Author: jen

Rating: PG

Pairing: Spike/Buffy. For better or for worse, I don't write 'em any other way.

Disclaimer: Do I have to say it? If I owned Spike and Buffy, I wouldn't need to write this novel – what we would have seen on the screen in S6 and S7 would have looked a bit different. *ahem* Joss owns all. I merely bow and scrape in his shadow.

Thanks: My betas, Bridget and Mezz, are amazing and have made great suggestions along the way. They keep me honest! All remaining mistakes are definitely mine. Thanks, too, to Deborah for her thoughtful comments. And to Jodi and Deb who cheer me on -- it's good to feel the love.

Distribution: Take it where you want it, just let me know. This thing is a sprawling WIP, so it's looking for a good home. ;)

Notes: This is my post-"Chosen" novel. Been playing with the idea since the spring but have been too busy to work it into shape until now. It assumes that Angel and Co. are in LA running Wolfram and Hart, but I am going a far different direction than AtS S5. Let’s see, other important info: if you can get hold of a copy of "Diving" by 4 Strings, you should listen to it on psycho-repeat while you read to enhance Buffy’s London experience. I had a "Diving"-a-thon while writing this chapter, and that’s part of the reason it came out the way it did. And one last thing: don’t let the last line of this chapter throw you – it’s not going where you think it’s going. If it is going where you think it’s going, it’s only because you are somehow miraculously in my head, and that’s just a little unsettling – it’s pretty crowded in there, so get out and let me work! ;)

***

Chapter 1 -- Excrucior

Buffy pushed her way through the gyrating throng at Club Twilight. She had spent the better part of the day listening to the girls at the Academy whispering conspiratorially about the club and called an early end to her evening of catching up with Giles for the express purpose of finding it. She feigned a headache. It wasn’t much of a lie; the whole day had been a giant headache.

It had been nine months since that last night in Sunnydale. Two hundred and seventy-two days today. And today counted. Every day counted.

Buffy pushed a hand through the wispy fringe of hair that fell into her eyes and stepped carefully around a couple very clearly enjoying each other in the middle of the dance floor. She looked the other way as the something in the core of her being that never stopped aching started to hurt a little more than usual.

A whole day of listening to Giles prattle on about the Academy. She pretended to be interested, knew he would be worried if she wasn’t. He had eagerly led her through the classrooms and dorms, research libraries and training rooms. It was an impressive facility, to be sure. And a much-needed one. Nearly all of the girls who were activated as slayers in that final battle had had some difficulty adjusting to their new-found powers, and more than a few had become real discipline problems. Without knowing the source or purpose of their strength, many had gotten reputations as bad girls and played the part a little too well. Once Giles had been able to access the extensive financial resources and property holdings of the old Watcher’s Council, the Academy was born. Most of the parents had been only too happy to relegate their troublesome daughters to someone else’s care. They weren’t bad girls after all, Giles had said. Just needed a bit of direction.

Buffy winced now as she remembered the Academy’s course catalogue. For the most part, the classes were the same as those in any high school curriculum: English, History, Mathematics, Science. Giles had quickly flipped past those descriptions to show her the Supernatural (SPNL) Department’s offerings. Buffy had had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes at SPNL 101 -- Vampires: (Wo)Man’s (Im)Mortal Enemy. Good God. It made her want to scream. Instead, she smiled and shook her head at Giles, politely declining his offer to lead a seminar during her stay in London.

Buffy wondered how much the others had told him. Quite a bit, judging from the concern lurking just beneath the surface every time he met her eyes. Everyone had agreed it would be best for her to get away for a while. Intervention time for Buffy again. She got that they cared, but mostly she resented the hell out of them for thinking they always knew how to live her life better than she did. As if "getting away" changed anything. Any guilt she might have felt about leaving Dawn behind with Xander in LA evaporated at Dawn’s blunt assertion that it wasn’t like Buffy was really there for her now anyway. What else was new? She was always failing someone.

They all thought it was about not being the Chosen One anymore. She let them. After all, it was a huge adjustment. She’d never really thought about it before, never put it together that the ultimate mission of the Slayer was to put herself out of a job. Sure, the day-to-day slaying was a big part of the gig, but when it came down to the bottom line, wasn’t the mission always about the ultimate evil? She had done what none of the other Slayers before her had had the chance to do: face the First and kick its ass. Seven years of work, and in so many ways, the end felt almost ludicrously anti-climatic. It was like, "Is this it? What happens now?" She spent so much time on the journey that she never bothered to think about the destination. She was rapidly discovering now that the destination sucked.

