Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Buffy Summers wasn’t real.

Not anymore.

She knew she used to be. She was sure of that. She’d heard the stories, and she knew that everyone else had too. But that’s all they were now. They were stories that everyone knew, and they knew how it had ended up until now. She had survived. Or at least they had assumed as much. No one really bothered to ask, they saw her breathing and took it at face value. Her wound was bandaged, her scars healed and she kept on moving, so she must have survived.

Everyday she did the same things, she smiled, she spoke, she walked and ate. But it was like a game. One of those stupid games that Andrew played, her moves were dice rolls, actions that could or should be taken. They didn’t mean anything, she rolled the dice, she kept breathing. Nothing really mattered anymore. If any one of her friends had bothered to look her in the eyes. If they really tried, they would see she wasn’t there anymore. She had died in that cavern, she was sure of it. She just happened to walk out after.

Of course, she had been somewhere similar before. She had gotten over the dull ache that was her every day after the resurrection. But this was different. Somehow, it was worse. Much of it was the same. The constancy of it, the emptiness, the complete inability to care about or feel anything but that empty space in her chest. The only new addition to the mix was despair. Last time she had felt like this, she had a light that had helped her pull herself out of the chasm she’d fallen into. A reprieve from the nothingness that consumed her every second. But that had gone up in flames, he was ashes in the wind of her past now. And she couldn’t help being overtaken by the hopelessness, retreating into herself, watching her own life unfold as an observer.

The bookends of her day were harder than the rest of it. The majority of her days were checklists of tasks. See Dawn off to school, call Willow, check in with Giles, do her household chores, go out on patrol, kill monsters, go to bed. But it was the mirror that cemented it, every morning and night. She saw Buffy Summers. She mimicked her actions and had all the same mannerisms, but whoever she was now wasn’t in that reflection. The hollow eyes, the vacant expression. It was a ghost of who she’d been; an echo.

She didn’t know how to get back to who she was before. She couldn’t even be bothered to try, it would be futile. Now all she did was secretly hope that some creature out there got hold of the one thing that she was sure was now out of her reach forever. One good day.

***

She stared at the coffee on the counter in front of her, her hand stirring without thinking about it. It was like she was on pause sometimes when she was left alone, unable to actually do anything unless she was observed, a lifeless shell waiting for instruction.

Her spine straightened when Dawn entered the room.

“Morning.” Her sister beamed in her direction, before dropping her backpack by the door and moving around the kitchen to assemble herself breakfast.

“Can I go out with Lucia tonight? There's a club not far from here and they’re doing a 80’s theme tonight. We thought it might be fun.”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Yeah, well spotted.”

“Just because we currently live in a country where the legal drinking age is 18 and not 21, doesn’t mean you can go out drinking on a school night. Don’t you have a math test tomorrow?” Just because she was hollow, didn’t mean she couldn’t play the part of the responsible surrogate parent. She didn’t have a choice in that. Dawn may be 18 now but she still needed her sister.

“You used to go to the Bronze all the time when you were younger than me.”

“Yeah, but I was working, mostly. And I was sober the entire time. Would you be?”

“Uggh, fine. But I can still go out tomorrow night though, right? Because you said I could.”

“Yeah, sure. Just stay away from the city centre. And bring a stake, just in case.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know the rules.” She came round the island to kiss Buffy on the cheek before shoving the toast she’d made in her mouth to grab her keys and heading towards the door. “See you later, love you.” The door clicked shut behind her sister and her eyes shifted out of focus again. She didn’t have any pressing matters to attend to until this evening, so she sat there. Frozen.

The school year was almost over, Dawnie would be graduating and going to college. She’d gotten accepted to three in England, two in Italy and five back home, including Harvard, Yale and Oxford. But she’d accepted a place at UCLA of all places. She’d come up with a whole plan: she would go to college in LA and Buffy could move to San Fran where Xander was, not too close but not too far away. The Rome base for the new Watcher’s Council was up and running with Andrew at the head so there was no need for Buffy there anymore, they were only staying so Dawn could finish out the school year.

