Marked
By spicklething
Rating: PG13
The first part is a little bit of a cheat. Part of it did see the light of day (though I think all of three people saw it) the first time two years ago during a Spuffy kinkathon, but it was never finished. I originally wrote this for liliaeth who wanted Spike and Dawn get kidnapped, Buffy to the rescue, and Xander as a good guy. Hopefully this fits the bill. I finally finished it, so many apologies for the delay. And many apologies for the disappearing LJ-cut.
Many thanks to cindergal for the rapid-fire beta! She rocks my little world as always. Thanks also to Ocean’s Twelve for the shamelessly poached dialogue that starts this story. They seemed far too Spike and Buffy not to borrow!
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Marked
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The train has been packed in like sardines, and it was a miracle that Spike had not gone a wee bit postal on the final leg of his trip. Rome’s Stazione Termini had been a snarling mess. But after a quick cab ride, he tossed the driver all of the euros he had in his pocket and studied the address that Angel has scrawled out for him. “Just go,” the big poof had told him before he made the final leg of his journey. He’d been there once before, but that time she was not home.
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. By now she probably knew he wasn’t dead. Survived two apocalypses in the interim. But who the hell knew if she’d welcome him home or not. It wasn’t his home, that was for sure. It was a life she had created. One that did not involve him. She’d had lovers. Paolo, she’d called him. That’s what that wanker the Immortal was calling himself these days. But rumor had it, he was already history, so now was Spike’s chance to make a grand return.
But nothing about it felt grand. Should he be offering flowers like some besotted romantic, or should he be throwing himself at her feet begging for forgiveness for being AWOL for three years? Neither felt right. So instead, he decided to try his luck and just knock on her door and see what happened. If she didn’t stake him on site, there was a good chance he’d be alright. He’d worry about Dawn’s reaction later.
He rounded the corner to her apartment. The worst of the afternoon traffic had died down. Hopefully he’d catch her before she went out for the evening. But it was a Monday night, so hopefully he’d get lucky. Obviously, he was lost in his thoughts as he collided with another person. A purse went flying one way, its contents another.
“Scusilo,” he said in Italian as he immediately dropped to his knees to collect the scattered items. A small wallet, a compact — its mirror now shattered. “You dropped your stake,” he added before the words sunk in.
Their hands met before their eyes did. She looked older, but not nearly as gaunt. She took the stake from him and slid it back in her purse before tucking a lock of that honey-colored hair behind her ear nervously. Pedestrians diverted around them as though they were parting a sea.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked, her eyes alight with unshed tears.
“Waiting,” was all he could answer.
“For what?” she said.
“This.”
***
A gentle breeze fluttered the gauzy curtains and cast dappled fingers of sunshine into the far corners of the room. Four floors below, Rome stretched and yawned as dawn crept through the ancient city. The sound of cars zipping by and the ever-present buzz of motor scooters echoed off the buildings that lined the narrow street below. Somewhere in the distance a radio played. The morning news. Another suicide bombing in the Mideast, the Pope’s first public appearance since his hospitalization. A farmer’s strike outside of Paris.
It was the best he’d slept in nearly a year. No nightmares to jostle him awake. The unbidden memories stayed away if only for one night. It wasn’t much, but he was thankful for small blessings. Spike wiped the sleep from his eyes. He stretched out like a lazy cat before flipping to his side and sinking once again into the languor-inducing folds of the bed.
His pillow smelled like jasmine and ginseng. Sure, it sounded like something out of a sappy romance, but he knew the scent of that frilly soap she liked so much. Absently he spooned himself against her back and drew her into his arms. Buffy mumbled something unintelligible before curling into his embrace. They still fit together like a pair of baby cats, all snuggly warm and secure. It’s been so damn long since the last time they were able to lay together like this that he couldn’t even remember what it had felt like.
Hopefully a lot like this, he thought to himself.
