SPIKE: I will know your blood, Slayer. I will make your neck my chalice ... and drink deep.
    Out Of My Mind
 

 

    Buffy allowed Spike to let go of her for long enough to hail a taxi, and order them back to the hotel. It was clear it would be best to just pay for yet another day, rather than check out. Buffy clung to him in the taxi, and wouldn’t reply to any of his pleas for information. “Just hold me,” was all she’d say. “Not yet. Just hold me.”

    When they got back to the hotel room, Spike held her away from him and stared at her. “Buffy. Talk to me. What the bloody hell is going on?”

    Buffy stared into his eyes. “Look at me.”

    “I am.”

    “No, look at me!” she said earnestly. “I need to see your eyes.” She stared into him as if trying to see right through him. She held his cheek, looking like she was about to cry. “Tell me you love me.”

    “Buffy... you know I love you more than life itself.”

    Buffy sighed as if with relief. “Say that again.”

    “I love you.”

    “No, say my name.”

    He frowned. “Buffy?”

    She kissed him. “Say it again.”

    “Buffy,” he said. He squeezed her tightly and whispered in her ear. “Buffy. Buffy, love.” Buffy seemed almost satisfied, and he pulled back to look at her again. “All right, tell me what’s happened to you. Crowley said you were going to die.”

    “What else did he say?” Buffy asked.

    Spike shook his head. “Most of it was bollocks, he was ranting about your spirit being drawn back to Nikki, and something about dissipating, or your soul vanishing or something. What happened to you?”

    “He was telling the truth,” Buffy said. “I was drawn back to the moment you were injured, when Nikki caught you with that stake. I was a ghost for a day or so – like you were after the hellmouth. I was there, in 1977, but I couldn’t touch anything.”

    “You were there?” Spike asked.

    “Yeah. You didn’t see me. And Nikki didn’t chase you, because she was too busy dealing with me.”

    Spike blinked at her. “You met Nikki?” he asked. His voice was very quiet. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

    “Yeah. She took me to Crowley, who said my spirit couldn’t hold together in that time, because I wasn’t supposed to exist yet. But Nikki....” Buffy sighed. “It’s a really long story, Spike. But yes, I was in 1977. And I had to... I had to work really hard... really very hard... to get back.”

    She looked about to cry again. He came forward to hold her, and Buffy pushed him back. “Buffy–”

    “Just, try to stop me, okay?” she asked.

    “What?”

    Buffy wrestled him onto the bed, and Spike pushed back as hard as he could. She was not holding back, not remotely, and his shoulders creaked. They lost the bed quickly, and broke one of the bedside tables, and ended up denting a wall. Spike lost – inevitably. She really was stronger than he was. Eventually their rolling and wrestling ended with her on top, and Spike gasping. “What is going on?” he asked.

    “It must have really sucked when that chip kept you from hitting me,” Buffy panted.

    Spike blinked up at her. “Yeah. Why?”

    “The balance of power,” she said. “It’s horrible when it’s not equal.”

    She sounded so desperate about it, he was really getting worried. “Buffy. Talk to me already.”

    She rolled off him and sat in the center of the bed, gazing at him. “I was there,” she said, “in 1977.”

    He sat up. “With Nikki.”

    “Partly,” she said. “But in order to get back, I had to go to you.”

    He got up and joined her. “To me?” he asked, confused. He’d never been haunted, as far as he knew. “I never saw you back then.”

    “No,” Buffy said evenly. “You wouldn’t have.” She swallowed. “I had to wear... another body.”

    “W...” He pursed his lips to ask what the hell she was talking about when the truth of the matter clicked in his head. His eyes went wide as the realization bled through him. “Sarah,” he said slowly. There was no question in it at all. “You were Sarah.”

    Buffy hesitated, and then nodded, her head bowing as if in shame, or shy. “I was.”

    A thousand images of those few torrid days flickered through his head like a flip book, and Spike suddenly felt nauseous. “Oh, god,” he breathed. He stood up, backing away from her. “Oh god. Oh god!” He covered his face with his hand, and Buffy bounded up, not letting him run away. “Oh, god, Buffy!” He made a sound as if he’d just been staked and staggered backward, nearly tripping over the coffee table.

    “Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me, Spike, I’m all right.” She took hold of his shoulders and sat him down. “Look at me.”

    Spike couldn’t help himself. Tears streamed down his face. “No... no, god! The things I did... The things I nearly did! You! And what I... what you had to...!” His voice died mid-word, and he gagged. He crumpled, burying his head in his hands, crying as hard as he had when Buffy had died.

