Author's Chapter Notes:
CHAPTER 21: When I Was Dead

CHAPTER PAIRING: Tara & Spike, Buffy/Spike, Drusilla/Spike, Giles/Joyce

TIMELINE/SPOILERS: AU after AtS.

DISCLAIMERS: All BtVS characters are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. I'm just fixing their mistakes! Ha!

CHAPTER NOTES: For those of you outside of the USA, Spike's reference towards the end of the chapter is to a pizza chain called Papa John's. I've also thrown a little Haitian creole in this chapter for your linguistic enjoyment. Let the drama continue!
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No matter what he did, she didn't react. This was slowly becoming a recurring theme with him.

Stan watched Spike as he tried everything he could to get Madame Polina to move. Her eyes were wide open, staring blankly... but at least she had a pulse.

"I think she's a zombie," the Empath pronounced sadly.

Spike growled. "She's not a fucking zombie," he retorted. Whatever the hell she was, he'd been bored of it already. "Oi!" he yelled as he slapped her face.

"Actually, she just might be." Tara materialized at Spike's side unexpectedly.

"Eh?" the demons muttered in unison.

"This looks like voodoo." She pointed towards the foyer.

At that, Puddles ran out of the room, following her finger like he was scolded.

Stan's gaze went to his four-legged ward, but Spike turned to the witch.

"Thought I left you with Red?" His voice wasn't angry, but it definitely was tinged with something. Worry, maybe?

Tara bit her lip and slumped slightly. "I figured maybe I'd be more useful here with you."

The vampire softened then. They hadn't been able to rouse Willow so far, despite all that they tried; surely a few hours away wasn't going to make much difference.

A moment or two later, Puddles came bounding back in, something feathery in his mouth.

"What'cha got there, boy?" Stan asked him, crouching down as if to play.

Spike didn't have time for this. He shook Madame Polina again.

"Oh Goddess, don't touch!" Tara cried out. Everyone dropped what they were doing. Spike's face looked guilty while Stan's showed fear.

Tara pointed to Puddles. "The talisman! Don't touch it!"

"But... I already did! Oh no, Puddles! He's cursed too!" Stan clutched the poor dog, and the two of them both howled in anguish.

"Bloody hell! Will you wankers knock it off?" Spike held his head. Even the damn Scoobies weren't this bad.

"You're not cursed. She is." Tara pointed to Madame Polina. "Just leave the talisman alone so we don't contaminate the magic. Otherwise it will be harder to reverse the spell."

"This is ridiculous," Spike muttered to himself as he reached for his cell phone. He growled again while the call went through.




He could have been sitting there for a day or a week; he didn't know. The ringing phone broke the dead stillness that had consumed him. It rang and rang and rang as he reestablished where he was. His living room, crushed glasses in his hand. The darkness around him said that, whenever it was, it was night. He slowly reached out towards the sound.

"Did I wake you already?" Angel asked, his voice eager.

Giles said nothing, barely holding onto the phone.

"I can leave any time now. Don't have Wolfram & Hart's jet anymore, though, so it might take a little while to plot out the course. But, she won't have to wait long."

The Watcher was shaking enough that he nearly dropped the receiver. "I'm out," he whispered, his voice foreign and barely audible from disuse.

"You didn't tell her I was coming, did you?" Angel continued, either not having heard Giles or not caring. "I really want it to be a surprise. A gift."

The excitement and anticipation in Angel's voice was just too much. Giles clutched at his stomach as he gripped the phone. "I'm out," he rasped again before slamming the receiver down.

Before he slumped back to the floor, he ripped the phone cord out of the wall.




The excitement and anticipation in Dawn's voice was just too much. Even she, herself, knew it was bordering on insane.

Buffy was sitting on the floor of her bedroom sharing the small treasures of Spike's wooden chest with her. It had been hidden as a secret for so long, but after last night Dawn felt her sister soften towards her, and Buffy thought it only fair that Dawn get to see these pieces of Spike's unlife as well. Dawn could barely contain herself. Buffy wanted her to help find Spike. To remember and celebrate with her.

Dawn squealed as she held a photo of the vampire from sometime in the 1960's. He looked really Mod, like he was about to zip away on a scooter. Dru was pinned next to him with shampoo-commercial-perfect straight hair and a mini dress that rivaled anything Twiggy ever modeled.

This journey through history was a rare opportunity the sisters both cherished that evening. Aside from a pair of her lace panties and a grainy security camera image of Spike and Drusilla having really gory sex in what must have been an old prison, Buffy shared each item with Dawn, telling her anything she might have known of the mementos.

"But, how do you even have this here?" Dawn asked. "I mean, Sunnydale is a freakin' crater!"

Buffy thought back to that last morning in Sunnydale. She knew one of them wasn't going to make it. Call it part of that Slayer vision, but the knowledge was there. So, she packed the box in her duffel bag with the few other sentimental items that would define her should either she or he be the one who died. If it were to be her time, then Spike would discover that she had saved his precious memories for him. And if it was his time, well... here we were.

"I knew you loved him. Even if you wouldn't admit it, I knew it." Dawn held up a dainty lace collar that must have been Drusilla's, inspecting it.

