“Buffy! *Buffy*!”
Not thinking, just acting on the pure instinct that drew him to his mate’s side, Spike was on his knees beside the fallen Slayer in an instant. He gripped her arms in his hands, shaking her slightly in an attempt to rouse her – but she was limp and unresponsive to his touch. An inexplicable sense of panic began to steal over him, as various possibilities floated through his mind.
What if the thing inside her had finally managed to subdue her for good? What if Buffy -- *his* Buffy – never came back? Or what if she never woke up at all?
In spite of everything she had done to him – that thought was bloody terrifying.
After the cruel encounter he had just had with the enraged, possessive side of the Slayer, the part of him that sought self-preservation was telling him that he was being utterly daft. This was his chance to escape – he should flee while he could, rather than attempting to awaken the powerful, dangerous creature that had been in the process of beating and terrorizing him when she had passed out.
She seemed to be becoming more and more violent and out of control all the time. One of these times, she was bound to go too far – to not return from that place of rage until she had killed him.
He found himself wondering how far away he could get before she woke up, and how far away he would *have* to get to escape her mental control over him.
*Was* there even a place far enough away?
He had the sinking suspicion that there was not. No matter how far he went to get away from her – her claim would pull him back. The only way he would ever escape the claim was through death – his, or hers.
That thought, combined with the sight of the pale, unconscious Slayer in his arms, was enough to send a jolt of terror through him, reminding him that no matter how cruelly she had treated him, it was infinitely more frightening to think of losing her forever.
Maybe it was just the effects of the claim – maybe it was more – but all he knew was that if he lost her, his *mate* -- he would likely lose his mind as well.
“*Buffy*!” he nearly shouted, shaking her harder. “Buffy, love – wake up!”
He felt a tremendous sense of relief – which was quickly mingled with fear and trepidation – when the Slayer suddenly began to stir in his arms, frowning slightly, her eyes still closed, as she slowly fought her way back to consciousness.
He hesitated, unsure of what he should do. If she came back as the vicious, controlling Buffy who had been berating and abusing him, he imagined that she would be furious to find herself in this vulnerable position, held in his arms, especially considering the mood she had been in when she had passed out.
But if it was *his* Buffy – the one who was connected to him by the bond of her claim, but did not seem to feel the need to constantly tear him down and remind him of how far beneath her he was – then he knew that she would want his support, the comfort of his embrace, after what had to have been a frightening experience.
As she started to come around, sitting up slowly in his arms, one hand braced against the floor to push herself up and her eyelids slowly fluttered open as she drew back out of his arms to look at him, blinking in confusion.
In that moment, in the absence of the fear of whether or not she was going to be all right – a sudden panic gripped him. If she was not yet completely in control, she would likely knock him across the room just for daring to touch her in such a casual, familiar way.
As her eyes began to slowly come into focus on him, he scooted cautiously back across the floor a couple of feet, watching her warily. Every nerve in his body was electrified with fear; he had absolutely no idea what to expect from her.
All he knew was that whatever she would do, he would be powerless to stop.
“Spike?” she whispered in a lost voice of painful uncertainty. “What – what happened?”
He frowned, surprised and worried by that. “Don’t tell me you don’t bloody remember?” he said, a bit sharply, one eyebrow raised in a question. She had always remembered her little bouts of insanity before.
She looked up at him quickly for a moment, startled – before her eyes went wide with shock…as it all came flooding back to her. Disgust and anger – both self-directed, showed in her eyes as she shook her head slowly in denial, moving instinctively toward him, wanting to make right what she had done, not considering yet the fact that any way of doing that involving actually touching him would probably not be received well.
Indeed, Spike immediately misunderstood, thinking that the almost fierce expression on her face and her unexpected movement toward him were in response to the tone he had used with her, and his failure to answer her question. He looked down quickly, edging slightly away from her as he quickly, nervously corrected himself.
“I mean – I’ll tell you everything, Buffy, it’s just – just kind of scary that you – you don’t…”
His words trailed off as he felt her, saw her, drawing nearer to him, and dared not move away from her any further. He stopped talking, his thoughts scattered, and not trusting his own voice anyway, swallowing convulsively as she closed the slight remaining distance between them.
“Spike,” she repeated his name in a soft, trembling voice full of emotion – but the softness in her tone didn’t quite register with him yet.
