Broken Origin II: Chapter Eight


The crypt seemed empty when she returned. Buffy entered the dark space cautiously, but without any of the fear she'd once known. She let a heavy black backpack filled with supplies from Giles slide from her shoulder to the ground by the door, and ventured further inside.

"Spike?"

The door creaked behind her, and she pivoted.

Spike was standing there with his back to the closed door, watching her.

"You gonna' stand there starin' at me all day, Slayer, or are you gonna' tell me what the hell's goin' on?"

Buffy looked him over as he strode up to the single candelabra and proceeded to light it, not quite catching on to what he was saying.

Spike had this I've-seen-it-all-and-lived-to-tell attitude that was just fascinating to her. Other people would probably find it intimidating, though, especially with his tendency to break out in a menacing mask of bumpy ridges, predatory yellow-orange eyes, and razor-edged fangs.

Buffy found herself drawn to him rather than discouraged, though…most of the time, anyway.

"Well? What the bloody hell did you tell your watcher that he's gonna' let you stay here with me? That's what you're here for, innit? Which, by the way, I never recall sayin' you could!"

"I told him the truth," Buffy finally said.

Spike's eyes flared and then narrowed.

"An' the burning question is why. Just what is the 'truth'?"

"I told him you were gonna' help train me."

Spike's face went completely cold as he pulled back slightly. Then his eyebrows lowered.

"Run."

Taken off guard, Buffy fought to stay her ground.

"What?"

One eyebrow arched back up. "I'm afraid I might bruise you if you stay within' thumping distance," he growled.

She snorted. "You never cared before."

"Oh? Do you want me to thump you?"

Buffy took a reflexive step back, and then began to move around him. "You don't want me here? Fine. I'll just be going then." She walked towards the door and the pack of supplies Giles had given her. She was stopped by Spike's leather clad arm blocking her way.

"You can't go out there."

"Will you give it a break? They don't even know who I am. How can they hunt me if they don't know what I look like?"

"It won't take 'em long to find out," Spike said grimly. "They'll see you fightin' on the hunt eventually, and know."

"I'll just have to kill them, then," Buffy replied with more confidence than she felt.

Spike looked insultingly doubtful.

"Just find a place to kip for a few hours, and then we'll get started trainin' you."

Buffy scowled and went to retrieve the pack.

"Thanks for making me sound like a new puppy," she grumbled. "Wanna' put me on some newspaper in case I have any accidents…?"


"You realize that this mustn't be allowed to continue."

Giles swallowed, knowing exactly what was coming. Suddenly his nightly ring to his 'superiors' in the council seemed even more troublesome than usual…of course, his being exhausted with jet lag he'd never been allowed to sleep off, and the stress of worry caused by his slayer prancing off to do god-knows-what with a vampire during the day didn't help matters any, either…

"Sir – "

"If you care to keep your post, Giles, I suggest that you agree with me on this."

Bastard…

Giles sighed heavily. "Well, of course, Quentin, but it's just that this is…is a very tentative time for my slayer. I am the first to agree that having a vampire in daily contact with Ms. Summers is ludicrous, but her metal state at present is at best …delicate."

"Her mental state is exactly what we are concerned about, Rupert. No one can go through kidnapping and captivity without being touched by the ordeal psychologically. We believe she is suffering from some form of Stockholm Syndrome. Removing the vampire from the scene is the only way to put her on the road to recovery."

"Stockholm Syndrome?" Giles didn't want to believe it was possible, but given Buffy's adamant decision to stay with the vampire, he couldn't help but consider the idea.

"The team you requested last evening to find the Slayer is already enroute," Quentin Travers went on. "They've been given instructions to destroy the vampire – with your cooperation, of course."

"Of course," Giles echoed, staring at the scarred wooden floor of his flat, feeling suddenly dry-mouthed. He really needed a drink and a long, uninterrupted sit-down.

