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Author's Chapter Notes:
My apologies for not posting last week. Things have been hectic, but I do have some more I could post this week--if you want it that is....~_^
Her self-imposed world of ice and nothingness was crashing around her ears.

Buffy felt frozen inside; her mind, her heart, her soul were all doing a slow thaw because that moment was fast approaching where she could no longer hide. The inevitable was finally catching up with her and she didn’t know what to do but sit as still as her airplane jolting through turbulence would allow and hope that things didn’t explode once she made it to the ground. She wanted to feel warm and after the experience of long and lonely months, Buffy knew there was only one thing that would give her back the flush of heat that had been so long missing from her life: Spike. Previously dead Spike would melt the solid ice within her—the pain of it making her want to scream—and maybe then she could see about breaking his nose for all he’d unnecessarily put her through.

She remembered with shocking clarity the conversation with Dawn that had unveiled the truth. Alone, at home, a bottle of antiseptic to clean her latest wounds and news that almost battered her heart to pieces. Long months spent alone and focused entirely on the mission because the pain of his loss had almost broken her in two; long lonely months where she’d craved his arms around her at night had been unnecessary—because for months Spike had been alive. He’d existed again in her world and he’d not called, not sent her a letter, not even sent her a stupid text message via stupid Harmony. If that wasn’t a sign of retracted love, Buffy didn’t know what was.

“How much longer?” she asked Juanita huskily, her throat raw and aching from hours of repressed tears.

“Not long,” the Spanish girl answered. “Maybe twenty minutes till touchdown.”

“Forty minutes to showdown,” piped in Emma a little too loudly, her trepidation almost giving the aircraft full of slayers a concussion.

Buffy rolled her eyes and then kept them shut. These girls had no clue what a showdown was until they’d witnessed an apparently discarded slayer beat unmercifully the vamp who’d claimed to want her so much but who then turned a blind eye to her existence.

Despite it being months since she witnessed his flame-ball rescue of the world, wandered through endless time of hollow rejoicing that the universe had not been deprived of this lowly spinning planet, Buffy felt the rapid flutter of her blood warning her that it was too soon. She wasn’t ready to see his face again. So much hadn’t been resolved and she needed that distance to sort it all out. Her feelings, her hopes and dreams. God, her reality was so twisted and yet Buffy knew that the first glimpse of Spike would shatter every preconception she’d clung to about her current life’s path and she’d be right back where she started: clueless.

Not that she didn’t want to see him again ever.

Knowing Spike had come back somehow had made every one of Buffy’s limbs lose all feeling—she’d turned to goo at the first impulsive thought she’d had to welcome him in her own special way.

Until Dawn had told her how long he’d been back.

Knowing he’d taken his time to contact her—and let’s face it, she was still waiting—had kind of deflated the buzz of anticipation that had hit her like an avalanche. She’d realised early on in those too quiet nights after the Hellmouth had sunk deep into the ground that it would kill her to dwell on his rejection. Buffy knew without a shadow of a doubt that Spike understood. Not once had she ever tarnished the twisted thing between them with lies. And once it had straightened out into something close to beautiful, Buffy had never even contemplated being anything but brutally honest with him. Often it did little but reveal how confused and scared she was regarding them, but at least she’d not painted a picture even he couldn’t believe. At the last he had to know. He had to know—because he knew her.

But what did it mean for them now?

The question hadn’t stopped spinning around in her head since she’d taken the call from Willow and directed her team to the airplane. The girls were used to heading off at a moment’s notice. It wasn’t like all apocalypses advertised themselves, though that would be totally helpful. Each apocalypse they’d faced since Sunnydale had been little more than a storm in an obscenely British teacup, but Buffy knew that this one would rival the worst she’d ever faced. Knowing that both Angel and Spike were involved almost dictated it as fact. One past lover had almost succeeded in sucking the world into Hell, and adding in the one she’d like to classify as her current lover—despite the very long absent activity that would give the term the literal ring of truth—Buffy didn’t expect this to be anything short of dimensional catastrophe. Taking on evil on such a level would bring retribution from planes they knew nothing of, and yet Angel jumped in with both eyes open and a handful of willing sacrifices. She was going to kick his butt from this world into the next, and if he managed to get Spike killed again in the process, she was going to tie his butt to her foot for the rest of eternity.

The wheels of the aircraft impacted the tarmac with a stomach-lurching jolt. Buffy groaned sickly and braced herself for the final roll to stop. She should be used to this by now but the mode of travel was completely unmixy with her equilibrium. There was no more time for Buffy to think—whatever was to happen with Spike would have to be left to the part of her that reacted automatically and she just hoped he’d be alive at the end of her outburst for her to say hello. Tears stung her eyes at the thought—to have the opportunity to say hello to him again. To look into his clear eyes of love and find the chance she’d been dreaming of. Such opportunities rarely presented twice and Buffy had no choice but to grasp this one with both hands and cling to it with her life. And if Spike wasn’t cooperative, she’d go all cave!Buffy on his ass until he remembered what they were to each other.

With that dilemma having seemingly reached a resolution, Buffy stood and ordered her troops quiet. It had taken some getting used to—leading up to eighty girls a turn—but like other challenges of her life she’d met it with charging success. Buffy Summers was a squadron leader and every time she thought it, she pictured Riley and giggled hysterically.

The doors were opened but Buffy blocked the exit and all the girls stood respectfully waiting. This was the time where orders were sketched out. Where goals and rousing speeches were released into the air. Where the last glance of healthy, strong women were glimpsed before they went out and devoted their lives to throbbing, conniving evil.

