Forgiveness
“Hey, girlie.” Cordelia presumptuously assumed the vacant seat next to her, plopping a mug full of blood into the Slayer’s empty hands. “We gotta talk.”
Buffy was far and away. That much was simple to decipher. Her gaze remained fixated on the cup of warmth that touched her skin, its tempting aroma wafting dangerously near her sensitive nostrils. She knew what it was—there was no denying that. And yet, she couldn’t remember it looking so appealing. She couldn’t remember it emanating such a heavenly scent. The thought was thoroughly disgusting. Blood. The essence of life. Blood was what her body craved.
Blood, because her body had changed. She was a vampire.
A vampire.
“Hey,” the other woman said when her offering gauged no reaction. “It’s okay. Really. I’ve seen Angel do it about a thousand and a half times. Not to mention, Spike’s been a sort of bloodaholic since he got here.”
Buffy pursed her lips, stared at the red temptation a minute later, then raised her gaze to Cordelia. Wondering. Waiting.
“Come on,” the Seer prodded. “You can’t just whither away. Spike would never forgive me if I didn’t take care of you.”
That seemed to reach her on some level. With an absent nod, the Slayer lifted the cup to her lips and indulged a long, hearty taste. It couldn’t end there. Once the crimson goodness hit her tongue, she was guzzling it down with hunger she had never known before. Hunger she didn’t know could exist. Hunger that replaced anything felt on a mediocre human level. As though she had been made for this.
But that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
Buffy jerked her head back with a gasp, aware of the sweet-smelling thickness that encased her mouth. “What did you do to this?”
“Nothing! Well, okay. I added some Weetabix and cinnamon. Spike’s always bitching that if you don’t give it flavor, it’s not nearly reaching the potential for maximum whatever. The experience or whatever you wanna call it.” Cordelia smiled sympathetically. “He’s too worried about you to look out for you right now. So I’ve decided to assume the responsibility until he gets off his self-loathing ass and confronts you himself.”
At that, the Slayer frowned. “Confronts?”
“Yeah. It’s this thing where he thinks you hate him. Want some more? We’re stocked up on all the goods. A, B, O—pos or neg. Whatever you want.” She arched her brows invitingly. “Spike’s a lot pickier than Angel when it comes to his blood types. Some mornings, he’s in the mood for a good bag of—”
“Wait. Stop. Please.” Buffy held up a hand. “Back to the part where Spike thinks I hate him?”
“Oh. Right. That. Well, there’s this thing where he made you drink from him to become a vampire. And really, it wasn’t his idea. That was Zack. Zack lost his wife a few years ago to vamps—Darla, actually—and he didn’t want Spike to go through what he went through. They’ve become friends and such. It’s sweet.” Cordelia made a move to get up. “Are you sure you don’t want some more? It’s no big—I’m used to being Ms. Waitress around here.”
Buffy grasped her arm, worry filling her eyes. “He thinks that?”
“He loves you.” She said it so simply. As though it meant nothing. As though it wasn’t revolutionary. The Slayer had known it, of course. She remembered very clearly acknowledging it both to his face and to herself in the minutes before her death. Before she reached a similar revelation about her feelings. And yet, hearing the words spoken aloud by someone who wasn’t her gave her such blissful liberation. It filled her insides with warmth that she had feared lost to her forever.
“He loves me,” she repeated, eyes flooding with tears. “He does? Really?”
Cordelia snickered and settled next to her once more. “Don’t tell me you doubted it.”
Buffy shook her head. “I didn’t know. How could I know? He came for me when he shouldn’t have. When he had no reason to. He made the hurt go away. He told me things that should’ve been impossible. He…” She trailed off in a manner that clearly explained to anyone that had she the ability; she would be flushing right about now. “He made me feel good when it wasn’t possible. I think I wanted…” A powerfully overwhelming breath seized command of her; she pivoted sharply and grasped the Seer by the wrist. “He loves me?”
“More than life itself, honey. Well…he’s a vampire so I don’t know if that terribly overused cliché works in that context, but we’ll just say it does, how ‘bout it?” Cordelia smiled. “Yes, he does. Very much. So you should march your booty up those stairs and tell him that you don’t hate him.”
At that, Buffy’s face fell once more as though remembering something.
“He made me a vampire.”
