CHAPTER 5

The animosity Buffy felt had almost boiled over. For a second she had wanted so much to kick the door off its hinges. But this was her house and considering her bills were already overwhelming her as it was, the door-kicking approach fell by the wayside. She quietly slipped in, gingerly closing the door in her wake. She half expected to see the blond vampire on the couch, feet propped up on the table, as always. It never failed to annoy her the way Spike was able to get that down home comfort no matter his surroundings.

Although you gotta admit, Buf, that is kind of a turn on, that small voice in her head whispered. No, she was not going there again. She thought she had silenced the critic in her head that was Spike's number one fan on the miserable walk home. Obviously, she hadn't.

There will be no happy thoughts of Spike, Buffy admonished the nagging voice within. She was pissed and not even the thoughts of his baby blues searching her soul while his smooth hands caressed every part of her…would…

Buffy cursed inwardly, abashed at the heated pulse awakening between her thighs. Why did she allow him to affect her like this? No matter how mad she was in mind, her body had always wanted him. The contrasting coolness of his skin against her warmth. His lithe form nestled against her petite frame. The way he trailed her body with kisses. The indescribable joy when he entered her…

She clenched her fists together, pushing nails into the palms of her hand. There, she thought as the pain temporarily cleansed her of physical longings. No, she would not relent to her body's cravings, no matter how good those cravings were satiated.

A quick sweep of the first floor turned up nothing. She checked the basement. Still no sign of him. That could only mean one thing…

The nerve of him, she thought, her body trembling with anger. Who in the hell does he think he is? She asked, as she made her way to the steps. She threw a casual glance at the door and saw Willow's wet jacket dangling from the coat rack. How had she missed it before? It had been right in front or her and it wasn't too difficult to spot the banana yellow coat. It stuck out more than a Fyarl demon in a crowd of hobbits. Buffy laughed inwardly and a smile crept across her once sullen face, threatening to erase her once bubbling fury.

I wonder what her and Spike are up to. Maybe he's making her do a love spell on me, she joked, walking up the steps. Hell, they could even be…

Buffy stopped in mid-sentence with the thought of Willow and Spike…that was just not a peachy image for her to envision. She stuck her tongue out, her face contorting into her 'whiskey game face'. Her mind quickly dismissed the thought of her best friend and her…and Spike doing anything other than being cordial.

Maybe not with Willow, the voice in her head whispered again, but what about another girl? Another woman? Buffy had no immediate reply because it was true. What if Spike did hook up with someone else? What if she was willing to do the same things Buffy did? What if she was prettier? What if she had a better body? What if…

What if she accepted him, for who he was, the voice interrupted derisively. Buffy's heart stammered at the thought of another woman treating him like a man and not a demon. Another woman allowing him to explore her depths fully and completely, uninhibited by her fear of being scorned.

She saw him with a woman, deep in the throes of passion, their bodies writhing as one. And then he looked at the anonymous woman as she called his name…"William"…and his body convulsed with his lava-like release deep into her core, never once breaking eye contact with her.

"Those are my eyes," Buffy pouted, her shoulders drooping slightly. "He's supposed to look at me like that." She snapped herself back to reality and was aware that she was talking to herself. Her eyebrows scrunched in frustration as she stepped into the hallway of the second floor.

"Damn him," she muttered through gritted teeth. As much as she wished it not to be true, she had all but given up the notion of concealing her contempt around Spike. The vampire had a way of pushing her buttons like no other. Always had. Always would. Even from their first meeting all those years ago, in the alley outside the Bronze, she had known he was different. He was incomparable. It radiated off of him in waves. From his cocky walk to the sarcastic edge to his words. It was there every time he looked at her, every time he touched her. Every time his body shuddered in its last gasps inside of her. It clung to him like a pariah and it would forever be a part of him. But what was 'it'? Buffy questioned. She didn't know why she asked herself. She knew what 'it' was and yet she was terrified to admit it.

'It' was pain and fear. It was something that despite one hundred years in the shadows, Spike could not shake. The pain in his eyes had been from the injuries of his heart. He had never been truly loved. His love for the women of his life had enveloped him like the wisps of smoke from fire. It burned and sizzled within his veins, inextinguishable. It was complete. Yet it was also unrequited. He suffered for his reckless abandon. He could not control his heart and time after time, it was staked through the center. But this pain did not turn him to dust. It was much more sadistic in its course. It twisted and pulled at him, making him cry out. And he had cried out. Cried out to her; the slayer, his mortal, enemy to end it. She could pull the stake free from his heart or thrust it deeper into him, killing all that he wanted to be for her.

I did a good job of that, she thought sardonically. Regardless of her sometime revulsion toward him and what he made her do -what he made her want to do- a part of her cried out at the injustice of telling him goodbye. The look in his eyes haunted her dreams, called out to her through the darkness of night when she was alone in her room.

