Disclaimer: Not my characters, just borrowing them. Thanks to the kind reviewers who inspire me to keep writing! 



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Chapter 2 – Into the desert
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Buffy drove into the night, her hands gripping the wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going, but she needed to think, without the clattering of the Scoobies around her. She was uncertain where this near panic came from. She was used to denying her feelings and avoiding difficult discussions, either with her friends or with herself. But now she felt like something inside her was broken and she didn’t know what, and she didn’t know why, and if she didn’t find out she would go insane. So she drove, putting as many miles as possible between herself and that pile of dust.
 
She realized at some point that she was nearly at the spot in the desert where she had gone with Giles to have visions of the First Slayer, to find out that death was the gift she had to give. Some people have a nice singing voice as their gift. I got death. The thought reminded her of a baritone voice begging her to let him rest in peace and she clamped down on the memory, forcing it back so she could concentrate on the road. She looked for the turnoff, or what she hoped was the turnoff, and made the turn from one dark road onto another. She found it next to impossible to find the exact spot in the dark, but there was a trailhead parking lot on the side of the road, so she pulled in. She got out, realizing that she had left her wallet at home. Guess it’s good I didn’t get stopped. These mundane thoughts popped at random into her head as she walked into the darkness.
 
The arid landscape was eerie at night, with twisted Joshua trees and stunted pines all around. The moon was bright, giving her enough light to pick her way to a clearing. The night air was chilly, and she sat down with her back to a rock, shivering a bit. She listened to the sounds of night insects, and off in the distance she heard a wolf or a coyote howling. As she became immersed in the sights and smells of the forest she was finally able to start thinking things out.
 
Spike was gone. Her brain had accepted that on some level. In her mind the scene repeated itself in an infinite loop. His eyes. He had always been able to convey more with one glance of his eyes than most people could in two hours of conversation. That last glance had been so full of regret and loss that it had cut her like a blade. In that instant before he vanished she had seen his bones, as always happened when a vampire dusted, and they had been beautiful bones, like he had been a beautiful man. Her throat closed up for a second as she remembered the night she had handcuffed him and rode him, slowly, relishing her control. He had been so heartbreakingly gorgeous in the candlelight, eyes half closed in ecstasy, alabaster skin glowing, trusting her implicitly. He knew that he was completely helpless, bound before his sworn enemy, and yet he submitted willingly, taking pleasure from putting himself into her hands.
 
Buffy drew her knees closer and put her head on them. He was always putting himself into my power. He had come to her to help stop Acathla, knowing that she could decide to ignore him and stake him on the spot. He had come to her starving, letting her chain him up and insult him after having suffered at the hands of the initiative. He pledged to protect her sister, and let that pledge keep him in Sunnydale even after she was dead, to be treated as a guard dog by her friends. He had given her his body and his heart, turning himself into an outcast in the demon world. He was hers to do with what she wanted, whether she wanted him or not. None of the other men in her life had given themselves over to her like that. Angel had always been paternalistic, protective, aloof. Parker had used and discarded her. Riley had been insecure, needy but not willing to admit to it. But Spike… Spike had been hers.
 
And there’s the problem right there. Spike had expressed his love for her over and over. But she still wasn’t sure what she felt for him. Pushing that concept aside, she focused on how she felt right now. Spike’s gone. Why is that a problem? She had broken up with him. She had told him it was real for him, not for her. If he had left town, she wouldn’t have been surprised at all. But now he was dead, really dead, and it had knocked her for a loop. Why am I so upset? What’s the difference between him being dead and him being gone? She followed that train of thought methodically. If he had left Sunnydale, he would be out there, somewhere. Somehow she knew that had she ever really, truly needed him he would have showed up again, swaggering and sarcastic, but still on her side.
 
