The Saviour

As the final light of day slowly failed, the shadows cast by the tombstones stretched longer across the cemetery's grass. Buffybot knocked politely on the heavy door to Spike's crypt. He had told her to knock if she came by. He liked her more when she knocked!

'Spike?' she rapped louder. 'Spike! I had to patrol. So I patrolled to you!' The lack of an answer from within made Buffybot miss Spike even more. Perhaps he was in danger? What if her Spike needed her to come inside the crypt and slay something? Time to find out, she thought.

With a firm push, the crypt door eased open with an eerie creak. She could probably fix that for Spike, if he wanted her to. Willow had given Buffybot all the tools necessary to keep herself limber - they couldn't have the freaky demons and vamps suspecting she was not the really-real Buffy because of a squeaky elbow. She'd have to remember to ask him if that would please him.

The crypt was almost entirely silent - but for the low murmuring of Spike's TV set there was not a sound to be heard. Buffybot watched the screen for a few seconds (it interested her to know what Spike enjoyed) and then switched it off. Passions again. Behind her, from the shadowed corner, she heard a low mutter.

'Buffy...'
'Spike!' she ran to the corner to find Spike asleep in a chair. 'Spike, it's me. I'm here!' Remembering how irritated her presence in the crypt had made Spike recently, she wondered whether to wake him or not. She wanted to see those eyes of his, piercingly blue and full of... something different these days.

She leaned in towards Spike's face, observing him closely as he slept, bemused by the depth of his sleep. His eyes moved beneath his pale eyelids and his jaw clenched.

'I'll save her. I can save her... Buffy, don't jump... don't go!' Spike threw a frustrated punch, landing it squarely into Buffybot's left cheek and catching her by such surprise that it knocked her back across the crypt. Spike was awake and on his feet in an instant.

'What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you not to come around here anymore?' He towered over Buffybot and she held out a hand for him to help her up.

'You said not to come inside,' Buffybot replied. 'And - I - I didn't come inside... until I did...' Buffybot took Spike's offered hand and pulled herself to her feet. 'I had to go patrolling because of all the vampires. And yesterday I heard Xander said tell Willow that you should make your bleached behind useful. So I came here to get you. To help you be useful.' She nodded, smiling. Surely he could see she was only trying to help?

'Oh he did, did he? Buffy's gone six weeks and the little boy fancies himself the king of the castle now.' Spike turned his back on Buffybot, picked up a half-empty bottle of whiskey and went in search of his cigarettes. 'It's nothing personal, love.' He slipped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. 'It's just I don't feel like hanging with the damned Scooby gang is all. Now scram.'

'Yes, Spike.' Buffybot stepped towards the crypt door. 'Maybe you can join me for a slay-o-rama later!' She beamed at him, exposing her brilliant white teeth, and blinked. 'Maybe we can play "Sex Scenario 33" when we're done! I know how you enjoy that one.'
Spike let his head drop back, as though it had suddenly become too heavy for his neck and shoulders, and let out a loud sigh. She ignored this. He liked her more when she just followed his instructions, so she'd leave.

'Bye Spike! I love you!' she pulled the crypt door closed behind her and was gone at last. Spike walked to his chair but before sitting, he stood, shoulders slumped, looking at the door the Buffybot had just closed. He'd forgotten to apologise for hitting her and he felt sorry.

He stood there for a moment, allowing himself to regret his outburst, before he felt a familiar rumble of the beginnings of anger. He wasn't angry at her - of course not. She didn't know any better. She was doing what she was programmed to do. What he had had her programmed to do - to love him.

He felt his hand ball into a strong fist. It. IT, for bloody hell's sake! He had to stop thinking of it as a 'her'... as Buffy. How could he have ever thought that some bundle of wires and circuits could be a replacement for what he should have been able to achieve with the real Buffy? Ridiculous! He threw the bottle of whiskey at the crypt door, where it smashed into tiny shards, and he sank back into his chair.

Silent tears rolled down his face as he closed his eyes to sleep again. In his dreams was the only place he could see the real Buffy now. And even though each night his dream played out the crucial, final moments of her life, he didn't care. He got to try to save her once again. Every night he saved her. The real Buffy.