~*~*~*~


Buffy drifted into unconsciousness, a deep euphoric daze slipping over her entire body. Her initial feeling of loss was replaced with a soothing comfort. With her eyes shut, she was enveloped with a pure white, and not the usual darkness of closed lids. Frowning, Buffy opened her eyes, and saw the image of herself. With Spike.


“Spike, get off me!” she squirmed as she tried to hold in the laughter, pushing his prying hands away from his body. “I have to…,” she caught his hands as he tried to pull up her shirt again, “…go home now.”


He was grinning at her deviously, tongue curled between his teeth as he swooped down for a kiss. “A little longer,” he mumbled against her lips before sliding his hand underneath her shirt and caressing her skin.


She struggled, making a muffled noise against his kiss.


He pulled back with a slight pout, his attempts to lure her back into bed were not working.


Buffy rolled her eyes at him, but couldn’t help smiling as he gave her a sad look. “I told you 3 hours ago that I have to go,” she repeated, trying to free her wrists from his grasp as she lay under him.


He raised a brow, the devious look back on his face. “Well it was 3 hours well spent, wasn’t it?”


She opened her mouth with a comeback, but was silenced as soon as his lips touched the skin of her neck. She gasped a little as he began sucking on her neck gently, his hands moving higher to palm her breast. As his mouth reached her markings and his tongue dipped out to caress the spot, her body arched up in response.


Spike loved the way she reacted every time he touched his markings. Pulling back to gaze at her affectionately, he stared down at the bite marks and the common feeling of possessiveness swept through his body.


“Stop that!” Buffy hit him lightly on the chest, a pouty frown on her face. “That’s cheating.”


He waggled his brows and was about to lean in again for a kiss, but Buffy wrenched her wrist free and grabbed his lips shut with her fingers. “Nu-uh. I gotta go, mister.”


She let go, and he sighed, admitting defeat. “Fine,” he muttered as he moved off of her, letting her get up and adjust her clothes.


“Hey! Don’t be broody,” she teased, straightening her rumpled hair.


“I’m not broody!” he defended. “I just don’t see why you have to go home at all. It’s not like your mates don’t know you’re here with me, or what we’re doing.” He gave her an inquiring look.


“Chyea, and they probably think I’m some kind of mondo sex addict because I am always here. I have to make appearances once in a while and not to mention this thing I have, called…a little sister?”


“I don’t mind if you’re a sex addict, as long as it’s with me,” he replied, amused.


“No, gee, does that mean I have to tell my other vampires that I can’t sex them up anymore?” Buffy joked as she stepped closer to him.


He growled in warning, knowing that she was playing with him, but hearing the words even made him jealous.


She smirked and placed her hands on both sides of his face, “Only kidding - you’re the only vamp I want.” She leaned in and gave him a peck as a goodbye kiss, then turned to leave.


He turned to watch her go, and before she slipped out of the crypt door, she looked back and gave him a grin that let him know she would be back soon. Plopping down on the bed and putting his hands behind his head, he couldn’t help beaming at how lucky he was.


And then it was dark. Her smile turning into a frown, she watched the scene change in front of her.


“Come here, luv,” Spike growled lustfully, face vamped. He pulled her roughly to him and gave her a demanding kiss.


The expression in her eyes was one of shocked hurt. The person Spike was with wasn’t her - it was Leanna.


She watched them brutally kiss each other, fangs tearing skin and causing blood to run down their chins. Her stomach churned and she felt sick, almost turning away, but not believing the sight before her eyes.


Leanna pulled back, and gave him a smirk, running her hands down his chest. “And the Slayer?”


“She can rot in hell for all I care. Off her if you want,” Spike replied without feeling in his voice.


Looking pleased, she teased, “But I thought you loved the stupid bitch?”


“Yea, well, I’ve sobered up. Temporary insanity is what it is. The chit never did appreciate me anyway.”


Putting on a mischievous smile, Leanna pushed her body closer against his, “Oh, I’ll appreciate you a lot.” As she finished her words, her hands traveled downward to the bulge in his pants as he leered at her hungrily.


