to whisper across his skin. “Ah, ah,” he scolded softly. “What did I tell you, hmm?”

“Ahhh…”

Spike shook his head and shifted so he was on his knees. “Almost done, sweetheart,” he told her. “Then we can wash your hair an’—”

Buffy mewled again and thrust her hips forward, and a wave of pure slayer arousal crashed against his nostrils. The last of his feeble resistance melted away. Don’t deny the girl, he’d told himself. And he wouldn’t. She wanted something she couldn’t name, and he’d promised her—promised himself—he’d give it to her.

“God help me,” Spike murmured. His tongue plunged inside her before he could help himself, and everything else ceased to matter.

There was no sense looking back—he was lost on first taste, a fucking goner. Ta, Spike. Years of yearning, craving, months of trailing her helplessly around the cemeteries hoping she’d notice him, watching her jump and fall…fall…only to be here now. Her fingers roamed across his scalp, twisted in his hair and did their best to pull him in deeper. He needed no guidance—God, he’d crawl inside her if she let him. This was everything—this was what he’d imagined when he came. Buffy in the shower, weeping in pleasure as his mouth feasted on her pussy. The world around him vanished—everything vanished, save the warm slayer nectar on his tongue, the way her feminine folds caressed his mouth, how sweetly she moaned and flexed around him. He had dined with kings and queens, he’d sampled blood from royalty and ancient nobility, but nothing in the world could compare to this. To slurping hungrily at the Slayer’s quim, holding her flat against the shower wall as his tongue delved and explored. She was wholly woman here.

He’d wanted this for so long.

“You’re divine,” he whispered against her vaginal lips, tongue lapping at her clit. “My golden goddess.”

He knew it wouldn’t be her real eyes that found him when they opened again, but for a few seconds he could pretend. She gasped and clawed and thrust her hips against his mouth, wordlessly pleading for more, which he gave without stint. She wanted to be lost as much as he wanted to be found, and for a few wonderful minutes, they fell together. Spike devoured her, tongue lapping her opening as his fingers strummed her clit. He watched her through half-hooded eyes, not daft enough to believe in miracles, but, just for the moment, pretending they existed.

Pretending Buffy would be Buffy when she came down.

The sounds she made, the way her body jerked, the wild look of abandon that flirted with her face…yes, he could pretend.

When his lips wrapped around her clit and tugged, it was over. Buffy tensed, panted harshly, and spasmed hard, jerking, gasping, hands searching for support but finding nothing to grasp. It didn’t matter—he was there to catch her, there to hold her as her body came undone. He watched greedily, breaths nearly as harsh as hers, tongue still worshipping her clit as two fingers slid inside her quim to enjoy the way she tightened and strangled him to new life. She was bloody beautiful when she came.

She was his fountain, and he drank.

And she was still gone when she opened her eyes.

Something changed that night.

The rest of the day had passed uneventfully. No sparring. No visiting the blood river. No mysterious migraines. No phantom slayers carving names. After washing up and drying off, Spike walked Buffy back to the warehouse while prattling on endlessly about a variety of inane things. The journey, their plans for the following days, the sodding weather, anything he could muster to keep his mouth active. Once they arrived home, however, the need to chatter died, and he found himself, for no particular reason, watching the markings on the walls.

Nothing came of it, of course. The lines weren’t going to shift and suddenly make sense, though after what had happened last night, he felt anything was possible. Whether or not the incident was real…though it had to be, because dreams didn’t feel like that, and he’d had enough realistic dreams to be an authority.

He didn’t know. Christ, he didn’t know anything anymore.

Ultimately, day faded to night, and before he realized it, he was tucking Buffy into bed.

His sleeping angel. His fallen slayer.

Perhaps this was it. Understanding had finally dawned after three hundred years. This was Hell. Stuck infinitely in the middle of a puzzle he couldn’t solve with the woman he loved but couldn’t have. Trapped inside a Victorian conscience that shouldn’t exist, talking to himself because she couldn’t talk back. A few more days of this and his mind would start to go.

And he preferred this to home. He preferred having Buffy like this to not at all. Give him eternity touching what he couldn’t feel, an eternity of torment, an eternity of dishing out every hellish alternative to the world he’d left behind and God help him, he wouldn’t complain. He didn’t like it, but here, at least, he could feasibly be happy. There were no gravestones in Hell. In Hell, Buffy was in his arms and not in the ground.

She was with him.

She’s nowhere near you.

He’d thought he was getting close to something, he truly had. But what Hell giveth, Hell taketh away. He was no closer than he’d been from the moment he fell into the river.

But Buffy was in his arms, sleeping, and for that he was grateful.

For that he would thank God every night, even if he didn’t believe. Even if prayers in Hell were never answered.

For even though it tortured him, he could still hold her here. She would lie in his arms and sleep, and he could hold her because she was here.

She’s gone.

Something changed that night.

“Spike…Spike…”

Spike’s eyes fought open, blinded at first by darkness. He blinked, puzzled, and took a quick look around the room to find what might have roused him from his slumber. There was nothing. The air was still, the walls unchanged, and Buffy was snuggled in his arms, sleeping soundly. He was alone.

“Spike…”

No. Not alone. Not alone. Buffy was with him.

It took a few seconds for realization to slice through stupor. Spike’s head whipped to his girl, hope crackling but doused just as quickly by jaded realism. He hadn’t heard anything—he’d heard a wish, nothing more.

But he saw her this time. He watched her lips move, and heard the sound they made plain as day.

“Spike…I can’t…Spike…”

A blinding white charge speared through his veins. Shocks of electricity sparked off his fingertips. Spike’s mouth fell open but he couldn’t find his voice. He wanted to move but had forgotten how. If his heart hadn’t already been dead it would have stopped at the sound.

She knew his name.

A lifetime could have passed before he moved and he wouldn't have noticed. Fuck, he wouldn't have cared. Nothing in the whole bloody universe could begin to compare to the harmonious ring of his name rolling off her lips. It had been too long, too bloody long since he heard her voice. She'd spoken, sure, but her words were fragmented—more sounds than anything else; she mimicked what she heard without saying a goddamn thing.

It was how she'd lived, as a shadow of herself.

“Buffy,” Spike whispered, rolling onto his side and gently shaking her shoulder. “Oh God. Buffy, love, can you hear me?”

Her brow furrowed as though burying herself further inside her dream. But the words came again, and he lived on her every breath. “Spike…I…”

“What?” he demanded hurriedly. “What is it? I'm right here, kitten. Right here.”

This was really happening. Oh God, this was really happening. Nothing could have prepared him for this. Time gripped and pulled, dragging him through a sea of memories he didn't care to relive. Moving from the second he watched her take the fateful dive off the Tower, falling until her body crackled and disappeared inside a vortex where he could not follow. The agonizing days after that…running to the Summers’ home every night, demanding answers no one had and living under the hard, judgmental stares of people who didn't understand him. The not knowing—the not knowing. Christ, that had killed him. Assaulted with nightmares of where she was, what horrors she faced, how she'd be when he found her, and dreading the moment he found out.

Then it was into the rabbit hole. Three trials of torture, temptation, and dedication. Diving into a pool of holy water armed only with hope that he'd pull himself out on the other side. Waking up to the eyes of a demon wearing Buffy's face, offering him Buffy's body and appealing to a side of his nature that could no longer be enticed through tricks or flattery. And then the long, cold centuries of waiting—waiting without knowing what lay ahead, without knowing what he would find, or even if surviving the trial would mean a damn in a world without rules.

Now he was with her, and for the first time in generations, her voice was hers.

A long moan whistled through Buffy's lips, her body tightening with resistance. “No, no, please. Don't…no!”

His heart leapt into his throat. “Buffy!

“No! Please!”

Her eyes shot open and everything else fell away. The air split apart with the weight of her scream, her hands fisting her hair and tugging so hard he was certain she would rip her scalp apart. Joints jerked, twisted and locked, hard tremors coursing across her small form and rendering her a sobbing mess, and he didn't know what to do. He was caught between worlds and he couldn't help her. He couldn't help.

She'd been Buffy for just a second. Just a second.

And it was killing her.

“I'm sorry,” he gasped, not knowing why or what for, but it was the only thing to say. “Buffy…”

She hissed and whimpered, curling into a ball.

“I've got you, baby.” He flattened himself against her back, wrapping his arm around her waist and anchoring her against his body. “I've got you.”

There was no telling how much time passed before the tremors stopped—before her cries softened into gasps as the earthquake claiming her insides began to calm. Then there was nothing but quiet. He didn't ask if she knew him, didn't ask if she was all right, didn't say a damn thing because he knew every answer to every possible question.

The shade of Buffy had been scared away. But she'd been here. She'd been here. Right here in his arms.

He felt so close to something he couldn't name. Something he barely believed. Something he feared was entirely in his head.

But there were certain things that couldn't be imagined. She'd been here.

Buffy had been here.

He just had to find her again.

It had taken a half hour or so, but Buffy had managed to find sleep again. Spike hadn't had the same fortune. The night ticked by in quiet solitude, holding her to his chest and tenderly caressing her face, replaying their hours together over and over in search of something else he could have done. Some other thing he could have said, another way he could have touched her or encouraged her to break completely through the surface. Something…anything…

He'd lost track of the days. It seemed like it should have happened already—Buffy awaking, Buffy remembering herself. But there was no time-table for these things, and if there were he'd barely started the wait. How long did it take, after all, to reclaim an entire lifetime after having lived it a thousand times over?

Much longer than this.

But his Buffy was a fighter. She could accomplish anything, and she wanted out. She was pounding on the walls of her prison. She wanted out.

Last night had given him that if nothing else.

Spike sighed heavily and glanced down. He'd left Buffy's side a little more than an hour ago, needing a reprieve but similarly unwilling to go far without her. He sat just outside the warehouse, studying the fingernails that used to be chipped with black polish while his mind spiraled a mile a minute. The day before had been the best one he'd had in all his years. Waking with Buffy in his arms, sharing a moment of perfect intimacy with her, even if his actions had crossed into the murky shadow area between right and wrong. Sharing the day with her, touching her, rolling her clit between his lips and bathing his tongue with her juice, and again getting the privilege of holding her as she slept.

Then he'd experienced hope, true hope, for the first time since watching her fall. It might be ages before she managed to break through completely, but he knew now, with absolute certainty, that it was possible. He knew he would speak with Buffy again someday. The eyes he looked into would be her eyes. When he touched her, she would know him.

