One
Spike dropped a twenty in the cab drivers hand before he exited the taxi.
“Keep the change, mate.” He said and closed the car door.
Spike paused on the sidewalk for a moment, inhaling the not so fresh air of New York City. He was finally home. Or, at least almost home. He was just stopping in the Big Apple for a couple of days to meet up with an old ‘friend’ to sort out papers and such. Being alive after having spent over a century as a vampire was – apparently – hard work. Then he was off to California and Monterey, where SHE was supposed to be. Buffy.
At the thought of her Spike closed his eyes for a moment, the image of her running through his mind. It had been ten years since he had last seen her, not counting that time in Rome. He had decided to let her go then, but somehow it hadn’t worked out the way he planned, and now here he was. Before leaving Australia, he had contacted a private detective in Los Angeles who had found Buffy. He hadn’t asked for any other information, not wanting her to feel like he was keeping tabs on her.
A car horn snapped him out of his thoughts, and he decided it was time to get going. Looking around for a moment, he found the right street and started walking.
*****
Buffy walked through the living room to the large stereo and started flipping through CD’s. She had a couple of hours to herself, since Willow and Xander had left for New York the previous day and Giles had taken Andrew with him to the store.
One of the titles caught her eye and she put the disc in the player. The music starter floating through the air, and she closed her eyes letting it wash her away.
Ever since I was eight or nine
I've been standing on the shoreline
Always waiting
For something lasting
Loose your hunger, you loose your way
Get confused and you fade away
Buffy looked around the room, where photos and pictures of loved and lost ones filled the walls. There had been so many, too many. Her eyes wandered until she came to his portrait.
Oh this town
Kills you when you are young
Oh this town
Kills you when you are young
I'm not the boy I used to be
This town has got the youth of me
All eyes turn hollow
From the work of sorrow
Buffy had been smart enough to bring some photos of her family and friends from the house in Sunnydale when they left that last day. But there were so many that she hadn’t had a memory of, him being the first that came to mind.
Standing on the paving
By the office building
They've got so much to do
Never time for you
We are shadows
Oh we're shadows
Shadows in the alley
It was Vi who had surprised them all a few weeks after the battle, when she had showed them drawings of all the fallen. Xander had cried when he had seen Anya, her eyes as full of life as they had always been. Buffy hadn’t said anything, just accepted the portrait in silence. She knew Vi understood.
You die when you're young
You die when you're young
You die when you're young
She had been waiting too. For something lasting. The only problem being, she had been so focused on what that something was supposed to look like that she hadn’t seen it when it was right in front of her. Not until it was too late. Not until he was gone.
‘I love you.’
‘No you don’t. But thanks for saying it.’
*****
Spike looked through the papers he had gotten from his contact. William Anderson, born on November 8th 1980. He now had, not only a social security number and birth date, but a believable past. He had graduated from Columbia in 2002, where he had studied British literature and poetry. Which he had actually studied, before he had been turned. So it was technically just the dates and school that were off.
He tucked the papers into his inner pocket before he opened the door and walked back onto the sidewalk of New York. Now he just needed to get some money, which he had had transferred from a Swiss bank account to the National Bank of New York a few days earlier, and he was off. He started walking down the street, looking for a cab, but stopping when he saw a familiar face. Or, actually, two.
*****
“Everything OK back home?” Xander asked as Willow put the cell phone back in her purse.
“Yep. Nothing out of the ordinary.” She shot him a brief smile before turning her attention to the menu.
“Andy doing OK?” Willow looked up at the question and reached over the table to take Xander’s hand.
“He’s fine, sweetie, you know that. They will survive a week without us. Besides – we deserve it.”
“You’re right.” Xander smiled and squeezed her hand. “We’ve earned this.”
“Exactly.” Willow nodded before giving him her resolve face. “So let’s focus on us, and not talk about... Spike?”
“What, hon? I thought you just said...”
“Well, if it isn’t Red and the Whelp.” Xander looked up at the voice he had been sure he’d never hear again. “Can’t say I was expecting to see the two of you here of all places.” When neither of them said anything he continued. “And I’m guessing you didn’t exactly expect to see me either, what with the whole...”
“Dying?” Willow cut him off. “Burning to ashes in the whole that once was Sunnydale?”
“Well, that’s one way of putting it.” Spike admitted, noticing the bitter edge in the red-head’s voice. Had it always been there? He didn’t think so. He turned his attention to the Whelp, who still had his mouth open in shock.
