She jumped awake again in the middle of the night, her eyes quickly darting around the room, trying to remember where she was. A soft sigh escaped her lips when the memories returned to her. Rome. The fairly posh apartment she’d rented while she was here looking for other newly-called slayers. She let her head fall back on the pillow, desperately wanting to get back into her dream.

It had been months since she'd dreamed of him. For the five weeks following what would have been the end of the world, Buffy had dreamt constantly. She would see him even when her eyes only closed for a few seconds. As clearly as if he was standing right in front of her. Usually she just relived their last moment together; their hands joined, fingers intertwined. She’d touched his soul then. Literally. And in those few seconds when their hands had burst into flames she could see it. See all of it. His hurt, his pain. His joy, his love. Everything he’d lived. Everything he’d loved. Every scrape and every fall. Everything that made him who and what he was.

She saw the moment when Drusilla had turned him into a vampire. Complete with all the details he had left out. Like the light brown curls and the glasses he sported, and how very innocent, or what a ponce he was, as he would have said. She saw Drusilla hold his heart in the palm of her hand with just one word. “Effulgent”. Saw the change in his eyes. How he thought he found her. The one person that would understand him and see the person he really was underneath his skin. He had wanted it so badly to be her. He had stuck around long after Angelus had ridden him of any illusions concerning who Drusilla belonged to, as he listened to her ragged moans while her “daddy” took his pleasure. He had hoped that maybe one day she would look at him again and see him again. Like he thought she had that first night when he’d given her his life. But she never looked at him like that again, and eventually he’d left.

She saw Angelus teach him to be a monster. How he took everything from him. As if Drusilla hadn’t been enough to break him. For the first time, she understood why he hated Angel so much.

And then she’d seen herself as he saw her. Golden skin glowing in the softest light. Soft, blonde curls trailing down her back. Emerald eyes staring into his. Deadly muscles dancing beneath her skin with every move. Everything about her screaming of power and grace. And when she looked into his eyes this image of herself and the awe in his eyes made her gasp for breath.

And then she’d said it. The thing that she knew he’d wanted so desperately to hear for so long. The words that he’d begged her to say countless times. The words that no other woman had ever really said to him before. Not Drusilla. Not any woman he’d loved. She’d said: “I love you”. She watched a tiny spark of hope flicker for a moment in his eyes. But then it was gone to be replaced with sadness he tried to cover with a kind smile. “No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it.” was the only thing he’d said.

And then she’d left. Left him there to die for her and the world. Left him to be able to stand with what was left of those she treasured most in the world and stare down into the giant crater formerly known as Sunnydale. Left him to stand there and listen to their questions that she had no answers for and smile. Smile because maybe now it would be different. Maybe now she wouldn’t be alone anymore. She had smiled because she’d changed the world forever.

After the first five weeks of constant dreaming, he had disappeared from her dreams entirely. And her nights were empty. She didn’t dream at all. She went to bed tired and woke up still more tired. But she’d pushed through. She was the fearless leader after all.

She'd moved on with her life and tried to make the best of it. She travelled throughout Europe for a while, visiting places where there had been reports of supernaturally strong women fighting in the street. It wasn’t as if they could put out some sort of public service announcement: ‘Hey, if you’ve recently contracted a bad case of superhuman strength and a habit of getting jumped by fanged attackers, please call this number.’ Though there were slayers everywhere now, the new Council that Giles himself was heading was still very much underground. Vamps and other demons had wised up about the situation however. New slayers that had no idea of their new powers or what was going got killed left and right. The vampires in particular got a kick out of drinking a slayer dry.

A few months into the new Council it became obvious that someone had to go on the road and try and find as many of the new slayers as possible. By then all Buffy’s friends had found themselves a new place. Giles was getting the Council back in gear in England. Dawn had chosen to stay with him and despite Buffy’s misgivings was well on her way to becoming a watcher herself. Xander and Willow had decided that they needed a little time off from the group. Xander was currently backpacking through all of Europe and would check in with all of them about once a month. He would report any suspicious demon activity or any slayers he might have stumbled upon and sent the Council’s way. He’d made it clear to all of them however that this was to be the extent of his involvement in the new operation. After Anya’s death he hadn’t wanted to continue helping.

Willow and Kennedy were scouring the world for witches that they could convince to join the Council. It could never hurt to have more magic on your side in the case of another apocalypse. They talked to Giles frequently and Buffy almost as frequently. Andrew had earned himself a position as watcher for all the new slayers. He would explain their calling to them in detail and commence their training under Giles’ guidance. Faith had moved to Cleveland. The fight had always been what she enjoyed most in life. To everyone’s surprise, Wood had gone with her. The two had a small, Spartan apartment and went patrolling every night. Buffy got the occasional call from Faith, but otherwise that was all they saw of her.
With all her friends trying to rebuild their lives, there was no one left to find new slayers but her. She had been in most of the major cities of Europe and some of the not so major ones. She stayed for a few weeks in each, renting an apartment and going out every night, looking for women like her. But her loneliness did not decrease with each slayer she found. It increased. She felt smaller and smaller. Less and less important. Giles had ceased to consult her about Council matters. He merely made decisions and then informed her of them. Slowly but surely she was becoming less and less instrumental to their operation. Of course she found new slayers, but even without her help dozens of slayers were finding their way to the Council on their own. She found herself in the strange situation of being no longer necessary within a group where she had previously been pivotal. Being excluded this way, though not done intentionally, made her feel even more alone.

And then the dreams had gone away, and she truly was alone. She didn’t allow herself to think of him during her long days. Whenever it became apparent that she wouldn’t find any other slayers she would go out looking for a fight. She would often return home at dawn, her muscles pained from the exertion of the fight, drop into bed fully clothed and sleep. In her first few years as the Slayer she would think dusting three vampires in the same night was a lot. Now she wouldn’t even think of returning home before she’d slayed at least fifteen. The dreams had been a comfort despite the fact that she would see that one moment over and over again. That moment that she hadn’t been there for. The moment Spike’s body burned up, his jaw tightening in pain even as his mouth laughed. This was the moment when she jumped awake. Yet every night she would try and go back into the dream if only to see his face again and feel his hand in hers.

When the dreams stopped, she started looking for him in other places. She would spend her night looking for a vampire that had his hair, or would throw a punch much like he did. And once she found him she’d prolong the fight. Sometimes she’d let them fight her for hours, always aware that she could end the fight in a matter of seconds. But none of these vamps gave her the thrill she got when fighting Spike. Try as she might, none of them were him. None of them could rival his snarky comments or the look of lust in his eyes as he moved to block her hits with all the grace of a dancer. She wished desperately that she could’ve kept something of his. But all of Sunnydale was gone and thus all that was still left of him.

Buffy started to close her eyes again in an attempt to get more sleep that she knew wouldn’t come when she heard the shrill, annoying sound of her cell phone. ‘Apparently the world is against me going back to sleep’ she thought.

“Damn it! Where is that fucking phone?”

She searched for it underneath the constantly growing pile of clothes on her bedroom floor. When she finally found it she hit the button without even having to look at the caller ID to know who it was.

“Giles.” Buffy said.

“Buffy. I’m afraid I’ve just finished speaking to Willow and it appears that we may have a slight apocalypse on our hands.”

“Any chance the world would still be there tomorrow if I go back to sleep and deal with this tomorrow?”

“Buffy…” Giles said in a slightly sterner tone of voice.

“Right. Nevermind. Duty calls and all that. Where do you want me?”

“Well the apocalypse has not yet begun, but the seer Willow found was able to pinpoint its origins. She is uncertain of the reason it will begin. Or rather end.”

“Ok. So where am I going?”

“She has said that it will apparently not be a successful apocalypse, but we need to cover all our bases so I still want you there to deal with whatever will occur.”

“Okkk….and there is where?”

“It’s imperative that you make finding out why this apocalypse will start and whose doing it is, Buffy. We may very well have a new player on our hands.”

“Is there a reason why you’re not telling me where I’m going? ‘Cause you know, kind of hard to get my Slayer self over there when I don’t know where there is.”

“I merely need to make sure that you understand my reasons for sending you and do not get distracted. This information could be crucial to the Council and may very well help us be proactive in stopping the end of the world by gathering our forces and…”

“Giles! I get it. I’m indistractable girl. Now, can we please get to the part where I get to kick someone’s ass? Where am I going?”

“You’re going to LA, Buffy. It appears that Angel is somehow involved in the coming of this apocalypse.”

