Picture This

By Elsa Frohman

She wished she had a photograph. There were none -- that she knew of. She'd never had her picture taken with Spike. And as far as she could remember, she'd never seen a photo of him by himself.

All her photos were gone now, of course. They'd been swallowed along with Revello Drive. But if there ever had been a picture of Spike, maybe she would have had the presence of mind to stick it in her pocket before they left the house the last time.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

There had been a picture of her with Angel. It was taken at the Senior Prom. She'd insisted, he'd acquiesced. He was standing next to her, his posture stiff and unsmiling, one hand awkwardly behind his back. He'd looked uncomfortable in his rented tuxedo -- as if the unaccustomed formal wear was a metaphor for his soul. After more than a hundred years, he still couldn't wear his soul with comfort. She'd seen that during their brief recent meeting. It still sat on his shoulders like a yoke. So different from Spike.

Spike had been discomfited by his soul -- at first. But those last few nights...

Somewhere mixed into the rubble of Sunnydale Canyon there were a good number of photos of her with Riley Finn. There were pictures of them at the fraternity house where he lived -- clowning in the lounge. Pictures at the beach, clutching a beach ball together and squinting into the sun. Pictures from a picnic, with Xander leaning in and holding a hot dog on a roasting fork over Riley's head. There were a couple of pictures of Riley and Willow, sitting on her bed in her dorm room, and studying together at the campus library.

There even used to be a picture of her with Parker. It showed them sitting on one of the love seats at the Bronze, their heads together in serious conversation. Willow took that one -- she was practicing with her new digital camera. That was before Parker ...

That one ended up shredded, stomped then flushed down the toilet.

But she didn't have any pictures of Spike. The only one she'd ever seen wasn't even a photograph. It was a sketch in one of Giles' Watcher books. It had been surprisingly evocative. She'd known who it was before she read the block of text by its side. It showed him standing with his legs spread wide, his game face in a feral sneer.

That was one way that he looked. But it wasn't the Spike she'd finally come to know. There were so many different faces. He was changeable as a chameleon.

If she had a snapshot, which face would she want it to show? The casual sneer? The steely determination as he raised his guard to fight her? The puzzled head tilt? The innocent and bewildered look in his eyes when she kissed him after he endured Glory's torture to keep her secret? The sly, worldly smile as he suggested a new game for them to play in his crypt? So many faces.

When would she have had a picture taken with him? They were never together in front of anybody. If there had been a picture, it would have been one of those self-timer things where you set up the camera on a tripod and rush over to get into the frame. When would they have taken such a photo?

Maybe one of those times when he was sitting back and having a cigarette after...

She blushed slightly. Those awful, humiliating times. She'd never have wanted a picture to remind her -- except, now she did.

What would the photo look like? They'd be naked, of course. The clothing never lasted long after she arrived at the crypt. Maybe she'd be handcuffed to the bedpost, her back to the camera, kneeling and looking back over her shoulder, her hair loose around her face. And he'd be sprawled back against the headboard, his knees wide, his posture indolent, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

She'd be asking him to let her out of the cuffs now, and he'd laugh and say he wasn't finished yet -- just taking a break.

Or maybe it would show them sitting on her back porch -- like the night she found out about her mother's illness. Or after she came back from the dead. Perhaps it would show them just walking through a cemetery, his black, leather duster swirling around his lean body.

But there were no photos. Why would she have taken a photo? Before he went for his soul, she left each of their encounters wishing she could forget it completely.

And after -- it would have been awkward. "Xander, get the camera and come down stairs. I want you to take a picture of me with the vampire who lives down there..."

There should have been a photo, though. She wondered how long she could keep his face, with its sharp, chiseled cheekbones and intense blue eyes, clear in her mind. Sometimes she had trouble remembering exactly what her mother looked like -- and she had plenty of photos to remind her.

She wished she had a picture to keep in her wallet and take out to look at whenever she felt the memory fading. The memory of that moment, when they clasped hands and she felt what he felt. She felt his soul, and his love, and his ecstasy as the purifying light burned through him. That's the picture she wanted to save. The light flooding out of him, his skin brighter than the sun.

The others didn't see it. She alone had witnessed the beginning of his end. They'd been alone again -- as they'd always been. Alone and together -- more together than they'd ever been.

And she wished she had a photograph.

~Fin~