What comes after

Chapter 3: Revelations

In the morning Will found her staring at the ceiling in the couch, she looked fine. Before Buffy noticed her Will did a fast scan to check on her magically. ‘She looks physically fit, lets go deeper’... and there it was.

Slayer's auras were usually abnormal, non-exactly-human, yes, but Buffy’s was not normal in a different way. Will knew her best friend’s aura, and this was not it, instead of the expected red and white cloud surrounding her, Buffy’s was a dull, small and practically not there cloud of dirty grey and faded orange.

Will took a fast step back, hiding herself in the corridor. She needed to sit down, she needed to talk to Giles, something had to be done, their friend was vanishing. If they didn’t find something.....if they didn’t do something....they were going to lose her.

Will made her way back upstairs and went searching for the guys, she fund Xander as he was leaving the bathroom and together they went to Giles's room.
Giles was up already and opened the door quietly for them.

“I think I need more information, you know? before seeing her”. Will’s face was very pale. “What exactly made you call us in such a hurry, Xan?”

“Everything, I just needed someone else in here, pronto”.

“I think she’s fading.” Willow said in a whisper.

“How do you mean?”. Giles was deep in thought, but Willow’s comment had his head coming right up.
“Her aura is kind of vanishing, I think.... is all grey and faded orange, when it used to be a big bright red and white cloud all around her, and it’s barely there as it is, just a small sickly thing. Xan, is there anything else you may tell us? There has to be a reason for this”.

Xander was deep in thought, trying to think of anything he may have left out the night before. “Yes, I know.....the dreams!”

“Dreams?”

“She’s been having nightmares for a long while now, ugly ones, but so have all of us, probably, so I wasn’t thinking much of it, but lately she’s been crying a lot in her sleep, and screaming”.

“And you didn’t mention this before, why?” Giles English accent was present in full mode now, showing his displeasure with being kept in the dark about something like that.

“Well, I didn’t think it was anyone’s business”.

Will tried to calm things down a bit, using a conciliatory tone of voice. “We love her, why didn’t you mention the dreams, Xan, we are her friends too?”

“She didn’t talk about them, and I didn’t think it was my place to tell anyone”.

“Again, why not?”

“Oh, Ok. Well, at first I thought they were kind of like nightmares about the fight, you know, only they weren’t”. He stopped and looked uncomfortable at Will for a moment. “She dreams about him”.

At Giles blank look, Xander turned again to Willow, and found in her face an expression of knowledge and sadness, she knew.
“It’s been going on for some time”.

Looking at the exchange of knowing looks between the others, Giles grew exasperated once more. “If you two would be so kind as to enlighten me...”.

“Spike, Xander means that she’s dreaming about Spike”. Willow’s voice sounded so sad that Giles took a mental pause and tried to reassess the situation, but he felt like he was somehow left out of the loop, he was obviously not getting something.
“Wait a moment please”, taking a deep breath, “I know something of what happened at the end, that Spike caused the cave-in in Sunnydale, but...”

Willow interrupted him with a raised hand, and waited for his full attention. “He didn’t just “cause anything” as you put it, and I really don’t think you know very much”.
She gave him a look that spoke volumes when he was about to speak, and turning to Xander said “You know, don’t you?, I can see it”. When Xander nodded, she turned again to Giles.
“Remember the Amulet that he was wearing, the big gaudy necklace?” When Giles gave a nod she continued. “Buffy and the others were fitting, keeping the line intact, trying to avoid The First’s army from getting pass them, and although some did, they were doing Ok. Only thing is, how many slayers were there?” without waiting for an answer she kept going, a very serious expression on her face that prevented any interruption.
“The army The First had prepared was thousands strong, we weren’t going to win, and not matter what you say, the spell with the scythe worked, but they were just too few to keep the struggle for long, sooner or latter they were going to be defeated, overran because of shear numbers, they couldn’t fight forever, even slayers have to stop sometime, right?”.
Giles by now had an expression of horror in his eyes, seeing it Willow went ahead. “Yes, we were all going to end up dead. But then the amulet Spike had on, which by the way could only be worn by a Champion...” The previous look had been replaced by one of scorn in Giles’s face, so Will got more upset and said, “And he WAS, even if you don’t want to believe it, even if you cannot admit to had been wrong about him. He was a Champion, and he saved the World”.
At that Giles eyes got very round behind his glasses, for which Will was happy.
“The amulet activated and Spike was forced under the seal, the power of the amulet connected with Spike’s soul and blew the seal and the roof of the school, creating a direct pathway to the open sky and the light from the sun was channeled through his soul and the amulet, cleansing the Hellmouth and destroying the army, along with the caves and causing the collapse of Sunnydale and the crater. So you see... Spike is the only reason we are not all dead, the reason the world goes on as it did before. He saved it”.


