"I wasn't hiding," he insisted.
Buffy crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised her eyebrow.
He sighed, narrowing his eyes on hers, realizing she was right.
"Okay, okay," he conceded. "Perhaps I was hiding from you. Somewhat."
She sat watching him, waiting for an explanation that would actually make some sort of sense. What, he'd died, come back and decided to go the route of Angel? Right. Take the high road and all that ridiculous rot.
"Pet," he began, taking her hands in his. "I heard about your cookie dough speech. And it made me realize that maybe I wasn't done baking, either."
Now, that was funny. Comic relief. Exactly what Buffy needed at that point. She couldn't help but shake her head and laugh heartily at his proclamation. His brow furrowed in confusion.
"You find that funny, yeah?"
She was still laughing, tears streaming down her face as she stared at the vampire in front of her. He was more than 120 years old and not done baking? Now that was an excuse that was half-baked, she decided.
"Bollocks," she told him.
He looked at her with his eyes wide. His expression. Bollocks. Coming from her dainty lips. Would wonders never cease to amaze him?
"Did you just--"
"I most certainly did, you stubborn vampire," she told him. "Bollocks. Your shit-o-meter is just about topping out."
"Think what you like, Pet, but it wasn't until I laid eyes on you that I realized that I wasn't nearly as done as I thought."
She looked at him, her laughter subsiding when she saw just how serious he was.
"Alright, then," she said, cocking her head to the side as she looked up at him. "Splainy?"
Where to begin? Ah, with that prat William who was no more mature than Dawn when he was turned. Or perhaps with Angelus and the way that he literally beat him and Dru into submission, breaking them down before building them up into the killing machines they had been.
"Pet, you know how much I love you. More than this unlife itself."
She did know that.
"Before I met you and your little friends, I never would have imagined myself becoming this man I am now. It wasn't the chip, Pet. You know that. And, yeah. I sought out the soul. The... the incident... what happened... almost happened..."
She squeezed his hand gently, letting him know that it was okay. That wasn't his fault.
"That's a moment best forgotten," she whispered.
"No, Pet. That was a defining moment," he said earnestly. "That moment was my defining moment. It is the moment that I look back on and know that all decisions are my own."
He dragged in a deep, unneccessary breath. That was one of the things she loved about him. There were so many things he had held onto from when he was human. Once, she thought they were silly things... the breathing. Eating. Smoking. Then she realized that they were the things that made him different. Made him special. Better.
"I'm man enough to own up to my mistakes. And I'm man enough to know that it wasn't my demon who attacked you. It was William. It was the man. Pet, I'd shoved him down inside of me for as long as I've been dead. I never bothered to know him, to see him. He was weak. He was just some stupid git trying to prove he was something more. After I was turned, it was easy to shake him off, for the most part. Angelus made bloody well sure of that."
She hated hearing about Angelus. She hated thinking about how inherently evil he was. The soul forced him away. The soul silenced the beast. But Spike had never needed that. And it shamed her to think that she had once thought that he was a monster without a soul. It was she who had been the monster.
"Spi--"
"Not finished quite yet, Love," he interrupted. He needed for her to understand that he'd kept his word. He'd promised that he'd never leave her. And he meant it.
"I couldn't be with you. Not until I knew who I was," he told her. He stroked her hand with his thumb, silently trying to collect his thoughts. Trying to find the words to make her understand.
"You said you loved me. And I wanted it to be true, Buffy. But a part of me knew the truth. The only way that you could wholly love me is if I accepted all facets of myself. And in order for that to happen, I had to get to know William again. And I had to force him on my demon, Pet. And the demon, he doesn't like to be stifled."
He explained to her that he relized that there are differences in vampires. No matter what the Council of Wankers thought they knew. And that it all goes back to the person they were before they were turned.
"Dru, she could never handle a soul. It would have killed her. She had been beaten and raped and broken when she was a human. It drove her batty. Truly, it did. She was only a child when Angelus turned her. He didn't save her from her life. He saw someone who was deeply troubled and knew immediately how lethal she could become in death. That's why he turned her. What he never counted on was the insanity becoming part of her demon. Deadly, she was. And continues to be. And as much as my demon wanted to choke the unlife out of her at times, it wasn't until recently that I realized that it was William who kept her alive. Soft-hearted, kittenish William. And that's what she saw when she turned me."
