Part Two
Buffy could hear the hushed whispers from outside her slightly open bedroom door.
"She hasn't been herself since the wedding."
"You don't think it has anything to do with Evil Dead II finally hightailing it, do you?"
"No, that couldn't be it. Maybe she's just got the flu."
She tuned the voices out and continued counting the tiny cracks in her ceiling. 147... 148... 149... A lone tear trickled down her cheek as she thought of Spike. She remembered how good he was for her, not just in the "shagging like mad" sense of the phrase, but how he used to make her feel alive. She couldn't remember any time since her ressurrection where she'd felt truly alive outside Spike's company. And she kicked herself now for driving him away. 150... 151... 152...
A soft knock on the door caused her to lose count. Tara entered the room, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of soup on it. "Hi," the blond wiccan said softly, smiling gently at the weakened Slayer.
"Hey," Buffy replied. I sound so weak, she thought to herself. She sat up slowly, her joints creaking from weeks of disuse.
"I brought you some soup."
"Thanks." Buffy reached out a trembling hand for the spoon that sat next to the bowl, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn't scoop the warm liquid onto the spoon. She sighed, defeatedly.
"Let me," Tara said, taking the spoon from Buffy's shaking hand and dipping it into the golden liquid. She brought a spoonful of the soup to Buffy's mouth and fed it to her gently.
Buffy had to look at the contents of the bowl in order to decipher what kind of soup she was being served. Her senses were deadened. Chicken noodle, she mused. Mom used to make that for me.
"You miss him, don't you?"
"Miss who?" Buffy was immersed in the land of denial. Her smile was fake as she tried to reassure herself of her complete and utter sanity.
Tara sighed, setting down the spoon. "You know who I'm talking about."
The blond Slayer's facade crumbled almost instantly. "It hurts," she whispered. Silent sobs shook her thin frame, her stomach muscles clenching tightly. "I think he kept me alive."
"You love him." It wasn't a question, rather, a well-placed observation.
"I... I can't love him. He's an evil, disgusting thing." The words that had hurt only her bleach-blond 'nemesis' in the past now hurt her as well.
"But you do." Tara fed Buffy another spoonful of the soup. "It's alright to love him, you know. You're not going to go to hell for it."
Buffy swallowed her mouthful of soup, then sniffled. "No, I'm not. I'm already in hell. This, right here, is hell. Because he's not here."
****
Spike sat in his hotel room in London, feeling completely and utterly alone, though the petite, blond, hazel-eyed prostitute that bounced on his lap enjoyed herself. She finished soon enough, disgusted that he had sighed another woman's name at his climax. It was the name that ran through his mind constantly. Buffy, he thought miserably.
****
Buffy lay in bed for two more days. There were 361 cracks in her ceiling, and if she concentrated hard enough she could do a connect-the-dots on them with her mind and conjur up the face that had been haunting her for the past weeks. She sat up and pulled her legs over the side of the bed on the end of the second day, staring down at them. Chicken legs, she thought, looking at the pale, skinny thighs and calves that hadn't seen the California sunlight in an eternity. She stood on her shaky chicken legs and walked out of her bedroom, to the bathroom down the hall.
The Scoobies, who had taken up a concerned vigil in the kitchen of the Summers home, suddenly perked up at the sound of the shower running. "Sounds like Buff's back," Xander commented.
Buffy stood underneath the hot spray of the shower for a long time, her salty tears intermingling with the rivulets of water that trickled down her frame. She stepped from the shower, feeling refreshed, and changed into the outfit she had laid out on the toilet seat. She looked herself over in the mirror, deciding that the Ally McBeal look was not her, then brushed her hair quickly and pulled it back into a ponytail. Time to face reality, she thought.
She walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, pausing to smile shakily at her friends. Dawn came up to her and gave her a long hug, expressing her worries through the embrace.
"I'm really hungry," she said to the amusement of everyone in the room.
****
The menacing, stocky figure walked dejectedly through the foggy streets of London. He clutched a half-empty bourbon bottle in one hand and a slightly tattered slip of paper in the other. His black leather duster billowed behind him as he walked toward the closest payphone. He dialled the number on the slip of paper, and was greeted by a middle-aged man. "Giles," the man said gruffly.
