Contact
Wind rushed past, dragging careless fingers through Cordelia's hair and whipping long strands of it around like kite tails. She'd stopped caring about twenty miles outside of Sunnydale, unwrapped the scarf around her hair and tugged it out of the tight ponytail. Long was better. Heavier, warmer, and generally more of a pain in her nicely shaped ass, but it was still better. There was nothing like the wind in your hair, she'd told Angel once and even though he hadn't said anything, she knew he agreed. Why else would a vampire own a convertible? And she'd be glad to be back in her own bed, her own office, her own city. Sunnydale was the past and Cordelia Chase didn't dwell on the past, not anymore.
Her traveling companion was silent and brooding. That wasn't exactly unusual and over the years she had become finely attuned to the many different types of Angels brooding. There was brooding because he'd done something wrong, because he thought he'd done something wrong, because he didn't know if he'd done something wrong but was fretting about it anyway. Brooding because evil was coming, because evil was here, or it wasn't coming or it wasn't on time. Or because he was afraid of being too happy or not happy enough. Because he was remembering, because he was forgetting. Sometimes he even brooded just to brood. She could write a book about the million and one ways that Angel, Souled Wonder Vamp, brooded. This type of brooding was rare; it was Conflicted in A Good Way Brooding and meant that he stared straight ahead without really seeing, which was dangerous because he was the one driving, and held his left hand in a particular position. Arm resting on the car door, two fingers on top, two trailing down the outside and his thumb tapping absently on the interior. He was slouched a little to the left, which could have meant Tired and Disheartened Brooding, but the occasional sigh was dead give-away.
She'd always wondered why some vampires breathed and some didn't. It wasn't like they couldn't, they just didn't need air to survive. Maybe they got out of the habit as they got older and the younger ones still thought they needed to. Speaking required breath, their vocal cords were still bound by rules of human biology, and a lot of them smoked. Angel was the type to only breathe when his mind was a thousand miles and several hundred years away so the fact that she could actually watch the rise and fall of his shoulders every ten miles meant that he'd gone sightseeing through the past.
"Want to let me in on that brood?" Cordelia leaned against her car door, drumming her fingers lightly in imitation. "Cause I'd like to get back in one piece and you're not exactly Mr. Driver Safety when you're like this. Especially with the sun coming up in an hour."
Angel looked over at her, as though remembering for the first time that he wasn't alone in the car. "Have I broken any laws?"
"Crossed the double yellow line three times since the last mile marker."
"I have not," he protested, but his brow furrowed as he glanced toward her. "I have?"
"Like I said. Out with it."
"Its nothing."
"Buffy?"
"No."
"Faith?"
Angel sighed. "It's not anything like that."
"Again with the sighing. You know you only do what when you have something big and weighty on your shoulders. Do us both a favor and forget the Atlas routine, cause frankly, I don't buy it and I wouldn't be impressed even if I did."
He glanced around for some way to avoid the subject before sighing again, dejectedly. "It's Spike."
"Spike." Cordy repeated with a frown, not expecting that one at all. She didn't have any emotional attachment to Spike. Other than a good deal of fear, she never had. So he'd saved the world by holding still long enough for Faith to skewer him, good for him. "Care to explain that one?"
"Cordy."
"Come on, it's Spike. Of course I'm going to wonder if you've lost your mind. Cuddly, fuzzy feelings toward Spike? That's just wrong."
"I didn't say I had...feelings."
"No fuzzy feelings at all?"
"Well, there was one thing...he wrote these poems."
"Poems? Spike? No way am I going to believe you about that."
"It's completely true!"
She didn't think a few sappy poems were worth an entire brooding session. "You two didn't get along, you were never close, and you really didn't like each other even a teeny bit. Ever."
"They took away his soul and he still did it." There was a note of awe in his voice.
"Bring out the Angel mind map cause I'm gonna need it. Let's try that sentence again and connect the dots this time."
"They took away his soul and it didn't matter. He killed himself anyway. To save the world."
"I thought Faith killed him."
He shook his head, the hint of a smile playing over his lips. "She didn't. She couldn't."
