A/N: So yes. The next part is the last part. My intention with this story was to tell a tale of reunion and the promise of new beginnings. However, I’ve grown attached to this fic…there is a possibility that I might revisit it sometime. Right now, though, with my plate full of story plans and ideas, these next two chapters are going to close the book on the first part of the inauguration into a new life. Thanks to everyone who’s read/reviewed. You guys are the best.
Cat And The Fiddle
“I don’ have to be here,” Spike said as Buffy fiddled with the door to her dorm. It was so strange standing in the hall of her old room, faces her memory had shaded and filed with a thousand others. “Really, pet, ‘f you think you need to talk this up to Red, it might be better ‘f I’m—”
“No,” she retorted, tightening her hand around his. “We’re gonna do this right from the beginning. We’re together, we tell her together.”
“Are we sure we wanna tell ‘em at all?”
A long sigh tore through her throat. “I don’t want to spend a long time justifying my relationship with you. In fact, I don’t wanna spend any time justifying my relationship with you. That’s stupid, and I shouldn’t have to. I love you, you love me, and that’s all anyone should ever have to know about us.”
Spike smiled and brushed a kiss across her forehead. “Have I mentioned how much I love this new outlook you’ve taken on?”
“I’m not eighteen.”
“Well, technically…”
“I’m twenty-two years old. I was going to be twenty-three on my next birthday, but now I’m not, because I’ll be nineteen instead. But I have four more years experience on my shoulders, and while my body will never catch up with my mind, that experience is still there. I’m not going to revert to the way I was because I’m here.” She shook her head. “If anything, my mind is going to turn twenty-three and continue to age four years ahead of my body for the rest of eternity. So here I am, twenty-two year old me outside my old dorm and I’m about to go inside and tell Willow, who is eighteen both physically and mentally, about why I’m with you and how I’m not gonna take any crap for it.”
“I love you so much.”
Her legs went weak. “I love you, too.”
“After so many years, I can still make you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Become jello-legged.”
She chuckled and twisted, her back pressed to her door, her arms automatically sliding around his throat. “Always. I’m just better about showing it now.”
Spike’s lips danced over hers provocatively. “I’ll say.”
“We should really go inside now.”
“So I don’ shag you senseless in this public hallway?”
“Well, I was going to say to talk to Willow about why you’re about to shag me senseless against our dorm room door. The not-getting-arrested thing is just a perk.”
“Super strength,” her boyfriend pointed out, his mouth dropping to her throat. “You could bust us outta the joint.”
“Yeah, or we could go inside, talk with Will, then find some place to spend all night engaged in uninterrupted sexcapades.”
“Mmm…” His teeth teased the bite mark on her throat sensually. “Like your thinkin’.”
“Yeah.”
“Mmkay. Let’s do this, then.”
A breath shuddered through her body as he moved away, and she nodded with a forced smile. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay. Here we go.”
She turned again and resumed her fight with the door. There had been a trick to get the lock to turn that she had forgotten in the long course of having so many more important things to worry about. It didn’t matter, though. In seconds, Willow had thrown the door open, her eyes wide and confused…and a little less than thrilled to see Spike at her side.
“Okay…”
“Sorry, Will,” Buffy said with an awkward smile, though her tone was anything but apologetic. “I have…Spike and I decided that it would be better if we told you together.”
“H-he can’t c-come in here.”
“Oh yes he can.” Buffy glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled. “Did you have an invite?”
“Not until after I came back, pet,” he answered with a soft grin.
Willow was thoroughly lost. “Huh?”
“Remember?” the vampire continued. “It was after the Initiative put the chip in my head, an’ I came here to kill you. Right after Wolfie…” He cut off abruptly and cast Willow an apologetic glance before turning back to his Slayer. “No, sweetheart, I don’ have an invite.”
“By the way, that Initiative thing? They come near your head, and I’m going to lay the place to waste.”
He smiled. “No chips ahoy?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
“D-do vamps n-need invites f-for dorms?” the redhead demanded.
“It’s our place, so yeah.” Buffy glanced back to Spike. “Come in.”
“Buffy!”
“It’s okay, Will. It’s really okay.”
“I’m so confused.”
