Title: Dreams

Name: Joy       

Email: SleepingBeauty2@ziplip.com

            When Buffy was completely asleep and in sleep paralysis, Spike put a pillow under Buffy's head and got out of bed. He began to pace back and forth. How was he going to explain this? He'd run out of time. Some time is the next few hours he was going to have to lay out for Buffy why he'd been acting like a basket case. Maybe she would just wake up and instantly know. Maybe it would dawn upon her and they could mourn together. He knew he would never be that fortunate.

            Spike stormed into his little living room and began to chain spoke. This went on for at least an hour… lots of non-thoughts and cigarette butts later. Two more anti-anxiety pills washed down with bourbon…a severe no-no.

Running his hands over his face and into his hair he decided maybe if he wrote down what he felt it would be easier to get it said out loud. Spike grabbed his journal and started to write…

"Buffy,

You have no idea how stupid and weak I feel right now… I keep oscillating between exhilaration that you're beside me and the terror of you not being there anymore. The demon is winning and I know it…that's what scares me most to all. It rages inside me when I'm with you and when I'm away from you…"

            He stopped and flipped through the book. He had it for a couple years now. Spike always had been a word person so it wasn't surprising to find that he liked to journal. He stopped at an entry that resonated with him that evening or early morning. "There are only two places in the world…where she is and where she's not. She's not here and that is a far worse hell then any I will face after I'm dust." Spike dog eared the page and continued to search through his writings.

            "I was a man for a few weeks this year… I had no heartbeat. I had no warmth. But I was a man because she made it so…and now I am a corpse in every sense. If anyone ever tells me I didn't love that woman they didn't know me then…and they don't know me now…"

"I live for Dawn. Nothing else in my sorry existence matters but that small mite of a girl. I realized this week I don't love her by default…nor do I love Joyce because she is her mother. I love them because they are all cut from the same cloth. I wish I knew Joyce's maiden name… It seems wrong to say I loved them because they were Summers women. Truth is what I love about them they got from their mum… Who knows? If things had been different maybe I would have tried to court Joyce if I met her as a college student…and I wasn't so much the Big Bad… Such a stupid line of thought but still, maybe."

Spike laughed at his own comments. What a git he turned into…not that he really minded these days, but still.

"Spike? SPIKE!" Buffy yelled from his bedroom.

He made a mad dash to be at her side. In seconds he had her whole body curled up in his lap. "What's wrong love?" he whispered kissing her lips then forehead.

She was gasping for air. "My… My coffin…" she croaked pitifully.

Spike tightened his grip on her. "I'm sorry luv…I'm so sorry. I should have been here."

"You were…sort of."

"Huh?" he said leaning back from her pushing her hair behind her ears.

"In my dream you were there… to clear away the dirt. You had my hand…" she snuggled into his chest again. "But I couldn't hold you… The coffin fell out from under me into this black pit… And you were trying to save me… All I could see was the terror and pain on your face watching me die again."

"It's my worst fear," he whispered.

She was sitting on his lap trying to relax. "Your worst fear is me being swallowed by death?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," he said tightening his grip on her. "I can't lose you again…"

"Spike, why have you been acting so weird?" Buffy said sweetly.

"Do you know what day today is?" Spike answered.

"I'd say Saturday but I have a feeling that's the wrong answer," she whispered lacing her fingers together with his.

He pulled back to look in her beautiful face and said, "Today is the day you died…" Buffy's face slightly contorted. "This is the day…Right about now is when I failed you and got thrown from the tower. In a few minutes it will be the moment you jumped. In the minutes after that it will be when Dawn climbed down and gathered me into her arms as I rocked back and forth praying for the first time in I don't know how many years that God would be gracious enough to let me spend eternity in hell as long as you lived." She just stared at him as he cried silent tears and spoke.

"Right then is when I wanted nothing more then to stand up in the morning rays and turn to dust." Spike just stared at nothing. "She got me and shook me and told me I couldn't leave her. I wasn't allowed to leave her too. I was the only one that understood. I was the only one who she knew loved her as much as you did… And then I remembered my promise and I had to live. I couldn't fail you again. I couldn't leave her."

Buffy was crying too by the time Spike started to abstractly talk about Dawn. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for not leaving… Thank you for being here when I got back."

His face grimaced in pain and anguish. He cried for her and all she lost. He cried for Nibblet and the sorrow that encompassed her. He cried for Scoobies and what the loose of Buffy had done to each of them. Finally he cried for himself and the love he saw buried in the ground…the ground she was never meant to be in.

Buffy started kissing Spike's vampire ridges that kept slipping on and off his face. Eventually she took his face in her hands and looked him in the eye. "If you need to be vamped right now…don't try to suppress it," she said lovingly.

