Chapter 9

The commotion downstairs didn't wake Spike exactly, but he was in that place between sleep and awake when he was aware that something was going on. Angel was shouting, a door slammed and feet could be heard clomping up the stairs.

The bedroom door flung open and Angel almost fell through it. "Spike!"

Spike groaned and turned his head away from the door pressing his face into the pillow in the hopes that the giant poof would go away.

"Spike!" Angel staggered over to the bed looming over Spike's prone form. "I know you're awake."

"'Course I'm awake, be easier to sleep through a stampede of wild elephants than you galloping 'bout the place. Why the hell are you up at this ungodly hour?"

"I need you…"

"You wanna rephrase that?"

Angel scowled at Spike's back. "I need you to come with me."

Spike groaned again lifting his pillow and pulling it over his head. "Sleepin' now. Come back later."

"No! Now!" Angel insisted grabbing hold of Spike's arm and tugging him. "Now, Spike."

"I'm naked," Spike complained pulling his arm back and struggling into a sitting position.

Angel shook his head. "I don't care. I need you to do something for me."

Spike's eyebrow lifted. "When I'm naked?"

"Here," Angel stooped, picking up a pair of black jeans he tossed them into Spike's lap. "Put these on and hurry up. I need you to come with me."

Spike got up and pulled on the jeans, but he made sure to grouse about it under his breath. "What's the big emergency?"

Angel was in the doorway looking up and down the corridor his body filled with nervous energy. Spike had to admit he was slightly concerned, he hadn't seen Angel like this before, if he had been human Spike thought Angel might start hyperventilating and sweating he was so agitated.

"Come with me," Angel gestured and then took off down the stairs.

"Drama queen." Spike rolled his eyes and followed behind Angel his bare feet made no noise on cold marble of the stairs. "What is it?"

"In there," Angel pointed towards the living room.

Spike eyed him suspiciously. "What's in there?"

"Just look," Angel insisted rubbing a hand across his forehead.

He didn't immediately go into the room, instead Spike stared hard at the half open door his ears straining, his nose twitching as he tried to gage what was in there; if it could harm him in some way, if it was the Slayer and a trap of some sort. Although, why Angel would bother to set a trap for him when he could have captured him easily enough when he was asleep Spike didn't know.

When he was satisfied that he couldn't sense anything or anyone in the room, no heartbeat, no breathing, no scent; Spike pushed open the door taking the dark room in at a glance. Frowning at the empty space he took a step forward and looked around again.

"What am I lookin' at?"

Angel appeared at his elbow, standing so close to him that Spike pulled an annoyed face. "It's empty." Angel moved further into the room and turned in a circle.

"Well that's just great. Thanks ever so much for wakin' me up an' draggin' me down here just to state the bloody obvious. You really know how to show your guests a good time, don't you, Peaches. I'm 'avin' a ball."

"They were here."

"Who? You're imaginary friends?"

Running a hand through his hair Angel turned to face Spike. "No… there!"

He pointed just off to Spike's right but when Spike turned to look he saw nothing. "Been drinkin' by any chance?"

"And there," Angel said pointing to his left and taking a frightened step back. "This isn't funny, Spike."

"I know, bleedin' tragic is what it is. You can't hold your liquor anymore."

"I haven't been drinking!" Angel looked wild. "Are you seriously telling me you don't see them?"

Spike threw his hands up in the air. "There's nobody here, you bloody idiot. What's wrong with you?"

"Daniel," Angel whispered his eyes glued to Spike's right where a man stood, dressed in a black jacket and trousers with a white shirt, tall with dark curly hair and eyes full of judgement and condemnation.

"Daniel?" Spike looked to his right again but still he saw nothing. "Who's Daniel?"

Angel swallowed gripping his head for a moment and squeezing his eyes tightly shut as the ghost of Daniel moved from Spike's side to circle him like a shark. Angel hadn't heard Daniel's voice since the Christmas of 1838 when he had drained the life from him in an alley way in Dublin; but it was as though it were yesterday the sound was so familiar to him.

