Title: Crazy Faith

Author: Sarmi

Category: Post-BTVS Finale

Genres: Angst

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or Spike but once I had a dream I won them in a game of kitten poker..

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"

Chapter 3: California Dreaming

Love you're losin', those you love,
Let the hope fly from the glove.
Do not search the skies above.
Search your crazy faith

This is the last place I expected to end up. I had to see her. I just needed to know that she was alive. Don't get me wrong; I wanted more than to just see her, but don't I always? That's usually what gets me in trouble. I don't know what I was planning to do after I saw her. Hadn't really thought about it. But this wasn't it.

It can't be real.

Even I could not have dreamed of being here with her in my arms, golden hair splayed over my bare chest.

But it is real.

I can feel her hand on my chest. She keeps rubbing her thumb in a circle over my heart. And all can do is breathe her in. That scent that is uniquely hers, lavender and sunshine. But the scent is now also ours because now my scent clings to her skin just as tightly as my arm around her waist.

Now I know what it feels like to have your soul sing. This must have been how Angel lost his. Nothing could be better that this. Centuries of pleasure are nothing compared to this tiny insufferable girl.

I smell her tears before they ever get a chance to slide onto my chest. She's crying, and in that split second I change from knowing the greatest joy I will ever know to knowing pain I could never imagine.

I should never have come back. All I do is bring her pain. Why couldn't I stay away?

I know why.

I'm weak. I always have been.

I need her.

Once upon a time I hoped she needed me.

And being weak I had to know the reason for her tears. I needed her to confirm that I really am the source of all her pain. I only hope that once I hear it out loud it will give me the strength I need to walk away. A strength I am almost sure I will never find.

And when I ask her what's wrong, she can't look at me. Can't find the words.

As I feel the tears slide onto my chest, I feel her shift. But instead of fleeing from my embrace as she so often has, usually after a quick kick in the head, I feel her squeeze a little tighter with that impossible strength of hers. And while I can't see her lovely face, I feel I quick hard kiss on my stomach right between my ribs.

For once I just let her cry. .

I don't know how long we laid there before I heard a very faint and hoarse "you would have counted forever, wouldn't you?"

Not for the first time, I fail to understand her.

As if to clarify herself, she finishes with the simple statement, almost a whisper.

"147."

Now I know, and I wish I didn't. I have done everything in my power to forget that horrible summer without her. I never quite can. It always looms over me. Haunts me at my every bloody turn.

"Yes."

I know that one day I will have to start counting again. And with that thought, I pull her even tighter to my side.

"I don't count."

I never really expected her to, but some part of me had always hoped she would miss me a least a little. I guess I was right. She really didn't mean it. Just a few pretty words out of pity. Even after those last few nights I guess all I really am is hired muscle. Who would miss a minion or a paid goon?

Is that what this is? Pity? Or did she just need to scratch an old itch?

Just before the fury can consume me, she looks up at me with glistening eyes, and before I can stop myself, I reach to wipe the tear tracks from her cheek.

"Ninety-four."

"Ninety-four what?" Bottles of beer on the wall? The winning Powerball number? Have we suddenly gone non-linear?

"I didn't count the days at first because I didn't think you could really be gone. Not forever. I mean, you always come back. Even when I don't want you to, when I least expect it, you're there. And day never really was our thing. This was."

She does have a point. We always were really good at this. But I still don't quite understand. And my face must have betrayed me.

"I've had this dream 94 times. It's not always the same. Sometimes we're here, but other times we're back in Sunnydale. My house, your crypt. I like those the best. But we always end up here. Like this. Finally like this."

And then, she can't look at me anymore, laying her cheek back on my chest.

"But then I wake up. Without you. Always without you."

She never stops rubbing the circle on my chest. It's as if she is willing my silent heart to beat.

"How did you do it that summer? You once told me every night you saved me. Well, every morning I kill you."

And I see the guilt on her face. The complete and utter knowledge that she is to blame for my fiery demise. How could I ever have doubted her, how could I have been so stupid to believe that my death, or any death would mean nothing to her? And before, I can reassure her that it was not her fault, that everything will be ok, that she did not kill me since I am right here she looks up and silences me with a finger over my mouth.

"Please don't. Don't tell me this isn't a dream. You always say that," she whispers, voice cracking. "Everynight. And every night I believe you, but still wake up without you. Just hold me this time. I promise I will let you tell me pretty lies tomorrow night."

And with that she laid her head back on my chest.

And for once I pray for the morning.

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.