Lovely to hear from you! Thank you for all your beautiful support. Makes me feel all snuggly and welcome! Not that I had any doubt! :)

All My Love, Annie.



Sifting Through



She furrowed her brow. What was this place? The wind had ceased. All was quiet and still. The air was strange, neither hot nor cold. She looked up and rested her gaze on a night sky. It was the biggest sky she had ever seen. And everywhere around her were the stretching dunes of the desert, their cleanliness somehow a mockery. He was farther away than he had been before, ten yards separated them, and she felt like it wasn’t enough. She was still upset, though her indignation and anger at his disclosed actions had calmed somewhat. She could do nothing about it in here, as it was.

A light was spreading at the horizon situated behind him. It quickly worked to pale away the stars, the black turning marine and azure and white to begin to reveal yellow and pink and very slowly the gold which was the center of the change. Buffy’s eyes widened slightly, but she then reminded herself that it wasn’t a real sunrise.

She observed Spike, who looked terribly confounded, staring at the space surrounding him.

And then she noticed something in the sand a few feet away from her. It was half covered, but in the growing light she could still clearly make it out. She took a step toward it, and then stopped herself, unsure of what to make of it, what she thought of it. She turned her gaze on Spike again, but he had seen what had caught her attention, and now he was observing it with a slight frown on.

“It’s a cross,” she said, startled at how loud her voice sounded as it broke the quiet.

His eyes met hers.

“Yes,” he nodded. “This is where I keep them.”

She looked wondering, because she felt wondering.

“Who?” she asked, just as the glowing orb glanced over the ridge some distance away and its rays spread their heat down on them.

It didn’t affect her, or him, in any way; she only perceived it was there. But then there was the change which overcame the sand. Within the blink of an eye it turned into the smoothest glass, glittering beneath her feet. It was an extraordinary sight, beautiful to an extent which was almost difficult to grasp. Only her awe turned to clawing horror as her gaze met those of someone dead. Trapped beneath the surface of the glass. Staring at her.

She took a step back, and then another and another as she realized the entire desert was full of bodies and that she had been granted some twisted peepshow of what graveyard was hidden beneath the tranquility and cautious splendor.

“Oh, God,” she said, looking up and meeting his gaze again.

He was watching her closely. She felt herself grow nauseous. These were all the people he had killed. All of them. So many. Tears pricked her eyes. Was this how many people died even though there was a Slayer in the world? How did good outweigh evil when there was so much of it?

He looked very serious now, his gaze stubbornly in hers.

“Look at them.”

The words were a mere suffocated hiss in her throat because her jaws were so tightly clenched together, but she could see that he had heard them. His eyes widened just a tad, but other than that there was no reaction. No reply.

“Look at them,” she repeated, her voice coarse as she raised it.

“Why?”

“Look at them.”

He made no response this time, and for a moment she thought she wouldn’t be able to muster any more energy than what had been spent in speaking the words with such force, but then she was suddenly stalking up to him, finding herself confronting him with a new surge of rage swirling through her.

“Look at them!”

“I tried to make this place... serene. Tried to make it peaceful. I needed a spot to bury them.”

“Damn you!” she exclaimed, slapping him, for a second time, though this time there was even more power behind it.

His head turned to the side from the blow and he slowly moved it to observe her with mounting intrigue. She didn’t understand why it was there. All she could feel was disgust; was shock at standing right upon the facts of life she was trying to fight every day. She was struggling to keep bodies from being buried, to keep people from dying in vain, and below her lay what felt like undisputable proof that it didn’t matter. That the fight was pointless. That death was inevitable, a part of life, not to be overlooked, outwitted or beaten back.

“Jesus!” she almost yelled, giving him a harsh push. “What’re you doing to me?”

She put her hands at her forehead, raking her fingers through her hair as she walked past him.

She couldn’t stay in there anymore, he was poisoning her, she had no other explanation for the emotions moving through her. The doubt. It was so unfamiliar to her. It scared her. She loathed him for putting it there.

“Look at them,” she said, almost matter-of-factly.

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. The thought of looking down to see what was under his feet was as foreign as reaching out a hand and plucking one of the veiled stars above their heads. He wasn’t going to force the bend of his neck, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do it.

“Why?” he simply repeated.

She didn’t have an answer to that question. She just needed him to. He had to acknowledge them. She didn’t say anything, just hoped he could read her intentions in her eyes.

“I don’t want to,” he murmured. “Let the dead rest where they may, and the living be as they are.”

“You’re neither dead nor living,” she pointed out. “Where do you fit in?”

“As the only one with a choice.”

“Of what?”

“Of when to let go. I let the past go as soon as it happens.”

She watched him for a long moment.

“I don’t believe you,” she shook her head.

“Believe it.”

