Fading Fast
by
Minx Trinket
Zen disclaimer: My sword, no sword / My intention, no
intention / My copyright violation, no copyright violation / My profit, no
profit / Get off my case, lawyer man
Rating: R
Spoilers: If you haven't seen all of Season 5 (and read my
prequels 1,
2,
3,
and 4),
this will make no sense. If you don't want to read them, the Cliff's Notes
version is a) Buffy's back and b) Spike and Dawn are…ahem…together.
You have been warned.
Summary: The spell that created Dawn is falling apart. Can
the Scoobies save her in time? Can they even remember that there's someone to
save? The last installment of the "Line" series. I mean it this time.
Author's notes: You can read some actual French surrealist
poetry here.
In contrast, the poem Dawn quotes, "Darkness," is not an
example of French surrealism and is in fact by Lord Byron. Full text is
available here.
(This is, incidentally, another reference to Arcadia,
as well as an amazing piece of literature in and of itself.) The "soul
lock" that Giles finds is also a real object. Made by (I think---somebody
correct me if I'm wrong here) the Tuareg tribes of northwest Africa, they are
worn by the sick to keep the soul from leaving the body.
Soundtrack notes: Okay, so I was listening to the Shrek
soundtrack the entire time that I was writing this. Bizarre and inappropriate
for the most part, but Rufus Wainwright's cover of "Hallelujah" just shreds
me every time I hear it. (A brief audio clip is here.
A badly proofread copy of Leonard Cohen's haunting lyrics is here.)
If this were an actual episode, it would be perfect for the last scene.
Acknowledgements: To the loyal fans of the Line, thank you
for leading me here. And please don't hurt me.
___________________________________________________________________
soul \'sōl\ n [ME soule, fr. OE sāwol;
akin to OHG sēula soul] 1:
the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an
individual life 2 a: the
spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe…. 3: a person's total self (from Webster's New Collegiate
Dictionary, 1977 ed.)
Spike
crawled into his empty bed and found a few long brown hairs scattered across
his pillows. He gathered them up gingerly, reverently. He always teased Dawn
about her shedding, but the truth was he liked that she left parts of herself
behind for him when she was gone. He settled comfortably onto his back,
nestling into the pillows, and held the strands up toward the filtered shafts
of rising daylight that skimmed the ceiling of his crypt, safely out of reach.
He twined the thin silk around his fingers, pulled it, knotted it, stretched
it, smiling. Proof of life, right there in his hands.
Spike
yawned.
His empty
hands fell to his chest, and he sat up again to pull off his boots. Tugging at
the laces, he noticed with faint disgust that there were little bits of zombie
caught in the crack where upper met sole. Wrinkling his nose, he tossed the
boot across the room. His neck ached. These nights of Scooby fighting were
starting to take it out of him. I'm old, he thought.
He scowled
at the pillows on his bed. They were bare, devoid of any trace of life. The rats
of boredom were chewing at him again.
I'm old,
he thought, and alone.
Something
was missing.
Buffy,
putting away the dishes, reached for the last two mugs in the dishwasher and
noticed that there was only one.
She picked
the two mugs up and slid them into the cabinet.
Willow
dragged a few more chairs over to the conference table and started arranging
them for the night's meeting. She counted them in her head. One too many. She
took one away. She returned to the table, frowned, counted again. One too few.
She went to retrieve the last chair.
Xander
found the Summers' front door open and poked his head into the house.
"Hello?" he ventured.
"Xan-man!"
Dawn squealed from somewhere in the living room.
"Hey
Dawnster," Xander replied, easing himself into the house. He moseyed into
the living room, only to be brought up short by the sight of the two figures at
the armchair. Spike, smiling like a well-fed cat, waggled his eyebrows at him.
"Spike," Xander said, trying for geniality and achieving something
more like distaste.
Spike was
slouched in the chair, one leg thrown over the chair arm. Dawn was sitting on
the floor and leaning against his other knee. Spike's fingers twined and slid
through her hair. She glanced up at Spike. "Alphabet," she said.
"Nail
polish," he replied.
"Barn."
"Dissertation."
"Arachnid."
"Hippopot---aw,
crap."
"Gotcha!"
Girl and vampire erupted into giggles. Xander watched this display of reckless
randomness, open-mouthed. Dawn explained, "We're playing Word Disassociation.
