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Sacred Flame
by Nocte
Rating: Nc-17 for violence and mature themes
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They are the property of ME and Joss
Whedon. I use them only for the purpose of entertainment.
Summary: Future Fic. William the Bloody returns to Sunnydale after an extended
absence (seventy five years) to find something crucial. He finds things very
different. The Hellmouth is more deadly than ever and the denizens of Sunnydale
do not welcome new arrivals. Set after the events of S6 up to Normal Again but
further into the future.
Part One: Prologue
It was the dead of night. The kind of night unlit by moonlight, dark and silent.
The only illumination came from the dim stars winking overhead and the distant
lights of a solitary car. On the outskirts of a small town, the car rolled to a
slow stop. The deep rumble of the outmoded gasoline engine choked and stopped.
The headlights remained lit, shining on a warped sign swaying in the wind. The
driver's side door opened and a figure emerged. The driver swung the dented door
shut behind him with a sharp clank and strode in scuffed brown boots towards the
sign. The feet stopped as the driver regarded the sign silently. A pale hand
reached out to brush desert dust from the front to reveal three words painted
atop a cheerful sunset and palm trees. The colors were faded to a near uniform
beige but the words were still legible. "Welcome to Sunnydale"
The driver squatted in the sandy dirt, brown leather coat trailing on the
ground, and ran his fingers over the outline of the sunset. How many times had
he stood here? Did this make three? Four? He couldn't remember. One thing he did
know was that he had not passed this way for a long time. A long time even for
one of his lifespan. Once he had sworn he would never return but current
circumstances dictated otherwise. The driver stood and gave the sign a savage
kick. The brittle wood splintered further and it hung at a drunken angle. Yet
still the damned thing stood. He looked down the road to where he knew his
destination lay.
Returning to the car, the driver revved the engine back to life and roared back
onto the cracked asphalt that served as the road into town. The sign continued
to sway in the night wind as the red light of the car taillights faded into the
distance and only the starlight remained.
The car rolled slowly through the streets of Sunnydale a short while later. The
driver gazed out at familiar landmarks, a storefront featuring a once bright
blue box painted with yellow stars, a warehouse half collapsed and showing signs
of fire damage, a once popular club now unlit and deserted. It was all so very
different now. No lights shone from within the windows. Trash littered the
neglected streets. The burnt out wreckage of vehicles blocked his car's progress
and the driver was forced to stop in front of an abandoned coffee shop and get
out and walk.
He strode the darkened sidewalk; avoiding overturned shopping carts and piles of
refuse. His sharp ears could pick up the tiniest sound but the only hints of
life were the muffled squeaks of rats in the sewers beneath his feet. Looking up
he saw the bulbs from all the streetlights were shattered, explaining the shards
of glass crunching under his boots.
This town had finally succumbed to the seething evil of the Hellmouth. People
had moved away to towns were death was not a daily event. To places where the
night held nothing more fearsome than muggers and gangs. The only things that
lived here in Sunnydale anymore were the creatures of hell. Permanent residents
who fed on the malevolence that poured forth from the gateway to a thousand
demonic dimensions and the odd inhuman tourists who came from around the world
to visit the demonic equivalent of the Grand Canyon. If the visitor had been
human, he would have been quite vulnerable to any one of these creatures as he
explored. But vulnerable was not something he had been for a long while.
The first time had been hundreds of years ago as he bleed to death in an alley
not much better lit than these ruined streets. The last...three quarters of a
century before when little men in white had chained his demon with electricity
and a tiny sliver of plastic. It had not lasted long. He could still remember
the searing pain when a well-paid shaman had ripped the chip from his skull with
the sheer force of his magically enhanced will. He had not really expected to
survive the procedure and was mildly surprised that it had left him without
permanent damage.
Since then, he had been more or less invincible. He kept to the night and picked
his battles more wisely. There was no real limit to how long he might survive.
Each year that passed made him more powerful. Other demons gave him a wide berth
or extreme courtesy if they wished to stay alive. His reputation as one demon
not to be crossed was well deserved and he provided the occasional reminder to
keep the more stupid fiends in line. As he stood in the middle of the once
thriving town looking up at the stars above, he let down the barriers within and
allowed the familiar pain to course through him like scalding blood. All the
creatures of the night knew his name. From Europe to Asia, and even here in
America although he had been gone a long time. He was William the Bloody...the
elder vampire...scion of the House of Aurelius...and he had come home.
Part Two: Prodigal
Across the street from where the man in the thigh length brown leather coat
stood, a figure watched from a rooftop. A well-oiled crossbow rested comfortably
in the crook of the watcher's arm, a bolt loaded and ready to fire. The observer
crouched motionless as the figure below looked upward. It would not be useful to
be seen at this point. None of the locals would be so foolish as to walk these
streets at night. They all knew that a painful death hid somewhere in the cement
canyons that comprised downtown Sunnydale. The wise ones kept to the underground
city that had sprung up around the Hellmouth and spread outwards like a cancer
into the extensive sewer network. So why was this creature striding these
streets like there was nothing to fear?
The answer was obvious. A newcomer. One of the many demons who came to see the
wonder of the underworld that was the Hellmouth. The watcher generally liked to
wait and see what these tourists did before dispatching them. Sometimes there
was valuable information to be had from them before they died a bloody death. As
the visitor moved away down the street, the watcher followed on soundless feet.
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop with the ease born of decades of experience, the
watcher kept pace with the quarry without trouble. He was headed for the
graveyard beyond Crawford Street or what used to be Crawford Street. The watcher
would have to go to ground level to pursue him there. With an easy jump thirty
feet to the concrete sidewalk, the watcher continued the shadowed chase.
Spike crossed the wasteland that had once been a well-cared for cemetery. Half
the grave markers were broken or kicked over. No flowers or wreaths decorated
the stones. The dead of Sunnydale were abandoned, forgotten by the living. It
was depressing even for a graveyard. His destination in sight, Spike slowed. The
pain grew sharper inside his still chest. Why had he agreed to this? This brand
of self-flagellation was not really his thing anymore. He had left it behind,
along with a battered television and the dream of loving a living woman, some
seventy five years before.
Squaring his shoulders, Spike lowered his dark head and pressed on. The sooner
he was done, the sooner he could return to his simpler existence. He raised a
fist and smashed it through the rotted wooden of the decrepit chapel door.
Behind a nearby statue, the watcher saw the visitor invade the chapel. It would
be risky to follow. The chapel was small and there would be no way to hide
inside. Waiting outside seemed the prudent thing to do in this situation. The
watcher was not foolish. One did not survive countless years in a town given
over to the forces of darkness without caution. It had been long ago that these
lessons had been drilled into the watcher's head by a caring teacher and many
more years before the watcher tragically learned their value.
Spike moved without hesitation towards the altar at the head of the chapel.
Climbing the steps, he ripped aside the moldering purple cloth covering the gray
marble table and overturned the stone with one twist of his hand. The marble
broke as it hit the floor and several small pieces skittered down the steps.
Spike knelt and brushed aside years of accumulated filth to locate the object of
his quest. A small metal grate was set into the granite floor. Spike dug his
fingers into the holes in the wrought iron and gave it a sharp tug. The old
metal gave way and the grate separated from the floor. Tossing it aside, Spike
reached inside, his arm disappearing to the shoulder. A few seconds of rooting
in the hole produced the desired result and Spike pulled his arm out of the hole
holding a small book.
Leaning back on his heels, Spike examined the book. It was old...older than him
and he handled it with care. He read the name embossed on the binding and
grunted in satisfaction. Standing, he tugged a silk bag out of the inside pocket
of his jacket and slipped the slim volume inside. He tugged the ties closed and
tucked the bag back inside the pocket. Spike patted his breast to make sure it
was safely lodged and turned to depart the chapel.
It was time to leave, leave this town and all its crushing memories. Spike
shoved the broken door aside and emerged into the cold night air. A ten minute
walk and he would be gone from this accursed place. He felt the need to hurry
and increased his pace. From his left he heard a faint sound and whipped his
head around to scan the forest of statues and grave markers. Seeing nothing he
decided it was a wayward bird, probably unaware it had blundered into the
earthly equivalent of hell. He resumed his pace only to hear another sound, a
familiar buzzing sound. Where had he heard that before?
As a bolt buried itself in his chest just to the right of his unbeating heart,
he remembered. A crossbow. That was the sound it made when it was fired. He sank
to his knees as a wave of weakness washed over him. The bolt was tainted with
something. He felt his muscles start to lock. A paralytic. As his eyes sagged
shut and he fell forward Spike thought to himself that he had been correct...he
never should have come back here...
As the demon crumpled in a heap in the dead grass, the watcher came out of
concealment and slowly approached. Not knowing what this creature was, caution
was prudent. The tranquilizer was not always effective. When the supine form
failed to move for several minutes, the watcher decided it was time to see what
it had acquired from the chapel. Not that a fight would be unwelcome, the
watcher enjoyed battles, but if there was something fragile on the demon's
person it would be better to recover it without violence. More of that hard
earned prudence.
Finally standing above the unconscious figure of the demon, the watcher prodded
him with a grubby sneaker-clad toe. No reaction. He was lying face down in the
dirt but the watcher could see the line of his jaw beneath tousled dark hair.
Human looking. A vampire? Rare for this area. Vampires preferred a ready supply
of human blood and Sunnydale lacked that for the most part. Definitely a
newcomer. A small black silk bag poked out from beneath the vampire's leather
coat and the watcher used a foot to draw the bag nearer so it could be picked
up.
The bag contained a book. Odd. Vampires weren't known for their love of
literature. Certainly there were some but it had been an eternity since the
watcher had met one. Forget that. Such thoughts only led to unhappiness. The
watcher put the book; bag and all, in a knapsack and bent down to pick up the
vampire. Slinging the limp body over one shoulder with careless ease, the
watcher carried him away. More information was needed. Time to take the prey
home and lock it up. She had many interesting toys at home to get the demon to
talk...
Part Three: Pain
The watcher carried the lean body of her captive up a winding stone staircase
without effort. She climbed upwards towards the doorway of the crumbling gothic
manor she called home now. Using her unencumbered hand, she turned the large
iron handle on the door and pushed it open. The interior of the building was
dark. It wasn't a good idea to attract attention in this town with too much
light. Over time the watcher had learned to move comfortably in the dark,
knowing where every sharp corner and piece of furniture stood.
Moving through the gloom to another door, she descended into the room she used
as a dungeon for her captives. Once this windowless chamber had probably held
nothing more important than wine and supplies but it served her well as a place
to question demons. She threw her burden on the tight packed dirt floor, lit one
smoky torch and went to get some chains to bind him. Vampires were generally
smarter than most of the demons she dealt with. They had that human brain to
work with. This made them deadly and difficult to keep imprisoned. The best
thing to do with vampires was kill them immediately but there was this strange
little book...she needed to know more.
Finding a sturdy set of manacles, the captor knelt and secured them around the
vampire's pale wrists and boot covered ankles. She tightened the bolts until she
couldn't see any light between the metal and the flesh. It would hurt him but
that was really the point. Hauling the limp body over to the wall, she threaded
the thick chains through a ring set into the stone wall. She gave the ring a
sharp tug to make sure it was secure and stepped back to take her first look at
the creature.
The guttering orange light from the torch danced across his lean face, which was
half hidden by a tousled mop of black hair. Leaning in, the captor could see
that the black was a dye. Golden brown roots winked from the crown of his skull.
Reaching out, she grasped his face in one hand and forced it up into the light
so she could get a better look. Razor like cheekbones, an angular jaw, charcoal
lashes sweeping down across pale skin. The color of his eyes remained hidden but
somehow she knew they were blue. Not the warm blue of a summer sky but the color
of an iceberg floating through frozen seas.
She shook her head to clear the rebellious thought. It was laced with pain and
pain was to be avoided. One last detail caught her attention...a semi circular
scar looped through one eyebrow dividing the brow into three distinct parts...a
blade had done that...wielded by a small Asian girl...the captor shook her head
again...No! That was not a real memory.
Seeing that the broken tip of the crossbow bolt still protruded from his
bloodstained chest, the captor grasped it in one small hand and gave it a quick
pull. It came free in her hand followed by a fresh torrent of blood and an
agonized yell from the vampire. She stepped back as the creature fought his way
towards consciousness. She went to a wooden table on the other side of the room
and perused a collection of knives and other weapons. Which one would prove most
effective? It was time to get information...
In the drug and pain induced haze that held him, Spike struggled to come back to
the world. He didn't want to stay here in his dreams. This was were the memories
lived...the cruel memories of why he had left this damned place to begin with.
* "I'm sorry you had to see that...I keep telling you to stay away." Buffy said
softly to Spike as he paced the floor of his crypt.
"Yeah, well since when do I do what you bloody well ask? Didn't think I'd be
walking in on you an' your new bloke..." Spike lit a cigarette and took a long
drag, trying to fog the memory of Buffy kissing the newest member of the Nancy
tribe in town.
"You knew I was seeing him...Simon has been around for months. Ever since the
Council sent him to consult on the Braga demon, he's been helping us." Buffy
tried to explain.
"I know all about it Buffy, a human man who can accept you for who you are, who
can help you fight the forces of darkness and take you for nice sunny picnics
besides...I know all about it...doesn't make it any easier on me." Spike
snarled, hurling the half-smoked cigarette to the stone floor.
"Then why do this to yourself? You wanted me to live and that's what I'm doing.
Living," Buffy whispered.
"Forgive me for hopin' I'd be a bloody part of that luv but it don't look like
that's gonna happen. You told your friends, they were all appropriately
horrified and shut me out...even Niblet and now y'got this shiny new fellow an'
they all love 'im," Spike retorted in return.
"Then why do you stay?" Buffy shouted, her reserve slipping.
A sharp pain knifed through Spike's gut at the question. He stopped pacing and
just looked at the golden girl he loved so much, letting all the pain he felt
shine out of his eyes.
Buffy just ducked her head so she wouldn't have to see and continued. "Why don't
you go? It would be easier...for you...and me. You could go anywhere...anywhere
I'm not."
Spike stood still for second before responding in a husky voice. "Best idea
you've ever had, pet. Just remember...you told me to go. I wouldn't do it
otherwise. Live your life...be happy with that younger copy of Giles...I'd
rather that than the hollow shell you've been."
Buffy nodded her head and turned to go without response. Spike watched her go,
watched the light fall on her golden head as she mounted the steps to the open
doorway. The sunlight formed a halo around her head and he suddenly knew the
madness of his love for her. Darkness in love with Light. He had been a fool to
believe it could happen. The door shut behind her and Spike was left alone in
his grave. It was time to go...*
"Who are you?" a low voice asked.
Spike raised his head, knowing he was very much in the now. The throbbing pain
in his chest told him that. The cursed bolt was gone but the wound had not had
time to heal. He would need blood to do that. He tried to open his eyes but his
eyelids felt like they weighed a few tons. All he could manage was a glimpse of
the shadowy figure standing in front of a torch. He couldn't make out any
features but he could see that whoever it was, it was small and human. If he
could get free, he could make short work of his captor.
"What is this book you have?" the voice pressed on.
Spike tried to offer his best sneer but it fell short. The drugs in his system
had left him without much muscle control. He squinted out at his surroundings
through bleary eyes. It was dark, dank, and filthy. Just the kind of place one
would want to interrogate someone and the kind of place Spike had studiously
avoided for the past fifty years.
"Why are you here?" came another quiet question.
That voice...it was female, Spike realized. A bloody girl had captured him. If
this got out his reputation would be severely damaged. He would have to kill a
lot of demons to regain the level of respect he required. He managed a mocking
laugh at his captor. She wouldn't get anything from him, the silly bint.
The girl stepped forward and with blinding speed buried a small knife in the
palm of Spike's hand, pinning it to the stone wall. He felt tendons separate and
at least one bone crack. He screamed in pain and surprise, swiping out with his
uninjured hand but she was too fast. She ducked his clumsy blow and stepped back
to her former position, just out of reach.
"Bloody bitch! What I ever do to you?" Spike hissed, trying to pull his hand
loose.
"Answer my questions and I'll take it out," she whispered.
"Sod off. I've been tortured by people who know what they're doin' an' I didn't
crack then. You don't have a prayer." The pain restored Spike's wits and he felt
adrenaline course through him, clearing his vision and sharpening his other
senses.
"I have more knives, vampire. It would be easier just to tell me what I need to
know," came the reasonable voice again.
His captor turned her back on him and walked to a table across the room. She
picked up a wickedly curved knife, much larger than the last, and held it up for
him to see.
"We are just getting started, vampire...are you sure you want to do it this
way?" she asked him with a trace of regret in her voice.
"Bring it on. I usually don't go after humans much any more but in your case
I'll make an exception," Spike hissed.
The girl started forward with her cruel looking blade and for the first time she
passed to the right of the torch, giving Spike an unobstructed view of her face.
The burning in his chest and hand immediately took second place to the crushing
pain in his heart. It couldn't be...she was gone...she had been gone for
sixty-five years.
The girl stopped at the look on the vampire's face. Was he breaking? Were those
tears coursing down his hollow cheeks? Maybe more torture was unnecessary.
She stood in front of him...looking so much the same and yet very different. The
same dark gold hair, the same clear hazel eyes, dusty jeans and a gray
sweatshirt, functional sneakers.... but that look in her eyes...that was not the
same...what did he see there?
Spike tried a few times and finally forced out a question from his constricted
throat. It was barely audible, the harsh rasp...but she heard him.
"Buffy? Is that you?"
Part Four: Forget
Spike watched for a response from the girl holding the knife but she did not
speak. She just looked puzzled. Even that expression was familiar though. Every
expression that had ever crossed her face was branded in his mind, he remembered
it all. One of the curses of vampiric immortality was that nothing ever faded
away with age, every memory remained bright and clear as if it had happened
yesterday.
