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Author: The Deadly Hook
E-mail: thedeadlyhook(a)hotmail.com
Site: www.stakeme.com
Disclaimer: Not mine. Mutant Enemy, Twentieth Century Fox, etc. No profit being made here, just the love.
Rating: NC-17, action/angst.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Summary: Sequel to "Dirty Back Road" in three parts. Set about one week after the events of the epilogue. Post-Angel Season 5, about a year after the events of "Not Fade Away." Buffy is living in Rome, she crosses paths with Spike, who happened to be there too for his own reasons... and then where do we go from here? Buffy POV. 66,464 words.

Winner in the Love's Last Glimpse and Vampire Kisses awards!

.........

Does It Have to Mean Something?, Part Three

Chapter Fourteen

__________

Buffy pushed hard against Spike, shoved him off. He fell backwards, heels skidding across the floor, and went down, back cracking on the tiles. Legs tangled, Buffy fell with him, rolling off the table with a hard thump, landed on his chest. He caught her, breath driving out of his throat with a woof.

"Cell phone--where did I put the cell phone?" she blurted, scrambling to her feet. She began to search the kitchen frantically, her hands sweeping objects off the counter in a racket of clattering noise.

Behind her, Spike let out a groan, and then levered himself to his feet slowly, using the table for support. "What's this about Dawn?"

"She was supposed to have been home hours ago. She called, a-and we were talking and I didn't--"

"This is about a phone call?"

"I didn't call her back. Why didn't I--?"

"This is about a phone call?"

She ignored his question, kept looking. Spike watched her flit about, strain evident on his face. "You think something happened to her."

She shot him a narrow look. "Duh, Spike! When is Dawn not the first target anybody ever thinks of?"

"Not every missed phone call equals a hostage situation, love."

"Since when? It does around me!"

Spike let out a exaggerated sigh, cracked his back and neck.

The phone finally made its appearance, a wedge of silver partly hidden behind the coffee cannister. Buffy snatched it up. "You just said it yourself." She stabbed at the buttons with a shaky finger. "She's probably been kidnapped, a-and--"

"You know love, typically kidnappers call you."

She glared at him. In her ear, Dawn's voicemail picked up. A cold chill ran up Buffy's back.

"She's not answering." She locked eyes with Spike. Ohmigod, she's not answering. Chilly calm descended on her once more, readying her for action, even as her exhausted body groaned in protest.

Spike took in her expression, sighed again. "Okay. Right. Well, we'll find her. No need to worry."

"Right." She lifted her chin. "We will. You're right. I-I'll just go get changed, and--"

"No need. Best you stay here, love. Angel and I'll go."

He'd already begun moving by the time he'd finished saying these words, feet purposefully striding forward. Stunned, she grappled for his elbow, pulled him up short. "You'll go?"

He looked at her. "Why the shock? Not like I've never gone looking for her before, is it?"

"Yes, but..." She sputtered helplessly for a second. "You and Angel? What is it with you two? And since when do I stay home a-and... sit by the window?"

"Take it easy." He removed her hand from his arm, not ungently. "Look, it's just... well, what if she calls back?"

"It's a cell phone." The phone was still in her hand; she held it up. Exhibit A.

"Well, what if she comes home? Not like I can wait here for her, is it?"

"Why the hell not? You're as much a part of her family as anyone."

A short bark of laughter escaped him, and he gave her a pitying look. "She doesn't want to see me, Buffy. Can't blame her, but there it is. Should've heard her on the phone, that one time--could barely talk to me."

"That's not true." Buffy lifted her chin stubbornly. "I asked her--that's not how she feels at all. And she's my sister. You're not going to--I am not some princess, okay? I don't just... sit by the window and wait for my noble knights to do my work for me--I'm the Slayer! And you and Angel can do what you want, but I'm going to find her." She shoved past him, or tried to--the two of them moved simultaneously toward the doorway and promptly got stuck. They struggled for a second, trapped in the doorframe, her legs tangled up with his and her breasts pressed up against his chest.

"Let go!"

"I'm trying!" A bit of pushing and shoving at each other and they broke free, staggering on opposite sides of the opening. Having come out of the struggle on the hallway side of the equation, Buffy quickly spun around and headed for the front door.

"Oh, no you don't." Spike's voice followed her from the kitchen, as did the sound of his big boots. She ignored him, focused on the front door with determined tunnel vision, reached for the doorknob.

He jostled her elbow, knocked her hand aside. Her head nearly spun on her shoulders, and she took in the sight of him, right at her back, his whole frame nearly crackling with defiant energy.

"My job now," he hissed. "Not yours." Then he reached around her with one incongruously silk-clad arm, and flung open the door.

The hallway outside the apartment was bright. Buffy hadn't bothered to turn on more than small table lamp when she'd first come in, so the living room was dark. The sudden contrast, the incoming flood of light, was dazzling. Buffy blinked rapidly, her eyes struggling to adjust.

There was a figure outlined the doorway. Next to her, she felt Spike's whole body tense.

The silhouette spoke. "Hey."

It was Dawn.

__________

Buffy gaped. Her sister was right there, standing in the hallway, laden down with schoolbags. Right outside the door. Buffy's panic washed away in a flood of relief.

"Are you okay?" Buffy sputtered in a rush, breaking out of her temporary paralysis to stumble into the brightly lit hall and grab her sister in a bear hug. "I was so worried about you! Why didn't you call? We thought you were--"

"You thought I was what?" Dawn rolled her eyes, patiently enduring her sister's desperate clutch. "Buffy, c'mon. I did call."

"Oh, yeah. You did, didn't you?" Buffy pulled back, frowning. "So where were you?"

"I was right here."

"In the hallway?"

"Yeah."

"For how long?

"I dunno. Like, half an hour?"

Half an hour. Buffy frowned, shot a glance back at Spike. He hadn't moved from his position at the door, still holding it open with one outstretched arm. Half an hour ago they'd been... probably shouting at each other in front of this very door. I love you! I love you! I love you! La la la, roses and puppies!

No wonder Dawn hadn't wanted to come in.

Dawn was still talking. "So like I was saying, I was at the cafe down the street, but then I ran out of homework to do, and Alessandro started hitting on me. So I came home." She paused. "Can I come in now?"

"Oh!" Buffy stepped aside, quickly, made hand gestures at Spike. He faded backwards quickly, slipping into the shadows of the hallway like a ghost. Dawn noisly gathered up all of her bookbags and heavy portfolio and with her sister's help, hustled the whole kit into the room.

Buffy gave a quick glance around the hallway for safety's sake, and then firmly closed the front door. Safe and sound. She fell back against the door with a tired sigh.

Inside, Dawn continued bustling with her belongings. She arranged her bags in a neat row along the baseboard, hung up her coat. All of this accomplished in a head-down pose, hair streaming forward to effectively hide her face.

She doesn't want to see me, Buffy. Spike's words came back to her, and she looked around for him. Found him, lurking in the shadows of the hallway leading to the kitchen. Well out of Dawn's direct line of sight.

Or maybe that's not the only problem, she thought to herself.

"Okay, missy, time to spill," she heard herself saying then, a businesslike tone returning to her voice. It's was her mother's tone, one she knew all too well, worry and outrage combined. Where have you been, young lady? "What were you doing out there in the hall? Why didn't you just come in?"

Half bent over as she toed off her shoes, Dawn shrugged. "Because I got your message, Buffy, duh. I thought... well, maybe you'd want to be alone for awhile, that's all. I didn't want to interrupt."

"Why didn't you answer your phone just now?"

"I had it on silent." Dawn picked out a bookbag, flung it onto the couch. Plopped herself down next to it and started rifling through it and pulling out papers. "You didn't answer when I called you back, so... you know."

It's not like you think, Buffy wanted to say. But the truth of it was that... well, it was. There'd been the emergency of getting Spike in so he could rest and recuperate, but after that... there'd been the talking with Angel, and then... the kitchen. Exactly what she'd promised Dawn she wouldn't do. Hey, Dawnie! Guess what? Spike's here, and oh, does it bother you if we have sex in the kitchen? Even though I have a perfectly good room with a door that closes, and I could have called you last night to warn you, but didn't--no problem, right? She sighed.

"It's no big deal," Dawn was saying, head still down, voice tense. "I just... well, like I said. I don't want to interrupt. Just let me get some stuff, and I'll go into my room and study."

"Dawn, no. You don't have to--"

"Say, did you know that Angel's right downstairs?" Dawn looked up, silent messages flashing in her eyes. Please, Buffy, please. Not now. I can't do this. Don't make me.

Buffy's shoulders sagged. "Yeah. I knew that. We... we talked."

"Wow. Sorry I missed that," Dawn said, only slightly sarcastically, and stood, squaring her shoulders, chestnut mane swinging. "I'll... see you in the morning then."

"Goodnight," Buffy said weakly.

Dawn's bedroom door closed.

__________

"Is everything okay up here?"

Angel.

What now? Buffy thought, and turned around. The front door had been opened again, and Angel stood just outside it, leaning against the doorframe. Spike was just inside, head low, slightly turned away.

Pulling on his coat. Buffy felt her stomach drop.

"Everything's fine." She was surprised at the calmness of her voice. "So you're leaving."

"That probably would be best," Angel said. "Now that your sister's home... we probably shouldn't attract any more attention, Buffy."

Spike just nodded in agreement, said nothing. Wrapped up once more in rumpled suede, he was the vision she'd seen under the streetlamps again, new head full of curly hair notwithstanding. Chiseled features and slim lines. His posture had changed, though, from the man she'd only just met in the street the night before--he looked collapsed and tired, shoulders weighed down.

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself like a blanket.

So much for her ideas about how to say goodbye.

"You'll call me, though," she said then, and oh god, lame, but even as she said it she realized at exactly that moment just what was wrong about the situation, about her and Angel and Spike. It was so unbalanced. Any two of them, apparently, could interact and manage to have some kind of working relationship, but together... they all ended up jockeying for position. Who was on top, who was most loved, who came first. And Spike's posture told her everything about where he thought he fitted in.

She forced herself to move. Stepped forward, grabbed Spike by the sleeve. He glanced up at her, startled. "You'll call me," she insisted again, her eyes firmly fixed on his face. And oh, she could feel Angel's eyes on them, a prickling weight that sent the back of her neck crawling, like a guilty teenager caught passing notes.

Alone, she could deal with Angel. Feel equal to Angel. But with Spike there--

"We'll try," Angel said, from somewhere out of her line of sight--Spike's face filled her vision. His blue eyes were wide and the expression in them was wounded--a flash in her mind took her back to that basement, her mother's basement, when she'd joked about oil wrestling and tried to make light of his hurt feelings. I've got my pride, you know?

And just like that, she understood. Finally. Spike, Angel, herself.

She and Angel... they would always be the same. It was like an epiphany--wasn't that what an epiphany was, something that just came to you--and standing there with her hand twisted up in Spike's coat, she knew that it was true. Ten years could pass, thirty years, fifty, and the she and Angel would be able to meet up and trade pleasantries like they'd seen each other only yesterday. Whatever else had happened to them during that time wouldn't matter. All she had to do was look at him to feel like an innocent girl again, someone who'd never been through death and back. Probably he felt the same.

Like magic.

But Spike... nothing between them would ever be the same again. When they left this moment behind, they'd be two different people. They'd have to start all over again, painful and agonizing, two strangers meeting with nothing left to connect them. If she let him go now... she clung to his sleeve, gave his arm a little shake.

