Title: Spike's Gift
Author: Amber
Pairings: would I actually write something that wasn't S/B eventually? I think not
Spoilers: definitely up to and including "The Gift"
Rated: umm... PG, I guess, not really sure, maybe even G
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, meanie-mo Joss owns 'em all, but at least he's kind enough to share(at least, he doesn't say not to use themeg)
Distribution: please? I wanna see my name on a web site, take it, put it up on the wall(or webpage), just tell me where, so I can go and stare at my name for hours at a time(ego? me? naaaaawdisbelief really? naaaaaawmore disbelief)
Feedback: feed that ego I deny having, he's hungry, he wants lotsa yummy, nummy feedback
Author's Note: *This* is thoughts, and parts in Italics are flashbacks (maybe memories too, I guess)
Dedications: to my damned muse, for giving me this instead of total writer's block, like she usually does, and, as always, to Bu(Kirsten), for being so cool, Debsie, for being just as cool, and the people I call friends in the Buffy chat room
Summery: I re-wrote "The Gift", the end at least. Anything I tell you would give stuff away, so it's a re-written Gift and post re-written Gift story(no groaning, this one is different, as far as I know)

Spike's Gift

It had been four weeks. Four weeks since Spike had jumped into that portal to save Dawn's and Buffy's lives. Buffy had been about to jump when Spike had pushed her aside. He said "I love you both" right before he jumped. Buffy hadn't been able to respond before his body had been taken by that damn portal.
Buffy started crying all over again at that awful memory. It was her fault.
They had found it out only a few hours before going to save Dawn. They had found it took more than one person to transform the energy of the Key into a human form. They had found that the second person had to be the opposite of the first person, but there also had to be love. They had found out that the person in question was Spike. There had been disbelief at first, mostly from Buffy.

"What do you mean, it took Spike's essence as well as mine?" Buffy cried in outrage. Spike was still sitting in disbelief. "You mean that Dawn is like Spike's and my child?" Spike smiled at that, finally coming out of his stupor. Buffy glared at him, but he went on smiling. "So Dawn is made out of me and Spike?" Buffy didn't mean to take all this out on Giles, but he was the one who told her, so she just couldn't help it. He was in the wrong place, at the really wrong time.
Buffy couldn't believe that someone she loved so much had come from someone she hated so much. But when she really got down to it, she didn't hate Spike any more. Actually, if she really listened to herself, she almost kinda loved the vamp. *No, I don't love him, I don't, I don't...* She couldn't deny it to herself any longer. No matter how many times she said no to herself, there was always this growing voice saying yes. *ARG!!!* She screamed in her head. *I love him, okay?! Happy now?!* She screamed to whoever was listening, mainly that little voice in her head.
"So the Nibblet is our child?" Spike asked, smirking. Buffy did the only thing she could think of at the moment. She slapped him upside the face, scowling the whole while. She bared her teeth.
"Do you ever shut up?" Buffy said, her anger more towards herself than Spike.
"Do you ever solve problems without using violence?" Spike said in a mocking tone, before he could stop himself.

 Buffy couldn't stand remembering it further. She went downstairs to drown her sorrows in that gallon of chocolate ice cream sitting in the freezer. She closed her bedroom door, still sobbing quietly to herself.

*************************************************************************
"Can't I do anything to help her? Anything at all?" Spike looked over to his Guide, tears sliding down his face, mimicking the ones he had seen on Buffy's cheeks.
The figure next to Spike shook her head. The figure was Spike's Guide in heaven. All newcomers got one. Spike hadn't even realized, when he jumped into that portal, that his end destination would be heaven.

"Where the hell am I?" Spike cried, seeing that he was not in Sunnydale anymore.
"Wrong direction" Spike jumped at the voice he heard behind him. He turned around to see who it was, and got a new shock. It was a woman, but she was so beautiful, she almost didn't look human.
She was medium-built, wearing flowing sky-blue robes. And her neck and arms were covered in silver. Silver necklaces, silver bracelets, silver rings, she was simply covered in silver. With her beautiful blond hair and hazel eyes, she kind of reminded him of Buffy. She looked every bit an angel, but Spike knew it must be an illusion. This couldn't be... No way could he be in...
Almost as if answering his thoughts, she replied, "Yes, it's heaven. Get used to the idea, you're going to be here a long time. For, like, the rest of ever." She smiled, and his eyes hurt, her teeth were so white and sparkly.
"How could I be in heaven? Last time I checked, I kinda lacked a soul." Spike was starting to get worried. *Must be a clerical error* he thought to himself.
"Wow, you must not have checked in a while, then. You've been earning your soul through your good deeds. It was completed after you let that Hellgod torture you in order to save Buffy and Dawn. Up here, we like them noble-type deeds, so you got yourself a soul, and an all-expenses-paid ticket to heaven." She smiled again, and this time Spike covered his eyes before he was blinded.
"You mean, I was toting a soul around for the last few months, and I didn't even notice it? Hah!" Spike couldn't believe what this angel(?) was telling him. Him, with a soul? He wasn't the prancing poof, how could he have a soul?
"Still don't believe me?" the angel(?) asked. "Here, watch this." she picked up a little machine that looked kinda like a wristwatch, seemingly out of nowhere, and strapped it onto his wrist before he could utter a protest. Then she flipped a little switch on the side of the dial. A mechanical voice said "Soul", then it beeped a few times and disappeared.
"It's a soul indicator." She said, "Pretty stupid looking, I know, but it does the job." she smiled again, catching Spike by surprise. He closed his eyes too late, and saw after-images on his eyelids.
"Care to tone down that smile a bit?" he asked her, still rubbing at his eyes.
"Oops, sorry." She smiled again, and her teeth were just white now, no more glow-in-the-dark molars. "Better?" she asked.
"Much," he answered. "So let me get this straight. I have a soul?" he asked.
"Yep," she answered.
"And I'm in heaven?" he asked.
"Yep," she answered again.
"And I get to stay here? No changes of heart by the Powers That Be?" he asked, starting to get worried at the possible answer to that question.
"Yep," she answered a third time.
"And Buffy and Dawn are both still alive? They'll live?" he asked, voice filled with hope.
"Yep, they're both gonna live for at least another fifty years, most likely longer," she answered, happy that she could give him such good news.
His face fell. He said, in a voice that sounded more like a hurt whisper, "Then I'll never get to see Buffy?" He gulped at the thought, tears ready to fall at any moment.
 "Not exactly," she replied, and moved over to a hole in the cloud-floor-stuff that resembled a window. "She's right down there, along with the rest of them." she explained, while pointing at the hole.
He stared in awe, so enormously glad that he could still see her, still watch her.

Spike had been watching her ever since. And he was getting more and more depressed, as Buffy became more and more depressed. He missed her more every time he saw her.
It was heart-breaking to watch, and the Guides usually didn't have sad emotions, or any painful ones at all, for that matter. But this Guide had a special connection to the two. The Guides had been meeting every week, trying to figure out a solution. Four weeks later, they still had nothing.
"He looks so hurt. People aren't supposed to hurt in heaven," one Guide said, a brunette with gray eyes and mint green robes. All the other Guides nodded in agreement.
"We must do something for him," said another, one with raven-colored hair and stormy blue eyes, wearing pale pink robes.
A petite blond with green eyes and lilac colored robes spoke up. "I have an idea. If the Powers That Be would let us, we could..." she then whispered her idea to the others, so that spike could not over-hear it, and get hope, should it fail.
After a chorus of agreement, she flitted off to find the Powers to run her idea by.
Spike's Guide Spoke up, after a long silence. "I hope, for Spike's sake, that they say yes."


TBC............