...a year later.
He still didn't know what he was doing standing in front of Buy the Book. He had no idea what he was doing in Sunnydale. All he knew was that he had to get here, to this place, at this time... and nothing could stop him if it tried.
He stared at the hand-painted sign in the window. "Come discover a treasure in the heep!" Under the calligraphic words was a picture of a bespectacled worm poking its head out of a book.
He had never been to Sunnydale before. He had never even been to California, yet something felt real to him. Something felt like home.
He stared through the window at a young woman sitting on a stool at the register. She was deeply engrossed in a book. She was leaning over it where it rested on the counter, her eyes riveted to the page. Her long hair was pulled back into a scrunchie and glasses were perched on the end of her nose. There was something familiar to him, yet he couldn't place where he might have seen her before.
He thought back to a month before... he woke up, rolled over and looked at the female form beside him. Drusilla. He'd been with her since leaving King Edward's in Birmingham. She was dark and moody. And a little bit off. Something had always been a little strange about Dru, but he loved her as best as he could. Even after her many indiscretions. She was always so sorry. And she always loved him so much and so well. And she never let him forget that she had been his savior. He'd still be in working-class England if she hadn't stepped in a footed his bill to New York.
He had met her at an underground club. He was only 17 and playing vampire games seemed like fun at the time. Dru took the game very seriously going as far as to have a prothesis made for her mouth that resembled vampire's fangs. She locked her eyes on him the moment he walked through the door, drinking in his tousled curls, tight jeans and a black fitted t-shirt. He was workable, she thought.
Over the years that followed, she'd transformed him into her perfect mate. His well-chiseled features were brought out even more with slicked-back platinum hair. He was pale as porcelain with dark arched brows that framed piercing blue eyes. Sometimes they were icy and cold, and at others they were dark, midnight blue and that could set a woman's soul on fire.
Dru was several years his senior and initiated him into manhood and other pleasures he probably wasn't as ready for. As the years passed, she dove deeper and deeper into the fantasy that she was a vampire and that he was her mate. She encouraged him to take on other lovers. She didn't ask him how he felt about that or about the fact that she had done so, herself. She'd often bring beautiful men and women home with her from the clubs and include him in the drug-induced debauchery. He went into it willingly, but always woke alone in a world of regret. Something was missing, but he couldn't place it.
After alsmost 15 years of being Dru's lover and, more accurately, pet, he was done. He woke up, kissed her snoring cheek goodbye and threw his few belongings into a ruck sack. He went to the garage and pulled the cover off of his restored DeSoto. It gleamed like black glass. He hadn't driven the Black Beauty in years. Dru preferred to have Wesley drive them in the hearse. He shivered at the memories. Suddenly, they seemed so foreign to him. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he had to go.
He spent a week wandering from interstate to interstate. He wasn't sure where he was going, but something was pulling him West. Now he stood in front of a little book store and a beautiful girl who had no idea he was so enrapt in her.
He was suddenly jostled by two giggling women who were just as stunned to run into him as he was to be run into.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" the red-head quickly apologized.
He smiled shyly and nodded.
"No harm," he told her studying both her and the mousy-haired girl beside her.
"Do we... do we know each other?" the red-head found herself asking as something familiar spread throughout her gut.
"I don't believe we do. I just got here today," he replied. "Spike," he offered along with his hand.
"Willow. This is my girlfriend, Tara," she told him, taking his hand and smiling. Something felt very familiar. "Well, um... welcome to Sunnydale, Spike. Hope to see you around."
Her girlfriend smiled shyly and winked before they disappeared into the store. Something was so familiar about the two. He couldn't place it, but it was that same feeling he'd gotten when he'd woke up a week before, that same feeling he had when he saw the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, the same feeling he had when he first laid eyes on the beautiful girl who was now looking right back at him.
Buffy stood up and held his gaze. Something was drawing her to the front of the store and hell and be damned if she had any control over it. She walked in a haze until she was face to face with the man who Willow had told her called himself Spike. As soon as she locked eyes with him, she was on her feet and on her way to the door. He was looking down curiously at her as she inspected him from head to toe.