She finally realized what he meant. Struggling to rearrange what she thought she knew into a different picture, she realized that it opened up all new possibilities for brooding potential. "Does it bother you that Buffy killed you and Faith didn't kill Spike? Not that you actually died but you know what I mean."
"Maybe. A little."
"But that isn't it?"
"Would Angelus have done it?"
"No way," Cordelia laughed. "He would have watched the world smash into little tiny pieces and probably roasted marshmallows over the ashes. You even have to ask?"
"That's part of it. Spike was able to change. He got his soul back of his own free will." Angel shifted in the car seat, putting both hands on the wheel firmly as he changed lanes. "And then he died to save the world. Spike. The Slayer of Slayers saved the world. William the Bloody was a Champion."
"Now I see where your head would explode. If you look at it like that." She'd been trying to wrap any sort of logic at all around the last few weeks and kept coming up confused.
"Every other vampire I've sired, or sired their sire, has come back to haunt me. I spent decades creating monsters to kill and destroy."
"And you blame yourself for the people they killed. We've covered this ground before."
"And now, one of the monsters that I created sacrificed himself to save the world." Angel smiled at her, visibly relaxing."I'm proud. Proud of the fact that I had a part in what made him. Not that it makes up for the others, but it's something."
Cordelia watched him silently, all indications of brooding were gone and he had returned to the relaxed, easy going Angel she had known for the last few years. She'd expected maybe some twisted vampire sadness because Spike had been a sort of relation, she wasn't too sure how the whole vampire families really worked. Or even some lingering anger over the Gem of Amara incident. Pride? No, that had been the last thing she would have guessed. "Should you feel proud?"
He shook his head. "Probably not. Maybe it doesn't balance out the people he killed and the horrible things he did. But that doesn't matter change the way I feel."
Reaching out to touch his shoulder, she smiled when he turned to look at her. "About time you figured that out."
The crypt felt emptier than it ever had now that he was never going to be coming back. Light swept across the floor as Buffy shifted the flashlight in her hand and started down the ladder. It was time for the Spike Shrine to relocate to somewhere less dangerous, somewhere that wasn't hidden away as though they were ashamed of it. She collected the box and the candles, smiling sadly at the pictures inside. The past was a spiders web and the slightest touch sent tremors through the whole thing. If she hadn't beaten him up in that alleyway, if he hadn't gotten drunk and slept with Anya, if he hadn't left. But there was no way to know that it would have been worse in that alternate reality, like Cordelia's experience with an all-vamp Sunnydale. Wishes were better left unspoken in her world.
With a sigh, Buffy started back up the ladder. It was strange that no one had ever moved into the crypt after Clem found his own place; the lingering smell of scorched earth probably kept anything from settling in. Maybe the baddies figured that if she'd blown it up once, she'd do it again and stayed away because they valued their lives. She thought briefly about putting up an Available sign on the door as she closed it tightly behind her. That or just tearing it down so it didn't stand as a testament to the darkest year of their lives.
She took her time walking home. Here, in the darkness and the night that had been her element since she'd killed her first vampire and watched her childhood slip away; here, she was the Slayer. She could be objective because she had to be to survive. The best thing about the state of Here, the strange place between home and the rest of the world, was that she didn't have to hide. Didn't have to put up a brave front and swallow everything down until her throat ached with the need to cry or scream. Here, it was her pain. Not Dawn's, not Faith's. She didn't have to feel guilty for hurting. Guilty because Faith was probably hurting more or because her sister was hurting and she needed to be a shoulder for Dawn to cry on. Didn't have to worry that she was being selfish if she reminded them that she had feelings too.
No one Here, in the darkness, would blame her if she stopped, sat down at the edge of the cemetery, and cried. There were a hundred thousand memories parading around her: dancing, fighting, laughing. A taunt here, a joke there; the times he'd saved her life or pissed her off or just been there, skulking in the shadows with a cigarette between his lips and a gleam in his eyes. He'd chained her to the wall of his crypt to tell her he loved her and years later it was still one of her funniest stories. If Slayers had reunions in heaven, she'd definitely have tales to tell. He'd fought at her side, had trailed behind her shouting the endless stream of words that always seemed to be falling from his mouth. Watching Passions, watching after Dawn. Constant, immovable, he'd always been there.
