The sunlight creeps along the ground like a timid rodent, dancing over indentations, leaving shadows coiled amidst the rubble, tentatively avoiding each other, for now.

The earth is rent open, a wound in the earth that erosion has not yet begun to fill. Around it the broken segments of wall thrust upwards like some sort of grotesque teeth. Struts and bits of drywall stand in place, the Hellmouths own fangs.

Sounds can be heard from within the chasm, from the shadows where the morning sun has yet to reach. Labored breathing. Clattering of displaced debris. A half-hearted curse.

A hand finally rises into the light, and stops there, tentative. There is a sense of hesitation, of questioning, and finally the hand clamps down on the edge and pulls him into view, into the light. He blinks into the sunlight, and involuntary tears begin to fall down his face from it’s intensity. It has been so long since he has stared into a sunrise, he’d forgotten how cold and harsh they can be, not at all warm, or glorious. No birds sing to herald his return.

He stands, eyes closed, face wet, letting a breeze billow his torn and soiled clothing around him, himself as immobile as a statue, while the world spins around him. He finally staggers and opens his eyes, unaccustomed to the new rhythyms of blood and breath, the pulsing motions of life within him.

With a shrug that is barely a movement, his shoulders sag and his coat drifts from his back, almost lazily. He catches it idly, without looking, in his hand and lifts it to his face. The claw-rent is visible, the thing is practically torn in half, hanging like a pair of black wings from his hand, like an oversized dead bat. Or perhaps a dead vampire. He’s not feeling particularly poetic all of a sudden.

His voice is creaky, with abuse, with non-use, he can’t tell. “Well, we did it girl. We saved the world, you and me.” He is looking at the coat, which he has now folded in half, reverently, absently, like a shell-shocked widow folding and unfolding the flag she got back after sending her lover to battle. He looks back into the crater, to see that the sun has now crept into it and light is streaming down. His hand moves, almost gently, and the coat unfolds as it soars into the shadows, fluttering down into the darkness. He turns away and rubble crunches underfoot as he stumbles away from this broken place.

He hears the engine purring softly and sees the car before he can tell who is waiting. It is pulled up on the lawn, and has apparently come across several yards to get here, since the street in front is collapsed in upon itself. Seeing the car, he thought it was Patch. No, not Patch, just Xander. The diminuatives don’t really fit him any longer, do they?

But it’s not him. And why should it be? He wonders why the man isn’t holding a crossbow, but his glare seems to be more for the sunlight he’s shielding from his eyes than for Spike himself.

“You made it.” He hears. Wood. Such the language artist.

“Yup.” He cocks his head slightly and waits, for the accusations, the justifications, the attack.

“Getting in?” Wood says, turning away and getting back into his car. The door shuts with finality, almost like a challenge, not an offer.

Wood is looking at him, head tilted in unconscious imitation. He smiles at the thought. “You knew I’d be here.” It isn’t a question. Not really an accusation, although it almost sounds like one.

“The file said you might survive. That it would burn the demon out of you, but that it wouldn’t kill you. Probably.”

Huh. “She knew.” Again, not a question.

“Yes.”

“And she isn’t here. She didn’t wait?”

“No.” Wood doesn’t turn his eyes down, doesn’t try to sugar-coat it, doesn’t seem particularly sympathetic. But his eyes aren’t challenging. He’s not gloating, just leaving it at face value, not coloring it with triumph, or with pity. He lets Spike decide how to feel about it.

Spike isn’t in the mood to decide that yet.

Wood puts the car in drive. Spike can see it shudder slightly as it prepares to move, can see the brakelights come on. He looks out the drivers side window, waiting.

Spike really isn’t in the mood to decide this yet either. “Maybe this is where I belong.” He says, distantly, not really looking at Wood.

Wood looks out at the wreckage that used to be his home, his job, his life. “Nobody lives here. Ghosts and corpses. The dead live here.” Spike looks to see that Wood isn’t even looking at him, just looking at the shell of the high school. “It isn’t your place anymore.” He isn’t really talking to Spike, not directly, maybe he’s talking to himself.

Spike moves suddenly, hand on the hood, he leaps over to the passenger side nimbly and opens the door, sliding in with a fluid grace that belies his stiffness, the feeling of the years pressing down on him, the ghosts calling to him.

“Pretty spry for someone pushing a century and half.” Wood offers dryly as he puts the car in reverse and backs off of the lawn.

“First day of my life, innit?”

The car accelerates as it leaves Sunnydale. One last bump as it passes over a fallen sign offering welcome, and they are on the highway to anywhere but here.