Sang et Ivoire

By Holly

Chapter Fourteen

The sky should not be pitch black at 6:10, but it was. With the impending nature of her tryst looming ahead, Buffy found it soothing to focus on things so blessedly unrelated to what was coming for her. She had no idea what she was going to say when she found him, but she was certain there would be tears.

And apologies. If nothing else, tonight had to bring her that sanctified release. There was so much to discuss. So much to get behind them. And she wouldn't let him shoo her away this time. Pride could not be sacrificed for the sake of comfort. These adolescent distractions would wind up killing her if she wasn't careful.

As she suspected, he wasn't hard to find. He looked as he did before he left, save the splattering of blackened essence on his clothing. The ground beneath him looked a little worse for the wear. It surprised her that he hadn't paced himself into a trench.

Spike sensed her move toward him, and while he slowed, it was only minimally. He drew in a breath when he saw her, gesturing an angry hand to the sky. "Sodding blackness. Shouldn't be dark this early, luv."

Excreting a sigh, Buffy forced herself to relax, approaching him with deceptive calm. "You think it has something to do with what's going on?"

"I'd say so. Far too early for the sun to go to bed. Not that I'm complainin'. That blanket's a bloody pain." At last he stopped, shaking his head. "But a good number of other vamps will make a hay day out of it. Nummy people treats everywhere. Already killed me three of 'em." He gestured to the stains on his shirt. "An' more'll come. Just give 'em time. I don't like this at all."

She nodded, more to herself. With all they had discussed in the shop, she didn't feel like treading down the path of 'events to come.' All more besides, Willow's words rose sharp within her cavity, and she recognized their meaning. Though Spike appeared composed, he was obviously shaken by her presence, avoiding eye contact and moving about to find a comfortable place away from her. He had behaved the same upon entering the Magic Box just an hour before.

She wasn't about to dally with small talk. That was well and good for Angel, but she didn't play those kinds of games. And up until the recent, her vampiric companion didn't, either. "Right. Spike, I didn't come here to-"

"Abandoned the Scooby meetin', did yah?" His gaze was trained on the ground. "Sorry 'bout the leave. I was jus'-"

"Don't interrupt me. I'm tired of this." That coaxed him to look upward, slightly panicked for the face of things he did not wish to discuss. It only encouraged her, fueled her voice and put more words in her mouth. "These games... whatever you're trying to hide." She sighed, looked down, then up again. "Spike, I know something happened. It's pretty obvious. I mean, yeah, I don't know what, but I'm not dense enough to completely miss the signals. You've changed."

"Demon, pet," he replied slowly, as though she were a child, though there was dread behind his eyes. "I thought we covered this last night. I'm a demon. We don't change. We never change."

Her eyes narrowed. "When did you start preaching that crap?"

"Heard it from you a time or two, dinnit I?"

"God. You pick now to start listening to me?" She saw his amused, fond smile and grew all the more aggravated. "I'm done. I was done before we started. If you wanted me to believe something else - well, too damn bad. I saw enough last night to know... you're different. I don't know how, but-"

"Sure you do." The drastic fall of his voice caught her off guard, and the jesting tease had left his eyes. "You must. You wouldn't let me this close to you if you didn't."

"What are you talking about? I-"

A drastic breath of concession. "I thought I could run away," Spike whispered, and she felt a rush of relief surge through her. At last he was going to share. It hadn't been long, but it felt like years. She wouldn't allow him leave until she had all the answers. "From you. From what I did. I made it all the way to England, and even then, there you were. Following me. I started workin' with Ripper to... to try to make things right. I'm drawn to you, luv. It took realizin' that I hadn't changed to change. Took... doing..." He swallowed audibly, taking a seat atop a headstone, "what I did. An' what I did... I was so angry. I'd been kicked and beaten - rightly so, an' all that. An' I've been angrier than hell. Wanted to kill you a time or a thousand, but I never, never thought I'd get so... out of control. Wouldn't 'ave hurt you for the world, pet."

