Hello there! :) I only watched Buffy for the first time just this year and of course immediately fell in love with the character of Spike and his development during the series! I'm a Spuffy shipper through and through and was left a little unsatisfied by the way things ended for Spike and how he was treated by certain people of the Scooby Gang.

This may shine through in this story at some point, but I still tried to be fair to everybody. Including Angel, haha. This is taking place just after season 7 of Buffy ended and also includes characters from the Angel spin-off later on. It's not necessary to have seen that show to follow my story, though, because I've only been able to see a few bits/episodes myself. I also only lean on it relatively loosely and then go way off-canon so I thought this would be alright. Please forgive me if I get some facts wrong and let's just agree on calling it artistic freedom... ;)

I hope you enjoy my first ever Buffy story. Happy reading!

Chapter 1:

Giles drove the school bus containing the handful of brave survivors along the dusty, lonely road and parked it just far away enough so that the crater that once was Sunnydale wasn't visible on the horizon. He wasn't afraid that a huge yellow bus at the side of the road could cause a dangerous obstruction for oncoming traffic, because there wasn't any.

Nothing could come through behind them and no one was stupid enough to drive towards Sunnydale, either. This stretch of the road was theirs for the night. Empty and wondrously calm.

They tended to each other's wounds. Some of them cried, relieved that it was all over. Relieved that somehow they managed to survive. After the blood and tears have dried, they all fell asleep. A deep, exhausted sleep of the just and they didn't stir until the next morning.

Andrew and Vi, one of the new full-fledged Slayers who wasn't harmed too badly in the fight, took it upon themselves to walk towards the next gas station to get food and some basic medical supplies for the rest of them. No one was ready yet to move from their place of peaceful calmness. They were still processing what they have achieved.

Late in the afternoon everyone started to feel conscious enough to get a bit restless. They were ready to move on. Wherever they would go from here.

And only then it suddenly occurred to them:

"Hey, has anyone seen Buffy?" Willow asked with a worried frown on her face, stumbling from the bus.

"She isn't in there with the Slayerettes?" questioned Xander as he was standing up from the dusty side of the road and wiping what might have been a tear of grief over Anya from his good eye.

Willow shook her head. "I went in there to check on her, but no one has seen her for a while."

"What's going on?" Dawn bumped into the conversation, hands in her pockets, still looking tired.

"Oh, nothing big really." Xander laughed nervously. "Just… you haven't seen your sister by any chance, have you?"

"Buffy is missing?" Dawn's whole posture tensed painfully all over again.

"N-No, not missing," Willow tried to placate her. "Just… not here right now. I'm sure she's fine. Maybe she went with Andrew for another run to the shops."

"I ask him." Xander offered readily and went to find Andrew.

Willow and Dawn continued to ask around, trying to pinpoint how long ago it was since anyone has seen her. To their shock and disbelief they all only managed to clearly remember her sitting in the very back of the bus by herself, staring out the window as Giles drove away.

But that was yesterday.

"That's not possible." mumbled Robin, who was sitting in the buses doorway, rubbing his stinging knife wound. "Somebody must've seen her since then."

"We were all very tired." Giles tried to rationalize. "Either barely conscious, like you," he said to Robin. "Or… otherwise caught up in our own world, so to speak." He took a sideway glance at Xander, who hung his head and remained unusually quiet. "She probably needed a break to process… all of this, I suppose. We should give her time."

"Can we be sure that's all?" worried Robin. "She was quite badly injured, too. Slayer healing powers or not, what if she needs our help?"

Discussions broke out again among the group and only stopped when Dawn raised her voice.

"Guys! GUYS!" she yelled and they all turned towards her. "I think I know where she went."

"You've seen her?" asked Willow.

"No, but…" Dawn paused, realization entered her mind so crystal clear that she didn't doubt it for a second. "I just know." she said. All eyes remained on her. "I bet she went back to the crater. To look for Spike."

