Later, Buffy walks out of the bathroom with new clothes, drying her hair. Searching for Spike, she looks around and finds him sitting on the couch, staring down at the cell phone held in one hand.
She asks, "You ok?"
He looks at her, begins to say something and then stops. He stands and instead says, "I need to hit something."
"I'll take it that it was intense."
After handing Buffy her phone, Spike walks to the chair and grabs his jacket. Placing his scarred arms in the sleeves, he says, "There's an alleyway a little ways from here where vamps like to pick off rookie whores that don't know where to advertise. You up for a little brawl?"
"Can't you just drink your angst away tonight?"
He walks to the door. "Good thinking. We'll drop by the liquor store on our way back."
"Fine, but you dust them. I just took a shower."
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Buffy and Spike are in the alleyway he had mentioned. A male vampire is being juggled back and forth between them and their attacks.
"So," Buffy asks after punching the vampire, "Want to talk about it?"
"No," replies Spike as he hits the same vampire back in her direction.
Holding their battered opponent from running away or just falling to the ground, Buffy comments, "You know, I understand if she said something that hurt you, heck I even think you deserve it, but she probably didn't mean it."
The pummeled vampire asks, "Are you two in the middle of something, 'cause I can leave."
Buffy says, "Shut up," and punches the vampire back to Spike. "Just give her some time."
Grabbing the vampire by the collar, Spike looks at her and shakes his head chuckling slightly.
The vampire says to Spike, "I know. Women, right? Always asking you to share their feelings."
Spike says, "The lady told you to shut up," and strikes him in the face, sending him back to Buffy. She steps aside and trips the vampire to the ground. After giving him a kick, she tells him to stay down and looks back up to Spike.
"You don't want to talk about it, fine," she says, "But can we stop using this guy as a punching bag? This is getting sad."
"Yeah sure, but how was I supposed to know that he fights like a gerbil?"
The weak vampire manages to roll away, stand, and start running.
Spike says, "You let him get away!"
"He's not my kill, remember?"
Groaning in annoyance, Spike chases after their prey. Fortunately, the vampire is running with a limp, so Spike quickly catches up and tackles the vampire with a stake aimed right behind the heart. Before the tackled vampire can hit the ground, Spike lands hard on a thin layer of dust over asphalt.
He lays in the dust for a moment as Buffy makes her way over with no hurry. Before getting to his feet, Spike sweeps a drift of the dust in one hand. Standing, he clutches the powder in front of himself, turns, and he says to her, "This is the ticket to atonement, right? That's what Angel came to L.A. to do, isn't it? Kill the bad guys, help the helpless, and eventually you win the grand prize… or become a CEO for evil."
"What's wrong, Spike?"
"I said to him, I said, I fought for my soul, I said 'cause it was the right thing to do, and he said it was to get in a girl's pants. Ha!" He lets the dust fall. "He got me there."
"If you going to start mumbling crazy conversations to yourself again, I'm going to need a translator."
"Do you think I'm worth redemption?"
She's taken aback by the blunt question, and doesn't know how to respond.
"Didn't expect that from me, did you? Yeah, me neither. The fumes from the mighty Forehead's hair gel must be giving me lofty thoughts. I mean, I saved the world, didn't I? That must have tipped the scales at least an inch in my favor."
"What are you asking me?"
"I asked it already, nice and simple. Do you think I'm worth redemption? Maybe not now, but eventually," he points down the alleyway, "Down the road, near the horizon, will all my sins be forgiven?"
"How could I possibly answer that? What am I, your judge?"
"Who else could be? Who's seen me from more angles than you, inside and out? At my best and my worst. Things I've done to people, things I've done to you." They both remember that night in the bathroom.
"Before you get all high from the woe-is-me, let me list my crimes, take it to a priest." Buffy starts to walk back to Spike's place.
