Warning: Mentions of death and use of mild language in this story.

The funeral for Buffy Anne Summers was by no means a grand affair. There was a priest, and the Scooby Gang, a few scattered townspeople who came to pay their respects to the woman who had saved them at one time or another, there was Spike and there was...Angel. Looking all teary-eyed and broken as he watched her coffin being lowered, acting like he was some fuckin' grieving widow when he hadn't as so much given her a phone call in the past year.

Of course, it didn't take the two vampires long to get into a fight. It started as soon as they reached the Summers House, when Angel had the audacity to act as if Spike shouldn't be there, then got mad when Dawn yelled, "Shut up, Angel! Leave Spike alone! He cared about her more than you ever did!" before she raced up the stairs to her room, the bang of her bedroom door reverberating through the entire house.

Angel sat down heavily on the couch, moody and broody like a bloody nineteenth century Romantic Poet.

"What did you expect, Peaches, balloons and a marching band?" Spike scoffed derisively, disgustedly, as he slumped into the armchair across from his Grandsire. "You broke her heart; that ain't something you just forgive, certainly when the bloke isn't even sorry."

"Well, it's not like she was going to win the award for 'Best Girlfriend Ever,' what with her stabbing me and, oh, yeah, sending me to Hell."

"She did that to save the bloody world!" he thundered savagely, gripping the fabric of the armchair so hard he almost punctured it. "She did it because there was no other way!"

"There's always another way; if it had been me, I would have found another way. I never would have hurt her," Angel insisted, acting as if his words meant something, as if they changed everything. They didn't.

"Well, you did. Multiple times, I recall." Spike pinned him with a glare. "You were so lucky. You should be soddin' grateful she even gave you the time of day, let alone killed your sorry arse to save the world. As if you would have been able to live with your guilt. If it had been me, I would have walked right into that bladed and thanked her for ending me, rather than lording it over her like you did."

"Jealous, are we?" Angel sneered, crossing his arms over his chest, as if the idea pleased him.

Spike wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"Of you? Never. I'm jealous of how she felt about you, I'm jealous that she had your loyalty, until the very end. And, speaking of which...where were you, Angel? Her big, one true love? Where were you when she needed you the most?" Spike accused with a deep-seated growl.

"Pylea."

"Pylea?" he echoed disbelievingly. "The demon dimension with the pointy shoes and the dragons?" Spike barked out a bitter laugh. "Great. That's just bloody great. And do you want to know where I was?" Spike didn't wait for an answer. "I was here. Every day, for the last year, I was right here. I was the one that had her back, even when she couldn't stand to be in the same room as me. I was the one who had to carry her home when she fell asleep by Joyce's bedside at the hospital. I was the one she asked to protect her sister, no matter what. Me. How am I supposed to protect a kid, Angel?" he asked the vampire. "I remember Buffy as a teenager: she was a bloody nightmare," he recalled, running a hand through his short hair distractedly.

"I think that was because she was foiling all your plans."

All the humour drained from Spike's face, and within a blink he was standing toe to toe with his former family, nothing but loathing bubbling between them.

"Don't play the joking card with me, you prick," Spike snarled, poking his finger into Angel's chest then whirling back down onto the couch beside him. "I won't ever forgive you, not for what you've done."

"Why? Why do you care so much?" Angel demanded, glowering as if in the hopes of intimidating the truth out of him.

"Because you could have stopped her!" Spike cried, getting to his feet, tears in his eyes. He swung a fist, connecting with Angel's jaw effortlessly. The vampire didn't even flinch. "Because you two were flippin' soulmates, and she would have done anything that you asked! You could have got her to stay!"

Angel rubbed at his jaw, eyes blazing. "Do you really think that, Spike? Do you think I could have gone up on that tower and said, 'Buffy, I love you, please don't jump, otherwise it's gonna kill me if I have to live in this world without you?' Would she really have gone, 'Sure, Angel, I'm not a big fan of the whole dying thing, I've already done that song and dance, so I'll just push off my baby sister here and then we can go out for coffee?' Is that what you really believe? Because if it is, you obviously don't...didn't know her as much as you claim."

The blond slumped back down, defeated, fire now spent. "I don't know," he admitted regretfully, "but you could have at least tried. We could have found another way. There's always another way. She was always rushin' off without a care for herself. How could she be so selfish, to leave me here with you and a broken kid who wants her sister, who just lost her mum to boot? How do I tell her that it will get better when I don't even believe it myself? I can't be what she needs me to be, the person she needs me to be."

"Yeah, pink really isn't your colour. Why did you fall for her?" Angel blurted, pain flittering across his face, there and then gone.

"What?"

"What was it about her, what turned your head, that made you feel like you had a heart beating in that hollow chest of yours?" the idiot listed off. "What was it?"

