Part 2: Arctic Winter
The sun set in late October, and didn’t rise properly again until February. The vampire in Spike would have liked this very well if it weren’t so cold. Too many years in California had weakened his immunity, and he found himself that Arctic winter bundling up, wearing two pairs of socks and two sweatshirts under his coat and even, sometimes, covering his face with a poncy scarf to protect it from the wind.
But it was pleasant to go out at any hour of the day without worrying about burning up or coming down with a crippling migraine. (He concluded he still had a sun allergy, only now it wasn’t fatal.) And the twilight was a soft gray that made the harsh icy world seem ghostly and ethereal. It was a melancholy sort of half-light, and matched Spike’s mood.
He was lonely. Oh, there were plenty of people around. The winter had brought those in hiding back to town, and Spike helped keep them there. He still had the stolen Piper Cub (the owner had been out on his fishing boat when the tidal wave from the W&H earthquake hit), and he used it to ferry villagers to the little Nome hospital and to pick up medications and supplies and relatives for his neighbors. He learned to read the instrument panel, fly low over the tussocks of tundra meadow and high over the mountains, and land on ice fields. And he followed up the occasional account of a demon adventurous enough, or stupid enough, to venture this far north. He did his part to keep the Arctic area demon-free.
Except for himself, of course.
Sometimes he flew west, into the darkness, over Diomede Island and the rest of the strait and towards the hulking gray mass of Chukchi. He usually got within a half-mile of land before he turned back. He could try to push on through, he supposed, but he didn’t fancy damaging the plane, or himself for that matter.
It was just longing that made him do it. No real need. He just wanted. That old demon wanting.
But he was a demon, and glad of it, because he could kill the others of his kind, the ones that brought only destruction and chaos and pain. And because he could see in the dark, and it was dark most of the time. And because he could go long distances without flagging– and he would have a very long way to go come spring.
He just couldn’t leave this continent. No big deal. Not worth fretting about.
He wasn’t always alone. His mostly native neighbors showed their gratitude in concrete ways– leaving a can of aviation fuel by the airplane, firewood and sacks of fish and muskox burger patties and boxes of PopTarts on his steel porchsteps. One particularly discerning anonymous friend came in the middle of the night to deposit zip-lock bags full of frozen blood, discreetly wrapped in brown paper. Spike didn’t exactly need blood anymore, but it still gave him a charge, helped healing, and made him nostalgic. And this was good stuff, polar bear, he thought. He thought of the Alaskan Indians of the past, eating the bear’s heart to take in its strength, and felt stronger himself.
Occasionally a woman would come by and linger. But he’d given up on love (again). He’d always thought he was good at it, good at taking care of women, attending to them, being devoted. But they always left him in the end, so he must be doing something wrong. Of course, it took Dru a century to leave him, and that was because she thought he was in love with the Slayer. Buffy– well, he never had her to begin with. And Blue, she never meant to stay anyway. Nothing personal. But even Harmony left him, and with good reason.
No. Wasn’t the sort of man that women stuck with. Too bad he wasn’t the sort who didn’t care.
Anyway. Well. He was happy. For the first time in his unlife, he was surrounded by people who thought well of him. And he could have bathed in it, if all that approval wouldn’t have frozen before it hit the ground. He would stay here forever, he would, but for the cold.
And the demons in control of the West. He owed it to Wes and Gunn and Lorne and Fred to fight them… even though he knew he’d lose. No one else was fighting, he was pretty sure of that. From what he could tell from the scattered reports of travellers and messages on the single short-wave in town, the US and Canadian governments had given up and ceded the west to the demons. The Marines and Army were busy with that invasion of Cuba– no demons there, of course, but maybe that was the point the cowboy president was trying to make.
But Spike wasn’t going to give up– no matter how safe it was here, and how nice the neighbors were.