"Buffy?" he repeated urgently.
She raised the knife again. "Heard of me, have you? I thought everyone had
forgotten the Slayer of Sunnydale. The new one in Buenos Aires gets all the
glory. The way I like it. By the time demons find out about me...its too late."
She advanced on him with the knife.
"Buffy...what are you playing at? It's me, y'can't tell me a few ounces of black
dye make me that different, you know me. Put that bloody knife down." Spike
demanded.
The girl shook her head. "No I don't think I will and I prefer if my demons just
call me Slayer by the way. It maintains that important professional distance."
Before he could respond, she slashed the blade across his abdomen shredding his
shirt and baring the blood-soaked skin beneath.
"Bloody hell! Stop! Buffy...it's Spike!" he cried, recoiling from her knife.
"Finally we're getting somewhere. You have a name, vampire. Spike? Is that it?"
The Slayer said approvingly.
The pain Spike had felt when he first saw her face sank into a kind of dread.
Spike looked at her in disbelief. She didn't know him. Even after seventy-five
years, she should remember him. He hadn't exactly been the bloody paperboy. What
was wrong with her? He had to figure it out quickly before she got tired of
carving him up and just killed him. He could see that his death would mean
nothing to her. He was just another monster.
"Yeah...Spike...William th' Bloody...ring any bells?" he said slowly.
She just looked blank. "Every demon believes it is world famous, sorry to
disappoint you but I guess you aren't as important as you think," she replied,
turning the blade in her hands so the blood dripped in the dirt at her feet.
"Buffy!" Spike shouted. "You know me!"
The name rang in her ears and the smoky little room faded away as time rushed
backward.
*"You left him? What is wrong with you? Did the whole Bison Lodge Day of
Disaster not make an impression on you? Why would you let him go Buffy? He loved
you!" Xander shouted at his friend.
Buffy retreated a little and sat down on the sofa in the apartment she shared
with Dawn.
"Yes, the wedding that wasn't made an impression but this isn't the same thing,
Xander. Simon..." Buffy said tentatively.
"Simon what? Treated you too well? Accepted your crazy life? What Buffy? What
was wrong with this one?" Xander interrupted.
"I didn't love him." Buffy lost her temper and shouted back.
Xander stared at her with his mouth open for a second before shaking his head in
disgust. "This is about him isn't it?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice.
Buffy pulled a lighter from her pocket and turned it in her hands. "About who?"
she replied.
"Mickey Mouse...Spike! That's who! You are still hung up on that dime store
Prince of Darkness and can't commit to a normal relationship." Xander accused,
pointing his finger at the silver lighter in her hands.
"Maybe I made a mistake Xander...sending him away. I have this sick feeling in
my stomach all the time now...like what you said about Anya that time..." Buffy
tried to get Xander to listen to her.
"No...do not compare me and my stupid mistake to this. I screwed up and I lost
my best friend and the girl I loved. I'm never going to see her again and that's
a bad thing but you sending Spike away was what you had to do. He was no good
for you Buffy...evil...bad...remember?" Xander pleaded with Buffy who still
wouldn't take her eyes off the lighter.
Xander sighed and sat down next to Buffy. He took the lighter from her limp
hands and threw it across the room where it landed on a chair. " Buffy...this is
no good. You have to stop with this. Willow and Tara aren't the only ones
allowed to be happy. You can be too."
"Maybe I could track him down. He's only been gone a year...a guy like him
leaves a trail wherever he goes..." Buffy whispered.
"Oh and the duties of the Slayer are out the window? Who's supposed to save the
world while you're out looking for the bleached wonder? Buffy, I'm right about
this, you have to forget Spike...your life is here in Sunnydale." Xander argued
persuasively.
"Forget Spike, here in Sunnydale. Forget Spike, here in Sunnydale. Forget
Spike."
The words echoed in her mind. She looked up at Xander and smiled weakly...
"If that's what I have to do...I will." she said.*
Buffy blinked. Did she just zone out or something? She focused on the vampire
again.
"I don't know you, I don't want to know you. I just want to know what the deal
is with the book. Planning to raise some hell beastie or something? What's your
evil, Spite...or was it Spike?" Buffy replied to Spike's impassioned plea.
Spike slumped in his chains, feeling defeat wash over him. He wasn't reaching
her. Was this a spell? Was that why she was still alive? Still young? The price
was her memory?
"What about all the others. They all gone from your mind too? The witches? Red
an' her blond girlfriend?" Spike growled as he tried not to notice her knife
drifting closer to his flesh.
*"Th' witches? Red an' her blonde girlfriend?
"Tara! Oh God Buffy, quick do something! Tara! Hang on baby, we're coming!"
Willow screamed.*
Buffy slammed the lid shut on that memory, her heart racing as she remembered
that horrible day. How had the damned vampire known about Willow and Tara? She
jabbed the knife into his abdomen again and twisted. He howled in pain and
bucked against his restraints.
"No more..." she hissed. "No more about them. I don't know how you know but
that's not what I need from you. The book...what is it for?"
He didn't answer. He just looked down at the blade sticking out of his stomach.
He could take a lot of damage but this was bad. The mention of her friends had
pushed Buffy too far. There was far more than simple amnesia going on here. He
saw the room fade in and out, the outlines of his tormenter wavering, the pain
was getting to him.
Buffy sighed. He was getting stubborn. Time for a break. She walked back to her
worktable and picked up a small vial of milky liquid. Taking the lid off, she
sniffed the contents. She bought this off a local demon that liked to stay in
good with the good guys as well as the bad. It was a powerful tranquilizer and
might make the vampire more willing to talk when he came to. She carefully
dipped a small wooden dart in the liquid and stopped it back up.
Walking back to the bleeding demon, she nonchalantly jabbed him in the neck with
the dart. He barely twitched. His eyes closed and his head lolled forward. Buffy
pulled both her knives out of his flesh and cleaned the gore off of them with a
soft rag. Good weapons care was very important...who had taught her that?
She looked at her captive carefully...he was completely unconscious. She felt
safe in leaving him for a short while. The night was only half over and she
still had half the town to patrol. He would be secure enough here until she got
back. Extinguishing the torch, Buffy grabbed her knapsack and headed upstairs.
She made sure the lock on the door was tight and ventured back into the night.
Part Five: Elsewhere
Spike was dreaming again. His four wounds glowed a dull red in his subconscious.
It seemed easier just to sink back into dreams than concentrate on the fiery
pain.
*"Thanks mate. Here's your payment," Spike said to the tattooed shaman, handing
him a crumpled wad of bills streaked with blood.
"You should be careful...it has only been a few days since the chip came out. We
can't be sure you are healed," the shaman warned, fidgeting with a carved wooden
talisman around his neck.
Spike just laughed. "I'm already dead mate. Inside an' out. I don't much care
what happens now."
"Where will you go?" the shaman asked, not really caring since he had money in
hand.
Spike shrugged. "I'm a mite peckish, think I'll go grab a bite of somethin'." He
laughed again, a bitter undertone in his voice.
A few hours later, Spike was prowling the back alleys of a poorer section of
L.A. looking for a mark. He spotted a youngish woman teetering along on stiletto
heels. A hooker...Spike smiled to himself...it'd be like riding a bike. He
started after her, following behind for a few blocks. Finally the woman noticed
the blonde man in black trailing her at a leisurely pace.
She quickened her walk but Spike just matched her stride. Growing panicky, she
started to run and ducked into an alley hoping to lose him. Spike shook his
head, stupid bint...alleys were never a good bet on a dark night. He followed
her in and saw her huddled behind a filthy dumpster. He could hear her heart
beating too fast in her chest from ten yards out.
"Come on pretty...I know you're there. Time to play..." he called to her.
A muffled sobbing was his only response.
He walked to her hiding place and drew her out by one trembling hand. She kept
her head down not wanting to look into the face of her death.
"Come now pet, in your line of work, you must know this moment waits for you
every night. Every time you go home in one piece you've cheated the grim reaper.
Promise it won't hurt...much," Spike cajoled the terrified girl.
He forced her chin up so he could see her face. Big, tear filled brown
eyes...long brown hair like a waterfall down her back...she was younger than he
thought. The cheap makeup had fooled him. Just a girl...fifteen maybe. Like
someone he knew...the traitorous though floated through his head. Spike snarled.
Not time to be thinking of a girl he'd sworn to protect. They'd cast him
out...big sis would take care of her now.
He lunged at the girl's neck and she let out a high pitched scream. Spike
stumbled backwards.
"Bloody soddin' hell! Damn her...heartless bitch!" he howled.
The girl fell backwards into a pile of cardboard boxes, breath coming in
terrified gasps. The man's face had twisted...she saw a flash of white fang as
he screamed. As she watched...it changed again...to a more familiar human shape.
He looked down at her and suddenly her terror eased. He had a single tear
running down one concave cheek.
"Go on.." he said softly. "Time to run away little girl. You cheated him one
more time..."
She scrambled to her feet and backed away. When she had enough space between her
and her attacker, she spun around and ran for her life, leaving Spike in the
alley to contemplate the meaning of this little episode. He stood silently for a
few minutes listening to the click of the girl's heels fade into the distance.
Sighing, he pulled a few green bills out of a back pocket...most of it had gone
to the shaman but he had enough left for a stop at the butchers...Walking
slowly, Spike left the alley and started back towards the better part of town.*
Exhaling sharply, Spike threw his head up and looked around. It was dark. He
couldn't hear anything...no breathing...she was gone. He moved his hand,
realizing she had taken the blade out. Damn her, now he couldn't pick the lock
with it. He pulled against the chains but was rewarded only with a fresh seepage
of blood from the large wound in his side. The girl had a way with a knife. He
wondered when she'd grown so good at torture. He wondered a lot of
things...Buffy, still young, alone, and apparently having no recall of him. She
might be more than slightly mad.
He squinted through the gloom, trying to see if she had left the book in the
room with him. No sign of it. What would he do if she had left it? Assuming he
could get free, would he have just left her here and gotten the book out of
Sunnydale? His mind instantly rejected that thought. Never again. He couldn't
walk away again. Leaving Buffy the first time had led to his own brand of
madness...the madness that came from not being able to forget.
* Spike strode through the rain soaked night, his senses attuned to the
slightest sound...The demon he was tracking had gone to ground here in the
cemetery called Les Innocents outside Paris and he meant to find it. A handsome
reward awaited the one who brought its head back to a certain warlock in the
city.
Hearing a scrabbling sound in the murky dark ahead, Spike drew out a long knife.
The bloke was going to be a few feet shorter soon enough. He felt the thrill of
the hunt run through him. Giving up hunting humans had been a surprisingly easy
choice for him over the years. He just couldn't get past the memory of once
caring for one or two of them. Pigs blood was a vile substitute but it lacked
the emotional baggage of the real thing. He had turned to hunting the demon
equivalent of big game to satisfy his craving for violence, it kept his hollow
existence slightly interesting and it paid well.
He heard the sound again and ran towards the source. In a small clearing ahead
two figures clashed in the pouring rain. Spike slowed and stopped. The sounds of
battle alternated with bursts of thunder. He stepped back a few feet and slipped
behind an obelisk to watch.
In a flash of lightning he saw her clearly. A girl...dark hair and slender. She
was young, maybe sixteen. Dressed in what passed for fashion amongst the young
people of Paris these days. She spun and kicked, ducked and rolled in a dance
that Spike knew all too well. A pain squeezed his chest. This was a
Slayer...fighting a vampire. The vampire snarled as he tried to outmaneuver his
unlikely foe but without luck. She kept him at arms length, always just out of
reach of her tender throat. The creature was becoming increasingly maddened.
Spike couldn't tear his eyes away. He knew what this girl's presence here meant.
A Slayer is called when the old one dies. He struggled for breath he didn't
need. Buffy was dead. Spike fought back the scream in his throat. Dead...ten
years...that was all she had gotten. He knew that most Slayers didn't even get
that but it didn't make it easier. Ten years...since he left. Had she married?
Had a happy life with that cursed Watcher? Now there was another. He looked at
the current Slayer with something akin to hatred.
A puff of ash floated to the muddy grass as the Slayer finally got her stake in.
She stood breathing heavily in the center of the clearing looking down at the
small pile of dust. She uttered some flippancy in French to her opponent's
remains.
Spike stepped forward and responded...also in French. "They aren't all that
easy, pretty."
The Slayer brought her stake back up and slipped into battle ready position.
Spike laughed. "At ease, Slayer. I just wanted to congratulate you." He nodded
to the pile of dust. "Not his day..."
"Yours either, demon," she retorted, lifting her chin defiantly, the rain
pelting down plastering her dark hair close to her skull.
"Oh...you are right there. Just got some bad news...from you actually. I was
just wondering...why did you let it go on so long?" Spike asked softly, circling
the girl slowly. His feet made no noise as he moved.
She turned with him, never taking her eyes from the blond vampire. "So long? He
was a difficult fight..." she said puzzled at the monster that wanted to chat
first.
"No, pretty. You could have killed him a dozen times before you did. What were
you hoping for? Wanted to see what death felt like? You're all the same that
way." he replied in a growl.
Suddenly he leapt at her, knocking her to the slippery ground. She rolled away
and sprang to her feet, stake raised.
"I'll be happy to show you Slayer...lets dance." Spike hissed, the change
slipping over his features.
She rushed him and stabbed forward with the stake.
He dodged lazily and laughed. "You let it show in your eyes...what you plan to
do...very bad form, pretty. Get you killed someday."
He reached out with such speed that she never saw it and grabbed her by the
throat. Yanking back, Spike clutched the girl to his chest. She struggled,
staring at his sharp fangs.
"No..." she whispered.
Spike lowered his head as he replied. "You want to know death? I'm here."
His teeth pierced the artery in her neck and the first human blood he had tasted
in over a decade flowed into his mouth. Metallic, hot, and charged with the
awesome power of a Slayer. He gulped it down, felt it spread like molten life
through him. It had been so long.
Spike drank for what seemed an eternity. He heard her heartbeat slow, the
rhythmic thuds fewer and further between. Spike lifted his head. He looked down
at the girl, Her eyelids fluttered and opened.
"Not what you thought, eh? Do you want to die?" he asked.
She shook her head slightly.
"Good. Then don't. Not for a long time. Even a Slayer deserves life."
Spike lowered her to the grass, pressing a thumb down hard on the lacerated
artery. He listened...hearing a voice. It called a name...
"Noelle?" came the distant cry.
"Looking for you?" he asked the pale Slayer.
She nodded, unable to take her eyes off this strange creature that was letting
her live.
"Good, take care pet." Spike said in English and left the girl lying on the
ground to await her Watcher.*
Spike shook his head. It seemed so vivid. That liquid Buffy was dosing him with.
It must have a hallucinogen in it. He thought back on that night. Noelle had
been the first... but every few years, Spike had felt that need. The need to
purge his grief in a battle with the only human who could stand against him. He
would search the world...find the current Chosen One and act out his little play
again. A little dance, a little super-potent blood, a lecture on the value of
life to the semi-suicidal Slayer and away into the night. It was madness, his
madness.
It had been a few years since the last one...the one in South America. She was
still alive if he could believe Buffy. But now...there would be no more. Not now
that he had found her. Now the only fight he wanted was the one to bring her
back to him. Spike redoubled his efforts to break his chains, he had to get
free. The next time Buffy came down here, she would kill him.
With strength born of desperation, Spike flung his arms wide and was rewarded
with the protesting shriek of shattered metal. His manacles fell to the ground
in several pieces. Spike ran to the worktable and grabbed the small bottle of
tranquilizer and charged up the steps. The door was locked. A few forceful kicks
splintered the solid oak and he was through. He looked around for Buffy but the
upstairs was as deserted as the dungeon. He took in the Slayer's abode. A
cavernous main room, black sheets stapled over the tall windows, bare tile
floors.
A metal chair, a card table, an army style cot with one thin gray blanket in the
corner of the vast room. There was a crate filled with bottled water and various
canned goods, another box filled with rumpled clothing. No lamps, no rugs, no
media screen. Spartan wasn't the word. She lived this way? On the table, Spike
spotted a shabby shoebox. Was his book in there? He had to get it back and
quickly. Getting it out of Sunnydale was just too important.
He nudged the lid off the box...no book...just something that battered his
already aching heart. Photos...of Dawn. Dawn in a mortarboard, holding a diploma
in one hand, a big grin plastered across her face. Dawn with some besotted
looking boy. Spike felt a rumble of protectiveness. Stupid...it was long over.
He flipped through the much-handled pile of pictures. A wedding...no sign of
Buffy in the wedding party. Or any of the other Scoobies for that matter. Just a
radiant Dawn and that same boy. Another photo...a baby...Spike turned the
picture over... Anne, one week old...read the inscription. Dawn's baby, named
for an absent aunt. In numerous photos the baby grew, joined by a brother,
school plays, proms, another set of graduations, and nowhere in any of them was
Buffy. The last thing in the box was an flowery invitation dated some ten years
ago, A Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Party...a hand lettered plea at the
bottom...Buffy, Please come. Love Dawnie
Why had she cut herself off from Dawn? Niblet had obviously tried to keep Buffy
in her life...A muffled thump announce the return of the Slayer. He turned to
see her standing in the doorway, the dim morning light shining around her. A
look of rage came over her face as she saw him holding her pictures.
Spike held one up. "This one is my favorite. Always been a sucker for
weddings...Dawn looked beautiful. Lot like you actually...bit taller though.
This bloke she married...you liked him? Must have, right? Otherwise you'd of run
him off right quick." Spike rambled; contemplating Dawn's long gone youth.
"Stop. Stop acting like you know my life...my..." Buffy choked on the words. "My
sister...how'd you get free?"
