SUMMARY: Sometimes, just when you thought you had everything figured out, you realize that you know nothing. And that's exactly what Spike is about to find out when going to Italy to warn his former lover of impending doom.

RATING: NC-17

DISCLAIMER: BTVS is property of Joss Whedon. I own nothing.

SPOILERS: Inspired by the first book of the comics Buffy season 8. You don't need to have read it to understand what's going on, but it will spoil you if you haven't read it yet.

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CHAPTER 8: If only I knew how to lie

Fantasies. They are a nice easy way to escape, or make your reality better, fix things you don't like about your life, or events that go so horribly wrong that you want to imagine many different ways you could have avoided them or made them better. Everybody does it. You fantasize about your Oscar speech, meeting the man of your dreams in a coffee shop, your wedding day, or even your perfect job when you're stuck behind the counter of a fast food joint. The thing is, fantasies are not reality and often, when they somehow come true, you realize that you only thought about the good and forgot about the bad. Just like being face to face with the man you loved and lost, thinking you'd never see him again. In fantasy land, it's all hugs and puppies. You see yourself running in slow motion, throwing yourself into his loving arms, telling him you love him and you'll never be apart again just before kissing him passionately. But what about the shock? What about the awkwardness in the face of the impossible? And the questions? The million and one questions that all want to come out at the same time but none of them do because you're speechless? No. You don't fantasize about that part.

Buffy felt herself being pulled to her feet. This time she didn't stop Giles. She felt as boneless as a rag doll. All she could do was stare at the man in front of her. How many times did she dream about this moment? Spike being miraculously resurrected and coming back to her. She finally understood exactly what he felt that night when she came back from the grave and stood in front of him. And most of all, she understood his words: "Every night... I save you." Because that's what she did for the last year. Every night, she saved him. Many different ways.

Giles put his hands on Buffy's shoulders to steady her. He gave the gaping slayers a disapproving look. "Girls, I'm sure you all have something you could be doing right now, yes?"

They all scrambled like a pack of scared rats, Andrew the first one to go.

Spike stood up slowly, eyeing Buffy warily.

"Buffy, are you quite all right?" Giles asked his slayer with concern.

She slowly nodded, her eyes never leaving Spike.

"What the bleedin' hell just happened?" The vampire asked, still not understanding why she would try to run him over.

She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

"I think she thought you were the First." Giles clarified for her.

Spike's eyes widened in understanding. "Oh. Makes sense."

He took a cautious step forward. "Pet... Are you gonna say something?" He asked gently, trying to prompt a reaction. Anything would be better than the blank look on her face.

Giles tried too. "Would you like to sit? Maybe I could get you a drink? Or I could leave you two alone." Not getting an answer, he made the decision himself. "Yes, that would probably be best."

He squeezed her shoulder gently and left the two blondes alone.

Spike sighed. "Luv, I wasn't expecting to walk in, say 'Honey I'm home' and have you offering me a drink, the news paper and my slippers, but please, say something. Anything..."

"I cut my hair. I'm sorry."

As soon as she said it, she blushed and made an 'I can't believe I just said that' face.

Spike smiled. "Looks good, pet."

She nervously tugged on her shoulder length hair, looking uncomfortable. And then the awkward silence made place to the awkward babble.

"I don't know why I said that. I mean, it's completely random. And it's not. Because a week ago, my hair was long. And I was thinking, Spike loves my hair. And then it occurred to me that it doesn't matter because Spike isn't here anymore and he never will be again. So who the hell cares about my hair? Right? So I go to the salon and get it cut shorter. Because you're not here and I don't care. And now you're here. And my hair is short. And it reminds me of a week ago when you weren't here and I didn't think you'd ever be here again and looking at my long hair was a constant reminder that you were dead but now you're not and... I'm having a completely pointless conversation about hair with you when I was never supposed to ever talk to you again. Please stop me!"

He honestly didn't know if he should laugh, cry or take her in his arms.