She’d never been one to think too much about the future but now it was for a whole different reason. Before, it was because it wasn’t guaranteed. She couldn’t plan ahead more than a few months, fearing whatever threat they were facing at the time would put a stop to all of it if she allowed herself to get too excited over the possibilities.

Now, it just didn’t matter. After Dawn moved into her new dorm in a few months, her strongest tie to this relentless existence would be 380 miles away. Sure, her friends would still check in on her from time to time. But they all had their own lives to focus on. Willow had moved to England to join Giles in running the new Council when her and Kennedy had split up a few months ago, Xander was busy running multiple construction teams at once. It was safe to assume they would keep up with their monthly scooby gang meet up that they’d set up when everyone had gone their separate ways, and Willow had mastered that teleportation spell without collapsing. But that’s all she would have to worry about. She could keep up the pretence that she was a functioning human being for one day a month.

***

She’d gone back to going out on patrol every night now, the same route through her neighbourhood every time, the only one she’d bothered to learn. It was really just to pass time more than anything. She’d wander through the back alleys and dangerous parts, she’d poke her head into some of the Rome vampire communities’ favourite clubs, she’d do a lap of the graveyards for fledges and then she’d go home. She didn’t run into quite as many monsters as she used to, probably a perk of not living on a hellmouth anymore. But for most of her route she wasn’t even there, the time just passed, and then she was home again and she could sleep.

That night she took a few steps into the third club on her patrol and there was the familiar tingle on the back of her neck signalling at least one vampire in the vicinity, there was the usual visual sweep of the dancers to identify her victim. But that’s where the familiarity of her autopilot path ended. Her eyes fell on the bleached hair at the bar. This wasn’t uncommon, but the leather jacket hanging below it and the brown quaff to the side forced her back into active consciousness. He turned his head and she saw those blue eyes staring back at her.

Oxygen refused to come, now in full control of her body for the first time in a long time, the ease of her mechanical routine had been shattered. She wasn’t even sure she could remember how to move. The volume of the music then invaded her senses, the smell of every person in the room, the lights glaring in her eyes. The sensations that had evaded her for nearly a year flooded back, and it was too much. Everything inside and out of her head was screaming at her to get out. But she couldn’t bring herself to take her eyes off of him in case he vanished, in case this wasn’t real at all.

She didn’t know how long it took for her to react but eventually her hands found the door and she actually felt the rush of cold air as it hit her face, a novelty she’d forgotten. She stopped moving down an alley, leaning her back against the wall. The bricks were coarse against the fabric of her shirt as she slid down towards the floor. She brought her knees to her chest as if they could shield her from her own feelings, with no idea if she was shaking from the cold or the shock. Tears spilled down her cheeks and her lungs desperately clawed for oxygen she couldn’t seem to provide them. The numbness she had relied on for her continued functioning was gone. Broken. Damaged beyond repair. It had been replaced by an unending stabbing sensation in the middle of her chest. Like someone had reached in, manually removed the black hole that used to live there and left her bleeding.

The only tangible thought she could grasp from the whirlwind currently happening within her own mind was ‘how?’. It was as if her brain had fragmented into a million different pieces and none of them were standing still long enough for her to make any sense of them. All she could do was crouch in that alley and try to breathe.

The sound of boots on the concrete beside her did nothing to help. He just stood there, with her in the shadows, every so often going to move closer before thinking better of it and backing away again. When enough time passed and she no longer felt that she was going to pass out, she met his eyes again through the blur of the tears that were still coming.

“Are you real?” She had gotten used to not recognising her voice when she spoke, but in that moment, she sounded small in a way she never had before.

“Yeah. I’m real, love.” The guilt was palpable in his words. His eyes poured over her, looking for something. An indicator of her wellbeing maybe. His expression was softer than she had ever seen it. A mixture of sorrow, regret and concern.

“How long?” She hadn’t realised the question had occurred to her until she’d said the words aloud, and it brought with it a whole host of others. How long had he been alive? Why was he in Rome? Why was he with Angel? Had Angel known the whole time? Why did no one tell her? Why didn’t he tell her?

