Title: Heaven Doesn't Want Me, Hell's Afraid I'll Take Over
Author: Jo-Anne Storm
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Summery: A living Spike makes interesting friends in LA.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Joss Whedon and the people at Mutant Enemy. The plot is purely mine.
Beta: Dawn
Dedications: To Dev, who at least pretends to understand my frustration over having 90 pages of no plot. He's sweet, at least.
Notes: I'd like to take the time to mention the web pages that I've been using heavily during the writing process: City of Angel ) and The Buffyverse Dialog Database ). Both are excellent sites. CoA provides detailed episode summaries for each Angel episode and the Buffyverse DB has the transcripts for each episode of Buffy (with plans to add Angel in the near future). Also, , a must have for anyone who can't spell and/or easily runs out of synonyms.
An extra special thank you to Dawn, the last in a long line of betas. Thank you so much for sticking with this!
I should mention the fact that the characters have completely taken over this story. It started out with a simple phrase: "Heaven doesn't want me, Hell's afraid I'll take over." It wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote a scene. The next thing I know, Spike's taken over and gathering a bunch of people to him. I didn't invite these people! Some of these people I don't even particularly like. So what in the world are they doing in my story?
Anyway, on with the story. I hope you enjoy it.
When the light reclaimed him, he found himself half in shadow, the sun playing across his face much the same as a lover's hand. Instinctively, he rolled away from the burning brightness. Only to discover that it didn't burn.
Cautiously, carefully, he inched one slim hand towards the ray of light that shone through what he vaguely recognized as the tree above him. He didn't care about his surroundings, focused solely on the light that his hand was now firmly engulfed in. The light that blazed across his flesh, leaving no mark to tell of it's passing.
Inch by inch, his leather-covered arm followed his hand. His whole body was stiff, poised to snatch the appendage back to the safety of the shadows. Still, nothing happened.
Taking a steadying breath, he forced his whole body into the light, tension screaming from every muscle. Slowly, he relaxed, opening his eyes and gazing up at the grey sky.
Quickly, he ran his eyes over his torso, paying special attention to his hands. No jewelry beyond what he usually wore. No nice little mystical gems. In fact, he was wearing the exact same thing he remembered putting on so many mornings ago. The clothes that he had covered with vampire dust just that morning, when he helped save the world. Had it been that morning?
Black boots were firmly on his feet, and the same jeans hugged his legs. The same tee that made him feel oddly uncovered without the red shirt that he usually wore over it. The long black duster finished the whole outfit off. Just how it should be, down to the fags in his duster and the few dollars wadded up in his jeans. Everything in its place except for the trinket Buffy had gifted him with.
Confused, he focused on his surroundings. Trees, grass, dirt. Possibly a park somewhere. He could have been anywhere in the world, anywhere in any world, and he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
It was only then that he noticed the pounding sound. It matched perfectly with the pain in his head. Not the pain of a chip designed to make him Pavlov's dog. The pain of too much noise, too much vodka, and too little sleep. If he didn't know better, he would think he had a hangover.
He ran his hands over his face and pushed them through his hair, vaguely recognizing that it must be pretty warm for his skin to reflect as much heat as he was. His hair was slicked back for the most part, but he could feel where the fight had mussed it up some.
The fight. It all came rushing back at him. The potentials, scared spitless, looking into the abyss. And it stared back at them. The sudden straightening of shoulders as an almost physical wave of power swept through them, giving them all a confidence that came from the knowledge that they were special.
The slayer – Buffy -- staring up at him with tears in her eyes. So much beauty, so much courage, so much love.
She had thought that he didn't know. That he couldn't tell. He could though. Their linked hands had been a prelude to their linked souls. He could feel her love shining brighter than the trinket he had around his neck, had heard it in her declaration.
"No you don't. But thanks," he had said. Not to dismiss her feelings, but to give her the strength to run up the stairs and leave him behind -- by denying the connection that she had resisted for so long. The charade had to be kept, for her sake.
He remembered what had happened next -- the pain, the light. He knew.
He actually felt a little gypped. His life, neither mortal nor vampire, never flashed before his eyes. He didn't get to re-experience the times with his mother, before he had damned her. No Dru, no Dawn. No Buffy. Just darkness and pain.
With a sigh, he picked a direction at random and began walking.
It took him two hours before he realized he was breathing. Breathing! Drawing in oxygen and exchanging it for carbon dioxide. Inhaling and exhaling. Respiration.
As soon as it hit him, he nervously ran a hand up to his neck. The pounding that he had heard, that he had learned to ignore, that constant pounding was his heart beating. Thumping away in his chest; the same chest that had been still for over a hundred and twenty years.
