My head is reeling when I walk into the house, dazedly kicking the front door closed behind me as I do.
"Buffy?"
I blanch slightly, the sound of my name being called from the other room bringing me sharply out of my thoughts, though the swirling warmth from a moment ago, from Spike's words, is still pervading my chest.
"Yeah," I say, shrugging out of my jacket and hanging it on the coat rack. "It's me."
I step through the foyer and into the living room.
Mom and Dawn are crashed out on the sofa, a big, fluffy blanket covering their legs, watching a movie. Mom looks over and smiles at me when I walk in.
I blink at them, a little stunned to find them both still up, still wide awake.
I feel suddenly like I haven't seen either of them in weeks.
Dawn looks over and smiles too, but the expression shifts a little as she looks at me. One eyebrow goes up.
"What's up?" She asks, shifting slightly on the sofa to make room for me, angling her body toward mine. "You look freaked."
Do I?
I don't feel freaked.
Not really.
I feel…overwhelmed maybe. Shocked, but not really surprised. And warm.
And okay, yeah, maybe a little freaked.
Not that I can go into any detail about that now.
"Not freaked, exactly," I say, coming further into the room, dropping down onto the sofa beside Dawn. I lean around her, catching Mom's eyes with mine. "Do you remember Quinton Travers?" At her puzzled look, I reluctantly continue on. "You know, that whole…Watchers Council test thingy from a couple years ago?"
I can see it on her face when she realizes what I'm talking about. Her eyes go very wide, cheeks draining of whatever slightly rosy color had been in them a moment ago.
She shifts her eyes quickly down to Dawn, who still doesn't know this entire story, then back up to me.
She nods. "I do."
"Yeah," I say, exhaling. "Well, the boys are back in town."
And one girl, I think to myself, biting back the bitterness on my tongue, the slight wave of envy that threatens to choke out some of the tingling warmth from earlier.
I force it back down before it can.
Mom sucks in a deep breath, bringing me back to the moment.
"Oh, Buffy, no," she breathes, the slightest hint of fear, of that gripping motherly concern that manages to sound both worried and disapproving at the same time.
The same tone I've heard so, so many times since the night I'd first admitted to being the Slayer.
I immediately reach for her, passed Dawn, placing my hand over hers and squeezing.
I shake my head. "No, it isn't like that…" I make a face. "Exactly. No way creepy abandoned houses or insane vamps to fight." I squeeze her hand one more time before pulling it back into my own lap and shrugging, going for casual. "They just wanted to…check on me."
As I say the words, hear them in my head; I have to admit I'm pretty impressed with myself. It almost sounds like even I believe that.
Either way, I guess my explanation does the trick. Mom looks visibly less shaken when she nods at me. "How long are they staying for?"
Good question.
"I don't know for sure," I tell her, leaning my back against the large armrest behind me, twisting my hands together in my lap. "The first half of the review was today, and the second is tomorrow—"
Dawn cuts me off, her eyebrow raised high again. "Review?"
I nod, letting out a small sound somewhere between a chuckle and a groan, rolling my neck back so I can look up at the ceiling.
"Oh, yeah." I close my eyes. "A quote en quote 'exhaustive check of my methods', whatever that means." I open my eyes again, letting my head roll to the side, feeling the tension straining in my shoulders as I do. "I would have told you guys last night but I didn't want to worry you." I sit up straight again, putting my hand on my shoulder and pushing it backwards, stretching out the sore muscle. "Plus, I got home pretty late and—"
Dawn cuts me off again.
"Had a pow wow with Spike in the kitchen."
I freeze, hand still digging into my shoulder, staring at her. She just looks back at me like it's no big deal, shrugging casually. "Yeah, we heard you guys come in."
"You did?" I ask, brow furrowing.
Not because they'd heard us, but because I could have sworn we'd kept it down. Had consciously made an effort not to make too much noise, to keep our voices low.
I look toward Mom, who actually has an almost sheepish expression on her face. Like she's…embarrassed?
I frown.
"I got a little…worried when I thought I heard a male voice downstairs," she admits, smiling at me. "I checked your room first but you weren't there, so—"
"So she came and got me," Dawn interjects, again sounding so casual, almost bored. "And I explained it was probably just Spike."
I stare at Dawn, and it's my turn to raise my eyebrows at her.
I'm not panicked, or worried that they know. That they heard us. That they both seem to not only know that Spike was here, but that they both seem to be pretty casual about it.
Not surprising on Dawn's end, I guess, but Mom…well, I guess if I'm honest enough with myself it isn't so surprising either. She's always had sort of this weird soft spot where Spike's concerned.
It's never been much of a secret that she's always preferred him to Angel. It used to majorly wig me out.
Maybe she was just seeing something there that I couldn't.
So I probably shouldn't be surprised that she doesn't seem to think a whole lot of the fact that he was here, in the middle of the night, spending time with her oldest daughter who, last she knew, hated the bleached vampire.
And now I'm also kind of wondering what else Dawn might have told her.
I raise my eyebrows a little higher, the corner of my lips quirking into a small, wry smile.
"Oh, you did, huh?"
It's obvious by the tone of my voice what it is I'm actually asking her. My little sister's lips twitch like she wants to smile, but she doesn't.
Just nods.
