Title: Once, When We Were Young (1/2)

Author: Nimue

Rating: PG

Feedback: Yes, please

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing.

Summary: What would have happened had Spike never come back from Africa? Or at least Buffy never knew he did. This is my take on Buffy, having survived to old age, looking back on her youth.

Once, When We Were Young

"So, Cassie, tell me more about this boy," the older woman said, neatly

packing clothes into her granddaughter's suitcase. The woman was tiny but never frail. Still as beautiful as a sunrise. It had always amazed Cassie how young her gran still seemed. Her hair was graying and her skin had lost some of its youthful dew, but her beauty was that of a woman half her age. She should somehow seem...older. But even at sixty-four, she turned heads when she walked down the street.

"Gran," Cassie sighed, sitting on the bed, looking starry-eyed and all of twelve years old despite the fact she was departing for her last year of university. "He is *everything*. Everything... good and happy and beautiful about living."

"Seems like quite the catch," the older woman said, tucking another

perfectly folded top into the old leather suitcase.

"He's...."

"Yours?"

"Every time I am around him, I feel...alive. Like my heart sings and my

skin is on fire and... I feel...complete. You know, Gran?" Cassie

continued, gesturing wildly and glowing from the top of her pretty blonde head to her painted red toes.

"I do," her grandmother answered, settling on the bed next to Cassie.

"Have you ever loved *anyone* that much?" Cassie asked, grabbing her

grandmother's hand and squeezing it warmly. The older woman thought a

moment. Not that she had to think about the answer, but rather about how to say it. She'd only really discussed it once before, with Cassie's mother, and that had been hard enough. She had dropped the subject with her friends. Some things were better left unsaid.

"Gran?" Cassie asked again, squeezing her grandmother's hand.

"Yes," the older woman answered simply. "Once"

"Grandpa?" Cassie said, smiling.

Again, the older woman was silent. "I loved your grandfather. Very much. He was a good man, a kind man, and he took very good care of us. Even when... even when he..."

"Drank?" the young girl said quietly.

"Even then," her grandmother answered. "And I have no regrets." That was a lie, but one Cassie did not need to know the truth of. Not yet.

"But it wasn't him?"

"No," the older woman said, her eyes filling as they had every time she

thought about it. She looked at her knees, kicking her feet like a child in a chair that was too tall.

Cassie sat thoughtfully for a moment. She loved her grandfather very much, but somewhere she had always known. Her mother had known. This was too hard on Gran. Time to change the subject. "You know I never drank much at school. I was afraid. Even thought I knew we weren't really..."

"Related?" the older woman said softly.

"Yeah," Cassie answered. So much for lighter topics. " I mean, I know he wasn't Mom's real father."

"No," her grandmother answered, shifting uncomfortably. "But Xander, your grandfather, loved you and your mom. More than anything."

"I know," the young girl answered. She paused, thinking. Might as well

just clear it all.

"It was Mom's real father, wasn't it?" Cassie asked, looking very

tentatively at her grandmother.

"What was, dear?"

"That you loved. Like I love Billy. With...everything."

"Billy," the older woman said softly. "William."

"Yeah," Cassie answered, looking oddly at her grandmother.

"It's a good name," she commented, standing and beginning to pack the

suitcase again. Slowly. Deliberately.

"Was it..him? That you loved?"

"With everything I had. Which wasn't much at the time," the old woman

answered.

"What happened?" Cassie asked, knowing that she'd never know everything. Her grandmother had kept her heart silent when it came to her daughter and her lover.

"Everything," her grandmother said, "and nothing at all."

"But you loved him?"

"Yes."

"Did he not love you?" Cassie asked, trying to understand.

"Oh, he did. Very much. More than I ever deserved," the older woman

answered, remembering just how much.

"Then..why?"

"Why what dear?"

"Why wasn't there a happily ever after?" Cassie said. The naivete of

youth.

"I didn't believe in those at the time," her grandmother answered.