“Oh, snap out of it.” Spike sighed, and Xander finally closed his mouth. “It’s not like I’m a ghost or anything.”
“Then what exactly are you?” Xander asked, having regained his ability to speak.
“Very much alive.” Spike answered, a content smile on his lips.
That was the first time Willow and Xander noticed the fact that it was broad day light and Spike hadn’t burst into flames yet.
“What... how... what...” Willow gave up on trying to form a understandable sentence and just stared. Xander was, surprisingly, the one to take charge.
“OK, we’re gonna need some sort of explanation, so why don’t you join us?” He pulled up a chair and Spike rounded the table to sit.
“I guess I should probably start from the beginning.” He said, and received two nods in return. “Well, a couple of days after the battle in Sunnydale I, for some reason, found myself in Angel’s office in LA...”
“You’ve been back that long?” Willow practically screamed, lowering her voice when she noticed the other people seated in the open-air restaurant were staring at them. “How could you not contact us? We’ve thought you were dead for ten years just because you couldn’t pick up a phone and...”
“Wil, honey, let him finish.” Xander said, putting a hand on Willow’s arm, effectively calming her down. Spike watched the display, noticing something off about the way the two were interacting, but couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Xander gave him a nod and he continued.
“So, this lawyer guy, Lindsey, sent the medallion I was wearing in Sunnydale, you remember that?” They both nodded. “He sent it to Angel, and I was somehow trapped inside, and popped out when Angel opened the envelope the medallion was in. Don’t ask me how it happened, ‘cause I have no idea.
I was incorporeal for a while, couldn’t touch anything or leave LA for that matter, so I was stuck annoying the great Poof for a couple of months. Then, when I regained my body, there were so many things going on in LA that I just couldn’t leave. There was this girl, who had been real nice to me...” At Xander’s expression he hurried to add. “It was nothing like that. She was just a friend, the only one that was decent to me in that place. Anyways, what happened was that her body was overtaken by a god, and I was trying to help the others stop it. But we... we couldn’t, and she died. Or, her spirit anyway. Her body was still there, only with someone else inside it.”
As he talked about the event from almost a decade earlier, Spike realized that it still hurt. He missed the others, all of them, even Peaches. He hadn’t let himself think about any of them for so long, it was almost overwhelming.
“Then there was this whole apocalypse, and I kinda made a promise to Angel before he... he made me promise that I’d let her have a normal life, so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past nine years. Only I wasn’t going to take the easy way out and just stay away. I went looking for a demon who was supposed to be able to restore humanity to vampires, a legend. I didn’t even know for sure if it existed, but I found it. It took almost ten years, but I found it. And now, here I am.”
Spike leaned back in the chair as he finished his story, and waited for the questions to start.
“Let me get this straight.” Xander said, leaning forward and trying to grasp the situation. “You came back as a ghost a couple of days after Sunnydale, haunted Angel in LA for a while, got your body back and actually HELPED Angel and his guys with an apocalypse, and after that you’ve been looking for your humanity all over the world?”
“That’d be the short version of it, yeah.” Spike nodded.
“You couldn’t call, send a letter, anything, to let her know you were OK?” Willow asked, not sounding angry anymore, but rather... tired, Spike thought.
“That was just the thing, I made a promise.” He saw the disbelieving looks on the couple’s faces. “I know you don’t think that means anything to me, but it does. Don’t think Buffy wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I came back, but time just went by, and then there was the apocalypse and I was the only one left, and I couldn’t just break a promise to a dead man, could I?”
“Angel’s... dead?” Willow asked, an expression of pain on her face. Spike nodded.
“You mean you didn’t know? Buffy doesn’t know either?” He asked, and both Willow and Xander shook their heads.
“Buffy and Angel didn’t have a lot of contact after the battle in Sunnydale, and when she didn’t hear from him, she thought he’d decided to stay away completely.” Xander explained.
“What about the others?” Willow asked quietly. “Wesley, Gunn, Fred, what happened to them?”
“Gone.” Spike replied. The look of pain that he’d noticed seemed constant on Willow’s face deepened a little at his words. “Fred was the one who’s body that God took, Wes was killed before the battle and both Angel and Gunn died fighting.”
“You were the only one who survived?” Xander asked and Spike nodded.
“Don’t ask me why, I’ve been asking myself that for the past decade, and I still don’t have the answer.”
