CHAPTER FIVE: Homecoming

Willow walked up to the front door of the house, turned and looked at Spike. “Why don’t you go into the front room? I’ll find Dawnie and send her down and then I’ll go and talk to Buffy.”

He shook his head. “I’ll wait out here, Red. I don’t want to take any chances of Buffy stumbling over me before you have a chance to talk to her. And seeing as she never leaves the house…”

“Okay, give me a few moments.”

Strolling over to the porch swing, he sat on it, his hands dangling between his legs as he rocked back and forth. Spike was terrified. While his reunion with Willow had gone better than he could have imagined, he figured his quota for good news and happy times was just about over for the night.

The house was silent and although a few rooms were lit, there was an air of sleepiness about it that he knew was a façade. Like a big cat pretending to sleep, Spike knew that there were warriors in that house that could tear him from limb to limb given the order.

And he was terrified that she would give the order first and ask for explanations later.

The silence was shattered by a scream and Spike lunged to his feet just as the front door flew open and Dawn came skidding across the porch. She turned and spotting him standing there, she paused for a second, drinking him in, looking for changes and finding none in his youthful appearance.

“Spike,” she whispered, tears glittering in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.

“Hello, Bit,” he said.

His words set her off and she sprang across the porch and threw herself into his arms, sobbing. She topped him by a couple of inches, but in that moment, as Spike held her in his arms, she was the little girl she’d always been to him.

***

Buffy glanced up as she heard the front door slam. She pushed away from the desk and was about to go and investigate when Willow stepped into the office.

“Did you hear that, Will?” she asked, coming around the desk.

Willow smiled and Buffy paused as she noted the tension at the edges of her smile.

“What’s going on down there?”

“Buffy, you need to sit down,” Willow said softly.

Of course Buffy did the exact opposite. Pushign back from Willow, she strode from the office.

“Buffy!” Willow called and something in her tone caused Buffy to stop and turn around.

“You need to listen to me. Sit down.”

Buffy strode angrily back into the room. She didn’t hear any fighting, so whatever was going on downstairs, it wasn't bad. She could hear voices on the porch and she suddenly wondered if Xander or Giles had arrived earlier than expected from Boston.

“Willow, don’t push me. What the hell is going on?” she asked as she threw herself into the chair and leaned forward.

“You asked me to find out who it was hanging outside the house.”

“Yeah, our new en-souled vamp. Did you find out who he was and who sent him here?”

Willow nodded. “Yes, I did. And it was the Powers That Be that sent him here.”

Buffy closed her eyes. She’d heard enough about the Powers That Be from Angel all those years ago. Thankfully they had pretty much stayed out of her business this last decade. The fact that they were interfering now could not bode well.

“And what do the PTB want?” she asked. She bowed her head and rubbed the back of her neck. She really hoped it was nothing too big. She wasn’t into big bads these days. She was just so tired.

“Well, they sent our new vampire from L.A.”

Buffy’s heart stopped beating and she caught her breath. “What?”

“Buffy, that night in L.A., when Spike and Angel fought Wolfram & Hart and died…”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Spike died and the Powers That Be saved him and sent him ten years into the future. To us.”

Buffy stood up and leaned into the desk to prop up her weight. “What?”

“Buffy, Spike didn’t die in L.A., he was rescued and sent to an alternate dimension and then the PTB sent him here to Buffalo. He’s outside, on the porch, with Dawn. That’s what you heard earlier.”

Buffy closed her eyes and stared down at the desk. She couldn’t look at Willow. Could her friend be lying? Could she be that cruel? What sort of dangerous, horrible game was going on here? Who would do this to her?

How could it be true?

It couldn’t be.

He was dead.

He had to be. She could not have lived all these years while he was stuck in some other dimension.

“These last years…” she murmured.

Willow shook her head, “He’s lost them. As far as he’s concerned, one moment he was in L.A., and the next he’s in Buffalo and it’s 2014.”

Buffy looked up and Willow flinched at the pain in her eyes. “If you’re lying to me…”

Willow gasped. “Lying? Why would I lie?”

“How could he be alive?” Buffy cried out.

“Go see him,” Willow whispered, stepping aside. “Go and see him for yourself. Buffy, I would never lie to you about something like this.”

Buffy pushed past her and ran down the stairs. As she approached the front hall, her pace slowed. The marble floor shimmered and she could feel the cold air blowing in from the open door. She began to shake and the sweat poured down her back as she stopped in front of the open door.

She opened her senses and she could feel a vampire on the other side of that open door. There was a vampire there, with her sister.

It wasn’t Spike, she told herself. She’d know if it was him. She’d sense his very being. She’d taken him inside her and it had changed her completely. She would know if it was him on the other side of that threshold. And while she could sense a vampire out there with her sister, she couldn’t sense Spike. Everything was blunted and blurred by her fear.

For the life of her, Buffy couldn’t take the step to go outside and find out.

“Buffy,” Willow called out.

Buffy turned and stared up at her best friend.

“Go outside and see,” Willow urged.

“I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“You can.”

Buffy turned and stared at the doorway. She wanted to call out to her sister, make Dawn bring him to her, as proof.

But she didn’t want him to be there either, because that would force her to feel, to step out in the world and be someone for him. To be that someone that she had begun to lose the day he’d died and had kept losing over the course of these last years.

It had been over a year since Buffy had stepped out that door and left this house.

And she wouldn’t do it today.

Turning around, she walked away, away from the possibility, from the man she’d loved, and from the man who’d died for her.

