I'll Fly Away

3-29-02

Part 5: Oh, Glory

"Are you sure you don't want me to rob a bank, Pet?"

Buffy bit her lip as the long, black car pulled to a halt outside the Circle K. For an insane moment, she actually considered the offer before shaking her head. As she climbed out of the Desoto and moved toward a nearby phone booth, Buffy noticed Spike slip into the store.

Some minutes later, she gently replaced the receiver, cutting Willow off in mid-sputter.

After shoving a ridiculous amount of change into the slot and listening to the Borg-like droning of three separate operators, she was rewarded by the sound of a voice too recently gone from her life to be called a blast from the past.

"This is Rupert Giles."

Oh, how she missed him! Giles, with his scotch and his books and his great, great love for her. She'd needed him to stay as fiercely as he wanted to go. Buffy tried to imagine where he lived, wondered if he were different there, in a flat above the streets that gave birth to William and Wesley and the tragedy of Drusilla.

"Giles, it's Buffy." A sudden awkwardness overcame her. "Buffy Summers."

He sounded startled. "Yes, of course. How have you been, Buffy? How is Dawn?? I've…missed you all."

Any other time, Buffy would have reveled in his concern. See, not every father goes away and forgets about Buffy Summers! Yay, me!

But there was no time for that now, with the Desoto still running and Spike probably committing a crime in the store.

"I'm great Giles. Really terrific! But I need a favor…"

**********************************************************************

She found him lounging against the checkout corner, popping penny candy in his mouth and whispering to the sales girl, who was leaning on her elbows, listening intently. She looked about Dawn's age, but her hair was a shocking fire engine-red and her nametag said "Tiki." Oh, Buffy knew her type. She'd probably turned down a job at Walmart because of the required and hideous blue smock.

Spike popped a gumball into his mouth. Tiki made no move to collect his penny. "Did you get in touch with ol' Rupes?"

The stupid girl tittered like he'd made a huge funny. Buffy nodded, then addressed the flaming moron.

She gestured to the mooching vampire. "He drinks blood and steals women's undergarments."

"Mmmmm." The girl was staring at Spike, clearly not heeding Buffy's warning. Spike rolled his eyes and beamed up his most engaging smile, the one that charmed Joyce in her last years. He aimed it at his new friend, full-force.

"My girl's a little cranky today, Tiks. Sla--Buffy's got a temper to match your hair." Buffy glared at him.

He reached out and twirled a lock of vermilion hair between his fingers. Buffy's internal warning system began to blare. No woman alive allowed a hair-mussing unless she was really far gone. And what was with this Tiks shit? They'd known each other ten minutes! Buffy grabbed Spike and dragged him toward the exit, ignoring the disappointed sigh that followed them.

She may not have been Spike's girl, but she didn't want Tiki to be either.

**********************************************************

They drove West along the Pacific Coast Highway, toward the Mexican Border. They didn't speak until Spike pulled the car over and leaned back in his seat. He looked out over the rugged beauty of the ocean, which was spread below them like a huge, blue American quilt. Finally he turned to her, all traces of the rebel gone.

"What are you running away from, Buffy?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

Everything except you. This was what she wanted to say, but nothing in her own rich and complicated history would allow Buffy to bare her soul to him in such a way. Hell, she'd bared everything else two years ago. This was all she had left.

They were silent, watching the sea birds climbing up, up, up toward heaven, another place where there was no need for words.

She pointed to the gulls. "Wouldn't it be cool if they could tell us what it's like to soar so easily."

Spike smiled. "Words weigh you down. If birds could talk, they wouldn't be able to fly."

Buffy looked over at him. "William the poet?"

Spike started the car. "Marilyn. Northern Exposure."

Buffy burst out laughing. "You are the strangest vampire I ever did see."

He shrugged and pulled back onto the road. "Find me someone normal in your circle, Pet. The rest of us weirdos can giggle, point, and pull her hair."

She slayed him with a glance. Spike tried to soothe her ruffled feathers. "Look at it this way, Slayer. There's something worse than being a freak."

