Comment: Well, so good, so far. It's been quite an exciting journey, at least for me, and I hope for some of you too. I know I didn't get really hardcore on the W/S stuff. Believe me, I wanted to, but the story and characters seemed to have other plans. I hope you're not too disappointed. And I KNOW it's quite an open ending, and not a very encouraging one at that - but I enjoyed this so much that I didn't want to make this goodbye too final. More like a see you later. Don't know about you, but I can't wait to see how this bond between Willow and Spike turns out, if the Scoobies will ever be the same...

Thanks again for being out there and enjoying this with me. E-mail me if you want me to notify you when I start with "Part II" (you notice the WHEN, not IF!!).



Chapter 8


Willow would always ascribe their getting in and out of the Initiative's facilities under Sunnydale to a miracle. Nothing but, pure and simple. Something, someone, somewhere, wanted them to get out of there unnoticed. There was no other explanation, and, frankly, Willow didn't need any. Never question a miracle.

Once back in Spike's crypt, they were both silent and sort of embarrassed. No matter what they say, seeing someone puke (in fact, having him puke all over you) doesn't make for more intimacy. Especially if you have caused that someone's sickness by previously feeding him your blood and then having an attack of irrational fury.

Spike sat on the floor with his back against a wall, pretending to be casual as hell, but Willow could see his hands shaking. She was fishing the pictures out of the pockets of his duster and arranging them hurriedly into a neat stack. The white sides up. Spike's picture she had tucked into her jeans' back pocket, hoping it wouldn't be needed as an evidence. She didn't want Buffy to see it for reasons that were somewhat murky even for Willow herself - like the soft sand you plant your foot in when you step into a river with troubled waters where you can't see the bottom.

When Spike spoke, it sounded as he were far, far away.

"Willow, would you do me a favor?"

"Sure, Spike, what is it?"

"Call me William."

Slowly, Willow turned around to look at him. He was looking at the floor in front of him, crushing a cigarette-butt under his bootheel. She was afraid to say anything, afraid to move, afraid to breathe too hard, anything that might dispel the heavy magic those three words had wound around the moment, around the two of them. So she simply stood and waited.

He looked up to meet her eyes. "That's my name, you know."

She nodded, still not knowing what to say.

Spike jerked his head in frustration, then he stood up and began to pace the dusty stone floor.

"I'd like to hear it once in a while, that's all.- Just when we're alone, you and I."

Willow wasn't quite prepared to face up to what the idea of being alone with Spike and calling him "William" made her feel, so instead she settled for: "It's a beautiful name."

"Oh, I don't know about beautiful... it's just a name. But it's mine. It's what I am. Or what I used to be. At least part of it." He hesitated, then lit up another cigarette. "You know what got to me most about those pictures? It wasn't the pictures themselves, or the things they had done to the poor bastards. It was what it said at the beginning of each of those notes."

"The beginning?" Willow looked confused.

"Subject 3441, subject 5871, subject 6200... Hostile 17. That's what I was. Not Spike, not William, not even the bloody Bleached Vampire, just - a number. And the fact that I am hostile."

But you ARE hostile. Or would love to be if you hadn't that chip in you head. Willow thought it, but was silent.

Spike looked at her as if he'd read her thoughts. Maybe he had.

"I am what I am, Willow. As you are what you are. That is all we have. Our name. Our identity. I am William. And yes, I am Spike too, and I like it, and I'm a number of other things you may or may mot find out out about, but I am NOT Hostile 17."

He smiled slightly. "How would you like to be, say, Witch 32?"

Willow smiled back. "There are not 32 witches in Sunnydale."

"Want to come look for them?"

He was standing very close again, only this time he wasn't menacing, or teasing, and he didn't want anything from her. He was just - close...

"We... we better go find Buffy. That was the idea, wasn't it? Show her the evidence to convince her that the Initiative is really bad, so we can move against them all together."

"That was your idea, yes."

Willow's heart sank. "Are you not coming?"

"I don't want to fight the Initiative alongside with Buffy, Red. What I want is stick to the original plan and blow the whole place to pieces, and if Sunnydale gets blown to hell in the process, well, that's two more cans of beer for me to celebrate. But-", at the sight of the girl's troubled eyes he relented, "I don't really have an option here, have I?"

"There always is an option... William."

"You believe that, do you?"