So he let her stray hair tickle his nose, and he breathed her in. Instead of explaining his self-imposed exile, he lay as quiet as could be and marked time to the gentle cadence of her heartbeat.
If he’d known that reconciliation would have been so utterly simple and painless, he would have done it months ago. No, who was he fooling? It had taken him weeks to muster up the courage to get on a plane and fly to Italy. It had felt like an eternity after he’d rapped his knuckles on her front door and nervously waited for it to open.
No, taking that first step had scared the shit out of him. But as long as he’d live – and even then some after – he would never forget the look on her face as she’d run into him head on. Shock and awe. He’d half-expected her to beat him to a bloody pulp like she’d done so many times in the past. And for once, he’d mused, he’d probably had deserved it. But there had been no split lips. No nosebleeds. Only tears that had yielded into forgiveness within a matter of minutes. Maybe time really did smooth over the rough edges after all.
There would be time later to explain it all. Three years had passed. What was another day?
“I know you’re awake,” Buffy mumbled beneath a veil of tousled hair.
“Good morning to you too, love,” he replied with a kiss to the crown of her head. “Sorry I woke you.”
She wriggled out of his embrace and promptly flipped over to face him. “Nothing new. You always fidget.”
“No I’m not,” he answered. “I’m a vampire. I sleep like the bloody dead.”
Her brow wrinkled into that determined look he’d seen so many times before. The one where she was right, and no one was going to convince her otherwise. Resolve, she’d once told him. Stubborn as mule was more like it. Sure, it drove him insane. But oddly enough, it was yet another part of her that he’d missed.
“Well then you sleep like a dead, fidgety… fidgeter!” And then the resolve evaporated.
“No I’m not,” he said. And, wow, did he sound like he was all of twelve. “Take that back!”
“Take what back?” A bat of the eye, a coy smile. A playfulness he’d rarely seen before. Rome had clearly been good for her. That, and the dozens of other brand spanking new slayers to help shoulder the burden.
Grabbing her before she could react, he rolled her on top of him. Her hair tickled his face as he pushed it aside. But she didn’t linger long. A quick peck on the lips and she was out of the bed and moving toward the robe hanging on the back of her door. Her features were less bony and angular now. She no longer looked like a fighting machine, all sinew and muscle. Her curves had filled out just a touch to where she finally, after all these years, looked like a radiant young woman.
“Sleep as long as you want, lazybones,” she said drawing the sash of her robe into a knot. “I need a shower and maybe some caffeiney goodness.”
“What’s the rush?” he yawned.
“Dawn’ll be back from Naples with her class this morning, and I’m sure she’ll have a complete cow if we give her a peepshow.”
“Nothing wrong with a peepshow,” he interrupted.
Her face wrinkled in disgust. “Ewww, no!” she warned. “This is my sister we’re talking about, Spike. The same one that wanted to see exactly how combustible you were, remember?”
He finally sat up and scrubbed a hand over his scalp as the blankets puddled in his lap. “Right,” he said. “Immolation wouldn’t be the best way to start the morning. I’ll be out in a bit.”
***
After a quick shower, Spike emerged from the back bathroom in the same clothes he’d worn the day before. Music played softly in the living room as he padded barefoot toward the smell of fresh espresso in the kitchen. He avoided the splashes of sunlight that were slowly warming the room and joined Buffy at the stove.
For a girl whose cooking repertoire once consisted of Pop Tarts and frozen pizza, she was quite busy at the stove with a tiny espresso pot.
It wasn’t one of those fancy-pants behemoths of an espresso/cappuccino maker that told time and folded the morning wash yet universally wound up a glorified paperweight all across America. This was coffee the way the Powers That Be intended — rich, aromatic. The next best thing to fresh blood first thing in the morning.
“Mmmm,” Spike said as he drew her closer and nuzzled the sweet spot of her neck. “Give me a hit of that and I’ll be your willing slave forever.”
Buffy wrapped a towel around the handle and poured the coffee into two demitasses. Turning, she gifted him with a kiss on the lips before saying, “Sugar?”