I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man.
She wasn't quite sure why that particular memory seemed so vivid; most of that night was all wrapped up in the big blur of dying, which tended to take precedence on the Memory Priority List. Now it came back to her as real as the demons she killed night after night. Standing on the steps, looking down at him and seeing his honesty, his sincerity, knowing it was the truth because she could tell he didn't expect to survive the night. In a way, he'd won her in that single moment, at least a little part of her. Not enough of her to give him the love he wanted. It was ironic, she realized, that it was the same reason Riley had left her.
Beyond the pain and the strange sense of loss, she was determined to make sure Faith had an easier time than she did. No running off to L.A. in a stupor of heartache, no shutting out friends and family because it hurt too much to be around people who loved you, but not the one who loved you most. Maybe she and Faith would never get along, never be a wink and a smile, but a working relationship had to be possible. Maybe it wasn't as important as saving the world or killing the next Big Bad. But there would always be evil; there would only be one Faith and one chance for Buffy to mend the rift between them. She had all the same weaknesses and the same faults. Super strength didn't make her less of a human being, less fallible or prone to mistakes. In the end it wasn't about being better or worse than anyone else. She just had to be good enough. For her friends, for her family, for herself.
Watching Dawn slowly fall apart had made her realize with new intensity what she had always known deep inside. She'd always seen each day as one more day she could die but she'd never realized that each day was one more day that Dawn could die. That Giles or Xander or Willow could die. Even immortality was no guarantee of one more day. Life was terribly short and she'd spent enough of it in the darkness.
It was time to get back into the light.
Cara stared out over the city with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. It looked so quiet, so peaceful. From the rooftop of Angel Investigations, it was a glittering world of glamour and excess where all that mattered was fashion, money, and a good time. At least, that's what the magazine down on the counter said. She frowned as she tried to organize the contents of the article into her definition of Los Angeles. City of Angels, City of Angel. The city where she was doing a good job of fucking up. Blinking, she was a little startled, realizing that she had just cursed.
She tried the word aloud. "Fucking."
Odd. It was an odd word and people seemed to bandy it about as though it meant everything and nothing. Was it a noun? A verb? Where did it fit into a sentence properly?
"Bitch."
Another word. Faith was a bitch, but somehow it was a compliment. Not that it mattered; nothing else made sense, why should swearing be any different? She should probably give up before she used the words badly and made a fool of herself. Funny how she'd never worried about humiliation before coming to Los Angeles. Never doubted that she could please, not like she did now. Never doubted herself as a Slayer before she'd gone to Sunnydale. Before she'd heard them talking about her and about how she was broken.
The demon, Lorne, had done what they called a reading, now that the dimensional vibrations were no longer mucking up the mojo. Direct quote. What did he mean by mojo? Was that another slang term? She'd sung a song that Fred taught her, something about rowing boats down a stream that didn't make sense either. But she'd sung it because Wesley had asked her to and Lorne had turned a little greener around the edges, vanishing in search of alcohol while he muttered about futility and constitutions. Or something. She hadn't been sure what to make of the entire experience.
Waiting patiently on the couch, she'd kept still and quiet, hoping that someone would explain to her what had happened and that she hadn't done something else wrong. This place was strange, maybe even more so than Sunnydale. With the ever-chattering Fred, who rambled comfortably about anything under the sun and always tried to help Cara understand the simplest things, for which she was both amused and grateful. Gunn had accepted her quickly and she was scarcely able to avoid his questions about this move or that move. The demon had shown her a kindness and understanding that surprised her, recognizing when she was confused or troubled by something. And Gwen was something to be marveled. Cara knew about her abilities, the lightning and the electricity that she seemed to control with the touch of a button, but there was something else about the woman that left Cara searching for words. She was so different, so feminine.
