Chapter 20 – Tuesday, Alternative Reality
Buffy woke next morning feeling strangely at peace. As she drifted up from a dreamless sleep, she wasn't sure where she was. Opening an eye, she spotted black, and as she focussed, she realised she was lying on a hard bench, her head in Spike's lap. He was holding her gently. She looked up to his face. His eyes were closed, but as she watched him, they opened and he smiled at her. "Morning," he said, softly.
She pulled herself up to sit beside him, still watching his face. "Thanks," she said to him.
He looked confused. "What for?"
"Everything, listening, understanding. Just for being here."
He shrugged. He still didn't know what to do. The last thing he wanted to do was make her feel threatened by him – he knew Riley had threatened her with more than the belt. She needed to be safe, and all he wanted to do was kiss her. She looked strangely lovely. Her hair was tousled, and her eyes were still filled with sleep. As if she understood, as if she could read his mind, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He took it gently, afraid he would misread the signs, but she led, kissing him harder until he could only respond. They didn't know how long it had been, seconds, minutes or even longer, but they both became aware of another presence. Looking up, they saw Jenny. She had coughed, that slightly embarrassed noise that said she didn't want to disturb them.
"I've got some news," she said, apologetically. "It's Finn. He's dead. The Jelkas aren't sure when he died, they thought he'd gone to sleep. They got someone to check him out a while ago, but he was dead."
"Why?" was all that Buffy could manage.
"We don't know, but he had taken a beating somewhere."
Buffy whitened. Spike knew what she was thinking. "No, love, it wasn't you. You didn't kill him. I was there, I saw it."
"C..can I see him?" Buffy sounded unsure.
In answer, Jenny motioned for them to follow. When they got to the cavern, he was lying, now untied, on the ground with a sheet over him. Kneeling beside him, Buffy removed the sheet. Underneath he was stripped to the waist. The appearance of his upper torso elicited a gasp of surprise. There was no way she was responsible for that.
Someone came up behind them. "Hello, I'm Simon. I'm a medical student, the closest thing we have to a doctor here. The injuries cover most of his body. He must have been in a lot of pain."
"He wasn't," Buffy countered. "He was on some drugs, he called them his vitamin supplements. They made him stronger than he should have been, and he didn't feel pain, at least, not when he took the drugs."
"That's not possible," Simon disagreed. "There's nothing that could do that. The damage to the heart would be considerable if anyone tried it. It just wouldn't be safe." He paused for a minute. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, pointing out a scar on his left breast.
"I don't know for sure," Buffy replied, "but I think it was some kind of heart regulator, it increased his heart rate to make up for the other changes caused by the drugs." She struggled to remember what had happened with 'her' Riley.
Simon looked unsure. What she was saying had a strange kind of logic to it. Certainly, if drugs could do the things she said they did, an increased heart rate would be needed to support it.
"What killed him?" she asked.
"I'm not really qualified to say, but I don't think the beating did. That looks to have been done by someone who really knew what he was doing. If what you've told me is true, my best guess would be a heart attack. You can only abuse your body for so long before it rebels. And if he's recently taken a beating, then being in pain would have added to the burden."
Buffy nodded. In her reality, Riley would have merited tears. She had none for this Riley, but was glad he was at least at peace.
Jack and Cordelia arrived at Los Angeles airport and hired a car for the rest of the journey to Sunnydale. Jack was surprised at how quiet his assistant was. She was never known to be short of words, but she had hardly spoken the whole way.
They had agreed to meet someone from the resistance at the mall car park. Oz approached the car, holding out his hand to Cordelia. He recognised her, and saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes, but no words were said. Oz joined them in the hired car, and the three made for the concealed car park. Once inside the cave complex, they were introduced to a number of other members – including Buffy and Spike. Again, Cordelia's eyes flashed recognition at the other woman, but said nothing. Within half an hour, Jack was convinced of the existence of vampires and other demons. The rest was harder to prove. He was shown the figures Willow had obtained from the police and Initiative computers. Persuaded there was something going on, the two visitors went back into town to a hotel. Now he could get down to what he was good at. He could smell a good story, and no one had ever stopped him from getting the truth before.
Brian Wakefield had had a very uncomfortable night. He hadn't gone home, expecting Finn to turn up at any moment. He realised he must have been followed. He didn't know what had happened after he left, and he didn't care. He decided that now might be a good time for a holiday, and after paying a flying visit to his flat for some clothes and his passport, he left.