Tears clouded her vision, unwanted images springing grudgingly to mind. "But you did," she whispered, moving to sit beside him. Neither could afford to look at the other. "You hurt me so much."

"Didn't mean to," he repeated, staring at a patch of darkened grass beside his boots. "Luv, if you never believe anything else, believe that. Can't say 'I'm sorry.' 'Sorry' doesn't cover it. They've'n't got a word enough for it."

"I don't know if I can do this," she confessed, shaking her head. "I don't even know you any more. How can you... after everything that's happened. I've told - or tried to tell you - that I'm sorry for what I did, and-"

"Don't," he warned. "Please don't."

"Well, it's the goddamned truth!" Buffy jumped up, angry suddenly. She needed to be where she could see him. Stubborn eyes were fixed still on the grass, magnetically pulling his head with them. "It's so hard for me to say, and your new little righteous act isn't helping. Do you think I like this? I hate it! I hate being sorry. I hate knowing that I was wrong. You're... evil, and you always will be, and I'm sorry for what I did to you. So sorry it makes me hurt inside. All the while you sit there and tell me that you can't be for what you did to me. And I should hate you! I want to..." When she trailed off she was rewarded with his gaze, half-imploring her to continue, half-begging her to stop. "If you didn't mean to, then why would you ever?" A drop of water rolled lazily down her cheek. "Why would you... hurt me so... so much?"

Spike's breaths were coming rugged and harsh. It was obvious he wished himself miles away. Again he dropped his head, and she knew he was close to tears. That was another difference. A Spike that wept openly - without hindrance. She watched his muscles constrict, hands digging into the stone beneath him. Dust rattled beneath unpolished nails. It would crack after a minute. "I couldn't hear," he whispered at last, refusing to look at her.

A last pitch of dying anger blazed through her, commanding Buffy's better senses, tackling her vocals and spieling through a throat dry with tearless nights and coated in thick regret. "What do you mean, you 'couldn't hear'? I was screaming at the top of my lungs! By God, I'd never screamed so much in my life. Or did the kicking and thrashing and pleading turn you on, you sick-"

"All I saw was you." With heart-breaking simplicity, Spike looked up. His eyes reflected years' worth of love she had never had the right to doubt. He had loved her as faithfully as any man ever could have, even when she tried to make it impossible. "And it consumed me."

Night nestled around them. Not much time had passed, but already it felt like hours. With a quivering breath, she nodded at last and took a seat beside him once more, tugging his duster tighter around her. It was subconscious habit; the coat was always wound around her, as though she feared prying hands would snatch it from her.

"So what happens now?" she ventured to ask, unsure if she was prepared for the answer.

"We beat the big evil," he replied, rolling his shoulders and exhaling deeply. "Do what Ripper and I came 'ere to do. Then I go back to London, look up things in dusty old books, and wait fer whatever baddie decides to attack you next." A sad, humorless grin spread across his lips. "Won't be back, luv. He was wrong to bring me. All I've done is cause you more trouble than you oughta be foolin' with right now. You got the end of the world to think about, and 'stead you're sittin' here with me, bringin' up all the achies of the past."

Buffy pursed her lips, reaching out to clasp his hand where it remained untended in his lap. She watched his eyes close tightly at the contact, drinking her in as she admired the long-missed feel of cold skin beneath hers. This touch was more intimate than what they had shared in the past; even that spine-tingling kiss she had welcomed him home with the night before. Just sitting here with him, hand in his, enjoying the premature night.

The moments of peace they enjoyed together in the past were numbered. Never had she let him get so terribly close. He could be inside her and still distanced for her unwillingness to let him in. She had always revoked his attempts to express tenderness. The courtly warmth that burned his eyes as he brushed strands of hair away from her face during the throes of her release. The way he could spend hours caressing her skin when he thought she was asleep, as though trying to convince himself that she was actually there. The touches he would steal when she was awake; a sweep of her cheek, a gentlemanly kiss atop her head, an affectionate nibble at her neck. All touches she craved though rejected. Always too afraid to let him close. Afraid of what that made her.