One person says something, and the other person has to say something really
fast that has absolutely nothing to do with it."
"It's
like French surrealist poetry," Spike added, "on crack."
They
laughed again, and Xander, who wasn't sure he could spell "surrealist"
and was feeling, suddenly, like a voyeur, pushed a hand through his hair and
shuffled his feet. "Um, yeah, okay, is Buffy around?"
Dawn
pointed, "Kitchen."
"Monarchy!"
"Oil
lamp."
"Hairbrush."
"Mirror---oops."
"Ha!"
Xander,
suppressing a shudder, made his way into the kitchen. Buffy was at the table,
squinting at the newspaper. "Hey," she said, without looking up.
"Er,"
Xander said, "I don't mean to alarm you, but I think I just witnessed
Spike and your sister having brain sex in the living room."
Buffy
sighed, turning a page. "I know. I've been listening to it all day."
"Why
do you let him hang out here?" Xander asked.
"I was
sixteen and in love with a vampire once," she shrugged, "so…."
"So
you want them here where you can keep an eye on them."
"Exactly."
"My
offer still stands, you know," he said, leaning toward her with a
conspiratorial whisper. "You wants I should have him disappeared,
lady?"
Buffy
smiled. It was the first time Xander had seen her teeth in ages. It gave him a
twinge of pride to make Her Serene Buddhaness laugh a little. She was hard to
crack these days. Xander continued, "Some cee-ment shoes perhaps? Or maybe
a little welding accident?"
"You've
put a lot of thought into this," Buffy said, raising her eyebrows.
"Yeah,
well, I…" Xander began, but was interrupted by a fluttering at the window.
A swallow had landed on the sill, beating its wings against the screen.
"I…" he continued, narrowing his eyes at it, "I…don't remember
what I was gonna say."
"Gyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"
The
strangled scream that came from the living room was followed by a heavy thud.
"What
the---" Buffy said, and darted into the next room. Xander followed her.
Spike lay
curled up on his side on the floor, quaking, clutching at his chest, and
heaving as though gasping for air. Buffy ran to his side.
"What
the hell is Spike doing here?" Xander asked.
"I
don't know," she snapped, but her hands were on the vampire, tilting his
head back, forcing open an eye. "Spike!" she shouted, "Spike!
What is it? Can you talk? What's happening?" The vampire continued to
twitch, moving his lips frantically but making no noise. "Xander, help me
get him on the couch!" Buffy said.
"No!"
Spike said. He leaned over Dawn's shuddering body and pushed Buffy's hands
away. "Don't try to move her!"
Xander
shouted, "Spike, what the fuck did you do to her?"
"I
didn't bloody do anything!" he shouted back. "One second we were
talking, and then, I--- I mean she, she just---" Spike tried to reel back
the events in his mind: the strike like lightning, the pain, Buffy leaning over
him--- no, over her. He couldn't grasp it. Something was missing.
"It
looks like a seizure," Buffy said. "We've got to get her to the
hospital."
"NO!"
Dawn cried, and sat up abruptly. Her breaths were hard, gasping.
"Baby---"
Spike began. Buffy pushed him aside.
"Dawn,
are you---"
"DEMON!"
the girl wailed.
Xander
crouched. "Where?"
Dawn patted
her chest convulsively. "In…in…in…."
"What
kind of demon?" Buffy asked.
Spike
shoved her. "Give her a fucking minute to breathe, Slayer!" he
yelled. He put his arms around Dawn. She buried her face in his shoulder,
clutching at his shirt. Contrite, Buffy reached out and stroked her sister's
hair. He glowered at her, rocking Dawn gently and murmuring soothing nonsense.
After a few eternal minutes, Dawn's breathing slowed to something like normal.
Using Spike's body for leverage, she sat up straight, but one shaking hand
remained tangled in his clothing. She looked at her sister. Her eyes were jittering
in their sockets.
"Demon,"
she said again.
Gently this
time, Buffy asked, "What did it look like?"
"Dark,"
she said.
"How
dark?"
"No,
too dark, couldn't see…." Her hand tightened on his shirt and Spike took
it in his own. "Inside…."
"Buffy,"
Xander said.