“Oh.”, was all Buffy said as she listened to the rest of Giles’ directions.

Buffy’s plane had landed two hours ago. By now she had already checked into a hotel, unpacked the few things she’d brought with her, and taken a shower. Squeaky clean, clothed, and otherwise ready to leave, she sat on her rather large bed checking her email on the laptop that had become a necessity in her new life. It wasn’t like she was trying to delay seeing Angel again. She was just making sure that she hadn’t received any very important emails or anything. Like a coupon from her favorite stores…ok, she was definitely stalling. The thought of seeing Angel again filled her with a kind of dread.

When she had last seen him, right before the world almost ended, she had told him that though she wasn’t ready for it then, that maybe sometime in the future they would be together. And at the time she thought it was a possibility, that maybe she’d told him the truth. But the second her hand had burst into flame inside Spike’s it became a lie. Whether it had ever been true to begin with, Buffy didn’t know. But she knew now that although some part of her would always be in love with Angel, he would never be what she needed again. The truth was, she wasn’t sure if any man, or let’s face it any vampire, could be what she needed again.

Spike had been what she needed. In the last few days before he’d burned to save the world she had finally let him in. And for all the despair and death that she had felt in those few days, she had also felt warm, and oddly safe standing on the mouth of hell. All day she made plans, gave orders, and made speeches. She was the first to rise and the last to go to sleep. But when she did go to sleep, there was Spike. Spike who woke up the second she entered the basement as if he’d been waiting for her to show up all along. Who opened his arms as she walked down the stairs. Who whispered how much he loved her as she fell asleep in his arms, his chest pressed into her back. Somehow he’d given her everything she needed in those moments.

But he was gone. Without warning she felt tears about to spill over from her eyes but determinedly wiped them away. This wasn’t the time.

So yes, she was avoiding her confrontation with Angel. She wasn’t sure what to say if he asked her if she was “cookies” yet. Truthfully she didn’t really want to explain. Angel’s disapproval of her feelings for Spike wasn’t really something she wanted to deal with right now. Or ever. Mostly she just wished the dreams would come back. That she could at least still have him while she was asleep.

When she found that there was nothing else for her to waste her time with that she could even remotely argue would be useful and she could picture Giles’ disapproving face in her head, she decided that it was finally time to go. She grabbed her standard stake and a few other carefully stashed weapons just in case. She was going into the den of evil. Quite literally. She had not spoken to Angel since that night in the cemetery. None of them had. He had sent them his new address along with some details of his taking over Wolfram & Hart to assure them that he had in fact not lost either his soul or his marbles, but that was it. All this being said, Buffy wasn’t completely sure if Angel wasn’t the one about to cause the apocalypse she was here to stop. Or rather learn about according to Giles. Which was something she still didn’t quite understand. Why was she here in the first place if they already knew the apocalypse would not be a successful one?

She shrugged and figured that Giles’ reasons would become clearer as the apocalypse unfolded. With this final thought she walked out of her hotel room.




It was almost an hour later that she finally slipped through Wolfram & Hart’s security undetected. Truthfully their security had almost made her laugh out loud. There was a standard metal detector which had of course beeped when she walked through it with her carefully concealed knife, but she had scarcely had time to think about trying to flirt with the security guy before he had rushed her onwards into the rest of the building. She would have to tell Angel about his complete lack of adequate security. That was a nice, safe topic to talk about. With the complete lack of “cookies and… ‘What the hell is going on in this building?’ she thought as she finally saw people dashing from one side of the building to the next, some screaming orders at subordinates as they went. Some poor secretary dude was even getting beaten with a briefcase by his boss. And this was only the first floor.

‘Well it looks like I’m here just in time. World saveage here I come. Again.’ Buffy thought as she headed towards the elevator trying to avoid getting hit by the secretary that had finally had enough and was now chasing his boss with an axe. She wondered if she should interfere for a few seconds but then saw them both get jumped by security men and umm demons, and figured they would deal without her help. She wished she could ask someone where to find Angel, but the place seemed to be severely lacking in helpful, normal people at the moment. Oh well. She figured the CEO would be hanging out on the top floor of the building anyways.




Buffy strode purposefully towards what she could only assume was Angel’s office. It wasn’t like the door said “Office of Evil Incorporated President” or anything, but it was big and imposing, and therefore probably belonged to whoever was running this place. Although to be fair at the moment no one seemed to be running this firm. Everyone was just scrambling madly. There was a secretary’s desk outside Angel’s presumed office but no one was there. Buffy figured his secretary was probably screaming her head off somewhere else.

As she approached the door she heard slightly panicked voices coming from inside as well, one of which she distinctly recognized as Angel’s and two more she did not know. She strayed closer to the door listening to what was being said. An unfamiliar, somewhat mousy voice said:

“Well, obviously they're connected. Maybe when Spike's matter was reintegrated into physical form…”

Spike. No, she couldn’t have heard right. Spike was dead.

“What?” she said as she suddenly found herself inside the room, behind the man and woman that stood before Angel’s desk. They both jumped towards her, startled by her sudden appearance.

“Buffy?” Angel said, standing up from his chair and walking around his desk towards her.

Buffy refused to look at him, focusing her attention on the woman that had spoken before.

“What did you just say?”

“Umm you mean the part about matter being reintegrated into physical form? Because I could explain that in detail if you wanted…but of course first you would have to understand a few basic physics concepts and…”

“Not that.” Buffy said, her tone much harsher than she had meant to make it. The girl stopped babbling immediately and looked at her waiting for some kind of further clarification.

“Buffy,” Angel tried again, “maybe you should sit down and tell us why you’re here. We’re having some office issues at the moment and…”

“I meant the part about Spike,” she said, cutting Angel off.

“Oh. Well he’s corporeal again I guess. Although I haven’t seen him myself. Angel just told me…”

“He’s alive?” Buffy couldn’t help the slight hitch in her throat as she said these words.

“Yes.”

“Buffy, Spike really isn’t our biggest problem right now,” Angel insisted. “Now if you’ll just sit down and tell me what you’re doing here I can…”

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Ok, I really think you should sit down and we can…”

Buffy made it across the room to him before any of them even realized what was happening and Angel found himself being slammed into the wall behind him with a force that would have seriously hurt a human. Buffy’s right arm pressed tightly into his neck, keeping him immobile against the wall.

“Tell me to sit down one more time and I’m going to play dentist with your fangs, Angel. Got it?”

“Yes,” he struggled to say.

“Good. Now, one more time. Where is he?”she asked again pushing her arm into his neck even more painfully at the end of her question.

“He took off down the hallway to the left as you exit the office,” the man finally spoke up. “He probably found the first available office and…” but he also did not get a chance to finish his sentence before Buffy had dropped Angel and was sprinting towards the door.

The three watched Buffy go as Angel leaned over, clutching his now rather purple neck.

“Damn it,” Angel said.

She ran down the hallway, her heart beating so fast a doctor would have been concerned she was about to have a heart attack. She opened every door along the hallway that Gunn had directed her to, her breath catching in her throat each time the door opened to reveal another man in a cheap suit that seemed to be going bonkers instead of the vampire she was looking for. Each time she didn’t find him, her search became more desperate and a dreadful feeling that maybe it wasn’t true after all, that Angel and his people were wrong about Spike being back, tore at her insides. But it had to be. It had to be true. Suddenly she couldn’t believe that he wasn’t alive. She felt certain the universe would have collapsed by now without him in it. As if she couldn’t understand how she could have conceived of the world without him in it in the first place.

She had questions of course. Somewhere in the back of her mind she asked herself how it was possible and why did Angel of all people, or vampires, know before her that Spike was alive. Dear God, alive. Alive with his way of sauntering cockily. With his easy banter she didn’t share with anyone else. She could see his mischievous smirk again. The one that made her bones feel like jell-o and her blood rush in any direction but her brain. God help her, she could look into his eyes again. Those blue orbs that drowned her in love and awe. She could finally make him believe her. Make him believe that what she’d said that day when she’d finally seen all of him was true. That she wanted to spend the rest of her life, afterlife, and whatever other kind of life the fates decided to give her, loving him. Showing him how sorry she was that she could never let herself feel it before. Not before it was too late and she had to stand with her friends, staring at the giant hole in the Earth where an ensouled demon had held her hand and heart.

But it didn’t matter anymore. Spike was alive. And she could change it. Change her fate and his and link them together for the rest of eternity. Maybe the powers that be were giving her another chance. She knew Spike had burned up in the Hellmouth before it collapsed. He couldn’t have survived that. Which meant that someone had brought him back. Some higher power had decided that he should live again. Maybe the universe was giving her a chance to be happy. Finally. She promised herself that this time she would not fuck it up. She would never fuck it up again. If only she could find him.

