Chapter Three

Soul

I don't know how long I sat there in that room. My mind couldn't really wrap around what had just happened. None of it made sense. I knew what he said wasn't true, how could it be? But it didn't mean that what he said didn't hurt any less. More then anything at the moment I wanted to go find him and knock some sense into him. But I still didn't move. My body was shaking from chills that had currently started to wrack my every inch of me, my head hurt, everything about me was wrong. I knew that I should get back to bed, but again, for some unknown reason I couldn't.

The one thing that seemed to surprise me the most though was that I wasn't crying. Not a single tear had even came to the surface yet. It just seemed to be the farthest thing from my mind at the moment.

Finally, after the fire had long died out, I got up. I moved slowly at first, like I was in a dream. I didn't even realize I was at the door until my hand hit the cold handle.

"Going somewhere luv?"

Spike stood in the doorway to my right, cigarette in hand. "Do you have a death wish?" My voice sounded far away and raspy.

"Now now, don't get your knickers in a twist. I was just asking a simple question."

"Nothing's simple with you Spike." I opened the door and went out into the night. I had to do something. I had to kill.

"Do you really think this is a good idea? Coming out here all alone when you can barley even walk." He said, meeting my strides with perfect accuracy. I didn't answer him. He grabbed my arm to try and get me to stop moving, but his hand slowly slid away with a grin as I shot a look at him. "Alright. I won't stop you. But I'm not letting you wander around out here alone. I'm coming with you."

"Why?" I questioned as I started moving again.

"Because Angel will have my hide if he finds out I let you out of the house by yourself."

"Somehow I don't think you'll have to worry about that."

"Yeah, I overheard your little love fest with him. He doesn't mean it though. I wish he did because the thought of you two together makes me want to hurl, but unfortunately I know him, and he didn't mean it."

I stopped and spun around. "What the hell are you trying to do Spike? You hate him!"

"Point is?"

"Why are you defending him?"

He stood there and took a long drag on the smoke, almost as if he was contemplating what to say next. "I do. I'll give you that. But things have changed over the past hundred or so years."

"Like what?"

He smiled. "Somehow I don't think you came out here to chat pet."

I starred at him. Everything seemed to be getting more confusing by the second for me. Shaking my head I continued walking. "You're right, I didn't."

Twelve vampires later, Spike and I made our way back to the house. Neither one of us had spoken since the beginning of all this. Which was perfectly fine by me.

The whole time we were out there, Spike hadn't even lifted a finger to help. I think he understood that I wanted to do this on my own. That I needed to kill something and if he got in the way, he'd most likely end up on the pointy end of my stake. He just watched me. Made sure I wasn't getting overwhelmed. That's what was bugging me the most. Three days ago he had stabbed me, looking me straight in the eye as it happened, and now? Now he was protecting me? I didn't get it. This seemed to be the night though for not getting things. First Angel turns on me, and then Spike of all people helps me.

Pushing these things aside I opened the door to the house and stormed in. Marching down the hall I went to the bathroom that I had saw earlier. Not even looking behind me to see if Spike had followed, I slammed and locked the door, immediately turning on the hot spray of the shower. At least that's what I wanted. The water instead came as a drizzle of luke warm substance. I ignored it though and quickly shed my clothes and stepped under the spray.

Dust and grime slid off of me slowly. My head still felt like a vice was tightly clamped around it, but there was nothing I could really do about that. I know that I shouldn't have gone out like I did, that all I really accomplished was making myself sicker, but I was slowly going insane in that room. I could barley stand being in the same house as Angel at the moment. I had already resolved myself that tomorrow morning I was leaving and going back to Connor's. There was more at stake here then Angel and I's relationship. Leon was still out there.

I stood in the shower until the water turned cold, then slowly I got out and wrapped a towel neatly around myself. My clothes were pretty much torn and ruined, so I let them lay in the middle of the floor as I walked away.

The room I had recently been staying in was lit with a half a dozen candles when I entered. The bed was made and the fire was roaring in the corner. This should have made my heart melt, make me at least cock some semblance of a smile. Instead it only proved to infuriate me even more.

"Hey,"

I turned around about ready to yell, to scream. But Angel wasn't who was standing there at the moment. Connor was.

"I brought you some clothes." He said, offering me a small bag of some of my things. "Angel got word to me a couple days ago that you were here and that you might need some of your stuff."

I took the bag dumbly, wrapping the towel around myself a little tighter.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I got stabbed."

"Understandable." He shrugged and sat down on the chair on the other side of the room. Realizing he wasn't going to leave, I went over to the small changing screen and started rummaging through my bag for something to wear. "I heard you and him got in some sort of a fight." There was no need to specify who exactly 'him' was. It went without saying. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"What's there to talk about?" I spoke from behind the screen.

"Spike said it was pretty harsh. What he said to you."

I froze for a moment, realizing that Connor too was okay with the whole Spike thing. Stepping out from behind the screen I glared at him. "Why the hell is Spike suddenly being treated like some sort of saint around here?"

"It's hard to explain." The look in his eyes told me that he had expected this reaction sooner or later.