    It was, in fact, as if she had died just then. Or as if Sarah had. All his grief for Sarah that he had never let himself respond to had been tickling in the back of his psyche since he’d returned to New York. He’d become as stone, and tried to put the chapter behind him, and now the pain of it raised its ugly, guilt-soaked head and beat him as if with a truncheon.

    “It’s all right,” Buffy said, wrapping her arms around him. She nestled her face into his leather-clad shoulder. “Its done now.”

    “It’s never done.” His voice cracked. “It never stops, it’s always there, inside me, happening over and over again. All the things I did. The things I let happen.” He sat up and stared at her, his face tragic. “How can you stand to look at me? My god, Buffy. How the hell can you stand to touch me?”

    Buffy had wondered that herself, a thousand times in the last week. And the answer was, she could. The how and the why and the whether didn’t matter. She was what she was. And what she was loved what he was. “I’ve always known what you were, Spike.” She shook her head. “I’ve always known the kinds of things you’ve done.”

    “You weren’t supposed to have to see it,” Spike said. He sounded as if he were being flayed. “Let alone live through it.” He buried his face in his hands again and tried like hell to compose himself. It was an uphill battle. From the moment he’d set foot in New York, he’d been trying to forget. He’d been trying not to think about Sarah, not to think about what he’d done, what she had done to him. He’d let Buffy know about his repentance over Nikki, but he had deflected every possible thought away from his murdered pet. He’d turned to Buffy for comfort from the memory, discussed his guilt tangentially the night before, and he had had no idea that the memory weighing on his mind was one that, twenty four hours later, she would share. “Oh, god,” he said, pulling his hands down, turning his face to the ceiling. “Of all the things...” His head sank again. “Of all the chapters in my life, why did you have to be saddled with that one?”

    “It’s just fate, Spike,” Buffy said, with the same flat acceptance she had over being a slayer. She didn’t have to like it, but it was true anyway.

    “No, that was not fate. That was me... as a monster.”

    “Only part of you,” Buffy said.

    “You shouldn’t have had to live to through that. No one should have to see all that.”

    “Not even you,” Buffy said. She sat back and gazed at him. “I am sorry you have all that in your head. It’s okay, Spike. I knew what I had to do... and I did it.” She laid her head on his lap.

    He wasn’t having that. “Get up, slayer. Good god, get up. You’re not my pet.” He picked her up and carried her to the bed, kneeling at her feet like a supplicant.

    “And you’re not a monster. Not anymore. Come up here.” Spike let her lift him and set him onto the bed beside her again.

    Spike shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Buffy, I’m so sorry. Sarah...” He covered his eyes with his hand again. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to tell you... to tell her... how sorry I was.” He started to cry again. “That wasn’t how I wanted it to end. I didn’t mean....”

    Things were always worse for Spike when he didn’t mean to be so evil. It was the fact that he hadn’t meant to which had spurred him to get his soul in the first place. “It’s okay,” Buffy said.

    “It’s not okay,” Spike said. “I murdered someone I loved, it was never going to be okay.” He swallowed, trying to find himself in the sudden outpouring of grief. Grief which was, apparently, unfounded, since Sarah was... Buffy was... right there in front of him, her warm hands holding his.

    “Drusilla had to take some blame for that, Spike.”

    “I left you unguarded,” Spike said. “I left you weak with bloodloss, imprisoned and alone with a mad murderess, who had reason to hate you. I can’t just hand the guilt to Dru and walk away. That was me. And I knew better, and I still went off, I went off to kill, and left you, even though I loved you...” He crumpled again. Buffy pushed herself against his chest, and Spike held her, squeezing her tightly, his nose buried in her hair. “I loved you, and I let it hap... Oh, god, Buffy, I love you so much,” he whispered. He sobbed. “I loved you then, and I didn’t even know why.”

    Buffy pulled away. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “Don’t you dare tell me you fell in love with me because I reminded you of Sarah.”

    Spike blinked, her annoyance shocking some of the grief out of his system. “God, no.” Spike wiped his face. “Buffy, I fell in love with Sarah because you’re the kind of person I fall in love with. I never once put you and Sarah together in my head before.”

    Buffy took a deep breath and sighed. “Well, good.”

    Spike frowned. “Were you just jealous of yourself?”

    “No,” Buffy said, a little amused by the idea. She could have been, she realized. A little. “Not exactly. I was afraid... always afraid that I would let too much slip. That you would end up with some idea about who I was, and it would mess up... this.” She indicated the space between them. “We needed all of it, the pain and the hate and the betrayal and the forgiveness. There had to be redemption. Our love couldn’t be tainted with a past affair, even one in a different body. It would have mucked it up. It....”

