Disclaimer: Joss owns everyone in this story.
Spoilers: Anything up through season 7 finale
A/N: This and the corresponding chapter in Giles' book are the hardest chapters to write, and will probably be the darkest parts of the story, the second half of season six.
Chapter 3: From Bad To Worse
As they walked from the bistro, Buffy thought about how to say what she wanted to say.
"I don't think you'll ever really understand what it was like last year, Giles. I was in the worst place I've ever been.
"It wasn't any one thing. It wasn't just losing Heaven, or losing Mom, or having to raise Dawn, or the money problems, or being the sole source of income, even though there were two other people in the house who could have worked. It wasn't just the fact that I had to work all day and all night and still do the dishes and take out the trash. It was all of it.
"And I couldn't take it out on anyone, not even the resident evil. They weren't really causing that much trouble. The biggest trouble last year came from three obnoxious humans. And I couldn't beat them up too badly, because if I did then I might kill them, and that was against the rules.
"I couldn't take it out on my friends. They needed me. And they got their feelings hurt if I got cranky with them. If I really told them how I felt, then what would happen? Besides, I couldn't actually hit them, either. But with all the pent up anger and hostility I had built up, I had to do something.
"So, who was left? Spike. My willing slave."
She shuddered.
"He told me that; the night he sang to me. And that's how I used him. My slave, my punching bag, my sex toy.
"He also called himself my 'whipping boy'. That's true, too. I remember that from history class. That's the kid in a castle who got whipped whenever the prince got in trouble, so that the prince never got whipped, right?"
Giles nodded.
"So, he was a whipping boy. He got all the beatings nobody else could take."
Buffy choked back a sob. She walked over to a park bench and sat down.
"I was so horrible to him, Giles. Every horrible thing that the guys I've slept with did to me, I did to him. Angelus used my love for Angel to suit his own purposes, but he also hated me for making him feel like a man. And I used Spike's love for me to suit my own needs, but I hated him for making me want him.
"Parker used me for sex, then treated me like I was nothing, then I did the same thing to Spike, not once, but over and over again.
"And Riley told me that my feelings for him weren't good enough. That they weren't what he needed. That I didn't love him. I told Spike that he didn't love me, wasn't capable of loving me"
She laughed bitterly.
"I kept telling him that he couldn't love me because he didn't have a soul. Even though he and Drusilla both told me that they could love without souls, I refused to believe it. After all, you and Angel told me that vampires couldn't love without their souls, and Angelus didn't love me, so of course that had to mean that all vampires were incapable of love without their souls.
"Of course, if I admitted that a soulless demon could love me, then what did that say about me. If I could do the things I did to him, if I could use his love for me that way, twist it around like that, then what did that say about me, about my soul?"
She swiped at the tears falling down her cheeks.
"And the way that I abused him. He did the same thing Dawn did. He tried to stop me from turning myself in for a murder that I didn't commit. He was even there, so he knew it was an accident. But instead of talking to him, I beat him senseless and left him lying there, in a filthy alley, unable to move.
"What kind of person does that, Giles?"
Giles just shook his head. He didn't have an answer for her.
"You know, he may have been a vampire, but I was the monster in that relationship. But, he let me do those things to him. I guess part of it was because he still thought that he was helping me, and part of it was because he was in love with me and he was willing to take me any way he could get me.
"Then after all of that, I dumped him. Riley and his perfect wife came into town and showed me what I thought I wanted, perfect little marriage, perfect little life. Then Riley found me in Spike's crypt and told me that Spike had these dangerous demon eggs that he was supposedly going to sell to some foreign power for some super army. It didn't really sound like Spike, but he did have the eggs. I didn't know what to think, I was just confused. So I decided to believe Riley. And I told Spike I couldn't love him, and that I was using him and it was killing me, then I walked out.
"But he still told me he was happy to see me happy at Xander and Anya's not-wedding. He helped Xander track down that psycho-trip demon to help my friends find a cure for me.
"He still showed up from time to time to help me on patrol. He was still around.
"But I finally pushed him too far. I accused him of spying on me and told him I didn't believe he loved me, that it was all in his mind. and I told him to find someone else. He went to ask Anya for a spell to help him get rid of his feelings for me and he ended up sleeping with her, because she was hurting, too. But, he felt bad that I found out about it. He never meant for me to find out. He wasn't trying to hurt me, or make me jealous. I mean how soulless is that? Feeling guilty because he hurt my feelings by doing exactly what I told him to do, moving on?"