Dumbfounded silence. No one has given the vampire another thought.

"Spike?" Xander eventually spluttered in confusion. "Why? He's clearly dust by now. Why would she turn back, risking her life to search the rubble for him? I mean, sure, she was overly fond of him in the end, but it's still…" he shrugged. "It's just Spike."

Dawn crossed her arms. "You still don't get it, do you?" she said angrily. "They loved each other. Even though Buffy could never admit it, I know that she did. And after everything Spike has done for us you still refuse to see it?"

Xander clenched his jaw, biting back harsh words that would sound petty under the circumstances of them being alive.

"She's right, you know." added Willow softly, but Xander still looked stubborn.

"Hey," Faith spoke up, swinging from the door of the bus to look outside. "The girls are getting all anxious. Any word of B?"

"Ah, y-yes." said Giles, breaking the tension. "We might know where she is. Me, Dawn, Willow and Xander will go and look for her. Faith, you're in charge of the girls—"

"Hey!" complained Robin and Andrew, who were listening in from the front seats, in unison.

"And the boys, of course." Giles added exasperated.

Faith grinned. "Cool." she nodded and swung back in to tell their plan to the new Slayers while the Scoobies headed out towards non-existent Sunnydale.

The sun would set soon.

Buffy sat at the edge of the crater, feet dangling over the abyss, bathed in golden light.

She let her eyes wander over the massive hole, trying to picture where everything would stand weren't it crumbled to dust at the bottom of the crater. She pictured her house on Revello Drive. Xander's place. The Magic Box or at least what was left of it. The High School and even the University.

The graveyard.

And Spike.

The sun would set soon.

If Sunnydale were still standing, she would probably be on her way to him right now. She would thank him for his help. They would joke at yet another averted apocalypse, imagining what would've happened if he hadn't climbed out of the basement with them. But Spike had done enough, dusting all those ubervamps at once. There was no need for him to go on and clear that Hellmouth once and for all, right?

She told him, he'd done enough.

But he didn't listen.

A tear escaped Buffy's eye and rolled, sun-kissed, over her golden cheek.

If he had listened… where would this have left them?

Buffy thought back to the conversation they had after she had retrieved the scythe. After she fearlessly slept in the vampire's arms for the night:

"All I did was… hold you, watch you sleep. And it was the best night of my life. So, yeah… I'm… terrified."

"You don't have to be."

"Were you there with me?"

"I was."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Does it have to mean something?"

"No. Not right now."

"Maybe when…"

"No. Let's just leave it."

More tears followed the first and a strangled sob bubbled up in Buffy's throat. Maybe when… all of this is over, she was going to say. But she couldn't give him some sort of hope beforehand. Some sign that it was what she wanted, too. Maybe he would've believed her then, when she told him she loved him. Maybe he wouldn't have sacrificed himself.

Maybe if she had finished her sentence, he would still be alive and by her side right now. After he fought so hard to be a better man, he deserved so much more than being burnt to dust.

Buffy cried fully now. Angry, lovelorn, fat tears fell from her eyes down into the crater. All gone. All what could've been between them. All that he was. All that they were.

Why couldn't she tell him before? Why did she have to wait until it was too late?

"Buffy!"

"There you are."

"Seems you were right, Dawn."

"We were worried about you."

Slowly, Buffy turned around. Through tear-streaked eyes she saw all her friends. Her closest circle. And yet, often, they were so far away from her because they didn't understand. Not truly. Only Spike could understand all of her.

She looked at them as they stared back at her with worry and compassion and she couldn't hide it from them any longer. "I… I-I loved him." she sobbed heart-brokenly. "I loved Spike."

Buffy wiped the tears from her eyes, but she couldn't stop crying. Willow stepped forward. "We know, Sweetie. We know you did."