"Yeah,"
she agreed to the unspoken suggestion. "Dawnie, hon, we have to take you
to the hospital, just to be sure."
"No,
please---"
"Just
in case, okay?"
"No!
Not there!"
"Dawn,"
Spike said gently. She turned her face toward him, unsteadily. "It'll be
alright. I'll come with. I'll be the only Big Bad in the place, I
promise."
Dawn
swallowed hard. "O…okay," she said finally.
Ignoring
the stakes and torches that Xander's eyes were lobbing at him, he helped the
quivering girl to her feet. "Who's driving?" he asked.
Bloodwork
and CT: normal.
Blood
pressure and pulse: slightly elevated.
Diagnosis: shrug.
"Maybe
it was a demon," Buffy said.
Spike had
come to rather enjoy smoking upside down. He did it in the Magic Box sometimes,
hanging his head over the edge of the loft, trying to ash on Xander's head
below. Giles allowed him to smoke up there sometimes, away from the customers,
near the ventilation shaft, as part of a gentlemen's agreement: Giles let Spike
smoke indoors and Spike didn't tell anyone about all the cigarettes the Watcher
bummed off him. Here in Dawn's room, his perch was even more cozy, though,
alas, no target practice. Knees bent and feet dangling into the bedroom, he
would lie the rest of himself out the window along that tiny bit of dining room
roof that protruded into the back yard. There was just enough room for himself
and an ashtray, and he could count the stars and still hear the stereo in
Dawn's room. These were the moments when unlife was good.
He barely
smoked half a cigarette tonight, though, and shimmied back into the room. Dawn
was sitting up in bed, watching him.
"Why
aren't you asleep?" he asked.
"I
like watching you wiggle."
Ordinarily,
such an obvious attempt at flirtatious banter would…well, it would work
perfectly, and he'd bounce onto the bed and tickle her until she couldn't
breathe and kiss her until she didn't care about breathing. Tonight, he
remained on the windowsill, afraid of breaking her. "How're you
feeling?"
"A
little better," she nodded. "Way better than when I was fighting
that---whatever it was."
He leaned
against the window frame with a sigh. "Yeah, well, you don't worry about
that. Whatever it is, We'll find it and I'll kill it. It won't get near you
again."
"I'm
not worried," she said, "I'm…." Her face scrunched a little in
concentration. She looked not at but through the vampire, into the night
beyond. "…I'm trying to remember…something."
Spike was
trying to remember something himself. Things had been slipping past him lately,
he knew that. There had been…jumps in his head, like a skipping record, or a
moment of snow on the telly. He'd be standing in the middle of a familiar
place, and suddenly it would be unfamiliar, or he would know the place but not
why he was there. What had gnawed at him for months now was the possibility
that the chip had fried one too many brain cells and he was tripping down the
primrose path to legume land. Since there was a distinct lack of demon
neurologists in the area, he'd told no one and done nothing, hoping it was
temporary, a glitch. But this episode with Dawn, and his own jumbled memory of
it, had made him wonder if it were something else entirely.
"Has
this ever happened to you before?" he asked, picking at his flaking nail
polish, shiny motes of black fluttering to the floor. When she didn't answer,
he continued, "Maybe not just like this, maybe not so bad. Like you
know you're awake, right, but you've got that funny thing like in a dream
when---"
"Dream?"
she muttered. He looked up.
"Yeah,
like when---"
"I
had a dream, which was not at all a dream…." she chanted, in a voice
not her own.
Spike
looked up. "What did you say?"
The corners
of her mouth were twitching tentatively into a smile. "…The bright sun
was extinguished, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space,
rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the
moonless air…."
Spike leapt
from the window and grabbed her arms, "What?"
"Byron,"
she said distantly.
"I know
it's bloody Byron! Why are you---" Spike caught himself and forced the
fear down into the dark, cold places inside of him. Quietly, calmly, he asked
her, "You…like Byron, do you?"
Dawn was
nodding, still drifting somewhere far from the room in which they sat. "I
always liked Byron," she said, the strange lilt remaining in her voice. He
recognized the sound with growing dread. She continued, "That poem
especially, so sad, but glorious somehow. Mother didn't approve of Byron of
course. Thought his poetry would be a bad influence. But it was so beautiful,
so eff…I thought, if I could create things like that, if I could only---"
Carefully,
Spike sat down on the edge of her bed. "Dawn?" he asked.
