Chapter 16

A/N: Chapter sixteen of the series. Probably the last one.

Feedback: Silver Ring

"I'm not comfortable with this new development in your character." Angel said. Buffy just chuckled and poured some more scotch in her glass. She downed the shot without acknowledging the comment made by the newly humanized vampire.

"Still not answering." Angel sighed. He stepped inside the room and sat next to Buffy in the floor. He ran his hand through her hair, and noticed again how she twitched whenever he touched her. Another sigh and Angel placed his hands on top of his knees.

"I know something's bothering you." Angel said. "That much is obvious. What I don't know is why."

Buffy just raised an eyebrow and repeated her scotch act. Angel frowned and looked at the bottle.

"Drinking yourself stupid won't help." He noted. "Done it a few times myself, but…" The frown deepened when the slayer skipped the part of pouring the drink into the glass and instead downed a big gulp right out of the bottle.

"I know it has something to do with Spike." Big sigh. "But I can't be sure unless you talk to me."

After a few minutes of silence and more scotch disappearing from the bottle, Angel stood up and walked out of the slayer's room.

Buffy was still not as drunk as she wished she could be. Not used to being defeated without a fight, she felt twice as depressed for not noticing what Spike had been doing that night.

Her vampire had been saying goodbye and all she could hear were the harsh words and the insults. Still, what was she supposed to do? He'd always known which buttons to push to throw her over the edge. The thought brought a wicked smile to her face, a grin that quickly vanished when the hard facts of life returned.

Spike was gone.

Completely. Out of the earth. Disappeared.

There was nothing she could do about it, which only intensified her anger and her pain. She didn't want to cry anymore, but it was proving to be harder every time she tried to stop.

And to make things even worse, outside of her door stood a newly oxygen breathing super human who had no idea where he stood in her life, and she didn't seem to care about it.

Yet, how could he blame her, when she was so messed up because of him?

'You'll never be friends' Spike had once told her. But at the moment she had not wanted to be friends with Angel. She wanted to be something more.

Spike had been the only one who had picked up on that. Funny how he was the only one in her life who always knew what was going on through her mind. She had always been annoyed by that, but at times it had been oddly comforting.

Specially after she came back from heaven, he'd been there for her. Always quiet. Always listening.

Always understanding.

Buffy shook her head and tried to stop thinking about him. She sighed and closed her eyes.

A sudden noise made her jump and aware of her surroundings. She scanned the entire room and noticed no one and felt no one. She blamed the alcohol in her body and sat again, now on the bed. She leaned down to pick up her bottle when a voice made her yelp and throw the bottle to where she heard the noise.

A very confused Cordelia ducked right on time to avoid being hit in the head with the bottle.

"Easy!" the higher being yelled. "No need to throw things at me!"

"Then don't surprise me like that!" Buffy yelled back.

"I swear, it's just like high school!" Cordelia said, crossing her arms. Buffy rolled her eyes and crossed her arms as well.

"What do you want?" Buffy asked, dreading whatever bad news Cordelia was delivering at the moment. The higher being uncrossed her arms and gave Buffy a soft look.

"I'm not here to fight." Cordelia said, her voice shy. "I'm here to talk. To listen."

Buffy's eyes grew and she uncrossed her arms, unsure of what she was hearing. She closed her eyes and forced her mind to focus.

"Talk about what?" She asked. Cordelia sat on the bed and patted the mattress, inviting the slayer to sit next to her. Buffy sat as far away from her as she could, staring all the time. Cordelia smiled and looked at the ceiling.

"My God, this room sucks." She said, trying to ease the slayer. Buffy, however, showed no intention to participate in small talk. Cordelia sighed.

"All right, all right. Bad things are coming." She finally said. Buffy chuckled.

"That's not new." The slayer replied. "Another apocalypse, with capital 'A'?" The slayer lost her sarcastic streak when she saw Cordelia's face grow grim.

"Oh." The slayer smirked. "I should have known."

"Nothing new, indeed." Cordelia said. "But it will be big. Bigger than everything else you've fought before. Both you and Angel will face very difficult tests. Each on your own."

"Why are you telling me this?" Buffy asked. "Last time you told us about something it turned out to be a hoax, and Spike died."

"Spike's death was his own choice." Cordelia whispered. "He was well aware of what he was doing."

The words fell like cold water over Buffy, and her earlier depression returned full force.

"I know." Buffy whispered as well. Cordelia looked down at her feet.

