Map Me

 

by

lizerrrbeathan

 

 

 

 

*

 

Baby's Back

 

 

*  

 

 

 

It was a strange job. A strange job for him that is--never a dream, or a vision or a passing thought and certainly something he stumbled into mostly, mainly, because after all that had happened, all the emotional upheaval and heaving up, heavy on the guilt, steeped deep in remorse and tra la Visigoths! 

 

 

His hand was still rock steady.

 

 

And for that.

 

 

Spike became a tattoo artist.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

There were jokes. Crude jokes that he could suck you off, while spraying the fine lines and never beep outside the box.

 

 

He could suck you off and never lose his poker face or loose a round even.

 

 

The joke was: Spike liked to suck off. He was a vampire after all.

 

 

But no fuck, just suck.

 

 

Many’s the warm and cool body that slipped him a timely wink to get him to try the trough--but he wouldn’t have it.

 

 

It was all about the surface. It was all about keeping it on the surface. Didn’t seem particular about who either, a warm mouth, a swirling tongue, close his eyes and it was all about oblivion.

 

 

This is what he allowed himself. After what had happened, had almost happened--he punished himself by never allowing himself to be inside another body and a hand job or a blow job kept it on the surface. Kept him at the other persons mercy too and how about that? At the mercy of grasping hands and teeth that teased him a little too tight. A woman’s mouth was a vagina that could fight back. A maw with teeth and all and could stop him, shut him down, and so when he felt the physical sensations that were a dim echo of a greater aspect of creation, he was always at their mercy. His cock and balls in her hands.

 

 

And so the ancient, ancient dusty tome of woman on her knees was now he and not thee who knelt and needed nothing but sensation and this was his punishment. This thing, this sex without love, this sex without heart; this was his hell. Far away from warmth, from love, from comfort and why not? He had been wreaking havoc for a century and he had been in love for thirty eight months, two weeks, seven days give or take a minute times two and so why not?

 

 

One hundred and twenty seven years on this earth and he had dropped tuppence down love’s wishing well and so now he heard the loose coin rattle like pitiful little Timmy down the pipe, crying wolf and so how could he blame Buffy or any soul walking for not listening? For not believing?

 

 

He could not. He was the exact sum of two plus two on the slate and if it was true that one day he might be able to wipe the slate clean, it was also true that he needed this lesson first. You couldn’t wipe the slate clean until after you figured the sums....that was the way it worked.

 

 

And sex was his schoolmaster and love was beginning again.

 

 

That was why he stayed 100 plus years with Dru. First sex, second love and hadn’t that become his accidental subtitle? First sex, then love...until Buffy and the burger flip to grill his better half. ‘Huh....wonder if she is still working at that place...’

 

 

He wondered absently and then his mind slipped to scenarios of showing up...just showing up, like, to see her but that fantasy ended with her tossing a soda in his face followed by fries and the broken end of a wooden spoon coming at him hard and fast and not the kind of spooning of his dreams and try as he might, he could not make it end well in his mind and he sighed. Women.

 

 

He loved them. He loved women.

 

 

He loved how their scent filled his senses, how their bodies fit together, how they swayed just so when they walked, like nature’s built in come hither. The sling and sway of some grand promise to open beneath him in answer to a grander question.

 

 

A question he had been asking all his bloody life and had only barely glimpsed the answer. Just moments really, of touching something that felt true. And didn’t this, too, explain his years with Dru, who had certainly used him and betrayed his trust but he had felt love of a kind with Dru. They had been a couple of broken pieces pushed together for a bit like the beloved vase broken and split and never again to hold water but just push these two bits back together and there, see? And it’s the sole surviving blue violet from the whole bouquet. Just a token to remember the original.

 

 

And so William would gaze through the shards of Dru’s stained glass at her stained self and see a bit of who she had been and get a shadow of an answer to his ever-question. Because it had been love of a sort, flicking like a bitty bit of a candle lighting enough space to look through to the vista of ‘why am I here?’ ‘Who am I?’ And the answer would come in the tiny voice in a leftover love poem that sang: ‘I am here for you, I am here to feel this...’

 

 

Truth is simple and clean and he had taken it and he had needed it, and had never really imagined a brighter light because he was a vampire born from a boy and his poems and his poems had been writ with words squeezed out of his mind like small farts on parchment. And here he smiled, he had to, because it was a funny unlikely accomplishment. An accomplishment that is a relief to one’s own body, true, but certainly an offense to everyone else in the room.

 

 

His poems had been small dandelions clutched in his little boy hands and perhaps they had been valueless as a tool to turn the world but they had been an offering, hadn’t they? They had been a beginning place expressing his hearts desire to be larger in the world and so ‘with this small offering I thee wed my world’.

 

 

He had wanted to be a great writer and well, guess what? To be great one needed to understand life and to understand life one got to...leap and fall and break and hate and then love so very deeply the whole bloody blight was wiped away until he finally, finally he received what he had asked for years ago.

 

 

And so his ardor was a poisonous odor to all else but he, himself and this was the nature of his love. He knew this now. It was real to him, and a precious relief to put in the world but nothing the world might thank him for.

 

 

He was in a morbid mood the day...but he was an artist now, of sorts and so that was license granted, right?

 

 

He was a master of taint into tat.

 

 

He was a master of scar into sacred mark.

 

 

It was good poetry...this full circle come ‘round; this fangless bite of the needle as he tattooed precious flesh. Piercing into a person (or creature’s) body; not to draw life out but to draw upon. To give this little thing he could, this small art, this mark of what he knew now and why not?

 

 

Alright, so he was feeling self pity mixed in the self revelation but what of it? All part of it too, it seemed. And so here he was with his heart on his sleeve (seemed he wouldn’t be needing a tat–already had his heart out as a curio) and there she was....holding his heart in her hands and what of that too?

 

 

Buffy’s hands were her own to pick up and put down what she needed and pleased her and he was beginning to suspect that the act of loving was not about the guarantee, not about the money in the bank, but the money...spent. Where did love come from? Who doled out the payroll? Because, upon reflection, it seemed to him that a fortune of feeling had been thrust into his hands only to pass along. Yeah, yeah... that’s it, that feels close to being true. What if he had been infused with love...only to give it to her; like a scribbled note to pass along...like a scribbled note from heaven when she had needed it, and what if he had only been in her life long enough to pass on the missive?

 

 

Like some sodding great ponce of a go-between twixt Love itself, Heaven itself and...her. She had been pulled out of Heavens arms and stranded on Earth and desperate to be back home with heavenly beloved and had he been there like a churlish schoolboy looking in at his schoolchums romance, picking up the afterglow with longing and wanting to seize it for himself with or without....and ah so...

 

 

That leads back to that? Doesn’t it? Back to that and with a light on. Speaking of which.

 

 

Spike lit up a cigarette. His hands were shaking a little and he paused to look at his trembling fingers and think: ‘well...that won’t do...I’ll be out of work, if that starts up untimely...’ And then he smiled ruefully as the trembling eased and then he moved to the window to look out at the new night.

 

 

He was conscious of wanting to do something concerning what had nearly happened between he and Buffy; he wasn’t sorry, exactly–it was too complex for ‘sorry’. Sorry was a bump in the crowd, sorry stomping on a strangers foot as he tromped up desperate for a pint–no, this was too big for the simplicity of sorrow. This was a cosmic puzzle and he and Buffy, just two wee bits of the 300,000 pieces being wedged together to solve a greater vista of the Grand Canyon of creation on God’s coffee table.

 

 

But he wanted to do something, something like...amends, or putting something better in place of that. Couldn’t bear the thought of going back to Sunnydale, not yet. He wasn’t far away; only a few hours from the Hellmouth but it was as if he had crawled up to the edge to look over and then had lost his bloody nerve, or was waiting for permission or some such rot but he felt her out there, he did. Sometimes, he even felt her wondering about him and something that felt like her needing him too. But what he what would he give or do? He couldn’t give the gift of himself in battle anymore and that’s what she needed from him, wasn’t it?

 

 

No. Those days were done and so he did this small thing with these small tatts and no sex.

 

 

No sex, no pretend love and every comely or un and cum one and all and so, so empty without her it hurt.

It hurt. But never enough. It never hurt enough.

 

 

In turn he would lap, lick, and suckle until the whoever beneath his tongue did the quiver, quiver, jelly, jelly, white flag and everybody give up now...everybody just...rest...

 

 

It felt right.

 

 

As right as rain, as right as reign--

 

 

--As right as reign me, make me, map me.

 

 

Spike mantra.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

The young woman came through the door making the bell jingle and Spike looked up to see the all attitude, all swagger and all strut of brunette, full lips painted bright red, and he thought: ‘Don’t I know you?’

 

 

She gave him the once over, her brows pulling together and then she smiled a private, crooked little twist of a smile. Ah secrets.

 

 

Spike almost sighed, but did not. He was beyond the spell of secreted information. Of :’I know this and not you;’ he was beyond the secret blade of slice of reveal and stab and then let’s see. Oh no, he knew all now, he knew everything about himself there was to know and so in this way--he was fearless. There was no denial stamped down hard and crusted with time and the daily grind of rebuilding castle William the Bloody day by day was done now and so in this way he was free....truth will do that for you. Oughta thank Buffy for that some day. Ought to do just that. (Say, maybe that would rate a trip Sunnyhell way...hmm...)

 

 

“Spike.”

 

 

The brunette said.

 

 

“Uh...yeah...” He studied her, a little puzzled. “We know each other?”

 

 

“Almost...”

 

 

He looked at her closely, his brows pulling together. Power. Unmistakable and extra-worldly. Well, that wasn’t unusual for this part of the world, more like a Port o’Call.

 

 

She leaned back on the heels of her boots and looked through slit eyes at William The Bloody cum Spike. She almost hadn’t recognized him sans white-gold locks--well sans locks at all. He had shaved his head, which only intensified that starved look. But it wasn’t Samson without his hair that had stumped her at first--it was the complete lack of swagger. Oh, yeah, he looked well and truly starved now, he was a cave in on himself.

 

 

She gave him the once over. He was still in great physical shape. She noted his biceps, his hard slim body packed tight for extra power...but faded...faded somehow. Except for the eyes. The eyes were different. The gray blue eyes were softer, way softer, but too haunted to do the cuddle up and something else...something else...

 

 

Not just the hair, something about him had faded to...past tense. A memory...or maybe a shadow...and this creature here, this concentration camp survivor before her was all that was left of The Slayer of Slayers.

 

 

Huh.

 

 

Spike had fallen on hard times and had not gotten back up and looking at him now gave her a funny kind of feeling and what was it? What did he remind her of? Oh yeah, she knew now--this was how it used to feel when she had looked at her Mother in those last few years of her life. At her dying alcoholic Mother. This is what it was to be looking at someone fallen beyond recall and the dream was gone forever, the beauty queen was quite dethroned but still there were glimmers of what she had been...if not for...if not for...who knew what?

 

 

Who knows what snows through someone’s life blowing everything to hellbound? It was different strokes for different folks, wasn’t it? Different people fell down for different reasons.

 

 

But it was this feeling of, of empathy that stopped her hand and slowed the stake down to a stop. Chipped vamp or not, it was this feeling of recognition, of, ‘if not for the grace of Whatis goes I’ that stopped her from staking William The Bloody and just having done with it. (Though by the looks of it--some light dusting might be doing him a favor) No, it was that similarity to her Mother and seeing the afterlife of dreams breaking into such hard sharp pieces in a person it was a wonder they didn’t poke up through the flesh and so now she wouldn’t stake him. That is, unprovoked.

 

 

 

The world might be falling to Hell, so much so, she had busted herself out of prison to lend a hand and dusting him might be considered a nice bit of tidy up--but no. No.

 

 

Word on the street was, this was the guy to send you to the moon and mark you for the trip too. And she didn’t want to pick up some sad sack loser in a bar for her last send off before holocaust. No, she wanted a pro, and if that pro was a vamp? Well, that was kinda like poetry, wasn’t it?

 

 

Spike.

 

 

She almost smiled, but instead she sat on the table hiking her skirt up as she did so, giving him a full view of her already glistening quim so that he might receive the unmistakable intention of her invitation.

 

 

He did.

 

 

Spike went to the front door, locked it and without a word, came back to stand in front of her. She asked in a breath of a voice:

 

 

“How much?”

 

 

His smile was crooked as he said; “just tip me after the tatt luv, and enough said...”

 

 

He stood before her and looked into her dark brown eyes, his hands gentle on her knees now, letting himself, pick up the pulse of her, the scent of her, the her beneath the shield, the divine She in hiding. And with good reason. The world was hard, the world was hard and sometimes the only safe thing to do was hide the softer side–well he knew now what she needed. Soft. So soft. Something...like love...well, he couldn’t do love...but he could do soft...

 

 

Her eyes went flat and hard under his deep looking and glinted a challenge–well, he would ignore that and give her what her soul had asked him.

 

 

He knelt before her and parted her knees gently until her legs were wide enough for him to be gazing at her female gleaming a hello to him. He gripped her knees and felt a tremble run through her legs...hmm power...he felt power...hot power...and trembling need...

 

 

He lightly skimmed his lips along the side of her thigh just behind her knee, just a little light flesh, skimming flesh, just enough to let her feel him feeling her and doing this, he thought of a soft petalled flower like...peonies. And so thinking of peonies, his smiling mouth breathed that flower, that sprite, into her.

