Author's Note: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", as well as the "Buffy" episode "Selfless" referred to herein. It seemed a shame to let Mr. Marsters's allusion go to waste.
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IN THE INTERREGNUM- HIGHER PLANE

Joyce could feel her sadness, even here, “I know Honey. But you know it has to be done this way,” she looked down and frowned at the hurt on Buffy’s face, “I know that doesn’t make it any better for you.”

“No it doesn’t,” Buffy whispered. She was already feeling the pain of being apart from him, and it hadn’t even happened yet. How was she going to feel when it did happen? She knew her eyes were brimming with tears. She could feel them as they left hot trails down her face.

“I know,” Joyce soothed, “But he won’t be alone for long. I promise.”

“How do you know that?” Buffy sniffed, “I think I’ve used up all my chances. Especially after that spell; I thumbed my noses at them with all my, ‘I don’t wanna be the one,’ talk. If I ask for it back…” she looked down and sighed, “They could take it out on him. Oh Mommy, if it hadn’t been for him I never would have had Joni in my life.”

“I know, Buffy,” Joyce smiled as she took her daughter into her arms, “Don’t you know by now that mothers know everything? I’ve pulled a few strings. Don’t worry, things will be fine.”
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Georgina had suggested that she try to sleep. Georgina had no clue what she was asking. She didn’t know what kind of torture sleeping was for her now.

Even now as Buffy woke, she could still hear him screaming. Even now she fought the blackness and the fear. She tried to shake it off. She didn’t want to go back there. Back to the crushing fear that made her shatter through her own casket to escape, she’d been there so many nights before. Every night in fact, every night she thought him lost to the Hellmouth, she was with him. Every night, she listened to his silent screams.

She couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that she’d been warned that this was coming. She knew that Spike was paying for her arrogance.

Thinking back, she had been warned. He’d warned her. When he’d been nearly driven mad by the things he’d seen on the Hellmouth, in his own way, he’d tried to warn her. Although, at the time she’d discovered the warning she thought it was too late to save him. After all, he was dust, or she’d thought so at the time.

No. She didn’t want to go back there. But she knew she had to, to save him.

Seeing the sliver of daylight that peeked around the edge of the draperies, Buffy drew a shaky breath. She walked blindly over to his cherished bookcase, lovingly fingered the old bindings, and took down the volume of poetry.

She let out a bitter laugh. It figured that the clue to all this lay in the writings of the only poet who might have been scary enough to survive the Hellmouth.

Edgar Allan Poe.

She remembered Spike’s rantings so clearly now. Why had she not paid attention?

She wanted to go back to sleep. Go to sleep and never wake again. She wanted it all back. It was all a dream and she wanted it back.

But, like everything else in her life, the dream had somehow metamorphosed into a nightmare.

Buffy smiled in spite of herself. Metamorphosed. Now there was a ten-point word. And she was fairly sure she’d used it correctly. Spike would be proud.

Spike. Her ears still rang with his voice, colored with delusion, crying, “Scream ‘Montresor’ all you like, Pet. Can’t hear you.”

It was only now, as she stared at the poem on the page, that she realized what he had been trying to tell her. In this poem, The Cask of Armadillo, or something like that; Buffy never really did understand poetry, except for the little Japanese ones that sounded like a sneeze. In the poem, Montresor is, “accentually” bricked up in the walls of a tomb, by his friend.

Buffy shivered at the thought. She wanted to go back to sleep, to the part of the dream she’d liked. The part where Spike was holding her and kissing her, the part before he’d started screaming her name.

She wanted to hold the dream for as long as she could and she hated the light for bringing that to an end.

It had been a long time since she’d had that dream. So long in fact that she’d forgotten it, almost made herself believe that it wasn’t true.

How could it be true? It was just wishful thinking. Buffy knew that. He wasn’t here and that’s why she’d dreamt of him, that’s all.

How could it be true? She’d never seen snow in her life. She’d always been a California girl. She’d never lived anywhere else that she could recall.

Still, it seemed so real. And, she’d had the dream before, when Willow first brought her back. It seemed so real, being in his arms.

How could it not be real?

As Buffy roamed the apartment she shared with him, it was hard not to want to cling to the warmth she remembered. She could still feel it now. And that made waking up without him all the more cruel. If she closed her eyes, the fragments of her dreams coalesced into the microcosm that she’d tried to get back to after her resurrection.

A world in which she was loved; a world where he still existed. She had loved him there. With everything she was, she loved him.

A world she knew he sensed somehow. She knew it because of the way he was with her. His eyes were softer, as if he remembered too.

She asked him how long, and he told her. Without blinking an eye, he’d told her. Twenty-one weeks. She’d only been there twenty-one weeks. It had seemed so much longer. It was a lifetime to her. A lifetime she would have given anything to have again.

Yet, when she’d returned, she found herself doing and saying things to him that were unthinkable and inexcusable. Seeing the love in his eyes, a love she had left behind, and knowing he would never understand what he had given her, and in the end would never know that kind of peace because of what he was, no matter how much good he would ever do, hurt her. And, because of that hurt, she lashed out. She had known, even as it was happening, that it wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But, she’d been too numb to care, too numb to stop it.

