He stood there, for how long he didn’t quite know but he stood proud and tall. Proud to have known the woman who he prayed for. Taller because of the man he’d become for her. The slight tremble in his legs remained unseen by all except the young woman who stood next to him.
“Is she really gone this time?” Dawn asked gently, as if a hard sound could break them both.
He looked at her and smiled, “Let’s hope so Niblet, she deserves her peace.”
Dawn returned the smile as best she could, searching for his hand in the dark cemetery. The sound of Willow crying and Xander trying to soothe her didn’t even penetrate the world Spike and Dawn were in right now, in their world, Buffy was alive and happy; free of the torment years of being a slayer had caused.
He looked at Dawn and nodded his head, “Time to go.”
Dawn turned and began to walk slowly past the few people who had been invited to the night-time burial, head held high, she was the sister of the greatest slayer in the world, nothing would ever make her feel like anything less than that.
Spike withdrew a yellow rose from his jacket and tossed it gently on the fresh laid earth, whispering “to never land”. It was something only he and Buffy had shared, in truth, they had been her last words and as simple as they where, those two words were what Spike was holding onto with all his heart.
Spike caught up with Dawn and took her hand in his as they walked together back to their house, the house Buffy had left for only them specifically, making sure to call it Spike’s home too in her letter. He shivered at the thought of that letter. When had she taken the time to write to him? When had she known she was going to die? He was sure the answers would come in time, then again he wasn’t sure if they’d come at all, but he felt at peace with that.
He opened the door to the familiar house and walked Dawn upstairs. He knew his tiny girl was tired and when she went right to her bed fully clothed he sat next to her and sang softly to her until her eyes drifted closed and she lost herself to dreams. Smiling gently at the sleeping girl he eased out of the room quietly and shut the door softly behind him.
He was glad to have some time to himself as he walked into Buffy’s room and sat in the rocker by the window, the moon casting shadows across the room; the shadows casting memories in his minds eye.
He could hear her laugh, see her smile, feel her hits and taste her lips, he could do all this if he closed his eyes and so he did, the stress from the day ebbing from his body as he finally gave way to slumber.
When he woke Dawn was sitting on the floor next to him and he smiled down at the girl he was now the guardian of.
“You should tell your story.”
“You already know my story Niblet.”
She shook her head, “No, I meant your story, the both of yours. It should be told.”
“I couldn’t do her justice Dawn.” Spike said sadly.
Dawn looked into his eyes and with everything she felt in her voice she said, “You’re the only one who can, you’re the only one who didn’t separate her into two people. You saw her as Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Everyone else, well they saw her as Buffy and the slayer.”
Spike smiled softly, “Well then, maybe I will.”
He stood in front of the drawn curtains of her window, his window now he remembered, and though he couldn’t see the sun behind the material he could feel its warmth seeping into his long dead bones, and he felt her in that. The letter she’d left specifically for him clutched softly in his long fingers, its words almost memorized already.
‘Spike,
Take care of her, like I would have. I don’t trust anyone else in the world enough to let them do this. She is by all ways, except for blood, your sister too. If you’re reading this well I guess I’m gone huh? Kinda’ gloomy huh?
Tell Dawny I’m sorry; tell her I know that she’ll be okay. Tell her as long as she lives I live too, she’s my blood.
You’re in my blood too Spike, maybe by the time you’ll read this I’ll have told you. Hey, maybe you’ll never have to read this…but we both know that isn’t likely. Lately I’ve been thinking it’s kind of ironic; the fact that the vampire slayer has nowhere as close to the life span as a vampire does. I’m destined to die young at the hands of something that has the capacity to never die at all. Shitty huh?
Tell my friends I love them please, and please understand that I love you too, in my own way. I have to admit, I may not love well, but I do love Spike; and I love you with every part of me that can still do that.
I don’t know when it happened really, I wish I could tell you. It was somewhere between the night you told me and Angel love was in your blood, screaming at you to do it’s will and the night I was pulled from heaven. Maybe it was every second in between, or maybe it was a single moment when I saw the way you looked at me, the way only you could.
