Title: Neither Man Nor Monster
Author: Jennifer Campbell
Fandoms: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel
Spoilers: Through season 6 finales
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: Not mine. Belong to Joss.
Author's notes: This is pure speculation based on "Grave." There's no beta, so blame the typos on me. Love it or hate it, I'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks in advance.

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William was drowning, thrashing against the nothingness that swirled around him. Faster it spun, stealing all the air away, sucking him down down down into the black depths. He didn't want to go. He flailed about for an anchor, something to hold him back from the vortex he couldn't see but knew was there, but he found nothing to save him.

Intense pain hit him like a thousand gunshots.

He curled up against the torture and dropped like deadweight through the nothingness. A pinprick of light appeared below him, so insubstantial at first that he thought it was an illusion, but the light expanded. He watched, mesmerized, as he rushed toward that perfect circle of blinding white. Then he was in it, and it seared him, charred him inside and out. A scream ripped from him.

He hit bottom.

The first thing he noticed was the presence of solid rock against his back, cool and dry, a welcome change from the nothingness. And blood. Oh yes he smelled the blood. Its stench saturated everything, from the rocks to his own skin, and he felt sick from it. Pain throbbed through his body.

"It is done!" intoned a deep voice. "We have drawn his soul from the ether."

He frantically looked around for the origin of that voice, and he jumped as two brilliant green eyes emerged from the darkness. A bit of knowledge floated to the surface of his mind, and he knew those eyes belonged to a demon. But what was it doing here? And what was he doing here, lying on cold rock in what appeared to be a cave, weak as a newborn? Why couldn't he remember?

"We have restored that which was lost," the voice continued. "We have fulfilled our obligation to the victor of the trials."

"What? What trials?" he asked, hoarse and gravelly. He would have asked more, but the sound of own voice startled him into silence. His mouth had formed the words in such a strange accent, not at all like himself. He started again when he couldn't remember why that was true.

Make me what I was, so Buffy can get what she deserves. The words flitted through his mind. The speaker sounded like himself, only with more determination. More anger. Bitch is going to see a change.

The green eyes flashed. "You do not remember. The memories will return momentarily."

"Memories? I don't understand what you're --"

Words froze on his tongue as images suddenly flashed through his mind. A girl. There had been a girl. Blonde, petite, beautiful as an angel. He saw her swaying freely on a dance floor; thrusting a stake into the heart of a monster; lying cold and silent under the shadow of a black tower. He caught the fresh scent of her hair, the softness of skin at the small of her back.

Those images mingled with another woman, this one dark, with insanity raging in her eyes. A black princess, blood staining her lips. She walked toward him, through the ruins of a temple. Naughty, wicked Spike. That's a Slayer you've done in.

I'm using you. I can't love you. ... I'm sorry, William.

He trembled under the weight of remembrance. He wanted it to stop, but the visions kept coming.

A courtly woman with perfect brown curls looked down at him with a haughty expression. You're beneath me. Another flash, and she leaned over a ghostly white corpse, tears streaming down her cheeks, then looked up at him in wide-eyed fear. The coppery taste of her blood filled his mouth.

Realization came in an instant, and he began to tremble.

"I killed her," he choked out, and the demon chuckled darkly. "I killed everyone she loved, and I drank her ... her blood. I --oh God! What am I? What have I done?"

Other faces appeared, dead eyes seeming to stare at him in eternal accusation. Children, mothers, lovers. How many? How many had he killed? He held his shaking hands before him, almost able to see their blood there. His palms were stained with it. It would never wash off. Never never never... Oh, make it stop! Make the memories stop!

The petite blonde again, she screamed at him, crying out for him to stop as he ripped at her shirt, desperate to reach beneath that feeble armor, to make her feel for him again. She struggled and pleaded, but he wouldn't listen. He refused to listen. He would make her love him. She threw him off, her expression a melding of rage and hurt.

Ask me again why I could never love you.

"Buffy," he whispered, and tears started to fall. He buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry ... so sorry ... what kind of monster ..."

The green-eyed demon stepped closer. "Your prize does not please you, William?"

"Don't call me that!"

