Becoming Me

Hey guys. Sorry for the delay in new chapters - I hope this happy chapter makes up for it a bit. Anyway, I hope no one is too angry to review. Even if it IS to tell me to hurry up.

Anyway, I promised some spuffy lovin', and I'm sorry that this chapter is kind of cheating, but hey, at least it goes in the rigth direction. At least our main characters have some kind of pg13 action. So enjoy!


27: I WANT YOU

"Will you stop saying that, Dru?" demanded Spike.

"You…taste like ashes."

Spike paused, and then ran forward and forced Dru into the wall. "Shut
it, bint!"

"Like…like you've kissed the sun," she whispered fearfully. "What have you been doing, my Spike? What have you got inside?"

"Nothing!" he growled desperately, grabbing her shoulders. "Nothing's different, I haven't got any ashes, Dru!"

Her face in a mournful expression, Drusilla slipped out beneath
Spike's arms and drifted across the room. "Last night tells all," she said over her shoulder. "You were saving."

"No, I…No," stammered Spike, dumbfounded. "Haven't got the
slightest what you're…"

Drusilla turned around to look at him with an air of finality. "Spike, you burn, your goldness stings…Inside, the sun…you've got to get it out, to be touched…"

Spike watched as his Dark Princess slipped away into the sewer tunnels, crooning a mournful tune to herself as she went.

"Bloody hell. Bloody fucking hell."

* * * * *

Since the fiasco at the movie theater, Buffy had not seen much of
Amber. She had, however, seen a whole lot of Lilia. The small girl had appeared one day, late enough that shadows stretched from place to place over the yard, standing on the front porch with some CDs and a box of My Little Ponies. Joyce had, at first, been frustrated with being saddled with a five-year-old girl, but as the weeks stretched on it seemed the mother had almost forgotten that Lilia wasn't her own.

Buffy hadn't forgotten, though. From the beginning, she had been not frustrated with but amazed at what Amber (presumably it had been
Amber) had done. It left her wondering how much humanity soul-less vampires were actually capable of.

Sometimes she sat on her bed, looking out the window into the bright summer day and wondered what, exactly, a soul did. The previous year she'd been sure that a soul altered an entire person, diverted their wishes and choices from evil to noble. The soulless tried their best to be awful and the soulful tried their best to be perfectly good. But how much influence did the mind and heart have, if they were even separate things?

Could someone change on their own? Was it possible to move between evil and good, completely independent of a soul?

"Buffy?"

Lilia's soft voice, thickly accented with youth, yanked Buffy back into the present. She realized that her glass of lemonade was close to overfilling, and she put the pitcher back on the counter. "Uh-huh?"

"When's Amber gonna come visit again?"

Buffy took a moment to understand the question. She shook her head to clear it. "Um...Lilia, I think..." The first week or two, Amber had shown up ever other day, to laugh with Lilia and stare at Buffy. The
Slayer was fairly sure that she and Amber had not exchanged more than a few words since the time in the movie theater, but the vampire always bore a more or less impenetrable expression, full of something a bit like revulsion, indecision, or pain. The "something face," Willow had called it.

Then, Amber had stopped coming, like she'd suddenly remembered she had somewhere else she was supposed to be. Although Buffy doubted it had much to do with Amber, the number of human deaths had noticeably increased at roughly the same time. Buffy was the only one who'd thought much about Amber's disappearance. Scoobies just assumed she'd taken off. Xander said Buffy thought too much about Amber.

"...I don't know," she confessed, and she watched Lilia's face fall.

Sometimes vampires could be a little hard to predict.

* * * * *

Pulled from her reverie, Buffy suddenly stood up. "Oh my God!"

Her mother frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"I promised the guys I'd meet them by the Espresso Pump, and I completely forgot! I think I'm already late," she berated herself, as she dashed up the stairs to grab her purse and put on shoes. "Great. Now Wil will be sure there's something wrong."

