She had been following him for four days. Not stalking, just observing. He moved too much for a body to keep up with. It took her a year to find out where he was and then another two to work up the courage to find him.

She didn't tell anyone about her plans. Not that it was their business. She was her own woman now. Xander was gone, to Vegas of all places. Some big time construction job for a new casino. Last they talked, he sounded like he had plans to stay.

You should see this place Buffy, the lights, the gambling, the women.

That had made her smile. He was happy and lost to her. Willow too. In New York, studying. Always so smart. She missed Dawn the most. But not even Dawn knew the real reason why she was going.

Oh, a grand European tour? I wish I could go with you. But with this research assistantship and Dave.

She had reassured Dawn that she wanted to go alone. Get some culture. Dawn had her own life too.

She could go places now, do things she couldn’t before. She wanted to travel. Who are you kidding? You want him. And now here she was, stalking him the way he had stalked her in the beginning. No, not stalking, observing. He was losing his touch. He once told her that he could feel her. Well, he sure didn’t feel her presence now. Even though she was sitting three tables away from him. Okay, so she looked different. Dark glasses, dark hair. She unconsciously touched it. She hadn’t been blonde for a while.

She couldn’t stop looking at him. Oh it was him. She could find him anywhere. He looked different too. Hair not bleached but sandy blonde. Not wearing black anymore either. Blue t-shirt, faded jeans and sandals? She stared at his feet. Spike toes. Toes of Spike. It was all so alternate universy. He ordered something she never heard of. She ordered the same and nearly choked when she took the first sip. It tasted vile. A few people turned to smile at her while she coughed in her napkin. He didn’t turn his head away from his book. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

Four days of following him from his apartment to the little outdoor market to the museum to the bookstore. She watched him buy a bouquet of lilies from a little old woman the other day and felt a stab of jealousy. Were they for a woman? She had never seen him with anyone but that didn’t mean anything. And now here at this little outdoor trattoria. God, she wanted to just get up from her table and slide in across from him. She could barely breathe, he was so hard on her heart. The way he bent over his book, tanned and lean, a stray sun-streaked curl falling on his forehead. Her hands clenched so tightly she could feel the nails digging into her palms. She wanted to touch him so badly.

She felt eyes on her and turned. An old man at the next table was watching her with a smile on his face. Oh my god, I probably look like a psycho. By the time she turned back to him, his table was empty. She had lost him. Then she felt a whisper of cloth brush her arm. Oh god, oh god. He walked by her on his way out. He was so close she could have reached out and grabbed his hand. Another lost chance, so many lost chances.

She threw some money on the table and followed him out, keeping a safe distance. He still walked the same. Slight swagger, equal parts graceful and menacing. He veered off into a twisty side street. She followed him. Sometimes she wondered if she would always follow him. It was getting dark and she couldn’t see him. Her eyes burned from three sleepless nights watching and waiting outside his place. Damn. She cursed under her breath right before she was slammed face first into a stone wall, a hard hand squeezing the back of her neck. She could feel the blood starting to trickle from her nose and the cool stone against her cheek. Then oh god, his voice.

“Who the fuck are you?”

He laughed softly. The sound, oh god. It was him all through. She could feel sparks shooting down from where his hand grasped her neck to the base of her spine. His breath warm against her face. Warm and deadly. Take me, she wanted to cry. Take me and make me yours again because I’ve been so empty and hungry without you. Hungry for his touch, his unswerving attention. For him. Always.

“Little bitch. Going to pick my pocket were you?” He laughed again when she bucked back against him. “Haven’t had a good dust-up in a while. Gonna make this hard for you.”

He spun her around and threw her to the other wall. Her back collided with it and she felt the wind going out of her lungs. It came out of nowhere. She was slipping. His backhand to her face made her drop to her knees and gasp for breath. There was leftover rainwater on the ground and she stared into a puddle but it was so dark. She couldn’t see herself. A piece of paper fluttered into the water. She looked up. She could barely make out his form in the fading light. But he was watching her, she could feel it. She looked down again. Money, he had thrown money at her.

She licked her dry lips tasting blood. She had to tell him. So many things. She had to make him see her. Legs unsteady, clutching the wall, she got to her feet. Held out trembling arms.

“I’ve found you.” Her voice sounded raspy and crazed to her own ears.

Quicker than lightning, he grabbed her up and dragged her to the far end of the alley. Turned her face in the direction of the streetlight filtering in from the square. He made a choked sound, a rattle in his throat. He dropped her arms and backed away. The loss of his touch almost brought her to her knees again.

“No. No, no, no.”

“Please, Spike. I…” She moved towards him, her hand reaching up to touch his face. He slapped it away.