It might not happen for a while, but it would happen. There was no doubt.

He just hoped he knew how to talk with her when she was with him again. What was there to say to someone who had been lost for a thousand years? It's all right. I know how you feel. You can talk to me.

Bollocks.

He sighed again and ran his hands through his hair. What he wouldn't do for a fag and a beer right about now. He wouldn't turn down a mouthful of blooming onion from the Bronze or a bite of spicy buffalo wings, either. Something that made him feel normal. Alive, or something like it. Like the life he was in was the one he was supposed to live. Like he was real.

He couldn't switch off the feeling that he'd struck it lucky in the past. Caring for Dru had been different—she'd been sick and weak and receptive to all the attention he'd so willingly given her. But Buffy wasn't weak or sick, and this world was no angry mob.

He could help her, but how much? Aside from holding her hand and filling her head with promises he couldn't guarantee would come to fruition.

And then there was the matter of getting out. Awaking Buffy before he had an idea of how to leave this world might drive the final nail through the coffin. Give her back her life only to take it away again.

She might never forgive him for ripping her sanctuary away.

“Fucking hilarious, pet,” Spike mused, turning his eyes to the yellow sky. “You called it, din't you? But then, you were always a step ahead of me.”

A small breeze flirted with his ears, and he would have sworn he heard her laugh. He would have sworn but he didn't.

Spike cast his eyes downward and laughed shortly, shaking his head. He was pathetic…seeking the advice of a phantom. Talking to a figment of his bloody imagination as though she could impart wisdom he hadn't already considered. The truth of the matter was much simpler: he missed her. He missed Buffy so bloody much. Her quips, her laughs, her way with words…the way she didn't know how smart she was, or how funny. He missed arguing with her, missed the fights, even if they had been one-sided. The Buffy in his head had been imaginary on a rudimentary level, but at the same time, he'd made her into Buffy as he knew her. She'd denied it, of course, but those were his own fears talking—the fear he'd idolized the Slayer into something she wasn't, that he was jumping through hoops to touch an ideal, that the perfection he wanted didn't truly exist. She'd already been loved on a pedestal with Angel, and while Spike knew himself well enough to trust when he was or wasn't in love with someone, there was something so special, so different about loving Buffy. It made him second-guess everything, even things that were absolute certainties, and speaking with the Buffy in his head had led him to answers he hadn't even realized he needed.

Loving her had changed him inside and out—changed him in ways he couldn’t have understood or appreciated until she was gone.

Until he faced a world without her.

“Could use your divine insight now,” he murmured. “Not even you predicted this one.”

There was no response. He truly hadn’t expected any.

“’Course you’re in my head, right? You always bloody were…but it never seemed it. You were just…her.” A smile tugged on his lips. “An’ I only knew what you knew, because you were never really there.”

A harsh breath rushed through his lips. This was ridiculous. He was sitting just feet from the genuine article and talking to himself under the guise that the voice in his head had been anything but his way of saving himself when he needed it the most.

Buffy had been within a breath of him. He could taste her fear and confusion, felt the weight of what was to come. He needed to talk with her. He needed to do something, because waiting was going to drive him out of his mind.

Something stirred from the inside of the warehouse, and he knew immediately she was awake. Her pulse raced and her heart pounded a little faster, a tempo which grew steadily as she realized she’d been left alone. Spike drew to his feet without hesitation and stalked back into the shadows. Into the room with the mad walls and the startled girl. The little shadow of who was once the Slayer.

Christ, she was still a vision. Time couldn’t eradicate beauty, no matter how starved or beaten. Her tanned skin was rough with bruises and scars, some newer than others thanks to her newfound love of sparring, but she positively glowed in ways he’d never understood. The same sort of soft aura which had encompassed her the first time his eyes found her at the Bronze. It was something the other slayers hadn’t had; something he understood to be Buffy’s and Buffy’s alone.

Perhaps it wasn’t because she was the Chosen One…perhaps it was there because she was meant to be his.

“Mornin’, love,” he greeted, smiling and slipping his hands into his pockets. “How’s the head?”

Buffy smiled at him, relief chasing away worry. A pang of guilt stabbed his heart. He hadn’t wanted to frighten her.

She’d awaken alone for so long. He should have known better.

“Today’s your day,” Spike continued. “Whaddya fancy, hmm? Wanna go for a tumble?”

It was sodding ridiculous insisting on a one-way conversation, but the silence had to be filled and he knew it was good for her. Or rather, he figured it was. Whatever he was doing seemed to be working, if what had happened last night was any indicator, and he had no other method of connecting.

None but the thing he wouldn’t do unless she wanted it.

Buffy’s smile broadened as she climbed woozily to her feet, and he couldn’t help but smile back. She was adorable. Purely adorable. It was maddening as fuck, of course, being caught between worlds, but there were some qualities about her that couldn’t be ignored. This was one of them. She could be so damn cute…

His eyes took a detour down her legs.

Right. Real cute. Other times, he ached just to look. Her t-shirt hiked up her hips when she reached to rub the sleep from her eyes. The primal, forbidden part of him roared awake. He didn’t need to be reminded how she felt or tasted at this early hour.

No, he had a whole bloody day for that.

“What we wouldn’t do for a telly, eh?” Spike drawled, plucking a random pair of slacks off the ground and tossing them into her arms. “Here we are. Why don’ you get dressed? Don’t know where we’re goin’ just yet, but we’ll find something.”

Buffy’s nose wrinkled but she complied without needing further instruction. She probably had expected his help in dressing.

And as much as he’d love to give it, he feared his control, as confused as it was, would come completely undone.

Might not be a bad thing…

Spike snorted and shook his head.

The last thing he needed was to give the devil on his shoulder an audience. In Hell, everything seemed like a good idea at first.

Or so he was learning.

The first time her head had ached, it had been in the midst of a fight. She’d been astride him, smirking in triumph and looking very much the way he remembered her. All brilliance, all fire, all victory…and it had dissolved on a gasp. She’d contorted and writhed, whimpered in agony he could barely understand, much less console. It had been gone before he realized what had happened and what the implications were.

The second time had been later that day. He’d stumbled upon her in a private moment, studying the work she’d made of the walls. As though seeing them for the first time, reconnecting what her carvings meant. He’d spoken knowing he ought to keep quiet, knowing he’d disturb the moment, but he’d been too damn excited to bite his tongue.

And then last night. After whispering his name, after forming words, after pleading with him for…for what?

Spike exhaled sharply and squeezed Buffy’s hand. She favored him with a curious frown but he didn’t meet her eyes. No sense expanding upon what couldn’t be explained.

“Probably wouldn’t hurt to go on a hunt today,” he mused. “Get some more pork before the pickings grow thin.”

Not a possibility, he knew, but she expected words and he was too preoccupied to try and find something meaningful to say.

They drew to a stop at the river’s bank. He hadn’t even known this was where his feet were heading until the scent thickened the air. Made sense. He was peckish and this was the best way to prepare for what promised to be a long day.

There were other things he’d noticed. Buffy’s whole demeanor about the river had changed; the hesitation she’d once exhibited was gone now, and it had been since the morning she’d led him here of her own accord. She understood now that it was something he needed, not something to be feared. Therefore when he’d set the now-familiar course, she’d fallen into step at his side, tossing him glances every now and then which he met with an encouraging smile—a smile that never quite reaching his eyes.

He was so close to something. So damn close.

“Stay here, kitten,” Spike told her, holding up a hand for emphasis as the bones in his face shifted. “Won’ take long.”

He hadn’t even managed to turn around fully before her gasp hit the air, and immediately he knew. The demon retreated instantly, his feet twisting in the blood-caked mud. A harsh, metallic cry ripped through her body and sent her to her knees before he could catch her.

“Buffy! Buffy!” He fell to the ground beside her and seized her wrists. “Hold on, sweetheart, just hold on. It won’t be—”

Bloodshot eyes found his and every molecule froze.

And then her jaw fell open and she screamed. The universe could have unwound on that scream. It knew no end, stretching to the limits of this dimension and besieging others. Creating storms above and drilling into the ground below. He felt everything—he held her, refused to fall aside no matter how tempting she made it. Bugger if he knew what was happening, but he knew he had to hold her through it. No matter how hard her skin rattled against her bones. Buffy screamed and screamed, screamed until the force raping the air and beating it dry descended into an agonized ring. Screaming until her tired voice gave and she could scream no more.

She shook. She shivered. She huddled against his chest.

Nothing. Nothing.

“Bloody hell,” Spike gasped, bracing the back of her head. “Buffy…”

“Oh…God.”

Everything stopped.

She coughed harshly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Harsh tremors erupted through her body, partly as aftershock. Part…God, he didn’t know.

He was too afraid to look.

“Who…” Buffy coughed again. The ground trembled beneath her. “I…where…is that…Spike?”

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wouldn’t last. She’d be gone again when he looked at her. Like the warehouse, like last night. Small visits, baby-steps. He just had to keep her here long enough to make an impact. Make a dent for when she was chased away again.

“I…I…what…what is happening?”

Christ, he couldn’t take it. He looked up.

Don’t run, don’t run. Don’t be another fucking ghost.

Their eyes clashed.

Oh my God.

Buffy was looking at him through her eyes.

She was real.

She was real.

“Don’t run away again,” Spike whispered. He didn’t realize he was crying until he tasted tears.

There was a frown of confusion, but it didn’t last long. The period between dreams and consciousness was always brief. And the instant she remembered—the second she understood—his reality came crashing down.

She was in Hell and she’d managed to hide within herself long enough to forget.

And when she dissolved, he was there to catch her.

It was all he could do. All he knew.

The world had just been rewritten.

He’d been staring at his fingernails for a while now. Hours, maybe. That seemed reasonable. Certainly, hours could have passed without his notice. His mind was lost, occupied with the girl who had disappeared behind the bathroom door, wondering if she’d ever emerge.

Wondering what face she’d wear when she did.

