Summary: Two years after the battle at the end of "Not Fade Away", Buffy's still in Rome. An unexpected visitor shows up bringing even more unexpected news.
Author's Notes: Inspired by and writtern for calturner.
Rating: NC-17
After an hour and a half of driving around the streets of Rome on her Vespa, Buffy was worried, angry and still Spike-less. She pulled up in front of La Tazza Sporca , the only demon bar she knew of in town, and turned off her bike. Knowing how well Spike could sniff out alcohol and baddies, he was bound to end up here at some point.
Buffy pushed through the door of the bar and looked around. A few vamps. A couple of those loose-skinned things. One with big tusks. But no Spike.
"Slayer del vampire!" One of the demons sitting at the bar recognized her.
" Una domanda ," she said in her butchered Italian. " Chiunque ha visto Spike stasera ?"
"Spike? As in 'William the Bloody' Spike?" a vampire in the corner asked.
"You speak English. Good," Buffy said. "Yes, that Spike. Was he in here tonight?"
The vampire looked at his friend and then back at Buffy. "Why are you looking for him, Slayer?"
Buffy walked over to him, slowly pulling a stake out of her jacket pocket. "If I thought that was any of your business, I would have told you. Since it's not, I won't. And I have this pretty piece of wood here that says you'll answer my question without asking any more of yours."
The vamp put his hands up. "Don't want no trouble, Slayer. Yeah. Spike was in here, maybe an hour ago. Got into a fight with some of the guys. They took it out back."
"Is that it?" Buffy asked, playing with the stake.
"Yeah! That's it, Slayer. I swear! Right Billy?" he asked his friend. The fleshy demon next to him gurgled what Buffy took as a yes.
Buffy nodded. "How do I get out into the alley?"
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There were oddly colored smears on the cobblestones behind the bar. The red ones looked like blood... But no sign of Spike.
Buffy shoved the stake back in her jacket pocket and walked around to the front of the building. A different vamp than the one from inside was standing next to her Vespa. This one was tall and dark and very young-looking.
"You'll not stake me, right? If I have the information?" he asked as she walked up to him.
"What information would that be?" Buffy crossed her arms.
"Where this Spike is. The one you look for."
"Well?" Buffy said. "You're not dust yet, but unless you make with the info spillage, I'm not promising that will always be the case."
"Right. Right," the vampire said. "The demons? They, uh, beat him up? Very bad. He has bad reputation. They say he works with you--the Slayer. No?"
Buffy raised an eyebrow.
"So," the vampire said nervously, "they say 'Take him to the Scalinata di Spagna '--the Spanish Steps? So he'll burn in the coming light."
"Crap," Buffy said. She climbed on her bike.
"One thing, signorina ?" Buffy looked at him. "You'll remember that I--Antonio--helped you?"
"I'll remember," Buffy said. "Thanks." She drove off, knowing dawn was less than an hour away.
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Several tourists littered the Spanish Steps and the piazza around them, either up really early or out really late. Buffy parked her Vespa and started climbing, occasionally calling out Spike's name. When she reached the top, she stopped for a moment just to see if she could somehow feel him. But there was nothing. She continued to climb and call.
As the sun broke over the horizon, Buffy was pretty confident Spike was not anywhere in the area. The question was, of course, then where was he?
Buffy squashed her panicky feelings and decided to head back to her apartment to make some calls. Last she'd heard , Giles had some kind of a psychic on the Council's payroll. She sighed, frustrated and worried. At least it'll be doing something , she thought as she once again settled herself on her bike.
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Climbing the steps to her apartment, Buffy was furious with herself for not finding Spike. It wasn't like he didn't stand out in a crowd, even without the white-blond blond. She rubbed her hands over her face as she got to her landing. And when she took them away, there he was. Lying face-down in front of her apartment door. Not crispy, but definitely worse for wear.
"Crap!" she said as she ran to him. She knelt next to his bruised and bloody face. "Spike?"
"Need a drink, love," Spike mumbled, his cheek pressed against the dirty carpet.
"From the smell of you, I think you've had more than your share for one night," Buffy said. "Can you get up?"
"Sure," he said. A minute passed. He didn't move.
"Well?" Buffy asked.