"And what's that, Dr. Phil?"

"Being a freak with no friends, of course."

********************************************************************

Late the next morning, Buffy slipped her key into the lock and entered quickly, slamming the door against any sunlight that tried to slip past her. Just in case Spike was laying in front of the motel room door or something. With him, anything was possible.

But when she turned, juggling shopping bags, Buffy found him leaning against the wall, holding the motel bible. She quirked an eyebrow.

"Thinking of taking orders? Preaching the gospel of Spike? Hmmm..what would that be like? Live long, drink much, watch telly?"

He looked troubled, which gave Buffy a serious case of the wiggins.

"I was only kidding. You do a good thing every now and then." She thought for a minute, then snapped her fingers.

"Remember when you mowed our lawn so Dawn could go for ice cream with Janice?" Buffy remembered, because watching him try to turn the machine on was the funniest thing since Harmony's minions.

He was looking down at the book, ignoring her. He held it out, "This is a good book."

Buffy was getting worried. "Oooookay, I suppose so. I Didn't think it was high on every vamps summer reading list."

"I had this dream…" Spike trailed off, then shook himself as if just waking up. "It's nothing." He tossed the little black book on the battered night table. "Did you get everything?"

Buffy set the bags on the bed and he immediately began to fish through them.

"Slayer, if you bought me jeans in a funky color I'll….oooooh, these are nice." He was dangling a pair of new panties, tag jiggling, in front of her.

"Give me those!" Buffy made a wild grab for her underwear. 'What is it with you and my undergarments, Spike? Fixate on something else!"

His eyes raked over her. There was no escaping that look. Even if Buffy wrapped herself up in the ugly brown bedspread and impersonated burrito filling, he'd give her that same suggestive leer. While he was distracted, Buffy lunged and recovered her panties.

Spike flapped a hand, the universal gesture of not caring. "They don't smell like you yet anyway. I'll wait."

"You're a pig, Spike."

"Oink."

Buffy tossed the bags into the closet. "I feel bad using Giles' money. He wired it to me in good faith."

"What'd you tell 'im?"

Buffy sighed. "I said it was for Dawn."

"Well it is, in a way. I'm willing to bet you go back to Sunnyhell a much happier Slayer. Dawn will be happy that you've lost that pinched look." Spike's voice drifted out of the bathroom.

"What pinched look?" Buffy raised her voice, miffed.

"The one you've been wearing for the better part of two years. Like someone peed in your Wheaties." Spike emerged from the bathroom.

Buffy opened and closed her mouth, trying to think of a retort. Spike smiled at her. "But I love you anyway."

Buffy, caught off guard, just looked at him for a moment before gathering herself and ducking away.

That way lies fondling. Spike fondling! Fondling of Spike!

She flopped down on one of the beds and reached for the remote. She pretended to ignore Spike, who was still watching her, arms folded across his chest. Buffy sighed. They had hours to go before nightfall and easy traveling. She idly flipped through the channels.

"Look, Spike. Northern Exposure is on. It has Marilyn. And bears." Peace offering, here.

He ambled over and lay down on his stomach beside her. A companionable silence lay over them, while on the TV, the wacky residents of Cecily, Alaska tormented the fish-out-of-water local doctor with their wigginess.

Spike shook his head. "Fleischman should have slaughtered them all."

He reached across Buffy for the remote, and his scent washed over her, leather and nightfall and…Triscuits? Buffy looked around. If they had Triscuits, she wanted some. Something caught her eye amidst the blur of flashing channels, and Buffy forgot about Spike's contraband crackers.

"Spike, go back!"

"To what?…THAT?…oh, no." He went to change the station again, but Buffy yanked the remote from his hand. He groaned.

"I'm not watching A Pregnancy Story. You think I've got violent tendencies! Those laboring birds yell at the poor blokes, grab 'em by their faces and by their nether bits. The Blair Witch was only slightly hostile compared to some of them."

"But it's so beautiful." Buffy was enraptured by the sight of a wild-eyed woman huffing her way through natural childbirth. When the almost-mother finally broke and screamed for an epidural, Buffy's eyes grew wet.