Buffy hadn't been so sure. There was something between them, definitely. But all those months they had sex—that love seemed one-sided; she was so numb that the love permeating from their coupling had to really be Spike's. And even that last year, after she found out about the soul... True, she no longer hated him. She liked him quite a bit then, despite what she said to anyone else. But love? Until Spike's sacrifice, she hadn't let herself see and feel the extent of their actual relationship. It struck her then that he denied her at that last moment so that she would get out to safety. He knew all along that she'd grown to love him, just as he told her. But she compared and defined love to her feelings for Angel. So, no wonder everything she had since His Holiness had failed. Who could live up to that distorted fantasy? What she had with Spike was real. Real, grown-up, fucked-up, like relationships actually are. It had been at that point of realization, once they had driven far from the destroyed town that was once known as Sunnydale, that Buffy understood just what she lost and just how she felt about Spike. The pain of loss she experienced later, after the Scoobies split up and went their own ways to live "normal" lives, was something no one but Dawn understood.

"Ooh! Look at this one!" Dawn had put down the old choker and held the photo of Dru in the opium den. It was one of Buffy's favorites, too. "I know she's like super scary crazy, but, God, she's really gorgeous."

Buffy leaned in, and they both followed the scene. Dru was cushioned by dark pillows. She laid across them like a sleepy cat, stretching. A thin scarf or shawl was draped over one hip and pooled between her legs. Otherwise, she was nude. Her bare skin was flawless. It appeared as though her hair had been put up to hide its length—the photo seemed to be from the 20's, after all—but after whatever (likely naughty) things she had been up to, locks splayed out against the pillows and her shoulders.

"No wonder he stayed with her that long."

"Yeah. Plus, that look on her face. It's like she's got him in her thrall," Buffy added.

Dawn giggled. "You don't need thrall when you're that gorgeous. I mean, he fell for you, didn't he?"

Buffy blushed and hugged her sister close.

He was out there somewhere, and they were going to find him.




Giles eventually picked himself up, opening his back door and leaning against the frame. The cool air of near-dawn drifted in from the garden. She was out there somewhere, and he prayed that she would one day forgive him. He closed his eyes to wipe away the rising tears. What he saw in his mind's eye before him, approaching from the shadows, was a vision of the Slayer's mother, Joyce. Sweet, strong Joyce whose love he tasted once and silently longed for ever since. He was exhausted, but he'd stand there all night dreaming of her if he could.

"Rupert, you'll catch cold like that," she scolded gently as she reached the light that filtered out from his apartment.

Hearing an actual voice, he opened his eyes then. Without his glasses, he couldn't see details. But he definitely recognized her figure and her scent. This had to be a dream; it was too real to be, well... real.

So, don't let it go, old man!

"Please forgive me," he pleaded with her. How disappointed she must be in him. She surely trusted him to watch over Buffy, and look what a royal mess he'd made of that.

Joyce reached for him. He saw her up close then and caught the smile that rarely came out around him. "Buffy's a stubborn girl. Like mother, like daughter."

He held her hand then, chilled from being out in the dewy cold. "Come in for a spot of tea?"

She shivered, confirming her need for a warm drink. "You've always been such a gentleman. I've missed you," Joyce replied as she stepped over the threshold.




The shriveled old man who was ushered into Madame Polina's foyer looked like a zombie himself. Gar could clean his teeth with the man's limbs, and by the look being shot Spike's way, maybe he would before the night's end.

Stan and Puddles were still huddled together on the floor, tired from panicking. Tara was perusing Madame Polina's vast inventory of ingredients, marveling at the knowledge the woman must have. Spike, on the other hand, had gone through a pack of cigarettes and almost all of his patience. He needed to get back to finding Buffy. All this curse garbage was wearing his nerves thin.

"Right, then. Who's the corpse?" the vampire spat. Tara's gaze turned to them.

"Papa Jean," Gar replied, shoving the man towards Spike.

Spike coughed out the drag he just took. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

Gar frowned. "Look, he's the best there is."

"Sekonsa, vanpir!" the old man croaked in agreement.

"Yeah, well... if he charges me a delivery fee, I'll be paying it with the spikes on your ugly face." Spike got up then and pointed to the talisman on the floor. "You know what that is?"

Papa Jean nodded. "Wi, ouangas, sa. Been cursed." He peered down at it, then glanced slowly over to Madame Polina. "Yon boko." The vampire's thoughts clouded his for a moment, so he replied to them: "Pa gen, not what you think. Ayiti, not like La Nouvelle-Orléans. Sa majik not from mambo. Boko a sorcerer, not priest."

Tara studied Papa Jean's aura, intrigued.

"What the fuck is he trying to say?"

Gar grumbled. "It's Haitian voodoo, not that shit you know from New Orleans. He says the magic here was done by a bokor, not a priestess. Evil payback stuff."

Spike took another drag from his cigarette, eying the man.

"He's the leader of the Haitians here. Oldest I know." Gar turned to Papa Jean then. "Ki laj ou?"

Papa Jean smiled through parched lips. "Old as him, maybe," he replied as he nodded to Spike.

"Oh, stuff it. You wanna live to be as old as me, mate? Then you'd better get to work."

Tara was so excited to see what this priest could do that she hadn't even noticed the telepathic stirring back at Spike's apartment telling her that Willow's eyes were fluttering open.

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