And his call to her, his desperate plea was pervaded with fear. It was his fear of loving unconditionally and finding himself in Buffy's heavenly embrace, only to be ripped from it by a litany of words. Though he hid it well, the few times they had patrolled together, albeit uncomfortably, she saw it all. He was a ghost of his former self. He still talked the talk but Buffy saw that he was dying. And the only person that could bring him back from his rapid decent into indifference was the one who had sent him there in the first place.

You could change that the voice (idyllic Buffy) sang. She ran her hands through her hair. It was not only wet but filthy as well. The vulgar mix of DMP and rainwater clasped to her fingers. The rainwater he spattered her with. That was when her fury returned with a renewed vigor.

Everything was his fault. He had infuriated, debased, seduced and invaded her in every sense of the word. And she had been thoroughly embarrassed by his latest stunt in splashing her. She balled her fists again, nestling into the familiar comfort of her anger. He was a monster. There was no pain or fear. There couldn't be. Monsters didn't feel emotional pain nor fear the effects of a few words. No, he was a man in appearance only. But what counted was what he was on the inside and she knew without a doubt that a demon lurked within the shell of his humanity, screaming to run rampant.

Strengthened by her resolve, Buffy strode through the upstairs intent on confronting Spike one last time. He couldn't be here. He had to go. She would thank him (begrudgingly) for taking care of Dawn and ask him to leave. He didn't belong here. She didn't need him anymore. She…

Used him? She faltered momentarily at the seething hatred in the tone of her idyllic self. With an effort she continued on to her room. Try as she might to ignore it, the scorn had been directed not at Spike but at herself. That thought only made her madder.

She did not need to check any of the rooms. She knew where he was, felt him in the solitude that was her room. She forgot about the pain and fear that looked back at her through his infinite eyes. She ignored the times he was there for her and she never said thank you. She let the anger of having every one leave to trickle through her veins until it became a cataclysmic rush of fury that pounded in her ears. She had to stay mad. It was her only way to stay sane. Because deep down she knew. She knew that if she ever lost hold of the anger, then she would have to face the fact that Spike was not a monster. He was more human than most of the living. He gave himself to her, stuck his neck out. And what did she do? She wasted little time in bringing the ax down. One thing was certain in the dysfunctional arrangement that was their relationship: it was doomed because one of them was a monster. She just wasn't sure anymore which one of them was...

Holding onto the anger with a desperation born of self-loathing, Buffy stormed into her room, mouth at the ready to spew fire.

But the words never came.

She vaguely saw the passive figure of Willow standing to the left. But Willow was not what she saw. Spike. He was there, on her bed and he held something to his chest as if his very life depended upon it. As Buffy made her way further into the room, she saw the object of his embrace. A petite young girl clung to the vampire, her thin arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Her face was buried in his chest. The girl's head cocked up and she whispered to him. A second later, she kissed him.

Every shred of anger and disdain the slayer had carried up to her room disappeared in that one moment. She stood there, her mouth agape. Nothing was in focus save for the heartbreak that sat on her bed. It was like an accident on the side of the road that you told yourself you wouldn't look at. Her brain screamed for her to look away but her eyes refused. They swallowed in every detail of what lay before them. She was frozen in time, a picture of agony and despair. All she wanted to do was crawl into a ball and cry.

Buffy felt her eyes burning and knew she couldn't stop the flow of tears about to burst forth. She turned abruptly to leave and felt a delicately familiar hand grip her shoulder.

"Buffy?" Willow said tentatively. She hadn't heard Buffy enter the room. The tiny gasp that escaped her friend's mouth had alerted Willow of the slayer's presence. What she saw when she turned to her best friend chilled her to the bone.

Buffy's face was etched in a twisted mask of torment. It was a look of someone whose world had crumbled and the impossibility of picking up the tattered remains lay before him or her. And the road ahead was cluttered with obstacles that would awaken all too vivid memories of the time before the collapse. The times of ecstasy and content were a hollow shell and the loss was more real than anything around. Willow was all too intimate with that feeling.

That was how she felt after Tara had left her.

"Buffy," she called again. Buffy didn't turn around and her anxiety bled through to Willow's hand. Buffy turned to Willow as if to speak. Her emerald eyes brimmed with unshed tears.

"Willow," Buffy stammered, her throat choked with emotion. "I…I…saw Spike's car out front and I…" she trailed off. More concerned than ever, Willow looked back at the two figures on the bed before wrapping her arm around Buffy's shoulders and leading her friend out into the hallway.

The slayer quickly turned and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. When she turned to face her best friend, there was no sign of the previous anguish visible seconds before.

