---
part five
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"I was concerned for you and keep that part In these days, irrespective of the heart: And not for friendship, not for love, but cast In that role by the presence of the past." --J.V. Cunningham
---
"Read more, Spike... it's nice to hear you read to me..." she whispered, reclined against the pillows, half asleep. She was stronger now, far closer to her recovery, but still seemed to cling to him, fervently, like a child who had been through some painful experience. She was curled in a quiet ball, lulled into a deceptive gentleness by his words.
He had come to her when the isolation and afternoon silence in his crypt had threatened to drive him over the edge of all reason. Simply, he had been lonely. Since it was day, she was listless and tired. But she clung to his company all the same.
""And now, as you see, this story is nearly (but not quite) at and end," he read, turning the worn page. He wondered, as he did so, what Buffy would think of his having held onto the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe since it had first been published. She'd probably laugh, in her good-natured way. It was a sound he'd heard often since he'd returned, and hardly ever before. It was a good thing. She was better.
She'd probably wonder, rationally enough, what sort of place it had in the keeping of the evil dead.
But it was something about the language that spoke to him-- something about it that had always made him feel free. It reminded him of something ineffable in his human past.
"These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well and long, and happy was their reign."
Drusilla shifted in place and settled again, and he continued, seeing her watch him from half-lidded eyes.
"At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Witch's army and destroying them, and indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest-- a haunting here and a killing there, a glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumour of a hag the next..."
He paused and watched her, realizing she had fallen completely asleep.
"But," he said softly, "In the end... all that foul brood was stamped out..."
And he closed the book, and watched her in silence. She was whispering, through her sleep, some incoherent poetry, in a demonic language he did not know.
---
Buffy dismissed her afternoon students, and sat down heavily on one of the benches, near the window. The room was more spacious and better suited to its purpose, since its rather necessary renovation the last spring. The light fell muted across her shoulders, onto the dull surface of exposed brick, onto the wooden surfaces of the bench and the floor. It felt good to be awake and surrounded by people. One or two students were starting to show some particular promise, and it felt good to know that she was able to help them achieve something. It made her feel like she had achieved something herself.
Strange, that for someone who had saved the world some six or seven times, she hadn't really felt like she had accomplished much before this. And it wasn't just her... they wouldn't be where they were without him.
He had a way of looking at things, of finding the hidden shape and meaning to them. Perceptive, and, somehow, intuitive... it was the women who were supposed to do that, but she had always been the direct one. She saw things as they were, or as she thought that they were. Pure logic. But he saw things with his mind and imagination. He even saw her there.
She missed him.
He could look at the same student and realize that, if they overextended on the attack, it meant somehow that they were losing confidence of their own aim... or that they were concerned about losing control of the bout... or simply that they were overzealous in pulverizing their opponent. He seemed to always see what was in their minds, and she saw it, appreciated it, and missed it.
But whatever it was he needed to work through, he needed to do it in his own time. She would give him the space he seemed to require. At least, for a while.
She got up, and walked to the door. Then she froze.
A sandy-haired woman was leaving the shop, a paper bag in hand. Her hair was pulled into a severe french braid, and she wore a simple shirt and pants in charcoal grey.
Buffy waited a moment, and then ducked out of the store, tracing the woman's movements.
---
Drusilla felt the sun setting, and it stirred her out of deep sleep, and into dreams. Dreams for her were fluid things. They spoke in voices to her-- they weren't simple manifestations of thought or wish or fantasy-- they were conversations.
And this dream was a conversation in images, a symphony of colors and feelings. And it spoke to her in ways she could never have hoped to describe. It was trying to describe them-- trying so hard to make them manifest and comprehensible to others-- that was the supreme effort. It rarely worked. And the words she could use to describe them were inadequate. She was far less mad than those around her suspected. Though any with her gift must be a little mad. She saw things differently, melted fluidly into other worlds than this, and saw them in ways the mind could not interpret without fear and trembling.
And now she saw her own future, more in feeling and color and image, that she alone could translate, deep in her gut. In her sleep she was as active as in her waking hours, and as the sun set, she saw the hours that were to come.
She started awake, jumping upright in bed as her eyes snapped open.
Pressing on all sides was the certainty she was in terrible danger.
She groped in the darkness for the lantern he had left her, she turned it on, and it pierced the features of the night with its muted glow. And in the patterns it cast on the wall and on her bed curtains, she saw the hunters converging on her hiding place. They would use talismans, and portents, and the power of their own prayers. And they knew her and where she was. If she didn't get out, she'd be dead.
