New Horizons: Chapter Thirty-Six
By Annie
05-23-2002
Buffy felt all the tension that had been building and building inside of her ever since she hit the floor of the living room, with the subtle feeling of his hands pushing her forwards subsiding on her upper arms, start to melt away with every new painful intake of breath, giving way for yet another loud sob.
The shock was leaving her, the emptiness now filling rapidly with need and hurt, friendship and love, sorrow and an overwhelming sense of loss.
He was lost to her now, forever gone out of her life.
The gentleness of his voice, the tenderness of his gaze, the love of his heart. lost.
"I can't stand it," she mumbled, drawing another breath. "Dawn, I can't stand this anymore."
Dawn pulled back a little to look into her sister's eyes, the small smile still gracing her lips as she started swiping away the tears on Buffy's cheeks, soon giving up as there were new ones that kept taking their place.
"Buffy," she said softly. "You HAVE to."
Buffy sniffled and couldn't help but smile bitterly.
"I guess," she said, drawing a breath and finally starting to get control over her sobs, "that you would say I deserve this."
Dawn shook her head slowly, frowning slightly.
"Never," she stated calmly. "I might have been angry with you before, when you just refused to even give him the benefit of the doubt. But I'm glad that it seems you finally DID give him that. It means a lot to me, Buffy. He was a good friend to me too, a great friend really. I'm glad," she paused a moment, smiling a little again. "I'm really glad that you FINALLY think of him as one of yours as well."
Buffy's eyes grew a little at her sister's words, the tears still running over with every new blink of her eyelids but her breath under control; her heart clearly not though, as it was beating hard in her chest.
"Dawn." she mumbled and Dawn met her gaze, the look in the younger one's eyes suddenly slightly expectant, but Buffy didn't notice because she looked down on her hands, searching for the right words.
"Yes?" Dawn asked, thinking that this was finally it, the moment when ALL was to be revealed!
Then Buffy furrowed her brow, looking thoughtful she now stared at her hands for such a long time that Dawn stirred a little uneasily. Buffy looked up at her, almost surprised, and then a flash of recognition came into her eyes and she looked around her.
"Dawn," she grumbled, suddenly starting to get to her feet. "There's something I have to do. Please, don't be mad. Thank you, you have no idea how much you just helped me. I know that I've been acting.strange lately, but it's just 'cause everything feels strange when. he's not here. I really miss him, Dawn, but I have to do this thing to be able to move on. I HAVE to get out of this.whatever I'm in."
Buffy was talking fast as she bent down and helped Dawn get to her feet, then slowly ushered her to the stairs and starting to walk up the steps by her sister's side she added:
"I promise I'll talk to you tomorrow, but. I just NEED to do this.thing, now."
Dawn stared at her, surprised by the sudden energy surrounding the Slayer and nodding at her words as Buffy led her to her bedroom door and then gave her a hug.
With that she quickly turned and walked down the hallway to her own door, stepping trough it since it was still open and then closing it with a silent click.
"I will NEVER know what happened between them," Dawn sighed, pouting slightly as she turned to her door and opened it. "Besides, I'm sure it's rated triple R or something anyways," she added as she stepped inside and closed it behind her.
Then she giggled a little as she slipped into her bed, her smile fading as she looked up into the ceiling and mumbled:
"Spike would have probably given me ALL the details.if he was here."
Then a flash of Buffy and Spike tangled up together in bed came into her head and she shut her eyes quickly, willing it away.
"Maybe not," she grumbled, shaking her head to herself, her eyes suddenly starting to fill with tears again, thinking about the expression in Buffy's when she had looked up the first time Dawn spoke her name downstairs. She had looked so.heartbroken.
"Darn it," Dawn sighed to herself rolling over on her side, then she smiled a little and corrected herself: "Bloody hell!"
***
Buffy sat down on her bed, holding the pen she had went and gotten in a firm grip she stared at the blank piece of paper in her hand. She smiled as she put the tip of the pen against it and started moving her hand.
"The first time I met him wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy Kodak-moment, still I'm surprised over how clear the memory of it is. Maybe there just was something about him, even then. Okay, I won't skip anything because I can't afford to, I don't want to. I owe him my life, and I refuse to forget that.
