"Tell me more about Buffy."

Will shifted on the plush sofa. "She's gorgeous. Radiant, strong, caring..." He rubbed his right palm as he spoke. The last part of the dream still burned in his mind. The part where her hand was entangled with his. The joined hands scorched through the dream into his waking mind. It wouldn't let go.

"Now, most of the other people in your dreams are based on people you know. Buffy isn't, though, is she?" Dr. Fuller regarded him with that calm, welcoming gaze.

Will shook his head. "No. I've never seen her outside the dreams. There's just no one else like her."

"Why do you think dreams of Buffy affect you so much, Will? I mean, you've told me that it's interfering with your marriage and your work. What is it about this woman you've created in your mind? What do you think she represents?"

The doc always asked the hard questions. Things Will didn't want to think about. Hell, things he didn't even know the answer to. Buffy was the only answer he had. She wasn't supposed to be the question.

"I don't know," Will shrugged. "I don't think of her like that."

"But you can't think of her as if she were a person. Will, this Buffy is your mind trying to talk to you. To tell you that something's wrong."

"Funny, that. Seems like she's everything that's right."

Dr. Fuller sat back in his chair. "How's your wife?"

"Probably upside down and halfway to happy land with some other bloke right now." Will frowned. Upside down and halfway to happy land? That was from the dream somehow, right? Everything started to bleed together after a while.

"Have you talked to her about your suspicions?"

"Not much to say."

"So what do you two talk about normally?"

Will blinked. "When?"

Dr. Fuller shrugged. "Anytime."

"We don't talk. It's like living with a shadow. Well, a shadow that goes out and fucks other men."

"I want that to be your homework, Will."

Whenever the doc started talking about homework, that meant the session was ending. "You want what to be my homework?"

"Talking to your wife."

"About what?"

"Anything. You've lost your connection, Will. You need to get that back. And you married your wife for a reason. Odds are, she can provide you with whatever you need to ground you back to reality."

Will stood up. "Yeah, I'll get on that," he said, not planning on actually doing it. Most of the "homework" the doc assigned went undone. And yet, Will came back every week. He must be insane. "See ya next time, doc."

Dr. Fuller stood as Will left. The rest of the office building was empty, and Will walked in silence to his car. His hand brushed against his phone as he fetched his keys. It reminded him to turn his ringer back on.

He rested his hands on the steering wheel in contemplation. He could go back to work. Like he's supposed to. Work with people he didn't care about who didn't care about him to help some business that was probably stealing his soul with their overtime and fifteen minute breaks. Yeah, that was an appealing thought. Throw himself back into the grind.

He would kill himself to get away from it all if he only had a guarantee he wouldn't end up in a worse place afterward. He still wasn't sure of that.

As his will hit the wall, he dialed his boss' number.

"China Imports, this is Rupert Giles."

Will's gaze wandered to the beat-up Desoto driving past his parked car. "Yeah, Giles. Wondering if I could take the afternoon off."

"What? Will, we just got that shipment in that we have to unload and then process. Was there a problem at your...doctor's appointment?"

"No. Listen, I have tomorrow off anyway for my friend's wedding. Was just hoping to go a bit early. Support him and all." That was a load of bullshit. Not the wedding, but the support. Will just wanted to go home and get intimate with his bottle of Jack.

Will could tell the old man was taking off his glasses. "I...well, I suppose, if you must. But it'll come out of your hours, Will. You've had far too many absences as of late."

"Yeah," Will cut him off before he could get a lecture. "Sorry 'bout that. See you next week, then, Giles."

Will ended the call before Giles could say anything more. Pain in the ass boss, always riding him.

With a sigh, Will started up his car to go home. It's true his friend, Angel, was getting married tomorrow. To some bitty that he'd met not too long ago. Will had never met her. Back in the day, Will would have been Angel's best man. Now, Will was his wife's "plus one". Only reason Will was even going was to see Dawn.

Will dreaded his arrival home in the middle of the day. He always feared that he'd walk in to find Drusilla in bed with another man. It hadn't happened, yet, but Will always tried to brace himself for that event.

So his heart only jumped a tad when he saw the strange car in his driveway. A Lexus. Will's Chevy seemed unworthy to park beside it.

He already knew what he was going to find when he went in. He only took a few seconds outside preparing himself for it. This was The Moment, right? When everything would fall apart? He wasn't even sure how he would react when he saw the other bloke. Maybe he'd kill them both in a rage.