“Yeah.” The Slayer nodded. “I know. And it’s going to sound crazy when I try to explain it…but…” A long sigh rolled off her shoulders, and her hand immediately sought Spike’s, her body relaxing only when his fingers curled around hers. She tugged him closer to her before leading him to her bed. They sat side-by-side, and watched quietly as a very distrustful Willow followed course and returned to her own mattress.
Then they were sitting across from each other, encased in silence.
Spike squeezed Buffy’s hand. “She looks like she’s gonna crack at any second,” he murmured. “Luv, why don’…”
The Slayer nodded. “Yeah. Ummm…Will…what would you say if I told you I woke up this morning in Italy?”
There was a long pause. “I’d…umm…say that’s a little strange.” Her eyes darted to the vampire, then to the couple’s clasped hands. “But right now, I’m ready to believe about anything.”
“How about…you were there, too? You and…Kennedy…and Giles, and Dawn…only Dawn’s in school now…and Xander—”
“Who…Dawn? Kennedy? Do I know a guy named Kennedy?”
Spike smothered a grin.
“No. Not yet.” Not ever, if all goes right. “And Dawn…Dawn you’ll meet in a few months.”
“Okay…”
“She’s my sister.”
Willow’s eyes went wide. “You have a sister?”
“Not right now, no. Right now, sitting here, I am the only child my parents ever had.”
“So your mom…” A strange look overwhelmed the redhead’s face. “Did your mom…and Giles…did they…dance to the tune of the funky monkey again and make with the—”
“Eww! No!”
There was a rumble of disgust from the vampire at her side. “Nice word picture there, Red.”
“Sorry, I just—”
“Dawn is fourteen.”
“And she doesn’t exist yet?”
“No.”
The redhead licked her lips. “Okay…that’s bizarre.”
Buffy nodded. “Will, when I woke up this morning, it was 2003 in late September, and we were in Europe because the Hellmouth was gone.” She squeezed Spike’s hand and prayed for strength. Even with her lover sitting beside her, with his body right next to hers, her skin tingling still with their earlier lovemaking, the shadow of the life she had awoken with that morning would take years to overcome. “Will…about three and a half hours ago, I was propelled back in time.”
The silence in the room was so thick, she swore she could see it manifesting before her eyes. A sticky, bulky substance of silence. Willow was staring at her like she had completely lost her mind, but there was something else. Some will to understand. Some knowledge crammed among logic that told her, quite plainly, that this was Sunnydale—this was a place of vampires, demons, and the girl Chosen to end all. This was the place where the impossible was made possible, and to write off something as impractical was the biggest faux pas one could make.
“You’re…you’re from the future.” A pause. “Both of you.”
“Yeah.”
“So…in the future…” She eyed Spike. “You two…”
“Yeah.” Buffy squeezed her lover’s hand again. “Well, no. Spike and I had…god, that story’s so much longer than how we got here.”
The vampire smiled softly. “Lemme take this one, pet,” he said, turning back to the timid redhead. “’Bout three years ago…or a year from now…” He frowned. “Yeh, that’s gonna get confusin’. Anyway, I got this chip in my head that kept me from bitin’ humanly types. Came back to kill the Slayer, got all chipped up, an’ stayed in SunnyD. Fell in love with her…oh bloody hell, the better word is realized. I realized I was in love with her three years ago. Buffy din’t take too kindly to that.”
Willow’s eyes fell to their clasped hands again.
“Okay,” Buffy said, shifting. “Here’s how it goes. I died.”
A pained gasp tore through the air. “You died?”
Spike’s eyes were glued to the ground. She could feel him; could feel the tension wrought through his body. The sorrow, the quiet that always overwhelmed him whenever the period of her death was mentioned. Buffy brushed a kiss over his shoulder to reassure him of her presence, and the tone of the room, as well as the obvious affection between the two blondes wasn’t lost on Willow. She saw everything, and though her emotions were still wrapped around horror at her friend’s admission, her heart softened with something akin to understanding.
“Yeah,” the Slayer replied a minute later. “I died.”
“I don’t…then…how did…” The redhead shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I jumped off a tower to save the world. And then you brought me back.”
“I what?”
