(023) mercy me (the night is long)
Title; mercy me (the night is long)
Fandom; Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing; Buffy/Spike
Rating; PG-13
Word count; ~4100
Short summary; After hearing that Angel's lost his soul, Buffy heads to Los Angeles to attempt to keep him at bay until he can be re-ensouled--or, if things get bad, kill him. And if that doesn't make her weekend bad enough, then there's the whole issue of Spike being alive. Suffice to say, it's not shaping up to be a great day in L.A.
Warnings; Cursing, character death. Set post-Chosen and post-NFA, so watch for spoilers.
Disclaimer; I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any related media.
Notes; For my buffyexchange recipient robs55. Originally posted here! And thanks for the quick beta, sucksucksmile :)
It's Willow who gives Buffy the message, via phone at about three a.m. In her half-awake state, Buffy can barely process Willow's babbling about how she was sorry she couldn't be there in person but she was in Thailand right now with Andrew looking into some new prophecy and getting ready to teleport would have taken half an hour, at least, and they just didn't have that time and she was going to have tell her over the phone and oh, God, Buffy, she was so sorry and she wished she could be there but it just wasn't possible right now and she didn't know where Xander was, exactly, that the last they'd heard of him was that he was down in South America but maybe he could make his way over to help and--
"Okay, Will," Buffy mutters. "I understand that there's a time zone difference and you're much more awake than I am right now and therefore are at full talking speed, but if you could slow it down for those of us who are still stateside--namely, me, that would be just lovely." She punctuates the end of her sentence with a huge yawn, absentmindedly reaching up to wipe the sleep out of her eyes. "So just calm down and tell me--"
"Buffy, Angel is Angelus again." The sentence comes out of Willow's mouth in a rush, all fused together into one big long word (BuffyAngelisAngelusagain) and for all that Buffy comprehends, it is one word. One long, bizarre, meaningless word.
"What?" she stammers. She hears Willow sigh on the end, picks up for the first time in her voice that she's been crying. She feels moderately guilty; as Willow's best friend, she supposes she's supposed to notice these things sooner. (But the feeling is detached, as if it belongs to someone else.)
"We don't know how it happened. Our best guess is that someone cursed him--or, if you want to get technical, uncursed him." Willow pauses. "Anyhow, we're trying to--trying to re-ensoul him, but as you know that takes a bit of time, and the printed copy of the spell that Ms. Calendar translated is in some of my old files so someone will have to find it, and then of course we need an Orb of--"
"Where is he?" Buffy finds that in times like these, it's best to switch right into game mode. If she can wade through the shock, pretend that this is just another ordinary Slayer job--a werewolf set loose on some college campus, perhaps, or a demon gang terrorizing a small town--then she can maybe, maybe function semi-normally.
"Um, he's in L.A. right now, or he was when we were contacted by Sp--when we got the intel on him losing his soul an hour or so ago." Willow pauses, and there's a strange new note in her voice; the best that Buffy can tell, it's a mixture of caution, fear, and anger. Buffy's stomach is suddenly in knots.
"Will. What is it?" Buffy can practically see Willow biting her lip, playing with the hem of her shirt. "Willow. Who told you about this? About Angel--Angelus?"
"I--" Willow stops abruptly. "Look, Buffy, it doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that he's trustworthy and you need to get to L.A. and try to control Angelus while we--"
"He?" Buffy asks. "He. Willow, who are we talking about?" There's a loud sigh on the other line, and Buffy can feel her stomach plummet. Then--
"Spike."
-
The next few hours are a blur. Buffy packs jeans, a toothbrush, holy water, pajama pants, her axe, Mr. Gordo. She curls up on the couch, screams, throws things, gives in and sobs. (She's not really sure what she's upset about--seeing Angel again, the possbility of having to kill Angel again, the fact that someone else may have given Angel a perfect moment of happiness, and fuck, she isn't even going to start on--on Spike.
She's missed the way his name feels against her mouth, on her tongue.)
When Buffy finally leaves, she's halfway down the stairs before she realizes she forgot to lock the door. She sighs and tries to find a single part of her that cares about what happens if someone breaks into her house, ransacks her fringe, steals her iPod, her designer boots, her brand new toaster. Eventually she finds that it simply doesn't matter. With a muttered curse and a flick of her hair she's on her way.
-
When Sunnydale was first turned into a giant sinkhole, Buffy did quite a lot of flying. They all did. With the Watcher's Council dead and most of their previous contacts from California having either fled before the big battle or been caught in the crossfire, they'd basically had to follow every lead possible, whenever one came up, because they had no way of knowing what was serious and what wasn't, if there was someone in the area who could take care of the issue. This had led to a good year and a half of being woken up at all hours of the evening and told there was a demon uprising happening in Florida, a new Slayer found in Mumbasa, a small rupture in the fabric of time in Berlin, and that they had to get there immediately and investigate. And sure, Buffy'd spent her share of time in Rome with The Immortal, but she had also done a whole lot of traveling, following up on new leads, gathering information, risking her life in deadly battles, and--when her travels took her to Paris and London--shoe-shopping.
