One good day.
Who: Buffy and Spike.
Where: Training room.
When: After speaking to Angel, Buffy ventures around Wolfram and Hart out of curiosity.
What: Violent therapy.
Status: Part I of a series of AIM Logs completed.
Part two is on the way.
PART I
Spike pounded into the punching bag as violently as he could without sending it flying across the room. Again. He wasn't having his very best week. The guy claiming to be his link to the Powers That Be, Powers that had apparently chosen him instead of the magnificent poof, turned out to be just scamming him to get at Angel. He was really starting to get annoyed at constantly being in the older vampire's shadow. In fact, he was annoyed enough that he was once again imagining Angel's face as the punching bag.
As he punched, he muttered, “Stupid...bleeding...poofter. Just can't let me have something of my own, can you? You right bastard.”
Buffy. Poor girl. She had a moment with Angel earlier in the lobby, but now things have changed. Instead of her being the one all busy, having to run off and do important things to save the world the roles had changed. She was feeling like he was too important and rich and.. well she didn't really want to think about it or go there right this second. He told her to walk around and give him some kind of consensus as to what she thought of his .. headquarters. Right now she was just kind of on a mission to beat something up.
"They really should have a map for this place." She said, sighing. It was easy to get lost. So many floors, rooms, and offices. She'd never thought he'd ever be working for or in a place like this. He never failed to surprise her. The first floor was pretty much just a lobby from what she had gathered, so she decided she would start with the second floor. This floor had less doors to get lost. In fact there were only a couple. They looked like a womans and mens locker room. One was on the left, the other on the right. "Well, this is interesting." She walked towards a large arch, totally unprepared for what she was about to stumble upon.
"What is this pla-" She immediately went quiet at the sound of a voice. Listening, she cautiously stepped forward. Buffy poked just her head through the threshold. Eyes immediately widened. It couldn't be. She must have been seeing things. Was this floor some kind of diluted, screwed up demension of torment? Did Angel use the amulet to trap Spike in a training room forever? No, probably not, but it was an amusing thought.
She side stepped and watched him from a distance, being sure his back was turned to her at all times. Eyes studied the room. Weapons rack was to the right, gymnastic-like equipment to the left, fighting ring and mats straight ahead and punching bags in each corner. This place was a slayers dream.
"Holy .." She whispered. She should have known that a vampire's sense of hearing could pick up the slightest of noise. Maybe he was too busy beating up fantasy Angel to have heard.
The presence of the Slayer took a long time to sink into Spike's mind. It happened in several steps, in fact. First, his brain registered the scent. He would never forget that scent for as long as he lived. That scent meant long hours digging through her basement, and then living there. It was what he spent months craving like a drug when she was dead. That scent was what was left behind all those times she ran quick as she could out the door of his crypt. And it was what had tortured him when he was crazy in the school basement. He tracked that phantom scent for miles in the mazes under that damned school, and never found anything but impressively large rats.
That phantom scent is what Spike thought he smelled now. After all, since he was most definitely not brooding about all the things Angel had done first but he had done better, Buffy was near the top of his list. It was only right that her smell would enter his mind. He closed his eyes and sent a particularly vicious right hook at the punching bag. "Even left your mark on her, didn't you, Angelus? Couldn't have let the Slayer make her own way. No, you like to break your toys." He sent a flurry of punches at what he imagined to be Angel's midsection.
Then she spoke. Spike immediately stopped punching the bag and froze in place. There was no way he was hallucinating that as well as her scent. However, his mind still refused to accept her presence. Instead, it wondered what in the sodding fiery depths of hell Buffy was doing in Los Angeles. Wasn't she supposed to be in Rome? It had to be Andrew. If he ever saw that little weasel again, he was going to rip him into bitty pieces and use those pieces to decorate Angel's office. He added that idea to the ever-growing list of ways to annoy his sire.
Of course, there was the other option. The cheerleader had said they needed to gather all the help they could to stop the next Apocalypse. And no one was more qualified than Buffy to save the world. He shut his eyes and wished she didn't have to be involved in this mess, and not only because he suspected he was about to get his ass kicked in a truly spectacular way for not calling her. Which he deserved.
Finally, Spike turned around and looked at her, and was forced to accept that she really was there. "Bloody hell," he said.
Buffy stood there and just simply.. blinked. This brought back memories of times where she had gone totally bananas on her very own punching bag in Sunnydale. Sigh, Sunnydale, the magic box. Things would never be the same, would they? She snapped back into reality a few moments later. She really needed to stop brooding, but she hadn't properly grieved the loss of her home and certain friends. She would have to fill Spike in eventually, it was inevitable. Buffy took a couple of steps towards Spike. Now she was begining to feel a little wigged. After the hellmouth, rome, and the immortal nothing seemed to really surprise her too much.
"Well, hello to you too."
Eyebrows furrowed and her head slightly tilted to the side. "I'm not going crazy, am I?" She wanted to reach out and poke him.. in the face. "This isn't some kind of prank? Or is it?" Two more steps were taken towards Spike, her eyes not once leaving his face. The confused look on her face would suddenly dissapear into a blank canvas. This was not good.
Oh what the hell, for old times sake?
Buffy's blues would lock with Spikes. They were in a training room after all, and after talking to Angel all Buffy had wanted to do was hit something. At first she was thinking punching bag, but now that she had someone to wail on she might as well use it to her advantage. "Only one way to find out, right, Spike?" Her right arm quickly cocked back and flung itself foward in the general direction of his face. If she clocked him she would a) feel a little better and b) know that he wasn't just some figment of her imagination or ghost trapped in some screwed up Wolfram and Hart demension.
On the plus side, Buffy didn't seem to be reaching for her stake. Of course, Spike hadn't been expecting her to stake him for not calling. He knew she had a tendency to get violent when she was blinded by rage, but even at her worst, she'd realized that killing a man for not calling to tell her he was alive would really be against her own interests. But she also wasn't hugging him and showering him with kisses either. Oh well, that was a nice dream while it lasted.
Spike realized that he had better start answering her questions if he didn't want to anger her further. No one needed a pissy Slayer on their hands. The Apocalypse was bad enough. “No, love, you've not gone batty, though I can see how you might be confused on that count. Place like this is bound to drive even the sanest off the reservation, never to return. As for the prank, I hope you missed me enough to kill any bastard who dared use me to muddle your mind. You know I'd hate that.”Spike liked to think he'd grown to know Buffy fairly well in their time together. So he had a little advance warning that told him he was about to be punched. First, there was the look on her face like it was Christmas morning and she'd just been gifted a Samurai sword. Or a wrecking ball. Next, there was how he really deserved it. How would he have felt if she'd skipped town and let him go on mourning when she came back? But that was assuming she'd mourned at all, and he tried not to do that most days.
With a sigh and and a tightening of his muscles, Spike decided to let her have the hit. His time spent as her whipping boy did have its high points, after all. He'd also beat himself up enough times over not calling her, so maybe he could stop once she got her own hits in. And it would convince her that he wasn't the First. That last year in Sunnydale, the best and time-honored way of making sure someone was solid wasn't something so kind and practical as poking them in the side. No, it had to be a full on tackle or a punch in the face, and no one pulled their punches that year, not with tensions running so high. He'd learned right quick how to avoid the really nasty hits to save his nose. If he had to fix his nose every time he got hit in the face, he wouldn't have any time left in his day.
As Buffy swung, Spike fell back a few inches. Pain exploded in his face, but there was no telltale crack, to his great relief. “Alright, Slayer, consider that your freebie. Now you know I'm good and solid, I hope.”
Buffy's fist had most certainly made contact with Spike's face. Oh yeah, this was no dream. This was no figment of her imagination. This was real. He was real. But how? What was the explanation for his return? It had to have something to do with the amulet. She watched him stumble back. The words that had been coming out of his mouth were totally clouded. Buffy hadn't really heard a single thing. The fact that she could touch him was simply enough to let her know this is reality.oops?
The slayer took a half step back. All she could do was bat her eyelashes. Speechless? Buffy? Hardly. This was one of those rare occaisions. Lips would slightly part to suck in a breath of fresh air. She was hoping it would help clear her mind a little bit. Hope, however, was not enough at this moment. She was still standing in an offensive stance. One arm was pulled at her hip, knuckles white, the other was at an upwards angle. She looked like she was going to go in for another hit.
"Hit me."
Were the roles suddenly reversed? She vaguely remembered a scenario a couple years back behind the Bronze. He was begging for her to hit him, give him one good day, and she didn't. Eyes sharpened as memories came rushing back. Why was she trying to fight him? What even posessed her to want to? They had ended on such a good note before he had bursted into flames. Oh Buffy, you still haven't changed one bit.
"You know you want to."
She needed a good tumble. It was just like after the Master had died. She had some issues that she needed to work out. It was the least Spike could do since he didn't even try to contact her once he became all corporial again. Besides if he wasn't going to play along, she was just going to send four inches of boot-heel fury flying into his stomach.
