Archive of Our Own

Okay, Buffy. This whole Spike thing is just a glitch in the Matrix. You’re going to put your foot down and tell him once and for all that there is zero chance with you, now or ever in the future. Using threats and imposing glares if you have to.

She stepped into Spike’s crypt and peered into the quiet darkness. “Spike? Are ya here?”

Well, that didn’t sound very threatening or imposing at all.

But that was because this whole thing still felt so wiggy and unreal, and it wasn’t like she’d ever had to fight guys off with a stick before. At least, not a stick she couldn’t just plunge into their hearts.

Which she could do with this one, she supposed, but that seemed… kind of extreme. Like, what? She wouldn’t kill him for his century of crimes against humanity, but the minute he claimed to have feelings for her, suddenly he was too dangerous to have around?

Her head was spinning again, and she was about to repeat his name, when she saw a slab move in the middle of the floor, and Spike poked his head up from a hole in the ground.

It was pretty dark in his crypt, except for a few candles, and the glow of the moonlight coming in through his windows. But she could see the confused, wary expression on his face, as he carefully climbed up from whatever secret hatch he had down there, and moved the slab to cover the hole.

He was still wearing those ridiculous cargo pants, and an aviator jacket that didn’t sit on his shoulders right. When he passed by the moonlit window, she glimpsed moisture on his cheeks, and her heart faltered that much more.

She’d just been at home discussing how silly this all was with her mom and best friend. She hadn’t considered that Spike might have been, well, crying over the night’s events.

“What do you want?” Spike finally asked, and she realized they’d just been standing there without saying anything. It had seemed funny a little while ago, that she was actually so scared of hearing Spike’s confession that she wouldn’t even let him say that he loved her, and now… now it just seemed to be this great unspoken thing lying between them. And not funny at all.

She shouldn’t have come here. Why exactly had she come here?

“Um…”

“Thought of some more insults to throw in my face?” Spike asked, and hoisted himself up onto his sarcophagus, glaring at her as he put an unlit cigarette between his lips. “Realized you hadn’t quite stomped me into all the little bits you could?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, surprising herself with the words. “Really, I’m sorry for freaking, and for… stomping. I was just… I mean, Spike, how did you think I was gonna react to… what you said?”

His jaw tensed, and he kicked the heel of one boot against the coffin he was sitting on. “You came back to say that?” he asked, his voice laced with skepticism.

“I came… I came to talk about… it.”

He tilted his head at her and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, still unlit.

“You gonna sit, then?” he asked, gentler, but still cautious.

She sat on the edge of his armchair, and he stood up to light some more candles around the crypt, so she could actually see without squinting.

He returned to the sarcophagus and leaned up against it. And as he raised an eyebrow at her, Buffy realized he was actually expecting her to go through with the talking thing.

Her hands were sweating, which was totally unfair. He was the one with the secret crush and had clearly been crying a couple of minutes ago. So how did he get to look so cool and impatient with her, like she was the one who’d done something wrong?

“I just wanted to make sure,” she said slowly. “That you know you don’t have a chance in hell with me. Like, I’m not just shutting the door, there is no door, at all. There’s a sturdy wall made of… of steel and that stuff that they make bomb shelters out of, and there’s no breaking in. Got it?”

And to her surprise, he laughed. It came in a kind of burst, like he wasn’t expecting to do it, and he put the back of his hand against his mouth, eyes twinkling at her with mirth.

“You came to say that ?” he asked, still laughing. “You rejected me and then came back around to tell me you were rejecting me again ? Can count the amount of times I’ve seen you twice in a day on one hand, and you thought this warranted a repeat visit?”

She opened her mouth, and glared at him. “Well, how was I supposed to know whether you thought me insulting you was just a turn on? Beating you up is like third base, which I just realized tonight.”

He laughed even harder, and ooh, she was mad now. 

“Hey!” she said, standing up and clenching her fists at her side. “There’s nothing funny about this, Spike! I’ve never been so disgusted in my life ! We’ve been enemies the entire time we’ve known each other, and frankly, it’s insulting to think you looked at me and went, yep, that’s the one for me!”

“I know,” he sighed, and his laughs were dwindling, but still there, and the tears he was wiping away could have been from anything. “Bloody well disgusted with myself too, if you were wondering. I know this, with you, is wrong. I’m not a complete idiot.”

That unexpectedly cooled her down some, and she slowly lowered herself to the arm of the chair again. “I just… my mom suggested I might have been unintentionally leading you on, and I have no idea what I said tonight— or ever— to make you think… so I just wanted it to be totally clear. That I’m not interested, and never have been.”

“I never thought you were leading me on,” he said, laughter completely gone now.

“No?”

He shook his head. “If you’ll recall, me confessing my feelings for you wasn’t exactly on my agenda for tonight. You just figured it out, cleverly mucking up my plans the way you always have.”

She shrugged. “Well… I mean, you were being kinda obvious.”

He bristled. “I was not!”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Do I like the Ramones ? Offering me bourbon ? Dressing funny and holding doors and finding any excuse to make small talk with me and… and I haven’t even heard you threaten to kill a human since before Dawn found out she was the Key. Oh God, how long has this been going on for?”

“If I’m so bloody obvious, how come you don’t know the answer to that?”

“Well! Because! Because…” But she stopped, and sighed, and had to admit to her own obliviousness. “Dawn actually figured it out, all right? Dawn told me. And I tried to argue with her, but then I saw it and I couldn’t… unsee it.”

He was quiet, arms crossed, staring at the ground. “Oh.”

“Were you… um…”

He lifted his head, just a tiny bit.

“ Were you ever going to tell me? Properly? Or were you always just kinda waiting for me to figure it out?”

He shrugged, looking at the ground again. “Hadn’t thought that far. Was rather hoping it would just… go away, and no one would ever have to know about my little lapse in judgment.”

Okay, well, he didn’t have to phrase it like that , because that kinda hurt. 

Even though she’d just told Willow that she’d been hoping for the same. That it would just blow over soon and he’d be back to wanting her dead before she knew it.

“You think I wanted this?” he asked quietly. “Spent weeks grappling with what to do about it once I realized. Hated myself more than you probably do right now, for crossing a line into feelings neither of us ever wanted. But they’re here, and they’re not going away, and so I’m… I’m trying now, I’m trying to be good, and trying to help you, and trying… I’m just trying, yeah? And you never noticed, it’s always just another opportunity to kick Spike in the face, and honestly, I don’t even blame you, because if it was the reverse…”

He shook his head, laughing almost ruefully as he thought about it, but now Buffy was thinking about it, too. “What if it was?” she asked. “What if it was the reverse? If I fell in love with you while you still wanted to kill me, what would you have done?”

“Bugger if I know,” he said softly. “Honestly, I don’t, pet. I know I’ve killed a lot of people, and not a small number of them were from drawing them in with my looks, letting them fawn over me, even falling in love with me, some of them. Because it was fun to watch. Already had the love of my life, didn’t I? I could afford to look down on all the sorry buggers who didn’t have as much luck as me and watch them scramble.” 

He shrugged. “So who the bloody hell knows what would have happened if you’d fallen for me, and I wasn’t ready to return it? Who the bloody hell knows what I was even expecting, telling you I loved you tonight? I just… love swallows me whole, it always does… spills out of me in ways I couldn’t control if I wanted to. So yeah, I would have told you eventually. I would have still argued against your rejection, kicking and screaming, even if I knew it was going to come. Because I… I’ve been hoping for this to go away, but I gotta tell you, Buffy… I don’t think it’s going to.”

“Vampires can’t love, Spike,” she reminded him. “I mean… not most of them.”

“Right,” he snorted. “Course not. Just soulless demons, aren’t we?”

“You are.”

“Well… yeah. But we were human once, and that’s not all gone, or we would just be savage animals. You may think it’s twisted, but the love is there. And mine for you?” He thumped his chest. “It’s here, Buffy, and it’s real, and I don’t… I can’t…”

His voice wobbled, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“You can get over it,” she said, and tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. 

He chuckled morosely. “Yeah. Like it’s just a common cold. Doesn’t work like that. Not with me. Not with vampires. We’re immortal, feelings don’t just get switched on and off like a tap. You humans get over love and relationships faster than vampires ever do. All we have is forever… so anything that’s not fleeting, we hold on to as tight as we can.”

“That doesn’t make it real.”

“No.” He turned to her, eyes blazing. “But it’s real on its own. Vampires don’t feel nothing , pet. Hatred and lust and anything you see in the typical mindless fledges you stake is still feeling . You gotta curb all the evil that’s running rampant through them, and I get it, I get that’s what you’re called to do. But I’m trying to be better, for you. Doesn’t that earn me a scrap of credit?”

