Author's Note: Buffy's thoughts on Spike after the series finale. SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE "CHOSEN," SO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. Oh, and look, there's a little Firefly reference for my fellow Browncoats. :)

Reciprocation

By Trisana McGraw

The mission was what mattered, Buffy kept telling herself. She'd repeated it like a mantra from the beginning of her time as a Slayer, but Spike's sacrifice had effectively destroyed any power the words might have had over her judgement.

He didn't have to do it! part of her sobbed, yet she always countered herself with, It was the only thing to do. Without him, we would most likely be dead. He saved all of Sunnydale and maybe the entire world.

It still didn't stop her from being furious with him for giving himself up and with herself for not stopping him.

Spike had proved time and again that he would do whatever she needed him to do, that he loved her. And what had she done? She had just stood and watched as his skin crumbled away under the sheer force of the power he held combined with the deadly sunlight had had willingly remained in. He'd even seen through her "I love you," knowing that she had said it only to lessen his pain.

She wasn't sure if she'd managed to do even that.

When Sweet's spell had revealed everyone's secrets, most of all hers, she'd been ready to dance herself to death; she had truly been in hell, with nothing to live for. Spike had shown her that her life still did have meaning, and he'd clutched her in a death grip, no pun intended, to keep the flames from swallowing her alive.

The image came to her mind unbidden, even as she flinched away from the memory: Spike's face glowing as the embers began to eat him alive, and how her skin had been singed when she had touched his hand. He must have been in such great pain, but his expression had been one of pure, unadulterated wonderment; remembering his breathless "I can feel my soul" brought tears to her eyes. She kept thinking that she should have grabbed him and flung him out of the ray of sunlight; she had the Slayer strength to do so. She should have ignored the prophecies, that only one ensouled could manage the power of the gem. Spike hadn't deserved to die like that, to die at all, and if she had shaken him out of his "big damn hero" mindset, he would still be here with her. Who knew, maybe they could even have had some sort of life together. But all hope for that was gone, destroyed in a blaze of fire.

He'd saved them all, and there was not a person who didn't praise him as a hero. But even before then he'd saved her, and she had the sinking feeling that she had owed the same to him.