I narrow my eyes at her slightly.
And as if to answer my unspoken question, Mom clears her throat, bringing my eyes directly back to hers.
She has a soft expression on her face. Her eyes slightly crinkled at the corners, twinkling a little as she looks at me. I can see her mouth is curved up in a smile, too. A tiny one, one that you might not even know was there if you weren't looking hard enough.
But I see it.
"I didn't know the two of you were so close, Buffy," she says, again in that Mom way. Where I know she's hinting at knowing more than she's saying, that her words hold a meaning she doesn't feel the need to explicitly state.
On cue, my cheeks flood with a fresh wave of heat. Not embarrassment, but something fresher. More pure.
Like when you tell a little girl you know she has a crush on that little boy she sits next to in her first grade classroom.
I'm blushing.
"It's…sort of a new development," I murmur, my own lips pulling into their own small, almost secretive smile. I shrug. "No biggie, really."
Which isn't true. Not even remotely.
It's a big biggie. Huge.
But Dawn doesn't even know that Spike and I have sealed the deal, and now isn't the time to be discussing all that, either. There will be plenty of time to explain all of that later. Much later. Say, when the Pocket Protector Pals have hopped their jet back to the motherland.
Mom gives me a long sideways look, like she doesn't quite believe me, but she nods anyway.
And it's funny. Even though I'd explicitly told Dawn not to say anything to Mom and any of this, I'm kind of glad that she did. While it's in Spike's best interest to tell as few people as possible right now, I like not having to hide it…at least not completely…from my family.
"Alright," she says, shifting the fuzzy blanket off her legs and pushing herself to a standing position. "Well, now that you're home, I think I'll head on up to bed." She winces a little, pressing two fingers to the side of her head as she does.
My smile immediately falls, and I get to my feet, too.
"What's wrong?" I ask, stepping toward her automatically.
Mom drops her hand from her temple, trying for another smile. "Nothing, Buffy. I'm fine. Still not feeling 100%, but I'm fine."
I frown, glancing down at Dawn once before back to Mom.
"Can I get you anything?" I ask, moving with her as she walks around me, moving for the foyer and the staircase. She smiles at me warmly, shaking her head.
"No, sweetie, that's okay." She reaches out, running a hand affectionately down my hair. "I'll see you in the morning."
Dawn barely waits for Mom to disappear up the stairs before she asks, "Okay, what's really going on?"
I wait until Mom disappears over the top of the landing and moves toward the hallway before I turn back to my sister. She's leaning over the edge of the sofa's armrest now, pinning me with a determined expression.
"What do you mean?" I ask, glancing one more time out the big bay window behind the sofa as I fold my arms up over my chest and walk back toward her.
Dawn rolls her eyes, like I should already know. "Why did you look so deer-in-headlights when you came in?"
I toy with the idea of lying to her.
With coming up with some excuse, telling her it had been nothing.
Blaming all of my bug eyed, deer-in-headlights-ness on the Council's review.
But there's something on her face that makes me pause before the words can leave my lips.
"Think I might be fallin' in love with you."
I've told Dawn everything, err…almost everything else about this thing between me and Spike…why would I stop now?
Besides, if I ever needed a generally-unbiased-towards-Spike sounding board…now is probably the time.
"It's just something Spike said," I say, dropping my voice down a level and coming to sit beside her on the sofa. I lean back into the cushions and turn to look at her, and she's looking at me with this serious expression. Both eyebrows drawn together, her lips pursed.
"Something bad?" she asks, and I actually have to fight the urge to laugh out loud.
Something bad?
I shake my head.
My gut reaction to that question is no. That it's the opposite of bad.
I sigh, letting my head loll back onto the back of the sofa, thinking about what it is I want to say.
How much I want to tell her.
I take a deep breath in, then let my head fall to the side so my eyes are locked with hers.
"He told me he thinks he might be falling in love with me."
Dawn's eyes light up, her brow smoothing over, the corners of her lips curving upwards.
She folds her arms loosely over her chest and leans backward.
"And this is a surprise to you?" she asks, eyebrow raised.
I blink at her, frowning slightly.
"It's not to you?"
The way she looks at me makes me feel like it's the dumbest question I've ever asked.
"Umm, no," she says, shaking her head and laughing at my apparently obvious obliviousness. "Not even a little bit."
I guess when I really think about it, I find I'm not all that surprised. Maybe I just thought I should be surprised, and that's why I'd acted the way I had.
That's when I realize.
It isn't the fact that he'd said it that had me surprised on the front porch. It was the way he'd said it, the unequivocal knowing he'd put into the words. The rush of sensation I'd felt flooding from him afterwards.
No, the words themselves weren't a surprise. The genuineness of the emotion, however, was.
How very much he'd meant the words when he'd said them.
And to me, of all people.
Even with the connection, with the claim…this feels different.
Bigger.
"Did you say it back?"
I blink, Dawn's question drawing me out of my thoughts and back into the moment. I look at her, and she's staring back at me expectantly.
"Say it back?" I ask, digging my hands into the sofa cushions below me and pushing myself up until I'm sitting straight again. "Dawn, say what back?" I'm falling in love with you, too? How lame would that have been? I shake my head, pinning her with a raised eyebrow. "He didn't…it's not like he actually professed it or anything. And I still don't…" I trail off, chewing lightly on my bottom lip, looking down at my hands in my lap. "It's just not making a lot of sense to me right now."
