In pursuit of William

Part 2: Her life has changed`

Fanfiction by dutchbuffy2305

Rating: R

Timeline: S6, autumn 2001, during Bargaining and after Gone

Summary: Lydia has not been able to forget her interview with a vampire

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"Will you, Lydia Frances Chalmers, have this man as your lawful wedded husband, to live together in the estate of matrimony? Will you love him, honour him, comfort him, and keep him in sickness and in health; forsaking all others, be true to him as long as you both shall live?

"I will."

"Do you, William…"

At that point, I always woke up. Even in dreams, my mind insisted on accuracy, and unfortunately, I still hadn't been able to discover his last name. Even assuming he'd been turned in London, on the date he'd mentioned in our 'interview', there was no way I could sift him out of the thousands of Williams born around the correct date.

I rose, bathed, and put on my Council 'disguise'. That's how I thought these days about my tweed suit, neat blouse and pumps, and my schoolmistressy hairstyle. Once I'd thought I looked professional and smart, every inch the career woman, but as so many things in my life, that had never been the same after the one fateful night in Sunnydale. I smoothed on make-up, with extra care for the suck marks. It wouldn't do to let on to the Council stuffed shirts about my, um , alternative lifestyle. Fortunately, they were not the kind of people who questioned the wearing of turtlenecks and prissy little shawls, even in the hottest weather – which would happen about twice in my lifetime.

Back in my bedroom, as I was putting in my pearl studs, there was a faint scrabbling at the door. With a sigh, I opened it. Sanjev, my resident vampire, stood in the door opening, knowing very well he would never be invited in, and begged me for a little drink in his whiny, pathetic voice. For the thousandth time I wondered why I'd ever taken the little wimp in. Surely the last bit of loyalty to my deceased friend had long been paid off? Sanjev posture was abject and humble, waiting patiently for me to offer my arm.

"Alright, then, " I said, " A few sips, no more. I need my strength for work today."

Even Sanjev, disgusting little creep that he has become, can give quite a thrill if you're not an utter junkie. I'd so far managed to steer clear of that dangerous edge, though.

"No customers last night, Sanjie?"

He shook his head, his fangs clamped to my inside elbow. You have to look at least a little bit appetizing if you want to lure the sucky crowd, and he no longer seems to care. I'm sure he would be long dead if I hadn't taken him in (well…dust, of course), and I no longer knew why I had done so. Every trace of Sarita's sweet little brother had been erased over the past half year. Apart from the usual irritation of living with someone uncongenial, there was the fact that his deterioration denied every theory of personality retention in vampires, which I'd been staking my academic reputation on.

I shook him off abruptly and headed for the kitchen. My own behaviour towards him worries me also. The less human he becomes, the more I treat him like an annoying pet. And if you treat someone badly, what chance do they have to become better? I forced myself to eat a hearty breakfast. My work, the strenuous research I do in my off hours, and the occasional sucking really taxes my strength. Even so I've kept up my exercise, don't smoke, don't drink, all for the cause.

My goal today was to enter the secret archives of the council once again, and try to find more material on vampires in general and William the Bloody in particular. Because of the clandestine nature of my visit, I had no access to the indexes, which were kept by some obscure mediaeval principle. This meant that the alphabet, and subject matter, which would lead you to the right stuff in every normal library, was no help here at all. So all I could do was sneak in, photograph everything I could lay my hands on, study the layout at home and get back again. I'd discovered a Necronomicon (Abdul AlHazred), worth millions to the right people, but not what I was after.

I entered my office and set up my false work for the day. As soon as I had put in a satisfactory fake outline on my computer, I rerouted my calls, and snuck out the back stairways to the library building. I struck lucky for once. The diaries of the London watcher during the late seventies and early eighties of the nineteenth century, when a nearly certain sojourn of the Angelus-Darla gang had been visited on London. Priceless stuff. The volumes were small enough that I could carry three of them in my voluminous purse.

