Title: A Passing Shadow: Book One: Deep Down Dark: Chapter Twelve
Author: VicNoir
Disclaimer, etc.: please see previous chapters.
A week later I was in my basement, kicking the crap out of the punching bad I'd hung there, when Dawn came barreling down the stairs and then jumped the last five feet to the floor.
"He can see!"
I knew what she was talking about, of course, but I couldn't seem to get anything off my tongue but, "Huh?"
"Spike! He can see! Well, only just light and shadows, but Willow's on the phone and she says we should get over there, so come on already!"
As I passed her, I stopped and gave her arm a squeeze. She looked at me and said, "You can't fool, me, you know. I can tell how much you care."
"I know. You're just like mom." That got me the biggest smile I'd seen in quite a while.
"Well, are you coming or not?" She raced me to the top of the stairs.
It was about eight in the evening at that point. By the time we got to the magic shop, I was pretty nervous. I mean, maybe he could see-even if just a little bit-but that didn't mean he'd want to see ME.
Willow met us at the door. I immediately went into wiggins-mode. "Um...you go ahead, Dawnie. I'll just wait here-"
The two of them grabbed me by the arms and dragged me to the back of the shop.
"Guys! Stop! You don't get it. Last time I saw him-"
"You slapped the stuffing out of him. I know." I couldn't read the expression on Will's face.
"He told you?"
"No. I saw the marks. You really whacked him good. They didn't fade for almost ten minutes. Which is like a week in vampire time."
I wanted to crawl away and die of shame-blind vamp slapper that I was.
"Buffy, you're going in there."
"No, Will, I can't-"
"You can. You're the Slayer. Summon up all that Chosen One determination that I know you've got inside of you and get on with it already. You've done harder stuff than this."
She was right, of course, but for the life of me I couldn't remember anything harder than walking through that door. But I did it. Yay, me.
He was standing with his face about six inches from the TV screen watching a soccer game when I went in. He didn't turn.
"Um...Spike?"
"Yeah?"
"What...um...what're you doing?"
"Watchin' a match on the telly, Slayer. You gone blind too?"
"You can see it?"
He turned then and squinted in my direction.
"Yeah, a little."
"I...I'm glad, Spike."
"Yeah. Thanks."
I was walking towards him before I'd made a conscious decision to move. When there were about two feet left between us I stopped. I wanted to touch him. Hell, I wanted to jump on him and knock him to the floor and cover him with kisses. I settled for just standing there, smiling like an idiot.
"Slayer?"
"I'm right in front of you."
"I know. I can just make out your shadow."
"When...?"
"When I woke up. Opened my eyes and could see shapes an' whatnot. Dark an' light. Some movement."
"That's...that's just great." My ever-spectacular vocabulary to the rescue again. "Um...Spike? Can we go sit down?"
He reached out for my hand and my heart twisted. Where did the Big Bad go? Who was this pale imitation of a master vampire? And why did I still want him so much when he wasn't even himself anymore?
I took his hand and led him to one of the sofas. I pulled him down next to me and looked into his eyes, hoping to see something that would remind me of the pain in the ass he used to be.
"Spike. Um...all I seem to be able to do is apologize to you. And I hate it-"
"Then stop doin' it, pet."
"No. I need to. I need to learn how to face my mistakes."
"That sounds like your Watcher talkin'."
"Yeah, well, Giles had this nasty habit of being right. Anyway, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
He had me there. What was a sorry for this time?
"Um...for slapping you? I mean, not my finest hour."
"Believe I had that comin', pet."
"Well, maybe. But still-"
"Forget it." His jaw had hardened and that little muscle was twitching again. How did I manage to piss him off without even trying?
"So we're OK now?"
"Yeah, Slayer. We're aces."
Well, obviously not. But it didn't look like he had any plans to share whatever was bugging him, and I was getting a headache from the tension in the room. Still, I thought I'd better give it one last shot.
So I blurted: "So when are going to get back to normal, already?" Real smooth, huh?
But when I said it, something changed in his eyes. Just for a second, there was this glint of ...something. I know, again with the stunning lack of descriptive powers.
"An' what, just exactly, is your definition of 'normal', Slayer? An' how do you propose I get back to it? An' why in the BLOODY HELL should I care what you think of me in the first place?" His voice was getting louder and his tone was getting nastier and isn't it weird that all I could do was sit there and grin from pure happiness?
