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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.”

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

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“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.”

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“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.

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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…?”

---

Chapter Twelve

 

 

The chain link fence extended a good twelve hundred feet beyond the back of the alley and about eight hundred on either side. It was very quiet, dimly lit by the orange glow of a security light mounted on a pole. Dawn could see several uneven shapes in the distance and, when she reached them, she saw they were half a dozen or so rusted cars, some of which had been stripped down to the metal skeleton of their frames. Obviously, this lot belonged to the auto body shop next door and the cars were being used for their parts.

 

Dawn wound her way through the wrecked automobiles, her ears straining for the familiar sound of battle. At first, she heard nothing, and she was afraid that perhaps they had already left. Then she heard the metallic rattle of chain link, heard Spike’s familiar voice yell, “Where do you think you’re going, bitch?”

 

They were at the far corner of the lot. The vampire, who had just recovered from being thrown into the fence, was now whirling in a series of lightening-fast roundhouse kicks, each one of which Spike easily evaded. He swerved and dipped, occasionally striking back at her with fists or feet. Dawn stopped walking and concealed herself behind a rusted Ford pickup, watching them. In some strange way, there was a kind of beauty to the violence. The two of them seemed to be moving in rhythm to each other, dancing to a soundless melody, a perfectly choreographed dance that would stop only when one of them was dead. Strange as it seemed, the glow of Spike’s white skin in the moonlight contrasted with the dark line of blood snaking from his mouth and made him beautiful, and Dawn was lost in the graceful movements of his rage.

 

There was no doubt who was winning the battle. The vampire was simply no match for him. Next to Spike, her movements seemed ungainly, slow. He seemed to read her thoughts and anticipate her attacks before they came, avoiding them effortlessly. Yet he didn’t use any one of the dozen opportunities to just get it over with and kill her. His stake was clutched in his right hand, apparently forgotten as he pummeled her with his hands. There was a slight grin on his face—a grin Dawn had seen many times before—which said clearly that he was enjoying himself.

 

“So you’re the one that got away?” he asked softly, raising his eyebrows at the vampire.

 

She tried to kick him but he slid out of the way easily, gliding around her before she had time to think, let alone move. He grabbed her arm as she was in mid turn, spun her so that he back was to him, and pulled her close. He pressed the stake he was holding against her chest, but he didn’t apply enough pressure to penetrate—just enough to hurt her a little.  

 

“How did you manage to find me?” His voice was low and deep, a purr. “Have you been looking? Hunting? Stalking me by night like a little jungle kitty?”

 

The vampire gasped in pain as he gave a violent upward jerk on her arm. There was a loud cracking sound as the bone snapped. Still, she refused to give him an inch. Her yellow eyes were cold as she answered his question. “You’re a traitor to us. Of course, I’ve been looking for you. I want—we all want—you dead. You’re…worse than human.”

 

“Too true,” he said pleasantly. The lightness of his tone combined with the coldness of his expression made Dawn’s blood chill. She hadn’t seen Spike act this way in a very long time and it frightened her a little. He pulled the vampire so that her body was pressed tight against his, her back to his chest. He tilted his head, resting his chin on her shoulder like a lover, and whispered into her ear, “But I’m still better than you.”

 

“Are you?” she spat. “The Slayer’s lap dog? Her fuck buddy? Deserter of your own kind. You kill us to please her. You betrayed your calling and became something else for her.” The vampire smiled suddenly, a cold evil smile Spike couldn’t see because of his position. “But you know what? It didn’t work, did it? The Slayer wasn’t pleased. She saw you for what you are and she threw you out. She knew you were no better than you were—she knew you were worse. So she got rid of you.”

 

He scoffed. “Shows how much you know. I left of my own free will. Got tired of the old home-and-family deal.” But there was an edge to his voice—something neither the vampire nor Dawn failed to notice.

 

The demon brow furrowed, the gold eyes gleaming maliciously as she went on. “And now you’re alone. A thing. Not human and not a vampire. Displaced. You should be glad to let me kill you. You should beg me for it. It would be a favor to you because she is all you had, and she doesn’t want you now.”

