by Alison

Spoilers:  This is post After Life and does contain spoilers for 
everything that has come before.  You have been warned.

Summary or whatever:  This is a bit of what I think Spike would be 
thinking about after Buffy's big revelation.

Diclaimer:  I have never owned, nor will I ever own, these 
characters.  I love them, but I'm not sure I would ever want to take 
the responcibility for owning them.  And if I just spelled 
responcibilty wrong, please do not allow that to influence your 
reading of the fic.  I used spell check on it- honestly I did!
Anywho, back to the disclaimer- don't own them, never have, never 
will, and suing me will get you nowhere.  Joss is god.  All hair 
Joss.  Amen.

Thank yous:  Nitty-Doo- thank you so much for listening and giving me 
pointers.  You were a great help.  Alice, I really wrote this for you.

        He's not entirely sure what to do now.  Now that he knows.  
And boy, was that a big hunk of pain that she laid on him. 

	"They can never know."  Bloody hell.

	How is he supposed to keep this one under wraps?  It was a 
bad idea from the start and he's sure that if they had told him what 
they were doing, he would have voted no.  No matter how much it would 
have killed him.  No matter how much he would dream about it 
afterwards.  He knows, better than most, what it takes to go to Hell 
and Buffy just didn't have it in her.  Heaven was the only spot for 
that beautiful girl.  

        She was the slayer for fucks sake!  Where the hell else would 
she go?  The anger inside him starts to build, the shock of her 
revelation wearing off, but not quite.  How could they have done this 
to her?  How could they have ripped her out of the one place she 
deserved to be?  The place that she had more than earned?  Blooding 
fucking HEAVEN, for fucks sake and they had the nerve to take her 
away from it.

        Because they didn't know.  Because they didn't want to think 
that she wasn't in hell.  Then, how could they justify bringing her 
back?  

        Maybe if she were suffering, it would be ok….

        He could have told them exactly where she was.  Where she had 
gone.  They just never bothered to ask.

        It crosses his mind that maybe she had been with her mother.  
That maybe she had been with those that had gone before her.  Jenny 
Calendar.  That kid that Xander and Willow were… what the fuck was 
his name again?  Fuck it, he hadn't even known the guy, why did he 
care whether she had been with him or not?

        Because he hadn't been there.  And no matter what else 
happened in his life, it would never be him.  He was evil, something 
he had reveled in since he had been turned.  He had done abhorrent 
things that he could never be absolved from.  He would never go to 
Heaven.  And he really hadn't had the urge to go.  Until her.  Until 
her death.  And then he had known.  All the love- love?- in his heart 
had known that she was there, something in him, left over from 
William the romantic, told him that's where she was.

        And he had never wanted anything more in his life.  Unlife.  
What-the-fuck ever.

        His chest hurts.  It's not his heart.  It doesn't beat.  It's 
not his lungs either because he's not breathing, 'cause, hello, 
doesn't have to.  But it still hurts.  And he doesn't know why.

        He's going to have to play this one close to his chest.  Be 
careful when arguing with the Scoobies because if he lets this one 
slip, then he'll lose her forever.  And he just got her back.  
Rightly or wrongly, she is back.  And she had come to him.  Not just 
once but TWICE.  He had her again and now it was different.  She 
understood.  He wasn't sure what was understood, exactly, but there 
was something about him that she now knew too.

        He doesn't want her to.  Something in him hates that she 
understands.  That she had to claw out of the coffin.  That she had 
to almost rebirth herself.  And that she had to even experience what 
he had to.  She's too good for that.  Too strong.  Too beautiful.  
Too pure.

        Nothing at all like him.

        He's pissed now, so incredibly angry that they would trust 
him with Dawn but not with this.  How could they have their stupid 
meetings about raising the dead- the woman that despite everything, 
he loved- and leave him to do all those things that he would never, 
EVER have done under any other circumstances- play rummy and talk 
about boys and listen to that damn Backdoor Boys crap that he loathed 
and braid hair and…  

        But there was that.  They trusted him with Dawn.  Trusted him 
to take care of her.  And he had.  Very well, as a matter of fact.  
What if he had known?  Would that have changed things?  Maybe that's 
why…

        They hated him.  That was why.

        But what if they didn't?

        Buffy certainly didn't hate him if she told him her secret 
and expected him to keep it.  She trusted him with Dawn and that was 
before….  

        He can't even think it.  Not even now, with her back.  It's 
as if those words would eat him alive if he thought about them at all 
and so he doesn't.  It should be better but it isn't.  


        Can you ever get over the death of someone you love, even if 
they come back?

        It's different now.  How could it not be?  It's different now 
and he's not sure if it will be better than before or worse but he 
knows that it is different.  Her appearance at his crypt is proof of 
that.  Her confession to HIM and only HIM is point two.  

        He doesn't want to admit that he was the only one she really 
could confess to.  The only one who didn't know.  Didn't help.  
Didn't work the magic that pulled her out of the warmth of love and 
happiness that she had been enshrouded in at her death.  

        He was the only one.

        Couldn't tell the Bit.  She hadn't known either but she was 
too young to have that responsibility on her little head.  The guilt 
that would come from knowing that you were happy having your sister 
back but miserable because you know that she is in Hell.  A personal 
Hell that only she really understands. 

        Maybe that's why she made with the sharing.  Maybe that's why…
 
        Maybe there's more to it.

        Maybe.

        A guy could hope, couldn't he? 

Back to the Library