Truth Keeper

A/N – Right, it's been forever. Sorry about that. This is kind of a long author's note, and it's an amalgamation of the last two months of writing, thinking I'm finished, and adding notes to the beginning. I know that the Spike/Ari part is kind of weak, and I apologize. I wanted to make Arabella get really angry, and Spike really angry in response, but it just wasn't working. That's one of the reasons this chapter has taken so long to put up. It's been a very long (and rather trying) haul to get this chapter finished, and I'm not 100% happy with it – but it was just getting to painful to continue trying to rewrite it. So sorry if it doesn't fully seem in character. (I really, really tried) But, onward and forward, finally. Lastly, and most importantly, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE AMAZING REVIEWS!!! The one's from the last chapter have made me smile extra big and I'm so glad to know that people are sticking with this fic and actually enjoying it, even though my updating takes forever (Especially this chapter). So thankyouthankyouthankyou! Oh, and I wouldn't object to more reviews! :)

Enjoy.

Chapter 17 – An Ear and an Opinion

Buffy sat and looked over her backyard, slowly sipping the tea she held between both hands. It was yet another gorgeous day in Southern California, but the sun wasn't lifting her spirits. It just made her all the more tired. All she wanted was to escape for a few moments, to get a breath of fresh air and to collect her thoughts before she started moving again. The back porch had always been her place to do that. This time all it did was remind her of the primary reason she needed a breather.

It had been a long twenty four hours, longer than she could have thought possible. After her disastrous conversation with Spike, their second disastrous conversation, and the subsequent half hour before Buffy could reign in her emotions, she had gone back into the Magic Box to talk with the Scoobies and see if they had learned any more about the Legend and Dawn's role as Bhagavantu. She had found Dawn hibernating in a corner of the shop, Anya sitting around with her usual bored expression, Willow and Tara pouring over the small book Arabella had given them, and Xander sitting in the middle of the room with a contemplative expression on his face.

Buffy instantly new what he was thinking, and before he could say a word, she had told him to go pack for his honeymoon and, with Anya's more than eager help, shoved him out the door. The entire time he had been opening his mouth to object, but she didn't let him speak. She could not deal with a pissy ex-vengeance demon on top of everything else, and if she had let him speak, he would have insisted on postponing the honeymoon, and that was not an option. She would not let him miss out on something as important as that, even if there was a possibility the world was about to end.

After a few more hours of research, the remaining women had not learnt anything new, but they had been able to confirm what Arabella said. Dawn was the Blessed, but it didn't mean apocalypse. And Buffy's instincts were backing it up, she had always felt a strange hum when there was something big rising in Sunnydale, and, blessedly, she hadn't been feeling it.

So Buffy had told the other three women to pack it in, and that they would deal with it tomorrow. When Dawn had not-so-subtly tried to convince her that she shouldn't go to school, Buffy had reminded her of their conversation and how normal it was that she had to go. Grudgingly, Dawn had headed out that morning, accompanied by Willow as she headed towards the university campus. So Buffy had a few moments alone, and she was trying to clear her mind before she had to face the multitude of problems that had been thrown her way.

Sighing, Buffy looked over he shoulder, half expecting to see the black duster and bleached hair that would usually join her when she was feeling miserable enough to make a commune to the back porch. But, of course, he wasn't there. And he never will be again. The thought made Buffy have to blink back tears. She had screwed everything up, her now non-existent job, her relationships with her friends and sister, and with the person that mattered most. And no matter how much she thought about it now, and no matter how much she could repair everything else, she knew last night was her last chance with Spike.

Buffy reached up and wiped the tears away from her face, her blinking tactic having failed miserably. She was really getting sick of crying. Sighing, Buffy looked down at the newspaper sitting beside her. It was time to focus on her other problems, the ones she could fix.

Just as Buffy started to peruse the employment section of the classifieds, she heard the distinct sound of the kitchen door opening. Whipping her head around, she couldn't help the irrational hope that maybe it just was her vampire fill her head, only to be abruptly brought back to reality by a nervous looking Tara.

"Buffy, hi. I hope you don't mind, I left a book here yesterday afternoon and was, was just stopping by to pick it up." Tara anxiously looked at her friend, the brief glimpse of hope, and then utter despair that had welcomed her making her very concerned. When Buffy didn't reply, Tara knew that there was definitely something on the Slayer's brain. Stepping forward, Tara sat down on the step beside Buffy, not really sure what she should do next.

