Third Time's the Charm

Chapter Seven: The Immense Weeping

Buffy was exhausted. She turned to her side and stared out the darkened window. The Sara Bareilles song played on the CD player and Buffy couldn’t help but feel dragged down into the haunting melody and lyrics.

“You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your rain.”

She curled up into a ball and pressed her hands into her eyes. They were dry and scratchy and Buffy wished in that moment that she could cry. She hadn’t shed a tear since she’d gotten word that Spike and Angel had died in that last fight in L.A. She’d cried so much that year, every night. And then, after that call from Giles, she’d just stopped. She’d kept the tears all inside, until they had frozen, filling her with ice. Oh yeah, she knew what it was like to want to drown in someone’s love. She knew what it was like to want something she couldn’t, shouldn’t want nor have.

It was the goddamn story of her life!

The door downstairs slammed shut and she flinched. Apparently the slayers and the rest of the household were home. If the sounds of the parade of footsteps in the hallway were any indication, they had all gone out together to party and returned together.

But their silence told a different story. Buffy remembered the days when she and Willow and Xander used to go out and party together. They had never been silent.

She sat up and tried to listen. She should have been able to hear their breathing, hear their pulse. With her slayer power, she should have been able to close her eyes, breathe in, and sense each one of them. She couldn’t. Her powers were as dull as dishwater.

Useless.

A set a footsteps on the stairs. Light, but firm and filled with purpose. It wasn’t Dawn. Dawn pounded up the stairs. It wasn’t Willow. She always sounded like she was hesitating on each step.

No…these steps were…different.

Before she could pull her thoughts together, the bedroom door crashed open and slammed into the wall, embedding the doorknob into the plaster.

Buffy screamed and then froze as she took in the vision standing in her doorway.

“Slayer, I’ve had enough of this sniveling drivel. Get up and fight me goddamn it!”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her heart pounding. God, he looked good. As good as he ever had. Lean and wiry in that long leather coat, his angled face chiseled like the most beautiful marble statue; that platinum hair that screamed to be mussed up; and those eyes. It had always been the eyes that had gotten to her. His eyes were a direct conduit to his heart. And whenever she’d looked into them she’d drowned in his anger, his pain, his torture, his fire and his love.

Buffy took one look at him, at the first man she’d ever loved as a woman, the first man she’d ever loved with her entire body, heart and soul. At the man she’d loved and the man she’d sacrificed for the world.

She took one look at him. And burst into tears.

Spike froze, staring at her in astonishment.

“Buffy?” he asked, softly this time. Gently.

No answer. Just an endless torrent of tears. They poured down her face, spilling over the hands that she pressed into her eyes. They dripped down her arms and onto her knees like a deluge. Spike had never seen anyone cry like this. It was a mad, deranged weeping that brought to mind that poem of Lorca he’d stumbled across a few years ago.

“But the weeping is an immense angel.
The weeping is an immense dog.
The weeping is an immense violin.
Tears strangle the wind.
Nothing is heard but the weeping.”

When Spike had read the poem, he’d thought of Drusilla’s mad weeping. It had seemed to come from somewhere so deep inside her, he’d once thought that it had been the tears of all the people she’d killed over the years. At one point, in his darkest moments, fighting for his soul, he’d thought that perhaps some of those tears Drusilla wept had been his, for his innocent, foolish self.

But now, listening to the slayer weep, he felt he finally understood the true meaning behind those words. It was in the immensity of the act; in the complete and utter abandonment. Drusilla’s weeping had been a construct, a side effect of her madness. What he heard here was an all consuming, strangling grief.

Over the weeping, he heard Dawn gasp. He didn’t look back, but moved quickly. He tugged the door out of the plaster wall and closed it softly behind him. He walked over toward the bed cautiously, as if approaching a cornered animal. He perched on the edge of the bed and with a shaking hand, he reached out and stroked her hair. He bowed his head and closed his eyes as her scent wafted over to him. She still, after all these years, used the same shampoo.

She flinched and a strange mewling sound escaped her.