"Yes, I do. You were right: we are what we are. And we are because we choose to do what we do. Move along or turn around, fight or lay down your weapons, kill or-"

"-be killed."

Her eyes were sad. She wanted to lay her hand on his cheek the way he had done before in the cell, but she didn't quite dare to. Yet.

"I'm going to see Buffy now, William. Are you coming with me?"

She was asking him to move along, to lay down his weapons. And with the glare and the hum of the white cell still behind his eyes, with this strange girl's blood cursing through his long-dead body, he found he was willing to do that - for now.

-------------------

Everyone had left. For the first time in so many weeks, Giles had his house to himself. He sat alone in his living room, the late night show was on TV, every light turned on - and yet he felt the shadows crowding in on him. Worse shadows than those that usually stalked Sunnydale at night. Much, much worse.

After what had seemed like a final confrontation between Buffy and Willow, their meeting a couple of hours ago had been surprisingly smooth. Willow and Spike had infiltrated the Initiative, and Buffy's fuming at their taking off on their on on such a dangerous adventure quickly subsided when Willow pulled a stack of pictures out of her pocket. The torture to wich some of these creatures had been subjected made even Buffy flinch and shudder in disgust from time to time. But she looked the whole stack though, picture by picture.

When she was finished, she put the pictures back on the table and simply said: "I'll have to talk to Riley."

There wasn't very much else to be said. They were a team again, so it seemed. Willow had told them she had tried to wipe out the Initiative's computers and put a virus in them, but she and Spike had been in a hurry, fearing to be caught, and she wasn't sure if she had gotten it right. They would have to wait, and come up with another plan if it hadn't worked.

Buffy was very silent during this discussion - wich was more like a report than a discussion, because no one actually said anything. Xander ate cookies like he had to put on reserves for the longest winter in history and shot Willow worried glances; Giles kept cleaning his glasses and sipping at his teacup without ever swallowing; Buffy looked politely interested and nodded from time to time, but her thoughts were clearly somewhere else. The happy companionship they used to share, the feeling that they were invincible together - that was all gone, and Giles wondered if they would ever get it back. How could so much be lost in so little time?

And then there was Spike. He hadn't said much either, had in fact only spoken up to ask for the blood reserves Giles still stored in his fridge. Then he had sat on the kitchen counter, with his feet propped on a chair, holding a cup of microwave-warmed blood in his hands and looking at Willow. Looking at Willow. Looking at Willow. And then looking at Willow some more.

And now Giles remembered. This was what had been haunting him for the last day, what had been lurking in his mind, behind his worry for Willow, and Buffy, and the Initiative, nagging, not letting loose. That look. It was the same look he had seen on Spike's face when he had come down to find him awake and talking to Willow. And now he knew where he had seen that look before. It was in a church.

He must have been eight. There was a very severe typhus outbreak in his town, many children were dying. Rupert was not ill, but about half of his classmates were missing, they were either in the hospital or the graveyard. One day, the teacher had taken them all to church. She said they were going to pray for the recovery of their little friends, and for the little souls of those little friends who were already in heaven. Miss Graves had a habit of making everything little.

Rupert had never been to a church, except when he was baptised. It was very big and drafty, and the benches were extremely uncomfortable. They all sat there with their hands together and their heads lowered for a while, and then Miss Graves began to usher them out. In passing one of the side chapels, Rupert saw a man kneeling in front of a statue of the Holy Virgin. His hands were folded, his face upturned to the face of the woman of stone before him. There was no hope in the eyes of the man, no plea, not even despair, only a stoniness to match that of the staue. A chill crept over Rupert's back, and he ran to join the others.

Outside, he asked Miss Graves who that man was. "Oh, that's little Johnny MacDonald's father. Little Johnny is very ill, you know, I hope you prayed for his little soul, because he will be going to heaven very soon. It's a shame they even let these people into church."

"Why? He was praying, Miss Graves."

"That man? Oh, of course he wasn't praying, child. God knows I shouldn't use this word in front of you, but he's an atheist. Yes, he doesn't believe in God, and proud he is of it, too. He writes all those articles in the racey papers. And now God is punishing him by taking away his little son, poor little innocent soul. Johnny will go to heaven, Rupert."

"And his father will go to hell?"

"Of course he will!"

- That was the look Giles had seen on Spike's face, twice, in this same living room, looking at Willow. The look of a man who didn't believe in God, who was proud of it, a man who lay at God's feet knowing he would go to hell - and yet he prayed.