Lost and Foundering
~**~**~
Chapter Four
~**~**~
The Summers house looked innocuous and quiet from the outside, until a
window on the second floor slid up and a young woman crawled out, who
glanced around nervously for any sign of being watched.
She awkwardly crossed the sloping roof until she reached a nearby tree,
then scaled over the nearest limb and down the trunk to reach the
ground. It amazed her that she was strong enough to do it, never mind
agile, but she guessed it was part of the Slayer package.
A wooden stake Buffy found in her closet was tucked in her clothes, and
she felt really freaky and weird for bringing it along at all. She was
sure it wasn't the sort of fashion accessory that was all the rage with
her generation. But, Willow had warned her how dangerous the cemetery
was at night, and she wasn't exactly too eager to go back to being
dead, again--even if she didn't remember that part.
She'd waited until everyone's lights went off, before sneaking out of
the house. Hopefully, no one would ever know she'd been out that night,
but Buffy had the feeling it needed to be done. She had to ask Spike
about the bizarreness of the whole magic shop reunion, and why she'd
hated him so badly, before. Her friends were biased where Spike was
concerned, and even if it meant going to a cemetery at night, she was
determined to hear the truth, unvarnished and raw.
Even if it meant destroying her nascent opinion of him, and possibly
earning her new sister's anger and grief.
The map she consulted earlier showed that Sunnydale had twelve
cemeteries, so she had needed to ask Dawn which one Spike lived in. It
turned out to be the one closest to the house, a nice convenience--she
literally walked to work. At least she didn't get stuck in traffic
trying to reach the graveyard before sundown.
Whatever gates had once existed were no longer around. Buffy thought it
was odd, until she remembered--Oh yeah, vampires. After the first few
dozen times they were ripped off their hinges, the caretakers likely
had given up and not replaced them. The thought of it happening made
her reconsider her idea of having a late night chat with a vampire.
It didn't last for very long. She steeled herself with the promise of
solid answers at last, and stepped into the unfamiliar territory,
quelling nervous fears with the names and blurbs on passing tombstones.
The dates gradually became more contemporary as she walked further into
the cemetery. So many were of young people, a little younger or older
than her. Had she been buried here?
The idle and disturbing thought was stalled by the sensation of
something not right. She froze, waiting to hear footsteps, but instead
only felt...a presence. An evil presence who had brought a friend. She
fumbled for her stake, scared out of her mind but not planning on going
out without a fight.
Buffy wove through the headstones in the hope of finding a better place
to defend herself. The pressing sensation of villainous company
continued on her heels, gaining on her. Her jog turned into a full tilt
run, jumping over place markers and weaving around statues. And deep
inside, in a place within herself she didn't recognize, a feeling of
energy and anticipation welled up, threatening to spill over. Not only
did she want to fight, she actually *craved* it. More than she could
imagine or believe.
She stopped and turned, figuring the small clearing was as good as any,
and spotted the predators who were now prey. It was a bit dark to see
much, but the faces clearly weren't human. The terror it inspired
couldn't override the thrill of confrontation, the knowledge that a
battleground was before her.
"Hey, looky what we got here, pal. Someone dumb enough to come to us!
Reminds me of when we ordered pizza last week and ate the delivery
boy." He gave her an ugly grin, which the second male vampire copied.
They were a bit too cocky, she noticed. Apparently they saw her as an
easy meal. She prayed they weren't right.
"Ugh," she said in answer, taking in the olive green parachute pants
and matching vests. "Look, it's Eva and Zsa Zsa, the matching fashion
victims. Hate to break it to ya, guys, but the eighties are *long*
over."
They squinted in unison, bewildered at food that talked back. Instead
of replying, they came at her with a growl, and she somehow managed to
sidestep one blow and deliver one in return. That was about as smooth
as it went from there, however, and the fight progressively grew nasty
and dirty. It wasn't quite as thrilling when she started to get the
feeling she wasn't going to win.
The second one--Zsa Zsa, she had named him--backhanded her into a wall,
and her head connected first, causing her to feel nauseous and
disoriented for a few seconds. It was enough to allow the vamp to grab
her and pin her to the wall.
"Strong little broad, but not strong enough I guess," he sneered, and
leaned in for the kill. He'd only gotten halfway when she heard his
buddy cry out in pain, and the vamp spun around to see the cause of his
imminent death standing behind him, wearing a black leather duster and
a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
"This strong enough for you?" Spike replied, and put a stake into the
vampire's chest. As it turned to dust, his gaze met with the woman he'd
just saved--and stared. "Buffy? What the hell are you doing out here?"
The adrenaline rush left her, and she braced her weight against the
wall to hide the sudden weakness in her legs. "I--I'm sorry. I came to
see you, to talk to you. I didn't think--"
"No, you bloody well didn't, did you? You could've been killed, damn
it! Now let's get out of here before any of their pals show up." He
grabbed her by the arm and pulled her forward.
She managed a step before her legs betrayed her. Spike panicked as she
sunk to her knees, terrified that she'd been hurt worse than he'd
thought. He kneeled down and held on to her as best as he could. "Are
you all right? What's wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong...it just, it's just all hitting me now. I could
have died." She stared at him in horror. "Oh God. If you hadn't been
here--"
"Shh, love. No worries when I'm around, 'kay? You're fine."
"You saved my life." She continued to stare at him, trying to reconcile
what her friends had told her with the person who watched her in deep
concern, whose panic and fear for her safety and health contradicted
nearly everything they'd alleged.
He looked away, unsure what to say in response. Buffy took that moment
to give him a quick hug in thanks, and was glad when he softened and
hugged her back. When she pulled away, she added a sincere, verbalized
'thank you' to the hug.
He gave her a sad smile in reply. "You're welcome, always. Now, why
don't we head over to my place and see if we can't have a chat in
peace, eh?"
Spike helped her to her feet, and she only needed to lean on him for a
few steps until her legs steadied. Even then, he hovered nearby,
protective of the Slayer who wasn't able to slay just yet. When they
reached the crypt's door, he opened it for her and guided her in with
his hand lightly resting at the small of her back, a gesture of
affection he knew she would normally never allow. He had no idea she
was taking comfort from it, as well.
She looked around the candlelit crypt, trying to imagine it as a place
someone lived. Despite the TV and chair, she couldn't quite picture it.
"You live here?"
He shrugged. "Short commute, nice front lawn with lots of trees, and
nonexistent rent and utility. What's not to love?"
"It's a crypt," she replied, as if that explained everything.
"And I'm a vampire. We tend to find 'em quite homey, if a bit drafty in
the winter. So, why don't you take a seat while we have our talk, pet."
"Okay," she breathed out, deciding it was best to be sitting down for
this next part. She took the only chair while he took the bench along
the wall. She pulled her arm in, as she began to feel a sore spot in
her shoulder--most likely incurred during the fight. "I want to know
about you and me, how we met, why we fought, and why you've changed. I
need to know why I hated you like I did back then."
"Why? So you can hate me now?" Spike answered, his voice slightly
tinged with a mix of bitterness and curiosity.
"No. So I can try to understand. It's obvious that whatever bad things
you've done, you're not doing them anymore..."
"Now hold on there--"
"...And if I plan on not hating you anymore, then I need to forgive the
past. I can't do that if I don't know what it is."
He stared at her, surprised. "You...you want to not hate me?"
She smiled at his thinly-veiled eagerness. "Yeah, I do. Might even go
up as far as liking, depending on the circumstances."
Spike looked down at his boots and shook his head. "Don't think that's
possible, love. But if you want to know all the sordidness, I'll tell
you--whole truth, and nothing but."
"I appreciate that. So, starting at the beginning...how did we meet?"
"Well, it all began when Drusilla and I hit the city limits--
literally." He told her why he'd originally come, and a background on
him and Dru ended up being necessary. He decided to be honest this time
around rather than give her the puffed up version he'd concocted while
they shot pool at the Bronze. So Buffy found out for the first time
about William the bloody awful poet, and his doomed love for Cecily.
