Buffy looked around Spike's crypt with some confusion. She was used to going to him when things were getting overwhelming, and he had always been welcoming, even when she just wanted to sit in the quiet darkness with him. Today had been horrible, full of social services and overdue bills, and all she wanted was to escape her house and her life. So here she was, but he wasn't. His television was on, but the door was open, and he was nowhere to be found.

"Hello?"

There was no answer. She poked her head out the door.

"Um, Spike?" she called.

"Hmm?" He sat up on top of his crypt, and she jumped in surprise.

"What are you doing up there?" she asked.

"Uh, well, looking at the stars, actually," he said, his voice tinged with embarrassment.

She blinked at him.

"Do you do that frequently?"

"On nights like this one, yeah."

Buffy looked upwards and found herself drawn in by the sparkling lights in their inky firmament. She spent lots of time outdoors at night. How had she managed to ignore the sky for so long? Too busy being attacked by things on the ground, probably.

"Ow," she said, rubbing her neck and looking away from the canopy of stars. "It's pretty, but it hurts my neck."

"You can come up here, if you'd like, pet," he said, rising to his knees and reaching a hand down for her. "It's much more comfortable."

She looked at his pale skin for a moment, remembering how soft it had been when he had held her hands in his on that first confusing night back, and then reached out to take hold. In one smooth movement he easily lifted her to the roof. Before she could sit, he shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then he lay down on his back again and put his hands behind his head.

Buffy settled down beside him and snuggled into the soft leather and the familiar smell of him.

"Thanks," she said, watching him watch the sky.

"Don't want you to get cold."

She let her gaze wander over the sharp lines of his face for a moment, wondering how something dead could be so beautiful, could be so warm with life when she felt so cold inside.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"No. No." What could she say?

With an attempt at a smile, Buffy leaned back beside him and looked up into the heavens. It was easy to let her mind drift as she gazed into the night. There were millions of stars up there, and millions of planets, and maybe millions of creatures. Were there other people? Was there another place with vampires? Was there another Slayer? Well, you know, besides Faith.

When her mother was sick, they had had to fight the Queller demon, and that had come from the sky. Was it a demon? Was it an alien? Was there a difference? Was she supposed to slay them all? Would some later Slayer become an astronaut to do her job?

Was one of those planets where she had been? Or had she been in a different dimension? What did that even mean? Were they the same thing? Would she ever be there again? Would she ever know peace and contentment and be away from this hard world? Would she ever not be worried and not be alone and...?

She shut her mind firmly away from that train of thought and instead contemplated the man lying next to her.

Vampire. Not a man. Evil, a demon, without a soul, without a conscience, without feelings.

Yet he had feelings. He had always been an odd vampire, from his love of the world to his love of food... to his love of her. Even without a soul he loved her, and she knew he did, or he thought he did, anyway. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Sure, he was impetuous and mercurial and unpredictable and all sorts of other big, Gilesy words, but he tried. He had changed. For her. Without a soul.

Unlike Angel, her mind whispered. Well, he did change without a soul. He tried to kill you, and your family, and your friends, and end the world, and... She shut her eyes to try to keep out the thought. Angel was best left in the past. Even with his soul in place, there could be nothing there now.

She sighed again. Nothing was easy anymore. Had it ever been? She tried to remember.

"What's on your mind, pet?" Spike asked quietly.

"What... what does it feel like not to have a soul?" She thought that she was probably more surprised by the question than he was.

"Dunno, really," he said. "It's been a long time since I've had one. I can't rightly say that I remember."

She turned onto her side and watched his profile as he stared up at the stars.

"Did it hurt when you lost it?"

"Well, as I was being killed at the moment, yeah."

"It hurt to be turned? I thought you said it was a profound experience."

"Sure it was, but it bloody well hurt, too. Didn't it hurt when you got bit? What is it, three times now?"

Buffy scowled, but as he wasn't looking at her it was lost on him.