I was to be married that week

Daniel's Irish brogue filled his head and Angel turned away from him only to come face to face with another man, dressed and pressed in a suit a tie; an ordinary man who looked as though he had just stepped out of any ordinary office building on any ordinary street in any ordinary little town. Angel backed away from him his hands up as though he could ward off the ghost.

The thing I remember most was how artful it was.

"Angel?" Spike was now genuinely concerned, Angel was panting heavily and fear was pouring off him in great waves.

"You don't see them?" Angel gasped his head jerking from side to side.

"No, I don't see anythin'." Spike reached out and took hold of Angel's arm. "What's goin' on?"

"They're here, they're in my dreams, they're haunting me, Spike."

"Who are?"

"The people I've killed."

Spike let out a sigh. "Bloody hell, that's one hell of a hauntin' the list is endless."

Angel's face fell even further, it didn't help matters that Spike was right. He was seeing Daniel and Travis right now, but who else would pop up? These people he knew, but what about the nameless faceless people he had murdered over the years?

That's what makes you different to other beasts. They kill to feed. But you took more kinds of pleasure in it than any creature that walks or crawls.

"Oh God," Angel spun round, falling to his knees as she knelt down beside him, a young girl with curly blonde hair tucked beneath a crisp white cap, Margaret, the maid he had killed at a party one night long ago.

Spike squatted down on his haunches and surveyed the trembling Angel with worried eyes. "What can I do?" Lost for inspiration on how to fight or get rid of something he couldn't even see Spike did the only thing he could think of, he stood up and threw his arms out. "Stop! Be gone ghosts!" He looked around but nothing appeared to have happened. "Did it work?"

Angel frowned up at him. "What the hell was that?"

Spike shrugged. "Dunno, I think I saw it on TV once. Did it do anythin'?"

Still shaking Angel got to his feet. "Yeah." He was astounded, they were all gone.

Running a hand through his rumpled hair Spike took a seat on the hearth. "You see ghosts often?"

"Never before." Angel joined him clasping his fingers together and hunching over his knees

"You dream about the days of Angelus often?"

"Sometimes," Angel admitted. "Not so much now, not for a long time, but once, yeah I did. All the time. It was the guilt of the soul."

Spike rubbed his chest absently glad that Willow's soul wasn't inflicting him with that kind of torture. "Your problem is that you won't accept anythin' that you've done."

"I know what I've done," Angel snapped. "I deal with the guilt of every life I've taken every day."

"Pfft," Spike waved a hand dismissively. "No you don't. You brood about every killin' every day, you flog your precious soul with it every day, but you don't accept it. What's done is done, it's in the past, Angel an' you can't change it no matter how much you might want to. What you gotta do now is accept it and forget it."

"Forget it?" Angel stared stupidly at him. "What do you mean, 'forget it', how do you expect me to forget the things I've done, the things that we've done? You were there for a lot of it, remember."

"Yeah I was, but I don't cry about it, I'm still evil. You on the other hand, you don't seem to grasp the fact that you're good now."

Angel scowled, he said it so snidely, so mockingly that it left Angel in no doubt whatsoever what Spike really thought about things.

"Maybe forget isn't the right word," Spike spoke slowly, comforting Angel was new to him and he wasn't sure how to go about it. "But accept is the right word. You have to acknowledge what you've done, feel real remorse about it and then put it in the past."

"I do feel remorse."

Spike stared at Angel for a long time. "No you don't, you let the guilt eat you up every day but you feel bad 'cos of how it makes you feel. Remorse isn't about how your actions affect you but how they affect other people."

Angel was silent for a while. "What do you suggest?"

Spike grumbled. "If you're the one lookin' for forgiveness why 'ave I gotta think of everything?" Still, he rested his elbow on his knee, placed his chin in his hand and gave the matter some thought. "You gotta embrace your shame," he said at last. "And you gotta say goodbye to Angelus. You let Angelus go, bury him in the past and it's over."

"You think it's going to be that easy?" Angel said a look of disbelief crossing his face.

"I never said it was goin' to be easy."

"It might help if I knew why I was back. I mean, I'm supposed to be suffering an eternity of torture in a hell dimension somewhere and instead I'm back here. Why? What reason could there be for me to be here? Who brought me back?"

