Spoilers: Pretty much all of season six; this takes place just after the season finale left off

Content/Rating: Violence, strong language, some sexual content, adult themes… Rated R.

Summary: Spike is back from Africa…and he is not the man he used to be

Author’s note: For those of you who don’t already know, I will tell you that this is unadulterated Spuffy fluff. If you aren’t a B/S shipper you might as well stop reading now; you’ll hate it. That said: a lot happened during the two-hour finale of the sixth season, and many characters went through some major changes. I do touch on some of those subjects in this story, but this is really a story about Spike and, in particular, his relationship with Buffy and the changes it will go through. There is a lot of speculation to be found here; I used one of the two big rumors for next season (namely that Spike has regained not only his soul but also his humanity) as a basis for the plot, and subsequently many changes have taken place in the character. In short, be warned: this is a whole new Spike.

Disclaimer: The story is mine but the characters are not, they belong to Joss

Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, and UPN. I mean no infringement.

Feedback: Please! I love hearing people’s opinions of my work.

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“A Will, a Way, and a Woman”

Written by Phoebe

 

 Chapter One

 

 

My beloved monster and me…we go everywhere together….

--Eels

 

 

 

“I have restored your soul.”

The words echoed in Spike’s head as he stumbled blindly from the cave. It should have been a divine moment for him, an absolution of all his past sins, a rebirth. He should have felt energized and renewed—happy, even. Instead, he just felt sick.

 

The words themselves had little meaning for him. The thought of having a soul had no meaning for him. Angel had a soul for pity’s sake. Having a soul was no big deal. To have a soul, even as a vampire, would make him little more than what he was. No, the fact that he had been given his soul meant nothing. His humanity was what mattered to him. It was the fact that finally he could go to Buffy and be all that she deserved him to be. All that she needed him to be. The moment in her bathroom could be forgotten, even forgiven. He was not the monster he had been then. He was no longer the creature she despised, loathed the thought of. He was reborn, a new being with nothing—nothing—on its conscience.

 

He still felt sick.

 

It was to be expected, he told himself. His heart had not beaten in more than a century; the feeling would take some getting used to. As would various other sensations he now found were assaulting his body. His limbs trembled with fatigue as he slowly made his way down the sloping sand to the small cluster of tents that were nestled less than a mile away, in a small valley in the desert. The native people who lived in those tents had been kind to him, even though they did not speak the same language. Spike knew part of this was out of fear—the Africans seemed greatly in tune with the supernatural and could sense right off he was not a human—but he was still appreciative of the favors the fear brought. He could expect a pallet in one of the tents and a plate of food upon his return.

 

For the first time in a long while, his stomach growled at the thought of food. As a vampire, he had craved food, certainly. But it was a burning in his gut, a lust for the kill, rather than a yearning for sustenance. This sensation was less intense but also less satisfying. In fact, it made him feel even worse, weak and even a little dizzy.

 

Eventually, he made his way to the tribe of people and, as he expected, they gave him a tent and some dinner, and then quickly left him to his own devices. They did not know he was not the same being he had been the first time he came to be with them, and they were still afraid. Spike was glad of this. He was still mentally and physically wrought, and he did not relish the idea of company at the moment. He needed time to think, to adjust.

 

He ate his dinner slowly but was so unaccustomed to the various physical sensations of digesting food he gagged several times and ultimately retched up the greater part of his meal. Eventually, necessity would push him to eat, even when it sickened him, but not yet. Now he was still strong enough to be contented with an empty belly and a full head.

 

He threw the soiled blanket outside the tent flap and then sat down on his rough cotton pallet to think. Part of him was quaking inside, wondering what he had done to himself. A human. He was a human now. An ordinary, weak- bodied, cold-carrying, bloodletting member of the human race—a race he had left behind one hundred-twenty years ago and had scorned ever since. Spike wondered if maybe he was going mad. Why had he done it? He had given over all that was unique, all that was powerful about him, just for a woman. It certainly seemed crazy.

 

No, Spike!

 

It flashed in his head like a movie playing, Buffy lying on the floor of her bathroom, Spike kneeling over her, pinning her down, pulling at her clothes. And she was begging him to stop…begging him not to do this to her. A single moment in time that had changed him, that had driven him to travel halfway around the world just so the memory would stop torturing him.

 

He hadn’t meant to do that to her. It wasn’t as though he had gone into her house thinking, “I’m going to rape Buffy tonight.” But she had mocked him, spurned him, as usual, and he had lost it. He had missed her so much—God, had he missed her—and here she was mocking him as though he were nothing, treated him like dirt. Somewhere in his fevered mind, something had snapped, and he could not take it anymore. He was dying to have her in his arms again, to have her near him. He was so maddened by his pain and desire he had been certain the way to accomplish this was to force her to give him what he wanted. He had thought he could force her to love him.

 

He would not have hurt her for anything in the world. Even though it was Buffy who ended it by kicking him off her, Spike was certain he would not have been able to finish what he had started. He was just frustrated; he would have come to his senses eventually. Nevertheless, the mere fact he had started to do it was enough, and the memory of it plagued him. The look in Buffy’s eyes when she told him, “Ask me again why I could never love you.” It hurt with a pain that was almost physical, and Spike had to do something to make that pain go away. So he came here.

 

The memory was still there, still twisting his heart with guilt, but Spike no longer doubted the validity of his decision. He had a soul now. He was human. He could prove to her that he really did love her, that he wouldn’t hurt her… After all, he had done this for her hadn’t he? Gone through hell just to have the luxury of telling her, “I’m not bad anymore, Buffy.” It had always been her excuse, her reason for not giving a tinker’s damn for him.

 

How could I love you, Spike? You don’t even have a soul.

 

Well, now he had one.

 

A small white glint across the room caught Spike’s eye, drew him out of his reverie. On the other side of the tent, on the floor near the canvas wall, something was shining in the moonlight that filtered in from the open tent flap.

 

Curious, Spike moved closer, leaning down to get a better look.

 

It was a mirror, a small, square mirror with a pin on the back so it could be hung on a tent wall. Most likely, a tourist had left it while on safari. Spike picked it up, careful not to catch a glimpse of his reflection, and hung it on the wall. One would have thought he would want to look in it immediately, eager to see his reflection after one hundred-twenty years, but for some reason the idea made him uneasy. He had a mental image of how he appeared to others and, without the luxury of mirrors, this was the only image of himself he had. He was afraid to look in the glass and find something completely different from what he had pictured, to find he was not really what he had thought. Perhaps even to find he was still just William.

 

Still, wouldn’t it be better to know this before he went to Buffy? The thought rankled.

 

Slowly, Spike removed his hand from the glass and leaned in to catch his reflection more clearly. At first, it was dim and hard to see, but then a cloud moved from the moon and a bright light lit up the tent from outside, and Spike could see himself clearly. Still as thin and angular of face as he had been over a century ago, but pale of skin now, with peroxide yellow hair that still had streaks of wheat-colored blond near the roots. There was a scar across the eyebrow that had not been there before and a certain sly, world-weary, look to the dark blue eyes. No glasses.

 

He was the same as before, but still somehow different. Not in the dyed hair or the never-seen-the-sun skin, but some strange, intangible way he knew he was not William and not Spike either. He was something else altogether…and he had no idea what that might be.

 

Without even thinking about it, he moved his left hand over his chest, feeling the steady rhythm that beat out under the bone and skin, the warmth that it generated throughout his body. Sudden tears came to his eyes, because he had known what this would be like even before he felt it—before it had even come into his mind, he had known. Because even when his heart had not beaten, it had beat for her.

 

It was time to go back.

*********************

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Sunnydale Cemetery

Three days later

 

 

 

“Spike!”

 

Lumpy though it was, Clem’s face was lighted up with genuine pleasure at seeing his friend again. He extended one droopy hand and clasped Spike’s shoulder affectionately. “Am I glad to see you! How was your trip?”

 

“Never mind all that now,” Spike snapped, brushing off Clem’s hand as though it was nothing more that a fly. “Clem, what the fuck happened while I was away? What happened to this town? I passed the police station on the way here and the whole damn front wall is gone. There are wrecked cars all over the roads and someone trashed the Magic Box again.”

 

A shadow passed over Clem’s eyes. “Uh…yeah…well…”

 

Something in Clem’s tone alarmed Spike; he grabbed Clem’s arm and shook him violently. “What happened?” he demanded.

 

“Well, you see…that guy…the one that was causing the slayer so much trouble—”

 

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “What guy?”

 

“Actually, I believe there were three of them altogether, but one…”

 

“Warren?” Spike laughed, much relieved. “What, did Warren’s science project blow up half the damn town?”

 

Clem hesitated. “Not exactly… You see, Warren was angry at the slayer for putting his two friends in jail and he…he, uh…”

 

“What?” Spike asked impatiently. “He what?”

 

“He shot the slayer.”

 

“What?!” Spike shook Clem so hard his teeth rattled. “Is she okay? Did he hurt her? Is she…”

 

“She’s okay,” Clem assured him. “But a stray bullet went through an upstairs window and hit Willow’s friend, and it killed her.”

 

“Tara’s dead?” Spike’s tone was surprised but not overly concerned. “Ah, well, it had to happen sometime didn’t it? The good always die young and that one was almost painfully good.” He paused. “So what does that have to do with the mess downtown?”

 

Clem sighed. “Maybe you should sit down, Spike. This may take awhile to explain…”

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The sun warmed Buffy’s face as she stepped out onto the porch, but she shivered anyway. She had been shivering for three days, ever since Tara was killed, ever since Willow…. She forced her mind from it. She had promised Willow that she would love her no matter what, and she was not doing either one of them any good by sitting here mulling over her breakdown. Yet there was some part of her, some little imp in her head, that whispered she was helping Willow get away with murder. Murder. Granted, it was the murder of a perverse sociopath, but still…a human life was a human life. Wasn’t it?

 

Her head felt all muddled. Nothing made sense. Giles was telling her that they would have to keep this to themselves in order to help Willow, and Xander agreed with him. Dawn was creeping around the house, refusing to enter a room if Willow was there, demanding why Buffy was allowing her to live in their house. But no one save herself seemed at all interested in the fact that Warren was dead, and it was all Willow’s fault.

 

Buffy did not begrudge Willow the abuse she had given her friends; she herself had almost killed them while under a spell. The Scoobies were able to handle themselves in such situations and were accustomed to them. But terrorizing the entire town, killing Warren, trying to destroy the world… How could they just forget about all of that, pretend nothing had changed? How would she ever be able to look at Willow without seeing the bloody figure in the trees? If she was capable of doing this once, who was to say she would not get angry and do it again?

 

Buffy sank down on the back steps, resting her head against a newel post wearily. Thank heaven Giles had opted to stay, at least for a while. Without his help, she doubted she would have been able to keep it together at all. She knew she would never have been able to sleep without the knowledge that he was there, just one room away, protecting her. Sometimes she wished she could crawl into his arms and stay there, snuggled on his lap like a child. Just the sight of him made everything so much easier. She just wished he would stay forever, protect her forever.

 

She closed her eyes, hugging herself until gradually the warm sunlight seeped into her bones and stopped her shivering. She had not been sleeping very well, and now it was so quiet; no one was home but her and Giles. It would be so easy to fall asleep, right where she was, to sleep and to dream and forget all that had happened, just for a little while.

 

She was almost to the point of peacefulness when the sound of a twig snapping fired her senses and tensed her muscles once again. Her eyes flew open and she jumped up, ready to fight even before she knew what she was facing. But demon or vampire, murderer or paperboy, it mattered not. There would be hell to pay for disturbing her tranquility, the first she had known in days.

 

She shielded her eyes against the assault of the early afternoon sunlight and gazed into the yard, toward the direction of the noise. At first, her eyes were adjusting and she did not recognize him, but when the spots disappeared and he stepped closer, she realized who it was. In the middle of her back yard, wearing black jeans, a long-sleeved gray shirt, and mirrored sunglasses, stood Spike.

 

Buffy’s heart did an automatic happy leap at the sight of him, but she forced it back down. She forced herself to focus on what had happened (or almost happened) before he left Sunnydale. It worked. Anger boiled up inside her, and it was with a sneer in her voice that she asked him, “What do you want?”

 

Was it her imagination or did he look almost uncertain?

 

“I…I came to talk to you, Buffy,” he said slowly. “I need…to talk to you.”

 

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Buffy snapped. “I don’t even want to look at you, you disgust me.”

 

He flinched visibly. “I’m sorry—”

 

“Don’t even start with me on that, Spike,” she said, wearily. “You’re sorry because I am mad. You’re sorry because it means you don’t get to play here anymore…You aren’t sorry about what you did.”

 

“I bloody well am!” he retorted. Then as suddenly as it came, the anger left him. He looked at her sadly. “I am so sorry, Buffy. I never meant to hurt you, or to frighten you. I just wanted to…”

 

“I know what you wanted,” she said bitterly. “And I know you would have taken what you wanted if I hadn’t managed to stop you.”

 

She saw him swallow.

 

“It wasn’t like that.”

 

“No? What was it like then? Tell me. I would like to hear the excuse you think you have for trying to rape me.”

 

“I wasn’t trying to rape you.”

 

Was it her imagination or was his voice hoarse?

 

She steeled herself against him. “No? Then what were you trying to do, exactly?”

 

“I was trying to…force you…to make you love me. I thought…I mean when I got rough before you had liked it. I thought if I did it then I could make you want me again.”

 

Something in her hurt because what he said was true. She had wanted the abuse before…even when he did not want to give it. Even when he lapsed into moments of tenderness she had dragged him back, practically begging him to hurt her, control her, make her like it. But that still didn’t make it her fault.

 

“Don’t try to pin this on me, Spike. I told you no; I begged you to stop. If you thought I was kidding or lying then that is your fault. I didn’t want it and you couldn’t force me to want it! You can’t force me to want you.”

 

“I know that,” he said. “I don’t want to force you…I was just…upset. But I don’t want you to hate me…”

 

She tossed her head. “Too late.”

 

He clenched his jaw. “Damn it, Buffy! If you would just listen…”

 

“I am listening,” she said. “Just because I don’t believe your bullshit don’t try to say I’m not listening.”

 

“But you aren’t! You’re hearing only what you want to hear…you aren’t really listening to what I am trying to say.”

 

“What are you trying to say, Spike? Quit beating around the bush and spell it out.”

 

 

He cleared his throat. Here it came. He knew if he didn’t tell it just right he would ruin it, but he wasn’t entirely sure what the right way was. This would be so much easier if she wasn’t staring at him as though he were the scum of the earth.

 

“Buffy…I was gone from Sunnydale for awhile…”

 

“No kidding,” she interrupted. “Do you even have any idea what I’ve been through while you were on your vacation?”

 

“Well, if I had known Willow would do that do you think I would have left?” he demanded, temper blazing. “Damn it, slayer, I can’t be everywhere at once and I am not a bloody psychic!”

 

“No kidding, Spike. You can’t even see something when someone screams it to you, let alone read someone’s mind.”

 

He growled under his breath but struggled to keep his temper in check. “Buffy, I know you have been through a lot in the past couple of days, but you know what? So have I.” He pulled up his shirtsleeve to reveal a series of deep gashes on his arm—tokens of his battle in Africa.

 

Buffy stared at the wounds for a moment then snickered. “What? Did you try to rape someone else and get bitch slapped for it? You never learn do you?”

 

“I didn’t do anything to anyone! Buffy, I got these for you…I went to Africa…There is a demon there who—”

 

“Buffy?”

 

It was Xander’s voice calling her from the kitchen door. She turned just in time to see him emerging, to see him see Spike. There was rage in his face.

 

“YOU!” Xander crossed the yard quickly and within the space of a nanosecond was standing directly in front of Spike. “You’ve got some nerve coming here after what you did to Buffy!” Xander shoved Spike so hard Spike almost fell—had it not been for the ex vamp’s catlike reflexes he would have fallen. As it was he stumbled backwards a moment before regaining his balance.

 

Xander didn’t even give Spike time to react. As soon as he had oriented himself from the last attack, Xander shoved him again, even harder this time. “Is this what you get off on? Huh? Stalking women, raping them…and all the time claiming your sick obsession is love! You make me sick!”

 

Xander threw a punch, fully intending to bust Spike in the jaw, but Spike was too quick for him. He darted a safe distance away and said, “I’m not going to fight with you, Xander.” All the while, he was keeping one eye on Buffy.

 

“No?” Xander asked. “And why is that?” He raised his hand again, as if to hit him, but Buffy grabbed his arm before he could.

 

“Xander, don’t,” she said.

 

He stared at her incredulously. “You are actually defending this guy after what he did to you?”

 

She gazed at Spike, who stood several feet away, watching her.

 

“No. I am not defending him. I just don’t think he’s worth the effort.” That said, she took her friend by the elbow and led him inside, closing the door behind them.

*******************

*******************

 

 

 

“Damn him!” Spike stormed into his crypt, throwing the door back so hard it crashed against the wall, startling Clem.

 

“Damn who, Spike?” Clem asked, gazing at his friend from his position in front of the television. “What happened? Did you see the Slayer?”

 

“Yeah, I saw her…her and that little Tonka toy construction man friend of hers. He just bounded out of the house when I was trying to talk to her, full of accusations. And she let him! She took his side, left with him, left me…”

 

“Oh…” Clem stood up. “I’m sorry, Spike. But maybe you can catch her when she is by herself, talk to her then.”

 

“When is the Slayer ever by herself? She never goes anywhere without a horde of Scoobies in tow, and they won’t let me within ten feel of her. Prejudice little pricks! What right do they have to judge me when one of their own just attempted to destroy the whole fucking world?”

 

“What about when she is patrolling?” Clem asked him, eager to find some way of helping. “Don’t they usually split up when they patrol? Maybe you could catch her then, talk to her before the rest of the group has a chance to catch up.”

 

Spike’s eyes lit up. “That…is not a bad idea at all, Clem.”

********************

********************

 

 

 

As it turned out, however, Buffy was no longer patrolling alone. When Spike found her in the cemetery that evening, she was strolling alongside Dawn. What was even more surprising was what Dawn was carrying weapons—the same type of weapons Buffy held in her hand.

 

 

“Just what the hell do you think your doing letting the Little Bit patrol with you?”

 

He hadn’t meant to say that. But it was such a shock seeing Dawn walking through the darkened graveyard that he had forgotten what it was he was going to say.

 

Buffy gave him her patented I’m better than you look and asked him, “What business is that of yours?”

 

“None. I’m just surprised you are being so stupid! Don’t you realize she could get hurt?”

 

“I can take care of myself,” Dawn said defensively. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Anyway, I don’t see what you are so concerned about. You care so much about me but you don’t mind raping my sister in our bathroom.”

 

“Hey! I did not rape her!”

 

“Attempted to then,” Dawn acknowledged dismissively. “Same diff.”

 

He was trying very hard to be civil, but after all this, his patience was wearing decidedly thin. “Look, Little Bit, I’ve got to have a word with Big Sis for a minute, so toddle off to your toys now.”

 

“I’m not leaving her alone with a rapist!”

 

“Don’t worry, Dawn,” Buffy reassured her little sister, “I’m not going to talk with him at all.”

 

“You damn well had better!” Spike warned her, “Because I am not leaving or letting you leave until you listen to what I have to say.”

 

Buffy sighed. “Okay, fine. Have it your way, Spike.” She turned to Dawn. “Run catch up with the others. I’ll be along in a minute.”

 

“Buffy are you sure? What if he tries to—?”

 

“If he does,” Buffy said grimly, “then I guess I’ll just stake him.”

 

The two of them watched as Dawn disappeared beyond the massive stretch of tombstones, silent for a moment.

 

When Dawn was out of sight, Spike turned to Buffy indignantly. “What the fuck has gotten into you? You’ll get her killed bringing her on patrols!”

 

“Dawn is old enough to help out and able to take care of herself,” Buffy answered. She turned to look him full in the face. “Is that all you had to tell me?”

 

“Of course not,” he snapped. “I just think it is incredibly irresponsible for you to allow her—”

 

“Spike, either shut up about my parenting skills and get on with it or I am leaving. Now which will it be?”

 

Spike shut up about her parenting skills.

 

“Buffy…the first thing I have to tell you is I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re sorry?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Sorry for what?”

 

“For all that you’ve been through the past few months…and I know what I did just made everything worse and I’m sorry for it. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be here to help you when Willow went all wicked witch of the west…”

 

“I did just fine without your help, thank you.”

 

He looked away. “I—I know that. I know you don’t need me. Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve always known it. But I wanted to be there for you…just to help, even if you didn’t need it.”

 

She sighed. “What is the second thing?”

 

He took a step forward—not too close, but close enough to see her reaction when he said, “I love you, Buffy.”

 

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, uneasy. “Don’t…”

 

“But I do,” he insisted. “I do love you…I love you more than anything or anyone I have ever met. You’re like salvation to me. I know I’m disgusting and that I have done disgusting things to you…but I want to change. I want to make up for all that.”

 

“Spike, you can’t make up for it. No matter what you do or how bad you feel, it will always happen again. You will always let me down again, because you are a vampire. Nothing you feel can change what you are and what you are is evil.”

 

He grabbed her forearms eagerly. “But that is what I am trying to tell you, Buffy! I’m not evil anymore! I did change what I am…”

 

She rolled her eyes, heavenward. “Spike…”

 

“No, Buffy it’s true. Didn’t you notice anything different when I came to see you earlier?”

 

She shook herself free from his grip. “I noticed that you seem to be getting even more obsessive over this.”

 

“No.” He made an impatient sound. “The sunlight, Buffy. Didn’t you notice that I was standing in the sunlight?”

 

Her eyes clearly told him that she hadn’t noticed this, but now that he had mentioned it, she suddenly flashed back on it. But for some reason Spike couldn’t fathom she did not look pleased.

 

“What did you do?”

 

“Whaa…” he asked, bewildered by her comment. “I did it for you. There’s a demon in Africa who can—”

 

“Oh, my God, Spike…” Buffy back away from him slowly. “What did you do?”

 

He couldn’t understand why she was looking at him in that shocked, fearful way, and, as usual, confusion made him angry. “I did it for you!” he snapped. “I let that demon torture me over and over for you, for us. I did it so we can be together.”

 

“Be together?” she echoed. “Spike, you tried to rape me! I don’t even like you! How could you possibly think anything you could do would result in us being together?”

 

Her words hit him like a fist—he felt a literal, physical pain, so that he staggered backwards as if from a blow. “But I fixed things, Buffy.” Spike tried to take her hand, but Buffy jerked away from him. “I—I’m not the person I was when that happened. I’m better now…I’m…human.”

 

“You very well may be a human, Spike, but you aren’t any better now than you ever were.” She turned and began walking away from him, pausing only once to say this: “Even rapists can have souls, Spike.”

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Spike watched her willowy form weave between rows of tombstones, eventually fading into the inky darkness. He bit his lip, forcing back the angry tears that stung his eyes.

 

“Damn it,” he said. He meant the words to be sharp, angry, but instead they just sounded broken. “What does it take?” he asked, gesturing to the darkness around him. “She wanted me to be good and I was good. She wanted me to fuck her hard and I fucked her hard. She wanted me to have a soul and I got a soul…and still she isn’t happy.”

 

He sucked in his breath, heavy with the thought that maybe he was fighting a lost cause. Maybe she would never be able to love him, no matter what he did. Then something occurred to him. If she didn’t want him…if she couldn’t want him even with a soul…then that meant he had gone through that torture for nothing.

He had given up his entire life, his reputation, his power…and it was all for nothing. The thought made him shudder.

 

Spike took a moment longer to regain his composure then he began to slowly make his way across the cemetery. After all the emotional and physical stress he had been through the past several days, he was eager for the safety and quiet of his own crypt. He would have made it—had it not been for the flash of red that caught his peripheral vision. Something, some curiosity or desire prompted him to turn and look again. When he did look, he could not keep walking, though he would.

 

Willow Rosenberg, longtime friend of the Slayer and recent apocalyptic nightmare to the town of Sunnydale, was sitting on a raw mound of earth. She was hunched over, her forehead resting on the slab of marble that served as a monument, and she didn’t see him at first. But even though Spike could not see her face, it was obvious from her movements that Willow was crying.

 

Spike didn’t have to think twice to understand why. He knew whose name was engraved on that marble slab; he had sought it out as soon as Clem had told him of Tara’s death, feeling an unusual—and unaccountable—urge to pay his respects for the fallen Scooby. Maybe it was because Tara had always been polite to him, even when everyone else had treated him with hatred, but Spike was still uneasy about his newfound sensitivity. It wasn’t like him to feel the need to express grief. Hell, it wasn’t even like him to feel grief. The only person he had ever truly mourned—besides Buffy—was her mother, Joyce. And he had mourned Joyce as a genuine friend, one of the few truly kind on this God-forsaken rock. Tara was different. Though no doubt kind, she had never expressed any real interest in getting to know Spike, and their encounters had been brief to say the least. There was no reason for him to feel sorrow over her death.

 

Even as these uncertainties ran through his head, Spike felt another, even more disturbing, emotion. Now he wanted to help Willow. Willow, for pity’s sake! She had not been kind or even polite to him. She had been downright hostile on occasion, and as of late, she had treated him as little more than a nuisance to be ignored. Even when he had worked beside her that summer after Buffy had died…even then she had not trusted him. Why should he care if she was happy or sad, if she lived or died? Yet he had the most uncomfortable feeling that if he had been carrying a handkerchief he would have offered it to her.

 

Spike sighed. Bloody hell. If it weren’t for that little bitch, he would never have gotten the sodding soul and would not, therefore, be feeling such uncomfortable pangs of pity for her friend. Nor would he have the uneasy notion that if he left without helping Willow, he would be faced with the equally unpleasant sensation of guilt. Still, a soul he had, and despite his better judgment, he could not help but put it to good use.

 

“Willow?” He sidled up close to her, close enough to reach out and pat her shoulder—which he did somewhat awkwardly. “Are you all right?”

 

She looked up at him with big, tear-stained eyes. She looked the way she always had, little redheaded Willow with the shy eyes and round face. It was almost inconceivable to him that she had nearly destroyed the world. Inconceivable, yet still somehow easy to understand. The person she loved most in the world was dead, murdered. Spike could easily see why she would want to extract revenge on the person who had taken Tara from her, and he could also see why she felt unwilling to live in a world that didn’t have Tara in it. He had felt much the same way when Buffy had died. What he didn’t understand was why she wanted to take the world with her…but Spike had never been one to fantasize about the destruction of an entire planet, so maybe that didn’t really mean anything.

 

Willow looked at Spike, seeming almost confused. “Who are you?”

 

She sounded disoriented, drunk maybe. Made perfect sense, Spike thought. Her honey was dead so she was drowning her sorrows in alcohol. He understood that completely.

 

“Don’t you recognize me, Red?” he asked, once again feeling that repulsive tenderness melting his heart. “It’s Spike, love.”

 

“No…” she shook her head slowly. “You’re not Spike. You…feel different.”

 

He raised an eyebrow. “And what have you been feeling to know that, huh, Willow?” He meant it as a joke, something to make her feel better, but she only seemed more perplexed.

 

“You aren’t…the same person anymore.”