He was starting to plan for the trip south, secretly packing food tins and bottles of water, stockpiling the bear’s blood, plotting his course on a map, figuring he would depart in the dead of night, okay, leave a thank-you note behind, a promise to return, all that. But February came, and the sun rose– at noon the first time, but earlier and earlier every day– and every day he had a reason not to leave. Mrs. Ukikuk had to be dropped off for surgery, and she expected him to pick her up three days later. And Greg Nanwilik mentioned seeing foxes with their heads ripped off on the north coast of the peninsula– clearly a demon at work. And the Annual Ice Festival was coming up, and he’d promised to fly to Nome to pick up the kegs.
In March he got serious. Really serious. The days were lengthening, and pretty soon, real soon, he’d face twenty hours of daylight, or rather twenty hours huddled indoors with a cold cloth on his head. And the reports from the south were heartbreakingly bad. He got serious. Collected cans. Smiled a lot so that people would remember him fondly.
He came back one dim afternoon, landing the plane after an emergency trip to Nome, thinking longingly of a fire and some soup and the old tape of the American Idol 3 results show. (And maybe Law and Order after that.) He harnessed up the plane and gathered his pack and headed towards the motley collection of shacks that made up the little town. But then, from a long way away, came the sharp thwaps of helicopter blades against the dry air. He shaded his eyes from the twilight and waited, and waited– sound carried a long way in the cold, and, hey, vampire hearing– and waited until he was chilled through
Finally the black dot appeared in the gray sky, and got bigger and bigger, and then, kicking up a lot of unseemly noise and wind and snow and dust, it set down like a pregnant matron settling into an overstuffed chair.
Demons wouldn’t fly a Eurocopter. He was pretty sure of that. So he waited, relatively relaxed, just one hand clenched in its glove and the other in his pocket, on the revolver he had liberated from a Cherzig demon (okay, so he’d been wrong about demons not using guns– he was still right about the copter).
The door opened and out jumped a black fur hood and a red duffle bag and a red parka and red boots with black leggings in between, and he recognized the jump, and he recognized the walk, and he recognized the sweet curve of thigh and calf. And he withdrew his hand from his pocket, and unclenched the fist, and he took a harsh breath of the frozen air. It was worse than any demon.
She ducked down and ran out from under the whirling blades, and then she looked back and raised her hand, and with a great gust of wind, the copter rose and zoomed off.
Within him burst something worse than fear, more dangerous than despair. Hope.
She came to him, her hands out, and blindly he took them, and bent down to accept her kiss. It was just a brief meeting of mouths through her scarf. They never did this, even when they were lovers– exchange friendly kisses. She must have learned that in Europe.
He hadn’t kissed her in, oh, forever. They’d held each other all night those last three nights, but only their bodies touched. That last day, their hands had joined and burst into flame, but they hadn’t kissed. She’d kissed Angel, but she hadn’t– well, it was all long past. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d kissed– probably blocked it, because there was so much pain in between.
Her eyes were bright and laughing, and her cheeks, what he could see of them, were pink with the cold. “Let’s go inside,” he said, taking her bag from her arm, and she said, “Hi, Spike,” and they walked, holding hands– her idea, he thought– across the airstrip and the snow-rutted field to his little aluminum house. He glanced back and nodded to the neighbors who had come out to see the noisy helicopter, and stayed to watch the girl.
They didn’t have much to gossip about here in Tanner. This should hold them till summer.
“When’s the pilot comin’ back?” Spike said as he pushed open the door. Of course he was coming back. Buffy wouldn’t be staying. Good. He wanted her safe and happy somewhere else.
“Two days. Can you keep me in food and water that long?”
“Sure.” This broke through all his defenses. Two days. Not enough and way too much. He pulled the door shut and leaned back against it while she searched the wall for a lightswitch. “I take it Angel got to you safely. So how’d they find you?”
With a small cry of triumph, she found the switch and flipped it, and wonder of wonders, the generator held on, and light blossomed, and she gazed around at the bare little living room. It was clean– Mrs. Lukluk came in every couple days, more to keep an eye on him than anything else, but she always picked up while she was snooping. There was just a couch with a blanket thrown over it, and a pile of books and a pile of CDs where a coffee table might be, and the TV that received no signal and the VCR and Playstation and a crate full of tapes and videogames.
