Things That Drift Away

The day starts in the middle of the night, a dream that has him gasping awake, cold sweat and eyes wide open. He can't go back to sleep after that, keeps seeing what happened even though it didn't really happen, sees it even with his eyes open. He walks around his house, checks that all the doors are locked, watches an old infomercial for the Magic Bullet in the dark, thinks Mick and Mimi have a lot of weird friends.

He's early to work, gets in an extra hour of work out before the rest of the team trickles in, like if he runs far enough, he can leave all the bad stuff behind. He lounges around near the desk, talks to Winnie (it's just – she didn't sleep over last night and possibly, it's like he missed her? Which is ridiculous, he saw her less than twelve hours ago but he's looking at her now and it feels like he hasn't seen her in weeks, wonders if he'd have had the dream if she'd been there, soft skin pressed against him, eyelashes dark against her cheekbones). He's forcing it, the jokes, the laughs, just a little, doesn't think she can tell, is torn between seeing her smile and just wanting to feel normal. He's tired and still reeling from the nightmare he had but this part is soothing, always has been, filled with things that make sense, right answers.

He leans his elbows on the top of her desk. "You coming over later?"

Winnie raises her eyebrows at him, smile playing at her mouth and despite how he's feeling, he smiles back a little too. "You want me to?"

"I want you to come say hi. If you want to."

She looks like she's trying to fight a grin. "I could do that."

"Then you probably should," he says, wonders what in the hell his issue is that she smiles up at him and he wants to lean right over the desk and kiss her.

She clears her throat. "Okay then. I'll see you later."

"Okay."

Shift is brutal, makes him feel like everything is just pointless and it's cold and raining and okay, yeah, Spike will be the first to admit that he's in a filthy mood, just over tired, mood about the same as it has been all day, only work finishes and there's nothing left to distract him. He's just – he's not feeling up to talking and it's Winnie who gets the brunt of his bad mood because she's there and probably because the sight of her just makes him remember everything he dreamt about in the first place and-

Well anyway. He's snippy and short with her on the way home (which – so stupid, this was his idea in the first place) and then she leaves him standing at the front door, goes into the kitchen and makes herself a sandwich, makes one for him too, leaves it on the counter. She doesn't look at him, just takes her plate into the living room and turns on the tv.

She's watching an episode of a show he's embarrassed to know the name of and he's just fed up, doesn't know what the hell is eating him (except he does and it's the dreams, the way he has to feel every time something good happens in his life).

He grudgingly eats the sandwich she made him and then stands in the doorway and glares at the wall.

She doesn't take her eyes off the tv. "Are you going to tell me why you're so upset? Or am I going to have to guess? Cause I'll be honest with you – not really a game I'm that good at."

"I'm just in a bad mood."

"Yeah," she says, around a mouthful of bread, "no kidding."

He glares at her, finds it a little annoying when she just glances at him and then gives him this unimpressed look and turns back to the tv. She ignores him for most of the evening, actually, and he goes and sits in the kitchen with his computer, reads up about bombs he hopes he's never going to have to dismantle, indulges his dark side and looks up land mines (he could probably write a scientific paper on them at this point, keeps all the books he has on them in a box at the back of his coat closet labelled 'Christmas Ornaments').

It is completely and totally beyond irrational to be this worried about people dying day in, day out. But every shift, that's what he worries about, that he's going to fail his team when they need him the most. Has no idea why this is all coming up again, he thought he was done with it when he finished with the shrink after that whole disaster with Sam's sister and her ex-boyfriend, thought that it was getting better. But still, sometimes he thinks about screwing up and then having to explain it to Sophie Lane or Dean Parker, thinks about having to go on living knowing that Sam or Jules lost each other because of his fuck up.

Winnie comes in, gets herself a glass of water and then sets one down on the table in front of him. He stares at it for a second.

She pauses next to him. He can feel the heat from her body. "Um. Do you want me to go home? Cause I can."

He looks up at her, takes in the sight of her standing in his kitchen and sighs. "I. No. I don't."

"Okay."