It's not the truth. Not really.
Spike, my relationship with him, is just about the only thing making sense to me right now, connection and claim be damned. What he'd said to me had caught me off guard, but it hadn't not made sense.
It made a lot of sense. Like it's just the natural next step in whatever eternity long situation we seem to have gotten ourselves in to.
Even if that comes along with it's own little set of wig inducing issues.
"Why is the Council here?" Dawn asks, jarring me once again out of my jumbled internal monologue.
"I told you—" I begin dismissively, but Dawn shakes her head, cutting me off.
"Something to make Mom feel better. Why are they really here?" She thinks about it for a minute, and then her eyes go wide. "Oh! Does it have something to do with this thing going on with Spike?"
Her voice is loud, louder than I think she'd expected it to be, and it echoes up through the living room, making me wince.
I put both hands out toward her, pressing them palm down into the air to indicate for her to be quiet.
"Okay, percepto-girl, wanna take it down a notch?"
Dawn nods, looking at me sheepishly. I sigh, dropping my hands back down into my lap, casting one quick glance back over to the staircase. No movement.
"Yeah, it does." I turn my eyes back to Dawn's. "But they don't know its Spike." I make a face, grimacing slightly. "They think its Angel."
Dawn's eyes widen slightly and she lets out a tiny "Oh." And then a moment later her face relaxes slightly and she nods. "Good."
I roll my eyes.
So I guess that makes two Summers women now who would vote for the blonde over the brunette.
Well, three.
"Anyway," I say, drawing the conversation well away from my ex and back onto the issue at hand. "I guess Giles called them and told them…sort of what happened. Asked them for help, if they'd send over any resources they had. They decided they'd come here and play a round of 'Make Buffy Miserable' instead."
"I'm sorry," Dawn says. She might not know everything that happened that weekend during the Cruciamentum. Mom, Giles and I had done a good job of hiding the more horrific parts from her somehow, but she knows enough to recognize how unsettled the Council makes me.
And why.
I shrug. "It's okay." I force a small, hopefully reassuring smile. "Right now I'm just trying to play by their rules and get them gone."
She nods in understanding, turning away from me, back toward whatever movie was playing on the TV. It's rolling credits now.
It's silent between us for a little while after this. Dawn eventually reaches over and grabs the remote control, flipping the TV off and sending us and the rest of the living room into darkness.
"So what are you gonna do?" she finally asks, tucking her legs up underneath her and looking back at me.
I sigh, letting out a long, slow exhale through my nose.
"Finish the review, I guess."
It's quiet for another moment.
Then, "I meant about Spike."
I think I already knew that. Knew it when she asked, knew it when I answered.
I don't look at her as I respond now.
"I don't know."
Because I don't.
Or I do, but I don't know how to go about doing it. But it's one of those things that I feel so strongly. Not a feeling really, but a knowing. Its there in the back of mind, has that distinct edge of inevitability to it.
Inevitable.
It feels like that's how most things in my life are going lately.
The same way drifting apart from Riley had been. The same way being completely, wholly drawn to Spike had been. The way I'd known he'd come to me if I asked. The way we'd both known it was only a matter of time before we completed the blood bond between us. This is like that, too.
I will love him.
I know it, somewhere down deep. The place in my bones, in my gut, where I'd known everything else.
I will love Spike.
I think there's a part of me that already does.
And, irony of ironies, I actually think it's the Slayer part of me. The darkness, the demon.
And even as I fully recognize it, feel it, know how very much a part of me it is…another part of me instinctively rejects it. The holier than thou, I'm the Slayer, I fight evil part. The part of me so stung, so traumatized by what had happened with Angelus that it's still firmly convinced that demon's can't love.
That demon's without souls can't love.
And this just reminds me again of what I'd realized earlier. That it hadn't been the words, the confession itself that had left me so shocked on the porch, but the feeling behind them.
"Do you still not know how you feel?" Dawn asks me, her bright blue eyes searching mine curiously.
I sigh, feeling the air travel through my lungs, filling them up slowly before I let myself exhale again.
"It's not really about how I feel," I say finally.
Because it isn't.
It's less about how I feel and more about how he feels. Or rather, the truth of what he feels…thinks he feels.
Whether or not what either of us senses happening between us is real, if it's actually coming from us, or if it's something else entirely. Something out of our control all together, manifested itself as a result of everything else.
Some kind of cosmic side effect.
It's a lot to take in, a lot to sort through.
My head suddenly feels very, very heavy.
And as if reading my mind, Dawn yawns loudly, pushing herself up to her feet and turning one more time to look down at me.
"Maybe you should sleep on it."
I look at her for a long moment before I finally nod, getting up to my feet, too.
"Yeah," I say softly, turning one more time to glance out the big, dark windows leading out to the front yard. For the first time in weeks, I don't feel Spike out there. "Maybe I should."
I don't know how long I've been asleep for when my eyes suddenly fly open, taking in the darkness all around me. There's a sliver of moonlight filtering into the room, enough for me to see by, but not much. The shadows it casts across the far wall seem deeper than usual.