And Wesley. Her Watcher. That was more uncharted territory. A Watcher who was just hers, who didn't have other girls to look after, who didn't wake her up at the crack of dawn for practice or leave her a stack of books to read in the afternoon. He liked to ask her strange questions. Most of them, she didn't know the answers and often she wondered if they even had answers. But when he looked at her, he saw her. Not just another Slayer, not just another potential. Her. It was an odd feeling. Good but odd. And he listened.
He'd listened when Lorne had returned with a bottle of tawny liquid and a tired voice. The conversation had unfolded around Cara, breaking over her like the waves or wind.
"If I never read another girl like that again, it'll be too soon."
"How bad is it?" Wesley's concern had been strangely comforting.
"About two exits past bad and into the realm of depravity." The demon shook his head sadly. "They stripped her bare. I haven't seen that kind of brainwashing in, well, ever. Professional work too. Very good."
Fred frowned worriedly, glancing at Cara with an unspoken apology. "Why would they do that?"
"To get the perfect Slayer." Wesley rubbed his healing shoulder in small, absent-minded circles as he spoke. "Take away emotion. Everything that makes them human."
"Slayer concentrate." Lorne finished off his drink in one gulp and poured himself another. "She doesn't know anything else. There are bits and pieces of humanity surfacing but she doesn't understand them. Doesn't know how to deal with them."
"I can't believe the Council would do this to an innocent girl."
"Willow did say she was like a robot," Fred pointed out matter-of-factly.
"Not like, dearest. She is a robot. There's no personality of her own in there. The good news is that they managed to instill a sense of duty that would put a samurai to shame," Lorne elaborated, shuddering and starting on his second drink. "And I don't think they were finished with their programming. She's too focused, too raw."
"What's so wrong about wanting a RoboSlayer?" Gunn settled onto the bottom step. "From their point of view of course. She does her job, kicking demon ass. What's wrong with that?"
"Remember what she looked like when she came here?" Fred wrung her hands a little nervously. "All that blood. All those scars. How can that be a life worth living? Buffy's been a Slayer for ten years and she doesn't have that many scars."
"That's because Buffy has a life outside of slaying. Cara doesn't. Her entire existence consists of killing demons." Wesley took a seat next to Fred and Gwen. "She probably doesn't even consider doing anything else. As long as she has enough food to sustain life and gets a few hours of sleep, all she cares about is killing. And she won't last long, she can't."
"You're right about that," Lorne agreed unhappily. "Even the perfect soldier can't escape the aftermath of war. You have to pay the piper eventually. And what you see isn't who she really is. The girl inside, the soul, isn't anything like that. I only got echoes, but believe me...they did quite the number on her."
"Is there anything we can do?"
"We could actually do more harm than good since we don't know exactly what they've done to her." Lorne offered Gunn a drink as he sat down. "She's begun to build her own moral structure, the way a child learns right and wrong from their parents. Except she's been learning from the streets and the gutters. There's a lot of rage, a lot of aggression. More despair than Ive seen in a long time. She knows she's different but she doesn't know why. And she doesn't understand her emotions or even what they are. In all that confusion, something's got to give. She's gonna snap like a twig sooner or later and I really do not want to be around when it happens."
"Anything you can tell us that might help?"
"Whatever happened after she left Sunnydale, it shook her up big time. It's become a marker for everything in her world. How she determines who lives and dies. And make no mistake, she has no difficulty believing that she's the one who should make that call."
The furrows in Wesley's brow deepened as he frowned. "She asked if Buffy trusted us."
"And she probably would have killed us if she hadn't believed you when you said yes. Wouldn't have thought twice about it." Lorne finished off another glass. "Those memories are a beacon in a world of death and blood. She's holding on to them for dear life, having an identity crisis without even knowing what's going on. No idea that she's in trouble."
"Anything else?"
Lorne hesitated. "Something. Maybe. It wasn't too clear." He rubbed his forehead wearily. "Like a whisper in the background. Everything's a little hard to read with all the damage they've done. But there was something there. Underneath. It could have been a deeper part of Cara, fighting against the conditioning. But it didn't feel human. It's dark. Darker than anything I've seen in awhile."