Everything was blurry now. He sat dumbfounded in the sloppy room connected to the shower they’d used before, replaying the morning over and over again as if demanding the Powers to admit their joke. Even after what had happened, even after what he’d seen and experienced, it didn’t seem possible. He’d waited long and he’d been prepared to wait longer—months, years, lifetimes if necessary, and while he grew angry with the Powers for yo-yoing her back and forth—for giving him glimpses of her only to take her away again, the larger part of him had known these things had no time limit. Making her way back through her mind’s wilderness was a feat no one else had ever been asked to conquer, and through her journey, he had to be patient. He had to understand this wasn’t about him at all, and it never had been.

Yet here he was.

Spike sat on the edge of a worn mattress, surrounded by discarded clothing and gutted stuffed animals, eyes glued to his plain, unmarked nails as the shower ran in the next room.

She hadn’t spoken much since the walls came down. His name had escaped her lips half a dozen times, as though double-checking his realness, now that the nightmare had broken into the light. However, the storm he’d always anticipated had never come, nor had the sobs and the screams, save for that first one. Through his stupor, he supposed, his mind had switched off, autopilot guiding his feet to where they were now. And while she’d trembled and shivered, while her hands had grappled for his, while her eyes had darted furiously from one end of her hell to the next, she hadn’t shattered. She’d held onto him and let him lead her where he willed.

Spike shuddered a sigh, then tensed when he heard the water shut off. God, for all the longing, all the waiting, the crying and begging the cosmos for some divine mercy, he was bloody terrified of what he would see when she opened the door. He’d wanted this for so long—so long¬—and now that he had it, anxiety had frozen his nerves. He didn’t know what to do—what was too much and what wasn’t enough. If he was helping or hindering her right now, just by sitting on a bed and looking at his fingernails. He didn’t know what to do, and the not knowing rattled him with enough fury to render him nothing but a pile of bones.

The door opened. Spike drew in a sharp breath. Buffy stepped out.

She looked older than she had that morning—the carefree spirit with which ignorance had gifted her completely eradicated, the girlish gleam replaced with saddened maturity. She’d pulled on a t-shirt and a baggy pair of slacks that cut off at the ankle, her wet hair brushed and hanging over one shoulder. She was still for a time but likely not as long as it seemed, and when she met his eyes, the full burden of knowledge came crashing down.

“How long?” she said softly. Her voice was raw from disuse, a fact so small it was easily overlooked, but one that, for whatever reason brought everything into stark, unforgiving reality. Reality he thought he already understood.

Hot tears pricked his eyes but he refused to cry them. He had nothing to cry for. In the long run, there was little he’d lost—little to throw in comparison.

“A few days, is all,” Spike replied.

A weary, defeated smile crept onto her face, a splotch of color in a black-and-white strip. “A few days?” Buffy repeated.

“Since I got here, you mean?”

“Since…I jumped, right? I remember jumping.”

Spike winced, turning his eyes to the ground. He hadn’t truly fathomed how hard it would be simply looking at her. “You jumped,” he agreed. “An’ it was a week after that. I started then. You’d been gone a week when I left to find you.”

If she was surprised by this, it didn’t reflect in her face. “How long did it take you?”

“Three days.”

“So I’ve been gone ten.” Buffy turned away at last, and he looked up when he felt her move. Her back was to him, and her shoulders slumped. And without warning the storm came, tearing through her with such fury he didn’t realize it had arrived at all until she doubled over. Everything else fell away in a blink; Spike jumped to his feet and drew her into his arms on instinct alone, and for the next fifteen minutes there was nothing in the universe but them.

Holding her now was different. It was truly Buffy this time—not a shade, not a woman with her face. He kept her close, stroking her skin and murmuring wordlessly as the world around them trembled. And though it didn’t come at first, he steadily became aware of the moment’s unreality. He might as well have stepped into a painting. Buffy wasn’t the sort to seek comfort from people—least of all him. When she hurt, she suffered in silence, occasionally breaking the quiet so the world would feel her pain, but she usually opted to close herself off, putting distance between where she was and the place where hurt magnified into agony. At some point in her youth, likely around the time they’d first met, Buffy had stopped confiding in those closest to her; she’d seen what damage they could reap, and thought it safest to hide within the confines of herself.

Spike wasn’t used to Buffy crying. He’d sat with her once when she cried, but she hadn’t done much else besides allow him to be alone with her. She always appeared the epitome of fortitude, but more often than not, he suspected, it was because she had no other option. The world’s warrior couldn’t be fragile, even in private moments. To do so would be to call into question her every decision.

Warriors couldn’t be human. This was a lesson she’d gathered from experience.

“You came after me.”

The words were so soft he thought he’d imagined them at first.

“Of course I came after you,” Spike replied, tightening his arms around her. “Couldn’t bloody live with myself if I—”

“You were a vampire, right?” Buffy sniffed and pulled back, her eyes hollow and lined with red. “I don’t mean…it’s fuzzy. Everything is fuzzy…I see things I know. People I know. There are things I definitely remember and others I think I…but I do remember you. You were a vampire.”

He waved a hand and forced an uncomfortable grin. “Still am. Not the sort ’f thing you fix by poppin’ Tylenol, love.”

She didn’t smile and he didn’t blame her. There really was nothing to laugh about.

“I remember that,” she agreed. “I remember…Dawn. And Giles. And my mom.”

“The Scoobies? You remember them?”

Buffy licked her lips. “Dawn’s my sister.” She looked away without addressing his question. “How long have I been here?”

“A long bloody time.”

“You loved me.” Her eyes went wide with the weight of an epiphany, then dulled as though she realized it was something she hadn’t truly forgotten. “You loved me and that’s why you came here.”

He nodded. It felt so surreal hearing someone else fill the silence.

“I died for Dawn, didn’t I?”

“No, sweetheart,” Spike replied honestly. “You didn’t die at all.”

“I didn’t?”

“You jumped an’ disappeared.”

“And…this is Hell.” There was no surprise in her voice, not the sort of shaky revelation he thought she might make—the sort that resulted in more tears and screaming. It was something she’d known before she forgot. Something ingrained well before her memories were stuffed into a place she was supposed to lose forever. “I fell into Hell.”

“Jus’ one of many, if memory serves.” When she looked at him askance, he shrugged. Christ, what he wouldn’t do for a fag right now. “Been a bit for me, too, kitten. Took a piece to get to you.”

“What happened?”

Spike winced, his arms dropping to his sides. “Doesn’ matter.”

“No, it does. I thought it took you three days?”

“An’ it did.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“It doesn’ matter.”

“Spike…”

The inflection in her voice was heartbreakingly familiar. With that alone she had the power to reduce him to a babbling mess of tears. Spike sighed heavily and shook his head, turning away from her completely. “It doesn’t matter,” he said again. Then he twisted to face her once more; the ache in his belly worsened when he couldn’t see her. “I got here, an’ that’s all that’s important, yeah?”

Her eyes clearly disagreed with him but she didn’t press the issue. An uncomfortable silence settled between them.

Then she said, “I thought you were blond.”

Spike frowned. “Huh?”

A warm wave of pink tinted her cheeks, seemingly startling her as much as it did him, as if they’d both assumed she’d forgotten how to blush. “Umm, your hair,” she said, waving a hand. “My mind…I remember you being blond. Or was that someone else?”

He stared at her for a few seconds before allowing himself to grin. “You remember right,” he assured her.

“Very blond. We called you—”

“Bleach boy, an’ a few choice others.”

Buffy nodded. “I remember.”

“You used to be blonde, too,” he said. “Time jus’ washes it away.”

“So there was a lot of time, then. More than three days—much more.”

It took a second to realize she’d led him in a circle. “Bloody clever,” he murmured. “Bleach fades after a while, pet. You gotta keep it up regularly.”

“Just tell me how long it took, Spike.”

He sighed. There was no sense keeping things from her—she had a way of finding out. Always bloody did. “It was three days,” he replied, then gestured to the ceiling. “Up there, at least. I got locked into your time when I started.”

“Hell-time,” she clarified absently.

“Right.”

“So three days turned into…”

“Three centuries.”

There was no reaction at first; not a slack jaw, not a surprised gasp, not a solemn blink to even acknowledge she’d heard him. Oh, but he saw the pinwheels turning. He felt her calculating her own time served and felt the ripple of astonishment when she realized she’d been Hell’s prisoner for a millennium. However, when her eyes returned to his there was nothing but awe and gratitude. No sadness or despair, even if those things weighed her down around every other turn. She wasn’t about to start crying for herself now—or at least not again.

“Three centuries?” Buffy whispered. “You spent three centuries trying to get to me?”

Spike nodded numbly.

“But…we weren’t…we weren’t lovers, were we?”

“No. Not for lack of trying, though.” He smiled. “You hated me.”

“I did not.”

Of this she seemed certain. She wouldn’t be certain when the murky shadows fell away and the memories really began rolling in.

“You’re the Slayer,” Spike explained, shrugging. “I’m the one with fangs. You hated me, an’ bloody resented that I was in love with you.”

“But I was with a vampire before. I remember that.”

A dark shadow played across his mind. “That, accordin’ to you, was different. He had what I didn’t.”

Buffy nodded then, her eyes brightening with the touch of a memory. “A soul.”

“A sodding soul.” His jaw clenched. “I din’t. All I had was—”

“Something in your head. I remember this.” A long breath rolled off her shoulders. “You spent three hundred years trying to get to me?”

“I love you,” Spike replied. It was the most obvious thing in the world to him. “I would’ve waited longer if they wanted.”

“Who’s they?”

He hesitated, then sighed. Fuck. There truly was no sense keeping the truth from her. She had the advantage here; it was her world, her territory, and he was in love with her. He was the one with everything to lose, and Christ Almighty, wasn’t that a bit of déjà vu? Just when he thought he couldn’t possibly feel more at home…

“A guardian by the name of Larry,” he explained. “You remember Willow, love?”

Buffy nodded, but he sensed she didn’t truly remember until halfway through the nod.

“Willow an’ your watcher pieced it together. When you jumped, you created your very own Hell.”

“I created this.”

“Your fears, your…sod all, I don’t know the full of it, but this world, everything you see, everything you…it’s here because you fear it. Makes bloody sense to me, though it took actually making it here before I understood.” Spike sighed again, shaking his head. “Your worst fears, everythin’ you would call Hell…it made this, what you see. But you didn’t die, pet. You jumped into Hell but you didn’t die. That’s why I wager they keep shovin’ swine at you, an’ why you have water here. Gotta keep you fed somehow, yeah?”

Buffy just looked at him, agreeing with her eyes but not moving.