Still sobbing, Buffy swiftly turned around and stood up, walking a few steps away from the edge of the crater. "Then why!?" she demanded, fists clenched tightly at her sides. "Why did you give him such a hard time until the very end? If you weren't able to trust Spike, why didn't you at least trust me?"

The Scoobies exchanged a look that was part guilt for some of them and part uneasiness about how to approach this unwanted subject.

Since he always had strong feelings about the bottle-blond vampire, it was, like so often, Xander, who spoke up first. "Buff, you know, lately, when it came to Spike, you did get very defensive, very fast. Like he could do no wrong. We just thought… whatever power he had over you blinded your judgment a bit."

"Blinded?!" Buffy repeated angrily. "I was the only one who could see him. See what he tried so hard to do. I was defensive because no one else cared in the least that he tried to change! Tried to be better. Spike saved all our lives! And not just yesterday. He sacrificed himself in there, for all of us! He didn't do it to prove anything. Why can't you still not see it?"

"Buffy, we sure are grateful for Spike's sacrifice," Giles tried to explain calmly. "And he may have done it selflessly in the end, but before that there were many instances when he only tried to impress you. T-To… win you in his confused belief of love."

"No." growled Buffy lowly. "You did not listen to me. And, you know, it actually is my fault, because I never spoke up for him, either. I didn't tell you what he did for me when no one else was around to understand me. I was too afraid that you would judge me, be disgusted by my feelings for him-"

"Buffy, no, of course not-" Willow softly tried to reassure her, but Buffy cut her off.

"Not any longer!" she decided fiercely. "I'm going to tell you now why I knew that Spike was more than a monster and you will listen to me for once! Whether you want to hear it or not!"

She paused, glowering at them with angry tears in her eyes. No one dared to speak before she was finished putting her grief into words.

"Before Spike had a soul," Buffy started. "And he decided… realized, whatever, that he had feelings for me, he did what you just accused him of. He tried to buy my affection, tried to win it by doing things he thought would impress me. Even when I was outright denying him and not giving him anything in return, he did not give up. I thought he would grow out of it. Certain that there was no way he could have any real feelings without a soul… but then he protected Dawn from Glory."

Buffy paused to look at her sister, who swallowed the lump in her throat; tears glistened in her eyes.

"I went to him, posing as his dumb robot thingy, and he told me, not realizing that it was really me, that he did it because he knew that it would destroy me if Dawn gets hurt. He had been tortured by Glory herself. For hours!" Buffy emphasized. "But he didn't tell her anything about who Dawn was. And he never asked for gratitude from me. Somehow, Spike just knew it was the right thing to do. From then on I asked him to keep protecting her and he swore to me that he would. And…" She made a motion with her hand, daring them to contradict her. "Didn't he do just that? Didn't he fought alongside all of you? When I was gone, when I was… dead. Who was he trying to impress then?"

Embarrassed silence. More guilty looks now. But one she still had to convince. His one good eye stared her down stubbornly.

"147 days. That's what he told me. That's how long I was gone and he stayed with you all this time. Then you brought me back and everything was different… and hard… and... painful." Buffy narrated thoughtfully, reliving those feelings of distance from the world once more. "I didn't want to tell you where I really went, because I didn't want you to worry. You were so glad that I was back. But every day…" she paused again, sadly. "You can't imagine what a challenge it was. To pretend that I was alright. To pretend that I cared… about anything. Spike… didn't expect me to be who I was before. He didn't try to cheer me up or to make me forget. He was just there in a way that you couldn't possibly be."

Xander twitched here, opening his mouth to protest, but Buffy talked on before he could.

"Believe me, you'd have to have been dead… or undead... to fully understand my feelings. The emptiness within my heart. The darkness. The loneliness." Buffy looked down, wrapping her arms around herself as if to keep the cold clutches of death away. "I couldn't have expected of you to understand me. How should you? The only time I felt anything at all was... when I was with Spike. And I know what you think right now. That he abused me, took advantage of my vulnerability, but actually, it was the other way 'round."

