Chapter 7
If he had seen it once, he had seen it a million times, reflected the bartender as he glanced over to the corner table. There was the girl; pretty, a little awkward, knotting her legs around her chair as she threw her companion the occasional, tentative, green-eyed sparkle. And there he was, leaning back in his chair, looking for all the world as if he owned the place, and yet never lifting his eyes from her face.
Buffy looked across at Spike as she put down her empty glass. "I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." She watched to see his reaction. "That doesn't mean anything to you?"
"No. Sorry, love." He rocked backwards, mischief lurking in
his smile. "What kind of a name is
Buffy anyway?"
"Don't even think about it. My mother gave me that name." Buffy's
face was suddenly serious, and her voice very soft as she added, "Do you remember
her?"
Spike shook his head.
"She liked you." It seemed to have cost her an effort to say it, and they both fell silent.
Spike thought for a moment, and then asked, "So you're a vampire slayer. You do what, kill vampires?"
"You catch on quick."
He grinned. "Does it pay well?"
"Strangely enough, I'm yet to meet the vampire that dusts with the words, 'Thank you kind slayer and please accept this hundred dollars as a token of my appreciation.'"
"Great, I was bloody counting on you to buy the next round." He saw her involuntary smile as he said it, and he continued, his eyes dancing blue laughter at her. "Do you slay ex-vampires too?"
"I'm not picky."
"If I buy you another drink will you reconsider that?"
This time the smile she gave him was genuine. "I might."
Summer nights are often busy, and the pub was crowded, but the bartender had not missed it, the way she had leaned in towards her companion, confidentially, the artful turn of her shoulders, and the wicked twinkle she had flung at him still reflected in his eyes as he stood, waiting, at the bar, to order her drink.
Buffy sank deep into the dark, golden liquid with a long sigh. "Mmmm, this is good."
Spike smirked back at her. "Yorkshire Bitter – best int' world, lass."
She laughed at his imitation of the barman's accent, and he laughed back. "You're sure Elizabeth was safe?"
Buffy nodded, but he caught the doubt in her eyes. "I told you, I saw her home myself." She paused, thoughtfully. "Spike, did you find out who killed Karen's father?"
"I did." His answer was immediate, his face unreadable.
She misunderstood him. "You did? Who?"
"No, Buffy, I did. I killed him."
She did not look at him for a moment, but when she did her face registered neither shock nor loathing. "Figures." She saw his surprise at her lack of reaction. "You were a vampire, Spike. You have a past. Not all of it pleasant."
"So there are pleasant bits?"
"I didn't say that."
"Didn't you?"
She had felt it before, those eyes looking straight through her and finding the truth when everyone else was content to accept an excuse.
"Do you remember why you came to Sunnydale?" She saw his face, and realised. "You don't remember Sunnydale, do you. Shall I begin at the beginning?"
As the barman reached to ring the bell for last orders he caught sight of them again, the girl animated as she recounted some story to her friend, who sometimes laughed, and sometimes gestured, and sometimes just bit his lip and watched her talk.
Spike listened to the tale of his past that fitted so well with the tangle of memories in his head. "Is this true?"
Buffy smiled a little. "I don't know. My source was kinda unreliable."
"I told you this?" The twitch at the edge of her mouth gave him his answer. "Did you pay me for this information?"
"Of course."
"So you do have money. Right, well you can pay for your own drinks in future, love."
She grinned. "It's too late now. Last orders came and went." She looked down at her watch. "We should get back to Sylvia's." Her face dissolved into dimples as she remembered something. "Oh, I've got your room."
"That's OK, you can sleep on the floor." Spike dared her to react. "What, I was there first."
"I slept there first." Buffy never gave up without a fight.
"Doesn't count."
"Why do you get to say what counts?"
"I told you, I was there first."
And the two of them sat, laughing at each other, like a couple of children. After a moment Spike looked across at her more thoughtfully, his voice quiet. "Buffy, in London you tried to kill me. You wouldn't give me a chance. Why do you believe me now?"
The silence lasted so long that he thought she wasn't going to answer at all, and when she did, she would not look at him.
"Back there on the pier…it felt …"
"Right?"
"Real."
"Come on." He reached out to take hold of her hand as he got to his feet.
"Where are we going?" She asked the question, but everything about her spoke her consent.
"Just out."
She left her hand in his as they walked down the street towards the sea, swinging on it like a little girl as she glanced half-shyly, half-roguishly up at him.
"So don't you remember anything about how you became human?"
"Nothing. It's kind of part of the deal."
"There's a deal?"
"Yeah I…I'm on trial. For a month. I have a month to – "
He stopped suddenly, pulling away from the truth like the sea surging back from the shore.
"To what?"
"To…em…you know…prove my…em…worth as a human."
Even to him, it sounded pathetic, but he knew then, standing facing the vast black sea as it lapped at the silver sand on which they walked, that he could not tell her.
"What does that make you now then?"
"I don't know for sure." He took hold of her other hand as he turned to face her. "I know what you are though."
The arch in her eyebrows demanded an answer.
"Pissed."
"I'm not. I'm good. I feel kinda…I don't know…happy. Relaxed. Un-slayer-y."
"That's the beer talking. It's what I meant, love. Pissed. Here in England, that means you've had one too many."
"Oh." She was still smiling up at him, and he could not but smile back at her.
"You have Elizabeth's eyes."
And Elizabeth's eyes smiled back at him, but they were tinged with sadness, because once upon a time it would have been enough for him to look into her eyes and see only her.