Her heart was racing, and she felt like she was in a losing argument here. “What about Drusilla?” she asked in a moment of panic. “If your love is immortal, and you claim to love me now, is she just… nothing?”

“She’ll never be nothing ,” he growled. “But she’s not here , is she?”

“And I am? I’m just your replacement receptacle for your forever love?”

He threw up his hands and strode towards her, kicking at the chair she was sitting at. She was pretty sure it wasn’t directed at her, but she still had to stand up to avoid falling over with it. “Aren’t you listening to a word I’ve said, you bloody bitch? I’ll always love her. She’ll always be a part of me. But now you’re here, crowding into my immortality, turning me inside out and upside down, and all I can do is hold on tight and come along for the ride.”

“But how , if you still love her? How can you love us both?”

“Because… because she represented something. For me. Evil, chaos, burning the world down, even bloody Victorian England. But then I came here and I met you…. then I got this buggering chip up my skull and everything’s changed, and I have to play by different rules, and you’re sodding here and you’re…”

He stopped. 

“What?” she demanded.

“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “I know you don’t want to hear this and I won’t give you more cause to spit it back in my face. The point is that I love her still, but she’s a piece of my history now… not my future. And maybe you aren’t either, but… but the love remains, pet. I love you anyway, now, and maybe for the next hundred years, and maybe longer.”

“I won’t be a part of your future,” she said. “I can’t love you, Spike, and I’m sorry… I mean, I really am. I’m sorry that it hurts… I’m sorry if it’s actually real, painful love, but I can’t return it.”

His eyes closed, and he lifted his chin, like he was bracing himself against the words she was flinging at him.

And he remained like that for a long moment, enough for Buffy to wonder whether she should just slip out.

But then he said, softly, almost pleadingly, “Never? Not a glimmer of a chance, not even… a crumb of affection, that, if I were a human, would be enough for me to ask you out and see where it takes us?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her then. And it was so earnest, and it was like the clouds of Buffy’s doubt were clearing, and she looked back at him and knew he couldn’t be faking it.

But this was Spike . Spike who tried to kill her, Spike who had hurt almost all of her friends at one point. And even though she felt so bad for him right now that she kinda wanted to hug him, she still shook her head. 

“This is what I came here to say,” she said gently. “No, Spike. The answer is no. I can’t. I can’t be with… I just can’t.”

The look he was giving her had more pain and heartbreak than it had any right to, and Buffy suddenly wanted very much not to be there anymore. She’d said her piece, and he’d said his, so she turned and walked toward the door…

And opened it to reveal Drusilla standing on the other side.

Buffy took an instinctual step back, hand gripping the stake in the back of her jeans. It wasn’t like she feared Dru, it was just...

Well, maybe she did a little. Buffy hadn’t seen Dru since Acathla, not since she’d killed Kendra and tried to destroy the world with Angelus and had thralled Giles.

And the dots suddenly flew together in her head. Dru had killed those people on the train. A brief flash of doubt surged through her, that Spike had known all along, and him taking her to a completely lame vamp nest had just been to throw her off Drusilla’s trail…

But even though she was thinking the worst, Buffy felt inexplicably safer when Spike stepped up behind her. “Dru?” he asked, in confusion. “Pet… my God, what are you doing here?”

Drusilla took a long look at them both, her eyes filled with the same sadness Buffy had just seen in Spike’s, but with an added dash of pure rage. “Poor William,” she said. “Leaves his delicate little heart out in the sun, he does, to burn to ash.” She shook her head. “I wanted us to be a family again, darling boy… but you’ve gone and found yourself a new one.”

“Hardly,” Buffy said. “He just comes to one of us when he’s short on cash.”

“He represents something different now,” Drusilla said, glaring daggers at Spike behind Buffy, mimicking the words he’d said to her a few moments ago. “He has passed further than I can follow.”

She turned and walked away, simply and easily, and Buffy wondered if she had just faced so many terrors as the Slayer that nothing could faze her anymore, or if the really scary demons weren’t as scary as they used to be.

But she still felt the urge to chase down Dru and kill her, just to be sure. She looked back up at Spike’s face...and his eyes looked haunted. He was staring after Dru, conflict on his gaze, eyes burning and nostrils flaring. She could see him shaking a little, and she wondered if he wanted to chase after Dru as badly as she did. If for different reasons.

But then he looked back to Buffy, and his face cleared. He’d been gripping the edge of his open door, and his knuckles turned white as he watched her, waiting for her to speak.

“I can’t let her go around killing people in my town,” Buffy said slowly.

“I know,” he rasped, still shaking. “I… I know. I won’t…” He swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut and tilting his head, like something was hurting him. “Won’t get in the way of what you need to do, love. If you need help… you… you’ve only to ask.” He hesitated, then turned and left her standing in the doorway. 

Yep, the demons were just definitely not as scary as they used to be. 

Except that they were. Because now that they were both gone, now that Buffy was alone again, slowly making her way back home, she could feel the terror she’d had in that brief moment. That Dru would welcome Spike back with open arms… and he would run into them. Spike was a fixture of the town now, and the idea of him not being here anymore was just… weird. 

Besides, she couldn’t even contemplate the thought of actually having to stake him . And even though she didn’t want his feelings, it would have still hurt if he’d cast her aside so easily for the woman he’d loved first.

But he hadn’t. He’d chosen, right in front of Buffy. He’d given Dru up to her, and went back to his lonely crypt, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.

Buffy really, really ought to have hunted Dru down right then. She even walked aimlessly in Dru’s direction for a bit, but something was making her feet drag, making it impossible to just stake her after… after everything Spike had said tonight. 

She decided to put it off until the next day, but even then, when Buffy had admitted to seeing her and Giles had his own dot-connecting moment of realizing Dru killed the people on the train, Buffy couldn’t go after her.

She deferred action for another day, and then another. She asked around at Willy’s one night, and asked Spike on another night, and there’d been a few reported sightings of Drusilla around town, indicating she was lying low. And when the number of mysterious deaths didn’t go any higher, Buffy decided to leave it for now.

Spike had enough of a broken heart already.

***

On days like these, Spike really hated the chip. He needed a good fight, and the demons weren’t coming out to play. Humans would be so much easier to track down, but of course, Buffy would hate him forever if he ever killed another human. Then again, what was even the sodding point if she’d locked him out of her house, anyway?

“Bloody bitch!” he snarled, kicking a tombstone and watching in satisfaction as it toppled, then swearing as the pain rolled over his toes, and he started hopping around on one foot. “The hell does she get off—”

“Spike?”

Speak of the bloody she-devil. He whipped around, and she was staring at him with no small degree of amusement, and God , he could just rip her bloody head off right now. If, you know, he didn’t want to kiss her so badly.

Also, there was the chip. Bloody still .

“Thought we had an understanding,” he snapped. “I don’t profess my ridiculous feelings for you, and you don’t go around disinviting vamps from houses they wouldn’t hurt, anyway!”

Buffy raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re only finding out about that now? I had Willow revoke that invite before I went back to your crypt that night. You can’t have missed it that much.”

“Well, I bloody well do, all right?” He could feel something close to tears in his eyes, but that couldn’t be right. That didn’t even bear thinking on. So he swallowed down whatever dust was in his eyes and throat and said, “I pop round to see your mum now and again, and she’s always got a nice cuppa for me. But now suddenly I’m not fit to cross your threshold?”

“You visit my mom?” Buffy asked. “You mean even when you’re not actively trying to get into my pants?”

“Why exactly do you think it is that I’m so dangerous?” he snapped. “When sodding Angel got an invite back after his little Angelus stunt?”

She’d been wearing a stone cold smirk, ice queen that she was, but at those words, her mask softened a bit. And Spike didn’t mean to, but his tongue just kept talking. “Because I know you still loved him, even when he was evil, so it’s not that you can’t love a vamp without a soul. And what, now that he has one, all’s forgiven? Actions don’t matter, just the presence or absence of a bloody soul? Why could you be with him but not me, Slayer, huh? Why can’t you love another vampire, when you could fall in love with Ang—”

Her fist shot out, landing square in the middle of his nose, and the force was so staggering that Spike struggled to stay standing for a few moments, and then lost the battle and flopped in an undignified heap to the ground.

There were tears in his eyes now, and not just from the punch. Here he was, beneath her, again . 

“I was different then!” she snapped in retaliation. “Did you ever consider that, Spike? That I didn’t know what the hell I was doing when I was that young, and I’d take it all back if I could?”

He just blinked at her.