It's quiet. Much too quiet. Normally I can hear something. The wind, the sound of the house settling, some distant bump in the night coming from Dawn's room, or Mom's. The sound of my sister padding down the hall to the bathroom
But there's nothing.
I glance toward my bedroom door and notice that it's open, but just a crack. Like someone's opened it and slipped inside, not bothering to shut it all the way afterwards.
There's no light in the hallway, either.
And the room feels heavy. Dark in a way that doesn't have anything to do with the black night sky I can see outside my window.
It's my room, but it…isn't. It feels wrong.
Something's wrong.
Frowning, I brace my palm down flat beside me, readying to push myself up into a sitting position when I hear it.
"Well, well," he whispers, his voice low and smooth, lips soft against my ear. I feel the chill from his fingers, gliding up and over my bare arm. "Look who's awake."
Spike's hand comes to rest over my shoulder, chipped black nails digging firmly into my skin, pulling me backward, closer to him.
I turn instinctively, willingly in his arms, rolling over to face him.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, keeping my own voice soft, very low. Spike's eyes glitter at me through the darkness and he tilts his head slightly to the side. I press the palm of my hand into his bare chest, feeling the smooth, hard plans of his muscles beneath my touch.
He smirks at me.
"You know why I'm here, Slayer," he whispers, voice honeyed, seductive. He drops his eyes down away from mine, focusing them on my arm instead. On the silky, slow path his fingers are trailing up my skin.
I swallow hard, my own eyes glued to his face.
"I do?" I ask hesitantly, keenly aware of the unnatural darkness in the room. How I can just barely make out the sharp lines of Spike's cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, the swell of his bottom lip.
Nothing about this feels right.
Spike just nods, the smirk on his lips curving more fully. The slow smirk suddenly turns wicked.
An expression I haven't seen, haven't really seen, in months.
But it's the lack of emotion coming from him that seals it, lets me know exactly what this is. Why everything feels so off.
A dream.
"Here to get what's mine." His hand trails up my arm, gliding smoothly over my shoulder, further on up to my neck. He splays his hand over the place where I vaguely seem to recognize his mark is supposed to be.
But when he touches me, I feel nothing.
No sense of ownership. No shuddering jolt. No thrill down my spine.
Nothing.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, I'm afraid.
I'm afraid of this version of Spike lying beside me.
It's just a dream.
And even as I force myself to say it, to recognize it, my stomach starts to twist.
And that's when his grip tightens, the pad of his thumb suddenly digging hard into the base of my throat.
My hand flies up automatically, nails scraping the smooth flesh of his chest as I yank it back, covering his hand with mine. Pulling at it as hard as I can.
The pressure only increases.
I start to cough.
Wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
"Spike," I manage to choke his name out between increasingly panicked gasps, trying, failing to suck whatever air I can into my lungs.
I'm starting to see spots behind my eyes.
Continuing to pull at the hand on my throat, I can feel the strength as it's stripped from my muscles. My eyes flutter shut, vision going blurry.
"Look at me."
My eyes snap open again, and he's staring straight at me. The gleaming gold of his demon pinning me with such staggering malice, such mind numbing hatred, that if I had any air left in my lungs, it would have been stolen.
Hot tears sting my eyes as I try and pull in one last, ragged breath.
Just as I'm about to let it happen, let the darkness that's crowding in around my eyes, against my mind, have me… everything changes.
The first thing I notice is that we're no longer in my bed, inside my bedroom, but outside. In the cemetery. Somewhere I vaguely recognize but don't, like this, too, is wrong. Off.
The second thing I notice is that I feel like I'm two places at the same time. Standing to the side, watching the events of the dream as they unfold, but also…me. Like I'm experiencing everything from more than one angle.
Like I'm being allowed to see something.
It's with this wiggy two-places-at-once feeling that I realize what is that's happening in this part of the dream. It's still about Spike, or more accurately, Spike and I.
We're engaged with each other, mid-fight. I'm able to land several solid punches to his stomach, his chest, and finally one to his jaw before he whirls around and catches me off guard. I recognize the move, somewhere deep in my subconscious. It's the kick.
That spinning kick that Spike had forced me to learn how to block.
I don't block it in the dream.
His kick comes down hard against the side of my head, knocking me backward. It sends me flying, hard, into a large headstone. My head flies back into the grave marker with a sickening thud, cracking the massive piece of stone in half.
I sink to the ground, eyes wide open, but glassy. Unfocused. Unseeing.
I barely have time to register from the sidelines what it is that's happened before the cemetery starts to melt away.
And then suddenly things shift again. We're not in the cemetery, not outside, but back in Spike's crypt.
And we're having sex.
Not in the worn down armchair, where we'd been the last time, but somewhere else. Somewhere very dark.
It doesn't even look like the crypt to my eyes. Not really. But somehow, again, I know that's where we are.
Possibly the room downstairs, the one I've never seen.
And we're on a bed. Our bodies entwined, naked, moving at a languorous, unhurried pace. I can hear the sounds we're making, little pants, soft moans, both of us breathing heavily. I'm on top of him, hips undulating a steady, pulsing rhythm in time with the heady groans of pleasure that seem to be coming from both of our lips.
And I can see it all, feel it all, again at the same time. Every detail, down to the sweat from my skin gleaming in the dim light cast by the single torch on the wall.
