Mixed Signals
By: PhoenixJustice
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. I only own this story and make no profit from this.
Warning: Rated M for future graphic sexual content, language, etc.
Pairing: Spike/Buffy Summers (main), Willow/Tara, etc.
Setting: Bargaining pt 2/Afterlife, with spoilers up to Season 11 of Buffy, Season 11 of Angel and anything inbetween.
Summary: Two people who were never supposed to meet. She had seen everything, up to the Dragon that destroyed everything she loved. He had only the lasting memory of her words of love before he burned to cinders. Could they bridge the gap between them?
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Chapter One - Fire and Flames
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The Shenlong Dragon.
Dark, unfathomable eyes. Purple and red skin slithering this way and that way in the sky.
The fire...
She has only a moment to recognize it, as all is turned to cinders around her.
She was the last one left. The only one. One by one, they had all fallen, despite how hard they worked, despite how hard she had worked to keep them all safe. She had failed.
She can only think of one thing in that moment. Can picture it effortlessly.
"Spike."
Her eyes wrench open and she gasps. Darkness. It was dark. The open, burned smell, of San Francisco replaced with something narrow, tight, and cold. It takes a few moments of panicked gasping, already feeling the lack of much air around her, but she soon recognizes it for what it was. She recalled the feeling well.
Dark.
Closed.
Coffin.
Had she...how had she? There had been nothing, nothing. No way out, no miracle at the last moment, no Vampyr book at hand to try and write them out of the situation. They had failed. Had the Powers did this? It was a thought she would have to ponder on further-after she clawed her way out of her coffin once more.
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She gasps as she finally finds purchase on the solid ground once more. Any strength lost by her dead body was filling in her, as if it had never left it. She can feel herself trying to gain her bearings for a moment, eyes blinking the blurriness away.
As always, she seemed to defy things as a Slayer. Who could say they had come back to life more than once? Or digged themselves out of their own coffin? The latter, of course, being something much less fun than the former.
She looks around gasping as she smells it (Fire). Had the dragon somehow followed her? But no, it was simply the fire that had been thrown around by the biker demons. She sees the signs of it once more as she makes her way through town. Even knowing what it was actually from, she still has to steel herself for a moment against the smell, the sight, and the thoughts that it brings. It was all too much, too soon, but she had no choice but to keep moving her feet forward. The alternative was one she couldn't even think about (she had, once, after digging herself out of her grave, but no longer.)
She couldn't let them down, her family, let him down, the greatest love of her life. No matter what. So she steadies her breath and takes a step forward, then another, and another, until she is moving quickly through town.
It had been a few years now, since the fall of Sunnydale (from her perspective, anyhow.) What happened now? Back then it had been such a blur for most of it (until one brief shining moment when she feels wholly herself, pre Jump, when he looks at her-) but she can remember enough.
The biker demons.
By now they'd be ready to tear the Buffybot apart. Her friends would be scattered across the town for a bit, until meeting at the Magic Box (things they had told her later.) Dawn and...and Spike would be off riding around town, until Dawn found the remains of the Buffybot and learning the truth about her resurrection, she'd look for Buffy in the last place she had been before her death; Glory's Tower.
Should she...should she let things play out like that again? Maybe she should instead go the Magic Box. Or...no. Straight home? Or...
She lets out a wheezing gasp. It was too much. Too much. The fire and the pain and the loss. These were not the same people she had fought in kinship with in great battles in San Francisco and abroad. They were her family, yes, but they were still so...young. Naive in many ways, yet. She couldn't-
Her eyes pop open when she hears the revving of motorcycles and her feet take her in their direction without her thinking of it.
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She doesn't make it to stop them from ripping from the Buffybot apart, but it sees her. Knows who she is. It's the last coherent thought she will have for minutes.
Her instinct takes over, the Slayer takes over, and she gives it free rein.
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She gasps, looking around wildly, and finds herself standing in the same general area. The ground is littered with the parts of the demons. All of them. All that she had fought with initially with the others, all taken apart, obviously by her own hands (her already bloody hands all the more bloody with the blood of the demons.)
She spares but a moment for the Buffybot (recognition) before running.
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Fire.
