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.

Part Two:
Sandman

Copenhagen 2023

December 15 had just clicked over from p.m. to a.m. when he felt the tug.  It felt like a little tug just a little twist of flesh on his arm.  His forearm.

He felt a tug and thought of Buffy, but he so often did that he didn't think much of thinking of her. 

Another tug. More insistent this time.

And of course it was the time of year.  This with Christmas coming and her and snow and lights and why the hell had he stayed in Copenhagen for the season but he already knew why-so he could twist the knife in his heart, so he could twist his heart around his love, his last love that would have to last him rest of his unlife.  He had chosen a city, an old city that would do the season up proper, up royal.

"Skaal!"

He toasted and slammed back a flaming brandy.

Live dangerously.

He was hit so hard he fell off his bar stool.

Buffy.

"Buffy."

He righted himself, stood, a little shaky and called the barkeep.

"Café…"

He didn't drink much these days-had to stay alert, on the ball-there were people, slayers that depended on him-but as a special treat to himself he had spent the last week trying so hard to stay drunk and now he couldn't get sober fast enough.

He thought hard.  A week maybe less.  He could be back in Sunnydale in a week.

Something terrible must be happening to her or Dawn for her to call him for help.

She must be desperate. 

One week…maybe, maybe three days…

       *

She woke with a start sitting ramrod up right in bed clutching a pillow, her hands like claws.  She was sweating. She had stifled a scream which was good no need to freak out Angel and Dawn--she needed her sleep especially after… 

She looked at the pillow, in her dream it had been Spikes arms.  In her dream she had clutched him and begged him, begged him in words she never, never would have used during awake time:   "…come back, please come back…help me…I need you…I can't do this by myself,  I would never ask but they wanna hurt me, they don't know what they're doing-it feels like rape, Spike …please come now you've been away long enough…don't punish me… "

And words like that--in her dream he had seemed distracted and kept turning away indifferent as she pleaded until she had grabbed both his arms in a death grip and made him look at her.

She never would have asked him, or ever considered it really, but oh, Freud would have loved this EH?  Running to the one who had saved her when she had been so close to the end.  The Slayer in the subconscious sensing the current to come had called out like a good general for reinforcements with or without Buffy's consent.  She hadn't wanted to bring him in to this-nobody wanted him here and it would only hurt him terribly in the end but the Super power of the subconscious coupled with slayer power called out to cash in the old promise.

She wasn't sure if it was smart or not-or if he would bring more trouble than solve but it was over, it was done-the mail had slipped out and she knew in her heart.

Spike was coming.

Spike was coming.  She would see Spike again.

Not cryptic notes, or secret gifts to each other or the sidelong glance in the crowd accidentally meeting after years of separation.  She had to admit most of the reason she went to the L.A. art gallery openings wasn't always to support Dawn-maybe, maybe she would see him.  What would he be wearing?  Terrible these small thoughts. Small bits of color had come into his life since his exit from hers.  What did that mean?  She had always been looking for evidence that she was there still alive in him.  Still there.  And once or twice it occurred to her that she was doing to Spike what Angel had done to her for most of her life-(I'M HERE DON'T TOUCH)--but couldn't stop.  She would see him from across the room laughing with Dawn-they had stayed quite friends--get the inevitable eye contact, feel the magnetic pull that is Buffy/Spikism, feel the life line of undying devotion travel from him to her.  It was the moment before he could stop himself, he would lift his head the way you do when someone is looking for you, turn without thinking and there in his eyes always, always the naked look of hunger and love before he could check it, shield it and turn away.

And Buffy would think…oh my god…if only…in another world…in another life…it would be him.

And now she would see him, he would come, he would overcome his bitterness, and pain and come sit beside her and they could look at each other without running away in the eyes and touch…she decided to dye her hair back to brown.  It was time, Spike was coming.

She lay back down on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and gradually felt her self…relax and this her last thought before the fall
 fall, prat fall back to sleep.  
 
Funny.   Funny the slayer had called on the expatriate vampire.

And not the local one.
It was almost slip on a banana peel funny.

       *

She had stayed at the house.  All these years gone by and she had stayed on Revello.  Some part of him always wondered maybe hoped that had she stayed so he would always be able to find her but he knew that was a kind a vanity. 

Or maybe it was vanity, only it was hers as he considered Buffy's attachment to him-the security of always being loved and worshipped by him, her knight from the dark ages with her kerchief on his lance.  It must be tempting insurance indeed for a lonely woman.

And the small moments between them over the years would be enough to recharge their spirits, like hooking up to a vital power source--but never enough to make her leave.

