Fic: Palimpsest - Part Three
Prompt: I don't believe in this stuff anyway... (Sept 2014).
Title: Palimpsest (Part Three)
Rating: R
Setting: Post-series AU (could be mid-S9)
Warnings: Grab your tissues. At least - I hope you need them! :)
A/N: I wrote this a year ago in preparation for the next round of Seasonal Spuffy... but Seasonal Spuffy has gone on hiatus. Meanwhile, S10 keeps getting more and more Scooby-friendship friendly, unlike S9. This is much closer to S9's mood.
A/N2: Written to go off-canon sometime mid-S9, but also written so that comic knowledge is mostly unnecessary (except for a few small jokes).
A/N3: Thanks to foxstarreh and margueritedaisy for beta work, and foxstarreh for being my S9 encyclopedia so that I didn't have to actually buy or read the comics. :)
PART ONE HERE and PART TWO HERE
Palimpsest: 1) A parchment or the like from which the writing has been partially or completely erased and replaced with new writing. 2) Something that has been changed over time and shows evidence of that change. (Merriam-Webster Online)
PART THREE
No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
- Rupert Giles (Lie to Me)
.
.
She opened her eyes to pure and total darkness.
Without the peace and quiet part. Her heart pounded so forcefully, her pulse rushed through her veins like the roaring of a winter surf.
And somewhere very close by, somebody was screaming.
Buffy bolted upright from where she'd fallen asleep on the couch, eyes wider than wide. Her hand flew to her mouth.
It muffled the screams. Sort of.
A minute passed, and another. And another. If ever there was a time for meditating, for stilling the mind and calming the soul, this was it. Buffy recalled a passage she'd read in some wacko book Anya had stocked for her New Age-y clientele. She willed her exhale gentler than the spring breeze, the beat of her heart softer than kitten's paws, the weight of her worries lighter than a feather.
Dumb as it was, it couldn't be any worse an idea than holding your very own amateur hour memory-regression session.
Eventually she managed to not choke on her own breath, and the possibility of coronary dropped to only somewhat likely. Calmer now, she could see the faint outlines of the entertainment center against the opposite wall, and the coffee table in front of her. Over to the side of the room, the message light of their answering machine blinked red in the gloom.
Buffy padded over to it, grimacing at the foul taste in her mouth. She pressed play.
Beep. "Buffy, love, some bloke came by just before closing and dropped off a bunch of vinyl he inherited. I'll probably be down here sorting it for a while. Pop downstairs if you need anything. Love you."
Well, that explained why she'd woken alone in the dark. And why William hadn't come rushing to her rescue - he probably had his headphones on and couldn't hear anything but some screechy old noise he called music. She smiled at the thought of him bopping around downstairs, head banging to the beat, imitating the electric whine of a guitar at the top of his lungs.
The answering machine blipped at her, letting her know it had put the un-erased message into storage. She reached out to press erase, but her finger stilled over the button. Buffy stared at the blinking red light.
Something inside of her rattled its cage. Free me.
She didn't stop to think about it.
Buffy grabbed her purse off the table, and the car keys off of the hook by the door.
.
********
.
She called home and left a message once she hit the far side of LA, but that was the only moment of clear, rational thought. Every other instinct drove her onwards.
The witch has the key.
Sunrise was still hours away when she reached San Francisco. It didn't stop her from pounding up the stairs, or pounding on Willow's door. "Buffy, what -"
"Tell me, Willow." Buffy shouldered her way inside the dark apartment. "I know you know what really happened. Tell me!" She hadn't spoken to her friend since their aborted visit, and she was shocked by Willow's appearance. Normally pale and thin, the redhead's skin appeared near-translucent, her angles as sharp as glass. And her hair? Not so much with the red. More like obsidian.
Willow's hand flew to the red stone at her chest. Buffy could have sworn the thing pulsated, but her attention was diverted by the other woman's eyes. Eyes so dark, they made her hair seem downright colorful. "Willow," she said. "What is going on? What -"
The stone flared, tinting the room the color of hellfire. Willow's eyes glowed with it. Buffy's gaze darted between her friend's face and the thing at her neck. With a speed she didn't know she possessed, she snatched the necklace, breaking the chain with a snap. It hung in her grip, beating like some ancient, evil heart.
"Is it time to finish this?" Willow grated. "We finally gonna duke it out? No Giles to save you now."
The thing in her hand wriggled. Buffy's mind snapped.
.
*******
.
Buffy stares at the reason for this week's apocalypse. She's not sure if it's evil. But it's ancient. It glows, pulses really, bathing the cavern in red and power. They're all affected by it.
They're all fighting to possess it.
And Giles lies dead at Angel's feet. It could be her fault.
Acting on instinct, she swings her scythe and smashes the glowy-red-source-of-all-magic-Seed-of-Wonder.
The world changes.
.
*******
.
There is no more magic. This is not a metaphor.
She thinks it's not such a big deal. Whoop-de-doo, there are zompires instead of vampires. And everybody's stuck on whatever side of the gate they were on when she slammed it shut for good. Hey, less demons. Put it in the win column.
Except Dawn is made of magic. And there is no more magic.
This is definitely her fault.
.
*******
.
She doesn't know what to do. Whom to turn to. No Watcher with his wealth of Watcher knowledge. Angel? So not going there, not when he's the reason Giles is gone. Possessed by Twilight or not, Buffy cannot forgive - or face - the vampire she once loved with all her heart.
Faith is action-girl, like her. Not going to be useful in this situation. Nothing to punch. Andrew? Never makes the list of people to call in a crisis. Especially not since the pregnant robot fiasco. Xander's not a help to anybody these days. Lost in a bottle more often than he's willing to admit, her friend can barely function. Spike is somewhere not here, she's not really sure where. On the other side of the solar system, maybe. Off to find his own destiny, because she can't be somebody she isn't. Somebody who will choose him without reservation. Her heart doesn't work that way anymore, or maybe it never has.
Willow's the only one who could help Dawn, who might even know where to start, but she's gone. Left on a mystical walkabout long ago, on a quest to restore the magic Buffy took from her. She's got Buffy's scythe, which is no help here, but it's nice to have it around at times like this. Like a big, sharp, pointy security blanket.
And Dawn... Oh, god. Dawn. Dawnie. When you were five and I was nine, we went to the county fair. Remember? And you wanted that stupid pumpkin doll so much, and Mom always called you Pumpkinbelly after that. Remember? I do. I do I do I do I
don't
She tries harder. The force of her love keeps her sister who now don't have a sister you're not my sister
Like Tinkerbell, Dawn will cease to exist the moment they forget.
And it's her fault.
.
*******
.
Buffy puts off calling Spike for as long as she can. She doesn't want to snap her fingers and summon him to her side, her ever-faithful vampire in tarnished armor, not when she can't give him what he wants in return. It isn't fair to him.
But neither is keeping him out of the loop just because she can't figure out how to be a grownup. He loves Dawn too. He deserves the chance to -
He doesn't get to say goodbye, not in a meaningful way. By the time he arrives, Dawn doesn't remember him. He stumbles out of her darkened bedroom, paler than she's ever seen him.
Buffy wonders if she'll ever stop screwing up.
.
*******
.
They each remember only bits and pieces now. They take turns sharing them, speaking the memories louder and faster, trying to outrace the inevitable.
Xander is the first to stop. He sits and stares, his hand cupped around the girl's cheek.
Buffy touches Spike's arm and leads him out of the bedroom. They sit slumped side-by-side in the hallway.
"I love her," she says. "I can't remember her name, but I know I love her."
"I know," Spike says. "I love her too."
This sets free the tears she's been holding back. Buffy cries and cries, rivers of salt water. At first Spike awkwardly pats her shoulder, silent and circumspect, and then she's in his lap, clinging to his black t-shirt, soaking it through. "Hey, Buffy. Hey." His arms are tight around her, sheltering her.
"I missed you. I really, really missed you. You left!"
It's a relief to focus on a different grief for a while. Let this pain take the other's place.
"It needed to be done," he says quietly. Spike is not apologetic. Nor is he bitter. He knows what he needs and who he is, and Buffy hears it in his voice.
She is happy for him. She also envies him. "I know."
What else is there to say?
.
*******
.
Over the next day, his quiet and calm certitude is a haven Buffy doesn't let herself take further refuge in. She gave up that right months earlier. But watching Spike gives her hope. Wherever he's been and whatever he's done, it has made him into the kind of man she always knew he could be. If he can find his place in the world, maybe she can too.
Maybe that place can even be together. The thought takes hold, no matter how she tries to shake it off. Spike isn't her dark place anymore, because he's not his own dark place. Two lost and lonely screw-ups is a recipe for disaster; they'd proved that amply. But two mature grown-ups?
Could be a beautiful thing.
