Title: Abandoned, chapter 8
Author: Jennifer Campbell
Fandom: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
Spoilers: Through "Tabula Rasa"
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: R -- for language and nongraphic sex
Disclaimers: Not mine. Belong to Joss.
Author's notes: Hey, everyone! Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it. This will probably be the last chapter I post until after the new year ... real-life obligations getting heavy around the holidays.

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Spike?

That one word passed her lips so quietly, Spike wondered whether he had imagined hearing it. She stared at him, disbelieving, her lips working silently, like she wanted to say more but couldn't. He knew how she felt. After so many dreams of her straddling him, then staking him, he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't fallen asleep again. Moments from now, he would awake at the mansion, or in his car, and she would vanish like a star in the sunrise.

Then again, maybe not. The stake buried halfway into his chest was real enough, as was the scent of his own blood soaking into his shirt. One wrong move might drive her weapon into his heart -- but he wasn't dead yet, and that fact alone convinced him this was reality. In his dreams, Buffy didn't pull back on her killing thrust.

"Yes, luv. It's me." He winced as her hand trembled, and so did the stake. "Do you think maybe you could pull that out now?"

"Oh! Sorry."

She yanked it out, and Spike clenched his teeth to keep from yelling. Don't be such a baby, you soddin' poof, he berated himself. A little hole in the chest won't kill you.

He said, "Now, if you would move, pet, we could --"

Buffy cut him off by leaning over and smashing her lips against his. That certainly qualified as moving. Not exactly what he meant ... but, hell, he wasn't complaining. Spike's eyes drifted shut, and he returned the kiss with enthusiasm. He reached into her hair, pulling out the elastic band that held back the soft waves. Her legs clenched harder around his waist, and her pelvis starting moving in interesting ways. Spike groaned. He coaxed her mouth open with his tongue.

Gods, it had been so long, and it was so good. The taste of her, the feel of her hot, human body pressed against him. She smelled of sweat and blood; her hair, falling around his face, carried the familiar fragrance of her shampoo. He wanted her. No, needed her, like he needed to feed. How could he have ever given this up?

Spike bucked his hips suggestively. Buffy moaned into his mouth, then stiffened and pulled away.

"Spike? Is it really you?" She ran her hands through his dark hair, shooting pleasurable sparks straight to his groin. "You look different."

"It's me, Slayer," he said huskily. "I thought we already covered this."

"You came back," she said, amazed, then in a more thoughtful tone, "You're really here. After you vanished, I thought ..."

Her expression suddenly changed, eyes narrowing in that angry, better- than-thou-Buffy way that he knew so well. Spike's ardor drained away as surely as she had pulled a plug. Oh, that familiar look. He knew what came next.

Buffy's open palm smacked his cheek.

"Ow!" Spike yelled, rolling his jaw. "I think you broke my face!"

"Bastard!" Buffy screamed, then punched him in the nose.

"Ow!"

"You stupid, arrogant, self-righteous, pig-headed vampire!" she spat, and with every word, she punched him again. Then she stopped and simply glared at him, arms crossed.

Spike rubbed his mashed nose. "Have you run out of insults yet? Because I don't think my face can take much more of this."

"You left me."

"Yeah, I did. To save your life, you stupid bint. And now I'm starting to rethink the whole thing."

She blinked. "What?"

Spike sighed. "Look, why don't we go discuss this in some place a little less public. If any vamps come by and see you straddling me, they're going to report it and I'm dust."

"Oh my god," Buffy said, horrified. "You're not working for the Big Man, are you? I can't believe this. You abandoned me to go work for a crazed vampire who wants to destroy the world?"

"Buffy, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" she asked curtly.

"The sooner we find a more private place, the sooner you find out."

"All I can say, Spike, is that it better be good, or you won't have to wait for the Big Man. I'll stake you myself."

She picked up her weapon from the grass, tucked it into her coat pocket and stood up, not even bothering to offer him, the injured vampire, a hand. Typical. Buffy had gone into bitch mode. He knew he deserved it, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Fine. If she wanted to play that game, he would oblige. Instead of jumping to his feet, Spike lounged out in the grass and took his time appraising her, inch by inch, head to toe. Her lips were slightly swollen from kissing, her hair mussed, and her coat smeared in blood from where she had pressed against his chest wound. And she had lost weight, Spike noticed. Hardly more than a stick, like he could break her over one knee. Despite that, she still looked like an angel. His warrior angel.

The longer he looked, the more she shifted from foot to foot. A flush reddened her cheeks, and she looked away nervously. Spike couldn't help but smile, her reaction giving him hope. She might act the part of the superior Slayer, but deep down, she couldn't hide that she was happy to see him.