Giles looked up as Buffy appeared mid-way through breakfast the following morning, curious to know the outcome of the Slayer's endeavours of the previous evening. "What did you do with Spike?" He spluttered on his mouthful of tea as he suddenly noticed Spike himself standing in the doorway behind her. "On second thoughts, please don't answer that question."
"Giles, please. Don't even try to suggest what I think you are suggesting. You were right, what you said the other day. Spike is human, and he's here to help us grapple the English vampire." Her face betrayed a hint of a smile. "Come on, you asked for that choice of words."
Spike rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Who's this? The sugar daddy?"
"Spike, please. Again with the thing about suggesting I said just now. This is Giles, my Watcher. You lived with him for a bit."
Spike turned pale.
"No, not like that. You were chained in the bath tub half the time."
Spike raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, as he sat down at the table opposite Giles.
"Here." Giles pushed a brightly-coloured box towards him. "I suppose you still eat Weetabix."
Spike looked up in dismay. "I ate Weetabix in my vampire days? I am deeply shamed. Can't have done much for my street cred, feeding off the bleeding corpses of cereal packets."
Giles turned to Buffy doubtfully. "Are you sure he's human? Wasn't he always like this?"
Buffy nodded, smiling. "I think we can be pretty sure. Spike has been quite definitely human for all of – "
"Eight days." Spike filled in the answer, so quietly that they hardly heard.
Giles had something else on his mind. "Buffy, I found out something last night that may or may not be important. The origin of the word 'Lycaena' – the name you heard Elizabeth called - is the Greek word 'Lykaina'. It means 'she-wolf.'"
"You're saying that Elizabeth could be…oh my goodness."
"Well, it may not be as simple as that."
"That's the simple option?" Buffy looked perplexed.
"Look, hang on." Spike interjected. "There's something you should know about Elizabeth…about that night she went missing…"
They talked long into the morning, broken only by Dawn's appearance, which was greeted on both her side and Spike's with no small degree of surprise and amusement. Eventually Giles stood up. "I think the best thing to do would be to see what else we can find out about it, before we decide what course of action to take."
"About what?" The clear voice rang out from the doorway. "Spike? You're here? Why didn't you call?" Karen entered the room, the relief on her face apparent. "Did you find out what happened to my father?"
Spike looked at her in consternation, but as he battled inwardly Buffy answered for him. "Yeah, we did. It has nothing to do with the girl that was killed last week. The vamps that got your father were all done and dusted a long time ago."
Karen was silent for a moment. "Well, thank you. It's better that way, of course. I'm just glad to know."
Giles turned to her. "What are you doing here then?"
She paused. "Elizabeth has been…well, since…since what happened she hasn't talked at all. We were advised to get her away from London…from whatever happened. The consultant thought a change of scenery might help speed her recovery. So we thought we'd come and pay you all a visit." She smiled, brightly. "Martin and Elizabeth have already gone on to the seaside. Sylvia and I are just off to join them. Do any of you want to come?"
Dawn was keen to go, but it was agreed that the others would stay behind and continue their research.
Buffy looked thoughtful as the Newport family and Dawn left. "Should somebody tell them?"
Spike declined. "Don't look at me. I'm not good with the 'Oh, by the way, your daughter's a werewolf' line."
"I don't think she is." Giles said, suddenly.
"What do you mean?"
He pointed to the page open in front of him. "Elizabeth – when you followed her, Spike, you said you felt like she could see something you couldn't. Look at this. 'Lykophos' - the wolf-light that we call dusk, when only the wolves can see."
"I thought we just ruled out the wolf bit." Buffy argued.
Giles nodded, cautiously. "Maybe we did. I don't know. I'm going to get on to Angel and see if he and Willow can find anything more in any of the books I have in Sunnydale. In the mean time, I suggest tonight you patrol as usual."
To Buffy, it was a beautiful memory, a part of her past that was warm, and safe, and comforting. As the two of them patrolled together, talking aimlessly and endlessly about nothing in particular, she felt how much she had missed this, and how much she had longed for this: to remember what it was to trust him, and, moreover, what it was to trust herself. To Spike, it was somewhere between heaven and hell: to be so close to her, and yet to be torn apart by the price on his life that he dared not tell her.
As they approached the water's edge they both stopped. There, silhouetted in the moonlight, standing on the pier in the exact spot they had met the evening before, was the outline of an angular figure. He spoke without turning round, and his voice was thin, and rasping.
"Lycaena saw you here. She called us. She is always with us, and we are always in your shadow."
"God, I love it when they talk dirty." Buffy's voice was dark with sarcasm as she walked towards him, but he swung round suddenly, and his face was as white and still as death itself.
"You can kill me, but you cannot change the end."
"The end?" There was the faintest trace of curiosity in amidst her scorn.
"Lycaena saw the Slayer at the side of the Vampire. This vampire. She saw the Vampire, and she showed us where to find him. We found the girl with the Vampire, and we believed she was the Slayer. Lycaena told us the Slayer was such a girl as she, small of stature, with hair of gold. We killed the girl but still the Slayer lived."
Spike saw his own sickening realisation sweep across Buffy's face, as the vampire continued, in a voice that seemed to come from the night itself.
"We thought we had failed. We were wrong. It is written in the stars. The Slayer will die. On the thirtieth day the Slayer will die for the soul of the one she is called to save."
To be continued…
[I know…evil cliffhanger again, but stick with me here!]