Part Seven
*Thanks to a reader for help with a political definition in this part.*
"This sucks."
Dawn swung her sword in front of her with a quick motion, getting some satisfaction out of the whipping noise it made as it cut through the air. Though it had obviously been cleaned and sharpened recently, its age was betrayed by the handle, worn down and made extra-glossy in the area where a large hand would have gripped it, and by a few small nicks in the blade. She imagined that these tiny imperfections were caused by some fantastic ancient battle, where a warrior - maybe even a Slayer - had thrust the sword into an impossibly large demon, and then torn the weapon out, catching the metal on bone and damaging it as the monster fell bleeding to its knees.
She looked at the sword more closely and then threw a sidelong glance to Spike as he walked beside her. The real story was probably less big-nasty-demon-death and more slaughter-of-innocents, so she was content to remain ignorant on that issue.
She swung the sword again, this time downward, catching the tip in the ground and effortlessly upturning a mound of dirt and grass. "Shiny new toy and nothing to decapitate," she said with a pout.
There was a barely-audible chuckle from behind her, and she could imagine Spike's mouth turning up in a half smile. "Life's a bitch, ain't it?" he muttered.
From time to time during their patrol that evening, Spike had fallen a step behind her, making her feel, for brief periods of time at least, as if she was leading the way. She wondered if he did this on purpose, to show that he knew she was capable. She'd seen Buffy exhibit similar behavior during their outings: giving her enough distance to allow her some semblance of autonomy, but remaining close enough to step in if there was trouble. She couldn't help but hold her head high and her shoulders back proudly during these moments, and think of herself as someone powerful, brave, a threat to all enemies.
But she also couldn't forget the other times.
Hiding under tables and desks, in corners, in dark underground recesses. Crouched down, against the wall, and always afraid. Being told to get behind Buffy, told to stay with Spike, and a part of her indignant at this, at being treated like something that needed protection. But another part of her was still afraid, and comforted by the sight of her sister's arm moving her backwards, and Spike's back as he stood between her and danger, even when danger managed to find her anyway.
In some way she knew that, no matter how many vampires she dusted and demons she stabbed and swords she called her very own, a part of her would always be a little girl hiding, and if she thought about it long enough, she was sure she'd hate herself for that.
She stopped walking when Spike disappeared from her peripheral vision, and a familiar landmark (a crooked tree, at some point struck and splintered by lightning) alerted her to which one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries they had wandered into.
She turned to find Spike just a few feet behind her, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the darkness for shadows, apparently itching for a kill much more than Dawn was. When he noticed that she'd stopped walking, he stopped as well, and gave her a questioning frown.
She paused a moment to study him. He stood wearing his familiar faded pair of jeans and tight black shirt. (She thought she'd have to offer sometime to help with his laundry, so that he would stop shrinking everything.) Without his leather jacket he seemed smaller, and almost human. She'd retrieved the coat from the hall closet earlier that evening, but he'd turned it down with a shrug. At first she wondered if he'd gotten mellow in his time away, but he quickly dispelled that theory on their walk towards the cemetery, as he related the story of killing a Pineseehc demon the previous night.
"It was vicious," he'd said, holding his hands up to simulate claws. "Razor-sharp nails. Huge, blood-stained fangs. Had a taste for flesh, he did, and didn't much care whether it was living or not. Tried to tear my arms off, but I showed that poofter who's the real bad ass. Tore his giant head near off his body." He smiled proudly and put his thumbs in his pockets. "Too bad you weren't there, bit. Damn impressive sight."
Dawn had only rolled her eyes in response. "I don't think the word *whatever* can fully express my feelings."
But now all sarcasm vanished as she almost timidly pointed further into the cemetery and asked, "Can we go somewhere?"
He gestured for her to continue. "Lead the way."
It was only a few yards to the place she wanted to visit: a nondescript grave, barely noticeable among all the bulky mausoleums and tombstones. The grass had grown in enough so that no one would notice its newness, but even in the darkness Dawn could see a slight difference between the light-green turf and the aging grass around it - a thin line forming a perfect rectangle. The top of the grave had only a small metal marker, unreadable unless one bent over it. But when Spike arrived at the site, he seemed to know immediately who was buried beneath them, and he stood silently behind her.
"The headstone should be coming soon," Dawn explained. "Her dad's getting it made and shipping it here, so I guess that takes a while."
It was late, and with the lack of fresh vampires around, the only sound was her own breathing. It occurred to her that she stood between two dead bodies, and that, despite their state, she loved them both.
"I found her," she said dully.
The hush was broken by the subtle sound of motion, and then his arms were around her body, crossed, with his hands against her shoulders.
"She was lying in my mom's bedroom," Dawn continued. "Just on the floor there. She'd been dead for a little while, I guess, because she wasn't bleeding, but there was blood..." The floor, the bedspread, the wall, the curtains, little specs of it, pools of it, her shirt stiff with it. "...everywhere." She swallowed, wanting to cry, but feeling like her body couldn't bear it. "I was afraid to touch her, because I knew she'd be cold, but I couldn't let her just lie there. I sat against the wall, so she wouldn't be alone. For hours, I think." Pain crept up into her temples and seemed to push behind her eyes. "I should've moved her but I was just so scared. And the worst part..." Her chest shook against his forearms, and he moved forward so that his body was against hers, as if that might steady her as she cried. "When I was sitting there I thought, seeing her like this is the most terrible thing I'll have to go through. And when Buffy and Xander came in, I thought, that's it. It's over now. But it only got worse. One day I was helping out at the Magic Box, unpacking these crystals. And there was this really pretty amethyst. I thought, 'Tara would like this; she uses this type a lot in her purifying spells.' I almost even said it out loud to Anya. And then I remembered - she'd dead; I'll never see her again."