Willow watched in horror. “Buffy! NO!”

But the slayer wasn’t listening.

***

Dawn sat as close to him as she could, gripping his hands and staring at him, her eyes examining every inch of him. She shook her head in disbelief, tears glinting, then spilling over, even as her lips parted in a wide smile.

“I just can’t believe it’s you. That you’re really here!” she murmured, hugging him again. “What happened?”

He gave her an abridged version of the story and was grateful that she didn’t ask about Angel. She’d never been a big fan of the poofter anyway.

“Buffy is going to be ecstatic,” she said with a smile.

Spike lost his grin. He knew that even at that moment the witch was breaking the news to his slayer. And while he hadn’t heard any screaming or yelling and nothing had been broken, the silence didn’t bode well for his happy homecoming either.

“Niblet, I don’t know about that,” he said.

Dawn shook her head sadly. “She’s missed you so much, Spike,” she whispered. “She never said it, but anyone could see that she lost something vital the day she lost you. And then…”

“And then?” he urged.

She looked away. “Well, when we found out you’d survived, that you were in L.A. and that you didn’t come back to us, well I think that pretty much finished her off.”

“Bit, you knew that I couldn’t.”

“Oh, I knew that.”

“And I did try, in Italy.” Spike felt like he’d explained himself a dozen times in a dozen different ways and that not once had it been to the right person. Not once had it made a difference.

“The Immortal,” Dawn said with a grimace.

“The Immortal,” Spike repeated darkly. “The git.”

“It was a bad time for her.”

“Yeah, pet, apparently.”

She brightened up considerably. “But now that you’re here, everything will be fine. You can explain to Buffy what happened, and she can explain about the Immortal,” Dawn paused and rephrased. “She can try to explain about the Immortal ‘cause I’m not even sure she understands it.” She hugged him close and whispered. “And then everything will be great again.”

Spike closed his eyes. Things had never, ever been ‘great’. But he didn’t want to tell her that. Let the Bit remember things the way she needed too.

Suddenly he stiffened.

There was a silence on the other side of the open door that signaled a presence. He could feel her, smell her; he could actually taste her on the slight and warm breeze of air that blew gently from the house.

His slayer was there, mere feet away and she knew of his existence. He could hear her heart beating, slow and with a slight hiccup.

“Spike?” Dawn asked. She turned and traced his gaze to the open doorway. “I forgot to close the door,” she said softly. She moved, as if to go and shut it, but Spike held her back.

He shook his head and stared.

‘Come on, Slayer,’ he thought. ‘Come on’ - ordering her to walk through that door. Even if she slapped him; staked him; he didn’t care. Not as long as she left the house and came to him.

“Buffy?” Dawn called out. She tried to stand and again Spike held her back. “Spike? Let me –“

He shook his head. “Leave her be, Bit. She needs to come out on her own volition. She needs-“

“She needs to invite you in!” Dawn said angrily.

Spike smiled at her vehemence. He had the Bit and the witch in his corner. “No, pet, she doesn’t need to invite me in. She needs to step out of that house.”

They heard Willow call out Buffy’s name. Spike knew then that his slayer had left the hallway and had disappeared into the bowels of the house; far from him and far from the doorway to the outside.

Willow stood in the doorway, shivering. She glanced over at the swing. “Come inside you two, it’s freezing out here!”

Spike stood, Dawn with him. They walked over to the door and he paused there. He glanced from one to the other.

“I won’t go into that house,” he said.

Dawn gaped at him. “What?”

He shook his head. “Buffy needs to face me, but more importantly, she needs to face herself and part of that means leaving the house.”

“She won’t," Dawn said, looking down at her feet. "Spike, she hasn’t left in over a year.”

He cursed. “How did you lot let it go that long?”

Willow looked up at him guiltily. “It just sort of happened. I don’t think we even realized it at the time. She started going out for patrols less and less. The other slayers started arriving and they needed the practice and the training. When we actually clued in, it had been months already and by then it was too late.”

“It’s never too late,” he bit out. “You two have let this go on far longer than is right or good for any of you. And you’re going to help fix it.”

Dawn shivered and he shoved her back into the house. “Get in, Niblet, before you freeze.” He looked around as an icy wind blew across the porch. “Christ, it’s bloody cold here! You ladies couldn’t pick a more southern location could you? Bloody Buffalo!”

Willow smiled. “I think we wanted to get away from the memories as much as from the sun. I don’t know; it just seemed right to come here."

Muttering something under his breath, he wrapped his scarf around one more time.

Dawn grinned and reaching into the basket in the hallway, pulled out a wooly striped tuque with ear flaps. Leaning forward, she pulled it over his head and down, covering his ears.

“There, that’ll keep you warm.”

She grinned even as he grimaced in horror.

“Dawn…” he warned. He shook his head. He’d never admit it, but the hat was nice and cozy. “I’ll touch base with you both tomorrow.” He turned on his heels to leave.

“Spike!”

He glanced back. “Yeah?”

“Where are you staying?”

“Concordia Cemetery,” he called out and then disappeared into the whirling snow.

Willow shut the door, shutting out the cold and snow. She turned and faced Dawn. “You okay?” she asked softly.

Dawn looked incredulous. “Okay? Okay? My God, Willow! Spike is alive.”

“Un-dead,” Willow corrected without cracking a smile.

“Undead, whatever,” Dawn said. “He’s back.”

Willow grinned.

“And he’s going to help us bring Buffy back.”

The smile faded from Willow’s face. Any talk of bringing Buffy back from anything inevitably made her nervous.