Episode 16:

'I touch the fire and it freezes me

I look into it and it's black

Why can't I feel?

My skin should crack and peel

I want the fire back'

- 'Walk Through The Fire', by Sarah Michelle Gellar -

When Spike and Buffy announced they would stay in England for a while, a couple of months after the incident with Drusilla, there was rejoicing in the streets.

Probably that would be a melodramatic way to express it (a very Spike-ish way, certainly). Giles, of course, was happy to have his prodigal daughter back, and Darla knew Connor would be thrilled to have one of his heroes around.

Darla herself felt glad to know that Spike would be living within blocks from her place. It was nice for a change having a friend who wasn't in the opposite end of the globe. Sure, Darla had made some friends at work, with whom she went for a drink occasionally, but the only real friends she had were Spike and Faith – who was now living in Australia. Of course, she had Lindsey – but he wasn't exactly a friend anymore, was he?

The day – or, to be more precise, the night – Spike and Buffy were moving arrived, and both Darla and Giles went over their new place to lend them a hand.

When they arrived, they saw, behind a tower of cardboard boxes, a rather glum-looking Buffy, whereas Spike seemed annoyed over something. In an undertone, Giles commented how stressing moving was. Darla, who'd noted how increasingly strained Spike's voice had sounded on the phone lately, thought there was something more to Spike's and Buffy's bad mood, but said nothing. Instead, she offered herself at once to rip open the boxes, and so they started to work.

Lindey hadn't looked keen on accompanying her, so she had not asked him to. Now she came to think of it, Lindsey didn't look particularly happy with the news of Spike and Buffy moving to London. He hadn't liked Buffy that much, and Darla suspected Spike hadn't made quite an impression on him either. That was hardly surprising: after all, how long had it taken Darla and Spike to get along?

However, it had disappointed her a little. After all, the two of them had a lot in common. Well, that wasn't exactly true... But they did share a love for music and, er... the same hatred towards a certain someone, perhaps?

To Darla's shock, though, when she'd asked Lindsey what he thought about Spike, he'd shifted uncomfortably and said:

'I don't know. He reminds me too much of... well, you know... him.'

Just as Buffy couldn't come around to say Connor's name, there was a word that never crossed Lindsey's lips if he could avoid it.

Angel.

At first, Darla had thought that Lindsey didn't mention his name for the same reason Buffy's friends didn't during those fateful last days at Sunnydale: he thought it might hurt her to talk about it. Which was ridiculous. First of all, she didn't need to be kept in a crystal cage. Secondly, she'd never felt anything real for Angel. When they'd been together, it had all been about lust, both lust for the kill and sexual attraction. Then, she'd obessesed over him. Now she thought about it, though, she hadn't been as obssesed to get Angel back because she missed him as she'd been obssesed to return things to the way they used to be. No, she certainly hadn't loved him.

About his death, she'd naturally felt sad. He'd been the first to show concern for her, and she also felt pity because the world had lost one of its greatest champions. Mostly, though, she'd felt sorry because Connor would never be able to meet his father. But had she felt personally affected by his death? No. So why then Lindsey acted as if she had?

She would have liked to tell him this, but the subject was hard to cover as Lindsey avoided talking about it like the plague. It kind of annoyed her, that Lindsey could believe her to be that fragile and that she'd loved Angel when she'd so clearly hadn't. After certain event, though, Darla began to ponder whether she hadn't misunderstood Lindsey's reasons completely.

It had been during one of Connor's visits, when the boy had casually asked about his father. Before that moment, Connor hadn't showed much curiosity about his past, perhaps because he felt too content with Severus Snape to care much about a man he'd never gotten to know. However, it was possible that meeting Severus' father (during that disastrous visit he'd paid his son, which had culminated with Connor at Drusilla's mercy) had awakened his desire to know more about his own lineage.

Either way, Darla proceeded to satisfy his curiosity... with a great deal of caution. Long time ago, Severus and her had agreed that, in order to give Connor a more or less normal life, they would not tell him the truth until he were older. Therefore, the boy believed Darla to have a disease that prevented her from stepping into the sunshine, and the version she gave him about Angel's story wasn't very accurate.