They were never the same. From one moment to the next, she and Spike were always changing. Evolving.

But into what? A sense of panic gripped her, and she pulled herself closer until their faces nearly touched.

Angel cleared his throat. Not too obviously, but it was clearly some kind of signal to Spike to hurry himself along.

"If you leave town without calling me, I will be so pissed off. You don't even want to know," she said to him, breathy, low. Angel wasn't part of this conversation--she needed to make sure Spike knew that. It was a moment between them, and them alone.

There was the barest softening of the lines in his face. "I'll try," he whispered back.

Then he stepped away. The coat sleeve pulled out of her fingers, and they were separate again. Spike was standing out in the hallway with Angel towering next to him, the overhead fixtures casting harsh lights on both their faces.

"Goodbye, Buffy," she heard Angel say softly. Spike's lips moved as if to speak, but ultimately he just smiled at her, shook his head, said nothing.

Then Angel reached forward, and the door closed.

__________

Buffy stood where she was, listening. She tracked the sounds of their footsteps on the stairs, the downstairs door, their voices echoing quietly out on the silent street.

It wasn't until she heard the slam of the Lamborghini's doors that she ran to her front window, pushed the curtains aside.

The dark street below was a river of black. Sodium vapor streetlamps cast pools of green-gold light on Lamborghini's slick red, turning it orange.

The car was already moving, the figures inside it barely visible, tiny dolls. She watched as it roared up the street, kept watching until the its taillights disappeared into the distance, and the sound of its engine faded away.

They were gone. She let the curtains fall.

Dreamlike, she walked toward her sister's room.

__________

Dawn looked up as Buffy entered, the door opening with a soft click.

"Is he gone?" she said softly. Dawn was sitting up in bed, papers spread out around her, hunched over as if she was trying to disappear.

Buffy nodded dumbly.

Dawn sighed, obviously relieved. Guilt made an appearance on her face a second later. "I'm so sorry, Buffy," she apologized. "Really. Look, I know how important this is to you, I know. And I really--okay, I freaked out back there, okay, I know that, but I just... couldn't talk to him right now. I mean, I told you I wasn't ready to see him."

"Yes you did." Hey, and Spike told me too. You weren't ready. I wasn't ready. I guess none of us was ready.

Dawn's eyes drifted closed. In her cross-legged pose, she looked like someone trying to get in touch with her chakras. "I'll do better next time. I promise. I've... seen him now, and okay, the hair'll take some getting used to, but--"

"I don't know if it matters anymore." Buffy drifted closer to Dawn's bed, leaned on it for support. The adrenaline that had kept her going for the whole of the long day and evening before it was finally leaving her. Her hands coiled around the metal bedframe like hooks. "He's... gone."

Dawn looked puzzled. "Um, yeah? I know. But, like I said, next time--"

"There won't be a next time." Buffy's shoulders were pulling in, her whole body curling up. "I don't know..."

"Buffy?" Dawn put down her pencil, slid out of bed, scrambled to her sister's side. "Are you okay?"

Her head shook, along with her shoulders, her legs. "Really not."

The patterned wallpaper was blurring. She was dimly aware of Dawn taking hold of her hand.

"Follow me," Dawn said, and tugged on her hand. She allowed herself to be pulled along, behind her sister, back down the long hallway and into the kitchen, and watched numbly as Dawn produced a couple of mysterious paper bags from the refrigerator and freezer.

Dawn set the bags on the table. The table where she'd almost...

The open bowl of failed cioppino was still there, throwing off a fishy reek. Dawn made a choking sound, grabbed it, walked it to the sink. Ran water for some time, then returned and unwrapped the bags.

Hugging herself by the elbows, eyes dry and hot, Buffy stared the results. Three bottles of champagne and two big cartons of ice cream.

"I got these about a week ago." Dawn wadded up the brown paper, then flattened it out again, folded it neatly, the loud crinkling sound filling the silent room. "After... after that first call, you know, when you had Spike talk to me? I figured things would either turn out really good or really bad, so I... prepared."

Alcohol and ice cream. Buffy's heart gave out a shuddery thud, emotion swelling up in her throat even as she struggled to get her feelings under some kind of control.

She had to be strong. For her sister's sake. Didn't she?

Dawn's expression was way too much like their mother's. Oh, honey.

"W-What kind of ice cream?" she gasped, barely able to talk around the block in her throat. Her chest was already trying to close up, the breath in her throat a hot whistle.

"Chocolate chip cookie dough."

Buffy's face crumpled. "Give me a bottle."

Chapter Fifteen

__________

"He really said that? You told him 'I love you,' and he just said he was sorry?"

They were back in Dawn's bedroom. Dawn was sprawled across the bed, head hanging backwards over the side; she was digging into one of the ice cream cartons with an oversize spoon. Buffy was on the floor, her feet up against the ruffled bed cover, a half-empty champagne bottle hugged up against her chest.

"No. He said 'I love you too,' and then he said he was sorry." Buffy put the bottle to her lips and drank. The angle was awkward; she only managed a small swallow, trails of wine escaping past her lips and slithering down her face. She sniffed noisily, shook her head as droplets of wine tried to run into her ears.

She'd told the whole story of the evening to Dawn in the kitchen. Although thanks to her own exhaustion and the miserable, helpless sobbing that had overtaken her in choking coughs, it hadn't been a particularly clear version of it. She'd laid it out in almost backwards order, the events all mixed up. Angel, the dark dimension, the prophecy, the sunrise, the dog. The original conversation with Spike in the street, his reasons for leaving, she was only just getting to.

She tipped the bottle up for another small sip, a little more successfully this time.

"Wow. That's just... wow."

"You said it."

"I would've thought..."

"Yeah, well, you would've thought wrong. You and me both."

"Wow," Dawn said again, the words apparently aimed at the ceiling. Then she craned her head around to look at her sister. "So you really do, huh?

"Really do what?"

"Love him." There was just enough of a question in Dawn's voice to make Buffy's mouth fall open.

"You... thought I didn't?"

Dawn flinched. "Well, you never really said. I just... I wasn't sure."

"Oh." This seemed like the only answer possible. Awkward silence took over, broken up only by the sound of a spoon on cardboard, the liquid sloshing of the champagne. We did so have that talk, Buffy reassured herself. I know we did. I could've sworn that we did.

"So that's it? You guys love each other, and he's still going?"

The bottleneck emerged from between Buffy's lips with a pop. "Yep," she said morosely, stifling a small burp. "That's just the way it is."

"And you're... okay with that?"

"I have to be." Buffy picked at the bottle's label with her fingernails. She'd had prosecco with Spike that first night she'd found him in Rome. Champagne in all but the name. "I don't have any choice."

"Because of this prophecy thing."

"Well, yeah, because..." How could she ever explain it? It made her flush just to think about it, that ultimately, she'd been the one to encourage Spike to be this way, a champion, a vampire with a soul. First by goading him and then helping him--and sure, there were a lot of not-so-good moments in there on both their parts--but either way, she'd been the catalyst in his whole messy long painful process of becoming something better. And then Angel--

So she just couldn't throw that back in his face, not now. Not after all his pain, and hers. It made her cringe to think that she'd even tried, asked him not to continue down that road that she'd set him on, just because...

Even thinking about it just made her feel ashamed. Her arguments from earlier in the evening, that Spike had earned his happy ending, and that she had too, now seemed hopelessly naive. Not to mention self-involved.

"Yeah, because of the prophecy thing," she finally settled on, mumbling through numb lips. She was finally, mercifully, starting to feel a little drunk. "It's this whole destiny deal."

"Huh." Dawn rolled over onto her stomach, set the ice cream carton on the floor. "Kinda surprised you didn't want to be in on that. Apocalypse and all."

"What makes you think I didn't?" Buffy set her bottle down too.

"So you did want to go with them?"

"I told them I could help. I offered to. But they didn't want it. No girls allowed." Hands empty now, she made expansive gestures, as if they illustrated something.

Dawn frowned. "No girls? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It was this whole deal," Buffy slurred, added more hand waves. "Blah blah blah you're such a distraction. You should have heard him--them--Angel. Spike too. They both agreed about it." Her voice dropped to a low mumble. "That was the weirdest thing."

"What was?"

"The way they were talking. Spike and Angel. Like they were... Tweedledee and Tweedledum or something. Or, or Crockett and Tubbs or some other kind of two-guy buddy team. It's like the real reason they don't want me around is so I don't mess up their boys' club vibe." She lifted her head, saw Dawn staring at her, forehead knotted with confusion. "What?"

"Oh," Dawn said, her mouth forming the shape. "Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"Um." Dawn cleared her throat. "Well, um. You don't mean that, well, Spike and Angel are... together, do you?"

"Together? Hello, I just told you they're together. Which is totally nauseating, by the way--can you even imagine those two getting along? Which, come to think of it, I guess is the idea behind their whole con game thing, but still. To hear them talk, you'd think that having me between them would get them all at each other's throats or something, but they don't act like that at all. They're all chummy and with the snarky banter."

"Uhh..." Dawn said again. She seemed to be having trouble speaking.

"I mean, you'd think they'd hate each other. Don't even get me started on Angel's spell--it's like he thinks he's got Spike on a leash or something." She blew out a frustrated puff of air.

"Uh, Buffy?"

"What?" She locked eyes with her sister. "What?"

And then the penny dropped. Something in Dawn's face. "Oh," she managed. "Ohhhh. Oh, that's just---oh."

"So you, uh, think maybe that's why Spike didn't--?"

"No," Buffy said hurriedly. "No, I don't think so." Really don't, her mind added, although her imagination was already running far ahead of her, trying on this new information for size. He wanted to stay with me, she told herself. He did. He asked me about it, he said 'bugger Angel,' whatever that means, and he would have stayed if I'd asked him to. If I'd known what I really wanted. If I'd... "I think--I think that they're just really caught up in the mission. You know how that gets." Her eyes pleaded with Dawn to understand. "It's really involving. The world saving. Like there's no room for anything else."

"You mean they're like monks?" Dawn said dryly, eyebrow raised. "Uh-huh."

"Dawn, please. Don't go there."

"You really never thought about it?"

"Really, never, no." Trying not to think about it right now, thanks.

Because it really wasn't funny. Two people who hated each other, or at least thought that they did, turning to each other for comfort? She perfectly well how that worked. God, was she ever. And in the movie reel suddenly unfurling inside her head, Angel and Spike consoled each other, hands on skin, and it was like that video of Spike and Anya at the Magic Box. Angry and sad and bereft.

If any part of this theory was even the least bit true, then she ached for them both.

"You know, Buffy," Dawn's face had taken on a mischievous look. "If the two of them really are okay with each other, then--"

"Dawn, please!" Buffy squeezed her eyes shut. Too late. Dawn's suggestion was already filling her mind with a new traitorous image, naked limbs in a tangle, the oil wrestling scenario updated. It was such a sudden adjustment in perspective that she couldn't tell yet if she was disgusted or turned on.

Turned on, her mind and body simultaneously informed her with a rush of heat to her belly and thighs and everything in between. Especially in between. Angel's broad chest at her back. Spike at her front, blond head dipping to her breasts. Angel's hands, Spike's.... She shifted her legs restlessly, rubbed them together like a cricket. Hoped desperately that the motion wasn't too obvious.

