Chapter Text
So. That was it then.
According to the five stages of grief, Spike should have been bargaining. Trying to convince himself that the all-consuming maw of the portal was no match for the mighty Slayer.
But he had been around for a long, long time. He had watched a lot of strong people die.
That was why, as he began to wail out the opening notes to a symphony of sobs, he couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed with everyone around him. Sure, he was devastated. How could he not be? But at least he was smart enough to know that he should save his prayers, lest he ever need them in the future. Buffy was dead. That was that.
“Try CPR, try anything, she’s gonna be okay!” Barked Xander. He hadn’t yet realized that it was pointless. That they would be trying to kickstart an empty shell.
God, Spike had always found him to be a prat.
“Buffy? Come on, please!”
A girlish voice this time. Probably Willow, but he didn’t care enough to differentiate. And why would he? Each word uttered by the crowd around him was like sandpaper in his skull. It was loud, too loud, and she was gone.
Voices began to meld together, drowned out by rickety sobs. The lot of them were transfixed by her limp, perfectly peaceful form. In fact, the corpse was sporting the most gentle expression Spike had ever seen on Buffy’s face. The fact made the knot in his stomach twist.
To him, grief felt a lot like being reborn. Something forceful and horrible clawing from within him, like long cold sinew trying to move again. It felt wrong. How could his soul hurt, when it was never there to begin with?
“Do we move her?” Asked one of the many.
“No, she could have a spinal injury!” Stammered another.
“Someone call 911, quick! Jesus Christ, we’re losing time, people!”
Spike snorts through tears.
“What’re they meant to do? For God’s sake, she didn’t scrape her knee! She was CONSUMED by - God, by the endless abyss of the cosmos! They don’t have a plaster big enough to cover that in their flashy little vans.”
He hated the way that his voice sounded when he cried. How pathetic.
“Jesus, Spike, what is WRONG with you? She could still be in there, it’s BUFFY!” Xander growled back, reminding Spike why he hated him.
“I’m WELL aware, thank you! But I’m ALSO aware that she just swan-dived from 300 feet up, and that the Slayer isn’t built to withstand that! Figure it out, you pricks!”
Their worried voices fell silent, allowing gentle weeping to be heard from around the construction site.
And from above.
Christ. The little one was still up there.
“... As much as I hate it… He’s right.” Giles admitted. He sounded small. “I’m afraid there’s no use.”
“No, Giles, we have to do SOMETHING!” Begged Willow, never dropping Buffy’s hand. A hand that Spike knew would be growing cold to the touch. At the thought, he began to shrug off his jacket, but quickly stopped himself. The grief was making them all stupid - him included.
“What we can do is keep this quiet. Word of the Slayers passing cannot spread around town, or we’ll be overrun with creatures that have no one to keep them in line.”
Spike wobbled to his feet, tearing his eyes away from the corpse. How beautiful she was. How rotten and ugly he felt for not stopping her.
Watery eyes quickly caught his movement.
“Oh, Jeez! Sorry we’re boring you, Billy Joel! Go on, slink away into the dark! Great seeing ya, you piece of shit!” Xander snarled to him as he began to walk.
He ignored the biting words - God knows he was familiar with fangs - and dragged his own carcass to the poorly constructed stairway of the tower. They all seemed to love the slayer, but not the girl she died for. Figures.
The staircase seemed to shake with each step, though it may have been vertigo. He could hardly tell anymore. Everything felt wrong. It was deep, seeping into his bones, his hands, his mouth. Each piece of him felt dry and shaky - like a deep-seeded hunger. But it was more than that, somehow. Nothing could satiate this. It was pure emptiness.
Stair by stair, he made it to the ladder. He could hear her weeping - screaming out in pain. How the group down below didn’t realize she was still up there was beyond his understanding.
And he was the monster.
As his feet made contact with the platform, he couldn’t help but notice how high it was. It made his stomach turn. She fell. Plummeted. Like an angel cast out from Heaven. But that couldn’t be the case, for he knew that it would be the world that would descend to hell in her absence.
Dawn’s face was sheet white, streaked with tears and cheap mascara she had borrowed from Buffy’s makeup bag. Her small frame shook, heaving with every breath. She had collapsed onto the harsh metal below her, the grating leaving ugly red lines on her knees.