Buffy's empathy for his rejection surprised him. The main reason he'd
lied before was to preserve his evil persona, but now he realized his
mistake. She didn't think less of him--if anything, it appeared that
William's plight and fate had managed to garner her sympathy and
compassion. He swore that even if he lived another 120 years, he still
wouldn't understand women.
He would've liked to gloss over the next few decades, but she needed to
know about the Slayers he'd killed, and the general mayhem he'd done.
That caused her to draw back a bit, but he couldn't tell if it was from
fear, disgust, or something else. He continued on, throwing in some
stories of the past, trying to keep it as balanced as possible. No need
to make himself out to be worse than he was, not this time.
Once the short ride through his background was done, he focused back on
when they had met.
"I first saw you at the Bronze. It's a night spot that the young ones
like to hang out in," he clarified when he saw her puzzlement. "Anyway,
you were dancing, and you looked...well, you were really kind of
fabulous. The local baddies had asked me to kill you to get you out of
the way. In exchange, they would let Dru have access to the Hellmouth
in order to regain her strength. Sounded like a fair deal, so I took
it. It wasn't anything personal, not at first."
"I think I'd take a different view on that," Buffy replied, sounding a
touch like her old self. He couldn't help smiling.
"True, very true. They wanted it to all come down on Saturday, so I
arranged it so you went into the alley to save some poor girl from one
of the minions. I checked out...your fighting style and let you know
we'd be fighting that day."
She blinked in surprise. "Wait a minute. So you told me when you were
going to attack before you did it?"
"Yeah, but I got bored. Ended up crashing some sorta school shindig,
and we had our first fight right there. I had you on the ropes until
your mum cracked me on the back of the head with an axe. Blunt side, of
course. She was standing all warrior woman-like, yelling, 'Get the hell
away from my daughter!' " He chuckled at the memory, then sighed. "God,
I miss her."
"Wow. Go Mom," she said proudly, with a trace of sadness herself, then
frowned. "Wait...you miss her? After she hit you with an axe?"
"I'll explain later." He continued on, telling her about the Order of
Taraka, about restoring Dru by using a ritual involving Angel, her
sire. This threw Buffy for a loop, and he realized they never told her
about the peculiar relationship he shared with her vampire ex-
boyfriend.
"Angel was my grandsire, but for the first eighteen years of my unlife,
he really *was* my sire. Everything I learned about being a vampire I
took from him. Hell, in a way I wanted to be him--but really it was
about acceptance. Not just from him, but from all of 'em," Spike
explained, then noticed he'd said more than he'd meant to expose.
"Well, anyway, he sired Dru, who sired me. His sire was Darla, who was
dust for awhile, but she got mojo'd back somehow."
Buffy nodded, taking this better than he expected. "Willow told me some
things about Angel. About the soul, and the curse...but what you've
told me is more than she said. She didn't even tell me what made him go
all evil again."
"You mean...you don't know?" He gawked at her in disbelief.
"Know what?"
His head sank into his hands, and he let out a short, bitter laugh.
Somehow, it seemed all too unfair that he was the one to tell her this
fragment of her past. "Buffy, you...uh, had a night of passion. With
him. On your seventeenth birthday."
Now it was her turn for widened eyes. "I slept with him? And he turned
evil??"
The horror in her eyes was almost too much for him to bear. "Oh God,
no. Pet, it's not--you didn't turn him evil. He had a moment of soddin'
perfect happiness. That's what ended the curse."
"Which just happened to be sleeping with him," she sighed, partly
disgusted and bemused. "No wonder Willow was so worried about Angel
seeing me again."
Spike blinked in confusion, and Buffy explained, "She was afraid that
he'd have another moment of perfect happiness."
"Oh. Well, that...that's understandable." He remembered his own
feelings on hearing Buffy was alive. If that wasn't perfect happiness,
he didn't know what was. "No need getting the poof all happy, and
turning him back into Angelus."
"Poof? What's that mean?"
"Well, what d'you think it means?" He countered with a sly look. She
blushed, and he found himself falling even more in love with her, if
that was possible.
"I, um, think I can guess. From what I've heard of him, he does seem
kind of...odd."
He felt like he'd just been bitch-slapped with an I-beam. Had she just
said what he thought she'd said? He cleared his throat. "Oh really? And
what was that?"
"Well, that he just liked to hang out at home, read books, a real loner
type. Not it means anything, but he just seems kind of, I don't
know...boring?"
Spike wanted to crow his delight to the world at hearing those words
coming from Buffy's mouth. Then he recalled that she didn't remember
Angel--these observations were from different people with different
points of view....ah, bugger it.
He grinned widely and replied, "You don't know how I never thought I'd
hear that coming from you. He was better without the soul, and that's
saying something."
"Plus, Willow tells me that he had a soul for a hundred years or so,
and spent all that time moping and brooding until he met me. Talk about
co-dependency issues! Yikes. I mean, what did I see in him? He's
doesn't mix with people, doesn't go out and have fun, and likes to
mope. He's gotta be good-looking or something, right?"
Spike grimaced. "He's kind of got this protruding forehead, and his
hair is a mess. All that nancy-boy hair gel he uses. He's scary without
even trying."
Buffy laughed, and he laughed with her, wrapped up in this strange
spell being woven; he didn't want it to end. Eventually, though,
matters turned back to the topic on hand, and he continued on with his
recitation of their shared past.
He skipped over most of the days after Angel's conversion, and narrowed
on to the deal he decided to make with the Slayer. It had taken Dru's
lack of faithfulness and Angelus' exploitation of that fact to make him
switch sides and keep the world from ending. He told how he'd been
there when her mother found out about her being the Slayer, and the
beginning of the fallout that he later learned about from her mother.
Buffy listened attentively as he explained the plan they'd devised, and
how it had all gone down. He could only tell her the events up to a
certain point, then he said, "I saw you fighting against Angelus as I
was leaving. You weren't doing so good, and for a moment I...I think I
was worried. But it passed and I went on my merry way with Dru.
Eventually you beat him and he got sent to Hell."
"And he got back, somehow. Kind of like the same somehow I had, if what
Willow told me is true."
"I hope so," he replied, recalling his conversation with Xander. "I
really do."
Buffy left that comment alone, so he continued--with some
embarrassment--onto the fragment of time he'd spent in Sunnydale the
following year. Moping over Dru leaving him, complaining to Joyce with
cocoa in hand, and spending much of the time drunk was balanced with
the things he'd done while he was there. She took his kidnapping of
Willow and Xander with some distaste, but she appeared to be more
disgusted with his drunkenness than his misbehavior.
Then he was standing at the precipice of the rest of the story, leading
to his chipped status and his falling in love with her. He detailed the
Gem of Amara fiasco in all its ugliness, and she winced when he
explained how he'd discovered about her and Parker. When Buffy told him
Willow hadn't gotten that far in her past, he backed off and sighed in
frustration.
"Sorry, pet. Will should be the one telling you all about that. And I
think I'd better stop for now, considering the rest of the tale ends up
delving into things that I shouldn't be mentioning."
She folded her arms defiantly, and he knew he'd already lost. "I came
here to know everything, and I'm not going until I hear it. You can
just stick to the me and you stuff, and forget the rest."
He sighed again, wondering how he'd gotten into this mess, then agreed
to it. He informed her about getting captured by the Initiative,
leaving out any mention of Riley, and attacking Willow in place of her
the same night he escaped.
"I tried to bite her, but I couldn't...every time I tried, I got this
terrible jolt, it's so incredibly painful that it just stops me cold.
Turns out the lab doctors put a chip in my head that prevents me from
hurting people. Can't even slap a wrist without it flaring up. I've had
it for not quite two years."
"So that's why the rest of them trust you. You're not a threat
anymore."