After a moment more of simply watching her, Spike dragged himself to standing, one hand pressed to his throbbing chest. "That crypt over there," he said, pointing. "Should be good for talking."

#

The crypt was empty of vampires, which irked Buffy a bit. She needed to kill something. Having Spike here, watching him settle onto the sarcophagus in a manner somehow both relaxed and predatory, had unnerved her. He didn't look right anymore. The brown hair just didn't fit, and he had forgone the leather duster. He still moved with the same menacing grace, though. And he hadn't given up his cigarettes, either, obvious from the rectangular lump in his back pocket.

His new look shouldn't matter at all, though, because in the world according to Buffy, Spike had vanished for all time. He had left her and wasn't coming back ... and yet, he had returned. That knocked her off kilter, yanked her from her safe, familiar playground and dumped her into a new place. She didn't know how to behave here. Hence the kissing and punching and screaming and cussing, all reactions she hadn't been able to control. Buffy Summers hated losing control.

A good bout of violence would restore her equilibrium, but as she hadn't run across anything worth killing, she would have to settle for the next best thing: taking out her anger on Spike.

"All right," she said, her tone clipped and indignant. "We're in private. Now talk. Why did you leave, and why are you back?" She held up her hand, cutting him off as he prepared to answer. "Wait. Let me take a guess at the first part. After I left that morning, you got a visit from Whistler, who fed you some crap about how Slayers and vampires aren't supposed to mix and that if you didn't leave, it would end with one of us in the ground. And you bought it. Hook, line and sinker."

Spike blinked, then grinned sheepishly. "Good guess, luv. Except the part about it being crap."

"That is such bullshit, Spike. How could you believe him? You didn't even say goodbye! You just left a pathetic little note." She pulled it from her coat pocket, unfolded the wrinkled paper and read. "'I hate goodbyes. It's better this way.'" She wadded it up and threw it at him. "You have no right to decide what's best for me."

Spike picked up the paper from where it landed beside him, smoothed it out and stared dumbly at the smeared ink. "You kept this?" he asked quietly, his eyes darting between the note and her. "You carry it with you?"

"I -- I, um -- I forgot it was in that pocket until I put on my coat this evening," Buffy stammered, then hated herself for it. He wasn't supposed to get all tender and boneless, taking her anger away. She wanted a fight, not affection.

He saw right through her lie, of course. Buffy could tell, from his strange expression, that he couldn't decide whether to be amused by her backtrack or awed by what it meant. As he looked at her like that, with those candid blue eyes, she suddenly ached to forget the past and throw all caution aside. Allow him help her forget her fears and mistrusts, if only for a while.

Damn. The anger had gone, at least for now. She sighed and admitted defeat.

"All right. So I kept it." She slid beside him onto the sarcophagus and tried to ignore its cold through her thin pants. He scooted over to give her more room. "Did you even consider the consequences of what you did? Did you think about how it would affect me? Or Dawn? She loves you like a big brother, you know."

Spike sighed and shook his head. "I'm -- I'm sorry, Buffy." The words stuck in his mouth. "It seemed like the best thing to do at the time, and I didn't have a thought for the Nibblet. I guess if I could do it over--" He stopped, pondered that for a moment and looked up at her frankly. "I won't lie to you, luv. If I could do it over, I would do it the same."

"What?" she sputtered. My god, had she heard him right? To think only seconds before, she had been ready to forgive him. Buffy jumped off the sarcophagus and backed away, her righteous anger soaring gloriously to life. "You would do it the same?"

"You needed it, pet," he said firmly, his hands clenching and unclenching on the cold stone beneath him. "You needed to relearn how to depend on yourself instead of on others. First you turned to Giles, and then when he left, you turned to me. But it was wrong."

"Is that what Whistler said?" she spat.

"Yes. But it happens to be true. You needed to find your own way, without Giles or me or anyone else. And it wasn't going to happen until you were forced into it."

"I cried over you, you heartless bastard!"

Spike's shoulders slumped a little. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I know I'm a bad man. But it had to be that way."

"So what now? Hmm? Lesson learned ... all's well so you come prancing back like nothing happened?" She stalked up to him and yanked at the front of his T-shirt, pulling him closer, meeting him eye to eye. "I have news for you. I will never trust you again. I opened up to you once. I gave myself to you, and you betrayed me."

"You threw yourself at me. There's a difference, pet. It's not like I was asking for it."

"But you took it."

"Damn right I did. Woman I love, puttin' on a strip show and begging for sex? A bloke would be bloody stupid to pass that up."

"I beg for nothing."

"You did that night, Slayer. You wanted it. And you still do."

