Realizations
As she stood under the warm spray, Buffy tried to push her roiling emotions aside. When she'd left Giles' place, she had fully intended to track Spike down to whatever dive he was lurking in, hoping to drown his sorrows. She knew it was the right thing to do. Her feet, however, had other ideas, and she found herself standing on her own front porch. Willow and Tara had departed soon thereafter. They had tried to talk to her, but she was still reeling from...well, everything. When Buffy had told them that she was fine, and that it was nothing - they seemed appeased. She needed more time. So here she was, standing in the shower trying to think about anything else and failing horribly. With a quick flick of her wrist, she turned the water off and stepped out of the tub onto the bathmat. Toweling off quickly, she donned her robe without a second thought and padded across the hall to her room.
Buffy flopped on her bed with a groan and stared at the ceiling. What could she tell him? What could she possibly say to make this easier? For a long time, she had fought to escape her destiny. Especially after what had happened with Angel. She still didn't fully accept it. And when she looked at her life she regretted the fact that something was always missing...normalcy. Something she would never have. Spike...well. In the beginning he was normal, for a vampire. Okay, maybe not so normal. And when the Initiative saddled him with the chip, he moaned and sulked for what seemed like forever, but he adjusted. After awhile he gave up searching for a way to get it out. Not because he was happy about it, but because he realized that there was nothing to be done about it. And once he'd fallen in love with her, he hadn't really mentioned it again.
She rolled onto her side with a sigh and pressed her cheek against the pillow. Naturally she didn't care to think about being chained up on the lower level of his crypt, it still turned her stomach. But it also allowed Buffy to reflect on how far he'd come since then. For all her protestations to the contrary, she knew the night they faced down Glory that he truly did love her. The scene replayed in her head, and she shivered at the sudden chill that crept up the back of her neck.
"We're not all gonna make it. You know that."
"Yeah. Hey. Always knew I'd go down fightin'"
"I'm counting on you ... to protect her."
"Till the end of the world. Even if that happens to be tonight."
"I'll be a minute."
She started upstairs, only turning back when she heard his voice.
"I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man. And that's...Get your stuff, I'll be here"
And he was. There. Even knowing that he could die, he was willing to sacrifice himself for her and Dawn. It's what the Scoobies had done for years. It wasn't something that anyone would do for the sake of obsession or infatuation. Hell, Anya skipped town when things went down on graduation day, even though she was involved with Xander at the time. No, he definitely loved her. Buffy shook her head. How the hell did I get here? None of this is going to help him, she thought. And then it dawned on her...the perfect thing to say. It had to help. Even though she knew it was a long way from making things alright, at least it would help.
If she was going to do this, it had to be now, before she lost her nerve. Buffy sprang from the bed, discarding her robe and fumbling through her drawers for clothes. After putting on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, she pulled her damp hair back in a ponytail and snuck out into the hall. She crept down the stairs, fearful of waking Dawn and pulled on the boots she had discarded earlier by the door. Compulsively, she checked the back door to make sure it was locked and then slipped outside. Now all she had to do was find Spike.
It didn't take her long.
She saw a cloud of smoke rise behind the tree in her front yard and curl up into the night sky. And she actually smiled. Buffy tiptoed up behind him, hoping to catch him off guard. All things considered, she still liked to mess with him.
"Not gonna work Slayer. Felt you before you even opened the door."
She pouted, "That's no fun. And it's not fair."
Spike chuckled weakly, "Yeah...lot in life that's not fair. Didn't your mum ever teach you that?"
Buffy cringed at the mention of her mother. "I kinda learned it the hard way."
"Suppose we all do, some time or another, eh pet?"
"Look, Spike...I don't want to argue. Actually, I was on my way to see how you were doing and talk to you."
Choking on a drag, he dropped the butt into the yard alongside three others, his face a mask of confusion. He emerged from the shadows, the streetlights bringing out the pallor of his skin and circles under his eyes.
"That right?"
She nodded. "I know there's nothing I can say to fix this. It's a big deal, and it's not like you had any real choice in the matter. But...I'm going to say what I decided to up there." Buffy pointed at the light still burning from her bedroom. His eyes drifted to the square of illumination falling on the lawn and up to the window it came from. She could have sworn he looked wistful or longing, as if he wanted so badly to be there instead of lurking out here in the shadows. Buffy gave herself a swift mental slap. Duh, of course he does. He loves you.