Once she had kissed him.  It was in 2011 and Dawn had made her first big sale and the whole room had been buzzing with alcoholized blood-and she had kissed him.   They hadn't even spoken a word that evening-since she had chosen Angel in 2003-they had barely talked but she had followed him outside when he took his smoke and she had just walked up to him and kissed him and he still remembered her roaring hunger as she pulled his tongue into her mouth   It was fast-she had let him cup his hands under her ass and lift her up on to him-so she could feel him-he remembered her groan as she ground her female entrance toward him-and they would have taken each other--they would have, right there on the terrace sheltered only by a few bushes save for the hot searching stream of headlights from a car pulling up the drive. 

They had been slightly obscured from the main door but as the light cut through the bushes-it had felt like the searchlight pinning the escaping prisoners of war against the wall.  They had frozen until the arc of the light moved away and then she had broken from him and ran back to the stalag. 

She ran back…and he went over the wall and escaped.  Figuratively.  (p.s.--he thought he heard her rip her dress.) 

She was insane. 
Crazier than Dru could ever have aspired to.

He loved crazy women.

Buffy would stay a POW for the rest of her life.  A nun in her habitat safe in her celibacy, safe from the dangerous and messy details of real life love. 

She would have come with him that night, it was more than the sex, he had felt it, they were going to escape but she would not come away with him.  She broke when the cops came. Under the hot searchlight of--. 

Authority. 

Father figures. 

She always had to remain within spitting distance of her Angel.  Oh yeah, he had kept tabs on him as well--ever since he came back from hell no worse for the wear.  And as much as Spike had mercifully been granted a quieter spirit in his demon, it was still there and he had wanted to rip Angel's throat out.  Even, now, he had to pause and do a little pretend deep breathing to calm, calm…

And it wasn't just jealousy, it truly wasn't--it was Angel's twisted possessiveness in reverse.  Sheltered selfishness under the guise of the philanthropist.  After he had come back from hell-which happened, so it seems, when Spike and Buffy had been in Denver THAT Christmas and according to Buffy, when Angel had left her the second time and this time of his own free will choice no less-he had insisted Buffy lead 'a normal life.'  Well…when Spike's love and need for Buffy had softened the demon enough to keep the violence under control-he had re-entered the picture and then the definition wasn't 'normal' anymore, then it became: 'The Life Angel Wanted For Buffy'. 

Just that.  Which really meant, if I can't have her, no one will.

Always, control, control.

When Angel had discovered Buffy loved Spike-he, Spike, formerly the most despised of creatures--and Spike knew Buffy loved him, he knew it-when the scales had fallen from Angel's eyes on that score-well, then it was…veiled promises...the dangled carrot to Buffy---maybe this year he would Shanshu…maybe this year…and Buffy…Buffy, truth to be told, went with it.  She went with it. She kept Angel in her life…and she had to put Spike out.

Spike made her decide.  He knew she loved them both and unlike Angel he wasn't going to wait on the sidelines, he wanted sex, and love and spitting and crying and fighting the whole works.  And he wanted to experience this with Buffy.  Their quick minds, ability to love passionately--their loyal and intense sexual natures had been screaming out to each other.

So he had gotten his demon under control or rather it had 'agreed' and called itself for a transfiguration, and he stopped killing people, and he had come back only to find Angel had crawled up out of hell only to bring it here to Earth.  He tracked his footprints of doomed soul mate love like a ring a 'rosie 'round Buffy that somehow resonated with her.  Angel and Buffy had a connection.  It was true.  They had a connection Buffy didn't want to break and Buffy could not stand the thought of hurting Angel with continuing a sexual relationship with Spike.  So.  She chose

She was a fool, he knew it, but a person makes decisions sometimes from some secret inexplicable place that can never be observed from another.  And he had respected that.  Wasn't he himself 'Spike the Obscure'?

And so in 2003, he had left.  Again.  Oh god, but at least he hadn't made the decision for her--no, he didn't make it easy on her, oh no--he had thrown pride completely aside and begged her on his knees to be with him completely.  He had made her say… 'no'  Tears streaming down her face-he had made her say it from the very center of her soul and to his face.

But it had to be done.  Too many men had made decisions without consulting her, for her, or just walked away as a simple solution next to confrontation, and he would not do that. And she had to know for herself that she was not the victim of someone else's mood or ego or pride, and had to say out loud to the world what she wanted.

You act like a victim and you'll be a victim.  Her line of work was much too dangerous for her to be playing pin the tail on the Buffed one.

And he knew his leaving her wasn't what:  'she wanted.'

He knew that.

But she would never be able to get completely what she wanted…
Who did?  Besides her life wasn't built that way-it was obvious.

True love schmu love.  Live a little and find out the truth about that.

True love meant truly trying.
Not this sitting back and letting destiny do the details.

Fuck.

(…I'm gonna Shanshu…I really am…trust me Buffy just one more year…)
          
Maybe she could only get parts of what she wanted and in 2003; she had chosen the part that didn't include Spike or their sex.