She closed her eyes, hoping that might ease the rising pain in her head. Spike's body behind her remained inhumanly still, but his hands tightened around her shoulders. Dawn sniffled and tried to control her voice as she continued.
"The worst part of death isn't the moment when someone dies. It's after, when they're just not there anymore. Eventually you can ignore the memory of the blood and the cold and being so scared you can't move. But that absence, that big hole in the world where she used to be, it hurts so much..." A sob tore from her mouth against her will, sounding to Spike like a moan of pain, as if her insides were being burned. "...and it never goes away."
Her started breathing then, and after a few minutes the steady movement of his chest against her back slowed her to a softer, even sobbing: the only sound in the cemetery. And they stood at the edge of the grave until the night was noiseless again.
*
Buffy finished wiping down the kitchen counter just as the teapot began its rising whistle.
"Want me to get that?" Anya asked without looking up from the newspaper.
"I'm okay." Buffy took out her small assortment of tea bags and examined two of them. "So do you want weird-smelling trendy herbal tea or...other weird-smelling trendy herbal tea?"
"Other sounds good."
Buffy brought two mugs to the kitchen island and sat across from Anya, who was frowning at the newspaper. "This is terrible," she said.
"Nothing but bad news in the paper today, huh?"
Anya pushed the pages away from her with disgust. "My mutual fund's down."
"My coat's not cool anymore."
"The leather one?" Anya asked, surprised.
Buffy shook her head. "The white one."
"Oh, but that coat's always been ugly." Anya took a sip of her tea. "So you were saying that Dawn's weird now?"
"Not bad-weird," Buffy explained. "Good-weird. Like today we were at the mall, and she didn't ask me to buy her everything she saw. It was very unsettling. And my coat's not ugly."
"She's growing up," Anya said. "We all are."
Buffy grinned and gestured to the mugs between them. "Yeah, we're all old now, sitting around, drinking tea." She raised one eyebrow impishly as she sipped her drink. "Though you're way older than me. Way, *way* older."
Anya shrugged in agreement. "Yeah, but I don't have the little, uh..." She gestured to the area around her eyes. "like you do."
Buffy tossed the dishtowel at Anya, who giggled as she dodged out of its way.
"Let me get out of here," Anya said, standing. "I have to open the shop early for some weird foreign customer who wants to meet with me. He better be spending some serious money. You working tomorrow?"
Buffy nodded. "Unfortunately. See you for lunch?"
"Yep. Thanks for the tea."
When the front door closed behind Anya, Buffy got up and retrieved her cordless phone. Back at the kitchen counter, she continued drinking her tea as she dialed a long series of numbers.
After a few odd-sounding rings, the other party answered with a muffled, "Huuuuh?"
"Gah," Buffy put her hand to her head in embarrassment. "Time difference. Forgot about the time difference."
"Again," Willow said through a yawn.
"I'll call back tomorrow."
"No, no, it's all right. Is something wrong?"
"Purely a social call," Buffy replied. "There hasn't been a lot of big evil activity lately. Of course, now that I said that, there's probably gonna be a plague. How are you doing?"
"Better than the last time you called," Willow said. "Substantially less crying. Though the horrible, all-consuming guilt remains at around the same level."
"Will, you know no one blames-"
"I know," Willow interrupted. "Trust me, I've had about a thousand conversations about it." She paused to take a deep breath. "Xander's been great. Giles too. And the witches here are just amazing. They're teaching me these spells for warding off dark magic, and it's pretty powerful stuff. I guess I never realized that you can have power without it being, you know, a dangerous thing." Her voice lowered. "I guess that was my whole problem."
"No. It wasn't your fault. It was the magic, you were addicted-"
"No, I wasn't," Willow said firmly. "Magic isn't a drug, and there's nothing addictive about it. The problem was inside of me. I was...it was the power. My whole life, I never felt like that. My parents always had control over me, and then in high school I was a nobody. I let people walk all over me. But then I finally got something that no one else had. I could do things, I could make people afraid of me. Buffy, a part of me liked how, if I wanted to, I could hurt people."
"But you wouldn't hurt people," Buffy argued. "No matter what happened, you're one of the good guys, Willow. You've proved that over and over again. One mistake doesn't cancel out who you are."
"I made that mistake *because* of who I am." She sighed sadly. "I'm using magic now, the spells they taught me here, and I'm fine. It's not the magic; it's me. Which means that somewhere, inside of me, I'm capable of horrible things. I'm capable of evil."
"Then we all are. Everyone on Earth. We're all given the ability to be good or evil, and the free will to make that choice. You always have a choice, Will." She paused to control her rising voice, not wanting to upset Willow further by yelling at her. "There's this thing called unilateral separation, where people who can't get along just build a wall between them. And I was thinking about how you can't divide things that simply, and you can't exist apart from other people if you-"
"No it isn't."
