Buffy stared at the apparition, power crackling off her fingers. Spike, black shirt, tight jeans, his blue eyes bright and sad. “Where the hell did you come from?” Her voice sounded a thousand miles away, rumbling like it came through a dark tunnel.

    “Dunno,” Spike said. He spoke very softly, as if before a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. “One second I was staking a fledge who’d come to spit on your grave... and the next I was here. Looking at... you. Now since it was the end of summer, and with those daffodils over there this is obviously spring... I must have skipped something.”

    “You’re not supposed to be here.”

    “Neither are you,” he said. He took in Buffy’s bone-white hair and her crackling fell power. “You don’t look so good.”

    Buffy’s head tilted as she stared at him. “They said you’d dusted,” she said, low rumbling roar of power.

    Spike shook his head and took a step forward. “Had to watch the bit, didn’t I?” he said. “I promised. She had my coat, there’d been a chill the night before. She’s okay, yeah?”

    “Yeah...” Buffy said, opening up her hands. “She’s right here.” Green energy shimmered around her hands. Spike’s eyes widened in horror. “I can’t bring her back. But I can bring Tara. And Mom. And everyone. The door’s right by my feet,” she said. “All I had to do was use the key. Open the doors of Heaven, and everyone can come here.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I can’t get back. But I can bring it... here.”

    “And what’ll that do to here?”

    “I don’t know,” Buffy said. “Destroy it, I hope. This place is hell.”

    “It can be pretty bad sometimes,” Spike said carefully. “You got brought outta heaven, then. Knew that’s where you’d be.”

    “Did you?” Buffy said coldly. “You were the only one.”

    Spike shook his head. “Nah, niblet and I knew where you’d be. Had to be, didn’ you.”

    “I’m not there now,” she said. “I don’t deserve to be.”

    He took another step toward her. “Sure you do,” he said. “You’re the slayer. That’s your gift. Your final reward. I always knew that.”

    Buffy took a step back. “Slayer of slayers. You can’t send me there. Not any more,” she said. “My soul’s black as hell. I don’t deserve heaven. No one deserves it.”

    “Course not,” Spike said. “If anyone really got what they deserved, it wouldn’t be  heaven, would it. No one’s a saint.”

    “You’re not,” Buffy said.

    “Preaching gospel, there,” Spike said. “But what brought that on?”

    “Anya says I wished you vengeance.”

    Spike raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What for?”

    Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know. You did something horrible to me. You wronged me.”

    Spike gazed at her. “I don’t doubt it. So what am I doing back here?”

    “I don’t know,” Buffy said. “I thought I’d wished you dead.” Whatever she’d wished, it hadn’t been for Spike’s death.

    She was curious about that, actually. Power was sluicing off of her. She caught a thread of it and pulled. Find the wish. An image appeared just at the edge of the grave. There she was, her and Xander at their favorite table in the Bronze, chatting sadly over drinks. “Just... if he was gonna be so evil and that, and it was gonna mess you up... I don’t know. I just wish he hadn’t been the one you felt you could turn to. I wish he and his wacked out evil-playing-good thing just hadn’t been there to confuse you when you were brought back.”

    Buffy’s eyes were distant.“Yeah. Me too.”

    The vision faded out.

    “That was your wish?” Spike asked.

    “Must have been. I guess this is when you stopped being there to confuse me.” When the wish had run its course, and Anya had remembered she’d cast it. It was all the same thing.

    “So you popped me out until the time you weren’t confused by me anymore. And... that did this, did it?” Spike asked. The earth rumbled beneath their feet. The gates of heaven were opening. Hundreds of millions of souls from Buffy’s own corner of heaven, screaming as their peace was dragged away. Earth could feel their horror. It groaned in torment.

    “Yes,” Buffy said.

    “Is there any way to stop it?”

    Buffy shook her head. “Anya says she could take it back. But I don’t want to.”

    Spike looked at her. “You’d rather do this?” he asked. “Dawn naught but green energy, Tara... gone, apparently. Dead?”

    “And Willow and Giles and Amy. Whoever was in your crypt. I’ve been killing... people. I broke Xander’s back.”

    “Sounds fun. And what about you?”

    “I’m just a slayer.”

    “But what about Buffy?” Spike asked.

    “I am The Slayer.”

    Spike nodded. “So Buffy too, then. The world cracking open. That’s better than what I did, is it?”

    Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know what you did.”

    “Sure looked pretty peaceful,” Spike said. “You, the whelp, a good drink. Can’t have been all bad.”

    “You did me wrong,” Buffy said. “You hurt me.”

    Spike blinked. “And you’re not hurting now?”

    “How can you tell?”

    Spike almost laughed. “Oh, Buffy, I can always tell. You reach right inside me and tear me right through whenever you’re hurting.” He took another step toward her, and she didn’t back away. “I’ve never seen you hurting so bad.”

    Buffy’s face crumpled, but she still didn’t cry. “I hate you,” she whimpered.

    “Good,” he said. “Buffy... it’s all right. If you need to turn me into a monster, to keep yourself from becoming one... I can do that.”

    “What?”

    Spike took one final step, and then he was right there. His hand reached out and gingerly, ever so gently, cupped her cheek. His cool fingers smelled of cigarettes and she could feel... she could feel them. She could feel him. “If you can take it back, take it back,” he whispered. “Hate me. Be confused by me. Whatever I did, why ever I left, it can’t be worse than this. Can it?”