    “It might not have defeated the First,” Spike said. “No, I get it. I... oh, god!” He tilted his head up in realization. “That was why you couldn’t tell me. Not how you knew me, or what the blood was f.... That was driving me to distraction, that you wouldn’t tell me! It didn’t make sense, you were so honest about everything else.” He shook his head. “But Buffy, you never once reminded me of Sarah. Actually, if anyone ever reminded me of Sarah, it was Dawn.”

    Buffy blinked. “Dawn?”

    “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the same kind of feeling,” Spike said quickly. “I had too much grief in it for it to ever have been sexual again, anyway. By that last day it had gone far past that. But you were always so strong, pet. Dawn was always so much the Bitty Buffy. She always spoke and thought a lot like you, but she was young and scared and needed my protection. And her hair wasn’t far different.”

    “I guess that makes sense.”

    “No, god, Buffy. You are... Sarah was my pet. I loved her, but she wasn’t my equal, let alone my superior. I felt... hunger for her, and protective of her, not like.... Buffy, lets be honest, I’d have been your willing slave.” He shook his head in contempt of himself. “I’m happier as your companion, but all vampires, no matter how strong, still have a bit of the minion in them. If they find someone worthy.” He smiled at her, a little shyly. “You’ve always made me want to be both your master and your servant. I never had that impulse with Sarah. I just wanted to keep her.” He closed his eyes. “And an abysmal job I did of it, too.”

    “It’s all right.”

    “No,” Spike said. “It’s not.” He swallowed. “I killed you.”

    Buffy had been so relieved to be free of that prison of a body, so happy to be finally drawn back to her own time, that it hadn’t occurred to her what a betrayal it must have seemed like to Spike. She wanted to flippantly tell him that he’d freed her, and she was thrilled, because it had sent her back. But the look on his face told her that it wasn’t going to be that easy. The practical effect of the act was less important than what it had meant to him. “Why did you?” she asked gently.

    “I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “I knew your body... that body... Sarah’s... body. I could hear your heart rate, an inch from cardiac arrest. I could smell you were dying, there were toxins in your sweat. Your fingertips and toes were already dead, you’d have gotten gangrene. There wouldn’t even have been time if we had gotten you to a hospital, not to save you. They could only have prolonged the inevitable for a few days, maybe weeks at the most. You’d have needed organ transplants on top of blood transfusions, and I could tell you were in pain... and afraid.” He was trembling as he spoke. “And the spell wasn’t working, and there was nothing I could do about that, either. You had told me... you’d begged me to kill you earlier. Kill you, or help you, and I had helped you and it hadn’t helped. I didn’t want... you didn’t want me... to turn you. I’d had that go wrong before. I understood. I loved you too much to do that against your will. But you were going to die. You were in such pain....”

    “So it wasn’t...?”

    “What?”

    “You weren’t... jealous of yourself, were you?”

    “Jealous of a dead man, with Dru chained up in the other room?” Spike asked. “Like I had any rights at that stage.”

    “But I wanted to leave. That must have hurt.”

    “Well, now I know why,” he said. “But I wasn’t even that hurt then. I just felt... I did believe you loved me. I just felt like I wasn’t enough. You deserved everything you ever wanted, and I wasn’t enough. Sort of like... I had realized during that week with you that Drusilla... wasn’t really enough. She was my love, but she was too mad and distant to ever be my companion, and you made me long for that. No. If anything the idea that you loved someone I’d killed just made what I’d already done to you that much worse.” He stopped. “Is that really how you feel about it? The soul?” he asked. “Like I killed myself?”

    “You were certainly okay with that being the outcome,” Buffy said, “given how hard it was to do. You came back drastically changed.” Buffy shrugged. “It’s complicated, but... yeah. You killed the beast you were to become the man you are. In the same way as Dru killed you, and you became a vampire. It’s still you, but... yeah.”

    “I don’t know if I feel that way about it,” he said. “But jealousy... no, that wasn’t why I took Sarah. I just... I couldn’t bear to let you die, and not to own it,” he said. “It sounds sel – no, it was selfish. A vampire is a selfish creature, and even a selfish lover. I’d wanted to kill you from the moment I met you. I couldn’t let that slow death take you, when I was right there, and you still had any blood left in you. So I...” He choked, but he made himself keep going. “I took her.” His teeth were clenched, it was so hard to say. “I kissed her away, and made her part of me. I had to take her death for myself.”

    He swallowed. “And when I say this now, it sounds so... sickening. I know you won’t understand, but... it seemed beautiful at the time. It hurt like dying, but it was beautiful. Then you were gone... and I could no longer fail you.” He started to cry again. “God, I am sorry.” He looked up at Buffy. “Please. You have to believe me, it was only because I loved you so much, it tore me to shreds. To see you like that, when I could stop it...!”