He balked, indignant for a moment, then sagged as he accepted the
truth. "Well, yeah. But back then, I didn't accept that." He explained
how they had taken him in, told most of the anecdotes of living amongst
the group, especially where Willow's spell had make them think they
were in love. Buffy took that with a raised eyebrow, but curiously said
nothing of it.
Then he told of the deal with Adam, and gave his side of what had
happened. Buffy now understood what Dawn had been talking about, but
she gave no indication of her own feelings on the matter. Spike
considered it an encouragement to continue, so he soon delved into the
beginning of the whole mess that had proven, once again, he truly was
love's bitch.
He stalled after detailing the fight in the operating theater,
reluctant to share his dream from that night, and the subsequent
revelation. Buffy sensed this and waited for him to say something.
Letting out a slow breath, he skipped over it as something she didn't
need to know and plowed on, hedging the rest of the story and hopefully
obscuring his actions' true motives.
But he could tell that as he told the cleaned-up version of his early
efforts to impress her, Buffy was no longer buying it. Oh, she nodded
and listened, but he could see the flatness in her eyes. She knew he
was lying, and it killed him to see her pulling away already.
By then he'd reached the point in the narrative where the original
revelation of his love for her had gone so horribly wrong. He paused
and looked down at his hands, trying to decide the best way to go on,
when he felt Buffy's hand on his arm. He glanced up to find her
kneeling next to him, an inscrutable look on her face.
"Spike, just tell me the truth. I want to know it, even if it's dark
and horrible."
"I don't know if I can tell you this. And I think if I did tell you,
I'm pretty sure your mates would sooner stake me than let me near you
again."
A trace of fear went across her face, but the steel returned in force.
"If that's true, then I *have* to know, Spike. Please."
"I can't. Maybe, after a week or two, if you haven't remembered it
yourself..." The look in her eyes stopped that line of thinking cold.
She wanted to know, wanted it so badly that she would take any and all
consequences. It was the Slayer looking at him, and he knew for a fact
that she backed down from nothing.
He sagged his shoulders in defeat, then met her gaze with one of his
own. She unconsciously moved back a bit at the sudden resolve, but her
hand remained on his arm. Unable to bear her touch in the face of yet
another rejection, Spike stood up and wandered a few steps away.
Confused, Buffy took a place on the bench he vacated, still waiting for
the rest of the story.
Finally, he turned and faced her. "Buffy, all the stuff I mentioned
earlier, about fighting evil and helping you out with the slaying...I
left out why I did it. It's because...I fell in love with you. And I
still love you, to this very moment."
It was totally not what she expected to hear. Sure, she'd felt some
vibes from him earlier, but she wouldn't have pegged it as love. More
like affection, or something brotherly, protective. Suddenly, all his
reactions in the magic shop made perfect sense, and she knew the reason
why.
"I didn't love you back."
He didn't flinch at her words, but she could see the pain in his eyes.
No, she wouldn't have loved him, not after all the things they'd gone
through.
He swallowed, then replied, "I knew you wouldn't love something like
me, that it was wrong and perverse. But the day you found out, all I
wanted was a chance, some possibility that someday, maybe, you could
feel..." He stopped, then said, "Doesn't matter. I know it won't
happen, now. Then, I wasn't quite ready to accept it."
And he told how it all happened, down to the moment in the warehouse
and Dru's arrival in Sunnydale. How he was torn between his two choices
until he realized the choice had already been made long ago. How he
found her coming out of the tunnel basement after seeing his shrine,
and how, with some maneuvering, he soon had Buffy chained up and
Drusilla tied to a support beam. No lurid detail was left out, although
this time he got to explain his confusion, rage, and incomprehension at
it all.
Her face paled at the description, and he wondered if maybe he
shouldn't have told her so soon after being back from the dead.
However, she soaked up the information as if needing it to survive, and
he wasn't willing to deny her something she wanted so badly. It might
have been the wrong thing to do, but he also felt that she shouldn't be
ignorant of his true nature and their true relationship, if one could
call it that.
Spike was mentioning the aftermath when Buffy interrupted him. "Dawn
told me you were tortured--when did that happen?"
He clenched his jaw in memory; he *really* didn't want to go into
detail on that. "It was after your mum died. Those lackeys of that bint
Glory thought I was the Key, since..." he trailed off, realizing in
horror that he now had to explain the Buffy bot. He'd rather have been
tortured again. Still, it had to be done, and the quicker it was told,
the faster it would be over. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, here.
Something happened before then that you need to know."
Most of the time during the retelling of the bot escapade, he stared at
the floor, unable to meet her eyes. It was humiliating, to repeat this
to her when he had violently hoped only a few months before, that the
matter was forgiven and never to be mentioned again. He winced when he
caught her pulling her arms around herself, as if to block the
horridness of what he was describing.
"While Xander was giving me what for, those moldy Glory minions popped
in, we had a row that resulted in Xander on the floor unconscious, and
me being taken before Glory as the Key. She spotted me for a vampire
real quick, and just when I thought I was off the hook, those bastards
told her why they picked me up. She tortured me for info on who the Key
was, I wouldn't tell her, and that's that."
"What--what did she do to you? How did she..."
"It was *torture*, pet. What the bloody hell do you want, a scrapbook?
Pictures of Spike all banged up, bleeding and broken, with the frilly
little edges pasted around 'em?"
"God, no," she replied, and he heard some of the iron spine he so
admired snapping back into place. "You endured something horrible,
Spike, and I'm not going to toss it aside. Just...tell me what
happened. Please?"
It was the 'please' that got him, this time. "Right, then. Here's the
short version--Glory knocked me into a wall, dug a finger into my
chest, and then decided to write some haikus on my back using holy
water and a brush. Then she chained me to the ceiling, and had a bit of
fun with a lead pipe. Broke some ribs and a leg, then got bored with
that and decided to beat me about the face for awhile. After that she
grabbed a knife and meant to literally peel my skin off. She started to
do it, too, until I stalled by saying I'd tell her who the Key was.
"So I asked for time, then water, and soon she got fed up with the
stalling and smashed a glass into my face. I kept stalling though,
trying to piss her off. I hoped that if I got her mad enough, she'd
punch me so hard it would break the chains. After royally insulting
her, she did, and I went through the door. Somehow, I managed to get up
and reach the elevator, dropped down a floor or two before I hit the
top of the car, and got through the trap door into the car itself. At
that point you showed up, and sometime after that I passed out."
He finally looked over at Buffy, and was amazed at the sympathy and
horror in her eyes. "Oh God. Dawn never told me about that."
"I never told anyone until right now, pet. Didn't need to, really--it
was all there for anyone to see. After the Watcher and the boy dropped
me off, you showed up dressed in the bot's clothes planning to find out
if I'd spilled the info on Dawn to Glory.
"You had me fooled, straight away. I told you that I couldn't let
anything happen to Dawn because I knew if it did, it would destroy you.
I'd rather die than see you in pain, and I would have let Glory kill me
if it meant keeping her from finding out about Dawn. But somehow,
somewhere along the line, I've come to like the Niblet as well. That's
not something I've ever told you, before."
Spike watched as she absorbed this, and her arms disentangled
themselves from around her body, no longer a shield between them.
"Come here," Buffy held out her hand, and in a daze he complied, taking
her hand in his and letting her guide him down onto the stone bench.
After a moment, with her hand still entwined with his, she asked, "What
did I do when I found out?"
He smiled for the first time in awhile, remembering the feel of her
lips against his. "You kissed me. I'm not sure why, even now, but if I
had to guess, I'd say it was in gratitude."
Her eyebrows raised at that, and he added, "Oh, at first I thought it
was the bot, even if it didn't make sense...but after a second I knew
it was you. Shocked the hell out of me. You just stared back, not
giving away an inch. I asked about the bot, you said it was gone. Then
you told me what I did for you and Dawn was real, and that you wouldn't
forget it."
What a wonderful moment that had been, even if he hadn't been able to
believe it, at first. "Then you left, and things between us became a
little more settled. Not perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better
than it had been."