"But Drusilla can do that thrall thing..."

"Didn't use it on me. But I can't say what if any of the pain had to do with the soul, to answer your earlier question."

"So then what? Now you don't feel anything? No remorse, no regret?"

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment and then let out a long breath.

"I regret things, love. Tying you up with Drusilla, for one. Don't know what the hell I was thinking. And letting Dawn find out about being the key like that, not that I knew ahead of time what was going to happen." His voice dropped to a murmur. "Failing you with Glory, letting Dawn get cut, letting you jump, you dying instead of me...I have many regrets."

"But you don't have a soul."

"As you keep reminding me. This is sort of how I see it: I know that I've done a lot of horrible things over the years, and I can see why other people would see them as bad and all, but I can't really feel personally bad about it. Sure, yeah, I'm responsible, but I just can't care. I did it, it's over, no point in wallowing in it. Even people I know, like Angel. I know that I should feel bad about torturing him over that bloody ring, but I just can't."

"You did what?" she asked, leaning up on her elbow.

"Never mind," he said quickly. "The thing is, though, that there are certain people who get under my skin, get in my heart, you know. Then I care. I care about you and Dawn, of course, Your mum. Both of the witches. Even Xander bloody Harris, though that's mostly because I know you and the Bit'd be upset if he were hurt. You all I have regrets about."

"So you have like a conscience for special occasions?"

He snorted.

"Somethin' like that. I've always been a weird vampire. Even that Judge guy - Remember, the one you blew up with the rocket launcher? Wish I could've seen that - he said that Dru and I stank of humanity. Too many feelings, too many connections, I reckon, even then. I'd hate to think what he'd see in me now."

"You've changed a lot since then."

He looked over at her, his eyes full of something oddly like hope.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"For one, fewer cigarettes," she said.

He shrugged.

"Gave 'em up for the Bit. Too much second-hand smoke's bad, or so all those ads say on the telly."

She smiled at him.

"But you also think before you act... at least sometimes. You pay more attention, try to do the right thing."

"At least sometimes," he said with a smirk.

"You know, you go against everything that I was taught about vampires. You aren't supposed to change. You aren't supposed to do good things. You aren't supposed to care about people."

"It goes against everything that I was taught, too, love. Guess we were both wrong." He looked back up at the sky.

"Not that I would ever admit such a thing in public," she teased him.

"We'll blame it on our teachers. Not our fault."

"Sounds good to me."

"So what's with all of the soul talk, pet?" he asked after she watched his profile in silence for a few minutes.

"Nothing," she said, biting her lower lip. "I'm just trying to understand."

"Understand me? Or you?"

She rolled onto her back and pulled his coat more tightly around herself.

"I'm just... Willow said that I was having trouble with my emotions, with feeling stuff, and I'm trying to figure out why."

"So you think you lost your soul?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"Not lost, but maybe it didn't all come back with me. I feel like I'm frozen most of the time, like I can't really touch anything, like I just can't care. It's very un-Buffy-like."

Spike turned onto his side to look down at her.

"If anything, pet, I think it's that you've got too much of your soul, not too little," he said gravely. "You spent 147 days of our time and a lot longer of yours only as your soul, and I think you're having trouble coming to terms with your whole human self again. I know you. You're all there; you just need to get some things sorted out, get your soul back in place. Maybe it's chafing a bit."

She smiled at him, and his eyes went soft.

"You're probably right."

"Of course I am." He smirked at her and lay back to look at the stars.

"But you're still arrogant."

"I'm not arrogant; I'm just right."

Buffy rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the night sky. For the moment, anyway, it didn't batter her with questions and instead soothed her probably-still-all-there-but-maybe-pinching-a-bit soul. She knew that she had to leave soon, to deal with Dawn and their growing pile of bills, but she could wait a few more minutes.

Maybe a moment of peace was all she could ask for, and maybe it was weird that her peace only seemed to come when she was alone with Spike, but she would take it.

~end~