Spike and I leave Giles's place at sunset.
Without Spike making his usual annoying and/or crude comments, he's not that bad to have around. He fights pretty well; I don't have to watch out for him when we come across a group of vamps. Maybe his voice is all I really hate about him – apart from the fact that he's a vampire and he's killed people.
I wonder if I can somehow get the Gentlemen to keep Spike's voice so I don't have to listen to him ever again. He'll be easier to tolerate having around, at least.
As we walk up a street near my home, I notice a floating Gentleman outside of someone's house. I gesture to Spike before pointing, and we both move in closer. Just as we're behind a bush ready to strike, something else jumps out at us. It's a minion, I assume; it's wrapped up like a mummy and is hunched over like Igor, and despite its clumsy movements it's surprisingly tough.
It's also not human, as Spike can hit it pretty easily.
Another one shows up and Spike and I fight one each. I notice the Gentleman floating away in the background, and I hope he hasn't got another heart; it's bad enough that I let at least two people die last night.
I break the neck of the minion I'm fighting. I turn to Spike and find him pinning the other one down, but it throws him off before taking off at a run. Spike and I exchange looks before following. Hopefully it'll lead us to where the Gentlemen have set up shop.
We soon arrive at the public pool. The surface is still, in stark contrast to the fight that's going on by the large watch tower right next to it. I look closer and realize that someone is fighting off the minions, and then I realize that someone is one of those commando guys. Next to me Spike stops and looks wary, and I don't blame him. I gesture for him to stay put before I hurry to the guy's defence. I don't know what side he's on in the bigger picture, but right now our motives are the same.
I pull a minion off him before throwing it into the wall around the pool. I fight off a couple more who notice me, and suddenly with most of them on me, I conclude that they must see me as the bigger threat. I carry on taking them down, snapping necks and throwing them around until there's none left and I turn to the soldier.
I'm shocked to find Riley staring back at me.
We can't really say anything to each other, and even if we could we wouldn't have a chance to; another minion appears and jumps on Riley. He falls against the watch tower and knocks himself out. I pull the minion off him and snap his neck, and then taking a look at Riley, I realize that something can come along and take advantage of his unconscious state. So I drag him towards the pool-side lavatory and stuff him inside the men's while trying not to take a step inside myself.
When I turn back to Spike I see him smirking, obviously at my reluctance to enter. I just ignore him as we both make our way back to the watch tower.
We hurry up the stairs, and the first sight that greets us is a dead lifeguard, who I can tell has been dead for days. I then look over and notice a table with jars on it; seven, with five full. One heart belonged to the lifeguard, who I can only assume was killed on the same night we lost our voices. Two more from last night, and then two from tonight. I hate that more people have died.
Suddenly I'm grabbed by three minions and Spike is tossed to the side. I struggle, but the minions are strong and they bring me before a Gentleman holding a scalpel. But before he can move towards me he's tackled to the floor by a very pissed off Spike who's in full vamp face. He then pulls a minion off me, and I'm able to shake the other two. I'm too busy fighting more minions to notice the same Gentleman sneaking up on me, and before I can do anything he stabs me from behind.
And it just pisses Spike off more.
He leaps at the Gentleman again, only this time he rips off the hand holding the scalpel. Green goo pours out, which is…eww.
I try to ignore the pain as I continue fighting, but then I'm grabbed from behind by a minion, who tries chocking me. Despite this I'm able to get a closer look at the table holding the jars, and I notice something I didn't see before; a box.
Not just any box. It's the one the little girl was holding in my dream.
I hit my hand against the wall to get Spike's attention. He looks at me, and I point at the table. He follows my finger and sees the box, and even though his eyes are yellow and animalistic, I can see him connecting the dots. He grabs a plank of wood before running at the table and smashing the box.
White dots flash out of it, two of which enter our mouths. The minion lets go of me in shock and I stumble backwards towards the window. Then, when I'm certain that my voice is back, I let loose a loud scream.
The heads of the Gentlemen explode while the minions crumble into dust – but one makes a last ditch effort to stop me and throws itself in my direction. I'm not expecting it, and I fall backwards from the force.
And since the window is the only thing behind me…
I smash through it, still screaming, and the minion on top of me turns to dust. I look down in time to see that I'm gonna land in the water, moments before I hit the surface. And the teachers at my school weren't kidding when they said water feels like concrete when you hit it from a great height.
The force stuns me enough that I start to sink. I try and swim to the top, but the leather jacket – the one Angel gave to me way back – weighs me down. Added to that the wound in my back and the slight blood loss that comes with it, not to mention my bruises from the fight, and things don't look good for me.
Then suddenly someone else hits the water above me, and I see Spike swimming downwards. Only then does the déjà vu hit; this happened to Marcellina and Flavius, and here now, it's happening to me and Spike.
I don't think about the implications of that. Too busy drowning.
Just as I'm getting flashbacks to the last time I drowned Spike reaches me, and instantly his lips are on mine and he's breathing air into my bursting lungs. It's not a kiss; his lips don't move and neither do mine. But it still feels like one. It's a kiss of life. The irony's not lost on me that I'm being giving the kiss of life by a member of the undead.
Spike keeps his lips on mine as he pulls the jacket off of me, and with the wet leather no longer weighing me down, he pulls me up to the surface. Our lips only part when we break through the water with a gasp.
We're silent as we swim to the side, and silent still as we pull ourselves up and sit on the pool edge. The silence continues as we stare at one another, both realizing what's just happened.