"The essence of the Slayer power, perhaps."
"I don't know. It all depends on how deep they went. I suspect they did the works, the whole kit and caboodle, no stone left unturned kind of deal, so no. And it did feel older. Ageless, even. Give me a few days before you want me to read her again. In the meantime, all I can suggest is to do what you kids do best. Treat her like a human being. When she finally reaches the breaking point, she's going to need somewhere safe to land."
"We may not have time to wait," Wesley told them wearily. "I received word from Iverson this afternoon and they need all the Slayers in Sunnydale in a few weeks for a meeting with the American military."
"Buffy mentioned that they knew about the Slayers," Gwen spoke up for the first time. "When she called to let us know Angel and Cordy were on their way. Said they wanted to make a deal with them. Something about having children."
"The Slayer lines, yes. They're worried about regeneration. Iverson wants to make sure they aren't treated like cattle." Wesley glanced toward Cara. "Maybe I can get some answers then, about what they've done to her and why."
There it was. The truth about why she was different and why nothing made sense to her. She was broken; a defective tool that needed to be taken back for repairs because she didn't work the way she was supposed to. It hurt and she didn't understand why it hurt anymore than she understood that day in the field when she had ached because she had nearly killed Xander Harris. His stake was tucked snugly at her side as always. Pulling it out, she traced the patterns engraved in the wood as she had done so often to focus herself on slaying. There was something wrong with her.
She'd suspected it, had wondered about it. Somehow it was worse knowing that she'd been right, that there was something about her that made her different, that made her wrong. Damaged. She'd seen the pity in their eyes; pity for the broken Slayer. When they had stopped talking about her and retreated into their offices, she crept up through the rafters and out one of the skylights to the roof where she could stare out at the city and pretend it was just an endless sweep of sparkling diamonds. For the first time in weeks, the air had been washed clean by the storms and she could see all of Los Angeles stretching out around her. It would return to the smog bound haze soon enough, but until then, she would be content to just watch it twinkle. At least until she was taken back to Sunnydale to face the men who had broken her.
"There you are." Wesley's voice interrupted her thoughts. She didn't turn around as he climbed through the skylight and settled onto the roof behind her. "How are you feeling?"
"I don't understand," she answered simply.
"What don't you understand?"
"Why am I wrong?"
He was silent for a long moment before answering her carefully. "What was done to you isn't your fault, Cara. What they did was wrong. Not you."
"I kill demons. I do my duty as a Slayer. How is that wrong?"
"There's more to it than just the slaying, Cara."
"I don't understand," she repeated with frustration. The only thing she had ever understood was her duty, was the fact that she was a Slayer and born to a sacred birthright to protect and defend those who couldn't protect themselves. The homeless and the lost; the nameless, faceless ones who spent their lives beneath the shoes of people who couldn't see them. Faces and eyes in the slums of Detroit who had been grateful for her help in finally ridding their neighborhoods of the demons preying on their children. It had made sense, had been clear. Now? Nothing was clear anymore, nothing was black and white.
He shifted awkwardly, moving up to sit at her side and stare out over the city. "It looks peaceful from here. Like a different world. Maybe even one that doesn't have demons or Slayers. Just people living out their lives. Arguing over the back fence about whose bushes are dropping berries on whose lawn or the dog that barks too much."
It was the most he'd ever said about anything other than demons and weapons. She turned toward him, studying his profile carefully. The hint of gray beginning to show at his temples after years of fighting; bandages peeked out from under the collar of his shirt and the edge of his sleeve. There were still charcoal smudges beneath his eyes from the poison. Blue gray eyes. His cultured accent reminded her of the Academy, of the girls she had trained with who were now dead, and the only place she had called home. But she didn't know what home meant either. She wanted, no, she needed something. But she didn't know what to ask for or if she should ask or could ask, or what would happen even if she did know.
"How is your shoulder?" she asked finally, feeling the weight of their silence bearing down on her.
"Much better. That was quick thinking of you, in the tunnels. Very resourceful."
"To see a World in a grain of sand, and a Heaven in a wild flower."
