Boomerang
It wasn't unusual for the team members to keep totems of their kills, souvenirs even, and Garrett wasn't sure why he noticed hers. For the last two months, he had wondered what she was doing when she came back from a raid and whittled carefully at the slender rod.
Maybe he wondered because he spent his every waking moment with one eye on the Slayer; a wounded rabbit keeping the murderous hawk in sight just in case it came back to finish the job. He was out of traction, but still unable to join the raiding parties because of his knee injury and the pins in his jaw had become the kind of guests who never leave. It was better to be up and moving instead of flat on his back and the very fact that he was alive was enough to distinguish him from the rest of what had been the Genesis team. When he'd requested to head back into the field, back to the hunting and traveling that he enjoyed, it had served the dual purpose of getting him as far away as possible from Sunnydale and from the woman who made Black Widow spiders look like Mother Teresa.
Just his luck that she'd be there when he arrived.
No one talked to her, no one approached her. Through the hushed conversations when she was too far away to hear, he learned that the team had lashed out when she'd first arrived. Delving into their childhoods, the men had pulled every cruel prank they could think of. They emptied food packets and refilled them with mud; they doused her bunk in icy water, collected poisonous spiders to fill her boots, and had generally made her life a miserable Hell. All to no avail. Nothing seemed to crack her inhuman control and she was no closer to going back to whatever nightmare she had come from. The pranks stopped when Dan Harker had thrown a particularly nasty snake onto her legs while they thought she was sleeping. Without a moment's hesitation and eyes still closed, she ripped the snake's head off with her bare hands. They watched her cook and eat the rest of the carcass the following morning.
Wary eyes and plenty of room to maneuver were the only things they sent her direction now. The Slayer didn't seem to mind; her voice was hard and quietly firm when she was addressed. Brown eyes looked through them, past them, over their heads and shoulders into a world they didn't see. He was relegated to the bench until the doctor gave the green light. That mean he was stuck with running communications and making sure the supplies were ordered and on their way. While the rest were out on raids, he stayed behind with the research crew as they examined and recorded data about demon anatomy and effective killing techniques. If they needed him, he was ready with a willing hand to help carve into carcasses or put down information into hard copies to be sent back to Genesis.
Vampires were the only entrée on the menu that night, which left Garrett and the research crews with time on their hands as they waiting for the hunting party to return. A Master and his minions had set themselves up as gods, ruling over the surrounding villages on the outskirts of the rainforest and demanding blood sacrifices. It was pathetic and old-fashioned as far as nefarious plots went, but there were enough of them to warrant a hit squad. The fact that a Vampire Slayer was part of the team was slow getting out among the demon underground. For some reason, none of the demons believed she was a Slayer right up until the moment she sliced through their incredulous necks and left heads or dust falling around those miles of legs. Slayers weren't supposed to have that look; the light in their eyes that meant they got off on the killing, and they were supposed to stay on the Hellmouth. Tactically, it gave her the edge of surprise the team often needed. Garrett wasn't about to thank her.
Easing down onto the cot, he lifted up the narrow pillow and, with a cautious glance toward the flap of the tent, he fished out the long, smooth reed she kept. Some of the men had groused about her sleeping in the same tent as the rest of the team. They'd offered as many excuses as they could think of to get her out and away from them. One by one, the excuses were shot down and it was amazing how little their lives had changed. It was easy to forget she was even there when she kept to herself and did her job without a word.
Down the left side of the thick reed where a series of evenly spaced and neatly carved wedges spanned the length. On the flip-side were sharper, narrowly spaced cuts clustered at one end as though she'd changed her marking system halfway through. There weren't enough markings to signify her kills. The Slayer was a machine. She'd begrudging earned the acknowledgment from the men that, all murderous tendencies aside, she kicked demon ass in ways they could only imagine. Maybe she only kept track of vampires or new demons she hadn't fought before. Again, he wasn't sure why he cared or why he was sitting on the scrap of canvas she used for a bed and staring down at the reed, trying to decipher its secrets.
In Sunnydale, before she had put him out of the action completely for four tortuous months, he'd felt sorry for her, for what the dead General had planned. That was before he'd woken up in the hospital surrounded by his friends and fellow soldiers, each wrapped in their own bandages with another horror story to tell about what they had seen, survived, and about those who hadn't. He heard that she'd gone straight to the top and gutted the General with one of the standard issue blades that she'd taken off of a dead body. For some reason beyond the comprehension of the survivors, the order had come down from the highest levels of authority that she was to be offered a place in one of the elite groups of men and women who sought out and brought down the demons who crossed the line to threaten humanity.
And here she was. Working and fighting along side friends and brothers of the very men she had butchered. If he thought about it too long, his hands started to shake and he couldn't focus on anything but the sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach that would eventually creep up his throat, cutting off air and voice. There weren't exact words for the way she made him feel.
Dirty.
Maybe it was survivor's guilt. Maybe it was because he could have shot her when she'd taken out Tango. If he had shot her, screw the orders to keep their distance; if he'd just taken her down there in that hallway he could have saved the rest of them. He'd let his sympathy get in the way and it had cost fifty-three men their lives. Men with wives and families waiting for them. What did she have? Nothing. She should have been the one to die. There wasn't a snowflake's chance in hell that he could remedy that now. She was too fast, too ready. The world was out to get her and she fucking knew it; she was waiting for the slightest attack like a diamondback curled and rattling. All he wanted to know was why she hadn't killed them all.
Why hadn't she killed him?
The answer was obvious, of course, even if he was doing his best Stevie Wonder in an attempt to escape the consequences. She didn't kill humans arbitrarily, only the ones who were trying to hurt her or pissed her off. Like any other person on the planet would have, she'd fought in self-defense, even if the results had been closer to an all out massacre. He wasn't dead because she'd chosen to spare him, chosen to let him live because he hadn't threatened her, hadn't opened fire or tried to kill her. His own inaction, the failure to pull the trigger that had cost the others their lives, had been his saving grace. Reality was bitter ash in the back of his mouth, coating and burning his lungs as it swallowed up any attempt at words.
Forty-five. Forty-six. He counted the notches because it kept his mind focused on something else, on the sequence of numbers that belonged in the safe and rational world. Forty-nine, fifty. What did they mean? What was she keeping track of? Fingers halted over the last notch as he repeated the final count silently. Fifty-three. One for each of the lives she had taken. The invisible ash redoubled its malevolent efforts to choke him as he blinked rapidly, refusing to believe that she could even consider treating human life as a trophy. What were the other notches for? The number of men she wanted to kill?
His hands were already shaking violently when he noticed the boots standing just at the edge of his vision and looked up into the curious face of the youngest recruit in the squad. He was a sort of Ichabod Crane with watery blue eyes and a tendency to blink when he was trying to make sense of the world around him. Blake Harrison was also one of the foremost demonologists the military had who was also willing to get within a stone's throw of real combat. To Harrison, a Slayer was just another creature to categorize and study, falling somewhere before Succubus and after Siren in the book of female serial killers. He was the only member of the team that Garrett could remember speaking to the Slayer; he'd bombarded her with questions about where Slayers came from and what it was like to be one.
"Probably a good idea to leave that where you found it, mate." Blake nodded toward the stick, his Australian accent unnaturally prominent in the silence. "Don't reckon she'd take to it disappearing."
"Yeah. She might break more than my jaw this time," Garrett snapped as he stuffed it back under the pillow. "I'm well aware of what she's capable of."
"Fifty-three."
"One for each body she left behind." His knee ached as he got back to his feet and started out of the tent.
"Want to know what the rest are for?"
He almost kept going, almost walked out of the tent without stopping; he told himself that it didn't fucking matter why the Slayer cut notches into a bit of wood and he didn't care even if it did. Instead, he hesitated, torn by curiosity and the slightly goading tone in Blake's voice. The I Know Something You Don't taunting that hung in the air between them. Rather than answering, he remained still and stubbornly kept his back to the demonologist.