 

“How astute you are.” His voice was calm but inside he was soaring. She recognized a change in him—she knew he was different. If Willow could see this in an instant, who was to say Buffy would not eventually catch on to it also? He sat down in the dirt beside Willow.

 

“So what makes you think I am different, Sabrina?”

 

She rubbed her eyes, and then looked at him. “You did something while you were away. Spike, what did you do? You aren’t…you don’t feel the same.”

 

“What do you mean feel the same?” he pressed. “How do you feel me?”

 

“I dunno,” she muttered. “I just…sense something different…some change in you.”

 

He raised an eyebrow, amused. “And have you always been able to feel me, Red? Or is it just since you decided to put all of us poor bastards out of our misery?”

 

She sighed. “Of all people I would think you would understand this.”

 

“But I do understand, Willow. I understand completely. I understand that you have always had to play Velma in the Scooby gang. You were the smart one and, therefore, expected to be the steady and forthright one. And you got tired of it. You wanted to let loose…and when you did you couldn’t find your way back.”

 

“That wasn’t it at all!” she spat. “Tara is dead, Spike. I—I had to do something. He killed her! I couldn’t just let him get away with that!”

 

“And Buffy?” queried Spike, a strange, little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “What did Buffy ever do to you except love you? Or Dawn…I suppose she had a hand in Tara’s death too. And the poor bastards down at the police station who were just trying to do their jobs when you tumbled the building down around their ears? All of these people were to blame for Tara’s death? You were punishing all of them for the same crime?”

 

She looked uneasy. “I got carried away.”

 

“Bollocks,” he said easily. “You were never out of control—you knew what you were doing the whole time you were doing it. You just liked it, that was all. You liked the power of having everyone afraid of you…even your friends. Especially your friends. They always saw you as such a sodding weakling. You wanted to show them what you were capable of.” He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, not even bothering to catch her reaction to his tirade.

 

Willow flinched, but she didn’t try to deny the accusations. Instead, she reached out and stroked one finger over Tara’s marker, tracing the letters that spelled her name.

 

“How do you know?”

 

He snickered, lighting his cigarette. “How do I know? I’m surprised you feel the need to ask. I know because I have been there, Sweet Pea. I have been in your shoes…an ignored, mocked bit of nothing, always used for his brain but never respected for it. And then when you get a bit of power…it’s like a drug to you. It rushes your head, dizzies you until all you care about is that feeling, keeping that feeling, no matter what. You’d have to be crazy to give that up.”

 

“But I did,” Willow said, speaking more to herself than to him.

 

“But you did,” he agreed. He took a drag on his cigarette and added, “It was an honorable thing, giving it up for Xander. It’s right touching, actually. You gave up power—you gave up the world—for love.”

 

Willow dragged her eyes from the tombstone, meeting Spike’s so evenly for a moment he felt almost nervous. After a moment, she spoke—calmly, as though his newfound sensitivity was something she had expected. “So did you,” she said.

 

Spike made a great show of examining the tip of his half-smoked cigarette. After a moment, he threw it to the dirt, grinding it beneath his heel before he looked over at her.

 

“Did I?”

---

Chapter Two

 

 

It was strange. Living that is. Mortality. Spike could not quite believe that this was simply because he had been immortal and was not anymore. No…there was something else, something in who he was, that made life—and the living of it—an alien thing. When he was William, it had been this way, which was why he had escaped so often into his books and his poetry. It was an escape into a world in which he could be a comfortable onlooker. There were no expectations of him there, no voices telling him why it was he did not fit in, could never fit in, with his mates. That horrible feeling of inadequacy that gnawed in the pit of his stomach as he lay awake at night….He had thought he had left it behind on the night he allowed Drusilla to spill his blood on the paving-stones of a London street. Now, a hundred and some twenty-odd years later, he found himself as unimportant and uncertain as ever.

 

He had never really fit in with your average, run-of-the-mill vampire to be sure. But this was only because he was on a higher plane than they were. He was more cunning than most, stronger, more easily adapted to new situations. He had killed two slayers—something no other vampire had ever done. No, maybe he did not fit in with other vampires…but he certainly held his own with them. Even when Riley and the Bland Brigade shoved the chip into his brain, he had held his own with them. They all feared him, knowing that although he could no longer harm humans, demons were an easy target for his wrath. He used them for his punching bags, a way to wind down after Buffy had hurt him. He must have killed hundreds of them in the two short years since the chip was put into place. Not that he couldn’t do that still. By some quirk of fate—or perhaps just due to an over site of a certain African demon—he had regained his mortality while still retaining much of the physical dexterity he had possessed as a vampire. Not all of it, of course. He could no longer summon that weapon of choice, could not “vamp out” so to speak. He was not a vampire anymore. Nevertheless, he was no ordinary run-of-the-mill human being either. He was probably the only mortal creature on earth who felt confident he could hold in own in a fight with the slayer.

 

Not that he’d had the chance to test that theory. Since their encounter in the cemetery, Buffy had gone out of her way to avoid him. She had even changed her normal patrol routes to throw him off her trail. This, combined with the very depressing fact that he no long had the animal instincts to scent his pray, was making it exceedingly difficult to even catch a mere glimpse of her, let alone get close enough to attempt conversation. After several days of this, he was becoming resigned to the fact that she did not and would not, love him.

 

There was no way to make her love him. He was sure of it now. He had done everything, tried everything, been everything she wanted…and still she thought he was the scum of the earth. There was no way to change that. Part of him wanted to say fuck her, who cares, and move on. However, another, bigger, part would not let this happen. She lived in him. She lived in a part that no rage, hurt or self-abuse could touch. She wouldn’t leave him…and now he understood why.

 

He would not let her leave.

 

Spike lay in his crypt at nightfall, morosely smoking. After his initial encounter with Willow in the cemetery, he had managed to maintain some hope. Maybe if Willow saw the change in him then eventually so would Buffy. But that had been four days ago, and he had not been permitted near the Summers’ home since then. If it was not Buffy telling him to get lost—and lately it hadn’t been—it was one of her cronies. Usually Xander.

 

Xander. Spike’s newly alive flesh crawled at the very thought of him. The bastard. He was like an annoying little dog, fiercely loyal to his owner but harmless except in his ability as an alarm-barker. Yes, that was Xander all right. An alarm barker. He was too intimidated by Spike to do anything serious; he would just mouth of a series of meaningless threats. If Buffy started to come out to Spike, he would herd her back into the house, locking the door after both of them, leaving Spike alone.

 

Spike didn’t hate all of the Scoobies, however. He still loved the Little Bit. And he was growing rather fond of Willow. After all, they had something in common now. They were the outcasts. Sure, maybe the Scoobies made play at being her friends, but Willow confided to him on the second night that she knew they felt uncomfortable around her now. They talked about her behind her back, watched her like a hawk. They feared her.

 

Fear. It was the Scoobies’ drug of choice. They lived on it, wallowed in it, reeked of it. Was this why Spike had always loathed them? That stench of fear that hung over them like a garment, enraging the animal that was in him, driving the urge to kill. Buffy didn’t have it, had never had it. The only slayer Spike had ever known that did not have it. The others dripped adrenaline from every pore; it was the well from which they drew their strength. Not Buffy. Her strength lay in the cunning of her mind, the sharpness of her lovely blue eyes, and the sheer joy in her heart at the kill.

 

Was it any wonder he had never been able to bring himself to kill her? Was it any wonder he had fallen madly in love with her? She was the only creature on earth who could match him in wits as well as physical dexterity. Even poor Dru had not been able to measure up, her poor broken mind baffled by—and baffling to—him. But Buffy was his equal…maybe even more than an equal. He had no choice but her love her.

 

He squirmed upon his bed, uncomfortable. It was a physical pain in his chest, this love. It ached and burned…and it wanted, incessantly wanted. There was no escaping it. The only thing he knew to cure it was for her to love him. That time—that very brief time—when she was in his bed every night, he had felt such incredible pleasure. Not only from the sex. The sex had been nice, but he it certainly was not the only thing he wanted from her. It wasn’t even the thing he enjoyed most. He loved that moment after she fell asleep, when he could lie beside her, watching her face. Sometimes—if he was very careful—he could stroke her face, play with her hair. It was the only time he was allowed to show her any real affection. When she was awake, she liked his lust, but shied away when he hinted at any real emotion. The only time she wanted him to say he loved her was the last. And maybe she wanted it only because it was the last.

 

Stabbing his cigarette against the stone wall to put it out, Spike drew a new one from the pack with his teeth. Something about the taste of the new cigarette cheered him slightly, and he felt renewed in his resolve. There must be some way to make her love him.

*********************

*********************

 

 

 

“What about flowers?” Willow asked.

 

They were sitting at Tara’s graveside. Willow came every night while the other Scoobies were out patrolling. At first, she had come to be alone, to sit, to weep, and to pay her respects to Tara. Now she came to meet Spike—which, she found, could be done while paying her respects to Tara. Usually all they did was talk, although some nights one or the other of them would bring take-out in a bag and they would eat silently, sitting side by side in the dirt. It was a strange arrangement, considering that just last summer Spike had thought Willow was a bitch and Willow thought Spike was the devil incarnate. Strange but somehow in keeping with the direction in which both their lives were heading. Always at two opposite ends of the spectrum, it seemed they had traded places, at least temporarily, allowing each of them to understand the other. They could talk easily—she about her anger, her craving to destroy, he about his newfound soul and (God help him!) humanity.

 

Now as Willow spoke Spike contrived to shake himself out of his own private reverie and answered, “I don’t think flowers would do it, Red. After all, I tried giving her candy once and she just threw that back in my face.”

 

Willow looked at him with an affectionate sort of smirk. “I meant for Tara. Should I get her some flowers?”

 

He gazed at the grave without interest. Willow had adorned the simple monument with candles and Wiccan talismans, teddy bears and cards. She obviously did not understand that it did sometimes rain in California and that when it did her pretty tribute would be a sodden mess. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her this, but then that uncomfortable feeling he sometimes had—a strange craving to make her feel better—washed over him.

 

“I think flowers would be right lovely,” he said. Silently he was cursing himself. Was Buffy worth all of this? Worth the pain and the guilt and all the endless work involved in being human? He had worked long and hard to build up a resistance between himself and humanity…and now in one fell swoop it seemed Buffy had torn it down. There seemed to him but a fine line remaining between the thing that he was and the man he had been. William seemed slowly creeping back in to claim his own. Spike could feel part of his very being oozing out of his body, and he fought against it mightily. As much as he wanted to please Buffy, the idea of reverting to his former human self was unbearable. At any rate, he doubted that William would please Buffy. She did not like normal, quiet, weak men. Her relationship with Riley proved this beyond a doubt. If Spike was to have her, he could not allow himself to be too human. The problem was that he was beginning to doubt whether he had any control over this at all.

 

Willow did not notice his inner turmoil; she was too busy smiling to herself and planning what flowers she would put on Tara’s grave. A moment of silence passed between them and might have held had Spike managed to maintain some semblance of control over his own curiosity. He couldn’t, of course.

 

“What does she say about me?”

 

“Who?” Willow was readjusting a stuffed sheep that had fallen over; she was barely listening to him.

 

“Who? For God’s sake, Willow! Buffy!”

 

“Buffy doesn’t say anything about you,” Willow told him. “It kind of goes along with that whole hating you faze she’s going through right now.”

 

“That is no fucking fair!” he burst out, slamming one fist down onto the earth, making the candles at Tara’s headstone jump. “I get carried away and make one mistake…and she won’t let my sullied name pass her chaste lips. You try to destroy the whole fucking planet and she shrugs it off as a lapse in good judgment!”

 

She shot him a look but wisely decided not to comment. Anyway, he did kind of have a point. What he had done to Buffy was certainly no worse than what she herself had done, and yet everyone was treating her like an invalid and Spike like a criminal. It wasn’t fair, but Willow knew she was the last person in a position to complain about the way Buffy was treating her friends. When you try to raise a satanic temple in order to annihilate all of humanity, you pretty much forfeit your right to criticize others.

 

Willow had just composed the words to comfort Spike without lying to him, when suddenly a piercing scream cut through the quiet night like a knife.

 

Spike leapt to his feet. “Bloody hell!”

 

“What’s wrong?” Willow asked, bewildered by his reaction. After all, screams in the dark weren’t exactly a rare occurrence in Sunnydale. Particularly in the graveyard.

 

“Don’t you recognize that?” Spike snapped. “It’s Dawn.”

********************

********************

 

 

 

The first few days Dawn had been allowed to go slaying with her sister, it had all been like an adventure. There was no real danger because Buffy was always right beside her; it was more a toy affair than anything else. She had enjoyed playing the part of a slayer without actually having to go through all the pains of actually being one. But tonight Xander had been ill and unable to come, and Willow was off to parts unknown, which left the two Summers girls on their own. Buffy couldn’t very well be in more than one place at a time, so she had asked Dawn to patrol the north end of the graveyard for her, instructing her to yell if she needed any help. No sooner had her sister stepped out of earshot then Dawn stumbled across a group of vampires holed up in the storage shed where the lawn care equipment was kept. She had managed to slay two of them, but now there were four more rapidly advancing on her.

 

The novelty of being a Scooby was definitely beginning to wear off.

 

“H—hey, guys…” she stammered, slowly backing away from the four hungry looking vamps. “I don’t know if you know this…but I am not just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill blood bank.”

 

The vampire nearest Dawn smirked, his lumpy face lighting up with as much amusement as an evil lumpy face could. “Do you think we don’t know who you are?” he asked. He nodded to his friends, laughing, and then turned back to Dawn. “You are the sister of the Slayer.”

 

“R—right,” Dawn said, grappling behind her back for the stake in her book bag. “But I am not just the sister of the Slayer…I have my own claim to fame, you know.”

 

“Yeah?” The vamp snickered to his friends. “And what would that be, Shortcake? Your ability to bore people to death?”

 

“No,” Dawn retorted, tossing her hair. “I happen to be the Key, a very powerful mystical entity. Ever hear of it?”

 

“As a matter of fact…” The vampire’s leg shot out, kicking Dawn’s stake from her hand. He grabbed her neck and shoved her to the ground. “I haven’t,” he finished. He arched his back and leaned over her chest, baring his teeth to her throat.

 

The vampire’s mouth was so close Dawn could feel the moisture of his hot breath on her skin; his fangs barely grazed her throat and she closed her eyes, bracing herself for the pain she knew would come.

 

The pain never came. Instead, there was a sound—something guttural and deep—and then the weight on her chest was forcibly removed. Dawn opened her eyes just in time to see the vampire flying backwards off her, his mouth gaping with shock. She didn’t wait to see what had happened, just scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could and reached for her book bag of supplies.

 

Meanwhile, Spike had retrieved the stake Dawn had dropped on the ground. He used it most effectively, dusting vamps one and two without so much as blinking an eye. Vamp three fled the moment he saw his comrades collapsing into dust. Vamp four meanwhile … he was something else altogether. The others in the group were fairly young, practically fledglings. They were slow, clumsy, and predictable. However, the vampire who had attacked Dawn was much older, probably the sire of the others. He had a quick mind and even quicker reflexes, and he used both to the best of his advantage.  In a way, he reminded Spike of himself in his younger days, ready to take on anything, especially a well-matched fight. Full of piss and vinegar. Of course, those were the days before he had raised the bar in well-matched fights. One could hardly remain so impetuous when one took it upon himself to kill a Slayer. Still, despite this vampire’s obvious talent for his vocation, Spike felt he was doing remarkably well. He was human now, vulnerable, and yet he was still able to hold his own with an experienced demon. It was quite an accomplishment.

 

He couldn’t help wondering, though, if perhaps this was a bad sign. He had realized that he retained the speed and balance of a vampire and attributed it to the fact that he was in superb physical shape from all the fighting he did—but being in good shape didn’t account for this. He was human now, had only been human a week. Should he not be foundering under this attack? The blows of

the vampire’s fists and feet hurt him, but they were no more painful than they had been before his trip to Africa. Nor did he seem to be bruising or bleeding more freely than before. Did that not tell of something awry in the demon’s spell? He was mortal now—his heartbeat was enough to tell him that. Couple that with the fact he was pissing for the first in over a century and he was pretty damn sure he was no longer a vampire. He was definitely mortal. But was he human?

 

The thought made him stop cold.

 

He was human. He had to be human. It was what he wanted, what he had worked so hard to achieve. Surely, fate (and the African demon) wouldn’t be so cruel as to restore his mortality without giving him the rest of his humanity back. Would it?

 

Before he could answer this question, the young vampire had grown tired of fists-and-feet contact and had lunged at him, fangs bared for that fatal bite. It was his first and last mistake of the battle. Spike ducked and, grasping the vampire’s right knee in his hand, he pushed upward as hard as he could. The vampire flew over Spike’s head and struck the earth behind him with a muffled thud. Spike didn’t give him time to recover from the fall. He spun around and with one fluid movement curved his body downward, driving the wooden stake into his enemy’s chest. The defiant form held for just a second longer then fell to dust, vanishing in the grass without a sound.

 

Spike sank to his knees, trembling. How quick it had been! How easy! He wasn’t even tired. His small wounds could be ticked off on one hand, not one of them being significant enough to require a band-aid. True, he was panting, and there was sweat streaming down his forehead and stinging his eyes, but other than that…

 

Other than that, it was exactly the same as it had been when he was a vampire.

**********************

**********************

 

 

 

Dawn stared at her unlikely savior with something akin to shock.

 

He didn’t seem to notice. He was still on his knees, staring at his hands and frowning slightly, obviously deep in some unpleasant thought. Even when Dawn approached him—even when she said his name—he did not speak to her. When she spoke again, he merely looked at her, his blue-gray eyes fixing on hers morosely. A slight inclination of his head told her he did not hear what she had just said so she repeated herself, this time with a slight sense of irritation.

 

“I said, thanks, Spike. Thank you … for saving me.”

 

“Yeah, well … couldn’t just walk by and ignore you now could I?” he drawled, pulling himself to his feet with the air of someone on his way to the gallows. “Right then. Well, I guess I’ll be one my way. Thanks for the thanks”

 

He started to turn but Dawn cried out, “Spike, wait!”

 

Spike paused. “Yeah?’

 

She chewed her lip. “I just want to say … I want to say I’m sorry, Spike. You know … about what I said the other night?”

 

“Yeah? And just why are you sorry for it, Nibblet?”

 

“Well, for one thing, I know it wasn’t really any of my business to say anything. Buffy didn’t even want me to know what happened between you two, Xander just let it slip. So I had no right to say anything about it. I just … I guess I just wanted to protect Buffy for once.”

 

“You don’t have to protect her from me,” he said bitterly. “She laid fists on me every chance she got this year…I was her whipping boy, her punching bag.” He gazed at her with an intensity that was almost frightening. “There’s only so much a bloke can take, you know? There is only so much abuse he can stand before he snaps and does something crazy. I would have never hurt her in my right mind…but she drove me out of my mind!”

 

“I know,” she told him softly. She bobbed on the balls of her feet a minute, worked up the courage, and added, “I understand why you did what you did. Buffy has been treating you like crap all year. I saw it even if neither of you said anything. I don’t blame you for trying to give her a dose of her own medicine. In a way I guess she kind of deserved it.”

 

He moved so quickly she didn’t even see him do it. One minute he was standing ten feet away, gazing at her, and the next moment he had a rough grip on her arm, holding her to him. “Don’t you ever say anything like that again!”

 

“What?” Dawn was bewildered by the anger in his tone. She had thought he would be pleased.

 

He clenched his teeth—the muscle in his jaw jumped ever so slightly—and Dawn’s heart quickened. She would never adore him the way she had at fourteen, before she knew the extent of his feelings for Buffy. Yet there was something in her that could not help acknowledging his good looks. There had never been another pair of cheekbones like that created in the days of man.

 

Spike did not notice her admiring him. If he had, it would have made little difference; he was too angry to be flattered by the approbation of a child. He shook her roughly by the arm and reiterated his earlier statement. “Don’t you ever say that again! She did not deserve that. No one deserves that.”

 

“Then why did you do it?” Dawn demanded.

 

“Because I am not perfect! As you Summers women delight in telling me I am a worthless fuck who has no soul!” He pushed her away from him. “Jesus! What the fuck kind of question is that, anyway? Why did I do it? Do you expect me to know why?”

 

“Because you were angry?” Dawn suggested meekly.

 

“I wanted her to love me.” He said this softly, almost as though he was talking to himself. “I thought I could make her love me…It worked before and I thought….”

 

“What?” she asked.

 

Her question appeared to startle him. He shook his head slightly, and then gazed over at Dawn as though just seeing her. His lips parted and she braced herself for the confession. But when he spoke his tone was different, blander, and so were his words.

 

“Go home, Dawn. You’ve had enough excitement for one evening.”

*********************

*********************

 

 

 

“Dawn! Where have you been? We were supposed to meet back here twenty minutes ago!”

 

Never had the bossiness of her older sister so grated on Dawn’s nerves. She tossed Buffy a look of annoyance that had less to do with her sister’s words and more to do with the expression in Spike’s eyes when Dawn left him.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered. “I meant to be here, but when a gang of vampires jumped me I kinda lost track of the time.”

 

“A gang of vampires?” Buffy repeated. She grabbed her little sister’s shoulders. “Dawn, are you okay? Did they—”

 

“I’m fine. I would’ve been toast, though, if Spike hadn’t shown up when he did.” Out of the corner of her eye, Dawn saw Buffy flush.

 

In tight sort of controlled voice Buffy asked, “Spike helped you?”

 

“Spike saved my life. I had a vampire at my throat when he came along and just dragged the guy off.”

 

“Well, did he speak to you?” Buffy pressed. “What did he say?”

 

“Of course he spoke to me. He wanted to know if I was all right and I said he was and he turned to go. I thanked him for saving me but…”

 

“But what?”

 

Dawn finally met her sister’s gaze directly, and when she did a flood of words sprang from her lips. “Buffy he looked so lonely, so sad! He’s sorry for what he did to you, and he is trying to make up for it if you would just let him.”

 

“Dawn what he did to me is called attempted rape! It isn’t something you can just forget about so easily! He violated our home, our trust!”

 

“Oh, like you haven’t been violating him ever since you came back,” Dawn retorted coldly.

 

Buffy paled at the words. “What?” she asked. “What did he tell you?”

 

Dawn shook her head in disbelief. “You must think I’m really stupid. I can see things without being told, Buffy, and I saw the way you treated him. Every chance you got you criticized him and belittled him—even when he was being good. You ran him down to all of us, kicked him around whenever you felt like it…and all the time you were sleeping with him behind our backs! How do you think it made him feel to have someone he cares about treat him like trash one minute and jump into his bed the next?”

 

“Don’t you dare talk to me about how I treated him!” Buffy shouted. “You don’t know anything about it! You’re just a child and you shouldn’t even be thinking about things like this, let alone going around saying them!”

 

Dawn opened her mouth to speak but Buffy cut her off. “No, don’t say anything! I am going to tell you this now, Dawn, and I am only going to tell you once: my relationship with Spike is none of your business!”

 

“Fine,” Dawn yelled back. “Treat him like dirt if you want to—but don’t expect me to anymore, because I see who the real abuser is in that relationship and it isn’t him!”

 

With that, she spun around and marched off toward home, leaving a startled Buffy in her wake.

---

Chapter Three

 

 

“I need your help.”

 

Willow jumped in alarm as she opened her eyes to find Spike standing over her bed, staring at her. It was three in the morning and she had been in the middle of a very pleasant dream. It took her a moment to orient herself. “Spike?” she murmured. “How’d you get in here?”

 

“Window,” he said briefly. “Don’t need an invite anymore…good thing, too. She probably revoked mine.”

 

“Spike…what are you doing here? In my bedroom? At two in the morning?”

 

“Don’t get angry, Willow. I had to come. I need your help.”

 

She sat up, clutching her blankets to her chest. “Why? What’s wrong?”

 

Though she could not see his expression in the dark room, Willow could hear the desperation and fear in his voice when he spoke. “Willow, it didn’t work…the spell didn’t work…”

 

“What? What spell?”

 

“The spell that made me human...something went wrong and it didn’t work. Maybe he never intended it to work, I don’t know…”

 

“Wait, wait…Spike, back up. What do you mean the spell didn’t work? You are a human now.”

 

“I’m mortal now…we know that…. But, Willow, I’m not normal…something isn’t right.” He described his fight with the vampires to her. “I fought four of them at one time,” he said in conclusion, “and I don’t even have a bruise.”

 

“I think you should consider yourself lucky you don’t,” Willow said, smiling.

 

“NO!” The word came out so loud, so forceful, that Willow cringed.

 

“Shhh,” she hissed. “Do you want to wake the whole house up?”

 

“Sorry,” he said, quietly this time. “It’s just…I don’t consider myself very lucky. The whole reason I went to Africa was so I could be the person Buffy needed me to be—just an average, normal man. Instead I end up just as big a freak show as before.”

 

“Buffy is strong and you wouldn’t consider her a freak show, would you?”

 

“Buffy is different. Buffy is meant to be that way.” He sighed. “Anyway, it isn’t what I think that worries me…it’s her. Do you think she’ll see this as a good thing? No. It will be just another excuse not to trust me, one more reason to keep me an arm’s length.” He grabbed Willow’s hands. “You have to help me, Willow. Make me normal.”

 

“Spike, I can’t…”

 

“Yes, you can. You’re the most powerful witch I’ve ever seen…and you’re smart…I know you can do it.”

 

Willow grinned wryly. “Flatterer,” she said. Then her face sobered. “But Spike…we don’t even know what kind of spell that demon used on you, or what kind of magic.”

 

“You’ll find out,” he said confidently. “I believe in you.” He stood up and headed for the window.

 

“But I’m not even supposed to be doing magic anymore!” she cried after him.

 

He flashed a smile. “This is different,” he said. “This is for a good cause.”

 

And even though it was against all her better judgment, Willow could not help smiling back at him.

 

“Meet me outside in ten minutes,” she told him. “I’ll need your help for this.”

******************

******************

 

 

Buffy tiptoed into the house, carefully closing the back door behind her so that it would not make any noise. The house was dark and quiet, but she didn’t want to chance waking anyone up. It was almost three a.m. and she knew that if the others knew she was out so late they would demand to know why—and after her argument with Dawn earlier she felt even less like explaining things than before.

 

Hardly daring to breathe, Buffy locked the deadbolt (flinching at the soft click it made) and turned around.

 

And she found herself face to face with her best friend.

******************

******************

 

 

 

“Willow?” she whispered, disbelieving. After taking all that care to be quiet...and still she managed to wake someone up! Someone up there was really getting off on toying with her. The again maybe not. Willow looked just as shocked to see Buffy as Buffy was to see her. She didn’t look like someone who had gotten out of bed to investigate a noise—especially since she was fully dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She was also carrying a book bag over one shoulder and a pair of white sneakers in her hand.

 

Willow’s face paled at the sight of her friend. “Uh…B—Buffy...” she stammered. “What are you doing up so late?”

 

“I’m just coming back from slaying,” Buffy told her. Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing up?”

 

“I…couldn’t sleep,” Willow said. “I thought I’d go for a walk.”