I put them away in my drawer, and decided to reward myself with some caffeine. And who did I run into but Mr.Rupert Giles! I had to reintroduce myself, something which happens to me often, and which deeply disappointed me in this man. He was more attractive than I remembered, even if getting a little heavier around the middle. I reminded him again whom I had written my thesis on, and asked him to give me some of his time to interview him on William the Bloody, who still resided in Sunnydale as far as we knew. He granted me that with very little hesitation, and we set a date for the same evening.

It was agony to do my regular stuffy kind of work all day, adding data on vampire sightings in our database. One more reason to withhold my loyalty from the council! Letting a Ph. D. do data entry work, just because she is a woman. They'd be sorry one day!

After work, I made a little detour to Camden Market to see if the nest of vampires I'd spotted there last weekend was still in residence. The moment I came out of the underground I spotted the first one, mingling unnoticed among the crowds of stallholders and shoppers on their way home. I couldn't resist following him. He snuck down the stairs and jumped on a train. I kept on his tail, as they say in the U.S. He got off at Earl's Court, and took the stairs, which were not open to the public, as the lifts were working for a change. These are really endless and pretty gloomy, so I hesitated before following him. I ventured down a few dozen steps, but the underground smell wafting up – a peculiar mixture of diesel, coal, and mummified mice – and the deepening gloom made me hesitate. I could hear no more footsteps when I stood there listening, and knowing vamp hearing is much better than mine, not to mention their strength and speed, I decided to call it a day. This was too risky to do solo. He might easily have spotted me. I hurried home to my appointment with Mr. Giles.

He was waiting for me already, quite impatiently I noticed. I watched him cross the threshold uninvited (you get quite paranoid when working with vampires) and offered him a cup of tea. He graciously accepted and I showed him in the living room. He made a startled move backwards when he spotted the statue.

"Um, what a wonderful piece of art you have there, Miss Chalmers. Quite large for living room, though?"

I patted the Apollo's plaster bum affectionately. "It came this size, and it reminds me of a friend, though not in all particulars."

He looked a bit mystified. I put him in the visitor's chair, so he needn't stare at the Apollo continually. I have noticed it tends to put male visitors out, can't imagine why. The abs are smashing of course, but it's really not well endowed or anything.

I made tea and settled myself with a notebook in my lap.

"Are you alright, Mr. Giles? You look a little distracted?" A British euphemism for bloody awful, you know.

"It's somewhat unsettling, to say the least, to leave a place where one has lived for five years." He looked into his tea.

Enough with the preliminaries. It wasn't his personal feelings I was interested in.

"I understand the vampire William the Bloody is still a resident of Sunnydale?"

He looked startled, and, yes, amused as well. "William the …? Yes, indeed. Spike."

"Could you tell me a little more of your association with him?" I prodded gently. I thought of throwing in the Scotch, as he didn't seem inclined to chat. I should perhaps have taken him into the pub, instead of to my home. No British man is quite at easy in the home of a woman he isn't related or married to.

"Spike? Ha. Were you aware of his chipped state? Made him an occasionally useful tool, you know. And since…since the defeat of the Hell god Glory he's been of some assistance in our usual patrol. He baby-sits the Slayer's sister as well, and…."

My mind boggled. Babysitting? My dark hero babysitting? He must be joking. I said as much. He shook himself a little and with a sort of pinched smile admitted he'd been joking. He and the Slayer kept a professional wary eye on the vampire, who seemed harmless, and used him for muscle.

"Does he have relations with female vamps?"

Mr. Giles stared at me, gob smacked. Again. "Relations with what? Why the hell would I care? As long as he doesn't kill he can do anything he pleases to the lady vamps or any demons of whatever sex! Why ask?"

I thought he protesteth too much. Why? I've become quite an experienced interviewer, and one gets to notice these little discrepancies between words and delivery. Something there.