Joyce stood up, and began following Buffy around the house while the teenager collected her things. "Is there? I mean, is this...Slayer thing...it's a lot on your shoulders, isn't it? Are you sure you wouldn't rather just quit?"

Buffy sighed, cramming money into her wallet. "Well yeah, but the thing is, I can't. One and only, y'know, it means there isn't another...At least, not now that Kendra's dead."

"Buffy..."

Joyce jumped in. "Didn't...Spike's girlfriend - " Buffy bristled at the memories of Drusilla.

"Yeah," she said quickly. "But now that I'm alive, there's still a
Slayer, so it's not like Kendra's death made a new one."

"Buffy?" The Slayer looked down and noticed Lilia, tugging on a designer shirt. "Um...Amber always said, you’re not the Slayer."

Buffy stroked Lilia's hair awkwardly. "Yeah? Well, actually, I am."

Lilia looked at her new shoes (Joyce had gone crazy with the shopping, since she missed having a child who would wear whatever she wanted it to.) "Ok...Are you sure?"

Buffy laughed so hard she ran out of air and began to cough. "Yeah.
I'm sure." She looked at the clock and muttered something that sounded like "bloody hell." "Well, I'm off," she said energetically, and was almost entirely down the walkway by the time the door closed behind her.

Her friends were overjoyed to see her. Even Oz seemed to have more to say in greetings than usual. In fact, most things seemed stuffed to the brim with energy since she'd returned, and the loudness still weirded her out a bit. Maybe I'm just used to being around fewer people, she justified. Even if Spike isn't exactly the quiet type.

"Hey Buffy!" Cordelia began, "Remember Scott?" she pointed to a boy Buffy only vaguely recognized.

"He had sixth period with us," Willow added helpfully, and Buffy tried to look like her memory had been jogged.

Scott smiled. "Dude, Buffy...wow. I mean, imagine being falsely accused for murder. That's probably one of the most exciting things that would ever happen to someone I know, you know?"

"You have no idea," Buffy replied.

Over the next half hour, the Scoobies and Scott sipped coffee and chatted about things like school, movies, and the lameness of Sunnydale. Something about the conversation seemed so flat to Buffy, like it was all forced small talk, and she tried to assure herself that chatting with Spike had been just as lame.

Only, she didn't think it had. She couldn't remember talking – except for the dramatic discussions of what was or wasn't between them, and some kind of inane but somehow entertaining banter about nothing in particular. When Spike was bantering, he said the dumbest things, all of which were about Buffy. And when he was talking, he cut right to the chase. It was like the man had never heard of small talk.

"Buffy?"

"Oh. Yeah?" She turned to look guiltily at Scott.

"It was great getting to know you better. All of you, actually. I'm gonna take off, so...see you around, maybe?" The last word, in Buffy's opinion, seemed directed straight at her, and it knocked her off guard.

"Uh, okay," she said in kind of a bewildered tone, and waved at the retreating boy.

"Buffy, he is so into you," Cordelia informed not just Buffy and her friends, but the entire coffee shop. Xander raised his eyebrows and shrugged, as if saying "sorry, there's nothing I can do - she's just that way, and besides, she's got a point." Buffy sighed.

Willow leaned in. "Yeah, kinda, and Buffy? It really would do you good...to, you know, date some people? Move on - "

"To people who aren't vampires?" interrupted Cordelia tactlessly, causing everyone to make shushing noises and try to hold back smiles. Everyone except Buffy, who sat, looking dazed.

"Uh...I think it's...maybe kind of early? Just a bit? I mean, I'm still not really over..."

"Angel," Oz supplied gently.

Buffy nodded. Angel. Exactly.

* * * * *

Sunnydale, read the sign, 20 mi.

Why am I going to bleedin' Sunnyhell? Spike asked himself for the hundredth time that evening. Of course, he thought it should have been obvious. Buffy was there.

