~~~
Preludio
~~~

The drive to the airport had been silent, each passenger lost in his or her own thoughts, own dilemmas. Both women were learning how to live all over again in a lonely world more harsh than hopeful. The man, hopelessly incapable of delving into the maelstrom of emotions that surrounded him, spent the drive checking and rechecking the packet of travel documents. The car had the appearance of containing the living dead, rather than warriors who had spent years battling the real thing.

Willow sat with her head bowed in sorrow. There was a gulf of her own making between herself and her companions. Two of the three most important people left in her world in the car with her and not a syllable was uttered to start building a bridge over the void. Willow might never get over losing Tara and then, after flaying Warren alive, losing any illusions of being a ‘good person’. How could anyone else ever forgive her when she might never forgive herself?

Buffy was still stinging from the many hateful things that had poured from the mouth of her best friend. There was no time to hash things out now. The first thing that needed to be done was to save Willow from further self-destruction and rid her of her dependence on magic to cure all perceived ills, to bend the world and all its inhabitants to her own will. Later, Buffy would have to face Willow’s words and the damage that they caused.

Buffy had never known that Willow resented her and her position as Slayer. ‘She called me superbitch. Why on earth did Willow insist on pulling me from heaven if she felt that way? She said she spent six years as my sidekick and wanted to be the Slayer, the Power. Why bring me back if that’s what she wanted?’ Buffy wondered.

Buffy had heard enough about that lost summer to know that Willow had assumed the leadership of those left behind. Even Giles followed the witch’s directions while on patrol. Willow had moved into Buffy’s home and taken her place in all but name. ‘Except for paying all the bills that were stacking up,’ Buffy thought bitterly.

Now Giles was leaving again. Buffy remembered how he had laughed, great belly laughs, at the mess she had made of things in his absence. Even though she had laughed right along with him, it hurt to see how comical he seemed to find the disaster they had all created out of the grand drama of their young lives.

Xander had emotionally gutted Anya badly enough to turn her back into a vengeance demon. Willow had spiraled out of control trying to make everything and everyone what she thought they should be and do. It had taken Willow nearly destroying the entire world to get Giles to return to Sunnydale.

Giles had said that Buffy needed to be "the responsible one". That was why he said he had to leave. ‘I’d just clawed my way out of the ground after being at peace for the first time I can ever remember! Suddenly I’m back, not just with full Slayer fun on the Hellmouth, but with all my mom’s bills, duties and responsibilities on top of it. So Giles jumped ship right after he found out just how bad it all was and then had the nerve to laugh because I screwed it all up?’ Buffy choked back a sob of self-pity. ‘Now he’s leaving again to take care of Willow,’ she brooded. ‘I need him too! What do I have to do to get him to not leave me? Even finding out about Spike wasn’t enough. Maybe if I tried to end the world….’

In the end, they left anyway. Once again Buffy stood and watched the backs of those she loved as they moved on and away from her. True, Xander and Dawn were still there. But things were tense between all of them, so they might as well be gone too. And Spike? Buffy had no idea where Spike was. He’d left, like they all did. All that angst trying to keep her loved ones close, seeking their approval and ultimately Buffy, like the cheese in the old child’s song, stood alone.

The trip back to Revello Drive was a quiet one. Buffy went over the same emotional territory over and over again. Seeing a shattered Willow board the flight to England had been difficult, even if Buffy knew it was for the best. It was doubly hard seeing the back of her Watcher as well. In one fell swoop, she was losing her best friend and her father figure. Buffy studiously ignored the soft voice that added ‘and my love is gone too’. No, not love! That wasn’t her love life! Spike was many things, but never her love life!

Buffy was looking forward to a long soak in the tub and an early night in dreamland. With any luck, she’d just sleep the sleep of exhaustion and not dream at all.

~~~

Buffy brushed her hair and gazed at the pinched face in the mirror. When had she gotten so old, so tired-looking? She felt fifty instead of twenty. No wonder Slayers died young. "It’s not the years; it’s the odometer," she muttered.

She slipped on a loose-fitting t-shirt and cotton panties and crawled under the comforter. "Great name, ‘comforter’. Hope it does what it says."

She thought back to the day she had spent invisible. She’d actually had fun and felt free, nearly happy. Part of her brain kept bringing up the interesting choices she had made when no one could see her. Aside from a bit of righteous revenge and damage control, she had spent a lovely afternoon in Spike’s crypt. For once it had been playful and slow, instead of hard and rough and filled with angst.

Buffy started to push her hair back and was struck again by how short it now was. It had been a few years since she had hair this short. It did look adorable, as everyone had said, but she hadn’t really planned on a haircut.

She had cut it to spite Spike. His obvious love of her long tresses and his calling her Goldilocks had made her feel soft and warm towards the vampire and she couldn’t allow that. No, the hair and the emotions Spike made her feel had to go…so go they did.

Buffy sighed and rolled over on her side, snuggling into her pillow and hoping the heartbreak and tension of the day would prove tiring enough to lead to quick sleep.

~~~
Dream The First
~~~



Buffy looked around and saw a lush green lawn leading up to a tall, leafy tree growing beside a rippling brook. Under the tree sat her mother. Joyce was weaving daisies into a wreath when she noticed Buffy and smiled in greeting. "Sweetheart! Come sit with me for a while. Let’s just have Mom-and-Buffy time for a while. Even a Slayer needs a rest from time to time."

"Oh, Mommy," Buffy rushed to her side and threw her arms around her mother. "I’ve missed you so much! I looked for you in heaven, but I don’t remember if I ever found you." That had bothered Buffy too--the not remembering important things from her time in heaven. Had she remembered at first? Had those memories been stolen by her friend’s mind manipulation? Surely her mom was in heaven and, just as surely, she would have been there with Buffy until her daughter was dragged out of that place.

Joyce stroked Buffy’s hair and smiled. "You never lost me, sweetie. I’m always with you. Heaven isn’t a place like Paris or Boston; it’s more like a place behind a veil or another room. One day, a long time from now, you’ll be able to see and hear me again while you are awake, just as I see and hear you. I’m always with you, honey. Love never leaves," Joyce promised.

"Everything is so hard without you. I’m too young and stupid to be a mom already and I’m messing up so bad with Dawn and the bills and everything. I just want it all to go away, like when I was little. I don’t want to be a grown-up, Mommy. I never got the chance to be just a girl." Buffy settled at her mother side and lay her head in Joyce’s lap.

"You just need time, Buffy. You’ll do fine. You aren’t alone, you know." Joyce placed the completed wreath on Buffy’s head and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Buffy’s ear. "Your hair looks adorable, sweetie."

"Thanks," Buffy smiled. "I cut it. I think I hurt Spike’s feelings."

"You may have; he feels things deeply." Joyce pulled Buffy into an embrace and kissed her brow. "Tell you what, why don’t you lay your head in my lap again and I’ll tell you a story like when you were little."

"Okay," Buffy said her voice sounding quite young and needy. "Will it be about pretty princesses who live happily ever after?"

"Not right away. Even princesses have to learn how to know what they need to be happy. Just listen and rest, honey." Joyce stroked her daughter’s hair and began her tale the way they always begin.

"Once upon a time, a very long time ago…," Joyce’s voice soothed Buffy and warmed her too cold heart. "There was a man and a woman who wanted a child more than anything. They tried and tried and one day the woman discovered her prayers were answered at last and a baby was on its way.

"In time, the baby was born and no child had ever been more lovely than this little girl. The man and his wife were beyond happy and the three spent their days in joy as the girl grew and thrived.

"They had named the girl Buffy because the name made them smile, just as their daughter always did.

"Sadly, the man and woman grew apart, although they both still loved their child dearly. In time, it was only the mother and her sweet Buffy alone.

"As Buffy grew, she discovered the enchanted world that they lived in was not just filled with flowers and fairy dust. There were monsters and trolls as well. There was also a powerful Mage who came and told Buffy that she was special and had a special duty that would require all of her heart, all of her life and all of her energy.

"Buffy liked feeling special again, as she once had with her father. Her mother worried about the things the Mage asked of Buffy, but she was made to believe that her beautiful daughter had come into the world for this very purpose.

"And so the mother allowed the Mage to take her daughter away to his tower to learn and train and fight the monsters. Princess Buffy did have two friends at the castle, however. One was a powerful witch and the other a lovesick boy."

Buffy giggled at her mother’s story and added, "Willow and Xander! I bet Giles is the Mage, too."

"Hush, Buffy, let me tell this story," Joyce replied with a smile.

"Princess Buffy’s life wasn’t unpleasant. She did her duty and she loved her friends. The Mage loved her too, almost like a father." Joyce paused briefly. "Buffy met a prince from another kingdom while she was fighting off the monsters of her world. He was glib and charming and had her beguiled quickly. Sadly, his heart was not pure and after many many tears and troubles, he left her.

"The Mage and Buffy’s friends had been hurt by this prince as well, and they feared for Buffy. She was so perfect, so pure that no one could be found worthy enough to be her partner, her true love. The bad part was that her friends and the Mage all loved her so much that they decided she should be protected, that her judgement was never to be accepted if it didn’t match theirs. She must not be allowed to hurt herself again. And so they shut her in a tower…all for her own good, of course."

"But, Mom…," Buffy interrupted.

"Shh, Buffy, just listen."

"Now, Buffy was very smart, as well as beautiful, and she learned quickly. The bad part was that sometimes the lessons she learned were the wrong ones. The first big wrong thing she learned was that her own opinion wasn’t as important as her friends’ or the Mage’s. Princess Buffy stopped listening to her own heart until it was as shut up behind walls as she was herself.

"She also learned another wrong lesson. She believed that all princes were like the one who had broken her heart and stolen her confidence.

"Her friends rather liked having Princess Buffy all to themselves. They enjoyed being able to point to the beautiful and blessed Princess and claim her as their special friend. They did not wish to share her with any other."

"That’s not true, Mom," Buffy protested. "Everybody just wants me to have a normal guy, a normal life."

"Buffy, dear, even I realized that wasn’t likely for the Slayer," Joyce replied gently. "Sweetheart, the very things that depress you the most are the ‘normal’ parts of your life! The job, the mortgage, the bills, raising Dawn, taking care of the house--those are all part of ‘normal life’ and you hate those parts of your life. You enjoy the slaying and you love who you love."

"That’s the problem, Mom: I can’t love," Buffy sniffed.

"Nonsense! Who put that idea in your head, Buffy Summers?" Joyce looked like she’d like a few minutes alone with the culprit. "Why, you’ve always been the most loving girl. Look at how you opened your heart to Dawn and to your friends, even though they were social outcasts? Sweetheart, you glow with love," Joyce stated emphatically. "The only thing you lack is the confidence to admit what you want and courage to fight for it."

"I guess being a coward is better than not being able to love," Buffy mumbled. "Barely."

"Now, I never said you were a coward, Buffy Anne," Joyce admonished. "Just listen to the rest of the story."

"As I was saying, her friends did not wish to share her with any other. They had loves of their own and lives apart from the Princess, but she was alone. Her friends didn’t mean for her to be unhappy; they simply didn’t know she felt so alone. After all, Buffy was a powerful and beautiful Princess, how could she be anything BUT happy?"

"After the Prince left Buffy for his kingdom and personal glory, a knight rode into the town. Princess Buffy wasn’t interested in the knight, but her friends, having noticed that she was missing the Prince, arranged for them to be together often. They spoke highly of the knight and his many deeds. He was renowned for the many dragons he had slain and battles he had won. Indeed, her friends were sure that the knight was the perfect match for the Princess."

"I thought you liked Riley, Mom?" Buffy interrupted the narrative again.

"Isn’t it interesting that you knew who I was speaking of right away?" Joyce teased. "Riley was a nice enough boy on the surface, but I was never pleased with your relationship. In the first place, he was your TA and having a relationship with a student should have been cause for his dismissal from the University. I never approved of his group, that Initiative, and their kidnapping and torture of other beings." Joyce held up a hand as she saw Buffy start to object. "I know, I know, you kill demons every night. That’s different, Buffy, and you know it. You do it as a sacred duty. They never even bother to even find out if a demon is dangerous or not. They didn’t just kill, they made them into lab rats, experiments. They act from bigotry, not any calling to protect humanity from a danger. Don’t get me started on that bunch!"

"Okay, I give you that one, but Riley left the Initiative," Buffy argued.

"Did he? When he left you, wasn’t it to return to demon hunting with a military group? Tell me how that is different," Joyce challenged.

Buffy looked at her mother and could find no words to dispute what Joyce said.

"And when he came back to town, wasn’t he still with that group, still hunting down demons?" Joyce quirked an eyebrow as she waited for Buffy to respond.

"I guess," Buffy grudgingly admitted. She was feeling very uncomfortable looking at Riley in this light. "How about you start the story again?" Buffy hoped her mom would get off the subject pretty quickly.
Joyce looked at Buffy closely, as if trying to come to a decision. "Very well, I’ll lead you a bit further," she said cryptically.

"Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the knight that Princess Buffy’s friends tried to match her up with. The knight tried to live in Buffy’s world, fight by her rules, but it was never enough. He knew that he was merely a knight while she was the Princess. The knight never felt good enough, even though Princess Buffy did nothing to make him feel inadequate. Finally, the knight fled. He demanded the Princess accept an ultimatum and then rushed away before she had time to know her own heart. He left, even though there was a powerful enemy tearing at Buffy’s heels, an enemy that had already caused much harm and worry for the Princess. Buffy was also grieving for the loss of her mother, the Queen, who had died while Buffy was fulfilling her duties."
Joyce looked at her beloved daughter and knew that Buffy was going to have to see the truths she needed for herself, rather than having them told to her.

"Buffy, precious, I thought this was the way to make you see your own heart, but I think I was wrong. You’ve built so many walls to protect yourself from the truth that even I can’t chip away enough to get through in one night." Joyce sighed deeply and seemed to be listening to someone, even though Buffy could hear no sound. After a pause, Joyce nodded sadly and then smiled down at her daughter.

"Perhaps it’s time for another dream, one a bit more first person." Joyce rose and held out her hand to Buffy to help her up. "Baby, I’m going to disappear for a while so you can see for yourself." When Joyce saw the panic and tears in Buffy’s eyes as her daughter realized she was being left yet again, she hastened to reassure her. "Oh, no, sweetie, I’ll not go far! I’ll be nearby and as soon as you’ve figured it out, I’ll be right back. I just want you to find the path to happiness on your own. It’s the only way you’ll know the feelings are really your own. After all, I don’t want to do what Princess Buffy’s friends did to her with the knight, now do I?"

"I’ll see you again?" Buffy asked, sounding like a child once more.

"Absolutely," Joyce promised and sealed it with a kiss.

