This beautiful darling was created by the multi-talented beanbeans. I bows and salutes you, friend.

Beta: The incredibly talented and mega multi-tasking Megan. Thank you, kind lady.

A/N: Thank you to all those who took the time to review the last chapter - most(ly) appreciated.


Chapter 2

It had all started so well. Spike had tracked down the Chinese slayer to the small temple; not an easy task in the chaos and confusion being wrought throughout the city by the rebellious Boxers. Numerous fires lit up the night and the air was thick with the stench of gunpowder, smoke and blood. The vampire was thankful, for once, that he did not need to drag the polluted particles into his lungs to survive. Trotting into the comparative quiet of the temple, he’d wasted no time in throwing off the long coat that would be sure to hinder him in the coming contest, glad that he’d had the forethought to leave the collar from his shirt. Now was not the time to worry overmuch about the correctness of his dress.

The Slayer had emerged from behind one of the pillars supporting the elaborate temple roof and he’d barely been able to contain his glee as they entered into the intricate steps of the dance macabre together. Power radiated from the small girl, the Chosen One, as she flowed from one stylised position to another with speed and grace, attacking in a flurry of choppy blows and lightning kicks.

Spike gave as good as he got, parrying and punching with devastating force and precision. Much as he enjoyed the violence, there was a deeper purpose to this deadly contest between slayer and vampire. If he could only defeat this young girl he would be able to drag his unlife from the hell on earth it had been since the damnable night he’d been turned by a mad vampire. ‘Why did the insane bint pick me? Couldn’t she see that my life was bad enough as it was without forcing this existence on me?’

The Slayer elegantly retreated as his angry thoughts leant more strength to his blows, grabbing a fine bladed sword before changing to the offensive. Spike laughed through his fangs; he’d spent the last twenty years avoiding this weapon in Angelus’s capable hands and wasn’t about to be caught out by this little snip of a girl. A flickering movement of her dainty wrist cut across his face and caught the brow above his left eye, sending blood down to impair his vision. An involuntary growl erupting from his throat. He dodged, ducked and weaved to evade the sharp metal that came at him at an alarming pace, looking for the opening that would allow him to remove the sword from her tight grasp. If only the explosion from the ongoing riot outside had happened a moment later he would have succeeded. But time was not his friend tonight.

The force of the blast caused him to lose his delicate balance, throwing him onto the very thing he had been striving to elude, the sharp edge cutting deeply into his side as he hissed in pain. Before he could recover, the Slayer was darting around him, adding more and more slashing wounds to his arms and chest. One forceful stroke to his back had him stumbling clumsily to his knees. Spike knew he was done, that he’d lost. The method was not of his choosing, but at least he would still be escaping the hell that was constantly forced upon him at the hands of Angelus and Darla. Now he would be going to another hell for eternity.

His head was pulled back by a vicious yank on his bound hair. He glanced into the eyes of the triumphantly grinning Slayer as her sword whipped down towards his bared and straining neck. There was a flash of blinding light, then a moment of darkness. The unblinking and impossibly bright eyes of a growling devil cut through the surrounding black and relentlessly bore down upon him. Without the strength to move, Spike struggled to keep from collapsing completely as his fate leapt towards him.

***

Buffy yawned and stretched languorously in the monstrously large bed. Apart from the dreams that visited her every night, she couldn’t recall ever having slept so well in her life. Every morning she felt refreshed and rejuvenated, which just made the guilt that much harder to bear. She didn’t think she deserved to feel so good when her goal in coming to this oasis of peace had been to mourn the loss of Spike and face, once and for all, the mistakes she had made throughout the years they had known one another.