“I fell in love with him before I knew he was a vampire,” she said, blinking back some tears of rage of her own. “And it wasn’t like I could turn that off once I found out, or when he went evil, or when he kept hurting me and hurting me. So, did you ever think, just once, that maybe I’ve made a ‘no more vampires’ rule in my head because of him, and even chipped and helpless ones are on that list? I’m the Slayer, Spike, and I messed up big time pretty much as soon as I got here by specifically not slaying one. I’m already fighting with the decision to let you live, and you… want to ask me for more ? I can’t care about another vampire… I can’t do it. I shouldn’t have taken you in, and messed up again; I should have just staked you when you first came to me. Or any time we’ve run into each other since.”

His head was spinning, still seeing stars from the impression she’d made on his nose, and he almost had no idea how they’d gotten here. He’d just been so damn hurt that she’d changed the locks on him even after they’d settled things peaceably enough.

And no… no, he hadn’t considered that Angel might have ruined her for anyone else who came after. Though it shouldn’t surprise him. 

And then Buffy sighed and crouched down beside him. She was wearing a thin black sweater, and she pulled the sleeve of one over her palm, carefully wiping the blood away from his nose. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I… I didn’t even know that was a nerve you could strike.”

He just kept watching her, reverence flooding his every nerve as she concentrated on cleaning his nose. She swallowed, and stood up when she was finished, holding a hand out to him.

He took it, cautiously, and when he was standing, she said, still gently, “Did you still get to visit with my mom?”

“Yeah,” Spike mumbled, feeling suddenly awkward about his own outburst. “She brought cocoa out, and we sat on the steps.”

“Did you talk about me?”

It felt like a trap, but he nodded, slowly. “Briefly. She didn’t… she just said she was sorry I was hurting so much, but she didn’t offer me any encouragement, either.”

Buffy nodded in return. “I’m glad,” she said. “The revoked invite is just for privacy, Spike. I’ve caught you snooping around in my house several times, at least one of which was when I was naked, and I’m just not comfortable with that right now when I know you’re all… infatuated with me, okay?”

He sighed and hung his head. “Know that. Think that’s why I lost it… know some of this is my own bloody fault, and some is Angel’s, and some is yours, and… and there are not enough things I can hit.”

She nodded and gave him a soft smile. “Well, you could come patrol with me. If you wanted. I can’t promise things to hit, but I can tell you about this robot I had to track down…”

*** 

“Bloody well took your sweet time about coming home, didn’t you?” said the indignant black lump on the porch bench. “Trying to show my good will by dropping off some stuff of yours that I… uh… that Dawn left at my place, and you keep a bloke waiting where he might catch his death of exposure.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows and left her keys in the lock as she moved over to stand in front of him. She put her hands on her hips and said, “I’m sorry, did anyone ask you to brave the scary sunlight to come and see me?”

“Didn’t think you’d be gone so long.”

“My mom’s here. Why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?”

Spike’s face peeped out from under the blanket, giving her a very unimpressed glare. “I did. No bloody answer. Can’t hear anyone in there anyway, so she must be out. And breaking in isn’t as easy as you might think without an invite.”

“Imagine my relief,” Buffy said, then toed the box at Spike’s feet. “This is all stuff Dawn left with you? How many times has she been over there?”

“Enough,” Spike said evasively, and Buffy frowned as she looked at the box's contents.

“Dawn left… my blue sweater and a whole scrapbook’s worth of photos?”

Spike didn’t answer.

“You stole these, didn’t you? God, Spike, that’s just reaching… insane levels of creepy!”

“You caught me pinching the photos!” Spike said defensively, tossing his blanket aside and huddling under the thin shadows of the porch as he followed her back toward the front door. “The night that slug thing attacked your mum? You saw me with ‘em, and let me walk out of here, anyway!”

“I was kinda distracted right then!” Buffy snapped, twisting her keys in the lock and stepping inside, where he couldn’t follow. “This may come as a surprise to you, Spike, but you’re not exactly my highest priority… pretty much ever, so yeah, I forgot you stole some pictures of me.”

“Then I don’t know what you’re so—” Spike stopped, frowning, and tilted his head. He sniffed the air, and Buffy just stood in the foyer, glaring at him on the other side of the door impatiently.

“What?” she demanded. “You smell a squirrel or something?”

His eyes fell to hers, and he was still frowning, but there was a flash of such deep pain in his eyes that for a moment Buffy forgot to be angry with him.

“Where’s your mum, Buffy?” he whispered.

“How should I know? She said she was staying home today. Maybe she had to run an errand. And I’m gonna go get Dawn from school in a minute, so why don’t you just—” 

She turned toward the living room then, and her words died in her throat. “Mom?” 

“Slayer…”

“What are you doing?” Buffy asked, frowning at the way her mother was sprawled out on the couch.

“Love, I think you should—”

But Spike’s voice lost all ability to reach Buffy’s ears as the truth slammed into Buffy so forcefully that she wasn’t even able to acknowledge it properly. “Mom,” she said urgently, striding forward and shaking her mother’s shoulders. “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom !”

A light bulb feebly turned on her brain, about phones and ambulances and a number you were supposed to call when stuff like this happened. She knew this. She’d called that number before. Her mom had gotten sick before and it had been horrible and scary, but they’d fixed her and made her better, so there was no reason they couldn’t do so again.

“Slayer, let me in,” Spike said, as she stood with phone in hand trying to remember the order of the three-digit number. “You can have Red disinvite me again tomorrow, but right now, you gotta let me in, yeah?”

“ 9-1-1, what’s your emergency? ” some distant voice on the phone asked. 

“My mom, she’s n-not breathing,” Buffy stammered.

“Slayer!”

“Is she conscious?”

“No… no I… I can’t, she, she’s not breathing…”

“Okay, I need you to give me your address.”

“1630… R-Revello Drive. It’s a house, it’s…”

“Okay, I’m gonna send an ambulance over. Are you alone in the house?”

“Damn it, Summers, let me in! ”

“Do you know how to administer CPR?”

“No, I don’t remember,” Buffy said, tears springing to her eyes at her own incompetence. Spike was beating on the barrier now, a string of curses she’d never heard floating in the air, but none of them mattered as the voice on the phone reminded her to breathe into her mother’s mouth and press on her chest. Buffy cracked one of her mother’s ribs in the process, because she’d forgotten to hold back all the stupid Slayer strength she didn’t remember she had. 

“Is she breathing?” the voice on the phone asked when Buffy remembered to pick up the phone for help again.

“No… no, she’s cold. Should I… should I make her warm?”

There was a long pause, and Buffy almost checked to see if the line had disconnected. “The body is cold?”

“No, my mom .”

“Best thing to do is wait for the paramedics…” the voice said, and kept talking, but those were just meaningless words now, nothing helpful anymore, nothing to help her mom and make her get up and walk and hug her and smile and tell her everything would be all right, so Buffy just set the phone on the table and let the voice keep talking.

“Slayer, I swear to God , if you don’t let me in this fucking house…”

Her mother’s skirt had ridden up a little. Buffy was kneeling next to the couch from where she’d failed to get her to breathe again, but she could fix the skirt. And her mother felt so cold, and not like her at all. Maybe she was a robot. Like that April robot Warren made. 

And Spike was growling so ferociously outside, and she had the thought, for just a second, that he would actually kill her if she let him in.

And wouldn’t that be a relief from the current feeling of all her skin stripped away and her nerves and her heart exposed for anyone to come trample on?

She didn’t quite say the invite out loud. She mouthed the words come in Spike without giving them any voice, but a second later she was being roughly hauled up, and yanked around to face him, with one arm going around her waist, while his other hand pressed her head to his chest.

He was breathing hard, lungs going up and down under her cheek, and he didn’t say anything as he stood there, hugging her and just swaying the tiniest bit with her, until the paramedics arrived. Buffy turned, ready to greet them, to watch them save her mother, but Spike just growled, and kept her head pressed to his chest.

“How long has she been like this?” one of the men asked.

“Dunno,” Spike said. “We only arrived a few minutes ago.”

“Was she conscious?”

“No.”

“Okay, we’re gonna intubate, try to get her to breathe, all right? She family?”

“Not… not mine. She’s the girl’s mother.”

“Any serious health problems, history of heart disease, or—”

“Brain tumor,” Spike said, and he sounded so calm as he said it, too calm, like he just didn’t care. But he was trembling a little bit, and Buffy realized she was, too. “Had an operation a few months back.”

“But she’s fine now,” Buffy said, turning her head, even though Spike’s hand was still there and he refused to move it. “She… she’s been fine.”

