Alone in the Moonlight

It was near dawn as Spike made his way down the small path, but he wasn’t paying attention to that. To be truthful, he wasn’t paying much attention to anything but such was his life these days. The sun rose, the sun set and Spike walked.

Sometimes it seemed like yesterday, the day he had brazenly knocked down the good, old welcome to Sunnydale sign. All swagger and bad attitude, just itching to kill himself another Slayer and hopefully find a cure for Dru. He’d found something else instead. When he had first spotted her dancing in the Bronze, innocence and sex all rolled into one, he’d grinned in anticipation of their fight. Then he actually saw her fight and he had never been more turned on in his life.

He remembered her rushing into the battle with the Black Thorn, and the look on her face when she spotted him. The way time seemed to stop as she stared at him, sword half raised as though to strike, the way her heart had seemed to skip a beat. “Fight now, talk later,” she told him and he nodded briefly. They fought side by side, just like the old days. He’d had her back, she’d had his. The fight ended. No one Shanshued. The prophecy had been misread.

They had married three years later underneath a white, wooden canopy that Xander built and Willow had arranged with white roses. Dawn was the maid of honor and Clem was the best man. Giles gave Buffy away. When she walked down the aisle, it was all he could do not to cry. She was breathtaking in a strapless white gown with small beading around the edges, her hair curled around her shoulders, and her whiteness offset by a giant bouquet of pink and white roses. The party was small, mostly Slayers or Slayers in training and Watchers, but none of that mattered to the bride and groom who spent the whole evening on the dance floor wrapped in each others arms.

By the time Dawn had her second child, he could tell that she was envious. The subtle hints she would drop to Dawn that there was no problem with the kids being dropped off at anytime. Or the ways she would try to “randomly” drop by and spend hours playing with the children. He had fallen into a depression that he couldn’t give her this one wish, until he had seen an article on adoption. A few called in a favors, and a lot of money, and Spike had a complete set of papers to document his life. Two years later, and a lot more money, and they had been the proud parents of a baby girl. Three years after that, they added a baby boy to the house.

By her late forties, Giles had realized there was something odd about Buffy. She still looked the same as she did when she was twenty two. He did some research and discovered that something had gone awry with Willow’s original spell. She’d frozen all the girls into the exact age they had been when the spell had been performed. No one had noticed it before since most of the original Slayers from the Hellmouth had died in the line of duty. Since Buffy mostly stayed home with her kids and out of sight from the Watcher’s Council, the fact that she hadn’t aged had gone unnoticed…until Giles was invited over for a Christmas reunion. He researched and found a spell, then he died mid-spell from exertion. It takes a lot of energy to brainwash a Goddess into doing your command. He had never asked Spike or Buffy for their opinion.

The Slayers turned into their real ages overnight. Two girls had heart attacks and died in their sleep. Kennedy was one of them and although Willow had broken up with her over two decades ago, the thought that she had killed her former lover was too much for the red head. She retreated to a life of solitude with the coven that head taken her before.

Buffy didn’t die, but her heart was severely weakened. Spike would spend hours lying next to her listening to the slow, unsteady and often skipping beat that radiated from her chest. Her hair had turned gray and small wrinkles appeared around her eyes and mouth. He still thought that she was beautiful.

They celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary with just the family. Their grandchildren and grand-nieces and nephews tore through the house with such fervor that Spike swore they were all potentials. Buffy spent most of the night on the couch. She still stood straight, but her shoulders had become slightly hunched. She moved slower too and often forgot things. One night she’d left the stove on after lunch and nearly burned the house down. She’d go out during the day and forget how to get home, leaving Spike to spend the hours crawling the walls until nightfall when he could go out and find her.

He tried to leave the house as little as possible for fear of leaving her alone to long, but everyone needs to go shopping at some point. She’d been acting odd the past few days so he’d held off the trip as long as possible, but she’d run out of her medication so he’d arranged their daughter to come over and watch her. He was only gone half an hour. When he came to the house the paramedics were everywhere, their flashing lights creating odd shadows on the lawn. He’d rushed into the house to find a man lying over Buffy doing CPR and his daughter crying. A stroke. Buffy had a stroke.