"Alright, my bad," Dawn said, although a teasing quality had crept into her voice. "You're right, it's ridiculous. Just because two people work together doesn't mean anything, right? That's just so cliche."

"Right," Buffy said faintly. Her eyes were still squeezed tightly shut. Because two people in the workplace--hey, that never happens.

"I don't know what I was thinking," Dawn continued to babble. "I mean really, can you imagine the two of them kissing?"

"Really can't." Really, really can't. And oh hello, mental image of exactly that. With the shirtless. And the--okay! Stopping now. Stopping now.

"...not that there's anything wrong with two guys together--I mean, hello, Andrew? But Spike and Angel? Willow and Tara they are so not." Buffy opened her eyes, just in time to see Dawn roll over onto her back and clasp her hands over her heart. "Oh, Angel, you big broody man, you," she sing-songed in a bad English accent, faux Spike in a high-pitched timbre that suggested a serious groin injury. "Please take me into your manly arms right bloody now--"

"Dawn!" Buffy couldn't help the shout. I'm so NOT thinking about this, she told herself firmly. "It's not about that," she grated between closed teeth. "Okay? They're Champions. Saving the world. That's what it's all about."

"Okay," Dawn said with a puzzled frown. "I get it. Um... sorry."

"It's... it's okay." She forced herself to calm down.

"No, really, Buffy, I'm sorry. I mean, I thought... I was just making fun--"

"I know. Forget it."

"Okay." Dawn readjusted her position, threw her feet over the side so she was sitting upright. She studied her sister carefully. "Not really so funny, huh?"

"No," she agreed. Suddenly feeling the need to blot out the sight of Dawn's concerned face, she put her hands over her eyes.

She had to believe that. What she'd just said to Dawn. That it was all about some higher ideal, Spike's decision to leave, Angel's creepy plan, the whole horrible I-die-you-die spell. It was why she'd agreed to it, why she'd made herself because okay with letting Spike go. But if it wasn't...

Because thinking about it now, she couldn't help but remember just how much of what Spike had said to her tonight had been personal, all about provoking a response out of her. Making her angry, making her jealous, needy and pleady and desperate for reassurance...

He was committed to fighting the good fight. Of that much, she was certain. But how much of that was about him not getting whatever he'd needed from her? She'd never figured out exactly what it was he'd wanted to hear.

So you really think it was just the words I was waiting for?

"Buffy?" Dawn's voice intruded into the darkness behind her eyes. "Are you okay?

"Sure." She let her hands fall away from her eyes. "I'm gonna... go to the bathroom." She levered herself to her feet, drifted out the door.

The hall seemed unusually long. And in the bathroom itself, closing the door took a few groping tries.

Alone at last, Buffy stared at the toilet.

"Just you and me, babe," she mumbled, and sank down to the floor.

__________

Thankfully, Buffy managed to escape the bathroom without being sick.

She'd sat with her head on the seat for nearly an hour, woozy and disoriented, but not enough to throw up. Eventually, she'd pulled her drunken self back up on her feet and washed her face, drifted into the bedroom to pull on some flannel pajamas and wool socks. Comfort wear. Then she'd followed her nose to the kitchen to find Dawn.

Her sister stood at the stove. The extractor fan was whirring, and something was sizzling on the burner.

"Your breakfast." Dawn waved a spatula toward the table without turning. "Sit."

"Breakfast?" Buffy glanced at the windows. It was still dark out.

"Close enough," Dawn answered, as if reading her mind, then twirled on one heel, a loaded plate held high in one hand like a game show assistant displaying luxury goods. "Sit down," she said again. With a sigh, Buffy dropped into a seat.

Breakfast appeared in front of her. Abracadabra. "What's this?"

"Scrambled eggs."

"Yeah, duh, I can see that they're eggs. I meant this." She poked at a slab of mystery meat.

"Pancetta." Dawn took off her apron, threw it on the counter. A souvenir item printed with the Italian flag. Buffy had talked her out of her first choice, Michaelangelo's David in full naked torso vision. Dawn had thought it was funny. "It's like bacon."

"Do you have any idea how much cholesterol is on this plate?"

"Cholesterol-schmester--whatever. If you don't want a hangover, you'll eat it. You need something to soak up all that alcohol--your salad and fruit diet is just not going to cut it." Dawn snorted. "I can't believe you haven't already thrown up. Or did you?"

"Nope. I've got super Slayer metabolism." Buffy continued to eye the plate dubiously. "And since when do you know so much about drinking?"

"Uh, duh, since we live in Italy? I'm legal here. I've had wine lots of times."

"You've had--when was this?"

"After school. I go out with friends all the time, you know that."

"I didn't know they were teaching you hangover cures."

Dawn rolled her eyes, shoved the plate closer. "Eat it."

Buffy picked up a fork. She considering quizzing Dawn further on her drinking adventures, decided against it. If she didn't already know what her sister was up to... "Thanks," she said softly, stirring eggs with the fork. "You're... you're really good at this.

"Cooking?" Dawn slid into a seat beside her. "Right. You hated my linguini."

"I didn't hate your linguini. I hated your clam sauce." Buffy smiled, faintly. "No, I meant.. you're good at taking care of us. Like mom."

"Oh." Dawn actually blushed. Buffy could see it overtaking her whole face, pleasure at the comparison, happiness so obvious she was surprised Dawn didn't combust. "Well, I, um, I figure... the whole reason I even exist is because other people took care of me." She smiled, and her eyes did indeed look like their mother's. "It's nice when I can pay that back."

"I didn't know you felt that way."

"It's no big. I like to be good at stuff. Not that, you know, you're not," she added hurriedly.

"Yeah, but..." Buffy sputtered for an instant, trying to figure out exactly what she could say. Her sister's artificial status was still something of a sore topic, one she didn't like to spend too much time thinking about. "Dawn, you don't owe us anything--"

"Sure I do." Dawn smiled, eyes lowered, and picked at the edge of her shirt with her fingernails. "Everyone owes everyone eventually, I figure. So I just... like to do my part."

Buffy chewed thoughtfully. "And your part is cooking."

"Everybody's gotta eat. Learn to set a good table, and the world is your friend. I read that somewhere."

"You really are good at this."

"I know." Dawn smiled and shrugged, pushed away from the table. "And I was thinking more about what you said about that prophecy thing," she called over her shoulder as she put the greasy frying pans into the sink to soak. "There's one part I still don't get."

"What's that?" Buffy hurried to finish her eggs. Dawn had been known to sweep plates away without asking, and having started eating, she now couldn't believe how hungry she was. All that alcohol seemed to have burned a hole straight through her, like acid.

"Why you're all so sure this prophecy is about Spike."

She swallowed so she could answer. "Angel said it was."

"Yeah, but that's because these lawyers had him sign something, right? Like, 'this prophecy doesn't apply to me' or something? Why would that work? I mean, a prophecy's either about you or it isn't, don't you think?"

"Beats me," Buffy sighed. A part of her--a large part--really didn't even want to think about it. She'd filed the information away where it seemed to belong--under the heading of reasons why Buffy's love life sucks right now, as opposed to all the other reasons why it typically sucked. She put her fork down, laid head on the table, feeling inexplicably tired. Well, maybe not so inexplicably. She'd been up for... how long? "They're lawyers," she mumbled. Bed was starting to sound like a very good destination. "If there are rules to prophecies, they probably know how to break 'em."

"Huh. Okay, well, there's that." Dawn fell silent for a second while Buffy closed her eyes, listened to the soothing ticking of the wall clock, the gentle popping of suds.

"But why would they want Spike?" Dawn spoke up again, jarring her out of her almost-doze. "I mean, don't get me wrong, but if I were evil and wanted to destroy the world, I'd probably want to stick with Angel."

Buffy opened one eye. "Control the world," she corrected. "Not destroy it." The eye closed again.

"Same difference. So why Spike?"

"Vampire with a soul."

"Yeah, I get that part, but it's the big evil thing that doesn't add up. If these lawyer guys are so damn evil then--well, why wouldn't they want soulless Angel? That doesn't seem like it would be too hard to arrange."

"Perfect happiness," Buffy mumbled. Really, she didn't want to get into this.

"Yeah, but there's gotta be a spell for that. I mean, isn't how they got rid of his soul two years ago?"

"Five years ago."

"No, not then. I meant that other time, when we were fighting The First."

This time Buffy opened both eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"When Willow went to L.A. to resoul Angel." Dawn looked confused. "Didn't she... tell you?"

Buffy sat up. Her stomach was suddenly churning, the eggs she'd just eaten doing an energetic conga dance. "Angel lost his soul?"

"Um, guess not." Dawn stretched a hand across the table, laid it on top of her sister's. "Hey. It's okay, Buffy. Really. They put it back."

"It's okay?" Buffy found herself laughing. Hoarsely, because oh god, talk about another subject that was so not funny--soulless Angelus, running around in L.A. while they'd been busy fighting The First. And no one had even thought to tell her.

"But, um, you see what I'm saying, right?" Dawn withdrew her hand, nervously tried to switch the subject. "I mean, seems like that's what you'd want if you were into the big evil. I mean, Spike evil is... well, evil, but not--"

"Spike can be plenty evil," Buffy said firmly, really not wanting to get into a compare and contrast. Angel lost his soul and nobody told me? Should I be glad about that, or...?

"Yeah, but--"

"Seriously, Dawn, I don't know," Buffy blew out a hard sigh. She was tense again now and cranky, thanks to the unpleasant topic, and her head was really starting to throb. She wanted to stop thinking, just stop, go to bed, get some sleep, think about the whole messed-up situation tomorrow. After all, they were still in town. Spike had promised to call her before they left. He'd promised. "Angel said that these lawyers had been after him for years," she told her sister shortly. "Maybe they just got tired of him. Maybe they figured, hey, one vampire with a soul's just as good as another. Or maybe they thought--"

Buffy stopped. The thought completed itself in her head just before the words made it out.

Luckily. She clapped a hand over her mouth as her stomach rebelled. And for the second time that night, Buffy bolted across the apartment to the bathroom and was sick.

Maybe they thought Spike would be easier to use, her brain recycled, over and over in her head like a skipping sound file as she retched up all the eggs that she'd eaten. Because hey, who wore that dangerous amulet just because someone he loved asked him to? And who gave us that amulet anyway if it wasn't those same evil lawyers, and who sat right here in my living room tonight and called himself destiny's bitch? Who wouldn't want somebody like that to be part of their evil master plan, somebody who's been used by... everyone. The Inititiave, The First, Angel, me...

She flushed the toilet with a trembling hand, face pressed up against the cool porcelain, then opened her eyes, stared directly into the harsh fluorescent lights over the sink. Her eyes were dazzled, brilliant spots dancing through the thin film of tears on her lashes like fairy lights.

She'd killed him. Oh, god, she'd really killed him.

__________

"How're you feeling?" Dawn asked immediately when Buffy emerged from the bathroom.

"Crappy."

"Sorry. Guess I'm not such a good cook after all."

"It's nothing to do with you." Buffy rubbed her forehead. "There's something I've got to tell you."

"Tell me?"

"Yeah." Buffy looked up at her sister with bloodshot eyes. "Tonight. About me and Spike. About... how we were."

Chapter 16

__________

January 2002

She pushes the crypt door open. Quietly, which is unusual for her. No sudden bursting entrance, no aggressive display to let her captive audience know who's boss. Not this time.

