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Chapter 6:

Somehow Buffy found herself down in the basement. It was just too hard to be upstairs were everyone kept wanting something from her. What, she wasn't sure. They didn't want her to care Spike was gone, they thought it was better that way, and yet they all seemed to be waiting for her to burst into tears.

After several hours lying in bed that morning, Buffy had admitted to herself that there was no way she was going to be able to sleep so she'd gotten up and begun working with the potentials. Usually her training with them was more theory or maybe it was practical advice. The stuff that would keep you alive but wasn't written in any of the Watcher's books. She left things like technique to Kennedy and Giles. They seemed to like the endless hours of drilling.

Not today. Today she put them through their paces. She drilled them tirelessly, hoping that she could somehow tire herself. Hoping for that mythical state in which her body was so tired that exhaustion would overtake her and she wouldn't have to think. If she thought, it might become real.

But the girls were only potentials, not Slayers, and eventually even Kennedy begged for them to stop. Then came the lecturing, telling them that they weren't prepared for what was coming. It was almost as if she thought that if she concentrated hard enough on the apocalypse, she could make it happen. But as Xander had once remarked, the earth never opens up and swallows you whole when you want it to.

Finally she ended up here, in the basement. The last place she wanted to be, and the only place she seemed to be able to escape to. She paced around the room, stopping here and there, as if to touch something, and then turning away.

The problem wasn't really the basement, the problem was Sunnydale. Was there anywhere she could go that wouldn't remind her of Spike? He'd been part of her life for so long, that everyplace she thought to go had some sort of memory, some sort of connection to Spike.

'Tea,' she thought. 'A nice herbal tea, that'll calm me down, something with mint.' Mint tea seemed as anti-Spike a drink as there was, and if she stayed in the basement anymore, she thought she might go insane. Besides, it sounded quieter up top.

As she emerged from the basement into the kitchen, she could see why. The sun had gone down. It was evening and she could hear the sounds of far too many people arguing over the remote control.

She began to look through the cupboards for a mug, but she couldn't find one. How could every glass in the house be dirty? Annoyed she pulled one out of the sink and began vigorously scrubbing it.

"Careful, Slayer. You might scrub that glass away," a familiar voice said behind her.

She spun around, tears threatening to spill down her cheek, for the first time, since the paramedics had left with Spike's body.

"Do not pretend to be him," her voice sounded strong, but as soon as the words left her mouth she knew it was a mistake to let The First know how much this particular apparition bothered her.

"Oh, bloody hell." The ghost shook it's head, and looked up, in just the way Spike did when he realized he'd said the wrong thing. "I didn't think."

He moved towards her and she backed away, even though she knew he couldn't touch her. It was more like he might contaminate her if he got too close. He darted towards her and grabbed her arm. The minute cold, solid fingers closed on her wrist, she collapsed, crying into his very real arms.

"It's me, pet. I'm sorry, shouldn't have snuck up on you like that."

"You died," she accused him between sobs.

"Yeah, didn't mean to. Didn't mean to cause so much trouble."

"I missed you," she said as she buried her face in his chest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As usual Giles had figured out what was going on after it had ceased to matter. Of course he blamed that on Spike, claiming he had withheld vital information about his transformation, namely that although he had become human, the demon had not left him.

Spike thought that was rubbish, he hadn't bothered to tell them if he still had all his toes either. It wasn't as if you bothered to check for that sort of things. The demon was a part of him, and it didn't occur to him that it was odd that it hadn't gone away.

Giles had then explained that Spike's soul must have been fused to the demon when it was restored. Just as the soul couldn't animate a dead body, the demon couldn't animate the living body, but together they could reside in Spike whether he was dead or alive.

His soul had kept him conscious after he'd become human. When the spell had worn off, the demon had needed time to regain control of Spike's body. In effect it had had to turn Spike all over again.

It had been Xander who'd broken the silence after Giles' long-winded explanation. "So I guess this means every thing's back to normal and we can get back to our regularly scheduled apocalypse?"

"Yeah," Spike agreed. "Who knew life was all sound and fury signifying nothing?"

Willow giggled a little, but mostly out of politeness. Giles cleaned his glasses and muttered something under his breath about, "A tale told by an idiot, indeed."

The rest of them just looked at Spike with blank expressions. He shook his head, said, "Bloody Americans," and retreated back to the basement.

Things certainly seemed to have gone back to normal. Although Buffy had been all tears and hugs when she found out he was still alive, she no longer seemed to want anything sexual from him. That only confirmed Spike's earlier theory that she'd just wanted to give him a pity fuck before he died.

But things weren't quite the same. First of all Dawn had been every bit as tearful and hugy as her sister. For the first time since she'd threatened to light him on fire if he ever hurt Buffy again, she was willing to actually talk to him. Being friends with the Nibblet again almost made the whole awful ordeal worth it.

His relationship wasn't the only thing that had changed. Something inside Spike had changed, or maybe, come back, he wasn't sure. Never once since getting his soul had Spike ever wished to be human again or regretted being a vampire. He'd regretted all the people he'd hurt, raped, and killed, but being a vampire. . . Who would Spike be if he wasn't Spike?

Certainly not William. Sometimes Spike wondered if he'd gotten back the same soul he'd lost all those years ago. He felt no more like William than he had when he'd been evil. There was, yes, a continuity of memory and emotion. And maybe if he looked hard enough he could find ways in which he was the same, but Spike had always felt completely reborn the night Drusilla had killed him.

And now, after more than a century of bloodshed and violence, the last thing he ever wanted to be was William. William had not been a good man. He'd turned his back on the evils of the world, and pretended they weren't there. William had looked only for the 'beauty' in the world ignoring everything else. Spike knew that beauty was only a mask, and that some of the ugliest things had the most worth.

So Spike had never wanted to be human again. Everything he liked about himself, everything that made him worth anything was tied up in being a vampire. Well, except for loving Buffy. That transcended human and vampire, demon and soul. Still what was he worth, even to her if he was human?

But there had been a moment, just a moment, when the sun had been rising and Buffy's hair glowed like a halo around her smiling face. He had looked into her glittering hazel eyes, and a life had passed before his eyes.

Not his life, not a life he'd ever lived, or even imagined before that moment. It was a life with her. Not in the sort of relationship he'd always imagined them in, something more or less like he'd had with Dru. Instead for a moment he'd seen the possibility of an actual life with Buffy, as her husband. He saw their children, and the sort of suburban life that should have sent chills down his spine. But it didn't.

Maybe there was still some of William left in him after all. That would have been William's idea of a good life. A wife and kids. To Spike it had always seemed boring and common. And yet. . .

It wouldn't go away. When he closed his eyes, he saw it. His life as a man, a husband, a father. It was silly, absurd even. There was no reason to think that Buffy would have had him even if he'd remained human. And now that he was a vampire again, it was impossible. No vampire had ever become human again.

Well, he'd heard Darla had, but she'd been dusted first, and that Wolfram & Hart outfit had been behind it. He knew them only by reputation, but he was sure that powerful black magics had been involved and he wanted none of that.

Still, a little voice in the back of his mind whispered, "You could do it. You're Spike. You found the Gem of Amara. You won back your soul. If this is what you want all you have to do is look for a way."

But that would mean leaving Sunnydale, and more importantly Buffy. If he left, he'd never get her back, she'd never forgive him. Not to mention how much it would hurt her. It was a foolish dream, and there was no point in hanging onto it.

So Spike lay down on his cot in the basement, and tired not to wish there was someway he could be human again.





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