 

 

He couldn’t give her love, but he could deliver the scribbled note; bloody hell, perhaps he was just a messenger boy after all, but this thought didn’t hurt him now; he was glad do it.

 

 

He gently nipped the soft flesh with his blunt teeth and the woman gasped and threw back her head--eyes growing feral.

 

 

His tongue was already tracing up her thigh. His cool almost cold tongue drawing flat pink petals high up on the inner thigh, nipping and nuzzling the tender flesh as he crooned long sweet kisses into her already quivering quim.

 

 

He kissed the lips of her vagina until she bucked against him and commanded:

 

 

“Just do it!”

 

 

He grabbed her hips and held her still and plunged his long cool thick tongue deep up into her lava. He quivered pushed/tickled her high up inside until she was shaking, shaking--wouldn’t pull out, even as she tried to thrust against his face, just thick wiggled held his tongue deep inside her, vibrating the center of where her female opened to meet the world until she was coming in a scream. She grabbed his head, wrapped her fingers in the scrub of his hair and quaked against him, filling his mouth with her orgasmic deluge, and when she finally stilled, instead of pulling out completely, his tongue moved slowly inside her vagina, searching, exploring her sweet secrets until she was gasping again...

 

 

“How...how do you do that?’ but the words where lost as she threw her head back and bones went to mush and she slumped on the table, legs wide open for his perusal.

 

 

He began to suckle now; drawing her fluids into him and of course by now he, well before now he knew she was a slayer--could never forget the taste of a slayer (had to be the other one–if Buffy had been...replaced, he would have known it)...but it was too late to stop; her sluice was inside him now feeding his own need; the closest he would ever be to her again. The feel of her. He suckled, his mouth fastened on the Slayers vaginal lips and listened to her moan and thrash and cry...she was crying now, quaking and crying with the complete intimacy of such a kiss.

 

 

She had expected sex, great sex, even mind blowing sex--but not this...not her insides turned out. Not this feeling of being understood, of being known...of being loved. No one had ever loved her before. Not ever...my god, not ever...but these thoughts were obliterated now by another round of multiple orgasms as she quaked and shook before him.

 

 

There was more than one way to slay a Slayer.

 

 

It took two hours to bring her down. To land her kite gracefully to the open world that was waiting for her. For the days and weeks ahead. Finally trembling, crying, she begged him to stop--he did at once. He withdrew his tongue and then kissed the lips of her quim and after a moment to collect himself, he whispered.

 

 

“Poor beautiful lamb...you deserve this every day of the week, for what you do for the world. Any decent god wouldn’t let you go without, not ever.”

 

 

And then he pulled her skirt back down and she curled up on her side to hide her tears.

 

 

And of all the things to think, when she was capable of thinking, was this:

 

 

‘Oh god, imagine him buried alive in Sunnydale all these years and who knew?’

 

 

And of course, she thought of Buffy now and shook her head. God, who knew what lay buried in the world? What secrets? What treasure? That’s what this had felt like to her. Like she had stumbled onto something real and buried alive in a muddy world and now they were fighting for the world again...or rather, Buffy was and she was helping...and this vampire, this Spike, was a reminder of the many strange delights of this odd planet. Of the absurd non-sequitur blossoming quite suddenly out of brick and the maybe of miracles and maybe life was worth it...maybe...

 

 

Spike had gone into the back room, giving her some time to pull herself together and Faith could hear him clanging around and then he called out, casual like, as if they had just been reading the newspaper together.

 

 

“Cup a tea then? Do you see a design you fancy? Or would you like an original? Let me do what I have in mind, pet...”

 

 

No answer.

 

 

“Hmmm?”

 

 

From the back room Spike could hear her get up and leave, door bell jangling.

 

 

Well. Huh. That wasn’t business like. Almost like shoplifting. He shrugged, ah well...consider it charity, giving at the office like--her being a slayer an all. He stepped back into the front room and she was gone all right but her money was not–there were a pile of bills lying on the table where she had been sitting.

 

 

How about that?. The girl had lost a little face, but not class. He crossed to the table-picked up the bills and counted off four hundred and seventy six dollars. It looked like she had emptied her pockets. It made him feel sad. Poor girl, poor Slayers, couldn’t find their equal in the world, so they came to crippled vamps such as himself.

 

 

And he was crippled.

 

 

Crippled with a soul.

 

 

No, that wasn’t right, speak the truth, now, keep it close to true, having the soul had just let him help her, hadn’t it?

 

 

Oh hell...it was all confused and he couldn’t figure it out the night, and so he pocketed the money and sighed.

 

 

What did self respect matter? As it was, it was a miracle he was up and functioning at all--it had taken Peaches one hundred years to wean himself off rats. He ought to count himself lucky. He only needed to ween himself off Slayers.

 

 

Well...one Slayer really.

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

2

 

 

‘Fancy A Mark?’

 

 

 

*

 

 

He was being followed. He stopped and then stepped back from the arc of a streetlight; shook a cigarette out and listened. His attention all about the lighting of the fag, his ears all about and out for...her.

 

 

She had come back.

 

 

“Fancy a mark, pet? I could do you a fine one.”

 

 

He looked out at the space in the night and spoke at it.

 

 

“I fancy something sweet for you...flowers, the abstraction of a peony, maybe, set in a holy stained glass. Some might think you’d go for something rough and ready and take all comers, but what’s needed, what’s wanted, I’d wager, is something sweet for the likes you.”

 

 

She said nothing as she came out of the shadows. Her was gait was liquid, predatory, her full mouth ripe and all seduction and that was fine, that hard line was fine with him except for her eyes. She looked straight into him. Right into...him and he knew a moment of fear.

 

 

The eyes that had been hard and flat and reflecting the world were soft now and almost...sad...sad for him.

 

 

Pity and something else now--because all things being equal, if he had learned something intimate about her, well, she had learned something about him too, hadn’t she? Couldn’t open a door to look in without the inn looking back at the night? Right? Right.

 

 

He stiffened his back and blew the smoke out at her as if that would keep her away.

 

 

Smokescreen and she saw through it.

 

 

She brought her body up close and spoke low.

 

 

“You coming back with me to my room and be nice or we do this here?”

 

 

Spike stiffened. “I don’t stay.”

 

 

“Fine, here.”

 

 

She pushed him up against the wall, but when she started to pull his shirt up he caught her hands.

 

 

“No...no touching, not there.”

 

 

The streetlamp shone down harshly over the plains of his face and Faith could see he was serious. This was going to be harder than she thought, but she wanted to return the favor. Maybe it was balancing the scales or maybe it was just...

 

 

What?

 

 

He was a rare odd thing in the world and she wanted to touch it back. Just one odd thing to another and

she wanted to leave her mark

 

 

But she stopped trying to touch his chest and he could almost hear her working out how far to push and so she was picking her battles.

 

 

Her eyes were on his as her hands went to the zipper on his jeans and they both heard the loud grind of the metal un-stripped, the crisp of unzip and he caught her hand to stop her as she gripped his member.

 

 

He was barely stiff.

 

 

“No, pet...it’s no good...”

 

 

“I can fix that...” She murmured and she watched his face as she rubbed him gently--his face remained silent, still, barely changing.

 

 

She positioned her body up next to his so her heat talked to his...make this all about alchemy--

 

 

“No.” Was what he said. “Not there.”

 

 

But positioning him so close to her female maw was finally making him hard, well harder, so she ignored his protest and made her mind up.

 

 

She knelt before him and held his now turgid member up to her mouth. She kissed his tip.

 

 

And she heard his head snap back against the wall. He whispered ‘no’ as his hands gripped her hair, but she had him in her mouth now and growled a warning as he tried to pull out.

 

 

Her teeth touched him firmly around his shaft and she held him tight in her mouth until he slowly removed his hands.

 

 

This was all right. This he could do, punishment, humiliation all the better...just not kindness...not...

 

 

She wound her tongue around his shaft calming him down, and then she fastened her mouth up as high up

around him as she could manage and started to suck, to suckle pulling and nursing on him until his knees buckled, she gripped the base of his shaft firmly, her finger and thumb a tight ring to stop the blood circulation, to prevent him from coming too soon. No. Not yet.

 

 

She kept one hand on the top of his shaft until he was panting as her other hand worked around his hip to caress his left buttock. She felt him clench beneath her touch but she didn’t care. She worked her finger around the flesh to give him warning...and then as she inserted the tip of her finger gently into his anus, his knees gave way and he buckled over onto her and she released him from her mouth and eased his body down to the cement road of the alley....three seconds later she hiked up her skirt and positioned herself above him and when he opened his eyes to look into hers he looked so defeated...she stopped...

 

 

He moved his hands to grip both sides of her hips and she thought it was a caress, the beginnings of a mutual mating until she looked into his eyes which seemed so irrevocably sad.

 

 

He would say this just once

 

 

“No...no...”

 

 

She realized in a moment that whatever she did next would inform the rest of her life. He seemed so weak, she could take him anyway, make him want her and he would, he would do it, he would want it at the end, he was starving for it...or was she? Was she starving so much for a bit of his warmth that she would steal it from him? Or...or let it be...let him go...because his body was hard but his heart wasn’t, no he wasn't hard hearted, no not at all...he was...

 

 

As she looked into his eyes the answer became easy.

 

 

 

She stood up over him, let her skirt drop back into place and then walked a few feet away to lean heavily against the wall. Humiliated.

 

 

 

Her head turned to the brick...she was afraid she might cry and the brown hair hanging down around her face hid her while she put herself together.

 

 

 

Spike had pulled himself into a sitting position and was quiet for a long moment as he pulled his shirt down and put everything back in order. He sat there, leaning up against the wall, willing himself to calm down.

 

 

“Sorry...I...sorry...” was all Faith could say.

 

 

He shook his head and then raised himself to his feet. He looked at her for a long moment. He thought he should say something, but what?

 

 

Well if he didn’t understand what she might be going through, who would? And the world, oh what about this wild world, that, sooner or later, played you on both sides of the same story. Stick around long enough and you got it all from everybody’s lookout.

 

 

No, there was no apology. None was needed. The whole world was a mirror image. Everything, everything in his life came back to look him dead in the eye from another angle. It was amazing. It also gave him some understanding of another soul struggling in darkness. So that’s it is it? If he looked deep enough, deep enough into himself, he could understand anybody doing anything. He had experienced so much in his life time, he was a bloody reference book for all fault, folly and fine things too.

 

 

Oh now, and here’s a thought...if this brunette Slayer reflected his past actions back to him and everyone were mirrors for each other ...then just what did he, as Spike, reflect back to Buffy? If one half was true and oh it was, it was...then what of her half? He shook his head–that wasn’t his lookout, mind your own quarter, lad, mind your own...self tutelage.

 

 

Without looking at the brunette, he murmured:

 

 

“Still owe you a tattoo...come on back...just got an idea for what’s wanted, it’s a beauty...come along, then...” And with that he walked away as if they could just go get a chocolate malted and a cheeseburger or something.

 

 

She stared after him dumbfounded and then followed.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

It was a beauty.

 

 

He placed it on her back...between her shoulder blades.

 

 

Huh. Not a very sexy position and she said so.

 

 

He chuckled at that.

 

 

“Not meant to be sexy...unless...well...this here is the other side of your soul, see?”

 

 

And he tapped her back once, gently with a finger.

 

 

“Comes in through here, high on the breastbone (he ought to know about that) and this here is its back window on the world. This here is fashioned like a stainglass window and will help you stay...well, inspired, maybe. Help the Calling, help the works stay intact. This here tat, this design will watch your back, pet.”

 

 

She believed it.

 

 

“Mojo?” She asked

 

 

He cocked his head. and considered...”well...of a kind...if you consider Art to be magic and certainly fine art works magic...then...yeah...”

 

 

“That’s weird...I can feel it...already...it...tingles...feels warm...like it’s warming the cockles of my heart or something.” And when she laughed it was a dry sound, still it was true.

 

 

Spike nodded. Good. Good. What she had done to him, nearly done to him was bloody close to heartless and how well he understood heartless and so he had known what was needed for her.

 

 

“Pretty soon you’ll be window shopping puppies--cuppa?” He asked

 

 

“No...thank you...”

 

 

He nodded...soon there would be nothing more to say and it would be time for the river to part.

 

 

Faith looked down; she couldn’t say this looking at him.

 

 

“If you ever need me, ever change your mind--“

 

 

“--No pet...I’m done with all that.”

 

 

She stood up and adjusted her shirt so it hung loose over the bandage on her back.

 

 

“Spike...look, I’m sure you know, but I gotta say it; the...the world is changing...and soon--look, I know there’s not many places...someone like you can hang in plain sight...”

 

 

He looked at her blandly, unsurprised and of course she knew he was a vamp and by keeping it an unnamed thing meant she didn’t need to be responsible enough to stake him and that was funny for the likes of her...she was still talking:

 

 

“Hell, what I’m trying to say is that, maybe you should move a little farther away. It’s gonna get hairy scary and loose the goose around here and soon.”

 

 

Spike was looking at the floor when he asked:

 

 

“Sunnydale?”

 

 

“Oh hell no, don’t even think of going back there--all hells gonna be busting loose and I mean ALL. No, maybe you should clear out and be far away, to be safe that is. Just a head’s up. You know...for...being...”