Then there was the whole scene with Anya. Why should that bother her? She had dumped him. She had told him to move on. He moved on. What gave her the right to complain about it? Nothing. You have no right to complain, any more than you had a right to be upset that Riley got married. But it had still hurt to see the two of them on that grainy video. Spike was comforting Anya the same way he had comforted Buffy, apparently the only way he knew how. If she was honest, she had to admit that both Spike and Anya had every right to be angry and lonely, and both needed solace. But did it have to be with each other?
 
Buffy got up and paced around the little clearing for a few minutes, trying to get circulation back into her limbs, chewing her lip as she kept trying to sort things out. He’s gone. I don’t… I don’t want him to be gone. Even if he was just another one of my exes, I didn’t want him gone for good. Having established that much she sat down again, once more drawing her knees up and resting her cheek on them. A memory sprang unbidden into her mind, of laughing with him in his crypt.
 
Missed the bed again.
 
Lucky for the bed.
 
For just that moment they had been just a pair of lovers, flush with pleasure, exhilarated, enjoying each other’s company, chatting casually. Then Spike’s next comment had stopped her in her tracks. Are we having a conversation? The comment had made her realize where she was, what she had been doing, and the walls had gone up again, like a force field. Why did he say that? She felt like she knew the answer finally. It was his way of trying to make it as real for her as it was for him. He tried in so many little ways to get her to connect with him, to get her to understand that he loved her, to get her to at least acknowledge him as a person rather than a sex object. But she had always done the same thing – shut down, close herself off, and run away. Refuse to even explore the idea that what they were doing meant more than physical sensation. Her cheeks burned at the memory.
 
Maybe that’s what this is all about. Guilt. She still found herself looking for reasons. Why had it felt like someone punched her when she saw the video? Why had she run after Xander? Why had the world just stopped and narrowed down to a pile of dust? She clutched her arms around herself more tightly as she fought a rising sense of shame. You were an utter bitch to him, you know that? You used him and beat him and dismissed him when you were done. Bitch. It had been why she had broken up with him. She had convinced herself that breaking it off was the right thing for both of them, but it had just been to ease her own conscience. She felt guilty for using him so she had to stop, regardless of what he felt. As she sat there the darkness seemed to get thicker somehow, and she realized that the moon had moved behind the trees, making the little clearing completely black. In that darkness, a thought popped up like a poison flower: You got him killed, Buffy. You did. You pushed him until he couldn’t take it, and then he slept with Anya, and Xander saw it all on the camera meant to spy on you. You broke his heart, and you didn’t save him. You, Buffy. All you. And that was the thought that finally pushed her over the edge as she broke down and sobbed.
 
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Xander’s first thought was that maybe if he ignored the knocking it would go away. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, on his third beer, despite the fact that it wasn’t yet noon. The knock at the door came again followed by Willow’s voice calling, “Xander? It’s me. Can I come in?” With a sigh Xander heaved himself to his feet and made his way to the door.
 
Willow frowned at the sight of Xander’s bloodshot eyes and wrinkled her nose slightly at his beer breath. “A little early, isn’t it?” she said as she followed Xander into his messy apartment.
 
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Xander muttered in reply. He threw himself on the couch and gestured toward the chair in a half hearted way. “Welcome to Xander’s house of pain. Take a seat.”
 
“I came to see how you were doing,” Willow explained as she sat down. “You were pretty upset last night.”
 
“Why? Because the women I care about would rather screw a serial killer than interact with me?”
 
Willow flinched at the angry bitterness in his voice. “Tara told me about Buffy and Spike last night. I guess she’s been seeing him for a couple of months.”
 
“And you’re okay with that?” Xander barked.
 
Willow shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it or not. She broke it off with him, and now he’s gone.”
 
Xander took another drink and frowned at the empty bottle. “I guess that’s why he was looking for someone. But why would Anya stoop so low?”
 
“Xander, you broke her heart,” Willow said as gently as she could. “You embarrassed her in front of all her friends and rejected her. She’s upset.”
 
“Just because you’re upset doesn’t mean you fuck vampires!”
 
“Spike was sort of a special case,” Willow ventured. “He was fighting on our side.”
 