“Buffy, love, come’ere,” he murmured softly. He pulled her unresisting body into his arms.

She went, curling up in his lap. Her arms slipped around his waist, her face burrowed into his chest. Spike ran his hand up and down his back, hardly believing that it was real, that she was in his arms. He’d never dared hope to be here. And even if he had, he would not have imagined she’d be in this state.

He leaned back and tilted her face to his. “Slayer, look at me pet,” he murmured.

She looked up, her green eyes drenched. But worse than the tears was the look in her eyes. He’d seen the slayer’s eyes saddened, when Joyce died. He’d seen her eyes empty, when she’d crawled her way out of the grave. And he’d seen her eyes filled with battle fury, anger, and disappointment. He’d even seen her eyes filled with shame, all those times she’d been with him, after she’d let him do the things he’d done to her, the things they’d done together.

But this, this was new.

Spike had never seen the Slayer’s eyes filled with bitterness and defeat.

“Don’t call me that,” she whispered, her voice flat.

He smiled and stroked her cheek. “Ahh...Pet....just to hear your voice.” Then he frowned. “And what do you mean? It is who you are, you’re Buffy the Vampire Slayer love.”

She tried to pull away from him, shaking her head, but he wouldn’t let her go. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m not the slayer anymore,” she said.

He glared. “Bollocks! Where did you get such nonsense?”

“It’s true,” she whispered. “It’s the truth.”

He shook his head and pulled her close. “No, it’s not,” he whispered. And Spike wondered just how he was going to piece his slayer’s heart and soul back together.

He leaned up against the headboard, pulling her close, tucking her to his chest, her head beneath his chin. He stretched out his legs, shaking the kinks out of them, and he looked around the room. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Her room in Sunnydale had been filled with childhood and teenage mementoes. Her big brass bed had been covered with that old quilt and the dresser cluttered with pictures of her and her friends. And how could he forget the closet spilling over with clothes and the trunk of weapons.

While Spike knew that nothing had survived the destruction of Sunnydale, he’d expected there to be at least something in this room that reminded him of the young and powerful girl she’d been. But apparently, Buffy had left her girlish ways behind in the hellmouth.

This was a woman’s room. The walls painted a dark red, the bedding and curtains all a rich cinnamon and gold. There were candles and tapestries and the entire room felt like a luxurious hotel or a Middle Eastern palace. It looked and felt, Spike thought to himself, as if he himself had decorated it. It had the luxurious fabrics and the lush textures that he enjoyed.

“Quite the room you’ve got here princess,” he murmured. His eyes caught an ornate iron cross and he raised his eyebrows in amusement. She’d barricaded herself in here, like a princess in a tower. “Do you have some garlic and holy water hidden somewhere?”

She shook her head.

“Since when do you go for the gothic decor?” He looked around, taking in a gorgeous iron candelabrum on the fireplace mantel. “Never pictured you as a Goth girl. That was more my style.”

Her sobs had settled into body shaking trembles and even then, those faded away, till Buffy was still in his arms, the only disruption, her breathing. Finally, she pulled away and looked up at him in amazement. She reached up with trembling fingers and ran a finger down his cheek.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“Saving you,” he mumbled, disconcerted by her gentle touch. There had been so little gentleness and tenderness between them. In the end, yes, but the end had been so short. A matter of mere hours.

She shook her head. “I’m beyond saving,” she said. “What are you really here for?”
He shrugged. It was too soon to force her to face herself. “There’s a big bad coming and the PTB said that you were going to need my help.”

“There are slayers to deal with the big bad these days,” she murmured. “Slayers and witches and councils.” There was a bitterness to her tone that had Spike paying close attention to each word. He was starting to get a sense of where her bitterness was coming from.

And Spike was fairly familiar with that sense of futility.

“I’m not sure what the big bad is sweetheart,” he said. “All I know is that I was sent here by the PTB.”

She pressed a hand into his chest. “They saved you again. Only you’re not a ghost this time.”

He shrugged. “Not a ghost, but I’m still sort of feeling all Dickens and Christmas carol-like. Not the ghost of Christmas past this time, but future.”