"Is… is everything alright?" When the only response Tara got was Buffy's lower lip trembling, accompanied by downcast eyes, Tara knew what the answer was. After a few minutes of silence, Tara took a deep breath and gathered her courage. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean, it's OK if you don't. But, you know, last night's news was big, and scary, and we all care about Dawn greatly…"

Buffy caught the timid witch off with something between a snort and a sob, blinking back tears as she looked over at her friend. "I'm doing OK on that front. Definitely not great, but it's the kind of thing I can deal with – it's slayer related. I know I can handle that. It's just…" Buffy couldn't say the words out loud. She tried, but to actually vocalize what had happened between her and Spike the evening before was impossible.

"Spike." With the single word, Tara opened a floodgate. She suddenly found herself with a sobbing Buffy in her arms. She wasn't surprised. Tara had put two and two together at the meeting the night before – Buffy's insistence on waiting for Spike, the way she had looked at him at Anya and Xander's wedding, the look in his eyes when he had said he was leaving – it all screamed that Buffy would be a complete wreck once she had time to face it, and Tara was glad that she was there to help her friend through it. Whispering comforting words and rocking her friends back and forth, Tara settled back, prepared to sit with Buffy for however long she needed her.

After easily twenty minutes of Buffy crying harder than she had cried ever before, Tara's soothing words penetrated her distraught brain. With one last sob, and a wipe of her tear-streaked cheeks, Buffy sat back and looked at her friend. "I really screwed up."

With a calm that Buffy had only ever associated with her mother before meeting Tara, Tara smiled gently and took Buffy's hand, squeezing it gently. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"I don't really know where to begin."

"Just say what's on your mind. We'll figure it out from there."

Buffy gave Tara a weak smile, grateful that she had at least one friend she could turn to. Looking out over the backyard, Buffy took a deep breath and began.

When I first came back, I wanted to claw my skin off sometimes, it felt so wrong. But that feeling would go away whenever I was with Spike. That horrified me – that the only time I felt comfortable was when I was with the thing I was meant to kill. And it scared me so much. I couldn't understand how I could want to be with something I was created to kill. I was so angry with myself, with my feelings, so disgusted. And I turned it all on him."

"I keep thinking of when Faith was in my body, just before we switched back, she had me pinned to the ground. And she was hitting me, hitting herself so violently. And she was screaming. She was yelling at herself, telling herself how disgusting she was, how wrong. And just before I initiated the switch back, I looked up and it scared me so much. To see myself, with the look of disgust and rage on my face. I horrified me that I could even look that way. It rips me apart inside that I understand now how she was feeling, the pain. I understand what it feels like to look in the mirror and hate yourself. To want to be anyone but yourself. And I hate that forever, Spike is going to have the same memory I have, of seeing my face full of disgust and rage as I beat him."

At the look of shock on Tara's face, Buffy knew she would have to go into details she hated to even think about. But she knew she had to; that she needed to. Even if she was never going to see Spike again, she had to face all the things she had done, all the things they had done to one another.

"When I was in the alley behind the police precinct, right before I went in to confess about the murder, Spike tried to stop me. He pleaded with me, tried to get me to turn around and walk away with him. But I wouldn't. So, of course, being the stubborn asshole that he is, he kept persisting so I hit him, and we started to fight. He was just letting me hit him, get my anger out. And then he called me his girl. And for a moment, my heart just melted. And I got so angry, angry at myself, angry at him, angry at everything. And I beat him. I beat him until he wasn't recognizable. And he still looked up at me with love.

"And then, after the wedding, we had talked, and we were going to tell everyone that we were together. Things were going to be okay with us, and it felt so good. And then everything went so wrong with everything else in my life, so I blamed him. I did the exact same thing I swore I would never do again, but this time, he didn't look at me with that love. There was hurt, so much of it. And I realized that we weren't ready to tell everyone, that we needed to fix things between us before we could even think of dealing with the reactions of everyone else. But it was too late, and he's gone now. And I just keep thinking maybe if I had told him, maybe if I had told him before, everything would be different."

"Told him what?"

"The answer to your question."

Tara just raised her eyebrows, knowing that she was referring to when she had asked if Buffy loved the bleached vampire.

Wiping the tears away that had until now gone unnoticed, Buffy looked Tara in the eye, "I do." Before Tara could say anything in response, Buffy stood up, picking her empty mug and newspaper up as she went. "Please – don't say anything right now. I think we've seen a crying Buffy enough for one day. I just… Thanks for listening to me. I just wish… Wait, no wishes. It's just, sometimes I want to go back in time and smack myself for being so stupid and so blind… I guess it's too late for that now though."

