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Chapter 7: Real Love


“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” Harriet Beecher Stowe

Buffy Summers lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling, reeling from the occurrences of the past few days. She had spent most of the past week in a deep state of depression mourning over the guy who was now sleeping on her couch. A million different thoughts and feelings raced through her till she wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry, laugh or scream. So she chose to just lie in bed and try to sleep, and think about what was ahead of her and her lover. She wondered what she could’ve done to avoid all this heartache, all the missed opportunities to tell Spike how she really felt. But then, she’d always had trouble in love. Angel was supposed to be her “one true love”, but he gave her more grief than anyone else in her life. Riley was supposed to be normal and he ended up leaving her because he couldn’t handle her being the Slayer. Spike…well, he was unusual.

She remembered the first time she really started to get feelings for him, almost three years ago. She had hated him for showing her what Riley had been doing behind her back, even if it wasn’t really him she was mad at. She hated Riley for doing what he did; almost getting himself killed because he thought she didn’t really love him. Well she did, or so she thought. She really liked Riley, she trusted him and enjoyed his company, but in hindsight she realized that she loved him but didn’t love him. She thought of him more like a brother than a boyfriend, even with the kissing and lovemaking. ‘Eww.’ Buffy shuddered at the implications of that thought. Buffy told him that she had given him her heart, body and soul; but it wasn’t true. Xander was right about how she had behaved with Riley.

“You shut down, Buffy. And you've been treating Riley like the rebound guy. When he's the one that comes along once in a lifetime. He's never held back with you. He's risked everything. And you're about to let him fly because you don't like ultimatums?” She had been treating Riley like the rebound guy, she didn’t mean to, but the kind of love that she felt for Angel just wasn’t there with Riley. He was a great person, but he wasn’t the guy. When he left, she thought that maybe she was destined to be alone. She couldn’t keep Angel, Scott Hope or Parker, and now the guy who she thought she could trust walked away too. Why did she always end up alone? What was she doing wrong? Why couldn’t she keep a guy she liked in her life?

After that fiasco, Spike declared his love for her. It was a nightmare, she couldn’t keep guys she liked and the guy she hated wouldn’t leave. If she felt bad before, the idea that only a vampire could be attracted to her made her feel diseased. Sure he wasn’t exactly unattractive, but he was a vampire who tried to kill her for years. Yeah, with the chip he was harmless, but the thought of a soulless monster being infatuated with her just added to her insecurity. Dawn loved him like a brother and she knew her mother played cards and drank cocoa with him occasionally, but she refused to believe that he could be anything other then a muzzled vampire.

The night after he told her, she went to his crypt and saw the shrine he had of her. As she tried to leave, Spike and Drusilla knocked her out. When she woke up she found herself chained to the wall with Spike telling her that he would kill Dru for her. She had him uninvited from her house for that stunt. She never told him, or anyone else, but she felt a pang of guilt from the look on his face when he realized he was blocked out.

She thought about starting to date again, but after her encounter with April, Warren’s girlfriendbot, she decided that maybe she should just try to get to know herself. However, she didn’t have much of a chance to when she came home and found her mother had died. Losing someone is always hard, but when the person who has taken care of you since you were born, who even when things looked blackest you knew would be able to keep thing together, it’s devastating.

After the sudden death of her mother, she began to wonder if being the Slayer was making her hard and unfeeling. She went off on the Vision Quest and was given a cryptic message from the First Slayer. “Death is your gift.” She thought that she meant what Spike had told her that night he told her about the two Slayers he killed, that death was her art and that part of her wanted to die. And she was partially right, as was Spike. She hated to admit it, but she did have a death wish. She was so tired of the constant pain and horror that being the Slayer, and she just wished she could stop and rest. She would find out the message would turn out to have a much deeper meaning later.

When she and Giles returned from the desert, she came face to face with herself, or at least a cheerful, Spike obsessed clone of herself known as the Buffybot. The fact that Spike had that robot built just reinforced her belief that he was no good, but that was secondary to the revelation that he was captured by Glory. She was so sure that he’d rat out Dawn to save himself, that his infatuation and obsession with her wouldn’t be enough to keep him from telling Glory about Dawn. She went to him as the Buffybot to see if he told Glory anything, he’d be more likely to talk to his sex toy then one of them. She was shocked at the state Glory left him in. He was bleeding profusely and his face was a mask of bruises and cuts, she wondered if he would even be coherent enough to talk to her. She told him that she’d tell Glory who the Key was so Spike wouldn’t get hurt again, but he surprised her and said that he’d let Glory kill him before he told her about Dawn. That actually made her realize that Spike did care about her and her sister. She gave him a kiss then, in thanks mostly but she couldn’t deny that she felt a little spark when their lips touched.

When the time came to take on Glory, she knew she could turn to Spike as the only one besides her who was strong enough to keep her safe. He told her that he’d protect her “till the end of the world, even if that happens to be tonight.” But things went down horribly. Spike tried, but a demon was able to throw him from the tower and bleed Dawn, the portal opened and that meant her little sister would have to die to save the world. But then the First Slayer’s message made sense; Dawn was made from her blood, so the blood that flowed through her veins ran through her own. Her death would close the portal. She told her sister that she loved her and to live for her, and threw herself into the maelstrom of energy. Death was her gift, hers would give the world and her loved ones new life and she willingly gave it.

