The sun had already broken over the horizon by the time they reached the hand carved, overly quaint sign that read “Now Entering Deux Rivières,” and Spike tried desperately to squash his impulse to flatten the sign on his way into town. Old habits dying hard and all that.
It always amused him that the town had a French name, was settled by primarily Italians (after driving the Native Americans off the land), and was now being reintegrated with an influx of immigrants from Sonora and other northern Mexican cities. Who says we’re not a bloody melting pot? And now, he was the British Invasion.
The heat was fast rising in the midst of the Arizona desert, and already wavy heat lines were radiating off of the few paved roads left on the way to their destination. Squinting through the windshield, Spike finally located the turn-off labeled “Caldwell Ranch” and swung the wheel hard to the right, gritting his teeth as the DeSoto protested the transition from blacktop to packed sand and clay.
“Ranch” was somewhat misleading. To the best of Spike’s knowledge, in the fifteen years since his friends had purchased the place, there had been no livestock, no crops, and the barn was used solely as a garage for when Sam decided he wanted to tinker with one of the many old clunkers he housed there, much to his wife’s chagrin. In fact, the only thing remotely ranchlike about the two-story white house with north-and-south facing windows was the split-rail fence that ran around the edges of the property.
They pulled up the long driveway slowly, and Spike eased the car into the large overhang on the side of the house, throwing it into Park only once the DeSoto was firmly centered in the shadows of the overhang. He turned to Buffy and said, “We’re here, ducks.”
She picked her head up from its rest against the car door and started to uncramp her legs to get out of the car. It worried him that she hadn’t once, in all the hours they’d been traveling, questioned where they were going or why. It also worried him that he could only answer one out of those two questions.
She got out of the car and stood, waiting silently, as he grabbed their bags out of the back and slammed the door shut. He felt around the wooden doorframe for a moment, finally feeling the small metal key exactly where Sam had said it would be. He unlocked the side door and Buffy shuffled obediently through, still taking no notice of her surroundings.
“How you feeling, luv?” He desperately wanted to elicit some sort of response from the Slayer, who seemed to have achieved some sort of walking comatose state. She shrugged slightly, and said her first word in hours.
“Tired.”
At least it was something. Spike nodded and led Buffy across the light wood floors. Since the last time he had seen it, the house had been entirely redone in mission-style furniture, all blond wood and earthy tones, oranges and browns with the odd splash of turquoise for contrast. It was sparse and lovely, and he was sure he smelled a woman’s touch on the whole thing.
Indirect sunlight flooded every room in the house, giving the illusion of far more space than actually existed. Not that it was cramped by any stretch of the imagination. As he navigated his way towards the staircase with Buffy trailing, he could feel a breeze blowing through the slightly-open windows left by the owners. He was somewhat indifferent to temperatures, but he imagined such a breeze might feel nice to someone with slightly warmer blood than him. Someone like the blonde who was currently ignoring it.
Buffy followed him dutifully up the stairs, her light footfalls echoing Spike’s the whole way. When he reached the top of the stairs, he steered her through the first door at the top. “In here.”
She trailed into the room, ignoring the dark, hand-carved furniture that was crammed into the master bedroom. While the other rooms had been sparingly decorated, this one was a monument to extravagance, full of dark woods and stark white linens. She drifted to the edge of the enormous mahogany sleigh bed and sat, hands in her lap.
Spike stood, uncertain. “You going to be okay? Need help with anything?” Buffy shook her head and flopped over onto her back, fully clothed. “At least let me take your shoes off, Slayer. We are guests, after all, don’t want to get your sandy shoeprints all over these posh sheets, do we?”
She allowed him to remove her shoes and socks, and turned sad eyes to him. “Spike?”
“Yes, luv.”
“I’m so tired.”
The multiple levels of her meaning weren’t lost on him. A heart didn’t need to be able to beat to be able to break, and Spike felt just as broken and powerless as Buffy did in that moment. “I know, Slayer. Just sleep for now, okay? I have some stuff I need to do, and then I’ll be in the bedroom down the hall, other side of the loo.”