“Yeah, so he could get in Buffy’s pants,” Xander snorted. “Gotta wonder how much of her attitude lately has been because of his bad influence.”
 
“We did pull her out of heaven,” Willow observed. “It really messed her up.”
 
Xander was unmoved. “Then she should have talked to us or something! I mean, we’re her friends. Didn’t we all used to help each other with all this stuff?”
 
“Yeah, we used to. Something happened I guess.” They lapsed into silence for a minute before Willow tentatively asked, “Why did you kill him, Xander?”
 
“He needed killing,” Xander answered bluntly.
 
“Don’t you think Buffy should have been the one to make that call? I mean, she is the Slayer and all.”
 
“If she’s the Slayer, how come she’s fucking every hard luck sob story vampire she comes across?” Xander exploded.
 
“Xander, that’s not fair and you know it!” Willow was unable to hold her tongue any longer. “You’re mad, I get it. But you don’t need to trash Buffy like that. She’s had a lot on her plate in the last year. She’s doing her best. I think sleeping with Spike was a mistake, but she had acknowledged it and was fixing the situation. She broke up with him. You didn’t need to go all medieval guy and defend her honor somehow.”
 
“Whatever. He’s gone now, so problem solved.” Xander got up and stomped over to the fridge to grab another beer.
 
“Um, not so sure that’s true.” Xander turned and fixed Willow with a confused look. “Buffy took off last night and hasn’t come back yet.”
 
“What do you mean, took off?”
 
“She came home, told me, Dawn and Tara what had happened, grabbed the car keys and bolted.”
 
Xander paused for a minute, looking like he was considering feeling guilty about Buffy’s disappearing act. But then his expression hardened once more. “You can’t tell me she’s mourning for that… that thing. You said they broke up!”
 
“She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t anything.” Willow twisted her fingers worriedly as she spoke. “She didn’t really react at all. It was like when she first came back – like she was in a total daze or something.”
 
“Seems to me that proves I did the right thing. She would never be able to dust his ass on her own.”
 
Willow mulled that over. “She killed Angel when she had to.”
 
“Yeah, but that was before. Lately she’s pulled herself so far away from us that she barely seems like the Slayer anymore. She needs to spend less time chasing the evil undead and more time getting her life in order.” Xander’s pompous tone rang through the apartment to the point that Willow wondered when the neighbors were going to pound on the wall.
 
“All that aside, she’s missing, and Dawn’s worried about her. So if she comes here, can you please call us so we know what’s going on? And I don’t know, maybe let her tell her side of the story?” Willow got up to go.
 
Xander rose as well, snagging Willow’s arm gently. “I’m sorry for ranting at you, Wills. It just… blew my mind. I just can’t even fathom what either of them were thinking to sleep with him.”
 
“I guess all we can do is ask them, and listen,” Willow answered. “I need to go check up on Dawn and see if anyone’s heard anything.”
 
Xander walked her to the door, and gave her a hug. “Thanks for coming by, Will.”
 
“You’re welcome. I’ll call you if we hear from her.”
 
“Thanks.” Willow left and Xander closed the door. He sat down with his latest beer, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
 
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Buffy woke up confused and disoriented, wondering vaguely why her bed was so hard. The answer became clear once she realized that her bed was actually the ground. She sat up, rubbing her face. She had cried herself out the night before, but hadn’t felt quite like driving home. She had meant to curl up and close her eyes, just for a second, before forcing herself to get back in her car and face life again. But from the look of things, a second had turned into several hours, and the sun was already well over the horizon. 
 
She was thirsty and had to go to the bathroom, so she headed back toward the car. There was a small building near the trailhead that housed bathrooms, and although they were populated by a number of spiders, they seemed clean enough. She scooped a handful or two of water from the sink to quench her thirst after she washed her hands, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. She was disheveled, and her eyes looked red and tired and old somehow. After making a halfhearted effort to straighten up her hair she gave up and went back out to the parking lot.
 
