Dru was taunting him, enticing him, cruel one moment, seemingly innocent the next. She swirled around him in a red and black cloud, her eternally young face pouting unhappily. "Spike," she said in that particularly enticing soft voice she had. "You promised me we'd dance. I wanted to dance forever, and be your princess. You said I was your queen, forever." Her face accused him as hauntingly as her words. His queen. Black goddess, he'd called her. He'd worshipped her, dark goddess…
And younger fingers, with manicured nails, dug into his skin. He gasped with pain, but gritted his teeth, refusing to scream. He wasn't allowed to talk, he couldn't talk, he deserved this pain. For everything, for Buffy, for the countless others, for the girl behind the library that night, for the motel room, for the bus driver, the million others, and he remembered every one of them. One stood out above the rest, though, and the arm inside his gut led to a different girl suddenly, face not so cruel, but more painful to him.
She stared at him in horror from across the harsh white tile. He stared back, shoulder throbbing from where she'd thrown him against the shelves. He didn't care, his own horror was so great. He reached for her in apology, and she shrank back in fear, fear that repulsed him more than any harsh words, no matter how degrading. "Buffy," he whispered, eyes tearing in sorrow. Slayer. It was her job. So why hadn't she done it? He wanted it, now. Wanted it to all go away, the guilt, the hurt, the voices, the madness, the dark. He was so tired of the dark, where everything shifted constantly, just to attack him again, where he was cold, always cold… He couldn't remember ever being warm. He shivered, looking up at her.
"I'm cold."
"You're dead," she informed him in that no-nonsense manner. "You can't feel cold."
They watched her walking down the street, sunlight spilling generously down on her and her friends, Willow and Xander. It was warm, and inviting, and he knew without question that he didn't belong there, and it hurt.
"She's wrong," he remarked quietly to Spike, dark eyes taking it all in, and letting nothing out in return. "It's very cold, living in the dark. She doesn't understand that, or that she's the one who takes that away. She is the light, don't you see?"
Spike looked at him questioningly. "Why did you leave?"
Angel shrugged, looking away again. "I couldn't laugh. And she couldn't laugh when she was with me. I couldn't stand to see her light go out." He turned back urgently, kneeling beside the wheelchair. "Can you?"
Spike opened his mouth to reply, but Angel cut him off, eyes flaring gold as his vampyric face slid into place. He grinned, points glistening. "I forgot. They won't let you out yet."
He stepped out of the cage room, leaving Spike locked in the sterile, white horror. Angel stepped towards Buffy, while Dawn looked on. He saw the hair being brushed off her neck, and he hurled himself at the front wall, screaming in protest, but she jumped and fell anyway, and fell, and fell, and then there was a surge of power like nothing he'd ever felt before, except he had, three times now:
Dru, in the alley, when she sucked the life from him and replaced it with something infinitely more powerful…
Buffy, when she fell from the tower, and closed the portal with a life freely given, a Slayer's life, a power so great…
The demon in the cave, where everything he'd known suddenly changed, forever, and he felt something incredible enter him, and it was a force so huge, but then the force disappeared, leaving behind only pain, and it hurt, it hurt horribly, it hurt…