Chapter 4
"I still can't believe what she did."
It was Xander who finally voiced the thought that had been on their minds all this time. He was standing beside the couch in Giles' living room, looking down at Willow, so still and pale. Giles was sitting on a kitchen stool, holding a cold cup of tea in his hands, Buffy sat in the armchair facing the couch, with Riley standing beside her, his hand on her shoulder. A fire-truck with a howling siren passed the street in front of the house. No one had spoken a word since they had arrived, nearly an hour ago.
The intervention of Riley's men didn't really interfere with the initial evacuation plan. It just accelerated it. The hunt and kill was stopped, all files were deleted, various fires were set throughout the subterranean facilities - in the end, all Riley could lay his hands on were a bunch of confused former comrades, who followed him out into the sunlight blinking as if after years of imprisonment, and who would be charged of vague accusations ranging from attempted assault to membership in an illegal organisation. None of these accusations would be proved, of course, and they would be released to go home to their parent's farms and shoeshops, to college or to radical patriotic clubs, where they would eventually be spotted and picked up by Initiative agents again.
It never ends, does it?, Riley thought, looking at the girl on the couch who had cut off a men's head with mere words she had spoken. Buffy's voice snapped him out of his disconsolate reverie.
"It was self-defense. He was going to kill her, him or someone else. They were not going to release her just like that. And besides... it was madness down there. She didn't know hat she was doing, she..."
"You don't have to defend her, Buffy. She's never going to stand before a jury, if that's what's worrying you. No one's ever going to know she any of us was down there. The police and fire departments of this city have years ahead of them to wonder what exactly happened today."
"I'm not defending her, Xander, I'm... I don't know what I'm doing, I guess I'm trying to understand..." The defeat in her voice tugged at Riley's heart. Giles shifted on his stool, but remained silent.
"What is there to understand? She has a power, and she used it. Just like you do."
Spike had been so quiet, and they were so concentrated on Willow's form on the couch, that everyone had forgotten him, seated crosslegged on the floor at her head, eyes never leaving her face. Now that he had reminded them of his presence, Buffy felt an enormous wave of relief wash over her. HERE was the guilty one, everything was his fault. He was a vampire, he was evil, and surely he had influenced her poor, innocent friend in some perverse way. HE would pay.
Buffy jumped up and clenched her fists in fury.
"You - you... what are you even doing here? You have no right to be here! If it wasn't for you, nothing would have happened to her. You... you had her there in your dirty - CAVE, and you better tell me right now what she was doing there!"
"She wanted to be there." He didn't raise his voice and didn't turn.
"Oh, yeah, sure, like I'm going to believe that! Ever since she brought you back from the Initiative she's been acting weird, and I'm betting all the Powers of the Slayer that you did something to her down there! One day she's Miss Science-Library, and the next she spends all her time in a vampire's crypt? What did you do to scare her so much? did you threaten her? Did you hurt her,you.., you filthy - BEAST?"
"Buffy, no... wait... maybe you should..." Giles stood up. There were deep lines etched around his mouth and his eyes were hollow. Xander thought, for the first time, that he looked like an old man.
"Wait, Giles? WAIT? No, I think we have waited just about enough." She spun around, grabbed a chair and broke off its leg with one firm snap. Then she turned to face Spike again, who was still sitting on the floor in the exact same position, still with his back turned to her.
"Get up, Spike! Let's get this over with, and then we can all go and have an ice-cream to celebrate a job well done and well finished."
Buffy was on the edge of hysteria. One more second of this - inhuman indifference would push her right over, and then...
"Spike...?"
Willow's eyes were still closed, and her voice was a hoarse whisper. Spike caught her groping hand.
"Yes, Willow. I am here."
Her eyelids fluttered open. She heaved a sigh that immediatly became a retching cough.
"Got to give up smoking, Red. It's going to kill you one of these days."
She laid her hand on his cheek and murmured: "Eyes blue as a true heart..."
A flash of recognition and pain crossed Spike's face. That was the last line in the last poem he had ever written. He had never shown it to anyone.
Wide eyes never leaving his face, and with her hand still on his cheek, Willow said: " They said they had killed you... 'dusted' you, they called it..."
"Well, talk is cheap when you're on the run, isn't it?"
He smiled. "Those guys were killing vampires by the dozen. That's hard work, you can't expect them to remember every single murder."
Willow smiled back, shaking her head slightly, still not quite believing what she saw. Her mind was a blank. Or rather, her mind was not her own. It felt like a wild animal that was asleep. When it woke up, it would tear her to pieces. But Spike was here. He was here.
She moved her head to take in Buffy, still standing behind Spike with the severed piece of wood in her hand, Riley beside the armchair, and Giles' a little farther off, by the kitchen counter.
"Buffy, what happened? Is everyone ok?"
"What? Oh - yes, yes, we're fine. Riley... he was informed of - well, he had friends, and-"
"Are they gone?"