Spike carefully placed all the photos back in the box and closed the lid. "I'm
not your average vampire, pet. Mere chains aren't gonna keep me when I choose to
get out."
"Why are you still here then? You know I'm going to kill you...why aren't you
long gone?" Buffy pulled her crossbow from her knapsack as she spoke and leveled
it at Spike's chest.
"Two reasons. You have my book...and I need it back. Secondly and more
immediate...I don't ever plan to leave you again...no matter how much you want
me to." Spike replied quietly.
Buffy stared at him for a long moment, wondering at this mad creature's strange
behavior...and pulled the trigger.
A warning: This chapter contains a character death. It's alluded to in previous
chapters but here it is. Just so you know...
Part Six: Late
The bolt caught the vampire in the shoulder, spinning him around and slamming
him to the tiled floor. He lay face up just looking at Buffy in shock. Buffy
wondered why he lived...she had really planned to kill him just then. Not that
she missed her target, that hadn't happened in years. She couldn't afford to
miss...people got hurt when she...Buffy fought back the image...
*"Do something Buffy!" someone screamed.
Buffy raised her crossbow and fired as she ran, a misstep... a wet patch of
grass...the bolt went wide...
"No!!!" the voice came again. "Tara!"*
No. Buffy had meant to miss this demon. At the last second, something inside her
twitched, the weapon tilted the tiniest fraction of an inch so the bolt lodged
in the shoulder and not the heart. Why did she do that? The vampire moaned from
the floor. Buffy snapped out of her reverie and walked over to where he lay.
"Back downstairs for you, demon," she said dispassionately.
He just groaned again.
Buffy bent and pulled him up. He slung a leather-clad arm over her shoulder much
to her surprise. She wasn't helping him home from the bar; she was taking him
downstairs to peel strips from his back until he spilled about his damned book.
Why did he act like he trusted her?
She glanced up into his pain-wracked face in wonder. The scar drew her attention
again. A battle...over a hundred years ago...how did she know that? Buffy
straightened, taking his weight onto her thin shoulders and guided him past the
broken door and down the steep wooden steps into her dungeon.
Back in the tiny room below, Buffy leaned him more or less gently against the
stone wall and knelt next to him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
The residual drugs in his system and his newest wound had left him barely
conscious. She slowly drew the bolt from his shoulder, eliciting only a grunt
from the demon. A thin trickle of blood wended its way down his destroyed shirt
front and onto his lean abdomen. She had done some real damage here and still he
acted like she was anything but his enemy. She brushed the black hair back from
his face, thinking it was wrong somehow...the color. What had he said about dye?
"You know me," he whispered.
She jerked her head up and scrambled back a bit. He was awake.
"Buffy. You know me. Otherwise I'd be dead by now. Let me tell you..." Spike
coughed, bright spots of carmine dotting his lips as he spoke. "Let me tell you
why I'm here. The book, it can change this place...change your miserable excuse
for a life."
Buffy shook her head. "I may look young but I'm not and I didn't live so long
listening to lies from self-serving creatures like you. You'll tell me about the
book all right but you'll be screaming the truth from your chains...that way
I'll know its true"
She stood and went to fetch stronger chains from the back of the room. Bringing
them, she began fastening them on Spike's wrists. He didn't resist, he just kept
talking.
"When did it happen luv? When did the bad guys start winning more than they
lost? Why did you stay when everyone else left?" he said softly but
persistently.
Buffy resolutely went about her task. One wrist done...one to go.
"Let me help you. You aren't alone...you know me," he pleaded.
Buffy's hands trembled. She looked up into pale blue eyes and shook her head. He
must be lying. She was alone...she had been alone for a long time...He had to be
trying to pull something. Then why did some part of her yearn to trust him, to
listen? To not be alone in this corner of hell anymore. Her hands stilled.
Almost of their own accord, they loosened the second shackle, slipped it from
the vampire's wrist. Then she unlocked the first and took it off as well.
Still staring at him she said "If you're lying...I will kill you...a stake would
be quickest but I know other ways that take much longer."
Spike nodded slowly, not wanting to disturb this crucial moment. He climbed to
his feet, keeping his gaze trained on her doubtful face. Maybe he was getting
through. He looked down on the girl he thought he had lost long ago...even in
worn clothing with her hair scraped back from her too thin face, she was the
most incredible thing to him. To a man who had not seen or touched or spoken to
anything he loved since he left this place at her request, she was everything.
He slowly raised one hand and reached out to cup her cheek. She quivered but
didn't stop him. He traced the outline of her jaw with his thumb. So
warm...still like a flame to his cold touch.
With the other hand...the one Buffy wasn't paying attention to, Spike grabbed
her by the hair and slammed her head backwards into the hard surface of the
wall. The crack of her skull meeting stone was the last sound Buffy heard before
the world went black.
Spike looked down at the crumpled figure at his feet. "Sorry pet. We don't have
time for slow and easy."
He picked up the chains she had decided not to use on him and briskly snapped
them around her wrists, making sure they were tight enough to hold her. Tearing
a strip from what was left of his shirt, he held it to the wound on the back of
her head. He hadn't wanted to be so rough but Slayers were tough and he knew he
would only get one chance to subdue her. Leaving for a moment, he crossed to the
worktable and selected a small dart from the horrific collection of weapons. He
was mightily glad she hadn't gotten to part two of 'carve up the vampire'.
Dipping the dart in his stolen bottle of tranquilizer, Spike knelt and stuck
Buffy in the neck with it.
The drugs would keep her calm when she woke up, hopefully enough that she would
listen to him. He sat down next to her limp form to wait. It wasn't going to be
pretty but it had to be done...
*"When did it happen luv? When did the bad guys start winning more than they
lost?"
Buffy knew the answer to that one.
She walked through the cemetery in the company of two of her dearest friends. A
new demon in town was attacking women and leaving them badly mauled, sometimes
killing them. Buffy didn't know why or really care. It was her job to dispatch
it and with that thought in mind, she was out here in the middle of the night
with her volunteer bait.
"So, what's Dawnie's new guy like? Willow asked, munching on an apple.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "A god come down to earth to live among us mortals...if
you ask Dawn. You'd think a girl headed for law school would be more sensible
about men. She's really fallen for him."
Tara laughed. "Our little Dawn. Hard to believe it was only five years ago when
she had that disastrous date with that vampire kid on Halloween. Now she's
thinking wedding bells with Mr. Preppy Law School guy."
Buffy winced at the word wedding. "Excuse me but I'm still in denial about that
part. She's just a baby...no weddings. Not to mention, my dead end job is still
paying off her student loans, I can't even fathom the cost of flowers and frilly
dresses."
Willow patted Buffy on the back comfortingly. "Maybe his rich family will spring
for it."
"Here's to that." Buffy replied, brightening at the thought.
The three strolled through the dark night, a ritual they were all perfectly
comfortable with. Willow would bring snacks, they would catch up on their lives.
Comment on the latest news from Giles and worry about Xander who was still
having a hard time with Anya's sudden and final departure from his life. What
they didn't talk about was Buffy. Buffy's life or lack thereof. She had made it
abundantly clear that there was nothing to discuss. She patrolled, kept
Sunnydale mostly demon free, worked constantly to put Dawn through school, paid
the rent, purchased the occasional overpriced pair of shoes...and that was it.
No men and no apparent desire for any.
Willow now agreed with Tara's opinion that they had made a mistake to encourage
her to go for Simon instead of Spike but it was too late. Spike had left and he
had not returned. On the surface Buffy dealt with her heartache better than
Xander did but Willow knew...it still hurt. The lighter Buffy constantly played
with spoke to that.
A soft rustle in a stand of trees to their left broke the girls from their
cheerful conversation. Buffy looked alert and waved her friends to go ahead of
her to draw the demon out. She busied herself with loading a bolt into her
crossbow. This demon was about to make his last assault on the women of her
town.
Willow and Tara continued on as if they had heard nothing, but they were primed
to dive out of the way when the demon appeared. Soon enough, a surprisingly
small demon, maybe five foot if that, burst from the tree line and headed
straight for the two. Willow ran one way and Tara the other. It was a
well-practiced maneuver designed to confuse an attacker. It would gain Buffy a
few extra seconds to line up a shot and take the opponent down.
This time it failed. The demon was blindingly fast. He pursued Tara without a
moment's hesitation and bore her to the ground. Tara screamed loudly, too
surprised to bring her magic to bear on the demon.
"Tara! Oh God Buffy, quick do something! Tara! Hang on baby, we're coming!"
Willow screamed.
Willow turned back towards her beloved, panic in her green eyes. Was that a
knife he held?
Buffy raised her crossbow and fired as she ran, a misstep... a wet patch of
grass...the bolt went wide...
"Tara, keep your head down, I'm almost there!" Buffy called as she ran.
Her breath was coming faster but everything else seemed to slow down. She heard
the splash of her footfalls in the wet grass bringing her ever closer to the
demon where he crouched over his pinned victim. She heard Tara call to Willow,
beg her not to use magic, that Buffy would stop it. Heard Willow's frantic gasp
as the demon yanked Tara's head back by her long blonde hair. Saw the gleam of
the small blade in the scaled creature's hand.
And then time stopped...just as the blade tore across her friend's exposed
throat. Just as the blood sprayed out into Willow's outstretched hands.
"No!!! Tara!" Willow sobbed as Tara's life poured into her hands.
Then in a rush, time raced forward. Buffy ran full tilt into the demon's side,
knocking him off the bleeding witch and onto the ground. Buffy pounded her fists
into the struggling demon's face over and over. His features disappeared into a
mass of gore in a matter of seconds. Buffy could hear Willow's sobs slow and
stop as she beat the demon methodically. She heard the sound of chanting and
suddenly she was hurled backward by an unseen force into the grass. She landed
flat on her back, the breath knocked from her body.
Buffy raised herself up on her elbows, stunned by her fall. Someone was
screaming. Willow? No, Willow was chanting. The red haired witch stood over
Tara's unmoving body. Her hands were outstretched, eyes filled with black fog,
sparks shooting from extended fingers. It was the demon who was screaming. Buffy
focused on the creature and blanched in horror.
It was being torn apart...alive...by Willow's spell. It's skin stretched and
split, dark blood running from the seams. A high pitched squeal sounded from
it's open mouth as it exploded into a thousand small, dripping pieces. Buffy
crawled forward to get to Tara. Her eyes were open but the warmth and love that
she had greeted life with was gone. Tara was gone.
Buffy looked up at Willow.
"Will...oh God...Will. I'm sorry. I was..." Buffy choked out.
"Late." Willow returned Buffy's agonized gaze, eyes still empty and black. "You
were too late." *
Part Seven: Why
Spike lit another torch as the first burned out. Even though it was never
completely dark to his eyes, he wanted light to study his captive by. She still
slept...occasionally twisting and crying out in response to some hidden pain in
her mind. When she seemed especially upset, Spike would pour more water into his
makeshift rag and smooth the damp cloth across her feverish skin. There was no
doubt she was reliving some terrible thing in her head where Spike couldn't help
her.
He felt a rush of anger. Did the people who sent him here know? Did they know
that she was still alive, fighting an impossible battle alone? A battle that had
turned her into this embittered shell of herself. He turned his newly recovered
book in his hands and studied the title again...if they did...Spike would take
his revenge...after they got what they needed from this thin volume...they would
all die.
*Spike leaned against the railing in the neon strobed darkness and watched the
writhing mass of humanity far below. The club was packed, money pouring into
Spike's accounts as he cheerfully watched. An old warehouse, some black paint, a
complicated lighting and sound system, the odd piece of uncomfortable furniture,
and booze, lots and lots of booze. A bloody gold mine this place was and he
owned a part of it. No matter how much time passed, young humans always craved a
dark place to congregate, to drink and be merry.
Spike's off handed investment in an acquaintance's line of clubs a few years
before had made the vampire fairly rich. Rich enough that he rarely bothered
with his bounty hunting business any more. Only when the need to kill and rend
overwhelmed him did he accept a job. The rest of the time he spent trying to
think of new ways to waste his wealth. Cars, expensive clothes, first edition
books, he had a dozen meaningless hobbies he indulged. Funny how none of them
could keep his attention for very long. Not for the first time he contemplated
the irony of having eternal life and no way to fill it up.
The first hundred years, it hadn't been that way. His existence was all blood
and battle, carefree and full of endless amusement. He knew when and why that
had changed but knowing didn't make it easier to bear. She had changed him and
he couldn't go back. Why did he go on then? He didn't know, except for pure
bloody-mindedness and a refusal to let go of anything willingly, he would have
walked into the sunlight decades ago. A bitter smile curved his thin lips as he
saw a man on the dance floor chase after a young woman who had spurned him. Some
things never changed and Spike didn't fancy himself much different than that
stupid bloke below.
Love made fools of all men.
"Excuse me," came a precise English voice behind Spike. "Might I have a word?"
Spike turned and cocked one brow at the intruder. "Who might you be, English?
Don't get your type in here much."
The well-dressed Englishman just stood there waiting. He didn't come any closer
to the vampire than necessary and Spike realized this one knew him for what he
was. Was that a small cross poking out from behind the Italian silk tie? Yes it
was.
Spike smiled broadly and beckoned the young man forward to join him at the
railing. Reluctantly, the man complied and stepped forward. Spike noted the
bulge in the tailored lines of his dark wool suit. A stake too. Spike was
flattered. Thought he was dangerous did he?
"So.." Spike asked, "How's th' little bint in South America doing? Recovered
from her little ordeal? I confess I got a little carried away with that one but
she was just so bloody cocky. I like that in my lunch."
Spike laughed mockingly at the shocked expression on his companion's face.
"I didn't come to discuss your odd habit of stalking Slayers and leaving them to
die..." the Watcher began.
"Live...Leaving them to live...big difference, pup." Spike corrected, motioning
a scantily clad waitress over to their secluded spot.
"Be a luv and get us a bottle from my private stock, hmm?" he instructed her.
She gave him a hungry look and nodded before rushing away.
"It's been a bit of a chase tracking you down...Mr...Spike. The clothes, the
hair...you've changed your look." the Watcher continued.
Spike shrugged indifferently and threw himself down in a brushed steel chair a
few feet away. He motioned to a second chair and the Council representative sat
down also.
"Well, I change everything every couple of decades...just t' cut down on the
boredom. Eternity is a bloody long time after all," the vampire explained,
smoothing the lines of his brown leather blazer.
"I've tracked you halfway across Australia in the past few months, why did you
stop here in Sydney?" the Watcher asked, accepting a small glass of golden
liquid from the newly returned waitress.
"Business. Looking in on an investment I made a few years back," Spike replied.
"Let's skip the bloody small talk, what does the bleedin' Watcher's Council want
with William the Bloody. Come t' hit me up with a bill for th' medical expenses
on yer little Slayer?"
"No. I've been sent to ask for your help," said the young man with an unhappy
look.
Spike choked on his expensive whiskey. "Help! That's a good one. 'Cause th'
Council is always askin' vampires t' lend a hand in their noble struggle against
th' forces of evil. Newsflash, mate...I am th' forces of evil."
"We have reason to believe that isn't entirely true, Spike. Aside from the
disturbing little obsession with Slayers, one doesn't hear too much about your
exploits anymore. Except with demons, apparently you kill plenty of those."
Spike just fixed a cold blue stare on the human promising pain and death to the
unbeliever.
The Watcher pushed his chair back a few feet and his hand crept to the concealed
cross at his neck. This vampire was not the tamed creature he had been told to
expect. He drew a sheaf of yellowed papers from his case and handed them to
Spike.
Spike looked askance at the Watcher. "Paper? Not very modern old boy. The
Council is in need of some updating..."
"They are quite old. If you would take a look you might see why I brought them,"
the Watcher urged.
Spike leafed through the stack for a moment before shooting a sharp look at the
nervous man across from him.
"Giles? His what? His journal papers. Why show me these? I bloody lived it,
mate." Spike threw them back in the Watcher's face.
Getting to his knees to gather up the precious records, the Watcher explained.
"Mr. Giles recorded your obsession with a Slayer about seventy five years ago,
one Buffy Summers. Before he returned to England to work for the Council once
more in 2002, he documented your very odd behavior...odd for a vampire anyways."
Spike snorted. "Giles didn't know the half of it. It didn't get interesting
until after he left."
The Watcher returned to his chair, papers tucked safely away again. "In any
case, these documents came to light when Mr. Giles' estate turned them over to
the Council last year. After reading them, the current Council leadership sent
me to find you."
Spike narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why you?" He looked the young man over,
twenty-five or so, brown hair, tall, no glasses but no one wore them any more
since the surgery had been perfected. "Grandson?" he asked.
"Great...actually. Great grandson and the first to pursue the family calling of
Watcher in this century," the younger Giles answered.
"Spike shook his head. "So they send a piece of my past to beg me for help. What
could the Council possibly want with me?"
Giles the younger leaned forward, his face growing grave. "You know what's
happening...around the world. The demons are growing more numerous...humans are
encountering them everywhere. If this isn't stopped, eventually humans will be
the minority. We haven't the ability to fight them all off."
"And there is only one Slayer. I know all of this. The world is getting worse,
an' I get to sit back and watch. So what?" Spike growled.
Giles looked down at the comment about the Slayer but kept talking, " We know
why it's happening. Someone is letting demons through the Hellmouth... In
Sunnydale."
Spike felt a pang at the name. "Again...so what?"
"There is a way to close it, the Hellmouth, close it for good."
"Kinda like closin' th' door after th' horse, mate. What's th' point even if you
can do it?" Spike asked with supreme indifference in his voice. He poured
himself another splash of whiskey; suddenly self-medicating seemed appropriate.
"If we can stop any new demons from entering this dimension, we could fight the
ones that are here already. It's the constant influx that is turning the tide
against us." the Watcher argued, trying to get his last hope to listen to him.
