Title: And So It Goes
By: Beldaran1
Spoilers: Post Lies My Parents Told Me, plus minor spoilers for the rest of S7
Summary: My take on how I would like the rest of S7 to go…and then beyond.
Disclaimer: The characters of BtVS/AtS are the property of Joss and ME not me…so don't sue! The title to this story is from the song And So It Goes by Billy Joel
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
Part 1 – In Every HeartIn every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along
~~*~~
Chapter 1
Buffy leaned her head against the door she had just shut on the man she had long since begun to think of as her "father". She had never felt so betrayed by anyone in her life. It almost felt unreal, like this was some weird twisted nightmare that she would awaken from at any moment; but she knew it wasn't a nightmare and that everything that had happened that night was real. Giles had conspired against her, had deceived her, and ultimately betrayed her.
And now she could no longer trust him.
Turning slightly, she allowed herself to slide down the door until she came to the floor where she sat dispiritedly. She was so tired, not the kind of tired where a good nights sleep would revive you, this was the kind of tired that no amount of sleep could cure. Her soul was tired. It ached to leave this mortal coil and return to the warmth and succor that only heaven could provide. Some days, sometimes, it was all she could do to not let that ever present "death wish" overwhelm her and just let some random demon or big bad have that one good day.
But she had promised him she would live, so that one of them was living.
Oh God, at the time that promise had been so easy to make; so easy to give. Lying in his arms looking into the incredible brilliance of his bluer than blue eyes, feeling safe and loved and so alive she felt like she could fly to the moon and back, death and dying had been the furthest thing from her mind. So when he begged her to fight, to live, and to never give in to death's allure; she had given him that promise and showed him over and over again that she was alive and was going nowhere. For the first time she had allowed herself to truly make love to him, to express physically what she had still been too terrified to admit verbally…that she loved him.
For that beautiful moment in time she had loved and felt loved.
And then her ex had burst in on them with his accusations and face filled with disgust and she had allowed old doubts and insecurities and fear to destroy that fragile and delicate bloom of love newly acknowledged. She had literally been able to feel her self-imposed walls solidifying around her, the ice that had started to melt around her heart take on even thicker proportions, and then she had been filled with rage that yet again her little piece of heaven had been snatched away from her. When the dust finally settled, she had shattered his heart into a billion pieces leaving him a broken shell of his former self and he had left her broken and numb on her bathroom floor.
Then he was gone and she was left with a whole new terror, the prospect of living in this world without him.
Shaking her head, not wanting to go down the dark lonely road those thoughts would lead her, Buffy sluggishly got up from where she was sitting on the floor and walked across her room to her dresser and looked at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself. Who was this person with the face so thin it was nearly gaunt, eyes so listless they could almost be mistaken for dead except for that cold hard gleam that belied the existence of softer gentler emotions? Was this the face of the General, the leader of a rag tag army of children and misfits? Was this the face of the Slayer who would stand firm against the legions of hell and once again save an uncaring and unknowing sea of humanity from yet another apocalypse? Or was this the face of the Woman denied the right to love whom she chose? The sound of shattering glass broke her silent reverie and it was with no small amount of shock that she looked down at the rivulets of blood dripping from her hand and realized that she had smashed her mirror.
She guessed that answered her question, if it were multiple-choice she would have to go with d, all of the above…General…Slayer…Woman.
Oh, how hard she has tried to not hate them, to not resent them for their selfishness and neediness and unwillingness to just let her live her life without their oppressive restraints. Her family and friends, the people who claimed to love her and support her; the ones she was suppose to be able to turn to to help her through the rough times and the bad times. They weren't supposed to rip her out of heaven and then abandon her in this hell on earth. They weren't supposed to act like she was their personal property with no right to her own opinions, her own wants, her own desires. And really, what right did they have to dictate who she could be friends with, who she could confide in, who she could or couldn't love; be it a not-so-evil soulless chipped vampire, a newly-soulled insane yet still chipped vampire, or a not-so-newly soulled no longer insane de-chipped extremely pissed off vampire? Okay, she was beginning to sense a pattern here, and when the hell had all of her love options come to begin and end with Spike?
Spike.