Her friends all frowned, clearly disagreeing, but not saying anything yet. Buffy explained,

"I was the one who first made the ultimate step. He never really tried to... seduce me before that. Sure as hell did afterwards, but I could've stopped him. Should've. But I couldn't. I wanted to feel… something. Anything. I knew by then that it was real, that he had real feelings for me and I used them… whenever I wanted to. I was certain that he would never decline me and he didn't. Spike couldn't understand how abusive our relationship was getting, but I should've noticed."

Buffy wiped a tear from her cheek, shivering as she continued. "When I realized what I was doing, I ended it. Cut us off cold. It would've been confusing for anyone. With or without a soul. And then he did attack me, not able to understand what had changed... because all this time he was soulless. And still he felt ashamed and he went away."

Buffy's voice broke. "He realized he made a mistake and he went away to fix it. H-He never wanted to hurt me, I… I can't explain how I know, you just have to believe me on this. It was the things he said when he returned and acted real crazy. I could tell he wasn't lying because he was in pain. Real pain. For the first time in over a century. He begged me to make it stop. To end him or help him, either of those. He was so broken."

She had to pause once more, because the tears were coming back. Overrunning her and leaving her sobbing. "He s-said he wanted to be a-a man I could love. Someone who would never attack me. That's the only reason why he wanted to get his soul back. He had to face painful trials, but he did it freely. He faced the monster inside of him and he fought back. He came back stronger, but he couldn't see it. Because now he understood what you all saw in him. What you've always seen. Spike never tried to come on to me again, because for the first time he didn't think that he was worth it. B-But I saw him change. I saw that he could be a better man so I… I believed in him."

Tears were rolling from her face. "And I think that's all he ever wanted. Someone who believed in him… 'cause deep inside… as the man before the vampire... I think he was lonely. L-Like me."

Willow was crying now, too, but she stood frozen, shocked by Buffy's admissions. Dawn stepped up to crush Buffy in a hug, sobbing on her shoulder. Giles and Xander weren't moving, either. Always the loudest and the first to stand against Spike, they now remained quiet.

Buffy raised her head from Dawn's and looked into Giles' eyes. "You said, not long ago, that I relied on Spike and he on me… because of the connection we had." Dawn stood up straighter to continue listening. "It's true," added Buffy. "But it didn't cloud my judgment. The ones who refused to see the change, despite all he tried to prove it, were you and Xander. I get that you wanted to protect me, but it wasn't needed. Not from Spike. He was the only one who always knew how I really felt… I never had to explain; he just knew."

Buffy wiped some tears from her eyes and looked back into the hole in the ground. "A few days ago, when none of you believed that I could lead you anymore... Spike came looking for me. He gave me strength when I was ready to give it all up. He said... that he didn't love me because he wanted me or couldn't have me. He loved me for who I was… for what I did and… a-and how I tried."

Her lips started shaking again and Willow quickly stepped close now, too, hugging Buffy's side that wasn't already encircled by Dawn. Buffy sobbed into her neck as she finished, "He believed in me, too. He always did. And yesterday, he could've stopped. The demons were gone; he could've escaped with us. But he wanted us safe so he closed the Hellmouth. There w-was no reward for doing that. I… I finally told him that I loved him before it all fell and... i-in the end, he couldn't even believe me!"

Her knees buckled and sobs were shaking her as Buffy desperately grasped Willow and Dawn in her arms so she wouldn't fall over. Spilling her guts, her love, pain and loss, left her empty, weak and heart-broken.

They stood there for a whole while, the three of them, grieving, when Giles and Xander finally stepped up. They closed their arms around each other in a tight, comforting hug.

In the end, remembering Spike as a good man.

Please leave me a review and let me know what you think so far!

The next chapter will continue in Spike's pov, because (spoiler!) those of you who also watched the Angel series know that he came back as a ghost...