Every day Buffy had added her thoughts and emotions to her extremely private journal, one that had been kept locked away from Dawn’s ever prying eyes since she’d started it shortly after the collapse of Sunnydale. It wasn’t easy, being honest and leaving that comfortable place she’d escaped to so often, dwelling in the land of Egypt. Hindsight was a painful experience, on more than one level. The temptation to shove blame towards her friends for her actions sat like a little devil on her shoulder. But as she was the one who had given them that power to influence her, she was also the one who had to stare that weakness in the face and, hopefully, learn from it. Too late by far to change anything that had already happened, to bring back the one she had hurt most. The one person she had destroyed in all the ways that mattered long before he was dust. After three weeks of hard soul searching - and how much she hated any thoughts about souls and their value right now - Buffy knew that Spike’s decision not to contact her after his return to the world could be laid firmly at her feet. So well had she conditioned the vampire. The shame of her behaviour would be something she would carry with her to the grave.

Leaving the bedroom, Buffy hurried through her morning routine in the sumptuous bathroom before throwing on a pair of blue cotton shorts and a plain white tee shirt. Since arriving at the beginning of June, the weather had continued bright and sunny. Not as much warmth as she was accustomed to but, after all, this wasn’t California. According to the locals who frequented the Lamb and Firkin In - where Buffy could be found enjoying a bar meal several evenings a wee - the cricket season was normally accompanied by frequent bouts of rain, even in summer.

They’d made her feel so welcome in the village, somehow proud to have their very own Yank visiting their corner of the country. Rose popped by every few days to see if she needed anything, giving her a lift into Taunton twice to go shopping and once over to Glastonbury. That had been fascinating; so full of history and myth that she’d almost wished that Giles were with her to act as a walking encyclopaedia. Almost, but not quite.

Days were spent thinking. There were tears; every day there were tears. Buffy was honest enough with herself to know that not all of them were for Spike. A good percentage of them were for her. Little pity parties that made her feel ashamed, but calmer once over. For a while. Until the next day.

Unexpectedly, Buffy had discovered an urge to tackle the overgrown garden to the side of the cottage. There was something soothing in the physical labour and a pleasure in freeing struggling flowers and shrubs from choking weeds. Stings and scratches adorned her hands and arms now, a discomfort she believed only fitting in her repentant state. That was her morning routine now. Rise, dress and attack the garden, uncovering beauty as her mind picked through the layers of ugliness in her memory. Her ugliness.

Afternoons were for sitting in the shade of the small orchard that framed the back boundary. After a light lunch, Buffy would take her journal and a soda and just sit below one of the apple trees, writing as the lazily circling buzzards cried in melancholy above her.

Every evening without fail she would stroll into the village, often to grab a meal in the pub, a British institution she was really enjoying. The landlord teased her about the way she was slowly working her way through the menu, with diversions to the daily special now and then. Surprisingly, she hadn’t turned on the television nearly as much as she normally would. Predictably a large number of books resided in the formal drawing room, ranging from texts on demons and vampires to old volumes of English literature and poems. Buffy avoided reading anything to do with vampires after picking up one well-fingered tome and finding a reference to William the Bloody, the pain too raw to contemplate further perusal. Poems were another no-go. Conan Doyle and Daphne Du Maurier were definitely worth her attention though.

Buffy had patrolled, too. Not that she expected to come across anything demony, but the peace of wandering around the well-tended graveyard and finding her way along unlit lanes with a stake tucked into the waistband of her light cotton pants, gave her a feeling of rightness. For the first time in her life, Buffy felt the freedom of being content with her own company.

She had no one here to answer to, except herself. And she was ruthless in her questioning, sparing nothing to look long and hard at her failings and flaws. Turning them over and over to inspect from numerous angles. Owning up to the imperfection of immaturity and stubbornness, admitting the not-so-nice aspects of her character. Always striving to find a path that would enable her to balance the intricate pieces of herself, good and bad, light and dark, so that she would be what she needed to be. A better person. The one that he deserved. Not beneath him any more.