Now, though, they've all got a much broader network of support. Andrew's created a new-and-improved(-and-less-stuffy) Watcher's Council; Xander's eyepatch and its bewitching badassness have made him some new compadres in demon bars; and Willow's made alliances with several different covens across the globe (some of which may or may not have been helped along by romantic dalliances but hey, Willow's the first one to unabashedly tell you that she's got a thing for hot ladies doing magic, so it's really no surprise). Thanks to all of their efforts, there just isn't as much of a need to travel anymore--and when there is, Buffy's got any number of pals who she can call and ask for a little teleportation help.
So really, she just hasn't been on planes in a while. A long while. So really, she's forgotten a lot of things about them--namely, that they make her fucking sick. So really, she does not at need this at all today.
"Can I have another bag, please?" Buffy croaks to the flight attendant. The woman smiles patiently and, voice laced with a mixture of concern and a slight hint of exasperation, says, "Of course, ma'am."
Still, as Buffy watches the attendant's heels click-click-click across the floor of the plane from her spot lying sideways, face smooshed against the tray table, she can't help but be slightly grateful for her newly rediscovered airsickness. There are a lot of things she could be thinking about right now--(Spike, Angel, Angelus, possibly having to kill any or all of the aforementioned vampires, finding a nice hotel, Spike being dead for six years and then suddenly being not-dead, whether or not she remembered to sharpen her axe before she left, having to face Angel again, having to face Spike again, missing the new episode of True Blood for this stupid flight, Spike's cheekbones, Spike's collarbones, certain other bones of Spike's)--
For once in her life, Buffy is damn glad to feel the urge to puke rising again in her chest.
-
When they finally touch down, Buffy's been through two packs of gum and her ears are no closer to popping than they were when the pilot announced landing. She makes her way out of the terminal, grumbling, and is no more than five feet onto the walkway before the enormity of what she's here to do hits her.
She's here to find Angel. To restrain Angel. To fight Angel. And, if she has to, she's here to kill Angel.
And if all of these things terrify her, what terrifies her even more is the knowledge that, deep in her gut, she knows that the real reason she's about to go running back onto that plane and spend the next six hours puking her guts out on a flight back to Boston has nothing to do with Angel and everything to do with Spike.
Spike, who tried to kill her when she was sixteen; who spent months looking after her little sister while Buffy herself was dead; who fucked her brains out per her request after she came back from being dead with the most tender look she'd ever seen on a man etched into every curve and dip of his face; who got a soul for her; who held her the night before the biggest day of her life with no questions, no doubts, only love in his eyes; who sacrificed himself to save the world six years ago.
Who's been alive this whole time, living in L.A. Existing. Existing without her.
"Uh, ma'am?" The man who approaches her is muscular but timid-looking, with a bright crop of red hair and a hoop in his left ear. It takes Buffy a moment to realize he's talking to her.
"Oh. Yes." She clears her throat, coughs slightly. "Yes?"
"I--I was just wondering if you're okay," he says. "You were--are--" He gestures at the skin under his eye uncertainly with two fingers. "You know."
Buffy reaches up, feels her own face. It's damp, wet; she can feel the area under her eyes swelling, her lids growing puffy. Her nose is running.
"Crying. Yes," she says softly. "Yes, I suppose I am."
-
As it turns out, the hotel Buffy ends up staying in isn't far from where the Hyperion used to be. After what happened in L.A. five years ago, a good portion of the city underwent what were officially referred to as "city cleanup projects" in government documents (one of these projects was responsible for creating Buffy's hotel and the surrounding area). In actuality, said projects were necessary to rebuild most of the city from the ground up after the incredible destruction that came about as a result of the fighting.
Buffy still remembers getting the news. There had been a good two weeks when they weren't sure what had happened to Angel; pretty much everyone had believed him to be dead, including Buffy.
When Buffy was in high school, there had been a time when she'd believed wholeheartedly that if anything were to happen to Angel, she'd sense it the moment it happened--that it would be like a tremor, a shock to her system. That she'd know the moment Angel became dust, she'd feel it in her bones. Because Angel was her soulmate, after all, and that's how soulmates felt about each other.
She knows much better now--that when someone you love dies, there's no magical signal, no instantaneous knowledge; that you can go on for hours while they lie dead, unknowingly--
(Buffy remembers the bright rush of shock that came with finding her mother's body on the couch, how Giles had made his way up the stairs for a romantic evening with a corpse, the weeks Xander spent looking for Anya after the Hellmouth's collapse, Tara's "it's always a surprise")
--there's no such thing as soulmates.
(And even if there were, she thinks her bones are numb enough from loss now that she wouldn't be able to feel it, anyway.
So much loss.)
-
Once Buffy's folded her clothes into the drawers and slung her weapons bag across her back, she decides to go check out some of the seedier demon bars in town. They'll probably know something--after all, it's not like Angelus exactly takes pains to hide his dastardly deeds from the world. If a slaughtered virgin hasn't been pinned to someone's doorstep yet, it'll happen soon.
(And it's just coincidence that the first three bars Buffy visits are ones she remembered Spike used to talk of fondly. Because she's not looking for Spike, damnit--she's looking for Angel. And when did Buffy start second-guessing her own brain?)
