Secrets and Lies

Author's Notes: Thank you, Screaming Flamingos, Silke, Niahm, Kat, Jenna, Tasha, Megan, Slaymesoftly, Stephanie, Samson28, Neo, Aisling, Rae, Marzbar, Spikeslilchit, Jane, Emma, and Spikestheman. Feedback keeps me going!


Anywhere But Here

Giles had decided to stay. After all of his talk about how she needed to reacquaint herself with life without his presence and support – something he had insisted would make it easier for her to simply give up, he had changed his mind. Her venerable if old-fashioned father-figure, one of the few constants in her life, had suddenly decided that leaving her would be detrimental rather than helpful, and Buffy was appreciative.

In the days since the musical incident, the slayer had thought long and hard on what Spike had told her, that they had all believed she was trapped in a Hell dimension, they’d thought they were saving her from an eternity of pain and torment. It was definitely something to think on, and in her moments of perfect clarity, she understood why they had done it. After all, her sister had something similar when their mother had died, and for a brief moment, elation had overcome reason – she had hurried to the door to embrace her mother only to find the front porch empty.

Her mother was safe and happy. Buffy knew that as surely as she knew that the sun would rise each day – provided some strange supernatural phenomenon didn’t prevent the natural order of things. Her mother, the slayer knew, was where she had been, in a dimension of warmth, peace, and all-encompassing love.

Buffy’s heart, or at least what remained in tact, ached when she thought of the happiness she had been torn out of, and her thoughts continued on the downward spiral until she heard a familiar tapping at her window. Spike. With a heavy sigh, Buffy climbed out of bed and moved to the window, opening it the rest of the way. “What do you want, Spike?” she asked tiredly.

“Just checkin’ in on you and the Bit,” he explained, his tone almost shy. “She left this at my crypt the other day, and I think she’ll be needin’ it back.” Rather than climbing through the window, the vampire passed a thick notebook to Buffy – Dawn’s history notes.

“Yeah,” the slayer agreed, “she’ll definitely be needing this. She has a history test next week and has been looking all over for it. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.” Setting the notebook aside to give to Dawn in the morning, Buffy climbed through the open window to sit beside Spike. Inviting him into her bedroom seemed too personal, somehow. After a pause, she added, “Thanks for bringing it over.”

Spike was stunned. He had expected the slayer to take the notebook and dismiss him. In truth, he had no idea why she had permitted him to linger, much less joined him on the roof. “Don’t mention it, pet.” Again, he waited for a harsh rebuttal that never came. Instead, she simply stared at nothing and gave no reaction that she had heard him. “Buffy?”

“Why are you still here, Spike?”

“You never asked me to leave,” he replied. God, he wanted to shake some sense into her, anything to rouse her from her nearly catatonic stupor. Where was the girl who had foiled his plans time and again, who had beaten him senseless at every turn? Was she still dead, a frail ghost of her former self occupying the all too familiar shell? Had Buffy, in a strange way, become something of a vampire herself? “I should get goin’,” he concluded, but as he rose, he caught sight of something that halted his movements: the slayer nodding her head in denial.

“It’s okay. Stay.” Her tone was flat, just as her once-luminous eyes held no sparkle.

Settling himself beside her once more, the vampire drew his cigarettes from his pocket and, at her nod of acceptance, lit one. “I… I don’t know if it would help to talk, an’ you don’t have to, but… I’m here.”

“You’re always here,” she replied with a pained smile. “Why are you always here when I’m miserable?”

“I reckon ‘cause that’s when you’re alone, pet,” he teased as he took a drag off his cigarette.

“Can we go somewhere?” she asked suddenly. “Willow and Tara are here with Dawn, and Giles is asleep on the couch. I just can’t… sitting still, it makes it worse.”

“Yeah, I never was one for sittin’ around like that, myself. You wanna go anywhere in particular?”

“Anywhere but here.”

Pushing to his feet, Spike dropped down from the ledge and offered Buffy his hands to aide her in jumping down. He chuckled at her look of utter disdain. “Sorry, pet. I forgot that you’ve been doin’ it for years.”

Glowering at the vampire – for once good-naturedly, Buffy not only leapt off the ledge with the same amount of grace Spike had displayed, she somersaulted on her way down and landed perfectly. “Do I look like I need any help?” she challenged.

“Maybe with your stupid hair,” Spike quipped.

“God, what is it with you and my hair? You should talk, Captain Peroxide.”

“Oy! I’ll ‘ave you know I use bleach, not peroxide,” the vampire protested as he started down the street. He had teased the slayer, and she was taunting him in return. The William part of him was so elated that it almost knocked the Spike part of him flat on his undead arse. Gah!

