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Author's Chapter Notes:
My biggest apologies for not having updated this fic much earlier. I hope you all still remember it!
Thank you so much to Holly whose continual enthusiasm keeps this fic going.

Part Ten

She was scared.

Seeing Xander as he acted as a vampire decoy made her throat burn with guilt. And then there was Spike, his arms warm and comforting around her as her friend first fell into view. Cloaked and mysterious, she’d initially thought it was a shady character; then she recognised his shape, his walk and realised what he was doing.

Spike squeezed her reassuringly before Buffy took that first step, hesitant but determined to make her presence known.

“Didn’t anyone ever warn you about playing with pointy sticks?” she asked as she dragged Xander up from the pavement, the nerves making her feel weak and stupid. “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.”

What did she have left with her friends but the puns?

There was no joyful surprise that she was back—all she could read on Xander was shock followed by a watered down smile of greeting. He’d even missed seeing Spike before the vampire melted into the shadows.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!” Xander exclaimed with only a small delay.

Buffy could see his gasping, adrenaline fuelled muscles struggle to come down from not being attacked by a vampire, and guilt choked her. It was her fault that he was out here pretending to be bait. Her fault he wasn’t at home hiding from his parents, or at the Bronze being a teenager. Fleetingly, she wondered if Giles knew that her friends were out fighting the good fight or if he’d packed up and left. Without a slayer, he had very little to watch. She couldn’t blame him if he thought it was time to move on.

“Geez, Buff.”

Before Buffy could brace herself for either censorious words, or a relieved hug, a fixture of the night came bounding around the corner, about to set his fangs into an almost certain conquest. That is, until Buffy stepped in, beat him down and saved Xander’s life once again.

It made her feel dirty, and she didn’t have the words to explain why.

“Come in, Nighthawk. Everything okay?”

It was the third familiar voice that Buffy had encountered since being back on the Hellmouth, and its mode was quite simply astounding. The words? Vaguely funny, but definitely confusing. It seemed really bad—now that she was confronted once again with her existence—but she’d failed to even think of Cordelia in the months she’d been away. Not that she’d spared much more energy than that worrying about Willow and Xander. It was hard to care when your emotions were in deep ice.

“Nighthawk?”

The fact that Xander had taken on some superhero guise while he was out just barely not being eaten by the nightlife was admittedly kind of amusing, but Buffy bypassed the funny for a more tangible feeling of anger. She resented this. Did they think she was having fun every time she left her bedroom window to save lives? Did they think she wanted this for her life? To lose everything again and again simply because she wasn’t normal and would never be allowed to be? Did they think it was fun to risk their lives every night?

Vibrations of irrepressible rage bolted through her body and it was all Buffy could do to not start screaming—to not snatch Xander’s hokey little walkie-talkie and smash it beneath her foot. All she could do not to attack her own friend for not once understanding the depths of the pain she’d been forced to subdue every day since she’d met them.

While she boiled in anger, Buffy hadn’t noticed the vampire rising once again to his feet, following a one way course to his meal. The guilt she’d felt initially was washed away with the first punch from the vampire’s fist, knocking him back on his much-abused ass. A snide grin almost made it to her lips before the reinforcements came careening around the corner, and once more the anger swelled up to a burn.

She didn’t feel like stepping in and helping, but when one after the other was thrown to the ground or into each other—Buffy even managing to get an armful of Cordy with the girl’s easy recognition more irritating than pleasing—she felt the urge to just slay and be done with it. And then it was done, she the only focus, and all eyes saw every part of her presence as an intrusion.

There was no happy welcome—no cries of relief that she was still alive, even though they had no knowledge how close Spike was to them all. Buffy could still feel him, knew he was watching this interaction and monitoring her reception. As much as it reassured her that he hadn’t just bailed the first chance he had, it was similarly embarrassing that he would see everything—even the small glimpse of resentment her friends couldn’t contain that she’d reappeared on the turf they were apparently trying to claim as their own.

After a wait that was minutes too long and even more humiliating, there was the semblance of love, the relief, and the conviction that she shouldn’t do anything else before she saw Giles and let him know she was back and alive.

Buffy shivered just at the thought of this meeting. She was surprised he was still in town, and scared about what he would say to her. Even more afraid of what he would think of her. And all of that was before any of them got wind of the knowledge that she’d brought Spike home with her. Somehow, she didn’t think that was going to bring on the love that was glaringly short-changed at this reunion.

She felt Spike follow along at a distance, and not once did she feel like he was stalking her. As much as she warred with herself about the dangers of relying on his presence, and the ramifications for this town if he became bored with fighting on the side of good, Buffy couldn’t let go of how comforting it felt to have an evil slayer-killing vampire look out for her.

Buffy wanted to kid herself that this apparent devotion he had to her safety was something more than just him protecting his investment. She wanted to believe that he might actually care about her welfare. That all his actions weren’t just about getting her back to the centre of evil, but because he was concerned about how she felt and what she needed. The impromptu hugs and the searing, heart-thumping kisses went a long way to convincing her there was much more to Spike than a master vampire responsible for the vicious killings of two of her sister slayers. Just as there was more to her than being the Slayer, and now that she walked beside her friends to face her watcher, she realised that Spike had been coddling the Buffy part of her—the girl that had needed touch and communication to thrive—since he had shown up in her diner. As much as he’d been encouraging the Slayer to go out and do her duty—but for sport, rather than destiny—it had been the damaged girl he’d been holding through the long, cold nights.