Spike tossed back his drink and shrugged. "Why are you telling me? Just close it
then if you know how."
"The ritual we need to seal the Hellmouth is out of our reach. We have just
discovered, from some of my great grandfather's work in fact, that it may be
possible if we get the Adoperis manuscript..." Giles said excitedly.
"Adoperis...Latin for closure. What's an Adoperis?" Spike tried not to look
intrigued.
"A book, long lost to the world but Giles...the elder Giles uncovered a
reference to it before his death, sadly no one knew the significance of his
discovery until now. The problem is the book is in Sunnydale."
"So? Go get it. I still ain't heard where I come in." Spike felt a twinge of
unease, where was this conversation headed?
The young watcher cocked his head curiously. "How long has it been since you
spent in any time in that part of the world?"
Spike hurled his glass past the Watcher's head barely missing his ear. It
shattered against the iron railing. "Seventy-five bloody years, mate...an' not
near long enough. If you don't mind, this little 'pry into the sad little
vampire's psyche' bit is over. Whatever your problem is, find some other sot t'
solve it. No way in hell or earth I'm goin' back t' that damned place."
"That's the thing though," Giles said, showing admirable courage in the face of
Spike's growing rage. "It is hell...on earth and damned to boot. No human has
set foot in that town and lived in over fifty years. The demons own it entirely.
I f we could go in and get the book we would but we've lost four good men
trying. We need that book and you...are known and feared throughout the demonic
world. You might have a chance."
Spike shoved himself to his feet and paced back and forth, shooting angry looks
at the Watcher from beneath his black hair.
"Why...would...I ...bother?" he demanded of the human. "Why would you even think
I would do it?"
"Because you loved her." Giles said softly. "Truly loved her...and the sister,
and this was her town, her duty. For her sake..."
"For her sake?! For her bloody sake I left. Swore I'd never return to mess up
her sunny little life. An' I didn't, just like she asked. I can't..." Spike
hissed, hands clenching and unclenching.
A vision came to him as he wrestled with the demands of an underused conscience.
Little children, blond and brown hair flowing behind them, fields of gold and
ceruleans skies. Buffy's children, Dawn's...they deserved a world where they
were not the hunted. He saw a host of demons slinking through the tall grass,
slavering mouths, and razor teeth. Hunting, waiting to rend and kill. To destroy
the legacy of the women he loved.
"Where is it?" he whispered, head bowed.
"Pardon?" the younger Giles asked, leaning forward to catch the vampire's words.
Spike turned his head sideways to gaze at the man who had torn apart his
comfortable half-life. "Where...is...this bloody book?"*
Buffy moaned in her sleep and Spike stroked her cheek to calm her. She would be
waking soon, leaving the hell of her past behind to greet the hell of her
present. Spike's gaze floated over her slender form, the slightest hint of
golden skin visible where her sweatshirt drifted up from her jeans. Had that
Watcher known? He had looked away when Spike said there was only one Slayer in
the world. Spike laid a hand on her bare skin, absorbing her warmth into him. He
had to find a way to reach her because he wasn't leaving this place without her.
Another Warning: Further unhappiness ensues, of the same ilk as previous parts.
Better soon, I...hope.-Nocte
Part Eight: Last
Buffy knew she had been drugged. The very liquid she had used to keep the
vampire docile was now in her bloodstream. She wrestled to open her eyes and
fight but the drug was too strong. Its insidious power drew her down, making her
relive the awful events of seventy years before. Every sound, every color just
as vivid now in her mind as it had been then in reality. Try as she might Buffy
couldn't stop the flood.
*A wooded grove, rising above the level ground of the graveyard. This was where
Willow had chosen to bury Tara. Amongst the quiet pleasures of nature that she
had always loved. The sun was shining over the blanket of pine needles on the
ground. A warm breeze rippled the black cloth covering the casket and the sound
of birds intermingled with Dawn's loud sniffles as she fought to keep her
composure during the brief service. A venerable older witch of Tara's
acquaintance had come to deliver parting words over Tara's grave.
Willow stood apart from her friends, one hand resting on the velvet cloth that
covered her beloved's remains. Her eyes were downcast and she appeared calm but
the occasional spark of blue light that crackled from her hands belied that
impression. Buffy knew if Willow looked up, her eyes would be nothing but
fathomless black pools. Xander edged closer to Willow as the elderly Wicca
finished her eulogy and left to give the mourners privacy.
"Will...the service is over...do you want to stay a while before they...do the
interment?" he ventured, reaching out one tentative hand.
Willow turned her head to look at her oldest friend. He flinched a little at the
shadowed gaze. She pushed his hand away without speaking and turned her head
back to the casket.
Xander glanced back at Buffy where she stood with brokenhearted Dawn and solemn
Giles. His eyes pleaded with her for backup and Buffy stepped forward
reluctantly. She knew the very sight of her made the sparks shoot faster from
Willow's fingertips and Buffy could barely look at her friend, the guilt she
felt over Tara's death was so great.
Giles helped the still sobbing Dawn down the hill and back to the waiting car
while Buffy came to help comfort Willow.
"Willow...I know it feels unbearable now...but soon...it will be better. I'm so
sorry." Buffy laid an arm over Willow's trembling shoulders and tried to draw
her close.
Willow flicked a finger and Buffy flew backwards to slam into a tree.
"Willow! It's not Buffy's fault!" Xander yelled as he rushed to help a dazed
Buffy to her feet. "That demon killed Tara, Buffy did her..."
"Her best? No...I've seen her best; Tara...did not get her best." Willow
interrupted, finally walking away from the casket and towards Xander and Buffy
where they knelt at the base of a tree.
"Willow, I know the pain you're feeling...I've lost people before. The
pain...it's awful but someday you'll be able to forget..." Buffy began in an
aching voice.
Willow made a small gesture and Buffy felt her throat constrict, she could no
longer speak. Willow gave her a cruel little smile.
"Funny idea...forget...you think I will forget? Forget Tara or forget that she's
dead because of you?" Willow snarled, the black of her eyes whirling faster in
her rage. "Did you ever really love someone Buffy? Were you capable of that in
your self absorbed little world? Why don't you forget? Why don't you forget him?
Forget his very existence, live eternally alone with no memory of what it felt
like to be part of something greater than yourself."
A ripple of energy surrounded the three friends as Willow uttered those words.
Buffy's eyes clouded and cleared as she knelt looking up at Willow.
"Willow..." she whispered.
Xander bolted to his feet and confronted Willow. "What the hell do you think
you're doing? What would Tara have said? Using magic to hurt your friends...we
love you Willow, we want to help." he said angrily.
"I don't know what she'd say Xander, she's dead. And what am I left with? The
Slayer who was having an off night and the loser who threw the love of his life
away. You had a chance for something wonderful and you were too scared to take
it. Instead you let her walk out of your life. If I had that kind of chance
again with Tara..." Willow's voice trembled and tears flowed from her eyes.
She turned and started down the hill, her final words floating through the air
behind her. "Why do either of you bother? What do you have to live for?"
Xander's face froze at Willow's parting statement. He started as Buffy came up
behind him and leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Don't take it too seriously, Xander. She's in pain. She just needs time." Buffy
comforted him.
"Yeah...time." Xander replied a bleak look on his tired face.
The two friends watched Willow walk past the car and keep going into the
graveyard beyond. She never looked back.*
Buffy awoke, a painful lump in her throat. Willow...how she had failed her. Her
dream had been so vivid yet there were always parts of the funeral that she
couldn't recall, Willow had said something, after she threw Buffy into the tree.
Why couldn't she remember? Why couldn't she forget?. She reached up to rub her
head and realized she was chained. Her eyes flew open and she saw him. He was
crouching in front of her, ice blue eyes trained on hers. He looked sad. Why
sad, shouldn't he be happy, capturing a Slayer. It wasn't a common occurrence
for a vampire.
"Bad dream?" he asked.
Buffy glared at him. "I knew you were lying. I'm a fool."
"Always were pet. Let me go, didn't you? Then again, I was a fool too, to
leave." Spike replied.
Buffy waited...he didn't move. She pulled on the chains she knew were secure; he
just raised his scarred brow in slight amusement. She kicked out with one foot
and nearly caught him on the chin. He rocked back on his heels and let the blow
breeze past.
"Nice try pet," he said softly.
"What do you want?" Buffy shouted.
"Answers...an' I'm not sure you have them," Spike replied calmly.
"I'm not telling you anything," she retorted, sinking down and leaning into the
stone wall.
Spike just laughed and held up the knife she had used on his stomach. "Got a
whole table full of toys that say different, luv...where should I start?
"Go ahead." Buffy shrugged. She was completely indifferent. Maybe this vampire
could do what no other demon in nearly a century had managed...end it.
Spike saw that she truly didn't care and threw the knife down. He stood and
looked down at the stubborn set of her jaw, she was just as hard headed as ever.
He needed a different approach. Spike thought. There was more than one kind of
pain...
"Tell me what happened to all of them. Dawn lived...happy...kids...what about
th' rest? I know about Giles, probably have more recent news on him than you do
but the Scoobies...how'd it go for them?"
Buffy turned her head to the wall to shut him out. Spike watched her begin to
saw her wrists against the metal of her shackles. It was working, she felt
something.
"Tell me...about the carpenter." He gave Buffy a rueful grin at the shocked look
on her face. "Remember him do you, I'm th' only one who slipped through th'
cracks in your bloody mind? Tell me about Xander...did his demon girl ever come
back? What happened to him?"
Buffy shook her head, eyes clamped shut again. How did he know all this? She
didn't understand.
*"Xander, wait for me. You can't get ahead of me like that." Buffy hissed to her
friend.
Xander had insisted on coming with her to look for Willow. Neither of them had
seen her since the funeral, she didn't go to work, her family was mystified, and
Buffy had decided a month was long enough and it was time to find her. Some
rumors from the Wicca community had placed her in this abandoned part of town.
Supposedly, she was delving deeper into the black arts, lost in the power she
had fought so long to resist. Without Tara, the dam had burst and Willow was
deeper than ever.
"I'm fine Buffy. Keeping an eye out and everything," Xander replied to Buffy's
demand. He knew why she was worried, since Tara, Buffy had refused any help on
patrol and had kept Xander at arm length on all matters of the supernatural. He
wouldn't even be here tonight if he hadn't over heard Buffy on the phone with
one of her contact. She had a possible location on Willow.
The two walked slowly up the steps into the burnt out wreck of the high school,
Buffy hovering protectively near her friend.
"Buffy, let a guy walk here. I'm okay," Xander said as he tripped over her small
foot.
Buffy gave him an anxious glace. He wasn't okay. He was anything but. Willow's
cruel words had scarred him, broken some barrier inside. All his pain and loss
over Anya was there for anybody to see now and Buffy could feel his despair. She
wished desperately that he had stayed home tonight.
"Why would she come here? This place is nothing but a shell," Xander wondered
aloud.
Buffy shrugged, her eyes roving the darkened hallway for any sign of Willow.
"She's not thinking straight anymore."
A movement caught her eye and she nudged Xander. He looked up and saw it too.
Buffy waved him behind her and adopted a fighting stance. Whatever was out
there, it wasn't Willow. The guttural growls and red eyes attested to that.
Three hunched creatures moved out into the open hallway and Buffy recognized
them for what they were. Hellhounds. How had they gotten here? They weren't
exactly Sunnydale fare. Someone had to summon these things.
The hounds spread out, eyes never leaving their quarry. The leader bared his
yellowed fangs and snarled.
Buffy cursed softly and drew a knife from her boot. This was not a good thing.
Was Willow trapped here with these creatures?
"Xander...when I yell, I want you to run." she said under her breath.
Xander didn't reply, he just stepped up next to her and raised the baseball bat
he had brought with him. Buffy sighed. He had to be stubborn about this. She
didn't have time to debate it so she just moved over to give him elbowroom.
The hounds rushed and the hallway dissolved into flying fur and bared teeth.
Buffy fought blindly, slashing out with foot and knife. She felt one hound fall
beneath her and she buried her blade in its thick throat. It gave a wet gurgle
as it choked on its own blood and Buffy turned to the next hound. She couldn't
see Xander but she heard the occasional thump as a bat hit something, he was
holding his own. She caught her second hound by the neck and locked her arms to
cut off its air supply. The beast struggled and clawed at her but she ignored
the deep gouges it was carving in her forearm. Eventually its struggles grew
more jerky and finally stopped.
Buffy let the hound drop to the ground, arms burning from the strain of holding
it. There were no sounds of struggle. Xander must have bested his hound.
Flipping stray strands of hair out of her face, Buffy looked up to find him. He
was lying a few feet away, the hound dead next to him.
"Xander...Xander, get up...we still have to find Willow." Buffy panted.
Xander just lay there. Buffy stumbled over to him. He looked up at her, still
alert, blood soaking through his plaid shirt.
"Always thought I'd die in high school. Though I'd cheated death when you killed
the mayor..." Xander said, still sardonic even now. "Turns out I just delayed
it."
Buffy's breath came in hysterical gasps. "Xan..Xander, be still, I'll..."
"Nah...no point, Buff. It doesn't matter." Xander shook his head slightly,
reaching up to grasp Buffy's nerveless hand. "Went out fighting anyways. Doing
good. Willow...Willow was right, I shouldn't bother...I let Anya go and it's
been all wrong ever since."
Buffy laid her head against his reddened shirt, sobs welling up in her throat.
"Buffy...don't...it doesn't hurt. I'm not like you...you have a calling, a
reason to stay, to fight this. Me...It's just a relief." Xander stroked her
hair, his breathing slowing.
"No. Xander please." Buffy begged. She held him tight as his eyes glazed, held
him long after the blood stopped flowing. Two still figures surrounded by the
dead creatures of hell. The only sound that of Buffy's broken hearted sobs.
She looked up only once, and thinking back, maybe she imagined it...the glimpse
of red hair, a flash of green eyes. Willow hadn't seen, hadn't watched him
die...and done nothing?*
Buffy answered the persistent question, eyes still firmly closed. "He's dead.
Long dead."
Part Nine: Recall
They sat face to face in the dim little room beneath the manor. Spike had lit
candles and set them about the chamber when the final torch guttered and died.
While Buffy slept, he had found some blankets and laid them on the packed dirt
floor beneath her to make her more comfortable. His once valued leather blazer
he rolled into a ball and positioned behind her head as a makeshift pillow.
Satistfied, he returned to his post a few feet in front of her and was there to
hear her muttered response to his question when she awoke.
"Dead, long dead," came the whispered reply.
"How did he die?" Spike asked.
Buffy gave him a tortured look. He just wouldn't give up. "Painfully and too
soon."
"Good," Spike replied.
Buffy hissed in disgust at his callous answer.
"No, that's not what I meant. He didn't leave you...he stuck it out," Spike
explained.
"A lot of good it did him, this place destroyed him, destroyed them
all...eventually," Buffy sighed, looking down at her manacles. Her wrists were
raw from rubbing them against her chains and Spike leaned forward to pour cool
water over the abraded flesh.
"Dawn too? Those pictures upstairs say otherwise..." Spike prompted, a patient
look on his face.
"No...not Dawn. She..." Buffy swiped angrily at a tear running down her dusty
cheek. "Why do you care? This is all ancient history."
Spike grabbed a handful of gold hair and guided her eyes up to his. "Because
somewhere in all that pain is the reason you don't remember me an' I need you
to."
"I'd rather you used the knives," Buffy said, jerking away from his grip.
"I know pet. But this is worse," he said. "Dawn..."
Reluctantly, Buffy replied, "Dawn...I sent her away."
*Buffy pushed open the door to her apartment. It was empty. Dawn had gone back
to school at Stanford. There was no one to see her stained clothes, the blood
stuck in her hair from where she had laid her head on Xander's chest. She walked
into the bathroom and stared at the spectre in the mirror. Grey skin, stringy
hair, a hollow look in her eyes. How had this happened? A month ago she was
happy, friends and family, now...now there was only Dawn.
The phone rang in the other room. Its shrill cry barely registered with a near
catatonic Buffy. The machine picked up.
"Buffy? It's me, pick up the phone. Did you find Willow? I hope you're okay..."
Dawn's voice sounded in the silent apartment.
Buffy picked up. "Dawn... she rasped.
"Buffy? What's wrong? What happened?" Dawn replied, a note of worry in her
voice.
Buffy struggled to keep her voice even. "I...didn't find her."
"Buffy...something happened...is it bad?" Dawn persisted, knowing her sister too
well.
"Xander...he got hurt." Buffy wished she didn't have to do this.
Dawn sounded panicked. "Oh God...not him too...Buffy hang on, I'll get a flight
out tonight and..."
"No...no you won't catch a flight." Buffy focused and her voice hardened.
"Why not? You need me," Dawn argued.
"You aren't coming back here, Dawn. Not now...and not ever." Buffy raised her
voice to drown out Dawn's protests. "Dawn...listen to me. Finish school, marry
that nice guy...the one who adores you, have a life...a happy life. You deserve
it and Sunnydale...it will kill you just like it kills everyone else. I don't
ever want you to ever set foot here again, understand?"
There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line. "I'll still see
you...right Buffy? I mean you'll come to me..." Dawn was nearly crying now.
Buffy picked up a picture off the same table the phone rested on. Buffy and
Dawn, heads together, big smiles on tanned faces. Dawn's graduation from high
school. Buffy had been so proud of her baby sister. Graduating with honors and
Stanford in her future. The wooden frame warped under the pressure of Buffy's
grip, the picture slipped from beneath the glass and floated to the floor.
"Yes, of course I will, Dawn. Can't get rid of me..." Buffy lied convincingly
before laying the phone back in its cradle.