It wasn’t like evil didn’t exist anymore. Things people would rather pretend didn’t exist still lurked in the darkness, waiting. Everyone thought Buffy would keep doing the work, but in her mind, she had already made herself redundant. Fighting the remaining evil was Faith and Robin’s thing. They took the girls who survived the attack on the hellmouth and went on the road. Slayer Tour 2003, with stops in Cleveland and other hellmouths north and south. The last Buffy had heard they were all somewhere in India. She didn’t much care. She slayed when the occasion absolutely demanded it, when she saw an attack in progress, but it was like a reflex. She never patrolled anymore.

So the Slayer thing was a part of it. But the other, that was hers and hers alone. Angel knew. She’d only seen him once since that night with the amulet, but he had known the minute he looked at her. She wondered how he would react, but he seemed more disappointed than sad. She was surprised she felt more relief than anything else as far as he was concerned. She could finally leave the high school fantasy in the past where it belonged. An official end to something that was over a long time ago.

It wasn’t as though she kept quiet about Spike because she was ashamed. Quite frankly, it wasn’t anyone else’s business. The grief was private; it was all she had left, and she didn’t want to share it. Not with them. Not with anyone.

Buffy finally reached the bar. A man materialized in front of her and waited expectantly for her order. Buffy guessed this was the famous bartender about whom she had heard so much earlier, and he certainly looked to be everything the girls had said he was. He was breathtakingly beautiful, that kind of male beauty that almost teeters on the edge of being unnatural or feminine. But he radiated masculinity, between his full mouth, dark eyes, and the thick mane of hair that was the color of a dark caramel.

"What can I get for you, love?" Buffy guessed at the words more than heard them. The throbbing pulse of the music made conversation nearly impossible.

She blew out a breath. Beer was out, and she didn’t want hard liquor. There was wine, but wine always gave her a headache. She considered for a moment. Headache Buffy was better than Cro Mag Buffy or Blowing Chunks Buffy. What was that kind of wine her mother had liked? Buffy closed her eyes and in her mind’s eye could almost make out a bottle sitting on the counter in their old kitchen. Home.

"A glass of Shiraz?"

He looked at her with a hint of curiosity and moved off to find a bottle. Buffy turned her head to survey the undulating crowd as a snatch of lyrics caught her ear.

When she faced the bar again, he was holding a thick-stemmed glass out to her. Even with the garishly flashing lights, she could see that the liquid was a rich, almost violent red. Her hand rested on the smoothly-polished wood of the bar top as she waited for him to bring back change from the money she’d pressed into his hand. She could feel the wood twitching beneath her fingers, animated by the same beat that animated the crowd behind her.

He dropped the heavy coins into her hand, and she placed several on the counter in front of her. She thought he mouthed the word, "Ta," and remembered that excessive tipping wasn’t exactly customary in England. Hell, it wasn’t customary anywhere. But if she was going to be coming here as often as she thought she’d be, it wasn’t a bad idea to get in good with the drink man. Giles had been generous with her allowance – the Council had been loaded, and money was no object.

She closed her eyes, inhaling the fragrant scent of the wine, and drank it off in a long draught.

She returned the glass to bar and signaled for a refill. She already had that sense of reverse deja vu, that feeling you get when you do something for the first time, when even though the experience is brand-new, you can already see your future self doing it a million more times. Crossing that dance floor. Standing at this bar. Tasting this wine. Seeing those faces.

This was as good a place as any.

*

She had been coming to Club Twilight five nights a week for three months. That qualified her as some kind of regular, but even the collective weight of those nights hadn’t bred a sense of real attachment to anyone or anything there. That was part of the charm of the place. She always felt as though she was arriving halfway through a plot she couldn’t follow. She thought she remembered an English teacher calling it in medias res, in the middle of things. Nothing Buffy did could ever make her feel caught up, so she had decided that it was pointless to try.

If there was anything that Buffy felt attached to here it was the music. Trance, with its heavy, driving beats and floating female melodic lines, suited her mood perfectly. She had never gotten the whole electronica thing before, but suddenly, it made absolute sense. It was the kind of music that reached inside and took you over. The themes were so simple and universal: I want you, I want you back, Take me away, Come away with me. What else was there in life, she mused.

She inclined her head now in time with the thumping staccato of the drumbeats as she crossed the dance floor, her long hair swinging loosely down her back. She saw it as a badge of honor, a symbol of loss. She’d read somewhere that it was customary in certain Native American tribes to let one’s hair grow during mourning, and she liked the thought enough to let her own hair grow in remembrance of him. He had always liked it long. She pushed the damp, clinging strands away from her face and neck as she neared the bar. Thirst clawed at her throat, and the need to be drunk pulled at her as seductively as a lover’s insistent hands.

Bartender God had a glass of wine for her before she even made eye contact with him. It was as if he could sense her presence long before she ever presented herself. She drank the wine off and returned the glass to counter top.