 

 

“If all hell breaks loose, then there’s no hiding anywhere is there?”

 

 

Faith laughed. “Well, you got me there. But hey, hell might be like, your version of a select club, a real private members only taking over, right? But in case it isn’t...well...whatever.”

 

 

He turned back to the coffee pot and poured some more dark brew into a chipped white cup.

 

 

“Knew something was coming...” he muttered softly.

 

 

“What’s that?”

 

 

Instead of repeating himself, he asked, casual like. “What about The Slayer? No worries, right? She always wins.”

 

 

Faith bit back a hard laugh.

 

 

“You talking about B? Yeah, you gotta be, no other Slayer shows up on the radar around here and yeah she does win; but she doesn’t too and maybe not this time--anyway I’m on my way to Sunnydale to see for myself and get a big slice of the great whoppin’ cream pie in the face and...”

 

 

Her voice wound down and suddenly she was just tired, just old fashioned tired out with a flat tire and on the side of the road without a spare.

 

 

Silence.

 

 

Spike stared down at the red and black tiled floor as he thought. Of course one Slayer would know another in this tiny world and he had known about this one of course; he had heard the stories about ‘the other one’; the other Slayer and this was her and of course she would know Buffy. He had known she was a warrior of some kind, but hearing it outloud, made it all real. Faith was asking:

 

 

“So, you know Buffy? You must have known her. Can’t imagine her letting you stay on her watch without the once over...so you know her?”

 

 

Did he know her? Really?

 

 

“No, pet, can’t say as I do. Good luck to you though; the tat will watch your back.”

 

 

“Goodbye Spike.”

 

 

“No one here by that name, pet.”

 

 

And so changed was he, so altered by whatever mystery, was he, that it was true. Well, weren’t they all altered by life’s mysteries and bad manners?

 

 

Faith looked down, nodded once and then left the shop without another word or a backward glance.

 

 

Bell jingle, door jamb thump shut on an: ‘Ooof’ sound.

 

 

It was a post punch exhalation, a cartoon caption balloon for the sucker punch and almost funny.

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

Sunny Daze 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

The reception was much better than she thought it would be and certainly better than she thought she deserved.

 

 

She walked right up to Buffy’s house and knocked on the door and Willow answered. The witch stared at her for a moment and then smiled. It was a genuine, warm smile.

 

 

“Hi Faith.”

 

 

“Hey yourself.”

 

 

They regarded each other for another moment while this greeting percolated in the air between them.

 

 

“Heard you might be needing some help up this way...so...well, you know...for what’s it worth...”

 

 

“It’s worth a lot. It is. Thanks Faith, Buffy will be glad to see you.”

 

 

“She in?”

 

 

“Oh, not right now...look, don’t stand there, all poised on the threshold, come in and have some hash. I’ve got a late lunch going...well, early dinner...”

 

 

And with this Willow backed away from the door, the universal gesture for come one, come all and led the way back through to the kitchen talking over her shoulder as she went.

 

 

“Buffy’s at school...well, the new High School on the old low ground--she’s a counselor now. Helps the kids...you know...with stuff.”

 

 

 

“Yeah, stuff is hard.”

 

 

“Yeah it is.”

 

 

And so Willow brought Faith up to speed on the ins and outs of the First while Faith helped herself to a beer from the fridge. Huh. Beer in the house. Maybe Buffy’s got herself a boyfriend. Didn’t she always? Faith made a note to herself to watch that...and to step very careful around the ‘him’ whoever he was. Compensate for past deeds and all. Or maybe the beer was for Xander, and then she stopped at the thought of him. Of what she had done to Xander, in the ‘back then’ and hadn’t that been damn close to what she had almost done to Spike?

 

 

She sighed and cracked the beer open. Whatever. She tried to shrug it off, but, yeah it bothered her. Well, guess that was just another perk and side product of the redemption thing.

 

 

She was feeling a little weepy too, being back in this hood, in this house, in this almost ‘come home’ and that wasn’t like her–no not true. It was exactly like the her in hiding. Exactly like how she had been when she was a kid. As a child, she had been so tender hearted the sight of a little bird with a broken wing could undo her and why was she thinking about this now?

 

 

Life changes and it changes you.

 

 

She took a swig of beer, and walked to the rear window of the kitchen and stared out into the yard.

 

 

Buffy’s back yard. Buffy and Dawn sans Joyce. Tight throat now, water tickle in the eyes and a cough to cover

the cry into casual. There, that was it. That was certainly the cause of most of the sad.

 

 

No Joyce, no one to hug her home. To say: ‘It’s O.K., it’s all forgotten come over Christmas and let’s try again.’ Poor Buffy and Dawn to lose a person like that. Tough, tough break. And then she thought of her own Mom again as she had so many times now, since, well, since seeing Spike and blinked back more tears at a newly discovered terrible truth.

 

 

No one ever, ever loved their Mom enough–while she was alive.

 

 

Man, what, just what was going on inside her head these days? Just what had Spike done to her?

 

 

She sighed and took another swig of beer and tried to burp an exclamation point but it just wouldn’t come out rotund enough to deflate the sad. Instead it was like a kid making a bad joke to get attention.

Ah, damn–time to grow up.

 

 

 

*

 

 

And then after the first beer there was another and so welcome, welcome, well, if not with open arms exactly, certainly everyone seemed happy, well, o.k.--relieved to have her there and that was almost like a welcome.

 

 

Buffy too. She had been the last to arrive at her strange household and dinner (lasagna of some kind) was just coming out of the oven and Faith and Xander had been on the back porch catching her up and Dawn and Willow were in the kitchen, talking lightly and in walks Buffy, blinks twice at the Other Slayer on the other side of the kitchen screen door and then it was a nod and:

 

 

“Hello Faith.”

 

 

“Hey B.”

 

 

Just like that.

 

 

Faith studied her, Buffy tilted her head back, crossed her arms and studied her sister Slayer right back.

 

 

And was there was a kind of prose in greeting through a screen door? Sure, but that storytelling stuff was for the onlooker and audience; their eyes were only for each other.

 

 

Faith noted the wanness, the tired, almost blank eyes of something dimmed down inside Buffy and she thought again of Spike, diminished down to a half a spark and her heart softened a bit.

 

 

Buffy still power...oh yes, more than ever but she wore it like a wall now, hard and inflexible and...dangerous in a new way.

 

 

Faith drew in a breath, stifled a shiver of fear and would not, would not, let her hands go in reflex to protect her abdomen. To the place of penetration. Where Buffy had tried to rape her life away. Well, the intent had been mutual of course, of course, but now looking into her sister Slayers eye’s she felt a thrill that felt dangerously close to familial love. To see her looking so tired, so driven and still driving and wouldn’t, couldn’t let anyone else take the wheel and yeah she wanted to shake her a little and wasn’t that like love? Shaking a Sister into a hug? And to love Buffy, any Buffy past or present was a dangerous thing indeed. And that was part of Buffy’s power too. Over others..part of her charisma, her draw...she had, has a way of getting folks to do...well, just about anything for her.

 

 

As the onus was on her, Faith made the first move. She opened the screen door and stepped into the kitchen. The heat blast from the oven warming her flesh, the sight, the feeling of Buffy up close, warming her heart.

 

 

Faith’s introspection was cut short (gratefully) by Buffy’s voice which was a little over hard in her opinion but damn, if she could find serious fault for that either. One forgave the girl anything, everything. Incredible. Incredible the power of a charismatic leader. Faith wondered if Buffy was even half aware of her gift, her power; Buffy was talking now:

 

 

“...We gotta catch you up to what’s going on but let’s wait until after dinner...o.k.? I just don’t wanna talk shop for at least one hour.”

 

 

Faith nodded. “Willow and Xander filled me in of some of it. I’ll wait for the rest.”

 

 

And she did.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Dinner went well, so well Faith relaxed and maybe that was the mistake.

 

 

Or the next two beers–NO. No, never blame the alcohol, don’t go there. No, where the evening went from there was more about Faith warming to a crowd, working the room, leaning back, relaxing in and Faith in an easy chair liked to chat and say whatever, whenever.

 

 

After the meal, Faith had cleared away the dinner plates while Dawn made some decaf coffee for the battle strat ahead. The kitchen was hot. Heat from the oven maybe, or the heat of a very, very warm Indian summer in So Cal and Faith took her black sweater off; slung it over the back of a kitchen chair, leaving her in her green halter top. And as she was bringing coffee cups back into the dining room for the Scoobies she heard Dawn call after her:

 

 

“Ooooh sweet tattoo...oh wow, lemme see, lemme see...”

 

 

And Dawn had scurried from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a pink dish towel and chasing Faith into the dining room to get a better look. Faith laughed as she set the cups down.

 

 

“Absofuckinglutely amazing story B.” Faith laughed as she sat down.

 

 

Dawn cut in: “I wanna get a tattoo, but Buffy says--”

 

 

“--Not on your Mothers child.” Buffy muttered.

 

 

“See? Guilt. And that always stops me.” Dawn sighed.

 

 

They all chuckled..

 

 

“Hey B, are we still in the entertainment section of the evening or have we slipped into the business section? Though this could be a bit of both really, cuz, I have, oh yes I do have the drop dead gossip for the end of the world--“

 

 

“Hmm...timely...” Buffy mused.

 

 

“Segue away...” Xander offered. “We can move from entertainment to business.”

 

 

“Did you know Spike?”

 

 

The question fell so casual and bright from Faith and so eager was she to fill in the details of her story--well some of the details, that she rushed on and over the cold vacuum without a blink.

 

 

“He was living here a few years back, right? And I’m sure a vamp like that showed up on your radar and left a high water mark on the town, so you gotta know what I’m talking about when I say Hotcha Heavyweight, and deadly deliveryman even with, the whatever, thing, in his head, right?”

 

 

And here Faith stopped to look inside herself for the details of the story, of what to spill and spell out and what to leave high and dry and so she didn’t notice a very blanched Buffy; eyes going large and skin growing white.

 

 

Faith thought for a moment and then began with:

 

 

“There was something wrong with him, back then, I mean--if I remember it right, like he couldn’t bite, and well B, if he couldn’t bite then--he is totally toothless now because he is finally GONE and for good...”

 

 

Faith paused to wait for a response, for the applause for the greed of: ‘tell, oh, do tell more’--

 

 

--The silence was so complete; it puzzled Faith enough to ask.

 

 

“What?”

 

 

She looked around the table at the large eyes and tight closed expressions on the faces and then ended on Buffy, her face was going bleach white, her eyes were going so large and dark they pinned Faith in her chair. Pupils dilating. Fear. Faith smelled fear in the room. Buffy, afraid?

 

 

“Hey, no bad, here, no worries, B he is totally gone; whatever it is–he is dead to the world now...”

 

 

Terrible, terrible, terrible silence...that didn’t make it better, that statement made it worse. Buffy rose in her chair and stared down the length of the table at her and Faith felt the warning hairs go up on the back of her neck and the new tat on her back hum a warning tune.

 

 

There was no mistake in the warning--none...there was a hard look growing in Buffy’s eye, hard enough to cut...to kill...

 

 

Faith leaned forward, both hands in the air as in: ‘see nothing up my sleeves, I’m playing fair, what’s the what?’ Before the madness of saloon brawl, crashing through the front window and fisticuffs in the street over a minor slight.

 

 

It was Willow who broke into the dark cold silence to ask in a trembling voice.

 

 

“You...you staked him?”

 

 

Pause as the penny dropped; as Faith thought back over what she had said, of how she had phrased it, and she did a take around the table and saw different versions of the same cold fear gripping them all, slack faces waiting for the death nell of the fallen.

 

 

“Oh no, no...no I didn’t stake him; no when I left him, he was dead, but in the old fashioned vampum way--but it would have been a mercy lemme tell ya. So, obviously, you guys knew him?”

 

 

Willow began gently (dammit, no one else was saying anything) “He...he helped us out now and again, well, for a long while actually...you know with stuff.”

 

 

“Yeah, stuff, I heard about it. It’s hard.”

 

 

But Willow didn’t laugh at their ‘in’ joke and so Faith went on.

 

 

“No, I didn’t stake him--thought about it for a sec--but man, B; if you knew him back here, I don’t think you’d recognize him now. So totally toothless, it’s like the snow monster you know from Rudolf only after...”

 

 

“Bumbles bounce...” Dawn inserted and Faith nodded to her and went on.

 

 

“Yeah...yeah...but it looks like someone or something bounced him so hard up against a brick wall he’s not coming back from it either.”

 

 

“What do you mean?” Buffy had found her voice. She had resumed her seat at the head of the table but her body was still a tight coil ready to pounce.

 

 

 

Faith looked at her and thought for a moment and then said softly.

 

 

“It was kinda sad, B...it’s like, I don’t know, it’s like we’re these big game hunters and say, you come across a saber tooth tiger, so dangerous, so far out of this world, so far out of his element, you know it’s gotta be killed but so rare and wild and beautiful...you gotta respect it too. It’s the hunter/prey thing. The lines get confusing some times, you know? Like the Hunter who loves the man eating lion. No, something bigger and extinct, a saber toothed tiger, an albino saber toothed tiger--yeah, now imagine that saber toothed tiger busted up, starved and toothless living out of a cardboard box and you can get a little of what Spike looks like now. It was...sad...and pathetic and yeah, part of me wanted to put him out of his misery...but it’s still a saber toothed tiger, dammit, and as long as it is...well...maybe it’s the only one alive on earth...and it will die soon enough by itself...so who wants to be the person to kill the last saber toothed tiger like that? ”

 

 

There was a silence at the table that Faith took to be a poignant pause as they chewed on the last few stanza’s of her Grecian urn and then continued.