She finds herself alone with him, just as he wakes from a short afternoon nap. Xander and her sister are asleep in the other room, curled up together, one slumbering under the influence of pain pills, the other under the influence of his own brand of pain medication. Buffy is sitting in the arm chair, ostensibly sleeping as well, but in actuality staring into space and doing her best to recall her (that girl) sister's name. Spike blinks himself awake, and raises himself up on one elbow. The platinum curls she secretly loves frame his sleepy face. Without a word, she pads off to the kitchen, names that aren't-quite-right (Destiny-Delilah-Deborah-Dee-Darla) careening around inside her head. He's still on one elbow when she returns, and he smiles when she hands him a mug of blood. In that unguarded smile, she sees the truth of his feelings for her.
It makes her bold.
Buffy takes the couch cushion by his feet. Her heart pounds. Her hands are clammy. "Spike," she says. She can't look at him. "There's something I need to tell you. And I need you to just listen."
He doesn't reply. Buffy grows angry, until she realizes he is silent and listening, just as she asked. Well, okay. Here goes nothing.
"I love you." His foot jerks away from her, and he makes a small, pained noise. "No, be quiet. Listen. Like you once said to me, I'm not asking for anything in return. I'm just telling you. It doesn't mean - I don't know what it means. But I know it's true. I love you. I told you once before, and you didn't believe me. Probably because I had shitty timing, as usual. And then you came back into my life, and it's been this huge question. Do you? Do I? I tell myself it's not the time or the place." Buffy resists the urge to get up and move. To hit something. "I tell myself I can't think about love, or what we are to each other. Because I don't even know what I am to myself. I don't know who I am, or what I want. All my life I've hoped that someday, the day would come when I could hang up my white cape and just be Buffy for a change. But that day never comes. And I have so many things to worry about. The fate of the world, for one. Whether or not I'm still me, or a robot, for another. You know?"
Spike makes a sound somewhere in between a grunt and a chuckle. Buffy takes this as a yes - or proof he hasn't fallen back asleep, at least. His foot has been so still, she's wondered. "But I might not ever figure out who I am or what it is I really want. And when your life is nothing but a series of honest-to-goodness end-of-the-world apocalypses, plural, it's never the time or the place. There's never a perfect moment. So. I'm telling you now."
Buffy takes a deep breath and raises her eyes to his. "Spike. I love you."
He doesn't say a thing. Preternaturally still, he stares back at her. Seconds stretch into minutes, and Buffy realizes she's managed to screw everything up between them. Again. "You don't have to say anything." Obviously. Because he hasn't. "I just wanted to tell you. In case it got too late again. I wanted to tell you before the end of the world this time." And now it sounds like something she's checked off her to-do list. No wonder he's not swooning at her feet.
"So. Um. Thanks for listening." She vaults to her feet, intent on making a speedy getaway to the bathroom where she can gather up the shreds of her dignity in private.
"I love you too."
Buffy stops in her tracks. Her hands tremble.
"Spike loves Buffy," he says, with a shaky, self-depreciating laugh. "How could it be otherwise?"
Good. This is good. Mutual feelings are good. Of course, Spike might mean he loves her like a sister, or like a comrade-in-arms and she's not too sure whether that's the kind of love she means either. Slowly, she turns back to him. He's on his feet, hands in his jeans pockets, shoulders up around his ears, performing an uncertain little shuffle that makes her want to gather him up in her arms and never let him go.
When they've stared across the room at each other for so long Buffy can't imagine any possible way to quit this conversation with decorum, Spike licks his lips. "Out of curiosity... is this the kind of love that involves kissing?"
She thinks maybe it is. But she's not one hundred percent sure. Either way, today's not exactly the best day to be deciding such things, not when there's the situation with that girl in the other room.
Buffy groans inwardly, wondering if this isn't just another example of her looking for excuses not to deal with her feelings, but she pushes the thought away. There's only so much self-awareness she can manage in a single day, after all.
Spike blinks at her, his face hopeful despite his best effort at nonchalance.
Then again, how much time does she really need to figure out the answer to his question? Buffy decides: not that much. She takes a step forward. He does the same.
And a finely honed scythe appears out of nowhere in the space between them.
.
*******
.
The flashing red blade tears a hole in the air. Willow tumbles through it, and all of a sudden the apartment isn't really an apartment. It's a space that shouldn't exist, filled with sulphur, and hot, malodorous winds, and unearthly wailing, and all those clichés guaranteed to make you think of hell. "I thought I'd never find my way out of that place," Willow says. "Quor'toth pretty much sucks as far as hell dimensions go."
She is dirty and gaunt, and does not appear to be having a very good day. Around her neck is a thin metal chain, and at the end of the chain swings a polished red stone. It reminds Buffy of the magic-Seed-thingy that started this whole lack of magic mess. A little mini-Seed. "Is that -" She gestures hopefully.
Willow nods. "Mission accomplished." A sonorous howl fills the room. "Uh - almost. Kinda have a bit of a problem to solve first." She waves her hand at the portal, which doesn't appear to be going away. In fact, it's getting distinctly larger. "These guys are really pissed at me for, er, appropriating their baby Seed. But it's not like they needed it! They have dozens in Quor'toth, and - you know what? Exposition later. Right now, I need to shut that portal." She closes her eyes and hums something in another language, then opens one eye back up and focuses it on Buffy. Tossing the scythe her way, she says, "Just in case any of them make it through."
Buffy catches the weapon without any effort, but the words don't sink in. She hasn't heard much past the part about the red stone having something to do with magic. The girl in the other room - or, hello, this room, looks like the dividing walls have disappeared into another dimension - needs that magic. Now. She lunges at Willow and drags her over to a bleary, confused Xander. "Willow," she says frantically, and points at the sleeping (dying) girl. "Do something. Fix her."
"After, Buffy, I have to close the portal first." Willow takes a good look, and her eyes widen. "Never mind. I can do both. But it means you're going to have to fight!" And she shoves Buffy away, over to where the first of the demons has found its way into their world and Spike is its welcoming committee.
So Buffy fights. And while she fights, memories come back to her. At first it's just a trickle - Dawn, her name is Dawn - and then it's a deluge.
Dawn is there, alive and awake and whole, and they're holding the demons back, and everything is going to be okay.
Everything is going to be fine. Because it always is, in the end.
.
*******
.
But the portal refuses to close. And the demons keep coming.
.
*******
.
Like a cancer spreading, a dark blot grows in her mind.
Mom's nickname for Dawn - gone.
Dawn's first word - gone.
Her favorite ride at Disney - gone.
Buffy reels backwards. She turns to Willow and her sister, eyes wide. Xander has stopped fighting against the demons and is now fighting with Willow, hands dancing in wild gesticulation. Before she can call out to them, something rakes its claws across her shoulder, and she is forced back into the fray.
More and more memories are disappearing, bursting in her mind and leaving only after-images, black spots shaky and blurred. She works her way closer to the two people huddled around Dawn's bed. To her left, Spike has done the same, but he gets there first. Between the roars and the thuds and the screams, she catches snippets of words
what are you doing, witch
it's too late
I can't save her
you're erasing her
I'm running out of juice
I can't seal the portal
I need the power
I need her magic
don't
please
.
*******
.
It'll be easier this way. No more pain. We won't even remember.
.
*******
.
Buffy has killed the last demon within arm's reach and there is a split-second lull, a moment of silence as she reaches the eye of the storm. Willow's words crash through to her in perfect clarity, but she doesn't have time to make sense of them.
She sees without understanding -
Xander, like a broken marionette, expression lifeless and mouth slack, the only sign he's alive the low no-no-no-no that burbles out from somewhere deep inside.
Willow, eyes flashing between devastated emerald and empty obsidian. "If I don't close that portal, we'll all die. Every single one of us. It will swallow the entire world." Her hand rests on Dawn's forehead.
"Let the world burn." This is Xander. "How can we sleep while the Earth's still turning?" A demon to Buffy's left roars, drowning out the sound of his manic giggles. She dispatches the demon, and the next, and the next, unstoppable in her desperation. She finds herself a little a nearer to the tableau unfolding by her sister's bedside.
Though it's black battling green, not gold intertwined with blue, Willow's eyes make her think of Spike when he's trying to control his demon.
Like now.
He gives in, eyes full gold. "I'm magic," he says. "Got the magic in me."
"Another noble sacrifice? There's no need. She's already dy -"
"You don't get to take her away from Buffy," he roars. "I won't let you!"
"Let me?" Willow's eyes make their choice. Green is swallowed by black. In a blink, Willow shrouds herself with the power she wields. Her jet-black hair dances with magical current. Beneath her skin, obscene worms of ebony writhe and twist. Her free hand wraps around the dangling red stone, and she begins an incantation.
Five more demons burst through the tear, widening it. They die in quick succession. Buffy climbs over them. She's nearly to her (that girl) sister. "What's happening?" she gasps. She grabs Willow by the arm. "What's wrong with Dawn? I can't - she's fading again. What's wrong?"
Spike touches Willow's other arm, the one resting on a girl's pale forehead. He stares into her eyes. "Use me," he says.
"Spike?" Buffy asks. He doesn't look at her. Witch and vampire are locked in a battle she doesn't comprehend. Behind her sounds a long ululation, and another. She turns her head towards the noise, and her heart freezes. On the other side of the tear is an army that puts the First's to shame.
Dawn's favorite kind of pizza - gone.
The name of her sister's best friend in high school - gone.