In three steps, he was in front of her and pulling her against him. With her head against his chest, she let out a gut wrenching sob.

Spike closed his eyes and held her tightly. "Pet... Please don't cry now. I'm sorry I upset you. I shouldn't have just shown up like that. Should have given you some warning. I'm a bleedin' idiot is what I am."

He let her cry for a while, then gently pushed her away just far enough to be able to look at her. "Do you want to go outside and get some fresh air? We could talk."

Buffy nodded and let him lead her outside.

They walked together in silence for a while before Buffy spoke again. She was a lot calmer now that she had time to get used to the idea that Spike was there and she wasn't dreaming. If she was, she hoped not to wake up.

"I missed you." She said so softly that he probably wouldn't have heard her if he wasn't a vampire.

"I missed you too, Buffy."

She shook her head. "No. I mean, you have NO idea, just how much. You know what they say, you don't know what you have until you lose it."

Buffy stopped walking. He stopped too and turned to face her.

"That day, when I said I love you, I meant it, Spike. But I don't think I truly understood just how much until I woke up the next day and it hit me in the guts that you weren't there and never would be again. I didn't realize what an important part of my life you were until you weren't there. It was like I lost my partner. I lost the one person who understood me better than anybody else. Better than my friends even."

Spike looked down, hands in his pocket. "I had no idea you felt that way, Buffy. I'm sorry you hurt so much. To be honest with you... I half expected you to have moved on by now."

She snorted in a self depreciating way. “Yeah right. It took me this long to realize I was in love with you, how long do you think it would have taken me to get over you? I’m kinda slow, you should know that by now.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true. I waited until it was too late to tell you and then you didn’t believe me.”

Spike inhaled deeply then let out the breath slowly.

“What?” She asked defensively.

“I did believe you, Buffy.”

“Oh yeah? Then why the hell did you let me think that you didn’t? Do you have any idea how much I agonized over this?”

He heard the anger in her voice so he chose his words carefully. “I thought it was the best thing to do for both of us.”

Her face hardened. “Let me get this straight... Thinking the man I love died thinking I never really loved him was actually good for me? How?”

“You had that look in your eyes... I wasn’t sure you were going to get out of there. In that moment, Buffy, all I wanted was to snap you out of it so you would leave before the whole place came crashing down on both of us.”

Her eyes watered at the memory. She looked away, her arms wrapped protectively around herself.

“And,” he continued “I also wanted to convince myself that you didn’t. Because if I let myself believe it, I’m not sure I would have been able to go through with it knowing what I was leaving behind.”

Buffy nodded her understanding. “It still hurt. But it makes sense. I wish I’d had the courage to tell you the night before.”

“We’ve made a lot of bloody mistakes over the past few years pet. Not just you. You can’t beat yourself up like that.”

She smiled sadly. “I know. I think at this point, we can’t even play the ‘which one is worst’ game anymore because it’s a tie.”

There was a stone bench in front of a fountain not too far and she went to sit on it. Spike came to sit next to her.

The night was beautiful. The sound of the splashing water in the fountain, the castle bathed in moonlight, the stars, but none of this was as fascinating to Buffy as the sight of Spike’s hand resting lightly on hers. She turned her hand palm up and wrapped her fingers around his. Spike smiled.

Suddenly, Buffy looked up. “God! I didn’t even ask you how this happened! So many things I want to say, so many questions, and I didn’t even ask the most important one.”

“That’s all right, luv. It’s a lot to take in.”

“So, how is this possible? What happened to bring you back?”

“It’s a long complicated story. Not sure I’ll tell it right, but I’ll try. Remember that shiny little necklace I was wearing?”

“Hard to forget.”

“Turns out, it was magically tied to Wolfram and Hart.”

“The evil law firm?”