Spike got the feeling Buffy was avoiding him. After spending the night in his arms, and waking him with that kiss, he had hardly seen her except when there were lots of others around. He kept telling himself it was just another kiss. It meant no more to her than the last one had. But it meant more to him. He berated himself for feeling so much. He wished he could turn off his feelings, just decide not to care any more. It wasn't an option.
He went back to training the demons to fight, hoping she would come too, but there was no sign of her. He wanted to find her and demand to know what was happening between them, but knew that his courage would fail him at the first sign that she was still feeling vulnerable after her dealings with Riley. He wasn't used to a vulnerable Slayer. Somehow the two terms didn't go together. She had been vulnerable before – not least when she had died and then again when she had first come back, but she had never had that air of vulnerability she had after Riley. Unable to do more, he found a quiet corner of an otherwise unused cavern and started to kick the wall with his steel toe-capped boots. It didn't do the boots much good, but it made him feel better. He was surprised by Jenny. She looked quizzically at him and he was suddenly embarrassed. It wasn't exactly the way he liked people to think of him. He still liked to think he was the 'big bad' and kicking walls was somewhat at odds with that.
"Want to talk?" Jenny asked.
"About?" Spike wasn't about to make this easy.
"Whatever is causing you to take out your frustration on the rock that's sheltering you from the sun. What's going on with you and Buffy? This morning I thought you'd finally 'got together'. It certainly looked that way to me. But she's off helping man the phones, and you're here."
Spike took a breath. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a woman's point of view. "Don't have a bloody clue. This morning, I thought, well, same as you. But I've hardly seen her since then. As if Riley dying made a difference."
"It must've been hard for her. She and Riley were close in your reality. To find out what he was like here must have hurt. Did she ever tell you what happened?"
"She did, but I'm not saying." Spike was suddenly defensive.
"I'm not asking you," Jenny soothed him. "I just mean, that shows she trusts you. She didn't before, not completely. Funny thing, when you've got no past, like me, you learn to watch people. I watch people closely to understand their past, their relationships, to try to work out what I should be able to remember. She trusts you now. Maybe it's just herself she doesn't trust. I don't know about her past – why she wouldn't trust herself. Do you?"
Spike thought about Buffy's past. Yes, he could really see why she couldn't trust herself. But in truth, it was circumstances that let her down, not her, or the decisions she made.
"Think so," he agreed. "She's had a complicated past. And in some ways, Riley was the least complicated of the lot."
"Then give her time. She cares. Maybe that's got to be enough for now."
Buffy knew she had been close. If Jenny hadn't turned up when she did, she'd have said something, something she couldn't take back. At that moment, waking up with him, she had felt safe and wanted and loved. She knew he would never hurt her. And she felt that she loved him. Then, seeing Riley, remembering both 'her' Riley and the one who died, she remembered that every decision she made ended in disaster. With Angel, it meant death. Death for Jenny and the countless others he killed while soulless. Parker was just a mistake. Then Riley. She thought she loved him. She thought she had found the normal life she always wanted. He loved her and she had hurt him by shutting him out, by not being able to love him as he deserved.
The bottom line was, that with her track record, she was just plain scared. She'd been wrong every other time. Even Angel, who loved her, had tried to kill her, had been obsessed with killing her until he got his soul back. She shuddered at the parallel between Angel and Angelus on one hand and the two Rileys. What would she do to Spike if she tried to love him? Would he go wrong too? She couldn't bear it if he did. Right now, he was her anchor, her only friend in this reality. She had no idea if she was ever going to get back. She needed him like she had never needed anyone else, and most of all, that terrified her.
Jack Singer had set to work. Within minutes of getting to his hotel, he had his mobile office up and working. He had experts in all sorts of fields at his beck and call, and he got on the phone. Within hours, he had information coming in, and the more he got, the more he realised he was on to the biggest story of his career.
Red Cross had heard that Riley Finn was missing. He had had him followed, and everything had seemed to be going well. Something happened at the base. Once there, the tail had been discontinued. Something had sent him out of there, and he hadn't returned. His first thought was that the beating he had ordered had killed him, albeit not instantly. Those responsible had died.
Things in Sunnydale were heating up. He'd heard a rumour that Jack Singer was in town. That spelled trouble. He had a reputation for being completely honest. He couldn't be bought. The whole plan would have to be put on hold. He had anxious buyers from all over the world on his back, but he had no choice. He pulled most of his people out of the local hospital and sent them out of town. The hospital management had been irritated – he'd provided a considerable income for them for the use of some of their facilities for his special private practice. They hadn't asked questions when they saw the size of the cheques. Everything was a mess, but he knew he could recover, if need be he could pull out and start again elsewhere. There were other hellmouths around the world, but first, he would try to remedy the current situation.
