Title: Now and At the Hour
Author: Lily Ann
Contact: saywardluckett@yahoo.com. Feedback feeds the plot bunnies.
Summary: Post-Chosen, Buffy and Spike find each other again.
Chapter 2: A Time for Us
When Spike died, she went to the ocean.
Left the milling chaos of the Hyperion and drove along the coast until Angel's car finally ran out of gas. Stood on a fat, stern boulder, high above the boiling waves, under a tapestry of wild indigo almost as brilliant as her lost boy's eyes. There, she released her sorrow into the wind. Wept and screamed and wasn't at all strong like Spike said she was. Like she had to be in that cavern, losing him to sunlight and falling timber. She was there for hours, beating her fists against the earth and cursing fate, might even have prayed a little–she wasn't sure she remembered how anymore. Gave language and voice to her grief, high on that rocky outcropping, but still couldn't bring herself to regret the loss of his ashes. Because it would have been so very final, casting Spike to the sea. And he'd never expressed a particular fondness for the ocean in their conversations. It was too solitary a resting place for the vampire who was drawn, irresistibly, to cities and crowds, to noisy humanity, for amusement and asylum and sustenance. Despite how effectively he played the lone wolf, Spike was fond of people, couldn't endure the silence of a world without them.
No, it was her own soul that was pulled to the sea when he was lost, drawn to the turbulence of tides, the roiling, relentless evidence of nature's supremacy. Proof that everything living was bound to die. And Spike, though he had forsaken a natural life long ago, chosen time over grace, had found his way back to that cycle in the end. Returned to the ebb and flow. Found his sweet release.
The ocean was an affirmation of life. And it called to her again after the shock of revelation. In a 7-11, of all places.
She barely remembered the drive to the beach, certainly didn't recall coming to the water's edge, a clamor of possibilities ringing in her ears and heart, so loud and true and glorious that she almost fell to her knees on the damp carpet of sand, bowled over by the very idea of Spike alive in the world. It was crazy and impossible and a miracle she didn't deserve.
"That voice...oh, my stars and garters..."
Indeed. It lived in her memory, his gorgeous whisky purr. Whispering nasty, murmuring sweet, sometimes mocking or melancholy with soul. Not brooding but yearning. Spike, on his way to something higher.
"Good bones..."
Yes, good. Strong. Not easily broken, except by an enraged hell goddess or Buffy's own fists. She would never again walk through an alley without remembering Katrina's death, Spike's fierce stand, her own rage keening like blood cry. How brutally she beat him down!
How easily he forgave.
The beach, deserted in late afternoon, stretched north and south to the horizon, a natural stage for the baroque dance of shadows that Angel called a gloaming, and only a far-off fishing boat and wheeling seagulls observed the two women standing on the shore, wind-whipped and hair astir. One fairy-gold, the other dark and lush. One leaning in to listen, the other crying a little as her tale tumbled out, fantastic and unlikely and just too good to be true.
Faith said nothing, even after the last tremulous note of story echoed away into the rocks. Buffy began to wonder if she was going to talk at all. Eventually, Faith spoke, her voice too soft, like a stranger's.
"Don't you think you're assuming an awful lot, B.?"
Buffy didn't reply. Faith tried another angle. "I mean, c'mon. Spike paying for smokes? What's next? Angel bikini waxing? Drusilla the Avon lady?"
The attempt at humor fell flat. Buffy's chin trembled and Faith sighed. "Just tell me you don't have your heart set on this. It could be a trick. A spell. Revenge, maybe. Willow, mucking around on the astral plane."
Buffy wrapped her arms around herself, feeble protection against both cold chills and Faith's argument for caution. For Buffy, it was almost too late for doubt. Something long dormant was unfurling within her, a tickling hope that was fast blooming into stubborn certainty. " I'm not crazy, Faith. And it can't be anybody else. What about the coat? The scar?" To her own ears she sounded desperate, almost pleading. Terribly young and very, very lost.
Faith shrugged. "I dunno. Coincidence." She bent into the teeth of the wind to light a cigarette, cupping a palm around the brief lick of flame. A flag of ebony hair hid her expression, but she was always hard for Buffy to read, anyway. A darkling mystery, part wild-child, part penitent, growing into herself half-broken.