She turned a corner as her desperation grew even more, trying to reach out with her slayer senses and find Spike. She had always been able to sense him when he was around. She could tell him apart from other vampires even from a distance, the tingle to the back of her neck that his nearness produced completely different from other vampires. It had been the same with Angel, though to a lesser degree. She had always wondered why it was that she could never tell those lesser vamps apart, while Angel and Spike were so easy to distinguish.

When she and Spike had started sleeping together, her senses concerning him had intensified. She could sense him from miles away sometimes. At times she swore that she could even smell him. The distinct musk of leather and cigarettes filling her nostrils even when she knew he was much too far away from her for his scent to reach her.

Suddenly, she stopped, realizing that if he was somewhere in this hallway she should be able to feel him. Standing still, she tried to reach out with her senses. For what seemed like forever she couldn’t feel him at all. Her heart sank even as she focused harder. ‘Come on, come on, come on…please be here’ she thought. And suddenly, there it was. A familiar tingle went through her, blocking out everything else. The panicked voices of the other people in the building faded out. She couldn’t hear the fire extinguisher next to her crashing to the ground with a loud thump as the employee next to her picked it up and moved to strike his fellow worker with it. Everything went completely still in her head. Even her heart seemed to stop beating. Every sense she had, except for her Slayer senses seemed to fail her. The only thing she was aware of was him. Where there had been nothing before, his presence was now so strong it took her breath away. Her legs started moving of their own volition. Seeking him out without a conscious command from Buffy.

She continued walking along the hallway as if in a trance. The back of her neck tingled more with each soft thud of her heeled boots on the carpeted floor. She was getting closer to him and fought the urge to run, fearing she might lose the sense of his if she did. Finally, she stopped in front of a door, this time knowing full well that he was behind it. This was it. Opening the door in front of her would finally put her face to face with the man she so desperately needed in her life. She felt her heart seize at the thought of seeing him again. It had been so long. Too long for her wounded heart. But it would be okay now. As soon as she opened that door he would be there and she could breathe again. Ironic that someone who didn’t need to breathe could give her that. She could let herself feel again. She wouldn’t have to fight until dawn every night just to keep from thinking about what she’d lost when the Hellmouth had collapsed. She could be alive again.

With that last thought running through her head, her hand reached towards the door, opening it, and taking a single step that placed her inside the room that held her second chance.

As she stepped through the door the vision before her mended and broke her heart at the same time. It was him. Buffy didn’t need to see his face to know that. No one else had the same slicked back platinum hair, or sported the same plain black t-shirt. She could smell the leather of his duster along with the musky smell of cigarettes from where she stood even though she was at least 12 feet away from the prized garment that lay crumpled at his feet. Nothing was changed about his physical appearance since she had last seen him. It was as if he had simply stepped out of a picture taken that day. Not one hair was out of place on his head, making Buffy almost think that this moment in time had somehow immediately followed the one before he had told her to leave him in the Hellmouth to burn up from the inside out. That all the months she’d lived without him were just a dream. She let this feeling give her hope for a moment. That maybe he would turn around now and it could be as if he had never ceased to live. That everything else would just fade away.

She stayed there, staring at his back and the way the muscles danced beneath his t-shirt. Refusing to let her eyes wonder any lower than his back. Maybe if she didn’t look at it again it wouldn’t be real. Maybe he would just turn around and smile. Smile that smile of pure joy that he so rarely bestowed on people and make his way across the room to her. Maybe if she just ignored it, it would simply disappear. Fade away. Never even be there in the first place. She stood there for a few seconds trying to do just that. Wish it away. The thing that she could swear made her heart audibly break into a million different pieces she would never be able to put back together again. But try as she might, she couldn’t make it go away. And when her eyes wandered down the rest of Spike’s body again, the pair of pale, womanly legs wrapped firmly around his hips was still there. The feet enclosed in pink high-heeled shoes still resting against his ass. And two pairs of ragged moans, one familiar the other not, still sounded in her ears.

She should have known. It had been stupid of her to think that whatever higher power was staring down at them would actually allow her to be happy. Even for just a few moments in time. She wanted so badly to keep him that it shouldn’t have ever come as a surprise that he wasn’t hers anymore.

She felt the same pain she had felt when she had seen the video from the Magic Box, showing Spike and Anya desperately clawing at each other. Despite the fact that she had just broken up with him she felt that he was hers. That he was supposed to love her, however much she had tried to make him stop. That he belonged with her even as she knew she couldn’t be with him. It had hurt. Much more than she had let on to anyone. But this time there was something else there. A quiet, bitter resignation to this fate. The knowledge that she could not change this moment and that he wasn’t hers. She’d never had the right to have him as hers. Not with the way she had treated him. And with these feelings she lost all traces of the newfound hope that had been surging inside her just minutes before. She wouldn’t be happy. Not this time, not ever. And she was tired of trying.

The vampire before her stiffened for less than a second, his vampire senses finally telling him that there was someone else in the room with them. And for a second Buffy thought he had smelled her. She feared she would not be able to keep her composure if he turned around now. Her fears proved to be unfounded when he resumed his previous tempo without hesitation and not bothering to even turn around said:

“I thought I told you to sod off, mate.”

She wanted to say something, but she found herself lacking the ability to speak. So she stood there, unable to move her eyes off of him as he continued pounding into the girl in front of him.




‘Bloody hell’ Spike thought to himself. He was going to rip this guy’s intestines out and strangle him with them if he didn’t get the fuck out of there soon, soul or no soul. It had only been five minutes since he’d kicked the sod out of his office so he could fuck Harmony on his desk. The git ought to know better than to come back so soon. What the bleeding hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he know that when a vampire kicked you out of your own office instead of just breaking your neck it was best to skedaddle before he changed his mind? You would think he’d be grateful for the time off. People these days. He had half a mind to… ‘Wait…that smell…it’s…no, it can’t be,’ he thought. Stiffening again he sniffed the air purposefully this time. The smell that suddenly attacked his nostrils from all directions was so intoxicating it made the demon scream inside of him.

‘God no, please no. Not like this. Not now,’ he thought, as he knew instantly, without a shadow of a doubt who it was that was standing behind him, watching him as he drove into Harmony like there was no tomorrow. He wished for all the world that Fred was here to invent him a time machine so he could go back in time to before he’d dragged Harmony down the hallway searching for the nearest available surface. God help him, he even wished that Harmony had rejected more of the empty offices they found because the desk wasn’t big enough, or the carpet wasn’t posh enough, or it reeked of Hubber demon. He wished Peaches had given him a stern talking to about using his employees for his own personal pleasure. He wished he could change anything in the chain of events that had him currently sticking his dick in his ex-girlfriend while the woman he loved more than anything watched him.

He was so frustrated he wanted to bang his head against the wall until his brain splattered all over it. He honed all his senses in on her, trying to ascertain her level of distress. Her breaths were barely audible, even for a vampire, like she was trying to remain as quiet as possible. She smelled the way she always smelled. The most unlikely combination of power and vanilla. A smell that stayed in a room for long after she had vacated it. He could follow her scent for miles if he needed to. He breathed her in again, opening his nostrils as much as he could and closing his eyes. This could very well be the last time he would be near enough to her to smell her. After finding him like this, she would probably never want to see him again. The thought seemed to make his heart even deader than before.

He realized her heartbeat was pounding in his ears, betraying the fact that she had run all the way there at full Slayer speed. She had run to find him. Him. The worthless git who had just proved once again that he didn’t deserve to kiss the fucking floor where her feet had rested.

He feared that as soon as he turned around to look at her she would leave. Feared that her eyes would be cold and hold nothing but hatred for him now. So he stayed still, his back still turned to her, even though it was obvious he was completely aware of her presence now since he’d ceased moving inside Harmony and even she was looking up at him like he’d lost his mind. He knew the idea was ridiculous, but if this was the end he wanted to keep her a little longer. Be able to smell that scent that made his demon scream for blood and William want to recite endless sonnets to her. He could almost feel the warmth of her body. He could picture her. Imagined an entire series of outfits that she might be wearing. Imagined she was wearing her hair down because he loved it that way. Even as he wanted to prolong this moment, the need to see her, even if for the last time, won out and he turned his head and then his entire body towards her.

