Title: 147 Days
Author: OpheliacAngel
Pairings: Buffy/Spike
Genres: Romance/Friendship
Rating: Teen
Summary: Spike couldn't compete with heaven, but those hands made her feel loved and needed all the same.
A/N: Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt 'depression.' Missing scene from Season 6's "Afterlife."
Given the choice she wouldn't have come back. Like that mattered.
Sure, she would miss her friends and she would miss being a sister to Dawn, but she wouldn't miss anything else, not what she was chosen for, not the mission that had changed her life in ways that could translate to ruining her life. But she was a slayer, and slayers were tough and dependable and dedicated to their job. She had learned to say the last two like a mantra, but she was slipping on that first one.
Because the thing is, Buffy wasn't as tough as she wanted to be. She was slipping.
Buffy's ultimate sacrifice for her sister had given her the peace she had forever hoped she would deserve. But it wasn't meant to last, and she should have known it. They just had to bring her back, had to rip her away from the heaven she had been promised. It had been so nice and warm there, and she had remembered all of them but she hadn't been torn apart by her desire to see them again. She had been free, with no worries, and now it was gone.
She didn't expect Spike to sit next to her silently, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, head bent low but turned towards her slightly. She had already seen him once and it had almost been too much, the feeling that he had been waiting for her all this time.
It was good too though, to know that he was still waiting on her.
It was no wonder she could feel herself falling into a deep depression, numb and cold and shivering even though it was warm outside, even though she was miraculously alive again. It felt like everything but a miracle though. The thoughts in her head were too much, the desire to kill herself and retreat back to the waiting arms of heaven so tempting to give into. It wouldn't be so hard either, to leave all of this behind again.
But Spike was there, moving without a word until he was sitting in front of her, and she couldn't leave.
Her mouth opened and words came out, but they didn't sound like they came from her at all. "You're my friend, right, Spike?"
"Of course I'm your friend, pet. All that and more." He gave her a reassuring look, but it wasn't enough to warm Buffy from the inside out or make her feel at ease. Spike must have noticed this; his eyes oozed worry and a love that Buffy knew she could never fully deserve. "What's eating at you?"
Buffy smiled at him, but as bright and cheerful as she wanted to make it, she had the distinct feeling that it came out sad and even tortured. This was a world she didn't belong in anymore, didn't Spike at least suspect that?
Spike looked at her carefully, even hard, and then sighed, placing his hands in her own after a moment of apparent indecision. "147 days." He sighed more heavily this time, head hanging low and Buffy took back one of her hands and ran it through the vampire's familiar blond spikes.
It was strange, but Buffy felt like she was comforting Spike more at this point. Her friends had been hovering nonstop since she revealed herself as being in the land of the living again; it was nice to be what someone else needed for a change.
"147 days of...," he cut off, fiercely determined eyes boring into her soul. "Don't you dare say... don't you dare even think it, Buffy. You belong here more than anyone else does, more than my sorry self. There's so much more life left for you, and I'll be damned if I don't fight to have you keep it. I hoped... hell, I even prayed. I knew you weren't coming back yet here you are. Don't be reckless, don't throw your life away again. I love you, pet. More than anything."
All of that and not even a pause, not even a moment to let Buffy speak. She opened her mouth, exasperated, unbelieving of the wave of selfishness and desperation pouring from Spike. It was in her, to be so harsh, but Spike was here and he needed her and he had always loved her, somehow, for no good reason.
And somehow, moving past her hard heart and her ingrained knowledge that Spike was no good for her, she loved him too. Isn't that the only thing that should matter? The only thing that kept her going no matter how much she wanted to give up? No matter how much she needed to?
Suddenly, she didn't want to be depressed anymore.
Suddenly, she wasn't depressed anymore.
Buffy Summers leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the vampire she loved. She moved forward until she was sitting in his lap, breathing deeply against his neck, knowing that if he pulled away she would fall and never stop falling. She was depending on Spike and she somehow knew that her trust wasn't misplaced; Spike wouldn't abandon her, that was why he had come back. She needed him and he needed her and it was fucked up and wrong and it would come back to bite Buffy in the end but it didn't matter.
She kissed him for a long time, quietly, so slowly until her very heart stopped aching. She was pressed up against him so tightly in the darkness that it was almost like they weren't there at all.
A friend and a lover. And even though Spike couldn't compete with heaven, those arms around her waist and his breath ghosting across her cheek made her feel loved and protected and like she was meant to be here, that everything would turn out okay in the end.
A lover and a friend. They wanted the same things, from each other and from the world. She would never tell him to leave, and she would never for a second let him believe that he wasn't wanted.
"If I knew you would have been this happy to see me I would have tried harder, love." Spike ran his hands through her hair, untangling it gently, and when Buffy looked up at him he cupped her face in his hands, a look of hope in his eyes that Buffy feared she couldn't live up to. "It's okay. We can stay here for as long as you need. We've got all the time in the world."
All the time in the world. She smiled and closed her eyes. Now that sounded like heaven.
FIN