 

The vampire knew her prey, all right, and she had picked his weakest point to attack. To Dawn’s utter shock, Spike’s eyes went wide and stricken at the desperate, angry words. His grip on the vampire’s arms loosened. In a flash, she was free of his hold and facing him. Laughing now, she taunted him. “I was there, you know. When Nikolai beat you. You cried and called her name. Just like you’re crying now. Pathetic. No wonder she doesn’t want you.”

 

Spike reached up and touched his cheek. Dawn could see the tears on his face, glistening in the moonlight. When he brought his hand away, he gazed at the moisture on his fingertips with puzzlement. Something in him seemed to have broken at the mention of Buffy, and Dawn could see he now had no idea what danger he was in. He was too distracted by the vampire’s words, by his own thoughts, to care. The stake slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground.

 

The vampire smiled.

 

Dawn watched in horror as the demon approached him, circling like a wolf around a lamb. Spike was staring straight ahead, apparently unseeing, as the vampire kicked his stake out of reach. The vampire grabbed his shoulders.

 

“SPIKE!”

 

Dawn wasn’t even thinking. Had she been thinking she might have grabbed the stake and thrown it to him—or staked the vampire herself. But the sight of Spike as she had never known him—helpless—scared her, and she didn’t think. She acted.

 

The vampires shrieked in surprise as the girl hit her like a torpedo, knocking them both to the dirt. “What the fuck?” she snapped. Her hands grappled at Dawn’s shoulders, trying to hold her still. Her teeth clicked together as she snapped at Dawn’s exposed throat. But Dawn was too fast for her. Before the vampire could deliver the bite, she squirmed off her, squirmed away. She scrambled to her feet and ran to Spike, who was watching the scene with something akin to shock—but watching the scene, Dawn was relieved to see. He had come back to himself. He was aware.

 

“Little Bit…?”

 

“Spike—” Dawn looked over shoulder. The vampire had gotten to her feet and was advancing on them. She was looking mightily pissed off. Dawn ducked behind Spike. “The stake,” she hissed. “Get the stake.”

 

 

He backed over to where the fallen stake lay (Dawn behind him at every step) and bent to retrieve the stake. He looked at the hungry vampire with one eyebrow raised. Then he turned to Dawn. “You know what?”

 

She shook her head. The vampire was right behind him now and she pushed at Spike’s chest, trying to get him to turn around and pay attention to the approaching enemy. But he wouldn’t. He merely smiled at her fondly. Part of her wondered if he hadn’t gone completely nutters.

 

“I’m really sick of this shit.” He said this casually, as one might say he was sick of pollution, or traffic, or a certain type of food.

 

Dawn stared at him openmouthed. The vampire was right on him now. Dawn reached to grab the stake from Spike’s hand, fully prepared to fight the good fight all by herself. But before she could grasp the shaft of wood Spike whipped around, driving the stake into the vampire’s chest with a movement so fluid Dawn went back to her first thought: he made carnage look good.

 

The vampire exploded in the typical cloud of dust, but seconds before she did Spike reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and withdrew a wad of bills. He put this casually into the pocket of his own jeans before turning back to Dawn. He grinned and—briefly—looked like the Spike of old.

 

“Thought I was going to let her get me, did you?”

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

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

 

 

 

“Hey, Will.”

 

Willow turned from the pot of spaghetti sauce she was stirring on the stove. She returned Buffy’s smile. “Hey. How was your day?”

 

“Oh, you know…” Buffy tossed her bag onto the table and sank into a chair with a sigh, “extra ketchup on this, supersize that. It’s a rat race.”

 

“I can imagine.”

 

“So how about you?” Buffy asked, as she sampled the spoonful of sauce Willow offered her. “How were things in Willow-world?”

 

Willow smiled wanly. “Oh…you know...kinda crazy. I packed some stuff…but really, it’s hard to get into it. I think part of me can’t really believe I’m going, you know? It just seems so unreal.”

 

Buffy looked at her friend sympathetically. “What are the odds Giles will let you out of it?”