Her gaze fixed on his lips, as if trying to imagine what it had been
like. So it didn't surprise him too much when she asked, "How was it?
The kiss, I mean?"
"Well, my lip was all swollen, so there wasn't much in the way of
action, but it was...amazing."
"I wish I could remember. Obviously, I didn't keep my promise about not
forgetting it."
"Buffy, that's not important. You're here, and that's all I could hope
for."
She looked at him in consideration and thought. "You should have more
to hope for than that. Don't worry...I'll try not to forget this one,"
she said, right before she tilted her head and raised up just high
enough so that her lips met his, in an echo of one she'd given months
ago.
This time, however, Spike didn't pull away. He was stunned into
compliance; the idea that maybe this wasn't a good thing to be doing so
soon never even made its way to the front of his mind. When he kissed
back, she responded in a way that made his undead heart leap, and it
was several, long seconds before the kiss was broken.
He looked into her eyes, trying to gauge whether she was regretful or
in shock, but he never expected to see acceptance there, mixed with a
profound nervousness. Her mouth quirked into a dazed half-smile.
"Wow. That was...wow. Unless it wasn't, for you?"
He chuckled at the absurd thought, then smiled warmly. "Don't even
think that, love." Then, in a flash of insight, he realized that the
Buffy he'd just kissed was emotionally still a fifteen-year-old girl,
and not the experienced woman he knew. Had she even been kissed yet, as
far as she remembered?
Unsure how to ask, Buffy saved him the trouble by replying, "It's
just...a couple kisses does not exactly make for a basis of experience,
and I'm sure you've had years and years of lots of kissing...and other
things."
"Years, yes. Partners aren't exactly in the double digits, though." He
let out a bitter laugh. "Not even close. You were up on me, there."
"I was? I mean, am? God, I wasn't...easy, was I?" Her face was blazing
red, and though it amused him to see her so flustered, he gave her a
reassuring smile.
"No, pet. That, I can certainly say, you were not." She smiled back,
and when their eyes met, the desire to see if they could do better the
second time around nearly overwhelmed him.
The moment passed, and Buffy said into the silence, "Well, I ought
to...y'know, leave. They don't know I'm out here, and it's getting
pretty late. I didn't sleep well last night."
This information jarred something in the back of his brain. "You've
been around since last night?"
"Yeah, I was in someone's backyard a few blocks down from here. Why?"
"Oh. Uh, no reason. Just curious, is all." That cold breeze from last
night, with her scent mixed in...he'd thought it was a sensory
hallucination. Had it been her, after all? He didn't know what to think
of it. Shrugging the thoughts aside, including the indulgent ones
stirred up by the kiss, he continued, "I'll walk you home, make sure
you get back in one piece."
He half-expected her to decline, but she nodded in agreement. "I
wouldn't mind having some company. Sunnydale at night doesn't appear to
be the friendliest environment."
"Depends on who your friends are," he said in a wry tone, holding the
door open for her as she passed through. After a stretch of mutual
quiet while walking through the graveyard, Buffy asked him if they were
friends.
He didn't know what to say to that. "I don't know if we are. Why? Do
you want to be?"
"As opposed to being enemies? Definitely," she smiled, and he
reciprocated. It wasn't his fantasy come true, but having this
comfortable bond with her was more than he could've hoped for.
"Then it's a deal. If you want, I'll go patrolling with you, until
you're up to snuff."
"Patrolling? Oh, you mean the slaying thing. Yeah, sure--I need all the
help I can get, at this point. You saw my lack of skills in dealing
with the 80s throwbacks."
He snorted a laugh, then shook his head. "Love, you've still got the
moves. All you have to do is let your body remember, while keeping your
mind separate and open for surprises."
"That's all, huh? And here I thought it was gonna be hard."
"Now, now. Don't be all snippy. If it's really so burdensome for you, I
can always be your punching bag."
She glanced over at him. "Is that a standing offer?"
"As close as you get from me, pet." He resisted the urge to grab a
cigarette from his coat pocket. There was no need for the cool
posturing, not with her.
"I'll keep that in mind," Buffy answered back. Somehow, they were
already at her house, and she jumped a bit at the sight. "We're here?"
"That we are." Spike watched in a mixture of amusement and befuddlement
as she tried to climb up the tree. "I've heard there's these bloody
amazing things now, Buffy. They're called doors."
She sighed in exasperation for the first time since she'd come back,
and he grinned like a maniac. The fact he could still do this to her
made her lack of memory not quite so bad. "Spike, I can't go in that
way; I crawled out the window so no one knew I left. Plus, I...uh,
don't have a key."
He continued to watch as she tried to reach the lowest branch. "Need a
boost?"
"Uh, *yeah*. If it doesn't cut into your busy social life."
"Why don't we skip the whole tree thing and go straight for the roof?"
He replied, and led her over to the corner of the porch. "I'll give you
a hand up, then all you have to do is let instinct take over."
"I don't know...it doesn't look like there's a way up from here."
Spike sighed at her response, but composed himself and said, "All
right, fine. I'll go first. You watch me, then just repeat what I do."
He grabbed onto the railing and pulled himself onto a ledge, then
jumped and rolled onto the roof.
"I can't do that!" Buffy said in a harsh whisper, staring at him in
disbelief.
"Sure you can. I'll help pull you the rest of the way, if you need it."
She judged the distance by eye, then nervously climbed up the railing
and hung onto the post. Spike peered down and smiled in what he hoped
was encouragement. "Great, pet. Now jump."
"I don't think I can jump that high."
"If I can do it, you sure can. Just let your body go, and do it on
instinct."
"Right, Obi-Wan," she smirked. He gave her a glare for show, but
inwardly he knew he had never been happier.
****
Spike had made it look easy, flitting up there as if he was weightless.
Now he expected her to do the same.
Exhaling out her anxiety, she looked back up into the face of the man
waiting for her, who placed his trust and faith in her forgotten
abilities. Could she really do this?
Only one way to find out. She closed her eyes and felt her balance as
something calm and assured, then jumped. Her hands found the edge and
her body did a graceful somersault over the roof's surface--until she
impacted with something fleshy and clad in leather.
As her senses reoriented to their new surroundings, she found herself
lying across Spike, who was beginning to realize his new position.
"Oh! I'm sorry," Buffy mumbled in embarrassment, and tried to
disentangle herself from him. It proved to be a difficult task on a
pitched roof, and she was sure the ruckus they created ended up making
the stealthy entrance moot.
"No, I shoulda backed off. I knew you could do it," he replied with a
soft grin on his face, and she smiled back in pride. They ended up
holding onto each other for balance as they got up, and soon Buffy had
crawled through her window, grateful for the safe ending to a harrowing
night.
Spike watched her with a forlorn look from just outside the window, but
said nothing. Buffy gestured for him to come inside, and she later
wished she'd had his reaction on tape. Ultimately, however, he begged
off and she felt a keen disappointment.
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then," she replied. She leaned
out and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, near enough to his mouth
that if he'd turned his head, they would have had their second kiss of
the night. "That's for helping me get back into the house."
"Anytime, Buffy," he said, sounding more than a little thrown at her
behavior. His smile told her that it was a good kind of confusion,
though, and she watched as he casually dropped off the edge of the roof
to the ground below. He waved once, then disappeared into the darkness.
****
He couldn't believe it. Not one moment, not an iota of what had just
happened. The feel of her lips on his cheek and mouth were scorched
there for eternity. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he could
relive the instant over...
Which caused him to trip unceremoniously over someone's lawn gnome. But
even splayed in the dew-laden grass, he grinned with unlimited joy.
If he'd thought he was in love with her before, it now paled in
comparison to the raging passion within him. No one has loved as
fiercely as I do at this moment, he assured himself, and allowed a bit
of dwelling on that fact before pulling himself up and continuing home.
Not even the prospect of the encroaching dawn could weaken the bounce
in his steps, and he whistled through the graveyard just because he
could.