Buffy stared at the darker girl."Do you really believe that?"
How could she, when they confronted mysteries every day? Most of their inner circle had passed into death at least once. And come back changed. With all their tragedies, they'd probably worn a path between the worlds of the living and the dead by Spike's time. She'd seen paradise herself, had some fading opalescent memories of her stay. In heaven, her mother's arms were always around her. Night never fell. The dead did remember. And there was no loss. These things she remembered with certainty. The rest was cloaked in mist.
Faith shrugged, slim shoulders twitching under black leather. Her coat was old and butter-soft. Buffy knew because she'd cried on that on that raven shoulder when Spike's loss was fresh. With a battle-worn Giles at the wheel of the bus, and everyone else deep in chaotic dreams, Faith had held her through the darkest hours, listened to her awful, hushed confessions. That first storm of grief lasted forever, subsided and began again. Faith just held on to her through it all. And somewhere on that stretch of highway, between Sunnydale and Los Angeles, a door opened and, for the two Slayers, forgiveness entered in.
When it was over, the tale of Buffy and Spike laid out, in all it's turbulent glory, Faith was quiet for a long time.
"Goddamn." she finally said. "That's a fucked up story, B."
Yes, it was. Fucked up, tragic. Occasionally transcendent. Full of grace one moment and terror the next. Never, ever easy.
When they rolled into the city that morning, Spike was still gone. Sunnydale, in ruins. Anya dead. And Buffy gathered herself, somehow, tucked her memories away, survived as best she could. Helped Angel with his cases, put Dawn in school. Made enough money to split the rent on a small apartment with none other than Faith, who bounced from job to job until she finally landed at Caritas, where she stayed, pouring drinks and keeping the peace.
They were a strange little family of three, Buffy, Faith and Dawn. Frequently at odds, but, as the darker Slayer remarked, happier than any of them would have been moving in with "the enormous freak show" at the Hyperion. Said freak show included, for a time, Sunnydale refugees, Slayers, broken-hearted lovers and a scholar or two. But, gradually, the mass of people thinned from a crowd to a herd, and finally dwindled down to a few souls who lingered before returning to the homes and families they thought they'd never see again, only a short time before. But even the stragglers drifted off, eventually, and, for Buffy, the silence was unbearable. Harder still was the departure of Willow when she, Giles and Kennedy took the rest of the former potentials off to England, to live and train and form the backbone of a new council.
It was Xander, though, who surprised Buffy most of all. When the rebuilding of Sunnydale began, only weeks after its destruction, he packed up and returned to the remains of the hated old town. Didn't explain, just hugged Willow and set out for the place he was born and raised and almost married. To help bang it back together with hammer and blowtorch and heart. Buffy supposed he was finding his own way. Maybe, just maybe, building something better over the place where Anya and Tara and Jessie died.
Fixing things, even after.
With every departure, Buffy's loneliness grew, but, at the end of the day, there was always, always Dawn, drawing off the hurt with her candy smile and tart perspective on life. A bright bauble of a girl who painted her toenails cherry-berry, translated Sumeranian and liked to draw the skyline. A mass of happy contradictions wrapped in flesh, dancing on the edge of womanhood.
Buffy couldn't remember ever being that young and free.
Faith's reply called Buffy back from her reverie, to the beach and sand, the freewheeling birds and crash of breakers. "It doesn't matter what I believe. Chasing ghosts is dangerous. Distracting. Could get you killed. Will definitely break your heart."
Buffy felt a bubble of hysteria rising in her chest. My heart...shattered years ago. You should understand this. It was true. Spike made do with shards and loved them more than any man should. And the lecture about pain? So not effective. I lost heaven, sister. You made your own hell.
She clamped down on her retort with effort. If Spike was alive and in trouble, she would need Faith's help to mount a rescue. Asking Angel was out of the question. Giles was far away and...not an option. Xander? He and Spike had made a fragile peace, toward the end, but they weren't exactly blanket friends.