“Yes. That’s where the Poofter found it, and it wasn’t a coincidence that he did.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a little complicated, pet. This bloke, Lindsey, had a grudge against the great poofter. Something about a missing hand or whatever. He sent the medallion to Angel knowing it had to be worn by a champion who wasn’t human but had a soul. Angel fit the profile. The bloody thing was magically attached to Wolfram and Hart so once everything was over, Angel was supposed to be trapped in it and returned to Lindsey. He just didn’t know there was another souled vamp in the equation. So he changed his plans, got me back and tried to use me against Angel instead. Should have seen the poofter’s face when I appeared in his office. Priceless. So yeah, that’s the short version, but that’s basically why I’m back.

“So you‘re back thanks to this Lindsey guy, but it was all a misunderstanding?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I should send him a thank you note.”

Spike laughed. “Sorry, the bloke is dead, pet.” “Too bad. So what happened after you appeared in the office?”

“I wasn’t corporeal at first. But then at some point, that wanker Lindsey did something and I became a real boy again.”

The wheels were turning fast in Buffy’s head and a feeling of dread was washing over her even before she asked her next question. Her instincts were telling her the happy feeling was just about to end.

“Spike?”

“What, pet?”

She opened her mouth to ask the question straight forward, then decided against it and took the more subtle approach, giving him a chance to save himself and lie. Or at least she hoped he would be smart enough to lie.

“Why did this happen almost a year later?” She finally asked.

The vampire looked confused for a moment. “What do you mean?”

Never mind subtlety. “Spike? When did you come back?”

Everything in his mind screamed at him to shut up, but he opened his mouth anyway and regretted it almost instantly. “About a week after the battle I think.” Bugger, he thought. But it was too late to take it back.

Buffy’s body went rigid. Pain and anger formed a knot in her stomach and slowly radiated, warming up her insides until it reached the boiling point and turned into quiet rage. Buffy Summers did not deal with hurt feelings very well and this was an extreme case. She blinked back tears of rage and stiffly stood up. When she spoke, her voice was eerily calm.

“A year? You’ve been back for a year?”

“Buffy...”

The look she gave him shut him up.

“You’ve listened to me pour my heart out to you like an idiot, telling you how I’ve missed you every day, and didn’t feel like mentioning that you cared so little about me that you were alive for one year and couldn’t bother PICKING UP THE PHONE!”

The calm had left her voice and been replaced by a high pitch scream.

“Buffy, if you just let me explain...”

“Was that funny, Spike? Did you have a good laugh? Look at poor pathetic Buffy. Is that it?”

A part of her knew that she was being unreasonable and she should at least give him the chance to explain himself. Maybe Angel told him she was dead, or maybe he‘d been on his way to find her and was kidnapped and held prisoner in a magical underground cave and it took him a year to escape. Or maybe he was just an asshole and spent the last year living the life in L.A. and taunting Angel, never once thinking about her. Insecure Buffy won the fight over rational Buffy.

“Were you biting your tongue not too laugh while listening to me earlier, wondering just how far I would go with the emotional crap?”

“NO! Of course not!” Spike stood up. He was not liking where this was going one bit.

Buffy laughed, the sound chilling Spike to the bones.

“Wow, you’d actually rather hang out with Angel than be with me? Slap in the face much? Why don’t you just go back then!”

She turned to leave and Spike tried to stop her but he soon regretted touching her arm.

Eyes blazing and tears running down her face, she turned around and pushed him away. “Don’t TOUCH me!”

“Pet, please calm down so we can talk about this. I can explain.”

“Nice revenge, Spike. Let Buffy stew in her own guilt over leaving you on the Hellmouth to die. Make her pay for what she did to you in the past. I get it. You did a good job, it worked.”

He tried to stop her from leaving again, but this time she turned around and took a swing at him, getting him right in the nose.

“Ow! Bloody Hell woman!”

“I said don’t touch me!”

She ran toward the castle, ignoring Spike’s yelling.

