Facing Down Oblivion

Summary: Oneshot. Spike faces the Dementors.

A/N: Feel free to speculate as to what the story behind this is, but I don't have a clear enough picture of it myself to write it yet. Very roughly, Harry, Hermione and Ron have recruited the Slayer to help fight Voldemort and it's ended in a battle. If I ever get more ideas for it then I might write it in future, but for now I just wanted to do this brief oneshot about Spike (with a bit of implicit Spuffy). AU for BtVS season seven and Deathly Hallows, so timelines have been shuffled round a bit.

Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS or Harry Potter.

The dementor leered down at him in the darkness, its hood pushed back to reveal the hellish face of rotten, necrotic flesh underneath and the gaping mouth that was slowly closing in on him. He gazed up at it, fear very quickly settling in but still not enough to completely take over and render him helpless. "Well, you're an ugly bugger, aren't you?" he quipped feebly, trying to find the strength to get up and keep fighting, but that was very quickly draining away as the thing's power took hold of him. Gripped by panic, he put up a hand to weakly try and push the hooded figure back; tried to get to his feet and do something, but found he didn't have the strength left.

He'd tried to fight. For a time it had been going rather well. Dozens of Death Eaters and vampires and demons had died by his hand earlier in the battle, but then these creatures had shown up and turned the tables. He wondered if he should have known, should have been better prepared to fight them, but it wasn't as if it made any difference now. Ever since those three wizard kids had arrived in Sunnydale to ask for the Slayer's help in defeating Voldemort he'd expected it to end in a fight, but what he hadn't expected was this. The black haired one – Harry – had warned him about the dementors; warned him about the fear and despair they could induce, but Spike hadn't realised just how powerful they truly were.

Now, it seemed, he'd found out. A debilitating sense of terror was gripping him, combined with the pain and misery of a thousand terrible memories rushing through his mind. Memories of being human, so long ago he barely ever recalled them anymore, were forcing their way into his consciousness.

Mocking laughter, scorn directed at him, cutting deeper than they'd ever realised.

"…they call him William the Bloody because of his bloody awful poetry…"

The harsh sting of rejection, Cecily turning him away from him.

"…You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me…"

He felt himself being pulled forward through the replay of memories, onwards through the next hundred years to the present.

Drusilla leaving him.

"…all you ever talk about is the Slayer…"

And Buffy too.

"…I could never love you…"

Then there was the guilt. As the dead face of the dementor drew closer to him he felt it with an even sharper stab of pain than before.

Guilt at everything he'd done; at everyone he'd killed, as if he were being forced to relive all that time he'd spent going crazy in a basement in a single instant.

Guilt at what he'd done to Buffy. He could hear her screaming in his mind; screaming because of what he was doing to her.

"…Spike, stop, please…"

But he hadn't.

It was almost enough to make him give in; make him just accept what was about to happen because he deserved it, except that he knew he couldn't. He remembered what Harry had said, about how the dementors could convince you that you'd never be happy again, but you had to fight back. And he was – he was trying to fight - but it seemed that the dementor was winning. It had forced him to replay every moment of pain he'd ever felt, and now it seemed it was about to take away the soul he'd fought so hard to get back…

At that thought, he felt a sudden spark of something other than the relentless misery that had engulfed him. Anger. This creature wanted his soul.

Not bloody likely.

Not after everything he'd gone through to regain it.

He forced himself to remember what Harry had said. He wasn't a wizard – he couldn't cast a patronum charm or whatever it was called – but he could still fight them off. He just needed a single happy thought, something strong enough that they couldn't take it away. But the problem was he seemed to be in short supply of those.

The dementor was on him now, its head lowered to his and beginning to suck out his soul. Spike felt a deep chill in his gut – colder even than what was normal for a vampire – and the sensation spread as the cold rose through his chest, his soul about to be drawn out of his mouth.

Defiantly, he resisted.

Not gonna happen, mate.

One happy memory. One moment of hope strong enough to drive it away was all he needed.

He thought of Drusilla and the night she'd turned him into a vampire. Thought of the power and exhilaration and the promise of eternity with the woman he loved.

The cold didn't let up.

Did I really think that trying to keep my soul by remembering the first time I lost my soul was going to work?

No, there were happier memories than that. It was just becoming so hard to think of them…

Unbidden, the image of an unmoving body lying on a pile of rubble at the base of a tower forced its way into his mind. He forced it back out. He wasn't going to let himself think of that. Buffy wasn't dead. She'd come back and she was out there fighting right now, and he was damn well going to help her, whatever it took.

He needed something to fight them with. What was the happiest memory he could think of?

He knew the answer to that. Even though Spike hadn't admitted to it at the time, Xander had summed it up perfectly:

"Tell me, when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the happiest moment of your entire existence."

Having Buffy back when he thought he'd lost her forever. Even mixed in with all the confusion and anger that was still the single moment of the most hope and happiness he'd ever felt. And it gave him something to hold on to.

The cold was all over him now, numbing him. He tried to hold the memory of getting Buffy back in his head, but thinking of anything at all was becoming difficult. This wasn't like last time, he realised. Losing his soul to a dementor wasn't like becoming a vampire. This was final. When the dementor devoured his soul it was lost forever, sucked into oblivion. There was no coming back from that.

Again he felt misery engulf him, individual memories losing their coherence but the overwhelming sense of despair refusing to let up. He could feel it in his throat now, his soul just inches from leaving his body. No, that couldn't happen. He wasn't about go back to what he was. Buffy was the reason he'd gotten back his soul, and she was going to be the reason he'd keep it.

As the world around him gradually began to fade into blackness Spike desperately tried to hold onto that memory. Everything was becoming blurred, but he could still picture her face: glossy blonde hair and bright grey eyes. Alive. Fighting.

But as the final sense of numbness settled on his body, he wasn't sure that…

…it was…

…enough…