"I imagine you are aware of the theory I defend in my thesis? That there is significant personality retention in vampires? All know data on Mr. Bloody indicate that he retains many human traits, which make him an interesting subject. There are not that many Master Vampires we have actual continuous contact with."

"I still don't see why…" he began. "As far as we know vampires are promiscuous and omni sexual. What would it add to know that Spike is too?"

I was quite sure William was no such thing, but managed to control the sharp retort that sprung to my lips.

"Perhaps, " I ventured, " You could fill in a questionnaire on the subject? Since you have so much experience with him? I myself only interviewed him once, and…"

He guffawed. " Interviewed? Yes, he mentioned that. You asked him six questions, with three crosses and a crossbow trained on him. Quite amused him."

It gave me an incredible thrill to hear my Spike talked about as a human being, instead of a monster and a thing. I knew I was right!

"Um, no, " I said, ready to trust him a little further. "He visited me in my motel room, and was willing to answer several more questions. Perhaps you can conform some off the answers?"

His eyebrows rose. "He visited you? Most peculiar. And you invited a vampire in?  Were you feeling suicidal or what?"

"He was quite…gentlemanly," I said stiffly. He didn't seem to have quite the kind of insights I was looking for. And apparently, William had never mentioned our little talk. Either he was a gentleman, or it didn't mean a lot to him.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, I got out my questionnaire. Mr. Giles could confirm many of the facts Spike himself had given me, and add a few more. The initial reason for his coming to Sunnydale had been Drusilla's weakness; Angelus had gained a soul and then lost it again, apparently. It all ran together in apocalypse after apocalypse, and I wrote it down as fast as I could, to make sense of later. Still, I got a feeling of omissions in his story of those last years.

Somehow, Spike had gotten a 'chip' implanted in his head, an electronic device that prevented him from harming humans – that was news to me. I realized I hadn't been in as much danger as I thought in the motel, and that the few times he'd hurt me he'd gotten hurt himself. My poor noble warrior! Still, that wouldn't keep him from creating havoc by proxy, but somehow he'd stopped with that. Mr. Giles was curiously hesitant as to why. He skirted around the question, tried to divert me off that topic, and it only made me more curious. I had even gotten out my best scotch and was about to pour us a drink, when the phone rang.

I answered. It was Miss Rosenberg, asking for Mr. Giles. How had she managed to trace him here? I handed the phone to him, and actually saw him blanch after a few seconds, and then colour up again in a brick red flush. He had to sit down and his hands shook. He almost looked as if he was going to cry. I started liking him again, and gave him the scotch anyway, although all hopes of further pumping had fled. He tossed it down and said in a brittle voice that he really had to leave, and would give me a call soon. When he passed my statue again he threw a very thorough look at the face, then at me again, but obviously decided to give it a miss.

My heart pounded in my breast. Could he possible have noticed the likeness? Having him in my house had been a mistake. Definitely the pub next time. No use him latching on to notions on his own, prematurely. I'd tell him about my real purpose when he got back.

********

Who'd have thought I'd have had to wait half a year to see Rupert Giles again? Mr. Travers had been the one to tell me he'd gone back to Sunnydale, called back for an emergency he said. Mr. Travers, as usual, chose the most unsuitable moment to tell me this, as I was having a spat with Aubrey Wyndham-Price, in front of my room, and so couldn't really press him for more details. I'd made the mistake of going out with the Dishonourable Aubrey once, and after that I almost could appreciate Wesley, his unfortunate younger brother. He always was a prissy little swot, but at least sincere, something that can't be said for the oily elder brother. Clammy, groping hands, and an ego that didn't match the rest of his physique.

Then, of course, I ran into Mr. Giles at a moment I wasn't prepared for it at all. I was done up for an evening out with my new friends, in leather and black corset, heavy make-up, breast pushed up to here and almost no skirt. The New Lydia. Needless to say, he didn't recognize me, again, but this time I forgave him more readily, for he was looking quite different himself. Jeans, faded T-shirt, earring…He seemed fairly pissed and exuded an indefinable kind of moody danger. I know myself well enough to realize that's why I stepped up to him. I thought pumping him might gain me more than the thrills my so-called friends had to offer me that night. I could go to a vamp-brothel any time, after all.