“Then why are the faces of those you’ve killed still here, lingering in the back of your head?”

“Careful, Slayer,” he warned. “Soon you’ll accuse me of having a conscience and where would that leave us? Where would it lead?”

She felt herself hesitate.

In that short second he suddenly grabbed her left wrist as the whole world pulled itself out from under them, turning itself on its head so that they began to fall into the sky. He reached up his free hand and grabbed a rope which came falling down from above, holding onto Buffy as they came to a jerky stop, the rope stretching with a slight squeak.

The sun was gone and now there was nothing but chilled darkness where she dangled with the threat of falling forever into it. She looked up at him. Would the chip stop him from hurting her? From dropping her? Was he free to make the choice? Neither Willow nor Giles had been able to answer those very important and basic queries before sending her off on this mission. She was beginning to regret not promptly opting for a slight stalling, in case the answers could have come up presently. Then again, they still have had no choice. And he had the knowledge of being dust the second they understood what had happened to her, hanging over his head like a brightly colored warning flag.

“Spike,” she mumbled as she felt his grip slip.

“Take hold with your other hand,” he said. “Pull yourself up.”

“Why can’t you think us out of this mess?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, his eyes entreating her to simply do as he instructed.

“Maybe you don’t want to,” she muttered as she moved her arm up and he loosened his grip slightly, making her give a yell and grab onto him quicker.

“Should we try that theory?”

She glared at him, beginning to pull herself up and finally being able to put an arm around his shoulders, holding onto his neck as they came face to face, the tip of her nose brushing his as she turned her head to look at him.

Had his heart had a beat it would be doing the thud, but it didn’t, and he looked the part, trying not to press her closer to him. She was warmer than he had imagined her, and her heat transferred itself through the fabric of his clothes, stroking his skin invitingly.

He swallowed.

“This is worse than I thought,” she grumbled.

“I feel the same way,” he agreed nonchalantly.

“I really think you don’t.”

“Oh, that’s right, silly me, I can’t feel anything.”

She chose to disregard the slight irony in his tone and grabbed the rope, detaching herself from him as she began to climb up.

“It’s funny,” he continued as he followed her. “I had you pegged as a hardheaded, hardhearted bitch the first time I laid eyes on you, figured I’d have me some fun knocking you around, since you seemed in such dire need of it; but I never thought of you as a bigot.”

She stopped climbing, looking down at him with her aggravation sharp in her eyes.

“How am I a bigot?”

“You seem to believe you’re the professor of good, and that you bloody well know right from wrong as though one was your left hand and the other one your right, and this is why it’s such news to you that the world is a sodding muddle, and that right and wrong is only parted by a very thin line. What’s right in your eyes is infinitely wrong in mine, for example.”

“Right. Helping, supporting, saving – these are all concepts you’re completely unfamiliar with,” she nodded, beginning the ascent once more.

It wasn’t far now. There was a hole in the black through which the rope hung, and she knew, if she could only reach that, she would be able to manhandle him all she wanted, and she didn’t care where the hell they were; he deserved a good, clean thrashing.

“I’m not talking ‘bout the stuff you do for others,” he now said. “Sure, killing off my kin might not be on the top of my very-good-deeds list.”

“You have a list?”

He ignored her sarcasm, proceeding with:

“What I mean is what you do to yourself.”

She had reached the hole, which was square shaped, and when she put out a hand her fingers told her eagerly that the surface was hard. She didn’t wait, merely heaved herself onto the ledge and felt further inside. It was a floor. She scooted away from the hole and stood, turning in anticipation for him to join her. She would enjoy this. She always enjoyed reminding him how easy it would be for her to kill him.

“What do I do to myself?” she finally sighed when there was no sight of him.

Suddenly she was spun around, his hand pushing her back against a darkened wall. She drew a breath with surprise and then he stepped close, glaring at her.

“I can hear you,” he murmured, brushing his free hand over her forehead and she realized her imagination had been tapped into and that he had pounced on her without there being one inclination of pain on his face, which meant the chip was all but working, and that she was in trouble.

She detested the swirl of fear which rose at the look in his eyes, enraged they stared at her, revolted and somehow disbelieving. Then he took a step back, away from her.

“Alright,” he murmured, the blue in his eyes glittering with the challenge rising in them. “Remind me how easy it’d be.”

For a moment she was utterly stumped. He wanted to fight? But then the duster slid off his shoulders and he threw it aside and she knew he was nothing if not serious. He wanted to fight.

“We can’t do it in here,” she protested, despite the thoughts which had, not many minutes ago, circled around her brain.

“Seems like the only place we can,” he replied.

“We don’t know what could happen if something... happened.”

“Think you’ll be able to kill me, love?”

Her expression changed rapidly as she shook her locks to fall behind her shoulders, meeting his gaze steadily.