Spike started rubbing her back, hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure she’d let him. But she was powerless to control anything that happened to her or anyone else right now. If Glory wanted to attack right now, this would be a great time to claim her victory.

“She’s cold, man,” one paramedic said softly, which Buffy thought was a great big duh.

And then she realized… what cold actually meant. What it had always meant.

She squeezed Spike tight. Had she been hugging him the whole time? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t even remember how he’d gotten here. Hadn’t she taken his invite away?

Spike let her turn her head to face the paramedic who was telling her, in a faraway voice and somehow with a blurry face, that her mother was dead, from complications relating to the tumor, that there was nothing Buffy could have done, and that a coroner was going to come by to pick her up.

The other paramedic was bringing a chair from the dining room, and everyone was staring at her like she was supposed to do something with it.

Eventually Spike sighed, and sat himself down in it, pulling her down with him without letting go of her.

And then the paramedics were off on another job, and Buffy was calling good luck after them, while Spike was dialing some number on the phone.

She couldn’t think who. It wasn’t like 911 could help if they called again.

But obviously Spike would know that. He’d probably realized the horrible, awful truth the second Buffy had opened the door. 

“It’s me,” Spike said into the phone, and then snorted. “I’m aware of that, you bloody pillock. Look, if you’d just— Rupert , Buffy invited me in, all right? Her mother… Joyce is… well, you just gotta come, yeah? Slayer’s alone, and I figure she’d rather your company than mine.”

He threw the phone on the ground without saying any more and slipped his free arm around her waist again. 

The front door was still open. Her mother was still staring at the ceiling, with unblinking eyes. It made Buffy’s own eyes twitch, and she blinked them several times, just because she could. 

She could hear birds outside. A car door slamming. The tinkling of wind chimes.

Spike’s hand had never left her head since he’d entered the house. It was still there, heavy and comforting, keeping her as close to him as possible. Something dimly reminded her that she should hate him for this, she should feel trapped, ashamed, should push him away and kick him out into the sun.

But his hand…his hand was steady and unchanging. His silent chest underneath her, where there should have been a heartbeat, was steady and unchanging.

He was breathing calmly now, still lifting her cheek up and down, a model for her to copy. Steady and unchanging. She’d be adrift if she didn’t have all of those things, so she stayed right there in his lap and let him hold her.

And then Giles was inexplicably there, staring at the body, staring at Buffy, exchanging a handful of words with Spike that seemed soft, if angry and hurt, like they were trying not to wake her up, even though her eyes were as wide open as her mother’s. The words sounded rote by now, all things she had heard today already, and the only new thing was Giles rubbing her shoulder and asking if she’d like some water.

She didn’t, particularly, but there was a glass pressed into her hand, anyway. She’d have to be careful not to shatter it.

She took a couple of slow sips, but then held it out in front of her, and Giles whisked it away.

“Did you call anyone else?” Giles asked.

“No. Figured I only needed the barrage of threats and accusations from one of you lot, and you’d carry the message to the rest.”

“I haven’t threatened or accused you, if you didn’t notice.”

“I know,” Spike sighed. “Still. Reckon the news should come from someone they actually love. Lord knows she didn’t have that luxury.” He jostled her slightly.

“Dawn,” Buffy said suddenly, with a small gasp, and both men turned to her.

“What’s that, love?” Spike asked.

“I have to tell Dawn,” Buffy said, pushing her way out of Spike’s lap. “She’s at school… I’ll go there…”

The front door was still open, and she walked right out of it.

***

Spike hadn’t been back to the house since that day. He’d left Giles with a brief agreement to do all the patrolling until further notice, and he didn’t ask for anything more, nor offer anything else. It was a miracle that the Watcher had reacted mostly well to walking in on Buffy cuddled in Spike’s lap while Joyce was dead in a corner, and Spike knew that had been more for Buffy’s sake, and the respect for the situation at hand, than anything else.

He’d dropped off a small, handpicked bouquet on the porch before the funeral, when he was sure no one would catch him. He knew it was very likely that his disinvite was back up and running, but he couldn’t bear getting close enough to find out. 

But patrolling he could do, and he could do it well, and it would be a help to the girl and her mates, so he did it. 

The next time he saw Buffy was one night almost two weeks after the funeral. He found her stumbling through Restfield, her eyes glassy and a scent wafting off of her that he was struggling to put a name to.

“Buffy?” he asked.

“Spike,” she mumbled. “What’re you doing here?”

“I live here, pet.” He stepped forward cautiously, but bolted to catch her when she tripped over a headstone.

“Oh, yeah,” Buffy said. “I… that’s good. I came here to do something.”

“Patrol?” Spike asked absently, trying desperately to place the overwhelmingly sticky, sterile scent. “Slayer, what the bloody hell have you been taking?”

Buffy pushed herself out of his arms and staggered toward his crypt. “Dawn’s not home,” she said. “She has round-the-clock babysitters, ‘cause of Glory, and Dru I guess.”

“Okay… wasn’t really looking for an excuse here. Was just asking.”

“Slayer perks,” Buffy said, waving an aimless hand before trying to tug on his door.

“It’s a push, love. Not a pull.”

“Oh.” The fact that she wasn’t punching his nose suggested that she was very much off her trolley, if it wasn’t bloody obvious anyway. It unsettled Spike considerably.

He followed her into his crypt and watched her sink down on his little couch. “Slayer perks?” he asked.

“Huh?” 

“You said ‘Slayer perks.’ And then… didn’t say anything else attached to that.”

“They’re not perks. They’re stupid. Keep me alert at night. Keep me all awake and ready for the slaying.”

“That’s not a perk?”

“No,” Buffy mumbled, leaning back into the couch. He sat down gingerly on the arm opposite her. “‘Cause now I can’t sleep.”

“Oh,” Spike breathed.

“I didn’t even really want to, at first. I was busy… and I had to take care of Dawn…”

“Yeah…”

Buffy yawned and turned her face into the cushion. “But I’m not busy anymore and Dawn’s out of the house, and…”

“What did you take, Buffy?” Spike asked, and could hear the concern in his own voice.

“Something they sent home when… Mom was sick. Supposed to help. Her. Sleep, I mean.”

“How much?” Spike asked in a low voice.

Buffy didn’t answer, and Spike scooted up next to her. He reached out a hesitant hand to her forehead, but withdrew at the last second. “Buffy, you didn’t… take too much, did you?”

She snorted, and shifted until she was lying down with her head… not quite in his lap, but pressing up against his thigh. She drew her legs up and hugged them loosely. “No, stupid. I took the same dose I gave… her.”

Spike let out a relieved sigh, and this time he let his hand drop to Buffy’s head. “You just wanted to sleep,” he realized. “But then… why did you leave the house?”

“Dawn’s not home,” Buffy repeated, for the third time.

“Yeah?” And then something clicked in Spike’s head. “Wait… you… you were coming to me ? Intentionally?”

She lifted a hand and touched his leg for a moment before tucking it under her cheek. “I needed… I wanted to not have to be… alert. Just… just for a little while.”

Spike’s heart seized, like it seemed to never stop doing when it was around her. The girl had sought him out. She’d taken her mother’s sedative and come seeking him out, wanting him to take over the watch so she could get a bit of kip.

His hand moved to her shoulder and gripped her tightly. “I have an actual bed, you know,” he said gently. “You could…”

“This is okay,” Buffy whispered. “I don’t need long, I… just…”

She trailed off, and Spike fought tears as he ran a hand along her back. She looked so tiny and helpless right now, and he supposed she was, with the drug in her system and all her trust placed squarely on his shoulders.

He began inching out of his coat, bit by bit, not daring to risk jostling her. He eventually got the coat off, and he spread it over her, before returning to stroking her back.

And the sight of her all swallowed up in his coat felt like the resolute, final nail in his coffin. Not a damn thing would harm this girl. Not as long as he was around to stop it.

“I can help you, sweet girl,” he whispered. “Please, please, let me help you.”

***

He wasn’t sure how long it’d been… he’d only just dozed off, it seemed… before there was another unexpected visitor in his crypt.

A whole hoard of them, actually, and Spike rose to greet them with a warning growl deep in his throat. 

“What the bloody hell do you little bastards think you’re doing?” he asked, sliding into his demon face without a second thought.

“So sorry to intrude,” one of Glory’s little minions said, smiling politely. “But her Splendiferous Glory has requested the presence of—”

“I’ll show you where she can shove her request,” Spike snarled, and even though the little weasels were already putting up a fight, he charged at them with a roar, kicking and punching and knocking heads together in a way he hadn’t gotten to do since before the funeral.

