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| Longer, Then Forever - Chapter 13 by Demonica Mills (24 Reviews) | | abc + + + |  | | | 
Chapter 13
Buffy let Spike lead her back toward Revello Drive, let him entangle his fingers with her own as they walked. Her mind felt blank and she suddenly thought of the old proverb, is it better to know or not know? She knew now, it was better not to know.
As a 167 year old savage, she had been happy with the simple things: warmth, touch, food, shelter, but as a 167 year old woman, all she could feel was shame. Shame in how she had behaved, how she had lived, the things she had done. She couldn’t tell her friends because they would never understand. They didn’t know what it was like to have been alone so long that you forgot how to be human. They couldn’t comprehend waking up one day and realizing that they didn’t know how to dress themselves because they didn’t remember what it meant to have clothes or shampoo or a toothbrush. At that thought, Buffy absentmindedly stuck her tongue through a hole in the back of her mouth where a molar had decayed and fallen out.
Buffy eyed the vampire next to her. Why had he haunted her dreams every night for all that time that she’d been gone? She could understand why Willow and Dawn had been there, but why Spike? Why did she feel that he was the only one that she felt safe around?
The house lights were too bright and she paused on the porch.
“D’you want to sit here for a moment, kitten?” Spike asked, noticing her hesitation.
She nodded and let Spike lead her to the porch swing that he’d built for Dawn a few months earlier. He let his feet push the swing slightly as she sat next to him, one leg on the ground the other propped in front of her on the swing.
“Would you like me to let you be?” Spike asked.
Buffy turned and looked at him watching as her extended silence made him fidget. “No,” she said finally. “I think I’ve been alone enough.”
XXX
“Giles, what are we going to do?” Willow asked softly.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I’m not sure, Willow. I don’t know what the ramifications of Buffy’s sudden remembrance are going to do to her. I don’t know what to do about this girl that Dawn has suddenly taken a fancy to, and I most certainly do not know what this telemalta thing is. I do know that I have a headache and I need a good, strong drink.”
Willow looked over at Tara fretfully. Giles always knew what to do. If he didn’t then…she shuddered to think what was going to happen.
“Maybe this girl is another Hell God,” Anya suggested. “It’s possible that she escaped her home dimension during one of Willow’s botched spells.”
“Ahn!” Xander yelled.
She shrugged. “What? It’s certainly possible, not that I think Willow did it on purpose.”
Willow stood up abruptly and walked over to the phone. She picked it up and began furiously punching numbers into it.
“Who are you calling?” Tara asked.
“Cordelia,” Willow said, crossing one arm over her waist. “That Whistler guy said she worked for the Powers That Be, so maybe she-Hi, Angel? It’s Willow…good, how are you?...or really, a Hell dimension. Which Hell dimension would that be…uh-huh…wow, really…Uh, no, no she’s back…well, she’s not here right now, but…uh-huh…yeah, I’ll tell her, but hey, is Cordy around? Thanks…Cordy, hi! It’s Willow…I heard a rumor that you’re working for the Powers That Be. Is that true?...Oh, really…and how does that work?...Oh…So, is it like a direct line or something?...Well, we have a bit of a problem here and this guy, Whistler, came to see us, but he spoke in riddles…Oh, okay. If you happen to hear anything to do with the word telemalta, can you let us know? …really?...Well, thanks.” Willow hung up the phone.
“Well,” Xander demanded.
Willow sat down next to Tara dejectedly. “She gets visions from the Powers of events that she’s supposed to have Angel stop, like when he showed up at Thanksgiving that one time. She has no idea how to help us, but she’ll tell Wesley about the telemalta thing and she’ll call us if they find anything.”
“So, we’re still at square one?” Xander asked.
“Looks like,” Willow answered.
XXX
Dawn waited until she was sure that no one would be paying attention to her and then slipped out the bedroom window and climbed down the tree, dropping not exactly silently to the ground. She glanced in the window to see the whole group engrossed in speaking to a strange man.
“Just like I thought,” Dawn said silently. “They care when I’m in front of their face but the minute I’m gone, I don’t matter.”
Well, Dawn knew one person that she mattered to and that’s exactly where she was headed.
XXX
Xander watched as the front door opened and Buffy entered the house, Spike in tow. It was not an unusual sight, Spike with Buffy, and Xander had become uncomfortably used to it, but he had assumed that once Buffy had her memories back that she would shove Spike away with all the ferocity of the Slayer she was.
Instead, Xander watched as Buffy silently crossed the room and took her seat at the research table. She picked up a book and began reading it. Buffy researching was strange in itself but the fact that the moment she sat down, she’d absentmindedly reached out with her left hand to grab Spike’s right hand, never once looking up from the musty pages, well, Xander didn’t know what to think.
“So, Buffster, it’s nice to have you all back in the land of the sane and memorful again,” he said, cheerfully.
Buffy looked up from her book and stared at him. She didn’t even blink and it unnerved him.
“Yeah,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “So…are you hungry? Do you want me to get some food? Anything you particularly missed while you were gone? Pizza? Chinese? More donuts?”
Buffy stared at him another minute before returning to her book.
“I-I don’t think she’s hungry,” Tara said softly, studying the blonde in front of her.
“Well, she could at least answer him instead of being all rude and staring,” Anya said.
Buffy slammed the book closed, stood up, and left the table. They heard her footsteps up the stairs and the closing of her bedroom door.
“See, rude,” Anya said.
“Maybe I should go talk to her?” Willow asked, looking around the table for guidance.
“No, ‘ll go,” Spike said.
“Wait, why you?” Xander demanded.
“Because she sees me as as much of a monster as she sees herself,” Spike answered, realizing the truth.
“Well, you are a monster,” Xander said.
“Xander, please,” Giles muttered. “Spike, why do you think that Buffy views herself as a monster?”
Spike cocked his head to the side for a moment. “Think for a moment, Rupes, just how one would go about surviving 150 years in Hell. Think about the things one would have to do to survive. Got that? Now multiply it by an imbedded goodness factor of 1,000 percent and you’ve maybe half the guilt and shame she’s feeling.”
Spike turned on his heel and left a stunned group staring at his retreating back.
XXX
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