Sunnydale hadn't seen anything yet until the day Spike and Drusilla roared into town, I admit, I wasn't very impressed though. I thought he was a stupid, bleached and leashed pathetic excuse for a vampire, Drusilla really had him wrapped around her clawed pinky."
Buffy couldn't help but giggle as she kept writing. The pen moved almost by itself as the moon slowly made its path over the night sky outside her window.
***
Willow knocked for the second time on Buffy's door and not receiving an answer she simply turned the knob and stepped inside. Her eyebrows shot up as she saw the sleeping Slayer, apparently she had decided to make her bed more comfy with a layer of papers. Practically the entire thing was covered with them.
As Willow moved closer she realized that Buffy still had a pen in her hand and that the paper closest to her face had a sentence unfinished. Willow also noticed the frequent five letters making a name she knew well printed in Buffy's handwriting on every page surrounding her.
"Hope she wrote down the page numbers," Willow mumbled wryly to herself, shaking her head slightly but not able to really resist the curiosity she reached down and carefully picked one of the papers up.
".was hot and cold mixed together. I couldn't breathe, he overwhelmed me. His hands were taking over my body and I couldn't fight it, I don't think I wanted to fight it even though a huge part of me was just screaming that it was twisted, absolutely wrong to do what I was about to do. And then he kissed me and as I wrote before, the previous kisses just made me melt, well, imagine what his lips combined with his body that was just telling me how much he wanted me was doing to my defenses. Right, they were more than gone by the time I kissed him back.
God, just thinking about it makes me feel completely."
"You realize, of course," Buffy's voice sounded and Willow almost shrieked with surprise as she threw the piece of paper away from her and took a step back, staring at her friend who was slowly sitting up on the bed, "that since you just read that I will HAVE to kill you."
Willow's heart was beating harder than hard in her chest and she swallowed, smiling a little.
"Oh, I think I can live with that," she said and Buffy made a face of ha-ha before stretching a little.
Relaxing again she eyed Willow closely before shrugging.
"So, what'd you read?" she asked and when Willow's face started to grow flushed Buffy raised her eyebrows slightly. "Oh," she said and Willow couldn't help but grin.
"Read a lot of Harlequin lately?" the redhead asked as she took the step forward again, brushing at the papers to make a spot for her on the edge of the bed and then sitting down.
Buffy laughed.
"Hey, it was like six o'clock in the morning before I even got to that part of the whole thing so don't be racking down on my writing," she grumbled, smiling and Willow laughed as well, shaking her head.
"So." Willow then said. "You and Spike."
Buffy sighed a little, pulling her knees up against her chest and wrapping her arms around them she nodded slowly.
"Sounded all hot and heavy," Willow stated with a small eyebrow raise and Buffy sighed a little again.
"It did, huh?" she mumbled.
Willow looked at her friend, knowing that there was much more behind this than she herself could even fathom, and still she had a feeling that she understood.
She had been doing a lot of thinking after her talk with Dawn a few days after Buffy and Spike's little promenade back in time, and she had concluded that even though Spike had more bad faults than good faults she couldn't really blame Buffy for anything she might have done.
Spike had been there for the Slayer, just as he had been there for Dawn, and Willow knew that. Even if Buffy hadn't seemed to at the time she obviously knew it now too, and there was something else. Willow observed Buffy keenly for a few moments, the distant gaze that had become so familiar on her face every time Spike's name was mentioned over the past week was now clearer than ever and Willow smiled a little.
"You're in love with him," she said softly and Buffy turned her head to her, a little surprised or so it seemed.
Those words shook something deep inside of her and she swallowed as she realized just how true they were. How she had pushed and pushed to beat the mere thought out of her heart and head and how he had come back, constantly, to remind her. Making it a never-ending struggle, making her feel like she couldn't take it anymore, like it was killing her.
And so, of course in true Slayer style, in stead of dealing with herself she had ended it, closed him off once and for all, gotten rid of the problem with a dusting off the shoulder and completely ignored what it did to her not to have him around to talk to.
She shook her head a little at herself, at how blind a person actually could make herself, at how deep her denial had been.
