Are You Happy Now?

//Do you really have everything you want?//

//You could never give somethin' you ain't got//

//You can't run away from yourself//

//Could you look me in the eye//

//And tell me that you're happy now, yeah , yeah//

//Come on, tell it to my face or have I been replaced//

//Are you happy now?//

Michelle Branch, "Are You Happy Now"

~*~

It wasn't real, Buffy told herself even as Willow and Xander's reactions told her what she saw on the computer screen was truly there. He wouldn't do that.

She kept telling herself that as her disbelieving green eyes remained wide open and watching Spike's lips and hands and body move over Anya's on a table at the Magic Box.

"You have to move on."

Not even an hour ago she'd spoken those words to him. Trying yet again to completely sever the ties between them, wanting him to stop loving her as he did and move on so she'd stop hurting him. Hurting them both.

Now it appeared he was taking her advice for once and doing all the things he'd driven her crazy doing. Doing them to Anya.

"I don't hurt you."

Spike's words replayed in her head and her chest ached as she couldn't take her eyes off his familiar body covered in that black leather duster writhing above and thrusting into the blonde woman on the video feed. She'd believed him when he said it. Believed he wouldn't hurt her.

And this shouldn't be hurting, she told herself as she gulped back tears she felt forming as she watched.

But, oh God, it did.

Some part of her hears Willow say her name and she snaps her attention from the computer to see Dawn and the redhead looking at her a bit worriedly.

"That's enough," she hoped her voice didn't sound as hurt and broken to them as it did her as she turned away from the monitor and left the room.

The backyard doesn't offer much sanctuary, but it's the only place she can think to go to flee the images. Not that there's any escaping them.

Spike – her Spike – with Anya.

With someone else.

Not with her.

She finds a chair and sits down in it hard as the ache in her chest increases and spreads through her entire body. Every inch of her that he's ever touched hurts and there isn't an inch of her inside or out that he hasn't touched.

"So," she hears Dawn speaking from nearby but doesn't look up. Can't look up. "This is it? This is the stuff you've been protecting me from? You and Spike?"

Something pierces her heart at the linking of their names together, but she tries not to let it show as she responds to her sister, "And a lot of monsters."

"Uh-huh," typical teenager response.

"But it's over," her gut clenches painfully over the words and she starts replaying it all again.

The last words she spoke to Spike in his crypt so short a time ago. Telling him to move on, it wasn't real for her, it was over and him ordering her to get out. Seeing him on Anya with the other woman's clothing opened and pushed aside for his hands and lips to touch her flesh as he took her body.

And she'd meant it, she told herself firmly. It wasn't real for her like it was for him. It was over. He needed to move on. What they had had had to stop.

So why were tears wetting her cheeks as she kept her gaze averted from her sibling to stare at the ground as the pain inside her refused to stop?

"Buffy," her head snaps up at the sound of Willow's voice coming urgently from the direction of the back door to the house. "Xander's gone. He took your axe."

Suddenly the pain stopped as she went completely numb.

Xander. Gone. Angry and hurting with an axe.

"Oh, God. Spike," she doesn't care in that moment that she spoke the horrified realization aloud and revealed to the others that she was afraid.

After gulping in a breath of air like she did after receiving a sharp blow to the stomach, Buffy's on her feet and running toward the Magic Box where her friend was likely headed to kill the blonde vampire he'd seen with his former fiancée.

She refused to think as she ran. Then ran harder and faster until she was moving at a pace she'd never known she could move at. The tears dry on her face while she tries to pretend she issn't praying. Tries to pretend that her heart isn't pounding with panic in addition to exertion at every second that passes without her being at the shop yet.

Oh, God, don't let me be too late, her labored breaths and running pounding footsteps echo loudly in her head with the plea as she rounds a corner and finally gets the store in her sights.

No, no, no, no, no, her inner mantra changes as her eyes widen and focus on Xander pulling a stake from his coat with every apparent intention of driving it into Spike's chest, who was just leaning against the shop front without any fight.

Somehow she found even more speed to run those last few feet separating her from the two men in a blur of frantic motion and the second the gap closed she threw out her hands and shoved Xander away. The brunette recovers his balance and turns to glare at her, but she doesn't care that his anger may be turning on her. She's gulping air into lungs that she doubts she ever before pushed so hard and thanking God she made it in time.

