Chapter 2!! I'm excited about this story, and I hope you're enjoying it so far! If you are or if you have constructive criticism, please review!! Thanks. :)

Also, I am not Joss Whedon. As such, none of the characters or anything you read that you've already seen in Buffy is mine. That includes Spike, unfortunately. :( :)

Death, Life, Really All the Same Thing, it Seems

Chapter 2: Encounter with an Angel

Spike charged ahead of Buffy recklessly, his eyes fixed on the light ahead and his mind fixed determinedly on the same point. It was everything he could do not to think of her and not to want to believe her words. But he couldn't. They were going to not be dead, he was going to find a way to get her back to her sister and friends, she was going to go back, he was going to let her go, and that was going to be the end of that.

He knew she didn't mean it when she said she loved him. For all the arguments she made now, he'd known her too long to start believing her now. So he pushed ahead in the unfamiliar darkness and she followed, a little bewildered and exasperated with him, though she had tact enough to know that now was not the time to push the subject.

The light ahead grew brighter and brighter until it was absolutely blinding, so much so that they had to stop in their tracks, unable to tell where they were going or if they were even going in a straight line in their already confusing and vertigo-inducing surroundings.

Suddenly the light shifted and grew larger and molded itself into a figure as it grew closer and allowed them to see what it was.

"What is it?" Spike, who knew of every type of evil, grotesque, horrific demon that had ever been in existence, could not name this beautiful being for the life of him. Which isn't saying much. But still.

He looked like a man, really. He had a human-like figure, though his face was mostly obscured by the brilliant light emanating from him—it made the rest of him difficult to see clearly, as well. The man was clothed in robes of purest white that draped over him in a way that somehow suggested power, but a fluid, liquid, almost gentle power. Spike and Buffy, when they saw the figure, were immediately struck by the fierceness and aggression radiating from him, but also pure…goodness. It seemed an awfully strange combination to Spike. Whatever this man was, there was a powerful goodness to him, and there was not a half-second of doubt in either of their minds that this was no demon.

"He's an angel," Buffy breathed, not taking her eyes off the man.

"A…what?"

"Spike, I've been to heaven before, remember? I'd never forget the angels."

"You're trying to tell me we ended up in heaven? Well, that can't be right, can it?" Buffy, over her confessional mood, just gave him an annoyed look.

"Uh…hello?" Spike gestured to himself. "Demon from hell, remember that, love? Who in their right mind would let me through the pearly gates??"

"No one."

"Absolutely. And—hey."

"This isn't heaven."

"Yeah, then what is Holy Boy doing here? What?" Spike added indignantly, seeing Buffy's face.

"Show a little respect."

"To who? I thought this wasn't heaven."

"It's not. But that is an angel."

"And angels belong in heaven. Who knows? Maybe somebody up here owed me money they forgot to pay before…"

But Buffy was shaking her head emphatically.

"No. Spike, I'm telling you. Heaven isn't something you just forget in a day. What it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like…and it isn't this. All of this darkness, the aloneness. This isn't heaven."

"Well, it bloody well isn't hell. If there's one thing I know about, it's hell…well, and where to find the cheapest blood. There's this one butcher shop on tenth street, hole-in-the wall place—"

"SPIKE."

"Right. I know about hell. And I know we're not there 'cause we're not burning to a bloody crisp. Or that's how it feels anyway. Without the relief of turning crispy and crumbling away into ashes. I'd take this nothingness over that any day."

"Well, I guess that puts us back to square one then."

While she was still trying to work it all out, something like a cannon shot sounded in the air, and Buffy and Spike felt a blast of heat as something on fire shot through the air just above their heads.

The angel moved just in time to avoid being hit by the flaming missile.

Spike ducked instinctively…and ineffectively. The ball of fire was long past him. "What the bloody hell—?"

"You speak of what you say you know," came the quiet but commanding voice. The low whisper somehow boomed over everything; it seemed to reach to the far corners of the emptiness. "And yet you greet spiritual warfare with nonchalance. If you truly understood where you are, and in between whose armies you cower, you would not be so callous."

The angel loomed tall above them. Some of the light surrounding him seemed to fade, just enough so that they could see his face, which seemed regal, important, and at the moment, disapproving.

"I'm sorry, O…Shimmering One," Spike said, bewildered, and began a mock bow towards the ground…or rather, where the ground should have been.

But before his knees were even bent, an insubstantial blow knocked him off his feet and the booming voice resounded in the air again, more powerful than the cannon sound of the flaming missile.

"YOU WOULD BOW TO ONE LESS THAN GOD? And if that were not enough, you would mock an angel of God? Truly you have no concept of where you are or to whom I answer."

"I'm sorry, mate," Spike said, looking as though he really meant it. "I—I don't really know how this angel thing works. I was never much for the bright and white and pure and all that."

"I know what you are. And I know what you've done."

"Yeah, I know, I've killed, I've murdered, I've…you've got flaming missiles flying your way mate, is this really the time for the lowliest of all the creatures of hell lecture?"

Buffy tried to chip in. "Please…sir…can I say something? It's not what you think. Spike's changed. He has a soul. Don't you guys, like, keep track of those?" Buffy asked, honestly confused. "Like a naughty and nice list or something? If you look back through your records, I think you'll find one missing from the naughty—"

"I am well aware of the lives taken by the hand of the so-called 'William the Bloody.' Those were not the acts to which I was referring."

"Oh," said the two, in unison.

"Did you not suffer torturous blows to protect an innocent girl? Did you not countless times endanger your own existence to save the lives of those you cared about? Did you not even, in fact, save the human world? We know of your life, William, and you are correct in your assumption that you are not in hell."

"But…this isn't anything like I remember heaven being…" said Buffy tentatively. Her forehead creased as she looked around the darkness in bewilderment.

"Of course not. I think you'll find you haven't forgotten heaven. It is not a place to be forgotten."

Buffy smiled, somewhat sadly. "I guess most people don't ever have the chance to forget."

The angel fixed Buffy with a piercing stare. "Chance?"

"Burden…of forgetting," she amended, "I guess would be a better phrase."

"But you coped with your time on earth," said the angel, and it was clearly a statement, not a question.

"Yeah…I…I kinda wasn't ready to leave it again. I had a sister there to protect, friends who've already had to deal with my death once—"

"Hey, it wasn't a walk in the park for me either, you know—"

"But you never forgot what you left behind."

"No…never. The peacefulness, the serenity, the love…"

"Hey, I hate to careen down memory lane here and break up the reminiscence party, but…could somebody please tell us where the bloody—where we are?"

Buffy and Spike looked up at the angel expectantly.

"You are in the chasm that lies between heaven and hell, in the midst of one of many, many battles in the war for God, for humanity…the war for good to win out."