"Spike?"
Silence.
The sound of the tree branches tapping up against the upstairs window.
Strange tree, strange window, in the house of a stranger.
She was in was the house of a stranger, a neighbor, a neighbor stranger Buffy had never seen before tonight, never exchanged hello's, never nodded in passing and now and she had claimed his house for her runaway hideaway (well it was strange times) and who's that sleeping in my bed?
"Spike?"
She said it again softer this time as if softer could go deeper and it can, it did...
"Hmmm...?"
"You awake?"
The sound of him shifting on the bed as he turned on his side and pulled her body up closer to his and he dipped in to breathe her hair, smell the sweet tang of sharp roses mixed with smoke, like burning leaves that rose from her body to tell him..
"Buffy..."
She chuckled at him naming her like a found object. Flashlight, pillow, cookie, Buffy...
"You got it in one."
Now she heard the low rumble of his chuckle and knew he was conscious...or getting there...
"Spike...there's something I haven't told you...something you...you are gonna have to remember."
Now she had his attention.
He didn't say anything, she just felt his attention sharpen behind her. She could feel his brows coming together as he listened.
She waited for a moment to consider how she could say this, frame this, how to tell him what she guessed at while she still remembered it. Finally she just began rambling.
"It was when I was over there, in that spirit place with the three shaman and one of them, the one that gave me the vision of the Hellmouth opening...he helped me see something else...to understand something, something else..."
Spike leaned up on one elbow to look down at her and she turned slightly to lay on her back to look up at him.
She went on.
"They showed me the way something could go, not all the pieces, not nearly, but that's not it, that's not what I'm trying to say, trying to remember...it has to do with being caught, or held tight, like in a prophecy...with me and what I want being...used to make this picture...but then the...the picture, the picture is stolen or taken over or manipulated by something other than what I want, what I agreed to before I was born...but I'm still in it see? Thinking I'm doing what I want...I can feel, I can feel my heart alive in it all and...but it feels like it's tearing or...crying..."
"Why love, why were you crying?"
"It's me...but it's not me...this picture, the story is stolen but I'm still in it. That's as close as I can describe it...maybe it something The First does..I don't know...you remember that scene, that terrible scene from the Exorcist...where the handwriting pops up on Linda Blairs stomach and it says 'help me...' and it's the first time we really, really get it that there is a little girl trapped in there?"
Spike looked at her, very concerned...what she was describing now felt very, very much like what it had felt sometimes, in the softer moments just after he was turned..into a vampire. Had she had a premonition of being... turned?
She was watching his eyes and when she saw the fear for her in them she shook her head.
"No...not a vampire...I can never be turned, Spike, not ever."
And she sounded so sure Spike relaxed somewhat. But what then?
"Are...you sure it was real? This place, this feeling?"
"It was like a shape...or a block of information given to me...like a warning, like a fact of life. Of maybe my life to come."
"What...what can we do?"
Buffy smiled at the 'we' and impulsively reached up to smooth his wrinkled brow...and then eased his face down until their cheeks touched and then he touched his crown to hers, and they stayed that way for a few moments..just breathing each other in. Finally she said this.
"You...it's what you can do."
"Name it."
"Remember me."
Spike choked though the sudden creeeaaakkk in his heart.
"You...your not going anywhere without me, I won't leave you...whatever happens, you won't be alone in it.."
How could she say this?
She decided to skip over the mundane part of the philosophic argument and cut to the chase.
"I gotta get this all out while I remember it...Spike you have to remember me...you have to. Somehow I think that you can, somehow you can, when many, many cannot, that you might be the only one who does...like the world shifts and starts going off track and you're one of the few who can tell...like you're a shade different from everybody else...like how I came back wrong..."
"You didn't come back wrong..."
"Shh...shhh" she went on smoothly sticking to the point trying to get it all out.
"Maybe it's how you got your soul...or something that happens later...but you can see...like the shadows behind things or something...or maybe you're just too stone headed to affected by whoever is working the...thingy...so...you have to remember me, you have to memorize me."
Now she placed both hands along side his face and then continued in a soft reverent voice:
"Something...wonderful is happening for us...it has been for a long time now...don't you feel it? And it's rare...it is...we worked hard...and this...this thing between us is so easy, it feels like flying and you came to find me tonight, and I think that's what sparked my memory about the vision...you coming to find me, to pull me out, to save me from myself..."
