__A Good Day__
By Dutchbuffy



The spectator sits on a rickety wooden bench just outside the ancient churchyard. At his back is flowering privet, spreading its heady scent into the balmy, sunny day. His eyelids are closed, pretending relaxation. At the uneven sounds of tick, shuffle, shuffle that precede the advent of the actual shuffler around the corner, his eyes pop open sharply.

A tall old man is walking towards the churchyard entrance, carefully wielding his stick to keep his balance. The shock of hair on his head is a startling white, and his back is straight for someone his age. In his free hand he has a small bouquet of wildflowers and greenery. It looks carefully selected, not the kind of thing you can buy ready-made at a flower stall.

Stiffly he ascends the uneven granite steps to the churchyard. The spectator sits very still, not wanting to betray his presence, and counting on the bad eyesight and arthritic neck of the elderly. When his quarry has disappeared from sight, he rises soundlessly and follows him. As he thought, the old man is in the process of kneeling down laboriously by one of the newer tombstones, using his stick as a prop. It gives the spectator a little pang to see him so aged.

The spectator knows exactly whose grave it is. It's one of the reasons of his vigil here. He's been looking for this man for years, and he was hoping that the anniversary of the death of one of his former pupils would draw him. His heart is thumping wildly. In a way he's never met him before, and he suddenly feels shy.

"Rupert?" he says, fairly loudly.

The old man looks up in mild enquiry, but when he sees the spectator, he shocks himself into imbalance and starts flailing around, nearly falling over. The spectator jumps quickly to his side and helps him stand again.

"Spike? Spike? How…how…" he stutters, and Spike sees him grope at the region of his heart.

"You alright? Need a pill or something?" he asks worriedly.

"No, no, I'm fine," Giles snaps. "Get me to a bench so we can have a proper talk!"

Spike obeys and competently helps him over to the sun-warmed stone bench, the seats worn smooth and hollow from thousands of churchgoing bottoms.

When they sit down, Rupert looks him over from top to toe without bothering to hide the scrutiny. "I can't figure out what kind of demon you are now," he says finally.

Spike laughs. "Figures!" he says. "I'm human!"

Rupert looks at him doubtfully from beneath his bristly old man brows. "That brat Wyndam-Price was always babbling about Shanshu, and he was sure you had. Why could we never find you?"

"You sure you looked in the right places?" Spike is kind of enjoying this.

"Well," Rupert says a tad pompously, "with the resources of the council at my disposal, yes, I'm sure I looked really thoroughly."

Spike doesn’t answer, just looks at him expectantly. He's imagined this scene a thousand times.

"Alright alright, I'll ask. How can you be human and not have aged? Why couldn't we find you?"

"I aged," Spike says. "In the natural manner and speed."

He sees the cogs shift and fall into the right place.

"Bloody hell!" Rupert says, and his mouth falls open. He shuts it with a clack of dentures. "Bloody buggering hell. What incredible fools we were!"

He stares into the distance for a few moments, taking his time to compute the reasons and consequences for things. Abruptly his eyes fill with tears. He wipes them away with one hand, the other still firmly clamped around his cane.

"If Buffy had known…She would have…" His voice wavers and chokes.

Spike has to blink away some moisture himself. "Yeah."

Giles turns a fierce stare towards him. "I'm glad to know. I'm glad to have some, as the Americans put it, closure on this. But poor, poor Buffy."

"How…how did she die?" Spike stammers. "I found the obituary on the net when I was nine – but it didn’t say how, or why…wasn't Angel?"

Giles shakes his head. "No. Wasn't ready for him, she said. I don't know why she died. It was just a vamp, having his one good day. That was a saying she always used when teaching the young ones. Kept looking for you, though. You never thought of visiting her?"

"Of course I did. Can you think of a way a three-year old can convince his parents to travel two-thousand miles to visit a certain woman? They wrote her off as my invisible friend." He still chokes when he says this. He was a difficult baby, having no other way to express his adult grief than by crying a lot.

"Of course," Giles echoes softly. "Sorry. Silly of me."

"I just…I wanted to know…Rupert, do you think she loved me?"

"For God's sake!" Giles sputters. "Why else did she mope herself to death?"

Silence descends once more. It doesn't weigh heavily in this worn old place.

"Why now?" Giles asks finally.

Spike shrugs and looks at his hands. "I looked for you. You seemed to have disappeared. Then I read about Willow's death, and I kind of hoped you’d visit her grave, and that you would still be living in London. Did you change your name?"

Giles nods. "Yeah. I was getting too well known in demonic circles, lots of death warrants on me in several worlds."

Spike nods in his turn. They sit for a moment, sun shining on their heads, birds twittering overhead. It’s otherwise very quiet in the graveyard. The grass hasn't been mown for a long time, and the cow parsley stands high with its lacy white heads, filling the late spring air with a subtle sweetness. A very fitting meeting place, he thinks. He feels he has said everything he wants to, and wants to run back to his own life, his second chance.

Spike stands up and offers Giles his hand. "Goodbye Giles. I'm glad I got to see you this once. Careful with those flagstones now!"

With a cheery wave, he walks off.

Giles looks suddenly startled at something and shouts. "Spike…your hair? Surely that was never natural?"

Spike looks around and laughs. "Bleached it 'specially this morning!"

* * *