One Shot

Frustrated as all hell, Spike had been trying to distract himself by watching TV, but the monster movie of the day wasn't cutting it. As the on-screen damsel in distress yelled about how much blood there was, his stomach grumbled and he got up to quench his sudden thirst, except–

He spun on his heal to face the door as soon as he was standing, sensing her instantly. And, before Buffy came within touching distance of the crypt, he told her categorically to "Bugger off."

There was a pause as her footsteps faltered and breath caught. Then, after a second, she started moving again and finally reached the door, pressing it open.

Spike blinked as the great pile of empty space in his now open doorway said, "Oh come on, you're not still mad about earlier, are you?"

It was Buffy's voice alright, and he could smell her – her usual scent masked with a different hairspray – but unless he'd gone completely barmy (which was a possibility, he had to admit), something was not right.

"Buffy?" he asked, his voice uncertain as his eyes still tried to search her out.

"Spike," she replied, her tone formal as she closed the door, crossed the room towards him, and reached out her hand.

At first revelling in the feel of her, Spike closed his eyes, focused his attentions on his other senses and reached for the Slayer in return, snagging her wrist and pulling it down, away from his chest – hard.

Buffy reeled back and punched him in the shoulder. "Oww, Spike. What the hell?"

He jumped to his feet again and pinned her down, keeping his eyes closed the entire time. She wriggled in his grip, and he tightened it.

"What are you?" he demanded, his voice a snarl.

"What are you, suddenly all violent guy?" Buffy snapped back, her annoyance not fully masking her hurt.

In an instant, Spike released her and spun away, then began to circle without ever leaving the door unguarded in case she tried to make a break for it. A number of responses to her nonsense question filtered through his mind – about how she claimed to know exactly who and what he was, and how he'd never pretended to be anything else – but he disregarded them, intent on resolving his own line of questioning.

"A ghost?" he wondered aloud, before shaking his head. "You feel all solid to me. Maybe a poltergeist, but that doesn't fit right either. Red fallen off the magic wagon again, is that it – some spell?"

Buffy huffed out his name as she got to her feet, but he didn't answer.

"This better be some bloody unfunny trick," he barrelled on, "because if you've gone out there and got yourself killed, I'll–" his words broke off in another growl that stopped Buffy in her tracks for a second time.

"You're really wigged, aren't you?"

Spike just stared at where she should have been – where he knew she was, even if he couldn't see. His brain was a muddle of thoughts, and feelings, and questions. And, of course, her scent was driving him mad as usual.

"Buffy? Do you–" he paused and paced, then looked up again. "You do realize you're invisible, right? I mean, that is you?"

He tracked the sound of her movements to his chair, where she – as far as he could tell – threw herself into it. "Yeah, Spike, I know," she said in a sigh.

Anger firmly on hold, Spike took a seat opposite her. He was almost scared to ask, but the question fell from his lips anyway. "What happened?"

"I… well," Buffy sighed again. "I don't know, okay? I didn't come here to think about stuff."

"You didn't–" Spike repeated, before swiftly cutting himself off, his teeth clenched. "What did you come here for?"

"For… uh, you?" she stammered, moving as if to stand up.

"Don't," said Spike, and she stilled again. Meanwhile, he got up and started pacing again. "You thought you could come here and we could…?" He waggled his finger between the both of them, then shook his head.

"Hey!" Buffy snapped, "If I'm not freaked about this, there's no reason why you should be. And if you don't want me, there's no need to be a jerk about it!"

"If I don't want you? If I don't want you, Slayer? After you're attitude earlier, I'm half expecting to find my name off the guest list next time I try and see you at home!" He was shouting so loudly, half the cemetery could probably hear him, but he didn't care. "And you know what else? You should be bloody well freaked! You don't know what happened to you, and you don't even care? How do you think Dawn's gonna react?"

Buffy was silent and the tension hung between them as he panted for the few moments proceeding his impassioned diatribe. Finally, she said, "I should go."

Spike warred with himself, not knowing whether to agree or tell her to stay. "Go where?" he asked instead.

"The Magic Box, I guess. I had been planning to go home, but…"

But what he'd said about Dawn had really sunk in. He knew concern for her sister was one of the few things that seemed to penetrate the Slayer's hard exterior, these days, and he'd used that knowledge intentionally. Despite his recent attempts to develop a conscience, he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about pressing a weak spot. Not if it got the Slayer to take things seriously for a bit. (And wasn't that the opposite of what he'd been trying to do with her lately, more generally? She came to him to unwind, not to have his voice join the chorus of people giving her grief, or adding to it.)

"The gang are looking into what happened," Buffy carried on, her voice resigned. "I should check in."

"Right," said Spike, not short on disappointment himself. "Maybe I could come with, if you want?"

