Title: Principal Wood And The Manifest Spirits Of Sunnydale High

Author: mispel

E-mail: mispel@email.com

Rating: PG

Summary: How the 'zombies' came to haunt the school and Spike and Wood's involvement in their appearance. Ch 7: Wood can't catch a break. Spike relives the past. Buffy sees Spike. Xander goes on a guilt trip.

Spoilers: season 7

Disclaimer: I own none of it. Joss, ME and Fox own all

Feedback: Any comments would be welcome.

A/N: In my little version of the BtVS universe, the AR did not happen. That's why Spike is not appearing in this fic as a pile of dust. Instead, Spike attacked Buffy and bit her, as vampires do from time to time.

Scenes that are not in the fic happened as they did on the show. The timeline is a tiny bit different.

Principal Wood And The Manifest Spirits Of Sunnydale High

Chapter 7

When Xander arrived at the meeting, he couldn't help but glance guiltily at the office where the plans were kept. He knew it would take them a while to notice the theft but he still worried. He really didn't want to get fired. He planned to get them back in place before that.

Seeing the students streaming into the school, Xander had tried to distinguish Dawn from the rest, but couldn't. There were too many kids to count. Except for Dawn, they were all strangers. But he knew their nervous first day stomachs. How their eyes were extra open trying to take in all the new faces, trying to pick out future friends from the crowd. Now they were all packed in there worrying about how they looked and if they would get homework the first day. Not about demons that could be sizing them up for ritual disemboweling at that very moment. Getting fired just didn't seem as important when he thought about things like that.

One of the other suits at the meeting had been saying something and Xander hoped it wasn't anything important because he wasn't listening.

Spike's head ached where he had been hitting it against the wall. He felt closed in. The darkness around him seemed dense, like he could touch it. But he didn't want to. He just sat still trying to take up as little space as possible.

Spike never knew when it would happen. Like a lost pin, hiding in the dark, waiting to stick him. It was the worst of all his visions. Always the same, never varying from the way it happened. Spike saw himself stalking toward her house, lightheaded from drink and his daring plan.

The plan wasn't new and it wasn't set in stone. Maybe she would finally look at him and see him. But if she didn't he knew a way to open her eyes.

Spike saw his other self, but to him Spike was not even a shadow as he tried to run after him and stop him. He couldn't move him. But he heard every though as if it came from a gramophone, a scratchy record playing over and over again.

She didn't understand that every good deed was a bloody miracle. All in her name. She didn't get it. But she would. She couldn't know him as she was. So judgmental, holding herself so far above him. It was all that light, it was blinding her. If he pulled her into the darkness, then she could see him. He would stand out better. He would give her new eyes to see him with.

Spike tried to tell him it wouldn't work but his voice wasn't even a whisper.

But part of him just wanted her blood and nothing more. The only person he could bite and he was holding himself back. And she didn't even appreciate it. He hoped she would be the same as always and reject him. So he could finally sink his fangs into her. How much better it would be if that was all there was to him. If that was all he wanted.

Spike was tethered to his old self. Walking behind like a dog, following every step he had once taken. Her house loomed in the dark and he tried to hold back. But he was pulled inside mercilessly and made to watch.

Worst of all was the taste of her blood when he bit her. That always brought him out of it, sitting helplessly in the basement as the past played on and on.

Principal Wood waited until the halls were clear then went to search the remaining restrooms. Only to find Buffy Summers wandering the halls. Her suspicion was obvious, so he told her a little bit of the truth. He had read her file. He just didn't tell her which one.

He was tempted to ask for her help. But maybe he didn't need it. He was so close. One more step and it would be over.

Wood was relieved when she got a strange phone call and scampered off. But when he got to the next ladies' room, he found her going there in front of him.

"Damn it."

After jumping trough the hole and a frantic search through the basement, Buffy was standing at the door that hadn't seemed to be there before. The zombie things wanted to keep her away from it and Buffy wanted to believe that she had found Dawn. When she opened the door she saw him instead. She thought he might be one of them. Or maybe hoped. But she knew better than that.

"You came back?" Buffy asked with disbelief, but no real surprise. She knew he had the nerve to show up again.

For a moment after seeing Spike, Buffy forgot about the zombies until a pipe hit her on the back. She fought them then decided to regroup. She got into the room with Spike. He cringed away from her and talked nonsense.