"It is your given name."

"William is a poet. A good man. And I'm a -- a ..."

Murderer. Monster. Vampire.

The demon said, "Spike, then? Does that suit you better?"

"No!" he blurted out. "Spike is ... is not me. Not anymore."

"But you remember his sins as your own."

"So much blood ..." he shuddered and sobbed. "I hurt her so much."

"The woman. The Slayer." It chuckled. "She is the reason you came here, because you wanted to give her what she deserves. Now you're a pathetic, sniveling waste. Do you see what she has driven you to?"

He looked into those green eyes, laughing at him. The demon actually enjoyed his pain, fed off it like a leech. The man who had been Spike felt a rush of hot anger, and he rose unsteadily to his feet. He remembered why he had come here in the first place, to get rid of the chip.

"She didn't cause this. You did. You tricked me." He intended for the words to come out menacingly, but he sounded whiny more than anything else. More William than Spike, and that was not what he needed just then. He tried harder to rouse the demon inside himself.

"A has-been like you doesn't deserve true restoration," the demon growled. "You are nothing. No one. A shadow."

The anger ran hotter, bringing with it a surge of strength. That was more like it. He found it easier to feed off the fury than the guilt -- satisfy the demon rather than the man. He wondered how many other unsuspecting petitioners had been deceived in this place, how many had been snared in the trap. He would be doing the world a favor, to rid it of this piece of shit. No remorse in that, to exterminate an evil thing.

"And you," he said, deadly quiet, "are dead."

The demon laughed cruelly. "You cannot kill me, weakling. I am immortal."

He shrugged. "That is unfortunate. For you. Because when I'm done, you'll wish you could die."

The stillness broke, and he launched himself at the demon. They fell and rolled, with the demon ending on top. It punched hard, spattering nose blood over both of them. Pain stunned him for a moment, but he managed to block the next punch and wriggle free of his captor. They rose to their feet. Through his vampire lust for violence, he felt his human side analyze the situation: The demon had the superior strength here, but it was not as quick. He had to use that to his advantage.

"Is that the best you can do?" sneered the demon, and it drew something from the folds of its clothes, but darkness hid the weapon.

"I haven't even started."

"Good," it said, and thrust forward.

He barely dodged the attack, aimed at his chest, and focused on what the demon held. Long, skinny and without the gleam of metal. A stake, perhaps? The demon jumped forward again. Without thinking, he slipped to one side and grabbed at the weapon, surprised when it wrenched free. He stumbled back with the stake in hand. The demon growled, its green eyes narrowing.

"You seem to have lost something," he quipped, tossing the stake between his hands. "Would you like it back?"

It rushed at him. He ducked the slow punches and came up under the demon's arms. He aimed two quick stabs at those eerie green eyes and scrambled away before the demon's powerful arms could close around him. It howled and clutched at its face, fell to the ground, as blood ran down in rivulets. His nostrils flared at the sweet scent.

Then the humanity kicked in, in full force, and the distinct feeling of nausea overcame him as he watched the demon writhe. Bugger all, the violence hadn't solved a single thing. It hadn't purged the guilt. He sank to his knees under the weight of it and closed his lids. A thousand accusing eyes stared back, Buffy's the most hateful of all.

Ask me again why I could never love you.

He lifted the stake and pressed the point against his own chest. All he had to do was push it home, and spare the world from another murderer. It would be so simple. To end it.

He shuddered and let the stake clatter to the ground. With a last disgusted look at the demon, he shuffled toward the cave's entrance, bent as though laboring under a great load. Moonlight illuminated the landscape in a ghostly glow, falling on the sleeping village beyond. He had entered the cave as a vampire, a killer. He had emerged as something else. Guilt-ridden, haunted and too much of a coward to kill himself.

Not Spike. Not William. Neither monster nor man.

So what would he do now? Returning to Sunnydale was out of the question. He couldn't bear to face Buffy, or Dawn. Sweet Dawny. Surely she knew by now, what he had tried to do to her big sister. She would never forgive him. He didn't deserve her forgiveness.

What he needed was someone who understood.

Twenty-four hours later, he was on a plane to Los Angeles.

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