"He stabbed me Connor. He looked me right in the eye and slid that knife through me. Then suddenly I wake up and don't know where I am… again. Angel is all nice and caring and genuinely worried about me. Then I find out that we are in Spikes house, along with the whore who Angel just had to go help in the first place, who I might add, is the main reason for that little fiasco between Angel and I a couple hours ago, and nobody will tell me why."

"Maybe we should talk about this after you've rested…"

"I don't want to fucking rest! I want answers." I yelled.

"Okay," Connor got up and came over to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. "Okay, I'm sorry. I realize that you must be pretty confused right now."

"Confused?" I asked viciously, shrugging his hands off me. "I'm way past confused here Connor. I want to know why the hell I'm here, why no one has even tried to lay a hand on Spike, and why the hell Angel is acting the way he is!"

"Connor," the voice came from the doorway. I turned, watching as Angel leaned against the frame with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. "Will you leave us for a few minutes?"

"Get out." I said slowly. But Angel ignored me and just kept looking at Connor until he left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Turning to me Angel fixed me with the same icy stare that I was currently giving him. "Please tell me that you didn't come here to apologize, because that's not going to even come close to cutting it at the moment."

"I didn't."

"Then why the hell are you in my room."

"I came to give you those answers that you keep yelling about."

"How kind of you." I said sarcastically. "But I think I'll ask Connor about them instead. At least he's willing to tell me the truth."

"Connor's not going to tell you anything. You want answers, you're going to have to get them from me." He moved over to the chair that Connor had been previously sitting in. Sitting down the firelight hit him. The only words used to describe him at the moment was that he pretty much looked like hell. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and the worry lines that I didn't think vampires could even get, stood present. If it were any other day I'd go to him, comfort him. But today…

"You going to ask me some questions or are you just going to stand there?" He asked, breaking my reverie. Feeling sorry for him was starting to escape from me.

"Why did Spike stab me?"

"He had to. He works for Leon. Every week either me or Connor meet up with him and get any information that he may have picked up from people in Leon's inner circle." His voice had started to take on a robotic tone, almost as if none of this mattered to him anymore.

"Spike's in Leon's inner circle. And we're trusting him because…?"

"Because it was his idea in the first place." Angel said, sounding like he was just listing a bunch of facts.

"And that just makes him so trustworthy." I marched across the room and got a hair brush out of my bag. I couldn't just sit here and listen. I had to do something.

"He didn't want to. Originally it was going to be me on the inside. I was going to go to Leon and pretend like I've given in. But I still had Connor to think about, so Spike volunteered to be the inside man." Angel started playing with his fingers. My guess was that he too was trying to keep focused on the task at hand so things wouldn't get out of control again.

"Why would Spike even consider working with you? Besides the fact that he pretty much wants to see you dead, there's the little detail about him being… oh I don't know, evil."

"He got a soul about two years after you died."

The brush that was currently in my hand dropped with a loud clatter to the floor. Did I just hear him correctly? "What?"

"The chip was starting to reform him, but he still hated the fact that he couldn't defend himself if something ever happened. The only option he really had was to remove the chip. When he finally found someone who could do that for him he was hesitant. He was worried that he'd go back and start being like he was before he had the chip in and for some reason unknown to me, that bothered him. So he went to some place in Africa and had a demon give him his soul."

"He chose to have his soul." It wasn't a question. I had to say it out loud, I had to hear how it sounded because frankly I wasn't quite ready to believe it yet.

"He stabbed you the other night because Leon's guys were swarming the streets. Some of them are starting to doubt Spike's loyalty to the order. Originally he was just going to take whoever came along. But then you showed up …"

"He had to. To get Leon's men off his trail."

"Exactly."

"They still have to be suspicious though. I mean, Spike didn't kill me, he just stabbed me and then brought me to his house."

Angel lifted his eyebrows. "Point being?"

"Why would a guy bring some unconscious woman to… Oh." I bent down and retrieved my brush, not wanting to think about what the other vampires talked about when they saw Spike carrying me home. "Okay then, umm…" I took a deep breath trying to gather my thoughts. "Why are we still at this house and not a Connor's?"

"The streets aren't safe right now. If one of the vampires that was on patrol that night see's you, they'll start questioning things. We have to wait a little while longer."

"And nobodies questioning why you're here?"

"No one knows I'm here. I made sure I wasn't followed."

"Why didn't you come home right away after you were done… done doing whatever it is you needed to do?"

"Again, the streets weren't safe."

"Why don't I believe you?' I looked at him. There was something about his voice when he answered the last question that just didn't sit right with me. The hypnotic trance like tone had cracked as he spoke. Slip number one. "You could have at least gotten word to us that you were okay." The harshness started creeping back into my voice.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked up at me expectantly. "Are you done?"

"What the hell has gotten into you Angel?" I said, bursting forth without any warning.

He stood up. "Do you really want to have this conversation again? Because I have things I need to do. I answered your damn questions…"

"Why did you? What's the difference between now and a couple hours ago?"

He laughed and started walking towards the door. "Spike can be very convincing when he wants to be." He threw over his shoulder right before he left.

Part of me wanted to follow him, to try and see what he was feeling and gain some sort of knowledge into the way he was acting. But instead of going to him and having it all out, I went back to the study, the room where it all began.

"We need to talk." I said upon entering the room.

Julia looked up at me and smiled. "Thought you might say that."