"That must be so wonderful," Buffy sighed.

"Yeah, I guess." Spike had been trying not to watch.

Buffy turned over on her back and stared at the cracked ceiling. "Sometimes I wonder if I'd have kids by now. If I hadn't been called, I mean."

Spike was listening now. "You think about that a lot?"

Buffy shrugged. "Yeah. Saving the world is great and everything. People can continue their lives. The balance is restored and all that. But I wonder what its like to create a life from scratch. That's something I'll never know." She struggled against the bitterness that rose like bile in her throat.

Spike was lying on his side, watching as her tears threatened to spill on the worn coverlet. Wordlessly, he slipped one hand onto her stomach. It lay there, heavy against her belly where, because of her Call, no babies would ever grow. Buffy lost her mother, but it was at the age of twenty, after much love. To be orphaned in babyhood was something else entirely.

Dancing on the edge of sleep, Buffy remembered a song her mother used to hum to her when her daughters were sick or sick at heart.

She thought of Dawn, a young girl going out of the door. Buffy supposed that she had, in her own way, created life.

As Buffy fell asleep, she thought that Spike's hand was like anchor. It held her to this world. She drifted off with her mother's voice in her ears, a sweet, lost comfort.

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For Buffy, the dreams began the next night.

She hadn't dreamed of her coffin in years, yet there she was, six feet under, struggling, tearing at the satin that was meant to be her bed for all eternity. Her chest was being crushed by lack of oxygen, her spirit by the unbearable weight of knowledge.

Only this time, she wasn't alone.

There was someone in the coffin with her, hot against her neck. There was someone else, and Buffy was responsible for them both.

The scent of cherry wood and black roses filled her nostrils, even as dirt flowed into her nose, ears and mouth. She turned to look at her companion, to apologize for not being strong enough to save --

Buffy awoke with a gasp. Just a dream. Just a dream. She forgot, for a moment that her bright, pastel bedroom was miles and miles away, and looked around in confusion. The tension began to leave her shoulders when she remembered. Another hotel room, a little nicer than the last one, thanks to Giles.

After driving west all night, they'd made it into the parking lot just as dawn poured forth like wine flowing into a goblet. Exhausted, she'd collapsed on top of the covers, fully clothed.

Looking down at herself, Buffy discovered that he had pulled her shoes and jacket off and loosened the numerous ties on her strappy top. Buffy sat for a moment, deciding whether or not to tear him a new one. She dropped her face into her hands. Get over it, Buffy. Quit acting like a spaz. They'd had sex in every way, shape and form known to God and man. What did a little peep sow really matter? She was no blushing virgin, so why the rigorous guarding of personal space?

And there it was, the truth she'd been avoiding for so long, laid out as bare as the vampire in the next bed. Sleeping in anything but the nude appeared to violate one of the few rules thatSpike lived by. This rule stated that one must be naked for long periods of time, as often as possible.

Buffy trained her eyes on the far wall, determined not to look over there.

She hadn't counted on his pale skin glowing with white energy, creating its own light. A light to remember him by. To preserve herself, Buffy had shoved the most intimate memories to the back shelves of her memory, determined not to look upon them and remember.

But, in that tiny motel room on the Central Coast, she did look, and she did remember.

How his skin was smooth like mother-of-pearl and chilly like silver, but grew warmer under her frantic hands…

How his fingers were slender grains of wheat, with nails like pale stones. They tasted like culpability, the small of his back like sea salt…

How his hair was like a gathering of stars, but the tangle at his groin was the shade of a savage harvest…

Buffy shivered, suddenly cold. She shuddered and quaked and made small distressed sounds. Wake up, damnit. Work with me here.

Spike muttered and rolled toward the wall. Buffy eyed him, wondering if he was playing games, faking sleep, laughing at her. He was like that. Sneaky.

Most of the time. With her own life, here on the road. With Dawn, her other heart. But she did not trust that he would always choose the side of light. He would give his unlife up in a heartbeat--if he had one--for fewer than half a dozen people, mortals whose lives were brief, like a morning walk. What happened in the afternoon, when they were gone? Who would take care of him? Did she want to start what she couldn't finish?

