A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far!

C is for Chosen

There will come a day in your life,
When you will be told,
That life isn't a fairy tale,
So let go of what you still hold.

Making the choice to hold on to things,
That you can never change,
Is holding you back,
And probably feels quite strange.

So let go of the past,
And look on to the future.
This will lift the weight,
With no need for suture.

And never forget this,
That the choice is for you to pursue.
To determine what your choice is
Let life be the best for you

-Julie Herbert, There Will Come a Day

There were a lot of things that Buffy would have loved to have been chosen for. Homecoming queen or a no limit, thirty minute shopping trip at the mall. She could do a lot of damage in thirty minutes. Or, maybe, a date with John Stamos! Hey, she wouldn't even say no to being chosen for an Alaskan cruise. Sure, it would be cold and lacking the tropical amenities but Buffy figured that just about anything was better than what she'd actually been chosen for.

Killing vampires and other creepy crawlies that shouldn't exist. Who's bright idea was it to add her name to the hat? She was a cheerleader! The biggest responsibility she had was making sure the top of the human pyramid didn't fall on her ass and that her grades were just good enough for her to remain on the squad.

She pushed herself up and spat out the taste of dirt that she'd practically eaten after the vampire she'd charged at had flung her to the side as though she was an annoying gnat. She turned sharply as she heard his footsteps come her way and as he reached down to yank her up she surged up, stake in hand, and forced the wooden tip through the vampire's heart.

"This sucks," she muttered as he dissolved all over her. She coughed as she accidentally breathed in a cloud of dust and her nose scrunched up in disgust. "Hard."

~BTVS~

She supposed she shouldn't be surprised but really?! The whole entire universe was conspiring against her. The Powers That Be were reaching down and moving the pieces of her life around their chess board and she was just yanked unwillingly along. She had hoped, naively, that when she and her mom moved to Sunnydale she'd be free from her 'destiny' and could resume life as a normal California high school cheerleader. She had been woefully, depressingly wrong.

Now she had a new watcher who was just a little high on the creep factor scale and she was, apparently, literally living on top of the mouth of Hell. Could her life get any worse?

Don't answer that.

~BTVS~

Destiny. The thought of that daunting, over bearing, word wasn't quite as horrible when it came to true love. Destined love. Of course, there was the little caveat that her true love came to her in the form of a vampire with a soul but she didn't see that as anything they couldn't work through. Who needs long, sunny days on the beach or coffee dates when they'd found their soulmate?

Sure, Angel could be a little dramatic and disappear-y, but he was there when it counted. He had saved her life, after all. Well...Xander had but only because Angel couldn't. She knew that giving herself to him, giving away that sacred piece, was the next step in their journey together and she was as excited for it as she was nervous. She drew in a deep breath and smiled at her reflection.

~BTVS~

What had she done to deserve this? How could the Powers purposefully place Angel in her life only to take him away, replacing him with a monster that she had no choice but to eliminate? How was it fair that the platinum haired menace got to have his happy ending with the demon he could only claim to love while she had to send her soulmate to Hell?

She stared out at the deep blue ocean as white, foamy water lapped at her feet. Los Angeles. Her old stomping grounds. Kicked out of her own home by her mother for doing the job she'd had no choice in. Slaying her boyfriend, watching the betrayal and surprise bloom in his eyes as she ran her sword through him.

Her friends could never understand what she'd had to do and what it took to do it. Giles hated Angel for what Angelus had done, he would probably celebrate his demise if he could pull himself out of the depression that the murder of Ms. Calendar had sent him spiraling into. If it wasn't for her watchers feelings towards the ensouled vampire he'd be the easy choice to lean on as they both grieved their losses.

Her world crumbled around her and she ran. If her mother didn't want her and her watcher didn't trust her then why stay? She had done her sacred chosen duty and she had lost everything in the process.

~BTVS~

Angel was back. Brought back by the PTB. Chosen for some greater path than even the vampire in question knew. Giles finding out had been a disaster and there was a part of her, the part that had matured over the summer while she'd been completely self-sufficient and on her own, that understood him better now than she had when she'd left.