Then they're no longer glaring at each other as her friend turns to glare at Anya and Spike and her pain comes rushing back. Part of her hears the ex-vengeance demon and Xander talking, but all her attention is now focused on Spike. The sight of his gaping black shirt, parted by someone else's hands, makes her want to vomit because she knows that shirt.

She's ripped it and others like it open and off his sculpted chest to allow her hungry hands and lips access to the pale, cool skin beneath. She's watched him slowly and teasingly unbutton that shirt as she waited for him to join her in his bed. She's worn that shirt a time or two around his crypt or home from a particularly primal joining in which her own shirt somehow got ruined by impatient hands tearing it off.

No one else was supposed to be touching his clothes like she did and this vivid proof that another woman had sickened her.

"Didn't take you long, did it?" she doesn't care that her tone reveals the hurt and bitterness she feels.

Spike doesn't answer her, just stays there looking back at her like he still has the right. Like he's done nothing wrong. Has no reason to respond to her or apologize or ask forgiveness. Like he doesn't know something inside her is hurting so bad she could scream at the pain, grab Xander's stake and plunge it into the invitingly exposed chest of her vampire lover.

But he has to know all that. Has to know that this is hurting her a thousand times more than him dragging some random skank to Anya and Xander's failed wedding, her aching heart says as the conversation continues around her. He has to know because he always knows. He knows everything about her. He knows her better than she knows herself and she wants to scream at only realizing it now.

"I look at you," Xander's words to Anya slowly begin reaching Buffy's subconscious, "and I feel sick. 'Cause you had sex with that."

Shame cuts at her ragged emotions as her friend follows his words of disgust and contempt with a careless wave at Spike who calmly retaliates to the insult by saying, "It's good enough for Buffy."

Just like that the secret's out and they react just like she'd known they would. She can see the shock and disbelief Anya and Xander both feel upon seeing the truth of Spike's words in the guilty way she's trying to avoid their stares.

The old Buffy inside her needs to explain and demand understanding and acceptance from her friend, but he refuses to listen to her. Then the stake in his hand clatters to the sidewalk and he walks away without even looking at her when she opens her mouth to speak to him.

Her hurt filled green eyes turn to the silent blonde vampire she blamed for this as she tended to blame him for everything else lately and when she saw no regret or remorse in his expression at having made the revelation she can't bear to look at him any more.

It didn't matter as she turned silently and walked away from the Magic Box that she'd literally told him he could go ahead and tell her friends. That she didn't much care about them knowing and she'd said they could deal with the news. It had been more of her lies. More words she threw out at him without any regard for the effect they'd have on him. She'd never thought he'd do it.

Just like she'd never thought he'd move on.

Tonight was an eye opening experience and she wanted nothing more than to close them again and get the blinders back on.

~*~*~

She didn't want to be there, but Buffy knew as her aimless wandering eventually led to Spike's crypt that once again it was the only place she had to go. She couldn't go home and face Dawn or Willow and she had to try and work this pain out. Had to make it stop hurting and just be angry. Just hate Spike again like she told herself she always had and always would. She just had to stop the feeling bad about herself.

She didn't like it.

When she arrived to find the door to his crypt open her heart stopped beating for a moment as she feared Xander had come here to finish the job. Then she heard familiar movements and British curses from inside the chamber and refused to call the breath that escaped her a sigh of relief.

"Was beginning to think you wouldn't show," he appeared suddenly in the doorway wearing the same clothes he'd had on before minus his coat to lean casually against the frame.

"You know me so well," she sneers to hide the truth of her statement.

"That I do, pet," he turns back into the crypt and she follows automatically. "Your shiny happy world of denial's come crashing in on you and you've come to kick my bloody head in for it. Nothing like abuse of this corpse to make you feel all tingly inside, right Slayer?" he goes to his kitchen area and picks up a tumbler of amber liquid. "'Cept this time I'm not letting you. Your bloody point's been made tonight. I'm done."

"Huh?" not her most eloquent comeback, but there's something in his tone and posture that's striking some emotion inside her.

"I'm done," he repeats clearly with his blue eyes emotionless as they look straight into hers.

In that instant she recognizes the emotion he's striking inside her. It's fear and she leans back against a wall and stares at him blankly as it begins to spread through her.

"Moving on to Anya now?" she glares at the thought.

"No. Just moving on," he empties his glass, refills it from a bottle of scotch on the table then gives her a little toast. "That's where your happy comes in, luv. I'm granting your bloody wish and getting out of this Hell."