 

“Slim to nil. And I don’t even if I want to get out of it. I mean…I know it would be good for me to go, to learn how to control this. It’s just so…scary. It’s so far away.”

 

“But it isn’t forever.”

 

The words appeared to cheer Willow slightly; her smile became more genuine. “True,” she said. “It’s not forever.” Her face fell again. “I just wish Giles would stop being angry with me.”

 

“He will. Give him time. You know how he is—all silent and scowling for a few days and then all better. It’s the Brit in him. He can’t yell and throw things like us coarse Yanks, so he has to make to with the cold shoulder. Not a very satisfying way to show your frustrations, I expect.”

 

“Guess not,” Willow replied. She adjusted the heat on the stove and asked casually, “So where’s Xander?”

 

It was a blatant attempt to change the subject and Buffy recognized it as such. She didn’t comment, however. She knew only to well how painful probing a sore tooth was, and she was not about to perform any harsh emotional dental work on Willow now—not when they had so little time left to spend together. She plastered a smile on her face and answered Willow’s question. “He said he wanted to be alone tonight so he went home. I think he’s feeling a little melancholy.”

 

“Why? He’s been doing so well lately, what with the promotion at work and everything.” Willow turned back to her spaghetti sauce.

 

“I think part of it is that he got this great promotion…and he’s got all this money and respect now…and no one to share it with.”

 

Willow stirred her sauce steadily. “Must be hard,” she said innocently.

 

“Yeah.” Buffy’s voice was soft. “I’m sure it is.”

 

“What about you?”

 

Buffy looked up sharply. Willow’s back was turned, her attention still riveted to the pot on the stove. “What do you mean? What about me?”

 

“Well…” Willow tasted her concoction then made a face. “It must be hard for you, as well,” she went on, adding more garlic to the sauce. “You know…Spike being gone and all. Must hurt.”

 

“Please. Spike—Spike is…Spike. Xander and Anya really had something. They were almost married, for God’s sake. Spike and I were just…It doesn’t compare.”

 

“I guess.”

 

“And, anyway, he was the one who left. It was his choice, not mine. Shows just how much he really loved me, doesn’t it? Running off in the night without a word to anyone—”

 

“But could it?” Willow interrupted suddenly.

 

Buffy paused. “Huh?”

 

Willow turned from the stove eagerly, having suddenly come to a decision. “Could it compare?”

 

“Will…”

 

“Seriously, Buffy. You said you love him…”

 

Buffy’s face became mutinous. “Yeah, I did say that. And I felt it. But he left, Willow. There’s no point in speculating on what might have happened between us because he is gone. He’s not coming back.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

Buffy thought of the note. “I just know,” she said.

 

Willow turned off the burner on the stove. She turned and looked her friend full in the eye. “Buffy, I know something. About Spike, that is.”

 

Buffy felt a sudden flash of excitement. She fought it down with difficulty. “What do you know?”

 

Willow smiled grimly. “I know where he is.”

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

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

 

 

 

For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other. Truthfully, he looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see him, though Dawn didn’t understand this. After all, he knew she was still in Sunnydale…He must have known they would run into each other eventually. Sunnydale wasn’t a big enough town to hide in…particularly if one was inclined to go out on the town and kill things at night. That really made him really easy to spot.

 

Dawn was so happy to see him she could have cried. She wanted to leap into his arms, to hug him. But something in his eyes warned her not to. Nothing, however, could stop her from asking the dozens of questions that hovered on the tip of her tongue. The first, the most important, came out in a harsh whisper. “Why did you go?”

 

He glanced up at her face, briefly then stared back down at his shoes. “Buffy didn’t tell you then.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“Buffy didn’t tell me what?”

 

“About me. I left…to protect her. See…she’s besotted with me now for some ungodly reason, and I didn’t fancy the idea of…” His voice trailed off.

 

“Of what?”

 

His eyes glazed slightly, focused on something over her shoulder, something away, something only he could see. “I wanted the best for her. I wanted to be the kind of man who could—I wanted to give her what she deserved, all that she deserved.” His voice thickened as his throat clogged with tears. “But I couldn’t. No matter what I did, how hard I tried…I could never be that man. I had to leave, Bit. I had to…”

 

Dawn swallowed hard. Her stomach fluttered with fear and something that wasn’t fear. Pity, maybe? She reached out and touched his arm. “But you didn’t go,” she whispered. “Not really. We thought you’d left town…Clem thought you had left town. You were here all the time…you didn’t leave. You just hid. Why?”

