He still breathed in his sleep.
Funny that she could remember how he slept. Funnier that that was the thing to convince her he was really there. Last night, hearing her name and turning to see him walking towards her from the ruins, she’d thought the First Evil was back in business. Or that she’d finally cracked and started to see ghosts. Even reaching out and realizing he was solid, bringing him back here, everything after that – there’d still been that calm, sad feeling that this was a nice dream, but she’d have to wake up soon.
So she drifted to sleep, and when she woke up she was curled into his shoulder and his arm was around her waist, and his breath tickled against her hair, and it suddenly hit her that this was real.
“Spike,” she whispered, shifting to brush her fingers across his cheek, down to his mouth. He stirred and mumbled something, but didn’t wake up.
She just watched for a long time, and then she carefully untangled from him and climbed out of the bed. Still asleep, Spike rolled onto his side, reaching for the space where she’d been.
Buffy pulled one of the heavy blankets around her shoulders – necessity, not modesty. She was long since unused to having anyone around to see, but she hadn’t lit a fire the night before and midwinter Cleveland was not a pleasant place to be walking around naked in her unheated apartment.
It took her four trips to actually make it to the bathroom. The first three times she had to come back, just to reassure herself he hadn’t suddenly disappeared.
***
Someone had been living in this abandoned apartment block till recently. Vampires, she guessed, what with the covered windows, but vampires old enough to remember things like electricity and running water, because somebody had rigged a tank on the roof that fed to one of the showers. The shower curtain was long gone and the rainwater was freezing, but she stood beneath it as long as she could, letting it sluice over her until she was shaking and leaning against the cold tiles. She barely noticed when the water stopped, and then Spike was gently wrapping the discarded blanket around her and turning her in his arms.
He was barefoot, but he’d pulled on his clothes, faded black jeans and t-shirt, and she thought that was kind of nice to know; that the world could end and Spike didn’t see it as any reason to change how he dressed.
“I just started remembering,” she said. She didn’t pull away from him and the words were muffled, but he just petted her hair, let her go on. “I mean, how insane is that? I haven’t thought about… everybody for so long, and then it just…”
“Got on top of you.”
“Kind of.” She gave herself another moment in the hug, and then she let him go. “Your hair’s brown,” she said, trying for a smile.
“So’s yours.” He stroked his fingers through it, teasing a wet strand towards him, and she had a flash of déjà vu but couldn’t tie it to any one incident.
“World ended. Miss Clairol, not really available.” Maybe it was, if she wanted to spend her time looting through rubble and trashed malls. That was how she got clothes, tinned food. Doing it for something she didn’t need would feel like grave-robbing, like she was no better than the demons who had torn those places apart.
“Cold in here,” he said, letting his hand drop onto her shoulder, “and if I can feel it, must be winter wonderland for you.”
She huddled into the blanket. Icy water was dripping onto her shoulders and she couldn’t remember if she had any dry towels. “I’m used to it. The apartment’s not much warmer.”
“Have to warm you up, then,” he said, but the leer looked forced, like he’d forgotten how.
Appreciating the effort at how they’d once been, and keeping back the sad smile that wanted to creep onto her face, she wrapped her fingers around his and followed him back to her rooms.
***
With the fire, and with dry hair, and with another person to curl up with under a pile of mismatched blankets, it wasn’t so cold. Even if that person did lack body heat.
She wanted to sleep, either till spring or till the world ended the whole way and not just this no-humans-allowed halfway apocalypse, but she wanted to listen to Spike talk, and that was winning out.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.
“Not even supposed to be. Where is this, Ohio? Lost track what side of Lake Erie I was on.”
“You’re supposed to be dust at the bottom of a crater.” She played with his fingers, running her thumb across each one in turn. No scars from where their joined hands had burned, but she didn’t have any, either. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy you’re here. I don’t think there are enough words for happy.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“But how?” she pressed. “Spike, if you came back…”
“It was the amulet,” he said, rolling onto his back, out of her reach. He stared up at the ceiling as he said, “I know what you’re thinking, pet, but your mum, Tara, they’re not wandering around out there somewhere.”
