2 SEPTEMBER 2002-

The world was collapsing in on itself, and he was responsible. They were moving slowly, as though they were dinosaurs caught in suffocating tar.

And the screams…the screams were tearing the fabric of the universe. He swore to himself, last year, that he would never hear that scream rip his Little Bit’s throat again. He’d been covered in it when he’d fallen from that tower, and he swore he would never give her reason to make him hear it again.

He was such a bloody liar.

He’d placed it there, something that was like acid to her soul, and to his. And he’d done it on purpose.

The fury and grief twisted her face, and suddenly time sped up again. It was too fast.

Before he could stop her, Spike saw Althenea Morris crash to the floor, the unbridled, passionate power that he loved so much in her was pouring out onto the woman’s body as her fists flew mindlessly, breaking flesh and bone in their misery.

He couldn’t believe it. No one was stopping her.

Their faces showed their grief. A grief he didn’t believe they had bestowed on him, until he saw it. He knew they would never be the same. They were crippled by it, this grief he didn’t deserve.

He looked on, dumbstruck; even Rupert was lost. That was when he knew…it had worked. If even Rupert believed it, he knew it had worked. He was gone- lost to her, to them all, really, and he didn’t know how to make it back to them, or even if he could.

He wanted to scream, to make it stop. He hoped that his blood would whisper to her, let her see the truth. But as he watched Buffy writhe on the floor with a woman nearly twice her size, he knew that the shock he’d seen in her face was real, and that the pain she was feeling now was overwhelming its whisper.

He knew that kind of pain. And he knew that look in her eye.

She was going to kill. And he had to stop her.

Spike yelled out, “Slayer, stop! Think about what you’re doing!” he opened his mouth, and the words came out, he heard them rattling around in his skull, but they were of no use. No one could hear him.

To them, he was a ghost.

He watched helplessly as Rupert tried to pull Buffy off of the woman, “Buffy, you’re the Slayer! Think about what you’re doing!” he yelled. For an instant, Spike thought that he had somehow reached Rupert, and been heard. But, even if he had been heard, Spike wasn’t sure anything, or anyone would have been able to speak to her through the kind of pain he saw radiating from her.

“I know what I’m doing, Giles. Get off me!” she was screaming, as she stood up, throwing Giles carelessly to the floor in her grief. Buffy pulled Althenea with her, wrenching her arm so severely that Spike was sure he had heard the bones dislocate, spinning her around to face the interior of the room, and the window on the other side. Spike saw the light streaming from her eyes. He’d seen that kind of pain before. It came from above him, as he was sprawled in an alleyway behind a police station.

She was going to kill her.

Her voice confirmed Spike’s worst fears, “I’m killing the thing that killed Spike!” she growled, her voice distorted, nearly unrecognizable as human, any restraint she may have had seemed to be lost in the tide of her shock and grief.

Spike looked at her, trying desperately to find something he knew…and sadly, he did. In that moment, Spike understood. She did know what she was doing. She’d felt it too, and she felt as though she had to atone…for hurting someone she loved. “Oh, no…” he gasped in horror and frustration, as he identified what it was he saw in her eyes.

The animal. The hunter. Giza…

And there was a window. They were on the second floor.

As he screamed her name, Spike saw the old witch’s body flying through the air. He heard the horrible sound of breaking glass. Then came the silence, and the sickening thud of a lifeless body.

Spike watched the others move toward the broken window, in shock. They needed to look, but he didn’t. He knew. He knew, but he didn’t want to look.

He closed his eyes against the pain of what he’d turned her into. He didn’t want to look, because he knew.

That woman was dead, and he’d made the one person he truly loved, the person who had become his soul when his was lost to him, into a monster.

She was a killer. Her worst fear had come to pass, and he was responsible.

He didn’t want to look, but he had to.

The sound of her sobbing broke the shocked silence in the room, and he watched her crumple to the floor, unable to stand beneath the weight of what had happened and what she had done.

Dawn came over to comfort her, and he was glad she was there because he wanted to hold her, to tell her that someday they would be together again, but he could not.

“What have I done?” he cried as he felt her loss, and her guilt screaming through him.

The sounds that shook the room were painful to hear. The tears that filled the room tore his soul out with more precision than a scalpel in a surgeon’s hand.

There was so much pain, and he was the cause of it.

But, the numbness of death came as Spike heard Buffy’s tear-laden voice softly speak, “Giles,” she looked up at the Watcher with glistening eyes, and determination hardened her face, “tear it out of me. Now.”

“Buffy, no!” Spike begged, cursing himself for what he’d done to her.

Giles gasped, reeling from the shock of what he’d seen, and heard, “Buffy, do you know what that could do to you…?” he swallowed the fear in his throat, “…To your mind?”

“I don’t care, Giles,” she choked, “If it can do that…even after you,” her voice lowered to a trembling whisper, “let it go… You set it free, Giles!’ she hissed, “And still, it did this. It kills, Giles. That’s all it does. Take it out of me!”

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7 JANUARY 2008- CHINA-

He breathed in her scent, took deep lungfuls of her. He was drowning in her sadness and grief. There was so much grief that it nearly overwhelmed everything else. But, he needed her. It had been so long that he would gladly drown in her and her sadness, just to have her. Just to know she was here, and that she was real.

“Spike,” she murmured, “what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You’re dead, you know,” her voice cascaded fervently over the skin of his neck, her words chilling him.

Was it possible that she didn’t know?

His voice broke, “Oh Love, please…” he couldn’t control the tears anymore. It had been so long, so many years. He held tightly to her, both delighted and saddened by her closeness, “…Just…let me hold you,” he breathed.

“But Spike, you can’t be here. They’re still looking for you,” she pulled back, her eyes wildly searching his, “He’s…” her voice trailed off as he pulled her to him.

“Shh,” he whispered, as he kissed the matted hair on top of her head, “That doesn’t matter, now. Angelus, and the Synod can have me. I’ll come to him with a sodding bow tied around my neck if it’ll keep you safe.”

“Are you real?”

The question tore at his heart, and told him just how far she had fallen. The tone of her voice left him with no doubt.

He had driven her mad.

“I’m real, Love.”

Slowly, she pulled back from his embrace, and she looked up at him, her gaze dancing on the water of unshed tears; tears of disbelief. She gave him a lopsided grin, and his chest ached as the wound in that empty, dark space widened and grew larger.

He knew that she had seen that look on his face, many, many times before.

“Good,” she giggled to herself, amused by the noises in her head, “Because I killed you, you know.”