She looked at Giles.
He shrugged.
"I've actually never heard of a vampire expressing guilt or remorse over anything, well except for Angel, until Spike. And he is certainly the first vampire I have ever heard of to express those emotions without a soul."
Buffy smiled despite her tears, "Yeah, well Spike always was kind of weird. But, he never just gave up, or just walked away, not until..."
She stood up, "I think I might need to be moving to tell you this next part, it's going to be tough."
She began walking as Giles kept pace beside her.
She took a deep breath.
"Okay, I don't remember everything that happened that night. I know I blocked some of it out, some of it just blurred together, but here's the story. I was in the bathroom about to take a hot bath because a vamp I'd fought had kicked me into a headstone, major bruising. Spike came in and asked if I was okay, then apologized. I pretty much threw his apology back in his face.
"Then he told me that he wasn't trying to hurt me, he wanted to make the feelings go away, and told me I should have let Xander kill him. When I told him I couldn't do that, he tried to convince me that it was because I loved him. I told him I had feelings, but didn't love him, because I couldn't trust him. He told me trust was for old marrieds, that great love burned and consumed, Then I said something about that kind of love not lasting.
"That's when he started trying to kiss me, I tried to get away, but he wouldn't let go, and we ended up on the floor. He kept telling me that he knew I loved him, that I felt it when he was inside me and I'd feel it again. I screamed at him to stop, but by then he was so far gone, I don't think he even heard me.
"I finally got some leverage and kicked him off of me; and the look on his face... Giles, I have never seen him look so horrified. He looked sick. I wouldn't let myself see it at the time, but I didn't not see it either. I don't know who was more upset that night, him or me. That's when he left, to go get his soul back."
Giles handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and clutched it in her hand, knowing that she was not yet finished with it.
"I have never bought the 'she was asking for it' defense, Giles, but I wasn't just an innocent victim either.
"For months I taught him that, if he tried to be sweet and gentle I'd just laugh at him, or punch him, unless I asked him to be sweet. If he really wanted to get me hot, violence and aggression were surefire ways to turn me on.
"I also sent him confusing mixed messages. I was usually the one who started stuff in our thing, but a few months earlier, he started something with me at The Bronze. I told him 'Don't', he said 'Stop me.' But, I didn't. I pretty much let him know that, with me at least, 'no' didn't always mean 'no'.
"I told him I didn't like him, but I still kept going back to him. I told him I didn't trust him, but I let him...do things... that proved I kind of did. I told him to find someone else, but I got hurt when he did. I kept telling him one thing, then doing something else.
"So, I can't put all the blame on Spike for what happened that night. There was so much confusion and badness last year, and alot of it came from me, so I have to share some of the blame.
"But, Spike never blamed me for any of it. He took all of it on himself. He knew that he hurt me that night. That was the one thing he didn't want to do. Even when he found out the chip didn't work on me anymore, he still didn't want to hurt me. Fight with me, yeah, but not hurt me.
"And the guilt he felt over what he almost did drove him to get his soul. He wanted to be the kind of man who would never try to do that again. He tried so hard, before and after the soul. He tried so hard to be what I wanted, what I needed. And I made it so hard for him."
She sat down on another bench, sobbing into the handkerchief.
"He forgave me for everything, Giles. He forgave me for all the beatings, all the things I said. Even before he got his soul, he never held it over my head, or used it as a weapon to hurt me when I made him angry, or let anyone know that I was the one who was hurting him.
"But when he came back, I flinched away from him every time he touched me. I used that one mistake to punish him, and I laid on the guilt for weeks.
"So, tell me, Giles, which of us was the bigger person?"
Giles sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. He didn't have an answer for her. Spike flew in the face of everything they had ever been told about vampires.
Vampires cannot love.
Vampires do not feel guilt
Vampires are incapable of feeling sympathy.
Vampires do not feel shame.
And of course, the lesson they had all learned quite well under the expert tutelage of Angelus, no vampire, under any circumstances, desires to have their soul returned.
Yet, Spike was the exception to every one of these rules.
This of course was the reason why he needed so desperately to write the final chapter of the unlife of William the Bloody.
He looked at his sobbing Slayer. He also knew that she needed to tell this story. She'd kept it to herself for far too long.
TBC