She tore out of the bed, lunging at the door. She suppressed the pain, suppressed the fear, and let the dream-vision, that hovered over and through her still, guide her motions. She looked over the door, and looked for a way to unscrew the hinges. The bolts were rusted in place. She swallowed hard, willing the panic back down into her stomach.
It would take all her strength and resolve to save her now.
---
Spike sat in the crypt, impatiently, watching the dusk turn to dark from his open door. The dry heat was playing through the air, and made it hum with a nearly electric life. He'd found himself noticing the weather more now, enjoying the small variations. He thought of England a moment, how in the Cotswolds the variations were many and dramatic. He remembered the river and the trees clustering around it, and how they looked through different seasons and weathers. Those river trees had seemed new every morning.
He imagined, for a moment, what Buffy would think of that countryside. Would she miss her bright and weatherless sunshine? Would she sit on a wall, over a bridge, watching the swans feeding there? He wondered what she thought of rain, as he sat motionless in front of his book. He wasn't reading it.
He stood up, began pacing. It tended to bother people when he did that, but there was no one around for him to perturb with his nervous habits. He dropped his book on the top of his television. He'd watched a great deal less of it since he'd returned. He'd had more to do.
But now, he felt restless. Something nagged at his brain, and filled him with forbodeing. Having learned to trust instinct more often than not, he went to check on Drusilla. She might just be stirring now, as the darkness welled over the stones in the graveyard, and the cooler night air began to permeate his crypt.
He walked into the tunnels, his feet retracing the familiar route without his paying much attention to them.. He'd used them considerably less, now, but this entire town was ingrained forever into his memory. He knew its heights, depths, and corners.
He passed a stone where someone, at some time, had spraypainted the initials 'IG'. He wondered, as he always did when he passed, what they meant. They looked lonely in the darkness of this underworld.
He moved a rusted trapdoor cover, and deftly jumped through it. He landed with an unconscious grace in the darkness. Even the light from the sewer gratings had dwindled to the faintest gleam perceptible to the vampiric eye.
And he followed the path left, and right, and around a corner.
And he found himself face to face with a door, fallen off its hinges, and an empty room. He swore out loud, his face full of sinking foreboding, and scanned the space for any hint of her presence.
He turned, looked around through the darkness, and ran into the black maze of corridors in pursuit of her.
---
"I was concerned for you and keep that part In these days, irrespective of the heart: And not for friendship, not for love, but cast In that role by the presence of the past." --J.V. Cunningham
---
"Read more, Spike... it's nice to hear you read to me..." she whispered, reclined against the pillows, half asleep. She was stronger now, far closer to her recovery, but still seemed to cling to him, fervently, like a child who had been through some painful experience. She was curled in a quiet ball, lulled into a deceptive gentleness by his words.
He had come to her when the isolation and afternoon silence in his crypt had threatened to drive him over the edge of all reason. Simply, he had been lonely. Since it was day, she was listless and tired. But she clung to his company all the same.
""And now, as you see, this story is nearly (but not quite) at and end," he read, turning the worn page. He wondered, as he did so, what Buffy would think of his having held onto the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe since it had first been published. She'd probably laugh, in her good-natured way. It was a sound he'd heard often since he'd returned, and hardly ever before. It was a good thing. She was better.
She'd probably wonder, rationally enough, what sort of place it had in the keeping of the evil dead.
But it was something about the language that spoke to him-- something about it that had always made him feel free. It reminded him of something ineffable in his human past.
"These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well and long, and happy was their reign."
Drusilla shifted in place and settled again, and he continued, seeing her watch him from half-lidded eyes.
"At first much of their time was spent in seeking out the remnants of the White Witch's army and destroying them, and indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest-- a haunting here and a killing there, a glimpse of a werewolf one month and a rumour of a hag the next..."
He paused and watched her, realizing she had fallen completely asleep.
"But," he said softly, "In the end... all that foul brood was stamped out..."
And he closed the book, and watched her in silence. She was whispering, through her sleep, some incoherent poetry, in a demonic language he did not know.
---
Buffy dismissed her afternoon students, and sat down heavily on one of the benches, near the window. The room was more spacious and better suited to its purpose, since its rather necessary renovation the last spring. The light fell muted across her shoulders, onto the dull surface of exposed brick, onto the wooden surfaces of the bench and the floor. It felt good to be awake and surrounded by people. One or two students were starting to show some particular promise, and it felt good to know that she was able to help them achieve something. It made her feel like she had achieved something herself.
Strange, that for someone who had saved the world some six or seven times, she hadn't really felt like she had accomplished much before this. And it wasn't just her... they wouldn't be where they were without him.