Frowning,
she glanced out the window, then back at him.
Swallowing
hard, he whispered, "William?"
Dawn
smiled.
"Possession,"
Willow said thoughtfully, thumbing through a musty old book that was bigger
than her torso. Tara was leaning her chin on Willow's shoulder, scanning the
pages with her.
"It's
not possession necessarily," Tara corrected. "I mean, Dawn shook the
thing off pretty quick, whatever it was. Maybe it was just passing
through."
Willow
frowned up at Spike. "You didn't see anything?"
"Bloody
said that already, didn't I?" he snapped. He fidgeted in his seat,
whacking a pencil rapidly against the edge of the conference table. Dawn looked
askance at him, then shrugged an apology to Willow, who sighed and continued.
"Well,
there are a couple of possibilities, but it would really be a help if you could
remember anything, Dawn, anything at all about how it looked, or maybe what
felt like."
Dawn
contemplated this. "Scaly?" she ventured.
"That's
something," Tara said.
"Yeah,"
Xander agreed. "A scaly demon. That narrows it down to, what, all of
them?"
"Leave
her the fuck alone, she's bloody trying!" Spike yelled at him. He threw
the pencil, and it bounced furiously across the table. Dawn shot him a warning
look. "Sorry," he muttered. Xander scowled but said nothing. Dawn
stroked Spike's arm, then took her hand away.
Buffy,
wearing a line in the floor with her pacing, said, "Will, is it possible
that it's…."
"Glory?"
Willow asked quietly. The room grew still. "No," she said finally.
"This isn't her MO."
Everyone
resumed breathing. "Could something else be using her as a portal,
then?" Buffy asked.
"I
guess," Willow said.
Giles,
returning to the table with a cup of tea, stumbled and fell against his empty
chair, which teetered and fell over with a sound like a gunshot.
"Sorry!"
he said, though whether he was apologizing to the chair or the people wasn't
clear. He put his cup down and bent to retrieve the fallen furniture. "Go
on, Willow."
She threw
up her hands. "There's nothing more to go on about," she said.
"Something whacked Spike with bad energy mojo, twitch, thud, twitch, that's
it. I don't know what it could be."
Spike
leaned forward. "What?"
They all
looked at him.
"Nothing
hit me. Something hit---" He gestured to his left, then realized
that he was waving at empty air. There was no girl in a chair beside him. There
was no chair. There was nothing. "What the fuck!" he shouted and
leapt to his feet. The Scoobies jumped back, startled. "Where'd she
go?"
"Who?"
Buffy asked.
"Who?"
Spike cried. "Who? Whadd'ya mean who? Where's---"
He couldn't
remember.
He grabbed
a pillar for support. "No," he muttered. "There was someone…she
was…."
Buffy
approached him cautiously. She touched him gently on the arm. He shook her off.
Something was missing. No, someone was missing, dammit. He looked around
frantically.
"There's
a girl," he said. "Another girl. She's supposed to be here, but she's
not."
"You
mean Anya?" Xander asked. "She's just gone to---"
"Not
bloody Anya!" His shout shook the walls. "Another girl!
"Who?"
"I
don't know!" He could see her, see her face, almost, feel her skin,
could taste honey on her mouth. "With…green eyes," he said, and
looked at Buffy. Squinting at her, he could see---
"Sister!"
"Huh?"
He grabbed
Buffy's shoulders. "Sister! Your sister. She was here, just a second
ago!"
Buffy
tilted her head at him. "I don't have a sister, Spike."
"Yes
you do!" He shook her. "She's a…a thingy, a magic thingy, but
she's your sister too! And she was…was…." He looked deeply into Buffy's
wondering eyes. "Please, you've got to remember. I…Jesus, I don't know her
name."
"Her
name…" Buffy said slowly.
"It
was something about…about light," he said desperately, clutching at the
memories, "about the sun…."
"The
sun…." she said thoughtfully. Then she said, "Dawn!"
Dawn
grabbed Spike's arm. "Sp…." she breathed, and fell to the floor.
Spike and
Dawn huddled together in a corner formed by two bookshelves, curled around each
other like kittens. They were murmuring to each other, private reassurances
that the others couldn't hear. It wasn't clear to Xander who was comforting
who.