Not wanting to see any more of the sickening display, she closed her eyes. It was as if every fear of hers towards Spike was right in front of her – he was evil, he was with Leanna …and he didn’t love her anymore. Even when she hadn’t allowed herself to realize her own feelings, her fear was that it was all a big joke to him, that his stupid slayer obsession would fade as soon as someone better came along. And that was one of the reasons she had refused to believe him before.


“Slayer,” he greeted with venom in his voice.


Buffy’s head snapped up, as she realized the Spike in her vision could see her, and was walking toward her right now. With confused and panicked eyes, she took a step back from him.


“Let’s just kill her now,” Leanna suggested, wiping some of their intermingled blood from her chin.


Suddenly, they grabbed her before she could even register what was going on. Feeling helpless and weak, she tried to fend them off, but it was as if every movement of hers was in slow motion. Leanna’s hands wrapped around Buffy’s throat, choking her with them.


She struggled for air unsuccessfully, not knowing why she couldn’t fight back, couldn’t even move. Buffy began to see spots in front of her eyes, body desperate for oxygen.


~


Buffy shot up in the bed, gasping violently for air as she woke up. Hands going to her throat, she rubbed at the pain that was still lingering there. Her body was covered in sweat, and she felt an aching pain jolt through her limbs.

Panicked, her eyes darted around for any sign of Leanna or Spike. Her eyes widened, because apparently, she was in a hospital room.


~


Reverse world…


“Spike…,” Tara began in a soft voice.


“Don’t,” he retorted harshly, voice low but strained.


They drifted back to silence, and no one dared to speak up again, even to console him. They let him walk a few feet ahead of them, knowing that he was hiding the tears that he was shedding over Buffy.


She had just disappeared from his arms, as if she never existed. But Spike knew that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He loved her, and now she was gone.


He shoved the Magic Box door open with angry force, tears still refusing to stop. What he saw made him freeze and his mouth opened in shock. There on the floor was Buffy in tattered clothing, with Giles kneeling next to her with a look of worry.


She looked up at the intrusion. Her glimmering eyes shone with distress and her appearance was dirty and disheveled. She looked relieved to see him, as she got this slightly hopeful look on her face, not knowing what he had just gone through.


Spike didn’t move, not trusting what he was seeing. Taking in her appearance one more time, he realized this Buffy wasn’t the one he had just lost.


“What the hell…,” Xander’s confused look told it all.


“Oh…,” Tara and Willow both whispered, understanding now. It was always meant to be a trade. One Buffy for the other. Two glowing dots on the location spell, since this was where they performed the spell that had shown them the truth. So simple, yet through all the chaos it escaped their minds.


Giles saw their puzzled looks and tried to explain, “She just…appeared out of nowhere, as if from thin air. It was quite remarkable, but she won’t talk to me. I think she’s rather…traumatized.”


Buffy’s eyes shot down, her face in a frown.


They stood there for long moments, Spike not moving as he stared at her in disbelief and mistrust. He didn’t know what to think about it all. She wasn’t the same person, was she?


Seeing Spike not move, Tara rushed over to Buffy on the floor and reached out to help her up, but Buffy flinched, backing away.


“B-Buffy, I’m just trying to help you,” Tara soothed.


She shook her head vehemently as she hugged herself. And that’s when Spike noticed the long cuts marring both of her arms, barely beginning to heal.


“What should we do?” Anya asked with a worried voice. “Do we have to get Wesley? He fixed her last time, he can do it again. Well, that was the other Buffy, who is now gone, but-,”


“Anya!” Xander stopped her, giving Spike a glance to see his reaction.


Confused emotions seemed to be playing across Spike’s features. One moment she was there, then she wasn’t, and now she was again. But was it the same person? His first instinct was to say no, until he realized that she was the Buffy he first knew, the one he hated and fought, the one that ended up loving him, and the one that he had started to love years ago. Burying his face in his hands from frustration, he wished it was all a dream.


When he opened his eyes, he realized they had begun arguing over what to do, how to help Buffy, clean her up. She looked even more distraught, wanting to get away from them. Looking directly into his eyes with a distressed look, she pleaded, “Spike.”


Hearing her say his name snapped him out of it. Perhaps it was the way she said it, or the sound of her voice, or the way she looked at him right now, but everything that he was battling went out the window, and all that mattered was that it was Buffy.