It was as though there were sharp, physical consequences of having an epiphany. A blanket of gloom had been suffocating her ever since she’d arrived home—probably even before that. Possibly as far back as Spike’s reminder of what he was—still proudly, irrevocably evil. That saving the world was just something ‘neat’ he could do while he thought of what was next in line for his eternity.

Her Watcher’s not-so-familiar door loomed ahead like a big, scary fire-breathing demon and all Buffy wanted to do was run into the open arms she was sure Spike would offer her. It made no difference to him, she was sure, if Buffy could never again relate to the people that had been her support and strength for the past two years. He’d sit back and smirk at their efforts to don the dress and adopt the personas necessary to run down evil—her evil—and unsuccessfully. And he’d reassure her that they were bumbling idiots that couldn’t hope to make a dent in protecting the world from big evil—not like the one she’d already made.

She didn’t hate them, though right now she wasn’t happy on too many levels to count. It wasn’t even really something she could name, just some deep-seated belief that things were far from right between them. Before she’d left, Willow was unconscious after attempting to do the witchy thing and be their big gun. Xander had saved Giles where she couldn’t—save her bargain for time with the devil—and almost ordered her to do some ass-kicking inspired damage to Angel while she had the chance. She’d often wondered, when thinking of the flash of soul in Angel’s eyes during those last, tortured moments—because what else was there to think of on those lonely nights in her bed—if Xander had maybe known that Willow was going to attempt the spell again. She knew it was Willow. No one else had been prepared for the spell. No one else even knew of it. Being lost to Jenny’s tribe kind of ruled out the Gypsy clan, and Buffy knew of no one else who would have even known to do it. Or who had the determination to try one more time to save her friend’s lover. Xander had been at the hospital with Willow. Why wouldn’t he have known if that’s what Willow had decided to do?

They’d reached Giles’s and Buffy was terrified of the pressure heaping on her head. It seemed like nothing ever changed. No one could wait until she was ready before trying to shoulder her into a situation she wasn’t prepared for. Sure, Giles wasn’t a nasty demon that could make her see the last of her life before the blood seeped out of her veins. But his words could cut to the quick if he chose to go that route.

She didn’t want to knock. The door was there, but the really big thing was, it wasn’t going anywhere. She could have done this later—like tomorrow when she’d had the chance to sleep off the apathy of just being back. When she’d been able to gather her confidence and run through her reasoning for running out in the first place.

When she could explain why she’d brought them Spike.

It was weird, but right now the subtle reassuring presence of Spike in the darkness gave her more courage than this group of friends who were telling her what to do. She felt like the titles were all mixed up—that Spike was truly the friend and the only one really concerned, at this point, for her welfare. She got that they were hurt that she’d left—that she hadn’t contacted anyone while she was gone. But that had been more an essential than a plan. If she’d contacted Willow, she knew her whereabouts wouldn’t stay a secret and the healing she’d needed would’ve been cut short. That the healing really only began when Spike showed up with his dismissive wit and energy was so not the issue, and Buffy was still refusing to think too closely on it.

“What if he’s mad?” Buffy knew it was a stupid thing to say. Of course he’d be mad. Of course he’d be hurt that she’d left and, more than likely, left him the victim of her mother’s sharp tongue and pointed questions about the slaying gig. Didn’t mean Xander had to be a total pig about pointing out her faults. And it certainly didn’t mean he had the right to take the high road on his quest for martyrdom.

“Mad? Just because you ran away and abandoned your post and your
friends and your mom and made him lay awake every night worrying about
you?” Xander couldn’t have held back the venom if he’d tried—which he obviously hadn’t, and Buffy wasn’t surprised at the final little dig. “Maybe we should wait out here.”

It wasn’t like he’d shown any kind of understanding or support since he’d set eyes on her earlier.

With her stomach in her shoes, and the collective wind of her not-so-cheering squad at her back, Buffy knocked. Despite the alert her body was on for the appearance of another familiar face, Buffy didn’t know what she’d expected from her first meeting again with Giles. Some kind of emotion would have been nice, but belatedly she remembered he was British and would force that stiff upper lip on duty, even if he did want to welcome her home a little more boisterously than with a cup of tea.

He stepped aside and allowed them in, Buffy peering over her shoulder for some small spark of evidence that Spike would be there if she needed him. If the guilt trip got too long and bumpy for her to handle and she needed him for the long walk home. The tip of his cigarette burned in the night and Buffy withdrew, satisfied.

She would never have figured Spike as the one she’d turn to when her friends and family became too much, but she was almost positive that she was going to be needing his special brand of comfort and support in the days to come.

Readapting to life on the Hellmouth wouldn’t be the breeze it was the first time around. This time she was filled with expectation, was flanked by friends and judgments that would temper her every move. But the biggest change was that this time she’d have a warrior at her side, not some ineffectual cryptic warning guy who did little to save her life while he was stealing her heart.

This time she had Spike, and strangely, that made her happiest of all. It was enough to be sure of, and Buffy allowed herself to be led inside.





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