“About 11 months. But-” He moved to touch her, just on her arm.

“Don’t touch me.” She pleaded. There was no way that this was really Spike. If Spike had come back, he would have told her. Someone would have told her. She wouldn’t have lived the past year of her life as a zombie, she would have spent it with him. Spike loved her. He wouldn’t do this.

“This can’t be real.” It was all she could manage before placing her head back in the safety of her knees and letting the sobs overtake her again. She heard him move slightly, a beeping sound, and then his voice. But he wasn’t speaking to her. Since when did Spike have a cellphone? She couldn’t make out the words or who was on the other end over the sounds of her own grief. But when he was finished, he just came and sat down against the wall next to her, not close enough that they were touching but she could reach for him if she felt like it.

She had no sense of time from then, nothing happened to mark it passing. They just sat there until her head hurt too much, her tears had run out and the exhaustion of her night caught up with her. But she didn’t move, she couldn’t. If she moved, she would see him again and all the questions that surrounded him would be hurled at her like knives. The answers had the potential to be worse. She just sat there, trying to keep her breathing even so she wouldn’t hyperventilate.

After who knows how long, he stood up and the reason became apparent.

“Oh my goddess. Is she okay?” A familiar voice sounded from the corner. She hadn’t seen Willow in weeks, not since Dawn’s birthday. How had he gotten her here?

“I don’t know, Red.”

“Well, how long has she been like that?” She could tell it was Xander, though the fact he’d called Xander was an irony she would have appreciated in a different scenario. Maybe Willow had done it.

“‘M not sure, half an hour maybe.”

“What the hell happened?” Willow demanded.

“I just saw her in there, she must have been on patrol. And then she ran like a bat out of hell and has been here like that ever since.”

“Well, duh. She probably thought she was seeing a ghost.” Willow came to crouch down next to her. “Buffy?” Her words were so soft they were barely audible.

“Buffy, if you stand up we can take you home.” She lifted her head to see Willow’s gentle smile, not daring to look in the direction of the black leather jacket still to her left. Willow and Xander pulled her to her feet, and despite her muscles still shaking, her legs kept moving her forwards in the direction of home. Their movement was halted by her friends when the sound of combat boots continued behind them, but she kept her fixed on the floor in front of her.

“Where do you think you're going?” Xander asked, as if the fact he even thought of following them was beyond insane.

“With her?” Spike said, matching his incredulous tone, as if his answer had been the most obvious thing in the world.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” Xander was just being protective, but it was almost like nothing had changed.

“No, when she snaps out of whatever this is, she’s gonna wanna talk to him.” Willow added.

“What if him being there makes it worse?”

“I’m sure Captain Forehead has gotten into some catastrophe without me. It’s fine. I’ll go.” The resignation was clear in Spike’s voice as he said it, as if he was used to giving up where Buffy was concerned.

“No.” She spoke for the first time in what felt like hours, staring pointedly at the ground. “Not again.”

If there was any chance that Spike was really standing behind her, there was no way in hell he was leaving her vicinity any time soon.

***
She sat in the armchair in her living room with her knees curled to her chest, gaze fixed on the edge of the coffee table. The three of them were talking at the kitchen island behind her as if she wasn’t there and all she could do was sit and listen. Otherwise she’d have to pay attention to the mess inside her head.

“How long is she gonna be like that?” She could feel the weight of Dawn staring at her on the back of her neck. They all were, but she could feel her sister most of all. Over the past year she’d tried to keep Dawn from seeing the extent of the damage. She’d hidden as much as she could from everyone, but it was especially important that Dawn didn’t see how broken she was. She had to be strong for Dawn. She still had a life and a future and just because Buffy’s had ended that day, it didn’t mean Dawn didn’t still need her sister. But at that precise moment in time, she didn’t have the energy to do anything else. So she let them watch her, discuss her without her input and focused on their voices to keep herself from breaking down again.

“It’s not like that time after Glory took you, at least she can talk. I just don’t think she knows what to say.” She could hear the concern in Willow’s voice, despite the rational way she spoke about her. “She’s been through a lot.”