"What am I, an oracle?" Spike asked testily. "How the bloody hell should I know why you're back. But that's it," Spike snapped his fingers. "That's your problem, you think you should suffer for what you've done, you think you deserve an eternity of torture and what not and that's not gonna ease your guilt. You wanna stop feelin' bad, you want redemption, try workin' for it. Redemption don't come easy you gotta earn it. Try makin' amends for what you've done instead of broodin' about it all the soddin' time."

"You're right, Spike."

"I know." Spike yawned and stood up. "You could always talk to the Watcher. He might 'ave a book or fifty you could read."

"I might," Angel said. "Giles doesn't really like to be around me and I don't want to bother him for something personal, not after…"

"You tortured him?"

"Yeah."

"And killed his girlfriend."

"Yes," Angel said through grit teeth.

"Fine. Whatever. Now that we've saved your soul can I go back to bed?"

Angel gave him a small smile. "Yeah, thanks, Spike."

Spike was at the door when he stopped dead in his tracks and spun round to stare horrified at Angel. "I just counselled you."

Angel nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."

"I felt sympathy for you and I wanted to help!" He made a loud, frustrated noise. "I'm gonna strangle that witch!"

Angel grinned as Spike stormed from the room leaving a trail of colourful curses behind him.

XxX

Buffy, Xander and Amy arrived at history together, unfortunately, not before their teacher who gave them each a long, disapproving look for being late. Buffy was pleased to see that Willow was already in class her head bent over a book and her finger moving along the page.

Amy took a seat in corner of the front row, Xander managed to snag a seat towards the back three desks away from Willow and spent the majority of his time staring at the back of Willow's head, and Buffy found herself in the row behind Willow two seats over.

Pulling her books out of her bag Buffy bent her head pretending to read along with the rest of the class, but her eyes were on Willow, her seat gave her a good view of her friend and Buffy watched her avidly. Willow looked no different to Buffy than she usually did, no matter how hard she stared at the side of Willow's face Buffy saw nothing new, nothing different, nothing dark at all.

It defied belief that Willow could be dark in any way. It was Willow for God's sake. If ever a person was good it was her. Willow was kind, generous, understanding; way better than her and Buffy squirmed a little at the knowledge. Willow had been there for her when she had ran away after sending Angel to hell, she had been there for her when Angel had come back and Buffy felt terrible for the moment of doubt she'd had after hearing what Amy and Giles had to say.

She had killed Angel, ran him through with a sword and sent him to hell; the man she loved, the man she would always love. Wasn't that a horrible, cruel thing to do, sending him to hell with a soul intact? But she had done it to save the world, did that make it okay? Did that make it not terrible? Did that make it a good thing and her good? Or did it still make her wrong, make her dark? Could she have done anything darker than that?

Willow hadn't done anything on that scale and just because she'd spent some time with Spike and told a few little lies, her friends were all suddenly so concerned and condemning her. Buffy rubbed at her temples, she wasn't being a good friend, Willow hadn't judged her and she sure as hell wasn't going to start judging Willow either.

So Willow had performed a spell and it had gone a bit wonky, so what? That didn't mean Willow was going dark for goodness sake. How Amy and Giles could say that was beyond her, especially Giles, he had seen dark, they all had. Angel had gone dark, Spike was dark, Drusilla was dark, the Master was dark; Willow was nothing like any of them and Buffy fully intended to remind the others of that.

They had all seen what losing a soul could do to someone, Xander had taken it upon himself to stake Jessie when he had turned after all and they had all suffered one way or the other when Angelus had returned. Willow still had her soul, Willow was still good, Willow was still Willow.

By the time class ended Buffy was resolved to be a better friend and not judge if Willow chose to spend some time with Spike. It made some sort of weird sense however much Buffy didn't like it, after all, Spike did have part of Willow attached to him now.

After packing up her things Buffy went to hand in her homework with the others and lingered about outside the classroom waiting for Willow. Xander and Cordelia joined her a few moments later and Cordelia immediately began telling them of her plans for the Christmas vacation.