Then she was brought back to life, if you can really call what she had at that time a life. Her friends thought that she was in some hell dimension, so they used a dangerous spell and brought her back. But she wasn’t in Hell she was in Heaven. Her job was done and she had earned her eternal rest. She was at peace and they pulled her back into the world where she’d have to be the Slayer again. She was so mad at her friends, but she couldn’t be angry with them. Their hearts were in the right place, and they had no way of knowing what they did to her. She had to be Super Happy Buffy, she couldn’t tell them what they’d done or they’d never forgive themselves. So she told Spike.

He didn’t judge her; he didn’t pressure her to be like she was before. She didn’t have to walk on eggshells with him; he was just so glad that she was there at all. She liked spending time with him, except for that time she got drunk and puked her guts out. He made her feel like herself again; she could really talk to him and be herself. She tried to suppress it, but she began to feel an attraction to him. She couldn’t let that happen, she might find solace with him but she couldn’t let herself feel for a soulless monster.

After the song and dance demon came to town, she lessened her hold and kissed him a couple times. She became even more depressed after his chip didn’t react to her; she was positive that she had come back less than human. She had to be a monster, so she might as well act like it. She wanted Spike for sometime, so she took what she wanted. She thought that after that night in the abandoned house, she had gotten the tension out of her system, but it didn’t work. She went back for the feeling of escapism she got from sex with him over and over; she used him with no thought to his feelings. She led him on, insulted him, mentally toyed with him, she hated herself and she took it out on him. He tried to save her from the self-destruction that she was careening towards; he tried to get her to live again and tried to stop her from turning herself in on a murder she didn’t commit, and she just kept punishing him. She beat him to a bloody pulp and never looked back to see if he got out of the alley before sunrise. How could she do that to someone who just wanted to help her? Because she wouldn’t let herself believe that what she felt was real.

She lied to herself about her feelings for him; she was too afraid of her friends’ reactions and her history with men in her life. Slowly she came to her senses and made the decision to go on with her life, and that meant she had to stop her sick tryst with Spike. She apologized for the way she had treated him and said that they had to move on. She saw him again after that, and she still tried to tell him that what they had wasn’t real. He showed up at Xander and Anya’s not wedding with some floozy. If what they had wasn’t real then why did that hurt? She went to see him with the Trio’s camera and told him that the feelings were real, but just on his part. She knew that would hurt him, but she had to push him away.

She hurt him so many times; it was only a matter of time before he hurt her, intentionally or not. Willow hacked into the Trio’s surveillance system and she, Willow and Xander caught the show of Spike and Anya having sex on a table in the Magic Box. Xander went to the store n a murderous rage, ready to kill Spike for touching Anya. Then the whole affair came out, her friends reactions were as she expected. She didn’t want to deal so she just decided that she wasn’t even going to talk to Spike about the thing with Anya, but Spike wouldn’t cooperate with that plan. He came to see her after a patrol to apologize for hurting her with that thing with Anya. He told her that he cared about her and said that she should’ve just let Xander kill him. She told him she couldn’t let that happen, she remembered the conversation well.

He tried to convince her that she didn’t need to hide her feelings, to let herself feel it. She didn’t know whether it was Spike’s demon nature, his desperation to reach her emotionally or just the familiarity of this “Yes, no” dance that they’d gone through so many times that made him not realize what he was doing to her. She had never been more afraid then those horrible two minutes when she tried to throw him off her. She was never hurt physically, but the fact that he tried to do that shook her to the core. Part of her wanted to believe that he wouldn’t hurt her like others had, but after that she couldn’t believe that anything good could come from them being together. With the way things had been between them all that year, it was only a matter of time before things got out of hand and something like that happened. Looking back, Buffy couldn’t help but think if she hadn’t screwed with Spike’s head so often then that night might never have happened. There is NEVER a justifiable reason for rape, but if the two of them hadn’t let things get so out of hand between them then it might never have gotten to such a horrible point.

It was three months before she saw him again. She ran into him in the basement of the new high school, he was covered with scars and clearly insane. She could barely look at him after he returned a few days later, now seemingly possessing his lost marbles. He put on a show and tried to be the Big Bad, he even went vamp face and taunted her when he got into a scrap with Anya. They exchanged blows and she ran off to find the worm demon that Anya turned a girl’s boyfriend into. Spike followed and began using his patented violence to subdue the Tremors reject, but he went for the kill just as the worm was turned human again and his chip fried his brain. It also seemed to send him back into his state of delirium.

He ran off after he babbled about some impending doom, and she went after him. She found him in an old church, and he still sounded crazy. He babbled on about a spark, she didn’t understand what that meant until he mentioned Angel. He said that he wanted to give her what she deserved: someone with a soul. He went through a mystic trial to get his soul restored, the concept that a soulless vampire would want, let alone fight for his soul to be returned was inconceivable. The vampire she saw cry in the church wasn’t the Spike she had known, he was a broken, pitiful man begging to be forgiven. The encounter really changed Buffy’s view of him; maybe he wasn’t the monster she thought he was. It was heartbreaking to see him like that, but she still wasn’t sure how to deal with him.