He looked at her with surprise. "William Blake. Where did you learn that?"
"They taught us. To remind us that in the answers can be found in the smallest things and most unlikely places." She met his gaze, searching for the pity she had seen earlier. There was only curiosity.
"Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour." He smiled, a real, honest smile without tension or worry. "That's only the first stanza, there's much more to it. I have a copy if you'd like to read it."
"I would. Like that." She wasn't sure if that was the right answer. Were there any right answers?
His fingers brushed against her shoulder in a gesture she interpreted as comfort. "You should get some rest."
"Soon." She turned back to the city.
"I'll see you in the morning then."
Nodding to confirm that she understood, she waited until he had slipped back through the skylight before she started breathing again. In an instant, clarity and understanding had pierced through the fog of confusion. As his hand had swept over her shoulder, warming her skin, she had realized what it was that she ached for. Contact. Human contact. To be touched. And somehow, she knew it was something she could never ask for.
Best friends were always there for each other. Especially after the world had ended and they hadn't been there to take the phone calls where you told them you loved them and poured out a lifetime of gratitude onto a machine. They always welcomed intrusion and fixed hot cocoa when you were down even if you were pounding on their door at five in the morning. At least, Willow hoped that was in the best friend contract somewhere, because she wasn't even close to being tired despite running on very little sleep for several days.
Xander blinked sleepily as he opened the door. He was wearing a robe, tightening it self-consciously as he ushered her into his apartment. "You're back!"
Suddenly she was wrapped in Xander arms, hugged tightly to his chest as he swung her around like a little girl. Willow grinned as she pulled away. "We're back. Although, that sounded kinda eerie and freaky. Major Poltergeist flashback."
"But you're back! And the world's happily spinning away in space."
"Sorry to wake you up. Just needed to unwind a bit before I crash."
"I know exactly what you need." Holding her hand, he led her into the kitchen area and motioned for her to sit down. Home brewed with love and hand made goodness. Grinning, he pulled out a tin of Stephens Gourmet Hot Cocoa. "Mint or regular?"
"Wow. The good stuff. Ill take a mint, sir, if you would be so kind."
"You guys deserve it. Where is everyone else?" He filled a glass of water and slid it into the microwave to heat.
"Last time I checked," Willow paused to take a mental head count. "Giles was heading back to bed, Dawn was in her room, Buffy went out to patrol, Angel and Cordy left Dodge over an hour ago, and Faith is probably turning to stone on the back porch."
"I thought only trolls turned to stone."
"Well. Not stone then. But shes very still and stone-like."
"How is she?" Xander stirred the cocoa carefully, waiting until it was dissolved before handing the glass to Willow. "There has to be a law somewhere for Slayers. If you sleep with a vampire, you'll have to kill him later."
"Must be. It's a little weird. Two vampires with souls, both got involved with Slayers and ended up on the pointy end of a weapon." She blew on the hot cocoa for a distraction, trying to gather her thoughts enough to give Xander an accurate description. "I think she's okay. I mean, once she started talking again. There was throwing up and creepy staring out the window the whole way back. I'm not sure if she's actually cried at all."
Xander nodded sagely. "Sounds like shock."
"That's what Riley thought."
"Riley Finn?"
"One and the same. He was part of the team that found Faith." She wrapped her hands around the glass and breathed in the scented steam as it rose. "All she told him was that Spike was gone. He said she was lying in a pile of dust."
His frown deepened. "Maybe we should find a psychiatrist for her."
"I don't think she'd do it. But it would probably be better if she would at least cry. I haven't seen a single tear." Willow leaned forward on her elbows, sighing wearily. "And I checked every twenty or thirty miles. Nothing."
"She probably doesn't want anyone to see her cry." Xander moved around the counter, sitting next to Willow and slipping his arm over her shoulder comfortingly.
"And poor Dawn. She's been a real trouper."
"Bit's all grown up now."
Willow leaned her head against his shoulder. "I still can't believe it's over. I keep thinking that the world is still gonna end or maybe it already has and we just don't know it yet.
"At least we wont have another apocalypse for a month or so. Do you think they're seasonal?"
