Title: Credit to the Past
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Spike/Buffy, mentions past Angel/Buffy and past Riley/Buffy
Rating: Soft R/M
Summary: Spike wakes to find Buffy watching him, and brooding.
Word Count: 2,378
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 457
Warnings: Spoilers for the romance throughout the series, Mentions non-con and domestic violence in more positive lights than most may prefer
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
Author's Note: I found myself on Tumblr for the first time yesterday and fell into a lovely Spike rabbit hole. :) I have no idea who's profile I was on, but they opened to my eyes to a certain scene that had me hating Buffy (the character) for years.









He wakes to find his wife's fingers gently trailing over his pale, cold skin. Her eyes are gazing directly into his, and there are tears in those beautiful eyes into which he'd feared for so long she would stop allowing him to gaze. He'd never thought they'd reach this moment, laying here peacefully in bed together, both recognizing the other as their missing half. He reaches up, takes one of her hands, threads his fingers through hers, brings her hand to his lips, and softly kisses her wrist.

"Pet," he murmurs, and the mere sound of her husband's voice sends delicious chills shooting through Buffy. Even after all this time, all these years together, the reactions this man brings in her with nothing more than a single syllable or a mere look are astounding. She doesn't deserve to be loved like this, to be loved by him! "What's keeping you up this time?" he says, his black lips twitching in a bemused smile that some might consider bordering on a smirk, those who did not know him anywhere near as well as she does. He'd never smirk at her for not sleeping, never tease her about the nightmares that plague her of their past lives in Sunnydale.

She's come to be thankful for her life as a Slayer for there is so much she would have never experienced otherwise. Settling down with the usual 2.5 kids with a 9-5 job might have been nice. It was what she wanted once. But it would never have given her the experiences she's had in this world, or introduced her to the people she's met, including him. If she had met him, she would have been a quick meal to him, nothing more or less, and he... Buffy can feel herself swooning. She knows she would have been hot after him with only one glance, but that likely would have led very quickly to her death.

Instead, he is the one who's made her feel alive when she wasn't, who's made her want to live when she'd thought nothing more could reach her or touch her, let alone inspire her. Willow yanked her out of Heaven, but he pulled her back out of the living corpse that she had been and slowly rebuilt her with his love, his patience that so often seemed missing, and his tenderness. He really had been patient with her, while she'd still been cooking.

She'd been such a fool, spending all those years claiming she couldn't make up her mind between Angel and Spike. Angel had been puppy love. He'd been the one she really couldn't have, because to have him again would mean for him to lose his soul once more and them both to endanger the entire world. But Spike -- He'd wanted her, he'd ached for her. He'd made his intentions clear. Hell, unlike Angel who still often bemoaned his curse while never bothering anymore to actually look for a cure, Spike had literally gone to Hell and back, fighting to reclaim his soul, fighting to make himself what he thought she would believe to be worthy of her.

But he hadn't been the only monster in their relationship. She's still tracing his face with her empty hand, carefully trailing her fingertip around his eyes and over the bridge of his nose. His nose is as long and lean as the rest of him. She's never realized that until now, but wasn't there a saying that used to go around when she was a teenager about a guy's nose being equal to his length in other areas?

"Slayer," he asks again in that deep, dark, once formidable tone of his voice, "what's troubling you tonight?"

"I'm sorry." She's been watching him sleep since memories jerked her awake, a silent scream in her throat, and trying to figure out how on Earth she can ever apologize to him for what she did to him. Yes, he'd tried to rape her, and tried so many other horrible things. But he'd always been gentle with her mother, even when he'd been evil and soulless, and with Dawn. He's always been good to her except for a few, horrible moments, but he'd been fighting the signals she'd been unwittingly sending him as well as his own literally Demonic impulses. He'd stopped himself that night as much as she'd stopped him.

But nobody had stopped her the night she'd hurt him so badly. Noone and nothing had come to his defense, and he -- Dear God, her poor baby had taken her poundings. He'd encouraged her to let it all out on him, given her a relief that no one else would have dared to and that had not at all been sexual in any way. He'd been her punching bag. When the world had hated her and a part of her had hated the world, when literally nothing else could have stood up to her, he had let her wail on him. He'd let her beat him until he'd been broken, blinded, and almost dead.

And then she'd ran like the scared child she'd been, ran until she'd thought she could put it all behind her and pretend that she was still everyone's perfect little, golden Slayer. Of course, Spike's Vampire form had always been able to quickly heal him, but that was beyond the point. She'd left him for dead, beaten, bloody, and even blinded. She'd done that -- all while parading around, claiming to be so good, so pure, so above him....

Her tears escape her restraints, speeding down her face, but he's there for her as he's been for years now, there to catch every one. "Sh, sh," he murmurs, pulling her closer and sliding closer to her as well, erasing what physical distance had been between them. He cups her head underneath his chin and holds her as she cries. She's now sobbing openly and doesn't seem able to stop. "Sh now," he continues to console her, "before I have to go to licking every one of those delicious tears of yours, luv."

"I was so horrible to you!" she cries, trembling with a mixture of emotions. She always treated him so horribly, after everything he did for her! The night she'd blinded him had been the worst, but she'd treated him like... There are no words, she realizes, except to confess that she, too, had been a monster in the early years of their relationship. "I'm so sorry!" She sobs again, but suddenly, his fingers are on her lips.

