Chapter 45

The sensation of his fist colliding with the woman's j sensation of his fist colliding with the woman'aw was immensely satisfying; but then again violence had always been satisfying. Not as satisfying as his little witch, Spike thought with a smirk, but it got the job done.

The woman, the vampire, staggered backwards. She shook her head slightly and glared at him through amber eyes. If she had any sense Spike thought, she would have turned tail and run, but she didn't, she came at him again arm swinging.

Spike duked and used the full force of his shoulder to push into the softness of her stomach and topple her off her feet. She fell backwards and tumbled over a cracked and broken headstone, her legs waving in the air for a moment before she hit the ground. Spike snorted and jumped up onto the headstone landing with the grace and ease of a cat. His foot came out with perfect timing connecting with her face as she scrambled to her feet and sending her sprawling onto her back. Spike too out the stake from the waistband of his jeans and leaping from the headstone, landing with his feet astride the woman's hips, he dropped to his knee and pierced her heart.

Vampire dusted, Spike turned to see what Faith was up to. She was busy battling with the other two vampires, a man and a woman. She threw a right hook and knocked the woman back a few paces, turning to the man with a cross punch she sent him down. She turned again in time to meet the woman coming at her again with a sharp upper cut to the rib cage. Her right foot shot out in a backward kick to the man's stomach and he bent over with a grunt and a groan.

Smiling, Spike leant against the headstone and lit up a cigarette to watch the show. She didn't need his help, he'd already seen her take on two vampires at once, and Faith was more than capable of holding her own. It took him a minute or two to notice, but Spike did finally notice; she was dragging it out. The fight could have been over and done with three times according to his count but Faith didn't end it. She was angry, her jaw clenched and her face dark, all the power she possessed behind her punches; whatever was wrong with her, she was taking it out on these two unfortunate vampires.

Right hook, upper cut, roundhouse and the man fell back into the side of a crypt. Faith drove the stake home and he exploded into dust. She turned back to the woman who, with a howl of fury, hurled herself at Faith so fiercely that they both tumbled to the ground and rolled into a patch of bushes. There was a scuffle and then the air was filled with dust and Faith emerged dirty and dishevelled.

Pushing her hair back from her face, oblivious to the leaves and twigs caught in it, Faith looked for Spike. She said nothing when she saw him leaning casually against the headstone enjoying a smoke, instead she twirled the stake in her hand and tucked it back into her belt and gestured towards the gates.

Spike willingly fell into step beside her as she ate up the path with long purposeful strides. They had been to collect the cage, using Angel's car of course, Spike didn't see why he should have to waste his petrol fetching a cage for the wanker, and besides, it was more convenient putting a cage in the back of a convertible than looking to tie it to the roof of his Desoto. He hoped old Percy had the sense to dig out some tools to assemble the thing once they got it in the basement. Just how the watcher planned on getting Angelus into the cage was a mystery to Spike, but he couldn't deny he would enjoy seeing the gits face when he was all locked up like a monkey at the zoo.

He glanced at Faith out of the corner of his eye. "So, was all that about Angel?"

Faith stopped immediately and glared at him. "What?"

"The fight. All that wailing on vamps; you releasing your anger over Angel?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Spike," Faith snapped crossly.

"Sure you do. I'm talking about you shagging the poof. I know all about it. Heard you," he added helpfully when she merely stared stupidly at him. "Saw you coming back from the bathroom too. Oh I didn't see anything," he said with a grin when her face flushed with mortification. "Poof had you all nice and covered up. "

"You covered for me," she said slowly. "You told Willow it didn't matter how it happened when you knew all the time."

Spike shrugged. "Doesn't really matter how it happened, does it? Tosser's back, that's the point. Now don't get me wrong, I don't give a damn if it's Angel or Angelus; hate the one just as much as the other. He's always gonna be a wanker either way. But, Angelus is a threat to Willow and only Angel can keep her safe from the witch hunter. I need the soul right now not the demon."

"You still kept it a secret."

"Figured you had enough to deal with without taking the blame too. Harris is always quick to place blame."

Faith rolled her shoulders and swung her arms to stretch out her tense muscles. "Doesn't matter, it wasn't me anyway."

Spike's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Come again?"

"Wasn't me," she ground out crossly. "The witch hunter took his soul to eliminate the threat of a champion, Angelus told me and Wes and Wes had already figured that out anyway."

"Wasn't sure he was right," Spike said. "Knowing about the shagging and all."

Faith made a face and sighed. "Well he was right."

"Ah," Spike smiled slightly and flicked the end of the cigarette to the ground, stomping on it with the heel of his boot. "That explains the mood then."