The memory of her brutality, her vicious humiliation of him only minutes earlier, was too fresh in his mind to allow him to recognize the tenderness in her voice now. She touched his arm – a feather-soft, barely there touch that revealed her own fear and shame to face him – and he nearly jumped out of his skin, flinching back, his jaw setting in fearful frustration when he realized that his back was already to the wall, and there was nowhere to go.
“Spike,” she whispered gently in a voice that was choked with tears. “Please – I’m so sorry…”
“It’s okay,” he replied in a quiet, carefully controlled tone – too quickly. “It’s okay…”
It was painfully obvious to her that genuine forgiveness was not something he could even consider yet – not because he *wouldn’t* forgive her, but because he was still in survival mode – too afraid to argue with her, or deny her, or even to pull away from the soft, tentative touch of her hand that was clearly terrifying to him.
He was terrified of *her*. His arm under her hand was so tense, his muscles taut and trembling – just waiting for her to snap and hurt him again, as she had done so many times already.
Could she blame him if any answer besides “it’s okay” did not seem like an option to him at the moment?
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head, tears of grief over her own actions streaming from her eyes. “No, it’s not…nothing is okay about what I just did to you.”
He closed his eyes, swallowing hard, his mouth working with some repressed emotion at her words.
Anger?
Fear?
Loathing of her touch, her audacity to even think that an apology would mean anything under these circumstances?
She knew that any of the above reactions would have been nothing less than deserved – but she could not seem to read him as easily as she usually could, since the claim – maybe she was afraid to.
“Please tell me,” she whispered, struggling over the hard knot of pain and regret in her throat. “Please tell me – what I can do – I’m so sorry – please – how can I make this right, Spike?”
Before he could think to control his reaction, his eyes shot up to hers, incredulity and disbelief mingling with the hurt and shame in his eyes. Her words were simply unbelievable to him; how could she even begin to think that she could undo what she had said and done to him so easily?
In a sudden surge of anger, before he could stop himself, he jerked his arm away from her, snapping at her bitterly in a trembling voice, “Could you maybe *not* bloody touch me? That’ll do for a start!”
She immediately withdrew her hand, stunned by his words, hitting her like a slap in the face.
Like the slap she had dealt him, just a little while ago.
She deserved it; she knew she did. She could feel the anger, boiling inside her, deep down – but for the moment, it was *staying* down. She had managed to push it so far back that there was no danger of its surfacing any time soon.
In spite of everything, the hint of a smile came to Buffy’s face as she remembered what she had wanted to tell him before, only moments after she had awakened, but had been distracted from by his emotional reaction to her. She had no idea how long it might last, and she knew that it would return, and she would have to fight it again – but for the moment, her “source of power” was under control.
She had beaten it – for the moment.
Spike had no way of knowing that.
The instant his scathing, bitter words left his mouth, he drew in a sharp breath, visibly steeling himself for her reaction as he realized what he had done. Every time before when he had pulled away from Buffy, it had brought out the violent possessive side of her – and he expected that it would this time, too.
He drew back against the wall, his eyes closed, swallowing hard in fearful expectation of punishment for his defiance.
“Spike…” Buffy said softly, moving in closer, shaking her head in denial of his suspicions and fears. “No…”
“Please,” he whispered, flinching slightly, his body tensing as he sensed her nearness, assuming that she meant to retaliate against him, to prove that it was her *right* to touch him if she wanted to. “Buffy – I didn’t mean it…”
“Yes, you did,” she stated quietly, gently, a deep sorrow and regret in her voice as she stretched her hand out slowly toward him. Instinctively she knew what to do, how to show him that she meant him no harm.
If she didn’t manage to scare him half to death in the process of getting there.
Spike completely misinterpreted her actions, drawing in a sharp breath as her hand moved toward the mark on his throat. “*Don’t*!” he cried out in a soft, anguished tone that tore at her heart to hear it. His desperate plea was painfully stunning to her.
Her hand froze, less than an inch from its target, and she stared at him in sorrow, speechless with horror at the effect her actions had had on him.
