Chapter 8 – Hell of a Woman
It was dark in her room, Buffy didn't remember pulling the shades this morning. She was too tired to care. She didn't sleep so good the night before, thinking of all the dimensions she saw the day before, all the different possibilities for her life, including one that actually seemed normal. Well except for the part where the husband was Spike, that was still too weird to wrap her head around. Buffy shed her jacket and tossed it at the end of the bed, and sat down, peeling off her socks, and snuggled under the covers in her jogging pants and a tank top. Then she went to roll on her right side, but was blocked…
"What the?" she pushed the object out of her way and off the bed, a little heavier than she was expecting, did she leave a weapons bag on her bed, then she heard a familiar yelp.
"Oww," Spike moaned as he hit the floor, then popped his head over the edge of the bed to see who shoved him off "Bloody hell slayer, what'd ya do that for?"
"Sorry Spike," She said sitting up, and turned on the lamp on her nightstand. "Just thought I left clothes on the bed so I shoved um off for more room." Then the thought for a moment, then started to get mad. "And why the hell were you in my bed anyway?"
"Not in it, on it," Spike defended "Was using my coat as a blanket and everythin'."
"I restate, why are you in my room at all Spike?" getting more annoyed.
"The girls needed to commandeer the basement this morning, your little sis said I could crash up here for the day."
"Oh," she said starting to relax "She didn't say anything to me."
"Of course she didn't." Spike stated bluntly as he sat down on the bed where he was just shoved off, "You know she's working an evil plot."
"And what's that?"
"She's trying to get us together."
"And why would she be doing that?" Buffy laughed a little as she asked
"Guess she likes having me around, and I suppose she had her bloody eyes open yesterday."
Buffy could see he was getting upset. Maybe we should just talk this out; but the only thing that's gonna change this is her admitting she loves him, which may or may not be true, and could easily end in a whole world of badness… And why's he have to be so pushy, it's only been 2 years or so of him obsessing over her, longer if you include the hate-love-stalker relation when he wanted to kill her… that's not that long… she tried lying to herself.
"Slayer?" Spike said trying to snap her out of her thoughts, not really sure what thoughts he'd triggered.
She looked up at him, right into those blue eyes that always saw right through her… "What do you want Spike?"
A hundred answers raced through his head, She didn't throw me out after that last comment, so she may be open to talking about this. But God knows she scares easy, gotta tread lightly. "You know what I want pet, hasn't changed. We know what your sis wants. We know what Xander wants. Willow goes back and forth, but she mostly sticks with you pet. What we all don't know is what do you want Buffy?"
"Well it's no wonder none of you know because I don't even know Spike!" she practically yelled "God I wish I did! I wish I knew what I could tell Dawn, or Xander, or Willow, or you, cause you all keep asking questions I don't know the answer to! How do we defeat the FIRST? We all gonna make it through this one? You and Spike a thing now?" Buffy was working herself into a flurry, completely forgetting how tired she was a few minutes ago and overwhelming herself with the upcoming apocalypse. "And the few dimensions we saw that could actually help us are proving otherwise, just confusing us more, cause we can't figure out how any of it happened; and I don't like the ones where I die in the process, and I'm pretty sure I don't like the ones where you die either, and I'm not sure if that means what you want it to and…"
"Buffy!" Spike interrupted her, and pulled her head to face him. When did he get so close? He was sitting beside her on the bed, face just a few inches from hers. "Take a breath luv," she did as she was told, breath pungent with garlic, the vampire was taken back from the discussion at hand and had to ask "You have a garlic clove for lunch, pet?"
Her face relaxed "No, just some spaghetti."
"Ah," her breath making more sense he veered back on topic "An apocalypse isn't exactly new ground for ya Slayer, so why the big freak out?"
"I always freak before an apocalypse, you just haven't seen it before."
"Well I was there when you put yourself in a coma."
"Right, either way, this is worse than any of that, probably gonna be the actual end ya know. If we can't figure out something solid in time."
"There's always been a new somebody who said they were gonna end the world, yet here we are, world still standing, cause one slayer is still willing to fight for it."
"I just," She took a breath, then Spike could see the tears start to well in her eyes "I don't think I'm gonna be able to save it this time… And I'm gonna kill an army of powerless girls and my friends in the process if we don't figure out something soon; and, and I don't wanna die again…" a tear skidded down her cheek.
"Hey, now you listen to me. I've been alive a bit longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things, you couldn't imagine; and done things I'd prefer you didn't. I don't exactly have a reputation for being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my brain. So I make a lotta mistakes, lotta wrong bloody calls. 100 plus years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of… You!" he reached out his hand to touch her face, she laid her head against his hand and closed her eyes "Hey look at me," She gazed back at him, as he asked "I'm not asking you for anything. When I say I love you, it's not because I want you, or I cause can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength, I've seen the best and the worst of you, and I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman, you're the one Buffy!"
"I don't wanna be the one anymore."
"I don't wanna me this good looking and athletic, we all have crosses to bear" Buffy gave a small smile in return, then her eyes started to droop and her brain reminded her of just how tired she was. She wiped the tears from her face as a yawn escaped her lips
"You looked knackered, I'll let you get some rest pet," he motioned to stand, but a hand on his forearm stopped him, he looked back at Buffy, confused.