He turned
back to his pile of books and tried to focus. "Er, Will?"
Without
looking up from her scroll, she replied, "Latin and French to me, Germanic
and Celtic languages to Tara, squiggly stuff you don't recognize to
Giles."
"Right."
Xander started separating books into piles, peeping inside covers to check the
language. "Just what are you expecting to find?"
Willow held
up a finger, her eyes racing across the page to its finish. Then, with a glance
to make sure that Spike and Dawn were out of earshot, she told him, "We
don't know exactly. Giles thinks maybe that Buffy's right, that somebody's
trying to turn her back into a portal to somewhere."
"But
you don't."
Willow
hesitated. "It's possible."
"But?"
"But
that doesn't explain why we were forgetting her."
"Hey."
Xander
turned. Anya, laden with pizza boxes, was creeping up to him, concern wrinkling
her brow as she took in the grim scene. He took the boxes from her and set them
away from the books on the table. She bit her lip. "I missed something
very bad, didn't I?" she asked.
"Yeah."
Beyond her shoulder, Xander could see where Spike and Dawn were tangled
together. Watching them, he noticed something, some things he'd never
seen before. He saw how carefully the vampire touched Dawn. He saw Dawn's
gentle smile, open, undefended, and saw too that she had painted one of her
thumbnails with Spike's shiny black polish. Then he recognized the blackness in
Spike's eyes, darker than fear, the color of hopelessness. Oh my God,
Xander thought with a start. He does love her. Then, more shocking
still, Xander was hit with a wave of empathy, realizing how much Spike had
already lost---a soul, a family, a purpose, a lover, a hero---and how, now, the
only thing he had left to love was slipping through his hands like rain. Xander
felt himself spilling over with a swelling void of loss---
"Xander?" Anya said.
He shook
himself, and looked at her, blinking. Then he turned and pulled her into his
arms. "I love you, Ahn," he whispered.
Spike was
banished from the Magic Box around 2 AM, told to go have a smoke and not to
come back until he'd calmed the hell down. Once over the initial shock of
Dawn's disappearing act, he'd geared up
into shit-kicker mode, haranguing the others to "bloody do
something!" After abusing Giles' intelligence, Tara's powers, and Willow's
haircut, he'd been manhandled out the door by Buffy, and he parked himself
resentfully on the curb, digging out his smokes and flask.
He thought
about the other thing. He tried to figure out a good way to tell them.
Some time
later, as he was lighting his fourth cigarette off the dying embers of the
third, he heard the shop door open and close behind him. A moment later, Willow
was sitting next to him, staring off into space. He looked at her.
Willow
plucked the cigarette from between Spike's fingers and brought it to her own
lips. He raised his eyebrows in surprise as she inhaled, then handed it back to
him. Then she coughed.
"That's
more like it," he said.
"I
think we've found something," she replied.
The
gathered Scoobies watched Willow and Giles expectantly. Willow was frowning
resolutely at the table. Giles, standing a little behind her, removed his
glasses, polished them on his shirt, put them back on, then repeated the whole
process.
Finally,
Spike said, "Well?"
Giles
cleared his throat.
"It's
the spell," Willow said suddenly.
"What
spell?" Buffy asked.
"The
spell," Willow said. "The Dawn-making spell. We found some references
to how it's done, and it's…well, making a person, it's a big thing. I mean,
we're talking huge energy here."
"Think
of it," Giles said, "as the magical equivalent of powering the entire
state of California for a year."
"Right,
and so…" Willow continued, her eyes filling and her throat growing tight,
"…so the monks, when they made her, we think they made her
kinda…temporary."
Silence
fell.
"What?"
Dawn asked, her voice no bigger than an echo.
"Dawn,
love," Giles began. He slid into a chair beside her and took her hand.
"when they made you, time was of the essence, and they may have thought
only to keep you…I mean The Key…hidden until Glory's time ran out. They
weren't, perhaps, weren't thinking much further ahead than that. In a crisis,
sometimes, people don't---"
"I'm
dying," Dawn said flatly.
"No!"
Spike said firmly. He stood and pointed at Willow. "I won't have it. No.
Bloody fix it. Plug 'er into something. Charge 'er back up."