The car was gone. Buffy blinked, looked all around, but it was most definitely not there. There was a brown pickup truck, and a red Volkswagen beetle, but Joyce’s SUV was completely and utterly gone. “What the fuck do I do now?” she muttered aloud to herself. She looked around some more, trying not to panic.
 
“Can I help you, miss?” Buffy turned to see a park ranger looking at her.
 
“Um, yeah, maybe. It looks like my car was stolen.”
 
“Black SUV?” he asked. He looked around her dad’s age, graying at the temples, but with sharp brown eyes that observed her closely.
 
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said, wondering how he knew.
 
“Well the good news is, I know where it is. The bad news is, it’s been towed.”
 
“Towed?” Buffy blurted out. “Why?” The ranger pointed to a sign at the edge of the parking lot, which Buffy hadn’t seen the night before. It read “No Overnight Parking – Violators Will be Towed” in clear letters. “Oh. Guess I didn’t see that.”
 
“What were you doing out here all night anyhow? Camping isn’t allowed here – this place is just for day hikes.”
 
Guess I got the location a bit wrong too. “I didn’t mean to stay all night. I was, um, stargazing, and I dozed off.”
 
The ranger looked as if he didn’t quite believe her, but finally he said, “Look, I can give you a ride to the impound lot if that helps.”
 
“Not sure it will. I realized after I got here that I forgot my wallet,” Buffy admitted sheepishly.
 
“Well, maybe you can call and get a friend to pick you up there,” he suggested.
 
“That would probably work. Thanks for the help Mr…?”
 
“Name’s Jim. Here, hop in, we’ll get you on your way.” Buffy climbed into the passenger seat of the brown truck and buckled in. She noted with some dismay that it was nearly 10:30 in the morning. “Seems like a long way to come to go stargazing,” Jim commented as they got on their way.
 
“I really needed to get away and think about some stuff,” Buffy said by way of explanation.
 
Jim glanced at her, noting the unhappy undertone to her voice, but she was focused out the window. “Figure it out?”
 
“Not really.” Buffy stared at her lap. “I suppose it was worth a try though.”
 
“You’re lucky you didn’t get in any sort of trouble last night,” Jim admonished. “Gets cold out here at night, and sometimes coyotes hang around looking for handouts from the trash cans.”
 
“I promise I’ll gear up the next time I go camping,” Buffy reassured him.
 
“You’d better. I’ve seen some solo hikers get into no end of trouble.”
 
To avoid having to keep up her end of the conversation, Buffy said, “What are some of the more interesting stories you’ve encountered?” Her judge of his character was spot on, for given that opening Jim regaled her with tales from the Park Service for almost the entirety of the long drive back to civilization with little input on her part other than the occasional “And then what happened?” from her.
 
Buffy had lost track of the number of stories she half listened to when they reached the furthest outskirts of Sunnydale. As they pulled into the county impound lot Jim said, “You seem to have a lot on your mind. I hope things go better for you.”
 
“I hope so too,” Buffy said, smiling faintly. “Thanks so much for your help.”
 
“Anytime. You take care now.” Buffy got out, waved goodbye, and went into the office. The man behind the counter was smoking and reading a paper, and gave off an air of extreme boredom. “Hi, um, my car got towed here?”
 
The man glanced up at her as if her presence was keeping him from an important appointment. “What kind of car?”
 
“Black SUV, license plate…” Buffy began.
 
“Yeah, I know the car,” the man interrupted. “Fine is $150. In cash.”
 
“What?”
 
“Towing fee plus fine for overnight parking. Cash only,” he reiterated.
 
Buffy frowned. Even if she had her wallet, there was no way that much cash would ever be inhabiting it given the current state of her finances. “Can I use your phone? I need to call someone to bring me some money.”
 
“There’s a pay phone outside.”
 
“Look, I’m completely without funds. I don’t have fifty cents for the pay phone.”
 
“Guess you’re out of luck then,” the man said dismissively as he reopened his paper. “Nobody uses the office phone. Company rules.”
 