His voice interrupted her mindless meanderings. "Uh, love? You plan to share with the class, or are you gonna stand there chewing your lip to bits all night?"
He never made things easy. She sighed. "Yeah. All I wanted to say was...some things just are. No matter what you do, no matter how much you wish they weren't; they just are. Thinking about this made me realize a lot of things about myself actually. So, um...there's the Buffy wisdom for today." Buffy blushed as she wrapped up her little speech. Lame, she thought. So very lame.
"Care to clue me in on what we're talking about here?"
Growling, she turned to head back inside. "Nothing Spike, just...forget it. Giles said I was the only one that could understand what you're going through with this prophecy thing and I spent all night trying to figure out what could possibly help, and this is all I came up with. I don't have any flowery speeches or divine revelations, because well...that's just not me. And that's part of what I learned tonight. No matter how much I fight being a Slayer, no matter how much I yearn for that elusive normal life I'm always babbling about...it'll never happen. Because some things just are." Buffy's boots clomped against the front porch and she spun around to confront him, ready to deliver the last words of her rambling tirade. She found herself nose to chest with Spike, and took a couple stumbling steps backwards to put some distance between them.
"Ow," she said rubbing her nose.
With that he clutched his head and crumpled on the stairs. "Bloody hell!" he snarled. She reached out a comforting hand towards his shoulder, but he motioned her away. Suddenly remembering how mad she was, Buffy snatched her hand back.
"Serves you right."
Spike raised his eyes to look at her, her arms crossed over her chest, her jaw clenched, and sighed deeply. "Does it, now?"
"Yes."
"Care to explain why?"
"No."
Grumbling, he picked himself up off the ground and started off towards his crypt.
"Spike, wait." He turned back to face her, gritting his teeth against the verbal lashing that was sure to come. "Look, I'm sorry." Brow furrowed with confusion, he just stared at her, his head cocked to the side. "This didn't exactly go the way I planned. I wanted to tell you that I know what it's like and that if you need to talk about it, any of it, you can talk to me. And I promise I'll try to listen and not hit you." Buffy scuffed at the wood beneath her feet with the toe of her boot, waiting for him to answer.
"Alright then." His voice shook slightly, and the next words came out with a little more pleading in them than he had originally intended. "Now a bad time?"
"Um. I guess not. One thing though..."
"Yeah?"
"Before, why the hell did you ask me what I was talking about? It should have been pretty clear. At least it was in my head. But yeah...my head? Probably not the best environment for things that make sense."
Spike chuckled and ran a nervous hand through his hair, hoping beyond hope that his answer wouldn't send her running inside. But, he'd always been honest with her...no time to dress things up now. Not when they were finally able to be relatively civil with one another. Closing the distance between them, he settled himself on the top step, purposefully avoiding her eyes.
"Because that's exactly the way I feel about loving you."
"Oh."
The silence began to stretch from merely uncomfortable into excruciating, and Spike found himself fidgeting with his lighter. Buffy picked at invisible lint on the front of her shirt, finally breaking down to fill the empty air with words.
"So...um...about this...prophecy thing." She settled herself beside him on the step. "What did you want to talk about?"
He smiled broadly when he realized she was neither hitting him nor running away, just as she'd said. A tiny baby step in the right direction. Rushing to the surface, his words tumbled over each other as if they were all trying to get out of his mouth at once. She smiled, and he laughed, and they talked until dawn began to turn the sky from violet to pink.
*****
With a wide yawn, Buffy pushed the front door open and turned to watch Spike racing the rising sun back to his crypt. Rubbing the goose bumps from her arms, she made her way into the kitchen for water. She sank onto one of the stools and took a long draught from her glass. What a night. Thankfully, they had both made it through unscathed. There had been only a couple awkward pauses where either he or she had thrown a well-placed barb that struck too close to home. Otherwise, she had spent most of her time listening to him, letting the rich, cadent quality of his voice lull her. It was times like those she had to remind herself repeatedly what he was. Talking seemed to help him. His face reflected everything he had felt during the dreams with a clarity that seemed reserved only for him. For a minute, she had been envious. Her thoughts and feelings had a tendency to be muddled and a bit messy. If nothing else, Spike definitely knew how he felt about this. And about his grand purpose. Near the end of the night, she explained to him what Giles had told her about the prophecy and what it meant for him. What was it he said?