God, every time he looked at her he stirred up some kind of emotion and even though she had wanted to label them all simply as annoyance or lust how could she have ignored the fact that he did that with ONE look?
"I'm in love with him." she whispered and Willow smiled a little at the so completely stricken expression on her friends features.
The realization was such a relief that Buffy wanted to either laugh or cry and as it turned out she did both. Tears rising in her eyes she couldn't help but giggle to herself.
"All this time." she mumbled, shaking her head a little again. "All this time when he was so close, following me, I turned him away. I threw everything he said back in his face ten times harder than I even needed to because of the way not doing that would have affected me. And now." The tears took over, her face hardening in a mask of restrained pain as she continued: "And now it's just all for nothing."
Willow frowned slightly, seeing the anguish on her friend's face made her feel so helpless.
"You shouldn't think like that." she mumbled, scooting over a little and pulling herself up to sit next to Buffy, putting her arms around her.
Buffy leaned her head against her shoulder, blinking as the tears kept rising in her eyes.
"I know," Buffy whispered. "But how can't I? He's gone, Will.and I thought that this might help," she continued with a gesture towards the papers around them, "and it did for a little while. Now it's just so much worse. I didn't think that.I could hurt this much, Will. I just miss him SO much."
Willow nodded a little.
"Have you talked to Tara? Or Anya? There HAVE to be some kind of a spell to."
"I've talked to them, there's nothing; it's hopeless, Willow, and I feel so lost now. I feel so alone."
Willow pulled her closer, now shaking her head firmly.
"You're NOT alone," she stated and Buffy smiled through the tears.
"Not that kind of 'alone'," she said as she sat up again, wiping her tears away and sniffling she looked around at the work she had done with writing down their story. "I love you guys," she added, eyes back on Willow. "You're my friends, and I don't know what I'd do without you. But the week in England, the way he was. So much happened, Willow, I really don't even know where to start."
Willow smiled a little.
"How long had you been.seeing him before you left?" she asked and Buffy looked up at her, then she laughed a little, shaking her head.
"Remember that night when we got rid of the musical-craze of Sunnydale?" she asked and Willow nodded. "Well, that was when we shared our first kiss."
She smiled at the memory, it seemed so incredibly long ago now.
"I'm sorry that you didn't feel like you could tell me," Willow said silently and Buffy's eyes grew a little as she reached out a hand and took a hold of Willow's.
"Please, don't be mad about that.It was just. I was just so confused myself, really. I mean, if I had gotten a dollar for every time I told myself that it was over and that I wouldn't go to him anymore and then did the complete opposite within a range of, let's say five minutes," Willow smiled at that, "then believe me, I wouldn't have to work at the Double Meat anymore," Buffy finished and Willow looked empathically at her.
"I don't blame you, Buffy. I just wish that I could've been there for you."
Buffy sighed a little, nodding.
"Me too," she agreed. "I was just more than screwed up, 'cause of a lot of things."
"Oh yeah, the whole being-brought-back-from-Heaven thing probably had something to do with it too," Willow mumbled, sarcasm in her voice but an expression of guilt in her eyes.
Buffy shook her head at that, squeezing her hand.
"Thank you for that," she said and Willow looked up at her. "Thank you for giving me a second chance at this, even though I seem to have screwed it up.I'm happy that I'm here, with you all, and.I know that that place will be there, waiting for me when it's my time. Again."
Willow smiled a little, then bent forwards and threw her arms around Buffy's neck, squeezing her hard. Buffy smiled, hugging her back.
"So," Willow said, pulling away and looking around once more at the sea of papers they were in. "Can I read it?" she then asked and Buffy laughed.
"No!" she exclaimed and Willow laughed as well, relieved to hear the sound rise out of the Slayers throat.
"Why DID you even write it?" Willow now asked and Buffy grew serious again.
Then she pulled a pillow onto her lap and yelled:
"Dawn!"
Soon enough the teen appeared, fresh out of the shower her hair was wrapped in a towel and she was wearing a sweater that was much to big for her and a pair of shorts. Buffy stared at her and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"What'd I do?" she asked immediately and Buffy raised her eyebrows, shaking her head.
"No, no, you didn't do anything!" she assured. "It's just.you're growing up, and I can't believe it."
Dawn stared at her.
