Ariane - If Not Today

AUTHOR: Ariane
EMAIL: ariane_five@yahoo.com
RATING: NC-17
PAIRING: Buffy/Spike
SETTING: Post BtVS - AtS Season 5 AU fic.
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PART ONE

Night is no longer day for him. He dreams of sunlight, not shadow. He hunts for light with unquenchable lust. At night, he loves the moon, illuminating his pale form as he roams the soft rolling hills, winding and weaving through thickets of dying brush. And in the daylight, he rejoices in the brutal sun upon his skin, as he wanders through forests rising to granite and the finality of hard, cold ice.

A mountain, a valley, a summer-dead river: all fall to dust before him. He is alive.

He is walking into his being, into his unfamiliar flesh. Refuses to be lost. Refuses to be unclaimed. He’s claiming himself. A hundred miles, a thousand miles; he savors every step he takes, in sunlight and darkness, as he recreates his life.

Long tangles of dark brown hair frame his face. Skin burned and brown, he’s become the earth. He avoids civilization; the mere glimpse of pavement, of the metallic flash of an automobile makes him flinch and run. Later. Later, he tells himself. There’s something, someone he must find first. His heart? Himself?

He is a man and vaguely remembers that once he wasn’t. Remembers that he’s died twice. And is now twice born. He’s trying to remember what blood is for, what limbs and nerves and lungs and heart mean to a man. The world beckons, but he’s disdainful. He hears the begging voices in his waking dreams and nightmares, and he flees the face of humanity. A woman. A mother. Family. Enemies. Friends. Victims and lovers.

Human. Humans. He is almost certain, now, that he could live alone for the rest of his life. Except there’s something he must find first. Something he lost that must be found.

Love. He pushes the word away like an obscenity. And then, idly, thinks that perhaps what he’s lost is his soul.

In this escape, this running, he’s come to know his body, to understand the limits and thresholds of pain and the torments of desire. But there’s this yearning in him that he struggles to define. He reluctantly admits to himself, at last, that he cannot quench this longing inside, or find what he’d lost in all this isolation. The natural world has given him back his knowledge of living, but cannot give him back his soul.

The foothills above Los Angeles are thick with predators: coyotes, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, prowling among the outlandish homes of the living and undead rich. Perched upon a small, granite outcrop, he kneels, gazing down into the brownish yellow haze which covers the city below.

It’s Hell. He frowns. He can almost taste the pain rising from the millions of anonymous humans who inhabit this bit of scorched earth. Endings. He can deal with endings; it’s beginnings that trouble him now. Where to start? Can he find his soul in that morass of humanity below? For the first time since he was re-born, he is afraid.

A wave of grudging admiration for Angel washes over him. A city of wolves. What a futile task the old boy has set for himself. Sunnydale is heaven compared to the cesspool whirling down there. And then he remembers that Sunnydale is no more, and his thoughts of Angel turn darker. Had Angel known what would happen? He sighs. Doesn’t matter now. He wonders again, for the ten-thousandth time, if she’s still alive. And then tells himself again, for the ten-thousandth time, that it’s not his problem anymore.

“I must say, they were a little disappointed.” Lilah gives Angel an appraising stare. He studiously avoids her gaze.

“Don’t really care. Uh…and frankly, I’m tired of rehashing this conversation. It’s been over a year. Can’t they just let it go?”

“I’m just amazed that you didn’t jump at the chance to be a hero,” she laughs.

The phone rings, and Angel grabs it, grateful for the interruption. His face darkens as he listens to the excited voice on the other end of the line.

“Can you hold on a second?” he speaks into the phone. He turns to Lilah. “Gotta take this. You know, people in danger. Heroes needed.”

Lilah leans back in her chair. “I can wait. You need to explain to me how you’re going to retrieve the amulet before I leave. Orders from above. They’re not pleased.” She smiles, but her eyes are cold.

Fifteen minutes later, Lilah leaves the office, still dissatisfied with Angel’s plan. He listens as the click of her high heels fade in the distance, and when he’s sure she’s gone, he pulls a small box from his pocket and places it on the desk before him.

The box is made of a metallic substance specially created for him by Fred in an underground lab in Pasadena, far from the offices of Wolfram and Hart and their spies. He opens the box and stares at the contents. There’s a soft glow emanating from the amulet as it reflects the light streaming in from the window behind him. At least, he thinks it’s the reflection of sunlight that makes it glow. He nervously shuts the lid. He doesn’t want to think of the alternative.

There’s an emptiness to her days that she can’t define. It’s not that her life isn’t full of people and things to do; it’s just that she feels something is missing. Something haunts her, something she forgot to do or say. Something that would end the curious flatness of the world around her. When she dreams, it’s all in grays and shadows. She longs for color; and she wakes each morning anxious and incomplete. There’s something she’s left undone, although she can’t seem to name it. She carries an unnamed burden inside her that torments her, burns her.

But there are things she loves about her new life. She’s not ungrateful. It’s such a relief to share the responsibilities of slaying. Weeks pass without her having to handle a stake or gaze upon the undead. She has a secret aversion to killing vampires which has not gone unnoticed by Giles and Faith. She prefers to stick with killing demons.

Cleveland is rife with demons, so her little problem remained hidden until last week when she and Faith were set upon by a particularly nasty gang of vampires. The first vampire that attacked her had blond hair and piercing blue eyes. The physical resemblance to Spike ended there, but she couldn’t do it; couldn’t stake him, and almost got herself and Faith killed.

“I think she needs a vacation, a little R and R. I’m not sure I want to patrol with her. She’s kinda lost her edge. It was that close.” Faith shudders. “Can’t you do something?”

Giles sighs. He and Faith are sitting in his office, up in the attic of the run-down brownstone he’d rented when they first moved to Cleveland. “Perhaps a trip out to Los Angeles would set her to rights. Maybe Angel can shed some light on her problem. And I’ve been meaning to send my copy of the Demonic Verses to Wesley for translation. I’d prefer they be delivered by hand. Do you think she’ll believe that?”

She insisted on driving. No one could dissuade her. Giles even went to the expense of purchasing her round trip tickets, but she refused to fly.

A week later, the rental car is packed to the brim with luggage and presents. Giles’ carefully sealed copy of the Demonic Verses is on the passenger seat beside her.

“Don’t worry, you guys. I’m gonna be fine. I want to see the road disappear behind me. I want to believe that I’m traveling several thousand miles and not just poof –suddenly appear in L.A.; besides, I can use the time to think and stuff.”

Giles gives her a skeptical glance. “Sometimes thinking isn’t always the best thing to do in these circumstances.”

“What ‘circumstances’?” she snaps, offended by the word. “I’m fine. Five by five, right, Faith?”

“Just be careful and watch out for vampires,” Giles cautions. Faith gives him a little kick and rolls her eyes.

For seven days, he’s cased out the offices of Wolfram and Hart, watching and noting everyone who enters and leaves the building. He’s invisible to the world around him. It appears that the last thing the people of L.A. want to acknowledge is a dirty, homeless man lounging on the sidewalk. The only people who seem to ever show an interest in him are the police who occasionally sweep down the block ordering the loiterers to move on. He’s been lucky. For some reason, he has a sixth sense when it comes to cops. Knows exactly when to slip unnoticed down the dark alley, kitty-corner from the gleaming Wolfram and Hart building.

He’s particularly interested in the young black man who often accompanies Wes when they leave the building at night. His name is Gunn. Funny name, but the man walks like a panther. Spike can sense the predator in him. Wes appears oblivious to Gunn’s second nature, hidden deep beneath the cool exterior.

Buffy’s car breaks down in Wyoming; luckily for her, it splutters to a dead stop a few blocks from a scruffy-looking gas station. The mechanic on duty gives her a long lecture on the benefits of actually checking the oil gauge and coolant level when driving up the Rockies in the high heat of summer.

“Yeah. Red bad. Thanks. Is there a restaurant around here? ‘Cause I’m starving. How long is it gonna take? I’m in a hurry.”

He decides to clean up before approaching Gunn. Late one Friday night, Spike waits on the front plaza outside the Wolfram and Hart building. He is groomed to perfection, sporting a new suit which he’s nicked from the back of one of the dry-cleaning trucks that roam the city. His hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, and his face is clean-shaven. The only incongruous aspects of his attire are his tennis shoes. If a man needs to run, slick Italian shoes are out.

Spike watches Wes and Gunn exit the building and stiffly nod their goodbyes. Wesley turns left and strides briskly away.

