DECEMBER 23, 2005

It had been so cold, and then she came.

How can I tell her? For her, for them, it was Light and Love, as it should be. But not for me, for me it was…

He looked into her eyes as she lay beside him. Hope. I see it there. I need that. But, I can’t take it from you…

She watched the storm clouds gathering in his eyes, could almost feel the warmth, the hope that had been there just a few days ago, ebbing away, making him colder, even as she touched him. Buffy didn’t like to see Spike in that much pain. Oh, he wouldn’t say it, but he was in pain. No amount of hugs and kisses to little girl cheeks could hide that, and she should know, she’d been there herself after her Mom died.

She saw the hurt, but what hurt her most was what Spike couldn’t share. He couldn’t share his pain with her because his soul, the essence of what he was, had been tortured and traumatized by what she had done.

Still, she had to try. He would do it for her.

“Spike,” she tried again, “I’ll take care of her. I promise. She will know. She’ll know how much you love her, I swear, I’ll tell her. She won’t forget you. I won’t let her. She won’t forget,” her throat tightened, and made the next words painful, but she needed to say them; he needed to hear them, “I won’t forget, Spike.”

His arm tightened around her as she lay beside him, and she held her breath, wondering if he knew how gigantic that small token of his affection, whether he was aware of it or not, was for her now; now that she was counting them and storing them up like the treasures they were, like she should have done when they were, so freely given that she did not recognize them.

She was storing them against the famine they both feared would come too soon.

His eyes were so bright and sharp, so completely focused on her that it almost made her heart skip a beat. This was another thing she feared she would lose, another thing to file away for the cold days to come. “But, what happens if I forget her? What if I hurt her? And you, what about you? ” Spike asked, his voice distracted, as though he were trying to gather the loose ends of thoughts he couldn’t quite grasp. For a moment that worried her, but then she realized that he wasn’t distracted in the sense that he was coming apart at the seams; he was distracted because he was worried.

You would never forget her, Spike. You’d tear yourself apart first. Buffy tightened her grip on his back a little and gazed at his intensely bright eyes; eyes that were somehow brighter than she remembered, and not because of passion, this was pure fear she was seeing in his eyes. Maybe you already have. “Spike, you won’t forget her, I won’t let you and neither will Joni.”

When she said it, she knew it would be true. Buffy fell asleep in his arms, offering now, to him, the mirror image of the kind of comfort he had offered her in the last days of Sunnydale and she knew that, if not today, then someday. Someday, it would be true.
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MONDAY DECEMBER 20, 2027-

“Buffy, no,” Willow shook her head, “It’s not right.” She looked at Spike as he lie on the bed. He looked small, but small things can be very scary, she should know, and add to that he was somehow feverish, and not from a poison she could see, no this was thanks to Angel—and Wolfram and Hart- and that was just dangerous, and deadly, “He said no. I don’t want to be responsible for…”

“I know what you promised him,” Buffy said, “and I thank you for doing it. And, if he were really…leaving…I would expect you to keep to that promise,” Buffy smiled sadly, her eyes bright, as she and her best friend looked down at Spike’s still form, “But, you see, Spike’s not going anywhere.”

Willow sighed. She’d seen that look before; she even had her own version of it. “Resolve Face” she called it, and it had always worked on Xander. Now it was working on her.

“All right,” she relented, and even as the words came out, all Willow could think was: * Spike would hate me for this. * “Just give me a few more days to get the stuff I need to do the spell. Tell Joni to be ready,” she nodded slightly, her eyes never leaving Buffy’s, “In the park, you both know where. I’ll tell you when.”

Willow closed her eyes, her ears filling with Buffy’s tearful thanks as they held each other in an embrace of hope- the only hope this tiny house had seen for quite some time- and hoped Spike wouldn’t hate her too much, if this made Buffy happy then…it would be all right…Right?
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Angel heard the distant siren of an ambulance, and somewhere in this hour before light, a baby cried. He saw the brick building on Jennings Street looming before him and still unsure of what to do, and as he smiled wryly at the toy rabbit he held at his side, he was almost certain the Powers were laughing at him.

He wasn’t even sure they would let him in the door. But, he had to try. The world was depending on her, and on him to get it right this time.

He had to get it right.

He could still hear Jonina’s voice calling out to him, that one last promise.

Her promise. The last thing she’d said to him. He saw it. Knew it as if he’d been there himself, and his chest crumbled from the pain:
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His eyes burned from the sight of her. His sun, blazing in the night sky, and he knew it wasn’t right.

His fingers bled as they dug into the rock, desperately clinging to his life. “Joni! No!” The light was burning him, but he refused to look away. It hurt, but he would see, see what he’d made of her. His light. His blood…

Then suddenly, it all went black, and the wind screamed the promise to his heart. A gift.

A gift passed down, mother to daughter, and now down to him.

A gift he didn’t want, not at all.

As the light went out, he heard it: “I promise, Daddy. I promise.”

Angel took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.