“Yeah, but this is the Buffster. She can get through anything. It’s not like finding out the Captain Peroxide here is still alive is world in peril stuff.” Any other time, Xander’s clear and persistent hatred of Spike would have been a comfort in its familiarity, now it felt pointed.

“She’s probably just in shock. Seeing your ex who you thought had been dead for the last year is pretty traumatic.” Hearing Dawn talk about Spike as an ex had been something she hadn’t got used to the past couple of times her sister had brought the vampire up in recent history. It felt cheap, like he was worthy of more than just the label of ‘ex-boyfriend’. He wasn’t even her boyfriend at any point, he was somehow less and then so much more than that. At least the squealing and hugging and tears from Dawn when Spike walked through the door had made it clear she had been just as in the dark about his being back from the dead as Buffy had. Willow and Xander had no such reaction.

“How long have you two known?” She willed her voice to remain even, but it was still hoarse from earlier, which allowed her anger to bleed through it more than she’d intended. But her eyes stayed fixed in front of her. The silence was thick while it lasted, no one wanting to speak, fearing her reaction. It was Willow who eventually broke it.

“Andrew told me, Xander and Giles a few months ago. But he told us Spike didn’t want you to know.” She could hear the leather of his jacket shifting from his perch against the wall in the corner but not moving much more than that.

She stood up and moved towards her room, passing but not looking at a single one of them, looking ahead at the door and nothing else. She pushed it shut behind her and slid down towards the floor against it as the tears that had started building from the first time she’d spoken began to fall. She could still hear them talking, still feel the familiar prickling on the nape of her neck that came with his presence. She’d almost forgotten how comforting that was, just knowing he was on the other side of that wall was the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely.

“Should we have told her?” Willow’s muffled voice sounded through the door.

“No, Red. This is on me. I’m the one who asked you not to. Thought she was better off not knowing.” There was that guilty resignation in his voice again. She knew he knew she was listening. Chances were he could hear from her heartbeat exactly where she was.

“Well, I’m exhausted. Being teleported across the planet really takes it out of you.”

“Try being the one doing the teleporting, mister.”

“Wait, we’re all going to go to bed and pretend that whatever is going on with Buffy in the other room isn’t happening?” She hadn’t heard Dawn this animated or this concerned in a really long time, and the fact she’d caused it only added to the twisting sensation in her chest that was already threatening to take away her ability to breathe again.

“We can’t really do anything else, Dawnie. Maybe she’ll feel better in the morning. Also you have school, can’t be wasting all that time we spent going over trig for that math test. We can talk about it tomorrow.” She’d never really appreciated how Willow could calm Dawn down so quickly before.

“Will you all still be here after school tomorrow?”

A harmony of “Yes, of course.” came from the two scoobies, with one notable voice missing.

“All of you?” It was times like these she forgot Dawn was 18 now. She could see the 14 year old standing in that kitchen in her mind’s eye. Not the adult that was there in reality. The one who had lost her mother, and her sister. The one who feared losing her family over anything else in the world.

“Yeah, Bit. I’ll be here.”

“Ok, good. I’ll see you all in the morning then.”

There was then a cacophony of moving around. She heard the front door open and close, presumably Willow and Xander would check for vacancies at their usual hotel a few blocks away. She heard Dawn yell goodnight to her and Spike from her room on the other side of the apartment. And then she heard the sound she was really listening for, combat boots against the wood floor heading towards the couch. It was silent for a while after that but she didn’t move, her head and back still pressed against the door, holding her up in more ways than one.

Then a soft voice came from the other side of the door, the one she’d only dreamed of hearing in recent history. “I’m sorry Buffy.” There were layers of emotion in the words that she didn’t have the energy to dissect at the moment, but the primary one was guilt.

His apologies didn’t help, but she knew he didn’t expect them to. He still hadn’t told her he was alive. He’d still asked the people she trusted to lie to her. She loved him and he didn’t tell her. But she could deal with all that another time.

“Thank you for staying.” The words came out at a whisper even though only he could hear her anyway. She was met with more silence, so she lifted herself off the ground, undid and kicked off her boots, laid down on her bed and let sleep take her.