Rupert Giles was nothing if not direct when he finally recognized me. "For God's sake, girl, what are you up to? Having a party with bleeding vampire groupies or what?"

"All for the sake of research, Mr. Giles, "I retorted huffily. "This gets me a lot of first-hand experience."

He stared hard at the suck-marks in my neck, which were left uncovered for this outing." I can see that," he said sharply. "Don't tell me you were a groupie last year in Sunnydale? You seem to have changed quite a bit since then!"

I wasn't used to being challenged that directly. Points for perspicacity. "I suppose I have," I admitted. "I had what you might call a life-changing experience, and it made me evaluate a lot of things I took for granted."

"Like what? A car accident? A nearly fatal encounter with a vampire?"

"Something like the latter," I said cautiously.

We sat down in the sleazy pub he'd been going into, full of marihuana smoke and ancient rock music. He ordered us both a pint of lager.

"Your thesis was quite interesting," he said abruptly after he'd drank down half his pint. "In my association with vampires I've recently started to think along the same lines. However, I can only find two good examples of personality retention. All the others aren't worth thinking about. The one was a souled vampire, Angel, the former Angelus; the other the chipped vampire Spike."

I felt a little thrill when His name was mentioned. "I wish I could read your Watcher's diaries, Mr. Giles! Your day-to-day observations must contain such fascinating material on these vampires! Years of association with them, you are so lucky."

"Call me Rupert, love," he said. "Lucky? Angelus killed someone very dear to me, when he temporarily lost his soul. I didn't count myself lucky then!"

"And Spike? Would you say he might have the same personality now as when he was human?"

"I realize, my dear girl, that I'm a little older than you, but I certainly wasn't around when William was turned!"  Was he flirting?

"I know that," I said, placating him. "But does he still have Victorian personality traits? Speech patterns?"

He burst out laughing. "Hardly! He talks like an irritating young North London punk, as you must have heard. I couldn't say if he always was a London boy, he's so contemporary in everything. Watches telly, has seen movies, eats and drinks like a human being, smokes…"

This was manna to my ears. It confirmed what I was theorizing.

"I think he must have quite some education, as well," Rupert was saying. "He once quoted Shakespeare at me, you know. Speaks a lot of demonic languages, knows a bit about magic…"

I latched onto Shakespeare. "What level of education? Mid-level? University?"

Rupert shrugged. "Couldn't say. What are you going to do? Search entrance lists for schools and universities for Williams?" he said mockingly.

Yes. That was exactly what I was planning. I could see he was unresponsive and kept it to myself.

"Does he ever talk about his liaison with Drusilla? Reports have it that he was with her for more than a century?"

He flinched. "Well, indeed, Drusilla visited Sunnydale last year. Had a bad influence on Spike. However, he has since proved a valuable ally. In spite of his unhealthy obsession with…." He trailed off, clearly sorry about what he'd almost let slip. I remembered my feelings about something off in our talk in September.

I circled the subject and tried another angle. "Where would you say his loyalties lie?"

"To the Slayer, unquestionably. He saved her life, recently, and ours too, many times." In the motel room, Spike had been trying to get me to reveal information about the Slayer. At the time, I'd thought it was to harm her, and said as little as I could under the circumstances. Now what Rupert said might indicate he'd been trying to help or protect her?

"Why would he be loyal to the Slayer?" I asked, quite tersely. I was starting to feel an irrational jealousy for the uneducated bossy little thing.

Rupert looked at me for a while but said nothing at first. When he answered it seemed obvious he was thinking out loud. Or making it up?