It engulfs him, his entire being inside and out. The pain is unimaginable. But it isn't only pain. There is something like...life in it and he cannot fathom that. Though Buffy had declared him Champion (something he could never have pictured, even in his wildest dreams)-and he had taken up the mantle of it willingly-he hadn't expected the Powers would ever look upon him with anything resembling...good.
He had done a lot of terrible things in his life (and having a soul certainly didn't absolve him of that; it just made the guilt much larger) and certainly the soul put perspective on that. Did he regret it? Regret getting it? No. He couldn't. Even if it caused a lot of pain, it let him get close to Buffy. No matter what, no matter how much he had to go through, that would always make it worth it.
His thoughts coalesce to one final thing. The thing that made it all worth it.
I love you.
Flames. Everything burned away. Gone. He was gone. He was-
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He gasps, eyes flying open. He looks down at his hands. No burn marks. No fire, no flames. They were as clear as could be. But the flame... he smells flame. He looks around wildly for a few moments, trying to figure out what was going on.
This was Sunnydale. But not Sunnydale as he had come to know it in his final moments. This was...
He pauses, hearing the revving of motorcycles, sees the wanton destruction and fire and it hits him like a freight train; this was the past. Not just any day, of course, but the day (or rather night) of Buffy's resurrection.
How...?
"It can't..." He mutters to himself. That couldn't be possible. Sure, crazy things happened in the world (he was a vampire, after all) but time travel? He hadn't heard of anything like that. He seriously doubted this was Heaven or the heavenly dimensional equivilant. If it was Hell, or its equivilant, this wouldn't have been what he picked. So...no. This was...
He pinches his arm. It certainly hurt. Real, then? How had he come back?
He swallows hard. Could he dare believe it? Could this be...could it be his reward for willingly become a Champion and save the world? To be able to live life over again.
As he looks around, realizing he's alone, he only has one word on his mind as he heads to his motorcycle.
Buffy.
It's then that he glances at the Buffybot and frowns, when he sees the complete carnage around her, around him, that certainly hadn't been there the first time (the first time had been merely the Buffybot's parts scattered everywhere.) There hadn't been demon parts around. There were now. It looked like they had been decimated in quick succession (the smell of them was too fresh, so he knew that others hadn't died earlier and then some died later. No these had died relatively quickly to one another.)
He spotted no weapons around. Only gore. And blood.
The thought hits him again, as he gets onto the motorcycle. Buffy.
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It's a near virtual ghost town as he rides through. It looked as though, as the last time, that even the other demons and vampires of the city had mostly kept their heads down away from this mess. Never let it be said that a lot of the supernatural folk in Sunnydale were smart, but at the same time they were not stupid either. It was a recipe for disaster to try and be around in this (as folk like the biker demons, the Hellions, would take down anyone in their vicinity, human or not), so most kept their heads down and waited for the initial assault to die down.
He had a decision to make as he rides through Sunnydale. Knowing what he did of the past, did he go straight back to Revello Drive or does he venture to Glory's Tower? The Magic Box? Should he... A thought hits him then and nearly paralyzes him in thinking it. What if him coming back somehow kept Buffy from being resurrected? While he certainly didn't want her to suffer like she did the first time around after her resurrection-("Ask me again why I could never love you.")("I love you.") if he was somehow the cause of hurting her again, in any way...he could never live with himself. She had forgiven him, despite how much he might not deserve it. She had declared him Champion and he wanted to be worthy of that title.
To be worthy of her.
He rides.
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She looks at it from afar this time, not wanting to relive or revisit the Tower in any big capacity. That time had passed for her. She had moved past both her own Death Wish before jumping as well as the darkness that gripped her for a long time after her resurrection after.
She was not that person anymore. She had learned and grown since then. The Buffy then would be astonished at the Buffy she had become. She liked to think she had largely grown from her mistakes back then, the stubborness and arrogance (for the most part.) She didn't deny her feelings anymore. She looked at the world differently, instead of the black and white view she had so desperately tried to hold onto (despite everything around her telling her it was wrong. And it was.)
That was (from what it looked like to her, as all indications showed that she was indeed back in time) something she had to try and figure out. Should she suddenly show a marked difference in her personality, what would they think? It was something to think about.
"Buffy?" A tremulous voice speaks behind her.