Nodding at Buffy's request, Tara smiled gently. "If you want to talk about it more, or anything at all, remember that I'm here for you."

"I think I'll hold you to that one Tara. I just, I need some time." With that, Buffy walked into her kitchen, determined to sit down and find a job.

*****

Spike rubbed his eyes wearily as he looked around his closet for his favourite red shirt. He hadn't worn it in a while, but he refused to travel without it. He was exhausted, annoyed, miserable, and to top it all off, getting ready for a long car ride with a woman who insisted on listening to music, that in his humble opinion, was electronic crap created by a warlock who wanted to see everyone rip their ears off. And of course, the fact that she was forcing him to play it in his own bloody home did not help. It really was the icing on the Crush-Spike cake that had become so popular. But maybe he was just in a bad mood from not getting any shut eye and running out of cigarettes during prime daylight hours. Not finding his shirt was the last thing he needed.

Getting down on all four knees, Spike started to dig through the pile of clothing and blankets he had thrown into his closet the week before, and began to systematically shuffle through it, grinding his teeth to the pulsing beat behind him as he did so.

"What on earth are you doing Will?" Arabella looked at the vampire with an amused grin on her face as she plopped down on his bed and dug into the plate of wings she had just retrieved from the kitchen. She had been sitting in Spike's apartment for over two hours and he had yet to utter a complete sentence to her, and the words he had uttered were just mean. She had tempted him with cigarette breaks, blood breaks, and was currently trying to draw his attention with spicy wings, but he had yet to even properly acknowledge her presence. He was somewhere else, and she was five minutes away from going mad if he didn't come back to the present.

"Have you seen my good red shirt, Lamb? I can't bloody well find it anywhere."

"Oh, you already packed it. Remember?"

Spike groaned and rubbed his eyes again. "Ari, could you please shut off that racket? I can't bloody concentrate with that shit blasting away."

"What's up your arse, today? You've been nothing but mean since I got here." Even as she complained, she got up and moved to flick the music off.

"Nothing, I'm tired." Spike spoke through gritted teeth, not wanting to get into everything.

"Right. I'll believe that one when I see you do Swan Lake in an electric pink tutu. What's bothering you?"

"Nothing."

"William…"

"God, Ari, can't you just leave it be!"

"Not when it's obvious you need to vent."

"Just leave me alone. I'm not in the mood to talk." Spike violently threw the clump of pants into his bag and strode back over to the closet.

"However, you are in the mood to assault innocent trousers. Whatever would your Slayer say?"

Spike froze mid motion and turned around slowly, an angry look on his face. "What did you just say?"

"Calm down Will, it was just a joke."

"Well it wasn't funny."

Silence enveloped the room as Spike continued to pack and Arabella picked at the wings Spike hadn't even noticed. Looking at the way her friend was haphazardly throwing clothing and other items into his bag, Arabella could tell his mind was somewhere else. Much to Arabella's chagrin, the only place his mind ever went was to a specific blond she really didn't like. "What did she do now?"

Spike just looked at her with a combination of annoyance, anger, and sadness. He knew she would figure out what was bothering him sooner rather than later, he just hoped they would be on the road and away from Sunnydale before she did. If he answered her question, he was going to have a very angry higher being on his hands, and it was the last thing he wanted or needed. Of course, the one thing he both wanted and needed, he would never have.

When he didn't respond, Arabella sighed and walked over to the vampire, taking the bag in his hands away. "Well?"

"Well what? There's nothing to say."

"I'm assuming the news about your soul made her come running back to you? Because that makes you good in her eyes? God, she is such a typical human being."

"Arabella, don't start." Spike spoke the words softly, but the tone in his voice held venom. The last thing he wanted to here was one of Arabella's tirades against Buffy, especially one that was so far from what had really happened.

"Why not? Someone should say it aloud. It just pisses me off that she can –"

"Just shut it! For Christ's sake, Arabella, just leave it be."

"I'm sorry if I find it difficult to leave something be when it's obviously hurting one of my dearest friends so much. I will not stand to see you walked on and hurt like this!"

"Well then you're going to have to find a way to stop me from hurting myself, because I'm the one who bollixed everything up this time!"