She gave a slight nod and her eyes drifted shut. Spike stood watching her for a moment, wishing he could just curl up besides her, truly invited and truly welcome. And then he sighed and gathered himself to go about his task.
* * *
Spike had just finished gathering all the sharp knives, razors, and other cutting implements and locking them into the boot of the DeSoto when a wave of tiredness swept over him, so strong it was practically dizzying. He made his way back into the house, up the stairs, and had just reached the doorway of the second bedroom when he stopped dead in his tracks.
The second bedroom had been redone recently, too. For the eight-year-old boy who was its usual inhabitant. And the centerpiece of the renovation, aside from all the NASCAR posters and racing stripes that adorned the walls, was the junior-size bed fashioned after a red sports car.
Great. Just bloody fucking fabulous. Resigning himself to squishing into the plastic-framed monstrosity, at least for tonight, he had just tugged off his Doc Martens when he heard a whimper.
By the time he reached the hall, the whimpers had escalated to full-blown sobbing, and in the three steps it took him to get to the master bedroom, screaming had followed.
Buffy lay in bed where Spike had left her, screaming, hands clawing at her throat. She was obviously asleep and dreaming, but she was stiff with terror and starting to toss her head back and forth, gasping for air.
“Buffy! BUFFY!” Spike’s tone started soft, but got louder as it became evident that his voice wasn’t penetrating the Slayer’s sleep terrors. She started to thrash in bed, waving her hands and punching the air above her, meeting some invisible force of resistance. Tears were pouring down her cheeks as the screams had subsided to whimpers. Spike was overcome with pity and grief as he understood.
He perched on the edge of the bed next to her, gently touching her arm and speaking with a low, soothing voice. “Buffy… Slayer… you’re not where you think you are…” She whimpered again but the tears slowed and her arms gave one final thrash in the air against the invisible coffin lid. “You’re in your bed, safe… not gonna hurt you any more…” She whined and started shivering, still twisting her head to and fro.
“Oh, luv,” he said sadly. He swung his legs up on the bed and attempted to draw Buffy into his chest, but she resisted, pulling her head back and arching away from him, and her cries got louder as she started to panic again.
“Okay, luv, hold on, hold on.” He moved around to the other side of the bed, molding himself loosely against her back, carefully settling himself behind her so she wouldn’t feel trapped again. She gave one last, low whimper and then leaned back against his chest, while he wrapped one arm loosely around her waist. She shifted several times, giving small, kitten-like mewls, and then fell into a deep, thankfully dreamless sleep.
Spike tucked her head under his chin and as he finally succumbed to sleep, her name left his lips in an almost inaudible whisper. “Buffy…”
It sounded like a prayer.
It was.
* * *
They both slept all day, and when Spike awoke again at nightfall, he was ravenous. He inched his way out of the king-size bed, careful not to jostle Buffy, and headed down to the kitchen to settle the nourishment question.
Rooting around in the freezer, he found three large bags of O-negative, and he popped two in the microwave. While he waited for the blood to warm, he read the hastily-scrawled note Delyla had left him on the fridge.
To restart delivery, call the local butcher –a number that Spike recognized as a local exchange was scrawled below--and tell them you’re at our place. He knows what to bring, and he’ll leave it in the milk box on the front porch. You know how to reach us. Hope this works, William.
Love, D&S.
It amused him to this day that she still insisted on using his proper name. Something about the way it sounded with an Italian accent gave a lyrical lilt to the hated moniker from his old life. Plus, like many men, Spike could forgive a beautiful woman almost anything.
Rummaging in the cabinets, Spike found almost all canned goods. Since the family had been leaving for abroad when Spike caught Sam by phone, they had used up all the perishables, leaving mostly canned goods and other nonperishable items.