She turns to see Dawn looking at her, her eyes wide and large in her pretty face. She could already see signs of the maturing Dawn's body, voice, and self would take, seeing her there. But she could also see her little sister, young, and in desperate need for her sister whom she had lost. This was not the Dawn she had left, the Dawn who faced the Dragon head on. But this was Dawn all the same and she loved her.
She smiles. "Dawnie." And holds out her arms.
Dawn runs into her arms, crying, leaving Buffy to stroke her hair tenderly as she holds her.
"Buffy." Dawn sobs.
"I'm here, Dawnie. I'm..." She swallows. "I'm home."
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There were a few lights on at the house when he arrives, but that could just have been from where Dawn and he (past he) had been in the house. The light upstairs was on in Buffy's room. Was...had that been on the last time? He couldn't recall. Even if it had been just yesterday that it had happened to him, he was sure he couldn't have recalled then either; he had been too worried for Dawn's safety-and then too struck into awe and silence at seeing Buffy back to life.
He swallows hard against emotion in his throat and makes his way to the door, opening it swiftly.
"Dawn!" He bellows. Deja vu had nothing on this situation. "Dawn, are you there?"
"I'm here!" A voice yells back to him from upstairs. She was fine. But did that mean-
If he had been suddenly struck blind, deaf, and robbed of all senses, he would still know, with an absolution that no one could shake from him, that this was Buffy before him, coming down the stairs. It was Buffy.
"Look-" Dawn starts.
"Slayer." He whispers reverently.
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"Slayer."
She has to fight everything within her not to show what hearing that did to her. Every fiber of her is filled with longing, wishing desperately to reach out to him, but now knowing how. Did she...could she? This was Spike, no doubt of that. But it wasn't her Spike. The one whom she had been through trials and tribulations. He knew the horror of fighting Glory, the seriousness of fighting Adam and Angelus, sure (and she would never take those things lightly), but he hadn't dealt with the Troika, hadn't dealt with the First, hadn't dealt with Twilight or Zompires or-or-
"Your hands." His voice says softly.
She pauses, not looking at him. It was very like what he had said the first time around, but not quite the same. But to be fair, she should probably be more shocked if he spoke the same exact things as the last time, right?
"They were like that when I saw her," Dawn says. "I dunno how they got like that."
"I do. Clawed her way out of her coffin, ain't I right?" He asks her.
She looks at him directly now and her breath is nearly stolen from her. Those eyes. You could be lost in those beautiful blue eyes of his. He was beautiful (and always had been so, even when she wanted to deny that to herself. It had become increasingly hard, over time, to reconcile the Buffy that had initially come to Sunnydale to the Buffy she had become.)
"Yeah." She says, quietly. But not filled with the misery she once felt after coming back to life. "That's what I had to do."
Spike's eyes fill with an understanding that few could replicate. "Had to do it myself." He gestures her forward and she walks into the living room-hearing him task Dawn with getting bandages and the like (and once again the deja vu is strong)-before he comes in. She has to let out a small breath at the sight of him once more sitting before her on the table, taking her (shaky, they had to be shaky) hands into his cool ones.
There's a pause. Not enough to be uncomfortable. It feels more thoughtful. And solemn. She can see the weight of years in his eyes as he looks at her.
She starts to speak (anything to try and help distract him from that pain in his pretty eyes). "How long was I gone?"
He looks at her almost startled for a moment. "A...hundred and thirty seven days yesterday, a hundred and thirty eight today." He smiles a bit ruefully. "Suppose today doesn't count though, does it?"
He stares at her for a long moment before speaking again. "And...how long was it for you? Where you were?"
"Hello cutie."
"You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood... blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be Love's Bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
"They're strong, and I can't fight. If they get in, I don't know if I can protect you."
"I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man. And that's..."
"You don't belong here. You're something ... you're better than this."
"I love what you are, what you do, how you try.I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one, Buffy."
"Buffy-"
"Buffy!"
"Buffy..."
"Slayer?"
"I've never regretted it, Buffy. Loving you. Not really. Everything I went through, to get to this place, here and now? I'd do it ten times over to be the man I am, to be worthy of you."
"Buffy! Oh god, pet, why did you stay? I'm not worth it! You're-i love you, Buffy. I know that you know that, but if this is going to be the last time, I want to say it as much as I can. I love you, Buffy. I always will."
"Longer."
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I hope you enjoyed this!
Let me know what you thought!
-PhoenixJustice