“I know I will be.”

Soft amusement shaded his eyes and she felt the warrior within her rouse itself at the sight of it. If it was one thing she couldn’t stand about that vampire, it was the cockiness he carried with him like a constant companion, it followed his every move, was there in every word. It was time she put an end to it.

The air was reverberating with their readying themselves for the battle prominent. She hadn’t fought him in a long time, but she was sure she’d remember most of his moves. As she recalled they had been basic and uninventive.

A low growl rose out of his throat and she smiled sweetly.

Basic and uninventive, she thought again. Basic, uninventive and a complete bore. This shouldn’t take long.

He took a step forward at that, swinging an arm out in an attempt to punch her across the jaw, only she blocked it with an arm of her own, her eyes in his with a slight triumph in them that she had been able to push him into making the first move. He gnawed his teeth, his free hand grabbing her throat and there was a flicker before her eyes as her hand grabbed his wrist.

She thought quickly and began to bring a knee towards his groin, forcing him to kick it away which enabled her to twist around and out of his grip, her back to his chest. Before she could step away from him, however, he pressed her forward, pushing her three steps and harshly up against a wall. His hips grinding his crotch against her ass and she drew an outraged breath, putting her hands against the wall and pushing away as harshly as he had gotten her there, jumping up and placing her feet against it, kicking away to further the momentum and he tumbled onto his back while she did a somersault and landed on both feet by his head, her face leaning down close to his.

“Uninventive?” he asked with a slight smirk and she punched him in the nose, her second hit connecting with the floor as he rolled to the side and got to his feet.

She straightened up as well, not hesitating before she kicked up a leg. Both his hands took the blow, driving her leg back down before he took the step separating them and delivered a hook to her chin which sent her stumbling to the side, turning her head to him just in time to have it take another hit. The third one was met by her palm and she counterstriked with her free hand in a fist to his cheek. He barely flinched, linking his fingers with the hand of hers which was still against his before grabbing her upper arm with his other and backing her up against another wall.

“You have no idea who I am,” he murmured, her heart beginning to hammer strangely within her as his gaze drifted from her eyes to her lips to her neck.

“I know exactly what you are,” she retorted, jerking to get loose, but to no gain since his lock tightened considerably.

His eyes were in hers again.

“Do you?” he asked silently.

Yes, she wanted to yell at him, but something stayed her, something in his look. Something deeper than she could reach. Something unrecognizable. Something unfathomably new. She shied away from it, shrunk back. He seemed to bring himself out of it, and she felt relief as his eyes wore their ordinary blue instead of this undefined. Where was his demon? She wanted to see it.

She tore the hand linked with his out of his hold, punching him on the nose again and then again and finally he growled, the demon breaking through in its fury. But he caught her arm just as she thought she was about to break free completely and she had to content herself with another greeting of the wall, glaring at him. He glared back. Yellow having drained away blue.

“Let me tell you what I know about you,” he nearly growled. “You try so bleeding hard to set an example for your sis, for your friends, show that Watcher poof how good a leader you are, make him proud, make him sure you know what’s what, that you’ve forgotten about all the rest.”

“The rest?”

She tried to get loose again, but he’d have none of it.

“The rest. That’s why you drove the Cardboard Cutout away; that’s why you can’t sleep at night; that’s why you feel half the time like you’re on another sodding planet from the others. You hold back, every single day. Don’t you? You wonder about that other half of you. The one that wants the kill, gets high on feeling that wood in your hand, polished, pointed, just waiting.” Her blood was loud in her ears, but all she could hear was his words. She had never before abhorred him in the way she did right then, with his eyes boring into her, his mouth filling her with incomprehensible longing. “The darker side of you feels neglected, Slayer. ‘S about time you let it come out to play.”

“Stop it,” she hissed, her irritation combining with her repugnance and enabling her to get him away from her.

He smiled slightly.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. And you sure as hell can’t tell me anything that’ll make me believe that what really drives that stake isn’t the killer in you. We all have it. A child has it.”

“Don’t compare us like there’s any comparison,” she gritted out.

“No, I know you don’t like that,” he agreed. “But it’s in both our nature. You kill for salvation, I kill for survival.”

“There’s no salvation in death,” she bit back. “Don’t think I think that. And there’s nothing similar about our situations. I was born into this, you chose it.”

He considered that for but a moment, eyeing her before he replied:

“No. There was no choice.”

She furrowed her brow; then grew disbelieving.

“You can’t make me believe Drusilla bit you against your will.”

“Doesn’t mean there was any sort of choice involved. Rather that than...”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Than what?”

“I feed because I have to,” he changed direction, and successfully so because she said:

“You don’t feed anymore, but if you did, would you actually stand there and say to my face that you don’t feed for the taste of it? For the feel of biting through flesh? For the... for the seduction?”