 

 

“I dunno what happened to him, for him to fall so low...but it doesn’t look like he’s getting up soon or ever...”

 

 

“How...how did you...what’s he doing?” Dawn asked quietly.

 

 

“OH! Oh, here’s me jumping over the best part of the story. I, a slayer, am now sporting a tattoo on my back

designed and constructed by William the ex-Bloody. Unless that’s bloody as in Mary’s and he’s been tossing back a few hundred.”

 

 

She stopped to consider and then began slowly.

 

 

“No, I take that back...I didn’t pick up the vibe that he was drinking, you know excessively or doing drugs even--believe me, I KNOW that vibe. No, he just seemed smaller and busted and...finished..”

 

 

She sounded sad at that and paused to sip some coffee.

 

 

Silence and then Xander said softly.

 

 

“Good.”

 

 

Silence.

 

 

“Good...you may consider this permission to stake him if you see him again, Faith.”

 

 

“Stake him?” Faith laughed hard and short. “I’d sooner destroy a crayon drawing that a child worked on for two days. Or a 2,000 year old redwood. The guys got talent. Incredible...the things he can do...”

 

 

Silence and Faith rushed to fill it lest, someone draw some strange conclusions.

 

 

“I mean...this tattoo, it actually feels warm on my back...he said it would watch my back for me--I think he knew I was a Slayer or soldier or something and he was...kind to me...no, I wouldn’t stake him...not like that...and I didn’t tell this story either to rile up the posse, sorry, if you got issues...just thought you might enjoy the gossip. Also it’s good to keep tabs on the saber tooth tigers in the area...regardless of the condition they’re in and B should know, right?

 

 

“It’s all right Faith. It’s all right. Look...can we all just turn in for the night? I am so unbelievably tired. We can talk tomorrow, o.k.?” Buffy said softly.

 

 

“Sure...can...can I crash on your couch?”

 

 

“Oh,... of course...sure...uh, Faith...did...Spike...say...where he might be heading?”

 

 

Faith thought back.

 

 

“Nah...I told him he should clear out...get away from California and any kind of fault line...but he gave me the impression that it didn’t matter. If hell was coming it would be a version of sooner vs later and it was all the same to him, why? Oh yeah, that’s right Dawn said he helped out--well, forget about that B.”

 

 

Buffy just stared at her, eyes wide, ears open:

 

 

“He’s not gonna be fighting anybody’s fight for a while, if ever again, I’m serious B, his back is broke...and there was something else, something odd about him, different than other vamps that I couldn’t put my finger on, but, no...the vamp I saw a few days ago would lose a wrestling match with a dish rag.”

 

 

Buffy nodded slightly and looked away from Faith, she looked right through the walls and into the night.

 

 

Buffy was only half listening now and had not noticed Dawn and Xander and Willow finish clearing the table.

Buffy sat alone with Faith but Faith wasn’t fooled. Faith sat there by herself. Buffy wasn’t there.

 

 

Buffy was off somewhere, mind lost in thought, eyes lost behind the wall that had come up between them.

 

 

Spike. Huh. It had something to do with Spike alright and his ability to bring a party to an end and clear a room without even trying and from miles away too.

 

 

Stuff was hard.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Buffy had gone to her bedroom early but not to bed. She sat on the chair by her open window and looked out into the Cosmos.

 

 

Spike.

 

 

‘Busted.’

 

 

What did that mean? She looked out into the night as if the dark would fill in the blank.

 

 

She had gone through the range, through the long complex list of emotions after that night. After what had happened, what had almost happened. She had gone from from anger and fear and betrayal and guilt and grief but not once had she wished for him to crash and burn.

 

 

Not once.

 

 

She didn’t hate like that. She...didn’t hate him at all. Faith was right, in part. He was much like an animal, an animal existing in its own complex nature. Given some time to think about it--she had to be honest. She had to be, nothing in her world would change, if she wasn’t.

 

 

And she wanted things to change. For the better this time, and O.K. she was here, she was alive and living and only heaven knew for how much longer, but she wanted whatever time there was to be better. And that would mean change.

 

 

 

Spike had been changing since...since he had begun to love her, she could admit that now, with hindsight...he had been changing. And he had loved her and that had been changing him...but like a adolescent growing in fits and starts or an...animal being changed by love in degrees...it was still only degrees and painful alchemy too; his suffering, his love, his confusion as he grappled with his altering state had been real. She knew that, she could see that now, understand that much.

 

 

She could turn her mind in and recall the shock and sorrow frozen on his face after she had finally pushed him away. After he had finally ‘gotten it.’ It had been genuine, his apology, his contrite shock was too immediate and deep to be anything but heartfelt.

 

 

All she had to do was recall all the times as a child or adolescent or even now, when she repeated a lesson again and again in different ways for the same growth and she could relate to a hard lesson to learn and how often one can fall down on the way. Most times, learning took time, change took time and Spike had been changing and on a time scale of the world and the passing eons; he had been changing very fast indeed, and that kind of transformation had to be..well....messy. By default...it had to be.

 

 

He had been changing, but not fast enough to avoid that terrible night.

 

 

What had he said? He had gone to the Magic shop for something to ease the pain, the confusion...the love...to ease it away.

 

 

Spike.

 

 

Buffy knew why he was skidding to a crash now. Some movements toward some changes were beyond recall. Once a person jumps, he can’t ‘un-jump’ half way off the cliff. Spike had been moving so fast there were few places in the world for him to be what he was becoming and so of course he had been destined to run smack dab into brick.

         

 

And knowing Spike...well, he would do it with style.

 

 

So what did that mean now?

 

 

The picture Faith had painted--tugged at her heart. No use denying it. It did. It sounded like he was punishing himself and maybe that was good too. Maybe.

 

 

Maybe if she could just see him...from a distance that is...maybe if she could just see him and then she would be able to tell...what?

 

 

Why she had been having the dreams about him?

 

 

The maybe Slayer dreams, and her drowning, and Dawn drowning and everybody in town drowning until she was the last one going down and then there’s a grip on her arm, cold, hard strong and she is being pulled out until she is free and then the two of them, one by one pull everyone out of the giant sinkhole. Sometimes, it was water, sometimes it was mud, one time it was fire...but always it was Spike being the one to help her. Help her so she could help the others, who in turn could help others and so on.

 

 

And now it looked like he was the one who needed help and she shook her head slightly.

 

 

What did it mean?

 

 

Time to be honest the clock was ticking and there was no time to fool around and so just look at it.

 

 

Even after that night, even after that, she had taken Dawn to be in his care, she had taken her sister to him because she had believed, she had known that he should be there. That he belonged in her story.

 

 

She had been surprised to find him gone but not alarmed–what had happened between them was between them and personal and she regretted the others finding out about it because it hadn’t belonged to them. That was why she hadn’t told Dawn. It was none of her business...which meant she knew Spike was not a danger to anyone...and that what had happened was something between them, something specifically for her. What had happened belonged to something she needed to know. Something that was happening in her story, that so far she hadn’t been able to understand.

 

 

She still couldn’t grasp it past that point but, thank god, he hadn’t succeeded, and here she repressed a terrible cold shiver and then shook that off too. Thank god, that didn’t happen because why? Because that might have ripped something vital out of her for a very long time and here, with hindsight she had to ask; had she been, so, so sad, so tired of this world that she would have become involved in a situation that would lead to an event that might make her truly suicidal? Give her the ultimate reason to tip the scales into sleep forever, just sleep...

 

 

She had been dangerously close to the edge, but something had stepped in to help her fight back and stop it. To stop him and this bit of fight once kicked alive had been enough to help her face her dearest friend from adolescence as she lost her humanity. Buffy had been able to stand up to Willow with...self knowledge. And who knew better than she how people could lose the center of themselves? As she had when she had discovered her AU cationic self and had tried to kill her sister and friends...as she had when she beat Spike to a bloody pulp in the alley? Yeah...just like that. And so she knew from first hand experience, you could do insane things...if you thought you were right.

 

 

And would she be forced to understand any of this now...if Spike hadn’t lost himself with her that terrible night?

 

 

It was a tangle...all a tangle and to examine anything, anything in her life, meant tracking it forward and backward in time to see where it had come from and where it led too and sometimes only time and hindsight could teach that. So now what?

 

 

She took in a deep breath and leaned her head out the window to let the night breeze pick up the tendrils of her hair with mild curiosity. Pick up to look at...letting go now and on to the branches of the tree to tickle the leaves and then on to the next fancy...

 

 

She had learned long ago that there was an odd backward purpose in the sharp stabs in life and because Spike belonged in her story, all of what happened between them belonged in her story too. And so she had felt, she had known he would come back; there had been the clock ticking and always waiting and now here it was.

 

 

Again, now what?

 

 

She looked out into the cool, smooth blue black of the night. Everything was dipped in blue. Green grass made blue. The asphalt of city street, blue too. She looked out at the secret side of herself dipped in night and let the sweet air scampering by clear her.

 

 

Breath in. Breath out.

 

 

At least he was safe...or safe enough and she had felt that, but hadn’t known...not for certain, so that was something.

 

 

Absentmindedly her hand went to her heart and she placed her palm over the beating place, the beginning and end of life in every human being and no, no that’s not right. We live on don’t we? We live past the flesh and into safe heavens, she knew that as few people walking on Earth did and this knowing should give her clearer vision shouldn’t it? Help her to be less....afraid. If she knew, if she knew death wasn’t the end..then perhaps the impending losses in battle might weigh on her less. Help her to keep her mind clear and on the straight and narrow or being a good leader.

 

 

And wasn’t Spike himself walking testimony that death wasn’t the end? Wasn’t her natural enemy, all vampires providing her with the best information and solace the universe could offer? Death was not the end.

 

 

See? This is why Spike was in her life–his...nature, his odd bird, lone wolf way always made her think thoughts like this. Helped her to think sideways, because he was sideways incarnate; he was contradiction walking. He helped her to understand the twisted path.

    

 

And with what was coming, she needed to be stronger that she had ever imagined possible and if not for everything, everything that had led up to Glory and death and sacrifice that wasn’t a sacrifice at all but a gift she had wanted to give and Willow breaking the rules with her childish will, her stamping foot and stampede into realms that should have been beyond her touch and what of that too?

 

Did we all have so much free will one could storm heavens gate and impose my request for a yellow lollipop and then take it too? Or had heaven seen it coming and let her go...just let her go, with only the warm eternity of love in Spike’s eye to cushion the fall.

 

 

Spike loved her and had crossed a terrible line, heaven loved her and let her go...

 

 

It was all a tangle and sure and sure the world was not what she had imagined and did she have enough will to change any of it? Did anyone?

 

 

Well Spike had certainly broken a few molds of what a soulless vampire may or may not be and was that suppose to encourage her or was it a caution?

 

 

She felt like she was asking questions that she couldn’t answer by herself. She needed to bounce them off the other side of the wall and just who had she turned to for the past year and a half to be her mirror?

 

 

Spike....Spike my enemy, my friend...

 

 

This thing with Spike loomed large in her mind and heart for a reason and so she needed to look at it. Honestly, really for the clues it contained...because if he belonged in her life everything, everything that had happened between them belonged in her life too.

 

 

She needed to be quiet, get real and think.

 

 

Or was it time to feel?

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

4

 

 

Feelings Schmeelings

 

 

 

*

 

 

And with everything that happened in the next few weeks these thoughts of Spike sat in the text and happenings like a crazy rela-shipping bobbing like a bottle in the sea that contained a private message coming ever closer to land with a casual plomp on her shore someday soon and so Buffy thought, maybe he would show up...just like that when she needed him most. To help ease her into this new expanded leadership role with these girls, these potential people Giles had landed on her door.

 

 

He didn’t come, though and so she made the descent as Orpheus, as side show barker grifting out: ‘come one, come all’ and: ‘girls, girls, girls, COUNT ‘EM’ into the madness and hell on earth as only she could. There were smack downs and the promise of more to come and all gift wrapped and delivered on her doorstep too.

 

 

It was the world coming, it was the world to bee and sting it would, it did and so thinking about Spike and feeling her feelings was one of the last things that seemed to help her now.

 

 

And where was he? (When she needed him)

 

 

Except feeling anger, maybe, except being double pissed. Now Faith was a help, a surprising asset but Buffy would dearly love and–yeah let’s name it, Spike’s deadly left hook–wouldn’t mind that about now, right about the time of the Ubervamp.

 

 

Cuz, sometimes, it takes one to fight one and she had had the tar beat ought of her before she had figured that out. She and Faith both. Faith had been laid out up stairs on her bed to do the deep healing Slayer meditation for days and so she had been out of the fight when Buffy had to go cold, think cold and go deep into the dark of herself to find the match to send Herr Uber to it’s unmaker.

 

 

And she had done it. Before the potents and portents, before the growing group of girls looking to her for leadership, for the way and bless Giles for trying, for being there...but something like this was all about knowledge from the inside. From being the one who knew death from the inside out and could deliver it back unmoved and unblinking.

