“So we’re alone now,” Spike said into the growing silence after Buffy finally got her sister to leave the office and shut the doors to give them a bit of privacy. “You look beautiful, luv.”
“We went shopping,” she smiled at his compliment then tugged nervously at the hem of her dress.
“That explains the delay in your getting here and that pile of shopping bags on the floor,” he smiled and jerked his chin toward the sofa next to which she’d deposited her things earlier. “Get your hair done, too?”
“Just a trim and bit of color,” she smoothed a hand over her head. “I wanted it to look like …”
“Before,” they finished together.
Buffy smiled weakly at him then moved to sit down in the chair she’d claimed upon first entering this room an hour ago.
“This is weird,” she sighed. “I was expecting awkward at most, but weird has me all spacey.”
“Yeah, the whole ghost thing takes adjusting. For me as well,” he approached her slowly.
“I’m this close,” she held up a hand with the thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, “to acting just like Dawn and running through you.”
“That good or bad?”
“I don’t really know,” their gazes locked. “I want so badly to touch you. I’ve been thinking of nothing else since I overheard Giles saying you were here and now that I’m here with you I’m told I can’t touch you and,” she looked away and whispered, “I hate it.”
Suddenly he was kneeling before her and cupping her face in his hands - hands that her skin felt the presence of yet didn’t feel the texture of skin against hers.
“Did you mean it?” he whispered unexpectedly.
Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes grew moist with tears as she turned them to look into his again.
“With all my heart,” she said firmly as there was no doubt in her mind as to what his question meant.
“You’ve no idea how hard it was to let you go,” he ran his fingers over her hair and face. “I couldn’t let myself believe it then, but it’s all I think about now.”
“It was just as hard for me to go,” she confessed without a care for the tears beginning to fall. “I almost hated you for not believing me. I still may never forgive you for not leaving with me.”
“We both knew at that moment that it was a job that had to be done to the very end, pet. Wasn’t about to take you down with me.”
“Do you still … ?” she sniffled and looked at him closely.
“Always,” he wiped away the tears then wrapped his arms around her. “I bloody persistent bugger and nothing so minor as death could stop me loving you. Loved you as a demon, a ”
Closing her eyes she relished the feel of his embrace and her memories supplied the scents of leather and tobacco that was lacking from him at the moment. All to easily in that instant she forgot everything wasn’t normal and her hands lifted to hug him back.
Only to slip through his image as they did at the nightmarish end of so many of her dreams.
Putting a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that was rising in her she jumped to her feet, passing right through his kneeling form, and began pacing the room in an attempt to regain control of herself.
“How could this happen?” she tipped back her head and asked toward the ceiling. “What are they doing to us?” she looked back at Spike. “Do they want me to go completely insane? I thought nothing could hurt more than loving you and not telling you I loved you until the very moment you were the least likely to believe me, but, as usual, the fates have to prove me wrong. How can you be here like this and not here like this?” she moved back toward him to touch his cheek and curse again how her hand touched nothing.
“Your guess is as good as mine why the powers get their jollies off shit like this,” he reached up with both hands to take hold of hers. “It’s not so bad, though, being all ghosty. Trust me it could be worse. And at least I can touch now. Took me weeks to learn how to do with. Before that all I did was pass through every bloody thing around me.”
“But I need to be able to touch you,” she sat down again. “Every night I dream of us. I dream of you being with me and me telling you how much I love you and we make love and then you just vanish. It’s the Hellmouth all over again with you standing there telling me to get out while the hand I hold catches fire and you start falling about and I try to hold on and my fingers just pass through you and you’re gone,” she was sobbing now. “I heard you were here and came running thinking that my dreams were coming true and we could be together and instead I find that you’re here, but we can’t be together. My hands just pass right through you and I can’t hold on and I need to hold on to you. I need it so much and I don’t think I can handle this right now.”
“Buffy,” he grabbed her shoulders and shook her firmly. “Don’t you do this. You may not be able to touch me, but I’m here and you’re here and I’m not vanishing. You love me and I bloody well love you with all I’ve got and I swear to you that we will be together.”
“How?” her anguished eyes met his.
“Fred’s been working on making me a real boy again. She even pulled it off last week, but another bloke kinda reaped the benefits,” he ignored her questioning look. “We’ll get her to work on it again then we’ll be together and nothing of Heaven or Hell or those bloody Powers That Be will break us up again.”
~*~*~
“Look we tried it once, it failed, we’re done,” Angel said firmly when he re-entered his office and was met with the gathering awaiting him there.
“No,” Winifred approached his desk and reminded him, “it succeeded at doing exactly what it was supposed to – recorporealizing a non-corporeal entity. Spike sacrificed his chance at having that happen to save my life. We can’t stop trying after that. If anything we need to try harder to thank him.”
“There really is no reason not to try again after succeeding once,” Wesley chimed in calmly. “Leaving him in limbo like this is something I wouldn’t wish on anything, even Spike, so we’ve only two options. Restore him fully or destroy the amulet.”
“No!” Fred glared at the former watcher. “You’re getting no where near that amulet if that idea is still in your head. You’ve already decided that you can’t do that, right?” she turned to ask Angel.
“What happens if it’s destroyed?” Dawn asked as she watched those standing argue.
