Spike
Very few things surprise me. I actually take pride in that. After walking this Earth for over 200 years and being a demon, I can pretty well say I've seen it all.
At least I thought I did.
But, when I saw her—standing in a group of mortals at a blues bar a thousand miles from where I saw her killed, I have to say that I actually blinked my eyes at the sight, silently wondering if I was slowly going down the same road my Druscilla had traveled over a 100 years before.
I nearly dropped my cigarette in my tequila shot.
How could this be?
I saw her die. I saw the stake that was lodged in her heart, as her life's blood ran freely from the wound. I watched her boyfriend, the werewolf, actually howl over her dying body—reverting to instincts more basic than human.
I watched the last rise and fall of her chest—the blood stained shirt eerily matching the ethereal red of her hair.
I remember thinking that day, 'there goes the only human I would die for willingly.'
I watched my future seep into the cool ground.
And now, here she was standing not even 10 feet from my table—alive and looking no older than she had the day she died, seven years before.
Willow
My first instinct was to touch my chest—just to make sure that there was no wooden stake piercing my heart.
And then it was to run.
That's what I was told to do by my teacher. "Willow, if you see someone you used to know—run and don't look back. That life is gone. It died when you died. The less mortals know of Immortality, the better. Better for you and for them."
I nodded, knowing that there was some truth in what he said—even if my friends would've understood Immortality better than most. But that wasn't it. It was the horror that I was going to outlive Oz and Xander. And I guess Buffy too—even though I had always known it was possible with her. But Oz, I wanted to grow old with him—have children and a family. All of that—despite him being a werewolf and us living on the Hellmouth.
That future was no longer possible.
And to watch Xander age when I couldn't, broke my heart. I couldn't do it. So I left, knowing that when I was able, I would look up the immortals of the group—years later when Sunnydale was just a distant memory, and beg their forgiveness.
It wasn't years later and Sunnydale was still fresh in my mind and yet, here was one of those immortals that I had planned to see sometime in the future.
And what to say to Mac, who was standing next to me, oblivious to how precarious my secret was to being blown. He was my friend, my teacher and more of a parent than either of the people who raised me.
How do I tell him of my past—the one that I kept locked up in the depths of my soul. How do I tell him of the Hellmouth and demons, knowing that he lost his last student to the trickery of one himself?
And how do I explain to him that the demon sitting across the room—unsouled and still violent—was my friend?
Sighing, I finally turned my head and looked straight at him and wasn't surprised to see him watching me—with a look of complete utter confusion plastered across his face.
I found myself chuckling softly, despite the situation. I didn't think I'd ever live long enough to see Spike dumbfounded.