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By: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG-15

Disclaimer: The standard "I don't own; please don't sue."

Archive: Anywhere that already has my stuff; anywhere else just ask.

Summary: What if that house-demolishing in Smashed was a metaphor with a different meaning than the writers gave it? What if that night marked a release of a different sort? Goes seriously AU immediately after Smashed, and makes reference to my short story, "The Promise I'm Keeping," written for summer_of_spike.

Chapter 12: Silence Is Golden

"If I am silent then I am not real/But if I speak up then no one will hear/If I wear a mask there's somewhere to hide...Did you hear me speak/Do you understand/Did you hear my voice/Will you hold my hand/Do you understand me/Won't someone listen/Nobody gets in/My body's a temple/But nothing is simple/Silence is golden/I have been broken/ Something was stolen/Safe in my own skin." ~Garbage, "Silence Is Golden"

"Buffy!" She was just about to lock the front door when she heard Xander calling her name. "Where are you headed?"

"I was just going to patrol," she replied. "What's up?"

Xander hesitated. "I just thought I'd see how my favorite Summers women were. Is Dawn around?"

"She's coming back later, after she's done studying with Janice." Buffy frowned. "What's up, Xander? Is there something wrong?"

Xander shook his head, giving a short laugh. "No, everything's fine. Why would anything be wrong?"

"Maybe because the Magic Box is closing in about fifteen minutes, and you and Anya have been joined at the hip for the last month?" she suggested.

Xander shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, appearances can be deceiving."

"What happened, Xan?" Buffy asked. "I thought things were going really well with you guys."

"They were," he said quickly. "They are. It's just that vacation we had—it was pretty bad."

Buffy winced. Xander had told her about what happened, but she hadn't been inclined to give him much sympathy at the time, and their fight had cut the conversation short. She still wasn't feeling sorry for him, but at least the tension between them had eased up a bit.

"Why are you marrying her, Xander?" Buffy asked quietly.

He looked hurt. "I know you guys haven't ever really understood why I'm with Anya, but—"

"This isn't about Anya," she said impatiently. "This is about you. Why are you marrying her? Is it because you love her enough to spend the rest of your life with her, or is it because proposing seemed like the thing to do at the time?"

Xander looked like he'd been hit. "Buffy—"

"I'm not asking to be mean, Xander, but this is a lifetime commitment. Sure, maybe it doesn't work out, but if you don't know that you want to spend the rest of your life with her, call the whole thing off now." Her eyes were intense. "If you call it off now, Anya will be hurt, but you might be able to salvage your relationship. If you wait..."

Buffy left the end of the sentence hanging, but she knew Xander understood what she meant. "I don't know, Buffy. I love her, and the plans..."

"It's not too late to call things off, but you need to be sure about this, Xan. If you're not, you're both going to be hurt worse down the road." Buffy gave him an encouraging smile. She found the expression easier to come by these days.

Buffy figured that was progress. It had become easier when she pulled off the mask.

"I have to get going," she said. "I'm meeting Spike for patrol."

Xander managed not to make any kind of comment. Instead he just nodded, backing off the porch. "Be careful."

