Fated - a Buffy/Spike story

A hundred and forty-seven days after Spike dies in the Hellmouth, a grieving Buffy returns to Sunnydale.

Chapter 1

A hundred and forty-seven days. 

That's how long it had taken her to resurrect. So maybe, just maybe, that would be the magic number and he would resurrect. Today. The hundred and forty-eight day. 

She sat on the edge of the crater, looking out over the vast, vast hole in the ground-the hole that had swallowed up the entire town of Sunnydale. She had resurrected in her grave. But Spike didn't have a grave. The whole crater could be considered a grave, she supposed. She dropped her head on her knees and shook. 

Oh, God, she shouldn't have left him. She should have done something, anything, torn that amulet over his head, ripped him out of there before he died. Why hadn't she? Why had she just frozen, just gone unthinkingly along with whatever was happening? Because it had all come at her too fast? Because she hadn't had time to think, to process; because she had just reacted to whatever was going on? 

So many things she should have done, could have done. 

I love you. 

No, you don't, but thanks for saying it. 

Of course he hadn't believed her. A sop for a dying man, that's what he thought she was giving him. Why hadn't she told him the night before? She hadn't even thought of it. It was something for after, once the crisis was over and they were able to get back to their usual lives, or unlife as the case may be. She had never really thought that either of them would die. She had thought always, defiantly, that they would survive. That he would survive. Because he always did. Because he was always there, even when she did not want him to be, even when she tried with all her might to drive him away. 

But he was gone. He had died. And it was all her fault. If she had only not given him that amulet, if she had only let Angel wear it, if she had... 

So many ifs. And they changed nothing. Did nothing to alleviate her overwhelming guilt. Nothing to help the unendurable loss. 

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. They itched from wanting to cry. But she didn't allow herself to cry. She didn't have the right to cry. This was all her fault. Crying would supposedly ease the pain. And she didn't deserve to have anything ease the pain. The guilt was hers. She wore it like a hair shirt day after day. 

But she hadn't stopped wanting to cry since the day he died. Oh, she kept it hidden from the others, from Dawn and Giles and Willow and Xander, from all the Potentials who were now Slayers. She went through the day with her eyes wide and too dry and painful because of it; she kept all the pain and grief hidden during the day, while she trained the new Slayers and tried to get on with her new life in Rome. But the nights...the nights were agony. 

Dawn suspected, she thought. Dawn hadn't objected, not in the least, when Buffy had suddenly announced that she was going to pay a visit to Sunnydale. Dawn had even said she would cover for her if Giles called from England. Dawn knew. 

The others didn't. They were just happy that the First was defeated. They didn't count the cost. They wouldn't anyway because it was Spike. They didn't even really give him credit for what he had done, for the sacrifice that he had made. He wasn't a person to them. So what if demons perished, even if it was Spike and Anya. 

She remembered Wood-he'd never be Robin to her again-she remembered Wood saying, "It was the amulet that did it. It wouldn't have mattered who was wearing it." But it had mattered, because it was Spike's soul powering it. Because it was Spike. If that fool Wood was wearing it, nothing would have happened. She was seriously beginning to doubt that anything would have happened if Angel had been wearing it. It was the goodness in Spike that had powered it, his passion, his self-sacrifice.