•••

Pain. Indescribable pain. Grief, anguish, regret—he couldn’t find words for it. Spike lay on the floor of his crypt, paralyzed by the torrent of feelings suffocating him. The myriad emotions were swirling so fast he couldn’t latch onto one to identify it. He just hurt.

What’s going on here? That small thought was quickly overwhelmed and lost as he sank into the depths of his suffering once again. He had never, in more than a hundred years, felt anything like this.

Concentrating as hard as he could, he tried to calm the storm raging in his mind. Eventually he succeeded enough to gain some measure of control. What he found sent shivers down his spine.

That was a dream! He hadn’t really agreed to take on a soul, his old soul to be precise, had he? The pain nearly made him black out. Maybe not a dream, then. The feelings inside him were alien—things vampires never felt. He felt bad, terrible in fact. He felt like he had betrayed, had hurt, had committed crimes. This is what a soul feels like? Regretting every life I’ve taken feels like this?

Guilt crashed into him. Memories of everyone he’d tortured, fed on, and killed filled his mind. Unlike before, when such memories were accompanied by a rush of pleasure, he felt nothing but anguish. How could he have done those things? He was a poet, a lawyer, a gentleman!

No! He was a vampire. He fed off of humans. They were his food. He couldn’t hurt them. He protected humans. No, he killed them.

Spike was sure he was losing his mind. The guilt, the pain, was crushing him. Then a thought drifted out of the chaos.

Buffy.

Had it worked? Had The Powers brought her back? If she was alive, then the incredible pain he was feeling was worth it, wasn’t it? She would be alive!

The desire to confirm that Buffy was alive gave the weak vampire enough control over his suffering to pull himself together. He tried to pick himself up off the floor, eventually succeeding. He stumbled to the door of the crypt. When did I close this? Opening it, he saw that the sun had just set. He was ravenous and could not remember when he had last fed. Exiting the crypt, he realized that he would have to find something to eat before long or he wouldn’t make it out of the cemetery. He just didn’t have the strength.

Wandering through the headstones, Spike spotted another vampire. Fledge. There were more of those lately; without the Slayer the demonic activity around Sunnydale was out of control. Spike sneaked up behind the young vampire and attacked, pinning him and breaking his neck more by surprise and luck than strength. He quickly drained the vampire, both sorrowful and relieved that it had obviously just fed. The rich blood in its veins gave him strength, but someone had died to give him that meal. Holding back a cry of pain, he rushed off toward town. He knew where to go.

•••

Giles, Xander, Buffy and Dawn jumped as one when Spike stumbled into the shop. They stood speechless as he carefully closed the door behind him before turning to look at the occupants of the store.

“Buffy.”

“Hi, Spike. Um…I’m alive, and no one seems to know why,” Buffy said, opting for lighthearted.

Spike stared at her. It had worked. She was alive. He leaned up against the door, giving the appearance of boredom. In truth, he was almost unconscious from pain. Seeing Buffy alive, standing there in front of him, brought waves of agony to the vampire. He could barely stay conscious at that point. Her vividness and vitality were painful to see and feel. She was whole, alive and pure. He was not worthy to stand in her presence.

“I see,” Spike said finally.

“Um, so, have you been patrolling? The gang says that the place has really gone to Hell in the past three months. Demons everywhere,” Buffy asked the vampire. She had been rather upset when Willow and Xander told her that Spike had apparently stopped helping.

“Been busy,” Spike choked out.

“That’s great! You’ve been too busy to help Willow and Xander? They’ve been throwing themselves out there for months and you’re too busy?” Buffy shouted, moving quickly into anger.

“Buffy, it’s ok. He’s fine, you know,” Dawn said placatingly. She’d seen how Spike looked at the funeral. He was in no shape to patrol then, and looked even worse now.

“No, don’t defend him. Spike, you can’t just hang around here like some warped puppy when it's convenient for you. Either help or don’t, but don’t try to get us to depend on you and then waltz out,” Buffy said, still angry at Spike for his absence.

Spike just stared at the floor. He knew that Buffy would feel no differently about him now, but he had still hoped that maybe she would have at least softened a bit. It was obvious from the piles of books and Buffy’s offhand comment that they had no idea why she was back amongst the living. He had intended to tell them what happened, but now he wasn’t sure. Buffy was obviously angry with him and at this point wouldn’t believe him if he told her.

The vampire straightened abruptly. He couldn’t stand to be there any longer. He had to get out, get away from her. If he didn’t go soon, he was going to pass out again, and from the look of things, Buffy might just stake him while he was out of it.

“Right.” Spike opened the door, disappearing into the night.

“That was amazingly easy,” Buffy said, turning back to the research.

“You were awfully hard on him, Buffy,” Dawn said.

“No more than he deserved. He’s the evil dead. He disappears for three months and just shows up one night? Uh-uh,” Buffy replied shortly.

A few minutes later, Willow and Tara returned from the Summers’ house, where they had been performing a scrying spell.

“Hey Willow. How’d the spell go?” Dawn queried.

“No luck. Anything here?” She asked the group.

“Nope. Spike stopped by, but Buffy ran him off,” Dawn answered.

“Spike? Um…how was he?” Willow asked back.

Dawn looked at her worriedly, then at Buffy. “Um, ok, I guess. Seemed quiet.”

“Well, now that Buffy’s back, he should perk up, right?” Willow said to Giles. The watcher hummed distractedly. He was not concerned with the blonde vampire’s activities, so long as Spike did not start causing chaos again.

•••

Spike lay on the marble slab in his crypt, staring at the ceiling. It wasn’t comfortable, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything else. Holding the pain at bay enough to stay conscious was taking all his effort. He was trying to figure out what to do. He had a soul now. He worked for The Powers That Be. How was that going to go? Were they going to send him some sort of message? How was he supposed to do anything when he could barely move himself about? This soul thing didn’t come with an instruction manual.

He thought about it for a while. He could go to Angel; his Sire had been living with this for over a century now; he would know exactly what to do. The idea of asking Angel for help rankled the blonde, although not nearly as much as it used to. Maybe it was the soul, maybe it was just the pain, but the anger and hatred he normally felt for Angel was vague now. He even empathized with the older vampire. If this was what he was enduring, maybe he’d underestimated the dark vampire’s strength.

Still, the idea of running to Angel for help was unsettling. His relationship with his Sire was a mix of heaven and hell; in the early days, Angelus was everything to Spike. Later, in Sunnydale, his Sire was consumed by madness from being trapped with a soul, and Spike had suffered as a result. How would Angel react to this new development in his childe’s life?

Spike may have had reservations about going to Angel, but he wanted to stay in Sunnydale even less. The idea of seeing Buffy again was terrifying. He still felt for her—he still loved her. But now he couldn’t stand the sight of the Slayer. There was too much pain attached to her in his mind.

Got a car, got gas. I can make it before sunrise… Spike looked out the door. Indeed, if he left now, right now, he could make it to Los Angeles and Angel’s hotel before sunrise. Even if he drove carefully. Carefully? When did I start driving carefully?