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

D is for Damned

The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged-though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

-Lodged, Robert Frost

Desolation. Had he ever been anywhere but here, in this place that reeked of melancholy? He thought he must not have for he knew nothing. Nothing but the black earth and the red sky. Nothing but pain and the unpleasant bodily aches that he no longer remembered the cure for. His throat was parched. Like he'd never had water before or, perhaps, he never would again. Pain, sharp as knives- her knives, the one's that would cleave through a Fyarl like butter- clawed at his gut. Hunger. Who was her?

Time had long ceased to exist. What was time? A meaningless construct that he'd scoffed at before. When was before? Days bled into years. Years into centuries. He thought he might have kept track once. There were scratches on the stone, long faded and barely visible. He didn't know when he'd stopped. Perhaps when the numbers had gone higher than he'd remembered to count. Millennia.

If there was a time before his solitude he did not remember it. Or maybe he did and- rather than tormenting himself further- forced himself to forget to remember. He thought it might be that because sometimes he'd think of her or before and a tiny tendril of awareness would whisper into his ear. Just for a moment before it faded away, back to oblivion.

Movement was more effort than it was worth. There was a time, he thought, where he would force himself to move just to keep busy. He'd run and explore. He'd work out, keep fit for what came next. Only...nothing ever came. There was nothing to explore but more black and more red. There was nowhere to run. If he'd been asked he would tell you that he probably stopped moving about the time he stopped counting. There was no one to ask him though. Just as well- he'd long lost his ability to speak.

Loneliness. He couldn't be sure, of course, but he didn't think he'd ever done well alone. He felt like he'd always latched on to something or someone. How long ago had it been since he'd seen another being? You could ask the faded scratches on the wall. They would, at least, give you more of an idea than he could. The yearning for more never faded, just dulled until it was nothing more than a constant ache he couldn't separate from the thirst or the hunger. It just was.

Thoughts were all he had left, tattered though they were. They were circular, winding around his mind, weaving in and out between his ears but always finishing where they started. Words that no longer held meaning echoed in his brain, loud and unwanted. He had failed to figure out how to shut them off, the thoughts. They crashed, ebbing and flowing like...something he thought he remembered from long ago. Something salty and wild and vast. He'd long since forgotten it's name.

Sound didn't exist. It hadn't, in this place, since his voice had stopped working. Although, it was entirely possible that it wasn't his voice that was broken- but him. There were no tree limbs to creak or leaves to rustle in the wind. There was no wind. There was no water to lap gently at the shore or rage violently against the rocks. There was no shore. He used to hear the sound of his footsteps on the scorched earth but that required movement...and he no longer did that.

His was the only soul in this place. There were no animals or monsters. None aside from him. He used to wish even for an annoying little bird to flutter in and keep him company. He'd long since forgotten what it meant to wish.

Time marched on. Not for him, of course, but in that certain way that one second unfailingly turned into the next, never to repeat itself, time marched on. Seconds gave way to hours and hours to decades. Centuries turned to millennia and still there he lay. Motionless and silent and utterly, terribly, alone.

~BTVS~

She hadn't seen it the first time. Not really, she'd only caught the beginning. He'd sent her away before the end. Then he'd come back and he hadn't told her. No one had told her. Not until his voice rang through on her answering machine. Impossible. Yet...Andrew had folded like a cheap suit and wailed about how he'd wanted to tell her but he'd been sworn to secrecy.

She barely remembered the plane ride. She'd been in Cleveland, bringing a new group of trained up slayers to help Faith when she'd gotten the message. She and Faith and their little slayers had hopped on a nonstop flight and had landed in L.A. less than six hours later. It was easy, after that, to follow the trail of horror to that alley. What had Angel been thinking? Taking this on with just his tiny L.A. crew?

It was devastating. How many apocalypses had she stopped? Even then she'd never seen destruction the likes of which they'd stumbled upon. Not even seeing Sunnydale turn into a crater could compare with the sight on Los Angeles. Crumbled buildings, jet streams of fire from a...was that a dragon? Demons. Legion.

They went to work and the whole time Buffy kept a weather eye out for a flash of platinum blond or a swirl of black leather. She kept an ear out for any one of his weird British cuss words. Bugger or bollocks. For his laugh, the one that haunted her dreams. The last thing she'd heard from him as she ran from Sunnydale High. Echoing down the hallways and nipping at her heels as though he was urging her to go.

Anger flooded her as she realized that this might be the real apocalypse and she'd almost missed it. If she saw Angel she'd dust him herself. She didn't want the world to end- eight years of sacrifice was evidence of that fact- but if it was going to then she damn well expected to be on the front lines. Staring it down face to face like she'd been chosen to do.

The genies were out of the bottle and as far as she could tell there was no return address. They fought for hours. At one point she saw Angel, just a flash and then he was gone, absorbed into the demonic masses. She and Faith kept close, trading the scythe back and forth, keeping as many slayers alive as they could though they both knew it was futile if the tides didn't soon change.