***

Over the last several months, the majority of the time sleep had been a reprieve for her. A way to pass time where she didn’t have to expend any effort. Sometimes it was just inky blackness that spat her out when morning came. Sometimes she’d known she’d dreamt but she couldn’t remember what had happened and she didn’t care much to try.

But sometimes she could live whole lifetimes in her dreams. His hands would wrap around her torso in the kitchen they shared and she could feel every inch of him. Or they would be in bed as sunlight poured in through the gaps in the curtains. She could kiss his fingers and he would pull her closer, surrounding her in his scent. The only things she knew for sure was that he was there and she was safe and happy. When she woke from those it was tantamount to being ripped from heaven again.

And sometimes, like this time, she would see it all happen again. She would be in that cavern, her hand wrapped around his as the flames consumed them both. Every time he would say it. “No you don’t.” Every time she would leave him there to become ashes. And every time it felt like she’d become dust with him, like everything she was had caught fire in his hand and she’d left it all behind.

She woke to tears on her pillow, which wasn’t uncommon, and a hand smoothing down her hair, which was. He pulled it back when he saw her eyes open. Behind the curtains was still dark so it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.

“Sorry, love, you were sobbing in your sleep. Came to see if you were alright. I’ll go back to the couch.” He turned towards the door, never looking at her directly.

“No.” She spoke before she could think better of it. “Don’t go.”

She shifted on the bed to make space for him and he looked at her with an eyebrow raised before accepting the invitation, taking off his jacket and boots and joining her.

He wrapped her in his arms like he had the night she’d spent in that random house in Sunnydale. Her eyes closed of their own accord and she just let herself breathe into him. She didn’t realise how tense she’d been until she felt her muscles relax against him as he resumed stroking her hair.

“I’m still angry at you.” She whispered into his t-shirt.

“I know, love.”

She almost let herself drift off before she spoke again, relishing in the fact that the familiar smell of cigarette smoke wasn’t just in her head.

“I missed you so much.” He didn’t reply but he held her closer to him and she let sleep overtake her again. It was dreamless, but the feelings of safety and contentment were there, they had been overtaken before with the confusion and anger, but as long as her eyes stayed closed and she could keep breathing into his shoulder none of that mattered. He was here, and while she slept, that was all she cared about. It was the best she had slept since leaving Sunnydale.

Chapter Text

Spike awoke to the smell of sunrise and her shampoo. He didn't remember falling asleep; he certainly hadn't meant to. He'd wanted to savour this, being in her bed again. With her cocooned safely in his arms, her scent surrounding him, the sound of her heart beating beneath him. He never thought he'd get to be here, and chances were he'd forfeited it ever happening again by not telling her he wasn’t dead as soon as he’d come back. The second her anger overtook the grief, he’d wager she would have no issue with banishing him. Knowing Buffy, that wouldn’t take long, considering which one she preferred to let herself feel.

It was still early enough that the fact that the curtains weren’t fully drawn wouldn’t be an issue for a little while. He knew he would have to move eventually; beams of light were starting to spill through the gaps, and dusting in her bed just to keep on holding her might not go over so well. But he held out until just before the light hit the door. He knew he could have closed the curtains and got back into the bed, but he could already hear Dawn moving around in her room; he may as well be useful while he was here. So he pried her fist from its death-grip on his t-shirt and slid out of her arms, just as she must have nearly a year ago now, kissing her on the forehead before closing the door behind him.

Their kitchen was about the same size as the one that had been in Revello Drive, the common areas of the flat were more open than the house had been, but they had a similar layout. So it didn’t take long for Spike to navigate the cupboards and pull out what he needed. He was helped by the fact that they were already sparse. Finding flour, eggs, and milk wasn’t hard, nor was locating a stash of chocolate chips that Dawn had clearly been raiding regularly.

The thief in question rubbed her eyes and yawned as she walked into the main room of the apartment, still in a dressing gown and her hair a mess.

“Aww, you’re making us breakfast?” She came and sat at the island across from him, taking a few of the chocolate chips from the open packet.

