Maybe you won't suffer
Maybe it's quick
But you'll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn't I taste it?
You'll have time
Cause you're gonna die


“Chip?” Tara managed.

“What? No, not in a snack-food mood, sweetheart. I need to…” Realization fluttered in Spike’s face with a trace of… disappointment? “Oh. Course it’s still working. Welcome to come out here and test it though, if you’re up for a bit of slap and tickle.”

The words and his leer of faux enthusiasm were enough to bring a sigh of relief in Tara. Spike—not vampire—after all. She still forgot that sometimes. “Ok. It’s just, I’ve never…”

“Invited the living undead part and parcel through your doorway? Yeah, I get it. But this is important. Wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t.”

Tara shifted from foot to foot. “So why are you asking me?”

“Honestly? Cause I don’t trust your red-headed honey. And you’re the only other one around here with voltage enough, and maybe will enough, to get me what I want. Fair enough?”

Dawn was sleeping in the far room. It was the one thought that still hovered on the edges of her consciousness before she could make the invitation. She didn’t know what had happened tonight, but she knew that Spike looked changed… determined. And Dawn was sleeping in the far room.

Memories began to bring their force to bear. Spike watching taped Icecapades on TV. Spike advising on lipstick shades. A stolen moment, caught through the Summers’ front window, of Spike brushing Dawn’s hair from her face as he pulled their worn green blanket up to cover the sleeping girl.

“Come in, Spike.” Tara offered him a tender, tense smile.

He nodded his thanks with a tight smile and wild eyes.

Five minutes later, Tara was pacing and more agitated than Spike could remember seeing her.

“Y-you can’t know what you’re asking. I d-don’t have that kind of power. Besides, you shouldn’t even want it.”

“But you know how to do the spell?” he wheedled.

“Willow taught me, just in case Angel came back. But, Spike, it takes m-more than just one person. I can’t do it.”

“So I’ll help.”

“You’re a vampire.”

“So I’d noticed.”

“I should really call the others. This is a big decision, and we should really all be…”

Spike’s hand pulling the phone from hers stopped Tara mid-sentence. He set the phone back softly in its cradle. When he spoke, his voice flowed like new honey over warm bread. “It’s doubts about my motives then? Listen, kitten, I know it’s a big decision, don’t I? Not the work of a day or two’s time. This one’s been years in the making. And the long and short of it is, I want to be more. I want to be a man. I know you’ve kipped to something going between Buffy and me.” He checked her eyes for denial and found none.

“And thing is, it’s gotten bad. And it’s gonna get worse, if it keeps heading this way. Not fool enough to ignore it when my own black reflection’s right in my face, yeah?” Tara squinted, but said nothing. “So I figure, what if she’s right? What if it’s not love? It’s just twisted and sick cause I can’t know better? I could handle the fights, and the nastiness. But God, I don’t think I can take wondering if it’s not really love. Cause if it isn’t, I’ll kill her.”

“W-what?”

“Not now,” he waved dismissively. “But someday. ‘S what I am, right? I’m a killer. Slayer of slayers.” His eyes glassed as he turned toward the window on the far wall. “What if she’s right about everything?”

The depth of despair in Spike’s voice had Tara beside him and rubbing his shoulder tenderly before a conscious thought formed. “I feel for her. More than I’ve ever felt. So if I can’t love her… I can’t love. How could I live? How can I go on forever knowing I could never…?”

The lost boy look in his eyes was enough to break Tara’s heart. “I understand,” she whispered. And in her own small way, she did. “But I’m still not powerf—“

“Shut it,” he said, with a twinge of humor on his lips. “Your power hangs over you like a sodding windstorm. You carry it with you everywhere you go. And you may be able to fool the others, cause they’re children, or the Watcher with his tunnel vision. You can even fool Red, cause she’s looking at you half love-blind. But I know.” His last word was firm, and he forced Tara to meet his eyes before he repeated, “I know. You don’t like to use it, and I get that. ‘S your decision. But it doesn’t make it any less there.”

“I’d feel a lot better about this if we talked to the others. Willow…”

“…is not here. Understand your worry, ducks, but tell me one person on this earth who should have a bigger say in this than me.”

At that, Tara closed the mouth she had prepared for further objections. “I’ll have to go find the orb.”

Silken snark nearly covered his shaking hands and trembling voice. “Oh, goody. There’s an orb and everything.”

+++

Minutes or hours, and Buffy’s tears had finally slowed to a reasonable trickle. She hadn’t known, in all this time, how desperately she had needed it… to be heard. To be forgiven. Willow had listened to everything, Buffy’s pain, her abuse toward Spike, the sex. Her face had shown shock and guilt, along with a hefty dose of sympathy, and it left Buffy feeling rung out and hung to dry. A tired, washed feeling that nonetheless promised morning wind and sunshine.

“Spike was right, you know. I can’t even describe how much I hate to admit that. But he was right all along.”

Willow sniffled and blew her nose on a tissue before tossing it onto the soggy little pile they’d built beside the bed. “About what?”

“He told me that I was my own problem. Or that my problems were me. Or something. Pretty much this whole big thing that ended with Poor Pitiful Buffy being so totally not the right attitude about my life.”

“But Buffy, you’ve been through…”

“Hell. I’ve been through Hell, Willow. And I’ve been through Heaven, too. And the only thing I’ve really learned is that this… my life… it doesn’t get any better unless I want it to. And Willow, I want it to. So many things have happened to me that I couldn’t control. But the one thing I always could was me. And I want me to be better. A better life for a better Buffy. And I’m starting now.” She took Willow’s hands with purpose. “Willow, what you did to me sucked beyond the telling.”

“Buffy, I…”

“And I forgive you.”

Willow’s eyes widened, and a small gasp escaped.