Feeling a sense of hope at her hesitation, though still believed that she had intended to hurt him, Spike let out his words in a rushed, desperate whisper, “Please – I’m sorry, Buffy – please don’t – don’t be angry with me – I’m yours, I know I’m yours, I know you can do whatever you want, just please *don’t*…I just – I just – can’t…right now…”
His voice broke over that final desperate admission, and he could not go on, choking back the tears that threatened to overcome him, breathless and silent as he waited for her response.
Her arm relaxed, lowering just a bit, and Spike let out a long, shaky breath of tentative relief.
“Does this feel like I’m angry to you?”
He glanced up at the sound of the Slayer’s sad, small voice – just as she reached quickly toward him again.
He didn’t have time to move away, to brace himself – even to be afraid – as her hand came into contact with the mark, overwhelming him instantly with a powerful flood of sensation, for the second time that night.
But this was nothing like before.
This was exquisite pleasure, beyond anything he had ever felt – an overwhelming sense of safety and warmth and affection to rival what he had felt in the moment when she had claimed him. It was the manifestation of Buffy’s desire to undo the damage her alter-ego had done.
As the initial wave of pleasure at her touch gradually ebbed away, he was overwhelmed a second time, this time with a tumult of emotions and wordless thoughts and feelings that defied expression. He felt a tremendous sense of sorrow, confusion, shame and guilt; but also affection, adoration, awe and gratitude.
He knew immediately that he was feeling Buffy’s emotions, her thoughts filling his head, as through the line that connected their hearts and minds, Buffy opened up to him all the painful blurring of thoughts and feelings that had consumed her since the moment the claim had been made.
He *knew* -- through *her* eyes – her guilt, her horror over the things she had done, her feelings of being out of control, unable to stop what was happening – and yet knowing that she was responsible for it. And those deeper feelings, for which there were no words, he still knew, feeling them, for a moment, as Buffy felt them *every* moment.
His heart, his mind, his entire being was surrounded, engulfed in the swirling vortex of Buffy’s psyche, until he felt as if he was in her, and she was in him – as if they were one and the same. Her pain, her shame, her tears – all were his as well. And the stunning depths of much more beautiful feelings belonged to him as well.
He was stunned, and unspeakably relieved, to feel the tenderness, the concern that her dark vicious actions had made him believe was completely vacant from her heart.
Suddenly, it hit him with a shock – what he had expected to find that was noticeably absent…or at least dramatically weakened.
The violent rage, the anger and possessive cruelty that seemed to consume her most of the time lately was nowhere to be found. He tried to figure it out through the waves of sensation washing over him.
Perhaps she was simply concealing it from him deliberately; the mental control she had over him led him to believe that she *could* do that, if she wanted to. And, as at the moment she seemed to be repentant for what she had done and wanted to soothe his fears, perhaps she was *trying* not to let him see her darker side.
Or maybe – just maybe…
His eyes widened as the idea occurred to him, as he remembered the fierce internal struggle that Buffy had apparently been waging in the moments before she had lost consciousness. Was it possible that she had found a way to regain control over her own body and mind from the sinister force that had been wielding it as a weapon against him?
Aware of the turn his thoughts were taking, Buffy slowly withdrew her hand from her mark, and gradually the world around him returned. He opened his eyes, hazy and unfocused for a moment, trying to make her face become clear before them.
When the blurring of his vision faded away and everything came into focus, he noticed with surprise that she was closer than he had expected -- *much* closer.
He glanced down and around him, noting with a sort of wonder that she was gently cradling him in her arms, as he leaned against her heavily, shaking slightly with the power of the borrowed emotions she had allowed him to feel. His hands clutched lightly at her waist, and he bowed his head to her shoulder, breathing hard as he tried to ground himself again.
For once, he feared no repercussions for his presumption of touching her.
Her hand rose to rest at the back of his head, stroking gently, comfortingly, through his hair as she gave him a few moments to recover from the sheer intensity of the experience, before speaking softly.
“I wanted to tell you,” her words fell in a tone barely over a whisper near his ear. “I wanted to let you know as soon as I woke up…”
Gently she pulled back, wanting to look him in the eye as she told him, and he could see a sparkling look of hope in her emerald eyes as they met his. She was smiling tentatively, as her hands slid around him to rest on his shoulders and she took a deep breath before speaking.
“I fought it. I fought it with everything in me, Spike. I knew what I was doing, and I hated it, and I *fought* it…
…and I won.”
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