Buffy could tell he'd put a lot of thought into his life. And his unlife. His hands were trembling as he shared with her his revelations.
"Pet, I didn't want to come back to you as a broken man. I needed to meld the man and the beast. And I couldn't do that with you. It was something I could only do on my own. I hope you understand, Pet. I -- I had no idea that you were so bad off... I never would have thought--"
"Shh," she told him, softly, placing her finger on his lips. "You couldn't have known. Nobody could have known. I never... you -- you don't know what you've got until it's gone... kind of cliche. And a really bad choice in 80s hair band ballads... but it's true."
Time for the big admission, Buffy, she thought.
"When I told you I loved you... before you... before. You were right. I didn't mean it. But I wanted to. I wanted to love you."
He nodded. It wasn't a surprise.
"But after..."
Oh, God. After.
"I left. Because you made me leave. And I watched my world as it was swallowed whole. You... you were... effulgent," she breathed.
"Effulgent, was I?" he smirked.
"Yeah. In more ways than just the obvious. You continued to burn in my heart and in my soul. The more I retreated into my shell, the brighter your memory burned in my mind. You were my world." Her lips were trembling. "The others... I couldn't talk to them. Xander... he was dealing with his own grief. He turned to the only glimmer of hope he had left and for him, that was God. He turned his back on everything he had ever known... his friends, his family. His memories of Anya. He buried them deep and he basically ran as far away from the unnatural as he could. The few times I've spoken to him, he's only talked about his ministry and his wife, Theresa. But he made me realize something," she said. "He made me realize that I didn't want to run away. I didn't want to forget. I didn't want to be that girl who would crawl into your crypt in the middle of the night and then run out on you with nothing but a vicious assault -- both verbal and physical. I didn't want to be that girl anymore. I wanted to reinvent myself."
He certainly could understand that. Whereas he needed to go back to the basics, to the man. Buffy had to escape her role as the slayer. He wondered if she had.
"The potentials--"
"Many of them died in that final battle," she related with sadness. "I never even knew them. I could barely match up their names with their faces. Now... they're all branded into my memory. The ones who survived, they went to Cleveland with Andrew."
"The boy?"
Buffy smiled. Yeah, the boy.
"Giles has more than earned an early retirement from the Council. But, he's insisted on staying involved. And he's taken Andrew under his wing. He stayed awhile in Cleveland before returning to headquarters in England. And Andrew, I know we were all so mean to him. We all treated him like some little nuisance. But, something all my alone time has afforded me was the ability to put some perspective on my life. And Andrew tries, Spike. He tries harder than just about anyone I've ever known. And Giles saw that in him, too. So, Giles kind of oversees things, but he trusts Andrew to act as watcher to the remaining potentials... or, rather, the new slayers."
New? Slayers?
"You mean you're no longer... are you not the slayer?"
She had to let out a cynical chuckle at that notion. She would always be the slayer. There was no turning in her secret decoder ring and forgetting that.
"I will always be a slayer. But now, it's kind of like, uh... like the military. You know. There's active duty and there are reservists. And there are those who are retired."
"Which are you, Love?"
She thought about it for a moment. Retired? No. That was a word that just didn't fit well in her vocabulary.
"I guess I would be a reservist," she decided. "Yeah. I mean, I don't patrol. I haven't slain anything since... before. But, uh, if they really needed me... say, if they needed to call in the big guns, Faith and I would be there."
"Speaking of Faith," he said with a raised eyebrow. She'd always been a touchy subject.
"It's amazing what the love of an incredible man will do for even the most cynical of slayers," she laughed, only partially referring to Faith. It pertained to herself, as well. "She fell in love with Robin Wood."
Spike was truly surprised.
"I know, I know," Buffy grinned. "You should have seen her. She thought he was dead and she was just beyond reckoning. She totally flipped out. And then he opened his eyes and scared the shit out of her. He told her that he promised that he would never stop surprising her. From what I hear, he must be keeping his word. They got married about six months ago."
"And what's become of Red and the chit she was all wonky over?"
Buffy laughed and told him that her name was Kennedy. And that it was over.
"Kennedy was too erratic for Willow. And, uh, Willow needed someone stable since she had such a hard time keeping with the stability after she went all Big Bad. She needed someone who could reign her in when she swam out too far. Uh, wow. I'm really glad you're sitting for this one," she said as she flashed him an excited smile. "She went back to England with Giles."
Right. With the Watcher. Probably to involve herself in the coven she'd been privy to while she was there the first time.