“One way ticket to Hell for me, pet,” Spike said without turning from his contemplation of the skyline outside Angel’s office.
“What?!” Buffy jumped up from her chair and moved to stand behind her lover.
“Relax,” Angel sighed and poured himself a glass of blood. “I’ve got enough guilt attached to my soul without adding being the one to kill him to the list. Tempting though the idea is when in proximity to him,” the vampire muttered.
“I bloody heard that,” Spike whipped around to glare at his grandsire. “And that guilt sure as hell didn’t stop you from trying, did it?”
“You tried to destroy the amulet?” Buffy joined in on the glaring as did Dawn who moved to stand with her sister as human shields against anything trying to harm Spike. “Knowing what it would do?!”
“I was trying to do him a favor,” the object of their angry stares defended. “He hated being ‘nothing’ as he was at the time and destroying the amulet would have released him from the realm and given him some piece. But,” he glared back at his grandchilde, “I never had any intention of following through and you know it. The only reason I even went so far as almost doing it was your stupid plan.”
“That stupid plan worked bloody well, you’re welcome very much, and don’t even try to look me in the eye and say weren’t tempted to really whack the thing to bits when you had the chance.”
“I could have brought Hainsley down without you,” Angel countered.
“Oh, yeah, you were doing a bloody brilliant job against him. Admit it,” Spike got in the other man’s face, “my plan saved your bits from being mounted on that necromancer’s wall.”
“We got lucky and your plan succeeded. My bits were never in any danger,”
“Enough!” Willow jumped up from the couch the pair was arguing in front of. “This,” she wagged her finger at their confrontational stances, “is so not helping with anything here.”
“Might not be helping, but its pretty darn entertaining. Riveting even,” Kennedy said from the couch her lover had just left.
All eyes in the room turned on her and she fell silent with a slight shrug and muttered, “Like I was the only one enjoying it.”
“Willow is right,” Wesley said causing the redhead to smile and stand up straighter. “This bickering between you too gets us no where. If the amulet is not an option then we need to get down to serious research on just what we can do to recorporealize Spike again.”
“Before we get to that, I want that amulet,” Buffy stated.
“Buffy, I told you, I’m not going to destroy it,” Angel sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“I’ll just be making sure no ‘accidents’ happen,” she informed him coolly.
“You’ve nothing to fear in that area,” Wes informed her. “The amulet is protected from harm unless taken onto hallowed ground. Only then can it be destroyed.”
“Reassuring, but I repeat - I want that amulet.”
On the other side of the room Fred rifled through the things she had brought into the office until she found the item.
“Here,” she passed it to Buffy. “All safe and sound with you. Now … can we begin brainstorming or are there more issues you all want to air out in this very not private setting?”
Willow smiled at the scientist as she stood there with her hands on her lean little hips and Kennedy glared at the obvious interest in her girlfriend’s eyes.
“Storm away,” Angel muttered as he sat down behind his desk. “Feel free to continue using my office like I’m the one not really here,” he sulked over his glass of blood. “Not like there’s a whole world of more important things we could all be doing. By all means, let’s put all our energy into saving Captain Peroxide.”
“Were you always this whiny?” Buffy rolled her eyes at him before sitting back down in the chair she favored.
“’Course he was. It’s his thing on the occasions he stops with the brooding, soulful block of wood routine he’s been perfecting ever since he got his bleeding soul,” Spike smirked as he leant against the arm of Buffy’s chair.
“I am not whining,” Angel informed them all.
“From one whiner to another, I’ve gotta say that thing you’re doing just now is major whining,” Dawn said with a bratty smile that got her a thumbs up from Spike.
“I am not whining,” the vampire repeated firmly. “I am talking to myself so kindly stop interrupting me and go on with your ‘brainstorm’ to save bleach boy.”
“Food,” Fred suddenly blurted out. “We need food to fuel our brains.”
“Ooh, good idea,” Willow seconded. “What kinda takeout you get on this side of town?”
As the group gathered around and argued over menus from local eating establishments, Angel continued to brood and ‘not whine.’
“Sure take me literally with the whole pretend I’m the one not here. My office, my staff, my business doing all the Spike saving, but do any of them say thank you for not going ahead and just smashing the stupid necklace? Noooo. Call me whiny. I don’t whine. I brood and sometimes maybe mope, but I never whine,” he seemed to be telling the wall to his left.
“Would you shut your gob already,” Spike ordered. “You’re making yourself look like the wanker you are in front of your fans.”
“Angel, your five o’clock is waiting conference room number two,” Eve interrupted just as he was about to lunge at the smirking ghost.
“That one really knows how to crack the whip. Outta give her a second go, mate,” the bleached blonde continued to push his luck.
Buffy noticed a series of awkward glances from Angel, Eve, Fred and Wesley while Spike was definitely gloating at the reaction his last statement had.
“I so don’t even want to know,” she sighed and went back to deciding what she wanted to eat.
“Funny story actually,” the figure next to her said. “You’ve met Lorne, right? Green guy with horns? That demon knows how to throw a party, luv, and Halloween was a real kicker. See he-”
“Spike,” she smiled at his formerly annoying and now beloved smirk, “I really don’t want to know.”
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