So, it was up to her to save him. Maybe even from himself. She'd done it before, pulled him from the dank school basement, tried to untangle the web of truth and lies that bound him to the First Evil and choked his free will. Buffy closed her eyes, drew up the memory of him, in those terrible days, often feral, sometimes full of whimsy, composing sonnets in the shadows
Scream Montressor all you like, pet.
Buffy felt the prick of tears behind her closed lids. Was he trapped somewhere, all these long months? Screaming for her? Oh God. Her hands itched to smash, to defend, to draw him close and whisper comforting nonsense.
Love. Always. Forever, William. Home now.
Faith must have sensed the tension in her, the simmering violence and helpless need. "C'mon." She grasped Buffy's arm, blackberry fingernails digging into the flesh like talons. "Run with me."
Buffy resisted for a token moment, still bitter. Not at Faith, really, but at circumstance, and time wasted on frivolities–and wasn't that a Giles word–while Spike might be alive somewhere, apart from her.
Waiting, maybe. Like before.
He's tied to the wall, slim wrists hanging limply next to his head, fingers curling, exhausted, torn. But still present enough in spirit thankyougodthankyou to hurl insults. Unbroken. It's obscene, what's been done to him, and she'd get him down but the carvings in his flesh have her frozen in place, staring dumbly, beyond shocked. Ice Sculpture Buffy. Still Life with Vampire. Tortured, bleeding vampire, so she has to be careful, not jounce him on the way out. Be strong even when he looks at her, whispers "Thank You, Slayer," and her heart dies a little because he didn't call her love. They both know why.
He held on for her, that time. Didn't crumble, didn't break. Knew she'd come, and that incredible faith kept him alive. She hoped he still had it. Could hold on a little longer.
The sky above was a deep cobalt, the dark blue that comes before nightfall. Darker indigo. Under them, the sand yielded just enough to hold a footprint. Buffy kept her eyes fixed on a distant point as she jogged beside Faith, their feet pounding the beach almost in rhythm. She could just hear the other Slayer over the song of the ocean.
"Why, B.?"
"Why what?" One of the perks of Slayage. Neither of them was out of breath. Wouldn't be for hours, at that gentle pace.
"Why do you want Spike back?"
Buffy's step faltered. She almost stopped. "Because...well I..." She tried again. "He's–"
Faith cut her off. " He's what? Your friend? Sure. Whatever.." Faith ran backwards for a moment so she could eye Buffy. "Whatcha plan to do with him if you find him?"
"Huh?" Buffy stammered, confused.
"Go shopping? Chat on the phone? Exchange Christmas cards? Set him up on dates?" Faith fired off, "And not crash them?"
Buffy lengthened her stride. "Those delusional pills are really working for you. I have no idea what you're blathering about."
"Will you fuck him?
Buffy stopped running and wheeled on her, outraged. "That's none of business! I know you're the pervert queen and all but that's just–"
Faith grabbed her arm. Buffy jerked it away. She was panting, by then, breathless with anger and something else, some emotion she couldn't quite put her finger on.
They faced off, two women at an impasse on an endless stretch of beach.
Buffy was red with anger, but Faith looked almost earnest, and adopted a tone of voice to match. "Friends don't fuck, Buffy. Unless they're on a long-running sitcom, that is. Or pretty drunk. But that's beside the point." She leaned in. "Spike wasn't your lover when he died."
Buffy glared at Faith for a long moment before dropping her eyes. "He wanted to be, I think," she
whispered. " I...I know I did ." She lifted an agonized face to the sky. "There just...wasn't time."
Faith sighed. "That's bullshit, Buff. He was in the basement for half a year! You weren't holding back because of Slaying, or Angel or even the First. Her tone gentled. "Was it the bathroom fiasco?"
Buffy looked away. "No. I got over that."
Faith examined Buffy's expression carefully. "When?"
She shrugged. "I don't know." she replied truthfully. "Maybe when I found out about the soul. No, before that," she qualified. "I hurt him. He hurt me. It was hurt fest 2002."
Faith took her by the elbows. "Do you want that again?"
"No! It was different when he came back. Better. He was better." She looked at Faith helplessly. "I...I fell in love." Her laugh was edged with tears. "Sue me."
