Title: Haunting
Author: LittleHarm
Spoilers: All of Season 5
Summary: Yet another one of the million sad B/S fics... there are so many out there I just had to throw another one in there!
Contribution: Sure!! Just ask first. :)
Disclaimer: I don't' own BtVS, yadda yadda...
Feedback: Yeah! Please! Love it or hate it, I wanna know!



It wasn't fair.

Life wasn't fair.

She had done so much good, for so many people... and in the end, she still left us. Left me.

I slowly walk up to her grave, not wanting to see it, to see where her body was buried. As much as it hurts to come here, and see her grave, and know that she's truly dead, I know I have to. I owe it to her.

I can still see her face. I still hear her voice. I can bloody feel her around me, haunting me, tormenting me.

I remember when all I wanted was to see her dead. To see her bleed, and scream. But I'm not that person anymore. I'm just not him. She changed me. She made me a different man, then left me.

I didn't bring flowers. She doesn't need flowers to know she's appreciated. Her grave is bare, and alone. Nothing but overgrown shrubs covering part of the headstone.

There's no point in talking to her grave. She's dead, how could she hear me anyway? Instead, I stand there, frozen in time as the grief overwhelms me. I let myself fall to my knees, not even noticing what's happening. It doesn't matter anyway. Nothing matters.

My fingers reach out, and I let them graze the smooth surface of the cold stone.

Cold.

Buffy was cold now; her eyes empty and still, her heart no longer beating, her skin no longer warm.

I remember when I first saw her body. Dead. It had bloody scared me. I didn't want to deal with it. Didn't want to deal with her. With her being dead. I had left town, not bearing to look or even think of what was left of her. Her friends, her house, her bloody town, and especially her lil' sis... it killed me to look at them. I couldn't do it.

So I left.

I ran away, catching the first train out of Sunnydale I could get, wanting to forget everything. Wanting to forget her.

I traveled the world, looking for some way to escape the pain. But it would never leave me. She would never leave me.

Seventy-five years, and her memory is still just as fresh and painful as the day it happened. I can't escape her. She's everywhere.

I loved her. She was everything to me.

I'm shaking now. I can't think, I can't see. It's too hard. I hadn't wanted to come back. To come see this. To see her grave. But I knew I had to come back some day.

I wonder if her friends were still living in sunnydale. They've probably already passed on themselves by now. It had been so long... I knew a lot of things had probably changed. I had wanted to come before, to see them, or at least to see Dawn. But I was too weak.

Every bloody night I cry myself to sleep. You'd think after seventy years of crying every night, I would stop some day. That one night, the tears just wouldn't come.

But they still come. I still cry. I still can't get away from her.

She still haunts me.

She haunts me from deep within. She was more that just a slayer. More that just a girl. More than everything I lived for.

She was my soul. My love for her was my soul. Sometimes, I could feel my heart beating, I could imagine my blood pumping, and I felt alive. She made me feel that. She made me warm; she made me feel things I've never felt.

But I never feel that way anymore. I'm cold now. I'm cold in my heart and I'm cold deep inside.


"Buffy..." I whisper, the word barely audible from my lips. And I cry.

Here come the tears. Again. There's nothing I can do.

I can feel someone behind me. Someone standing, looking down on me as I kneel before my former love's grave.

Two minutes pass, in silence. Finally, without moving, not taking my eyes off of the grave, I speak.

"Little Bit," I say, lifting my head up the slightest bit.

"Not so little anymore," comes her reply. She sounds fragile, old. "You finally came back." She whispers.

"Yeah, couldn't stay away forever."

"Forever," she murmurs, and I can almost see the faint smile on her lips.

I turn around, and look at her. An old woman now. I remember when she was just a kid. So young, so full of life and so happy.

"You shouldn't be out here. It's dangerous. It's cold, too."

"I don't mind."

I nod understandingly. "You look... different."

She smiles. "I'm an old foggie now."

"Hey, I'm like two centuries older than you, so I wouldn't be talking about old foggies." I say, forcing a small laugh.

"I missed you." She says quietly. Then she laughs. "Even Xander did. Well all did."

I was silent. "How old are you now, anyway?"

She doesn't say anything at first. Her eyes are focused intently on the tombstone before her.

She finally begins talking again. "Old. Very old. I'm the only one left. Everyone else died about five years ago... around that time, anyway." Her eyes seemed tired, worn out.

"I think I'll be going soon, too. You know, dying." She said, her words emotionless.

"Nah, you'll live until forever,"

She laughed. "There's that word again. Forever."

It's quiet now. Nothing but the slight rustling of the trees and the sound of the wind howling through the cemetery. But I can hear other things. I can hear Dawn's heartbeat. It's weak. She's weak. She's dying.

"Spike," she said, softly. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I'm sorry Buffy died. I know it must have been hard for you."

I smile a sad smile, and stand up. "It was hard for all of us, pet."

She smiles back, and walks up closer to Buffy's grave, her eyes never leaving it for a second. She sits down, silently, in front of the grave, her legs crossed. She may be old but she at least she was still somewhat flexible.
She looks over at me, her small hand clutched at her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She was probably cold. She belonged in a warm bed, not out here in the graveyard at one in the morning with a vampire.

I shrug my duster off, and lay it over her shoulders gently.

"Good look for you, Dawn. The punk rock granny," I joke.

But she doesn't laugh. She doesn't look at me, she doesn't blink. She doesn't move. She doesn't breath, she doesn't smile, she doesn't talk.

She's still. So still. Lifeless.

Dead.

Silently, I swallow, and close my eyes tightly, a tear slipping down my cheek.

She's gone.

Just like her sister, and her mum. Dead.

I am the only one left. I am the only one of them all, who is still here.
They've all left me, all moved on.

I am okay with that now. I came back, and I am at peace with them all.
With the scoobies, with the lil' sis, with Buffy... but mostly with myself.

I open my eyes once again, and look over at Dawn. She's where she belongs now. With Buffy. I turn and leave.

Three Summers woman, all gone. I had cared for them all, and now there was
nothing left of any of them.

"Goodbye," I say, stealing one last glance at the grave, and the lifeless body sitting in front of it. "I loved you both so much, but I guess this is finally goodbye."

The moon is shining, so brightly. The stars surround me, glimmering.

They're up there, somewhere. I know it. I can feel them.

I slowly walk out of the cemetery, one foot in front of the other, leaving it all behind. Leaving Buffy, leaving Dawn. Leaving the only humans I could every love, leaving my past, and moving into the future.

Buffy had touched my heart and made me feel what I though I could never feel before. She had warmed me inside, and I would never forget that. I would never forget her.

She was, after all, my soul.

**************

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