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Spike would never admit it to anyone, but flying made him nervous. He hated being cooped up in a metal tube so far above the ground, his natural energy caged, a complete lack of control over what was going on and with nothing to do to release the tension. Bloody unnatural. Despite the invulnerability and healing powers that came with the whole vampire package, he wasn’t convinced he’d survive a fall from 30,000 feet. Not easy to reconstruct mush after all.

The flight seemed to stretch on forever. He’d discovered early on that his grand-sire had indeed had the silly little itty bitty bottles of booze replaced – with Mountain Dew. Spike had spent a fruitless few minutes cursing and searching, but there was no alcohol to be found. He had tried to relieve the monotony. He’d flipped through the collection of on-board DVDs, dismissing each one of them with a sneer – he’d paused at Casablanca, but, classic or no, that Rick? What a jerk… should never have let the bird go. He’d wandered onto the flight deck but the pilot had refused to let him take the controls, very unfairly, Spike felt. He’d flown a plane before and yeah, OK, it was a biplane, and it never got more than a few feet of the ground, and it sort of crashed, but it couldn’t be that bloody difficult. Wanker.

So he’d sat and tried to sleep and tried not to think too hard about what waited for him in Rome. Drusilla. Hadn’t seen her since that night he’d threatened to off her to prove his love for Buffy. He winced. Somehow he wasn’t convinced she was going to be overjoyed to see him. But of course that kind of depended on quite how far into cloud cuckoo land she’d wandered. Whatever, it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

And then there was Buffy.

He reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out a scrap of green silk. He wrapped it around his hand, watching the shift of colours in the light filtering through the window. What was it she called it? A scrunchie. That was it. He’d got it – actually bought it; stealing it didn’t feel right – for Buffy. He’d chosen it because the shifting greens in the shot silk had reminded him of her eyes, of the way their colour changed subtly with her mood. He remembered giving it to her one night when she’d come to him worn down by her shift at the Doublemeat Palace; awkward with the whole idea of present giving he’d half flung it at her. She taken it and looked at him with a curious smile.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a thing…” he gestured vaguely at her head “…for your hair. You said it kept getting in your eyes.”

“You bought me a present?” A raised eyebrow.

“Well, I guess...” Her lips had twitched with suppressed laughter and he’d started to feel annoyed. “Yeah, whatever – just thought, you know, you could use it. Look, just forget it.”

She had taken it out of the bag, her face softening as she turned the silk band in the light of the candles. “It’s called a scrunchie.” She looked at him with a soft smile – the smile that made his long-stilled heart leap in his chest. He’d die for that smile. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently.

She had worn it for days, and it had given him a deep sense of pleasure every time he saw it in her hair. It had got lost somewhere in his crypt, thrown aside during one of their desperate, bruising sessions, and he found it weeks later, long after she had told him it was over between them. Since then it had stayed in the left hand inside pocket of his duster, close to his heart (daft git, he’d thought as he put it there). It had survived all this time – survived the holocaust of the Hellmouth, still been there when he was dragged back from wherever the hell he’d been, even survived the bomb that shredded his precious duster. He closed his eyes and pressed it to his nose, breathing deeply. He could still smell her – despite everything her scent still lingered, faint and elusive, but still there. And it still cut straight to the core of him, reduced him to a mass of memories and pain and pointless longing.

The pilot’s laconic voice over the intercom announced that if sir would care to look out of the left hand side of the plane, he’d see the lights of Rome. In fact, as a special favour, he was going to take the jet in a close pass over the city before landing on the company’s private runway in the south.

“Thank you for flying Wolfram and Hart Airways.” Spike muttered to himself as he looked out on the glittering jewel that was Rome at night. She was down there somewhere. With him. He frowned and tucked the silk back into his pocket. How could she? Moving on was all very well, but moving on to The Immortal? Someone should tell her a few home truths about that one, put her straight, and just as soon as he saw her… what? What exactly do you think you are going to do, bozo? Spike sighed. He’d faced up to the fact he hadn’t got a chance with Buffy. Like he’d told Angel he still cared about her, but did he have any right to go storming back into her life, laying down the law? Given she didn’t try to contact him when she knew he was back – and he had no doubt she knew, no way Andrew would keep that one secret – she clearly didn’t want him in her new life, and he respected that. He did. Honestly. Her choice, her life, and none of his damned business; didn’t stop it hurting like hell though. He rested his head against the perspex of the window, watching the lights of the city below. “Benvenuto a Roma,” he said quietly, trying to ignore a growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach.

******

From his roof terrace, The Immortal looked up at the low-flying jet with a frown.

“They really shouldn’t let those things come in so close over the city,” he said, passing a glass of champagne to Buffy.

Buffy leaned back in her stylishly uncomfortable chair and pressed the cool glass to her cheek. Absentmindedly her other hand caressed the smooth black leather of the chair’s arm. She looked up at the plane’s lights disappearing into the night sky and suddenly felt an almost overwhelming urge to be on that jet herself, flying off to wherever it was going, anywhere but here... The tug in her heart was so strong it hurt. She took a sip of the wine and closed her eyes.





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