When Spike's vision cleared after the hit, his first look at Buffy convinced him once again that he was hallucinating. Was she batting her eyelashes at him? And those lips...oh, for the love of all things unholy, was she flirting with him? True, there had been a time when beating the hell out of each other had been their foreplay, but he had thought they'd moved past that.
Until she asked him to hit her. But why? Spike was half positive she was trying to drive him crazy. As if all that time spent trying to figure her out hadn't done the job well enough. He'd wanted her to hit him, sure, but he knew damn well he had it coming. Why should Buffy deserve to be hit?
Her next words echoed back at him across the years. Answered his most important question, too. She was definitely flirting, in that horribly twisted way they had. Spike's lips curved into a smile, and he watched her eyes carefully for any reaction to his words.
“Finally gonna give it me good, Buffy?”
Finally, after a few more seconds of internal debate, he shrugged. Who was he to care if their relationship resembled a bad TV movie? Rules about spousal abuse never applied to them anyway. “If you insist.” With only that as warning, he let his left fist fly into her face.
Bullseye. He got her right in the face. She stumbled a couple of steps back, giving him the opening to strike was not merely luck like the rest of the times they had fought. No, this time she wanted it. Giving it to him good was an understatement. Buffy regained her composure, returning to starting stance. She would lift one leg, using the foot still planted on the floor to pivot. Her other foot came flying upwards in a spiral kick to the side of his face. She could only hope she hit him.
"Let's dance." She growled.
Hands moved to plant themselves on the mat, sending her upside down. Legs would come down one by one, intending to connect one after another with Spikes chest. She still had it. She hadn't fought a single being in over a month. He would probably notice she was rusty, but she was just starting to warm up. Spike had no idea how much he was helping her in a sick-therepeutic way. She had told him he would never be the one to be there when the time came that she felt she had nothing left to live for. The truth was only the opposite. Somewhere deep down inside Spike knew and through out the years held onto that one spark of hope. Had he won? The real battle between them was only just begining.
Buffy landed on her feet and looked to Spike wherever he may be. She was ready for his next move. If anyone had walked in on them they'd be watching Buffy at her lowest. Not in the sense of fighting Spike and remotely giving him the time of day being low, but in the sense of the fact she felt she had nothing, no purpose, she was just floating. Feeling lost was definately not something Buffy ever thought she would feel again after she was brought back from the dead. She had finally gotten over it and now it had come back to haunt her. Why was she feeling this way?
The guilt went off like a flashbomb for just a second, but Spike had been prepared for that, so he fought it back and hoped she wouldn't notice. Bleeding soul, he thought. This had been so much easier when he was just in it for himself. He had about half a second after he regained his concentration to see Buffy's foot coming at him, and no time at all to dodge. He only managed to stay on his feet through sheer force of will. Couldn't let her down when she was so clearly itching for a good fight.
“Sure, pet,” he replied. “Someone's gotta make sure you haven't forgotten the steps.”
Buffy was fast; he had to give her that. However, she wasn't as fast as she was when she had been at her best. Maybe they should start sparring on a daily basis. She needed to be in her top form. He dodged the first leg and grabbed for the second, intending to send her crashing to the ground, but he missed by a fraction of an inch, so her leg caught him in the chest, but not as hard as it should have.
Those last few years in Sunnydale, Spike considered it his sole purpose in life to give Buffy exactly what it was she needed. He knew he was giving her something she needed now, but it could be any number of things she was getting out of this. A partner who knew her steps. The company of an old friend or arch nemesis, depending on the day. A solid fight to keep the blood pumping. A reminder of days past. He couldn't even begin to guess.
Spike watched her movements closely, scanning for any part of her that she left open. Coming up from a move like that was always a vulnerable time for a fighter. As she was coming up, Spike aimed a kick at her ribs and, in case that missed, followed up with a swing at her jaw.
For that moment, that split second the two didn't attack eachother. Buffy had managed to slip in a word or two. Sooner or later she would come back to being the old Buffy and realize that this was her place. This is where she belonged. Sure, there were hundreds of slayers now lined up to fight around the world, but none of them were Buffy. She was the original. The one and only most renouned slayer who died twice, came back, fought over three apocalypses and activated the powers within all of the potentials across land and sea. It seems with the loss of Sunnydale, she had forgotten all of that. It was like nothing she did mattered.
"You know I haven't forgotten."
But oh, how she had. She watched his foot come up to her ribs and jolted back to dodge. He hadn't got her with his foot, but he did catch her by surprise with his fist. Her head snapped to the side. Buffy's only reaction was to bring one fist after another into his stomach, barging foward she laid into him much like he had the punching bag earlier. She kept her head slightly down between her arms to protect her face as much as possible. She was feeling it out, soon enough she would be able to remember his style, moves, the tricks of his trade. It was time to turn the pre-sensing switch on and she did just that.
Wow I'm really off my game.
Perhaps making him a training partner wouldn't have been a bad idea. After all, that's pretty much what he did for her in Sunnydale. He kept her on her toes. When you think about it long enough she never did kill him. He was subconciously a useful tool to Buffy, other than just being good for underground information.
"Is this all you've got?" Buffy said with a swift and surprising kick towards his mid-section using all her stregnth. If she had gotten him, he would be sent flying into the wall behind him. If not, well whatever he had planned for Buffy next would most certainly work since she would be a bit off balance. "You've been waiting so long for this day to come, and this is it?" Did she really truely mean what she was saying, was this really his one good day? Spike probably wouldn't let it happen, even if she were on her knees begging for it.
There was something off about Buffy. Spike could feel it. The only reason he didn't recognize it right away was that his whole being flinched away from the idea. He searched for alternatives to the thought he wouldn't allow to fully form. But this wasn't about kicking his ass for not calling, or she wouldn't have invited him to hit her back. And this wasn't just a sparring match or foreplay. She tended to talk more when she was in that kind of mood.
His thoughts were interrupted by the barrage of small fists landing in his stomach, driving him backward with each hit. She was hitting harder now, and he remembered why he always seemed to be her favorite person to fight. He could take the damage in a way none of her friends could. Even wrapped up in all the padding in the state of California, no one could take a beating from Buffy, and give back at least almost as good as he got, like Spike could.
The second her fists let up, Spike dropped himself to the ground, so her kick went sailing over his head. He kicked his left leg out and swept it across where he imagined her feet would be, hoping to send her crashing to the mattress and maybe even pinning her while she was down. Because her words forced him to recognize why she was doing this.
“You think after everything, I'd be the one to swoop in and have myself a real good day?” The anger bubbled up inside him. How could she give up? Did she seek him out so he could kill her? “Newsflash, Buffy: you already died since that night. And yeah, I was there. It wasn't what I'd call a good day. Bloody worst day of my existence, it was. Wanna put me through that again? Your sis? Your Scoobies?”
Her foot missed, he had ducked. Crap. Her legs were taken out from underneath her and she fell right onto her back. Looking up at him now, Buffy kept a straight face. She was forced to listen to what he had to say to her. This was another reason why she came to him. He was good with words. Maybe he had been a horrible poet at one time, but if he had chosen motivational speaking as his intrest instead maybe he wouldn't be here.
Spike had her pinned. For the first time, Buffy let him keep her there. Eyes locked with his. She listened. He was the first person to really get through to her. Sure, she had listened to Angel earlier, but he had no intrest in having any kind of heart to heart. It was straight to business. It's what started the negatory feelings that had bubbled up inside of Buffy in the first place. It was why she was throwing punch for punch with him. All in all, she was really seeking the simplicity of comfort.
"Put you through that? Them through that?" Her eyes rolled. She loved Dawn to death and her friends. "Scoobies, no scoobies. Family, no family. It all doesn't matter anymore." And it was then she decided he could no longer have her in submission. A knee came up to connect with his abdomen and her hands grasped his arms. She rolled them over so that she was hovering over him. Her knee pinned to his chest. "There are hundreds of me running around now, I'm done here. I want you to put me back where I belong."
And so the truth came out in all of it's glory.
"What is it? Why can't you do it? It's the least you could do, you know, after leaving me to deal with everything, alone." Spike had said it himself once, in the end she was always going to be alone. It was coming back to haunt her in full. A small piece of resentment toward spike surfaced. In the end, he was always right. "They aren't my scoobies anymore, they're Angels." Buffy never thought she would ever feel jealousy towards Angel. Now she knew how Spike must have felt everytime he took a little something away from him.
As much as he tried, Spike wasn't so noble that he didn't enjoy having Buffy pinned under him. But the anger was still the dominant emotion. All that time he had spent, fighting with her to turn her into the one Slayer that was just too good to die...and now she thought he was the only one worthy to kill her. She had some nerve. But she couldn't really expect him to go through with that plan, could she?
“Hundreds of you? Are you kidding? There are hundreds of Slayers running about, pet, but definitely only one Buffy Summers.” Spike grinned down at her, but he thought it probably looked more like a maniac grimace, given his mood. “Hell, probably only one Buffy at all. Bloody ridiculous name, that is.” Done with his ribbing, he got back to the point. “You are the best of the best, Buffy. You're the one that gets called when the whole universe is headed to horror and bloodshed. Name one of the bitty Slayers who might be able to save this world. Who would take your place? Vi, maybe? Rona?”