    Tears slid out of Buffy’s eyes. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

    “You scare the hell out of me, slayer,” Spike said. “What do you say you take it back? We can be scared and confused and hate each other together. I’ll do you wrong. You’ll do me wrong. And in the end you’ll sit around a table in the Bronze with your mates and bitch about what an awful guy I am, deal?”

    “I don’t know what happened.”

    “Whatever it was, it was with us together, right?”

    Buffy shook her head. “You might be dead.”

    “I’m already dead,” he said. “This,” he glanced around at the groaning earth and the wind whipping with screaming souls. “This is what happened when I wasn’t there. Look back... to when you were brought back, however that happened. What do you wish?”

    Buffy looked back. Giles, injured and bitter. Non-violent demons, dead at her feet. That night in the bar. That girl in the cemetery. Dawn taken away. Willow, lost. Riley. Xander. Anya. Tara. Dawn...

    She’d just wanted someone to be quiet with. Someone who understood what she was going through. Someone who knew the darkness inside.

    “I wish you’d been there,” she whispered.

    “Me too, pet,” Spike whispered. He leaned forward to kiss her, gently, chaste, smooth cool lips against hers. “Me too.”
 

 

***
 

    Buffy came back to her own reality with a bump. She stood up from her chair at the Bronze and turned to glare at Anya.

    The vengeance demon stood up from her shadowy corner and faced Buffy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know how bad it would get. It was your wish! I was just giving you what you wanted!”

    “You nearly ended the planet,” Buffy snapped.

    “Buffy, what are you talking about?” Xander asked.

    Buffy blinked, already unsure. Things were going fuzzy, as if she was trying to remember a dream. Only disconnected bits and pieces fluttered like mad bats in her memory.

    “To be fair, you weren’t any worse than crazy dark Willow,” Anya said.

    “I was breaking dimensions, not just this world,” Buffy said. “I was about to open... to open....” She couldn’t remember.

    Anya recognized the confusion in Buffy’s eyes. “Don’t worry about it. The memory’s gonna fade really fast. Even mine’s getting murky. I’ll remember enough not to do that again, but I was human for most of that too, you know. I won’t be able to hold it for long.”

    “Buffy, what happened?”

    “She cast a vengeance on Spike!” Buffy snapped.

    “And I took it back!” Anya said. “I’m not supposed to do that. D’Hoffryn’s gonna be pissed as all hell. You owe me!”

    “You know, Anya,” Xander said, getting up and asserting himself. “I’m sorry, but you’ve just about used up your sympathy vouchers!”

    “Oh, go screw yourself, Xander,” Anya barked. “Better yet, go screw her!” Anya grabbed her purse and stalked off.

    Buffy blushed.

    “Um... what is she talking about?” Xander asked awkwardly.

    “I don’t really remember,” Buffy lied. Except by the time she said it, it wasn’t even a lie anymore.

    “So she let us wish Spike gone?” Xander asked. He scoffed. “Shoulda let it stand.”

    Buffy felt too cold and still to respond. Without a word she turned and walked calmly away.

    She walked home slowly, trying to pin down the memories in her mind, but they were elusive. Dream-like, by the time she got home, all she really remembered was the emotion. Such loneliness and emptiness. Such a profound sense of something missing, it left her feeling almost hollow inside.

    Dawn was in her room when Buffy got home, reading a magazine, sucking on a popsicle and listening to some rock-band playing too loud on her CD player. “You finish your homework?” Buffy asked.

    “I still got some reading to do,” Dawn said without taking her eyes off the magazine.

    “That it?”

    “Its nearly summer!” Dawn whined. “Can’t I skip it?” Buffy turned off the music and Dawn rolled her eyes. “Buff-yyyy.”

    “You do your homework, and look nice and pretty for the social-workers, so I look like a model parent,” Buffy said. “You don’t wanna get taken away.”

    “I’m not gonna get taken away,” Dawn muttered, even as she reached into her backpack for her school book.

    “You’ll end up in juvie, you delinquent,” Buffy laughed.

    “Pest.”

    “Brat,” Buffy said.

    “Oh, Willow called!” Dawn called after Buffy as she left the room, and Buffy popped her head back in. “Message by the answering machine. She said she sensed some kind of time-flux?”

    “Just a vengeance wish,” Buffy said. “Already sorted.”

    “Anya again?”

    “It’s done,” Buffy said. “Finish your homework. Night Dawn.”

    “Night!”

    Buffy went into her room and shut the door. Then she went to her closet.

    The memories were almost completely gone by now. Even the hollow sense of loss was muted. Nevertheless, Buffy reached into her closet and pulled it out. The coat Spike had left, the night he ran away.

    The coat was heavy in her hands, solid, like a body. There was so much pain associated with his memory. So much anger, so much confusion. That moment in her bathroom still scraped her raw, and haunted her sometimes when she closed her eyes. It hadn’t been so very long ago. “You monster,” she whispered to the coat.

    Then she held it to her nose and breathed in the scent of him – old leather and cigarettes and hair gel and his unique demonic essence. Other memories washed over her – his quiet wonder as she came down the stairs, his earnest grief as he spoke to her in his still crypt, the awe on his face when she’d finally claimed his body in the abandoned house. His stunned sadness when she told him it was over. And that moment in the Bronze when he had caught her. Caught her before she could burn to cinders. You’ll get along. The pain that you feel you only can heal by living.

    “Tell me again why I could never love you,” she whispered.

    It didn’t matter. It was what it was. She just wished... she hoped... he was still out there somewhere. Alive. Getting into trouble. Being confusing, goodish and evil and everything in between.

    It didn’t seem right, Spike not being there.