~~~
Dream The Second
~~~


Buffy was suddenly looking down at her younger self. ‘Wow, I sure had chubby cheeks,’ she thought.

Angel was on the ground looking up at Buffy, startled and a bit nervous. "Is there a problem, ma’am?"

‘I remember this,’ DreamBuffy thought, ‘this is the first time I ever saw Angel. He’d been following me. Gave me that cross and the first cryptic warning.’ She stood on the sidelines and watched the scene play out just as she remembered it.

As DreamAngel walked off and DreamBuffy opened the box with the cross, Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Good job, Angel. Vague things up much? Why not just tell me who you are, what I need to do to kill the Master? Hey, you’re all redempto-boy, why don’t YOU go down there and wipe out your vampire family like you did your human one? It would have saved me a whole lot of nightmares ifyou’d just taken them out instead of giving me half-assed warnings and a cheering section!"

The scene shifted and Buffy watched as DreamAngel crept up to DreamBuffy in the tunnels leading to the Master’s lair. "I knew you'd figure out this entryway sooner or later. Actually, I thought it was gonna be a little sooner," DreamAngel was saying.

Buffy snorted at the pompous attitude. Really, Angel was acting like some instructor putting her through some sort of test. It reminded her of the time the Watchers Council sent their little band of losers to test her ability to follow commands in Japanese or Korean or whatever. "Again with the cryptic," she muttered. "If you knew the entrance, Angel, why didn’t you just point it out? Were you playing ‘stump the Slayer’ those first few months?"

Buffy remembered that the next time she saw Angel that night had been at the Bronze when the group was battling the vampires and Xander had to watch his best friend Jesse dust. Angel hadn’t even helped in the fight, just stood by some crates and then acted impressed and surprised when Buffy won the day.

Buffy tried to remember the next meeting with the love of her life and finally remembered Angel giving her his jacket and offering another cryptic warning about a fork-handed vampire. He hadn’t said anything about the teacher from insect world who was about to introduce Xander to the wonderful worlds of sex and death. "It would have been better if you’d killed one of my problem demons for me instead of just giving me a jacket that was too big anyway," she snarked as she watched the story unfold.

"Okay, okay, I’m seeing a theme here," Buffy said aloud to whomever was giving her this walk down memory lane. "Next up is my weird date with Owen where Angel goes all clue boy again with the warnings about the Anointed One. Then no pop-in visits through the hyena mess, no sign of my assigned helper from the Powers until that fight in the alley. I remember the kiss…so dreamy until the bumpies came out."

She watched as her dream self pushed the vampire away and screamed. She chuckled at Xander’s lame attempt to cover in front of Cordy when Queen C heard the word ‘vampire’ and Xander swore it was ‘umpire’. Xan had just asked her if she were in love with Angel and her dream self had turned away in confused embarrassment.

"You know," Buffy thought to herself, "That was sorta from out of nowhere. I mean I’d hardly had a conversation with Angel up to that point. All he’d done was pop in after following me, drop some vague warnings and not tell me he was undead. Not the stuff to build a future on, I guess." Buffy sighed and spoke again to the invisible orchestrater of her dreamlife. "I get it. But we had something real later on," she challenged.

She heard her mother’s gentle voice ask, "When was that, dear? When Angel continued to lie to you? Told you half -truths? Made excuses to watch you die from drowning? Or was it that next year when his eagerness to consummate your relationship led to him losing his soul?"

Buffy was sputtering inarticulate denials about the great love story of her youth to her disembodied mother. "We were soul mates, Mom! It wasn’t his fault he lost his soul like that. I had to send him to hell! Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?"

"Yes, dear, I know maybe even better than you do," Joyce answered sadly. "I saw the devastation that relationship left in its wake. Sweetheart, you have to look at it with the wisdom of maturity, the benefit of hindsight. All you got from that relationship was pain and some very bad emotional scars. You also started to close yourself off from the love that was real and waiting for you."

"Yeah, yeah….the whole Prince from your fairy tale earlier…I get it," Buffy said petulantly. "I know that all of that led to some problems for me. I know that everyone, even Angel, tried to make me see that I should be with a normal guy. I got it! I get it!"

"Well, sweetie, maybe we had the wrong idea and you had the wrong guy," Joyce suggested. "Maybe it’s time you find out the biggest lie of all from Angel."

The scene that played out in front of Buffy was mostly unfamiliar. Buffy remembered that trip to L.A. to call Angel on his ‘secret’ trip to Sunnydale over Thanksgiving. They had fought this demon with a weird jewel and then she had gone home. That wasn’t what she was seeing though. She was seeing a whole day with Angel in the sun and her in his bed. A day when he was human, the ‘normal’ guy he said she should have. She watched, her stomach roiling as she saw Angel give up his humanity, his ‘normal life’, because he wasn’t as good a fighter. She screamed inside as she heard him explain to her in those last precious moments how she would never remember that day.

"Damn it," Buffy spat, "Why is it always YOU who gets to make those decisions? It’s my life, too!"

She thought over the scenes she had been shown and remembered the reason Angel had given the odd, gold-skinned couple. He said that he had to be a vampire again so he could protect her from the coming evil. "If it was so important for you to protect me that you gave up our future for it, why didn’t you?" Buffy was talking to DreamAngel even though he clearly couldn’t even sense her presence. "I mean you didn’t show up again until it was to check out Riley. You didn’t stay to fight Adam. You came for Mom’s funeral and even though I sat there all night and told you about Glory, you left anyway. I could’ve used your help with that one! Maybe I wouldn’t have had to jump off that tower if you’d been there to work with us against that hell bitch."

Buffy started to cry as she continued to berate the image of her lost love. "What did you do with your ‘gift’ of being able to protect me? You saw what bad shape I was in after I came back from the dead. I don’t think we even talked for a solid hour that night. You didn’t even come to Sunnydale, just met me halfway. Maybe if you’d been here, I wouldn’t have messed up last year so bad. If you gave up being my ‘normal guy’ so you could protect me and fight alongside me, why didn’t you?"

Buffy watched that last meeting play out in front of her. That quick trip into the desert, the awkward greetings and stifled conversation. Buffy wondered when it became so hard to think of things to say to Angel.

"It’s like all of it was a dream, not real at all," Buffy sobbed to herself. "We could have had the life Angel said I should have and he gave it away for no reason. No reason. He could have been my normal guy and he gave it all away." She sniffed back her tears and felt something break in the region of her heart.

"Obviously, that whole ‘normal life’ bullshit was just an excuse. You left me because you didn’t want a future with me." Buffy turned her back on DreamAngel and crossed into an area of light within the darkness surrounding her.