A sigh coursed through the brunette. Powerful and unwanting. “Yeah, he did. He really did. You hate him for it?”
“No.”
“But you don’t forgive him for it?”
“He…” Buffy trailed off helplessly. “I’m a vampire, Cordy.”
“Yep. Noticed. Lots of people are vamps. They kinda crowd the town.”
The Slayer turned her gaze downward, falling on her hands as she examined herself. The look on her face betrayed some form of morbid curiosity; as though she should be physically transformed more than usual due to her newfound vampirism. “He made me into what I hate.”
“He did it to save you.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t hate him.”
“I can’t hate him,” she replied softly. “I can’t. I…” Her eyes clouded with tears. “I can’t. I promised him. I…” The emotion buried in her gaze finally reached her voice, and she broke without warning, leaning forward as the empty bloodstained mug smashed haphazardly to the concrete. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Cordy,” she sobbed. “These past few days…weeks…however long I was…it felt like forever. It felt like a nightmare. A nightmare. And I was just waiting to wake up. I was waiting for my world to come back. Not real. Not real. None of it was real. It couldn’t be. While I was there. Spike came and he made it real. I thought…I thought he was there to hurt me. But he didn’t. He came and gave me…more than anyone has ever. And I loved him. For that. For everything. For being him. For being someone I had never seen before while…I loved him so much.”
Cordelia nodded her understanding, carefully keeping her tone neutral. “Do you still love him?”
She nodded pitifully, unable to form the words. “I don’t know how or…it doesn’t seem real. I still feel like it’s not real.”
“It is.”
“And when I realize that, when it finally hits home that this is the way things are…will I still love him?” Buffy shook her head. “I hope so. God, I hope so. I promised him things would never go back to the way they were. And they can’t now. Even if I wanted them to…because he made me into what he is. He made me a vampire.”
“Zack made you a vampire. Spike has done nothing but resent him for it since it was done.” Cordelia gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I can’t imagine what you went through, Buff. And frankly, I don’t want to. Angel’s a good friend of mine, and even though he and Angelus are…I just don’t wanna think about it. But Spike…what Spike went through while you were…he made believers of all of us.”
“I love him and that scares me. It scares me so much.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s him. Because it’s me. I’m no good at loving, Cordy. I never have been. I never loved Angel.” She smiled wryly when the Seer reeled in astonishment. “I figured that out, too. And it hurts. The great love of my life wasn’t a love at all. Just a teenage infatuation. I don’t think I know how to love.” A sigh shuddered through her. “And somehow, the love thing scares me more than the vampire thing. I guess I half expected something like this to happen. I thought Angel would kill me, and he did. I didn’t know if he’d turn me or not, but I thought about it. I never thought that hanging there would make me love. And even so, I never thought it’d be…I never thought it would be Spike.”
“Why?”
The Slayer’s smile remained with dry actualization. That seemed to be a favorite question of hers. Just as well. It was the right one for the time being. “Because it has always been him. Somehow it always has. And when that became real…” She broke off, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore. Everything that I did know is coming apart. And nothing can make it right again.”
Cordelia pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That’s not true.”
“It’s not?”
“Maybe not the version of right that you’re used to. But you and Spike…you can make a different kind of right.”
Buffy could not spare herself a small grin. “You sure seem to be pushing this ‘me and Spike’ thing.”
The observation earned a shrug in turn. “I just don’t see where the conflict comes in. You have to get used to the vamp thing, right? You love him, he loves you. Where’s the problem?”
“It’s complicated.”
Cordelia’s gaze widened. “How is it complicated?”
“It just is.” Buffy’s eyes clouded with nameless emotion. As though she couldn’t think or feel for the impact her actions were bound to have on both her and the man upstairs that awaited either amnesty or condemnation. “Love just complicates things. I haven’t…I’ve never felt this way before. Ever. And I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s gratitude or love. It doesn’t feel like gratitude. It feels…”
There was an appropriately lengthened pause. The conclusion was all the same; anyone could tell that. It was merely a matter of getting there. “How?” she asked finally. “How does it feel?”
The Slayer allowed a small, genuine smile to tickle her lips. “Wonderful. Like…like nothing I…” She broke again and shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought. How I thought things might change when I was…but I do remember what I felt when he…when he was with me before. When he came for me. And it hasn’t changed. I feel different. Really different—on levels that go way beyond the not being alive in the most technical sense thing. That’s something I have yet to grasp. One thing at a time. I just…”
“The vampire thing?”