"Are you sick?" she then asked carefully.
Buffy smiled, shaking her head again, swiping at the papers to make a spot for her sister to sit, then she patted invitingly at it. Dawn came up and threw herself down beside it and on top of all the papers with a big grin and Buffy smiled wider.
"What IS all this?" Dawn then asked, picking up a piece of paper, which Willow quickly snapped out of her hands.
"Memorabilia," she said, putting the paper behind her back and turning to Buffy who was blushing slightly, still smiling.
"So, what's up then?" Dawn asked and Buffy drew a breath before starting to tell them what had happened in England.
***
Buffy pulled the duster over her shoulders before grabbing a stake and walking up to the back door.
"Dawn! I'm leaving!" she called and she heard a muffled "okay, see you later" from upstairs.
She opened the door and walked outside. The sky was incredible, heavy with twinkling stars and the moon was huge against the ultimate black of the cosmos. It reminded her of the last night in London and she felt a small twitch near her heart as she walked out on the street behind her house, heading for a quick patrol before she and Dawn were going to watch a movie they had rented.
She had dusted three vampires by the time she got to the well-known cemetery and she slowed her pace unconsciously as she entered it. The rumor of her dusting Spike would travel fast through the underworld, she was more than sure, since she was wearing the trademark of the bleached vamp as though there was no one left to claim it.
She sighed to herself. How bitterly true it was, after all.
'Slayer.'
She smiled a little to herself and turned around.
"Spike," she said as her eyes met his, he was sitting leisurely on top of a tall gravestone, looking contently down on her, duster spread out and hanging down around him.
Where was the image from? She had seen him do that so many times that she could hardly pinpoint it.
'So, you miss me bad, huh?' he asked with a smirk and she raised her eyebrows, smile growing.
"Shut up," she grumbled and he laughed at that, jumping down from the stone and landing on his feet before her (that time when he had swung down from the branch in the orchard, right before lord Not-So-Pleasant came waltzing in) and straightened his back.
'Hey, don't hate the fantasy,' he smiled and she fought back the tears as she reached out a hand and touched the air where his face had been a moment before, now it was gone and her hand sunk down.
"I don't," she mumbled, turning around and starting to walk again. "I'm loosing it, I'm really loosing it," she mumbled to herself, shaking her head and then hearing a growl.
She spun around and rammed the stake in the chest of the vampire 'sneaking' up on her before he even had a chance to realize he had been discovered.
"Come ON!" she yelled impatiently as she twirled the stake in her hand and looked around her. "Give me a CHALLENGE for ONCE!" she added and then sighed before starting to brush the dust off.
She grumbled as she once more began walking.
"Okay, so getting the dust of a corpse out of your clothes for the ten thousandth time MIGHT be a little more tricky than some people realize," she said to herself. "But that's not what I meant. What I meant was a good, big, huge, fat smack down with some monster that is kinda cute in a good way and makes me a little tingly all over when he smiles and makes me wanna. GOD!" she exclaimed, annoyed.
Then she looked up and stopped, her eyes resting on the closed doors of his crypt.
She drew a breath as she walked up to it and stopped again, her heart starting to pick up its pace in her chest.
'What are you scared of?'
"You," she mumbled. "And me. And."
'You're strong enough,' his voice stated gently. 'You always were.'
"Yeah," she grumbled. "Just as long as I didn't have to talk to you about anything real I was more than strong, I was frigging invincible."
He huffed at that and she could almost hear him shake his head at her.
'Bloody right.but that's not the point,' he now said and she could sense his touch on her hand, she turned around and met nothing but the empty assembly of graves and trees and pieces of sky.
"What IS the point then?" she asked, shaking her head a little at herself and still finding she was waiting for the sound of his voice.
'That you shouldn't be so damn mushy and just get it over with,' he answered her and she laughed at that.
"God," she wined as she turned back to the doors. "I really AM loosing it."
'No,' he said in a low voice and she closed her eyes, feeling him step into her from behind and then letting his hands run around her waist to her stomach, his head burying itself in her hair. 'You just don't wanna forget.'
She drew a shaky breath at that, the feeling of his touch dying away and then she nodded. Taking the few steps up to the doors and pushing the right one open with one hand.