She looked away. “Will said you’ve been in an alternate dimension for the last 10 years.”

Another shrug. “Not sure exactly how it worked. One moment I was fighting the big bad in L.A.. Got staked. Woke up in a PTB tribunal and then I again in a cemetery in Buffalo.”

Years ago she would have seen right through the thin veil of his story. At the height of her powers, she would have known he was hiding things, she would have pressed and dug, she would have seduced him and if that failed (which it seldom did) she’d have beat him to get the information out of him.

It was a testament to how far she’d fallen that she simply took his story at face value.

“Ten years,” she whispered.

“A long time,” he said.

She looked away from him. “A lot has happened in 10 years.”

“Fill me in,” he urged. Then he took the plunge, might as well get the fight started, he thought to himself. “How many of those 10 years did you shag that git the Immortal?”

She stiffened and he was gladdened by it. Any sign of anger, of defensiveness, was better than this resigned bitterness and shame.

“That’s none of your business,” she said coldly.

He cocked an eyebrow and stared down at her. “And how do you figure?”

“You were dead,” she muttered.

He nodded. “Died saving your world, I did. Hero and all that. And not even 4 months later you’re shagging that idiot, arrogant Immortal.”

“You were dead,” she repeated.

“We Victorians had it right, a year of mourning at least!” he pointed out.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said.

“Ridiculous? More like respectful.”

Silence.

“Is that all you’re going to say about that?” he asked incredulously. He stared down at her hard, wanting to push her to anger, to feeling something. “Was the shagging that good then?”

He didn’t think she could stiffen anymore, but she did. She pulled back and tried to climb out of his lap, but he wouldn’t let her. He didn’t want to lose the physical connection he had with her. It had been so long.

“No, ye’re not going anywhere pet,” he murmured, pulling her back towards him. “Not until you explain. You owe me that.”

“I owe you nothing,” she whispered. “After what you did, I don’t owe you any explanations.”

He leaned back and stared down at her in amazement. “What I did? What I did?” He shook his head. “What did I do?” Suddenly, he remembered and every bone in his body stiffened.

She pulled away from him and he let her go this time. Obviously, she had a very long memory. She’d had 10 years for that horrific night to have faded from her memory. He hadn’t had the luxury of a decade. Mind you, a century could have gone by and he would never forget nor forgive himself his complete lapse of control and judgment that evening. Apparently she hadn’t either.

“I’ve apologized for that night,” he said softly, head bowed. He looked up at her, his face filled with bewildered helplessness. He lifted his hands in a gesture of futility. “I went to hell itself and fought for my soul to be a better man for you, to make up for what I did. I burned saving the world for you. I don’t know what else I can do to get you to forgive me for what I did.”

She’d stood with her back to him, and at his soft pleading, she turned around. She shook her head, looking confused. “What night are you talking about?”

It was Spike’s turn to be confused. Surely...surely she hadn’t forgotten. “That night, in the bathroom. When I – when I – tried to force you to – when I raped –“

She stepped over to the bed and leaning over, pressed her fingers against his mouth, stopping the words.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t mention that night, ever again. It’s in the past and you redeemed yourself a hundred times over. Please, don’t ever mention that night again.”

He closed his eyes, feeling her forgiveness in the press of her fingers against his mouth. Spike felt a tightness at the back of his throat and his eyes burned.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

She stepped away and walked to the vanity table that was cluttered with all those fripperies that women crowded their lives and their bodies with. Perfumes, lotions, brushes, paints and pencils; all things women hid behind, he figured. So it surprised him that she turned to those. Buffy had never been a girl for those sorts of things. Oh, like any young woman she’d enjoyed a nice pair of shoes and a well cut pair of jeans, but they hadn’t been a priority, not after she’d become the slayer. Not that she’d ever looked the worse for it. If anything, Spike had always loved her natural, girl next door prettiness that seemed to be free of artifice.

He looked closely as she picked up the bottles and containers. There were dust rings left behind. She even trailed a finger through it and he wondered what she was thinking.

