Dark Alleys of the Mind
Author: Darla Darko
Rating: PG (believe it or not)
Pairing: pre-Spike/Illyria
Disclaimer: Joss owns all. Yadda yadda yadda.
Summary: I can't really give one without giving away spoilers for 5x22. WHICH THIS HAS.
Thanks to: Revena, of course.

The pedal felt heavy beneath his boot. Ahead, the highway stretched for endless miles, a thin grey line reaching deep into the night horizon. Inside the car, his thoughts wandered down dark alleys of their own. Down one particular alley he could still see Gunn, bleeding and broken on the ground. His body twisted into an unnatural shape. Spike gave no thought to the pile of dust beside it. He couldn’t bear to.

Beside him, his companion sat glowering. Beautifully blue and violent, yet passionless in all the ways that Spike could never be. She was furious with him as, he figured, she had a right to be. After all, it was he who pulled her out of her glorified carnage. Pulled her by the arm with every last reserve of his strength into an empty car, hot-wiring the engine faster than he had thought possible.

Now it was just the two of them. Just the two of them left.

“We ran,” she said, suddenly, bold and embittered. “We ran like cowards.”

“We survived,” Spike corrected.

“I care nothing for survival in this world.”

“Well, I do. A hell of a lot, mind you. No sense in fighting a losing battle.”

Only that wasn’t why he stopped fighting. No, Spike had been in the thick of it every bit as much as the others. Even after Gunn went down, Spike fought on. Fought harder than ever, because if he was going to go down he planned to take a lot of baddies with him.

Angel changed all that. Angel–

“You’re licking the blood from your own nose,” she snapped.

He glanced down out of instinct. “Nervous habit.”

“Your kind are disgusting.”

“Is that why you fought beside us then? Because we’re disgusting?”

Illyria didn’t answer that. “We should have stayed. We had them on our terms. Now they’ll hunt us down like dogs.”

“Ever heard the expression ‘live to fight another day’?”

“No.”

Spike sighed. “We’re not done fighting, don’t you worry, pet.”

“Your leader–”

“I told you. Angel ain’t– wasn’t my leader.”

“You changed when he died. I saw you. You grieve for him the way I grieve for Wesley.”

“Not quite, luv.”

“Why did you stop fighting then?”

Why did he stop fighting? Wasn’t that the million dollar question? “I’ll never stop fighting,” Spike whispered, resigned.

They sat in silence for several miles, leaving Spike alone with his crowded thoughts.

He slayed the dragon, just like he said he would. Angel always had been a man of his own conviction. Dozens of demons fell to his sword that night. Yet, it was just another demon that got in the lucky shot. Spike was glad it hadn’t been a stake; Angel deserved better than that. A clean slice to the neck had been all it took and Angel was gone.

By the time Spike looked around to see that Angel wasn’t fighting beside him anymore, it was all that he could do to keep up the battle. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember why they were fighting anymore. At first, he fought back harder, grieving and furious and charged. But the demons kept coming and Spike’s muscles kept tiring. This was a battle to be fought another day. That’s when he grabbed Illyria and ran.

“Where are we going?”

“Straight into hell, ‘Lyria. Straight into hell.”

“Your melodrama annoys me.”

Again, Spike found himself sighing. He did that a lot around Illyria. “Look, I don’t know where we’re going, pet. Just somewhere else. Somewhere to recoop a bit so we can fight again another day.”

“And that’s the plan? To... fight again another day?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“No. We don’t. I’ll continue to fight. It’s what Wesley would want.”

He wished he could tell her Wesley would want her to live, but Spike wasn’t honestly sure how much Wesley would care. The man had always been so difficult to read. Illyria was even harder. The few expressions of grief over Wesley had been her only words concerning the death of any of the team. It was impossible to tell how much of any of this mattered to the blue-haired Old One. Spike wondered, not for the first time, if something happened to him, whether Illyria would keep fighting the good fight. He suspected that she would.

“They’d want us to take out as many as we could before dying and that means, my dear, that you and I have got to get ourselves somewhere hidden for awhile.”

“Hiding. Illyria does not hide from her enemies.”

“Think of it as tactical. A bit of the ol’ hide-and-seek.”

“Hide-and-seek?”

“Yeah, you know. We hide out, we get stronger. They seek us out, they find a surprise.”

“A surprise.”

“Yeah. Ol’ Spike isn’t out of the game yet. I’ve still got too many demons to kill.”

“You don’t think you’ll survive this,” she said, abruptly. Disturbingly knowing.

Spike was silent. “No. No, I don’t. But I gotta try.”

“Why?”

“Because... Angel... he believed in something. And damn, if he didn’t have me believin’ in it too.”

“Believing in what?”

Spike tapped the steering wheel twice with his thumb and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Making an impact.”

tbc?