lovetobrag:

All quiet on the Buffy front.  Made sense, didn’t it? They’d been all right when the endtimes called for it, but these weren’t endtimes anymore.  People do all sorts of things when they think the world’s ending—thanks for saying—and when it turned out to be another one of those dodgy apocalypse attempts everything more or less went back to the way it’d been.  Coming here tonight, running over half-weepy and strung out of sorts, well, that didn’t really go with how things were going, did it? It was something else.  It wasn’t any thought.  It was wake up and go.  Bad dream.  Where is she? Find her.  

He couldn’t do it again.  He knew it when she opened the door.  There’d been a purpose last time—a sister needed lookin’ after while the rest of them beat the nasties back.  Alette was cherry bras and thick mascara, a body that bent where he met, and he’d be a poor sot to say he didn’t go heels-up every time she bit her cheek.  But he couldn’t get better without Buffy.  Nobody else knew how to break the bread for him once his hands were tied.  If the world had ended, Spike would have gone to Hell.  Soul doesn’t mean a damn thing if you aren’t using it.  He wanted to use it again.  If she was gone, he was good as eternal torment.  

Self-interest.  That’s all.  Self-interest and seven years’ sentimentality.  
That’s all.

She extended the invitation and he took it, though he didn’t need it.  Nice feeling, after all that: not needing it.  If you want to just hand them over the threshold, I’ll.  Come in, Spike.  Come in, Spike.  Why shouldn’t he? She hadn’t locked him out since.  Not even after—.  Not even after that.  ”Right, yeah.  Lettin’ the mosquitoes through.  Few too many bloodsuckers for your taste and mine, I’d say.”  He closed the door behind him, and that was maybe the loudest sound since he’d quit all the hammering and shouting. Place sure was duller without Dawn around.  And Joyce, bloody hell.  All the Summers girls.  Women.  They were Summers women now.  

Spike didn’t know what to do with himself.  He didn’t know what anyone did now, once they’d got this far.  He wanted to ask for help, finally, finally.  Would’ve done it before but he couldn’t move with Dawn’s ghost blinking at him from the corner.  Burning matter of Judgment Day, anyway.  Can’t baptise it all gone once the countdown starts.  He wanted to say here, you offered last month and you offered last week and I wasn’t ready, now I am.  He wanted to ask what had happened to her in those hours he’d just spent sleeping.  He wanted to apologise for the sweater he’d stolen—didn’t know where that came from, so he shook it off.  

“So what sort of stops did you have to pull out to keep our neighbourhood Gabriel at bay?” He took the lighter out now, compact silver and scratched up, and tugged a cigarette from its pack in the pocket opposite.  ”I’m sure my invite to the debrief got lost in the post.”  Spike wet his lips and stuck the filter in, but then he paused.  A rare second thought to consideration had him look at her from under his brow for approval—no such luck, of course.  Miss Prim didn’t mind tasting the smoke so long as it wasn’t coiling in her hallway.  Fine.  The flame flickered a few centimeters from the open tip.  He slid his thumb off the plunger.  He rolled his eyes just slight.  He tucked the cigarette behind his ear.  

Buffy watched Spike intently as he walked into the apartment, his closing of the door sounded like a slam in the nearly soundless room.  She observed him scanning the room ever so subtly, perhaps looking for Dawn out of habit. Buffy still did it…  He wouldn’t have had a way to know that Dawn was back.  How could he?  Up until a few moments ago he wasn’t even sure if Buffy was alive.  She wondered how she’d break it to him.  She had no idea how he’d react to the news, not with his mind in the state it was. 

She really didn’t have any idea what to do with him at all.  She knew how to handle him when he was a volatile beast and she’d believed in him even when he didn’t believe in himself, but this was different.  He didn’t want her help, not yet at least.  He wasn’t in need of physical restraint as far as she could tell.  He just wanted to know that she was alive, and now that he did, he probably just wanted to leave.  If he was crying and distraught, she could comfort him but he didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about that after all.  He wanted to play it safe and sarcastic.  At least she knew she could always count on Spike to be Spike.  He even had that going for him when he was insane.

Buffy thought he’d quickly start to maneuver his way out, to ask what he needed and go.  But instead he just let the silence hang between them for a few moments; he looked like he was just thinking.  Thinking of what to say to her maybe, she couldn’t know though.  She took the time to move over to the couch and sit down; she was unsurprisingly quite tired after such a hard night.  She needed to speak though; it felt off just sitting silently there.  They weren’t the kind who needed to talk constantly when they were together; it just felt like there was so much lingering unsaid between them that needed to come out into the open.  As if on cue, Spike spoke.  Of course he’d want to know how it could be the world hadn’t ended.

“So what sort of stops did you have to pull out to keep our neighborhood Gabriel at bay?” The million dollar question and one Buffy wasn’t completely sure she knew the answer to.  What indeed…  She’d have to tell her under informed side of the story yet again.  Fortunately she’d learned a little more since talking to Dawn, Willow had helped her there.  Buffy took in a deep breath so that she could get the facts out as quickly and efficiently as possible, but stopped with a hitch when she saw Spike taking out his lighter and cigarette to smoke.  She understood why he did it at least.  When disease couldn’t kill you, taking health precautions unnecessary. But Buffy was human, and second hand smoke could do about the same amount of damage to a mere mortal as simply smoking might do.  She wouldn’t usually mind, but she had to remember that she was pregnant.  No matter how far into the past she went, no matter how she pushed it to the back of her mind or the problems that piled up on top of it; it was still true.  That was something she’d have to think about another day, there was no way she could handle that thought right now.  But instead of going ahead, he realized her disapproval and stowed away the cigarette with a cheeky eye roll that she wondered if he knew she saw.

“There wasn’t a debriefing, Spike.  Everything I know I found out on my own from Cameron and Willow.” She replied sharply.  She didn’t want to seem like she was pissed, but Spike seemed to be taking his not knowing things as an insult.  Which at this point didn’t really seem like a bad idea.  Buffy had so many questions that had yet to be answered, and the amount of information she had on the topic was pitiful given the fact that she was the so called leader of the group.  Hah, I’m really just a well of information. She motioned for him to sit down next to her on the couch, since Dawn was back she had to start being quiet at night.  High school students slept at night time. 

But there was a part of her, one she was choosing to ignore, that also wanted him to be near her because he made her feel safe.  Waking up having traveled to the past made her remember those who’d really been there for her over the years and Spike was without a doubt one of those people.  He’d stayed with her all night at what was debatably one of the lowest points in her life, and that wasn’t something she could just let go of.  She trusted him.  And she knew he could handle her at her darkest, so she told him everything.  She didn’t wait to see if he’d sit down next to her, he’d do it if he wanted to.  Instead she opened her mouth and it all came spilling out; she told him about the time travel, she told him about Dawn, she voiced the questions she hadn’t dared to ask anyone, and she told she was afraid to admit to even herself that she was thinking.  If either of them wanted to do any good, Spike needed to know the entire truth; she didn’t stop until he did.

lovetobrag:

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.

lovetobrag:

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.