 

“I couldn’t go,” he sighed. “Leave here…Leave her. How could I do that? I wanted to be here to—to protect her. I wanted to keep her safe but never let her know. Is that so wrong? Is it?” The last words came out in a sort of tortured scream, making Dawn jump with surprise.

 

Dawn shook her head. “No…” She moved closer to him, patted his back. “It isn’t wrong, Spike. It’s…really nice of you to want to keep her safe. I just don’t understand why you think you had to go.”

 

“I can’t talk to you about it.”

 

“Spike…if it’s about the thing Willow told you…about being a demon…I already know. We all do. Even Buffy. And no one cares, Spike. No one thinks badly of you because of it.”

 

“Maybe they should.”

 

“Why? Just because you started out something else doesn’t make you bad. I started out something else…and you told me it doesn’t matter so much how you start out. Remember? I believed you when you said that. Why don’t you believe it?”

 

“It’s different with me.”

 

“Why? ‘Cause you were a vampire? Spike it doesn’t matter! Not to us.” Dawn grabbed his arms. “We missed you, Buffy and me. Willow too…she’s been very worried. Xander not so much but then he never—”

 

“Stop it!” he hissed, throwing her arms off. “Just…stop it! I’m doing what’s right. I’m being good—for once, I am being good. Don’t you come here and try to make me be bad—don’t you dare!”

 

He sounded like a child throwing a tantrum, and for just a moment Dawn feared for his sanity. But when she looked into his eyes, they were perfectly lucid, just very confused, pained. “Spike, I’m not trying to make you bad,” she told him quietly. “I’m not trying to upset you in any way. I’m just telling you the truth. Buffy and I don’t care about the stupid spell, or the demon, or anything. We just want you back. We lo—”

 

“For God’s sake!” His hand clapped over her mouth, muffling the rest of the sentence. “Shut up! Shut up, do you hear? I’m not going back with you! I’m never going back with you! I’m doing what’s right for you—and for her. Nothing you say can make me think differently.”

 

Seeing that he wouldn’t let go until she agreed to stop talking about it, Dawn nodded. The hand dropped from her mouth.

 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, looking at the dirt. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

“’s okay,” he answered. He sounded very tired.

 

“It’s just…everything is going wrong. You’re gone…Giles is moving back to England. Willow is leaving…”

 

His head snapped around. “What?”

 

“Well, Giles said now that Buffy is settled into her classes—Buffy is taking some classes part time at UC Sunnydale—he feels comfortable going back to England. He says he has ties there and he wants to—”

 

“Not Giles!” Spike snapped. “Why should I give a damn what that poof does? What about Willow? She’s leaving? Where is she going?”

 

“With Giles. When he found out she broke into the Magic Box to steal some dark arts books, Giles decided Willow’s place is in England with him. There’s some big deal coven there; he works with them sometimes. He said they can help Willow learn to control herself with her magic.”

 

“So she’s moving there? For how long?”

 

Dawn shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

 

He swallowed, the slight dipping of his Adam’s apple somehow coinciding with his complete change of facial expression. The weary look was exchanged for one of heavy sorrow. His voice, when he spoke, was low and husky. “When?”

 

“Tomorrow morning. She’s been packing like mad all day; she left it to the last minute so she’s having to rush now.” Dawn’s eyes widened as Spike turned and began walking toward the back fence. “Where are you going?”

 

He grabbed the chain link in both hands, hoisting himself onto the fence with one lithe movement. “None of your damn business,” he snapped.

 

His long, lean body began to slide up the high fence, his ropy muscles working, rippling beneath his clothes. When he reached the top of the fence, he stopped, the toe of his boots jammed into links, his fingers curled around the metal post as he twisted his upper body to look at her. His expression was hidden in the shadows, his voice unreadable as he spoke her name. “Dawn.”