"What?"
"That isn't what unilateral separation means."
"But..." Buffy knit her eyebrows together, confused. "But they said so on TV. On *CNN!*"
Willow cleared her throat. "In the Israeli/Palestinian situation right now, they're using the term incorrectly. What 'unilateral separation' is supposed to means is that one group of people, usually a province, tries to secede from the country it's a part of. "Unilateral' means only undertaken by one side. For example, every once in a while there's a movement in Quebec to secede from Canada. Now, if they did it *bi*laterally, that means they would discuss it with the rest of Canada first. But unilaterally means that Quebec would stop being a part of Canada, declaring themselves their own country, without consulting or negotiating with Canada. Kind of like, 'nyah, nyah, we're leaving.' This sort of thing is usually really violent, as you would expect."
"Uh-huh," Buffy said blankly. "What about the fence?"
"There is no fence."
"Oh." Buffy took a sip of her tea. "Well, now you've destroyed my entire metaphor."
Willow chuckled softly. "Sorry about that."
"Hey, it was worth it just to hear you laugh," Buffy told her. "That's the Willow I remember."
"Thanks," Willow said softly, almost sounding embarrassed. "And I have been feeling better lately."
From somewhere outside Buffy could hear Dawn's voice rambling on excitedly, and she smiled. "I'm feeling better too."
"That's good," Willow said. "Well, let me get back to bed."
"I'll call again next week," Buffy told her. "And this time, I promise not to forget about time zones."
"Again," Willow said with a giggle.
"Again," Buffy added. "And remember what I said, okay? About how we're not good or evil, we just..."
A motion out of the corner of her eye distracted her.
"...make choices."
Spike stood in the back doorway, leaning against its side casually. He was mostly outside, but the tops of his boots were well over the threshold, as if to show that he wasn't intimidated, that he knew he could come in. His familiar smirk and slight head tilt were proud, almost defiant, though of what no one could say for certain. Spike just seemed to carry that air of boldness, even when he was sappy, depressed, or drunk. A look that said, "I exist. Ha ha." If he had no other obvious good qualities, one could at least say that he lived without shame. Without apology. And Buffy was suddenly reminded of fire.
"It wasn't a demon." Dawn appeared from the darkness behind him and bounded into the house, holding her sword up in front of her. "Just a cat. Oooo, but maybe it was a vampire cat." She looked over at Spike curiously. "Are there such things as vampire cats?"
When the spirit guide told her that death was her gift, she'd been upset. So upset that she'd barely listened to the rest of the its inane ramblings. But the words had stayed with her somehow, and she was sure there was something there about fire...
"Oh, is that Dawnie?" came from the receiver still in her hand. "Let me say hi."
Love - that's what she'd gone into the desert about. It told her that her love was like the fire, a statement that served only to depress her further.
"Never seen any, Nibblet, but I think you just gave me something to do next weekend."
Of course love was like fire: intense, scorching, painful, burning brightly and then burning out.
She slowly removed the phone from her ear. "It's Will."
She'd seen it plenty of times, not just in her experiences, but also in her friends' relationships. Every single one had ended in blistering wounds that faded, but never really healed.
"Cool! But then I really have to go to bed or I'll be exhausted. Spike, thank you *so much*! We'll try to stab something another night, kay? Willow! Hi! Guess what I got?"
But that wasn't what the spirit meant. Her love wasn't dangerous like fire, it was...
"Never seen a girl so taken with a weapon. Reminds me of me. Just don't let her sleep with the thing; it's sharper than it looks."
Bright. So bright she pulled away from it.
Spike pushed himself off the doorframe so that she was standing up straight. "Well, I'm off to kill something before sunrise." He tossed a glance over his shoulder and frowned into the night. "Not many vamps around, so I might end up wading through a sewer. See ya'."
"I love you."
Spike stopped breathing, and for a moment Buffy was sure that she had too. Somewhere upstairs Dawn was running water, probably brushing her teeth, and the soft whine it created in the pipes sounded like a far-off test of the Emergency Broadcast System, like there was nothing left in her head but television color bars. He stared at her, stared without blinking, without moving at all. And though every muscle in her body was on edge, ready to tense up, she couldn't move either.
The water stopped, and was replaced with the sound of footsteps. He was walking towards her, so slowly that she saw his body come forward but didn't see him take any of the steps that echoed through the kitchen and through her frozen bones. When he was standing directly in front of her, he finally took a breath, a breath that seemed to shake his entire body, a breath filled with words forever locked in his throat.
And then he punched her in the face.
Her head snapped to the side and her hand went to her jaw immediately. She blinked, and the room seemed to focus for the first time since he'd entered.
"Okay, not quite the reaction I was expecting," she muttered.
"You stupid bitch," he said, his jaw clenching. "You think you can...you think you can just say that?"
"I *did* just say that, idiot!" she shouted back, striking him in the face automatically.
He took the punch and immediately continued, unfazed. "Stupid, selfish bitch, I should've killed you when I first saw you!"
"You want to talk regrets?" Buffy said with an angry chuckle. "I've got ten stakes that missed their destiny right here!" To emphasize her point, she shoved hard against his chest, sending him stumbling backwards.