Not that he wanted to see her. Not really. But whatever had happened that made Dru reject him had happened since Buffy, had probably happened because of Buffy. She'd probably even done it on purpose, as some sick joke. He would go and ask her to fix it.

Not ask - demand. The soddin' bint had forgotten that he was evil and he would make sure she remembered.

Sunnydale, 10 mi.

This stupid little part of Spike felt elated as Sunnydale grew closer and closer. It's not like she'll want to see me, he reminded himself, but still he kept imagining scenarios of his reunion with Buffy. Things they'd say, things they'd do…The petite blonde launching herself into his arms…

Spike growled. He couldn't deny it any longer – he wanted her back.

Welcome to Sunnydale.

* * * * *

“Normal? Or Slayer-ish?” Buffy paced up and down in front of a fresh grave, tossing a stake in her hand. “I mean, how am I supposed to know what’s the right thing to choose? What my friends want…or what I…what do I want?”

Someone behind her purred, “Now that’s the question, innit?”

Buffy started and whipped around, brandishing her stake at chest-height. “S…Spike?!” she exclaimed.

He chuckled. “Good. For a second or two there, I almost thought you’d forgotten me.” Smiling in a way that was both condescending and seductive, he placed his hand on Buffy’s wrist and directed her arm back to her side. “No stakes.”

“Yes stakes,” Buffy protested, her breath catching. “Stakes are good. Especially when they’re inside of you…I –“

His grin of amusement was intolerable. “You don’t say,” he replied, his voice dripping with sexuality. “Care to prove your…” Barely hearing him, Buffy had already leaned forward, coming pelvis-to-pelvis with the blond vampire and staring insolently up at him. “Point?” he added, after the fact.

“Shut up.” Their mouths met in a flesh-crushing kiss as their bodies ground against one another. Buffy felt Spike’s fingers snaking through her belt loops, pulling her closer, sliding between fabric and skin and over the curve of her bottom and out again to pop a button and unzip a zipper.

“Miss me?” he quipped.

“Hardly,” she replied between gasps of air and feverish kisses.

He snorted in disbelief and said, “Bet you were just sittin’ here, waitin’ for me to come back, am I right? Pathetic, Slayer,” he said with a grin.

Buffy said nothing as she wriggled against the finger pressing against her sex.

“Be honest, Slayer. Your life’s much better now that I’ve walked back into it.”

Buffy stopped moving and glared up at him angrily. “Don’t let your head get too big or anything,” she said icily.

Smirking, Spike glanced down. “Sorry, pet. Looks like it’s a bit late for that…” Then he leaned forward once more, descending towards her lips. Buffy pushed him away so forcefully that he needed to take a few steps to regain his balance. He stared at her in shock.

“You are not a part of my life, Spike. You chose to walk out of it, remember?”

When he didn’t say anything immediately, Buffy turned around and began to walk home.

“You want me, Slayer. You know it,” he called when she was a few gravestones away. He waited for a response, and when none came, he tried again. “You want me, Slayer…I want you – “ he paused to see if this last bit had any effect, and noticed that Buffy had not turned around, but she had stopped walking. “What more is there?”

He didn’t think she was going to reply. Then, suddenly, he heard a whooshing sound and he jumped out of the way as a stake came spinning towards him and landed on the ground, still rotating like the hands of a clock.

“There’s a lot more,” Buffy called back, with a slight tone of defeat. The vampire and the Slayer stood, not facing each other and not moving, for what seemed like hours more, and then Buffy continued on her way.

Spike bent over and picked up the stake. It was smoothly whittled, but still clearly done by hand. It looked like redwood; probably a transformed piece of a broken fence or mailbox post. Spike sniffed along its length, and he smelled the vanilla smell of freshly bathed Buffy, the cherry smell of her lip gloss, and the slightest tinge of her sweet blood and sweat. Spike pocketed the stake and slipped back into the shadows.