The way she flips her hair - the color of her eyes - the sound of her voice -
Buffy gasps, and staggers under the weight of nothingness. "Dawnie?"
Xander's laughter turns into a wail.
"Use. Me."
.
*******
.
There is a hole in the world. Demons pour through it. It widens, devouring the apartment that should only be the size of a postage stamp, ignoring all laws of time and space. Sulphurous winds blow hot and dry and crimson.
As the hole grows, the empty spaces inside Buffy's mind shrink, filled in by bubbling laugher and all things sisterly. The hellwind dries her tears of joy before they have the chance to fall. Though she's outnumbered and outmatched, her movements are filled with exhilaration.
And then the rip begins to shrink, winking in on itself. But there is still more space than there should be. Still more demons to dispose of. She has to stop them from reaching Dawn.
"Spike," she calls. "Three of them, on my left."
"Hold on, love," he answers in a strained voice. "Bit occupied at the moment."
So she takes care of it herself. As she does, the portal grows smaller and smaller. House-sized - truck-sized - people-sized - plate-sized - nickel-sized. No more demons can fit through. Buffy turns to the others in jubilation.
"You did it, Willow!"
Willow's face is the color of old ash. Her eyes have rolled back in her head. One hand is still wrapped around the pulsating stone, and the other -
The other hovers where Spike's chest should be.
Behind her is a bright flash and a loud pop, and the infernal wind ceases. Willow collapses. Buffy stares a moment more, then rushes forward. Spike is still there - sort of - but his form is more the suggestion of a man than actuality. One strong breeze will blow him away.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
"What have you done?" Buffy whispers.
His voice whirrs like dry insect husks. "What needed to be done." With effort, he says, "Go see to Dawn, pet."
"But -" Buffy can see the light from the table lamp behind Spike shining through him. Right where his heart would be.
"Go. See to Dawn," he repeats, harsh now.
Dawn's voice, weak and weary, draws her attention. Buffy looks over. Xander, sobbing, holds her hand. Torn, she takes a step towards her sister. Dawn. She turns back to Spike. "You're going to believe me this time, right?" The top of the shape moves, up and down. Dust billows outward. She will not cry. Just like last time, she will not cry. "Thank you," she says. And then -
"I love you." The way she says it borders on angry. But she will not cry.
Buffy whirls around and hurries to Dawn's side. From behind her, like an exhalation on the wind, she hears, "Love you too."
.
*******
.
They saved the world.
They saved Dawn.
So why can't she stop crying?
In discordant two-part harmony, she sobs her grief out with Xander. Each of them holds one of Dawn's hands. One of her still and lifeless hands.
"I remember," Buffy croaks. Every last detail, down to Dawn's final words before her body gave out from the strain of not-dematerializing for months on end. They'd saved her, but too late for all the chemical reactions and cellular processes that make up the business of living to recover and re-establish. "I remember."
"It's not enough." Xander stumbles to his feet and out the door.
She watches him go with dull eyes. Moments later, she hears the door to the apartment slam. From the other side of the room, Willow groans. Buffy doesn't want to let go of Dawn's hand.
Willow groans again, but Buffy doesn't move. If she helps Willow, there is nobody to keep Dawn company. But if she stays with Dawn, there is nobody to take care of Willow. Xander is gone - she feels a momentary pang of concern over his safety - and there is nobody else.
She lets go of her sister.
.
*******
.
She has Willow's head on her lap when she first hears the quiet gasp. Willow has been telling her all about her adventures; how this baby Seed, placed in the heart of the old one, will regenerate it and restore magic. Buffy can't find it in her to care - too little, too late, and Dawn's not just sleeping, despite appearances to the contrary - but she senses her friend's need to tell her tale. So she half-listens and nods in all the right places while her mind cycles the same thought over and over: sleeping she's just sleeping not sleeping not dead not oh god what have I done and Spike and what will I how will I shhh she's sleeping just sleeping -
When she hears a second gasp, more of a drawn inhale, she can't help but slide her gaze in the direction the noise came from even though she knows nothing is over there. Nothing but dust.
Nothing but dust, and a man who looks remarkably familiar despite his light brown hair and flushed cheeks. "Spike?" she whispers.
Willow sits bolt upright, eyes wide. She looks the man up and down, taking in his blue jeans and faded blue vintage t-shirt. Spike, last they saw him, had been wearing his usual black. "It can't be. It can't." She turns to Buffy, and her hand creeps to the Seed over her heart. "Did I do that?"
Together, they rise to their feet and approach the now-groaning form on the floor. He opens his eyes (bright blue, check) and smiles. "Ladies."
"Spike?" His name comes out strangled.
He laughs. "Spike? What kind of question is that, Buffy? You asking if it feels like I've had a spike driven through my head, 'cause yeah, hell of a pain in the noggin. Must've hit my head something fierce on the way down." He sits up and looks around the room. His eyes land on Dawn, and his smile fades. "Shit. No wonder I passed out like a little girl. I needed to forget for a few minutes."
Buffy and Willow look at each other, then back at the man at their feet. "William?" Buffy tries. She has expended far too much emotion in these past few hours to feel anything other than minor incredulity.
"Yeah, pet?"
She flounders. Now what? she mouths at the other woman. Willow shrugs. "Can I... get you anything? Do you need some blood?"
"Don't think I quite need a transfusion just yet. But a glass of water would not go unappreciated. I'm bloody parched."
When he's had his drink, he climbs heavily to his feet, and walks to Dawn's side. He brushes her hair away from her face with infinite tenderness, and Buffy's breath hitches in her chest. "At least it's over now, Bit. No more fighting that nasty cancer."
Buffy and Willow stare at each other once more. Willow sidles up to her and whispers, "What is going on?"
Before she can reply, William says, "Where's Xander?"
"He took off. I think he needed to clear his head." Buffy realizes Xander's been gone for quite some time now, and it's well after dark. "Maybe we should go look for him."
"I'll go," Willow says. "I'm sure he's at the bar. You guys stay with... with Dawn. And..." She waves her hand around. "Talk."
Sure, leave me to handle this, Buffy thinks, dully. "So... William." But she can't think of what else to say. "I..." She looks down at her sister's face, and the reality of Dawn's death hits her all over again. She crashes to the ground.
It is a long time before she realizes the man with his arms around her is just that.
A man.
.
*******
.
Several discreet questions later, along with some less discreet touching, and Buffy has established that, yes indeedy, William is one hundred percent pure human.
He is also suffering from one of the most staggering cases of what the gang used to call Sunnydale-itis Buffy has ever seen. William is wholly oblivious to anything supernatural - to see how far it goes, she perches atop one of the remaining corpses that didn't poof back into its home dimension before the portal closed, and awaits his reaction.
William scrunches his face up in disgust. "That bearskin rug has certainly seen better days, hasn't it?" And then he looks anywhere but at the orange leathery body beneath her rump.
Buffy would laugh, except she might never stop, and Xander has already used up their quota of complete mental breakdowns for the day.
So she asks him a few more leading questions, trying to figure out exactly what has happened here. William - and though he looks like Spike, and talks like Spike, and acts like Spike, he is most definitely not Spike - answers her questions patiently. What makes him not Spike, she realizes, is his past. It's all there, his memories repackaged to gloss over anything supernatural. Yep, all there - except the years of murder and mayhem that, no matter how he tried to atone for it, defined who Spike was. Those memories have been expunged. Absolutely and completely. William has no idea he's one of the most infamous serial killers in Watcher-ly history.
Another realization follows on the heels of this one. Buffy observes him carefully as they talk, and she decides that, yes, it's true. She can see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice, and feel it in the way he moves. Everything about William is lighter, right down to his very soul.
And she knows exactly what has happened.
He is no longer carrying the weight of Spike's sins.
.
*******
.
Any other day, Buffy might have liked some time to think about this. To ponder all the implications and ramifications and whatever-else-ications that go along with Spike coming back to life, in all senses of the word, as William. But her mind is - and she thinks she's got a perfectly valid excuse here - unable to handle anything else today. As it is, she's only a hairbreadth's away from that complete mental breakdown she's been trying to avoid.
.
*******
.
Which is why the universe tosses her a big old fuck you, Buffy in the form of Willow popping into existence right in front of her.
.
*******
.
Willow hadn't looked so good the first time she'd materialized in front of Buffy - was it really less than three hours earlier?
She looks a hundred times worse now.
"Buffy! Hurry!" And she takes off through the front door, not even looking back.
Buffy casts a single, agonized glance at her sister's body. William sees it. "I'll stay. And... I'll call the coroner. All right?"
No, it's really not all right, but what else can she do? She sprints after Willow. Buffy catches up to her just outside the apartment building. "Xander," Willow gasps. "I thought he'd be at the bar, but then he wasn't there. So I did a locator spell." Beneath the grief and panic, Buffy can hear a note of satisfied pride in the witch's voice. Willow can't help but be happy she got her magic on. "Here," she says, and veers into a dark alley.