"Rupes," the bleach-blond said into the reciever.
"Spike? Is that you?" The ex-Watcher was momentarily stunned. "Where are you?"
Spike gave directions to his hotel room, then hung up after Giles had said he would be there in a half hour. The vampire then made his way back to the seedy hotel and passed out in the open doorway, his liquor bottle shattering on the floor.
The sun was rising by the time that Giles made it to the cheap hotel that Spike had given him directions to. The acrid smell of burning flesh permeated his nostrils, and he raced up the stairs, dragging the smoldering vampire inside his room out of the sunlight. A few minutes later, Spike awoke. His healing powers had already begun to mend the charred skin on the backs of his calves. He sat in the one easy chair that had come with the room, wincing as his burned legs touched the upholstery.
"I left her," he said, his voice void of emotion. "I left her." This time it was little more than a whisper.
"Who?" Giles questioned. He was surprised at the concern that filled his voice, but shrugged it off.
Spike looked at the man sitting on the edge of his bed, his cold blue eyes betraying his facial expression. "Who do you think, Watcher? I. Left. Buffy."
Giles was momentarily dumbfounded. He tried desperately to think of something to say in this situation. "I thought you claimed to love her," he finally said.
"I did. I do. That's why I had to leave her. It was killing me to be with her and know that she would never love me back." A single tear escaped the vampire's eye and trickled slowly down his cheek.
"Never is a pretty strong word," came a new voice from the doorway. Both men whipped their heads around, shocked to see Tara standing, framed by the cheap wood of the moulding.
"Witch," Spike said in greeting. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to bring you home."
****
"Guys, there's something I need to tell you." Buffy was standing in the middle of the Magic Box, all Scoobies present except for Tara. "It's about why I was so depressed after the wedding. Xander, you were right."
"About the flying monkeys that were going to abduct me?" he questioned.
"Well, maybe not about that. But you were right about one thing. I was upset because Spike left." She noticed that some of her friends wanted to comment, but she held up a hand to stop them. "It took him leaving to make me finally admit this to myself. I'm in love with him."
"Spike." Xander said, his voice dull.
"Yes, Spike. I love you all, but Spike is the reason that I didn't kill myself after you brought me back. He made this third life worth living. And I fell in love with him."
Xander shook his head. "No, I meant Spike. Is standing behind you."
Buffy whipped her head around, her short tresses flying. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared, gape-mouthed, at the man (demon) that had captured her heart. Then ran to him and embraced him tightly, peppering his face with kisses. "I missed you so much," she whispered between kisses.
Spike kissed her gently before asking, his own tears streaming down his cheeks, "Do you?"
"Do I what?" Buffy asked, tightening her embrace.
"Love me."
"Yes, of course I do." She leaned her head against his chest, the eerie stillness of his heart soothing her.
He tilted her face up to his and scanned her face. "Tell me."
"I love you," she whispered, then louder, "I love you." She grinned before saying it loudly enough for all in the room to hear. "I LOVE YOU!"
Spike tightened his arms about the woman who had made a man from a demon, lifted her feet from the floor, and spun around in a circle. When he set her down again, he murmured the exact words that he had said to her in his dream those many many nights ago. "Buffy, I love you." He kissed her deeply. "God, I love you so much."
The weeping couple kissed once more, then slipped from each other's embrace and held hands. Spike's large hand enveloped Buffy's smaller one, and for the first time in weeks she felt complete. They turned toward the Scoobies, some of whom were trying their best to inconspicuously wipe away their tears and sniffle as softly as they could, reacting strongly to the happy reunion.
****
It is said, that on that evening on the Boca del Inferno, all beings noticed a change in the air. A feeling of peace passed over the small, southern California town, unlike anything that had ever occurred before in the history of the area. The Powers that Be smiled upon the town, blessing the union of two warriors, and balance was restored to the chaotic world once more.
Author's Note: I couldn't leave the first part hanging the way it was. I just felt horribly doing it. So, this part, formerly known as I Die Without You, came into being. Oh what fun it is to make a happy ending for my avid readers. Can't have a story without one.