She knew she would never go to her, never leave this place. Xander was right,
she had a calling. To hold back the evil...so Dawn could have that happy
life...*
Buffy surged against her chains, the bolt in the wall creaked as the stone
around it cracked. Spike leapt back to avoid her murderous swing.
She wasn't going to do this, live out her most private pain for his voyeuristic
pleasure. Either he died or she did, either way it would be over.
"No more...I can't keep doing this, it hurts too much. Just kill me!" Buffy
snarled as she yanked as hard as she could on the bolt. It was loosening, she
could feel it.
Spike dodged another desperate swipe. "No!" he shouted back as he delivered a
stunning blow to her jaw with doubled fist.
Buffy stumbled but recovered quickly. The drugs were wearing off; her reflexes
were returning. She threw out a length of chain, trying to tangle the vampire in
it so she could draw him close enough to attack. Spike just laughed and
sidestepped the links.
"I've seen all your moves pet. Show me something new..." he mocked her efforts.
Buffy gave one final pull and the bolt flew loose from the wall and sailed
across the room. One wrist was still chained but she was free from the wall. The
vampire looked surprised.
"How 'bout that one, vampire?" she gave him a grim little smile.
"Not bad Slayer...not bad at all..." Spike opened his arms and beckoned an
invitation to battle.
Slowly swinging her chain, Buffy moved forward to accept.
The pair circled each other slowly in the confined place. Buffy trying to
maneuver past the demon to reach her table of weapons but he seemed to know what
she was thinking and stayed stubbornly between her and her goal. He was quick,
she thought. He was unlike the vampires she remembered. They were always
hampered by their need for blood; it distracted them from the battle. This one
didn't show any signs of that craving. In fact, Buffy wondered when he had last
fed. There was no blood in the manor except hers and she had no bite marks. She
ventured a kick to his shin but he just skipped back, an intense little smile on
his face.
Tiring of the games, Buffy rushed him and they began to fight in earnest. The
vampire's smile just grew wider. He was enjoying this. She got a shot in which
landed squarely on his nose. His head snapped back and a delighted laugh burst
from him. He shook off the pain and gave her an approving look. She didn't even
see his fist as it hit her, so busy was she trying to figure out why he would be
happy that she nearly broke his nose.
His fist connected with her solar plexus and the air rushed out of her lungs.
Gasping for air she stumbled backwards and felt the wall at her back. The
vampire just stood in the center of the room and waited for her to recover. She
shot him a disbelieving glance. This wasn't right. He wasn't even in demon face.
What was going on?
* "Who are you?" A young girl asked the figure standing in the shadows.
"You'll find out on Saturday..." a sardonic voice replied, platinum hair
glinting in the orange glow of the back alley's light.*
Buffy ran straight at her opponent and ducked around to finally reach the table.
She snatched up a knife and spun, holding it at the ready.
The vampire's smile faded and he grew serious. He slowly backed away from her,
out of range of his death. She was the one to laugh now. The upper hand at last.
She stalked forward; eyes focused on his bare chest. The injuries she had
already dealt him were fading. The slash across his lean stomach was just an
angry red scratch. Time to give him a new one.
* A spectacled man, Giles? He was speaking, "Spike has fought two Slayers in the
last century, and... he's killed them both."*
Giles had told her about this one? Why was she only recalling it now? He killed
Slayers, did he? Buffy feinted right and slashed left. A thin red line appeared
on the vampire's chest. Blood ran down.
* "Spike had a little trip to the vet and now he doesn't chase the other puppies
anymore..." came the familiar voice.
He was huddled in a doorway, a smoking blanket over him. She was there...*
Buffy raised one hand to her head. These things in her mind...were they real? It
was like the holes in her memory were suddenly filling with him. This
fighting...they had done this before.
*"You think we're dancing?"
"That's all we've ever done."
An alley...maybe the same alley. He had a pool cue. The hair...white not black.*
"You know me," the bleeding vampire said again.
Buffy finally believed him. He was telling the truth. She pressed on, knife
weaving the air in front of her. He wasn't trying to fight back anymore; he was
just avoiding the blade, waiting...waiting for what?
"We've done this before...fought like this?" she said wonderingly. "You tried to
kill me."
"Yes...but that's not th' whole picture pet. Keep going," he prompted, narrowly
avoiding another vicious slash.
* "I love...." the vampire began, standing in an abandoned warehouse,
uncharacteristically dressed in shades of brown instead of black. Where was the
duster?"
"Don't!" a horrified younger Buffy cried.*
Buffy stopped abruptly. "You loved me? How? You're a thing, vampires don't
love."
"No one told me that, Buffy. I loved you then...an' I still do," he replied.
Buffy looked at him, really looked at him. This was...Spike. The name clicked
with the face. He was different. The hair a little longer, it looked odd so
dark. No black pants...tan now, filthy with the dust of this dungeon but still
tan. Different but still so familiar. Her gaze roved over his naked chest. She
knew how it would feel to touch it. Silky skin over hard muscle...and cold...so
cold.
* "I'm counting on you...to protect her."
""Til th' end of the world...even if that happens to be tonight," replied the
man at the base of the steps.*
"Dawn...you knew Dawn. You protected her..." Buffy gasped at the pain in her
chest. Where was this all coming from?
"Yes, I protected Dawn...or I tried at any rate. A spell Buffy...or a curse.
Someone made you forget. But now its breaking down...you're remembering," he
said persuasively.
Buffy shook her head. "No...you laid the spell, you're trying to make me trust
you..."
*"I wasn't planning on hurting you...Much," a mocking voice and smirking face
hovered near.
"You haven't even come close to hurting me," her younger self said in a voice
dripping with scorn and repressed feeling.
"Afraid to give me the chance?" Spike waggled a scarred eyebrow at her.
Crumbling plaster rained down on them, Buffy forced him up against a wall,
attacked him with her hands, her mouth...*
The knife slipped from her limp hand. Chills swept through her as she gaped at
him.
He walked forward and pulled her unresisting into his arms. He looked down into
her confused face, silently pleading with her to remember.
"It's a lie..." she tried to deny what she recalled.
His head dipped down and he kissed her hard, forcing a response. She found
herself opening her mouth against his, moving her body closer. She had been here
before. She felt a familiar clenching in her stomach and lower.
"No..." he growled against her mouth, his hands shoving beneath her ragged shirt
to make contact with her skin.
They're so cold...she thought. Why did that feel right?
"Not a lie...keep going Buffy. Remember it all." He continued to kiss her,
nothing gentle just raw need and force. His hands pushed lower now...the
waistband of her jeans impeding their progress.
She thrust him away with all her strength, a trembling hand against her bruised
lips. He stumbled backwards; eyes still trained on her, an almost predatory look
in them.
"Spike..."
*"I'm using you....I can't love you. I'm just ... being weak, and selfish...and
it's killing me. I'm sorry...William." Those were her words as she looked into
his shattered eyes.
"Why don't you go? It would be easier...for you...and me. You could go
anywhere...anywhere I'm not." The last thing she ever said to him.*
Buffy crumpled to her knees in the dirt, tears falling freely from glazed eyes.
"Spike...William," she gasped.
Spike approached her again, kneeling in front of her...a hand reached out to
touch her face.
She could hear the fragile hope in his voice. "Buffy?"
She reached up and laced her fingers with his. Her chest heaved convulsively as
he drew her into a crushing embrace. She sobbed into the hollow of his shoulder.
Hot tears falling on cold bare skin.
"Willow...what did you do?" she whispered.
A note to readers: I changed the rating on this story to accommodate the
contents of this installment, the fiction called for it and I am taking my first
stab at this sort of thing (forgive the pun). I apologize if that bothers anyone
but I just wanted to provide fair warning to all. It's not as vivid as some I've
read but it does drift beyond the rating of R -Nocte
Part Ten: Together
Buffy knelt in the circle of Spike's arms and cried. For once in his existence,
Spike knew better than to speak. He simply accepted it. One hand stroked her
hair, pulling the plain elastic from it so he could run his fingers through the
short silky mass as his other hand rubbed her back slowly. Her sobs shook them
both. His unbeating heart constricted at the raw sound. What did she say?
Willow? The witch had laid this ill wish on her, to live beyond her time with no
memory of him? Her best friend?
It was not the time for questions. Buffy would tell him soon enough, now that
she had mended the fractures in her memory. At this moment she just needed to
give away some of the emotion bottled inside her. As Spike tried to soothe her,
he contemplated one way she could do that.
He gently lifted her head from his shoulder and gazed into her stricken face.
Tears glistened on her cheeks and a desperate look still haunted her eyes. He
pulled her arms from around his waist and deliberately placed them on his still
bloodstained chest.
Her eyes drifted downwards to the cut across one pectoral muscle. She smoothed
calloused fingers over the wound...She felt regret squeeze her throat.
"Sorry..." came her choked whisper.
He shook his head silently as he dropped his hands to her narrow waist. The heat
of her skin warmed them. He wondered if she would understand what he was trying
to do.
Buffy looked up in confusion at his solemn face.
Finally he spoke, "Give it to me...all that pain...you know I can take it. You
remember that well enough..." he asked.
She frowned. "How?" He seemed less comforting somehow...more...what?
He suddenly surged forward. Hands skimmed up her back to grip the neckline of
her worn shirt, his chest pressed firmly against hers.
He replied huskily as he tore it from her body, "You know how...you know me."
She felt the cold air across her back as she blinked in shock at his sudden
action.
He watched her carefully...the knife wasn't that far away, she could still slip
away from him...a slightly feral look dawned on her face. A strange glow in her
hazel eyes. He blessed vampiric memory for once. He knew that look.
Buffy felt a flush of heat cross her face. She watched Spike lean back and toss
her ruined shirt to one side, a challenging look on his face as he awaited her
reaction. She knew he was looking at her body, knew what it did to him to see
it. She felt that power again, the power she held over him even after an
eternity. He was offering himself as a balm to her sore heart, the best way he
knew how.
Spike saw her slight smile. She could sense his arousal, she always could. What
this woman did to him...no one in two hundred years had matched it. To have this
chance again...such blessings he was unaccustomed to. As he watched, she rose
gracefully to her feet, slipped slender feet out of battered shoes, fingers
moving nimbly over the brass buttons of her jeans. He took a deep, albeit
unnecessary, breath. She was still incredible; time had simply not touched her.
The jeans fells to the dirt and she kicked them aside. Despite a life lived
skulking in darkness; she still possessed a hint of gold to her skin. The gentle
glow of the candlelight revealed curves his hands had memorized many years
before and ached to touch again. He tore his gaze from her body to her face. She
knew what she was doing to him...reveling in it.
Buffy looked down at Spike. The stunned expression on his face at he knelt at
her feet was priceless. He had once told her he was her willing slave. At the
time she had found it disturbing but he had taught her the possibilities of such
an idea. She arched a brow, pointed staring at his still clad lower body and he
quickly stood to rectify that situation. He shrugged off the pants without
modesty; he had always been incredibly comfortable with himself. It was she who
had had a problem with it. Now she gloried in the sight of it. A gift...to have
this back.
She crossed the short distance to a waiting Spike and tilted her head up to
accept his hungry kiss. Cool lips covered hers, his hands roamed across her
back. She strove to blot out the slightest distance between them by pressing her
body to his; she felt his hardness insistent against her hip. He did the same
and Buffy suddenly couldn't tell where he began and she ended. Her heart beat
faster and her breath caught in her throat as his hand moved between them.
Knowing fingers tracing a familiar path. How did one live without this, how
could she have forgotten?
Spike pushed them both backwards until Buffy could feel the rough wall behind
her, some things never changed...a bed was out of the question; their need was
too immediate. His mouth was at her throat now, tongue moving over her jugular,
something he had always done...she could feel the light scrape of blunt human
teeth against her skin, he had never bitten down but the feel of the blood
coursing beneath her skin drove him wild, she remembered. She threw her head
back to allow him greater access and he growled in approval. She felt his body
sink down momentarily as he bent to hook a hand underneath each of her knees and
bring them up around his narrow hips.
He was right there, that glorious, cold column so close. Placing her hands on
his shoulders, she pushed herself upwards, arching her back to find the right
angle and sank back down. Her head fell forward limply at the sensation...it was
unlike anything else...that single moment with him when their bodies came
together. Her heat, his chill, the transfer of heat...and then it was like he
was truly a part of her. No one else had ever made her feel this way...was it a
vampire thing? No...she had another experience to compare and it was only him,
he was like the other half of her, when they came together it was seamless. She
clenched around him, already more than halfway there even though they had just
begun. His hips bucked helplessly at the power of her contractions and something
very much like a whimper tore from his throat.
Buffy raked her hair from her face with one shaking hand and caught his gaze.
Wide blue eyes looked back, his sensual mouth open slightly. It was just the
same...she felt like she could see right through him at this moment. It had made
her run nearly a century ago but now it was everything. To see that kind of
feeling in someone's eyes for her...and to feel it too. She took a deep breath
and let him see it too, what she felt. Saw it register in his eyes as he moved
inside her. His eyes flashed, he suddenly knew.
She loved him... Spike slammed her harder against the wall, moving quicker and
quicker, she just moaned in pleasure. She loved him...it was right there in her
eyes. This was worth a hundred-year wait...a thousand. She finally had let
herself feel it. Spike nearly cried out for joy. They moved together, hard and
fast. Spike knew he didn't have to hold back, that was part of the wonder of
this, she could take the pain, the roughness, give it back to him tenfold. She
was completely open to him, heated and wet. He felt her nails carve a burning
path down his back, felt her teeth sink into his shoulder, bloodthirsty little
thing. This was who she truly was, however long it had taken to get here.
As urgency quickened his pace, blinding him to anything but the need to
culminate this experience, he could hear a faint whisper in his ear. Was she
speaking?
"...you William. Love you, William," she was chanting in his ear as he drove her
repeatedly into the jagged wall.
Her words pushed him over the edge and he surged into her helplessly. He heard
her cry out as she joined him, the sensation incredible as her inner muscles
gripped him almost painfully over and over again. He gasped, leaning into her,
hands clenched into the stone to keep them both from falling.
"Buffy..." he sighed into her neck, unbidden tears streaming from half closed
eyes.
They sank to the blankets at their feet as one. Spike twitched one rough green
coverlet over them and propped himself up with one arm to look down at her
flushed face...
Buffy twined her legs around him tightly and laid her head back to look up at
him. The grief was still there, at the back of her mind, but somehow it was
bearable...he had indeed taken some of it into him.
"I love you Buffy," he said to her, voice slightly shaky.
She could see the half-formed terror on his face that she would push him away
now as she had done in the past. She just continued to look at him...let him see
what had been in her eyes moments before.
"I know...I love you too, William...Spike...both of you," she replied softly.
She drew him down to her and kissed him softly, tenderness evident in the
gesture, something that had been absent in the frenzied sex of minutes past.
Soft lips pressed against hard. Gentle fingers drifting over raised welts on his
muscled back. What had she done to him, so rough... and what was she about to
do? She heard him gasp as she shifted slightly beneath him to better seat him
atop her. She looked straight up at him and wiggled slightly.
"What? You thought we were done?" she said in a tentatively teasing tone.
Spike neared shouted in jubilation at the hint of humor. This was the Buffy he
had been trying to find. He let a smirk curve his lips as he braced himself
above her and let her feel the answer to that question.
"Not by half pet...not by bloody half..."
Part Eleven: Answers
In the corner of the dungeon, there was a pile of blankets. Only one candle
still burned...across the room on the table of unneeded weapons. In the flicker
of the solitary flame, Buffy studied the sleeping form of the man beneath her.
One arm was flung outwards; the other firmly wrapped around her waist, as if she
might drift away if he didn't anchor her even in his sleep. Buffy didn't mind,
with the weight now lifted from her shoulders, she felt like she might.
She traced the sharp line of his jaw slowly, careful not to tickle. He needed
rest after his ordeal...and what came afterwards. Buffy felt as if they existed
inside a bubble just now, the terrible world held at bay by a single candle and
a safe cocoon of government issue blankets. If she moved too quickly, spoke too
loud, would it burst? Would this disappear? She wondered about that little book
Spike had come here to find. Wondered what it was that he would ever return
here. She knew he had not expected to find her, if he had known...well he would
have come sooner. She knew this, his love was constant, it was she who had
wavered. She dismissed the question of the book and returned to her task of
memorizing every plane and dip of his face. Trying to carve it so deeply into
her mind that it could never be wiped away again.
Willow and her rage. Had the curse been deliberate or the byproduct of a mind
drowning in magic? Buffy didn't know. Nor did she know why it had been erased by
contact with Spike. Willow had probably counted on Buffy never seeing him again
to disturb the spell. It was a fitting revenge she had crafted, Buffy thought.
Truly, she had condemned Buffy to hell on earth.
Spike stirred beneath her and Buffy pushed her dark thoughts aside. He opened
his eyes, looked straight up and smiled. That cocky grin, the one that always
made her want to punch him, it still did. His gaze lowered until it made contact
with the woman draped across his chest. Blue met hazel and the grin broadened.
His arm tightened around her waist and he brought his other arm up to pull her
head down to his. Their lips met lightly, lingered, and broke apart. She gave
him an answering smile, a small one.
"Never thought I'd miss hair gel and peroxide." she murmured, reaching up to
stroke his inky locks.
He looked nonplussed. "Oh, th' hair. Someone told me I looked dated...Slayer I
think."
She looked surprised. "A Slayer? Been steppin' out on me?"
He laughed ruefully. "In a way, but not th' way you're suggestin'. Brings me to
a question I have, pet. Ten years after I left...Paris...I met a Slayer there."
His face grew grave. "Thought it meant you were dead...care to explain that to
me?"
Buffy thought back. Ten years...2013."Faith," she said.
Spike looked confused.
