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The swirling dust of flesh and leather stirred the air, making Buffy gasp and Angel roll his eyes. It was so familiar, and despite the heat it would take off him, he felt a surge of animosity that he was being ripped away from Buffy yet again. Because this entrance? Was being witnessed by the one being in all the world who was going to fall apart at William the Bloody’s return.

Dust formed into the being that had been gone, and Buffy set her eyes on the fully reconstructed form of the true love in her heart.

Spike.

“Seriously bloody over that,” snarled an unmistakably irritated British voice.

There was a scream torn from her throat and his arms were suddenly full of seething Slayer flesh. She punched him hard on the nose and then was kissing the stuffing out of him. Fingers clawing at his tender scalp in desperate need to be reacquainted with his bleached curls.

It was what he would have loved to happen the first time he was released from eternal damnation, showing up in Angel’s office to an audience of strangers. What he would have loved the poof to witness about his time with Buffy—that the Slayer wasn’t just pandering to his need to feel important in her life. To be wanted by someone.

He tasted salt as she sobbed into his mouth, her frantic kiss almost as confusing to a returned dead undead person as the actual resurrection. At least this time he apparently wasn’t a ghost. Then she was torn from him and he was wide-eyed and confused.

Until she slapped him again and left his cheek stinging.

“You idiot. You shirty, carrot topped poophead.”

His eyes couldn’t get any wider.

“Bleeding hell, Slayer. Give a recently resurrected do-gooder a chance to acclimatise, would you?” The burgeoning smirk on his lips faltered as he took in the water shimmering against her irises, felt the clench in his gut as her bottom lip wobbled. And then she was sobbing into her hands with Angel rushing to comfort her. Spike stood rooted to the spot and watched as his worst nightmare came to life.

But she shrugged the brooding git off and sunk to her knees, her arms winding around Spike’s legs like some perverted groupie that couldn’t let her fix go. And his confusion just grew.

Slowly she climbed up his body, and despite her chin rubbing against his long neglected crotch, his pleasure came from her need to just hold him—like those nights too long ago that he could never forget a detail of. She reached standing again and her lips caressed his throat. Warm heated lips against the chill of her tears.

“I can’t stand it anymore, Spike. Every night I see you dust. Every night I lose you, and I can’t take it anymore. I’ve lost my heart.”

He held her as she shuddered her grief, and he knew. She barely believed he was back—not that the concept hadn’t thrown him for several loops as well. But seeing it the first time around hadn’t been a problem for his grandsire and hangers on. This time he had a new audience—and one completely ravaged with loss. Even Angel’s eyes were haunted and hollow while looking at him in bewildered acceptance. Even welcome.

And that’s when it hit him. His girl was broken, whether she really was his or not. And he had no clue how to put her back together again.

He’d rip the bloody Immortal’s head clean off his shoulders. How dare the git destroy Buffy like this—shred her so much that she was a cripple in his arms. His. Spike’s. Didn’t the fool know that she had too many leave her behind. He shouldn’t have listened to Angel. They should have warned her back then, done something to eradicate the lying too smooth piece of work from her life. Happy? Pah, she was only playing.

And now she was shattered.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He felt the same. All those days she’d spent craving his touch had left her reeling from the loss, but now he stood and she had her arms around him. And he felt the same.

There was nothing Buffy could do to stop the shaking once it had started. Shock had found her in a way that was new. No disappearing inside her head, no turning heel and bolting away from the greatest thing to ever happen in her life. This time, she clung to Spike, let her arms tell him the story of her pain and hope that finally he would believe and she would have the chance to show him for years to come.

His name stumbled past lips numb and eager to be against him. The syllables were n an endless litany as Buffy strived within to come back down a few clouds and ground herself in reality. He was back, and he was home. Yet her heart struggled to embrace the fact, and rebelled against the promise of having her man back.

It hurt so much. The pain, swirling around and around and making her body shudder in ever increasing violence as he attempted to hold her still. Knees buckling, Buffy grabbed hold of the coat, the duster that was all Spike and so familiar she could have traced each tear and imperfection with her eyes closed. And she did—except she was wrong. No tears remained where they should, imperfections were now perfect and it seemed only to make everything worse. Made it all less real.

So much fury and pain bubbled up inside and Buffy felt too lost to make it still, too wary to control the surge. And so hysteria erupted and she started to moan, to rock until something split down the middle and she was screaming, teeth zeroing in frantically for his throat and she sank into a bite that only partially curbed her fear.

Buffy tasted blood. Felt it flood around her teeth and pass down her throat, all without swallowing. She was impervious to noise, back to blocking out all that was going on around her. Being yanked away from the sensation of his form had her body and mind freezing in shutdown. Blood swirled down her chin and finally her eyes rolled back and she was out, Angel carefully taking his hand from the pulse point on her neck that gave them a chance to calm her. Or restrain her.

Spike was horrified as he watched Angel slowly lower Buffy’s body to the floor, his blood smeared around her lips and her hair reflecting the little bit of light that shone from the electrics in the room. The gash in his neck didn’t register as the enormity of Buffy’s pain rose and sucker-punched him in the gut. His eyes were dry as he raised them to Angel, yet the monstrous emotion pushing inside him made him desperate to escape the other souled undead so he could recover and recoup from the confusion of his return.

“What the bleeding fuck did the Immortal Wanker do to her?” His eyes were huge, unable to tear away from her tiny figure vulnerable and broken on the floor.

Angel looked like a startled deer caught in a Spike showdown and no matter how much he wanted to go along with the theory, he knew how close he was to being expired due to Slayer wood if he didn’t pave the way for understanding.

“I, er, don’t think Morty had anything to do with this.” Seeing this side of Buffy was something frightening and Angel began to wonder if she was entirely balanced. Then again, with all the loss in her life, he guessed it might be a bit much for him to judge how she reacted to a shock too many.

“What are you talking about? She was bloody fine last we saw of her. Happy. The littlest Scooby git told us. And now she’s falling apart at the seams. What the hell happened?” Spike looked torn between ripping someone’s head off and being the insecure little boy Buffy had guessed him to be not so long ago. Terrified that the girl he loved didn’t love him back, though he would defend her no matter who she was with.

Angel felt side-swiped. Seeing the true meaning of love so blatantly in his face was a reality he hadn’t been prepared for.

“We kind of read the whole Immortal situation wrong.” He looked guiltily to the dusty floor, and suddenly wondered why he laid Buffy out there when there was a perfectly good sofa available.

When he looked up, Spike was hitting him with heavy expressions of betrayal. He blanched and rubbed his neck, feeling like collapsing on the floor and letting this century be over. And before he could say another word, Spike had swept in and carried Buffy away. He watched the leather as they ascended the stairs.

He should feel better. He knew that. With Spike back, he hadn’t destroyed everyone. He wasn’t fully culpable.

Angel sank to his knees and gave in to the weakness.





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