He cobbled together a tray of food for Buffy with chicken noodle soup, canned peaches, and some Saltines, and brought it back up to the bedroom. But standing there, staring down at the sleeping girl, he just couldn’t bring himself to wake her. She just looked so, so weary, even in her sleep. He set the tray by her bedside, so she could eat whenever she woke up, and went back downstairs to see what else Sam and Delyla had done to the house.
* * *
By the end of the second day, Spike was at his wits’ end. Buffy hadn’t moved from her spot on the bed since she had lain down, and it had been almost forty-eight hours. He could tell she wasn’t sleeping; her breathing was too quick and shallow. She just lay on her side, and as he came around the side of the gigantic bed, he could see that her eyes were half open, not looking at anything. Plus, two days without a shower in the desert heat and she was starting to smell more than a tad ripe.
“Slayer.” Nothing. No movement, not even in response to the sound of his voice in the silent room. He tried again. “Buffy.”
Again no response, and he perched on the bed next to her, directly in her line of sight. She started to roll the other way, and he caught her around the waist, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Enough is enough.
“Spike! What--”
“You didn’t want to go with the easy way, so now we’re going to do this my way.” He headed downstairs as she flopped on his shoulder. The old Buffy would’ve beat him around the head for such a stunt, but this one just flopped limply around as he cut through the kitchen and burst out onto the back patio.
The sun had not yet broken through the night sky, but Spike could smell that dawn wasn’t far off. The mercury had already begun to rise, and the sounds of the local fauna stirring to life were the only thing that disrupted the quiet.
Spike drew up on the edge of the in-ground pool and dumped Buffy unceremoniously into the water. She broke the surface with a startled yelp and bobbed under. The backsplash got him too, and he was pleased to feel that the water was too cold to be comfortable yet.
A sputtering Slayer surfaced, blonde hair matted to her face as she fixed Spike with a vaguely indignant glare. Good then. Got some fire left in her yet.
“What the hell, Spike?” She quickly stroked to the side of the pool, but as soon as she placed both palms on the pool’s concrete apron, Spike stepped over and trapped one of her hands under each of his boots. He kept his weight in his heels so that he wasn’t crushing her hands, merely preventing her from getting enough leverage to lift herself out of the chilly water.
“You need to choose, Slayer,” he bit out, squatting in front of her so that he could look her in the eyes. He balanced carefully, and was pleased when the chip didn’t fire. “You need to make a choice right this bloody moment.”
She looked up at his cerulean eyes and stopped trying to free her fingers, struck by the depth of emotion warring across his features. Anger, fear, and… what is that?... Resignation.
“What are my choices?”
“Choice A. You agree to work with me instead of against me on this little trip of ours, I extend my arm down, help you out of this pool, and we both forget the last two days ever happened.”
Buffy said nothing, staring back up at him. Of course the little bint would want to know all her options. Can’t ever make it easy, can she?
“Choice B,” Spike stood and stepped back, freeing her fingers, and crossed his arms across his chest. Buffy made no move to hoist herself out of the water. “You let go of the edge of the pool, sink to the bottom, and drown. You get the end you’ve been craving since you came back, and no one has to know it was your choice. Hell, no one ever has to know what happened to you. You get to die an anonymous death that no nosy friends can bring you back from.”
She found her voice. “And you?”
“Doesn’t really matter now, does it, Slayer? I mean with you being dead then ‘n all. But since you asked, I’ll tell you. I wait for the sun to rise; feels like it’s only a few minutes away now.” The sun was indeed just starting to crest over the horizon. Buffy could see the first rays creeping over the edge of white clapboard, nearing where she and Spike were locked in their showdown.
“Why would you do that?”
Spike stepped back onto her hands and leaned down towards her again. “You know I’m a demon, right? I mean, you and your mates are always reminding me and such.” She furrowed her brow, not sure where this was heading. She could feel the angry energy radiating off the vampire as he leaned even closer in to her.
“Yeah, so?”
Bitch had to challenge him right to the last, didn’t she? “When I was human I was a good man, a moral man. I knew right from wrong and I always chose right. Then, when I was turned, right and wrong didn’t matter any more, and I just always chose what I wanted. That’s the beauty of vamp life; any little whim or indulgence you can think of, you can partake of. No repercussions, no guilt. Over a hundred and twenty years I lived guilt-free, taking what I wanted, living how I wanted, always getting what I wanted.