He had a way of looking at things, of finding the hidden shape and meaning to them. Perceptive, and, somehow, intuitive... it was the women who were supposed to do that, but she had always been the direct one. She saw things as they were, or as she thought that they were. Pure logic. But he saw things with his mind and imagination. He even saw her there.
She missed him.
He could look at the same student and realize that, if they overextended on the attack, it meant somehow that they were losing confidence of their own aim... or that they were concerned about losing control of the bout... or simply that they were overzealous in pulverizing their opponent. He seemed to always see what was in their minds, and she saw it, appreciated it, and missed it.
But whatever it was he needed to work through, he needed to do it in his own time. She would give him the space he seemed to require. At least, for a while.
She got up, and walked to the door. Then she froze.
A sandy-haired woman was leaving the shop, a paper bag in hand. Her hair was pulled into a severe french braid, and she wore a simple shirt and pants in charcoal grey.
Buffy waited a moment, and then ducked out of the store, tracing the woman's movements.
---
Drusilla felt the sun setting, and it stirred her out of deep sleep, and into dreams. Dreams for her were fluid things. They spoke in voices to her-- they weren't simple manifestations of thought or wish or fantasy-- they were conversations.
And this dream was a conversation in images, a symphony of colors and feelings. And it spoke to her in ways she could never have hoped to describe. It was trying to describe them-- trying so hard to make them manifest and comprehensible to others-- that was the supreme effort. It rarely worked. And the words she could use to describe them were inadequate. She was far less mad than those around her suspected. Though any with her gift must be a little mad. She saw things differently, melted fluidly into other worlds than this, and saw them in ways the mind could not interpret without fear and trembling.
And now she saw her own future, more in feeling and color and image, that she alone could translate, deep in her gut. In her sleep she was as active as in her waking hours, and as the sun set, she saw the hours that were to come.
She started awake, jumping upright in bed as her eyes snapped open.
Pressing on all sides was the certainty she was in terrible danger.
She groped in the darkness for the lantern he had left her, she turned it on, and it pierced the features of the night with its muted glow. And in the patterns it cast on the wall and on her bed curtains, she saw the hunters converging on her hiding place. They would use talismans, and portents, and the power of their own prayers. And they knew her and where she was. If she didn't get out, she'd be dead.
She tore out of the bed, lunging at the door. She suppressed the pain, suppressed the fear, and let the dream-vision, that hovered over and through her still, guide her motions. She looked over the door, and looked for a way to unscrew the hinges. The bolts were rusted in place. She swallowed hard, willing the panic back down into her stomach.
It would take all her strength and resolve to save her now.
---
Spike sat in the crypt, impatiently, watching the dusk turn to dark from his open door. The dry heat was playing through the air, and made it hum with a nearly electric life. He'd found himself noticing the weather more now, enjoying the small variations. He thought of England a moment, how in the Cotswolds the variations were many and dramatic. He remembered the river and the trees clustering around it, and how they looked through different seasons and weathers. Those river trees had seemed new every morning.
He imagined, for a moment, what Buffy would think of that countryside. Would she miss her bright and weatherless sunshine? Would she sit on a wall, over a bridge, watching the swans feeding there? He wondered what she thought of rain, as he sat motionless in front of his book. He wasn't reading it.
He stood up, began pacing. It tended to bother people when he did that, but there was no one around for him to perturb with his nervous habits. He dropped his book on the top of his television. He'd watched a great deal less of it since he'd returned. He'd had more to do.
But now, he felt restless. Something nagged at his brain, and filled him with forbodeing. Having learned to trust instinct more often than not, he went to check on Drusilla. She might just be stirring now, as the darkness welled over the stones in the graveyard, and the cooler night air began to permeate his crypt.
He walked into the tunnels, his feet retracing the familiar route without his paying much attention to them.. He'd used them considerably less, now, but this entire town was ingrained forever into his memory. He knew its heights, depths, and corners.
He passed a stone where someone, at some time, had spraypainted the initials 'IG'. He wondered, as he always did when he passed, what they meant. They looked lonely in the darkness of this underworld.
He moved a rusted trapdoor cover, and deftly jumped through it. He landed with an unconscious grace in the darkness. Even the light from the sewer gratings had dwindled to the faintest gleam perceptible to the vampiric eye.
And he followed the path left, and right, and around a corner.
And he found himself face to face with a door, fallen off its hinges, and an empty room. He swore out loud, his face full of sinking foreboding, and scanned the space for any hint of her presence.
He turned, looked around through the darkness, and ran into the black maze of corridors in pursuit of her.
---