Buffy ignored the appreciative glances, both male and female, that roamed down her body as she leaned both elbows back on the bar. She was leaner than ever, all planes and angles now. A body so shorn of its femininity that it was somehow perversely feminine and almost ironically alluring. Her hair was longer than it had been since she was a child, trailing down her back and nearly brushing the top of her ultra low-waisted trousers. She’d colored it a few times, and it was currently highlighted by platinum streaks. She’d taken to smudging dark kohl liner around her eyes and wearing deep red lipsticks. Easier to play the part of the world-weary, detached club chick when you looked it.

She’d skipped dinner, which meant she would feel the pleasant warmth of the Shiraz even more quickly. It wasn’t like she meant to be skipping so many meals lately. She just couldn’t seem to remember to eat. And when she did remember, she couldn’t seem to get out of bed to do something about the hunger. The only hunger that mattered was the one that drew her to Club Twilight the way a pious pilgrim was drawn to the tomb of a martyred saint.

Buffy lifted the refilled glass to her lips, felt the burning liquid slide down her throat. She loved this moment, the one just before her mind started to cloud over. It was a conscious act of submission, this giving herself over to the control of something else. She still had to fight that fleeting sense of panic that came just before letting go. Paradoxically, it made her feel powerful. And then she didn’t have to feel anything.

But something now gave her pause. The DJ was still mixing the tracks, but she knew *that* sound long before it was even actualized. Every song here reminded her of him, but this was the one.

The fingers holding the wine glass whitened, gripping the stem so tightly that she nearly snapped it. This was the song that ripped her open, raw and vulnerable. The words were simple, but they were sung with an underlying sense of desperation and backed by a haunting track. It pushed you to dance with ruthless intensity but offered no joy, no release. It was a parody of dance; there was no freedom, only possession. Buffy was reminded of the old story of the tarantella, the dance thought to ward off the hysteria caused by a poisonous spider bite. Of course, the tarantella, with its whirling, feverish movements and relentless pace, was itself a kind of hysteria. There was no escape.

She closed her eyes against the next assault.

In an instant, she was thrown back across the chasm of 365 days. How could she have left him there? It was a question that had answers, some of them better than others, but none of them that were really worth a damn. She could still feel his hand burning in hers and knew it was more than her mortal wound that had been knitted back together by the light and heat of his soul. For one beautiful moment, she knew everything, felt the full weight of his love and the reflection of her own love for him shining back at her. It was a moment of such clarity that she could actually hear it in her ears, taste it in her mouth, feel it on her skin. It was so beautiful that it hurt.

And she’d left him there. Was it because she had understood that it was something he needed to do? She knew that he hadn’t done it for her, that it was something more, something that was his. She sacrificed Angel a lifetime ago to save the world; Spike sacrificed himself to save them all: him, her, world. She got that at the end, remembered the amazement in his voice as he described the feel of his soul inside him, knew how important it was to him that he take the last step of his journey without her.

She wished it was as reasoned and logical as all that. The truth of it was that the whole thing happened so damn fast. She was running before her mind had even cleared, before the magnitude of it ever hit her. It never once occurred to her that she wouldn’t see him again. Not once. Spike didn’t go away, didn’t leave, and somehow, irrationally, she expected this time to be no different. The world had been falling away beneath her feet, and still she had thought he would be waiting for her. Somewhere. That she would find him somewhere.

She would find him and give him hell for that "no, you don’t" crack. It was easier to feel angry that he could make light of her declaration than to contemplate the alternative, that he was gone, never believing that she loved him, knowing that she’d never given him a reason to believe her at the moment it mattered most, and that there wasn’t a single thing she could ever do to make it right. That was the thought that made it hard to breathe. She had authored most of this tragedy herself, and he had always borne the brunt of it. Until now. Now it was her turn.

Three hundred and sixty-five days had passed, and him not being here was a concept she still couldn’t wrap her mind around. It was an idea that she wouldn’t be accustomed to as long as she had breath.

She used both hands to push herself away from the bar and maneuvered her way through the pulsing masses. A hand snaked around her waist from behind, and she could feel the heat of its fingers radiating down her bare flesh as her body moved in time with the music. She closed her eyes again and could almost imagine that the hand resting on her skin was a little cooler.

The pain was exquisite.

*

It was another night. Wasn’t it? They all seemed to blend together. No, this one was different. She had to see Giles tomorrow for their monthly meeting. He would plead with her, she would promise to change, he would reluctantly agree to transfer her monthly allowance into her Barclays account, hoping that this month would be different than all the rest. They had had the same argument dozens of times. He would get angry and she would get angry, but he could never resist her when she told him quietly that she’d earned it. For the little exchange to work, though, she would have to be somewhat presentable tomorrow. That meant less wine and at least a few hours of sleep before their brunch.