“One harsh reality at a time,” she reiterated with confidence. “And I have a habit of dealing with the big thing first. What happened wasn’t his fault. I know enough to know that. The Spike that…the Spike that came to help me…to save me…”
“He’s the same Spike you knew from before,” Cordelia said, earning a sharp, hopeful glance. “Trust me. He might seem different, but worrying yourself into a second death does that to you. He showed up here the day after you were taken. Or the next morning or something like that. Evidently, he came right after he received word that you were gone and verified the entire plan to Giles and all the others before he left.”
Buffy’s eyes distanced. “Giles…”
“They’re in England, now.”
“I know. I…I just…” She broke off harshly and shook her head, clutching herself with tightness that suggested she expected to be whisked away at any minute into some self-constructed purgatory. It was amazing how similar she and the platinum vampire were in such telling gestures. The Seer reckoned neither would ever know enough of what to look for to recognize it for what it was. “I can’t think about that now,” she decided ultimately. “My multi-tasking skills seem to have been dulled. One thing at a time.”
“That’s understandable,” Cordelia assured her.
The Slayer nodded as though trying to convince herself. “Right. Now…what happened?”
“With what?”
“After Spike got here. What’d he do?”
The brunette grinned and made no move to hide it. Little things like that were very good. “Well,” she began again, “I threatened to stake him.”
Buffy cracked a nostalgic smile.
“Lindsey had sent us a warning about Angel being all evil and whatnot, so we had a friend of ours strengthen the vamp no-invite policy. Spike got here and stood outside screaming his head off until we agreed to invite him in on the condition that the story was okayed by Giles.”
“That must’ve driven him crazy,” she remarked.
Cordelia flashed a conspiratorial grin. “You have no idea. But we worked together well, for what it was worth. It took him a little while to trust us and vice versa, but it’s strange how close we’ve become. I’m not gonna lie to you sister; we’re probably going to put up a fight to keep him here.”
The notion, for whatever reason, seemed to warm the Slayer. The cold confusion behind her eyes thawed—not enough to make a significant difference, but as much as necessary. For now.
“You’ve grown that attached to him?” she asked.
The Seer nodded. “We all have. He’s a part of the gang, whether he wants to admit it or not. I almost can’t remember him not being here, really. He and Zack have gotten really close. It’s kinda cute watching him with his friends.”
Buffy was smiling all out now. Evidently, she found the notion just as adorable. “I’ve never seen him with friends. Really…I guess I never…”
“It’s cute,” Cordelia repeated. “They met after Lorne directed him to someone who could help him get you back. He had to sing at Caritas—it’s this demon bar—in order to be read and get that far, and—”
“Spike sang?” The Slayer blinked. She had a distant memory of him telling her the same, but it seemed so foregone that she had not been sure if the conversation had actually occurred or if the entire event was something her overly active mind conjured. Until now, she had suspected the latter. The idea of Spike singing was…well, it was charming, not to mention sexy as hell, but she hadn’t thought it something he would do for any purpose.
“Hell yeah, he did,” the brunette replied enthusiastically. “And man oh man, does that boy have a gorgeous voice. I swear, there wasn’t—”
“He sang?”
“Yep.”
“In front of people?”
Cordelia nodded, smiling at her bewilderment.
“He sang for me?”
“Honey, you have to move passed this. Yes, he sang for you. Some Rufus Wainwright number, I think. The owner of Caritas—Lorne—is an empath demon that can read you when you sing. Give you your future or destiny or whatever.” She paused briefly. “He did that for you. Because he had to know that you were all right. ‘Course, he didn’t get any of the goods that he was looking for. Lorne could only give him his future, not yours. But it did lead him to Zack, and that was that.”
The Slayer entertained a small grin. “You like him, don’t you? Zack, or whoever.”
“In ways that are very unchristian,” Cordelia agreed with a devious smile. “But, gotta be honest, I’ve never been a Christian person.”
Buffy nodded her acknowledgement. “I can’t imagine you like this,” she observed. “You’re so different from what I remember.”
“I am like this.” The brunette shrugged. “Never imagined it myself, but stuff happens.” She paused considerately, appraising the Slayer with a pensive eye. “So…why’s it complicated?”