 

 

No fear, no glory, no band parading the soldier into battle...just death, just this stopping here to begin somewhere else. But that went both ways, didn’t it? Oh yes, oh yes it always, did, it always would.

 

 

And so Andrea was dead, and Seerah was dead and it was two girls in the back yard grave and how many more? How many? But hey there were always more girls to throw into the volcano, right?

 

 

Buffy drew in a deep breath and ran her hands over her face.

 

 

O.K., so maybe she wasn’t getting ‘the zen’ of this down quite yet...or maybe it should always hurt. Because hurting means something is wrong and wrong means war is never right. Right?

 

 

She stood on the front porch of her house and looked out into the street. She could hear the girls training in the back yard; she could hear Kennedy calling out the moves. The taskmaster-err mistress. Whatever. Takes one to know one. And if Kennedy was irritating, well, at least she was willing to step up to the burden of being disliked in a leadership role. And if she was irritating and dogmatic and impossible to talk to–well, wasn’t that how Buffy worked her will in the world these days–and was she able to recognize it? Oh yeah, sure.

 

 

She needed someone with a sense of humor though, to balance how tight it was becoming, and Xander was trying...but that was just it; Xander was trying.

 

 

Spike.

 

 

She needed Spike. There, she thought it. Next thing she would be saying it.

 

 

The front door creaked open and Buffy turned slightly to see Faith walking slowing and only a little stiff now in the one knee...good, that was good and Buffy said so.

 

 

“You’re looking good.”

 

 

Faith cocked her head and smiled crookedly at her.

 

 

“Why, thanks, B...all part of haute coutre de superchick, donchta know. Thousands envy us.”

 

 

Buffy took a breath in and spoke out on the exhalation.

 

 

“Not right now, maybe...maybe later, we can clean up good looking.”

 

 

“You make a joke, B? Damn good to hear the glad slanging back.”

 

 

Instead of responding to that Buffy said the other thing.

 

 

“We’re in trouble Faith, we both know it and we need help. I’m used to tapping the demon world, the demons that live on the fringe for–“

 

 

“Insider trading?”

 

 

“Something like that...you said Spike was...”

 

 

“Ought of it, B. Completely. At least...” and here her voice trailed off and Faith paused in mid sentence and Buffy turned to look at her closely.

 

 

“What? What is it?”

 

 

Faith stepped down off the porch and starting walking around the side of the house to the back yard all casual and easy and she talked to Buffy over her shoulder as she went but Buffy’s radar was on hell and high water now all the time and, yeah; big BLEEP! Faith was hiding something. 

 

 

“Faith! Wait, wait up–“

 

 

“Let’s go check out the girls, girl, wanna see how they’re doing–“

 

 

Buffy moved quickly and caught up with Faith easily and resisted the urge to grab her arm and turn her around and instead she said:

 

 

“I know you said he was out of it, but I know him...and you don’t...”

 

 

Faith’s brow drew together as she turned to look hard at Buffy and opened her mouth to say something, but then shook it off. Buffy was still talking.

 

 

“He can bounce back like nobody I know...and we had, a...a disagreement before be left, but if he’s at all...”

 

 

“How about Angel?” Faith cut in quickly with the question.

 

 

That stopped Buffy in her tracks. Angel. She hadn’t even thought of Angel. Instantly her gut clenched a bit at the thought of him coming to Sunnydale and she said swiftly.

 

 

“No. No, doesn’t feel right, besides he has his own mess–“

 

 

“–Well, that’s true. O.K. forget him for the moment.” Faith chewed on her lip as she thought hard.

 

 

Just what to tell Buffy? She could be so touchy about her turf and Faith knew she had crossed a line. Invisible line maybe...but there sure as sure.

 

 

Faith walked a little ahead of Buffy to give her a few extra moments to think how to spill it.

 

 

“B...” she began and when she was greeted with silence she turned around and saw Buffy staring fixedly at the girls working out in the yard. Faith watched, her brows pulled together, her head cocked slightly and when she turned to follow Buffy’s gaze, her senses were alert now, braced on the balls of her feet and so tight was she, Faith didn’t see it at first, the thing that was setting Buffy off.

 

 

“What, where it is?” Faith said in her battle gear on voice.

 

 

And then the soft but succinct reply that turned Faith’s innards to ice.

 

 

“On Cathy’s arm. On Vi’s throat. On Rona’s belly.”

 

 

Shit. SHHHIIIIITTTT!

 

 

Faith said nothing for a moment and damn if she felt like she was seven years old again and caught stealing a dollar from her Mom’s wallet but Buffy was not her Mom, and there were reasons, very good reasons that many of the girls were now sporting tattoos.

 

 

Spike Tats.

 

 

Of course they were Spike Tats, Buffy knew they were, no use in hiding that fact and so Faith just jumped in.

 

 

“O.K., so now you know and that’s good, that’s good, cuz I was wondering how to bring it up and, well...I also gotta mention that...Spike has been asking after you...”

 

 

And oddly, it was those last few words that were tossed like a casual catch that began to burn Buffy’s fuse. Like they were just playing ball or something and Spike’s name was an easy toss; like he and Faith had intimate conversations all the time and what gave her the right to say his name like that?

 

 

What?

 

 

And then suddenly as one sister knows another Buffy knew the answer to that too, she knew it

 

 

Buffy’s blood ran so cold she grew a little afraid of herself, there in that moment, Buffy was afraid of what she might do to her sister Slayer. Again.

 

 

This electric cold rage telegraphed immediately to Faith and damn it! Damn it! Sure Faith had crossed a line in bringing the girls to Spike, but there were reasons for it and she was in this fight too and Buffy should trust her just a little–but this was an implacable deadly force coming from THE SLAYER now and damn it, now Faith knew how Buffy had slain the Ubervamp; single handed--now she knew why it was Buffy and not her at the helm, but she was a Slayer too and had her own instincts; her own contribution to make and fate had put Spike in her path and so she had taken the hint, she had taken the only help he seemed capable of giving and Buffy’s reaction was way too close to melt down and way, way over the top of the sitch.

 

 

“Whoa...whoa...all five by five, B, all good, I was careful, the girls were armed to the max with tasers and Minny has a fantastic blow dart...and B...” and here Faith said softly. “B...please, just slow down...”

 

 

Had Faith just said ‘please’? Yeah, she had, but Buffy seemed blind and deaf to it because here she came, cold mountain moving, and with that one step that advanced Buffy toward Faith, Faith saw something else beneath the anger...it was pain. Pain was always behind anger and Buffy was in pain and what did this scene remind her of?

 

 

“SHIT!” Faith exclaimed vehemently, followed now with a succession of: “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

 

 

Which was absolutely the wrong exclamation, seeing that it did double verb duty, as fornicato indeliceto.

 

 

“No, no, wrong word, no fuck–I mean–damn it B, don’t look at me like that, how could I have

known?”

 

 

Buffy and Spike?

 

 

Shit, shit...Buffy and Spike...and thinking back of his haunted eyes glowing a just a little bit at the sound of Buffy’s name and doings and his questions, quiet, but predator soft moving ever closer and closer to the primary target, the bull eyeing his B. And no wonder he was a mess, who wouldn’t be? Who could love Buffy and not end up as bug splat? And then she felt a moment of deep sadness at that thought too. Of course Spike loved Buffy, of course Buffy had Spike first, body mind and whatnot; Buffy was B for best...and that certainly explained a lot.

 

 

“It was before I came into town...and it wasn’t that, not the deep nasty, it was just–SHIT! Look I’m not gonna explain myself, excuse myself to you. Can’t we have this conversation somewhere else?”

 

 

And Faith looked over her shoulder at the girls who were slowing down in their routine to gape at the two Slayers and as Faith turned back around, Buffy couldn’t hold it in; didn’t want too, and so she looked Faith dead in the eye, let the other Slayer see it coming and rabbit punched her fast and hard enough to knock her flying back ten feet.

 

 

She had let it come. Faith had seen the blow coming and had let it crash her down. She was aware of hands helping her up and loud protests and exclamations of:

 

 

“Buffy! What in the hell has gotten into you Buffy!” It was Xander yelling that out.

 

 

Faith was seeing stars spinning, racing ‘round and ‘round and the world was leaning to the left but she was aware of Xander running from the garage, running to her defense. Well how about that?

 

 

Dimly, she was aware of them all turning on Buffy, yelling out and the cold, cold air of fright turning to anger now and wasn’t that the way it worked? Wasn’t that why Buffy had hit out? Wasn’t that why anybody did? And she had an illumination now, a bright light burning through the muck of the layers of the mind desperately fighting for control over every memory ever and suddenly she knew why she had let Buffy hit her. Faith had wanted her to.

 

 

She had wanted it. And Buffy, bless her, the worlds handmaiden, had given her the gift, the shockabucu to wake the sleeping mind.

 

 

She had wanted Buffy to hit her. It had felt like coming home to childhood and making a present of herself as punching bag before Mom all over again. She had wanted Buffy to hit her, because Buffy had needed it so badly, and Faith, deep down inside had wanted to please Buffy, had always wanted to please her, and so, and so she was now seeing stars and bright lights and just about figuring out her entire life. Just like that. And how deeply, how strangely a person could love another and not themselves to do just that.

 

 

This wasn’t about sick psychology, or judgement, this was about truth and touche the cliche; the truth had set her free.

 

 

It was her choice, it had always been her choice, not to stop loving her Mom, or Buffy even, but to step away from the myth that she could ever please anybody. No body can make anybody feel anything–feelings came from inside. Not outside. And so no body could make her feel anything, not if she didn’t let them and who was she to feed the world? Or should? This was as close as her thoughts could get to the thing happening inside her right now and it was enough to make her stand tall and a little straighter...well as straight as she could with, you know, the world wobbling.

 

 

“Hell of kick to that punch, B, you got hell in that arm, girl and don’t I know it and lemme tell you something else, lemme set you straight-- ”

 

 

“--I don’t need advice from you–“ Buffy’s voice was cold and Willow called out

 

 

“Buffy...Buff...whoa...slow down...everybody slow down, let Faith...um explain, whatever, right Faith?”

 

 

Rona called out from the group of girls gathering behind Faith.

 

 

“What you gonna do? Start slugging us all if we don’t do what you say?”

 

 

“Yeah...” It was the blond one, what was her name again? Cathy? No Cathy was the other one, Katerina maybe? She was almost shouting out:

 

 

“We wanted to go...we pushed Faith to take us...we, we wanted it...” Katerina’s voice died down to an almost whimper under Buffy’s cold gaze.

 

 

“You could have been killed. All of you, any of you...you think you’re immortal? Well take a look by the petunias, that fresh turned earth is NOT for spring tomatoes. Oh yeah, it’s red all right, and it contains, blood and bone and if you doubt me, dig up them up for a bed check–“

 

 

“–Buffy!” It was Xander, and the call was almost a cry, almost a reprimand.

 

 

“No. Xander, no.” Buffy said firmly. “You don’t know the whole story yet.”

 

 

This had started as a meltdown about Spike, but it seemed that was only the trigger on this, the greater issue. Power. Just who was running the show?

 

 

“The buck stops with me. I’m the one who puts the girls in the ground, I’m the one makes the call about who goes where and how far--” 

 

 

Faith cut her off and declared: 

 

 

“You can make the call B–but what does it matter if there is no one here to listen? If you chase everybody away? You can make the call, but it is their lives, it is my life too and Willow and Xander and the other one--”

 

 

“--Hey!” Anya called out from the back porch.

 

 

She had entered the scene via the back screen door quietly munching on a cold piece of leftover pizza and she stood there now quietly munching in casual clothes, to watch the smack down. She watched the scene avidly, her eye keen and careful to follow the spittle and spinning limbs of winner take all.

 

 

“Don’t make me anonymous, Missy OtherSlayer, you’re gonna be the one who disappears when Buffy finds out you’ve been taking the girls to see Spike.” Anya offered helpfully and then peeled off a pepperoni and popped it in her mouth.

 

 

“WHAT?” gasped Xander “What? When? Where, why did you take them? Faith...” he was sputtering, barely able to get it out: “Do you have you any idea, any idea, of what he did? What he is capable of, Spike–“

 

 

“–Xander! Not now,” Buffy cut him off so firmly, she added a little more softly; “Not now...”

 

 

“I had sex with Spike.” Anya filled in the gap to the listening throng and in an aside to Faith. “Xander is upset.”

 

 

Well this shut Xander up as he clenched his mouth tight and turned a disturbing purply red.

 

 

And now Buffy wheeled to face Anya;

 

 

“And just how long have you known this was going on?”

 

 

“About five minutes...hot work out–sweatshirts come off–wa la.” Anya said conversationally. “There, look at that one, that’s his mark on that girl over there...”

 

 

And as she said this, they all turned to look the group of young girls.

 

 

“Not his bite, Xander, don’t be silly, but those mandella’s, well, look at them. They are practically signed by him. They carry an imprint of...his...power, I guess and I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed Buffy...and, there’s something else about them too...”

 

 

And here her voice wound down as her brows pulled together and she peered more closely at the girl nearest her. She was sporting a Spike tat on her lower right forearm–it was traditional sacred geometry but with a secret...a ward of some kind and..something else...something that almost smelled...like...what? Love? How odd.