Buffy assumed her general’s hat and looked every single one of her girls in the eye.

“You all know why we’re here. There’s a fight out there that only we can win—the White Hats. This one is bigger than anything you’ve faced before. This one is one of the biggest and you need to know that you’ll quite possibly be facing death in its yellow, gleaming eye every sword stroke and every breath you gasp. It will see your fear and it will do everything in its power to win you to its realm. Don’t let it. We’ve come here to do only one thing; win. We’ve come here to keep the world as we know it safe for the generations of people behind us.” A gentle, affectionate smile graced her lips and Buffy fought back a sniffle. “I know you won’t let me down. Move out,” she barked, and stood to the side as the girls stomped down the steps onto the hot tarmac and ran for the number of buses waiting to take them to downtown LA. Buffy followed, making sure no one was left behind and that nothing was going to sneak up and attack from behind.

Willow stood beside the open door of the first bus, smiling absently as each girl bounded up the steps and claimed a seat as close to the back as they could. Without a word she preceded Buffy onto the bus and together they shared a seat at the front.

“This kinda feels like excursions when we were in school, except now we’re the teachers instead of the irrepressible teen spirit in the back.”

Buffy breathed out in a whoosh and rested her head back against the seat. “You have no idea how badly I wish that’s what this was.”

Willow looked at her friend and recognised the dark circles under her eyes as the dedication to duty that it was—peppered with too much emotion about what she was about to encounter when they reached their destination.

“I’m sure there’s a really, really good reason,” she offered. There wasn’t a person alive who could convince her Spike had kept his return secret because he didn’t want Buffy back. She’d seen the love between the two for what it was and Spike wasn’t the kind to turn his back on someone he cared about, whether they kicked him down or not. Besides, they’d been trying to get rid of Spike for years in one way or another. Willow refused to believe he’d let a measly flamey death stop him now.

“I’m not sure that it matters what his reasons are.” The Slayer already looked so defeated that Willow sucked in a harsh, concerned breath.

“Buffy, you can’t think it’s because he doesn’t love you anymore. I don’t think he’s capable of stopping an emotion that strong.”

Buffy smiled before leaning back and closing her eyes again. “I haven’t given up, Will. It’s just hard, you know? For so many months my heart has had to deal with him being dead, and even though my head now knows differently, it’s a huge hurdle to jump without the living, blindingly-white proof. And now that I’m about to see him finally, we could all be about to die. Again. It’s just…when does this ever get to be fair?”

Willow startled at the intent green eyes that were awash with tears but staring at her so confused and eager for the burden to be lifted. And she had nothing. Absolutely nothing to offer her friend who had seemed to live though so much—and die through even more—because she knew Buffy had it in a nutshell. Nothing ever got to be fair—for any of them.

“Maybe all you really need is That Look. You know the one, where he sees you and melts at the awesomeness of his dream come true?”

Buffy giggled. Oh yeah, she knew the kind of look Willow was talking about, and then some. Spike had perfected The Look in the most complimentary way—if only she’d learned to appreciate it before he’d died to save the world.

“Yeah, maybe that’s all we really need in life, to be looked at like we’re the moon and the stars wrapped up in the universe.” She kind of preferred that happier spin on things, and maybe if she could finagle one of those adoring looks from Spike this time, she might not feel like beating him senseless for leaving her in the dark about his return.

As for Angel…

Her expression darkening, Buffy turned to stare at the streets as the bus hurtled through. The traffic seemed to be flowing one way—and not in the direction they were speeding. Police sirens were almost deafening as they ignored the speeding bus and tore around them, the multitude of flashing lights so bright it made Buffy’s eyes uncomfortable.

“I guess we’re approaching Ground Zero,” she mumbled, not a little resentfully. Seriously, when was Angel going to realise that bringing about Hell on earth was so not the way to win friends?

“Definitely a big demony cloud on the horizon,” Willow agreed, and like the hardened warriors they both were, that mask of serious intention slammed down on both faces.

The bus almost immediately came to a screaming halt on the side of the road and Buffy stood, once again assuming her leader role and instructed the girls to fight for their world’s survival. And if they happened across any souled vamps they were to leave their asses to the boss. With an ear-splitting battle cry, the girls filed from the bus and took up positions around the war zone. Willow followed Buffy off the bus and then quickly scanned around for the most secure location to conduct her magic. She gave the Slayer a quick hug and then ran for cover.

It was already dark and Buffy looked up to see the approaching storm, and as the fact processed in her brain, the heavens erupted and rain splattered her face. In the same second she felt him: Spike. He was near and she was standing in the abandoned street, her hands empty of a weapon, wanting nothing more than to run to him and demand explanations and kisses, reassurances that he hadn’t been struck with the Buffy-curse like all the other men in her life. At her feet was her bag of weapons and almost absently Buffy rifled through it and let her palm close around the scythe. They’d had one made for Faith—a perfect match for the one Buffy now held in every way, blessed and everything—but the original would always be with her. For once, Faith seemed to not only understand, but was satisfied.

There wasn’t time for any more procrastination. The second had arrived when Spike would once again fight at her side and as always, it filled Buffy with an overwhelming sense of rightness. They belonged together and all she could do was pray that it wasn’t too late for her to finally get that.

Buffy ran, allowing her feet to guide her to where he stood waiting for the approaching army, allowing her present to merge with the past. A length away from launching herself into his arms and a flicker of the girl beside him had her stumbling over her feet.

Somehow…she was already there.





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