She didn't trust him not to let her kill him.

Spike muttered in his sleep. "Leave the bloody birds alone." Buffy wondered if he was dreaming of those gulls over the coast or of herself, Dawn, Willow and Tara. Taking matters into her own hands, Buffy pulled the thin motel blanket around her body and skittered across the few inches separating their double beds. She poked Spike in the side.

"Spike, wake up." Nothing. Another jab. "Spike, I'm cold."

"Delicious," he mumbled, and rolled over. Freezing and frustrated, Buffy knew of only one other way to get his attention.

"YEEEEEEE-----OWWWW!"

Spike reared up out of bed and skittered back toward the headboard, hands scrambling for a non-existent weapon. His wide, startled eyes fell on Buffy. "Where is it? Are you hurt?" He looked wildly around.

"We haven't been invaded, you doof. I was trying to wake you up!"

"So you pull on the family jewels like they're salt water taffy?" Spike glared at her, outraged.

"Oh, don't be a baby. I didn't do any damage. You're already infertile, remember?"

"Well, if I wasn't before I certainly am now." He flopped on his side, facing away from Buffy, and clamped a pillow over his head. Buffy tugged it away.

"I'm cold. Not put-on-a-sweater cold. Mulder-and-Scully-in-Antarctica cold." She demonstrated by shivering dramatically.

"Well, take my blankets then."

"Okay." Buffy seized the day. In one smooth motion, she had herself wedged behind him and was dragging the offered blankets across his body to her own side. She ignored Spike's startled squawk and made herself comfortable.

"Slayer, what are you doing?" Through the layers of blankets separating them, Buffy could feel his muscles tensing up, one by one.

"Go back to sleep," Buffy told him. "I'm just gonna stay here." She tried to soothe him like she had in the airport, to calm him as only she could, by rubbing his bare arm softly. She made a gentle sweep from shoulder to elbow and back. When the piano-wire tautness began to leave his body, Buffy felt a rush of feminine power blaze through her veins like a brush fire.

"Okay, but ry not to kick. And don't grab my nuts unless you mean it."

He was feigning casual because this was new territory. The borders were fragile, every step they took consequential.

They slept until the shadows fell.

***************************************************************

And so it went.

If someone had asked Buffy what the hell she was doing, she wouldn't have been able to give them an answer that made any kind of sense. She couldn't have explained why she continued to leave her own bed for that of the vampire she'd rejected, belittled, and beaten to a bloody pulp not all that long ago--the vampire she said she couldn't love. She tried to come up with the answers as she waited out that endless hour in her own bed, giving him time to pretend to be asleep. When enough time had passed, she'd get up and push at his ankle to announce her presence. He never questioned her actions. Maybe that was why she kept on.

And he let her have all the blankets.

And so it went…for about a week, until they checked into that fateful Super 8 near San Diego.

The afternoon went like all the others, with Buffy spooning up behind Spike like it was the most natural thing in the world. If it took him a little bit longer to relax that day, she didn't think much of it. She just pressed her lips against his shoulder for the briefest moment and sighed happily when his bones went all soft and strawberry Jello-ey under her touch.

She didn't realize anything was wrong until she rolled over late that afternoon--at least she thought it was afternoon--expecting to bump up against another body. She rolled again. And again.

She flung out an arm expecting a terse, "Watch the nose, Slayer. Why don't you try breaking something on my body you haven’t busted a million times before? A challenge, I know. We could make a chart, suss it out."

Buffy sat up, miffed to discover that she was very much alone. She glanced at the clock. She'd overslept. The sun had been down for hours. And where the hell was Spike?

Two hours later she was muttering the question aloud, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger. He was no where in the vicinity of the motel, and a trip to the parking lot revealed that the Desoto, along with its owner, had disappeared into parts unknown.

Buffy's mind raced with questions and possibilities…what if he'd left for good, tired of the dance…what if he was in trouble…what if he was causing trouble? What if he'd been vamp-napped? What if he was dust? The last made her heart constrict painfully. What if he'd joined the rest of her dead and lost in the land of never-were and might-have-been?