For a few weeks he just stayed in the basement of the new high school, she stopped to see him every other day. She learned that there were three modes to his insanity; the first was almost catatonic, the second ranted about stuff that made no sense at all for hours, and the third would mumble or scream about how horrible he was. She also noticed that he often had conversations to thin air; at the time she thought it was another side affect of the soul, but she realized later that it was the First talking to him.

She finally got him out of the basement, and he began to regain his lost marbles. He stopped acting all Looney Tunes but he seemed different, especially to her. He acted distant, it seemed like he was avoiding her. That came to a head after her conversation with the vamp, Holden Webster, when he told her that Spike sired him. Spike still had his chip and he had a soul now, so how could he be feeding on humans again? She wasn’t going to take the word of a vamp; she had to see it for herself. She followed him to the fare ground and saw him with some girl. It made her anxious, not only because of the idea that he might be feeding, but she felt a twinge of an emotion that she really didn’t want: jealousy. One of the most notorious vampires in history may be killing again and she’s jealous because her vampire is spending time with other women. Self involved much?

‘OK, so maybe I was a little jealous, but that doesn’t mean I was wrong on either counts.’ Buffy thought to herself. As much as she wished it wasn’t true, Spike called her up and led her to the basement of that old house. He told her he didn’t remember everything but that he might’ve killed someone, and then suddenly he turned into a roaring monster. Fighting Spike was bad enough, but the mob of newly risen fledglings didn’t help matters. She was held up by the vampires for Spike, she saw in his eyes that he wasn’t gonna stop, he was ready to drain her dry. She watched as he tasted the blood from a cut, and was relieved to see he’d regained his senses. She had an easy enough time disposing of the vamps, but seeing Spike huddled in the corner shook her more than she could believe. Spike sat there, begging her to kill him, until he looked to the side and told some unseen thing that he did what it wanted. That’s when she knew that the unknown Big Bad that had been playing them was also playing with Spike.

She took him home to keep an eye on him, which just thrilled her friends. The whole sordid tale of their relationship, Spike feeding again, the looming Big Bad, the whole situation had everyone on edge. And on top of everything else, Willow brought Andrew back from her trip to the butcher shop. The perfect cherry on their Sunnydale sundae: a formerly evil, currently annoying hostage. As it stood, Anya and Xander were having better luck talking to Andrew than she was with Spike. Apparently, as an added bonus to the soul, he had tapped into the most common of all human feelings: self-hatred. For the first time in over a hundred years he was experiencing guilt, sorrow, and that nagging voice that whispers in your ear that you’re no good. A conscience tells you right and wrong, and now Spike began to see that he had done truly terrible things. Then he broke free, smashed through a wall and tried to kill Andrew.

They chained him back up in the basement, and then Xander figured out that something had brainwashed him to attack on a certain signal. She went down to see Spike to tell him and he told her to kill him before he caused more damage. She tried to reason with him, tell him that he wasn’t the same man he was before, but he wouldn’t hear it. He said that even with his bright new soul, he was still a monster. She tried to convince him that he could change, but he told her that she knew he would never change and wanted him to be a monster. He said that she wanted the pain that being with men like him gave her, needed the hate to be the Slayer.

She wondered if he was right, just like when he said she had a death wish. She wondered if she did enjoy the pain and the hurt, if deep down she wanted to experience the Hell that she fought so hard against. She knew as a Slayer she was drawn to the darkness, did that part of her want to be physically and emotionally abused? No. She wouldn’t let it. Faced with your dark side you have a choice, you can give in or you can resist. The darkness is only as powerful as you let it be, and it can be defeated by telling it “I will not let you control me.” She knew that Spike had that will power to resist his evil nature, his soul was proof of that. She believed in him, and when she told him that his face was couldn’t have been more shocked if she had just told him to bite her. She debated to say more than that, but the Bringers broke up their little moment and kidnapped him.

She and her friends had known something was coming, but you know you’re out of your league when you’re up against the First Evil. Fiends from Hell are one thing, she knew how to deal with those, but how can you fight the root of all evil, especially when you can’t even lay a hand on it? Then Giles showed up with the Potentials and the fun just kept on leaving. This was happening because she was alive; the First had the opportunity to wipe out the entire Slayer line because her friends brought her back from the grave. She tried to repress the guilt that news gave her; the guilt-ridden Buffy that was around the previous year couldn’t protect the girls, save Spike, or deal with the First.

She and Giles went to the Christmas tree lot where she encountered the First four years earlier, it wasn’t there but something else was. The Ubervamp the First raised was unlike any vampire she’d ever faced, never before had she received a beating like the one it gave her that night. It was stronger than any creature she’d faced, except maybe Glory, and it could match her fighting style with a precision she’d never faced before. Even with the injuries from that fight, the thing that really got to her was that, as strong as the Ubervamp was, it was just one and certainly not the last of the First’s surprises. She’d faced everything Hell could offer and now she faced the thing responsible for the existence of all the things she’d fought against. She knew that night as she sat in her room that this was the end. This wasn’t her average big fight, this was going to be her last stand. Then she would let it be the last stand, she’d make it and take the First down with her.

