Aftermath
Chapter Two: You Die For Love

Author's Note: This occurs around the same time as the first chapter. Also, this is the chapter with the liberal use of the "f" word.

Spike didn't know how long he had been standing at that grave, he had pulled himself up and dragged himself to her graveside as soon as the sun set. He had wanted to bring a drink with him, but it seemed wrong somehow, disrespectful. Which was funny, considering how little respect he had paid her when she was alive. Well, before he fell in love with her and if he was honest, he had started to respect her after that whole Adam thing.

He was in pain. Not just the emotional kind. You fall about fifteen stories just a few weeks after you've been tortured and you do some serious damage. But he didn't sit down. He didn't want to give into the pain because if he had saved Dawn like he promised her he would, he wouldn't have a broken leg, ribs and arm and she wouldn't be rotting away four fucking feet beneath him.

Giles and Xander could only dig four feet, after that, they were too exhausted by the exertion and grief to carry on. If they'd given him half a chance, he would have finished it. Done the job properly, buried her deep and away from the noise from the world. He couldn't see how she could rest with all the noise above her.

He didn't move when he heard the world weary clump of boots behind him.

He was perfectly aware he had no right to be here, all too bloody aware that he was here because he failed. But it was here or the crypt and dreams of saving her. Dreams that broke his heart a little more each time when he woke up to find they weren't real.

He didn't know how long he planned on standing there; he just had a vague idea that he wouldn't leave until he was forced to by the sun. But even then, he wondered if he would allow himself to be chased away, though a tiny voice hissed that he had that would mean failing the Bit for the second time.

He had promised.

But a fat lot of good promises were to the Niblet now.

"You shouldn't be here."

He had been expecting it, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"I've got as much right as you have," he answered in a voice low and careful, not wanting to fight here when all he could offer her now was goddamned respect. "I never left her. I fucked up. But I never left."

Angel opened his mouth to retaliate before registering the tone of Spike's voice. Though the words were harsh, the tone was polite, almost pleading for Angel not to fight. At least, not here.

"I missed the funeral," Angel stated.

"I expect you had your reasons," Spike answered.

Angel stepped forward, by Spike's side.

"We'd just got back from a hell dimension," Angel said. "I had to talk to Fred and… Well, convince Cordy and Wes not to come."

"Why?" Spike asked, his voice taking on the slight life of curiosity.

"I wanted to see her alone first," Angel lowered his head, feeling the burn of tears.

See her alone.

What a laugh.

She was in the ground, in a box. All he could see was a mound of earth and the memory of a face that he wasn't entirely sure was the face of the woman who had died. God knows he hadn't seen her in so long, he barely recognised her when he comforted her after her mother's death. She had changed since she came to LA after Faith and she might have changed even more before she...

He felt a vague stirring at the back of his mind, as it flicked briefly onto autopilot and filed away a memo to see Faith and tell her before he went away.

"Didn't work," he went on. "They came anyway, with Willow. That's why I had to come now. I couldn't… Was the…" he tailed off, knowing Spike could hear the tears in his voice. "Was the funeral… nice?"

Nice. Of all the words. Two centuries worth of words and all he could come up with was nice. Could funerals even be nice? Beautiful, miserable, moving. They were all words he had heard to describe funerals.

Never nice.

"I wouldn't know," Spike answered. "I never went."

"Why not?"

"S'not my place," Spike shrugged. "Couldn't save her when she was alive, no bloody good saying sorry to a corpse."

Angel flinched at Spike's harsh language, but had known the boy long enough to realise it was grief. Spike didn't get sad, he got angry. But Angel had never seen Spike like this.

He thought he must look the same, trembling with suppressed rage and misery.

"How's Dawn?" Angel asked.

He realised he was the one attempting to make all the conversation, but if he didn't, if he stood in silence, he thought he might cry. Just break down, tear himself into tiny pieces as he remembered the last time he had seen her, the time before that when he gave it all up so that… Oh, God.

It was pointless, all of it.

She died anyway.

Like he always knew she would.

"How do you think?" Spike retorted, "Crying. Shaking. Barely eating. Terrified. Why don't you go see her, I'm sure she'd welcome you."

"I might," Angel answered, though he knew he wouldn't. He remembered Dawn, remembered those huge blue eyes. However selfish it was, but he couldn't bear to see accusation in those eyes. "It's not fair," he whispered hoarsely. "It's not fucking fair."

"Hear, hear," Spike answered. "Though I thought you might have caught onto that a little while back. It's never fair, Angel. You should have learnt that when you had to leave her. Life, destiny, fate, call it what you bloody well like, it's never fair."

"You loved her," Angel stated.

Willow told him before she drove back to Sunnydale with Wes and Cordelia as he promised to come the next day. He couldn't have spent hours alone with Willow even if he'd wanted to. The weight of his own grief was more than he could handle, let alone someone else's. He didn't want to sit in silence with her and worst of all, he didn't want to talk about Buffy. About all those good times. It was all too forced because he could count the good times on both his hands, but he'd need his toes and five extra feet to count up all the bad times and all the pain.