It hadn't really even occurred to her, before this exact moment, that she'd been doing that. Marching into his crypt wearing the exact same attitude that she typically used when walking into Willy's bar. Heads up, demons. Slayer in the house.

Hesitant, she pauses on the threshold before stealing inside.

The upper level of the crypt is empty. Dark. She can't help but be surprised--this time of night, he's always here. Always waiting, even if he tries not to look like he is. Candles burning, TV on. A warm pool of light for her to walk into.

She drifts from shadow to shadow, through the cool stone and the blue moonlight. Between the pieces of misplaced furniture and the strewn trash on the floor. Sure sign that he hasn't lingered here, that. The places where he spends time are always tidy. Or at least comfortable. Welcoming.

She works a glove off one hand with her teeth and places the naked palm facedown on the silent TV.

Cold.

She stands still for a moment, senses stretching. Trying to tell herself that she doesn't actually feel him, that she doesn't know perfectly well that he's there.

Just not... here.

She stops pretending, and takes a deep breath. Steps to the entrance to the lower level, and descends.

He's there. On the bed, although she can barely see him in the gloom--no candles are lit in here either. The moonlight descending from above is all the light there is.

Her night vision isn't great, but... good enough. She knows the place.

She finds a candle, matches at the bedside. Stumbles as she moves because the floor is cluttered with clothes. Probably dropped them as he walked, let them fall.

Light flares with the match, and then she can see him.

Asleep.

She sags on her feet. It's almost obscene, how grateful she feels. That she doesn't have to confront him immediately, doesn't have to talk. Not just for her sake, but...

She still doesn't know what she's going to say.

He looks... pretty much like she feared he would. Bruised. Split lips, puffy eyes. Misshapen look to one cheek, his browline. Swollen mess along the edge of his jaw. She lifts the candle, brings it close enough to him to get a good look, then replaces it on the bedside table, swallowing past the hard lump in her throat.

So she's seen him now. Seen what she's done, and... and he's sleeping, which is good. At home, or-or what passes for his home anyway. A cold stone gravesite with exposed roots sticking out of the walls and skeletons still in it here and there--but hey, vampire, so that's homey. Right?

She sits down on the bed. The one that they almost never use.

He doesn't even move. Not that she'd expect him to. He sleeps like...

Right. Like the dead.

Ghost of a dream image whipping through her mind, cool moonlight in her own room, her own bed, then back to this place, familiar and secret and smelling a little too much like dirt, hothardhurtslipperysex and his face staring up at her, hard planes and soft open mouth and wrists chained back, and she runs her hands along his arms because it's thrilling for her to see him like that...

Helpless.

...and then he's asleep, asleep like this, and she lifts a stake...

She reaches out a trembling hand, unconsciously echoing the dream. Lets her fingers caress along an arm, a shoulder, any part of him that's not bruised. Although most of him isn't, actually--she'd been pretty good at restricting her attack to his face. Not that she really wants to think about that, how she'd gone after him to hurt, not to kill. A killing rage she could've rationalized somehow. Understood.

Killing demons was what she was supposed to do. Because they hurt people. Killed them. And enjoyed it.

People.

Why do I feel like this?

Mesmerized, she lets her fingertips ghost across his swollen lips. Shivers.

There's nothing wrong with her. That's what Tara said.

She's not a demon.

__________

October 2004

It didn't take long.

Honestly, she was surprised at how not-long it took, laying out the full story of herself and Spike. Months, years of emotional agony distilled down to bare spare facts.

Every night I save you.

I just want to feel.

You came back wrong.

You can't feel anything real.

You love me.

No I don't.

I love you.

No you don't.

Exhausting, though, just like she was. Exhausted. The frantic, stressful rush of it, like the whole day and night before, and by the time she was done with it, explaining their whole poisonous history in the most basic of terms:

We saw each other. A lot. You know, patrolling and... talking, and then... some kissing. After the dancing demon thing--you remember that, right? I kissed him. After. You know. The thing where I almost burned up. A-and then... things kind of went downhill from there, and...

What was she even talking about, anyway?

It was a mystery. Why she'd even wanted to tell it anymore in the first place. It was only that she'd emerged from the bathroom needing to get it all out, sick it up, just like her breakfast. Secrets that had been inside her for so long that she'd almost forgotten that they had any power.

"Do you have anything you want to ask me?" Buffy's fingers were knotted together, strangling each other.

Dawn shook her head once. No. The curtain of her hair swung.

"Oh." This part, her sister's reaction, Buffy hadn't really planned for.

"I, uh, already knew a lot of it," Dawn said gently, and then, at Buffy's stricken expression, rushed to add: "Not the details. But, you know. The rough outline."

"Oh?" The rough outline. Buffy felt her face grow hot.

"I kind of guessed."

"Oh." Buffy said again. She felt a little more stupid each time she said it.

She unknit her fingers, recomposed her hands in her lap. Okay, so Dawn had theories. Dawn had guessed. That made sense, now that she thought about it. Actually, she didn't know why she was even surprised. Dawn had lived with them, after all, along with everyone else she knew, that final year in Sunnydale. Probably all the Potentials had theories, too.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Buffy." Dawn spoke up again, suddenly. "I mean... it's been a long time."

"I know."

"And, I mean..." Dawn stared off into the distance, unfocused. "I-I kinda thought you wanted me to forget all that stuff. Even, you know, the parts I didn't know about. What with the whole he-has-a-soul-now--"

"Right," Buffy said hurriedly. "That's not why I wanted to tell you."

"Why did you?"

"I, um..." Buffy repositioned again, placed her palms facedown on the couch. And then it hit her, a shuddering sense of deja vu, hard enough to make her shiver. Right there in her quiet living room, in the glowing morning light filtering through the curtains, so different to the way it had actually been, but Buffy could still feel it. The memory of sitting on a couch totally unlike this one, on a dreary and miserable and horrible night, and pouring out her heart to Tara, poor Tara. Currently-dead-but-still-alive-then Tara. Falling to her knees and crying.

"I'm not really sure."

"This just can't be me, it isn't me."

There was a long pause, awkward.

"Okaaaay," Dawn said. She stood up, looked around as if she'd lost something. "Well, um... thanks for telling me. I mean, it's... probably good, you know, not to have--" She seemed to be groping for the right word. "--secrets."

"Right." Buffy forced a smile by way of reply. "Secrets, definitely bad."

"I'm gonna, uh, go finish up the dishes now," Dawn said, and then she practically disappeared, retreating into the kitchen so fast that she might've been pulled in there by a string.

Buffy stared after her, at the space where she'd been. The deja vu was stronger than ever--she just couldn't stop thinking about Tara. Tara who had listened to her, accepted. Understood.

And it was two years later, Rome instead of Sunndale, day instead of night, her sister instead of a friend of a friend, and she was still pouring out her heart about Spike, and wanting... what?

Forgiveness? Sympathy?

Understanding?

She got up and followed Dawn into the kitchen.

__________

January 2002

A disaster.

Buffy sipped at her drink. Sangria. Fruity and festive. An adult's drink, with alcohol, which she could handle now. In small quantities.

Yep, a disaster, she thought again, sucking harder on her straw. Not that her track record for stress-free celebrations on her birthday had ever been all that good. So actually, by that measure, this one probably wasn't all that bad.

Which was actually kind of a terrifying thought. She blew bubbles through her straw.

It was all Spike's fault, of course. She should've been happy. Her friends were all together, and better yet, they were talking. Tara and Willow, with their heads inclined together over the stereo, a good sign. Xander and Anya, all cuddly in the big armchair. Dawn, and her own awkward blind "date" Richard right here on the couch--and okay, that was not so thrilling, but still. Normal and nice. Even Sophie and Spike's demon-friend Clem seemed to be getting along, although that was a little less with the normal and nice.

Which brought her back around to Spike himself.

Thus, the disaster.

He hadn't been seen since the gifts. Since he'd hovered in the doorway, hands clasped over his crotch, that wicked little smile on his face when he saw Willow's present.

Instant gratification, pet? Got something for your little acheys right here.

Why, why, why, her mind chanted, did he have to show up? The thought circled in her head, sore, touching, a tongue in a loose tooth. Why did he have to come?

Well, duh. Obvious. Because of her. Because he was trying to send a message to her, that he didn't hold a grudge about the black eye, the beating. Not that it was even likely that he would. After all the beatdowns she'd given him over the years, the broken back, the wheelchair... if he could get past all that, he could probably get past anything.

Which still didn't answer what she was going to do about it. Him.

Or what she even wanted.

"What do you think, Buffy?"

"Whazza?" Startled, Buffy swiveled in her seat. Her sister was staring at her with a mildly annoyed expression, one that said you weren't even listening, were you?

Well, of course she'd been listening. "Oh, sure. That sounds great!" She flashed a dazzling smile. Mostly at Richard, who beamed back at her.

She hoped he was the one who'd been talking.

He seemed... a nice enough guy. Pleasant. Even if he did work in construction, which Xander seemed to have forgotten was no longer her favorite thing.

Right, nice guys. Nice guys who pretend a girl who just saved their lives is crazy. Not like I was trying to be a ball-buster or anything, and hello, not even the guy whose balls I actually do almost bust on occasion complains ab--oh, crap.

She was thinking about him again. Crap crap crap. Her face felt hot.

She sucked even harder on her straw. Tipped back the glass to get at the last dregs. And was struck in the face by a piece of booze-soaked fruit.

"Gah!" she sputtered, stumbling to her feet. The orange or apple or whatever-it-was practically stuck to her face, a mushy kiss on the lips; she tried not to too obviously spit. The fruit chunk fell back into the glass with a wet plop.

"You okay?" Richard said, squinting up at her.

"I'm fine." She wiped her mouth, offered him a sticky grin. "I'm... just gonna get some water. Be right back." She stumbled toward the kitchen.

Spike was there. An unexpected black shape in the corner, like a spider. The sight of him brought her up so short that her heels skidded on the tiles.

"What are you doing in here?" The exclamation was out of her before she could help it.

He looked around. He seemed to have been staring out the window, one hip boosted up on the counter. One hand in a coat pocket, the other wrapped around a bottle of beer.

"Taking a breather," he said. "The vapors of chummy togetherness were getting a little thick in there for me." He took a drink from his beer.

Her stomach flip-flopped. Chummy togetherness. "You don't breathe."

"Well, yeah, you caught me. I've been getting up to all sorts of mischief in the spice drawer."

She almost laughed at that. Crossed to the sink instead, and tried not to notice his eyes on her as she washed the gummy fruit juice from her face, blotted with a towel. The weight of his gaze prickled on the back of her neck.

"Let me know when you want your present," he murmured, leaning into her ear.

She closed her eyes momentarily. Bathed in the electricity humming between them like a live wire.

It's not him, she told herself. It's just the sex. It's not even that great. Or... okay, it is that great. But that's only because... it's forbidden. Risky.

And that's why she still couldn't tell anybody. Not that she--

Her eyes snapped open again, widened. God, did she want to? Was she really thinking about it?

Risky. His mouth on hers, kissing. Her friends only a few feet away, singing, oblivious. In the Bronze, where anyone could have seen them, anyone. His fingers on her clit through her jeans pocket right here in this kitchen, and--oh, god--right in front of Xander, when she was still invisible, her legs thrown over Spike's shoulders and him inside her deep...

That was it, though, wasn't it? The risk. Why she kept coming back to him, letting him in, the danger. She just wasn't used to hiding things from her friends and family, lying to them, sneaking. It was exciting because it was new, because it was a novelty--

Well, except for the Slayer thing. And--oh god.

