Title: The Sacrifices
Author: mispel
E-mail: PG-13
Summary: Xander and Dawn are trapped. Anya tries to get the cluster back from Spike.
Spoilers: Early season 7
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing
Feedback: Any comments would be welcome.
A/N: Takes place in early season 7, not long after Beneath You and Same Time, Same Place.
Previously: Spike took off with the cluster, and Anya went after him. Dawn provided cover as Xander sneaked the baby into the hospital.
Spike stopped climbing. He wasn't sure how far into the tunnel he was. Hardly remembering where he was going, he knew that he carried a treasure. His fingers were wrapped around the cluster. It was made up of small crystals of all colors stuck together, sort of melted in parts. It was like a rubber-band ball only jagged and glittery.
Spike tried to look into its center. Maybe there was something in there. He thought he might see a light. But in the tunnel, in the dark, it didn't shine. Spike shook it. Maybe it was broken. It didn't hum or beam or speak to him. Maybe it was a fake. The only thing he found reassuring was its weight. It was heavier than even a rock that size should be.
"I'm counting on you," he told it. "I only want a little thing. Just to be sane, like anyone else. You can do that for me, can't you?"
There was no answer. Spike shifted around uncertainly. The skinny, old man with white hair was somewhere on the edge of his vision. Spike refused to turn and look at him. But the old man was sneaky and might creep his way over to him. Spike held the cluster tightly, not averting his eyes from it.
"Make me sane," Spike said to it, almost begging.
While Dawn made a fuss at the reception desk asking for her sick grandmother, Xander walked by with the baby in a duffel bag, keeping his head down. Once Xander was in, Dawn stopped bitching.
"I see her!" Dawn exclaimed and went after an elderly woman going down the hall while trying to keep the flap of her hospital gown closed.
Xander had stepped into the men's room to keep out of sight until the corridor cleared. Once the old woman passed, and a doctor went by with a stack of charts under his arm, Xander stepped out of the men's room. Dawn saw him, let the old woman go on her way, and stood guard. Dawn looked around. No one was watching them. Xander spotted an unoccupied wheel chair and took the baby out of the bag and placed it on the seat. The baby woke up and started crying.
"Grandmother! Grandmother!" Dawn started calling very loudly to try and drown out the baby.
Xander fought the urge to pick up the crying kid and walked off toward the exit instead. Dawn was right behind him, but she nearly ran into a nurse coming out of an office who luckily had her nose in a file. Dawn changed directions right before the nurse raised her head as the baby's cries drew her attention.
Xander went the opposite way and ducked into an examining room. He peeked through the curtain and saw Dawn going after the same old woman in the hospital gown who might have protested that she wasn't Dawn's grandmother if she could get a word in edgewise. Dawn talked the old lady's ear off as she walked with her to her room.
Xander saw the nurse - a small, middle aged woman with stern features, who looked like she probably enjoyed giving shots - check out the baby and try to quiet him. The nurse looked around but didn't see anyone it might belong to.
Anya heard Spike say something as she climbed toward him. Whatever it was, it didn't include "I wish", and she was relieved. As long as he didn't say the magic words, she still had time.
Anya figured they were half way up. The rock walls of the lower part of the tunnel ended turning into packed dirt and stones. Spike was huddled up ahead, wedged against the wall. His light hair stood out brightly in the dark. He was staring at the cluster as if hypnotized.
Some dirt and rocks rolled down under Anya's feet as she climbed, and Spike jumped. He held the cluster closer to him. As Spike stared at her as if ready to fight her for it, Anya took a neutral pose. She put a hand against the tunnel wall trying for a casual lean.
"It's a cluster of some of the most powerful jewels known to demon kind, fused together in the fires of one of the many, many hell dimensions," she said sounding like a tour guide and taking a cautious step forward.
"Not looking for a history lesson. Looking for the door," Spike said, staring into the jewel.
"It will grant a demon any wish," Anya told him, knowing that he already knew that. She took one more step toward Spike.
"It will show me the way out." Spike didn't look away from the cluster as he spoke. His fingers were spread on it and he was hunched over.
"Except, that kitschy little doodad has a way of taking more than it gives," Anya said. She still had her demon face on. Her voice was raspy, and it seemed to scrape the heavy, earth scented air of the tunnel. She moved a little closer. Spike didn't seem to notice.
"Who doesn't. There's no balance to the scales. It's always crooked and sideways," he said shaking his head.
"Check out your unfortunate history, Spike - you get what you wish for and you live to regret it," Anya reminded him, but his babbling didn't give her much hope that her wise words would get through. She took a step toward him.
"It will sort me out. Settle things. Take the crazy out of my head," Spike said his voice cracking.
"It might kill you to get it out. That's one way, you know?" Anya warned him sharply and took another step. Anya reached for the cluster but Spike backed up.
"I made a mistake. I tied a rock round my neck. Can't swim like that," Spike explained.
"This is just another rock," Anya said pointing at the jewel cluster. In the dark, she could hardly see why it was such a big deal. It looked a little bumpy, like some kind of cheap and hideous knick-knack.