She couldn't help her feelings. She still loved Angel and she found it easy to ignore the guilt that built up with every illicit kiss. She'd never be with him sexually again, she knew that and she was working to accept it as a fact of life. A new normal. She just didn't think that, in the great scheme of things, sex was that big of an issue. Just another thing to stay by the wayside with the coffee dates and sunny beach days. Something that could be easily ignored as they built a truly incredible relationship that moved beyond the physical.

Maybe her traumatic first time made it easy for her to think that way. She wasn't planning to dwell on that thought.

~BTVS~

Sometimes, late at night when she finally crawled into bed, sore and with the taste of ash still on her lips, she would admit that Spike had been right.

She hated herself for that. He had told them, though, that they would never be friends. That it was impossible and that it would fall apart. He had been right. She had tried to convince herself and Angel that they could make it work. Even while they danced at prom she had thought that maybe he'd stay.

He didn't. He was gone, just a fading shadow in the fog.

She was still there. Bound to the Hellmouth. Chained to her destiny. Just a little bird trapped in her cage.

~BTVS~

She was interested in Riley. She really was. In quiet moments, when she turned her glare on their hostage who was 'innocently' watching some stupid afternoon soap, she wondered why Angel couldn't be bothered to stay while Spike couldn't just stay gone. She tried to tamp those thoughts down as soon as they entered her brain though because she was interested in Riley. Angel was the past, Riley was the future.

Time to move on, Buffy.

A loud guffaw came from the couch and her eyes narrowed further as she burned holes into the back of his blinding platinum blond annoying little head.

~BTVS~

Had there ever been a slayer who had been so fucked over by the PTB? What even was real anymore? Her sister certainly wasn't. Her memories, most of the memories she had covering nearly her entire life, weren't real. Not completely anyway. Her friends memories, her mothers memories. Changed in ways Buffy couldn't even begin to really comprehend.

She loved Dawn. She thinks that's real. She'd die to protect her if it comes to that. Maybe she's contrary but she's never not done her job. They didn't need to completely skew the memories of her life in order for her to protect Dawn. She would have done it anyway.

She felt violated. She felt guilt for feeling that way because at the end of the day, no matter how she got there, Dawn was a real person now. She didn't have any more say in what she was and how she'd gotten there than Buffy had. Still, the slayer felt the way she felt. No one had to know.

Spike did, though. When he and Dawn had found out the truth of her origins he'd given her this piercing look that saw right through her. She'd caught the glimmer of understanding within his gaze and she suddenly remembered that he knew all to well what it felt like to have people forcefully seize control of his life. She looked away.

~BTVS~

Done. She had been done. She had fought the good fight for five long, hard, years and she had died. She had been chosen as a fifteen year old child and she'd died a twenty year old woman. Died for the only thing that really mattered. Family.

So why was she back? For the first time in half a decade she couldn't blame the PTB. No, she had to look closer, to her own backyard (literally, as it were). She had to look to Willow and to Tara who had moved themselves into her home following the deaths of her and her mother. She had to look to Xander and Anya who were at her house nonstop.

She'd lost track of how many times choice had been stripped from her. Becoming the slayer, Giles stripping her powers on her eighteenth birthday, Angel leaving, Dawn becoming her sister, Riley leaving. Dying had been her choice. She had chosen to sacrifice her life in place of her little sisters.

She had been done and she wasn't sure how to get past the betrayal of being forced back into this harsh world and her harsh destiny. She couldn't trust the people that she'd leaned on for the last five years anymore.

She stood side by side with Spike and wondered when he became someone she could confide in. Someone she could trust not to spill her darkest secrets.

~BTVS~

It had been close. Her choice hadn't quite been stolen but just barely. He'd just barely managed to come back to himself. The trust she'd placed in him had been shattered the moment he found out about his chip not working on her. The moment that she'd initiated a sexual relationship. The moment the line between sex and violence had been blurred and their relationship reached a level of toxicity that she wouldn't have been able to comprehend prior to her death.

He'd completely disappeared after he'd attacked her in the bathroom. She had needed him, somehow still able to trust him with her sister even if she couldn't trust him with herself, but he'd been gone. Maybe she would have chosen for him to go if he had asked her. He hadn't though, so maybe he'd stolen her choice after all.

