Title: Return
Author: Ivytree
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Like I could create these guys.
All characters belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, Mutant Enemy, etc.
Distribution: OK, but let me know.
Feedback: Please!
Summary: A Spike-centric alternative ending (which you can bet will never happen) for Ep. 22 of this season, incorporating many (though not all) recent spoilers. The end of BtVs, and the beginning of The Spike Show.
SOME SPOILERS
-------------------------------------------------------------
RETURN
Part 4. Things That Be to Things That Seem
A bottle was produced (from Giles suitcase) and two glasses of excellent whisky poured, without ice. Spike and Giles, in gentlemanly silence, took several appreciative swallows. Buffy gritted her teeth. She didn't want whisky. She wanted information.
"So you are -- ?" Giles said at last, cleaning his glasses furiously. He yearned for reference materials and his notebook.
"He's what, already?" she said testily.
"The First Watcher."
"What!?"
"Spike contains the, ah, soul of the First Watcher," said Giles.
"Not just the First, Rupert," Spike said gravely. "All of 'em."
"What!?" Giles and Buffy exclaimed together.
"Not all of them, surely?" Giles said, incredulously. "That would be well over a thousand!"
Spike sighed.
"Okay, maybe not quite all. More like half. Look, here's what happened. The short version. I got a tip from -- from a friend, so I went over there to get the chip out. For various reasons. I met up with the blokes I was put on to, they set me some tests -- and that's a whole other story. Passed the tests, and got a reward -- my choice. When I told 'em what I wanted, they offered me this as a way to get it."
"It's s legendary event described in ancient texts of the Council of Watchers," Giles said pedantically, giving Spike a curious look, "called 'Thisavrizo.' I've heard of it -- vaguely -- but I thought it was metaphorical. I never dreamed it was truly possible."
"What does it mean, exactly?"
All at once Spike changed. He sat differently; he spoke differently. Buffy and Giles both noticed the queer, feathery echoes in his voice. "I share my body with the other Watchers, the ones who are gone. I have their knowledge and skills, their experience fighting the foe. And their memories," he said.
"So there's like this big Watcher-soul repository -- in Ethiopia?" said Buffy, frankly skeptical.
"I don't think Spike was actually in Ethiopia for long, Buffy," Giles explained gently. "Or anywhere on this plane of existence."
"Oh," she said faintly.
The altered Spike went on. "Any Watcher can join us when his time comes. Each one decides; some remain, some leave this world for good. They do not leave entire souls, but fragments chosen to aid you."
"To aid us?"
Spike turned to Buffy. "To aid you," he said. Suddenly he changed again, and looked much less sure of himself. He took a large swallow of whisky. "See, that was my reward, Slayer."
Buffy leaned forward, and touched the back of his hand. "What was?" she said.
He met her eyes. "I asked them to let me help you," he said simply. "That's what they offered. The souls of the Watchers."
TBC
-------------------------------------------------
"Sweet the genesis of things,
Of tendency through endless ages,
Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages,
Of rounded worlds, of space and time,
Of the old flood's subsiding slime,
Of chemic matter, force and form,
Of poles and powers, cold, wet and warm:
The rushing metamorphosis
Dissolving all that fixture is,
Melts things that be to things that seem,
And solid nature to a dream."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Undersong
Author: Ivytree
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Like I could create these guys.
All characters belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, Mutant Enemy, etc.
Distribution: OK, but let me know.
Feedback: Please!
Summary: A Spike-centric alternative ending (which you can bet will never happen) for Ep. 22 of this season, incorporating many (though not all) recent spoilers. The end of BtVs, and the beginning of The Spike Show.
SOME SPOILERS
-------------------------------------------------------------
RETURN
Part 4. Things That Be to Things That Seem
A bottle was produced (from Giles suitcase) and two glasses of excellent whisky poured, without ice. Spike and Giles, in gentlemanly silence, took several appreciative swallows. Buffy gritted her teeth. She didn't want whisky. She wanted information.
"So you are -- ?" Giles said at last, cleaning his glasses furiously. He yearned for reference materials and his notebook.
"He's what, already?" she said testily.
"The First Watcher."
"What!?"
"Spike contains the, ah, soul of the First Watcher," said Giles.
"Not just the First, Rupert," Spike said gravely. "All of 'em."
"What!?" Giles and Buffy exclaimed together.
"Not all of them, surely?" Giles said, incredulously. "That would be well over a thousand!"
Spike sighed.
"Okay, maybe not quite all. More like half. Look, here's what happened. The short version. I got a tip from -- from a friend, so I went over there to get the chip out. For various reasons. I met up with the blokes I was put on to, they set me some tests -- and that's a whole other story. Passed the tests, and got a reward -- my choice. When I told 'em what I wanted, they offered me this as a way to get it."
"It's s legendary event described in ancient texts of the Council of Watchers," Giles said pedantically, giving Spike a curious look, "called 'Thisavrizo.' I've heard of it -- vaguely -- but I thought it was metaphorical. I never dreamed it was truly possible."
"What does it mean, exactly?"
All at once Spike changed. He sat differently; he spoke differently. Buffy and Giles both noticed the queer, feathery echoes in his voice. "I share my body with the other Watchers, the ones who are gone. I have their knowledge and skills, their experience fighting the foe. And their memories," he said.
"So there's like this big Watcher-soul repository -- in Ethiopia?" said Buffy, frankly skeptical.
"I don't think Spike was actually in Ethiopia for long, Buffy," Giles explained gently. "Or anywhere on this plane of existence."
"Oh," she said faintly.
The altered Spike went on. "Any Watcher can join us when his time comes. Each one decides; some remain, some leave this world for good. They do not leave entire souls, but fragments chosen to aid you."
"To aid us?"
Spike turned to Buffy. "To aid you," he said. Suddenly he changed again, and looked much less sure of himself. He took a large swallow of whisky. "See, that was my reward, Slayer."
Buffy leaned forward, and touched the back of his hand. "What was?" she said.
He met her eyes. "I asked them to let me help you," he said simply. "That's what they offered. The souls of the Watchers."
TBC
-------------------------------------------------
"Sweet the genesis of things,
Of tendency through endless ages,
Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages,
Of rounded worlds, of space and time,
Of the old flood's subsiding slime,
Of chemic matter, force and form,
Of poles and powers, cold, wet and warm:
The rushing metamorphosis
Dissolving all that fixture is,
Melts things that be to things that seem,
And solid nature to a dream."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Undersong