Buffy found what she wanted, or didn’t find what she didn’t want, because she turned to him with a smile. “They walked to one of the Siberian villages, and Angel rented a truck, and they drove to an airport, and he chartered a plane. And they flew to London, and there we were waiting.”
“Yeah. Glad they got there safe. Good about Angel being human, huh?”
She’d gotten her arm caught in her parka sleeve, and he had to go help her get extricated, and finally, as she sat on the couch to pull off her boots, she said, “Yes, I guess it’s good. Angel – well, he doesn’t seem to like it that much.”
Spike didn’t want to believe this, to see so much longing and striving come down to that. “He lost a lot, that final day– all his friends. So being human isn’t much of a trade.”
She made a little face. “But maybe it’s nothing new. Maybe I just never noticed. Was he always so unhappy?”
Spike gave this some thought. “Well, he was pretty jolly when he was Angelus.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed, and he laughed too, and, emboldened, he said, “But having you has to make him happy.”
“Having me?” She stared at him as she set her boots next to the bookpile. “He doesn’t have me. I mean, I still care about him. But everything has changed. I had to move on. And he’s not in any shape–” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “I was worried that you’d be… be like him. Blasted. Lost in the past.”
“No. I’m okay.” Didn’t lose longtime friends, or a son, or a home. Didn’t lose a world, and a reason. He still had this village, and Dawn safe somewhere else and learning Italian, and Xander drinking a pint for him every night, and his own little war. And Buffy here, for two days. “Better than okay.”
“Up to pretty good?” she teased.
“All the way to bloody good.”
She leaned back on the couch and patted the seat beside her. After a moment’s hesitation, he sat down, and she took his hand in both of hers and set it on her lap. “Illyria. The one who came with Angel. She’s gone away. Through a dimensional portal.”
Buffy sounded so sincere, so concerned, that he nodded just as soberly. “Yeah. Knew she was headed out. She fought brave with us, for a long time, got Angel safe to you. Not her world, nor her fight, but Blue stuck with us.”
She abruptly dropped his hand– well, actually she shoved it back at him– and rose and went her bag by the door and started rummaging through it. But as soon as he got up himself, she came to him and put her arms around him, and before he could speak, she said fiercely. “I hate it that you have a pet name for her.”
“I just–”
“I hate it.” Her hands slid up his arms to his shoulders and the sides of his head, and her fingers tangled in his hair. “I hate it that she knows all the words to all your favorite songs.”
“Well, we used to sing, to keep our spirits up,” Spike said. Buffy– Buffy always got to him, in the end. Always took him by surprise. “And she’s got a memory like a Cray 1.”
“I hate it–” this she whispered, as if someone might overhear– “I hate it that you made love to her more times than you made love to me.”
This silenced him for a moment. Then he said, “I didn’t keep count.”
“She did. Every encounter. Every orgasm. Every hour. And since I was her new best friend, she told me. In detail.”
Spike pulled away, leaned back from her. He didn’t know where she was going. Was pretty sure he didn’t want to go along. “She likes detail, does Blue.”
“She was surprised to find out I knew all about your skills. You never told her that we were lovers.”
“Buffy– ” he sighed. He thought maybe he was done with women (again). They were maybe too hard for even him to understand. “That was over a long time ago. Years.”
“But it wasn’t ever over really. We just– just went on hiatus.”
“We’re not a sodding television show, Slayer.”
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Buffy’s face was pugnacious. “Were you… ashamed? That we’d been together?”
Spike decided he was bloody sick of irony, and tired of what goes around coming around, and as far as nothing new under the sun, well, he was ready to consign that truism to history’s dustbin right smart. “It wouldn’t have made any sense to her. Not then. She pretty much thought she invented me. Didn’t see me as having an independent existence. It’s not like she knew you. And whatever she didn’t know, didn’t exist.”