"Those are the lives she's saved since she got here."
"As if it matters?" Angry now, Garrett glared back over his shoulder. "As if it changes what she did, as if it makes up for all of those deaths. She can't, not ever. No way in Hell will there ever be a way for her to make it right."
Blake fished his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket. "What would you rather she do?"
"I don't fucking care what she does."
"You know she's going to die." He settled onto his bunk, still watching Garrett carefully. "All this? Fighting vamps and demons, it's bloody exciting for you. For her, it's life. There is no other option. You can go home, raise a few ankle biters, and all she has to look forward to is the next fight, until she finally gets to that last one. The one she doesn't walk away from."
"Are you trying to make me feel sorry for her? It's not going to work." Not when he'd have the permanent ache of metal in his jaw and the fact that he may never join the active team again weighing him down.
"I'm telling you to ease off." Unusually firm, Blake raised his gaze in a direct challenge. "Walk a mile in her shoes and see how it feels."
Garrett snorted disdainfully. "Think I should kill a few people too? Get perspective?"
"Do you know how they made the first Slayer?" Blake casually switched the subject, his eyes never looking away. "Magicians, shamans, took a girl and chained her to the ground so she couldn't run, in the middle of the desert where no one would hear her scream. And they forced the soul of a demon into her body. Powerful magic, black as it gets."
"And your point?"
"Ever been addicted to something? Something powerful."
"No. Why?"
"Then you'll never understand what it is to be a Slayer." The demonologist smiled as he rolled up a sleeve, showing the scars of needle tracks marring the skin inside his elbow. "What it feels like to fight against yourself every second of every day and hate the part of you that can't say no. The part that makes them strong, that makes them the Slayer, that's the demon part and it's just as dark and evil as anything they kill. What do you think keeps them human?" He paused, waiting for an answer that wasn't coming. "Friends. Family. Everything they took away from her. They thought they were helping, but all they did was bring the Slayer closer to the surface. A few thousand years of rage are trapped inside that body. A war that she fights every waking moment. You can hate her, you can fear her, but get one thing straight. The world she lives, the battles she fights, are nothing like what you have ever known or will ever know. She hurt you and you're angry about it, but don't ever judge her."
"You weren't there," Garrett choked out bitterly, pain shooting through his clenched jaw.
"I've been here. While the rest of you have been cowering in fear or acting like a bunch of bloody teenagers, I've been watching her and I've seen what you haven't. We're the ones sticking our noses in someone else's business. Get over it."
Incredulous and furious, he stormed from the tent, unwilling to spend another second listening to the bullshit coming out the demonologist's mouth. Who cared? If she was part demon then she should be hunted down and killed like every other demon. Simple, easy.
Grinding his teeth, he took a seat in the research tent and starting working on the paperwork that would need to be filled out when the team returned. He tried to take his mind off of the conversation with Harrison; he didn't need someone telling him it was okay to hate her because he couldn't imagine feeling anything else.
Beyond the paperwork, the usual assortment of first aid supplies needed to be set out on the long table where the team would disarm, shedding protective armor and weaponry before they ate breakfast. The Slayer would be last, trailing the rest of the men and retreating to the far side of the clearing where a pile of logs and crumbling rocks hid her from view. Tucked in her hollow of wood and stone, she always took care of her own wounds and could almost be forgotten until she crept into the tent where the rest of the team was getting some hard-earned rest. He knew every step of her routine.
"Shouldn't they be back by now?" One of the researchers yawned, fiddling with his lantern as he punched data into a laptop. "Just vampires. They're usually don't take this long."
"Probably had to hunt down the bastards one by one," Garrett answer. He took his time stacking each of the folders neatly into piles for the debriefing session.
"Why do we have to do so much goddamn paperwork?" Another younger man, barely out of boot camp, cracked his back and blearily eyed the forest walls around them. "What the hell?"
Garrett looked up in time to see half of the team stumble out of the forest in a chaotic vortex of shouting and blood. Bolting from the table as quickly as his knee would allow, he shouted for the medics as he hurried toward the group. Several were holding crimson stained patches of cotton against their necks. Strips of jackets and t-shirts had been used to bandage cuts on arms and legs, each man holding onto another as they collapsed onto the softer ground.
"What happened?" Garrett took an arm of one of the injured men. "Saunders? What happened?"
He winced as he eased onto the ground, clutching a gaping wound in his thigh. "Ambush. Fucking vampires knew we were coming."
"Who's missing?"
"Jax and Peterson bought it."
"Lee and Scipio too." Another soldier slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle. "Campbell took a sword through the chest. Don't know what happened to him." Those who could still hold weapons were watching the edge of the clearing with tightly controlled fear. Even the researchers were handed rifles and positioned in a protective half moon around the wounded.
Garrett took Saunders' rifle and checked the rounds quickly before falling into position, praying his knee wouldn't give out if it came down to a fight. "Do you think they followed?"
"Left a pretty good trail for them." Captain Remmick wiped his hands on his uniform, spreading blood over the dark fabric. "Don't know if the Slayer made it, they seemed pretty intent on getting to her." There was a heavy pause as they all held their breath and waited. In the distance, the sound of snapping branches and animalistic growling ebbed out of the forest, growing like the tide as it closed the distance between them and death.
"They knew she was a Slayer?" Garrett whispered softly.
"Somehow," Remmick replied grimly. "Somehow they knew. Didn't seem scared either."
At the edge of the clearing the trees seemed to bubble out toward them, leaves waving in a trim of tattered lace as the belle of the ball danced through the eerie shadows with growling, snapping charms on her heels. Unconsciously, the men began to ease backwards, knowing that when the vampires burst through the last obscuring line of foliage, all the distance in the world wouldn't save them, but a little more couldn't hurt. For a moment the ripples in the branches seemed to pause, sucking in toward the dark and gathering momentum for their final crashing dance as they birthed the demons into the clearing. It happened too quickly to think. Nerves burned tracks down fingers and arms, drowning out the sounds of the vampires in the hail of gunfire. Wooden core bullets tore through flesh and bone, spilling dust as they found their mark and rendering useless the unlucky ones with hearts still intact.
"Hold your fire!" Captain Remmick shouted into the blazing hailstorm of metal and wood. It petered out, a popcorn machine finished with all but the last kernels stubbornly refusing to blossom. "Stay in control! Quick bursts, aim for the heart." The trees were still waving their ragged lace and the forest was screeching with the abominations creeping through its underbrush.
"Wait!" Garrett felt the word rip from his mouth as three more vampires broke through the bushes and stumbled into the clearing. Surprisingly, the group held their fire, fingers twitching against the irresistible impulse to pull back against the trigger. There was something different about the last vampires. They looked ragged and frightened. Not pursuing. Pursued.
She came from the trees, launching out of the branches and catching the two slower vampires. They were dragged to the ground with the force of her weight hitting their backs. The third made the mistake of looking back and tripped over a rock, tumbling onto the ground into the range of the Marines. Garrett watched as the Slayer wrapped her legs around one of the remaining vampires, using him for a shield as she rolled onto her back and slammed his body into the other vamp. He burst into dust as she rammed a stake through his chest and the last vamp found himself on his back, facing a stake-bearing Slayer.
"How many know?" she snarled, accenting the demand by slamming his head into the earth. "Tell me how many."
The vampire screeching with pain as she punched the stake into his shoulder. "I don't know."
"Tell me."
"Fuck you."
The Slayer drove the stake into the ground next to his head and reached for her belt. She spun the dagger through her fingers with a terrifying smile on her face and it glittered in the moonlight before she planted it in the vampire's midsection. He howled and writhed against her, blood splattering up over her arms and face as she carved into his abdomen.