Sweat popped out on his brow, gathered along his spine, and dampened his underarms. Pores that had atrophied suddenly gave forth massive amounts of liquid. Bile gathered in his stomach, making it roll threateningly.
"Bloody buggerin' hell!" he howled, collapsing to his knees. Spike, William the Bloody, was alive.
Some might wonder, if they had seen him and knew what he was, what he had been, why it took him so long to notice this change in his nature. Vampires don't breathe, their blood doesn't pump. Right?
Wrong. They do draw air into and force it out of their lungs. But there is no respiration. Blood does flow through their bodies, rejuvenating their dead cells with new blood. Yet their hearts don't beat. Spike didn't understand the biology behind it, nor did he care to.
He had heard the story, so many years ago, of the slayer lying injured while his grandsire, his mentor, fretted over the fact that he didn't breathe and therefore could not save her. The Whelp had been on hand to perform CPR, saving the bint's life and setting in motion the events that would eventually lead to Spike's demise. He had laughed at the story, calling his mentor a poof for wanting to save their enemy's life and then for forgetting the basic tenets of vampirism that the man had taught him. Apparently, being cursed with a soul made him strive to forget his very nature. Poof.
Remembering the story now, and remembering Angel's stupidity, was enough to force him back to his feet. He may have a soul, he may be alive, but there was no bloody way he was ever going to turn into Brood Boy.
He found civilization a short while later. A suburb lay peacefully before him. Cookie cutter houses dotted the streets. In the distance, he could make out a haze that indicated a metropolitan center. A city he could lose himself in.
He snagged a newspaper from one of the many drives, ignoring the twinge of guilt he felt for the small infraction. It was just a newspaper, and he needed it more than the housewife that was sitting in her abode, fantasizing about the neighbor's teenage son.
Looking at the date gave him another shock. It had been over a year. A whole year since the battle at the Hellmouth. A year in which his precious girls could have died, if they had escaped from the battle at all. Dawn. Buffy. The reason he had fought for his soul. Fought for the world.
The paper was The Los Angeles Times, making him think that the city in the distance was LA. That was good, in a way. LA held Angel, the poof, and he would know what had happened to the slayer. The souled vampire might try to beat him to death, but in the end would provide clothes, food, information, the things he so desperately needed. It might hurt his pride to go to Peaches for anything resembling help, but he had no choice at the moment.
Carefully putting the paper back in its protective wrapping, he dropped it back on the driveway and continued on his journey.
Several hours later, after sacrificing his few dollars to pay for bus rides, an experience that made him wonder how they had spent years protecting the world from the forces of darkness and had missed the pure evil that was public transportation, he strode into the Hyperion Hotel, carefully making sure that his duster billowed out behind him in that way that screamed "Big Bad."
"Honey, I'm home!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.
Only to be met with silence.
"Peaches?" he called. "Cheerleader?"
More silence.
He looked around the hotel for the first time, really taking in the details: the feel of emptiness, the fine layer of dust that had settled over every surface, the lack of smells. It had been empty quite awhile, maybe a year or so. People had still come and gone occasionally, but not in a few months at least.
He drew in the musty air, cataloging the lingering scents of those that had frequented the area. He could smell hair gel combined with the little something that made Angel's smell unique. A mustiness that reminded him vaguely of the way Giles always smelled, if books and knowledge had a smell, it would be that. Sweat and confidence covered one smell, while another was combined with Mexican food and warm electricity. A demon, pleasant smelling as far as demons go, mixed with Curacao and lemonade. Another smell, older, that set off a slight niggling in the back of his head, as if he should recognize it. The cheerleader's smell was also older, faintly covered in perfume and medicine.
There were other smells. Apparently Angel had opened his hotel for business. Although why he would allow the one creature that smelled so strongly of death and destruction to enter was anybody's guess. But those seven smells permeated the entire building. Seven smells to match seven people. People he didn't have a hope of tracking through the jungle of city streets and the mass of human smells. His one hope vanished in a puff of smoke, hopefully not literally.
Setting his jaw, he explored the hotel, finding little more than discarded clothes and the odd weapon. None of which were worth keeping, the clothes either too large or too feminine for him and the weapons discarded because of their low quality. There wasn't even enough change in the cushions of the couch to make a local call. He was well and truly on his own. Well and truly buggered.
The basement of the place still had a heavy bag and a few work out mats scattered around. In sheer frustration, Spike took a couple of swipes at the bag, rattling the chains that held it to the ceiling. He decided it was a good noise and threw his whole weight into the next series of punches, taking his anger and confusion out on the defenseless bag, straining the chains that were meant to withstand Angel's blows. Slowly the smell of his own sweat permeated the room, covering the older smell of Angel and the other, almost familiar, smell. The tension began to drain from his body, leaving him exhausted.