Xander is at the far end of the alley, where it's darkest. He's not at the bar because he brought the bar to him. An empty bottle lies at his feet, and he's made a serious dent in a second, while a third rests between his legs. "Here vampy-vamp-vamp," he croons. "Come get yershelf a tashty treat! Eashy pickings! Here vampy-vamp-vamp..."
"I tried to get him to go home, but no dice. So then I tried to call you, but my cell phone is dead - no chargers in hell dimensions you know - and I couldn't carry him either. When did Xander get so heavy?" Willow is in full-on babble mode. "And then I thought, fine, I'll just teleport him home, no biggie. I guess it didn't work. But it's okay, 'cause you're here now."
Buffy aches from head to toe - she doesn't know when she has ever been this tired. But she slings her friend's arm around her shoulders and prepares to hoist him up. "Yer not a vamp!" He shoves her away so hard, she stumbles into the nearby dumpster and bangs her head on the corner. For how drunk he is, he's got a lot of power still.
"Come on, Xander. Please. I can't do this right now. I just can't."
"You can't? You can't?" And there's that maniacal laughter again. "Go erway, shlayer. Sister-shlayer," he grunts bitterly, countenance dark with accusation. "Lemme be."
She'll feel bad for Xander later. For now, she clouts him on the back of the head and knocks him unconscious.
When they get back to the apartment, the van from the coroner's office is just pulling up. "There's a couple demons still up there," Buffy says under her breath, and Willow runs ahead, leaving her to shoulder Xander's dead weight alone.
She dumps her friend on the couch, and then there are questions, and paperwork, and though she's lived through this before, it's not any easier. Buffy puts a hand on the man's arm when he moves to zip up the bag. "Hold on."
Dawn is pale, but peaceful looking. Some of her hair has fallen in her face and Buffy brushes it away. "I love you, sis. Dawn," she says, because she can. She remembers. "I love you, Dawn."
And even though it means remembering why her sister is lying in a body bag (allmyfault), she wouldn't give that up for anything.
.
*******
.
William might not be Spike, but he's still driven to comfort her. Still her rock. He's sitting on the floor, back against the wall, legs splayed out in front of him, and Buffy's got her head against his chest. Though the whole beating heart and warm skin thing is disconcerting, it's also soothing, and Buffy is lulled into a half-sleep. Willow has curled up in the small space at the end of the couch by Xander's feet, her head on the armrest. When Xander groans and sits up, she doesn't even stir.
"Ohhhh. My head," he says.
Buffy winces. "Want me to get you some aspirin?"
Xander shakes his head, but stops almost immediately. "I'll do it," he says, and climbs to his feet. She hears his heavy footfalls as he staggers down the hallway to the bathroom. But he stops partway there and lets out a gasp of such pain, Buffy's heart breaks all over again. "Oh, god, Dawn!" William's arms tighten around her. Together, they listen to Xander's broken cries, silently joining in. More than once she half-rises, wanting to comfort her friend, but after his bitter accusation in the alley she's fairly certain he won't find solace in her presence. Not tonight.
After awhile, Xander lumbers to his feet again, just out of eyesight. Buffy listens to him crashing around the bedroom and bathroom, and then everything is quiet. "Think he's gone back to sleep," William says, and she hopes he's right. She wishes she could sleep too, but she's reached the point where she is so exhausted, sleep won't come.
William begins to snore. Buffy stays with him a little longer, and then she needs to move. Maybe she'll haul the demons Willow covered up with an old, black sheet down to the dumpster. She tiptoes into the bedroom, and stops short when she sees Xander is awake.
Except something strikes her as not quite right, and it's not just that his eyepatch is askew, a withered eye socket staring at her in accusation.
.
*******
.
Same scene, same day, different place. Willow slumped in a chair. Buffy answering questions and filling out paperwork. William by her side.
Xander, under a sheet.
If only she'd walked in on him a few minutes sooner, maybe they could have pumped his stomach in time. Or if she'd gone to him when he'd been crying and alone.
Just add it to the list of things she should have done and didn't. Or shouldn't have done and did.
.
*******
.
It's early afternoon by the time it's all over. "We should go now," William says gently, and tries to steer them both towards the door.
Buffy makes to protest - does Spike really think he can just walk out that front door in the middle of the day? - and then she realizes that, yes, he can. Now that's he's William.
But Willow collapses into a hard plastic chair, mumbles something incoherent, and simply goes to sleep right there amidst the hustle and bustle of the E.R. waiting room. Buffy bends down to scoop her friend up, and then she realizes that, Slayer or not, she also has reached her limit. She's not capable of going another step. "In a minute," she tells William.
She doesn't hear his response.
.
*******
.
"Buffy."
Someone is shaking her. She smacks at their hands and sinks back down into slumber. They shake her again.
"Buffy. Come on, sweetheart. My car's right outside. I'll take you home."
She comes to very slowly, bit by bit becoming aware of first the buzzing of conversation and muffled groans, then the hand on her shoulder, and last the glare of overhead fluorescent lights. When she sits up, her entire body protests, muscles screaming in agony. William's drawn face swims before her. "Come on, love. I know you're done in, but you'll sleep easier at home." He glances over to the registration desk. "And I don't think the staff's going to let you two sleep here much longer. It's already been five hours, and they're getting mighty suspicious."
Buffy blinks at him. There are a million thoughts and feelings pinwheeling through her head, but all of them are far too painful to consider at this moment. So she blinks again, and says, "Your car?"
"Right outside. Let's go. You can help me with Willow."
"I didn't know you had a car."
"Of course I do. How d'you think I got here earlier?"
She hadn't thought about it at all. She had ridden in the ambulance, and he and Willow had simply shown up later. How they'd gotten to the hospital hadn't ranked high on her list of things to worry about.
"But... I didn't know you had a car," she says again. The existence of a car is particularly hard for her to grasp. "When did you get a car?"
William gives her a funny look. "When I bought it from the nice lady at the Ford dealership, back in December. How did you think I got to San Francisco? Flew?"
Yes. This is exactly how Buffy thinks he got to San Francisco. In a giant dirigible manned by oversized and sentient cockroaches. For a moment, she wonders what would happen if she tries to remind him of this. Well, William, she imagines herself saying. See, you're actually a hundred and fifty year old vampire. With a soul. And for the last few years, you've also been the captain of the S.S. Cockroach. Sounds strange, I know, but welcome to my world. And by the way, yes, that's how you got to San Francisco.
She resists the urge, though, because who knows what might happen. With her luck, he'd believe her, and then it would somehow unravel whatever magic has been cast to bring him back to life. She's really not up for watching William disintegrate before her very eyes. Not today.
Still. A car. How the hell does he have a car? Buffy rubs her burning eyes and sighs. William's very existence is improbable at best, and she's going to quibble over the fact that this new, one hundred percent more pulse-having version of Spike comes complete with car accessory?
"Help me with Willow," she says instead.
.
*******
.
Buffy watches the houses go by in a daze. They've dropped Willow off, and now Spike is taking her home. Except, when they stop outside her apartment, she remembers it's not Spike. It's William.
And she doesn't quite know what to do with him. Along with the insta-car, he also seems to have an insta-home in a small town south of Los Angeles, and an insta-life with a job and everything. He's telling her about how he doesn't have to go back just yet; he can stay a few days longer. Until she's back on her feet. Buffy wonders if she is meant to play any part in this shiny new life of his, or if he'll return home and just... forget about her.
Right now, they're still in his car, outside her apartment, Buffy staring aimlessly into the night. Is she supposed to invite him up? And if she doesn't, where will go? Has this been arranged as well, inserted into his mind the way -
The way Dawn was inserted into hers.
Suddenly, everything gets very blurry.
"Shhh, come on baby, I've got you. Come on, let's get you upstairs." They're moving very, very slowly - swing your legs out of the car, that's it, now stand up, here, lean on me, let me take care of you just this once, there you go - and Buffy is only half-aware of what's happening. The rest of her is wondering if maybe Xander had the right of it. For a moment, she is angry William is not Spike, that he can't give her that final dance he promised so long ago. It would be so easy, she thinks. She could tilt her head back, like so, and he would look at her the way he is now, but with amber eyes, and...
She is so lost in the fantasy, she doesn't realize the warnings sounding in her head are not because of Spike. Lucky for her, it's vampires rather than zompires, because vampires can't help but announce themselves before they attack. She can almost always count on a hiss of "Ssssslayer!" followed by a moment or two of posturing. Zompires aren't so considerate. They just rush right in, all fangy and grr.
The leader of the pack, a big ugly fellow who was probably once a linebacker, delivers the traditional greeting. Even though they're surrounded, Buffy isn't concerned. She's got her stake in her right hand and her favorite fighting buddy on her left. And while she might have fantasized only seconds ago about letting Spike end her life, these creatures do not merit the same consideration. "Let me guess," she says. "Something-or-other is all my fault, and you're here to tell me why? Sorry guys. It's been a long day, and my complaints inbox is completely full."
Buffy is all set to take out the first of them, the rest of her quip dangling in readiness, when William barrels in front of her and shoves her target to the ground. "Buffy! Run!" he shouts. And then he delivers a punch that is solid by human standards, but lacking when it comes to supernatural opponents.