The next few days passed relatively quietly, more Potentials came to Sunnydale, they did research on the First that yielded no results, but at least the First or the Ubervamp didn’t make a move yet…or so they thought. A Potential that was in the house was actually the First, planting the seeds of doubt in the girls’ minds, and it was no doubt been trying to get Spike to join the dark side again since it captured him. She needed to get rid of the Ubervamp to get Spike back, and she needed to show the Potentials that they could fight and win against the things that go bump in the night. So, she, Willow and Xander came up with a plan to kill two vamps with one stone, just as long as it wasn’t her vamp that got killed. Killing the Ubervamp was a tough fight. She showed the girls and she showed herself that she could fight and win. With the Ubervamp gone, getting into the First lair was a breeze, the Bringers were too involved with chanting to see her slip in and they were dead before they knew what him ‘em. She grabbed one of their knives and went to find Spike, and she found him tied up, bruised, scarred, and delirious. When she approached him he thought she was just the First tormenting him, but the look on his face when she cut him loose, she wasn’t sure which of them would burst into tears first. She let him lean on her until they got to Xander’s car, and after they returned to Revello Drive, she practically carried him down to the basement. He passed out from exhaustion the minute she set him on the bed, but she was up for a few hours just watching him sleep.

The following days weren’t any easier, Spike being back was a load off her mind but it was a slow process to heal him, and she was willing to help him through it. But just when it looked like she wouldn’t have to worry about Spike anymore, the chip started firing at random in his head. After an awkward conversation with a flower shop owner, that turned out to be a government agent, they went to the old Initiative HQ to see if they could find anything on the chip. She hoped they’d find some kind of instruction manual or something on the chip, Spike was hoping they’d find some of the drugs the Initiative used to keep the captive demons docile. The inside of the old base was high on the creepy scale, the obligatory enveloping darkness, the dozens of rotting human and demon bodies, and then they found the sole survivor of the battle between the Initiative soldiers and Adam’s disciples.

Thankfully the conversation with the “flower shop owner” wasn’t a waste of time, cause a special ops team found them after she killed the demon. The scientist told her that if left as it was, the chip would continue to send of the shocks until it dusted Spike. They gave her the choice: they could repair the chip so it worked like before or remove it entirely. She was kind of stunned at the idea, and, despite Giles’ reaction, it wasn’t an easy choice to make. For four years that chip had been the only guarantee that Spike couldn’t hurt anyone, even when he was trying to do good, she always thought that if it stopped working or he got it out then he’d go back to being a killer. All the times they had sex he never bit her, but she still thought he’d kill and feed if it was somebody he didn’t care about. The presence of the trigger now made the chip useless, he could kill without the chip stopping him; hut it wasn’t just the chip that stood in the way of him killing now that he had a soul.

It all came down to a question of trust. Could she trust him without a chip in his head? Yes, she could trust him not to hurt them all, he was a good man. She never told anyone, but there was one other factor of her decision that, the situation made her remember her mother. Seeing someone she loved in pain because of something inside them, the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop the pain, the helplessness of knowing that they could die and she couldn’t help. Her mom died because that Goddamn thing in her head ate away at her brain, tore up her mind until she couldn’t recognize her own daughters. It was so bad they had to cut open her skull to fix it, but it was too late. Just when it looked like she was going to be fine it killed her. No way was she going to let that happen to somebody she loved again. Of course, Giles wasn’t exactly thrilled with this information.

As the weeks wore on, things just kept getting worse. More and more Potential Slayers came to Sunnydale, and soon you had to be up at 5 a.m. to get into the bathroom without waiting in line. The language barrier was becoming a big problem; it took them three weeks to realize Chao-Ahn was lactose intolerant. She had suspected that the new principal, Robin Wood, was not what he appeared to be, but thankfully he didn’t turn out to be an evil rat like Snyder, he even turned out to be the son of a Slayer. It was good to find out all that, but frankly she’d just like to forget that “date” ever happened. A few nights later, the First talked a Potential into hanging herself, then something snapped inside her. This wasn’t the average fight, this wasn’t one of those “Around late May something bad is gonna pick a fight” apocalypses she’d seen. This was all or nothing, and as it stood, they weren’t going to win. The girls weren’t ready to fight, Willow was still to gun shy with her magic, and Spike’s soul had sapped him of his lust for violence; with that combination they were more unprepared than they ever had been. Looking back, she kicked herself for the harsh words to all of them; in one sweeping generalization she belittled all of the Potentials’ work, Willow’s recovery from magic, and the miracle of Spike’s soul.

They pulled out a box that belonged to Wood’s mother and found some weird ancient shadow puppets, shadow puppets that opened a portal to some weird prehistoric dimension where she met the men who made the First Slayer. They chained her up and planned to do to her what they did to the First Slayer: infuse her with the sprit of a demon. They’d take away her humanity, just like they had with the First Slayer. She wanted to beat the First, but there was no way she’d let those bastards rape her soul. She beat the Shadow Men and destroyed the demon spirit, but then they showed her just what she was up against. They showed her a vision of a vast underground cavern filled with tens of thousands of Ubervamps. What chance did they have against the First’s army? Her dream with the First Slayer was right, it wasn’t enough and it never would be enough to stop it. That night, she realized the fear she’d had since the whole mess started was justified. The inevitable and terrifying reality that she’d been trying to deny was well founded. No matter how hard they trained or prepared, they couldn’t beat the First.