"What was the question?"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Can you get up off the floor and walk into my apartment? Oh, who am I kidding?" She quickly unlocked and opened her front door before straddling him and leaning down to hook her hands under his armpits. She pulled him upright and mummy-walked him inside, slamming the door with her foot. Awkwardly, she lowered him to the couch and peeled his coat off his arms. She was able to lift him enough to slide it out from under him and replace it with a couch pillow.
"I'll get the first aid stuff," she said.
"No," Spike said. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her. "Want to talk to you. Got some explaining needs to be done. "
"You can explain after I stop your face from oozing all over my couch, okay?" Buffy gently peeled his fingers from her wrist and went into the bathroom. A few seconds later she was back with cloths, creams and bandages. She began to dab the messiest of his cuts.
"So talk," she said.
"Never told her, Buffy. Never told her how much you meant--mean--to me."
Buffy nodded. "Anne, you mean."
"Right. Tried to stop thinking of you. Made you a right bitch in my head, I did. But wanted that all gone--you, Dru--all gone. Start fresh, yeah? Anne'd be my chance at that. My chance at that bloody normal life you went on and on about. Mine. Bleeding Christ, Buffy! That hurts!"
"Sorry," she said as she continued to dab antiseptic on him.
"Don't need that, you daft bint . Can't get infections!"
"Calm down, Spike. Better safe than sorry." Buffy capped the antiseptic and began bandaging his face and hands. "So you never told Anne about us. At least not all about us."
"Wasn't trying to keep things from her. Just never thought you'd be part of my life again. Why drag it all up?"
"Why didn't you tell her when she suggested you come to Rome ?" Buffy asked mildly.
Spike rolled his head to look at her. His unswollen eye focused on her. "'Cause I really wanted to see you again, Buffy." He swallowed. "Tried not to, but I missed you. Hurts to be without you." He limply gestured at himself. " Kinda hurts to be with you too."
Buffy closed her eyes for a second. "Lift up, if you can," she said when she opened them. "I need to get your shirt off." She rucked his shirt up as high as she could while he was prone and then helped him semi-sit so she could carefully pull it over his head. "I think it's your turn for a couple broken ribs," she told him. "Do vampires bleed internally?"
"No idea. Don't feel like I'm bleedin ' inside."
Buffy got up and got him some blood from the refrigerator. While she waited for it to heat in the microwave, she said, "I still don't know why you didn't believe me down in the Hellmouth."
"Maybe I did believe it. Believed you felt something for me. But it wasn't the kind of love I wanted. Not near deep enough. Didn't crowd all others from your heart. But Anne? I was that for Anne. Wanted to be it for her." He let Buffy prop him up so he could drink from the mug without spilling. "Wanted her to be the one for me," he said after he finished drinking.
"She isn't, though," Buffy said. She put the empty mug on the coffee table and sat on the floor next to him.
"She'd ask about you, you know? Wanted to know if you and I ever did some of the things she and I did. If I told you things I told her. Ended up telling her the past's best left there. And that you and I weren't much for the talking."
"Guess that's true enough," Buffy said.
"We got--closer. She was it for me. Had no one left. Needed her, I did. You get that, right?"
"I get that."
"Still, didn't want her to know what a bloody wanker I am. How I could never make things work. Didn't want her to leave me." He shifted on the couch and grimaced. "But then she wanted the words. And I didn't have them in me to give her. Not 'til I knew things with you and me were really done."
"And then I told you they weren't."
He half-laughed, half-groaned. " Bollocksed me up but good with that one, you did, love. She's been so good to me, Buffy. Better than I deserve. But now all these bloody feelings I've been ignoring are filling me up and making me want to explode..."
He shifted to look directly at Buffy. "How can I be happy with you when all it's doing is hurting Anne?"
Buffy felt like crying, but at least she now knew what to do. She gently touched his face. "You should get some sleep," she said.
"Stay with me?" he asked.
"Yeah." Buffy took her coat off and unzipped her boots before she crawled behind him on the couch and pulled the afghan over them. She stroked his hair. "We'll talk more in the morning, okay?"
Spike didn't answer. He was already asleep. Buffy lay there for a long time, trying to figure out how to tell him he'd have to leave.
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