She told him that his father had run an investigations agency, and that he'd worked side by side with Slayers. She told him about the music his father liked, about his skills at drawing, his love for ice hockey, and several other harmful details. Connor had drunk in each one of her words, absorbing it all.

Somewhere halfway her explanation, she'd looked away from Connor's fascinated face, and had seen Lindsey's reclining against a wall, watching them. When she saw his face, though, Darla's voice faltered a moment.

The expression on his face... the expression on his face was terrible. Darla wasn't an easy one to startle, but the look in his eyes sent icy shivers all the way down her spine. His face was contorted in a way that didn't make him look like the Lindsey she knew at all. On it, there was a terrifying mixture of

blazing fury

utter revulsion

pure hatred

emotions she did not associate with Lindsey at all. She remembered the night Lindsey had found out she'd slept with Angel... his face had looked just like now, right before he ran over Angel with a truck.

Lindsey's gaze met hers and he started. Darla wasn't sure how it happened, but in a mere second that awful expression had faded away from his face, to be replaced by a warm smile. He walked towards them, stroked Connor's hair playfully, and with all the naturality of the world, he suggested going to the cinema that evening, there was a new Disney movie Connor was going to adore...

He sounded so casual, so perfectly natural, all his characteristic kindness back, that Darla almost thought she'd imagined the whole episode. Almost.

From that moment on, Darla kept her eyes open. In short time, she realised that Lindsey's eyes blazed every time Angel was mentioned, as a shadow crossed his features and his knuckles would turn white. These signs, though, disappeared as quickly as they came, and in no time Lindsey returned to his usual self... perhaps a little nicer, a little more cheerful, a little too casual.

Darla knew Lindsey had hated Angel with a passion, but she was surprised to see it lasted till present time, as Angel had already been dead for four years. Didn't death pay all debts?

She was also astounded as Spike's reaction was always so different from Lindsey's. Spike had no trouble to talk about Angel – in occassion, Darla had to tell him to shut up about certain things in front of Connor – on the contrary, he loved to either rant about what a poofter his old nemesis used to be and to reminiscence of all they'd gone through together. Sometimes, Darla even thought that Spike missed Angel a little, if only it was because he had no one left to bicker with.

And much more terrible stuff had happened between Spike and Angel than between Angel and Lindsey. However, Spike seemed to have gotten over it all: why Lindsey hadn't?

It was true that Angel had hurt Lindsey deeply. However, Lindsey himself had been no saint. In fact, if she was one hundred percent honest with herself, she would have had to admit that Lindsey's had done to Angel much worse things than the other way around.

Darla was pulled out of her reverie by a cry of pain. She turned around, alarmed, but it was just Buffy, who'd hit her foot against a wooden box.

Giles and Spike headed towards her.

'You alright, pet?'

For some reason, Buffy looked annoyed.

'Yeah, I'm fine.' With no further explanation, she spun round and strode to the bathroom. Spike shrugged.

'Suit yourself.'

Giles glanced at Darla, a confused expression on his face. Darla irked an eyebrow as she watched Spike ripping open a box, his face unreadable. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark...

Later on, when Giles was out of earshot, Darla approached Spike.

'What's going on between you and Buffy,' she inquired in an undertone. He did not turn to look at her.

'Nutting. Everything's bloody perfect.'

Darla snorted.

'Sure. Be like that.'

She kept pulling stuff out of cardboard boxes, and ignored Spike completely for the rest of the evening.

Darla was sitting at the kitchen table, reading an art magazine – she adored the Botticellis – and sipping from a mug of black coffee. The clock's hands were slowly approaching three o'clock, and all was quiet. It could have felt eerie, sitting alone in such silence, hadn't it been she was used to it. Besides, she liked such little moments of peace. She had so few of them in her life...

So she wasn't exactly thrilled when she heard a faint knock at her apartment's door. She started, nearly dropping her mug, although the knock was so soft that no human would've been able to hear it.

At once, her mind began racing. Who would knock at her door so late at night? It couldn't be one of the neighbours; Darla barely knew them and the faint knocking didn't indicate it was an emergency.

If something had happened at the Slayer's School, they would have phoned first. The same if it was something to do with work. Hell, everyone she knew would have phoned first.