"What?"
"The Initiative. Are they gone? Did they leave Sunnydale?"
"Yes", answered Riley. "They burned everything. Left no trace. No one will ever know." After a pause he added:
"I'm sorry." He was not very sure why he had done that, or if it was Willow he meant. It just seemed appropriate somehow.
Willow sat up on the couch, and then stood tentatively. Her knees buckled, Spike caught her, and all of a sudden she was holding on to him as if she never wanted to let go again. She remembered the cell, and the smells, and the cries of cratures in agony. The men passing had spoken of Spike's death, and then there had been darkness, and the wild animal in her mind had woken up. And now she was so terribly tired, and there was a stake in Buffy's hand, and pain in Giles' eyes, and tears in Xander's, and Spike was the only real thing in a world that had fallen apart and was no more.
MY William, she thought, and the fierce posessiveness of the thought caught her off guard. It was a frightening thought, to belong to him and to feel that he belonged to her, but it was RIGHT, and as she stepped back to look at the man she was embracing, she knew that nothing that had happened to her, not today, not in the last weeks, not before, had changed her life as much as the last seconds had.
His face was somber, but his hands were closed firmly on Willow's arms. He knew it too, had known it long before her: he had felt her fear for him, and then as if something had been torn apart inside her, and then a darkness so deep and complete he thought it would claim him forever. And then an almost painful coming together when she had woken up and seen him there. Standing there, in the Watcher's dusty and slightly untidy living room, Willow and Spike were only confirming a bond far beyond the giving and taking of one human's blood.
The broken leg of the chair fell from Buffy's hand , useless and silly. Spike had not once looked at her.
"Will you be allright?", he asked Willow.
She nodded. How could she feel so good, in the midst of all this horror? It was exhilarating, how much they could say to each other without words. He was leaving because she wanted to talk to her friends alone. He would be waiting for her. She would come to him. All that in less than a second, in one look that would mean nothing to anyone else.
Spike turned to leave, taking a blanket from Giles' couch to protect himself from the sunlight. If a lucky soldier hadn't found his duster and taken it along to Kansas or Roswell or wherever the bastards were heading, by now it would be a handful of ashes under Sunnydale's ground. Maybe sticking to the sole of a bloody firemen's boot.
Almost as an afterthought, he leaned down to kiss his Willow's lips. She tasted like green grass and dark wine.
Then he left, and Willow turned around to face her friends.
"I still can't believe what she did."
It was Xander who finally voiced the thought that had been on their minds all this time. He was standing beside the couch in Giles' living room, looking down at Willow, so still and pale. Giles was sitting on a kitchen stool, holding a cold cup of tea in his hands, Buffy sat in the armchair facing the couch, with Riley standing beside her, his hand on her shoulder. A fire-truck with a howling siren passed the street in front of the house. No one had spoken a word since they had arrived, nearly an hour ago.
The intervention of Riley's men didn't really interfere with the initial evacuation plan. It just accelerated it. The hunt and kill was stopped, all files were deleted, various fires were set throughout the subterranean facilities - in the end, all Riley could lay his hands on were a bunch of confused former comrades, who followed him out into the sunlight blinking as if after years of imprisonment, and who would be charged of vague accusations ranging from attempted assault to membership in an illegal organisation. None of these accusations would be proved, of course, and they would be released to go home to their parent's farms and shoeshops, to college or to radical patriotic clubs, where they would eventually be spotted and picked up by Initiative agents again.
It never ends, does it?, Riley thought, looking at the girl on the couch who had cut off a men's head with mere words she had spoken. Buffy's voice snapped him out of his disconsolate reverie.
"It was self-defense. He was going to kill her, him or someone else. They were not going to release her just like that. And besides... it was madness down there. She didn't know hat she was doing, she..."
"You don't have to defend her, Buffy. She's never going to stand before a jury, if that's what's worrying you. No one's ever going to know she any of us was down there. The police and fire departments of this city have years ahead of them to wonder what exactly happened today."
"I'm not defending her, Xander, I'm... I don't know what I'm doing, I guess I'm trying to understand..." The defeat in her voice tugged at Riley's heart. Giles shifted on his stool, but remained silent.
"What is there to understand? She has a power, and she used it. Just like you do."
Spike had been so quiet, and they were so concentrated on Willow's form on the couch, that everyone had forgotten him, seated crosslegged on the floor at her head, eyes never leaving her face. Now that he had reminded them of his presence, Buffy felt an enormous wave of relief wash over her. HERE was the guilty one, everything was his fault. He was a vampire, he was evil, and surely he had influenced her poor, innocent friend in some perverse way. HE would pay.
Buffy jumped up and clenched her fists in fury.
"You - you... what are you even doing here? You have no right to be here! If it wasn't for you, nothing would have happened to her. You... you had her there in your dirty - CAVE, and you better tell me right now what she was doing there!"
