Soul-Crossed


******************************************************************************
This fic is set at the end of season 6. For the sake of my story, the season ends when Spike leaves on his motorcycle. Warren never showed up, Tara was never shot, Willow never went evil. Spike has been gone for a year and Buffy, desperate to get him back, goes to a church and lights a candle for him. This story takes place on that night, exactly one year after Spike left Sunnydale.

****************************************************************************** Title: Soul-Crossed
Author: LMS
Pairing: Buffy/Spike
Rating: PG
******************************************************************************


Buffy walked into the church and stopped next to the basin of holy water. The slayer had never really entered a church except to fill up on holy water or to kill some big bad. She had no religion, had no belief, no reason to set foot in a church. Today was a different day. Tonight was a different night.

The slayer looked at her reflection in the purified water. There was no emotion on her face. A tear spilled down her cheek, but her face did not reflect any emotion at all. Her eyes were tired, old. Her hair was perfect even after a previous bout with a vampire. Her face was pale with slight remnants of color in her cheeks and lips. No emotion was evident, no clues to give away what was going on inside her. No one could ever know. No one except him.

Slowly Buffy dipped her hand into the basin and cupped her hand, drawing some water. She stared at the water for some time before letting it slip through her fingers back into the tiny pool. Droplets of water clung to her fingers, hanging for a moment before silently slipping away. It was as if they were holding onto her, clinging desperately in an effort to save themselves from the inevitable. Slowly, however, they slipped away, falling back into the pool waiting below to reclaim its own. The droplets immediately conformed back to what they were meant to be, no longer their own being, no longer able to be what they wanted to be.

Buffy moved her eyes to take in the front of the church. The sanctuary was dark except for moonlight streaming in from the open door and a few lit candles scattered around the room. In the front sat a large table covered in white cloth and many tiny glass jars holding small white candles, none of which had yet been lit. Behind the table stood a magnificent cross glowing in the bluish moonlight and orange candlelight. It looked as if it were almost floating in the dim light.

Slowly the slayer walked to the front and knelt before the unlit candles. There were a few long, thin sticks lying in front of a larger white candle burning next to the rows of glass and white. Buffy took one of the sticks and held it in the flame, watching the flame flicker and grow larger before returning back to its original size. She pulled the now burning stick from the flame and gently dipped it into a glass jar, lighting the ivory candle within.

Another tear fell as Buffy blew out the stick. It had been exactly one year today that he had come to her bathroom and tried to force her to love him. She remembered seeing the utter desperation in his eyes, the pain, the hurt that had been her causing. She had seen the complete devastation and total frustration in his blue eyes and it had terrified her. It scared her more than him tearing at her robe, trying to strip away the only dignity she felt she had left. She knew then that it had not been her that had stopped him, it had been himself. He had stopped himself from taking away from her everything he had worked so hard, and so long, to give her. Safety and love.

Buffy stared at the single flame fighting against the darkness that surrounded it. No matter how many tiny flames fought with the one, the darkness would still be forever greater. Alone, each flame could only spread a tiny bit of light into the consuming darkness, no matter how hard it burned. Like a slayer. Like her.

More tears fell and Buffy wondered if a prayer could help a lost, soulless, demon. She wondered if her candle, her flame, would burn until her vampire was found and brought back to her, the slayer. Each tiny white candle stood for one soul. When a soul was lost, it's candle would be lit in hopes it would light the way home for it's lost soul. Now a candle was lit for someone she missed, someone who was lost, someone she had lost. Would it work for someone without a soul? Would it lead them to their soul? Would it lead him back to her?

The slayer looked up at the cross, the last bit of hope she had, her lips quivering with her own desperation. Please find him, her voice broke into the soft silence, echoing in the darkness and the flame. Find him please! The sobs began to break through. Bring him back. I need him, please! Tears flooded her eyes, glistened in the fading light. I can't live without him! She broke down into heavy sobs. The slayer had come searching, looking for a way to find her star-crossed lover, looking for an answer to her pain. She had searched everywhere and found nothing. With almost no hope left, she had come here, the one place that she had never needed to be. This was the last place to search. This was her last hope.

The single flame beat against the darkness. It was searching, calling for its lost soul. It fought to keep the darkness from swallowing him. It flickered, reached out into the closing darkness to find her answer, her lost soul. Their soul. One candle went out. Hers burned on. Another flame was defeated. Hers fought on. Yet another flame was quenched by the ever growing night. Hers lived on. It stretched, tried to make itself bigger in the depths of her desperation. Her flame burned ferociously, searching, calling. He had to be found, his soul had to be saved, had to be brought back from eternal death. For without it, a love would be lost. Without it, she would die.

TBC