April's going to be a bit busy for me, so I'm not sure how regular updates will be, but we should be back on schedule for May. 

This wasn't an easy chapter to write, and I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me. :) 

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Her eyes are still glued shut when she awakens, and she doesn’t dare open them to find out where she is, if she’s half dead on the floor or in a hospital somewhere hooked into an IV. But the ground below her is soft and…okay, bed-like, and she recognizes Spike’s distinctive scent hanging over her surroundings. I’m alive. Oh. That’s good.

She keeps her eyes closed, squirming into a more comfortable position, and demands, “Where were you?”

“Where was I?” Spike’s disbelieving voice retorts from somewhere on her left. “That’s what you have to say for yourself? What the sodding hell did you think you were doing, taking on that…thing? What reignited death wish could have possibly possessed you to- to try to-“ He falls silent, and she opens her eyes with reluctance, staring up at him.

Vampire visage aside, he looks remarkably pale and drawn, fear and dread and fury all whirling around in his expression as he glares at her. And that irritates her far more than it should, because what right does he have to be mad at her when- “Well, it’s not like I had any willing backup! And I knew that you’d get me out of there once I drove that thing back. How many bug ships are stalking me in San Fran?”

A shadow crosses his face, but he brushes it aside quickly in favor of rolling his eyes at her. "Yeah, because I never show up. Sing me another tune, slayer."

She glares at him, unamused. "You weren't here tonight! I waited-" She stops abruptly, fixing her eyes on the wall behind him. He doesn't get to hear this, not now that he's let her down. Not now that he's going to act like she's to blame for his absence. 

Which, yeah, she is, but of the few things in life she's been confident she can take advantage of, Spike ranks near the top of the list. It's the world they've descended into, snark and swagger and soft acceptance, and Spike had broken the rules. He hadn't come. 

He's regarding her with narrowed eyes when she turns back to him. "Fair enough," he says grudgingly, simmering anger rising up to the surface. "But you're the one who wanted me to stay away. You told me you didn't want me here anymore!"

"I didn't mean it!" she snaps back. "Well, I meant it at the time, but not afterward- okay, not the whole time afterward- and..and...and why would you take me seriously, anyway?" she splutters.

Spike stares at her, momentarily speechless- and isn't that a miracle- and then, unexpectedly, he snickers. 

She glares at him, her ire rising at his mirth, but there's something about Spike laughing that's always made her breath catch in her throat, and when she recovers from that, she thinks about what she’s just snapped and him and lets out a snort of laughter of her own, and then they're both dissolving into hysterics together, Spike without a hint of anger and she with more than a little self-mockery. "Talk about mixed signals!" she gasps out, tears of mirth slipping down her face and catching onto her hair.

Spike brushes away the damp strands absently, his eyes still shining with laughter. "'m used to it from you. Don't let it stop me."

Oh. She stops laughing abruptly, the reminder of old times sobering her at once. "I could have used you today," she says quietly, praying that he'll take it for the apology it is. "You're...I count on you." It's hard to confess that even now, after a year rebuilding a friendship that couldn- shouldn't be more. She's gotten too used to keeping her feelings from Spike, too wary of the way he'd have once used them as a weapon or shrugged them off to be honest with him. But she's not going to repeat old mistakes, not going to continue with awkwardness and painful distance until Spike turns his full focus on Faith and- 

Unresolved issues much? She winces. Spike isn't Gi... Giles. But she knows better than to waste away another relationship until another man she...she cares about is lying dead before her with only the slightest reconciliation before he's gone. She can't afford to do that again, especially when it's Spike and they've danced this dance before. 

He shifts forward in the chair he's wrapped around- her chair, and she realizes very suddenly that she's sitting in his bed for the first time in a year and the images that are coming to her are just as rapid and where is my brain today? as last time- to cup her cheek. "No, I shouldn't have kept it from you, pet. 'was my fault."

She shrugs, trying not think about how close he is. The back of his chair serves as a barrier between them, a reminder that she can't cross that line again, and she brushes away the intrusive desires, annoyed at herself. This is why his bed is off-limits. 

She forces a scowl and struggles to remember what he'd just said. "Yeah, it was," she agrees cheerfully, tossing her hair. 

"Oi!" He jerks up at that. "No, it wasn't! 'm just trying to be the bigger..." He sees the laughter in her eyes and glares. "You're scrambling my melon, aren't you?"

She scrunches up her nose. “What does that even mean?” She scoots backward, far enough away from him that she can think again. "I know. I overreacted. But you know I have Faith issues."

"Yeah." He gazes silently at her, his expression remorseful but determined. "'m not going to stop going there now. 'm needed."