There’s so much that I wish I could have done with you but if this letter is in your hands you’ll have to do it for me instead. Watch Dawn grow, watch over my friends, be good to yourself.
If I’m gone there’s no doubt in my mind that you were there, fighting by my side, trying to keep me safe. It’s what you do, what you’ve always done. A part of me is sorry you had to see it; another part of me knows I must have been okay because you would have made sure to say something, anything, to make it better. That’s another thing you always did.
I bet I noticed a lot more than you though I was capable of, huh (I’m sticking my tongue out at you right now, so there )
My home has always been you’re home, get out of your crypt, take my room, just don’t ever paint it black! The women who have lived and live under this roof have always had you in their hearts and there’s nowhere else in the world you should be right now than with the ones you love.
Be brave Spike, live long and fight hard, fight for you and me, for Dawn, for everything that’s worth fighting for, and when you’re done, come back to me. I’ll be waiting, you know where, I’m sure I’ve told you about it by now but I feel too silly to write it down on paper just yet.
I’ll see you all again when it’s time.
Buffy’
Spike’s eyes scanned the paper and he smiled. It was time to sit down and do some writing himself.
He noticed how quickly the first few years flowed from his pen onto the crisp white sheets of the paper. Hundreds of pages, filled to the brim with facts, feelings, jokes and tears, trials and tribulations. It was the last few months he was having trouble putting into words.
In between the writing and the nightly slaying Spike and Dawn had grown inseparable. He cooked for her everyday, helped her with her homework, taught her how to fight and most of all he helped her go on living. That was the most important thing in the world to him, that and his memories. He knew age would eventually take his Niblet, but he vowed on his still ‘new’ soul that age would be the only thing in the world he would let take her from it. He realized that she helped him go on living as well. Sometimes she reminded him so much of Buffy that the tears would mist his eyes in a single second, and in the same second Dawn would wrap her arms around him while they remembered. Remembered her.
When the others realized that Spike had taken to writing her story they started to come by more often, Xander especially. At first Spike had been shocked to see the boy with red-rimmed eyes on the doorstep late one night in November but quickly understood that despite their once mutual hatred for each other they now shared a mutual grief and the barriers that had once seemed so solid between them came falling down. Everyone had a story to tell, a memory they didn’t want to fade from the world and so they told him, opened up to him in a way they never would have if Buffy were alive. She had given him so much in her life, and had continued to do so even after her passing. He had friends now, friends that depended on him but more importantly friends he himself could depend on.
He watched all of them grow, some their separate ways, others closer than ever before. The watcher had come by one night and given Spike his journal. Hundreds of recorded events that would help Spike fill his pages, events that needed to be told. After that the watcher had left Sunnydale, returning to England but once in a while a thick envelope would come in the mail from him. A letter for everybody inside always, even Spike himself, a check to help Dawn keep the worries of expenses from her mind, and pages upon pages of random memories that he had of Buffy and the others. Spike always wrote him back, never knowing what compelled him to do so, never stopping to ask himself why he worried about the other Brit, just knowing that he felt the need to do it.
In the blink of an eye Dawn was married with two beautiful children, Xander and Anya had walked down the aisle, and the letters from England stopped coming. Willow had made peace with herself and the things she’d done all those years ago and passed away at a young age, from what nobody ever found out. Spike himself suspected that the magic’s she’d used so much of so early on had aged her prematurely and hoped that on the other side her Glinda had been waiting.
With Dawn away from home and the others settled into their life the walls of the house seemed to close in a little. He slept most of the days and nights away, always dreaming of his girl, always meeting up with her as she’d promised in her letter.
One morning he woke up and smiled, it was time to finish the book. It was time to make himself write about her final times, it was time to tell the world about the Slayer and the Vampire, about the love they found amidst the bloodshed and the odds.
can somebody help me? i made a picture for a banner and cant figure out how to put it up...do i need my own website to do so? thanks
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Author's Chapter Notes:
i saw the movie neverland and loved the thought of going there when you pass, not based on it but idea def, from it. will be a spuffy ending.