"It's
not that simple."
"I
don't care!" he roared. "Fucking fix it!" He
lunged for the nearest bookshelf and tore it from the wall, sending books and
charms crashing and skittering across the floor. He snatched up boxes of
candles from their display and started hurling them across the room. Buffy
streaked across the room and collared him.
"Stop
it!" she told him. He howled and jerked away from her, reaching for an
enormous statue of Bast. Before he could touch it, he found his arms being
twisted backward and himself face down
on the floor, Buffy sitting on his back. He heaved against her. "Calm
down!" she shouted.
"Get
off him!" Dawn shrieked, and landed on her knees beside them. She pulled
at Buffy's arms. "Leave him alone!"
With her
free hand, she grabbed Dawn's wrist. "Dawn, you have to calm down
too."
The three
of them, breathing hard, remained in this tableau for a minute, Spike staring
at Dawn, Dawn staring at Spike, and Buffy watching them both. Satisfied, she
let go of them and stood up. Dawn threw herself at Spike. They clutched at each
other as though they were drowning.
Willow,
feeling as though her own heart might shatter watching them, continued, quietly
and carefully, "The spell is obviously pretty complicated. I mean, they
didn't just make her, they altered history all around her. But the big thing,
the thing really takes up the energy is keeping her soul tied to her body,
'cause it doesn't really belong there, y'know? It's gotta be kept in with
something."
"What
do you mean it doesn't belong there?" Buffy snapped.
"Well,
you can make a body," Willow explained, "but a soul can't be made.
Every soul is a piece of, like, the original energy of the universe."
"Once
that energy becomes entwined with a body, well," Giles continued, "a
connection is formed. A permanent connection."
"A
soul is drawn to its body, and a body to its soul, no matter what," Tara
said.
Spike's
arms tightened convulsively around Dawn. The last piece of the puzzle slid into
place, echoing inside him like thunder.
"No,
wait," Buffy said. "Faith and I---"
"That
was temporary too," Giles sighed. "Eventually, you would have
reverted to your own bodies. By all rights, Dawn should be gone already. Her
soul should have fled this body, and then the spell would have ruptured and
returned us to the universe as it was before, with no Dawn and no memory of
her. Somehow, she's fighting it. There's something helping her to hang
on."
"But
we don't know what," Willow said.
"I
know," Dawn muttered, so low that only Spike could hear. He looked at her,
and knew that she did. They both tried to smile, and failed.
"But…but
there's good news, maybe," Tara said.
Buffy's
chin trembled. "What good news?"
"Her
soul had to come from somewhere," Willow said. "It's possible that in
the other reality, the one without this Dawn, that she's alive somewhere
else, as someone else. So she wouldn't really be gone, and maybe we
could find her."
"No,"
Dawn said firmly. "That's not where I came from," she said. She let
her finger trace the scar in Spike's eyebrow, the line of his jaw.
"How
do you---" Buffy began.
"'Cause
I know," she said simply. "I know who I was."
With a slow
turning of heads, the rest of the gang gaped at them.
"Who---"
Xander began, then stopped. "Oh my God."
"No."
"Buffy---"
"NO!"
Buffy's whole body shook, as though she'd been struck with a hammer and was
ringing in some frequency too high to hear. The old Buffy's fire flared in her
eyes. "That's not it," she said. "That's not what's happening.
It can't be. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit what happened. What about the
demon? Dawn said there was a demon!"
"The
demon was me," Spike said. "She was inside me."
"No."
"I was
touching her---" he began.
"It
can't---"
"---and when she slipped loose of her
body, she slipped into me. Her soul was trying to come home."
"No,
it doesn't make any sense."
"It's
the only thing that does," Dawn said. She stood and tried to approach her
sister, but Spike clutched tightly at her hand. She glanced at him, seeing
panic in his face. She looked at their entwined fingers, realizing with a cold
shock the source of his fear. She was like a helium balloon. If he let go, she
could float away, forever. She squeezed his hand and turned to Buffy.
The Slayer
was shaking her head furiously. "Look, Dawn, I know that you…love
him---"
"Don't
say it like that."
"---but
it doesn't mean you've got some sort of mystic connection, okay? It
doesn't mean---"
"She knows
things Buffy," Spike interrupted. Buffy glared at him. "She knows
things I never told anyone. Things about William."