It was his turn to frown.

“You been bit, love?”

She swallowed, happy that her blonde locks effectively concealed the four puncture wounds to the right of her throat.

“What I’m saying is, is that you kill just to kill something. Like with the demons! There you go out bashing heads together for the bashings sake.”

“And you don’t do that?”

She stared at him.

“No!”

He smirked, though it settled mostly in his gaze and she clenched her fists together.

“You’ve never gotten rid of stress by... kicking a vampire around?”

“No,” she repeated. “And stop turning it around on me.”

“Are you bloody complaining of my helping to keep down the demon count?”

“Yeah, and what about that, you saying they’re not all bad...”

“I don’t kill all of them!”

“Neither do I!”

“And you think I wouldn’t give it up in a second? That I couldn’t? ‘Cause I could.”

She blinked, her face turning quizzical.

“Why would you give it up?”

He was taken aback for a moment, but then he put on an expression which mirrored hers and simply said:

“Hmh?”

She watched him, but decided to drop it.

“Was that all the fighting we’re gonna do?”

“Ah, feel like kicking me around?”

She opened her mouth to reply, then changed her mind and closed it again, merely giving him a look.

“Honey, we’ve only just started,” he replied.

They observed each other for a few seconds, and then Buffy kicked up one leg, he blocked it and she ducked as he aimed to kick her in the side, hitting him on the inside of his thigh before straightening up. That punch had been painful, she could see it on his face. She felt a wave of simple satisfaction race through her and then she attacked him with all the ferocity of what she wanted him to get – that there was no link between their fates, that the cosmos had no greater plan for their intermingling than their occasional fist-to-face.

Which was how they were communicating now. Her blows being met by blows, his kicks being met by kicks. They moved around the still darkened space they had been granted, twisting and ducking, jabbing and thrusting all their energy into this one meeting, trusting it to determine its own outcome.
The vampire was filled with purpose, with the need to see this through once and for all. He grabbed onto all the hatred, all the discontent, all the crippling, strangling emotions brought forth by the chip embedded in his skull, and blamed it all on her. All of it. And he was going to kill her.

She could see it in his eyes. The fire, which had been lost for some time, had been rekindled. She couldn’t remember when it had faltered in illuminating those black thoughts he seemed to save for her and her alone, but now they showed, somehow even clearer than before. His blows were of awesome character when they pounded into her skin. She felt the injuries they produced, the bruises. She knew he was under the same affliction from her, and yet she felt his vigor somehow different. Larger. Expanded. Engulfing him. She only faltered for one second, and in that second lay his hands grabbing her wrists, wringing her arms behind her back, their chests connecting as he practically stumbled them up against a wall.

She was breathing hard, the back of her head aching as she had bumped it when they connected with their current support. He weighed against her, his face hovering just slightly above hers. She tried to keep her cool, but her body was overheated from the battle, from the exhilaration of the uncertainty, from this outcome. She couldn’t calm herself. Her heart was a wild beast, roaring at her, but she wasn’t convinced of what it was roaring for. For fear? For indignation? For more?

He had never touched her.

It was a thought which entered her mind as though a caged bird flitting free of its cage.

He had never touched her.

No, not like this, not with weight and scent and adrenaline coloring the air around them violet. Not with this tight a hold, not with this much conviction he had won. She looked up at him. His demon had retracted. She hadn’t expected that.

He wanted to know what he was doing with this creature set on a calling to end his race. What was he doing loving her?

He looked into those eyes, which bore such defiance, such ability to crush and curse with her mouth having nothing to do with it. They were never soft, always hard, when looking at him. As though glazed over by her despising him. If he could get through that surface... Make her see. Make her understand. But she couldn’t be made to do anything. She believed in choices, even though her destiny was none of her own invention, and all he could ever do was wait for her to change her mind.

She didn’t know what was going on. What the expression he bore was supposed to mean. She couldn’t tell.

Then his hold loosened.

He let her go, taking a few steps back and reaching down to pick up his duster.

“Should probably get going,” he muttered, pulling the piece of leather on. “Got work to do, yeah?”

She watched him as he began to walk through the shadows, disappearing from view.

“Yeah,” she then murmured, following.

This mystery was only evolving itself into new and more elaborate folds. She didn’t know where to turn, or what she wanted. She knew this intrigue would fade, but at the moment it was only strengthening. He kept saying things and doing things that were so out of character, and it confused her. And somewhere she felt she would come across that one fold to unfold them all. A key, shiny and simple, that would allow her to access him.

She shuddered. What a frightening idea.

She remembered the glass desert, all those faces. She didn’t want to know him, she concluded. They would search for the clue they needed, and that was it. She honestly didn’t even want to contemplate what other concealed parts to him she might find if she would manage the retrieval of that key.