    “I know,” she said. “Spike, look at me. It was beautiful. I was hurting, and I had told you to end it. I was done living like that. And if you hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have gotten back.” Spike was startled. She was glad? “Sarah’s body held me, and I didn’t know how to leave it. You broke that... prison of flesh I was in, and let my spirit loose, to travel back through your blood. Back to you.” She touched his face. “I had asked you to end it.”

    “Cold comfort,” he said. “It doesn’t excuse it. You have no idea how many times I nearly killed you before that moment.”

    Buffy shrugged. “Then you’d never have known,” she said. “I just... wouldn’t have come back.”

    “I suppose that would have been its own punishment,” Spike said. His head sank. “Not that there’s a punishment big enough for any of it.”

    “Spike–”

    “Don’t you dare forgive me,” he said. “Don’t you dare. I chained you and beat you and bit you and left you in mortal danger.” He shook his head. “I never wanted you to know that side of me.”

    “Spike, there was nothing... well, almost nothing, that you did to me then that I don’t ask you to do to me now.”

    Spike glared at her. “Not when you can’t tell me to stop,” he said. “Not when your life is actually in danger, not when I’m not in control of myself.”

    Buffy stared at him. “But you were.”

    Spike scoffed in contempt of himself.

    “No, Spike. You were. Not all the time, but.... I went to you, knowing what you were, knowing what you had been. Hell, I went knowing you had said you’d killed every single one of your pets. It was a slim chance, but I thought I could reach you. And I did! Every once in a while, hiding under all that sin, crying beneath the rage. It had to look hard for it sometimes, but I knew you were in there; the poet who had to keep his eyes closed inside the horror. You didn’t know you were fighting, you didn’t know why you were fighting, but you fought your demon, and came to me to hide from it all, just like you do now. I recognized it. I knew you were in there. Your behavior was... evil, but you didn’t shock me. I already knew what you were like when you when you had no soul.”

    “No. No, you didn’t.”

    “Yes, I did,” Buffy insisted. “I knew you back in Sunnydale. I very nearly loved you. I let you penetrate me – my self, not just my body. I let you take me over completely. I knew I could do that again, and even enjoy it. If I could get past the beginning, that instinct you had to kill, I knew it would be fine. I knew you.”

    “No, Buffy. I keep telling you, you never met the real me. The hard me. That beast, that creature that you met in New York was....” He stopped, and his head tilted. “Very different,” he continued, “from the Spike you met in Sunnydale.”

    He was staring at her in wonder. Buffy couldn’t understand. “What?”

    “Sarah...” Spike said. “Sarah did things to me. Things I never recovered from. She changed me.”

    Buffy frowned. “I didn’t... see much difference. I mean, between then and now, yeah, but not between then and back then.”

    “There were things... even Sarah never saw,” Spike said. “You had some intimations of them, but you never saw. You think that night you said no was bad?” Spike shook his head. “That was nothing compared to things I sometimes did. But you... Sarah wormed her way inside me, filed off a lot of the spikes and bristles. Took away some of the rage and filled it up with pain. I loved her. That was real. I don’t know... do you remember how I used to describe being in love with you?”

    “Something about wrecking everything that was you,” Buffy said, “until there was nothing left but me in an empty shell.”

    Spike nodded. “Yeah. Sarah slid inside me, too. Slipped in with the blood. God, Buffy, of course she was you.” He bowed his head. “She changed me.”

    “How?”

    Spike took in a breath. “You did a very... very important thing one night. That night. That night when you finally said no.”

    “By saying no?”

    Spike shook his head. “No, I had no conscience, that wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t loved you. No. You asked me what I wanted.”

    Buffy’s brow furrowed, questioning.

    “You made me realize what I was doing. Not that it was wrong, or evil. I didn’t care about that. You just... pointed out that it wasn’t what I wanted.”

    “What wasn’t?”

    He swallowed. “Rape,” he said, as if the word were a piece of gravel. He took in a deep breath and held it before he could speak again. “It’s a complicated thing, because when I was young... sex and rape were really seen as the same thing. Outside of marriage, if woman was with a man, she had lost her virtue, it didn’t matter if she’d wanted it or not. If a man had taken a woman, of course she just shouldn’t have been there to be taken. Sex was so taboo... and rape was just a part of that. So bedding a woman who wasn’t willing... well. The differences didn’t... flare out at me once I’d been turned. I was sinning just as surely with Drusilla, who literally begged for it at times.