As it turns out, the nasty, scaly, slimy, pus-filled patrons of the first and second bars know nothing about any recent increases in general evil occurrences in L.A. In the third bar, though, she hits gold.
"Yeah," says the bartender, a hairy chaos demon of indeterminate gender. It scratches one of its antlers. "We got a guy come in early this morning. Was pretty weird--he's usually here tryin' to get info about some demon so he can hunt 'im down and kick his ass."
Despite herself, Buffy smiles--a weak, tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. That's Angel.
"Anyway, like I was sayin'. This guy, man, he's actin' way different. Comes in braggin' about some old folks home downtown that he apparently drained dry, and then he starts goin' on about this nursery home a couple blocks over that he's gonna hit next." The demon shakes its head sadly; its antlers bob. "I mean, we're a demon bar, y'know? Of course we get some nasties in here, sure, but we're mostly a peaceful 'stablishment. Mostly just guys comin' in for a drink, playin' a round of poker, watchin' somethin' on the TV. Interactin'."
"Right." Buffy wants to feel sorry for the guy, she really does, but there's just too much on her mind. "So did he say which nursery?"
"Nope," the demon responds. "But I figure he meant Little Tykes. It's the only one within a couple miles of here. I can getcha a map or somethin', if you want."
"That'd be great, thanks," Buffy responds. And, on second thought, adds, "And could I get a beer, too? I'm gonna need it."
Five minutes and one alcoholic beverage later, Buffy's walking out scrutinizing a crudely-drawn napkin map. Apparently, English is not the first language of chaos demons; either that, or this one has absolutely horrible spelling.
Finally deciding that "torn lift" probably means "turn left", Buffy rounds the corner--and runs smack into something rather tall, rather solid, and rather familiar-smelling.
And, looking up into said thing's face, rather bleached-blonde.
Buffy's surprisingly calm, really. See, as she figures, it can't be Spike. Just because the guy is roughly the same build, has the same deathly pale skin color, and smells quite a bit like a crypt does not make him Spike. She didn't pay much attention in Psych, but she does know that humans are incredibly susceptible to their own desires--meaning that because, okay, some part of her does want to see Spike, she's seeing him there because she wants to see him. Now, Buffy figures she can just see if the guy's okay, apologize for bumping into him, and go find--
"Buffy?"
So much for that theory.
"...Spike?"
Yep.
"I guess we need to talk, eh?"
It's not a question.
-
They don't talk, though--at least not at first. Spike seems to know exactly why she's here (he would, Buffy surmises, seeing as he was the one who told Will in the first place) and he just follows her down the street for a while, hands in the pockets of his coat.
Buffy can't remember ever being in the presence of Spike and not hearing his voice. To be honest, it's completely bizarre. He's always been such a vocal person--not just vocal, but expressive, too. He doesn't hide things, never has.
Today, though, he must sense her need for some semblance of calm (he's always been good at reading her)--that or he knows just as well as she does that any conversation they try to have at this point would inevitably go places that they're not ready for. (Not yet. Maybe not ever. Who knows if what they had can be fixed--God knows it was broken to begin with. Can broken things ever be fixed? You can put tape on them, sure, tape and band-aids and replacement buttons, but they're never quite the same.)
His boots make noises on the pavement, albeit very soft ones that Buffy has to strain to hear over the traffic. It's started to rain, softly, and the pitter-patter of Spike's feet coupled with the the pitter-patter of the rain are soothing, in a way, a sort of waking lullaby. She finds herself feeling almost comfortable. She's not relaxed, certainly, not with the giant threat of Angelus looming over her head and her -heart, but her breathing's normal and her thoughts aren't racing through her head a mile a minute, either.
Presently Buffy begins to hear sirens, then shouting, sobbing, crying. She shoots Spike a glance, like she used to when they could communicate with just glances (not that they often did, him being Mister Talkative), but he doesn't look back, just speeds up his pace. The thwack-thwack-thwack of his boots is irregular now, and Buffy finds her heartbeat speeding up to match. A thought runs through her head, fleeting--I'm not ready for this.
(Another thought, unbidden, comes into her mind, a thought of a different time when the threat of Angelus loomed: she remembers a name, Whistler, the name of a man with a silly little hat and a few words of advice. Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments...)
"Buffy." She looks up from the concrete. Spike's stopped at the corner; he's looking down the cross-street with an indecipherable expression on his face that looks something like horror.
Buffy sees the cause of the sirens, now, and the sobbing. She's staring at Little Tykes, which is, at the moment, being crowded by frightened parents and frantic policemen. They aren't going inside, for whatever reason--Buffy knows why, knows it like she knows her own name.
"He's in there," she tells Spike. At this he looks up, grimacing.
"You're bloody well telling me."
It's so like the old Spike that Buffy wants to smile; she can't bring herself to, though, not with Angelus less than fifty feet away.
There are body bags, she notices, stretched out on gurneys. Four or five of them, crisp and white and wholly terrifying.
They're child-sized.
"We have to get in there, Spike," she murmurs, voice trembling. Then, louder, "We have to get in!"
