Title: Heart and Soul - New Life Part 11.
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, please
Disclaimer: All characters owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox
etc..... Just borrowing.
Summary: The Scoobies try to figure out a way to save Buffy. Buffy gets
closer to finding Spike. Spike is forced to face the consequences of his demon soul.
Heart and Soul
Giles dropped the book onto the familiar round table in the Magic Box.
"I've been through the Tarangi texts three times now," he said, frustration rushing out with his breath. Anya, Xander and Tara looked up from their respective research. "And I see the point. I understand *how* this can happen now." The frustration was spelled out in the lines of his furrowed brow. "But there does not seem to be any indication of how to prevent..."
"Maybe four's a charm," Tara interrupted, banishing negativity with one
serene smile.
Giles nervously smiled back at the girl. "I'm not saying that there is no way. Only that it is not here."
"Has anyone talked to Will?" Xander asked, fidgeting with the pages of the book in front of him. No one really wanted to have her so intimately connected with them. She wasn't one of them anymore. But other than Giles, she was the most likely to crack this mystery. Right now, patience was more important than pride.
"I'll call her," Giles said, rising from his seat and heading across the
room toward the phone.
*****
Buffy's eyes flickered open. Leaves were falling all around her like pale green snow. The sleep had awakened her. The drink had made her stronger. The girl had comforted her. Spike was alive. In her heart, she knew it.
A rustle in the leaves startled Buffy into reality. The girl ducked under the thick canopy holding the chalice in one hand, and an object wrapped in cloth in the other. As the girl came closer, she unwrapped the cloth to unveil a large chunk of bread. Where was the girl finding this stuff?, Buffy thought. She worried, nibbling her lip, wondering if it was even OK to eat.
At this point, she rationalized, she would die of starvation if she did
not take the chance.
The girl leaned down, helping Buffy up and feeding her the bread. Buffy had no idea exactly how hungry she had been until the food slid down her throat and the first taste of it set her stomach into a storm of growls. She ate every bite, savoring the taste of honey that had been spread thinly over the meal. The drink was like nectar and she could feel the strength burning back into her muscles.
"Thank you," Buffy said as the girl helped her to her feet. The Peacemaker was just a bit taller than Buffy, and even in the relative daylight, she glowed with an eerie incandescent beauty. She was so familiar. So dear and sweet and light. She had no clue why she trusted the girl, felt comfort, felt joy in her presence. The simple fact was, she did. Just as she felt when she was near Spike.
"Are you going to tell me who you are and why you are helping me?" Buffy asked, slipping into interrogation mode. The girl simply smiled.
"I thought I had answered that much last night," she remarked, leading Buffy from under the tangle of branches. The girl's small fingers were twined in Buffy's like the yin and yang. The match of two kindred hearts.
"Well, you said something all-knowing like about being the Peacemaker and about Spike and me protecting you. But it doesn't make much sense." They stepped out into the full sunlight and began to walk again.
"You will have your answers," the girl repeated the words she had said the night before.
"When?" Buffy asked simply.
"Are you always this difficult to those who try and help you?" the girl
asked, looking at Buffy and smiling almost sarcastically.
Buffy thought for a moment and smiled back. "Yeah"
*****
"Willow?"
"Yes?" she answered, surprised to hear Giles on the other end of the phone.
"I'm afraid that we have hit a dead end of sorts with ... well, with the
situation with Buffy." Giles stuttered, not really knowing exactly what to say. The other end of the phone was silent for a long moment.
"Will you let me help?" a broken female voice asked. Giles could almost see the tears on the redhead's cheeks as they spoke.
"Please," Giles said simply.
"I think I have some information that might help. Not much though. Should I come there?"
Giles looked over at the table to find his three charges staring silently at him. Desperation set in. "Yes, that will be fine. Please bring whatever you have with you."
"I'll be there in half an hour," Willow answered, hanging up the phone
before Giles could change his mind.
*****
Spike walked the rows of tombstones for what seemed like an eternity.
Staring at names. Staring at dates. The enormity of his hunger, his demon, was overwhelming. God, some of them were so young, he thought. Even younger than I. He stopped at every one, silently asking for forgiveness. The one thing he never dreamed to have. What the old woman had said stuck in his mind. Even if every one of these people, every one their death effected, could say that they forgave him, that they understood *why*, could he forgive himself?
