Title: Apokalupsis

Author: Erykah Miszti

Timeline: Post-Not Fade Away.

Summary: This is the legacy of Buffy's plan and Angel's apocalypse.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter Two: Half Truths

"What did you do?" Xander asked again, more softly this time.

Spike's soft words had shocked him. He'd never wanted to feel compassion for this vampire, for any vampire, but the hurt positively radiated off Spike.

Spike straightened his shoulders as if steeling himself and when he turned back there was no hint of the emotion of a mere moment before.

"This isn't the place for storytelling. Let's get you off the streets before those uglies come back for a re-match." He looked over at the girl and scowled hard. "Get rid of that 'costume' Blue." He bit out the words harshly.

"It was necessary." She replied flatly but it sounded sort of as if she meant it to be an apology.

Xander watched transfixed as the delicate figure transformed into much harder creature, still the same but obviously different. There was the blue hair for one thing, and harsh eyes and red shell-like cat suit for another.

"What are you?" He asked.

"I am Illyria." She replied simply.

"Let's go." Spike stated, cutting off any further questions. He strode off down the road, obviously just expecting the others to follow him.

Xander sighed and did just that.

"What did I do to deserve this?" He asked of no one in particular.

"Perhaps it's something you didn't do." Illyria suggested, not having understood that it was meant as a rhetorical question.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Xander took in the pokey apartment they'd brought him to with a resigned expression.

"Kind of reminds me of my ol' basement." He joked.

"Smells better." Spike commented sarcastically as he grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels off the TV and flopped onto the threadbare sofa.

"Har dee har." Xander replied.

Illyria stood near the doorway and observed Xander as he wandered around curiously, saying nothing. Spike had told her about Xander during the long hours they spent together.

There wasn't much in here apart from the sofa and TV (with a Playstation hooked up to it), just a flimsy looking dining table with two chairs and an overflowing ashtray. Three doors led off the room and beyond them he could see a small kitchen, a scruffy looking bathroom and an empty looking bedroom with two single beds.,. well, that answered one question.

"Still living in the height of style then Spike?" He said without humour.

Spike took a long swig from the whiskey bottle, gave a twisted smile and bit back a retort, he was too tired to play this game with Xander.

"Come on then, Spike." Xander prompted. "What's the story?"

Spike stared at the blank TV screen.

"What's the story?" He echoed absently. "Good question." He looked up at Xander. "I suppose that you agreed with Giles that Angel had gone evil by joining Wolfram and Hart?"

"You've gotta admit, it did look that way." Xander acknowledged.

"Only if you're a clueless nonce, who assumes things without bothering to find out the truth." Spike replied bitterly.

"You sound like you're defending Angel." Xander commented incredulously. "You always hated him as much as I did!"

"There's exactly what I mean. You assume without understanding." Spike spat. "You can take the boy out of Sunnydale…" He trailed off.

"Okay, why don't you tell me how it was?" Xander replied bitterly. "Why don't you tell me how come you didn't get destroyed in Sunnydale and how you came to be Angel's greatest fan?"

Spike shook his head and drank some more whiskey. He looked up at Xander.

"Can't believe Andrew kept his word and didn't tell you guys I was back. I didn't think the kid had it in him."

Xander just looked back at him waiting for him to continue. He looked pissed.

"Alright," Spike sighed. "So some old enemy of Angel's brought me back to mess with this shanshu prophecy, you know, this 'becoming human after fighting an apocalypse' thing. Didn't intend to work with Angel, didn't start out that way at all, but along the road it just happened. We worked a lot of stuff out between us. Found we had stuff in common."

"What?" Xander mocked. "Both having attacked and hurt Buffy!"

Spike was on his feet in an instant, leaving the bottle on the chair.

"You take that back!" He yelled. "Or, so help me, I'll rip out your spine!"

"It's true though, isn't it? You did try to rape Buffy." Xander pointed out cruelly.

Spike swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Yes." He admitted finally and opened his eyes. "I had a moment of total madness, that I shouldn't need to justify to you because it's between me and Buffy. It's that thing again! You assume you know everything. That's what always gets me about you Harris." Spike got right up into his face. "You don't know shit, especially about love. Where's Anya now, Harris? Do you even care?"

Xander went very pale.

"Anya died in Sunnydale." He said in a very strained voice.

Spike's expression grew even blacker.

"I know." He backed off from Xander and retrieved his bottle. He raised it slightly before drinking from it, almost as if he was doing a silent toast. "I know."

"She died a hero." Xander stated proudly.

"Means less than you think." Spike muttered into the bottle neck. "A live hero's much better."

"I won't have you putting her down!" Xander bellowed, misunderstanding him.

"Me!" Spike responded in amazement, jumping back to his feet again so they were toe to toe. "You're a lost cause! What colour is the sky in your world!"

"Just tell me how you and Angel destroyed the world!" Xander's face was twisted in anger, not a pretty sight.