Sitting with him now, holding his hand, giving him a taste of the gentleness he had so craved when in her presence, she didn't know if she was hurting him or making things better, and for the moment, she didn't care. She had missed this far too much to make judgment calls.

And then it hit her with all the tragic simplicity the world had to offer. The cindered burnings of a broken heart. A sealed doorway at the end of her mind suddenly unlocked and released a blessed string of closeted knowledge she hadn't before allowed herself to grasp. It engulfed her. Painful realization - hard to know and harder to accept. But there was no denying the truth; the truth she had known for so long. The truth she ignored for fear of her fate, the same truth she could no longer conceal for all its excruciating liberation. She loved him. She loved him with all her heart and soul, and nothing: no birthright, no ancient siring, no colorful past filled with hurt and angst could ever wheedle that away. She could shed a thousand tears, feel her heart stabbed with a thousand knives, and tell him stop a thousand times, but illumination was there, and try as she might, it would never go away.

Unconsciously, her hand squeezed his tighter as understanding washed over, and she felt him reciprocate instinctually at first, then withdraw just as quickly. Spike looked sharply to her as the first tears dropped from her eyes. She could not return his gaze, could not bring herself to look him at him for the drive of devastating recognition.

"I bring up the past for a reason," she said softly. "It reminds me of all the things I've done. The good and the... very bad. And every time I think of you, I know that I... I was too selfish. You gave me the fire back, even though it was what I asked for, and I hated you because of it." Buffy paused meaningfully, drawing in a breath. The next would be the hardest to confess, but she had to. She had to now before she lost her nerve. It wasn't the first and the last, though something told her the will to speak would leave forever if the words weren't voiced. Now and finally. If she didn't push through those final barriers and signify the first true step into adulthood, this conversation, this night would haunt her forever. No matter how painful admissions were made. "I loved you then... and I still do... and I hate myself for it. I shouldn't... love you, I mean. After everything you've done, what I've done to you. You hurt me so much, but I still love you." The vampire was breathing rapidly, studying her as his eyes glossed over in tears. That wouldn't do. If he cried, she would join and never recover. Her foot stomped as she yielded to frustration. "Why? It shouldn't be like this. And I hate it! I hate that I can't stop. I hate-" And she broke down, sobbing into her hands, unaware that the presence beside her had moved away, fallen to the ground beside her, incapable of stopping a similar outburst.

And there they were. Star-crossed, lost, and sobbing over the same words, feet away from each other, unable to offer empty comfort. Confessions seethed the night air like a disease, causing more pain than relief, though it was difficult to decipher whom it hit the hardest. Finally, Spike struggled to his feet, wiping his eyes angrily. His look shot daggers.

"No, no!" he screamed. "Bloody wrong, Slayer! This whole thing, so wrong! Have you completely lost your marbles? You can't love me. You don't. I won't let you. I'm a dark, evil son of a bitch, and I bloody tried to rape you! I never did one good thing but finally leave you alone. Went across the sodding ocean to get away. To go somewhere where I couldn't hurt you. Ever again." At her puzzled look, he paused emphatically. "You told me you could never love me... I won't let you go back on that now."

"I'm sorry, let me?!" Buffy rose, outraged, and stalked forward, unable to stop the tears that flowed steadily still. They were inches apart. "You think this is fun for me? You think I want to love you? I hate it! But I can't stop. I pushed you away so much. I wanted you gone, and it killed me when you left. But you came back." She paused, voice overwhelmed with emotion. The tears cascading down his face nearly did her in. "You came back..." she repeated, as though trying to convince herself. And she couldn't stand the space between them. With a sob, she lurched forward, trapping his mouth with hers; wrestling kisses away until he groaned his defeat. His mouth was cold and fiery at the same time, his heated fervor surrendering to her completely. Then they were dancing, lost in the abyss of each other. Her hands were everywhere, studying every contour of his face, the softness of his hair, the firmness of his chest, pressed so heavily against hers. The weight of his arm crushed her against him, his kisses eager and responsive, tears flowing still for the inability to stop.