“You bein’ a slayer and alive made it bloody difficult getting in. There are rules, see. An’ only someone without a soul can get where I got. Human souls are bloody breakable. Thankfully, yours truly didn’t have that problem.”

“So that’s why you came after me.”

Spike balked. “No. Fuck no. After I figured where you were, the devil himself couldn’t’ve stopped me, sweetheart. You had it right the firs’ time. I came here because I love you. No bloody way would I have jus’ sat back an’ let someone else muck up the only chance there was at getting you out.”

It was probably wishful thinking, but he could have sworn her eyes sparked with relief.

“There are other things,” he continued. “I don’ remember everythin’. A lot of rot about some bloke who braved Hell once an’ knew how to sidestep the booby-traps. Got the rules from that, an’ then I came in after you.”

Buffy licked her lips. “What were the rules?”

Something he’d never forget. That’s what they were.

“No promises. Don’t take what you’re offered.” He paused. “Don’t forget your name.”

A significant silence settled between them. Her brow furrowed, and it didn’t take much to follow her train of thought. “That’s what happened to me, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “When I couldn’t…everything is so…I was all right for a while. I remember…God, I remember when I got here. It was…” She broke away, balling her hands into fists and shaking so hard he thought she might collapse. The spell didn’t last long, granted, just long enough to make him feel the pain of every day he hadn’t been there to rescue her from herself. “I forgot my name, didn’t I?”

Spike measured a deep breath. There was so much to say, and so much he felt he should keep to himself. “I think so, love.”

“And you helped me find it.”

“I don’t know—”

“I do.” The resolve on her face was unquestionable. “Everything changed when you got here, Spike. I didn’t…I can’t even begin to…” A pause. “Thanking you isn’t enough. I don’t know what enough would be.”

“Buffy—”

“I was horrible to you. I didn’t hate you. I know that…but I remember being horrible anyway.”

“You really weren’t, pet,” he assured her. “Not in the way you think. There at the end, you treated me like…like I’ve never been treated in my whole bloody life. Everything before that was…I surprised you, is all. You didn’t know how to go about it.”

She thought about that for a minute but ultimately offered no reply. Perhaps there was none.

“What happens now?” she asked instead. “There’s so much in my head. Pictures. People. So many…and it won’t stop.”

He remembered the way he’d felt when he toppled out of the cavern. A fraction of the time she’d spent here, he’d recovered in a manner that seemed damn near uncanny. He didn’t know what to make of that or what to tell her. There was no I understand in this world, because while he could grasp what she was saying, no amount of experience made for understanding. A thousand years of lost time gathering against her, bombarding her fragile memory with images and faces she’d long forgotten. She couldn’t be asked too much now.

She couldn’t be asked anything.

“Do you want to stay here?” Spike asked. “Not much, but there is a bed. An’ a shower. Step up from the other place, right?”

Buffy frowned thoughtfully. “No.”

“No?”

“The other place…the warehouse. That’s important.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t remember how, but it was important to me once. At some point.”

“The writing? The carving on the walls?”

She blinked, looking almost surprised. As though she hadn’t expected he would be able to see the words there. “Yeah. It’s important. It’s very…”

Her eyes grew distant, her voice chasing her mind down a path he could not follow.

“Buffy?”

“It’s important. I don’t remember why, but I needed to be there. I needed…”

“If it’s important, we’ll go back.”

She nodded numbly, then her eyes found his again. “Do you really still love me?” she asked, surprising the fuck out of him. Before he could respond, she went on, “Three hundred years is a long time, and I know there’s more. There’s more than what you’re telling me.”

“That’s one thing you never have to ask,” Spike replied firmly. “I’m yours, Buffy. Yours till dust. Always bloody have been. Longer than I knew, even. Don’t regret a second of it. I would’ve waited forever to find you.”

He wasn’t prepared for the look that stole her eyes or the tears that dribbled down her cheeks. Nor was he prepared to be taken into her arms. But she drew him to her breast and held him close, comforting him as a lover. It was perfect—a perfect stolen instant, one he didn’t quite grasp. One he didn’t fully trust was real.

“Thank you,” she whispered. And that was it. She didn’t say the words back; at that moment, he was glad. He’d never come to her to steal her heart, and even if it managed to happen, even if she let him touch her, it shouldn’t happen now. It wouldn’t be real.

Her body pressed to his, his wet cheek against her shirt, feeling the heart of her hug, that was real.

And he wanted to hold it as long as he could.

Spike supposed the sense of supreme unreality was a part of Hell, but he’d foolishly thought he had at least begun to understand her world. Standing with her, walking with her, was a part of that. She’d been quiet since leaving the apartment. Clean now, eyes burdened with the knowledge of a thousand years, and quiet. When he reached for her, she didn’t shy. When his hand wrapped around her wrist, she huddled herself closer, needing contact as much as he did. No, needing it more. She’d been without touch for so long.

Nothing was real anymore, and yet at the same time, everything was.

“It’s strange,” Buffy said.

He waited for her to elaborate. She did not. And he knew why—in this world, that statement was redundant, and clarification was unneeded. However, he needed clarification now more than ever. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she re-experienced, he wanted to know. He had to know.

“What’s strange, love?”

She licked her lips, pulling him to a halt. “I just woke up. That’s how I feel.” Her eyes wandered upward. “Like I just woke up.”

Spike stared at her for a long minute, then sighed and kicked up dust. She’d fallen asleep in a nightmare—a nightmare waiting for her when she awoke.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, not expecting an answer. She had a long way before she’d chased down her memories.

Miles to go before I sleep.

However, in the still quiet settled between them, the storm brewing behind her eyes told a different story.

“Falling,” she said.

She'd always wondered what dying felt like. Would it hurt? How long would the hurt last—would she feel the impact, or would she be dead before she hit the concrete? Would she feel anything at all? What happened next? It wasn't over—she knew enough about dimensions to know the soul lived on after death. This was the start of something different, not just the end.

Where would death take her?

A thousand things spiraled through her mind. A thousand what-ifs. A thousand possibilities. A thousand faces of those she would take on her journey—people to remember and cherish. And oddly, as her body plummeted toward infinity, one constant kept surfacing. It was the conversation she had with Spike in the alley outside the Bronze. Death was her art, he'd told her, and she would want this someday. She would want the free-fall of not knowing what the next step would bring. It would be liberating and terrifying, all at once.

She'd understood what he meant then…far too much for comfort, but now, as the ground whisked aside and she tore out of her reality, Buffy found herself overwhelmed with the most profound peace she'd ever known. It was like the stories told by people who weren't supposed to live. The lack of fear, the certainty of fate, and the welcome embrace of whatever was to come. It consumed her, calmed her, and carried her from her world into a vortex of uncertainty.

She fell forever until the light faded into darkness. Her last thoughts were of Dawn, and how she hoped her sister knew how loved she was, but more than anything, hoped she would one day understand.

Death provided an escape. No more worrying, no more sleepless nights, no more Glory.

It would be so nice to finally rest.

The world she entered was wrong. Everything was wrong.

She thought perhaps if she didn’t acknowledge what it was, where she was, its reality would fade. After all, admitting to herself that she was in Hell was a particularly terrifying thing, but there was no doubt in her mind. From the second Buffy pried her eyes open, her body aching in ways it didn’t know it could ache, she’d known where she was.

She’d known it, but she hadn’t admitted it. She couldn’t. For everything she had sacrificed, for her all that she had offered, she couldn’t believe it. The first few days were spent wandering the haunted streets in utter disbelief, screaming the names of her friends, sure the Powers wouldn’t be so cruel. She’d given her life to save the world. She had peace coming to her. Rest. Solace. Comfort in the aftermath of battle, sleep after months of rotting away in fear of what was coming. All of that was supposed to end.

The longer she searched, the more she saw, the colder her terror became. Complete and utter isolation. The buildings were empty save for a few bits of scattered debris left behind by people who had likely never existed. She wandered the streets of fear come to life, cocooned under a sickly yellow sky. Every step she took shoved her deeper into the nightmare.

This was not right.

“Hey!” Her voice carried over the city and dispersed into a thousand whispers, all firing back at her with unforgiving precision. It didn’t calm the fury in her chest; rather than shrink away, she screamed louder. “HEY! I’m not supposed to be here!”

The whispers snickered and shot back all at once, drowning her cry under a sea of mindless noise.

Still, she didn’t give up.

“Willow! Giles!” Her eyes were heaven-turned, but thoughts of Heaven had no place here. “GILES! Willow!” A pause, then again. “Xander! Dawn! Giles! Spike! God, anyone! I’m here! I’m here! I’M HERE!”

She barely heard the words. The whispers were everywhere, sneaking into her ears and turning sound against itself. Within seconds, her temples throbbed and her eardrums vibrated and if it grew any louder, she was certain her head would pop right off her body.

They couldn’t hear her. No one could.

She was alone.

Hunger had transcended the pangs she’d grown up with. It wasn’t until she realized she was starving to death that she understood the sounds that kept her up at night; the animals she heard roaming the deserted city, were there for her and her alone…were there to sate her appetite.

Because she wasn’t dead. She still needed food.

And whatever was out there…she was supposed to hunt.

The river wasn’t going anywhere.

It was familiar now. The shock had worn off, though not as quickly as she would have liked. Every time her feet led her to this place she felt she had stepped out of her life and into a horror movie. But then, that was the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t in her life anymore…and this was very much a horror movie.

In every sense of the term.

The river’s bank was saturated a dark crimson red that only deepened with age. She’d crossed it so many times. Up to her neck in blood, her arms fighting the current with futile strokes of arms weak with hunger and weighted with desolation. For some reason, it seemed so logical in her head…if she could just get across the river she could walk away. It might take days, weeks…it didn’t matter, but across the river was the only way out.

The whispers from the town couldn’t find her in the Out There.

It was a theory she’d tested over and over. And every time she managed to battle her way across the river of blood, she found herself standing on the opposite bank, right where she’d started.

The cold fingers of despair were always there to catch her when she collapsed.

It was foolish to think there was escape from Hell.

Angel had been lost for centuries. Not in her world, of course…not on Earth, but to him, he had spent lifetimes enduring torment she hadn’t been able to fathom until now. Though somehow, Buffy suspected her Hell was different than his. She didn’t see Angel being the type to mind the solitude.