I lean further into him, palms pressed flat to his chest, nails digging so hard into his perfect skin I draw blood.
He cries out and arches his hips up into me, and I throw my head back, gasping.
Then he suddenly flips us, my back slamming hard down into the mattress as he surges his body forward, his pelvis flush against mine, pressing hard into me. And I feel it happen, watch it happen, as my inner muscles clench and begin fluttering around him. Feel him letting go and following me over the edge.
And just as I fall apart beneath him, he growls, eyes glowing feral and yellow and buries his fangs savagely in the top of my breast. He pulls one long, slow swallow of my blood into his mouth.
I shudder beneath him again, hands flying to his hair as if to pull him away from me as my legs begin shaking, toes starting to go numb.
But I feel weak. The grip I have in his hair ineffective, my fingers slipping back down to his shoulders as he continues to drink from me. Deep, hearty pulls of my blood, one after the other. Just when I think he's about to stop, he keeps going.
And I just lie there, unable to move. Unable to speak. My arms and legs so numb, so spent, that I don't even have enough energy in me to protest.
Even though I know I'm dying.
After another endless moment, I vaguely feel Spike pull away from me, his fangs stinging as they release my swollen flesh.
And I hear it. The soft, murmured word, through the haze of black that's threatening to consume me.
"Mine."
After another endless moment, my hands go cold.
I wake up screaming.
Not just a small scream, either. Not a little gasping sound, the kind I woke up to every night when my dreams first began all those months ago.
Screaming in a way I know I haven't since the first time I ever went hunting with Merrick.
I've thrashed so much in my sleep that my thick comforter is half on, half off the bed. I'm fisting the tangled sheets in my hands, a cold sweat pouring down my back, leaving my skin damp, chilled, covered in goose bumps.
My heart is hammering against my ribs.
It takes a minute for my heart to stop racing, and once it does, the nausea sets in.
And it isn't me that I feel sick for. Isn't me that I'm immediately concerned about. I don't have to wonder; don't have to think for one minute about what it is that I've just seen.
Spike's dreams. His nightmares.
The ones he'd started having the last time he'd tried to kill me.
I knew what they'd been about. That they'd been about…killing me. He'd told me. Had even told Giles.
But he'd never described them…
My stomach rolls again, thinking about how real, how incredibly real they had felt. Even though I'd know, actively known, throughout that they were just that. Dreams.
And a horrible thought hits me out of nowhere, making my head ache. Does Spike still have them?
He hasn't mentioned them to me, but would he, if he did?
Oh, God.
I reach both shaking hands up to push the sweat-slick strands of hair off my face, running my fingers through the tangled mess of my hair.
When I look over at the lock, I realize I've slept all day.
It's almost 4 o-clock in the afternoon.
I have to see Spike. Now.
I stumble out of bed, my feet tangled in the sweat soaked sheets, and haphazardly yank some clothes out of my closet, not bothering to really check if it's an outfit that works before hastily throwing it on and bounding out of my room.
I don't even bother explaining where I'm going when Mom asks me, just shout over my shoulder that I'll be back later and tear off down the street toward Restfield.
It takes me only minutes to reach Spike's crypt, and I don't stop for one second to think that someone might be watching me. That someone might think to ask me why it is I'm flying down the street to visit my oh-so-reluctant vampire ally in the middle of the afternoon.
I don't care.
I only have one thing on my mind right now, and it has absolutely nothing, nothing, to do with the Council.
And as soon as I push the heavy door open and step inside, he's there.
Spike's already there. Standing, shirtless, at the bottom of the crypt's small set of stairs and pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
"Buffy?" He asks, whipping his head around immediately, taking in my flustered appearance with big, worried eyes.
The same way I'm taking in his.
He looks terrible.
Or…as terrible as someone that looks like Spike can.
Smallish, slightly purple bags under his eyes, like he hasn't slept at all. Platinum curls standing up in disarray, partially still gelled, twisted this way and that on his head like he's been tossing and turning. His azure eyes are wide, haunted.
Looking at me a little bit like he's seen a ghost.
Like I've startled him.
But the position of his body, the way he's standing right in front of his steps, just where he knows the sun won't reach him, lets me know he's probably been expecting me.
"Yeah," I say, the word coming out strained, my voice still a little hoarse from sleep.
Maybe from the screaming.
"Shouldn't be here, pet," he says quietly, but he's already up the stairs, grabbing hold of one of my shaking hands and pulling me to him. He maneuvers us back down the steps and into the open interior of the crypt. "Look bloody strange if someone saw you–"
"I saw it," I whisper, still clinging to his hand, feeling my fingers twitching, still shaking a little, inside his. His eyes shoot up to my face, looking even more concerned than they had a moment ago. I swallow. "What you see in your nightmares," I clarify, even though a part of me thinks he already knows what I'd meant. "I saw it."
Spike drops my hand immediately, so fast it's like my skin is suddenly laced with Holy water.
"Bloody hell," he murmurs, and his voice is suddenly different. Thicker, somehow. He turns away from me, exhaling slowly, scrubbing his hands down his face. He shakes his head. "That's why. No wonder you felt so frightened."
I don't have to ask him why he looks so shaken up.
