Vamps On A Plane
"...so she said she loved me and I said, 'No you don't, but thanks for saying it.' And she held my hand and there were these flames..."
"Wait. Go back. She said she loved you? Buffy?"
"Yeah. And then I said..."
"No she didn't."
Spike actually managed to look smug. "She bloody well did."
"No way. She loves me. Always has. Cookie dough, remember?" Angel settled back in his seat. He'd had enough of Spike's constant needling about his relationship with Buffy and how many times he'd managed to get horizontal with her. Or vertical. Since when did Buffy like vertical? Sex. It was nothing but sex. Spike had to understand the difference between sex and true love.
"She gave me the amulet." Spike sprawled his legs out, crowding the aisle, and laced his fingers behind his head. "Called me her champion."
Champion. Right. "Because I had to be ready to play backup." Angel knew who her first choice would have been if the circumstances had been a little different.
"You really are full of yourself."
Angel leaned forward and fixed a direct glare on Spike. "We have something special. Eternal. It was there the first time we ever saw each other."
Spike sniffed. "I had the same thing with Dru. You know where that got me." He turned his face away and muttered something that sounded like bloody chaos demon .
"Seriously, Spike, what we had was intense. She once told me that when I kissed her..." Angel glanced over to make sure Spike was listening. He was. "...she wanted to die."
Spike roared with laughter. "That's your great yardstick of passion? You kiss her and she wants to die? I guess I should tell you about the time I kissed her and she broke three of the posts on my bed while she tore my clothes off. Lost my favorite jeans on that one."
A good fist to the jaw would wipe that nostalgic smirk off Spike's face. "Shut up. You're an idiot."
"Truth hurts."
Angel force his hands to relax. "She didn't love you."
"Said she did."
"Had to be gratitude. You were frying." Angel reached into the drink cart to see what was left. They'd put a serious dent in the alcoholic supplies on the way to Rome. What he wouldn't give for a full size bottle of Jim Beam.
"I did it for her, and for this bloody world. And she knew it, too."
Daiquiri mix? Who the hell had put that in there? "Hence the grateful love talk, Spike."
"She meant it."
"No she didn't. You told her that yourself." Angel knew he'd finally scored with that one. Spike took a sharp breath and his eyes looked like chips of ice.
"Look, Forehead, I wanted her out of there." Spike sat up and leaned toward him. Angel abandoned his search for the perfect cocktail. "She had her whole life ahead of her and didn't need to be hanging out with me in a grave full of vampire dust."
Angel sat back again. Could Spike have possibly done something without thinking he'd gain something out of it? The words were ringing true, and he wasn't quite ready to examine what it meant. "She would have left on her own Spike. She was just saying goodbye. And probably 'thank you'."
That seemed to take the wind out of Spike's sails. He reached for one of the little brown bottles that Angel had rejected and turned away as he screwed off the top. "Girl never was good about saying what she meant. Except for goodbye. She was always pretty clear about that."
Angel nodded "It was hard for her, me leaving. She cried every time. With Acathla, with that day that never really happened..."
"What?" Spike glanced over at him.
"Long story." Angel said. "There was ice cream."
Spike shook his head. "Don't want to know."
"But that last time," Angel continued. "She didn't cry that last time."
"Not then? I saw the two of you," Spike paused and took a resigned breath. "Snoggin'." The contents of the little bottle disappeared into his mouth.
Angel felt the resentment drain away. None of this had be easy for either of them. "The kiss was hello. And then she said goodbye." He thought about it, realizing something for the first time. "Tearless goodbye." He didn't really know why he'd admitted that out loud; Spike was sure to get in a dig about it.
But no. Spike had gone silent, and Angel didn't really know what else to say. He looked out the windows of the small plane, marveling at how the W&H technology had allowed him to travel like this in the daytime, and how bright the light was above the clouds. After over two hundred years of existence in this world, he could still discover new things.
"There were tears," Spike finally said.
"What?" Angel looked back at him. Spike hadn't moved and he was still toying with the empty bottle in his hand.
"She was crying when she said it." Spike sounded like he could have been talking to himself, his voice so soft that Angel could just make out the words. "Never cried for me like that. Sure, I'd made her cry before, with some of the bad things I'd done to her, but this was different." Spike fell silent again, and replaced the bottle on the drink cart. He turned away and began his own study of the brilliant light outside the plane.
Angel reached for his seatbelt and another miniature bottle of whiskey. They'd be landing back in LA soon, and he had things to think about. They'd failed to retrieve the Capo's head, the Immortal had played him for a fool again, and now it turned out that Buffy loved Spike.
Damn.