"That I did," Spike admitted. "And don't have a go at me for it. It was unrequited. So it doesn't count."

"Y'know," Angel said meditatively. "People think love is the best thing in the world. All hearts and flowers and all round goodness. They don't get the pain. The way it hurts even when it's good. They don't get how it condemns you."

Spike shot him a quizzical look.

"Condemns?" he repeated.

"If I didn't love her like I do," Angel explained. "It wouldn't hurt like this."

Spike tossed his head, sneering.

"Always got to be about you, ain't it? You can't think about anything beyond the fact that you loved her. Well, I've got news for you. Soldier boy - as much as I hated him - loved her. Willow, Xander, Giles, all her friends love her. Dawn loved her. And you can't spare them one thought, can you? Not one. It's all about how you feel."

"Are you telling me that you're not wallowing in self-pity? You're not thinking that it could have worked between you two if this hadn't happened?"

"No," Spike admitted. "But I hate myself more than anything. Hate myself because I couldn't save her, because I can hardly bear to look at Dawn because every time I do I see her. So yeah, I'm wallowing, but I'm wallowing because I hurt and because it's my fault everyone else does."

"You hate them, Spike. Don't act like you care."

"You don't know anything. I still love her. I love Dawn. I care about what happens to Willow, Tara and Anya. I actually respect Giles. Yeah, I hate Xander, but it's hard to hate him right now when I know that he's hurting for the same reason I am. I stopped really hating them a long time ago because she cared about them. I've changed, Angel. She saw that, that's why I can't go back."

Angel slipped back into silence, staring down. He realised his hands were clenched and he lifted his fist, forced his hand to open and stared unfeelingly at the gash his nails had driven into his palm.

He had heard that feeling pain was better than feeling nothing.

But he couldn't feel anything.

Not the sting of his hand or the ache in his tightly clenched jaw. All he could feel was the emptiness where the knowledge that she was fine once was.

He wished Spike would do something so he would have a reason to punch him. Maybe if he fought, got injured bad enough, the numbness might go away.

"Did you cry when she told you?"

Angel glanced up at the stony face of Spike, looking like a relic from a long ago era, old and worn down. Which Angel could empathise with.

"No," Angel shook his head.

"Me neither. When she died, it felt like crying, but the tears didn't come. Maybe vampires aren't meant to mourn."

"Or maybe vampires aren't supposed to mourn the death of their sworn enemy."

"Bullshit," Spike muttered. "It's all bullshit. Y'know, I promised Dru I'd dance with her on the Slayer's grave," he gave a forced, ironic chuckle. "I couldn't even if I wanted to. Because of my bleedin' leg, got it broke trying to save her. Now I can't dance."

Angel didn't answer and Spike sighed morosely.

"What was it like?" Spike asked after a moment's silence. "To be with her, to know that whatever happened, however many years passed and you never saw her, what was it like to know she'd always love you?"

Angel was at a loss. He opened his fists and shrugged.

"I couldn't tell you. I just… I don't know."

"She still did, y'know," Spike told him. "I always knew that. And I bet she was thinking about you when she threw herself off that tower. About how much she fucking loved you."

There was hatred in that voice and Angel almost sighed in relief, that was something he could deal with.

"Shut up, Spike. You haven't got a clue."

"I know. And I never would have. It's a bloody tragedy," he faced his Grand-Sire and Angel merely turned his head toward him. "But shall I tell you the worst part? The real fucking tragedy? I can't walk away from this. Can't leave, can't drink myself into comfy oblivion."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Angel asked, sick of this stupid game, sick of pretending he and Spike could be civil this time of all times.

"I made a promise," Spike spat out bitterly. "Protect Dawn 'til the end of the world. See, it never occurred to me that she would die. I thought out of the two of us, it'd be me. But now I'm here and she's not and I've got to take care of the Bit. And that means I've got to keep an eye on the others, 'cause I know she'd want that. So that's what I've got to do, 'cause I don't think the end of my world counts, does it? What about your world? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Angel shrugged. "I might not last the summer. At least that's what I always thought, lose her, why go on? But I've got to. She'd kill me if I gave up."

"Ah, yes. That she would, Peaches. That she would. But that doesn't mean it's going to be easy."

"I know. And that's what scares me. I know it won't be easy. Every day I'll get up and I'll know how hard the day is going to be. But I just have to keep on going. That's the real tragedy, Spike, that we'll go on. Two vampires and she was worth more than both of us put together and yet we're the ones that… go on."

"Fate's a cruel bitch," Spike agreed. "What do you say to tracking her down and stringing her up?"

"I don't think I could," Angel lifted his hand, studying it. "It's hard enough knowing I'll have to go back to LA at some point and fight the good fight."