 

“A walk? Will, it’s three in the morning.”

 

“I know.” Willow looked at her feet. “But I—I can’t stay inside anymore. I need some fresh air. I’ll be okay,” she added quickly. She held up her bag. “See? I’m packing mace, holy water, and a wooden stake. Nobody in their right mind would mess with me.”

 

Buffy smiled. “All right,” she said. “You’ve convinced me. Just be careful, okay?”

 

“Will do.” Willow reached for the doorknob the stopped and turned around. “Buffy, did patrolling go okay? You’re coming in awfully late.”

 

“It went fine,” Buffy lied, “just a really busy night vamp-wise. But it went really good. Everyone died just went they were supposed to.”

 

“Oh…well…good.” Willow turned back to the door. “Good night, Buffy.”

 

“Night, Will. See you in the morning.”

 

They went their separate ways, each breathing a sigh of relief that the other had not seen through her deception.

**********************

**********************

 

 

“What took you so long?”

 

Willow gasped with surprise as Spike suddenly emerged from behind the oak tree that stood in front of Buffy’s house. “Don’t do that!” she snapped, hopping on one foot and pulling her shoe on the other one.

 

“Do what?” he asked, watching her attempt to hold her balance as she slipped her remaining shoe on her left foot.

 

“Don’t creep up on me all jungle-catty. You almost gave me a heart attack!”

 

“Oh. Sorry,” he said. “It's a force of habit." He fell into step beside her as she headed down the darkened sidewalk. “So where are we going that requires my assistance?”

 

“The Magic Box. I need you to pick the lock for me.”

 

“Oh ho,” he laughed. “Taking a walk on my side of the street, are you?”

 

She didn’t answer.

 

“So why are we doing this now?” Spike pursued. “I mean why can’t you just go in tomorrow then they open?”

 

“Are you kidding me? Do you really think they are going to let me in there after what I did? Anya probably has armed sentries stationed at the doors. We’ll have to steal the books I need and return them later.”

 

“What if they find out?” asked Spike, much impressed by her new attitude. “Odds are you won’t get off with just a slap on the wrist this time.”

 

“They won’t find out,” she replied. “If we do it right.”

 

They cut across a back street that came out right behind the Magic Box; there was less chance of being seen than on the busier main street. There was nothing on this small street but a few dilapidated houses.

 

Still, Willow was not taking any chances. She stood watch for any possible witnesses while Spike used the screwdriver on his pocketknife to jimmy the door lock. “You know it really amazes me,” he muttered, talking as he worked.

 

“What is that?”

 

“That after all the burglaries they’ve had in this place they haven’t installed some sort of security system. I mean look at these locks! Pitiful. I would think Anya would be more concerned with her merchandise than this.” He wriggled the knife in the lock, slamming his shoulder against the door at the same time. Moments later, the door swung inward.

 

Spike had to take a moment to get his bearings in the dark store, but Willow moved forward as though she knew right where she was going. “What are you doing?” he whispered to her as she moved toward the cash register. “The books are over there—” He waved his arm in their general direction.

 

“Those,” she said disdainfully, “are nothing but beginners’ books on parlor magic. The real books are kept locked up in the safe. They moved them after—” She paused.

 

“After you used them to systematically dismantle the place?” Spike suggested.

 

She smiled. “Something like that. Anyway, Anya keeps the key to the safe in here.” She motioned to the cash register. “You job is to get it out.”

 

He gazed at the old-fashioned wooden machine, thinking. After a moment’s consideration, he reached out and slammed his fist against the back of the register. Immediately, the wooden drawer popped open.

 

“Not bad,” Willow told him, reaching past him to pluck the key from the drawer. “I take it you’ve had experience at petty larceny?”

 

“It was more than just a job to me,” he said with a sigh. “It was a passion.”

 

They moved to the back of the store where the safe was kept. Within seconds, Willow had the door open and half a dozen books scattered around her.

 

“They would notice if we took them all,” she said, holding up one book and squinting to read its title in the dim light. “So I think I’ll only take the two or three that look really good. If we need any more we will have to wait until we’re done with these, then switch them out.”

 

“Sure. Right,” Spike agreed. “Only…how do you tell which ones are really good?”

 

“It’s easy,” she said, “I can feel it.”

 

“Feel what?”

 

“Feel the power that is imbued into the pages…the magic it took to create them. The really powerful dark books emit this feeling of power like you wouldn’t believe. Any seasoned witch could feel it.”

 

“I should have guessed.”

 

“Okay,” she said. “Got them.” She pushed three thick books into his arms. “Hold these while I put the others up…and go put the key back into the register.”

 

“Hold the books, Cinderella; put the key up, Cinderella,” chanted Spike as he headed for the cash register.

 

“Do the spell, Cinderella!” Willow countered, laughing at him. She shoved the remaining books into the safe, locked the door, and joined Spike out front. “You better not complain,” she said, “when you are the reason we are here in the first place.”

 

“I know, I know,” he said. “Be nice or you’ll take your broomstick and leave. I got it.”

 

She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”

 

“That’s easy,” he said, holding the door open for her. “You’re doing this because you want to see Buffy finally settled down with a nice man.”

 

“Yeah, that must be it,” she said, rolling her eyes.

 ****************

****************

 

 

“Morning, Willow,” Dawn sang as she sailed into the kitchen later that morning. She took great pains to ignore her sister as she went to the refrigerator. “You’re up early.”

 

Willow, who had gone to bed at midnight, gotten up at three, and not gone to bed since, poured herself another cup of coffee. “Couldn’t sleep in on a beautiful day like this, could I?” she asked brightly. “Besides, I have a class at nine and I want to get in some reading beforehand.” What she didn’t tell them was the “reading” she wanted to get in was not in a college textbook, but an antique volume on dark lore.

 

“Did you get up in the night?” Dawn asked, pouring herself a bowl of cereal. She made it a point not to hear Buffy’s request to pass the milk. “I thought I heard you get up.”

 

“Uh, yeah. I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk. Sorry I woke you, Dawnie. I tried to be quiet.”

 

“You didn’t wake me. I was already up.”

 

Buffy pounced on that like a dog on a bone. “What were you doing up at two o’clock in the morning on a school night?” she demanded.

 

Dawn shot her a withering look. “None your business,” she said. “And anyway…you were out until all hours yourself…without telling anyone you would be late! Giles was worried.”

 

Across the table, Giles looked up from his newspaper with surprise. “I was?”

 

“Yes,” Dawn said firmly. “I heard you talking in your sleep about it.”

 

“I doubt very much you did,” he countered, “I was sleeping across town last night. I thought you knew.”

 

“No.” Dawn looked indignant. “No one told me about that. Where were you sleeping?”

 

“With Olivia.”

 

All eyes turned to him.

 

Giles turned a very distinct shade of purple and added, “I mean…I was staying with her last night, at her hotel room. She, uh, came into town last night and I thought the only polite thing would be to—”

 

“Bump knickers?” Willow suggested.

 

“That wouldn’t be my choice of words,” Giles said. He muttered something under his breath.

 

“What did you say?” the three girls chorused.

 

“I said perhaps Willow should be more careful about what she says in the presence of children.”

 

“Hey, I am not a child!” Dawn insisted.

 

Giles turned back to his paper. “Actually, I was referring to Xander.”

 

Xander looked over from the leaky faucet he was trying to repair. “Thanks for that, Giles.”

 

“Mmm,” Giles murmured, sipping his coffee.

 

Willow pushed her chair back. “Well, I’m out of here,” she said, reaching for her book bag. “Advanced Eastern European Philosophy waits for no woman.”

 

“Thank God for that,” Xander said.

 

“Want to come with?” Willow asked Buffy. “You said you were considering returning to school next semester; I could introduce you to some of my professors.”

 

“No thanks,” Buffy replied. “I learned my lesson the last time I tried to follow you to class. If I want to audit with someone I’ll make sure it’s a person of my advanced stupidity; that way I’ll be sure to fit in.”

 

“I’ll walk with you, Willow,” Dawn said. “It’s on my way, anyway.”

 

“Are you sure you shouldn’t go with Willow?” Giles asked Buffy, as the two other girls departed. “It would be a good chance for you to pick up some information on classes, see about registration, that sort of thing.”

 

Buffy made a face. “There’s plenty of time for me to do all that,” she said. “I’ve missed late registration for fall and the spring semester doesn’t start until January. Anyway, I have something to do this morning.”

***************

***************

 

 

The door to the crypt squeaked opened, throwing a shaft of sunlight across Spike’s face. The warmth and brightness in his eyes drew him from sleep and he groaned loudly, assuming it was Willow, back for another reading session. She had already kept him up until the wee hours of dawn last night perusing the books they had taken, and he was exhausted.

 

“Oh, come on…” he moaned into his pillow. “Give a lad a few minutes rest, will you? This is inhuman.”

 

“Are you so sure about that?”

 

His eyes popped open. That wasn’t Willow’s voice.

 

Spike raised himself on one elbow cautiously, forcing himself not to get excited too soon. He rubbed his eyes, squinted in the bright light, and looked in the direction of the voice.

 

“Good morning, Spike,” Buffy said.

---

C hapter Four

 

 

“Good morning, Spike.”

 

It was amazing to him that three little words could affect him so profoundly. Three ordinary words…and he broke into a sweat, his heart pounding so hard in his chest he thought for a moment he might be having a coronary. Then again, it was not so much what she said as how she said it. For the first time since the incident in her bathroom, her tone was not hostile, and for the first time in months, her voice wasn’t condescending. As a matter of fact, she sounded almost...warm.

 

Shocked by her appearance, Spike began to stumble out of bed. Then he remembered his attire…or, rather, his lack of it. He was naked. Despite the fact she had seen him naked at least a dozen times before this, he was reluctant to let her see him so now. Not because his newfound humanity had granted him modesty or shyness, he just didn’t want to do anything else that might be construed as sexual harassment. He sat up carefully, wrapping the sheet around his midsection and draping it over his lap. It was not until he was certain his nether regions were concealed from that he finally looked at her.

 

She looked like bliss. Her hair was starting to grow out and she had brushed it back into a ponytail, which made her look impossibly young. The low-slung jeans and cropped sweatshirt revealed just a few inches of her golden-brown stomach. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but there was a delicious scent of coconut clinging to her skin and hair, and it reached his nostrils in waves. She was so beautiful that for a moment he couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to speak—or to move, or think. He just wanted to look at her.

 

Buffy shifted her weight from one foot to the other, mistaking his silence for anger. She offered him a tiny smile, asking, “So…still in the crypt, huh?”

 

“Oh,” he said, startled out of his reverie by her words. He gazed around him with a wry smile. “Well, it may not look like much…but the rent is good and the neighbors don’t make a sound.”

 

Her smile grew more genuine. “Yeah…good point.”

 

Daring a quick glance at her eyes, Spike was relieved to see she was looking every bit as uncomfortable as he felt. Uncomfortable but not angry. Good. That meant she wasn’t here to tell him off over some crime. So why was she here?

 

He decided to risk the question. “Buffy…what are you doing here?”

 

She met his gaze, held it. “Actually…I came to thank you.”

 

“Thank me?” he echoed. “What did I do?”

 

“Dawn told me how you came to her rescue last night,” Buffy explained. “She said that if it hadn’t been for you might be dead now. I…wanted to tell you how grateful I am to you for helping her.”

 

“Oh.” His heart rate dropped rapidly at this statement. He had thought she was here to make amends, to say she was wrong to doubt his love for her—maybe even to tell him she loved him, too. Needless to say, the real reason was somewhat disappointing.

 

“I also came to apologize to you,” she added.

 

His hope restored, Spike spent a difficult moment restraining his anticipation. This was it! She was finally going to admit how she felt for him! He clutched the bed sheet in one hand, working very hard at controlling himself. He wanted to reach out and grab her—he wanted to whisper in her ear that it was okay, apologies weren’t necessary. He wanted to tell her he loved her. But he didn’t. Instead, he made a strange, choking sound in the back of his throat and rasped, “Apologize?”

 

She nodded. “I…I know I’ve been really hard on you since you came back. You’ve been trying really hard to—to—”

 

“Behave?” he suggested.

 

“Yeah…and I…haven’t really helped you in that department.” She sighed. “I guess I was—and even still am—angry at you for what you did before you left.”

 

“I really am sorry for that, Buffy,” he told her quietly. “If I could take it back I would.”

 

“I know,” Buffy replied. “And…to be perfectly honest…I wasn’t entirely blameless in that, either. Maybe that was one reason why I was so angry…because I knew it was partly my fault.”

 

His eyes widened disbelievingly. “What?”

 

“Well, I don’t mean to say I think you were right to do it,” she rushed to add. “But maybe what you did is…understandable…if not exactly justifiable. I—I did some pretty rotten things to you in the few months we were…well…when we were. You have obviously forgiven me for hitting you—”

 

“And kicking me,” he added.

 

“And kicking you,” she amended.

 

“And throwing me into a wall.”

 

Her smile tightened. “And throwing you into a wall.”

 

“And leaving me trapped in a pile of rubble when the sun was up.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Buffy snapped. “I did a lot of horrible things to you! The point is that you forgave me for them!”

 

“I did.”

 

She drew a deep breath, and when she spoke again her voice was calm. “Anyway, I realized—with a little help from Dawn—that if you are willing to forgive me for all those things then I should be able to forgive you for what you did to me.”

 

“And do you?” he asked. Try as he might, he could not hide his enthusiasm at that last remark.

 

She smiled, easily picking up on his eagerness. “Yeah…I do.” Her expression sobered somewhat. “Spike…I want you to know that all those times I was so hard on you—all those times I hurt you—I didn’t mean to do it. I—I was just so…”

 

“Angry?”

 

“Angry, confused, scared…you name it. That isn’t any excuse for using you the way I did, but I…just wanted you to know.”

 

“I know,” he assured her. “And I understand. I really do.”

 

“Then do you think we could…start again? I know we’ve been through a lot, but…I don’t want you out of my life…”

 

“God, Buffy, I don’t want that either. I have nightmares about that. It’s the whole reason I went to Africa…the reason I became—” He paused, unsure of how to continue. After all, until Willow found what she was looking for in those dark arts books, he was not sure he could call himself human.

 

Buffy, unaware of this, simply looked pleased by his statement. “I can’t believe you did that,” she said. “You hate humans…you said they were…Happy Meals with legs.”

 

“I don’t hate you,” he pointed out.

 

She looked away from him, but he was almost certain he could see her blushing. “I’m glad.”

 

“You’re glad about what?”

 

She glanced at him coyly. “That you don’t hate me.”

 

“Buffy…” He reached out, grabbed her wrist. “I could never hate you. Even when I said I hated you…even when I thought I hated you…it was all just…an illusion. A mask to hide behind until I could face the truth.”

 

She closed her eyes as he brought her closer to him. “Spike…”

 

“I missed you so bad,” he murmured, his arms encircling her waist. “You can’t imagine how much I missed you…”

 

“Spike.”

 

“Shh…” he whispered, nuzzling the bare skin of her stomach. “It’s okay…you don’t have to say anything.”

 

He stood up—the sheet fell to the floor—but he didn’t notice. He didn’t notice anything except that she was in his arms and she was warm and soft and smelled like coconut. His mouth edged closer to hers, so close he could feel her warm breath against his cheek. He leaned down.

 

His lips were just touching hers when she jerked away from him, her voice firing his name like a pistol shot. “Spike!”

 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, bewildered by her very unromantic reaction to his affection.

 

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “What—what did you think—”

 

Her words were like cold water dashed on him and he began to shiver. “You…you said…”

 

“I said I wanted you in my life!” she interrupted. “I didn’t say I wanted you in my bed!”

 

Spike shook his head. “No…no wait a minute…”

 

“I can’t believe you would do this…after everything you said about being sorry!” She began backing out of the crypt.

 

“What?” He turned, grabbed a pair of jeans that was draped over a chair, and quickly began to pull them on. “B—Buffy, you can’t compare this to the other time! Y—you were telling me how you were sorry…you were smiling…”

 

“Oh, and by smiling I automatically sent you an invitation to have sex?” she asked. “I’m glad you told me—I’ll be sure not to do it again.”

 

“You hugged me!” he maintained.

 

“You hugged me first,” she retorted. Her expression softened a little when she saw his panicked expression, though she went on determinedly. “And I didn’t hug you…I just didn’t stop you from hugging me.”

 

He stared at her. This could not be happening. “Buffy, please…”

 

“I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m really not,” she told him. “But I can’t…”

 

“Why not?” he challenged. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel something for me…I held you in my arm two minutes ago and I know that isn’t the case. You have feelings for me. You wanted someone normal and—and I became normal….What other reason is there?”

 

Buffy looked at him pityingly. “Oh, don’t do this…” she said. “Don’t make me say it.”

 

“I have a right to know why you don’t want to be with me!” he persisted.

 

“I’m embarrassed of you!” she blurted out. “Okay? Happy now? I’m embarrassed to have feelings for someone like you!”

 

She might as well have hit him over the head with a mallet—he was literally that stunned. For a moment, they just stood there, staring at each other. Then:

 

“Get out.”

 

“Spike…” She reached out to touch his arm but he yanked back.

 

“Get out,” he said again. His jaw was clenched so tight he could barely get the words out. His hands were balled into tight fists—but at his sides. It took a manful effort but they stayed at his sides.

 

“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, backing away from him. “I didn’t want to tell you…”

 

“Just go—before I do something both of us regret. Just go!”

 

She turned and fled.

******************

******************

 

 

 

Xander was waiting on the front porch when Willow returned from school. He was sitting on the steps, examining something in his hand with a thoughtful frown.

 

“Sorry, but we don’t want any Girl Scout cookies,” she told him, grinning.

 

“Ha ha,” he said without laughing. “Too bad you aren’t Native American, Will. I’ve got a great name picked out for you if you were.”

 

“What is that?” she asked, moving past him up the steps.

 

“Little Smart Ass.”

 

“Huh. I would’ve gone with ‘Dances With Girls.’” She opened the door. “Are you coming in?”

 

“Yeah.” He stood up and followed her inside.

 

“How long having you been waiting out there?”

 

“About an hour. I picked up the washer we need to fix the sink.”

 

“Why didn’t you just use the key under the mat?” Willow asked, tossing her bag on the sofa and heading into the kitchen.

 

“I didn’t want to intrude,” he said.

 

She laughed. “Honestly, Xander! You practically live here…I don’t think Buffy would consider it ‘intruding’ for you to use the key to come inside. Especially since you are here to fix her sink.”

 

“I know she wouldn’t mind,” he countered. “But it’s the principle of the matter.” He began fiddling with the faucet.

 

“Where is Buffy, anyway? I thought she wasn’t working today.”

 

“She isn’t,” Willow said. “But she said she had something to do.”

 

“Slayage?” Xander asked. “Without us? I’m hurt.”

 

“I don’t think it was slayer-related,” Willow reassured him. “I think it was personal.”

 

“Man-type-personal?” he queried. “Is that what you mean? Does the Buffster have a boyfriend?”

 

“Well…”

 

“She does! I can tell from the look on your face. Who is he? And why have I not been informed of this before?”

 

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Willow said. “Not exactly. She has…”

 

“What?” he teased. “A chum? A pen pal? A sound investment portfolio?”

 

Willow laughed. “No. Look…if I tell you, do you promise you won’t get all worked up over it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Really?” she asked, delighted.

 

“No. But tell me anyway.”

 

She sighed. “All right…but don’t tell her I said anything to you about it.”

 

He crossed his heart.

 

“I think—and this is just my own personal opinion—but I think that Buffy has gone to see Spike.”

 

“What?”

 

“You promised not to get worked up,” she reminded him.

 

“No, I didn’t,” he rejoined. “And what do you mean she is with Spike? With him doing what?”

 

“I don’t know! I don’t even know if she is with him. I told you I’m not sure.”

 

“But you think she is. Why do you think she is?”

 

She shot him a boy-aren’t-you-stupid look. “Come on, Xander. You know what happened between them.”

 

“Yeah, he tried to rape her!”

 

“I mean before that. They were…involved.” She saw his baffled expression and placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Xander, you had to have been able to see it…how down she was when she found out he had left. She has feelings for him.”

 

“How could she have feelings for him?” Xander cried. “He’s—he’s evil! I don’t care if he is a human now—there are evil people, as well as evil vampires. He’s disgusting!”

 

“He isn’t evil, Xander. He is trying…and he’s changed for the better.”

 

“Spare me! That getting-a-soul stunt was just for Buffy’s benefit. He saw it as a way to get her into bed, that’s all.”

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

“Well and what makes you the expert?” Xander snapped.

 

She met his angry eyes unflinchingly. “I know a lot more than you think, Xander. Ever since Giles…ever since I took that magic from him, the magic the coven gave him…I’ve been able to feel things.”

 

“What do you mean you can ‘feel things?’?” Xander asked. “Feel things how?”

 

“I can…feel…people. When I’m with someone…I can feel what they feel…”

 

“What—are you saying you’re…psychic?”

 

“No. I can’t see the future or anything. I just…I connect with people now. If someone is hurt or lonely or angry I can feel it—feel it as though I’m going through the same things they are.”

 

“So what does that have to do with Spike?”

 

“Spike’s changed. I can feel it when I’m with him, Xander.”

 

“Oh?” He sneered. “And just what is it you feel when you are with him?”

 

“I can feel how much he loves her.”

 

Xander froze for a moment, considering. Then his brow darkened. “That is ridiculous, Willow. Buffy is being a fool if she thinks he can feel anything but lust for anyone. Look what he did with Anya while he was supposedly ‘in love’ with Buffy! Look what he tried to do to Buffy!”

 

“Xander?”

 

He sighed wearily and turned back to his repair job. “What?”

 

“Don’t say anything to Buffy about this…please.”

 

“What?” he asked. He was looking at the sink, not at Willow. “Are you afraid I’ll changed her mind?”

 

“No. I just think she should make up her own mind without influence from anyone else. She needs to decide for herself whether she loves him or not.”

******************

******************

 

 

 

“Embarrassed huh?” Spike muttered, ripping a sheet of sketching paper in half and throwing it to the floor. “Can’t let people see how she feels? I’ll show her…”

 

Buffy had gone and he was releasing all his anger at her out on his belongings. Though he no longer had a secret shrine constructed in her honor (she had not seemed too honored when she found out about it) he still had a number of sketches and poems created for her. These were not pasted to the wall surrounded by candles and surveillance pictures, but rather scattered about, on furniture and in folders. He was searching them out like a bloodhound. Seek and destroy—something he was good at.

 

“Bitch,” he whispered, crumpling a poem in his fist. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!” He was screaming now, attacking not only the stacks of paper but his furniture as well—throwing, beating, and cursing everything in his path.

 

“William, William, you haven’t changed a bit!”

 

He froze. The light laughter and feminine voice startled him both because it was unexpected and because it was familiar. Painfully familiar. He turned slowly around.

 

Anya’s friend and fellow vengeance demon, Halfrek, was standing by the open doorway of the crypt, watching him with amusement. While she normally had the countenance of all vengeance demons—full of red veins and wrinkles—now she looked like a normal person. Normal and almost pretty, dressed in a light blue dress, her hair piled on top of her head. Spike stared at her with what could only be described as intense loathing.

 

“Cecily.”

 

Halfrek laughed again. “Really, William! I have not been known as Cecily for over a century…since just after you became ‘Spike’ I suppose. Although between the two of us, I think I received the better pseudonym. I mean, really darling, Spike? It sounds so…”

 

“Cecily, did you come here just to pour salt in my wounds? Or is there an actual point to this delightful visit?”

 

“Sure.” She shrugged. “I thought you might want to talk…to reminisce about old times…but if you want to get right down to business that’s fine.”

 

“Business?”

 

“Um…duh… Vengeance demon here.”

 

“I know what you do, you stupid chit! But why on earth do you think I would be remotely interested?”

 

“Hmm…let me think…maybe because you are screaming at the top of your lungs and assaulting defenseless furniture? I mean, I could hear you all over town. You are just dying for some vengeance. So who is the woman, William?”

 

“What woman?”

 

“The one who humiliated you…the one you were crying over and calling a bitch about five minutes ago. Don’t tell me you can’t remember that.”

 

He growled under his breath. “I will tell you this once, Cecily, so you had better listen well: if you don’t haul your wise-mouthed, veiny little demon ass out that door in the next three seconds, you are going to be incredibly sorry.”

 

Halfrek threw her head back and chortled. “You can’t do anything to me, William! I am a demon!” She looked at him disdainfully. “You, however, you…are a sellout.”

 

“I’m a what?”

 

“You really haven’t changed, have you?” she asked, shaking her head sorrowfully. “You’re still that naïve little Englishman who is willing to do anything for the woman he loves. William, when are you going to learn that you cannot make yourself into something you are not? Putting on an act is not going to impress a woman who knows you for your true self. And this—” she motioned to his entire body “—is nothing but an act. You became a vampire for a woman who grew tired of you once she saw through the facade…and now you’ve become human for a woman who never wanted you in the first place. Really, I think maybe you should try to find a woman who likes you as you already are….Although that would probably be just as hard to do, at least you wouldn’t have to constantly pretend.” She sighed and rubbed her hands together. “So…let’s get down to business…”

 

Throughout Halfrek’s speech, Spike had been staring at her, thunderstruck. Now the shock was wearing off and his temper was starting to rise again.

 

“…how about a nice plague?” she asked, completely oblivious to his rage. “Everyone loves a plague…we could even do a biblical one…you know…darkness and vermin. Or maybe we could make her really ugly! You would like that, wouldn’t you, William? If she was ugly then you wouldn’t have to worry about being good enough for her…you’d be the only man who would have her.”

 

That did it.

 

Spike lunged forward, moving so quickly Halfrek was caught off guard. She did not fully realize what was happening until she saw Spike standing several feet away—holding her amulet.

 

“Hey!” she cried, grabbing her neck where the amulet had been. “Give that back!”

 

 

“Or what?” he snickered. “You’re going to cry? You can’t do anything to me without your talisman…and I have no intention of giving back.”

 

“Damn it, William! I was trying to help you!”

 

“And I thank you for it.” He held the pendant up by its broken chain, dangling it just in front of Halfrek’s nose.

 

“This is about what happened in London, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You’re holding a grudge about something that happened a hundred and twenty-two years ago!”

 

“No…” he drawled. “I’m really not….” Spike dropped the pendant to the floor and, just as Halfrek dove to retrieve it, he ground it to powder beneath his heel.

 

“I’m just tired of being everyone’s bitch.”

---

Chapter Five

 

 

“You son of a bitch!” Halfrek screamed, leaning to collect the shattered remains of her amulet. “I was trying to help you!”

 

Spike grabbed her wrist, jerking her up until she was nose-to-nose with him. “I don’t need your help, Cecily.” His voice was dangerously calm. “I never asked for your help. I never wanted your help.”

 

“You bastard!” she shrieked. “You think you got something over on me, don’t you? You think by breaking my necklace you’ve repaid me for whatever wrong you believe I’ve done to you!”

 

He looked at her incuriously. “Haven’t I?”

 

She pulled back on her arm, struggling to free herself from his grip. “You arrogant fool! Do you think D’Hoffryn would just sit by and let one of his demons suffer? I’m the best he’s got! As soon as he finds out about it he’ll give me another amulet!”