An instant later, the slayer came to a shocking realization. She felt more like herself, like she had been before her second death, when she was with Spike. They were bantering the way they always had; he treated her like Buffy, not a fragile child to be coddled.

“Buffy?” the vampire prompted after moments of stillness.

“Just thinking.”

The rest of the journey was made in silence, Buffy leading the way. If Buffy had wanted to discuss what she was thinking, Spike reasoned, she would have elaborated on it rather than simply stating that she was thinking. For once, the normally verbose vampire was content to be quiet. When the blonde pair finally halted, Spike gave a saddened smile; they were at Joyce’s grave.

Buffy folded her slim legs under her and sat beside the grave, glancing at Spike expectantly. After he sat across from her, she said, “Mom always liked you. She said that you were the only one who understood her fascination with Timmy. God knows I never did.”

“She was a right good woman, your mum,” he said honestly. “I always liked her. I mean, not many people, much less women, would think o’ chargin’ a Big Bad with a fire ax. ‘Get the Hell away from my daughter!’ She had moxie.”

“She was always so strong… stronger than me.”

“Here, now. No one’s stronger than you, luv.”

“Glory was,” she whispered, dropping her gaze to the grass covering her mother’s grave. It was no longer splotchy and yellowed; it was now a vibrant green and seemed thicker than the lawn covering the other plots, as though her mother’s nurturing spirit had lingered in the ground and urged the grass to grow.

Leaning over to brush a lock of hair behind her ear, Spike remorsefully agreed, “She was stronger, but you were smarter. There’re different kinds of strong, pet. Your mum was all kinds of strong, and she never could’ve done a tenth of what you do physically.”

“I think she is… where I was. Don’t you?”

“Buffy, if anyone on this soddin’ planet deserved peace, it was your mum. You bloody well know she’s in Heaven. ‘S the only place a Summers woman can go,” he said firmly.

The vampire’s tone was so sincere and forceful that Buffy had no choice but to believe him. If she, whose calling was slaying, had been accepted into Heaven, then her mother, who had been the picture of kindness, certainly was at peace. It was as she had suspected, but somehow, hearing Spike’s confirmation made it all the more real. “Yeah,” she said finally. “Mom’s happy.”

A sudden inspiration came to the vampire, and he smiled – it was more of an elated beam than a simple smile, as he made his request. “Do somethin’ for me, Buffy. Close your eyes.”

“What?” the slayer demanded, nonplussed by the order.

“Won’t touch you, pet, I promise. Just close them.”

Eyeing Spike warily for long moments, she finally relented and closed her eyes. She wondered what the vampire had planned for her; he had said he wouldn’t touch her. If she admitted it to herself, his promise not to touch her was disappointing.

“Right, then,” he began. How could he find a way to say what needed to be said without sounding like a truly magnificent ponce? “Remember the last time you were happy, pet? Really happy?”

Buffy frowned. Already, she didn’t like the way this was going, but then, there wasn’t much she did like these days. “I remember,” she said finally.

“You don’t have to tell me about it, but remember how you felt. Just… picture it. Where you were, what you were doing, what it was that made you so happy. Right?”

“Got it.”

“When you start to think about what you’ve lost, remember that feelin’ and hold onto it, because that’s how… that’s how we all felt when we saw you again. It was the happiest moment of my unlife, Buffy, an’ I know it was the happiest moment of the Bit’s. W-she got you back.”

Buffy’s eyes opened slowly, a little greener than they had been moments ago; there was a spark of life that had been missing until then. “T-thank you, Spike,” she stammered. She remembered how happy she had been when she had believed her mother would be fine, that they would somehow defeat Glory, and it made a little more sense to her. “The others… they don’t understand how I can’t be happy… because they are. You understand and… you can explain… How?”

“I’ve lived for soddin’ ever, Buffy,” the vampire replied. “An’ I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I gotta know how to simplify things for myself, and then when the smart people need an answer, I have one.”

“Keep it up with the self-flagellation and you’ll turn out like Angel,” the slayer taunted. For some reason, it bothered her that Spike had called himself stupid, but she couldn’t say it so openly.

“Oy! You take that back! I am nothin’ like that ponce. We have very different coloring.” In an attempt to get her to smile again, Spike pretended to preen.

A brow arching in surprise, Buffy giggled; it was a sound she had not heard in so long that it startled her. She had actually laughed a genuine laugh.

“I’m just sayin’, luv, I’m not known for bein’ a thinker. I follow my blood, which does not always flow in the direction of my brain.” This earned him another small laugh from Buffy.

“Spike?”

“Yeah, pet?”

“Thanks.”