Then it did. The tide, that is. It changed when she heard him. Her hair whipped at her face as her head snapped towards the sound of his voice, "Any time now, Blue!" annoyed and so, incredibly Spike.

Finally, finally she caught sight of the bleached hair. He'd clambered up onto a pile of demon corpses, thrusting and parrying as the hordes continued to attack him and it took her a second to realize that he was protecting something. Someone. She was taller than Buffy with a stern face and blue hair that was whipping to the whim of a nonexistent breeze. Magic. She'd seen the effects of it from Willow often enough.

A portal started to open in front of her and Spike had to work hard to keep the mass of monsters off the slight woman. "Faith!" she called out before taking off at a run, knowing that the other slayer would follow. The portal grew wider and wider, the swirling blues, blacks and grays almost hypnotizing.

It was kind of like a vacuum she realized. The demonic forces were being drawn into it as they unsuccessfully clawed and struggled against it. Buffy wasn't nearing fast enough, having to fight off those that were too stupid to realize they were in the path of a sucking black hole. She didn't feel it's pull even as she slowly gained ground and she wondered if it only admitted demons. Her stomach twisted as that thought led to her wondering if Spike would be sucked in.

He would have already, though, so maybe it was just magnetizing those that didn't belong in this dimension. She thought Willow and Giles would probably be impressed with her powers of deduction. The blue woman was losing steam and the portal was starting to collapse in time with her.

Above the din, behind her as she twirled away from the spectacle to defend her back as a large waspish looking demon bore down on her, she heard him again. "Get up!" and she knew that he was yelling at the blue woman.

"I need more, vampire," came the distant, strained reply. "This shell does not have the fortitude."

"Then take it." Buffy shoved the stake end of her scythe up into the wasp demon's chest and as it took it's last, gurgling breath she turned back to Spike and the woman just in time to see her clasp his hand. Confusion flooded her first. Then horror.

The woman stood taller, infused with a new energy, and the portal opened even wider than before. Buffy was only vaguely aware of Faith calling out to her and pouncing on something that was swinging towards the blonde slayer. Her attention was solely on Spike. The pain playing out over his face as the blue woman stole his life force. His...what did the blue woman call it? His fortitude.

He sank to his knees and Buffy's feet pounded pavement as she ran towards him. Her face met asphalt as one of the demons being drawn into the portal plowed into her from behind. The wind was knocked out of her and as she slowly looked up she saw the blue woman falter as she looked at Spike. Tears flooded Buffy's eyes as she saw him smirk at the woman. Fearless.

"Finish it, Blue," he demanded.

Buffy was barely aware of her shout as Blue gave one sharp nod before muttering something that had the portal swelling to an unimaginable size, demons soaring back through it and Spike...dusting.

The older ones sometimes dusted so slowly. You saw it start with a finger before it slowly devoured the rest of the body until only the outline of a human skeleton remained, just for a moment before it fell to ash. It amped up the horror for those watching, those that cared. To see someone you love die by inches.

The blue woman collapsed on the pavement, the pile of bodies she and Spike had been stationed on were gone, sucked into the gaping maw of the portal before it had closed. Groans of pain were heard from the slayers that had survived, pants from the woman (demon? Witch?) who had ended it. Dry sobs too. That was her, she realized.

"Buffy?" a voice croaked and she managed to turn her head just enough to catch sight of Angel stumbling towards the survivors. He looked like hell. His eyes searched her sorrow laced face before they flickered over to the blue woman.

"Illyria?" he asked next.

"It is done," she said emotionlessly as she stood, wavering slightly.

"How?" he asked and Buffy realized that he clearly hadn't had a plan.

"I opened a portal. This shell was not powerful enough to sustain it but the white haired one was," she said distantly but Buffy thought she saw a flicker of something pass over her face. Sadness, maybe.

"Spike," Angel said and Buffy was vaguely surprised to hear the naked anguish in his tone.

"Guy better have racked up some cosmic points for dying to save the world twice in as many years," Faith remarked as she walked up to give Angel a light hug. "Should get inside, sun'll be up soon." The dark haired slayer let go of her vampire mentor and crouched down beside Buffy. "C'mon B," she said, tone more gentle than anyone who used to know her would have thought possible.

She didn't really remember rising to her feet or being led into the old hotel that Angel owned. She was still seeing Spike, dusting so slow that she could almost believe that if she'd been quick enough she could have reversed the effects. How could he be gone again when it had been just a few hours ago that she'd opened her voicemail and heard his voice for the first time in a year?

"Buffy...it's me, uh, Spike. I nicked your number from Angel...that's where I am. With Angel, in L.A. fighting the...well it's been kind of a morally ambiguous fight, really. But that's changing tonight. 'S why I'm calling. Think the end might be coming for real this time, luv. Probably not fair to dump this on you just before the end, yeah? But then I've never had great timing, have I? I meant to call sooner, wanted to but…

Doesn't matter. Just...goodbye slayer and take care of yourself and the bit."

