Missing You
By Chelsea


Chapter One


{Rome}
{Dawn’s POV}

I walked up the steps to my room and paused at Buffy’s door. I could hear her crying, but she was trying to be as quiet as possible. I had no idea what to do for her. We tried to talk to her last week, but that didn’t go so well.

“Buffy? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” she said with false cheer.

“Spike’s dead…maybe?” I said. She flinched.

“Is this an intervention?” she asked as she noticed Willow, Xander, and Giles behind her.

“Yes.”

“I’ll mourn him any way I please. Xander and Giles you two have no right to stop that. You both treated him like shit. Giles you plotted to kill him. Without him you and all of us would most likely be dead. He was a great man and I don’t want to listen to you people putting him down.”

“Even me?” I had asked.

“After he came back with his soul…You were just like the rest of them, Dawn.”

“He tried to rape you,” I replied.

“You know what I did to him? All the time we were together. I used him for sex so I would feel something. He let me beat him up, use him, put him down, and treat him like dirt under my shoe. Because he loved me and he deserves your fuckin’ respect and the right for me to mourn him and damn way I please!”

We watched in silence as she left the house. None of us moved or said a word for at least fifteen minutes. She didn’t return home for three days. And since that night she has tried to hide her grief from us, but she was right. She deserved to mourn him any way she wanted.

It still hurt. I didn’t like seeing her in pain. She spent the last five or six years saving the world and now has to grieve over her lost love.


*** *** ***


We picked Andrew and some of the other Slayers up at the airport today. Giles and all the girls headed straight to the new council to try and help the psycho Slayer. Andrew was acting really weird.

Since, we moved to Rome, things have been okay, other than Buffy’s depression. Andrew has been studying to become a Watcher and I am going to be graduating high school soon. Buffy trains the new Slayers and fights evil, but she gets paid now. So we live in a three bedroom flat with Andrew.

We dropped the Slayers off at the new council building in the capable hands of Giles and the others. Andrew had the next two days off after going to LA. We were headed back towards our flat. I was in the front driving and Andrew was twitching next to me. I looked in the mirror to see if Buffy noticed.

She did.

“Andrew? What’s going on?” I asked gently.

“Nothing…”

“Is Angel turned into Angelus?” Buffy asked.

“Nope.”

“Tell us, Andrew! You can’t keep secrets from us!” I screeched.

“He’s alive…” he whispered.

“Duh, we know Angel’s alive,” I said.

“Not him.”

“Who?” I asked impatiently.

“Spike.”

“Pull the car over, Dawn,” Buffy said from the back. I did so and watched her get out. She walked ten feet to speed limit sign and pulled it out of the ground, then proceeded to beat a nearby tree with it. She stopped when the tree fell over.

Next, she pulled Andrew out of the passenger seat and slapped him.

“Don’t ever fucking kid about that. Get in the car, NOW!” He was about to argue, but didn’t at her look. “Drive, Dawn,” she said after she buckled in.

Andrew came to me in my room that night. He told me about everything that happened while he was in LA. I had no clue what to do. So I called a Scooby meeting. We planned to meet while Buffy was training the slayerettes the next day.


*** *** ***


“What’s the emergency, Dawn? We are all very busy people. I highly doubt another intervention will work,” Giles said as he cleaned his glasses the next day.

Giles, Xander, Willow, and I were sitting in a café near my highschool. I had thought it was a good place to meet, incase they wanted to yell. Public places make it harder.

“Yeah, what’s going on, Dawnie?” Willow asked gently.

“Andrew…tell them,” I commanded.

So he did. He told them the entire story from when he arrived in LA all the way until Buffy’s reaction.

“She hit you?” Xander asked.

“Yeah. Kinda romantic isn’t it? She’s so broken, because she believes her long lost love is dead. But, he’s alive and well and working with her former lover.”

“Romantic?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said dreamily. Sometimes I don’t get Andrew.

“What should we do?” Willow asked.

“She needs to know. But, we need to do it carefully,” I said.

“I agree,” Willow said.