He pulled all the way away, turned away, walked away. Just to the stack of CDs, and he stood there and couldn’t think of what he wanted to play. Couldn’t remember just now what he and Blue used to sing to keep their spirits up (and drive Angel insane), or what he used to play to get Dru in the mood, or what Buffy danced to at the Bronze. He felt her behind him, felt her hand stretching out to him, and turned before she took hold of his collar and throttled him, or whatever she was planning.
She was looking stubborn and miserable. “I don’t want you to be with anyone else.”
“Yeah. I get that.” He let her edge closer to him, take his hands.
“But I don’t want you to be alone either.”
“Big of you.”
“You’re mad at me.”
He brought her hands up and kissed them, first one and then the other, then let her go. “Just annoyed. It will pass. Let’s have some dinner. Got a choice between Chef Boyardee and grilled salmon.”
“Hey–”
From the doorway to the kitchen, he turned back. He’d never been able to resist that tone. Pleading and commanding. Pure Buffy.
“Do you love her?”
“Blue?” He considered this for a moment, then said, “Nah. Fond of her. But she’s too far above me, goddess, ancient deity, all that. And too high-maintenance. Like Drusilla, only not so sweet. And not so insane. And–”
“Spike.” She came close, almost right up to him, and put her hands on his chest, palms flat against his hoodie front. She was smiling again. “I’m cold all the way through. Can I have a bath before dinner?”
She looked so sweet, her face a bit plumper now than that last year, the way it had been when he first saw her in the Bronze– a happy, healthy girl who just happened to be the slayer. “Sure. Take a bit of a while, though, to get the water hot.”
For a real bath, he had to locate a couple real bath towels and supplement the hot water heater output with a couple pots boiled on the stove. He really was good with women, he reminded himself, lighting the last candle around the tub, filling the glass on the rim with half of a wine cooler, and switching off the electric light. He knew what they liked. What Buffy liked particularly. He ushered her into the bathroom, pointing out the jasmine-scented suds. “Bath and Body Works. Found it in your bag.”
She smiled at him and started to strip off her clothes. Time for him to go– but she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “You get in too. I want to see if I can work a comb through those dreadlocks of yours. You look as ragtag as those days in the basement. But – ” she added, “it’s sort of a cute look.”
“Blue liked it,” he said, and dodging her fist, he picked her up bodily, his hands spanning her bare little waist, and set her down in the bubbles. And while she got herself arranged, he took off his shirt and jeans, and refused to think, and found a comb for her, and finally got in front of her. And she slid up right behind him and started combing through his hair.
Her legs were alongside his, and her breasts were pushed up against his back, and her rough little curls were tickling at his ass. She chattered as she worked the comb through his tangles, talking about Xander and Giles and Rome and London and taking every opportunity, he thought, to rub her nipples over his skin. Maybe it was an invitation– he didn’t know, and, considering their history, he wasn’t about to guess. So he just let her tug at the knots in his hair, and exclaim that he was too thin, and he told himself she wasn’t coming on to him, because she lay in his arms quiet and unreachable that whole night before he burned up, and if she wouldn’t open to him then, she would hardly open to him now.
But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking anyway.
So when she asked, he told her about the demons that were occupying the west, all the varieties he’d catalogued, and now she had her fingers in his hair, working at the last tangle, and they talked shop just like old times. Then, with that sudden Slayer grace, she slid around and onto him, her hands on his shoulders, her legs twining around his back, her hot little pussy jamming onto his cock.
Okay, so maybe she was coming on to him.
If he didn’t have so much pride, he would just come right now– but she was pressing into him and crooning something against his neck, and he had to concentrate and listen, even if his cock was as full of joy as it had ever been.
“I thought you were dead– twice. I kept trying to pick up and go on, but–”
Now he could feel her tears inching down his throat, onto his chest. “Baby, listen, I’m sorry–”
“No.” She pulled away and glared at him, and dug her fingers into his shoulders. “You listen. Listen. The first time, oh, I was kind of okay. You died in glory. You’d want me to be happy, and so I tried. And then I heard you were alive again, but you didn’t come get me, except for that one time, and you didn’t try hard. Didn’t call me. And I got mad. I wasn’t going to chase after you. No, I wasn’t. You should come to me. And apologize for making me wait.”