Spike flinches for a moment, apparently shocked by her outburst, then starts to reach his hand out towards her arm. He's about to rest his palm on her shoulder when he stops, frozen. His hand is back in his pocket before Buffy can blink.
"What are we waiting for, then?" he asks. "Let's get a bleedin' move on."
-
The building is pretty surrounded, but they eventually figure that they can climb in one of the back windows without the cops seeing them. Angelus will see them and know they're coming, of course, but a queer feeling in her gut tells Buffy that he already does.
Spike holds the window open for her, a pinched look on his face. She slides in without a sound, falling quietly to the carpeted floor. Spike follows immediately after.
They're in a playroom of some kind; there are baskets of dress-up clothes, shelves full of books for young readers, finger paints, rulers, stuffed farm animals, plastic food. Fear isn't an emotion that should ever be associated with this place, Buffy thinks, but sure enough, here she is, biting her lip to keep it from trembling.
A steady hand comes to rest on her shoulder, briefly, with the lightest of touches. Buffy'd have thought she was imagining it if she didn't know so well the feel of Spike's calloused fingers against her skin.
"No point in staying in here," he says. "Got to go find the brute, eh?"
He's not a brute, Buffy wants to snap, but something stops her, some light pull in her chest. She shakes the feeling off with a toss of her head and instead moves through the doorway, cautiously, throwing one last look behind her at the dolls and the monster trucks and the rain boots lined up in a row.
It's quiet in the hall, a kind of quietness that puts Buffy even less at ease than before. The colorful posters on the walls, the kids' artwork being displayed, the pictures of smiling children's faces--it all seems to suggest that this hall should be full of noise, merriment, laughter. Instead, it's silent, echoes upon echoes of nothingness rounding the corners.
"Where do you think he is?" Buffy asks, and she's whispering, although she's not quite sure why. It's not like Angelus doesn't know they're here. He's just waiting, watching, biding his time.
"Bugger if I know," Spike replies with a shrug. "Just because I spent a few centuries around the guy doesn't mean I've got a built-in radar for him."
He's acting so much like the Spike from...before that Buffy almost wants to roll her eyes, but she's got too many other things on her mind. She settles for chastising him.
"Really not the time, Spike. At all."
"Hey, I'm being serious!" he says. "All I'm saying is that you need to--"
"Need to what, William?"
Angelus' smile is cold. Buffy feels a shiver run down her back in response.
This is how it begins, for the final time:
(There are endless punches thrown, kicks intercepted. Blood trickles from Buffy's lip, clots in Angelus' right eyebrow. Buffy's breathing is deep, uneven, and the sound stands in sharp contrast to the stillness of Angelus' chest.
It's all a game to Angelus; to Buffy, it's the world on the line, but it's almost strange how detached she feels. All around her, in her, there are sounds, shapes, sensations, Angelus' fists on her skin, his fingers tearing at her hair, his voice taunting her, and yet she's not absorbing any of it. She's just there, doing her duty, fighting the man she used to love. Fighting for his life and the lives of her friends (and for her life, too, but that never comes first).
Throughout it all, Spike hovers on the periphery, always in the corner of Buffy's vision, the contrasts of his platinum hair and dark clothing screaming at her from the corner of her eye. He's blurry at times, outline fading, but he's there, physically, and also occupying another space, a space next to Buffy, almost inside of her.
She fights, in the small hallway, with Angel, beside Spike, for everything.)
This is how it ends, for the final time:
The stake slides through Angelus' sweat-slicked skin, clean and smooth. The obscene snarl on his face doesn't disappear, not at first; it isn't until his feet are already turning to dust that he realizes what's happened. Buffy's half-expecting him to look up at her, eyes flashing with the sudden lightness of a newly restored soul (like last time, like before), but he's evil to the very end; he dies with curses on his lips.
As soon as there's nothing left but ashes on the carpet, Buffy sags against the wall, hand covering her eyes. She doesn't know what to say; doesn't know if she can say anything.
And then Spike's there, like he was before, when he was always there. Grabbing her elbow, murmuring to her that it's okay, that it's over now.
That it's over now.
-
Buffy looks at the skyline, dotted with skyscrapers. She thinks she can trace the outline of where the Hyperion used to be, its brick shoulders standing tall against the evils of Los Angeles. She remembers the countless days she'd spent in college, dreaming of that building, of the man inside of it, of the life he lead and the dreams he dreamed and the people he loved. And she remembers moving on, remembering first Riley's rugged good looks and then Spike's chiseled cheekbones replacing Angel's shadowed eyes in her dreams. She remembers how she used to feel guilty, for a long time, felt like she was leaving Angel even though he'd left her long ago.
He's dead now. And there will be mourning, and crying, and shaking of fists and yelling and praying to a God she's not sure she believes in. Later, though, these things will come later.
For now, Buffy thinks that as long as someone's there to remember the Hyperion, to remember the people who used to live there, the things they used to do, to remember Angel and how he spent his days trying to fill the world with good--well, she thinks that there'll always be a little bit of hope.
A single tear rolls down her face. Spike's thumb reaches out and brushes it away.
