Chapter 10
A lot of Acceptance
Disclaimer: Uh, I was gonna do these more often wasn't I? Ok, not mine and I don't make any money off it. My BtVS bake sale was a big bust too, so no money there ) Oh and a special disclaimer (which I prolly should have had last time), I don't own "Pokémon" but I do own any mispronunciations of it.
A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews. I've been replying to most, but my hotmail is a hideous hell beast and often doesn't play fair. Sorry if I missed e-mailing you to say thanks, but I really do get, read and appreciate all your reviews.
Not totally a cute chapter...I had to have some "action" for "plot purposes" I hope you'll bear with me.
I'm going to Japan today! Bye all ) back soon )
E/N: Sorry if the formatting is a little off, I don't know how she usually does it but I've posted this because Illy has to get some sleep before she gets on her plane.
"They've been running for hours." Gunn sighed, peering around the door into Wesley's office.
The intended audience of the statement, Wesley, checked his watch "They've only been running for 47 minutes." He informed Gunn.
"What are they running for anyway?" Gunn asked, "They just keep going round and round in circles." Though the situation was somewhat exaggerated in Gunn's bemoaning, it was true that the children had been running in tedious circles for a long while. Tilly had turned up in the afternoon, as she often did, unchaperoned and asking to play with Spike. Wesley had happily handed the job of playing with Spike over to the demon girl and ever since Spike and Tilly had been running endlessly around Wesley office, occasionally jumping over things and squealing to add spice to an otherwise apparently repetitive game. However, despite the grown-ups scepticism as to the appeal of such tedium, the two children seemed happy enough, and it was easier for the baby-sitters to watch the children running than try and tame them. "Wait, wait," Gunn said almost excitedly, "I think they're about to do something different."
With a lot of screaming and squealing, Tilly caught up to Spike and tapped him sharply on the shoulder. "Tag!" She cried, "You're it!" She giggled hysterically and started running away from Spike, who inturn became the chaser.
"Man!" Gunn exclaimed exasperatedly, "Now they're running the other way!"
Wesley patted his friend on the shoulder, "They're children Gunn. Running endlessly in circles is pretty much their calling."
Gunn folded his arms in a show of discontent, "Do we both have to watch them?"
"You're not getting out of babysitting." Wesley said, "I had to put up with 'pika-mon' all morning."
"You're saying it wrong." Gunn informed him. "It's "Pikachu" and "Pokémon.""
Wesley raised an eyebrow, but he had no great desire to continue a conversation about "Pokémon" or "Pikachu" regardless of how it was pronounced. "I thought you said you liked children."
"When they're interesting." Gunn countered, "Not this running in circles stuff. Seriously man, I'm not the house wife, I'm the muscle. I should be out hitting something or-"
"Setting fire to something?" Wesley supplied sarcastically.
"Don't knock the burning, man." Gunn warned.
"There are two highly dangerous demons that need guarding in that office." Wesley reminded him. "Spike has taken down two slayers in his time."
"And now he's six years old and playing run around." Gunn complained.
"I believe it's called tag." Wesley corrected him.
"So I know why Spike's the big, bad and tiny, but what's with the girl?" Gunn scrutinised the dark haired child in the office, "Vampire? She doesn't have horns or scales so she's gotta be part human right?" Tilly cavorted around the Wolfram and Hart office in blissful ignorance of the two men discussing her. Laughing and running with Spike she looked like a normal little girl. But Tilly was just another demon in an innocent's garb, in her case quite literally.
"Matilda is a shadow demon." Wesley explained. "Watch carefully; she won't step into any shadowy parts of the room at all, she stays under the lights."
"What happens if she goes out of the light?" Gunn asked.
Wesley looked ominously at his companion as he uttered, "Shadows will consume her."