 

“Yes?” she asked, holding her breath.

 

“Don’t tell Buffy you saw me, okay?”

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

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

 

 

 

Buffy stared at Willow, for a moment not comprehending what her friend had told her. When it finally sunk in all she could think to say was, “Huh?”

 

Willow flushed, looking a little uneasy, as though she expected to light into her for keeping it a secret. “I don’t know exactly where he is,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know where he lives or anything like that. But I know he is still in Sunnydale. He didn’t leave. He’s just been…laying low for the past couple of weeks.”

 

“Have you seen him?” Buffy asked eagerly. “Is he—?”

 

“I haven’t seen him,” answered Willow. “But I’ve spoken to him. When he first left, when everyone else thought he had left town, I knew better. I could sense him here. I talked to him, in my head, a little bit every day. One day he talked back.”

 

“Telepathy.” Buffy looked shocked.

 

“It isn’t a big deal.” Willow shrugged. “We did it a lot that summer you were…gone. It helped during the patrols, you know. One of us would stand at a decent vantage point and let the others know what was coming. Spike, Tara and I were the best at it, though Giles could manage it if he concentrated hard. But Spike and I have had this connection…it made everything easier. We’ve been talking on and off for over a week.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“I thought there was nothing to tell. I don’t know where he is; he won’t tell me. I know he is in Sunnydale but I can’t give you an exact location. He could be living under the school for all I would know. The reason I’m telling you now is so you’ll know he didn’t just up and leave. He couldn’t. He loves you.”

 

“He loves me so much he hides out and refuses to let me talk to him?” Buffy demanded. Two red spots of anger appeared on her cheeks. “He loves me so much he—”

 

“BUFFY!”

 

Both girls jumped in their seats, startled by Dawn, who burst through the back door, shrieking her sister’s name. “BUFFY!” she cried, grabbing her Buffy’s hands and pulling her out of her chair. “Buffy, I saw him! I saw Spike! He’s here! He’s not gone at all!”

 

Buffy glanced at Willow as Dawn danced her around the kitchen. “Uh…”

 

“Go on,” Willow said. Then to Dawn: “Where did you see him Dawnie?”

 

Buffy shook herself free from her younger sister’s grasp. “And when?

 

“Just now! Janice and I were coming out of the movies, right. And there was this fight going on across the street—a big deal, with a bunch of people hanging around out front, staring, and all that. So we watched too. It was Spike, fighting with some skanky she-vamp.” Quickly, Dawn described her encounter with Spike in minute detail. When she got to the part where he said he would not come back to them, that he was trying to be good, Willow rolled her eyes.

 

“Stupid, stupid,” she muttered.

 

Buffy rubbed her hand over her forehead. Suddenly she felt very, very tired. “Where did he go?” she asked finally.

 

“I don’t know…he climbed over the back fence and headed off down the street. He was going…west I think. Why?”

 

“No reason.” She stood up and slowly began to make her way out of the room. When she reached the doorway, Willow called out to her.

 

“Buffy, don’t you want to talk about this some more?”

 

“No…” she replied, not turning around. “That is really the last thing I want to do.”

 

She dragged her feet up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom. It was not until the door was shut tightly behind her that she allowed herself the luxury of tears.

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

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

 

 

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

Willow jumped, stifling a scream. She slammed her bedroom door shut and then turned on Spike in a fury. “What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed. “It’s one o’clock in the morning! How’d you get in?”

 

He glanced at the window. “You really should lock that thing, you know.”

 

She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. Damn him. She could not stay angry with him even when she wanted to. There was something about those tip-tilted blue eyes that got to her, made her grin in spite of herself.

 

Still, there was something unsettling about having a man climb through her window in the middle of the night. Willow’s inner schoolgirl quivered at the thought of him seeing her, as she was— baggy T-shirt, underpants, and socks. Nothing else. She reached for the robe hanging on the back of the door. “So why are you here?”

 

He stared at her, completely winning her over to his side with the kicked-puppy look in those eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”

 

She fiddled with the sash of her robe. “I know. I was going to tell you…”

 

“You were, huh? When? On the plane ride out there? After you’d been happily ensconced in some Nancy-boy Brit country estate?”