"Faith, the other Slayer, she died that year...out of prison three days and a
gang of demons killed her in L.A. She was just trying to get back into it...the
save the world business. The Council told me she was dead...I envied her." Buffy
looked distant as she related the tale.
Spike pulled her closer, trying to remind her he was there. She looked down at
him sadly...the bubble was breaking.
He changed the subject, although all of them were somewhat sad. "How is
it...that you are still young Buffy? I mean...you're just th' bloody same. I'd
swear to it." Spike cupped her youthful cheek in wonder.
Buffy shrugged. "Damned if I know. Cellular sunburn, my ass. Maybe it was the
resurrection ritual...or the curse Willow put on me regarding you...to live
eternally with no memory of love...I don't know. I just know I wake up every
night just the same, fight the same battle, and try as I might...I can't manage
to get myself killed."
Spike raised his head up to stare at her closely. "Do you try? T'get killed,
that is?"
She looked away; eyes suddenly bright with unshed tears. "Yes....sometimes, when
it seems like too much. Then I remember this is my duty, to try and hold back
the demons, I have no right to seek death."
Spike hissed in disbelief. "What makes you think you're th' only one who has to
fight? T' do this alone? Buffy, it's too much for any one person...even a
Slayer!" He grabbed her chin and made her look at him. "Buffy?"
Buffy pushed the blanket aside and stood up. "It doesn't matter if I wish for
death or not. I'll show you."
She walked naked to the table and fetched the candle. Bringing it back, she held
it close to her, close enough that Spike could see something he hadn't noticed
before. He rose up on his elbows and stared. A tracery of nearly invisible white
lines crisscrossed her body. Across her abdomen, her thighs, four parallel
gashes marred one bicep, a jagged line on her collarbone. She was covered in
very pale, almost imperceptible scars.
"You couldn't see before...it's very faint...Every battle...recorded for me,"
she whispered, dipping the candle so he could see her legs and their marks.
"Once in a while...there's too many monsters. They cut, I bleed, wounds that
would kill even a Slayer. Sometimes I make it home, sometimes they leave me for
dead, but I always wake up like this, recovered...except for this kind
reminder...written in flesh."
Spike was stunned...he couldn't think of anything to say.
"So you see...a death wish is pretty useless...for someone who can't die," she
returned the candle to the table and sank down beside him. She tried not to show
the fear that she felt...that he would be repulsed by her now...the freakish
thing she had become.
Spike sat up and reached to touch the extremely thin, silvery scar on her
collarbone. It was long...uneven. A claw most likely, swiped across her throat
to sever an artery. She lived through this? Over and over? He bent and pressed
his mouth against it. As if he could take it back, that she never had to feel
that pain...
"See now luv...its a good thing," he said, still kissing the scar, running soft
hands over others on her arms, her stomach...
It was Buffy's turn to look confused.
He kissed her mouth once...lightly, and explained. "Because now you can be with
me...forever."
Buffy felt a surge of hope at his words before reality came crashing down again.
She pushed him back a little. "Will you stay with me? Because this is what I
do...I can't leave."
Spike frowned. "Why not. You like this place so much? Th' rats? Th' demons?
Maybe this lovely abode y' got here? This may sound funny comin' from a bloke
who used to live in a grave but this place is a dump."
"I know...but it's high up, away from the center of town and easy to defend.
Those are the only criteria I care about," Buffy replied.
Spike moved her over on the blanket and stood up. He hunted about the chamber,
looking on the table and beneath.
"What are you doing?" she inquired.
"Th' book, where is it?" Spike said, turning to look at her.
Buffy pointed at her knapsack in the corner and Spike crossed to it and pulled
the small black volume from the canvas sack. He tossed it to her gently and
started searching for his pants.
"Your ticket out of here, Buffy. The Adoperis manuscript. Get dressed, we're
getting th' hell out of Dodge," he said, locating the missing clothing in a
corner.
Buffy opened the book, determined it to be unreadable and set it down. "No
ticket Spike. I can't leave, not ever. If that isn't okay with you...then
lea..."
Spike was in her face before she could finish the thought. "No! Don't say it. I
will never listen to you tell me to leave again. Just...don't!" he snarled,
crushing his mouth to hers. This was no gentle kiss, it was anger and fear and
punishment all in one.
Buffy tumbled back on the blankets, pulling him down on top of her. She let him
handle her roughly, didn't fight as he fell between her legs. He shifted once
and was inside her. She accepted it, let him vent the frustration of decades
spent alone in her body. She just held on, rocked with him, pressed her lips to
his cheek as he drove into her. Whispered "Sorry," over and over into his ear.
She should never have suggested, much less said what she had started to say.
Spike heard her words somewhere in his delirium, his tempo slowed, he looked
down, saw the apology in her eyes. She was so afraid. He should have realized
that. He almost stopped but she arched into him, telling him to continue...and
he did. Not gently but not so frenzied either. She matched her motions to his
and it became a thing they did together instead of what he did to her. The room
receded and all he saw, all he felt... was her...all around him.
Buffy knew when he let go of the rage, felt him come back to her. She wrapped
arms shaking with relief around him and let herself give in to the sensations
enveloping her. Rhythm, fiction, heat, and cold. His mouth, his fingers,
everything, given to her. It built and built until she felt like she might
scream and why not? She arched her back, let it happen and screamed into his
shoulder. Bit down on his flesh, dug nails in his back. He growled in her ear,
he liked the roughness, he always did. He was in the grip of it as well and he
sank so deep it dragged another scream from her hoarse throat.
The instant they both came back to earth, he rolled to his side bringing her
with him and kissed her once more, hard and quick. Looking directly into her
passion glazed eyes, he said slowly and very succinctly, "Don't ever tell me to
leave again.
When Spike woke the second time, he was alone. He bolted upright and looked
around for Buffy. Noise upstairs caught his ear. He rose and dressed quickly. He
had no shirt anymore so he just shrugged his rumpled blazer on over bare skin
and ascended quickly. What was she up to now?
"Buffy?" he called, shoving the damaged door aside.
She stood by the box that contained her clothes getting dressed. Pulling a black
knit cap over her hair, she gave him a quick smile and knelt to lace up battered
boots.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"It's nighttime again. Time to go kill the nasties," Buffy replied.
She crossed to the card table and started to pile weapons into her knapsack.
Spike laughed shortly. "Why? I told you, we're leaving."
"And I told you I can't. My dut..."
"Screw your duty. It's pointless anyways. Buffy, we have to get out of here. The
book..." Spike shouted, his angry words echoing in the near empty room.
"Yes your little book. I don't know what it is but it doesn't matter..." Buffy
interrupted him in turn.
"It bloody well does! You think I'd come prancin' back into this town if it
wasn't? Buffy...it..." Spike stopped, tried to calm himself. She still drove him
mad. Stubborn, opinionated little... He walked over to her and sat her down on
the solitary chair...knelt in front of her and tried to explain.
He looked up into her stormy face, she turned it so she couldn't see him. Still
so damned stubborn. This was necessary but still an unhappy task.
"Buffy...it isn't working. Th' demons pet...there's just too many. For every one
you kill, a dozen leave Sunnydale and venture out into the world. People...well
people just can't fight them. They come out in th' daytime... steal children
from their mothers. Homes are bloody fortresses now...to keep out the demons.
Not just vampires anymore...true creatures of hell. Devils and hellhounds..."
Buffy flinched at the mention of hounds. Another bad memory? There was probably
no limit to those. He reached up to tilt her chin so he could see her face.
Tears shone bright in her eyes.
"You can't stop them anymore Buffy...not alone," he said softly, knowing he was
tearing away the foundations of her existence, her reason for being.
"So...eighty years of fighting and what? It doesn't matter? The End of Days is
coming anyways?" Buffy replied bitterly. She dragged one arm across her face to
dry angry tears.
Spike shook his head. "Still th' bloody hero. Buffy...it's not your
fault...someone is doing this. Letting them into the world. The book, it has a
spell to stop it, seal the Hellmouth forever. It would give people a fightin'
chance to get back on top."
Buffy looked...guilty somehow. Why couldn't he convince her this was the right
thing to do?
"It's over for you here...all your people...gone...but I'm here and the world is
still here. Don't you think its time to go?" Spike said persuasively.
Was she wavering?
"They're dead, Buffy. All of them...Xander...Dawn...Willow. But you're not.
Don't you want to live, truly live?"
She stood and walked away from him...over to one of the covered windows, leaned
her head against the rough black fabric. She said something, so softly even
vampire ears couldn't hear.
"What? What did you say Buffy?" he asked, still kneeling in front of the chair,
puzzled at her behavior.
Buffy turned and faced him. A grim expression on her face, arms crossed
defensively across her chest.
"I said you're wrong. They're not all dead...one still lives," she replied
quietly.
Spike was genuinely surprised. He was about to ask who when the outer door
shattered into a thousand splintered pieces. Black smoke billowed inwards as
Spike dove across the floor to Buffy's side. Whatever this was, he was going to
be right beside her to fight it.
But Buffy just stood there... motionless... and watched, a look of ineffable
sadness on her face as a small figure flanked by six hulking demons stepped into
the room. The bubble was broken...
Spike heard her answer through the sound of tiny shards of wood hitting the tile
floor...
"Willow."
Part Twelve: Regrets
It didn't hurt anymore. That was what brought Buffy out of it, the absence of
pain. She opened her eyes to find herself laying face up in the middle of the
main room of the manor. That would make sense. That was where she had been
standing when the largest demon came at her with that very large axe. The
instinct to fight, to defend had been delayed a crucial second by the wave of
sorrow she felt at the sight of Willow striding into the manor. The demon swung
and Buffy saw a splash of red. Blood. Hers. As she sank to her knees in the
center of the room she heard Spike shouting in defiance and rage. Begging her to
fight back. He still didn't understand...it didn't matter. The only thing her
still fragile mind thought at the moment the axe bit into her abdomen was that
at least she was spared a good look at Willow who was still hidden by the smoke
of the explosion.
Now... the absence of pain woke her. It meant whatever wound the demon had dealt
her was healed. New arteries formed, new blood pumped through inhuman veins. The
only mercy of this bizarre immortality was the coma-like state she fell into
while her body knit flesh and bone back together. Buffy sat up, peered into the
dim room. Sunlight intruded through the gaping hole in the wall that had once
been a door. Daylight. How much time had passed? Twelve hours, maybe more. She
staggered to her feet, looked down at the pool of sticky red at her feet. Her
clothes were ruined. She needed to change again. As she began the near automatic
task of stripping out of the shredded clothes and rinsing the gore from her body
with bottled water, a thought gnawed at the back of her brain. Something was
missing, what was it?
It slammed into her suddenly. Spike! She cleared the last of the cobwebs from
her brain and looked around frantically.
"Spike?" she screamed, the name echoing off the stone walls.
She was alone. Dragging on a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, she ran to
the basement door.
"Spike?"
No answer, he was gone. Trembling in rage and fear, Buffy examined the floor for
telltale signs of dust. None, just a million splinters. She wrapped her arms
about herself; mind racing as she tried to think, knowing what had
happened...Willow had him.
She had to go find him. Her mind instantly rejected that idea. To go there...she
had stayed away for seventy years, never wanting to face the wolves of memory
that haunted that place. No, she had to. She couldn't let this go on. Since
Spike had told her what was happening to the world, Buffy had known the truth.
All the demons, the Hellmouth...this was all Buffy's fault too...and now she had
to fix it. Squaring her shoulders, Buffy went to collect her weapons.
"Wakey, wakey, Spike..." a soft voice whispered into Spike's ear.
He groaned in pain. Chains again. He could feel the bite of steel into his
wrists. What was it with this town? The battle at the manor had been over in
seconds. Buffy, paralyzed with some unknown emotion, had fallen beneath the
blade of one demon's axe and the other demons all took on Spike at once. He
killed two with his bare hands but the remaining ones overwhelmed him, subdued
him. He remembered hearing a soft voice...calling him Spike, telling the demons
to bring him along.... and then....nothing.
A feathery touch across his cheek made him open an eye. He knew there was
nothing out there he wanted to see but he wasn't one to shy away from things. A
flame, that was the first thing he saw, flames everywhere. Then he looked down.
The mouth of hell gaped wide beneath him. Suddenly he was glad for the chains
that held him secure against the wall of the dizzyingly deep cavern. He pressed
his back against the rough stone, edged his feet backwards. What had happened to
this place? Last time he saw it, the Hellmouth was just a jagged hole in the
floor of a ruined library, now it yawned fifty feet from one steep wall to the
other. It was deep too; staring down he couldn't see the bottom, just gouts of
sickly green flame and an oily cloud of black smoke. Narrow pathways ran along
the walls and they were choked with demons traveling to and fro. No wonder the
influx of demons was so great, this was a bloody highway. He heard the faint
clank of tools hitting rock and realized they weren't finished either, they were
still widening the hole.
"Isn't it pretty?" the voice came again.
Spike turned his head to see who was talking, not that he didn't already know.
It was Willow...or what was left of her. The bright little redhead he had once
assured was eminently bitable had changed. The years that didn't show in Buffy
were all too evident in her. Not that she was old and wrinkled...she wasn't but
she was...terribly different.
Her eyes were like black holes, no light reflected outward. Spike felt if he
looked too deep he would be unable to climb back out. The once vibrant red hair
was now the color of old blood falling across pale skin like a raven's wing. Her
skin, it was whiter than his own was, sunlight had not touched it in a very long
time. It looked stretched... a little too tight across brittle bone. Her
hands...every sinew and tendon visible under papery flesh, nails long and sharp.
She wore black silk, a plunging neckline, breathlessly tight, a dress that
flowed to the rocky ground and trailed out behind her.
She stretched her lips in a grotesque caricature of a smile. "Spike...never
thought I'd see you again," she said in a strange hissing voice.
"Same here." Spike snapped.
She glided forward, traced an idle finger down his bare chest. His coat was
gone, shoes too. She had left his pants thankfully. Her nail sliced his skin
like a razor and he felt a sluggish trickle down his chest. He wasn't sure how
much blood he had left to lose between her and her goons and of course Buffy. He
was an elder vampire, needing less blood than when he was younger, but still
there was a limit to how long he could go without replenishment. His captor
cocked her head curiously and he saw blue sparks crackle in a halo around her
head. She and her magic were one entity now, inseparable.
"You haven't fed recently...vampire..." she commented.
He shrugged indifferently but didn't speak. Willow sighed and backed up to look
at him with a chiding expression on her ghostly face.
"You broke the rules...twice actually..." Willow raised a hand and beckoned a
small cowering demon over. He crawled forward and reached out with trembling
claws to hand her a coiled black bullwhip. He skittered away quickly, obviously
fearful.
Spike wondered what she had become that demons groveled before her. His musings
were interrupted by the sharp crack of the whip she now held.
"The rules...firstly, all demons who come to Sunnydale must come and pay me
homage, that is if they don't get killed trying to get here...getting
killed...that happens a lot..." Willow looked annoyed.
Buffy's efforts had not gone unnoticed by her apparently.
Willow's gaze sharpened. "You...didn't come...or get killed. You failed to bring
me any nice gifts either...like this interesting little book." She held up the
Adoperis manuscript and Spike's heart sank.
"Such a fascinating volume. You know how much I like to read..." She tossed it
aside carelessly and it landed out of Spike's reach. Far too close to one of the
geysers of green flame for Spike's comfort.
"Do you want to hear the second rule?" The whip cracked again, raising a welt on
Spike's shoulder.
He jerked against his shackles and glared at her menacingly. She just laughed.
She didn't fear him anymore...not even a little.
"Rule two...and very important...no one interferes with one of my spells,"
Willow snarled, the whip unfurled again and laid open Spike's cheek. His head
snapped back at the impact and a growl of rage rumbled from his vampiric face,
brought to the fore by anger and pain.
"What bloody spell? Th' one you laid on Buffy? Your friend? Remember her?" Spike
finally spoke.
A bitter laugh. "Remember? Oh yes I do recall the mad creature who lives up on
the hill. I should. I made her that way. Until you came along...annoying as ever
and insisting she come back to you. I felt...the spell dissolve. You had no
right..." Willow hissed, arm going back to deal her captive another blow.
Spike's arm moved quicker than sight and grabbed the leather cord before it
connected with his body. Jerking hard, he tore it from Willow's grip and hurled
it into the smoky depths below the ledge where they stood.
"I had no right? What right did you have to do that to her. She didn't save your
hide often enough?" Spike shouted. He glared into her frightening eyes, unbowed
by her malevolent look.
"She didn't save someone else...Tara!" Blue fire poured from Willow's hands; the
physical manifestation of her anger and she walked forward to lay them on
Spike's chest. He screamed as the flame ate into his skin, the pain blinding.
Then it stopped. Willow stepped back, that death's-head grin back on her face.
Spike looked down to see her handprints branded into his skin, red and
blistered. She was mad, truly mad. Something had happened to Tara and it had
warped Willow's mind. Spike recalled Buffy's reaction when he mentioned Tara
back in the dungeon. Something bad had happened, set in motion this
transformation in Willow, turned Buffy into the solitary vigilante she had
become, and it was Willow who was destroying the world. Spike understood now.
Willow laughed again...he could hear how unhinged she had become.
"This is fun...I haven't had a new toy in an age...I think I'll keep you for a
while. As soon as I erase you from Buffy's mind, we can play..." Willow walked
away from him.
"Why?" he called after her.
She paused, answered softly without turning around. "She has to
suffer...eternally. That's why she can't leave...can't love...she has to die
over and over again to wake up and do it all once more...she has to suffer the
way I do."
The witch walked away, leaving Spike to hang bleeding in his chains.