~BTVS~

It had started in a dream. A slayer dream.

Buffy was walking out in a sun lit Roman courtyard, a book bag slung across her shoulder as she drifted towards the coffee shop after her last class, her golden hair blowing gently in the warm breeze. "Buffy!" Willow yelled suddenly and Buffy automatically turned towards her friend's voice. "I have the answer to the equation," she told her solemnly.

"Which one?" Buffy asked with a tilt of her head.

"The only one that matters. You know, 'left in solitude and abandoned to purgatory, how many seconds left until his mind is gone?'"

"Who's mind?" she asked in confusion.

Willow rolled her eyes. "Didn't you read the assignment?"

She missed whatever the redhead said next as an achingly familiar form passed by in the distance. She couldn't figure out who it was but she knew that she knew them. She muttered something to Willow before running after the shadow.

She came to a standstill, glancing around anxiously as she tried to figure out where it went. "Thirsty? A student wearing a loincloth and sun hat asked as he held out a bottle of water. She took it and, even though she didn't really want it, she took a deep drink.

She spluttered and spat it back out as the salt hit her tongue, the seawater that she'd managed to swallow burned at her throat and turned her mouth to cotton. She turned to yell (or croak) at the guy who'd given it to her but he was gone and instead there was only a vast expanse of black ground that crunched beneath her suddenly bare feet as she stumbled forward.

"Death is your gift," a familiar voice whispered in her ear and she spun to see Sineya, the first slayer, crouched in front of her against the eerie backdrop of a blood red sky.

"I've already received that one," Buffy replied with a shake of her head.

"Yet you turned him away," her ancient predecessor replied, though her lips never moved.

"Him?" she asked in bewilderment.

"Do you know the answer to the equation?" the slayer asked suddenly.

"Willow's equation?" Buffy asked, trying to keep up.

"How many seconds?" was the last echoing reply.

Buffy had shot up in bed, that last question ringing in her ears as she scrambled for a notepad to jot down all the details before she forgot anything. She had frowned as she read it over.

She had gone to Giles with it, of course, and Willow. They had all tried to figure out what it could be symbolizing. Was there another apocalypse on the horizon. Something niggled at Buffy though. This little piece of her that knew that she should know. That maybe she did know and just didn't know that she knew...you know?

Then she'd had the dream again. Exactly the same only this time when she saw the shadow she also saw a flash of bright white and she figured it out. The 'him' that Willow and Sineya had spoken of. She had awoken from that dream and called an immediate Scooby meeting (which consisted of only her, Giles, Dawn, and Andrew because Willow and Xander were out of the country).

It had taken some convincing before anyone believed (aside from Andrew, who feverishly hoped) that it was really Spike that the Powers were trying to hint at. Willow had flown back to Rome and performed a locating spell.

It was somehow a not a surprise and yet still a shock when the spell pointed them to Hell. Or, one of the hells, anyway. Fury burned within her. He'd died to save the world twice and yet he'd still been destined for hell.

Silence filled the room in response to the results of Willow's spell. Then Buffy broke it.

"Okay, so how do we get him out?"

~BTVS~

"Get him out?" Giles asked incredulously.

"Would that even be possible?" her sister asked, the hopeful glint in her eyes was the only thing that kept Buffy from snapping at her. After all, if her friends could pull her out of heaven then they could certainly pull her vampire out of hell.

"I don't know, Buffy." Willow said slowly. "Don't get me wrong, I-I want to help but...that's a lot of power and last time…"

She hadn't needed to finish because they all remembered what had happened last time. Buffy looked at each of them, staring them in the eye before slowly responding. "Spike died twice to save the world. So yes, Giles, I want to get him out and if you were smart you'd finally realize that you were wrong about him. I've got to believe that it's possible, Dawnie. Me standing here right now tells me that it's possible. And Wills...I'm not asking you to do this all yourself. Maybe we can ask the coven or-or I can ask the Powers That Be."

"The PTB?" Giles questioned in surprise.

"They're the ones who hand out the slayer dreams, aren't they? Why would they make me dream of Spike if I couldn't do something about it. They brought Angel back from hell after the Acathla thing...maybe they're trying to do the same for Spike." She reasoned and given the contemplative looks Giles and Willow exchanged she figured they couldn't really fault her logic.

"Nice deduction skills, kid," a new, vaguely familiar voice piped up.

Buffy spun towards the new arrival, tense and on high alert. She faltered a bit in surprise when her eyes landed on- "Whistler."

"Before you start with the threats let me just say that I'm on your side and this time I'm here to help you save your honey rather than well…"

"Last time?" she said with an unamused snort.

"Heh, yeah," he chuckled uncomfortably.

"Why do the powers want Spike back?" Giles asked suspiciously.