He walked past the tombstone of a man. Roger Davis. 1860-1889. Next to him was Susanna Humphries. 1865-1889. Spike stopped, remembering a pair of star crossed lovers he had killed in London in a fit of hunger and fear and frustration. They were in an alley, their lips pressing hungrily together, their hands entwined in a lover's knot. When Spike had fed on Roger, Susanna had not moved. She stood, paralyzed by fear. And when he was through and approached the girl, she offered her neck. He was full and had intended to let her go. But she offered her creamy white neck to him.
Spike had asked her why. Because there is no life without him, she had
answered. And he drank for mercy. She had felt for her lover how Spike now felt for Buffy. How he dreamed that Buffy felt for him. In that act, he had killed them both.
Every stone had a name, but not every one had a face. The fact that he
could not remember even a fraction of the lives he stole was almost worse than the killing. His once dead heart ached at every marble remembrance. At every well tended plot. At every flower on every grave and he thought about what he had done. It did not take a soul to realize the meaning of it all. Only a heart.
"How you feeling, pal?" Luke said, stepping into the meadow. Spike had
wound his way back to where he had begun. He always ended up back at
Buffy's feet. Spike looked at the hell god and saw emptiness. The nature of the beast.
There was no answer to Luke's question. Spike did not know how he was
feeling. He did not know where one emotion ended and the next began. It was a knot of despair and mourning and loss and desperation and yearning. He needed Buffy. Needed to fall into her arms and break into a thousand tiny pieces. She should have staked him years ago. He should have let her.
"Well, I'll take that as a 'Just fine, Luke. Ready to go hang out on the wall.'," Luke said, grabbing Spike's elbow and yanking him away from the graves of his love and their child. Spike was too broken to resist. He deserved to hang there until the world came to an end.
*****
"When I was researching the texts," Willow began, "I thought that since no Slayer had survived this... situation... there was probably nothing there about how to help them survive. No one knows."
"Will, on to the positive stuff," Xander said, rolling his hand for her to continue.
"Right," the redhead answered. "So, I did the only thing I could think of and went back to plain old mid-wifing." Willow opened a text in front of her. "In the old days, before hospitals and stuff, women had their babies in their caves or huts or homes even. So, I researched some of the methods used to ensure safe births.."
"Willow," Tara said softly, "This is not an ordinary birth though. Do you think that a basic ritual will have any effect?"
"Well," Willow began, "No. But what I did find was a protection spell that was used in births involving high priestesses in Europe. The mortality rate among these women and their children had been very high due to the intense magical involvement. But once the spell was tapped into, it all but stopped. I know it is not *exactly* the same, but it is the closest I could come." She finished, pushing the book towards Giles.
Giles pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared down at the printed page, absorbing the words into his mind. He thought for a moment, his eyes growing wider by the word.
"Wha..What is it, Giles?" Tara said. She had watched him nervously,
feeling his concern radiate from every pore.
Giles looked up from the book. "The spell," he began, "may well be
effective. However it is very complicated and can only be performed by
females and in the company of females. Which, I'm afraid, leaves me out."
"And me," Xander contributed. "Being not so female.... and not so magical."
"Well, I don't want to see a smushy, red, slimy baby. I want to see it when it's clean and smells like soap," Anya contributed.
"Quite all right, Anya," Giles said. "The magics are far to intricate for anyone but a very powerful sorceress." All eyes turned to Willow.
"I can do this, Giles," the redheaded girl said,
"I know you can," Giles answered, "but do we trust you to do it is the
bigger issue."
The room was silent. No. They didn't. But Willow was the only one of them strong enough to pull it off. Tara had understandably shied away from magic since Willow had gone mad. Willow was a natural. "I need to help," Willow said simply. "If I can save Buffy and her baby, then maybe it will help make up for... Help you believe me..."
Tears streamed down her face for the thousandth time that day. Always
tears. Xander and Anya looked down. Tara was torn between comfort and
fear. Giles sighed painfully. "You understand, Willow, that this spell
involved invoking Gaea herself. Mother Earth. Connecting with one of the single most powerful sources and accepting what she takes from you in payment."
"Yes," Willow answered. " I can do it. I have to do it, Giles."
"Right then. Anya, please start collecting the supplies on this page."
"Who's going to pay for them?" Anya asked, taking the book. Xander looked at her, shaking his head.
"Put them on my tab," Giles answered. "Willow, you will need help. Tara?"