It fueled him, that rage and grief, as well as the knowledge that the Slayer was doped up behind him and had come to him for this very thing. To protect her and let her sleep, if trouble should arise. 

They were more fierce and quick than he would have imagined, and they were tough to keep up with. But there were only a couple of them to take out, and he just had to hang on and not completely bleed out until they were all gone.

All except one, and Spike glared, wiping the blood from his chin and staggering toward him. He shoved the demon up against the wall and growled, “Not one of your diseased little digits is ever going to touch the Slayer, you hear me?”

“The Slayer?” the demon asked. “Begging your pardon, sir, but Glory only wanted us to fetch her Key. And since you well know that you yourself are the Key—”

“Me?” Spike blinked, and then laughed, and shoved the demon up against the wall again, listening to him grunt with pain. “She thinks I’m her oh-so-precious…” He shook his head, feeling a burst of adrenaline run through him as he realized that however this went down, they hadn’t come for Buffy. They could drag him away and tear him into tiny pieces, and it wouldn’t matter what he said, because she would still be safe.

“She’ll never find the Key,” he said. “Because the Slayer drove it out to the middle of the desert and buried it thirty leagues deep.”

The demon gave him a skeptical look. “I’m so sorry to disagree,” he said. “But we have very good reason to believe that the Key is a person.”

“Well, I’m not a person,” Spike said. “And that doesn't make a lick of sense, anyway. Key’s older than anything, innit? Couldn’t possibly be a living, breathing human. You just run along and tell your God of Fashion Victims that she can go right ahead and start digging, but she’ll never find it.”

The demon just stared at him, as if wondering whether to believe him, until Spike snarled in his face and made him jump. “ Got it?” he demanded.

The little runt nodded and even bowed several times as he backed up out of the crypt. When the door finally slammed behind him, Spike was hit with a wave of exhaustion, and then another one before the first one had even passed. He took a breath he didn’t need and turned around, coming face to face with Buffy.

She hadn’t moved from her spot on the couch, still curled up under his duster, but her eyes were open now, watching him curiously.

It wasn’t all that surprising that the clatter had woken her up. “Well,” she finally said, sounding much clearer than she had when she’d arrived. “That was pretty impressive.”

He managed to scoff, and then, when he felt his legs quit on him, staggered over to the couch and dropped to his knees in front of it. He let his head fall onto her stomach, relief flooding his mind that she was still here, still safe and alive and as cozy as she could be under the circumstances.

She watched him for a second, then pulled her hand out from underneath the duster, and laid it on his head. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve such treatment, but he let his eyes fall shut and hummed with pleasure as she pet his hair.

“I think you should leave town,” she said, completely matter-of-factly.

His eyes popped open again. “Come again, Slayer?”

“People get hurt when they’re around me,” she said, still completely casual. She wasn’t looking directly at him anymore, though. She seemed to stare at his hair, as if fascinated by the way it moved under her fingertips. “And people who care about me… they end up leaving anyway, so you might as well just get ahead of all the curves and… you know. Leave.”

He shook his head. “If I wanted to leave, I’d have done it before now. Hell, I tried, even. Three times. It didn’t take. You just pulled me back in.”

“Because you’re an idiot.”

“Maybe. But don’t you see, love? Even if I left now, I’d just snap right back to you, like a sodding rubber band. You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, Summers. Gonna be a thorn in your side until you dust me, or someone else does.” 

Her hand had slowed in his hair, and her eyes were getting sleepy again. But she tugged on his shirt collar, insistently, until he moved his head closer to hers, and then she kissed him sweetly on the lips.

“Your loyalty is real,” she whispered. “I won’t forget that.”

She let him go and nestled down under his coat again. And he just sat there, staring in complete bewilderment, watching her sleeping breaths and wondering just what had changed between them.

***

The world never seemed to give her a break, it seemed like, but at least things had been quiet after the funeral. Dru was still in hiding, Glory hadn’t made any shows of force lately besides the raid on the crypt, and Spike was still covering patrol for her.

Which was good on paper, because Buffy was getting worried about her slaying taking over her whole life, blotting out the Buffy within, and when Giles suggested a quest in the desert to find some answers, she readily accepted.

What no one had considered was the fact that Glory’s minions might actually have listened to Spike proclaiming that the Key was in the desert. And Buffy’s presence out there for two days raised their suspicions. 

They’d ambushed her on the way back to Giles’ car, injuring her designated driver so much that she actually had to be the one to take them home.

So now here they were, in her mother’s house, all assembled with donut boxes and books like the old days, ready to map out a battle strategy.

With the addition of Spike. Because… well… because he’d been the one stupid enough to send them out there, so now he should be here to help clean up his mess.

Even if the warm look he’d given her when he realized his invite was still active was something she wasn’t thinking about right now.

“So,” Buffy said with a sigh. “They think I know where the Key is, and they’ll be back, demanding to know where I put it. The good news is that they’re off the scent of it being anyone in this room, for now. The bad news is… we’re back in fight mode. No more sitting around waiting for Glory to kill us off.”

“There are those Knight guys, too,” Dawn said in a small voice. “They promised to kill the Key, and one of them saw me in the hospital, so they know who I am.”

“Oh, right,” Buffy sighed, running her hands through her hair.

“Yes, it is a pity we can’t lead them to think it’s buried in the desert, too,” Giles sighed.

“Maybe we can write it in the sky,” Anya said brightly. “I’ve seen that in movies.”

“Or make them think it’s on another continent,” Tara said. “Tell them we shipped it to a remote island in Fiji, and we have no idea where.”

“Well, there’s always Dru,” Xander said, in a voice too chipper to be serious. “We find her and she can thrall all of them to go looking in their own suitcases for it.”

Spike snorted. “That’s not how that bloody works, Harris. Thralling takes an enormous amount of concentration, and a connection with the victim. You can’t just mass produce it.”

“And I guess you’d know all about that,” Xander said.

“Hey, I’ve never thralled anyone in my life!”

“I believe it, but how about in your unlife?”

“Everyone, shut up!” Buffy said. “None of this is helpful.”

“Actually,” Willow said. “Um… um, Xander’s suggestion may have been helpful.”

Everyone turned to look at her, and Spike scoffed again. “Just said you can’t multiply a thrall, Will, and I can’t do it at all.”

“I can multiply it,” Willow said. “Well, um… maybe I can. Or not multiply, but… magnify? If we only get one… a Knight, or a minion, and get Drusilla to thrall that one… then Tara and I can make a spell to spread it to the rest of their respective groups.”

There was a dead silence, during which Spike scoffed again, but otherwise remained silent.

“That… seems pretty advanced,” Tara said timidly.

“It is possible,” Giles admitted. “But… quite a long shot. And getting Drusilla to agree to anything is a longer one still.”

“But how good a plan is it?” Buffy asked. “I need objective answers here, not just wishes and hearsay.”

Giles nodded slowly. “If we can get all the moving pieces in one place… then it can be done.”

“Okay,” Buffy said, drawing a breath. “Then I guess we need to ask Dru.” She looked at Spike. “Wanna be our ambassador?”

He was staring at the floor, nostrils flared and arms crossed. But he nodded slowly and looked up at her. “I’ll ask,” he said. “Can’t make any promises, though. Could barely get her to do anything for me even when she loved me.”

Buffy squeezed his arm. “I don’t need promises. I just need you to ask.”

 *** 

Spike hadn’t been sure how long it would take to track Dru down, nor how long it might take to convince her, but he’d agreed to check in after two nights and let them know his progress either way.

The rest of the group seemed to accept that it might take a couple days to get the crazy vampire lady on their side, but Buffy suspected he knew exactly where she was, and what she’d say, and he just wanted the extra time to come to grips with it. Psych himself up even, maybe. If Buffy had to track down Riley out in the jungle somewhere and ask him to come back to risk his life against a hellgod… well, she would have wanted some time to brace herself for the rejection, or the laughing in her face. And Riley hadn’t even been crazy.

Mostly.

But then Giles caught a minion scrabbling at the back door of the magic shop, and claimed he’d been the one to knock him out and tie him up. Anya and Tara backed up his story with wide eyes, and seemed to stare at him with a newfound respect which could only mean Giles had let Ripper out to play.

Good. Buffy needed every soldier she could get in this fight. So, even though Spike wouldn’t check in for another day yet, she thought she’d just go… tell him about the minion, and see where he was. 

“Spike?” she asked, as she tentatively pushed open his crypt door, wondering why she always seemed to enter with caution nowadays. What did she think she’d stumble into? Him watching cheap cable porn?

He wasn’t watching cheap cable porn, or anything at all, because he wasn’t here. Though she could see a faint glow coming from his underground area where the slab had been moved. 