By Annie
05-23-2002
Buffy felt all the tension that had been building and building inside of her ever since she hit the floor of the living room, with the subtle feeling of his hands pushing her forwards subsiding on her upper arms, start to melt away with every new painful intake of breath, giving way for yet another loud sob.
The shock was leaving her, the emptiness now filling rapidly with need and hurt, friendship and love, sorrow and an overwhelming sense of loss.
He was lost to her now, forever gone out of her life.
The gentleness of his voice, the tenderness of his gaze, the love of his heart. lost.
"I can't stand it," she mumbled, drawing another breath. "Dawn, I can't stand this anymore."
Dawn pulled back a little to look into her sister's eyes, the small smile still gracing her lips as she started swiping away the tears on Buffy's cheeks, soon giving up as there were new ones that kept taking their place.
"Buffy," she said softly. "You HAVE to."
Buffy sniffled and couldn't help but smile bitterly.
"I guess," she said, drawing a breath and finally starting to get control over her sobs, "that you would say I deserve this."
Dawn shook her head slowly, frowning slightly.
"Never," she stated calmly. "I might have been angry with you before, when you just refused to even give him the benefit of the doubt. But I'm glad that it seems you finally DID give him that. It means a lot to me, Buffy. He was a good friend to me too, a great friend really. I'm glad," she paused a moment, smiling a little again. "I'm really glad that you FINALLY think of him as one of yours as well."
Buffy's eyes grew a little at her sister's words, the tears still running over with every new blink of her eyelids but her breath under control; her heart clearly not though, as it was beating hard in her chest.
"Dawn." she mumbled and Dawn met her gaze, the look in the younger one's eyes suddenly slightly expectant, but Buffy didn't notice because she looked down on her hands, searching for the right words.
"Yes?" Dawn asked, thinking that this was finally it, the moment when ALL was to be revealed!
Then Buffy furrowed her brow, looking thoughtful she now stared at her hands for such a long time that Dawn stirred a little uneasily. Buffy looked up at her, almost surprised, and then a flash of recognition came into her eyes and she looked around her.
"Dawn," she grumbled, suddenly starting to get to her feet. "There's something I have to do. Please, don't be mad. Thank you, you have no idea how much you just helped me. I know that I've been acting.strange lately, but it's just 'cause everything feels strange when. he's not here. I really miss him, Dawn, but I have to do this thing to be able to move on. I HAVE to get out of this.whatever I'm in."
Buffy was talking fast as she bent down and helped Dawn get to her feet, then slowly ushered her to the stairs and starting to walk up the steps by her sister's side she added:
"I promise I'll talk to you tomorrow, but. I just NEED to do this.thing, now."
Dawn stared at her, surprised by the sudden energy surrounding the Slayer and nodding at her words as Buffy led her to her bedroom door and then gave her a hug.
With that she quickly turned and walked down the hallway to her own door, stepping trough it since it was still open and then closing it with a silent click.
"I will NEVER know what happened between them," Dawn sighed, pouting slightly as she turned to her door and opened it. "Besides, I'm sure it's rated triple R or something anyways," she added as she stepped inside and closed it behind her.
Then she giggled a little as she slipped into her bed, her smile fading as she looked up into the ceiling and mumbled:
"Spike would have probably given me ALL the details.if he was here."
Then a flash of Buffy and Spike tangled up together in bed came into her head and she shut her eyes quickly, willing it away.
"Maybe not," she grumbled, shaking her head to herself, her eyes suddenly starting to fill with tears again, thinking about the expression in Buffy's when she had looked up the first time Dawn spoke her name downstairs. She had looked so.heartbroken.
"Darn it," Dawn sighed to herself rolling over on her side, then she smiled a little and corrected herself: "Bloody hell!"
***
Buffy sat down on her bed, holding the pen she had went and gotten in a firm grip she stared at the blank piece of paper in her hand. She smiled as she put the tip of the pen against it and started moving her hand.
"The first time I met him wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy Kodak-moment, still I'm surprised over how clear the memory of it is. Maybe there just was something about him, even then. Okay, I won't skip anything because I can't afford to, I don't want to. I owe him my life, and I refuse to forget that.
