Truth be told, she was amused by his adventures post-Hellmouth. She liked the irony of Spike being all go-throughable when the final enemy she faced was the incorporeal First Evil. Besides Spike's graphic account of he and Angel fighting for the Shanshu, she wishes she could have seen it just to see her two favorite vampires wage war on each other, following it up with some very graphic peace-offerings courtesy of a very aroused Slayer. She couldn't breathe when she heard about Cordelia, and part of her still refused to believe it. She busted all of her guts when she heard about Angel turning into a puppet.
"And I meant to come, Buffy. I really did. But something happened that threw us all for a loop," Spike said soberly. "And I realized that this was my place now. I needed to see this through."
"What was it?" Buffy's anger receded into ancient memory now.
"There was a sarcophagus. Fred had just received it and she couldn't bloody help herself," Spike sighed. "She had to investigate it. It was who she was."
He swallowed. Blinked a few times. Then resumed.
Buffy waited. She had heard of Fred from Angel in their sporadic once-a-year small-talks, but never met him, or now her, as Spike had clarified.
"She got infected or…possessed by a god, an Old One from back in the day. And she died. From that moment on, I couldn't turn back, Buffy. I just couldn't. Fred was the truest soul of that whole lot, and I knew I couldn't let her down."
"You loved her." It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Spike answered immediately.
Buffy looked away with a wince, tempted to just go off and walk and cry for a good long while.
"She was the sweetest girl I knew, Buffy. And she did more for me than I had any right to ask of her. She took my goodness at face value. What I did. Who I became. She accepted me fully. Something you never did."
Buffy was just getting up to leave when he stopped her.
Spike elaborated gently as Buffy refused to look at him. "But we had already had that bad blood between us. And it was a bloody miracle we got past it."
Finally, he turned her face ever so softly, fragilely toward his own. They were inches apart.
"But we did. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that my love for you made it possible. And that won't change, either. I still love you, Buffy Summers."
Buffy couldn't meet his eyes and she felt a tear roll down her cheek.
"But it didn't have to be so hard," he said a bit harsher. "Angel's troops treated me a lot better than you bloody Scoobies. You found it so hard to believe I could change when I gave you every reason to see it so. But I didn't have a soul, so maybe that's the final indicator of goodness in this universe, eh? I just want to know why, Buffy. Why was it so easy for Fred to acknowledge and accept me when you looked like you were going through some kind of painful dental procedure? Why did my acceptance seem to signal for you the end of the world?"
Buffy couldn't speak for a long time. And she stared at the tears falling from the sky imploring them for the words to communicate her long dormant denials.
"Because it was," she finally decided. "Because I knew if I completely accepted everything you had to offer, your goodness, your love, my world would never be the same. And I was scared. Scared of what that might mean. And I regret, every day I regret, that as a consequence you had to suffer through so much pain. So much undeserved pain. It doesn't make up for what I did, I know. And maybe I still can. But for now all I can say is I'm sorry."
The dam burst. And Buffy let primal pent-up grief and guilt escape its cage.
"I'm so sorry, Spike!!" she sobbed.
Spike hugged her close in shaking tremors and tears as they clung tightly amidst the falling rain.