She began pushing the team harder, making sure everybody was in top form, ready to fight. They might not be able to defeat the First, but they wouldn’t just lie down and let it take over. They’d fight to the last man or woman, they might lose but they’d go down fighting. The other Scoobies had their experience and years of demon fighting under their belt, but the only real fighters they had were herself and Spike. She could take care of herself, but the First was focusing a lot of its efforts on Spike and she couldn’t lose him. He was her rock, her strength; he knew her like nobody, not even her friends knew her. She hadn’t felt so safe with someone since she and Angel were together, and even that paled in comparison. They were getting close, becoming comfortable with each other, no wonder an attempt on Spike’s unlife was in the works.

Giles couldn’t trust that Spike was good, his Watcheryness wouldn’t let him trust a vampire and his father-daughter relationship with her didn’t want her to be involved with someone he saw as undeserving of her. Robin Wood had a grudge going back to when he was a little boy when Spike killed his mother. When Giles used the charm to study the trigger, finding that it was still active, it was the perfect excuse to take Spike out. They said, maybe they even believed that it was all for the mission, when it was really all about their own vendettas. After the failed attempt to kill Spike, Buffy never looked at Giles the same way again. She realized that though she had become the leader, he had still seen himself as her Watcher, her guide, and her teacher. Like she was supposed to lead, but under his guidance; the same puppet show control the Council had before it was destroyed. Now when she saw Giles, she saw Quentin Travers, the despotic head of the Watchers Council, she saw the Shadow Men that tried to force a demon into her. She doubted she could ever really forgive or trust Giles again after that.

As if things weren’t bad enough, bigger trouble came to Sunnydale in the form of a woman hating good ol’ boy priest named Caleb and the return of Faith. Faith, the other Slayer; the one person, besides Angelus, who did more to screw up her life than anyone else. As if morale wasn’t bad enough, Miss “Want-Take-Have” had come back into the picture. She took the girls out for drinks, she flirted with Spike, and Potentials were looking to get her out of there and put Faith in her place. They never really found out Caleb’s whole story, but it was obvious he was working as one of the First’s top agents. The First had been one step ahead of them since this started, they had to take the upper hand by taking whatever Caleb possessed. They launched an attack on Caleb’s base at an old vineyard, and it ended up with two deaths, almost everyone injured, and Xander with is eye poked out. Never in her life had she hated being the Slayer more. She was their leader and she lead them into a trap so obvious that nobody, not even Andrew, would have fallen for it. Well, maybe Andrew would’ve.

It shouldn’t have happened, she should have been able to keep them from dying. That’s what a Slayer is supposed to do: keep people from dying. What the hell kind of Slayer lets people, especially her friends, get hurt? After that, she was surprised she didn’t see the next thing coming. She didn’t think she was wrong that Caleb had something worth getting, but considering her failure as their leader, no wonder they turned their backs on her. Even her own sister said she couldn’t do her job. That night when she walked the abandoned streets of Sunnydale, she wished that the First would come on out and just end it. She felt like she had failed them all, and the following day and night she just wished she could go to sleep and never wake up.

She went into that guy’s house and lay in the bed, trying to will herself to sleep. She couldn’t take the guilt, rejection, sorrow, and loneliness. She desperately wanted to escape, even temporarily, into the oblivion of sleep, but the Sandman wouldn’t be visiting her until the next night, when Spike came to her. She tried to block out his words of encouragement, telling herself that he was just saying all this because he was in love with her and couldn’t see the truth. She even tried to push him away by saying he was only interested in her because he couldn’t have her. He proved her wrong, he proved undeniably that he loved her with all his heart and soul. When he gave her that speech telling her she was the one, she had never felt so loved, so special. He gave her her confidence back. She felt like somebody who worthy of love and trust, somebody who could win fight against anything, she felt like, well, the Chosen One.

It gave her back her confidence and she was able to infiltrate Caleb’s vineyard and get the Scythe. He told her that night holding her while she slept was the best night of his life, but she never told him that it was also the best night of her life too. He asked her if it meant anything that she was with him all night, but as usual, her stupid fears surfaced. If she said it did, then what they had was real, and if what they had was real then it would only be a matter of time before he left. So, she did what she'd always done before: she avoided dealing with it. He dropped it when he saw she wouldn’t say one way or the other, and said they’d go be heroes. Later she went to an old temple where she met that weird old woman, Caleb showed up and she finally killed him and Angel showed up and she kissed him.

She didn’t really know why she kissed Angel. She didn’t really feel the same way for him as she did once, and she new she felt something strong for Spike. Looking back, she thought the main reason was because it was easier to indulge in a past love than deal with the reality of a current one. Angel was her past, her fantasy, and that made him safe. He couldn’t hurt her because he wasn’t a big part of her life anymore, he couldn’t leave her because he already left. She was too scared to deal with feelings for a real relationship, so she hid in the comforting fantasy of her high school love. When he said he’d fight with her in the big battle, it shifted her priority. If he was in this fight and they all died, there would be no other heroes left to stop the First. She needed him to get his team ready to fight if it came to that. But that wasn’t the only reason, and even he could see that. If he was around, he’d see her and Spike interact, and if he did, he’d see that they were involved. Her friends weren’t perceptive enough to figure how deeply they were involved, but Angel was. If he saw the truth of her and Spike’s relationship, if he saw that she was in love with him, then she and everyone would have to admit it was real. It was a subconscious thing about how loss of loved ones affected her, if it was real then they’d leave. She couldn’t let it be real, if it was real then it would end up the same way it had with all her other “real” relationships with people she loved. She loved her father and he left her; she loved Angel and he left; she thought she loved Riley and he left; she loved her mother and she died; she loved Giles like a father and he left; but she never admitted that she loved Spike, and he stayed. She feared that if she allowed herself to love Spike, then he’d break her heart and leave just like everyone else had.

