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Something to Sing About by Lilachigh
 
20 Decisions
 
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Chapter 20

Decisions


Buffy couldn’t believe what she wasn’t seeing. The swirling orange and purple portal that had flickered for so long in the corner of the Revello Drive kitchen had vanished! Even the red plastic bucket that usually sat on top of it had gone.

She fell to her knees and scrabbled hopelessly at the polished wooden boards. But they were solid – clean, polished and solid. The portal back to the other Sunnydale had gone.

Buffy sank back on her heels and stared vacantly into space. What did she do now? She was trapped in a reality where her husband knew she had abandoned him, where he was receiving sympathy, blood - and probably a lot else - from Faith.

Spike! The pain of loss was overwhelming. What she had lived through had been bad enough for those months when she’d believed he was dead, slaughtered by Ben. But then to have found him again! To experience that surging joy, the happiness, even though he was so desperately injured.

The pain she felt now was somehow deeper, bitter, tinged with self-loathing. Because this was all her fault. She didn’t deserve Spike because she hadn’t believed he could survive. She’d given up so easily, wallowed in her grief, lost herself in caring for Faith and baby Gracie, pushing her thoughts and memories of Spike to the back of her mind where they couldn’t hurt her.

She saw now that returning to Sunnydale with the pregnant Faith had been just another form of escape, although at the time the desperation to save the Key baby from Ben had seemed paramount. But once there she’d hidden from her emotions by rushing into action, never giving herself a chance to sit and think quietly and sensibly.

She’d made herself busy organising everything, patrolling night and day, explaining to her friends what had happened, dealing with Dawn’s growing love for the Key baby, trying to understand Faith’s boredom with motherhood. She’d tried not to feel jealous that it was Faith who had carried the Key baby and not her as she had once thought it might be. Her baby – well, that had only been a short-lived dream.

It had only been when she realised she couldn’t even talk about the man she loved and how he’d died to her friends and family that she’d decided to come back here, to find the Willow, Xander and Tara of this world and experience the relief of discussing Spike with people who liked him.

Willow! Oh god, yes. Willow would know what to do, how to get the portal back. Then she could - what?

Run away again? a little voice said inside her head. Let Faith win. Give up without a fight?

* * * * * *

Deep in the cellars of the old hotel, Spike rolled over and sat up. He could feel his strength growing, returning; the vicious slashes that Ben’s torturers had inflicted on his body were beginning to heal and his shattered bones were mending now he had Slayer blood running in his veins.

Faith! He wondered where she was. After he’d fed from her, she’d got up and left, without saying a word. Not that he would have known what to say to her, except for “thanks”.

No, wait a moment, bloody hell! He remembered now. After the sweet, metallic taste had finished flowing down his throat, he’d licked the wound clean and muttered – “Oh God, I said Buffy’s name! You wanker, Spike! That’s about as bad as saying the wrong name to a girl when you’re shagging her!”

He groaned. No wonder Faith had got up and left. Although to be fair, he’d never thought of her as being particularly thin-skinned.

Leaning against the cold stone wall, he stared gloomily out into the darkness of the cellar. For a vampire he certainly had a lot of Slayer input in his life. One had saved him; one had abandoned him to his fate. One he loved, for the other, he just felt gratitude. But – because he was trying hard to be honest, Faith was bloody sexy. But sex wasn’t enough. Not when you were in love with someone else.

Buffy, his wife in this world, his enemy in the other Sunnydale. As she’d never returned with any sort of food or help for him after she’d found him injured, he reckoned she’d gone back there already. What else could he think? She was needed in that world; she had friends, a sister, a new baby Key to look after. And if he weren’t around to annoy her, to make her question her feelings for him, then her life would be that much simpler.

Spike knew Buffy had feelings for him in both worlds. But it was only in this one that she had allowed herself to show them.

He sighed: he liked this world, loved being Buffy’s husband, Willow’s friend, even hanging out with Xander and Tara when he could get his head round the fact that they were a couple. He’d seen his sire die in this world but that Angel had been pure Angelus, no soul, no compassion.

So should he stay here? “Could make myself useful, I suppose. Help Faith with the nasties. Find myself a crypt, make a home, and forget all about Buffy.”

He said the last words out loud again. “Forget all about Buffy!” Then he laughed wearily and got to his feet. Who the hell was he kidding? He could sooner fly to the moon than forget his wife. Whatever she’d done to him, whatever she thought of him, even if she didn’t want anything to do with him any more, he still had to be around, just in case he could be of use to her at some time.

“Love’s bitch!” he muttered, not for the first time in his life. And knew it was as true now as it was then. And he had no regrets about that at all.

* * * * * *


It was growing dark in the kitchen at Revello Drive. Buffy sat at the kitchen table, head pillowed on her arms. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt so exhausted. Her jeans felt tight and scratchy and she longed for a shower, but it was too much effort to climb the stairs.

Milk! A glass of icy cold milk and a plate of pickles. That was what she needed. Automatically she got up and opened the refrigerator, then realised that it would be empty – but, wonders of wonders, it wasn’t.

“Oh thank the lord for Tara!” she said out loud. There was milk and butter, eggs, bacon and pancake mix already in a bowl! “I love Tara and want to marry her,” Buffy said out loud, taking the milk carton and drinking it straight down.

“If that’s your way of telling me you are gay as well as a Slayer, then this flying visit is going to be even more interesting than I’d thought!”

Buffy froze, the carton squashed between her clenched fingers, milk dripping onto the – why hadn’t she realised before why the floor was clean and polished, why there was food in the fridge?

That was a voice she now only heard in her dreams, the hand on her shoulder was a mirage, it wasn’t there, none of this was true.

“Buffy?”

She forced herself to turn and felt her stomach heave and the world tilt sideways. “Hi, Mom!”


tbc





 
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