Disclaimer: Joss, he is god, not God god, but a lesser, benevolent god with powers us mere mortals can only imagine.

Author’s note: This one of those post Chosen fics. My cousin told me Spike wouldn’t, couldn’t come back, so I started this fic. Does not follow ATS cannon. denotes thought
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Chapter 1: What do we do now?

Buffy sat alone in the bus, surrounded by the survivors. Willow and Kennedy ahead of her comfort each other as best they can. Behind her Dawn was curled up in Xander’s arms. Giles was at the wheel. Even Faith and Robin, though he was wounded seemed comforted by the presence of the other. I suppose I have Giles, she thought to herself. Every so often Buffy was compelled to look back at the crater that once was her home. Everything she left back there was gone; her house, her mother’s grave. The only things she had left were in the bus with her. The people who had survived, her friends. The bus careened over a pot hole causing the occupants to lurch forward. The wounded in the bus groaned in agony. Buffy was a little tossled and landed back in her seat unharmed but now very aware of the object in her back pocket. She reached in to her jeans and found herself holding Spike’s lighter. She looked around the bus once more. Spike should be here with them. She looked back at the crater again. Focusing on the shrinking point on the horizon Buffy couldn’t help but wish that things in the hell mouth had gone radically different. She thought out a dozen scenarios in her head, what she could have done instead, to make everything alright, so that they could go on as they had been.

“Buffy?” said Dawn’s voice behind her.

“Hmm?” responded the tired slayer absently. She was still fixated on the object in her hand.

“Is that Spike’s?” said Dawn, “Oh Buffy is he really dead?”

“Vampire, dead long time” said Xander.

The two girls looked at him hard.

“Clearly not ready for comedy, ok, mistake” said Xander backing away.

“He was a good friend” said Dawn, giving her sister a hug, “I’ll miss him”

“Me too” said Buffy sadly.
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But it was more than that. She realised that now. Needed him. He made her life liveable. Wanted him every moment of every day. Missed him so much it hurt. All those clichés that your heard in movies, except it wasn’t a movie, and it was happening in full surround sound cruelty vision. She would let her friends see it though, she thought she was hiding. Sure Dawn had noticed the Navel ring, and another set of holes in her ears, but those were decisions that any normal person would make. It just so happened that Buffy needed pain. Patrolling in LA wasn’t enough. He had ruined her to love anyone else. After you’ve had Spike there was no going back. He was permanently engraved on her soul. So she made it permanent on her body too. Her body was a testament to what he had done to her. She suspected the tattoo artist she went to was a little put out by her wanting him to tattoo a rail road spike just inside her bikini line, or “Spike’s girl” around her ankle, written in cursive script. And as for the rail road spike, most people thought it was a stake.
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Buffy sat alone at an unfamiliar table drinking tea. The kitchen was small, smaller than she remembered it. She hadn’t been here for a long time. Her father’s house had not the comfortable familiarity she had hoped.

“Buffy?” said Willow tentatively in the doorway.

“Willow, How is everything? Is my step thing giving you a hard time?”

“No, she’s nice. It’s awfully nice of your dad to give us all a place to crash.”

“It is. I expect they really don’t know how to deal with trauma in others.”

“Most likely. Xander and Giles are settled with his parents. Xander nearly punched out his dad when Mr Harris asked about Anya.”

“Dad has started talking about putting Dawn in school here. I think he means to keep her.”

“What does Dawn have to say about that?”

“I think it would be good for her to be in a regular school”

“What does Dawn say?” Willow repeated.

Buffy shrugged her shoulders.

“Does she even know?”

“No, and I don’t have the heart to tell her.”

“Oh Buffy”

“She’s been in her room since we got here, has hardly left. She’s been crying almost constantly.”

“It’s understandable,” said Willow, “Why aren’t you?”

Buffy stared at Willow.

“You may think I’m butting in. Buffy, Spike is gone. He was a very big part of your life, you have to grieve.”