Buffy crept through the crumbled remains of Sunnydale Highs corridors; silent
and alert she avoided small groups of demons that Willow had set to guard the
way. She didn't need a battle just yet. Better to get in unnoticed, save her
strength. It was taking everything she had just to get there. Every step felt
like knives in the soles of her feet. The guilt and the memories were so vivid
here. This was the hardest thing she had ever done in a lifetime of hard things.
Echoes of the past were around every corner. Giles polishing his spectacles,
talking to the pretty teacher he had loved until she died a gruesome death,
another thing Buffy reckoned as one of her failures. She could hear Faith
whispering "Hey B...", see Willow running past a row of gray lockers, a
welcoming grin for her best friend. She saw Xander struggling with the soda
machine, cracking a joke, bleeding to death with his gut torn open by one of
Willow's hounds.
Buffy collapsed to her knees, her body shaking with silent sobs. She couldn't do
this...
*"It's over for you here...all your people...gone...but I'm here and the world
is still here. Don't you think its time to go? They're dead, Buffy. But you're
not. Don't you want to live, truly live?"*
That beloved voice whispered in her mind. Did she? Buffy squeezed her eyes shut
and brought that sharp-featured face into focus. He was still there in her mind.
Yes, she wanted to live. Buffy climbed back to her feet, shouldered her pack,
and pressed on. She had to do this. End it...for Willow and herself ...and get
Spike free... She had to save the world one more time.
Part Thirteen: Enemy
The paintbrush tickled. Spike felt that laughter would be an inappropriate
response at this point. A seriously disturbed witch was amusing herself by
painting strange symbols on his chest with black ink and a thin brush and his
only impulse was to laugh. Not wise...the brush was wooden after all, a flip and
a shove and he was dusty. He looked down at Willow's head as she concentrated on
her task. She had left him alone for a long while, let him watch the traffic in
and out of the Hellmouth. He had seen creatures out of nightmare make their way
up and into his world. Things that he had never before seen. Big and tall, small
and impossibility quick. Flashing fangs and cruel claws they came, paying
tribute in blood and power to the mistress of it all. Willow.
She had an actual throne. Not the kind you saw in museums or not the sort of
museums Spike had frequented when he was alive, this throne was made of bones.
Not human he thought but demon. Yellowed thighbones and the occasional twisted
horn jutting from the sides, it was gruesome. Willow had sat upon it and watched
him for hours, waving away her obsequious minions to simply gaze at Spike, her
eyes glittering black like the most poisonous of cobras. He saw each demon kneel
at her feet. She would reach out a skeletal hand to offer an unholy blessing on
each, accepting their tithes of rare and obscene things they had brought up from
hell with them. Once in a while one would fail to please and Willow would use
the very flames she had branded Spike with to roast them in their tracks. Spike
imagined this kept the quality of the offerings quite high.
He had been almost glad when she finally moved, ordered her servants to bring
her ink and brush. She had begun right below his neck, light stokes, the wet ink
itching unbearably it dried. He had refused to move though, no twitching. That
would be a victory for her and he wouldn't give it easily. So he stood upright,
the iron manacles digging into his wrists, the ink drying on his chest, and was
silent.
"You have been gone a long time, Spike. How do you find our little town now?"
Willow asked, dipping her brush once more.
Spike stared ahead stonily.
"No opinion? I'd think it would appeal to the demon in you...but that part is
buried very deep now isn't it. Have you spent the last seventy-five years
learning to hide it? So sad...you were once a splendid creature, now...just a
guy with a sun allergy," Willow said in her soft little voice as she painted.
"Buffy is not what she was, is she? You found her what? A little odd. A fearful
thing living in shadows. Nothing to her mind but kill, kill, kill." Willow's
voice sounded proud.
"It took a lot of time to make her that way, to take away everything that bound
her to the living world. Her people, her town. Hard work, but you know me. The
little workaholic. This is much more fun than homework though. Much
more...rewarding." A happy chuckle from the witch as she worked.
A row of dots across his abdomen, a broad slash of wet ink, another series of
dots. What in hell was she doing? Spike had no idea what the scope of her powers
was now. She fed off the energy of the Hellmouth and its occupants, that much
was clear. It kept her alive beyond her time but at a terrible price. Her
sanity, her taut and stretched appearance. Spike just stood very still. He felt
like he was in the presence of an unpredictable wild animal. Friendly one
minute, it could turn and rend the next.
She spoke again. "Did you think to take her away? Leave me here? Foolish. She
and I are bound. She can no more leave this place than I can. The Hellmouth
sustains us both. She would have been ash in your embrace before you got twenty
miles away."
Willow laughed at the thought. "Maybe I should have let you both go. It might
have been worth it to have that happen but no...It's better this way. I get to
feel her death countless times. Did you like seeing her die when my demon cut
her down? It's only the second time she has died for you. Don't worry, it gets
better every time."
Spike tried to muster a sneer but he couldn't manage it so stunned was he at
what Willow had just told him about Buffy.
Spike's heart plunged in his chest. Buffy couldn't leave? The witch had no
reason to lie to him, trapped as he was. She had to stay here to survive? He
moved...just a fraction of an inch but Willow noticed. She looked up at him, a
cruel smile playing on her lips. Black eyes sparkled with delight.
"You didn't know. You thought you could go have that happily ever after...see
the Eiffel tower at midnight? Long walks along the Thames by the stars? You were
going to show her the wonders of the world... you by her side. What did you
think? A happy ending for Buffy? Never."
Spike's jaw twitched again. She was reading him so plainly. He forced his hopes
deep, leaving them to shrivel in the depths of his undead mind. She couldn't
leave...
Willow slowly pushed her dark hair back, her brush still as she contemplated
him. He did not look. Refused to let her drag anything else from his racing
mind. Damned bitch. What could he do now?
She shrugged and returned to her task. "How did you know she lived? That is why
you came back...one last shot at the girl who rejected you...no...That wasn't
it. That wasn't it at all, was it?"
She waited for an answer that never came. Paused once more, trying to glean the
answer from his stubborn mind.
"You didn't know. That's not why you came..." she whispered.
Spike silently cursed to himself as she stood abruptly. Willow turned and walked
to where she had thrown the book earlier.
"This book. You came for this?" she hissed.
Spike filled his mind with Buffy. Buffy smiling, laughing, moaning in pleasure
as he...
"Stop!" Willow screamed. "Stop thinking of her. She cannot be happy, not for a
moment!"
A crack in her reserve. Spike pressed his advantage, the thoughts of Buffy
blocking out the truth of what lay inside the book. He brought to the fore of
his mind the night he had so recently spent in Buffy's arms. How they had
comforted each other with touch and words. Willow threw the book aside again and
advanced on him. He had done it now for sure, no more arts and crafts.
She snatched up her brush and slashed one final sigil on his chest and muttered
an unintelligible phrase in Latin.
"Combustum!"
Spike screamed as the letters turned bright red and started to burn. Every
stroke felt like a tiny conflagration in his flesh. Willow laughed in delight.
"The flames can't kill you like ordinary fire but I assure you they will last
longer...as long as I want them to," she told him as he writhed in his bonds.
The witch turned and walked back to her throne. Settling back on cushions of
black silk, she watched her captive suffer...
Up above in the ruins of the high school, Buffy had breached Willow's defenses
and managed to find the library without any skirmishes. Inside the framework of
the doors there was nothing left of the place that had once been a second home
to a very young version of herself. Nothing but a gaping hole from wall to wall.
A greenish glow emanated from within but any hint to what lay below was obscured
by thick smoke. Buffy stood on the rim and looked down. Willow was down there.
She felt remorse constrict her heart once more. She couldn't... A growl behind
her halted her thoughts. She spun to find a pack of hounds, hellhounds, watching
her from a shadowed recess nearby. All feelings of sadness and guilt fell away
as the Slayer took over. She dropped her bag and sprinted forward to take on the
largest of the beasts. Vile creatures. They had killed Xander. The last of her
friends to stand by her. After them she had been all alone.
She broke bones and crushed throats. No weapons, just her hands and the
instincts gifted her by some unknown agency. She was death in motion. One by
one, the beasts fell at her feet, bodies broken and oozing blood. With every
death rattle, Buffy felt more alive, her gaze sharpened, her thoughts more
concise. A realization dawned in her mind. The grief and guilt. Her inability to
do what was necessary due to her crippling feelings...it was another spell.
Willow's malice knew no bounds. She had crafted a puppet of Buffy. One who would
lie still and allow endless torment to be inflicted upon it.
Five hounds dead, six...she beckoned the remaining two. Offered them release.
Bound by the will of their dark mistress they leapt forwards unwillingly. She
was there to meet them, hands moving faster than they could follow. One actually
whimpered at the terrible look in its opponent's eyes. It cowered before her,
submitted to the superior strength of will she exhibited. She just laid one foot
atop its neck and broke it cleanly. It felt no pain, just the ending.
The last one fell and Buffy stood amongst the piled bodies of the fallen
creatures. An emotion unfelt in ages beat inside her now. She wasn't sad or lost
or bound to duty. There were no regrets of past wrongs done by her and to her.
She was angry. A pure blazing anger...towards the one who had done this. Ruined
the world, ruined her.
Buffy turned once more, picked up her bag, and stepped off the edge into the
pit. Falling down through smoke and flame, darkness and a miasma of hatred. It
grew lighter as she descended. She kept her head down the whole time, seeking a
place to land. A ledge loomed out of the dark and Buffy snapped out a hand to
catch it. Hanging by one hand from the rocky promontory, she hauled herself up
and crouched at the edge. Surveying the scene before her, she shuddered
slightly. The spell still threatened to overwhelm her even though she knew its
nature now.
It was still a long way down to where she could hear and see movement. Buffy
lowered herself over the edge again and descended. She dug her fingers into tiny
fissures in the rock, hugged her body against the rough stone to keep from
falling. Even though she was suspending her entire body weight from one hand,
Buffy felt no pain. Just anger and purpose. She was washing clean the stain of
Willow's curse with every handhold. This was who she was, not the thing Willow
had created. It had taken the determination of one very irritating person to
make her see it but now she felt like she was fighting free from an invisible
web. Every breath came easier, things looked sharper somehow. She knew whatever
Willow did to her once she made her way down, she would never go back to her
refuge on the hill. She was done living that way. Another ledge appeared beneath
her dangling feet. Buffy let go of the wall and dropped the dozen feet to the
platform and saw that she had finally found what she sought.
Demons everywhere, a figure chained across the great chasm, Spike. He was
twisting as if he was in great pain. Buffy looked for a way to get to him. There
was a narrow pathway cut into the rock. She started towards him, noticing that
not too far from Spike an alcove held a throne. The throne held Willow. The
anger surged in Buffy's chest again. Damn her. She was watching him suffer.
Light-footed, she ran along the uneven stone towards them. A demon reared up in
front of her, roared in rage. Buffy just shoved him aside and he spun away into
empty space. Buffy closed the distance between Spike and herself quickly. She
saw the glowing symbols on his chest and pulled a bottle of water from her bag,
unscrewing the top as she ran.
She sprinted the last few steps and threw the water across Spike's chest. The
ink ran, the symbols melted away, and Spike stopped screaming. Buffy grabbed one
chain, yanked it from the wall with brute strength. Spike pulled the other
loose. Spike grabbed Buffy up into his arms and pressed a quick but fervent kiss
on her forehead. A scream of rage pierced the air behind them. Buffy stood
inside the circle of Spike's arms as she turned to confront her enemy, for that
was what Willow was.
She gazed upon the rabid witch who stood in front of her macabre throne seething
with rage. Buffy smoothed back her tousled hair, squared her shoulders and
looked at her onetime friend. Her eyes free of the torment Willow had so
carefully planted there, she gave Willow a purely happy smile. She knew it would
drive the witch to madness, to see how she had failed at the last in her quest
to shatter Buffy.
"Hello, Willow."
Part Fourteen: Forgive
Buffy regarded Willow through calm and clear eyes.
Willow vibrated with uncontrollable rage. "Guards!" she screamed. "Take them!"
"We're done for, pet..." Spike muttered as he took up a fighting stance at
Buffy's side.
As glad as he was to see Buffy come for him, the cold realist in him saw that
the odds were so very against them. The most they could aspire to was to die
together...not what he had hoped for but...
His train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of a small army of demons
ready to do the bidding of their frightening queen. Snarls and growls came from
the demons as they approached en masse. Buffy handed Spike a club studded with
nails and pulled out a wicked looking sword with jagged edges for herself. More
of her impressive weapons. Spike hefted his club in one hand, liking the weight
of it. Very manly. Then the demons were upon them and thought was impossible.
Spike warranted he had done a respectable job by the time the battle ended. A
good dozen had fallen beneath his club. It was slick with blood and matted with
fur and scales. Still a dozen among fifty was not enough. As for Buffy, she had
fared even better; maybe twenty bodies lay at her feet. A wild and savage gleam
in her eyes as she fought. She was bloody splendid, Spike thought as he watched
her. A goddess of battle. This was the Slayer pure and simple, nothing remotely
human about her. Yet it was the final dozen or so demons that did them in at the
last. Overwhelming the pair as they fought. Willow shouting instructions in the
background. Something about a cell and that was the last thing Spike heard.
When he opened his eyes it was to see Buffy looking down at him with concern on
her battered face.
"Are you okay?" she whispered to him.
"Noarrgh..." he mumbled through his swollen lips.
"Yeah, that's about how I feel." Buffy agreed, looking over her shoulder warily.
Spike squinted at their surroundings. Another sodding dungeon. He groaned and
tried to sit up. It was hard; the demons had practically torn him apart. Buffy
helped him. Propped him against the wall so he could get a better look. A cell
with three stone walls and an iron grate for the fourth wall. Beyond the grate
was that awful throne. Willow sat upon, watching them both with undisguised
malice.
"Bloody wonderful...the wicked witch awaits..." Spike growled.
Buffy nodded in agreement.
"What are we gonna do? Just sit here and waste away while she watches?" he
asked.
"No...I'm going to talk to her," Buffy replied, never taking her eyes off their
captor.
"Buffy...don't push her. She's absolutely mad. Nothing left of th' cute little
redhead there..." Spike warned, gently probing his ribcage. At least two had
broken ones...maybe more.
Buffy looked back at him. Bent down to drop a light kiss on his cheek. She
looked so sad...not in the same way as before but there was a new regret in her
eyes now. He felt a stab of fear far sharper than the pain in his ribs.
"I think there is something left. I have to try and find it," she said.
Spike grabbed her arm. "Buffy..."
She pried his desperate fingers from her arm, gave him a last searing look as if
she would burn his face into her mind one last time and stood. He struggled to
stand, to stop her but she was already at the bars.
"Willlooow...." Buffy called tauntingly.
Willow smiled and descended from her throne. The witch walked to a nearby table
piled high with arcane materials. She began to pick and choose, throw things in
a small black cauldron. A spell was in the works.
Buffy called again. "Willow..."
"Be quiet," Willow snapped. "A few minutes and you'll be your old quivering
self..." The witch threw some strange glowing herbs in the pot and turned the
flame beneath higher.
"Did Tara teach you that spell?" Buffy said softly.
She saw Willow stiffen; her hands begin to tremble.
"Don't speak of her...you have no right." Willow hissed, refusing to look at
Buffy.
"Did Tara practice spells to twist people's minds? Would she approve?" Buffy
asked.
Willow turned to face Buffy. Eyes crackling with dark energy. "Stop," she
commanded.
"Do you remember why you decided to stay in Sunnydale? Instead of going off to
Oxford...Harvard? What did you tell me? You thought saving the world sounded
like a good cause...you wanted to be part of that," Buffy pressed.
Willow's hands started to burn with blue fire.
"Buffy...don't do this...she'll kill you," Spike warned urgently.
"You're angry with me...you've been angry with me for seventy years. Why don't
you take it out on me instead of the rest of the world? Face to face for once.
Tell me how you feel Willow..." Buffy urged.
Willow stalked up to the bars, pressed her face close to Buffy's until their
noses almost touched through the bars. The air shimmered around them as Willow
glared at the person she considered responsible for the end of her world. Willow
reached out slowly and unlocked the cell with one flick of a shaking finger.
"Buffy, this is madness. You can't stand against her! Come back here!" Spike
surged forward, ribs grinding against each other as he stumbled towards the open
grate. Gasping in pain he slammed into the bars just as Buffy firmly shut the
grate behind her. He laced his fingers through the bars, looked at Buffy
wild-eyed.
"Buffy, you can't kill her. If you do, you die too. Please let her put the spell
back on you. I'll get away. I'll find a way back to you an' get you free of
her...If you do this...you'll die!" he pleaded.
Buffy cast her eyes downward for a moment. "I know," she said quietly.
Spike hurled himself against the bars but they wouldn't give. "Buffy!"
"I know it will kill me and I have to do it. You have to do what you came here
for. Get the book and get it to someone who can close the Hellmouth. I know I
promised I would never ask you to leave again but that's all you can do now..."
Buffy brushed her fingers against his softly before walking away towards a
waiting Willow. It burned worse than any torture Willow had devised.
"No..." he whispered, watching her go.
Buffy walked to the center of the room and stopped in front of Willow. Bare
inches separated the two. Buffy spread her arms to show she held nothing.
"No weapons, Will. Wanna call off your boys or what?" Buffy said challengingly.
Willow waved away the waiting group of demons near the throne. Grumbling in
disappoint, they obeyed and lumbered away. The chamber was empty except for a
witch in black, an imprisoned vampire, and an all too ready Slayer.
Willow's arm moved with inhuman speed and a ball of her blue fire came hurtling
towards Buffy. When it arrived, Buffy wasn't there. She had moved, a scarce inch
to the right but enough to avoid the flames. Willow hissed in disappointment.
Buffy darted forward and Willow felt her head snap back from an unseen kick to
the chin and Buffy was somehow back where she started.
Willow touched one finger to the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.
"You hit me," she said, sounding surprised.