Buffy made her way to the back door and took a deep gulp of air. The July evening was unseasonably cool, for her at least, and the cool fingers of the wind slapped her in the face and blew the long, bright strands of her multi-colored hair out behind her. She liked this back alley where the smokers congregated now that the summer months had arrived. She enjoyed the smell of tobacco, even smoked occasionally herself.

The bartender was there, leaning against the red bricks, inhaling deeply and studying the sky above.

"You shouldn’t smoke," Buffy said absently, pulling at a loose thread on her sleeve.

He looked pointedly at the glass in her hand. "Yeah, well, I guess we all have our little addictions, love," he answered. "In my official capacity, I should mention that you aren’t allowed to have that glass out here. Unofficially, of course, I don’t care. Prerogative of the lost, as far as I’m concerned."

She held the index and middle fingers of her right hand up, open in a slightly unaligned "V" shape, and he teased a cigarette out of his packet and put it between her outstretched fingers. He struck a match, and she leaned in for the light.

"Lost? Who’s lost?" she asked, pressing her back against the cool bricks next to him and exhaling.

He regarded her with amusement. "Take a look around you," he replied, the glowing tip of his cigarette gesturing at the crowd just inside the propped-open door. "We’re all lost here. Can’t you feel it?"

She could, of course. The frenetic energy of Club Twilight’s patrons was always more illustrative of desperation than it was of exhilaration. That’s why she came here.

"And what about you? Are you lost, too?"

He laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. "Oh, to work here, you’ve got to be the most lost of all." Buffy saw something deep in his eyes that was unsettling, like looking too closely would break your heart. If it weren’t already broken. "Name’s Adam, by the way. How long has it been, and we’ve never had a proper introduction? Three months? Four?"

"Five. I’m Buffy," she returned, carefully blowing ash off the tip of her cigarette.

"What are you doing here, Buffy?" He ground the remains of his cigarette beneath his heel and turned to her.

"Penance," she said simply, staring straight ahead into the darkness.

"Yeah, that part I sussed out all on my own."

She turned her head to face him.

"What, you think it isn’t obvious? You come here to torture yourself. You slip away more and more every night." His eyes transfixed hers. "I’ve watched men put their hands on you as intimately as is legal in public, and still they don’t touch you. They don’t even come close. There’s no there there with you."

She just stared at him. "Just because you serve me drinks, don’t presume to think you know me."

"Oh, I know you. Better than you think. I know that the only thing that touches you is the music. There, now." He inclined his head toward the door as the DJ laced in a new track. "Here’s a good one."

Buffy’s shoulders jerked back as if she’d been struck. She glared at him. "Go to hell."

He grabbed her by one slim wrist as she turned to leave. "And the running away? How’s that workin’ out for you?"

She stared at him defiantly. "It keeps me alive."

"Does it? Is this living?" She tried to pull her arm free, but his grip was vise-like. She glanced at him in surprise. "Look at yourself, Buffy. Is this it? Is this all there is for you?"

"What makes you think I deserve any more than this?" she countered. This was insane. Why was she even having this conversation? That was the bizarre thing -- it wasn’t that she was having the conversation; it was more like the conversation was having her.

"What makes you so sure you even know what you deserve?" he shot back. "You spend all of your time running away from something. Ever think that there’s something out there for you to run to?"

"No, not anymore. Now let me go," she demanded.

He dropped her wrist as quickly as he’d grabbed it, and she turned away.

"Is this you, Buffy?"

The quiet words halted her just a step away from the door. She turned back slowly. He came to her and stood so close that she could feel his breath on her face.

"Get the hell out of here, Buffy, and don’t look back. Don’t ever look back. Whatever you’re supposed to find, you’re not gonna find it here, I can promise you that."

She tipped her head back to look into that impossibly beautiful face, and he brought his hand up to touch her cheek tenderly.

"Don’t you see? Someone’s gotta get out of here. Maybe when you go, none of us will need to be here anymore." His thumb brushed over her cheek. "Maybe it’s you."

That was the last time she saw him.

When she left, she didn’t look back.

*

Buffy uncrossed and re-crossed her legs beneath her ill-fitting conservative skirt, fidgeting. Waiting rooms had made her nervous ever since Mom’s illness, and it took everything in her to keep herself in the chair and resist the voice that was screaming in her head to run for the door. It was only the memory of the tears in Giles’s eyes when she’d copied down the name and number of Dr. Cantor from his address book that kept her in her seat. He volunteered to make the appointment for her and then to come along but had understood when she said that she needed to do it on her own. That it wouldn’t mean as much if she let someone else take care of things for her.

Vivienne Cantor had a Harley Street office, which automatically granted her a certain professional reputation. Not part of that reputation was her ability to read auras. Buffy was relying on her abilities as both a shrink and a mystic -- she figured she needed all the help she could get.