"Pet, you're rambling...slow down..."
"No..no...look into my eyes, now, Spike, now..."
He raised his head enough to look into her dark hazel eyes, the windows to her world and they were both caught speechless for a moment looking into each other and then she whispered.
"Memorize me, William, please remember me, and who I am and if the story catches me up and takes me away and I seem altered or...I don't know what...if ever I seem to be .o.k. or something living away from you...don't believe it...something wonderful...something wonderful is happening to us...and I think there are forces in the world that don't like it...we...we offend them somehow...Giles has already proven that to me...and the others...maybe it's because we aren't destined...it's just something we decided for ourselves...and...Spike...The First or whatever it is, is going to try to stop us...and...and so if I ever break apart from you..."
And here she whispered...
"Don't believe it. Cuz this is it. This, what we have now...this feeling is what I want..this is what I have been fighting for."
"You...want...me to..." Spike was puzzled, trying to grasp her meaning...her request.
"I want you to remember my heart and believe in me...believe in me..."
She pulled his head down gently and kissed him feather light. Gently touching lips, just skimming the tips...and then spoke breathed into him:
"I love you..."
Pause and then again or did her heart say it this time?
I love you...
*
Spike was sitting in the Wolfram & Hart jet. They were on their way back to L.A. from Rome and he had been staring into the clouds...staring into the fluff and was it the steady drone of the engine, the motion of flight, travel, hypnotizing him, hypnotizing him, hypnotizing him and then his head jerked back with a start.
And he remembered something...something...
Something about staring into the clouds felt like a sea and see? Maybe drowning, maybe danger of drowning...
Buffy.
Buffy was drowning, she was drowning and she couldn't see how to get out...and so he had to pull...he had to pull her out...
And there was a promise wasn't there? To pull her out, to pull her out and hadn't going to Rome felt like doing that? Honoring that promise? But it wasn't right, it wasn't enough. It was the right intention, but wrong action.
Or not enough.
What? What was it?
It wasn't a spell...it felt more like deja vu...like living simultaneous in a world superimposed on another so perfectly, so absolutely perfectly the seems almost, almost didn't show. Like there was just the slight shade of a shadow overlap that made the whole thing seem...wrong. Copied. Not the original picture.
He closed his eyes to look...but couldn't grasp it...to be anything more than a feeling...
Frustrated now, he felt like punching the air to crack the mirror, to have the satisfaction of hearing a hollow illusion crunch to get at the truth beneath it. Shaking the thing until it made sense.
Because: who was that woman back there?
Was that the woman he had loved for years? The dedicated spirit of a loyal lamb and the heart of a lion?
That woman, back there..had been neither kind or merciful..it had been Buffy, he recognized the signature of her scent, her mind...but she had been flat and dismissive in her cold way of using the loose rules of the world, using the pop culture icon of 'get over it' as swift permission for 'moving on.' As a reason to not see him, to dismiss him from her life so easily. Was there a Buffy anywhere, anywhere in his imagination that could behave in such a way?
In that last year at Sunnydale...Buffy...Buffy's eyes...well...to look into her eyes, to be in her energy field, was to be...in the presence of...a wise master. It was true, what he had told Giles, she had surpassed her Scoobies. And once so utterly transformed, there could never be a thought of going back. Going back to the teenager to the party girl...would seem...almost obscene. As he could never kill another human being...she could never be sixteen again. And the more important question would be: Who would want to?
If Buffy had suddenly started dating Warren Beatty, he would only be slightly less shocked than her choice of keeping company with the Immortal. She was better than that. She was better then that thing by yards and lightyears.
There was an amazing scene at the end of Lord of the Rings--where then munchkins or whatever they were...just sat in their old pub, just sat there quiet as quiet could be. The world went on, the chatter and hum and music and dancing went on and they sat, quiet, perhaps even contented after a fashion...but so completely changed by their experiences were they...all they could do was...sit...in quiet..
That was how it worked. That's how it is for the veteran after wartime. The soul is marked and changed and stronger--hopefully. Wiser? Often...but always, always no longer young...frivolous...or...carefree...
So who was that woman back there?
It was almost as if she was forced into a caricature of her younger self.
She had to have known he was there in the club. Even if she didn't love him...she would have wanted to see him...would still have cared about him enough to...to what?