Buffy flipped him and he didn't even try to stop her. With her pinning him down, he couldn't help but think, Just like old times. “You think I left you? Think it was something I wanted to do? I died for you, you crazy bint. I stayed away when I came back because I thought it was what you wanted. Finally a chance to be rid of old Spike, the newly-souled, evil thing who just refuses to give up on you. You want me to say why I can't kill you? Need to hear it so you can throw it back in my face? Fine. I won't kill you, Slayer, because I can't seem to stop loving you.”
Spike mentally cursed himself. He really hadn't meant to say that so soon, but Buffy was just being so volatile. It just popped out, and now there was no way to un-say it. He charged on to the next issue, hoping for the tiny chance she'd fixate more on what he had to say about her friends. “So you're pissed Angel took them from you? I've had a hundred and twenty odd years where all Angel does is either take what I love from me or get to it first and sully it for life. And you're ready to throw in the towel after he what? Breaks up with you and recruits your friends to help with the Apocalypse? You think he took them? Take them back. It's that simple.”
Now came the peak of the hill the two of them had started to climb. Buffy had missed that sadistic-twisted grin of his. The look on her face wouldn't show any signs, but the feeling was there in the pit of her stomach. She had been itching for exactly this the past couple of months. A piece of the empty abyss embedded in the slayer heart was being filled. Fighting Spike was like a drug and the symptoms of withdrawl were as bad as kicking heroin.
All she could do was listen to him as he spoke. Past and present, then and now, things were always the same. She never understood until this moment or even fathomed the meaning of any of it. Buffy realized no matter how many times they tussled, danced, fought, whatever you wanted to call it they always managed to have some sort of truthful, straight-to-the-heart conversation. On top of it all, she always listened to what he had to say before she would go ahead and strike him. Ever since the two met their fists were their source for conversation. It was sick and twisted, the fact the two could channel passion, hate, love, whatever the feeling through the most violent of gestures.
Buffy had to hand it to him. He was right, again. All of the new slayers had no experience in what was to come. Sure, a small handful had fought beside her in the apocalypse, but without Buffy having sacraficed sharing her powers they would have never made it out of there alive. It made her question, if she had been able to hold them off long enough alone, would Spike's amulet still have set off? Could she have gone without having to share the gift? It brought a sick feeling to her stomach.
She shouldn't have been thinking so selfishly, but when it came down to being the one slayer she was always protective of the title. Kendra and Faith were perfect examples. When Kendra came to rain on her parade she was bitter and told her it was okay for her to stay until Spike and Dru were taken care of, but then she had to go back to the povershed country she came from. When Faith came along it was a never ending clash of personality, looks, stregnth and wits It was always who was the better Slayer. Now there were hundreds of others to compete with.
For a second the look in the slayer's eyes changed. However, the softened gaze didn't stick around for long. Spike might have caught it and this was a clue to let him know she was absorbing what he had to tell her. Reminding her of what she could accomplish and had accomplished triggered this small tinge of euphoria.
Buffy went back to the task at hand. She still had Spike immobilized beneath her. Her eyes, now emotionless once again, read deeply into his. The spark was still there, his soul, not the romantic type. Another relic of Sunnydale. As for her, she could pass for souless at the moment. Fist flew to strike downward at his face. That was what he got for telling her he loved her. She threw it back in his face alright, with the help of five of her best friends. The timing was off, but that was what the hit was for. Spike reached the core of the issue.
"I-I can't."
That was so like her. So nobile. So loyal. If it made him happy, Angel could take whatever he wanted from her and she wouldn't do jack about it. She slid her knee off of his chest. She didn't let him go though, one hand was placed on either side of him and her body was slightly off to the side. Blue eyes would open, gaze reuinited with Spike's. She was ready to tip the glass.
"It bothers me. I'd be lying if I said it didn't." She sighed and then continued onward. "It's just like a repeat of last time - I don't want it. Faith took all the potentials away from me, screwed up and then I had to take over. If Angel screws up and people die? I can't let him have that hanging over his head. This is his Apocalypse, if he needs my help he will let me know." It wasn't just jealousy. There were many mixed feelings about the subject. She was ready to give up her gang and become a part of it instead. Spike probably wouldn't let her settle for anything less. "Anya, Robin, the potentials who never had the chance or fought it out long enough to get the gift. Their deaths, they haunt me." Her eyes momentarily averted away from Spike's, but somehow found their way interlocked with his once more. "I don't think I can handle losing anyone else."
One torrid slayer coming right up. Burried feelings rushed from her gut straight to her head. Her eyes welled, a nearly silent sniffle soon followed. The storm was about to hit and she was doing her best to fight it off. Buffy had no chance though, not after what she had to say next.
"I thought I'd lost you."
That had nothing to do with what she was talking about earlier! How did she go from rambling about caring for Angel's well being to this? Damn him.
Hold me now if you know what's good for you, jerk.
Spike could tell that his words were filtering through that thick head of hers, but Buffy was still a long way from healed. Maybe she never would be. Maybe too much damage had been done to her over the years, by the enemies she'd fought and by the world she'd saved. By Angel, and not least of all by Spike himself. As long as he lived, he would never forget his own sins against Buffy.
Spike saw the moment of softness pass through Buffy's eyes, but it passed so quickly that he wasn't truly sure he'd seen it at all. However, he was sure that how she looked afterwards promised him pain, and so he wasn't surprised when her fist came crashing down in his face. That was what he always got for confessing his love, wasn't it? There was no reason to expect that had changed.
Except that she'd said she loved him. He hadn't believed her, of course, but he wished he'd said something else. Perhaps she'd read bitterness in his last words to her. He was only trying to release her from any obligation she felt to him, but maybe his words had done more harm than good. Maybe he should have just said, 'I love you too,' and let his love for her be his dying words. But...if she had meant it, and he had replied that way, there was a chance she would have stayed. And he could never have allowed that. Buffy was going to live to a ripe old age if it killed him. And it had.
Confusion crashed over Spike. Buffy couldn't what? Deal with his love? Oh...take her friends back. She wasn't making any sense. First she wanted to be selfish. She wanted her friends all to herself, and damn anyone else who needed their help. Now she couldn't bear the thought of stealing them back because the great poofter's feelings would get hurt. “This Apocalypse gets diverted, they'll be yours again. Not a one of them will keep working for Evil, Inc. if their existence isn't on the line. And your best chance of not losing any more of them is to stay on and fight. You cash out your chips now, then how would you ever protect them?”
Even with as well as he knew her, Spike could never have seen her pain over his loss coming. Punching someone in the face wasn't exactly the most normal way of telling that person he was missed. But they were still them, so of course, fists said it better than words. He wriggled up into a sitting position and attempted to gather Buffy into his arms. He would close his eyes and bask in her scent. He struggled for words, then finally admitted, “The plan was always to come find you when I could. I wouldn't have let you think me dead forever, even though I did think you might want to.”
As horrible as it was. Angel had suddenly popped into her thoughts. He was working for an evil law firm. For the greater good? What was he thinking? If Buffy was going to think for even a fraction of a second that he wasn't going to need her help, she had to think again. This next apocalypse was something bigger than even he would be able to handle. Cordelia even knew it, it was in her vision. Why tell him to call in this many people for help?
She decided from that moment on she would let him learn the hard way. He had done fine without her this long, and right now she had one up on him when it came to handling an apocalypse. The last one she was involved in wiped out a whole city. The slayer would only chime in and lend a hand if she was asked. Spike was probably right. It would get to the point of rediculous and those famous words would be sung once again;
Where do we go from here?
If all eyes ended up on her, which was a possibility, she'd have to help call the shots, if not -- call them all. It was funny how things sessed out the way that they did. Hundreds of slayers in the making and she was still the only one qualified for the end-of-the-world job description. Even if was only in Spike's eyes, it was enough for now. That glimmer of hope he planted inside of her was going to be enough to keep her going for at least a little while. Give her what she was looking for, purpose.
Buffy gathered the stregnth to wrap her arms around Spike. Her head lay gently on his shoulder. Tears started to roll over warm, red cheeks. She closed her eyes. A piece of her felt at peace knowing Spike was really here, as alive as a vampire could be. He wasn't just some figment of her imagination or weird Wolfram and Hart clone. It was him, one hundred and one percent. She had almost forgotten what it was like to be held by his embrace. This time around she wasn't going to get up and leave on him and it had nothing to do with the fact that she had no where else to go. For the first time ever she was truely comfortable with him. She had no questions or doubts in her mind as to his intentions.
Her eyes opened and she sniffled. Buffy's eyebrows furrowed. Did he have to say she might have wished him dead? Really? Sometimes he didn't know where to leave things. Why make her feel all warm and fuzzy inside only to stomp on it with the big boot of guilt? Yes, at one point in her life Buffy did want him to fall off the face of the planet, but after what had just happened between Sunnydale's last stand and now.. Didn't he get it?
"You're an idiot."
Familiar words, much?