“You survived because she needs you.” Willow said, locking Spike’s eyes in hers.
“Does she?”
“Of course she does!” Willow exclaimed. “She’s needed you for the past ten years, but you weren’t there! She needed you when...”
“Willow.” Xander interrupted the red-head’s outburst. She took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair, and Spike took the opportunity to change the subject.
“So, how’s everything with you lot? You live here now?” He asked and Xander shook his head.
“No, we all live in Monterey. We’re just here for the week.”
“Actually, it’s our honeymoon.” Willow added, and it was Spike’s turn to let his mouth drop.
“You mean the two of you...” Willow and Xander both nodded. “Weren’t you into girls?”
Willow giggled a little at his expression.
“I think the politically correct term is bisexual.” She said.
“OK. As long as you guys are happy.” Spike shrugged. “So, what’s up with the rest of you? You all live in Monterey, Buffy, the Watcher, Niblet too?” At his words Spike noticed that both Willow and Xander went visibly pale. They exchanged a look before Xander spoke.
“Spike, there’s something you should know...” He hesitated for a moment. “Dawnie’s gone. She’s been dead for over three years.”
*****
Buffy pulled the drawer open and reached inside it, her fingers immediately finding the worn envelope. She pulled the letter out and unfolded it. When her eyes landed on the first words, tears started forming in them.
‘Dear Buffy. If you’re reading this, it means that I’m gone. And don’t even get me started on how cliche that sentence is.’
*****
“What do you mean she’s dead?” Spike asked through gritted teeth. “She can’t be, she’s just a kid, she’s supposed to...” He buried his face in his hands and let the words sink in. Gone. His Niblet, gone. He would never see her again, never hear her laugh or watch over her as she slept. Gone.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up at Willow. She had tears in her eyes and he realized that he probably did too.
“I’m sorry, Spike.” He nodded.
“How... what was it?” He asked, just barely keeping his voice from breaking.
“What do you mean?” Xander asked.
“What killed her? Vampire, demon, what was it?”
“Oh.” Willow said, looking at her hands. “It was nothing like that. She died from complications after Andy was born.”
“Who? What?”
“Maybe we should start from the beginning, Wils?” Xander suggested and Willow nodded.
“Yeah, we probably should.” She agreed. “OK. After the battle in Sunnydale, we went our separate ways for a little while. Me and Kennedy went to South America, Xander took off to Africa, Giles started rebuilding the Council in London and Buffy and Dawn decided to go to Rome. For some reason, Andrew went with them. Some of the other Slayers were sent to different Hellmouths around the world, some went home to protect their cities, and the rest went were they wanted to.
About a year and a half after the collapse of Sunnydale, a organized group of vampires killed the four Slayers that were stationed at the Cleveland Hellmouth, and Buffy decided to take over, asking Faith and Kennedy to go with her. So that’s how we ended up in Cleveland.”
“I’d had enough of Africa by then and decided to join the party.” Xander interjected.
“The bad stuff started a couple of months after we got to Cleveland.” Willow continued. “We had managed to get rid of the vampires that had killed the Slayers, and everyone were starting to feel like home. When Kennedy didn’t come home after patrol one night, we just thought she’d gone to some club or something.” Xander noticed that Willow had to fight the tears back and took over.
“Her body was found the next morning, we still don’t know what killed her.” He said quietly.
“I’m sorry, Red. Know how much it hurts.”
“Yeah, it does.” Willow nodded. “We weren’t actually together, we had decided that we were better off as friends, but it still hurt.” Spike squeezed the red-head’s hand, and she gave him a grateful smile.
“So, that happened a little over eight years ago, and everything was nice and quiet for about two years.” Xander continued. “Dawn started college in Cleveland, and the rest of us had pretty decent jobs. And then Robin was killed in a hit and run.”
“The principal?” Spike asked, and Willow nodded.
“He and Faith were married by then, had been for about a year.” She said. “Faith took it really hard, she got... reckless. Went out on patrol by herself, which we hadn’t done since Kennedy got killed. We all tried to talk to her, but she shut us out. Not even Buffy got through. And then... I guess she partly got what she wanted. A couple of fledgelings killed her, if she had been her normal self they wouldn’t have had a chance, but she just... didn’t care anymore.”
“And then the next shock came.” Xander said, giving Willow a small smile. “Remember when Dawnie told Buffy?”