Willow hung back as Amy had instructed, slowly putting her belongings away before joining Amy at the front of the class. Amy said nothing, she merely looked long and hard at the teacher who smiled and thanked her for handing in her homework. Willow couldn't help admiring Amy's technique, she hoped to one day be able to perform magic without having to cast the spell out loud. Amy repeated the spell for her.

"Thanks, Amy."

"No problem, happy to help. If you got the power, use it, right?" Amy smiled and lifted her shoulder in a little shrug.

"Skiing," Cordelia was saying when Willow and Amy joined the others. "In Aspen, with real snow."

"Sounds fun," Buffy said.

"It'll be a relief to get out of Sweaty-Dale," Cordelia said fanning herself with a book.

"I'll see you later," Amy nodded at Xander and Buffy and wandered off to the right.

"I'd better get going too, I have psychology at the other end of the building,"Cordelia made an unnecessary gesture with her hand. "I'll be by later for research."

"I'll see you then," Xander gave her cheek a parting kiss and Cordelia smiled, pleased.

Linking her arm through Willow's Buffy tugged her into a walk. "Can we talk?"

"Sure."

Xander fell into step on her other side. "Anything you want to tell us?"

Willow frowned. "Like what?"

"Like what you were doing last night," Xander said giving her a meaningful look. "You were with Spike, Amy told us."

Willow rolled her eyes and sighed in annoyance. "Talk about ratting me out."

"You could have told us, Wills," Buffy scolded gently. "If you want to talk to Spike you don't have to hide it from us, just, you know, do it where we can keep an eye on him."

Willow's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"It's Spike," Buffy said making a face. "Evil vampire Spike, we just…"

"The same evil vampire Spike you did a deal with," Willow reminded her.

"That was different," Xander said. "We all wanted the same thing, we all wanted to stop Angelus and Spike helped us out."

"How is that different to now?" Willow stopped walking and faced Xander full on. "You want my soul back together and he wants it out of him. You want the same thing."

Xander shifted about on his toes a confused look on his face. "Well, yeah…"

"And," Willow turned to face Buffy. "There's no need for you to keep an eye on Spike, he's not going to hurt me and I don't insist on keeping my eye on you."

Buffy looked blank. "Me?"

"You," Willow agreed a cross look on her face. "One little slip up on your part and its bye bye Angel, hello Angelus, and yet I don't tell you not to hang around with Angel, do I? Seems to me that with the way you feel about Angel, the two of you together are a hazard just waiting to happen."

"I…" Buffy blinked, her cheeks flushing uncomfortably. "That's not even an issue."

"Oh it's an issue alright," Willow said with a nod. "You can't stay away from him, it's like you're obsessed, and sooner or later you're going to give into temptation."

"That's so not what I want to hear," Xander said with a groan.

"That's not going to happen," Buffy said, although even she noticed that her voice lacked conviction.

"You want it to," Willow said withdrawing her arm from Buffy's grasp. "That's enough."

"Nothing is going to happen with me and Angel," Buffy insisted her gut twisting with longing.

"Can we change the subject, please?" Xander begged. "Let's talk about your spell instead, huh, Wills?"

"Amy told you about that too?"

"Yeah she did and it doesn't sound good, Willow."

Willow sighed and nodded. "That wasn't so good," she admitted. "I'm not sure what would have happened if Spike hadn't been there."

"You wouldn't have been doing the spell if Spike hadn't have been there," Buffy pointed out. "You would have been with us."

Willow bristled. She'd been practicing spells to help Buffy, the only reason she had gotten involved with magic in the first place was because of her and Buffy was acting as though she had done something wrong.

"Maybe you shouldn't do any magic for a while," Buffy suggested, the very idea of Willow casting a spell that had gone so wrong and almost resulted in killing her didn't bear thinking about.

She stared at Buffy completely taken aback. "You weren't saying that when I tried putting Angel's soul back. I'm only allowed to do spell's that you approve of now, am I?"

"What? No," Buffy shook her head. "That's not what I'm saying. I don't…"

"You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do, Buffy. You don't get to decide if or when I practice magic."