Gunn pauses on the steps and scans the plaza. Closing his eyes, he sniffs the air; and when he opens his eyes, he’s staring directly at Spike. Spike walks nonchalantly in Gunn’s direction, keeping his eyes fixed on the man before him. Gunn squats down on his heels as if preparing to pounce.

“We’ve been wondering when you were gonna get the nerve to show up,” Gunn says.

Gunn smiles and rises to his feet. He and Spike shake hands and walk off together.

“So, sleeping with the enemy, are you?” Spike sprawls on Gunn’s leather couch, drinking an ice-cold beer.

“No. That would be Wes,” Gunn laughs. “Not sure how he can make love to the woman he beheaded, but that’s another story.”

Spike puts down his beer and stares at Gunn. “Never underestimate the power of love. Can make a man completely daft.”

“Yeah. I heard. So what’s your side of the story? And where’ve you been?”

“Not important to the matter at hand, my friend. I’m here to retrieve a little something, get some information, and then I’ll be out of your lives for good. I think you’re just the man to help me.”

“Why should I help you? Why shouldn’t I just call Angel right now, or Lilah, for that matter, and tell ‘em you’re in town?”

Gunn stares out the window at the fading light. He thinks of Fred. Thinks of what he’s done for love. What he’s done for hate. He thinks about screwing up Wolfram and Hart’s plan of seduction: their temptations of power, both physical and metaphysical. He smiles to himself. He’d like to believe they don’t completely understand what they unleashed in him in the White Room.

“I’ll do it,” Gunn says. His voice has a slight rasp to it, and when he turns away from the window, his eyes narrow and flash with an inhuman glint.

“Are you sure? You don’t know what I’m gonna ask of you yet,” Spike gives Gunn a long, blank stare.

“Hey, I’m always up for a little trouble,” Gunn laughs. He meets Spike’s eyes and has a sudden feeling of discomfort. Something’s wrong with the man, he thinks. Something’s off.

The first day, she sleeps. The second day, she explores the one-stop-light town. Actually, it only takes her a half hour. She spends the rest of the day wandering in the fields which stretch out forever behind the gas station. The land flows unbroken until it washes up against the impossibly high mountain peaks which frame the little valley. She spends several hours sitting on a log staring up at the mountains. They are an immovable force: inhuman and cold. Even in the heat of summer, they are capped with thick glaciers of snow and ice. When the sun sets, they are tipped briefly with a golden fire and then fade quickly to dark ash.

The darkness up here is especially black. When the sun sets, and before the moon rises, the night is thick. Even with her Slayer senses, she has trouble finding her way back through the fields to her little motel. For one moment, she panics, suddenly thinking of bears and mountain lions and sharp teeth.

Back in her bed at the motel, she wonders briefly why she’s not worrying about demons or vampires.

The third day, she gets restless and is constantly underfoot at the garage, bothering the mechanic. He finally orders her to scram. She leaves, insulted by his harsh words. She wanders out to the meadows again and lies down in a soft bed of pine needles beneath a small grove of trees.

There’s a faint wind blowing down from the mountains that smells of snow. Suspended here between worlds, she’s filled with an indescribable feeling of peace. No responsibilities, no demons, no vampires. Just a woman traveling along a road, leaving things behind her. She’s almost grateful the car broke down.

The light is peculiar in this little valley, high in the foothills of the Rockies. There’s something pure and clean about it; reflecting off the high mountain glaciers, falling from the sky, innocent and free from human care. Like the first light that shone at the beginning of the world. Before demons. Before man. Before vampires. It reminds her of Spike, that purity which shone so strangely in his eyes before he died. Odd to think about Spike being pure. Sometimes, she has the eerie feeling that he’s with her. “Spike’s in my heart,” she’d told Angel. And it was true. And since then, she’s thought of him at the most inappropriate times. What he would think or say about something. What he would do, if he were there with her.

She thinks this is the root of her problem. The strange burden she’s been carrying inside her. Why she can’t slay vampires, why she feels at times as if she’s carrying something, holding on to something that doesn’t really belong to her.

When she wakes, she senses that she’s being observed. Stalked. She lies perfectly still, holding her breath. Opening one eye, she sees a huge, black, cat-like creature sitting beside a tree about ten feet away. Her heart racing, she jumps to her feet; and the animal arches its back and bares its teeth.

“Go away,” she shouts and then immediately berates herself. “Idiot. I’m sure he speaks English. Maybe he’ll say thank you before eating me for lunch.”

But to her surprise, the creature gives her one last, long look and saunters off. A soft breeze carries the distinct scent of pine needles and strangely, Old Spice aftershave. She runs the whole way back to the motel.

The next day, she stays in her motel room and reads a dog-eared pamphlet about the geology and history of geothermal power in northern Wyoming. By evening, she has it memorized.

PART TWO

Gunn appears to have unlimited access to money. He helps Spike find a small, furnished studio apartment near the Wolfram and Hart building and pays for a few months’ rent in cash. Before he leaves, he hands Spike a thick envelope.

“A little something to live on.” Gunn shrugs off Spike’s sudden look of gratitude. “I’ll stop by tonight, and we can discuss your little plan.” He gives Spike a hard look. “I’d like all the details. Like, why now?”

As Gunn exits the building, he glances up at Spike’s apartment. Spike is staring out of the window; he’s not looking down at the street but gazing up at the hills, at the sky. Gunn wonders to himself, again, just what’s wrong with the man? Something’s off about Spike that he can’t exactly pinpoint.

“Well, at least I’ve contained the problem,” Gunn tells himself as he heads back to work. “I’ll decide, later, which side of the game to play when I hear what he’s up to.”

Of course, Buffy completely ignores the mechanic’s advice on car maintenance, and the rental car dies on the outskirts of L.A. She calls Angel from a phone booth, and an hour later, a long, black stretch limousine pulls up next to the curb where she’s camped out, all her luggage stacked about her.

A grim-faced driver piles her things into the trunk and ushers her into the cool, dark interior of the car. She tries to start a conversation with the man, but he ignores her; and after a few minutes, he closes the window between them.

“Yeah, welcome to L.A. At least there’s ice,” she mumbles, opening the wet bar in the well-appointed car. She scoops out some ice and rubs it on the back of her neck. It reminds her of … Spike. She remembers how he used to steal ice for her after patrol and other things. Rub it on her neck, and if clothes were not a problem, all the way down her naked back. Lick the drops of water off with his soft tongue. He loved kissing her neck, probably just the vampire in him. It’s all he did that last night before he died. All night long, with his face buried against her skin. Was he seeking sanctuary?

He never bit me. He could’ve. He could’ve killed me. Before his soul. Why didn’t I ever tell anyone that? Ashamed. Shamed.

Buffy firmly pushes her memories of Spike away; jumping out of the car, she rushes into Angel’s arms.

“Angel!” Suddenly she’s weepy, and it feels as if only a day has passed since he came to Sunnydale to provide them with the key to stop the Apocalypse.

Angel holds her tightly as she shakes in his arms. He strokes her hair and whispers to her softly, trying to calm her down. He curses Giles for letting her drive out here by herself. What could the man have been thinking? His anger passes as he reminds himself that this is Buffy. She does what she wants. Always.

“Not exactly. My home away from home. Up there.” He points up, and Buffy gazes in confusion at the cement roof of the garage. “No, no!” Angel laughs. “Penthouse suite. A little job perk.”

They step into a wood-paneled elevator and stare nervously at each other as they’re swept up to the top floor.

Angel flings open the door to his penthouse suite, and Buffy stands in the doorway, her eyes widening at the luxuriousness displayed before her.

“We’ve got a little complication,” Gunn says, dropping a bag of take-out food on the table. “Dinner.”

“It’s not for you,” Gunn replies, sitting down at the tiny kitchen table. He rips open the bag and starts eating.

Spike lies down on the bed and waits patiently for him to finish. Gunn tosses the empty containers into the trash and looks uncomfortably around the small apartment. The bed is rumpled, and clothes are strewn about the floor and couch. He removes a pair of stained, dirty jeans from the couch and sits down. He doesn’t look at Spike.

“Buffy,” Spike repeats slowly. He turns over and lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “So she’s still alive.”

“Not really. I knew she survived the big show in Sunnydale. But wasn’t sure what happened later. Always some big bad got it in for the Slayer, you know.”

“Not my problem. Not anymore. But, yeah. I did. Wonder. A little,” Spike sighs. He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed and puts his head in his hands. “So she’s come to Angel, has she?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Gunn’s voice rises. “From what I heard, you were mad for her for years.”