"Well, that's settled, then. I trust you will have the matter firmly in-hand when next we speak – as well as your slayer. It is, after all, what we hired you for, isn't it Rupert, your ability to diffuse these types of potentially dangerous situations? A mentally unstable slayer who could turn rogue is a catastrophe waiting to happen…"

"I foresee no potential problems with Miss Summers," Giles said coolly, hoping he wasn't lying through his teeth.

"Good, good. That's good to hear, Rupert. The team, now, had been given orders to report directly to you upon their arrival in Sunnydale."

Giles forced his hand to loosen its grip on the phone before he smashed the receiver. "I will await their contact."

"Fine. Contact us when the job is complete."

"Yes. Goodbye." Without waiting for a reply, Giles cut the connection and dropped the earpiece back into its cradle on his desk. He stared at the phone for several moments before closing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses.

Quentin Travers was a pompous prick, and he always had been. It irked Giles to no end to be on the receiving end of his orders when he was tucked safe away in London, far from the chaos of what was happening half-way around the bloody world.

Travers had no idea what Buffy was going to do when her vampire was destroyed, and truthfully, neither did Giles, exactly.

One thing was for certain, however; Giles would be the one stuck with the cleaning up in the aftermath…


Buffy was beginning to regret her decision to stay at the crypt. It was cold, and musty, and Spike had flat-out refused to let her use his blankets again, so she'd slept – or rather, tossed – away the dawn hours after she'd left her watcher's apartment on the stupid stone bench again. She'd spent most of the time thinking about Giles, and his offer that she come to live with him.

It was tempting, considering Spike's less-than welcoming attitude when she'd returned…but living with Giles would steal away her newfound freedom, and she wasn't about to give up control of her life to others that easily.

Buffy looked up as Spike approached her. He'd been in a dark mood ever since he'd woken her up and told her to go scrounge up something to eat before they got down to training. She'd taken one look at his hooded eyes and taut jaw, and wisely left.

Now his grumpiness was just getting annoying.

Buffy looked the vampire up and down before crossing her arms and leaning back against the tomb she stood against.

"Geez, who spit in your O positive?"

Spike sneered at her and Buffy wondered if she shouldn't have just stayed away.

"All right," Spike said, his blue eyes sizing her up. "Might as well start from the beginning, again, seein' as you still fight like a priss." He snorted.

"I've watched you, and you always go into a fight expectin' to be beaten. That'll get you dead right quick. Me an' luck have gotten you this far, but now…you need to learn how to take a punch, 'stead of just dodgin' 'em."

Buffy tensed despite herself as Spike motioned with curled fingers for her to step out into the middle of the crypt. He began to slowly circle her.

He was in that easy, predatory slouch again, his eyes steady on her, his chin lowered slightly toward his chest…she felt like he was stalking her again, and she didn't like that one little bit. The bite scar on her wrist gave a wicked throb.

What if he started wailing on her? She was strong, yeah, stronger than she'd been before she'd ever been kidnapped, but although she could hold her own, she still didn't know much about fighting, and Spike had long-since proved he wasn't the most patient type –

" – tighten your stomach muscles. You get hit just right in the gut, you can be killed. Oi, you even listenin' to me, Slayer?"

Buffy straightened up. Had he said 'don't' tighten your stomach muscles, or 'do'?

"I heard you," she scoffed, settling one hand on her hip.

Spike's nostril's flared – right along with his eyes. "Yeah? Prove it." And he slugged her in the stomach.

Buffy doubled over and then hit the floor. From there on it was a struggle to decide whether or not to pass out or just barf up her toenails…


It was dusk, and Buffy was lying on her back on top of the tomb nearest the crypt door, which was open to sweltering heat outside.

She ached all over, was bloody and sweaty, and still, unbelievably, cold, hence the door being open. She had an icy-hot pack from Giles's knap-sack of goodies on one shoulder, and a now-empty bottle of water held loosely in one hand.

Buffy watched the orange sky outside turn purple, and then midnight blue as night fell, and then she turned her head on the cool stone as she heard Spike ascending from the lower level.

They'd been training all day long, but where Buffy looked and felt like it, Spike didn't even have one unruly curl loose from the slicked back waves of his platinum hair.