"What can I say? The guy surprised us," Whistler replied with a shrug as he leaned against the kitchen counter. His gaudy bright orange shorts with white hibiscus flowers clashed violently against the bright blue painted cupboards, reminding Buffy that she really needed to paint those. "We put all out eggs in the Angel basket...never even saw Spike coming."

"Sounds familiar," Buffy remarked dryly.

Whistler gave her a knowing nod and she had to turn away from the sympathetic look in his eyes. "Point is, Spike cleaned up Angel's mess and now he's payin' for it only the big guy's upstairs don't believe that it was supposed to all shake out that way."

"So...Angel should have been the one to die?" Dawn asked, but the look she threw Buffy's way reaffirmed to the slayer that her sister had believed that ever since Spike had burned up wearing the amulet Angel had brought to town.

"Don't have the specifics, above my pay grade," he told the teen with a shrug.

"How are we supposed to get him back?" Willow asked. "There's no body...he dusted, right Buffy?"

Buffy winced as the memory reasserted itself in the forefront of her mind. "Yeah," she whispered.

"You get his soul back and the PTB will handle the rest," the badly dressed demon assured them.

"So we need a spell? And an exact dimensional location," Willow muttered as she threw another worried look towards Giles.

"How much power will be involved?" the watcher asked. "I can't imagine it's a small amount."

"From your team, none. Except for hers," Whistler replied with a nod towards Buffy. "The PTB gave me the juice to fund this little trip but you have to cross into that dimension and bring his soul out yourself, slayer."

"Not bloody likely," Giles blurted out, eyes narrowed in anger.

At the same time Buffy replied. "Okay, how?"

They both ignored the watcher as Whistler replied solemnly. "You focus on the vampire and I'll open a kind of bridge to the hell dimension he's in. I can't tell you what to expect once you're there, kid. You could find him right away or it could take...awhile. Time moves differently there, much more quickly."

"I'll find him," she replied resolutely. "How do we get back once I do?"

"Remember where you entered. Once you find him you'll need to go back to the place you entered and you'll touch this," he handed her a silver chain necklace with an emerald set in an elegant silver teardrop pendent, "and say "factum". Make sure you're touching Spike when you say the word because the PTB will work quickly and if he's not on the return ride home there won't be a second chance."

"Not going to be a problem," she told him confidently.

Whistler hesitated, shifting uncomfortably as he weighed his words. "You know, kid...hell changes people. Makes 'em forget who they were or who they know. Might be the Spike you find isn't the one you remember," he warned her.

Buffy found herself thinking back to a feral Angel after his return trip from hell. She even thought about her shattered self when she returned from heaven. If anyone knew the terrifying effects of the afterlife it was Buffy Anne Summers. Her confidence wasn't shaken though because this was Spike and it was Buffy and they always found a way. "Not going to be a problem," she repeated.

"Okay then. We gotta move quickly," the demon replied with a small grin that told her that he was pleased by her unshakable confidence in the plan.

"Buffy, I really must speak with you," Giles interrupted before Whistler could get to far into his preparations.

"Is this conversation going to be constructive, Giles?" She asked pointedly. "Because I'm not changing my mind so if it's just going to be you pointing out all the reasons that I shouldn't go then you'll just be wasting time...and I think Spike's waited long enough."

Giles kept eye contact with her for a long moment before finally sighing and looking away, removing his glasses to clean them. "May she bring supplies? Water, food, blood?" he asked Whistler, conceding to her decision. She grinned and graced him with a quick hug.

"Not a bad idea," Whistler agreed so Buffy and co scrambled to get everything together while Whistler got the spell ingredients together.

Two hours later Buffy was dressed in light layers to account for any weather scenario (although her money was on hot) and had a backpack slung over her shoulders with granola bars, water, a couple bags of blood, a lightweight blanket, a tiny tent that Giles had bought ages ago and never used, a few light weapons (with more strapped to various places on her body) and one of Dawn's rings around her right ring finger. Willow had spelled it so glowed when danger was near so she'd have advance warning if anything was trying to sneak up on her.

The goodbyes were strained and hurried. Full of worry and fear (on their behalf) and anxiousness (on hers). It was kind of a blur, everything up until the moment that she stepped through the portal that Whistler opened and found herself standing on that bridge he'd mentioned. Every single bit of her focused on Spike.

His bright hair and punk aesthetic. His slow, seductive grin and mischievous blue eyes. The way he'd looked at her, spoken to her, that night at the abandoned Sunnydale house right before she'd found her scythe. How he'd looked, lit up in a bright light that was powered by his beautiful soul- the one he'd gotten for her- as he saved the world. A champion.

Her surrounding changed and instead of a bridge that crossed a deep blackness the scenery around her twisted and pulsed, color slowly bleeding in until the arched bridge was crossing, not water, but deep black mud. It bubbled a bit, simmering. She was reminded of the trip when they'd gone to Yellowstone when she was a kid. There had been mud pots there, they had smelled like rotten eggs but the natural beauty of the place made it easy to ignore.