He caught himself against the edge of the counter and pushed himself back into a confrontational position. "You think that means anything, you saying that? It means nothing! You have no idea what I've been through, all for your skanky ass!"
Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, what a burden for you, having to mope around for years like that. What a big, tragic hero you are, jackass."
"You ignorant bint, I *died* for you!"
"Yeah, and in which wet dream did that happen?"
Spike went to backhand her, but she dodged, and he managed only to clumsily knock her against one of the kitchen chairs. As she struggled to regain her footing, he held his chin up proudly and said, "I have a soul."
Buffy's mouth dropped open. *"What?"*
"I have a soul," he repeated. "I went to this demon, and he did it for me. Killed me, destroyed what I used to be." He put his hand to his chest. "I died, so that I could have a soul, all for you."
Buffy blinked at him, amazed. "Oh my god. Oh my god, you *asshole*!" She leapt forward and hit him in the face, sending him crumbling against the counter once again. "You asshole!" she screamed as he pulled himself back up. "You think you get to decide what I want? You think my life is any business of yours, that you can just...just flounce back into town -"
"I did not flounce!"
"- and tell me you have a soul! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Obviously, I've been spending way too much time around self-involved, dim-witted Slayers," he spat out.
"It wasn't your decision to make," she said, her eyes narrowing. "It's my life, and you can't just worm your way into it -"
"And what a fabulous life it is," he said viciously. "Really, you're the picture of mental health, Buffy."
"Don't you go telling me what's insane!" she yelled. "This, what you've done - this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."
"Oh, no." Spike pointed at her accusingly. "Your big, lame 'I love you' is the stupidest thing ever. Do you honestly think I could believe that, after everything?" He grabbed one of the nearby chairs and tossed it against the wall in a rage. "Do you honestly think I care what you feel?"
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, yes, tell me all about *feelings*, soul-guy."
"I'll tell you this: You haven't had a genuine feeling your entire life."
"Of course!" Buffy threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "Because Spike is the expert on Buffy's feelings. He knows everything about everyone. He's so smart and intuitive, how did he ever manage to fuck up his own life?"
Spike seemed to almost snarl at her. "You know what?" he said. "I take it all back. I never loved you, and I never got a soul for you. I hate you." He clenched his fists, as if fighting the urge to punch her again. "I hope you die. And not in that half-assed way you died before. I hope that this time when you die, it bloody well sticks!"
"Ooooo, scary," she mocked. "'I hope you die'? Is that the best you can do?"
"Of course it isn't, you dense bitch!"
"Yeah, well -" Buffy stopped abruptly.
*He could hurt me. Wouldn't even take much. A sentence. Less than that.*
"No," she said, her voice low with hostility. "No, you don't get to play the suffering hero here, you don't get to hold back." She advanced on him, holding her head up. "You want to hurt me, go ahead and do it. You say every hurtful thing you can think of."
"You want a list of what's wrong with you? I don't have the time to go through it all. And I'm immortal, Buffy." He leaned closer to her, as if daring her to strike him. "I'm frigging immortal, and telling you what I hate about you would take too bloody long!"
"Really? Because cutting me down never seemed to bother you before!" She shook her head, furious. "You thought you could change the rules, and I would just accept it. Then when I don't, I'm the evil one. I'm the bitch who broke your heart, right? I'm the one who couldn't give enough, couldn't love enough. But you didn't want me how I am; you wanted me like you. And now you think you can just change it all around again -"
Spike put his hands to his head. "My god! What does it take to get you to *shut the hell up*?"
So she kissed him.
The motions fell into place immediately - lips gnawing at lips, hands gripping tightly, frenzied breath against each other's skin. The way the world turned to static, and all she could see was the shadow of her eyelashes against his face. She didn't know they were moving through rooms until they fell onto the couch, mouths still connected, bodies pressed together. They were sitting flush against each other, her fingertips digging into his shoulders and his hands hard against her hips.
His mouth moved to her neck, and his hands worked their way around her waist and to her lap. As he undid the top button of her pants, Buffy took in a breath and her body stiffened. "Wait."
The world returned as if switched on, and they both pulled their heads back at the same time. Spike was only looking at her blankly, too dizzy to even form a facial expression. She stuttered out half a word before she realized there was no oxygen in her lungs to form it.
"Wait a second," she gasped out. "Why..."
He pulled his hands away from her pants quickly. Buffy closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on taking a deep breath. When she looked up, her expression was open and curious.
"Why do you smell like cantaloupes?"
He groaned, turned his head away, and let out a small, self-deprecating chuckle. It was such a shock to see Spike weak with embarrassment that Buffy began laughing, and each breath she took in renewed the smell, and the humor, until her smile distorted her face and her abdomen shook.
Spike looked up at her with a smirk. "Bitch."
And he returned his face to hers, where she was cackling freely now, the sound echoing through the house. He kissed her deeply, opening both their mouths with each motion, covering her lips with long kisses, breathing in as she exhaled unevenly, still laughing.
She couldn't stop to think, could only feel him between her fingertips, his hands on her bare skin, and the tightness of her stomach as she giggled hopelessly against his lips, but she knew that it was all somehow familiar, something they'd done before, how he could drink from her mouth instead of her body.
But this, the laughing...this was new.