"How many times am I going to have to call you an idiot for you to understand that you're thinking like one when you say dumb things like that." She pulled away slightly. No, she wouldn't leave his arms, but she would bring herself back enough to look at him with serious sencerity in her eyes. "Look at me right now, please, and tell me that you can still entertain the thought of me wanting you gone and out of my life forever." Through the tears, she still managed to pull off that infamous eye roll of annoyance. An arm moved to wipe her face. She hoped he realized she wasn't crying just because she thought he had lost him. If he had she wouldn't have been surprised. He was still Spike afterall.
Finally, Spike was almost sure he had gotten through to Buffy. At least she'd stopped asking him to kill her. That was a definite improvement, and accepting his embrace was certainly a mark in the plus column, as far as he was concerned. But he hated to see her cry. It was a weakness of his; he hated to see her break.
But he had to agree that he was being an idiot. If he told the truth, he'd have to admit that he hadn't tracked her down the second he was capable because he didn't want to be kicked in the head and rejected. Even though he believed she hadn't meant what she'd said in the Hellmouth, that was entirely different than knowing for sure. He cursed himself for a moment. Before he'd crumbled into ash, he would have followed her to the end of the world and back, whether she wanted him there or not. Why hadn't he followed those instincts?
“Fine, I'm an idiot,” Spike admitted, staring into Buffy's eyes. “You don't want me gone. And you did enough to make that plenty clear in Sunnyhell, but like you said, I'm an idiot. Thought it was just pity. But I'm not the only idiot here. How could you think I'd be the one to take you out of the game? Couldn't kill you if the fate of the whole bloody world depended on it.”
Studying her face, taking her in like a starving man just offered a buffet, he knew how much he had screwed up. “I'm sorry I didn't come for you, pet. Should have pulled out every stop I could manage to track you down the instant I was solid. Thought about it every day, I did.” He touched her face, wiping a tear away and brushing her hair back. “Sorry I hurt you.”
For the first time in a long while, Spike would see Buffy smile. Best of all, it was because of him. She was slowly coming back from whatever depths her grim thoughts had taken her. It was like she was sucked into the crater Sunnydale left behind and it was taking forever for her to claw her way back up. Although Spike had made her feel better for the moment, that didn't mean she was cured. The final battle in Sunnydale would still haunt her and now she had the upcoming war to pile on top of it. The differences now was that she would always have this to think back on and Spike at her side to remind her. You would think with her vacation time in London and Rome that she would get over it. Those days were loneliest she's ever felt in her entire life and she had felt pretty damn lonely before.
Her head shook no three or four times. Here came the guilt and the truths Buffy never would have spoken before her last end-of-days scenario. "Listen, Spike." She sniffled. Most of her crying had stopped and he could probably understand her words clearly now. "You have every right to think that." Shocking. Was she actually about to apologize to Spike? Buffy had changed and matured. It was a scary thing. "I haven't exactly been the best of friends with you in the past, and my actions were everything but angelic." She left his arms and moved to sit herself beside him. Her body would drop back onto the mat and she would lay down, eyes glancing up at the ceiling. For some reason eye contact and this conversation were not going to happen at the same time.
"I used you. Again, and again. I hate to bring up past ghosts, but it seems all that I've done is beat you down, over and over and, well, you get it." Buffy's hand moved to wipe away a tear that had managed to somehow sneak by. "Then after I was done using you to get over dying I still pushed you away. You came back with a soul and some how I still managed to be a total bitch. I mean granted you did some pretty crappy things, but I deserved them. I lead you on, I let you have a taste and took it away. I don't blame you for trying to sleep with me." Yeah, she was reffering to the rape. "I instigated, again, and again. I'm not saying it's all of my fault because it takes two to tango, but.."
Were these words really coming out of her mouth right now? Hell must have frozen over. Her eyes dropped from the ceiling to look over at Spike. "And just before the world might have ended, you were right there by my side when I was at my worst." Eyebrows furrowed. Now Buffy was no longer cry-happy. There were no more tears. "And it took you dying to make me realize that never did I thank you, or apologize for what happened between us in the past. What the old me knew and what I know now are complete opposites. Everything has sort of pieced itself together since then. I never understood."
If he was already blown out of the water, he was about to get his ass kicked to next tuesday. She was reffering to a lot of dark and damsk times in both of their lives. The fact that she could remember this all was absolutely astonishing. Buffy gathered up the last few thoughts in her head. This caused her to look up at the ceiling again, just while she thought. The last part was the kicker. Pale blues fixed to Spike's. What would this be without having the windows to their souls open to one anothers?
"I remember, I was probably twenty two or twenty three at the time." Buffy paused a moment. "We were having an argument about Vampires, how they love differently, how they don't. Maybe even how they could love better." A hand moved to his, fingers brushing gently against Spike's cold skin. She used to be repulsed, now, not even close. "I said vampires had no soul. There was no way." Her head shook. "Whether the spark is there or not, it doesn't matter. The only difference between a vampire with a soul and without a soul is a concience. Concience has nothing to do with, and never will have anything to do with the way any being feels emotinally. Concience is the perception of right and wrong."
Oh, she wasn't done yet.
"Two and a half years went by after you had that chip in your head. You were sleeping with me. You fought by my side again and again. You had no soul. You were loyal to me, without one. Those actions didn't change much after you got your soul. You were souless and chose to get a soul. If you were bitter towards me at all, wanted to kill me, hated me. It's because I made you feel that way towards me." Her head tilted, eyes slightly squinted at him. A grin pulled at the corners of her lips. "Vampires and people are only enemies because vampires need humans to survive. They can't have a concience. That's like telling a lion not to eat the lamb. After a lion kills the lamb the lion feels no remorse. I called you an animal, you should have called me a hypocrite. I knew what I was doing to you was wrong, and yet I did it. To top it all off, I had a soul the entire time. We were never that different."
The hand resting upon his would move up to his face. Yeah, she was still laying down. "Don't go thinking I've grown a soft spot for vampires or demons in my heart, they are still hellbound in my book." She knew he was smart and understood what she was saying, anyone would. The way she was thinking was abstract and provocative. It was almost poetic.
"What I'm getting at is, since you've been gone the weight of how I treated you in the past has been sitting on my shoulders. I've felt nothing but guilt. I am so sorry, Spike." Her hand left his face. "And I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."
The cold, dead lump of muscle that was Spike's heart almost felt like it wanted to beat when Buffy smiled at him like that. If he wasn't careful, he would end up right back where he was in Sunnydale. That wasn't such a bad place to be, especially near the end, but it would only hurt him all the more if Buffy still wasn't really ready. But when he really thought about it, that was okay too. Buffy had made him a much better man than he could ever have been without her. Being in her proximity made him want to be...better. For her. Even if the day never came when she loved him like he wanted her to, he thought it would still be worth it in the end.
Spike stayed silent through Buffy's speech. He could tell that there was a lot she needed to purge, and she could only do that by letting it all spill out of her. He wasn't sure if his jaw was actually beginning to hit the mat, but it certainly felt like it. When she pulled away from him, he reluctantly let her go, but remained sitting on the mat, his eyes locked on her. And when she touched his hand, he imagined an electric spark traveling all the way up to his elbow. The spark her fingers carried moved from his hand to his face, and he moved his hand to keep her touching him.
“I let you use me,” he told her, though he knew that came as no surprise. “I was perfectly happy to be used by you. To have whatever little part of you that you would share. That was no excuse...what I did....I've never regretted anything more. Thought I could be good without the soul. Maybe even thought you were my soul. But that I could hurt you like that...I left that very night. Knew I'd never be able to stay away from you, so I had to make sure to find a way to never hurt you like that again.”
He considered her words, tried to find the right way to phrase his. He was a poet once, and now he could barely figure out how to speak. No wonder he was doomed in that career path. “So you're half right. The soul is the conscience and the way a vamp views his past crimes and himself. But I knew right and wrong well enough before the soul, or I never would have gotten it. And, just so we're clear, I didn't do it to get in your knickers. Peaches thinks I did, and I'd wager Xander does too. But I did it to make sure you'd be safe from the worst parts of me. You, the little bit, and even your damned Scooby club. Funny that the First used it to get in my head.”
A sigh of relief passed his lips as Buffy reminded him of the one thing that he had, that he could do, that Angel never would. He had asked for his soul. Sought it out and fought nearly to the death for the honor of having it. Angelus would never do that. Angelus would fight the demon trials to banish such a thing from him forever. Spike was different. He could be loyal and fight on the side of good and love without that spark telling him it was the right thing to do.
The end of Buffy's speech caused two very separate and different reactions in him. First, he was flabberghasted. Buffy had never apologized to him, bu the hadn't expected her to. Then, pain lanced through him as her previous words sunk in. “Nothing but guilt?” he clarified. Nothing? Not a thing at all. No remembrance of their better times, no missing his sarcasm or his smile or even his ability to go all night. “I never held any of it against you. Was just the way it was to me. Couldn't expect a Slayer, girl born and bred to kill my kind, to believe right out that there could be any good in a single one of us. Least of all the slayer of the Slayers, trained directly under Angelus and a hundred and twenty years into the never-ending party that was slaughter. But if you feel you need forgiveness, it's yours.”