Buffy only pulled back when she had to breathe, sobbing still onto his shirt as her head found purchase on his shoulder, too caught up in the embrace to notice the way his arms trembled as he held her. The way he ostensibly couldn't stop his tears. Spike rarely covered his emotions in front of her, but he always seemed to have control. Right now he didn't, and it frightened her.

Then he rumbled against her chest, and she smiled lightly at the feel. The breaths he took feathered her ear, his wonderfully deep voice revealing his displacement. "How?" he asked softly, unable to stop himself from tugging at her earlobe with his teeth.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "What does this make me?"

"Lost. We're all bloody lost." He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. The arms that held her were still quivering.

"Can you forgive me?"

At that, he went rigid - statuesque. Buffy felt she was trapped in a stone, held tightly against him still, but eliciting no movement, no reaction of any kind. Then, without warning, he tore from her and resumed pacing. The expression on his face suggested anger, but he was not angry.

"Forgive you?" Spike finally spat, eyes glistening. "How can you ask me that? How can... I could have... when I think of what I did-"

"Didn't. You didn't do it."

"I could have!"

"But you didn't!" This was growing tiresome. "Doesn't that mean anything? It'll always hurt, but it's over with. In the past. We can't have a do over. I forgave you a long time ago, and-"

Her words were abruptly interrupted by a sharp outcry of pain. In horror, she watched as Spike burst into tears, falling to his knees and cradling his stomach. An image of true remorse. A man forced down the pathway of penance, to find some sort of reparation for a world of misgivings. And in that moment, in that lasting moment, she saw. She finally saw. The vampire. The man. The thing that left and never came back. Spike as she had never known him. Not hers. William. William the Bloody. There, harvesting Spike's body, speaking Spike's words, loving her with Spike's affection. But it wasn't Spike. For the longest minute, she couldn't breathe, couldn't blink. Her feet turned to granite, firm and hard against the ground. A void grasped her aching soul, and all efforts at a reaction fled her body. She stood there. Standing. Staring. At William.

When he looked up and saw she understood, his eyes went wide and he struggled to his feet. The fresh tears cascading down his cheeks glistened in what light the night had to offer. His breaths started coming heavier, forgetting air was not necessary, studying her, trying to pry away the layers she was concealing. "Buffy-"

That was all it took. Feeling coursed through her body with newfound liberation. Furiously, the Slayer stifled a sob and stepped forward, studied him briefly, then sent him to the ground with a firm blow to the jaw. "You bastard!" she screamed. "What did you do? What did you do?!"

"What I had to," he replied, tears running again. His back was to her, and he made no move to sit up. "What I needed to make sure that... never happened again."

"How?"

"Demon in Africa." He rolled himself over so he could sit, watching her, gauging for a reaction. But Buffy's face had fallen indifferently, and she was hiding herself again. "Left that night. Got me what I wanted... and I've been this way ever since."

Buffy bit her lip to ward another outburst away. "You... you asked for it?"

"Must've. It's what I got." He looked up at her pitifully. "I had to do somethin', Buffy. I couldn't... not after what happened. I couldn't live with that."

"Live?" she spat bitterly, only there was no venom. The anger placed there was artificial.

"I loved you and I 'urt you. I'm a demon, pet. Demons are supposed to do bad things. Evil things. But they're not supposed to love. Really love. And I never thought... killin' you would've been easier." With that, he struggled to his feet, eyes fixed on a headstone. He wouldn't look back. "I couldn't bleedin' take it anymore. You didn't love me, and I'd just done something terrible. The guilt 'urt worse then, cause I knew I wasn't supposed to feel it. I wasn't a man and I wasn't a monster. I was... nothing." He sighed and finally looked up. "Nothin's changed, o'course. I got myself to Africa, passed a number of nasty tests and was given a jolly prize at the end of it."