“Figured I’d do something useful while I’m here. Gotta make sure you get all your vitamins and shit.”

“Oh yeah, because chocolate chip pancakes are well known for their health benefits.”

“Yeah, yeah, just tell me where your frying pan is.” She pointed to the cupboard next to the stove top behind him. Making food for Dawn had always come easily to him. Partly because she has the weirdest taste buds in history and will eat anything, but it also came to him like instinct. As easy as killing used to be. Like he was always meant to be here.

But that was before Buffy’s resurrection and everything that had come after that. All of that felt so far away; it seemed like it was a lifetime ago. Which was saying something for someone who was nearing his 150th year. In reality, it had only been 3 years since Dawn was the one he spent most of his time with, both of them bonded in their grief for the same person over that horrible summer.

He hadn’t considered it before, the similarities between how he felt the summer she was dead and how Buffy must have felt over the last year. There were obvious differences too, the length of time, for instance. Also, the fact that he had already been hopelessly in love with her by the time she’d died. He’d known, or he thought he’d known, that her last words to him had been a mercy. Gratitude for the dying man he’d been in that cave, the champion she had made him. But everything that’d happened since they’d crossed paths again was hinting that he might’ve been wrong with that assumption. The look she’d given him in that club was comparable to a widow seeing a ghost of her long-dead husband. That wasn’t the reaction of someone who’d said those words out of pity or obligation.

“Are you just gonna stand there and watch the batter burn?” Dawn’s words brought him out of his head just in time to smell the edges of her breakfast catching on the pan.

“Sorry, Niblet. Lost in thought, I guess.” He turned towards her and he began scraping the mess he’d made into the trash, just fast enough to catch the sorrowful smile on her face. “The first one’s always crap anyway.”

“No one's called me that in a really long time. Not even you.”

“Yeah, I know.” He poured more batter into the pan and endeavoured to keep his focus on the task at hand so Buffy didn’t wake to the smell of burning and Dawn could actually eat it. But also so he didn’t start thinking too hard about all the consequences of his choice to stay in LA that he hadn’t considered before. He thought he was helping Buffy, he didn’t realise just how wrong he’d been. “I’m sorry, Bit. I thought I was doin’ the best thing for everyone by staying gone.”

“Yeah, everyone keeps making unilateral decisions for other people. Our lives could be so much simpler if we all just sat down and talked to each other instead of assuming we know what’s best for everyone else.”

“Mighty big words you got there. See what happens when you actually show up to your classes.” He let a sly smile creep across his face, hoping to distract her from his shame at the fact she was right.

“Hey! I’m the perfect student, I’ll have you know. I got into 10 different colleges in 3 countries. Including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Oxford, and Cambridge. Could you do that?” It felt as if his heart almost started beating again with pride. She’d always been insanely smart, especially for her age. But he was glad that she had clearly found a new level of confidence in her own abilities.

“Don’t know ‘bout the others, cause I’d have to get there by steamship at the time, but I did get into Oxford and I got a Master's from Cambridge. Not that it does me any good now, ‘f course.” He flipped the pancake onto the plate in front of her and got to work on the next one, hoping she didn’t fixate too much on the information he’d revealed. He definitely did not want to spend his morning recounting tales from the life of William Pratt.

“Wait, you have a Master's from Cambridge? I could’ve gone to the same school as you?” She had a mouth full of pancake as she spoke, nearly spitting it all over the table. She could still be so youthful when she wasn’t trying to be the grown-up she was so desperate to look like.

“Yeah, expect it’s a might different now from when I was there. Don’t go spreadin’ that around though. Got a reputation to keep.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep your secret, big bad.” Her face fell slightly as the words left her mouth, reminding them both of the last year; the last few years. It had been so easy to fall back into the rhythm of mornings together, to forget about everything that had gone wrong. They both stayed silent for a little while after that, Dawn starting on each new pancake as it was placed in front of her until he moved on to the empty plate he had on the other side of the counter.

“So, what time does big sis usually get up nowadays? Or should I cover these up for her?”