“I don’t want to grieve. I don’t want to get over it. Can we not talk about it?” Buffy’s hand flew to her Spike tattoo for an instant.

“Ok, you’re not ready yet.”

“I don’t want to be ever ready for it.

“I know.”

Buffy returned to her own room. Willow was right of course, she often was. She had to start grieving. It was hard. She still felt that she was responsible for all the girls in her care. Those that weren’t in the hospital were camping out in the backyard. Faith had continued on her way not staying long in any one place, the law on her tail. She felt responsible for the fact that her friends no longer had homes in Sunnydale. She felt responsible for the deaths, for the pain, for it all. But she couldn’t think about that now, she had to figure out what they were all going to do. They certainly couldn’t stay there at her father’s house. Giles had mentioned that there was another Hellmouth outside of Cleveland, perhaps they could go there. Buffy pulled back the covers to her bed. She had so much to think about it would be hard to go to sleep. In the next room she could hear Dawn crying. Had Dawn cried like that when she had died? Buffy’s thoughts turned to Spike. How he had been there for her when Dawn needed to be protected from Glory, how he had been like a big brother to her little sister. He had put himself in danger for Dawn’s safety. Spike, who had fought so valiantly at her side, who had helped her right until the end, who had given his existence so that she would live. Spike who had loved her. It was a comfort to know that Spike loved her. Even though she hadn’t returned his affection, it was still a comfort.
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Buffy found herself back in her own house in Sunnydale. She was sitting at her kitchen table. Dawn was making pancakes.

“So what are going to do today? on this bright sunny Saturday?” asked Dawn.

“How about a Picnic?” said Willow as she breezed into the kitchen.

“I say that we go see a movie, something with car chases and masculine undertones” said Xander as he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

“Has anyone seen my fuzzy pink scrunchie?” asked Anya as she walked in to the kitchen and started looking in drawers and lifting things up. “ It goes just so perfectly with my skirt.”

“There’s a Sci Fi convention at the conference centre” offered Andrew who was coming from the backyard.

Everyone looked at Andrew with suspicion

“The window is open”

“We got a new shipment of spell books at the Magic box last night,” said Anya, “Giles was going to spend the night going over every detail. Such a riveting life he leads.”

“New spell books, sounds exciting” said Willow.

The group looked at Willow.

“Drooling: I’m not. I’ll just go back to my room.” said Willow

“This is nice, all of us together, getting with the normal.” Said Xander

“I would hardly call it normal. Do you call it normal when witches, ex demons, slayers and vampires share a house? or how about when an ex demon shares a house with her ex fiance?” spouted Anya.

Their was a long pause as everyone tried to think of something to say.

“Well that killed the conversation. Maybe I’ll try to keep some things to myself. I’m just saying we aren’t normal. Ok I’m off to the magic box.” said Anya.

Anya walked out the door. Buffy smiled. Everything stayed the same.

“Did you patrol last night?” asked Dawn. “How was it? Anything big and bad and new out there?”

“Nope, same old same old.”

“Does anyone know how long blood keeps in the fridge?” asked Xander looking into the fridge with disgust. “Cause: gross in the extreme”

Xander lifted a mug of blood out of the fridge.

“Does it smell bad?” asked Dawn

“It’s blood, what do you think I’m going to say to that?” replied Xander.

Buffy took the mug from Xander, heated it in the microwave and headed down stairs into the basement, where Spike was sleeping on his cot. Buffy put the mug down on a table and sat on the edge of the cot.

“Did you think I was hungry?” asked a sleepy Spike

“Not really, maybe I was looking for an excuse to come down and see you.”

“Well I’m always here”

“No you aren’t, really.”

“Pet?”

“This is all an illusion, the normalness, the bickering. This house is even an illusion. Anya’s dead, you are gone. Sunnydale is destroyed.”

“You don’t seem very broken up about it all.”

