Summary: A/U after Pangs, set after season 6. Spike has disappeared for ten years, and when Angel finally finds him in LA..he's very different. He lacks fire.Will Buffy be able to help him? S/B

A/N-The Summary doesn't do it justice. Just read it, and you'll see. How can I summarize it when I barely know what it's about? It is AU after Pangs, all of the MAJOR events happen, but Buffy and Spike's relationship was drastically different.

Disclaimer: None of it's mine, blah blah blah.

Rated R For: profanity, violence, and implied sexual situations.
 

Prologue

He couldn't remember the sound of his own voice. This disturbed him, vaguely. He remembered Giles' upper-class accent, and Dawn's warm, honeyed voice, and the Slayer's icy yet sweet voice, like strawberry ice cream. But he couldn't remember his, and it never occurred to him to actually say something. He remembered he was from England. Which part? It hardly mattered anymore. Did he sound like he was from England? Did he have an accent like Giles?

He remembered their voices, and their laughter, but he couldn't remember their faces. Dawn had blonde hair, or was that Buffy? Maybe both, they were sisters after all. At least, he thought they were sisters, but he had a niggling suspicion that they weren't related at all. Was Giles their father? Did it matter anymore?

He knew there should be other people in his memories of the Hellmouth. Where was the Hellmouth? Sunny something. They danced on the peripheries of his memory, red hair and green eyes, and lame jokes and big hands. And who were they? Did they even exist?

Were they still alive? No...humans didn't live this long? Did they? He didn't know anymore, maybe they did now. Maybe they weren't humans at all. He remembered the way Buffy fought-well, he remembered he admired the way she fought. She was definitely human, warm, passionate, vanilla and chocolate and bursts of golden light. Therefore her friends must have been too.

Spike was tired..just tired. He still fought every night, like the Slayer, but he didn't remember why he fought. Most of the time he didn't even realize what he was doing. The other half he seemed to watch the punches, kicks, stakings, beheadings, and stabbings as if he were a detached observer, showing only a disdainful interest. But he fought and he didn't know why.

And some nights he cried and he didn't know why. Silent, broken sobs that left him drained and tired. He felt broken. And old. How old was he? The world hadn't changed so much, and it was difficult for him to mark the passing years without a reference point. There was no constant in his life except the killing. The killing, night after night, the killing. That never stopped. It was infinite, the killing, and he wondered sometimes, did he kill the Slayer? Did he kill her sweet sister? He just didn't know. He didn't think so, but one never could tell. He could barely remember them, much less what happened to them.

He could barely remember who he was. Spike, his name was Spike. And William. He had two names, and sometimes he didn't know which to answer to. But that was never really an issue because nobody every called for him.

No talking, no laughing, no singing, no love, no hate. He just existed, somewhere, alone. Alone.

On some of his more lucid days, he worried a great deal. He felt as though he should go back to the Hellmouth, if he could ever find it. He felt as though he was needed, that there was something or someone for him there. He just had to find his way again. At these times, he would panic and become frantic. But he didn't know what to do, and so eventually his determination to get back would whither and hibernate.. it never quite died. But he didn't know where he was, so how was he supposed to figure out where he was going.

Stake a vampire. Poof.

Oh. He was fighting. Ok, he looked around to see if he was fighting anybody else, but there were only piles of dust at his feet. Would he turn to dust when he died? Of course he would, that's what vampires do. But he felt human. It was the soul. Sometimes, in those lucid moments, Spike suspected that the confusion, the inability to do anything, to go home, was the soul's fault. It was hurting his head somehow.

That's why he didn't know his real name (Spike? William?) anymore. The soul was there, blanking everything else out, but how on Earth did a vampire get a soul? And why? He didn't know.

He knew one thing though, knew it for certain. This was torment. This existence and non-existence, being and not being. This was hell. Whatever he had done, he was sure he deserved it. But he didn't know how much longer he could last before he went for a walk into that enticing golden light, so much like the Slayer..He would probably go when he forgot her voice. If he forgot her, what possible reason could he have for existing?
 

TBC