Believe

A short vignette of Spike's feelings during Never Leave Me and Bring on the Night. Enjoy and please R/R.

……………………………..

The Shapeshifter, the thing that looked like Buffy, had left me suspended and bleeding on the rough wooden beams, hanging over the portal where It has raised the Vampire. I had know it on sight, just as any vampire would. It was a gut reaction, a visceral knowing that there stood the first, the progenitor of our kind, Turok-Han. It looked so inhuman, resembling more the demon inside than the mortal husk it has inhabited countless centuries ago. I could feel the inarticulate hunger and rage that came off him and I knew with certainty that I had been used to unleash something dreadful on mankind.

Oh God, what will it do to Buffy?

The Shapeshifter seemed to read my thoughts, because it pouted with Buffy's lips.

"Thinking of the Slayer are we? Worried about what my little pet here can do to her?" She strolled over to me, ever curve of her luscious body screaming sex.

"Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you betrayed me, hmmm?" Her voice was perfectly level and her glittering eyes never left mine as her hand shot out, nails digging into my torn flesh. I gasped in pain and she gave me a lazy smile.

"Like that? There's a world more of it, my boy." She leaned in close and whispered to me. "You're my new toy."

This is not Buffy. I thought. I called up the image of her from the basement, her words…I believe in you, Spike… I held onto it like a lifeline.

The Thing with Buffy's face winked at me and backed off, calling the Turok-Han to her.

" Think about it." She said to me over her shoulder.

And then she was gone and I was left alone in darkness.

Hanging there I could hear the blood dripping slowly down.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I could feel myself starting to pass out and knew that the sun must have been up for hours by now. I fight to stay conscious, know it is a losing battle.

You risked everything to be a better man. And you are…

I let the warmth of the Slayer's voice fill me as I drift into oblivion.

…………………….---------@

I come to as I'm being dragged across the floor. I lift my head, see the UberVamp is the one doing the dragging, and let my head sink back down. The Shapeshifter is there, of course. Never leaves me. And this time It is me. And then it's Dru. And then the Turok-Han is kicking me and she is laughing Drucilla's indolent wicked laugh.

You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back.

I'm not doing much fighting back now, luv.

I curl around the pain and the Thing is whispering at me, purring next to my ear. "Pick a side. Pick our side. You know it's delicious."

But it's not, not anymore. And that's what she can't understand. If she had come to me two years ago, God! Maybe even one year ago, I might have been tempted. But it's too late now. I'm not that man…I'm not that thing….I'm not that killer. I'm not William the Bloody. And even as I think it I know…

A slow smile spreads across my face.

"What makes you so sure?" The Thing spits at me. "What makes you think you'll be any good in this world?"

"Because she does." I say quietly. And I lay my head back and close my eyes.

It can't touch me now.

Nothing can.

I will go on living, only for hope that she will come and rescue me. But even if she doesn't and I die here I know that the Thing cannot use me anymore. It can't touch me. Because the place it touched, that hollow horrible place in my mind, is now filled with Buffy. She is in me. She believes…

And because she does, I do.