"Your soul," she whispered. The look on her face was distant; covered in remorse and disgust, though surprisingly aimed at herself.

William smiled sadly. "Got it for you. Asked for what you deserve. An' it's yours. It'll always be yours." When their eyes met again, he drew himself away with a hasty breath, shaking his head. "The first days were the hardest. Don't even know how I wound up in London. Then Ripper found me, threatened to turn me into a pile of dust, and saw. And he's... we've been workin' together since."

Buffy pursed her lips, clinched fists quivering as her body threatened to break once more into sobs. "He saw," she repeated. "And Willow and Angel saw... but I never did. It was so obvious. Why didn't I see?"

"Oh, you did, luv," he replied softly. "You just didn't want to believe it."

"Why? Why would I-"

"Because you didn't want to love me. You can't, you know, but you saw after..." William's eyes clouded again. "I shouldn't've come back," he whispered. "I never wanted you to know."

At that, she grew angry, but it was fleeting and died without a struggle. "You didn't... why the hell not?!"

"I wanted you to hate me forever - it's what I deserve. I knew it would...f orgiveness is a hard gig, luv. And you... you can't. Can't mean it."

His words reflected Willow's painfully. The course of self-sacrament was a long and winding road, and he had more than miles to travel. He had years. He had an eternity. And there he was - this thing, this person that had sacrificed perpetuity of remorseless pleasures for the burden of guilt so wholly earned: an act that, in itself, unconsciously repented for every crime he had committed. A choice. A request. Who was he? There were plenty of shadows remaining to mimic his demon, but he wasn't the man she loved.

Was he?

A lasting look in his eyes satisfied any need for reprisal. Buffy's eyes welled with tears - tender and sore from her previous outbursts, but similarly incapable of preventing another. He needed love so desperately, even if he rejected it when offered. It hurt him to accept forgiveness, love, but he desired it still.

"I don't know what I mean," she said honestly. "Why didn't Giles tell me?"

"I asked 'im not to. I didn't want anyone to know."

"That's why you didn't want to come back?"

William shook his head. "No. Well, I s'pose in a way. It's been hell, just bein' here. Bein' so close to you. Livin' with myself, day in, day out. Thinkin' I'd progressed but knowin' I'm still stuck at the beginning. I can't stand it, luv. I can't stand to know I hurt you so much. I can't take forgiveness, cause I'll never forgive myself. I'll never accept love. I can't. It burns, baby. An' every time I look at you, touch you. Feel you near me; all I can see is what I did. What I tried..." He broke off, tearing his eyes away. "I didn't hear you that night, but I've heard you every night since. And it'll follow me forever."

Buffy drew in a breath and held it. A million thoughts collided into one massive jumble, and she found herself so misplaced that she didn't know where to start deciphering the pieces. She was too consumed with the thought that Spike - Spike as she knew him - had had it in him to do such a thing. To willfully initiate himself down the path of recompense. That he could love her so much. And now what? Was he gone forever? Who stood in his place? Not Spike, for certain, but someone. Someone that loved her with the same fervor. Someone that wouldn't touch her for knowledge of crimes he never committed. Someone with Spike's knowledge and memories. Spike's face and body. Spike's voice and eyes so full of life...

Someone who still, despite everything, was not Spike.

Why hadn't Angelus been good enough to want his soul?

A man in place of the demon. It was what she had wanted - told herself she wanted. Told him she wanted time and time again. And here he was - more a man than she could have ever thought or dreamt. Ready to endure an eternity of torment because of her.

Buffy's eyes clouded with tears once more. She was at a loss of what to think. Instantly, William stepped forward and took her face in his hands, though the tremor in his eyes told her it pained him to reach for contact. A thumb lazily brushed a tear away, and he smiled sadly at her, unable to cease his caresses. "Ad astra, per aspera, my sweet," he murmured.