“Buffy…I…” he started, but realized he didn’t know how to finish. What could he possibly say? Nothing he said would make what she had just witnessed alright. And God she was more beautiful than he ever could have pictured her in his mind’s eye. She wore jeans and a simple grey shirt, her hair down as he’d pictured it. He wanted to go to her and sweep her off her feet. Spin her around the room as she laughed over his shoulder. A million different scenarios of how this reunion could have gone flashed through his head only to be shattered by the reality. Despite her beauty, there was a sadness in Buffy’s eyes that he suspected he was very much responsible for, and that denied him the right to go to her as if when she’d walked in he was merely sitting in a chair innocently.

“I…I’m so sorry, love,” he said, trying to communicate his sincerity with his eyes.

“Angel told me you were alive. I...uh…I thought I would just come say ‘hey’” Buffy finally said, completely ignoring the apology Spike had made. “But I can see you’re busy…,” she said as her eyes inadvertently fell on his crotch where the zipper of his jeans had yet to be zipped back up, “…so I will just see you later. I have some stuff to discuss with Angel anyway.”

Feeling her eyes on him, Spike quickly redid the zipper that he had completely forgotten about before as Buffy continued to stand there awkwardly despite the fact that she had just made her excuse that would allow her to leave the room. God she’d missed him. Even now as she saw Harmony jumping off the desk behind Spike and fixing her skirt, she wanted to go to him. A large part of her wanted to just let him put his arms around her and pretend that none of this had actually happened. But she couldn’t. Even as she watched the sorrowful look on his face become more pronounced, she couldn’t go to him. It wouldn’t work. Even if she could forgive him. Who is to say that he even wanted her anymore? Sure he looked sorry to have hurt her, but he had a soul now after all. Feeling guilt for your actions was part of the package. No, it was best that she leave now before this could get any worse. When she finally turned to go Spike’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Buffy wait. Look it isn’t what you think. I was going to go look for you. I’ve only been corporeal for like five minutes!”

Spike hoped his words would convince her to stay, hear him out. But when she turned her face back towards him and he saw her eyes he knew his choice of words had been a mistake.

“And you chose to spend those five minutes fucking Harmony?” Buffy replied.

Spike froze at that. Her voice wasn’t angry, or hurt. He would have been more or less prepared to deal with screaming or her being upset. But instead, her voice held no inflection at all. At most she sounded tired. Like she felt there was no point in getting angry so she had given up on the idea altogether. Her eyes held no accusation as she asked the question, as if she didn’t even blame him for his actions. He didn’t know what to say. Obviously he had been fucking Harmony. And now he had also managed to make it sound like it was the first thing that went through his head the second he became corporeal. ‘Way to bollocks it up even more, mate’ he thought to himself.

Seeing that she wasn’t going to get an answer to her rather rhetorical question she turned around and started to leave the room again.

“I’m going to go speak to Angel. Goodbye Spike…and Harmony,” she said, acknowledging the other blonde’s presence for the first time really.

“But Buffy you have to let me explain. I…owwww…Harmony what the fuck?” Spike yelled as Harmony jumped him from behind digging her vampire teeth into his neck.

Buffy turned at Spike’s shout of pain to see him fling Harmony off of him and onto the floor. At first glance she thought the other vampire was just pissed off that Spike had interrupted their time together to speak to her, but as Harmony’s hair fell away from her face, she and Spike simultaneously saw little streams of blood pouring out of her eyes and her deranged expression.

“I’m. Not. Yours!” she yelled at Spike, loud enough that he probably would have heard her across the Pacific Ocean with his vampire hearing.

“What the fuck…,” Spike started saying, but he was interrupted by Harmony jumping for his jugular again. He moved to defend himself against another attack, but before Harmony could even reach him Buffy delivered a swift punch to her face, effectively knocking her out.

The Slayer and vampire both stared at each other, equally bewildered looks on both their faces. Finally Buffy voiced both their concerns:

“What the fuck just happened?”

“Hell if I know,” Spike replied.

“Is this whole building completely insane? How the hell can Angel work here?”

“The building?”

“Yeah. Ever since I walked into this place I’ve seen nothing but crazy, fire-extinguisher-wielding people.”

“Look love, maybe we should clue in tall, dark, and
forehead. This is his problem after all,” Spike replied.

“Uh the girl you were just “playing doctor” with just tried to rip your throat out. You don’t think this might maybe probably have something to do with you?” Buffy asked, letting some of her annoyance at the situation finally slip through.

“You just said the whole building was going bat shit crazy. I can’t have pissed all of them off…or uh…maybe I have,” Spike said, thinking back to a particular situation when he’d managed to convince a Grimloth demon that his girl was cheating on him with the guy whose office was across the hall from him. The Grimloth had ripped the poor bloke’s door in two and started hitting him over the head with the pieces. It got so bad that Angel had to step in. And of course he was given a stern talking to. He cracked a smile as he remembered the look on Angel’s face when he figured out who was responsible for it.

Buffy just rolled her eyes at him.

“Oh come on. I’ve been haunting this place for months. I bloody had to do something to keep from dropping dead of boredom. Or deader, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, clearly letting me know you were alive was not nearly exciting enough for you.”

Buffy practically yelled this last statement, making Spike immediately revert to his previous guilty as charged and sorry as hell expression. Buffy simply stood there, her breath coming in harsh pants, trying to contain her anger. Her face had reddened from her outburst and her eyes spoke of the fact that she wanted to rip his balls off and make him eat them.

“Buffy, please,” Spike tried once again, “let me explain. I…”

“Let’s go find Angel,” she said, trying to put an end to the conversation.

“It’s not like I could’ve picked up a bloody phone and called you. I didn’t even really know where you were exactly. Kind of hard to do any research when you can’t even touch the things that would help you do research, pet.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Spike said, relieved that he seemed to finally be getting somewhere with her.

“Really? You’re actually going to use that as an excuse?”

‘Or not’ he thought. He looked back up at her again, trying to convey how sorry he really was again.

“Love, we really need to talk this out. Just give me a chance to explain everything.”

“Save it, Spike. And stop calling me love, pet, kitten, or anything else.”

And with that she turned around, walking out of the room where she’d felt her life begin again only to end again. It just hurt too much to listen to him right now. God knew how long he’d been back, and he hadn’t even tried to get in touch with her. Had he even really thought about it? Or was he just grateful he could use the whole ghost thing as an excuse for not telling her he was alive again? He didn’t love her. That she was certain of. A good deal of the time she had longed for him and prayed that she could dream of him again, he had been alive all along. Okay, maybe a little deader than usually. Who the hell made a vampire into a ghost anyway? Wasn’t he dead enough just being a vampire?

Spike quickly followed her out of the room where he had done irreparable hurt to the woman he’d given his life for, hoping that at some point during the day she would let her defenses down long enough for him to try and explain to her once again his reasons. And his complete lack of anything remotely resembling reason when it came to the still unconscious vampire bint in the room they were presently vacating. He knew the only reason why she had yet to leave the entire country was the fact that towards the end of their conversation, said currently unconscious bint had jumped him and tried to tear his neck out. He knew she was here because whenever anything apocalyptically evil happened she felt the need to help. It wasn’t about him. It was never about him.

“Angel,” Buffy said ahead of him and he groaned inwardly. He really had hoped it would take them a great heaping while to find the great poof.

Buffy looked at Angel, trying to ignore the presence at her back that was making her entire body tingle by simply standing there. She wanted to figure out this apocalypse as soon as possible and get the hell out of LA. Actually out of the country. Actually off the continent. If possible into another dimension. Hey, she’d always loved shrimp. Maybe spending a few weeks in the “nothing but shrimp” dimension would be therapeutic. Sort of an all you can eat. She sighed inwardly. ‘Gaaah, who the hell am I kidding? The fact that I just saw him with Harmony is the only thing stopping me from dragging him to the nearest broom closet and having my way with him. Well…that…and the fact that he doesn’t love me.’ She could swear someone was shoving a knife into her heart whenever she thought about this. It probably shouldn’t have surprised her this much. Sooner or later, they all stopped loving her.

And it had to be her. After all, Spike had been in love with Drusilla for over a hundred years. Took care of her. Attended to her every whim. Did everything within his power to make her happy. Stayed with her even when she was bedding Angelus on a nightly basis. He had stayed with a complete nutcase for that long and she had barely gotten three years from him. Something had to be wrong with her. She repelled men, vampires, everyone. ‘Maybe I should move on to other demons,’ she thought grimly, ‘give them a try’.

