Five Endings for Spike and Buffy (And One That Wasn't) 2/6
"Five Endings for Spike and Buffy (and One that Wasn't)"
Part Two of Six
Ratings Range - this one's PG
A Change in the Weather
It hasn’t stopped raining since Spike died.
As much as it fit her mood, the gloomy weather was comforting, in a way. If it lifted, there could be a change, and a chance.
Buffy lay on her side, huddled under their quilts, listening to it rain. She had given up on trying to sleep hours ago, settling instead for restlessly flipping her pillow back and forth, trying to find a cool spot for her cheek.
She couldn’t concentrate on the paperback on her nightstand - it was bookmarked last on the day that it happened. She couldn’t go out slaying - an extra team was called in to handle her area, to relieve her to grieve. She couldn’t cry anymore - her face was too chapped from the last few days.
So by default, she listened to the rain. Not passively, either - there’s expectation in it, waiting for the signal.
Back in her psych courses, Kubler-Ross would call this the “denial” stage. The problem with that model, though, is that she’s made it to acceptance, and probably, under the doctor’s model, cycled back around to denial. Or is it hope?
When, from time to time, Buffy broke concentration, she would brusquely rebuke herself. She’s learned to deal with things, hasn’t she? Forty years of marriage to Spike brought them a life rooted in unavoidable realities, those that wrenched their spirits, and those that buoyed them, secured them, held them tight and lovingly. New scars and new joys.
Reality also brought a few assumptions, some of them misplaced. Buffy had been planning to have a long talk with him in the future. If she died, she knew that he would and could carry on. She’d never prepared herself for the possibility that it might be him to go first, had never asked him about any of the details that seemed to matter now - where he’d like his ashes to go, whether his poetry (which she intended never to let go of while alive) should be passed on to their children - or whether she was the only one privileged to see it.
Her hand drifted over the mattress, the cool sheets where his ticklish belly should be.
Unexpectedly, the thought struck her that she would never hear him laugh again, and made her double up in pain, hugging her knees to her chest.
When he gave her a genuine laugh (not a smirk), his eyes crinkled up at the corners and his face opened up with a belly-flipping grin. She’d never seen an open, honest laugh like this during the old days in Sunnydale - she made a practice of trying to bring it to his face as much as he tried to bring one to hers.
He was laughing like that when she found him, the first time. Bone tired, faces scratched up after a skirmish, he and Gunn were tossing back a few mugs, punch drunk and slightly hysterical at whatever they were remembering. As soon as his eyes lit upon her, he sobered up, the grin deflating to an astonished “O.”
Laughter quickly became essential to their life together. She loved watching his open delight, loved feeling loose and happy and secure to laugh in concert with him, trust implicit in that they showed this kind of delight to each other. When they entwined, skin to skin and belly to belly, inevitably, one of them would trigger the other into that delicious feeling. Laughter from deep in Spike’s chest would rumble, shake his stomach against hers, vibrating and tickling and driving her into the same vibrant state, infectious and lovely.
As Spike’s laughter echoed and faded in her ear, Buffy‘s ears were filled with another presence. Stillness.
The rain had stopped.
She held her breath for a moment, both disbelieving and not, listened intently for a few minutes.
Nothing.
She flung back the covers, unlocked the door, and stepped out onto the porch, where a gentle mist fell on her skin. Animal senses at full alert, she scanned the distant treeline.
Buffy stood like a sentinel against the dark for several minutes, scanning, listening, waiting.
The mist stopped fully, and a gentle breeze ruffled her nightgown against her legs. The weather was changing. Encouraged by this, she waited on, as the breeze grew stronger, and clouds slipped away.
Several hours later, Buffy woke to the dim light of their bedroom, and with no memory of leaving the porch, though she must have. Had she? Was it a dream, or had she really been out there?
She looked over - his side of the bed was empty. Still.
She’ll go on, she’ll continue. His loss tears at her, but it is not a fatal wound. It will bleed on and refuse to close, though she patches over it. She’ll fight another day, she‘ll live on and love, no question. But she’ll always be looking over her shoulder. She can’t help it, because there’s always the chance.
If anyone could do it again, it would be him.