He was carrying his duster in one hand, and a lit cigarette in the other.

Biting back a wince, Buffy sat up. She set the water bottle on the lid beside her, and let the ice pack slide from her shoulder. "Where are you going?"

Spike placed the cigarette between his lips and swung the duster around and over his shoulders, sliding his arms into the sleeves with practiced ease.

"D'you really want to know?" he asked mockingly as he pulled the cigarette away from his mouth, and kicked the trap door closed with a loud thud that reverberated throughout the crypt.

Buffy shrugged. "Just…curious."

Spike wasn't convinced by her show of carelessness. "Uh-huh. You want to know where I'm goin' so you can keep tabs on me."

"Nuh-uh!" Buffy pushed herself off of the edge of the tomb. "I was just wondering!"

"Yeah." He nodded towards the door. "Aren't you late for your keeper's?

"What? Oh, Giles! Damn, he's going to freak! I'm so late!" Buffy ran her fingers through her sweat-damp hair and then gave up, rushing towards the doors. Spike met her there.

"I'll walk you," he said as they exited into the night, and he pulled the heavy doors closed.

Buffy looked at him, surprised.

Spike rolled his eyes. "What're you waitin' on? Quit fannyin' around an' start walkin'. Odds are Angelus has got some big guns after you, now, an' if he don't, then he will soon."

Buffy frowned. "If he's really gonna' want me dead so badly, why wouldn't he just come after me himself?"

Spike snorted and started walking, leaving Buffy to hurry after him. "Angelus wouldn't want to mess his hands with you unless he absolutely had to," he threw back over his shoulder as he easily the maneuvered the dark, uneven grounds. "If there's someone else available to do the serious dirty work, he'll set them to it. See, unlike me, he's got a healthy fear of you slayers – not that he couldn't kill you. He just doesn't believe in askin' for trouble. He won't come after you himself until he thinks you're worthy of his precious bloody time."

Buffy fought off a shiver as the night air caressed her damp skin.

"I still don't need a baby-sitter," she felt compelled to say.

"Just shut-it and walk, will ya'?" Spike snapped darkly.

Buffy felt her face flush with anger, but she bit her lip as she followed him out the gates into the quiet street. She really didn't feel like fighting with him tonight – he'd been in a weird mood all day, his expression while they trained determined, fierce. She'd never seen him act that way before, and she didn't think she wanted to push it…

They were half-way to Giles's when an approaching car's headlight's flashed across them. Buffy squinted against the light as the car screeched to a shuddering halt beside them, and a door squealed open on rusty hinges.

"Buffy! Thank heavens you're all right!"

Blinking as her eyes readjusted to the darkness, Buffy saw Giles walking towards them, a relieved expression on his face. She also saw the exact moment he saw Spike standing next to her.

Hoping to stave off the imminent lecturing, and possible ensuing violence, Buffy called out to him. "Giles! Hi…uh, your car is smoking."

The older man didn't stop until he was directly in front of her. She noticed he had a cross and a stake in his hands, and was keeping a jaundiced eye on Spike.

"It always does that," Giles remarked a little defensively.

Spike, of course, wasted no time in voicing his observation.

"Looks like that old heap of yours has had the biscuit, mate," the vampire drawled in a bored voice around his cigarette.

Giles glared at him. "I don't recall asking your opinion – and I'm not your bloody 'mate'." He glanced back at Buffy, noting her disheveled state. "What has he been doing to you? Are you all right?"

Spike made a sound of disgust from beside them.

"I'm fine," she said quickly, shooting Spike a quick look.

"Meet up with you later?"

"Jesus, Slayer, I'm not gonna' spend any more time with you than I absolutely have to. I may know you, but m'not gonna' advertise it."

"Spike?"

The blonde vamp ignored her, though his profile tightened.

Buffy sighed. "Spike, just…try to act your age, for once. Don't …kill anybody. Okay?"

Giles gave a slight, disbelieving laugh. "You really think he's going to listen to you? His kind are incapable of behaving in a manner – "

"Maybe we should just get out of here," Buffy cut in on Giles, who was still glaring at the vampire. "I'll just…uh…wait in the car."