At last she was ushered into Dr. Cantor’s office, but the woman herself was nowhere in sight. Buffy studied diplomas while she played the waiting game again.

"You look like you’re ready to bolt," a voice said from behind her.

Vivienne Cantor didn’t look any older than Buffy herself, although she was Buffy’s elder by more than a dozen years. A thick cap of auburn hair was closely cropped to her head, and her flawless skin was the color of polished ivory. Her mouth and bright green eyes were too small for her face, but she was still a striking woman.

Buffy smiled thinly. "Don’t like doctors’ offices." It had been ten days since she’d had a drink, and she clenched her hands together to hide her trembling fingers.

Vivienne pretended not to notice and offered her own hand in greeting. "Vivienne Cantor." As Buffy shook it, Vivienne continued, "And how is Rupert?"

"He’s fine. He mentioned you were old friends?" Buffy said it as a question. Giles really hadn’t said anything about Vivienne, just that she might be able to help.

"Friends. Hmm, that’s an interesting appraisal of our relationship." Vivienne moved behind her desk and gestured for Buffy to sit across from her. "We actually never got on very well. I was too wild, even by his semi-relaxed standards." At Buffy raised eyebrows, Vivienne continued, "Frightening thought, isn’t it, that Rupert was considered somewhat ‘mellow?’" Vivienne laughed. "But I was a terrible researcher, and Rupert was ever so serious about it. He thought the answers to any question could be found in a book. I was more intrigued by other means of answering questions."

Buffy was puzzled. "Research? Wait, you worked together?" When Vivienne nodded, Buffy asked, "You were a Watcher?"

"Not according to some." She said it without a trace of rancor in her voice. She rubbed a hand through her hair and smiled. "I was on the fringe in the Council’s Great Chain of Being, that’s for sure. Given what happened to Quentin and the others, I can’t say I’m too sorry to have been sacked."

"I know that some female Watchers had been trained as Slayers but never called." The question was implicit.

"Yes, I was trained until I was 19. When a new slayer was called, and it wasn’t me, the Council decided my time would be better spent preparing to be a Watcher. But I never actually even made it to full Watcher status. I went from Slayer-in-Training to Watcher-in-Training and then straight out the door." Again, she grinned. "I ended up with all this," she said, gesturing around her, "so I think everything worked out as it was supposed to."

Buffy considered the information. Anyone who’d been on Quentin Travers’s bad side automatically scored a few points in her book.

"Would you like to get out of here?" Vivienne asked abruptly, pushing her chair away from her desk.

Buffy looked confused. "I thought -- I mean --," she stammered. "Aren’t I supposed to lie on a couch and tell you all about my relationship with my parents or something?"

Vivienne held up her hands and laughed. "Do you want to lie on a couch and spill your guts?" At Buffy’s emphatic shake of her head, Vivienne nodded in satisfaction. "I just meant that you’re my last appointment for the day, and I’ve about had it with this room."

Buffy smiled now, too. "Let’s escape."

They walked along in the bright afternoon sun toward Regent’s Park and found an outdoor patio to stop for tea.

"I could tell you what I think, ‘professional opinion’ and all that," Vivienne started carefully, "but I’d rather hear your perspective first."

Buffy met her eyes. "I feel like I’ve been broken, and all the pieces were put back together wrong," she said simply.

Vivienne pursed her lips and studied Buffy. "That’s what it looks like to me, too. Let’s see if we can’t go about finding you under there, shall we?"

*

This was her new favorite place in London. Vivienne had a pass to Kew Gardens but always claimed to be too busy to put it to proper use. She gave it to Buffy weeks ago. Obviously the picture would have been a dead giveaway, had anyone bothered to look. But no one did. It was as simple as walking past the ticket kiosk with confidence and a nod.

Buffy loved everything about the Gardens, the whole grounds, from the huge greenhouses to the busy footpaths lining the bright explosions of flowers of every variety, from the dark, cool woods to the bank of the Thames.

She stood now in the steamy heat of Palm House. Her hand slid along one of the white paint-chipped railings that led up above the greenhouse floor. Two small boys pushed past her on the narrow winding staircase, despite the exasperated protestations of the voice behind her that obviously belonged to their mother. Boys, Buffy thought to herself and smiled.

She could almost imagine Spike here as a boy. He had told her once that he came here with his mother and father when he was a child, when the Palm House had been new. There were a lot of things he’d told her about his boyhood during their companionable days immediately after Willow had raised her. She would sit with him in his crypt in silence, knowing that if she kept quiet, he would nervously fill the air between them with words. She didn’t remember listening all that closely at the time, focusing then instead on the sound of his voice, the feel of her chest rising and falling, surviving from one minute to the next. But now she remembered all sorts of things that he had told her then.