Fandom; Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing; Buffy/Spike
Rating; PG-13
Word count; ~4100
Short summary; After hearing that Angel's lost his soul, Buffy heads to Los Angeles to attempt to keep him at bay until he can be re-ensouled--or, if things get bad, kill him. And if that doesn't make her weekend bad enough, then there's the whole issue of Spike being alive. Suffice to say, it's not shaping up to be a great day in L.A.
Warnings; Cursing, character death. Set post-Chosen and post-NFA, so watch for spoilers.
Disclaimer; I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any related media.
Notes; For my buffyexchange recipient robs55. Originally posted here! And thanks for the quick beta, sucksucksmile :)
It's Willow who gives Buffy the message, via phone at about three a.m. In her half-awake state, Buffy can barely process Willow's babbling about how she was sorry she couldn't be there in person but she was in Thailand right now with Andrew looking into some new prophecy and getting ready to teleport would have taken half an hour, at least, and they just didn't have that time and she was going to have tell her over the phone and oh, God, Buffy, she was so sorry and she wished she could be there but it just wasn't possible right now and she didn't know where Xander was, exactly, that the last they'd heard of him was that he was down in South America but maybe he could make his way over to help and--
"Okay, Will," Buffy mutters. "I understand that there's a time zone difference and you're much more awake than I am right now and therefore are at full talking speed, but if you could slow it down for those of us who are still stateside--namely, me, that would be just lovely." She punctuates the end of her sentence with a huge yawn, absentmindedly reaching up to wipe the sleep out of her eyes. "So just calm down and tell me--"
"Buffy, Angel is Angelus again." The sentence comes out of Willow's mouth in a rush, all fused together into one big long word (BuffyAngelisAngelusagain) and for all that Buffy comprehends, it is one word. One long, bizarre, meaningless word.
"What?" she stammers. She hears Willow sigh on the end, picks up for the first time in her voice that she's been crying. She feels moderately guilty; as Willow's best friend, she supposes she's supposed to notice these things sooner. (But the feeling is detached, as if it belongs to someone else.)
"We don't know how it happened. Our best guess is that someone cursed him--or, if you want to get technical, uncursed him." Willow pauses. "Anyhow, we're trying to--trying to re-ensoul him, but as you know that takes a bit of time, and the printed copy of the spell that Ms. Calendar translated is in some of my old files so someone will have to find it, and then of course we need an Orb of--"
"Where is he?" Buffy finds that in times like these, it's best to switch right into game mode. If she can wade through the shock, pretend that this is just another ordinary Slayer job--a werewolf set loose on some college campus, perhaps, or a demon gang terrorizing a small town--then she can maybe, maybe function semi-normally.
"Um, he's in L.A. right now, or he was when we were contacted by Sp--when we got the intel on him losing his soul an hour or so ago." Willow pauses, and there's a strange new note in her voice; the best that Buffy can tell, it's a mixture of caution, fear, and anger. Buffy's stomach is suddenly in knots.
"Will. What is it?" Buffy can practically see Willow biting her lip, playing with the hem of her shirt. "Willow. Who told you about this? About Angel--Angelus?"
"I--" Willow stops abruptly. "Look, Buffy, it doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that he's trustworthy and you need to get to L.A. and try to control Angelus while we--"
"He?" Buffy asks. "He. Willow, who are we talking about?" There's a loud sigh on the other line, and Buffy can feel her stomach plummet. Then--
"Spike."
-
The next few hours are a blur. Buffy packs jeans, a toothbrush, holy water, pajama pants, her axe, Mr. Gordo. She curls up on the couch, screams, throws things, gives in and sobs. (She's not really sure what she's upset about--seeing Angel again, the possbility of having to kill Angel again, the fact that someone else may have given Angel a perfect moment of happiness, and fuck, she isn't even going to start on--on Spike.
She's missed the way his name feels against her mouth, on her tongue.)
When Buffy finally leaves, she's halfway down the stairs before she realizes she forgot to lock the door. She sighs and tries to find a single part of her that cares about what happens if someone breaks into her house, ransacks her fringe, steals her iPod, her designer boots, her brand new toaster. Eventually she finds that it simply doesn't matter. With a muttered curse and a flick of her hair she's on her way.
-
When Sunnydale was first turned into a giant sinkhole, Buffy did quite a lot of flying. They all did. With the Watcher's Council dead and most of their previous contacts from California having either fled before the big battle or been caught in the crossfire, they'd basically had to follow every lead possible, whenever one came up, because they had no way of knowing what was serious and what wasn't, if there was someone in the area who could take care of the issue. This had led to a good year and a half of being woken up at all hours of the evening and told there was a demon uprising happening in Florida, a new Slayer found in Mumbasa, a small rupture in the fabric of time in Berlin, and that they had to get there immediately and investigate. And sure, Buffy'd spent her share of time in Rome with The Immortal, but she had also done a whole lot of traveling, following up on new leads, gathering information, risking her life in deadly battles, and--when her travels took her to Paris and London--shoe-shopping.
