Mixed Signals
By: PhoenixJustice
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. I only own this story and make no profit from this.
Warning: Rated M for future graphic sexual content, language, etc.
Pairing: Spike/Buffy Summers (main), Willow/Tara, etc.
Setting: Bargaining pt 2/Afterlife, with spoilers up to Season 11 of Buffy, Season 11 of Angel and anything inbetween.
Summary: Two people who were never supposed to meet. She had seen everything, up to the Dragon that destroyed everything she loved. He had only the lasting memory of her words of love before he burned to cinders. Could they bridge the gap between them?
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Chapter Two - The Days
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Something catches her attention, amidst the confusion and pain of reliving memories.
"...a hundred and thirty seven days you said?" That was different. The bikers had shown up the same though, even though it was earlier?
He blinks at her for a moment, obviously a bit startled. "Oh. No, I...meant a hundred and forty seven days." He smiles a bit ruefully. "A few events, as of late, have shocked me a bit."
"Right." She says softly. She pauses a moment before speaking again. "What do you-"
"Buffy!"
She's startled, as is Spike, with the sudden intrusion of all the Scoobies (save Giles) into the house and living room.
"Oh god. Buffy! You're-" Willow starts.
"I guess the spell worked after all." Anya remarks, in her usual mild tone.
"Spell? What spell?" Dawn asks, coming back into the room, bandages and the like in her hands, looking back and forth between the other Scoobies.
Spike's eyes widen and he stands up, his hands leaving her grip and he looks at them angrily.
"I got it." He hisses, eyes flashing. "It was you who did it, brought her back! At first I thought it was Dawn, but she wouldn't be stupid enough to try and-"
"She did before." Anya points out, though in not any way maliciously. "With her mother."
"Guys." Buffy says.
"She's fine!" Willow insists. "Look at her! I didn't go into this blindly! None of us did!"
"Guys!" Buffy repeats.
"All of you?" Dawn whispers loudly.
"Not me!" Spike hisses. "They kept to themselves. All that time I... when I helped you that, in this, summer and you kept me in the sodding dark about something like this!"
"I thought you'd be happy," Xander says. "Don't tell me you're not happy to see her again!"
"I-"
"Guys!" Buffy shouts.
They all jump, startled, and she stands. She looks at Spike briefly before looking at them.
"Oh, Buffy," Tara says softly. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
"Do you need anything?" Willow asks urgently, eyes worried.
Spike. She thinks, but she of course does not voice that thought. Everything was still much too fresh, still hurt too much. "I-I think I'd like to rest."
After what happened to her, sleep would not come easily to her. Not for a long time, most like, but she needed space. If she ever wanted to try and sort through these emotions, then she needed space. Not like the past her needed the space (she would not ever go through those self-destructive tendencies ever again if she could help it)
"Of course," Willow says. In her face, Buffy can see the tiredness, the weariness of the ritual she had been through, as well as the happiness and worry as she looked at Buffy.
To be angry at Willow, or the others for her resurrection was something she couldn't do any longer. Although she didn't know the exacts of how she got back, she couldn't be angry at life anymore. Couldn't be mad at the Scoobies for wanting to see her back to life again. Having had the years past her initial second resurrection, she could see things in a much different way than she had the first time around (not being bound by dark anger and sadness again.)
She could easily have said things like 'Why didn't you check where I was before you resurrected me?!' When the answer was that, no Willow couldn't have. Not so easily, anyhow. If it had been the Willow that had come into her own in such a significant way in San Francisco, then maybe. But even then, there were an infinite number of universes.
It was easy-in hindsight-to say Buffy had went to Heaven or a Heavenly equivilent, but there was no guarantee of that. Willow had no way of knowing, same as the others, where Buffy had ended up. She had jumped in a 'portal' that had been the gateway to all universes, so yes, Buffy could have ended up anywhere. And given the nature of the things pouring out of the portals when Buffy had jumped in? It was a fair assumption she had ended up in a Hell like dimension.
She also could have said 'You left me to dig my way out of my own coffin!' Which, again, was also true, but it wasn't the whole story either. Willow (and the others) hadn't been able to complete the resurrection ritual. It had been enough to revive Buffy, but she shouldn't have been in her coffin when that happened (talking to Willow about that, years later, confirmed that.)
She says none of those things. Instead she smiles at her friends, her family, and says a quiet goodnight as she walks past them. As she walks up the stairs, it's then she has the excuse to really look at Spike (as he's still standing there amongst them, an untold amount of emotions in those deep blue eyes.)
"Thank you." She murmurs. A thank you to so many things, least of all that, although she may not be where she once was, she was still surrounded by those she loved most. Surrounded by the man whom she had come to love more than she thought a person could love something.
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The moment Buffy is upstairs and out of sight, he is out the front door, feet leading him to the tree in front of the Summers' home, making him keenly feel the deja vu of it all all the more keenly. And once more, as before, he can feel the tears on his face. This time the reasons are even more potent, much more realized.
I love you.
No you don't, but thanks for saying it.
Why hadn't he accepted it then? It wasn't out of malice, it was out of the desire to keep her from harm, to make sure she would leave the Hellmouth, leave Sunnydale, leave him, so he could save the world. Because a world without her-whether he lived in it or not-was not a world worth living.
Over a hundred days for her, much longer for him, but over a hundred for her... this Buffy whom had already seen and done so much, felt so much grief and loss at her young age. She was not the Buffy he had come to know so greatly-and love all the more-but she was still her in all those ways. Even if this Buffy didn't love him, she...
He swallows hard, jaw clenching. He shouldn't have left. It's a thought he has as he hears the other Scoobies finally break apart, with Willow and Tara heading up to bed and Xander and Anya leaving. Hearing them leave the front this time leaves him ample time to hide his presence from them until they're gone.
He wipes away the remaining tears. They had no place here, not now. His own sacrifices and pains all paled-as they always did to him-to hers. That thought is how he finds himself standing guard once more at her tree (just like those, what felt like, long ago days, when he had hoped but to see a glimpse of her in her window. Beauty effulgent.)
Over a hundred days... a hundred...a hundred...
He clutches his head for a moment, hissing in pain. Coming back after such a traumatic incident (Flames. He could still feel the pain of it, the heat of it, even now. Buffy-) must have scrambled his brain a bit (but he still berates himself mentally over it. After all, how could he forget something as significant as how many days she had been gone?)
The light in her window comes on suddenly and before he can even think about moving out of her sight, she's in the window, looking down at him. Their eyes meet and if he had breath to breathe, it would have all left him then.
"Buffy." He whispers.
He starts to say something else, but stops, startled, when he sniffs something new in the air: tears. She had been crying. She was crying.
"Please." She says, hands gripping the windowsill as she looks down at him, her soft and young face scrunched in obvious pain. "I-mean. I'm-I'm sorry." She loosens her grip on the windowsill and starts to turn away.
"Buffy!"
She looks back at him and he swallows. I love you.
"Wait for me."
She nods and he hurries back inside the house, not seeing her mouth the words Always.