Perhaps Hell was different for everyone.

Still, different versions of torture notwithstanding, it all boiled down to one conclusion. For the months she’d been gone, in the time since she jumped, there was every possibility no time at all had passed for her friends. And they would try to find her. Buffy knew they would try to find her. Her friends weren’t quitters, and they wouldn’t stand aside and let her rot away in whatever dimension she’d fallen in to. They would try to find her.

She could only hope there was something left to find by the time they arrived.

She'd once considered time an enemy, she had so little of it. The second she'd been called her life expectancy had been stamped with an unforgiving expiration date. Every day was a fight for survival. Grow too confident and she'd be the victim of arrogance, lack confidence and she wouldn't live to see tomorrow. There was no use fighting a losing battle, except when the fight was all she had.

Never enough time.

It wasn’t that way anymore. All she had was time. When months began to melt into years, she didn’t know. But days came and went and the world around her didn’t change. Every day she awoke with the same despair, the same dearth of hope, the same horrid knowledge that there was no escape.

She’d tried. God knows how she’d tried. The river had been crossed so many times, at so many points, and every time she made it to the other side, she found herself back where she started. She’d screamed until her voice gave out, screamed until she tasted blood in the back of her throat. And every day brought the same. She awoke with a hole carved in her heart, with desperation to which she’d long grown numb. How many years had passed? How did she even keep it straight?

Isolation was going to drive her insane. She heard voices. Everywhere she turned, voices followed. Had they always been there, or was she just hearing them now?

Time was an enemy, all right.

Only not the enemy she’d once thought it to be.

It was as though the corners in her mind had started to round, rendering the shapes upon which she relied into little more than familiar blurs. Names she’d known all her life began running together. Life before Hell seemed like a place she’d dreamed, an unanswered wish. People she’d kept with her had become nothing but phantoms, and every day she retreated further within herself. Every day, she lost something important. Something she should try to hold, but couldn’t despite her best efforts.

She was beginning to forget, and that terrified her.

She couldn’t let herself forget.

Dawn. Giles. Willow. Dawn. Xander. Tara. Spike. Dawn. Anya. Buffy. Giles. Xander. Willow.

She was on her knees in a corner of some random warehouse, nails digging into her scalp, temples pounding, heart racing, names speeding through her head, heedless that she was too lost to keep up.

Spike. Giles. Angel. Willow. Riley. Giles. Buffy. Dawn. Tara. Spike.

They were leaving her. She didn’t remember what they looked like. She didn’t know if they were real at all.

She just knew she had to hold on. She couldn’t forget.

“Can’t forget, can’t forget, can’t forget.”

Blood dribbled down her hand, glass tearing into her palm, but she didn’t blink, didn’t look away. Language had nearly lost meaning. She never spoke anymore, hadn’t in years save a word here or there, but for whatever reason it seemed important now. Words were important. Names were important.

She couldn’t forget, so she wrote. She carved. Name after name. Over and over.

Willow. Giles. Dawn. Spike. Xander. Buffy. Anya. Tara. Riley. Xander. Mom. Oz. Dad. Cordelia. Giles. Riley. Dawn. Angel. Faith. Willow. Spike. Buffy. Dawn. Angel. Willow. Giles. Xander. Mom. Buffy.

Over and over. Plaster dust stung her eyes and choked her throat. Her hand begged her lenience, but she would grant none.

She couldn’t let herself forget.

Spike. Giles. Buffy. Dawn. Xander. Willow. Tara. Anya.

She couldn’t forget.

The walls were covered. Her hands were scarred. Blood caked her skin. A body long numb to pain began to ache, but she didn't move. She couldn't. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the walls. She had to remember. If she looked away, she would forget. Her mind would leave her completely.

So she sat and stared, eyes roaming the names until letters blurred and darkness fell.

She wouldn't sleep. Wouldn't eat. Wouldn't look away.

The names had no faces, no meaning, but they were important, and she had to watch.

They would disappear if she gave them the chance.

“Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, please don't let me forget, don't forget…”

Something about the walls. There was something about the walls.

She wrinkled her nose and took a step forward. The marks carved were twisted, deformed…and important. They were important for some reason. She'd put them there. Her hands hurt. There was blood on the floor. She had put them there. The marks. The writings there were hers. They meant something. They were important.

There was some reason they were important.

But she didn't know why, and she didn't know what they were.

The words on the walls were meaningless.

Nothing ever changed. Never.

She woke. She wandered. She ate. She slept.

She stared at the walls and waited for them to make sense. She sat outside for hours and waited for the voice behind the whispers to present itself. She waited for something that never came.

She waited. And nothing ever changed.

There were things the brain didn’t remember without a trigger. It started with just a few words here and there. They had left the apartment complex perhaps thirty minutes ago, walking side-by-side, hands brushing with every stride. He’d asked an innocent question—a seemingly innocent question—though he didn’t remember what it was now, and Buffy had answered with a story that built upon itself as memories broke through her mind’s wall.

She told him more than he wanted to know, but things he needed to hear all the same. The picture she painted wasn't unlike the images that had plagued him, but hearing her voice, her words wrapped around experience, the small part of him that had been cushioned and protected from the reality of her nightmare shattered. His mind filled in the rest.

There were no words he could summon. No sympathies he could offer. He’d long known this would be the case—relating to someone who had lost everything was impossible. He’d known this, recognized it over and over, but knowledge didn’t soften the blow. Spike wanted words and there were none.

There was only silence.

“My throat hurts,” Buffy volunteered, aiming a strained smile in his direction when he met her eyes. They were outside the warehouse—the one she’d marked—but had yet to step inside. It was another threshold; something would be different when they entered, and Spike reckoned she wasn’t eager for the past to gain any more footholds than it already had.

So they stood outside together, the spell broken. Her memories were between them—she’d given him a story in black and white, but his mind had filled in the color, and he figured she was at a loss for words just as much as he. Funny enough, now that she’d regained them.

Spike’s mouth twitched. “Not used to talking, I’d wager.”

She nodded and looked away. “It took you three hundred years to get here.” It wasn’t a question, rather a thought she needed vocalized; as though she could see the words and make better sense of them when they lived in the air. “I thought that…”

“You thought what, love?”

There was no answer. Her eyes had focused on something he couldn’t see, and the look painted across her face was something he’d only seen in old war veterans, recalling horrors beyond imagination. She wasn’t frowning or upset or anything that could be named; rather, she was blank, completely vacant, and that very vacancy resonated more than tears ever could.

Then she shook her head and blinked, and just like that, she was with him again.

“I—ahh, umm, I thought…my friends would come for me.”

“I didn’t get here fast enough.”

Buffy frowned and looked at him. “Don’t,” she implored softly. “Spike…my mind isn’t…memories are coming, and I remember more the more I…but please, don’t apologize for doing…don’t apologize for anything. You got here.”

“Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. I brought it back, didn’t I?”

“The world, you mean.”

“This world.”

She exhaled heavily, her eyes falling. “It’s going to…it’ll be hard. I keep getting images and feelings and faces…and things I know I should know but can’t remember. But you can’t imagine what it was like before you arrived.”

No, he really couldn’t, nor did he want to. The thought alone was terrifying…and knowing that she’d suffered centuries of exile, of feeling things he didn’t want to imagine, only made it worse.

“When I saw you it terrified me,” Buffy whispered. “I didn’t know…I didn’t think other people were real anymore.”

Spike licked his lips and nodded. The encounter in the alley was still fresh. Buffy clawing at walls, trembling and cowering…a shade of the girl she’d been. “I know.”

“It was…”

Another quiet settled between them. Her voice trailed away, and he saw she’d balled her hands into fists again. Tremors had seized her body, harsh ones like those back at the apartment complex, and his body immediately knew what to do even if his mind couldn’t keep up. It would take a long while for him to get used to her curling into his proffered embrace. He expected her to shy or jerk away, but the second his hand fell on her shoulder she was wrapped around him. She clutched and shook, and he held her through it. There were no tears this time, just the comfort of silence.

Then she was whispering against his skin, and every nerve in his body sparked to life. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Spike…thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

His heart broke. She had already thanked him at the apartment, and he didn’t know how much more of her gratitude he could handle…especially when he felt nothing like a hero. He’d made it here, yes, but she’d still lost. She’d still suffered. He hadn’t been able to prevent that.

“Buffy…”

Her lips brushed his skin and his knees nearly buckled. “Thank you. Thank you for coming for me.”

Spike inhaled sharply and shoved his own shortcomings aside.

This isn’t about me. It’s for her.

“I love you. Of course I came.”

But that wasn’t always the case—love didn’t always triumph. Love, when tested, most frequently failed to beat the odds. And even with her faulty memories, the way she held him let him know with no uncertain terms that she understood his sacrifices, even if he fully did not.

“Thank you,” she whispered again.

His arms tightened around her. The words he had to say felt ridiculous; even still, he knew they were what she needed. “You’re welcome.”

A long sigh rumbled through her body. She hugged him tighter but did not respond.

The door to the warehouse waited. The sky above darkened. The whispers drifted around them. And though nothing had changed, when they finally pulled apart the air between them felt charged.

There was still so much to do. So much to say—so much to unravel. So much to revisit. However, before Spike took her hand and guided her back into her nightmare, he wanted a moment of quiet.

He had a feeling they were both going to need it.

”What happens now?”

Spike tore his eyes away from the walls almost sheepishly. He’d been unable to do little more than stare since she’d led him inside. It was bloody amazing—he’d come to expect so much, had seen so many things, but he hadn’t been prepared for the writings to turn into names. It wasn’t extraordinary given the catalogue of experiences he’d had over the years…perhaps because it made everything she’d told him real, even if he knew it had been nothing else.

“What do you mean, pet?”

She sat on the makeshift bed, studying him with a warmth that made his toes curl and his body think of things it shouldn’t. “Is it weird?” she asked.

He smirked. “Let a bloke answer the first question before runnin’ off to the next.”

“The walls, I mean.” Buffy licked her lips, her eyes wandering over her carvings. “They didn’t always look like this, did they?”

“No, love.”

“I can’t keep track of what’s real and what’s not. But I think I remember—”

“When I got here, it was unreadable,” he assured her. “I think your remembering turned it back.”

She nodded. “I just don’t understand why…”

A thick pause settled between them as she searched for words. When the silence became uncomfortable, he prompted, “Why your marks would change?”

