"This…this is just," he begins with a scowl, as he throws the cloak to the ground, "PATHETIC!" I can tell immediately that he is headed for a bottle of whiskey.
"What are you talking about? You were brilliant!" I feel almost betrayed. We had done a good thing today. Not only had he braved the deadly sun to deliver a message of good will and remorse, but he had been there and not Angel. It makes him the honorable one. The one worthy of forgiveness. I remain still, staring at him with wide eyes.
He starts shaking his head. "You know, your little speech yesterday really had me thinking. It made me actually want, if for only a moment, to be the man you fancy me to be." The bottle cap flies across the room and he downs a quarter of its contents in one swig.
"What?" Now my lower lip is quivering. I'm so much better at this when no one knows I'm here.
"I'm a bloody vampire, girl! Did you not read the owner's manual when they gave you this job?" He produces a cigarette and quickly lights it. I think if he could drink and smoke simultaneously, he would have found a way to do so today.
I stand silent, staring at him with my big, doe eyes.
"I mean, that's what vampires are for, pet. Doing Evil. Not this pansy ass, nancyboy, poofter crap you want me to do."
I remain silent.
He continues, with his eyes affixed to mine, and taking another drag off the fag. "Yeah, sure, I've got a thing for the bloody Slayer. So what?! That doesn't mean I have to go all soft, for Christ sake. And this friggin' chip. I've managed to stir up a spot of trouble despite it!"
I haven't even taken a single breath.
"This is just wrong. I don't have a bloody soul! I don't have a bloody destiny. That is unless you consider killing as many God damn fucking humans as I can before I'm dust a destiny!"
He takes another swallow. "Buffy and her little cult followers will never accept me as one of their own. Can't you see that? I don't belong with them. I belong with my own kind! I belong sucking their asses dry, is what I belong doing!"
He has finally calmed down a bit, slumped into his chair and continuing to drink himself into oblivion. While I don't move, I involuntarily break my silence as my thoughts spew forth. Not quite what I would have chosen to say at that particular moment, mind you. "Right. Then I guess that's it. I'll be on my merry way now. Take care not to get skewered by the Slayer. Watch out for that nasty sunlight. Oh, and, you can burn in hell for all I care!" The last sound I make in the crypt is sniffling as the door slams.
I can't remember ever being so…so…wounded. Over a century of painstaking planning and guidance, down the frelling toilet. Why did I have to yell at him like a hurt child? How could I have misjudged him so poorly? Why would I have even been given this assignment if it were hopeless? Why couldn't I have just died of Cholera, been buried, mourned then forgotten? It would have been so much more fruitful than this! That's how it was meant to be. Not this damn fairy tale godmother crap.
In the decades of service she had given toward the realization of the final goal, Danielle had never had an abode of her own…until now. She morosely entered the small, cramped apartment, drenched in tears of frustration, sadness and regret. Sleep overtook her easily as she lay curled up in the fetal position on the floor. The finger in her mouth slowly dropped to her side.
There was a knock at the door. Spike wearily looked up at the window, noticing that it was not yet dark out. "Yeah? Who the bloody hell is it?" The door inched open and a small, dark haired Niblette peeked in. He assumed it was Danielle and shouted without moving a muscle, "Well, come in an' close that blasted door. You're lettin' the sun in." Spike did not look well. If Dawn had known better, she would have realized that the vampire sprawled out on the floor before her had one hell of a buzz.
"Spike?"
"Oh, bloody, bloody hell!" He scrambled to his feet trying his best not to look incapacitated. His hands brushed back through his hair, trying to make himself presentable. "What are you doin' here, then?"
"I want to apologize…for the other day…at the Magic Box."
All the blinding anger and confusion from this afternoon melted away. "You do?" He leaned in a bit closer.
"What Buffy told us about what you did to her scared me. But, I figure, I've never listened to her before, so why should I start now, right?" A small smile escaped to her lips. "I mean, how bad can you really be if you came today to… Well, I just think that Buffy's wrong about you."
A very odd, foreign feeling pumped through his cold body. Forgiveness. Forgiveness! She forgave him for his stupid bondage games with her sister. She forgave him for being a vampire and actually still liked him. No one had ever done that before. "You do?"
Dawn smacked him in the chest playfully. "You're like a stuck CD. You got any more words in your vocab, dead boy?"
"You hang around Xander far too much."
"That I do."
With that, they exchanged glowing smiles and Spike almost involuntarily embraced her. "What was that for?"
"Saving me."
Shortly after Spike's huge scene, TPTB felt the wrinkle in the continuum. It was quite apparent that one of their messengers had broken one of the cardinal rules and allowed her charge to know of her presence. Not only that, but she had made things worse.
A blinding light flooded the studio apartment. Danielle never awoke even as she was removed from her surroundings and sent…away…forever.
Dawn had returned home, leaving Spike's heart with a feeling of completeness. He felt calm and right. He had finally come full circle and realized that he was the man that Danielle had taken him for. As he thought back to Dawn's visit, he concluded that is was his guardian angel that had talked Dawny into coming, and it had also been she who nudged him into the embrace with her. William sat back in the chair, arms overhead, with a smile plastered firmly on his face. She would always be with him. She would continue to guide him. Damn, she was good at this. He mentally thanked her.
But he was wrong. Once she had left the crypt, his
contact with her had ended. Never again would he feel her influence
or hear her sweet voice. Neither would he realize that it had actually
been she who first bestowed upon him forgiveness for being a vampire.
She had been the first to ever really love him. What he mistook for
her presence was the soul that had been repressed for so long. It
had finally gotten a chance to break free. William was once again
free.
END