Memories of Light

Prologue

Spike woke up. His eyes focused on the ceiling immediately above him as he lay flat out, but it was lost in the darkness of the mausoleum. His right arm spasmed, knocking an empty bottle of tequila – testament to a heavy day. It rolled onto the floor to hit its twin already resting there. The bleached one grunted and moaned; the melodrama of the act lost to the otherwise vacant tomb.

He sat up in bed, cradled his face and slowly dragged his hands over his off-white hair. After arcing his back to stretch out creases in his body, caused by lying in one position all day, he finally surveyed the dark room he occupied. His night-sight gradually clicked in. "Oh, shit," he sighed dramatically. "I'm still in Sunnydale." He draped his legs over the side of the bed. "Still, it can't get any worse than that."

"Hi, honey, I'm home," Harmony twinkled from the heavy oak doors that lead from the tomb. "Did Spikey drink too much again this afternoon?" She continued in her heavy Californian dialect.

"Fuck off."

"Don't be like that. I've had a hard time. LA is so not the place to be…"

"Stop whining, woman!" Spike cradled his head again. "You could curdle milk with that incessant noise."

"Oh, you don't mean that. I bet you've missed me really."

"I've got to get out of this place."

Buffy patrolled the fourth cemetery of the evening. Boredom had come and gone, to be replaced by a sense of going through the motions; left leg forward, right leg follows through. Had she really come to the point where she had to kill something to feel satisfied? The thought disturbed her. It brought forward a vision of a brunette languishing in prison in a far away city. Lost in her thoughts, she practically walked into Harmony.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me," the ex-Sunnydale High student bleated.

"Harmony! I thought you had left town."

"I had, but….."

"What's up, no one want you in LA?"

"Well, that's where you're wrong, see, cos I stayed with Cordelia, and…and we hunted vamps with Angel and Wesley."

At the mention of Angel Buffy became angry. "Then why come back here? Did you miss Spikey?" She mimicked.

"That bastard! I wouldn't give him the time of day…night."

"Turned you away again, huh? That crossbow bolt to the back probably put him off you."

"That was nothing. It's all part of out tempestuous relationship; I impale him, he….."

"OK, I'm getting the image, and filing it away with several others." The Slayer started to walk away only to be followed close behind by her former classmate.

"He's so mean. He uses me and casts me aside. Being evil should be more fun than this, but it's such a miserable existence….."

"Enough of the self-pity! You don't deserve the indulgence."

"But, I was killed and….. and I have to drink blood. No one deserves that."

Despite her dislike of the girl who had caused her friends so much grief at school, Buffy had to admit that Harmony's punishment was a bad case of overkill, literally. "So, where is Bleach Boy now?" She asked conversationally.

"He barged pass me. Said something about meeting his old friend, Dawn. Hey that's your sister's name isn't it?"

"What!"

"He said….hey, mind the fabric."

Buffy released the vampire's blouse and stood back, frustration clearly written in her expression. "I must get myself a mobile."

"Here, use mine," Harmony offered her phone. "What?"

"I'm sorry, it's just odd to see a vampire with a mobile phone." Buffy replied amazed as she gratefully took the handset and dialled home.

"We weren't all born last century, you know. Contrary to popular belief, we also don't turn in to bats."

"Granted. It's weird, that's all. Somehow sacrilegious."

"Well you can learn something new every day, can't you," Harmony preached in her old superior tone.

"Do you know, I think with you, Harmony, that may very well be true."

"That was an insult, wasn't it? I can tell."

Buffy ignored her. "Willow? Is Dawn OK? Yes, please check. Spike hasn't shown up has he? Good. Keep an eye out for him, would you….thanks." A thought suddenly occurred to her as she gave Harmony back her property. "Harmony, what did Spike say again when he left?"

"He said he was going to see Dawn."

"His exact words?"

"His exact words were…..See you bitch, I'm going to greet my old friend Dawn."

"OK, thank you." Buffy left Harmony standing as she raced from the cemetery.

She found Spike sitting on a bench looking out over the sea. The horizon was one uninterrupted line. "Suicide's not your style," she said by way of introduction.

"Oh great! Another blonde to make my day."

"But, I'm your favourite one."

"My favourite blew a fuse, remember, and you confiscated her."

Buffy sat next to him and followed his gaze to where the sea met the sky. "This is as good a place to greet Dawn as any, I suppose. Burning up seems a painful way to go though."