Except for Severus Snape. As far as she was concerned, wizards did not use the telephone, neither did they know how to use it. If something – God, The Powers That Be, or whoever that was listening, forbid it – had happened to Connor, Snape wouldn't call first.

She jumped from the stool and rushed to the door, her feet barely touching the floor. She swung the door open, opened her mouth... and shut it close. To her utter amazement, it was neither Snape nor Connor the person standing in her doorstep, but Spike. She blinked, shocked.

Spike, misunderstanding the look on her face, hastened to say:

'Sorry, pet, didn't mean to disturb you. If you're busy, I'll get outta here...'

'No, no, you aren't interrupting anything,' she corrected him at once, 'I was bored to death. It's just that I wasn't expecting you, that's all.'

Spike shifted uncomfortably. Darla noted his hair looked quite dishevelled.

'Well, I wasn't expectin' me to come here either. I just... I just went out for a walk, see, and saw the light was on...'

Darla waved a dismissive hand. 'It's OK. C'mon, get in. You wanna a cup of coffee?'

Darla realised that Spike did not want to talk about the reason he'd chosen that unlikely time of the night for a social visit, so instead she led the conversation to less tricky matters.

At a comment of Spike after seeing the magazine she'd been reading ('always been infatuated with Botticelli, haven't you?'), they began to recall their days in Rome and some other places of the world they'd seen together, and how different, according to Spike, they looked nowadays.

Still trying to keep the conversation as light as possible, Darla inquired about Spike's new job as an announcer at a small radio. Spike looked at ease as he told her about it, and she learnt more about the inner functioning of a radio than she would have thought possible. She was relieved to see he'd gotten a job that suited him so well, God knew that just working at the Slayer's School wasn't enough to make ends meet.

'Red's called the other day. She's also gotten a new job.'

Darla's curiosity was piqued. 'Really? What is it?'

'It's a teacher job... but in a witchcraft school, called Salem or something. Sounds like a secondary school, but for warlocks... familiar much?'

She was surprised. 'Must be like Connor's future school, Hogwarts, but in the States... Well, that's great for her.' She smiled. She'd always esteemed Willow. 'Is she still dating that guy... Stuart? Stefan? What was his name again?'

'Stewart, I think. And yeah, she is. Who would've guessed it? Thought she'd sworn off blokes for good...'

Darla shook her head. 'Nah, I don't think that a het person can turn absolutely gay, y'know. I always suspected she was just bi.'

She took a sip from her steaming coffee mug. 'I'm glad she's doing alright. Oh, that reminds me, Faith called.' Spike's eyes were alight with interest.

'How's Wild One doin' in sunny Australia?'

Darla smiled. 'Very well, actually. She's doing a great job at training those three Slayers... She reckons she might stay there permanently, although she might come in a few months to pay us a visit...'

Suddenly, Spike's head jerked up, his eyes widening.

'Can't believe I forgot to tell you. Gotta a hell of a piece of news for you.'

She moved forward over the breakfast table. 'What is it? C'mon, Spike, don't play mysterious. I'm all ears.'

Spike grinned, and Darla was surprised to see this. In the few months he and Buffy had been living in England, she'd barely seen Spike grin anymore.

'Niblet's finished college, and she's decided that she wants to be a Watcher...'

'...which musn't have made Buffy happy,' Darla cut in, knowing all too well the Golden Slayer's protectiveness of her younger sister.

'Well... no. But there's a silver lining: she'll come to train here.'

Darla patted his arm. 'That's fantastic, Spike. I'm sure Buffy will be thrilled to have her sister around.'

Was it her imagination, or hand't Spike's grin faded a little?

'Yeah, I guess so.'

Darla decided that enough was enough. Since the day they had arrived to London, Darla had sensed there was something wrong with Buffy and Spike. It wasn't like they bickered all the time or they had constant quarrels, but she'd noticed they didn't spend much time together these days. And when they did, there was a tension in the air, a stiffness in the way they treated each other that told Darla something was not right.

She had refrained from asking, as Spike never looked keen on discussing the subject, but she was fed up. She was going to get to the end of it. She just had to decide whether she should use diplomacy or bluntness.

'What's wrong with you and Buffy?'

Tact was so overrated.