"You'll be begging me to kill you in less than a minute." Her voice was hard and sharp, the only response was a strangled growl. She twisted the blade down toward his hip and kept cutting. Garrett nearly lost his dinner as she abandoned the knife and reached into the gaping hole with her bare hand, tearing and twisting the organs inside.
"Tell me who knows," she demanded fiercely, covered in the dark blood of the sobbing vampire. "Tell me!"
"Everyone!" He finally shouted. His voice was thick with pain. "Everyone knows."
For a moment, Garrett wondered if she was going to keep torturing the creature just because she enjoyed it. In one swift movement, she retrieved the stake and plunged it into his heart. There was nothing but silence as they watched the dust settle onto the ground. She slowly got to her feet and tucked the stake back into the loop on her belt. Fatigue lined her face as dark eyes swept over the group, blood oozing from her own wounds and the spray from her victims.
The Captain broke the uneasy tension. "Slayer?"
"They know." She was still gripping the dagger tightly, hesitating, visibly torn between answering and remaining silent. "They know there are only three Slayers left."
"What does that mean?"
For a long moment she didn't say anything, just looked up into the sky. Finally her brown eyes swung back to group and Garrett was sure he saw some intimation of emotion in them. "It means they're coming after us."
No one moved to help or catch her when she swayed, knees buckling before she hit the ground.
It was a test drive. Faith was just seeing if it got in the way of slaying and fighting because if it did then she would have a good reason to say no instead of admitting that she was terrified beyond all reason. Her pretty little world had gone Tim Burton over night and left her waiting for the reflection in the mirror to start hurling insults. She was just wearing the ring for a few hours before she tucked it back into its velvet shell and shook the sugarplum fairies from her head. She knew better. There were no happily ever afters, there was no riding into the sunset, there was just now and today.
And there would be no more days of carefree sex with Spike either.
It wasn't possible, couldn't be possible. She'd been careful. Somewhere, Truth was laughing at her. She'd been careful with Frye, not with Spike.
Spike, who was warm and human and no longer a vampire.
Possible or not, there it was. At least, that's what the girl in blue scrubs with the dark skin and almond eyes had told her cheerfully before instructing her to wait in the sitting area. Wait and stare at the magazines or watch the World War II documentary playing on the television. That didn't seem real either. Grainy footage of bombers and pilots, men dying and surviving as the narrator droned on with names and places. Events that had taken place long before she was born, that set in motion what the world would be today. History was a dance, the choreography seen only in hindsight and its whirlwind pace deceptively lazy. If she could look back and pinpoint the exact moments that had led her to this here and now, would it seem like random links in a chaotic chain or would she find a pattern? A method in the madness.
Hiding under her bed when she knew Shane was coming over, sneaking out the window and trying to stay away from his reaching hands. The helplessness when he finally caught her and the feeling of power when she'd thrown him across the room, when she'd known that she'd never be helpless again. Hitting the streets for the first time, trembling with fear and excitement. Meeting her first Watcher. Isobelle. God, had she even been able to say her name since Kakistos had ripped her apart? Those were the moments that would live in infamy. Stamped, branded, permanently scorched into her brain with all the pain and fury she had ever felt. Realizing that Angel and Buffy had played her, waking up in the Sunnydale hospital after eight months in a coma, torturing Wesley, going to jail.
It was a big blur for three years until Wesley showed up looking like a Marlboro commercial and telling her that Angelus was back again. Someone ought to get better glue for that soul. The Beast, seven or eight feet of solid rock who'd cracked ribs and reminded her of Shane. The same sick, helpless feeling soaking through clear up to the roots of her hair before Angelus stabbed the bastard in the back. Doing the time warp with both Angel and Angelus, the first time she'd truly realized that they weren't the same person. When she'd understood the magnitude of a vampire with a soul.
Then there was the battle with the First. Robin Wood. He'd made it through the Bringer and Uber-vamp slice n'dice brigade, wounded but glad to be alive and sense of humor still intact. She hadn't kept track of him; she'd gone back to jail like a good little girl and forgotten all about that. He was probably dead now, Slayer genes. If his private war against the undead hadn't already claimed him as a casualty. All the potentials were gone too, wiped out as if they had never existed.
The day she'd stepped out of jail for real instead of busting out, dressed in the dusty clothes she'd worn into the same building six years earlier, and found Buffy waiting outside. Choking on saltwater as it poured down her mouth and nose, Spike's hands around her throat. The sound of his voice asking her to save him. New Orleans. Ethan Rayne joined the Nightmare Hall of Fame when he had sliced into her face, chained her wrists and taught her the fine art of using a whip. Blood soaked and pain filled memories glazed over by time but never actually gone.
Watching Spike turn to dust. Then seeing him alive, surrounded by fire and almost buried under the smoke. Coming home from the hospital and pouring every bit of alcohol in the apartment down the drain, knowing that she had nearly lost him because of it. By Faith's standards, life had been pretty blissful since then. No cell, no bars, no one trying to cut her into pieces, and enough demons to make patrol interesting.
"Faith Hawkins?" The almond-eyed girl smiled over the counter and slid a clipboard toward Faith. "Fill these out please."
Her hands were shaking. She hadn't noticed until she tried to hold the pen steady enough to write. Add another moment to the list. Finding out she was pregnant.
Pregnant. Knocked up, expecting, bun in the oven, with child, gonna be a mommy. She was still reeling, teetering on the edge of blind panic and waiting for the shoe to drop and send her toppling into the abyss. So she'd gained a little weight, it was weight she'd lost after Spike's death anyway. Some nausea but no more than she had gotten used to dealing with every day. Mood swings. Looking back, it was all there in a tidy pattern just waiting for her to see it. Last menstrual period? Before she found Spike. A week, two weeks? Numbly, she put the clipboard down and tried to catch the girl's attention.
"Yes?"
"I'm not sure…I mean, I don't usually keep track of it. I can give you a ballpark, give or take a week."
"It's alright. Just give us a good guess. We'll do a blood test and an ultrasound to determine how far along you are."
It sounded like some sort of code or language she didn't understand, but she nodded and moved back to the hated clipboard with its impossible questions. So this was how it felt to be pregnant. Not that different. Hungry, tired. She'd been pretty tired for a few weeks, sleeping in late and attributing it to patrol or sex. Maybe coming down with the flu, just a little run down. All excuses for the pattern she hadn't seen. Had Spike noticed something?
Her heart skipped a beat and she had to stop writing long enough to let the shivering subside. Maybe he had noticed the signs when she hadn't. Maybe that was why he'd asked her to marry him. Make an honest woman out of her. The ring shone cheerfully on her finger, but she blinked at it without seeing. She wanted to believe that it was because he loved her. He'd said it, that night on the beach when the world had still made sense. She wanted to believe it more than she had ever wanted anything. More than a father, more than a mother who loved her, more than a puppy. Wanted to believe that he actually loved her. Her. Faith. Wild, crazy, fucked up Faith who'd done jail time for murder, who could keep a good plastic surgeon in business if she ever decided to get rid of the scars.
She wanted to believe that he really wanted to marry her even though there was no way she'd be a good wife. No way in Hell. She'd have better odds at being crowned Queen of fucking England. A wife? She didn't even know what a wife was supposed to do. Cook, clean, something like that.
He couldn't know. If she hadn't noticed then he couldn't have noticed. Frowning, she glanced down at her breasts. Bigger but not by too much, just beginning to tug at the seams of her bra. Maybe he hadn't noticed. Time to be optimistic and pray he hadn't.
She signed on the dotted line and pushed the clipboard back across the counter for Smiley Girl, returning to her seat to finish the war documentary without actually caring what was flashing across the screen. Her brain was struggling under the weight of the realization that she was no longer alone in her own body, that there was something growing inside her like a cancer eating away at her energy and her sanity.