It's more than obvious to me he hasn't slept. Or if he has, it hasn't been well.
I clear my throat, trying to get some of the hoarseness to go away. I wish he'd look at me.
I understand why he isn't.
"Is that the way it happens every time?" I ask softly, consciously keeping my voice very low.
The air between us is tense, shaky, charged high with both of our emotions. A chaotic mix of fear, anxiety, anger. Mind numbing concern.
When Spike finally answers my question, I can hear it in his voice. How hard it is for him to admit it, to tell me.
Whether it's because he's been trying so hard to hide these nightmares from me, or something else, I'm not sure.
"Every time," he murmurs softly, and I watch his shoulders go up and down as he inhales and exhales again. Then he turns his head over his shoulder and looks me in the eyes. His eyes are bright, shining. They almost look wet as he says, "Even now."
And I swear I can hear the sound of my heart breaking open in my chest.
Because the implication is so clear in his voice, in his eyes.
Even now.
Even now that he's falling in love with me.
It makes it so much worse for me, the same gut wrenching, chest tightening, crippling worry I'd felt immediately upon waking flooding my veins again.
These nightmares haunt him even now.
When the tears come, they don't surprise me. Not the way they had yesterday standing in Giles's apartment. These are different.
These aren't about me.
These aren't selfish.
I ache for him. In that same deep place where I know things, I ache for him. My whole body hurts for the pain etched across his flawless face, the obvious torture these visions have inflicted on him.
I just want to take it all away.
I think that's why I'd come here.
Even though I know he doesn't want me to, can feel how strongly he's trying to keep the space between us now, I cross the small space between us and place my hand on his bare arm.
He flinches away from me, but I tighten my grip and refuse to let him.
"Spike," I whisper, my own voice thick, heavy with unshed tears. "Look at me."
I don't mean to make him do it. I hadn't intended to use that tone, the pleading command. It just happened.
Before I can think, he's already turning into my hand, slowly coming to stand square in front of me.
"It's not real," I tell him quietly, hand still steady against his arm. I focus all my energy into the place where my skin presses against his. And I repeat the words I'd repeated to myself, over and over again while it was happening. "Just a dream."
Spike shakes his head, looking down at me with fathomless navy blue irises.
"No," he says softly, "it's very real, luv. The things you saw? Those were things I wanted." His voice lowers slightly, taking on an almost husky quality as he narrows his eyes. "Things I fantasized about."
I don't have to ask to know which part he's talking about.
"But you don't anymore," I say firmly, sternly, hardening the lines of my mouth as I look up into his face. My grip on his arm tightens slightly, pressing my thumb harder into his smooth skin. "You don't want that anymore."
I'm not asking, I'm telling. The tone of my voice leaves no room for argument.
But I realize I am sort of asking. Even if just subconsciously.
Because I want to hear him say it. Need to, after what I've just seen.
"No," he says, agreeing with me slowly, even though the haunted look is still in his gaze. "Don't want that anymore."
His words from the other night, what he'd said to me out in the cemetery before the claim, come ringing back to my ears.
I can't imagine a world without you in it.
God, could I really be so blind?
I sigh, some of the tenseness in my shoulders relaxing as I whisper, "Because you're falling in love with me."
His lips twitch into the tiniest of smiles then, and I feel the change immediately. Whether if it's because I've said it, or if just because he's been reminded of it, I don't know.
But the warmth is back.
It floods through my chest, twisting its way through my veins until my hands are no suddenly no longer shaking and I can practically feel the color returning to my cheeks.
His eyes have lost a little of their hollowness when he looks down at me again, and nods.
I reach my free hand up, pressing my palm lightly over his chest. The spot where his heart would be.
It's one of my favorite spots.
I frown, dropping my gaze away from his eyes and focusing on my fingertips, the color of my deeply tanned skin against the cream of his.
Again, dark and light.
And again, I find myself not understanding the feeling I'm getting from him. How strong, how completely and wholly authentic it feels.
I frown.
"You don't have a soul," I whisper, not really for either of our benefits, but more almost like I'm thinking out loud. "How can you—"
"Love without a soul?" he asks, filling in the rest of the question for me.
I can feel Spike's eyes on me, but the sudden tenseness in his voice, the sharp bitter edge, makes me not want to look at him right now. I keep my own gaze glued to my hand and nibble down on the swell of my lip, nodding once.
The surge of frustration comes hard, and fast, shooting down into the pit of my stomach and tangling it up into knots that had all but disappeared a moment ago.
"Right," he drawls, his voice no longer thick, but biting. Sarcastic. "Knew it'd bloody come back to this." He sighs, but doesn't move away from me. "This about Peaches?"
I wince at the mention of Angel, knowing that that's exactly the thought I'd been drawn to the night before. Not that Spike couldn't be falling in love with me, just that from all the experiences I've had with soulless demons…which in some ways is a whole heck of a lot, and in other ways is pretty minimal…they weren't exactly able to show their warm and fuzzy sides.
And it's what I've always been taught. What they've all told me.
The Council. Giles. Angel.
You can't love without a soul.
Vampire aren't people, they're demons. Demons that remember their human counterparts but who, when it really comes down to it, aren't them.