It was Buffy, it was...but it wasn't Buffy's story...it wasn't...it simply wasn't the woman he knew...
He looked out the window...it was dark and would be for hours still
"Turn the plane around."
Angel looked up at him his brows pulling together.
"Don't be an idiot...well, more of an idiot. You gotta know when to to cut it off Spike. That single minded will of yours isn't always an asset."
"Turn the plane around, or will I have to bloody jump?"
Spike spoke cool and low and Angel knew he was serious. He shook his head slightly but reached for the intercom buzzer and asked for a flight change.
Spike looked at Angel but said nothing. What could he possibly say?
More than likely he was probably right. But in the end, Spike..couldn't, just couldn't believe that Buffy, Buffy's heart in that woman's body, doing those things, could be that...emotionally disconnected to her own life, her own wisdom and experience. That empty..
It was Buffy....but it wasn't. Or she was there..but buried alive in that...vacuous thing.
He shook his head.
In the end, he simply believed in Buffy...in her character, he didn't know what this new twist in the story was making her do...but he had to find out...
And with that odd thought he felt something shift and fall a little better into place.
Yes. Yes. This was the right thing to do.
The world felt wrong, like something had gone wrong or was covered in dust...but this, this felt right, shaking it off so he could see what was beneath...felt right.
Finally.
*
To knock or not to knock?
He had a mind to just break the door down and storm the place and cry havoc and whattal.
In the end he knocked and it was Dawn this time at the door and she barely blinked at him and he barely blinked back. She had cut him out of her heart long ago and never tried to get to know him again and so the coolness with which she greeted him seemed in line with her past and so he wasn't surprised or hurt...much.
'Sides...his business wasn't with her.
"Leave her alone Spike."
"Thas' between her and me, isn't it then?"
Dawn remained standing in the doorway as if her slight frame could bar the way...but it wasn't her body block it was her words stopping him.
"She didn't want to see you...to protect you...not her...she doesn't want to hurt you Spike, and she knows you're strong enough to take her...going a different way...but she doesn't want to rub it in."
And then she dipped her voice a little lower and there was a personal note to her voice.
"Don't do this to yourself Spike...just...let it go...let her go..."
"Can't, pet...can't...call it a glutton for pain and pins and needles sticking into my vitals...I need to see her Dawn...now are you going to make me wait on the doorstep...coz, I will and you know it..."
Dawn drew in a breathe...and sighed but moved away from the door.
"Well come in...she's not here anyway..."
"I'll wait."
Dawn looked at him directly when she said:
"She may not come back until morning...or late tomorrow..."
Spike looked down...of course he understood the quite direct implication but he rolled with the punch and asked this:
"And does that seem natural to you, pet? Does that seem like Buffy to you? Leaving you to fend for your lonesome for a couple days leave?"
Dawn sighed as she led the way out of the foray into the waiting room.
"She...she's not under a spell...if that's what you mean...she...she's just expressing herself...having some fun for a change...you can't fault that."
"I'm not finding fault...I'm..." Spike's voice drifted away as he looked about the room for some evidence for his gut instinct, for these odd feelings and god...what if he was wrong...
Dawn was looking at him, waiting.
Spike turned away from her and said.
"I just need to see her thas' all...and I think she needs to see me..."
He didn't see it...but he could feel Dawn shrug behind him and then leave the room.
She was on the steps when she muttered low.
"It's your funeral."
Spike sighed and picked a chair to sit in while he waited.
*
Buffy was on the other side of the door and she felt him there...somewhere...inside the apartment...and her heart sped up and she knew a strange confused moment of joy...mixed now with fear...for him.
She was afraid for him...that she would hurt him in some way more mortal than a blow to the body. She was afraid for him. She wanted to see him...dear god, she longed to put her arms around him and feel his being next to hers again...but then what?
The Immortal was standing behind and when saw her hesitate at the door, he took her elbow and turned her around so that he could look into her face. He was tall, so she had to lean back a bit to look up at his chiseled features, dark hair curling down around his face. After a moment, he nodded and put his arm around her back as he led her away from the door...
"Buffy!."
It was Spike. It was a command.
She stopped where she stood. A command. He had argued with her, complained at her, fought with her but she could count the times on one hand when he had used the voice of command.