“Buffy. It’s nice to see we’re on speaking terms again,” Angel said, his anger at her treatment from before clearly visible.

“Yeah, umm, sorry about that,” Buffy said rather sheepishly. In retrospect it seemed rather stupid to her that she had threatened her former lover in order to get to her other former lover who was screwing his former lover when she finally found him. This was all too complicated and jumbled for her head right now. ‘To hell with Giles, I want to go back to my hotel room, drink myself into a stupor, and go to bed’ she thought.

God, how he hated seeing her be nice to him. Spike could feel the anger boiling inside of him at the sight of them. He struggled hard not to try tearing down a few walls using Angel’s head. Damn it, it would never be enough. Whatever he did, however hard he tried, Buffy would never look at him the way she looked at Angel. Like they had the big forever love. Angel had fucked her good. Somehow made her believe that all the pain he had caused her was love. The wanker deserved to fry in hell, as far as Spike was concerned, merely because of what he had done to this one girl. And now he had to stand here again and watch her apologize to him, when he should be the one kneeling before her and begging for her forgiveness. When her eyes shamefully looked down at the floor, he squeezed his fists so tightly that he heard a bone in his finger snap. Enough.

“I don't know what you're putting in the water coolers around here, but your secretary just started crying blood and tried to rip me a few new ones,” Spike said, trying to end his torment.

“Harmony?” Angel asked, surprised.

“Yeah. Buffy knocked her out,” Spike said, chancing a glance at the Slayer only to see that she was still refusing to make eye contact with him. ‘Serves you right you stupid git,’ he continued to think to himself.

“As cute as this little conversation is kiddies, the world is still about to go kablooey,” the woman beside Angel, who Buffy had just now noticed, stated. She had a cute, arrogant, sex appeal about her, and Buffy briefly wandered if she and Angel were involved, only to dismiss the idea when she saw the look of pure hatred that Angel shot her.

“Wait,” Buffy said, “you know what’s going on, what’s causing this?”

“You mean Harmony trying to throttle bleach boy?” Angel said. “I’m pretty sure that was just good common sense in action.” He smiled almost evilly at the end of his statement.

“Sod off you pillock! This is your bloody firm. It isn’t my fault you have no idea what’s going on in your own place.

“Actually hero, it is your fault,” the woman said, causing both Spike and Buffy to turn towards her again.
“What the bloody hell do you mean, Eve?”

“And also, did you just refer to Spike as a hero, ‘cause hahaha…” Buffy said as she burst out in mock laughter, mostly trying to anger the bleached vampire she stood next to. Maybe he would leave if she pissed him off enough.

Spike narrowed his eyes, but decided to let that particular comment go, since discussing his heroness or lack thereof in front of the other supposed hero in the hallway, who had slaughtered thousands simply for the pleasure of it, not because he needed to eat, and delighted in torturing countless others seemed pointless to him. Whatever Angel might say, Spike knew which one of them was the real monster.

“There's only supposed to be one candidate for the vampire with the soul hero part in the big show. Two of you, and the wheel of destiny starts to spin off its axis. That's why everything and everyone is going mad,” Eve explained once again.

“Hahahaha…” Buffy started laughing again, still trying to piss Spike off, “Ah, I’m sorry, you used that word again… “hero”…hahaha”.

“This town might not be big enough for the both of you,” Eve continued.

“There’s a right simple fix to that problem then. I’ll leave. Bloody sick of you anyways, Peaches,” Spike replied, still trying to ignore Buffy’s laughter.

“Spike, by town, I mean this entire plane of existence.”

“Sod it, still leaving.” Spike said, suddenly overly eager to get the hell away from the lot of them.

“It won’t help. In fact it would probably make it worse. Much. Worse,” Eve explained.
“Let's not make it worse. We don't want worse. I just went to the white room to see what the big cat had to say,” Gunn said as he walked towards all of them.

“And?” Angel asked.

“Cat's gone.”

“Okay, I’m all unloopy with the not being in the loop here. Cat?” Buffy asked.

“Long story. If the cat is gone, we don’t have any contact with the Senior Partners. We’re alone in this,” Eve said. “If there was just some way to determine which one of you the prophecy's really about, maybe…”

“There’s a prophecy?” Buffy asked, increasingly frustrated that no one was really answering any of her questions.

“I just read the Shanshu prophecy, and I'm telling you, there was nothing in it…” Angel was saying but got interrupted by Spike’s outrage.

“Hold on. You read the prophecy? The one you don't believe in?” Spike said as he looked at Angel who had already rolled his eyes at him and crossed his arms. “Uh, load of rubbish, you said? Well, isn't that bloody interesting.”

“No offense, Angel,” Gunn interfered, before this all got longwinded and yelly, “ What we need is someone who's an expert on the Shanshu scriptures.”

“Fine, but Wesley's not here, “Angel said rather sullenly.

“No, but his department is. Maybe somebody there can…” Eve tried to say, getting interrupted by Angel again.

“Do what? I'm telling you, I read the prophecy.”

“Guys, we really need to get a move on here,” Gunn pleaded.

They all started moving down the hallway when Buffy finally lost her temper. She wasn’t used to being completely ignored.

“Damn it, would somebody care to fill the Slayer in on what the hell’s going on here?” Buffy finally yelled at them.

“No time, Buffy,” Angel said, “I will fill you in after we figure out exactly what’s going on. Until then you should probably head back to your hotel and get some rest. Spike…as much as it physically pains me to say this…we probably need you to be here for this.”

The gang started moving down the hallway again as Buffy sighed heavily in frustration. She was about to follow them out of the hallway when she felt a strong grip on her arm and realized that Spike had lagged behind the others, probably in a stupid attempt to apologize to her again.

“What the hell do you want now, Spike?” Buffy asked, in the most irritated tone she could manage.

Before she could take another breath, the vampire before her had roughly shoved her into the wall behind her, holding her arms by her side almost painfully, and entwining her legs with his in a way that would not permit her to hit him. Eyes that had been the purest blue only seconds before now turned almost black with anger, and Buffy felt a shiver of fear run through her body. She didn’t even try to escape from the position he had her in, despite the fact that she could feel every cell in her body going haywire from being so close to him. Still gripping her tightly, Spike finally replied to her question:

“A word…Slayer.”

Buffy could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage. She knew without trying that she wouldn’t be able to escape the position Spike’s body trapped her in. Whether she even wanted to she couldn’t say. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to make him angry.

“Now, you and I are going to get a few facts straight, Slayer.” Spike spoke again.

The look in his eyes had Buffy completely mesmerized. She could not look away from him.

“Did I ever tell you about how Glory tortured me, Slayer?” Spike asked his voice tight and dangerous.

She thought this might be the point when she should say something, but her throat felt dry and raspy so all she could do was shake her head slightly, her eyes still fixed on his.

“She tied me to the ceiling. Hit me over and over again until half the bones in my body were broken. I wouldn’t even have had the strength to fight her if I was free anymore. Every time she hit me I felt my organs bursting and my bones cracking. Do you know what the worst part was though, Slayer?”

His voice made Buffy shiver. She’d never seen him angry like this before. She’d seen his face contorted in anger in the middle of a fight and she’d seen him frustrated. But she’d never seen this kind of anger contorting his features before. She was certain he had never been this angry with her even when they were still mortal enemies. The look he was giving her chilled her to the bone.

“The worst part,” Spike continued, “was when she shoved her fingers inside my heart. Poked about. Squeezed it so hard I thought for sure I would dust. Do you know what it felt like, Slayer? It felt like I was having a heart attack and dusting at the same time. I’d never bloody been in that much physical pain before."

The word “Slayer” was punctuated with additional anger each time he said it, making Buffy almost flinch each time she heard it.

“Have you ever been tortured, Slayer? I have. Quite a few times. Usually by your precious loverboy for shits and giggles. When it gets real bad, real painful, you go somewhere else in your mind. You think of something beautiful. Something meaningful. Something you’d give fucking anything to keep. Do you know what I thought about, Slayer?”

He paused for a brief moment, as if giving her a chance to answer what was obviously a rhetorical question.

“You. I thought about you. You smiling in the sunlight. And not one of those fake smiles. Not one of those you hide behind to convince your friends that you’re okay. Not the kind that never reaches your eyes. A real smile. The kind I hadn’t seen you smile in years. I hung there, so beaten up that I had to struggle to stay conscious, and I thought that maybe, if I did this, if I refused to let Glory beat the key out of me, maybe someday you would smile like that again. With your whole being. Even if I wasn’t there to see it.”

