“Buffy!”

She had decided to forego the elevator in favor of pounding her aggression out by stalking down hundreds of stairs. She picked up the pace as Spike chased after her, calling for her to stop. Ignoring him, she bounded quicker still, putting a couple of flights between them. When she reached the floor they lived on, she shoved open the door, startling Dawn who was carrying a box of takeout towards her apartment.

“Oh, there you are! I was bringing you din-” Dawn took a close look at Buffy’s face and stepped out of her way as Buffy ran down the hallway. “What’s wrong?”

“Not now, ‘bit,” Spike told her, jogging past her. He arrived just in time for Buffy to slam the door in his face. “Damn it,” he growled, reaching into his pocket for the key.

“Maybe you better leave her alone.” Dawn handed him the Styrofoam plate. “Or come bearing food.” She walked away, waving at him as she unlocked her own door and stepped inside. “Good luck.”

Spike put the key in and tried to turn the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. “Let go!”

“You really don’t want to push me, Spike.”

“I’m not going to push, love, I’m going to knock you back about ten feet when I kick this door off the hinges.” He heard her stomping through the apartment and tried again, sighing in relief when it opened. He peeked around it, making sure she wasn’t hiding, then set the food in the kitchen and walked down the hallway.

Buffy was tugging an oversized suitcase from under the bed. Her face was flushed and she didn’t look up as she yanked it free and plopped it on the bed, unzipping it. Ignoring him, she went to her closet and pulled a few things from the hangers, throwing them across the room into the open bag. She turned back to the closet to get another handful when he walked up behind her, holding the clothing she had just tossed across the room. “Put them back.”

“No.”

He grabbed her arms, hugging her back against his chest as she reached for another shirt. “Don’t do this.”

“Let me go,” she said through clenched teeth.

“There’s no way in hell, Slayer.”

She struggled against him, breaking the hold he had and shoving him hard. He fell back against the bed, sending her suitcase flying to the floor. She stared at him, nostrils flared, shaking with anger. “It’s over.”

Spike got back to his feet and picked up her luggage, throwing it across the room where it crashed against the computer desk, scattering everything in different directions. Two words. Two short words and it felt like his heart had fallen somewhere into his stomach and lodged there, aching. “You are NOT leaving me.”

“I’m NOT staying! You won’t be lonely long. I’m sure Angel will be glad to-”

“This isn’t about Angel! This is about you!” Spike yelled. “You’re pissed because I know you better than you do!”

“No, I’m pissed because you agree with everything HE says just like a fucking lap dog! Fetch, Spike! And you run! Sit and you sit! Tell Buffy she’s a big fuck up and you go right along with it. Whose side are you on!?”

“I’m on my side! The side where you come home to me every night and I don’t have to face what Christine is facing! The side where I don’t have to wonder if you’re late because you’re hurt! I am on MY side!”

“You knew I was the Slayer!”

“You were! You don’t have to be!”

“Right! And in a perfect world you wouldn’t need blood to live! You’d be able to go out any time of day and we’d have a family together! Well guess what? It’s not a perfect world and I am what I am! If you can’t accept that then you can’t accept me!”

“How long will you keep doing it? Until you die? Until you get too old?” Spike tried to block her as she shoved an armful of clothing under her arm and went to retrieve the suitcase he had upended.

She pushed him again. “Do you really need a reminder of what I’ll do if you keep provoking me?”

“Do you need that same reminder?” His face changed, ridges cut across his forehead and his eyes yellowed. “You are not going anywhere. We’re talking about this!”

Dropping the clothes, she punched him. He was thrown backwards and slammed against the wall, knocking over the end table and the contents, shattering the lamp. He looked at her, shocked that she had hit him with everything she had. The last time she had done that had been the night on the beach and then when she had agreed to stay, they had promised one another that the violence was over. He lifted a hand, pressing his fingers against the split on his lip. It infuriated him, but it scared him more. She was obviously crossing a line that she didn’t care to cross back over. His face changed again, and he felt his blue eyes welling with tears. It unmanned him, made him sick to his stomach to let her witness her power over him at a time like this. He ground the heels of his hands against his eyes and shook his head. When he looked again, she had retrieved her suitcase and was heading back to the closet.

“Just go.” Buffy’s hand throbbed from the punch it had delivered and she wanted to go to him, to tell him that she was sorry, that she was a fool, but her pride got in the way. She gave into the tears that had been burning in her throat since she had fled Angel’s office. “I mean it! Don’t make it harder than it has to be.”

“If you’re gonna leave me, you’re gonna look me in the face while you do it.” His voice cracked as he said it and he suddenly didn’t care.

She knelt down, sobbing as she tried to cram a couple pairs of shoes into the suitcase. “Why did you do that?” she cried.

“Because I love you.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing his thumb against his swelling lip. “Because I’m not ready for you to not be here.”

He sucker punched her with those words, the very words she had spoken to him once in Sunnydale. Crying even harder, she laid her head against the suitcase, which wouldn’t zip. A few seconds ticked past and she felt him kneeling next to her, resting his hand on her back. “Just let me go, Spike. Please.”

“Tell me how to fix this, baby.”

She turned and looked into his face, at the face that she had loved for so long, at the eyes that she could lose herself in for hours. “You can’t,” she wept. “It’s just over.”

“You’re mad right now, but if you’ll hear me out -”

“You want to talk now? You should have told me what was happening with my job!”

“You should have told me, Buffy! You should have told me that you were going after the demon! You should have told me what Lorne said”

“So that’s why Angel did it, right? You went and told him what you found out instead of asking me about it!”

“What I did was -”

“What you did was end it! You just haven’t realized it yet!” She yanked the zipper and finally closed the lid. Standing, she went into the bathroom where she retrieved her toothbrush and shampoo which she shoved into her makeup bag. “I’ll send for the rest of my things.”

“Buffy, you can’t be alone right now. These fairy things are-”

“I hope they come! I hope they come and I hope they win!” she screamed.

Spike backhanded her, not as hard as he could have, but harder than he should have. “Don’t you *ever* say that!”

Gasping, she cupped her cheek, staring at him with her mouth agape. “Spike-”

“I’m sorry.” He was stunned with himself. He had hit her before, but now he truly understand how something could hurt him more than it hurt her. “I didn’t mean-”

She rushed past him, grabbing her suitcase and pulling it behind her. He followed behind her, unable to comprehend that she was actually leaving him, leaving their life over a stupid disagreement. Furious, he grabbed her arm, and said, “If you walk out that door, Buffy, it really is over.”

She opened the door in question, stepped into the hall and looked back at him. “Maybe now you’ll believe me.”

The sound of the door clicking shut, separating them on either side, was the loudest sound either had ever heard.

*~*~