"You're leaving?"

Why isn't that giving her the happy he seems to think it should?

"Don't worry, I'm not expecting any parting gifts. Just do a bloke a favor and keep your stake sheathed till I hit the city limits."

"You're leaving?"

"Yes," he finally notices her lack of celebration and stalks toward her like a panther sneaking up on its prey. "Figured I'd take a lesson from the other gits in your life and just go. Tried to do it my own way," he comes to a stop a few feet from her, "stick it out with you through thick and thin to show this wasn't just a fleeting fancy. That what we've got," he reaches out and grabs her chin firmly before she can look away, "what I feel for you and you bloody well feel for me, is real and gonna last."

"How can you say that?" she violently smacks away his hand and shoves him back. "If you felt anything real for me you never would have done this. And don't give me that damned 'Well, I'm evil' bullshit. That works with skanky hos you pick up off the street to make me jealous, this is beyond evil. Beyond you. How could you go to her?" she tries to slam her fist into his face, but he blocks the blow and the kick she tries to follow it with. "How could you do that with her?!" she continues trying and failing to hit him as he seems to be anticipating her every wild strike. "How could you go to one of my friends for that?!"

"First," he notices she no longer has questions to hurl at him with her punches and easily pins her back against the wall, "I say it 'cause I mean it. Love ain't pretty and I sure as Hell didn't want it with you, but I've got it and I can't bloody shake it no matter what I've tried. You keep denying it and calling it whatever you want, but the truth will remain I love you, Buffy, and you know it. You damned well love me back, too, but you're too damned self-righteous to admit it," again he thwarts her attempts to look away. "Second, love dunnit have a thing to do with what you saw tonight. I got an itch you won't scratch 'cause you're too bloody pig headed to admit what we've really got so I found another way to ease it. I'm sorry 'bout who I did it with and where and why and pretty much sorry about the whole bloody mess, but don't you look down you little nose at me for seeing a chance to feel nothing but a nice, no strings attached release without the bleeding bullshit you put a guy through for a tumble. All that said and done, though, I didn't go to the gal for a shag," he moves away from her suddenly and went to pick up his bottle and takes a swig straight from it. "Went there for what the bloody shop specializes in. Magic," he scoffs then turns to glare in her direction. "Wanted to find myself a little spell."

"You were going to use a spell on me?" she looks at him with horrified revulsion at the thought of him trying to get to her like he'd once planned to get Drusilla back years ago.

"No," he looks her straight in the eye. "This stopped being about you the second you made it clear you weren't ever gonna give up your damned denials with your bloody speech about this only being real for me. Your believing the wanker's bullshit about me being the one planting cameras all about you was the last bloody straw. I get the picture, you'll always only see me as a monster no matter what the hell I do for you and that's the lame excuse you'll always use for not admitting you love me," he sighs heavily. "The spell was for me. I wanted to make this bleeding hell stop. To get rid of this," his hand thumps against his chest over his unbeating heart. "I don't want you in here, dammit. I hate loving you just as much as you hate having me love you," she stares at him a bit blankly and he scoffs at something he sees in her expression. "You really have no idea how hard this is for me," he takes another swig from his bottle then turns away from her to hurl it against the wall. "Not for one bloody second since I realized it have I been glad that I feel this bloody way. All it's ever made me feel is hurt and disgust and self hatred and shame and contempt. Do you know how bloody weak this makes me?" he turns back at her with wild eyes that skim over her but don't seem to see her. "Not just as a laughingstock of a vampire, but as anything. It's pathetic and you never once had to be the one to break that news to me. I've known it the whole damned time. But I could never stop it," she thinks she sees tears gleaming in his eyes and feels her heart wrench at the sight, but he turns away again before she can be sure of their presence. "So I went lookin' for magic. Some bloody spell or charm or any fucking trick to make me stop feeling this 'cause I apparently don't have the stones to do it myself. I love you and you won't let yourself love me and I'm done with it," he's cold and composed when he looks at her again, even has his trademark smirk in place. "Didn't really plan on Anya bein' in the same dire straits and having lots of handy alcohol to make a quick fuck seem like a bloody good idea, though. That made for a pleasant li'l surprise."

The crypt falls completely silent for a moment and they stare at each other without really seeing anything.