“She’s usually up before me. I can go wake her up if you want, I gotta leave soon anyway.” She said, mumbling this time.

“No, leave it. Let her get her kip. You better go get dressed. Can’t show up to school looking like that.”

She jumped down off the stool, shuffled into her room without saying anything and shut the door behind her. Of course, he’d gone and overstepped. Got lost in the bloody fantasy that they were still something close to family again. Not that anyone but him ever thought they were. But it had been the closest in over a century to feeling like he actually belonged someplace. Can’t blame a fella for losing his senses a little in that. Oh well, it’s not as if he’d be around to feel the rejection much longer. As soon as Buffy inevitably blew up at him, he’d be kicked back into Angel’s not-so-loving arms in no time.

He got to work scrubbing the dirty plate and pan, trying to remove any proof that he’d even been there so she wouldn’t have to do it when he left. While the sink contents drained, he went about trying to find something to cover the breakfast he’d made for her when the door to her room began to inch open.

“You need help finding something?”

“Was lookin’ for something to cover these actually. Didn’t know how long they were gonna be left out.” He pushed the plate and a fork in her direction and managed to catch a soft, if somewhat forced, smile before her face steeled over again.

“I don’t remember the last time I had pancakes; it feels so long ago.” Her eyes were fixed on the plate, but he could tell she wasn’t fully there, lost in thought most likely, before her head snapped back up as she came back to reality. “Did Dawn eat?”

“Yeah, she’s getting dressed. Think she’s upset at me, too. Can’t blame her, though, she should be.”

Buffy only hummed in response, her eyes glazed over again. How often did this happen? He wondered. Was this how she had gotten through the year? Shutting herself away, moving through life like a ghost, only doing the things she had to for the sake of everyone else. Well, she had always done that last one, but at least she had been mentally present for most of it.

Part of what made her Buffy was her fire. The passion she had for the things she believed in and the people she loved. It was what had drawn Spike to her in the first place. It was part of why he fell in love with her. He’d seen it clear as day in his first encounter with her, watching her dance at the Bronze. He could almost laugh at the irony. The one thing that was missing after the cave was her fire.

His old tactic for making her passion rear its head had been to piss her off. But he wasn’t certain even that would do it for her now. He’d been expecting all out yelling from her this morning. He figured once she’d gotten over the shock of it all, she’d let her anger tear him a new one, but that didn’t even seem to be on the radar. He could always tell when she was about to let her rage spill over, even when she was trying her best to contain it. He could see it in the twitching of her fingers, the eagerness to physicalise everything she was feeling at that moment. She had always been such a physically expressive person. But now, she was hunched over the plate at the counter, staring off into space. The only movement was the slight rise and fall of her chest. If he didn’t know better, he would have a hard time believing that was Buffy.

It was reminiscent of her behaviour after her stint in heaven. Had his dying been comparable to that level of pain for her? Had it left her just as broken? How had she gotten better last time? Would it take just as long? The questions each piled on more guilt as they occurred to him. He never would have thought that his absence from her life could cause this.

Dawn’s reentrance into the room broke them both out of their individual minds, now fully dressed and ready to go with her backpack.

“Um… So I’ll be back for dinner with the gang later. Are you still gonna be here tomorrow?” She turned to look at him, almost pleading.

“Dunno, niblet. That’s up to big sis.” He nodded in her direction, but she didn’t say anything.

“Well, 'cause, I was meant to be going out with my friend tonight, but if you’re gonna leave then I have to let her know I can’t go.”

“I can call Peaches and let him know I’ll be staying in Rome for a little while. If you want.”

“Yeah, okay. Love you, Buffy.” She hesitated before she went to open the door, as if she was going to add something else but thought better of it. Instead, she just closed the door behind her after Buffy nodded in her direction, leaving them both in silence again.

After a little while, he spoke again. “I don’t have to stay here, pet. I can find somewhere else to sleep if you’d prefer.”

“Oh, um. Ok.” She looked back up from the spot on the counter; her gaze had been fixed since Dawn had left. “You can, though.” She paused, like she wasn’t sure what she was saying, as if she wasn’t speaking in her first language. “Stay here, I mean. We have plenty of couch space.”

