Walk Through the Fire
Happy Seasonal Spuffy!
Title: Walk Through the Fire
Author: Garnigal
Rating: G
Setting: Chosen through Angel Season 5, but AU
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Walk Through the Fire
“Spike!” Buffy ran to him, eyes filled with fear as the pure light from the amulet poured over him, through him. Their hands met and flames licked at them.
“Gotta move, lamb. I think it's fair to say school's out for bloody summer.”
She just tightened her grip.
“Buffy? You need to leave. This is for me to do.”
“You’ve walked through fire for me, with me, more than once, Spike. Let me walk through this fire with you.”
And they burn.
Strike a Spark
The black whirlwind rises from the amulet and twists around the office. Angel instinctively reaches for a weapon and moves so he is between his people and this new threat.
He’d thought they were at least safe within the office. He should have known there was no safe space in this building. Maybe not in all of Los Angeles.
But the whirlwind takes shape, takes on colour, looks like… two people. Two people screaming with pain, two people holding desperately to one another, like they are the only things that are real.
Two people he knows. Two people he loves? Hates? Feels something unrecognizable for.
“Buffy?” Wesley whispers.
“Spike!” Angel growls.
As one, they turn to face him, never letting go of the other.
Angel looks at them, holding each other, pain on their faces and knows… It's Spike’s fault.
It’s always Spike’s fault.
He lunges.
Fred screams, Wesley tries to hold him back, but he’s a vampire, and he’s angry and there’s nothing that can hold him back.
He rushes them, passes through them, and flips over the desk.
“Well, hell.” Spike mutters.
“I think we’re still dead, honey,” Buffy says, holding her free hand over her chest where Angel passed through. “That felt super weird by the way, Angel. Don’t do that again.”
“Hi Buffy! Hi Spike!” Harmony said cheerfully. “Welcome to Wolfram and Hart. And to being dead. Though it’s way easier being dead as a vampire than as a ghost. I mean, you have to wear that forever. Eww.”
“Spike. I think I’d sooner be in the amulet.”
“If you can figure out a way back in, I’m right behind you.”
They eye the amulet on the desk dubiously, and nervously take a step backwards. Spike is standing in a chair.
They look at each other and a novel’s worth of conversation passes silently between them.
Buffy turns and smiles winsomely at Wesley, who flinches away.
“Wesley? Do you think you could call Giles for me? And Willow?”
“Best call The Bit first, she’s gotten right scary with a bow.”
“Incorporeal, remember? I’m safe from Dawn’s terrifying love of pointy things.”
“She’d figure out a way,” Spike said gloomily.
Buffy considers. “Yeah, you’re right. Can you call Dawn for me, Wesley?”
Angel finally rises from the floor behind the desk.
“What the hell is going on!?!”
Through the Smoke
“Why do you always use my office?” Angel asks plaintively. “I gave you an office. Several floors away. I gave you a second one when the Scoobies and the extra slayers arrived. But still, always in my office.”
Giles looks up from where he is sitting in Angel’s seat behind the desk. “You have the best liquor.”
“I’ll stock a bar in your offices. Just get out.”
Willow looks at him sympathetically. “Sorry Angel. It’s the most comfortable. And the biggest. And if… when I manage to get them back, Spike is going to need the safety of the necro tempered glass.”
Dawn is on the couch, dark head together with Spike and Buffy’s blonde ones. “Besides, your annoyance with us is never not funny.”
Xander is leaning against the wall, and raises a drink to Dawn. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Dawnie.”
The door opens, and Harmony walks in with the mail. “Hi everyone!”
Everyone mumbles a greeting and tries to look busy.
“Harmony. Why do you keep letting them into my office?”
“What do you mean? Spike and Buffy can walk through walls, and you said to give Willow and Giles and Dawn and Xander everything they wanted. Well, they want to be where Buffy is, and Buffy wants to be where Spike is, which why?, but whatever, and Spike likes to be in your office so he can annoy you. So I’m just doing what you said. And here’s your mail, you ungrateful… executive!” Harmony spins on her heel and exits triumphantly.
“We’re just here to annoy Angel,” Buffy says, looking at Spike with narrowed eyes.
“You heard Dawn! It’s hilarious!”
“And the drinks, don’t forget the drinks,” Giles puts in.
Angel glares, and attempts to ignore them. It’s difficult. Buffy and Spike haven’t stopped touching one another in the five weeks since they emerged from the amulet, and Spike manages to get into his presence far too often. He understands, he supposes. They are the only other thing they can touch. Of course Buffy isn’t going to give up that last little bit of contact until she’s corporeal again. Once Willow figures this out, he’s sure they’ll get sick of each other.
He opens his mail.
A bright white light erupts and Dawn yelps. Buffy immediately turns to her, checks if she’s okay, instinctively reaches out for her and....
They touch.
It’s silent in the office. Then every phone, computer, fax machine, anything electronic goes off at once.
The Scoobies ignore all the pandemonium. They are fixated on their own pandemonium. They rush towards Buffy, light in their eyes that Angel hadn’t realized had faded.
Wait.
No.
They rush towards Buffy AND Spike. Like they are a matched set. Like they belong together.
Like he’s part of the gang.
Buffy and Spike are still holding hands. But now they both have their arms around Buffy’s… their friends.
No one knows how, or why. But they are back and that’s worth celebrating.
Angel walks out of the office.
Let It Burn
The Black Thorn die. Not easily, not without collateral damage, but they die.
Buffy looks around. Illyria said Wesley’s dead, Gunn’s dying. Spike catches her eye, his grief confirming Illyria’s words, confirming what Buffy knows from seeing others fall.
Willow’s pulled out the big guns, white hair and all. But that makes her more vulnerable later, so Dawn, Xander, and a bunch of slayers are watching over her, ready to take her off the field as soon as her magic falters. Kennedy won’t let Willlow burn out, and Xander won’t let Dawn…
Even in the last battle, she’s not going to finish that thought.
Spike catches the look of horror on her face and grins at her. He knows she’s thinking about Dawn and Xander and it amuses him to no end that she’s traumatized by her little sister’s sex (eww!) life.
Angel just looks intense.
So, normal.
She’s not sure they’ll make it through this one. It’s another fire to walk through after they’ve been through so much.
But Spike hasn’t let go of her hand. Never will.
And the rain starts to fall, and she thinks maybe…. Maybe they have a chance.
And she smiles.