Much later that evening, Buffy saw him. Spike was standing with a group of Jelkas and they seemed to be joking about something that had happened earlier. She watched for a while, noticing he enjoyed the company of other non humans and seemed comfortable with them in a way he wasn't with her friends. If she ever got back home, that wouldn't have changed. They'd never accept him. Unable to stop herself, feeling herself drawn to him, she approached.
He looked surprised when he saw her. Under the surprise, she saw his pleasure. She stood close, just enjoying his proximity and the positive sensations that caused. She listened to how one of the Jelkas had managed to land a lucky hit on Spike and was surprised he now sported a bruised and swollen cheek. He was pretending irritation, but she knew it was put on. She could see the way his chest swelled with pride that one of these gentle giants could have done that after he showed them how. In some ways a very complicated person, yet, at times like these, he was so easy to understand. Like any human, he needed a purpose in life, and he needed to feel he belonged.
Somehow, the Jelkas seemed to recognise the others' need to be alone. As a group, they wandered off to find others of their kind. Spike smile at Buffy. "Off to find the rest of the herd," he commented. He looked at her, unsure what to do. "Good day?" he asked.
She lifted a hand to the bruised cheek. He caught her hand and held it there.
"Ok. I'll be happier when we get to the bottom of this whole thing. I can't believe they've got Jack Singer involved. He's amazing. I hope it won't be long. Too many people've died already."
She knew he was watching her as she was talking, drinking in her appearance. She felt slightly embarrassed by his scrutiny and looked away. She knew she owed him an explanation, and linking his arm in hers, she said, "Time for a talk?" and led him out of the main parts of the complex. They went back to the cavern where they had spent their first night with the resistance. She'd picked up some blankets somewhere, and she spread them on the ground and sat down, back against the smoothest part of the wall. He joined her, waiting for her to explain.
She sat for a few moments, gathering her thoughts. "Spike," she started softly. "I'm sorry, I've been avoiding you today. It's just, seeing Riley, dead, it shook me up. It just reminded me of the way I muck up everyone's life."
He tried to contradict her, but she put a single finger on his lips.
"It's true. Everyone, not just the men in my life. My friends too. I jump in there, and I shake everything up. Nothing's ever the same. I'm scared to do it again."
Spike shook his head at her. "Of course you make a difference, love. You wouldn't be living if you didn't make a difference to those around you. And, from what I've seen, your friends wouldn't have it any other way. You can't blame yourself for what happened to this Riley any more than the other one." He took a deep breath. "Do you believe that I love you?"
She looked into his eyes. How could she ever have doubted that? "Yes," she whispered.
"I'm willing to risk anything for you, even the possibility you might change me. Hell, you have changed me. You stopped me wanting to feed. Can't you take the risk, too?"
She thought over the diaries she had read. The parts which described her other self's life with Spike. Until the Initiative got the upper hand in Sunnydale, she had read about someone completely content with her life - something she had never experienced. Maybe that was worth the risk. Closing her eyes, she put her lips to his, gently at first, but their excitement grew quickly. Spike broke away for an instant, looking into her eyes, looking for confirmation that she knew what she was doing. "I'm sure," she whispered, and he caught her lips again. Several minutes later, he pulled away again. She looked at him, bemused, not understanding. His head was down. She put her hand to his chin, and raised his face to look at hers. She was surprised to find tears forming in his eyes.
"Why?" she asked.
"I'm sorry, Buffy, I can't do this. Not with you. I can't have you tonight, and then tomorrow you tell me it didn't mean anything. I'll just go, and…"
She held his arm to prevent him standing.
"Spike, I'm not promising forever. I can't, not yet. I don't know what'll happen if and when we get back to our own reality. But here and now, I love you. I think I have for a long time, but you've made it too easy for me. You've always been there. I never had to do anything. But here, I realised I need you. If you're not in my life, I'm not really living. And I'll never tell you it didn't mean anything. I can promise that."
It was enough for him. He pulled her into his arms again, and they both succumbed to the sensations being so close gave them. One last time, Spike pulled away. Buffy looked confused, but smiled when he went to the two nearest torches and quenched them. "We've got no doors, love, and I don't know about you, but I'd like a bit of privacy."
She could see nothing. The darkness was total, but Spike found his way back to her. In truth, he could see perfectly well. The night passed in alternating bouts of passion and drowsing. Everything seemed new and at the same time, familiar and right.