“Shut up! Don’t you dare… don’t you dare try to touch me. Fuck, fuck.”

Not touch him? God, her whole body ached to be his. Her hands fluttered together and twisted like birds trying to take flight. She moved towards him again. She had to be near him. Why couldn’t he see that?

His face hardened, jaw clenched. She was too busy drinking in the vision of it and didn’t see his fist coming at her until it connected with her stomach. She doubled over and nearly cried out with the sharp pain. He grabbed the scruff of her neck and threw her away from him. She could hear him panting, the sounds forced and wretched. When she got up, he was looming above her, chest rising and falling with his labored breaths. He kicked her but she rolled away, the blow glancing off the side of her face. Her ear was ringing.

“Come on Slayer. What’s the matter? Don’t got it in you anymore?” He sneered and hauled her up by her arm shaking her.“Fight me! Fight me you bitch. Don’t just stand there blubbering like a worthless little girl. Make me bleed for you. It’s what you do best. Innit?”

Oh god. Is that what he wanted? Another alley, another dance. Another chance to break each other. She tasted the tears collecting in the corners of her mouth, bitter and cold.

“No please, I…”

“Hit me! What’s the matter with you, you stupid cunt?”

This time when his fist came at her, she grabbed it and put his hand to her lips. He wrenched his arm away.

“Spike, I’ve found you…I had to. I can’t be without… I know now that I…”

He pushed her away. “Shut it Slayer. You know fuck-all.”

“Goddamit Spike! Listen to me. I don’t want to fight you. I can’t be without you.” Shit, she could feel the tears starting again. He made her so weak.

“I’m nothing without you.”

He reeled back and turned his face away. When he spoke, his voice was so calm, so cold she felt like she’d been gutted.

“And I’m nothing with you.”

Then he turned and ran.

She watched him go numbly. Her face ached and she felt dizzy. She grabbed the wall behind her and tried to catch her breath. No, not her breath. She needed to catch him and make him see. She stumbled out of the alley and looked around her desperately. There were people walking in the square, couples arm in arm. Some turned to stare at her but she didn't care. A taxi. She needed a taxi. Finally she saw one pull up in front of a man loaded down with shopping bags. She ran over before he could get in and pushed him out of the way. She ignored the string of Italian he shouted at her knowing that he was probably cursing her. The driver whipped his head around and his eyes widened as she slide in the backseat and slammed the door.

Talking. What? Oh, he was saying something to her. Something about a hospital? She touched her temple, her fingers coming away bloody. No, no hospital. She gave him Spike's address in her broken Italian, learned from tapes she had borrowed from the library. He nodded, still staring at her.

"Hurry, please!" it was almost a scream.

When the taxi drew up in front of Spike's apartment she threw all her money at the driver and almost tripped getting out, her desperation making her clumsy. He couldn't have left yet, his motorbike was still outside. Tears of relief threatened. God, she had cried so much over him. Angry tears when he left. Four years worth of bitter tears waiting for him to return.

Her chest ached as she ran up the circular stairs. One step closer to him. One step closer. The nineth floor. She knew he lived on the ninth floor. She had counted, those nights watching the light from his windows, hungering for a glimpse of his shadow. Which door was his? She started banging on every one, not caring if she disturbed people if it meant she would find him. Then she started shouting his name. Finally she saw the door at the end of the hall open slightly. It was him, she could feel him. She ran to his door and pressed her face against it.

"Please Spike. Please, please open the door. I need you to talk to me. You can yell at me, I don't care. I have to see you." Her voice was rising higher and higher with each gasped word. God, was that her voice? So pleading and hysterical. She would have been ashamed if she had any shame left.

The door opened so suddenly, she almost fell on her face. Oh, it was him. She wasn't too late. His face was red and mottled with fury. A door behind her opened. A woman stuck her head out and stared at them. The woman was saying something to Spike but they were talking so fast she couldn't keep up. Spike's face smoothed into a rueful smile and the woman shrugged closing her door. As soon as the door closed, Spike grabbed her arm and twisted it.

"Have you gone mad? What do you think you're doing here, causing a scene, behaving like a lunatic?"

If she wasn't so distraught she would have laughed. Since when did Spike care about making a scene? A wave of dizziness and relief flooded over her. All she wanted to do was collapse in his arms. Oh no, she really was going to collapse. When was the last time she ate? Two, three days ago? She couldn't remember. He caught her before she fell and hauled her into his apartment.

He dumped her in a heap on the couch and backed to the other side of the room. Seeing his desire to get away from her hurt more than all the blows he rained on her in the alley. She tried to calm down and will her voice to a normal tone.