"Buffy,"
Dawn whispered, "it's him. He's all that's holding me here."
Buffy's jaw
worked frantically. She turned to Willow. "Spike's right," she said.
"We've gotta plug her back in."
From there,
things degenerated swiftly into shouting and throwing of books.
Buffy,
barking like a drill sergeant, set the gang hopping through the books and the
inventory, looking for ideas, answers, Mickey-Mouse stopgaps for Dawn's
degenerating existence. Giles fished through the wreckage of Spike's rage and
produced an amulet, a small rectangle of hammered nickel silver with a curious
double bail, strung on a cord of black silk. "A soul lock," he said,
placing it around Dawn's neck. "It's not a permanent solution, but it may
help you to hold on a bit longer, until…."
"Thanks,"
she nodded, straining to smile. She cringed at the sound of her sister's voice,
which was rising in pitch and volume as idea after idea turned sour. She
clutched at Spike's hand and tried not to jitter. Spike sat beside her, eyes
burning, nostrils flared, looking for all the world like a guardian hell hound.
She would have laughed if she hadn't felt so much like throwing up. Spike's
hand was cold, which must mean, she realized, that hers was as well, because
his skin always took on her heat after a while. Feeling his cold, seeing the
pale blue veins at his temples, she saw him, perhaps for the first time, as a
vampire, a dead thing with a demon inside.
She
suppressed a shudder.
"Why not?"
Buffy yelled. Dawn's head snapped toward her. She was standing with her hands
balled into fists at her sides, glaring at a quivering Willow.
"Buffy,
what you're talking about, it's too…I wouldn't even know how to start."
"How
is it any different from what you did for Angel?"
"It's
completely different. It's completely the opposite. You're asking me to make a
soul stay in a foreign body."
"The
monks did it!"
"But I
can't!"
"Why not?"
"Because,"
Willow choked, swaying with the force of it, "I'm not fucking strong
enough!" Then she clamped her hand over her mouth and ran for the back
door. Tara followed her.
Buffy
turned and looked at Dawn. Her eyes were wet with tears of rage. "So
that's it? The only way to keep her here is to keep her in him?"
Giles
hesitated, his eyes darting around the room. "Well, for---for now, yes.
Buffy, there's a good possibility that somewhere down the line we'll find
another solution. But right now, there isn't any time, and if we want to be
able to retrieve her soul, it's best that we keep it in this dimension. If we
let her…escape into the infinite, we might not get her back again."
Buffy was
walking slowly over to Spike and Dawn. The tears were welling over, spilling
down her cheeks. She came up to Dawn and took the girl's face between her
hands. Then Buffy looked at Spike with a sorrowful half smile.
She decked
him.
Spike hit
the floor, unconscious, and his hand slipped from Dawn's grasp. Dawn gasped and
lunged for him, but found herself pulled into the air. Buffy had her in a
fireman's carry over her shoulder.
"Buffy,
what are you---" Dawn shrieked.
"I
won't let them make you a monster," Buffy said, and dragged her sister
from the Magic Box.
It seemed
to Dawn that they were flying over the streets of Sunnydale. The city was a
blur of brick and neon, and the night air roared with wind. Dawn clutched her
sister's shoulders dizzily, felt the weight of the amulet swinging freely from
her neck, saw green sparks inside her eyelids, tasted death.
"Buffy,"
she whispered. "Please."
Dawn saw a
rising glow, and she thought for a moment that the sun was coming up, wondering
if it would be her last day. But she felt the air grow heavy and wet, and then
caught the salt smell. Buffy was taking her to the sea caves. She was hiding
her, all over again.
By the time
Buffy had secured them a niche in the cliffside, Dawn was feeling thin, weak,
and light. The amulet felt like a hot iron on her skin. She looked at her hands
and thought she could see the beach pebbles through them. She knew she was
fading fast. She looked at her sister, who was pacing the cave entrance, eyes
scanning the beach.
"I
don't think we were followed," Buffy said. "You'll be safe."
Dawn stared at her, gaping. Buffy turned to look at her. "You okay?"
"Why
are you doing this?" Dawn whispered.
Buffy
frowned at her. "Dawn, they wanted to turn you into a demon. A vampire.