He's not hard with her; he never is anymore, unless she asks him to be. His fingers press against her open lips with just enough pressure to quiet her. He pulls her away, again just enough to be able to do what he wants to do and get his message across to her. There's a fierceness in his bright, blue eyes that she's almost missed as their life together has settled and she's ebbed away from being the leader in every fight. They still fight, of course, side by side, but only when they're truly needed. There are so many other Slayers now, so many others to fight the battles she'd wielded so often alone. But once he'd come to love her, Buffy recognizes, she only ever fought alone when she shoved him away.

"You did what you had to do," he vows, his voice low and firm. "I don't regret a single moment of what you did to me. I regret some of the things I did to you, or that I tried to do to you. I was a monster -- "

"So was I," she exclaims heatedly, jerking her mouth away from his fingers so that she can talk, "and I didn't have the excuse of not having a soul!"

"You didn't, no. It was harder for you."

He's so quiet, so calm, so accepting!! She can scarcely believe her ears. "What?!"

"It was harder for you. You were human. You didn't have the monster in you freeing you to act on your impulses. You were a young, terrified girl with the bloody weight of the whole freaking world on your shoulders and no one you felt you could trust!"

"I could trust you -- "

"Could you?!" He's snarling now, but she knows it's not at her. He's snarling with the same self-hatred she so often feels when she looks back, the same self-hatred that's been boiling in her while she watched her beloved husband sleeping so peacefully, the husband who it's a wonder survived long enough to be able to convince her dumb ass to marry him at all. "After that night you had to throw me out of your home?!"

"I brought that on you. I confused you. You didn't know what to make of me."

"You were hot and cold like crazy, pet, but that doesn't excuse my behavior. Nothing could!"

"Nothing could excuse my behavior either!" she snaps, irritated that he doesn't understand how wicked she was to him, how cruel. He had been the one without a soul, but she was the one who acted truly heartless!

"You were terrified. You were young. You were naive. But you weren't naive not to trust me. I was a monster! Still am, I like to think."

"Spike!" she admonishes, but a heartbeat later, he sees the smile tugging at her beautiful mouth.

"Luv, I don't regret anything we went through, and that's the God honest truth. We had to go through it, some of it together, some of it on our own -- or at least, you had to go through some of it on your own." For a moment, his mind flashes back to his trials in Hell. He admits, if only to himself, that he, too, had had to go through some of his lessons alone, in order to become a better man to be able to win her love, and that had little to do with the actual earning back of his soul.

"Every moment we went through," he continues, pushing those memories from his mind with determination honed over centuries, "every battle, every night, good and bad, made us the people we are now." He takes her other hand in his as well, and squeezes both, his fingers entwined with hers. "We had to come through every moment, every trial, to become who we are now, together and separately. If you'd made it easy for me, do you think I'd ever have fought to get my soul back? Hell no, it was easier without one, but I don't regret a moment of any of it," he speaks earnestly, shaking his blonde head. "And I really wish you wouldn't either."

"How can I not regret -- " she starts to ask. She tries to take her hands from his to touch the places where she remembers every bleeding welt she beat into him, but he's holding her tight. Her eyes search his in desperation. "Your beautiful eyes -- "

"Healed," he firmly finishes for her. "Not even a scratch left. Benefit of being a Vampire."

"But if you hadn't -- If they hadn't -- "

"But I was, and they did. You weren't going to love a normal man, darling." He shakes his head. "That whelp, Riley Finn, didn't stand a chance."

"Then why were you so jealous of him?"

"Oh, I was bloody jealous of him. Would've killed him quick if I'd thought for a moment you wouldn't stake me for it. But you had to learn. You had to learn to accept both your goodness and your light. I'm glad you did. I could always see both, you know, and it takes both to make you the powerful, beautiful woman you are. Please," he pleads again in earnest honesty, "don't regret anything we went through to get here, to get to this very moment right now, laying in this bed together, you being my wife and having me for your husband. He does smirk at her this time as he adds words he knows will make her stop dwelling on the bad memories, "For you to finally, bloody well get done baking."

Her mouth falls agape, and he knows he's got her. "And choose the right man," he adds, grinning.

She had been going to tease him about remembering that silly speech she'd given all those years ago -- she had been a naive, stupid teenager, she supposes, despite everything she'd endured -- when he adds the last and she cannot help but to smile. "Yes," she agrees, pulling his hands down and sliding back closer to him. "I did choose the right man."

She is the one to move, laying her lips on his and silencing any further discussion. The night breeze blows in through their open window. (She doesn't mind leaving their window open anymore because no one dares to mess with this Slayer or her Vampire any longer, as long as they have a choice.) Somewhere in the distance, she hears a wolf howl. She can practically feel Spike's ears pricking at the alert, but she doesn't move except to snuggle closer and deepen their kiss even more, her tongue thrusting against his in clear desire. There'll be another Slayer already on patrol to take the wolf, another dozen if they're needed.

Right now, she wants to celebrate, again, the fact that she is done baking and she is living her happily ever after, with her Dark Prince. She smirks against his lips, but he doesn't question her. He never does anymore. The Dark Princes of fairy tales were the men of whom a lot of typical girls dreamed. But she is living her dream. Maybe she isn't as different from the rest of this world after all. It really doesn't matter anyway, she reflects as they dive back under the covers together.

At long last, she has everything she could ever want. She's happy. She's loved. She's going to grow old alongside this man, who she's watched mature and grow old in other ways right along with her. She has her happily ever after right here in this bed. The world... Well, the world can have the world as long as she has hers. Even if she doesn't deserve it.




The End