~~~
Interlude
~~~


Buffy blinked and realized she was in her own bed, awake.

Dawn was moaning in her sleep loudly enough for the sound to travel through the walls to Buffy’s room.

Dawn had had difficulty sleeping since their mother died. The whole trauma with Glory and then Buffy’s death had only made the teen more distraught. The capper had been all the previous year’s high drama: dealing with a resurrected sister, a power-crazed witch who eventually threatened to turn her back into a green glowy thing and then having her best friends, Spike and Tara, ripped from her life.

Buffy wasn’t sure which had done the most damage: being in the room alone with Tara’s corpse or the things Xander had said about what Spike had done followed by said vampire’s disappearance from Sunnydale.

Too much stress in too short a time led to frequent nightmares. For both sisters.

Buffy got out of bed and crossed to the door, her intention being to check on her little sister. Before she could reach Dawn’s room, her sister’s light flipped on and Buffy could hear Dawn starting to get up. Meeting in the hallway, the two sisters looked at each other with slight embarrassment and said "Dibs on the bathroom" at the same time.

Both girls raced for the door and the chance to prove the normalcy of their broken sleep to each other and, more importantly, to themselves.

Bathroom visit completed (she had let Dawn win the "race") and younger sister safely back in bed, Buffy flicked off her bedside light and settled in to return to sleep. Maybe she’d have nice dreams this time. Dreams that didn’t leave her feeling sad, questioning her perceptions.

She missed her mom and seeing her in this dream only made Buffy long for her comfort and care even more. Buffy hadn’t been too happy to hear what her mom said in the dream. She knew that her mother hadn’t approved of Angel. Well, what mom would approve of a vampire as a love match for her daughter anyway?

Then there was the weird walk down memory lane about Angel and that last part that she hadn’t known before.
Funny, now that she was awake she had to admit that the whole segment where Angel was human but had the Powers reverse the miracle was far too much in character for Buffy to dismiss as just a dream. No, this nights entertainment smacked of a Slayer dream even if the presentation was not the way they usually ran.

Buffy flushed with anger at the memory of all the decisions Angel took out of her hands. Over and over he made choices without so much as consulting her about her wishes. It was more than a pattern; it was a character trait.

Buffy’s face felt hot.

That summed up her whole history with Angel: hot. There was the good hot of first passion, but look where that had led--Angelus!

There was the heat of her frequently tear-streaked face. She shed so many tears over Angel during their time together.

Hot, angry words with her friends and family were also part of her first love. Threats, denials, apologies, demands; each a brick building up walls they still had yet to scale and maybe never would.

The heat of it all was enough to burn everything and everyone in its path. It was destructive and all consuming, the kind of fire that burns white hot and quick, leaving only ash in its wake.

"Is it too much to want a normal, human guy that'll love me, that I can love back?"

Buffy pulled the image of Riley to the forefront of her mind. "I could have been Sam. I could be playing superhero with all those neat toys and still doing my duty killing evil with my normal guy at my side. Bet they’ll have a vacation house with that white picket fence. Sam’ll have a couple of chubby kids, a dog even."

Buffy smiled and nearly laughed as she pictured Sam Finn as the mother of a couple of pups mewling around her in a box. "It could happen! They’re around all kinds of demons. Look at Clem with his floppy ears! Lots of them have tails! A few drinks with an informant and ‘Hey, BINGO!’…cheating Sam gets caught with the furry evidence nipping at her heels!"

Somehow the laughter sounded forced, even in her own ears.

"Normal, Buffy," she muttered. "I can so do normal." With that last thought, Buffy fell back into a deep sleep.

