Chapter Seven

Missing pieces

A/N OK, I know I said three chapters, but this all fits with the plan don't worry. This one basically fits with scenes that happened in Villains but are altered of course for my purposes.

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2002

"Are you ok about seeing him?" Dawn said quietly as they approached Spike's crypt. A race of thoughts ran through Buffy's mind, the bruise on her leg searing as she looked down at the graves they were passing. It all washed over her, the way he'd been, what he'd said, how she'd barely overpowered him. She could barely even remember the conversation they'd had now. The look on Xander's face, and Willow. Oh God, she thought, what have I done? In her haste to continue the mission she'd dismissed Willow again, Xander had offered to go get Spike for her, but she'd refused. Why? Do I want to see him?

"Huh?" She replied when she noticed Dawn was kind of staring at her expectantly. She'd seen Dawn's mouth moving, but the sound was a mystery to her, she was so stuck inside her head.

"Spike, will it weird seeing him after what happened with Anya?" Oh yeah, Dawnie doesn't know, it should stay that way, make a mental note to tell Xander that. Was she ok? She'd kind of forgotten about Anya, it didn't really matter now anyway, if she barely remembered it did that mean she was ok? At least Anya had wanted him at the time. She hadn't needed to force her, they'd been drinking anyway. But Anya hadn't been forced. Why did he show Anya that respect when he'd left Buffy fighting for herself.

"Yeah, I mean I-I guess I'm fine." Buffy stammered out, passing it off as nothing really. Dawn was sceptical, but then she knew Buffy wouldn't tell her any more, so she carried on walking, approaching the shadowed door. Inside there was a musty smell, the cobwebs spiralling across the door as they stepped inside. Buffy stepped through the door first, letting Dawn follow her, maybe she should have made her wait outside? If they were going to scream and shout at each other maybe it wasn't a good idea for Dawn to be there? But then she was walking through the door and Dawn was following, and it slipped her mind before she could stop it.

"Spike?" He was watching tv, he was always watching tv when he wasn't sulking. It hadn't meant anything then. If he wasn't sulking. What if it really was nothing, that Spike had said he was in love with her all this time, just to get in her pants. And when she refused him, he'd tried to force her, and now he was sitting here not sulking about it, because now he had a reason to move onto someone else.

"Sufferin' bat!" Clem said as he leapt out of his seat, surprising Buffy and Dawn considerably. She was all ready to be super angry with him but play it coy and irritated. "Where did you come from?" Clem asked, he was as surprised as Buffy was, his snacks falling all over the floor, but he noticed Dawn smile a little at him as he turned back to Buffy. He'd just been watching tv, minding his own business, watching the crypt you know, the appearance of people would shocked him.

"Oh, Clem. I'm sorry I-I didn't mean to startle you." Buffy still shook a little, so geared up for a fight she couldn't quite get her around the fact that it wasn't happening now. Her voice quaked a little, her coat seemingly too large for her frame and Dawn seemed shifty and nervous beside her. The room was breathy and it felt anxious, there was a tense awkwardness between them all, that wasn't seeming to dissipate. Buffy thought maybe Clem knew, she could sense a sadness when he looked at her, a sympathy.

Clem wondered just quite why Buffy and Dawn were here, it seemed all perfectly random and with Spike gone, there really was no reason. In the back of his mind, maybe they'd come to see him, maybe they thought he would be useful to them. "Can I get you ladies something?" She started, continuing on about something else. He thought, well if they are here for me, maybe I should offer them something, I mean, for their effort you know. His mind wittered on alongside his mouth, random phrases spurting out until Buffy interrupted.

"We're looking for Spike, actually." Her eyes looked apologetic, he brushed it off. He was still just the big lump of skin in the corner, not really thought of or helpful.

"He didn't tell you." Clem was surprised they didn't know, he was also surprised at how little Dawn was saying, at Buffy's party she'd been pretty chatty from what he could remember. He guessed something had happened, times had moved on from that happy girl stuck inside her own house.

"Tell me what?" Buffy was confused, what could have possibly happened now? Stupid Spike, stupid Spike and his vampire face, his stupid face. I don't love him. And he sure as hell doesn't love me. It wasn't like this with Angel, I knew what to do, or what not to do. I knew how to control my emotions, how to pick the right thing. I loved him and it was ok because he had a soul, he doesn't count. And now here I am, in this mess of crap and it's all gone to hell.

"He left..." Clem wasn't sure how much she didn't know, how could she not have known, surely Spike would've told her. But then he really was in a rut the night before, he'd looked angry, his entire body was frustrated, his contorting back and forth from vampire to human. A real state. "Town."