(tbc)
*Thanks to a reader for help with a political definition in this part.*
"This sucks."
Dawn swung her sword in front of her with a quick motion, getting some satisfaction out of the whipping noise it made as it cut through the air. Though it had obviously been cleaned and sharpened recently, its age was betrayed by the handle, worn down and made extra-glossy in the area where a large hand would have gripped it, and by a few small nicks in the blade. She imagined that these tiny imperfections were caused by some fantastic ancient battle, where a warrior - maybe even a Slayer - had thrust the sword into an impossibly large demon, and then torn the weapon out, catching the metal on bone and damaging it as the monster fell bleeding to its knees.
She looked at the sword more closely and then threw a sidelong glance to Spike as he walked beside her. The real story was probably less big-nasty-demon-death and more slaughter-of-innocents, so she was content to remain ignorant on that issue.
She swung the sword again, this time downward, catching the tip in the ground and effortlessly upturning a mound of dirt and grass. "Shiny new toy and nothing to decapitate," she said with a pout.
There was a barely-audible chuckle from behind her, and she could imagine Spike's mouth turning up in a half smile. "Life's a bitch, ain't it?" he muttered.
From time to time during their patrol that evening, Spike had fallen a step behind her, making her feel, for brief periods of time at least, as if she was leading the way. She wondered if he did this on purpose, to show that he knew she was capable. She'd seen Buffy exhibit similar behavior during their outings: giving her enough distance to allow her some semblance of autonomy, but remaining close enough to step in if there was trouble. She couldn't help but hold her head high and her shoulders back proudly during these moments, and think of herself as someone powerful, brave, a threat to all enemies.
But she also couldn't forget the other times.
Hiding under tables and desks, in corners, in dark underground recesses. Crouched down, against the wall, and always afraid. Being told to get behind Buffy, told to stay with Spike, and a part of her indignant at this, at being treated like something that needed protection. But another part of her was still afraid, and comforted by the sight of her sister's arm moving her backwards, and Spike's back as he stood between her and danger, even when danger managed to find her anyway.
In some way she knew that, no matter how many vampires she dusted and demons she stabbed and swords she called her very own, a part of her would always be a little girl hiding, and if she thought about it long enough, she was sure she'd hate herself for that.
She stopped walking when Spike disappeared from her peripheral vision, and a familiar landmark (a crooked tree, at some point struck and splintered by lightning) alerted her to which one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries they had wandered into.
She turned to find Spike just a few feet behind her, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the darkness for shadows, apparently itching for a kill much more than Dawn was. When he noticed that she'd stopped walking, he stopped as well, and gave her a questioning frown.
She paused a moment to study him. He stood wearing his familiar faded pair of jeans and tight black shirt. (She thought she'd have to offer sometime to help with his laundry, so that he would stop shrinking everything.) Without his leather jacket he seemed smaller, and almost human. She'd retrieved the coat from the hall closet earlier that evening, but he'd turned it down with a shrug. At first she wondered if he'd gotten mellow in his time away, but he quickly dispelled that theory on their walk towards the cemetery, as he related the story of killing a Pineseehc demon the previous night.
"It was vicious," he'd said, holding his hands up to simulate claws. "Razor-sharp nails. Huge, blood-stained fangs. Had a taste for flesh, he did, and didn't much care whether it was living or not. Tried to tear my arms off, but I showed that poofter who's the real bad ass. Tore his giant head near off his body." He smiled proudly and put his thumbs in his pockets. "Too bad you weren't there, bit. Damn impressive sight."
Dawn had only rolled her eyes in response. "I don't think the word *whatever* can fully express my feelings."
But now all sarcasm vanished as she almost timidly pointed further into the cemetery and asked, "Can we go somewhere?"
He gestured for her to continue. "Lead the way."
It was only a few yards to the place she wanted to visit: a nondescript grave, barely noticeable among all the bulky mausoleums and tombstones. The grass had grown in enough so that no one would notice its newness, but even in the darkness Dawn could see a slight difference between the light-green turf and the aging grass around it - a thin line forming a perfect rectangle. The top of the grave had only a small metal marker, unreadable unless one bent over it. But when Spike arrived at the site, he seemed to know immediately who was buried beneath them, and he stood silently behind her.
"The headstone should be coming soon," Dawn explained. "Her dad's getting it made and shipping it here, so I guess that takes a while."
It was late, and with the lack of fresh vampires around, the only sound was her own breathing. It occurred to her that she stood between two dead bodies, and that, despite their state, she loved them both.
"I found her," she said dully.
The hush was broken by the subtle sound of motion, and then his arms were around her body, crossed, with his hands against her shoulders.
"She was lying in my mom's bedroom," Dawn continued. "Just on the floor there. She'd been dead for a little while, I guess, because she wasn't bleeding, but there was blood..." The floor, the bedspread, the wall, the curtains, little specs of it, pools of it, her shirt stiff with it. "...everywhere." She swallowed, wanting to cry, but feeling like her body couldn't bear it. "I was afraid to touch her, because I knew she'd be cold, but I couldn't let her just lie there. I sat against the wall, so she wouldn't be alone. For hours, I think." Pain crept up into her temples and seemed to push behind her eyes. "I should've moved her but I was just so scared. And the worst part..." Her chest shook against his forearms, and he moved forward so that his body was against hers, as if that might steady her as she cried. "When I was sitting there I thought, seeing her like this is the most terrible thing I'll have to go through. And when Buffy and Xander came in, I thought, that's it. It's over now. But it only got worse. One day I was helping out at the Magic Box, unpacking these crystals. And there was this really pretty amethyst. I thought, 'Tara would like this; she uses this type a lot in her purifying spells.' I almost even said it out loud to Anya. And then I remembered - she'd dead; I'll never see her again."