“Right,” she said. “This isn’t normal, is it?”

“Normal’s relative, love,” Spike replied. He didn’t know what difference it made, didn’t know whether or not he was talking out of his arse, but it felt so wonderful just talking with her that he didn’t care enough to evaluate what was said. Not at the moment, at the very least. “Your world, your rules, that’s how I figure it. You told me the words stopped making sense to you, right?”

Buffy nodded again, though she didn’t look any more enlightened than before.

“I figure they just…became what you perceived.”

“I can do that?”

“Your world,” he reminded her. “Not sure how this works, but I reckon you control what you see to a degree.”

Her nose wrinkled. “I think I want a refund.”

A small ripple of mirth spread through his body; he managed to kill his grin. He hadn’t thought she’d be up for quips just yet, but Christ it was good to hear. “Just a theory,” he said again.

“It’s a good theory.”

“There were a lot of talks before I left,” Spike said, gesturing, “about this. About where you were and what to expect. I bloody resented it at the time, but it probably saved my life. All the hoops I had to jump…”

Buffy nodded faintly, wrapping her arms around her legs. “Three hundred years is a long time to look for someone,” she remarked. Her eyes met his. “What happened, Spike?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not fair. I told you my story of woe.”

“Right, love, you did. Wasn’t a quid pro quo.”

“It had to be bad if you’re not telling me.”

Spike’s brows perked. “How do you figure? Maybe I had a right good old time and I feel like shit knowing I was livin’ the good life while you suffered.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Oi! I’m a right good liar. You just didn’t give me time to come up with a convincin’ story.” He shuffled self-consciously. “I’m evil. Hell’s evil. Figure I’m right at home.”

Buffy didn’t look convinced. In fact, the look on her face was so thoroughly familiar he nearly felt weak in the knees. It would take a while before the realization that she was actually with him sank in; in the meantime, he enjoyed all her reminders. Every glance, every snarky comment…each and every indicator of the woman she’d been was something to be treasured.

“Who said you were evil?” she asked skeptically.

“Well, you, for starters,” he replied before huffing out his chest with indignation. “And I am bloody evil. Don’t you forget it.”

“I really said you were evil?”

“Too many times to count, sweetheart.”

“Well…” Now it was her turn to shuffle. If he didn’t find it so adorable, he might have worked to come up with more shining examples of his inherent monstrosity. As it was, it was nice hearing her defend him for a change…even from herself. “I was dumb,” she concluded.

“Dumb?”

“You looked for me for three hundred years. That’s not evil.”

Spike frowned. “I love you,” he replied. There was nothing more to it.

“There’s also that,” she agreed. “You love me.”

“Hate to burst your bubble, darling, but evil can love just as well as anything else.”

“Well, then…it doesn’t matter.” She nodded promptly as though she’d discovered the unarguable argument. “It doesn’t matter that you’re evil. Your kind of evil is…you’re not on par with Hell, Spike. And stop disagreeing with me. It’s wigging me out.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “How’s that?”

“It feels like we’re on opposite sides. Me arguing for your nonevilness.”

“That’s because we are,” he acknowledged. “God knows I spent months trying to convince you I wasn’t what I was…you and myself. But a bloke learns a lot over three centuries.”

Buffy licked her lips and fell silent. He took it as permission to continue.

“It began as infatuation, see,” he said softly. “Had a dream about you. About us. It’s bloody confusing as fuck because I feel like I’ve loved you since the second I saw you, but even then it was infatuation. The second I realized it is when I started to really fall. All through our last year together…the realer you became to me. And I did change, love. I changed for you…for me. You made me want to be better than I was. A better man. A man you could love.” Spike broke away, his jaw tightening. If he wasn’t careful he would reveal more than he intended. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? I can change who I am, not what. There’s always gonna be this. I can’t rip evil outta me. It’s there, all the time. It makes me who I am.”

An uncomfortable quiet settled between them. Her eyes had fallen from his at some point, and he didn’t really care to examine the connotations. There were some things all the sacrifices in the world couldn’t change. His nature, and her aversion to it, was among them.

“Nature isn’t your fault,” she whispered.

Spike blinked. “How’s that?”

Buffy exhaled and glanced up, her eyes shining. “Did I punish you for something you couldn’t change?” she asked. “I did, didn’t I? God, what the hell gave me the right…I can’t control what I am. Being the Slayer was never my idea. I was just…chosen. Like you were chosen.”

“It’s not that simple,” Spike interjected.

“Yes, it really is.” She shook her head. “I know there are things I don’t remember. About you. And me. And everyone. But I do know this…whatever you were or are…whatever I said you were, you came to find me. And you won’t tell me what happened to you, so I’m going to assume it was bad.”

Spike sighed, flooded with different waves of many-flavored emotions. All at once he was overwhelmed, defensive, skeptical, and more in love than he’d ever been. “It was bad,” he said shortly. “But I chose it. I knew what I was getting myself into.”

Buffy’s brow furrowed. “And I didn’t?”

“You didn’t know what would happen. I did.”

“I had to know it was a possibility, didn’t I?” He shook his head, which only furthered her conviction. “I jumped into a ripple of dimensions, Spike. Glory’s…her worlds were all hell-worlds. I had to know. I had to.”

“Rot. You jumped so Dawn wouldn’t, because you were so bloody sure she’d snuff it if she did. You did it to save her, Buffy. You jumped to save her.” Spike broke away before his temper got the better of him. The last thing she needed was to be scolded on her motives; motives he knew good and well had always been to jump, die, and rest for eternity. No one had ever discussed the possibility of being sucked into a hell dimension; in the last hours, all talk had centered on hell being unleashed on Earth and the necessary measures to prevent it. Dawn’s death was the only viable option…or it had been, until Buffy changed the rules.

Buffy exhaled softly, her shoulders dropping in defeat. “I don’t understand anything,” she said. “I don’t know why you would sacrifice so much for me—”

“I can only say I love you so many times.”

“Most people don’t love like this.”

Spike shrugged. “I’m not most people, love. Not bloody people at all.”

“Is that why we weren’t together?”

He offered a wry smile. “Thought we covered this. I didn’t have the right parts.”

Her eyes dropped unceremoniously to his crotch before darting away again, a warm blush tickling her cheeks. Spike tried and failed to smother a grin. Seemed the Slayer had remembered her naughty streak.

“The soul thing, right?” she asked, looking anywhere but him.

“Right.”

“And that was the only reason?”

Spike barked a laugh. Of all the conversations to have…

“You don’t remember,” he said, “and you’re confusing what you see here with reality. I’m not a sodding prince, Buffy. Not your white knight, no matter how much I want to be. I’ve done terrible things. Things I’d…and that’s not the kind of person you could be with.”

“This doesn’t sound like you.” She frowned. “I don’t remember a lot, but I remember enough to know this doesn’t sound like you.”

Spike shrugged lazily. “Told you, three hundred years of isolation can do wonders to a bloke’s perception.”

“So you don’t want me to love you anymore.”

Choking back his surprised laugh was almost impossible, but he knew from the look on her face he had to treat her question seriously. How she could doubt the answer was beyond him; however, he understood what was crystal bloody clear to him was the next man’s enigma. He wasn’t sure if that wasn’t also a lesson earned with time. Too many of his memories were little more than blurs, and the things he did remember offered few answers.

“More than anything, sweetheart,” Spike replied softly. “That’s what I want. But it’s not that bloody simple, is it? I was gettin’ there toward the end…knowin’ you’d never love me, knowing what I was and what you…but nothing can stop me from wanting it, just as nothing can change what I am or what I’ve done. I don’t deserve you.”

“I don’t believe that.”

The conviction in her voice was enough to break a man, especially one who had lived with hope and desire as long as he had. “Yeah,” he retorted, “you do. And if you don’t remember now, you will tomorrow or the day after. Whatever you’re feeling now won’t last.”

Buffy looked away and sighed. Tension held her every muscle hostage. “Tell me what happened.”

“When?”

“You know when.”

Spike’s shoulders tightened. She was banking on him to cave, and why shouldn’t she? He’d already told her things he’d resolved to keep to himself. Things he swore would never leave his lips. Well, bollocks. She wasn’t getting sod all from him concerning the three centuries of starvation and solitude. He couldn’t bloody well take her sympathy, couldn’t stand it if the hero-worship in her eyes deepened or turned her gratitude into an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“Drop it, Buffy.”

“No.”

“I’ve bloody told you, it’s not important.”

“And I say that’s hooey.”

His lips twitched. “Hooey?”

She nodded. “That’s what I said.”

“Buffy…”

“Tell me what happened.”

Let no one ever tell her she wasn’t stubborn. “It doesn’t matter,” Spike replied flatly. “All you need to know is I was prepared to sacrifice everything.”

She nodded, slightly subdued. “And you did.”

“No. Not everything. Not hardly, sweetheart.” He smiled in spite of himself. “I kept you with me.”

“Me?”

“Every day. You were with me every day.”

Buffy smiled at that, her eyes falling to her lap. “I was?”

“Better bloody believe it, love.” Spike took a step forward. “Wouldn’t have made it without you.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “And that is all you’re getting from me.”

The silence that settled between them was neither comfortable nor tense. Buffy sat, Spike stood, and they didn’t look at each other. It could have lasted hours, but it did not. There was still so much to discuss, things that would not wait for the sake of ease.

“I did what you asked,” Buffy whispered.

He blinked and met her eyes. “What’s that, love?”

“I remember now, and I don’t hate you.”

An awkward pause settled between them before comprehension dawned, and then he didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t addressed the intimacies they’d shared at all, not as he’d feared she would. The dreaded pop in the nose had remained absent, as had the accusatory glares and scathing remarks…all of which he now recognized as ridiculous and paranoid. After all she’d experienced, after everything she’d suffered, the touches he’d given her would be nowhere near the forefront of her concerns.

Still, knowing that didn’t knock back the need to explain his actions. Buffy understood now, sure, but she might not always. He needed to be prepared for that day.

“I didn’t—”

She held up a hand, anticipating him. “I know.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be—”

“I know.” This time he didn’t press the issue, placated by her smile. “That’s why I wanted to tell you,” Buffy explained. “Whatever you thought I’d think…I don’t. I don’t hate you for touching…for giving me something that wasn’t…you took me out of myself.”