"By trying to save it!" Spike yelled back. "We just wanted to make this world a better place. Take out some of the nasties that make it so bad for you pathetic little humans to live your lives. You people, who never accepted us, who never believed we could change, who we were once the same as but could never be again. We wanted to make the world a better place for you."

Xander held his look steadily.

"You wanted to appease your own guilt, you mean?" He said nastily.

"Some of that." Spike admitted. "And what's so wrong with that? What's wrong with doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? You've been doing it all these years!"

"What?" That had confused him. Spike smirked.

"You've been fighting evil all these years because it's the right thing to do…? Or because it keeps you close to your precious Buffy?"

"I'm not going to dignify that with an answer!" Xander countered.

"Why not..? It's what you've accused me of doing. Why is it alright for you to just want to be with her but why was it never right for me?"

"Because you were evil!" Xander pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "For all I know you still are!"

"Look around you Harris." Spike suggested calmly. "If I was evil, you think I'd be living in this dump with just an emotionally stunted ex-God for company?" He gestured towards Illyria who was still standing in the doorway, calmly watching this unexpectedly interesting scene between the two men.

Xander followed his gesture and his eye widened as he took in the fact about Illyria being an ex-God but he shook it off and returned to the fight.

"Okay, maybe you're not still evil." Xander admitted, Spike made a mocking 'thank you' gesture and went back to his chair. He slumped heavily into it. "But… how did we get into all this?"

"I forgot who I was talking to for a moment." Spike sighed.

Xander shook his head in disbelief.

"Spike..." He began again patiently. "What happened?"

Spike shrugged and continued his tale.

"Angel decided to take down Wolfram and Hart… to kick them out of this dimension. It wouldn't have kept them out forever, just stopped their plans for the short term." Spike looked over at Xander. "We could have used your help, all those Slayers of yours would have made the fight very different."

"We couldn't trust you." Xander said weakly, looking at the floor.

"You could have sent someone to find out…" Spike pointed out softly.

"Andrew said…" Xander started attempting to justify it.

"Andrew is an idiot." Spike said with a slight smile. "He's a sweet kid," That admission sounded dragged out of him. "But he's an idiot."

Xander nodded in agreement.

"We didn't do badly on our own." Spike continued, his voice contained a mixture of pride and regret. "We lost Wesley early on... then ended up in a rain soaked alleyway… two vampires with souls, a former god and the bravest human I think I've ever met, bleeding his heart out on the road." Spike looked at his hands. "A huge demon army coming at us… they were Wolfram and Hart's revenge for our double crossing them." He snorted bitterly and opened his mouth to say something but seemed to change his mind and closed it again. He took a drink instead.

"We fought like dervishes," Spike smiled. "Gunn especially. He knew he was dying so he had nothing to lose. He must have taken out dozens of them before he fell, and even then... blaze of glory, literal." Spike grinned broadly. "He set fire to one and it just spread through them!" The grin faded. "I lost sight of the others for a long time. Everything just became about killing and blood... for hours or days, I'm not sure." He swallowed hard and shook it off, he looked back at Xander. "I woke up in an alleyway with Illyria looking after me. We haven't seen Angel since and the world is all wrong now. It's Wolfram and Hart still taking revenge for what we did. They opened the doors to another dimension and the evil is just pouring in."

"Oh god!" Xander exclaimed, his face a picture of horror. He sank down onto one of the dining table chairs. "We should've been here to help."

"Yep." Spike replied. "You should've, but what's done is done." Spike compressed his lips and suppressed his bitter thoughts. "Go to bed now, Xander. I'll sleep out here. I'll take you to a phone in the morning."

"I have a cell." Xander said absently, still thinking.

"Then go call the Watcher now." Spike corrected.

"We need to close that portal." Xander nodded, still looking a little stunned.

"Yeah." Spike replied flatly.

Xander went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Spike sighed incredibly deeply and rubbed tiredly at the short hair on the crown of his head.

Illyria went to the TV, started the PlayStation and picked up the controller.

"You lied to him." She stated, probably not meaning it to sound like an accusation but Spike took it that way anyway.

"I did not lie." He defended and took another swig of his Jack Daniels.

"You didn't tell him everything." She was staring at the game's opening screen.

"He's here on behalf of The Watchers. They don't own me. I don't owe them an explanation." He covered.

"They might be able to help." She loaded her previous game. "The Slayer and her minions might be useful."

Spike thought about that. Xander was going to tell Buffy that he was here. What would she say? Would she come here? The thought filled him with terror. He knew he was no longer what she remembered but he hadn't seen her in such a long time. How could he explain to her about Angel? How could he explain to anyone about Angel? There was no way he could let things stay the way they were.

He sighed deeply and glanced over at Illyria, there were no more questions forthcoming and she was now absorbed in the Simpson's game but she'd made him start thinking and remembering the things he hadn't told Xander.