She was too stunned by the hate and anger and bitterness with which he speaks to her about this, saying things in ways only she was supposed to have the right to say to hurt him. He was dealing with some measure of relief at getting all this off his chest and finally letting her know that the pedestal she thought herself to be on above him and normal people wasn't so bloody high after all.

"You should've let him kill me," he says softly into the silence, interrupting her thoughts and causing her eyes jerk up to see that he truly means the words. "Would've been doing us all a bloody favor."

"No," she whispers with a slow shake of her head at the mere suggestion. "I could never do that."

"Might wanna stop and think about why that is one of these days."

"I know why it is," she wraps her arms around her waist and turns away from him. "I have feelings for you, Spike."

"Yeah, pet, just feelings," he scoffs at her and she hears a familiar flapping sound and realizes he's putting on his leather duster. "Keep denying that love is among those feelings. I'm done trying to prove it to you."

She turns back and notices him moving around, gathering up his few remaining belongings after Riley destroyed the crypt's lower level and shoving them into a leather saddlebag.

"You really expect me to fall for this?" she watches the last of his clothes get shoved into the satchel before he closes it up. "I'm supposed to throw myself at your feet after everything that happened tonight and declare a love for you I don't feel to stop you from leaving? Like I could ever really get rid of you," she strives for a sneering tone and succeeds if the way he stiffens is any indication.

"My bloody lot in life," he slings the bag over his shoulder and turns to glare at her. "Human or vampire I'm destined to fall for the worst bloody bitches I can find," he gives a derogatory laugh and continues bitterly. "Find myself a nice unattainable chit and throw myself before her to be her slave, her punching bag, her joke - any damned thing she wants and is it ever enough for your lot? No," he turns away and rakes his fingers through his hair. "Nothing I ever do is enough for you. Could never be worthy of Cecily with my station in the aristocracy and those bloody awful poems. Could never kill or be evil enough for my Dru to replace the damned poofter in her affections and you," he stalks toward her with such anger she backs away fearfully, "you're the worst of them all. It apparently isn't bad enough that I devoted a hundred years to Drusilla, who never stopped mooning over Angelus, I had to come all this way to fall for you. Another of Angel's damned castoffs and a Slayer to boot," another self loathing mockery of a laugh escapes his lips. "God, you should have let Harris stake me. Shoulda done it yourself years ago, but that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun for you, would it have? Wouldn't have had Spike to beat up and abuse and blame for every damned wrong in your delusional little life these past … two fucking years, Buffy!" he shouts and storms away from her. "Two years - sure I didn't spend every day being all noble and lover-like, but that was your own damned fault - I've done nothing but prove I can be whatever the hell you want or need me to be and what the fuck's it earned me? A few times between those dimpled knees of yours and nothing but heartache. I've tried to prove it to your damned friends and it's the same bloody thing. Nothing I ever do will be enough for any of you and I am done trying. See how well you get along without me to scratch you bleeding itches. And believe what you will about this," he turns his back on her and stalks toward the crypt's entrance. "You'll see soon enough I'm not bothering anymore," he pauses on the threshold but doesn't look back. "Tell the bit I'm sorry, if she even cares anymore. Tell her I'll still be watching out for her when I can. I just can't stay here to do it anymore."

Buffy's brain was lagging. His words and actions weren't computing fast enough for her to do anything as it was all so slow to sink in and make any kind of sense to her. But one thing was painfully clear as she pushed herself from the crypt and ran through the cemetery when she heard the sound of a motorcycle's engine revving up.

Spike was leaving.

And as she made it to the street just in time to watch a single red taillight racing away she knew Spike was gone.

Everything from the last few hours rushed forward and began swirling chaotically in her head as she stood there swaying for a moment then flopped tiredly down to the ground. It was too much to deal with.

She wasn't ready for this. Didn't want any of this.

God she hated this place. Hated be back here alive on Earth feeling these kinds of feelings again. She hadn't asked for it. She never asked for any of the mess her life had been for so long.

Why was any of this happening to her?

Words, actions, events and emotions all blurred together in a dizzying mess that she could make no sense of until she cried out and put her hands to her head and shook it to try clearing away the debris.

She had no idea how long she stayed there trying to regain control of herself and her thoughts and convince herself that none of this mattered, but eventually she managed to stop it and clamber back to her feet to start walking blindly down the street that had taken the blonde vampire out of town.

As she stumbled along one thought continued to repeat itself as it had since she first heard Spike's avowal that he was finally leaving.

Why isn't that giving her the happy it should?