Buffy went back to Spike after she gave Angel her whole “cookie dough” speech (to this day she still groaned at the total absurdity of that analogy) and Spike wasn’t exactly in good mood. He saw her and Angel kissing, not exactly a good way of convincing somebody that you have serious feelings about them. He just shrugged it off and demanded the amulet. She was terrified to give it to him, considering she didn’t even know what it was supposed to do. What if it turned out to be a mystical A-bomb? She’d lose him. But as he pointed out, there wasn’t really anyone else in the group who could wear it. She said it was meant for a champion, he immediately backed down, thinking that she would never see him as a champion, but she walked forward and gave him the amulet. They slept in each other’s arms that night, but even that wasn’t comforting enough to stave off the dread of the battle ahead.


The First dropped by for a taunt, but it unintentionally gave her the idea to activate all the Potentials’ Slayer powers. It was decided the next day, they’d take that day to prepare for the fight and the day after, they’d go to the Hellmouth for the final show down. That night she went to Spike in the basement, and shared what they thought was their last night on Earth. She watched him sleep that night and silently pledged that if they survived the battle, they’d start over. They’d have a real relationship, and she’d tell him she loved him.

Walking into Sunnydale High that day felt worse than walking into the Master’s lair all those years ago, she had an awful feeling that many of them wouldn’t walk away from this one, maybe none at all. Giles, Wood, Xander and Dawn stayed upstairs to handle any Ubervamps that got past her team, and Willow went to perform the spell to call the Slayers. She, Spike, Faith and the Potentials went into the Hellmouth, and faced off against the First’s army ready to fight to the death. They fought hard but they were outnumbered, for every one Ubervamp they killed, twenty more popped up.

Suddenly she heard a scream and an explosion; she turned and saw Spike standing in a ray of sunlight with the amulet glowing. A beam of sunlight shot from the amulet into the cavern, every Ubervamp in its path was dusted in a second, and it was even destroying the cavern itself. They felt the ground shake as the power of the amulet rocked the foundations of the Hellmouth itself, they needed to get out of there. The others ran out of the cavern, but Spike still stood in that shaft of sunlight, he was stuck there as the conduit for the power of the amulet. She realized with pure terror that he wasn’t going to get out. He couldn’t leave with the amulet frying the place and if he took it off he’d get fried from the sun light outside. She saw the whole cavern begin to collapse and knew time was running out. She had to do something to get him out of there, but he wouldn’t even consider it. He was dead set on finishing the fight, even if it meant his final death. She grabbed his hand, trying to get him to run, but even when their hands burst into flames she saw that he was staying.

Tears clouded her vision as she said the only thing she could think of to get him to come with her: “I love you.” But it was too little too late; he smiled and said “No you don’t but thanks for saying it.” To say she was stunned would be an understatement; it took the tremor of the collapsing Hellmouth to bring her back to reality. He ordered her to go, and she ran out and left him there. She ran faster than she had ever run before, her body was on the brink of exhaustion but she kept going until she made it to the roof. She raced over the rooftops of Sunnydale, the town collapsing right on her heels. She leapt onto the bus and rode it as it rocketed past the city limits. She and the rest of the Scoobies got out of the bus and surveyed the damage; the entire town was now a crater several miles wide. Sunnydale, their home for seven years, was gone, the Hellmouth was gone. She was numb, shell shocked by the fact that she was free. After all this time, she wasn’t the one and only Slayer anymore. She could be normal, she could have a life, she could have a future! She and Sp…oh that’s right, Spike was gone. Her mind was so jumbled, she barely heard Giles ask what caused the destruction. She told him it was Spike and that was the last thing she said for several hours. She stayed silent until later that night when she and Dawn were alone.

Dawn stayed in the room while she went to get ice, and when she came back, she heard her crying. She set the ice on the table and found her in the bathroom; she lay on the floor with her bleeding hands covering her face.

“Dawn, what happened?” she asked, examining the little cuts on her baby sister’s hands.

“It’s all gone.” Dawn croaked, her tears washing the tiny smears of blood from her face. “Our house, our stuff, Mom and Tara’s graves, it’s all gone. I know it was an evil town, but it was our home!” Buffy hugged Dawn as she cried she couldn’t help crying herself. “And Anya and those Potentials, they’re all dead, and they deserved better than to get buried in that crater! And Spike! He’s gone and I never told him I forgave him! He was my best friend and the last thing I said to him was ‘Pass me that crossbow.’ How could I let him die thinking I hated him? I’m an awful person!”

By now, Buffy had broken down too. She hugged Dawn tighter and began to speak through the tears. “No, Dawnie, you’re not. We all have things we wish we’d said or not said to people we lost. There are a million things I wish I’d said to Spike if I’d known that was the last time I saw him.”