“...Dawn.” He spoke, trying his best to be gentle. Dawn startled nonetheless. She could scream like a siren, that one. It almost impressed him. How such little lungs could hold such power.
She was just like her sister.
“Dawn. You have to come down.” He started again, hoping she couldn’t see how much he was shaking. Dawn bared her teeth - a primal, deep-seeded display of fear.
“No. I’m not going anywhere. Not until she comes to get me, I’m not GOING!”
A stupid fight to pick, he thought. The girl must have known her sister was dead. Dawn was alive for that very reason. But Summers women were stubborn, even when they were wrong. ESPECIALLY then.
Spike mirrored her bullish demeanor, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“This thing ain’t built to last, dove. Sooner or later, it’s gonna come down. And if you don’t come with me-”
“I’m NOT going with you! I’m not going with ANYONE but Buffy!”
His breath caught in his throat. He could feel his lip quivering. What a spineless ponce he was.
“...Don’t make me say it, Dawn.”
“No. I DO want you to say it.” She stands up, spindly legs swaying as the tower danced in the wind. It made his stomach turn. “Tell me what happened to her. Tell me she’s okay. Tell me I haven’t lost her as well!”
She was shouting at him now - screaming. A wail that combated the wind itself.
“Buffy isn’t dead. She’s not, she’s not, she’s NOT!”
Her voice was strong, though the tears continued to steam down her face. They plummeted down to the ground below them. Dawn’s own personal rainstorm. It had seemed that the first stage of grief hadn’t skipped her as it did him.
“...Dawn. She stopped the ritual. She closed the portal. She-”
“Don’t.” The girl warned. Though it wasn’t clear if her strife was with him, or with God himself.
For the second time that night, Spike let a Summers woman down.
“She’s gone, pigeon.”
And Dawn wailed. All Spike could do was watch. What else was left? His hands were crafted by devils, given the purpose of tearing and clawing at flesh. He hadn’t offered a hand in comfort for centuries. He wouldn’t know how to start now.
Thankfully, her howling had finally caused the crew below to remember their original objective. Even over Dawn’s loud cursing, Spike could hear the hurried clanging of footsteps approaching them.
“Dawnie? Dawn!”
It was Willow who arrived first, scurrying up the ladder and past Spike’s cold frame. She was quick to provide the girl with a warm body to cling to, hands combing through Dawn’s wind-tangled hair. She began to mutter a collection of apologies into her ear, promises that the young girl wasn’t alone. How ironic. They had no problem leaving her alone before.
Xander was next. Though, he never made it up the ladder. As soon as his steel-toed boot made contact with the first rung, Spike was standing directly above him.
“Don’t.” He warned. “Platform’s not strong enough for all these people.”
“Then MOVE. Leave her alone, you freak! Her sister just DIED!”
“Yeah. She knows. No thanks to you lot.”
But Xander was right. Spike was well aware that in Buffy’s absence, the role he had molded himself to fit into was no longer. He wasn’t a part of the gang. He was a monster. Buffy’s rabid dog they could finally put down. With one last look at the women behind him, he began to descend the ladder.
Xander hardly gave Spike any room to slink past him on the staircase, overbearing eyes boring stakes into him as he attempted to flee.
“Stay away from her. I mean it, Spike. She doesn’t need you looming around-”
“I know.”
His voice cracked under the weight of his grief, eyes never meeting Xander’s own. Silence quickly fell between them. They both knew nothing else needed to be said. With a final sniffle, Spike made his way back down to the ground.
It still cradled Buffy. She hadn’t been touched.
Her Watcher was kneeled at her side, ever faithful. Spike couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first loved one he had ever seen like this. Taken before their time. Lost to those he had sworn to protect them from.
He had no intention of sticking around to learn, however. The sight of Buffy, cold and greyer by the second, was making him ache. With a quiver in his step, he made his way hurriedly towards the exit.
But Giles was quick to live up to his title as Watcher. He never missed a thing.
“Spike?” He called. His tone was gentle. It almost burned him. Spike grit his teeth, not turning to face him.
“...I tried my best, you know.” He whimpered, though he did attempt to be strong. What use that was. “I wasn’t quick enough. I didn’t - I thought she would’ve found a way to just… Fix everything.”