Candles, probably. He always seemed to have a lot of candles lying around.

She dropped down, and did indeed find multiple candles and some torches, burning away like they were his natural electricity. 

Which… duh, Buffy. They had fire before they had electricity. 

Spike was on the bed, lying on his back, sans duster, red silk shirt billowing out around him as he stared morosely at the ceiling. He appeared to be nursing a bottle of… something icky, probably, and didn’t react to her presence.

“Hey,” she said.

“What’s good about it?” he mumbled.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so that answers my how drunk are you question.”

“You didn’t ask if I was drunk.”

“I didn’t say anything was good, either. You don’t get to be the reasonable one when you’re drinking bourbon.”

“‘S whiskey.”

“Whatever. So… I’m guessing either you’re still trying to work up the nerve to ask her, or you asked, and she said no.”

“Wrong and wrong. I did ask. And she said yes.”

Buffy blinked and sat next to him on the bed. “She said…”

“She said she’d do it.”

“We are talking about Drusilla, right? You actually went and asked if she’d come and try to help us with her thrall-y powers, and she said she would?”

“Kewpie doll for the lady,” Spike muttered, and raised the bottle to his lips again.

“So then, what’s with the drowning of the sorrows?”

He swallowed, and she tried not to be mesmerized by the way his throat moved when he did. “Don’t get somethin’ for nothin’, right? She wanted somethin’ in return.”

“Oh… oh.” Buffy couldn’t believe she hadn’t even considered she’d need to offer Dru anything. Maybe because bloodied heads of kittens or whatever sick, demonic thing she’d want had been too terrible to think about.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Slayer,” Spike said, and it was in a softer tone, like he’d guessed what she was thinking. “Won’t hurt you any. I’m to go with her when this is over. That’s all.”

Buffy felt something cold rush through her. Like an ice cream headache. She licked her teeth on instinct. “You’re… that’s what she wanted?”

“It’s what she’s been loitering around waiting for. Hasn’t been making a nuisance of herself and risked you coming after her because she knows you’d win. Know she’s a bit off her bird but she’s got her survival instincts same as the rest of our kind. And me fighting by your side like your little lapdog wouldn’t have helped her odds. But she’s been waiting for a chance to sink her claws back into me and this was it.”

“But I thought…” Buffy almost couldn’t even think of Spike going away with Dru, not in any way that was real. “I thought she said it was too late.”

He tilted the bottle into his mouth again. “Yeah. Well. Says she made me once, and can make me again. Whether it’s by thrall or torture or just lots n’ lots of shagging… I’ve got no bloody idea, but she says she can make me into her black knight again.”

“So, you’re leaving,” Buffy said, trying the words out on her tongue, trying to make them feel more real. “With her.”

“Got no bloody choice, do I?”

Buffy drew up her legs on the bed and hugged her knees to her chest. Spike continued staring at the ceiling, cradling his whiskey to his chest.

“What about Harmony?” Buffy asked, eventually. It had taken this long to remember her.

Spike snorted. “She shoved off when she found out there were two ladies I was thinking about besides her. She could tolerate it when it was just one. Skedaddled off to Los Angeles, I think.”

“Oh,” Buffy said. Harmony and Spike had always been… weird and kind of wrong, in a way, but some part of her had hoped Harmony would be a reason for Spike to stay. “Well, uh… I just came by to tell you we got one of Glory’s scabby hobbits. So the plan is… going ahead. They’re working on the spell, to magnify the thrall, so … I guess it’s good that Dru’s on board.”

“Guess so.”

“Giles was still interrogating him when I left. Turns out Glory’s only got a certain window of time to use the Key and open the portal back to her dimension, and if she misses it, that’s it. She’s stuck here, no tearing apart the fabrics of reality or draining my sister’s blood. So we think we can just let that time run out and the world will be safe, at least. She’ll probably come after the rest of us once she’s got nothing better to do, but it buys us a little more time to figure out how to defeat her.”

“I’ll be sorry to miss it,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be. I still have no idea how to kill a god. Honestly, it’s probably safer for you to… to leave.”

His head turned toward her, and as if finally noticing the hunched up ball she was squeezing herself into, he passed his bottle over to her.

She took it with the tips of her fingers and stared at it in disgust. “If this tastes like you smell, I think I’ll pass.”

“It’s not about the taste,” Spike said, then seemed to consider. “Well, it is, but it doesn’t have to be.”

Well, she certainly wouldn’t say no to dulling the pain. She took a swig, and it burned all the way down. “ Bleghhh ,” she said forcefully, and saw a whisper of a smile on Spike’s lips. 

It continued to burn throughout her stomach, and her veins, and her head… like it was purging the hurt, and anything weaker than it. And it was kind of a good feeling, so she took another swig. 

“Careful now,” Spike warned. “All for the Slayer letting loose, but you get sick on my sheets, and I call the whole thing off.”

She gave him a light shove. “That means you’d be stuck in town with me, throwing up on your sheets whenever I feel like it.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, and it sounded almost wistful. “Or you could have just killed Dru when she first came, and spared us all the trouble.” He paused. “Why didn’t you kill her, love?”

“I don’t know. I just… it was right after I’d told you I could never love you, and you only fell in love with me because she left you, and I just thought… that the women in your life didn’t need to cause you any more pain than they already were.”

He seemed to contemplate that, and took the bottle back.

Bereft of something to hold, Buffy took one of his pillows and put it in her lap, scooching up against the headboard. She stared at her shoes, clicking the tops of them together, right next to Spike’s hip. The edge of his silk shirt was under her right heel. 

“Haven’t seen that shirt in a while,” she said softly. “The red one.”

“Thought Dru might like it. Remind her of times past. Guess it worked a little too well.”

Buffy tilted her head back and blinked back sudden tears. The whiskey in her blood apparently kicked up some of the hurt while purging the rest. “I miss my mom.”

He sat up then and scooted back against the headboard with her. “Oh, love. I know you do.”

“You were right about me having ties to the world,” she said, picking at the pillow in her lap. “I didn’t think… I mean, my friends dive into every fight with me and I always worry someday they won’t be lucky enough, or I won’t be quick enough… but…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I never thought it would be my mom . And now it’s like… one of my tethers has snapped, and I’m that much closer to drifting away.”

“I know,” he said, voice aching with sympathy. “Never wished so much in my life that I was wrong about something. But I think… that just means your other ties will have to be that much stronger, to make up for the one that’s lost.”

“But it’s not just that. I feel protective of my friends and Dawn, of course, but it’s like… everything seemed manageable when Mom was around. Because she kind of just… always saw me as her little girl, still, and sometimes I hated it, but it also meant that nothing could be so terrible that she wouldn’t be able to fix it and make it better. Which makes no sense, but…”

“No,” he said, and gave a laugh that was a little rueful, and a little bitter. “I always felt the same… about my mum. I was well into my twenties when I died, and she was on death’s door herself… an illness that claimed millions, just like yours. But damn if I didn’t still feel like a little sprog whenever she was around, even when I was watching her gasp out her final days. Felt safe and sheltered I did, when I was near her. Why I liked yours so much, you know. She… she made me feel the same. Like everything would be all right, like I could just tell her my troubles and they wouldn’t trouble me anymore.”

She stared at him, trying to picture him with a mother and a family and a house that he grew up in. She tried to picture him as a little boy.

With a faraway, bleary look in his eyes as his head leaned lazily against the pillow beside her, she could almost see it.

“You still miss your mother,” she breathed in reverent awe. “Because… because of the immortality thing? Like you were saying, that the feelings are truly forever?”

His eyes grew even more distant. Candlelight flickered in them, but he remained perfectly still. “Yeah,” he finally said, his tone hushed like he almost didn’t dare admit it. “Loved her more than anything in the world. Never dreamed I’d be the one to die first… never would have left her that night if I’d known what was gonna happen.” His eyes fell shut, and a pained frown cut across his face.

It was so hard to deny that he had feelings when he just wore them so plainly . And because the alcohol was still merrily blazing away in her veins, and she knew it had completely mellowed him out by now, probably long before she got here, she felt brave enough to ask. To dare the question he hadn’t dared answer before. She was losing him anyway. He’d never get another chance to tell her, ever, and she had to know.

“So, what is it, Spike? About me?”

He rubbed an eye with the heel of his hand. “How do you mean?”

“You… you know. The whole being… being in love with me.”

His hand froze, and he blinked up at her, frowning like he didn’t trust what he’d heard. 

“You’re asking about this now?” he said. “Why?”

“Girls like to hear that kind of thing, that’s why.”

“You don’t. Not from me.”