Buffy thought for a moment about leaping across the desk and demonstrating a few Slayer moves on this completely unhelpful individual, but decided that she had neither the energy nor the desire to incur various legal penalties. “Can you at least tell me how far we are from downtown Sunnydale?”
 
Without looking up from his paper he pointed a thumb to the east. “Ten miles that way.”
 
“Thanks for nothing,” Buffy muttered as she went back outside. Maybe I could call home collect, she thought, but when she picked up the receiver on the pay phone she found it was not actually connected to the phone in any way. Fuck this, she grumbled to herself as she slammed the receiver back into the holder. She looked in the direction the man had pointed, sighed, and started walking. Great. Now I have to cough up money to get the car out of jail. She was vaguely disgusted with herself. She had stood up to Principal Snyder and Maggie Walsh, defied the Watcher’s Council on numerous occasions, and here she was, beaten by the impound lot guy.
 
She trudged on, taking off her coat and carrying it as the day warmed up. After a mile or so the hypnotic unrolling of the ground before her sent her mind wandering back to the previous day’s events. Spike’s still gone. When things were happening it was possible to put that thought away for a few minutes, but it popped out again the second any mental space opened up. Images of him flooded her mind; beaten and bloody after Glory had finished with him, after she had taken out her rage and frustration with life on him. He was on my side, and I treated him like shit. Hard on the heels of that thought was another: Why am I so upset about this? He was a vampire. I’m the Slayer. This is the natural order of things. But there had been nothing natural about Spike. Demons weren’t supposed to love, switch sides to join the white hats, protect the Slayer’s sister or any of that. There was nothing in any of the Watcher’s diaries that indicated that something like Spike had ever been encountered in the world of Slayerdom.
 
A truck whizzed by, swirling dust around her, but she hardly noticed as she plodded onwards. What was he to me? She felt somehow she desperately needed to answer all these questions, before she got back and the Scoobies descended on her. He had been her sex partner. Lover didn’t seem the right word, at least not on her part. He had been her lover. She hadn’t been his most of the time. Ally. That word fits. When she had first come back, before she had jumped him in that abandoned house, she would have used the word friend or confidant to refer to him. She winced involuntarily as she remembered the tenderness with which he had stroked her battered hands, asking how long it had been for her. That look of horrified understanding on his face when she had told him about Heaven. Her steps slowed and her eyes got wide as she realized, He’s probably in hell. He’s a vampire. He’s got no soul. Tears welled up again as she turned that thought over in her mind. He was a vampire, but he had been something to her, and the idea that he was now being punished for his sins due to her actions or inactions was physically painful to her. She fought a rising nausea as she kept walking and walking. With a flash of clarity she thought, You cared about him, Buffy. It may not have been love, but he did mean something to you. He cared for you and loved you despite everything, and you dumped him, and what the fuck are you going to do now?
 
A car horn startled her as she realized that she had almost stepped off the curb into its path without looking. Adrenaline surged as she jumped back and waited for the lights to change. She continued on her way, figuring she was probably about half way to her destination. Her feet hurt, and she was desperately thirsty, but this all seemed like background noise compared to the ache in her chest. She would never run into him on patrol again. She wouldn’t have that backup safe house for Dawn if things went sour. Those eyes, those piercing blue eyes which said more than words ever could, were closed to her forever. That cigarettes-and-leather scent would never again waft up from the tree under her window. All these thoughts crowded into her brain and she fought the panic that they caused.
 
Pull it together! she ordered herself. But as she thought about what she was walking toward she found it next to impossible. Up ahead was years of slogging through low paying jobs, dealing with Dawn, managing the Scoobies and their constant well meaning intrusion into her life, and all of it had to be faced alone. The Trio would still be there dogging her every move, and the vampires and demons of the hellmouth never took a vacation. Bills and worries and no one who told her the unflinching truth while worshipping her with his eyes. What am I going to do? The words looped over and over in her brain as she kept trudging reluctantly toward Revello Drive. 


TBC