Review! Can't write if I don't get lots of reviews. Please? Let me know if you want fluffy dreams for a while, actual hotel action, Ethan Rayne stuff… whatever.
She couldn't remember ever in her life feeling truly numb. Not apathetic and depressed, as she had when she'd returned from the dead– the second time, anyway; not standing paralyzed on the edge of panic as she had when she'd found her mother on the couch. Just numb. She stared at Angel for several moments, then she turned slowly and walked away. She had no idea where she was going or why. Angel called after her, but she ignored him. She just walked. For a while, she lost all sense of self. When a blaring horn startled her from her stupor, she was in the middle of an intersection. Then Angel's words ran through her head. He says he knows how to get Spike back. She walked on.
When her cell phone rang, she checked the id from habit – Angel – and turned it off. Nighttime found her in a seedier neighborhood, but she didn't particularly care. She was a slayer after all. The original, if not the one and only. She was suddenly so tired, so drained, but she didn't want to return to the hotel. She didn't want to face Angel, or fight with Giles. So she slipped into an abandoned house, her better judgment screeching at her that this was a bad idea, god knows what could happen, had she completely lost her senses? As she often did, she ignored it. There was an old couch on the second floor that looked less ratty than the other furniture, and she laid down, knowing before her eyes closed that she would dream of him.
"And just what the bleeding hell are you doing?" he looked rather amusing, standing at the edge of the Sunnydale crater, hands on his hips. She realized with a dull sense of surprise that the couch she'd fallen asleep on was here too, she was in fact still sitting on it. A moment passed before she remembered that he'd asked her a question, and by then he'd repeated it. "Buffy. Earth to slayer. What are you doing?"
"I don't know." She replied slowly. He shook his head, scoffing.
"Please. You know exactly what you're doing. So?" She lowered her head for a moment, replaying the walk from the hotel – he knows how to get spike back – and finding the building. The phone call from Ethan Rayne.
"I'm running." She told him, raising her eyes to meet his gaze. "Because I don't know what else to do." He seemed to soften, and he came to sit beside her on the couch. "Ethan Rayne called the hotel. He said… he said he could bring you back." He turned his head away from her.
"Ethan Rayne, hmm? If I'm not mistaken, he's one of the bad guys?"
"Yeah."
"Used to hang with old Rupert; likes to play with black magic."
"That'd be him. Responsible for that whole Halloween costume mess." Without seeing it, she heard the momentary grin in his response.
"I remember that one. Quite a party. And he thinks he can raise the dead, does he?" She paused a moment, then answered honestly.
"I believe he can. Willow did, and he has way more experience than she did. And he likes risks. If we bargain with him, and he actually follows through… he could do it."
"Do I really need to tell you he can't be trusted?" he was watching her closely now, his blue eyes burning into her. She shook her head. "And you know raising the dead isn't ever exactly a good plan." She nodded, and he clapped his hands together once. "Then you know what you need to do. It's not safe to play with these things, pet."
"I know that," she whispered, "but its been done before. Darla was dusted, and she was brought back. Human, no less." She turned to him, suddenly desperate, "Spike, what if we could bring you back?" He didn't reply, just turned away. After a moment, she followed his gaze to the crater. The crater he'd made. The one he'd saved the world by. Died in. She felt the stirrings of disrupted sleep, and fought to stay. As the image faded, he turned to her one last time, a sad little smile on his face. The same smile he'd had when she'd left him to die. She woke up with a start, and her fist swung out to whoever held her shoulders tightly, knocking them to the floor. Unfortunately, that someone was a very pissed off Angel.
"Oops?" she ventured timidly. He glared, picking himself off the floor. He grabbed her hand, puling her none too gently out of the building and into his car. As they drove back to the hotel, he sighed heavily and broke the silence.
"I was worried about you."
"I'm sorry." he nodded, and another moment passed.
"It's not safe to trust Ethan Rayne."
"I know that." She told him, feeling the onset of yet more tears. She looked forward to the time when she could go a week without crying.
"Buffy… we don't have to give up on this, if you don't want us to." She shot him a quick, puzzled look. His face was practically a grimace, and the words seemed to take an immense amount of effort. "Wolfram and Hart brought Darla back, remember? I control the offices now. I can't promise we'll find something safe to use, but if this is what you want…"
"Please. Just see if it can be done, please, Angel."
"Alright." And with that, they fell back into silence. Angel told the others that she'd simply chased down a demon too far from the hotel while on patrol. She told Giles that she knew, and they decided to find out just what Ethan wanted anyway, for safety's sake. Angel researched, but they didn't speak of it again. And her dreams returned.