Vamps On A Plane

"...so she said she loved me and I said, 'No you don't, but thanks for saying it.' And she held my hand and there were these flames..."

"Wait. Go back. She said she loved you? Buffy?"

"Yeah. And I said..."

"No she didn't."

Spike actually managed to look smug. "She bloody well did."

"No way. She loves me. Always has. Cookie dough, remember?" Angel settled back and crossed his arms. He'd had enough of Spike's assertions about his relationship with Buffy. It was time to set him straight once and for all.

"Gave me the amulet."

"Because I had to save Los Angeles."

"You really are full of yourself."

Angel leaned forward and fixed his most direct stare on Spike. "We have something special. Eternal. It was there the first time we ever saw each other."

Spike sniffed. "I had the same thing with Dru. You know where that got me." He turned his face away and muttered something that sounded like Bloody chaos demon. One thing about Spike, he never let anything slide.

"Seriously, Spike. She once told me that when I kissed her she wanted to die."

Spike roared with laughter. Angel was not going to let him get under his skin.

"That's your great yardstick of passion? You kiss her and she wants to die? I guess I should tell you about the time I kissed her and she broke three of the posts on my bed while she tore my clothes off. Lost my favorite jeans on that one."

"Shut up. Idiot."

"Truth hurts."

"She didn't love you."

"Said she did."

"Had to be gratitude. You were frying."

"For her, and for this bloody world. And she knew it, too."

"Hence the grateful love talk."

"She meant it."

"No she didn't. You said that yourself." Angel knew he'd scored with that one. Spike took a sharp breath and his eyes looked like chips of ice.

"Look, Forehead, I wanted her out of there. The place was caving in. She had her whole life ahead of her. Didn't need to be hanging out with me in a grave full of vampire dust."

Angel sat back again. Spike's words were ringing true, and he wasn't quite ready to face that. "She would have left Spike. She was saying goodbye."

The wind seemed to have gone out of Spike's sails too. "Girl never was good about saying what she meant. Except for goodbye. She was always pretty clear about that."

"Goodbye was hard for her. She cried every time. With Acathla, with that day that never really happened..."

"What?"

"Long story." Angel looked over at him. "There was ice cream."

"Don't want to know."

"But that last time," Angel continued. "She didn't cry that last time. Not in the cemetery with the cookie dough thing."

"Not then? I saw you two snoggin'."

Angel shook it off. "It was hello. And then goodbye. Tearless goodbye."

Spike was silent for a long time. It was uncomfortable after the earlier banter. Angel looked out the windows of the small plane, marveling at how the W&H technology had allowed him to travel like this in the daytime, and how bright the light was above the clouds. After over two hundred years of existence in this world, he could still discover new things.

"There were tears," Spike finally said.

"What?"

"She was crying when she said it. Never cried for me before. I made her cry before, with some of the bad things I'd done, but this was different."

Spike fell silent again, and began his own study of the brilliant light outside the plane. Angel reached for his seatbelt and another miniature bottle of whiskey. They'd be landing back in LA soon, and he had things to think about. They'd failed to retrieve the Capo's head, the Immortal had bested him once again, and Buffy loved Spike.

Damn.