“I should’ve forgiven you sooner for it. And I’m sorry. Will, you made a mistake. And it sucked. And I forgive you.”

A muffled squeak of “Really?” was all Willow could manage before she was caught in a wet Slayer hug. The air between them tasted cleaner, and the room around them, despite the length of hot tears, lost some of its staleness as they shuffled to their feet.

An awkward instant passed as they looked at each other and then both began to laugh. Buffy took the initiative. “So, Mom always said hot chocolate was the best way to end a girl’s night. Think this qualifies?”

“Definitely,” Willow nodded. The two descended the stairs together and Buffy set about finding the recipe while Willow took a seat at the bar. As Buffy stirred the warm mix in front of her, she glanced at the red-head and noticed the slightly lifted set of her shoulders, the smile that actually reached her eyes. After years of fighting impossible, nameless battles against evil, make that capital E, it occurred to Buffy that this might be what it was like to actually win. Sitting down with someone you love and knowing you gave them something they needed. Gave them something no one else could give.

+++

“Give it to me, Glinda.”

Tara couldn’t help a wry smile at the picture Spike presented, sitting in front of her with his eyes scrunched up, hands clenched before him, and every sinew of his body tense. Clearly not a fan of magic. Not that she could blame him. She’d heard stories. One of them had “The Wind Beneath My Wings” as a central theme.

“Spike?” He looked up with a fearful face. “You have to help. Incense and candles, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” He scrambled to grab his supplies and hold them aloft for her inspection. If Tara had been told Spike were capable of playing the sheepish child, she’d have laughed it off. But with the evidence full in front of her, she couldn’t help thinking she was making the right decision. He was scared. Not just of the magic, but of what he was getting himself into. That, to her, was a good sign.

They each assumed the positions she’d mapped out for them earlier when she’d explained the spell, and Tara and Spike began. Her chanting grew louder, and Spike, despite only a rusty knowledge of Latin, was pulled into the sheer power behind her words. When her eyes glowed gold and the orb filled with white light, he sniffed, set his jaw, and steeled himself.

It was over in an instant, and the overwrought thread of the moment was cut with Spike’s gleeful laughter. He swooped Tara into his arms, kissing her cheeks and dancing around the room. “You did it,” he shouted. “You did it, and I don’t feel any different. Thank God. It’s real. It’s all real. I’m real again.”

The pain in her heart for him was overwhelming and unexpected. “Spike,” she said softly.

Dawn, aroused by the commotion, stumbled into the room, raising sleepy hands to her face. “Spike? Gah, what’s your damage? It’s like three in the morning.”

“Bit,” he shouted, running to her and twirling her around. “Bit, I’ve got it. I’ve got it, and I’m still me.”

“What in the Sam Hill is he talking about?” Dawn turned her gaze to a white, dismayed looking Tara.

Spike answered for her. “My soul. Dawn, I’ve got my soul.”

“Spike, no.”

Tara’s two words fell like hammers in his heart. He turned back to her, wishing he’d somehow misread the disappointment and pity in her face. “But it…”

“No. It didn’t work.”

He shook his head. “No. You’re wrong. We did it right. I saw the spell. The orb lit up, and it…”

“It’s still here,” Tara said softly. “The orb’s still here. If the spell works, the orb disappears. Spike, I’m so sorry.”

“But it had to work,” he said, looking wildly to her face for confirmation. He found none. Tara looked away as his lower lip quivered. “We did it right.” He tried softly. “I know we…”

“I don’t understand,” she went on, moving toward him. She made no move to touch him. “We must have been wrong. I’m just not strong enough.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, exhaustion and acceptance seeping slowly into his voice. “I felt the power. We both did.” He walked back to the orb and laid a cold hand over it, staring at it curiously. “I still feel it. It wasn’t you. It’s me. I can’t even be cursed with a soul. God, how pathetic.” Spike looked up at Tara with deep, frayed eyes. “What do I do now?”

“Oh, Spike,” Dawn sniffled from the doorway. She didn’t enter, unprepared for and respectful of the level of seriousness she’d suddenly stumbled into.

“That’s it,” Tara said. “You can’t be cursed.”

“What I bloody just said now, isn’t it?”

Although her tone had gained the new energy of one making a discovery, it still harbored no hope. “No, I mean, that’s why it didn’t work. The curse was designed to punish. You want your soul, Spike. You can’t be cursed with one if you want it.”

Bitter laughter left his lips, and his body slumped to the floor. “You have got to be fucking joking.” He spared Dawn a brief glance. “Sorry, Bit.” She waved away the profanity as he looked back to Tara. “You’re telling me the only reason I can’t have a soul is cause I want one?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. Couldn’t be helped. At least you tried. And that means something to me. I mean it.”

Tara returned the sad and soggy smile he shot her.

Dawn soaked in the dampened emotions and took it as clearance to enter the room. She stepped forward and picked up the Orb of Thessula. “So this thing still has Spike’s soul floating around in it, huh?” She tipped it back and forth as she would a snow-globe. “Glowy.”

“Yeah, and it’s my glowy soul. So watch it, right?” Spike grimaced toward her.

“Are you going to give up?” Tara asked.

“Nah,” he shrugged. “Never been the quitting kind, pet. I’ve heard tell of a demon in…”

The crash was surpassed only by Dawn’s wail. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So stupid. Oh god.” Frantic tears fell as she began hysterically grasping at the glass shards at her feet, trying to force them together, cutting herself over and over again in a desperate attempt to recapture the essence she’d held. “No, no. So clumsy… I... God, no.”

Spike’s own hands were cut by tiny slivers as the orb shattered mere inches in front of him. From instinct, he grabbed her to stop her from hurting herself. The moment Tara touched them both, their world went dark.