 

 

Anya, stepped down off the porch and walked to the girl and quite unceremoniously grabbed her arm and brought it up to her nose to sniff loudly. “What the? How did he do that?” she asked herself softly and then louder: “How did he do that?”

 

 

She asked the girl, who only shook her brown curls away from her face and tried to pull her arm back.

 

 

“Shove off..” She barked at Anya, who by now had lost interest in the curling vine on her arm and was

eying the braid of tight flowers woven in a tattoo around another girls neck.

 

 

“You, you girl, come here...” She called out to the slight, shy looking thing.

 

 

“Cloe, her name is Cloe.” Kennedy called out.

 

 

“Cloying? Oh, yeah, well you gotta get a battle stage name right away; it’s in the best big time wrestling tradition–all the way back to Roman-Greco--” Anya advised sagely

 

 

“--What is it? What ‘s going on?” Buffy barked out at the Anya. As irritating as the Neo Demon could be–she did come up the useful tid bit in the odd moment.

 

 

“Buffy these Tattoos are alive...these are...charged...” Anya said

 

 

“What-do-ya-mean? Like a thrall?” Xander asked

 

 

“Not sure...” Anya said softly...”Clever very clever...he’s cloaked his meaning, his purpose, but look here...and here...see this?” and she here she pulled the hapless Cleos’s head back to reveal her tat necklace on her lower neck a bit better.

 

 

“It looks like a tight weave, almost a rope; but see how he’s woven...what are they? Pearls, maybe, maybe flower buds, no both...and pearls carry–“

 

 

“Manna...” Willow breathed from behind Buffy as she looked over her shoulder at Cloe’s neck.

 

 

“Uh...can you lemme up for air here?” Cloe asked in a small but firm voice.

 

 

“Manna?” Asked Buffy

 

 

“Earth energy, big time life force stuff–“ Willow supplied eagerly.

 

 

“Witchcraft?” Breathed Dawn and Buffy turned to look at her sister standing quietly next to Faith who by now had completely regained her composure and was looking Buffy steady in the eye; unblinking.

 

 

“You have one of these too?” Buffy demanded/asked her sister.

 

 

“Nnno...no...” Dawn stammered, which really meant...not yet..

 

 

She had known, Dawn had known and hadn’t told her. Buffy looked away and back to Willow.

 

 

Willow was examining Cloe’s tattoo now and said:

 

 

“Dunno..” Willow breathed.; ”Anya’s right though–it’s well done, defiantly a ward of some kind–“

 

 

“Yeah, but to protect or to telegraph, you know, make the unsuspecting do his insidious dark instructions? What if he’s under control of The First?” Anya asked in clinical detachment.

 

 

“Hmm...yeah... “ agreed Willow “Buffy...I gotta admit...I can’t tell...there is something odd about them...something...other-worldy...something that doesn’t seem like Spike...and I dunno where he would have got the insight to do something like these so well...”

 

 

“The First.” Dawn said softly.

 

 

“Spike.” Xander said, but it was more spit than word and terrible to hear.

 

 

Buffy walked to Faith and stood about seven feet away raised her finger and pointed it at the other

Slayer and said softly.

 

 

“Explain.”

 

 

Faith was fine, Faith was cool, until the finger point. Man, that burned her...maybe it was the ancient trigger,

the ancient witchy way every woman understood in the deep end of female viscera.

 

 

“Don’t point your finger at me.” Faith said in stone.

 

 

“You tell me you are out training...you tell you are taking the girls for ‘off the deep end’ training and I trust you to keep them safe–“

 

 

“--I did keep them safe!” Faith’s voice raised for the first time “I will keep them safe with my life! I know what I’m doing; I’ve been in the dark side in the world, I’ve been in prison, I’ve been deep in it from the other side B. Do. Not. Tell me what I know and what I don’t know. Do not tell me that. ”

 

 

“You couldn’t know what kind of danger you put them in between here and L.A–“

 

 

“–He’s not in L.A.; he’s only about sixty five, seventy minutes North from here on a hot ride–“

 

 

Buffy absorbed the blow of this and kept going: “You have no idea who you are dealing with–“

 

 

“You wanted his help, just twenty minutes ago you were asking about him–“

 

 

“I can deal with him, I know him, I can see him better than anyone on the this world–“

 

 

“Yeah, well, seems like I know him just a little bit better, don’t it?”

 

 

The slap rang out and knocked Faith’s head back and to the side. It hadn’t been strong enough to knock her down, it had been emotional, it had been woman to woman and it was the humiliation of hot enough to knock the words out of your mouth, light enough to be dismissive.

 

 

Faith kept her head down for a moment as she breathed deep and to hide the tears, the stinging hot salt of her heart breaking a bit for her, for Buffy...for Spike.

 

 

Faith had said what she had said to Buffy on purpose. She knew it would hurt Buffy where it counted, where it would be hard for her to pull out the blade and she knew she had said it because once again, big sis had first pick and Spike, well, Faith could have fallen for Spike, but he could barely look at her now. She had seen that the just the day before. And so she said what she did, she drove the knife in and Buffy, unused to manipulation or using words to hurt back, hit instead.

 

 

There was a gasp from the group behind her and now Faith could feel the revolt growing, she could feel the comeuppance coming for B and maybe it was due because maybe Buffy didn’t represent the group mind anymore...so maybe there was a revolt brewing and it was all to the good, but for the wrong reason.

 

 

She had to set things straight.

 

 

When she lifted her head there were tears flowing from her eyes and if Buffy was shocked to see them she said nothing and so Faith’s hand went to her cheek, couldn’t help it and said in a low voice but loud enough for everyone to hear.

 

 

“O.K. so that’s twice you’ve hit me Buffy, that’s twice and I’ll take it because we have a history and hearts are broken between us that only we know about, but this is it–the end. You will not touch me like that again. There’s reasons why you did that and everybody has gotta know that, understand that, and I fairly wrote the script for you on how to take me down, so I own that, I do, but this is the end.”

 

 

Faith took in a breath and said softly:

 

 

“So you get to be the bad guy, you have to play the bad Dad to come home and punish the kids, the kids he loves at the end of a long work day and I get that too, but guess what? You asked for it. You asked for it all, so do it with style, do not do it crying all the way the bank and back. You get the power and the glory and so you get this part of job too.”

 

 

Faith took in a deep breath, stood steady on her feet and continued on a roll that no force on earth could stop, the words that came through her now came from some force above and beyond and so they poured right through Faith like cream from a pitcher and into Buffy like something vital she needed to know and now.

 

 

“Girls are dead, girls are dead, and yeah it’s because of you, of some poor battle plan and we all know it, we ALL know it, but guess what? Those girls asked for it too. Cuz I’m gonna shake your tree and everybody here until you all get the thing I know, maybe the only thing I know in this world and it’s this: I asked for it. You asked for it. We all asked for it.

 

 

There are all kinds of ways to be in this; and we have all picked how we can fit...everybody has looked at the group picture and asked: ‘who am I in this? Am I the funny one, the sane one, the brain that kicks ass—everybody looks around and makes some room to find a way to fit in the thing. And there all kinds of ways to be strong, to be protected too, cuz not everybody is gifted with your calling B, not everybody is gifted with the strength you have–I gotta tell that and this: the flower Spike put on my back has been helping me live–you can all doubt that and his motives too and whatever but I know the fact of it. It has been helping me to survive, it fairly screams when a double creep sneaks up and it’s working right now in these words, and it’s a blessing some of us need Buffy, some of us, most of us need the extra help and so we ask and so we take it when it’s given--”

 

 

“–You think what I am is, is a gift? That it’s a, a blessing?–“ Buffy cut in hard and furious

 

 

“–YES! Yeah I do, you idiot. All this ‘curse of Slayerness’ all this ‘curse of serving’–I’m just me, but even I know it is the highest thing anyone can ever hope to do with a life, even I get that! But you! How dare you whine and cry like a spoiled child because you asked for what? A pink dolly and got a blue one instead? What? The shape of how you can help people didn’t come the way you want it? Fuck that nonsense. Cuz, what did you want B? What did you ask for way back when or whatever...cuz you know I remember mine...oh yeah I do. I fell down on it. I did. I grabbed at the thing that was been crying inside me, from way back when I was a kid and I could barley stand to see an animal suffer or a bully pick on a smaller kid; and I’d be in there kicking shins to make it stop, that thing that made me do that has moved me every moment of my life and if I turn around and ask this crew, I know ALL of them will find the beginning of the thing that brings them here.

 

 

We’re not like royalty, born into it--like the damn watchers council wanna us to think--not fate either; which is worse, I’m here cuz I asked for it. I want it. I wanted the hitting to just stop, more than anything I wanted that–so I know who I am B, I know all about myself, the good the bad and the ugly and I know where I can break too and I know how to hurt you–I know I did, I know that...I’m not the best person in the world, not by anybody’s definition—but I might be one of the most willing AND I know why I’m here, luv, now what about you? Cuz I swear, I’ve only heard you moan and cry and make yourself a victim–all your: ‘I don’t wanna, why me?’ moans–well guess what? You call yourself a victim you will make yourself a victim–then it’s just a matter of everybody getting in line to give you what you asked for, a way out of being The Slayer–The Slayer, unwilling slave to the world; so the world treats you like a slave and you’re Angel’s victim and it was all his fault he left, wasn’t it? And Riley too and Spike doing whatever to you so now he’s out in the boondocks on bread and water and how can you be surprised? How can you not work that out?

 

 

You keep calling yourself a victim B every time you say, hell, every time you think; ‘I don’t want this...’so how can you be surprised when everybody in the world steps up to make your dream come true? It’s what you keep saying you are and somebody has to name it, somebody has to tell it to you straight and you already hate me so it’s me, I guess and now we are going into the fight for the end and you gotta, you GOTTA wake up sister, cuz you are still holding the best beans and so sure I took the girls to get the tats–sure I did and I’d do it again–they need the help and what’s more... I figured out that when you ask for help, you actually get help, Angel taught me that; Damn! O.K. so I just took another swipe at you, but at least I know why I did it, I’m not in hiding, I know who I am, pet; so how can not you not know yourself at all? And either you are the biggest liar in all of Slayerness or you should step aside and let us, we who wanna own it, do it the best way we can, cuz...cuz...”

 

 

And here Faiths’s voice started to break up and she struggled to keep it together to get this terrible thing out and it was terrible too, she could see Buffy’s face twitch and threaten to crumple, Faith took in a ragged breath and took the leap to live up to her name. She had to have faith that she was doing the right thing:

 

 

“Cuz...I swear to God B, I swear to God, I love you...like, like I’ve never loved another person ever...but sometime’s I don’t like you very much and...and that is only because you don’t like yourself at all. You are not a victim you are The Slayer, and step up and claim why you were given this gift...step up or step aside but don’t you dare make our calling small and mean and us all slaves maybe; cuz that’s not me, that’s not never gonna be me and how dare you put the weight of that on these great, great girls? How?”

 

 

And then Faith ran out of words–just dried up and ran out and she leaned over and braced her hands on her knees as she pulled in one deep breath after another.

 

 

Buffy stood there, right there at the apex of the group. Her teeth clenched her eyes gleaming feral hard and hanging barely on and no one said a word. No one spoke into the great cavern carved by Faith’s oratory and so she knew they agreed. It was the Great Silent Assent.

 

 

She looked around the group, Willow returned her gaze; her brow furrowed but said nothing, Xander had his head hanging a bit, looking at the ground. Buffy looked down to see what he found so fascinating in this THE moment.

 

 

Grass. Grass growing, quietly, with or without them all and now ‘don’t let the grass grow under your feet’ had new meaning, it was a revelation and so she spun on her heel and left without looking back.

 

 

When Xander moved slowly to follow after her, Anya’s voice, soft now, quiet now, said.

 

 

“Shhh...shhh Xander, let her go...let her be...”

 

 

Buffy had been undressed, stripped right down to the bone in front of everybody and it had to happen but it was terrible too, a hard thing to have so much...truth thrust upon one so quickly, so relentlessly and Anya should know all about what that was like; they all knew–in one way or another.

 

 

”Shhh, let her be....”

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

‘Spike...what did you do?’

 

 

 

 *  

 

 

The walk was terrible, finding a car, finding a neighbors car, finding keys, finding the ones that fit that Honda Civic there; it was all a terrible blind journey and she was pulled only by her inner eye, walking only her iron will. She thought about walking back and taking her Mom’s car or Xander car–but that would mean...going back. That would mean being seen and more talking and that was not going to happen.

 

 

And she would not cry. Wold not. And so this hard thing stayed inside her unable to burst out and so it bit deeper inside with every stride. Toward him.

 

 

That was all she could think really...all she could hold in her mind as any kind of next thing. Plan M for morphing now. World spinning out from under her feet and just what had Spike done?

 

 

Did he put some mojo on Faiths’s tattoo? On the girls? She didn’t want to think about Dawn’s silence and Xander and Willow, couldn’t think about anything except: ‘get to Spike.’ 

 

 

And behind finally behind the wheel, she breathed deep for a moment and cast her mind out looking for him...what had Faith said? North? She needed that thing now...the line between them.

 

 

Spike had called it their ‘life line’ and it was how they always found each other when one went looking. Her mind cast out a net but nothing. Nothing.