Despite the words he was uttering, Spike’s tone had not changed at all. The hardness in it had not gone away.

“And then when you jumped off that tower to save the world, I tortured myself. Thought about a million and one ways I could’ve saved you. Most days I couldn’t sleep at all. Starred in all my nightmares you did. Had tears rolling down your face and you blamed me. Blamed me for having to jump. I couldn’t fucking shake that image of you. I tried drinking myself stupid more times than I can count, but every time I finally collapsed into unconsciousness, I saw you. You haunted me, Slayer.”

Buffy could feel his words start to pull at her heartstrings. Could feel the pain behind them, even though outwardly he only showed her anger.

“I went to see Dawn every night,” he went on again, “Even when I wasn’t supposed to be watching her that night. It became a ritual for us. I would knock on her window right before she went to bed. Kiss her forehead and tuck her in. Some nights she cried in my arms for hours before she fell asleep. Most nights I kept watch over her. Sat in a chair by her bed. Made sure that nothing and no one would ever hurt her again. Because I’d made a promise to you, Slayer. Made a promise that I would protect her ‘till the end of the world.”

She felt tears streaming down her face at his words. The only thing keeping her from outright sobbing was the look in his eyes. The deadly one that told her he wasn’t done yet.

“I died for you, Slayer. Went up in flames to save you and your friends. Burned from the inside out. And I did it with a fucking smile on my face. Do you know why, Slayer?”

He studied her face for what seemed like a decade, seemingly looking for something. Whether he found it or not she couldn’t tell. But he did go on.

“Because when you said those words to me…I knew you didn’t mean them…but when you said them…I thought that you understood. I thought you saw me, Slayer. The real bloody me. Behind the swagger and the sodding bleach. Thought that you would never doubt me again. Thought that maybe you did see me as a champion after all. That I’d finally proven myself worthy. And it made my dying again worth it. Even wiped away the fact that I had to watch you suck face with Mr. I-can’t-live-without-my-nancy-boy-hair-gel mere hours after I spent the entire night holding you in my arms.”

She flinched at the reminder of her final kiss with Angel. How could she be such a bitch? He’d watched her kiss Angel after she had told him that the night they spent together meant something to her. And he had let it go. Held her again in his arms that very night. She hadn’t even apologized to him for it. Hadn’t even felt guilty for it at the time.

“Now I am sorry about the thing with Harmony. I really bloody am. Was a stupid, prick-like thing to do. So you be as angry about that as you fucking please. But don’t you ever,” as he pushed her even harder into the wall behind her, “ever fucking pretend that I’m worthless again. Don’t you ever pretend that what I did for you and the world was meaningless. Because we both know the truth of it.”

She looked at him then, her eyes filling with more tears and breathing harder. He moved his face closer to her, his nose lightly grazing her neck. Buffy felt tiny goose bumps rise all over her body. She felt him breathe her in, and it was the most erotic thing anyone had ever done to her. She went weak in his arms as he almost imperceptibly lessened his bruising hold on her. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew without looking that his eyes were a vibrant blue now, almost on fire with their intensity. She could almost feel his face softening against her.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered softly in her ear. His lips then travelled back down to her neck, his nose grazing her skin as he continued to breathe her in. He placed a single feather-light kiss on the side of her throat.

Buffy felt her heart begin to gallop at his actions.

“S…”

But before she could even finish saying his name, he’d relinquished his hold on her completely, causing her to almost fall to the ground, turned away from her, and was now briskly walking down the hallway away from her. She watched him go, still dazed and confused about what had just happened. ‘Any second now,’ she thought, “Any second now and he’s going to turn around and look at me’. But he never did and Buffy watched him go, her heart sinking a little more with every step he took away from her.

The vampire exploded into dust, covering her in his ashes from head to toe. It was the fifth she’d slain that night. After Spike had walked away from her, holier-than-thou attitude firmly in tow, she’d felt the need to release her tension somehow. She’d opted for beating the shit out of vamps who were completely unprepared for her bone-snapping rage. Two of them had actually begged her to stake them. She could feel the familiar exhaustion of the fight creeping into her muscles and bones. The one that usually came with a slight feeling of satisfaction. Which had completely failed to appear. The hunt only served to make her more on edge, her muscles still twitching with anxiousness, making her incapable of standing still for any length of time. Frustration boiled inside her.

‘Stupid vampire,’ Buffy thought. ‘Dealing with him was so much easier when he wanted to drain me dry. Least then I didn’t give a fuck what he thought. But no, Buffy had to go get herself involved with another vampire. And now I actually care and have stupid gushy feelings about his feelings. And damn it, I wasn’t the one that was screwing Harmony on a desk!’

Her internal rant continued in much the same manner as she scanned the area, looking for more undead citizens. The worst part, she realized, was that she had to go back to Wolfram & Hart. Giles would skin her alive if she didn’t get to the bottom of this apocalypse and she couldn’t very well explain to him that she needed to get away from Spike before things got even more fucked. And with their track history, it was bound to happen. She couldn’t even be angry at Spike. She’d tried. Hard. Thought about every single time he’d royally pissed her off, every graphic innuendo he’d made, every jab about her past relationships, but the anger just wouldn’t come. If she was honest with herself, the primary emotion she’d felt when she walked into that office was hurt. It had hurt so bad that she wondered at the fact that her heart hadn’t exploded right then. Some part of her recognized that she’d been stringing Spike along for quite a while, offering him no guarantees that half a second later she wouldn’t change her mind. Or, even better, decide to make out with Angel. God, that had been a stupid move on her part. It figured that sooner or later he would walk away from her. But she’d really hoped that he would be the one to stay.

Finding no more vamps, Buffy decided that a shower was in order before heading back to the rest of the group. Hopefully they could figure this thing out quickly so she could get the hell out of Dodge. Being around Spike at this point would be painful. Heart wrenchingly so.



When Buffy returned to Wolfram & Hart approximately two hours after she had left, she found the place oddly empty. The craziness from before seemed to have vanished. She headed straight for Angel’s office, assuming that the group would still be trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Surprisingly the room was completely empty when she walked in.Walking back out into the hallway, she saw the attractive woman from before, Eve, walking down the hallway in her direction, one hand around what appeared to be a handprint shaped bruise on her neck.

“Umm…Eve, right?” Buffy asked. “Do you know where everybody is? I can’t seem to…”

Buffy drifted off, as Eve continued to walk down the hallway, not stopping to answer her question or even really acknowledging her.

‘Well this is getting weirder,’ Buffy thought.

She looked around the rest of the floor for a little while, but soon gave up when it appeared that it was in fact completely deserted. She wondered if they made those dog whistles for vampires too. It would come in really handy right about now. Just one whistle and Angel and Spike would come running. Well Angel would. Spike probably wouldn’t at this juncture. Or ever.

Where were they? She could just wander through the building but it would probably take her hours which she could probably make better use of. Where would they most likely be? She thought about the other people on Angel’s team that she’d seen. The girl from before. The one that had tried to explain Spike’s recorporealization amid her many interruptions. She seemed sciency. The den of evil was bound to have a lab somewhere. She would try her luck there first.



As it turned out, the lab had been remarkably easy to find, and also held the answer as to why the building was so deserted when she’d walked in. Dozens of sleeping employees, both human and demon, were strapped down on beds, blood drying under their eyes. She recognized one of them as the man she’d seen before, who had finally told her Spike’s whereabouts.

“Oh, hi” the mousy girl that she had seen before said, when she noticed Buffy looking around.

“Hi…I’m Buffy…we ummm…didn’t so much get a chance to meet meet earlier,” Buffy said.

“Oh I know who you are. I mean Angel talks about you all the time. I mean not so much talks as you know, broods. Not that he broods a lot or anything like that…”

At Buffy confused expression she cut her rant short and settled for:

“I’m Fred. I ramble.”

“Noted,” Buffy said, smiling at the girl. “So do you know where everybody else is? I tried going to Angel’s office but there was no one in there.”

“Well most of the people here are pretty insane at the moment. Had to bash Gunn’s head in earlier since he tried to strangle Eve. Hey, you’re not feeling particularly grouchy are you? Like crying blood grouchy? ‘Cause I don’t really think I could handle an angry Slayer right now.”

“Nope. Anger free Buffy is me. Well mostly,” she said, thinking back to the Harmony incident for what was surely the zillionth time that day.

“Good. I really don’t like hitting the good guys. Or girls.”

“What about everybody else. Angel…ummm…Spike?”