~**~**~
Chapter Four
~**~**~
The Summers house looked innocuous and quiet from the outside, until a
window on the second floor slid up and a young woman crawled out, who
glanced around nervously for any sign of being watched.
She awkwardly crossed the sloping roof until she reached a nearby tree,
then scaled over the nearest limb and down the trunk to reach the
ground. It amazed her that she was strong enough to do it, never mind
agile, but she guessed it was part of the Slayer package.
A wooden stake Buffy found in her closet was tucked in her clothes, and
she felt really freaky and weird for bringing it along at all. She was
sure it wasn't the sort of fashion accessory that was all the rage with
her generation. But, Willow had warned her how dangerous the cemetery
was at night, and she wasn't exactly too eager to go back to being
dead, again--even if she didn't remember that part.
She'd waited until everyone's lights went off, before sneaking out of
the house. Hopefully, no one would ever know she'd been out that night,
but Buffy had the feeling it needed to be done. She had to ask Spike
about the bizarreness of the whole magic shop reunion, and why she'd
hated him so badly, before. Her friends were biased where Spike was
concerned, and even if it meant going to a cemetery at night, she was
determined to hear the truth, unvarnished and raw.
Even if it meant destroying her nascent opinion of him, and possibly
earning her new sister's anger and grief.
The map she consulted earlier showed that Sunnydale had twelve
cemeteries, so she had needed to ask Dawn which one Spike lived in. It
turned out to be the one closest to the house, a nice convenience--she
literally walked to work. At least she didn't get stuck in traffic
trying to reach the graveyard before sundown.
Whatever gates had once existed were no longer around. Buffy thought it
was odd, until she remembered--Oh yeah, vampires. After the first few
dozen times they were ripped off their hinges, the caretakers likely
had given up and not replaced them. The thought of it happening made
her reconsider her idea of having a late night chat with a vampire.
It didn't last for very long. She steeled herself with the promise of
solid answers at last, and stepped into the unfamiliar territory,
quelling nervous fears with the names and blurbs on passing tombstones.
The dates gradually became more contemporary as she walked further into
the cemetery. So many were of young people, a little younger or older
than her. Had she been buried here?
The idle and disturbing thought was stalled by the sensation of
something not right. She froze, waiting to hear footsteps, but instead
only felt...a presence. An evil presence who had brought a friend. She
fumbled for her stake, scared out of her mind but not planning on going
out without a fight.
Buffy wove through the headstones in the hope of finding a better place
to defend herself. The pressing sensation of villainous company
continued on her heels, gaining on her. Her jog turned into a full tilt
run, jumping over place markers and weaving around statues. And deep
inside, in a place within herself she didn't recognize, a feeling of
energy and anticipation welled up, threatening to spill over. Not only
did she want to fight, she actually *craved* it. More than she could
imagine or believe.
She stopped and turned, figuring the small clearing was as good as any,
and spotted the predators who were now prey. It was a bit dark to see
much, but the faces clearly weren't human. The terror it inspired
couldn't override the thrill of confrontation, the knowledge that a
battleground was before her.
"Hey, looky what we got here, pal. Someone dumb enough to come to us!
Reminds me of when we ordered pizza last week and ate the delivery
boy." He gave her an ugly grin, which the second male vampire copied.
They were a bit too cocky, she noticed. Apparently they saw her as an
easy meal. She prayed they weren't right.
"Ugh," she said in answer, taking in the olive green parachute pants
and matching vests. "Look, it's Eva and Zsa Zsa, the matching fashion
victims. Hate to break it to ya, guys, but the eighties are *long*
over."
They squinted in unison, bewildered at food that talked back. Instead
of replying, they came at her with a growl, and she somehow managed to
sidestep one blow and deliver one in return. That was about as smooth
as it went from there, however, and the fight progressively grew nasty
and dirty. It wasn't quite as thrilling when she started to get the
feeling she wasn't going to win.
The second one--Zsa Zsa, she had named him--backhanded her into a wall,
and her head connected first, causing her to feel nauseous and
disoriented for a few seconds. It was enough to allow the vamp to grab
her and pin her to the wall.
"Strong little broad, but not strong enough I guess," he sneered, and
leaned in for the kill. He'd only gotten halfway when she heard his
buddy cry out in pain, and the vamp spun around to see the cause of his
imminent death standing behind him, wearing a black leather duster and
a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
"This strong enough for you?" Spike replied, and put a stake into the
vampire's chest. As it turned to dust, his gaze met with the woman he'd
just saved--and stared. "Buffy? What the hell are you doing out here?"
The adrenaline rush left her, and she braced her weight against the
wall to hide the sudden weakness in her legs. "I--I'm sorry. I came to
see you, to talk to you. I didn't think--"
"No, you bloody well didn't, did you? You could've been killed, damn
it! Now let's get out of here before any of their pals show up." He
grabbed her by the arm and pulled her forward.
She managed a step before her legs betrayed her. Spike panicked as she
sunk to her knees, terrified that she'd been hurt worse than he'd
thought. He kneeled down and held on to her as best as he could. "Are
you all right? What's wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong...it just, it's just all hitting me now. I could
have died." She stared at him in horror. "Oh God. If you hadn't been
here--"
"Shh, love. No worries when I'm around, 'kay? You're fine."
"You saved my life." She continued to stare at him, trying to reconcile
what her friends had told her with the person who watched her in deep
concern, whose panic and fear for her safety and health contradicted
nearly everything they'd alleged.
He looked away, unsure what to say in response. Buffy took that moment
to give him a quick hug in thanks, and was glad when he softened and
hugged her back. When she pulled away, she added a sincere, verbalized
'thank you' to the hug.
He gave her a sad smile in reply. "You're welcome, always. Now, why
don't we head over to my place and see if we can't have a chat in
peace, eh?"
Spike helped her to her feet, and she only needed to lean on him for a
few steps until her legs steadied. Even then, he hovered nearby,
protective of the Slayer who wasn't able to slay just yet. When they
reached the crypt's door, he opened it for her and guided her in with
his hand lightly resting at the small of her back, a gesture of
affection he knew she would normally never allow. He had no idea she
was taking comfort from it, as well.
She looked around the candlelit crypt, trying to imagine it as a place
someone lived. Despite the TV and chair, she couldn't quite picture it.
"You live here?"
He shrugged. "Short commute, nice front lawn with lots of trees, and
nonexistent rent and utility. What's not to love?"
"It's a crypt," she replied, as if that explained everything.
"And I'm a vampire. We tend to find 'em quite homey, if a bit drafty in
the winter. So, why don't you take a seat while we have our talk, pet."
"Okay," she breathed out, deciding it was best to be sitting down for
this next part. She took the only chair while he took the bench along
the wall. She pulled her arm in, as she began to feel a sore spot in
her shoulder--most likely incurred during the fight. "I want to know
about you and me, how we met, why we fought, and why you've changed. I
need to know why I hated you like I did back then."
"Why? So you can hate me now?" Spike answered, his voice slightly
tinged with a mix of bitterness and curiosity.
"No. So I can try to understand. It's obvious that whatever bad things
you've done, you're not doing them anymore..."
"Now hold on there--"
"...And if I plan on not hating you anymore, then I need to forgive the
past. I can't do that if I don't know what it is."
He stared at her, surprised. "You...you want to not hate me?"
She smiled at his thinly-veiled eagerness. "Yeah, I do. Might even go
up as far as liking, depending on the circumstances."
Spike looked down at his boots and shook his head. "Don't think that's
possible, love. But if you want to know all the sordidness, I'll tell
you--whole truth, and nothing but."
"I appreciate that. So, starting at the beginning...how did we meet?"
"Well, it all began when Drusilla and I hit the city limits--
literally." He told her why he'd originally come, and a background on
him and Dru ended up being necessary. He decided to be honest this time
around rather than give her the puffed up version he'd concocted while
they shot pool at the Bronze. So Buffy found out for the first time
about William the bloody awful poet, and his doomed love for Cecily.