 

“Right. And then you plan to extract your revenge on me for my boorish behavior.” He paused. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Cecily, but aren’t vengeance demons barred from performing their own vengeance spells?”

 

She paled.

 

“…which would mean a vengeance demon only has the power to grant the wishes of others, not to extract revenge on their own enemies.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Spike held his finger to her lips. “No, no. Don’t argue something you know to be true. It’s a waste of time and energy.”

 

He sighed.

 

“When I think about all we’ve been through together, Cecily…all those years ago. You knew me as no one else does. You were, in a way, the catalyst in my salvation. Had it not been for your…well, rather nasty behavior to me, I might have never met Drusilla. I might never have become a vampire without you. I suppose I owe you a lot in that respect.”

 

He smiled at her.

 

“And I always repay my debts.”

*************

*************

 

 

 

Buffy could not believe the nerve of him. Was there no tender moment Spike would ruin with his obsession? She had gone to him to make amends, to apologize to him for being so hard on him. Now she realized she hadn’t been hard enough. Despite everything, she had said to him—things she said a dozen times or more—he still believed they would end up together. She had not wanted to tell him such harsh things; she had wanted to go to him as a friend, to talk to him as a friend would. She wanted him to understand, finally, that she loved him…but only as a friend. And of course, he would not allow that. He had to misunderstand everything and argue with everything she said. He had to make her hurt him when it was the last thing she wanted to do.

 

Buffy quickened her pace when she saw the sign for the city park. She wasn’t ready to go home yet, and she did not feel comfortable hanging around the graveyard when Spike was in one of his black moods. She scowled. Of course, when was he not in one of his black moods these days? He was like a child, throwing a tantrum whenever he was told he couldn’t have something he wanted. She had thought that it was the lack of a soul that made him so stubborn, so utterly lacking in self-control, but that did not seem to be the case. After all, he had a soul now…and he was just as willful, just as uninhibited, as he had ever been.

 

Had Angel ever been like this? She didn’t think so. Angel had always been concerned over her feelings; it had been his idea to keep their relationship platonic when he realized how dangerous a sexual relationship could be. He was willing to banish himself from Sunnydale—willing to separate himself from all he knew—just to keep her safe. He had never thrown childish tantrums and cried for something he knew he couldn’t have. He had always been selfless, generous. Why couldn’t Spike be the same way? He was a hundred and twenty-two years old, for heaven’s sake. He should be a little more mature than this.

 

And since Spike wasn’t the same way, why did Buffy love him so much?

 

She wrinkled her nose a bit at this last thought. Loving him was so distasteful an emotion she had a hard time admitting it even to herself. Not because he was a vampire. If he had been the least bit like Angel, she would not have minded the demon bit half so much. Angel was good and noble. Loving him had been painful for her, but it was still a reasonable kind of love. Spike, however… There was nothing good in him! How could she love something that had no redeeming qualities? Something that was evil and…icky? She couldn’t. That was all. She just couldn’t.

 

Buffy set her jaw in determination, hardening her heart against the pangs of guilt as she thought of Spike’s wounded expression. She could not afford to think about this in terms of his feelings. She had to think about what was best for her…and loving him was not good for her at all.

 

So she wouldn’t do it anymore.

****************

****************

 

 

 

How?

 

The thought throbbed in his head, keeping in time perfectly with the thumping of his heart, the pounding of his feet against the soft, well-kept grass of the cemetery.

 

How…how could someone live through pain like this?

 

His chest felt like a gaping wound—each step, each breath, each beat further ravaging the already bleeding mess that was once his soul.

 

His soul.

 

Fuck that. What was it about a soul that made you better? What? A soul was nothing but a weapon for your enemies, a blade you carried that could be turned on you in a moment of weakness. The feelings he had were the same as before, only more intense. The instincts were the same, only tempered with guilt. He was the same bloody person as before! Nothing had changed except that now he was alive and wished he weren’t. Same trappings, different cage. It seemed no matter how long he lived or where or with whom; he would always be the same person inside. The same awkward, unlovable William. Cecily had been right. He had not changed at all.

 

A slight smile, completely devoid of humor, tugged at the corners of his lips. Cecily was wrong, however, to assume he would merely stand by and bear her insults. The old William might have done it—the old William had done it more than once before. But Spike—who was essentially William of another time and place—did not. He bore Buffy’s abuse with fair good grace because he loved her. And in a way, he needed the abuse. Pain was a part of loving; Dru had taught him that and he knew it to be true. But he didn’t love Cecily. Not anymore. Not for a long, long time. And he didn’t need her abuse. That was something different, at least. William had been content to take abuse from everybody…Spike was not. And unlike William, Spike was not content to keep his pain to himself. When he was hurting, he made those around him hurt too—another lesson Cecily had learned the hard way.

 

The breaking of the pendant was supposed to have been his revenge. But it had not left him satisfied. If anything, it had simply fed his rage, made him want to hurt her even more. So he did. For the first time in his existence—in this form or any other—he had allowed himself the luxury of losing complete control with a woman. He had not killed her; though if he had wanted to Spike knew nothing would have stopped him from doing so. But he didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to humiliate her the way she had humiliated him so long ago—the way she tried to do again today. He backhanded her when she screamed at him for breaking her necklace, knocking her to the floor. When she lay there crying, he pulled her up by the hair, pushed her into the wall.

 

“Here—take your sodding pendant”—shoving the broken shards into her palm until both their hands were cut and bleeding.

 

He could have killed her, but the humiliation was what he wanted. It was enough.

He threw her out of the crypt and into the dirt where she belonged. Then he stepped over and walked away, leaving her in a crumpled heap, crying over her bleeding hand.

 

Spike’s own lacerated palm began to sting, drawing him out of his reverie. The moment’s satisfaction gained in his memory fled, leaving only the intense pain that seemed to characterize human existence. The anguish of this night was so reminiscent of his last night as a human he could almost expect Drusilla to come out of the shadows to deliver him from his hell. She didn’t of course. She wouldn’t. It was up to Spike to deliver himself this time.

 

And he knew just where to start.

****************

****************

 

 

 

Willow was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, one of Giles’ dark arts books propped open on her knees. She felt better than she had in weeks. School was going well, the Scoobies were treating her more normally, and the pain of Tara’s death was beginning to ease. She still missed her—she would always miss her—but now the grief had diminished enough for her to focus on her memories instead of brooding over the tragic circumstances of Tara’s death. She was finally able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour at night—no lying awake, worrying. And no more nightmares.

 

Of course, she did experience occasional pangs of guilt over helping Spike. Tara would not have liked her returning to magic. Nor would she have approved of taking the books from the Magic Box, even if they were planning to return them. However, even the memory of Tara could not waylay Willow’s determination to help Spike. She wasn’t sure why she felt so emotionally invested in this. Perhaps it was merely a wish to return recent kindnesses. More likely, it was a desire to heal old wounds that drove her. Spike had made some serious mistakes…but then again so had she. Willow felt that if she deserved a second chance at life then so did he. Despite all the things he had done to imply otherwise, Willow knew Spike did love Buffy and she knew Buffy returned his feelings. Though she was not exactly approving of the match she was determined to help get them together because it was obvious, it was what both of them wanted—even if one of them did not know it yet.

 

Willow was musing the best way to achieve this when her bedroom door swung open suddenly—so suddenly that it crashed against the wall and bounced back, almost closing again. It would have closed had Spike not moved forward, blocking it with his body.

 

“Okay, new plan,” he said, pushing his way into the room.

 

Willow gasped. She was startled not just by his abrupt entrance, but also by the drastic change she sensed in him. Since his return from Africa Spike had been gentle—wounded, angry sometimes, and frustrated, but gentle. Now, however, his aura was reeking of anger. She could taste his hate, his need for vengeance almost as though it were her own. Indeed, it was strangely evocative of her rage the on day Tara died and in the night immediately following it. For just as strong as his anger—though buried so deep it was hard to find—was the same raw pain she had felt. She looked at him with pity. Obviously, the meeting with Buffy had not gone as she had hoped it would.

 

“New plan?” she asked him lightly. She patted the area of carpet next to where she was sitting, inviting him to sit down beside her; but he ignored her and continued to pace around the room like a caged animal.

 

“Where are they?” he asked.

 

“Giles is at the Magic Box, Dawn is still at school. Buffy…” Willow hesitated, unsure of how to go on.

 

“Buffy what?” Spike demanded.

 

“Buffy never came back from her visit with you.” She was eyeing his bleeding hand as she spoke, but Spike did not see it. He was too busy processing what she had just told him.

 

His eyes widened. “She told you she was coming to see me?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then how did you know?”

 

Willow shrugged. “She’s my best friend. I just know.”

 

Spike nodded as though this made perfect sense. His eyes darted around the room in an agitated manner. When they landed on the book Willow held open in her hands, he sneered.

 

“Forget these,” he said, taking the book from her. “Nuts to these.” He threw the book against the wall so hard the spine broke, throwing a shower of pages in every direction.

 

“Spike!” Willow jumped up to retrieve the book and scattered pages. “How could you do that? This book is an antique…and you know we have to return it to the Magic Box.”

 

Spike grabbed her shoulders so suddenly she dropped the armful of pages. “Don’t you get it?” he asked, wild-eyed. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter!”

 

He pushed her away from him with an impatient gesture and Willow asked, “What doesn’t matter, Spike?”

 

“This!” He gave the already battered book a vicious kick that sent it skidding across the carpet. “It doesn’t matter what we do…it doesn’t matter how well or how poorly the African spell worked. She doesn’t care. She won’t change. She will always see me as a monster, a thing, something to be embarrassed of.” He turned to her.

 

“Help me, Willow.”

 

“Help you do what?” she asked, nonplussed by his jumbled words. “What did you mean by ‘new plan’?”

 

“Willow,” he said, and his voice was almost frighteningly intense. “She doesn’t love me—she won’t let herself love me. She says I’m an embarrassment to her. Even at my best, I’m an embarrassment to her.”

 

Willow drew a sharp breath, hardly believing her best friend could be so cruel. “Spike…”

 

“So obviously it no longer matters whether that spell went right or not,” Spike went on restlessly. “But I have a new plan.”

 

The look of solid determination in his eyes chilled the pit of Willow’s stomach. She spoke to him slowly. “What is your new plan, Spike?”

 

“I want you to perform a love spell for me.”

 

“Spike, you know I can’t do that.”

 

“Yes, you bloody well can!” he shouted. “If you can dismantle a building brick by brick then you can do a ruddy love spell!”

 

“Well I’m not going to,” she shot back. “I shouldn’t be doing magic at all…and this spell….Spike it not only is completely unethical but it can also be very dangerous. If I got just one of the ingredients wrong or mispronounced a single word I could completely mess up her range of emotions.”

 

“Unethical?” Spike echoed in disbelief. “Wait a minute…so skinning a man alive is okay in your book, but casting a love spell is ‘unethical’?”

 

“Spike, listen to what I am saying! It’s dangerous! It’s messing with someone’s private thoughts, feelings, and desires…The odds of success in something like that is slim to nil. Even if I got the spell to work, it might last only temporarily. Or it might be cast to strong and she would end up obsessed with you. Do you want to risk that? Do want to risk her being permanently damaged?”

 

“There must be something you can do!” he yelled. “You have to have some sort of little last resort spell stored away for a situation like this….Don’t you?”

 

“Spike there is nothing I can do!” she insisted. “I know you are hurting right now, but I cannot make Buffy feel something she doesn’t—or doesn’t want to—feel.” She sighed. “Look. Just give me some time with the books. I’ve almost figured out this spell that was performed on you in Africa, and when I do, we will go from there, all right? Just be patient.”

 

“Bugger that,” he said, pulling the door open. “I’m sick of being patient.”

**************

**************

 

 

 

Anya regarded him uneasily. Even with the safety of the counter separating them, she felt uncomfortable having Spike prowling the Magic Box. She knew what would happen if Giles was to suddenly return from lunch to find Spike there. She knew what he would think. And, fear of being caught aside, Spike’s very behavior was dubious. He had never seemed overly interested in the Magic Box before; the only time Anya had known him to set foot in it voluntarily was to be near Buffy. Or to steal something.

 

Her eyes narrowed. She’d be damned if she would let him take anything from her. She worked hard for what she had; it was bad enough to find out Dawn had been robbing the place blind. She didn’t need that from Spike too. She watched suspiciously as he skulked around the shop, picking up this and reading the label of that.

 

“Do you need help finding anything?” she asked sweetly.

 

He glanced at her. “Did I ask for anything?”

 

His frank displeasure at her interest irked her. This was her store, after all. “I was just wondering how much longer you would be pacing the floor, touching everything,” she retorted. She looked disapprovingly at the item he held in his hand. “You’re getting fingerprints on the barrier crystal.”

 

“God forbid I do that,” he said, placing the crystal back on the shelf. He shot her a meaningful look. “Don’t hang around on my account; I’m doing well on my own. So if you have an inventory to catalogue or a restroom to clean feel free to do so.”

 

“No,” she said. “I’m fine right here.”

 

He scowled at her. “Good then.”

 

Seeing that he was not going to be left to his own devices anytime soon, Spike dropped the act and marched over to the book section. If she saw him, she saw him. Who was she going to tell, anyway? After what had happened between the two of them, Spike knew Anya would not be anger to bring up his name to her friends. It would be like reminding them of her indiscretion.

 

He could feel her eyes on him as he pulled the Advanced Book of Spells from the shelf and began thumbing through it.

 

“Hey, this isn’t a library!” she said.

 

He shot her an indignant look. “I’m going to buy it! I just need to see what else I need.”

 

Anya looked uncomfortable. “You’re planning to do a spell?”

 

He snapped the book shut. “Did I say that?”

 

“Well you are planning to buy a book of spells,” she said, “so I would assume…”

 

“Don’t assume,” he said, moving on to the herb section.

 

“What spell?” Anya persisted, leaning her elbows on the counter and watching him.

 

“None of your business!”

 

“…because if you are planning to use it on Buffy, I might have a suggestion for you.”

*************

*************

 

 

 

He stared at her suspiciously. “Why would you want to help me?”

 

She shrugged. “I’m not trying to be your hero or anything. It’s my job to be helpful.”

 

He considered this. She was right; it was her job to be helpful to the clientele. Of course, it made it all a bit strange, her wanting to help him cast a spell on one of her friends; but maybe money was the bottom line. Anya was a levelheaded girl, smart enough to realize that everything was expendable when it came to cash, even friends. He smiled, pleased. Anya was easy to understand. It was a nice change from Buffy, who he never understood and Willow, who rarely understood him. Maybe it was a demon thing.

 

He dropped his selections on the counter. “What is your suggestion?”

 

“Well, for one thing, you’re getting a book of spells that is way too advanced for you. No offense or anything, but you aren’t exactly educated in that department. If you try to cast a spell on Buffy using that book, you’re going to end up mutating her or sending her to another dimension. You should try The Beginner Book of Spells; it’s much easier to understand.”

 

Spike frowned. “But the spell I want is in this book.”

 

“That’s another thing. Why do you want to cast a love spell on someone who might very well already care for you?”

 

“Because she won’t care about me! No matter what she feels for me, nothing will override her distaste for me. She’ll never let herself love me.”

 

“Use a candor spell.”

 

“What’s that?” he asked.

 

“It’s a spell to make people say and do things they wouldn’t normally do. It doesn’t create feelings…it just lowers a person’s inhibition so he or she will admit to feelings they are keeping secret or do things they are afraid of doing. It’s sort of like alcohol…only it lasts longer and doesn’t make you sick afterwards. It’s a fairly simple spell, almost no chance you could hurt her if you screw it up.”

 

His eyes lit up. “That sounds perfect. Thanks, Anya.”

 

“Oh, don’t thank me,” she said. “The ingredients for the candor spell are more expensive, so I’ll be making more money if you use it.”

*************

*************

 

 

 

By the time he had lugged his purchases home half an hour later, he was having second thoughts. This always happened to him. He was too impulsive when he was angry. It made him do—or almost do—stupid things which he later regretted. The initial pain and anger of his encounter with Buffy was beginning to fade, leaving him with an uncertainty that this was perhaps not the right thing to do. If she found out he had done the spell, Spike knew Buffy would probably never speak to him again. On the other hand, if he did the spell, he would finally get to hear what her real feelings for him were. It was a tough choice, especially in light of Willow’s Tabula Rasa spell, which had gone awry and left everybody pissed off. Spike didn’t want to repeat that disaster.

 

He compromised by telling himself he would sleep on it. If it still seemed like a good idea in the morning then he would have to assume it wasn’t (too) awful a thing to do. If, however, it seemed like a completely horrible plan, he would utilize the Magic Box’s fourteen-day return policy. If he was still undecided then he could always flip a coin to see which it would be. This was probably not the best way to decide things, but given his state of mind at the moment, it was the best he could do.

 

Pleased with himself for making a decision, Spike crossed the last few feet to his crypt quickly. He was surprised to find that the door was ajar, but he wasn’t overly concerned. It was probably some stunt of Halfrek’s to get him back for breaking her amulet. He pushed the door open wider and stepped inside.

 

The first thing he saw was Clem. The droopy faced demon was standing directly across from him, only a few feet from the doorway. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss, but when Spike looked again he could see that one of Clem’s floppy ears was torn and bleeding. There were several smaller lacerations on his face and arms, and his face was drawn tight (or as tight as it could be) with worry.

 

“Spike…” he began without a trace of his distinctive joviality.

 

Spike’s eyes, now fully adjusted to the dim light, could clearly make out several other creatures in the crypt. At least thirty demons of various origins were standing behind Clem, staring at him with cold eyes. One of them was the vampire he had rescued Dawn from the night before. Spike knew what was about to happen and his eyes never left the vampire’s face, though he forced himself to pay attention to Clem’s words.

 

“…I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

---

Chapter Six

 

 

Spike’s gaze moved from the vampire to Clem with deceptive slowness. If there was one thing he was certain of in life, it was that demons loved the smell of fear. Blood was the sustenance of a vampire, but fear was an indulgence, a stimulant of pleasure. He should know. He had gotten his rocks off on it for over a century. Spike wasn’t afraid of being killed and fed upon, but he would be damned if he was going to let himself become some worthless bloodsucker’s wet dream. He forced his eyes to remain insolent, his body slack, letting the group of demons know just how unworthy of his time he considered them.

 

Except Clem.

 

He met Clem’s anxious eyes and his own hardened. “You did this. You told them.”

 

Clem started to shake his head, beads of blood spattering from his shredded ear. “Spike, I didn’t—”

 

“Did you think you could keep it a secret?” the young vampire asked sarcastically. “Did you think I couldn’t see it in the way you fought, that I wouldn’t notice the lack of game face? It was obvious! You reek of it…humanity.”

 

Spike glanced at the vampire as though he were too insignificant to concern himself over. “Yet I still kicked your ass, didn’t I?”

 

Another demon, one Spike recognized from his late-night kitten poker, stepped forward. “Still a smart ass, aren’t you, Spike?” he sneered. “You killed our kind—even when you were one of us. We couldn’t fight back then. You were too strong, too knowledgeable of what hurt…but not now. Now you are one of them. A gutless, mindless mass of flesh. You can’t hurt us anymore.”

 

Spike said, “Wanna bet?”

 

He swung his leg out in a lightening-fast roundhouse kick, his boot connecting neatly with the demon’s jaw. There was a crack of bone—the demon flew backward against the wall of the crypt. He didn’t get up.

 

“All right, mates,” Spike said. He was panting—more from the stress of being here than the physical exertion of battle. “You blokes want to brawl you better line up…’cause I don’t have all bloody night.”

 

He spoke calmly, but all the while, his eyes were darting about the crypt, searching vainly for something that could be used as a weapon. Unfortunately, most of his furniture and belongings were blocked from him by the hoard of demons. The only thing within his reach was the bag of supplies from the Magic Box. He had dropped it during his brief skirmish with the demon, but it lay at his feet, the contents just spilling out of their brown paper wrapper.

 

He thought fast. There were too many of them. There was no way he could face them alone and win. He had to get away. Yet if he ran now he knew they would be on him in seconds, ripping him apart like a pack of wolves on a deer. He had to stall them—he had to get at least a few seconds gain on them. The only thing in the Magic Box bag was herbs, candles, and the Beginners Book of Spells. Not much in the way of weaponry, but he would have to make it do.

 

Keeping one eye on the group, he reached down and grabbed the book. His first aim was to get rid of that pesky vampire—the little bastard seemed to have gained quite a bit of self confidence since their last battle, being the leader of the group and all. Spike knew the vamp wasn’t a cunning fighter, but he was the ringleader of this and he called the shots. Without him, the mob would be uncoordinated, useless. Taking out the vampire would give him the few moments he needed to get away. So he threw the book at the vampire’s head, the corner of the heavy volume catching the vamp square in his right eye.

 

“Son of a bitch!” the vampire screamed, momentarily thrown by the pain. The force behind Spike’s throw shocked him—a normal mortal would not have been able to hurt him so much.

 

Knowing he had just a matter of seconds before his enemy recovered, Spike pulled out his cigarette lighter, ignited it, and darted in. The tiny flame caught on the vampire’s rather longish hair and licked upwards, setting the whole crew of demons shrieking with surprise and fear. Lucky for Spike he hadn’t been mistaken in assuming they weren’t a well-organized group. While they were carrying on over their sizzling leader, he managed to dash out the door and into the night.

 

Still, even despite the lack of order in the group, Spike did not have a very good head start. There were enough of them lacking in loyalty to their leader and heavy with hate of Spike to pursue him rather closely. He had just a nanosecond’s lead at the very most; they were so close he could hear one of them breathing heavily just behind his ear. Several times, he felt a finger brush against his back. He grabbed at a low-hanging branch and pulled himself up by it, swinging outward from the limb like a trapeze artist to kick the two demons closest to him in the chest. They fell back and he jumped down, swerving sharply to the right to avoid a group of three more who were rapidly closing in. He had no idea where he was going—even if he made it to a private home, most of these demons were not bound by the constraints of needing a formal invitation to enter. He couldn’t go to Buffy’s and put them all in danger. He couldn’t go to the Magic Box; it was closed by now. His only chance was to lose them.

 

More of them were coming. He could hear a dozen more feet pounding the hard-packed earth behind him. Someone grabbed at the back of his leather trench, almost pulling him down. He quickly shrugged out of the garment and continued running. He tried every trick he could think of to throw them off. He backtracked, jumped tombstones, and climbed the cemetery fence twice; yet despite all his efforts, he still could not lose them. He was simply too unaccustomed at being the prey to be adept at evasion. Until just a few weeks ago, the only thing he had to worry about eluding was direct sunlight and Buffy’s wrath.

 

His motorcycle was hidden in the woods about a quarter of a mile south of the cemetery. If he could get to it—and with enough time to crank it before they were on him—he knew he would have a good chance of getting away. He was loath to try it—gaining enough ground to be able to fire up the bike was going to be damn near impossible, and the demons would have an advantage over him in the forest. They could track by scent as well as sight, while he would be running blindly, having no idea where they were. Yet he could see no other way out for him. He had to try to reach the motorcycle.

 

Without looking, he knew that the demon nearest to him was about to pounce. He could hear the change of gait, the strained breathing, that meant the demon was putting all his effort into one powerful leap—a leap that was meant to knock Spike to the ground. Spike didn’t glance back over his shoulder; it would only slow him down. He relied on his keen ears and the survival instinct that was pulling his muscles so taught he could practically feel what was going on behind him. Just as the demon moved to pounce, Spike bent down. He did not stop running, did not in any way allow himself to break stride as he leaned low to the ground, so that the demon flew neatly over his head and into the dirt. Spike leapt over him.

 

He was almost there. The dense growth of trees was just ahead of him now, no further away than a hundred yards. He had to get the lead out. He had to get a better lead on them. A sudden rush of adrenaline provided him with the burst of speed he needed. He bounded out ahead of them, driving for the trees. Just a few more feet…

 

Suddenly something—a root or a fallen branch—caught his foot, throwing him down. Spike dropped face-first onto the ground, completely losing whatever small gain he had on them. He tried to get up, but the toe of his boot was wedged beneath a thick tree root, trapping him.

 

“Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered, trying to wrench his foot free. He glanced up.

 

There was the briefest glimpse of the advancing throng…then they fell upon him.

 

And there was nothing at all.

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

Hours later than she intended to, Willow was still poring over her dark arts books. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, exactly as she had been hours earlier when Spike had barged in. The house was nice and quiet and, even despite the temper tantrum Spike had thrown earlier, she felt at peace. She could read Spike like a book—she knew he wouldn’t really cast a spell on Buffy. He was angry and, as was usual when he was angry, he was behaving foolishly. But she could feel that beneath all his hurt and resentment his intentions were good. He might have gone so far as to purchase the ingredients to the spell but he would never follow through on it. Willow wasn’t worried about that at all.

 

She was, however, quite eager over what she had found in the third and last of her stolen books. It was the only book that listed the demon Spike had described having visited in Africa, and it was the only one that mentioned the kind of spell that had been used on Spike. The details, while not abundant, were still generous enough for her to figure out what had happened, what had gone wrong. She wasn’t sure yet; she would need more research on the subject of vampires themselves to know for certain. But she was confident that she was on the right track. Finally.

 

She was about to reward herself for figuring this out with an ice cream break when it happened. A pain like she had never known ripped through her body. Her back arched and her neck lolled back as she screamed, first in agony, then with fear as well.

 

She was dying.

***************

***************

 

 

 

Buffy had just stepped into the door when Dawn flew into the kitchen to meet her.

 

“Buffy, thank God you’re home!” she gasped, grabbing her sister’s arm.

 

Buffy felt a jolt of sudden fear. Dawn had not spoken voluntarily since their argument in the graveyard, for her to meet Buffy at the door so eagerly meant there was something seriously wrong.

 

“What is it?” she asked, grabbing Dawn’s arm. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

 

“I—I—it’s Willow,” Dawn stammered, fear threatening to tie her tongue completely. “S—she isn’t…normal.”

 

“What do you mean ‘she isn’t normal’?” Buffy asked. “What is wrong with her?”

 

“She—she’s just lying on the floor, screaming. She’s been that way for half an hour or more. She says they’re killing her.”

 

“Who is killing her?”

 

“She won’t say.” Dawn met Buffy’s eyes with the first sign of sisterly solidarity in days. “She isn’t making any sense at all, Buffy. I—I think she may have nutted up or something.”

 

“Calm down,” Buffy ordered as Dawn began to shiver. “You have to stay calm, Dawn. Go call Giles and give him the lowdown on what is going on. I’ll go up and see to Willow.”

 

Dawn nodded. “Giles, right. I’ll call him right now.” She reached for the phone.

 

Buffy left the room. She paused at the staircase in the foyer, yelling to Dawn, who was still in the kitchen. “Dawn?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Call Xander too. Tell him to hurry.”

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

Spike threw his head back and screamed.

 

He was lying in the dank warehouse that served as base for a dozen or more vampires. His hands were bound by a dirty rope that was wound around an old radiator, pinning his arms behind his back. Most of the other demons had departed when he had been caught, satisfied that he was in good hands. The vampire that had attacked Dawn two nights before—and who Spike had set alight less than two hours ago—was standing over Spike.

