Disclaimer: I somewhat refuse to watch the whole 'Angel' spin-off (I just don't enjoy Angel as a character!), so please forgive any mistakes that stem from my stubbornness! I did, however, watch enough to find myself very frustrated by Spike's apparent lack of motivation to go find Buffy once he can (totally out-of-character for him!). So, this is basically my little 'INSTEAD' option for Spike's post-resurrection story… because we never really do get a proper ending for them in the shows! To sum up, I'm wholeheartedly ignoring anything and everything that happens in Angel, particularly Angel Season 5. Welcome to my AU!

'I love you' Buffy's voice was a small whisper, her eyes wide and glassy.

'No you don't… but thanks for saying it' Spike's own eyes sparkled with solemn clarity. His death was coming, his long struggle was nearly over.

Another sudden quake in the splitting earth broke the spell of the moment, as more of the cavern began to collapse, snapping Buffy back to the destruction at hand. Her hand left his on instinct, as her walls shot up and her body readied for a fight.

'Now GO!' Spike commanded, and she moved to obey him. Her feet had hit the second step, when her screaming heart finally overpowered her instinct. Flinging herself backwards, she pulled Spike to face her, wrapping herself around him, desperate to feel his closeness one last time.

'Yes I do, you idiot, yes I do!' Buffy choked out the words between gasps, and felt Spike pull her impossibly close, returning her embrace in answer. As he opened his mouth to speak, flames consumed them both from every meeting of their bodies. Buffy felt the heat of them, but no physical pain, only the shattering agony as Spike crumbled into dust between her arms.

Buffy woke up with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, struggling to catch her breath. Her throat was tight, but she had no tears, as if she had somehow used them up within her restless, repetitive dreams.

Pulling herself out of bed was the best way to shake them off; she had learned this lesson well throughout the past few months. Walking to the adjoining bathroom, she splashed her face with icy water. Glancing at the mirror, she met her own eyes without meaning to - the dim light from the streetlamp outside emphasizing the heavy circles under her empty eyes, the oil clinging to her dull, stringy hair. She looked nothing like herself these days.

'My little Goldilocks… you know I love this hair, the way it bounces around -'

Buffy shook her head hard, pushing her palms against her eyelids as if that could keep out the memory of his voice. She felt pathetic. Her thoughts, her dreams, her existence was overrun by him, and there was no one she could talk to about it, not really. Her best friends had lost too much themselves to truly understand; they seemed to look at her with a sense of weary exasperation when they noticed any sign of her near-constant wallowing. They had lost family, and partners, and what was Spike to her, really? Not a partner, not a boyfriend, not even really an ex… He was a man (if that) that she shared a complicated past with; so much hurt on both sides. He had loved her, pined for her, but even to the bitter end she had never fully allowed him to truly join her in her life, so what had she really lost, compared to the others?

Pining. She understood some parts of him better now. 'But I want you to know I did save you,' his voice had been soft, loving, in his confession. 'Not when it counted of course, but after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again… do something different, faster, more clever… Dozens of times, lots of different ways… Every night I save you.'

With a deep sigh, Buffy realized that she was doing it too. Her dream that night had been a reoccurring, lucid nightmare for her of late - she always tried to change the events of that day in her dreams. But even in her imagination, where everything was possible, she couldn't bring herself to save his life, not at the cost of the others. Her possible happiness and his worldly existence were not worth a possible victory for the First, they both knew it. All she could do, even in her dreams, was try harder to make him believe her. The hardest part of losing him, even now, was the thought that he believed himself dying for unrequited love.

Shaking her head again, she pulled herself away from her tattered reflection, gliding back towards her cramped bedroom. The first rays of sunlight were starting to glitter in through the icy windows. Buffy had settled with the others at first in Cleveland, but despite the efforts of her friends, had established a somewhat isolated existence. She lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in a tall, dilapidated building on the east side of town. A rougher neighborhood surrounded her unusually quiet building, which worried the others, but as Buffy wryly observed, just lessened her commute to find trouble. She had even bent her rules a tad when it came to harming humans, giving a few of the petty criminals she had run into on her patrols a good smacking around to discourage their reappearance in her part of town.

Giles was the only one of their little group of survivors that had noticed the intensity of her grief, and her mental exhaustion, immediately. As Buffy began to drift, he had offered, which was gratefully accepted, to help care for Dawn. Over the summer the two of them had become very close; Giles bittersweetly enjoying his reprisal of the fatherly role he had once adopted as her own Watcher, and Dawn quietly adoring having an adult to look after her again. Buffy's cramped one-bedroom apartment that initially began just as a place to sleep and recover after a rough patrol became her sole residence in September, when Giles had been called back to London to head up the recovery of the Watcher's council. Up to that point, his beautiful 4-bedroom townhome that had once belonged to a fellow Watcher (another victim of the Bringers) had been the primary home for Buffy, Dawn, and Willow as well - but the sisters had already begun to drift apart. When Giles had offered to allow Dawn to finish school in London, joining him at his magnificent country home, Willow and Dawn both jumped gratefully at the chance. Willow re-entered the English coven, her newfound power establishing her quickly as a clear leader. Xander and Andrew already awaited them in London, Xander having been assigned a couple months prior to the conversion of an old Catholic school in London into the Summers' Academy, Andrew tagging along as his otherwise-lost roommate.