Buffy's empathy for his rejection surprised him. The main reason he'd
lied before was to preserve his evil persona, but now he realized his
mistake. She didn't think less of him--if anything, it appeared that
William's plight and fate had managed to garner her sympathy and
compassion. He swore that even if he lived another 120 years, he still
wouldn't understand women.
He would've liked to gloss over the next few decades, but she needed to
know about the Slayers he'd killed, and the general mayhem he'd done.
That caused her to draw back a bit, but he couldn't tell if it was from
fear, disgust, or something else. He continued on, throwing in some
stories of the past, trying to keep it as balanced as possible. No need
to make himself out to be worse than he was, not this time.
Once the short ride through his background was done, he focused back on
when they had met.
"I first saw you at the Bronze. It's a night spot that the young ones
like to hang out in," he clarified when he saw her puzzlement. "Anyway,
you were dancing, and you looked...well, you were really kind of
fabulous. The local baddies had asked me to kill you to get you out of
the way. In exchange, they would let Dru have access to the Hellmouth
in order to regain her strength. Sounded like a fair deal, so I took
it. It wasn't anything personal, not at first."
"I think I'd take a different view on that," Buffy replied, sounding a
touch like her old self. He couldn't help smiling.
"True, very true. They wanted it to all come down on Saturday, so I
arranged it so you went into the alley to save some poor girl from one
of the minions. I checked out...your fighting style and let you know
we'd be fighting that day."
She blinked in surprise. "Wait a minute. So you told me when you were
going to attack before you did it?"
"Yeah, but I got bored. Ended up crashing some sorta school shindig,
and we had our first fight right there. I had you on the ropes until
your mum cracked me on the back of the head with an axe. Blunt side, of
course. She was standing all warrior woman-like, yelling, 'Get the hell
away from my daughter!' " He chuckled at the memory, then sighed. "God,
I miss her."
"Wow. Go Mom," she said proudly, with a trace of sadness herself, then
frowned. "Wait...you miss her? After she hit you with an axe?"
"I'll explain later." He continued on, telling her about the Order of
Taraka, about restoring Dru by using a ritual involving Angel, her
sire. This threw Buffy for a loop, and he realized they never told her
about the peculiar relationship he shared with her vampire ex-
boyfriend.
"Angel was my grandsire, but for the first eighteen years of my unlife,
he really *was* my sire. Everything I learned about being a vampire I
took from him. Hell, in a way I wanted to be him--but really it was
about acceptance. Not just from him, but from all of 'em," Spike
explained, then noticed he'd said more than he'd meant to expose.
"Well, anyway, he sired Dru, who sired me. His sire was Darla, who was
dust for awhile, but she got mojo'd back somehow."
Buffy nodded, taking this better than he expected. "Willow told me some
things about Angel. About the soul, and the curse...but what you've
told me is more than she said. She didn't even tell me what made him go
all evil again."
"You mean...you don't know?" He gawked at her in disbelief.
"Know what?"
His head sank into his hands, and he let out a short, bitter laugh.
Somehow, it seemed all too unfair that he was the one to tell her this
fragment of her past. "Buffy, you...uh, had a night of passion. With
him. On your seventeenth birthday."
Now it was her turn for widened eyes. "I slept with him? And he turned
evil??"
The horror in her eyes was almost too much for him to bear. "Oh God,
no. Pet, it's not--you didn't turn him evil. He had a moment of soddin'
perfect happiness. That's what ended the curse."
"Which just happened to be sleeping with him," she sighed, partly
disgusted and bemused. "No wonder Willow was so worried about Angel
seeing me again."
Spike blinked in confusion, and Buffy explained, "She was afraid that
he'd have another moment of perfect happiness."
"Oh. Well, that...that's understandable." He remembered his own
feelings on hearing Buffy was alive. If that wasn't perfect happiness,
he didn't know what was. "No need getting the poof all happy, and
turning him back into Angelus."
"Poof? What's that mean?"
"Well, what d'you think it means?" He countered with a sly look. She
blushed, and he found himself falling even more in love with her, if
that was possible.
"I, um, think I can guess. From what I've heard of him, he does seem
kind of...odd."
He felt like he'd just been bitch-slapped with an I-beam. Had she just
said what he thought she'd said? He cleared his throat. "Oh really? And
what was that?"
"Well, that he just liked to hang out at home, read books, a real loner
type. Not it means anything, but he just seems kind of, I don't
know...boring?"
Spike wanted to crow his delight to the world at hearing those words
coming from Buffy's mouth. Then he recalled that she didn't remember
Angel--these observations were from different people with different
points of view....ah, bugger it.
He grinned widely and replied, "You don't know how I never thought I'd
hear that coming from you. He was better without the soul, and that's
saying something."
"Plus, Willow tells me that he had a soul for a hundred years or so,
and spent all that time moping and brooding until he met me. Talk about
co-dependency issues! Yikes. I mean, what did I see in him? He's
doesn't mix with people, doesn't go out and have fun, and likes to
mope. He's gotta be good-looking or something, right?"
Spike grimaced. "He's kind of got this protruding forehead, and his
hair is a mess. All that nancy-boy hair gel he uses. He's scary without
even trying."
Buffy laughed, and he laughed with her, wrapped up in this strange
spell being woven; he didn't want it to end. Eventually, though,
matters turned back to the topic on hand, and he continued on with his
recitation of their shared past.
He skipped over most of the days after Angel's conversion, and narrowed
on to the deal he decided to make with the Slayer. It had taken Dru's
lack of faithfulness and Angelus' exploitation of that fact to make him
switch sides and keep the world from ending. He told how he'd been
there when her mother found out about her being the Slayer, and the
beginning of the fallout that he later learned about from her mother.
Buffy listened attentively as he explained the plan they'd devised, and
how it had all gone down. He could only tell her the events up to a
certain point, then he said, "I saw you fighting against Angelus as I
was leaving. You weren't doing so good, and for a moment I...I think I
was worried. But it passed and I went on my merry way with Dru.
Eventually you beat him and he got sent to Hell."
"And he got back, somehow. Kind of like the same somehow I had, if what
Willow told me is true."
"I hope so," he replied, recalling his conversation with Xander. "I
really do."
Buffy left that comment alone, so he continued--with some
embarrassment--onto the fragment of time he'd spent in Sunnydale the
following year. Moping over Dru leaving him, complaining to Joyce with
cocoa in hand, and spending much of the time drunk was balanced with
the things he'd done while he was there. She took his kidnapping of
Willow and Xander with some distaste, but she appeared to be more
disgusted with his drunkenness than his misbehavior.
Then he was standing at the precipice of the rest of the story, leading
to his chipped status and his falling in love with her. He detailed the
Gem of Amara fiasco in all its ugliness, and she winced when he
explained how he'd discovered about her and Parker. When Buffy told him
Willow hadn't gotten that far in her past, he backed off and sighed in
frustration.
"Sorry, pet. Will should be the one telling you all about that. And I
think I'd better stop for now, considering the rest of the tale ends up
delving into things that I shouldn't be mentioning."
She folded her arms defiantly, and he knew he'd already lost. "I came
here to know everything, and I'm not going until I hear it. You can
just stick to the me and you stuff, and forget the rest."
He sighed again, wondering how he'd gotten into this mess, then agreed
to it. He informed her about getting captured by the Initiative,
leaving out any mention of Riley, and attacking Willow in place of her
the same night he escaped.
"I tried to bite her, but I couldn't...every time I tried, I got this
terrible jolt, it's so incredibly painful that it just stops me cold.
Turns out the lab doctors put a chip in my head that prevents me from
hurting people. Can't even slap a wrist without it flaring up. I've had
it for not quite two years."
"So that's why the rest of them trust you. You're not a threat
anymore."