Faith's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"You," Spike said conversationally as he strode forward and pushed open the heavy gate at the entrance to the cemetery. "You're all pissed because you didn't shag the soul out of him the way the slayer did. Doesn't mean she's any better than you, you know."

Just why he was trying to make Faith feel better Spike didn't know and didn't feel like examining his motives too closely either. She was his friend he supposed and aside from Willow and Dawn the only one he had, she understood him in a way even Willow couldn't, Faith had also been thrust into life in Sunnydale, on the outside of everything looking in; although Spike figured Buffy's little friends had probably been a sight more friendly towards her than him.

"She's always been better than me," Faith snapped. "Buffy was the good girl, the first slayer, the proper slayer, the one with the friends who never really wanted me here. She didn't do the things I did, it would never have entered B's head to do the things I did; she was the good one, the decent one, the golden girl. He loved her," she told Spike fighting to keep her voice from cracking. "He loved her so much, a demon in love with a human, a vampire in love with a slayer, that being with her brought him totally happiness…"

"Piffle," Spike said cutting her off. "I know him, Angel or Angelus I know him, better than you or the slayer. I know the demon and I know the soul and I'm telling you it wasn't the slayer, love, he didn't love her more than anything in the world, she wasn't his be all and end all the way he was for her. It wasn't some epic, heart breaking romance no matter what the slayer might have said."

She was baffled and she looked it. Faith wanted to believe him, she so desperately wanted to believe every word passing Spike's lips but she just couldn't. Everyone knew the story of the tragic love affair that was Angel and Buffy, what could Spike possibly say to change what had already gone before her?

"I… I don't…" Faith trailed off, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear what Spike had to say it wouldn't really change anything in the long run. Buffy would still be the girl Angel loved and she would still be the girl who had tried to kill him.

"You know what he is, don't you?" Spike pressed opening the car door.

Faith nodded a look of confusion crossing her face as she rounded the car to the passenger side. "Angel? He's a vampire."

Spike chuckled and pulled off from the curb as soon as she had shut the door. He didn't like leaving his girl all alone for too long, especially now that the soul had departed from Angel. "That's right."

Faith waited but Spike didn't say anything else, he didn't elaborate and she gave a sigh of annoyance. "What does that mean? Spike, make sense."

"Simple really," he said. "You ask the slayer the same question and she'd tell you he had a soul…"

"But he does."

"Don't interrupt." Spike rounded the corner. "He doesn't have a soul that's why he can lose it. Liam died at the hands of Darla…"

"Who the hell is Liam?" Faith demanded, her exasperation beginning to creep higher.

"I told you not to interrupt, now shut up and listen," Spike glared at her, waiting for an argument. When he was satisfied she was going to keep silent he began again. "Liam was Angel when he was human. Darla turned him. Are you following?"

"I don't appreciate the patronising tone, but yes," Faith said with a small smile. "I'm following."

"Good, now we can get somewhere," Spike muttered crossly. "So, Liam died and became a vampire; he became Angelus a demon without a soul, without humanity, that's what a demon is, a creature of darkness and evil intent."

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that he wasn't completely like that but she changed her mind at the last minute. It was probably best not to alienate her only ally; Faith had a feeling Spike would not appreciate that observation.

"Long story short, Angelus killed a gypsy girl and got himself cursed with a soul. Cursed, Faith. He didn't go and get himself a soul, he didn't ask for the soul to be returned to him. He was cursed with it." Spike shuddered at the very thought of a soul, to unlive with that millstone around his neck never giving him a moments peace. It was truly terrifying. "So what that means is that the soul might be his, but it doesn't belong to him anymore, do you see?"

"Yeah, I see. I guess it makes some sort of twisted sense," Faith agreed.

"Angel is not a vampire with a soul, he's a vampire cursed with a soul. The soul was meant to cause him untold pain and misery, it was not meant to make him good; and believe me, it didn't make him good until he came here. For years he was a pathetic excuse for a man or a demon."

"I suppose," Faith said thoughtfully. "That he was neither one or the other."