"Since his chip he's been feeling a lack of purpose, I suppose. His raison d'être as a vampire has been taken away; he subsists on pig's blood instead of human. I suppose he felt a need for a cause. He has a craving for violence that serves us well in our fights with evil."

"So, he joined the team to serve the forces of good? On purpose? How unusual for a vampire!"  Inside I was bursting with pride. How like him, to defeat all expectations and go where no vampire has gone before!

"What do you think, Rupert? If a person was good, or even noble, wouldn't they still be that after they were vamped?"

"Never seen any evidence of that! " he said.

"But we might not see this, you know. Most people are mediocre, not good or evil, simply not much of anything. The same might hold for them when vampires. The law of averages dictates that very few extraordinary people would be vamped, because there aren't many to begin with."

"I suppose."

"I've talked to a lot of vampires about their former existence. Some of them want it back, usually the happy or successful ones, others love the vampire existence. My guess is they were losers in real life."

"Fascinating, but hard to prove, I'd say."

I told him some of it. "I'm following individual vampires, getting to know them. Trying to discover if there are patterns in their behaviour, looking for personality retention and change over time. Of course I've only just started, so my research population is fairly small.

"You do this in their wild state? So to speak?"

"I try. Too bad I can't catch them and put a little tube around their legs, tag them like pigeons, but I do try to mark them. Describe nests, fledgling, family lines…Research on vampires so far has been so unscientific, the only thing they wanted to know what kills them and how quick!"

"You should hook up with the Initiative, they'd probably have the resources to mark hundreds of vampires, shoot chips in their backs…" Rupert said idly, not really meaning it.

I could have gone on for hours on my subject, but I could see he wasn't really listening, but sinking away into alcoholic stupor, and staring at my cleavage fixedly. I happen to be quite proud of my breasts, and am not above flaunting them for the sake of research, but this behaviour from a fellow academic irked me. I decided to rejoin my friends.

Half an hour later I lay reclined upon the filthy velvet cushions in one of the suck-house's private rooms, being fucked and sucked simultaneously by a vampire, feeling both incredible pleasure and deep disappointment. I'd even tried two vampires at a time, but nothing had ever rivalled my experience in Sunnydale yet. William the Bloody had changed my life forever, and probably didn't even remember me. If I closed my eyes I could try imagining it was him doing me, but smell, sound and feel all gainsaid it and it was too hard to sustain the fantasy. I did better at that at home, alone.

******

The next morning I was neither professionally dressed nor dressed up in the Time Out sense; in short, I was still lolling on the sofa in my dressing gown, when the doorbell rang. I had progressed so far in my carefulness that I put on a chain before opening it, like a heroine in an American thriller. It was Mr. Giles; truly Mr. Giles, not Rupert, in a proper tweed suit and tie. I opened up for him, feeling quite caught out in my slovenly getup.

The last thing I expected were the two thickset henchmen that followed him in, and the tall woman in a hippie chic kind of dress. I must have gaped, because Mr. Giles took me by the arm and steered me into the kitchen.

"Listen, my dear girl," he said quietly but forcefully, "I was quite shocked by what I saw last night. I really think you could do a little vacation form your research. Griselda over there will take you in for a couple of weeks and help you overcome any unfortunate tendencies you might have picked up."

I was livid. Of all the patronizing, high-handed…

"No! " I cried, wrenching myself loose. "You can't do that! When I come back they'll all be new vampires , and I won't know who sired them and what killed them...please, Rupert, my research must continue!"

"I believe you are overwrought. I don't know what happened to you, and perhaps I don't wish to know, but you seem somehow cast loose from those solid moorings I believe you had. A strong council family, a good upbringing should give you strength to return to what you once were."

I started to sob and beg, although my rational mind told me that it was the last thing that would work on a man. They think 'hysterical woman' and shut themselves off to anything you might have to say.

To no avail. And three days later, there I was in Devon, in Griselda's little retreat, scrubbed clean, no alcohol, no caffeine, no telly, no reading. I could meditate, do little jobs around the estate or take brisk walks. What fun. How terribly healthy.

