FOOLS FOR LIFE

CHAPTER 48: THE LETTER

** **

After the first line her first reaction was to start running and look for him. A stupid reaction of course since there was nowhere she could think of to run to. However, first reactions aren't always known to come from rational sources.

Besides, it didn't really matter. It wasn't possible.

After reading that first line, the only possibility for any person is to read the next one……

'…after you read this I'll be long gone. I'm writing this quickly luv, since I'm having a lucid moment. Clem's stuff helps, it puts things in a row in my head, he said I shouldn't worry so much since I've been lucid for a while now, but I can still sense it around the corner. That whirlwind where nothing makes sense and everything is a dark void, and all I can understand is the guilt. The potions do help clearing my thoughts. Just not with is the guilt itself, just with the consequences of it to my mind.

Which have seen me in a kind of a mess. Guess overall the return of a soul is more of a shock to the system than I thought. I knew it'd be worse than I let on to Peaches, but you can't really know what it's like until it's happening to you.

I heard you're alright and that's all I needed to know. That's all I ever wanted. Okay, not ALL I ever wanted but the very least of it.

The thing is, I was right. I really love you and I've proven it.

On the other hand, you were right too. I see myself and the past hundred years through a man's eyes now, not a monster's and I can tell you even in your meanest little rants to me, you were giving me too much credit.

I was a monster. A monster that could love, perhaps, but still a monster. I see all my victims faces, all the lives I destroyed. I dream of them every time I sleep and see them every time I close my eyes. All those people I killed with no more thought than eating a mars bar. For a little fun or snack.

Part of me knows it wasn't really my fault since turning into a vamp means turning into an evil killer and I never chose that, not really. But I remember doing those things, and remember enjoying them. I don't know if I can cope. Part of me wants to, just because Peaches managed to and I still don't want to be beaten by him at anything. Shows how pathetic I am, huh?

It's ironic I suppose that the one thing that I did that really proved my love was real, would also be the thing that finally shows me how I completely unworthy I am of you. Part of me wanted to face the sun back in the desert.

But I couldn't. Because of you. I had to know you were okay. As ever, whatever I do these days has the word 'Buffy' in it's reasons.

Never forget luv, you are the most amazing woman on the planet and I'm living proof. You made a soulless vampire love, and do good deeds to prove his love, to do selfless things in spite of what he was.

I'm not blowing my own horn here…..it was you. Just who and what you are made a monster want to be a man. Never forget that.

Live your life, try and be free of monsters. Especially in your love life. You deserve better.

Love, always

Spike.'

Buffy clenched the paper as a tear from her face fell on it. Damn him, not even a clue about what he means by 'gone'! Gone away? Or gone dead?

And not a clue as to where he's been or anything. She traced the letter with her eyes again. Tried to see if there was a mark on the paper so she could trace where it was bought like they do in the detective novels, but she couldn't see anything.

Clem put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't move.

"Just….just tell me where you saw him. Tell me he's not dead," she whispered.

"He's not dead. But I promised him not to tell you anything. Besides he won't be there anymore. I know this has been a tough thing on both of you for a long time. But he's trying to do the right thing now……you know?"

Buffy said nothing, just stared at the letter…….then her eyes drifted upward, thinking of their last moment together before everything turned to fighting monsters again. In the desert, when she teased him with the fact she knew how he used to be…….a sensitive, dorky poet. A bad one at that.

Would that be it?

The last memory.

A moment they were together and she teased him and he almost blushed…..reminiscent of when she'd go to him after her resurrection, just chatting and joking, flirting to tease, to watch his eyes as he lapped up her presence.

Her thoughts drifted to their history…….so much hate and violence, so much passion and fire. So much desperation and mutual dependency.

So much of it wrongly timed…….wrongly seen and felt…….and in the end, such sacrifice and love, such mutual understanding forced by outside forces…..

And now…..was here then what would be the epitaph of what they were? How she would remember the man who wasn't an enemy, not quite a lover, not quite a boyfriend or confidant, yet had been all of those things at one time…..

All that, along with the feeling of what might have been, between her and the monster with a heart, now a reborn man with a past no one could imagine.

Trying to find himself in a world from which he had received and to which he had given so much pain………

For a moment she stared at the letter again, and suddenly her eyes widened. Then she looked at Clem.

"Uhm, Clem?" she asked.

"Yes?"

She held up her hand, sticking up her thumb.

"The ink. It's still wet." She held the thumb closer to his face and he saw the dark blue smudges on it. He gulped.

She gave him a look that suggested he started talking now, but he just gulped again and looked desperate like he was trying to look for words.

Then he just shrugged apologetically.

She nodded and walked past him to the entrance of the crypt. Clem thought for a moment of trying to stop her but knew that would be a futile attempt.

She opened the door to the crypt and walked inside.

There was Spike. Sitting on one of the caskets with his back to the door. He looked tired and sad as he rummaged through some stuff. He turned around when he heard the door and said "Hey pal, you forget somethi-…?"

He stopped as he saw her. She half-folded her arms, holding up the letter in one hand with her eyebrows raised, waving the piece of paper between her thumb and forefinger like it was a dirty tissue.

"And what was this supposed to be?" she asked.

** **

TBC!