Disclaimer: I own neither vampires nor Slayers, and the boys in my bed are most definitely not Spike.

Pre-read by spookybibi, beta'd by kasumi of Elysian Fields.

Rosemary for Remembrance

Standing at the edge of what once – God, less than three weeks ago! – had been the town of Sunnydale, Buffy was overrun with memories. Good, bad, and everything in between; love and happiness paired with pain and loss and bone-deep sorrow.

She had been born and raised in LA, had even been Chosen there, but Sunnydale was where she had become. The events that defined her had all happened here, no matter how strange that may sound.

This was where she'd made friends who'd stand up to a Hellgod for her. This was where she'd lost her mother, gained a sister, killed her first lover... This was where she'd met Spike – and where she'd lost him.

This was where she'd learned about shades of gray existing in between black and white – although much too late – because he had forced her, and where she'd learned to trust in herself – because he did.

I love you.

When the question first came it had shaken her. "What do we do now?" Then it had hit her, all the things that one single question meant, and she'd felt a smile starting to spread across her face. Because, to Buffy, that question meant a thousand open doors.

That none of them knew what to do next was because their single goal, the one thing they'd all been focused on for months had been achieved. They'd beaten back the First Evil. They'd stopped the apocalypse. Their future was unclear because they had done the impossible.

With a world full of Slayers, Buffy had thought she wouldn't be needed any more. She had honestly believed that she would finally be able to step back and think about what she wanted, what she needed. No more General Buffy. No more carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. There were others to take over.

Yeah, sure. There were others, yes, thousands of them – but not a single one of them willing to take over. Not one. Not even the ones that had wanted it so bad – before. They had all come running to her for answers. What do we do now, Buffy? She had tried dodging the questions, but it had gotten increasingly difficult.

Around the seventeenth – or so – time it had been Faith doing the asking, and Buffy had almost visibly deflated. Not even Faith had been willing to stand on her own. She'd counted on Faith, at least subconsciously, remembering the times when Faith would have killed to be "the One" instead of "the other Slayer". To have Faith be happy to be not just the other but an other...That was when Buffy had really begun to realize there wasn't going to be any "re" to her tired any time soon. She'd been right.

Oh, she could have talked Giles into it, if not in any other way then by using the guilt he felt – but only if she'd gotten to him first. By the time she'd managed to pull herself together enough to talk to him, pretty much everyone else already had, and that door had closed. Giles hadn't even given her the option of asking – he'd been too busy outlining possibilities, sketching plans and telling her about her responsibilities as Senior Slayer.

Business as usual, in other words.

Once he'd stopped talking long enough to remember she'd come to see him for some reason she'd already given up on her plans.

Maybe she should have fought harder, Buffy thought looking back. She had earned not having to be the One any longer, had paid for the privilege of rest in sweat and blood and loss.

Spike had paid too. He'd taken out the Hellmouth, had saved the world – and a huge part of why had been so that she could rest. Maybe she would have fought harder if– No. Scratch that. She would have fought harder for her freedom if Spike had been there to share it with her. But he wasn't. He'd burned up in the Hellmouth, was dust and ashes and part of Sunnydale forever.

He never could leave, Buffy thought with a sad smile. And that was part of the wonder that was Spike – he never left. Of all the men in her life, Spike had been the only one never to leave. Yes, okay, there was that time when he'd gone to Africa – but he'd gone for a reason, not to leave her, and he'd come back. He'd been the only one to do that as well, to really come back. Angel had showed up, time and again, as had Riley and her father, but none of them had really returned to her. Only Spike had ever done that.

I love you. No, you don't.

She'd given in, allowed herself to be led again, to remain a weapon. A general. She had no one to fight for her to be anything but. She was the One, wasn't she? The only thing she'd insisted on was them not going to Los Angeles. "San Francisco" she'd told everyone. "We'll go to San Francisco." And so they had. The second Giles had been up to driving they'd left.

Oh, there had been a lot of reasons, good solid ones, as to why San Francisco would be a better alternative for them than Los Angeles, but in reality it had only come down to two things: no history, and no Angel.

By the time they'd reached their destination Willow had managed to arrange for healing, food, clean clothes and beds courtesy of a local coven and everyone had been grateful.

Buffy had been given a room of her own. The woman in charge of their shelter had looked at her, seen inside her soul, and steered her aside, recognizing her need for privacy. Oh, it was small, bordering on claustrophobic, and had most likely once been a closet, but it had a door to close and lock. To Buffy it had been a haven.

She'd hidden inside for the better part of two days, only venturing out to visit the bathroom and grab the food that was left for her, and just...tried to come to grasp with the fact that she had survived, and that Spike was gone.

She'd emerged with puffy yet steely eyes and a mission. This mission. Listening to the others talk about the fight, about the ones they'd lost, yet not mentioning Spike, except to try and minimize what he'd done? It had only hardened her resolve. She'd made the plans and then gone to bat with Giles over it.

He hadn't wanted to give in, too busy with being the nominal head of the Council (being, in fact, as far as they knew the entire Council) and trying to figure out what to do next, but she hadn't given up. Sunnydale was gone, yes, as were the people they'd lost there, but the memories? Those could not be allowed to be lost.