"Needed?" she repeats dubiously. "Since when are you and Faith such good buddies, anyway? You barely even spoke to her when you came back. What could have possibly prompted you to go gallivanting off to-"

"Buffy." His voice is soft, unrelenting. "You know this was never about Faith, right? I have to...we've jus' been trying to get Angel-"

She flinches at the name, trying desperately to shove the mental images that are bubbling up away from her. 

You still my girl?

Always.

And there he is, back again after so long and whispering words of sweet seduction in her ears, and she's not sure if it's the intoxicatingly, mind-numbing glow that surrounds her that's making her give up her soul to him so freely, or if that's just an excuse she needs to tell herself because all she wants is him, is someone who loves her, someone she can connect with, and this is the one person who always has, and it's so much simpler to believe his excuses than to push him away-

Slap. The hand against her cheek is nothing if not mild, but it's enough to jerk her from her reverie of times long gone and back into this world, where Spike is gearing up for another smack. 

She holds up a hand hastily, rolling her eyes at the disappointment that broadens across his face. "I'm here. You were saying?"

He doesn't meet her eyes, and she wonders what he thinks is going on, what he thinks she's dwelling on. If he thinks she's pining over Angel. This isn't about him. It's about her greatest failure, the moment when the world was on the line and she had thrown it away for her own needs. It's about repercussions that still remain, about the destruction of the Seed and magic and the slayer line, and if she spends all her time thinking about it, she'd never be able to keep fighting. 

"-to get Angel back to that idiotic, self-righteous bastard that he's always been," Spike concludes. 

She steels herself against his name this time. "So...what? You're suddenly Angel's sponsor in Big Bads Anonymous? Last time I saw you two together, he was busy throwing you around in the sunlight and you were giving me homoerotic subtext that was really much hotter before I thought that you'd actually done it."

Spike smirks. "Yeah, well, that was Twilight." She flinches again, but he barrels on. "I spent a year before all that with Angel, remember? Can't say that we became besties and spent all our free time braiding each other's hair, but we...we reached an understanding. He's my sire, pet. And we might have tried to kill each other a couple of times, but it wasn't all bad." His face softens at the memory, and bile rises in her throat at the reminder of That Year.

She swallows back almost all her questions before one slips out. "Is that why you stayed?" She doesn't want to do this, doesn't want him to glimpse her feelings of betrayal and call her out on it. Doesn't want him to-

She'd never been to the Hyperion Hotel, but Willow knew the path and directed her with that odd, other-worldly specter of hers, a ghostly apparition floating at her side. “Right here,” Willow had murmured, patting her hand down in a simulacrum of a comforting gesture. It had felt like the First, and she’d shuddered. 

She pushed the door to the silent hotel open nervously, it suddenly occurring to her that she didn’t really have a plan there. She’d just heard about a disaster in Los Angeles involving the vampire with a soul and she’d run, terrified for Angel. It was what they did, right? He’d been there for her last apocalypse- brought a weapon that killed her vampire, and she was determined to do the same for him, even if it was just in mopping up the aftermath. 

But the Hyperion was empty, and she began to wonder if this had been a bad idea. Angel wasn’t there- was he gone? She’d know if he were dead, wouldn’t she?

“Buffy?” The voice took her by surprise, and she spun around, staring up at the girl emerging from the back room. “Omigod, Buffy Summers! What are you doing here?” Harmony Kendall. Former classmate. Vampire. Occasional pain in her ass. As though she’d suddenly remembered that fact, Harmony took a step back, holding up her hands protectively. “Don’t kill me! I haven’t fed off human blood in almost a year!” She began babbling on and on about her old job, and how amazing it was, and how she was finally on her own and independent, and how even though her boss had gotten cranky and tried to destroy the company, Angel wasn’t that bad, once you got to know him-

“Wait.” Buffy raised her hand, her other hand still toying with her stake threateningly. “Angel? You worked for Angel?” 

Harmony nodded, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know what he was thinking. No one can take down Wolfram and Hart, not even him. And now I need a new job.” She brightened. “But he wrote me a reference letter! And the other evil law firm in town is hiring!”

“Evil law…? Never mind. Harmony. Where. Is. Angel.” She enunciated each word carefully, fixing her best slayer glare on the vampire. 

The other girl shrugged. “I don’t know. They were here for a few days, recovering, but Angel was all broody and I had to hide. He was gone when I got back, and my Blondie Bear and that nasty goddess of his were already on their way out. Not that I care about him,” she said hastily. “No matter how often he begged- and he totally did all the time, I swear- I wasn’t going to sneak off into a closet with him for a quickie. I had responsibilities. And self-respect and stuff.” Her eyes widened as though she’d just remembered whom she was talking to. “But we didn’t! I know you had a thing, and I wasn’t going to get in the slayer’s way. Nothing happened, promise!”