A second woman glanced up from her clipboard as she entered the sitting area. "Faith?"
"Here." Faith got to her feet quickly, heart pounding too loudly.
"This way, please." Pale blue scrubs whispered as she walked, keys jangling and unlocking a series of doors. "Let me explain what's going to happen. First, we just need to draw some blood. Then one of our counselors will go over what the procedure entails and what your options are. Once you talk with the counselor and fill out the consent forms, you're ready for the procedure. If you need time to think about it, you can come back any time this week."
Faith nodded mutely, unable to do anything but follow basic instructions to sit and hold out her arm. The needle was hypnotic as it sunk into her skin, drawing blood through the thin silver tip. So much trouble for such a little thing. Blood. The genes that made her eyes and hair brown, that made her a Slayer. So much pain all over a little bit of blood. Cotton pressed against her elbow, she relaxed her fingers and watched the color flow back into her hand. More scrubs to follow into a softly lit room with comfy chairs and a rainbow of pamphlets. More forms to fill out.
"It's a lot of paperwork." This time it was an older woman with pepper gray hair and a cherub's face. "We just need to make sure that you understand what's going to happen and that you're here of your own free will." The woman's eyes rested on Faith's ring finger for just a moment in an unspoken question.
She signed with trembling fingers.
"Now that's out of the way." Gentle smiles from the angelic lady as she organized the papers. "I just need to outline the options for you and then you'll be on your way. If you're in your first trimester, the procedure itself will take about five minutes and you should be in the clinic for a little over two hours. We can give you local anesthesia or an IV. If you're worried, we can even put you under completely. It's usually not that painful but some women find that the drugs help. Once the procedure is done, we like to keep you for at least an hour to make sure that everything's gone well and that the anesthesia has worn off completely before you leave. If you need someone to pick you up, there's a phone available in the waiting room." The chair creaked as the woman leaned forward. "The procedure itself is called a medical abortion. You've probably heard it referred to as a surgical abortion but that's misleading. There isn't any actual surgery involved in first trimester abortions any longer but the name still pops up every now and then. If you get the local anesthesia, the doctor will numb your cervix before inserting the tube. Essentially, it acts as a vacuum, removing the sac and the lining of the uterus. Most likely, there will be about twenty seconds of cramping and maybe some dull aching afterwards but that will be the extent of the pain. If your pregnancy is ectopic or if you're into your second trimester, then there are just a few changes that need to be made. Typically, second trimester abortions are bit more involved. Do you have any questions so far?"
Faith just wanted the day to be over.
Maybe no one had told the Slayer that her cell phone did more than make phone calls. Frye couldn't think of another reason why she hadn't turned it off or left it home. She must not know. Then again, he figured that he should have been the one to tell her and, although he couldn't think of a good reason why he hadn't, there was a small guilty voice whispering that forgetfulness was too convenient. It was his job to help the Slayer and he had to know where she was at all times if he was expected to do his best. There were perks. He was pretty sure he knew something the whole demon world would have given a great deal to know, the United States government a great deal more, and the Watcher's Council would have sold their souls. All that mattered was the one demon who didn't know.
The dot blinked on his computer screen as he thoughtfully considered the options. There was the slim possibility that Spike knew. Frye dismissed it; the possessive vibe that emanated from the detective was too strong to believe that he would condone or support Faith's decision. Even if it only served to secure his position with the Slayer, the former vampire or whatever he was, would be more likely to want the baby. That gave Frye an interesting opportunity.
A little surprised that he wasn't nervous, he clicked on his headset and found the number for Faith's apartment phone. Of course, she wasn't home. She was sitting in an abortion clinic. It took four rings before an all too familiar male voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Spike? Is Faith there?"
"No. There's a note, says she's in a meeting."
Clever girl. That confirmed his suspicion that Spike didn't know about the baby. "She's supposed to be," Frye lied smoothly. "We've been waiting for an hour. She's not here and there's no answer when I call her cell."
"Maybe she's stuck in traffic." Some of the usual arrogance had left the detective's voice.
"I've run through all the main routes and they're clear. Don't suppose you could check in and see if she's gotten into a wreck or something? You know how she likes to speed."
"No problem, let me grab my cell."
Frye ignored the background noise as Spike called in to the Boston Police. The little red dot blinked from the screen. From a cozy sitting room or wherever her jacket was. Maybe draped over a chair while she waited. His pulse was picking up, body temperature rising and chemistry changing. All signs of the lie he was weaving. None of it would travel over the phone lines.
"Nothing so far. She's probably out shopping. You know women." Spike's tone was deliberately light.
"Or not." Frye changed his voice to drip with serious concern. "Patrol's been dicey the last few nights. A handful of factions are getting into power struggles now that the Master's gone and they're starting to think about moving into his old territory."
The truth was that Faith had left Spike at home working on police cases because the two of them on patrol was serious overkill. There wouldn't be any demons left on the eastern seaboard at the rate they ripped through the underground. Another gamble. There was a moment of tense silence while he waited to see if Spike had taken the bait.
"Her phone's not here so she must have it with her. Can't you trace it?" Bingo.
"If she's still got it on. Let me check." He counted silently to twenty-five. It was the twice the amount of time he actually needed to actually track a cell phone, but it would be enough for Spike. Funny how time seemed to stretch into eternity when a loved one could be in danger. "I've got it up on satellite right now, it'll take me a minute or two to narrow it down."
"Keep talking," Spike ordered sharply and Frye could hear the sound of a door slamming. "I'm headed out now."
"Right. Grab 128 South and head toward Newton." He had to give the man some credit. There was no sitting around, no waiting for details or backup when Faith was involved. He'd probably travel the globe and tear the city apart if he thought it was necessary. A car engine roared in the background and Frye sat back patiently as another dot blinked to life on the screen and started to make its way through the maze of streets on the screen. Getting a degree from MIT meant learning how to cross the T's and dot the I's. The dot pulled onto the highway a little too fast and the temptation was too great to resist.
"You know I can't stand you," Frye commented acidly.
"Feeling's mutual." Spike's response was terse, muffled by the engine.
"I don't know what you are, but I've got a pretty idea who you are. William the Bloody ring any bells?" He was hoping for carelessness; an offhand comment that would support his theories.
"Why don't we save this for later? Kill each other like civilized people once she's back home safe and sound."
"You don't deserve her."
"And you do?" Spike scoffed condescendingly. "You never had her, mate. And you can bloody tell her all the stories you want about my past, it's no secret."
"So I've heard." It was impossible to keep the bitterness out of his voice even as he tried to focus on what he was hearing.
"That's what hurts the most, isn't it?"
"Make a left for Harvard Street. Should be five miles from where you are now." There was a long pause as the realization that Frye was tracking Spike as well sunk it. Hopefully, it would goad him into a more concrete admission.
"What hurts isn't knowing that you can't have her or that I'm the one inside her, making her scream. It's that she doesn't care. Not for one fucking second does it matter to her that I was a vampire. Soulless, evil killer for more than a goddamn century and she doesn't care. Not when I'm touching her and not when she needs someone she can trust at her back. That's what eats you up inside."
Frye didn't answer. He didn't need to. The smug bastard was setting up his own rope to hang with and Frye was just sorry he wouldn't be there to see the expression on his face when he realized where Faith was. If the Watcher's Council believed that Faith had killed William the Bloody when he was actually in Boston pretending to be a police office then she had lied to protect him. They had probably arranged to meet up in Boston after the commotion died down. The only part it didn't explain was why Faith had decided to spend those nights with in his bed before Spike had reappeared. More of her charade? More of her lies.
