IN THE INTERREGNUM-HIGHER PLANE

Joyce Summers knew that there would be a price to pay later, for what they did. But, she, and Buffy, and Jonina knew that if they left him alone, he literally would not survive. Joyce was barely able to restrain herself during the last days of Sunnydale. She wasn’t about to let this go on without some type of intervention.

It had been done before, and this was being done on a much smaller scale, and for a grander, and less self-serving purpose. Surely they would take that into account when meting out her punishment.

This seemed the only way to give him what he needed. And Buffy hadn’t wanted to leave him there. They both knew that she would leave him, eventually. The thought of leaving him again had caused Buffy unimaginable grief, but the alternative was equally frightening. They both knew that it had to happen, or there would be no future for either of them to come back to.

She looked into the bright, apple-cheeked, freckled face of her Granddaughter, and asked again, “Joni, are you sure you want to do this?”

“You know, Daddy asked me that too. And, do you know what? I still say yes.”

Joyce shook her head a little. She could almost predict what his reaction would be, “If your Daddy found out, I’m not sure he would like the thought of you there with him.”

Joni’s brown eyes twinkled in thought, “Well,” she smiled, “he wouldn’t have to know it’s me, not at first. I can be whoever he needs me to be. But Mommy can’t leave him there. And, neither can I. He’s been so sad already. Daddy went to that place to protect me, to keep me safe from the boogiemen. If he hadn’t been there with me, that place would have been nothing like what I thought it was. I know that. I thought it was a game. That was because he was with me. He made it that way. Only he saw how things truly were. He protected me from that. Someone has to be with him when she leaves again, to protect him. I owe him so much. I couldn’t thank him then, because I didn’t know, but I can do that now, Momma. He has to survive. Right now,” she looked down at the goings on around her, “Oh Momma, I look so little. He has to come find me. It’s the only way.”

“He will. Okay, Dove,” Joyce smiled as Joni’s eyes widened when she used his special name for her, “we’ll do this thing. But, you do realize that once your Daddy finds you, he won’t need the guide anymore,” her forehead crinkled in thought, “As a matter of fact, if he knew who you were, and where, and when, you’d come from, things could get really messy. Wolfram and Hart tried to control your Daddy before because they knew that if they let it play out, like it should have, they would have lost. The Home Office would have had to look elsewhere. In order for the Higher Ups to clean up the mess the Los Angeles branch caused, under its ‘new leadership,’ your Daddy can’t know who you are. Understand?’

Joni nodded, “Yes, Mamma. I understand. When she comes, he’ll barely remember me, and that’s okay with me.”

“You’re sure?”

Joni rolled her eyes lovingly at her Grandmother, “I wish people would stop asking me that! This is my mess. I have to help clean it up. Now,” she said as she prepared to leave the plane again, taking one last look at what was happening there, “let’s do this already!”

Joyce smiled and sighed, “Do you know how much you’re like your Daddy?”

“People keep telling me that too,” Joni said, “I love you Mamma.”

Joyce waved her hand again, and watched Joni leave on her rescue mission, “Love you too,” she said.

Buffy was in place. If Spike found out, she knew that he would rage and snarl at her. She expected that. After all, that was par for the course when the one your daughter chooses to marry and build a life with is a vampire.

She laughed at how fanciful, and strangely logical that seemed. Only in Sunnydale would that make any kind of sense.

Only in Sunnydale would a vampire with a soul be the key to the universe’s balance.

One hundred and forty-seven days was a small price to pay for that balance. They all knew that, and still they did it willingly.

Here, a lifetime could be lived in one hundred and forty-seven days.
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NOVEMBER 1, 2005

Buffy couldn’t believe it. There he was, lying on the floor of this old karaoke bar, and he was gasping for breath. How? What? This couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.

That was when she noticed it. He was pale, that was true, but there was a slight tinge of redness to his skin. He looked pink. He looked almost… “Human.”

Something in her head clicked then. Buffy remembered the look of loss in his eyes after Drusilla’s attack. At the time she had just assumed that it was the shock of seeing his sire turn to ash before his eyes, but maybe it was more than that.

As she recovered in the hospital, Dawn told her what Spike had given up to save her, and it nearly broke her heart.

He’d given up his soul. For her, he’d given up the one thing he’d fought so hard for. At the time, the depth of his sacrifice made her weep. She wept, and questioned her definition of a human being once again.

