~*~
Epiphanies. Huhn. Buffy has always wondered what one would feel like. Rather like a dream, she's found, and those are never good.
One night when she wakes up from darkness and shadows, she feels him.
He is a ghost, a whisper in her heart, but right now, he feels so real that she reaches wildly beside her, she touches the wrinkled creases of her cold bed and accepts that it is all in her head...again.
She saw him die, after all. In her world, of course, that doesn't mean much-- people have a way of spitting Death in the eye, herself included- but when she saw him there that day, it felt final. It felt over. He was beautiful, she thinks, all glowy and hard muscles and bright eyes, with fire raining down on him. It was a fitting way to go...he was finally the champion he'd always wanted to be. But there's still that echo buried deep within her, his gravelly voice, the quirk of his mouth. She saw him die, but she feels him in these early morning hours. It seeps into her bones and he is constantly with her, like he always wished he would be.
But there's no way to tell him that now. He sacrificed himself for the world, as heroes are wont to do, and she's stuck in paradise, dwelling on how truly alone she is. She hasn't got any more ties, any more responsibilities, any more restrictions stopping her from being happy. From being normal. She can finally be free--but she finds herself shackled to the what ifs and the could be's and, God, it would just figure that after all this time and death, she is finally ready to let go for him.
She's shacked up with this guy...he doesn't even have a real name. The Immortal, he calls himself. She sometimes finds herself subversively calling him "Mort," for short, in her head. He's just a means to the end-- she needs to forget and he needs a piece of arm candy. Even legends have to keep up appearances, she reminds him, and they both wonder just who she is talking about, him or herself. He whispers as the moon filters into her room that he can taste another memory on her tongue, a passion of long ago. He says he recognizes it rather well. Saw the source not a week ago, in fact.
Her heart stops.
"Where," she whispers, her voice unrecognizable. "Where?"
And he tells her. He tells her of the Champion and the Angel who visited Italy with a sole purpose in mind: to win the heart of the Slayer. And as he tells her of the chase, of the way they saw her without her seeing them, her heart resumes beating. Very hard.
He is alive. She saw him die, and he is alive. Huhn. The universe always comes through, she supposes.
And now it is a question of what to do that has been plaguing her. Weeks have passed, and she reasons that a untold amount of events could have happened since he first came to Italy. And yet..she wakes up to his scent and his touch more and more lately. There were two of them, she recalls, two lost loves with the potential and promise of more. One of them could never seem to relinquish his heart to her. The other has nothing but his love to offer. She could fly to L.A and go to Wolfram & Hart, she could stride in and take his hand and show him how she feels. She could be brave and she could finally let him into her heart. Maybe..she could maybe be in love. Maybe.
Or she could sit here forever, or until she dies again, or he dies again, or the world inevitably ends. She could do that, and she'd be stuck with ghosts forever. Like she always knew she'd be. She could be the unnatural, alone. She could deny herself her future, her normalcy, her love.
"I want to book a flight," she whispers into the phone a sultry Tuesday night. The air is light in her room and there is a sense of a new beginning clinging to her skin. It is foreign; nothing has ever felt that good in a long while. She wants to drink to it. She packs instead.
Clothes, toiletries, airplane reading, and just because old habits die hard, a long serrated piece of wood that somehow, airport security always seems to miss. Her life has been packed into a suitcase and she is preparing to touch down in L.A. There is fear in her heart and it is blurring the lines of her vision. What is she doing? Just because she wakes up to phantoms, she thinks she can erase the past two years and make this all okay again? What does she think will happen? She'll kiss him and he'll be putty in her hands? They always fight, even in their passion, tooth and nail.
Her hands are shaking as she pays the cab driver his money, as she easily hoists her suitcase up from the trunk, as she eyes the grandiose building. This is his life now, this is what he knows. What right does she have to interrupt?
And then like a whisper, his voice caresses her heart. "A hundred plus years and there's only been one thing I've been sure of: you...You are one hell of a woman." The imagined burn of the ashes falling from his cigarette stings her fingers, like the tears sting her eyes.
She lets loose a laugh, deep and true, at this memory. In that moment, she knows. Phantom or not, he is with her now. Forever, with these words, he has proved to her what he is. Her safety, her truth, the only thing she can ever count on no matter what. All she can do is hope she's been with him, too. That he can trust her again. They could be each other's fairytales.
The steps are never ending it seems, and a cluster of suit-types goggle openly as she shoves the glass doors open. She wonders where he will be, how to go about finding him in this place of lies and illusions. Then comes the fleeting sense of his scent. She looks up sharply and there he is, peering over the edge of the railing, his eyes wide and dark.
And so it goes. She has woken up, she feels him in her blood, and she watches as he descends the stairs achingly slow. She wants to run to him, but she understands that this may scare him away, may draw attention, may dredge questions from people she does not want to answer to.
He stands in front of her, his leather duster cool against her fingers, the smell of smoke and grass heavy in the air. His voice, hoarse and laden with meaning, reaches her ears. "Me?" he asks, and that is all.
She can do nothing but nod. Her hands shake and drop from his jacket, her eyes blur with tears. Her shoulders shrug and her voice is desperate. "You." she whispers. "You."
His hands catch hers and hold on tighty, the cold skin somehow warming her up more than she's ever been warm before. His eyes gaze into hers, into her, and his mouth works soundlessly. "God," he says brokenly. "Buffy."
And then she says his name, her arms thrown around his neck and her body tight against his. She says his name, calls to memory a man that once was, and it is a power all on its own. "William." Just once, she tries it, the flavor of it foriegn on her tongue. "Spike. I...love. I love you." It is hard, harder than that time she was sure they would both die and there was nothing to hide. It is hard because now she is sure she means it. And because it is hard, she says it. Because he once told her that life was just that--living. And living is hard.
She is alive now. She lets herself live as he sobs into her shoulder, her hair, and his touches aren't phantom anymore. They are real and solid and maybe now, maybe now Buffy can let herself be a normal girl.
One night when she wakes up, she feels him. Only this time, he is really there.
~*~
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