"Turn right at the intersection ahead. It's the north side, building number 258." Frye watched the dot blink around the corner and raised one finger to his headset, ready to cut the connection after he drove his point home. "And take a good look at how much she doesn't care."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"That building in front of you? It's an abortion clinic." Even triumph tasted bitter. Everything had tasted of ash since Spike had entered the picture. "Can't say that I blame her. Who knows what a freak like you would do to the Slayer line."
The connection blinked out and he hit the power button on his monitor with more force than he had intended. For several minutes, he stared at the blank screen and watched his fingers shake above the desk surface. Two more phone calls had to be made. Two more people had to know that William the Bloody was still walking the earth.
A thousand scenarios, each one more devastating than the last, had played through Spike's imagination before he managed to pull the car back into traffic and head home. Blind, numb, feeling as though he'd taken a fist to the gut. When the door shut behind him, shocked that he'd made it home without crashing or triggering a pile-up on the expressway, he wanted to crawl into a bottle of warm, comforting whiskey and just forget.
There was no alcohol in the entire apartment.
How long had she known? How long had she been keeping it from him? Finally, his lungs began screaming and he realized that he was holding his breath, waiting for the scene to change. Waiting for someone to tell him that it was impossible. She would have told him, he would have noticed. He'd been glad to see her put on a few pounds, fill out those curves he adored, and maybe she'd been a little moody but nothing spectacular. There was nothing. He searched his brain for some hint, some clue, that would make it all fit into a neatly organized picture.
Frowning, he realized that he hadn't seen anything but fruit juice and water in her hand since he'd gotten out of the hospital. If she'd been pregnant that long then it wasn't his. Not much in the way of consolation, but it took the sting out of Frye's bitter attack. Except that Frye had assumed it was Spike's and probably for a good reason. Any chance that could be gambled into a play for Faith was something to take advantage of. A child would give Birkman the leverage he needed to drive a wedge between them. That left one possibility. It settled over his shoulders like a weight of cold stone, worming icy fingers into his heart; it felt like lead and as black as the empty eyes of the Cheshire bitch who had given him his freedom in exchange for Faith's life.
She should have fucking told him.
It stung, left him whiplash raw and bleeding wounded pride. Good enough to share her bed, good enough to fuck, but not good enough for more than that. Not good enough to mix with Slayer blood, not good enough to be the father of her child. The cell phone still clutched tightly in his hand snapped and shattered as his grip tightened, spraying chunks of plastic over the floor of the apartment's entryway.
Women. Slayers. All the fucking same bullshit merry-go-round of abuse.
He had fought for her, raged for her, bled for her. Held her when there was nothing left to comfort her, had ended his own miserable life so that she could have one. Have a future, love and live. He had died so that she could have the very thing she had callously thrown away. Betrayal tightened a vise around his throat, driving him into the living area in search of something to vent his frustration on.
The room shouted proudly of Faith and familiarity. A painting from Willow, the dagger from Buffy, and the dark fleece from Xander and his bird. A stake was tucked into the magazine holder where she could grab it as she left the room and a pair of boots had been tossed onto the coffee table. There were newspapers stacked haphazardly as she scanned obituaries and neatly piled pages with articles that she had saved because they were about him. He wanted to hurt her for pretending to care, wanted her to explain why she hadn't found him fit to fill those shoes. Had found him lacking, not good enough. Again. The rest of him wanted to weep, to fall apart because he loved her. God, he loved her until he thought it would break him into pieces. But she didn't love him. How could she? How could she love him if she hadn't even told him? Had lied to him. The note laughed up at him from the couch cushion where he had left it, the meeting she hadn't bothered to attend.
He knew the drill, had the tune memorized and the taglines down word for word. Evil, disgusting thing. Soulless, vampire. Monster. He'd been a monster and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about his past now but it still came back to bite him in the ass. Still being judged for the past he could never atone for and Faith was not the exception he'd thought her to be.
The first impulse had been to crash through the sparkling glass windows of the building and drag her out of there. To put a fist or bullet through anyone who tried to stop him and maybe, just maybe, keep fighting even after he'd found her. Images painted themselves easily in his mind, leveling his rage against the duplicitous bitch he was in love with. The only way he knew how. His fists. But flashbacks of a dark alley in Sunnydale added a layer of despair to his anger. Was he doomed to violence and pain? Dish it out, take it in spades. Always a level of abuse seeping into his world and poisoning everything he held sacred. The nature of the beast; was his very nature still dark and violent? Was he still that monster?
Unable to move without fear of hurting Faith or innocent people, he'd turned the car away and come back to the home he'd known too briefly. Torn between anger and pain, wanting to hurt her, to hold her, to just collapse onto the ground and wait for the whole world to come crashing down around his head. He wanted to believe that a heartbeat meant he wasn't a monster, even knowing the horrors mankind was capable of. In a way, a stake through the heart had nearly rendered useless the lessons he had learned while frozen in death; that warm blood did not make a man good or guarantee humanity. That demon wasn't always synonymous with monster. With his past fully restored in all its Technicolor gore, he had fiercely denounced his human memories as lies and pushed them as far away as he possibly could.
Had that been a mistake?
Davis Williams was a good cop and a good man. Spike was a monster and a demon. An evil, disgusting thing. Maybe it didn't matter that the human memories weren't actually real.
Memories of gray sleeting rain and New Orleans filtered into his consciousness; of falling to his knees in the cemetery and begging whatever powers, whatever God, whatever anyone or anything that could give him a second chance. A chance to do it over and do it right. To be something other than darkness and death. Was Davis Williams that second chance? Were the warm and human memories that he had rejected his ultimate salvation? For three years he had played at being human, struggled to fit into and grab hold of the very world that had been handed to him silver platter style in the identity of a Boston homicide detective. All that time wondering and searching for a place to call home and a face, a name, a soul to call his own. Still asking whoever would listen, who is Spike?
Wearily easing his tired body into the armchair, he closed his eyes against the ceiling and searched his soul for the answers. He didn't even know if he had a soul. All these months, knowing and not knowing who or what he was, he'd never really faced down those nagging questions or doubts. Never challenged his own existence with the whys and hows because he'd been too afraid it would be snatched from him if he asked too many questions. As though the powers that had given him a second chance would change their minds if he questioned their motivations. Then he'd found Faith again and none of it had mattered. For the first time in a hundred and thirty years, he had been truly happy and believed that he was truly loved. Now he was just tired.
Tired of it all. Tired of the balancing act that was love and loss and trying again. Adrenaline faded away into his blood as his anger turned to sorrow, leaving aching muscles and bones, a heart tired of breaking and hands exhausted from holding on to the impossible. Slayers and vampires, even former vampires, weren't meant to fall in love. It was that simple. And he had asked for it not once, but twice. Asked for the pain of loss and begged for the hurt that came with being part of life itself.
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
It was either poetic justice or lyrical revenge. Who was he to tell her she was wrong? A man who had left hundreds of bodies in his wake and enough grief to fill the world two times over. What in his past gave him the right to judge her? He couldn't explain the empty feeling. The knowledge that she had been carrying a life inside of her that was part of him. In all his years, he had only spread death and the first time he had created something, breathed life into what would have been a child, it had been found unworthy. Unwanted. He couldn't judge her, couldn't second-guess her decision or her motives. All that was left for him was grief for something he had never known and would possibly never know. Just the pain and emptiness of loss, of what might have been.
He didn't know how long he sat there before he heard the front door open. Footsteps against the linoleum. The rustle of paper bags as they settled and shifted on the kitchen counter and then the silence as her eyes found him.
"Hey." One word. One word that seemed to hold the record for first words in their relationship.
He didn't open his eyes. "How was the meeting?"
Pause. "Same old, same old. You know, blah, blah, blah, go kill the bad guys."
Still lying. It didn't make him angry, it just hurt. At least he could hear the slightest tremor of unease in her voice when she answered. "Frye called."
