SNOW VIRGINS

Summary:    Post 'Becoming'--AU--Way up North.  Buffy and Spike find mutual grief the strange peacemaker as they stem self destruction and the downward spiral spun from the disaster of Acathla.  Story concludes twenty years later.

*

She was staring at the water in the tub.  Just staring.  Just standing, staring like she had forgotten where she was, what was doing, just some accelerated merciful Alzheimer's for the punch drunk.  When she heard the click of the lock moving and the front door being opened.

He was leaving.  He was leaving her here.

She opened the bathroom door, Duster still wrapped tight around her.
She said nothing just looked at him blankly, eyes a little wide, mouth set in a small line.

Spike stood framed in the doorway.

Beat.

They looked at each other.

Spike felt a little break, somewhere in there, somewhere in his living dead body where his heart had been giving orders when he was alive.  He felt the poor neglected organ struggling for command over the carrion.

He couldn't do it.  Couldn't leave her.  It could have been Dru, it could have been Anne but in the end it would always be him, the fool and the list of things William would not do.

"Just going out to the car-got some clothes in the boot.  If you don't mind black that is." 

He nodded toward the duster, "I'll be wanting that back see?"

What else could he say to convince her-"Get some food, tea, be back in five, ten tops."  

And with that he left.

Buffy stood in the doorway of the bathroom hands balanced lightly on the doorjamb one to the left and one to the right.

She watched the front door.  Face expressionless.  Body some running Diane praying, praying herself into stone, into tree into laurel leaves.   

She watched the front door.
 

electric hum of the lights.

somebody dropped something next door.

spike

maybe footsteps coming

fading now

maybe not

front door brown wood and there's the light switch just to the left and then the curtain…green…

why is it always green?

front door

quiet

Sound of key in the latch knob turns front door opens he comes in.

Spike looked at her still standing in the door way exactly as he had left her and said nothing. 

Stepped into the room and knocked the door closed with the back of his boot and carried an arm full of clothes dropped them on the floor and put the bag of food on the dresser. 

He deliberately said nothing, just set about, pulled two cups from a bag. Set one next to the bag of food and took the other with him and sat down.

He didn't look up until she had finally gone inside the bathroom and closed the door.  He heard the lock click and nodded his head.

He sat in the chair running his hands almost savagely through his hair finally gripping the hair firmly at the nape of his neck leaned forward between his knees, and rocking now almost keening he hung on, just hung on…

       *

"So."

She was awake, she had slept the rest of the evening and through to the next day and now she sat bundled up in layers of clothes-his and…(Dru's) he had wondered about seeing the Slayer wear Dru's old clothes but then thought, fuck it. 

Buffy had wrapped herself in layers of clothes, t shirts upon shirts upon shirts-probably to disguise the original owners to herself.  To redefine them through hodge podge fashion-that, and the cushion effect. 

He could see herself trying to protect herself, to be, to look puffed up, bigger in the world.  Or maybe it was getting cold in here?  He checked the heat dial-what was good?  He inched it up a little.  It was getting cold outside. It didn't affect him, but he could still feel it as cold-almost bracing.  It eased him somehow and had gone out often during the night to light a cigarette and brace.

First night together gone, then morning and most of the day.

And here she sat freshly scrubbed, washed, (again-two baths and four showers)
All bundled up with a heart beat. Pain with icing.  Should have been delicious.  Should have been.

A little girl, a little killer of a girl.  She was the slayer after all, she could take a couple of questions-it was time to progress.

And he had to figure out--he had to figure out why the hell he was still here--what was he doing?  He wanted to be out by now, had to be out before it caught up to him.  Even he could only stay drunk or dazed for so long but he couldn't seem to stop himself from taking care of her-almost on automatic. True he often didn't know what or why he would do something until after it was done-and true he didn't really care anymore 'bout anything, but still--this was some kinda new gold standard for bizarre even for him.

Answers to a couple of questions might do.

"So, you have your cuppa?"

Buffy nodded holding her tea.

"So lets cut to it". He sat in the chair across from her bed adjusted the curtains to allow for the indirect late afternoon light-she should have light.  Looked out the window a moment at the falling snow, dusting everything, turning it all white…all right…ah Dru… 

He turned and sat and regarded her almost casually.  The vision of the falling snow, crazy shake up crystal snowball with a blond vampire as a centerpiece.  Buffy stared wide eyed at yet another scene to fit somewhere into her life.