"Gotta say you had it coming, Will," Buffy said without sympathy.
Willow's next shot grazed Buffy's cheek and Buffy reached up to feel a row of
blisters raising up on her skin from the intense heat of the fire.
"You killed Tara. You must suffer." Willow snarled.
"I've been taking credit for that for a long time, Willow but you know what? It
wasn't my fault. The demon killed her. As for me...human error...I'm not
perfect. I have to forgive myself for that," Buffy shot back, weaving in to land
another lightning quick jab to Willow's side.
The witch staggered under the force of the blow and started muttering a spell.
Another fast punch to the mouth stopped the spell midcast.
"None of that now," Buffy warned.
Willow eyes whirled faster. She looked amazed that Buffy was able to stand
against her like this. Spike felt a tiny glimmer of hope. Maybe it didn't have
to end the way he thought. He pressed himself against the bars, seeking a
weakness in their structure.
"What's this all about Willow? Besides torturing me. The demons, the Hellmouth?
Why Willow?" Buffy demanded.
Willow backed up, leaned back against her throne. She was confused. This wasn't
going the way she planned. Buffy was cool, confident, and utterly unwilling to
let Willow punish her as she deserved. She looked at the defiant Slayer standing
a few feet away. This was the Buffy who simply didn't believe anyone could beat
her. The Slayer who had battled a god to her knees.
"Why Willow?" Buffy persisted.
Another kick, another fist. Willow felt things breaking inside her as Buffy
pummeled her. She fell to her knees, the black silk of her dress shredding on
the sharp rocks.
"Why Willow?" Buffy asked again.
"To get her back!" Willow screamed.
The blows stopped. Willow looked up. Buffy just stood above her. Hands hanging
loosely at her sides. She was waiting.
"If I have enough power...if I find the right spell or talisman...I might find
the way to bring her back. You came back. Unworthy, unreliable you...why not
her? Tara...the brightest, the best of all of us..." Willow continued, her gaze
dropping to Buffy's scuffed boots.
A voice came from above her. No anger or hurt in it anymore. Just an aching
sorrow. "This isn't the way to Tara, Willow. You'll never find her down
here...in hell. And if you did, what would she think? What would she say about
the Willow she found here?"
Willow felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. So strange...when had she last
cried?
"Tara once did a great thing for me. Helped me through something. I want to do
the same for you. Give you an undeserved gift." Buffy's voice sounded closer and
Willow realized the Slayer was kneeling in front of her, her hazel eyes steady
as she spoke.
"I forgive you," Buffy whispered.
Willow reared back. "No! No you don't. I killed Xander...would have killed Dawn
if she had ever come back. I've let hell into our world, more each day. You
can't forgive that," she shrieked.
"Still, I forgive you," Buffy's gaze never faltered.
"Decades of torment, alone and friendless? You can forgive that?" Willow
demanded.
"Yes," was the answer.
Buffy watched Willow closely. It was working. The black was draining away
leaving brilliant green in its wake. As Willow focused on her, Buffy saw her
friend for the first time in far too long.
"Willow, I forgive you," she said one final time.
Willow slumped forward against Buffy. The tears fell freely now.
Spike watched in disbelief from his cell. Only on the Hellmouth could a fight to
the death end this way. Bizarre was the norm here.
Buffy lifted Willow's limp head from her shoulder, looked at her gravely. "There
is a way, Willow. A way to mend this and maybe see Tara again...in a place
beyond this world."
Willow just looked blank. Buffy stood and fetched the book from its place on
Willow's table. Held it up for Willow to see. Willow shook her head. She didn't
understand. Spike did though.
"No, Buffy! Let it alone. What do I care if the bloody world crumbles away. Not
if I have you!" he shouted, renewing his assault on the bars to his prison.
Buffy looked determined and ignored his outburst. "The book, Will. There's a
spell in it to close the Hellmouth, stop the demons from becoming more
numerous."
Willow rose to her feet, came forward slowly. She took the book from Buffy and
opened it for the first time and read the spell. A moment passed, another, and
suddenly black flooded her eyes once more.
"No! I will not give it up! I need its power to live!" Willow screamed.
"What for, Willow? You'll never find her here," Buffy replied sadly.
The black receded again and Willow looked out of the witch's eyes again.
"Can you do it, Will?" Buffy asked.
"Yes...I can," the witch replied, sounding weary.
"Buffy, please," Spike said from the cell.
Buffy left Willow's side to return to Spike. She didn't open the grate however,
just stood on the other side and looked at the grieving vampire.
"I can't let you go now. You'll try to stop us," she said.
"Bloody right I will," Spike retorted. "Buffy, we'll find another way."
"No. We won't. This has to end now. Willow will do it and the world will have
its chance," Buffy said firmly.
"But..." Spike began.
"Why did you come? What did the Council tell you to make you agree to this?"
Buffy asked unexpectedly.
Spike was nonplussed but he answered, keeping an eye on Willow as she assembled
her needed ingredients for the spell. "Your children...Dawn's. I wanted to
believe they could live in a better world. One where monsters like me were not
at the door everywhere they went."
Buffy nodded. "I thought so. It still holds then. Dawn has children and
grandchildren and more. They do deserve that." She reached out and twined her
fingers with his. He clutched at them desperately. "I died a long time ago,
William. It's just time to make it official."
It was then that Spike knew he could not dissuade her. She had made up her mind.
Chosen the good of the many once more. As much as he hated it and her a little
for doing so, he knew it was a big part of why he never loved anyone as he loved
her. Why he could never put her behind him. She was as close to pure good as he
would ever get.
He leaned his face against cold iron, felt her warm lips press against his
forehead. She whispered a request into his ear, waited for his promise to
fulfill it. He nodded his assent, unable to look up knowing it would be the last
time he saw her, wanting to stave it off that moment even for a little while.
She squeezed his fingers. He raised his head at last. She gazed into tear
brightened blue, felt her heart skip a beat. Nothing in her life had ever been
as intense as him, as alive. "Goodbye...William."
Her fingers opened...his dropped to his sides. She turned and walked away. He
leaned against the bars, helpless to move, no part of him functioning any
longer, and watched her go.
Willow and Buffy knelt inside a circle Willow had created from oddly colored
sand. The two clasped hands, at the end they were together again. Willow opened
the book in front of her. One thin arm raised in the air in supplication to
greater powers, she began. Oddly slurred words that sounded nearly recognizable
but somehow...not. The circle flared to life, encasing Buffy and Willow in
incandescent light. Spike didn't look away. He would see this through until the
end.
Willow called forth all her hoarded power and tried to force the Hellmouth to
obey her bidding. The earth shuddered violently as she recited the spell, a hard
determination in her voice as she encountered resistance. Buffy squeezed her
hand in support and Willow forged ahead. Her words grew more commanding, more
insistent, and finally a great cloud of smoke billowed up from the pit as they
watched. The greenish glow emanating from the bottom of the pit guttered once,
twice, and finally...went out. A howling could be heard from the myriad demons
as they realized that the gateway to earthly paradise had closed leaving them
stranded. Spike heard them fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.
The cavern was plunged into darkness. Even with his enhanced vision, Spike had
to strain to see the figures of Willow and Buffy, still inside their now defunct
circle. They were leaning together, no movement. Spike listened in the now
echoing silence of the cavern. He could hear...heartbeats. Two distinct
heartbeats but before he could translate that sound into hope, he heard one
falter. It beat slower and slower and then abruptly stopped. Now there was only
one. He listened to it; clung to the sound like it was his last anchor to Buffy.
Beat...beat...beat...beat...beat...beat...beat...and then...nothing.
Spike slid to the ground, the pain in his abused body nothing to the pain in his
heart. There was one final sound...what was it? A harsh sobbing. Was it someone?
No...that sound...it was just him.
Part Fifteen: Farewell
Footsteps sounded on the crumbled cement that had once been a high school
parking lot. Broken glass crunched under bare feet as Spike transported his
burden to a more congenial spot on the dried grass beyond. He stopped and
carefully laid his cargo down, taking care to lower the lolling head slowly. He
slid his aching arms out from beneath her and stood. The moon shone down on the
tableau. The dead looking upon the dead. A thought flitted through Spike's
fractured brain...
Sleeping Beauty...
That was what she looked like. In death, her face was cleansed of worry and
pain. The perfection of her features was evident. Not that she was truly perfect
but to him...Spike shook his head. No time for this now. The sky was still dark
but he could feel the dawn just beyond the edge of sight. It tickled at the back
of his neck like a stopwatch counting down. He still had another task to
complete. He had promised. He turned back to the rubble of the school and
started back inside.
He encountered no one inside. The demons that had escaped the closing of the
Hellmouth were well away from this place and running fast like bugs left
uncovered when one kicked over a rotten log. He strode through the hallways of
the school. It ended where as it began. His first battle with her had been here.
The sparks of hatred flying between them. What time could alchemize...the
fierceness of his hatred...just as fierce his love. Spike found the fathomless
hole that led to Willow's lair, swung over the side and lowered himself into the
pitch black. He knew the way. He had climbed up this same path, a limp body
across his back and his very hands remembered.
Endless moments later, he alighted on the correct ledge, traversed the narrow
pathway and located the source of his journey and his promise. Willow. She lay
unmoving inside her circle, hair spread behind her like a pool of blood. Her
face held a look of peace. Spike felt a sudden and nearly uncontrollable urge to
pitch her from the side and into the depths below. Let hell have her after what
she had done. Buffy might have forgiven but he didn't have to. He couldn't do
that though. He promised. Her vindictiveness had destroyed them all but he would
honor Buffy's last request.
Spike winced at the pain in his ribs as he knelt to scoop the dead woman up into
his protesting arms. Ripping the bars from his cell had added to his list of
injuries but he could not take the time to recover. It must be done before dawn
or he would have to remain in this place another day. Slinging her over his
shoulder somewhat less gently than he had done with Buffy, Spike began the
tortuous climb up once more.
Outside, he lay her on the grass next to Buffy. Fell to his knees to rest a
moment. He looked from one face to the other. Buffy looked just the bloody same.
A twenty-something girl frozen in time...while Willow had every year, every
hatred carved into the lines of her face. He felt if he shook her too hard she
might just blow away on the chill night wind. He felt the pain inside creeping
up, threatening to overwhelm him but he had to finish this.
Standing unsteadily, he pulled one body over each bare shoulder and made his way
across the dead grass and up the street to his final destination. It wasn't much
of a funeral march. Just him, no shirt or shoes, carrying two dead friends. The
only mourners were the stars and the silent moon. It would have to be enough;
there was no one else. Spike followed the echo of Buffy's directions in his mind
and found the place she told him of just seconds before she died. A quiet
hillside grove.
It looked somewhat better cared for than the cemetery it was set in. Someone had
trimmed the grass, kept the weeds at bay, even watered it and laid living
flowers across the two graves. Spike laid his burden down once more, being sure
to arrange them with dignity. The tombstones, obviously hand carved from rough
granite by inexpert hands, read...
Tara
Beloved
Xander
Steadfast Friend
Had Buffy kept this place up? Willow? No way to know but this was where Buffy
had asked him to bring them. They would all be together in end. Seeing an old
workshed near the bottom of the hill, Spike walked away from the gravesite and
towards it. Arriving, he pried the ancient door open and found a dented but
usable shovel inside. Back in the grove, he looked down at the ground. No
decision really. He would bury Willow first. Keep Buffy with him as long as
possible.
Racing the coming sun, Spike dug. Each heave of the shovel a silent scream of
rage and sorrow. Next to the resting-place of her beloved, he made Willow her
final bed. Exhausted from the effort, he pressed on until the hole was a decent
depth. Grim humor curved his mouth for a second. The dead digging graves for the
dead. Funny world. He climbed out of the hole and lifted Willow up for the last
time. Her arms trailed out behind her, the ruined black silk of her gown a
proper shroud for a witch. Spike strove one final time for the forgiveness Buffy
had given with such ease. It just wasn't there. She was a better person than he
was but he had always known that.
He tossed the body contemptuously into the hole. A minor spite towards a person
he would have gladly killed given half a chance. She lay at the bottom of the
grave, the moon providing a last glimmer of light to shine across her pale,
peaceful face. Spike thought she looked...finished. That was the way it was
supposed to be, right? Taking the shovel to hand again, he poured a first heap
of dirt over her and another and so on until no trace of her ghostly white
countenance could be seen. He had fulfilled his promise. A decent burial for the
girl who had once been the most loyal of friends. Buffy had asked and Spike had
obeyed. Such a small thing to do for her when he had hoped to do so much more...
Spike smoothed the last mound of dirt over the fresh grave and laid his shovel
down. He turned to where Buffy lay. He had put this off as long as possible. Not
even looking at her as he completed his task. As if ignoring it would change
what he had to do. Put her in the earth...and not follow her down.
He lay down beside her body. Supporting himself on his elbow so he could look
down at her, he remembered something he had read while still alive. He had been
a lovesick fool back then and took to heart every word he read about love.
Imagined it the very thing he felt for that stupid girl whose name now escaped
him...But the words rang true in his mind ...for this ethereal creature who lay
beside him now.
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All
are but ministers of Love And feed His Sacred Flame."
This... had been sacred and now it was done. Spike wondered if he could
physically make himself do it? Dig the grave and put her in? He had watched from
the shadows a long time ago, when they buried her the first time. That had been
excruciating but to wield the shovel...do it with his own hands...
The moon had set and only the stars shone down on them now. Sleeping beauty...he
thought again. How did the story go? One last kiss...after all he was just as
dead as she. A kiss from one dead to another. He leaned over; his throat tight
and aching with sorrow, and pressed cold lips to hers. A farewell. Her lips
still held some lingering trace of warmth, as though life was loath to let go
its hold.
He smoothed a stray hair from her face... it seemed as though the near-ended
night had taken on the quality of a dream. For surely it was a desperate,
imagined madness of his grieving mind that he saw her lips curve ever so
slightly? That they parted just the smallest bit? Her chest rose and fell nearly
imperceptibly. Cool air flowed past her lips and animated her still form. A
faint whisper from her mouth. Spike leaned closer to hear, afraid that the
moment would come crashing down around him and reality would stream back in...
"Cellular sunburn..." she said.
Spike gathered her closer into his arms. Watched with wild hope as she opened
her eyes. Glorious eyes.
"Buffy?" he choked out.
"The wrong spell," she said.
He just gaped, that one word all he could manage. It could still fade away.
"Willow was wrong...and Tara too. It's the first spell, the Resurrection one
that raises me every time. Not the Hellmouth," she concluded, a note of wonder
in her voice as she stared up at her astonished companion.
Spike pulled her close. Pressed his ear against her chest to hear the delightful
sound of blood coursing through living veins and the steady thump of her heart.
An undeserved gift...she had said to Willow. Well this was his. He raised his
head to kiss her deeply, the slight warmth of her mouth now a raging heat. She
was alive. Buffy kissed him back, joyously and just as deep. The two held each
other tightly as the sun started to turn the horizon the palest shade of gray.
Buffy frowned, looking over Spike's shoulder. She saw the new grave. Pushing to
her feet, she walked over to it. Spike let her go. She would be back. Buffy
stood at the edge of the newly turned earth.
"Goodbye Willow. I hope you find her..."she said softly.
Buffy saw the approaching dawn. "Time to leave," she said over her shoulder to a
waiting Spike.
Spike rose to his feet, held out one hand to Buffy. "Where to love?"
Buffy turned and took his hand, looked up into his brilliant gaze. "Only one
more thing to do," she replied.
They turned and started down the hill.
Epilogue
It was near sunset the next day and Buffy and Spike had left Sunnydale far
behind. They had driven through the bright new day, hidden by the specially
tinted windows of Spike's car, to a place of Buffy's choosing. They now stood in
the deep shadow provided by an ancient willow tree near a large, old, rambling
farmhouse. The house was painted white with yellow trim. A large porch
surrounded the house and a picket fence wrapped around it, white daises poking
from between the slats. As Buffy and Spike watched, two small girls came
tumbling out the front door, down the steps, and out into the gently waving late
summer grass.
They laughed as they ran, a half-serious game of tag developing between them.
The smaller girl, the one with the long, straight, brown hair, fell and bumped a
dimpled knee. The older girl stopped and ran back to gather her younger sister
in protective arms. Her blond curls fell across both their faces as she murmured
words of comfort.
Buffy looked up at Spike and smiled a purely happy smile. "No monsters here,"
she whispered to him.
He nodded slowly, a smile of his own creasing his face.
Buffy's face turned serious again. "I still have to fight, you know. The world
still holds far too many demons."
"Of course. An' I'll be right there with you. Th' rough an' tumbles always fine
with me. But we're gonna live too pet. No more skulkin' in corners for you,"
Spike said gravely.
Buffy nodded in assent. "Can you think of a good place to start? To live? Truly
live?" she asked, looking hopeful.
Spike laughed happily and kissed her hard and quick. "That I do, love. That I
do."
They looked up at the sound of a soft voice calling the children back. The girls
stood and started back towards the sound of love and safety that awaited them
inside their home. The last golden light of the ending day cast halos atop their
small heads as they climbed the steps hand in hand.
Buffy and Spike also walked away...into the shadows of the coming night.
The End
My sincerest thanks to those who took the time to read this story and offer
their thoughts. It has been a great deal of fun to write and I'm somewhat sad it
is done. Means I actually have to think up something else.... I spent some time
thinking about how to end this story. I was almost tempted to leave it at the
end of Part Fourteen but I still hold hope for the 'Ship and at least in my
personal Buffyverse, I get to create a happy ending no matter how bittersweet.
Any unanswered questions you might have or a loose end I missed please don't
hesitate to email me at rine1211@yahoo.com. Thank you again and please let me
know what you think of the finished product.
Thanks,
Nocte
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