“It’s whatever you want, love.”

“I don’t know what I want.” Her eyes dropped to the uneaten pancakes in front of her again as she forced out the words.

“You gonna eat those or just stare at them?”

“I’m not that hungry.” She pushed the plate back in his direction and stood up from her seat, heading towards the door next to Dawn’s room. He heard a bolt being pulled across the door and the sounds of her shuffling around, what he assumed was probably a bathroom, and then running water, which confirmed it. So he set about finding something to cover the plate again. He knew Dawn would probably finish the meal later if she didn’t. Although maybe not. Clearly, a lot had changed since he’d been gone; he couldn’t be sure of anything he knew about either of them anymore. That realisation came with a new kind of ache, a kind of hollow feeling where his dormant heart was.

After putting her untouched breakfast in the fridge, he fired off a text to his grandsire. The ponce had been moderately blowing up his phone since the night before, which he obviously ignored. He had slightly bigger things to worry about than Angel’s pettiness when it came to all things Buffy. He could call him later, preferably when she wasn’t within hearing range. He slipped the phone back into the pocket of his duster and let his eyes wander around the apartment. He hadn’t really looked at it too closely last night, bigger things on his mind and all.

It had a few of the same touches that Revello had contained. A framed photo of her, Dawn and Joyce hung on the wall above the sofa. He’d seen the photo before, but it couldn’t have been the same one because he’d taken that with him into the crater that used to be their home. There were a bunch of knick-knacks on the various surfaces in the main room that all looked as though Dawn had strewn them about, a rug that Joyce would’ve chosen but couldn’t have, some statuettes and figures dotted around the place too. But nothing that looked as though Buffy had chosen it. Her room had been sparse too, plain white walls and creme carpet. The only furniture in there looked as though it had come with the place. He’d even felt the absence of the goddamn boyband posters she’d littered her room with before, anything that claimed the space as her own. God, he’d really fucked this up.

Everything in his gut had told him that going back to her had been the wrong thing for both of them. That she deserved a chance to live her life without him butting in and messing everything up again. Or maybe that had just been his cowardice talking. He could’ve told her, he supposed. A phone call to let her know he was still kicking after all, and then leave the ball in her court. It had just seemed like the right thing to do, leaving her to get on with things.

He’d wondered, for a moment, why Andrew hadn’t told him about how she’d been doing before the answer occurred to him the next second. She hadn’t told him. She probably hadn’t told anyone. If she could, she’d always rather put up a front that let anyone see an iota of any pain she was in. It’s part of why she had come to him after she’d crawled out of her own grave, he figured. Because he was the only one who really bothered to look past whatever smokescreen she’d put on every day, instead of just seeing what she wanted them to. So, of course, nothing had been different this time. Even as broken as she might have felt this past year, she was still so strong.

She came out of the bathroom about twenty minutes later, not meeting his eyes as she crossed the apartment in just a towel and shut the bedroom door behind her. Probably just as well, he genuinely didn’t know what he’d see in them anyway. He’d prided himself on being able to read her in the past, but now he couldn’t be sure of anything when it came to her. He thought it best to do as little as possible to upset her, just sitting at the island in the kitchen, waiting for her to come back in and tell him to get lost.

When the door finally opened, she had her hair tied up and she was wearing a white sweater, jeans and a pair of combat boots, a lot like his own. Her clothes had none of the flair or attention to detail that they’d used to. She lingered in the doorway, like she hadn’t been expecting him to still be here. But where else would he be? Clearly, now she couldn’t be sure of that. All that trust that had taken years to build with her, wrecked.

“So, my only plan for today was going grocery shopping.” She stayed leaning against the wooden doorframe, one hand running up and down the other arm, until she pushed off and started collecting her jacket and a set of keys from the bowl by the door. He just stood there in the middle of the room and watched her, not really sure what she expected him to do until she paused by the entrance. “You can come, I guess.”

He took a few tentative steps in her direction as she opened the door and went to leave through it, waiting for him to follow.

“Sure, pet. Whatever you want.”