Title: Crazy Faith

Author: Sarmi

Category: Post-BTVS Finale

Genres: Angst

Disclaimer: Even I am not delusional enough to think that I could own Giles, but thinking about it makes me want to clean my glasses.

Summary: When you love a slayer, you do what you have to do.

Authors note: The title of this story and lyric within is from the Allison Krauss song "Crazy Faith"

Ch. 2 Windows to the Soul

Am I a fool for hanging long?
Would I be a fool for being long gone.
When is daylight gonna dawn,
On my crazy faith.

The questions will not let me sleep,
The dance is buried way too deep.
But the bottom lover, lover's keep,
Made by crazy faith.

"Come in Spike"

I think I was more surprised to hear those three words come out of my mouth than the walking ghost standing on my doorstep. I knew with a deep certainty in my soul that life would surely be a lot easier if he had just stayed dead. The last thing she needs is this pillock barging in on the life she always wanted. Because my strong girl does not need him. She never has. And if that's really true then I'm a bloody Frenchman.

He never takes his suspicious eyes off me as he crosses the threshold. Is it possible for an eternal creature to look both older and younger at the same time? Physically he has not really changed, except for the desperate need for a new bleach job. But he looks so very tired, as if he has circled the earth on foot multiple times just to end up here of all places.

And perhaps he has.

Yet even with all the pain and weariness, his eyes hold that naïve hope that I might hold the answer to the most important question of his very existence.

And before the words ever leave his lips I already know his life defining question. In the end I guess he really is a simple creature.

"Where is Buffy?"

Such a simple question. And in all actuality a very simple answer. But they have never been simple, neither together nor apart. How had Buffy described their relationship? Oh yes, "it's complicated." No two words had ever been truer.

I could tell him I don't know or that she is happy and doesn't need the likes of him and watch all that youthful hope drain from his pained ancient eyes. I could do it. I probably should. Even he will admit that she deserves so much better that him.

But I don't. I've already seen hope fade from green eyes, I have no desire to see it drain from blue ones as well.

4 months after the destruction of Sunnydale

I stumbled upon her in the library of the new headquarters for the council. I had been searching for the Dinarian Codex due to a local problem with a gang of Grzanga demon. Nasty buggers too. Needless to say she was the last person I expected to find buried in a pile of books, Willow or Dawn maybe, but not Buffy.

Vampire history books it appeared. And when I stood behind her I could see the subject of her interest, which surprised me probably more than it should have.

William the Bloody: a Century of Destruction by Lydia Chambers.

She looked up at me with cold moss colored eyes.

"This one is probably the most interesting. I have to say I think the author might have a little crush on him. How scandalous," she said in a mocking tone, knowing she was one to talk.

"This is all that left. A body count and a bunch of dates. That and some giggling little girls who think he was some kind of savior…Saint Spike. Oh, he would have loved that. I can just hear him now, calling himself a 'poofter.' Whatever the hell that means."

It was the first time I had heard her say his name in months. I could hear an edge of fury in her voice, but about what remained to be seen.

"Yes, well, he did love his bad boy image. I am sure you're right that he would have found his new fan club quite amusing. But he did save the world Buffy, the girls naturally think of him as a hero. I would think that would make you at least somewhat happy."

And she did something else that I never expected, she looked away as if I had shamed her. And that had been anything but my intention. And in that one action I realized how blind I had been to not see it before. Maybe I just didn't want to see it. Under all her disgusted anger and too pleasant smiles was a sadness and longing that I did not think she could possess, at least not for him. All this time I thought she was just having a hard time adjusting to life without slaying, I had no idea it was because of a life without him. I knew she cared about him, but not love, never love. Could I have been so wrong? Had it been staring me in the face all that time?

"Happy. That's why he did it didn't he? So that I could be happy. And I should be, right? I am. Happy that is. I'm happy. How could I not be, I have everything I ever wanted."

Her smile failed to make it to her eyes. It didn't even make it past her nose for that matter. And then she looked at me with real curiosity in her eyes.

"What do your journals say? That he was a killer or that he was a hero. Killer, right? Do you mention that he was the most annoying idiot ever."

For a fraction of a second the smile flashed in her eyes. But it was gone just as quick.

"How he could make me so mad I wanted to stake him, but I never did because fighting with him was so much more fun then killing him. That he got drunk quicker on tequila than Jack…"

And for the first time in months I could see her joy, it was like a mossy dance.

"…that when he was really mad he would drop his left shoulder in a fight... how much he loved cheesy television…how much Xander annoyed the hell out of him but could still make him laugh sometimes…."

But the joy was quickly replaced by grief, a shiny green mirror of everything she had lost. And then her voice sounded as empty as her eyes have looked since we left California.

"…that even without a soul he was willing to give his life for a little girl. Because he loved her. And Mom. And he loved me. He loved me and it killed him."

And before I could even begin to form a reply she was Buffy again, or at least the Buffy she thought she had to be, a slayer who did not miss a cold blooded vampire.

"No I don't suppose any of that is. How could any of that stuff ever possibly help a slayer."

The grief had left her eyes but so did everything else. She simply set Lydia's thesis back on the table and walked out the door, back into the life she was supposed to lead. The normal happy one that he had died for.

You're not asking if I love this man.
I know you don't, you don't believe you can.
Yet I've seen the love open like a dancers fan.
It's crazy, I know, but my faith says so:
It tells me.