It had only been a tiny hope, but it had ripped open some carefully-covered scars. She closed her eyes for a minute, accepting it, and when she took his hand again he didn’t pull away.
“Tell me the rest of it,” she said softly. “Everything.”
**
The city hall was still standing, more or less untouched by a decade of demon activity. She stalked the streets surrounding it, hoping for a demon or a vampire, willing to settle for one of the cat-sized rats that flashed past her, some nights, in a flurry of razor teeth and rabid eyes. Nothing killable tonight. Something was keeping the rat population low, and then she realized it was probably Spike. Had to get his blood from somewhere, and he’d been here four days before he found her –
(“Heard your heartbeat halfway across the city,” he’d told her, looking at her as if she was the one who’d made the miraculous return. “Thought I had to be dreaming it. I didn’t know it was you, of course. Just didn’t expect a human at all, and when I got close…”
“What, you smelled me?” Softness and a smile taking away any possible harshness. “Gee, way to make a girl feel special.”
Except he had. He did.)
She kicked a lump of masonry out of the way. She wasn’t done being mad with him yet. He’d come back all those years ago and he hadn’t even picked up the phone. And it got better. He’d been in Italy, and he’d known she was there, and he hadn’t even waited to see her.
Doubt was gnawing at her like one of the rats, sharp little teeth getting beneath her skin. He hadn’t wanted her back when the world was still here, when they still might have had a chance. He seemed to want her now, or he had last night, but years of isolation could do that to a guy. Or a girl. She should know.
Another corner turned and he was there, lounging against a half-crumbled wall with one hand cupped around the cigarette he was lighting, and in the space between breaths she was back in Sunnydale.
This never happened: she was leaning out her window glaring at the glow of the cigarette butt beneath the tree. Tonight he’d look up and say something smart, and maybe she’d dare him to come up and say that to her face, and he’d swing himself through the window and get ash on the carpet and they’d have to fight in whispers because Mom and Dawn were asleep. And he’d get so mad he’d kiss her, or she’d kiss him first.
She’d never seen him smoke after the soul. She didn’t know where he’d gotten a cigarette from but she plucked it out of his hand and kissed him until the paper burned down to her fingers.
When she let him go she breathed out his smoke.
“I’m still mad at you.”
“Okay.” He looked her over warily, thumbs hitched in the empty belt-loops of his jeans. “Any thoughts on when you’re gonna forgive me?”
“Not for a really long time.” She kissed him again, sliding her body against his until he finally just lifted her up, strong arms supporting her thighs as her fingers tangled in his hair. Her knees scraped against the wall and she remembered another time in a tumbled down house. “This? Is going to take years to make up to me.”
***
“Christmas this week.”
“Is it?” She was getting used to the talking thing again. Some days she didn’t feel like saying a word. Others she babbled till she missed Willow. This was one of the I-spit-on-your-words days. But Spike seemed to want to talk, so she tried. “I had a five year diary. Used to keep track of the days. But I ran out of years, and I lost it.” She stared into the fire, hypnotized by the flames. “Dawn disappeared on Christmas Day.”
He was lying behind her, chin resting lightly on the curve of her neck, and she felt him stir. “Did she?” Cautious. Neither of them had talked about people who were gone.
“She was so happy,” she said. “By then almost everybody was gone, and we knew it was just humans who were vanishing. I think Dawn thought there was something wrong with her, that she wasn’t human enough. Like she didn’t count because of how she was made. It was just us on Christmas Day. Things were already pretty bad, but we found each other gifts, even some tinned turkey.” Spike pressed a kiss to her neck. She squeezed the hand she was holding and said, “She disappeared for a couple of minutes while we were opening the presents. One minute she was there and the next, just… gone.” If she closed her eyes and tried as hard as she could, she could remember her sister’s face. “It happened three more times, always for longer. By that night, she was gone.”
“Remember the first time I saw it,” Spike said. “There was a preacher yellin’ about it being the Rapture. Thought people were being taken up into heaven. Got a bit pissed off when I asked why he wasn’t the first to be called home.”
