What A Girl Wants

Chapter 12—Scarred Hearts

She sobbed on the bed where they had lay earlier, speaking words of love and devotion, shattered that he would leave her now. Her heart ached with the emptiness within; he had completely closed himself off to her, detached himself from her and the claim, and she grieved, grieved for what she had lost a second time because of her inability to process what was truth.

She loved him. Hopelessly loved him. Felt incomplete without him. She knew that day, in the final moments they were together, that without him she would die. Not physically, no, but emotionally, until she became no more than the Buffybot—going through the motions, never happy, never carefree and spontaneous again, because there was no life that she wanted to live without him.

And he was gone again. Left her, probably at the worst time of her life. How could he leave her now, when he was the only reason for her existence, her only reason for living? She made the damn wish for him, and if he would only see that….

When she finally stopped crying, finally had the strength to move, her thoughts were not on the party in the yard, still in full swing after the appearance of Warren. Nor were they on Spike. She had to patrol. She had to kill something. She had to get out of this house she had buried herself in, get out and go and fight the fight, because she was the one who could, and did.

She slipped into some old black jeans and one of his tee shirts that still carried his scent, and pulled on a black leather duster that was very much like his. Pausing in front of the mirror, she wondered what he would think if she cut, bleached, and spiked her hair to match his too, and dismissed it from consideration. She didn’t want to look like that one singer, Wendy O. Williams. She wanted to be herself.

Oh, but she had a mohawk, Buffy thought, and the thought of her in a mohawk brought a short spurt of giggles, abruptly cut off by the thought that Spike was gone.

Her footsteps echoed in the streets the litany. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone. Her heartbeat sang the counterpoint—you lied, you lied, you lied. But when? When did she lie? Did she lie when she said she loved him? No. Did she lie when he asked her for the story? No. She had lied to herself from the moment she fell in love with him, the moment she had seen him there in the Bronze, with his Billy Idol look and the curl of his tongue and his promise to kill her. She loved him then. He would never believe that.

Just like he didn’t believe she loved him now.

Was this part of the dance? Which part? I made him miserable, and so now he makes me suffer? How could she tell him that every day was a little bit more of the hair shirt for her to wear. Every day, she thought of how happy they could have been, if she would have withstood the pressures and well-meaning interventions of her friends and the niggling self-doubt that ruled her always.

She wouldn’t let him see her without that mask. Confident fearless Slayer, beautiful untouchable Buffy. How could she ever let him know how afraid she was? Afraid of being alone, afraid of getting killed, afraid of growing old, afraid of living? She had so many fears, and so little time to overcome them.

Her feet found their way to Restfield, such a familiar path to her, even though tonight it was a dream-like path. She saw nothing out of place here. All the graves were old, the grass green and lush over the mounds of dirt, the crypts locked and rusted. Nothing stirred. There was no life, or unlife here, she knew.

Still, she walked the path, followed the dream, until she was standing in front of his crypt, the familiarity bringing a fresh spate of tears to her eyes.

Clem lived here now. Clem, the puppy-dog eyes and wrinkled skin hiding a demon’s heart of pure gold. She almost smiled, and decided that a quick chat with Clem might be just the thing to help her now.

She knocked gently on the door, then pushed it open slowly. It made no noise, not like before. Someone had oiled the hinges.

She entered slowly, looked cautiously around. The place was deserted. Nobody was living here.

She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it. She could curl up in the bed that had cradled him and fall asleep with his scent on the pillow and his memory on her mind.

She walked intently to the hole in the floor, and dropped down into complete darkness. Her memory was good to her, and she made it to the bed without any difficulty. Stripping off, she lay on his bed and cried herself to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike was blathering drunk. He was so drunk, in fact, that Willy decided not to toss him in the street, because he would probably pass out and dust when the sun rose. He nodded at a couple of the regulars, and they came close to the bar, making certain to stay away from the brassed-off vampire who kept cursing and railing at a certain absent Slayer.

“Listen, can you get him home, boys? He has that crypt in Restfield, and I’ll bet the Slayer would be very grateful if you could give him a hand home.”

“Willy, he’s pissed.”

“And drunk.”

“Look, guys, I’ll give you money. I just can’t let him—the way he’s talking, he’ll just walk out in the sunrise, and the Slayer wouldn’t like that, now, would she?”

Begrudgingly, the demons agreed to drop Spike at the crypt.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike woke up in his crypt, his cheek firmly pressed against the concrete. His head pounded like someone was beating him with a troll god’s hammer. His eyes felt like mini-suns in his head, burning holes in his brain.

He rolled to his back, and groaned again. He hurt everywhere. His whole body ached, not from any external source. It hurt from within, centering on his cold dead heart. It didn’t beat, but it could feel, and right now it felt broken.

He dragged himself to his feet, and stumbled over to the fridge in the corner. There it was, a single blood bag, waiting for him. He was glad that Clem had to go out of town for a couple of days, just so he had a place to land. Somewhere to get away from the chit’s deceit and lies to be alone, to be a man again.

He finished the bag off, and cradled his head in his hands. Who was he kidding, really? He didn’t care when or where she came from. She was his all. His reason. He didn’t need an explanation to why she had hidden this all away; his reaction had been plenty. And she was Buffy, through and through. He loved her, no matter what she had done. She had a good reason, whatever it was.

He threw his duster over the chair, and went to the hole in the floor, needing some kip. He dropped down into the dark, lost his balance at the bottom, and fell flat on his back.

“Who’s there?”

Her voice came out of the darkness, a gift. “Buffy?”

“Spike?”

He found his lighter in his hip pocket, and flicked it, a dim light spreading in the dark. “What are you doing here?”

He heard her fumbling in the dark. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll go.”

She was past him before he realized it. Halfway up the ladder before he moved, could move. Almost to the door when he finally got the stones to go after her. “Wait, you bloody bitch!”

She stopped in her tracks, turning slowly. “What did you call me?”

He stopped in the center of the crypt, suddenly fearful. Fearful? He had never been afraid of Buffy. Still the feeling clenched in his gut, though he ignored it. “Bitch.”

“How dare you! You—you ponce!” In two quick steps, she was in front of him, and her fist connected with his nose. “You promised you’d never leave me. You promised, and I always believed you, always trusted you. I come to you and give you my heart and soul, a second chance for both of us to be happy, and you tell me you love me, then that you’re leaving. Leaving! And you don’t know when you’ll be back. Or if you’ll be back. And just like that, you put on that stupid coat and LEFT!”

He stood there in shock at her outburst. She held out her hand, the hand she’d held his hand with the day—she held it in front of her, showing him the scar that covered her palm, the webs between her fingers. “I watched you die! I held your hand while you burned! If the situation were different, wouldn’t you take the chance? And when I told you I loved you, then you threw it back in my face. Told me I didn’t, but thanks for saying it. Thanks for saying it! Like it was a compliment on your jewelry, or something. God, God, GOD! Why? Why couldn’t you look at me and see how much you meant to me? Why can’t you now? Why were those words so fucking important to you? When you knew, you knew that you were just going to use them against me in the end?”

He looked at her hand, the scars pale against her golden, perfect flesh, then looked at his own hands. Hands that began shaking at the evidence, there in his palm, evidence that he hadn’t noticed in the time that they’d been together. Irrefutable evidence of their love.

He raised his hand, pressed his palm against hers, still outstretched and quivering in the air. Fitted their hands together, folded the fingers, just so…. Then jerked away from her, and showed her his hand, and the scar that spiderwebbed his palm and matched hers exactly.