But that logical side of me is quieted by the truth of what I've experienced more recently. That I've felt it. I've felt the timbre of Spike's emotions, how strong they are, how so much like mine.
They don't feel hollow. Don't feel like memories.
I've been told for so long that the only thing a vampire feels is hate. But if that's true, then Spike is more of an anomaly than any of us have ever given him credit for.
Over the last five years, and well before any of this even happened, he'd shown us as many different emotions, as much a capacity to be helpful as he does to be harmful, as we have.
More, even, than some.
I've faced my share of humans who are just as wholly evil, who do just as horrible of things as any demon I've ever taken out.
Either Spike is truly the strangest vampire to have ever walked the face of the planet, or we can't be entirely right about what we've been thinking.
After everything I've been put through at the hands of the Council, I'm more than tempted to think it's the latter.
And as though he's reading my mind, Spike reaches toward me, cupping the side of my face very delicately in his cool hand.
"Don't need a soul to feel anythin', pet." He tilts his head to the side slightly, studying my face intently. Any bitterness from a moment ago, gone now as he brushes the pad of his thumb over my cheek and whispers, "Least of all love."
And I have to admit, with him touching me so gently, with him looking at me like that.
Like he's been blind for years, like he's been trapped somewhere cold and black and dark for as long as he can remember. And I'm the sun.
And I believe him.
"But…is it the same?" I ask, more for my benefit, to get him to say it out loud for me than because I really need an answer. "Or is it like…a memory?"
I force myself to hold his gaze, searching his eyes with mine.
I don't think even I believe that anymore, but I have to ask. If what he's feeling for me is just a memory of the man. A feeling that the demon can remember, can recreate. Mimic. Like an echo. All the nuances of the emotion are gone, but the gist, the generality of it remain behind.
I've barely gotten the question out, barely had the last words pass my lips before he's kissing me.
He covers my mouth with his, letting the hand on my face slide up, tangling his fingers in my hair and angling my head slightly to increase our contact.
His lips are soft, gentle and demanding at the same time.
And there's no lust in this kiss. No animalistic need, no violent, primal pull. It isn't sexual at all, obviously isn't leading anywhere.
Just his lips moving over mine, his hand pulling me gently into him, fingers cradling the back of my head with more tenderness than I think I've ever felt before, ever. From anyone.
He's kissing me the way that any man would kiss the woman he loves.
It's so simple, and somehow it manages to steal all the air from my lungs anyway, those familiar little butterfly wings unfurling, fluttering up from my stomach even as he releases me.
Not fully. Not breaking contact, keeping his hand in my hair, pressing his forehead to mine.
"That feel like an echo to you?" he asks quietly, rubbing the tip of his nose very lightly over mine.
"No," I breathe, still trying to catch my breath.
Because it doesn't.
I don't think it ever has.
I'm not even sure why I'd bothered to ask.
Not that I'm complaining about the response he's given me.
But my brain is starting to function again, starting to spin, swirl with the other thoughts I'd toyed with just briefly the night before.
His emotions, what he's feeling, they feel real. But how much of that is real real, and how much of it is the connection?
The claim?
How can I know that what he feels for me and what I feel for him aren't just weird manifestations of whatever it is in me, whatever it is that my demon, my darkness, sees in his?
And if it isn't that…if it is real. Is that better or worse? Does that make things easier to understand, or more complicated?
And I find suddenly that I really need to know. That I want to know.
And the question is out before I can really think about what it is I'm asking.
"Are you falling in love with me because of the claim?"
Spike pulls back from me slightly; enough that he can see my eyes, look down into my face.
His brow furrows, and he shakes his head.
"No, Buffy." And he shakes his head again, almost more adamantly this time. "Not because of the claim. Claims don't…they can't make you feel things."
Oh.
Okay. Well that's good to know at least.
One down… "Could it be because of the connection?"
This makes Spike pause briefly.
His response before had been automatic, but this…I realize we're both a little in the dark on this.
Again, I don't know why I always expect him to have the answers.
I watch as he turns his eyes up to the ceiling and inhales deeply. Then he sighs, exhaling through his nose.
"Maybe," he admits slowly, reluctantly, and I feel my shoulders sag just a little, immediately dropping my eyes down toward the ground.
The hand Spike has in my hair, holding the back of my head, increases its pressure a little. He forces my eyes back to his.
And there's that look again.
I swallow.
"Don't know all the answers, pet," he murmurs, wrapping his free arm around my waist and tugging me slightly closer to him. "Don't know if these…feelings come with the package or not."
He sighs, leaning his forehead back onto mine. His lashes flutter closed.
I let mine do the same.
We stand there like this for a moment, my hands somehow finding there way back to their spot on his chest, the hand his has in my hair slowly massaging the base of my skull with deft fingertips.
Then I open my eyes again and murmur, "Maybe we should find out."
It's another idea I've been toying with absently since last night.
Up until this point I haven't cared much about whatever information Travers claims to have. Never thought it mattered, didn't really care even if it did.
Now, I'm starting to re-think that.
Spike's eyes open too, and he pulls back slightly once more.
"Does it matter?" He asks, dark brows knitting together in concern as his eyes search mine. "Does it make it any less…real, if it is all a part of this connection business?"
And I hate myself a little for what I say next, even though I know it's the truth.
"It matters more than I want it to."
