She was taking forever. She was taking one minute, two. It was forever. Spike switched from fists to open palms, slowing down, speeding up. He hadn’t had this. She’d only ever just jumped. Fall that far with a ragdoll mortality, doesn’t matter how hard you can throw a punch, ‘cause you’ll be dead right quick. This waiting thing was new, his pale hands pink from pounding. He hated it. She was definitely dead. She wasn’t. She probably was. Table tennis in his head, and all the while his eyes spilled over.
But he knew the way her stride sounded even through the thick wood of her front door: short, fast, heels-first. He knew just before she opened it. And then she did. And oh, oh. He remembered this, too. Her torn knuckles. The stairs. The stare. The blouse wasn’t white this time and her hair, her hair was dry and down, but oh she wasn’t dead she was a bloody vision—had he forgotten? He remembered everything. Just now, right now, Spike remembered everything.
He straightened up: that’s it, shoulders back. His mouth was dry and thick in that heavy way that comes with a particularly nasty bout of sobbing, though it had all been mostly hysteric-free. He swallowed it down. If he made a habit of breathing normally—but he didn’t. That was the point. Her face was hot when he took it in his hands, all those little vessels pulsing, muscles twitching alive, alive. Dawn was already gone when he got to her in the park. Last living things he touched ended sucked dry, every one of ‘em. He flattened his fingers against her cheek. ”Oh,” he said. It fell out dumbly while he was trying not to smile. Oh. All he could think. Her humming skin. Spike scanned for sign of robot or fake. Fooled Glory. Fooled him, once. The pink hoop earrings. If she wasn’t real, could he really tell just by looking? Probably not. Probably he just needed a reason to narrow his eyes small and linger.
Only so long you can do a thing like that, out of nowhere. She was quiet, her mouth was small, and he wanted to kiss her. Only so long you can stand and want out of nowhere. He took his hands away for pockets instead, one set at the base of his neck. ”I had a…” Small flitter of fingers in the air, a spattering gesture for who-knows-what. ”…thing. Bloody long. Got me all twisted up, thinkin’ you’d…” Spike couldn’t even say the word. He’d woken up afraid he’d stopped counting her days. He’d kept such good track of Dawn’s.
“But you didn’t.” Now he was allowed to smile, mouth closed. The apartment was clear of hatchling Slayers. He stayed in the doorway. He hadn’t planned the rest of it through, what happens if she was here. Made a big show over a nightmare like a sodding child. Stupid. Crying, hell. He couldn’t catch a break tonight. ”Sorry,” he said, dragging a knuckle under the wet spot on his eyelid. ”Guess it was a different shade of heroics this time.”
As Buffy opened the door, the silence rung out in stark contrast to the violently loud sounds that had just filled the hallway and apartment a moment ago. Spike’s face was like nothing Buffy had ever seen before (or at least she’d never seen that look on his face), and it stirred something deep inside of her chest. Her heart wanted nothing more than to pull his body close to hers, to offer some sort of solace or to wipe the vision of his distress from her mind. There had to be something she could do, but she resisted her gut instinct. No, it wasn’t right. Instead she just stared at him, her lips pursed. He searched her face looking for something, she couldn’t tell what. And just like that he seemed to snap out of it, his tear stained face shifting from one of distress to a look of almost embarrassment and his posture shifting more toward his usual stance.
Suddenly he took her face into his cold hands and she flinched just slightly out of surprise but she didn’t move. He lingered there for a couple of moments and then a moment more before he spoke. His touch felt akin to leaning your face against the wall or another surface in a cold room just for the heck of it, as a vampire he was always room temperature, something she’d gotten used to (and even found comforting on some level) years ago.
“Oh,”
The word filled the space between them. Buffy thought of placing her hands on top of his, of taking them into her own. But that was yet another things she couldn’t do, she stood as still as ever unsure of how to react.
His hands were still on her face which she didn’t mind, but after a while he drew them away awkwardly. Was he unsure of what to do with himself or trying to resist some course of action they both knew wouldn’t be appropriate? She could sense the wanting and saw it behind his steely blue eyes; she looked away quickly if only to break the tension between the two of them. The words coming out of his mouth weren’t forming into complete sentences and would have made little sense to an outsider, but Buffy understood. She’d been right in suspecting that he was there to check if she was alive.
As if in response to her shifting eyes, Spike smiled a small and uttered an apology. Not that he needed to apologize. He lingered in the doorway obviously unsure of what to do, he’d probably only thought as far as the whole seeing she was alive event. And now he knew. Would he want to leave? She couldn’t let him do that, she wanted him there. She needed someone to figure all of this out with, someone who knew who she was and understood. She realized she’d have to speak, to say something if she wanted him to stay. Because though he might be able to tell what she wanted, he wouldn’t know if it was okay unless she said so. They’d both grown to have mutual respect as far as what one or the other wanted to do. And with that she broke her silence, forcing scratchy sounds from her mouth.
“C-come in, Spike. It’s okay, you don’t need to explain. I understand.” She moved from the doorway so that he could enter the apartment she and her sister shared and shot her own smile in his direction to let him know that everything was well, or at least weller than before.
This Is A Test 