"What did he want?" Every syllable was clear, her voice alert and wary now.
"Said you were late and not answering your cell."
"Late?" There was genuine confusion in her voice. "I was totally on time. That guy's a fucking Nazi."
"Faith." He was too tired to dance anymore. "Don't lie to me. Just don't."
"What are you talking about?" Steps moved toward him. He could feel her heat and power as she got closer. It was something that he had never felt as a vampire. The power inside her beaming out like a radiator burning cherry red. Did it mean something? Was it a clue to what he was that he hadn't picked up and followed?
"I've killed people, luv. More than I can count." That stopped her in her tracks. "And I ran for my high school track team."
"Huh?"
"Maybe they're both real." His thoughts were beginning to spin as memories began to seep through the barriers he had put up to keep the two worlds apart. Memories of sunlight and a mother who had loved him; Davis and William had that much in common, a good mother. There were other bits and pieces. The nickname Spike. The seductress who had been the vampire Drusilla in the real world and the eccentric artist named Daria that he'd been obsessed with during his junior year of high school. Both with dark hair and luminous eyes, never quite making sense or fitting into the world around them. Looking back, he could see the same patterns weaving through both lives. Each vampire scenario played out on a smaller scale among his human memories.
"Are you alright? Cause you're sounding a little on the crazy side." Warm fingers brushed the back of his hand.
"Maybe he's right. Geek bastard. Maybe I am a freak." He didn't know what he was. He felt the same, looked out through the same eyes, held her with the same arms. Everything that had defined him at the basest level was now gone. No more blood, no more sunlight issues. No William spouting poetry in the corner of his mind. Maybe he would have fucked up the Slayer line. Maybe adding his freak genes could have had catastrophic results in an already precarious situation.
"Spike?"
"I was there." His voice sounded raw and throaty. "Frye couldn't find you. He tracked your cell phone and told me where you were. I was there." There was nothing but silence and he finally opened his eyes to see her standing in front of him, arms folded protectively across her chest and face drawn into nervous lines.
Her voice held only the barest hint of hesitation. "I know what you think."
"Really? I'm thinking you don't know me at all."
"We don't have to fight about this."
Spike laughed bitterly. "What? You want to talk? Like normal people? Like a fucking married couple working out issues? We don't talk, Faith. It doesn't work that way."
"You're not a vampire anymore, Spike."
"Then you'll have to figure out a different way to kill me." He kept his hands tightly clenched on the arms of the chair as the familiar rage began to stir in the pit of his stomach. He was determined not to give in to the desire to hit her, not to let that whirlpool suck him down again. "Maybe you've forgotten who you're dealing with, Slayer. I've killed three of your kind. Including you."
"Probably why you get off on fucking them too."
He saw the regret in her eyes the second the words were out of her mouth. His teeth ground together as he forced hands and pride to stay down. "You don't seem to mind that part. Then again, that's what you do best, isn't it?"
"Don't do this."
"Do what?" His voice rang loud in the quiet apartment. "Bring up the past? I'm not going to fucking deny it now that I don't bloody light on fire shaking hands with Mr. Sunshine. Still an evil, disgusting thing. All that's changed is my name." Staring down at his hand, he tried to imagine the blood winding its way through the veins inside.
"Spike."
"There's nothing you can say." Now he was part of the human world and it burned. Where was the strength to keep trying to fit into the world? To carve out a place, a heart and home, for himself. Why not just disappear back into comfortable oblivion where no one knew his name and fewer even cared? Staying with her, knowing what she had done, reminded him of the agony of those first months with his soul. Would it hurt more to leave?
"Let me try."
"Just…don't."
"Please."
The pleading in her voice tugged at his determination to avoid the subject, dark eyes tearing at him with their painful desperation. Resolve crumbled into painful fragments and left him hating the fact that he couldn't just stop loving her. But he didn't have to watch the train wreck happen so he closed his eyes against the sight of her. When he finally spoke, the naked pain in his voice surprised him. "How long?"
"About eight weeks," she answered quietly. "They count weird though. Wasn't quite sure how it all worked."
"And the alcohol? That's the reason you haven't been drinking."
"No." If possible, her voice got even softer. "That night, in the tunnels, I wasn't sober. You almost died and it was my fault."
That caught him off guard and he nearly opened his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he wondered if he even had the nerve to keep asking questions. Each one got harder and more painful. Resisting the urge to apologize for asking, he kept going. "Was I the father?" God, he hated himself for asking.
"Yes." She bristled, voice taut with restrained indignation.
"Is that why you did it? Because it was mine."
There wasn't an answer that wouldn't hurt but he needed to know. When she didn't answer, he began to tense in anticipation of an explosion. Footsteps clipped toward the kitchen, pausing for a second as the bags rustled again before heading back toward him. Funny how he'd learned the sound of her steps, the pace and point of her heel strike against the floor. His eyes flew open when something heavy landed on his lap, books scattering over his thighs as he struggled to get a hold of them.
"What to Expect When You're Expecting, What to Eat When You're Expecting, Exercising During Pregancy." She read off the titles as she tossed the books at him. "I figure I'm gonna be a lousy wife and a piss-poor mom. But the brat kid'll have you, right? That's gotta balance out somehow."
It took another thirty seconds before Spike realized what she was saying, relief flooding through him like morphine. "You didn't? Why?"
Her expression turned serious. "Not because it's wrong or any of that bullshit. And maybe it'll hate me the way I hate my mom; he, she, whatever. Maybe she'll be a Slayer someday and hate me because I didn't. I'll be pushing up daisies before the kid drops out of high school anyway." Full lips curled into a sad smile. "At least the next time I can't save you, I'll have more than a lousy t-shirt. Because it's part of you."
"I'm sorry." It sounded as pathetic as he felt. For wanting to hurt her, wanting to hate her even when he knew he couldn't.
She snorted derisively. "Whole world's fucking sorry."
"Are you alright?" Everything inside his torn and weary soul boiled down to three words.
"I'm a fucking wreck, all girly and wicked moody. I'm so tired, so goddamn tired." The smile took the edge off of her words. "And I love you so much I can't breathe."
The word love rang in his ears until he wondered if he'd imagined it. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"This is me telling you." Kneeling down beside the chair, she laid her head softly against his thigh. "Just got the bombed dropped on my head this morning. Did you want me to put it on the fucking news and broadcast it?"
"How do you feel?" Fingers strayed to her hair, teasing through the shadows and shaking just a little as his world rearranged once again. He was almost afraid to touch her, afraid that she might be just another hallucination his warped brain had cooked up to torment him. That the real Faith was still sitting in that clinic waiting for his child to be ripped from her body like a parasite.
"Don't you dare start treating me like a goddamn porcelain doll."
"Wouldn't dream of it." He marveled at the cool silk of her hair against his fingertips. His entire body felt as light as air and heavy as lead. Emotionally drained to the last drop of pain in his body, slowly refilling with a giddy mixture of excitement and resolve. "You sound good. At least, you don't sound panicked."
"Oh, I'm definitely panicked." Her hold on his leg tightened. "Don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. I'm too scared to be scared."
Spike let out the breath he was holding, picking up the pieces of his shaken world and fitting them back into a semblance of order. One small change. He was going to be father. An uncontrollable smile spread across his face, but he didn't dare move more than his hand. He kept stroking her hair lightly and trying to focus on that moment. It was time to figure out who he was once and for all, to end the searching and plant both feet firmly in the now. Just how the hell was he supposed to do that?
"When? I mean, when will it be here? Or whatever. How soon can we find out if it's a boy or a girl? Do you need anything? New clothes?"
She laughed quietly. "You're askin' the wrong person. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that there's somebody else in here."
"No more patrol."