"William?" she whispered quietly.
"How do you know my--"
Before he could finish speaking, she was on her toes, arms around his neck as she pulled him down into a kiss. She pulled away reluctantly after a moment. He didn't know her, she realized.
"I'm sorry... I thought... I... I'm sorry!" she cried, her hand covering her tingling lips as she ran as fast as her legs could carry her.
She sat trembling on her sofa after making sure Tara and Willow would close up the shop for her. It was William. She knew it was. She could feel it. But he had no recollection of her. Her heart broke all over again. How cruel was it to make her fall in love with him as a ghost only to take him away from her once. Now, he was back and had no idea who she was.
"I never got to tell him," she whispered into the back of the sofa.
Spike's brow arched in doubt as the two women chattered away at him until he was thoroughly confused.
"You're to have me believe that I owned this store, was killed on my... my BICYCLE? What kind of nancy-boy rides his bicycle to work? Bicycle... and somehow was thrown into her life as a ghost... and then I was gone and now I'm back only I have no clue who any of you birds are, but I'm here?"
Willow nodded.
"Yup. Listen, I know it makes no sense, but Will- Spike... you're a dead-ringer for William Grieves. You even have the same first name."
Spike bristled at the sound of his own name.
"And the same last name," he admitted in shock.
"And the same... wow. Wow!" Willow said, just as stunned.
"And you came to Sunnydale, why?" Tara asked cautiously.
"I don't rightly know," he confessed. He told his story to the witches as they listened in awe.
"Don't you see? Somehow, you've been given a second chance. You just have to open yourself up to it." Willow told him excitedly.
"I'm here! Isn't that open enough?" he said incredulously.
"Not here," Tara told him, putting her hand on his temple. "Here," she said, moving it to the center of his forehead. "And here," she pointed out as she moved it to the center of his chest.
She pulled a card from the holder on the counter and quickly wrote Buffy's address on it. She handed Spike the card and fixed a stern look on him.
"Go to her," she told him. "Open up your soul, William. You'll find her there."
He didn't need the address to find her. His feet took him there as fast as he could run. There wasn't a thought in his head other than finding out where and how Buffy fit into his life and why he couldn't remember.
He automatically reached inside a potted plant outside her door for the key when he got there. He didn't know how he knew it was there, but it got him into the apartment without argument. She was sitting on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand and tears staining her lovely face. He cautiously approached her. She didn't even look up. She just stared into the glass, swirling the red liquid around calmly.
"If you're a ghost again, just... leave. I can't do this. Not again."
He narrowed his eyes on her and tried his best to remember who she was, but he couldn't. Something was all too familiar about this living room, though, and the girl in it. Spike could swear if there was such a thing as deja vu, he was in it.
"Not a ghost, Pet," he smiled cautiously, not sure how to approach her. "Just not real sure... who... I am anymore."
She sighed and moved over on the couch, motioning for him to sit beside her.
"The last time I saw you, we were sitting right here. I guess I finally fell asleep. When I woke up... you were gone," she told him, no doubt in her mind that her William was in there.
"I wish I could remember," he told her, and he meant it.
"Maybe... maybe if..."
"You want to do what we were doing the last time we were together?" he guessed.
She nodded and reached for his hand.
"You asked me about Angel. My husband," she told him. "He... he died. It was leukemia."
He leaned in and listened to her story, waiting for something familiar to jump out at him. Nothing did.
"And then you did this," she told him, taking his hand and moving it to her cheek. She leaned into his touch as it tingled and warmed her cheek.
"And I fell in love with you," he whispered, suddenly very aware of the moment even though the events leading up to it were a blur.
"And then you..." She looked up into his eyes questioningly.
"I fell in love with you, Buffy. It was at that very moment. And then it was gone. Everything stopped. Everything but my love for you. I don't know how I remember... but it's the only thing that's clear."
"William... please... don't ever leave me again."