Spike shook his head as he watched the slayer beat a hasty retreat to the watcher's car – if it could still be identified as that.

"Oi," he finally said to the irate man. "You want me to kick your ass now, or later?"

The watcher looked taken aback. "S-sorry?"

Spike shrugged easily. "I can tell that's what it's gonna' take for you to accept the fact that I'm the one in control, here. You wanna' test who's got the biggest wrinklies 'round here, step on up." Dropping his cigarette, Spike lazily waved him forward.

"I don't indulge in scraps," the tweedy-looking council member said, looking down his nose at Spike.

Spike drew his head back in disgust. "Ponce."

The watcher stepped close to him, obviously trying to be intimidating. Spike smirked.

"This…thing you have, with Buffy," the watcher said lowly, "even you realize it's not at all right."

Spike dismissed him with a look and deliberately turned his back, knowing he was insulting the other man by casting him off as any kind of potential threat.

"It's not right, it's not wrong, it just is. Tell the slayer I'll see her in the morning." He sauntered off with deliberate carelessness, sensing the older man's furious stare biting into his back.


He was pushing her hard, too hard. He knew what he was teaching her had little to do with her saving the world…and everything to do with the vain hope that she would somehow be able to save herself in the end that would inevitably come. The fact that her survival had become important to him was something he didn't care to admit to.

Giles watched as Buffy battled a large vampire, shaking his head, and making mental notes about the roughness of her technique.

They were in Weatherly Park, a place Giles found ideal for watching the slayer in her 'natural' environment. The acres of wooded area held a veritable cornucopia of dangerous creatures.

Watching from several feet away, Gils sighed at the slayer's continual mistakes. There were so many things wrong with her technique he didn't know where to begin. He could certainly tell what the heathen vampire had been teaching her apart from her own natural, as-yet untrained style.

"The stake is at your waist," he told her in a calm, authoritative voice as the fight wound down. "Don't waste time bringing it upward to strike downward. The moment you have it clear, drive it up and in. Beneath the ribs."

He needn't have bothered. The struggle was already over in the time it had taken him to speak.

Giles watched as Buffy, barely out of breath, turned to him, tucking the stake away again.

"Listen, I know how to dust a vampire," she told him arrogantly. "You've been like this all night long. If that's all you're here for – "

"What I am here for, is to tech you the correct, most expedient way to dispose of dangerous creatures," Giles interrupted her impatiently.

"Wait, let me get this straight. There's a 'correct' way to slay vampires? Color me surprised." Buffy sighed, suddenly looking dead tired. "Listen, I know it's still a little early for me to cut out, but do you mind? It's only a few hours 'til dawn, and Spike had something planned for later, and I wanna' try to get some sleep."

'I'll just wager he has,' Giles thought knowingly as he watched Buffy turn away. He thought of the books open on his desk at home, and of how close he was getting to learning the true identity of this 'Spike'. Perhaps it was just as well Buffy was calling things off for the night…

"And just what are these plans?" he called after her as she made to leave.

Buffy turned back to look at him through the darkness, and he caught the white flash of her smile.

"Oh, he's teaching me how to use a crossbow," she called back, her voice tinged with excitement…then she was gone.

"Oh, dear lord. The earth is doomed."


Spike had been loitering in the back of a hole-in-the-wall called Willie's Bar when he'd seen the roughly dressed characters enter through the front doors. He hadn't even had to hear the blokes talk to know that they weren't from around these parts, or even that they were council toughs. He'd had run-ins with the type before, over the years. The way they carried themselves, as if they were on the hunt, not to mention the bulges beneath their bulky coats, and the questions they put to the weasel-faced barkeep, gave them away.

Lingering over the last of a long round of beers, Spike had kept his head down and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible from the shadowy corner he'd chosen. Sometimes acting like you belonged was the best disguise. A few other of his kind, however, had wasted no time in rising, paying their tabs, and disappearing through the discreet rear exit.