Now, though, they've all got a much broader network of support. Andrew's created a new-and-improved(-and-less-stuffy) Watcher's Council; Xander's eyepatch and its bewitching badassness have made him some new compadres in demon bars; and Willow's made alliances with several different covens across the globe (some of which may or may not have been helped along by romantic dalliances but hey, Willow's the first one to unabashedly tell you that she's got a thing for hot ladies doing magic, so it's really no surprise). Thanks to all of their efforts, there just isn't as much of a need to travel anymore--and when there is, Buffy's got any number of pals who she can call and ask for a little teleportation help.
So really, she just hasn't been on planes in a while. A long while. So really, she's forgotten a lot of things about them--namely, that they make her fucking sick. So really, she does not at need this at all today.
"Can I have another bag, please?" Buffy croaks to the flight attendant. The woman smiles patiently and, voice laced with a mixture of concern and a slight hint of exasperation, says, "Of course, ma'am."
Still, as Buffy watches the attendant's heels click-click-click across the floor of the plane from her spot lying sideways, face smooshed against the tray table, she can't help but be slightly grateful for her newly rediscovered airsickness. There are a lot of things she could be thinking about right now--(Spike, Angel, Angelus, possibly having to kill any or all of the aforementioned vampires, finding a nice hotel, Spike being dead for six years and then suddenly being not-dead, whether or not she remembered to sharpen her axe before she left, having to face Angel again, having to face Spike again, missing the new episode of True Blood for this stupid flight, Spike's cheekbones, Spike's collarbones, certain other bones of Spike's)--
For once in her life, Buffy is damn glad to feel the urge to puke rising again in her chest.
-
When they finally touch down, Buffy's been through two packs of gum and her ears are no closer to popping than they were when the pilot announced landing. She makes her way out of the terminal, grumbling, and is no more than five feet onto the walkway before the enormity of what she's here to do hits her.
She's here to find Angel. To restrain Angel. To fight Angel. And, if she has to, she's here to kill Angel.
And if all of these things terrify her, what terrifies her even more is the knowledge that, deep in her gut, she knows that the real reason she's about to go running back onto that plane and spend the next six hours puking her guts out on a flight back to Boston has nothing to do with Angel and everything to do with Spike.
Spike, who tried to kill her when she was sixteen; who spent months looking after her little sister while Buffy herself was dead; who fucked her brains out per her request after she came back from being dead with the most tender look she'd ever seen on a man etched into every curve and dip of his face; who got a soul for her; who held her the night before the biggest day of her life with no questions, no doubts, only love in his eyes; who sacrificed himself to save the world six years ago.
Who's been alive this whole time, living in L.A. Existing. Existing without her.
"Uh, ma'am?" The man who approaches her is muscular but timid-looking, with a bright crop of red hair and a hoop in his left ear. It takes Buffy a moment to realize he's talking to her.
"Oh. Yes." She clears her throat, coughs slightly. "Yes?"
"I--I was just wondering if you're okay," he says. "You were--are--" He gestures at the skin under his eye uncertainly with two fingers. "You know."
Buffy reaches up, feels her own face. It's damp, wet; she can feel the area under her eyes swelling, her lids growing puffy. Her nose is running.
"Crying. Yes," she says softly. "Yes, I suppose I am."
-
As it turns out, the hotel Buffy ends up staying in isn't far from where the Hyperion used to be. After what happened in L.A. five years ago, a good portion of the city underwent what were officially referred to as "city cleanup projects" in government documents (one of these projects was responsible for creating Buffy's hotel and the surrounding area). In actuality, said projects were necessary to rebuild most of the city from the ground up after the incredible destruction that came about as a result of the fighting.
Buffy still remembers getting the news. There had been a good two weeks when they weren't sure what had happened to Angel; pretty much everyone had believed him to be dead, including Buffy.
When Buffy was in high school, there had been a time when she'd believed wholeheartedly that if anything were to happen to Angel, she'd sense it the moment it happened--that it would be like a tremor, a shock to her system. That she'd know the moment Angel became dust, she'd feel it in her bones. Because Angel was her soulmate, after all, and that's how soulmates felt about each other.
She knows much better now--that when someone you love dies, there's no magical signal, no instantaneous knowledge; that you can go on for hours while they lie dead, unknowingly--
(Buffy remembers the bright rush of shock that came with finding her mother's body on the couch, how Giles had made his way up the stairs for a romantic evening with a corpse, the weeks Xander spent looking for Anya after the Hellmouth's collapse, Tara's "it's always a surprise")
--there's no such thing as soulmates.
(And even if there were, she thinks her bones are numb enough from loss now that she wouldn't be able to feel it, anyway.
So much loss.)
-
Once Buffy's folded her clothes into the drawers and slung her weapons bag across her back, she decides to go check out some of the seedier demon bars in town. They'll probably know something--after all, it's not like Angelus exactly takes pains to hide his dastardly deeds from the world. If a slaughtered virgin hasn't been pinned to someone's doorstep yet, it'll happen soon.
(And it's just coincidence that the first three bars Buffy visits are ones she remembered Spike used to talk of fondly. Because she's not looking for Spike, damnit--she's looking for Angel. And when did Buffy start second-guessing her own brain?)