He watches her walk back to the tv, feels like the decent thing to do would be to just fill her in on the mess that goes on inside his head sometimes (truth is, he's not a talker, not about this kind of stuff. Even with the shrink, he only went because Boss asked him to, would never have voluntarily shared any of it, not with anyone he knows, not with a stranger either).

When they get into bed, he half expects that she's going to turn her back to him (and like, he wouldn't blame her, he really has been acting like an asshole, is actually surprised that she didn't just leave and go home, sound of the front door closing his only clue that he's alone) but she doesn't, just rests her cheek on her palm and looks at him.

"You know. I'm not an idiot. And I may not be SRU but I'm not blind. So. You want to talk about it?"

He stares at the ceiling, thinks about telling her that everyone has bad days, even her (except, he thinks about the months they've been together, how she never gets like that with him, not even when it would be, you know, somehow socially acceptable for a female to be grouchy). "I keep having dreams. About the land mine. Only instead of Lew on it, it's you."

The silence is long and he wonders if he's actually done it, actually made Winnie Camden speechless. "Holy shit."

"It's stupid-"

"It's not stupid," she says softly. "That's-why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm not going to tell you about some dumb dream-"

"But you can." She clears her throat. "I'm not…you know, I'm not just here because we have like, crazy good sex, right?" Her voice lilts on the last word, like she's trying her best to make him smile.

It works, just for a second, just a hint. He snorts, doesn't say anything.

She leans over, presses her lips to his skin. He lets out a breath. "I'm sorry that I'm one more thing you have to worry about."

He closes his eyes, leans his head against hers. Feels almost relieved. "It's not like that," he says, has no idea what it actually is like. They fall asleep, her temple against his shoulder and Spike afraid the whole time of some kind of demon he can't even see.

It's not a nightmare this time, not like how it usually is.

It's Spike on the land mine, Lew sitting beside him in a Muskoka chair, shorts and a t-shirt like he's on vacation.

"Hey Spike," he greets him. "Good to see you."

Spike stares at him, knows that it's not possible and that this is a dream but he can't quite- "You're dead, you know."

"Yeah, heard something about that. Kind of a shame."

"Kind of?"

"Okay, a big shame. Not the way I'd have chosen to do things but hey, sometimes you don't get a choice." Lew clears his throat, grins at him. "I knew you had a thing for her. All that crap about her hands. No guy notices a girl's hands. Unless, you know. He's got some pretty big feelings going on."

"Yeah well, big help you turned out to be."

"Had to let you figure it out on your own."

"Oh yeah? That what Leah did?"

"You needed a nudge."

Spike rolls his eyes.

"She's a good girl, you know. Good woman. I always thought that."

"Lew-"

"Spike. Don't screw it up because you're trying to be something you're not. She's not your father."

"Yeah, I know that." He does know that. Knows that he owes Winnie a little more than the light-hearted joking guy. Not that he isn't that, he is. Just. Not a hundred percent of the time. Doesn't know how to explain the times when he's not that guy.

"Okay then. As long as you know. Well. I gotta get going. Get your foot off that thing, will you?"

"Lew, wait-" His eyes snap open and he knows he was having a dream, knows that none of it was real but he also feels a crushing sense of failure when he wakes up (this yearning for bits of his life the way things used to be, nostalgia for a past that slipped away with no warning).

Winnie's hair is spread across the pillow, mass of curls and she's just looking at him. So maybe he doesn't want things to be exactly the way they used to be. He clears his throat, just looks right back at her. He thinks that if he gets up now, gets out of bed and pretends that he needs something downstairs, things are never going to be okay. But if he stays here? If he stays here, lets her slide her arms around his neck and if he kisses her a little, maybe things will be better.

So. He does that. And he tells her that he knows that the Lew in his dream was nothing but his subconscious and Winnie shrugs and says, "Yeah well. So they say. But what the hell do they know?"

And he lets out a weak laugh, pulls her closer to him, thinks maybe he can get some sleep, her fingers laced with his and their heads on the same pillow, the scent of her shampoo in his nose.