She pulled the bottle from his fingers and took another sip, letting the fire burn away the fear in her heart. “I want… I want to understand it, Spike. I want to know if you’ve even thought it all the way through, or you just… tripped somewhere in your head and landed on the wrong side of the fence, and you’ll crawl back over as soon as you realize you’re in the wrong pond.”

His lips twitched fondly. “You just twist metaphors as you please, don’t you?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Which was?”

“Why fall in love with me , out of all the girls in the world?”

“You think it’s so simple an answer that I can just point to one thing and give it the credit?”

Buffy had no idea what to say to that.

“You’re sodding here, Buffy,” Spike said, curling toward her slightly and running the back of his fingers down the back of hers. “Just so… alive , and passionate, and bright and beautiful. You’re loyal ‘n loving… you’ve built your own little family who would die for you in an instant, and who can celebrate all of your joys and all of your sorrows. You have a mission, and a purpose, and don’t think for a second those are the same thing, because they ain’t, and it’s rare to find someone with both. The entire world tries to tear you down and snuff out your light… but you just keeping bouncing back up to meet it, anyway.”

His voice had sunk to a low timbre, and his eyes were hooded as he kept flirting with the back of her hand. She was holding her breath, even though her heart was pounding away, terrified that any move she made would make him stop.

“And it touches something in me,” he murmured. “You touch something in me… something I wish I could have. I miss the sun, long for it, even, vampire and demon as I am, but you burst into my crypt like you do and it’s as if… you bring a little piece of it with you. Just you. No other Slayer had that power, none that I met, anyhow. You’re magnificent while still being just a girl, you’re a goddess without the ego and the bad home perm, and you’re just… here, so warm and good and everything I want to touch, want to love, want to be sometimes even, when I’m… when I’m lonely enough. How could I not love you? How could I have possibly thought I was ever safe from doing so?”

She let a little gasp fall from her lips, and it was enough, enough to shatter the quiet and the stillness, and his eyes flickered up to hers, so raw and exposed, and he immediately pulled his hand away, and rolled onto his back again.

“You want to know what it would have been like if you’d fallen in love with me first?” he asked. “I’d have laughed for a good long while, but then I would have gone home, and thought about it, and there you would have been, crawling into my head, and my heart, and my gut, and my throat, until I was choking on you, and drowning in love for you. I think it was inevitable, Slayer. I think I was doomed from the first moment I saw you. And you can’t ever love me in return, so tell me…” His eyes flickered to hers again, briefly. “How much of a Greek tragedy is that?”

She was still holding the pillow, hugging it so tightly now it would have been dead if it were human. 

“Does love always have to be tragic?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “In my experience, it always seems to be.”

“But you keep loving, anyway.”

“Don’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter. Maybe I was just made to love the people in my life who wanted me to care for them. With my mother and Dru, that was easy enough, and they needed me just as much as I did them. Harder with you.”

She swallowed. “I’ve needed you.”

“For getting Dru to help with the plan. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else.”

“I needed you when my mom died. Twice.”

The words felt so real, and almost cruel, just slicing into their quiet little bubble, and Buffy couldn’t believe she’d said them. But his hand reached for hers again, and just squeezed her fingers once, before pulling away.

“Yeah,” he murmured. His eyes fell shut, his voice dropping to a breathy whisper. “Reckon you did.”

Her legs were getting cramped, and she shifted, trying to get more comfortable. He shifted as well, seeming to wake up a little bit as he said, “You’ll need to be heading off soon, I suppose?”

“Uh… yeah, probably. Told the gang I’d be patrolling all night. I just wanted to tell you about… um, Glory’s minion.”

He nodded, but then his eyelashes flickered up at her. “Or you could stay?” he murmured.

Her breath caught in her throat. If he wasn’t so clearly about to fall asleep she might have thought he meant something else… but even though it was a pretty tame thing he was asking, she wondered how it was so easy for him to just reach out for what he needed.

And he was about to walk out of her life forever, wasn’t he? He was sacrificing a lot for her, and there was precious little she could do in return.

Still, if this was Xander, would she cuddle with him as a friend-only thing?

She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure when she’d decided to stay, either, but she found she was putting the pillow under her head, and scooting up close to him, letting him wrap an arm around her as he gave her a wide smile. 

“Hey,” he whispered. “Did you find the answers you were looking for out there in the desert? Before getting besieged?”

She swallowed. “Death is my gift. Whatever the hell that means.”

He gave a kind of whimper, nuzzling the top of her head. “Greek tragedy,” he mumbled.

“Mine’s just the regular kind,” she mumbled back, and shifted until her head was on his chest. “Nothing Greek about it.”

“Completely buggered, the pair of us,” he sighed, and fell asleep.

***

She hadn’t drunk enough for a real hangover, but her tongue felt all swollen in her mouth and she had a headache when she woke up, anyway. She groaned and rolled to her back, glaring at the stone ceiling and begrudgingly grateful that she’d woken up somewhere cool and dark. 

She had no idea what time it was, but trusted her body clock that said it was time to get up. But when she looked to the side at her bedfellow, her mini-hangover was forgotten.

Because Spike was still holding her, his head having moved down to her chest. His arms were light, but firmly around her, like he almost didn’t dare touch her but couldn’t bear not to. His face was so much sweeter like this… he’d been sleepy and drunk and sentimental and dreamy last night as it was, but this was something even deeper. It was like getting a glimpse of the man he was before, staring at him like this. 

And Buffy wished, in a flash that was there and then gone, but so deep she felt the imprint of it remain, that she could love him. She so suddenly and badly wanted to fold herself up in his love and just… let him take care of her.

Death was her gift after all, wasn’t it? And here he was, dead, but ready to hold her and love her and defend her and keep giving and giving and giving to her. 

She wished she wasn’t losing him. She wished they had more time and their lives weren’t too much of a Greek Tragedy, because then maybe they’d be able to figure this out… somehow.

Spike shifted with a groan, and cursed his own hangover, and the rest of the world came flooding back.

She couldn’t worry about anything else right now.

She had to stop a god first.

*** 

“Okay,” Willow said. “Snake bones?”

“Check,” Tara said.

“Fermented poppy seeds?”

“Check,” Tara said dutifully.

“Creepy little minion guy?”

Giles dragged the chair in from the kitchen, with a bound and gagged demon still squeaking in protest.

“I’d say check,” Tara said. 

“And we’ve got Mr. Forehead-Tattoo over here,” Xander said, pointing to the couch where an unconscious Knight of Byzantium lay. It had apparently been easy for him and Anya to bust him out of the psych ward, since the hospital was still eager to get rid of as many of Glory’s brain-sucked victims as had someone to claim them.

“But you know you can’t thrall an insane person, right?” Anya said. “There’s nothing left to control.”

“No, but the rest of his buddies should come looking for him,” Buffy said.

“Yep,” Xander said, peeking through the window. “I’m seeing some definite horse and crusader action down the street. How are we doing this again?”

“Tara puts up a barrier,” Buffy said. “I let whoever their leader is come in to barter. Then we hypnotize the crap out of him.”

“Right,” Xander said. “Uh… I think someone might have forgotten to tell them the plan, though, because they’re throwing arrows. Flamey ones.”

Buffy turned to Tara. “Barrier time, now, please?”

Tara was already chanting, and nodding at her, and Buffy instinctively walked over to the stairs, where Dawn sat.

Drusilla was already there, tilting her head at Dawn curiously. “Pretty girl,” she murmured. “To shine so bright, so green.”

“Hey,” Buffy snapped, pulling Dru’s arm, and yanking her away from Dawn.

But Dawn didn’t seem bothered. “You know, Buffy,” she said. “You yelled at me the last time I invited a vampire into the house. And it was just Harmony . You invited freaking Drusilla .”

Dru laughed. “When I am queen,” she said to Dawn. “You shall be my favorite maid.”

Dawn looked uncomfortable at that. “Uh, no thanks.”

“Buffy?” Giles said. “The general looks to be shouting something. Perhaps it is time to offer passage into the house?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said, and drew a breath. She looked over at Spike, who was just hovering in the kitchen. His role had just been to get Dru here and leave with her when it was over, and he seemed to just be staying out of all of this otherwise.

She drew a breath and opened her front door. “Tara, open the barrier.”

***

So far, the plan seemed to be working. The general was now tied up in a chair next to the minion, and they had released the brain-sucked knight back to his army. Drusilla stood in front of the two prisoners, tipping her head, and walking around them slowly, and everyone else stood nearby with stakes and crosses and holy water and swords, while Willow and Tara and Giles readied the spell.