"I'm not saying that, I…You know me, Wills I've always got one foot or the other in my mouth, nothing I'm saying is coming out right. I just want you to be safe. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"There's more chance of something happening to me whenever I go anywhere with you than there is when I practice a spell, but you don't seem too concerned about that," Willow retorted.

"That's a bit harsh, Wills," Xander said.

"It's only the truth."

Buffy looked crushed, she was unsure what to say in response, she could hardly argue the point when Willow was right. Taking hold of Willow's arm she pulled her to a stop. "Xan, can you give us a minute?"

He nodded giving Willow a long look before walking away completely unsettled with what he had just heard. He'd never known Willow to behave like that before and he'd known her since kindergarten.

"Willow, I…" Buffy sighed heavily and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "…I know that you don't have to help me and do what you do. I know you do it because you're my friend and you're always there for me no matter what dangerous situation I get myself into. You're a good friend, Wills, the best, and I'm trying to do what's right. I may be the Slayer but I'm your friend first."

"You're such a good friend too."

Buffy flinched at the cold, mocking tone.

"A good friend like you would always be sensitive to my feelings and wouldn't do anything to hurt me in any way, would you? A good friend like you wouldn't dance with Xander as if you were in the middle of a mating ritual, writhing and brushing up against him like some sort of pole dancer, not when you knew how strongly I felt about him. You wouldn't do that, not in front of me, would you? You wouldn't hurt your friend like that, would you? You wouldn't forget all about me, wouldn't build Xander's hopes up just to make Angel jealous. A good friend like you wouldn't ignore the feelings of your two only friends for a vampire, would you?"

Buffy's lips parted in a soundless gasp her eyes widening to their utmost as a wave of shame rolled over her.

"You don't think of anything else when Angel's around, all you want is to be the centre of his attention and to hell with everything and everyone else."

"No," Buffy whispered shaking her head vigorously.

"Yes," Willow corrected. "And if it wasn't for you maybe Miss Calendar would still be alive right now. If you weren't so busy playing the wounded lover and did your job as a Vampire Slayer Angelus would never have had the opportunity to kill her. But Xander was right, wasn't he? You wanted to forget about everything Angelus did so that you could get Angel back. Everything always has to be about you, doesn't it?"

Readjusting her bag on her shoulder Willow pushed her hair behind her ear and smiled. "I'm going to be late for English now, better get going."

She left Buffy standing in the corridor staring after her a look of utter shock on her face. Sinking back against the lockers Buffy blinked back the tears that stung her eyes, Willow had been her friend when no-one else had bothered and she hadn't thought about Willow once during that dance with Xander, all she had been concerned about was showing Angel what he was missing, what could be his. Buffy closed her eyes in distress, she was a shallow, selfish person and in that moment she really didn't like herself at all.

She had never thought she'd live to see the day that Willow could be so cold, so unfeeling towards her or anyone for that matter. Willow wasn't like this, Willow was warm and caring, she was nice to everyone even when they didn't really deserve it.

Buffy's head lifted slowly and she scrubbed at her eyes with her fist. Giles had said that Angel had told him Spike had felt compassion and they believed it was the influence of Willow's soul, could it be that the Willow she had just encountered with the frostiness and the hostility was an effect of losing part of her soul to Spike?

Pushing off from the locker Buffy turned away from her English class and trotted off to the library, she really hoped this was a side effect because it meant that there was a way to fix it and make Willow all Willowy again. Buffy wasn't sure she could handle much more of Willow and her new desire to tell the truth, the truth hurt and forced her to see herself in a new light, a very unflattering light and Buffy didn't like it at all.

She wanted Spike gone and Willow whole again.

Replaying her conversation with Willow over and over again in her head Buffy had just reached the library when she remembered something Willow had said and gasped out loud. "Giles!" she yelled as she flew through the doors. "Giles!"

"Good Lord, Buffy," Giles exclaimed jumping in his seat. "What is it?"

"Willow, she said 'you want my soul back together' she didn't say 'I want my soul back together'. Willow doesn't see this soul split thing as a problem!"