Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters belonging to the show are not my creation. I take no credit for the brilliance.

Author’s Notes: Much thanks to slaymesoftly, my wonderful beta.
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2 weeks later...



Buffy slammed the door shut behind her. She sighed heavily, weary from her last date. For some reason, the urge to dance around town or be taken anywhere had fled.

The mail was piled up in the coffee table. She dropped her keys and picked up a few envelopes, noticing that one letter was from Giles. She smiled; surprised to find herself looking forward to any updates he might be able to give. She’d been restless and wanting to take action, though she still had no idea where the desire had come from.

Frowning, she noticed a package beside the coffee table. A thick, brown envelope had her name on the front, but no sign of who it was from. Picking it up, she felt two objects inside. The Slayer began to wonder if her former Watcher was sending her reading material along with a mission, except they felt more the size of small novels than the massive, dusty volumes Giles had been known to study.

She brought the mail to her bedroom, leaving the door open and tossing the envelopes onto her nightstand. She looked over the package with another curious frown, then shrugged and began to tear at the top.

Dawn emerged from her room and passed by her sister’s open door. “I’m heading out to meet Andrew,” she popped her head in to tell her sister with a glare. “Since you won’t let him near the apartment anymore.”

“Don’t think I’m joking about this, Dawn. I know one of you has it, and we need to find it. If Andrew did something with it, I swear-“

The teenager rolled her eyes. “Neither of us took your stupid album. What’s the big deal, anyway? You totally overreacted.”

Gritting her teeth, Buffy ripped the package almost in half. “Dawn, it didn’t just get up and walk-“ Her eyes followed one of the contents of the package. A black leather photo album fell to the floor. It fell open, revealing pictures of herself and her sister inside.

Dawn barely managed to keep her snicker to herself. “Can’t get up and walk away on its own, but apparently it can come back on its own.”

“NOT funny.” The Slayer gave her little sister a harsh look.

“Whatever.”

After the teen had disappeared down the hall, Buffy crouched down on the floor and touched the album tenderly. It felt like being reunited with a part of herself. Suddenly curious and beyond angry that someone had taken it out of her home, she upended the package to discovery what else was inside.

An old VHS tape clattered to the floor.

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It had taken an entire day to hunt down a VCR. Buffy was almost considering going to a museum to see if they had any.

The tape had been unmarked. It was just as much a mystery as who had sent the package, and Buffy was certain that she no longer liked mysteries.

When she finally got the VCR working, and the tape playing, she frowned to see mostly static. Finally, the picture cleared, showing what appeared to be a hand fiddling with the camera. When the hand was removed from in front of the lens, she could see what looked like a simple, plain and mostly bare basement apartment.

It was nothing special.

Until the figure that had been fiddling with the camera took a seat on the ratty looking couch, and took her breath away. Everything else no longer mattered.

Spike’s face was on the screen. His blue eyes were looking back at her. He was wearing his trademark duster and fidgeting nervously, and he was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

Then he spoke, and Buffy could have sworn she was being allowed to touch heaven again.

“Hello, luv.”

She watched as his fidgeting continued. He looked very unsure about what to say next. The Slayer couldn’t help but crawl slowly closer to the television screen.

“I feel bloody stupid, talkin’ to this machine…but it’s the best I could come up with, under short notice.” He sighed, looking saddened. “I did something stupid again…bollixed things up right proper, I did. And what’s worse, I was a coward.”

Buffy watched the screen in stunned silence as Spike laid out his tale as quickly as he could manage; from his death, coming out of the amulet, getting his body back, and his constant fights both with and by the side of his grandsire. Finally, he told her about what he believed would be the final battle.

He stopped for a moment, the expression on his face showing how much he was struggling for the right words. “If you’re gettin’ this…then I didn’t make it. Made last minute arrangements with a friend so you’d receive this. Wanted so bad just to rush to your side tonight…” He shook his head. “But if I left now, would make me double the coward, wouldn’t it?”

The Slayer felt her heart sink into the ground. The very thought that she’d lost him all over again, and not even known it…

He looked up again, directly towards the camera. “Had a dream about you,” he said suddenly. “Well, ok…had lots of dreams about you, and almost every night…” He sighed. “But this one was different. I dreamt that for one week, we had a world to ourselves. We said everything that needed sayin’, fixed things…everything was well beyond perfect. At least, I thought it was a dream…until I saw the pictures you left for me. Know I shouldn’t have taken ‘em, but…”

Glancing down at the album on the floor, Buffy gently traced her fingertips over the leather before looking back at the screen again. Even as her heart threatened to shatter, it also wanted to soar with the knowledge that he had seen it, that he truly knew how much she thought of him, and how much she still considered him part of her life.

“’Ts why I made the mistake of stayin’ away, you know…thought it was all a dream at first. And I was…I was bloody terrified of findin’ out for sure. If I had to find out that I was the only one with those memories…” He looked away from the camera, down at his hands, which he clenched and unclenched restlessly. Finally, he willed himself to look up at the camera. “I want you to know, that I still would have come. Even if I had to find out that none of it was real, I still wouldn’t have stayed away forever. I just…” He sighed. “I had to…for me…just for a little while. I had to do some good…had to know what kind of man I was without you there. Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for a woman…done for someone I loved…I had to know that I could be a good man, without you always there to tell me what good was. I had to know…that I could be someone you could be proud of…*always* be proud of.”

After a long moment of silence, he stopped his fidgeting. “I love you, Buffy,” he declared suddenly. “I think of you every day, I look for you around every bloody corner, and I reach for your warmth when I wake up every night. My heart’s been screamin’ for you this whole bloody time, and I’m so sorry I didn’t have the courage to listen to it. Now, chances are, it’s a little too late. Tell the bit I love her, would you? Even if she doesn’t want to hear it from me…”

When the tape had stopped, and nothing but static was showing on the TV, Buffy finally let her tears fall. Her body was shaking with loss that she hadn’t been aware of. When the tape ejected, she picked it up and held it to her like a long-lost friend.

Rocking slowly back and forth, she sobbed. “No…” She could only speak in small whispers. “Come back…please…please, come back…”

She never saw her teenage sister, standing at the doorway and staring numbly over her shoulder at the screen full of static.