Title: The Crow and the Pitcher
Author: freak-pudding
Disclaimer: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and all associated articles are the sole property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No copyright infringement intended.
Summary: God, why did everything in her world always have to change at the drop of a hat? Post- Intervention
Author's Note: In the interest of furthering my plot purposes, POV will continue to switch back and forth every other chapter.

Chapter Two: Peccavi

Sometimes she wondered if it would've been better if they had just left him to burn.

Xander and Giles had been as careful as possible maneuvering him inside the Watcher's spare bedroom, the one just past the bathroom, as Dawn flitted back and forth between the two points, and Buffy leaned against the wall, wishing to God she could make a straight line and clear up all this mess. It had all been so much easier before, and Buffy found herself really, really missing Oz.

Not that she didn't like Tara. Tara was sweet and nice and funny and… Buffy beat her head against the wall, drawing a curious look from Willow and a nod of understanding from Anya.

Anything was better than this. Hell, even being back in high school, being sixteen again and about to lose her virginity and her sanity, anything would have been better than watching Xander and Giles carefully holding up Spike in a body bag, taking him to the back bedroom.

It had really been the last thing she'd expected. Bruises, cuts, broken bones, and even a little head trauma she could deal with, but this? It was too much, too soon, too late. They only said he was thrashed. They never said he was mangled.

With little shudders of disgust, she'd pulled on the bright fuchsia top and pleated peachy skirt, fully intending to scrape off layers of skin upon returning home. She refused to listen to Xander's protestations that they could easily have mistaken her for the Buffybot and vice versa, plastered on her best fake smile, and marched off to Spike's crypt.

Her hair was down for the first time in what felt like weeks, and her steps were bouncy and light, and she almost—almost—could imagine that she was any other girl going off to spend a lovely day at the park with her boyfriend. Or putting flowers at her dead boyfriend's grave. Spike is NOT your boyfriend.

She squared her shoulders, turned that frown upside-down, and pranced through the door. The first thing she saw was the flames.

"Be careful!" Dawn said shrilly. Giles fumbled with his end of the body bag.

"Y'know, when they say dead weight, y'never really think it's so…" Xander grimaced, grunting as they shifted through another doorway.

"Dead?" Anya supplied around the core of a slightly browned apple. "You're insane, Giles, there's nothing wrong with your fruit."

"Well, I'll be sure to remember that when you die painfully from a horrid case of worms and I'm… oh, bugger!"

Giles leaned against the wall, balancing his end of the bag across his knees and wiping at the sweat beading his brow.

"Buffy, we might need your help here."

Swallowing the bile in her mouth, Buffy nodded and took her Watcher's place at the head of little moving party.

"And ready? One, two, three…"

She had screamed. Really and truly screamed as she ran into the crypt and beat out the flames on his right arm. But the more she tried to smother them, the more flesh began to crack and sizzle, so she shoved him off the sarcophagus. When his body hit the floor with a sickening crunch, he didn't even stir.

"Umph!" Xander grunted as they rolled Spike onto the mattress. "Finally."

"Spike?" she had asked timidly, afraid to move around the coffin. "Spike, can you hear me?"

Shouldering her limited courage, Buffy had walked slowly to him, rolled him over, and fought back the dire urge to vomit. Blackened and charred, his muscle and flesh stuck to the floor, and his head lolled uselessly on his shoulders.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed, caressing the rough material shielding Spike from her friends. "Finally."

On both points of that fractured line, Buffy stood beside her broken enemy and wished to God that Oz was still around.