Spike winced. 'Nutting. We're peachy.'

She glared at him. 'Don't take me for a fool, Spike.'

He averted her eyes. Instead, his gaze fixed upon some distant point in midair, and looked as if he were seeing things Darla could not. Finally, he let out an uncharacteristic sigh and turned to face her.

'I don't know. I've tried, y'know, to figure it out... but I don't get it.'

He sounded so sad, so helpeless, that Darla's anger vanished.

'Maybe, if you tell me, I'd be able to help you,' she softly said, placing a hand on his arm. 'Or at least you'll get it out of your system.'

His lips quirked, but it didn't look like a smile at all.

'It's just... We've always had our ups and downs, Buffy and I. Got too much temper for our own good.'

Darla refrained the impulse to say 'Really?' and let him go on.

'There was that time we didn't speak for each other for some months, remember?' Darla nodded darkly. She remembered it all too well, as Spike had been absolutely unbearable. 'But we always made up, and our reconciliations were... well, guess you don't need to hear the details but you can quite picture it, can't you?' She could, and it was one of those times she cursed her imagination.

'We fought, we couldn't stand each other one moment, and the next we couldn't be apart. It was glory and hell, bliss and mayhem, sometimes we despised each other and other times we loved each other madly. And we wouldn't have had it any other way. Or at least, I wouldn't have.' Spike shrugged. 'Either way, that just... changed.'

'How come?'

He shook his head. 'Dunno. It wasn't abrupt, it didn't start with a bang. Perhaps it began one night, when I got home and she was already sleeping. Perhaps it was the day I wasn't in the mood to accompany her during a shopping spree and preferred to watch a football match on TV. Perhaps it began when I realised that I no longer thought about her all the time, or perhaps when I realised that I breathed – figuratively speaking – more freely when she wasn't around. I don't know.'

Darla reflected for a moment. She had lived many years and seen many things, but when it came to human – well, sort of – relationships she was still quite clueless.

'Perhaps... perhaps the routine has worn you two out. Perhaps, a change...'

Spike snorted. 'Pet, why d'you think we came here in the first place? No, that hasn't changed anything. And it's not like we haven't tried to make things better. All the time I feel like I'm tryin', like all the time I'm with her I'm makin' an effort... And I can see in her eyes that she feels the same way. We seem to be putting up with some burden instead of being in love. All the time, trying so hard... and sometimes, sometines I can't help to wonder whether it's worthy at all...'

He fell silent, his gaze getting lost again. Darla looked at him, not knowing what to say. She wished to say words of comfort, to come up with a miraculous plan to save their relationship... but nothing came to her mind. Instead, she merely squeezed his arm gently.

He smiled wearily and look at her. 'Thank you. For the excellent coffee and, well, everything else.'

Darla was touched at the sentiment poorly hidden in his voice.

'You can come whenever you want, Spike. It's not like I sleep at night, is it?'

Spike smirked. 'I will return... for the 3 AM coffee, of course.'

During the following weeks, Spike kept visiting her more or less regularly, to share a cup of coffee and have a quiet chat. Darla was glad of having a chance of cheering up the unnaturally withdrawn Spike. Lindsey, though, didn't seem that thrilled.

'Why does he always have to come so late at night?' he'd complained once. Darla had stared at him, raising an eyebrow.

'For us it's not that late. We're nocturnal, remember? Besides,' she added, 'what's the matter? The times you spend here the night, you're already sound asleep when he arrives and we don't disturb you, do we?'

Lindsey hadn't replied, but made a sound like 'hmph' and returned his attention to the magazine he'd been reading. They no longer talked about it, and Spike kept coming over her place.

One night, the inevitable subject of Angel was brought up.

'She still avoids to mention him if she can,' Spike commented, almost nonchalantly but not quite, 'and she never wants to hear anything about Connor.'

'Figures,' Darla snorted. She tried her best not to show it, but it infuriated her the way Buffy acted regarding Connor, as if he were some kind of monster and not the most delightful nine-year-old child on Earth. Spike, though, must have seen through her facade, judging by the ironic look on his face.