At the angry retort, Arabella's growing anger died, and confusion took its place. Cocking her head to the side, she looked at Spike, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Would you mind clarifying that last statement for me?"

Spike just grimaced. For the last twenty-four hours, the words he heard Buffy whisper as he left the alley kept running through his head. He couldn't figure out what the hell she had meant by them, but they inspired a nagging feeling in his gut that made him very uneasy. Spike sat down on the corner of the bed and motioned for Ari to sit beside him.

"I just want to be sure I'll be strong enough to walk away from them if they make me choose."

"Sorry?" Sitting beside him, Arabella looked at Spike as if he was speaking a foreign language.

"I just want to be sure I'll be strong enough to walk away from them if they make me choose. It's what Buffy said, last night. I don't think I was meant to hear her."

"Interesting. And why would she say such a thing?"

"We, well, she and I, had talked after the wedding the other night. And we were going to give it another go, and tell all her friends. But then, as you know, I was late getting to the Magic Box last night, and she blew up at me. We argued. I said I couldn't do it anymore – fight and make up, fight and make up. That's when I decided to take you up on your offer. Get away from it all. And then, after everything with the Bit, we saw each other again. And when I was leaving, that's what she said."

"Did she say anything else?"

"Yeah, about being good inside before dealing with the outside."

"Before or after?" When she was met by a blank expression, she rolled her eyes and tried again. "Which conversation, Will?"

"Oh, ah, that was in the first."

"Interesting."

"You've already said that, Lamb."

"Well, it's interesting. Can I ask you something? How does she make you feel? I mean, I know that, technically, I've felt your feelings, but they often get skewed a bit by my own feelings. Also, your subconscious can sometimes get intermingled and certain feelings are much more vibrant than others. Plus, I'm not actually in the situations I absorb, and I only see them from a perspective, and, of course, as time passes, memories change to suit your current perspective… Sorry, on a tangent there. So how does she make you feel?"

Spike paused and closed his eyes. Every memory of Buffy he had flashed through his head and he couldn't help but relish the feelings that rushed few him at her very thought. Looking at Arabella, Spike smiled gently. "It's not like with Dru. Dru and I, well, it was all about the darkness and the pain. I don't need to tell you that. But with Buffy, it's like she makes everything a little lighter. But it's not all sunshine and daisies either. She's a challenge, always has been. Makes me have to think on my toes and I love that. She makes everything seem stronger, more vibrant, more significant. Even the things I couldn't give a rat's ass about before," Spike was lost in his thoughts as he thought about the Slayer. "You should see her fight; nothing like it in the world. And I should know – I've seen enough Slayers in my day to be able to say that she's special. When she's fighting, it's the only time she lets go and she's just so bloody beautiful. But it's not just that, it's everything about her. She fills me up and I just…" Spike paused and thought for a moment. Focusing back on Ari, he looked directly in her eyes, "She makes me sink. The very thought of her makes me sink. And all I want to do is sink deeper and deeper."

For a few minutes, the two friends just sat there in silent contemplation. Neither even moved. They just thought about the words Spike had said, and the meaning behind them. When Arabella was sure Spike had gathered himself and would be ready to listen to her, she finally spoke.

"You just had to go and say that, didn't you? And now I have to ensure your happiness," Arabella leaned over and smacked Spike across the back of his head. Spike yelped, and jumped from the bed. Swearing and rubbing his head, he looked at her accusingly. "You deserved that because you're an idiot. More so than I thought. And now I have to make you see what you're being too blind and stubborn to see, and I really don't like that girl. She loves you."

"What in bloody hell are you talking about?"

"She may not say it, but it's as plain as day to anyone who isn't looking to deny it. What she's been trying to tell you, you wanker, is that she's scared shitless about how she feels and is so bloody confused about everything that if she told her friends and they acted like the small-minded nitwits they seem to be, she wouldn't be able to stand up to them. She'd bend to their pressure to dump you, and wouldn't be able to tell them to piss off. She wants to wait until she's confident enough in your bloody relationship that she's able to tell them to all go to hell if they give you a hard time. And she's right."

"What?"

"Please don't make me repeat the obvious. A bloody three year could have figured it out. It also helps to have several hundred years of experience, and an almost infinite wealth of knowledge at your finger tips."

"Oh."

Arabella ground her teeth and glared at the bleached vampire. "Don't make me have to smack some more sense into you, Will." Spike just looked at her, an unreadable expression on his face. "I guess this means I should help you unpack."

"I don't really quite know yet, Lamb."