“...I know you did. God knows you were as devoted to her as any of us were.”
That word stung.
“Not WERE. I am, I still am! And I fucked it! She’s gone, and for what?! So a God no one can even be bothered to remember could attend the bloody family reunion?!”
Just like Dawn, Spike didn’t know if he was yelling at Giles or God.
“Well, don’t worry about me, old man. I won’t stick around to keep poisoning things with my ‘general unpleasantness’. She’s gone, so am I. Say goodbye to the Slayer’s personal attack dog, everyone!”
For what it was worth, Giles held space for Spike’s grief. It was more than he could have expected - far more than he deserved. His gaze was soft, pitying. It made Spike furious.
“Thank you, Spike.” Giles spoke. It was a tone that no one had taken with him since… God. He couldn’t remember. “Thank you for trying. For being here. We - Buffy wouldn’t have been able to save Dawn if it wasn’t for your actions.”
‘And so what if she did save her?’ Spike thought. He could have tended to Buffy’s grief if Dawn was the one to be destroyed. He could have put on a sweet act, and used pretty words to wisp the grief away. The perfect bloody gentleman.
But there was nothing he could say or do to breathe life back into the woman he worshipped. He would have traded any of them for Buffy’s return in a heartbeat - himself included.
“...She made me promise to protect her. To keep her safe. I intend to keep that promise.”
“I know you do, Spike.”
“... I still love her. She’s…” He takes a deep breath. “She’s good.”
Giles didn’t reply, but Spike knew he mirrored the sentiment. The two of them breathed the same silence together, letting its heaviness settle within their hearts. It was Spike who finally broke it, what felt like hours later.
“Y’know. When I was alive, flowers had real specific meanings.”
“Yes, I’m familiar. The Victorian Flower Language was quite intricate, was it not?”
“Yeah.”
Spike swallows back a sob.
“Put some fennel flowers on her grave, would ya? For me. Don’t have to tell anyone it was me, I won’t show up at the funeral or anything. I just…”
He could hear the realization creep into Giles’ words.
“Fennel. Of course. For strength.”
“‘Cus she is. Strong.”
“Yes. You’re quite right about that.”
The tears were freely flowing now, gently dropping to the soil below. He could hear the lot of those up above making their way down the steel staircase. They must have convinced Dawn to come down after all.
She was safe. For today, Spike’s duty was fulfilled. So, like the outsider he was, he left. Straight back the way he came. He kept walking until the murmurs of Buffy’s friends - her family - were lost in the distance. Until he was well and truly alone. And even after that, he kept walking.
Finally, he was greeted with the familiar and ever-gaping maw of his crypt.
It seemed colder than usual. Bigger. Emptier. But he was quick to ensure it wouldn’t be silent. As soon as the stone door closed behind him, Spike collapsed. And he wailed.
He had never felt as cold as he did in that moment. The frozen, corpse-like state of his being refused to allow him even an ounce of comfort. His hands felt like ice against his skin as he desperately clung to himself, gripping fistfuls of his hair in an attempt to feel anything other than this horrible hollowness. Even his tears were cold, trickling down his neck to be absorbed by the cotton of his shirt.
“FUCK!” He howled, eyes squeezed closed. The stone walls sang his voice back to him, reminding him how alone he truly was. “Why’d you always have to take the good ones, huh?! Why couldn’t you have just - just taken someone else?!”
Spike believed in the All-Powerful Merciful God once. When he was a boy, gazing out of stained glass windows in old, warm buildings. There, he was told stories of a great man - a kind man - who was all too willing to give up everything he was to ensure the safety of the world. A man who loved hard and was loved just as furiously. Whose father would never allow unjust things to happen.
But oh, how the mighty fall. How Spike fell himself. And now, all he believed in was Buffy. But she wasn’t spared from that fate either.
A vengeful chuckle fought through his sobs. Maybe the first stage of grief hadn’t skipped him after all.
In a crumpled heap, surrounded by death and dust and decay, Spike closed his eyes. Oh, how tired he was. He cried until he was sure it was impossible for him to expel a single subsequent tear. And now that he was finished?
What was there left for an attack dog to do, other than lick his wounds?