"He always did the most stupid things." Buffy suddenly said. "There was this time, when he knocked me unconscious with a cattle prod." The slayer chuckled, which prompted a weird look from Cordelia.

"He was trying to find a way to tell me he was attracted to me." Buffy continued. "So, obviously, being Spike, he managed to muck things up, tying me and having Drusilla rip my throat out if I didn't accept I was slightly attracted to him." Buffy kept chuckling, while Cordelia had a funny look on her face.

"You find this amusing?" The higher being asked.

"At the moment it was disturbing." Buffy answered, "Today, I can look back and laugh at it. One of the many stupid things he's done."

"If you knew." Cordelia whispered without noticing. Buffy caught the words and frowned.

"If I knew what?" She asked. Cordelia stared ahead, not answering right away. Buffy waited patiently for her friend to gather her thoughts.

"Before returning to warn Angel about the…you know, I kinda… saw all the things he's done… ever."

Buffy was silent as well for a few moments.

"Everything he's…done?" She asked. Cordelia nodded.

"I have to say that I didn't pay too much attention to what Spike did while he was with Angelus." Cordelia continued. "It just didn't … matter at the time."

"But you saw. Later." Buffy guessed. Cordelia once again nodded. A smile appeared on the slayer's face.

"Tell me about him."

Cordelia heard the words, but she didn't know what to say. She'd seen Spike as a murderer. She'd known him as William the Bloody, the brutal vampire. Seen him as the worst vampire to roam the earth, second only to Angelus.

And she'd seen as well the worst moments in the existence of the man, as well as those of the vampire. She bore silent witness to the events that turned the good hearted William into the savage beast that Spike had been. She'd seen the slow path taken after the Initiative shoved the chip into his head.

A path Cordelia knew had been chosen because of the slayer. Because of the love the soulless vampire felt for the woman sitting in front of her.

"He was a good man," Cordelia began "before he was turned by Drusilla. Can you believe he was a poet?"

Buffy's eyes grew wide. She remembered finding the poems and the letters in Spike's room, but never in her wildest dreams she had imagined that he had been a poet in life.

"He was not good at it." Cordelia continued. "He was rather… he sucked, for the lack of a better word."

Buffy nodded.

"That's how he got his nickname." Cordelia said, her voice soft. "William the Bloody."

Buffy frowned.

"I thought he was named like that after he was turned."

Cordelia shook her head.

"It was a reference to his poetry." She said. "William the bloody awful poet."

Something stirred inside Buffy's heart.

"Yeah, that's how everyone referred to him those days." Cordelia said. "Needless to say, our Spike didn't have many friends back then."

Buffy closed her eyes.

"He once told you when he was turned, but he never told you how it happened."

Buffy nodded, still without opening her eyes.

"Not a happy story, by any standard." Cordelia scooted closer to Buffy, keeping her voice low. "William was in love with a rich girl, named Cecily.

"William had written a few dozen poems about this… Cecily, none of which were good, but still, he was infatuated with her. He placed her in a spot where many women would wish to stand. She turned to be everything to him at some point."

"He tends to idolize the women he loves." Buffy whispered.

"The night William died, he attended a social event. A party." Cordelia said. "He kept in his breast pocked a little piece of paper where he'd written his latest poem. An attendant pried it away from his hands and read it out loud. In front of everyone."

Cordelia stopped talking, which made Buffy open her eyes.

"What happened?" The slayer asked.

"Everyone laughed." Cordelia answered. "One of the attendants then referred to him as William 'the bloody awful poet', embarrassing him even more. Yet, our Spike was a sucker for punishment, for he followed his Cecily in order to make his intentions clear."

"His intentions clear?" Buffy asked.

"To woo her." Cordelia explained. "William comes up to her and starts to declare his love for her when she cuts him short and tells him the coldest thing I've ever heard."

"What?"

Cordelia stared hard into Buffy's eyes.

"She said 'you're beneath me'."

Buffy felt another tug at her heart. The words too familiar for her to bear at that moment.

"I think it was at that moment that William died," Cordelia kept talking, "not the moment in which Drusilla drained him of all his blood."

Buffy closed her eyes again.

"That's not the worst story I can tell you about him." Cordelia turned to whispering again. "Our beloved Angel put him through some of the worst things I could ever think of. I won't even tell you about them. There are things that you should never know from either of them. Angel and Spike were not good in any sense."

"I know." Buffy replied.