And so he had left.  And outside the near escape kissy/groping incident in 2011-they hadn't touched each other in over nineteen years. 

So he had gone to Europe, he could speak fourteen different languages not to mention the dead ones or the demon ones and so it was a good place for him.  There were very bad memories sure, so many triggers to old behavior patterns that he often felt like an addict facing the needle--but it was a cosmopolitan setting, open minds, lots of demon and human interaction and…opera…

As a human he had loved the opera.  He had lost Buffy but thank god he had rediscovered opera. 

It had saved his sanity.

It was the only medium large enough, intense enough outside punk rock and could rouse lethargy, soothe his aching heart with tales as broken as his own and love, love, love…he would always be about folly and the love. 

He felt sane when he was at the opera-fine opera, not just any ole yodel throwers. It was a passionate intensity that existed there outside his body, outside his mind and had a separate life in the world and it made him feel…not as alone.  Not quite so singular.  It made him begin to suspect…that…maybe just maybe…there was…mercy. 

It was during Madame Butterfly, Illyana Alaya singing Madame--that he felt the first blink of his soul, of William come back.

Poor blighter probably wanted to come down closer to the fire to roast his hair shirt on.  William's soul, that is the anchor of it-musta been tempted by the intense emotions torturing him ripping him in twain and all to a tune--and had to come down for a closer look. Spike had teased himself with that image in retrospect. 

In the moment, the tiny slice of soul slipping in had been shocking, frightening, painful but eased made into exquisite pleasure by Madame's aria.  She had sung him through it and Spike had held on to her promise of the nobility of heartfelt intention.  Of genuine sacrifice that wasn't because it was freely given.  What can be lost when you want to give?  

So he had taken the first step in really, really sacrificing who he had been, his past…for the rest of his soul. 

He confessed himself on the alter of opera.  He would listen intently to the stories-love, betrayal, crime and punishment. 
He would see himself in the characters, be so deeply drawn in, that he would loose his sense of self and find in the staging of these poetic scenarios the reality of cause and effect relationship.

I hit, you hurt, you hurt, you hit. 

Of course this was something he knew-hell it was almost his motto.  But the opera stories washed him soapy clean enough for him to be able to identify, to see, to want:      Justice. 

That what had been done to others should be done in turn to you, the perp.

(Spike the perp.  Was that the soul twittering on?)

It was a law of nature.
Bounce a ball against a wall and it will bang back at your noggin.
Nothing personal, just physics.

And he was no exception. The life he was leading separated from his love…is what he had done to countless others.
 
Murder:  The great separator. 

But this too, helped him feel…well, a little more sane-at least, and his little shock of a soul would point the way-there is a kind of…balance.  Perhaps the world wasn't complete chaos and he could work with that, he could, if there was a formula--while he waited for another soul deposit.
 
Some times, a little bit, a shard would come back unexpected like-once, when he watched a bird preen it's feathers and then shake them all to it's satisfaction, he had chuckled at the sight and then: bitty bing a bit of soul was scored. 

So what did he know?  He never could make it happen--it was 'a happening baby' in the best 60's new theatre tradition all by itself.

And how about that? In the theatrical world intense feeling wasn't punished, it was rewarded and here he would sit with sometimes 300 to 1,000 strangers most human, some not-who maybe, and sometimes just for the length of a held breath--felt the same way.  It was comforting.

And maybe some of them just came for the gossip and glad rag slam dance.       

So he had become a patron of the arts and the artists.  He protected them from mobs, the Russian mob, Italian of course, the Mafia, of course--greatest export to the western world and sundry demonic influences.  People in the limelight such as his were, always were a target for dark influence.  Usually they were communicators and conductors of healing energy and light so of course there were those who would want to subvert, enslave through sex, drugs or witchcraft and it had become known that Spike the Obscure would champion an artist under siege.  And not just the known ones either, there were many unknown but at the same time great artists that needed help.  And of course the devil always went for the great ones.

So he had a life, he had some Slayer friends-since Buffy's brilliant idea and Red and Giles pulling it off-there were slayers a plenty--he supposed he would always crave being close to Slayer energy.

So he had left his Buffy but he had never… 'moved on'.  Unlike the stories he used to watch on the T.V.  He just couldn't 'move on'.  Buffy occupied the last space in his heart.  His Mother, Cecily, Dru and Buffy. 

There are only four quadrants of the heart.     

Only four and he had filled his.

And so he had come back to Sunnydale, of course he had come back.  His love had called and he would have come back on his knees.

It must be something terrible for her to have called for him, to pull in the marker of that old promise.

Well, he would soon find out.

He knocked on the door of Revello Drive.

The door opened slowly and revealed: Giles.

It was Giles, and he said, in only the way he could, not a greeting or recognition, just that simple almost resigned statement...

"Spike."

*