"Exactly," Spike said approvingly. "You see that, I see that, most people see that. The soul doesn't make him a man, it doesn't make the demon in him disappear; but the slayer, she only ever saw the soul. "He has a soul", it was her motto," Spike said with a snort of disgust. "Now Angel, he's a total toss pot, and after having spent years, decades, on his own suddenly the slayer and her friends turn up and he starts helping them, fighting the forces of evil and living among humans again, humans who are good and decent and willing to give him a chance and ignore the fact that he's not completely one of them. Even the bloody watcher, you'd think he'd know better," Spike muttered with a roll of his eyes. "Anyway, the point is, the slayer didn't really acknowledge the demon because of the soul, and Angel, wanker that he is, bought into it. Tried to pretend that he wasn't a demon, that the soul made him more of a man; it had to, right? If the slayer was willing to shag him he couldn't be all bad, couldn't be a demon, he had to be more of a man than anything else. It's what the soul wanted," he explained, "to be a man. That's what caused the pure happiness, not shooting his wad, believing that being with a human, a vampire slayer, made him a man and not a demon. "

"Well…. I….I…how do you know that?" Faith wasn't sure what to think. Everything Spike said made sense to her, but she was still afraid to believe it.

"Got it from the horse's mouth."

Her eyes widened in shock. "Angelus told you?"

"Told me enough," Spike said. "Doesn't take a genius to work it all out when he gives you the bare bones of it."

"So, it wasn't being with B exactly that made the soul disappear the first time?"

Spike snorted. "Shagging always give you perfect happiness does it?"

Her lips quirked. "Point taken."

"She wasn't better than you, pet; self-righteous as hell, but not better than you."

"Buffy gave me a chance," Faith said quietly.

"And that gives her the right to play at judge and jury, does it?" he asked crossly. "Always on her high horse she was, always looking down her bloody nose at me because I'm a vampire; willing to forget what she unleashed into Sunnydale because that was true love," he made a face. "True love my arse. If he loved her, truly loved her with all his heart and soul Angel would never have left her in the first place. Never got over him, always loved him she did, hypocritical bitch."

"Oh come on, Spike," Faith said encouragingly. "Try to form at least a little bit of an opinion about Buffy."

Spike chuckled again. "Always did rub me up the wrong way and not just 'cos she was the slayer. Bloody goody-to-shoes, and for all her do gooder ways she was a hypocrite beneath it all. Do you know what she'd say if she were here right now?"

"About what?" Faith couldn't help the amused smile that curled her lips, once Spike got on his soap box about Buffy there was no stopping him.

"About me and Willow," he complained irritably. "Tell her I was no good she would. Tell Red how evil I am, how I'm the worst thing to happen to her, how Red could do so much better than me. Tell her I'm a vampire, a demon, not to be trusted. Forget that Angel's a vampire, he's always a special case so far as the slayer's concerned and I'm nothing like him. Be sure to tell Willow that she would. Tell her that I'm beneath her she would, convince her to throw me away and have nothing to do with me."

It wasn't that often that Faith actually felt sympathy and empathy towards someone else and she supposed it was a step in the right direction that she felt it for Spike even if he was a demon. She had no doubt that he was right, Buffy would probably do all those things in an effort to protect her friend. Whether it was right or not Faith didn't feel she was able to judge; but she couldn't exactly blame Buffy for loving Willow and wanting the best for her, that was friendship, or so she understood.

"She might have said it, I don't think it would have done much good though," Faith mused as she thought about the spell Willow had created through her feelings for the vampire grouching next to her.

Spike looked surprised. "What makes you say that?"

"Just a hunch."

They relapsed into silence for a while and before Faith knew what was what Spike was pulling up in the driveway of Angel's house. She felt better than she had this morning, Spike was a good tonic but it probably wouldn't do to tell him that. He still laboured under the illusion that he was the Big Bad even with the chip. Faith didn't for a second doubt that as soon as the chip was gone Spike would once again be the Big Bad he had always been, but for now he was sort of on sabbatical, although it was probably best to just cater to his illusion rather than have him face reality. Spike, for all his Big Bad ways, had a tendency to sulk.

"So," Spike said as they heaved the cage out of the back, the bars clanging together noisily. "You know what old Percy wants to talk to me about?"

Faith's head tilted slightly to the side and she examined him closely for a moment. "You feel alright, Spike?"

He looked surprised at the question. "Yeah, why?"

"You don't feel any different?" she pressed.

"No, should I?" he looked confused.

"I don't know," she admitted thoughtfully.

"Faith, what are you going on about?"

"Nothing," she lifted part of the cage and began to totter up the driveway. "Best take this straight down to the basement, huh?"

Spike scowled and hauled the rest of the cage out of the back seat. It had been rather dangerous driving with that thing sticking up in the air but he had secured it properly and safely enough. "Don't give me that crap. You know something and the watcher knows something, now what is it?"

"Wes will explain things much better than me," Faith assured him.

"Explain what?" Spike demanded irritably.

She glanced at him as she paused to open the back door. "You'll find out."