"It's better to burn out than fade away."

"Oh dear oh dear, the poet in you is coming out again. If you get any more morose, I may join you."

"You should, slayer. Cos it don't get any better than this, or are you waiting for your LA prince to return? I'm sorry to tell you this…..well no I'm not, actually, I get great pleasure in emphasising it, he'll never be yours again."

Buffy looked away. "I refuse to believe that." She turned back round and looked him in the eye. "I have faith that his and my good deeds will someday bear fruit. He will be human again and I will…."

"Ha! Good deeds got no one nowhere. If you try too hard and care too much you'll just end up disillusioned like everyone else. Like money, good things only come to those who already have them."

"That's bullshit!"

"It's inspired bullshit."

"You may think yourself funky and streetwise, but you're unfunny and…crap," she tailed off weakly.

"Funky! I never said I was funky."

They both sat in silence for a few minutes.

"You should go somewhere, leave Sunnydale," Buffy suggested.

"I was thinking of going back to London, actually. I miss streets that curve round corners rather than meet at right angles, and are named rather than numbered."

"I've always wanted to see London," Buffy added wistfully.

"You should. It's like New York before Guilliani arrived."

"You can still smoke in New York, unlike California."

"Yea!" Spike warmed to the topic. "I've never been in a place that's so anti-smoking. Just another of America's foibles, I suppose, like shiny white teeth. I mean, what is it with you and teeth? Do you file them down and cap them as children or soak them in bleach every morning. And, chocolate, have you ever tried a Hershey Bar?" Spike made a face to show that he wasn't a fan. "Give me a McVities plain chocolate Homewheat digestive any day, dunked in tea, not decaffeinated, dechemicalised, decolourised cawfee.."

Buffy laughed out loud. "Oh, Spike, with lines like that you're not ready to die yet."

He turned to her. "You could do it, you know."

"What's that?" Buffy asked still recovering from his earlier tirade against her nation.

"Kill me. You could do it." The Slayer leapt off the bench and stood several feet away. "You could stake me now," he persisted.

Buffy stared at him horrified. The thought appalled her, despite having wanted, and tried, to kill him several times before he had the pacifying chip installed in his head. "You saved my life…and Dawn's….I…." She looked distressed. "Is that all you think of me as….an assassin, or a vet that puts down wounded animals?"

Spike wasn't deterred. "Why not kill me? I've got no soul, and it's not as though you'll miss me. You've made the last patently clear. So why not rid the world of another vampire…"

"Stop it! I live amongst the remains of dead people, Spike. Allow me to choose who I add to the pile." She wanted to make him understand. "I don't kill vampires because they're soulless, but because they harm humans. You are frequently selfish and basically amoral but, now you have that chip in your head you cannot physically harm anyone."

Spike shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever," he uttered, settling himself in the confines of the bench ready to greet the sun.

Buffy sat back down alongside him. "Spike, do you really have feelings for me?" She couldn't bring herself to say 'love'.

"Isn't it obvious by now? I thought the robot was a heavy hint."

"But, why me? I've tried to kill you on several occasions. I hate you as a matter of fact." The last line didn't come out a strong as she wanted.

"Give me some credit. You are fairly attractive, and the violence thing…..well that can be quite a turn on, believe me."

"Is that it, though? Am I just beauty and a good lay?" She stood up again.

"Bloody hell, woman! What more do you want? You know what you need, Buffy? Some un-sentimentalised sex."

She smiled. "With you I suppose."

"I'm an easy lay." Spike offered. Buffy laughed again. "You know, deep down, there's a light of interest," he persisted.

Buffy knelt on the ground in front of him. She teased a finger over the bruises on his face, inflicted on him by Glory. Leaning forward so her mouth was level to his ear she whispered, "In your dreams, dead boy." She leant back.

"One day, Slayer, we'll do the horizontal. I'm that good, believe me. After all, I've practised on a model."

Buffy stood up and brushed grit from her trousers. "Come on. The sun's nearly up."

Spike allowed her to pull him off the bench. They started to walk off the beach front. "Did anyone tell you you're short?" He taunted.

"Not and lived to repeat it."

"I mean you're really tiny."

"Bite me."

"Is that a come on?"

"OK, I'm going home now."

They parted. When she was several feet away she turned in the direction Spike was heading. "Say hello to Harmony for me," she shouted.

"Oh, God."