He balked, indignant for a moment, then sagged as he accepted the
truth. "Well, yeah. But back then, I didn't accept that." He explained
how they had taken him in, told most of the anecdotes of living amongst
the group, especially where Willow's spell had make them think they
were in love. Buffy took that with a raised eyebrow, but curiously said
nothing of it.
Then he told of the deal with Adam, and gave his side of what had
happened. Buffy now understood what Dawn had been talking about, but
she gave no indication of her own feelings on the matter. Spike
considered it an encouragement to continue, so he soon delved into the
beginning of the whole mess that had proven, once again, he truly was
love's bitch.
He stalled after detailing the fight in the operating theater,
reluctant to share his dream from that night, and the subsequent
revelation. Buffy sensed this and waited for him to say something.
Letting out a slow breath, he skipped over it as something she didn't
need to know and plowed on, hedging the rest of the story and hopefully
obscuring his actions' true motives.
But he could tell that as he told the cleaned-up version of his early
efforts to impress her, Buffy was no longer buying it. Oh, she nodded
and listened, but he could see the flatness in her eyes. She knew he
was lying, and it killed him to see her pulling away already.
By then he'd reached the point in the narrative where the original
revelation of his love for her had gone so horribly wrong. He paused
and looked down at his hands, trying to decide the best way to go on,
when he felt Buffy's hand on his arm. He glanced up to find her
kneeling next to him, an inscrutable look on her face.
"Spike, just tell me the truth. I want to know it, even if it's dark
and horrible."
"I don't know if I can tell you this. And I think if I did tell you,
I'm pretty sure your mates would sooner stake me than let me near you
again."
A trace of fear went across her face, but the steel returned in force.
"If that's true, then I *have* to know, Spike. Please."
"I can't. Maybe, after a week or two, if you haven't remembered it
yourself..." The look in her eyes stopped that line of thinking cold.
She wanted to know, wanted it so badly that she would take any and all
consequences. It was the Slayer looking at him, and he knew for a fact
that she backed down from nothing.
He sagged his shoulders in defeat, then met her gaze with one of his
own. She unconsciously moved back a bit at the sudden resolve, but her
hand remained on his arm. Unable to bear her touch in the face of yet
another rejection, Spike stood up and wandered a few steps away.
Confused, Buffy took a place on the bench he vacated, still waiting for
the rest of the story.
Finally, he turned and faced her. "Buffy, all the stuff I mentioned
earlier, about fighting evil and helping you out with the slaying...I
left out why I did it. It's because...I fell in love with you. And I
still love you, to this very moment."
It was totally not what she expected to hear. Sure, she'd felt some
vibes from him earlier, but she wouldn't have pegged it as love. More
like affection, or something brotherly, protective. Suddenly, all his
reactions in the magic shop made perfect sense, and she knew the reason
why.
"I didn't love you back."
He didn't flinch at her words, but she could see the pain in his eyes.
No, she wouldn't have loved him, not after all the things they'd gone
through.
He swallowed, then replied, "I knew you wouldn't love something like
me, that it was wrong and perverse. But the day you found out, all I
wanted was a chance, some possibility that someday, maybe, you could
feel..." He stopped, then said, "Doesn't matter. I know it won't
happen, now. Then, I wasn't quite ready to accept it."
And he told how it all happened, down to the moment in the warehouse
and Dru's arrival in Sunnydale. How he was torn between his two choices
until he realized the choice had already been made long ago. How he
found her coming out of the tunnel basement after seeing his shrine,
and how, with some maneuvering, he soon had Buffy chained up and
Drusilla tied to a support beam. No lurid detail was left out, although
this time he got to explain his confusion, rage, and incomprehension at
it all.
Her face paled at the description, and he wondered if maybe he
shouldn't have told her so soon after being back from the dead.
However, she soaked up the information as if needing it to survive, and
he wasn't willing to deny her something she wanted so badly. It might
have been the wrong thing to do, but he also felt that she shouldn't be
ignorant of his true nature and their true relationship, if one could
call it that.
Spike was mentioning the aftermath when Buffy interrupted him. "Dawn
told me you were tortured--when did that happen?"
He clenched his jaw in memory; he *really* didn't want to go into
detail on that. "It was after your mum died. Those lackeys of that bint
Glory thought I was the Key, since..." he trailed off, realizing in
horror that he now had to explain the Buffy bot. He'd rather have been
tortured again. Still, it had to be done, and the quicker it was told,
the faster it would be over. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, here.
Something happened before then that you need to know."
Most of the time during the retelling of the bot escapade, he stared at
the floor, unable to meet her eyes. It was humiliating, to repeat this
to her when he had violently hoped only a few months before, that the
matter was forgiven and never to be mentioned again. He winced when he
caught her pulling her arms around herself, as if to block the
horridness of what he was describing.
"While Xander was giving me what for, those moldy Glory minions popped
in, we had a row that resulted in Xander on the floor unconscious, and
me being taken before Glory as the Key. She spotted me for a vampire
real quick, and just when I thought I was off the hook, those bastards
told her why they picked me up. She tortured me for info on who the Key
was, I wouldn't tell her, and that's that."
"What--what did she do to you? How did she..."
"It was *torture*, pet. What the bloody hell do you want, a scrapbook?
Pictures of Spike all banged up, bleeding and broken, with the frilly
little edges pasted around 'em?"
"God, no," she replied, and he heard some of the iron spine he so
admired snapping back into place. "You endured something horrible,
Spike, and I'm not going to toss it aside. Just...tell me what
happened. Please?"
It was the 'please' that got him, this time. "Right, then. Here's the
short version--Glory knocked me into a wall, dug a finger into my
chest, and then decided to write some haikus on my back using holy
water and a brush. Then she chained me to the ceiling, and had a bit of
fun with a lead pipe. Broke some ribs and a leg, then got bored with
that and decided to beat me about the face for awhile. After that she
grabbed a knife and meant to literally peel my skin off. She started to
do it, too, until I stalled by saying I'd tell her who the Key was.
"So I asked for time, then water, and soon she got fed up with the
stalling and smashed a glass into my face. I kept stalling though,
trying to piss her off. I hoped that if I got her mad enough, she'd
punch me so hard it would break the chains. After royally insulting
her, she did, and I went through the door. Somehow, I managed to get up
and reach the elevator, dropped down a floor or two before I hit the
top of the car, and got through the trap door into the car itself. At
that point you showed up, and sometime after that I passed out."
He finally looked over at Buffy, and was amazed at the sympathy and
horror in her eyes. "Oh God. Dawn never told me about that."
"I never told anyone until right now, pet. Didn't need to, really--it
was all there for anyone to see. After the Watcher and the boy dropped
me off, you showed up dressed in the bot's clothes planning to find out
if I'd spilled the info on Dawn to Glory.
"You had me fooled, straight away. I told you that I couldn't let
anything happen to Dawn because I knew if it did, it would destroy you.
I'd rather die than see you in pain, and I would have let Glory kill me
if it meant keeping her from finding out about Dawn. But somehow,
somewhere along the line, I've come to like the Niblet as well. That's
not something I've ever told you, before."
Spike watched as she absorbed this, and her arms disentangled
themselves from around her body, no longer a shield between them.
"Come here," Buffy held out her hand, and in a daze he complied, taking
her hand in his and letting her guide him down onto the stone bench.
After a moment, with her hand still entwined with his, she asked, "What
did I do when I found out?"
He smiled for the first time in awhile, remembering the feel of her
lips against his. "You kissed me. I'm not sure why, even now, but if I
had to guess, I'd say it was in gratitude."
Her eyebrows raised at that, and he added, "Oh, at first I thought it
was the bot, even if it didn't make sense...but after a second I knew
it was you. Shocked the hell out of me. You just stared back, not
giving away an inch. I asked about the bot, you said it was gone. Then
you told me what I did for you and Dawn was real, and that you wouldn't
forget it."
What a wonderful moment that had been, even if he hadn't been able to
believe it, at first. "Then you left, and things between us became a
little more settled. Not perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better
than it had been."