“I can’t grieve, I told Willow that today you know. I have too much responsibility. I can’t have people see me grieve.”

“Everyone? Even me?”

The house faded away and the two of them were now sitting in the middle of the Sunnydale crater. Before them was Anya’s sliced body, and a pile of dust.

“Is that me?” asked Spike nodding towards the pile of dust.

“Yep”

“Never thought I’d see my own pile of dust.”

“You aren’t really.”

“I suppose I’m not,” said Spike, “but then this isn’t my dream”

Buffy pulled Spike to her and kissed him.

“I don’t want you to be a dream. I’ve wasted so much time. And now you are gone and I’ve lost my chance.”

Spike fell away into a pile of dust, his black leather jacket falling to the side. Buffy fell to her knees and began to weep.
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Buffy woke up in her room crying.

She woke up crying nearly everyday. She looked around the piles of boxes in her room, illuminated by the street lights outside. It was very early in the morning. Certainly things had changed since they had arrived in LA. And now she was about to leave. She had been fooling herself that she could stay in LA.
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He felt hot. He opened his eyes into the blinding sun. Instinctively he turned over and covered himself with his coat, trying to get our of the blinding and burning sun. He sat hunched over under his long black leather duster. He straightened his back cautiously.

“Hold on a minute” he said to himself as he hesitantly stuck his hand out from the protection of his leather coat. Nothing happened. His shock was very apparent. He flexed his fingers in the sun. There was no burning sensation, no steam coming off of his pale skin. He pulled back his coat from over his head and looked into the blue cloudless sky. He looked down at the massive jewel that hung from his neck.

“Healing powers, right,” he said remembering what Angel had said about the pendant. Spike looked around him to get his bearings. He was standing in the middle of a huge crater in the desert.

“Sunnydale, you’ve looked better,” he said as he started walking to the edge. He didn’t really know what exactly happened to him but that was hardly foremost in his mind. He needed to find her, all else was secondary.
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She was back in Sunnydale, in the Hellmouth. Spike stood before her, enveloped in the light, the cave crashing around them.

“I love you” she said.

“No you don’t, but it’s nice to hear , just the same,” he replied

“Why don’t you believe me?” she cried.

The cavern and Spike faded away. She was staring into the basement, his basement really. There was movement on the cot. She was watching a memory. The night before...when they had made love, when it was making love for the first time. They thought they were going to die. Why hadn’t she told him then? She heard herself moan. She knew what she had been thinking then. She wanted to say it, those three little words that he had wanted to hear for god knows how long.

“Why didn’t you say it!” she screamed at herself on the cot. The figures on the cot did not stop. “Why didn’t you say it!” she sobbed.
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Buffy woke up crying. Again. She clutched her pillow and then pulled something out from under it. Looking at it in the dawn light she opened it and made it spring to life. Spike’s lighter. The one thing she had left of his. She had grabbed it the morning of, as she headed up to her room to get clean clothes . Doubt he had noticed it. He wasn’t allowed smoking in the house. She closed it and ran her fingers over it.

“I‘m not ready for you not to be here” she whispered into her dark room.
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Buffy packed away a sweater into her back pack. All around her boxes of the few things she had managed to accumulate in her three months in LA stood motionless awaiting transport to the bus station. Dawn stood motionless in the doorway.

“Please tell me you aren’t actually going to do this” asked Dawn hurt.

“I am, Dawn”

“Why?”

“I’ve told you”

“Explain it to me again, obviously I’ve missed why this is such a good idea.”

“Dawnie,” said Buffy sadly, “There’s nothing for me here. LA clearly doesn’t need me. I have to go be where I am needed. I have to be the slayer, it’s who I am.”

“How can you say that? You are needed, every week Angel is battling some new demon or other.”

“Please, don’t go down that road.”

“I need you. If you’ve made up your mind to leave, let me come with you.”

“Dawn you need to finish high school, live a normal type life.”