She sipped her cocoa, savoring the velvety mint chocolate flavored liquid. "They must be. Like hurricanes or June bugs."
"Buffy's out patrolling, huh?" He smiled, brushing his hand against Willows hair. "Good old Buffy. Out killing things when she needs to work through her issues. We should all take a few lessons from the Slayer handbook. Maybe we'd all be better people."
"Maybe. I wish Faith would get out there and kill something. If it would help, I mean, and as long as its not human." She started, almost knocking Xander's arm off of her shoulders as she suddenly realized that Buffy and Faith weren't that different. At least not anymore, not in the murdering people aspect.
"Will?"
"Just thought of something," she explained lamely. It wasn't her place to tell Xander. He hadn't even been there in the basement to see Ethan had done to Faith. "Have you seen Faith?"
"Not since she left for New Orleans."
"Then you haven't seen her face."
He shifted uneasily. "It wasn't Spike, right? Cause that bastard said it was and I really don't want to believe him. No one has given me a straight yes or no, guess they figured I already knew. And I was pretty sure it wasn't Spike on account of her sleeping with him, but stranger things have happened."
"Sorry. It was Ethan who did it. None of us have wanted to talk about it."
"How bad?"
She shuddered and curled closer to him. "It was awful. And now? I mean, she's gotta still be recovering from that. You don't just get tortured for days and walk away from it. Slayer or not."
"She'll be all right, Will. She has us."
"What if were not enough? We weren't enough for Buffy when she had to kill Angel."
He placed a hand over hers. "But we're older and wiser now. Or at least we know what not to do this time. And we can slash all the bus tires with incredible speed and precision if you're really worried."
"Thanks." She returned to her cocoa, finishing it off before it had time to get any colder. "I know that its gonna take time and that the best thing we can do is listen. I just wish there was more for us to do."
"Will?"
"Xander."
"Bear with me for just a minute, okay?"
"Sure."
He took a deep breath, pulling her closer and resting his head against the top of hers. "I'm hearing a lot of worry about Faith and some worry about Dawn. Which is fine and good. What I'm not hearing is worry about Willow."
"But I'm fine."
He tugged the cup from her hands and took hold of them. "I listened to those messages you left me Will, and I'm sorry I wasn't here to get your phone calls. What I heard was a very strong woman facing the end of the world. And, like any intelligent being, she was pretty terrified and she was afraid she wouldn't be able to tell the people she cared about that she loved them."
Willow sniffed, feeling the prick of tears in her eyes. Trust Xander to figure her out. He always did.
He continued. "But the world doesn't end. And she drives back across the country. The entire time, she's more worried about everyone around her. How can she make them feel better, ease their pain. Because that's the kind of woman she is. Always being strong for everyone around her, even when it means that she has to pretend not to be scared, not to be in pain." His voice caught, trembling slightly as he spoke. "But I got those messages, Will. And I know you were terrified. I know that you really wanted to save Spike, in spite of the fact that he tried to eat you once and threatened to put a broken bottle through your face if you didn't cast a love spell on his psycho ex. You wanted to save him because you care about people."
Blinking released the flood of tears that had been building up inside. Holding on him for strength, she tried to smile through her tears. "I feel bad for feeling bad. I mean, it wasn't like Spike and I were the bestest of best friends or anything. But he died to save the world. So he can't go to some hell dimension, right? That's got to be a get out of Hell free card for demons. I don't want him to be in hell for eternity."
"I'm sure he's happy as a dead little vampire can be. And I'm sure he knows you tried everything to save him. That's what matters."
"Maybe it's that thing, you know, when people die and suddenly you forget about all the bad times and remember all the times they did something good or at least not completely evil. Like the time he hit Tara in the nose to prove she wasn't a demon. Fresh tears bubbled up as she continued to stammer. And when he tried to bite me with the chip and couldn't, he actually tried to make me feel better. I said I wasn't the type of girl that vamps liked to bite, that he was just settling because he couldn't have Buffy. And he, he said he'd wanted to bite me before. Completely bite-able."
"He did have that pesky habit of comforting women in need. In a weird, evil way of course."