When she opened her mouth to speak, he walked off into the kitchen. She watched him fill a glass with water. His apartment was a disaster. Books lying everywhere, clothes strewn around haphazardly. Then she saw the suitcase propped open on the floor. He was going to run away. From her. Do not cry. Do not cry.

"Here." He shoved the water in her face, some of it sloshing down the side. He threw a handkerchief at her. "Get yourself cleaned up and get the hell out."

Suddenly, she was so angry. At him, at herself. She had traveled halfway around the world just to see him. She had been a ghost for four years, flitting around the house her mother died in, waiting for him to come back and tell her he still wanted her. She had tried to get on with her life and just ended up driving Dawn and her friends insane with her indecisiveness about everything. What could she say when a frustrated Xander asked her for the third time what she wanted on her side of the pizza? She couldn't tell him that nothing mattered because He wasn't there and the world had gone grey and fuzzy. God, she was so angry. How could he have gone on when everything had stopped the day he left?

She took the glass from him and threw it at the wall.

"I've come so far for you. I have given up everything. For you. I chose you."

She was shaking so hard, she thought she would shatter. She had been shattering since the day he left. A little bit here. A little bit there. Pieces of herself, floating away.

His lips twisted in that smirk. This almost stranger with her Spike's face. His hands, his voice. But not his eyes. Spike would never look through her this way.

"It's always been about you. Your choices. What you wanted. What about Faith? Giles? Did you ever give them a choice?"

If she hadn't been sitting, she knew she would have fallen. He hated her. Still.

"I...I was the Slayer. That was my job. To make those decisions. Do you think I wanted this? For it to be this way? God, I gave up my calling for you. I’ve been so lost without you Spike.”

He made a choked sound, halfway between a scream and a sob.

“You were lost even before. And you wanted to take me with you. To keep me in the darkness.” He had never loved anyone like this. He had never hated anyone like this.

She didn’t even realize her hand had come up until it smashed against his cheek. He staggered with the blow, his head knocking back against the wall. He always made her do this. Made her hurt him. Made her hurt herself. The same cycle, over and over. Punch, hit, scream, curse, cry. She looked down at her hands. So much blood, so much fear and death. Maybe a Slayer was just a killer after all.

“I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. Please don’t do this to us.” She was so tired. So tired of aching for him. So tired of living without.

Her head hurt. She could barely hear his screaming over the rushing of her mind, the pounding of her blood.

“There is no us! There never has been. What we had was sick. All we do is drag each other through the filth.”

He started throwing his things. Things he had collected over the years. Books, pictures, knickknacks that made him feel human. All a sham. Pretending to be a man when he really was still the monster. She made him feel like he was that foul thing, crouching in the dark, lurking on the edges of the world. Taking life, drinking it down, but always apart. Alone.

She didn’t even scream when he yanked her to him by her hair and threw her to the ground. This was what she wanted, what she expected. He couldn’t be a man because she wanted her demon lover.

“Is this what you came for? What you long for? Is this what you love?”

Blood streaming down the side of her mouth, she knelt at his feet. She was not afraid of his rage. What she could not stand was his indifference. She came for him. To be his again. Because he was hers but he seemed to have forgotten. She had to make him see. Her love, her sacrifice, her will. And he could make her live. She was dead without him. Less than dead, nothing. Without him she felt weightless, groundless. Trapped between the heart where she was and the heart where she wanted to be.

“I love you Spike.”

He fell to his knees beside her. I love you Spike. Never William. Never the man. He was helpless. She undid him and made him lose himself. He could feel everything he had fashioned in the years apart from her slipping away. When she laid her head on his lap, he pushed her away.

“Spike?”

“I have to go. To think.”

“I’ll go with you.” Her voice grew small. “I’d go anywhere with you.”

“No. I can’t think if you’re there. Just…just stay here.”

She went rigid with fear. “You’re not…you’re not leaving me again, are you?”

He rubbed his hands over his face. He looked so strange to her. Boyish and weak and defeated.

“No, Slayer. I’m not leaving. I’ll be back. Get some rest. You look like death.” He suddenly felt like laughing hysterically. You look like death. You’ll be the death of me, beautiful, lost girl.

She flinched but his words gave her hope. “I know…this must have been a shock to you. But you see, don’t you? That I had to fight? To fight for us.”

“Yes, I see.”

He turned and walked to the door. Her words stopped him at the doorway.

“Spike? Please, don’t be too long. I’ve waited too long for you.”

“No love. I won’t be too long.”

She watched him leave. No, not leave. Not like the last time. He would be back. She knew it. She saw it in his eyes. She wasn’t too late. And he had called her “love” again. She laid down on his couch and closed her eyes. For the first time in years, she felt like she had something to wake for.

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