“Buffy! Get back here!.. BUFFY!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Molly Stevens was looking around a bare room with a bored expression on her face. The past three days had been nothing but hurry up and wait for her. She had been sent to L.A. with Graham for her debriefing about the incident at the Sunnydale site, but something had happened and it had been postponed. So she spent all this time waiting around in her hotel room for a phone call. It came this morning and she had rushed to the military base, but this was hours ago and she was still waiting.

Molly considered herself a woman of many qualities, but patience had never been one of them. She finished her third cup of horrid coffee, crushed the paper cup in her hand, and threw it in the trash can in the corner of the room.

“Score.” She said out loud, wanting to break the silence.

Even though she knew this was just a formality, the fact that the room looked like a police interrogation room made her feel like a criminal. She was on edge and the waiting didn’t help any.

She ran her fingers through her short strawberry blonde hair, then rested her elbows on the table, chin on her interlocked fingers. She sighed.

For the hundredth time she went over what had happened, wondering if she had done anything wrong, or if she could have handled the situation with the man in a more efficient way. But that’s the thing though, he wasn’t a man. She didn’t even know what the hell he was at the time. Graham had told her afterward that he was what he called a “hostile”, meaning a demon, or vampire. She would have laughed her ass off and wrote a report on Graham’s mental state if she hadn’t seen the man’s face change with her own eyes and seen him running with twenty bullets in his back.

It was mind boggling to her that the government knew about the existence of demons. And she wondered what a vampire had to do with a terrorist. She remembered the look on his face when he found the Buffy Summers’ file and it made her uneasy. Maybe she was missing something. Maybe general Voll wasn’t being completely honest about the target. Was there more to this Buffy Summers than a simple terrorist with an agenda? After all, she never understood why this woman would chose the suburban town of Sunnydale as a target. If she had the kind of weapon that would destroy an entire city, wouldn’t it have made more sense to pick a place that would have more impact? And what was her cause? Terrorists always had a cause, whether political or religious.

Molly’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of general Voll.

He walked in and went straight to the table, barely looking at her. She stood up and saluted him.

“No need for that, Sergeant Stevens. You may sit.”

“Thank you, general.”

He opened his briefcase and pulled out a voice recorder and some papers to write on.

She waited respectfully for him to speak first, back straight, green eyes bright and alert.

The general pressed the record button and placed the little voice recorder in the middle of the table before starting. “So if I understood well what I’ve been told, you were the one to catch the intruder first, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And why didn’t you stop him?”

“He overpowered me. He was incredibly strong, sir. There was nothing I could do.”

He looked up at that. “Did you notice anything strange about this man, Sergeant Stevens?”

Molly wasn’t sure what to answer. Did he know? Would he think she was insane or making some crazy shit up to get out of trouble? “Well... Uh, you see...”

He sighed exasperatedly. “Let me make myself clearer, Stevens. Was he a man?”

Well that answered the question. “No, sir. I don’t believe he was.”

He nodded. “I do believe we have an identity on this... thing. He has worked with Buffy Summers for many years.”

The rebellious part of her wanted to snap at the man and ask why the hell he was putting her on the spot if he already knew about the vampire, but she managed to swallow the sarcasm back.

“What I’m hoping to get are details that could lead us to him, and hopefully, to Buffy Summers. Anything he might have done, or said, even if it sounds insignificant to you, might be useful. So please be thorough.”

“He didn’t say much, sir, mostly some smart ass comments.”

A dark, thick eyebrow was raised in question.

“Nothing significant. What happened is that I walked into the room and in the blink of an eye, he was on me. He pulled me inside, gagged me, sat me on a chair and tied me up. I didn’t get the feeling he wanted to hurt me at all. He was looking for something.”

“The Buffy Summers file.”

“Yes. It looked very important to him. And...”

“And what, Stevens?”

“I don’t know. He just looked really shocked and almost distraught when he found it.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Is it?”

“Excuse me?” He looked surprised that she would get out of line like this.

“I’m sorry, sir, I mean no disrespect. The whole situation was just very strange. It raised a lot of questions about the mission. I realized some things didn’t make sense...”

