Hours after he drops the postcard in a mailbox, with its curt handful of words scrawled on one side and the photograph of a tranquil lotus garden--Visit Japan!--on the other side, Spike realizes he never apologized to Willow.

He is seized with the ludicrous desire to stop the plane from taking off, leap out, and make his way back to California. But his mind stalls there. Mouthing sorry at her would do nothing. Nor would filling her hands with wildflowers, which he wants to do because he suspects she's gotten less than her fair share of those, and because she's had so little chance in her life to bloom. Sappy, useless thing to do. And it would mean forfeiting his search. But it gnaws at him nonetheless, that once upon a time he drowned her screams in music so that her death would pass unnoticed.

And trying to feed on Willow--and failing--is hardly the worst of the things he has done. There is an unending howl in his head: the unfinished cries of those he fed upon (how soft the skin of the throat is), the keening wails of those who found the bloodless remains ("Listen, my Spike. Nightingales!"), the sound of his laughter rising above panicked pleas, all combined, an overwhelming crescendo of cacophony. His vision seems blurred--there are faces all around him. Dark-skinned, light, delicate, strong-jawed, bearded, low-browed, gape-mouthed, panicked, sobbing, accusing, glaring, wide-eyed, unseeing. Empty faces. Souls yanked out, folded, and sent onwards while the husks slid to the ground. Each and every one drained of potential, the years they didn't live, the unsmiled smiles and unlaughed laughs. Betrayed of that. By him.

No. He's not going to do this. The soul didn't come with instructions on how to alleviate the guilt once it was activated, and he doesn't need a chain of remorse-ridden memories distracting him. The last thing he wants to do is mimic Angel, become as broody as a hen.

Funny that it didn't strike him earlier, he muses as the plane eases out of its ascending tilt. But then again he's met humans who could give him a run for callousness. He's still trying to figure out the rules of this whole soul business. The only certainty he held when he left for Africa was that it was the only way she could accept him.

He once tried to describe to Buffy how it felt, having a soul: It's like losing an eye.

Losing? Not gaining?

The world seems flatter. No depth. Less ways of reaching the same point. Souls are bloody blinkers, that's what they are. Hide half of what's actually out there and make you think only the straight path exists.

You sound like you regret it.

Immediately, so that her doubt would be as fleeting as possible: Never, love. I would gouge out both eyes for you, you know that.

She didn't look at him, instead studying the pattern that her interwoven fingers made in her lap. I know. It was not a happy admission. But I don't want you to.

He should have said, I would follow you around the world. I would live for the hope that I will see you again someday. I would dream of you each and every night, only to meet the bleak waking hours, empty without you. I would do anything, because don't you understand? My love can't be shaken.

Now he only needs to find her so that he can at last tip the words out of his mouth, spread them under her feet, and pray that she treads softly upon them. Because even his last certainty has been taken away from him.

Maybe he should have simply stayed away from her. Maybe his pursuit is prompting this gavotte around the world.

But when he returned, it was only after he admitted why he had left that she let him touch her. She didn't say anything, just leaned into him and sighed. And all he allowed himself then were slow, gentle strokes along her upper back, while he thought about how easily magnolia petals bruise. Forgiveness seemed such a fragile thing, ready to shatter at a wrongly-placed breath.

And when her arms crept around him, borders fell away, and everything was made of possibilities and of her. Mostly her.

So this is what peace feels like, he thought as he stood there, just holding her, perfectly content for the space of those drifting moments at least.

It didn't satisfy him forever, of course. There'd been too much heat between them to simply be dismissed, by either of them, and it only built in the ensuing weeks. But he was the one who finally caught her waist one night and pulled her to him, smashing his mouth down on hers in combined command and plea. He was ready to let go at the slightest sign of resistance. But then her hands--

Her hands.

He remembers that she raised her hands, but he can't remember where she pressed them, or how they felt against the coolness of his body, or any of the movements and moans of the sex that must have followed. Furious, he smashes himself into the blankness again and again, but he only slides into a memory of watching her drift into sleep.

"You bitch!" he snarls, realizing what happened.

The stewardess recoils, and he sees now that she is wheeling the beverage cart down the aisle, and was just about to offer him one.

"Well, excuse me!" she snaps, just as he says, "Not you," and the elderly matron across from him glowers in outraged shock.

The cart rattles on, and he holds his head in his hands. He senses another impending guilt trip, not to mention the embarrassment. And the fact that there's no way he'll get a beer now.

And he needs it. The kitsune took away that cherished memory, the first time they made love after he came back. He viciously hopes that the next person she kisses is a razor-tongued demon who eviscerates her through her throat.

Oh, God. It's the only prayer he can come up with as he closes his eyes and tries to reconstruct that night. What else did she take? He hadn't understood, not really, when she said earlier that memories were the essence of a man. They were wholly his, or at least they had been until he'd met her.

Reverently, Spike gathers up those moments that remain with him. The curtains drawn across her window, so you can stay with me in the morning. Her face, when lifted from his chest and gently laid against the pillow, unlined from any worries. Eyelids fluttering and lips flexing into a teasing smile as she woke to the sight of him. Want a shower? The threshold of the bathroom, and everything fraught in his step over it. The blank mirror suddenly filling with her image, her hands resting on no one's shoulders. It's okay. We'll try again. Her whisper brushing the juncture between his neck and shoulder, where he wanted to lay his hand to trap it and keep it tucked forever. We'll do it right this time. Helping her slip off her robe. Steam obscuring the reflection of nothing.

The boy behind him kicks his seat with vigor worthy of a Slayer.

He has to force himself out of game face. This isn't the place to prove once again that the chip is still functioning. Bugger the kid. It's the kitsune he's going to hunt down and drain. Right after he finds Buffy, and makes new memories to replace those he has lost.

He doubts she'll still be in India by the time he lands. He's still days behind her. Although his knowledge of passports and other travel documents is slim, things he never bothered with before and acquired this time only at Willow's insistence, he knows that their loss must have cost Buffy some time. He also knows that they wouldn't have stopped her from going where she was determined to go. But he has a notion as to why she headed to this country.

The kicking starts up again, and this time Spike twists around in his seat, determined to give the brat a piece of his mind. But then he notices the stewardess coming back, obviously trying to pass him with all haste.

"Hey--" He waves to her, and reluctantly she slows next to his seat.

"Yes?" she asks coldly.

He essays his most charming smile. "I'm sorry about earlier. Was caught in a bad memory."

Her responding smile is a bit slow, but her posture loses some of its stiffness. "That's all right, sir. I shouldn't have assumed." She glances down at the beverage cart. "Ah...did you want something to drink?"

"How about a beer?"

She pours him a cup and hands it to him, then moves on, no longer at breakneck speed.

He takes a sip and leans back in his seat, satisfied. Didn't choke on it at all. A successful practice run.