With the sliver of a pained smile, Spike says, "She asked if I was in heaven." Buffy stops and turns back with a slow shock. "Dawn, she thought maybe the reason I didn't tell you all was that I was in some paradise-withdraw, like you when you came back. Cute, thinking a damned man like me could go there."
Barely finding her voice, she asks, "What did you tell her?"
"The truth, that I was nowhere and no-when. Like I said before, one moment I was burning in the Hellmouth, the next I was a ghost in the lobby months later. For me, there was nothing in between. Lucky, I guess, considering what I deserve when the final death comes knocking." He takes a pause. "And then she went on about my sins belonging to the demon and not the man. I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise."
"Spike, you didn't have a soul."
Spike chuckles and says, "Oh, right, I forgot. I was on a hundred and twenty year vacation and a demon rented out my body. Pretty story, that is. But did you ever think that maybe that's all it is, a story your Watcher told you so that you can sleep at night after you washed the dust from your hair?" He swipes off the residue of dust from his leather jacket.
"You of all people should know you're not the same person."
"Oh, I'm not?" He points to his head. "'Cause it's all the same in here, luv. The hunger, the sadism, the love. But instead of a chip zapping my deeds, there's a soul zapping my thoughts with voices and memories. Guilt and electricity ain't all that different, except guilt's worse."
"It can't be that simple."
"You're right, it's not, but you're the one that wants to make it simple. It gnaws at you, doesn't it, that even with a soul I'm almost the same as I was? Yeah, it gnaws at you. Shakes what you need to believe, about him. He makes it nice and clear cut with his Jekyll and Hyde act. But I know the truth, and he sees it every time he looks at me, and he hates me for it."
Buffy is hurt, confused and she doesn't know what to say.
Spike notices the pain in her eyes and clutches his head with doubt. He leans against the brick wall, and says, "Or maybe I'm different, maybe there is a clear cut and my soul's all wrong." He slides to the pavement. "Serves me right for getting it through a demon."
She crouches in front of him. All she can say is, "Spike."
"It didn't hit me till after I talked to Dawn. Nothing, my sacrifice under the Hellmouth, the best thing I ever did, was worth nothing, a literal nothingness."
"Or a second chance."
At that Spike just smiles faintly. Buffy sits down by his side.
He asks, "Where did you think I was, before you found out that I was alive?"
"I never thought about it."
"Nice to know I was in your thoughts."
"No, I mean that I try not to think about things related to the afterlife. It hurts too much."
For a long pause they listen to the sounds of the city.
Buffy looks up at the sky and cannot see any stars, let alone constellations. She says, "Spike, I have no idea what some stupid cosmic scale of justice has to say about you, and honestly it doesn't matter to me, because I know you're a good man."
"Good man, good man…"
They turn their heads, faces inches apart.
Spike says, "I can still smell him on your lips."
"Forgot to wash my face."
"I want to kiss you, but I'm not sure which I'm more afraid of, that you won't let me or that you will."
Touching his cheek, she says, "You should know by now that kissing me is always worse", and kisses his lips with an unbearable lightness that pains more than teeth just as guilt pains more than electricity.
She pulls back and he says, "You were right, that was worse."
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
He turns away and looks at the sky hued with the yellow and orange of city lights. "Good man? Redemption and heaven aside, let me ask you, if someday, who knows when if ever, me or Angel walks to your door in daylight and knocks with the echo of our heart beat, who do you want to be on the other side of the door when you open it?"
"What?"
"You know, what's it called, the, the shooshan, shanshu, whatever it is. The prophecy about the vampire with a soul who gets to be a real boy if he saves the day enough times. Now that I'm in the running, do you think I've a chance?"
She stares at him in confusion.
Brows arched in surprise, he asks, "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
"No."
Spike starts to laugh uncontrollably. "The bloody git! He never told you. He never told you! Haha! Oh, that's just so wrong. So wrong. Wow! Now that's worthy of the old Angelus. Haha!"
The hear glass cracking under foot, and turn just in time to see Angel disappear from the alleyway.