'Guess she can't help it. The thing is, Darla, that I'm startin' to doubt she's gotten over him at all. Peaches's become a taboo subject. It's a wall, his ghost is, a wall between us. I can't walk through it, Darla, and I've tried. But every time I try to talk about it, she shuts me out completely. The look in her eyes, Darla... The look in her eyes clearly tells me that, every time I mention Angel, she wonders how her life would be if he were still in her life... And I see the longing, I see she wants him back...'

Darla decided that she had to be the voice of reason in the conversation.

'Spike, it's not that uncommon to wonder what could have been. And she's not the only one who would have liked Angel to be still here. Even I do, if only for Connor's sake –'

Spike chuckled bitterly. 'I didn't mean it like that, and you know it.' Spike closed his eyes, when he opened them again, there was a somewhat resigned look in them. 'Sometimes... sometimes I can't help thinking she would replace me with him, were she given the chance, without a doubt.'

'Well, I think that you're being a little harsh on her, jumping on conclusions like that!'

Spike winced at her snappish tone, but Darla was too incensed to notice.

'Just because she might miss him and it's hard for her talking about him doesn't mean that she would like to be with him now. Yeah, no doubt he's been very important in her life and all, but it's all in the past now. People do move on, you know.' Darla put down her coffee mug with much more force than necessary, making all the other stuff on the table to clatter. Spike winced, but she fully ignored him. 'You should give her more credit. And I think it's apalling the way you're dooming your relationship because of your delusions. Perhaps she just doesn't know how to bring up the subject of Angel, perhaps she's just afraid of your reaction, and this whole thing of "oh, she's not gotten over him yet" it's just the projection of your jealously and your insecurity, and your own unfinished business with Angel, and it's silly, because it's not like he was really sooo great and sooo hard to forget, not to say blaming a dead guy is downright stupid...'

Spike, she noted, looked nothing short of bewildered.

'You're still talking about Buffy, aren't you?'

'Er...

...yeah,' Darla mumbled, suddenly feeling flustered and rather embarassed at her outburst. Spike just stared at her, as if she were some kind of puzzle he was trying to decipher.

'Anyway, I don't think your problem is Angel,' she hastened to add, in a vain attempt to regain her composure. He stared at her a little more, a somewhat shocked look still plastered on his face, until he seemed to remember what they'd been talking about.

'Dunno. Possibly you're right. I mean... If she'd wanted to be with Peaches, she could have, the curse be damned. After all, that didn't stop him for attempting something with the Cheerleader, innit?'

Darla reflected upon this. It was true that Angel seemed to have moved on. She remembered all too well the looks he kept throwing at Cordelia... he was clearly bessotted with the brunette. And, honestly, Buffy hadn't been quite the nun either.

'I think... I think that she did not want so much being with him as she wanted to turn things back the way they used to be.'

Now Spike looked positively puzzled.

'Isn't it the same?'

Darla ran a hand through her hair, trying to rephrase it so her idea became clearer.

'I mean, I don't reckon Buffy and Angel would have gotten back together. Too many things had happened, they had undergone too many changes. They no longer were the same people who'd fallen in love with. The new versions of themselves just didn't match. But...' She bit her lower lip. 'I think she might miss the way she was when she was with Angel.'

Spike raised an eyebrow, the scarred one. There was a pensive look in his eyes as he pondered what she'd just said.

'You mean, young, carefree... and whole?'

She shifted in her seat, avoiding his stare.

'Well... yeah, I guess so. When we met during the whole First debacle, she certainly looked very different from the girl I'd known.'

He grimly nodded. 'She'd changed much, that's right. Too much stuff had happened to her, I guess. But then,' Spike hesitated a moment and ran a hand through his spiky hair, 'then, when the burden of being the Chosen One was lifted from her shoulders, when the bloody Hellmouth was destroyed, and she came lookin' for me...' His voice trailed off a moment, apparently lost in the memory. 'She seemed to have gotten back a bit of her old personality, a bit of her fiery temper. For the first time in a long time, I thought she,' Spike paused, apparently struggling to find the right word, 'she seemed willing to live. Really live, not the surviving thing she'd done during that last time in Sunnydale, right after Peaches' death. And for some reason,' and reaching this point in his tale, he looked bewildered, 'she wanted to share that life with me. She said... she said she didn't want a common life. That she'd tried it, and it wasn't really her thing. That she wanted to spend her days and nights with me, and she didn't mind giving up normalcy.'

