1SUMMARY: After surviving Los Angeles, Spike has relocated to Cleveland to start over.
RATING: T
PAIRING: Spike/Buffy
TIMELINE/SPOILERS: AU after AtS.
DISCLAIMER: All BtVS characters are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. The book Spike references in this chapter is The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A little maudlin, but background for this story.
He had tried to contact her when he was in L.A. Well, first he was too scared to—afraid that his glory would be wasted, and she'd regret those words she said to him before his very obviously-inevitable end. Surely, that's why she said what he'd longed to hear. She was clever enough to know that it would help him bear the pain of the end. And he appreciated it; he certainly did. Any scrap she'd toss him he savored. Saving the best for last made him feel the sacrifice was worth it. God, she wasn't the bloody Slayer for nothing. He loved her, and his sacrifice was so that she would make it out—so that she would live. He helped her return to life once, though he went about it the wrong way, he guessed. Closing the Sunnydale hellmouth was the revised version. He knew his love was real because he let her go. To live. That was the vision he took with him as he incinerated.
When he became corporeal again, all touchy-feely and not ghost-Spike, he'd tried to find her once more. Peaches wasn't very forthcoming with her whereabouts, but the lack of despondent brooding told him that Buffy must be okay, at least. Living her life, just like he had wanted. After he saw Andrew, he was sure the message would have gotten to Buffy of his return; Andrew wasn't known to keep a juicy tidbit like that a secret. But he never heard a word.
Spike couldn't help but take that as a sign that her last words to him really were a warrior's salve in the battleground.
You did the right thing, mate, he reminded himself daily. It was the only thing that got him through. And now that he was in Cleveland, he doubted he'd hear her voice again anywhere other than his dreams. He never told Angel or Ilyria that he was leaving or where he was going. Hell, he didn't even know if they knew (or cared) that he survived that last battle. He was done with the West Coast. California is where people come to die, he recalled from a book. Read it in the '40s and never realized how true it was, on so many levels. Spike died there too many times to count. He was heading back to New York City—busy, grey, interesting, and home to one of his greatest conquests. It was a place that always reminded him of his strength and the things he loved...before her.
Spike missed his old DeSoto as he travelled across country. He had hitched most of the way, swiping a car or two where the trains diverged. When he hit Chicago, he was happy to see a real city again. As he drove east from there, he hugged the Great Lakes and something stirred within. Cleveland. The hellmouth. Wood.
Angel had told him that the rogue slayer and Robin Wood settled in Cleveland to take on the nasties in that hellmouth. Ha! Spike had been to Cleveland before. Stayed there for a while in the late '70s. (But not long enough. Dru thought the blood there was bitter. Even the children were tainted, she swore. "They taste like rust. Old rusty nails and sewer grates.")
Cleveland was a much different hellmouth than Sunnydale. The residents weren't so vapid, weren't so in need of a slayer's help. They were cynical and poor and had thick blood coursing through their veins. Spike licked his lips in remembrance and grinned when he thought of the type of welcome Faith and the principal had probably gotten. That was something he'd like to see first-hand.
So, Cleveland it was.