“Bloody powerful witch,” Spike observed. “You brought her back. An’ you din’t tell me. More than that, you tore her outta Heaven. You—”
“Sweetie…”
“I jus’…”
“I…I tore you out of Heaven?” Willow’s eyes filled with tears. “Why…oh God, why would I do something like that?”
“You thought I wasn’t in Heaven.”
“Oh.”
The knowledge wasn’t resting well with the redhead, and that was fine with Buffy. It had never rested well with her.
“Anyway, when I was…out of Heaven…when I was back, I started spending a lot of time with Spike. It turned into sex, sex turned into violence…pretty much me beating up on him because I was so pissed off at you and everyone else and I hated myself…and Spike didn’t hate me. Spike loved me…no matter what I did to him.”
Her vision was going blurry. She had spent so much of the past few weeks crying her eyes out—with Spike’s death, with today in rediscovering bliss in his arms, with recounting all the wrongs in her past, and finally, for granting and accepting forgiveness. She loved him so much. She loved him more than she could even begin to fathom; more than she thought she could love. Long ago, she had thought she had no more love to give. The First Slayer had told her she was full of love, and she was right. It had just taken death, rebirth, and Spike to unlock it.
And now, she was swimming in love. She was besieged in love. It was unlike anything she had ever felt, and she would never again let it go. Not without a fight.
She would not go quietly. Spike was with her. Spike loved her, and that was all that mattered.
“What you…did to him?”
“Don’t,” Spike said shortly. “She…we’ve already been through this, pet. Buffy an’ I have come to an understandin’ about that. She hurt me, I hurt her…” He shuddered. “But I’ve…we talked it through. I did somethin’ unforgivable an’ left town…to get a soul so it wouldn’t happen again.” He paused. “Because I needed to be a better man for her. I came back, an’ I was a li’l crazy…an’ Buffy somehow…she forgave me for what I’d done.”
“What did you do?”
Buffy squeezed her lover’s hand again. “It’s not important, Will.”
“But I—”
“It’s personal. You never need to know about it. And it won’t happen again.” She shook her head. “We don’t…Spike and I grew close last year while the First Evil was trying to destroy the world.”
“The First Evil? That thing that…last Christmas, with Angel?”
The vampire at her side growled lightly at the mention of her first love.
“Yeah, that First Evil.”
“Did we win?”
A pained sigh rattled her body, and she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “We won. Spike sacrificed himself, and we won. And I somehow…I made a wish to Anya, and now we’re back. We’re here. We can…we’re back where we were when things started going wrong. Back when…”
Willow’s eyes went wide. “Anya? Whoa, wait…she becomes a vengeance demon again?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Buffy!”
“It doesn’t matter.” Buffy rose to her feet. “Look, Willow…I have absolutely no intention of telling you every detail. I don’t even care right now if you believe me. I know it sounds wacky, and you have every right to write me off as having gone completely mental, if you like. I’m not. I’m with Spike. I’ve already done the hurty, hidden torrid love affair thing, and it doesn’t work. We’ve been through this and you haven’t. If I tell you what happened…I just don’t see any good coming from it. All I can do is hope that the knowledge Spike and I have will be enough to change the bad and enhance the good.” She paused. “I also have no intention of…I never forgave you for ripping me out of Heaven…but that’s not your fault. Right now, this moment…I’m going to try to not be the sort of person who would hold grudges for things that haven’t happened. That might not happen now.”
Willow nodded, her eyes distant and dazed. “D-do…do you know…is your…can you change…your dying?”
“Better bloody believe it,” Spike growled. “You think I’d willingly go through that again? That I’d let myself jus’…that I’d let Buffy…” He shook his head furiously. “’S not happenin’. I don’ care if I have to slaughter everyone in this miserable town, I’m not losin’ her again.”
An uneasy look worried the redhead’s gaze. “A-and you’re sure that he’s all…soulful?”
Buffy offered a wry grin. “He’s not like Angel, Will.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“I mean…Spike as you knew him and Spike plus soul are pretty much the same person…only this one has a conscience that’s not defined just by what I would want him to do.” She edged closer to her boyfriend self-consciously. “But they both love me…and I love them both. Monster and man combined and separate.”