Sunnydale hadn't seen anything yet until the day Spike and Drusilla roared into town, I admit, I wasn't very impressed though. I thought he was a stupid, bleached and leashed pathetic excuse for a vampire, Drusilla really had him wrapped around her clawed pinky."
Buffy couldn't help but giggle as she kept writing. The pen moved almost by itself as the moon slowly made its path over the night sky outside her window.
***
Willow knocked for the second time on Buffy's door and not receiving an answer she simply turned the knob and stepped inside. Her eyebrows shot up as she saw the sleeping Slayer, apparently she had decided to make her bed more comfy with a layer of papers. Practically the entire thing was covered with them.
As Willow moved closer she realized that Buffy still had a pen in her hand and that the paper closest to her face had a sentence unfinished. Willow also noticed the frequent five letters making a name she knew well printed in Buffy's handwriting on every page surrounding her.
"Hope she wrote down the page numbers," Willow mumbled wryly to herself, shaking her head slightly but not able to really resist the curiosity she reached down and carefully picked one of the papers up.
".was hot and cold mixed together. I couldn't breathe, he overwhelmed me. His hands were taking over my body and I couldn't fight it, I don't think I wanted to fight it even though a huge part of me was just screaming that it was twisted, absolutely wrong to do what I was about to do. And then he kissed me and as I wrote before, the previous kisses just made me melt, well, imagine what his lips combined with his body that was just telling me how much he wanted me was doing to my defenses. Right, they were more than gone by the time I kissed him back.
God, just thinking about it makes me feel completely."
"You realize, of course," Buffy's voice sounded and Willow almost shrieked with surprise as she threw the piece of paper away from her and took a step back, staring at her friend who was slowly sitting up on the bed, "that since you just read that I will HAVE to kill you."
Willow's heart was beating harder than hard in her chest and she swallowed, smiling a little.
"Oh, I think I can live with that," she said and Buffy made a face of ha-ha before stretching a little.
Relaxing again she eyed Willow closely before shrugging.
"So, what'd you read?" she asked and when Willow's face started to grow flushed Buffy raised her eyebrows slightly. "Oh," she said and Willow couldn't help but grin.
"Read a lot of Harlequin lately?" the redhead asked as she took the step forward again, brushing at the papers to make a spot for her on the edge of the bed and then sitting down.
Buffy laughed.
"Hey, it was like six o'clock in the morning before I even got to that part of the whole thing so don't be racking down on my writing," she grumbled, smiling and Willow laughed as well, shaking her head.
"So." Willow then said. "You and Spike."
Buffy sighed a little, pulling her knees up against her chest and wrapping her arms around them she nodded slowly.
"Sounded all hot and heavy," Willow stated with a small eyebrow raise and Buffy sighed a little again.
"It did, huh?" she mumbled.
Willow looked at her friend, knowing that there was much more behind this than she herself could even fathom, and still she had a feeling that she understood.
She had been doing a lot of thinking after her talk with Dawn a few days after Buffy and Spike's little promenade back in time, and she had concluded that even though Spike had more bad faults than good faults she couldn't really blame Buffy for anything she might have done.
Spike had been there for the Slayer, just as he had been there for Dawn, and Willow knew that. Even if Buffy hadn't seemed to at the time she obviously knew it now too, and there was something else. Willow observed Buffy keenly for a few moments, the distant gaze that had become so familiar on her face every time Spike's name was mentioned over the past week was now clearer than ever and Willow smiled a little.
"You're in love with him," she said softly and Buffy turned her head to her, a little surprised or so it seemed.
Those words shook something deep inside of her and she swallowed as she realized just how true they were. How she had pushed and pushed to beat the mere thought out of her heart and head and how he had come back, constantly, to remind her. Making it a never-ending struggle, making her feel like she couldn't take it anymore, like it was killing her.
And so, of course in true Slayer style, in stead of dealing with herself she had ended it, closed him off once and for all, gotten rid of the problem with a dusting off the shoulder and completely ignored what it did to her not to have him around to talk to.
She shook her head a little at herself, at how blind a person actually could make herself, at how deep her denial had been.
God, every time he looked at her he stirred up some kind of emotion and even though she had wanted to label them all simply as annoyance or lust how could she have ignored the fact that he did that with ONE look?