“I don’t want a normal life, I want a life with you in it. I want to spend as much time as I can with you before...”

“Before I die again. Finish high school Dawn, that is more important than following your crazy, violent, death wish-y sister. After high school you can do whatever you want. High School. You only have one year left.”

“If I don’t fail anything, 10 months of torture.”

“You know I only want what is best for you.”

“I’m still mad at you.”

“I get it”

“I’ll miss you tonnes, and you had better phone like everyday,” said Dawn, “or else”

“Consider me warned.”

“Will you come back for Thanksgiving?”

“Dawn...”

“Christmas?”

“I’ll try”

Buffy finished packing and clipped closed her pack.

“Can I come with you to the station?”

“I hate good byes”

“So do I. Think of this as see you later.”

“Take care of yourself Dawn. Don’t let evil step mom get you down.”

“I’ll try. I love you Buffy.”

“I know, I love you tonnes too. Willow will be here to protect you. She’s just a blood curdling scream away.”

The two girls hugged and Buffy scurried down the stairs and out the door without another word to anyone else in the house. Buffy hadn’t enjoyed staying with her father and step mother these three months. They had expected her to bounce back from the “Earthquake“, faster that she did. They couldn’t figure out why she didn’t want to get a job or move out, and they really didn’t like her coming home at all hours of the night. In fact less than a month ago they had told her either to get a job or move out. Buffy chose option two. Buffy didn’t need money really. She had the insurance money from the Sunnydale house. It was enough to live on for a while.

Willow and Xander had been supportive of her decision to leave LA. Willow was back at UCLA, still with Kennedy and eagerly awaiting the start of the fall semester. Xander had found himself a construction job, hated being made fun of because of his eye patch and was seriously considering the glass eye route. No one could say that they last three months hadn’t been hard on Xander. He felt Anya’s loss more than he would ever admit to.

Buffy walked to the bus station in the dark. She liked the dark, it was her realm. Spike had once told her that she was a creature of the darkness, just like him. She believed it now. The dark was comforting, but LA dark wasn’t Sunnydale dark. There was too much life going on that wasn’t demonic or undead. There was too many humans to get in the way. Buffy had tried to patrol cemeteries after coming to LA. One too many times she stumbled onto druggies getting their hit or couples getting it on. The vamps she found were hardly a challenge. She left them up to Kennedy and Rona.

“Cleveland,” she sighed as she picked up her ticket at the station. A Hellmouth was somewhere to start. Buffy sat in the brightly illuminated station waiting for her bus to start boarding. She looked at the estimated time of arrival in Cleveland, a day and a half later. How was she going to sit still for that long?

She looked up and saw him. Of course how could she have doubted that he would follow her here.

“Angel,” she said putting her ticket in her jacket pocket and standing up to meet him.

“I heard you were leaving LA.”

“Ya heard right.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, need to find purpose, find my own little hell hole to defend again. The last one is a crater right now.”

“Ok, that’s a reason.”

“I thought it was a pretty good reason.”

“Running away.” He said it more like a fact than a question.

“From what Angel?”

“Memories, me.”

“Yes and no...”

“Buffy...”

“Angel, we went through this two months ago. We can’t have it all back. Things have changed, I’ve changed. I can’t start hoping for something that will never happen. I don’t love you like that anymore, and you don’t love me like that either,” she breathed, “I’m not seventeen anymore.”

He looked away hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said tearfully, “I need someone who’s love is permanent, soul or not.”

There she had said it. It had been on her mind for weeks now, the truth why she could never be
with him again.

“Buffy that’s not possible.”

“Oh, but it is. It was,” she said with tears in her eyes.

“Buffy...” he said reaching for her.

“Please don’t,” she said backing away from him. “Let me wallow in my own misery. I’ve lived with some form or other for seven years now. Why not a little more? Being a slayer means I’m alone, I’ll always be alone, everyone leaves me or dies. I should be used to it now, don’t you think?”