"Fuck that."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." Dark eyes sparked angrily as she looked up. "I'm not made of fucking glass."
"And a pregnant Slayer isn't a big deal?" He raised one eyebrow and shook his head. "Every vamp in Boston would take a swipe at you if they knew." That was a disturbing train of thought he wasn't ready to follow to the end of the line.
"That's why we have the boys in blue. Or camouflage. Whatever." She shook her head dismissively. "Not a big deal. Council and government types'll be so happy they'll be pissing their pants. I'm sure we can hit them up for maternity leave or something."
Spike frowned as he remembered how the whole nightmare had begun. "Frye knows."
"I'll handle him," she reassured him quickly. "But what the fuck was he talking about? I wasn't late to that lame-ass meeting."
"He said they'd been waiting for an hour."
"Bullshit."
"Then why?" Spike stopped as understanding struck him. "Bloody hell."
"Care to let me in on that light bulb moment?"
"He set me up." He was both impressed and amused that the techno geek had managed to put together the pieces and take full advantage of the situation. "The bastard already knew where you were and he set me up."
"Why? How?"
"Doesn't matter now. He knows who I am, who I was."
"Oh."
"From the horse's mouth, so to speak, and I'll bet good money that he's going to let the Watchers in on our little secret. And the Scoobies." He took a deep breath as he marveled at the irony of his life. "Unless we let the cat out of the bag first."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll have to settle for a California honeymoon."
"God, I hate that place."
In the five years that Dr. Olivia Coleman had known Davis Williams, he had never shown weakness or given any sign of vulnerability. He'd never sat in her office and done anything but look her squarely in the face with laughing blue eyes as he challenged her. The slippery nut defying the nutcracker to find a weakness in its shell. Their sessions had kept her on her toes and recharged her drained batteries after dealing with the unhappy and the lost. Spike was Spike, constant and unpredictable in the same paradoxical moment.
"Fire when ready, Doc." The good-natured smirk was familiar ground at least.
"Alright." A little reluctantly she pushed his file aside and faced him. "Why did you ask for a leave of absence?"
"Getting hitched," he answered casually. "She's got family on the west coast and we're headed out there for the big event."
"And you have no family here."
"Right."
Dr. Coleman watched him for a moment, seeing signs of nervousness that were different from the usual itching to get out of her office. "Do you have anything keeping you here, Davis?"
He blinked in surprise. "Course I do."
"Do you really?" She slid the reading glasses off of her nose and tucked them carefully into her pocket. "Your parents are both dead and you have no siblings. Now that Gage and Lieutenant Merritt are gone, what's left for you here?"
"That doesn't have anything to do with it."
"Why not?" She was surprised that she didn't feel any stirrings of victory over having shocked him yet again. "You're human, Davis. And as a human being, you need an emotional support system. That's something you no longer have here in Boston. I don't see you just inside this office and I don't spend my entire day staring at faceless pieces of paper. I talk to the others, I watch. It's my job to look out for all of the men and you're one of them."
No answer.
"You and Gage trained together and according to those who knew you both, you were inseparable from the moment you met. After his death, you changed. We all saw it." She had to reign in the maternal urge to reach out to him. "You pulled away from all of us, left us behind."
"That's not true." He was looking down at his hands, the guilt in his voice betraying the words.
"The world around you changed that night. It became darker, more dangerous, more evil. You lost someone close to you and that's not a wound that heals quickly."
"I'm doing alright."
"Do you think it's right to just push those memories away?" His head snapped up, eyes narrowing warily as she continued. "Do you think that it serves his memory to just forget? To pretend to forget. You meant the world to him and that's how you repay him?"
"Doc?"
"Unlike you, Davis, your partner enjoyed talking to me on occasion. He especially liked to talk about you. About what kind of man you were and about your friendship." She was losing the battle to remain professional and detached. "That night, you faced a serious injury, the death of your partner, and you had to take a human life. What makes you so special that you can just walk away from that?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," he answered stiffly.
"What do you know about grief?"
"Had my share."
"After Gage's death, I didn't see any grief."
"Then you were fucking blind," he snapped, shifting in the chair and glancing toward the door.
"I saw rage and I saw someone with a vendetta." She watched as her words began to sink in. "And now I see someone who has no idea what he has and what he lost. Do you really want to get married without figuring that out first? Do you want to drag her into this mess you've gotten yourself into?" He remained sullenly silent, hands maintaining their death grip on the armrests of the chair. "I know you know all of this, Davis. But you seem to have forgotten everything you learned in Psych 101."
"Skipped the week on objectivity," he remarked dryly.
"I'm well aware of my own failure to remain objective."
"It hurts. That what you want to hear? It fucking hurts." With a sudden flurry of movement, he was out of the chair and pacing in front of her desk. "He was all I had. Friend, brother, partner. It's just that…I can't. He's gone and I should have, I could have."
"It wasn't your fault."
He stopped and looked down at his hands. "It shouldn't have been him. He was a good man."
"You did everything you could."
"Did I?" Shaking his head, he turned back to the chair and tiredly sunk onto the cushion. "Got one thing right, Doc. I don't have a bloody clue what I'm supposed to do."
"You've seen a lot in the last six months."
"You have no idea."
"I think I have an inkling. I'm sorry to push, Davis, but I didn't know any other way to reach you." At his incredulous look, she smiled gently. "You tend to squirrel away your problems and refuse to face them. You get angry and defensive. Sometimes it takes a little push in the right direction."
He closed his eyes as he leaned back against the back of the chair. "Everything I say stays in this room, right?"
"Of course." She waited patiently as he seemed to relax and gather his thoughts.
"There's this hole, this place inside me that's empty now and I don't know how to fill it. Don't know if there's anything or anyone who will ever fill those shoes. And I'm tired of being alive." His voice faded away into the silence. "At the same time, I've got this girl, Faith. And she's the most amazing thing I've ever had. Powerful, beautiful, complicated as hell. We're happy, I'm happy. But there's still this hole. Where he was."
"Gage?"
"Yeah. And I've lost people I loved, God knows I've lost enough. Why isn't it the same? Why does it just keep hurting?"
"Because it's real."
"Real," he echoed softly.
"If you'd been able to see the two of you together, you wouldn't be asking why. But the fact that it hurts doesn't make it bad or wrong or something to just bury away and forget."
Blue eyes opened, finding her and pinning her with intense scrutiny, as though he was trying to decide if he could trust her. He began hesitantly. "Faith. The woman I'm going to marry. She's pregnant. That's not why we're tying the knot, I just found out about it."
"Davis? If you don't have whiplash from the last six months of your life then your head must be firmly in the sand."
Rich laughter filled the small office and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "It's been pretty crazy."
"I'd say that the was the understatement of the century."
"Yeah." His head lowered, fingers tapping together in a slow beat. "I thought, at first, that she'd had an abortion. It's complicated."
"Go on."
"I was furious. That she hadn't told me, that she wouldn't talk to me about it first."
"I understand."
"I just can't lose anyone else." There was a long pause as he studied his hands. "Gage was the best friend I've ever had and I couldn't save him. And sitting there, thinking that I'd failed again, that I hadn't been able to save the baby. It was worse."
"Have you talked about this with Faith?"
"Yeah. Sort of. We've talked about the baby."
"Does she know about Gage? About what happened."
"She knows he's dead." He looked up, the emotion in his eyes bare and raw. "I haven't…talked. About him. What he was like, who he was. Guess I figured that if I just didn't think about it, it'd go away. He's dead and so is the monster who killed him. There's nothing else I can do, right?"
"Can you think of anything else?"
He visibly wavered. "Just wish he was here to tell me what to do. How to live. He always had the right answers. I wish he could have met Faith. Seen the baby."
