A Loss of Pride by Mabel Marsters

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Chapter 8: He Needs You, Buffy

Buffy slammed the phone down so hard that it almost broke. She stepped away, staring at it as if she expected it to go for her throat.

“Oh my God.”

Her legs went weak and she just made it to the couch before they gave out completely.

“Spike? How could he be back? I saw him start to burn.”

She had thought that she had no more tears left to shed for him but she soon found out that was wrong. She buried her head in her hands as sobs wracked her body.

It was two hours before, hands trembling, she returned Angel’s call.

“How long?” she asked, before he could speak.

“What?”

“How long has he been back?

Shit, she wasn’t going to like this, not one little bit.

“Um…since about three weeks after Sunnydale.” He pulled the phone away from his ear as Buffy screamed at him.

“He was gone for only three weeks and no one tells me? I mourned him, for God’s sake. I still do. I loved him. It nearly killed me when he died, and he comes back and doesn’t tell me?”

“It was complicated.”

Click.

“Christ, this is going to take weeks at this rate!” Angel vamped up in frustration and called her back. “If you ever loved him, just listen for a minute, Buffy.”

He heard her breath hitch as she stifled her tears. He hated that she was crying. He quickly told her what had happened to Spike since he arrived in a puff of smoke in Angel’s office, first as a ghost, then, when corporeal again, as a pain in the ass. Buffy smiled at that. Typical Angel, he and Spike had always rubbed each other up the wrong way.

“Why didn’t he tell me when he was properly back?”

“Buffy, he thought that you hadn’t meant what you said to him in the Hellmouth. He knew you were with the Immortal and thought that you were happy. He wanted you to be happy.”

“I’ll never be happy without Spike,” said Buffy, so quietly that it was only Angel’s vampire hearing that picked it up. He felt a stab in his unbeating heart. Once upon a time she’d thought that of him.

“He needs you, Buffy.”

“Not enough for him to call himself, Angel. I’m sorry, I can’t deal with this.” She burst into loud sobs. “I just can’t…”

"Buffy, wait.”

But once again Angel was talking to no one. She’d put the phone down again. He ran a hand over his face. He had to get her to listen. If she wouldn’t talk on the phone, he’d just have to talk to her in person…

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Buffy sat on the floor, she felt…well, she didn’t know what she felt. Shock at being told that Spike was alive, hurt that he hadn’t gotten in touch, angry that she was now expected to help him. But mostly she just felt tired and sad for the time they had lost. The pain of the past months could have been avoided. She realised that she must have misread the signs from him. Despite his speech about her being ‘the one’, he obviously didn’t love her that way anymore, otherwise why would he stay away? If it had been the other way around she would have gone to him come hell or high water. She still wanted to run to him. The thought that she could once more be held in his arms, to feel his strong body next to hers, was too much and she collapsed into fresh tears.

“Oh Spike,” she sobbed, “Why couldn’t I have loved you properly when you loved me?”

She remembered the devotion he’d offered her, even before he got his soul back, and all she’d ever done was use him and then throw him away. Looking back at his attempted attack on her, it was probably inevitable that the demon within would gain the upper hand when he was so hurt. She had long since forgiven it. When he had returned with his soul, she had been so aware of it's presence�that she was terrified of hurting him again and so had left it late, too late, to really let him know how she felt about him.

“No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.”

Those words had run through her dreams every single night since she had left him to burn in the Hellmouth. Why had she left him? Why hadn’t she ripped that Goddamn amulet from his neck? Why hadn’t she let Angel be the one to bear it?

She’d driven herself halfway to crazy with those thoughts. Now, just when she thought that she’d started to crawl out of the black hole of grief where she’d been living – this.

The revelation was mind blowing. Spike had lived. She wished she’d asked Angel why Spike needed her now, so badly that Angel, who hated them being close, had actually been the one to get in touch. She curled up in a ball. She couldn’t take it. It was too much.

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“Buffy!”

Dawn’s voice rang out shrilly as she saw her sister huddled on the floor when she arrived home. She ran to her and knelt beside her.

“Are you hurt? What’s happened?”

Buffy looked up at her, eyes bloodshot and puffy from the tears that she just didn’t seem to be able to stem.

“Oh Dawnie, I think I’m going mad.” She put her arms around her and hugged her close.

Dawn hugged her back fiercely. She’d thought that Buffy had been getting better. The tears and depression had seemed to have passed.

“Shh, Buffy, you’re all right. I’m here. Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong,” soothed Dawn.

“Spike.” Buffy managed to gasp between sobs.

Dawn suppressed a sigh. Would Buffy never come to terms with his death?

“He’s alive,” whispered Buffy.

Dawn thought that her heart would break for her sister’s pain. She just couldn’t let him go.

“No, Buffy,” she said gently, “He died. He saved the world but he died, remember?”

Buffy glanced up at Dawn suddenly realising that she thought that she was back to how she had been months ago.

“Dawn, I do remember him closing the Hellmouth but Angel called today and told me that Spike was somehow trapped in the amulet and it arrived at his office soon after Sunnydale. He really is alive.”

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Dawn, “That’s fantastic.” Then she frowned. “But why didn’t he tell us?”

“Because he didn’t love us, me, enough to come home,” said Buffy, crying again.

“That can’t be true, Buffy,” said Dawn sharply, “Spike would never be that cruel to us.”

“Yeah, cruelty like that is my speciality, not his,” thought Buffy.

“What did Angel say?”

“That Spike was alive and that he needed me.”

“Didn’t you ask why?” Dawn was incredulous.

“No, it was too much of a shock. I couldn’t think straight and I …I hung up on him,” replied Buffy.

Dawn stood up. How come all the people around her were all so dumb? She was the youngest and so she should be the one to get things wrong but it was all of the others who did that, not her.

“For God’s sake, Buffy, why are you still here?” She walked a few steps away from her.

“I…er…it’s complicated,” stuttered Buffy.

“You make it complicated, Buffy. I thought that you loved him. Isn’t that what I’ve listened to these past months?”

“I did love him. I do love him.”

“So I say again, why are you still freaking here? You love him, he needs you, and so you go to him!”

“But…” Buffy started then stopped. She could see the sense in what Dawn said but she was afraid. “What if he doesn’t love me, Dawn? He never came back for me. What if he doesn’t want me anymore?”

Dawn knelt back down next to her sister. “Don’t you see that it doesn’t matter right now whether he wants you or not? Spike’s alive and Angel said that he needs you. You have to go to help him, Buffy. If he doesn’t love you it will be hard but you can’t not be there for him because you’re scared of being rejected.”

Buffy looked at Dawn in amazement. “Since when have you been so wise?”

Dawn smiled at her, “Since everyone else started acting so stupidly. Go and get a shower. I’ll call the airport and see how soon we can get you on a flight.”

“Shouldn’t I call Angel first?”

“No, you don’t need details, Buffy, you need to get to LA. Go on, get cleaned up and packed.”

Buffy stared at her for a moment, and then she smiled for the first time since Dawn had arrived home. “You’re right, Dawnie.” Her heart started to race. She was going to see Spike again. Her champion was alive!

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