CHAPTER 2
Ride
It had been awhile, but suddenly there she was, an apparition, a ghost. Except ghosts don't usually sit on motorcycles, do they?
"I wish I knew how to ride something like this," she admitted. "It must have so much power."
He wasn't sure how he was supposed to react. "Gets me from A to B, yeah."
Her finger traced patterns in the leather of the seat. She looked off to the west, focusing on the last beams of the setting sun. He was taking chances these days, he knew, coming out so soon after daylight.
He was close to her, covered her hand with his, stilled its movements. "Come for a ride, pet?" he asked gently.
She nodded.
Oh, it had power all right. She felt the engine thrumming beneath her as she clutched his middle. She pressed her cheek against the worn leather of his duster.
His hands tightened on the handlebars. He increased the speed, they were flying through the streets, zipping down from the highway. Over the noise of traffic, the deafening hum of the engine, he heard her near-silent whisper:
"Faster."
And they went faster as she tightened her grip around him.
Soon he realized that they were approaching the coast. He slowed the bike, and she lifted her head.
He parked the motorcycle on the side of the road, and she slid off the seat. She walked towards the edge of the cliff, slowly.
He was afraid. "Buffy," he called.
She stopped. Sat down on the grass. She slipped off her shoes and dangled her feet over the edge of the cliff. He untensed a hair when he realized she wasn't about to jump over the edge.
"I try, Spike," she said softly. She didn't turn her head but he heard every word. "I try but it just won't fall into place." Her voice was brittle and monotonic. Not pleading, not whining, just a simple statement of fact. "I think I'm still dead."
"No," he said. He sat down next to her, swung his legs over next to hers. "You're not dead, Summers. Seeing as I'm the vampire of the two of us, I think I'm the more qualified to say who's dead around here."
The corners of her mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. "How many times have you died, Spike?"
He looked at her, slightly confused. "Once." Swallowed. "You know that."
"I've died twice. Or had you forgotten?" She shuddered. "Twice too many." Her fingers curled, clenching the edge of the rock she sat on.
Carefully, he reached out a hand and touched a lock of her hair. "That you have, luv."
"I thought I could be strong about it, you know? Like it was just another part of being a Slayer. But this time ..."
His fingers moved through her wind-tangle hair, but he kept his distance. All she did was stare out across the ocean.
"I told them today. That I was in heaven. I told them all. None of them could think of anything to say. I think Willow was crying," she said. Almost as if she was telling him something that had happened on a TV show.
"She didn't know what she was doing, pet, when she ... did what she did."
"No," Buffy said. "No, she didn't."
God, the things he wanted to say to Willow. His teeth clenched and a wave of tension swept briefly through his body.
She must have felt it. He was half ready to get up and go give the witch a piece of his mind, when she leaned just the tiniest bit into his hand still stroking her hair.
"That feels nice," she said softly.
He gazed at her profile, her eyes unwavering, and sighed. And so he stayed. He would stay until the end of time if she asked him to. But they both already knew that.