Spike thought back to that night with confused emotions. He'd been covered in blood, bruised, fighting for his very existence, having the time of his life inflicting bloody murder on the demon hordes… and hordes they were, they just kept coming. Spike quickly lost count of how many he'd slaughtered, they became faceless masses of flesh that he had to kill or be killed by.

Thinking back now, he wasn't as proud of that fact as he had been at the time. The down side of having a soul, he even regretted killing the bad guys. There was always that little nagging doubt inside him… he'd changed even though people had written him off as an evil fiend. How many of the "bad guys" he'd slaughtered might have the capacity to do that too. He himself was proof that even though you can't save them all, that might not be a reason to give it a bit of a go at least. That bloody soul giving him feedback again. He'd had too many years to think about this stuff.

Spike snorted out loud and Illyria looked up from her game for a second. They'd already had the redemption discussion and he knew she didn't agree with him, so he didn't bother mentioning it again. She turned back to the game.

There had been none of these thoughts back then, on that night of pain and violence. The last time he'd seen Angel he'd been clinging to the tail of the dragon, getting whipped about through the air. Illyria had been easier to spot for a while, throwing demons about as she had.

As he'd told Xander, Gunn had gone down pretty early but he hadn't expected him to last long anyway. At least it had been that blaze of glory… not like what happened to rest of them.

Spike remembered a blade heading for his head… then he was standing in the field. He hadn't faded out or in or anything like that, there was no shaft of light. He'd just been there, standing under a frighteningly perfect starry sky with a field of grass extending for miles all around him and the only other thing visible was Anya, smiling at him perkily in the brilliant moonlight.

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"Where am I?" Spike demanded. "I was fighting…"

"Nice to see you too, Spike." Anya replied pointedly, still smiling.

Spike stared at her.

"But you're dead!" He said in total confusion.

"Yes, I died in Sunnydale." Her perky smile never faded.

"Where are we?" He asked again.

"I'll tell you when the others get here." She told him.

There was a squelching sound and Angel appeared to his left. Another squelch and Illyria turned up on his right.

"Where are we?" Angel demanded from him.

"That's what I'm still trying to find out." Spike replied and looked pointedly at Anya.

"Hello." Anya said, inclining her head towards Angel and then Illyria. "I'm Anya."

"She's dead." Spike told Angel.

"What!" Angel said.

"Anya, an explanation would be good right now but, somehow, I'm guessing we didn't survive the fight." Spike suggested.

"Nope. You lost. Badly." She said smartly. "But the good news is that you went out champions."

"But did we destroy Wolfram and Hart's operation on Earth?" Angel asked anxiously.

"You hurt them very badly." Anya told them. "They're mighty pissed at you." She smiled even more broadly. "But that shouldn't matter to you anymore!"

"Why?" Spike asked sarcastically. "You're not saying we made it to heaven?" He snorted derisively.

"Close enough." Anya said happily. "Congratulations boys. Welcome to your life."

"Huh?" Angel queried.

"Just listen." She put her finger to her lips to shush them.

Spike did just that; closed his mouth and listened. There were no birds, no sounds and he started to frown, wondering what the bloody hell she was on about but then he heard it. Somewhere near by there was a subtle rhythmic throbbing sound. He realised slowly that it was coming from him. He put his hand to his chest and, for the first time in over one hundred years, he felt his heart pounding.

"Angel!" He exclaimed looking up at the other man.

Angel had obviously just realised the same thing that Spike had because he broke out into a huge grin. Spike whooped happily and the two men grabbed onto each other… hugging, shrieking, grinning and dancing around happily…

"Why am I here?" Illyria asked Anya in her mono tone, ignoring the boys and their happy dance.

"You're a champion too." Anya replied with her perky smile.

"I'm not part of this prophecy." Illyria said. "Why am I here?"

The smile wavered but didn't disappear.

"The Powers That Be didn't tell me everything. They just said to expect you. Maybe they decided to give you a free pass too, another shot at life?"

"Then where is Wesley? Why didn't he get one?" The icy cold stare fixed on her. "And Gunn?"

"You're not easy to please, are you missy?" Anya frowned.

"Something is wrong here." Illyria said but Anya turned away from her dismissively and went back to the men.

"Come on, no time to waste. Let's get you settled in to your new lives." She said.

"Is this Earth?" Spike asked, still grinning like an idiot.

"Not quite." Anya replied apologetically. "That's the one thing that wasn't in the prophecy, I'm afraid. You get to live until you die, but you can only do it here." The smile went away. "You can't ever go back there."

"Typical bloody prophecy!" Spike snorted, he turned to Angel. "Well, least we don't have to fight about who gets to go after Buffy..."

The former vampires, now human, set off with the dead Anya across the field, chatting happily, as giddy as schoolboys eager to explore their reward. The sun started to come up over the horizon and they basked in its beauty and majesty.

Illyria followed some way behind. She didn't like this at all. She was right not to.