"Sure thing," she replied, then set off to find Spike.

~~~~~

When Spike awoke, he had a raging headache. He thought it might be from the chip, since he vaguely remembered trying to toss Willow out of his apartment, thinking that escape would be his best option. He'd known he didn't stand much chance against her—both because of her magical power and because she was human—but he'd given it a shot.

He could feel a bruise rising along one side of his face, and he swiped at the blood from his lip. Spike's internal clock was telling him that he was late meeting Buffy for patrol, and if he didn't want her angry with him, he needed to get a move on.

It took him longer to reach his crypt than it would have if he hadn't been so stiff. Buffy was standing outside, waiting for him, impatience in every line of her body. "Hey, luv, sorry I'm late."

"Try not to keep me waiting next time, okay, Spike?" she asked.

Spike was disconcerted by her tone of voice. She hadn't spoken to him in that manner for months now, and while he was late, it wasn't by more than ten minutes or so. "I ran into some trouble. Willow—"

"Let's go."

She cut him off, turning on her heel and stalking off into the cemetery. Spike stood stock-still for a long moment, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Realizing that he was allowing her to get quite a head start on him, he jogged to catch up. "Is something wrong?" he asked, grabbing her arm to slow her down.

Buffy yanked her arm away. "Is that all you ever think about, Spike? Getting into my pants?"

"That's not what this is about!" Spike shot back, hurt, especially since it was one occasion where he hadn't been thinking about sex. "What the bloody hell is your problem?"

"You! You're my problem, Spike! If you would just go away, my world would be a much better place."

He backed off a step. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do. It's been fun, you scratched an itch, and now we're done. If you didn't see that, then that's your problem."

Spike backed up another couple of steps. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Everything had been going so well. Buffy had seemed to be coming around. What the hell had changed in 24 hours? "Buffy—"

"Get out of my sight, Spike."

Hurt, reeling, enraged—Spike snarled back, "Fine, Slayer. Don't come crying to me the next time you need a fix." He stalked off, wanting nothing more than to find something to kill.

And maybe a bottle of something to numb the pain.

Spike went hunting first, carefully avoiding the areas that the Slayer usually hit. He didn't understand what he'd done wrong. Had one of her friends gotten to her? Or maybe it had been this way all along? Maybe the Buffy who had told him that he made her happy was a lie. Except that didn't make any sense. Why would she lie to him about something like that? They'd always been honest with each other—at least when it came to how much they hated each other.

Spike probably wasn't paying quite as much attention to his surroundings as he should have been. He was turning his conversation with Buffy over and over in his mind, trying to figure out what exactly he'd done.

"Just the vampire we were looking for." The voice came from right in front of him, and Spike's head shot up, his stomach dropping as he realized that he was surrounded. He cursed himself silently for not paying attention. "You are going to make us very rich."

Spike glanced around the group. They were all demons of indiscriminate parentage. He recognized a few from Willy's, but he knew none by name. There was no reason for them to come after him for cheating at poker or any other game of chance. "And how am I going to do that?" he asked, playing along.

"Haven't you heard?" one of the other demons growled. "There's a price on your head. Of course, we don't need much incentive to kill a traitor."

Spike reached for a stake. It was the only weapon he had on him, since he'd planned on picking up another at his crypt. His weapons collection was one of the few things he hadn't moved yet. "Don't think it's going to be easy," he replied with a feral smile.

"Who said we were looking for easy?" a third asked. "We're looking for fun."

He disappeared beneath the pile of bodies that suddenly rushed him. And Spike had thought his evening couldn't get worse.

~~~~~

Buffy watched Spike go, trying to figure out what just happened. His face was bruised, and his lip was split, so she asked him what was wrong. He hadn't answered. Thinking he was in one of his moods, the Slayer had thought to start patrol, figuring that Spike would open up eventually. Instead, he'd grabbed her arm hard enough to bruise, and when she shook him off and asked him what was wrong—again—he'd stalked off into the night.

All of it without speaking a word.

Buffy was too irritated with him to really give much thought to Spike's silence at first. She figured it was just Spike being Spike. He could be as touchy as she was sometimes. Once he got it out of his system he'd come around again.

It was Spike, after all. That's the way he was.

Except that he didn't show up the next night, or the night after that. On the third day, Buffy's worry finally got the best of her pride, and she went looking for him at his crypt. There was no sign of the vampire, but she found indications of a struggle that worried her. Most of his things were gone, and she wasn't sure if that meant he'd left town, or if he'd had to leave suddenly.

Buffy stood outside his crypt, the crisp January breeze playing with her hair. What was she supposed to do now?

After a moment's thought, Buffy decided that the only person who might understand would be Tara. Even though she knew that Willow and Xander could be helpful, they hadn't been very supportive about her relationship with Spike. She was afraid that they would start going on about how unreliable Spike was, and no wonder she couldn't find him.

Buffy couldn't bear to hear it.

"Hey, Tara," she said, when the other girl opened her apartment door. "I'm sorry to come over without calling, but I can't find Spike."