Another half an hour passed. By the end of those thirty minutes, she'd worked herself into a near frenzy. Thus the sound of unsteady footfalls didn't quite penetrate the fog of her hysteria. When a body thumped against the door, her heart gave a hopeful leap. The thump was accompanied by some somewhat off-key singing.

Buffy yanked open the door, her relief at finding him undusty quickly evaporating in the face of the cold, hard truth. The minute he tumbled through the doorway, Buffy seized him by the collar and gave a good yank.

"Here now, Slayer. What's this all about?" Whiskey sloshed over the lip of the bottle clutched in his fist.

Buffy slammed him against the wall, for old time's sake. "This is about you leaving me here, taking off, and coming back drunk. Singing Anne Murray songs!" Slam.

" Hey, she's got a good set of pipes… Ouch! Would you please stop that?"

"No." Slam.

"What is your problem?" His voice rose. Buffy tightened her grip on his coat.

"If you don't know, than this whole wacky Kerouac adventure is a stupid mistake!"

"Well, maybe it is!" He wrenched out of her grasp, straightened his duster. Stupid coat. Childishly, she wondered which one of them he loved more. Tiny red spots of anger were forming in Buffy's line of vision, like targets. There was one directly over his dead heart.

She ground out her next words.

"I thought things were going fine." She wasn't talking about miles covered or wildlife observed.

Spike paced furiously back and forth, all the drunkenness in his body evaporating into rage. "Maybe for you! You get to make the rules!" He launched into an imitation of her voice that was too spot on for comfort.

"You're a pain in the ass, Spike…Move your ass, Spike…Don't move an inch toward my uptight little ass, Spike, unless you get the bat signal. Then it's okay." He seized the bottle of whisky and hurled it at the wall. Amber liquid and glass drenched the paisley wall paper.

He didn't fall to his knees this time, or sing that he was her willing slave. There was no need--he had, after all, declared himself years ago. What he did was hurl himself at the wall, beat his fists against it, howl with rage at everything that kept her from him: morality and memory, destiny and duty, how Mother Nature fashioned them to be forever-enemies, and how deeply she failed. Blood seeped from his fists and hung there on the wall like abstract, unframed art.

Buffy grabbed him, turned him around, but he pushed her away, would not be comforted. Watching him pace the length of the room, shoulders rolling and lifting with suppressed rage, Buffy acknowledged what she had refused to before.

He was not human, but there was humanity in his nature.

He was wild at heart, a dangerous creature, but part of him still longed for peace and luxury, for dog racing and Manchester United, for the luxury of acceptance and the friendship of growing things, for the companionship of fellow adventurers. She understood, in that moment, that he'd probably trade all his years of swashbuckling violence for one afternoon in a hammock with her.

He avoided her hands, sweeping past her and back to the other end of the room. Buffy could see his sinews cracking with the violent effort of self-restraint. Finally, he stalked back toward her. Buffy held her ground.

"You know, " he said conversationally, "I've been going about this all wrong. The way I figure it, Slayer, you're head and you're heart are playing two different tunes. How's about we bypass them both?"

And with that, he plunged his hand down the front of her skirt.

Buffy flung her arms around his neck, mashing her lips against his in a militant kiss that was all stab and thrust, all stakeage. She arched into him, sought that unique, elusive flavor. She had always enjoyed his kisses more than any other mans. She was woman enough to admit it.

They fell into each other's mouths, sucking, sipping, biting, nipping.

Spike's hand moved around to her backside, lifted her against the ridge of his erection. Buffy bore him back against the window, bunched her fist in the fabric of the drape for leverage. He wasn't the tallest of men, but Buffy wanted to scale the inches between them, to look into his twin tide pools and see them churning with something greater than passion, more profound than Turning, when his night eyes saw for the first time.

Later, in the aftermath, she would wonder exactly when the curtains gave in to her enthusiastic tugging and crashed down.