Spike saved me – in the same way Flavius saved Marcellina all those centuries ago. I don't know what to be more wigged about; the fact that the save-age was the same or the fact that Spike saved me at all.
Of course, it's not the first time. He saved me from that other vamp when I hurt myself. And then there were his actions in the tower; he vamped out and attacked one of the Gentlemen twice, simply because that Gentleman meant to do me harm. It's the instinct that has taken over us recently; the need to protect one another despite the fact that we hate each other.
And yet, I can't bring myself to be angry at him. I could have died tonight. Plus, I'm doing the same; it's not just him.
Every time I see him in danger all I see are the others – Brennus, Eros, Flavius – turning to dust. And even though he never witnessed the death of each Slayer – Boudicca, Psyche, Marcellina – the fact that he knows they died is enough for him to have the same instincts towards me.
"Maybe," he says, breaking the silence at last, "they're part of us. I'm not sayin' they are us. Just…part of us. Would explain why we go so crazy and protective when we see each other in danger."
I see what he means. I can't deny that we hold some form of connection to the Slayers and vampires of the past. Reincarnation, them being us… I don't think I can deal with that. But them being part of us, just a little bit… I can cope a little better, and it would serve as an explanation as to what's happening to us.
"So what do we do?" I ask. "How…how can we go on hating each other when things like this keep happening?" If we didn't hate each other then maybe all this would be easier to take in; easier to accept. It can't all be that hard and maybe if we're getting along we can figure this all our sooner…
That's when it hits me.
I don't hate him anymore.
Since the dreams have been happening I've been trying to hate him. Pretending. Forcing myself to make it easier to cope. I don't like change; if I stop hating Spike then everything else will start changing, and it's so easy to hate Spike and doing so is like a reflex.
And so I never noticed when I went from genuinely hating Spike to pretending to hate Spike.
I don't even know why. All I know is that it's not just the dreams; he's been there, helping us out with stuff. He saved me – many times now. He told me about Slayers and their death wishes, and discussed the meanings of the dreams with us. He even goes out and slays both demons and his own kind. Just for kicks, of course, but every little helps.
And somewhere along the way, I just stopped hating him.
That doesn't mean I love him. That doesn't even mean I like him. But I don't hate him anymore, and I doubt I ever will again.
He looks at me and his eyes widen, and through some weird Slayer sense I never realized I had, I know he's come to the same conclusion. "Slayer…"
"I don't…" I bite my lip; thinking it in my head is totally different to admitting it aloud. "I don't…think…I hate you anymore. Actually, I'm sure. I…don't hate you."
He looks a little surprised. "Yeah…same here. Bloody hell. I keep tellin' myself that I wanna rip your throat out, but every time I imagine it, it makes me sick. What the hell have you done to me, Summers?"
"I could ask you the same thing," I say. "Stupid dreams making everything complicated where we don't hate each other. It was so much easier when we wanted to kill each other."
He nods in agreement and our eyes meet. And for a moment, everything is easy; not hating him is easy, liking him is easy, loving him… The possibilities of what could happen between us feel so much easier to handle when I look into his eyes. In them I see Brennus, Eros, Flavius… And when I see them I feel the love they held for the other Slayers, and I feel the love those Slayers had for them.
I don't realize we're leaning towards one another until our lips touch.
The kiss is soft and tender, and something I so didn't expect from someone like Spike. Most of our kisses during out faux engagement were heated and fuelled by passion, but some were tender like this. During the very rare times when I'm not pretending it never happened, I wonder about the tender kisses, before writing them off as part of the spell. I can't write them off as that now, because we're not under any spell and he's kissing me so gently… 'Gentle' is a word I never thought I'd use to describe Spike, but hey, I never thought I'd be kissing him, either.
Life's full of surprises.
The rational part of my brain keeps telling me to pull away as fast as I can – I may not hate him anymore but he's still a vampire and he's still evil – but the other part of my brain keeps pushing that part down and telling it to shut up. And that's fine with me, because to be honest, Spike's actually not a bad kisser, and…
"Buffy?"
I pull away faster than I thought I could and I turn to see Riley. He's staring at me in a mixture of confusion, hurt…and anger. Great.
"Riley…"
Spike takes one look at him before jumping to his feet. "I'm off." He grabs his duster from where he dropped it – probably when he jumped out of the window – before taking off at a run.
I don't blame him. There could've been trouble if Riley recognized him.
Once Spike's gone, Riley turns back to me. "So that's why you don't want to date me? Because you're smacking lips with that…punk?"
"He saved me from drowning," I reply honestly. "I guess I just…got caught up in the moment. Riley, I wasn't lying about what I said before; I don't feel anything for you. And I don't think we really have that much in common."
"So what was that, then?" He gestures to the bottom of the watch tower, where no more than ten minutes ago he and I were fighting back to back.
I hesitate. "It's a long story. I'm cold and I'm tired, and I can't deal with this right now."
"Right. I'll see you later." And with that he storms away, not even looking back – and not even bothering to ask if I need a lift.
When I reach the street I see Spike waiting for me. He doesn't say a word; instead he wraps his duster around me, and I accept the extra protection. It's not warm, but it wouldn't be, and it gives me an extra layer. We don't say anything as we start to walk back home, but if this misadventure has taught me anything, it's that sometimes we don't need to talk.
I later go back to retrieve the jacket Angel gave to me, only to find it gone.