Angel.

Oh god.

"I don't--" she blurted, unsure, even as the babbling words came out of her mouth, of what she intended to say. "I don't want you lurking in here."

He lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm serious." She turned to face him. Eye to eye and mouth to mouth, and yes, she could do this. She could be this close to him and not kiss, or want to. Because risk wasn't always so sexy. Or secrets. "You could scare people."

"People." he repeated, small amused smile on his face. Just open-mouthed enough for her to see his eyeteeth, which did indeed look like little vampire fangs. Even when he was in human face. "I don't think that pal of yours from the burger place has the courage to come in here alone."

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."

"Oh, your handsome swain, you mean? Don't want me to scare him." He lifted a finger to her hair, lifted her bangs off her forehead, a feather-light touch that made her want to shudder.

She ignored him. She could do that.

"You should... come out," she heard herself saying. "Into the other room. With us."

He lifted the other eyebrow. "Us."

"Like I told you. I just... don't want you lurking."

He pursed his lips, as if considering, and her heartrate increased. Arousal nudging at the edges of her awareness.

Party on, Buffy, a traitorous voice inside her whispered. It's your birthday.

"Alright," he agreed, and ran one finger down the length of her arm. "Whatever the birthday girl wants."

__________

October 2004

"You okay?" Buffy paused in the kitchen doorway, leaned against the jamb.

"I'm fine." Dawn's back was to the door; she was filling the sink with water.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Dawn shut off the water, added a squirt of liquid soap. "No. I mean, I told you. I don't really know what there is to talk about." She rummaged through the water, fished out a glass, started twisting a sponge into it.

"Do you hate me?"

Dawn halted. Like a clockwork winding down, her movements slowed, stopped. Soap bubbles popped in the water in the ensuing silence.

"What?" she whispered.

"Do you hate--" Buffy began to repeat, but before she could even finish, Dawn was spinning around.

"Why would you even think that?" She threw the glass in her hand back into the water behind her; it sent up a geysering splash, like a bomb.

Buffy shrugged, too tired to really feel the drama. "Because I'm not proud of a lot of that story."

"Well, you don't need me to tell you that, do you?"

"No, I don't. But I still--"

"I really can't believe you sometimes," Dawn said. "You know that? You tell me all this two years later, and your first thought is that I'll hate you?"

Buffy closed her eyes. "Look. It's--"

"Don't say it's complicated."

"I wasn't going to." Buffy thought fast. "I-I was gonna say confusing." And you didn't answer my question, her mind added silently.

Dawn snorted. "Why not ask if I hate him? 'Cause, you know, that would make a little more sense."

"I already asked you that."

"Yeah, before you told me anything."

"Well, do you?"

Dawn whirled around again, faced the sink. "No. I don't... I don't hate either one of you, okay? I-I told you I'm getting used to--"

"I know it's hard."

"No you don't!" Dawn hung her head. She leaned against the counter with soapy, dripping hands. "I can't talk about this anymore."

Buffy bit her lip and nodded, even though she knew Dawn couldn't see her.

Because she really did get it, now. How it might look to Dawn. None of it was easy to understand, or explain--far worse, in a way, than even her worries at the time. More complex... complicated. She wasn't sure at all she could even explain it to herself. Even now.

Maybe that was why she'd needed to tell it.

"You're right," she agreed. "We're both tired. Maybe we should just go to bed. Do this in the morning."

Dawn glanced at the window. The sun was already streaming in.

"Or later, whatever," Buffy amended.

"Dishes."

"I'll do 'em. You go on." With a hand on Dawn's elbow, Buffy steered her sister toward the door. Dawn was practically limp, let herself be moved around. She kept walking in a straight line even after Buffy let her go, down the hallway and directly to her own room into which she disappeared and shut the door.

Buffy turned back to the dishes. Plunged her hands into the water, sudsed and rinsed and cleaned. Wondered in a vague sort of way how anything was still dirty, since hadn't Dawn already done the washing up earlier in the evening? Was she actually rewashing things that were clean?

She finished up anyway, turned off the overhead light. Blinked in surprise when it didn't make any difference until she realized that the room was flooded with early-morning sun.

Golden.

__________

There was a change in the air.

Hurrying back to her own bedroom, Buffy felt it. Apprehension crawling up her back and neck. Anxious. Frantic.

Like the calm after a storm. The entire apartment felt empty, an abandoned stage for drama.

Spike and Angel's presences both lingered, like ghosts.

Pushing through the rustling memories, she fled them, down the hall to her room. Breathed a sigh of relief once the door was closed behind her.

Inviolate. Drama-free.

A sanctuary.

No lover had ever been invited into her room. Not here. Not even Romeo. They'd never gotten past the living room and the kitchen, laughing through the occasional bottle of wine and chocolate-dipped strawberry, and then.... well, that teensy little misunderstanding about which nights of the week Dawn would be home.

Buffy climbed into bed. Stripped off her clothes almost as an afterthought and lay there, face up, her hands folded across her chest. The sun streaming in through the thin gauzy curtains dazzled her eyes.

It ocurrred to her for the first time that her whole apartment had an eastern exposure. Not a very vampire-friendly place at all.

She shut her eyes.

Angel had come to her room in Sunnydale.

Like a fairytale prince. He'd climbed the trellis, night after night. Stolen in for yearning kisses, hushed talks. So many of her memories of Angel were in that room, forbidden and secret. Welcomed. Even when he wasn't there, he was there.

Spike had never been in that room at all. Not as a guest. Only as an intruder, to steal things. To deliver tense messages from the door.

In her dreams.

A red glow was still visible behind her eyes. The sun, streaming in the windows, heating up the skin on her face.

She had time enough to wonder how she would ever be able to calm down and get some rest before sleep rose up to greet her. Like a suffocating hand.

__________

Water.

Underwater.

Light from above. Buffy rolled in the depths. Warmth on her skin from the light above, she swam effortlessly upward in liquid suspension. Broke through the surface to where it was even brighter, to where the sun's rays were beating down on the water's churning surface, a fresh wind kicking up waves.

It was better up here.

She shook her long hair, sending droplets flying, heaved her slim body up onto a jutting rock. It was the only solid land visible in an unending ocean. Which was no problem, of course, because she was a mermaid.

Buffy kicked her legs, wiggled her toes. Okay, no tail, granted, but she was a mermaid all the same. She knew it. Being a mermaid was more a mental thing, anyway. A fish state of mind.

The rock was bathed in light. Brilliant-bright, warm, hot like it never was in the deep, deep water. The sun beamed down on her with an almost physical weight.

"Go away," she told Spike. His head in the water, peeping up to look at her, seal-sleek.

He didn't answer, but she could feel the pressure of his reply. Inside her head. Yeah, you say it, but you know you don't want me to go, baby. You called me.

"I like it up here," she insisted. "Stop following me."

He grinned. Latched strong fingers onto the rock and started to climb.

She shied away. He was wet, dripping, and she was almost dry.

"Go home!" she shouted. "I don't want you here!"

He vanished. No transition, no puff of smoke, just not there. Buffy had enough time to blink and to frown, and to notice that the sun was sinking in the sky like a big orange fireball, and that the air was getting cold.

And come to think of it, there were supposed to be other people here too, weren't there? She couldn't remember.

"You can come out now," she called out, but it felt like too late.

The sun had gone down.

She flung herself off the rock, swam back down into the ocean. Down to the floor, where the deep cold was. Someone should be there. There were always people there.

She spotted a tunnel.

Swam through it. Until the water dried up, slowed down to a trickle, and then she had to crawl. The tunnel turned into a damp tube, a pipe made out of brick, like a drain, tighter and tighter until she finally emerged, gasping, on her hands and knees.

A dark place with stale air. A furnished room.

A basement. She stood. It was half-empty, a concrete box, with all the furnishings piled up in one corner. Bookshelves along the wall, weapons on hooks. A desk, cramped and near-buried, piled with papers. An awkwardly placed leather couch. Shag rug. Ugh. Ugly.

"I don't care what you want to call it, it's the results I'm interested in, not an encounter group." And all of a sudden, she noticed Angel was there, pacing behind the desk, a phone to his ear.

"Angel?" Buffy was suddenly self-conscious. She was muddy and dirty and--oops--naked, why had she not noticed that before? "Do you, uh, have a towel or something?"

She was dripping on his carpet.

He made an impatient gesture. Wait. Apparently, not too concerned with her nude problem. "Well, of course I want it in time for world domination," he barked into the phone. "I'm on a schedule here."

Buffy hesitated. She'd remembered why she was there, sort of, but wondered if she she should really mention Spike in front of Angel. He probably wouldn't like it.

No, wait--of course he wouldn't like it. What was she thinking?

"Do you mind?" Angel covered the receiver with one hand, as if she'd spoken. "This is an important call."

"Okay." She turned away, faux-casual, and pretended to study the weapons on the walls. Rearranged her hair, without being too obvious about it. That would be tacky.

There were pictures too, hanging next to the weapons. She followed them with her eyes, faded portraits of old men, lower and lower on the wall until she found herself stooping, head nearly at floor level.

There were also diplomas. Flowery scrollwork in frames, in a line along the baseboard. Veni, Vidi, Vici, read one, a postage-stamp-sized document that would've looked right at home in a furnished mousehole. Memento Mori, said the next.

There were more. Smaller. Illegible.

"Those aren't mine," Angel spoke harshly, addressing her upturned ass, and then he turned back to the recieiver, "Can you get it in that color or not?"

The photos were fascinating. They got smaller and smaller too as they got closer to the floor, so Buffy got back down on her hands and knees. Followed the line of ornate frames out into the hallway, where the air was dark and somehow thick--it dragged against her limbs, resistant, like gelatin. Surrounded by pictures, squeezed into another small space, she extended one hand and tried to break through the membrane with her fingertips, sharp nails poking at the unseen.

"You won't find anything that way."

Spike's voice. At last. She felt everything in her relax.

"What are you doing here?" she asked irritably. She couldn't even see him. Knew he was there, but she couldn't lift her head, the hallway had gotten so small, so tight. She kept stabbing her fingers forward into the invisible barrier instead, trying and trying--why wouldn't it let go? "Aren't you going to help me?"

"I am." Click of a cigarette lighter, the sharp smell of smoke.

"Don't do that." She wrinkled her nose.

"Stop me."

She struggled against the confining walls. Air pressing in on her, suffocating. She couldn't breathe. "I can't get out," she admitted.

"Yes, you can."

"I can't!" She let out a long sob. "You never believe me."

"Well, you do say a lot of things."

Then the room was turning, spinning in nauseating, swooping turns. And then she was stumbling forward, the dark hallway around her blurring into a forest. No, wait--a cemetery. Headstones all around, sticking up from the ground like discolored jagged teeth. High on a bluff. Fresh smell of the sea in the air.

Oh. The same cemetery where she'd crawled out of a grave with Dawn. Except her own gravestone was there right in front of her this time. Mocking. She saved the world a lot.

"Home again, home again." Spike said.

She stood. He was right there this time, standing beside her the way he used to. Cool smooth blackness, leather coat like a wall. His head almost floating above the darkness, pale as the moon.

Raspy sound of him putting the cigarette to his lips, a long inhale.

She inhaled the sea air, banished the memory of rotting-sweet-sick-dust-dirt-decay.