Where: Training room.
When: After speaking to Angel, Buffy ventures around Wolfram and Hart out of curiosity.
What: Violent therapy.
Status: Part I of a series of AIM Logs completed.
Part two is on the way.
PART I
Spike pounded into the punching bag as violently as he could without sending it flying across the room. Again. He wasn't having his very best week. The guy claiming to be his link to the Powers That Be, Powers that had apparently chosen him instead of the magnificent poof, turned out to be just scamming him to get at Angel. He was really starting to get annoyed at constantly being in the older vampire's shadow. In fact, he was annoyed enough that he was once again imagining Angel's face as the punching bag.
As he punched, he muttered, “Stupid...bleeding...poofter. Just can't let me have something of my own, can you? You right bastard.”
Buffy. Poor girl. She had a moment with Angel earlier in the lobby, but now things have changed. Instead of her being the one all busy, having to run off and do important things to save the world the roles had changed. She was feeling like he was too important and rich and.. well she didn't really want to think about it or go there right this second. He told her to walk around and give him some kind of consensus as to what she thought of his .. headquarters. Right now she was just kind of on a mission to beat something up.
"They really should have a map for this place." She said, sighing. It was easy to get lost. So many floors, rooms, and offices. She'd never thought he'd ever be working for or in a place like this. He never failed to surprise her. The first floor was pretty much just a lobby from what she had gathered, so she decided she would start with the second floor. This floor had less doors to get lost. In fact there were only a couple. They looked like a womans and mens locker room. One was on the left, the other on the right. "Well, this is interesting." She walked towards a large arch, totally unprepared for what she was about to stumble upon.
"What is this pla-" She immediately went quiet at the sound of a voice. Listening, she cautiously stepped forward. Buffy poked just her head through the threshold. Eyes immediately widened. It couldn't be. She must have been seeing things. Was this floor some kind of diluted, screwed up demension of torment? Did Angel use the amulet to trap Spike in a training room forever? No, probably not, but it was an amusing thought.
She side stepped and watched him from a distance, being sure his back was turned to her at all times. Eyes studied the room. Weapons rack was to the right, gymnastic-like equipment to the left, fighting ring and mats straight ahead and punching bags in each corner. This place was a slayers dream.
"Holy .." She whispered. She should have known that a vampire's sense of hearing could pick up the slightest of noise. Maybe he was too busy beating up fantasy Angel to have heard.
The presence of the Slayer took a long time to sink into Spike's mind. It happened in several steps, in fact. First, his brain registered the scent. He would never forget that scent for as long as he lived. That scent meant long hours digging through her basement, and then living there. It was what he spent months craving like a drug when she was dead. That scent was what was left behind all those times she ran quick as she could out the door of his crypt. And it was what had tortured him when he was crazy in the school basement. He tracked that phantom scent for miles in the mazes under that damned school, and never found anything but impressively large rats.
That phantom scent is what Spike thought he smelled now. After all, since he was most definitely not brooding about all the things Angel had done first but he had done better, Buffy was near the top of his list. It was only right that her smell would enter his mind. He closed his eyes and sent a particularly vicious right hook at the punching bag. "Even left your mark on her, didn't you, Angelus? Couldn't have let the Slayer make her own way. No, you like to break your toys." He sent a flurry of punches at what he imagined to be Angel's midsection.
Then she spoke. Spike immediately stopped punching the bag and froze in place. There was no way he was hallucinating that as well as her scent. However, his mind still refused to accept her presence. Instead, it wondered what in the sodding fiery depths of hell Buffy was doing in Los Angeles. Wasn't she supposed to be in Rome? It had to be Andrew. If he ever saw that little weasel again, he was going to rip him into bitty pieces and use those pieces to decorate Angel's office. He added that idea to the ever-growing list of ways to annoy his sire.
Of course, there was the other option. The cheerleader had said they needed to gather all the help they could to stop the next Apocalypse. And no one was more qualified than Buffy to save the world. He shut his eyes and wished she didn't have to be involved in this mess, and not only because he suspected he was about to get his ass kicked in a truly spectacular way for not calling her. Which he deserved.
Finally, Spike turned around and looked at her, and was forced to accept that she really was there. "Bloody hell," he said.
Buffy stood there and just simply.. blinked. This brought back memories of times where she had gone totally bananas on her very own punching bag in Sunnydale. Sigh, Sunnydale, the magic box. Things would never be the same, would they? She snapped back into reality a few moments later. She really needed to stop brooding, but she hadn't properly grieved the loss of her home and certain friends. She would have to fill Spike in eventually, it was inevitable. Buffy took a couple of steps towards Spike. Now she was begining to feel a little wigged. After the hellmouth, rome, and the immortal nothing seemed to really surprise her too much.
"Well, hello to you too."
Eyebrows furrowed and her head slightly tilted to the side. "I'm not going crazy, am I?" She wanted to reach out and poke him.. in the face. "This isn't some kind of prank? Or is it?" Two more steps were taken towards Spike, her eyes not once leaving his face. The confused look on her face would suddenly dissapear into a blank canvas. This was not good.
Oh what the hell, for old times sake?
Buffy's blues would lock with Spikes. They were in a training room after all, and after talking to Angel all Buffy had wanted to do was hit something. At first she was thinking punching bag, but now that she had someone to wail on she might as well use it to her advantage. "Only one way to find out, right, Spike?" Her right arm quickly cocked back and flung itself foward in the general direction of his face. If she clocked him she would a) feel a little better and b) know that he wasn't just some figment of her imagination or ghost trapped in some screwed up Wolfram and Hart demension.
On the plus side, Buffy didn't seem to be reaching for her stake. Of course, Spike hadn't been expecting her to stake him for not calling. He knew she had a tendency to get violent when she was blinded by rage, but even at her worst, she'd realized that killing a man for not calling to tell her he was alive would really be against her own interests. But she also wasn't hugging him and showering him with kisses either. Oh well, that was a nice dream while it lasted.
Spike realized that he had better start answering her questions if he didn't want to anger her further. No one needed a pissy Slayer on their hands. The Apocalypse was bad enough. “No, love, you've not gone batty, though I can see how you might be confused on that count. Place like this is bound to drive even the sanest off the reservation, never to return. As for the prank, I hope you missed me enough to kill any bastard who dared use me to muddle your mind. You know I'd hate that.”Spike liked to think he'd grown to know Buffy fairly well in their time together. So he had a little advance warning that told him he was about to be punched. First, there was the look on her face like it was Christmas morning and she'd just been gifted a Samurai sword. Or a wrecking ball. Next, there was how he really deserved it. How would he have felt if she'd skipped town and let him go on mourning when she came back? But that was assuming she'd mourned at all, and he tried not to do that most days.
With a sigh and and a tightening of his muscles, Spike decided to let her have the hit. His time spent as her whipping boy did have its high points, after all. He'd also beat himself up enough times over not calling her, so maybe he could stop once she got her own hits in. And it would convince her that he wasn't the First. That last year in Sunnydale, the best and time-honored way of making sure someone was solid wasn't something so kind and practical as poking them in the side. No, it had to be a full on tackle or a punch in the face, and no one pulled their punches that year, not with tensions running so high. He'd learned right quick how to avoid the really nasty hits to save his nose. If he had to fix his nose every time he got hit in the face, he wouldn't have any time left in his day.
As Buffy swung, Spike fell back a few inches. Pain exploded in his face, but there was no telltale crack, to his great relief. “Alright, Slayer, consider that your freebie. Now you know I'm good and solid, I hope.”
Buffy's fist had most certainly made contact with Spike's face. Oh yeah, this was no dream. This was no figment of her imagination. This was real. He was real. But how? What was the explanation for his return? It had to have something to do with the amulet. She watched him stumble back. The words that had been coming out of his mouth were totally clouded. Buffy hadn't really heard a single thing. The fact that she could touch him was simply enough to let her know this is reality.oops?
The slayer took a half step back. All she could do was bat her eyelashes. Speechless? Buffy? Hardly. This was one of those rare occaisions. Lips would slightly part to suck in a breath of fresh air. She was hoping it would help clear her mind a little bit. Hope, however, was not enough at this moment. She was still standing in an offensive stance. One arm was pulled at her hip, knuckles white, the other was at an upwards angle. She looked like she was going to go in for another hit.
"Hit me."
Were the roles suddenly reversed? She vaguely remembered a scenario a couple years back behind the Bronze. He was begging for her to hit him, give him one good day, and she didn't. Eyes sharpened as memories came rushing back. Why was she trying to fight him? What even posessed her to want to? They had ended on such a good note before he had bursted into flames. Oh Buffy, you still haven't changed one bit.
"You know you want to."
She needed a good tumble. It was just like after the Master had died. She had some issues that she needed to work out. It was the least Spike could do since he didn't even try to contact her once he became all corporial again. Besides if he wasn't going to play along, she was just going to send four inches of boot-heel fury flying into his stomach.
When Spike's vision cleared after the hit, his first look at Buffy convinced him once again that he was hallucinating. Was she batting her eyelashes at him? And those lips...oh, for the love of all things unholy, was she flirting with him? True, there had been a time when beating the hell out of each other had been their foreplay, but he had thought they'd moved past that.