"Spike…You can stay if you want."
"That what you want pet?" trying to make her say it.
"Yes," she admitted "Will you stay here with me for a while, just hold me?"
"Of course luv." He adjusted on the bed, under the covers then opened his arm for her to slide close and rest against his chest "Anything for you." He said softly then kissed her forehead, and she almost instantly drifted to sleep. He couldn't help but smile. God to be holding her again, but this seems better somehow, that cause of the soul? Spike thought to himself, then kissed the top of her head. Either way, this is bloody amazing.
The sun was just about set, no doubt they had more leg work to do tonight, but the last thing Spike wanted to do was wake the woman sleeping soundly in his arms. But did he dare risk one of her friends coming to wake her and see. Bloody hell, if she wakes and gets embarrassed this may never happen again. But if I wake her, maybe she'll just realize how well she slept… how well we fit together… I can dream can't I? He took one more long look at the sleeping slayer in his arms, stroked her hair one more time, then kissed her forehead, and spoke toward her ear "It's time to wake up luv." She stirred a little but didn't wake, so he said again, a little louder "Buffy, rise & shine luv."
The girl moaned "Noooo." And turned to bury her face in his chest.
"Yes, luv," he said sweetly "Time ta chat with the gang and make a plan, maybe even go kill things."
"Fiiiine," she grumbled like a child "But you woke me from a very good dream."
"What dream would that be pet?" he asked as he stroked her hair.
"I'm not saying" she said stubbornly.
"Oh c'mon, why not?"
"Cause your just gonna take it and run with it, and not let me forget it."
"Well now you have to tell me, especially since that means I was probably in it." Buffy rolled her eyes then looked at Spike, she knew he was just gonna keep bugging her until she told him, which including bringing it up in front of her friends.
"Fine," she gave in "I was dreaming about that beach house."
"Just the house?" he joked "Or did me and the kids make the cut?"
"Yeah, all of it, just seemed too perfect to be true, ya know?"
"Yeah," he smiled and kissed her forehead, then regretfully scooted away from her and went to stand up. "We best be getting down stairs, luv."
"Yeah, I know, apocalypse, no way to stop it. Can't wait to get back to that problem." She said unenthused, as she stood up herself.
"S'pose Red & the little bit worked it all out while you were sleeping in my arms?"
"Yeah, wouldn't that be nice." With that Buffy walked to the door and opened it, just to find Dawn outside of it ready to knock.
"I was just coming to get ya." She smiled, seeing that Spike was indeed still in the room, glad with her set up this morning. "I think we got some good news for ya, a promising plan of attack."
"Really?!" Buffy was taken off guard, she really wasn't expecting any progress to have been made, let alone good news. She looked back at Spike remembering what he had said just before she opened the door. She gave him a big smile and started shaking her head back in Dawn's direction then they all stepped out the door and started down the stairs.
"So you're telling me that if we can actually find that amulet, you can work the sunshine spell?" Buffy asked, more enthused and well rested than she'd been in weeks.
"We think so," Willow replied just as hopeful, smile glued to her face.
"See we got to thinking, why did the amulet dust the Turok-Han? It must have some kind of 'sunlight' properties to be able to dust them like it did." Dawn explained "Then I remembered I didn't really see how Willow did the sunshine spell, it just got bright in a similar way to how Willow and Anya saw in the dimension where ya went down in the hellmouth."
"Yeah, but didn't that trinket reduce me & the slayer to dust in those worlds?" Spike clarified, not too sure using that thing at all would end well.
"Yes, but in those two, the amulet was drawing from you guys, Willow would be using it as a catalyst."
"Okay. So the amulet's a good." Buffy continued "We know where to find it?"
Willow and Dawn's smiles started to fade "I think that lies with finding one of these guardians." Xander supplied "I'm thinking they're gonna know what it is." The scoobies looked around at each other, exchanging looks of 'makes sense'. "I was just thinking, that's probably how they got it in the dimensions where you two get dusted."
"But we haven't found any guardians yet," Anya interjected "Yeah we know they do in fact exist, but no demon claims to have actually seen one, let alone known one to point um out."
"I think I got an idea about that." Buffy smiled.
"What? Or Who?" Xander questioned, the scoobies looking to her with optimism.
"The common thread in a lot of my close calls you came up with," she gestured to Xander, then said what everyone was begging her to "Willy." surprised looks were shared all around.
"But we didn't get diddly from him when we asked." Anya interjected
"Well, he hasn't exactly saved the day every time an apocalypse comes around, but he's provided some very helpful information from time to time. And it wouldn't surprise me if he's steered some demons our way when we needed that, or who knows what else if he really is a guardian." Buffy explained.
"So, who gets to go beat up Willy for info?" Xander inquired kinda hoping he'd get to go.
"Spike and I will go," Buffy announced looking to the vampire for a nod "See if we can find info on the amulet the old fashion way, then play the guardian angle if we gotta."
"Right, off to Willy's then," Spike agreed then started toward the door. "I could go for some decent blood at least." He opened the door, and the slayer and him were off into the night.