Listening intently as one man, clearly the leader of the team, spoke into a cell phone, it hadn't taken Spike long to learn what they were for.

They were here to kill him – and take Buffy into their custody if she proved difficult.

Spike had waited until the nervous-looking barkeep, Willy, had inadvertently distracted the men by offering them a round of drinks on the house, and then escaped through the back door as well.

He was walking down an alley running perpendicular to Main now, moving towards home, wondering what the hell he was going to do. Yesterday the answer would have been absurdly simple – stalk 'em, kill 'em one by one, and leave the remains to be found as a grisly warning to the watcher's council not to fuck with the likes of him.

Today, however…

'Try to act your age for once. Don't kill anybody…okay?'

Spike could almost laugh at the slayer's order.

Wasn't his fault trouble always seemed to find 'im. Wasn't like he went lookin' for it…least not all the time…but then he'd never run from it, either.

Spike clenched his teeth as remembered the council's possible plans for her if she wouldn't come to heel under her watcher's hand. They'd talked about hurting her, putting her down because of him, because she was wrong…

His skin prickled. He broke into a run. He was being followed…and if that wasn't enough of a hint, the sudden searing pain in his left shoulder was.

Spike had taken a bolt through the shoulder, but he didn't slow down. He kept running until he saw the a man with a crossbow jump down from his perch on a fire escape, and tackled the bastard even as was loading another bolt. The impact knocked the hunter out, and Spike got to his knees with a pained growl.

He glared down at the wood and steel shaft sticking through fine grain leather and flesh, and reached up with his left hand to rip it free, snapping one end and pulling the tip out the other side, tossing the pieces aside with a snarl.

The hunter made a noise on the damp pavement below him as he regained consciousness, and Spike struggled with the need to bite his throat out.

Temptation was a bitch.

Sure, the slayer had asked him not to kill anyone, but they were in Sunnydale, the vampire capital of the whole bloody world – how would she know if he killed? The human population of the little town dropped by two's and three's every day, and would probably continue to do so, even with her efforts. How would she know one drained corpse of a vampire victim from another? Besides, this cunt had just tried to kill him, and as he was hungry anyway…

A sudden pain stopped him cold before he even bent his head. Confused, his senses screaming danger, he looked down at his chest through a hazy cloud of agony.

The tip of a wooden stake protruded from the already gory, shredded mess of his t-shirt.

"In case you are wondering, I missed your heart on purpose."

His eyes glazing slightly, Spike looked up with an effort. He wasn't surprised to see the bespectacled, tweedy Brit from the earlier in the night standing over him.

"You see," the man went on matter-of-factly, "I've been doing some research. I know exactly who you are, now, all the things you've done, the innocents you've slaughtered…I'm not going to kill you, now. You will be taken back to England to council headquarters, and there you'll be questioned about your history…and exactly what you did to the slayer back in L.A. When your usefulness is at an end, you'll be destroyed – and believe me, your death will not be an easy one if you do not cooperate now. You will die anyway, but it will be swift and final. You can save yourself the pain. Of course, you understand why I hope you will decide to be difficult."

"If you hurt her, I'll bloody finish you," Spike snarled at him.

That threw the watcher completely off-guard.

Without warning, Spike lunged up and out, ignoring the pain in his chest. He grabbed the man under his arms and flung him onto his back on the ground. He was lifting a hand and awkwardly tearing the stake from his chest when his ears caught the unexpected revving of an engine, and he turned around, blinded by the high-powered headlights that caught him full blast in the eyes.

The crunching blow seemed to come out of nowhere. He never even had a chance to move before he was flying through the air. Somehow he twisted in the air before he landed, and ended up skidding to the end of the alley on his face…

And then suddenly, she was there.

"Oh, my god! Spike?!"


To be continued in Chapter Nine…(posted)

Disclaimer: I own NOTHING!

A/N: Sorry, this chapter ran over quite a bit, so I had to divide it into three - THREE! –chapters. The teaser with Cordelia from last chappie will be in chapter ten, which I'm still editing, but nine is already posted. Thanks for reading, and MANY thanks for the award nominations! - Dev