“Buffy, I won’t leave you, not again.”

“No? Your soul might, and I’ve seen you with out it, Angelus, it’s not pretty. People die.” Buffy exhaled. “I’m sorry that was vindictive. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“It’s all true. It was the reason I left Sunnydale. I always knew I was wrong for you. I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.” He walked away into the shadows. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

Buffy wiped a tear away from her nose and walked back to her bench where she had been sitting. She took a look at the station clock. The bus would be boarding soon. She had known in her heart that is was over, truly over, between Angel and her after they had first arrived in LA. She didn’t know why it had occurred to her at all. Perhaps seeing him with a smile on his face happy to have her in his home, alive and needing him, his soul aching for her made her think about it. His soul. Angel had never, ever wanted a soul. He had proved that when he lost his and started to hurt her in everyway imaginable. Angel hadn’t loved her without the soul. Spike had. That was the difference. Spike had loved her for months before she died. Spike had mourned her death, and he continued to love her after she was brought back, even though she didn’t love him and told him frequently. Spike had even won his soul back, for her. Because he loved her. Angel hadn’t done anything of the sort. It was in that instant, looking at Angel, him smiling at her, firm in the knowledge that his competition was gone, that she knew for certain. Spike’s love had ruined her for anyone else. She knew it. So she would remain alone, like Slayers were supposed to, until she died...again.

The bus was boarding. Buffy picked up her pack and headed for the bus. As she turned wrench her pack on her back she saw something that made her catch her breath. There standing in the bus station squinting against the harsh florescent lights she saw the one person she never expected to see again. Spike. Dressed just has he had been when he burnt before her. Buffy blinked a few times and shook her head, refusing to look back at the same spot. It wasn’t real. It was her imagination playing tricks on her. It was the wrenching conversation with Angel that had made her think about him and now her mind was seeing people who weren’t there.

She headed for the bus once more, then she turned back to check. He had gone. *Silly Buffy,* she thought to herself as she headed outside the station to where the buses were parked. She turned around the corner and saw him again. *Not real,* she thought, *not real.* She closed her eyes tightly for a few seconds hope for the image to go away.

She opened her eyes once more only to find him standing directly in front of her.

“You aren’t real,” she said matter of factly, “ You aren’t him, you think that because I see him in my mind every day that it would be fun to play with my feelings this way. I bet you woke up this morning and thought, Gee I haven’t picked on the slayer for a while what can I do to screw with her brain?”

“Buffy...” he said tenderly, “I’m not the first.” There was pain in his eyes.

“No? I saw you burn. Explain that!”

“I can’t, pet...” he said reaching for her.

Buffy backed away

“Please, why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“For god’s sake, Buffy... I am real. I don’t know why I’m back on god’s green earth again or how long I was gone. Please...” he said reaching for her again.

Buffy braced herself for his hand to slide through her face, but it made contact. As he touched her, her face lightened. Her hand went to his and held it to her cheek. Her eyes watered.

“I want to believe,” she whispered, “Don’t toy with me, I beg you.”

“I wouldn’t do that, pet,” he said tenderly. “Toying with you will get me staked good and proper.”

“Spike?....” she whispered.

“Big bad evil vampire at your service.” he said, his hand still caressing her face.

A tear edged it’s way down her cheek. With one movement Buffy stepped into his arms and hugged him. The tears came in a torrent down her cheeks.

This is a dream she thought, a horrible nightmarish dream that will end up with her crying
hysterically.

“If this is a trick,” she said between sobs, “Not only will you die, but it will be a long painful and slow death.”

He smiled.

It was something in the smile that did it. She knew he was real, or that she was just too desperate to fight it. If it was a trick, She hoped that whatever it was killed her.

“I...missed you,” she said resting her head on his chest. She wrapped her arms under this duster and was holding him so tightly it made her arms hurt. She didn’t let go. She didn’t want to let go. She just wanted to hold him, for all eternity.