“Oh. Well Angel and Spike are off trying to figure out which one of them the Shanshu is all about.”

“Shanshu?”

“It’s a prophecy that says that Angel will play a part in a future apocalypse and as a reward for his efforts he’ll get to be human again. Or I guess now it might be Spike…it’s all very unclear. Anyways, they’re both off doing their hero thing.”

“There’s a prophecy that says that Angel gets to be human again…or Spike?” Apparently Spike wasn’t the only vampire she had a bone to pick with.

“Umm…yes,” Fred replied softly, noticing the increasingly angry look on the Slayer’s face and starting to rethink her dislike for hitting people in the head with blunt objects.

“That’s just fucking great. It’s a good thing he remembered to give me all his phone numbers and his new address, but failed to mention that he might get to be human again. What the hell is it with souled vampires and forgetting to mention slightly crucial info? Grr.”

“I…I’m sure he meant to tell you, Buffy. I mean…”

“Just tell me where they went and what they’re doing there.”

Buffy hadn’t meant to almost snap at Fred, but this day just kept getting more and more confusing. First Spike didn’t let her know that he was alive for months. And then she finds out that Angel might get to be human again and it didn’t even occur to him to tell her.

“One of them has to drink from the cup of perpetual torment. And whichever one of them does is the one that the prophecy is all about.”

“One of them is going to drink from the cup of perpetual torment? Did this not sound like a trap to anyone else?”

“It’s in the prophecy, so it has to be true. And really whoever drinks from it is meant to drink from it.”

“So, let me get this straight. You guys let Angel and Spike of all vampires go find this cup and duke it out over it? What do you think the odds are that one of them will turn dusty?”

Buffy irritation was steadily mounting, making Fred search the room for things she could use against her, just in case she did go psycho like the other tied up people in the lab.

“Well we…I mean…they’re both adults…and I…I mean we assumed that they would just help each other figure it out…and uh…”

“Okay,” Buffy said, realizing that her anger was getting out of hand and that Fred was really not to blame for all of her personal issues, “do you know where they went exactly?”

“Yes,” Fred said, in a much cheerier voice, glad that they were done with the scolding part of the conversation, “I can tell you.”

She was running again. She seemed to be doing that more and more these days. And not just any kind of running. She was running towards Spike. She wasn’t entirely sure what she hoped to accomplish this time. The first time she had run to find him she’d merely been possessed by the idea of seeing him. She’d had no immediate plans for what came after she saw him. She’d been sure that once she did see him everything would be right in the world again. It hadn’t been.

She wanted to save him of course. But from what? The thought of Spike enduring the eternal torment this cup what sure to bring filled her heart with pain. But at the same time, shouldn’t it be his choice? What right did she have to interfere if he wanted to be human again? Her heart jumped at the idea of being able to feel his heartbeat underneath her hand. Of growing old with him. Of seeing his face the first time he stepped into the sunlight again. Part of her desperately wanted to believe that the prophecy was about Spike. The other didn’t want him to be in pain. And would he even want her? God knew he had every right not to.

Yet another part of her felt guilty that if Spike got to be human Angel wouldn’t. It seemed that Angel had known about this prophecy for a while, and had undoubtedly believed it to be about him. There was no doubt in her mind that he wanted to be human again. She realized that at some point he would have wanted to be human again mainly so he could be with her. She didn’t know if that was still true for him, but if he did get to be human again, didn’t she owe it to herself and to him to give it a shot? He was her first love. A part of her would always be in love with him.

So she was confused. She had no idea what she was going to do once she got to them. Short of stopping Angel and Spike from turning each other into souled piles of dust that is.



She slipped inside the abandoned opera house, hoping that whatever she was supposed to do would magically make itself clear. Sadly the epiphany did not come about, and soon she was looking down at her two ex-lovers and a fight that seemed to have just ended. As she watched, Angel ran towards Spike, half-collapsing on the way over to him. Time seemed to slow down as she watched Spike tilt a shiny goblet that seemed to be the only source of light in the room to his mouth and drink from it. She was going to yell out his name, but the words had somehow died in her mouth. All she could do was continue to stare at him as he poured liquid torment down his throat. The room was drenched in silence and Buffy could feel her heart beating in her ears. It seemed to take an eternity for Spike to finally remove the cup from his mouth and turn to Angel with a baffled look on his face that she couldn’t quite read from this far away.

“It’s…Mountain Dew.”

“Oh, thank God,” Buffy blurted out loudly before she could stop herself.

The two badly beaten vampires turned in surprise at the sound of her voice. Spike raised an eyebrow in question, seemingly intrigued by her presence, as Angel very elegantly said:

“Uh, Buffy…what uh…what are you doing here?”

“You mean besides watching the end of what I am sure was a very manly pissing contest?” Buffy said, trying to disguise her relief that they both seemed to be okay, if a little full of holes. “What the hell is wrong with the two of you? We’re dealing with an apocalypse. We don’t have time for you two to make with the beating each other up.”

“Yeah, well it seems Peaches here suffers from delusions of grandeur. Seemed to think he was still the big, strapping alpha male around here. He needed some setting straight. And as I recall, lo…Slayer, this isn’t really any of your business. Don’t you have a new band of chosen ones to be dealing with right about now?”

Despite the fact that he had almost called her one of his pet names, Spike’s tone was drenched in irritation. He seemed to spit the word “slayer” out with even more venom than before, as if he was frustrated with himself for almost calling her “love”.

“You never did tell us what exactly you were doing here Buffy,” Angel added, while groaning slightly in pain from Spike’s last kick to his ribs.

“Giles sent me,” Buffy replied, her gaze moving away from Spike and the anger she could still see in his eyes, “He said there was some sort of apocalypse coming your way and that I had to figure out who or what was causing it and report back.”

“I’ve always handled LA apocalypses by myself without needing any outside help. Why now?”

“No idea. Giles was all cryptic guy about it. Said it might help us gather our forces in the future or something like that. Also, it wasn’t really a question of you needing help. The seer that saw this apocalypse coming also saw that it would not be a successful one. “

“Now that makes no bloody sense,” Spike said.

“I suggest we get back to the office and figure out what the hell is going on,” Angel added. “I wanna know why Spike isn’t writhing on the ground in pain right now. Buffy, did you drive here?”

“No. Took a cab for part of the way and then ran when the roads got bad,” Buffy replied.

“Okay, well I’ll drive you back then,” Angel said, as they both heard the faint sound of Spike scoffing in the background.

“Actually, Angel, I kind of need to talk to Spike about some things. So I’d like to ride with him if that’s okay.”

She’d said the last part while looking at Spike, hoping that he would agree to this, since once they got back to the office craziness she wasn’t sure there would be any alone time for them to talk in. She watched as quickly masked surprise moved across Spike’s face.

“Fine,” Angel said before Spike could acquiesce or decline, his slight anger evident to both of them, “I’ll see you there.”

Angel has practically flown out of the room after that, leaving the two former lovers alone for the second time that day.

“Geez, how old is he, twelve?”

Spike’s expression turned stunned at Buffy’s comment. He’d never ever heard her say anything bad about the magnificent poof before. At least not while he was his less evil half, Angel. And God forbid that someone else do the Angel-bashing for her. She would immediately rise to his defense.

“What?” Buffy said when she realized that Spike had just been staring at her with the same stunned look for a while.

Spike shook of his shock saying: “Nothing. I just wasn’t aware that the sun wasn’t shining out Angel’s ass anymore.”

“Spike, I didn’t…”

“Look, can we save the heart to heart for the hour or so we have to drive to get back to poofter central? I fancy getting right pissed before the night is over and the only thing they have here is stale Mountain Dew, “ he interrupted, and without waiting to see if she was following him, he started walking towards the exit.




He would have made a grand exit indeed, if two steps into said grand exit he wouldn’t have collapsed, groaning slightly in pain from his wounds. Buffy’s entire body had moved without her even being aware of it. She found herself supporting Spike’s weight, as his hands instinctively grabbed onto her shoulders. Her arms wrapped around him, pressing her body closer to his, in an attempt to keep him from falling.

And before he could even stop himself he had taken a deep, unneeded breath, letting her smell wash over him. Why the fuck did she have to smell so exquisite? He couldn’t do this, not when she was so close to him. He couldn’t play pretend that being this close to her wasn’t driving him up the fucking wall in every way possible. All of his senses focused in on her, without his even consciously demanding it. He could hear the blood pumping away in her veins, feel the hard muscle of her shoulders beneath his palms, and see all the different flecks of green in her eyes. The second their eyes locked, he could smell exactly what their proximity was doing to Buffy as well. He got impossibly harder as he watched her pupils dilate, while her eyes still held the same vulnerability and lack of certainty. Her body stayed pressed up against his, even as he no longer needed help standing up, while his hands remained on her shoulders.