"I'm in love with him." she whispered and Willow smiled a little at the so completely stricken expression on her friends features.
The realization was such a relief that Buffy wanted to either laugh or cry and as it turned out she did both. Tears rising in her eyes she couldn't help but giggle to herself.
"All this time." she mumbled, shaking her head a little again. "All this time when he was so close, following me, I turned him away. I threw everything he said back in his face ten times harder than I even needed to because of the way not doing that would have affected me. And now." The tears took over, her face hardening in a mask of restrained pain as she continued: "And now it's just all for nothing."
Willow frowned slightly, seeing the anguish on her friend's face made her feel so helpless.
"You shouldn't think like that." she mumbled, scooting over a little and pulling herself up to sit next to Buffy, putting her arms around her.
Buffy leaned her head against her shoulder, blinking as the tears kept rising in her eyes.
"I know," Buffy whispered. "But how can't I? He's gone, Will.and I thought that this might help," she continued with a gesture towards the papers around them, "and it did for a little while. Now it's just so much worse. I didn't think that.I could hurt this much, Will. I just miss him SO much."
Willow nodded a little.
"Have you talked to Tara? Or Anya? There HAVE to be some kind of a spell to."
"I've talked to them, there's nothing; it's hopeless, Willow, and I feel so lost now. I feel so alone."
Willow pulled her closer, now shaking her head firmly.
"You're NOT alone," she stated and Buffy smiled through the tears.
"Not that kind of 'alone'," she said as she sat up again, wiping her tears away and sniffling she looked around at the work she had done with writing down their story. "I love you guys," she added, eyes back on Willow. "You're my friends, and I don't know what I'd do without you. But the week in England, the way he was. So much happened, Willow, I really don't even know where to start."
Willow smiled a little.
"How long had you been.seeing him before you left?" she asked and Buffy looked up at her, then she laughed a little, shaking her head.
"Remember that night when we got rid of the musical-craze of Sunnydale?" she asked and Willow nodded. "Well, that was when we shared our first kiss."
She smiled at the memory, it seemed so incredibly long ago now.
"I'm sorry that you didn't feel like you could tell me," Willow said silently and Buffy's eyes grew a little as she reached out a hand and took a hold of Willow's.
"Please, don't be mad about that.It was just. I was just so confused myself, really. I mean, if I had gotten a dollar for every time I told myself that it was over and that I wouldn't go to him anymore and then did the complete opposite within a range of, let's say five minutes," Willow smiled at that, "then believe me, I wouldn't have to work at the Double Meat anymore," Buffy finished and Willow looked empathically at her.
"I don't blame you, Buffy. I just wish that I could've been there for you."
Buffy sighed a little, nodding.
"Me too," she agreed. "I was just more than screwed up, 'cause of a lot of things."
"Oh yeah, the whole being-brought-back-from-Heaven thing probably had something to do with it too," Willow mumbled, sarcasm in her voice but an expression of guilt in her eyes.
Buffy shook her head at that, squeezing her hand.
"Thank you for that," she said and Willow looked up at her. "Thank you for giving me a second chance at this, even though I seem to have screwed it up.I'm happy that I'm here, with you all, and.I know that that place will be there, waiting for me when it's my time. Again."
Willow smiled a little, then bent forwards and threw her arms around Buffy's neck, squeezing her hard. Buffy smiled, hugging her back.
"So," Willow said, pulling away and looking around once more at the sea of papers they were in. "Can I read it?" she then asked and Buffy laughed.
"No!" she exclaimed and Willow laughed as well, relieved to hear the sound rise out of the Slayers throat.
"Why DID you even write it?" Willow now asked and Buffy grew serious again.
Then she pulled a pillow onto her lap and yelled:
"Dawn!"
Soon enough the teen appeared, fresh out of the shower her hair was wrapped in a towel and she was wearing a sweater that was much to big for her and a pair of shorts. Buffy stared at her and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"What'd I do?" she asked immediately and Buffy raised her eyebrows, shaking her head.
"No, no, you didn't do anything!" she assured. "It's just.you're growing up, and I can't believe it."
Dawn stared at her.
