Spike woke up in the crypt. He remembered this part: how he’d bled and cried into his hands ‘til the salt made his face sting where the fall had cut in, how when they’d gathered around her body he’d straightened and fled. The cemetery hadn’t ever been so cold as it was then, and was now. The shivers made his shoulders shake.
He reached blindly for the bottle of Jack he knew was there. Nothing. Nothing next to him. He tasted like heavy sleep and a little fried onion—no dry whiskey mouth.
That was red flag number one.
He sat up. Slowly. Groggy as all hell—are you sure there wasn’t a lingering bit of alcohol under his tongue? ‘cause this felt like the making of a hangover—and blinking quick, Spike went to rub the sleep out of his eyes and his fingers came away wet. From the sobbing, yeah. The buckets. Her ending. He remembered. And for a second, that was all there was: Dawn’s hair in the purple-white glow, dust from the debris settling thick on Buffy’s body on the ground. In two days, they’d have a funeral for her. He’d opt out of the public mourning, but he’d spend the night where they’d turned the earth up for her, sleepin’ on his folded coat. Except they wouldn’t, would they? Because when he faded into now, it was now again. He was on the floor in Cleveland, in a crypt he didn’t even live in anymore. That armchair, there—that’s where he’d pulled Buffy onto his lap. There’s the corner he sat with the caved-in shell of a girl and waited for big sis to shake her awake. A small pool of dried sparkle polish had collected by the record shelf; Spike turned his hand over and his fingernails were full of painted-on glitter waiting to catch the light. Alette had brought it over for the Great Goodbye. Hadn’t been grievin’ properly, well. That wasn’t any sudden shock. He wasn’t exactly one of those folks kept calm and carried.
And he wasn’t about to start now. Buffy died. He was there. He hadn’t had a dream about it in months, and it’d come back to set a throb to his forehead in that awful way, got the corners of his eyes dripping like a spot of melting ice. So he was in Cleveland again—what good was that? Meant the world didn’t end, sure. Meant he’d have to slap the shackles on and actually try to be a good boy, put himself through the bloody wringer ‘cause that’s what you do when you can’t say sorry. But what was the trade-off? Big Bad turned around and went home? No, no. She went to talk to Alarius. I’m gonna save the world now. Buffy went to talk to Alarius and Spike was still crying. Three minutes awake.
What else was he supposed to do? He didn’t get the prophetic dreams, but she’d just been all dead in front of him and he’d seen it, he’d—he’d smoothed her shoulder-blade on her back porch and she’d kissed him just once as a thank you and she’d let him back into her house, presto, no barrier. He remembered. It all happened in a night. What else was he supposed to do but run?
Felt like his body couldn’t keep up with his legs. Up off the floor, out the door and down the steps to the grass, past the graves that weren’t hers weren’t hers weren’t hers. He had to find her. The thought was a dull thud like a pulse; it hammered in his throat and gut. She couldn’t die again. She couldn’t. That was sixty years down the line, once she’d got grey and happy. She couldn’t. But she had. Spike swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand as he rounded the third street corner. It was late enough that the lights were off in most of the windows. There was one on in hers. He took it in a gulp of please god please. He sniffled best he could and threw his hands against the door: again, again, again. ”Buffy!” Didn’t care if he woke up the whole bloody lot.
As Buffy’s first night back in real time wore on, the happy-go-lucky feeling she’d tried so desperately to cling to slowly slipped away. No, nothing could stay good. Her sister was back, but something wasn’t right and Buffy couldn’t help but think the worst. Talking to Willow she’d acted like it was all okay, she wanted so badly for it to be okay. And she truly was thankful for what Willow had done; there was a part of her that finally understood why Willow brought her back all those years ago. Having Dawn back was the greatest feeling in the world, she could never be angry about it and she could never feel sorry. There was something inside of her, something selfish and childlike, that didn’t care about the consequences of stopping death in its tracks.
Dawn had gone to her room and left Buffy all alone in the silent living room. It didn’t take long before she migrated outside to the balcony which overlooked the city; the people sounds made her feel less lonely and less upset. Why was she upset? She should be happy. She was happy, just not happy-happy and she couldn’t explain it. She gazed across the city skyline and let the tiny little moving headlights far off in the distance pull her into a sort of trance, as she watched one after another zoom on by she found herself finally able to leave her own mind. She didn’t have to think about anything anymore, not about how wrong everything was already turning out. She didn’t have to think about the fact that she was, as far as she could tell, pregnant. That thought had been pushed out of her head (or more like buried) by all the new junk waiting in line to fill her mind. But she didn’t let any of it in, instead she thought about all those people in all those cars. Where were they going? What were their problems? It irked her how she’d saved the world so many times before and knew so few of the people within it.
All of Buffy’s deep and pondersome thoughts suddenly came crashing down into a little pile on the floor of her mind as someone yelling and banging on her front door collided into her headspace. It took her a moment of hesitation to realize what was happening, but once she did she rushed automatically to the door. Spike was looking for her; of course he was looking for her. Where else would he be if he’d just awoken from a shockingly realistic dream in which Buffy died? She understood it perfectly, waking up from a dream so realistic you just have to check; to check if it was real or just a manufactured fantasy or a nightmare. Maybe Spike knew it was real, but she sort of doubted it. If he had any clue as to what had happened to all of them she was certain he wouldn’t be outside of her door losing his mind.
In her distressed state Buffy felt like Spike was just the person she needed, it was fate or something more that brought him there. Spike was the ever maddening man who knew more about the world, specifically Buffy, than Buffy herself could know. There had been countless times that he’d noticed something about Buffy that nobody else picked up in the slightest. Sometimes his words stung, but they were always true. If anyone could help her with this it would be Spike. But there was something more, something Buffy’d never thought of before. Maybe Spike needed her: He’d wanted her so many times before. He always wanted her. But this time, Buffy realized, he was there because he had to see her. He had to know. It wasn’t just a whim, it was compulsory. Buffy never got to see how Spike had reacted to her death, being dead tended to take those things away from you; but Buffy got the feeling that she was about to find out. In the same moment that all of these pieces fit together she rushed at slayer speed managing to open the door before he could cause any more of a ruckus, not that she really cared. It just seemed like the nice thing to do.
This Is A Test 