Pulling her pink robe tighter around her, she stepped back inside her bedroom and closed the doors behind her, closing herself off from the world for the night.
Still gripping the knobs of the glass doors, her heart beat sped up. She was going to be with him again.
Every night she would dream about Spike. She would dream that he didn't die in the Hellmouth for her, that she did something other than stand there and tell him what she had felt for a very long time. She would dream that he was here, alive.
It was all she could really do.
As she dragged her feet towards the bed, she let out a shaky breath. Dreams of him were all she had now, and she would rather have that than have nothing.
She rested her head on the pillow as she stretched out on the bed, anticipating the time when they would meet again, even if it was just in her imagination. The second she closed her eyes and drifted off into slumber, she did the one thing she wished she would have done more when he was alive: hold him close.
They lay together across the bed in an abandoned tangle of limbs and silk sheets, a comforting, dim glow illuminating her room. Spike's faint scent in the room surrounded her and soothed her.
“I missed you,” she said, tightening her arms around him and nuzzling her head against the crook of his neck, as if that would make him stay. As if it were enough. “I still miss you.” Nothing would ever be enough.
Spike grinned warmly, and her heart broke just a little bit more. “I'm right here, love. Always right here,” he said against her skin and kissed the top of her head with his feather soft lips.
“Good,” she murmured and lifted her face to look at him. “Don't ever leave me again, Spike. Promise me.”
He pressed his lips to hers as a silent promise. “I'm never going to leave you,” he whispered. "Never."
She knew it wasn't fair that she would have him only for him to be taken away from her again. And though she also knew that it wasn't real, that he wasn't really here, seeing him like this didn't feel like fantasy. How could it be when she'd never felt this alive? She clutched at his shirt, his skin unusually warm beneath her fingers.
She would never give this up. She would never give him up. It was easier to pretend than to accept and cope with the fact that he was gone.
He was gone.
She drew in a deep breath and blinked hard to struggle against the tears that threatened to fall. He was gone, and her dream would eventually end. It always ended. Morning would soon come, and she would have to wake up. As soon as a stream of warm morning light through the sheer curtains would fall upon her face, their story would end. The sunrise would tell her what was done was done, and that she had to face a new day. And every time the realization would hit her, her heart would break again, even more painfully than the last time.
But she didn't care.
She looked deep into his eyes. Those eyes that had always seen right through her, even when nobody else did, even when they were still mortal enemies. He knew her like no one else did. He knew things about her she would rather not admit to herself. He knew her. He was the only one who bothered to.
“I love you.” Her voice broke with all the emotions that wrung her heart. “You do know that, don't you?”
He smiled sadly and nodded. “I love you, too, Buffy. I always have.”
And that was all she needed, hearing those three words from him, even just in her dreams. He had been the fire that kept her going when she was at the darkest point in her life, and he still was, even now that he wasn't physically there with her.
She needed him.
She laced her fingers with his and she remembered that moment in the Hellmouth with their hands ablaze and the earth crashing around them. She remembered the look of utter amazement and disbelief on his face when she said the three words he had longed to hear.
She needed him to believe in her. “I really do love you, Spike.” Her lips quivered as she spoke. “I wish I hadn’t left you. I wish I’d done something,” she said through teeth clenched in contempt. “I wish––”
Spike placed a finger over her lips. “Shh, pet.” He cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, caressing it with his thumb, and she leaned into it. “None of that tonight.”
“I'm sorry,” she sniffled. “I just want you here with me.”
“I am,” he said and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I am.” His words were few and simple, but the deep sound of his voice gave it meaning, made it real. It gave her fresh courage to face another day without him.
As she ran her hand up his arm, she felt the warmth she longed for in his touch and the strength she needed in his muscles.
He felt real. He was real.
When she opened her eyes, he wasn't there. She sat up abruptly, looking around the room, hopelessly searching for him. “Spike?”
Realizing it was all just a dream, just like every other night, she let out a sharp breath. Shaking her head, she lay back down on her bed, tears brimming at her eyes.
As she rolled over, letting the tears roll down her cheek to form a salty stain on her pillow as she hugged it, she whispered, “I believe in you, Spike.” She swallowed. “I believe in you.”