"I am a coffin. This thing inside - it doesn't like me. Doesn't like being inside here, buried alive. It's not right to hold it hostage in a dead thing. It knows what I am." Spike sounded anguished. "It won't let me be. Nothing is solid. I want to know that when I see a thing I see it." Spike pressed his back against the wall of the tunnel. Some dirt slid down behind him.
"I thought you wanted to be good. You can't be good if you are soul-free," Anya explained. She didn't move back hoping for another chance to grab the thing since from one second to the next Spike seemed to forget what she was up to.
"I don't feel good. It's like swallowing thorns, cutting you up from the inside." Spike was running his hand over the cluster, in a fast, nervous motion, like he was trying to smooth out its bumps. He closed his eyes.
Anya took a leap getting her hands on the cluster. But Spike was holding on too. Anya could feel the familiar power inside it. She used her knees on Spike's groin to make him let go. The pain didn't do the trick. Spike held on, and they rolled around without getting very far.
"Maybe you should give it time," Anya advised. It was a do as I say not as I do thing. She hadn't waited. She was still in her wedding dress, casting aside her humanity before that costume was even off her. So it was only a theory. You get through the pain to the other side, and there might be something good waiting for you. And then that good thing could turn out to be the worst thing of all. She decided not to argue that.
"You give it time! You don't have the cursed thing inside you!" Spike said through gritted teeth. His voice sounded strange in the tunnel. Dirt came down around them as they hit the sides of the passage. A clump of dirt fell into Anya's eyes and Spike used the opportunity to pull away from her. The cluster was in his hands, inches away from Anya. Momentarily blinded, Anya could hardly see him.
"When I was first... " Anya said. As her vision cleared, she saw Spike's lips move. "Wait!"
But he didn't. Spike closed his eyes and murmured a wish, his mouth close to the stone.
"Idiot!" Anya yelled.
A rumbling started back in the cave and moved upwards. Anya lost her footing and started to slide down. She caught herself. The shaking of the ground got worse. Anya continued down and tried to keep more control of her descent while moving quickly toward the underground cavern.
Xander held his breath then started to sneak through the examining area and toward the exit. He walked out from behind the curtain, ready to go for the emergency room door. Then his blood froze as he heard a shout behind him.
"Don't let anyone leave!" The nurse shouted in a voice much louder than Xander would have expected from a woman that barely came to his chin.
As a security guy stepped in front of the exit, Xander swerved back toward the curtained examining room. He wondered if he should worry about Dawn. She seemed very cool and assured in her scamming. He wondered how often he and Buffy had fallen for it. He should remember to keep his guard up around her and maybe get some pointers.
A different nurse walked in, surprising him and surprised to see him.
"I've been waiting for an hour, my back is killing me," Xander said before she could start questioning him.
"I don't..." she started to say and her eyes narrowed, but she was distracted by the commotion in the hall.
"Someone will be with you soon," she said absently, not even looking at him.
"That's what they said an hour ago!" Xander whined taking a page from Dawn's book of bitch and moan so they won't notice you.
A doctor appeared right behind the nurse. He was a bland guy in early middle age who looked like nothing could get his blood pressure up. Xander gave him a fake name. The doctor asked Xander questions, scribbling and only half listening to his lies. Xander would have been outraged if he wasn't so glad that no one was paying attention to him. The nurse left to find his paperwork, which Xander assured her he filled out.
Xander told the doctor he couldn't sleep from the pain in his back and had to go to work the next day.
"So you would like something for the pain," the doctor asked. As he looked at Xander, he held his head down as if he was peering over nonexistent glasses. Xander wondered if the guy had recently gotten contacts. He also realized that he was under suspicion of being a drug user.
"Well my chiropractor doesn't keep convenience store hours, so whatever you can do," Xander said vaguely.
"What do you do for a living?"
"Construction," Xander answered remembering that he should be lying a second after he said it.
"I see. And you were injured on the job?"
Xander wasn't sure what to say. Maybe letting the doctor suspect him of insurance fraud as well as trying to get drugs was a good cover. Or a good way to end up in jail.
"Well, my back didn't get like this from lifting a remote, sitting in my lazy-boy, and watching my big screen," he said as the doctor eyed him disapprovingly.
"I wish the pain would stop," Spike said into the stone.
Nothing happened. Spike didn't feel any different. The ground shook, that was all. It wasn't what he asked for.
The old man was laughing. Did he get it wrong?
"'Make the pain stop'," the old man was mocking him.
Spike could still feel the thing tearing away at him.
Someone should have told him what it was. They called it a soul, but was it a burning, corrosive thing that was eating away his insides? He had tried opening holes to let it drain, but they always healed. Maybe it was a thing with claws. It hurt him because he had taken it and placed it inside him, and it wanted out. He was trying to let it out, but it wouldn't go. Just sat there like a stubborn cat, scratched at the door, gouging it, then wouldn't leave when you open it. How could he catch it, get rid of it, if he didn't know what it was?
There was a deep noise all around him that went through his bones. It wouldn't let him think. And a voice saying "the soul is the pain, the soul is the pain" over and over and laughing, keeping time with the shaking of the earth. Then Spike remembered - Buffy was down there, and he followed Anya down the sloping tunnel.
To be continued