"If he loved you so much, why did he leave you? Especially then... when you were pregnant with Mom?" The resentment in Cassie's voice was evident. Her grandmother's eyes flew open in shock.

"Who on Earth told you that, Cassie? Certainly not your mom!"

"Grandpa," she answered softly. The older woman sighed.

"Well, I understand why he said that," she said with an air of resignation, "But it simply isn't true. Xander never cared for him. Until the day he died, he hated your real grandfather. But that had to do with me, Cassie. Not him."

"Then what did happen?"

The older woman settled back onto the bed next to her granddaughter. "It was a very... hard time in my life. I was still Slayer then. A lot of difficult things had happened. The only one who understood me was your real grandfather, but he wasn't...well...I thought he wasn't ...good enough... for me."

"Why?" Cassie asked.

Why, indeed, Buffy thought. And why was this so hard to tell her? The

child grew up knowing her mother was the Slayer, and her grandmother before that. But telling Cassie her grandfather was a Vampire. It just didn't seem...right. Besides, in the end, it had no bearing. Love is love. "Because he was different. From the wrong side of the tracks."

"Was he bad or something?"

Her grandmother chuckled. "He thought he was. But in his heart, no."

"So then why did he leave?" Cassie inquired again.

"Because I told him to. If nothing else, he would have done anything I

asked. I asked him to leave."

"But you loved him?"

"Yes."

"Then why?"

"Because I didn't think I should love him," her grandmother answered. She was sure it made no sense to Cassie. It made no sense to her. Seemed to make perfect sense at the time.

"And he left? Even with... Mom?"

"Cassie," the older woman sighed, "he never knew about your mother."

"What?" the young woman said, her eyes flying wide open.

"When I told him to go, I didn't even know."

"And you didn't think he might want to know? You didn't think to find him and tell him?" Cassie commented in true-blue Summers girl bluntness.

"He wasn't the kind of guy that you could look up in the phone book or on some Internet search," her grandmother answered.

"So," Cassie said, "this man has... had... a daughter that he won't ever

know about. That he can't ever meet since.."

The older woman squeezed her granddaughter's hand. So much loss. First, the only grandfather she knew drank himself to death. Then her parents die in combat. All that was left was them. "I'm afraid so."

"But you loved him?" Cassie asked again. "I just don't understand. Why didn't you go look? Why didn't he?"

"Cassie, so many... things..... When I told him to go, we'd both said and done some horrible things. I don't blame him."

"Do you blame yourself?"

"Every day," her grandmother answered, tears escaping.

"Gran, do you still love him?"

" I always will. He was everything good and happy and beautiful about

living," the older woman said, smiling softly. Cassie returned the smile, hearing her grandmother repeat her words. "But I didn't understand that then. I didn't realize it. Or I did and I couldn't face it. He was..."

"Yours?" Cassie asked, tossing her grandmother's words back at her.

"Yes," she answered, closing the suitcase. "So, my advice to you is that if you *truly* feel that way about Billy, don't let him go. Don't screw it up. Don't be proud. And no amount of forgiveness is ever too much."

Cassie stood, taking the suitcase from her grandmother. "Thanks," she said, touching her gran's hand as she took the case. "That it?"

"Everything else is in the car," the older woman said, walking toward the bedroom door.

"Gran?"

"Yes?"

"I'll be back, you know. I don't like you here alone."

"I've be alone all my life, dear," her grandmother answered. "You and your mother have been everything to me, but in every other way, I'll always be alone." She kissed Cassie's cheek and walked downstairs.

*****

Tears rained down as she stood in the driveway, watching Cassie pull away. She stood there, watching, waving, until all that was left was taillights. Another departure on the road of life. For once, she wished someone would come to stay.

Slowly, achingly, she walked back into the house, letting the door click

shut behind her. She walked to the kitchen. Tea. Somewhere along the

line, she had learned to love it. Giles...maybe Anya.. maybe it was..

didn't matter. Tea was salve for all life's wounds.

Thinking, especially about the past, had never been an activity she enjoyed. She remembered everything. Every last detail.