 

She flinched. His voice was low, quiet, but as full of anger as if he had been shouting the words. And he was right, of course. She should have told him. She sighed.

 

“Spike…I’m sorry. I was going to tell you just as soon as I found the words…”

 

“The words?” he echoed. “How about this: ‘Spike I’m leaving’? How are those words? How hard is that to come up with?”

“Spike…”

 

“You’ve been talking to me every day! Playing your little head-game. Yet you never once mentioned…”

 

“I’m sorry! I was trying to get things straightened out between you and Buffy before I left. I didn’t want to upset you by telling you I was leaving, not when you were so depressed anyway. I just…I wanted to—”

 

“Don’t go,” he interrupted.

 

“W—what?”

 

“Don’t go. Why should you do what that old cocksucker says? He’s not God; he cannot make you leave if you don’t want to go. What right does he have to judge you, to tell you that you need help?”

 

Willow smiled a little at Spike’s colorful description of Giles. “Spike, Giles isn’t making me go. It was his idea…I’m going at his suggestion. But it was my decision.”

 

He shook his head slightly, puzzled. “Why…?”

 

“Because he was right. I’m not dealing with Tara’s death well; I’m not controlling my magic well. I need help.”

 

“Not controlling your magic? Willow, stealing the books was as much my fault as it was yours—and it wasn’t as though you were going to cast any spells. It was for research purposes only. You’re controlling yourself just fine.”

 

“I’m not. There are times I will do things without even meaning to—without even knowing how I am doing them. Like the night I channeled you. I have no idea how or why that happened; I couldn’t control it—”

 

“Yeah and you saved my life—”

 

She looked at him sadly. “It isn’t just that, Spike. I need…I need to get away from Sunnydale for a while, I think. I need to be in a place Tara never was. There are too many memories of her here; it keeps the pain to new, too raw. She haunts me here. While some part of me is nervous—even reluctant—to leave, I know it will be easier to heal when I am gone.”

 

“And what? You will just stay away until the pain subsides? That won’t work, Willow. Your pain will be waiting for you when you get back; you can’t run away from it.”

 

“I know that. But Spike, don’t you see that I’ve been using you?”

 

“You using me?” he repeated. “Willow—”

 

“I know what you’re about to say,” she cut in. “You’re going to say that you were the one who came to me for help, you’re the one who lured me back to magic; I know all that already, Spike. I was still using you. That…determination I had…that resolution to help you and Buffy find happiness…it was all just a cover. It was for me, not you.”

 

“How…?”

 

Her eyes smiled at him through a film of tears. “Buffy and I were so similar last winter. We were both so caught up in our own problems, our own pain, that we completely ignored everyone else’s needs. I—I abused Tara. When we fought, I cast a spell on her to erase her memory of the fight; I did it more than once. That was abuse. I didn’t see it then—even when she told me. But I do now. I was so selfish, so…so damn cocky. I thought I could do anything to her and she would never be able to stop me, would never even have to know. I liked that feeling of power…that I owned someone so completely. Buffy was the same way with you. She used you and, when you complained, she…she beat you up. She had the same cockiness, the same power, because she is physically stronger than you are. She knew you loved her and she knew she could hurt you all she wanted. She knew you wouldn't fight back, knew that she could beat you even if you did. It was a lot like Tara and me.”

 

“Yeah. Right. So what does this have to do with you leaving?”

 

“I was trying to fix things through you. I was trying to—I saw you as Tara, in a way. You were Tara and Buffy was me. I thought if I could make things work out between the two of you then I would be somehow atoning for all the wrong I did to Tara. I—it was my idea to break into the Magic Box that night. I was ready to do anything—try anything—to get the two of you back together. The night you came to me, looking for the love spell, I—I had a hard time saying no, Spike. I was…consumed by the desire to help you. But not because I wanted to help you. I was doing it to ease my own conscience. Giles knew that—the moment he heard the whole story he knew. It was one reason he wanted me to go to England, so I wouldn’t have to be in a place where I was confronted by her spirit at every turn.”