"No, Buffy, you don't know. You haven't seen the things I've seen. You'd hate Angel right this very moment if you saw half of what I saw."

"Then I'd hate Spike as well." Buffy said.

"I don't know." Cordelia shot back. "Spike was a result of years of repression and helplessness, fueled by the sheer madness of Drusilla, the pure, undiluted evil that Angelus was, and the dark mind of Darla. He once was an innocent victim, turned into a beast by those around him."

"All vampires are evil." Buffy countered, not intent on arguing, but trying to understand.

"They are." Cordelia agreed, "But your particular vampire was never a usual one."

"I know."

"You must have realized at some point that there was something wrong with him."

Buffy chuckled.

"Oh, I did."

"Not like that." Cordelia chuckled as well, "I meant that it was not an average thing to have a vampire, William the Bloody, helping you patrol, or being nice to your mom, or taking care of Dawn while you were deceased."

Buffy nodded.

"He caught the attention of the Powers That Be. Rumors ran all through the higher planes. About a vampire in love with the slayer." Cordelia paused for a moment, lost in thought. "At first I thought it was Angel. It's common knowledge that he loves you.

"But I was wrong. It wasn't about Angel and you. It was about Spike and you."
Cordelia stared at Buffy, and kept on talking when she didn't receive any comment from the slayer.

"He loved you, Buffy, he really did." Cordelia took Buffy's hand. "Open your eyes, Buffy."

The slayer did as asked.

"Spike was not a good creature. I know it. He killed and he enjoyed it. He destroyed families with a smile and he tortured with joy. I will not ignore that. But he also loved hard. He stayed with his dysfunctional vampire family because he fell in love with Drusilla. Spike always followed his heart and he gave his loyalty to Drusilla for over a century."

Cordelia squeezed Buffy's hand.

"But he never knew love." She said. "He gave but he never received. He loved three women in his whole existence and neither returned his love."

Buffy's eyes filled with tears again.

"And if I told you years ago that you'd cry over him, you would have never believed me."

"I miss him." The slayer said. Cordelia kept her eyes fixed on Buffy's.

"I'm sorry." Cordelia said. "But you now have to see things for how they are. A vampire, Buffy, a soulless vampire gave you what he thought you wanted. What you told him you wanted. It may not make sense but you did it. With every blow you dealt him. With every insult you sent his way. Every time he told you he loved you and you told him he couldn't love without a soul. Every time you made him feel like dirt because he dared to love you."

Buffy looked away, ashamed of hearing everything she'd done.

"Don't look away." Cordelia said. "I'm not telling you anything you don't know. I just want you to realize what…"

"What happened." Buffy finished the sentence. "I know what happened. I had a vampire who loved me. His worst sin was to love me. I threw it all away."

"Your mistake was not in never forgetting what he was." Cordelia said. "Your mistake was not realizing what he had become."

Buffy had no words. Cordelia had given her insight on two different occasions regarding Spike.

"There's nothing I can do, then?"

"If you're asking to bring him back, we can't. I'm sorry." Cordelia gave her hand yet another squeeze. "You can only take what he gave you. You have to recognize what he did for you. See him for what he was. For all he wanted you to see in him. A man's worth."

Buffy nodded and gripped Cordelia's hand.

The slayer cried herself to sleep.

Days went by and as Cordelia had warned them, things bigger than everything they had faced before rose in the battlefronts guarded by Buffy and Angel, forcing them to separate and fight.

However, the slayer did not let go of her thoughts of bringing Spike back, using all the resources at hand. Still, the efforts had to be delayed upon learning of their latest enemies, both the First Evil and the crazy god controlling everyone and everything in Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, her efforts did not go unnoticed at all.

"The slayer did not take the loss of her vampire well." The voices said. Cordelia had returned to a higher plane to let the events unfold.

"She was in shock the last time I spoke to her." She answered.

"The order was disrupted. Two vampires were supposed to fight, and there will be none." The voices continued.

"Spike's interference was not expected." Cordelia said.

"His actions shifted the course." The voices said. "They altered the souled vampire's destiny, as well as the slayer's. Something must be done."

"What?" Cordelia asked.

"We respect what the vampire did." The voices granted. "But other measures have been taken. He will not be returned."

Cordelia nodded.

"There is something else we can do. Something that has been prepared for ages."

Cordelia frowned.

"The slayer will have help in her fight. The vampire Spike will have his redemption."

The End.

There's an Epilogue. Check it out.