He strode over to her immediately, kneeling down beside her with concerned eyes. “Are you o.k.?”


The tears glimmering in her eyes told him no, and she struggled with them for a minute before launching herself into his arms. The rest of them stopped talking, silence enveloping the room as they watched the display.


Spike closed his eyes and brought his arms instinctively to wrap around her, missing the feel of her body. With her touch, he realized that it was her, and no matter which world she was from, he would still be in love with her. And he knew everything would be o.k.


~


She tried not to hyperventilate as she stared down at the tubes that stuck into her arm. Feeling weak, she grabbed them and yanked them out, flinching in pain. She was gasping for air now, feeling the nauseating air of hospitals getting to her. She hated hospitals, and didn’t know how she got here, or even where she really was.


Knocking over the vase on the nightstand beside the bed, Buffy tried to get up, but her legs and arms felt heavy, like dead-weight. At the crash of the glass vase, she could hear footsteps moving her way.

A blur of red ran up to the room, and Buffy realized it was Willow. Initially, she felt relieved that someone was here, but she felt a slight disappointment that it wasn’t a certain peroxide blonde.


“Oh my god! Buffy, you’re awake!” Willow rejoiced, running over to the blonde and throwing her arms around her.


Xander came up and hugged them both, relief passing through his whole body. “Oh, thank god you’re awake, Buffy. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come back.”


The first thing she noticed: they were human. That meant she was really back. Why was she not happier? She hugged them back tentatively, still confused. When they pulled back, she asked in a hoarse voice, “How did I get here? What happened?”


“Oh…,” Willow’s smile turned into a frown. “We were hoping you knew what happened to you, because we couldn’t figure it out. The doctors didn’t find anything wrong with you either.”


“We’re just so happy you’re back, Buffy,” Tara smiled softly.


“Yes! We were beginning to worry, and I really don’t like hospital food, but Xander made me eat it,” Anya jumped in, not knowing what to say.


Buffy pressed her eyes closed as her headache grew, and she shook her head. “Wait, just how long was I out??” She opened her eyes to look at them, expecting a response.


They stared at her with worried looks.


“How long, guys?” she asked in a tighter voice.


Xander spoke up finally, “The whole summer, Buffy.”


~


He awoke with frown, jolting up in his bed as a weird feeling passed through him. Looking around his crypt, Spike saw nothing peculiar, and he didn’t sense any intruders upstairs.


Suddenly more clear, he realized what his body was telling him. ‘Buffy.’


Immediately throwing the sheet off, he quickly threw on his clothes and duster. Something was wrong at the hospital – he could feel it. The agonizing pain of being able to do nothing to save her from her long coma was now tripled, as thoughts of her slipping away entered his mind. He slipped into the tunnels and started running, his panic increasing by the moment at this unfamiliar feeling.


~


She felt her throat tighten and air was suddenly even harder to take in. “W-What?” she managed to choke out as her left hand pressed against her rapidly beating heart and her right hand clutched the side of the bed.


Seeing her in panic, they all sat down, and Willow grabbed her hand in a comforting gesture, giving it a squeeze.


“How? I-I don’t understand,” she babbled, eyes wide with shock and confusion. Was it all a dream? It couldn’t be. ‘Please say it isn’t,’ she thought. It had felt so real, and the idea that it was all fake was terrifying. Never in her life had something been able to play with her emotions that much.


Willow scrunched her forehead, not wanting to add to her pain, but having no choice. “You just…didn’t wake up one day, a-and your mom called us in a frenzy, a-and,”


“Mom,” Buffy stopped, realizing how much she missed them, missed her family. “How are mom and Dawn??”


“Well, health-wise, they’re fine,” Willow began, “but we were all really worried about you…”


“We weren’t sure if you were ever waking up,” Xander said before casting his gaze downwards.


The pain of the situation was written on her face. She should be thinking about the demons that were probably running rampant, or the way her family and friends were probably crazy-devastated during the whole thing, but her mind drifted to someone else. Spike.


If she had been gone for three months – if it had all been a dream – then things were no different from the very last day she remembered being here. It was the day after he had told her he loved her, and the day she had demanded his help, only to stomp out of his crypt when he refused. That girl seemed like a distant memory, and guilt washed through her at her cold demeanor.