“God, pet…”
Willow licked her lips. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell me everything…and when I say this is hard to digest, yeah, I am considering the possibility that the both of you have completely lost your minds or are planning your April Fools Joke way in advance…but okay.”
The blondes exchanged a glance, then looked back to her. “Okay?” they said together.
She nodded. “Okay. I’m not saying this makes me wanna do the Snoopy Dance or that I can say…you guys have been through a lot, it seems.”
“Understatement of the bloody century,” Spike muttered.
“More than a lot,” Buffy acknowledged.
“And…well, Giles isn’t going to accept the ‘shut up and get over it’ approach, and Xander’s gonna pull a massive wig…and if Angel ever finds out, well…let’s just say I’m happy that I’ve stuck to naming the fishies at the pet store instead of taking them home.” Willow smiled slightly. “So, okay. You’ll have me and Oz rooting for you.”
“The wolf’ll accept this?” Spike arched a brow. “Jus’ like that?”
The redhead shrugged. “He’s not a complicated guy. Or…he is, but not about complicated things…like that.”
Buffy smiled gratefully and rose to her feet, moving forward to take her friend in her arms. “Thanks, Will,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
“I still think there’s a distinct possibility that you’re completely nuts.”
“That’s okay.”
“Okay.” Willow pulled away reluctantly, tossing a glance to the vampire. “What was that about a chip?”
“There will be no chip.”
“Okay. I was just—”
“And we know who the commando guys are.”
“Well, that’s good, because I didn’t know there were commando guys.”
“Yeah.” Buffy’s smile broadened. “Okay. Well…we’re gonna go…find some place to stay for the night.”
“Is there no place?”
“Well, Spike’s crypt has yet to be made up and…well…” She shrugged. “We can find a hotel or something.” She shared a look with her boyfriend. “We could always go to the mansion.”
“Why can’t you two go home?” They tossed her an identical glance that read plainly what they intended to do when they were alone again. Willow flushed brightly and looked down. “Or, you know, that could be a very bad idea.”
“Yeh, li’l bit.”
“Very bad,” Buffy agreed.
“The mansion…” Spike’s eyes stormed over. “Not the best memories there, pet.”
“For either of us…but for reasons that no longer apply. You hated it because of Angel and Dru, and I hated it because of Angel.” A pause. “Unless you’re still hung up on—”
“Don’ even think it, sweetling.”
Willow grinned slightly. “You two are so cute.”
“Hey!”
“Oi!”
“Well, you are.” Her grin only widened. “And Spike…if you don’t mind…I’d like a word alone with Buffy.”
The vampire’s face fell. “Red—”
“Girl stuff,” she explained.
“She wants to ask about you,” Buffy said. “About…stuff.”
A flash of exaggerated terror washed over Spike’s face, but dissolved just as quickly for the look that the Slayer shot him in reassurance. “Right, right,” he agreed after a second, hands going up in surrender. “’ll be outside.”
“At the end of the hall,” Willow said, tugging at her ear. “I know you…vamps.”
Spike again glanced to Buffy for her verdict, and pouted when she nodded.
“Bloody women.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” she promised, brushing a kiss across his lips.
“Don’ particularly wanna let you outta my sight, baby,” he murmured. “Don’ wanna chance—”
“I know,” she said. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
“Right.” He kissed her again, then pressed his lips to the claim mark on her throat. “Don’ be long…please.”
“I won’t.”
It was a strange sensation, watching him leave the room. Feeling him leave. Whether it be the weight of her feelings or the claim that was half-complete, she felt sliced in two without him beside her. The sensation was large and frightening, but strangely, more reassuring than anything else that had happened tonight. It existed. Like the night itself, the feeling existed. It was something where nothing had lived for weeks. Something where nothing had threatened to consume her.
Spike would be there when she walked outside. She knew it, because this was real.
“Okay,” the redhead said hurriedly. “He is just the cutest thing!”
Buffy threw her head back in laughter. “Willow!”
“Well, he is! He’s all attentive and sweet and with the moon eyes. Seriously, never thought that would be something I’d say to describe Spike, of all people, but…” Her friend had a girlish excitement about her that had died during the year Anya had given them to relive. This was the Willow that Buffy had missed. The ‘tell me all the goodies’ Willow that wanted all the juicy, yummy details of her assorted male-related encounters.