~~~
Dream the Third
~~~


"Hey, the curly hair was kinda cute," Buffy said as she looked at a vision of herself unpacking in her first dorm room. "Ugh, Kathy! The roommate from hell, literally." She didn’t need to think long to realize her dream seemed to be following the same theme as the previous ones. Welcome to UC Sunnydale and enter one Riley Finn.

As Buffy watched the scenes play out before her, she noticed how Riley seemed to be far more interested in Willow than herself for quite a while. She overheard Riley calling her "peculiar" when talking to his Initiative buddies. "Wonder what changed his mind?"

As she watched, she saw herself sitting on a bench, stake clutched tightly and hidden. She’d been waiting, trying to lure Spike. Xander had pulled her from a frat party to warn her that Harmony said Spike was out looking for the Slayer. She remembered being irritated when Riley slid next to her on the bench and tried everything he could to get Buffy inside to safety. "You think that boys can take care of themselves and girls need help?" she had asked him sarcastically. But Riley hadn’t been joking or sarcastic when he replied, "yeah."

"God, he pissed me off! He was so Angel-like, trying to make me feel like a useless little girl needing a protector! I’m the Slayer!" Buffy felt herself sputtering with frustration. What was it with the men in her life that they claimed to want to take care of her and acted like she needed being taken care of, but they left her in the end? "I should have seen it coming right from the start."

Buffy had to admit to herself that she probably wouldn’t have given Riley the time of day if she hadn’t reached the pits of her self-esteem. First, Angel leaving and then the whole Parker disaster and she’d had left feeling that no man would ever want her. When Riley called her beautiful, that had been his ticket.

To be fair, he hadn’t known how insecure she was and the compliment hadn’t been a line. Still, that was the moment when Buffy finally looked upon one Riley Finn and decided he might just be the guy to fill the role of perfect, normal boyfriend!

Riley had been funny, joking about the banner he was hanging and ‘admitting’ he was a lesbian. Next thing Buffy knew, he was talking about how mysterious she was, how beautiful … and she was mesmerized. "He likes me! He thinks I’m mysterious and beautiful!" Suddenly Riley Finn moved from Doofus TA to prime boyfriend material. Buffy, the all-too-fragile girl, was grasping at this guy like one starved. He was the ‘great white hope’, her chance to get it right.

As Buffy watched, she could see it so clearly now. Her friends pushing them together. The way she herself kept up the pep talk. Her cheerleader past was in the driver’s seat.

"Hey, You normal boyfriend fans,
Just stand up and clap your hands!
Go, Riley, Go,
Go, Riley, Go!
Hey, You normal boyfriend Fans
Now let's see you wave your hands!
Go, Riley, Go! Go Riley Go!"

Buffy giggled as she easily pictured herself, Willow, and even Giles and Xander in cheerleading costumes, urging Riley on to make that touchdown.

"Kiss the Slayer,
Make her scream,
Toss her in the bed.
You’re the player,
Human, that’s the team,
Breathing not undead!"

‘Okay, that last cheer wasn’t so good. There was a reason I didn’t make the Sunnydale Razorback Cheer Squad,’ Buffy pouted.

She heard herself selling the pro-Riley position to Willow, even though her friend had already tried to help make the match. ‘Riley seems so solid, like he wouldn’t cause me heartache,’ DreamBuffy was saying. Buffy snorted, "Can you just say ‘safe’?" She shook her head as she listened to her DreamSelf remind Willow how painful just seeing Angel still was.

Willow had agreed with her that pain was not of the good, but DreamBuffy was making an interesting point that she managed to shove down in the interest of pursuing the "right" guy. Looking back, Buffy could see that even then she had known in the deepest parts of herself that Riley wasn’t what she wanted.

DreamBuffy was saying, "But I can’t help thinking…isn’t that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? I know it’s nuts, but a part of me believes that REAL love and passion have to go hand-in-hand with pain and fighting."

Suddenly, Buffy heard a disembodied voice, Spike’s this time. "Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes." She shuddered as she remembered when he had spoken those words, just before it all went to hell in that bathroom.

She remembered what she had said in answer too. "Until there’s nothing left. That kind of love doesn’t last." When had she changed her mind on what love even was?

Buffy firmly shut out the many flashes of her relationship with Spike: the passion, the fighting, the looks of adoration in his eyes as he desperately tried to make their coupling an act of love and not just sex.

"NO!" Buffy had the vague thought that she hoped she wasn’t sleep-talking. "This is about Riley, NOT Spike." Or was it totally? If that spell to work Willow’s will hadn’t happened, if Spike’s kisses hadn’t lit a fire, would she have rushed into Riley’s arms so quickly?

Buffy remembered trying to reassure Willow that she was over the whole bad boy attraction. "I’d be really happy to be in a nice relationship with a decent, reliable…," DreamBuffy was saying.

Buffy watched as her DreamSelf grew wide-eyed and panicked, realizing Riley thought she was engaged to Spike. Suddenly Riley became the holy grail of boyfriends and the whole relationship went into fast forward.
"And that worked so well," Buffy muttered. "Next thing you know, I find out he’s secret agent guy, demon hunting division. He discovers why I’m mystery girl and I had to start holding back. The more he saw of my Slayer side, the more insecure he was. It was like a competition! Who had the biggest balls? Only guys don’t want their womenfolk to have balls at all."

She remembered sparring with Riley, holding back her full strength, and him vowing to take her the next time. He just never got it that her powers were supernatural and he would never ‘take her’ unless she let him.

Oh, Riley admired her and was proud of her. He was also jealous and a bit afraid. He had tried so hard to put her into a mold, just like Angel before him. He got her involved with the Initiative, made her ‘one of the gang’…only she never really fit in with that group at all.

She remembered how awestruck she had been when she got her first look into the underground facility. It had been impressive to a young girl. All those ‘professionals’ with all those high-tech toys. It didn’t even register what they were doing to the demons until Oz became a captive. Buffy knew even then that Riley only objected because Oz was a friend of hers. If Oz had just been some nameless werewolf, Riley would never have tried to help release him.

Her preoccupation with Riley and proving herself to Professor Walsh had driven a large wedge between herself, her friends and her Watcher. She remembered the many complaints that Buffy had abandoned them all for her new boyfriend and his group. In the end, the same jealousy and fear she saw glimpses of in Riley’s reaction to her powers caused Professor Walsh to try to have her killed. All those James Bond toys were no match against the Chosen One.

"Guess I should be glad Professor Walsh decided to kill me instead of dissect me," Buffy muttered.

Even after Maggie Walsh was gone, Riley hadn’t completely sided with Buffy. He never had full confidence in her or her judgement. He had to have everything proven to him, from Professor Walsh’s betrayal to the existence of Adam. Even at the end he was wanting proof that Buffy would forgive him immediately for his irresponsible, hurtful addiction to the vamp ho's.

His "habit" had put him, her, and all those she loved in danger. All it would have taken would have been for Riley to have been turned by one of his ho's and they could have all been drained. They wouldn’t have seen him coming, wouldn’t have known the danger. Still Riley had expected--no, demanded--that Buffy blow it all off as a slight indiscretion.

It was bad enough that Riley’s trips to the brothel made her feel inadequate as a woman, but it was his playing with all their lives that was what she had been wrestling with, what she needed time to digest, to forgive.

Buffy snorted at the memory of how sex with Riley had made her feel. HE wasn’t the only one left wanting. She hadn’t resorted to anyone else though. No vamp ho for her.

Buffy firmly pushed down the image of Spike and the attraction she had felt even then--and still denied feeling, to herself and everyone else. She refused to admit that there was more than one night when Spike lurking under the tree was more alluring than she wanted to acknowledge.

"No," Buffy insisted, "Sex was great with Riley! Well, not great, but perfectly good." Buffy felt it was her fault if it were less than perfect. She always had to hold back her passion to keep from injuring him. Maybe she shouldn’t have held back. "Did Faith hold back when she seduced him while in my body?"

That was another thing she had never been able to forgive Riley for: not knowing it wasn’t her. "I’m more than a body. He should have been able to see it wasn’t me there. It’s not like he didn’t know about the kind of weird things that happen on a hellmouth, after all!"

No, Riley wasn’t a normal guy really. Not just because of the drugs and tampering by the Initiative, but his awareness of the dark world that Buffy was ordained to battle set him apart from all things ‘normal’. Still, he was as close as Buffy was likely to come to a normal guy and it had still been a disaster.

"It was all forced," she thought to herself in review. "I had to convince myself to try to love him. Hold parts of myself back by force. I had to be less than I am to come close to pleasing Riley. In the end, it was just cold, no fire at all. The only time I felt the fire with him was that time when we were the battery-powered sex machine at Lowell House for the creepy ghostie things. Except for then, it was just a series of disappointments for both of us. No wonder he left. You see an iceberg, you steer the ship away or you sink."

Then just as before, there was a scene of which she had no waking knowledge suddenly playing out before her. Riley was pushing his way into Spike’s crypt and staking him. "That couldn’t happen! Spike’s not dust, at least not because of Riley." Buffy fought down the bile that had risen in her throat at the sight of Spike, Riley and the stake.

Her mother’s voice rang out, "But it did happen, sweetheart. Listen and you’ll see why Spike wasn’t destroyed by Riley’s bully tactics."

Buffy listened to Riley’s explanation that the stake was plastic, made to look like wood. "Why carry something like that around?" she wondered. "You can’t kill a vamp with plastic. Riley knows that. All you can do is hurt them and scare them." Suddenly she understood what her mother meant by bully tactics.

Buffy began to think of the behavior of the Initiative and saw that it smacked of prejudice and bullying. True, she killed vampires and demons, but she didn’t set out to rid the world of all of them, just the ones that needed to be killed. They got fangy and they met her wooden, lethal stake. They killed humans and she would take off their head. Clean, simple and necessary.

She didn’t torture them or experiment on them. She did what she was called to do. There were even demons she called friends; okay, just Clem and Oz, but they counted. So did Anya in a way, ‘cause even when she was human, she was still more demon than not.

Why hadn’t she seen that cruel streak in Riley? Why hadn’t it ever bothered her before? Why didn’t she see that Riley wasn’t really normal at all, at least she hoped he wasn’t. "Are all normal people going to have a problem with my friends? With me? Is it an impossible dream to find Mr. Normal Guy and live happily ever after?"

Buffy heard her mother whisper gently, "Don’t be so hard on yourself, sweetie. You weren’t meant for ‘normal’. You’re special. You need someone who can be your equal. Someone who sees you as you are, all of you, and loves you for who that is. Someone who wants you to be your strongest, your best. Someone who delights in all you can be and would hate your holding back any part of yourself. You just have to realize that you don’t have to define the right man for you based on what others want for you. Look into your heart, Buffy. The truth is there."

"Mom, you wanted me to have a normal life," Buffy said softly. "You sent Angel away."

"First of all, I didn’t send Angel anywhere. He left of his own choosing. He could have pointed out to me that you would never have that life I dreamed of for you." Joyce took an audible breath and continued. "I didn’t understand then what it was to BE the Slayer, that it wasn’t a job or a hobby or a phase. I learned, but it was too late."

"So you wouldn’t have asked him to leave if you’d understood?" Buffy had a sob in a voice that saddened her mother.

"No," Joyce stated, "I would have tried to get him to leave anyway. He wasn’t right for you, Buffy, and he wouldn’t have made you happy. Among other things he was too old for you. You were still just in high school."

"It wasn’t his fault he was a vampire, Mom," Buffy argued.

"True, but that isn’t even what I mean. He was too old, even if he had been a twenty-something human. The fact that he’d lived a couple of centuries already wasn’t the issue. He was controlling, wanted to make you into the image he had of you. He had you on a pedestal and the only thing that can happen to someone on a pedestal is to fall and break eventually. He loved an image and you loved a dream."

"So I’m doomed to live a short, violent life all alone then?" Buffy was ready to cry. Why didn’t they just leave her in heaven if that was the bleak future she faced?

"Nonsense, honey," Joyce chided her. "You’ll only be alone if you chose to be. That’s one of the reasons I’m helping you this way. The Powers have a wonderful future for you, but you have to be able to see what’s real, what’s right, if you can expect to have it. You are full of love. You glow with it. You love with all of your soul. It’s brighter than the fire, blinding. You’ve been hurt, but the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love. Give. Forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you your gift."

"I know this part," Buffy snorted. "Death is my gift. You hangin’ out with crazy Rasta Slayers up there?"

"Think about it, sweetie," Joyce encouraged. "You are special and not just because you are the Slayer. You are much more than that, more than you know. Do you really think a fairly powerful, but just beginning, witch could use an interrupted ritual and drag the Chosen One from heaven if the Powers didn’t want it to happen? Do you think they would let you lose that peace, that joy and not have something even better waiting for you? You just have to be open to it, sweetie. You have to be ready and willing."



~~~

~~~
Interlude Due (Evasione)
~~~



"Whoa, Nellie," Buffy muttered as she lay wide-eyed in her bed upon waking. "When did the Powers start getting all Brothers Grimm with the Slayer dreams?" She shook her head and tried to clear her thinking.

"Maybe a little Scrooge Dickens tossed in just to jolly it up. I’m with Scrooge; it was something I ate!"

Buffy got up and toyed with the idea of just staying awake rather than getting yet another lesson from her subconscious or the Powers or her mom … whomever it was playing dream fairy tonight. Introspection was not her strong suit and as uncomfortable as it had been so far, she could easily see why. The truth hurt.

"Let’s see," she began to count the points on her fingers. "So far I’ve discovered that Angel isn’t the guy I always thought he was, or at least I’ve admitted to myself he wasn’t, isn’t, whatever! Riley wasn’t ‘Mr. Normal’ either and that’s of the good because I would’ve broken him if he had been. Kiss dreams of ‘Mr. Normal’ goodbye, ‘cause that’s not even what I really want." She shuddered as she looked down the trail the dream series was winding along. "I just know the next batch of dreams are so gonna feature the bleached blond menace. And I’ve been doing such a great job not thinking about him since he skipped town too!" She didn’t need to be asleep to hear her mother snort over that last lie.

"Wow…talk about fairy tales," Buffy rolled her eyes. "Maybe that first dream got me thinking of fairy tales and that reminded me of Spike calling me "Goldilocks". Naturally, I’ll have to come around to him sooner or later. Jeez, Angel may be too hot, Riley may be too cold, but Spike is SOOO NOT just right!"

Buffy headed downstairs to the kitchen to find some antidote to the inevitable next dream. Maybe bad food combinations would lead to pleasant nightmares of Roglock demons mating or something like that instead of dissecting the latest disaster in her love life history. She deliberately fixed a small plate with every bad mix possible and poured a cup of tea to wash it down.

Pickles joined Kiwi slices as Buffy rooted in the too empty refrigerator. She passed on the day old Doublemeat special with a shudder and moved on to Willow’s collection of left-over Chinese takeout boxes. Perhaps the evilness of week old Kung Po chicken would stave off dreams of sexy, irritating… and gone vampires.

She took her strange midnight snack and went to sit in the living room. Some food, tea and other thoughts to clear her mind and it would be safe to return to bed, or so she hoped.

Still, her mind went over the whole hot/cold/just right images with the three actual relationships in her past. Angel was her polar bear, all pretty to look at and cute to watch…but so deadly to get close to. Carnivore through and through, in spite of the oh so sweet appearance, that was Angel, not just Angelus.

Riley had been a basic black bear. He was a carnivore also, but they could be trained for the circus too. Deadly, on a leash, that was Riley.

What the heck kind of bear did that make Spike? Buffy thought back to the one term paper she actually researched and worked hard to produce. Yeah, that was Spike … a panda! Black and White, looking all cuddly but still dangerous. Funny diet too. Even though the panda was designed to be a carnivore, it ate bamboo mostly. It could be social with its neighbors, more than most other bears. There was even a dispute for a while about whether it even WAS a bear. Some scientists thought it was closer to a raccoon or in a class of its own and only DNA testing proved it really was a bear, after all.

"Yup, that’s Spike, not a man completely, but too much man to be a complete vampire. He eats people food and isn’t always lusting after the human blood. Confusing, compelling, cuddly," Buffy blinked in surprise at the turn of her thoughts. "No…no cuddling of missing vampires…even in my imagination."

Clearly her attempts at avoiding the Spike portion of this night’s entertainment weren’t working. "Stupid Buffy. Just stop helping the dreams along," she chided. "Think about the Droltex you gutted this afternoon and how its breath smelled like rotting fish. Think about Willow off in England learning how to be a good witch instead of one a house might drop on one day. Think about Xander needing a diet. Yeah, that will take all night! Work out Xander’s issues!"