“Yeah.” Willow laughed. “It must have been the summer between her sophomore and junior year in college, right? The summer after Faith...” Xander nodded.
“I can still hear Buff yelling through the house, and the look on Andrew’s face?” Xander laughed too. Willow suddenly seemed to remember that Spike had no idea what they were talking about.
“Sorry.” She pulled herself together. “We’re just remembering when Dawn told Buffy that she and Andrew were dating.”
“They were what?” Spike yelled, getting the attention from the entire restaurant.
“Keep it down, Bleach Boy.” Xander hushed.
“Sorry, I just... you realize I’m gonna have to strangle him, right?”
“Know the feeling, mate.” Xander agreed.
“Can we get back to the topic?” Willow asked before continuing. “Anyway, that was the summer six years ago. As you can probably figure out, Buffy freaked and practically forbid Dawn to see Andrew again.”
“To which she got the ‘I’m 18 you can’t tell me what to do’ card back.” Xander added.
“Yup. Dawn could be very stubborn.” Willow smiled.
“No need to tell me.” Spike agreed.
“Anyway, Dawn and Andrew kept dating, and on the day she graduated from college, four years ago, he proposed.” Willow kept going. “They decided to get married right away, and had a Fourth of July wedding.”
“Andrew was a fully trained Watcher by then, and was training Ally, a Slayer that Buffy had move to Cleveland after Faith died. They were out on patrol one night when...” Xander took over. “It was less than two months after the wedding, and Dawn was devastated. And then she found out about the baby.”
“She was so happy that she would have something to hold on to.” Willow remembered. “She loved that child more than anything in the entire world.”
“So... what happened?” Spike asked, not sure he actually wanted to know, but knowing that he needed the truth.
“There were complications.” Xander said. “She lost too much blood, and the doctors couldn’t do anything.”
“After Dawnie died, Buffy shut down.” Willow said. “She basically locked herself and the baby in her room, only came out when she absolutely needed to. Wouldn’t talk to us. Giles came over from England, but she wouldn’t talk to him either. And then, the day after the funeral, she announced that she had had enough.”
“What do you mean ‘enough’?” Spike asked.
“She said that she was out.” Xander explained. “She said that slaying had taken too much from her, and she wouldn’t let it take the last thing she had left – Andy.”
“That’s his name?”
“Yup.” Willow said, smiling. “Andrew Alexander William Summers.”
“William?”
*****
Buffy dried her tears and kept reading.
‘This isn’t easy to wright, you know. I don’t know how to explain the feeling that I have to do this, it’s just... there. I pray to God that I’m wrong (even if I don’t believe there is a God), but I don’t think I am. I am never going to see my little boy grow up. I won’t walk him to school or put him to bed. I’ll never hear his laugh or dry his tears, and you know what? I HATE IT! The only reason I’m not going completely crazy is because I know that you will take care of my son, maybe even better than I would.
I love you Buffy, I hope you know that. I mean, we yell at each other, and we fight a lot, but you’re still my sister – thanks to a bunch of middle-aged monks – and I will always love you. Remember when you said that to me, on top of Glory’s tower? We’ve come a long way since then, and this time it’s my turn. I will always love you guys, and you need to take care of each other. You need each other, you’re all you’ve got.
I swear I’m almost done. I think I’ve gotten my important points through. There is one last thing I want to ask of you, though, and that is to name my son after the men I’ve loved most in this world.
Andrew after his father, I want him to have a reminder of who he is and where he comes from.
Alexander after my “big brother”. Xander has always been there for me, and I love him to death.
And finally, William, and I think you know why. I loved him, but I didn’t tell him. He died thinking that I still hated him for what happened. I hope that, wherever he is, he will know I’m doing this for him.
I guess that’s it, huh. I still hope that you will never read this, but somewhere deep deep down I know that you will. I finally realize what Cassie felt that time, so many years ago. I know I will die, and I can’t do anything to stop it. And neither can you. Whatever happens, I don’t want you to blame yourself, do you hear me? If you do, I swear I’ll come back a ghost and haunt you!
OK, I’m gonna go now. Once again, I love you and the guys, please tell them that for me.
Love always,
Dawnie’
AN: The song in this chapter is ‘Shoreline’ by a Swedish singer called Anna Ternheim (although the original song is by a group, also Swedish, called Broder Daniel, but the cover is much better). It’s a wonderful song, and the lyrics don’t really do it justice, you need the music too. Listen to it, if you have the chance.
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!