"You don't have to do that."

"I know."

"Right," Buffy affirmed, crossing the room towards the door. Spike sat there, still trying to decipher if he was supposed to follow or not, when he got the distinct impression she turned to face him again. He looked up, feeling several shades of foolish.

"I… I think I might be a ghost," Buffy said hesitantly, before quickly adding, "I don't mean this thing, now. Just in general, I guess. Since I've been back, I haven't really been… you know, back."

Spike let out a wry snort of laughter. "Yeah. Think I might'a noticed that."

Ignoring his levity, Buffy said, "I don't mean to be. I… I don't feel like me. I'm doing these things, and they're things I would never do. But everything's different and I'm just so..." she broke off again. Spike could hear the bones begin to creak in her hands as he got the mental image of her clenching them so tight into fists they'd turn white – or a paler shade of see-through, he supposed.

"Look," he said, "I know your friends have been right hard on you. Maybe I – Bein' honest here, okay? – Maybe I haven't exactly been helping. God help me Buffy, I've been trying, but…"

"But I fade away. I know. I'm not trying to make this hard!" her voice sounded choked with tears, and he ignored his better judgement and went to her, holding her close to his chest as she shook.

The embrace went on a while. Spike lost himself in it as they drifted to the beat up old couch and ended up sitting, curled into each other.

"I'm sorry," Buffy said, after a long time; the confession almost a whisper.

"Forgiven," said Spike, a smile at the edge of his mouth. For a long time – ever since she'd ended up in his bed, the first time; which he knew wasn't really that long ago, but felt like an age because of the torment of it – sitting like this with Buffy and just being able to hold her had been what he really wanted. It was bloody ironic that it took her to fade out of visual existence for it to happen.

It was as close to genuine bliss as he'd been in his extended existence, so it came to the natural end of Xander bursting in and demanding he come to the rescue.

"We've got to find Buffy. You can track, right? Come on," said Xander, before Spike could open his mouth. In the pause that followed, he debated what to tell him but was saved the pain of decision-making when Buffy surprised him by speaking up for herself.

"I'm here, Xander," she said, her voice unfettered by guilt at having been caught – or disappointment at having been caught.

The carpenter jumped slightly at the sound before stepping closer, to the edges of Spike's personal space. He ignored his exclamation of "Hey, watch it!" reaching out a hand towards Spike's lap. "Buffy? You're here? Where? And why?" He looked at Spike accusingly and the vampire batted his arm away, the annoyance a handy method of distracting himself from his own curiosity about what Buffy's answer might be.

"I wanted to spend time with Spike," she said. Again, her voice was calm; so unreserved it scared Spike witless. Sure, she hadn't admitted that they were a couple or anything, but she wasn't on the defensive, either.

"Why?" Xander asked again, seemingly out of bafflement more so than judgement.

It was at this that Buffy hesitated. Finally, though, she said, "Do I need a reason?"

Spike's heart sank a little, but Xander just kept on yammering, no doubt intent on making things worse.

"Well, yeah," he said, "I mean, it's Spike. Who hangs out with Spike? I mean, willingly?"

"Dawn," said Buffy, which made Spike grin and consider for the first time that maybe she was intentionally teasing the whelp.

"Okay," he allowed. "Name someone with taste."

"Hey!" Spike would get up to add a level of physical menace to his verbal protest, but Buffy was still draped half over him, and there was no way in hell he was cutting that short. Just as he thought that, however, she sighed and got up, pushing Xander out of her way.

"As a matter of fact, I've been hanging out with Spike a lot lately."

Xander blinked at thin air as his mouth made a gaping sound somewhere between "guh" and "huh?" Before Buffy could say anything else, he shook his head. "Look, it doesn't matter. Willow said to warn you that the thing the trio used to make you invisi-Buffy is gonna turn you into pudding, though I can clearly see the effect has already started on your brain."

Now unimpeded by having a lap full of Slayer, Spike got up and loomed over the carpenter, who finally backed up and gave him some space. Before Spike could give him a piece of his mind, however, Buffy broke up the glaring contest by saying, "You waited until after the interrogation to tell me my life is in threat?"

Spike turned around to where her voice was coming from, his scowl transformed to a grin as he imagined her pretty little hands on her hips – a stance to match the snippy attitude he'd missed so much. It was a glimpse of her being her old, fiery self again, and it set something alight within him. Maybe the effect wouldn't last but, for the moment, she cared about her continued existence. And wasn't that just neat?

Suitably chastised, Xander dropped his much less appealing attitude and turned towards the door, muttering, "I guess we can talk about it later," half under his breath.

Buffy followed him, and Spike swore he could hear the roll of her eyes. Just as she reached the door, she turned to face him once more. "You're coming too, right?"