There was a long beat of silence; any hint of jollity falling from her eyes without much incentive. “Because if this is it,” she said softly. “If what I feel is real…”
“Do you think it’s real?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation: only knowledge. Despite her shortcomings, she believed it to be real. And in many ways, that was all that mattered.
“Then—”
“It’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.” Buffy expelled a deep, shivering breath. “I don’t know why it would be…but that it’s real…and somehow, that terrifies me. It’s something that’s…” Her eyes were filling with tears again, threatening to spill at any turn. “It just terrifies me. I want it but I’m scared of it, too.”
“Scared of what?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It’s just too much, Cordy. Too much, too fast.”
“Was it too fast before you were vamped?”
“I didn’t think so. It didn’t feel like it there. I guess it was easier when I was chained up. Not that I would ever, ever go back.” A shudder shimmied down her spine. “But when it wasn’t real yet, I could let myself love him and be loved without being afraid. I’m so scared.” She distanced perceptibly. “I’m scared…I think I’m scared of being hurt. Of putting myself in…of giving myself over completely and…if he drops me, it’ll…”
“Hurt?”
“Among other things. If I never loved Angel and his leaving did to me what it did…what would happen if Spike left me? What—”
“Wait. Whoa. Hold the phone.” Cordelia was staring at her incredulously. “How can you think that you’re not forever to him? Do you have any conceivable idea what he went through to get you out? He’s been tearing himself apart. When he hasn’t been with you, he’s been trying to get back to you. Zack told me he broke down sobbing when he saw you. I don’t even think sobbing’s a strong enough word. What Zack told me was…it broke my heart. And he stayed with you all night. I couldn’t get him to come downstairs for anything.” She shook her head, almost angry. “I’d give anything to have what you two have. Only I wouldn’t be down here moping that the man who worships you is going to hurt you when he’s upstairs, hurting more than…well, hurting a lot. I’d be up there with him. Hell, I’d be in sweaty, naked goodness. I would not be down here thinking about how loving the one person who would never hurt me might hurt me. That’s stupid, Buffy. You’re just setting up barriers for yourself to keep you from being happy. Well, guess what. You don’t have any curse. You don’t have anything holding you back. You have a gorgeous vampire upstairs that’s hurting because he thinks that you hate him. Now, get off your undead booty and march your ass up to him and—”
It was fruitless to continue, though.
Buffy was gone. Halfway through her tangent, she had gotten up and walked out.
She had gone upstairs. To him.
Cordelia entertained a small smile. All the better.
The sight that greeted her when she summoned the courage to face his room was enough to break the strongest of wills and shatter a champion of hearts into a thousand pieces.
Spike was on his knees staring at her abandoned bed. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, and that bothered her. Despite however strained their acquaintance had been, he had always made the pretense of being alive, whether for her or his benefit was a completely different matter.
For all intents and purposes, he might as well have been a statue. A marbled Greek god reduced to his knees through his distressed worry. It upset her. Whatever else had drawn them apart; Spike’s strength was the one consistency she could always depend on. Even when he was at the severest of disadvantages, he always made light of the situation. He always bluffed his assets. He always made sure that if he went down, it was at the pinnacle of a fight.
That was something she had always respected, despite however different their relationship of the past had been.
She didn’t like seeing him defeated.
Hurt.
Not an inch of his body flickered in recognition. Nothing betrayed his knowledge of her being there; that he was even attune to her.
She knew it was otherwise. It couldn’t help but be otherwise. Not with what they shared. And here they were—connected in the most intimate of fashions. There was nothing stronger than a sire’s pull on his childe. She needed him, but she didn’t. She loved him, but she was afraid. She wanted to calm him, but feared losing whatever of herself was left. With what? Rejection, perhaps. There was nothing to suggest he would ever reject her. But the fear there remained. The fear that he would look her in the eyes and everything that she had experienced while chained at Angelus’s leisure would have truly been something of her imagining.
Looking at him now, she knew it was anything but her own imagining.
It was everything.
Delicately, Buffy leaned to support her weight against the doorframe, her hands falling with near pious relevance in front of her. “Spike?”
The air could not have been heavier. Silence stretched her. Taunted and teased her. He made no move to even acknowledge that he had heard her speak.
She drew in a breath, waited for a minute, then tried again.
“Spike?”
Nothing.