She reached under Spike's duster, frantically scaled the hard planes of shoulder, chest, and arm, searched for a place to grab on. But her hands remembered.They flew to his face, to the cheekbones that were her downfall. His face was always full of shadows. She'd cradled it like this in the half-light of the Bronze, had kissed him as the band played and a singer loved her lost love.

Spike wrenched himself free of their kiss to attack the side of her throat with lips and tongue and just the barest hint of fang.

Buffy correctly translated that as last chance to bolt, love.

But how could she, when he tasted of whisky and kisses and, oh God, renewed hope? Actions spoke louder than words, so Buffy dragged him away from the window--the people in 4C really didn't need to see this--and into the deeper pools of moonlight in the center of the room. She pushed his coat from his shoulders, fell on her knees in front of him.

"Buffy what--"

Her fingers plucked at the buttons of his jeans, pulled the denim apart. She leaned her head against his stomach, and reached up with one hand to entwine their fingers.

"Shhhhhhh," she whispered softly. "Just rest a minute." She had not often been soft with him.

When she took him fully into her mouth he made a sound somewhere between a growl and a whimper, as if his soul were being rebuilt from the ground up. The sensation of having nothing to lean on--they hadn't moved from the middle of the room--was intensely erotic. All there was was her bright head, bent to its task. She hadn't often let him lean on her. When she began to lick the head--tiny, nomadic swipes of her tongue--his knees almost buckled. Buffy correctly translated that as holy shit!

"Not yet, not yet," he muttered, dragging her up the length of his body. His hands were relentless, setting forth once again on their quest to seek out every place he hadn't touched. His palm cupped her pubis, fingers biting through the fabric of her skirt, and Buffy retaliated by grabbing fistfuls of his black T-shirt and dragging it off.

He grasped her skirt and rucked it up, then slid his fingers under the fabric of her underwear. Buffy heard cloth tearing, signaling the death of yet another pair of pink panties. Oh, well. Red was their color anyway, Red, the shade of passion and intensity, the color of sunsets and blood.

They were moving backwards and Buffy was somewhat surprised when the edge of the bed collided with the backs of her knees. She'd half-expected the bed to grow legs and run away, or spontaneously combust when the two of them got near it. They'd never had good luck with that piece of furniture. Looking back, she could never figure out exactly how she got turned around with her head toward the foot. More bed mojo, she guessed.

But it didn't really matter, anyway, because Spike had eased her down onto the cool sheets, followed within a beat of her heart, and begun to remove the rest of her clothes. He was stripping away the last barriers between them and, sweet Jesus, she was letting him. His hands were on her hips, molding them like new clay.

He kissed his way down her body, starting with the tilt of her stubborn chin and ending with the feet that led the charge. Then he made the return journey, dithering over the hard, bright ridges of ankle and knee. When he buried his face between her legs Buffy threw one arm over her mouth to keep from screaming. In that moment, she thought of her mother, wondered if Joyce had ever known passion like this--desperate, dauntless, star-crossed. Terrifying.

Finally he reached her face, looked into her soul with eyes of sunken blue.

"You ready to finish this, Pet?" He purred like a well-oiled Mustang.

Buffy grinned. "Absolutely. She flung her arms wide, knocking a lamp to the floor in the process. "Ravage me, Spike."

And then he was on her, heavy and solid, and in her with one, hard steady thrust. Her body arched in shock at the force of the penetration, the searing invasion of body and soul. His head found its way to her shoulder, where it used to lay, and rested there while he gathered control.

As Buffy stroked his hair, whispered comforting nonsense, a ferocious love--and it was love--began to wind itself around her heart.

*********************************************

When the storm had passed, they lay stacked like cordwood.

Buffy shifted, getting more comfortable on top of Spike. The night was humid but he was cool against her skin, like one of those jumbo pillows after no one had slept on it for a while. She tucked her head under his chin and tried not to look at the wreckage of the room, the blood on the wall, the fallen drapes.

Spike was just drifting off when she began to giggle.

"What?" He looked down at her, puzzled.

Buffy snickered.

"Anne Murray, Spike?"

TBC