"I'm not exactly one for going with the flow, you know. Don't plan on bowing down to ritual now, never did before. The absence of a certain Annoying One is evidence enough of that."
Then she gave him the last bit of unsettling news. The part about not waking up.
He had sat there for a few moments, staring at the lightening sky, perhaps looking for someone to blame. When he spoke again, he seemed deflated, resigned.
"Suppose it's inevitable then," he had said, as he stood. "Tell the watcher to find another way. Won't do anything to hurt the 'Bit, not even to save my own skin." He had studied her then, for a few moments, as if trying to decide what planet she had come from. With a nod, he had turned away from her and set off in the direction of his crypt. Something made him stop short, at the end of the walkway.
"Buffy?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"Anytime."
Thundering footsteps on the stairs startled her out of her trance. Buffy glanced at the clock and groaned. Summertime usually meant sleeping in for her sister, but here it was six-thirty and she was already up roaming around.
"You're up early," Dawn said, "Or, um late."
Buffy didn't respond, she was desperately trying to figure out what to tell her, and how to do so without inflicting major emotional trauma. For her part, Dawn was nonplussed.
"Maybe it's just a wild guess, or my startling powers of deduction, but I'll go with late. Seeing as how the door woke me up and you've got the dark circles from hell going on."
"Dawn," she warned. "Language."
Her sister just rolled her eyes and started rummaging through the cabinets for breakfast. Settling on a box of Corn Pops, she pulled out a bowl, spoon, and the milk.
"So, what's got you all grumpy, this morning?"
Buffy ignored the question, her brain still busy crafting an explanation. "You know that stuff will rot your teeth."
"Maybe the monks gave me super-duper fluoride treatments or something. Like one bowl will hurt."
"All you eat is junk." She sighed, deciding now was as good a time as any to get into this. She watched Dawn put the milk away and sit beside her on a stool, spoon in hand.
"Dawn, there's something I have to tell you." The spoon paused halfway between bowl and mouth as the younger girl sought out her sister's eyes. Her muscles tensed. Those words were usually followed by something potentially world-ending.
"Um, okay."
"It's about Spike."
"Okay." The trepidation she felt before only deepened. Buffy never really talked about Spike. And despite his being a vampire, Dawn liked him. He treated her like an equal. The first thought that entered her mind was far from pleasant.
"He's not, dead, is he? Or, or deader? Or dusty?"
Buffy backpedaled quickly. "No, no. Nothing like that. Something worse, maybe. Or better. Depends on who you ask." She gave her sister a small smile.
"So? What's going on?"
"I guess it would be easiest if I just start from the beginning..."
She spent the next hour or so trying to make things clear to Dawn, who stopped her several times with questions. All in all, she was taking it well. Even the fact that Spike needed to drink her blood on two more occasions. It unnerved Buffy that she would be so willing. She was starting to feel the fact she hadn't slept and struggled to wrap things up so she could finally fall into bed.
"As far as we understand it, it means Spike will be your guardian or something. And in the end he'll be some weird, mystical, all-knowing balance keeper."
"Cool!"
Buffy glared at her little sister. "Not cool. Completely of the uncool. Do you have any idea what this is doing to him?"
"So I just go give him some blood, and then everything..."
"No. No blood. No bleeding of any kind. Your blood does all kinds of weird things, and Spike's already said that he doesn't want to hurt you."
"But you said..."
"Yeah. I said. And Giles will find another way. He has to. Spike and I talked about this, and neither one of us want his fangs anywhere near your flesh."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Dawn put on pouty face number 301 in an attempt to break her sister's resolve.
"No."
"Buffy..."
"I said no. And Spike made himself very clear."
"Fine." Dawn stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and flicked on her radio at top volume. They had no right to decide things for her, especially big things like this. She began formulating a plan. One that would keep Spike conscious. It would probably piss both of them off after the fact, but she'd deal with that when it happened.