“Right. Mad for her.” Spike gives a bitter laugh. “Insane for her. Died for her. Died…”

Jumping to his feet, he strides nervously about the small apartment. Gunn thinks he’s never seen so much self-contained anger. He stands up and grabs Spike by the shoulder.

“You want to know what’s wrong with me?” Spike says, his voice ice-cold. “I died. For all of them. But you know what? I crawled naked and bleeding and blind out of that little hell-hole. And you know what I heard? You know what I heard?” His voice rises to a shout. “The damned Scoobies. Standing over my grave. Laughing, joking. And then they just drove away.”

“Jesus, Spike. Sorry, man. Look, forget it. Forget her. Let’s get on with it.” Gunn leads Spike over to the couch and pushes him down and sits next to him. “Tell me why you’re here and what you want.”

“Is she brain-damaged or something?” Fred and Angel are having a quick conference in his kitchen while Buffy takes a shower.

“First, she wants a bucket of ice, and then she gets all freaked out when I bring it to her. She punched me!” Fred replied, rubbing her shoulder.

“Look, Fred. Giles says she hasn’t been quite herself since Sunnydale turned into a big crater. I should’ve stayed. She needed me. I shouldn’t have left her to deal with The First alone.”

“From what I heard, she wasn’t alone,” Fred says, giving Angel a cautious look. “Wasn’t Spike…”

“Don’t say that name!” Angel growls. “And don’t mention his name around her, got that?”

“Okay, okay. Wow. This has been the day from Hell. Hey, she’s all yours. Find yourself another nursemaid!” Fred stomps angrily out of the kitchen. Angel listens to the door of the penthouse slam shut as she leaves.

And he thinks to himself again… It should’ve been me. Not Spike. It should’ve been me.

“I’ve been traveling around. Walking, hiding, living off the land and what I could steal. At first, I thought I’d try to look up Angel and thank him for his little present, but I always seemed to find myself going in the opposite direction of L.A. Couldn’t bring myself to face him until I understood why.”

“Why I was here. Why I was alive. Why I couldn’t have just gone nicely to my glory and stayed there. Why there was so much pain. And why my s…” Spike pauses. “Why there’s something missing. Here.” He puts his hand on his chest.

Gunn stares at him as if he’s crazy. “Not following you. What the hell is a ‘spark’?”

“You know. The spark. What I got for her. It’s gone. And damned if I’m gonna live another life without a soul.”

“You don’t have a soul?” Gunn stares at Spike in disbelief. “What are you?”

“Not really sure, mate. But I got a sneaking suspicion it’s got something to do with that little present Angel brought Buffy last year.”

“Yeah, the pretty, little trinket that I wore to my death. I need to know what it was. I need to know why I’m alive.” Spike’s face hardens. “I don’t deserve to live like this. Nobody does.”

Buffy is driving Angel crazy, tagging along beside him all day long; she won’t let him out of her sight. Finally he takes her aside in his office and explains to her that he has a lot of business to take care of, and some of his clients get a little nervous when they realize a Slayer is in the room with them.

“Who are these clients of yours, Angel? Some of them look downright evil to me. What are you guys doing here?”

“Look, it’s none of your business, Buffy. But understand this: we’re helping to fight evil. We just have access to a lot more resources and power now, thanks to Wolfram and Hart.”

“You’re one to judge!” Angel shouts, finally losing his temper with her. “Didn’t you use Spike to fight The First?”

“Spike wasn’t evil…anymore. He had a soul, remember? He had a soul…” her voice trembles.

“Great. Good for him. God, I can’t take this! Wait here.” He points to the chair behind his desk. “Don’t move.” His voice softens, and he tries to take her in his arms. She resists at first and then slumps against him. “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he says, kissing her forehead. “I’ll take the rest of the day off, and we can spend it together. Just us. We can talk, then. Okay?”

She nods against his shoulder. He releases her and leaves her alone in his office.

Buffy sits obediently for a few minutes and then starts exploring Angel’s office.

“I’m not snooping. Just checking up,” she tells herself guiltily. After she searches through his files and finds only lots of boring legal papers on corporate re-structuring, she sits back down on his desk chair and twirls it around several times. When it stops spinning, she stares thoughtfully at his desk and begins searching through the drawers. The drawers are filled with stationary, pens, and several empty containers of blood.

She pulls on the lower left-hand drawer; it’s locked. She sits back and stares at the drawer. With sudden resolve, she yanks the drawer open, breaking the lock.

She reaches into the drawer, searching blindly with her hand, and touches a metal box which she withdraws and places on the desk before her. Her heart is beating rapidly. She opens the box and looks inside.

Gunn saunters into Wes’ office. Wes is writing furiously on a yellow legal pad. Gunn leans over and looks at what Wes is writing.

“A very difficult translation, thank you very much. Which you’ve interrupted at a key point. Do you mind?”

“Nope. Not at all.” Gunn sits down on the edge of Wes’ desk. “What is it?”

Wes eyes Gunn suspiciously and then shrugs his shoulders. “Well, if you must know, it’s the papers Giles sent out here with Buffy. They’re the ones Lilah gave to Angel with the amulet. The papers he took to Buffy before the Sunnydale Apocalypse. Unfortunately, Giles was not up to the translation task.” Wes gives a smug smile and pushes one of the papers across the table to Gunn.

“Not exactly…” Wes replies, a little flustered. “But they’re quite amazing. Written in an extremely obscure and archaic demonic script. It could well be an example of the demonic proto-language. If I’m able to translate this…” Wes gets a dreamy look on his face.

“Quite surprising to find it in such text; perhaps that’s why it jumped out at me. It’s still in common use in several demonic dialects to this day. The word hasn’t changed, but I find it curious…”

Gunn decides to take the back service stairs which are being repaired. No sense in arousing suspicion, he thinks. He feels silly, but he wants to slip out unnoticed. The monitors have been disabled while the construction workers finish their repairs. As he descends, he must jump over ladders, buckets of spackle and boards of sheet rock which are propped up haphazardly on the stairs.

When he reaches the first floor, the door to the stairwell swings open, and a young blonde woman peers inside. They freeze, staring at each other uncertainly. He recognizes the woman from his waking dream. She recognizes his eyes and his scent: Old Spice.

He grabs her by the arm and pulls her into the stairwell. “Where are you going?” he asks.

They wrestle briefly for possession of the box; it slips out of Buffy’s hand and tumbles down the stairs. They both scramble after it, and then stop as the box pops open and spills its contents on the floor. In the dark stairwell, the amulet glows with an unearthly, golden light.

“Why should I go anywhere with you?” Buffy shouts at Gunn’s retreating back.

She’s following Gunn as he slips down the dark alley behind the service entrance to Wolfram and Hart.

“’Cause I’ve got this?” He waves the amulet over his shoulder and keeps moving. “And you’re a thief?”

Angel’s sitting on Cordelia’s bed. He comes here everyday at precisely the same time. He’s feeling bad because of the way he shouted at Buffy, but he couldn’t bring her here. This is his time with Cordelia; somehow he feels that Cordelia wouldn’t appreciate him dragging Buffy along with him.

He’s been talking non-stop for several hours. He doesn’t care anymore if the room is bugged. Sitting on the bed beside her, he holds her hand and tells her about his day, his worries, his fears and his dreams. She stood by him all those years; it’s the least he can do for her. They’ve gone through so much and she’s his friend. Friend. And there’s that thing that remains unspoken between them. He misses her, that’s all. Misses her.

She’s so vulnerable lying here, hooked up to life-support machines, and fed intravenously. So beautiful, he thinks, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead, his fingers lingering against her skin. So warm. He closes his eyes, and his face hardens as he thinks of what she’s suffered. What she’s gone through. Will she remember when she awakens? He doesn’t question that someday she will awaken.

When Lorne first brought Angel the amulet, he thought it was a fake. But Lorne had convinced him otherwise. One of Lorne's demon friends had discovered it in a pawnshop twenty miles north of Sunnydale.

After speaking with Buffy, any doubts Angel had, that the amulet was real, vanished.

At first, she’d told him that both the amulet and Spike went up in a blaze of glory. But later, when he’d questioned her carefully, she admitted that she hadn’t seen Spike or the amulet turn to dust. She just assumed it was so because of the intensity of the fire.

He didn’t press her further, for when she said the word ‘fire’, she broke down in tears; and Giles had gotten on the phone and given him a stern lecture about digging up things that were best left buried. An interesting choice of words, he’d thought at the time. Spike buried. Spike the hero. Spike averting the apocalypse.

It was after that phone call that Angel sent Lorne up north to question the owner of the pawnshop. The amulet had been pawned by a scraggly-looking homeless man with sharp cheekbones and an even sharper tongue, so the proprietor had claimed.