 

 

Big blank. She could start driving North, just begin and then end where he was and flying blind might work on theory of past performance but she didn’t have time to lose...something terrible was happening and Spike had to answer and fix whatever he had done.

 

 

No more, no more, no more and then she found herself saying it aloud like a prayer, she was on her knees (metaphorically) and begging (figuratively) but the feeling was real.

 

 

“No more...please no more...”

 

 

She pressed her head up against the wheel of the car and held on for dear life. Held on to a strangers car that was left behind and going no where.

 

 

And then a soft thought was pressed into her and she might have missed it except for the sudden quiet in the street, except the strange stillness in mid afternoon in a deserted town and it was a small window of opportunity but large enough for her to raise her head and look through, it was enough to slow her down to hear:

 

 

Child, my precious child...not your mind...your heart...look for him with your heart...

 

 

It wasn’t in words exactly...the message was more..like a shape, like the familiar press of a favorite stuffed animal and something she knew so well it was a welcome gift.

 

 

Death was your gift, but how can you fear death now when you know death doesn’t exist? What are you afraid of?

 

 

And then something that felt a little like levity, a little like:

 

 

Learning something true is just a little death and my precious child...you have accomplished so much and we are so happy for our child–but now there is another way, you have been home and back and you know there is no death...why not be the whistle blower?

 

 

All these years, all this time and she had never gotten a wink or a nod or a nudge from heaven or whatever while on earth and NOW–this and in enigmatic pentameter too. Bloody fantastic!

 

 

 

Speaking of which; look for him with your heart...we’ll talk later...

 

 

 

“What? Are you over your cell phone minutes or something?”

 

 

Buffy asked out loud but, hey, when you’re out you’re out.

 

 

The word feelings were gone but the air was softer now and it gave her the courage to breath deep and slow down and then she thought of Spike. She thought of his eyes, wide and warm and something in her heart softened and almost, almost gave way....she clamped down on it but left enough space to see him.

 

 

There...she knew where he was almost, instantly. Right there off highway 68. And the air was so soft, it was almost as if he was right there in the car with her and had only been one soft thought away. Just one beckoning gesture and he came quickly and so now she thought to him:

 

 

‘Don’t move...don’t you dare move.’

 

 

She started the car and pulled out onto the street and into the sunny, sunny world.

 

 

Just another fine California day.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Spike had been sleeping soundly, almost peaceable, like and was it because her scent was so near?

 

 

 

Her hair was close to his face, so close he could touch it and now the yellow silk was woven between his fingers like some old fashioned May Day celebration, golden ribbons winding ‘round and ‘round and rushing him toward the gold of her soul.

 

 

‘Wonder if her soul is in her hair? Like Samson or some such...’ No, no--he was Samson so would that make her, you know the big ‘Dee’? Never, never, own your own haircut Spike, you did it to yourself.

 

 

Spike smiled and brought the locks to his lips and kissed it and the strands went electric in his hands, like hot wire conducting, connecting two disparate ends together in a happy reunion, like long lost beloved family crashing together through a turnstile at an airport eager to be in the others arms. So long...so long without you...

 

 

‘Love...love you Buffy....’

 

 

Silence and then something that felt like his name but soft from her heart and a question:

 

 

‘Spike...what did you do?’

 

 

He woke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed.

 

 

She was coming. No doubt. None. She was coming to see him and she was close now. Very close.

 

 

The peace of the dream had lulled him and he had wanted to stay in it, hug her hello and here was why–she had been looking for him..that’s all..in the old way...and in his sleep he had been able to speak to her soul to soul on the causal plane.

 

 

Soul to soul.

 

 

He was terrified that she had seen his naked soul and never mind that he had gone to get his soul to be worthy of her, to be able to meet her somewhere closer to herself , never mind that, because it was one thing to want a thing and quite another to have it arrive. On your doorstep.

 

 

He got out of the small bed in basement of the storefront and grabbed his faded, torn blue jeans and dressed quickly as if this little detail could cover his other self, what he really wanted to hide. And then suddenly he stopped. Just stopped and looked around the room absently noting the stacked boxes holding the stuff of basement and then slowly pulled on a dark blue long sleeve shirt, buttoned two of the buttons...any two, didn’t matter.

 

 

And he stopped running. Just stopped.

 

 

Stopped running inside, stopped running from himself and stopped running from her.

 

 

Face it old man, you want to see here, you live to see her and now she’s coming so buck up–yet another dream come true. He left his feet bare and walked up the steps and by the time he reached the top of the staircase....he knew she was just outside somewhere. Somewhere close.

 

 

Well she would have to come into the shop to see him, wouldn’t she then? Couldn’t very well walk out in light or walk on water either...but you know...well...just work one bloody miracle at a time.

 

 

One: he had done the impossible; he had his soul.

 

 

Two: she had done the impassible; she had come to see him.

 

 

Three: Thee and me and maybe tea.

 

 

He chuckled, well, it was good to laugh, might come in handy.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

The drive that had begun in a panic and asking the question: ‘what did you do...why did you do it?’ Ended like an excavation; a carved out pumpkin, a ghoulish mask made from an empty gourd. The center of the question was empty and so she was now asking the same question, but with a different intention:

 

 

‘Spike....what did you do...why did you do it?’

 

 

She had felt his essence come racing like a child to greet her, and so sweet the meeting was it had melted layers of pain away and it was Spike, it was William--she knew the scent of him, the power of him but there was something else too, something deeper wider, sweeter...whole....

 

 

She couldn’t think the question until she saw him...couldn’t come near it even until then.

 

 

And so now she sat in the car across from the Tattoo parlor and eyed the almost grotesque overstatement of the wares offered. As if every part of the building needed to be painted and covered with dragons and curly ques and the whatnot eye squiggle to convince the passerby and dubious sailor that , yes, indeedy, this was the place. One might get a tattoo here. And now she wondered at the nerve the potentials had shown in coming to this part of town, to this place. She drew in a breath and would not let herself get angry again, would not let herself think about anything expect first things first and working down the list because now it seemed very, very important that she and Spike...

 

 

Spike.

 

 

Spike was just there, just inside there, she could feel him...awake now...she knew him well enough to notice that slight shift too. He was awake now...but cautious--he did not send his mind out to greet hers. He was waiting for her.

 

 

Well, O.K. then. Let the games begin.

 

 

She got out the car and crossed the empty street...trash strewn about, but nothing else. No traffic, no sign of the living or the dead. 

 

 

She was at the door now, and cast her head down feeling out for him and didn’t speak, didn’t knock, only spoke to him; mind to mind.

 

 

I’m here, Spike

 

 

There was a pause...what felt like a pause and then the hard clang of a metal bar being lifted, and then another, and then two clicks and then silence.

 

 

She gave him a moment to step back away from the door, away from any sunlight that might spill in and then she gripped the handle and turned and pushed slowly...there was a soft creak and the jangle of jing, ling, ling as the door hit the overhanging bells and then she pushed the door wide enough to step through. She closed it behind her and then she looked around the room and said quietly.

 

 

“Some alarm system–you could teach Homeland Security a thing or two.”

 

 

Silence, the room was dark; there were shutters across the shop windows holding back the sun and so the room was cast in deep shadows, but it didn’t matter, she knew where he was. She looked back at the hot spot that was like a floating life boat casting a line out to her...even here, even now, even without his wanting, even with all the walls between them and built in brakes she could feel him throw her a rose.

 

 

He ignored her opening remark and countered softly with.

 

 

“So when did you pick up that trick, then?”

 

 

His voice was the soft, low purr she remembered and it warmed her ears and went warmer still as it traveled her spine north and south.

 

 

She didn’t ask what he was talking about, only answered softly.

 

 

“Dunno...just started happening...sometime...after you left...I guess I just needed it...and so it came.”

 

 

He said nothing to that but the silence felt like a nod of understanding.

 

 

 

“Buffy.” He said simply, kindly and then nodded once in her direction.

 

 

“Spike...”

 

 

She breathed his name so softly it was a caress to his senses and he wanted, oh dear he wanted to fall down under it. He could see that her hair was long again and lying down around her shoulders like she had forgotten to tend it and perhaps, she had been in such a hurry to see him, she hadn’t paused to bind her hair and then she said.

 

 

“Spike, I want you to stop giving the girls tattoos.”

 

 

Oh well, that fantasy just got shot to shit. He almost laughed but caught it in time–it would be coming out at an unlikely part of the conversation and that it was a request that made him sad because giving the young girls those tattoos had felt something akin to being a help. Finding each girls tender place that needed a balm was like looking into a bit of himself that wanted mending and so like reading a book or watching a flick that touched one just so, he had learned some wise new word about himself with each rendering. Giving the girls these small tattoos had helped him become stronger, feel more like he could do something right with this bit of his life. There was no such thing as a sad bad poem, each small effort was like a breath. And as he didn’t breath anymore, these tatts had become breath one, breath two and so on until he had begun to feel alive and he was grateful, he was but here Buffy had come all this way to ask him to stop and so instead of laughing, he tilted his head back a bit and said softly.

 

 

“All right, then.”

 

 

Quiet. That was all he said, that was it.

 

 

“I don’t want the girls coming out this way, it’s so dangerous for them...and well...”

 

 

“And I’m dangerous too, eh, pet?”

 

 

“Yes.”

 

 

“Oh, I like the sound of that...wish it were true, but no worries-–I’m a wash out at present, Buffy, and I don’t mind admitting it...but anyways...I was happy to do it, luv, I was helping, I think, but I wouldn’t hurt...your girls, luv, not..not for the world.”

 

 

“I...they are so young...so...and Willow says there is a charge to those Tattoo’s and what’s that about, Spike? It’s gonna be hard enough for them without interference...of some kind...”

 

 

“Just tats luv, just something to watch their back, I barley said ‘boo’ to them unless they asked and the other one, Faith was always in the room watching...on my word.”

 

 

“And that means a lot...” Buffy said dryly.

 

 

Spike said nothing and when he remained silent Buffy finally said.

 

 

“Spike, if you think you can...make up for...if you think this is a way to control the girls, or, or–“

 

 

“--S’not Buffy. S’not. Only trying to help...watch your back...so to speak. Those tatts are like a balm say, a or a shield, and they will help because that was my intention when I made them, and intentions tell all...but you want me to stop and so that’s it. The end.”

 

 

Long Pause. Yes, there was something different about him, absolutely, something about the vibration of him and Faith had said he had crashed and burned, but that wasn’t it–Spike seemed stronger to her. And thinking of Faith brought up the other thing, but this was not the time for it and really? Was it any of her business? She had calmed down a bit on the drive about that and now he seemed so completely the ingenue. So completely, sincere, but was it real? She had her trust in him tested in so many different ways over the years and she had made some calls in regards to Spike that few would agree with. The range of her reasons went from mercy born from something almost divine in it’s aspect to her own deep personal feelings and how he resonated with her heart and sex and right now her gut feelings were telling her something big had happened to him, something that made her want to catch her breath and lean in hunger toward him.  

 

 

There was some huge change, she could feel it in his voice–magics maybe, oh god, was he dabbling in magic to enhance himself? He had been looking for a spell, back then before the Anya disaster. Was that it? She cast her senses out...no, no, his voice was soft now in her bones and the whole sense of him was softer somehow and magic created a jagged edge effect that was nothing like this. It was how his voice worked inside her now instead of the sometimes jangle and buzz of the vamp dark dance, he was now less...seducy and more... more..what? 

 

 

“What is it? What’s going on?” she asked

 

 

Before she could ask him to step up closer--he did.

 

 

He walked into a dusky shadow and was standing there now only about ten feet from where she stood by the door. He didn’t say anything, simply looked at her.

 

 

He did look terrible. Faith was right...his head was shaved in such a haphazard way–it looked like a rat attack. It was worse than she thought. A Komachazee cut and did that spell self destructive in American? Yeah, that haircut was radio active fallout personified, all right...and he was rail thing and haggard, but he stood easy and light on the balls of his feet but there was something else...he seemed stronger.

 

 

 

His back straight and he looked her evenly in the eye and his eyes...and oh dear God, his eyes. She caught her breath; they were large and soft and brimming with soul...soul...

 

 

 

She drew in another breath and tried again to complete the question.

 

 

 

“Spike...what did you do?”

 

 

 

When he said nothing she walked slowly toward him, her eyes swimming in his, her hand already outstretched to touch him.

 

 

He saw the hand coming and stepped back and she said softly...

 

 

“Shhh...shhh....” as if this would be enough to stay him and bloody hell if it wasn’t. He couldn’t move, not with Buffy touch immanent now and so she began with the sleeve of his shirt first, as if testing the third dimensional reality of him and then his arm, and as she did, her warm fingertips sent a frisson of life racing through him. Life....life...the touch of life. It was heady stuff....it was Buffy stuff.

 

 

He had closed his eyes under her light perusal and shook his head slightly now and opened them wide, as if that would help.

 

 

Damn his own eyes...a boy and his poems indeed.

 

 

Her hand, not content with the one tune she set humming in his arm, moved to touch his chest to find the harmony and like the bright light seeking the darkest part of the room her fingers moved gently up to the space, that space of the higher heart, where his soul had come racing back home in such agony.

 

 

Her touch wasn’t agony though, no it was not...

 

 

“Buffy...” he breathed ‘Buffy, lamb...”