“No. She finally has a chance to be with that human guy that lives next door to you. He is so into her…maybe they could be together,” Xander said.

“Are you serious?” I asked incredulously. “Riley was human and didn’t last. She needs Spike and you all know it. He’s perfect for her. They have passion, love, and can handle each other. They were made for each other.”

“Soul mates,” Andrew said dreamily.

“Yes. Dawn has a point. Just how to tell her?” Giles finally spoke.

“Maybe a group thing,” Willow suggested.

“The intervention thing didn’t go so well last time,” I said.

“Yeah,” Xander sighed. “If you guys think this is best. I’ll go with it. Why don’t we take her there to see him. He’s in the hospital, right?”

“We can’t do it that way. We need to tell her,” I said.

“Yeah, but who?” Willow asked.

We all turned to Giles.

“Oh, all right!” he blustered.


*** *** ***


{Rome}
{Buffy’s POV}

They think I don’t know what’s going on. They are planning another intervention. Andrew’s joke the other day really set me off. I think I need to go to Sunnydale, so I can say goodbye. See the last place that he was, for closure.

Or whatever that shit shrinks say.

I just need to be close to where he last was.

I headed home and ordered a pizza for Andrew and Dawn. I then had my bath and changed into my jammies. I pulled the worn leather coat out from under my bed. Spike died wearing the real one, but I went out and bought one just like it.

And then spent a week getting it to smell like him.

Almost every night I dream of the day he died or time we spent together. Some of the I would call nightmares like the ones of me beating him up in the alleyway, but some are so wonderful like the time we were “engaged” or the night he just held me in his arms.

I wonder what they will say this time. I need to get over him? How can I? He died not believing I loved him. I didn’t even know until it was to late. I didn’t know until the night he died. I sat on the porch thinking of things I had pushed from my mind. I thought of my past, the present, and what I wanted in the future.

And I walked down the staircase towards the basement. And didn’t have the gut’s to tell him. I knew he had seen me kiss Angel and I didn’t think he would believe me. I told myself that after the battle I would show him. It was him I loved and him I wanted. And he would believe me.

After the battle, I told myself.

After the battle, he was dead.

I missed my chance and he died thinking I didn’t love him.

So, tomorrow, I’m announcing that I’m going back to say goodbye.

Missing You
By Chelsea


Chapter Two


{Rome}
{Dawn’s POV}

Tonight is the night we tell Buffy about Spike. She thinks that the gang is coming over for movie night. She went out for the take out food. We were all sitting in the living room when she got back.

“We need to talk—” Giles said.

“I need to tell you all something—” Buffy said at the same time.

“Go ahead, Buffy,” Willow said.

“I’m going to California. I need to visit the crater that is Sunnydale…to say goodbye, to Spike. Find peace.”

“That’s what we wanted to tell you, Buffy,” Giles said. “When Andrew visited LA. Spike was there.” Buffy leapt to her feet.

“Is this a joke?” she said with tears her in eyes. No one spoke. “Omigod, your serious? He’s alive? How?”

“The amulet was mailed to Wolfram and Hart. When Angel opened it, Spike appeared. But, he was in non-corporeal form.”

“He’s a ghost?” she asked tearfully.

“Well, he was, but since then his body has been corporealized,” Willow said.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“He was injured capturing the slayer that Andrew brought back with him. He was assisting Angel at the law firm, but now is apparently not so associated.”

“Why didn’t he call me?” she asked in a small voice.

“You’ll have to ask him that, Buffy,” Giles said.

“Willow? Can you keep, Dawn, while I’m gone?”

“What? I’m going with you!” I shouted.

“I need a few days, with him alone, Dawnie. Then you can come out there. I promise.”

“Okay,” I said after a moment.

“We’ll take good care of her, Buffy. No worries,” Xander said.

“Thanks, guys!”


*** *** ***


{LA}
{Buffy’s POV}

I got off my plane in the late afternoon and headed straight outside. I grabbed a cab and asked to be taken to Wolfram and Hart. No waiting dilly dallying around. I needed to see him. Now.