As it turns out, the nasty, scaly, slimy, pus-filled patrons of the first and second bars know nothing about any recent increases in general evil occurrences in L.A. In the third bar, though, she hits gold.
"Yeah," says the bartender, a hairy chaos demon of indeterminate gender. It scratches one of its antlers. "We got a guy come in early this morning. Was pretty weird--he's usually here tryin' to get info about some demon so he can hunt 'im down and kick his ass."
Despite herself, Buffy smiles--a weak, tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. That's Angel.
"Anyway, like I was sayin'. This guy, man, he's actin' way different. Comes in braggin' about some old folks home downtown that he apparently drained dry, and then he starts goin' on about this nursery home a couple blocks over that he's gonna hit next." The demon shakes its head sadly; its antlers bob. "I mean, we're a demon bar, y'know? Of course we get some nasties in here, sure, but we're mostly a peaceful 'stablishment. Mostly just guys comin' in for a drink, playin' a round of poker, watchin' somethin' on the TV. Interactin'."
"Right." Buffy wants to feel sorry for the guy, she really does, but there's just too much on her mind. "So did he say which nursery?"
"Nope," the demon responds. "But I figure he meant Little Tykes. It's the only one within a couple miles of here. I can getcha a map or somethin', if you want."
"That'd be great, thanks," Buffy responds. And, on second thought, adds, "And could I get a beer, too? I'm gonna need it."
Five minutes and one alcoholic beverage later, Buffy's walking out scrutinizing a crudely-drawn napkin map. Apparently, English is not the first language of chaos demons; either that, or this one has absolutely horrible spelling.
Finally deciding that "torn lift" probably means "turn left", Buffy rounds the corner--and runs smack into something rather tall, rather solid, and rather familiar-smelling.
And, looking up into said thing's face, rather bleached-blonde.
Buffy's surprisingly calm, really. See, as she figures, it can't be Spike. Just because the guy is roughly the same build, has the same deathly pale skin color, and smells quite a bit like a crypt does not make him Spike. She didn't pay much attention in Psych, but she does know that humans are incredibly susceptible to their own desires--meaning that because, okay, some part of her does want to see Spike, she's seeing him there because she wants to see him. Now, Buffy figures she can just see if the guy's okay, apologize for bumping into him, and go find--
"Buffy?"
So much for that theory.
"...Spike?"
Yep.
"I guess we need to talk, eh?"
It's not a question.
-
They don't talk, though--at least not at first. Spike seems to know exactly why she's here (he would, Buffy surmises, seeing as he was the one who told Will in the first place) and he just follows her down the street for a while, hands in the pockets of his coat.
Buffy can't remember ever being in the presence of Spike and not hearing his voice. To be honest, it's completely bizarre. He's always been such a vocal person--not just vocal, but expressive, too. He doesn't hide things, never has.
Today, though, he must sense her need for some semblance of calm (he's always been good at reading her)--that or he knows just as well as she does that any conversation they try to have at this point would inevitably go places that they're not ready for. (Not yet. Maybe not ever. Who knows if what they had can be fixed--God knows it was broken to begin with. Can broken things ever be fixed? You can put tape on them, sure, tape and band-aids and replacement buttons, but they're never quite the same.)
His boots make noises on the pavement, albeit very soft ones that Buffy has to strain to hear over the traffic. It's started to rain, softly, and the pitter-patter of Spike's feet coupled with the the pitter-patter of the rain are soothing, in a way, a sort of waking lullaby. She finds herself feeling almost comfortable. She's not relaxed, certainly, not with the giant threat of Angelus looming over her head and her -heart, but her breathing's normal and her thoughts aren't racing through her head a mile a minute, either.
Presently Buffy begins to hear sirens, then shouting, sobbing, crying. She shoots Spike a glance, like she used to when they could communicate with just glances (not that they often did, him being Mister Talkative), but he doesn't look back, just speeds up his pace. The thwack-thwack-thwack of his boots is irregular now, and Buffy finds her heartbeat speeding up to match. A thought runs through her head, fleeting--I'm not ready for this.
(Another thought, unbidden, comes into her mind, a thought of a different time when the threat of Angelus loomed: she remembers a name, Whistler, the name of a man with a silly little hat and a few words of advice. Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments...)
"Buffy." She looks up from the concrete. Spike's stopped at the corner; he's looking down the cross-street with an indecipherable expression on his face that looks something like horror.
Buffy sees the cause of the sirens, now, and the sobbing. She's staring at Little Tykes, which is, at the moment, being crowded by frightened parents and frantic policemen. They aren't going inside, for whatever reason--Buffy knows why, knows it like she knows her own name.
"He's in there," she tells Spike. At this he looks up, grimacing.
"You're bloody well telling me."
It's so like the old Spike that Buffy wants to smile; she can't bring herself to, though, not with Angelus less than fifty feet away.
There are body bags, she notices, stretched out on gurneys. Four or five of them, crisp and white and wholly terrifying.
They're child-sized.
"We have to get in there, Spike," she murmurs, voice trembling. Then, louder, "We have to get in!"