He began to worry that Spike might not be dead after all. That perhaps he’d fulfilled the prophecy that Angel always assumed was meant for him.

Spike is dreaming. He’s in the cavern beneath the school again, pinned against the wall, pain searing through his chest as the amulet begins to radiate its deadly light. But whose light is it, really? He groans in his sleep and flings his hand out of the covers. And then Buffy is there beside him, clasping his hand. Their hands ignite, and they stare at each other with wonder.

She tells him that she loves him. And he wants to believe her. Wants to believe more than anything he’s ever wanted in his long, sorry life. But there’s no time. It’s too late. He can’t watch her die again. So he tries to show her that he believes her with his eyes, but lies to her with his words. And then pain, endless pain and a wild joy surge through him. Darkness, darkness everywhere, and he’s crawling through the rubble calling for her. But she doesn’t come. She doesn’t come.

PART THREE

“Are you ready?” Gunn says to Buffy, pausing outside the door to Spike’s apartment. “Get ready for a shock.”

“You’re pretty annoying. Don’t you know who I…” She gasps as Gunn swings open the door.

She walks slowly into the small apartment; it’s only a few steps to the bed shoved up against the wall next to the front door. A man is sleeping on the bed, his face drawn down into a frown, his fingers curling and uncurling as if he’s struggling out of a nightmare.

Buffy kneels down next to the bed and automatically grasps the man’s hand; he squeezes her fingers with almost inhuman strength. And then his eyes open, and he sees her kneeling beside him, and he panics.

“I told you to leave!” he shouts incoherently. He releases her hand and rubs his eyes. He sits up in the bed and pulls the covers about him protectively.

“Nice to see you, too, Spike,” Buffy says, sitting back on her heels. “You look like hell. You look like…” She reaches out her hand to him.

“I’d like to stick around and enjoy your little reunion, but I gotta get back before I’m missed. So if you two could stop arguing for a minute and listen to what I have to say, I can get out of here.”

Buffy and Spike turn to Gunn. In their wild tumble of accusations, they’d forgotten he was in the room.

“First, Buffy… I need you to write a note to Angel. Something to keep him off our backs for a while. And second, I’m worried about Wesley.”

“He’s translating some papers that she,” Gunn smiles at Buffy, “brought from Giles. Seems they might throw some light on this.” Gunn takes the amulet out of his pocket and tosses it down on the kitchen table. “Might answer some of your questions about what happened to your…” Gunn pauses and looks pointedly at Spike.

“I’ll be back later, if I can get away. Don’t try to go back to Wolfram and Hart. I have a feeling they’d do just about anything to get that amulet back. Anything.”

Ten minutes later, Buffy finishes writing her note to Angel and hands it to Gunn. He stuffs it into his back pocket, giving them both a stern look. “Why don’t you two talk things over like adults. And Spike, maybe you can explain your little problem to her.”

Gunn walks over to Spike and thumps him on the chest and then nods back at Buffy.

Angel leaves Cordelia’s room and runs all the way back to his office. He hadn’t meant to leave Buffy for so long, but it couldn’t be helped. When he opens the door to his office, the room is empty. He closes the door without entering and trudges over to the elevator, thinking that she’s given up waiting for him and gone back to his penthouse.

“Buffy! I’m back. Sorry it took so long.” Angel’s voice echoes through the empty apartment. “Buffy?”

He’s emotionally exhausted, and so, stretching out on one of his couches in the living room, he waits for her return.

An hour later, he’s fast asleep and doesn’t notice as someone slips a long, white envelope beneath his door.

“She just left. No, nothing happened!” Angel listens to Giles’ angry voice on the other end of the phone line. “Look, she left me a note. Yeah, it’s her handwriting. Do you think I’m a fool?” Angel’s face begins to morph at Giles’ response. “I don’t have to take this, you know. You’re the one who let her come out here by herself. Yeah, she told me to ship her stuff back to Cleveland. I don’t know, it’s just clothes and stuff. Makeup? I’m not going to paw through her things. Okay, don’t shout. Just a second.”

Angel puts down the phone and rubs his ear. He goes into the room where Buffy’s suitcases are neatly stacked. She hadn’t even unpacked yet. He locates a small leather case and opens it. Bottles of perfume, make-up and long, silver and gold tubes of lipstick tumble out of the case. He dumps the case on the bed and walks back to the phone.

“Yeah, it’s still here. So what’s the big deal?” He listens as Giles explains to him what a big deal it is. “You’ve got a point. Okay, okay. I’ll look into it. But she’s gonna be pissed if nothing’s wrong, you know. At you.” He slams down the phone.

“I’m sorry.” They both speak the words simultaneously and smile awkwardly at each other.

“Still the same, old Spike. Okay. I didn’t know. How could I know? Last time I saw you, you were all…flamey.”

“No peroxide in the wilderness. As for the breathing, I don’t know. A happy side effect of being burned to a crisp to save your little Scooby hides and avert the apocalypse?”

“No. You left me...afterward. After I came back to life. Heard your friends laughing and joking. Heard the bleeding signpost topple over. Heard you drive away.”

“I thought you were dead at first. But then I heard you say my name. Your voice. Most beautiful sound in the world.”

“You could’ve come back to check for dust. Maybe if you tried….Oh, hell, Buffy. It doesn’t matter. Not your problem anymore.”

She has a sudden urge to bolt from the apartment. Wants to be anywhere but next to this stranger with Spike’s face. She gazes over at the amulet with a look of sadness.

Gunn doesn’t return to Spike’s apartment that night, and around two a.m., they’re still awake, discussing what could’ve kept him away.

“As much as I trust anyone in this world. Which is to say, not much. Humans. He said he might not be able to come back here tonight. Probably best if he stays away for a while until things settle down.”

“Yeah. And, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna sleep.” Spike curls up on the bed and pulls the covers over his head.

“Don’t care,” Spike mumbles from beneath the blankets, and a few minutes later, he’s snoring.

Buffy tries sleeping on the small couch; it’s lumpy and smells of cigarettes. She gets up and roams about the small apartment, angrily eyeing Spike’s peacefully sleeping form. He rolls over on his side, and she takes the opportunity to slip onto the bed next to him.

She yanks the pillow from under his head, and he groans in his sleep and moves further away from her. Soon she’s fast asleep and dreams that a large, black panther is chasing her through the mountains.

“Remarkable!” Wes puts down his pen and leans back in his chair. “Absolutely stunning. Maybe I should call Giles.” He looks at the small, bronze clock on his desk. “Let’s see, five a.m. in Cleveland. He won’t mind.”

Wes reaches for the phone and has a second thought. He doesn’t want the pleasure of his accomplishment spoiled by Giles’ anger. The man never had any discipline. Always slept in to the most unseemly hours, he thinks to himself.

“Perhaps, Lilah?” He frowns. “No. Angel. Angel deserves to hear this first.” He sighs to himself and thinks that maybe a little nap would be nice so he will be refreshed when he presents the translation to Angel. He lays his head down on his desk and promptly falls asleep.

A half hour later, a dark form slinks soundlessly into the room and removes Wesley’s papers from his desk.

The panther has his paws around her and is chewing contentedly on her neck. She wakes with a start and gazes blindly into the darkness. But the panther’s paws are still wrapped around her waist. She grabs onto them. They’re furless, strong and so familiar. Spike.

“Spike!” She turns in his arms and tries to wake him up. In his sleep, he pulls her closer, covers her mouth with his and proceeds to give her a long, warm, deep kiss. She falls into him, falls into a moment of surrender as his arms grip her tighter, and his kisses grow more ferocious.

She moans and wraps her arms around his neck. Now awakened, he gives a low groan and rolls on top of her, pinning her against the bed with the length of his body, his tongue still between her lips. It’s a kiss far beyond hunger or desire; he kisses her as if his very life depends upon it.

She’s tugging on his shirt and rips it open, trying to get to his skin; and he shreds her shirt off in the same, desperate manner. They struggle to a sitting position; the rest of their clothes end up in a heap on the floor. She reaches over, placing her hand upon his chest. His skin is warm. His heart races beneath her fingers.

Spikes eyes grow cold and bleak. The look he gives her makes her shiver. It’s the look of a man without hope.

“I’m alive, Buffy. Alive. But I’ve lost something.” Turning away from her gaze, he stares down at his hands. “What am I doing? What are we doing?” He starts to rise from the bed, but she pulls him back roughly.