    “As for rape itself, I really only started doing it to impress Angel. That’s no excuse – I chose to do it, I let him egg me on. But when you asked me what it was that I really wanted, told me not to just fall under the evil, but to think about it... I realized it wasn’t. Wasn’t what I wanted at all.” He looked down. “What I always wanted was to be wanted. Yeah, it was fun to kiss away the tears and horror of a terrified victim, but... that didn’t make me wanted. Even when I... was pulling those poor girls into death after Angel tortured them... I was just the lesser of the two evils, they didn’t want me, either. And when you asked me that....” He shook his head. “It changed me.”

    “You mean you never...?”

    “I wish I could say yes, never again. But it wasn’t that fast. I mean, it wasn’t a moral decision. I just... realized I didn’t enjoy it that much. Not compared to having someone beneath me who wanted me there. Not compared to you....” He swallowed. He was about to cry again, and made himself stop. “Eventually I did stop it completely. I mean, come on. Would I have put up with Harmony if I could get my rocks off from my victims?” He took in a breath. “But, the thing is, I only just realized... that if I hadn’t met Sarah... if you hadn’t worked on me for that week way back when... I probably would have taken you when you were unconscious.”

    Buffy blinked. “What?”

    “Do you remember what I was like when I first fell for you, pet? Really.”

    “Well, you seemed insane.”

    “Yeah,” Spike said with a heartfelt nod. “I didn’t know how to handle it. I was terrified by it, and I had no idea what to do. If you... if Sarah hadn’t made it so clear that rape... was not normal, that people were not vampires, and that no human being would ever be okay with being violated like that... and if you hadn’t pointed out to me that I could think about what I wanted, rather than going by default evil...” He shook his head. “You remember how I thought chaining you up and laying my kill at your feet in a ritual sacrifice was romantic? Imagine what else I might have found romantic.” He looked down. “I was a monster, Buffy.”

    “No,” Buffy said. “You were like a child. You didn’t know any better.”

    “Yes I did!”

    “No. After living with you for a week, without even a chip holding you back? I know what you were. Spike I saw the surprise on your face when I said no. Surprise. Not dismissal. You really didn’t know. You needed to be taught.”

    “Well,” he said. “Most vampires wouldn’t have cared, even if they had been. Hell, most would have...”

    “Been Angel. I know. They’d have gotten off on it. But not you, not about someone you love.” Buffy smiled. “You just needed your eyes opened.”

    Spike regarded her. “Well, I guess it took. ‘Cause I didn’t drug you, or chain you down, or lock you up. And I could have, Buffy. The chip didn’t hold me back that much. And I’m not thick enough to believe even you, Miss I-believe-in-redemption could ever have forgiven me for that. If we hadn’t been together as Sarah, you and I would never be together as Buffy.”

    Buffy stared. “Are you saying this was... destiny?”

    Spike looked disgusted. “Oh, bugger that. Are you going to start playing Angel’s prophecy games on me? All I know is what happened. I don’t pretend for one second we were always meant to be together. I love you, we work well together, and we’re happy. That’s as far I’m going with that bollocks.”

    “But when we start jumping through time...”

    “Time isn’t fixed. Illyria taught me that. One day we might be destined to be together, the next, not so much. Stop thinkin’ on it. We’re here. Just step on.”

    “But Drusilla... she saw the future.”

    “Drusilla also once told me I was about to turn into a duck. She saw a lot of futures, Buffy. Some came true. Some didn’t. You and I?” He shook his head. “Miracle. Not destiny.”

    Buffy chuckled. “So I managed to teach you better, huh?”

    “Long slayer debates on the nature of evil? Yeah, pet. I might be thick, but you can knock through it all eventually.” He touched her face. “I’m glad you did. I wasn’t at the time, I hated your memory as much as I loved you. Or... well. I guess I was hating myself, really. Couldn’t see it that way then. I tried to bury it – not as deep as I did my mum, but I wouldn’t let myself think on it.You hurt me like hell, bitch! But now... I’m glad you did.” He caressed her hair. “God, I’m always grieving for you, aren’t I. Even after only a few days.... God, I missed you.”

    “I didn’t have much time with you. I’m glad I could heal the evil even a little.”

    “Oh, you did a lot. I never kept a pet again, either. Truth to tell, I was scared to. Didn’t want to go through all that again. You’re not supposed to love your victims. Not like that, anyway. I also started killing Dru’s dolls. She had a few temper tantrums, then got over it. I gave her twenty-four hours, and then she had to eat them, or I ended it.” Spike sighed. “Sarah never left me. She... you... god, this is going to be confusing!” He brushed Buffy’s hair back from her face. “Who was she? How did you come to be... her?”

    “She was a junkie. Her soul had already fled from an overdose. Nikki and I found her.”

    “Nikki,” Spike said.