"Tell me again why I could never love you?"

What he did that night was *so* wrong. So completely, mind-bendingly,

wrong. The really strange part was that she understood, with such clarity, why. Once he was gone, all she had was time to think. Made her realize what she had done to him to bring them to that point. Didn't make it right, but made it make sense.

All the things she said. All the beatings she doled out that he had taken without so much as a whimper of defense. What *they* had done had been horribly...wrong. And what was worse was realizing that she loved him as much as he had loved her. With every fiber, every drop of her humanity. Like everything else, it occurred to her a little too late. He was gone and she didn't know where to look.

After that, life had had its brilliant moments, but, for the most part, it felt like looking at the world inside a fishbowl. She had been too absorbed to realize that she was pregnant until weeks after he left. Then having to explain it to her *friends*. The struggling through it with only her sister's help. Finally, accepting Xander because she loved him as a friend and he had always loved her, but mostly because she couldn't have Dawn ruin her life by sticking around when she should be off in college, starting a life of her own.

That she did. Doctor now. She and her husband fly in twice a year from New York. Never enough.

There it was though. Her life.

Laugh, but not all of your laughter. Cry, but not all of your tears.

Now Emma is dead. And Xander. Casualties of life's war. Dawn is gone.

Willow disappeared into nothingness. Anya... well, never truly close

after.. And Giles, bless him, finally just had enough. The only one who just drifted off like people were supposed to drift off. Fell asleep one night and never woke up. Of any of them, he deserved the rest.

Which leaves Cassie. Who is finishing school. Who is in love. And

becoming adult. And leaving. So this house, which had been filled and

emptied a hundred times over, is empty once again. The old woman's heart could never fill it alone. She was too... broken. She ran her fingers over the top of the mug. All it would have taken to change all of it was "I'm sorry" followed by "I love you." Words children say. Then she would have never lost him. Emma would have known her father. Cassie her grandfather. Emma might even have still been alive. But the words escaped her then. She had been reminded of that every night since.

A small rap at the kitchen door startled her to attention. "Coming," she chimed, hopping up and trotting to the back door as if she were twenty-four rather than sixty-four. "Who's there?"

"A friend," Came a smooth, English accent. Relative of Giles?

Tentatively, she cracked the kitchen door, tossing it open, then stopped

dead. Her jaw dropped. Her eyes widened. Her head swam.

"S...Spike?"

"Hello, Buffy," he managed to say before she swooned, fainting dead away and he was darting through the door to catch her before she hit the floor.

To be contd.

Title: Once, When We Were Young (2/2)

Author: Nimue

Rating: PG

Feedback: Yes, please

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox... Just Borrowing.

Summary: What would have happened had Spike never come back from Africa? Or at least Buffy never knew he did. This is my take on Buffy, having survived to old age, looking back on her youth.

Once, When We Were Young

"Buffy?" Her eyes fluttered open. She felt a cool cloth pressed to her

head and his fingers stroking her face. Somehow, she was lying on the couch in her living room with Spike kneeling beside her. He was wearing blue jeans and a deep purple button down. And he was older now. Still, he was the most handsome man she had ever seen, a little gray around the temples, tiny lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked rugged and distinguished.

He had aged.

"S...Spike?"

"Haven't gone by that name in years, Pet. But if you would like..."

"You... you're old?"

Spike chuckled. "You're no spring chicken yourself, Love. But let me say that age has been kind to you. You're still the most beautiful woman I'd ever hope to see."

She felt herself blush, her hand fluttering to his face. "Am I dead?"

"No, Pet," he answered, as her eyes flew wide.

"Ne...Neither are you!" she gasped, feeling his warm cheek.

"Thereby explaining the aging process."

"Wha...What happened?" Buffy asked, pulling herself upright, her hand

pressing to the back of her head.

"You fainted and I...."

"I don't mean *that*," she commented, annoyance in her voice. "With the... human.. thing."