So Spike told him: "She was brave. No matter what, she always got back up, even when she bloody well shouldn't have. Because she was kind, and she would go to the mat to defend someone she cared about, to stand I up for what she believed in, even complete strangers, and she didn't ask for anythin' in return, got no reward for it except for bruises and loneliness and this constant weight on her. But most of all, she treated me like an equal, like maybe I could be somebody if I wanted to. I'd never had that before: someone who saw all of me, and still saw some good down deep at the bottom. And she made me laugh," he tagged on for good measure, "really laugh, the kind you don't find often. Then again, it's not like they make Buffy's at the Mall."

And wasn't that the truth. His own truth, as a matter of fact, how he'd felt about Buffy from the moment he saw her and every moment after.

"No," Angel agreed bitterly, "they don't. You act is if I don't care, as if I didn't care enough about her. But you know what it's like to love her, too. How incredible she could make you feel, how she could make you smile just by walking into a room, how getting her to laugh felt more rewarding and important than any fight you could ever win."

"Except none of that matters now, though: she's gone, Angel," Spike snarled savagely, remorselessly, which was funny given the fact that all he felt was sorry. "We're never gonna feel that way again."

"She wouldn't want that, for either of us."

"Yeah, well, wherever she is, I'm sure she's got more pressin' things to deal with than whether you and I are bro-hugging and shooting rainbows outta our eyeballs." God, if Angel tried to go in for a hug...he might just lose it for good.

"Willow said...she thinks Buffy ended up in a Hell Dimension of some kind," Angel broached carefully, as if Spike were some wild animal who would flash his claws and tear him apart at the slightest provocation. He was right. "Do you agree with her?"

"I don't know," the blond vampire exhaled wearily. "I'd rather believe she's with her mum somewhere, happy and at peace. Would that be too much to ask for? That after all the fightin' she did, she can put down her sword and try and move on from all this? Knowing her luck, it's bloody likely, but for her sake, and Dawn's, I hope she's not anywhere bad."

"Me, too. She was the very best of all of us."

"Yeah, she bloody well was," he defended heatedly. "Buffy was the only best thing to ever happen to either of us sods, and I'll carry the guilt of not doin' better by her until the inevitable day I piss off the wrong fella or get staked for somethin' stupid."

Angel smirked drily. "What, no heroes death for ol' Spikey?"

He scoffed like he'd just said the sky was purple and that dolphins could talk. "I should hope not. The good guys would lose their shit if someone like me ever did anything that could be classed as remotely noble."

"You tried to save Dawn, and that sounds pretty damn noble to me." He should know, with his whole Batman routine.

"My point exactly. The Scoobies don't want to be anywhere near me."

"But you're still here," Angel pointed out, incessant and annoying as always, a bloody dog with a bloody bone that wouldn't quit gnawing at him no matter what he did. "Not just for her, but for Dawn, too."

Spike rolled his eyes exasperatedly. He was old, and tired. Too damn tired for this conversation, yet too old to not know it was necessary. "It's not like I've got any pressing vacation plans, Peaches. Unlike you and your merry little band of sidekicks."

"They're not my sidekicks; we're a team," Angel protested, but he sounded like he was trying to tell himself that more than he was him. "A family." So much hope behind such a tiny word.

"It won't last," Spike inclined his head, feeling a sense of role-reversal, of a sensei telling his students that you can't win every fight, that some things you have to walk away from. "Trust me on that, mate, it won't last."

Angel folded his arms defensively, pensively. "What makes you say that?"

"We didn't," Spike said blandly, as if they were discussing something as simple and trivial as the weather and not the tumultuous relationship they had shared, their little quarter burning like a flaming torch of bloodlust through the whole wide world. "Over a hundred and twenty years we've known each other, at one point as thick as thieves swimmin' in molasses. Now look at us: can't be in the same bloody room without wanting to smash the other into next week."

"Weren't not easy people to be around, William. We're not easy to love."

"She certainly made an art form out of it, didn't she?" the vampire muttered rhetorically. "Slayer certainly has no qualms skippin' through the fields of romance with you."

"That was a long time ago." Like that mattered. "When she died, I think a part of her was still angry at me, and rightfully so. I'm no saint, Spike, and I'll never claim to be. And even though you might not be either, you still did one thing better than me."

"What?" Spike wondered incredulously.

Angel raised his head, grief and guilt and jealousy and acceptance and bravery battling across his face, warring in his eyes as he finally gave in, "You were here."

Author's Note: Hello, fellow Buffy fans! Welcome to another one-shot in which I put Angel and Spike in a room and make them talk about their feelings for Buffy. Why? Because I can, and it's a helluva lot of fun. And, because as much as I love our brooding, souled vampire, I can never pass up an opportunity to have Spike making fun of him, especially if it's about his hair.

Thank you so much for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it. It seems oddly appropriate that given mine -and William's- country is in mourning that I was finally able to finish this.

All my love, Temperance Cain.