7
As she stood under the warm spray, Buffy tried to push her roiling emotions aside. When she'd left Giles' place, she had fully intended to track Spike down to whatever dive he was lurking in, hoping to drown his sorrows. She knew it was the right thing to do. Her feet, however, had other ideas, and she found herself standing on her own front porch. Willow and Tara had departed soon thereafter. They had tried to talk to her, but she was still reeling from...well, everything. When Buffy had told them that she was fine, and that it was nothing - they seemed appeased. She needed more time. So here she was, standing in the shower trying to think about anything else and failing horribly. With a quick flick of her wrist, she turned the water off and stepped out of the tub onto the bathmat. Toweling off quickly, she donned her robe without a second thought and padded across the hall to her room.
Buffy flopped on her bed with a groan and stared at the ceiling. What could she tell him? What could she possibly say to make this easier? For a long time, she had fought to escape her destiny. Especially after what had happened with Angel. She still didn't fully accept it. And when she looked at her life she regretted the fact that something was always missing...normalcy. Something she would never have. Spike...well. In the beginning he was normal, for a vampire. Okay, maybe not so normal. And when the Initiative saddled him with the chip, he moaned and sulked for what seemed like forever, but he adjusted. After awhile he gave up searching for a way to get it out. Not because he was happy about it, but because he realized that there was nothing to be done about it. And once he'd fallen in love with her, he hadn't really mentioned it again.
She rolled onto her side with a sigh and pressed her cheek against the pillow. Naturally she didn't care to think about being chained up on the lower level of his crypt, it still turned her stomach. But it also allowed Buffy to reflect on how far he'd come since then. For all her protestations to the contrary, she knew the night they faced down Glory that he truly did love her. The scene replayed in her head, and she shivered at the sudden chill that crept up the back of her neck.
"We're not all gonna make it. You know that."
"Yeah. Hey. Always knew I'd go down fightin'"
"I'm counting on you ... to protect her."
"Till the end of the world. Even if that happens to be tonight."
"I'll be a minute."
She started upstairs, only turning back when she heard his voice.
"I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man. And that's...Get your stuff, I'll be here"
And he was. There. Even knowing that he could die, he was willing to sacrifice himself for her and Dawn. It's what the Scoobies had done for years. It wasn't something that anyone would do for the sake of obsession or infatuation. Hell, Anya skipped town when things went down on graduation day, even though she was involved with Xander at the time. No, he definitely loved her. Buffy shook her head. How the hell did I get here? None of this is going to help him, she thought. And then it dawned on her...the perfect thing to say. It had to help. Even though she knew it was a long way from making things alright, at least it would help.
If she was going to do this, it had to be now, before she lost her nerve. Buffy sprang from the bed, discarding her robe and fumbling through her drawers for clothes. After putting on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, she pulled her damp hair back in a ponytail and snuck out into the hall. She crept down the stairs, fearful of waking Dawn and pulled on the boots she had discarded earlier by the door. Compulsively, she checked the back door to make sure it was locked and then slipped outside. Now all she had to do was find Spike.
It didn't take her long.
She saw a cloud of smoke rise behind the tree in her front yard and curl up into the night sky. And she actually smiled. Buffy tiptoed up behind him, hoping to catch him off guard. All things considered, she still liked to mess with him.
"Not gonna work Slayer. Felt you before you even opened the door."
She pouted, "That's no fun. And it's not fair."
Spike chuckled weakly, "Yeah...lot in life that's not fair. Didn't your mum ever teach you that?"
Buffy cringed at the mention of her mother. "I kinda learned it the hard way."
"Suppose we all do, some time or another, eh pet?"
"Look, Spike...I don't want to argue. Actually, I was on my way to see how you were doing and talk to you."
Choking on a drag, he dropped the butt into the yard alongside three others, his face a mask of confusion. He emerged from the shadows, the streetlights bringing out the pallor of his skin and circles under his eyes.
"That right?"
She nodded. "I know there's nothing I can say to fix this. It's a big deal, and it's not like you had any real choice in the matter. But...I'm going to say what I decided to up there." Buffy pointed at the light still burning from her bedroom. His eyes drifted to the square of illumination falling on the lawn and up to the window it came from. She could have sworn he looked wistful or longing, as if he wanted so badly to be there instead of lurking out here in the shadows. Buffy gave herself a swift mental slap. Duh, of course he does. He loves you.