She closed her eyes, hoping that might ease the rising pain in her head. Spike's body behind her remained inhumanly still, but his hands tightened around her shoulders. Dawn sniffled and tried to control her voice as she continued.
"The worst part of death isn't the moment when someone dies. It's after, when they're just not there anymore. Eventually you can ignore the memory of the blood and the cold and being so scared you can't move. But that absence, that big hole in the world where she used to be, it hurts so much..." A sob tore from her mouth against her will, sounding to Spike like a moan of pain, as if her insides were being burned. "...and it never goes away."
Her started breathing then, and after a few minutes the steady movement of his chest against her back slowed her to a softer, even sobbing: the only sound in the cemetery. And they stood at the edge of the grave until the night was noiseless again.
*
Buffy finished wiping down the kitchen counter just as the teapot began its rising whistle.
"Want me to get that?" Anya asked without looking up from the newspaper.
"I'm okay." Buffy took out her small assortment of tea bags and examined two of them. "So do you want weird-smelling trendy herbal tea or...other weird-smelling trendy herbal tea?"
"Other sounds good."
Buffy brought two mugs to the kitchen island and sat across from Anya, who was frowning at the newspaper. "This is terrible," she said.
"Nothing but bad news in the paper today, huh?"
Anya pushed the pages away from her with disgust. "My mutual fund's down."
"My coat's not cool anymore."
"The leather one?" Anya asked, surprised.
Buffy shook her head. "The white one."
"Oh, but that coat's always been ugly." Anya took a sip of her tea. "So you were saying that Dawn's weird now?"
"Not bad-weird," Buffy explained. "Good-weird. Like today we were at the mall, and she didn't ask me to buy her everything she saw. It was very unsettling. And my coat's not ugly."
"She's growing up," Anya said. "We all are."
Buffy grinned and gestured to the mugs between them. "Yeah, we're all old now, sitting around, drinking tea." She raised one eyebrow impishly as she sipped her drink. "Though you're way older than me. Way, *way* older."
Anya shrugged in agreement. "Yeah, but I don't have the little, uh..." She gestured to the area around her eyes. "like you do."
Buffy tossed the dishtowel at Anya, who giggled as she dodged out of its way.
"Let me get out of here," Anya said, standing. "I have to open the shop early for some weird foreign customer who wants to meet with me. He better be spending some serious money. You working tomorrow?"
Buffy nodded. "Unfortunately. See you for lunch?"
"Yep. Thanks for the tea."
When the front door closed behind Anya, Buffy got up and retrieved her cordless phone. Back at the kitchen counter, she continued drinking her tea as she dialed a long series of numbers.
After a few odd-sounding rings, the other party answered with a muffled, "Huuuuh?"
"Gah," Buffy put her hand to her head in embarrassment. "Time difference. Forgot about the time difference."
"Again," Willow said through a yawn.
"I'll call back tomorrow."
"No, no, it's all right. Is something wrong?"
"Purely a social call," Buffy replied. "There hasn't been a lot of big evil activity lately. Of course, now that I said that, there's probably gonna be a plague. How are you doing?"
"Better than the last time you called," Willow said. "Substantially less crying. Though the horrible, all-consuming guilt remains at around the same level."
"Will, you know no one blames-"
"I know," Willow interrupted. "Trust me, I've had about a thousand conversations about it." She paused to take a deep breath. "Xander's been great. Giles too. And the witches here are just amazing. They're teaching me these spells for warding off dark magic, and it's pretty powerful stuff. I guess I never realized that you can have power without it being, you know, a dangerous thing." Her voice lowered. "I guess that was my whole problem."
"No. It wasn't your fault. It was the magic, you were addicted-"
"No, I wasn't," Willow said firmly. "Magic isn't a drug, and there's nothing addictive about it. The problem was inside of me. I was...it was the power. My whole life, I never felt like that. My parents always had control over me, and then in high school I was a nobody. I let people walk all over me. But then I finally got something that no one else had. I could do things, I could make people afraid of me. Buffy, a part of me liked how, if I wanted to, I could hurt people."
"But you wouldn't hurt people," Buffy argued. "No matter what happened, you're one of the good guys, Willow. You've proved that over and over again. One mistake doesn't cancel out who you are."
"I made that mistake *because* of who I am." She sighed sadly. "I'm using magic now, the spells they taught me here, and I'm fine. It's not the magic; it's me. Which means that somewhere, inside of me, I'm capable of horrible things. I'm capable of evil."
"Then we all are. Everyone on Earth. We're all given the ability to be good or evil, and the free will to make that choice. You always have a choice, Will." She paused to control her rising voice, not wanting to upset Willow further by yelling at her. "There's this thing called unilateral separation, where people who can't get along just build a wall between them. And I was thinking about how you can't divide things that simply, and you can't exist apart from other people if you-"
"No it isn't."