"What makes this world worth living in isn't the car we drive or the money we have, Davis. It's the bonds we form with our fellow human beings. What makes us real isn't the air we breathe or the blood in our veins. It's our emotions, our love, our tears and pain. That's all we really have that truly belongs to us, that we can ever truly own. Our own hearts."
"Thanks, Doc. For listening." The smile on his face was grateful.
"One more thing before I say congratulations and send you on your way." Her fingers moved to the heavy manila folder and the plain envelope inside. "I think that Gage knew you as well as anyone on this earth and he knew that you would do anything for him. That you would die for him if you could. And he knew that a day might come when that choice would have to be made. During my last interview with him, he gave me this and asked me to keep it in your records in case that day came. I haven't read it, but I have an idea of what's inside. He wanted you to know that he was just as ready to die for you." The envelope shook slightly as she handed it over the desk.
Tears pricked her eyes as she watched him take the letter and slowly stand up. He thanked her with a silent nod before turning away and leaving her office empty once again. The air seemed much colder and the silence seemed heavier.
Several minutes passed before she pushed herself to reach for his file and begin filling out the final paperwork. He wouldn't be back to Boston for a long time. Maybe he would never return. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what road his life would take with a wife and a child. Probably not suburbia and white picket fences, that wouldn't suit him at all.
Of course, marrying a Vampire Slayer wasn't the best idea if one wanted peace and quiet. The phone was cool against her ear as she dialed.
"Full Moon Rising Books and Occult Supplies, how may I help you?" A cheerful voice answered.
"Verek? It's Olivia."
Davis,
Yes, old buddy, old pal, it's addressed to you. The name your mum gave you, remember? Lord knows you usually only answer to Spike these days. Still having those nightmares? Still - how'd you put it – wigged out? You really are an eighties reject sometimes. But I love you anyway. Not that kind of love. Head out of the gutter, you sick bastard.
If you're reading this then I'm not around to crack jokes at your expense and Nana Matthews had better not be right about coming back as a fucking worm. It also means that you've lost the opportunity to partake of my wisdom. Kidding. You're the one who always had his head on straight and feet on the ground. I never would have made it through training if you hadn't been there to strong-arm me into being a better man. And unless I royally fucked up somehow, you're probably kicking yourself and feeling responsible for whatever the hell happened.
Stop. Right now. I mean it. Don't make me crawl back out of this grave and ruin a perfectly good suit just to kick your ass.
You're the best fucking cop I know. You don't make mistakes, Davis, not when it counts, not ever. I don't know what you're running from or what you're hiding. I don't know about the skeletons in your closet or the demons in your past. But I know they're there because you get this haunted look sometimes. Like you're looking into the Total Perspective Vortex. I don't know what you've done or care about whatever it is that stares back out at you from the mirror because it doesn't fucking matter. That path has been taken and those roads are no longer an option. Want to know the secret of life? And no, I'm not going to say 42. Here it is, the big secret. Don't look back.
Don't look back and wonder if you could have done something differently to change what happened. Nana Matthews told me there was a reason for everything and I was too scared of her to not believe. I still believe. That you're having nightmares for a reason. Maybe a wake-up call to take a break or deal with whatever you've done that's so horrible you can't tell me about it. And yes, if I'm six feet under, then there had to be a reason for it. Maybe not one you or I can see but the universe is a pretty big place and time goes on for eternity. So who knows what the reason could be?
Don't look back and end up wasting your life trying to fix the past. It can't be fixed. It's done broke. And it makes us who we are, shapes our identities. It's a part of what made you who you are today. And you, Davis Williams, are a good man. This is a fact, don't argue with me. You'd have to get a psychic to do that anyway so just take my word for it.
I'm glad you were the one to walk away. Me? I'm small potatoes. I'm just a boy from Long Island trying to have a good time. You're something a little different. You're a force of nature, you're a wonder of the world. You have passion, determination, and occasionally more balls than brains, but hey, not entirely a bad thing. The point is – you'll make a difference in this world. I was just a face in the crowd tagging along on your way to greatness. Another fact.
Wish I could have seen it. The rest of your life. And when you finally find a woman crazy enough to have you, I know she's gonna be a knockout. So I'm sorry I never got to see her. And I would have thrown a killer bachelor party for you before she took you off the market. Good times would have been had. There would have been bad times too. Knowing me, you would have helped me through a couple divorces and told me I was a goddamn moron for screwing it up. But you would have been there. The only regret I have is that I didn't get the chance to be there for you. For your kid's first birthday, for your first anniversary. Fishing trips, skiing trips, dinner parties. Or just at the end of the phone line at three in the morning when you've been fighting with the missus and don't know what to do.
Most of all, don't lock yourself away from the world just because I'm not there to drag you out of your shell. Life is meant to be lived. No pain, no gain, right? Enough sentimental last words. I think I'm gonna gag as it is.
Get out there. Get a wife, raise some baby Spikes, and have a good life. Catch the bad guys. Get old, lose your hair, and get a beer gut. Do it for yourself. Do it for me.
So long and thanks for all the fish,
Gage
Spike folded the already worn envelope carefully and tucked it back into this jacket pocket before adding the last suitcase to the back seat of the car. A cold rain had begun to drizzle over Boston. Tempus fugit. Thanksgiving was just around the corner and there were only forty-three shopping days left before Christmas. His mother would have cooked a turkey and fussed over Faith like a mother hen guarding her chicks.
"Ready?" Faith's smile warmed the chilly air.
"As I'll ever be." He made sure she was comfortable before he turned the keys, ignoring her indignant protests and the flushing of her cheeks as he worried over her. They drove in silence as they headed out of the city, watching the familiar buildings and streets pass by with the feeling of goodbye hanging in the air. She would be safer in Sunnydale. The baby would be safer. Two Slayers, an entire military base. Even with the Hellmouth it would be safer.
"Let me know if you need me to drive," she offered as he pulled onto the freeway. "Still don't know why we couldn't fly."
"Because you hate planes."
"Yeah. But it would've taken like two seconds compared to driving across the whole fucking country."
"Harder for Birkman to tail us this way."
"You two really need to just duke it out one of these days."
"Don't give me ideas." He waited as she flipped through the radio stations and finally abandoned the search, digging into her bag for the CD folder. "Did I ever tell you about Gage?"
"No." She set the CDs on her lap gently. "What was he like?"
The usual reaction to his human memories wasn't quite as violent, only vague uneasiness and a whispering desire to forget about them.
"He reminded me of Xander. Without the attitude. The first day of training, I show up and there's this guy. Sandy blond hair, perfect teeth, and I'm thinking he's gotta be a complete asshole, right? I'm bored out of my mind listening to the orientation speech and what-have-you when he starts playing dominoes with the sugar packets. Next thing I know, he's got the whole damn table set up as some sort of battle ground. Artificial sweetener versus sugar and the spoons are all rigged up to be catapults with the creamer. He's got a commentary going on, real quiet like, about casualties and fallen soldiers. Fucking hilarious. So I'm getting into it, maneuvering my catapults and spoons. The stirring rods were supposed to be ballistic missiles or something. My sugar battalion goes left and his Splenda packets split into two divisions just as the orientation guy is finishing up. He launches a creamer, it goes wide and when I try to catch it, my elbow hits the top of the coffee maker."
"Coffee everywhere?" Faith cringed.
"You have no idea. It tipped over and the cup rolled out, lid pops open and the great coffee flood begins. Everyone's looking at us like we just pissed on the carpet or something and this guy, this crazy-ass rookie cop; he just looks at me, straight faced, and says. 'That was seriously uncalled for, dude. I don't even have nuclear weapons yet.' We're trying not to laugh and cleaning up the coffee. I think he freaked a few of the guys out talking about radioactive sugar."
"He sounds like a pretty cool guy."
"Yeah." Spike smiled and reached for her hand. "You would have liked him."