He’d have seen the great palms as a boy. It was a pretty tenuous link to him, but she had so little else. When you lose someone, you’re supposed to have places and objects that remind you of them, but Buffy had nothing. The physical locus of them was destroyed when Sunnydale imploded. Pitiful connection though they were, at least the ancient trees here at the Palm House were something.

Buffy was drawn to the Princess of Wales Conservatory for another reason. Spike had never been there, of course—it was too new—but it reminded her of him just the same. The Conservatory was home to 10 different climates, all separated by thick glass doors. Passing through one of them was like taking a step into a different world. Well, a different part of this world, at least. She could feel the difference on her skin, in the air, smell the difference in her nose. For a girl who hadn’t ever been anywhere but southern California and London, it was an amazing way to experience the world.

Her hand now rested on the door handle leading to her favorite climate, "Dry Tropical." She closed her eyes, pulled the heavy door toward her, and inhaled. Buffy wondered if the part of Africa where Spike went to win his soul had smelled like this. She liked to think so; he had never talked much about that particular chapter of his life. But Africa and what happened there gave her license to love him. So smelling Africa made her feel close to him, almost like sharing it with him, even now.

Of course, smelling Africa was as exquisite a torture as a night of clubbing. "Given her license to love him." What an imperious bitch she had been about the soul. Held it out, held herself out, always just beyond his reach, letting him know that without the soul, he would always be some lesser class of animal to her. She rubbed his face in it, held Angel up as some great example. She remembered the horror she felt in the church after he’d come back, listening to his plaintive "It’s what you wanted, right?" She wanted to say no, that she’d never told him that to be with her he needed to have a soul, but she had told him that, a hundred different times, lots of different ways. It was implicit everything: in the way she treated him in front of everyone else, in the way she talked to him, in the way she touched him. If it was true to say that he was a monster that night in her bathroom, it was far truer to say that she made him that way.

Despite all of it, Buffy liked being at Kew. She may not have liked herself there, but she liked seeing that things there didn’t always need direct sunlight to bloom. It was a metaphor whose significance was not lost on her.

*

It was Sunday, and Sunday now meant going to the market. Vivienne said it was good to have a schedule, but Buffy figured she’d probably gone slightly overboard. And the irony of her strictly regimented days didn’t escape her. She was freer with her time than she’d ever been before, and yet she filled her days with routines and habits from dawn until dusk. There was something easier about that than having to constantly find things to keep her occupied.

She was eating again, and some of her curves had returned. At least it felt like her body again. The hair she kept long. It was pushed now into a sloppy knot on the top of her head. And she stubbornly refused to give up her trance CDs, no matter what Vivienne said. One step at a time, Vivienne agreed.

Buffy stood in the bakery section of Sainsbury’s, searching for her favorite bread when the glass cases of sweets caught her eye. She wandered over to stand in front of them, hypnotically drawn by the neatly ordered pastries and cookies. She stopped in front of the sign proclaiming a collection of "American Donuts." British supermarkets had a mini-obsession with products they could label "American." Buffy routinely picked up "American Salads," but not because they reminded her of the garden salads back home. Shredded lettuce, cabbage, and a small packet of croutons that was little more than dusty crumbs did not make an "American Salad" in Buffy’s opinion, but at least they’d gotten the ranch dressing right. She would have preferred low fat, but you had to take what you could get.

Her hand lingered over the gleaming golden handle of the doughnut case. "American Donuts" were ones with holes -- apparently the empty center earned it the designation. It seemed that doughnuts to the British way of thinking were filled. Period. If you went somewhere and asked for a doughnut, nine times out of ten what you automatically got were fruit-filled or cream-filled doughnuts, dusted with white sugar.

Spike had loved jelly-filled doughnuts. For someone who didn’t need human food for sustenance, he’d certainly had his little addictions, and raspberry-filled doughnuts were near the top of the list, a close third behind spicy buffalo wings and the blooming onion.

She thought about him all the time now. When it became clear that Vivienne really didn’t know anything about the reason Buffy had come to her in the first place, that Giles hadn’t given her any sort of back-story, Buffy used most of her sessions to talk about Spike. It was almost like working through their relationship, a way to make things better. She didn’t know if that made her better or worse off than she’d been before (she suspected the latter), but it made her feel closer to him.

She stood in front of the doughnuts, remembering a cold late December afternoon in the winter of her discontent, after she’d been brought back. She had heard the back door open and shut from her room and came down to see who was there. She’d stood in the hall silently, listening to Dawn telling Spike about her day at school. Dawn’s life had sounded like such a soap opera, full of he saids and she saids, but Spike seemed to know all of the players as well as the characters on "Passions." He had been full of "She did not"s and "You’re jokin’"s as Buffy had struggled to even remember the names of Dawn’s friends. Spike and Dawn’s conversation had been punctuated by easy laughter, both his and hers, and Buffy realized that she never heard Spike laugh when he was with her. Then again, she’d never given him much of a reason for joy, had she?