Big and ugly doesn't even flinch.
.
PART FOUR...
Title: Palimpsest (Part Three)
Rating: R
Setting: Post-series AU (could be mid-S9)
Warnings: Grab your tissues. At least - I hope you need them! :)
A/N: I wrote this a year ago in preparation for the next round of Seasonal Spuffy... but Seasonal Spuffy has gone on hiatus. Meanwhile, S10 keeps getting more and more Scooby-friendship friendly, unlike S9. This is much closer to S9's mood.
A/N2: Written to go off-canon sometime mid-S9, but also written so that comic knowledge is mostly unnecessary (except for a few small jokes).
A/N3: Thanks to foxstarreh and margueritedaisy for beta work, and foxstarreh for being my S9 encyclopedia so that I didn't have to actually buy or read the comics. :)
PART ONE HERE and PART TWO HERE
Palimpsest: 1) A parchment or the like from which the writing has been partially or completely erased and replaced with new writing. 2) Something that has been changed over time and shows evidence of that change. (Merriam-Webster Online)
PART THREE
No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
- Rupert Giles (Lie to Me)
.
.
She opened her eyes to pure and total darkness.
Without the peace and quiet part. Her heart pounded so forcefully, her pulse rushed through her veins like the roaring of a winter surf.
And somewhere very close by, somebody was screaming.
Buffy bolted upright from where she'd fallen asleep on the couch, eyes wider than wide. Her hand flew to her mouth.
It muffled the screams. Sort of.
A minute passed, and another. And another. If ever there was a time for meditating, for stilling the mind and calming the soul, this was it. Buffy recalled a passage she'd read in some wacko book Anya had stocked for her New Age-y clientele. She willed her exhale gentler than the spring breeze, the beat of her heart softer than kitten's paws, the weight of her worries lighter than a feather.
Dumb as it was, it couldn't be any worse an idea than holding your very own amateur hour memory-regression session.
Eventually she managed to not choke on her own breath, and the possibility of coronary dropped to only somewhat likely. Calmer now, she could see the faint outlines of the entertainment center against the opposite wall, and the coffee table in front of her. Over to the side of the room, the message light of their answering machine blinked red in the gloom.
Buffy padded over to it, grimacing at the foul taste in her mouth. She pressed play.
Beep. "Buffy, love, some bloke came by just before closing and dropped off a bunch of vinyl he inherited. I'll probably be down here sorting it for a while. Pop downstairs if you need anything. Love you."
Well, that explained why she'd woken alone in the dark. And why William hadn't come rushing to her rescue - he probably had his headphones on and couldn't hear anything but some screechy old noise he called music. She smiled at the thought of him bopping around downstairs, head banging to the beat, imitating the electric whine of a guitar at the top of his lungs.
The answering machine blipped at her, letting her know it had put the un-erased message into storage. She reached out to press erase, but her finger stilled over the button. Buffy stared at the blinking red light.
Something inside of her rattled its cage. Free me.
She didn't stop to think about it.
Buffy grabbed her purse off the table, and the car keys off of the hook by the door.
.
********
.
She called home and left a message once she hit the far side of LA, but that was the only moment of clear, rational thought. Every other instinct drove her onwards.
The witch has the key.
Sunrise was still hours away when she reached San Francisco. It didn't stop her from pounding up the stairs, or pounding on Willow's door. "Buffy, what -"
"Tell me, Willow." Buffy shouldered her way inside the dark apartment. "I know you know what really happened. Tell me!" She hadn't spoken to her friend since their aborted visit, and she was shocked by Willow's appearance. Normally pale and thin, the redhead's skin appeared near-translucent, her angles as sharp as glass. And her hair? Not so much with the red. More like obsidian.
Willow's hand flew to the red stone at her chest. Buffy could have sworn the thing pulsated, but her attention was diverted by the other woman's eyes. Eyes so dark, they made her hair seem downright colorful. "Willow," she said. "What is going on? What -"
The stone flared, tinting the room the color of hellfire. Willow's eyes glowed with it. Buffy's gaze darted between her friend's face and the thing at her neck. With a speed she didn't know she possessed, she snatched the necklace, breaking the chain with a snap. It hung in her grip, beating like some ancient, evil heart.
"Is it time to finish this?" Willow grated. "We finally gonna duke it out? No Giles to save you now."
The thing in her hand wriggled. Buffy's mind snapped.
.
*******
.
Buffy stares at the reason for this week's apocalypse. She's not sure if it's evil. But it's ancient. It glows, pulses really, bathing the cavern in red and power. They're all affected by it.
They're all fighting to possess it.
And Giles lies dead at Angel's feet. It could be her fault.
Acting on instinct, she swings her scythe and smashes the glowy-red-source-of-all-magic-Seed-of-Wonder.
The world changes.
.
*******
.
There is no more magic. This is not a metaphor.
She thinks it's not such a big deal. Whoop-de-doo, there are zompires instead of vampires. And everybody's stuck on whatever side of the gate they were on when she slammed it shut for good. Hey, less demons. Put it in the win column.
Except Dawn is made of magic. And there is no more magic.
This is definitely her fault.
.
*******
.
She doesn't know what to do. Whom to turn to. No Watcher with his wealth of Watcher knowledge. Angel? So not going there, not when he's the reason Giles is gone. Possessed by Twilight or not, Buffy cannot forgive - or face - the vampire she once loved with all her heart.
Faith is action-girl, like her. Not going to be useful in this situation. Nothing to punch. Andrew? Never makes the list of people to call in a crisis. Especially not since the pregnant robot fiasco. Xander's not a help to anybody these days. Lost in a bottle more often than he's willing to admit, her friend can barely function. Spike is somewhere not here, she's not really sure where. On the other side of the solar system, maybe. Off to find his own destiny, because she can't be somebody she isn't. Somebody who will choose him without reservation. Her heart doesn't work that way anymore, or maybe it never has.
Willow's the only one who could help Dawn, who might even know where to start, but she's gone. Left on a mystical walkabout long ago, on a quest to restore the magic Buffy took from her. She's got Buffy's scythe, which is no help here, but it's nice to have it around at times like this. Like a big, sharp, pointy security blanket.
And Dawn... Oh, god. Dawn. Dawnie. When you were five and I was nine, we went to the county fair. Remember? And you wanted that stupid pumpkin doll so much, and Mom always called you Pumpkinbelly after that. Remember? I do. I do I do I do I
don't
She tries harder. The force of her love keeps her sister who now don't have a sister you're not my sister
Like Tinkerbell, Dawn will cease to exist the moment they forget.
And it's her fault.
.
*******
.
Buffy puts off calling Spike for as long as she can. She doesn't want to snap her fingers and summon him to her side, her ever-faithful vampire in tarnished armor, not when she can't give him what he wants in return. It isn't fair to him.
But neither is keeping him out of the loop just because she can't figure out how to be a grownup. He loves Dawn too. He deserves the chance to -
He doesn't get to say goodbye, not in a meaningful way. By the time he arrives, Dawn doesn't remember him. He stumbles out of her darkened bedroom, paler than she's ever seen him.
Buffy wonders if she'll ever stop screwing up.
.
*******
.
They each remember only bits and pieces now. They take turns sharing them, speaking the memories louder and faster, trying to outrace the inevitable.
Xander is the first to stop. He sits and stares, his hand cupped around the girl's cheek.
Buffy touches Spike's arm and leads him out of the bedroom. They sit slumped side-by-side in the hallway.
"I love her," she says. "I can't remember her name, but I know I love her."
"I know," Spike says. "I love her too."
This sets free the tears she's been holding back. Buffy cries and cries, rivers of salt water. At first Spike awkwardly pats her shoulder, silent and circumspect, and then she's in his lap, clinging to his black t-shirt, soaking it through. "Hey, Buffy. Hey." His arms are tight around her, sheltering her.
"I missed you. I really, really missed you. You left!"
It's a relief to focus on a different grief for a while. Let this pain take the other's place.
"It needed to be done," he says quietly. Spike is not apologetic. Nor is he bitter. He knows what he needs and who he is, and Buffy hears it in his voice.
She is happy for him. She also envies him. "I know."
What else is there to say?
.
*******
.
Over the next day, his quiet and calm certitude is a haven Buffy doesn't let herself take further refuge in. She gave up that right months earlier. But watching Spike gives her hope. Wherever he's been and whatever he's done, it has made him into the kind of man she always knew he could be. If he can find his place in the world, maybe she can too.
Maybe that place can even be together. The thought takes hold, no matter how she tries to shake it off. Spike isn't her dark place anymore, because he's not his own dark place. Two lost and lonely screw-ups is a recipe for disaster; they'd proved that amply. But two mature grown-ups?
Could be a beautiful thing.
She finds herself alone with him, just as he wakes from a short afternoon nap. Xander and her sister are asleep in the other room, curled up together, one slumbering under the influence of pain pills, the other under the influence of his own brand of pain medication. Buffy is sitting in the arm chair, ostensibly sleeping as well, but in actuality staring into space and doing her best to recall her (that girl) sister's name. Spike blinks himself awake, and raises himself up on one elbow. The platinum curls she secretly loves frame his sleepy face. Without a word, she pads off to the kitchen, names that aren't-quite-right (Destiny-Delilah-Deborah-Dee-Darla) careening around inside her head. He's still on one elbow when she returns, and he smiles when she hands him a mug of blood. In that unguarded smile, she sees the truth of his feelings for her.