That was it, then. It was all or nothing. She wouldn’t let him get away that simply. With a deep breath designed to support her confidence, she shook her head and set forward. The strain of tension stretched palpably across his shoulders. As though every step she presumed was furthering his agony.
But he didn’t say anything.
Almost blindly, she reached out. Some innate part of her had to touch him. When her hand found his shoulder, she nearly crumpled at the raw strength that coursed beneath her fingertips. With all the power she had ever thought to exercise, she had never assumed that it would take so little to break one man. One vampire. The thought was terrifying.
She had the power to defeat giants.
The thought barely had room for birth. No sooner had her hand grasped his shoulder had his own sought out her fingers. The touch he offered was fiercely delicate. As though nothing but being near her gave him such pleasure. His skin was cold. Colder than a vampire’s. Colder than anything she had ever touched.
Oh God.
“’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Buffy bit her lip, fighting the flood of tears that rose instinctually at the raw pain buried in his voice. It was too much. Everything was an undercurrent of too much.
But she did not pull away. Instead, her hand moved in slow, comforting strokes against his neck, nails scraping lightly at his skin. She felt the ripple of pleasure catch him, heard the forbidden breath he took at her tender attention. She also felt his disbelief. The suspense held there that demanded nothing this congenial came without a definitive price.
She intended to banish that thought away. For long seconds she held fast, her fingers screaming in delight to finally do what her body had been craving for days. She had wanted to touch him so badly. She had wanted to reciprocate his delicate attentions when he caressed her. She had wanted him to know how much he meant to her just by being there, and that she wasn’t using what he gave selfishly. That she would love him just as greatly given any circumstance.
Despite how afraid of love she was.
She loved touching him. She bet she would love tasting him too.
Buffy drew in an unnecessary breath, hardly aware of the moisture clouding her eyes, and knelt forward to brush a kiss over the nape of his neck. The tension wrought through his body tightened rather than released. She realized then that he was every bit as afraid of her as she was of him. The thought sent her reeling over the edge. Cordelia had warned her, of course, but some part of her hadn’t wanted to believe it. Spike was a tower of strength. He, after all, had brought them this far.
“Spike,” she murmured against his skin.
At that, she heard him inhale deeply. “God,” he blabbered. “’m so sorry, sweetheart. I never meant to. I never—”
“Spike—”
“—wanted this for you. God, I was too late. I was too late to save you. Too late to—”
“Spike.” She whispered another kiss across his skin, and this time he nearly sobbed at the release her touch brought. “Look at me. Please.”
There was nothing he could deny her. With a calm, concentrated breath, he rose to his feet and turned to face her at last. The pain behind the raging storm stole want of understanding from her lips. She nearly broke at the sight he presented. What he willingly gave. He might as well have outstretched his arms and invited her to stake him; he looked to want nothing else.
Buffy smiled through her tears. God, he was so beautiful.
“Please,” she whispered, unaware she was speaking until the neediness she had not known herself capable of tainted the tortured air.
“Please what, baby?”
That was a good question. Her mouth quirked at the term of endearment.
He was trembling. He was trembling and she had done that to him.
“Do I scare you?” she heard herself asking, having no idea where the question came from. It was merely there.
Nevertheless, he didn’t question her wording. He was honest with her. “Yes.”
The way he said it—without batting an eye, without pausing for consideration—was one of the most startling revelations that had ever overpowered her. And even though she knew the answer, hearing him admit as much shook her to her core.
“I wonder…” she mused thoughtfully. “You’ve never feared me before. We’ve been through a lot, Spike. Why would you choose now to finally…I just…why?”
Pain swarmed behind his eyes. Pain and the fear of hope. She knew it well enough to identify it anywhere. And even against his will, he found her palm where it was pressed against his cheek, her fingers lightly exploring his softened peroxide locks. His lips sealed a kiss against her skin. “I fear your hatred,” he whispered. “God, Buffy, I don’ think I’ve…I…look at what I’ve done. What I turned you into.” The trembles wracking his form were becoming more pronounced. As though he could not contain himself. “After everythin’ I’ve seen, everythin’ I’ve done…I don’ think I’ve been afraid before. Not before I knew you. An’ even then, the terror I felt tryin’ to get you out of there…God, I don’ think I’ve ever feared anythin’ like I fear your hatred.” His head bowed reverently. “’F you hate me, ‘s all right. ‘S what I deserve. But I don’ know how ‘m gonna be able…I don’ know where to go from here. God help me, Buffy, I don’ know where to go after you.”