Finally understanding that, whilst it was futile to keep wishing she’d been more like this - or hadn’t said that - in the past which held her too late acknowledged beloved, she owed it to him, and herself, to be a better person from now on until the end of her days. Be that day tomorrow or years from now. Buffy knew she would always regret what had not been; she knew there would be more tears and self-recrimination, but she had Spike to thank for showing her that anyone could change, if they wanted it badly enough. And she did, she wanted it very badly. It would be her tribute to a man who, in the final judgement, was so much more than the sum of his many and diverse parts.

Shaking her head, Buffy left the cottage and frowned as she noticed the change in the weather. The light breeze that had played through the bright days she’d enjoyed in Somerset so far had died, leaving a stillness in the suddenly heavy air. It was warmer too, with thickening cloud hiding the sun and draining the bright colour of the emerging garden. ‘Now, isn’t that typical? Just as I start to feel better the weather changes for the worse. Balance, huh?’ Smiling slightly to herself, Buffy gathered her collection of gardening implements from the small shed behind the cottage and resumed her pruning and clearing, straightening now and again to fetch water for drooping blooms, softly touching and admiring their perfection and beauty. Before long she was unconsciously humming to herself, totally absorbed in her labour of love.

***

True to the early morning indications, the weather had steadily become more and more oppressive during the day. By evening it was impossible to move without breaking out in an uncomfortable sweat and, if breathing had not been a necessity, Buffy would have gladly given it a miss. The clouds had steadily banked as the day progressed, becoming dark and threatening. Sapped of energy, she had given her usual visit to the village a miss. The slayer made a sandwich instead, it being all that she felt the inclination to eat in place of her normal hearty meal. For the first time since her arrival in the little village of Huish Mallet - ‘Hush Mullet’ – a sense of restlessness made her fidgety. She felt distracted and on edge, thinking for the first time in days of her sister and friends.

Twice she’d made the climb to the top of Burrow Hill to use her cell and let them know she was alright and that the vacation here was just what she’d needed. Despite Giles’ request, she’d carefully refused to plug in the available phone still sitting in the cupboard; she’d come here to get away from them as much as to put her feelings in order and was not about to become the victim of a ringing phone when they decided they wanted to interrupt her. In this, she was determined to be selfish; it was about Spike and her, no one else was allowed to break in to distract her; her interaction with others would be, with the exception of the pleasant interludes with Rose, at her behest.

A low rumble of thunder in the distance was chased away as a sudden breeze moved the air, a prelude to the coming storm. It was getting late now, almost midnight, but the coolness was too tempting and the cottage too warm for Buffy to leave the open doorway. From her spot she could just see the flickering of lightning above the trees, still miles away and busily playing elsewhere.

Out of nowhere came an urge to leave the confines of the cottage and take a walk to the village before the storm struck in full force. The ionising air made the hair on her arms and neck stand on end as, shivering slightly, Buffy pulled on a thin cotton jacket and automatically stuffed a stake into the pocket before closing the door behind her and setting out almost blindly down the drive. She hadn’t gone far before she stopped, a feeling of déjà vu hitting her forcefully. Unthinking, giving herself over to her instincts, Buffy began to run as fast as she could down the dangerously dark drive, her speed foolhardy in her blindness. It was happening.

***

The devil was almost upon him. Its speed was truly diabolical, the sound unearthly in its hellish strangeness. In seconds he would be starting his eternity of torment, and Spike trembled in anticipation of the pain that was to be his lot, from now until forever. Without warning his body was tumbling through the air, hands seizing his shoulders in a vicelike grip and tearing him away from the roaring demon. Another body tangled with his as they landed in an entwined heap that left him gasping in a mixture of pain and relief.

Growing in intensity, the cooling breeze of earlier was replaced by urgent gusts as the storm gathered more momentum. Buffy pulled herself free of the dead weight that half lay over her legs, struggling to see the features of the… vampire?


A/N: Feedback most welcome. I cannot promise to respond to any anonymous post or to engage in deep discussions about souls and heaven (my LJ is always available for that sort of thing). This is purely meant to entertain.