They stayed like that for a moment, but it felt more like an eternity, eyes fixated on each other, close enough that any movement would bring them in full body contact. No, no contact. Contact bad, Buffy scolded herself, but she couldn't help it. After all that had happened, she knew he was right. She yearned for him to pull down the walls she had so painstakingly constructed, to make her human again. He was still the only one who could do it, who could make her feel something besides this soul- numbing cold.

No. I can't make this mistake twice, she thought, while another part of her screamed out for surrender. But, as always, her will won out over her instincts. I won't let him hurt me again, or hurt Dawn. It's better this way, if she never knows he was here.

"It doesn't matter what happened between us," she said, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to keep calm. "Because it won't happen again." She pushed him away. "I want you to leave Sunnydale and never come back."

Hurt flickered across his expression -- stabbing at her own insides, as well -- but it vanished quickly enough, tucked securely behind a facade of trademark Spike cockiness. He pulled out a cigarette and lit up. "Too late for that, pet."

"I'm warning you, Spike ..."

He snorted. "What? You gonna kill me? I don't think so. Not when you hear what I have for you."

"And what's that?" Buffy asked, folding her arms slowly, deliberately. "Maybe some more heartbreak, along with a little sarcasm and a few insults on the side?"

He ignored the barb. "How about information on the local vampire infestation."

Silence. He blew out a long column of smoke.

Finally, Buffy found her voice, and it trembled even more than before. "So you are working for the Big Man. I should have known."

"Believe what you want, luv. Doesn't change the truth of the matter." He flicked ashes onto the floor and sucked deeply on his cigarette, taking his time, making her wait. "The point is I have information that could mean the difference between you defeating this wanker and his army of vamps, and the deaths of all your chums." He grinned smugly. "Seems to me like you need old Spike around after all."

"Yeah. Like I need a hole in the head."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself, then. Just don't go blaming me when you have to bury all your little friends."

He snuffed out his cigarette, dropped the butt to the floor and sauntered toward the exit. Buffy dug her fingernails into her palms. She wanted desperately to tell him to wait, but he had to make the next move. Spike had to prove that he still deserved her trust. He had taken so much from her when he left, and now he had to give something in return.

Maybe he realized that, too, because he stopped in the doorway and, without looking back at her, said, "It's gonna happen tomorrow night. At the Hellmouth. Big Man will have enough vampires there to fill Times Square on New Year's Eve and enough hocus pocus to pull off just about anything he wants."

"And that's all you know?" Buffy said contemptuously. "We've figured out that much on our own. I knew you wouldn't be of any help --"

"Du Lac."

She stopped in mid-insult. "What?"

"Josephus du Lac. Into a lot of black magic, especially dealing with vampires. I bet Red would know the name."

"Spike, what are you talking about?"

He twisted around to fix her with a frustrated stare. "Do some research, Slayer. Pull out your soddin' books. Connect du Lac to the Hellmouth, and I'll wager you've found the key to saving the world. Again."

With that, he left. The silence afterward almost deafened her.

She suddenly felt drained, like after a major battle, and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the shivers. Had the crypt been this bitterly cold the whole time? She hadn't noticed; maybe Spike had. No, vampires didn't react to heat and cold as humans did. Their bodies adjusted to match room temperature. Riley had told her that once. Riley. She hadn't thought of him in ages. Wondered where he had ended up. Probably in a jungle somewhere, happily blasting demons apart with ray guns and other fancy government toys. Or maybe he had ended up as dinner for some pretty vampire girl. Dinner ... now that sounded good. A big, greasy piece of fried chicken with mashed potatoes ...

Buffy's mind continued to drift, flitting from one random thought to the next like a butterfly; touching on each tangent only briefly before fluttering on. She couldn't concentrate. Couldn't think. It was all too much to absorb.

Spike. Had he really been here? Sitting on the sarcophagus, dragging puffs of tobacco and watching her with those unguarded, beautiful blue eyes? Or had her starved imagination invented the whole thing? Her eyes roamed the empty room, landing on nothing, seeing nothing until she noticed the cigarette butt on the floor. Immediately, everything pulled into focus.

So it's true, she thought numbly, hugging herself tighter. Spike is back. He's really here. I wonder what Dawn will think ...

But had he returned for good, or would he now vanish again? Buffy felt her lungs contract painfully when she thought of him leaving a second time. She had ordered him to go, but she hadn't meant it. Not really. Spike never obeyed her, anyway. So maybe he would come back, like in the old days, showing up at the most annoying times, bringing her information to defeat the bad guys.

Oh, yeah. Information. He had mentioned a name before leaving. What was it? Think, Buffy. Think. Um, Julian, Jonathon ... or Joseph- something. Du Lac? That's it. Joseph Du Lac.

Finally, a solid lead. Time to get to work.

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TBC ...