Nightmares Again
He lay on the cool, wet grass for some time until he was sure there would be no more movement. Getting to his feet slowly, he surveyed his surroundings. It looked as though it could be any one of the many Sunnydale cemeteries, not long after sunset. Except that where the graveyard should have ended and the town begun, there was . . . nothing. A blank wall of what looked like mist surrounded the area on all sides. Must mean that the nightmare takes place only here, he decided.
An unfamiliar sensation made him look down. Wrapped in intricate coils around the wrist and fingers of his right hand was a rawhide thong threaded with several irregularly shaped stones. A large, flat stone centred on the back of his hand glowed softly with an amber light. A second thong dangled loosely from his wrist, and he wrapped it up securely until he could find Buffy and give it to her. Not my style, no. But as long as it works . . .
Movement near an ornate marble crypt caught his attention. A single figure in white emerged from the doorway and walked uncertainly into the graveyard. Fledgling vampire, Spike thought, still getting used to the new senses - and hungry. He moved closer, attracted by something he couldn't name.
The young female vampire stumbled and fell to the ground as he approached, and she leaned heavily on a nearby headstone trying to get to her feet again. It wasn't until he had come up nearly beside her that she noticed his presence and turned wary golden eyes to this new threat. Her mouth was liberally streaked with fresh blood.
All the strength left his limbs and he collapsed to his knees beside her. The flesh on his arms pricked sharply as he reached for her. Ah, love. I'm so sorry - I couldn't get here in time. To become the antithesis of everything you believe in . . .
Before he could finish this thought, the dim light wavered strangely around him, and Buffy and the cemetery both vanished. The whirlwind returned and swept him away as well.
Break of Dawn
A cemetery again; and a small, lone figure kneeling by a headstone with an air of infinite sorrow. Spike walked slowly forward, assessing this new scenario. "Buffy?" he called softly. She didn't stir, but kept watch over the fresh grave.
He moved up until he stood close behind her. It was only then that he managed to see that the inscription on the headstone read "Dawn Summers - Beloved Daughter and Sister - 1987-2002". Not my Niblet - please, no! he pleaded to any powers that might deign to hear such a creature as himself.
"Buffy, I-" There were absolutely no words he could say that would make any difference, so he only laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. Without even turning to acknowledge his presence, she shook his hand away impatiently. Her own hands remained folded in her lap.
He tried again to get her attention, dropping to one knee in front of her and reaching to turn her head towards him. "Love, look at me. This isn't real." Faster than his eye could follow, her arm lashed out and knocked him onto his back on the close-cropped lawn. His attention was suddenly riveted by the stake that appeared in her hand, and he scrabbled backward away from her. So intent was he on avoiding what seemed to be swiftly advancing woody death that at first he didn't see the ground begin to stir behind her.
Buffy spun around at once in response to the noise. One small hand, and then another, appeared above the loose soil. In an appalling caricature of birth, Dawn's dark head pushed free of the grave and she clawed her way free. Her rough face and yellow eyes held no recognition or any sign of human emotion, only a fierce hunger that demanded satisfaction as she advanced on her sister.
Spike watched, frozen in shock, as Buffy seized Dawn by the bodice of her simple dress and plunged the stake mercilessly into her heart. Ashes and dust scattered on a sudden gust of wind. Her face hard and cold, Buffy stood looking down at the disturbed earth. Then, as if the Slayer's strength had suddenly been stripped from her, her expression crumbled into grief and she fell to her knees, clutching desperately at the damp earth and sobbing.
His paralysis broken, Spike tried to move forward to comfort her, but when he reached for her his hands passed through her huddled form. All he felt was a tingle in his fingertips like an electric shock. Too late, always too late. The wind licked at her hair and she was gone.
Resurrection
He appeared in a forest glade but it sounded more like a freeway, echoing with the sound of motorcycle engines. The engine noises faded gradually, and he looked around with a sudden anxiety, realizing where he must be. Where he had spent hours every night the last summer, remembering how he had been faster, or stronger, or more clever, and she wasn't really lying cold in the ground below him. As he turned, he saw her simple headstone and stepped forward involuntarily. His boot crushed shards of pottery underfoot and he bent to retrieve pieces of a broken urn. The scent of fresh blood was still sharp in the air.
Only moments after the resurrection spell had been cast, Willow and the others had been driven from Buffy's hidden grave by the marauders. They hadn't returned, thinking that the broken urn meant the spell hadn't been completed. Instead, they had left Buffy . . . Spike dropped to his knees and began frantically tearing at the soil; heedless of the damage he was doing to himself. Below him, through several feet of earth, he could hear the desperate scrabble of her small hands hammering at the lid of her coffin, her panic-stricken gasps as the air began to go stale.
Spike threw earth aside wildly in his need to reach her, to save her. He reached the wood of the coffin just as Buffy's hands broke through. He grabbed the jagged edges of the hole and ripped the wood away, widening the opening enough to haul her through and into his arms.
"I'm here, love," he murmured over and over into her ear. "It's over now. It was only a dream." Everything twisted and spun; she was gone from his arms and he was gone from her world.