    “Yeah. Nikki agreed to help me, in exchange for telling her about Robin. Well, actually, she probably would have helped me anyway. Slayer to slayer. We found Sarah brain dead, in a hospital.”

    Spike felt twisted inside. “Nikki helped you.”

    “Yes,” Buffy said. “I would have faded away in a day without a body to hang on to. And even once I found one, Nikki told me I wouldn’t survive in it for more than ten or twelve days. She offered to catch you for me, bleed you so I could get home, but... I believed I’d have a better chance just... trusting you wouldn’t kill me too quickly. It was my mission to get me home, not hers. And... well, understandably, I wanted her far away from you for as long as possible.”

    Spike couldn’t speak for a long moment. When he finally could, all he said again, was, “Nikki.”

    “Yes,” Buffy said. “She guessed, you know.”

    Spike looked up. “Guessed?”

     Buffy nodded. “Nikki guessed that I was working with you. That that was how I got pulled back, through the blood. She thought it something more like our first truce, not... like this. But she guessed. She thought you were the kind of vampire who might make a deal with a slayer. She’d studied you. She knew where you were, and what you were doing, and she left you there, in the Bowery, because you made her job easier.”

    “What?”

    “You were taking out other vamps. Weren’t you?”

    “I always did that,” Spike said. “Cities get over hunted if you don’t.”

    “Well, she said you’d probably saved her life. There were so many vampires in New York, she was overwhelmed before you showed up. She said the vampire nests you took out would have taken more victims than you and Drusilla and your minions combined. So Nikki left you there. She avoided you, and she left you there.”

    “She left me....” He looked up at Buffy. “She decided not to slay me?”

    “Yes. Well, she decided not to hunt you. She wasn’t trying to keep you alive or anything when you showed up on her doorstep.” Buffy touched Spike’s cheek. “But in the way of an adversary... she said she loved you.”

    Spike closed his eyes. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “I don’t think I can take much more of this,” he said. His victim had saved his lover, and his lover had been turned into his victim.... The savior and the fallen and the tortured were all twisting together until he didn’t know which was which. He swallowed. “You mean Nikki knew she wasn’t going to survive that fight?”

    “I don’t know what she knew,” Buffy said. “But she knew she wasn’t going to see Robin grow up. And she had guessed... that you had survived it.”

    Spike put his hand over his eyes and gulped. He didn’t know how he felt. It was too tangled, too powerful. Nikki Wood... his prey for over a year – for decades, if he counted all the years he had tried to track down another slayer. His second slayer, his proof that he was more than his fellows, and more than a single lucky day. His strength. His armor. His second skin. And she’d known all along....

    “Spike? Are you okay?”

    Spike shook his head. “First you tell me that you’re Sarah, and now you tell me that Nikki most likely knew that I would kill her. Two of the most profound and life changing experiences I’ve ever gone through have just been twisted out of my past, tangled into knots, and dropped in my lap. I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

    “They were already tangled together,” Buffy said. “Remember what you told me, told Sarah? That you’d walked away from the fight... because you knew I wouldn’t be taken care of if you were killed.”

    Spike looked up. “I did do that, didn’t I.” He touched Buffy’s cheek again. “She was such a little, helpless thing, Sarah. I couldn’t leave her to Dru.”

    “You got back just in time, too,” Buffy said. “I felt like an idiot. I should have been able to fight her.”

    “In a human body, suffering severe blood loss, after playing my willing victim for a week? Buffy, what do you expect of yourself!”

    “I’m a slayer.”

    “Balls. You were human. Besides, anyone can hit people. Slayer strength is more than your good right arm. Real strength is walking into the darkness and staying there, trying like hell to shed light.” He looked down. “While I did all I bloody could to quench it.”

    “No, you didn’t.”

    “Don’t you remember what you looked like, at the end? God, Buffy. What I did to you.”

    “It’s okay. I know what is to have a human lover. It’s hard not to break them. Like making love to porcelain.”

    Spike shook his head. “No, love. That would have been easy. It’s like making love to sugar candy. Yeah, you might break them, but that’s the least of your worries.” He kissed her hungrily, briefly. “And you kept acting so strong! I reacted to it as if you were. And you... weren’t.”

    “I am now,” Buffy said. She took hold of his arms and pushed him down onto the bed. “I’m stronger than you.”

    “In every possible way,” Spike whispered.

    Buffy held him down, straddled him and kissed him fiercely, forcing his arms into the mattress. She kissed him as if he were water, and she had been living in a desert. She kissed him as if she’d devour his soul. “God, I missed you!” she whispered, and she kissed him again.

    Spike knew she had. She’d told him as much, out of Sarah’s low, soft voice. And he’d thought she was just addled from his bite.

