Chapter Twelve

Several minutes after the young immortal had gone outside, the blonde found himself having a hard time processing all of the information that he had been given that evening. Finding out that his love had been alive for the last five years while he had painfully mourned her death, was too much for him to handle in combination with the discovery that she was not only alive, but immortal. He stood, his restlessness no longer containable as he headed to the door. "I need a smoke." Hoping that it would calm his raging emotions, he stepped out into the dark alley behind the antique store.

Shutting the door, the vampire fished out his pack of Camels and was searching for his lighter when he saw the young woman leaning against the building's wall, smoking her own cigarette. He noticed that she had pulled the hundreds of long braids into a single ponytail.

For the twentieth time that night he tried, unsuccessfully, to figure out how the sweet, innocent, optimistic, lighthearted girl he had fallen in love with could have changed so drastically. Shaking his head, he continued his hunt for the lighter he was sure he had put in his trench coat. He stopped suddenly as the topic of his thoughts held a hand out in front of his face. Floating above her index finger was a small flame with which to light his cigarette. Holding the tip in the flame, he took a deep breath, igniting the end, before pulling away to lean against the wall next to her. Crystal blue eyes watched the flame disappear before she dropped her hand back to her side.

A sarcastic smirk twisted his lips as he turned to look at the silent redhead. "Ya know, those thing'll kill ya."

"So I've been told." His eyebrow rose in a silent question as he glanced back and forth between her blank face and the cigarette in her right hand. She shrugged her shoulder in response.

"They help me calm down, give my hands something to do. Besides, there's just something about the smell of leather and cigarettes. Reminds me of someone I knew once." Her shoulders rose once more as she tilted her head to the side, expressing the impossibility of explaining it further.

He nodded his head once in understanding and gestured towards her left hand. "You seemed to have learned a few new tricks since we last saw each other." He didn't have to mention the fight earlier that night for the witch to know he was referring to more than her magical method to lighting a cigarette.

"Not really much of a choice. We all have to do things we don't want to, it's just the way things work." From the underlying bitterness in her voice, Spike could tell she was nowhere near as accepting of the situation as she would have him believe. Silence enveloped the dark alleyway as he tried to think of something to say, but it was the petite immortal that finally broke the silence. "Eleven."

The word was said quietly, but the utter disgust with which it was spoken caused it to practically bounce off of the brick walls around them. "Eleven challenges, eleven heads, eleven Quickenings. Eleven lives. Eleven people killed with my sword, by my hand." The anger and self-loathing darkened her words and hardened her eyes as she looked over at the blonde vampire.

"In the four years I fought with the slayer, I barely dusted that many vamps myself." Her failure to use her former friend's name did not go unnoticed by the still neutered vampire. Nor did the shadows of guilt and sadness that fell on her pale face right before she lowered it, escaping his gaze. "Kind of ironic, isn't it? I spent four years fighting evil, only to become it myself."

"You're not evil pet." Pain laced through his chest at the hollow sound of her voice.

"Aren't I? Think about it Spike. We killed vampires because they killed humans. They had to kill to survive, and that was evil. Well, I kill to survive too. I kill human beings. They may be immortal, but they're still human. So tell me, how am I any different? How am I any less evil?"

He had never heard the hacker speak as harshly and with as much anger and self-recrimination as did the woman next to him. He could scarcely believe it was the same girl. Shaking his head sadly, he forced a sigh from his dead lungs.

"Vampires kill to survive, yes. But they also kill for pleasure, for sport. Vampires don't feel guilt or remorse for the person they murder, trust me. I've killed a hell of a lot more people than you have, and I don't even feel even a fraction of what you do. I've killed for food, and I've killed for fun. Somehow I doubt you can say the same."

Dropping the burnt out cigarette to the ground, he smashed it into the pavement with the corner of his boot as he continued. "I've tortured and maimed, and loved every minute of it. I've bathed in my victim's blood with a smile on my face. That's evil, ducks, and it ain't you."

Sighing, the witch took out another Marborl from her pack and lit it with her finger, turning away from the intense blue gaze. She spoke calmly with an almost indifferent tone as she remembered a discussion she had with her mentor over five years before.

"When Methos first told me about immortals and the Game, I didn't really think much about the killing. I didn't think about the number of heads he must have taken in his lifetime. It wasn't until I realized that I was immortal and a participant in the Game, that I began to think of what that entailed, of what I would have to do to stay alive."

With a fresh cigarette of his own dangling from his fingers, he asked the question that had been plaguing him since he had learned that she was alive. "Is that why you left?"

Taking a long drag on the nicotine filled paper cylinder, she let the question hang for a minute before she could force herself to form an answer. "In part, yes. When I woke up, I was in a body bag in the morgue. I remember how dark and cold it was in that damn bag. I don't think I've ever been that scared in my life. The last thing I could remember was being in the alley. I remembered an enormous pain in my stomach, and that there was a lot of blood. And I remembered you, picking me up, holding me, saying something about needing to go to the hospital, and..." Her voice broke off, as if she didn't want to continue, and instead changed the topic slightly.

"Methos told me later that he had seen me die and went straight to the morgue after packing his things. He miscalculated how long I'd be asleep and how easy it would be to get access to my body though, and by the time he got into the morgue I'd been awake a couple of minutes. When he got me out, he told me what had happened; that I had died, that I was an immortal. I could tell by his expression that we had to leave, that I couldn't stay. I never argued, just left with him. I didn't really want to go, Sunnydale was all I'd ever known, but I had to.

With your experiences with the hellmouth and everything, I'm sure my immortality would have been relatively easy for you guys to except, but I had still died. I wasn't the same person you all knew. Even before my first death I was changing, but that night I ceased to be Willow Rosenberg. I had a new life ahead of me, one I couldn't lead in Sunnydale. I had to become someone else, someone who could play the Game and win. I couldn't be that person with the people that knew only shy, innocent Willow."

During her speech, he had walked up and down the alley, stopping to examine the motorcycle parked in the corner. As she finished, her emerald eyes followed his movements and took advantage of the opportunity to switch the topic to a more lighthearted and less memorial one. "Nice, isn't she?"

Sitting down, and leaning against the wall, she indicated the bike with a slight tilt of her head. He nodded, walking around the machine to get a better look. As he continued his appraisal, he noticed a fairly large design on the side of the gas tank. A sizable flame burnt brightly in intermingling shades of red, orange, and yellow. Overlaying the fire was the word 'Ash.' The top of the name was a dark charcoal gray that got lighter towards the bottom where the letters appeared to crumble and disintegrate. Icy blue pools moved from the image to the jaded expression of the young immortal in silent inquiry.

Her voice was flat and her face betrayed no remnant of emotion as she spoke. "I'm not sure who it was, but I remember someone having said something about my fiery spirit matching my flaming hair." Blowing out a lung full of smoke she glanced at the word. "When a fire burns out and dies, all that's left are ashes, right? Well, I needed a new name, and it just seemed to fit."

End Chapter Twelve