 

The vampire—Nikolai—was holding a lit cigarette in his hand and smiling. “Still feel better than the rest of us?” he asked. He held the tip of his cigarette against Spike’s shoulder. There was a sizzling sound, followed by the sickening odor of burning flesh.

 

“Motherfucker!” Spike’s cry of pain was so loud the windows of the warehouse rattled. He jerked his arms and kicked his legs out, struggling to get away. All he got for his pains was a soft chuckle from his tormentor.

 

“See…those fools wanted to kill you,” Nikolai confided, jerking his head to the group of vampires who stood some distance away, watching. “But I knew this would be much more fun. An apt punishment for a dog that turns on the pack, don’t you think?” He pushed the cigarette in even harder, crushing it into the open burn on Spike’s shoulder.

 

His face contorted with agony, Spike muttered something under his breath.

 

“What did you say?” Nikolai asked, leaning nearer to Spike’s lips.

 

Spike spat into the vampire’s yellow eye, causing him to curse and cry out in anger. “I said sod of.”

 

Nikolai bared his fangs, hissing. “You think I don’t know what you are doing?” he demanded. “You think if you piss me off then I’ll haul off and kill you—but it won’t happen that way.” He smiled. “I’m going to have fun with you a little first.”

 

Reaching behind him, Nikolai withdrew a weapon that had been hidden on the shelf at his back. A wire coat hanger that had been pulled out straight and then doubled over. Nikolai whipped the hanger just under Spike’s chin, using it to push Spike’s head up so Nikolai could look into his eyes. “Bad dogs have to get spankings,” he said softly. “It’s the only way to train them up right.”

 

Spike closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see what was coming.

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

Willow wailed like a banshee, rolling around on the floor as one possessed. “Oh God,” she panted. “No!”

 

“Willow, what is wrong?” Buffy asked desperately. “No what?”

 

“He—he’s got a—a metal rod,” she moaned. “No! Not again—no!” Her body jerked upward as if receiving a blow.

 

“Nonononononononononononononono!” she screamed.

 

Xander grabbed Willow’s shoulders. “Will, stop it!” he told her. “No one has anything. No one is going to hurt you. Just stop it!” He shook her shoulders so hard her teeth rattled in her head. But she didn’t stop screaming.

 

Giles, who had been standing quietly up until this point, strode forward and dragged Xander off Willow. “Don’t be a fool,” he said shortly. “That won’t help. She isn’t delusional.”

 

“Oh no?” Xander asked sarcastically. He nodded to Willow, who was rocking back and forth, moaning. “You say that isn’t delusional?”

 

“She’s channeling.”

 

The three of them—Xander, Buffy, and Dawn—all gaped at Giles in disbelief.

 

“Who is she channeling?” Dawn was the first to ask.

 

“Or what?” Xander added.

 

Giles shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. She hasn’t given any real clues.” He knelt close to Willow’s prostrate form. “Willow, who do you see? Who is telling you this?”

 

“No,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “Not telling…not telling or showing. I feel it. We are connected, he and I. He isn’t here—only his pain.” She groaned again. “Only his fear.”

 

“Who is he?”

 

“…being punished for his transgressions.” Willow spoke as though she had not heard Giles’ question. “Only not a transgression…maybe a regression?”

 

“Willow, who is it?” Giles pressed. “Tell us so we can help him—and you.”

 

Willow laughed. “Help him? He is the outcast, the loafer wolf in a forest of packs. He came to us for acceptance and was driven back. Do you see? And they wouldn’t have him back…they know now. They know what he did. They know what he is.”

 

“What is he, Willow?”

 

“A little bit of both.”

 

Giles opened his mouth as though to ask another question, but before he could, Willow raised herself onto her knees, leaned her head over, and began gagging. “Can’t breathe!” she gasped, coughing and retching. She clawed at her throat desperately. “I can’t breathe!”

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

He couldn’t breathe.

 

Having grown tired of whipping him, Nikolai had pulled the lace out of Spike’s own boot and used it as a garrote, wrapping it around his throat and holding it taut. Breathing was still an alien sensation to Spike and this…. He had never experience the desire to drink oxygen without the ability to do so; it was a terrifying feeling.

 

He thrashed and kicked, fighting his bonds as well as the abuse. His vision began to fog, the outer edges of his sight blackening.

 

I’m going to die, he thought. I’m going to die with her hating me.

 

But he didn’t. Just as he began to slump into unconsciousness Nikolai removed the garrote. Spike gulped for air greedily. He was so relieved to feel oxygen in his lungs he barely noticed the stinging wound on his throat where the shoelace cut into him.

 

Nikolai watched Spike gasping air without emotion. “Drink up,” he said. “Plenty more where that came from.”

 

And Spike knew he didn’t mean the oxygen.

*******************

*******************

 

 

 

Willow swayed unsteadily on her knees, her hands at her throat. She was panting like a landed fish, but at least she was breathing.

 

Buffy watched her friend with growing alarm. Somewhere deep inside of her a thought, a fear, was beginning to take seed and grow. It swelled up in her stomach, climbing like a vine out of her throat and into her mouth. “Willow…” she murmured, half afraid of her own question—but she was even more afraid not to ask it. “It’s Spike, isn’t it?”

 

The room seemed to grow very quiet. Everyone, even Willow, paused to look at Buffy in surprise.

 

Buffy shifted uncomfortably. “Y—you said it was someone who didn’t fit in anywhere…Spike doesn’t fit in. Is it him, Willow?”

 

Willow looked at her glassy-eyed. “Got it in one,” she said.

 

Then she collapsed.

---

Chapter Seven

 

 

“Willow!”

 

Xander darted forward to catch his friend before she fell. He was not quick enough; her body thumped to the floor heavily. Her eyes were open but rolled halfway back into her head. The little bit of iris that was still visible was glazed over, unseeing.

 

Xander cradled his friend’s head in his arms, gazing up at Giles with a mixture of accusation and panic. “You know what is causing this!” he said angrily. “Make it stop!”

 

His calm manner vanishing completely, Giles snapped back: “Am I always to be the hero in this group? Am I the only one to know anything? I don’t know what is causing this—I know she is channeling, but I have no idea why. She said herself that she is connected to Spike, but I don’t know how. How should I know how to stop it?”

 

“It wasn’t until you gave her that coven’s magic that she started acting this way!” Xander retorted.  “Willow told me…she said ever since that night she had been able to feel things that other people feel…to know their thoughts. Now she’s in pain because of something stupid Spike has done to himself—and it is your fault!”

 

“My fault?” Giles repeated, his face reddening with anger. “Xander, might I remind you why I had to give Willow that magic? Had I not done that to tap into her humanity she would probably have destroyed Sunnydale and everyone in it! If the only side affect is that Willow now feels too much then that is but a small price to pay!”

 

“We have to do something,” Xander insisted. “This is killing her!”

 

“Stop it! Stop it!” Buffy shouted, hands over her ears. The other two stopped arguing and stared at her.

 

“We don’t have time to argue. We need to figure out how to stop this. We have to help Spike.”

 

There was a silence. Xander and Giles were looking at Buffy with something akin to shock. Dawn looked pleased. But no one said anything.

 

Buffy chewed on her lip, made uneasy by the quiet. She struggled to justify her words to her friends. “Obviously something is happening to Spike and for whatever reason Willow is feeling the pain he is going through. The quickest way to save her from that would be to save Spike from whatever he is going through…right?”

 

“What?” Xander’s tone let Buffy know just how ludicrous he thought her plan was. “Help Spike? Are you stupid, Buffy or just temporarily insane? He’s a rapist, a killer! The sooner we are rid of him the better! I would think you of all people would understand that!” He sneered. “But maybe you are too blinded by his monstrous good looks to see anything anymore.”

 

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, Xander,” she warned.

 

“No!” he snarled. “You are acting like a fool and it is time someone pointed it out! You sleep with that—that thing for months on end…and when you finally get up the guts enough to end it he tries to rape you. Now your best friend is lying on the floor in agony and your first thought is ‘we have to help Spike?’ Where are you priorities?

 

“Xander…”

 

“Never mind,” he interrupted her. “I don’t have to ask—I know what takes precedence with you. Whoring around with that walking corpse is all you care about.” He snickered slightly. “Maybe I was wrong about Spike. Maybe it wasn’t rape after all—maybe you asked for it. Maybe you liked it.”

 

Buffy slapped Xander so hard his head rocked to one side. “SHUT UP!” she screamed.

 

Giles grabbed Xander’s arm, preventing the other man from retaliating to Buffy’s attack. “Stop it, Xander! I know you’re worried about Willow, but you aren’t helping anyone by acting this way!”

 

Xander made motions to speak again, but before he could, Dawn grabbed Buffy’s arm. “I’ll help you, Buffy. Just tell me what to do.”

 

Buffy smiled weakly at her younger sister. She shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts enough to formulate a plan. “We’ll check his crypt first,” she said. “He probably isn’t there, but maybe we can find some clue as to what happened.”

 

“Buffy?” Giles stepped forward. “I’ll go with you. Who knows who—or what—you may be facing.”

 

“Fine. You can check his usual haunts—the Bronze, that sleazy demon bar he likes, Clem’s.… Dawn and I will look in the cemetery. We can meet back at his crypt afterward to compare notes,” said Buffy. She shot Xander a cold glance. “You stay here and look after Willow.”

 

“And if something goes wrong?” Xander asked, somewhat subdued.

 

“Do the best you can to keep that from happening,” Buffy said simply. She nodded at Dawn encouragingly. “Run get the weapons.”

 

She waited until Dawn had left the room then turned to the two men. “I’m only going to say this once,” she told them quietly, “so I’m going to be very clear. If either one of you tries to hide anything from me or stop me from helping Spike in any way, I will make you pay for it.”

 

Giles raised an eyebrow. “I won’t try to stop you, Buffy. I want to see Willow get better as much as you do.”

 

She met his eyes squarely. “I’m not doing this just for Willow. You know that.”

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

Spike stared at Nikolai with his one good eye—the left one being so swollen and bloody as to be completely useless.

 

“Go on.”

 

Nikolai’s hand froze mid-air, his hand still clutching the steel pipe he had used to beat Spike back into consciousness just moments before. “What?”

 

Spike met his gaze coldly, completely without fear. He knew now there was nothing to fear. He could stand the pain—he could stand anything, even death. They couldn’t break him. Even if they killed him.

 

“I said go on,” he repeated. His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper; but the words forced out of his swollen, lacerated, and very sore throat were strong and clear. He rasped louder: “Go on, Nikolai! Give it to me! Do your worst!”

 

Nikolai frowned, displeased by Spike’s reaction to his abuse. There was something in the traitor that defied his understanding. He was accustomed to his victims begging for mercy, not asking him for more. He had given his worst and still he could not break the little bastard. Cunning though he was, Nikolai was unable understand the complexities of a human being. He did not know that beneath the weak flesh and warm blood Spike was still Spike. Pure steel. All he knew was that if Spike wasn’t pleading mercy from this treatment then perhaps he would under a more cruel persecution.

 

And if there was one thing Nikolai knew it was how to be cruel.

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

It was obvious something was terribly wrong the moment they stepped into Spike’s crypt. The door was hanging from its frame, almost ripped completely off. Inside, it looked as though the place had been ransacked. Books and papers were strewn everywhere, some of them ripped apart. The television was missing, as was everything else of value. Most everything else had been broken, torn, or otherwise completely destroyed.

 

Broken glass crunched underneath Buffy’s feet as she crossed the stone floor. She bent to grab the trapdoor that led to the tunnels underneath the cemetery. The heavy marble slab covering it was heavy and unwieldy, and she had a hard time lifting it. “Help me, Dawn.”

 

Dawn stooped beside her. Each of them grasped one end of the large, flat stone and pulled with all their might. There was a grating sound of protest as the stone slid out of the doorway. They dropped the stone wedge and it crashed to the floor, sending small chunks of marble flying in every direction.

 

“Stay here,” Buffy ordered, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans. “I’ll check down here and if we don’t find anything—” She paused.

 

Dawn paled slightly. “Buffy?” she said. “If we don’t find anything…?”

 

Buffy forced a hopeful smile. “Then we’ll look somewhere else.”

 

She slid over the edge of the door, dropping down to the dirt floor below.

******************

******************

 

 

 

Giles look around the demon bar, feeling uneasy. The room was dark but not dark enough to hide the grime that layered the walls and floor. There was an unpleasant smell of beer and cheap cigarettes hanging in the air, as well as the thick, sweet odor of blood, which some patrons were drinking from tall glasses. The demons watched suspiciously as he crossed the dingy floor to the bar. Normally a human would be ripped apart and devoured before he took his second step into the room, but as this one was carrying a crucifix, a stake, and a vile of holy water, they had little choice but to let him pass.

 

The bartender was a tall, piggish demon with pinkish-grey skin and a large ring through his nose. He frowned darkly as Giles slid onto a stool. “We don’t serve your kind here.”

 

Giles laughed nervously. “Yes, well, as appealing as the drinks menu is…that is not why I am here.”

 

“Oh no?” The demon sneered. “And why are you here?”

 

“Information.” Giles fumbled in his wallet, finally withdrawing a twenty-dollar bill. He held it out to the bartender, but did not release his grip on it. “I’m looking for someone.”

 

The demon tugged lightly on the bill and, when Giles refused to release it, he sighed. “Go on.”

 

“There is a vampire who frequented this establishment quite a bit…a thin, very blond vampire. His name is—”

 

“Spike.” The demon nodded sagely. “I know him. He hasn’t been in here for quite a while. Months, if you want to know the truth. We pretty much gave him up for dead.”

 

There was a pregnant pause.

 

Giles nodded encouragingly. “…until…?”

 

The demon smiled. He jerked the bill from Giles’ hand and pocketed it before the other man could blink.

 

“Until we found him.”

******************

******************

 

 

 

The secret chamber of Spike’s crypt was not so ravaged as the upper level. True, there were ripped up sheets of paper scattered everywhere, but other than that everything appeared to be intact. At the very least, nothing had been stolen.

 

Buffy crept across the quiet, dim cavern. Spike had accumulated all kinds of crap since she had last been down here. There were piles of clothes—including three leather jackets she had never seen him wear—and piles of handsome leather-bound books. There were also bits and pieces of furniture all of which appeared to be in various stages of repair. Once these must have been beautiful antiques, but they were now so chipped and broken Buffy doubted Spike could ever revive their past glory. Buffy paused in front of a beautiful acoustic guitar that was propped against the wall.

 

Where had he gotten all of this? And when? And…why?

 

She stroked a finger over the glossy wood of the guitar neck, wondering. She had never heard him singing, save for the single time he illustrated the greatness of the Ramones in an attempt to impress her on a stakeout. And, of course, there was that time he broke into song along with the rest of the town. But that was a spell. She had never thought of him as one to have musical aspirations. Then again, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he had stolen it to pawn.

 

Something slipped under her feet, making Buffy throw out her arms to keep her balance. She lifted her foot and looked down at the offending piece of paper that lay beneath. It looked like a note. She picked it up, expecting—hoping—to find a clue, a note of explanation.

 

Instead, she found a poem.

 

Dog-eared, wrinkled, and half-torn, the paper was not easy to read. Buffy had to squint in the dim light to make out the printed words, which had obviously been torn from one of the leather volumes.

 

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

 

your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

 

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

 

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

 

Buffy, knowing nothing about poetry and even less about the poets themselves, had hard time making sense of the text. She wondered for a brief moment if it was possible Spike wrote this. But no. This had obviously been torn from a book; there was a page number listed at the bottom and the words Complete Poems listed at the top.

 

 Obviously, this was one of the poems that had adorned Spike’s shrine; she could just see the tiny hole where a pushpin had been. There were also small, penciled annotations scrawled across the sheet of paper in Spike’s handwriting. The pencil lines were so smudged and faded they were mostly unreadable. However, there was one word she could just make out. Scribbled next to the third verse was Buffy.

 

Buffy crumpled the paper in her fist, her throat constricting painfully. Not for the first time she began to doubt her decisions about their relationship. The intensity of Spike’s emotions had always scared her. Love, pain, anger…he seemed to feel is all too much, and he reacted to them without thought. Very often he seemed out of control because of this, making it appear to her that she needed to protect herself from him, that he would hurt her if given the chance. Yet he had been given plenty of chances and he had not hurt her yet. In fact, increasingly, it had been she who had hurt him.

 

She bit her lip. God what had she done? Spike might be dead by now, and the last words she had ever said to him were I’m embarrassed of you. How could she have been so cruel? What kind of person was she anyway?

 

Before she could find an answer to that question, a piercing shriek penetrated the thick earthen walls of the chamber.

 

“Buffy!”

 

It was Dawn.

**************

**************

 

 

 

Giles scowled. “Well I must say that is quite a lot of money to pay for a very vague piece of information.”

 

The demon smiled at him across the bar. “You want me elaborate?” His gravely voice was thick with amusement.

 

“Details would be nice.”

 

“All right.” The pig-faced demon leaned across the chipped countertop until his nose was almost touching Giles’ face. “First off we know about Spike, so don’t think you are protecting him or hiding anything by calling him a vampire. We know better. We know where he’s been and what he has become.”

 

Giles gave a start of surprise then quickly recovered himself. “How did you find out?”

 

“Well he wasn’t exactly keeping it a secret,” said the demon loftily. “He had a scuffle with a group of vampires the other night, dusted three of them. The fourth one got away, came here to tell us the tale. It turned out that throughout the fight Spike never used his weapon of choice, never once switched to game face…that was a clue.”

 

“And then?”

 

The demon shrugged. “Everyone knows Spike is pals with that soppy Clem. They use to come in here to play poker all the time. So a couple of the boys went to talk to Clem. With a little persuasion he finally admitted that Spike took a trip to Africa to see a demon…and that he didn’t come back the same.”

 

“So you know he’s human,” Giles said. “Now what?”

 

The bartender smiled and leaned back, busying himself with a pile of grubby glasses. He swiped each one out with an equally grubby rag then placed it on a tray underneath the bar. For a moment, it seemed as though he was going to ignore Giles’ question then, “Can’t tell you that.”

 

“Why not?”

 

The demon winked at him jauntily. “It’s a secret. I mean we wouldn’t want you charging to the rescue now, would we?”

***************

***************

 

 

 

“BUFFY!!!”

 

Dawn opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could, her wide eyes glued to the figure advancing out of the shadows.

 

“Shh! Shh!” the creature hissed. He stepped closer to her, close enough so that Dawn could see his face. “It’s me!”

 

Dawn stopped screaming. “Clem?” she said, her voice infused with surprise as well as relief. She was very pleased to see that there was not a malevolent demon about to pounce out of the shadows to devour her, but Clem’s appearance was enough of a shock in and of itself. One floppy, bat like ear was torn to ribbons and crusted with dried blood. Clem’s lip was split and the dough-white flesh of his jaw was now a mottled blue-black with bruises.

 

“Shh!” Clem said again, motioning frantically for Dawn to be quiet. “Don’t—they might still be around. Be quiet!”

 

“Who might still be around?”

 

Both Dawn and Clem turned in the direction of the voice. Buffy was emerging from the trapdoor, looking less than pleased.

 

“Clem,” she repeated grimly, “who might still be around?”

 

Clem shook his head emphatically. “I c—can’t tell you that, Buffy,” he stuttered nervously. “I—I’m sorry but I really can’t.”

 

“Can’t tell me what?” Buffy demanded. “Who was here?”

 

Clem didn’t answer.

 

“They took Spike, didn’t they? Whoever was here…they took Spike…and you know where he is!”

 

“N—no,” Clem insisted. “I—I don’t know, not really…”

 

“But you have an idea?” she pressed.

 

He nodded reluctantly.

 

“Who are they, Clem?”

 

“Buffy, I really can’t,” he whined. “They’ll kill me if I tell you.”

 

“And I will kill you if you don’t!” Buffy pulled a stake out of her bag and held it to Clem’s chest. “Tell me now, Clem! They might be killing him while you stand here wasting my time!”

 

 

“I’m sorry!” sobbed Clem. “I didn’t want to do it—they made me!”

 

Buffy leaned her weight against the stake so that the point pressed harder against Clem’s flesh. “They made you what?”

 

“They made me tell them what he did!”

 

Buffy froze, staring at the weeping demon in disbelief. “You didn’t tell them he is human?”

 

“They tortured me!” he blubbered. “They would have killed me if I didn’t tell!”

 

“And I’m going to kill you now!” she snapped, raising the stake threateningly. “But first you are going to tell me who they are!”

 

“They are vampires—demons, a whole bunch of them. They came looking for him because a couple of nights ago he rescued her—”nodding at Dawn “—from four vampires while you patrolled. He killed three of them but one got away—and that one was sharp enough to realize Spike hadn’t changed at all during the fight—he didn’t unleash the demon in him. Therefore, the vampire assumed there was no demon. They came here to be sure and they found me; they made me tell them the truth. Then they lay and waited until Spike came.”

 

“Did they kill him?” Dawn asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.

 

“Not yet—the vampire, the ringleader, didn’t want to kill him yet. He wanted to…uh…”

 

“Play with him,” finished Buffy grimly. “It figures.”

 

Clem nodded miserably.

 

“Where did they take him?”

 

“I don’t know—”

 

“Yes, you do!” Buffy told him. “And either you tell me now or I will make sure your other ear matches that one.” She motioned to his lacerated ear with her stake.

 

Clem took a moment to weigh his options. Finally, he sighed. “There is a condemned warehouse near the railroad…they may have gone there.”

 

Buffy shoved Clem so that he stumbled backward, lost his footing, and fell to the floor. “You’d better pray he is still alive when we get there.”

---

Author’s note: The poem quoted in this chapter is E.E. Cummings’ somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond. For those of you who are not familiar with E.E. Cummings the misspelled words and grammatical errors are supposed to be there; he wrote it that way. I am using the poem without permission but I mean no infringement.

---

Chapter Eight

 

 

“Spike.”

 

He groaned, tipping his swollen face to one side in an attempt to orient himself. The blood on his cheek had dried, making his skin feel stiff and itchy. The muscles of his arms burned from being held in one position for so long. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep.

 

But the voice spoke again, insistently. “Spike.”

 

He forced his one good eye open. The vision was foggy, blurred, no doubt, due to the egg-sized lump on his right temple. Nikolai had gotten a little overenthusiastic with the lead pipe. There was something in front of him. Someone. He could not clearly distinguish it as human or vampire, male or female. It was merely a pinkish blob that moved in and out of his frame of vision, growing larger and smaller in rhythm to the throbbing in his temple.

 

“I can’t see you.”

 

“Shh.” The voice was female so Spike could only assume that body must be also. “You can see me.”

 

“No…I really can’t.” His eye watered with pain as he squinted, trying to bring the splotch of color into focus. “I can’t see.”

 

“You aren’t looking.” The voice was softly admonishing. “Look with your heart, Spike, not your eyes. You see me.”

 

And suddenly he did.

 

She was kneeling just in front of him, the frail skirt of her dress dragging on the filthy floor as she leaned forward. “Spike…my Spike,” she murmured. Her hands were curved over his cheekbones, cupping his face so gently the bruises and abrasions did not protest. “What happened to you?”

 

“Drusilla…” He leaned his head into the softness of her clothed breast.

 

“What happened to you, my love? You’re all changed.”

 

“Nikolai….”

 

“Nikolai knows,” she whispered. “He sees it as we all do. You look different, smell different, feel different. You aren’t one of us anymore.”

 

“No.” He gasped with pain as her hands suddenly pressed into his face, hard. The pain from a dozen wounds screamed, drowning out the words he knew she was speaking with anger. Her fingers were miniature vices, clamping down on his pain and not letting go. He felt dizzy.

 

“Dear heart,” she crooned. Releasing his face, she leaned forward to lick the line of blood snaking from his forehead. “Why did you turn on us?”

 

“I love her.”

 

“So you give up who you are—your very nature—for her?” Dru’s eyes and voice hardened. “She isn’t like us. She cannot see the colors…it’s all black and white to her. Good and evil. Dead and alive. She hasn’t the imagination to understand you, not the way we do. How could you love her?”

 

“She’s a part of me. I didn’t choose it; I don’t want it; it isn’t a pleasure for me. But I can’t stop myself.”

 

She laughed. “Silly boy. Love is never a pleasure. Love is a pain that you must learn to derive pleasure from. I thought I had taught you how. Instead, I find you crawling on the ground, struggling to find a pleasure that doesn’t exist. Not for us. But then…you aren’t one of us, are you?”

 

Her words weren’t making any sense to him. Spike shook his head, confused. “What?”

 

“She will never love you, Spike. Not the way I love you.”

 

“She will,” he insisted. “I—I can show her that I’m better now. She’ll see.”

 

“But you aren’t better, Spike. You may have changed the wrapping, but the present remains the same. You’re wicked.”

 

“No…I’m not…”

 

But even as he said this, he wondered. Once he would gladly have been dusted rather than admit he was not the biggest bad around. Was he that way still, deep down where only she could see? Was he wicked?

 

Before he could work it out, Drusilla’s face changed. The pale, angular features melting into golden softness. The dark hair became shorter, lighter—blonde silk instead of dark velvet.

 

She was Buffy.

 

Buffy leaned forward as Dru had, the tip of her nose almost touching his as she hissed, “Yes, you are. You are a wicked, evil, unholy thing. You don’t deserve love. You don’t even know what love is.”

 

“…I do…” he murmured weakly.

 

She looked at him scornfully. “You say you can teach me to love you? I could never love you. There’s nothing good in you. You’re beneath me.”

 

“No…”

 

“Beneath me.”

 

“No!”

*************

*************

 

 

 

“STOP SCREAMING!”

 

Nikolai’s foot delivered a well-aimed kick to Spike’s left rib cage. The steel toe of his boot drew a dark puddle of blood to the surface of the skin, but Spike didn’t stop screaming.

 

“You never fucking listen! You never give me a God damn chance!”

 

His body jerked upward as he fought against his restraints, struggling to reach something only he could see. The single eye he fixed on Nikolai was glazed and unseeing. Mad.

 

“I SAID STOP IT!” Nikolai bellowed, his screams ten times louder than Spike’s. He backhanded Spike on his already ravaged cheekbone. “IT IS FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON! I AM TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

 

“Bitches!” Spike’s back arched, his head lolling back until it cracked against the radiator to which he was bound. He didn’t even seem to notice. His voice rose until it drowned out even Nikolai’s angry roars.

 

“MY LIFE HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT A SERIES OF STUCK-UP WHORES! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? BENEATH YOU MY BLOODY ASS!”

 

Nikolai stared at him, momentarily thrown by Spike’s impassioned screaming. Then the corners of his mouth began to twitch.

 

“You stupid bastard…you just don’t learn, do you?”

*************

*************

 

 

 

“Buffy!”

 

The trio—Buffy, Dawn, and Clem—paused at the outer edge of the cemetery lawn to look in the direction of the shouts. Giles was jogging across the grass, everything in his face and manner telling Buffy he had found out about Spike.