There would be some hard decisions coming up. Namely, was she going to allow Oz to go ahead and break her friend’s heart, knowing how that ended? Tara was one of the sweetest girls in the world, and Buffy loved her dearly. But was it better to prevent them from meeting and assuredly eradicate all possibility of Tara’s death at the hand of Warren? Despite her plans to have the Trio arrested after the first of their lame crimes, Buffy knew not to chance that changing one thing didn’t mean the problem would go away completely. But if Tara never entered their lives, she couldn’t be killed by someone who was after the Slayer.
She would never know Willow, either, and Buffy wasn’t ready to say that was a good thing. Or a bad thing. Tara’s family would still come after her, and she would still think she was a demon. On the other hand, Willow with Tara was also dangerous. The two had a healthy relationship, sure, but it had spurred the redhead’s addiction. It had driven her to madness with a magical twist, and had ultimately almost ended the world.
There were so many things she didn’t know. So many things she didn’t want to chance. And playing with fate was the last of her intentions.
She would discuss it with Spike. They were a whole now, after all. And Spike had a perspective on life that only age and experience could provide. He would know what to do.
“So, tonight was the big reunion? You hadn’t seen him since…”
“Since…yeah. We were outside and then I saw him…and knew. I knew who I was and who he was, and that I loved him. And I knew that he knew. It was fast, and we both thought we were dreaming…”
The redhead’s eyes flashed with excitement. “So you guys just…leapt at each other?”
Buffy’s cheeks reddened. “Pretty much. When Spike…before he died, after he had a soul, we hadn’t…done anything. You know? He was back and we were rebuilding our relationship, and we’d reached something that was…almost beyond anything that…it was just real. It was real, hard love. But we didn’t do anything until the night before the apocalypse. I knew it was the last time…somehow I knew. And we made love, and the next day before he died, I told him I loved him for the first time, and he didn’t believe me.”
“Oh!”
“And then he died.” She had started crying again without even realizing it. “And I was…these past…being without him after that was just…and when I saw him, I thought fate was dangling him in front of me to be mean…but then it was real and we…”
Willow smiled. “Well, you’ve got me on your side. We’ll have to work on Giles and Xan, but I’ll seriously go all wicked witchy on them if they give you grief.”
That was almost terrifying, but Buffy forced a grateful smile.
She had absolutely no way of knowing.
“Thanks, Will. I really appreciate it.”
And she did. Despite all else, despite the messiness she knew the future was capable of bringing, she definitely appreciated what was given to her now. The calm acceptance of her best friend and the promise of the relationship they could recover.
The relationship Willow, for the most part, didn’t know was in jeopardy.
Buffy was more than eager to step out of the old dorm room. She wouldn’t be able to live there anymore. An apartment, even the mansion…some place that wasn’t related to this part of her life at the time at which she had originally lived it. Some place where she and Spike could start again. She wanted a place for them, not a place buried in old memories made new.
He was waiting for her at the other end of the hall, relief swarming his eyes when he saw her again. Immediately, he prowled for her and swooped her into his arms, hugging her close as though they had been apart for months.
“Don’ wanna do that again.”
“Talk to Willow?”
“Let you outta my sight.” He kissed her needily, his thumbs caressing circles into her cheeks. “At leas’ not for the first year or so, after I’m ready to accept that this isn’t going anywhere.”
She smiled and rested her head against his chest. “You ready to go?”
“To the mansion?”
“Unless there’s somewhere better.”
His arms around her tightened. “No, luv. Seems rather fittin’.” He pulled back just slightly and grinned. “Back to the beginnin’, right? Our beginnin’. Let’s start off on the right foot this time.”
Her insides warmed. “Sounds perfect.”
And it did. It sounded absolutely perfect.
Tonight was the eve of their beginning. Tomorrow would be the start of the rest of their lives together.
And she was determined. This time they would get it right. Their follies would be shared; their celebrations would be each other’s.
Tomorrow was the beginning of that.
Tonight they would seal the past by going back to the beginning, and setting the footstones of their future together.
To be concluded in Part Five: Falling From The Stars…
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