Set 6 years post-Chosen. Buffy and Spike unexpectedly reunite after their long separation. As they rebuild their relationship, they must contend with past mistakes and new apocalypse. AU. No Season 8.

Usual disclaimer: I do not own anything.

The moth don't care when he sees the flame
he might get burned but he's in the game
and once he's in he can't go back, and
beat his wings 'til he burns them black
no the moth don't care when he sees the flame
no the moth don't care when he sees the flame

Aimee Mann, "The Moth"

Burning the Moth

New York 2009

It had been ten years since Buffy had been a freshman at UC Sunnydale. Ten years since that lost girl had tried to navigate her way through the California campus. College life. That's what normal girls did, right? After she graduated from high school, she went to college. Or tried too. But she had been lost, vulnerable, and she had gotten her butt kicked all over campus by some slutty vamp bitch and her heart torn out and toyed with by some slutty guy. In the end she had dusted the vamp, wished she could have staked the guy too. At least she had gotten to hit him over the head with a branch when she had gone all Clan of the Cave Bear. She had survived, won the day, saved the world, or at least the campus.

She had tried to be normal. Do what normal people did. But that never really worked for her. She had dropped out. Sure, she had averted the apocalypse, saved the world, a few times, but she never graduated. Just more proof against her ever being normal.

So why was she here? Again.

She had thought that at this point in her life she had gotten over the whole being normal thing. Admitted that it was never going to happen.

She had lived so much since then, died so much, lost so much. And yet as she walked onto campus for her first day of orientation she felt herself revert back to that state of confused vulnerability. Despite whole saving the world thing, standing alone against the forces of evil (she wasn't alone any more, but she had been for long enough that she couldn't help thinking it sometimes), the vampires, demons, and whatever other nasties came her way, Buffy still found college kinda scary. Okay, really scary. She was the Chosen One, or a Chosen One now, but college had this weird ability to make her feel all unchoseny. It made her feel so unsure, all icky and weak. Not herself. She would so much rather be dusting vamps or stopping yet another apocalypse then going to meet with her new advisor about her class schedule. The end of days was so much less scary than the first day of school.