Drusilla looked at all of them and shook her head. “Such serious frowns,” she said. “We could have had games for all, if you’d let me plan the party. My parties are always perfect.”

“You said you’d do it,” Buffy reminded her. “And Spike says you can.”

“Shh,” Dru said, putting her finger to her lips. “The monsters are playing now, little girl.”

She stooped in front of the general first, waving her fingers in his face, and pointing to her own eyes while she mumbled something. Giles cleared his throat and looked away.

“This, ah, this may take some time,” he stammered. 

Dru paused for a minute to smile up at him. “You are not tied in the chair today,” she said. “It’s rather a pity. Your game was the most fun one of all.”

There was a silence, while Giles coughed and grew red in the face, and Buffy realized she didn’t need to be here for any of this. “Call me when we’re ready,” she said, and moved toward the kitchen. 

Spike was looking at the baby photos of her and Dawn on the side of the refrigerator and smiling softly.

“Drusilla knows what Dawn is,” Buffy said. “That gonna be a problem?”

Spike shook his head. “Glory and the Key aren’t general knowledge. It’s buried pretty deep, something only the Old Ones would know about. Where we’re going, Dru has no one to tell, and no one to care if she does.”

“Where are you going?” Buffy asked, and blushed when he looked at her. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, I was just… making small talk.”

“I don’t know,” Spike said softly. “Wherever the wind blows, I reckon. We always followed her whims and fancies, anyway. Only reason we came here was because she was sick.”

Buffy just nodded, staring at a picture of her school photo from kindergarten, and wondered how someone who looked so innocent could someday be in this position, standing here with another vampire about to walk out of her life that she didn’t know if she could get along without.

“What happened to you being a rubber band?” she asked softly. “Snapping back to me and all that?”

He slid an arm around her and pulled her close to him, dropping the quickest kiss on her head. “Gonna miss me, huh?”

She snorted, but then slid her arms around his waist. “Maybe a little. When I don’t have anyone else to beat up.”

“Yeah. This is gonna do wonders for my nose, I reckon. Might actually go a whole month without getting broken.”

“I don’t know. Maybe Dru will carry on the tradition.” 

Spike was silent, idly rubbing her arm. “I know you don’t love me,” he said. “But as send-offs go… you’ve given me some memories to cling to, pet, and that’s…” he shook his head. “Everything.”

She squeezed him a little tighter. “I really will miss punching your nose.”

He chuckled wetly. “Me too, love. Me too.”

***

They made their way back into the living room when the chanting started, and Buffy was in time to see a band of energy fly out from the witches, and spread toward the army on her front lawn.

Xander hurried to untie the general, and he stood up, looking dazed, and then rushed outside, barking orders, and climbing back onto his horse.

And in an impressive array of dust and flying hooves, they were gone. 

It took only a moment for Drusilla to do the same to the minion, and then he was gone too, running from the house and screeching that he knew the exact location of the Key. There was a silence covering the house, and then Xander and Anya started cheering, and Willow and Dawn joined in, and in typical apocalypse-stopping fashion, her friends were ready to toast their victory, with Willow magicking up party decorations and Xander on the phone to the pizza guy, while Dawn and Anya argued over what music to play. 

“So, where are they going?” Buffy asked, a feeling of happiness bubbling up in her chest that she couldn’t control.

“The knights are going to the middle of the ocean,” Tara said. “They’ll spend the next century searching its depths for it. And Glory’s minions now have an exact spot in the desert to look, but they don’t have a century to spare.”

“Glory still may come to us and try to hurry up the process,” Giles warned. “Or may just seek vengeance on us all when her window closes.”

“Well, we’ll be ready for her then,” Buffy said. “Party now, people, because the war’s not over yet.”

She saw a flash of movement by the front door, and caught sight of Spike, who had his hand on Dru’s back and was guiding her toward the front door, apparently getting ready to just… sneak off with her.

It was an impossible thing to watch. And in that moment, Buffy decided she simply was not going to. She strode forward and caught them on the porch. “Spike,” she said firmly.

He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. “Tryin’ not to cause any fuss here.”

“I know,” she said. “But Dawn would kill me if you didn’t say goodbye, so you’re just gonna have to suck it up.” She tilted her head back toward the house and looked Drusilla straight in the eye. “I need a word with Dru, anyway.”

Spike chuckled. “Shovel talk, eh? Don’t know whether I should be frightened or flattered.” But he slipped inside the house and shut the door behind him.

Drusilla looked more eerie than usual in the soft light of the porch lamp, and Buffy was aware how dangerous it was to be left alone and confront a vampiress who had proven she was still excellent at thralling people to their doom.

But she stood tall and firm, letting the victorious feeling of the day linger with her. This was just like when she had to take charge to save the world, and she didn’t intend to lose.

She crossed her arms and held her head high. Dru was smiling knowingly at her, and swaying, swaying back and forth.

“I want him,” Buffy said firmly. “I won’t let you take him.”

Drusilla tittered. “Now, now. Mustn’t break a promise. Creates a stain on your pretty white soul, it does.”

“You agreed to do the thrall for us in return for something,” Buffy said. “You named Spike as your price, but he agreed to that without consulting me. I’m the one you should have struck a bargain with, so what will you take instead?”

“Ooh,” Dru said. “Sweet little Slayer, making bargains with demons? Daddy would be very cross.”

Buffy shifted uncomfortably, as she actually didn’t know if Drusilla was referring to Giles… or Angel.

“You let me worry about that,” she said. “And just tell me what you want.”

Dru grabbed one of the porch posts and giggled, swinging around it like a little girl. “I want you dead, of course, dearie. That has been my greatest desire since first coming to this town. It used to be his too, you know. My handsome Othello promised to chop you into messes for me.”

“And you know I’m not gonna agree to my death. Ask for something reasonable that I can agree to.”

Dru pouted, still swinging. “No fun if we’re being reasonable .”

“ Dru ,” Buffy said, holding the cold note in her tone. “You know you’ve lost him. He’s not yours anymore, not really. You know he’ll never be like he was, because he loves me now. And you can kill me, or try to, and you can thrall him to forget all about me, but we both know his love goes deeper than that. He loved his mother when he was alive, and he loves her still. Love transcends everything for him, even death, and you can’t have his anymore, so what’s your price for leaving him with me and letting me take care of him instead?”

Dru stopped swinging and looked back at Buffy. Her mouth was pinched up in fury, but her eyes looked curious, and strangely lucid. “And is that what you will do?” she asked. “Take care of him?”

Buffy had only said that in the hopes it was what Drusilla wanted to hear. But it only took a second of consideration for her to realize she really meant it. She nodded, and said, “To the very best of my ability.”

“But can you care about him, sweet Slayer?” Dru asked. “Can you play his heartstrings until he quivers beneath you? Can you sense the blood in him, and what it most desires?”

She began swaying again, dancing around the porch, waving her arms hauntingly and trailing her fingertips through the air as she talked, connecting the words and movements. “Can you soothe him when he cries, and scold him when he’s naughty, and sing him to sleep when sleep will not come? Can you show him all the worlds in your head, and feast on the graves of your enemies with him, and let him lay his trophies at your feet? Can you love him, Buffy? Can you dance to the music with him? Can you?”

She stopped abruptly, like her song had ended. She stood very rigid, looking Buffy straight in the eyes, hands clenched at her sides, waiting for her answer.

The dance might have been a thrall in itself, and Buffy felt something nervous and new flutter in her gut. But she lifted her chin, and said calmly, “I can try.”

Drusilla looked away, trailing her fingertips over the porch railing. “Then I ask for nothing,” she said. “Death is your gift. Take care not to lose it.”

She wandered down the steps without looking back. She drifted off into the night, walking like she was floating, holding her arms out behind her like she was trying to grow wings.

And then she was gone. And Buffy felt reality snap back into place, gulping and breathing heavily at the monumental thing she’d almost lost, and the even more monumental thing she’d just agreed to. She had no doubt that Dru would know if Buffy ever broke her promise, and would come back to avenge Spike once and for all.

The front door creaked open, and Buffy didn’t even have to feel his presence on her neck to know who it was.

She turned to look at him, realizing he must have heard it all when he looked at her with such a cautious, delighted gaze. 

She gave him a tiny smile. “You’re mine now,” she said. “Dru agreed to give you up.”

Spike swallowed, and walked closer to her, and she could see him trembling as he got down on both knees in front of her.

He raised eyes full of hope to hers, but she shook her head, and got on her knees, too. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to her chest, and he made a choking sound as he clutched her.

“Buffy,” he mumbled, like it was the most blessed word on the planet.

“You’re not beneath me, Spike,” she said. “Not anymore.”

THE END