She then turned to Xander. “I was there, I was right beside the seal when it blew, and also, I talked with Buffy about it before I left. How do you know? She told you?”

“No, I didn’t know all that, just the gist of it, from what she said in her sleep and stuff the others said, Faith you know? I just knew Spike was dead and that the amulet helped him destroy the Hellmouth, but not the details”. Xander looked embarrassed, “I don’t feel very well when I think of some of the things I said to him, you know? before...., about his “crush”, his “obsession”, but he really loved her al along, didn’t he?”.

“He did, I really don’t believe he did it to save the world. In the end... I believe he did it only for her”.

Turning she directed a very strong look at Giles and said “You can think whatever you like, you’d done it before, and it has blinded you to a lot of things, but I’m going to tell you things as they are, do what you want with it, but the reality of it is that Spike loved Buffy as I never thought anyone could be loved, and I know love, trust me. But this was different, this love was against his nature, and don’t nod, and don’t for a moment even think of interrupting me, you just listen”.
Will was on a roll now and happy to get some things finally aired.
“His love went against everything he was, but he went beyond that, he did everything for her. When I brought her back from heaven.... I don’t really believe Buffy would had made it without him, she used him to feel alive, used him for sex, and he let her because he loved her, he let her hurt him over and over, and not just physically, although there was a lot of that, but he let her take all of her despair out on him, and all that without any real hope that she could ever return his feelings. But when he felt he was losing her completely, losing the little she shared of herself with him, he had a moment of madness and tried to recapture it, tried to “be” with her, to have something of what they had had before, the only moments she let him close, during sex, and he attacked her, tried to rape her. He wanted her to fell something for him, anything. Even desire was better than nothing, and he was desperate. I’m not saying that what he did was ok, but he knew.....the look in his face.....”
Will grew quiet, lowering her eyes in remembrance.

“Will, how do you...?”

“Before I left, she started to tell me, like I said, but then she couldn’t, she said I couldn’t understand, and so she sowed me....she shared her memories with me. It wasn’t pretty, but she needed someone to be there, to understand, to remember him like she did maybe”. Will’s eyes had a very sad look when she continued.

“So, she stopped him, but he was so horrified by what he had almost done, so sick, that he thought Buffy was right all the times she told him that they could never be together because of what he was, a soulless thing. He believed when she told her he was beneath her, and so he went to the other side of the world and endured more pain during a series of terrible trials to regain his soul, for her, trying to be fit for her, to deserve her.
He was always there for her, even though we all treated him like dirt, even though he was constantly humiliated by all of us, even though he was convinced Buffy would never love him, he was in reality the one who “always had her back” as Buffy said. He was unconditionally hers, even when we were not. When we turned away from her, she almost gave up, but for him, he gave her the strength to get the scythe and to face Caleb and the battle ahead. And finally, he gave up his soul for her...” Will took a deep breath, trying to calm down a bit. She continued speaking in a sad, lower tone of voice.

“I did a little research on the amulet and what happened when I was in England, couldn't find much, but found that he not only sacrificed his life for her, he sacrificed his soul. And I think he knew what he was doing all along. Buffy told him that the amulet was dangerous, but he used it, he didn’t leave when she told him to, instead shared his soul with her for a moment, and then made her leave.
And now he is probably in hell, ´cause, even if you save the world, you don’t get to go to heaven without a soul”.

There was a pause and then Willow's eyes grew huge.

“That’s It!, Oh my Goddess, it can’t be!.....”
“You said she’s been getting worse as time goes by, right?” She asked Xander, shaking him when he didn’t respond, trying as he was to cope with her words, just as Giles was. She didn’t wait for an answer, “I need to talk to Buffy” she said as she bolted out the door.