Disclaimer I own no one in this story, they all belong to the god that is Joss Whedon.
Author Kalina
Hours Pass, And Still She Counts The Minutes
Prologue
The first moments were unbearable, like years, stretched out over a harsh burning tarpaulin of time. The pain was harsh and fresh and bleeding. The world seemed to small to contain the enormity of his pain.
Cold tears would not stop flowing, racing down his face like little boats on a river.
The sobs that racked his body almost broke his ribs, so fervent were they in their pursuit of freedom from such a cage.
Had he been human, he would have killed himself.
Willow talked him out of driving a stake through his heart. She said they needed him, even though the others would hardly admit it. He was the only one strong enough to defend the Hellmouth. From vampires, demons, apocalypses. She said he ought to do it in honor of her memory. It was pathetic; he was pathetic, carrying on like this. He knew it.
As if he didn't have the sodding bot to remind him. Silly piece of machinery. Plastic made alive to look just like her, smell like her, talk like her. No, not talk like her. Buffy would never have such joviality in her voice when she would talk to him. She'd be exasperated, furious, even, a voice imbued with all the hues of hatred. He knew he was pathetic. He knew he was stupid. He couldn't help it.
When she had come back, his world had fallen apart. He hid from her, shielding himself from the good that was her. He was evil. She had told him as much, repeatedly. He'd been shocked when she confessed in him, as if he was the only one who really understood her. Of course he was. The idiots that had brought her back hadn't been told as much. He had.
He'd felt, for once, power over them. Something that wasn't likely in a world where good almost always triumphed over evil.
Bleeding fairy tale, it was.
When she had surrendered herself to him, everything had crumbled. Passion had been lit, lust awoken. She craved closure, he love. They both wanted something the other could never give.
He'd called her his girl. And she had nearly destroyed him for it.
You don't have a soul. There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside.
I could never be your girl.
He hated her and loved her. The hate was ancestral, a greedy need for her blood, for her destruction. The love was his. He knew he could blame it on all bloody things in the world, Drusilla, the Initiative, the chip. The fact would remain. None of that changed a damn thing. He loved her.
She never would. Someone with a soul always would have her heart. Stupid ponce. She looked down on him because he lacked a soul. As if it was his fault. He didn't ask for eternal life, though, in retrospect, he never had questioned it nor minded it.
Still, not his bloody fault.
Bent like a puppy, he'd gone to seek redemption. Seek a soul, to make her love him.
To be a kind of man...
What a broken hunchback he'd been. He'd sought a soul to be a kind of man who would walk straight and proud.
He crumpled.
But still, he hoped, that she'd be the girl to straighten his back and bring him out of the darkness.
He'd lived with a foot in either realm for so long.
Now, it was time for a decision.