"Whatcha doin?" Dawn’s voice made Buffy jump in surprise. "Um, Buffy, is there somebody here I can’t see that you’re talking to or have you, like, gone all psycho on me and I should start sleeping with knives?"

Dawn was only half joking. In the short time Dawn had been making her own real memories, she’d seen just about everything and wasn’t willing to exclude any possibility.

"No, not loopy, just talking to myself. What, you don’t do it from time to time? It’s a Summers women’s tradition. Learned it from mom herself." Buffy noticed the scrunched forehead of her little sister as Dawn looked at the odd food assortment on Buffy’s plate.

"Is poisoning yourself another Summers tradition? ‘Cause I really, really don’t want to find myself with cravings like that…even if I ever do get pregnant," Dawn said with a grimace. Suddenly her eyes shot open wide and she looked at Buffy in shock. "You aren’t…oh, God, Buffy, am I going to be an aunt? Please tell me Xander didn’t get lucky cause that’s just ewwwww."

Buffy felt herself blush at the suggestion. "No and hell, no. No little bun in the oven and no Xander in the kitchen…ever! Although now I’m not sure if it’s the visuals you just gave me or the stuff I was eating that’s causing my stomach to do the tumbling act."

"Wow," Dawn continued in amazement, "I don’t think I’ve ever even thought of Sauerkraut and Reese’s Cups in the same sentence before, much less on the same plate!"

"I couldn’t decide what I was in the mood for. Besides, I’ve seen some of your experiments; don’t try to tell me you’d never mix stuff like this." Buffy got up and took the offending plate back into the kitchen. "I’m just restless with the house so quiet. That’s all."

"Yeah, I miss everybody too," Dawn admitted. "It seems weird with just you and me here and you aren’t here all the time either with work and patrolling."

"Speaking of me working," Buffy latched onto the topic in desperation. Yes, talking about nice normal things with her sister might just be the ticket out of her too uncomfortable dreamland. "I’m thinking it’s time I start trying to look for some career that doesn’t involve grills and deep fryers. Lorraine is still pissed off at me for just walking out when Riley came back into town. No amount of blackmail is going to move me into management at the Doublemeat and I just can’t see us living off the pay as a regular veggieburger flipper."

"Any ideas?" Dawn hoped her sister’s plans would involve the mall somehow, since it might come with a cool employee discount along with a better wage. "I hear The Limited is looking for help."

"Therein lies danger," Buffy admitted. "My whole salary might just go into buying stuff at my own store! Buffy and temptation are not mixy."

"Well, Hot Topic’s looking too. You could maybe pierce your eyebrow or get a tattoo or something. Maybe there’s still some of Spike’s black fingernail polish…," Dawn broke off at the stricken look on Buffy’s face. "Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up the evil rapist, Buffy." Dawn put a consoling hand on Buffy’s arm.

Buffy jerked both her head and arm and then bit her lip. "You know, Dawnie, what happened between Spike and me isn’t as simple as Xander’s little story. It isn’t your business and I’d rather not talk about it, at least not now. Besides, Spike’s gone."

"Yeah, but he’ll be back. Spike’ll never be gone for good. He always comes back." Dawn looked at the floor instead of Buffy. "Gonna have to dust him to keep him gone."

Buffy looked at her little sister’s suddenly hard, cold face and decided she would have to do some damage control soon before Dawn started building walls around her heart just as she had. ‘Damn Xander and his big mouth’, she thought. ‘I so didn’t want to have this talk with Dawnie and now I don’t have a choice.’

"Look, Dawn, it’s late and I really don’t want to get into it now. Just know that there isn’t any reason for you to hate Spike or think you have to take sides against him." Buffy could have cried at the look of relief on her sister’s face. "Xander only got it partly right and it wasn’t his place to say anything anyway. Just don’t," Buffy sighed deeply, "don’t work up some big hate or anything, okay? If I wanted you to hate Spike--if I hated him--I wouldn’t have tried to take you to him for protection from Willow right after what happened between him and me."

Dawn knew better than to press for more, at least right then. One day she’d get the whole story out of one of them. "Okay, but if I did have to pick a side, I’d always pick you. You know that, don’t you?" She looked at Buffy so earnestly that Buffy was speechless and could only nod. "I love you, you dork."

"I love you too, even if you’re as annoying as a mosquito most days," Buffy replied as Dawn took a playful swat at her.

Both sisters yawned widely and followed the yawn with a giggle. "Guess we both need more sleep," Buffy suggested.

Dawn smiled and nodded in agreement, "Oh yeah, ‘to sleep, perchance to dream’…"

"God, I hope not," was Buffy’s cryptic reply.

~~~
Dream the Fourth
~~~


"Crap!" Buffy had fallen into sleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. As feared, in came the next installment of ‘The Secret Loves of Buffy Summers". The scenes were flashing fairly quickly, but she recognized each one. Spike in the alley that first night, so hot and intriguing. She had actually felt a trickle of fear as he announced he was going to kill her. The school attack and the way he had backed down at the end of an axe held by her pissed off mortal mom. Buffy had always wondered why Spike hadn’t just killed her mom then; it would have been all too easy. Their many dances always ended with one or both of them backing down from anything permanent.

Along with the memories of her interactions with the bleached wonder were memories of seeing Spike with Dru. She remembered the love that clearly shone on his face when he was looking at the nutcase. He had been tender and dutiful and never once complained about the strains of caring for the enfeebled and loony vampiress.

Buffy looked again at Spike’s face as she held the stake against Dru and demanded that Spike call off his minions and let her go. If soulless vampires really couldn’t love, why had Spike refused to sacrifice his sire then? Buffy had been alone in that basement with feral vampires and no way out safely, yet Spike let her go without batting an eye just to secure Dru’s safety. Surely that had to be love, and selfless love at that.

Buffy remembered the pained look on the wheelchair-bound vampire as his love cavorted in the arms of her sire, Angelus. Funny, Spike had never brought up to Buffy about that period and how she was responsible not only for his being in that wheelchair, but for Angelus being out to play with Dru and to torment him. You would have thought there’d at least have been one accusation, one rubbing of her face in it.

Buffy suddenly remembered a more recent time when a battered Spike refused to bring up how he’d gotten so beat up and merely took part in her birthday celebration.

"You left after stopping Acathla," Buffy heard Joyce remind her. "You didn’t revoke Spike’s invitation to our home. Didn’t once expect him to come back and kill me. You knew he would fulfill his part of your bargain even then."

"I guess so," Buffy replied. "I never thought about it, but you’re right. He could have lied. I should have expected him to lie! Even with me gone there was no reason for Spike not to come and kill all of you.
Angelus would have."

"Exactly so, honey." Joyce was proud that Buffy needed so little guidance to see the difference in vampires. "And what do you think a chipped Angelus would have done?"

Buffy let her mind run on that thought and shuddered. No way would Angelus have turned to her or made the adjustments Spike had made after being chipped.

"What about when Glory captured him, what do you think Angelus would have done?" Joyce wanted to drive the point home.

"He’d have probably already been working with her against me," Buffy admitted. "You’re right. I’ve spent years comparing unsouled Spike to souled Angel. Spike without a soul is really different from Angelus, even before the chip. With the chip, it was almost like Spike had a kind of soul eventually."

"You do know that much of those ‘facts about vampires’ that Angel told you were self-serving, don’t you?" Joyce asked.

"Like what?" Buffy felt herself immediately go on the defensive out of habit. "Giles said the same things!"

"Well, Mr. Giles would, wouldn’t he? Rupert was trained by the Council of Liars, after all--the group that tried to kill my baby. Think, Buffy, those books of theirs had lots of errors that you found out the hard way. Why believe things just because they said them? Angel told you about himself. But not all vampires are like Angelus. Spike is proof of that." Joyce shook her head in disgust at the web of lies that had ensnared her lovely daughter.

Buffy watched the Spike scenes again, trying to really see him for himself this time. She watched as the chipped Spike tried to find his footing in a world where he was neither the Big Bad nor the Good Man. She cringed as she watched herself, her friends, and her watcher taunt him about his handicap and remind him of his evil nature. ‘Hard to learn how to be good when everyone is telling you you’re bad and always will be.’

She watched his oh so expressive face with each jibe, each cruel taunt. She began to recognize his facial expressions as hurt morphing into his mask of the Big Bad as he hid behind the appearance of not caring what they thought of him. "It’s an act! Wow, even Xander’s crap mattered. We all just kept verbally staking him over and over and he acted like he didn’t feel anything!"

"You didn’t do it knowingly, sweetheart. You’re too kind to have done that. You believed those lies that Spike had no real feelings and never noticed the truth that he did." Joyce tried to take some of the sting from the truths hitting her daughter. Buffy did have a kind heart and now that she was facing up to a few facts, she would be guilt-ridden. The whole purpose of these dreams was to nudge Buffy in the right direction, not send her into an Angel-worthy broodfest.

Buffy looked on as dreamBuffy was promising the completely thrashed Spike, "What you did for me and Dawn, that was real. I won’t forget it." She felt shame at how quickly she appeared to have forgotten, how soon they had all started to treat him as they always had done. Still he had helped in the fight against Glory to the bitter end.

The scenes slowed down after she saw Spike sobbing in the shadows as her crushed, dead body lay at the foot of Glory’s tower. She watched as her friends and Dawn grieved and consoled each other and the vampire was once more forced to keep himself apart.

She marveled at the scenes that showed her what had taken place while she was in heaven. Buffy had been told that Spike had been of help, but to actually see the soulless vampire fighting what should have been her battles was quite another matter. Spike fought alongside her friends and played nursemaid to her distraught sister, drying Dawn’s tears and making her eat her meals. And all the while, her friends continued to withhold respect or friendship. It was an eye opener.

He had no hope for winning any favor from Buffy in this sad scenario. That excuse for Spike helping held no water under the circumstances.

"Wonder why Angel didn’t drop in to help with the hellmouthy patrolling every once in a while? I can see him passing on Dawn duty, but didn’t they even tell him I had died?"

"They told him, dear," Joyce revealed. "When he heard the news, he immediately went on retreat to a monastery."

"Monastery?" Buffy knew that Angelus had spent a lot of time in convents and monasteries, but only as all-you-can-eat buffets, not grief control! "What, did he need help with the brooding?"

Joyce had to laugh at Buffy’s reaction. "No, dear, he has that down to an art form. Personally, I think he wanted to go to a place where he could sort out hislack of feelings without an audience to wonder why he wasn’t moved by the loss of the love of his life, but I can’t prove that."

