Chapter Four

The entire time Tara spent explaining the mission to Spike, he tried to pay attention, but his heart was rent in two at the knowledge that Buffy had taken another blow. Another massive blow.

She had no soul.

A callus part of himself whispered that it explained a lot, but he refused to believe it was true and would downright call out anyone who would dare say the Slayer was anything less than magnificent. Flawed, certainly, but never lacking in anything.

Even so…

Spike blinked, his eyes refocusing on Tara. She was looking back at him, silently waiting. When had she stopped talking? He searched his mind but couldn't recall the last complete sentence he'd actually heard.

"I know this is a lot," she said.

Spike shook his head, ready to tell her that the magnitude of his task didn't bother him – wasn't even in his top ten list of concerns – but then he looked again at her expression and realized that she, too, was thinking about Buffy.

Buffy. Buffy. Buffy. She was the focal point of his existence. She was everything, yet had nothing left. What was the world going to take from her next? How could such a short life be so cruel?

Having taken a still-sobbing Willow to Xander's car and made him sit there with her, Giles re-entered the store and took Buffy aside for a word. He cleared his throat and two sets of eyes looked up at him.

Dawn had not let go of her sister.

"I think it's best we all meet again as soon as possible to research the specifics of this… unique situation." The word he had wanted to use for the unique situation was 'shit', but the watcher took control of himself.

Buffy didn't answer, but he hadn't really expected her to. Expectations truly were shitty things, he considered. He had expected to be welcomed back, for example, and he had anticipated some minimal awkwardness at the reintroduction of Willow to the group, but he'd also predicted it would soon be fixed.

Giles didn't want to be bitter, especially when he knew Buffy had things much worse than he did, but the truth was that whoever or whatever the Powers That Be were, he hated them. Having given it a lot of thought, his conclusion was that either they were negligent or they were not as all-powerful as they made out. Either option left him disappointed beyond words.

Her mind still buzzing, Buffy hadn't really realized that Giles had left the store again until Tara approached her in his place. She was offering to go into the back room with Dawn to answer any questions she had.

Buffy left the decision up to her, saying nothing as her eyes stayed locked onto the back of Spike's head, glaring a hole through it in the hopes of somehow activating his chip.

He looked around suddenly and their eyes finally met. The Slayer cursed herself for that. Since leaving the school's basement, she'd vowed not to look in those eyes again, convinced that they were her weakness.

Vaguely aware of Dawn releasing her arm and following Tara out of her amended line of sight, Buffy now became acutely aware that she and Spike were the only two left in the room. She approached him, at first appearing indifferent and then– CRACK. Her palm struck his right cheek.

Spike closed his eyes, visibly bracing himself for another blow, but it didn't come. After a few long moments, when the sound of their combined breathing got too much, his eyes opened again, but they remained downcast.

Buffy was staring a hole through him once more but, for all she wanted to say, she couldn't begin to form words; couldn't trust herself to open her mouth.

Moments became minutes as they continued to stand in silence – Buffy not asking anything and Spike not explaining anything.

Good. She preferred it that way.

In a lot of ways, aside from his eyes, Spike's words were his best weapon against her. She could pretend he hadn't wounded her with them many times, but they both knew better. So, yeah, she was glad he was saying nothing. It was the only thing she could be glad about, given the circumstances, but she'd take it.

Honestly, Buffy didn't know how she could possibly hold together if Spike was to say even a single word – whether in his defense or as an apology, it wouldn't matter.

Spike in his entirety was the Slayer's true weakness. It started with his eyes, and his words, and ended with his hands; his touch. Now his soul, she supposed.

Buffy gave a violent shiver at the thought, and it was at this that he finally opened his mouth.

"Don't," she ordered.

His jaw snapped shut.

"Go do the mission. The mission is what matters."

When he gave a solemn nod, she felt anger rise up in her again. He was supposed to be a warrior; being all sad and sorrowful wasn't going to defeat anything, and there was no way she was going to let a demon tear through a world with Dawn in it. She was not going to let her sister be in that kind of danger ever again.

Resolute in this, Buffy knew she needed to say more. Despite every fiber of her being telling her to run from the Vampire in the hope of never seeing him again, she needed to provoke him into giving the mission his best shot.

"You promised me," she reminded him, "To protect Dawn." Catching his eye one final time, Buffy added, "Don't let me down again."

She knew it was the most damning thing she could say to him; knew exactly how to hurt him the most. As much as he was her weakness, she was his.

Pain and rage flared in his eyes as he looked back at her, and she could tell that her words had worked; that he knew exactly what she was doing.

It was only as he walked away from her that a sudden fear gripped her: that maybe it was the last time she'd ever get to see those eyes.