Once at the vineyard...when it had been obvious the battle was beyond them at the moment, he had taken her elbow and had say..."We're leaving...now." And she had heard him. She bowed to the command. His judgement had permeated through her need for victory, for speedy success and he had commanded her to live the Spike way, to come away and live to fight another day...and...and then on the Hellmouth...when he had commanded her to leave...
And he had been right on both occasions and so she stopped now and turned to go to him.
The Immortal gripped her elbow harder and as she turned to look back at the Italian...
The front door opened and Spike stood there looking out at them and said quietly but still in command.
"Buffy."
Spike...it's Spike...
She looked into his eyes..and felt dizzy...like the world had become a little swollen somehow...and blurry and all faded to 'nought but him and his eyes and the heart that had fed her in the most desperate days of her life and seemed a lifeline now...
Spike's eyes softened as he looked into hers and her heart...that small stab of cold deep down in her started to melt....and oh god it felt good to be near him, so good...
She started to move toward Spike, felt the grip on her elbow and without looking back, jerked her arm away from the Immortal.
And that single small gesture was like ripping a picture in two pieces, or a photo...leaving The Immortal on that side and Buffy with Spike on the other.
There was a crack in the air as this world broke apart from the shadow world...the strength of one decision...just one decision was enough to split this world away from the tired old rules of a tired old world and what one should do...what one ought to do...just one decision later and it's all brand new and set free too and life goes on in a way that feels right...
Buffy shook her head and cracked her neck and she stepped out of her encasing like Venus on the half shell.....
She walked to Spike now, looking into his eyes until she bumped up against him like a blind thing and now a small:
"Oh..." escaped her as part surprise and part sigh.
And as he stroked her cheek she felt/heard another crack, something like the thin veneer of ice breaking and was almost overwhelmed with a feeling of freedom...of choices...of the feeling that she could do anything she wanted in this world, anything...and Spike looked so strong, so sure...like he had complete faith in her...in her...in her first best self...
Like...like he saw her..like he knew her and being with him now felt like the sweet comfort of finally easy...of the hard works done and now it was all easy...and all because they knew each other so well...
And as he stroked her cheek she felt the hard mask, the smiling face she had had pasted on for months and months crack and slide and fall away and it felt...wonderful...wonderful...to just be...
It was that gift one had of being with beloved...it was the gift of the mask, the facade, the self you showed the world melting away into wonder, into wonderful, into feeling wonderful and being wonderful and how amazing to feel yourself, to be yourself and find yourself to be...wonderful, beautiful and you didn't need pretty clothes or makeup or to try at all...loving and being loved pushed it all aside and how stunning to find herself, to find her own soul to be beautiful. She felt beautiful.
And he looked so beautiful she had to touch.
She reached out to stroke his cheek and whisper.
"Spike..."
He nodded
"Spike..."
And if he had any doubt, any doubt...the touch of her hand told it all even if she never said it again to him in this world.
She loved him. He watched the warm glow of it move from her heart to fill her face, her eyes until it overflowed into tears that slipped down her cheeks.
He leaned in to kiss her cheek and suddenly she wrapped her arms him, seizing him fiercely as if she had just had a shock and needed to grab him for ballast and balance.
She buried her face in his shoulder and finally managed to get out in a gasp...
"I...remember...I...remember...and you...you remembered me...you...came..."
And as he pressed his lips against her hair he said simply:
"I believe in you Buffy...I believe you are the best person I've ever known or could hope to know...I believe in you..."
She nodded against him but said nothing and wouldn't let go long enough to lean back to look up at him either and so he wrapped his arms around her and held her just as tightly and...sighed.
And it might be horrible, but it might be true that there is a thing in the world that doesn't love lovers.
It might be horrible, but there might be a thing in this world that will do everything it can to suppress, to stifle, to tell you love is transitory at best, and go ahead, move on, move on, move on all a la mode...
But if there is a force in the world that doesn't love lovers, it is also true that there is a battalion of lovers who love lovers, and children who love lovers and old folks who love lovers and love itself who love lovers and if they stick together, if they used the great love glue then good on you, good on you for sticking with me all the way through to live the happy end...and then hail all comers, come one, come all and try to rail against us now, try to derail us now!
Buffy and Spike.
And the story, their story, the heart of their story as it beats in time with the cosmos, as it double thump thumps to beat the band...is back on track and not going back.
*
love you all,
lizerrrbeathan