And she could only stare blankly at Harmony, wordless, because what she was saying didn’t make sense. Couldn’t make sense. Not in this world. Not in a world where she’d seen Spike die. 

Not in a world where it was incontrovertible that he’d come running back to her the moment he was returned to unlife.

Harmony had started talking again, apologetic- she hadn’t realized that Buffy still didn’t know, why hadn’t Spike called her or anything before the next apocalypse? That had to smart, huh?- but Buffy had tuned her out, shame and self-loathing and recriminations all attacking her at once at the realization. It hadn’t taken long before she’d redirected her anger at Spike, hadn’t been long before she’d taught herself that his betrayal meant nothing to her and his love had meant even less. And she’d seethed and brooded but never cried, because Spike wasn’t worth her tears, okay?

And here he is again, staring at her face with that intent gaze that always means that he’s seeing too much but not comprehending it the way he should. “I stayed…love, what was I supposed to do? I was a ghost for a while there, bound to the building, and it kept me from buggering everything up.” He clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I got to thinking, realized there was no place for me in Camp Slayer, not anymore.”

She gapes at him. “That’s what you thought? Do you know who we had training the girls at first? Kennedy, who thinks that ‘maggot’ is a term of endearment for her soldiers. We needed everyone we could get!” But he’d never really been interested in training the potentials, she remembers suddenly. The only time he’d ever really worked with them had been that one time that the two of them had taken the potentials out for a night with Sunnydale’s Most Wanted, and that had only been because she’d asked him. And kind of a date. With many potential-sized chaperones.

His voice is pained. “You didn’t need me. I wasn’t…you gave me a sendoff. You said… as a farewell gift to a dying man. I wasn’t going to force that back on you.”

“Force-“ She stops, thinking of that final year in Sunnydale, the depth of her feelings for Spike then. The way he’d been the last person she could rely on, the only one she did. The way she’d forgiven him for the badness that had come before and he had her, and all they had to give to each other was… “It wasn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t it?” He’s still watching her carefully, as though this answer is the answer, and suddenly she’s tugging her covers higher to her waist, needing something tangible between them. “Buffy, did you mean it?”

She doesn’t know why he cares, now that he’s over her. Some old validation, maybe? An ego boost? She struggles to remember the world before she’d found Harmony at the Hyperion, before Spike’s abandonment had turned her memories sour. 

She had felt about him…exactly how she feels now. Time has only strengthened that bond. And he doesn’t love her.

She catches his gaze, lets him see her turmoil and knows that he won’t recognize it for what it is. “Does it matter anymore?”

He slumps in his chair, and there’s a lump in her throat that she tries valiantly to swallow. “Suppose not.”

They both turn away at the exact same moment, staring fixedly at the ground and sneaking glances at each other surreptitiously.

Naturally, Spike’s the first to break the silence. He loves causing these awkward moments, she notes wryly, but he’s just as good at dispelling them. “So you thought that it was…studly?” He arches an eyebrow at her dubiously.

She sighs at that memory, her less than gracious “Welcome back, thanks for saving our lives again” speech from last year. “Well, it was,” she points out weakly. “With the whole giving-up-your-life-for-us thing?”

“Didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” 

“Even so.” She shrugs helplessly. “Look, you showed up right when everything was…badness was happening, because of me, and I was embarrassed and snippy and you were going to be snarky anyway, so I thought I’d head you off, and besides, it’s not like you really needed another ego boost...”

She’d also made a promise to someone else moments before, someone who’d given up eternal happiness for nothing more than her, and she’d been determined not to betray him by accepting an old lover as anything more than a business associate. But she isn’t nearly callous enough to tell Spike that. 

Or brave enough to talk about that particular stupidity.

“And speaking of ego, Faith!” she says hastily. “Did you see her today? How’s she doing?”

“Nice segue, pet.” He smirks halfheartedly. “Didn’t go today.”

“Oh.” She can’t help but smile at that, even as she reminds herself not to look too deeply into it. “I was thinking…we should probably go and talk about Simone with her. Brainstorm a little, see if they’ve been exposed to something…”

His eyebrows shoot up. “We?”

“We,” she says firmly. There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, a building dread at the idea of seeing him again that threatens to overwhelm her, so her she talks quickly. “England’s what, eight hours ahead? How long is the trip? Am I going to have to skip work?”

But Spike’s grinning like the cat that got the cream. “I called your work already, left a message for that pretty little Leah chit and told her you were sick and wouldn’t be coming in tomorrow. We’ll be getting to Faith’s in about three hours, noontime there.” He runs a hand through his hair, sheepish yet unapologetic at the same time.

She stares at him blankly. “You were going to force me there?”

“I knew you’d do the right thing,” he says simply. “You always do.” 

I don’t, she thinks. And she’s three hours away from facing proof of that.