His voice interrupted her mindless meanderings. "Uh, love? You plan to share with the class, or are you gonna stand there chewing your lip to bits all night?"
He never made things easy. She sighed. "Yeah. All I wanted to say was...some things just are. No matter what you do, no matter how much you wish they weren't; they just are. Thinking about this made me realize a lot of things about myself actually. So, um...there's the Buffy wisdom for today." Buffy blushed as she wrapped up her little speech. Lame, she thought. So very lame.
"Care to clue me in on what we're talking about here?"
Growling, she turned to head back inside. "Nothing Spike, just...forget it. Giles said I was the only one that could understand what you're going through with this prophecy thing and I spent all night trying to figure out what could possibly help, and this is all I came up with. I don't have any flowery speeches or divine revelations, because well...that's just not me. And that's part of what I learned tonight. No matter how much I fight being a Slayer, no matter how much I yearn for that elusive normal life I'm always babbling about...it'll never happen. Because some things just are." Buffy's boots clomped against the front porch and she spun around to confront him, ready to deliver the last words of her rambling tirade. She found herself nose to chest with Spike, and took a couple stumbling steps backwards to put some distance between them.
"Ow," she said rubbing her nose.
With that he clutched his head and crumpled on the stairs. "Bloody hell!" he snarled. She reached out a comforting hand towards his shoulder, but he motioned her away. Suddenly remembering how mad she was, Buffy snatched her hand back.
"Serves you right."
Spike raised his eyes to look at her, her arms crossed over her chest, her jaw clenched, and sighed deeply. "Does it, now?"
"Yes."
"Care to explain why?"
"No."
Grumbling, he picked himself up off the ground and started off towards his crypt.
"Spike, wait." He turned back to face her, gritting his teeth against the verbal lashing that was sure to come. "Look, I'm sorry." Brow furrowed with confusion, he just stared at her, his head cocked to the side. "This didn't exactly go the way I planned. I wanted to tell you that I know what it's like and that if you need to talk about it, any of it, you can talk to me. And I promise I'll try to listen and not hit you." Buffy scuffed at the wood beneath her feet with the toe of her boot, waiting for him to answer.
"Alright then." His voice shook slightly, and the next words came out with a little more pleading in them than he had originally intended. "Now a bad time?"
"Um. I guess not. One thing though..."
"Yeah?"
"Before, why the hell did you ask me what I was talking about? It should have been pretty clear. At least it was in my head. But yeah...my head? Probably not the best environment for things that make sense."
Spike chuckled and ran a nervous hand through his hair, hoping beyond hope that his answer wouldn't send her running inside. But, he'd always been honest with her...no time to dress things up now. Not when they were finally able to be relatively civil with one another. Closing the distance between them, he settled himself on the top step, purposefully avoiding her eyes.
"Because that's exactly the way I feel about loving you."
"Oh."
The silence began to stretch from merely uncomfortable into excruciating, and Spike found himself fidgeting with his lighter. Buffy picked at invisible lint on the front of her shirt, finally breaking down to fill the empty air with words.
"So...um...about this...prophecy thing." She settled herself beside him on the step. "What did you want to talk about?"
He smiled broadly when he realized she was neither hitting him nor running away, just as she'd said. A tiny baby step in the right direction. Rushing to the surface, his words tumbled over each other as if they were all trying to get out of his mouth at once. She smiled, and he laughed, and they talked until dawn began to turn the sky from violet to pink.
*****
With a wide yawn, Buffy pushed the front door open and turned to watch Spike racing the rising sun back to his crypt. Rubbing the goose bumps from her arms, she made her way into the kitchen for water. She sank onto one of the stools and took a long draught from her glass. What a night. Thankfully, they had both made it through unscathed. There had been only a couple awkward pauses where either he or she had thrown a well-placed barb that struck too close to home. Otherwise, she had spent most of her time listening to him, letting the rich, cadent quality of his voice lull her. It was times like those she had to remind herself repeatedly what he was. Talking seemed to help him. His face reflected everything he had felt during the dreams with a clarity that seemed reserved only for him. For a minute, she had been envious. Her thoughts and feelings had a tendency to be muddled and a bit messy. If nothing else, Spike definitely knew how he felt about this. And about his grand purpose. Near the end of the night, she explained to him what Giles had told her about the prophecy and what it meant for him. What was it he said?