“You’re not going anywhere. Do you understand?” She’s crying now, pulling him down on top of her as she falls back onto the bed. “You think you’re the only one who’s suffered?”

This time she’s the one kissing him as if her life depends on it, and they both surrender to each other’s need. Their coupling is a furious confusion of arms, hands, legs. Lips are bruised, skin broken, hair pulled. Cries, groans, screams echo through the night as they merge, rising into a fiery release.

“Can’t see anything. It’s too dark. Let me check.” She presses her lips against his, and as she gently licks his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, she tastes blood.

“You want me to bite you again?” She laughs softly, opening herself to him as he mounts her. “Or is this what you want?” She swings her legs over his hips and arches up against him as he slowly penetrates her.

They move gently together, a slow, lush rhythm building between them, their hands entwined together. She reaches up to kiss him again, but he pulls back, gazing down at her with soulless eyes as he thrusts inside her.

When they finally wake, it’s late afternoon, and Gunn hasn’t returned. Spike crawls from bed and puts on his ragged jeans. Buffy watches as he walks over to the kitchen table and stares down at the amulet. The amulet is glowing softly in the light filtering through the partially drawn blinds. Pulling out a chair, he sits down and contemplates the tool of his destruction. Buffy rises from bed and stands behind him, resting her hand lightly upon his shoulder. He shrugs her off, flinching from her touch.

Hurt by the implication of his words and his withdrawal from her touch, a look of intense pain crosses her face. She flops down on a chair across from him, defensively folding her arms across her chest.

“There’s no 'we', Buffy. There’s never been a ‘we’ when it comes to you and me,” he interrupts.

PART FOUR

They spend the rest of the day trying to avoid each other in the small confines of the apartment. They don’t speak; the hatred and anger between them, building to a furious pitch.

Just before midnight, Gunn arrives, carrying a red manila folder which he hands to Spike. Oblivious to the tension in the room, he sits down on the couch next to Spike and stretches out his legs. Buffy sits at the kitchen table, her face tight with anger.

Buffy finally boils over. “What the hell is wrong with Spike?” she shouts at Gunn.

Gunn frowns, glancing impatiently at Spike, who’s ignoring the whole interchange.

“He,” Gunn replies slowly, nodding toward Spike, “doesn’t have a soul. He wants to know why.”

Gunn elbows Spike in the ribs. “And, you do want it back. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah…right. My soul. Why don’t you ask her what her damage is?” Spike snarls.

With growing frustration, Gunn snaps back. “She can’t slay vampires anymore. From what I hear she’s got no problem killing demons, just those pesky vamps. Buffy can’t stake ‘em. No, not at all. No staking vampires for this little Slayer. Especially the blond ones, is what I hear. It appears to be a personal problem."

He glowers at both of them and then mutters under his breath, “Please, God, save me from true love.”

Spike flashes a look at Buffy and then turns his eyes back to the folder on his lap.

And she thinks, for a brief moment, that she sees regret, instead of hatred, in his eyes.

Gunn tried to convince her not to leave, but he was no match for a seriously pissed Slayer. Spike didn’t seem to care one way or another and didn’t even look up when she left.

She’s walking through the dark streets of L.A., itching for a fight. Personal problem, she fumes to herself. Bring ‘em on. She gets her wish when she’s attacked by two heavy-set vampires. Without a second thought, she dusts them and then goes off in search of more vampires to kill. She’d like to wipe out the whole vampire population of Los Angeles tonight, preferably all the blond ones, but in the back of her mind, she knows there’s only one being she’d really like to stake—Spike, who is now, unfortunately, human and undustable.

“Why me? Life was going just peachy before that …that…” She found herself at a loss of words to describe him or what she feels about him, other than wishing him out of her life.

Coming to a halt before a twenty-four hour car rental establishment, she searches her pocket for her wallet and gives thanks that at least she’d had the presence of mind to bring it with her. The solution to all her problems is sitting in the parking lot in the form of a battered looking camper. Fifteen minutes later, she pulls out of the rental agency behind the wheel of the unwieldy vehicle. She doesn’t care where she’s headed; she just wants to be gone.

After several hours pass, and Buffy has not returned, Gunn starts to get worried.

“Why not? It’s what she does. Slayer, you know.” Spike rises from the couch and tosses the folder down on the table next to the amulet. “Thanks for that.” He nods at the folder. “Seems like I messed up Wolfram and Hart’s best-laid plans for the big poof.”

“Yeah, amazing. Look, let’s go find Buffy, and then we can contact Angel. He needs to know what’s going on.”

“I don’t think this is Angel’s problem anymore. Or yours, for that matter. It’s all there. I know what I have to do now.”

Spike picks the amulet up from the table and drapes it around his neck. “Gonna take this infernal thing out to the desert and destroy it once and for all.”

“Look, Gunn. Buffy doesn’t love me. She loves Angel. There’s not gonna be any happy endings for me in this story.”

Spike takes a sheet of paper out of the folder, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans; he shrugs his shoulders, a brief look of pain crossing his face. He walks over and opens the door.

“She can bloody well keep my soul,” he says in a grim voice and slams the door behind him.

She doesn’t know why or how she got there, but she finds that she’s driving outside Spike’s apartment building. A suspicious looking man is lurking by the entrance. She sees Spike run out onto the street and watches as the man begins to trail him. Spike picks up his pace, and Buffy follows cautiously behind. She realizes, with horror, that the man following Spike is carrying a rifle, and she accelerates toward him as he kneels and aims at Spike’s back. She drives the camper up the curb and clips the man. At the sound of the man’s cry, Spike stops running and turns back toward the scene.

Buffy jumps from the car and shouts at Spike, warning him away. He sprints back towards her. The man crawls to his feet and slams the butt of the rifle into Buffy’s back; she crumples helplessly to the ground. Spike is on the man in a flash and beats him into unconsciousness. Buffy lies in a heap, moaning incoherently as Spike tries to help her get to her feet. She can’t stand, so he gathers her up gently in his arms and carries her over to the camper.

Breaking open the side door to the camper, he places her carefully upon the tiny bed in the back and then crawls through the small window into the front cab and drives away.

He heads south toward Palm Springs and then veers off east toward the high desert. He tries to suppress the feelings that are surging through him. The blind rage he’d felt when he’d seen the man strike Buffy had shocked him. He could’ve easily killed him: the pleasure of the sensation of fist crushing bone. He holds up his fist; it’s covered with dried blood. I wanted to kill him. Wanted him dead, he thinks. Why didn’t I?

Several hours later, he pulls into a small gas station and turns around to peer through the window to check on Buffy.

Spike sits on the bed and gently washes her face with a warm wash cloth. Groaning, she opens her eyes and struggles futilely to sit up.

“What happened?” she gasps, falling back on the bed. “I can’t move my legs!”

“You got knocked-up a bit, that’s all. You’ll be right as rain in a few hours.”

He blushes. “Wrong choice of words. Some idiot slammed this into your back.” He holds up the rifle that he’d taken from the man who’d attacked them. “Quite a piece of work, this is. Don’t think it’s for deer hunting. More like high-tech demon hunting.”

Buffy gazes up at him and reaches tentatively for his hand. This time he doesn’t flinch away from her touch; he clasps her hand tightly and presses it against his chest.

“You gave me a fright, love. Thought someone finally got his one good day with you.”

“Hey, hey, now, pet . He didn’t, did he? I’m here. I’m here,” he tries to comfort her with his voice.

He fixes his eyes on her. “Why?” he asks, trying to suppress the sudden trembling of his voice. “Why? You thought I was dead for a year, and as you so very clearly told me back at the apartment, were doing just fine without me.”

Spike fills up the tank and goes inside the station to see if he can buy some supplies and a few spare cans for extra gas. The proprietor is snoring peacefully behind the counter, so Spike rummages around, and leaves ten minutes later, hauling several huge bags back to the camper.

“Got enough stuff here to last us a few weeks. Just a minute. I’ll be right back, and then we’ll be off,” he tells Buffy.

When he re-enters the station, the old man is still sleeping. Spike pulls a few bills out of his pocket and tosses them down on the counter. On his way out, he picks up some dusty brochures and a map from a rickety stand by the door.

He drives for an hour and then pulls off to the side of the road. Taking out one of the faded brochures, he checks the map which he’s unfolded across the steering wheel. He turns around to check on Buffy; she’s sleeping peacefully now, dosed up with the painkillers which he’d swiped from the old man.

“Joshua Tree Hot Springs Resort,” he smiles to himself. “Just the place for a little holiday.”