“If it’s not that,” he said. “Then what is it? What did I do?”

When she didn’t respond, he shook his head in frustration. “Talk to me,” he urged.

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she shrugged and looked into the mirror. She flinched at what she saw and again Spike wondered what was going through her mind. There had been a time when he’d been so much more in-tune with her. Now, it was like looking through a fog, everything was blunted and blurred.

“Come on pet, it’s been 10 years and it’s obvious that something’s been on your mind these long years. I’m here, you have your chance. Tell me.”

She picked up a brush and sat, absently pulling it through her hair. Spike would have been reminded of a fine Victorian lady doing her toilette if Buffy’s posture hadn’t been so slumped, her gaze in the mirror so blank.

“I would like you to leave,” she whispered.

He shook his head and didn’t budge an inch from the bed. “Not a chance, so you can put that bloody idea out of your sodden mind. It’s not happening.”

She stood. “Then I’ll leave.”

He eyed her closely. “Then go ahead love,” he said softly. “Go ahead and leave. You’ll have to leave the house because I’ll follow you from room to room.”

She froze, her back to him, bowed and broken. It would have killed him if he hadn’t already been dead.

“And don’t think you’ll get any help from the ones on the other side of that door,” he continued. “Your pity party is over and all your little guests have left.”

She turned around slowly and faced him. Her face drenched with fresh tears, her green eyes flat. “Why are you doing this to me?”

He scooted to the end of the bed and sat, his arms dangling between his knees. “Love, I’m doing this because no one else has the balls to do it. I’m doing this because you need me to. I’m doing this because I need to.”

“Then what is this!” she cried out.

He shook his head. “I’m not sure exactly what this is. I’d compare it to when those bleeding Scoobies dragged you out of that grave, but this, this is a hundred times worse.” He stood up and walked over to her and rubbed her arms. “You have to talk to me. I’ll help you through this.”

She looked up at him, searching his face. And Spike did what he’d wanted to do since the moment he’d arrived in that room. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the corner of her eyes, picking up the salty tears. The tip of his tongue delicately lapped at the trail of tears that spilled over her cheek. Finally, he covered her lips with his own in a soft, sweet kiss. He coaxed her lips open and felt relief when she opened her mouth beneath his and sagged into his arms. Then, slowly, her capitulation turned into a draw. She began kissing him back. Her arms snaked around his back and she pressed closer. Spike deepened the kiss and tightened his embrace. He murmured her name and breathed in deeply of her scent, of her breath and her essence. God, he’d missed this.

He’d missed this more than human blood. Nothing had ever tasted or felt as good as his slayer in his arms.

He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers. He breathed heavily, his breath washing warmly over her face.

“It always amazed me that you still breathe like that,” she said softly.

He chuckled and nuzzled that tender spot below her ear. She smelled like soap there. Soap and skin.

“It’s automatic. I start fighting for breath, a part of me terrified that if I don’t get any into my lungs, I’ll disappear.” He pressed his lips to the tip of her nose, to her eyes, to her lips. “It starts off as an excuse to inhale your smell. To fill my lungs and my senses with it. And then it’s like that smell triggers something and I can’t get enough, I just keep dragging and dragging those breaths in.”

“I like it,” she said. “I always did.”

His heart sank a bit. “Because you could pretend I was alive?”

She shook her head. “No, because I could pretend that I was giving you life.”

He paused. If Spike had had a heart, it would have pounded. “You were,” he murmured. And now, he thought, but did not say it out loud, now it’s my turn.

She pulled away. “Were,” she said. She shook her head. “Not, ‘are’.”

Spike waved her protest away. “Were, are, will always be. Don’t be stupid.” He reached for her hand, but she stepped away.

“No, you’re right. I’m not the girl I was.”

`He stared at her. “No, you’re not a girl anymore. You’re a woman. And about the same age as me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Spike, I know I look old, but I don’t look like I’m over a hundred and twenty five years old.”

He chuckled, heartened that she could make a small joke. “Not that age, the age I was when I was sired.”