"I'm not exactly one for going with the flow, you know. Don't plan on bowing down to ritual now, never did before. The absence of a certain Annoying One is evidence enough of that."
Then she gave him the last bit of unsettling news. The part about not waking up.
He had sat there for a few moments, staring at the lightening sky, perhaps looking for someone to blame. When he spoke again, he seemed deflated, resigned.
"Suppose it's inevitable then," he had said, as he stood. "Tell the watcher to find another way. Won't do anything to hurt the 'Bit, not even to save my own skin." He had studied her then, for a few moments, as if trying to decide what planet she had come from. With a nod, he had turned away from her and set off in the direction of his crypt. Something made him stop short, at the end of the walkway.
"Buffy?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"Anytime."
Thundering footsteps on the stairs startled her out of her trance. Buffy glanced at the clock and groaned. Summertime usually meant sleeping in for her sister, but here it was six-thirty and she was already up roaming around.
"You're up early," Dawn said, "Or, um late."
Buffy didn't respond, she was desperately trying to figure out what to tell her, and how to do so without inflicting major emotional trauma. For her part, Dawn was nonplussed.
"Maybe it's just a wild guess, or my startling powers of deduction, but I'll go with late. Seeing as how the door woke me up and you've got the dark circles from hell going on."
"Dawn," she warned. "Language."
Her sister just rolled her eyes and started rummaging through the cabinets for breakfast. Settling on a box of Corn Pops, she pulled out a bowl, spoon, and the milk.
"So, what's got you all grumpy, this morning?"
Buffy ignored the question, her brain still busy crafting an explanation. "You know that stuff will rot your teeth."
"Maybe the monks gave me super-duper fluoride treatments or something. Like one bowl will hurt."
"All you eat is junk." She sighed, deciding now was as good a time as any to get into this. She watched Dawn put the milk away and sit beside her on a stool, spoon in hand.
"Dawn, there's something I have to tell you." The spoon paused halfway between bowl and mouth as the younger girl sought out her sister's eyes. Her muscles tensed. Those words were usually followed by something potentially world-ending.
"Um, okay."
"It's about Spike."
"Okay." The trepidation she felt before only deepened. Buffy never really talked about Spike. And despite his being a vampire, Dawn liked him. He treated her like an equal. The first thought that entered her mind was far from pleasant.
"He's not, dead, is he? Or, or deader? Or dusty?"
Buffy backpedaled quickly. "No, no. Nothing like that. Something worse, maybe. Or better. Depends on who you ask." She gave her sister a small smile.
"So? What's going on?"
"I guess it would be easiest if I just start from the beginning..."
She spent the next hour or so trying to make things clear to Dawn, who stopped her several times with questions. All in all, she was taking it well. Even the fact that Spike needed to drink her blood on two more occasions. It unnerved Buffy that she would be so willing. She was starting to feel the fact she hadn't slept and struggled to wrap things up so she could finally fall into bed.
"As far as we understand it, it means Spike will be your guardian or something. And in the end he'll be some weird, mystical, all-knowing balance keeper."
"Cool!"
Buffy glared at her little sister. "Not cool. Completely of the uncool. Do you have any idea what this is doing to him?"
"So I just go give him some blood, and then everything..."
"No. No blood. No bleeding of any kind. Your blood does all kinds of weird things, and Spike's already said that he doesn't want to hurt you."
"But you said..."
"Yeah. I said. And Giles will find another way. He has to. Spike and I talked about this, and neither one of us want his fangs anywhere near your flesh."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Dawn put on pouty face number 301 in an attempt to break her sister's resolve.
"No."
"Buffy..."
"I said no. And Spike made himself very clear."
"Fine." Dawn stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and flicked on her radio at top volume. They had no right to decide things for her, especially big things like this. She began formulating a plan. One that would keep Spike conscious. It would probably piss both of them off after the fact, but she'd deal with that when it happened.
7