"Well, first of all, 'normal' for Spike is rude and loud, which you just proved you can still do. Second, you can get back there by getting over the whole self-pity thing that you've turned into your new reason for living...er...not living...you know what I mean. And third, you should care because you're still in love with me."
He took a deep breath. Funny, how he does that. Have to ask him why sometime.
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Slayer, I am NOT in love with you."
"Since when?"
"Since...since...what soddin' difference does it make since when?"
"You're still madly in love with me, Spike. You might as well admit it."
"Am not."
"Are too."
We probably could have gone on that way for quite a while. I know I was enjoying it. And I could tell he was, too, by the way he had to fight the little smile that kept creeping up on his mouth. And by the way his eyes were burning-finally! Finally, he was beginning to look like himself again. Even his voice had changed. It got deeper and lost that scared little boy tone that it'd had so much since that awful night when I found him.
That awful night. For so long, it had been like a shadow between us. My mind kept going back to it, circling it, examining it from every angle. It was like a nightmare that didn't fade when the morning came. And that was just MY reaction to it-I couldn't even imagine how it must have haunted HIM. But right at that moment, I thought maybe we could get past it. Things were looking up.
So there we were, nearly nose-to-nose on that sofa, him still insisting that he most certainly DIDN'T love me, and me telling him that I knew different. Looking back, I wish we could have played that little scene out to its logical conclusion, which, in my imagination, included at the very least a big, wet kiss with lots of tongue-action, and at the very most, maybe a little groping. After all, Dawn and Willow WERE just on the other side of the door. AND there was the issue of Little Spike and his big problem.
But real life-at least the kind of real life that's part of the package when you live on a hellmouth-got all up in my face once again. Dawn burst into the room looking terrified. She was clutching her cell-phone in her hand and I could tell she was just about to lose it.
"Buffy! She's got Ricky! DO SOMETHING, BUFFY, SHE'S GOT RICKY!!!"
"Dawn, calm down. WHO'S got Ricky?"
She looked as scared as I've ever seen her, and this was the gutsy little chick that'd faced Glory AND that little bastard Doc, and had been ready to take the plunge for the good of humanity.
She looked at me and then at Spike and then back at me and then she whispered, "Drusilla."
tbc
Author: VicNoir
Disclaimer, etc.: please see previous chapters.
A week later I was in my basement, kicking the crap out of the punching bad I'd hung there, when Dawn came barreling down the stairs and then jumped the last five feet to the floor.
"He can see!"
I knew what she was talking about, of course, but I couldn't seem to get anything off my tongue but, "Huh?"
"Spike! He can see! Well, only just light and shadows, but Willow's on the phone and she says we should get over there, so come on already!"
As I passed her, I stopped and gave her arm a squeeze. She looked at me and said, "You can't fool, me, you know. I can tell how much you care."
"I know. You're just like mom." That got me the biggest smile I'd seen in quite a while.
"Well, are you coming or not?" She raced me to the top of the stairs.
It was about eight in the evening at that point. By the time we got to the magic shop, I was pretty nervous. I mean, maybe he could see-even if just a little bit-but that didn't mean he'd want to see ME.
Willow met us at the door. I immediately went into wiggins-mode. "Um...you go ahead, Dawnie. I'll just wait here-"
The two of them grabbed me by the arms and dragged me to the back of the shop.
"Guys! Stop! You don't get it. Last time I saw him-"
"You slapped the stuffing out of him. I know." I couldn't read the expression on Will's face.
"He told you?"
"No. I saw the marks. You really whacked him good. They didn't fade for almost ten minutes. Which is like a week in vampire time."
I wanted to crawl away and die of shame-blind vamp slapper that I was.
"Buffy, you're going in there."
"No, Will, I can't-"
"You can. You're the Slayer. Summon up all that Chosen One determination that I know you've got inside of you and get on with it already. You've done harder stuff than this."
She was right, of course, but for the life of me I couldn't remember anything harder than walking through that door. But I did it. Yay, me.
He was standing with his face about six inches from the TV screen watching a soccer game when I went in. He didn't turn.
"Um...Spike?"
"Yeah?"
"What...um...what're you doing?"
"Watchin' a match on the telly, Slayer. You gone blind too?"
"You can see it?"
He turned then and squinted in my direction.
"Yeah, a little."
"I...I'm glad, Spike."
"Yeah. Thanks."