"Huh," Spike snorted. "Good fight, my arse. It's all bollocks. People fight and they die, they don't change anything. So they stop one apocalypse, doesn't mean there won't be another. I don't know why people even bother, 'cause it's all got to end one day."

Too bloody right. One day, someone'll fail and there won't be any warrior beauty to swan dive off a platform. One day, someone'll fuck up and that will be the end.

Spike couldn't help but hope that day came soon.

"They do it because they believe," Angel told him. "She believed. She didn't like her destiny, but it was part of her, she knew that. She believed in what she was doing. She made me believe."

Angel relapsed into silence. God, she had made him believe. Made him believe in more than the fight. She made him believe he was a man, a good man. A man someone like her could love.

Above all else, she made him believe in love. He wished she could make him believe now, because right now, it all seemed so fucking pointless. He wished he could be like Spike. He wished he could rage at the world and destiny, admit bluntly that her death had been pointless, because the world would end someday anyway.

But he wasn't allowed that luxury. He couldn't fall apart piece by piece. Because he had a fight to carry on. And he had people that would stubbornly put him back together as he fell apart, put him together and hold him together until he could do things on his own again.

After a moment of hating the fact that he couldn't quietly fade away, he suddenly realised he pitied Spike. Because although he had lost the one thing he loved more than anything in the world, the one person that was everything to him, he still had his make-shift family. He could fight the fight in her name by letting his friends help him through the pain.

Spike didn't have that. He couldn't give in because of a promise, a promise, Angel knew, that was the one thing stopping Spike falling apart. He had no one to help him, but he'd have to get through, just like Angel.

Angel wondered which one that meant was stronger.

The dawn flickered beyond the trees and Angel remembered a time when he had given up, willingly surrendering to sunrise, but she dragged him upright and made him fight again. It wasn't the snow that made him realise he had a purpose, that wasn't his sign that he needed to fight again, it was her. It was always her.

But oh, God, he wanted to give up now.

Don't let me, he silently pleaded, his request directed at the cold earth the woman he loved lay beneath. Come back and make me fight. Like that Christmas. Please. God, this can't be the end. Not of you. You weren't supposed to die like this. You had fire, that can't be gone. How can that be gone?

He knew corpses, knew how empty, cold and pale they were. He couldn't understand how she could be one. Not his girl, so gutsy, fiery and spirited. Not his girl, the girl whose skin tasted like sunrise and beaches and fields, all bathed in sunlight. His girl would never see the sun ever again. He couldn't understand how that was possible.

Which he supposed was funny. For a hundred years he had offered ugly death to everyone he met, that's what he had told her, you'd think someone like that would understand death.

He didn't know, he couldn't be sure of anything. Maybe Wesley and his books could offer the answer, or Cordelia and her direct line to the Powers That Be.

Clutching at straws, dying wisps of golden hair. That was all he was doing. Looking for a rhyme, a reason for her death. Destiny wasn't enough. Everyone fucking dies, but he wanted to know why her and why now.

Screw sacrifice, he wanted to know why the Powers didn't offer an alternative. Something to save her. Bastards. Her life - all their lives - were probably just a sitcom to them and her death would add drama.

Well, fuck that.

And fuck the Powers because he was done with it all.

But even as he thought that, he tasted the sunlight. Memories of skin, soft as a peach, smelling like vanilla, warm and tasting like the forbidden sunlight assaulted his mind. And he knew. Knew he couldn't give up because that would be like giving up on her.

And he never had.

Never could.

Never would.

"We should get inside," Angel said. "We've both got promises to keep."

Spike turned awkwardly on the crutch Angel hadn't noticed he had. His hand, shaking slightly lifted and Angel took it, gave it a squeeze.

"Don't let her down, Spike," he warned.

"I won't," Spike answered. "Don't you let her down either."

"I wouldn't."

Spike nodded, pulled his hand away and hobbled back to his crypt. Angel set his jaw again and turned back to his grave, whispering the last "I love you," and the last "goodbye," he would ever say to her.

The last words she would never hear.

He turned in the opposite direction to Spike and went back to his car. Sank into the dark cocoon, felt tears prick as his hand shook, trying to put the key in the ignition. He gave up and slumped forward against the wheel, bathing it in his tears as he struggled to regain the control he knew would now forever be just out of reach.

Spike glanced back toward the dark car as he reached the door of his crypt. He could hear his Grand-Sire crying and slipped inside.

He slid down the door, grabbing together the last shreds of whatever was holding it all in and tossed them to one side. He let go. He let her go. Not forever, not even for very long. Just long enough to pour out the grief that he couldn't hold in forever.

They had both said goodbye, that empty buzzword for letting go. They both let go a little.

But saying goodbye, letting go, it isn't a one-time thing. You don't just say goodbye, let go enough to register her absence and then everything's fine. You do it all the time.

Every.

Single.

Fucking.

Day.

They both knew that, so they had just said the goodbye that counted, the one that enabled them to cry.

And they hadn't even mentioned her name once.