 

“We know, we know,” she assured him as he launched into a detailed account. “Clem here told us about it. He saw it. He helped them.”

 

Giles glanced at the demon with disgust but no real surprise. “They wouldn’t tell me where they have him.”

 

“It’s okay,” Buffy replied as Giles fell into step beside her. “Clem knows. He’s going to take us there.” She shot the timid demon a cold look. “Aren’t you?”

 

Clem nodded vigorously.

 

“We have to hurry, Buffy.” Giles looked worried. “Vampires like torture, but they lack patience. They can’t play with a toy long before they want to break it. I fear Spike’s time may be running short by now.”

 

Without breaking her stride, Buffy grabbed Clem by the arm. “This warehouse, how far is it?”

 

“About a quarter of a mile, if we cut through the woods here.”

 

“She shoved him away from her so hard that she almost threw him down. “Then you’d better hurry, hadn’t you?”

*************

*************

 

 

 

“Xander?”

 

Xander almost sobbed with relief as his best friend’s eyes fluttered open. “Willow,” he choked out, hugging her to his chest. “Will…are you all right?”

 

“What happened?” she asked. “I was reading…and then I felt this awful pain. I thought I might be dying. Then…everything went black. What happened to me?”

 

Xander hesitated. Then he began carefully. “Giles believe it is the magic he instilled into you…it…it seems to be giving you the ability to…”

 

“What?”

 

“To channel.” Xander spit the word out as though it was a particularly unpleasant taste in his mouth. “You were channeling, Will…writhing on the floor and screaming that someone was trying to kill you. I was so worried—”

 

“What was I channeling?” she asked, clearly much impressed by this newly discovered gift.

 

“Willow, I don’t think it matters…”

 

“No.” She struggled to sit up. “Tell me. I feel like hell, Xander. I must have gone through hell. I deserve to know why.”

 

“Giles and Buffy believe it was Spike,” Xander admitted reluctantly. “Some of the things you said pointed to him, I guess. Apparently, someone opened a demon can of whoop ass on him and he called on you for help. Buffy, Dawn, and Giles have gone to find him.”

 

“I was channeling Spike?” The question was directed more to herself than to Xander. “Why?”

 

“I dunno,” Xander told her. “But I think this is just another one of Spike’s lame attempts to make Buffy come back to him. I only hope this time she will be smart enough not to fall for it.”

 

Willow was barely listening to him. She was still musing about her newfound ability.

 

“Why did it stop?”

 

“Why did what stop?” Xander asked.

 

“I was channeling Spike…he was speaking through me...Why did it stop?”

 

Xander shrugged, obviously not over concerned. “Maybe they found him.”

 

His careless answer did not fill Willow with much hope. She turned her worried gaze to him. “Or maybe they killed him.”

*************

*************

 

 

 

“He’s gone stark, raving mad,” one of Nikolai’s vampire minions commented, watching from a safe distance as Spike thrashed about on the floor. He was still screaming.

 

“Both of them have, if you ask me.” The second vampire nodded meaningfully in the direction of Nikolai, who was also screaming. He was flailing Spike with a rusted crowbar, trying to beat him into submission. It wasn’t working.

 

“You remember the good old days when the only thing we had to worry about was which townie to eat?” The first vampire sounded wistful.

 

“I remember.” The second vampire pulled out a pack of cigarettes and withdrew one almost angrily. “That fucking slayer ruins everything.”

*************

*************

 

 

 

“So this is the place, huh?”

 

The tiny group stared up at the immense building that stretched before them. It was four stories high, brick, and very long. The kind of building that, in a different town, would have been converted into stylish loft apartments. In Sunnydale, it had become a nest for vampires.

 

“That’s it,” Clem answered Buffy’s question. “Now that I’ve showed it to you, I’m gonna split. They’ll kill me if I’m seen with you three.”

 

Buffy stared at him with disbelief. “You aren’t going to help us?”

 

“That wasn’t past of the deal,” whined Clem. “I can’t go in there…they’d tear me to pieces.”

 

Grabbing his arm in a vice-like grip, Buffy slung Clem against the brick wall of the warehouse. “Fine,” she said. “Don’t help.” She backhanded him then, sent him reeling to the pavement.

 

Giles rushed to restrain her. “Buffy, stop it. You aren’t achieving anything by this and you are wasting time.”

 

Buffy nodded obediently, but she kept her eyes coldly riveted to Clem’s as she said, “Get the hell out of my sight.”

 

He fled.

*************

*************

 

 

 

Buffy was dancing before him, dropping ice-cool insults as she kept always just a little out of his reach. Spike strained against the ropes at his back, screaming to make her see the truth. But she wouldn’t. No matter how loud he yelled she would not listen.

 

Something hard and painful hit the back of his skull and Buffy divided in two. Then the second Buffy was Dru, and she smiled and spoke love-words as she killed him. But Buffy…she hurt him worse without laying a hand on him. She spoke words that made him want to die.

 

Suddenly the pictured flickered, and just for an instant Spike saw Nikolai in front of him. Nikolai had handfuls of Spike’s shirt, and he was shaking him so hard the picture changed again and—

 

Buffy was sobbing. “A girl is dead because of me!”

 

“IT ISN’T YOUR FAULT!” he screamed. “Why can’t you see that?”

 

“SHUT UP!”

 

Nikolai was back. He grabbed a fistful of Spike’s hair, dragging his head back to expose his neck. There was a familiar, searing pain—

 

“There is nothing good in you!” she screamed, her small fists punctuating the words with painful finality.

 

Then she was beneath him, struggling and small and warm. He was out of control but neither of them knew to what extent—yet.

 

“Spike, please—”

 

“I’ll make you feel it—”

 

“No—”

 

“Let me inside—”

 

“Please, stop—”

 

“Gonna make you feel it—”

 

Spike opened his good eye wide. Somewhere just outside his range of comprehension Nikolai was feeding with short, tearing jerks. Something warm and wet trickled down Spike’s neck and dripped off his shoulder. There was a hot, sharp, familiar scent all around them. Then there was Buffy. Another Buffy. But this one was gentle and unafraid, more solid than the others. She was approaching slowly, a wooden stake clutched in her upraised hand.

 

“You always hurt the ones you love,” Spike said.

 

Then he fainted.

*************

*************

 

 

 

Buffy had left the lesser vampires to Giles and Dawn. She dusted any that got in her way, but otherwise she ignored them. She was looking for Spike. At the moment, knowing he was alive was all she cared about.

 

She found him alive, but just barely, tied to a radiator, beaten and bloodied. There was a vampire leaning over him, his ugly yellow fangs sunk deep into Spike’s throat.

 

Buffy approached slowly, hoping to surprise the vampire and dust him without some big, time-consuming battle. Unfortunately, that heightened sense of smell, which all vampires possess, seemed especially strong in this one. He scented her through the thick odor of blood that hung in the air and, leaving his dinner half-finished, he approached her.

 

“Slayer,” he said. His bloodstained lips curved into a grisly smile. “I was wondering if you would show up. It was one of the reasons I let him live as long as I did. I wanted to see if the rumors were true.”

 

“Rumors?” she asked. They were circling each other slowly. Her stake was held ready and his fangs were bared, but neither of them made a move to attack.

 

“The rumors,” Nikolai repeated. “You think just because we sleep during the day we don’t hear about what goes on when the sun is out? Everyone knows Spike here because a traitor to his own kind. He turned his back on us, killed us, united with the slayer herself…and all of that was bad enough. Then we learned he had begun to protect your friends and family as well. He would allow nothing to touch that girl you call your sister. Ultimately, that was to be his downfall.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“He was protecting her the night I discovered his secret.” Nikolai wrinkled his nose. “A human. It was then that knew we had nothing to fear from him, that we could no longer allow ourselves to be cowed by him.”

 

“Yeah, you got all brave,” Buffy said sarcastically. “You got yourself an army of demons together to attack a single human man. Bravo. You want a metal for your valor?”

 

Nikolai snickered. “The vampire slayer,” he said softly, “such a noble title, so steeped in history and tradition. A pity you aren’t able to uphold your calling.”

 

“Oh no?” she asked him. “Why don’t you go ask your buddies at the door if I don’t kill your kind? Both of them would fit nicely in ashtrays thanks to me.”

 

Nikolai continued talking as though he hadn’t heard her. “I don’t think—I really don’t think—that the title suits you. Perhaps ‘the vampire layer’ would be more suitable. Wouldn’t you say so?”

 

Buffy spun in a blazing roundhouse kick, but fast as she was, Nikolai still managed to duck out of the way just in time. “You want a go?” she demanded, advancing upon him, her stake raised high.

 

“Sorry,” Nikolai answered. “You aren’t my type.”

 

He dodged the punch she threw.

 

“I don’t have to be,” Buffy told him.

 

Before she could attack again, Nikolai lunged for her. Buffy kneeled slightly, pushing her hands against his midsection and throwing him neatly over her head. He rolled over once but was back on his feet in a flash.

 

“You think I’m afraid of you?” he asked, spitting out dust and blood as he spoke. “You’re nothing but a little girl with a big mouth and a pointy stick—and legs you don’t mind spreading for our kind.”

 

Her leg kicked up, the toe of her shoe connecting with Nikolai’s chin with such force his head snapped back.

 

“Bitch!” he screamed. “I was talking!”

 

“I’m done talking,” she said. “I want action. I want to kill you so I can get around to the rest of the trash in here.”

 

With an angry snarl, he launched himself at her. Buffy was not accustomed to vampires throwing themselves at her this way. Most of them would strike and then dart quickly away. They were like animals in their fear of being close, of being hemmed in and trapped. Nikolai was obviously lacking this fear. He grabbed Buffy by the throat, pressing his body right up against hers as he pushed her to the floor. She landed on her back and he straddled her, knocking the stake out of

her grasp before leaning closer.

 

“You were saying something about killing me?” he whispered.

 

Buffy arched her back, trying to throw him off. But the weight of his body was on her legs, holding them down. His hands were wrapped around her wrists, pinning her arms to the floor. Try as she might she could not move him.

 

Nikolai allowed her to struggle for a moment, seemingly enjoying her efforts to escape. When he grew bored of this he pulled the neck of her sweater down, exposing her throat and most of her shoulder.

 

“I always did wonder what the blood of a slayer would taste like,” he confided. “I betcha it has a real kick.”

 

Just as he leaned to sink his teeth into her, Buffy strained her neck, stretching her head up enough so that she could reach his face.

 

“Ow! Motherfucker!”

 

Nikolai stumbled backwards away from her, bloody streaming from his cheek. “You bitch! You bit me!”

 

Buffy spit, blood and even a little flesh issuing from her mouth. She retrieved her stake.

 

“Well, you were going to bite me,” she told him. “The way I figure it turnabout is fair play.”

 

Having recovered from his shock, Nikolai tried the same trick again. He lunged for her. But this time Buffy was on to him. The moment he launched himself forward she threw her arm forward, plunging her stake into his chest. He exploded into a cloud of dust.

 

From somewhere close behind her, Buffy head Giles’ voice. “Well, I came to see if you needed any help with that one, but you seem to be quite all right.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” she murmured, staring at the pile of ash where her vampire had just been. “I’m just peachy.”

****************

****************

 

 

 

“Damn it!” Buffy swore, her fingers fumbling with the knots that bound Spike’s hands. “I can’t undo them. The ropes are pulled too tight.”

 

“Do you have anything we can use to cut them?”

 

“I don’t. Do you?”

 

Giles shook his head.

 

“Dawn?” Buffy turned to her sister in desperation.

 

Dawn rummaged through her backpack for a moment. “I have a nail file.”

 

Buffy took the instrument from her sister. The file was not nearly sharp enough to cut the ropes, but she managed to slip the pointed tip into the knotted rope, loosening the ties. It was tedious and time consuming, but at last, she managed to get the knots completely undone.

 

Spike was still unconscious, and Buffy was glad of this. Had he been awake he would have been experiencing hideous pain. Aside from the laceration on his throat, he had many cuts and bruises. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the flesh around it red, black, and puffy. His shirt had been torn open and there were dozens of little cigarette burns dotting his bare chest, as well as a hematoma the size of a tennis ball. The flesh of his wrists was like raw meat where the ropes had chafed them.

 

He was so battered, and he lay so still, that Dawn cried out in fright. “Is he dead?”

 

Giles knelt beside Buffy, his hands and eyes examining Spike’s wounds with the air of someone who knew what he was doing. “No. He isn’t dead. He is very badly hurt, though.”

 

Buffy looked at her watcher, panic clearly written across her features. “We—we have to get him to a hospital then.”

 

Giles looked up from the handkerchief he was pressing against the wound at Spike’s throat. “What?”

 

“He’s hurt. We have to get him to a doctor.”

 

Impatient to get started, Buffy took one of Spike’s limp arms and draped it over her shoulder. She was strong enough to lift him easily, but being taller than her made him extremely cumbersome. She almost lost her grip on him.

 

Giles quickly grabbed Spike’s other arm, preventing him from falling to the floor again. “Buffy, we can’t take him to a hospital. You know that.”

 

“I know no such thing,” she answered stubbornly. “He’s hurt and we are taking him to a hospital to see a doctor. I don’t want to hear any more argument about it.”

 

“Buffy, please get a hold of yourself and think!” Giles voice was firm but kind. “A hospital is going to want to know his name and his age…they’ll want an address, a medical history. We cannot provide any of that. I doubt they would even allow us to register him.”

 

She looked at him, stricken. “What will we do?”

 

“We will have to care for him ourselves, as best we can.” He hefted Spike’s weight a little more comfortably then looked over at Dawn. “If you would be so kind as to open the door then Buffy and I will see if we can’t carry Spike out of here.”

 

Dawn hurried to obey. She stood by the doorway and watched as Giles and Buffy slowly moved forward, bearing the weight of the unconscious man between them. “Is she going to be okay?”

 

Buffy met Giles’ eyes. Neither of them knew how to answer that question.

****************

****************

 

 

 

Willow took the glass of water from Xander gratefully. She popped two aspirin in her mouth, chasing them with a gulp of water.

 

Xander watched her with concern. “How do you feel?”

 

“Better. My head still hurts, but I feel a lot better.”

 

“Good.” He bit his lip. “I hope they’re all right.”

 

“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “Buffy can handle herself. She almost kicked my ass, didn’t she?”

 

That brought a faint smile to his face. “Almost but not quite.”

 

He took the empty glass from her. “You want me to turn off the light so you can rest?”

 

“Yes, please. But wake me up then they get back.”

 

“Will do.”

 

Xander leaned over to shut off the lamp on the nightstand and when he did, his foot brushed something hard. He looked down. “Hey, you dropped a book.”

 

Willow’s eyes flew open. She sat up in panic. “Xander—no—”

 

It was too late. He had picked up the book. He started to place it on the nightstand, but something about the rich leather volume caught his eye so that he had to turn it over and read the title: Transfiguration and Transmogrification: An Advanced Guide to the Dark Arts.

 

Xander had found the book that had been stolen from the Magic Box days ago.

---

Chapter Nine

 

 

Buffy shut off the tap and picked up the large clay bowl she had filled with cool water. Perhaps she had gotten a little carried away; the water reached the lip of the bowl and when she pushed the bathroom door open with her elbow, water sloshed out onto the tiles. She decided to ignore this. It was a bathroom, after all. It was made to have water spilled on it.

 

She made her way slowly and carefully down the hallway, bearing her cumbersome burden as gracefully as she could. Small drops of water dotted the carpet in her wake, and by the time she reached her bedroom the bowl seemed much lighter than before, but she ignored that, too. The carpet would dry and, besides, she had more important things on her mind.

 

She placed the bowl on her nightstand and looked down at the bed. Spike was sprawled across the narrow mattress, his head thrown back in dreamless repose. He had kicked the bedcovers off so that they lay dangling off one bedpost, twisted and rumpled, and the pillows that she had so carefully arranged under his head now lay in a heap on the floor. His hair, which had not been bleached in several weeks, looked dark and messy in the moonlight. He didn’t wake up as she sat down beside him.

 

Buffy slowly worked a washcloth in and out of the clay bowl, allowing it to soak up the water like a sponge. Spike’s eye and cheek were caked by blood, which had dried hard and black on his skin. Buffy dabbed at it with the dripping cloth, gently cleaning the wound. A rivulet of water trickled from his face down his throat, over his chest until it came to rest in the small hollow of his navel. Buffy watched its descent even as she worked carefully on cleaning his face. When every trace of blood had been wiped away, Buffy dipped the washcloth in the bowl again. The water tinged pink as she wrung out the washcloth.

 

She opened his bloody, frayed shirt and pressed the washcloth against his bare flesh, painstakingly washing his neck before moving on to his bare chest. Tiny hairs, which were invisible when he was dry, suddenly sprang to life, so that his smooth chest seemed to have erupted in goose pimples. She stroked the cloth downward to his stomach, until she reached the V of flesh just below his navel, where his belt buckle was. He was clean now, but she rinsed out the cloth and started again, working her way up from his stomach this time. When she reached his breastbone, he opened his eyes.

 

“Am I dead?”

 

His voice was small and soft and slightly hoarse. There was no trace of his usual confidence and, because of this, the vowels sounded softer, the accent less Cockney and more like London. Like Giles’.

 

Buffy dropped the washcloth in the bowl. “No,” she whispered, reaching to brush his rumpled hair off his forehead. “Not even a little bit.”

 

His eyes were unfocused slits. The one that was less swollen moved in the direction of her voice, but he seemed disoriented, as though he couldn’t see her very well. “I feel…dead.”

 

“Well, you’re not,” she promised him.

 

Her hands were in his hair and he closed his eyes. “Where am I?”

 

“You’re in my room. Don’t you recognize it?”

 

“Can’t see it too well.”

 

Buffy touched the lump on his temple very gently. “Don’t worry…you will when that goes away.”

 

He opened his eyes again, started to speak. “You—”

 

She pressed her fingers against his lips. “Shh. Don’t talk anymore. You need to rest.”

 

He nodded and she pulled her hand away. She stroked his mop of unruly hair, which was really more brown than blond now. It was damp and soft, slipping easily through her fingers as she petted him.

 

“Are you sure I’m not dead?” he asked, apparently forgetting her instructions.

 

“I promise you aren’t,” she told him. “Why do you think you’re dead?”

 

“This…feels like heaven.”

 

Buffy swallowed the lump that developed in her throat at his words. “Spike,” she whispered. “Open your eyes.”

 

He did his best, though the left one was so swollen it allowed him to open it only a little bit. The right eye looked clearer now, though his expression was just as dazed. Buffy leaned down and kissed the lid of his swollen eye. “Does this hurt?”

 

“No.” His voice was very hoarse now.

 

Her lips danced butterfly-soft down the bridge of his nose to caress his wounded cheekbone. “…this?”

 

“No…” Said in a mere whisper this time.

 

She drew his full bottom lip between both of hers, kissing him softly. “This?”

 

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to, didn’t want to. She was kissing him again and again...softly, slowly. Unlike their previous kisses, there was no sense of urgency in them…just affection and a steadily growing warmth. He opened his mouth just a bit and welcomed her inside, reveling in the feel of her satin-smooth tongue exploring every millimeter of his hot, dry mouth. Her hands were in his hair again, fingers combing through as though to smooth the strands. It was a useless task; his hair was much too disheveled. But it didn’t seem to matter.

 

It was not until she pulled away from him that Buffy notice the wetness on Spike’s cheeks. “Darling,” she said, using the word so unconsciously she surprised them both. “Are you crying?”

 

He shook his head, but Buffy knew he was lying. Even in the dim light, she could see his lashes were damp. She brushed the tears from his face, leaned to kiss his cheek. “There is something I need to tell you,” she murmured, pressing her face into his neck. “But I can’t tell you now…not when you’re so weak and in pain. When I tell you, I want you to be able to take it in completely. Do you understand?”

 

He didn’t speak, didn’t even nod, but the expression in his eyes told her he understood completely.

 

She swallowed, her breathing coming infinitesimally faster as she pressed herself against his side. “I’ll tell you just as soon as you feel up to it…so please get better in a hurry.”

 

“Yes,” he said very softly, leaning his cheek into her palm. Her mouth approached his again and he parted his lips expectantly—

 

“Buffy!”

 

The shout, combined with the sharp rap on the door that followed it, startled them both. Buffy leapt to her feet.

 

“What?” she snapped, straightening her clothes before throwing open the door.

 

Xander glanced at her, then at Spike, and his lips tightened, though he was wise enough not to say anything. “Scooby meeting. Downstairs. We need to talk.”

 

She pushed him out into the hall, shutting the door behind them. “Damn it, Xander, if this is one of your jealous, bitter lectures about Spike, save it. I’m not in the mood to listen to you bitch.”

 

“It isn’t about Spike,” said Xander defensively. His tone softened as he went on. “It’s about Willow. She’s…done something.”

 

Buffy sighed.

******************

******************

 

 

 

Dawn peeked around the corner of the living room door. She hadn’t been informed of the Scooby meeting, much less invited to attend; but you would have had to be blind not to hear all the shouting that was going on. She was eager to know what it was all about.

 

She had assumed it had to do with Spike; most of the fights around here seemed to as of late, and since Spike had been brought to the house earlier that night it seemed the most logical choice. When she made it downstairs to see for herself, however, it became very clear that Spike was the least of everyone’s worries right now.

 

Willow was huddled in one corner of the sofa, her head buried in her hands. On the other end of the sofa Buffy perched nervously, dividing her attention between shooting Willow sympathetic looks and glancing up at the ceiling. Xander was sitting in a chair, looking for all the world like a dog that has been kicked. Giles was the only one standing. He was glowering down at Willow with intense anger and disappointment.

 

“I can’t believe this!” Giles said, his voice quiet but hard. “After all we have been through with you—after all of the promises you made—and here we find you up to your old tricks again! Stealing from the Magic Box! Don’t you realize that by doing that you were stealing from me, from Anya? How could you?”

 

Dawn leaned against the doorframe, inhaling sharply. Willow stealing from the Magic Box? When did this happen?

 

Willow looked up, her face streaked with tears. “I wasn’t stealing, Giles, I wasn’t! I promise you I was planning to return those as soon as I was finished with them.”

 

“Regardless of what you were ‘planning’ to do, taking something without permission is still stealing,” Giles retorted. “And of all things to steal! How did you even get them out? Did you jimmy the cash register open? Or just skip the key altogether and simply open the safe with a spell?”

 

“I didn’t use magic!” she wailed.

 

“I’m going to ask you a question, Willow, and I demand that you answer me honestly for once. Did you steal those books so that you could finish what you started with Andrew and Jonathan?”

 

“No!” she said, sounding horrified.

 

“Then why?”

 

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Spike—Spike came to me for help. He was afraid the demon’s spell didn’t work properly and he asked me if I could find out why. That was all I wanted the books for—to find out why!”

 

“Did he help you break into the shop?”

 

“No,” she said quickly—too quickly. Dawn was certain Willow was lying.

 

Giles must have been suspicious also, for he frowned even more deeply. “Did he ask you to do a spell to fix him if the original spell was incorrect?”

 

“No.” Again, the word came out with just a little too much protest.

 

He sighed. “Honestly, Willow, I am at a loss as to what to do with you. You seemed to be doing so well lately, going to classes, spending time with us…Now I wonder if it all wasn’t simply a cover.”

 

“It wasn’t!” she insisted.

 

Giles removed his glasses, wiped them with care. “Well, even so we can’t very well let this go. Something has to be done with you.”

 

“What?” she asked. Her voice sounded so tiny, so frightened, Dawn felt sorry for her.

 

“I don’t know.” Giles replaced his glasses. “Go to your room now. It’s late and I for one am tired. We will discuss this further in the morning.”

 

Willow stood up, made a beeline for the door. Just as she reached it, though, Buffy said something to stop her.

 

“Willow, was the spell used on Spike incorrect?”

 

Willow turned to give her friend a watery smile. “No. It worked just the way it was meant to.”

 

Dawn ducked out of sight as Willow exited the living room and ran up the stairs.

*****************

*****************

 

 

When Spike woke up again it was still dark. The room was bathed in the blue-black shadows that preceded dawn. A quick pitter-patter on the roof overhead told him it was raining outside.

 

It took him a moment to realize where he was and, when he did, he remembered it as one would a dream. The soft touch of her hands, the gentle caress of her lips…it all seemed unreal to him. He was beginning to doubt that is was real until he noticed the clay bowl that rested on the nightstand. Then he smiled.

 

So lost in his memories was Spike, that he didn’t even notice he wasn’t alone until he felt a small, soft hand on his arm. Willow.

 

“Hey, sleepy head,” she greeted him. Her voice was a whisper. “How’re you doing?”

 

“Agonizing pain,” he said. “You?”

 

“Same.”

 

He looked at her with some concern. Her voice sounded funny, tight. Moreover, he could see moisture glistening on her cheeks in the glow from the street lamps. She had been crying. “Hey…Red…” he said, making an awkward attempt to pat her on the arm. “Are you all right?”

 

“I’m great,” she said with false cheer.

 

He didn’t believe her, but he also saw she wasn’t in the mood to discuss what was bothering her, so he let it go. Instead, he asked, “How did I get here?”

 

“Buffy brought you here. She and Giles and Dawn found you, and they brought you back here.”

 

“How did they find me?”

 

Willow smiled a little. “Well, I helped a little.”

 

“You?”

 

“And you. You called to me.”

 

“What does that mean? Called you how?”

 

“When I was, uh, not myself, Giles imbued me with some very powerful magic he had gotten from a British coven. It was meant to get me in touch with my humanity, which it did; but it also gave me the ability to know what other people feel. I can…sense their anger, their pain, their hate…and for some reason I could actually feel yours tonight.”

 

“You mean you…uh…”

 

“Channeled you. Yes, I did. I didn’t know where you were or even what was happening to you…but I could feel everything. Something I said made Buffy guess it was you I was channeling and she, Dawn, and Giles set off to find you. Clem was at your crypt and he told them what had happened.”

 

Spike was silent.

 

“Buffy was nearly mad with worry,” Willow went on, as if to please him. “When they brought you here you were unconscious, and she was afraid, so afraid you might die. She stayed with you every minute.”

 

“Where is she now?” he asked, hoping to hear the “something” she had to tell him.

 

“Sleeping. She checked in on you and you were asleep, so she decided to get a few winks for herself. She’s crashing on the sofa tonight. Giles went to a motel.”

 

He bit his lip. “Does she know about me?” he asked.

 

“Does who know what?” Willow asked.

 

“Buffy. Does she know how…fucked up I am? Does she know the spell didn’t work?”

 

Please say yes, he silently prayed. Please, Willow, say yes and that it doesn’t matter to her.

 

Willow cleared her throat. “Actually…I wanted to talk to you about that.”

 

“So talk.”

 

“I read up on the demon you described and I also did a little research on vampires themselves…”

 

“And?” he interrupted impatiently.

 

“The spell worked.”

 

“What?”

 

“The spell worked. At least…the demon did what he set out to do. He followed your wishes to the best of his ability.”

 

“What do you mean ‘to the best of his ability’?”

 

She hesitated. “Well…you asked him to make you what you were before, to return you to your former state, right?”

 

“Yes.” There was an edge to his voice, a sense of impending doom.