Until she asked him to hit her. But why? Spike was half positive she was trying to drive him crazy. As if all that time spent trying to figure her out hadn't done the job well enough. He'd wanted her to hit him, sure, but he knew damn well he had it coming. Why should Buffy deserve to be hit?
Her next words echoed back at him across the years. Answered his most important question, too. She was definitely flirting, in that horribly twisted way they had. Spike's lips curved into a smile, and he watched her eyes carefully for any reaction to his words.
“Finally gonna give it me good, Buffy?”
Finally, after a few more seconds of internal debate, he shrugged. Who was he to care if their relationship resembled a bad TV movie? Rules about spousal abuse never applied to them anyway. “If you insist.” With only that as warning, he let his left fist fly into her face.
Bullseye. He got her right in the face. She stumbled a couple of steps back, giving him the opening to strike was not merely luck like the rest of the times they had fought. No, this time she wanted it. Giving it to him good was an understatement. Buffy regained her composure, returning to starting stance. She would lift one leg, using the foot still planted on the floor to pivot. Her other foot came flying upwards in a spiral kick to the side of his face. She could only hope she hit him.
"Let's dance." She growled.
Hands moved to plant themselves on the mat, sending her upside down. Legs would come down one by one, intending to connect one after another with Spikes chest. She still had it. She hadn't fought a single being in over a month. He would probably notice she was rusty, but she was just starting to warm up. Spike had no idea how much he was helping her in a sick-therepeutic way. She had told him he would never be the one to be there when the time came that she felt she had nothing left to live for. The truth was only the opposite. Somewhere deep down inside Spike knew and through out the years held onto that one spark of hope. Had he won? The real battle between them was only just begining.
Buffy landed on her feet and looked to Spike wherever he may be. She was ready for his next move. If anyone had walked in on them they'd be watching Buffy at her lowest. Not in the sense of fighting Spike and remotely giving him the time of day being low, but in the sense of the fact she felt she had nothing, no purpose, she was just floating. Feeling lost was definately not something Buffy ever thought she would feel again after she was brought back from the dead. She had finally gotten over it and now it had come back to haunt her. Why was she feeling this way?
The guilt went off like a flashbomb for just a second, but Spike had been prepared for that, so he fought it back and hoped she wouldn't notice. Bleeding soul, he thought. This had been so much easier when he was just in it for himself. He had about half a second after he regained his concentration to see Buffy's foot coming at him, and no time at all to dodge. He only managed to stay on his feet through sheer force of will. Couldn't let her down when she was so clearly itching for a good fight.
“Sure, pet,” he replied. “Someone's gotta make sure you haven't forgotten the steps.”
Buffy was fast; he had to give her that. However, she wasn't as fast as she was when she had been at her best. Maybe they should start sparring on a daily basis. She needed to be in her top form. He dodged the first leg and grabbed for the second, intending to send her crashing to the ground, but he missed by a fraction of an inch, so her leg caught him in the chest, but not as hard as it should have.
Those last few years in Sunnydale, Spike considered it his sole purpose in life to give Buffy exactly what it was she needed. He knew he was giving her something she needed now, but it could be any number of things she was getting out of this. A partner who knew her steps. The company of an old friend or arch nemesis, depending on the day. A solid fight to keep the blood pumping. A reminder of days past. He couldn't even begin to guess.
Spike watched her movements closely, scanning for any part of her that she left open. Coming up from a move like that was always a vulnerable time for a fighter. As she was coming up, Spike aimed a kick at her ribs and, in case that missed, followed up with a swing at her jaw.
For that moment, that split second the two didn't attack eachother. Buffy had managed to slip in a word or two. Sooner or later she would come back to being the old Buffy and realize that this was her place. This is where she belonged. Sure, there were hundreds of slayers now lined up to fight around the world, but none of them were Buffy. She was the original. The one and only most renouned slayer who died twice, came back, fought over three apocalypses and activated the powers within all of the potentials across land and sea. It seems with the loss of Sunnydale, she had forgotten all of that. It was like nothing she did mattered.
"You know I haven't forgotten."
But oh, how she had. She watched his foot come up to her ribs and jolted back to dodge. He hadn't got her with his foot, but he did catch her by surprise with his fist. Her head snapped to the side. Buffy's only reaction was to bring one fist after another into his stomach, barging foward she laid into him much like he had the punching bag earlier. She kept her head slightly down between her arms to protect her face as much as possible. She was feeling it out, soon enough she would be able to remember his style, moves, the tricks of his trade. It was time to turn the pre-sensing switch on and she did just that.
Wow I'm really off my game.
Perhaps making him a training partner wouldn't have been a bad idea. After all, that's pretty much what he did for her in Sunnydale. He kept her on her toes. When you think about it long enough she never did kill him. He was subconciously a useful tool to Buffy, other than just being good for underground information.
"Is this all you've got?" Buffy said with a swift and surprising kick towards his mid-section using all her stregnth. If she had gotten him, he would be sent flying into the wall behind him. If not, well whatever he had planned for Buffy next would most certainly work since she would be a bit off balance. "You've been waiting so long for this day to come, and this is it?" Did she really truely mean what she was saying, was this really his one good day? Spike probably wouldn't let it happen, even if she were on her knees begging for it.
There was something off about Buffy. Spike could feel it. The only reason he didn't recognize it right away was that his whole being flinched away from the idea. He searched for alternatives to the thought he wouldn't allow to fully form. But this wasn't about kicking his ass for not calling, or she wouldn't have invited him to hit her back. And this wasn't just a sparring match or foreplay. She tended to talk more when she was in that kind of mood.
His thoughts were interrupted by the barrage of small fists landing in his stomach, driving him backward with each hit. She was hitting harder now, and he remembered why he always seemed to be her favorite person to fight. He could take the damage in a way none of her friends could. Even wrapped up in all the padding in the state of California, no one could take a beating from Buffy, and give back at least almost as good as he got, like Spike could.
The second her fists let up, Spike dropped himself to the ground, so her kick went sailing over his head. He kicked his left leg out and swept it across where he imagined her feet would be, hoping to send her crashing to the mattress and maybe even pinning her while she was down. Because her words forced him to recognize why she was doing this.
“You think after everything, I'd be the one to swoop in and have myself a real good day?” The anger bubbled up inside him. How could she give up? Did she seek him out so he could kill her? “Newsflash, Buffy: you already died since that night. And yeah, I was there. It wasn't what I'd call a good day. Bloody worst day of my existence, it was. Wanna put me through that again? Your sis? Your Scoobies?”
Her foot missed, he had ducked. Crap. Her legs were taken out from underneath her and she fell right onto her back. Looking up at him now, Buffy kept a straight face. She was forced to listen to what he had to say to her. This was another reason why she came to him. He was good with words. Maybe he had been a horrible poet at one time, but if he had chosen motivational speaking as his intrest instead maybe he wouldn't be here.
Spike had her pinned. For the first time, Buffy let him keep her there. Eyes locked with his. She listened. He was the first person to really get through to her. Sure, she had listened to Angel earlier, but he had no intrest in having any kind of heart to heart. It was straight to business. It's what started the negatory feelings that had bubbled up inside of Buffy in the first place. It was why she was throwing punch for punch with him. All in all, she was really seeking the simplicity of comfort.
"Put you through that? Them through that?" Her eyes rolled. She loved Dawn to death and her friends. "Scoobies, no scoobies. Family, no family. It all doesn't matter anymore." And it was then she decided he could no longer have her in submission. A knee came up to connect with his abdomen and her hands grasped his arms. She rolled them over so that she was hovering over him. Her knee pinned to his chest. "There are hundreds of me running around now, I'm done here. I want you to put me back where I belong."
And so the truth came out in all of it's glory.
"What is it? Why can't you do it? It's the least you could do, you know, after leaving me to deal with everything, alone." Spike had said it himself once, in the end she was always going to be alone. It was coming back to haunt her in full. A small piece of resentment toward spike surfaced. In the end, he was always right. "They aren't my scoobies anymore, they're Angels." Buffy never thought she would ever feel jealousy towards Angel. Now she knew how Spike must have felt everytime he took a little something away from him.
As much as he tried, Spike wasn't so noble that he didn't enjoy having Buffy pinned under him. But the anger was still the dominant emotion. All that time he had spent, fighting with her to turn her into the one Slayer that was just too good to die...and now she thought he was the only one worthy to kill her. She had some nerve. But she couldn't really expect him to go through with that plan, could she?
“Hundreds of you? Are you kidding? There are hundreds of Slayers running about, pet, but definitely only one Buffy Summers.” Spike grinned down at her, but he thought it probably looked more like a maniac grimace, given his mood. “Hell, probably only one Buffy at all. Bloody ridiculous name, that is.” Done with his ribbing, he got back to the point. “You are the best of the best, Buffy. You're the one that gets called when the whole universe is headed to horror and bloodshed. Name one of the bitty Slayers who might be able to save this world. Who would take your place? Vi, maybe? Rona?”