"You should not have come back," she told him just in case he didn't know where they stood with each other now.

Buffy didn't know what to do. Though her whole body was tense at the memory of the attack, she didn't have time for him. And he was acting crazy. She saw that his chest was cut up. What he said told her he had done it himself. She pushed aside his shirt for a better look. The cuts were already mostly healed. They had been deep. But what did that mean to a vampire?

"What is this? Is this supposed to convince me of something? Try harder," she bit out the words.

His expression had been bland, now his face twisted.

"I know. But I lost the knife," he lamented sounding like a child about to cry.

Buffy shook her head. It had to be an act. It just didn't seem like him. And it didn't matter. He didn't rate. She had to find Dawn.

"What do you know about those things?"

He mumbled something, it didn't sound relevant so she got closer and almost yelled.

"The zombies. What do you know?"

Her phone rang again and she was so relived to hear Dawn's voice.

Wood had waited outside the restroom for a while, keeping away from the door so he wouldn't look like a pervert. Buffy didn't come out. Realizing that the ghouls might have gotten her, he rushes in.

"Buffy!"

She wasn't there. Just as he spotted the talisman on the counter, a figure rushed at him from a corner.

"You aren't supposed to be here! This is the ladies room!" Ms. Calander screamed as she pushed him out the door.

He landed outside. Looking up, he saw Ms. Calander, her hair falling forward so he couldn't see her face.

"So rude," she said and was gone.

Snyder and Flutie appeared in front of him.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, you perv," Snyder scolded him.

"That is not appropriate behavior. Your presence in the little girl's room could be misconstrued..."

"Oh, shut up!" Wood told them as he got up.

He then tried to barrel past them into the ladies room. It didn't work - they caught him. Then more of them appeared. They all pulled at him, in every direction as if trying to rip him apart. Then they were gone. Wood was out of breath as a janitor pushed his cart past him. He realized that the man's appearance probably saved his life. In the struggle he had been shoved just down the hall from the ladies' room, but the janitor busied himself right there. Not wanting to look even more suspicious, Wood walked away planning to come back once the janitor was gone.

Spike looked at her. She had been different. So angry. Almost fooled him. She had asking him something. But he wasn't being helpful and she got even more angry.

"If you know anything and you're not telling me, if your insane act gets Dawn killed..."

Spike heard a noise that came out of his chest - it sounded like a small animal was trapped in there.

Then she was talking on the phone. There was never a phone before. Maybe this time it was really her. He wanted to claw out his eyes so they would stop fooling him.

Spike heard his voice say something that sounded far away. Like someone in another dark room talking. Someone who was sane. He told her things, about the talisman. Things he had figured out. He wanted to tell her more but the voice got farther away and after a while Spike couldn't hear it.

Then it didn't matter if she was real, because she was gone.

Xander got a lot of phone calls during the day. He answered his cell phone casually, only half listening. Until he recognized Buffy's voice speaking very quickly. Closing the other ear so he could hear better, he moved away from the noisy work and listened closely.

He was already walking to the school briskly, trying to picture the location of the bathroom she was describing. Once she hung up he started to run. It wasn't his nightmare, but he still felt like his fears about the school were coming in ahead of schedule.

Xander ran through the front doors, slowing down only a little when he went past a stern looking staff member. Hoping to keep her off his back with a hurried "official construction business", he rushed away.

"You didn't tell us we would die."

It was a chorus of voices, sounding rough as if coming from long unused throats. Xander was faced with a large group of dead looking kids. He recognized a lot of faces. Larry at the front. They were the kids from the Mayor's ascension he had recruited to fight.

"Actually I'm pretty sure I mentioned that was one of the possible side effects," Xander said as he started to walk backwards.

They just stood there as if they were a mute accusation. Many of them had ripped out throats, broken limbs. One of them was missing the top of his head. Xander wondered how that had happened as he ran back and took another corridor. He found them again popping up in his way one at a time. Rushing past them, he took a few hits from each and got shoved to the floor. But he had no time to reminisce about the good old days. He got up and tried to keep them off him. In his haste, he almost went right past the bathroom. For a moment, he mistook the janitor for one of the dead guys. But then he realized it was just that the man's not so good looks fell on the rugged side. Repeating his "official construction business" mantra to the janitor, Xander went into the forbidden and mysterious realm of the ladies' room.

to be continued