She sniffed as she wiped away tears. "We don't even have his dust or anything."
"Because that would be morbid."
"But we should have something. Something that says Spike Was Here and...and He Saved the World. Even if he was a vampire and mostly evil until he got the chip."
Xander shifted, rubbing light circles on her back. "Then we should do something about that."
It was good to be lying on something that didn't have four wheels and a combustion engine; that didn't hum and vibrate or hit bumps and cracks in the road beneath them. To be curled up on the safe and familiar mattress in her safe and familiar bedroom with a cape of black leather wrapping her in a cocoon of warmth. The sun would be coming up soon and Dawn was feeling the bone weariness that came from sitting in the same place for a few thousand miles. She'd closed her blinds carefully, then Buffy's and then the blinds in Buffy's old room where Faith would be sleeping. Giles had disappeared into the basement where he'd set up a futon.
The world was still here, her eclectic family was back in Sunnydale and mostly under one roof. Minus one blond vampire. It felt different than the four years he'd been gone. She'd made up a hundred stories of where he was and what he was doing, after she'd stopped wanting to set him on fire. When she'd realized that Buffy actually missed him, that she had really cared. The world was full of gray areas that couldn't be dealt with in a consistent, rational manner and Buffy's tryst with Spike was one of them. As soon as she'd realized that what happened between her sister and Spike was exactly that, between them. Not between Buffy, Spike, and Dawn. After that, it was easier to let go of the anger she'd been bottling up inside and the guilt she felt over wanting him to come back even after he'd hurt Buffy.
Fighting against the First Evil had helped bring everything into perspective. For a few hours, when she'd thought she was a potential Slayer, she'd been almost numb with the shock and what she'd really wanted was Spike, with his unusual brand of comfort. Like threatening to snap her neck when she had run away or telling her she couldn't be evil because he knew a thing or two about evil. He probably wouldn't be winning any awards for best things to say to distraught teenagers but he'd always managed to find the things she needed to hear.
In some of her dreams, Spike was living in a crypt somewhere with a cute little vampire who made him happy. In others, he was trekking across the globe and writing postcards back to Sunnydale, telling them how and where he was. He just never sent them. Of course, he'd come back with a whole box full some day and talk about how he was afraid to send them. Sometimes she imagined that he'd gone back to England and was secretly keeping watch over Giles. Which was ridiculous, of course, but they were her fantasies and she didn't care if they didn't make sense. All of them ended the same way. He came back. At first, he'd come back for her graduation. Once that passed, she dreamed that he came back for her wedding or maybe Buffy's graduation. One event or another finally drew him back to the Hellmouth. As the years passed, her hope that he wasnt blowing in the wind somewhere had dimmed and she'd begun to worry that maybe Xander had found him after all.
At least this time she knew and there would be no more dreaming. No more creating worlds where he was safe and on his way home. Without him out there somewhere, the world seemed like a much scarier place to live in. They'd gotten along without him for four years; built lives that didn't include a vampire named Spike, but she had always left a space, an empty part of her life that he could fit into if he ever came back. She wasn't sure what to fill it with now that he would never be coming back. It would have been easier if he'd never come back at all, never found her in the tunnels and saved her life. Called her Bit and stroked her hair as though he'd never left. If she hadn't jumped at the chance to fit him back into her life, to find a place for him in her world. He was one of the few parts of her life where she knew most of her memories were real. There were monk memories of Spike but all of her favorites were one hundred percent real. No monk fraud there.
The sun began to peek over the horizon; she could see it sneaking around the edges of her blinds. Footsteps in the hallway and doors closing signaled the return of her sister. Dawn smiled as she pulled the jacket over her eyes and burrowed into the darkness. Now that they were all alone, lying in the safety of their own beds, it would be easier to take down the walls, to stop being strong for everyone else who was trying so hard to be strong for you. Dawn would cry, Buffy would cry, maybe Faith would cry after she pulled out of the despondent trance she was in. Willow would go to Xander. It was how they worked, how they grieved.
In a way, that was the best tribute to Spike there could have been.