"I will be there," Tara answered, smiling softly at Willow. Willow looked down, a blush of hope on her cheeks.
"What about me?" Xander asked.
"You and I need to patrol and then baby sit," Giles said, beginning to rise from the chair again.
"The manly and the not so manly," Xander responded, getting up with him.
"Oh, Giles?" Willow said, touching the man's hand as he passed her chair.
"What is it Willow?" Giles responded, stopping next to her.
Willow reached into her backpack and fished out a desk. " I found this
while I was doing research and got a really funny feeling from it."
"What is it?" Giles asked, turning it over in his hands.
"It's a computer disk," Anya said, looking over Giles' shoulder as she
walked past.
"I know that, Anya," Giles retorted. Anya shrugged, walking off.
"It..it was one of Jenny's," Willow said softly. A dark cloud seemed to
settle over the Watcher's face at just the sound of her name. "She was into some very not so mainstream, not so mainstream magical stuff. Anyway, when I was looking for information for Buffy, I cross referenced something odd called Pax. I remembered seeing this in Jenny's files. I looked through her disk and found a file labeled Pax. I tried to read it, but Jenny had only translated the first paragraph or two. Looks like she thought it had something to do with Angel."
"Some kind of prophecy?" Giles asked, flipping the yellow disk over in his hand.
"Hard to say," Willow answered. "It is in some sort of runes I haven't seen much of before and I could not find a translation matrix. But I read what she had gone through so far, and I don't think it was about Angel. She may have thought it was, but she translated a word wrong."
"What do you mean, Will?" Xander asked, looking down at her.
"It starts out talking about nobility... blah blah... prophesy that will
change the course of all worlds... blah blah... end the wars between the
dimensions. Bridge the gap between man and beast. Then a lot that had no translation. Then a bit about a vampire. Jenny had translated the section 'and he of the kingdom of the undead, the vampire with a soul, will help bring forth...', but when I looked at it, I recognized one word. Saw it somewhere else before."
"Which one?" Tara asked.
"Soul." Willow answered. "It doesn't read 'the vampire with a soul.'"
"What does it read?" Xander asked, leaning on the back of Willow's chair.
"The vampire with a 'heart'," she answered.
"Spike."
to be contd.
Author: Nimue
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, please
Disclaimer: All characters owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, Fox
etc..... Just borrowing.
Summary: The Scoobies try to figure out a way to save Buffy. Buffy gets
closer to finding Spike. Spike is forced to face the consequences of his demon soul.
Heart and Soul
Giles dropped the book onto the familiar round table in the Magic Box.
"I've been through the Tarangi texts three times now," he said, frustration rushing out with his breath. Anya, Xander and Tara looked up from their respective research. "And I see the point. I understand *how* this can happen now." The frustration was spelled out in the lines of his furrowed brow. "But there does not seem to be any indication of how to prevent..."
"Maybe four's a charm," Tara interrupted, banishing negativity with one
serene smile.
Giles nervously smiled back at the girl. "I'm not saying that there is no way. Only that it is not here."
"Has anyone talked to Will?" Xander asked, fidgeting with the pages of the book in front of him. No one really wanted to have her so intimately connected with them. She wasn't one of them anymore. But other than Giles, she was the most likely to crack this mystery. Right now, patience was more important than pride.
"I'll call her," Giles said, rising from his seat and heading across the
room toward the phone.
*****
Buffy's eyes flickered open. Leaves were falling all around her like pale green snow. The sleep had awakened her. The drink had made her stronger. The girl had comforted her. Spike was alive. In her heart, she knew it.
A rustle in the leaves startled Buffy into reality. The girl ducked under the thick canopy holding the chalice in one hand, and an object wrapped in cloth in the other. As the girl came closer, she unwrapped the cloth to unveil a large chunk of bread. Where was the girl finding this stuff?, Buffy thought. She worried, nibbling her lip, wondering if it was even OK to eat.
At this point, she rationalized, she would die of starvation if she did
not take the chance.
The girl leaned down, helping Buffy up and feeding her the bread. Buffy had no idea exactly how hungry she had been until the food slid down her throat and the first taste of it set her stomach into a storm of growls. She ate every bite, savoring the taste of honey that had been spread thinly over the meal. The drink was like nectar and she could feel the strength burning back into her muscles.
