Author's Notes: I got some interesting reactions from this, and a couple of people asked me to continue it. However, since I don't really see where to go from here without veering wildly out of canon, I decided to do the same scene from Spike's viewpoint. Not that going out of canon would necessarily be a bad thing; I suppose I could go AU from here--but I don't really feel like it. Joss gave us what he gave us, and while I'm not adverse to changing an event and going from there *cough*Salvation*cough* I just don't see doing it in this instance. So, I'm calling it done after this chapter unless someone emails me or leaves me a review that gives me some kind of inspiration.

Chapter 2: Spike's POV

"I dreamed of killing you," I said.

Keeping a wary eye on me, Buffy bent down to pick up a makeshift stake from the smashed pew in the chapel.

I continued. "I think they were dreams." Had they been dreams, or fantasies? I didn't know anymore. "So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling buckets of useless salt over your...ending? Angel--he should have warned me." That wanker. "He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time." I walked around behind her, and she twisted her neck to watch me. "The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me, and now all it does is burn."

"Your soul."

I laughed bitterly. Oh, yes. My bloody soul. "Bit worse for lack of use."

She turned to face me. "You got your soul back. How?"

"It's what you wanted, right?" I raised my eyes toward the ceiling, talking to God. We were in a church, after all; maybe He'd listen now. "It's what You wanted, right?" I pressed my fingers into my temples, looked down, and walked toward the altar at the front of the church. Wanted to push my fingers right through my forehead and into my sodding brain, but that wouldn't do, would it? Just make another mess for someone else to clean up. "And now--now everyone's in here, talking. Everything I did, everyone I--and him...and it...the other, the thing beneath--beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go...go..." I looked back over my shoulder at her. "To hell." A fitting place for me, when all was said and done.

"Why? Why would you do that?"

I almost pitied her. Couldn't she see? "Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev--" I looked away. "To be a kind of man."

I continued, but I wasn't talking to her anymore. "She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved." The cross on the altar, just a foot away, drew me like a magnet. "So, everything's okay, right?" I sighed and embraced the cross, placing an arm over each crosspiece and resting my head in one corner of it. The burning sensation was exquisitely painful. I needed to feel that pain. I needed to be punished for what I'd done. "Can--can we rest, now? Buffy...can we rest?"

The stake clattered as it fell to the floor. "Oh, Spike." I felt her small hand on my shoulder and flinched from the contact. The likes of me had no business being touched by her. "Come away from there," she said. I didn't--couldn't--move. No. Needed to stay there and burn. "Dammit, Spike, don't do this to me." Good, she was mad at me. Then her tone softened a bit. "Please, Spike." She tugged on my arm, but no, I wouldn't let go, and she finally had to tear me away from it. Both of us fell to the floor, and I put my arms over my head and lay there, shivering. Buffy scooted over to me and lifted my head into her lap, stroking my hair. "It's going to be okay. Really."

"Not going to be, though. Not ever again. You should have left me there, on the cross. Should have let me burn. I hurt you." Nothing was okay. Why didn't she see that? With all her effulgence, all her light, you'd think she could see what was right in front of her nose.

"No more than I hurt you."

Oh, please. You almost raped her, my soul screamed at me. You did things, said things...terrible things. Intolerable things. "No. What I did...that was unforgivable. I can't ask..."

"You don't have to ask," she murmured. "I forgive you, Spike."

I scrambled away from her, my eyes wide with horror. "You can't possibly. I don't deserve..." Wasn't fitting. Wasn't right. Wasn't proper. No, no, no...I'd hurt the girl. I should ignite and turn to ash for doing that.

"It doesn't matter what you think you deserve. Both of us did wrong. How can I not forgive you when I was as much at fault as you were? There's enough blame to go around. It's time to start healing."

"No." I shook my head wildly and leaped to my feet. "Can't. Won't." She was the wronged, not the wrong. She hadn't done anything to warrant what I'd tried to do to her.

Still sitting, she held her hand out to me. "Spike..."

"No!" I turned and ran out the door.

Back to the basement. To the dark. Where I belonged.