    A second later he revised his opinion, thinking maybe he’d been right, and Buffy was completely addled anyway. “Bite me,” Buffy told him.

    Spike was startled. “What?”

    “Bite me. I need you to bite me.”

    “No, Buffy...”

    Buffy glared down at him. “Was I asking, Spike?” She sat up and dragged him after her by his shirt. “You know what you did to me,” she growled into his mouth. “You know exactly what you did to me. You fed from me every day.” She kissed him desperately, as if she couldn’t hold back, and then forced herself away again. “And it was always you,” she whispered. She kissed him again and again. “You got to pick.” She kissed him, and bit his lip so hard he was afraid she might draw blood. She let go when he pulled his head back, and he wasn’t bleeding, but there was a firm dent in his lip. “My turn, you jerk.”

    “I fed from you yesterday,” Spike said. “It’s not safe.”

    Buffy laughed. “You kept me alive for a freakin’ week, you idiot! And I was weak and human and tiny, and I don’t believe you.”

    “You weren’t very healthy by the end there, pet,” he said, but the despair had left his tone. She was starting to excite him. Despite all the horror, Spike was charged. Buffy was Sarah. Sarah was Buffy. And he hadn’t destroyed Sarah after all... and now she was strong... and beautiful... and – and Buffy. She didn’t feel he had betrayed her. And... she loved him. “I’d turned you into a victim.”

    “Yeah. And then you fucking killed me,” Buffy said. She climbed back onto his lap, straddling him as she had in her closet. Spike groaned as the memory jolted through him. Confusing, and erotic, and painful, and evocative, and wildly overwhelming. She kissed him on the mouth, just a peck, just enough to tease. “Now prove to me you won’t do it again.”

    Spike pulled his head back. “Do you really think I...?”

    “No,” she said. “But I’m telling you to prove it, anyway.” She flipped backwards and pulled him down atop of her, holding him hard enough she actually bruised him. She smiled at his grunt of pain. “Take me deep,” she whispered, seductive. “Take me hard. Take me far away until I lose everything, this whole damn life, in you.”

    Spike knew what was happening. “Buffy. You’re in a different body. It’s only psychological, the addiction isn’t–”

    Buffy pushed him off until they were lying side by side, and she held him down with one hand, hard.“It was thirty years ago for you!” she snapped. “It was an hour ago for me, do you get that? It’s still hot and here and... God! You don’t know what that did to me. I just gave, and gave, and gave, and I didn’t have to hold back, because I was dying anyway. I was terrified, yeah, but I was so fucking free. It was... wanton. Like that music that kept blaring from that club of yours, wild and violent and passionate, and the risk didn’t matter. But it wasn’t mine. I want it, here, now. I need it to be mine. Now you do what I tell you!”

    “Buffy–”

    “I won’t ask after today,” Buffy said. “Not outside of the usual. But don’t you dare tell me no. Not after this week. You don’t have the right.”

    Spike grinned up at her. “And this is my punishment, I take it?”

    “One of them,” Buffy said. “Now, are you going to bite me, or do I have to get a collar and chains?”

    Spike slid into his fangs. “I guess I can endure being slayer-whipped for a bit.”

    “If you don’t get down to it, Bloody William, this will soon be a fact.”

    Spike kissed her, feeling her tongue slide over his fangs, the strength of her hand squeezing the back of his neck. The passion of it, the power surged through him, and his blood sang, racing through him – no pulse, but the constant rushing surge of demonic power that charged him when he hunted. It hadn’t been like this with Buffy before. He hadn’t let it. He let his hand travel down her body, sliding up under her shirt, his knee reaching between her legs as he prepared to...

    “Skip the fucking pre-show and bite me already!” Buffy snapped.

    He’d have laughed if he was any less fired. He let loose a growl and attacked, piercing her throat without finesse, without care, without any doubt at all. She screamed, but it was not, in any way, a protest. He made himself release her flesh before he bit a chunk out of her, and the blood pooled into his mouth.

    It was not, of course, at all like biting Sarah. Sarah had been weak, and tainted. He’d fed on her for days, and her blood had been thin and watery. She’d started impure, neglect and ill diet and a life of hardship she’d ultimately used drugs to escape from. And she wasn’t a slayer.

    Buffy, as always, was potent as a drug herself. Spike had never taken this much from her, had never fed from her two days in a row, never had more than a snack. Angel, he knew, had feasted upon her once. Filled his belly, and only barely brought her to the hospital in time, gotten her a transfusion, and kept her alive. Spike had never taken near that much from her. He refused to do that, now. But even so, carefully giving back as much as he could, he let her blood flow through him, course inside him, more and more and more, until every fiber of him sang with it.