Somehow, though, Will doubted he could muster up that much emotion for her. Not anymore.

The entryway was empty, as was the living room. Drusilla's eclectic furniture set sported two half-empty wine glasses on the sturdy maple coffee table. Sounds of frantic lovemaking from the bedroom reverberated through the stillness of the house. Will's footsteps were muffled in contrast.

He felt he was acting out a movie. Playing the role of the cuckolded husband. It wasn't his hand reaching for the doorknob; the hand belonged to whichever A list actor was saddled with the role this time.

However, no movie could have inspired the explosion in his chest or the feeling of his stomach sinking lower and lower as he entered into the predictable tableau. His Drusilla wrapped around another man. An older man, balding. Not even a strapping young lad or anything. She was getting her rocks off with a grandpa.

It was like somebody had thrown a stick of dynamite into the room. Drusilla was on her feet, fully naked, tits swinging freely as she loudly scolded him. Will found words coming out of his mouth that he was sure hadn't passed through his actual brain. He was yelling without thought. The only quiet came from the other man, who was fetching his pants with a resigned smile.

"William! How dare you come home so early! And walking in here like you own the place!"

"I do own the place, Dru! This is my bloody house! And you can't honestly be mad at me when you're the one shagging...is that your doctor?" The other man tipped his head in acknowledgement, and Will nearly drowned in the urge to wrap his hands around his neck. Dru managed to distract him.

She yanked on her silk robe, frowning angrily. "Not fair, my William. Every day you run off! Working and scrimping and saving and then what? Nothing! Robbing me of everything to get me nowhere."

"Oh, talk some sense, Dru. I have no clue what you're going on ab - "

"You were going to save me when we met! Take me on adventures and provide me with toys and goodies. But now? You're worthless! Just a pale loser of a man who doesn't have nearly the spirit I thought you had!"

Will threw up his hands and turned to walk out of the bedroom. Better that than really losing his temper. But she followed him, continuing her tirade.

"What good are you? You can barely hold a job! And you know I've been seeing other men for months, but you haven't had the balls to do anything about it! I should've married Angel when he asked me years ago!"

Putting his hands over his ears didn't help. Her scathing statement still made it through. Will had no sooner heard it than he felt a fog wrap around him. Wrap around Dru's words and drown them out, taking the house with them. It was like a cocoon closing in, muffling all his senses. His head filled with fuzz and he felt as if he should be falling.

Instead, he struggled to open his eyes. It was like looking through a tunnel. The light on the other side far too bright. He had to squint to make anything out. All there was was a white ceiling. Something was in his right hand. No, wrapped around it. It was warm and pulsed slightly. Then there was a smell...

"Spike! Spike, are you awake?"

It was her. Buffy. The woman from his dreams outlined starkly against the white background of some tiled ceiling. Her eyebrows crinkled slightly in almost-hidden concern, but her eyes were wide and her lips were partly open as she waited for something. For him. It was her hand that gripped his. He recognized the feel of it now. The slight burn traveled up his arm with vivid memories of their last touch.

He hadn't fallen asleep, though, had he?

"Buffy?" The word was so sluggish, he could hardly believe it came from him. His lips not working as they should. Nothing in his body working properly. Every minute movement was an immense effort. Even his eyelids felt like giving up and closing. But he couldn't while she was in his line of sight. Such a beautiful sight. He wanted to never have to tear his eyes from her.

She smiled then and tears came to those big eyes. The tears didn't fall. She swallowed them back, but her hand squeezed his tighter. "Do you know where you are?"

He tried to nod, but he wasn't sure if he actually did. Hospital. That much was obvious, what with the bright lights and all. They must have put him in a hospital after what happened in the alley.

Spike remembered. Fighting with Angel against the big evil. Taking a last stand. Though it obviously wasn't the last as...here he was.

"Spike, you won. We won." Buffy was still talking. "I mean...we - the Slayers - we arrived late. You were already...but we did it." She paused. "Can you understand me?"

He thought he could, but his mind was getting fuzzy again. Like he'd reached the top of the roller coaster and now he was about to go back down the hill. He fought to stay with Buffy, gripping her warm hand tightly to anchor him.

It didn't work. He slipped away and found himself nowhere. Again.

tbc...

Will tore the sheets off the bed. The room still smelled like sex, and he knew the sheets were the main culprit. He wished he could burn them or something else really dramatic. Instead, he'd just wash them. They didn't have many linens to spare.

His life was a joke.