"He was so cold and rushed when I did get back…it was almost like the whole ‘Buffy died and was brought back’ thing was just a blip on his radar." Buffy filed that epiphany away for future reference.

"Well, as you see, your other vampire was quite affected." Joyce drew Buffy’s attention back to the scenes of Spike’s summer without her. Buffy saw those restless nights Spike had alluded to when she returned. She saw him wake startled from yet another dream of how he could have saved her. She saw the drawn look on the exhausted vampire’s face as he would finally give up on rest and rise to go kill demons or take up sentinel duty beneath Dawn’s window.

Spike had proven to be the poster boy for devotion to Buffy’s memory. "Didn’t they ever invite him to just hang out?" Buffy had seen the Scoobies turn to Spike for muscle in the fight and for dealing with the emotionally volatile teen, but never a pizza and movie night. "Xander still sniped at him, for heaven’s sake!"

"Spike wasn’t doing it for them, sweetheart," Joyce reminded her. "He was doing it for the love of you and Dawn. He loves you both very much."

Buffy was glad that when the scenes began to play out again, they were still from the perspective of Spike. She had no desire to watch herself claw her way from her grave. "Damn! What was Willow thinking?! Not only did she think I went to hell, but she didn’t even dig up the grave she expected to call me out of! I don’t think I’ll ever understand that."

"She wasn’t thinking of anything, Buffy. Her only thought was to get her friend back and have their lives return to normal." Joyce shook her head sadly at the implications. "It was selfish and wrong, but not intended as evil. Willow is beginning to understand the depths of wrong now. She paid a high price for her arrogance. Tara’s life was the cost and it proved far too high to imagine."

Joyce decided that Buffy was strong enough now to hear the whole of it. "You know the reason you had such difficulties when you returned, don’t you?"

"Well, I was in heaven and happy, then I was panicked and trying to claw out of a coffin and through six feet of packed earth. That’ll make a person cranky." Buffy rolled her eyes as she snarked.

"True," Joyce agreed with a slight smile, "but you had other problems as well. All those magical friends of yours, yet not a one questioned the significance of Willow’s ritual being interrupted? The ritual was never completed, Buffy, and if the Powers hadn’t interfered, you would have truly been damaged. Only during the recent time after you were shot and dying once again were the Powers able to completely restore you to life. Your ability to feel a full range of emotions was never brought back until then."

"What do you mean? Spike said I came back wrong. Was that it?" Buffy was horrified.

"Spike couldn’t tell what was wrong, but it was clear something was. You jumped off that tower because you loved your sister, you loved the world. You refused to even think of destroying Dawn to close that rift. Yet you couldn’t even talk to her when you returned! It was as if you were back, but your ability to connect, to feel, was left in that grave." Joyce pulled Buffy into an embrace. "You tried and Spike tried to help you, but the only emotions you were able to tap into were the base ones like anger and fear.

"When you came close to death again after being shot, you were close to the veil that separates life and death. The Powers returned your ability to feel the higher emotions to you. That’s why you were finally able to bond with Dawn again, to love and forgive. That is why you were able to forgive Spike for his actions enough to trust Dawn with him." Joyce nearly wept at the pain her girls had endured, all because of ineptitude and lack of care by those choosing to play God.

Buffy looked terribly stricken to think of that lost year, of those she had hurt without seeming to care. Now Spike was gone who knows where and Dawn was barely speaking to her. Xander’s blurting out what had happened in the bathroom between her and Spike had put Dawn even further into the shell she had retreated into over the last year.

"Buffy, nothing that happened is unfixable!" Joyce knew that her daughter would need to hear this. "There was a lot of damage done, true. But the two people you hurt the most are also the two who love you the most. Forgiveness comes with love, sweetie. Some honest talk, some time and lots of determination will mend any harm done."

"Can’t talk to Spike. He’s gone. I finally drove him away." Buffy muttered sadly with a small sob at the end.

Joyce chuckled lightly, "You really don’t know him like you think you do if that’s what you think! I can’t tell you exactly where he is now--not until you are seeing the past in a clear light--but believe me, the only way you will ever make Spike stay away forever is when he is dust."

"Do I have to watch this last year, Mommy?" Buffy’s voice was plaintive and low as she asked. She understood the sort of fear Old Scrooge had felt during his third dream. The memories were still clear enough that she wasn’t sure she wished to see them from another perspective.

"Sweetheart, this isn’t to punish you!" Joyce smoothed Buffy’s hair and reassured her. "I already explained that you weren’t yourself last year. This is just so that you can know your heart and know the wounds that need mending in time."

"You’ll be here with me?" Buffy pled.

"Always, poppet," Joyce promised.

~~~
Transizione (Incubo Anno)
~~~


With a shaking sigh, Buffy turned her attention back to the scenes playing out before her. She knew instantly what she was seeing. Spike with a look on his face as if he were suddenly in the presence of a benevolent divinity. Buffy would forever remember that image as the living embodiment of awe.

She was in a state of shock at the time and yet that look had registered even then as she looked down at the vampire standing at the base of the staircase. Buffy knew at that moment Spike’s professions of love had been real. She also realized that however her return to life had been accomplished, the vampire had no part in it.

Buffy watched as Spike tenderly tried to help her recover from the horror of fighting her way back from the grave. He had been so gentle, so loving.

All too soon the chaos of her friends’ arrival broke the mood. Voices talking over each other as the questions and demands began. Spike slipped away without that Buffy even noticing his absence.

Blessedly, instead of having to watch the ‘look what we did, why aren’t you happy’ show, Buffy was outside instead watching Spike sob his confused emotions to the wind. He was so torn between anger, joy, fear and hope. Everything he was feeling was clearly written on his tear-streaked face.

Buffy got a front row seat to Xander’s attempt at removing Spike from the inner circle. The vampire’s strength and fighting skills were not needed any longer and Xander apparently felt no need to try for even cursory politeness.

"Gee, Xan, if you didn’t believe Spike loved me, why did you point out that my being back had to be the happiest moment in Spike’s entire existence?" Buffy raised her eyebrows when Xander’s slip proved her human friend saw all too well that Spike did indeed love her.

"Of course Xander knows the truth of how Spike feels about you. They all do," Joyce agreed. "They are just like you, dear: able to deny anything they aren’t comfortable with. Even Mr. Giles knows the truth, if he would only think for a moment or two."

Buffy went back to watching those first few days again. She could see how she was going through the motions, as she later had sung while under Sweet’s spell. She also saw the happy face she tried to put on in front of her friends.

"I don’t understand, Mom," Buffy whined. "The only two who had nothing to do with bringing me back were Dawn and Spike…and I treated them the worst! I went out of my way to be nice to Willow and the rest. Meanwhile, I ignored Dawn and used Spike. Please tell me that was because of the parts I was missing?"

"Partly, dear. Another reason was stated by Spike: ‘you only hurt the ones you love.’ He is insightful, honey." Joyce smiled at her troubled daughter.

"But that doesn’t make any sense," Buffy argued.

"Since when are humans sensible?" Joyce chided. "We have a bad habit of taking out the ugly emotions on those closest to us. It’s as if when we KNOW we are loved, we feel safe enough to just let go. We expect them to still love us, and they generally do. Deep down, you knew that Dawn and Spike really loved you, all of you. You felt safe enough in their love to just dump on them without fear of losing that love. As for the others…well, you knew their love was conditional, or at least felt it was. You were terrified of losing them, their love."

"That’s not right. That’s not how it should be." Buffy mulled over the concept and could find no way to make it come out as an act of fairness or love.

"No, it isn’t," Joyce agreed. "As you mature, you do that less, or that’s the goal anyway. Some people never get there." Now, Spike didn’t know any better and his accepting your treatment wasn’t the best idea either. He became an enabler, even though he meant well. Then again, Spike is a vampire and not a trained psychologist," Joyce laughed.

"Not too many trained psychologists would know what to do with my set of problems anyway," Buffy joined in the laugh.

Buffy resumed watching as her dream self drew closer and closer to Spike. "Wow, I didn’t realize just how much down time I was spending with him!"

"You relied on him quite a bit there at first," Joyce nodded.

"It was nice, peaceful. I didn’t have to do or be anything except just be me. He made it better." Buffy frowned and wondered why it all had changed so drastically.

"Was it the sex, Mom? Did I turn into the monster this time when I had sex?" Buffy shuddered at the thought that she might be doomed to repeat variations on her first experience her entire life.

"No, sweetie," Joyce sought to reassure her. "You were filled with fears and you were also unable to deal with what you had started to feel for Spike even before you died. Better just watch, honey. Just remember that the softer feelings weren’t there for you like they should have been, but the fear was easily tapped into."

Buffy smiled as she watched the budding relationship with Spike, the relationship she scuttled by demanding the physical release and withholding the emotional. It had been sweet and unforced. She could watch and see a traditional courtship between a loving man and a fragile girl laying the sort of foundation that could easily last a lifetime.

Spike was on his knees professing himself her slave in a voice that was surprisingly melodic. She saw the torment in the vampire’s eyes as the words spilled from him like rain on a parched earth. She so needed and wanted the love he was offering, even though she could feel nothing except trepidation at what it might mean.

"Yet another thoughtless act by one of your friends," Joyce commented. "Dawn nearly became the forced child bride of that creature and I certainly have no desire to be a mother-in-law to some Broadway wannabe!" Joyce smiled as Buffy laughed at her lame joke. "Did Xander even ask how many people died thanks to that little attempt to cure his cold feet?"

"No, not really." Buffy scrunched her brow as it occurred to her for the first time that no one had ever called him on it!

"Well, it stands to reason," Joyce offered. "Xander has created mayhem more than once with no repercussions. This last time led to painful deaths though. You’d think that at least Mr. Giles would have brought it to Xander’s attention."

Joyce gathered her nerve and tackled yet another illusion that needed to be shattered. "Buffy, have you given any thought to Anya?"

Buffy shook her head in confusion. What did Anya have to do with this dream and its importance to her life? "I thought these dreams were supposed to be about me, Mom. Anya isn’t even that close a friend!"

"Maybe she should be, actually. You have a valuable resource in this thousand-year-old ex-demon that none of you have ever tapped." Buffy looked thoughtful at that. "That isn’t what I mean right now though.

"Anya was a vengeance demon for eleven hundred years, sweetie. You’ve heard her stories, proudly told, of the killings, the maimings, all in the name of vengeance. Anya has never once expressed any regret over any of those, has she?"