"Not quite that either, Love," he answered, still kneeling at her feet, his hands on her knees.

"Then what?"

"Mortal. Souled. Pigmented. Still fangy Vampire."

"Do you...?"

"Not for forty-one years," he answered, chuckling. "The human population can breathe a collective sigh of relief."

"You've been this way since..." Buffy stuttered, not able to form a coherent thought or at least force it to come out of her mouth without sounding like a startled child.

"Since right after I left, Pet."

Buffy thought for a moment. "So for forty years, two hundred and twenty

four days, you've been..."

"This."

"Why?"

"Why what, Love?"

"Why didn't you come back?"

Spike rocked back, sitting on the heels of his work boots. "Didn't really think you wanted me around, Pet. Not after..."

Buffy shh'd him with a hand on his cheek. "Please, don't," she pleaded,

tears pooling behind her emerald eyes.

Spike nodded. "It took time, Buffy. But I did come back."

"W..What?" Buffy stuttered again, the thoughts becoming tornadoes ripping apart her mind.

"It took me two years to work up the nerve to come back here. But I had to. I needed to apologize. I needed you to know that I was sorry. So, endlessly, sorry and that I loved..." It was her turn to watch the tears pool behind his eyes.

"But you didn't... I never..."

"Saw me?" Spike asked. "Meant it that way, Love. Well, after the first time I saw you."

"The first time?"

"Was walking down the street near the Magic Box trying to get up the nerve to go and find you. I heard your voice. It excited me. Terrified me. Just wanted to see you first. Then figure out how to talk to you. So I stepped back into an alley and you walked past. With the whelp. And..."

"Emma," Buffy whispered.

"Your daughter?" Spike asked, looking up at her sadly, but somewhat proudly as well. Buffy nodded, the first of many tears drizzling down. "She's a pretty little girl, though I suppose she's a woman now." The tears escaped one by one from Buffy's tired eyes. Instinctively, Spike reached up to brush them off and Buffy did not resist.

"She was a Slayer too. She didn't make it." It rushed from Buffy's lips as soft as a whisper, but Spike could hear the primal roar of rage and sadness behind it.

"I...I'm... Buffy..," he stuttered. "I'm so sorry."

"Me too," she answered quietly, staring down at him, tears falling in a

steady drizzle. "Not supposed to happen like that, you know? She had no reason to be Slayer. Guess the Powers thought that if I had made it as long as I did..."

"That your daughter might as well," Spike continued, his hand still pressed to her cheek. She found herself nuzzling into his palm, searching for comfort. Searching for strength.

"She was a *great* Slayer, Spike. Better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.

When she turned fifteen, it was like a switch flipped. I was relieved of duty. Good thing because I was getting tired and thirty six is

just...old... for a Slayer."

"Twenty six is old for a Slayer," Spike said. She chuckled through the

tears.

"I still had power, but Giles said it was time to let her go and for me to rest."

"Rupert?"

"He was her Watcher too. Although I did most of the physical training. She was much more... obedient.. than I was," Buffy continued, smiling softly, remembering Emma hunched over books with Giles and curious about everything that could or would happen at any point in past or future history. "But she was so *good*, Spi..."

"It's OK, Buffy."

"What do you... go by.. now?"

"William. William Windsor. Professor of Occult Studies," he said, holding out his hand quite formally and smiling a smile that would melt steel. "Retired, sort of."

"Wh...What?" Buffy stuttered, again wide eyed.

"Got some help putting together papers. Sent myself back through school. Decided that if you could live your life despite it, so could I. Kept thinking if I could only be normal enough..."

"You could come back?" Buffy asked.

"I would deserve you," he answered, quietly. "But even when I thought about it, I couldn't... You had started over. Had yourself a little one. Was surprised, and a little hurt, when Rupert told me you had married the whelp."

Buffy was silent, not sure if she should react first to the fact he had been hurt about her marriage or that he'd talked to Giles. Let's see what's behind door number two, she thought.

"You spoke.. to Giles?" Buffy said, tentatively.