"Are you sick?" she then asked carefully.
Buffy smiled, shaking her head again, swiping at the papers to make a spot for her sister to sit, then she patted invitingly at it. Dawn came up and threw herself down beside it and on top of all the papers with a big grin and Buffy smiled wider.
"What IS all this?" Dawn then asked, picking up a piece of paper, which Willow quickly snapped out of her hands.
"Memorabilia," she said, putting the paper behind her back and turning to Buffy who was blushing slightly, still smiling.
"So, what's up then?" Dawn asked and Buffy drew a breath before starting to tell them what had happened in England.
***
Buffy pulled the duster over her shoulders before grabbing a stake and walking up to the back door.
"Dawn! I'm leaving!" she called and she heard a muffled "okay, see you later" from upstairs.
She opened the door and walked outside. The sky was incredible, heavy with twinkling stars and the moon was huge against the ultimate black of the cosmos. It reminded her of the last night in London and she felt a small twitch near her heart as she walked out on the street behind her house, heading for a quick patrol before she and Dawn were going to watch a movie they had rented.
She had dusted three vampires by the time she got to the well-known cemetery and she slowed her pace unconsciously as she entered it. The rumor of her dusting Spike would travel fast through the underworld, she was more than sure, since she was wearing the trademark of the bleached vamp as though there was no one left to claim it.
She sighed to herself. How bitterly true it was, after all.
'Slayer.'
She smiled a little to herself and turned around.
"Spike," she said as her eyes met his, he was sitting leisurely on top of a tall gravestone, looking contently down on her, duster spread out and hanging down around him.
Where was the image from? She had seen him do that so many times that she could hardly pinpoint it.
'So, you miss me bad, huh?' he asked with a smirk and she raised her eyebrows, smile growing.
"Shut up," she grumbled and he laughed at that, jumping down from the stone and landing on his feet before her (that time when he had swung down from the branch in the orchard, right before lord Not-So-Pleasant came waltzing in) and straightened his back.
'Hey, don't hate the fantasy,' he smiled and she fought back the tears as she reached out a hand and touched the air where his face had been a moment before, now it was gone and her hand sunk down.
"I don't," she mumbled, turning around and starting to walk again. "I'm loosing it, I'm really loosing it," she mumbled to herself, shaking her head and then hearing a growl.
She spun around and rammed the stake in the chest of the vampire 'sneaking' up on her before he even had a chance to realize he had been discovered.
"Come ON!" she yelled impatiently as she twirled the stake in her hand and looked around her. "Give me a CHALLENGE for ONCE!" she added and then sighed before starting to brush the dust off.
She grumbled as she once more began walking.
"Okay, so getting the dust of a corpse out of your clothes for the ten thousandth time MIGHT be a little more tricky than some people realize," she said to herself. "But that's not what I meant. What I meant was a good, big, huge, fat smack down with some monster that is kinda cute in a good way and makes me a little tingly all over when he smiles and makes me wanna. GOD!" she exclaimed, annoyed.
Then she looked up and stopped, her eyes resting on the closed doors of his crypt.
She drew a breath as she walked up to it and stopped again, her heart starting to pick up its pace in her chest.
'What are you scared of?'
"You," she mumbled. "And me. And."
'You're strong enough,' his voice stated gently. 'You always were.'
"Yeah," she grumbled. "Just as long as I didn't have to talk to you about anything real I was more than strong, I was frigging invincible."
He huffed at that and she could almost hear him shake his head at her.
'Bloody right.but that's not the point,' he now said and she could sense his touch on her hand, she turned around and met nothing but the empty assembly of graves and trees and pieces of sky.
"What IS the point then?" she asked, shaking her head a little at herself and still finding she was waiting for the sound of his voice.
'That you shouldn't be so damn mushy and just get it over with,' he answered her and she laughed at that.
"God," she wined as she turned back to the doors. "I really AM loosing it."
'No,' he said in a low voice and she closed her eyes, feeling him step into her from behind and then letting his hands run around her waist to her stomach, his head burying itself in her hair. 'You just don't wanna forget.'
She drew a shaky breath at that, the feeling of his touch dying away and then she nodded. Taking the few steps up to the doors and pushing the right one open with one hand.