“He loved you so much.” Dawn said, gripping her sister’s clothes in her fists. “I don’t know what he thought of me, but…”

“He loved you too!” Buffy said seriously. “He always thought of you as his ‘Little Bit’. Don’t ever think you didn’t mean anything to him.”

“I loved him too.” Dawn said, her eyes welling up again. “But I never told him so. I never told him I forgave him, and now it’s to late. He must have thought I hated him.”

“Never!” Buffy said, sniffling. “He was the most perceptive person I know, he knew you loved him.”

“Did you love him?” Dawn asked as she rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. Buffy tensed at the question, the final moments in the Hellmouth replayed in her head.

I love you

No, you don’t but thanks for saying it.

“Yeah, I loved him.” She said, her voice quivering. The two of them cried and hugged each other for a while, then slowly they switched to reminiscing of good times of their lost friends. It still hurt, but it was a little easier with each other’s shoulders to cry on.

The group went to LA after that night, it wasn’t an easy encounter. She told Angel about the battle, but other than that, she didn’t spend much time with him. She felt like her feelings for Angel just help convince Spike that she didn’t love him, and part of her blamed him for bringing that amulet that killed Spike. The group left for England a week later. They held a memorial service a month later in London; they erected graves for everyone they lost in Sunnydale all the way back to the beginning. She visited Spike’s grave often while they were in England. She loved him and was so proud of him for proving that he was the champion she always said he could be.

Buffy put up a brave face until she and Dawn were in Rome, then she really let herself mourn Spike. She couldn’t believe that Spike was gone forever, she half expected him to pop up with one of his rude comments all the time. He wasn’t supposed to die. They were supposed to get through the fight and start over like a real couple. She looked back over the way she treated Spike and she was ashamed of herself. He stood by her when everyone else turned against her, he gave her confidence back. He asked her if that night he held her meant anything, and an hour later she was kissing Angel. No wonder he didn’t believe her. She couldn’t admit she loved him when he was there, because she was afraid he’d leave but not telling him didn’t stop him from dying. She would’ve given anything to go back and just tell him the truth, so he wouldn’t have had to die thinking he was unloved. She walked around and took in the fantastic Roman sights, but in her heart she could only wish Spike was here to enjoy it with her.

Then the dreams started. At first they would replay the last few moments in the Hellmouth, right up until she told him she loved him. She’d tell him and he’d say she didn’t, and then she’d do things different. She’d rip the amulet off him and run. She’d drag him out of the cave while he was still wearing it. She’d wear the amulet herself so he could escape. She’d actually have Angel be the one to wear the amulet so Spike could get away with her. Sometimes, she’d just stay with him until the end; even when their hands caught on fire and the ceiling came crashing down she didn’t leave him. Once, she’d been standing on the edge of the crater with her friends and she suddenly ran back in and dug him out of the wreckage of Sunnydale. Dozens of times, lots of different ways; every night she’d save him. Until her subconscious came up with a new way to torture her.

After a while she’d replay instances when she’d treated him awful or times when she regretted not telling him her feelings, with a twist. The first time that happened, it was a version of the morning after the first time she and Spike had sex with the roles switched. Instead of her running off, it was him that told her that it was wrong. He called her convenient and wrong, she experienced every awful thing she said to him. As the dreams continued, she experienced every horrible thing she ever said or done to him; every name called, every punch thrown, every single thing she ever did to hurt him. Once she dreamt of Spike being brutally tortured by a monster wearing a mask, and when she ran in to save him she took the mask and saw that the monster’s face was her own. If she thought she hated herself that year the Scoobies brought her back, now there were times when she could barely look herself in the mirror.

It got so bad that she actually contemplated suicide, but every time she did she felt like she would somehow nullify Spike’s sacrifice by dying. For six months she reflected on Spike, and then one day she was walking by the ocean. For the first time in months, she noticed just how beautiful it all was. The sun, the ocean, her life, everything that she and everyone had was because of Spike. He died so she could be happy and live. She promised that day that his death wouldn’t be in vain. She would live every day to the fullest, and make sure Spike was remembered. But she also swore that she’d never love another man again.

She shut down any impulse of romantic tendency; she refused to even think about guys or pursuing another relationship. If a guy hit on her she just ignored him, and with all the would-be Casanovas in Rome it wasn’t easy. The guys were sure cute, but all she wanted was the pair of blue eyes, some pronounced cheekbones and British accent that belonged to her dead love. She couldn’t watch romantic movies without thinking of him and breaking down, even some Disney movies had an affect on her.

She let her hair grow out, like he always liked, but she didn’t bleach it often, which sometimes resulted in very pronounced brunette roots. She went to the club with Dawn often, but she never tried to meet anyone. Until one day she met a very unusual guy. She was in her favorite club, and suddenly the bar tender handed her a drink and said it was from the guy sitting further down the bar. He was taller than her, dark hair, gorgeous, dressed in a $1,000 suit and a voice like an angel. She hated him immediately.

He talked with her for an hour, she wasn’t interested, but the months without any satisfaction were beginning to make her antsy. The guy introduced himself as Lucius Giovanni, the Immortal. She had some research done and found out the Immortal was considered like a rock star of supernatural beings. He’d been around for thousands of years and done a lot of good and a lot of bad in his time. Well, this guy was her type: at least 100 years old, dark past, might be evil, and annoying at times. She talked to him more often, and slowly she began to like him, but not love him. She even told him that she wasn’t in love with him.