Not her home at all. She wasn't in love with it. Not anymore. "I'm... looking for a new place."

"I know what you mean," he said, and pointed two fingers, the cigarette clamped between them like a third finger of jutting bone. "It's a misery when you don't know where you belong anymore. When the monument doesn't match. Assuming there even is one." He let his hand fall.

She furrowed her brow. Concerned, suddenly. Worried. "Where--"

And then she woke up.

Chapter 17

__________

Last Night of the Hellmouth, 2003

Sunnydale, California, U.S.A

A rustle of bedclothes, a sudden snap of bright light. Like a camera-flash flare, and Buffy was blinking, hands up as if she'd been caught committing a crime.

"It's just me," she said quickly, taking in the scene in front of her--a dark silhouette, crouched in the middle of seemingly vast bed, the edges of the mattress hidden by shadow. A big ol' flashlight in the figure's right hand, the kind State Troopers carry, held up like a club. And incidentally beaming light right into Buffy's eyes.

"I didn't want to bother you," Buffy said, lowering her arms slowly. "I thought you'd be asleep. I just wanted to pick up a few things."

The flashlight came down, the light deflected to one side. Buffy heaved a sigh, blinked, bright spots spots dancing in front of her eyes. Now she could make out Faith, in dim outline, breathing hard in her minimalist sleepwear. The hand Buffy hadn't been able to see was wrapped around a heavy sword.

"Damn, B!" Faith's voice was shaking. She hefted the sword for a second, as if to show it off--see?--then let it slide out of her grip and over the side of the bed. It landed with a soft thump on the carpet, in a clutter of dirty socks and discarded hair clips. "I was asleep. You were damn lucky I didn't take your head off just now."

"Sorry."

"You scared the crap out of me."

"Again with the sorry. I'll only be a minute." She crossed the room to a dresser and opened a drawer.

"Thought the Apocalypse had started."

"No, that's tomorrow." The first drawer was empty. Buffy opened another. "I'll just be a minute," she said again.

"Hey, it's your room." Faith leaned over and lit the camping lamp at her bedside, rubbed her hands over her face.

All the drawers were empty. Buffy felt through one after another, her hands searching in the darkness. "Where are my clothes?" she demanded. "There's not even--all my underwear's gone!"

"Yeah, uh, the power's been out, B."

"Meaning?"

"Well, those girls've gotta wear somethin'. And I'd have lent them my stuff, but--" Faith shrugged, indicated the tank top and panties she wore. "--this is kinda it."

Buffy sighed, shut a drawer, turned. It shouldn't have mattered. She should've thought of it herself, but she was tired, dammit. Tired and dirty. "Okay, sure, I understand. It's fine. I'm happy to share." Share my house, share my clothes, and tomorrow, share my power. It's a good thing. She forced a smile and crossed to the closet.

"Yeah. Well, sharing is good, right?" Faith fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable.

"Right," Buffy agreed, distracted. Nothing but Bronze gear left in the closet--floaty dresses, microscopic halters, mini-skirts. And patrolling in a mini-skirt was one thing, but attending the Apocalypse in one...?

She examined a long-sleeved blouse. It might be okay, although the bell sleeves would probably get in the way. Not that she had all that much choice.

"I mean, like... me being here. Pretty cool of you to let me have your room."

"Huh? Oh, don't worry about it. You're recovering. I need everyone in top shape for tomorrow." Great, and the only shoes left in her closet that even approached practical were suede. Cream-colored and pointy-toed.

Light colors showed blood. And they had pedestal heels.

She chewed her lip. The boots she was wearing had cracked heels--an inevitable casuality of all those backflips--and she definitely did not need a shoe malfunction in the middle of a major battle.

Well, not like she hadn't fought in heels before. Or mussed up nice clothes. Buffy rolled up her chosen outfit, tucked the soft bundle under her arm.

"You want it back?"

"What?" Buffy stood. Her mind still on the clothes, she wasn't following Faith's train of thought. "There's more?"

"Your room." Cross-legged in the middle of the floral-patterend bedspread, Faith looked oddly serene. A Buddha on a lotus leaf. "You want it back?"

"Oh." Okay, now she got it. And she really hadn't been expecting this. "No, don't be stupid. You're still healing."

"Get real B, I moved heavy furniture today. I'm good."

"This is no time to be changing things." Breaking into a long stride, Buffy made a beeline for the door. "Get some rest." She put a hand on the doorknob.

"But don't you think you and Spike would be more comfortable up here?"

She hadn't yet opened the door. She froze, grateful at least that Faith couldn't see her face.

Behind her back, Faith laughed. "Damn, B," she said. "You thought nobody knew?"

Buffy let her hand drop and turned. Bundle of clothes still clutched to her chest.

"Because if that's what you're worried about, believe me, nobody cares."

"It's not like--"

Faith's eyebrows went up.

"--like any of your business." Buffy changed tracks in midsentence. "You know what? I don't have to explain anything to you."

"Didn't say you did." Faith shrugged with one shoulder. "Just thought though, you know, big battle tomorrow--"

"Well, don't think."

"Hey!" Faith looked a little irritated now. "Trying to be nice here."

Buffy's own eyebrows went up. Well... okay, actually, that was true. Faith was trying to be nice. "Thanks," she managed.

"No prob." Faith started to get out of bed.

"Wait--hold on," Buffy regrouped. "--I didn't mean--"

"You didn't mean what? You want your room back or not?"

"Not. Look--" She fought the urge to squirm. "Not now."

"Not now? You got a lotta confidence there, B."

"Yeah, I do. We're going to win."

"Sure, I know. I just..." Faith sighed, threw up her hands in mock exasperation. "Hey, I tried."

"Yes, you did." Relieved now, Buffy managed a grudging smile. Crisis passed.

She couldn't even think about it. Bringing Spike upstairs to her room. It felt like a jinx, regardless of... even if she didn't....

It would be like asking for disaster. Faith had it right, in a way.

She couldn't think like that. About last nights and last chances.

"Pretty cool of me to suggest it, though, don'tcha think?" Faith said. "Especially after your honey tried to rearrange my face the other day."

He's not my honey. The thought bubbled up in her mind out of reflex, but she'd bite off her own tongue before saying it in front of Faith. "Yeah, I, um, heard about that." She tried not to smile. "How is your face?"

"Your boy's got a wicked left hook." She touched her chin. "After that bomb, though, I think I stopped noticing whatever was still hurting."

"Right." Buffy's internal smile faded. "Well... get some rest. We'll talk tomorrow." She turned back to the door.

"If we're all still here, huh?" Faith's voice rang out from behind her.

Buffy slipped out the door without answering, pulled it closed.

__________

The downstairs was quiet. Buffy's sense started tingling as she descended the stairs--something was wrong. Something had changed.

"See anything creepy?"

Buffy jumped. Xander had stepped out of the shadows at the landing as suddenly as an ejecting jack-in-the-box. "Geez, Xan, you scared me!"

"I scared the Chosen One? Me? Either my stealthiness is getting better, or yours is getting worse, Buff." He grinned up at her, axe slung over his shoulder like a flannel-shirted Viking, the black eyepatch a dark hole in his face.

One foot placed on the final stair, Buffy glanced around. The ground floor was dark, with only a few flickering candles to light a path. But it was more than enough to show her what was missing--the usual obstacle course of sleeping forms. "Where is everybody?"

"Next door." Xander gestured to either side of them with the axe. "The troops have spread out, mon capitain--to the right and left flanks."

"What? When did--whose idea was that?"

"Calm down, calm down, take it easy, Buff. Nobody's deserting." He waved the axe in a circle. "Remember that shield spell Willow did, back when we were running from Glory? All around the area. Like the whole city block."

"What?" Willow can do that? "Since when?"

"Tonight. The girls were restless, and Willow thought she could handle the spell, so... we did a little commandeering." He saluted her then, a brief reappearance of Military Guy.

"I don't know if that's really a good idea." It was getting easier to relax into the role of General. She frowned at Xander, tried to figure out how to handle this latest annoying wrinkle. Wake Willow up? Go out to the houses and bring everybody back?

"It's okay, don't worry. We've got it covered. There are scouts on duty in each house--" He saluted again, a gesture that was beginning to irritate. "--like yours truly, on watch, and checking the houses gave our Soon-to-be-More-Than-Potential-Slayers a last chance to get in a little more practice in the sneaking-around-in-the-dark-arts." He paused. "They needed it. They're scared, Buffy."

"I know."

"I know you do, but..." He sighed. "Things have been kinda tense around here."

"Yes they have." She looked down at the floor. I guess it's just for tonight. "Okay, you've convinced me. I'm just..." She lifted her head, managed a steady I believe in you expression. "You win. I leave it in your capable hands."

"Well, I don't know about the capable, but--" Xander broke out in a wide grin, and then suddenly, there was that teenage boy she'd first met on arrival in Sunnydale. All shaggy hair and smiles and earnest good will. Right there behind the extra pounds and the eyepatch and the soft jowls he'd grown over the years. Right there.

"--we all do what we can," he finished.

"Right." For a moment, Buffy couldn't take her eyes off him.

"Oh, and Willow wanted me to tell you," he said. "Spike's gonna have to put his nicotine habit on hold for one night."

"Huh?" Like Faith, upstairs, Xander had caught her off guard. He actually hasn't smoked in awhile, I think, her brain suddenly chipped in. Oh, except, let's not forget, around Faith, and why is Xander even bringing this up?

Like she really had to ask. "Xander--" she began.

"I mean, unless we all want to hear what an anti-demon burglar alarm sounds like. Willow thinks he could probably go out without setting it off, but coming back in--"

"Xander," she tried again, and then frowned, distracted. Something wasn't right. "I thought you said it was a barrier."

"Yeah, well, a barrier in the sense that we'll all get some kind of screaming red-alert signal if anyone walks through it."

"That's not what you said before."

"Well... Willow didn't think she could hold the other kind while she was asleep. It's the same principle."

"Right." Right. Buffy held her temper carefully. "Um... okay." Nothing I can do about it now.

"So, uh, if you could pass that on."

Oh, right. To Spike. Buffy sucked in a deep breath.

She so did not want a repeat of the upstairs conversation.

Thankfully, before she could say anything, Xander started in again. "So that's status report, cap'n, nothing else happening down here. Why don't you go get some rest?"

"That was the idea." Xander's profile, limmed faintly by the dim moonlight reaching through the protective boards on the windows, was unreadable.

All that remained now was to make her way down the hall, into the kitchen, and down the basement stairs.

She hesitated. There wasn't anything she really wanted to say, but the silence was just... awkward. "Um, Xander--?" she started.

"Hey." His single eye turned back toward her, held her in a steady gaze. "You don't need to explain." She could see a smile now, just a movement of his face in the darkness. "It's none of my business."

Oh god, not again. "I wasn't going to."

"I know. And... that was kind of my point." He smiled, and then leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to her cheek. Buffy blinked at him, almost too surprised to speak.

"We're all here for you, okay?" he said. "No matter what. That's kinda all I really wanted to say."

Then he just settled back against the stairway rail. Hefted the axe onto his shoulder and trained his eye on the door.

__________

October 2004

"Buffy!" A hand was shaking her shoulder. Hard.

She snapped awake. Her sister was standing over her. Holding her cell phone.