These weren't that light gray like Yellowstone's though. These were black, dark and deep. The roiling mud sounded like angry growls. She pulled her eyes away from the mud pools and took in more of her surroundings. The sky was a deep red and the earth, barely visible at the other end of the rickety bridge, was ebony and almost sparkled in the dim red glow cast from the sky.

She glanced down at Dawn's ring and was not surprised to see that it wasn't glowing. She didn't see any living- or unliving- creatures in sight and her slayer senses were calm. She sighed as she adjusted the backpack straps over her shoulders before slowly making her away across Whistler's bridge, making a mental note to speak to him about his construction skills as she dodged loose boards and leapt over wide holes.

She breathed a sigh of relief when her feet hit solid ground. She looked around but saw nothing that would give her a direction to start in. There wasn't...anything. No trees or mountains. Just flat ground with maybe a rock outcropping peppered throughout. She closed her eyes and thought of Spike again, focused on every bit of him that she could remember.

The tingle started between her shoulder blades and crawled up her neck which snapped intuitively to the left. Her feet followed and she didn't know if she was choosing the correct direction but at least she was moving.

~BTVS~

Her heart sank as she traversed the foreign terrain. It was desolate and she had the sudden realization that it was a hell tailored to Spike. Lifeless, boring. Nothing to hunt or talk to or fight. Nothing to look at or take comfort in. How long had it been for him? Six months for her but time moved differently here. For Angel a couple months had been a century but when she'd visited a hell dimension, the summer after she'd sent him to hell, time had passed much more quickly than that.

The sun never moved in the sky but after hours of walking she was dead on her feet, hungry and dying of thirst. She thought of her slayer dreams as she pitched her tiny tent and allowed herself a small drink of water and granola bar. In the dream she'd taken a drink of saltwater and had been completely dried out. She understood what it had meant now that she was there.

She wasn't sure how she'd managed it but she was able to shut her thoughts down as she settled down on the uncomfortable tent floor and balled the blanket up to use as a pillow. She drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Buffy spent nearly a week camping out like that. Her days were the same, traversing the horrible, hot terrain before giving up when she got tired and stopping for a few hours of sleep anywhere that was slightly less uneven than everywhere else. The tingles, her Spike tingles, grew stronger with her migration through the new world and she was hopeful that she'd reach him soon. She didn't know how much longer she could stretch her granola bars and water and there (unsurprisingly) weren't any resources in hell.

It was only because there was nothing that she noticed him. There was a rock jutting up out of the earth, as they were wont to do in this place, and a black and pale lump beside it. She had wandered that way to investigate and as she drew nearer the recognition settled in.

She ran. Three feet away from him the pack slipped off her shoulders and she threw herself to her knees at his side. The blood drained from her face and her hands shook as she took in the sight of him. He was almost unchanged physically but his blue eyes, wide open, were empty. They stared out towards the red sky, unseeing. His chest was still, Spike had always been one to breathe despite not needing to.

Hell, she hadn't known he even had the capability to be so damn still. "Spike?" She croaked, her throat dry from thirst and lack of use. She cleared it and spoke again, more insistently. He didn't answer. She lightly smacked his cheek and wasn't rewarded with so much as an involuntary flinch.

She stood up to go grab her bag when her eyes were caught by the sight of faded lines on the stone that was growing up from the ground. Her eyes widened and filled with hot tears as she wandered closer. They were tally marks. Thousands of them. More than she could make out, some were so faded that if it weren't for the rest she wouldn't have been sure it wasn't just an imperfection of the rock.

He had stopped at some point, she knew it with a certainty that surprised her. He had stopped everything at some point. Counting, moving, breathing. Suddenly her task seemed so much harder than she'd ever expected. Feral vampire she could deal with. Disillusioned vampire she could relate to no problem. This? Where did she even begin?

She finally tore her eyes away from the makeshift calendar and retrieved her bag. The blood bags she packed were useless. Heated and congealed. She set them to the side and grabbed a water bottle instead. She lowered herself back to Spike's side, uncapping the bottle and gently pouring the water onto his lips.

There was zero reaction to the water. He didn't blink or choke, it just spilled off of his lips unnoticed. She didn't even know if he could feel normal bodily responses (or what passed for normal for a vampire) in hell but there was one thing she could almost guarantee would get a response. "You better appreciate this," she muttered as she used a pocket knife that she had hastily thrown into her bag to make a long cut on her arm before holding it up to her vampire's lips.

If hell had a clock it'd be loudly echoing throughout the red and black wasteland as she waited with bated breath for him to react to her. Then he did and the shock of his fangs slicing through the delicate skin of her forearm was enough to send her jolting further towards him, fear warring with relief as she felt the long pulls he was taking from her.