"No. We usually just ask her to shut up about it," Buffy admitted. "Xander gets really nervous, even more than when she starts in about orgasms. I think he hates to remember that she was a demon once."

"Sweetheart, none of you will let Spike forget for a moment the fact he was a killer when the demon was in charge," Joyce began, "But none of you even mention Anya having been a killer when her demon was running the show.

Spike has been a vampire for one hundred and twenty two years. He hasn’t killed for the last two, but we’ll go ahead and count them anyway. If he killed five people every single day of those years, he may be responsible for two hundred twenty-two thousand, six hundred and fifty deaths. That’s a lot of blood and likely overstated. Still, if Anya was only responsible for a death a day her total would be nearly double that and that doesn’t even take into consideration her assertion that she was responsible for the Russian Revolution!"

Buffy had a look of shock on her face as the amount of shed blood became clear to her. She barely registered her mother continuing, "Your Angelus was killing for twenty-five years longer than Spike before he finally stopped and those last two years he had his soul!"

"No, Mom," Buffy insisted, "Angel stopped killing when he was cursed!"

"Not really," Joyce reveled. "He continued to travel with the others and tried to adjust by killing criminals and the like. Darla didn’t put up with that for long, but he was still killing humans."

Buffy suddenly pictured a scene in a Sunnydale alley with Spike sputtering indignantly while holding his pain-riddled head. "You’d think if the government was gonna put a chip in my head, they’d at least make it so I could attack criminals and that sort."

Buffy felt embarrassed to remember her sarcastic reply. "Yes, because muggers deserve to be eaten." Spike had to have known she didn’t know about Angel’s two souled years of killing, yet he had not said a word. ‘Probably knew I wouldn’t believe him.’

"Buffy, you need to learn that you have to leave the past in the past. You have to accept people the way they are now and realize they can change. Not one person is perfect; no one has led a perfect life," Joyce admonished. "Accept Anya as she is now and treasure the knowledge and friendship she has to offer. Likewise, you must put Spike’s past in the past and judge him by his current actions. You know he has changed. It isn’t the chip anymore; it’s love for you and Dawn and it’s also because he’s socialized with humans again. People are more than just food to him again and he’ll never go back to what he once was."

"You sound like Rafiki, that baboon in Lion King with that big stick, telling Simba ‘it’s in the past’," Buffy smiled. "Glad you aren’t whacking me with a tree limb."

"I prefer to avoid corporal punishment," Joyce laughed.

Whether it was from the memory of that exchange in the alley or Buffy no longer paying attention to the previous scenes, the revue moved ahead to her encounter with Spike outside the museum later that night. "God, I said such awful things to him!" She saw Spike on the ground as she threw out the words ‘evil, disgusting thing’ all because Spike had dared remind her of their kisses. Kisses she had instigated, truth be told.

She watched as DreamBuffy walked off and Spike realized his chip had not fired during their tussle. She watched in surprise and fear as Spike stalked a timid version of herself and attempted to terrorize the girl. She also noted the way Spike seemed to have to talk himself into the Big Bad persona that had once been second nature to him. In the end, Buffy was left to think the girl was saved more by Spike’s lack of true desire to kill than the fact the chip did work. She had the feeling that even if Spike had started to drink from the girl, he would have stopped before draining her. The torn emotions had been too clear on his face. The act was an attempt to live down to the epitaph she had given him.

Buffy began to squirm as she realized the scenes that were soon to come. The wild, feral sexcapades that made up the next several months of her encounters with Spike were branded in her mind. Somehow the HBO NC-17 festival of images weren’t what she wanted to be viewing with her mother. "Um, Mom, do we have to actually watch this?"

"Well, sweetie, we have a different way of looking at some parts of being human once we cross over, but I remember that it might be embarrassing with me here," Joyce sympathized. "If you need to recount some of these moments, perhaps I should give you a bit of privacy."

"I think I know what I’d learn anyway," Buffy admitted. "Spike really loved me. He made love to me each time, even if I was just using him. I was a mean bitch. I said and did hurtful things every time. I always left him hurting but with just enough hope to stick around."

"Well, that is one way of looking at it," Joyce agreed. "You might also realize that Spike really understood you. He knew you wouldn’t allow yourself to feel anything real for him, both out of fear and because of the history you had with Angel. He hoped in time you’d care enough to overcome it, but he was willing to be whatever you needed in the meantime."

Joyce looked closely at Buffy before making a suggestion. "Why don’t you tell me anything else you’re noticing for the first time in remembering those events?"

"Well, my friends are idiots," Buffy snorted. "I mean that time when I was invisible and Xander was looking for me. He walked in on me and Spike, and there is no way he couldn’t have added that one up!" Buffy had to laugh at the way Xander had grasped onto Spike’s alibi that he was doing pushups in bed. "They can’t be that stupid! Willow and Xander, at least, had to have suspected that Spike and I were…well…," Buffy trailed off.

"Yes, you are all far too good at lying to yourselves… and to each other, for that matter," Joyce nodded.

"And I did keep saying ‘can’t’ instead of ‘don’t’ when I told Spike how I felt," Buffy realized.

"And he knew just what that meant too," Joyce added. "He knew you were deliberately not letting yourself feel love for him. He didn’t know any more than you did that you couldn’t, not then anyway." Joyce knew that Buffy would have had a hard time allowing herself to feel love for Spike even if she had been whole. Coming back incomplete had made it impossible, however.

"He did matter, though," Buffy reminded her mom. "I finally saw how I was hurting him and stopped it."

"What about the way you hurt him the most?" Joyce prompted.

"You mean when I beat him nearly to death and left him in the alley?" Buffy was deeply ashamed of that primitive act of violence and uncaring. Spike had been trying to protect her and she hadn’t even thought to be sure he got out of that alley alive!

"No, sweetheart, Spike could always take your blows. It was the words that pierced his heart from the start and did the most damage. It was when he was a human too," Joyce confided.

Buffy remembered their first morning after. It had been a strange parody of HER first morning after, when she awoke to Angelus. Just as Angelus’ words had ripped away the joy she had felt after their shared intimacy, so too had her words ripped Spike’s crumbs away. ‘Convenient …freak show …evil …disgusting…the list went on and on.’ Buffy looked stricken. "God, I wasn’t that mean to him before he got the chip!"

"It was the fear talking, dear. You were reminding yourself of the reasons you shouldn’t give your heart to him. You were wrong, of course," Joyce suggested. "He was very hurt, but he did know what you were doing. Those miscommunications where your words were so different from your actions did lead to that last awful misunderstanding just before he left though. Spike thought he was reading you right by reading your actions and discounting your words. That led to a tragic decision on his part to ignore your words when you really did mean them."

"Yes, I see that," Buffy said sadly. "I knew it that night. We were both at fault there and while what he did was wrong, it was also amazing. Spike’s chip didn’t work on me. If he really hadn’t changed, he should have been no different from the vampire I first met, a killer with a slayer fixation. Instead, he never hurt me, never tried to turn me. He never even licked any blood when I’d get hurt on patrol!

"When he tried to force things in the bathroom, there was no reason for him to stop except that he had changed. Sure, I knocked him off of me, but the look on his face, Mom!" Buffy looked deeply into her mothers understanding eyes. "He was horrified at his actions! He was the one yelling ‘monster’ at himself, not me. He should have just pounced back on me and done it, but instead he tried to apologize and ran off in horror. What kind of vampire is that?"

"It’s Spike, Buffy. You can’t just say ‘vampire behavior’ any more than you can ‘human behavior’ and have it fit," Joyce counseled.

"He was as scared as I was," Buffy realized.

"Spike doesn’t go back on his word and he had promised never to hurt you," Joyce explained. "He was shocked that he had done so. He really thought he could control himself better than that. He always had a tight grip on his demon, after all. Angel lost control of his with just a kiss, but Spike held back even when the two of you were beating on each other. He was shaken to the core, both by what he had tried to do and by his inability to continue. Spike suffered a major identity crisis that night. Finally, he saw that it was not the chip, but that HE was not the same Big Bad character he had cultivated for a century."

Buffy was silent for a while as she thought back on the wild ride that had been her affair with Spike. Now in touch with her ability to love, she could see the missed moments, the feelings that had taken root even with her disability. She could see that there was love in her heart for Spike, love that might have grown in a healthy way had she been whole. She began to weep for them both and pray that it was not too late.

Joyce could see that Buffy was right on the brink. She had taken each lesson to heart and come to the correct conclusions. Now to drive the last points home. "You know that it was more than the rejection of his love that hurt, don’t you?"

"Huh?" Buffy asked, startled. "What could I have done worse than that?"

"Buffy, this isn’t judgement, remember," Joyce reminded her. "The bigger hurt was the complete rejection of even his friendship. Remember how you treated him after you broke things off? Remember when you were stung by that unpronounceable demon and mentally ran in chase of a normal life?" Joyce prompted.

Buffy saw the scene play out. One minute she was sitting in relatively companionable silence with Spike, having just told him of the wedding fiasco, and then along came Willow and Xander. Xander had taken a cheap shot at Spike, as usual, and instead of just admitting she had been having a friendly chat with Spike, she had said, "I found Spike and was just trying to figure out what kind of dangerous contraband he had." Buffy could see the betrayed look on Spike’s face as she placed him firmly in the category of ‘enemy, not to be trusted’. He had passed that point at least a year before when he had helped take on Glory.

"God, I’m so weak, Mommy," Buffy wailed. "How can I face down demons and hell gods but be so afraid to even claim Spike as a friend?"

"Well, your reaction to the poison explains that. You were even willing to submit to life in a mental hospital rather than admit the less-than-normal parts of your life. It was a last gasp of that old dream everyone had that you could somehow be happy just being an ordinary girl. I think you’ve gotten past that finally. But I don’t know if your friends ever will, Buffy. It’s up to you to decide what you want and stand firm," Joyce counseled.

"Okay, so now I can see that I can love Spike. Easily," Buffy sighed. "Maybe I already do. Anyway, I can and it even makes sense, given our history."

Joyce nodded her encouragement to Buffy’s journey into awareness.

"I see that I was pretty screwed up, but Spike got that, so we can work it out if he’s willing." Buffy was nervous at that thought.

"Naturally he’s willing; he loves you," Joyce said.

"If I ever see him again," Buffy cried.

"Are you willing to be strong for him this time, as he was for you?" Joyce asked.