Her gaze fixed on his lips, as if trying to imagine what it had been
like. So it didn't surprise him too much when she asked, "How was it?
The kiss, I mean?"
"Well, my lip was all swollen, so there wasn't much in the way of
action, but it was...amazing."
"I wish I could remember. Obviously, I didn't keep my promise about not
forgetting it."
"Buffy, that's not important. You're here, and that's all I could hope
for."
She looked at him in consideration and thought. "You should have more
to hope for than that. Don't worry...I'll try not to forget this one,"
she said, right before she tilted her head and raised up just high
enough so that her lips met his, in an echo of one she'd given months
ago.
This time, however, Spike didn't pull away. He was stunned into
compliance; the idea that maybe this wasn't a good thing to be doing so
soon never even made its way to the front of his mind. When he kissed
back, she responded in a way that made his undead heart leap, and it
was several, long seconds before the kiss was broken.
He looked into her eyes, trying to gauge whether she was regretful or
in shock, but he never expected to see acceptance there, mixed with a
profound nervousness. Her mouth quirked into a dazed half-smile.
"Wow. That was...wow. Unless it wasn't, for you?"
He chuckled at the absurd thought, then smiled warmly. "Don't even
think that, love." Then, in a flash of insight, he realized that the
Buffy he'd just kissed was emotionally still a fifteen-year-old girl,
and not the experienced woman he knew. Had she even been kissed yet, as
far as she remembered?
Unsure how to ask, Buffy saved him the trouble by replying, "It's
just...a couple kisses does not exactly make for a basis of experience,
and I'm sure you've had years and years of lots of kissing...and other
things."
"Years, yes. Partners aren't exactly in the double digits, though." He
let out a bitter laugh. "Not even close. You were up on me, there."
"I was? I mean, am? God, I wasn't...easy, was I?" Her face was blazing
red, and though it amused him to see her so flustered, he gave her a
reassuring smile.
"No, pet. That, I can certainly say, you were not." She smiled back,
and when their eyes met, the desire to see if they could do better the
second time around nearly overwhelmed him.
The moment passed, and Buffy said into the silence, "Well, I ought
to...y'know, leave. They don't know I'm out here, and it's getting
pretty late. I didn't sleep well last night."
This information jarred something in the back of his brain. "You've
been around since last night?"
"Yeah, I was in someone's backyard a few blocks down from here. Why?"
"Oh. Uh, no reason. Just curious, is all." That cold breeze from last
night, with her scent mixed in...he'd thought it was a sensory
hallucination. Had it been her, after all? He didn't know what to think
of it. Shrugging the thoughts aside, including the indulgent ones
stirred up by the kiss, he continued, "I'll walk you home, make sure
you get back in one piece."
He half-expected her to decline, but she nodded in agreement. "I
wouldn't mind having some company. Sunnydale at night doesn't appear to
be the friendliest environment."
"Depends on who your friends are," he said in a wry tone, holding the
door open for her as she passed through. After a stretch of mutual
quiet while walking through the graveyard, Buffy asked him if they were
friends.
He didn't know what to say to that. "I don't know if we are. Why? Do
you want to be?"
"As opposed to being enemies? Definitely," she smiled, and he
reciprocated. It wasn't his fantasy come true, but having this
comfortable bond with her was more than he could've hoped for.
"Then it's a deal. If you want, I'll go patrolling with you, until
you're up to snuff."
"Patrolling? Oh, you mean the slaying thing. Yeah, sure--I need all the
help I can get, at this point. You saw my lack of skills in dealing
with the 80s throwbacks."
He snorted a laugh, then shook his head. "Love, you've still got the
moves. All you have to do is let your body remember, while keeping your
mind separate and open for surprises."
"That's all, huh? And here I thought it was gonna be hard."
"Now, now. Don't be all snippy. If it's really so burdensome for you, I
can always be your punching bag."
She glanced over at him. "Is that a standing offer?"
"As close as you get from me, pet." He resisted the urge to grab a
cigarette from his coat pocket. There was no need for the cool
posturing, not with her.
"I'll keep that in mind," Buffy answered back. Somehow, they were
already at her house, and she jumped a bit at the sight. "We're here?"
"That we are." Spike watched in a mixture of amusement and befuddlement
as she tried to climb up the tree. "I've heard there's these bloody
amazing things now, Buffy. They're called doors."
She sighed in exasperation for the first time since she'd come back,
and he grinned like a maniac. The fact he could still do this to her
made her lack of memory not quite so bad. "Spike, I can't go in that
way; I crawled out the window so no one knew I left. Plus, I...uh,
don't have a key."
He continued to watch as she tried to reach the lowest branch. "Need a
boost?"
"Uh, *yeah*. If it doesn't cut into your busy social life."
"Why don't we skip the whole tree thing and go straight for the roof?"
He replied, and led her over to the corner of the porch. "I'll give you
a hand up, then all you have to do is let instinct take over."
"I don't know...it doesn't look like there's a way up from here."
Spike sighed at her response, but composed himself and said, "All
right, fine. I'll go first. You watch me, then just repeat what I do."
He grabbed onto the railing and pulled himself onto a ledge, then
jumped and rolled onto the roof.
"I can't do that!" Buffy said in a harsh whisper, staring at him in
disbelief.
"Sure you can. I'll help pull you the rest of the way, if you need it."
She judged the distance by eye, then nervously climbed up the railing
and hung onto the post. Spike peered down and smiled in what he hoped
was encouragement. "Great, pet. Now jump."
"I don't think I can jump that high."
"If I can do it, you sure can. Just let your body go, and do it on
instinct."
"Right, Obi-Wan," she smirked. He gave her a glare for show, but
inwardly he knew he had never been happier.
****
Spike had made it look easy, flitting up there as if he was weightless.
Now he expected her to do the same.
Exhaling out her anxiety, she looked back up into the face of the man
waiting for her, who placed his trust and faith in her forgotten
abilities. Could she really do this?
Only one way to find out. She closed her eyes and felt her balance as
something calm and assured, then jumped. Her hands found the edge and
her body did a graceful somersault over the roof's surface--until she
impacted with something fleshy and clad in leather.
As her senses reoriented to their new surroundings, she found herself
lying across Spike, who was beginning to realize his new position.
"Oh! I'm sorry," Buffy mumbled in embarrassment, and tried to
disentangle herself from him. It proved to be a difficult task on a
pitched roof, and she was sure the ruckus they created ended up making
the stealthy entrance moot.
"No, I shoulda backed off. I knew you could do it," he replied with a
soft grin on his face, and she smiled back in pride. They ended up
holding onto each other for balance as they got up, and soon Buffy had
crawled through her window, grateful for the safe ending to a harrowing
night.
Spike watched her with a forlorn look from just outside the window, but
said nothing. Buffy gestured for him to come inside, and she later
wished she'd had his reaction on tape. Ultimately, however, he begged
off and she felt a keen disappointment.
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then," she replied. She leaned
out and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, near enough to his mouth
that if he'd turned his head, they would have had their second kiss of
the night. "That's for helping me get back into the house."
"Anytime, Buffy," he said, sounding more than a little thrown at her
behavior. His smile told her that it was a good kind of confusion,
though, and she watched as he casually dropped off the edge of the roof
to the ground below. He waved once, then disappeared into the darkness.
****
He couldn't believe it. Not one moment, not an iota of what had just
happened. The feel of her lips on his cheek and mouth were scorched
there for eternity. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he could
relive the instant over...
Which caused him to trip unceremoniously over someone's lawn gnome. But
even splayed in the dew-laden grass, he grinned with unlimited joy.
If he'd thought he was in love with her before, it now paled in
comparison to the raging passion within him. No one has loved as
fiercely as I do at this moment, he assured himself, and allowed a bit
of dwelling on that fact before pulling himself up and continuing home.
Not even the prospect of the encroaching dawn could weaken the bounce
in his steps, and he whistled through the graveyard just because he
could.