~BTVS~

She felt like she was taking some of her power back when she'd chosen to help Spike when he came back. She had chosen when she moved him into the basement and she had chosen not to give up on him when they found out he'd been killing again. That he was under the control of the First. Most importantly, it was she who chose to call Riley and get the malfunctioning chip removed. In that moment she gave herself permission to trust again.

Maybe she couldn't trust him with her heart but she knew she could trust him to protect her friends and her sister and to fight by her side. He had torn out the final thread in their fraying relationship that year following her return from the grave but she had done her fair share in unraveling that tapestry. He had made a huge mistake and he fought for his soul as penance.

He had come back and that counted for something.

~BTVS~

He was gone. They had reached a point in their relationship that she could admit that they had meant something more to each other than she'd previously let herself believe. He loved her, he had been trying to convince her of it for years and, once the soul had tempered him, he was finally able to prove it to her. She wasn't as naive as she was when she was with Angel though, she had long since realized that Spike hadn't really changed all that much after getting the soul. Not like Angel had. There was no Spikelus. Just Spike, the vampire who accepted and embraced every facet of himself.

He had died for her. For Dawn and the world that he loved. She knew though, that ultimately he died for her. She had fallen in love with him but she had chosen to acknowledge it too late and he hadn't believed her.

She kept a tight lid on the despair she felt bubbling up within her as they left Angel's hotel in L.A. and traveled to Rome where Giles was intent on rebuilding the Council. She didn't allow herself to dwell on their final moments together, choosing instead to remember their last couple nights with each other as he lent her his strength and conviction and she shared with him that tender part of her that she let so few see.

The world flew by in a blur and she chose to believe that it was due to how fast they were flying rather than the tears that were building within her eyes.

~BTVS~

For seven years she had been little more than a puppet on a string. In her eighth year she had broken the strings following the demise of Sunnydale and began to dance to her own tune. The world was full of slayers who could pick up her slack. She traveled London and walked the old roads that she imagined Spike might have traveled over the centuries. She went to South America and stared up at the same stars that he would have gazed at. She went to Africa and sought the demon cave where he had fought for his soul.

She had found it and been denied entry. Demons only, slayers not allowed. The rumbled laughter that came from somewhere deep within fueled her rage and she pounded at the outer cave walls until her fists bled and chunks of stone littered the ground. Then she heard the voice. "It is useless, Slayer. Even were you allowed in I cannot bring back the dead."

So she traveled to China and retraced his steps there as best she could. Morbid though it may be, seeing as he'd killed her sister slayer on those very streets. It was a sad fact that she felt like she knew him better once he was dead than she ever had while he was standing in front of her begging her to let him in.

She was in New York when Angel's crew had fallen in L.A. she had felt like a hand had wrapped around her heart and given it a good squeeze before relinquishing it and allowing her to breathe again. Angel was lost but, really, she had a lost him a long, long time ago.

The hand came back and squeezed so hard that she fell to her knees when she heard that Spike had been there too. Had fought in that final battle and hadn't been seen or heard from since. That he had been in Los Angeles with Angel for nearly an entire year and hadn't ever contacted her.

She'd been mourning him, traveling in his fading footsteps in an attempt to feel close to him and he'd been walking the same earth, breathing the same air (since he was such a weird vamp) and staring at the same night sky as her in real time.

She burned with grief and anger and betrayal.

~BTVS~

"He was chosen for you," a voice said from behind her.

She turned to see a woman with gold skin and white robes staring beneficently at her. "You're one of the Powers That Be," Buffy stated dully, green eyes sharp and glaring.

"We made you, two sides of the same coin. Sunshine and Darkness. Destined," the woman continued.

"Yeah, well you people need to stop trying to control our lives!" Buffy replied snidely. "Angel and I have proven that we would have never worked anyway," she muttered.

The woman smiled. "I was not speaking of Angelus."

Buffy did a double take. "You mean Spike?" she asked in surprise.

"He is chosen for you. Don't squander your chance," she said as she faded from the room.

"What chance?!" Buffy yelled out to no one. "He's dead. Again," she mumbled.