"What?"
"That isn't what unilateral separation means."
"But..." Buffy knit her eyebrows together, confused. "But they said so on TV. On *CNN!*"
Willow cleared her throat. "In the Israeli/Palestinian situation right now, they're using the term incorrectly. What 'unilateral separation' is supposed to means is that one group of people, usually a province, tries to secede from the country it's a part of. "Unilateral' means only undertaken by one side. For example, every once in a while there's a movement in Quebec to secede from Canada. Now, if they did it *bi*laterally, that means they would discuss it with the rest of Canada first. But unilaterally means that Quebec would stop being a part of Canada, declaring themselves their own country, without consulting or negotiating with Canada. Kind of like, 'nyah, nyah, we're leaving.' This sort of thing is usually really violent, as you would expect."
"Uh-huh," Buffy said blankly. "What about the fence?"
"There is no fence."
"Oh." Buffy took a sip of her tea. "Well, now you've destroyed my entire metaphor."
Willow chuckled softly. "Sorry about that."
"Hey, it was worth it just to hear you laugh," Buffy told her. "That's the Willow I remember."
"Thanks," Willow said softly, almost sounding embarrassed. "And I have been feeling better lately."
From somewhere outside Buffy could hear Dawn's voice rambling on excitedly, and she smiled. "I'm feeling better too."
"That's good," Willow said. "Well, let me get back to bed."
"I'll call again next week," Buffy told her. "And this time, I promise not to forget about time zones."
"Again," Willow said with a giggle.
"Again," Buffy added. "And remember what I said, okay? About how we're not good or evil, we just..."
A motion out of the corner of her eye distracted her.
"...make choices."
Spike stood in the back doorway, leaning against its side casually. He was mostly outside, but the tops of his boots were well over the threshold, as if to show that he wasn't intimidated, that he knew he could come in. His familiar smirk and slight head tilt were proud, almost defiant, though of what no one could say for certain. Spike just seemed to carry that air of boldness, even when he was sappy, depressed, or drunk. A look that said, "I exist. Ha ha." If he had no other obvious good qualities, one could at least say that he lived without shame. Without apology. And Buffy was suddenly reminded of fire.
"It wasn't a demon." Dawn appeared from the darkness behind him and bounded into the house, holding her sword up in front of her. "Just a cat. Oooo, but maybe it was a vampire cat." She looked over at Spike curiously. "Are there such things as vampire cats?"
When the spirit guide told her that death was her gift, she'd been upset. So upset that she'd barely listened to the rest of the its inane ramblings. But the words had stayed with her somehow, and she was sure there was something there about fire...
"Oh, is that Dawnie?" came from the receiver still in her hand. "Let me say hi."
Love - that's what she'd gone into the desert about. It told her that her love was like the fire, a statement that served only to depress her further.
"Never seen any, Nibblet, but I think you just gave me something to do next weekend."
Of course love was like fire: intense, scorching, painful, burning brightly and then burning out.
She slowly removed the phone from her ear. "It's Will."
She'd seen it plenty of times, not just in her experiences, but also in her friends' relationships. Every single one had ended in blistering wounds that faded, but never really healed.
"Cool! But then I really have to go to bed or I'll be exhausted. Spike, thank you *so much*! We'll try to stab something another night, kay? Willow! Hi! Guess what I got?"
But that wasn't what the spirit meant. Her love wasn't dangerous like fire, it was...
"Never seen a girl so taken with a weapon. Reminds me of me. Just don't let her sleep with the thing; it's sharper than it looks."
Bright. So bright she pulled away from it.
Spike pushed himself off the doorframe so that she was standing up straight. "Well, I'm off to kill something before sunrise." He tossed a glance over his shoulder and frowned into the night. "Not many vamps around, so I might end up wading through a sewer. See ya'."
"I love you."
Spike stopped breathing, and for a moment Buffy was sure that she had too. Somewhere upstairs Dawn was running water, probably brushing her teeth, and the soft whine it created in the pipes sounded like a far-off test of the Emergency Broadcast System, like there was nothing left in her head but television color bars. He stared at her, stared without blinking, without moving at all. And though every muscle in her body was on edge, ready to tense up, she couldn't move either.
The water stopped, and was replaced with the sound of footsteps. He was walking towards her, so slowly that she saw his body come forward but didn't see him take any of the steps that echoed through the kitchen and through her frozen bones. When he was standing directly in front of her, he finally took a breath, a breath that seemed to shake his entire body, a breath filled with words forever locked in his throat.
And then he punched her in the face.
Her head snapped to the side and her hand went to her jaw immediately. She blinked, and the room seemed to focus for the first time since he'd entered.
"Okay, not quite the reaction I was expecting," she muttered.
"You stupid bitch," he said, his jaw clenching. "You think you can...you think you can just say that?"
"I *did* just say that, idiot!" she shouted back, striking him in the face automatically.
He took the punch and immediately continued, unfazed. "Stupid, selfish bitch, I should've killed you when I first saw you!"
"You want to talk regrets?" Buffy said with an angry chuckle. "I've got ten stakes that missed their destiny right here!" To emphasize her point, she shoved hard against his chest, sending him stumbling backwards.