It makes her bold.
Buffy takes the couch cushion by his feet. Her heart pounds. Her hands are clammy. "Spike," she says. She can't look at him. "There's something I need to tell you. And I need you to just listen."
He doesn't reply. Buffy grows angry, until she realizes he is silent and listening, just as she asked. Well, okay. Here goes nothing.
"I love you." His foot jerks away from her, and he makes a small, pained noise. "No, be quiet. Listen. Like you once said to me, I'm not asking for anything in return. I'm just telling you. It doesn't mean - I don't know what it means. But I know it's true. I love you. I told you once before, and you didn't believe me. Probably because I had shitty timing, as usual. And then you came back into my life, and it's been this huge question. Do you? Do I? I tell myself it's not the time or the place." Buffy resists the urge to get up and move. To hit something. "I tell myself I can't think about love, or what we are to each other. Because I don't even know what I am to myself. I don't know who I am, or what I want. All my life I've hoped that someday, the day would come when I could hang up my white cape and just be Buffy for a change. But that day never comes. And I have so many things to worry about. The fate of the world, for one. Whether or not I'm still me, or a robot, for another. You know?"
Spike makes a sound somewhere in between a grunt and a chuckle. Buffy takes this as a yes - or proof he hasn't fallen back asleep, at least. His foot has been so still, she's wondered. "But I might not ever figure out who I am or what it is I really want. And when your life is nothing but a series of honest-to-goodness end-of-the-world apocalypses, plural, it's never the time or the place. There's never a perfect moment. So. I'm telling you now."
Buffy takes a deep breath and raises her eyes to his. "Spike. I love you."
He doesn't say a thing. Preternaturally still, he stares back at her. Seconds stretch into minutes, and Buffy realizes she's managed to screw everything up between them. Again. "You don't have to say anything." Obviously. Because he hasn't. "I just wanted to tell you. In case it got too late again. I wanted to tell you before the end of the world this time." And now it sounds like something she's checked off her to-do list. No wonder he's not swooning at her feet.
"So. Um. Thanks for listening." She vaults to her feet, intent on making a speedy getaway to the bathroom where she can gather up the shreds of her dignity in private.
"I love you too."
Buffy stops in her tracks. Her hands tremble.
"Spike loves Buffy," he says, with a shaky, self-depreciating laugh. "How could it be otherwise?"
Good. This is good. Mutual feelings are good. Of course, Spike might mean he loves her like a sister, or like a comrade-in-arms and she's not too sure whether that's the kind of love she means either. Slowly, she turns back to him. He's on his feet, hands in his jeans pockets, shoulders up around his ears, performing an uncertain little shuffle that makes her want to gather him up in her arms and never let him go.
When they've stared across the room at each other for so long Buffy can't imagine any possible way to quit this conversation with decorum, Spike licks his lips. "Out of curiosity... is this the kind of love that involves kissing?"
She thinks maybe it is. But she's not one hundred percent sure. Either way, today's not exactly the best day to be deciding such things, not when there's the situation with that girl in the other room.
Buffy groans inwardly, wondering if this isn't just another example of her looking for excuses not to deal with her feelings, but she pushes the thought away. There's only so much self-awareness she can manage in a single day, after all.
Spike blinks at her, his face hopeful despite his best effort at nonchalance.
Then again, how much time does she really need to figure out the answer to his question? Buffy decides: not that much. She takes a step forward. He does the same.
And a finely honed scythe appears out of nowhere in the space between them.
.
*******
.
The flashing red blade tears a hole in the air. Willow tumbles through it, and all of a sudden the apartment isn't really an apartment. It's a space that shouldn't exist, filled with sulphur, and hot, malodorous winds, and unearthly wailing, and all those clichés guaranteed to make you think of hell. "I thought I'd never find my way out of that place," Willow says. "Quor'toth pretty much sucks as far as hell dimensions go."
She is dirty and gaunt, and does not appear to be having a very good day. Around her neck is a thin metal chain, and at the end of the chain swings a polished red stone. It reminds Buffy of the magic-Seed-thingy that started this whole lack of magic mess. A little mini-Seed. "Is that -" She gestures hopefully.
Willow nods. "Mission accomplished." A sonorous howl fills the room. "Uh - almost. Kinda have a bit of a problem to solve first." She waves her hand at the portal, which doesn't appear to be going away. In fact, it's getting distinctly larger. "These guys are really pissed at me for, er, appropriating their baby Seed. But it's not like they needed it! They have dozens in Quor'toth, and - you know what? Exposition later. Right now, I need to shut that portal." She closes her eyes and hums something in another language, then opens one eye back up and focuses it on Buffy. Tossing the scythe her way, she says, "Just in case any of them make it through."
Buffy catches the weapon without any effort, but the words don't sink in. She hasn't heard much past the part about the red stone having something to do with magic. The girl in the other room - or, hello, this room, looks like the dividing walls have disappeared into another dimension - needs that magic. Now. She lunges at Willow and drags her over to a bleary, confused Xander. "Willow," she says frantically, and points at the sleeping (dying) girl. "Do something. Fix her."
"After, Buffy, I have to close the portal first." Willow takes a good look, and her eyes widen. "Never mind. I can do both. But it means you're going to have to fight!" And she shoves Buffy away, over to where the first of the demons has found its way into their world and Spike is its welcoming committee.
So Buffy fights. And while she fights, memories come back to her. At first it's just a trickle - Dawn, her name is Dawn - and then it's a deluge.
Dawn is there, alive and awake and whole, and they're holding the demons back, and everything is going to be okay.
Everything is going to be fine. Because it always is, in the end.
.
*******
.
But the portal refuses to close. And the demons keep coming.
.
*******
.
Like a cancer spreading, a dark blot grows in her mind.
Mom's nickname for Dawn - gone.
Dawn's first word - gone.
Her favorite ride at Disney - gone.
Buffy reels backwards. She turns to Willow and her sister, eyes wide. Xander has stopped fighting against the demons and is now fighting with Willow, hands dancing in wild gesticulation. Before she can call out to them, something rakes its claws across her shoulder, and she is forced back into the fray.
More and more memories are disappearing, bursting in her mind and leaving only after-images, black spots shaky and blurred. She works her way closer to the two people huddled around Dawn's bed. To her left, Spike has done the same, but he gets there first. Between the roars and the thuds and the screams, she catches snippets of words
what are you doing, witch
it's too late
I can't save her
you're erasing her
I'm running out of juice
I can't seal the portal
I need the power
I need her magic
don't
please
.
*******
.
It'll be easier this way. No more pain. We won't even remember.
.
*******
.
Buffy has killed the last demon within arm's reach and there is a split-second lull, a moment of silence as she reaches the eye of the storm. Willow's words crash through to her in perfect clarity, but she doesn't have time to make sense of them.
She sees without understanding -
Xander, like a broken marionette, expression lifeless and mouth slack, the only sign he's alive the low no-no-no-no that burbles out from somewhere deep inside.
Willow, eyes flashing between devastated emerald and empty obsidian. "If I don't close that portal, we'll all die. Every single one of us. It will swallow the entire world." Her hand rests on Dawn's forehead.
"Let the world burn." This is Xander. "How can we sleep while the Earth's still turning?" A demon to Buffy's left roars, drowning out the sound of his manic giggles. She dispatches the demon, and the next, and the next, unstoppable in her desperation. She finds herself a little a nearer to the tableau unfolding by her sister's bedside.
Though it's black battling green, not gold intertwined with blue, Willow's eyes make her think of Spike when he's trying to control his demon.
Like now.
He gives in, eyes full gold. "I'm magic," he says. "Got the magic in me."
"Another noble sacrifice? There's no need. She's already dy -"
"You don't get to take her away from Buffy," he roars. "I won't let you!"
"Let me?" Willow's eyes make their choice. Green is swallowed by black. In a blink, Willow shrouds herself with the power she wields. Her jet-black hair dances with magical current. Beneath her skin, obscene worms of ebony writhe and twist. Her free hand wraps around the dangling red stone, and she begins an incantation.
Five more demons burst through the tear, widening it. They die in quick succession. Buffy climbs over them. She's nearly to her (that girl) sister. "What's happening?" she gasps. She grabs Willow by the arm. "What's wrong with Dawn? I can't - she's fading again. What's wrong?"
Spike touches Willow's other arm, the one resting on a girl's pale forehead. He stares into her eyes. "Use me," he says.
"Spike?" Buffy asks. He doesn't look at her. Witch and vampire are locked in a battle she doesn't comprehend. Behind her sounds a long ululation, and another. She turns her head towards the noise, and her heart freezes. On the other side of the tear is an army that puts the First's to shame.
Dawn's favorite kind of pizza - gone.
The name of her sister's best friend in high school - gone.