She could feel his arms around her, caressing her in a very familiar way. Her tears made wet marks on his black t shirt. He smelt the same, his body felt the same. Still she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all too good to be true, that somehow this was not real. And she wanted it to be real, with every fibre of her being. She wanted him. She needed him.

“Um, pet, how’s about we sit or something?” he asked.

Buffy did a mental assessment of where they were. Standing on the curb out side the bus station, people trying to get past them. He detached himself from her, but kept her hand in his as they walked across the street to a park bench.

Buffy tried to pull herself together. She was shaking inside, she couldn’t help it. She resisted the urge to hug him again as she looked up into his eyes.

“How long was I gone?” he asked looking deep into her eyes.

“97 and a half days.”

“You counted?”

“You did, when I was gone. 147 days wasn’t it?”

“Yes it was, a long time.”

Buffy looked down at their intertwined fingers. He relaxed his grip under her scrutiny, but she wouldn’t let his hand go.

“How long have you been...back” she whispered.

“Today. Woke up in the middle of the crater.”

“But how...?” she looked at him questioningly “How did you get here so soon? How did you know I’d be in LA?”

“I stole a car, and I didn’t know you’d be here, I hoped to heaven that you were. Couldn’t think of anywhere else you would be. Angel’s here, figured he’d put you all up.”

Buffy got angry.

“You just assumed I would turn to Angel?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Ug jealous vampires. Predictable,” said Buffy looking away. “Nothing happened Spike. Nothing ever will again. I was living with Dawn at my father’s house, not that it is any of your business. You were dead...er. You’ve always been in competition with him, getting tired of it.”

“I think that after you kissing him,” continued Spike, “that one naturally assumes when one is dead...”

“I thought we talked about that Spike, it was just Hello,” countered Buffy.

Spike made a sound of disbelief.

“And for your information there was no similar hello when we got to LA. By the time we got here, Dawn had finally realised that you weren’t coming back. She was hysterical. I took her to Dad’s right away.”

They sat in silence for a beat or two, before Buffy realised that she hadn’t said hello to him. He face softened and Buffy leaned in towards him, her free hand touching the outline of his face. Slowly and gently she let her lips meet his. She pressed forward opening her mouth slightly letting her tongue probe, finally finding it’s way into his cool mouth. She breathed into him, slightly warming his mouth up, then pulled away gently. She smiled.

“Hello Spike,” she said tenderly, “ Please don’t leave me again.”

“Never pet,”

Buffy smiled again and let go of his hand. Her fingers had begun to lose feeling anyway. Spike started looking through his coat. He found a slightly squashed pack of cigarettes, took one out, and was still searching for his zippo. Buffy smiled as he frantically searched for his lighter. Slowly she took it out of her pants pocket, and lit his cigarette for him.

“Now where did you get that?” he asked taking it from her. “Picked my pocket while you had your way with me?”

“No, I mean yes, I mean... I wanted something of yours, in case you died, or I died. I wanted something of you with me,” she said her eyes on the grass.

“I was with you.”

“I know. Right up until the end. Then you burned,” she said her eyes watering, daring not to meet his.

“And now here I am.”

Buffy looked up once more. She couldn’t stand it, she needed to touch him. She put her hand on his thigh, leaning in. Before she could get any closer he leaned back on his hands and puffed his cigarette.

“How is the bit?” he asked.

“She took your going pretty hard, but she’s ok now. Starts school again soon,” told Buffy, “She hates our step mom, frequently is looking up curses, but Willow refuses to cast them.”

“Your step mum can’t be that bad.”

“Oh she can. It’s why I’m leaving.” said Buffy sadly.

“Leaving?”

“Was supposed to get on a bus to Cleveland, it’s long gone now though.”

“What’s in Cleveland?”

“Hellmouth.”

“Naturally.”

“Wanna come with?”

“I’d follow you anywhere, Slayer.”

tbc...