Joshua Tree Hot Springs, unfortunately, is abandoned. The main lodge appears to have burned down many years ago. All that remains are a few crumbling outbuildings. Spike parks the camper in one of the better preserved buildings which seems to be a small garage.

Buffy is still sleeping, so he decides to do a little exploring. It’s a blistering hot and windless day. As he walks out of the shade of the building, he feels like he’s walking into an inferno. Not a pleasant memory for him.

Next to the building where he’s parked the camper, there’s a long driveway leading to the ruins of the main lodge. Following the road, he climbs through the burnt and weathered timber and discovers a stand of Joshua trees encircling a group of crumbling cement pools. The water in the deepest pool is surprisingly clear. The natural hot spring has corroded the pipes that once channeled it into a series of pools; it now bubbles freely into the largest pool, spilling out at the far side to feed a small stream which evaporates quickly beneath the blazing sunlight.

It’s a melancholy place. A place for either forgetting or remembering what is lost. Here civilization has fallen before the harsh forces of nature. He tries unsuccessfully to imagine the grounds filled with people, innocent and lighthearted, thoughtless of what the terrible passage of time would do to them or to this place.

He knows all about time. And for a brief moment, he feels grateful that whatever forces plucked him from death brought him back human. An expiration date on life, on living, gives things much more clarity and urgency. He could die. He would die. It was something that he and Buffy now shared in common. And he thinks that it makes him understand her a little better. Makes him understand the bitter desperation with which she lived her life as a Slayer.

Buffy’s not interested in talking. She’s in terrible pain; her bed is soaked with sweat, and Spike is not sure if it’s just the heat of the place or a fever.

He rations the ice cubes from the tiny refrigerator, applying one cube at a time to her face and neck. It feels like a tease to her, and she begs him to undress her; she can’t do it herself. She’s a terrible patient, either demanding or crying. He doesn’t mind this; he gets worried only when she finally falls silent, listlessly staring at the low ceiling. He’s tracing spirals upon her body, intricate calligraphies of ice, words he is unable to speak in the face of her suffering.

And so he tells her the story of his new life-- his life since the day he crawled naked from the Hellmouth. He focuses on the minute details of survival, the sensations of living and moving through a strange, new world. Everything he describes is physical: the cold air at night upon his bare skin, scavenging for clothes and food and shelter. What it feels like to walk fifty miles without rest. What it’s like to breathe during a rainstorm, a sandstorm, a firestorm. Standing by the ocean at sunrise. Running through a forest. The smell of pines, of dried grass, of snow, of waves. For hours, he speaks only of physical things.

At one point, as he is describing being chased by a small bear cub, she interrupts him.

“What did you feel?” she asks, turning her head to look at him, her eyes full and dark. “What did you feel inside?”

He shifts uncomfortably, as if he’s trying to escape his skin to morph into another, more heartless form. It doesn’t work.

He gets up off the bed, goes over to the sink and pours himself a glass of water. Stands with his back to her. She watches him move-- the graceful curve of arm and wrist as he raises the glass to his lips. She listens to him drink; she imagines the cold water pouring down his throat and remembers that he used to drink blood.

That night, after she’s fallen asleep, he takes the amulet from his pocket and slips out of the camper. He wanders through the ruins and then heads out into the desert. After walking a mile or so, he suddenly panics. The moon has not risen, and the night is impossibly black. He feels foolish, losing himself in the night—another downside of no longer being a vampire. Closing his eyes, he slowly turns in a circle, breathing in the dry desert air and then stops, the scent of water rushing toward and through him.

He kneels down upon the ground. The stars above him burn fiercely but shed only the palest light. Slipping the amulet from around his neck, he holds it up in the darkness. Its stone is cold and dead. He thinks of burying it, but changes his mind and stuffs it back in his pocket. Lying back on cold ground, he stares up at the stars and wonders if that is where heaven is and if God is watching him. He falls into an uneasy sleep and dreams about Angelus and Dru and Darla and all the beings he’s killed. It’s not a nightmare, but a pleasant, guiltless dream.

When he wakes up, it’s still night, but a full moon has risen, and the desert glimmers with a soft, silver haze. It’s an empty place. A lonely place. And a sudden longing for human touch rises in him. He’s tired of being so alone. He wants to talk to someone, anyone; he wants to talk about the darkness inside him, about the darkness which haunts him.

He crawls into bed with her, careful not to disturb or jar her. She sighs softly and molds herself against him. Her skin is cool; her fever must have broken, he thinks, with an unexpected feeling of joy. She’s not going to die.

He presses back against her, and she slips her arm over his waist; her hand slides beneath his shirt, unconsciously seeking the warmth of his skin. He feels like crying, but doesn’t.

PART FIVE

The first days of his life in a fully animated human body were full of pain. It was the only thing he felt. He relished the physical pain; it blocked out the sense of despair he felt when he finally admitted to himself that she’d abandoned him. It was one thing to go out in a blaze of glory, all heroic and noble, pushing her away so that she would live.

It was a whole other game altogether to have survived somehow and realize that, once she scooted up the stairs and out of the Hellmouth to save her life, she hadn’t given him a second thought. Just another willing soldier in her army. Anyway, whether it was true or not, it was his firm belief that she didn’t love him and had spoken the words out of pity or perhaps admiration, he thought in his more hopeful moments, for his selfless act.

What she felt for him, he’d thought, had nothing to do with love. And so he was determined to exterminate every ounce of feeling he had for her before he re-entered civilization to find out just what had happened to him. And, especially, who was pulling the strings.

He knew from the moment he gasped his first breath that something was wrong. It wasn’t just the being human and all alive; for even though his body was warm and full of rich, pumping blood, he felt cold inside. Ice. Couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the feeling was until the dreams started, and he realized that he no longer had his soul.

His dreams were about his early days as a vampire, the reckless transformation from gentle poet to brutal ruffian and murderer. The dreams were unusual, unfolding each night in a chronologic tableaux, cascading down through time. Before he went to sleep, he would know what he would dream, and he’d mentally prepare himself for what would come. “Yeah, tonight will be the fight beneath the Pont Neuf.” Or, “Please God, do I have to relive that particularly embarrassing accident with Angel and the cleaver?”

It was because he dreamed without guilt, that he was sure that his soul had fled. One night, two weeks ago, he’d slept without dreaming; and he woke in a frenzy, with a sudden ache for her. To touch her. To find out if she was still alive somewhere out there in the world. And he wanted his soul back. He hadn’t found it, wandering through the wilderness, so he turned toward L.A. and Angel.

She wakes at midnight, whimpering in pain. He wraps a blanket about her, gathers her up in his arms and walks cautiously through the darkness, carrying her to the spring. Climbing down the crumbling steps, he sits down in the hot water, holding her gently in his lap. She leans her head back against his bare shoulder and sighs as her body becomes weightless, and her pain ebbs away.

“Breaking and entering. Grand theft.” She tries to laugh, but it hurts. She presses her face against his skin, trying to stop the groan which rises to her lips.

“Look, Slayer. You’ll be right as rain in a few days. I got something to do out here. Soon as I’m done, I’ll get you back, so you can clear things up.”

Back at Wolfram and Hart, all hell has broken loose. Wes, Angel and Fred have a heated conference, and, later, Angel calls Gunn into his office.

“What do you know about this?” Angel holds up the empty box which had previously contained the amulet.

Angel sighs and tosses the empty box on his desk. “Someone stole some papers from Wes last night. We checked the security cameras. Nothing. Well, nothing except a brief shot of what looked like a paw.”

”A paw?” Gunn laughs nervously. “Call out the big guns. We gotta loose kitty.”

Angel narrows his eyes at Gunn. “Something you’re not telling me?” He rises from his chair and comes around his desk, standing toe to toe with Gunn. He sniffs.

Spike clasps his arms around Buffy’s shoulders, and her body floats upwards. He’s mesmerized as the tips of her breasts and the smooth curves of her legs undulate gently on the water’s surface.

He slowly swings her body around until she is floating directly over him. He runs his fingers down her stomach and slowly strokes the top of her thigh.

“Tickles.” She squirms beneath his touch. Clasping his wrist, she moves his hand up and presses it between her legs.

He gathers her to his chest and stands up in the shallow pool. “Come on, I think you’re getting a little overheated.”

He places her down on the blanket, and struggling out of his wet jeans, he stretches out beside her.

“Just tell me if you get cold or sleepy, okay? I’ll take you back to the camper.”

They lay beside each other in the dark, not speaking, not touching, just staring up at the stars.

A little while later, she slips her hand in his. And for a brief moment, he feels not so alone.