He started to respond again, but this time she clapped her hand over his mouth. “Shut up. Listen. I kept waiting for you to call me, and then – and then we got the reports of the battle, and the earthquake, and I thought–”
She took her hand off his mouth, and put her head back on his chest, but he knew better now and didn’t try to speak. She whispered, “And I thought you were dead. Again. Lost to me. And– and I’d done that awful thing, refused to call you, just being a bitch. A diva. Like you weren’t the one who always reached out, every time before. Like just this once I couldn’t reach out first… and so when I heard about the apocalypse, I kind of crashed, you know.”
She was trembling in his arms, and he kissed her face, her cheek, her strong dainty jaw. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. I got involved with this scuzzy guy, and he got all weird, and started kind of stalking me, and I had to break his arm–”
Spike started to smile at this, then when she pulled back to look at him, ruthlessly tamed his expression. “Bad year, pet, for everyone.”
“Worse for you, and I didn’t even know it, and I was being stupid and self-destructive. I thought no one would ever, ever love me like you did, and I deserved it, because I never loved you back, not really, not enough. Not enough to risk my heart or my pride–”
“You’re here now.”
“Yeah.” She quieted, nestling closer to him, moving a bit, driving him mad. “I had to wait till the weather broke to do it, to fly over the Pole, and every day seemed like too long, and I couldn’t find any way to reach you to tell you.”
“It was a nice surprise.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes, whispered, “You were surprised. I came to you. That’s good, isn’t it?”
“The best, baby.” She always did this to him, making him happy while breaking his heart. “We’ll make it the best two days–”
Now she leaned back, stared at him. “Two days?”
“Your ride’s coming back in two days.”
“But– ” That little frown creased her forehead. “But I’m not leaving you here. I came to get you. Take you back with me.”
Oh. That hurt even more. “But I can’t go. Demon, remember? And there’s that demon barrier.”
“Is that all?” She dropped a kiss on his mouth, then drew away to say, “The barrier’s only two thousand feet high. That’s higher than any demon can fly. But not higher than my copter. You’re coming back with me.”
So he kissed her, and stroked her, and told her he loved her, and all through the long arctic night he held her and made love to her. And it wasn’t till the next morning that he told her that he had to let her go, because his mission was here, on this broken continent, to fight on in a war he couldn’t win, but couldn’t give up. They would be apart again, only this time, it might break her heart too. And that he wasn’t sure he could survive.
It took them an hour, but they settled it. He’d come back with her, but just for a little while, long enough to see Dawn and the others one more time, and to collect some real weapons, and to consult a few maps, and maybe to talk some strategy with Rupert. And then he’d fly back, set down somewhere in the Rockies, and start his one-demon war.
“Two weeks,” he said, turning onto his side and pressing up against her bare back.
“A month,” she said, and wiggled so her breast settled into his hand.
He sighed. “Three weeks.”
“Done.” She wiggled again, and he would probably have agreed to a year if she kept that up. “Look how mature we are! Compromise and everything.”
“That’s just because we agreed not to have sex again till we settled it.”
“Well, that shows how advanced we are, that we agreed on that. And now we agree on this.”
The sun was rising finally, and a slice of light came in through the curtains. It would be daylight for four hours. Spring was here, and his heart was aching, and he pulled her close and said, “We’ll have fun, pet. Now tell me – are Becks and Posh Spice still together?”
Buffy moaned as his roving hand found its target. And breathlessly she said, “Yeah, but JLo married some singer. Never got back with Ben.”
“JLo survived? I guess W&H took care to get its clients out before the earthquake.”
“You think she has a better ass than I do.”
Loyally he said, “No one has a better ass than you do. Now jostle it just a bit, love, that’s my girl.” Three weeks, he reminded himself, to make up for never.