Oh God, she could feel the panic start to well up inside of her, what if he didn't know that she had had nothing to do with Giles' plan? What if he thought she was in on the plot to kill him? After all, wasn't it she herself that convinced him go with Robin, that he would be okay with the principal? Buffy felt a wave of nausea roll through her stomach as she remembered the way he had pushed her away from him and the cold look in his eyes as he regarded her with barely suppressed rage. Shaking her head in desperate denial, she stumbled back from her dresser, tripping over a forgotten shoe and falling to the floor with an ungraceful thud, barely wincing as her shredded hand made painful contact with the floor in an effort to catch herself.
He couldn't, he couldn't believe that she would betray him now; not after everything they had been through. Not after all of the pain and the tears and the forgiveness, not now that he knew she believed in him and trusted him above all others.
The very thought that he might believe her duplicitous compelled her into action, and with renewed energy, she jumped to her feet and raced to her window yanking it open and propelling herself out into the night in search of Spike.
~~*~~*~~*~~
It shouldn't surprise him that he had ended up here.
After all, this was the scene of his greatest joy and his greatest heartbreak. This was where she had warmed his cold undead flesh with the heat of her fiery passion and broke his heart countless times with the harsh unrelenting denial of his capacity to love; to love her. It was here that she would barge in in all of her golden glory full of unattainable fire and demand his help with some demon or other and then threaten to stake him good and proper. It was in this place that she had entrusted him with the care and safety of her mum and her sister. Here that she had given him that first sweet chaste kiss and promised that she would never forget. Within these stone walls he had raged against her untimely death and then fallen into a grief stricken malaise so deep he had nearly starved himself into nothingness, only the remembered promise to his Slayer to protect his nibblet til the end of the world had had the power to force him out of his despair.
In this crypt, his crypt, he had conceived the insane notion that had ultimately sent him halfway round the world into a dank dark cave where he had received something effulgent; the spark that literally drove him insane. Oh how his soul had burned, the unrelenting cries of his victims, the awful staggering awareness of the monster he truly was, and the gut wrenching remorse and shame of hurting his Buffy. And underneath it all, the persistent and annoying buzz of the First whispering toxic nothings in his ear. He was man enough to admit that he was love's bitch, but he drew the line at being the First's bitch.
And now, thanks to that git Robin, what kind of nancy boy poofter name was Robin anyways, he was no longer the First's bitch. He was his own man once again, and damn if it didn't feel good. At first he had been filled with white-hot rage at being trapped and deceived by an apparent ally, led willingly to the site of his contrived assassination, and being summarily beaten and tortured by a has been slayer's brat and the suppressed memory of siring his own mother. Then it had hit him, it was his choice; he could rip out the wanker's throat or he could let the wanker live. He had felt himself balance on the edge of the precipice, one choice would lead to his damnation and the other would surely lead to his ultimate salvation. The choice had been surprisingly easy.
Walking away from the ironic site of yet another rebirth, he had still been filled anger, and yet he had also been filled with a peace he had never before felt, not as a human and certainly not as a vampire. It was with this incongruous mixture of anger and peace rolling around inside of him that he had sought refuge in the night, away from the noisy house on Revello and away from Buffy. He needed time to think and to assimilate what had transpired that night; he needed to be alone for a while, and most of all needed quiet.
He had wondered all over Sunnyhell, absentmindedly killing any vamp or demon that had had the misfortune of crossing his path, mulling over the various twists and turns his life and unlife had taken…
From insipid useless human to one of the Scourge of Europe...
From Slayer of slayers to lover of one beguiling golden Slayer…
From the original Big Bad to a tarnished quasy gray hat...
From an unrepentant soulless demon that gloried in wrecking death and destruction to a love-stricken soulless demon who sought redemption for the love of two women and one young girl who all had Summers' blood running through their veins...
From a soulful vampire driven insane with guilt and made to be the First's play toy, to a soulful vampire that had finally managed to find the balance between self and soul...
He shuddered to think where next his unlife would take him.
Right now, what he did know was that his will was once again his own and now that he could no longer be triggered by the First, he could focus all of his energy and concentration into helping his Slayer fight off this latest apocalypse. He would watch her back and fight at her side, and this time he would not fail her, this time she would not die.
With this thought foremost in his mind Spike turned away from his perusal of his former home and faced his Slayer. He had known the instant she had entered his old cemetery, the visceral feeling running through his body alerting him that she was near. He allowed his gaze to sweep over her face and body until he found the source of what had caused both his demon and his soul to surge with the need to protect and avenge.
"Luv? What happened to your hand?"
tbc…
----------------------------------------------
Please leave feedback to let me know what you think…love it…hate it…let me know!!!
Thanks.