“You’re not here to question the motives of the U.S. Army, Sergeant Stevens. All I want is facts. So stick to your retelling of what happened, please.” His tone of voice was icy cold.

“My apology. He left right after he found the file. He didn’t say anything. Then Lieutenant Graham found me and ran to catch him. I caught up with them at the crater.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I have no idea, sir. He was with another demon and they were looking at it. Graham recognized him as Hostile 17. He didn’t tell me why he called him that but I doubt that was the man's name. We then had a very short fight but they managed to escape. We shot at them but they just kept on running, then got into a car and sped off.”

"What kind of car was it?"

"Not sure. It was a black sports car, but I couldn't say for sure what brand or give you a license plate number. It was too dark and I was too far."

“That’s all?” He looked greatly annoyed.

“That’s all I can remember. He really didn’t say anything. Some banter, but nothing of importance. He was mainly being sarcastic and joking around, even after we caught him and his friend. He said nothing of his intentions, or why he was there in the first place.”

General Voll looked like he was going to snap, but at this point, Molly didn’t care anymore. The guy was a pompous ass. She didn’t like the way he shut her up when she wanted to ask questions about the mission. Now, all she wanted was to go back to her hotel room, have a shower, a beer and a meal... and maybe start doing some research of her own. There was something fishy and she wasn’t the type of woman to just follow orders blindly.

“Fine.” He reached for the voice recorder and turned it off. “But if you remember anything, you have to come straight to me, Sergeant. Understood?”

“Yes, General.”

“You’re free to go.”

“Thank you, sir.”

If she could have, she would have run out of the room. But she managed to keep her dignity and walked calmly out. Yes, something definitely reeked. And she was going to find out what. They had given her the week off and she didn‘t have to report to the Sunnydale site until next Monday, so she was going to put that time to good use.

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After the initial shock had passed, Spike took a moment to evaluate his options. He could stay where he was and give Buffy time to calm down, which would be safer for his already tender nose and his yet untouched balls. Or he could run after her and risk a tremendous amount of screaming and pain, and try to get her to listen to him. Cowardice and instincts told him to stay where he was, so it was probably the wrong thing to do. He was a man after all, and when it came to women, his instincts were always screwing him over. She probably didn’t want to see him right now, but if he didn’t come after her, she would think he didn’t care. Women and their twisted sense of logic!

He started to run, and once inside, took the steps two at a time. He was thinking that he had no idea where he was going when he bumped into Giles.

“Dear lord! What have you done to her, you stupid git?” The watcher looked furious.

“Nothing.” Spike answered, but it rang false even to his own ears.

“Allow me to doubt that.”

“Fine. I told her I’ve been back for over a year and the bint got her knickers in a twist. Not that I blame her. But she wouldn’t even let me explain myself.”

Giles let out a breath and shook his head in disbelief. “I always knew you were a bleedin’ idiot, but you outdid yourself this time, Spike.”

“What was I supposed to do? Lie?”

“As much as it pains me to admit this, the girl has been miserable without you. I suspect she blames herself for your death. Which is ridiculous if you ask me because you did what you had to do. But finding out you have been back all this time and didn’t bother contacting her must have hurt her terribly.”

“You think I don’t know that, you wanker? I bollocked things up, all right? I know it, but it’s done. Now, if you could just tell me where Buffy is, I’ll be on my way and try to make things right.”

“If I may ask, why didn’t you tell her you were back?”

“It’s complicated, watcher. It had nothing to do with her... I had my own issues to deal with. And when I did go to her, I found out she was doing the ‘happily ever after’ thing with that buggering idiot the Immortal. So I decided to try and move on.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You and I will discuss this later, but for now, I need to find Buffy before she decides I deserve to die.”

“She’s in her bedroom. Top floor, last door on the right.”

“Thanks mate.”

Now, let’s just hope this doesn’t end with someone getting staked. Spike thought grimly before making his way to Buffy’s room with death on his mind.

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CHAPTER NINE: Issues much?

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