"What do you mean, Mom?"

"I’ll only show you the next part if you’re really willing to commit to working this thing out between you," Joyce stated.

"So, you’re down with this then--me and Spike?" Buffy asked for reassurance. After all, her mother giving approval for her to have a relationship with yet another vampire was mind boggling, considering Joyce’s reaction to Angel.

"Buffy, I am not as deluded as when I was there. I’ve seen things from a different perspective. You are the Slayer and that means you live a very different, very violent, very dangerous life. With Spike at your side, you have a chance to not only be happy and fulfilled, but to actually live a fairly long life," Joyce explained. "What mother wouldn’t want that? Besides, I always did like William."

"Okay, bring it on. How can I fix this?" Buffy girded her loins for whatever her mom had to share next.

~~~
Passato Recente
~~~


Spike lay on the cold, dark ground, his chest a mass of wounds. There was an eerie glow where his eyes should have been. "What the hell happened?" Buffy was alarmed at his condition. "Did he take on another hell god or something?"

"No, Buffy. Maybe you’ll understand if you hear how that night affected him for yourself." Joyce pointed to a scene in Spike’s crypt. Spike was obviously beside himself, alternating between despair and anger. Although just whom he was angry with was subject to question.

"This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be," Spike was saying to the skin-challenged demon, Clem. "It’s the chip. It won’t let me be a monster and I can’t be a man. I’m nothing."

Clem was trying to cheer up the distraught vampire and reminding Spike that things can change, only to have Spike reply, "If you make them."

Buffy could see the bitterness in the words and the look of determination on Spike’s face. He had a plan; she could see it. That didn’t bode well, since Spike and plans were as unmixy as Buffy and emotional sharing!

"She thinks she knows me, knows who I am, what I’m capable of. She has no idea." Spike looked at Clem, his chin firm. "I wasn’t always this way. It won’t be easy, but I can be like I was before…before they castrated me. Before…," he trailed off as Buffy shuddered in fear of what Spike might have done. "Then she’ll see who I really am."

"God, Spike, I do see," Buffy whispered to the phantom. "Please don’t have done anything stupid.

"Mom, did he go get the chip out? Is that what he decided to do?" Buffy was frantic. If Spike had gotten the chip out, he could be highly dangerous. It was like Angelus all over again. Buffy knew she’d wait to see what Spike might do, just as she had with Angel. With Angel, it had led to terror and murder before Buffy realized she had no choice but to dust her lover. She wasn’t sure if she could survive that sort of choice again. "Damn! That’s one of the reasons I made vampires off limits!"

Buffy watched the strange, foreign landscape as Spike strode purposefully into a cave. She watched as he made demands of some unseen power. She hadn’t seen Spike this determined, this cocky, in years. He was beautiful to behold and her blood ran cold with fear.

The next view was of Spike, battle ready attitude of Big Bad firmly in place. "It’s not like you haven’t been clear about it. This is a test. I don’t get what I want unless I pass said test. That about the size and shape?"

Buffy watched in fascination as Spike’s attention was captured by a rather large, human-looking demon who stood in fight stance. ‘Piece of cake,’ she thought and detected a similar reaction from Spike. Suddenly, the opponent struck his arms together and they burst into flame. "Shit!" Buffy wasn’t sure if the word came from her mouth or Spike’s.

Buffy continued to watch as Spike managed to defeat this flaming foe only to discover he was only part one of this test Spike had evidently signed on to take. The demons kept coming and Spike slew them one after the other. By the time he defeated a two-headed monstrosity, he was clearly tiring but still game. "Got any more ruddy tests for me, you ponce? I’ll take anything you throw at me if it’ll get me what I need to take care of the Slayer. SO you just bring it on," he taunted.

Buffy squealed as the scarab beetles massed over, around, under and into the screaming vampire.

Buffy tugged on her mother’s sleeve in alarm. "What did Spike mean about taking care of me? It’s the chip, isn’t it? He’s going to go all Big Bad again. We should have encouraged him to be good. He was trying so hard."

"Buffy, not everything is as it may seem. Think logically for a moment, dear. Why would he have some demon remove it after these battles and tortures? Why not just force a doctor to remove it in a nice hospital or clinic if that was his goal. Besides, what on earth good would it do Spike to have the chip out now? The chip already doesn’t work on you. If he wanted to hurt you, he’s perfectly capable of doing that and has been since your return."

"Well, yeah, but still…with the chip out, he could hurt my friends, become the evil vampire again," Buffy offered.

"He could have killed your friends many ways, many times over if he wanted them dead that badly," Joyce reminded her.

"True," Buffy admitted, "I heard of this one vampire the Initiative chipped who escaped after Spike did. He set up minions and just had them bring food in like the Master did when he was trapped. Spike could have done stuff like that too, I guess."

Buffy looked at Spike as he lay on the ground in the scene she had first been shown when given this last vision. He was a mess physically, hardly able to turn over.

Buffy could hear a deep, resonating voice speak to Spike. "You have endured the required trials." Spike looked as dead as his physiology tried to proclaim him, but he rolled over and pushed himself to his knees.
"Bloody right I have," Spike was saying to the voice. "So you’ll give me what I want? Make me what I was, so Buffy can get what she deserves?"

"Very well," the demon intoned. "We will return to you…." A black clawed arm reached out and touched Spike near his heart. Light began to shoot into Spike, illuminating his eyes as if a nuclear fire had been lit. "Your soul."

As Spike screamed in agony, Buffy fell to her knees at her mother’s side. "No! You idiot! Why would you think I want you to do that?"

Joyce smiled sadly as Buffy’s mind reran the number of times she had thrown the words ‘no soul’ at him as proof that he was unworthy of any consideration, any hope, any love or companionship.

"Mom, this is like suicide. Spike won’t even be the same!" Buffy was shaken to her core at the implications of Spike’s actions. "Why would he think I want or deserve this?"

"Well, sweetie, he thought you’d never love him or forgive and trust him if he remained soulless, for one thing. As for what you deserve…," Joyce looked down at the vision of the screaming vampire with sympathy.

"Perhaps Spike felt that he did deserve to die for what he tried to do…and that you would wish it too." At Buffy’s strangled cry, Joyce amended with another take on it. "Or perhaps he thought you might be able to let him love you if he had the soul? That will be a good question for you to ask him when he finds his way home."

"So he will be back then?" Buffy looked at Joyce with wide, teary eyes.

"In time. He is suffering greatly right now, Buffy. Paying for his sins in a very real way. He won’t come out of this unchanged, but I believe he was enough William that he’ll be close in time." Joyce decided it would be best for Buffy to be prepared. "He’s a bit crazy at the moment, between the guilt and the self-loathing. Spike’s finally agreeing with all the people who said he was ‘beneath’ them, each one that called him an ‘evil thing.’ His sins are great and his conscience is heavy, but he’s smart enough to pull through this in time. Spike may need reminding that the past cannot be undone, but the future is an unwritten page."

"How do you know he’ll make it back home, Mommy?" Buffy asked. "Should I go fetch him to be sure? I don’t want him to walk into the sun or something like that."

Joyce smiled and drew Buffy into an embrace. "He’ll be back because he loves you, dear."

"But what if he thinks I don’t want to see him again?" Buffy knew that might be the only thing to keep Spike away for good.

"He promised to look after Dawn until the end of the world," Joyce reminded her. "The world hasn’t ended yet. Even if Spike chooses to stay out of your way, he’ll come back to watch over Dawn. In fact, he’s thinking of hiding at her school to watch over her when he gets back."

"Stupid vampire," Buffy sobbed. "I think I’d better have that talk with Dawn before he gets back. The last thing he’ll need is having his Niblet turn on him too. I’ve got a lot of damage control to do, don’t I?" Buffy looked at her mother, hoping for encouraging words.

"Yes, sweetie," Joyce agreed. "Actually, you all do, and not just about your treatment of Spike. Spike has things to make up for as well, and so do all of your friends. None of you have behaved well lately. The nice part about being alive is you can try to make amends though. As long as there is love and the desire to make things right, it can be done."

"Guess I really do have to grow up, huh?" Buffy sniffed.

"We all do sometime," Joyce smiled. "You’ll do fine. It will take time, TALKING, and love with a big dash of forgiveness, but I’m sure you’re up to it. Remember, Buffy, love…give…forgive and your gift will come to you. Your gift is love and it’s waiting for you to live happily ever after."

Suddenly, Buffy was back beneath the tree of her first dream. Her mother was stroking her hair and straightening the daisy wreath she had placed on Buffy’s head. The breeze was gentle and the fragrance of flowers filled her senses. Buffy felt a peace she hadn’t really experienced since her time in heaven. She felt loved. Maybe that was how to find heaven on earth: loving and letting herself be loved. Maybe Spike could give heaven back to her, if she let him this time.

She thought of what her mother had said and frowned for a moment. "I thought death was my gift?"

"Sweetie, you were upset, thinking of death as an ending, but I’m proof that love never ends. So is Spike, for that matter. Death is merely a change. In many ways, it’s the beginning of a wonderful journey, one with no end."

Buffy mulled over her mother’s philosophy and decided she liked that interpretation better than the vagued up proclamations of the Rasta Slayer. "Well, Xander DOES like to remind everyone that Spike is dead….and Spike’s a pretty nice gift. Okay, I’ll take that.

"Mommy, since I’m still asleep, will you stay and tell me another story?" Buffy was loving this moment with her so missed mom.

Joyce kissed Buffy’s brow and shook her head. "Why don’t you just wake up and live a happy story instead? I’ll always be with you, even if you can’t see me."

"Will I live happily ever after?" Buffy dared to ask.

"Que sera, sera," Joyce sung from the old song. "That is completely in your power. No one lives without sadness and pain, but you have all you need for great joy as well. Grab great handfuls of it and don’t stop until you die. With Spike beside you, it will never be dull. You’ll always be challenged, but the rewards will be worth it. You sensed that, even when you were hurting so badly. Follow your heart and you’ll have as close to that happily ever after as anyone gets."

Buffy sighed and closed her eyes, content to rest in her peaceful dream and wake with a purpose once again. There were fences that needed mending and some gauntlets to be tossed. If she were going to be a grownup, she’d start by making her own choices where her heart was concerned. Xander would just have to learn to live with it.

Tomorrow no longer loomed dark and oppressive over her. It was the beginning of making things better for everyone. She could do that. After all, she was the Chosen One.



~fin