He wanted to let her go and continue walking away. Wanted to get as much distance between them as possible in the next five minutes. Wanted to be able to use his head instead of his unbeating heart quickly followed by his other, much less rational head. But he couldn’t. Not when her eyes were that green, and a flush had started spreading on her golden skin. Not when he could smell how much she wanted him right now.

His face moved to rest in the crook of her neck as he closed his eyes and audibly inhaled her scent this time. Buffy let out a small whimper as she felt his lips almost but not quite graze the sensitive skin on her neck.

“Spike…”

He opened his eyes to pull back and look at her, but when he did so, he saw something that broke him out of his trance. He’d always avoided kissing this side of her neck before because he didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to see the angry looking bite mark his grandsire had gifted her with. Proof of her eternal devotion to someone who’d nearly succeeded in draining the life out of her, only to leave her a few hours later. Proof of how far she’d gone to keep the vampire who wouldn’t have deserved her even when he was human. Proof also of who he would never be to her. Of what she would never feel for him.

He pulled back so abruptly that Buffy almost lost her balance as he flew out of her embrace.

“Let’s go,” he said curtly, as if nothing at all had happened, resuming his walk towards the exit, making Buffy doubt that it had really ever happened at all.

They’d been in the car for about half an hour now. Neither of them had said a word. Which in Spike’s case made sense, given his previous abrupt exit. In Buffy’s case it did not. She wanted to talk to him. Explain. Understand his hasty change of heart. Make peace at least. But she had no idea as to how to even begin to do that. Normally Spike would have prodded her if he knew she had something to say. He would have annoyed her until she finally gave in, even if just to shut him up. His unwillingness to say anything at all, was therefore all the more unnerving. She felt like her proximity was actually physically bothering him. Like she was a fly that kept settling down on his forehead that he swatted away but every time it came back to land in the exact same place. It was not a pleasant feeling to say the least. She caught herself wondering if this was how Spike had felt throughout their relationship. If he’d felt like a fly. She recognized now that for much of their relationship she had treated him like one.

When they had started sleeping together after her return from the land of the dead, they’d been friends at first. Throughout the sexual relationship that followed, she had often missed being able to talk to him. Or, in all honesty, she missed the times when she allowed herself to like him, instead of scampering off with her virtue fluttering after glorious, mind-blowing sex. She’d kept him at a distance, letting him in only when it was convenient for her. Whenever he’d tried to see her or do something nice for her, she’d reacted with annoyance. As if he was bothering her by trying to see her.
See sat there, almost hearing the seconds tick by, telling herself that when the time on the dashboard showed one minute more, she would finally start speaking. Fifteen minutes had gone by in this manner, and Buffy was no closer to voicing her thoughts.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Slayer,” Spike finally snapped, “I can hear your heartbeat speed up at the beginning of each minute. If you’ve got something to say spit it out already. You’re driving me bonkers!”

Buffy proceeded to fidget nervously.

“We…we should talk, Spike.”

“I believe I already covered that when I said spit it out already,” Spike said, his tone no less irritated than before.

“What…uh…what happened in there, Spike?”

“Angel and I got into a scuffle. I won. I drank from the goblet of perpetual “we are the powers that be and we like fucking with your head” torment. You showed up. Angel went to brood somewhere else. We left. That about cover it?”

“I meant the part in between Angel being twelve and you being an idiot.”

“Don’t know what you mean, Slayer,” Spike said, avoiding looking at her.

“That’s bullshit. And quit calling me…I have a name you know.”

“Right. Don’t know what you mean,…Buffy”

“I take it back. You’re an idiot and twelve.”

“Yeah well, really is typical for tall dark and forehead to come out on top regardless of what us lesser beings do.”

“Wait…this is about Angel?”

“Isn’t it always? Figures that I sacrifice myself to save the world and as my reward I get mystically umbilical corded to the poofter. Can’t leave his bloody side. And then I get to watch the two of you making googly eyes at each other. I’d have fucking staked myself if I wasn’t half convinced that I’d end up having to shag the wanker in hell for all eternity. I deserve to go to heaven just for having to deal with him for the past a hundred plus years.”

“Ok. A of all, are you insane? B of all, Angel and I were not making googly eyes at each other. There’s not been anything between us in a long time.”

“A few months is a long time to you then, is it? That certainly explains a lot,” Spike answered angrily.

Guilt briefly flashed across Buffy’s face as she remembered the last kiss she had shared with Angel, as unbeknownst to her, Spike watched them from somewhere in the background.

“That was different.”

“Really? How now?”

“I…we…I thought there was a real chance that I might die and never see him again. I didn’t…there is nothing between us anymore.”

“Well you might want to let him know about that. ‘Cause he sure seems to think different.”

“What? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that he’s convinced you’re still in love with him. Thinks I was just a poor substitute for him.”

“That’s not…that’s not true.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“I wasn’t the one fucking my ex on a random desk not five hours ago!” Buffy screamed, letting her anger finally get the better of her.

Spike had the decency to once again look guilty and turn his face back towards the road, just in time to avoid running into a tree. He swore loudly and swerved heavily causing them both to painfully slam against the interior of the car. Thankfully they had been alone on the road, so there was no one behind them to run into them. They both breathed heavily, from the exertion of their argument and the shock of almost slamming into the tree. They turned stunned eyes to each other and perused each other’s bodies for injuries. Not finding any, their eyes rose to meet each other’s gaze, as they both held back from touching each other to ensure that everything was indeed okay and not broken.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy said, her eyes still fixed on his.

“You…what?” Spike asked, his expression turning bewildered.

“I’m sorry for implying that you weren’t worthy of the word “hero”. I neither meant it, nor believed it.”
She looked away from him, knowing that this next part would come easier if she couldn’t see him staring at her like that.

“Seeing you with Harmony…it ummm…it hurt. I was angry with you and so I said what I said to get back at you, I guess.”

“Buffy…I – “

“No,” she interrupted, “please let me finish. Otherwise we’re sure to get into another stupid argument before I get this out.”

Spike nodded his head slightly in agreement as a response.

“I was angry with you when I saw you with her,” she continued, causing Spike to lower his eyes and get that remorseful and ashamed look on his face again, “but I had little right to be.”

Spike’s head instantly shot up to look her in the eyes at that last part.

“We never really had a relationship. Well, we at least never had what mentally sane people would call a relationship. When Willow brought me back…I…I felt like you understood me. Like you were the only one who really did. The others…Willow and Xander…they tried but they couldn’t even begin to know what I was going through. In those first months, you were my only real friend.”

As she looked at him with what were obviously tears in her eyes, Spike felt the pain of her words in his unbeating heart. Even now, even as furious with her as he’d been no five minutes ago, seeing her like this made him want to gather her in his arms and hold her until everything was alright again. Whisper sweet, soothing words into her hair.

She turned her teary gaze away from him as she went on with what she needed to say.

“And then…when you got your soul…I felt close to you again. Like there was this thing between us that we both knew about but never spoke about. And it was warm and beautiful and delicate…and heartbreaking… but I never made it official. I never told you that I wanted to be with you. I never explained to you what was going on in my head, or my heart. I wasn’t fair to you. I wanted you by my side, but I never told you so. I never made any kind of commitment to you, while you’ve always given me whatever I wanted, or needed.”

Spike fought the steadily increasing urge to touch her, as a tear trailed down her face.

“So yeah. I had no right to react the way I did and I am sorry. You don’t owe me anything. And I will always think of you as a hero.”

“Buffy, I don’t know what...I…thank you,” Spike finally settled for.

“Once we figure out who was behind this apocalypse and setting you guys up, I’m going to leave. Giles was wrong. I shouldn’t have come here. Not this way. It was wrong of me to come in and try and fix things. It isn’t my place.”

“Okay,” he said.

She wanted to leave. After everything she’d just said to him, she still wanted to leave. He wanted to grab onto her and hold onto her tightly before she slipped through his fingers again. Ask her, no, beg her to stay, just this once. Instead, he nodded his head and turned from her, restarting the car, hoping the roar of the engine would mask the sound of his heart shattering into two million little pieces all over again.

Neither spoke during the rest of the drive back to Evil Incorporated.