Listening to Angel breathing in and out with such ease, as if he’d always done it, she wondered if Spike had known this was a possibility. Could it be possible for a vampire to be made human somehow? Had Angel known? Is that why he’d roamed about Los Angeles all those years, behaving like the Dark Avenger? Did he know there was a prize waiting for him?

Of course he’d known. How could he not?

Buffy’s mind swam as she tried to put it all together. The fact that a human lay where a vampire stood just moments ago was connected in some way, some way that was important to all of this. But, what was it that made this important? What did they have in common, Spike and Angel? There was something that made this miracle, this travesty possible for Angel, but not for Spike.

It all connected. The look of lost hope that had lived in Spike’s eyes ever since he’d found out the extent of physical damage Drusilla’s insanity had caused her body.

Buffy remembered that he’d tried to hide the devastation from her. The pain in his eyes was about more than her loss. It was about more than the loss of his soul. This was about lost hope. Lost chances. Buffy had failed to realize that the loss he was grieving had transformed the translucent color of his eyes, eyes she could always gage his emotions by, from a clear azure into an opaque cyan.

What could cause such a transformation? What could shake him down to his core?

Her mind spun, and she understood. His core. His soul. In saving her, he’d lost his hope, “Oh, God.”

Of course Spike knew. If Angel knew there was some sort of reward for him at the end, a reward for having a soul, then it made perfect sense that Spike would know as well. Angel would tell him, if only for the purpose of rubbing his nose in it later, Angel would tell him. He was that smug.

The soul. That was what had made them the same. It was what made them different now.

And the soul was the reason Angel was lying there instead of Spike. Spike had given up his humanity, something she thought she prized, to save her.

Would Angel have done that? No. She knew he wouldn’t. He never loved her that much, if he loved her at all.

Who was the monster here? The name was out of her mouth before she could stop it. She didn’t want to stop it, “Angel,” she rasped.

She felt a rage building inside of her. It was a fire she couldn’t control. She let it consume her. She was dimly aware that Willow was begging her to stop. She felt strong arms pulling on her, but she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop.

Angel had taken her baby, and her hope, away from her. He was going to pay for that.
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Holding her, he was warm again. Just how she’d gotten here, wasn’t his concern now. After years of cold and lonely sleep, he was awake, and alive again. She felt real, but everything was real here. Too real, and too cold, it was torture, being here. He knew he could have made her up. The mind had a way of doing that, when it needed to. He had to be sure, “Are you real, Buffy?” he choked, not caring that they were standing in the middle of a driving snowstorm. He had to know, “Tell me you’re real.”

Buffy couldn’t stand seeing the loss and emptiness in his eyes. She knew what he’d done for her. She understood now what her mother had shown her, and just why he was in the pain he was in.

He was in this Hell to protect her, because he loved her. And she had to thank him for that.

Buffy stood on her toes, and asked sweetly, pulling his neck gently down for a kiss, “If I was a dream, could I do this?”

The kiss was searing and it melted the years of ice that had been around his heart, instantly. He never wanted it to end. Never.

Buffy had forgotten this. She wasn’t even sure she should have remembered it. But here it was. His taste and his smell, the surprising softness of his touch, it was all here. It was real. So real that she was dizzy from it.

She pulled away slowly, and smiled a little at the dazed look in his eyes and the small whimper that escaped his lips, “Well?”

Spike’s brain seized. Logical thought wasn’t possible, “What?” he was needlessly breathless.

There was so much emotion in his eyes. There was so much she needed to say, to tell him, and yet she couldn’t. There were no words.

Buffy found herself panting, needing to touch him again, to have him close to her again. In a desperate whisper, her voice ghosted over his lips, “Spike…love you, so much. Can we do this inside?” her lips trailed over his closed eyelids, “I need to…”

He nodded quickly, as the need rose in him as well. The warmth of her was driving him beyond reason. He swept her up and carried her to the tiny cabin that had been his only source of warmth for so long.

When he’d seen her it had nearly been forgotten.

As he carried her through the door, he took no notice of the small piece of paper, folded neatly and left in the center of the table. The missive, addressed to him, using the only name he’d known for years, said this:

‘ Homer, don’t worry about me. I’ve gone home, and now, so have you. Thank you for your help. Love always. Joni.’
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