She felt dizzy as he took from her and she flashed back to when she'd similarly used her blood to save Angel. "Spike," she called out, trying to pull away. Fear clawed at her like it had when she'd tried and failed to get Angel to stop.

She felt herself being pushed back and when she looked up in surprise she saw Spike, chest heaving, crouched down a few feet away from her. His desolate bright blue gaze burned through her when she met his eyes.

~BTVS~

He'd long since stopped seeing. He'd stopped paying attention to anything around him because there was nothing around him. His mind used to make up sounds. A long time ago, it had long since stopped working. He thought maybe it was awakening again for some unknown reason when he'd heard what sounded like crunching sand moving closer to where he'd been laying for eternities.

A voice, once familiar now just belonging to a face that escaped his memory, called out a name. It meant something to him, that name. Like it belonged to him. Only it couldn't because he had nothing left. He was nothing. Something stung at his cheek and he vaguely wondered what had awoken his hallucinations.

Something cool and liquid hit his lips and slid down his face. He almost wanted to open his mouth, to stick his tongue out and taste it but it was coming back to him now. All the cruel, too real, mirages that had plagued him for centuries. Back when things had names and images, before everything had become nothing. No, he wouldn't go back to that. It was a torture more horrific than he could stand anymore.

The cool liquid was replaced with something warm and sticky. A hunger that he hadn't felt in millennia awakened within him and he had no control over himself as his demon face came roaring to the surface and he drank deeply of the substance that used to keep him alive.

That voice called out that word again, the one that he thought might belong to him, and then the coppery substance was being pulled away causing him to clamp down harder to keep from losing it. Something pierced through the muddled minefield of his reality. An all consuming knowledge of her. The her that he had forgotten but not completely.

He pulled away from source of the liquid food and flung himself away. Crouching before the being that had suddenly appeared inside his wasteland and watching shrewdly as she moved slowly towards him. She was familiar to him, a face that had once visited his every thought before reluctantly being forgotten along with everything else he'd once known.

His body was rigid and sore as he moved it for the first time in hundreds, if not thousands, of years. He'd forgotten he was capable of feeling. He'd had no need for the reminder of a life that had come before.

The figure moved closer, lips moving but his brain was too slow to decipher her words. He tensed up, his muscles opposing every minor movement, and she stopped.

~BTVS~

Buffy sat against the rock calendar that she'd found Spike laying beside hours earlier. He hadn't really moved since he'd pushed her away from him, he was just watching her. She'd been afraid he would bolt if she'd moved any nearer to him so she'd forced herself to keep a respectful distance.

She talked as though it was any ordinary day and she was just filling him in on everything he'd missed over the last year and a half since Sunnydale had fallen. "Anyway, the PTB sent me here to get you back. I bring you back over the sketchy bridge and they bring your body back and you'll be...well you again," she winced as the words came out. "Well, I mean, I know that it'll take some time after...this. But I plan to be there for you while you adjust. Like you were for me after I got back from Heaven only hopefully healthier this time," she said with a nervous chuckle.

She kept talking long into the day that never turned to night. At some point she'd drifted off to sleep despite her best efforts to stay awake. When she awoke who knew how many hours later Spike was right where she'd left him, still watching her soundlessly. She sighed and tilted her head back against the rock as she tried to figure out what else she could do or say to bring him back to himself.

He wasn't feral like Angel had been. It was more like Spike was just...lost and all that was left in his place was the shell of who he used to be.

~BTVS~

He didn't know how long she'd been there, she'd fallen asleep several times since she'd shown up. He watched her when she brought something to eat out of her bag a few times a day, breaking it up in little pieces and nibbling at them before taking the smallest of sips of what he thought might be called water.

Words of things that used to exist in his world were slowly coming back to him. Blood, water, food, vampire, slayer, earth. Filtering through his brain, sometimes too quick for him to latch on before drifting back into the black abyss that had become their exiled home.

Shattered pieces of a life led flashed before his eyes. He thought they belonged to him. When she spoke more and more of the words she said stuck with him, made sense to him. Names were recognized. Angel, Dawn, Willow, Xander. She still hadn't said her name, he didn't think. It was there, almost on the tip of his tongue. Waiting to be remembered and spoken. Was he even capable of speaking anymore?

~BTVS~

It'd be a lie to say that she wasn't getting worried about pulling Spike out of this before her rations were completely gone. She was down to one granola bar and half a bottle of water. She'd been in his Hell for nearly two full weeks, the last week spent trying every trick up her sleeve to remind him of who he was. He'd barely moved a muscle since that first day.

She was chattering about being low on provisions when a rustle of movement caught her attention and she looked over at him in surprise. He'd stood up completely and this time when she caught his eyes there was a spark of something familiar there.

"Spike?" she asked as she, too, got to her feet.

"Buffy," he croaked out. It was both a painful sound and the best she'd ever heard.

"Yes!" she exclaimed excitedly, barely keeping herself from jumping up and down.

"What…?" was all he asked but she thought she got the gist.

