Disclaimer: Buffy the vampire slayer and all characters belong to the show are not mine. I make no money off of this.


Author's Note: Very sorry my muse has been in a coma for so long, and sorry about how tiny this chapter is. The muse has to take baby steps in recovery, you know.


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The day was as dark and gray as Buffy’s mood. The sky was completely overcast, and the wind was picking up. It was the kind of weather that never boded well for Sunnydale.

Especially when you came home to find your door wide open.

The rush of anger was a welcome distraction for the Slayer. After a morning of listening to Xander and Anya talk about the guy who was put in the hospital by her birthday party, and their assumptions on how well things might still go based on the noises they had heard…

Not to mention the fact that she had to blot the image of Spike from her mind entirely just to stay sane.

Her quick walk turned into a sprint. She pounded up the porch steps, ready for anything…except Spike standing in her living room.

The haggard looking vampire had his ratty old blanket draped over one arm. Dawn was standing across from him, and turned to face her as she entered. There was something stony in the teenager’s gaze. Her lips were tight and stiff, and she walked past her sister without further attention.

“Dawn…” Spike called after her half-heartedly.

She turned her icy stare towards the vampire, then to Buffy, before walking up the stairs without a word.

Buffy felt the crushing weight of judgment in that stare, and turned to the bleached-blonde vampire. “What did you tell her?” She bit the words out with malice, trying desperately to ignore the purple bruising that still surrounded one of his eyes.

“Nothin’ about you. Or…nothin’ about that. Just personal.” His voice showed no hint of a desire for confrontation, and he waited dispassionately for her to pass sentence on his latest imagined offense.

Buffy struggled to hold on to her anger. She lowered her voice so Dawn wouldn’t hear, but kept her tone just as harsh. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

He looked down, more towards her worn boots then at her. “I know…” He spoke softly, almost hard to hear. “Didn’t come for that.”

The Slayer moved around him to sit on the couch. It was easier to imagine that the confrontation wasn’t turning her legs to jello that way. Her hands were definitely shaking, so she clasped them together tightly on her lap. “Then…why are you…?”

Spike turned to face her, but still wasn’t looking at her. With a shock, Buffy realized the vampire hadn’t looked her in the eye once since she had gotten there. Her heart did a strange jump, and for a moment she tried so hard to catch his eye with hers that she completely missed the fact that he had taken something from his pocket and placed it on the table.

When she did finally realize he had bent done for some reason, she searched the coffee table for an answer. There, sitting on a forgotten pile of bills, was a small gift wrapped in pearl white paper with a gold ribbon around it. The ribbon was tattered and the paper wrinkled from transport, but it seemed to shine with all the care put into it.

“What…?”

“Meant to give it to you last night…”

Buffy hesitated. She looked up at him again, thrown off by his soft tone. She expected to see his tongue caressing his teeth, his eyes soft and playful, as if fully expecting to get some. Instead, his eyes were still downcast, his expression cautiously blank. He wasn’t looking at her or the gift.

“I didn’t steal it, bought it,” he suddenly found it necessary to reassure her. “Didn’t even cheat in the poker to get the money. It was all fair-and-square like. Went to the mall, picked it out…” He carefully kept from mentioning that he’d had it picked out for months. “Knew you’d never accept somethin’ that was stolen.”

It was on the tip of Buffy’s tongue to say ‘I’d never accept anything from YOU.’ But something inside her cringed and nearly withered at the thought of doing more damage.

She squeezed her fingers to try to keep them from shaking before reaching out and gently scooping up the small package.

“Just…just don’t…” Spike swallowed hard to give himself time to steady his voice. “Just, don’t throw it back, please…don’t throw it out. It’s all I ask…it’s all I’ll ever ask.”

He backed away from the table then, gathering his blanket around his shoulders and heading towards the door. Buffy watched his boots when she noticed the missing sound of a heavy tread.

His swagger was gone.

Buffy’s fingers tightened around the gift, and her thumb stroked the ribbon wrapped around it. “Thank you, Spike…”

Spike paused at the door, standing just out of reach of what little sunlight there was. “Happy Birthday, Buffy.”

She still expected him to say more, even after he had left. She expected him to charge back in, lightly smoking, tossing his blanket away and giving her a deadly glare and a lecture that began with ‘and another thing, bitch…’

But he didn’t. The door stood open, the doorway empty.

There was something that felt unfinished, something that felt completely wrong bubbling up inside her. Spike had been a lot like the sky outside. Outside it was overcast, hiding most of the sun so the world seemed dull and bland. Spike had a shadow over him the entire visit, something covered the fire that always burned brightly in his eyes when he looked at her.

And as absurd as it was, a line from the song she had sung during their musical mishap rose up inside of her, a tiny treacherous voice in the back of her mind. ‘I want the fire back…’

Then it was just her and Spike’s gift. She debated the moral issues of accepting a gift from her mortal enemy even as she carefully untied the ribbon. Her eyes widened as she opened the small velvet box.

She gently traced her fingertip across the necklace that had been hidden inside. Its chain was a delicate silver, with smaller chains dangling from the center, each holding small sapphires in the perfect shape of raindrops.