Title: Forever
A/N: Just a quick one-shot, reviews Appreciated
She didn't realize how much she would miss him. Their relationship, if it can be called that, had been less than idyllic. She had hurt him and he had hurt her and, as a quite obvious result, there had been a whole lot of hurt going around. And a lot more lust than anything even slightly resembling love, originally. He had proclaimed his love for her in a thousand different ways, simply, insistently, quietly, subtly, desperately, loudly, wordlessly- in all of the ways he knew how. She was wise enough to know that lust played a factor in his desire for her, and honest enough with herself and her mistakes to acknowledge that she had lusted after him in the times she had been with him. She knew that she had used him and she hated herself for it, though it was just another straw on the pile of reasons for self-loathing that she had.
She had told him once that she could never love him because love was about trust and that was one thing she would never have for him. She imagined, later on, when she woke alone in the middle of the night, how that must have haunted him. She rarely said anything kind to him, so she also imagined that mostly everything she said to him caused him pain when he thought about her, and it was really quite a mystery that he kept loving her. It was a mystery that anyone loved her.
The destruction of the First changed the life of Buffy, now one of many Slayers, in more ways that one. She was no longer expected to single-handedly protect the world. Anya was dead. Xander was partially blind. Dawn had grown up, and Sunnydale just wasn't there. Even among all of these changes, the source of her nightmares and the constant pain in her chest resulted from the death of a vampire who had loved her, and whose love she did not deserve. As a result of Willow's spell, Buffy did not have a pressing reason to keep going, and it was easier and easier for her to let go. In the past, depression and hopelessness meant nothing, because if Buffy did not press on, no one else would. The burden had been lifted from her, and the result was not relief and welcomed rest, but listlessness and apathy. The rest of her friends found places in the new world that did not depend on them to the same degree. Every day, Buffy let go a little bit more.
She lay in her bed for a good part of the day. The others rationalized it by saying that it had been years since Buffy had been able to sleep in, to rest, or have a day off. Their new apartment was sparsely furnished, and when Buffy wasn't sleeping, she watched Lifetime movies and reality shows, soap operas and sitcoms. She still trained and patrolled, in order to maintain some sense of normalcy. She did not regret the fact that she was no longer the leader and the chosen one. She had never wanted or coveted that role, and she looked back on it with distaste. If she felt anything other than a vague, passing distaste, it was self-loathing, and something, also vague, that she thought might have been love.
So she hated herself and went through the motions, as she had done after Willow brought her back from the grave. There was no question this time, she knew what she was doing and she chose it willingly, as if there was no other choice. As a result of this painful and pernicious apathy, she hardly even stirred from her position when Dawn called her name, curled up on the couch, tearfully sniffing as she watched a romantic reunion on the Oxygen channel.
"Buff? Buffy? You'd better come downstairs," Dawn said, first calling her name from the door and then walking closer and poking her older sister on the shoulder.
"Dawn- sorry," she said, shaking her head and sitting up, brushing the lint off of her black sweatpants that she wouldn't have been caught dead in a year ago.
"Buffy, someone's here that you have to see," Dawn said, and Buffy read the urgency in her face and heard it in her voice.
"Is it someone I know? I look like crap," she muttered, though interested in what had grabbed Dawn's attention.
"It really doesn't matter what you look like, it never has," Dawn said, pulling at her sister's arm and coaxing her down the stairs. As she stumbled down the stairs, Buffy wiped the remnants of her chick-flick tears out from under her eyelids. Dawn pulled her into the kitchen and stopped, shoving Buffy forward enough to make her protest. Then she too stopped, staring, her eyes widening slowly.
"Don't look so happy to see me, love," the vampire said, a hint of nervousness in his usually confident voice.
"But, you're dead," Buffy said, shaking her head.
"I've sort of always been like that, in case it slipped your mind," he replied, leaning against the counter, watching her.
"I hate these dreams," she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. Dawn's face looked stricken and she backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
He stepped towards her, still hesitant. "Buffy, this isn't a dream," he said, looking at her with concern. "The little bit said you'd changed but I didn't think-"
"Stop talking like that," Buffy said, tiredly, waving her hand. "Just tell me you love me so I'll be happy when I wake up."
Before she could say anything else, he had stepped forward and touched her arms, gently and tentatively. "I'm not a sodding dream and you know it! If you want me to go just tell me, no more bloody games" he added.
She looked up at him after he touched her, her face changing into an expression he couldn't identify, and her mouth fell open just enough to make him want to kiss her even more than he already did. One of her hands rose, as if in slow motion, and touched his cheek, feeling its characteristic coolness. She had touched him harshly so many times on that cheek, with another blow or slap, but never like this, not as gently as if he were porcelain, or the most precious thing in the world to her.
"Spike?" she whispered. "This isn't a dream, a joke, a ghost, a robot?" she asked, not removing her hand from the side of his face.
"None of the above. Sorry to disappoint?" he said, trying to sound light, but instead he was trembling beneath her touch and her unwavering gaze.
"I thought you were dead."
"Told you, love, I am."
"Even if you're not a dream, could you still say the part about loving me?"
"I'll love you forever, I can't bloody stop," he said, looking into her eyes with an expression of sincerity that caused her heart to break all over again. Her unshed tears spilled over onto her cheeks and he pulled her into his arms as a sob slipped out of her lips. It didn't matter how or why, what spell, talisman, prophecy, or curse that had brought him back. She didn't even want to know. She whispered her apologies into his shoulder, and he forgave her as many times as she asked him to. She wiped her eyes and looked at him, and he stared at her as if she was the only thing in the world he ever wanted to see again. He kissed her and she kissed him back, and it was nothing like the violent, lustful, possessive kisses they had demanded from one another in years past. Clinging to each other in the middle of the kitchen, all that mattered was that love had been given a second chance, and it was a chance that both of them were willing to take.