“Until I met Buffy Fucking Summers. Over a century of getting what I wanted when I wanted it, and suddenly the only thing I wanted in the entire universe, I couldn’t have. I couldn’t kill you, you wouldn’t let me love you.”
Buffy had the distinct feeling that the vampire would have been pacing had he not been standing on her hands.
“So? Doesn’t that mean you should let me drown?”
“Listen closely, woman, because your daft little mind seems to have taken a detour; you are the only thing in a hundred and twenty plus years that I’ve wanted and not been able to have. Do I strike you as a vamp that always takes the easy road?”
The sun was edging further down the side of the house, and Buffy eyed it warily as it started to encroach on the cement surrounding the pool. “Spike…”
“Don’t care, luv. Now listen, and listen good, cuz this here’s the important part: I don’t just love a challenge, I live for a challenge. I may be reckless, I may be cocky, I may have nine million other character flaws that you would be happy to chronicle for me any day other than today,” he straightened back up, which put him dangerously close to the sunline.
“But I don’t back down, and I don’t give up. You know and I know that if you get out of this pool, I will stop at nothing to make sure you get your life back. It doesn’t matter if you never love me,” the words tightened in his throat just a little, “it just matters that for once, in my whole existence, my real existence, I fought for what was right and good and pure in the universe. God knows I’ve taken enough of that out of it. I’ve taken my pleasures, and I’ve taken my pain. Can’t let you die, Slayer. Can’t make you want to live, either. Your choice.”
Buffy stared up at him, slack-jawed. He glared back with his jaw set, tension radiating off of his body. He moved his feet slightly so that she could pull her hands back, and she bobbed for a minute, kicking occasionally to keep herself afloat, deep in thought. The sun crested on them, and the tips of Spike’s hair started to smolder. She looked at him in alarm. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t even blink.
Just stared at her with the same challenge in his face. He thought of something he had once heard. “Dying’s easy, luv. Living’s hard.”
The smoldering turned to a sizzle, and Buffy panicked, extending her hands to him. He leaned over, out of harm’s way, and yanked her out of the pool and into his arms. He wrapped them both in a towel retrieved from a nearby lounge chair—her, to calm her shivering, him, to put out the still-smoldering locks of his hair. Gonna have to trim that out.
Using the towel as a shield, he steered her back across the pool apron and into the house and the kitchen. Once inside, he tossed the towel to Buffy and patted the back of his head, assessing the damage. She wrapped the towel around her soggy clothes and waited for her shivers to subside.
She wrung as much water as she could from her shirt into the sink. “Damn vampire.”
“This really is a lovely place. I want to show you the house, and then once the sun gets lower this afternoon, we can head into town and get some food,” Spike grinned cheekily. Brushes with death always seemed to reinvigorate him. “Now that we’ve gotten all the drama aside, luv, want to see the place?”
A soggy balled-up towel to the side of the face was his answer, and he started laughing.
“Asshole!” Buffy said, starting for the stairs, and for a brief moment Spike had the sinking feeling she was heading right back to bed.
“Where you going, ducks?”
Her response had just enough annoyance in it to make Spike see the old Slayer shining through. “Well, since someone decided I needed an early-morning swim, I need to go shower.”
He bounced gleefully on his heels. “Good idea. Might want to scrub up twice, actually. Didn’t want to say anythin’ but you were starting to smell.”
The bathroom door slamming was his only response.
TBC
A/N: You can see the bed Spike almost slept in here (just cuz it’s funny): http://kidsfurnitureusa.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=31
A/N2: The line Spike paraphrases, “Dying’s easy, living’s hard,” is taken from “House, M.D.” (2004).
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Beta: dusty273
Warnings (This Chapter): Contains Adult Language, Angst
Warnings (This Chapter): Contains Adult Language, Angst