I was walking towards him before I'd made a conscious decision to move. When there were about two feet left between us I stopped. I wanted to touch him. Hell, I wanted to jump on him and knock him to the floor and cover him with kisses. I settled for just standing there, smiling like an idiot.
"Slayer?"
"I'm right in front of you."
"I know. I can just make out your shadow."
"When...?"
"When I woke up. Opened my eyes and could see shapes an' whatnot. Dark an' light. Some movement."
"That's...that's just great." My ever-spectacular vocabulary to the rescue again. "Um...Spike? Can we go sit down?"
He reached out for my hand and my heart twisted. Where did the Big Bad go? Who was this pale imitation of a master vampire? And why did I still want him so much when he wasn't even himself anymore?
I took his hand and led him to one of the sofas. I pulled him down next to me and looked into his eyes, hoping to see something that would remind me of the pain in the ass he used to be.
"Spike. Um...all I seem to be able to do is apologize to you. And I hate it-"
"Then stop doin' it, pet."
"No. I need to. I need to learn how to face my mistakes."
"That sounds like your Watcher talkin'."
"Yeah, well, Giles had this nasty habit of being right. Anyway, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
He had me there. What was a sorry for this time?
"Um...for slapping you? I mean, not my finest hour."
"Believe I had that comin', pet."
"Well, maybe. But still-"
"Forget it." His jaw had hardened and that little muscle was twitching again. How did I manage to piss him off without even trying?
"So we're OK now?"
"Yeah, Slayer. We're aces."
Well, obviously not. But it didn't look like he had any plans to share whatever was bugging him, and I was getting a headache from the tension in the room. Still, I thought I'd better give it one last shot.
So I blurted: "So when are going to get back to normal, already?" Real smooth, huh?
But when I said it, something changed in his eyes. Just for a second, there was this glint of ...something. I know, again with the stunning lack of descriptive powers.
"An' what, just exactly, is your definition of 'normal', Slayer? An' how do you propose I get back to it? An' why in the BLOODY HELL should I care what you think of me in the first place?" His voice was getting louder and his tone was getting nastier and isn't it weird that all I could do was sit there and grin from pure happiness?
"Well, first of all, 'normal' for Spike is rude and loud, which you just proved you can still do. Second, you can get back there by getting over the whole self-pity thing that you've turned into your new reason for living...er...not living...you know what I mean. And third, you should care because you're still in love with me."
He took a deep breath. Funny, how he does that. Have to ask him why sometime.
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Slayer, I am NOT in love with you."
"Since when?"
"Since...since...what soddin' difference does it make since when?"
"You're still madly in love with me, Spike. You might as well admit it."
"Am not."
"Are too."
We probably could have gone on that way for quite a while. I know I was enjoying it. And I could tell he was, too, by the way he had to fight the little smile that kept creeping up on his mouth. And by the way his eyes were burning-finally! Finally, he was beginning to look like himself again. Even his voice had changed. It got deeper and lost that scared little boy tone that it'd had so much since that awful night when I found him.
That awful night. For so long, it had been like a shadow between us. My mind kept going back to it, circling it, examining it from every angle. It was like a nightmare that didn't fade when the morning came. And that was just MY reaction to it-I couldn't even imagine how it must have haunted HIM. But right at that moment, I thought maybe we could get past it. Things were looking up.
So there we were, nearly nose-to-nose on that sofa, him still insisting that he most certainly DIDN'T love me, and me telling him that I knew different. Looking back, I wish we could have played that little scene out to its logical conclusion, which, in my imagination, included at the very least a big, wet kiss with lots of tongue-action, and at the very most, maybe a little groping. After all, Dawn and Willow WERE just on the other side of the door. AND there was the issue of Little Spike and his big problem.
But real life-at least the kind of real life that's part of the package when you live on a hellmouth-got all up in my face once again. Dawn burst into the room looking terrified. She was clutching her cell-phone in her hand and I could tell she was just about to lose it.
"Buffy! She's got Ricky! DO SOMETHING, BUFFY, SHE'S GOT RICKY!!!"
"Dawn, calm down. WHO'S got Ricky?"
She looked as scared as I've ever seen her, and this was the gutsy little chick that'd faced Glory AND that little bastard Doc, and had been ready to take the plunge for the good of humanity.
She looked at me and then at Spike and then back at me and then she whispered, "Drusilla."
tbc