Spike flinches for a moment, apparently shocked by her outburst, then starts to reach his hand out towards her arm. He's about to rest his palm on her shoulder when he stops, frozen. His hand is back in his pocket before Buffy can blink.
"What are we waiting for, then?" he asks. "Let's get a bleedin' move on."
-
The building is pretty surrounded, but they eventually figure that they can climb in one of the back windows without the cops seeing them. Angelus will see them and know they're coming, of course, but a queer feeling in her gut tells Buffy that he already does.
Spike holds the window open for her, a pinched look on his face. She slides in without a sound, falling quietly to the carpeted floor. Spike follows immediately after.
They're in a playroom of some kind; there are baskets of dress-up clothes, shelves full of books for young readers, finger paints, rulers, stuffed farm animals, plastic food. Fear isn't an emotion that should ever be associated with this place, Buffy thinks, but sure enough, here she is, biting her lip to keep it from trembling.
A steady hand comes to rest on her shoulder, briefly, with the lightest of touches. Buffy'd have thought she was imagining it if she didn't know so well the feel of Spike's calloused fingers against her skin.
"No point in staying in here," he says. "Got to go find the brute, eh?"
He's not a brute, Buffy wants to snap, but something stops her, some light pull in her chest. She shakes the feeling off with a toss of her head and instead moves through the doorway, cautiously, throwing one last look behind her at the dolls and the monster trucks and the rain boots lined up in a row.
It's quiet in the hall, a kind of quietness that puts Buffy even less at ease than before. The colorful posters on the walls, the kids' artwork being displayed, the pictures of smiling children's faces--it all seems to suggest that this hall should be full of noise, merriment, laughter. Instead, it's silent, echoes upon echoes of nothingness rounding the corners.
"Where do you think he is?" Buffy asks, and she's whispering, although she's not quite sure why. It's not like Angelus doesn't know they're here. He's just waiting, watching, biding his time.
"Bugger if I know," Spike replies with a shrug. "Just because I spent a few centuries around the guy doesn't mean I've got a built-in radar for him."
He's acting so much like the Spike from...before that Buffy almost wants to roll her eyes, but she's got too many other things on her mind. She settles for chastising him.
"Really not the time, Spike. At all."
"Hey, I'm being serious!" he says. "All I'm saying is that you need to--"
"Need to what, William?"
Angelus' smile is cold. Buffy feels a shiver run down her back in response.
This is how it begins, for the final time:
(There are endless punches thrown, kicks intercepted. Blood trickles from Buffy's lip, clots in Angelus' right eyebrow. Buffy's breathing is deep, uneven, and the sound stands in sharp contrast to the stillness of Angelus' chest.
It's all a game to Angelus; to Buffy, it's the world on the line, but it's almost strange how detached she feels. All around her, in her, there are sounds, shapes, sensations, Angelus' fists on her skin, his fingers tearing at her hair, his voice taunting her, and yet she's not absorbing any of it. She's just there, doing her duty, fighting the man she used to love. Fighting for his life and the lives of her friends (and for her life, too, but that never comes first).
Throughout it all, Spike hovers on the periphery, always in the corner of Buffy's vision, the contrasts of his platinum hair and dark clothing screaming at her from the corner of her eye. He's blurry at times, outline fading, but he's there, physically, and also occupying another space, a space next to Buffy, almost inside of her.
She fights, in the small hallway, with Angel, beside Spike, for everything.)
This is how it ends, for the final time:
The stake slides through Angelus' sweat-slicked skin, clean and smooth. The obscene snarl on his face doesn't disappear, not at first; it isn't until his feet are already turning to dust that he realizes what's happened. Buffy's half-expecting him to look up at her, eyes flashing with the sudden lightness of a newly restored soul (like last time, like before), but he's evil to the very end; he dies with curses on his lips.
As soon as there's nothing left but ashes on the carpet, Buffy sags against the wall, hand covering her eyes. She doesn't know what to say; doesn't know if she can say anything.
And then Spike's there, like he was before, when he was always there. Grabbing her elbow, murmuring to her that it's okay, that it's over now.
That it's over now.
-
Buffy looks at the skyline, dotted with skyscrapers. She thinks she can trace the outline of where the Hyperion used to be, its brick shoulders standing tall against the evils of Los Angeles. She remembers the countless days she'd spent in college, dreaming of that building, of the man inside of it, of the life he lead and the dreams he dreamed and the people he loved. And she remembers moving on, remembering first Riley's rugged good looks and then Spike's chiseled cheekbones replacing Angel's shadowed eyes in her dreams. She remembers how she used to feel guilty, for a long time, felt like she was leaving Angel even though he'd left her long ago.
He's dead now. And there will be mourning, and crying, and shaking of fists and yelling and praying to a God she's not sure she believes in. Later, though, these things will come later.
For now, Buffy thinks that as long as someone's there to remember the Hyperion, to remember the people who used to live there, the things they used to do, to remember Angel and how he spent his days trying to fill the world with good--well, she thinks that there'll always be a little bit of hope.
A single tear rolls down her face. Spike's thumb reaches out and brushes it away.