Drusilla had left to spend the night with her girlfriend, Darla. Though Will knew she'd likely find another guy to shag before the night was over. That just left him to stay home and fume about what had just happened. The entire ugly scene replayed in his head, shrouded in an angry haze. He couldn't even remember some parts of it.

Each staccato moment was like a punch to the gut, though, and after Will had thrown the sheets in the washing machine, he made a beeline for his whiskey. Tonight he was gonna drink the pain away.

Hours later found him sitting in front of the couch, going through old photo albums and crying like the lonely ponce he was. On a page filled with photos from his own wedding, his attention was gripped by the picture of Dawn. Long brown hair and gawky teenage limbs. He hadn't seen her in four years.

She was going to be at Angel's wedding tomorrow.

Damn anything that stood in his way. Will would hold onto whatever he had left in this life. And Dawn was one of those.

No wonder he made her Buffy's sister in his dreams. A treasured, special position that needed to be protected. That compelled him to partner up with Buffy to save. His unconscious was a brutal bitch sometimes. Always teasing him with warped, tempting alternatives and then yanking them away.

Or worse, corrupting them into tortuous parodies of their real life alter egos. Drusilla in his dreams, a certifiably mad vampire who haunted his very existence. What did that say about how he saw his wife that he would turn her into that in his dreams?

The night disappeared as all nights do. Will awoke in the morning in a sticky puddle of his own drool. He'd fallen asleep on top of the photo album, Jack bottle still in hand.

His phone was buzzing. Drusilla actually commanded him to pick her up and give her a ride to Angel's wedding. As if last night hadn't even happened. Or didn't matter.

He could have laughed and hung up. He could have responded with a biting remark. He could have told her to go to hell. He didn't do any of that, though. Instead, he grudgingly agreed and hung up.

She had been right. He didn't have any balls.

He only had time for a quick shower. He popped some Tylenol for the hangover while he got dressed and ran out the door. He was going to see Dawn. He had to hold onto that.

Drusilla was silent on the ride to the church. Will itched to confront her. Let her know that she was the one at fault, not him. Nothing came from his mouth. Instead, he dutifully drove to the wedding. A divorce surely wasn't too far in the future. This farce of a marriage couldn't hold together after what had happened last night.

She wandered away from him as soon as they arrived. Will stood on the sidewalk just outside the front door. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes from his pocket and pulled out a smoke. He'd supposedly stopped smoking last week, but he didn't think he could get through this day without some nicotine.

He waited for the cigarette to do its magic and watched the other guests arrive. There was Willow, the old friend of a friend who didn't ever talk to him anymore, despite the fact that he thought they'd bonded. Oh, and Alex, who made no secret about not liking Will. Not to mention Angel's new buddies: Charles and Wesley and Fred. All were too attached to Angel to care two shits about him.

Will wondered if anybody would even notice if he left now. Drusilla would certainly be able to find another ride home.

Just as he saw her, though, he remembered why he had bothered to show. Dawn slammed her car door shut and stood to her full height, which was much taller than he last remembered. The heels probably helped with that. She had blonde highlights in her hair, and her face had narrowed with age. But when he looked at her, he still saw the little teen he'd known so long ago. Who'd looked up to him and admired him and thought he was someone worth something.

Will stepped forward and tossed the cigarette to the ground. He intercepted Dawn on her way to the door.

"Dawn," he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

She froze in her steps and her purse slid down to the crook of her elbow. "Oh," she tugged the strap back up and shifted her hold on her gift. "William. Angel didn't tell me you'd be here - "

"Yeah, I'm here with Dru." Bloody stupid. Maybe Angel hadn't wanted him here? "Kinda happy to see you, actually. Thought I might have to sit with Anya."

Dawn's gaze looked past him briefly. "Yeah, actually, I'm here on the bride's side. She's my sister..."

He frowned. "Angel's marrying your sister?"

She nodded. "I don't think you ever met her. She was away in the Peace Corps when you and I…hung out. Um…but she's back and she met Angel and they've been inseparable since."

"Oh." Why did his thoughts keep turning to Buffy? That would be ridiculous. She only existed in his head. "Well, maybe we could catch up at the reception..."

"I'd rather not," she said sharply. As an unsettled quiet descended over them, Dawn shook her hair back from her shoulders and shifted the present again. "You're kinda in my way."

Without thinking, he stepped to the side and watched her walk right past him into the church. What the hell was going on? They hadn't talked in years, but she didn't have any reason to be mad at him. Did she?