"That sounds dangerous." Gunn scoffed
"Our shadows aren't just a dark puddle caused by the deflection of light," Wesley said, "The idea of the shadow is intertwined with out darker selves; the parts of us we would rather not acknowledge. We all have shadows; because we all have regrets and we have all done things we wish we hadn't. Our worst memories, the horrible things we've done, painful times in our past, these are things we push into the shadows." Wesley sighed, regretting as he did often, his own occasionally shadowy past. "Our shadows have immense potential to hurt us. Thus inadvertently, Matilda does too."
Gunn looked again at the smiling little girl, "Is she evil though? Does she have a soul?"
"Oh yes," Wesley assured him, "a soul and a heart." He sighed, "I can't imagine how hard it is for her, just seeing other people. Tilly doesn't just have her own shadows to bear; she has everyone else's as well. When she looks at us, she can see every bad memory we would like to forget, every hideous deed we have ever committed."
Gunn watched Tilly silently, marvelling that such a bright girl could bare such a terrible curse. He furrowed his brow, "So when she looks at Spike..."
Wesley nodded, guessing Gunn's question "Matilda can see every hideous murder he committed as a vampire. The forgiveness of children is boundless it appears. Matilda sees her friend Spike, and doesn't care about the monster he was."
"Spike's in, chuck him in the bin!" Tilly sang as she scurried around Wesley's office away from her pursuer. "If he's not-"
Tilly was forced to stop abruptly as Spike hurtled over the lounge and landed right in her path. The vampire child grinned malevolently, "If I'm not in," He said, lunging forward and catching her arm "You're in!"
Tilly cursed as Spike ran hurriedly away before she could recover and tag him. He laughed hysterically as she pursued him. Dashing across the office, barely avoiding collisions. Running away gave him an exhilarating warmth in his belly, kinda scary and fun at the same time. He liked the feeling, even the scary part.
Taking his mind of the fun for a moment, Spike realised his legs were feeling kinda like they were made of bricks. It was becoming and effort to lift them, let alone guide them out of trouble. Now that he thought about it, he was aching all over. Running was hard hard work, and he was feeling the ramifications of running for hours. He needed a rest, but Tilly was hot on his heels. Thinking quickly, he spied a spacious dark shadow cast by a tall thin bookcase, and dived for the refuge. Tilly pulled up short as she reached the shadow's boarder and scowled.
"Spike!" She huffed, "That's not fair." Though she looked angry, the heavy breaths broke up the malice in the sentence. Tilly looked about as tired as Spike felt.
"Wanna take a break?" Spike suggested.
Tilly nodded gratefully, "Yeah, I s'pose." The tired children ambled over to the couch and gratefully took an end each. "We...we'll just take a little break." Tilly mumbled sleepily into a pillow.
"Ok." Spike agreed, "then...we'll play...more." However Tilly didn't hear him, she was already sound asleep, and soon Spike was too. A silence that is only found at 2 o'clock on a summer afternoon settled over the office. The shadow from the bookcase crawled across the floor as Spike began to dream.
The ghosts of nightmares haunted him again, but this time, they did not come as memories, but as a dizzying spiel of ima. Shadows of his past spiralled past his eyes, stabbing and screaming as they went. All of them hated him for what he had done. He watched women cry as he drank from their children. Tore clothes and jewels off his victims as trophies. Left bodies to rot on roadsides and in rivers. He listened to the screams. Smelt the acrid stench of virgins. Kicked dead girls at his feet. Broke necks, snapped jaws. Sailors, soldiers, fell limp at his bite. Children bled to death. So much killing. Mothers, fathers, children, babies; all dead. Old women, young women, bad men, saints, privileged, poor, no bodies; murdered. So many deaths, all by his hands, and his teeth.
In his mind, Spike could see all these murders. Explosions of pain swept through him, shaking him all over. It hurt too badly to watch, to know he killed. He looked down, and clasped in his arms was the limp body of a little girl. Thin and drained, unnaturally. Her long black hair was matted across her face, pasted to her cheek with thick fresh blood. The whites of her eyes peaked below her eyelids, her eyes rolled back in her head. She could have been Tilly. Spike had killed her.
