A/N: Lryics: View from Heaven by Yellowcard. Thanks to basilio_the_cat and slaymesoftly for betaing this for me, and also a big thanks to everyone who took the time to review. And (points to the pretty banner) thanks to underthis_shade over at livejournal for the banner.



Chapter Four
feel your fire,
when its cold in my heart
and things sorta start
remindin' me of my last night with you
I only need one more day
just one more chance to say
I wish that I had gone up with you too
View from Heaven - Yellowcard


Nothing.


He felt absolutely nothing. Everything was missing. The pull was gone, no longer existent, and nothing else was there to him. He felt nothing now.


She was gone.


He hadn’t saved her. Couldn’t even try. He had failed.


The day had been torture, knowing what was coming, knowing what was about to happen and not being able to do anything about it. The sunlight glared at him through the cracks in the curtains, taunting him, as if the knowledge he already possessed wasn’t enough to do so. He paced. He even grabbed the keys to the Desoto several times and made it half way down the street before turning around and resuming his never ending walk back and forth across the bedroom floor.


Plan after plan filled his head as he thought about the situation at hand. But none of it was good enough. He couldn’t get to her. He had wasted too much time dancing around her in the effort to console her, all the while refusing to follow his instincts. His instinct to find her and see her face to face.


He didn’t know where she was. He had no sodding clue.


Oh, he asked. Casually slid the question in one of their brief conversations the night before. She responded with a long, hard look and then a quick change of the subject. She knew. She must have. He knew, she knew, and she must know that he knew. They both knew and they hadn’t done a bloody thing about it. She had to sit on that high horse of hers, and now it was too late to do anything.


Too late.


Stubborn bint.


He had a faint connection with the Master, them being family and all. But to follow that would require concentration, patience, and a whole bunch of time. Time that he didn’t have. Time he never had. Time he never would.


It was over. And like she said, the “what ifs” didn’t matter. It was just a waste of energy thinking about what could be done, stupid to beat yourself up over something you couldn’t change.


He had failed.


In the end, all of it was a dead end. He had failed her. He couldn’t protect her.


Drusilla was nowhere to be seen. She had left in a tizzy yesterday, crying and whining about who knew what, and he was glad. Happy he didn’t have to listen to her praise her Daddy and moan about the whispers in her ear. She didn’t care. At least not about him. For over a hundred years he had loved her with every part of himself, and she had done nothing but throw it back in his face. She belonged to Angelus.


And if Drusilla did care, she certainly didn’t care as much as his golden girl. Not nearly so. In the end he belonged to her; Drusilla was simply a pawn in getting him there. He knew that now, felt it in all he had. He had felt the pull. The pull that now wanted him to do nothing more but walk into the sun, and follow his girl into the life beyond.


He was nothing. There was nothing left for him. She had been it. And he had failed. His girl was gone. And every part of him mourned. William. The demon. And Spike - the mixture of them both. She was gone before something could even begin.


Which was probably why. Everything about what they experienced was wrong, completely and totally wrong. She was a slayer that killed his kind. He was a vampire that had killed two of hers. He shouldn’t feel drawn to her for any other reason than the want to kill her, to taste her blood. Most of which, minus the blood tasting, is the farthest thing from his mind when he’s with her.


The logical part of him knows it’s wrong, but the other part, the much bigger part doesn’t care. The bigger part doesn’t see anything wrong with it, likes it, wants it. The demon wants it, wants her, likes her. The demon practically purrs in contentment when he’s with her.


There wasn't a part of him that didn't want her. Didn't need her. It scared the hell out of him, and yet he wanted it with every fiber of his being. Anything had to be better than this feeling of emptiness. Anything.


He had no idea what had happened to him. He just knew that he wanted it back. Wanted everything to go back to the way it was before, before she went away. This hurt too much and he needed her to make the pain go away. But she wasn’t there, she wasn’t anywhere, and so there he was, left as a shell of what he once was.


Nothing.


He wanted to curl up in the bed and dream of the grove. He wanted to press soft kisses against her golden head and whisper reassurances in her ear.


But he didn’t. Because he knew she wouldn’t be there. And he didn’t want to give himself false hope. She didn’t get any of that. He didn’t deserve to hope.


Spike sank into the chair across from his bed. The need to slip under the covers was growing stronger. Maybe she had decided not to; maybe she had decided to rebel. Maybe, just maybe, she had decided to hell with it.


But he knew that wasn’t so. He felt nothing. Nothing but the emptiness. It was the worst feeling in the world, and he knew he deserved every second of it. He had failed her.


The one person who had cared more than anyone he had ever met was gone. The person he trusted with his secrets, the person who trusted him with hers was gone. She had left nothing in her place. And he understood. His purpose was no more. Now, he was just a shell.


Every part of him wept. And that night, when he finally closed his eyes, he still dreamt of the grove. It was all of her he had left. It was all he could think to do.