"You died saving the world, ended up here in Hell, which is total BS and the Powers that Be obviously agreed with me because they helped send me here to find you and bring you home," she summarized.

"Home?" he questioned, confusion flashing through his bright blue orbs.

She cautiously moved closer to him, emboldened when he only warily watched her rather than move away like he'd done days earlier. "Yeah, home. I promise I'll explain everything when we get there but...I'm hungry, thirsty and I'd really like to use a bathroom with a flushing toilet and a shower."

She held her hand out towards him. "Will you come back with me?" she asked him.

Spike was silent for a long moment before he finally moved closer to her and hesitantly grasped her hand loosely in his. She tightened her grip and gave him a tremulous smile as she fought to keep her emotions from overwhelming them both.

She really hoped that the journey back to the bridge wouldn't take another week because she definitely didn't have enough food and water for that.

"There's this rickety old bridge, if you can really call it that, that we have to get back to so they can bring us back out," she explained as they walked. "I'm not entirely sure where it is, I was wandering around for about a week before I found you. I don't have much food left though so hopefully it doesn't take that long," she told him quietly as she tried to tamp down the urge to panic.

He stopped suddenly, jolting to her to a halt since her hand was still holding his. She turned to him in confusion and watched as he looked around the barren land that had been his home for god only knew how long. He caught her eye a moment later and jerked his head in a different direction than she'd been about to head towards before moving that way.

"I suppose you probably know the geography pretty well, huh?" she questioned, not really expecting a reply.

"I think I used to look for a way out a long time ago," he choked out, his voice still rough with disuse as he moved swiftly towards where the bridge would hopefully be.

Buffy's heart dropped at the thought of him alone here for so long, at the thought that he couldn't even recall those past moments with any amount of certainty. "Yeah, I would have too," she replied softly as she looked around the desolate landscape.

~BTVS~

It came back to him slowly, in pieces, the life that he'd once lived long ago. Memories of his life before her and then his life after her. Memories of a death, first hers then his. Then his again. He thought that must have been how they ended up here. She'd come after him, traversed hell for him. The question was why? Was it simply because she was a hero and he'd made himself a part of her life at one time?

Her name came back to him, sudden and shocking, like he'd just been struck by it. Buffy. Then she explained that the PTB had wanted him back and her motives became clear. His mind was still working hard to keep up with the sudden twist of events but it didn't take much thought to accept her hand when she asked him to go back with her. Why the hell would he want to stay here?

He heard her nattering on about a bridge they'd need to find to get back and more flashes of memory flit through his minds eye. Once, a long time ago, he'd explored every square foot of the hellhole he'd landed in. It had been centuries since he'd last taken a walk around but he sincerely doubted anything had changed. Nothing ever did.

He came to a stop as the mental map he'd once created came to the forefront of his mind. Buffy snapped back against him and he tensed against her sudden proximity. He nodded his head in the opposite direction she'd been leading them in and she easily followed his lead, making a comment about how well he'd probably come to know this place. He didn't remember his reply and he barely heard hers as she fell back a bit from the quick pace he'd set.

~BTVS~

Buffy groaned as she pulled off her boot, pouring sand out and massaging her sore foot for a few minutes before putting her boot back on and giving the other foot the same treatment. They'd been walking for hours and thanks to her rationed meals and water she didn't quite have her usual slayer stamina so she'd suggested setting up camp for the night.

She ate half of her last granola bar and allowed herself two sips of water before she laid down to catch some sleep. She had offered Spike a spot beside her in the tiny tent but he'd refused, telling her that he'd been laying down for long enough. It was a fair enough point so she tried not to be too bothered by the distance he continued to keep between them. She reminded herself of what he'd been through and how she'd felt trying to interact with her friends again after her resurrection.

When she awoke a few hours later Spike was already pacing and raring to go. He helped her get all her things packed up and then they were continuing their journey. She took another sip of water, holding the nearly empty bottle in front of her face with a frown, it would be gone by the end of the day.

"You took the long way round finding me," Spike suddenly spoke up and she glanced up in surprise to see him slanting a look her way.

"Of course I did," she joked with a nervous laugh. "So we'll be there soon?" she wondered anxiously.

"We'll be there now," he corrected, stepping around a large boulder and she couldn't keep back her gasp when she followed close behind and caught sight of the dilapidated bridge that had marked the beginning of her journey two weeks earlier.

"Oh thank god," she said in blatant relief. She reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a good squeeze as she shot him a large grin. "Okay we need to get back to the middle of the bridge," she told him as she started to move, keeping ahold of his hand and pulling him along behind her.

She was so focused on getting to the center of the bridge that she made a bad choice with her foot placement and found herself falling through the rotting bridge. Her free fall stopped suddenly and instead she was being pulled back up. Her heart was pounding loudly as she was settled back onto somewhat solid ground. "Good, slayer?" Spike asked, his hands on her shoulders as he stabilized her.