The sleeping form of two dreaming children twitched on the office couch, as Spike and Tilly slept not so peacefully. Spike was thrashing in his dreams, trying to ward away the things coming at him. Things were grabbing at him. They wanted revenge. They wanted him to pay. He could feel their dead hands claw at him, scratching him. "You killed me." The dark haired girl said, standing alone beside his victims as they flashed past him. She looked at the fallen body of a helpless old woman. "Why did you kill me?"
Spike sobbed, ache crushing his chest. "I'm sorry." He mumbled. And he was, so sorry. He felt like he was burning, and the pain wouldn't stop. Just like the killing wouldn't. He begged and pleaded, but nothing could make the visions go away. He had murdered all these people. He was bad, and deserved to be punished. He was bad and terrible and a killer. "I'm sorry." He sobbed again.
"That's not good enough." The shadow girl said as Spike saw a pair of twins, one already dead, and his brother crying beside him. A shadow loomed over the remaining boy, and a pale white hand reached out to claim him as well. Two more little bodies to add to the death count. "Sorry won't bring us back." The dark haired girl lunged at him and grabbed a hold of his neck. Spike kicked at her, trying to break free, but she was so strong, empowered by the hatred of all his past victims. "You will pay."
Spike whimpered in the office, but out in the lobby, Wesley and Gunn didn't hear him. Tilly might have heard, but she was having bad dreams of her own. As the sun had dipped in the sky, the shadows in the office had lengthened and begun to crawl over the couch where the children slept. As the shadows reached her sandals, black smoke curls began to dance hideously around Tilly's ankles. The smoke tendrils lapped at her skirt like waves, and blew gusts of grey wind about her long black hair. Her eyes snapped open, but instead of their usual black, they were glowing white. The shadows lifted her up off the couch, and thrust her to the floor, as vengeful spirits claimed her form. "You have wronged us. You will pay." She cried, unknowingly echoing the words in Spike's dream. She jumped forward and latched vice like onto Spike's neck. Dreams, shadows and reality merged as Tilly attacked Spike, channelling the same hatred as he had felt in his dream.
Spike's eyes snapped open, and he saw Tilly, glowing amidst the grey shadows, as she tried her hardest to strangle him. "Do you feel the pain killer?" Tilly screeched, "does it hurt you, like you hurt us?" Spike lay helpless in shock, as Tilly tried to throttle him. He realised gratefully that he didn't need to breath, so she couldn't kill him, but the pain in his throat well might. Suddenly, his vampire skills took over, and he kicked her off. She stumbled back, looking horrified. "Spike," she throw her hands over her mouth in anguish as she awoke from her nightmare.
"It's ok Tilly," Spike assured her, "I think it's over. It's ok now."
Matilda screwed up her eyes and began to cry. "No," she sobbed, "it's not ok. I... I...you could have."
Spike tried to clear his head, he didn't know what was going on. "You could see them, couldn't you..." Spike asked, remembering his terrible nightmares.
Tilly nodded, "I saw... and then I... they took me over. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to but... "
"If you saw them, then you know what I am." Spike said. Tilly nodded again. "And if you saw them, you know all the bad things I did." He got of the couch and walked over to his friend. "I have a secret." He said, "my secret is, I'm a vampire. But I'm a good vampire, and I don't want to hurt anyone. Do you want to hurt anyone?"
Tilly shook her head, "No." she sobbed. She looked like she wanted to say more, to excuse her behaviour, to plead for forgiveness, but Spike held up a hand to silence her.
"Angel says it doesn't matter what you are, human or demon, as long as you are good." He held out his hand and helped her to her feet. "And you are good. Do you mind that I'm a vampire?"
"Of course not." Tilly smiled through her drying tears.
"Then I don't mind about what ever you are." Spike was nearly nocked on his back, as Tilly threw her arms around him. He smiled and hugged her back, before hurriedly breaking the embrace. "Careful." He warned, "We might both be demons, but you're still a girl, and I don't want cooties."