Spike's lips curved into a sneer as he shook slightly his head.

'And I was foolish enough to believe her.'

Her head, which had been resting on her hands, jerked up at his cynnical tone. 'Spike, I daresay she did want it. After all, you two were together for more or less three years.'

Which was much longer than I would have expected, she thought but refrained from saying outloud. Her friend, though, must have read something on her face, as the sneer became even more sarcastic.

'You put it right, Darla: that's what she did want. Past tense.'

Darla tilted her head to one side and wondered why he spoke with such certainty. Suddenly, she got the suspicion there was something Spike hadn't been telling her.

'When did you realise she didn't want it anymore, Spike?'

He did not reply at once. Instead, he stared at his empty mug. Shadows, she noticed, were starting to turn translucent and faint as dawn was winning the battle to the darkness of night. Soon she would have to close the curtains – had they been talking for so long?

When Spike looked up, the sneer had vanished , whereas the sarcastic look in his eyes had been replaced with one of infinite sadness and pain.

'The Whelp's wedding, a few months back. The look in her eyes, Darla... There was longing there, I saw it.' Spike's shoulders sunk down. 'I was foolish enough to believe a woman so full of life like Buffy would be willing to give up the sort of life that was rightfully hers. But that night, Darla, that night I opened my eyes.' The sadness in his eyes became more heart-breaking as he added, 'I realised she wanted the white dress, the bridesmaids, the chubby children and the white fence. But above everything else, I think she wanted the sunlight... and all what I could never give her.'

Spike fell silent. He closed his eyes and seemed to shrink in his seat, as if that confession had drained the last bit of energy of his body. Darla's heart contracted with pity at her friend's evident pain. She wished she could spew words that would heal his soul, she wished she could do something to ease his pain... but nothing came to her mind. She didn't know what she could say or do that could help Spike. She suspected that his relationship with Buffy was beyond fixing. And then, she realised there was only one thing she could do.

She slowly rose from her stool and silently circled the breakfast table. Spike, whose face was hidden in his hands, did not show any signs of noticing this. Darla came to a halt when she was right behind him, and then, she just bent and uncertainly wrapped his arms around him.

He flinched a little, obviously surprised, but she didn't let him go and, after a moment, he eased and placed his head on her shoulder.

Then, in a faint, desperate whisper, she heard him say:

'I don't understand it. Thought love was something that lasted forever, that it was either scorching with passion or freezing with unrequited love, either glory or hell... and instead I'm stuck with this numbness, this greyness that doesn't wears off.' He swallowed. 'Thought the fire never died, but I was wrong. What does it take to strike a spark, Darla? What does it take, when all you feel in your mouth are cold, tasteless ashes?'

Darla wished she knew the answers to his questions. Darla wished she could say something enlightening, something that would make the shadows, the doubts lingering in her mind, to vanish.

But she did not know and all she could do was to keep holding her pained friend, as the sun bathed London's streets, chasing away the darkness outside... but leaving the darkness inside their souls untouched.

Imzadi: I'm afraid that Dru's beyond Dumbledore's help, although I always thought that she wasn't as mad as she tried to make everybody believe. In 'Crush' she seemed quite rational... if only because everyone else was acting crazy. As for Snape's father, you can bet that his visit wasn't a walk in the park for both his son and Connor. I think that, of all the characters I've created, he's the one I hated the most.

Sparky: Well, certainly this fic's style is very different from '2 single parents', so I'm not surprised if you didn't like both the same way. About all your questions... well, don't you think that if I answered them I would give away the whole plot? If you want to know, keep reading! Anyway, 'Two Single Parents' end when Harry's first year starts... but that's not the end of the tale. I'm planning to write a new installment of the series per each year Harry spends at Hogwarts, told by Connor's, Snape's, Sirius', Spike's and Darla's POV, and with some things changed, naturally.

Lucrecia Almasy: It's really thrilling to me knowing that last chapter touched you, and that you think mydescription of Drusilla was perfect... thank you so much!

SunflowerLynx: Thanks for your comments! I'm glad you like my little universe, as I've become very fond of it, and that you found my writing amusing. Thanks!