"Off and on until the old boy passed on. I contacted him after I came back that first time. I needed to know. He told me what had happened. That after I had left, your world sort of imploded. Then you... and that you'd had a child and married the whelp. Nibs off to University. Willow's disappearance. Wanted so badly to come back and help you, Pet. But not my place at that point. You'd done what you needed to do, and the last thing you deserved was for me to muck it up."

Buffy was quiet. Unsure. Giles had known the truth about Emma. The truth about how she had felt for Spike. But she didn't know how much he had told him.

"Have to say, I was a bit surprised that Harris married you after the baby. Figured he'd have been jumping at the chance and that would have been it. Didn't imagine he'd a wasted so much..."

"Emma," Buffy said slowly, "Wasn't Xander's daughter."

"But I thought," Spike stuttered. "Rupert said that..."

"That what?" Buffy asked, still staring down into those beautiful blue

eyes.

"That after I left, you and Harris got married. I saw you, Buffy, together. You had a little girl..." Spike rambled, trying to convince Buffy of the story he had believed for the last forty years as if she had not lived it herself.

"That part is true, but you said you were surprised he didn't marry me

first."

"Yes, but.."

"He didn't because I kept hoping that her father would come back. So that I could tell him that I loved him. And that I was sorry," Buffy said, the tears beginning to stream steadily down her cheeks.

Spike's face went blank, processing it all. "Buffy, are you trying.."

"Emma," she said softly, looking at him through wet and tired eyes," was

yours."

It was the simplest concept to understand, but wrapping his mind around the thought was like backing through every wrong turn he had ever made in forty- one years. "Wh...What?"

"The part Giles left out," Buffy said. "Probably because he knew how much I loved you. How hard it was to keep going. How ... horrible I felt that I never told you. And then you were gone. I waited. I hoped, but Dawn. I couldn't make her stay here and couldn't do it alone. So Xander stepped in. He did love me, you know that..." Spike nodded, still in complete shock. "But I never completely loved him. I never completely stopped loving you."

"Buffy..." the words came from his lips almost as if it were a rush of air. A sigh. A silent cry.

"Let me finish," Buffy gasped, trying to steel herself and get it out before she could no longer speak. Spike nodded again in silence. "What we did to each other before you left was so wrong. Both of us. But *none* of it was more wrong than denying the truth. I have spent the *last* forty- one years admitting it to myself. Maybe it's easier to do when you know it's too late. But it hasn't changed anything. I still love you so much that I ache thinking about you. And I regret, every day, that by not just saying it, not just *forgiving* you and letting you forgive me, that you'll never meet your daughter. Funny how just a few words can change everything," she said, now sobbing, anger, hurt, fear in her voice.

A million thoughts swirled in Spike's mind. A million more emotions.

Sympathy. Love. Desire. Hurt. Anger. Fear. Confusion. What had he

done? How could he have just left? Why didn't he ask more questions? Why didn't he Just.Come.Back.? Emma, Buffy's daughter, *his* daughter, might not have died if he had had their backs.

"Pet," he whispered, trying to pull his thoughts together. He climbed onto the couch next to her, wrapping one arm around her trembling form. His slid his fingers under her chin, turning her face to his. "I don't blame you for anything. Any of it. Never did. I forgave you the moment you ever wronged me. And I *Never* stopped loving you."

"I should have found a way to tell you," she sobbed, desperate.

"And I should have found a way back to you," Spike answered. "We can't

change what is past. I cannot say that any of this is easy, Buffy. But

after this long, I didn't expect it would be."

"Why *did* you come back?" Buffy asked, still crying. Her eyes ran straight to her heart. So wounded. Broken.

"Suppose I finally got up the nerve," he answered. " I came back here about once a year or so. Just to check on you. Never let you see me because I didn't want to hurt you. But I came to make sure you were alright."

"For how long?"

"Since that first time. Sometimes I came a few times a year. Particularly after Dawn left."