“Already got some,” he smiled back before turning his attention to the espresso waiting on the counter. Matching cup and saucer in one hand, he took a sip. And yes, it lived up to all of its glorious expectations.
“So how long have you been in Italy?” Buffy asked.
That certainly didn’t take long. The shoe was about to drop. He’d dodged the question last night. He’d sidestepped nearly every detail the evening before. But now, the next morning, it was time to ante up. And knowing Buffy the way he did, she wasn’t going to stop until she got an answer.
“Not long,” he answered. “Day before last. Was in St. Petersburg before that.”
“What were you doing in Florida?”
“Russia,” he answered with a shake of the head. “Needed to be scarce for a bit.”
“That explains the hair,” she said with a nod before skimming the surface of his closely shorn head. “I kinda miss the blond.”
“Too noticeable,” he explained, taking another sip of his coffee. “With the price on my head right now, it really helps to blend in with the crowd.”
She downed the last of her espresso with a gulp. “That law firm in Los Angeles, right?”
He nodded and shivered at the memory. Being the sole survivor of a revolution carried many burdens. “You take on the Senior Partners and see how many friends you make. Probably risked too much coming here. They’ve got an office here in Rome, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve met them, unfortunately. So how long do you think you’ll stay…” Buffy started as the front door opened and Dawn entered.
“Buffy?” she called out. A loud thump as something slid to the floor in the other room. “Oh my god, did that train ride suck so hard. Claudia and I had to sit next to this skeezy guy for the whole trip. I mean, the train wasn’t even full and he had to sit in our compartment why?”
She was in the doorway of the kitchen before she’d even taken a breath. Dawn flipped her hair back and was about to continue her story where she’d left it. Instead, her jaw dropped and she was speechless.
“Hello, Dawn,” he all he could say. Wasn’t going to chance it by calling Nibblet. He hadn’t earned that right yet, and he knew it.
Her eyes narrowed immediately into two angry slits. Hand on one hip, lips tightened into a thin line, she was ready for battle. “So,” she spat. “How long are you going to stick around this time before you vanish without a trace?”
“Dawn,” Buffy warned, “He died, remember? Not exactly his fault with the vanishing bit.”
“Well obviously it didn’t stick,” she answered. “I know you’ve been back since last year. Ever think of picking up a phone? You know, neat new little invention? Speaker on one end, talky part on the other? It’s not like you were surrounded by, oh, millions of them in California.”
“Things got complicated, Dawn,” he said. “It wasn’t…”
“No!” she yelled, her anger punctuated by a pointing finger. “Don’t even start. That excuse worked when I was twelve. But it doesn’t work any more!”
He took one step toward her before she held him at bay with an outstretched arm. The room felt like it had dropped twenty degrees. Any colder and there’d be swirling eddies of steam that punctuated each hateful word coming from her.
“Dawn,” he started, “I’m so sorry. God, I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
Now it was her turn to move closer. She’d grown an inch or two since the last time he’s seen her. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Knock it off, Dawnie,” Buffy said blocking her sister’s path to Spike. “He said he was sorry, so back off. Besides, I thought you were past the whole setting him on fire.”
His gaze locked with hers. There was no mistaking the contempt that oozed from every one of her pores. Her face yielded little emotion when she answered, “Give me a match and lets find out.”
His mouth filled with cotton. She was right. He’d had three years to contact them. Postcard, telephone, email or even that bloody fax machine behind Harmony’s desk. He’d had hundreds of opportunities, but each time he tried, he’d come up with a new excuse. Buffy’d moved on. He’d moved on. He’d died to give her a chance to be normal. The list was as long as his arm.
“Dawn, I…”
“No, Spike.” There was that Summers resolve again. “I don’t want to hear your noble excuses.” Turning her anger to Buffy, she added, “You know what? I can’t do this right now. I need to leave. I won’t go far. I’ll be back when your latest boy-toy is gone.”