The way she flips her hair - the color of her eyes - the sound of her voice -
Buffy gasps, and staggers under the weight of nothingness. "Dawnie?"
Xander's laughter turns into a wail.
"Use. Me."
.
*******
.
There is a hole in the world. Demons pour through it. It widens, devouring the apartment that should only be the size of a postage stamp, ignoring all laws of time and space. Sulphurous winds blow hot and dry and crimson.
As the hole grows, the empty spaces inside Buffy's mind shrink, filled in by bubbling laugher and all things sisterly. The hellwind dries her tears of joy before they have the chance to fall. Though she's outnumbered and outmatched, her movements are filled with exhilaration.
And then the rip begins to shrink, winking in on itself. But there is still more space than there should be. Still more demons to dispose of. She has to stop them from reaching Dawn.
"Spike," she calls. "Three of them, on my left."
"Hold on, love," he answers in a strained voice. "Bit occupied at the moment."
So she takes care of it herself. As she does, the portal grows smaller and smaller. House-sized - truck-sized - people-sized - plate-sized - nickel-sized. No more demons can fit through. Buffy turns to the others in jubilation.
"You did it, Willow!"
Willow's face is the color of old ash. Her eyes have rolled back in her head. One hand is still wrapped around the pulsating stone, and the other -
The other hovers where Spike's chest should be.
Behind her is a bright flash and a loud pop, and the infernal wind ceases. Willow collapses. Buffy stares a moment more, then rushes forward. Spike is still there - sort of - but his form is more the suggestion of a man than actuality. One strong breeze will blow him away.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
"What have you done?" Buffy whispers.
His voice whirrs like dry insect husks. "What needed to be done." With effort, he says, "Go see to Dawn, pet."
"But -" Buffy can see the light from the table lamp behind Spike shining through him. Right where his heart would be.
"Go. See to Dawn," he repeats, harsh now.
Dawn's voice, weak and weary, draws her attention. Buffy looks over. Xander, sobbing, holds her hand. Torn, she takes a step towards her sister. Dawn. She turns back to Spike. "You're going to believe me this time, right?" The top of the shape moves, up and down. Dust billows outward. She will not cry. Just like last time, she will not cry. "Thank you," she says. And then -
"I love you." The way she says it borders on angry. But she will not cry.
Buffy whirls around and hurries to Dawn's side. From behind her, like an exhalation on the wind, she hears, "Love you too."
.
*******
.
They saved the world.
They saved Dawn.
So why can't she stop crying?
In discordant two-part harmony, she sobs her grief out with Xander. Each of them holds one of Dawn's hands. One of her still and lifeless hands.
"I remember," Buffy croaks. Every last detail, down to Dawn's final words before her body gave out from the strain of not-dematerializing for months on end. They'd saved her, but too late for all the chemical reactions and cellular processes that make up the business of living to recover and re-establish. "I remember."
"It's not enough." Xander stumbles to his feet and out the door.
She watches him go with dull eyes. Moments later, she hears the door to the apartment slam. From the other side of the room, Willow groans. Buffy doesn't want to let go of Dawn's hand.
Willow groans again, but Buffy doesn't move. If she helps Willow, there is nobody to keep Dawn company. But if she stays with Dawn, there is nobody to take care of Willow. Xander is gone - she feels a momentary pang of concern over his safety - and there is nobody else.
She lets go of her sister.
.
*******
.
She has Willow's head on her lap when she first hears the quiet gasp. Willow has been telling her all about her adventures; how this baby Seed, placed in the heart of the old one, will regenerate it and restore magic. Buffy can't find it in her to care - too little, too late, and Dawn's not just sleeping, despite appearances to the contrary - but she senses her friend's need to tell her tale. So she half-listens and nods in all the right places while her mind cycles the same thought over and over: sleeping she's just sleeping not sleeping not dead not oh god what have I done and Spike and what will I how will I shhh she's sleeping just sleeping -
When she hears a second gasp, more of a drawn inhale, she can't help but slide her gaze in the direction the noise came from even though she knows nothing is over there. Nothing but dust.
Nothing but dust, and a man who looks remarkably familiar despite his light brown hair and flushed cheeks. "Spike?" she whispers.
Willow sits bolt upright, eyes wide. She looks the man up and down, taking in his blue jeans and faded blue vintage t-shirt. Spike, last they saw him, had been wearing his usual black. "It can't be. It can't." She turns to Buffy, and her hand creeps to the Seed over her heart. "Did I do that?"
Together, they rise to their feet and approach the now-groaning form on the floor. He opens his eyes (bright blue, check) and smiles. "Ladies."
"Spike?" His name comes out strangled.
He laughs. "Spike? What kind of question is that, Buffy? You asking if it feels like I've had a spike driven through my head, 'cause yeah, hell of a pain in the noggin. Must've hit my head something fierce on the way down." He sits up and looks around the room. His eyes land on Dawn, and his smile fades. "Shit. No wonder I passed out like a little girl. I needed to forget for a few minutes."
Buffy and Willow look at each other, then back at the man at their feet. "William?" Buffy tries. She has expended far too much emotion in these past few hours to feel anything other than minor incredulity.
"Yeah, pet?"
She flounders. Now what? she mouths at the other woman. Willow shrugs. "Can I... get you anything? Do you need some blood?"
"Don't think I quite need a transfusion just yet. But a glass of water would not go unappreciated. I'm bloody parched."
When he's had his drink, he climbs heavily to his feet, and walks to Dawn's side. He brushes her hair away from her face with infinite tenderness, and Buffy's breath hitches in her chest. "At least it's over now, Bit. No more fighting that nasty cancer."
Buffy and Willow stare at each other once more. Willow sidles up to her and whispers, "What is going on?"
Before she can reply, William says, "Where's Xander?"
"He took off. I think he needed to clear his head." Buffy realizes Xander's been gone for quite some time now, and it's well after dark. "Maybe we should go look for him."
"I'll go," Willow says. "I'm sure he's at the bar. You guys stay with... with Dawn. And..." She waves her hand around. "Talk."
Sure, leave me to handle this, Buffy thinks, dully. "So... William." But she can't think of what else to say. "I..." She looks down at her sister's face, and the reality of Dawn's death hits her all over again. She crashes to the ground.
It is a long time before she realizes the man with his arms around her is just that.
A man.
.
*******
.
Several discreet questions later, along with some less discreet touching, and Buffy has established that, yes indeedy, William is one hundred percent pure human.
He is also suffering from one of the most staggering cases of what the gang used to call Sunnydale-itis Buffy has ever seen. William is wholly oblivious to anything supernatural - to see how far it goes, she perches atop one of the remaining corpses that didn't poof back into its home dimension before the portal closed, and awaits his reaction.
William scrunches his face up in disgust. "That bearskin rug has certainly seen better days, hasn't it?" And then he looks anywhere but at the orange leathery body beneath her rump.
Buffy would laugh, except she might never stop, and Xander has already used up their quota of complete mental breakdowns for the day.
So she asks him a few more leading questions, trying to figure out exactly what has happened here. William - and though he looks like Spike, and talks like Spike, and acts like Spike, he is most definitely not Spike - answers her questions patiently. What makes him not Spike, she realizes, is his past. It's all there, his memories repackaged to gloss over anything supernatural. Yep, all there - except the years of murder and mayhem that, no matter how he tried to atone for it, defined who Spike was. Those memories have been expunged. Absolutely and completely. William has no idea he's one of the most infamous serial killers in Watcher-ly history.
Another realization follows on the heels of this one. Buffy observes him carefully as they talk, and she decides that, yes, it's true. She can see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice, and feel it in the way he moves. Everything about William is lighter, right down to his very soul.
And she knows exactly what has happened.
He is no longer carrying the weight of Spike's sins.
.
*******
.
Any other day, Buffy might have liked some time to think about this. To ponder all the implications and ramifications and whatever-else-ications that go along with Spike coming back to life, in all senses of the word, as William. But her mind is - and she thinks she's got a perfectly valid excuse here - unable to handle anything else today. As it is, she's only a hairbreadth's away from that complete mental breakdown she's been trying to avoid.
.
*******
.
Which is why the universe tosses her a big old fuck you, Buffy in the form of Willow popping into existence right in front of her.
.
*******
.
Willow hadn't looked so good the first time she'd materialized in front of Buffy - was it really less than three hours earlier?
She looks a hundred times worse now.
"Buffy! Hurry!" And she takes off through the front door, not even looking back.
Buffy casts a single, agonized glance at her sister's body. William sees it. "I'll stay. And... I'll call the coroner. All right?"
No, it's really not all right, but what else can she do? She sprints after Willow. Buffy catches up to her just outside the apartment building. "Xander," Willow gasps. "I thought he'd be at the bar, but then he wasn't there. So I did a locator spell." Beneath the grief and panic, Buffy can hear a note of satisfied pride in the witch's voice. Willow can't help but be happy she got her magic on. "Here," she says, and veers into a dark alley.
Xander is at the far end of the alley, where it's darkest. He's not at the bar because he brought the bar to him. An empty bottle lies at his feet, and he's made a serious dent in a second, while a third rests between his legs. "Here vampy-vamp-vamp," he croons. "Come get yershelf a tashty treat! Eashy pickings! Here vampy-vamp-vamp..."