She had peeked into the kitchen to see the two of them, leaning over an open box of doughnuts that Spike must have brought with him. There had been crullers for Dawn, her favorite, and a row of sugar-sprinkled jelly-filleds. They were Buffy’s favorite. She had watched Spike select one and sink his blunt, white teeth into it. Dawn had been talking about someone named Brian, and Spike was rolling his eyes.

When he brought the doughnut away from his mouth, a thick, sticky line of raspberry goo trailed down from the corner of his lips to his chin. As Dawn had made "Eww, gross!" noises, Buffy watched, fascinated. Some small part of her mind had wondered if sinking his teeth into the doughnut reminded Spike of what it felt like to feed -- the raspberry gel from that distance had almost looked like blood, and the look in his eyes was sated, content.

Spike had run his index finger from chin to mouth as Dawn punned, "I vant to suck your blud." "Ha bloody ha," Spike had said. "Don’t tempt me." But the funny thing to Buffy was that watching Spike with the doughnut hadn’t reminded her that he was dead. It made him seem alive. He’d looked more alive eating that doughnut than Buffy had felt in all of the days since she had come back.

Dawn had glanced at her watch and shrieked -- something about missing a ride from somebody’s house to the mall. She had caught sight of Buffy in the hallway, brushed past her into the front hall for her jacket, and rushed out the door.

When Spike had caught her eye, Buffy tried to slip on her mask of distaste. That’s what she did when he was around. It hadn’t even been a genuine expression; it was like one of those Greek masks that actors put on in caricature of real emotion. "Spike is evil." "Spike is a blood-sucking fiend." "Spike is a monster." They were all just labels, easier to deal with than the gray realities that she hadn’t been able to let herself examine too closely.

And so the mask had slipped off, and she just stared at him. He cocked his head to the side in that way he had, studying her. He got up slowly, doughnut forgotten, and approached her. She had felt her shoulders shaking as he gazed at her, close enough to her that she’d felt exposed, incapable of hiding anything from him, but far enough away that he’d been just out of reach.

He had abruptly slid past her, and she wondered momentarily if he was going to leave. But then she had heard the soft click of the door to the hall closet and he’d been in front of her again, holding out her warmest coat. She put in on, and they walked silently to his crypt. She had been like a sleepwalker, and he finally had to touch her to steer her toward a chair when she’d shown no signs of moving from the center of the room.

He had knelt in front of her, patient, waiting, always waiting, and she bent down and kissed him. In his mouth she’d tasted the tartness of the raspberries and the sweetness of the sugar. She even felt a few stray grains of sugar around his mouth rubbing against her skin. He was real in a world where nothing else was.

As they made their way to the floor, she hadn’t felt the regret of tomorrow pressing in on her as it always had before. It hadn’t been the case that she needed something to make her feel alive; that night she needed him, and she wanted him.

She had known he’d realized something was different for her, and he stared at her with eyes that were so grateful it almost hurt to look into them. It was a gratitude she knew she didn’t deserve. So she’d kissed them closed, pressing her lips gently to his eyelids as he let out a long, shallow breath.

He hadn’t spoken a word the entire time. It was the only time they were together that he said nothing. Usually he hadn’t been able to stop talking, as if the words had somehow validated the experience of being with her even more so than the physical union of their bodies. But that night he’d just watched her be alive beneath him.

And when they were approaching the still, quiet place in the middle of the storm, he had stared deeply into her eyes for a moment and hesitantly leaned close, pressed his forehead to hers, and closed his eyes. Buffy thought how strange it was that after all they’d done together, that moment, that simple touching of foreheads, was the most intimate thing they had shared all night. It was a connection full of trust and desire and something else, something she couldn’t name. She had touched his cheek, closed her eyes, and let herself explode with him.

And that was her latest self-discovery. She had confessed to Holden Webster that Spike had loved her in his, what was it she had said, sick, soulless way, but now she was realizing that she may have loved him in her own sick, soulless way, too, and punished him for it. The soul was always the standard between them, but hadn’t he shown her that a soul wasn’t everything? Hadn’t someone like Warren shown her that? Or Willow? Buffy had had a soul when she made Spike pay for that December night when she’d let herself love him just a little. She ignored him for a week afterward and ridiculed him for thinking anything had changed between them. She couldn’t even let him have that one night.

She was jostled out of her reverie by a small boy pressing in on her, looking expectantly at the hand that still hovered in front of the dessert case door. She pulled it down, stepped back, and walked away.