Tara frowned. "You can't find him? How long has it been since you saw him?"

"Three nights ago," Buffy quickly replied. "We met for patrol, but he was silent, and really moody. I thought maybe he'd gotten into a fight, because he was looking a little beat up, but when I asked him about it, he just took off. I thought he'd be back once he got it out of his system, but he hasn't shown up, and he's not at his crypt. In fact, his crypt is completely trashed and most of his things are gone. I didn't know what to do, so I thought I'd come see you, but—"

"Buffy, slow down," Tara advised, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Did you check his new place?"

"What new place?" Buffy asked.

"His new apartment," she replied. "He didn't tell you?"

Buffy had to blink back sudden tears. "Spike moved, and he didn't tell me? Did he not want me to know?"

"No, Buffy!" Tara assured her. "He moved for you. I think he wanted it to be a surprise, so you'd have some place to go that wasn't your house and wasn't a cemetery. Plus, I think he believed you'd feel better about Dawn visiting him there."

Buffy shook her head. "Then where is he, Tara? Surely he'd let me know if he was in some kind of trouble, right? I mean..." She rolled her eyes. "Oh, who am I kidding? He'd probably want to figure it out on his own, and is neck deep in trouble. Maybe if we go check the new place. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Tara replied. "I'm a little worried now, too."

~~~~~

Spike was neck deep, all right, but it was mostly in sewage. He'd managed to escape from the demon horde by the skin of his teeth, barricading himself in his old crypt and then escaping into the tunnels below. Although the subterranean parts of Sunnydale were well traveled, Spike was pretty sure that no one knew the tunnels as well as he did, and he'd used that to his advantage.

If he'd been able to make it to his new digs without being spotted, Spike could have hidden out there quite nicely. Every time he came up above ground, however, someone spotted him, and he had to turn tail and run. He couldn't get to the Slayer to tell her what was going on, and his cell phone had been broken during one of the fights.

In essence, he was completely buggered.

Spike felt like a rat in a maze. He couldn't emerge from his hiding spot in the sewers without risking a fight and a dusting, he couldn't call Buffy, and he didn't even know if she cared enough to come looking for him. It had been days since he'd had anything to eat, and he was starving.

He hadn't been in this much trouble since Prague, and in a way, this was worse. Spike couldn't pass for human, not when he was flammable, and so there were no crowds he could disappear into. If he could get to Buffy, if she cared enough to help him, Spike knew he stood a chance, but those were both big ifs.

He was hungry, tired, and filthy, and it didn't look like his unlife was going to get better anytime soon. The only other option was to make a dash for it, try to steal a car or other means of transportation, and get out of town.

But that would mean leaving the Slayer, and that wasn't something Spike was quite prepared to do.

~~~~~

Willow had waited for three days. She had expected Buffy to come to her as soon as the Slayer realized her pet vampire was missing. Willow had practiced her concerned-friend speech in her head a dozen times. She would commiserate, and offer to find Spike with a locator spell, which would then fail. Willow would have to tell Buffy that Spike was either dead or had left town, and then she would comfort her.

It was supposed to have been the perfect plan.

Even if Spike remembered what she'd cursed him with, there was no way he could tell Buffy. Buffy wouldn't hear anything that came out of his mouth, and Spike would only hear what he most feared to hear. It was a perfect curse, and Willow was certain that no one would ever find out.

As an extra measure of protection, she'd asked around and found a way to put a contract out on Spike. It had been easy to create the illusion that she had lots of money. The cash would even stand up to close scrutiny, at least until they tried to spend it. Willow wasn't too worried about that, however, because they were just demons. They couldn't go to the cops and turn her in for counterfeiting, just like there was no way she could get into trouble for taking out a contract on Spike.

Willow really didn't care whether the demons succeeded in killing him because if Spike wanted to live, he'd leave town.