"She wanted to be there." He didn't raise his voice and didn't turn.
"Oh, yeah, sure, like I'm going to believe that! Ever since she brought you back from the Initiative she's been acting weird, and I'm betting all the Powers of the Slayer that you did something to her down there! One day she's Miss Science-Library, and the next she spends all her time in a vampire's crypt? What did you do to scare her so much? did you threaten her? Did you hurt her,you.., you filthy - BEAST?"
"Buffy, no... wait... maybe you should..." Giles stood up. There were deep lines etched around his mouth and his eyes were hollow. Xander thought, for the first time, that he looked like an old man.
"Wait, Giles? WAIT? No, I think we have waited just about enough." She spun around, grabbed a chair and broke off its leg with one firm snap. Then she turned to face Spike again, who was still sitting on the floor in the exact same position, still with his back turned to her.
"Get up, Spike! Let's get this over with, and then we can all go and have an ice-cream to celebrate a job well done and well finished."
Buffy was on the edge of hysteria. One more second of this - inhuman indifference would push her right over, and then...
"Spike...?"
Willow's eyes were still closed, and her voice was a hoarse whisper. Spike caught her groping hand.
"Yes, Willow. I am here."
Her eyelids fluttered open. She heaved a sigh that immediatly became a retching cough.
"Got to give up smoking, Red. It's going to kill you one of these days."
She laid her hand on his cheek and murmured: "Eyes blue as a true heart..."
A flash of recognition and pain crossed Spike's face. That was the last line in the last poem he had ever written. He had never shown it to anyone.
Wide eyes never leaving his face, and with her hand still on his cheek, Willow said: " They said they had killed you... 'dusted' you, they called it..."
"Well, talk is cheap when you're on the run, isn't it?"
He smiled. "Those guys were killing vampires by the dozen. That's hard work, you can't expect them to remember every single murder."
Willow smiled back, shaking her head slightly, still not quite believing what she saw. Her mind was a blank. Or rather, her mind was not her own. It felt like a wild animal that was asleep. When it woke up, it would tear her to pieces. But Spike was here. He was here.
She moved her head to take in Buffy, still standing behind Spike with the severed piece of wood in her hand, Riley beside the armchair, and Giles' a little farther off, by the kitchen counter.
"Buffy, what happened? Is everyone ok?"
"What? Oh - yes, yes, we're fine. Riley... he was informed of - well, he had friends, and-"
"Are they gone?"
"What?"
"The Initiative. Are they gone? Did they leave Sunnydale?"
"Yes", answered Riley. "They burned everything. Left no trace. No one will ever know." After a pause he added:
"I'm sorry." He was not very sure why he had done that, or if it was Willow he meant. It just seemed appropriate somehow.
Willow sat up on the couch, and then stood tentatively. Her knees buckled, Spike caught her, and all of a sudden she was holding on to him as if she never wanted to let go again. She remembered the cell, and the smells, and the cries of cratures in agony. The men passing had spoken of Spike's death, and then there had been darkness, and the wild animal in her mind had woken up. And now she was so terribly tired, and there was a stake in Buffy's hand, and pain in Giles' eyes, and tears in Xander's, and Spike was the only real thing in a world that had fallen apart and was no more.
MY William, she thought, and the fierce posessiveness of the thought caught her off guard. It was a frightening thought, to belong to him and to feel that he belonged to her, but it was RIGHT, and as she stepped back to look at the man she was embracing, she knew that nothing that had happened to her, not today, not in the last weeks, not before, had changed her life as much as the last seconds had.
His face was somber, but his hands were closed firmly on Willow's arms. He knew it too, had known it long before her: he had felt her fear for him, and then as if something had been torn apart inside her, and then a darkness so deep and complete he thought it would claim him forever. And then an almost painful coming together when she had woken up and seen him there. Standing there, in the Watcher's dusty and slightly untidy living room, Willow and Spike were only confirming a bond far beyond the giving and taking of one human's blood.
The broken leg of the chair fell from Buffy's hand , useless and silly. Spike had not once looked at her.
"Will you be allright?", he asked Willow.
She nodded. How could she feel so good, in the midst of all this horror? It was exhilarating, how much they could say to each other without words. He was leaving because she wanted to talk to her friends alone. He would be waiting for her. She would come to him. All that in less than a second, in one look that would mean nothing to anyone else.
Spike turned to leave, taking a blanket from Giles' couch to protect himself from the sunlight. If a lucky soldier hadn't found his duster and taken it along to Kansas or Roswell or wherever the bastards were heading, by now it would be a handful of ashes under Sunnydale's ground. Maybe sticking to the sole of a bloody firemen's boot.
Almost as an afterthought, he leaned down to kiss his Willow's lips. She tasted like green grass and dark wine.
Then he left, and Willow turned around to face her friends.