Title: Cruelty

Summary: Post NFA Buffy gets a call. Angst ahead.

Prompt: still_my_girl “I do what many dream of all their lives”

 

 

 

The Powers that Be could be cruel. She knew that. She’d learned it long ago when she was still just a girl, but she hadn’t realized how cruel until she got the call.

 

There was never any choice. She was going. Giles helped her get on a flight that left almost immediately. She didn’t realize until she was somewhere over the ocean that she’d forgotten to pack a bag. It wasn’t as if it was going to matter anyway, not when she was returning this way.

 

Most of the flight was spent flip flopping between cursing the Powers and a blissful numb. She was dry eyed the entire way. She knew that just as she as she knew the tears would come.

 

Spike met her in the lobby, took her elbow and led her to the elevator.

 

“Got to warn you, Slayer. It’s bad.” The blond vampire’s voice held none of the snark and sarcasm she’d come to rely on. Instead it was distant, as if he’d already lost everything that mattered.

 

“Yeah…’cause I never get a call unless it’s bad,” she responded, her eyes focusing her hands.

 

Spike didn’t say anything just nodded and desperately wished for a cigarette.

 

The ding of the elevator announcing they’d arrived at their floor was unnaturally loud. The doors slid open and Spike had to take her elbow again to make her move forward.

 

He was so small lying in the bed, tubes feeding in and out of his body. She looked behind her, eyes bewildered at Spike who nodded. She bit down on her lip and took a hesitant step toward the bed. It was the last time she hesitated.

 

For the first time in her life, her hands seemed to engulf one of his. She watched his eyes because she couldn’t look at their entwined hands. His face was bruised, cut and scraped. That was the only damage that showed though. The rest was hidden deep inside, beneath skin that was warm for the first time in over two hundred and fifty years. Massive internal bleeding, organs that were too damaged to repair. The doctors were surprised he’d held on this long.

 

Buffy knew why. If she’d had any doubts, the answer was in his eyes.

 

“Hey,” she offered him a brave smile, her eyes shining with tears.

 

“You came,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

 

“Duh but you didn’t have to go through all this trouble to get me here.” She was fighting total breakdown but if he could bear to stay for her, she could bear to be strong for him.

 

“Wanted to wait.”

 

She nodded. “I know. You don’t have to talk. Conserve your strength.” She reached up and very gently smoothed his hair back from his forehead, careful not to touch any of his injuries.

 

“Have to know,” he said and then paused, panting for breath that he desperately needed and was too wounded to draw. One of his lungs had collapsed and that was the more minor of the injuries. “Ever regret?”

 

His eyes asked the remainder of the question. Buffy shook her head and took a deep, trembling breath. She knew she wouldn’t have to hold it together much longer and that made it all the more difficult.

 

 

“People dream their whole lives and never find what you and I have, Angel. You are my light, my reason, my reward, my sanity, my shelter. You always have been and you always will be. We don’t end here. We never end. How can I regret that?” Tears started down her cheeks and she stood up, leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on bruised and battered lips.

 

The sound of the heart monitor flat lining was drowned out by her sobs.