Dawn quickly fell in love with her new placement at the Academy, a private, all-girls school established for the Potentials, young Slayers and a few future Watchers, educating them in both the conventional and the supernatural efficiently and under the supervision of the few surviving Watchers. Willow had even gotten to reprise her teaching role, finally finding a happy medium with which to use magicks in a constructive manner. She taught 'nature magic', 'Wicca history', and computer sciences, Giles joking frequently that the latter of which was also magic to him, even as he begrudgingly explored Willow's ever-expanding virtual library of the supernatural. Andrew began aiding them as an assistant in Willow's computer science class, but realized he had found his talent, splitting off soon after to teach his own classes in the Maths and Sciences department, and taking over for Giles as teacher of the Demonology elective as Giles's other responsibilities grew.

Dawn's calling as a future Watcher drew her even closer to Giles as a father figure, leaving Buffy with a faint jealousy but overwhelming gratitude that Dawn finally had a proper parent to care for her. Little did Giles know, but Dawn was planning to present to him in two short weeks with a Christmas present he wouldn't forget: a legal adoption certificate, completed but for his final signature. Buffy had felt a faint sting at that, but she understood the reasoning and emotion behind it, and had helped her little sister arrange the details. She knew it would mean the world to Giles.

To his credit, Giles had tried fervently to prevent Buffy from cutting herself off as she had, begging her repeatedly to accompany them to England, as a counselor again, as a trainer, as anything he thought would tempt her, to no avail. She simply watched them leave, one by one, feeling an odd sense of cathartic relief as her friends and family drifted away from her. She simply didn't know how to act around any of them anymore.

Now, loneliness and the bitter cold air began to seep into her bones as she crawled back under the covers to await the daylight. Needing to hear a voice, any voice, she picked up the phone and dialed the first number that popped into her head.

"Buffy?" the deep voice at the other end was layered with surprise and the thick fog of interrupted sleep.

"Hi, Angel" she whispered.

"Buffy…" She could hear the bedsheets tugging around him as he sat up in bed. "Not that I'm not loving this surprise, but it's 2AM here - is there something you need?"

Buffy swallowed. "I need to get out of here. I can't be here by myself anymore…" she shivered, Angel's irritation softening at the desperation in her voice. "I'm going crazy, alone with my thoughts... Angel, please tell me there is something I can help you with in LA... anything, I just need to spend some time out of Cleveland for awhile."

The small hope Angel had of her call holding romantic intentions died quietly. This was a favor from colleague-to-colleague, nothing more.

"Angel?"

"Sorry, I'm here." He paused, running through his current projects in his head. "I do actually have one thing… I was tempted to call you to get your take on it yesterday, but I didn't want to bother you."

"Bother me, please. I need to be bothered!" Buffy's voice sounded somewhat like her normal self.

"Well, we have a vampire gang here that seems to be making a habit of harassing Wolfram and Hart buildings, as well as teaming up with new demons I've never even heard of. We are having a hard time keeping up with them." he said. "Every time we go after them, there's a new cast of uglies protecting their lair, which moves, of course."

Sensing his frustration, Buffy resisted the urge to tease him about his failure to out-maneuver members of his own kind. "I'm in!"

"Really?" pleasure slipped into his voice. "Thank you Buffy, I've gotta say, it's gonna be great to see you, I've missed you."

"I'll be there before you know it!" Running her fingers through her hair, she was reminded of her disheveled appearance, and felt a slight flush of embarrassment, even though her former beau couldn't currently see her. "I'll check flights after a shower, I could be there as early as dinnertime tonight."

A knock on Angel's door startled him, finally reminding him of why he hadn't called Buffy in the first place. "Oh, and Buffy," he said hurriedly, lowering his voice when he said her name, "I would put you up with me, but I my place is a mess this week…bit of a vamp attack gone wrong... I have an account at the airport hotel, I will arrange a room for you there instead, you will be much more comfortable there."

"You got it," Buffy was surprised by his obvious evasion, but took it in stride. Maybe he was trying to resist temptation? "I will see you for dinner then, maybe?"

"It's a date," the knock on Angel's door sounded again, louder this time. "I gotta go Buffy, see you soon." He hung up quickly as the door creaked open.

The platinum blonde's voice was raspy and dripping with irritation as he pushed into the room, cocking his head at the larger man, who was still holding the receiver. "Who the bleeding hell are you talking to at this hour?"

"None of your business." snapped Angel. "I thought we agreed this little roommate situation was only going to work if we stayed out of each other's way - do we need to revisit that little agreement?"

"Spoken like a true bloody lawyer," spat Spike bitterly. "I get your hintin', I'll sod right off." The doors slammed behind him as he stormed into the hallway and back into the neighboring bedroom. As his temper started to cool, the thought crossed his mind that Angel's refusal to answer the question could have been more than just a petty protest at the invasion of his privacy. It could have been… her.

In the other room Angel breathed deeply, laying down, and finally closing his eyes. He knew he would not be sleeping much for the remainder of the night.