She took the tube home, lost in her own thoughts. Her train was half-filled, but no one spoke to her; none of that annoying, intrusive chatter by well-meaning strangers that one often found on American mass transportation. The British might invade your personal physical space on a crowded train, but they never intruded on your thoughts. The young focused on their music, and the adults, their newspapers.

When she got back to her room, she curled up in front of "Coronation Street" and fell into an uneasy slumber, dreaming of raspberry-filled doughnuts, death, and him. She always dreamed of him.

*

Buffy hurried through the lightly falling snow. She had had an early evening Christmas Eve dinner with Giles, and she’d promised to be at Vivienne’s party by 7:00. She was now officially running more than a little late.

"Damn it," she muttered and walked briskly up the street. The whole place looked different at night, and now she couldn’t remember which direction Vivienne’s house was from the station.

By the time she found it, her teeth were chattering. Vivienne herself opened the door and ushered her out the cold.

"Where’s your coat?" Vivienne exclaimed, putting her own wrap around Buffy’s shoulders and shoving a mug of hot cider into her hands.

"I forgot it," Buffy answered. When she caught sight of Vivienne’s disapproving look, she finished, "It wasn’t intentional. Honest. I’m just used 80-degree Sunnydale Christmases. It was kind of a tradition."

Vivienne smiled then and propelled her toward the dining room, full of people chattering brightly and laughing.

Buffy instantly felt out of place. She had good days and bad days, and this was rapidly turning into a bad day. Happy holiday people made her feel more isolated than usual, and his absence was a gnawing physical ache.

She felt Vivienne scrutinizing her and plastered a fake smile on her face. She and Vivienne had moved past the doctor/patient phase of their relationship months ago, and she knew that this was an important night for Vivienne. She could play at being well for a night.

But she couldn’t help but be relieved when the last of the guests left, and it was just the two of them alone in the quiet house.

"Sorry about this. I thought it would help to be around people at the holidays." Vivienne sighed, stacking the last of the plates and glasses on the serving table. "Guess I went the wrong way with that one."

Buffy sat heavily in the chair closest to the fire and contemplated the burning embers.

"Buffy, I know I ought to keep my mouth shut here, but I need to say this. Not as a doctor but as a friend. I really care about you, and I want you to be happy." Vivienne sat opposite her, clasping her hands together in her lap and taking a deep breath. "I think you should go to him."

"Go to him?" Buffy repeated blankly, setting aside her mug of cider. "What are you saying?"

Vivienne placed her hands over Buffy’s. "Maybe you can’t win him back. But I know you feel responsible for what happened between the two of you --."

"I am responsible," Buffy interrupted. "You have no idea."

"I’m just saying that until you go to him, the part of you that’s him is always going to be lost."

Buffy jerked her hands away, and Vivienne looked at her in alarm. "Maybe the part of me that’s him deserves to stay lost. I damned him to be lost, too, so why shouldn’t I suffer along?" she said hotly, getting to her feet.

"Buffy, you can’t damn someone else. You can’t be responsible for the way anyone else lives their life." Vivienne got to her feet as well and blocked Buffy’s way to the door. Her face was flushed. Buffy couldn’t recall Vivienne ever being angry with her before.

"You’re right, Vivienne," Buffy retorted sarcastically. "I can’t be responsible for the way anyone lives their life. But I sure as hell can be responsible for someone not living his life anymore. His unlife. What the hell ever."

Vivienne frowned. "What are you talking about, Buffy? You’re not making any sense."

"Spike is dead, Vivienne. I can’t go to him."

"Oh, my God, Buffy." Vivienne’s expression was a mixture of confusion and horror. "I had-- Why didn’t you tell me?" She paused as the impact of the words sunk in. "But you always talk about him the present tense. I assumed that the two of you just weren’t together any longer." Shocked tears sprung into Vivienne’s eyes. "I am so sorry."

All of Buffy’s anger evaporated, leaving her cold and deflated. "I’m sorry, too, for jumping all over you," she said dully. "As for the present-tense thing, it’s just --. I can’t let myself think that he’s gone. I’d rather lie to myself, to you. Isn’t that pathetic? If I admit the truth, then I have to admit that I can’t ever change anything." She paused and noticed Vivienne staring at her very intently. Then Vivienne’s eyes widened, and she inhaled sharply. "What? What is it?" Buffy asked.

One emotion after another passed over Vivienne’s face, and Buffy could almost make each one out separately: horror, dismay, shock, guilt. Vivienne swore softly. "How could I have been so stupid?" she wondered aloud, shaking her head in disgust.

"Damn it, Vivienne. What is going on?" Buffy demanded impatiently.

Vivienne avoided Buffy’s eyes for another second and exhaled slowly before she spoke. "Buffy, Spike is alive."