It had taken a lot of effort to get Giles to agree, but he had. Maybe it had been her thinly veiled threat to go to Angel – meaning Wolfram and Hart – otherwise. Maybe it had been the fact that she was right and he knew it. Whichever it was didn't matter though – all that mattered was that it had happened.

It had taken even more effort to track down the necessary people, and find the money, but she'd made it happen. The Council – even if it, as far as they knew, only consisted of Giles – now owned just over 200 square feet of land located next to the Sunnydale crater.

This land, to be precise, on which she was standing. Next to her was a stone monolith, a memorial dedicated to those they'd lost. It had been made from light gray marble, stood just over 7 feet tall, and bore the inscription "In loving memory of those who gave their lives to make this world better". Then, the names. Jenny Calendar. Amanda. Cho-An. Joyce Summers. Kendra. Countless others – every single name they could remember, every Slayer, every Potential, every classmate...

Tara and Anya's names were the first two.

The last name had been the source of many questioning looks, and more than a little scorn. Buffy could take it. It was a name just as worthy as any of being there – more than many. "William Pratt". Spike would have hated it, she thought with a soft smile, but it somehow fit. You simply didn't put "Spike" on something like this, and even less so "William the Bloody"...

She'd expected Xander to explode, but had been pleasantly surprised. Losing Anya, this time irrevocably, had obviously taught him something. The two of them had become closer since, both reeling from the loss of a lover. Oh, Xander still didn't like Spike, but he'd accepted the bleached vamp's place in Buffy's heart as well as his sacrifice.

When Buffy had told the others that she would be going back to Sunnydale to see the stone set in place, Willow and Xander had immediately decided to go with her. Then they'd presented a united front vetoing all other participants.

Even Dawn had understood.

This was for the three of them, together, just as it had been in the beginning. It seemed fitting that the same should be true in the end. The original Scoobies.

And so here they were, saying their goodbyes once more. Remembering. Sunnydale might have been home of the Hellmouth, but it had been their home too, and they'd been happy here. Buffy missed it. Missed Spike.

I love you. No, you don't. Noyoudon't, nononononono...

What he'd really meant was that she didn't love him like she loved Angel. At least, that was her best guess. It fit perfectly with what she knew about the bleached vampire who'd been her lover. However loudly he might have protested it, the truth was that deep down Spike had never believed anyone would choose him over Angel. Drusilla never had, not even after over a century, so why would Buffy?

And well, in a way that was true. She hadn't loved Spike like she'd loved Angel. She'd never love anyone the way she'd loved Angel. In fact, she hadn't even loved Angel that way. Angel had been her first love. There had been boys before him; crushes, kisses, flirtations… She'd even been in love before she met Angel. However, she hadn't loved before Angel.

And that love had been like all first loves: innocent, totally trusting, all-consuming and without doubt. And as was the case with all first loves she'd woken up. It simply wasn't possible to keep that kind of naive idealistic view alive in the real world.

Of course, her wake-up call had been unusually brutal – the terrors of Angelus had broken her rose-colored glasses beyond repair within moments.

When Angel had returned from the hell she'd sent him to, all soul-having and repentant, they'd still loved each other. They'd tried, but it hadn't been possible for them to make it work. Buffy knew that the people around her had assumed that it had been about the fact that Angel was a vampire, or that they'd always have to be careful not to make Angel too happy. And, naturally, the fact that he had tried to kill them all, had in fact killed Giles' ladylove, and had tried to end the world.

They were all wrong.

Sure, those things factored in. It had been hard to look past the fact that someone wearing Angel's body had planned to kill her mom. But in the end, that hadn't been what had made it impossible for her to be with Angel. Instead it had been the fact that Angel was no longer her first love – he was her first and second love. She'd never managed to love him in the exact same way again.

And how could she have? She'd lost her innocence, in so many more ways than the mere physical, and had started the transformation from girl to adult. She'd once thought her childhood ended the day she was Chosen. Now she knew it had ended the day she killed her first love.

So, yeah, she hadn't loved Spike like she'd loved Angel. It was impossible. And honestly, it wasn't even something she'd wanted. Angel had either stood in front of her, making her choices for her, or been absent. Spike had either stood beside her or guarded her back, always defending her choices – at least the ones that mattered. Angel had treated her like someone who needed guidance; Spike had trusted her to lead the way. So how could she ever feel the same about the two of them?

How could she ever compare them and not have Spike come out a winner? And in the end it hadn't mattered. He'd burned to death, for her and for the world. Had been the champion she had never dared to believe she'd find.

I love you... No, you don't. No you don't, no you don't, noyoudont, nonononono... You don't. She'd told him she loved him, said the words that terrified her so – and what had she gotten for it? He hadn't believed her.

He hadn't had a reason to believe her. All those times he'd tried to make her confess to feeling at least something, and she'd beaten him down for it. Sometimes even literally. All those times he'd tried to tell her he loved her, only for her to tell him he didn't have a soul, that he didn't know what love was. That he was incapable of it.