When he wakes up, he finds that somehow she’s crawled on top of him and is using him for a mattress. The edge of the blanket is draped over her lower body, but her shoulders are cold, exposed to the desert air.

Her head is tucked beneath his chin, and he finds it a little hard to breathe with the dead weight of her pressing against his chest. He closes his eyes, savoring the feeling of her soft form draped over him. His erection presses up against the warm flesh between her thighs.

He wants her. Want is too tame a word, he thinks to himself. Need. I need her. Need to be in her. Shifting beneath her, he angles his hips so that he can slide slightly inside her without waking her. There is a moment of complete stillness between them; he senses her waking, slowly spreading her thighs as he thrusts upward and penetrates her completely.

A wave of pleasure surges through him as he is engulfed in her heat. And suddenly she is moving over him, arching her back and rocking against him. He grabs her waist to stop her.

“I don’t want you to get hurt. Let me…” he moans as she contracts down around him, squeezing his cock with exquisite force.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she says hoarsely, trying to squirm out of his grasp. “Oh, there! Again…” she groans as he raises her up off his cock and then pulls her down, plunging back inside her.

“Please. Let me go,” she replies, trying to recommence the delicious motions of her hips. “I need…”

They clean up in the camper. Buffy’s pain has significantly diminished, and she’s able to stand, but only for short periods. Spike makes a large breakfast, and they lie in bed, eating.

“I like eating in bed,” Buffy smiles at him as she munches a slice of spam. “This is yummy…especially with ketchup.”

Spike looks at her with disgust as she drags the plump slice of tinned meat through the slimy-looking red sauce.

He laughs, “Guess you got me there. Feels strange.” He dips his finger in the ketchup and holds it up. “At least it’s red. Here goes.” He licks his finger and winks at her. “Now, it’s official.”

After they finish eating, they snuggle up on the bed together and have a long talk. At first, they chat about insignificant things. What Cleveland is like. How Giles has become even more pompous now that he has a whole household of real Slayers to play Watcher to. And then she mentions the incident with Faith, and the conversation takes a deeper turn.

“I couldn’t slay vampires anymore. I was dangerous. They thought Angel would straighten me out.”

“Didn’t have much time for me. He was too busy kissing up to the evil side of L.A.”

“Well, it’s true. There’s something evil about that whole place. I can’t believe he’s there.”

She changes the subject away from Angel and back to her own problem. “That night there was this vampire. Blond and snarky. He had a real mouth. I just wanted to slap his face.”

“You always had a problem getting to the point, didn’t ya, Slayer? Liked to play with your prey. So what happened?”

“Damn, if I’d only known this sooner. Could’ve rendered you harmless with a few jokes and made a nice lunch out of you. Would’ve us saved us both a lot of pain.”

“Ow! Was just teasing!” He starts laughing at the furious look on her face. She’s a lioness, claws drawn, ready to pounce. “You’re in fine fettle. Think you’re all healed up. Guess I can stop playing nursemaid.”

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Her voice is high and sharp. Blinking away the tears, she shoves him off the bed, not sure if he’s laughing at her or with her.

He’s giggling helplessly on the floor. “God, I love this,” he chokes. “Bloody marvelous. Ah, com’ere.”

Lying on his back on the floor, he reaches up to her and pulls her off the bed. She tumbles down on top of him.

“Kiss me,” he says, growing serious. Holding her face in his hands, he whispers, “Kiss me like you love me.”

Afterwards, they crawl back into bed and talk. They’ve opened something up between them-- an aching vulnerability which makes them choose their words carefully. They don’t try to define what’s happening. This time he says nothing about it being just sex. She doesn’t accuse him of being cold.

This time their words are tender and sweet. They talk quietly about life, about living, and she falls asleep in his arms, lulled by the deep murmur of his voice.

The last thing he thinks, before drifting off to sleep, is that living might not be so bad after all.

PART SIX

"Life has no friend; her converts late or soon,
Slide back to feed the dragon with the moon."

“The soul was mine, but this life’s not mine. Never meant to be mine. It was Angel’s fate. And I think, by God, after what Gunn told me they’ve all been through these last years, that he deserves it.”

“Don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe I’ll get my soul back. Maybe…” he hesitates, avoiding her eyes.

“Look. I’m just telling you this because I felt you ought to know. My mind’s made up. The only thing is…Well, if something happens to me, I’d like you to tell Angel not to feel too bad.”

Buffy grabs the amulet out of his hand. “I’m not telling Angel anything. You’re gonna have to tell him yourself.”

“I don’t know, Spike. How can you be sure Wes translated the text correctly? He’s been known to screw things up.”

Their argument lasts for several hours, and the camper is trashed before they finally tumble onto the bed exhausted.

“Because you are my business!” she shouts, and then adds softly, “And because I love you.”

“If you say you don’t believe me, I’m gonna strangle you with my bare hands.”

He smiles at her, and they both begin laughing. Pulling her into his arms, he silences her laughter with a kiss. Her lips part as he deepens the kiss, and then he pulls back and stares down at her.

“How can you love someone without a soul?” he asks, and taking a deep breath, he waits with dread for her response.

She tears up, gently stroking his cheek with a soft caress. “What’s a soul? I’m your soul. It’s here.” She presses her fist against her heart.

He gazes at her with shy confusion and whispers, “Thought caring about me was killing you.”

“I…I always loved you. Always. You’re in my heart, Spike. You’re the one…. In my heart…”

Something warm and glowing surges through him as her words flow over him, and he melts beneath the urgent heat of her voice.

He nestles his face against her heart, nudging away her tightly clenched fist, pressing kisses against the soft swell of her breast. His sanctuary. He glances up at her; she’s crying.

“I should’ve told you sooner. Why didn’t I tell you a long time ago? I just….” she sobs. “I’m sorry…”

And so he comforts her the only way he knows; nuzzling her with his lips and tongue, he trails his hands over her skin, caressing her tenderly, trying to soothe her.

A thousand yards from where the hot spring rises to the surface is a deep crevasse. They crawl down twenty feet and balance precariously on a narrow ledge, peering down into the glowing light. An eerie, bubbling sound swells from the deep pit, and the stench of sulfur is overpowering.

Their hands are clasped tightly; sweat is pouring down their bodies in the unbearable heat.

“Now,” he shouts, gesturing for her to throw the amulet into the inferno. His voice is drowned out by a loud roar, and they watch in horror as a thick, red liquid begins to inch up towards them.

She holds out the amulet as if to drop it into the rising inferno. But turns to him instead. The amulet begins to glow, and she gasps in pain.

“Damn it! Give it to me!” he shouts, trying to grab the amulet out of her hand.

She presses the amulet against her chest. He feels a surge of heat as their clasped hands ignite. A sudden jolt knocks them apart; he struggles to cling to the narrow ledge. He glances over at her. She’s poised on the edge.

But he’s too late. She turns to him with a smile and whispers, “Remember. I love you.”

There are no screams as she plunges a thousand feet into the earth and becomes fire.

Wes, Angel, Fred and Gunn are huddled around Cordelia’s bed. Fred has briefly disabled the room’s surveillance equipment. They only have a few minutes before the attendants notice something is awry.

Wes had already debriefed them on the translation of the Demonic Verses. And Gunn had confessed to his theft of the translation and his encounters with Spike and Buffy.

“Just remember,” Gunn reminds them. “Spike insisted! Said he knew what to do now. And that it wasn’t our problem anymore.”

“I don’t trust him,” Wes growls. “And you either, for the record. Bloody thief.” He frowns at Gunn.

“Gunn did what he thought was right. Which is more than I can say about you guys,” Fred fumes.

“Well, if you’d watched Buffy like I asked…”Angel shouts in frustration.

“Just an Earthquake,” Fred tries to calm him down. “Okay. Epicenter must be south. Not too bad. I’d call it a 3.5.”

Angel interrupts impatiently. “We have to decide, now! Stay. Go. What’s it going to be?”

They all start speaking at once. The accusations flow among them until they are silenced by a soft voice.

“Cordelia?” Angel jumps up, reaching for her hand. Suddenly faint, he slumps over her.

“Hey, Angel. Do you mind?” she says, pushing her hands up against his chest. “And where’d you get the heartbeat?” she asks.

Fred, Wes and Gunn crowd around Angel, touching his now warm skin and feeling the steady throb of his heart. There’s another loud roar and a sudden jolt, and the building lurches sideways. They cling to each other to keep from falling.

Cordelia struggles into a sitting position. “Uh…guys? Hate to interrupt your little love fest. But can we get the heck out of here?”