"So you saw her? You saw Emma?" Buffy said, a tiny bit of hope creeping in her voice.

" I did, Love. She looked just like you."

"Blue eyes," Buffy muttered.

"What?"

"She had blue eyes. And she had your intelligence."

Spike smiled at her softly. "Don't sell yourself short, Love."

"I know my limitations," Buffy said, trying to smile. "So why today? Why are you here?"

"Regularly scheduled visit. Dropped by like I always have. Was parked out of the way and I saw you loading the car. Thought you were leaving, but then I saw the young girl come out and when she left, I saw you crying. It looked like you were... breaking. I just couldn't leave you alone like that anymore."

"Cassie," Buffy breathed. Maybe there was something, some little thing that could help make this right.

"What, Love?" Spike asked, looking at her deep, wide eyes. She still had the eyes of a lost little girl.

"Cassie," Buffy repeated. "That was Cassie. She was leaving for school. She's a senior now. Pepperdine."

"That's wonderful, Pet, but who is Cassie?"

"Emma," Buffy said quietly, "had a daughter."

Again, Spike was struck dumb by another revelation. Another series of

moments that he had missed. "Wh..When?"

"She survived a long time for a Slayer. Longer than anyone but me. Found someone who.. understood... our lives."

"Vampire?" Spike asked.

"No, a human," Buffy answered, thinking the question made perfect sense.

Who better to understand the Slayer than a Vampire? And who better to

understand the Vampire than the Slayer? "A very open minded human. He

actually trained and learned to fight really well. He was good and kind."

"What happened?"

"They were patrolling one night. I wish I could say that something

apocalyptic and completely unexpected happened. But it wasn't like that. A Vampire. One good day..." Buffy answered, staring at her knees. "He killed them both."

"God, Buffy..." Spike gasped. How could he have ever lived that life?

Uttered those words?

"So I killed him myself," Buffy continued quietly. " I had nothing much

left to lose. Xander died just before Emma. Maybe that's why she was so distracted. Willow was already gone. Dawn moved away. All that was left was me... and Cassie. She was fourteen. I was *terrified* that the Powers would call her too, but I guess they gave us a break."

"Not the Slayer?"

"She writes as if she were a muse and sings like an angel, but she fights about as well as Willow. Well, not magic-y Willow."

Spike smiled, touching her hand. "I'd like to meet her," he said,

carefully. "I don't expect you to tell her.."

"She knows," Buffy interrupted, just as carefully. "Emma knew as well.

Emma knew everything. About you being a Vampire. About how...everything... came to be. About how much I loved you and why you left. Cassie, well, she's not a Slayer. She doesn't quite get all of the supernatural stuff. But she knows that Xander loved us very much and took care of us the best he could, but that he was not really her grandfather. And she knows that..."

"That what, Pet?"

"She knows that you are my one true love," Buffy said quietly. "And I am sorry that you didn't."

"Buffy, you know that I..."

" I know how much you loved me," she interrupted.

"How much I *still* love you," he said, turning her pretty face back to his.

"Still?" Buffy asked, her eyes pleading with him to still love her.

"Until the end of time," he answered, caught in her.

Buffy was quiet, her heart breaking and bursting in the same instant. Her hands touched his beautiful face and caught his wet blue eyes in her gaze. "William, I love you. I did then. I do now. Can you please forgive me?"

"I already have. The question always was, can you?"

"I did years ago," she said softly, feeling free. For once. Free of it

all.

Spike leaned forward slightly, wanting, needing, so badly to kiss her. To comfort her. To make things right again if even for a moment. Before he could, her lips pressed softly to his, her hands still on his cheeks. His eyes closed as he felt her once again, coursing through his veins, igniting his heart. Forty odd years later, she could still make his mind, his body, his heart sing. Slowly, she pulled away, once again catching his eyes in hers.

"Will you stay a while?" she asked, finally feeling warm. Safe.

"I'd like that," he answered, softly smiling, his lips still brushing

against hers. "As long as you would like."

"Then you had better send for your things."

The end.