Buffy flipped him and he didn't even try to stop her. With her pinning him down, he couldn't help but think, Just like old times. “You think I left you? Think it was something I wanted to do? I died for you, you crazy bint. I stayed away when I came back because I thought it was what you wanted. Finally a chance to be rid of old Spike, the newly-souled, evil thing who just refuses to give up on you. You want me to say why I can't kill you? Need to hear it so you can throw it back in my face? Fine. I won't kill you, Slayer, because I can't seem to stop loving you.”
Spike mentally cursed himself. He really hadn't meant to say that so soon, but Buffy was just being so volatile. It just popped out, and now there was no way to un-say it. He charged on to the next issue, hoping for the tiny chance she'd fixate more on what he had to say about her friends. “So you're pissed Angel took them from you? I've had a hundred and twenty odd years where all Angel does is either take what I love from me or get to it first and sully it for life. And you're ready to throw in the towel after he what? Breaks up with you and recruits your friends to help with the Apocalypse? You think he took them? Take them back. It's that simple.”
Now came the peak of the hill the two of them had started to climb. Buffy had missed that sadistic-twisted grin of his. The look on her face wouldn't show any signs, but the feeling was there in the pit of her stomach. She had been itching for exactly this the past couple of months. A piece of the empty abyss embedded in the slayer heart was being filled. Fighting Spike was like a drug and the symptoms of withdrawl were as bad as kicking heroin.
All she could do was listen to him as he spoke. Past and present, then and now, things were always the same. She never understood until this moment or even fathomed the meaning of any of it. Buffy realized no matter how many times they tussled, danced, fought, whatever you wanted to call it they always managed to have some sort of truthful, straight-to-the-heart conversation. On top of it all, she always listened to what he had to say before she would go ahead and strike him. Ever since the two met their fists were their source for conversation. It was sick and twisted, the fact the two could channel passion, hate, love, whatever the feeling through the most violent of gestures.
Buffy had to hand it to him. He was right, again. All of the new slayers had no experience in what was to come. Sure, a small handful had fought beside her in the apocalypse, but without Buffy having sacraficed sharing her powers they would have never made it out of there alive. It made her question, if she had been able to hold them off long enough alone, would Spike's amulet still have set off? Could she have gone without having to share the gift? It brought a sick feeling to her stomach.
She shouldn't have been thinking so selfishly, but when it came down to being the one slayer she was always protective of the title. Kendra and Faith were perfect examples. When Kendra came to rain on her parade she was bitter and told her it was okay for her to stay until Spike and Dru were taken care of, but then she had to go back to the povershed country she came from. When Faith came along it was a never ending clash of personality, looks, stregnth and wits It was always who was the better Slayer. Now there were hundreds of others to compete with.
For a second the look in the slayer's eyes changed. However, the softened gaze didn't stick around for long. Spike might have caught it and this was a clue to let him know she was absorbing what he had to tell her. Reminding her of what she could accomplish and had accomplished triggered this small tinge of euphoria.
Buffy went back to the task at hand. She still had Spike immobilized beneath her. Her eyes, now emotionless once again, read deeply into his. The spark was still there, his soul, not the romantic type. Another relic of Sunnydale. As for her, she could pass for souless at the moment. Fist flew to strike downward at his face. That was what he got for telling her he loved her. She threw it back in his face alright, with the help of five of her best friends. The timing was off, but that was what the hit was for. Spike reached the core of the issue.
"I-I can't."
That was so like her. So nobile. So loyal. If it made him happy, Angel could take whatever he wanted from her and she wouldn't do jack about it. She slid her knee off of his chest. She didn't let him go though, one hand was placed on either side of him and her body was slightly off to the side. Blue eyes would open, gaze reuinited with Spike's. She was ready to tip the glass.
"It bothers me. I'd be lying if I said it didn't." She sighed and then continued onward. "It's just like a repeat of last time - I don't want it. Faith took all the potentials away from me, screwed up and then I had to take over. If Angel screws up and people die? I can't let him have that hanging over his head. This is his Apocalypse, if he needs my help he will let me know." It wasn't just jealousy. There were many mixed feelings about the subject. She was ready to give up her gang and become a part of it instead. Spike probably wouldn't let her settle for anything less. "Anya, Robin, the potentials who never had the chance or fought it out long enough to get the gift. Their deaths, they haunt me." Her eyes momentarily averted away from Spike's, but somehow found their way interlocked with his once more. "I don't think I can handle losing anyone else."
One torrid slayer coming right up. Burried feelings rushed from her gut straight to her head. Her eyes welled, a nearly silent sniffle soon followed. The storm was about to hit and she was doing her best to fight it off. Buffy had no chance though, not after what she had to say next.
"I thought I'd lost you."
That had nothing to do with what she was talking about earlier! How did she go from rambling about caring for Angel's well being to this? Damn him.
Hold me now if you know what's good for you, jerk.
Spike could tell that his words were filtering through that thick head of hers, but Buffy was still a long way from healed. Maybe she never would be. Maybe too much damage had been done to her over the years, by the enemies she'd fought and by the world she'd saved. By Angel, and not least of all by Spike himself. As long as he lived, he would never forget his own sins against Buffy.
Spike saw the moment of softness pass through Buffy's eyes, but it passed so quickly that he wasn't truly sure he'd seen it at all. However, he was sure that how she looked afterwards promised him pain, and so he wasn't surprised when her fist came crashing down in his face. That was what he always got for confessing his love, wasn't it? There was no reason to expect that had changed.
Except that she'd said she loved him. He hadn't believed her, of course, but he wished he'd said something else. Perhaps she'd read bitterness in his last words to her. He was only trying to release her from any obligation she felt to him, but maybe his words had done more harm than good. Maybe he should have just said, 'I love you too,' and let his love for her be his dying words. But...if she had meant it, and he had replied that way, there was a chance she would have stayed. And he could never have allowed that. Buffy was going to live to a ripe old age if it killed him. And it had.
Confusion crashed over Spike. Buffy couldn't what? Deal with his love? Oh...take her friends back. She wasn't making any sense. First she wanted to be selfish. She wanted her friends all to herself, and damn anyone else who needed their help. Now she couldn't bear the thought of stealing them back because the great poofter's feelings would get hurt. “This Apocalypse gets diverted, they'll be yours again. Not a one of them will keep working for Evil, Inc. if their existence isn't on the line. And your best chance of not losing any more of them is to stay on and fight. You cash out your chips now, then how would you ever protect them?”
Even with as well as he knew her, Spike could never have seen her pain over his loss coming. Punching someone in the face wasn't exactly the most normal way of telling that person he was missed. But they were still them, so of course, fists said it better than words. He wriggled up into a sitting position and attempted to gather Buffy into his arms. He would close his eyes and bask in her scent. He struggled for words, then finally admitted, “The plan was always to come find you when I could. I wouldn't have let you think me dead forever, even though I did think you might want to.”
As horrible as it was. Angel had suddenly popped into her thoughts. He was working for an evil law firm. For the greater good? What was he thinking? If Buffy was going to think for even a fraction of a second that he wasn't going to need her help, she had to think again. This next apocalypse was something bigger than even he would be able to handle. Cordelia even knew it, it was in her vision. Why tell him to call in this many people for help?
She decided from that moment on she would let him learn the hard way. He had done fine without her this long, and right now she had one up on him when it came to handling an apocalypse. The last one she was involved in wiped out a whole city. The slayer would only chime in and lend a hand if she was asked. Spike was probably right. It would get to the point of rediculous and those famous words would be sung once again;
Where do we go from here?
If all eyes ended up on her, which was a possibility, she'd have to help call the shots, if not -- call them all. It was funny how things sessed out the way that they did. Hundreds of slayers in the making and she was still the only one qualified for the end-of-the-world job description. Even if was only in Spike's eyes, it was enough for now. That glimmer of hope he planted inside of her was going to be enough to keep her going for at least a little while. Give her what she was looking for, purpose.
Buffy gathered the stregnth to wrap her arms around Spike. Her head lay gently on his shoulder. Tears started to roll over warm, red cheeks. She closed her eyes. A piece of her felt at peace knowing Spike was really here, as alive as a vampire could be. He wasn't just some figment of her imagination or weird Wolfram and Hart clone. It was him, one hundred and one percent. She had almost forgotten what it was like to be held by his embrace. This time around she wasn't going to get up and leave on him and it had nothing to do with the fact that she had no where else to go. For the first time ever she was truely comfortable with him. She had no questions or doubts in her mind as to his intentions.
Her eyes opened and she sniffled. Buffy's eyebrows furrowed. Did he have to say she might have wished him dead? Really? Sometimes he didn't know where to leave things. Why make her feel all warm and fuzzy inside only to stomp on it with the big boot of guilt? Yes, at one point in her life Buffy did want him to fall off the face of the planet, but after what had just happened between Sunnydale's last stand and now.. Didn't he get it?
"You're an idiot."
Familiar words, much?