At first, he believes it’s just another one of his nightmares, that he’s dreaming her death, her freefall into oblivion. Just like before. Then the finality of her choice sends him into deep shock. As soon as she jumped into the fire, the earth began to shake, throwing him into a blind panic. He doesn’t remember climbing out of the crevasse. Huddled beneath a granite outcrop, his mind is blank, utterly undone by her act. Curling up into a fetal position against the hard stone, he wills himself to die.

Later, he berates himself for his cowardice. He should’ve jumped in after her. But it’s too late for that kind of desperate action because he’s starting to get angry and hungry and thirsty, his human body betraying his grief.

Back at the camper, he kicks his way through the debris of their final fight and falls upon the bed. He stares listlessly at the tins of food and bottled water scattered upon the floor, and with a deep shudder of denial, turns his face to the wall.

In the beginning was fire.
Fire bore stone;
Stone bore soul,
Forged and forgotten.

Here shall you find the fourth -
Timeless, formless
Breaker of spells.
Soul catcher,
The enemy: Love.

The stone rose to the surface on a wave of fire.
Agrz claimed it and enslaved a million souls.
In the last days, by the hand of love, it shall fall
Into the deep keeps of earth and shatter the world.

What evil is this, crawling from stone?
Wicked human form, soul fire born.
All is chaos, beautiful chaos,
As the reign of Agrz falls to dust.

In his dream, she sits next to him on the bed and nonchalantly asks him where he put the shampoo. He grabs her arm and shouts at her, his anger rising in furious waves. Laughing, she shakes him off. “Wow, such a bad mood,” she winks. She bends over him and places a kiss upon his chest. “Keep it safe for me.” Rising from the bed, she pauses by the camper door and says, “When you’re ready to stop sulking, you know where to find me.”

He wakes in a sweat, heart pounding. What had she said in the dream? He struggles to remember…something about shampoo…no… ‘You know where to find me.’

Her soul. Inside him, burned inside him with love, before her fall. Just as his soul had flowed into her the moment before his death. All the time, right there before him, waiting for him to open his eyes and see.

He scans the whole perimeter of the granite outcrop that hides the entrance to the crevasse, looking for footprints. But he finds nothing. He trudges back to the camper to bring back supplies; he’s prepared to wait a long time. Forever, if that’s what it takes.

As he approaches the shed where the camper is parked, he notices a set of footprints in the sand. Someone has walked barefoot toward the shed. He realizes that they’re her footprints, but it’s a puzzle to him, for he can’t remember her walking barefoot in this area. She’d been too injured to walk to the hot spring; he’d carried her. And last night, she’d been wearing boots when they hiked to the crevasse.

He follows the footprints for a few yards and then notices another set leading off toward the hot spring. He sprints the whole way, arriving at the spring, panting and drenched with sweat.

And there, standing in the warm, bubbly water, with her back to him, is Buffy. She’s washing her hair and humming softly to herself.

She looks over her shoulder at him and smiles. “Hey, Spike. Could you toss me the shampoo?”

“Why don’t we go to Cleveland? You’ve got a home there.” He gives her an anxious look because Cleveland is the last place on earth he wants to go.

“No way! Can you say ‘humidity’? Besides, all that’s past now. I’m not a Slayer anymore. Just a normal human, like you.”

She finishes sweeping up the camper floor and leans on the broom, giving him a thoughtful look.

She snorts and flicks the broom at him; he ducks and grabs her around the waist. They tumble onto the bed. Soon their clothes are scattered over the floor, and he’s hungrily licking, and biting, and showering kisses all over her body as she squeals beneath him.

“Ah, Buffy, love. We’re gonna have a long, messy, glorious life, aren’t we?”

“Mmm…Needs…Like this…” she says, throwing her legs about his waist, locking him firmly against her in a full embrace.

Her hands tangle in his hair, and she rises up to kiss him. “Heaven,” she gasps. “Uh… Spike…uh…is there ice in heaven?”

Several weeks later, Gunn stops by the new home of Angel Investigations. Angel and Cordy are in the back, sorting through papers and books rescued from the Wolfram and Hart Building which had been badly damaged in the earthquake.

“Found this at Spike’s apartment. It’s addressed to you. Interesting handwriting,” he remarks, gazing down at the elegant calligraphy.

I hope you’re enjoying your gift. I assume you’re breathing now, along with all the other pleasurable side effects that come with being human. There’s no need to thank me. Though it was my idea, she was the one who did it. Jumped into the bleeding inferno with the amulet and came out fresh as a daisy. Minus her Slayer powers. Just wanted to let you know that Buffy and I are doing fine. I suspect you won’t be hearing from us again soon. The woman has an infernal desire to live like an Eskimo, so I assume we’ll be heading somewhere far north. Much love to Wes for the wonderful translation. And give my undying gratitude to Gunn. Please tell Rupert that Buffy’s officially resigned her Slayer duties, and, Angel, do stay away from the Big Bad Boys, will you? And if at all possible, would you try to avoid blonde hussies with sharp teeth? I suggest you stick to brunettes in future. Buffy and I went to a lot of trouble to give you what you deserve. We both wish you a long life.

Fondly,
Your friendly ex-vampire, now fully human with a soul and one very hot wife,
William “Spike” Summers

“What’s with this Spike Summers crap?” Angel asks, tossing the letter down on the table.

“I think it’s sweet. It sounds like they got married, and he took her name. You’re not jealous, are you?” Cordelia rests her hand upon his shoulder.

“Strangely, no. He died for her. I think he loved her a lot more than I ever did. But I suspect it’s going to be a wild ride for those two,” he laughs.

Epilogue

"If not today, then later; if not here
On the green grass, with sighing and delight,
Then under it, all in good time, my dear,
We shall be laid together in the night..."

Fifty years later, on a dark, snowy night, a middle-aged man, clutching a large, brown paper package, knocks on the door of a carefully restored brownstone in one of the more run-down districts of Cleveland. A tall, gray-haired woman opens the door; they speak briefly, and she quickly ushers the man inside.

She leads him into the drawing room and motions for him to sit on a couch before a brightly burning fire.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead,” the man says. “I wasn’t sure you’d see me.”

The woman gives him a wry smile. “She never liked surprises. He was the one who was always popping up unexpectedly. I suspect you take after him.”

“And that.” The woman points her finger at him. “Always running his fingers through his hair, trying to get her attention, the big flirt. Well, tell me, William, is it? Where’ve they been all this time? And how are they?”

“Who’s to tell? Everybody ‘cept me is dead and gone. Angel and his wife, Cordelia, Giles, Wesley…”

“Aunt Dawn,” William interrupts her litany. He takes a deep breath. “My Mom and Dad are dead.”

Inside the brown paper package is a handful of faded photographs and a sealed letter from Buffy addressed to Dawn Summers.

I’ve written you a thousand letters and burned them all. So if you’re reading this one, it means that I’m gone, and some nosy person went through my stuff, after I died, and mailed it off to you. My money’s on William. He inherited that stubborn streak of curiosity from his father. His father. What can I say about his father? I loved him, and now he’s gone, and I find it impossible to exist without him. The old fool claimed he’d outlive me, but I had the last word, didn’t I? Not much fun in winning when your soul is gone. He was my soul.

Well, enough about me. I just want you to know that we had a good life. A hard life, but a good one. And if William ever shows up, would you look out for him? He’s a bit of a wild romantic. Impulsive just like his father. Maybe you could take him under your wing for awhile. I’m sorry, Dawn. I chose the path I had to. Spike wanted me to contact you through the years. But, you know me, I never do what anyone tells me, and I didn’t know what I’d say to you all. And then there was the boy. I wanted him to have a normal life.

Time’s gone by so quickly, and now it’s too late. But I always loved you. Always.
Buffy

“Ashes?” He gives her a startled look. “They’re buried together in a pine grove on our farm in Wyoming. But there were no ashes. No ashes. No fire. Mom was pretty insistent on that. ‘Don’t want him or me near any damned fire after we die.’ She must’ve told me that a million times. Mom was a little weird.”

“I bet she told you that if you cremated them, they might come back to life.”

“They were my Mom and Dad, that’s all,” William says, jumping angrily to his feet. “They loved each other. They fought all the time and never had enough money. But they were happy. And they loved me. That’s who they were.”

He stands beside the fireplace gazing down at the flames. “I did think it was kind of strange, though…What they wanted me to put on their gravestone.” With his father’s deep blue eyes, William turns questioningly to Dawn.

“My dear boy,” Dawn sighs. “Better sit down. You’re in for such a surprise.”

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Ariane - ariane_five@yahoo.com