"So, he's keeping tabs on Red while she does the witchy, thing. Bully for her," he said, understanding Willow's powers better than most.
"Uh, no... that's not exactly how it is," Buffy told him. "She's, uh... she's with Giles. You know? With. Uh, as in with Oz. Or with Tara. With Giles."
She could see that he still wasn't getting it.
"They're making with the moon-eyes and love you's, Spike."
Well, color me speechless, he thought.
"How the Hell did that come about?" he asked, not able to mask his surprise.
"The verdict is still out on that one," she had to admit. "But, look at us. Anything's pretty much possible."
He could understand that.
"And what about the Niblet?" he asked. He had felt like such a prat for letting the poor girl believe he was gone. She was always the one who had seen past the monster and saw only the man. At least, until he fouled things up between them.
"Dawn is wonderful. Mom," Buffy choked on the word. "Mom would have been so proud. She's a normal teenage girl who goes to school, makes decent grades, works weekends at the Gap. All that normal stuff I never got to do. I know she's been worried about me. But she's given me my space. She's never treated me like I was crazy or anything. She's been the buffer between me and Dad. Maybe being a mystical key has given her some insight that none of us have. Whatever it is, it works for her. She was... you know she loved you. And she was devastated when you..." the words slipped out of her mouth in a near-whisper, but then she brightly added "but now you're not. She's going to be so thrilled to see you! I know that there's a lot that she wanted to say to you. A lot of things she wishes she could take back, too."
There was a lot he needed to tell her, too. Like how he understood that she hated him for what he had done to Buffy. And that he loved her for it. She was strong and she stood up to him, no matter how scared she might have been. She possessed that same incredible Summers strength as Buffy and Joyce. None of them took his shit and he had a tremendous amount of respect for all three of them. He'd always loved strong women. And his girls were the strongest in body, mind and soul.
"You, uh... you mentioned Wood, Pet. I was wondering if... do you have an address for him?"
Buffy's brow wrinkled. That was a new one. Spike wanted Robin's address?
"Uh, yeah. He and Faith are in New York. He took a job as principal at one of the inner city schools. You know, wanting to make a difference and all that," she told him. He could see the confusion in her eyes. "Uh, why with the asking?"
"Got something that belongs to him. I've had it boxed up since I got back... it means more to him that it ever could to me."
Buffy was hit with the comprehension of just what he was talking about.
"Your duster?"
"Not mine, Pet," he said softly. "That duster belonged to his mum. To Nikki. The slayer. And I took her from him. It belongs rightfully with him. I understand what it means to lose someone you love... and what it means to keep every piece of her intact. Every piece you can get."
Buffy understood that, too. When her mother died, she didn't want to lose a single molecule of her essence... her scent, her sound, the way she felt, the things she wore.
"I think that he needs it. He needs to have it. And I need to give it to him. Uh, closure, Pet. We both need that in order to move forward with our lives."
Closure, yes. She knew all about closure. She found closure when she mailed Angel the crucifix he had given to her when they had first met. She found closure when she saw Riley with his new wife. But she had never found closure with Spike. And now she knew why. She wasn't meant to move forward with her life. She was meant to wait for him. Sneaky Powers That Be, she thought. They knew that he hadn't turned to dust for good. They gave him a Mulligan... a do-over. And they watched from wherever they were as they both finished baking. They were never far, of that much she was sure. As much as she wanted to kick their glowy asses for all that they had taken, she wanted to wrap them up in a big, interdimensional hug for what they had given back to her. She was done. Done baking. She was a big, gooey Buffy cookie and Spike was the only one she wanted to eat her.
She was worrying her lip, lost in her own thought when he kissed her forehead, snapping her back to reality.
"Love you, Pet."
She smiled, leaning her head against his chest as he stroked her hair. Her smile brightened and grew wider in realization of just what a gift she had been given. Sneaky Powers That Be, indeed! she realized. Death wasn't her gift. Her gift was eternal life.
"Spike," she whispered, reluctantly pulling away to search his eyes.
"What is it pet?"
"Tell me you'll never die."
He cocked his head to the side and eyed her precariously.
"Uh, okay. Unless I'm staked, left out in the sun, decapitated or set on fire, I'll never die," he told her. "Now what's this all about."
"I'll never die either," she grinned, shocking and confusing the blonde vampire whose eyes shone blue and wide. "I can't."