"I tried to get him to go home, but no dice. So then I tried to call you, but my cell phone is dead - no chargers in hell dimensions you know - and I couldn't carry him either. When did Xander get so heavy?" Willow is in full-on babble mode. "And then I thought, fine, I'll just teleport him home, no biggie. I guess it didn't work. But it's okay, 'cause you're here now."
Buffy aches from head to toe - she doesn't know when she has ever been this tired. But she slings her friend's arm around her shoulders and prepares to hoist him up. "Yer not a vamp!" He shoves her away so hard, she stumbles into the nearby dumpster and bangs her head on the corner. For how drunk he is, he's got a lot of power still.
"Come on, Xander. Please. I can't do this right now. I just can't."
"You can't? You can't?" And there's that maniacal laughter again. "Go erway, shlayer. Sister-shlayer," he grunts bitterly, countenance dark with accusation. "Lemme be."
She'll feel bad for Xander later. For now, she clouts him on the back of the head and knocks him unconscious.
When they get back to the apartment, the van from the coroner's office is just pulling up. "There's a couple demons still up there," Buffy says under her breath, and Willow runs ahead, leaving her to shoulder Xander's dead weight alone.
She dumps her friend on the couch, and then there are questions, and paperwork, and though she's lived through this before, it's not any easier. Buffy puts a hand on the man's arm when he moves to zip up the bag. "Hold on."
Dawn is pale, but peaceful looking. Some of her hair has fallen in her face and Buffy brushes it away. "I love you, sis. Dawn," she says, because she can. She remembers. "I love you, Dawn."
And even though it means remembering why her sister is lying in a body bag (allmyfault), she wouldn't give that up for anything.
.
*******
.
William might not be Spike, but he's still driven to comfort her. Still her rock. He's sitting on the floor, back against the wall, legs splayed out in front of him, and Buffy's got her head against his chest. Though the whole beating heart and warm skin thing is disconcerting, it's also soothing, and Buffy is lulled into a half-sleep. Willow has curled up in the small space at the end of the couch by Xander's feet, her head on the armrest. When Xander groans and sits up, she doesn't even stir.
"Ohhhh. My head," he says.
Buffy winces. "Want me to get you some aspirin?"
Xander shakes his head, but stops almost immediately. "I'll do it," he says, and climbs to his feet. She hears his heavy footfalls as he staggers down the hallway to the bathroom. But he stops partway there and lets out a gasp of such pain, Buffy's heart breaks all over again. "Oh, god, Dawn!" William's arms tighten around her. Together, they listen to Xander's broken cries, silently joining in. More than once she half-rises, wanting to comfort her friend, but after his bitter accusation in the alley she's fairly certain he won't find solace in her presence. Not tonight.
After awhile, Xander lumbers to his feet again, just out of eyesight. Buffy listens to him crashing around the bedroom and bathroom, and then everything is quiet. "Think he's gone back to sleep," William says, and she hopes he's right. She wishes she could sleep too, but she's reached the point where she is so exhausted, sleep won't come.
William begins to snore. Buffy stays with him a little longer, and then she needs to move. Maybe she'll haul the demons Willow covered up with an old, black sheet down to the dumpster. She tiptoes into the bedroom, and stops short when she sees Xander is awake.
Except something strikes her as not quite right, and it's not just that his eyepatch is askew, a withered eye socket staring at her in accusation.
.
*******
.
Same scene, same day, different place. Willow slumped in a chair. Buffy answering questions and filling out paperwork. William by her side.
Xander, under a sheet.
If only she'd walked in on him a few minutes sooner, maybe they could have pumped his stomach in time. Or if she'd gone to him when he'd been crying and alone.
Just add it to the list of things she should have done and didn't. Or shouldn't have done and did.
.
*******
.
It's early afternoon by the time it's all over. "We should go now," William says gently, and tries to steer them both towards the door.
Buffy makes to protest - does Spike really think he can just walk out that front door in the middle of the day? - and then she realizes that, yes, he can. Now that's he's William.
But Willow collapses into a hard plastic chair, mumbles something incoherent, and simply goes to sleep right there amidst the hustle and bustle of the E.R. waiting room. Buffy bends down to scoop her friend up, and then she realizes that, Slayer or not, she also has reached her limit. She's not capable of going another step. "In a minute," she tells William.
She doesn't hear his response.
.
*******
.
"Buffy."
Someone is shaking her. She smacks at their hands and sinks back down into slumber. They shake her again.
"Buffy. Come on, sweetheart. My car's right outside. I'll take you home."
She comes to very slowly, bit by bit becoming aware of first the buzzing of conversation and muffled groans, then the hand on her shoulder, and last the glare of overhead fluorescent lights. When she sits up, her entire body protests, muscles screaming in agony. William's drawn face swims before her. "Come on, love. I know you're done in, but you'll sleep easier at home." He glances over to the registration desk. "And I don't think the staff's going to let you two sleep here much longer. It's already been five hours, and they're getting mighty suspicious."
Buffy blinks at him. There are a million thoughts and feelings pinwheeling through her head, but all of them are far too painful to consider at this moment. So she blinks again, and says, "Your car?"
"Right outside. Let's go. You can help me with Willow."
"I didn't know you had a car."
"Of course I do. How d'you think I got here earlier?"
She hadn't thought about it at all. She had ridden in the ambulance, and he and Willow had simply shown up later. How they'd gotten to the hospital hadn't ranked high on her list of things to worry about.
"But... I didn't know you had a car," she says again. The existence of a car is particularly hard for her to grasp. "When did you get a car?"
William gives her a funny look. "When I bought it from the nice lady at the Ford dealership, back in December. How did you think I got to San Francisco? Flew?"
Yes. This is exactly how Buffy thinks he got to San Francisco. In a giant dirigible manned by oversized and sentient cockroaches. For a moment, she wonders what would happen if she tries to remind him of this. Well, William, she imagines herself saying. See, you're actually a hundred and fifty year old vampire. With a soul. And for the last few years, you've also been the captain of the S.S. Cockroach. Sounds strange, I know, but welcome to my world. And by the way, yes, that's how you got to San Francisco.
She resists the urge, though, because who knows what might happen. With her luck, he'd believe her, and then it would somehow unravel whatever magic has been cast to bring him back to life. She's really not up for watching William disintegrate before her very eyes. Not today.
Still. A car. How the hell does he have a car? Buffy rubs her burning eyes and sighs. William's very existence is improbable at best, and she's going to quibble over the fact that this new, one hundred percent more pulse-having version of Spike comes complete with car accessory?
"Help me with Willow," she says instead.
.
*******
.
Buffy watches the houses go by in a daze. They've dropped Willow off, and now Spike is taking her home. Except, when they stop outside her apartment, she remembers it's not Spike. It's William.
And she doesn't quite know what to do with him. Along with the insta-car, he also seems to have an insta-home in a small town south of Los Angeles, and an insta-life with a job and everything. He's telling her about how he doesn't have to go back just yet; he can stay a few days longer. Until she's back on her feet. Buffy wonders if she is meant to play any part in this shiny new life of his, or if he'll return home and just... forget about her.
Right now, they're still in his car, outside her apartment, Buffy staring aimlessly into the night. Is she supposed to invite him up? And if she doesn't, where will go? Has this been arranged as well, inserted into his mind the way -
The way Dawn was inserted into hers.
Suddenly, everything gets very blurry.
"Shhh, come on baby, I've got you. Come on, let's get you upstairs." They're moving very, very slowly - swing your legs out of the car, that's it, now stand up, here, lean on me, let me take care of you just this once, there you go - and Buffy is only half-aware of what's happening. The rest of her is wondering if maybe Xander had the right of it. For a moment, she is angry William is not Spike, that he can't give her that final dance he promised so long ago. It would be so easy, she thinks. She could tilt her head back, like so, and he would look at her the way he is now, but with amber eyes, and...
She is so lost in the fantasy, she doesn't realize the warnings sounding in her head are not because of Spike. Lucky for her, it's vampires rather than zompires, because vampires can't help but announce themselves before they attack. She can almost always count on a hiss of "Ssssslayer!" followed by a moment or two of posturing. Zompires aren't so considerate. They just rush right in, all fangy and grr.
The leader of the pack, a big ugly fellow who was probably once a linebacker, delivers the traditional greeting. Even though they're surrounded, Buffy isn't concerned. She's got her stake in her right hand and her favorite fighting buddy on her left. And while she might have fantasized only seconds ago about letting Spike end her life, these creatures do not merit the same consideration. "Let me guess," she says. "Something-or-other is all my fault, and you're here to tell me why? Sorry guys. It's been a long day, and my complaints inbox is completely full."
Buffy is all set to take out the first of them, the rest of her quip dangling in readiness, when William barrels in front of her and shoves her target to the ground. "Buffy! Run!" he shouts. And then he delivers a punch that is solid by human standards, but lacking when it comes to supernatural opponents.
Big and ugly doesn't even flinch.
.
PART FOUR...