"What's going on in there?" she asked, her voice still shaky. She cleared her throat casually and put her hands to her hips. "Mr. Blond Boy has some explaining to do." Buffy was proud of herself. In seconds she had put on the guise of 'hanging in there' she had so often brought forth since her… return. She always thought her abilities to shield her friends from the tumult of emotions inside her were sub-par at best. But it never seemed to fail in throwing off their concern. And though she didn't want them to know what was going on in her head, she was always a little disappointed that they held their prying to a minimum. They took her fake smile as truth and didn't breach the subject.

All except for Spike.

Shit, she thought. Even at the mere thought of him caused her façade to falter. She looked at Willow whose eyes burrowed into Buffy. She knows something is up, Buffy told herself. She has to…

Something was wrong. Willow hadn't acted on the worry in her eyes. She fidgeted nervously and glanced several times back into the room.

"Will," Buffy said, the command back in her voice, "what's going on?" Willow was hesitant to meet Buffy's eyes. Buffy grabbed her firmly by the shoulders and pulled the ex-witch closer. "Willow, talk to me."

"Buffy," she finally managed. Her previous concern for the slayer had been forgotten and now she tripped over what to say to her friend about their 'guest'. "Maybe you should sit down…" she feigned her trademark perkiness, "you know how you like to prop those bad boys after a grease-filled shift in the Trouble Meat Palace." She gestured to Buffy's waterlogged feet. Ordinarily, Buffy would have given the comment a weak smile but the concern in her friend's eyes killed any hopes of frivolity.

Buffy cocked her head and Willow knew right away that the slayer was getting impatient.

"Spike found this girl out in the middle of the street. She didn't look to well; like she's had it rough."

"Join the club," the slayer muttered.

"What did you say?"

"Oh, nothing. Okay, fine. Girl hurt. Spike did a good thing," she glanced into the room. The girl had moved to the other side of Spike's face. "I don't mean to sound like Ms. Insensitivity here," she said, a touch of anger simmered over her previous hurt, "but why didn't he take her to a hospital?"

"You didn't see her?" she asked.

"Uh, no…Rico Suave there was putting the moves over her so…"

"Buffy, no," Willow interrupted, "it's not like that at all." She walked closer to the slayer and lowered her voice to a whisper. "She was burning up when she got here and we put an ice pack on her. She was unconscious and we thought you…she…we thought she was going to die. But her temperature just sorta flamed out. And when she woke up, she was all freaked and all. I mean, waking up in a strange place…I mean, you understand, don't you?"

Buffy sighed in exasperation. "I understand her getting freaked waking up with two strangers looking over her…"

"Three."

"What?"

"Three…strangers. Tara was here."

"Tara? Have you two…?" Buffy let the question linger in the air.

A slightly disappointed look passed over Willow. "No. I mean…no. We are on speaking terms. A good civilizedy kind of stuff. I mean it's kind of weird sometimes but…"

"Willow,"

"Spike told me to call her," she finished sheepishly.

"What? Why?"

"Well, he sorta said that…well, he thought we might need Tara since I can't use magic and…"

"Why would he need magic?"

"That was before the girl woke up and she was all toasty like I said before and…well."

"Well, what?" The question came out more tersely than Buffy would have liked.

"Buffy…he thought it was…" Buffy never heard Willow finish as a fist crashed into the slayer's face and sent her sprawling to the floor. She crashed into the wall, the back of her head thumping against it. She winced at the pain of both her head and jaw. She looked up to see what had happened and for a second was afraid she would see Spike standing over her.

Please, God, don't let it be…were her first thoughts before they were completely erased by the figure standing over her.

Buffy looked over the all too familiar petite frame. Aside from an unhealthy amount of scars from the insides of her thighs to the underside of her pert breasts, the girl was more than toned. The ripples of her stomach muscles were visible through her golden skin. Her strawberry blond hair hung low to her chin, covering much of her face. But the downed slayer could see enough of the girl to be taken aback. Hate-filled eyes stared out from underneath her bangs. The emerald-ice orbs penetrated Buffy's soul and she shivered involuntarily. She had rarely seen such a venomous look in all her time as a slayer. The vampires and demons loathed her and hated who she was and what she was. They scowled their evil scowls at her and wanted her dead. But this was different. They knew her by reputation alone and used that as their hate. They really could not hate her. What Buffy saw in the girl's eyes, however, was a hatred whose conception had once been born of love.

"Bitch," the girl spat, her muscles tensing. In her disarray, Buffy had let her guard down, but the girl did not attack. Instead, she glared holes through Buffy, as if the look alone would finish the job.

"It's impossible," she whispered. But nothing was impossible on the Hellmouth. She had seen it before with both Willow and Xander but this was a touch different.

Looking at your double and not someone else's always was.