"Why you trying to kill yourself?"

Buffy looked away.  That didn't deserve an answer.  He didn't deserve an answer.

"Trying awful hard to kill everything virtuous and bright about you.  Trying to wipe out your virginity five different ways to Tuesday.  I'd say, yeah, that qualifies as trying to kill everything you are."

"Oh, like that isn't your wet dream?"  Buffy spat like a hot cat.  A crazy kitten too small to understand friend from foe.

"Not right now.  Maybe not anymore."  He sounded so sure, she stared at him.  

"Why you trying to kill yourself?"

She ignored him turned the other way and pulled the blankets up around her to shut him up, to shut it out.

       *

She woke up sometime during the night noticed immediately an ease of pain in her body, Fast healing.  The pain in her body was going, going but where?   Suspicious now, she watched pain move from her body, she watched it go traveling…into her heart.  Into her mind.  Her soul. 

Every blow, every physical offence was eased, drawn away from the place of impact, drawn up out of her body and then drawn onto her most secret self.  She would never be Buffy again.

Clean smooth flesh, bruises fading…and tattooed interior.

Mommy

Her small hands stroked the satin smoothness of the motel bedspread.

She had come face to face with evil most pernicious over the past three years since her calling but after the exotic extreme black of the Master, the charisma of…yes Spike and Dru and of course the world celebrity Angelus--who would be looking for evil in casual clothes?

Ordinary men and evil hidden in plain sight.

No more.  No more thinking.

Speaking of evil.  Here was one of the banes, nay almost banner boy of the bane of her existence right there.  He had fallen asleep in the chair.  Almost beautiful in repose.  His dark nature minimized by sitting so still. So still.  Quiet.  Alabaster skin, shock of white blond hair and the snow falling behind him gracing the air sweetly swirling in an almost benediction.

Spike in snowlight.

He seemed so strangely lacking in life force.  His usual crackle and hum was far and away.  She felt no threat from him.  He looked gaunt too. Well more than usual, more than she had remembered.

The bones of his face lit by the exterior light outside the motel.

Quiet.  Repose. 

She looked at the big fat snow flakes falling. It was coming down fast.  She'd never been in a snowstorm, now she might be snowbound.

Snowbound.  Bound by snow. 

Soft white piling up around him…and her--soft snow round them, quiet.  Stealthy.  Cushion and carrion.  Soft cradle of freezing death. 

It was beautiful.  It was the silent 'o' in awe.

Sun was coming up.  She could see the black night blur to purple.  Wait.  Sun coming up directly behind.  The sky was overcast but still.  He had sat himself there last night.  A master vampire sitting at a naked window, setting himself into a deep sleep and…

"Why are you trying to kill yourself?"   Buffy asked the corpse.

She watched him.  She watched the newlywed sky, purple changing its mind to deep blue to dark orange and just how much light would it take to dust a vamp?

She could be clinical, she could.  She could just observe--here she was in the amazing position of discovering just how much light would make the baby go blind.

The sun began its climb.  Quite a mission statement: To obliterate the black night.

Apollo racing to fuck Diane. Tenacious light on a search and destroy all, all things dark.  All things of the night, all things moonmade…

And if the sun sought him out and removed his blot, what was that to her?  The judgment had been made by better heads than hers.  Ye yonder sun god making a clean sweep of the night and the complexity of the occult. White light taking its turn.

She had discovered evil could be hidden and sly and horrible in an everyday everyman way and here he was:  Spike offered up on a platter.  This was a good, easy kill--evil out in the open and obvious for the sun to purge.  With so much evil hidden, so, so much to watch out for all the time- not only demons now but all of mankind and where is the kindness in that kind of burden?  So wasn't it good to have nature on her side to take care of this the obvious?  The sun knew what it was doing.

It would be medicinal to watch.

Good bye black knight, bad night gone with the moon goddess…

(…wait a sec-where is Drusilla?)

Why are you trying to kill yourself?

The sun was on the sill now, a steadfast…unthinking, unfeeling moving machine…

A sharp pang, a spike in her heart and she shoved her fist in her mouth to stifle a scream.

*