They had very odd ideas about clothes as well. No more naughty underwear for Lydia underneath staid tweeds. Can you imagine, no buttons, no zippers, no bra-fastenings, and no elastic? Drawstrings were about the only tings permitted. I mentioned Velcro once, but only got huffy stares. So we all flopped and wobbled around in our sack-like dresses of unbleached linen and hand-dyed wool. I longed for Marks and Sparks like never before.

There probably was some non-trivial reason for this in Wiccan lore, but I couldn't be bothered. What would it be, knots and bindings interrupting the natural flow of energy or something? Never had any talent for or interest in witchcraft, it was always the supernatural creatures for me. Werewolves, vampires, dragons, giant snakes…

However, albeit reluctantly, I did start to feel different after a few weeks, god knows why. Mostly, I think, the sensible woman-to-woman talks I had with Griselda and Imogen. They might have been witches, I have no idea, but anyway they were wonderful motherly women, with a wealth of worldly experience, and completely unshockable. They needed to be, because I came clean about everything that I had felt and done over the past year. They were extremely interested in my Sunnydale experience. It was difficult for them to understand what exactly made that experience with Spike so pivotal. Was it the sex? Had it been a deliberate mindfuck? I couldn't see how he might have benefited from it, and neither could they, but to a Master Vampire it might be sheer habit to enthral a human being.

The consensus they reached was a very simple and humiliating one. In that one half hour, I had become completely enthralled by the pretty vampire. I had then proceeded to redirect my work and goal in life around that one assumption: that because I loved him, he must be good. Ergo, all vampires must have the potential for good. I still thought that researching my hypothesis was a very worthwhile goal, but I could now see that I had gone about it in a very irresponsible manner. My hypothesis was solid, and I should certainly go on working at it, but not alone.

Mr. Giles came to visit me. He became Rupert to me again. We took long walks around the countryside, and even took me to a pub. I talked to him about the thrall. Even now that I had identified it intellectually, I could still feel it. He seemed quite surprised by my tale; apparently, in his association with William there had never been evidence of thrall. But then, he didn't know William was capable of flying either! He tried to argue that William might have been lying on all counts, but that seemed unlikely to me. Many of the facts gleaned in the interview correlated with known information or his own knowledge, after all.

After a long session with Griselda, to which I was not invited, I was allowed to go back to London and my work. I was quite dreading facing my colleagues again, but Rupert assured me they knew nothing. Sanjev was gone, of course. Rupert had performed a disinvite spell on my flat, so he'd had to fend for himself. I tried half-heartedly to find him, but had no luck. Well, to be quite honest, I didn't miss him.

I got to see quite a bit of Rupert. He seems to be a rising star in the Council now. Mr. Travers and the old guard must be losing ground. He helped me set up a research program in liaison with the University of Bristol, department of Life Studies. Yes, unprecedented, I know, but they have of course a vast amount of experience and a whole methodology of studying wild creatures. It was huge fun to show the Fellow around some of my former haunts – the poor man was never so scared in his life, I'm convinced, although he seems to be quite renowned for his work on lions.

Rupert is really a very charming man, I had begun to realize in Devon, and what can I say? Our relationship progressed in a very satisfactory way. He often does not wear tweed, and is quite a good and considerate lover, although I must admit I still dream of those smooth marble white abs and gorgeous cheekbones. And the huge penis. I don't tell Rupert that, of course. It would only hurt his feelings.

I know this is an interlude in my life. I will find evidence on the redemption of vampires, or lacking that, what makes William the Bloody so unique. I need that knowledge before I face him again. And I will. I think of myself now as working undercover. Everything I say and do must be above reproach and innocuous. My true goal is covered with layers and layers of quite innovative research, even if I say so myself, and I don't think anyone in the Council is equipped to see through it. Not even Rupert.

The statue had to go of course. I put it in storage. Its time would come….