His eyes flash, and I get a fresh wave of emotion rolling down my back and know that I've hurt him.
"Fine."
He moves away from me, dropping his hands and stepping backwards, and every inch of me protests at the loss. I close my eyes, groaning inwardly.
"Spike—"
"So you plan to keep playing this little game of theirs then?" He asks me, a touch of the bitter edge I've heard a few times back in his voice now. "Find out what it is they know?"
"It's our best option right now," I say, opening my eyes again. "You don't want to know what all this might mean?"
Spike scoffs, turning away from me, taking two steps away, then whirling around and coming right back.
"No, what I want to know," he says, pausing pointedly, pointing an index finger in the direction of the crypts door. "Is why you let them control you like this." He drops his hand down, letting it fall against the denim of his jeans with a smack. He shakes his head, and suddenly the bitterness is gone, replaced with something else. Something…worse.
Disappointment.
"They are nothing without you," he tells me, widening his eyes meaningfully. "You just don't realize it."
Something in his voice has my chest tightening.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
Spike shrugs, looking away from me as he raises his hands up, splaying black fingernails across the pale skin of his hips. "Just that these Watchers…their entire lot in life is to what," he looks back at me again, "watch their Slayers? Train them. Prepare them." He takes a step closer to me, lowering his voice as he does. "Everything for them revolves around the likes of you." He pauses, waiting for my brain to catch up, for me to understand what it is he's telling me. "If there's no Slayer then by default…there're no Watchers, either."
I blink at him, my brow furrowed now. It's the order of things, Travers had said. Been this way from the beginning.
The Council fights evil.
The Slayer is the instrument they use to fight evil.
But now I have to wonder…what would the Council do if there wasn't a Slayer? How would they fight the evil that Travers claims is their duty to fight without their "instrument"?
Go out and do it themselves?
Yeah.
I'd like to see them try.
I turn my eyes, now wide with understanding, back to Spike. "You're saying—"
He nods. "That you have all the power here, luv."
He steps up to me, reaching for me once more, strong hands gripping my hips through the denim of my jeans. He doesn't pull me against him, just exerts a little pressure with his hands. "Just gotta know how to use it."
Power.
"It's a power play."
It's always been about who has the power, and I've always just…automatically assumed that it was them.
But why?
Because they're the Council? Because they made me believe that was the case? But what Spike's just said is true…they spend their lives watching, researching, intimidating their "instrument" into behaving and doing whatever it is they want her to do.
None of us have ever even considered what they'd do if they didn't have us to control. To manipulate.
And it's something I don't think I ever would have realized entirely on my own.
I reach up, laying my hands gently over Spike's forearms, tilting my head to the side.
My lips start to curve up in a small smile.
"I guess I've never thought of it that way," I tell him.
His lips curve up, too.
"Not just a pretty face, yeah?"
No. Definitely not just a pretty face.
I'm struck one more time with how little I really know about him, my eyes going around him, to the stack of books just barely visible from where I'm standing on the bottom shelf of the table.
I can see from here that the poetry book has been shifted. Moved.
It's on the bottom of the pile now, not the top, where I'd left it.
I glance back toward Spike, drinking in the soft expression on his face.
Whatever it is he's hiding, whatever secrets are in his past. I'm going to get to them, sooner or later.
"No," I agree simply, leaning up on my tiptoes to press a gentle, lingering kiss to his lips.
And then I pull out of his grip, turning my back on him to make my way back up the steps.
I feel the confusion rolling off of him before the question is out.
"Where are you going?"
I stop with one foot on the bottom stair to turn around and glance at him over my shoulder.
"To the review," I say simply, but there's none of the same despondence in the word now like there had been every time before. No little niggling fear coloring the phrase, no sense of dread. "I'm gonna be late as it is, it starts in 5 minutes."
Spike frowns deeply, either not hearing the distinct change in my voice, or not caring. He instantly reaches for me again.
"Buffy—"
I side step out of his reach, offering him a small, knowing smile as I move up the small set of steps.
I stop at the door, turning full around to face him one more time.
"Trust me, okay?" I ask, searching his eyes with mine. "I'll come by after it's over, let you know how it went."
He must hear it then. Or maybe it's something he sees on my face.
Either way, the expression on his face relaxes and he manages one small, short nod.
Then he turns away from me.
I put my hand on the door's handle, preparing to turn it, and then a thought pops into my head.
"Spike," I say, turning my face back toward his just as he spins around, meeting my eyes with his.
He raises one eyebrow.
And I don't know why I say it, exactly. Or why I choose to phrase it the way I do.
Maybe it's because of the double meaning it feels like it has.
Maybe it's because I want to say it, but don't want to simply parrot back what he's said to me last night.
Maybe it's because I want to actually say it, but I'm still not sure if it's wholly true just yet.
Maybe it's because of that same sense of inevitability.
I don't know.
Whatever the reason, whatever the deepest meaning behind it, it doesn't really matter all that much.
It's all leading to the same place.
"I'm going to love you," I tell him softly, watching from the doorway as the emotions travel over his perfect face.
And then I'm gone.
Pushing the door open and stepping out into the low evening light, the last of the sun's rays beaming down on the wide smile that splits my face.
And even though it's cold outside, I don't feel it.