She didn't wake up quickly. It was more like a fog was slowly lifted from her as her eyes fluttered open and a yawn escaped her lips. She felt a lingering warmth settled over her before her dream came back to her and the coldness started seeping in.

~BTVS~

Her bags were packed and she was traveling to LA in the morning. She'd be there by the next afternoon and she could start shifting through the wreckage to see if she could find any evidence of his survival. Or of his death. She had wallowed for two weeks in her month to month New York apartment following the news of Spike's second (third?) death and her subsequent visit from the PTB before making the decision.

She had talked to Dawn who had strongly encouraged her to go check for clues. The younger Summer's had been devastated that she'd never made amends with Spike and Buffy knew that she was holding out hope that she'd still get the chance.

She frowned as a knock sounded at her door. No one she knew was anywhere near New York so she approached the door with caution, her fingers closing around her stake. It clattered to the floor, her fingers losing all control as her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened.

"'Ello, luv," at the sound of his voice her hand flew to her mouth as a sob broke free.

"You're dead," she breathed out in disbelief.

Spike's brow furrowed. "Well...yeah," he said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it was in the sense that he had always been dead but he hadn't always been dead dead.

"You came back and didn't tell me," she said next, the hurt bubbling over.

Spike nodded, eyes sad, and sighed. "I know," he acknowledged.

"I didn't know you were back until LA fell. They said you died too."

"It was close but not quite. Took me a mo' to get back on m'feet. You're a hard girl to track down these days," he told her, taking another step closer to the doorway.

"Why now?" she asked accusingly.

He sighed and shrugged. "Couldn't at first, could I? Was all ghostly and Angel wasn't going to make the call." She scrunched her nose up in confusion. "Then...well, big things were goin' down, yeah? You were with the Immortal in Rome and it wasn't long 'fore Fred was taken over by an ancient god. Then Angel had to go and make a real mess of things when he decided to unleash the hordes of hell on the streets of Los Angeles," he rambled, waving his hands around in that way he did when he was agitated. "Could hardly let the wanker take care of it himself..." he muttered, trailing off as his desperate bright blue eyes finally met hers.

"Come in, Spike," she said, keeping eye contact as she stepped back to let him through.

He walked past her, took a look around and then his entire frame slumped as he slowly turned to face her again. "I didn't have anywhere else to go, Angel and Gunn and Wes are all dead. Lorne is in the wind, Fred is dead and the demon goddess that took over her body left the bloody dimension."

There were too many thoughts fighting for the spotlight in her head until she finally blurted out. "Why didn't you come sooner?"

"I did once," he replied. "You were with the soddin' Immortal, dancin' it up in Rome. Saw the boy, Andrew, said you were happy," he shrugged again. "Didn't want to ruin it for you."

Buffy cringed. Of course he came for her during that horrible lapse in judgment, when she had tried to bury her feelings for him by taking up with someone else. A very, flawed, manipulative someone else. "You wouldn't have," she replied simply.

He caught her gaze again, looking at her in that awestruck way of his that always made her feel terrified. Now, though, it just warmed her. "I missed you, Spike," she said bravely.

"I missed you too, Buffy," he breathed out.

~BTVS~

There were a lot of things that Buffy was chosen for that she'd hated. There were a few things though she ended up being incredibly grateful for. As hard as her years as the Chosen One had been they made her who she was and they'd brought incredible people into her life. Dawn, her sister who she loved more than anything. Willow and Xander, her well meaning though sometimes bumbling best friends. Giles, the closest father figure she'd had since hers had split.

Spike. The man who always found his way back to her. The man who stood by her side whether she wanted him there or not. Who loved her selfishly first but would grow to love her unselfishly. Who got his soul for her and who chose to stay away so she could find happiness. The man who had promised her he would never stay away again after she'd threatened him within an inch of his life.

It was night and day, their relationship now versus the year she'd been resurrected. They still fought, of course, that's just who they were. They didn't hurt each other anymore though, not purposefully, not physically (not unless they asked for it). Somehow Spike, of all people, ended up giving her the healthiest relationship she'd ever known.

She found it didn't matter that the PTB chose him for her because in the end she chose him for herself.