Spike stared at her and stopped fighting his demon. She was looking at him with such love despite his yellow eyes, fangs and ridged forehead. "Ya know, your ridges strain your scare," she said delicately running her fingers over the scar in his eyebrow before playing them over his bumpy forehead. Buffy looked into his yellow eyes and kissed his nose. "Those are more golden than other vampires I've seen."

"Darker than Angel's?" he asked quickly.

She glanced at him wearily, "I don't remember… I haven't been in close quarters with the guy in a long while. Especially close enough to see what he looks like vamped out."

Her voice comforted Spike in ways she could never comprehend. His visage slipped away as he rubbed his face to hers. She looked down at him with such sweetness that he was lost. His hands cupped her cheeks and he kissed her slowly…thoroughly. Buffy groaned a little at the attention. He was being swallowed by her heat and for the first time since they got back from LA he didn't care.

Buffy pulled back to catch her breath only to have Spike pull back and begin to pull into himself. "Don't," she whispered. "Don't run, please."

His blue eyes met her hazel, "It's too much Buffy… I can't right now. I can't control what I would do."

"Why do you need to?" she asked.

Spike's eyes glowed yellow for a second, "Because despite the pain of losing you we could start…I could bite you… I don't know if I'd stop and I don't think I could take you punching me after we made love again."

"You want to make love to me?" Buffy whispered.

He stroked her cheek, "It's all I've ever wanted to do with you."

Buffy was on him in seconds pushing him back toward the bed. At first Spike just let her lead him down and let her devour him, but when her fingers started to slipped inside his boxers, he moved away from her quickly. "I can't," he stated.

"Now I can see that isn't true," she smirked.

"Stop please."

"Why?" she asked moving closer to him. "Why stop tonight? Isn't right now when we should celebrate the fact that I am alive the most? Shouldn't these be the moments we make the most of?"

"NO!" he snapped.

Spike got to his feet and stared at her. "You don't get it… You don't understand how badly I need you to be alive. You don't know what lengths I've been ready to go to ensure your safety!" he yelled.

"Then TELL ME!" she yelled back.

Upstairs Dawn woke to the shouting in the basement. "I knew it would happen… I warned him. He didn't listen," she mumbled putting a pillow over her head.

Spike paced the bedroom back and forth as Buffy watched him like he were a caged tiger. "Out with it! What lengths are you willing to go to make me safe? Wrap me in bubble wrap? Go patrolling for me every night? End the world so it will be over so I can go back to heaven? WHAT?"

His fangs descended and his eyes glowed yellow, "I've gotten in my car a few times now to head back to LA to kill the other slayer." Buffy stared at him absolute confusion and a bit of horror. "Not expecting that?"

"NO," she admitted.

"If she's gone then you can be done. Someone else can be responsible for the Hellmouth. Your turn will be up. You could go back to college. You could live a relatively normal life. No more patrols. No more apocalypses. No more death… Just a life."

"Spike," she whispered seeing the pain he was in.

"Do you understand what it does to me every time you're late coming home? Do you know what its like to see a vampire get too close or some nasties try to take a bite out of you? I WATCHED YOU DIE! NOTHING CAN EVER REMOVE THAT FROM MY MEMORY!" he shouted.

Buffy slowly began to invade his personal space gently wrapping her arms around his middle. "Do you remember the night I woke up?" she whispered.

"Of course… Everything in me ached and hurt. The pain was unbearable."

"But you bore it…for me. You made me feel loved. You were quiet and gentle, not loud and overwhelming," she whispered pressing her cheek into his chest.

Spike sighed out his anger and frustration, relishing this feeling of softness. He ran his hand down her head and through her hair. "I'm glad," he answered quietly.

"You understood… you tried to meet me where I was at rather then demanding I be back to what I was. I felt safe," she looked into his eyes. "There aren't a whole helluva lot of times I've felt safe when I'm with another person." His eyes clouded for a moment. "And before you say it…yeah there was a time Angel could do that for me…but that was fleeting. I could never really feel safe with him after… well after… Feeling safe on earth after being in heaven is a huge deal."

Spike sat back down on the bed obviously scared and tired. "I can't lose you again pet."

She gave him a sad smile, "I hate to tell you but I am still mortal, with no desire to get vamped. I am going to die sometime… You can't stop nature."

He looked her is the eye and said, "Then give me permission to end mine when you do."

"Spike," she groaned.

"They can't bring you back again… This is it. Third time's the charm. I can't do it again," he said sadly.

Buffy sighed deeply. An idea formed somewhere in her brain that gave her an out, "Not until you find away to be with me where ever I am after this."

"I'm a demon," he stated simply.

"You've been seeking redemption… Now you have a focus. I die tomorrow you can't end things until you know you'll be with me."

"Well that is just a strange twist of events…" he muttered and looked at his shoes.

TBC…