I was wearing the dumb coat, which took me a week to get right. I felt safer wrapped in something that smelt like him. Most people would think it’s dumb, but for me it’s security.

The cab pulled to a stop and payed the man and hopped out. I headed straight in the front and to the reception desk. She looked up.

Harmony.

“Buffy? Omigod, it’s been like forever! Last time I saw you we were mortal enemies! This so cool!”

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Angel’s in an important meeting right now—”

“No. SPIKE? Where is Spike?”

“In the meeting, also. I thought you and my Blondie bear broke up? Didn’t you think he was like dead?” I was about to go into a rage. Her Blondie bear? I would probably die if they were together. But, what should I expect, he couldn’t stay single. Plus, I treated him like shit. Why should he still be in love with me?

I’m screwed.

That’s when I heard the voices. Angel, Spike, and Wesley were walking down the steps towards the reception desk. I turned so that I stood in their path. They all stopped when they saw me. I could feel the tears streaming down my face as my eyes traveled over Spike. He has hands, so I guess he is doing better than Andrew said.

“Buffy? What are you doing here? If you needed me all you had to—” Angel started.

“Spike?” I asked quietly. I was getting a bit pissed. He was alive and didn’t tell me!

“Buffy?” he said back. I walked closer to him.

“Buffy, are you listening to me?” Angel asked.

“Not really,” I said absently. Spike smirked. Then I slapped him. “You fuckin’ asshole!”

“What the hell, pet?” he asked.

“Shut-up.” Then I grabbed the front of his coat with both hands and pulled him towards me. And kissed the daylights out of him. “Oh, god. I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, kitten. It’s okay. I’m here.” I was sobbing by now, right in the middle of the Wolfram and Hart lobby. Spike lifted me in his arms and said to Angel and Wesley, “Can we move this more private?”

“Of, course. Let’s go in Angel’s office,” Wesley said.

“What?” Angel asked.

Spike carried me though the lobby towards a large office. He moved to the sofa and sat down, with me in his lap. Wesley handed me some tissues and I dried my eyes and moved to sit right next to Spike.

“Why are you here, Buffy?” Angel asked.

“Um, I think it’s obvious,” I said.

“So, what do you need help with?” he asked.

“I don’t need help. I need Spike.”

“Apocalypse? I would have come, Buffy,” Angel said like he was talking to a four year old.

“Um, Angel, I think she means…” Wesley began. I ignored them and turned to Spike.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I figured it was for the best. You could get a normal life and all that rot that you deserve.”

“Normal? Must I remind you of Captain Cardboard?” Spike snorted.

“Point taken. That was a cop out. I didn’t know if you would want me.” I began to cry again. “Kitten?”

“It’s my fault. I tried to tell you before we left to go to the school. When we were in the basement. I tried to tell you that I loved you, but I didn’t think you would believe more or that it was the right time. I had this whole plan for after the battle. I was going to prove I loved you and it was you I wanted.”

“WHAT?” Angel shouted.

“Oh, luv. And then I told you I didn’t believe you…” I began to sob again.

“You left me…”

“I’m here now,” he said and he kissed me gently. I wiped me tears again and then moved to straddle his lap.

“I love you, Spike.”

“I love you, too, luv,” he said. We kissed again. “HEY! What bloke gave you this coat? I’ll kill him if he touched you!”

“It’s mine. I bought it and…” I felt my cheeks burn red.

“And what, pet?”

“I spent a week getting it to smell like you.”

“God, Buffy. I love you so much,” he said roughly in between passionate kisses.

“Your not with Harmony, right?”

“God, no,” he chuckled.

“Thank god. You still want to be with me right?”

“You know I do.”

“And for real this time. A real relationship, with love and happiness and…”

“Christmas and puppies,” he said. We both laughed and cried and held each other.

And couldn’t help but think. I finally found peace, love, and happiness.

And I couldn’t ask for more.



THE END!


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PLEASE REVIEW!! Hope yall liked it. Hugz. --Chelsea