And with that, the front door slammed hard enough that pictures on the opposite wall rattled. A candle on an end table tipped over, and Spike jumped with a start. The demitasse and saucer shattered against the tile floor. He let out a little sigh as Buffy dropped to her knees to gather up the porcelain shards.
***
Four flights of stairs later, Spike was still pulling on his jacket as he darted out of the apartment building and into street below. A string of obscenities followed in the wake of a scooter that nearly hit him. His hand bubbled where the sunlight briefly kissed him.
“Bloody hell!” he muttered under his breath, tucking the blistering limb under the other arm to halt the burning process.
Dawn was already two blocks away by the time he spotted her. Hugging the shade of the buildings, he dodged the oncoming pedestrians and weaved his way through the crowd. She didn’t look back once and kept on walking. It didn’t take long for him to close the distance though she couldn’t be bothered to look back.
“Dawn, wait up!” he called to her.
Her stride widened and her hair swayed back in forth in time with her steps. She paused long enough to check the traffic before darting across the street. Left with no choice but to follow, he sprinted into the speeding traffic, pulling his jacket over his head to cover any exposed skin from the sun. A horn blared and tires squealed as drivers slammed on the brakes by the time he’d reached the other side. Breaking into a jog, he quickly caught up to her and grabbed her by the upper arm.
“Will you just hold on for one bloody minute!” he pleaded.
She jerked her arm from his grasp and spun around quickly. Mascara smudged into inky black smears and tears coursed down both cheeks in twin streaks. All of that tightly-wound anger melted away, and her lip began to quiver.
“I cried after you died,” she confessed. Pedestrians streamed past them on both sides, oblivious to everything as though the two of them were unseen ghosts. “Three years, Spike. I’ve missed you for three years, and you couldn’t bother to pick up a goddamn phone!”
Before he could even reply, she dissolved in to sobs that shook her whole body. She put up no resistance as he pulled her into his arms. “Not going anywhere, Nibblet,” he whispered, his hand caressing gentle circles in the middle of her back.
He held her for several minutes, saying nothing as she poured out her grief into his shoulder. The city continued to stir around them. An ambulance’s siren blared mournfully a few blocks over.
Yet somehow over the din, he heard a van roll to a stop and its side door slide open. Peering over the top of Dawn’s head he saw them. Black ops, minus the body armor and assault weapons. One by one, the filtered into the crowd and made their way toward them.
“L’oggetto designato è stato avistato,” he heard one of the agents say into a microphone at his wrist.
Grabbing Dawn by the arm, he didn’t give her time to react, let alone protest. “Okay, little bird, we’ve gotta get moving,” he murmured in her ear as he led them at a brisk pace down the sidewalk. “Don’t look back.” He didn’t want her to panic. There simply wasn’t time. “If we get separated, I want you to run as fast as you can.”
“Who are they?” she asked.
Three more waited for them at the street corner. Spike set out in a jog and pulled Dawn with him into the first alleyway they hit.
“Debt collectors.”
It wasn’t too far from the truth.
By the time they’d cleared the dumpster brimming with garbage, they were surrounded on all sides. Another van blocked the other end of the alley and four ops closed in from behind. Three more dropped from the fire escape above. Only this time they were armed. Crossbows and automatic rifles.
No sense trying to outrun them. It would be nothing more than an exercise in futility that would painfully prolong the inevitable.
So he stopped and shielded her the best he could from the circling commandos.
“What’s going on?” Her voice was small and frail. Her fingers laced with his, and she held on for dear life.
“End of the line, love,” he answered.
“You two!” the tall one with the mustache yelled in broken English. “Onna your knees immediatamente.”
“Spike, I’m scared,” she said as she knelt in surrender.
Following suit, he dropped beside her and placed his hands on his head in surrender.
“It’ll be okay.”
Too bad he didn’t believe it.
PART TWO CONTINUED HERE
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/154196.html