 

“And the other reason?”

 

“Because there is a coven there who can teach me to control my magic. I thought magic was just a series of spells and incantations, something you could do or not do at will. But it’s here, inside me, all the time. I have to learn to control it. I have a responsibility to control it…and I need help getting started.”

 

There was a moment of silence as they stared at each other, her words hanging like a fog between them. Finally, Spike sighed.

 

“I’ll miss you, Red. You’re the only friend I’ve got.”

 

There were no tears in his voice, no self-pity at his situation. Yet something in his expression made Willow want to cry. She threw her arms around him impulsively, drawing him into an embrace that, had she given it a moments thought, she would have been sure he would scorn. Except that he didn’t. His arms moved—hesitated—then encircled her shoulders. He hugged her back lightly, as though fearful she would break.

 

“You still have me,” Willow whispered to him. “We can still speak any time we want—there are no long distance charges if your mind is open enough to the experience. We might have to practice a while, but I’m sure we can do it eventually.” She paused then added, “You can have Buffy, too. Anytime you want. She’s confused…upset…but she would take you back in an instant. I’m sure of it. If you would just—”

 

Spike shook his head, uttering one muffled syllable into her shoulder: “Can’t.”

 

Though she knew better than to say so aloud, Willow smiled to herself, thinking, “Can.”

 

Then she went one better than that: “Will.”

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

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

 

 

 

The following morning Spike was up early. Usually, he preferred sleeping until the early afternoon so he could stay awake late into the night—a hangover from his vampire days, which made it easier to dog Buffy’s footsteps on patrol. But today was different. He woke just after dawn and, try as he might, he could not get back to sleep. Seeing there was no point in staying in bed, he got dressed, fed the kitten, and left the apartment.

 

It was a crisp autumn day, bright and cool, the sun blazing in an azure sky. In just an hour Willow’s plane would be departing from the airport, carrying her thousands of miles from him. Spike would have liked to have been there to see her off, but he knew this was impossible. No doubt, she would be surrounded by Scoobies, and he didn’t want Xander to start a scene in the middle of the bloody airport. It would be hard enough for her to leave; he didn’t want her last memories of the place to consist of him kicking her best friend’s ass. So instead of going to the airport he went to the cemetery. Willow had given him a handful of small, round stones with the request that he put them on top of Tara’s marker for her. It was something she had forgotten to do, she said, and she would appreciate it if he did it for her. She didn’t tell him why she wanted it done and he didn’t ask, but he promised her he would do it. It was the least he could do.

 

Spike placed the stones on the smooth marble ledge and sat back on his heels. At some point during his absence, gravel had been laid so that Tara’s plot was no longer a raw mound of earth, marring the beauty of the emerald grass; now it was glittering white with tiny white pebbles that crunched under his feet and made him squint when the sun hit them. There were several pots and bouquets of flowers arranged against the simple marble monument, but the Wicca teddy bear shrine was gone, washed away, no doubt, by the awful rainstorm of that last night. That was how he categorized it: the last night. His last night. The last time he would ever be hers. He picked up a handful of gravel and let spill through his fingers, thinking of it, of her.

 

He heard the footsteps behind him, but he didn’t think anything about it. People came here all the time during the day. It was something that had surprised him, at first. He had lived in the cemetery for years and had always assumed it to be a deserted place. But for the odd fresh grave, there was never any indication that people actually came here to pay their respects to the dead. Now that he was able to come out in the daytime, Spike discovered that there was actually quite a bit of cemetery traffic. People came to leave flowers, to pray, to pull weeds, and to weep. It no longer surprised him when whole families would march by, bearing flowers and balloons to mark the birthday of a departed loved one. So when he heard the footsteps approaching from behind, he didn’t even bother to turn around.

 

Then she spoke and, for a moment, it was as if he were dreaming.

 

“Spike?”

 

He twisted around, staring up at her with confusion.

 

She looked back at him and, for a moment, he certain she was going to say something important, something very tender.

 

“So we’re not worrying about the hair at all anymore, huh?”

 

Then again maybe not.

---

   

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