Buffy didn't know how to think. Her brain felt lonely, somehow liked he'd abandoned her. Tomorrow she would be grateful. That their fraternalization was over and she could move past him, that he would get over her and fall in love with some other woman he didn't deserve. A simple "oh" fell out of her mouth, there wasn't really anything else she could say, could she? She took a deep breath, about to carry on full speed with a mumbling excuse to leave but Dawn got there first.

"He just took off?" The tone of her voice shook her, it sounded painful for her to even get the words out. She felt betrayed too, he had taken care of her so many times during the last few years that he kinda was a friend to her and the loss seemed eventful. Buffy just looked down. Dawn took a quick glance because maybe she'd interrupted something important. She still hadn't said anything, Clem was rambling now, even more so than before. He felt sympathetic, Spike had just up and left without warning it turned out.

Buffy made her excuses lightly, saying that they had other, more important things to be getting on with and requested that Dawn stay there. But that wasn't fair. Not that Clem minded because of course he didn't. But by the look on Dawn's face, she didn't want to be left again. Made the scapegoat. She was always the kid in the corner, left with Spike or Clem, there was always somewhere that Buffy could leave her so she would stay out of trouble. "No, Buffy you can't make me stay away from it all over again. Just let me prove it to you." Dawn moaned, it was the first time she'd decided she knew best. "I can stay inside with Tara or something, just let me help."

After more eventual pleading and the realisation from Buffy that they use all the help they could get to find Warren, she gave in. At a loss for standing her ground, Spike leaving was just another knock to her confidence she didn't need. Today was just one of those days when Dawn would get her own way. She knew Dawn was old enough to fight, deep down she knew that, she'd been fighting vamps at that age. And it wasn't just that she was the slayer, it was that she didn't want Dawn to have that same experience of her teenage years. The time when she was supposed to act like a kid and mess up and not have to fight demons when you should be doing your homework. Buffy's grades had always suffered that, she'd never be the smartest kid, or the one who revised for the exam, she'd barely scraped through high school, then college was a mess, dropping out and dying and all that. She'd never wanted any of that for Dawn, and it was fine when their mom was still her, but she was gone, and now it fell on Buffy to make sure Dawn was happy. And safe, safe would be preferable.

Africa, the world without shrimp 2002

Spike stomped through the desert, his feet treading unimportant sand. The camp was flooded with people, crashes of families lost. He was adorned in his usual black all over, it was signature, something he'd picked up years ago, Dru had said it made him sexy. The dark vampire look, and some said his hair was for himself, like he'd bleach out anything human left in him. He had the look of betrayal set deep in his eyes. His own betrayal of the romanticised poet he used to be. He'd never forced, never pushed for anything before; but it was just so hard, why didn't she understand that he was doing the best he could for her.

He walked through a dark alleyway, paused by a warning from an insignificant bystander. This was his choice. He entered the cave, flicking open his lighter, the light emitted was no bigger than a tealight candle. It wiggled and danced in front of the ancient rock, the cave paintings graphic and detailed, depicting those tales too old to remember. He continued, coming to a slight clearing on incline.

"You seek me, vampire?" An obscured masculine voice uttered. His breathy remarks whispered in slow painstaking syllables.

"You do the finger paintings? Nice work." Spike crudely remarked back, his usual lilt of English whisper echoed the sharp stone walls.

"Answer me." The male voice demanded, presenting his essence forward in a stance of power over the century old vampire. He towered over Spike, sturdy and almost block-like.

"Yeah, I seek you." Spike weakly replied, his brow furrowed as his nervousness about this sort of quest made his bones ache. Why did she have to be such a bitch? Why can't she see past the whole, no soul thing. She's prejudiced. He thought mercilessly. Buffy was the focus of his rage, his own inner rage, but also his growing irritation that she lorded over him, her morality far outweighing him.

"Something about a woman. The slayer." The figure had heard his inner angers, his taunts as she hid herself inside his empty soulless chest.

"Bitch thinks she's better than me." He said, truthfully as he bit hard on the inside of his lip. His face hardening into a single emotionless smear.

"Its this bloody chip." He cried out some seconds later, his breath spitting as he was dismayed by the creature as it called him names. Called him weak and pathetic, all the things the damn chip had brought over him. He'd lost his bloody freedom for God's sake. That made him angry.

"Yeah? I'll show you pathetic. Gimme your best shot." He said, his voice breaking as he realised the truth in the matter, he had become pathetic, the bitch's fault. She'd turned him into some kind of pet.

The creature spoke for the final time, "You'd never endure the trials required to grant your request."

"Do your worst." Spike recoiled. His voice a shattering mess, his eyes had welled a little, he truly was pathetic, and that hardly mattered at all now. Now that he would show her. "But when I win I want what I came here for." His mind flicking back to every moment he'd seen Buffy reject him, every fleeting hour he'd spent waiting, pining, it was all down to this. The day when she would want him.

His last sentence, a phrase he'd thought over a thousand times. "Bitch is gonna see a change."