“Maybe he was right. About where they went.” Heaven was a warm, distant memory, like a long-faded dream.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Reckon they just went somewhere else. I had a – not really a friend, Illyria wasn’t exactly a friendly sort – I had someone I knew, knew a bit about other dimensions. She said it was just your lot’s time. The demons all went, once, and now it was the humans’ turn to get nudged out. Swings and roundabouts.”
All the talking had made her tired. She let her eyes close, feeling the warmth play on her face.
“Met a couple of Slayers on my travels,” he said when she was almost asleep. “S’pose they hung on longer than most.”
She still dreamed of a girl chained to the ground, that heavy, choking power seeping into her.
“Haven’t seen one for a few years, though.”
“I think they’re all gone, too,” she murmured sleepily. “I think it’s just me.”
**
It snowed on Christmas Day. The cloud cover meant Spike could slouch outdoors in the daytime, wandering with her through the empty streets, right hand loosely in her left. The snowflakes stayed on his bare arms for a long time. He hadn’t told her what had happened to his coat.
“Where have all the demons gone?”
“Thinking of turning folk singer?” He smiled at her puzzlement. “Gone looking for sunnier climes, probably. Got tired of dodging the Slayer.”
They passed Rockefeller Park, long since grown to wilderness. Some animal darted off into the trees.
“I should have just stopped,” Buffy said. “No humans for the demons to kill, so where was the harm? But it was like I needed it. It was all I was.” She’d been that way for years, a piece of herself shutting off after every loss. Xander, Giles, Willow. Dawn, and that was when she stopped being Buffy and just became the Slayer. She’d barely remember who Buffy was until years later, when Spike found her again.
She started to tell him all this, or to just say that she was actually, unbelievably, having a pretty good Christmas, but her hand was suddenly empty and he was a few feet away, staring at her. If it was possible for a vampire to turn paler, he was doing it.
He seemed to struggle for words, and then he simply said, “You were gone.”
***
They ran home, Spike pulling her as if they’d be fine once they were within four walls.
Hours went by. She faded out for ten minutes, then for fifty. It got dark outside. The fire died out and neither of them moved to build it up again.
“I don’t know where it is I go,” she said, looking down at her hands. “It doesn’t feel like I go anywhere. Everything just shifts.”
“I love you,” he said. He sounded hurt, bewildered, and then he pulled himself together, faking a smile. “You’ll be with everybody. Dawn and Giles. Scoobies. I don’t know, maybe Joyce as well, I don’t know how this works. But it’s good, it’s a good thing. I’m glad for you.”
He’d always been a terrible liar.
She rested her forehead against his, tears prickling behind her eyes. “Okay, advance warning. If you try to say that I don’t love you this time, I’m coming back from wherever to kick your ass.”
He smiled, painfully. “That case, no, you don’t. You don’t.”
This time she felt it pull at her, like the world peeling away, and she thought, not yet. In another ten years, maybe. Please, not yet.
“I love you,” she whispered. She kept her eyes open to see the look on his face, but his were closed.
***
“Buffy?”
“Huh?” She shook herself out of her daydream, the open books on the library table coming into focus. Researching. Right.
For a second she’d thought one of the photographs was of a man with expressive eyes and hair that was either white or light brown. She’d thought the school was in ruins, only she hadn’t been in the school.
Xander’s study-session naps were contagious.
“Buffy,” Giles said again, “are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said. “Both keen and peachy. Kind of zoned out over the Ascension research.”
“Deliver us from ennui,” Giles muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Xander complained across the table. “It feels like we’ve been doing this forever. Please reassure me that we’re at least going to the Bronze tonight.”
“Just like always.” She’d bring Scott, and Xander would be with Cordelia, and Willow would be spazzing out over the coolness of Oz on stage. She’d talk to Jenny (there was a frisson of unease there that she pushed away because it didn’t belong), see if she’d talk Giles into coming along.
It’d be great. It always was.
“Be happy, Buff,” Xander said. The light in here, right over the Hellmouth, did freaky things. For a second he didn’t look like Xander at all. “That’s the whole point.”
“I am happy,” she said, and she didn’t know why it sounded so much like a lie.