“Bloody self-serving. I’ve wanted to touch you for—”

“You seem intent on digging your own grave. Or is it dust-pile?”

Spike smirked. “Just don’t want you gettin’ the wrong idea of me, love. Everything we’ve had has been honest. I need it to be honest.”

“I don’t have the wrong idea of you.”

“Well, you don’t have your idea. All you know of me is—”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Don’t project things you think I should be feeling or thoughts I should be thinking on me. You’ve been doing it all night, and I…” Her nose wrinkled. “You’re acting like Angel.”

Now there was an insult. “Oi! Take that back!”

At least she had the decency to wiggle. “Well, you are. I know I don’t remember everything, Spike, but I don’t have amnesia. It’s coming back. It will all come back…at this rate, probably a lot quicker than either of us expected. And Angel always did this. He assumed what I should or shouldn’t do or think. I remember that and it drove me crazy.”

“I don’t think there’s anything you should think. I just bloody know you, Slayer.” He shrugged. “Not sayin’ anything you haven’t told me before, or anything you wouldn’t have told me had…had…”

Her eyes narrowed. “Had…what? Had I not been sucked into Hell for a bajillion years? Well, that world doesn’t exist. I can’t speak for what didn’t happen, and you said it yourself, three hundred years can do a lot to change your perception. Imagine the impact of that times three.” She held up a hand. “Even if I wasn’t all here the entire time. Your name is on the wall, Spike. I wanted to remember you.”

Spike stared at her for a minute, then sighed heavily and lowered his eyes. She was right, of course. He wasn’t being fair…and he wasn’t quite being himself, but Christ, could she blame him? It would be so bloody easy to get swept up in the day’s romanticism. To believe the look in her eyes would be there forever, to believe the feeling she’d put into her hugs was genuine and wouldn’t fade. He’d been walking a fine line since he arrived, and when she looked at him the way she looked at him now, he nearly forgot the moment was fleeting, and the next might not be so generous.

And he couldn’t forget that, but he also couldn’t assume things based on judgment that was now a thousand years old. Time had changed him—why was he intent on thinking it would be any different for Buffy?

“I want this to be real,” he whispered. “I can’t take it if it’s not, Buffy. Being with you, here or anywhere, and getting what you’ve given me…if that’s taken away from me, I couldn’t bloody bear it.”

Her eyes softened. “I want this to be real, too.”

“An’ you know it might not be.”

“But I’m not excluding the possibility that it is. And even if it’s not real, I’m not…however things were won’t be the way they are. I can’t go back to that girl. She’s gone.” Buffy looked away. “She died in the jump.”

“Not completely.”

“Maybe not. But enough.” A small quiet held between them before her eyes found his again. “Are you going to stand there all night?”

Spike blinked. “Huh?”

She patted the vacant space beside her.

“You want…I didn’t know if…after you remembered…”

“I just want to be held tonight.”

He smiled, every nerve in his body singing. “I can do that.”

The walk across the room likely didn’t take as long as it seemed; it all felt like a dream. Everything since that morning at the river…he couldn’t quite shake the feeling he was going to snap out of a long, wishful reverie. But when he knelt beside her, she didn’t fade; when he wrapped his arms around her, she didn’t disappear; when her head found his chest, he didn’t jerk awake. Nor did she start when his fingers stroked her arm, or when his lips found her brow. Her heart beat against his silent chest, and every second was his.

“I don’t want it to be gratitude,” Spike whispered into her hair.

She was still for a second, then, “I know. I don’t want it to be gratitude, either. But I do…I do have…I have feelings.”

His heart jerked but he didn’t reply.

“But I’m smart enough to know it might not be real,” she continued. “You came to rescue me. You brought me back to myself. You’ve sacrificed so much, so yes, I am grateful. I am so grateful I’m…and I don’t want it to be gratitude. What I’m feeling. I don’t want it to be gratitude.” A breath. Buffy shifted and turned her gorgeous hazel eyes to him, and everything stilled. “I want these feelings to be real.”

She was so beautiful.

“I do. I really do. It’s so good to feel something. I want this to be real.”

God, there had never been sweeter sentiment. He was so exhausted on hope and fear he worried he might burst into tears, but he did not. Instead, he shivered and shook his head. “Mmm, Buffy…” Spike pressed his lips to her brow again, unable to help himself. “You have any idea what you just did?”

She shook her head.

“You gave me a crumb.”

He was having the most wonderful dream.

“Buffy…”

“Don't say anything,” she whispered, tightening her grip on his cock. Christ, he was going to melt under her heat. “Let me have this.”

It felt so real. So wonderful. Her scent wafted into his nostrils, spiced with arousal so potent he had to bite back a moan. No, scratch that. He didn't have to do anything but enjoy. Dreams were harmless. Dreams gave him freedom denied by reality. Dreams gave him Buffy without all the rules and booby-traps his mind cast up every time he thought he was close to having her.

Her hand pumped and squeezed, loving him base to tip. It had been so long since he'd been touched. So long since a soft female had curled a hand around his cock. God, he'd forgotten what this felt like.

“Forgot…Buffy…forgot…”

“Let me remind you,” she whispered. Then her lips were hot on his neck, dotting his skin with sweet kisses. His insides split with light purer than anything he ever hoped to touch. Christ, the strokes of her hand…he hadn't felt this in so long…

“Buffy…”

“I'm here,” she promised. “I'm here, Spike.”

Spike's eyes flew open, tumbling from a dream. It was real—shit, everything was real. Her small, lethal hand was wrapped around his cock, gifting him with long, languid strokes that both lost and gained confidence with every sweep. She trembled but remained resolute, focused, even under his shocked gaze. If anything, being watched seemed to bolster her.

“Oh, God,” Spike whimpered, hips involuntarily rolling into her touch. “Buffy…”

“I got curious.”

He peeked down at her, which proved disastrous. The sight of her hand around his cock was addictive. One glance and he couldn't look away. It was so unreal. After centuries of dreaming, yearning, after craving what he couldn't have, and suddenly here it was at his fucking fingertips. If it was a dream he didn't want to wake.

“Curious?” he gasped. “You got…”

“It was poking me. I'd forgotten what it felt like.”

He chuckled, ashamed at how nervous he was. “Didn't mean to poke, love. Bloody thing has a mind of its own.”

“I like its mind.” As if to accentuate that point, she pinched the head of his cock and elicited a sharp gasp from his lips. “I want this, Spike. That's…I just want it.”

He'd never heard sweeter words. “Is this gratitude?”

“I don't know,” Buffy replied honestly, squeezing him. “But if it is, let it be. Let me be grateful.”

What weak resolve he possessed completely evaporated. It had been so long and there was only so much a bloke could take. So he nodded and relaxed, resting his head again as she pumped his length. Every second he expected to jar awake from this forbidden dream, but he did not. Her scent was real, the rush of her pulse, the thundering of her heart, the sweet little breaths she took and the way she tentatively met his eyes…as though afraid of something neither could name.

And when he came, it was Buffy who gasped. The moment was hers, as well.

It was the sweetest release he'd ever known.

He hated to admit he was avoiding the woman he’d endured three hundred years to find, but avoiding her he was. There was simply no getting around it, nor was there any way he could avoid the truth of what had happened that morning. Spike could talk a big game, puff out his chest and swear he was doing the right thing, but the fact of the matter remained that the right thing simply wasn’t in his blood. He did right by her, all right, but there was only so much a bloke could take…a second more of Buffy looking at him the way she had after he came and he would have had her on her back.

Everything he’d told her the day before was true, or as true as it could be. He didn’t want gratitude, and yet he wanted anything after having nothing for so long. He also didn’t want her to give herself out of necessity or to ease her conscience. Once upon a time, he would have taken anything she handed him and been grateful for it, and while he wanted her more than he’d wanted anyone before, he couldn’t pretend sex would be enough.

Fuck, he’d told the ghosts as much in the cave. That had been one of the bloody tests; turn down Buffy’s offer to be anything other than what she was. He could have had her body, but that wasn’t the part he wanted. The bot hadn’t satisfied his need to have her—it had just made masturbating a bit more fun.

So he avoided her, which was bloody difficult when she was the only other person in the world—literally. After the rush faded, he’d dressed hurriedly and disappeared into the unexplored upper area of her warehouse, a place unmarked with names and one he doubted she’d visited often in the last few hundred years. The space wasn’t as large as the other place, but he did locate another shower, and after thoroughly scolding himself for not checking here sooner, hopped in and washed the last few days down the drain. He’d lost track of when he’d last showered. Other things had taken precedence to cleanliness.

As it was, cleanliness was next to godliness, and they were nowhere near God.

“I get the feeling you’re avoiding me.”

Spike about jumped out of his skin, which was right embarrassing. The Big Bad didn’t jump, no matter how dusty the title was.

“Christ, pet.” he gasped, whirling around and setting his eyes on the blurry vision approaching from the other side of the shower pane. “Ever heard of knocking?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “If I have, I probably forgot. I’m Brain Damage Girl, remember?”

He softened. “Not damaged, Buffy, just lost.”

“Right.” She shuffled her feet and crossed her arms. “So you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Where do you get that idea?”

“Actually, mainly from you. With the avoidance.”

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“It feels like you are.”

His jaw tightened. He didn’t like being easily read, and in circumstances such as these, a lie was more comfortable than the truth. “I’m not.”

“Is this about earlier?”

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“It’s about earlier, isn’t it?”

Spike looked at her a second longer, shower water washing the last of the shampoo he’d found out of his hair, and sighed hard. There was absolutely no keeping anything from her. If she didn’t pry it out of him, she’d land on a conclusion only she could reach in the first place. The fact she wasn’t too off the mark didn’t help matters.

“Earlier was bloody wonderful,” Spike answered truthfully, shutting off the faucet. “And that’s the truth.”

“I sense a but.”

“No but. It was just wonderful.”

“And not gratitude.”

There they diverged down separate yellow roads. “Buffy—”

“And even if it was, we agreed to let it be, didn’t we?”

Spike huffed. “Can’t rightly trust a bloke to say what he means when you’re stroking his dick.”

“Gratitude isn’t a bad thing,” she replied, voice lowering shyly at his crudeness. “No matter what happens, I’m not going to hate you. And if I did…even if some wonky demon makes me forget everything you’ve done for me, whatever I say or feel won’t erase the good you’ve done.”