Faith refused to let her squirm away, even in the face of that confession, which was, perhaps, one of the bravest she'd ever made. Certainly, it was a long time in coming. "Knowing what you want is one thing. Letting yourself love him is another." Faith caressed her cheek, a bare whisper of fingers over flesh. "Say he didn't kick it. Say we find Spike and drag his pale ass home. What then?"
"What do you mean?
Faith rolled her eyes, gave Buffy's arm a little shake. "Is your vamp boy staying or going? Do we tuck him in your bed or make the sofa Spike territory? Am I gonna open a door and find you getting groiny with the undead? Will Type O always be on the goddamn grocery list? In other words, B. What do you want? Do you even know?"
"Yes," Buffy breathed. "I know. But–"
"Jesus fucking Christ!" Faith clapped her on the side of the head, none to gently. "Is your schitzo catching? Cause my head is spinning, big time. Are you keeping Count Gorgeous or not?"
Buffy slapped at Faith's hand. "He's a man, not Rin Tin Tin, you know!"
Faith smile crackled with mischief. "Yeah, I know. Figured that out when I saw him on that cot, all naked." She waggled her tongue.
Buffy flushed."He was not naked!" Nakidity of Spike wasn't a visual that just got shuffled back into the deck. And Buffy had a complete memory of that day, when Faith returned to Sunnydale and zeroed in on the basement like a cleavegy cruise missile. Remembered mottled shadows and curls of cigarette smoke, how comfortable they looked, sprawled across his bed like partners in crime.
Faith danced away, laughing. "Was too. Half, anyway."
"Bitch!" Buffy stalked her across the sand. "Did you cop a feel?"
"Fuck, yeah." Faith snorted. "Sampled the goodies while you were busy being a tight ass." She let out a whumphhh when Buffy kicked her feet out from under her. "All stiff-lipped and woe-is-me."
"Shut up!" Buffy pounced and the two of them rolled across the sand in a snarl of hair and limbs. "Spike was not naked and my ass is not tight!"
"It is!" Faith howled. "Tight ass Buffy!"
To passerby, their little skirmish might have appeared more serious than it was, probably came across as two women actively trying to kill each other, but Faith's laughter betrayed the illusion. Kneeing Buffy in the stomach, she scrambled away.
On her feet in an instant, Buffy lunged. Faith parried, and the brawl became a dance to the casual observer, a graceful flurry of femininity and violence, timeless as dirt and sky. Buffy threw herself into the medley of kicks and punches. It had been too long since she had a worthy opponent, someone who challenged her the way he did, flowing like quicksilver, moonlight in motion.
Faith blocked a right-cross and spun fluidly. "You gotta move forward, B. Or let him go. That's all I'm saying."
Never let go. My gift, my curse. "I get that." And she did. Now.
Up and down the beach they battled as the shadows spread, and Buffy vowed to remember this night, this moment on the cusp of the rest of her life. When a door opened and the future entered in. The past was still with her, of course, but not so much. Obstacles lay ahead, but they were not unconquerable. It was time that she loved.
Falling on the sand in exhaustion, she looked up at the shadow-figure of her friend. "I love him, Faith. I'm going to find him. Will you help me?"
Faith plopped down beside her. "Of course I will, shithead. Hot chicks with superpowers gotta stick together."
"It could get messy. Spike can be difficult."
Faith's bark of laughter, dark and rich as plums, pierced the gloom.. "Yeah. Figured that out when he went all dark avenger and punched me in the face." She flopped on her side to face Buffy. "He totally defended your honor."
Buffy allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. "He loves me."
"Yeah." Faith sounded almost wistful. "You're pretty fucking lucky. Mess it up again and I'll be forced to kick your ass."
Buffy laughed. "If I mess it up, I might even let you."
"Deal." Faith vaulted to her feet and pulled at Buffy's arm. "Come on, you lazy shit! Let's go find your vampire!" She set off running down the beach.
Jumping up, Buffy took off in pursuit, following the shadowy outline of the other Slayer's retreating back. She was nearly caught up, preparing for a flying tackle, in retaliation for the lazy shit comment, when a thought occurred to her.
Finding Spike is all well and good, in theory.
But where the hell do we start?
TBC