And Buffy would come back to her friends, where she belonged. Willow only had the Slayer's best interests in mind. Getting involved with another vampire was a very bad idea.

~~~~~

Buffy didn't have to break into Spike's apartment. Tara had a spare key that Spike had given her, just in case he'd lost his. "I'm sure it was just until he told you about moving," Tara said when she caught a glimpse of Buffy's expression. "He really did this for you, Buffy."

As soon as she walked inside, she could tell that he had. It wasn't that the place was all that nice. The furniture was all second-hand and threadbare, maybe a little ratty. Spike had moved his bed, though, and it sat on top of the rugs he'd put down in the lower level of his crypt. He'd sworn that they weren't stolen, but that he'd gotten them cheap from a demon who had received the wrong shipment.

There were a few posters on the wall, and when Buffy peeked inside the fridge, there was beer and blood as well as bottled water and juice. What she didn't understand was why Spike had disappeared so suddenly when he'd obviously had plans to stick around.

"Buffy!" Tara called urgently, bending over to look at something on the floor.

Buffy hurried over to her friend's side, peering down to see what she was looking at. "What's that?" She dipped her fingers into the powder on the floor, rubbing it against her thumb to get a sense of the texture.

"It's salt, the sort we use for binding circles."

Buffy frowned. "Spike doesn't like magic."

"I know."

They looked at each other. "What are you thinking?" Buffy asked, a note of dread in her voice.

"I don't know, Buffy," Tara replied. "If Spike didn't put this here, then someone else did." She frowned, thinking hard. "You said it's been three days since you saw him?" When Buffy nodded, Tara went into the small kitchen, glancing into the sink. The mugs she and Spike had used were still there. "I think the last time Spike was here was when I was. It was still afternoon when I left."

"He was late meeting me, and his face was bruised," Buffy said, a light beginning to dawn. "You think someone came here, after you left, and attacked him. Do you think that's why he was acting so strangely?"

"I don't know, but it's probably the best theory we have." She shook her head. "Why don't you stay here? I'll go back to my place and get what I need for a locator spell. Maybe if we find Spike, we can figure out what's going on."

Buffy cast a doubtful look at the fading light coming through the small window, set high on one wall. "Are you sure you want me to stay? It's going to be dark soon."

"I'll be fine," Tara said. "I'm pretty good at taking care of myself these days."

Buffy let her go, glancing around the apartment. Spike hadn't been there long enough for the place to smell like him yet, and Buffy found herself missing his scent. Missing him. She wanted him so badly right then, with a longing that took her breath away.

She loved him.

The thought hit her out of the blue, the kind of epiphany that can stagger a person with its force. The sort of thing that turns your world upside down in the space of a moment.

Buffy didn't kid herself. She didn't love him like Spike loved her. The possibility was there, and she cared for him deeply enough that the thought of losing him scared her nearly to death. Buffy somehow thought that Spike's love was a different sort.

But she was getting there. He might end up teaching her how to love like that—so fiercely that you could accept everything about the other person, even their faults, and love them anyway. Drusilla had said that vampires didn't love wisely, but that they loved well.

Maybe that should be Buffy's motto from here on out. Even if Spike wasn't the wisest choice of boyfriends, she could love him well. She could embrace his darkness and tug him back into their own kind of twilight. This apartment was proof that Spike could change. Well, Buffy could change, too. She'd show him.

But first she had to find him.

A clumsily wrapped package, sitting on a makeshift bookshelf caught her eye. Buffy walked over, picking it up and shaking the box, hearing the sound of metal hissing across cardboard. It was jewelry, and unless she was greatly mistaken, it was her birthday gift.

Buffy knew that she shouldn't open it, but her birthday was only a couple of days away, and there was no telling whether or not they'd find Spike by then. Besides, she was insanely curious.

Feeling a little guilty, and ruthlessly squashing the little voice that told her she shouldn't be doing this, Buffy pulled off the paper, smiling when she opened the box and pulled out the necklace. An oddly shaped pendant hung from a gold chain. She cupped her hand around the pendant, trying to make out the details, but it was worn with age.

Buffy wondered if perhaps this wasn't from the treasure Spike had fenced. Apparently he'd kept a piece for her, and she couldn't resist trying it on. The chain was long, so that the pendant hung between her breasts, and she tucked it into her shirt. When she found Spike, she could apologize for snooping, but until then she'd wear it to keep him close.