"Mwa-ha?" Buffy mumbled thickly. Her whole body was sweat-soaked, blankets tangled around her as if she'd lost to them in a fight. And oh, okay, right, the previous night was coming back to her. Drinking. Drinking a lot--ugh. Her mouth felt like it had been stuffed with a tennis ball. One that a dog had licked. She could actually taste the fur.

I thought that Dawn's breakfast thing was supposed to help with the hangover? She had to blink several times before she could make out the words Dawn was silently mouthing.

It's him. Dawn offered the phone, stiff-armed. "You left it in my room," she said shortly. She looked exhausted, pajamas twisted, hair sticking up.

Buffy reached out to take it. Sure enough, Spike's voice on the other end. "Buffy?"

"Yeah, that's me." The door banged as Dawn left. And oh, headache now. Like a hammer. She squeezed her eyes shut, slapped a hand to her forehead. Her mouth formed a reflexive 'o' even as she spoke into the phone.

"You... okay?"

"Late night."

"Sound a little peaked."

"That would be the too much to drink." She rubbed her forehead. Ow. Ow. Ow.

"Felt like celebrating, did you?"

"Don't be stupid," she snapped. And okay, she'd completely forgotten the previous week, when practically all they'd done was visit her favorite clubs and toss back cocktails, because yeah, she'd felt like celebrating. "Why are you calling me? You never call me in the morning. In fact, you never call me." Unless she'd called him first. This little fact had only just now occurred to her.

"Um, you asked me to." A brief silence. "And it's not morning."

"Huh? Oh." Oh. She swiveled around to look at the window. No, it wasn't morning. It was almost dark. She craned her head, peeped through the slats of her shades. The streetlights weren't on yet, but they would be soon.

"So... here I am calling." She could hear the irritation now. "Like you asked."

"Like I--" She threw off her bedcovers, sat up. Her headache made a loud play for attention; she ignored it. Like I asked him to before-- "You're leaving?"

"Told you it would be soon."

"This soon? Today?"

"A few hours."

"Oh, god." Why did this always happen to her?

"It's fine, Buffy, don't worry. I'm not going to just disappear."

Yes you are! She wanted to scream it, but instead her head just throbbed, and she pressed her fingers even harder into her temples. "Where are you?" she asked wearily.

"Not sure. Just some tunnel I ducked into when the sun came up." There was a distant sound on the line, like traffic noise. "Think it might be the Cloaca Maxima."

Buffy closed her eyes. A sewer. Ancient, probably non-smelly-by-now sewer, but still...

Dripping water in the darkness. Angel's voice. You deserve more. You deserve something outside of demons and darkness. You should be with someone who can take you into the light.

History was big with the repeating of itself.

She wanted to throw up.

__________

Sunnydale, 2003

"Still no room at the inn, I take it."

Another stairwell, another descent. He'd risen to greet her, a shadow inside other moonlit shadows, and now they were separated by a stretch of basement floor.

She couldn't push herself to approach any further. To step into the room.

"Full house," she bluffed. Of course, he'd know it was a lie. His vampire ears were as sharp as his nose, and the house was nearly as quiet now as his crypt used to be.

Silent as a grave.

"So no choice but my luxury accomadations, then." The glimmering jewel she'd given him was still in his hand. Swinging, suspended from its tacky chain, a pendulum.

She shrugged. "I thought you wouldn't mind."

He shrugged back, a copy of her motion. "It's your basement."

"Yeah." A crease dug in deep between her brows. Just what Faith had said. "It is."

"Well, c'mon down, then." He swept his arm in welcome, an exaggerated gesture. A game show presenter.

"You know, while we're on the subject," she blurted then, instead of moving. "You can't leave."

His eyebrows lifted. "Oh, is that right?"

"There's anti-demon spell around the house."

"Ah."

"To keep the bad things out."

"Hm. And the good things in?" he asked softly. Fingering the pendant. Looking at him, she sighed.

"Yes," she said simply. God, he could be dumb. "Can I come in now?" she said, pushing out a small smile.

"Hmmmm, let me think." He was smiling now too, strangely thoughtful. "Guess that means Angel's out and I'm in."

"Oh, please." She rolled her eyes, but her smile got wider. "Do not start that again."

"Oh, perish the thought," he said, but he was grinning now, and seemed more relaxed. Some mysterious tension, something she hadn't even quite identified yet, was out of the room finally, gone. He was just Spike again.

The vampire she felt comfortable with. Who she could talk to even though it didn't, never really had made any sense that she could. Especially after everything they'd been through.

And yet, here she was.

Her world had never really made that much sense.

Still smiling, she shook her head, stepped into the room.

Men.

__________

October 2004

"I'm not meeting you there," she said. Blurted it, really. Not another sewer breakup. Not after--

God, not even a breakup! I don't even know what this is.

Long silence on the other end. "Well... alright then. Guess this is goodbye."

"No it's not! I'm not saying goodbye. I already told you that. You're the one who's--"

"Right," he said, but she could already hear it in his voice, hear him pulling back, like he was retreating down a long tunnel. "You're right. We've already had our goodbye scenes, yeah?"

"That's not what I meant."

"It's not a problem, Buffy, it's fine. I understand. I'll look you up next time I'm in town."

"No you don't! Dammit, you're the one who's acting like I'm the one walking away, and you're the one who's leaving."

"Because I have to."

"I know that! But you--" She bit her lip suddenly, hard. Why hadn't she realized this days ago, back on that residential Roman street when he'd first brought it up? "You're the one who's saying goodbye," she whispered. "I've never said goodbye to you. You got it wrong, Spike. Totally wrong. I was never saying goodbye."

__________

Sunnydale, 2003

"Have you just been laying there awake?"

She saw his mouth twitch, just a bit, at that. His eyes were shadowed. The moonlight was a soft flare at his back.

Full moon.

It had been some hours ago that she'd settled into the cot with her back to his chest. Hours or maybe only minutes, but she'd awakened from a strangely deep doze to find herself turned around to face him, her nose pushed into his clavicle. He had one arm loosely curled around her waist. She felt him shift, as she came around, start to draw away.

She laid her own arm over his. He stopped moving. "Well?" she said.

He made a soft sound in his throat. "Been watching you sleep."

"Is that gonna be your new thing?" She lifted her head. It wasn't easy to do, leave the warm coccoon of his T-shirt and sheltering arm, but she wanted to see his eyes. She propped her head up on one hand. "Watching?"

"Maybe." She could see him now, blue eyes gone black, hints of highlights and shapes, when the moonlight caught him just so. He moved a finger to brush a lock of hair away from her face. "When you're sleeping, you look... happy."

Happy. There were things she could've said to that. Glib things. About how sleeping was the one time she didn't have to be worrying, but that wasn't exactly true, was it? Not with Slayer dreams. The truth was more like, well, it has something to do with the company I'm keeping. You.

You make me feel... safe.

Not yet. She couldn't say that yet.

Not when she didn't know what she was feeling. What it meant. It wouldn't be fair to him, and more than anything else, now, she wanted to be fair.

He deserved that.

It was far easier to just lean forward and press a soft kiss against his lips. Because it seemed to say everything. Like giving him the amulet. Everything she couldn't say in words.

And then having said that... she wanted to say more. To turn it into a conversation, of touches and kisses, because it was different from the way it once had been.

She felt safe. She couldn't say that to him, but she could show him. Show him that yes, she did trust.

More than anything.

By the bedside, on the cardboard box that was his makeshift table, lay the amulet. Catching the moonbeams and splitting them, scattering small rays around the room..

__________

October 2004

"You got it wrong," Buffy said again. "It was always you that was saying goodbye, not me."

"Love, I don't have the damndest idea what you're on about."

"What you said! That I'm some kind of, of Goodbye Girl."

He'd gotten it exactly backwards. She was one who stayed. Why had she not seen that? Even when she'd died--god. She'd always been the one asking them to stay with her.

And Spike did. It used to be that he was the one who did. "You're leaving now because you're afraid to see how this is gonna turn out, aren't you? This job thing is just your excuse."

He sputtered. "What the... what the hell? I asked you if you wanted me to stay, and you said--"

"You didn't give me a chance."

"Well, you sure got used to the idea fast enough. Wanted to hear about all the other birds I was seeing. All but shoved me out the door without a soldier's kiss."

"You are so stupid!" she shouted. "You're just sulking because I don't want to have a big, hairy goodbye scene in a sewer!"

"No, you're right about that. What would be the point? Been there, done that, yeah? At least then I went out in a blaze of glory."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation over the phone!" She wanted to crack the phone in her fist. Throw it across the room and shatter it against the wall. A million plastic pieces of everything that was making her, suddenly, furiously mad.

And oh god, her throbbing head.

But the phone had the only photo she'd ever had of him stored inside. The only number that she could still use to reach him.

"Can't be helped, I suppose." His tinny voice echoed in her ear as she squeezed her eyes shut, tried to block out the pain. "You don't want to come where I am, and I can't come where you are. Story of us in a nutshell, inn't it?"

"Don't--" Don't be mad at me, she wanted to say. I'm not even mad at you! Or, okay, I am mad at you, because... because I just wanted more time. That's all. Was that so much to ask?

Now the dream was coming back to her, the hazy dream she'd just had before Dawn had handed her the phone. Spike, in a graveyard, pointing a finger at her headstone. It's a misery when you don't know where you belong anymore.

But by the time she'd come back to herself, slowly counting to ten and gathering her words, he'd hung up. He'd hung up. If he'd said goodbye to her, somewhere in there, she hadn't heard it.

She breathed more. Deep yoga breaths, and then slammed her cell phone into her pillow. It bounced, slipping from her fingers, and then bounced again, disappearing into a pile of bedclothes.

__________

Last Moments of the Hellmouth

Sunnydale, 2003

"Spike!"

She's running, running across the bumpy cave floor, weaving in and out of the fighting figures and fallen bodies. And he's right there, right there in front of her, and at first she just thinks, it's not too late. Because she can feel the energy pouring out of him, and it's everything that they hoped for, a superweapon that would save the day. And Spike is doing it.

He's being a hero.

And then it hits her. Hits like a thunderbolt, that this is the moment. The last moment. Because whatever he's channeling is nothing anyone was meant to contain, even if they were more than human, and it clutches at her suddenly, that knowledge. Tightens in her chest.

She knows what's going to happen. Knows it in her bones.

This is all the time they have left.

So she sputters something stupid. Stupid because she knows he can't stop, but she has to hear him say it. Needs him to confirm it for her, that he's going to stay. That he's made his choice.

And then she memorizes his face. Memorizes everything, because there won't be another chance. Takes ahold of his hand, because she doesn't think she's ever done that before. Can't examine them now, his hands, can't look at anything but his face. Can't feel anything but the strange, weird warmth, rising up between them like a summer updraft, and the distant-hot crackle between her fingers and in her heart. Like electric sparks reaching into every part of her soul.

She loves him.

It's like a hammer, slamming into her fingertips. Punching into her chest, a blow, and it makes her hurt, oh god, makes her want to cry out, but all she can manage right then is a gasp.

So then she says it. Just says it. Because he really should know.

Although she's sure, if he feels at all like she does, that he must know already.

And then he thanks her. And then he tells her to go. And she goes. Without another look.

Because that was their moment.

And she has to live in the now.

__________

Epilogue

__________

October 2004

"So that's it, then?" Dawn asked, digging into a carton of gelato with a heavy spoon. Mocha-chip this time for her, and raspberry for Buffy. "He goes his way and you go yours?"