As his thoughts caught up, he jogged in after her and caught her arm, pulling her off to a quiet corner in the lobby.

"Dawn, hold on a sec. What's wrong? Did I do something...?"

She nodded. "Yeah, you did something, William. You left a broken-hearted sixteen year old girl to move across the country because of some job. Then you got so wrapped up in Drusilla, you didn't bother to check in with me at all."

"Broken-hearted? Dawn, - "

"Oh, and you left me pregnant because apparently, 'pulling out' isn't one hundred percent guaranteed. Congratulations, Dad. It got aborted." She shook her arm away. "Don't try to talk to me again."

Then she walked away. Will felt like he'd been doused in ice water and then electrocuted. That wasn't how it had happened. No way. Okay, they had had one night after some drinking - too much drinking - where they fooled around a bit, and, yes, that had been a bad idea because she'd been so young, but it was nothing. She'd said she was fine. He'd believed her. And then the job offer in New York, of course he had to take that! But they'd left on a good note.

She'd hugged him goodbye.

They'd been fine.

Pregnant...

Will felt dizzy, and he braced a hand against the wall to ground himself. He glanced up to see Angel greeting people in the lobby. Drusilla hung off his arm, openly flirting with him. As Will's heartbeat quickened, time seemed to slow. Was he stuck in a movie again? Here was the part where Angel grinned at Drusilla with an amorous look. She led him away, into one of the dressing rooms.

Angel was fucking Will's wife before his own wedding.

Will closed his eyes. It didn't hurt as much as he thought it should. Maybe because he was already hurting so much, a little bit more just didn't register.

The room fell away then. The jumble of voices dissipated, and Will felt as if he was turning inside out. Every part of him constricting and expanding at the same time. Then the turmoil came to a close and it was like a thick blanket had been lain over him. Every sense muffled.

"He's a vampire, right? Shouldn't he, you know, heal?"

It was Buffy. Even with the blanket dulling his senses, her voice rang clear. He struggled to open his eyes and was treated to a vibrantly bright image of her, arms crossed in frustration, talking to Giles.

"Of course. He should. He was in a very bad state when we found him, Buffy. It'll take some time."

Spike tried to move or call out, but nothing in his body worked. He wanted to tell her he was okay. As long as she was there, he was okay.

She'd come for him. She'd stayed by his bedside. It meant something. It meant that he was worth giving a damn about.

Buffy sighed, uncrossing her arms to rub the back of her neck. "I'm just worried, Giles. He's only woken up once, and he wasn't exactly with it then, you know?"

Spike's frustration grew at his inability to move. She was right there, and he couldn't do anything to signal her. Whatever healing abilities he had, they weren't working fast enough.

Buffy looked down at the floor, and Spike felt the world become darker around him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to stay with her. Just a little bit longer.

But he couldn't.


tbc...

"Do you, Nina, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

It wasn't Buffy.

Will knew it wouldn't be. The very idea was insane. That Angel would be marrying the woman of his dreams. But there'd been a moment when Will had believed it. Somewhere back in the morass of memory of Dawn's rejection, Drusilla's continued infidelity. Seeing his Buffy marrying Angel wouldn't seem so strange after all that.

He stood at the very back of the auditorium. He hadn't wanted to take a seat. In fact, he wasn't planning on staying for the full ceremony. After what Dawn had told him, and then seeing Angel and Drusilla together...

It explained so much. The reason why everybody had stopped talking to him after he moved to New York. If they had known about Dawn, then they probably had jumped to some horrible assumptions about him. Then him being dumb-headed enough to fall back in with Drusilla in New York, forgetting everything else. Of course returning to L.A. would greet him with a solid wall of cold shoulders. They probably thought he was a complete wanker.

His life was a mess. An unfixable mess. What could he do?

The bride smiled up at Angel, completely unaware that her future husband had already strayed. Will had an urge to stop the entire wedding. Tell everybody what Angel had done. Odds are, though, nobody cared. People just didn't care. That's the problem with the world.

Angel and Nina kissed, and Will exited to the lobby and out to his car. Dru would have to find another way home. Will was finished. With the wedding. With his marriage. With even trying.

He wasn't a bad guy. Sure, he'd made mistakes. Who hadn't? Screwing around with Dawn? That had been a biggie. He knew that now. But all the good he'd done? All the...

...nothing he'd done. He'd not even made a dent in the world. Not for the better; not for the worse. He just was. Taking up valuable oxygen that could go to someone more deserving. Someone who didn't leave teenage girls knocked up or who didn't work just hard enough to not get fired. Who didn't stick with an unfaithful wife because breaking away would be too bloody hard. And who certainly didn't mope and brood instead of doing stuff.