He replied “Cara, please understand that I am not exactly in love with you either, at least not in the sense of spending all of eternity with you. Don’t misunderstand me, Miss Buffy, I care about you, but I could never limit my affections to a single partner. I really like you, and I wish to make what we have last as long as it can, but I will never settle down with any woman.”

She didn’t care he felt that way, because that’s exactly how she felt. She liked him, enjoyed his company, and the sex was good, but it wasn’t going anywhere with them. They’d have their fun, get whatever they could out of it and when it ended it ended. Dawn wasn’t comfortable with this, but she told Buffy that if this is what it took to move on then she should do it. For two months, she and the Immortal were together, but then one night, something happened that Buffy would regret. She had just come home from her job and she noticed a figure sitting, facing away on the couch.

“Hi Lucius.” She said, not seeing his face as she walked towards the kitchen.

“Hello luv.” said a painfully familiar voice. Buffy froze, she almost couldn’t bear to turn around to see and hear Spike’s voice coming from Lucius’ mouth. She turned and felt her a lump rise in her throat at what she saw. Where the Immortal stood was Spike wearing a leather coat over Lucius’ expensive suits. Buffy knew it wasn’t really Spike, but it was a damn good imitation.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Buffy asked, unnerved and attracted by this simulation of her twice-dead lover.

“Isn’t this what you want?” The Immortal asked in Spike’s voice. “A bleach blond, cigarette smoking, alcoholic, dirty minded vampire?”

“Stop it.” Buffy said, her voice almost a whisper.

“I thought you’d like this,” He said, reverting to his real voice. “I know you think about him, especially when you sleep with me. ”

“Shut up.” Buffy said, fighting the conflicting feelings of desire and disgust.

“Come on, Darling, you know you want it this way.” Lucius said, seductively slipping back into Spike’s voice. She did want it, as much as she tried to deny it, seeing Spike again, even if it wasn’t real, set her skin on fire like it hadn’t in a year. She was torn; Part of her wanted to just forget that Spike was gone and pretend that he was with her for a little while, and the other part was angry and disgusted at the Immortal for pulling a stunt like this and at herself for being turned on by this.

“No.” Buffy whispered. Her voice was devoid of emotion, but the look in her eyes told the Immortal that she was very tempted by his little game.

“Come on, luv, a bit of the rough and tumble?” Lucius said, once more in Spike’s voice. Finally the Immortal came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered, “I love you, Buffy.”

Buffy couldn’t stand it anymore; she whirled around and crushed her lips against the Immortal’s. She ripped his shirt off while he tried slowly removed her clothes, but she wouldn’t break the kiss long enough to do it. She pushed him onto the sofa and straddled him. With one hand she ran her fingers through the bleach blonde hair and with the other she unzipped his pants.

“Oh, Cara mia!” The Immortal groaned.

“Shh, shut up.” Buffy said, looking into the mystically altered face of her lover. “Just be him. Just be Spike.”

This wasn’t about making love by any stretch of the imagination; this was escapism, about feeling something other than despair and loneliness. This was the same as the night she and Spike brought the house down in Sunnydale. The next morning when she woke up, she expected to see Spike with her, but all she saw was Lucius. She bolted to the bathroom and ran the shower full blast. She felt dirty. She couldn’t have Spike, so she fucked something that looked like Spike, it was no different than the Buffybot. Spike deserved better than to have his memory defiled because she wanted sex with a Spike blow-up.

She decided to break up with Lucius that night, but during a walk she saw him making out with some woman. She read him the riot act, but inside she was glad for the excuse to break up with him. Lucius pleaded for her to understand, saying he’d pleasure her in ways she never dreamed possible. And then he went and made that stupid suggestion of a threesome with her sister and she threw him out the window.

That was a little over a week before Lorne showed up with the news that Spike had been back the whole time and died again. When she found out, she was crushed, she felt even worse than before. Spike was alive and they had a second chance, but because he thought she didn’t love him, he stayed away. She had done such a bang up job convincing him that she didn’t love him, he didn’t want to come to her because he thought she’d reject him. The following days were a living hell, and when she saw Spike come back in the bar it was like being back in Heaven.

She had been given another chance, and she wasn’t going to waste this one. She was going to make him believe that she loved him, she was going to say everything she never said in Sunnydale, the two of them were going to have a real relationship. But one thought kept coming to the surface; the nagging question of whether or not they could make it work. There was so much that still needed to be said, so much work on both their parts. Xander’s words that night when Riley left Sunnydale came to her.

“If he's not the guy, if what he needs from you just isn't there, let him go. Break his heart, and make it a clean break. But if you really think you can love this guy ... I'm talking scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need ... if you're ready for that ... then think about what you're about to lose.”

With Angel and Riley she wasn’t ready for that. Spike was the guy, and she did love him. She was ready to face the real, tough, gritty, complicated, scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need kind of love. It wasn’t going to be easy. A rough road lay ahead, but it would be worth it because she and Spike were in love and this time it would be real.

“Even if I have to kill him again to convince him.” Buffy said jokingly. She wrapped the blanket around her and slowly let sleep claim her.





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