She swallowed audibly, reaching to grasp his wrist, holding his hand there even as she saw the display of tenderness jolt pain through his body. What had he been putting himself through these last years? It was unbearable to imagine. All more besides the incident that inspired his boisterous transformation, he had a good hundred years and more to repent. The face of everyone he killed. Every man, woman, and child. She couldn't begin to imagine the suffering.

She had loved the thing he pushed aside. Did she love him too? Were they the same?

Leaning into his touch best she could, Buffy drew in a breath, closing her eyes as twin tears slid down her cheeks. "Do I disgust you?" she asked.

Predictably, he was taken aback, eyes going wide at first in confusion, then shock that she would ever feel the need to ask. "What? Luv, I-"

"You're not him. You're not the killer who stole your body for a century. You're not the thing that pushed me to the ground and... tried..." The same thing she loved. God, help me. "I told you... I love him. The thing. I love Spike. I love the thing that you're not." She wrenched free of his touch and looked at the ground. "It must disgust you. It disgusts me. But I can't..."

"Buffy..." When she refused to glance up, William stepped forward and aggressively seized hold of her shoulders. Funny how their roles had reversed. It wasn't too long ago that she had fought to maintain his gaze. "Buffy, look at me. I'm only disgusted by what I did to you. Nothing you could do would ever make me-"

"But you didn't! It wasn't you! You wouldn't..."

William growled and shook her once. Hard. "I've already gone through this with Ripper. Long willy time ago, but I did. Look, luv, I don't know who the bleedin' hell I am. I got all the touchy feelies ole' Spike left behind. I got a lot of him in me. Don't know how much, but I do. Also got a lot of that poetic ponce in me. Maybe the balance is what makes my writin' halfway decent nowadays. I feel bad fo' everythin' he did, but I know better than to think I woulda done it over the same way if I could go back, now. You though..." Lovingly, he drew her hair away from her eyes. The gesture blurred her vision with a fresh batch of tears. "You're the one consistency between the likes of 'im and the likes of me. Well, there's also smokes and Passions, but... you're it, ducks. That's why you sayin' you love me's so bloody painful to hear." Unable to stop herself, she reached to touch his lower lip, softly, exploratory, and he correspondingly swelled with another outburst. His arms trembled around her. The resolve he grasped now would fail him soon - eventually, whether in minutes or hours. A sigh quaked through his body and he willed his eyes shut. She could smell the salt of his tears. "Luv, please..."

"Do you still want me?"

Foolish question. The evidence was there enough against her. His eyes flashed open and he answered with intense honesty, "More than ever." It wasn't a matter he had to consider, though he obviously regretted the inability to shut himself up.

Buffy drew in a breath, studying his mouth as she neared. "Do you still love me?"

Another imprudent query. All it took was looking in his eyes to see. However, she also recognized that the words were stuck still in his throat. He wouldn't speak them now. Similar confessions would lead down a path they could not recover. Words were only words. She needed only to look at him if she required a manifest answer.

"Buffy, I-"

She grasped his forearms that still clutched her shoulders and again brought him down for an impassioned kiss. The first with William - truly with William. Fully William. Unlike the urgency of their previous moments, she took the time to explore him as though she didn't know this mouth so terribly well. Every stroke, every quaking breath - the hesitance with which he returned her touch, so needy yet so fearful. The moist taste of his tongue against hers. At last he surrendered to her, fully surrendered. With a growl of release, his hold became commanding, crushing her against him as his touch became deprived and possessive. How long they remained like that, she did not know, but her wretched need for oxygen eventually got the better of her. Buffy pulled back at last to take a gasp of air, head craned away as his lips unthinkingly explored her chin, her neck, her collarbone, fingers kneading at her shoulders still. Hungry and demanding.