"Thank you," Buffy said as the girl helped her to her feet. The Peacemaker was just a bit taller than Buffy, and even in the relative daylight, she glowed with an eerie incandescent beauty. She was so familiar. So dear and sweet and light. She had no clue why she trusted the girl, felt comfort, felt joy in her presence. The simple fact was, she did. Just as she felt when she was near Spike.
"Are you going to tell me who you are and why you are helping me?" Buffy asked, slipping into interrogation mode. The girl simply smiled.
"I thought I had answered that much last night," she remarked, leading Buffy from under the tangle of branches. The girl's small fingers were twined in Buffy's like the yin and yang. The match of two kindred hearts.
"Well, you said something all-knowing like about being the Peacemaker and about Spike and me protecting you. But it doesn't make much sense." They stepped out into the full sunlight and began to walk again.
"You will have your answers," the girl repeated the words she had said the night before.
"When?" Buffy asked simply.
"Are you always this difficult to those who try and help you?" the girl
asked, looking at Buffy and smiling almost sarcastically.
Buffy thought for a moment and smiled back. "Yeah"
*****
"Willow?"
"Yes?" she answered, surprised to hear Giles on the other end of the phone.
"I'm afraid that we have hit a dead end of sorts with ... well, with the
situation with Buffy." Giles stuttered, not really knowing exactly what to say. The other end of the phone was silent for a long moment.
"Will you let me help?" a broken female voice asked. Giles could almost see the tears on the redhead's cheeks as they spoke.
"Please," Giles said simply.
"I think I have some information that might help. Not much though. Should I come there?"
Giles looked over at the table to find his three charges staring silently at him. Desperation set in. "Yes, that will be fine. Please bring whatever you have with you."
"I'll be there in half an hour," Willow answered, hanging up the phone
before Giles could change his mind.
*****
Spike walked the rows of tombstones for what seemed like an eternity.
Staring at names. Staring at dates. The enormity of his hunger, his demon, was overwhelming. God, some of them were so young, he thought. Even younger than I. He stopped at every one, silently asking for forgiveness. The one thing he never dreamed to have. What the old woman had said stuck in his mind. Even if every one of these people, every one their death effected, could say that they forgave him, that they understood *why*, could he forgive himself?
He walked past the tombstone of a man. Roger Davis. 1860-1889. Next to him was Susanna Humphries. 1865-1889. Spike stopped, remembering a pair of star crossed lovers he had killed in London in a fit of hunger and fear and frustration. They were in an alley, their lips pressing hungrily together, their hands entwined in a lover's knot. When Spike had fed on Roger, Susanna had not moved. She stood, paralyzed by fear. And when he was through and approached the girl, she offered her neck. He was full and had intended to let her go. But she offered her creamy white neck to him.
Spike had asked her why. Because there is no life without him, she had
answered. And he drank for mercy. She had felt for her lover how Spike now felt for Buffy. How he dreamed that Buffy felt for him. In that act, he had killed them both.
Every stone had a name, but not every one had a face. The fact that he
could not remember even a fraction of the lives he stole was almost worse than the killing. His once dead heart ached at every marble remembrance. At every well tended plot. At every flower on every grave and he thought about what he had done. It did not take a soul to realize the meaning of it all. Only a heart.
"How you feeling, pal?" Luke said, stepping into the meadow. Spike had
wound his way back to where he had begun. He always ended up back at
Buffy's feet. Spike looked at the hell god and saw emptiness. The nature of the beast.
There was no answer to Luke's question. Spike did not know how he was
feeling. He did not know where one emotion ended and the next began. It was a knot of despair and mourning and loss and desperation and yearning. He needed Buffy. Needed to fall into her arms and break into a thousand tiny pieces. She should have staked him years ago. He should have let her.
"Well, I'll take that as a 'Just fine, Luke. Ready to go hang out on the wall.'," Luke said, grabbing Spike's elbow and yanking him away from the graves of his love and their child. Spike was too broken to resist. He deserved to hang there until the world came to an end.
*****
"When I was researching the texts," Willow began, "I thought that since no Slayer had survived this... situation... there was probably nothing there about how to help them survive. No one knows."
"Will, on to the positive stuff," Xander said, rolling his hand for her to continue.
"Right," the redhead answered. "So, I did the only thing I could think of and went back to plain old mid-wifing." Willow opened a text in front of her. "In the old days, before hospitals and stuff, women had their babies in their caves or huts or homes even. So, I researched some of the methods used to ensure safe births.."