He caught himself against the edge of the counter and pushed himself back into a confrontational position. "You think that means anything, you saying that? It means nothing! You have no idea what I've been through, all for your skanky ass!"
Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, what a burden for you, having to mope around for years like that. What a big, tragic hero you are, jackass."
"You ignorant bint, I *died* for you!"
"Yeah, and in which wet dream did that happen?"
Spike went to backhand her, but she dodged, and he managed only to clumsily knock her against one of the kitchen chairs. As she struggled to regain her footing, he held his chin up proudly and said, "I have a soul."
Buffy's mouth dropped open. *"What?"*
"I have a soul," he repeated. "I went to this demon, and he did it for me. Killed me, destroyed what I used to be." He put his hand to his chest. "I died, so that I could have a soul, all for you."
Buffy blinked at him, amazed. "Oh my god. Oh my god, you *asshole*!" She leapt forward and hit him in the face, sending him crumbling against the counter once again. "You asshole!" she screamed as he pulled himself back up. "You think you get to decide what I want? You think my life is any business of yours, that you can just...just flounce back into town -"
"I did not flounce!"
"- and tell me you have a soul! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Obviously, I've been spending way too much time around self-involved, dim-witted Slayers," he spat out.
"It wasn't your decision to make," she said, her eyes narrowing. "It's my life, and you can't just worm your way into it -"
"And what a fabulous life it is," he said viciously. "Really, you're the picture of mental health, Buffy."
"Don't you go telling me what's insane!" she yelled. "This, what you've done - this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."
"Oh, no." Spike pointed at her accusingly. "Your big, lame 'I love you' is the stupidest thing ever. Do you honestly think I could believe that, after everything?" He grabbed one of the nearby chairs and tossed it against the wall in a rage. "Do you honestly think I care what you feel?"
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, yes, tell me all about *feelings*, soul-guy."
"I'll tell you this: You haven't had a genuine feeling your entire life."
"Of course!" Buffy threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "Because Spike is the expert on Buffy's feelings. He knows everything about everyone. He's so smart and intuitive, how did he ever manage to fuck up his own life?"
Spike seemed to almost snarl at her. "You know what?" he said. "I take it all back. I never loved you, and I never got a soul for you. I hate you." He clenched his fists, as if fighting the urge to punch her again. "I hope you die. And not in that half-assed way you died before. I hope that this time when you die, it bloody well sticks!"
"Ooooo, scary," she mocked. "'I hope you die'? Is that the best you can do?"
"Of course it isn't, you dense bitch!"
"Yeah, well -" Buffy stopped abruptly.
*He could hurt me. Wouldn't even take much. A sentence. Less than that.*
"No," she said, her voice low with hostility. "No, you don't get to play the suffering hero here, you don't get to hold back." She advanced on him, holding her head up. "You want to hurt me, go ahead and do it. You say every hurtful thing you can think of."
"You want a list of what's wrong with you? I don't have the time to go through it all. And I'm immortal, Buffy." He leaned closer to her, as if daring her to strike him. "I'm frigging immortal, and telling you what I hate about you would take too bloody long!"
"Really? Because cutting me down never seemed to bother you before!" She shook her head, furious. "You thought you could change the rules, and I would just accept it. Then when I don't, I'm the evil one. I'm the bitch who broke your heart, right? I'm the one who couldn't give enough, couldn't love enough. But you didn't want me how I am; you wanted me like you. And now you think you can just change it all around again -"
Spike put his hands to his head. "My god! What does it take to get you to *shut the hell up*?"
So she kissed him.
The motions fell into place immediately - lips gnawing at lips, hands gripping tightly, frenzied breath against each other's skin. The way the world turned to static, and all she could see was the shadow of her eyelashes against his face. She didn't know they were moving through rooms until they fell onto the couch, mouths still connected, bodies pressed together. They were sitting flush against each other, her fingertips digging into his shoulders and his hands hard against her hips.
His mouth moved to her neck, and his hands worked their way around her waist and to her lap. As he undid the top button of her pants, Buffy took in a breath and her body stiffened. "Wait."
The world returned as if switched on, and they both pulled their heads back at the same time. Spike was only looking at her blankly, too dizzy to even form a facial expression. She stuttered out half a word before she realized there was no oxygen in her lungs to form it.
"Wait a second," she gasped out. "Why..."
He pulled his hands away from her pants quickly. Buffy closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on taking a deep breath. When she looked up, her expression was open and curious.
"Why do you smell like cantaloupes?"
He groaned, turned his head away, and let out a small, self-deprecating chuckle. It was such a shock to see Spike weak with embarrassment that Buffy began laughing, and each breath she took in renewed the smell, and the humor, until her smile distorted her face and her abdomen shook.
Spike looked up at her with a smirk. "Bitch."
And he returned his face to hers, where she was cackling freely now, the sound echoing through the house. He kissed her deeply, opening both their mouths with each motion, covering her lips with long kisses, breathing in as she exhaled unevenly, still laughing.
She couldn't stop to think, could only feel him between her fingertips, his hands on her bare skin, and the tightness of her stomach as she giggled hopelessly against his lips, but she knew that it was all somehow familiar, something they'd done before, how he could drink from her mouth instead of her body.
But this, the laughing...this was new.
(tbc)