Do you have any idea what that means?"
"I know
it means I won't die."
"No,"
Buffy said. "It doesn't. It means you will. You'll be a walking corpse.
Maybe forever."
"As
opposed to being nothing at all."
"As
opposed to being free."
"Disappearing!"
"Dawn,
if you let yourself fall into him you'll never see the sunlight again, do you
realize that? You'll be living off blood and death. And there'll be a demon in
there with you. You've seen that monster. You've faced it. Do you remember what
it did to you?"
Dawn closed
her eyes, shuddering. Its hot breath was on her neck. She could feel it
tearing, devouring---
"Forever,
Dawn," Buffy said quietly. "Every day until the end of the world,
fighting that demon for control, trying to hold back it's evil. Every day,
every second, it'll be trying to push you out, tear you up, destroy you!"
"No,
it won't," Spike said.
He stood
half-silhouetted in the cave entrance, coat billowing in the breeze. Diffuse
moonlight turned his skin to silver, blackened the swiftly healing gash on his
cheek where Buffy had hit him. He stepped into the cave.
"I saw
it," Buffy spat. "I was there. I saw what it did to her."
"That
won't happen again," he answered calmly.
"How
do you know that?"
"Because
the demon loves her," he said, looking not at Buffy but at Dawn, his face
still, his eyes peaceful. "I love her. The first time, I didn't
know. I was…I was scared. It won't be like that now."
"You're
right, it won't," Buffy said, "because I'm not letting it
happen."
"Well,
well, well," Spike said, shaking the aura of peace from himself like water
from his skin, "it's nice to have you back, Summers, I don't think.
I take it we're giving up the enlightenment act now? Ye olde bitch is
back?"
Buffy
hauled back and threw a punch at him. He caught it in his hand, inches from his
face.
"I
remember a time," he said, "wasn't so long ago, you would have ended
the universe to save her."
"You
think you're saving her, Spike?" Buffy sneered. "You don't have a
goddamn clue what you're doing."
"And
you do, then?"
"I've been
there," Buffy sobbed, shoulders heaving. "Out there. I know. I know
what her choices are."
"And
you'd rather lose her than let her be with me?"
"Yes!"
Buffy hissed. She turned toward Dawn, eyes pleading. "It's not so bad out
there, Dawnie, it's warm, and…Mom's out there."
Spike
staggered. Defeated, he dropped Buffy's hand and leaned back against the cave
wall, closing his eyes. His shoulders shook with silent weeping.
Dawn looked
from one to the other.
…Even
dogs assailed their masters, all save one, and he was loyal to a corpse….
She covered
her eyes. "Go," she said. "Both of you."
"Dawn---"
"GO!"
she shouted. "I need to think, and I don't have a lot of time."
It was the
end of the night. The metal smell of sunrise drifted toward the graveyard on
the open air, and Spike lay still in his empty bed. It seemed that every sound,
the crickets, the night birds, echoed in his hollow body, out of time, out of
tears, and out of fire.
And then,
the sound, a door hinge sighing open, sent hope surging through him, and he sat
up.
Dawn stood
in the threshold, smiling.
"Dawn,
I---"
She held a
finger to her lips, and he fell silent. Then she came into his bed and into his
arms. Spike felt her skin (my skin), her heart (my heart) beating
against him. Her lips, salted (with tears or with the sea?) blessed his
own with their touch. Fingers, hands, limbs tangling, they moved onto and into
each other, closing infinite space to nothingness between them and in silence
asked each other
are you
sure
oh, I am
sure
the
memories
they'll be
there
that I
promise
but
there
may be pain
there
will be joy
this
time, no lightening
no fear
and when
the world is dark
is cold
we'll
dance together
don't
let go
Dawn
reached behind
her neck
and pulled
the cord
and let
the knot
slip
let
the
silver
fall…
Spike woke
to see the filtered shafts of rising daylight skim the ceiling of his crypt. He
lay on his back, arms thrown out to either side across the empty bed, and in
his hand he felt the amulet, somehow still skin-warm. He closed his hand around
it and remembered…
He
remembered everything.
He brought
the amulet to his body, tied the cord behind his neck, and let the pendant rest
over his tranquil heart.
Hullo,
Bit, he said to his Self. I'm so glad you're home.