But she wasn’t numb now. Now, as she looked at a father’s gift to his infant daughter and absorbed the little spectrum of light and air on the nursery wall, she felt it all and felt it with a ferocity that took her breath away.

It was as though a part of her was still there, in that place. When she closed her eyes, she felt as though Spike had taken a part of her away with him.

That thought was all that sustained her in the lonely days. The thought that some part of him still knew he was loved was all she had to cling to.

Until he came home it was all she had.

So, she closed her eyes and fell back into Heaven.
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He’d been alone. He’d gone on because he knew he had to. But there was no spark. There was nothing to warm him, not even her dying embers.

But now he could be warm again. Now he didn’t have to be alone. She’d been given back to him. Somehow, the universe had taken pity on him. As he wondered down at the small laurel of silver she had seen fit to bestow upon him, he wept at the unworthiness he felt.

It was at times like this that he was glad he had her near. She would laugh at him if she knew he still felt this way. How many years had it been now? Hundreds? He’d stopped counting. And still she stayed the same, just as beautiful as the first time he saw her.

He noticed a briskness in the air surrounding him. That wouldn’t do, not for his girl. If he felt the cold he could only imagine what it was like for her.

As he looked out the window he was grateful for the bright colors. That was something he missed. There was no autumn there. But here, he saw colors the likes of which the world had no words to describe.

Through the haze of condensation on the window, he could see her coming over the horizon. It was her custom to take long walks. Sometimes he went with her. But, more often than not she would take this constitutional on her own. Often, when she returned from these jaunts, she would be quiet and aloof. It seemed to him that she was searching for something. She seemed to yearn for the life she had shunned so long ago.

That made a strange kind of sense to him. It was, after all, who she was. There was no escaping that. Even here, what you truly were shone through. That was how things worked here. It had been this way before, and, he supposed it would always be so.

At times a pall would overtake her. When she could fight it no longer, she would let him hold her, and that was enough.

He crossed the tiny cottage and knelt near the wood-burning stove to stoke the fire, he felt the warm glow on his face and again counted himself blessed to have her.

He was warm, and that was enough.
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Lying on the floor of the crypt, the cold brought him back to reality. The sob that eked out of his throat begged that he be allowed to go back to sleep. Reality was not a place he wanted to be just now. He’d have rather spent a century with Buffy then one more second in this tomb.

“Anyone here?” his voice sounded weak, even to his own ears. He knew that if he had needed to breathe to sustain his being, then he would not be at all.

A patient voice rumbled through him, “Yes, I’m here.”

Homer’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and as he sat on his haunches next to the still form, he looked with a strange fondness into the eyes that still darted about trying to find him.

It was funny. Until now, he hadn’t realized how single-minded he really was. Rod Serling never had a life like his, “And if you want to keep it from becoming Bedlam in that skull of yours, maybe you’d better let me do the yarn spinning from here on out. It’s less work for you. And don’t worry; I won’t be offended if you’re not the world’s most gripping conversationalist. I’m kind of used to the quiet. Besides, It’ll help you heal. That way, you can get back to Joni faster.”

Spike’s eyes drifted shut slowly. Before his brain took him again into the mercy of sleep, he mumbled, “Never get out. Angelus won’t let me go. He tried to,” his eyelids were too heavy. He was slipping again, “…kill Joni.”

Homer felt his jaw tighten. The flame within him grew as he growled, “I know. Angelus knows why he put you here, and so do I. Joni needs you, and so does she. I’m going to make him let you out,” Homer sighed, amazed at the rancorous hatred he still held for that beast.

Years of witnessing what was done to countless universes because of that one act of “kindness” had changed him, made him bitter. Only Jonina had eased the sting of it for him. For that, he was grateful. And, he would repay her, “Don’t worry about Jonina. I’ve got her. She’s right here. I’m holding her tight, and I won’t let anything hurt her. You know that,” Homer straightened as he watched him fall asleep, “Right now though, I have to pay a little visit to Angelus. Make him give up that skeleton key.”
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NOVEMBER 6, 2005- COUNTY HOSPITAL-SEVENTH FLOOR

Angel woke with a start. His heart was pounding and he was sweating. He had to gulp air just to chase the terror away.

God, the screams, he could still hear them in his head. He didn’t think he’d ever forget them as long as he lived.

A menacing voice spoke from the corner of the room, “No, I don’t imagine you will.”

Angel’s head snapped toward the sound, and a shiver ran through him. Even though he could still see only shadows, this particular shadow took a familiar shape, a familiar stance. It was leaning against the doorframe, watching him.

Angel squinted, trying to make his vision clear, “Holland?” he asked, hoping his voice did not betray his terror.

The form moved closer to his bed and in recognized cadence said, “No, not Holland. At least, not this time.”

Horror gripped Angel as the shadow came to full view. Somehow, Spike was staring back at him, smiling with deadly intent, “You should be so lucky, Angelus.”
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