"Good," she breathed out with an affirmative nod. The two managed to get to the center of the bridge without any further incident.

"What now?" Spike asked as they came to a stop.

"We use this," she said, pulling the silver chain with the emerald teardrop out from beneath her shirt. "We hold on to each other, I say the magic word and the PTB woosh us away," she looked up at him as he studied the necklace. "Ready?" she asked, holding out her hand.

"Ready," he replied as he took it.

Buffy gripped him tight with one hand and brought the other to the pendent before taking a deep breath. "Factum," she said loudly, her voice seeming to echo through the empty wasteland.

Buffy didn't even have time to blink before the world was swirling around them again, black and red twisting around them until they found themselves on the bridge Buffy had first stepped onto from the portal Whistler had originally opened in her Roman apartment. She gave Spike's hand another squeeze before stepping through the portal and pulling him along with her.

She stepped through and barely had time to take in the faces of her friends before she realized the weight of Spike's hand was no longer in hers and she spun around in time to a sudden roar and watched in horror as ash spun around, molding to take the form of the man she loved. She watched as he slowly dusted in reverse, her mind flashing back to that Los Angeles Alley where she'd watched him dust by inches. This time though she watching him inch his way back to life...painfully.

When the swirling ash died down and Spike was standing there in front of her solid and alive(ish) Buffy felt herself breathe again. "That's getting really bloody old," he gasped out.

"Welcome back, kid," Whistler greeted her. "Spike."

"How long was I gone?" Buffy asked.

"About two hours," Giles replied, not taking his eyes off the newly returned vampire.

"Seriously?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"How long was it for you?" Willow asked curiously as she handed her a slice of pizza and Dawn came flying towards them, tackling Spike in a hug that completely caught him off guard.

"I missed you so much! I'm so sorry," her little sister mumbled against his leather coat.

"Missed you too, niblet," the vampire replied as he returned her embrace.

Buffy tore her attention from them and turned back to Willow and Giles. "It was like two weeks," she finally replied, answering the witches question. "I'm starving," she added as she tore into her pizza.

"We have blood for you too, Spike!" Dawn exclaimed, pulling away from him and rushing into the kitchen to microwave some up for him. Buffy watched as Willow smiled at the vampire and gave him a quick embrace. Giles managed to get over himself long enough to shake his hand and Whistler said goodbye and good luck. A genuine smile stretched over her lips as she watched them all.

~BTVS~

Buffy latched the door closed behind her and leaned against it as she watched Spike take a look around. Dawn had finally gone off to bed after spending the last couple hours filling Spike in on every event he'd missed since Sunnydale fell. Willow and Giles had left hours earlier.

"Who survived in L.A.?" the vampire suddenly asked.

"Um, Angel and the blue woman who you were with in the alley before…" she trailed off, waving her hand in a circular motion.

"Illyria," he murmured. Something seemed to occur to him and he looked over at her. "How did you know that I was with her during the battle?"

Buffy's eyes closed tightly as she fought against the memory of that night again. "I was there. I saw it happen. Saw you dust…" she trailed off. She opened her eyes and caught his shocked gaze. "Faith and I brought a group of girls we'd been training in Cleveland as soon as we heard about what was going down in L.A.," she explained. "I tried to get to you before...but there were too many separating us. Then you were gone and so were all the demons. Apocalypse averted," she sighed as she sank down onto the bed and tilted her head back.

"I started having slayer dreams and all signs pointed to getting you back. Death is my gift, remember? Only it turns out that it wasn't my death or even a death. It was you. You were my gift and I was too messed up to see it until it was too late and you were gone. And then gone again. We'll be talking about that at some point by the way. You not letting me know you were back until that voicemail," she informed him with a raised brow.

Spike huffed out some mix between a sigh and a laugh. "So all this is because of a slayer dream?" he questioned, skepticism showing through his gaze.

"No. This is all because I love you, you idiot," she bit out with a glare. "The dreams just showed me that maybe I wasn't too late after all. Whistler didn't show up and tell me I could get you back until after I had already decided that I was going after you no matter what it took. Even if you've moved on and don't love me anymore I'd rather have you in this world than out of it."

"You really love me?" he questioned, that once familiar expression of awe warring with the remaining doubt in his eyes.

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't, Spike. I think you know me well enough to know that," she said softly, tracking his movements as he slowly moved closer to her.

"It's easy to tell a dying man what he wants to hear, luv," he murmured as he sank down next to her on the bed.

Buffy nodded. "You're not dying now, Spike. I love you," she insisted. He shot her a grin and leaned over to brush a kiss against her cheek which caused her to move so that she caught his lips instead.

~BTVS~

He still woke up most mornings thinking that he was still in hell. Desolate and damned. Then a warm hand would brush against his cheek and her scent would fill her nose and he'd remember that he wasn't there anymore. That she'd come for him and they were now muddling their way through a new normal. His slayer, his niblet and him.