Then, unexpectedly, the caresses came to halt, eliciting from her a small noise of complaint. Buffy found herself the next instant pushed to the ground, a frustrated but notably aroused William resuming his pacing. Back one, up one - the full journey twice. He stopped after a minute to look at her.

"Told you, luv," he murmured with remorse, "I can't do this again. I can't play at arms length with you. I can't..." He sighed meaningfully. "I can't look at you without remembering... it bloody hurts too much."

"But..." She struggled to her feet, ignoring the dust collecting at her jeans. "It wasn't-"

"Right. Suppose it wasn't me. It was him. Him who 'urt you, him who you love." He looked down. "That makes me nothin' to you. Again. A full circle an' still nothing's changed. Blasted unfair world, innit, Slayer?"

"Spike-"

"Don't call me that."

"Then what should I call you?"

The vampire smiled softly. "Ripper's gotten into the habit of callin' me Will. S'what the wankers at the library call me. William Ripper II." A chuckle rippled through his body. "There's a good tale. Oughta have your watcher share it sometime." When she raised an eyebrow, his mirth died instantly, seriousness returning for all its desolate undertones. "I've danced this dance with you a thousand times, pet. There are no happy endings for creatures of the night, or Slayers with an expiration date. I'll always be 'ere, in the same place. You won't."

"Do all souled vampires end up sounding like Angel?"

He scowled. "Had to bring the poof up, dinnit yeh? Damn prat's still a bloody pedestal."

A flash of anger rushed through her at that. "Now, wait-"

"I mean, in London, Ripper did the same thing. Wasn't his fault. He didn't know me." He looked at her significantly. "You don't know me. Hell, it's been three years and I still don't know me."

"Well life's just screwy that way!" Buffy growled in frustration and turned around. "If you're what I deserve, if your soul is mine, then-"

"I'm the carrier, and I gotta know how to use it." William sighed. "It hurts, luv. You 'ave no idea how much. To want you this bad. To look at you an' know..." He shook his head. "I can't see past what I did. Hurtin' people is one thing, hurtin' someone you love... I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself. Which is why I'm leavin' once the sodding Master is in the bleedin' ground." A half attempt at a smile. "'Sides, workin' with Ripper's somethin' I wouldn't soon give up. Old git's a right chum. An' I-"

"You'll be able to do that. Just leave?"

"Won't be easy, if that's what you're askin'. But cor, Slayer, what is anymore?"

Buffy nodded and took an exaggerated step forward. "Nothing. Nothing is ever easy for people who fight. That's the point. We live and we fight. And I don't..." She drew in a deep breath and took his hand, fighting a minute for possession but holding him grounded without much struggle. "I don't want to have to say goodbye."

A quiver spread through William's body, and he looked at her, predisposed, studying where they were clasped together. "How can you do this?" he asked softly. "How can you touch me and not want to rip me to bloody shreds?"

"Nothing's as it should be, Sp...whoever." Buffy shivered a bit, rolling her shoulders but refusing to retract her touch. "I'm not over it, I know. Sometimes I feel so... exposed. For what happened. But what I did to you..."

"You didn't do anything to me, pet."

"I sure as hell did!" Angry, she pulled her hand free. "I can't keep avoiding responsibility. I can't keep blaming other people for things I did, or should've done."

William shook his head, running a hand through browning bleached strands. "You were takin' the blame then, too. Said you shoulda stopped me a long-"

A frustrated growl climbed into her throat and she turned away in a fury. "Good God, would you stop bringing up things I said then? I was stupid then. Stupid and careless. I was also hurt, but so were you. I have to believe that, Spike. I have to believe that you wouldn't have done it without being so hurt. Because there's no way you could've gone and gotten yourself all souled up because you were feeling so peachy about life. Look at what you wished upon yourself!" Buffy collapsed tiredly onto the gravestone again, shaking her head with incredulity. "We need you here," she whispered. "Willow does, I know. And I do."

He placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder, offering cold comfort. "And Ripper needs me in London."

"Are you just telling yourself that because it's easier living there than here?"