He nodded, smiling a half-smile. “I know that.”

“Then—”

“I don’t want gratitude, I want you.”

“I want you, too.”

Spike inhaled sharply. She had no idea how those words affected him. “One taste will never be enough for me,” he replied. “I’ve already had more of you than…if we dance this dance all the bloody way, there’ll be no going back for me.”

“I know. And I know cornering you this morning was unfair.”

His lips twitched. “Right. Terrible, that was.”

“I just don’t want you to avoid me.” She sighed, her blurred head swinging southward. “You’re kinda my only friend in the world.”

There were breaking points, and then there were Breaking Points. This one was the latter. Spike exhaled deeply and slid the shower door open, mindless of his nudity, or the way her eyes widened as she silently, albeit quickly, appraised him. He warned his cock not to stir, but the damn thing had a mind of its own, and very rarely listened to him when Buffy was around. As it was, he’d been semi-hard the entire time her voice tickled his ears. Seeing her cheeks bright and flushed, her eyes deep and aroused…yeah, there was little chance he could walk away from her without a fight.

And Spike wasn’t an idiot. He knew he was in a losing battle. Evading advances from the woman he loved had never been in the brochure, and it was damn well against his nature to try and take the high road. A few hundred years back he never would have made it to the shower for having shagged her rotten all night. Time added perspective, and while it could shape a man, changing him was a bit of a stretch. He knew he’d thought of himself as reformed, changed, more than once, but there were still so many aspects of who he was that remained the same.

“I didn’t mean to avoid you,” Spike replied. It still wasn’t the truth, but it was close enough. “Christ, Buffy, you’re the last person I’d want to avoid…but this morning…I told you last night…”

“And you said I gave you a crumb.”

“Baby, you sold me the bakery. I just want it to last.”

Buffy licked her lips, her eyes darting to his crotch almost against their will. “Me, too,” she said. “But I remember more every minute. I remember things about you that you wouldn’t like, and I remember how I felt. It’s still…it seems so long ago, and I seem…wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong.”

“Well, it seems like I was.”

“We were different people then. For the man I was and the woman you were, you weren’t wrong. Don’t confuse the Spike in your memories with the one standin’ here, kitten. We’re different men.” Spike frowned. “Well, maybe not different…but different enough to know the difference.”

She sighed again; so did he. Then things grew quiet.

“Shower’s yours,” he said at last, moving to pass her. He thought she might follow him into the hallway, but she did not.

Instead, a few seconds later, he heard the splash of water against a worn tub.

Perhaps her letting him walk away meant she understood.

And for all his campaigning, Spike wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good thing.

After finding his trusty pair of jeans, Spike took to scouring their odd living space and waiting for the shower to stop running. He found something he’d set aside what felt like years in the past, though at most it had been three days since his eyes landed on the aged yellow pages a voiceless Buffy had lifted from the cardboard box to make room for pig entrails. The pages had been filled with words scribbled in the same manner as the walls. At the time, barely twenty-four hours ago, they were unreadable. Now it was not. Now, like the walls, they were legible, and he knew what they were.

They were letters.

“Oh, Buffy,” Spike sighed, kneeling to the haphazard pile, brushing the top page aside.

They were letters to everyone. Several to Giles, more than half to Dawn, a few to Willow and Xander, even one or two to Anya and Tara, whom he reckoned received less attention due to Buffy’s not knowing them very well. And there were letters for Spike.

There were also a few to Angel, the earlier ones proclaiming how she’d tried to move on but had never been able to truly love anyone else, and the latter seasoned with maturity that eased the rage in Spike’s chest. Those reflected a more tempered, though at times angry Buffy, who resented the way she’d been treated, resented the fact that the man who was supposed to love her more than anything turned away from her during her greater moments of need. Judging by the density and texture of the pages, Spike estimated a good fifty years or so spanned the time between the early letters and the later ones. If she began writing these within the first few days of jumping from the Tower, the latter letters reflected what a Buffy approaching her golden years would have said. But she hadn’t aged at all; when she was seventy-five, she looked no different than twenty.

She had wisdom with which he hadn’t credited her. She’d said it, herself. If three hundred years could bring him understanding only age provided, she had centuries on him. Buffy was older than he was. Strange bloody thought, but it was the way things had worked out.

The letters addressed to Spike weighed around the same as those addressed to her friends, which surprised him. A few were abrupt, detailing how grateful she was he’d been there in the end for Dawn, and how she wished she had handled things differently. Others were righteous, admitting his feelings for her while adamantly defending her position. There were one or two reflecting secret confessions that she missed fighting with him, and hated it that the Initiative had robbed them of their fun.

The last one must have been right before things started to get really bad. It looked to be one of the newer letters in the stack.

Spike,

I know it’s going to be you.

Don’t get me wrong, I know the others love me. A lot. And I know the hell I’m going through is…well, it’s Hell, right? But they’re going through a lot, too. I also know time moves differently for me. I mean, we slack off, yeah, but not when someone needs help, and I know the gang wouldn’t have slacked off this long. It’s probably been…what? Days? A week or so? The idea makes my brain hurt…that all this time nothing has happened up there because you guys haven’t dealt with this as long as I have. I know what right now feels like, and thinking that my ‘right now’ and your ‘right now’ are two different things kind of weirds me out.

But I know it’s going to be you. It has to be.

I also know the likelihood of you, or anyone, ever receiving any of the letters I’ve written over the years is slim to none. Having said—or is it written? I think it’s written—that, I need to add that I’ve meant pretty much everything. Maybe not now, but whatever I felt at the moment was what I wrote.

Everything is different now. Things I thought were different. And yeah, a lot of what you did warranted the reaction you got, there were other things I did notice but didn’t let you know I noticed. You really do care about me, for one. I get that now. You’re a guy who emotes big time, and I should know…I’m pretty much the same. Not that I’ll give you a pass for the chaining-me-up thing, which, got to say, isn’t the best way to score a date, but I get the passion that makes you do otherwise stupid things.

Do it again, though, and, well, ashes to ashes, and all that jazz.

But let me get to the point. I know it’s going to be you who gets me out. Like I said, my friends love me, and I know they’ll do just about anything to help, but there’s only one you, Spike, and after what I saw you let Glory do to you to protect me and Dawn…well, I just know. They might send you in, but I know. And I don’t want to think about how hard it’ll be to get to me. I don’t think I died, so whatever’s keeping me here, whatever doesn’t let me cross the river, will want to make sure no one takes me out.

So, thank you. I don’t know if you’ll ever see this or if I’ll even be what you find, but there it is. My thanks…and this: I was wrong about you. If I can even think what I think about you, you can’t be all evil. At least not the way I thought.

There it is. I’m sorry for the things I need to be sorry for. You deserved better from me.

Thank you.

Love,
Buffy

She was real.

The past day and a half, he’d been living in a dream. He’d known it was real all along, but knowledge and understanding were two different things. It was a leap from knowing Buffy was at his side, smiling at him, saying she had feelings for him that weren’t gratitude, and realizing it was true. He’d believed her, fuck he relished every second, but there had been something holding him back. Some thread of a fear that she would slip through his fingers again and he’d find himself at the beginning.

She was real, though, and she wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t an illusion; she wasn’t going to blink into the void. He’d been thrown, perhaps, by the similarity between the Buffy who had once lived in his head and the Buffy he could touch, but then, he’d always made his inner voice be Buffy, not just an artist’s rendering. He just hadn’t fully grasped it until now.

He could scold himself a thousand times, reassure himself a thousand times, but nothing measured to truly understanding it.

Love, Buffy.

Love.

“I wrote letters.”

Spike stilled. She was behind him again, tickling his nostrils with her sweet soapy scent.

“I wrote letters,” she said again, taking a step forward. “I’d forgotten I wrote letters.”

“Found these in that box a few days back,” Spike agreed, turning. She wore only his black t-shirt, teasing his eyes with her legs and the hint of what waited for him just below the hemline. “Didn’t make sense until you…”

“Remembered. Yeah.” She quirked her head. “Interesting reading?”

“Read a few.”

“All the ones I wrote you, I’d assume.”

“And a few you didn’t.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Evil.”

“That’s the way it works.” Spike smiled softly. Love, Buffy it said. Love, Buffy. “Buffy…sweetheart…”

“What?”

One of his personal philosophies had always attested words held little power over action, and he couldn’t stand aside anymore and pretend he didn’t want what she was begging for. In a heartbeat, he’d closed the space between them, weaving his fingers through her hair as his mouth crashed against hers. Buffy whimpered, throwing her arms around his neck and melting into him, nipping at his lips before her tongue plundered his mouth. She tasted good, so good—rich and warm, wonderfully female and so real he could barely keep from weeping.

“Buffy…” He wrenched his lips from hers, mouth tearing down her throat. “Fuck, you’re so warm.”

“Ohhh, God…”

“So alive.” His lips brushed her shoulder, fingers curling around the hemline of the tee she wore. “You really are alive.”

“Spike…”

“I love you.”

Her mouth fell open but she didn’t respond. Good. He didn’t want her whispering words she couldn’t mean. Not now. Not yet. Instead, he drew in a deep breath and forced himself to pull away. It was painful but liberating at the same time, breathing in her flushed face, the heavy scent of her arousal dancing off her skin. This was real.

She’s real.

“Spike—”

“Dance with me,” he replied, wrapping his arms around her waist before she could think but to respond in kind. And then they were moving together in sync with music that didn’t play, Buffy pressed against him, her hips rolling mindlessly against his hard cock, her hands grasping his shoulders as he moved them in lazy circles. It was soft and profound, and one of the sweetest moments of his life.

The fire between them didn’t fade, it sizzled.

Standing here, holding Buffy, the world around him didn’t seem daunting at all.

“Spike…”

“Heaven,” he sang under his breath, “I’m in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak…”

Buffy smiled and pressed a hand to his still chest.

“And I seem to find the happiness I seek…when we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

“Spike, make love to me.”

He stilled.

“I know it’s…it’s too soon, but I need…God, I can’t even…I just need.”

“No, it’s not too soon.” Spike kissed her lips and stroked her cheek. Reservations were gone. Gratitude or not, he needed her too damn much to give a damn. She was right—things were different now, and even if he couldn’t have her for always, he could at least have her for now.

Borrowed time was still time.

And if it was all they had, he would enjoy every second.






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