"Yep." Buffy swirled a spoon in her own carton. "He's being..." She blew out a sigh. "Spike. Sometimes I still want to kick his ass." She stabbed the spoon, a mini-staking. "Make that a lot of the time."

"Huh." Dawn dug deeper into the cartoon, prospecting for chips. "And I'd almost gotten used to having him around again, too."

"Huh? I thought were you still all with the not-ready-yet."

"I was. Am." Dawn sighed. "Lemme put it this way: after mom and dad got divorced? It would've taken me awhile to get used to dad again if he'd ever come back. Because of, you know, how much he'd hurt us before."

"Oh. I, uh, see what you mean." She put a spoonful in her mouth, then talked around it. "Although I think I could've done without the part where you compared Spike to dad."

"You know, women are supposed to be attracted to men who remind them of their fathers."

Buffy choked trying to swallow.

"Oh, god, I did not hear you say that," she groaned, as soon as she could draw enough air to talk again.

"What? I read it somewhere."

"Way to scar me for life," she grumbled. Because oh yeah, now she really was thinking about Hank Summers, and everything she remembered about him before he became the guy with the cheatin' heart in her mind: the dirty blond hair and the fun-loving nature, the ingratiating grin. Oh, and hello, her mom's thing for bad-boy Giles, he of the rolled-up T-shirt sleeves and cigarettes and British accent. Ew.

She restlessly stirred gelato in her carton until her embarrassment peaked. "I think mom and I had a type," she finally confessed.

"Duh."

"No, wait a minute." Epiphany. Buffy waved her spoon. "Angel. That so doesn't explain Angel."

"He's a vampire."

"Yeah, but... he wasn't like dad. At all!"

"Hey, I dunno. I don't have a theory about everything."

Smug, Buffy sat back, let the couch cushions swallow her. She felt marginally better, although comparing Angel to her father... well, that wasn't any less disturbing than doing the same for Spike. She changed the subject. "Well... you just wait your turn, missy."

Dawn snorted. "Who says I'm waiting?"

It took a second for Buffy to react. "What?"

As if to avoid having to answer, Dawn produced a heaping spoonful from the bottom of her carton, put it in her mouth.

"Hello? Answer me. What did that mean?"

Dawn shrugged. "I've had dates," she said around the mouthful.

"Here? You'd better not be talking about Alessandro."

"Okay. I'm not talking about him."

Buffy's eyes bugged out. "He is way too old for you!"

"Look who's talking."

"That was different." She and Dawn started at each other for a long, serious minute, and then erupted into giggles.

"Okay," Buffy said, flapping a hand. "It's not different. Forget I said anything."

"Already forgotten. You know, I typically forget your big-sister advice."

"Hah-hah."

"Yuh-huh." Dawn gulped down another spoonful, then looked thoughtful. "Seriously, though... don't you ever wonder about that?"

"About what? And seriously, he's still too old for you."

"Would you lay off the too-old? I mean where I get my feelings from. If everything I am is made up by those monks..." she trailed off.

"Oh." It wasn't something she liked to think about. Dawn was her sister. She'd accepted that a long time ago. Wherever she came from, Dawn was her sister now. Part of her.

"I mean, you gotta wonder what a bunch of monks would know about teenage girls," Dawn said.

Buffy gathered herself, delivered a casual shrug. "Maybe they had little sisters."

"In like, Albania or something."

"Okay, I dunno, maybe they saw stuff on TV."

"Like Baywatch?" Dawn shot a quick look at her chest.

"I dunno! Maybe they used to travel before they got... religious." Well, it was a theory.

"Riiight."

Buffy sighed. "What's your point, Dawn?"

"It's just... we have no way of knowing what it used to be like. Before me. What you used to be like." Her head went down suddenly, a curtain of hair sliding across her face. "I liked him," she whispered.

"What? Liked who?"

She lifted her head, stared at Buffy, who felt her heart promptly sink. She knew what was coming. "Spike."

"Oh."

"Right from the beginning. I-I thought he was cool. And... why would they do that? Those monks. I mean, evil vampire, right? If they sent me to you to protect me--"

"I-I don't know, Dawn. Maybe... maybe it's just because he was around at the time."

"Riley was around at the time. So was Xander."

"You had a crush on Xander, too. And Riley wasn't--" she halted, bit her tongue. Wasn't superhuman.

Was that it? She could already see where Dawn might be going with this thought.

"Maybe they fixed him," Dawn said. "Spike, I mean. They fixed all of us, after all, right? All of our memories?"

Buffy locked her gaze on the far wall. A blank space between the window curtain and a framed picture. "You mean maybe they made him... different." Made him fall in love with me. Made him want to change. Made him be like no other vampire I've ever seen, ever.

If those monks could make a human being out of whole cloth, why couldn't they do that? If they could alter reality to change everyone's memories...?

"If they did that, then... then all of this is my fault. You and Spike."

That brought Buffy back down to Earth. "No."

"If it all started because of me--"

"It all started after I got resurrected. So technically, that would make it Willow's fault." She smiled, but Dawn wasn't buying.

"You wouldn't have had to have died if--"

"It doesn't matter, Dawn." That much, she was sure of. It really didn't. "It doesn't matter how we got to where we are now, or whose fault it is. The only people who are responsible for me and Spike are... me and Spike. That goes for now and then. Okay?"

Dawn smiled faintly. "Okay."

"I don't ever want to hear that again. This has nothing to do with you."

"Sure. I mean--" Dawn started shrugging then, the very picture of an uncomfortable teen having a tough conversation with mom. "I had another theory too, but you probably don't want to hear that one."

"What other theory? What?"

"Oh, it's just that... maybe those monks got my feelings from you."

Buffy coughed.

"I'm serious. I mean, it's not like we know. Maybe you already liked him."

"Spike?" Something in her recoiled at this idea, although she realized even as she sputtered out a response that Dawn's theories were... well, pretty airtight. There really weren't that many variables.

"Please," she scoffed anyway. "If they got your feelings from me, then you wouldn't love anchovies. Or wear clogs."

"Those are tastes, not feelings."

"Same difference."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Did I ever tell you about how we first met?"

"You and Spike? You met on Halloween. You saw him on the street like everybody else."

"Met, not saw. Not like I could've talked to him then."

"I still say that was the cutest little pumpkin costume."

"If you liked being a doorstop all night, it was cute."

Buffy laughed, transported momentarily into a simpler time. Transforming Halloween costumes. If only things had stayed that easy. Although...

She scrunched her forehead. "How did I explain that one again?"

"Drugs in the Halloween candy."

"Oh, right!" Yep, those were the days. Buffy laughed.

"But that's how I found out you were the Slayer."

Momentarily disoriented, Buffy stopped laughing. "Drugs?"

"No!" Dawn let out her own laugh, a single bark like a burst of gunfire. "Spike. When we first met. He told me."

"He... what?"

"You know. During that hostage thing--"

"That hostage--oh!" That hostage thing. Angel's hostage thing. It had been a damned good plan. To keep Buffy distracted, to divert after the attack on the high school, keep her away from Acathla's rising. One thing after another that night. First the flame-o-gram summons, and then Kendra, and then--

"God, that was some night." The whole thing was a blur in her memory. Kendra, the police, the hospital. Worrying about Dawn. Frantic. Finally encountering Spike on the street, her little sister in his tow.

"Yeah, he was all like, 'you mean you don't know?'"

"I can't believe I forgot that. That was when you first met?"

Dawn nodded. "He walked me home. Bought me ice cream too."

"WHAT?" If Buffy lived to be a hundred, she'd never be able to the explain how she could separate her feelings for Evil!Bastard!Spike and the guy she'd just spent the morning--afternoon--whatever--arguing on the phone with. "Did you not listen to ANY of those lectures at school about strangers?"

"Uh, duh, Buffy? And also, that never actually happened?"

Buffy blinked. "Oh. Yeah." Hello, embarrassment.

"I just can't figure out why I'd have a memory like that. Spike being nice to me. Sorta nice. I mean, he saved my life with the kung-fu fighting of other vampires, but then he also said I could shut my yap and stop crying anytime."

A light went on over Buffy's head. "That's why he bought you ice cream."

"Bingo."

"Right. Okay, that sounds like Spike." Elbows on her knees, Buffy dropped her chin into her propped-up hands, and leaned forward. "Something like it must've happened before," she mumbled.

"You mean before I got dropped into the picture?"

"Yeah. I dunno what, because if you hadn't been there, I would've staked his scrawny ass in a minute." At least I think I would have. What else would've I have done? What else DID I do?

"'Scrawny'. Wow, you are way pissed off at him."

"Believe it." And if I ever get my hands on his phone-hanging-up self again, I'll... Another light. A nagging memory, her mother having arguments with her father over the phone.

Oh, god.

She swallowed, forced herself to ask. "Dawn, did you ever...?" She couldn't finish.

"What?"

A family. You, me, Spike. Somebody strong, to help protect the Key. Somebody who'd die for those he loved.

Dawn might've had a point about the monks. What would they know, really, about women? Or about girls? They were monks.

And Dawn was, in a lot of ways, like her. But in other ways... Dawn trusted people the way Buffy had long since learned not to. She believed in romance. In fairy tales. In happily ever after.

So did I. Once. "Did you ever want us to be... together? Me and Spike, I mean. All of us, like--" Like mom and dad. Like a family. A dysfunctional, but what-would-monks-know-about-their-broken-home kind of family.

What Dawn had said earlier, about their dad... wow, it really made sense now. "Like a family," she finally finished.

Dawn wouldn't look at her. "You probably think I'm really dumb," she eventually whispered.

"I don't think you're dumb." You just haven't been through what I've been through. Thank god. "I'm so sorry, Dawnie. I didn't--"

"No, don't," Dawn said, quickly turning to face her. "It was stupid. I was stupid, okay?"

"You're not stupid. You can't help what you feel."

"Well, neither can you. And you were totally right to dump him. Obviously. I mean, after how he's treated you this week? Just like Mom was right to divorce dad for being a total shit."

"Don't say dad was a total shit."

"Well, he was. Is. Like, when's the last time you saw a child support check?"

Buffy sighed. "Can we get back to the part where you don't keep making connections between Spike and dad?" Even though I just did it myself. I'll never get rid of that picture now, never.

"I'm just saying. I don't expect you to... to make a perfect family for us. That's not... that's not..." Her face crumpled. "I don't know what I'm trying to say."

Buffy smiled. Reached out a hand and ran it through her sister's hair. Wondered at everything that had happened in the last few days, what she'd felt. Where all those emotions had come from. Where they might eventually go.

Nothing wasn't over yet. Of that much she was sure. "Me neither," she confessed.

__________

Sunnydale, 2003

"Yeah, Buffy. What are we gonna do now?"

They were still standing on the edge of the crater, wind whipping at their hair. The others were joking behind her, and they were relieved, she got that... but she wasn't ready for that yet herself. She was still caught up in memories of the past few minutes.

Had it only been a few minutes?

She had to roll back her mind to reach them, rewinding through the last-minute adrenaline and the frantic dash, the leap onto the bus, all the way back the sight of his face. Golden and glowing.

She'd loved him. In that moment, she'd really known. She'd really been sure.

And he'd said no. No you don't.

It almost made her want to laugh. She managed, instead, a faint smile.

Love on the Hellmouth.

No question, it really was cursed.

[end]

Read the sequel story, The Center.

 
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