"Right," Tilly agreed, "Sorry."
"Ok Spike." Angel said as he opened the door to his apartment and assured the vampire child inside. "Toilet, teeth and then get your PJ's on."
Spike grumbled at his grandsire's instructions, "Can't I stay up and watch a little TV?"
Angel shook his head. "No Spike. I don't want you watching that "Late Night Poker" show again. There's something strange and unwholesome about the commentary of a card game." Spike pouted, but Angel stayed firm. "Spike, it's nearly 1 o'clock at night, that's hours and hours after most kids go to bed."
"I'm not like most kids." Spike said, preparing to play the poor-misfit-vampire-kid card for all it was worth.
"I've got to words for you. 'Bed' and 'Time'." Angel insisted, and Spike morosely surrendered. As Spike shuffled of to the bathroom, Angel went to the kitchen to warm up a cup of blood for Spike. He liked to have a warm drink to put him to sleep. Angel watched the plastic blue mug as it rotated slowly in the microwave. Just a month ago, the idea of warming a cup of blood to help Spike sleep would have been strange to say the least, but now it was part of Angel's nightly routine. As was helping Spike into his PJ's, tucking him into bed, and doing a quick check for spiders and snakes behind the curtains.
Angel had once planned to do all this for Connor. He was gonna be the best dad, because he had the most amazing son. Connor was going to grow up to be big and tall and a hero, and Angel would be there every step of the way. But it hadn't worked out that way. Connor had grown up in a hell dimension with a man who hated vampires and especially Angel, and now Connor had fake memories of growing up in a small town with a normal dad and a normal life. Angel felt the familiar stab of jealousy and remorse.
But Spike, Spike was his second chance. He could play the father again, and do all the things fathers were supposed to do. It felt so easy, just to love Spike like his own son. But in the real world, it was never easy; it was always heart wrenching and painful and hard. If Angel allowed himself to love this child... Spike would grow up, and he'd loose another son. He couldn't let Spike go like Connor did. He wouldn't let them snatch away Spike too.
Angel took the cup from the microwave and moved to the bedroom, where Spike was already tucked up in bed. Looking down at the little vampire, eyes pressed shut pretending to sleep, Angel felt something shift in his chest, and he knew it was too late. He already loved Spike, and he so desperately wanted to keep him. But how could he fight this one? Spike didn't belong as a child after all, one day he would have to grow up.
"Here's your drink." He said, as Spike slyly opened an eye to watch Angel settling into bed himself. "I'll leave it here on the table ok?" Spike watched as Angel carefully set the drink down and went to turn his night light on. The elder vampire turned of the main light and pulled back the covers on his bed.
"Check for snakes." Spike insisted.
Angel smiled, as he did as he was bid and checked once behind the curtains and under the bed for snakes and spiders. "All clear." He announced.
"Well alright then." Spike said. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight Spike," Angel said as he slipped into bed and closed his eyes. He hadn't been resting for long when he felt the bed shift as Spike clambered onto the bed and shuffled close to his grandsire.
"Angel," Spike began pensively after a moment.
"Yes Spike?"
Spike remained silent for a while, "Did... when you were a vampire, did you kill people?"
Angel shuffled uncomfortable. "Well yes..."
"I think I did too." Spike said, "And I'm really sorry."
"I know you are." Angel said, "it's ok."
"It's not ok." Spike said, "Because people died because of me, and I didn't care at all. But I care now, and I'm not gonna hurt any one any more. In fact, I'm gonna try really hard to help people. " he sniffed, and when he spoke again, Angel could hear a few unshed tears colouring his voice, "But I did so many bad things, and I was such a bad vampire, and it really won't ever be ok. I can't make up for what I did. Sometimes... it just hurts so much, and sometimes I just wish it wouldn't."
Angel hugged his grandchilde close, "I feel bad for all the people I hurt too." He said, and that seemed to satisfy the vampire child, because Spike was soon fast asleep, dreaming pleasantly for once.