Will passed his exit on the highway. He wasn't going home. Instead, he flipped open his cellphone and called Dr. Fuller. The only person left who'd give a damn.

It went straight to voicemail, which meant the doc was in with another client. Will listened to the spiel about dialing 911 in case of emergency. He laughed. 911 was for people who wanted help.

"Doc, it's Will. 'Fraid I'm not going to be in to my next appointment. In fact, you'd be best off just picking up another client to fill your 2:30 slot. Sorry."

Will tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and grinned as the speedometer showed him past eighty miles per hour. At least he'd go out with a bang.

His hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel so hard. Dawn. Sleeping with her had been...nothing. No big deal for him. But for her...

What he'd done to her...

No wonder they all hated him.

There was no median between the two directions of the highway. Will spotted the eighteen wheeler pass a slower driver on the left up ahead. The movie started up again as his hands sharply yanked the steering wheel to the left, swerving his car directly into the path of the oncoming truck.

Horns blared in his ears, but that noise was soon replaced with metallic screeching and shattering, the likes of which he'd only heard a pale imitation of in movies. It was nothing like the real thing.

He blacked out, which he took to mean he was dead. He'd done it.

He hadn't, though. He came to in the middle of the wreckage, strapped into his car and almost overwhelmed by the acrid smell of burning rubber and god knows what else. The car was on its side, the driver's seat closest to the ground. The dashboard pinched Will's legs in several places, pinning him in and the strap across his chest burned.

He couldn't even kill himself properly.

He would have laughed, but inhaling just brought more smoke into his lungs. Maybe he'd die a slow death. Painful.

"Sir! Are you okay? Sir!"

The voice was tiny against the backdrop of rushing cars and sirens in the distance. Will looked up to the passenger window to see someone looking down at him. Not a fireman or anything. No uniform. Will's eyes were watery, but he could make out that it was a woman peering in at him.

He groaned and coughed. Best response he could manage.

"Sir, there is gas leaking from your car, and fire's a big worry right now. Can you move? We need to get you clear."

Her voice began to sound clearer to him, though he wasn't sure of what he was hearing. He squinted up to try to block out the sun's startlingly bright light. Buffy was looking down at him.

"I'll get you out of here," she continued talking. She was assessing the situation while talking to him in a comforting voice. "It's kinda what I do. Well, I'm off duty, but I saw the wreck and so here I am. Doing the whole hero thing. But, you know, you don't need to worry. I know what I'm doing, okay?"

He smiled. He had died. This was heaven. She was real.

"Can you move your legs?"

He could. Just a bit ago, he thought he was pinned. The pressure from the dashboard disappeared, though, and he freely wiggled his legs. The sounds of disaster seemed to fade into the distance, and Will discovered it was a cinch to unfasten his seatbelt and turn to look at Buffy.

She reached a hand down to help him climb up. She smiled. "There you go. You'll be alright. I got you."

When Will took her hand, the world stopped. And vanished.

Spike woke up with a start. A hand placed on his chest gently pressed him back down onto the bed.

"It's okay, Spike. I've got you."

There was no blanket or cocoon now. Everything was crisp and vivid and so real. Spike stared at Buffy's small hand pinning him down. His gaze traveled up her arm, to her shoulder, her neck, her face. Worry lines etched into her expression as she watched him warily, unsure of what to expect. He smiled at her and allowed his body to relax back onto the bed.

"Buffy," he said. His hand captured hers and held tight.

"Spike? You're...here? Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I think. I..." The alley. She'd rescued him from the alley.

She sniffed back her tears, but she couldn't keep her smile from breaking free. "See? This is what you get when you don't tell me you're back from the dead, mister. Extended hospital stay."

"You been by my side this whole time?"

She looked down at their joined hands. "Yeah, most...all. It's been a couple days. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

He nodded, "I am now."

Buffy's eyes softened and she released her facade, allowing her emotions to be exposed. Last time he'd seen her look like that, she'd been telling him she loved him.

She still loved him.

"God, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said, the words coming out almost of their own accord.

Buffy ran a finger down his cheek as she drank him in. "Where were you?" she asked. "I mean...not the alley, but just now. While you were out. You were a bit restless sometimes. Mumbling and stuff."

Spike brought her hand to his lips in a gentle kiss.

"Don't remember."

fin