 

 

She didn’t answer, she was fascinated, no attached to the vibration of him–like the girl who touched the golden goose, she would need to be pried away from the molten lava that was his pulse now–it was steady, constant, heady, hot and...and divine...she had only felt a vibration that was anything close to the power of him on one other vampire, in one other case.

 

 

“Your soul...” she breathed, tears slipping gently down her cheeks now as she continued quietly. “You got your soul and...it hurt...I can feel the memory of that in here...”

 

 

And now her hands went higher on his chest to seek more soul, more of what he had hidden, but he took her hand gently and placed it back at her side.

 

 

She looked up into his eyes.

 

 

“Spike...how...” and then the terrible question: “why?”

 

 

Her eyes burned into his, willing the answer out of him and he looked calmly back into hers.

 

 

“Buffy...how can you ask that? After what happened. How can you wonder?”

 

 

And the question though different in part was the same in nature as what to what Faith had railed at her, nailed into her and so yeah, she needed to sit down.

 

 

And casting around for a place to park it, she saw the table in the center of the room but quickly Spike said;

 

 

“No, here, sit here...” and he pushed an old wooden captains chair on wheels across the floor for her to sit on.

 

 

Not knowing what to do, what to say–he fell into ye olde English standby of:

 

 

“Tea...care for a cuppa?”

 

 

And before she could answer, she heard him moving into the dark behind her and then there was the sound of running water and she fastened onto that familiar sound while she breathed deep in this astonishing world of miracle workers.

 

 

Miracle workers making tea.

 

 

There was the sound of running water, the quiet in the street, the absolute lack of traffic and him back there, a beautiful soul making her a cup of tea.

 

 

And he did have a beautiful soul...she could feel it. Was this who he had been? Who he really was? Or had he been honed by pain and born anew, with the old bits brightened and polished up on the long, long road.

 

 

Why had he done it?

 

 

For you, my precious child, for himself, for us...for love...

 

 

There was that softness in the air again and that presence, that feeling from heaven here on earth and over her shoulder and holding her hand too.

 

 

And then, and then The Question loomed so large it dominated her mind, and the thing lay naked in Buffy’s soul with no where left to hide except to ask it.

 

 

Why for me? Why for love? How could he love me? And the real question the real, real:

 

 

‘I kill things, I am a destroyer...how could anyone ever love me?’

 

 

And the answer”

 

 

A destroyer could love her, did love her, perhaps only another destroyer could love her and did that mean he was the only one she could love back?

 

 

 

Like drew to like and looking into the his naked truth now, into his glowing soul, was that really such bad news?

 

 

 

And then he was there at her side and put one mug of tea down on the table and then picked up her right hand lying loose on her lap and pressed her fingers around the warmth of the mug. It was the comfort of the warm smooth libation waiting. Her head was hanging down, her hair hanging loose around her face to hide the tears that had started to flow. And Spike had to check himself, he had to force his hand to stay away from the need to pat her shoulder, her hair, and instead went and picked up his mug and sat on a stool about three feet away.

 

 

Ask him

 

 

She felt this pressed around her gently but insistently and so she did. Face still downcast, lids lowered she asked simply softly:

 

 

“Why did you do it, Spike?”

 

 

The same question, but the emphasis felt different and a thread of fear ran though Spikes cool marrow and borrowed blood. She was speaking again:

 

 

“I trusted you...maybe more than I have ever trusted anyone...why didn’t you stop when I said, ‘no’.”

 

 

Oh god, she was; she was asking about that. That. And he hung his head and looked at his hands and surely, truly he had asked himself that question so many times, he had been over and over all the variations on an answer and now here it was again...but quiet like, mouse like, the question crept into his mind in her soft sweet voice and so the truth came back the same way.

 

 

 

“I didn’t hear you, Buffy, not coz you weren’t loud enough, or tried hard enough or any of that rot, but coz...I don’t think there was a space inside me that was able to hear you. Not just then. I had to fill it all with something I could bear to hear, like a child who screams louder than anybody in the room to drown out the rest...it was ‘bout being in control, of course..it wasn’t about loving you in the way I do, it was more about...controlling the world; bending it all coz I thought I was starving see? And someone starving...well, a starving man feels that gives them...me permission to...steal...” and here he wagged his head before saying.

 

 

 

“If I heard you, I would either have to stop or decide that I know best and go ahead anyway and you had said ‘no’ before hadn’t you then? But I think, really, first and only it was fear. If I heard you in any way...If I heard what you were saying I would have to know we were done and dead...and, and I don’t especially like being dead, Buffy, came out once in the song spell and it’s true. You made...even sitting here now with you here like this, you make me feel alive somewhat and like a drowning man, I might have done anything to keep close to it. I might have done it Buffy, if you hadn’t stopped me, shocked me back, I might have been scared enough to do it; not proud to say it...but you asked and you deserve the best answer I can give.

 

 

 

I can’t say I’m sorry, just can’t...not because I would ever wish it on anyone, no one deserves to have their life...their will, what they want...raped away, but because if that hadn’t happened, would I have gone for me soul? Would I have listened to God an’ Goddess an’ fallen down on me knees again? Grace, lass, I got a long, long road to go, but I can feel the beginnings of the maybe of it an’ grace is the only way for me now an’ if I had a cross, I think I’d lie down on it to burn the demon out if I could, but still, all that, all this is where I am now...an’ all because of what happened. An’ I love you, Buffy, I feel now it as ever bright and alive inside me and you can feel it too can’t you? But would it have been enough to make me suspect that I couldn’t be the kind of man you needed without my soul, without having the blunt edge of my own...will trying to break yours? I don’t think so.”

 

 

He had said all this while looking down and so now he looked up into her eyes, into her deep green brown eyes wide and warm and brimming with her souls’ water.

 

 

Silence for a long moment as they looked into each other and when Buffy spoke it was very soft, but clean of anger, of the sharp edge of judgment, just soft like, but in earnest.

 

 

“I want to ask you something and we’ve been through a lot and we’re still here looking at each other and so you can tell me the truth, cuz, that is all we’ve got right now, and so I wanna ask you something some things will promise to tell me the truth?”

 

 

His brows pulled together and he said hesitantly.

 

 

“I’ll do my best, pet, but you know the truth can only be from the speaker’s point of view.”

 

 

“Not this kind of truth...some things are just real...”

 

 

Spike shrugged and offered, “I’ll do my best.”

 

 

“Spike...do...do you think I make myself a victim?”

 

 

He looked deep into her eyes and when he said nothing at first, Buffy offered. 

 

 

“You told me once that I was living on a death wish, that I worked with death, lived death every day...and...and so maybe I am a little bit in love with it or was...but this is something else maybe and I think it’s connected, see this is the thing; I’ve complained plenty times about being the Slayer...about not wanting it, of being...used by it and, well...driving in the car on the way here I tried to remember ever wanting this or anything like this..”

 

 

“Yeah? An’?” Spike swallowed hard and then leaned forward to hear her answer.

 

 

“There was something, one thing...well a big thing really...it would be whenever Mom and Dad would fight and it would hurt, almost felt like being ripped inside...and I remember feeling...that I would do anything to help Mom and Dad love each other again. I would come into the room and try to be funny, you know, make them laugh before the fight got too hard to...stop....to make peace, kinda, and if I didn’t ask to be the Slayer exactly....I did ask for...love. I did ask to be The Peacemaker of all time. I did ask for Mom and Dad to love each other...I did ask for love to be real and to last and not a joke–I asked for that every day--”

 

 

“--Didn’t go light on the request, did you pet? Small wonder you are who you are–“ Spike broke in gently.

 

 

Buffy’s eyes remained steady on his for a moment and then slipped down to his hands, to his beautiful hands holding his blue mug holding his brown tea.

 

 

“And so I think...I think I might have asked for...you...” Buffy finished this very softly.

 

 

His hands began to tremble and so he gripped the mug harder.

 

 

 

“I don’t know why you love me...I don’t know why anyone loves me and I’m gonna look at that, right after the apocalypse...but in the mean time--do you think I talked about not wanting to be a Slayer so much that everybody in the world is just lining up to take a free shot to help me out of the contract?”

 

 

 

“Why ask me a such a question when you are being so honest with yourself? You are an honest woman, Buffy, you are strong, you are real, you have a temper and can be as, as dogmatic...well, as me...but you are guileless, you are honest and yeah, you may hide things from yourself but when there’s a need, when pressed, you go looking for the truth. And if it is true that I think you walk around sometimes, ironically, the best warrior in the world with a target on your back, don’t I also know that you are the first one to get up in your house to make the coffee and set the place straight and then go off to the worst job in the bloody world and all because you love your sis, your friends and the world so much?”

 

 

She looked at him and shook her head slightly and so he went down on both knees before to look up at her.

 

 

“Yeah, I’ve heard you whine and complain, plenty times, but I also know when the shit is flying you are the first one up in it. What does it matter what you say sometimes, it’s actions that count...it’s what we do in real time that matters. Was’ the story about the two servants, the master of the house tells two of his servant to go out and milk the fields, chop chickens, whatall and one says: ‘yes sir and hops on out of the house but then goes running into town, whilst the other one says ‘no, sir, Sargent Major, sir, you can roll that up and stick those orders up your arse–but then goes out to the field to do all the bloody work, complaining all the way. So the question asked is this: which one is the better servant and which one goes on the dole?”

 

 

 

Buffy smiled gently and then without thinking she raised her hand to stroke his shaved head and he stilled completely under her touch, while she stroked the hair poking sharp against her palm.

 

 

“I could say the same thing about you...” She said softly.

 

 

Spike was on pause for the moment and he stayed very still; as if any sudden movement would startle her away and then he managed:

 

 

“Well then...there’s the pair of us...”

 

 

She chuckled softly and then he leaned forward to look into her more closely.

 

 

“Yes.”

 

 

She said softly and when she moved her hand down to his cheek, he leaned against it slightly, just a bit, and they allowed this sweet new peace to flow softly between them. When she finally pulled her hand away they looked into each others eyes and Spike said softly.

 

 

“Buffy my lamb, my friend, people love you...because of what you asked for when you were a barien–we all love you because you love peace. Thas’ the thing asking not to not be Slayer anymore...thas’ the child asking for peace and thas’ why you fight and thas’ why I love you. You bring me peace...sitting with you on the back porch of your house, those quiet...times are like something I can live off of forever. We love you because you bring the maybe of peace.”

 

 

 

Buffy began to cry again and then whispered his name like she had just turned on a light and found him there waiting for her.

 

 

“Spike...” She said and then stroked his hair quietly for a long moment and then he breathed:

 

 

“Now I gotta say one more thing and I hope it doesn’t ruin this pretty picture.”

 

 

Buffy smiled a bit, but drew back too as she braced herself. She did ask.

 

 

“Now that doesn’t mean, you can’t find a new way to express yourself outloud and doing that might make your life easier too, all that is possible and who can say? You are still the one I would give the ball to in any pinch, in any game...but if you can get all of what you get done, fighting it every inch of the way–who’s to say what all you might get done if you went with your own flow, got in your own game? And it seems you need to be a leader now, luv, and not just with the Scoobies but with that lot descended on your house and that’s a different kind of being in the world...now every best intention has to lived out loud, doesn’t it? Cuz, I’ve been there too, leading a den of thieves in my case, but I know that every small fault will loom large under the scrutiny of many eyes and that is why there are very few good leaders and very many eyes watching. I know you can do it well, luv, I know it, and if you start to think, act and speak only the ends you want and not what you don’t...well...it trims away the fat, doesn’t it, then?

 

 

They were quiet together for a long while and then Buffy said softly: 

 

 

“O. K.”

 

 

“O.K.? Huh. How about that...I got the last word.”

 

 

“No, I did...I said...’O.K’–“

 

 

“But then I just said...oh bugger...”

 

 

Buffy chuckled softly, rubbed the tears from her cheeks, her eyes, wiped her hands on his shirt at his shoulders until he smiled and then looked briefly at the window at the slanting light fading fast and said softly.

 

 

“Spike, I don’t want talk anymore for a while, I’ve heard so many words dotted and crossed today and can we just sit here for a while and...well, just sit? We got a few hours before sunset and we should get out here and go home as close after the sun sets as possible don’t you think?”

 

 

 

Spike shook his head to hide his smile, part of him, loved, nay, rejoiced at the casual way she assumed he would go ‘home’ with her and part of him sighed.

 

 

 

As if she heard the sigh she added quickly.

 

 

 

“That is, if you want to...will you come back home with me? I don’t need to describe what’s going happen, you know that–“ 

 

 

 

“--Not much of a fighter these days, pet, might be more of pet, pet–“

 

 

 

“–I don’t care...please don’t stay in this terrible place, please don’t be alone when...I don’t want to be alone when it happens, please come home...”

 

 

 

“Shh...shh...yes luv, as you say, we’ll go home...”

 

 

 

She drew in a breath and then dragged his stool closer to hers and motioned for him to sit. He obliged her and sat near but not touching and so side by side they watched the last cracks of light of this, their beginning yet again day, dim down, down, down into dark and did Buffy’s hand creep into his, to grip his tight, to entwine fingers and hold fast to the only thing that mattered, to the one thing she wanted most and best from the very beginning of who she is in this world of bright to black and back?

 

 

 

Yes, she did.

 

           

 

  

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This story does continue in my mind....but if it continues in print, it will be in a sequel...

Love,

 

lizerrrbeathan