"I won't pretend this isn't hard, luv." William shuffled awkwardly. "Listenin' to you, talkin' with you. Being so bloody close. It was hard enough with an ocean between us. Tryin' day in and day out to pretend I was normal-like an' human." A sigh heaved off his chest. "It won't be any easier over there, but God, I don't think it'll hurt so much."

Buffy frowned. "Does that even make sense?"

"Sure it does, pet. You just need to 'ear it from this end."

She emitted a long, frustrated sigh, shaking her head. "I don't... if you hadn't come back, things would be easier. I won't say differently. But God, I don't think I can... everyone leaves me, understand? I'm hoaxed. I'm-"

"Whatever 'appens here isn't your fault," he said austerely. "It's mine. My bloody mess."

"You're giving me the 'it's not you, it's me' speech?"

"You don't want this." A beat of irrefutable reproach. She felt at once exposed and vulnerable. "I don't mean to sound like the poof, but he was right about at least that. You deserve something above the wonkiness I 'ave to offer. Truth of the matter, luv, is that I'm not worthy of you. An' that's the way it'll always be. No amount of bloody goodness can ever make it otherwise." He sighed again and looked down. "Even if it could, I can't stand the thought of..."

"You're right, I don't want this." Buffy heaved herself to her feet and began a stride back to the gates, slowly. Willing him to stop her. He didn't. "I'm grasping at straws. And if you were... Spike... I probably would never have said a word of what I've said tonight." She smiled bitterly. "I couldn't tell him what he wanted. I can tell everyone else, but not him. Never him."

"You could've. You told me as much before-"

"No." Vehemently, she shook her head. "I knew something was up. Took three years and fifty-one days to figure it out, but I'm finally in the ball game. Even before you came back, I thought you were dead or something had happened... Spike couldn't stay away, even when we asked him to. And for the longest time, I told myself that's what I wanted. I knew it wasn't, but it was easy to live like that. Willow's the only one who ever knew differently."

He gestured to the duster. "No one else knows that's mine?"

"I think Xander does, even if he doesn't want to admit it." She smiled sadly. "Looks so much different on anyone else. If he ever saw it by itself, he'd know in a heartbeat."

"Looks better on you than it ever did on me." When she raised an eyebrow at him in silent reminder of his mirror-challenged nature, he scoffed and added, "Least I'd wager. It's a slayer's coat. Belongs on a slayer."

Buffy nodded and stepped further away. "I guess so." Without any sort of finale, the conversation withered. Goodbyes were too painful to endure, even if it was only until tomorrow. Each led to the last. Each led to the end.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered when she thought he couldn't hear her.

"For what?" The voice was distant - hitting a new note of immeasurable mourning. He hadn't moved. He simply sat there, watching her leave. Knowing he could stop her if he wanted to, grounding himself with resolve to keep from springing to his feet and sweeping her into his arms.

She paused appreciably, turned her head a fraction and murmured, "For making you do this to yourself."

"No one made me, luv. I asked for it."

"But you wouldn't have asked... if I had had the decency to tell you that night that I loved you."

"You were right not to. You shouldn't now. Doesn't make things any easier."

Buffy turned fully. William had taken her place on the gravestone, face contorted in grievous conflict and sacrament. It felt years had passed since she found him. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that he would wait there for hours yet to come, watching the unmoving graves. I don't know who he is anymore, she thought sadly. But God, it hurts.

He hadn't said as much directly, but she saw his unchanged feelings blazing behind tortured eyes. The man and the demon could love her with equal fervor. Could she love the man as well as the demon?

The night had already proven as much. An aching swell engulfed her heart.

"I can't lie anymore," she returned, eyes watering with the tears that would carry her through the night. "Lying's what got us here."

He met her eyes and understood, but he couldn't find the words to reply. Whatever he said had the potency of hurt, and there had been enough of that for one evening.

If there wasn't blood, there would almost always be tears.

Continue