Velocity: distance per unit time. Well, there’s a lot of distance here but not much time. Spike wants to talk and Buffy needs to. Angsty B/S. PG-13.
Warnings: Just for angst. And, of course, S/D and B/G.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss. I promise not to hurt them… much.
Premise: Buffy’s 28 or so, still in Sunnydale. Spike is living with Dawn, who’s 22 or so, somewhere else. Buffy and Spike reluctantly parted after the last apocalypse, and Buffy still slays.
A/N: Legal Spike/Dawn and Buffy/Giles. Seriously, those two pairings just wrote themselves into the fic. About the title - this is what happens when you let a physics student write fic. I had S/B in mind, but I guess it could be read as S/D or B/G. Done in two hours; hope you like! Oh, and tell me if any of it doesn’t make sense. I know exactly what’s going on because I wrote the thing, but it might be confusing.
Feedback: To Kat J, or through the form at the bottom of the page. All comments appreciated!
Spike held Dawn softly. They were half-asleep, eyes drooping, safe and warm in their bed. “I want to call her,” Spike said quietly.
“No,” she replied quickly. “I told you I don’t want her to know.”
“You’re scared she’ll make you go back there,” he reasoned. “You’re an adult. You make your own decisions, and so do I. I want to tell her.”
“No!” she exclaimed, rolling away and sitting up. Tears collected in her eyes. “She wouldn’t understand.” Dawn fingered the diamond ring on her finger. You always loved her more.
“She’s your sister.”
“She’s dead to me!” With that, she was out the bedroom door.
You always were the jealous type.
~~
Hours later, Giles answered the phone in the Summers’ house in Sunnydale. Buffy watched from the bed as her lover exited the room, clearly upset. She asked about the caller when he returned, but did not press the matter when he didn’t reply.
Instead she curled up to his side, and both pretended to sleep.
~~
The phone rang. The number on the caller ID box was familiar, and after the third ring she remembered that it was her old home. In Sunnydale, with Buffy.
Dawn picked it up. “Hello.”
“Dawn! Oh, Dawn. Is Spike there? I need to talk to him.”
She watched Spike from the kitchen; his attention was focused on the TV. “He’s not here.”
“It’s urgent,” Buffy said, sounding worried.
“He’s. Not. Here,” Dawn grated out, hating how she knew Spike would jump at the chance to help her sister, who she knew had to be calling for assistance with some demon. Perfect Buffy got all the guys. Well, not today. “Bye.” She slammed the phone down.
“Who was that, pet?”
“No one,” she replied, snuggling into his embrace.
~~
“She said he wasn’t there,” Buffy said, dropping the phone on the bed beside her.
Giles knew how much she wanted, no, needed to talk to him. He could never replace the blond vampire; he knew that. Didn’t mean he hadn’t tried.
“Maybe you could try again tomorrow,” he suggested.
“We both know I’m not going to make it another day.”
It was true. The scratches in her side weren’t healing fast enough and her broken ribs and leg looked worse each time he cleaned and re-bandaged them.
The vampires who’d caught her knew what they were doing – hurt her just enough that she couldn’t heal. They were an organised bunch. They’d caught her and taken her back to their lair for an evening of torture before returning her to her watcher.
Now all she wanted was to say goodbye to her… friend? Ex-friend? Ex-boyfriend? Spike could be any or all of those. It didn’t matter, though, because she couldn’t talk to him.
“Could you cover me up?” Buffy asked.
“Of course.” He pulled the quilt over her and planted a quick kiss to her forehead.
“Stay with me.”
Giles lay next to her, not touching for fear of hurting her further.
“Goodnight,” he said, turning off the lamp and closing his eyes.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, then lay quietly as she felt her life force slip away from her.
~~
He read the letter, then looked up at his fiancé in stunned disbelief. “She died,” Spike said, mostly to himself. “She’s gone.”
“Who?” Dawn asked, placing a mug of warmed blood in front of him and then joining him at the table for breakfast.
“Your sister,” he replied, not game to say her name.
“Oh. Well, good. She had it coming.”
“Vampires got to her, Rupert writes. Says here she tried to call the night before.”
“Before she was attacked?” Dawn put down her spoon.
“Before she died. She knew it was coming. Wanted to say goodbye. That was… We were here, pet. Why didn’t we get the call?”
“Maybe she had the wrong number,” she suggested innocently.
“Did you answer her call?” he demanded. At her guilty look, he continued. “You didn’t want to talk to her, your own sister, so you hung up on her. Even after she told you she was dying.”
“No!”
“She wanted to talk to me, didn’t she?”
“No, Spike, baby. No.”
“You didn’t want us to talk because you think I’ll go running back to her.”
“Of course not!”
Always so selfish. He mumbled something, and she pushed away her cereal bowl. “What did you say?”
“I would have. If she’d asked, I would’ve gone running back to Sunnyhell to be with her for one more minute. Because even if she doesn’t love me, she feels something more than insane jealousy.”
Dawn plucked the letter from his grasp and ripped it in half. “That’s what this is about? Loving one of us more? New flash, I know you love her.” She ripped it again, then turned to run.
Spike reached for it, chasing her into the living room of their apartment, but it was in tiny shreds before he could get to it.
“I hate you!” she screeched, throwing the pieces at him. “You’re a fool for thinking I could ever love you.”
Spike disappeared into their bedroom, appearing seconds later with his duster and a small bag, which she recognised as where he kept his memories; photos, letters and the like.
“I’m leaving,” he told her.
He put his key on the coffee table and she watched in stunned silence as he closed the door behind himself.
The silence mocked her. She’d been a fool to separate the two and she’d be lying to herself if she thought he wasn’t going to greet the sun by her gravestone.
End
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