When the truth was she'd been the one who didn't know, who wasn't capable. Her heart had been closed for so long, and Spike had fought to open it up again. He'd helped, and never seen it. Would never reap the benefits from it.

Oh, he might not have anyway. There was no way of knowing, especially not now. But she liked to think that if they'd both lived through the Hellmouth they would have been able to work things out, to allow themselves to be lead by their love and care for each other, and not the "musts" that people seemed to think existed everywhere.

He'd hurt her, yes. Beyond forgiveness, almost. But there it was, the keyword. Almost. Because she had forgiven Spike, even though it had taken her a long time. Just as it had taken her a long time to begin to heal, from everything – not just him.

The deal-breaker, so to speak, had been when she'd sat down one day and compared Spike to the rest of the group. They too had hurt her, time and again, in so many different ways. Some even worse than anything Spike had ever done. Resurrection, anyone? And sure, as a strong modern woman Buffy knew she was supposed to think attempted rape worse than anything else, but honestly? Maybe she wasn't that modern. Or maybe, just maybe, she'd finally begun learning about shades of gray.

Yes, Spike had tried to have sex with her after she'd said "no", and he'd done so in a way that had hurt her both physically and emotionally, but looking at how their "relationship" had worked it was kind of understandable. How many times had she said "no", only to willingly lose herself in him after the slightest of persuasion? How many times had she, had they, let loose and gotten caught up, letting things get out of hand? How many times had she proven that she was just as turned on by a good fight and a "spot of violence" as Spike was?

Yeah. What had happened between her and Spike in her bathroom had not been an isolated incident. It had been the result of too many wrong turns, of so much twisted emotion and desire – of her always-present denial and refusal to deal with her emotional trauma.

And if someone told her she couldn't forgive Spike, couldn't forgive rape... Well, the only ones that would tell her that were the Scoobies, and yeah. Not so many left of them now, was there? Xander might try, yes, and Giles most definitely would. But then she'd only remind them that she'd forgiven Xander and unlike with Spike there had been no excuses for Xander's actions. After all, she'd turned Xander down – Spike she'd bedded voluntarily, in every way imaginable – and being possessed by a hyena wasn't a good enough excuse to get away from that. Not for her it wasn't, not really.

So if she could forgive Xander for trying to rape her, could forgive Willow for tearing her out of Heaven, Giles for abandoning her and Dawn for making lots of questionable decisions that had made life a lot harder than it needed to be... Then why shouldn't she be able to forgive Spike for being horribly confused? No reason.

And once she'd let go of that, once she'd let go of the pain his betrayal (because after everything she still saw it as that) had caused her? Then she saw him for the rock, the anchor he'd become in her life, saw how much she needed him and how much he'd given her. How could she not love him, at least a little bit? How could she look at what he gave, those final days in Sunnydale, and not love him more than a little?

I love you. No, you don't. Noyoudon't, nononononono...

He was the reason she was standing here. Not just because without his support she might not have gotten it together in time to beat the First. Not even because if not for him she would have stayed behind to hold the line, to stop the übervamps from escaping. No. He was the reason, because he had helped shape her. Spike had seen her, like no one else, and allowed her to be human. Had loved her not for who she could be, or should be, but for who she was.

He'd just loved her.

She watched as Willow stepped back from the monument, and Xander took her place. She didn't know what the others were thinking, or what words they whispered to the winds, nor did she care. It was for them alone, them and those they had loved and lost, just as the words in her heart were for her and hers.

When it was her time she grabbed the bag next to her, squatted next to the monument and dug a hole. She ignored the questioning looks as she planted not a flower, but an herb. They might not understand – but it wasn't for them. It was for her mom, and for Spike, and the memories.

She'd come across Spike one night at the cemetery, kneeling by her mother's grave. He'd had his eyes closed and one hand trailing the letters of the inscription, and his lips had been moving slowly in silent words. Buffy had felt like she was the one intruding, when he was– and there she'd stopped herself. Spike had cared for Joyce Summers, not as Buffy's mom but as a person, and he had every right to pay his respects.

He'd left without a word for her, just a nod, and she'd taken his place. It was then she'd noticed it for the first time, a green sprig laid on top of the headstone, much like Willow's three stones.

Willow had identified the herb as rosemary, but had been unable to explain why someone would leave that on a grave. It hadn't been until that last night in Sunnydale that she'd finally asked Spike about it, being reminded when seeing it again on her way back from speaking to the Guardian.

He'd given her a wry smile, and recited something, in a voice so different from the one she knew, but refused to say more. (She didn't ask if he'd done the same for her, when she'd been gone. She hadn't needed to.)

As she opened the car door to leave Buffy felt a mild breeze caress her cheek and ruffle her hair, and a voice whisper inside her soul. I love you, Buffy Summers. You are the One. And her heart couldn't help but whisper back I do love you, Spike.

And then they were leaving Sunnydale-that-was behind.

There's rosemary,

that's for remembrance;

pray, love, remember

William Shakespeare

~ The End ~