There was truth there. Horrible, frightening truth.
Buffy had tasted her fair share of fear over the past few years and she was sick of it. This last fulfillment. Whatever they earned, she needed. She needed to banish fear and not incite it. She needed to give him what none other ever had.
It was the least she could do.
Thus, delicately running her hands up his arms to link behind his neck, she brought his forehead down against hers, rejoicing in the contact. “I don’t hate you,” she whispered. “I could never, ever hate you. You’ve done more for me than anyone I’ve ever known. You—”
He broke away, choking his disbelief. “I turned you into somethin’ you hate!” he protested. “I made you—”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“How can you—”
“Okay. You don’t believe that, obviously. How about this. I don’t blame you. Not at all.”
Spike blinked at her in disbelief. “How…why—”
It was simple enough to go for broke. She couldn’t lie to him if she wanted to. “I don’t know.” The most honest reply she could have possibly given him under these conditions. “I don’t know about anything, Spike. I’m not all right. I’m about as far from all right as anyone could be right now. I haven’t dealt with the vampire thing yet…” She paused briefly when she felt him tense beneath her hands. “It wasn’t as important to me as you are.”
He made no move to disguise the breath that lodged in his throat. Fresh tears were clouding his eyes, each pulling at a different heartstring. “You have no idea,” he said hoarsely, “how much I wanna believe that.”
She offered a touching smile. “You should,” she whispered. “It’s true.”
“I don’ understand—”
“Neither do I. I’ve already given up trying to understand.” Her hands clutched at him desperately and he gave into her willingly, his own arms pulling her closer into his embrace. Cool relief flooded her body. She needed this. Needed this even more urgently than she thought to. “I’m so…everything’s gone wrong. Everything. And I’m not okay. I’m not okay.” She found her head urged to his shoulder when her will broke and the sobs she had been keeping in finally tore through her in endless waves. “I’m not okay. Not okay.”
“Shhhh,” he murmured soothingly. “’S all right, love. Everything’s all right. You jus’ let it out. Let it out. God, ‘m so sorry I did this to you. So—”
He was cut off abruptly; she pulled back and practically attacked his lips with hers. He remained in stunned delirium before her tongue pushed into his hard softness, and then he was all but ravaging her with his mouth. The pent up tension, the longing, the worry, the sadness—so much sadness. Everything imaginable poured into such a simple but desired union. They nibbled and tasted each other. Needing far more than could be given. Needing everything and nothing at all.
With a gasping breath, she pulled back. “Stay,” she begged.
“What?”
“Stay with me tonight.” Buffy saw objection flood his eyes and found the sentiment thoroughly heartwarming, but pressed a finger to his lips before he could vocalize his protest. “Just…I don’t want to be alone. Please. Don’t leave me alone. Could you just…” Her eyes lowered to the floor. “Stay with me.”
It was an amazing thing; watching as boundless love deluged his eyes.
“Are you sure?” His forehead nudged hers amorously. “I don’ wanna…”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I might not be okay…but without you…I don’t wanna think of where I’d be.” She smiled poignantly against a shield of emotion. “Right now, Spike…you’re my line of reason. Please stay with me tonight.”
A long, still beat passed between them. One that spoke for more than anything words hoped to touch. The light shining through his eyes was everything she would ever need. And when he nodded, there was nothing else to reach for. Nothing else to understand. He merely stepped backward, her hand held in his, and gathered her in his arms as she settled against him.
Against him. Where she felt truly safe.
Long into the night, she felt his fingers caressing the contours of her face. Sleep was impossible, but there were no more words. No words. Only silence.
The silence of a sanctuary. There in the purest embrace she had ever known. Against Spike—against the one she loved. It was completion as she had never known before. It was everything. Whole. Fulfilling.
But most of all, it was temporary. Just for the night.
The first night in many where she had known solace. And for one second, one blessed second, the world was gone. The world in all its screaming horror. Her pain was on reserve. Saved for tomorrow. Saved for when she had the strength to face it.
For now, though, she was enjoying a stolen moment with the one she loved.
And it was enough.
To be continued in Chapter Thirty-Eight: Devil in the Belfry...