 

“That was what you asked for…to be human, to have a soul. The demon knew that was what you wanted. Yet you couldn’t be returned to your former state because you were never a human.”

 

“What?” he demanded. “Are you high? Of course, I was a human, Willow. I spent twenty-six years on this earth as a human before Dru turned me!”

 

Willow shifted uncomfortably. “Spike, just please try to stay calm and listen to what I have to say…and know that I am not trying to hurt you by saying it.”

 

He was almost hyperventilating as he said, “Go on.”

 

“Like I said, I did some research on vampires, and I found out a lot about their origin.” Willow cleared her throat nervously. “See…a vampire is not a human that was turned into a demon, Spike. It’s a demon that inhabits the body of someone who has died by a vampire’s bite…someone who, just before death has drunk from that vampire. The soul that was in the victim is gone—replaced by a demon.”

 

Spike sat up, looking at Willow with horror. “What are you saying?”

 

“I’m saying that when a demon enters the dead body it instills into that body the powers of its kind. That’s why vampires are stronger than people…They are very powerful demons. When the demon in Africa heard your wish to become a human, to obtain a soul, he granted it as best he could. You are mortal now—your heart beats, your flesh bleeds. You have a soul and a conscience…yet you are still the same creature in the same body as before. He didn’t take away that power then he changed you.”

 

He shook his head. “You’re wrong. I was a human—I lived and breathed and was reborn a vampire when Drusilla found me. Dru changed me into what I am—I didn’t start out that way.”

 

“William is dead, Spike. Drusilla killed him—and just before he died, she allowed him to drink from her, which opened the gates to let you inside. You moved into his body and you used his brain. You looked like him, spoke like him, shared his memories…but you were your own separate being. That is why you retained your strength—your strength doesn’t lie in your physical makeup or your immortality—it is in your spirit. It is the power you were born with. It was not given to you by Drusilla or anyone else, nor was it mistakenly left behind when you were granted humanity. It was yours, a part of you since the very beginning. You may be mortal now…but you’re still you.”

 

“You mean I’m evil.”

 

“Not all demons are evil. Look at Whistler—look at Anya. You may have started out evil but you have grown considerably since then; you have become better. If you hadn’t then you wouldn’t have sought the soul in the first place. You aren’t evil Spike—and you aren’t a demon anymore. You just aren’t an ordinary human being. You’re special.”

 

“Special?” His voice was hoarse, disbelieving. “Special? You are telling me I am a creature created in the image of Satan himself and sent to earth to inhabit a corpse…and you think that’s special?”

 

“Does it matter how you started out? Isn’t that what you told Dawn? That it doesn’t matter?”

 

“Maybe it doesn’t to me,” he retorted. “But it will to Buffy! She—she said I was an evil thing…that there was no good in me…and she was right!”

 

“Spike, you’re being ridiculous,” she said, watching with growing alarm as he threw the covers back and climbed out of bed. “Buffy loves you.”

 

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know about this, does she?”

 

Willow didn’t know how to answer that.

 

Spike’s eyes widened. “Does she?” he demanded.

 

“Why does she even have to know?” Willow countered. “You don’t have to tell her if you don’t want to. She’ll never know otherwise. If you are so worried about it then don’t tell her.”

 

“I’m not doing that to her,” he said. “Not again. I’m not going to fuck up her life again.”

 

“Where are you going?” she asked.

 

“I’m leaving! The last thing I want to do is destroy the little bit of happiness she has gained since I went away! I’m not as evil as that!”

 

He lurched into the dark hallway, slamming the door behind him. The noise echoed through the sleeping house, drawing theatrical groans from Dawn’s room. Her door opened and she peeked sleepily out of it, her long hair wildly disheveled. She saw Spike rushing past her and her eyes widened.

 

“Hey—”

 

He kept on going.

******************

******************

 

 

 

“Buffy…”

 

She raised her head from the sofa cushion, muttering sleepily, “Huh?”

 

Xander was standing in the doorway, watching her uncertainly. “I know it’s late, Buff, and I’m sorry I woke you…but I have to tell you something.”

 

She sat up slowly, struggling to orient herself. “Come on in.”

 

He sat down beside her. “I’m sorry, Buffy.”

 

She yawned into her hand. “Sorry? Why?”

 

“For going off on you earlier. You were right…I don’t know anything about your relationship with Spike, and it isn’t my business to tell you how to handle it. And…I was being a hypocrite. Spike did some pretty horrendous things, but he is trying to atone for them. I guess I didn’t really get that until I found that book in Willow’s room. I mean…if we can forgive her for everything that happened when Tara died…if we can keep forgiving her now, who am I to say you shouldn’t

forgive Spike. I guess I got angry because some part of me is jealous of him—just like I’ve been jealous of every man in your life.”

 

“But Anya—”

 

“I love Anya. Even despite all our current problems, I love her. It’s just that some part of me won’t let go of the idea that someday you and I might…” His voice trailed away.

 

“It’s okay,” Buffy said.

 

“No it isn’t. I had no right to tell you how to live your life…and I didn’t mean that about you being a—a—”

 

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s all right, Xander. I knew you didn’t mean it. I’m not angry anymore.”

 

Xander opened his arms and Buffy folded herself into his embrace. “I love you, Buff. I would never hurt you intentionally.”

 

“I love you, too, Xander. You’re my best friend and I never want anything to change that—”

 

Before she could finish her sentence, a loud banging from upstairs startled them into silence. There was a loud thumping of footfalls on the stairs, a heavy thud as someone jumped from the bottom step. Buffy and Xander stood and rushed to the door just in time to see Spike charging by.

 

“Spike—what’s the matter?” Buffy called.

 

Long before she could reached him Spike threw open the front door, leapt off the front porch and plunged into the rain. Buffy rushed out into the storm after him.

 

“Spike!” she called, shielding her eyes with her hand. She could barely see his retreating form through the sheet of rain that lashed at her face and body. “SPIKE WAIT!”

 

But it was too late. He was gone.

---

Chapter Ten

 

 

Spike staggered through the rain, his booted feet slipping and sliding on the soft muddy ground of the cemetery. The calf of one leg throbbed as the rain beat down on a gash that reached nearly to the bone. Every breath he took was agony due to the stabbing hurt of what must have been a fractured rib. The lump on his temple fogged his vision and the searing pain of his left eye was enough to make him feel sick…but he kept moving. Even when he fell to his knees in the mud, he kept moving, clawing at the watery earth as he crawled like an infant.

 

She would come after him. He knew that instinctively. She had seen him leave, had called his name... had chased him out onto the street. She would come after him because she didn’t know yet. She didn’t understand just what it was she would be coming after. When she knew…then she wouldn’t come anymore. Ever.

 

Spike knew he had a little time. She might not realize where he was headed, and, even if she did, the rain would slow her down significantly. Even crawling on his hands and knees did not lose a sizeable portion of the lead he had gained on her when he left. But he had to move fast. He had to get in and out of there before she could reach him. Because he knew she didn’t understand yet. He knew she would try to convince him to return with her. And he knew he wasn’t strong enough to resist her if she did.

 

He grabbed the slippery marble wall of his crypt, pulling himself into an upright position so he could open the door. Once inside, he did not even notice the hideous mess Nikolai and his cronies had left; he did not notice the absence of the television and stereo and everything else of value. He merely picked up a rumpled pillowcase from the floor and began stuffing clothes into it. He did not know where he was going. He just knew he had to get away before she came. Several times his throat began to ache but he quickly swallowed it down. He could not afford to waste time crying. He had to go. He had to save her.

 

Footfalls from the chamber below him made Spike suddenly draw to a halt, a fistful of socks in one hand and a wrinkled shirt in the other. He listened harder. Yes...there was definitely something down there. Or someone. He edged toward the trapdoor cautiously.

 

The lid flew open so quickly Spike stumbled backwards away from it, throwing his hands out in front of him defensively. “Hey—”

 

A…thing squirmed upward, grunting as it pulled itself out of the chamber and onto the floor. It sat for a moment, breathing heavily, then unfolded its legs and stood up. Something small, dark, and of an indistinguishable shape was clutched in its hand. Spike continued backing away from the advancing creature. “Look whatever you are…you can have the sodding crypt. I don’t want it. I just want to get my clothes and get the fuck away, all right. So just haul your monster ass back down below and I will be out of you way shortly.”

 

“Spike…” The familiar voice was placating, a little embarrassed. “It’s me…”

 

“Clem?” Spike stopped in his tracks, allowing the demon to come close to him. “What are you doing here? You got another pack of nasties to set loose on me?”

 

“Spike…” Clem’s voice was clogged with tears so that, for a moment, he had to stop talking and clear his throat. Then he said, “I—I’m really sorry about that, Spike. I didn’t want them to hurt you—I didn’t want to tell them anything. They made me—I swear to you!”

 

Spike stared at his one-time best pal. The demon glowed white in the dim light, his torn ear black and misshapen with dried blood. In fact, Clem seemed even more battered than before. For the first time, he felt something akin to pity for his Benedict Arnold. “Don’t mention it, bloke,” he muttered gruffly. “You’re a demon, after all. If I’d wanted loyalty I would’ve gotten a golden retriever.”

 

Clem smiled nervously. “I—I brought you something. It’s to—to say…I’m sorry.” He moved closer, holding out his hand so that the dark shape suddenly came into focus. It was a small tuxedo kitten. “It’s a real good one,” Clem said eagerly, thrusting the kitten forward. “I had some others out of this litter and they’re very tender.”

 

Spike forced a weak smile as he took the kitten. He certainly did not want to test Clem’s claims of “tenderness” but he didn’t want to snub Clem’s apology by saying so. Nor did he want to leave the kitten for Clem to eat. He sighed. Damn soul.

 

Clem, meanwhile, was staring at the bulging pillowcase and scattered clothing with interest. “So you’re going somewhere?”

 

Spike snapped back to attention. Going. He had to go. She would be here soon.

 

“Yeah, you could say that.”

 

”Well do you want me to watch the place while you’re gone?” Clem seemed eager to find a way to redeem himself.

 

“You can have the bloody place,” Spike replied, shoving the remaining clothes into his now bulging sack. “I don’t care.”

 

Clem’s eyes lit up. “You’re kidding! Really? I can have this place?”

 

“Yeah. Whatever.” Spike heaved the pillowcase over on shoulder. “Thanks for the…uh…gift,” he said, holding up the mewing kitten.

 

“No problem.” Clem was already gazing around the crypt with pleasure, no doubt planning the changes he would make now that it was his. “I hope you have a good trip, Spike.”

 

Spike scoffed. “Sure,” he muttered. “Right.”

***************

***************

 

 

 

Buffy was a quarter of a mile down the street when Xander caught up with her. She tried to keep going, to ignore him, but he grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “Buffy…stop!” he said. “He’s gone—you can’t find him in this mess. Just…stop…”

 

”I can’t!” she insisted, pushing at his hands impatiently, oblivious to his concern…oblivious to the dark, to the pouring rain. “I have to find him—I have to—let go of me!”

 

Xander hung onto her shoulders with a grip that almost hurt. He pulled her close to him, staring at her with sympathetic eyes. “Buffy…how are you going to find him when you can’t even see three feet in front of you because of the rain? Just come back with me and I’ll help you find him just as soon as this storm is over.”

 

“No!” She struck at him with her fist, making him wince with pain. “I’m not going anywhere until I find him! He’s hurt and it’s raining—he might lying in a ditch somewhere, unconscious. I have to help him!”

 

“Buffy, he left!” Xander’s voice was harder than he intended it to be. He went on in a softer tone. “Spike left. He wanted to go. Shouldn’t you respect his decision?”

 

She stared at him, stricken.

 

He left.

 

He wanted to go.

 

She started to cry, sinking to the slick pavement, not even caring that her knees came to rest in a deep puddle. She buried her head in the curve of her arms and sobbed. Xander, unaccustomed to such displays from the Slayer, hung back, reluctant to intrude upon her grief.

 

It was Willow who fell down at Buffy’s side, wrapping her arms around her friend in a tight, comforting embrace. Willow, who had burst out of the house just moments after Xander and Buffy. Who had followed them through the rain, and had arrived just in time to offer her support. She stroked Buffy’s sopping hair, murmured to her over the pounding of the rain against the pavement.

 

“It’s okay. He’ll be back. It’s okay…”

 

“I chased him away,” Buffy sobbed. “I told him he was crap now he won’t believe anything else I say…”

 

Willow wiped her wet sleeve across her face and sighed. “You didn’t chase him away, Buffy. I did.”

********************

********************

 

 

 

The church was dimly lit and very quiet. It smelled of candle wax and wood varnish, of hope and of death. Blank-eyed saints stared down from the walls, from the stained glass of the windows, watching Spike as he walked down the narrow aisle. He had is pillowcase slung over one shoulder and a bottle of rum in his hand. The kitten was clinging to the front of his shirt like a sloth. Its cries sounded very loud in the emptiness of the large room.

 

There was a Bible on a stand near the altar. A huge book with a green leather cover and shiny gold tooling. It lay open, its place marked by a length of wide ribbon. Spike made a beeline for the book, limping quicker, his sense of purpose more defined now. He drained and discarded his bottle, dropped the pillowcase at his feet, and began flipping pages. When he found the passage he wanted, he steadied the book with one hand and, using his free hand, he ripped out the page.

 

He glanced at the paper, lips moving silently as he read the text. Words he had once memorized, loved, recited . . . back in the days before touching a Bible was a form of suicide. But he hadn’t really done that now had he? William loved the passage. Not Spike. William had loved the Bible. God. His mother. Poetry. The world. But that was before Drusilla had ripped his throat out. Made him all dead. The suit Spike wore. The suit that covered the evil. William was a disguise. Spike was an effigy. Both of them were dead inside.

 

Spike pocketed the paper, started to go. Thought everything was done.

 

Over…

 

Gone…

 

Left…

 

Dead…

 

Then he stopped. Wheeled around on his heel and headed for the confessional. Maybe he wasn’t done.

****************

****************

 

 

 

Buffy sat shivering on the sofa. She refused to take the time to dry her hair or change her clothes, but Willow had gotten her a blanket.

 

“Here…” Buffy looked up. Xander was standing over her, holding out a cup of tea. Her hands clasped the warm mug gratefully.

 

He sat down beside her. Willow was sitting across from them, perching nervously on the edge of the coffee table. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

 

“What happened?” Buffy’s voice wasn’t accusing, just bewildered, pained.

 

“I told you he was worried that the demon had made a mistake in Africa…that something was wrong with him.”

 

“You said the spell worked,” Buffy intoned dully.

 

“It did. It worked. Well…it made him mortal, human. It gave him a soul. It just…it didn’t make him what he wanted to be.”

 

Xander furrowed his brow. “Which was…?”

 

“Normal.”

 

Xander snorted. “Well, when you’ve spent over a century as a blood-drinking demon I think it’ll take you awhile to fit in with the rest of humanity.”

 

“Just ask Anya,” Buffy mumbled.

 

Xander shot Buffy a dirty look but said nothing.

 

“I don’t mean he doesn’t fit in socially,” Willow explained. “It’s a physical difference. He’s still strong. He’s mortal, can walk in the sun, ages, can die all the normal ways…but he is very strong. He told me. It’s like…there is no difference in him now than when he was a vampire. It’s almost like being…” She hesitated.

 

“…a slayer,” Buffy finished.

 

“Well…in a way…yes, I guess it is. Anyway…he was very worried about this. He wanted to be normal, completely normal. He thought if you” –nodding to Buffy—“found out about his still having vamp strength he would never get a chance to be near you again. He thought his only shot with you was to be completely average. So he wanted me to find out what was wrong so he could go about fixing it.”

 

“And did you?” Xander asked. “Did you find out what was wrong?”

 

“Yes and no. I mean…I found out something, but not because there was something wrong. See, I never could figure out how that demon could possible have failed, so I started researching vampires themselves. You know, standard stuff, how they change, how they live…that kind of stuff. I found out that vampires are like hermit crabs—”

 

“Hermit crabs?” Xander scoffed at the mental images her words evoked.

 

“Shut up, Xander, and let me finish!” Willow glared at him for a moment then went on with her story. “Vampires are like hermit crabs. They inhabit the discarded bodies of others. They are demons without a form of their own. When one vampire bites a person and allows that same person to feed on him at the moment before the victim’s death…well, it’s almost like a spell. When the person dies a demon is brought forth to inhabit the body. That is why vampires never rise until several hours…even days, after they are changed. It takes them a while to move in, I guess. So, uh…the vampire moves into this dead body, right? He uses the dead person’s brain, talks like him, shares his memories…sometimes he even thinks the same thoughts. But he isn’t that person. He’s an imitation of the original.”

 

“So…wait a minute…” Xander said skeptically. “If a vampire is a demon that is sent to live in a dead body…then why don’t they know that? Why do the vampires always assume they are the same essential ‘person’ they were before they died?”

 

“They have no memory of that. I guess in a way they are born the moment they enter that body…they have no other past to remember. And they are using a brain that is sending them all this information about their ‘past’. It’s like Dawn being the key. She was always the key, but it was not until she became Dawn that her memory began. She was fed a past and that past was all she knew. Vampires are kind of the same way.”

 

“Willow, I know all of this already,” Buffy said impatiently. “I’m the Slayer; you think I don’t know how vampires are made? Just get on with it and tell me what any of this has to do with Spike.”

 

“Spike didn’t know he was a demon. He, uh…he thought he was a person who was turned into a vampire. He kept worrying about not being right, about the spell being messed up. He thought he should be the way he was when he was William and I had to explain to him that he never was William. I explained to him that when a demon moves into a dead body it brings with it all of the powers of a demon. Vampires are strong because the demons inside the bodies are strong. The body itself is not really changed on a molecular level…it is just infused with a mystical power. Spike retained that power because he is, essentially, a demon with a soul. The body he holed up in is mortal now…he breathes and beats and bleeds like the rest of us…but he is still the same creature on the inside. The African demon gave him a conscience and it gave him mortality…but it didn’t make him into something else because he didn’t ask it to. He—he didn’t realize that until I told him, and then he…” Her voice trailed away uncertainly as Buffy’s face became a mask of fury.

 

“You TOLD him that?” she demanded, leaping from the sofa, splashing tea on the carpet as she gestured wildly with her mug. “You actually told him he is still a demon?”

 

“He asked me why he wasn’t normal! What was I supposed to do—lie? He would have found out on his own, eventually. And, anyway, I didn’t know he would react like that. I thought it would make him happy to know that the spell didn’t go wrong, to know that he is a human. He is made of the same material as the rest of us outside…just something a little different on the inside. But he freaked out when I told him. He started ranting about how you would never love him now—how he didn’t deserve to be loved. Then he left.”

 

“Of course he left!” Buffy moaned, sliding back down to the sofa. “My God…”

 

“I really didn’t mean to hurt him, Buffy. I was trying to help. I did not know he would react that way or I would have found a better way to tell him. But I couldn’t lie. He deserves to know the truth about himself.”

 

“It isn’t your fault,” Buffy whispered brokenly. She buried her head in her hands. “It’s my fault. I did it. I was the one who kept convincing him he was no good, that he wasn’t deserving of love. He went to Africa so that he could be normal for me…and now he finds out he can never be normal because he didn’t start out normal. Of course, he freaked out. He thinks I’ll hate him.”

 

“He’s afraid he will mess your life up,” Willow told her quietly. “He left because he doesn’t think it is fair to ask you to love him when he is…less than human. Or more than human. Whichever it is. He wants you to have a life that’s quiet and safe…with a guy who’s…quiet and safe.”

 

“He’s safe,” Buffy muttered. “I just never gave him the chance to find out. I would never let myself believe it. I was the monster last year, not him. I made him lash out…I wanted him to just so I could prove to myself how unworthy of me he really was.”

 

“Buffy...do you love Spike?”

 

She met Willow’s gaze with wet, red eyes. “What do you think?”

 

“I think you should tell him.”

 

“I’d have to find him first,” Buffy muttered.

 

“You will,” Willow told her confidently.

 

“How can you be so sure?”

 

“’Cause he’s Spike. If I know him, he won’t stray far from wherever you are. Not for long, anyway.”

*********************

*********************

 

 

 

  The confessional was cramped and dark. A little room with a screened window and one helluva uncomfortable chair. Spike sat down awkwardly, arranging the kitten on his lap and settling the pillowcase at his feet before bothering to speak to the priest.

 

“Yes, my child?” The priest sounded like he had swallowed gravel. Even through the screen, Spike could smell garlic breath. He began to doubt the sanity of being here. For a moment, he was quiet.

 

“Yes, my child?” the priest asked again, a bit louder this time, as though he thought Spike had not caught it the first time around.

 

“Hey. How’re you doing?”

 

The priest was silent. Apparently asking him how he was doing was breaking some code of confessional ethics. Spike tried to make things better by explaining.

 

“See…uh…the thing is…I’m not Catholic. I’m not anything really…Know a thing or two about the Church of England, but if you want to know the truth I—”

 

The priest cleared his throat. Loudly. “Ahem. Yes, well, nevertheless…you are welcome here. If you have sins to confess I will hear them now.”

 

“Oh…right…okay…” Spike chewed his lip. “Well I have quite a few of them racked up, you know. You want to hear them all in detail or just a general overview?”

 

“Uh…a general overview would be fine.” The priest was sounding more and more bewildered.

 

“All right then. Let’s see…I committed…three thousand, six-hundred and twenty-five murders. I stole from…well…everybody, every chance I got….I tried to rape a girl in her bathroom…”

 

He became aware of a slight choking sound coming from behind the screen. “Umm…Father?”

 

“Y—yes, my child?” The voice was less certain now. Frightened.

 

Spike noticed but went on talking as though he had not. “To tell you the truth…I’m not really here about all that.”

 

“All of what, my child?”

 

“You know…atonements and Hail-Bloody-Marys and all that. I’m here because I have a question for you, if that’s all right.”

 

After Spike’s “confession” (which had convinced the father he was talking to an insane man) the priest was not about to deny “his child” anything. His silhouette nodded from behind the screen. “Go ahead, my child.”

 

“Can you change what you are on the inside? If you’re evil, I mean…can you make yourself…not?”

 

“Of course you can, my child. If you ask for forgiveness from God, he will grant you an absolution for your sins. To be saved is to be cleansed of past transgressions…to become new, pure.”

 

“Yeah…but…what if you were…you know…born evil?”

 

“Nothing God creates is born evil. Human beings are imperfect creatures and their natural tendencies lead them into wrongful things, but they are not born evil.”

 

“Yeah…but…what if you weren’t created by God? What if you were created by…something else?" Spike waited and, when the priest did not answer right away, he became defensive. “It’s for a friend!”

 

“Anything which is not created by God is unwholesome,” the priest finally said.

 

“But…if you were trying to change…to become wholesome…could you do it? If you weren’t born that way, I mean?”

 

“The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish,” the priest replied, “but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. A creature not created in the image of our Lord is wicked and will be cast away.”

 

Spike sighed heavily. “Yeah…that’s what I thought you’d say.” He plunked the kitten onto his shoulder, hefted his pillowcase, and head out of the confessional. When he reached the door, however, he turned back.

 

“By the way…I tore a page out of your Bible out there. I guess that’s a sin, too. Right?”

**************

**************

 

 

 

The storm blew over a few hours after sunrise, leaving Sunnydale wet and sticky. Miserable. Steam rose from the pavement like smoke and the plants and hairdos of the town drooped unhappily in the humidity.

 

The rain had hardly stopped when Buffy barreled down the stairs and out the door. Her friends (to say nothing of her sister) had wanted to help her in her search for Spike, but she wanted to do it alone. She wanted to be able to prove to him that she did love him, that he was worthy of it. Knowing Spike, the convincing probably would not all be G-rated. She did not want her friends hanging around to watch what Dawn would have referred to as “the sexcapades”.

 

Buffy had no doubts that if she found him she could convince him to return with her. She could convince Spike to do just about anything—she had prodded him into getting a soul, for heaven’s sake. There was no chance he would deny her this. Especially when she knew it was what he wanted too. He just didn’t know he could have it yet.

 

Comforted by this thought, Buffy stepped onto the porch. The moment she did her foot struck something hard. She looked down. Someone had placed a large rock on the doormat. At first, it appeared to be a big rock and nothing else. But when Buffy leaned to pick it up, she noticed that someone had bound a slip of paper to it with a rubber band. She pulled off the band and unfolded the paper.

 

It was a page from a rather large book. Tissue-thin paper with gilt edging and an intricate print scrollwork near the top. A page from the Bible.

 

At first Buffy’s eyes skipped around the page, skimming words at random, confused as to why someone would send her this. Then she turned the sheet over, saw the passages that had been so carefully underlined in blue ink. She read them slowly.

 

 Set me as a seal upon thine

heart, as a seal upon thine

arm: for love is strong as death;

jealousy is cruel as the grave: the

coals thereof are coals of fire,

which hath a most vehement

flame.

 

Many waters cannot quench

love, neither can the floods

drown it: if a man would give all

the substance of his house for

love, it would be utterly con-

temned.

 

There was a small paragraph on the right of the text, written neatly in blue ink. Buffy recognized the handwriting. Spike. Her heart beat strangely fast as she read his note.

 

Buffy:

 

I know I have put you through hell since my return to Sunnydale and I want you to know how sorry I am for that. My behavior last night was by no means excusable, and yet I must tell you that I felt compelled to leave you for your own safety and sanity as well as my own. I am not what either of us thought I was, and I can never be the thing you so desperately need to be happy. I do not want to go into any detail because I would like to think I might leave you with some small amount of affection for me in your heart. Had I understood everything earlier I would never have returned to Sunnydale to cause you this pain, I promise you. I LOVE YOU. Nothing will change that—the passage above says everything as well as if it had been written about you. But I love you too much to allow you to be with someone unworthy of your love—even if that person is me.

 

 

The note was not signed. Buffy noted with panic that the whole voice of the letter was very unlike Spike. She noted also that the handwriting was shaky, the ink smeared as though he had been crying when he composed it. She wondered wildly if he had killed himself but forced the thought out of her head as quickly as it came. He would not have done that. She didn’t know him as well as she had once thought, but she knew him well enough to see that he wasn’t a quitter. Besides, the note didn’t sound like a suicide note—it sounded like a Dear Jane letter. A goodbye.

 

A goodbye…

 

Buffy leaned against the porch pillar, clutching the slip of paper in her hand so tightly her fingers ached. She read his note over and over, each time hoping that it would end differently, hoping that, magically, it would bring him back to her.

 

It never did.

---

Authors note: The passages Spike left for Buffy are from the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament section of the Bible. Even if you aren’t a spiritual person I suggest you read that chapter—it is one of the most beautiful love poems every written.

---

Chapter Eleven

 

 

“Why won’t you come with me?” Buffy asked him. Her voice was vulnerably small, childishly petulant. She had both arms crossed over her breasts, her head turned slightly at an angle so that she was not looking directly at him.

 

“I can’t leave here,” he told her, motioning to the marble crypt just behind them. “I thought you knew…that I couldn’t leave.”

 

“I did,” she replied. Her eyes met his briefly and then looked away again. “But I didn’t believe it. Neither should you.”