"Willow," Tara said softly, "This is not an ordinary birth though. Do you think that a basic ritual will have any effect?"
"Well," Willow began, "No. But what I did find was a protection spell that was used in births involving high priestesses in Europe. The mortality rate among these women and their children had been very high due to the intense magical involvement. But once the spell was tapped into, it all but stopped. I know it is not *exactly* the same, but it is the closest I could come." She finished, pushing the book towards Giles.
Giles pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared down at the printed page, absorbing the words into his mind. He thought for a moment, his eyes growing wider by the word.
"Wha..What is it, Giles?" Tara said. She had watched him nervously,
feeling his concern radiate from every pore.
Giles looked up from the book. "The spell," he began, "may well be
effective. However it is very complicated and can only be performed by
females and in the company of females. Which, I'm afraid, leaves me out."
"And me," Xander contributed. "Being not so female.... and not so magical."
"Well, I don't want to see a smushy, red, slimy baby. I want to see it when it's clean and smells like soap," Anya contributed.
"Quite all right, Anya," Giles said. "The magics are far to intricate for anyone but a very powerful sorceress." All eyes turned to Willow.
"I can do this, Giles," the redheaded girl said,
"I know you can," Giles answered, "but do we trust you to do it is the
bigger issue."
The room was silent. No. They didn't. But Willow was the only one of them strong enough to pull it off. Tara had understandably shied away from magic since Willow had gone mad. Willow was a natural. "I need to help," Willow said simply. "If I can save Buffy and her baby, then maybe it will help make up for... Help you believe me..."
Tears streamed down her face for the thousandth time that day. Always
tears. Xander and Anya looked down. Tara was torn between comfort and
fear. Giles sighed painfully. "You understand, Willow, that this spell
involved invoking Gaea herself. Mother Earth. Connecting with one of the single most powerful sources and accepting what she takes from you in payment."
"Yes," Willow answered. " I can do it. I have to do it, Giles."
"Right then. Anya, please start collecting the supplies on this page."
"Who's going to pay for them?" Anya asked, taking the book. Xander looked at her, shaking his head.
"Put them on my tab," Giles answered. "Willow, you will need help. Tara?"
"I will be there," Tara answered, smiling softly at Willow. Willow looked down, a blush of hope on her cheeks.
"What about me?" Xander asked.
"You and I need to patrol and then baby sit," Giles said, beginning to rise from the chair again.
"The manly and the not so manly," Xander responded, getting up with him.
"Oh, Giles?" Willow said, touching the man's hand as he passed her chair.
"What is it Willow?" Giles responded, stopping next to her.
Willow reached into her backpack and fished out a desk. " I found this
while I was doing research and got a really funny feeling from it."
"What is it?" Giles asked, turning it over in his hands.
"It's a computer disk," Anya said, looking over Giles' shoulder as she
walked past.
"I know that, Anya," Giles retorted. Anya shrugged, walking off.
"It..it was one of Jenny's," Willow said softly. A dark cloud seemed to
settle over the Watcher's face at just the sound of her name. "She was into some very not so mainstream, not so mainstream magical stuff. Anyway, when I was looking for information for Buffy, I cross referenced something odd called Pax. I remembered seeing this in Jenny's files. I looked through her disk and found a file labeled Pax. I tried to read it, but Jenny had only translated the first paragraph or two. Looks like she thought it had something to do with Angel."
"Some kind of prophecy?" Giles asked, flipping the yellow disk over in his hand.
"Hard to say," Willow answered. "It is in some sort of runes I haven't seen much of before and I could not find a translation matrix. But I read what she had gone through so far, and I don't think it was about Angel. She may have thought it was, but she translated a word wrong."
"What do you mean, Will?" Xander asked, looking down at her.
"It starts out talking about nobility... blah blah... prophesy that will
change the course of all worlds... blah blah... end the wars between the
dimensions. Bridge the gap between man and beast. Then a lot that had no translation. Then a bit about a vampire. Jenny had translated the section 'and he of the kingdom of the undead, the vampire with a soul, will help bring forth...', but when I looked at it, I recognized one word. Saw it somewhere else before."
"Which one?" Tara asked.
"Soul." Willow answered. "It doesn't read 'the vampire with a soul.'"
"What does it read?" Xander asked, leaning on the back of Willow's chair.
"The vampire with a 'heart'," she answered.
"Spike."
to be contd.