    His first alarm went off inside him, the one that usually told him that was enough to take from Buffy. He willfully ignored it and gave her more, took more, gave her more. She was humming with the pleasure of it, her hard squeezing fists barely starting to weaken. He meant to take her down, as far as she needed to feel her ordeal was over.

    Her hands moved, reaching under his coat and tearing at his clothes. They ripped with a furious rending sound, and Spike grunted, distracted from the blood. Now she wanted his body, along with his bite! Couldn’t she have let him get ready first? But no, she wasn’t thinking. There was no plan in this. His bite made her want to be close, and she was so charged, she wanted him close as possible. She scrabbled at his belt, and he lifted his hips to give her access. She broke his zipper. The metal popped under her hand rather than slide down. She ripped her own trousers, tearing the seam down the side, and grabbed hold of his cock, forcing it down past her underwear, deep inside her, all the while pushing her throat up against his mouth.

    Another alarm went off. He’d taken over a pint by now, enough that he could feel her in his belly, enough that he knew he’d be humming with her for days. Human blood made him feel powerful, like he could do anything, without risk or consequence. It was a high for him, too. Slayer’s blood... Buffy’s blood... made him feel like a god.

    He took more, the hot blood pulsing over his tongue, as she pulsed beneath him, grinding up into him, squealing and grunting like a wild animal. More, more, taking her down, giving back almost every mouthful before he took it in again to swallow. His tongue was aching from feeding the blood back, but he kept on her, so long as she was still conscious. She forced herself against him, thrusting upward, holding him tight to her. She felt so... damn... good.

    Sarah was Buffy. Sarah had accepted the pain he caused her, and forgiven the degradation he inflicted, and given herself willingly to his evil, while still remaining good. Sarah had washed him clean of his sins, and beaten his eyes open to see his shortcomings, and given him the freedom to grant freedom. Soulless, violent, trying his best to be heartless, she had reached out and found him in the dark. Sarah had been his beloved pet, his love, his pain. And Sarah was Buffy. He had killed her. He had owned her and taken that life inside him, and it was beautiful, and terrible, and it tore him apart. Buffy’s humming and moaning voice beneath him stopped, quite suddenly, but it wasn’t a bad thing. She’d just come so hard her throat had closed, her breath frozen. He could feel her muscles cording, and her blood surged in him. It threw him over the edge.

    If he had still been evil, if he hadn’t had a soul, if he had no morals to hold him in check, he’d likely have killed in that moment. He’d have bitten through her throat like it was a rare steak, snapped her bones beneath his hands, roared his pleasure into her dying meat as he let her blood gush from an arterial tear, so fast he couldn’t even have swallowed it. Instead, he made himself freeze as the orgasm passed through him, ricocheting around his feeding, fucking body, like he was a marble statue. He lost his seal on her throat, and blood dripped down her skin, staining the sheets. He was usually more careful than that. But then, it usually wasn’t so intense as this.

    He stayed in her as it faded, coming back to life as the heat of her warmed him even more. Buffy moaned, her throat opening as her own pleasure cooled, and she went soft under him, the passion fading. A third alarm went off, and Spike slowed his feeding, lapping at her wound, giving... giving... giving... there. She was out. Spike pulled away quickly and sealed the wounds with his fingers – his thumb was not going to be adequate. He held the blood inside her as she breathed peacefully, waiting for her slayer’s healing to at least make the bleeding stop. He took a deep breath and swallowed the remaining taste in his mouth. Oh, Buffy had no idea how much of a trick that was. Any more, and she would have needed a transfusion. As it was, she would be okay, but he couldn’t risk this again.

    He felt her inside him, enough for his stomach to actually feel the weight of the blood, something he hadn’t allowed with her before, ever. He was breathing hard, shaking in his tattered clothes, inside his replica of Nikki’s coat. This was more human blood than he’d taken in years. He was going to have be very careful of his impulses for the next few days. For one, he really wanted to go kill Crowley just then. Kill him slowly. Listening to him scream. He couldn’t let that side of him have control, and the human blood was telling him that was all okay, and there would be no consequence. He’d have to keep himself under control. When Buffy woke up, he’d tell her to keep an eye on him, too.

    When Buffy woke up. Spike let his head sink onto hers, kissing her forehead. She was pale, but she was mostly passed out from the anesthetic more than blood loss. She was going to wake up. She wasn’t dead on the floor of the kitchen, an empty corpse, torn and tattered beyond all human recognition. She was alive and vital and powerful and perfect. She was going to wake up, and love him, and be Buffy. Spike slid himself tightly around her, in case she woke up still high on the bite, needing to be close to him. “I love you, pet,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”