 

“Fact is fact. You can’t predict history anymore than you can rewrite the future. I belong here.”

 

“Why? Because it’s where your history began? A life that comes full circle doesn’t go very far. I would think a straight line would be more suited to your tastes. You like to keep moving…Why move if it isn’t getting you anywhere?”

 

“I went as far as I could,” he said. “If it holds me back I hardly think I am to be blamed.”

 

“But does it? Hold you back, I mean. Does it?”

 

“Takes more than a spark to light a candle.”

 

“A spark is a flame,” she replied casually. “A flame is a candle and a candle is light. Why are you confused?”

 

“You should know. You’re the slayer.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. “It’s all dark in here.”

 

“Maybe it’s supposed to be.”

 

“But it isn’t what I want.”

 

“What do you want?” she asked. Her hand was on his chest and she was looking him full in the eye now.

 

“Light. I want light. I want to give it to you.”

 

Buffy cocked her head at him, appearing to consider his words. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then she drew back the hand that had been resting against his chest and plunged it forward again. It sank into his chest, tunneling through pain and something else to pull out a dripping, throbbing bundle. She held his heart up to the light to get a better look at it.

 

“That’s okay,” she told him. There was a line of blood snaking down her arm but she didn’t appear to notice. “You don’t have to give it to me. I can get it on my own.”

 

Spike pressed a hand against his gaping, hollow wound. “It hurts,” he said.

 

“It’s supposed to.”

*********************

*********************

 

 

 

Spike woke up with a start, wrenching himself from the arms of sleep so abruptly he felt dazed for a moment. He had to look around the bedroom several times to figure out where he was. The room was blue with the fading night, sparsely furnished and very plain. He didn’t come back to himself fully until the kitten climbed up from its post on the foot of his bed and swatted him with a playful paw, demanding affection.

 

The dream had left him shaking, holding one hand to his heart and wondering why the pain hadn’t ended when he awoke. He could still feel it, the wound—the emptiness. Deep inside him, it hurt. He wiped the sweat from his brow and sat up, knowing that sleep, always an elusive thing, would be impossible to capture just now. He climbed out of bed and ignored the kitten, which eagerly scampered to the kitchen, hoping for a bite. Spike made his way to the living room instead, switching of the lamp and flopping into the comfortable depths of his one chair.

 

He closed his eyes and tried to think about her. Buffy, her golden hair soft and flowing, a gentle smile curving her lips as—

 

Spike opened his eyes. It was no good. All he could see was the Buffy from his dream and he didn’t like that picture so much. It upset him, not being able to see her as he wanted. It was his favorite trick, his way to find comfort, dreaming of her. Usually, he could imagine her in any situation he wanted, in any mood he wanted. He didn’t usually make up stuff on his own, choosing instead to remember the softer moments they had spent together. His favorite memory was that of their last night together, the night in bedroom before he knew—  Before he knew. It was the most painful one to think about, the ending that could have been happy but wasn’t. Yet something in him made Spike revisit that moment over and over. Her soft, soft lips brushing against his mouth…her smooth tongue dancing across the tip of his own…It was both extremely pleasant and extremely painful for him to think about. The moment of ecstasy that would never be repeated.

 

Dream Buffy refused to let him envision the tender, demonstrative Buffy of that last night. Every time he tried, he saw her in the nightmare, looking at him matter-of-factly as she pulled his bleeding heart from his chest. He knew all dreams were supposed to mean something, and this one depressed him greatly. It wasn’t so much the violence of the act that bothered him as the underlying message: she had his heart, whether he wanted her to or not.

 

He smiled to himself bitterly. It was almost amusing. Once he had been the Big Bad…killer of women and children, barroom brawler, renowned executioner of vampire slayers. He had been at the top of his game, on the top of the world. Then he came to Sunnydale…and he saw her. And that was the end of everything. She fevered his blood, infected his brain. She seized his heart. She burned in him, hot and relentless. She possessed him, twisted him…molded him into something else.

 

At first, he had wanted to kill her for it. That wasn’t all just tough talk—he would gladly have given his eyeteeth to have the chance to snap her neck. But it was all a cover. He knew that now. Not that he wouldn’t have killed her—he would have killed her. He was honest with himself about it and he knew that, given the chance, he would have broken her neck or laid open her throat. But he wouldn’t have done it because she was a slayer…or because he hated her. She turned his world upside down, made Dru seem something less than what she had been. She had invaded his dreams, haunted his wakefulness. She made him feel something he didn’t want to feel and, in the beginning, he would have gladly slaughtered her just to make the feelings stop.

 

Spike wondered if killing her would have been the answer. Would the longing have ceased if the object of longing were no longer present? It was hard to say. Her death had not stopped the longing. He had wanted her just as much as ever, maybe more so. But he was so gone by that time, so lost in her. Who knows what may have happened had he or Drusilla been able to kill her as planned? Would he have been cutting a continual, bloody swathe across the country, happily oblivious to what he had never had? Would it still have hurt him, early on in his madness as he was? The really funny thing was that no matter how often he toyed with the idea he always reached the same baffling conclusion: no matter how much it hurt he would not give up loving Buffy for anything. Not even happiness.

 

*****************

*****************

 

 

 

Spike had been gone two weeks.

 

It was the first thing that popped into Buffy’s head as she opened her eyes that morning. Two weeks—half a month—and no word from him whatsoever. She had gone to his crypt as soon as she had found his note that morning, hoping, praying that he would be there. Instead, she found Clem, moving furniture and humming along to the score of The Sound of Music. Even after she had slammed him into the wall a few times the demon had sworn he knew nothing of Spike’s whereabouts, only that the ex vamp was gone from the crypt for good. Still not satisfied, she had searched the place, convinced he must be hiding from her. When this proved untrue, she left the crypt to search the cemetery…and from the cemetery, she went to the Bronze… For over a week, she had combed the entire town at least ten times a day, hoping against hope that she would run into him. She never did.

 

When he had been gone for ten days, Buffy came to terms with the fact he was gone for good. At least, she thought she had come to terms with the fact that he was gone for good. But admitting it and accepting weren’t the same thing. She had managed the former (after much internal struggle) but the latter kept eluding her. She knew he was gone. She knew from his letter he was not planning to return to her…yet she could not stop hoping. She couldn’t stop dreaming of him. She didn’t want to. Dreams were all she had of him now.

 

No one was permitted to speak his name in her house. On the morning she found the note, she had stalked into the kitchen and ordered them never to speak his name to her again. So they didn’t. They thought she was angry with him for leaving, but that was only a half-truth. She was angry, but more than this, she was hurt. It was her fault he was gone, and this was what hurt more than anything. He had given her so many chances—had practically begged her to look into her heart and see what he knew had to be there. And she wouldn’t. Now he didn’t believe. Now he thought she couldn’t love him because of the material from which he was made.

 

She accepted her share of the blame in this fiasco that was her love life, but that didn’t stop her from being angry with him. He had been so stupid to believe she didn’t know he was a demon. She was the slayer. He should have known she would be aware of this. He should have known that her presence in the bedroom that night was a clear indication that she didn’t give a damn how he started out. Or where. Or by whom. She loved him for what he was now, and she was angry with him for not knowing it instinctively. He hadn’t even tried talking to her about it, hadn’t even given her the chance to see if it would matter. He just stormed out in the middle of the night without a word to anyone, had left that damn note on the doorstep the following morning.

 

The note was Buffy’s secret. No one knew about it, not even Willow and Dawn. Buffy wasn’t sure why she kept it hidden. She knew that had she told them about it they wouldn’t have asked to read it or pressed her to tell them what was in it…but for some reason she was loath to share her precious treasure with them. It was, after all, the only thing she had to remind her of him. His other gifts had been more subtle, things that one could feel but could not see. The soul, for instance. But the letter she could see, could hold, could keep under her pillow at night to chase away bad dreams. It was hers and she could not bear the thought of anyone else even knowing it existed. It would have been a betrayal to him, like letting someone look into his heart. Not to mention her own.

 

The note was folded safely in the hip pocket of Buffy’s jeans as she slid into the kitchen for breakfast on the fourteenth fully Spike-free day of her life. She returned the polite greetings of her sister and her friends, but she wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying. She felt disconnected from them, separated by her grief. Her head hummed dully as Dawn went on and on and on about the twenty dollars she would need to go to the movies with Janice, and she held out the money without her usual grousing about how Dawn never made it last.

 

Her melancholia blanketed the room and slowly the conversation around the breakfast table dwindled. Xander, who had been attacking his pancakes with relish, suddenly pushed his plate away and stared at the tablecloth. Giles sipped coffee with an air of studied tranquility and steadfastly read his morning paper (or he appeared to—as Dawn noticed, he was holding the Literature and Arts section upside down). Willow, who was manning the stove, plopped the last pancake on the stack and smacked the plate on the table. She fell into her chair wearily, completely ignoring Xander’s silent pleas for help. Only Dawn, who pocketed her money with thanks, seemed content to eat without talking.

 

Buffy picked at her pancakes morosely, completely unaware that the rest of the gang was staring at her. She was thinking of all the meals Willow had been making them lately—an attempt to apologize to them for lying. “Penitent” food, she called it. Buffy was remembering the last time Willow’s conscience had goaded her into baking. It was their freshman year at college and Oz had just left. Willow had performed a vengeance spell on him that inadvertently affect the rest of the Scoobies. Giles had gone blind, Xander had been trailed by hoards of demons, and Buffy fallen in love with Spike.

 

Spike.

 

She smiled at her breakfast, thinking of him, of how he was then. Obnoxious, stupid, vulgar Spike tied to a kitchen chair, sipping blood from Giles’ Kiss the Librarian mug. Spike eating Wheatabix and watching Passions, shushing anyone who tried to speak during the show. Spike demanding to know why blood couldn’t be on the Thanksgiving dinner menu. She had hated him then…or thought she had…or pretended she had. Yet even then, even when he had driven her completely nuts, she had sought him out. He had energized her, made her feel completely alive. Without him she felt lost. A lamp without light. A toy without a battery.

 

She closed her eyes for just a moment, imagining him just waltzing back into her life one day. Just like that. Completing the painting.

 

“Ahem!”

 

Dawn cleared her throat loudly, banging her hand against the table impatiently. “Buffy, hello! Am I mute as well as invisible now?”

 

Buffy snapped to attention. “What?” she asked. Dawn was standing by the table, a book bag slung over one arm. She tapped her watch when Buffy looked at her.

 

“It’s seven-thirty; I need to get to school. So if you’re riding with Xander and me then you better get off your butt and into the car.”

 

“Oh…yeah…”

 

Buffy stood up, leaving her plate of untouched pancakes on the table. Her hand brushed the pocket of her jeans as she pulled on her coat, checking to see if the note was still there. It was. She headed for the door but paused with her hand on the knob.

 

“Uh…you guys go on out to the car,” she told Dawn. “I have to answer a call of nature. I’ll meet you out there.”

 

“Soon!” Dawn said. “We’re late enough as it is.”

 

Buffy nodded. She walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Then she pulled out the note. The large, tissue-thin page was wrinkled and dog-eared from travel, but the blunt black print stood out stark and clear on the creamy page. Spike’s blue ink-scrawled message seemed obscenely bright by comparison. Buffy read the words, her lips moving silently as she repeated sentences she had almost memorized. When she finished she folded the paper into a neat, small square. She gazed at it thoughtfully for a moment.

 

And she ripped it in half.

 

She kept tearing and kept tearing until she held nothing but a pile of confetti, then she upturned her palm and let the confetti flutter into the wastebasket. Tears came to her eyes when she gazed at the little pile, but she swallowed them down.

 

“Goodbye Spike,” she said softly. Then she turned and walked out.

 

*******************

*******************

 

 

 

Willow knew better than to get started right away. She would have to wait a few hours before she could safely begin—enough time to ensure they wouldn’t be coming back for some forgotten item, a short enough to period not to worry that they might be coming home in the middle of it. So she cleaned the house, washed the breakfast dishes, took out the trash…all the while keeping one eye focused on her wristwatch. At a quarter of one, she dropped her housework and ran lightly up the stairs to her bedroom. There was a battered cardboard box sitting in the very back of her closet, concealed by a pile of stuffed animals. She knocked the toys away and dragged out the carton, dumping its contents on her bed.

 

Candles and incense were not technically contraband; at least, Giles had not yet searched her room to remove them. However, Willow knew that if the rest of the Scoobies knew she had them they would automatically assume it was proof of her continuing to practice the dark arts. Since she was not overly eager to sit through another intervention with them, she kept these things hidden.

 

She lit a stick of lavender incense and stuck it in the ceramic holder. She placed the incense on the floor and arranged a dozen or more candles in a wide circle around it, lighting each one after she placed it. Then she sat in the center of the circle, her crossed legs just a few inches from the burning incense. She didn’t need the incense or the candles for what she was about to do—she didn’t need anything but steady concentration. But she had found that the incense helped her to relax, to further open her consciousness, as did the candles. They weren’t necessary, but they did help improve the reception a bit. She tilted her head back slightly, breathing in the smoky sweet odor.

 

“Spike.”

 

Her lips didn’t move, didn’t speak the word audibly. Yet in just a moment she heard his answer. From somewhere miles away his thoughts carried back to her, as distant and tinny as a payphone call, but distinct, perceptible.

 

“What do you want?”

 

Willow smiled.

 

********************

********************

 

 

 

It was early afternoon and Spike was wandering the wide aisles of the Stop ‘n’ Save, pushing a cart ahead of him. He had never gone shopping before, for groceries or anything else, so it was a novel experience for him. He stopped frequently, frowning and comparing brands, ingredients, prices. He watched the other patrons stroll by, some pushing carts or carrying baskets, others steering screaming children in strollers, and wondered how they lived. He wondered where they lived, what they did at their job, whether they loved their husbands, kids, parents…

 

He laughed to himself. Once he had thought of human beings as having no thoughts of their own, no feelings beyond that of animal instinct. They were cattle to him and to attribute any complex thoughts and feelings to them would have been counterproductive. Since he had fallen in love with Buffy, he had come to see things a bit differently. He had been able to see her as an intelligent creature, one with thoughts and feelings not unlike his own. Later, he would be able to credit the Nibblet with the same thing. But the rest of humanity? Fodder.

 

Now that he had become a human being himself, Spike changed his mind about much of that. For the first time in a long time, he was able to see people as…people. His understanding of them was but a little better than before, but he now felt a sense of protectiveness for them. They were weak but they weren’t stupid. It wasn’t their fault they were weak. He felt rather bad when he looked out on the crowd of shoppers and mentally calculated how many of them it would take to feed the vampire population in a town the size of Sunnydale. They were weak but they had no idea. They were…

 

Fodder.

 

Same as before, right? So why did he feel differently about them? Why did it bother him to see a small blonde girl clinging to her mother’s hand and envision her becoming the meal of a hungry vamp? She was weak. The strong killed the weak and ate them. It was the natural order of things. So…why did he feel bad?

 

He posed the question to Willow.

 

“You feel bad because you know that physical weakness is the only thing separating you from them. You feel bad because they are like you.”

 

Her answer rolled around in his head for a moment, quiet and remote. But real. A real conversation with a slightly different method of communication.

 

The first time it happened, he had thought he was dreaming…the second time he thought he was crazy. By the time he figured it out, he had grown so accustomed to the routine of it he was no longer surprised to hear her voice echoing from his brain at intervals during the day. It was just another random weird thing in his random weird existence. And talking to her, even if it was only in his head, was still talking.

 

“I’m not one of them. Not inside. Inside I’m still a demon.” Spike told her now. He spoke aloud, even though he knew it wasn’t necessary. She was in his head, in his thoughts; she didn’t need to hear his voice to know what he was saying. But there was something about thinking answers in his head and not saying them that made him uneasy. It was too much like being a schizoid.

 

“Then why do you feel this way?”

 

“You tell me.”

 

Of course, talking aloud when you are shopping by yourself in a crowded grocery store was a lot like being a schizoid too. Spike was certainly attracting some odd looks from the other patrons. But he ignored them. He was too accustomed with odd looks to pay them any mind.

 

“I just did. You just aren’t ready to accept it, that there are different types of humanity. Just because you started out differently doesn’t make you less than them—or more. It just makes you different. Like Dawn.”

 

“I accept it,” he replied, steering his cart toward produce. “You just don’t understand.”

 

“I understand more than you think. I understand how lonely you are, out there by yourself. When are you coming home?”  It was a question she put to him at least ten times a day and it never failed to set his teeth on edge.

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t have a home there anymore.”

 

“But she misses you. Spike, if you could only see her face—”

 

“I don’t want to see her face!” he snapped. He slammed a head of lettuce into his cart so hard he squashed it into the wire.

 

“That’s not true at all.”

 

“Well, I’m not going to see her face, how’s that?” he asked. He picked up the lettuce and examined it. Ruined. He placed it on top of the pile and got a new head. “I told her I was leaving for good and I meant it. I’m doing this for her own good…whether you can see it or not.”

 

“But you didn’t leave.”

 

“I—I left her.”

 

“But you didn’t leave town. You’re still here…I can still sense you here. Why didn’t you leave if you don’t want to see her?”

 

“I said I don’t want to see her,” he growled. “I didn’t say I don’t want to be near her. I want to be here to protect her the next time—” He stopped.

 

“The next time she needs it? And how will you know? You’re never around to hear when she needs help.”

 

“I’ll know. I’ve got my ear to the ground.” He pushed his cart forward, heading for the cat food aisle.

 

“She doesn’t need your help, dummy. She needs your love.”

 

“No. Trust me. She really doesn’t.”

 

“Spike, why are you being so stubborn?” Willow sounded exasperated. Then the tone of her voice (rather, the tone of her thoughts) became softer, gentler. “I know you love her.”

 

“Shut up.” Spike’s voice was thick, more pained than angry. “I don’t.”

 

“…I know  you still dream about her.”

 

“Shut up!” he barked.  “I’m not talking about it anymore! Get out of my head, Willow! I’m through with this.”

 

He shoved his cart to the front of the store, heading for the registers. On the way, he collided with an old lady who had stopped in the middle of an aisle to read the back of a Phillips bottle. She smiled sweetly and blocked his path as she attempted to recover the basket of items she had dropped when he hit her.

 

Spike watched her impassively for a moment. Then the demon—which slept most of the time—awoke, took possession of him. He kicked the box of cereal she was reaching for, knocking it a full twenty feet down the aisle.

 

“Out of my way, bitch.” He shoved past her, almost knocking her over with his shopping cart.

 

He cried all the way to the checkout.

 

*******************

*******************

 

 

 

“Spike!”

 

Willow’s furrowed brow began to sweat with the effort, but she could not regain her connection with him. Stupid, stubborn ex vampire. Usually, he was very good about letting her into his head. She had a feeling he was lonely and did it simply to connect with someone—anyone. Which was a big reason she did it, come to think of it. But mention Buffy to him and he would close off completely.

 

Pulling herself up from her uncomfortable, cross-legged position, Willow began to put her incense and candles away. She packed them neatly away in the box, and then opened a window to allow the room to air. It was getting late, and she knew what Buffy would say if she came home to find the house smelling of lavender and bayberry.

 

She tried not to worry too much about Spike as she went downstairs to finish her housework, but the truth was she was concerned about what would become of him. He was still struggling with the same fears and self-doubt as before, and he seemed to be getting nowhere. He was still stubbornly clinging to the belief he needed to shut himself off from everyone in order to keep them safe. At this rate, he was going to drive himself crazy in no time flat and Willow was not sure he could help him. After all, she didn’t have much time left.

 

**********************

**********************

 

 

 

By the time Spike had fought the Saturday crowd at the supermarket and gathered up his bag of groceries, it was late in the afternoon. The small apartment building where he was living was five or six miles away, and he trudged the distance slowly, his feet heavy with his depression.

 

Willow was right. He wasn’t doing Buffy any good hanging around here if he wasn’t going to hang around her. His excuse for staying was to protect her…but, as Willow pointed out, how could he protect her protect her when he had no idea whether she was in danger or not? With the exception of Clem, Spike had completely lost his ties to the demon world and therefore had lost his ability to find out insider information about rising evils. He wasn’t around the Scoobies to hear their news…so how would he know if something seriously evil was after her? He wouldn’t.

 

So what was he doing here?

 

Without the noble excuse of protecting her from afar, Spike found his presence in town distasteful. It made him think back to the days when he had hung around outside of her house, waiting for her to come out so he could talk to her. That was essentially what he was doing now, wasn’t it? Hanging around town, hoping to catch a glimpse of her?

 

The thought made him angry. He couldn’t change. No matter what he did, he would never be anything but what he was. Willow was right that night she explained his origin to him. He was mortal, he had a soul…but he was still essentially the same being he had always been. Except she had meant it to be a compliment, a comment to bring relief to his troubled mind. She didn’t understand what it meant. Being the same thing he had always been…she couldn’t know what that was. She hadn’t known him at his worst. She had known him bad, certainly. But not at his worst.

 

Bathed in the fading glow of sunset, Spike kicked viciously at the cracked sidewalk, overcome by guilt. The flash of anger in the supermarket had frightened him. It had showed him just how little he had changed that he could grow angry so quickly. Snapping at the old woman had been bad, but it wasn’t as bad as the feeling inside him—the feeling he could happily take a shotgun and take out everyone in the place, himself included. Willow could say that he had grown, that he was better…but she didn’t know it all.

 

She didn’t know the half of it.

 

Spike was so occupied with this thought he didn’t know anything was amiss until she was right there on him. She was wearing spiked heels and not attempting at all to muffle the clacking of her shoes against the concrete, but he didn’t notice. It wasn’t until she spoke that he realized she was there at all.

 

“Hello, Spike.”

 

Spike turned around slowly. After the incident in the supermarket he wasn’t in the best of moods, and the lilting mockery of her tone wasn’t helping any. He adjusted the paper grocery sack in the crook of his arm and cocked his head at her. “Do I know you?”

 

The vampire licked her lips and smiled. She was very thin, emaciated almost. Her long brown hair was thin and stringy and her makeup thick, almost clownish. She was obviously a fairly substandard element of the demon world. Ignorant. Lowbrow. The type of crack-whore vamp that frequented Willie’s place. Spike did and did not recognize her. He didn’t know her personally, but he knew her face, her type. Two minutes after sunset and already, she was on the prowl. Just looking at her made his blood rise.

 

“I know you,” she said. She was advancing in the slow, slinky gate of a seasoned killer. Her demon face was on and it was hungry. “I was there the night Nikolai caught you.”

 

“Were you now?” He didn’t back up as she approached.

 

“Yes…We all were. We believed in him, you see. He was going to kill you for us…and we were going to take turns lapping up your blood. Then your girlfriend showed up and ruined the party.”

 

“How’d you get away?” Spike asked. She tried to slip behind him, but he turned quickly so that he was face to face with her.

 

“I wasn’t there at that time. Lucky me.” Her head rocked from side to side like a snake’s as she spoke. “Lucky you, too. Now you don’t have to miss all the fun…”

 

Spike threw down the shopping bag. He held out his hands to her. “All right, bitch. Let’s see what you got, shall we?”

 

***********************

***********************

 

 

 

Dawn was just emerging from the movie theatre when she heard the commotion down the street. Well, actually, she heard the commotion made by her friends first, then the sounds from down the street. A whole lot of people were standing on the sidewalk, watching the fight, but no one seemed to be doing anything about it.

 

Dawn shouldered her way through the crowd until she could see what was going on. Several hundred feet down the street, a man and a woman were fighting. Not arguing, down and out fighting. The man had the woman by her hank of long hair; he lifted her off her feet effortlessly and then threw her to the pavement. The sound reminded Dawn of the time she had dropped a cantaloupe on her mother’s kitchen floor—dull and solid, broken and wet. They all thought the girl might be dead, but she got up almost immediately, barely fazed, oblivious to the blood dripping from her scalp.

 

Janice and her boyfriend squeezed in beside Dawn, both of them watching the scene open-mouthed. “Do you think we ought to call the police?” Janice asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Dawn answered nervously. “I mean, I guess we should…”

 

The man flew backwards onto the pavement—the result of a kick the woman had given him. Unlike the woman, the fall seemed to faze the man. He lay still for a fraction of a second and in that instant she was on top of him, straddling his waist and struggling to seize his hands. Her face caught in a shaft of light from the street lamp—

 

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd of onlookers.

 

“Did you ever—?”

 

“What do you suppose—?”

 

“Her face—did you see her face?”

 

The woman’s face twisted into a grisly mockery of a smile, her lips stretching grotesquely over her bulging vampire fangs. She arched her back and prepared to deliver the fatal bite.

 

The man managed to pull his arm free of her grip. He backhanded the vampire, sending her reeling to the ground with the force of his blow. He rolled onto his feet. Dawn saw him reach for something on the ground, something she couldn’t see because of the shadows. For a moment, she squinted into the distance, trying to see…

 

Then he was bathed in the glow from a passing car, and she could see both his face and his weapon very clearly.

 

“SPIKE!”

 

The word burst from Dawn’s lips before she could stop them. Janice and Carlos turned to her with surprise.

 

“Spike?” Janice asked.

 

Dawn recovered herself quickly. “I—I mean—he’s got a spike,” she said. “In his hand. See?”

 

The other two glanced across the street. Carlos whistled. “Damn, she’s gonna get tore up now.”

 

Janice started digging around in her purse. “I’m calling the cops.”

 

Dawn grabbed her friend’s hand. “No—wait!”

 

“For what? This is ridiculous, all these people standing here while she gets throttled.”

 

“Yeah—but look, they’re leaving.”

 

They were. The vampire had turned tail and run. She climbed the low wall of a back alley and disappeared from sight. Spike followed closely behind.

 

The crowd began to disperse. Janice tugged at Dawn’s arm, all interest in the fight lost now that it was not in her immediate line of vision. “Dawn, come on,” she said impatiently. “There’s my mom. Let’s get out of here.”

 

But Dawn’s eyes were still riveted on the alley. “No…” she said, her voice distracted. “You guys go on. I think I’m going to stick around a while longer, see the next show.”

 

They looked at her as though she were crazy.

 

“Dawn…” Janice spoke slowly, as though to a very small, very stupid child. “We just saw a girl get beaten and almost stabbed by a man who is still out there somewhere. And now you want to hang around until the wee hours of the morning? Do you want to end up buried in a ditch somewhere?”

 

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. Now that she had seen Spike, she was dying to get away. Nothing her friends said could convince her to leave with them. She refused to say hello to Janice’s mom on the grounds that Lindsey would insist on driving her home. This was too good a chance…this might be her only chance. Dawn wasn’t going to miss it.

 

She waited until the car had pulled out of sight, and then darted across the street into the alley Spike and the vampire had taken. It was narrow and very dark, but the wall they had scaled looked much lower from this side of the street, which was a definite plus. Still, not possessing vampire strength, Dawn was forced to use her head. She dragged several empty wooden fruit crates over to the wall, stacking them on top of each other for height. When she had four of them, she climbed atop the pile and, grabbing the chain link with both fists, she managed to scramble over the wall.

 

Her feet hit the ground below with a painful thump. She brushed the dust from her blue jeans and peered into the darkness, wondering.

 

“Spike…?”

---

TBC....