For days he sat next to her in the hospital. His children came and tried to drag him away, but he wouldn’t leave. They slipped in bags of blood in paper bags, only to return and find them untouched. Spike sat and studied Buffy. When had her face become so wrinkled? When had her skin become the consistency of paper? Why hadn’t he noticed the thinning of her hair? When had she become so small that a twin sized bed seemed to swallow her whole?

During her second month in the hospital, he had a mental breakdown. He went home and found his old duster. He hadn’t worn it in years. The night started with four separate fights with demons. He won them all. After that he found himself in a dive of a bar drinking shot after shot after shot. When the cheap blond that had been eyeing him all night made her way over he didn’t say no. She was the right height, had the right eyes, and the right hair. She wanted him to take her to his place. He said no, so they went to hers instead. Right away he knew that he had made a mistake. The smell of her arousal made him sick to his stomach. He wanted to leave. He wanted to run home and wrap himself around Buffy for all eternity, but there was no Buffy waiting at home for him. The cheap blond was talking, but he tuned her out. He concentrated all his thoughts on Buffy. The way she stroked his hair when they kissed. The little breathy moans she let out when his head was between her thighs, the extreme concentration in her face when her head was between his. The gorgeous way she looked as she came, exploding around him and screaming his name.

He went home and showered when they were done. He had never felt dirtier in his life.

They let him take her home three months after his one and only tryst. “Brain damage. Won’t live much longer, might as well be at home” is what they told him. She was half paralyzed and her speech was slurred, but he was just glad that she was home…even if most of the time she didn’t know where she was. Sometimes he would hear her calling out in sleep for Joyce. One time she had a panic attack that Glory was coming and wouldn’t he “pppleash, pleash wwash Dawnnnnnie and her musther.” But the worst was when she looked him right in the eye and told him that he was “nnoshing but a sshouless monshter” and she could never love him. He cried himself to sleep that night.

He was selfish in her last few days, not letting anyone in to see her. He told their kids and grandkids that he wanted them to remember her like she was, not as she had become. Dawn showed up pushing Xander in a wheelchair. She demanded that they be let in, but Spike was determined to fight her. He lost, of course. He could never out stubborn a Summers.

It was near midnight when she looked at him. He could tell right away that something was different. Her eyes were clear and slightly shiny.

“Sspike,” she slurred softly.

“Yeah, luv,” he replied, wiping away the thin line of drool that hung off her lips.

“Do…you…rrrregret…bbbeeing wisssh me?”

“Not a bloody minute. Why? Do you regret being with me?”

“Noot…a…bloooody…minusshhee…love…you…so…mush.” She tried to reach out a hand to him, but failed. He picked up the fallen hand and kissed it reverently.

“Please don’t leave me, luv. I love you so bloody much. Can’t live without you. Need you by my side. Stay with me”

“Caan’t shtay. Tired. Sspike, I’m ssho tired.”

His eyes were tearing up as he answered her. “I know, luv. You rest. You’ve earned it.” Spike leaned over to brush a kiss on her forehead. He crawled into bed and curled up next to her. When he woke up, the house was silent. There was no heartbeat.

“Hey, Spike.”

The voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he squinted against the glare of the rising sun.

“Hey, cutie,” a grin broke out on his face.

“So what’s a vamp like you doing in a place like this?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Guess I’m looking for a Slayer to dance with.”

Buffy grinned back at him, the rays of the sun bursting around her, making her look every bit the angel he’d always thought she was.

“Oh yeah? Hmm, I might be able to help you in that department,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck as she tossed her golden hair over her shoulder.

His arms slid around her waist and he pulled her toward him. “Can you now?”

“Mmm-hmm, just call dancing Buffy at your service,” she murmured, her face inches from away.

“I thought I’d just call you mine,” he whispered against her lips.

“Always,” she replied.

Their lips met as the sun rose to its crescendo, showering them in light.