Tears began to run down her face, and the others looked concerned. “Buffy, are you alright?” Tara asked.


What would she tell them? What would she tell anyone? No one knew what she had gone through or where she had even gone, not even Spike. What would she say to him now? ‘I love you because I went to a different world where you stole my life?’


She wasn’t even mad that he had inadvertently caused it all with some wish he made, because she knew she deserved it. Something gave her the feeling that if she had not been taken away from the real world, she would’ve done much worse to him.


Buffy didn’t answer, letting the tears flow free as she hugged herself, as the others came to gather around her in consolation.


“I’ll go call your mom and Giles,” Xander offered. Reluctantly, he left the room and as he was about to go down the hospital hall, he ran straight into Spike, who apparently didn’t even see him.


“Whoa there,” Xander said, putting his hands in front of him.


Spike seemed distracted, only staring at Buffy’s room door. He looked at Xander with a questioning and worried look. “Is she ok?”


“Yea, she’s…she’s awake.”


His dead heart did a jump, but his mind was boggled by this news. The whole time he had been helpless to save her from her coma, Spike had imagined the worst, worrying constantly over her and what would happen. Now, she had suddenly woken up and relief would’ve been an understatement.


He tried to sidestep Xander and head for the door, but Xander held him back with one hand. “She’s upset right now, and I’m thinking she just wants to be with her friends, Spike.”


Xander’s words cut into him. Never before did not being included in her group of ‘friends’ hurt more than it did now, when he wanted to see her and make sure she was ok.


“I just want to see if she’s ok,” Spike replied coolly, not bothering to add in a snarky nickname for him.


“She’ll be ok. Why don’t you just…back off for a few days? Let her get situated first,” Xander suggested. His words weren’t meant to sting Spike, because the guy had worked with them all summer, fighting the good fight in Buffy’s absence. But he didn’t want Buffy to be more upset, and he figured Spike might be a big catalyst for that.


Looking crestfallen, Spike took a step back. He could charge past the whelp and storm in there, take her in his arms and kiss her with relief like he wanted to, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen and he didn’t want to make things worse for her by marching in there. He knew she didn’t love him, mostly likely didn’t give a shit about him, with her clear indications the night before she didn’t wake up. But she was back, and it was one of the best moments in his existence.


Spike nodded slightly, head slightly downcast, and turned on his heels to leave, giving her room one last glance over his shoulder before he left. At least he hadn’t lost her, though he knew he would never really have her.



~


She had sensed him outside for a brief moment, or so her mind told her so. When Xander came back into the room, she asked quietly, amidst drying tears, “Who was out there with you?”


“Oh it was just Spike,” he replied. “He just wanted to know if you were ok.”


“H-He left?” she asked with hurt in her voice. Had he drifted so far away from his feelings for her that he didn’t even make the effort to see her face-to-face?


“Yea, I didn’t want him upsetting you anymore. We know how much you hate him. Although, I gotta say, he was really helpful this summer,” Xander added.


She pressed her eyes shut, head pounding in pain from everything that had just happened.


“Buffy?” Willow asked tentatively.


“Do you want me to get you some aspirin?” Anya asked. “I found they were very helpful after I became human. Would you like one?” She didn’t really know what to do, how to console Buffy through a situation none of them even understood.


“No, that’s ok…can…can I just be alone for a while until mom and Dawn get here?” she asked wearily, hoping they would understand and not take it the wrong way.


Willow frowned slightly, but answered, “Yea, of course, Buffy.” They got up and started moving out the room reluctantly, not wanting to leave her in this frazzled state.


“Just let us know if you need anything, Buff. We’ll be right outside,” Xander said before he closed the door behind them.


Buffy couldn’t explain it to them, they just wouldn’t understand. Xander’s words rang through her mind. We know how much you hate him. If someone had told her three months ago that she would feel this way about Spike, she would’ve laughed in their face, but now, after everything she had gone through, it was undeniable.


Xander’s question ran through her mind. Too tired to get up, she laid back and closed her eyes. What she needed, was Spike.


~*~*~*~