Darkness Part 2

Title: Darkness Part 2
Author:Heeroluva
E-mail: [email protected]
Rating: PG-13 for now, will more than likely get higher
Spoilers: Through 'The Gift"
Pairing: Spike/Dawn
Summary: Spike leaves Sunnydale the day of Buffy's death after
having made a promise to Dawn and returns over a year later with a few
surprises.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Buffy characters. Joss does.
Feedback: It's more than welcome. I love hearing what others have to say.
Authors Note: The first chapter is a poem and the rest is a fix. You should
read the poem first and not skip over it because I'm not sure if the being
of the next chapter will make sense if you don't.

But still I am standing...

Although I have no idea how long I will remain that way. My body feels like
it has melted into a puddle even though I can't seem to move or look away
from him. My breath is almost nonexistent while my heart feels like it's
trying to shed its ties to my body. I'm sure that Spike hears it because a
slow predatory smile is spreading itself across his face.
He hasn't changed one bit. Not that I expected that he would with the not
being able to age thing and all. He still wears the creature of the night
black outfit with those combat boots and that God forsaken leather dusters
and still peroxide blond hair, though the roots are beginning to show.
I can't believe he is standing here after not having seen him in over a
year. Well actually one year, three months and thirteen days. But who's
counting. Me obviously.
The night that Buffy died things changed between us. Together we took
comfort in one another, holding on to each other as if our lives depended on
it, which I'm sure they had. If we hadn't had one another I think that one
if not both of us would have done something drastic.

~Flashback~

Everyone was frozen for minutes before I finally broke the silence and
asked Spike to take me home seeing that it was near dawn. No one else really
noticed, too isolated in their own grief, so me and Spike left. I think that
we all must have been in shock. Just as we got out of there the first cops
were arriving so we had to hurry.
Spike had said something about getting me to the hospital and that brought
me back to reality. It was only then that I realized that I was bleeding.
Somehow in the chaos that had gone on since Doc cut me I had pushed it out
of my mind. The cuts were long and shallow so that my blood would flow for
the longest amount of time.
At that moment my legs collapsed from under me, but Spike was there to catch
me before I hit the ground, pulling me securely up against his well-muscled
chest. My arms instinctively wound themselves around his neck to keep myself
from falling from the precarious position that I was in even though I knew
that Spike would never drop me.
His body cooled the sudden fever brought on by all the blood loss. Spike
started towards the hospital but somewhere in the haze of my thought I'd
realized that we wouldn't make it before dawn. With all the strength that I
had left I begged him to take me home saying that the sun was almost up and
that the police would ask too many unanswerable questions. The last one I
didn't care too much about but it was what made Spike turn and run full out
the rest of the way to my house.
I must have passed out because the next thing that I knew I was lying on my
bed with Spike having just finished undressing me, leaving me in my
underwear and then turning to the desk to get the first-aid kit that was
sitting atop it. For the first time I saw the cuts and gasped, the reality
of what had happened that night just beginning to sink in. I lay there numb
and half naked with tears soundlessly, streaming down my face.
Spike turned away from the kit slightly startled, although he'll never admit
it, not having realized that I was awake. He followed my gaze down to my
middle and must have realized what I was thinking because he said, "It'll be
all right Nibblet. I take care of you."
"Promise?" I managed out.
"Promise," he replied.
Spike gently cleaned my wounds and then sat me up to wrap the bandage around
my middle. Gently he laid me back down as to not cause any more damage while
feeling the unnatural heat rolling off me in almost tangible waves.
Carefully sitting on the edge Spike bent down and tugged off his boot and
socks, then stood back up to strip off his shirt and pants, leaving him in
only boxers.
I lay there half out of my mind with a man stripping in front of me. Well
not a man, but there couldn't have been that much difference, if any. In
that moment I thought that I'd totally lost it, that I was completely over
the edge. If I was in my normal state of mind I probably would have froze
and stuttered something embarrassing but all I could do was lay there and
stare, which I did with unadulterated fascination.
Spike noticed and smirked while drawled out, "Like the view, pet?"
If I weren't already flushed from the fever I was now.
Softly, as if I would break at the slightest touch, Spike lifted me up out
of the bed. I started at the contrast of body temperature as our skin met.
Pulling the covers down Spike settled me on the bed, then got in beside me,
while jerking the blanket back up over us and wrapped his arms around me and
pulling me close to keep us both from falling off the twin bed.
Unconsciously I shifted more tightly up against him, closing any gap that
may have been between us, molding my body to his to get as close as I could
to the cool relief from the fire that was blazing though me. If it had been
any I time I would have been utterly mortified, unable to ever look him in
the face for the rest of my life, but I didn't realize what I was doing. I
felt Spike stiffen and knew that he was going to pull away from me so I
tighten my hold on him knowing that if he truly wanted free that he would be
able to break loose.
He didn't try and the tension again eased out of his body and his hold on me
tightened even more. I gasped, my ribs protesting at the pressure and he
eased his grip slightly.
I looked up into his eyes and gave a shaky smile before it dissolved, into
painful, soul-deep, dry, heaving sobs that set me middle ablaze.
Again Spike tightened his hold, but realized what he was doing and stopped.
At the moment I didn't care because it took my mind off some of the pain in
my heart. I even welcomed it. I craved, no starved for human contact,
contact that could hold me in this plain of reality and not let me slip off
into the next.
Spike kissed my brow and murmured incoherent works in my ear. It didn't
really matter what the words were as long as I knew that someone was near
and that I wasn't alone.
Something wet landed on my forehead startling me. It took me a moment to
realize what it was.
Tears. Spike's tears.
Awed I looked up into his bright blue eyes, amazed at the liquid that
glistened there. Spike, too, gazed into mine. His head slowly drifted
towards mine and mine to his. Our lips were millimeters apart when he jerked
back, I think somewhat ashamed of what he was doing, but in a single lucid
moment I realized that I would have welcomed it that day. His hand came to
the back of my head and guided it into the crook of his neck.
My tears slid down his shoulder, across his collarbone and his down my neck
and back, but neither of us paid them much attention, too lost in our own
sorrows. I was also being pulled to and fro in a world of delirium, fighting
to keep from being swallowed whole and lose myself forever.
Throughout the day we clung to one another, each, to the other, a lifeline
to this reality. It all passed in a haze with me swimming in and out of
consciousness only to find myself in a world that constantly shifted shape,
making me dizzy and making me yearn for the nothingness of oblivion that
would again overtake me.
Fire swept through me, but there was always a coolness near by to ease it
and barely heard words to soothe my nightmares.
Early that evening when I awoke wearing a simple T-shirt that I know wasn't
mine. My fever having broken and Spike was nowhere to be found. The window
was open and the curtains were billowing about like ghosts. On the desk next
to my bed set a tray. On closer inspection I learned that it contained a
streaming hot bowl of chicken noodle soup, a glass of ice water, a plain
white vase with a single blood red rose, and a piece of paper. Curiously I
picked it up and unfolded it. It read:

Lil' Bit
I have to go away for a while. I need to find myself and all that crock.
You need to live just like the Slayer said. Live for her. Don't go off
thinking that it was your fault 'cause it wasn't. It was mine. Live for her.
Have a normal life. Or at least as normal as you can have living on the
Hellmouth. I'll be back. That I promise you. And I promised your big sis'
that I'd what over you till 'the end of the world.' And I always keep my
promises. I don't know when it will be though. It could be a week, a month,
a year. I have to figure things out. I have to go now. You're starting to
stir. Try to forget me, pet. But remember that I'll always be there in the
shadows watching out for you.

Spike

I glanced over at the window realizing that Spike had just exited there and
ran over to it. Climbing out onto the roof, not caring that I strained the
cuts I yelled as loudly as I could, "SPIKE!" I received no answer, just the
barking of dogs and the eerie silence of the night.
I crashed down sobbing harder than I had the night before almost falling off
the roof in the process. I felt as if my only family had just left me, which
in a way he was. Spike was the only one in the group that treated me like an
equal, the only one to not tiptoe around me once they knew that I knew that
I was the key. I first I thought that it was just another ploy to get on
Buffy's good side but that night that we tried to resurrect Mom you made me
promise not to tell Buffy and I knew then. You liked me for me, not for
Buffy's sake.
That is how everyone found me, on the roof outside my window, curled up in a
ball, my face covered in dried tear trails.

~End Flashback~

I never told anyone what happened that day. I wanted to keep it to myself
because it was a night of firsts. My almost first kiss. The first time I saw
a guy almost naked and may others. I still have the letter that he wrote me.
I carry it with me at all times in my wallet, even though by now I have it
memorized.
And I knew that what he said was true. For a while he was in the shadows,
always watching out for me. I knew it because I felt him. I knew when he
left for months, and I felt it two months ago when he returned again and
have been waiting for him to make an appearance ever since.
I hand brushed my cheek making my start and lose my train of thought. Spike
was standing right in front of me and I was looking dead center at his
chest, which surprised me. I had grown a lot since he left but I guess not
as much as I thought. I had to tilt my head back to look him in eyes and
noticed that he was still smirking at me, the corners of his eyes crinkled
at the edges.
I reached up to cup his face having to touch him to make sure that he was
real and wouldn't just disappear in a cloud of dust. "Spike?" I asked my
eyes tearing up and my voice cracking.
He tilted his head to the side waiting.
"Is it really you?" I still was unable to believe that he was standing
here, right in front of me.
"Yeah, pet. It's really me." His face shifted into that of the demon inside
him. "I'm back."

TBC...