"How many times am I going to have to call you an idiot for you to understand that you're thinking like one when you say dumb things like that." She pulled away slightly. No, she wouldn't leave his arms, but she would bring herself back enough to look at him with serious sencerity in her eyes. "Look at me right now, please, and tell me that you can still entertain the thought of me wanting you gone and out of my life forever." Through the tears, she still managed to pull off that infamous eye roll of annoyance. An arm moved to wipe her face. She hoped he realized she wasn't crying just because she thought he had lost him. If he had she wouldn't have been surprised. He was still Spike afterall.
Finally, Spike was almost sure he had gotten through to Buffy. At least she'd stopped asking him to kill her. That was a definite improvement, and accepting his embrace was certainly a mark in the plus column, as far as he was concerned. But he hated to see her cry. It was a weakness of his; he hated to see her break.
But he had to agree that he was being an idiot. If he told the truth, he'd have to admit that he hadn't tracked her down the second he was capable because he didn't want to be kicked in the head and rejected. Even though he believed she hadn't meant what she'd said in the Hellmouth, that was entirely different than knowing for sure. He cursed himself for a moment. Before he'd crumbled into ash, he would have followed her to the end of the world and back, whether she wanted him there or not. Why hadn't he followed those instincts?
“Fine, I'm an idiot,” Spike admitted, staring into Buffy's eyes. “You don't want me gone. And you did enough to make that plenty clear in Sunnyhell, but like you said, I'm an idiot. Thought it was just pity. But I'm not the only idiot here. How could you think I'd be the one to take you out of the game? Couldn't kill you if the fate of the whole bloody world depended on it.”
Studying her face, taking her in like a starving man just offered a buffet, he knew how much he had screwed up. “I'm sorry I didn't come for you, pet. Should have pulled out every stop I could manage to track you down the instant I was solid. Thought about it every day, I did.” He touched her face, wiping a tear away and brushing her hair back. “Sorry I hurt you.”
For the first time in a long while, Spike would see Buffy smile. Best of all, it was because of him. She was slowly coming back from whatever depths her grim thoughts had taken her. It was like she was sucked into the crater Sunnydale left behind and it was taking forever for her to claw her way back up. Although Spike had made her feel better for the moment, that didn't mean she was cured. The final battle in Sunnydale would still haunt her and now she had the upcoming war to pile on top of it. The differences now was that she would always have this to think back on and Spike at her side to remind her. You would think with her vacation time in London and Rome that she would get over it. Those days were loneliest she's ever felt in her entire life and she had felt pretty damn lonely before.
Her head shook no three or four times. Here came the guilt and the truths Buffy never would have spoken before her last end-of-days scenario. "Listen, Spike." She sniffled. Most of her crying had stopped and he could probably understand her words clearly now. "You have every right to think that." Shocking. Was she actually about to apologize to Spike? Buffy had changed and matured. It was a scary thing. "I haven't exactly been the best of friends with you in the past, and my actions were everything but angelic." She left his arms and moved to sit herself beside him. Her body would drop back onto the mat and she would lay down, eyes glancing up at the ceiling. For some reason eye contact and this conversation were not going to happen at the same time.
"I used you. Again, and again. I hate to bring up past ghosts, but it seems all that I've done is beat you down, over and over and, well, you get it." Buffy's hand moved to wipe away a tear that had managed to somehow sneak by. "Then after I was done using you to get over dying I still pushed you away. You came back with a soul and some how I still managed to be a total bitch. I mean granted you did some pretty crappy things, but I deserved them. I lead you on, I let you have a taste and took it away. I don't blame you for trying to sleep with me." Yeah, she was reffering to the rape. "I instigated, again, and again. I'm not saying it's all of my fault because it takes two to tango, but.."
Were these words really coming out of her mouth right now? Hell must have frozen over. Her eyes dropped from the ceiling to look over at Spike. "And just before the world might have ended, you were right there by my side when I was at my worst." Eyebrows furrowed. Now Buffy was no longer cry-happy. There were no more tears. "And it took you dying to make me realize that never did I thank you, or apologize for what happened between us in the past. What the old me knew and what I know now are complete opposites. Everything has sort of pieced itself together since then. I never understood."
If he was already blown out of the water, he was about to get his ass kicked to next tuesday. She was reffering to a lot of dark and damsk times in both of their lives. The fact that she could remember this all was absolutely astonishing. Buffy gathered up the last few thoughts in her head. This caused her to look up at the ceiling again, just while she thought. The last part was the kicker. Pale blues fixed to Spike's. What would this be without having the windows to their souls open to one anothers?
"I remember, I was probably twenty two or twenty three at the time." Buffy paused a moment. "We were having an argument about Vampires, how they love differently, how they don't. Maybe even how they could love better." A hand moved to his, fingers brushing gently against Spike's cold skin. She used to be repulsed, now, not even close. "I said vampires had no soul. There was no way." Her head shook. "Whether the spark is there or not, it doesn't matter. The only difference between a vampire with a soul and without a soul is a concience. Concience has nothing to do with, and never will have anything to do with the way any being feels emotinally. Concience is the perception of right and wrong."
Oh, she wasn't done yet.
"Two and a half years went by after you had that chip in your head. You were sleeping with me. You fought by my side again and again. You had no soul. You were loyal to me, without one. Those actions didn't change much after you got your soul. You were souless and chose to get a soul. If you were bitter towards me at all, wanted to kill me, hated me. It's because I made you feel that way towards me." Her head tilted, eyes slightly squinted at him. A grin pulled at the corners of her lips. "Vampires and people are only enemies because vampires need humans to survive. They can't have a concience. That's like telling a lion not to eat the lamb. After a lion kills the lamb the lion feels no remorse. I called you an animal, you should have called me a hypocrite. I knew what I was doing to you was wrong, and yet I did it. To top it all off, I had a soul the entire time. We were never that different."
The hand resting upon his would move up to his face. Yeah, she was still laying down. "Don't go thinking I've grown a soft spot for vampires or demons in my heart, they are still hellbound in my book." She knew he was smart and understood what she was saying, anyone would. The way she was thinking was abstract and provocative. It was almost poetic.
"What I'm getting at is, since you've been gone the weight of how I treated you in the past has been sitting on my shoulders. I've felt nothing but guilt. I am so sorry, Spike." Her hand left his face. "And I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."
The cold, dead lump of muscle that was Spike's heart almost felt like it wanted to beat when Buffy smiled at him like that. If he wasn't careful, he would end up right back where he was in Sunnydale. That wasn't such a bad place to be, especially near the end, but it would only hurt him all the more if Buffy still wasn't really ready. But when he really thought about it, that was okay too. Buffy had made him a much better man than he could ever have been without her. Being in her proximity made him want to be...better. For her. Even if the day never came when she loved him like he wanted her to, he thought it would still be worth it in the end.
Spike stayed silent through Buffy's speech. He could tell that there was a lot she needed to purge, and she could only do that by letting it all spill out of her. He wasn't sure if his jaw was actually beginning to hit the mat, but it certainly felt like it. When she pulled away from him, he reluctantly let her go, but remained sitting on the mat, his eyes locked on her. And when she touched his hand, he imagined an electric spark traveling all the way up to his elbow. The spark her fingers carried moved from his hand to his face, and he moved his hand to keep her touching him.
“I let you use me,” he told her, though he knew that came as no surprise. “I was perfectly happy to be used by you. To have whatever little part of you that you would share. That was no excuse...what I did....I've never regretted anything more. Thought I could be good without the soul. Maybe even thought you were my soul. But that I could hurt you like that...I left that very night. Knew I'd never be able to stay away from you, so I had to make sure to find a way to never hurt you like that again.”
He considered her words, tried to find the right way to phrase his. He was a poet once, and now he could barely figure out how to speak. No wonder he was doomed in that career path. “So you're half right. The soul is the conscience and the way a vamp views his past crimes and himself. But I knew right and wrong well enough before the soul, or I never would have gotten it. And, just so we're clear, I didn't do it to get in your knickers. Peaches thinks I did, and I'd wager Xander does too. But I did it to make sure you'd be safe from the worst parts of me. You, the little bit, and even your damned Scooby club. Funny that the First used it to get in my head.”
A sigh of relief passed his lips as Buffy reminded him of the one thing that he had, that he could do, that Angel never would. He had asked for his soul. Sought it out and fought nearly to the death for the honor of having it. Angelus would never do that. Angelus would fight the demon trials to banish such a thing from him forever. Spike was different. He could be loyal and fight on the side of good and love without that spark telling him it was the right thing to do.
The end of Buffy's speech caused two very separate and different reactions in him. First, he was flabberghasted. Buffy had never apologized to him, bu the hadn't expected her to. Then, pain lanced through him as her previous words sunk in. “Nothing but guilt?” he clarified. Nothing? Not a thing at all. No remembrance of their better times, no missing his sarcasm or his smile or even his ability to go all night. “I never held any of it against you. Was just the way it was to me. Couldn't expect a Slayer, girl born and bred to kill my kind, to believe right out that there could be any good in a single one of us. Least of all the slayer of the Slayers, trained directly under Angelus and a hundred and twenty years into the never-ending party that was slaughter. But if you feel you need forgiveness, it's yours.”