“Oh,” she said, thinking of that. Then she shook her head. “But that’s not what I mean. You, you fell in love with the slayer and –“ she gestured to the room, to the house, to everything. “And I’m not the slayer anymore.”

“Are you trying to say that you no longer have inhuman strength?” he asked.

She paused. “No, I still have it.”

“And you can’t outrun a vamp or stake him in the heart?”

“No, I can still do that.”

“And you’ve been drained of all that slayer blood in you? All that blood of the first slayer is all gone is it?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then what, exactly, makes you think that you’re no longer the slayer?”

He leaned back and stared at her hard. She looked back and he dared her to look away. He saw how much she wanted to, how much she wanted to break away from that stare, but she didn’t and he was heartened by that fact. There was still a bit of a fighter in her. He waited. And when she didn’t respond, he did it for her.

“Because you think the world doesn’t need the slayer anymore,” he stated.

She closed her eyes, breaking the stare, but not looking away.

He pulled her close, tucking her tight into his embrace, his chin pressed against her hair. He kissed her soft tresses. “Luv, I know what that feels like. The chip remember?”

How could either of them forget the chip? The Initiative had planted a chip in Spike’s brain that sent searing stabs of pain through his brain and body every time he tried to hurt a human. It had rendered him useless and expelled him from his vampire and demon world. After the Initiative, Spike had belonged neither in the human world, nor in the demon world. He’d been a hybrid without a home.

“I know what it feels like to not belong, to have your purpose pulled out from under your feet.”

“How did you do it?” she asked. She remembered how they’d treated him. They had imprisoned him, first at Giles’ and then at Xanders’. Until they had realized that it was true and he was no longer a danger to humans, they had treated him like an animal. Afterwards, most of them hadn’t treated him any better. Spike had always been treated by the Scoobies as if he’d been the circus freak.

“I recreated myself,” he said. “I took everything I was good at – fighting and killing and shagging – and I simply found a new way to do it. I couldn’t fight you guys, so I fought with you. I couldn’t kill and feed off of humans, so I killed demons. And as for shagging. Well – I did something even better – I had the good sense to finally see you for the woman that you were and I loved you.”

“We treated you badly. We were horrible to you,” she murmured.

He shrugged. “I went from being an evil, killing beast to a dog on a leash. I wouldn’t have trusted me either.” He tried to grin and failed. “The worse was making me wear Harris’ clothes and sleep in that hovel he called a basement.”

“You always do that,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Make a joke about something serious.”

His eyebrows shot up and he pointed to himself. “Me? Make jokes? Come on pet, you know I’m not funny.”

She smiled.

He smiled back.

“Come’er luv,” he said, pulling her back into his arms. “That’s enough for tonight. London wasn’t built in a day. Tomorrow will be soon enough to redefine your existence in time to face off the new big bad.”

Buffy bowed her head and pressed against him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She breathed in deeply, hardly believing that he was there, that she was wrapped in his arms.

“This isn’t a dream is it?” she choked out, fighting back the tears. “Tell me this isn’t a dream.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It isn’t a dream pet, I’m here.”

“I’m so tired, this all feels unreal.” She inhaled deeply, drowning in the memory of his scent. Leather and cigarettes. Only now there was a new scent underlying it all. Something spicy. Like a heavy, spicy cologne. Roses and orange blossoms. “You smell different.”

“How?”

She sniffed deeply. “There’s the leather and cigarettes. But underneath that, it’s faint, but there, roses and oranges.”

He stiffened. “A leftover from the Powers that Be.” He remembered that gorgeous, haunting smell. “Not very manlike, mind.”

She cuddled closer. “I think it smells beautiful. Like heaven.”

And his slayer knew what heaven smelled like, having been there and all. Spike smiled and pulled her over to the bed. “Let’s get some rest. All our problems will still be here in the morning.”

“Smelling of roses,” she murmured sleepily as she crawled across the sheets.

Spike piled in after her, pulling her into his arms, and the blankets up to their chins. She settled down and within moments, she was asleep. Spike settled in for a night of watching his beloved sleep the sleep of the innocent.