He quaffed a glass of lukewarm water from what was left in the taps and made his way upstairs in search of a room that was half way clean and didn't stink of demon.
This time, it was the pain and grumbles in his stomach that woke him up. He had experienced the pain of hunger before, especially during his time in the basement of Sunnyhell High. But never had his stomach vocally protested the lack of sustenance. In fact, the only vampire he had ever heard of having "tummy rumbles" was Drusilla, and it was probable that she had just imagined them.
It was while he was tying his boots that the idea came to him. He had noticed the vampire attributes that he was still endowed with. He just hadn't thought the revelation was worth nit picking over. But, it gave him a way to get money, and with money came food and luxuries.
Vampires often stole money and jewels off their victims. The money for their own pleasure and the jewels for souvenirs. Who was to say that he couldn't work the opposite way? Liberate the money from the vampires before they became dust in the wind. He'd be tempted to pawn the tidbits for extra cash, but knew enough to know that he couldn't afford to bring the attention of the police down on himself. LA wasn't Sunnydale, where the cops were deeply stupid.
He needed cash for clothes, food, weapons, and research. If he was going to find out what happened to the old stomping grounds, he was going to have to have access to a computer. He could use a public one at a library, but that meant a library card and ID. More money. He would have to have such documents anyway, if he ever wanted to do anything but live in flea-bag motels or the abandoned Hyperion.
With this in mind, Spike shrugged into his duster and stalked out into the night, hunting for the vampires that preyed on the city.
Using the few stakes he had found in the hotel and his own cunning, he came back that night a couple of hundred dollars richer. He had hunted single vampires, beating them into submission before stripping them of valuables and dusting them.
Instead of going back to the abandoned hotel, he spent a few bucks on a "no-tell motel." He figured, given his new living status, that running water and electricity would be a good thing. Neither of which the Hyperion currently boasted. He stored his bag of non-perishables in the tiny refrigerator and crept into the bathroom.
The light sent roaches scuttling to safety, but that didn't bother him. God knows he had stayed in worse places, the burned-out warehouse being one of the least offensive in his past. He was more interested in the small cracked mirror that hung from the dirty wall.
Mirrors when he was first human had been dark and warped. They often showed a slightly distorted image of the vain person peering into them. He had been taught as a child that vanity was a sin and had therefore not spent long studying his reflection.
The man who looked back at him looked like the image he vaguely remembered seeing in his youth. White-blonde hair curled against his forehead, a hint of the dark roots just beginning to show. Clear blue eyes and prominent cheekbones graced his face. One eyebrow had a scar, the wound received from the sword wielded by the slayer he had killed during the Boxer Rebellion. He never understood why that scar remained when other, worse injuries healed without a trace. The glyphs the First had ordered carved into his chest were just a memory. The burns the slayer had given him with when she had dropped an organ on him were gone. What was so special about that one cut that it left an everlasting mark? Shrugging the thought away, he gathered the toiletries he had bought and stepped into the shower.
The first blast of cold water came as a shock, nastily reminding him that as a human he could feel cold. But was he human? He had a pulse, the need to breathe, but also the strength and senses of a vampire. Was he some amalgamation of vampire and human? A half-breed?
He didn't feel the need for blood, instead the hunger for normal food he had enjoyed eating even as a vampire. Sunlight didn't harm him and the garlic he had sniffed at the grocers' had smelled pleasant. He would have to experiment with holy items, which meant finding a church that was open when no one was around. Couldn't very well start poking and prodding religious icons with a priest watching, wondering if he was going to filch them.
His hair and body newly cleaned, he shut the water off and slicked back his hair from long habit. With one last glance at the mirror, he scurried out of the room and to the crumbled pack of cigarettes he had waiting for him, finally relaxed enough to actually smoke one.
Lighting up the fag was possibly, he thought later, the worst choice he had ever made. He had inhaled the smoke like he had done since he picked up the habit in the forties and immediately started coughing and gasping for air. He quickly stabbed the still smoking cigarette out and tried to draw in a clean breath, only to cough harder at the burning sensation in his chest.
Note to self: smoking and working lungs do not go well together, he thought, finally understanding Nibblet's objection to him smoking near her. Too expensive anyway.
At a loss for what else to do, and too tired to go back out into the night and search for more vampires, he climbed into bed and quickly went to sleep.
The next morning his other bodily functions caught up with him. Relieving himself after over a hundred years was definitely an interesting sensation. Some instinct told his muscles what to do, so he let them do their job, paying careful attention to the feelings coursing through his body. He had to remember the warning signs to prevent accidents. He wasn't some toddler or vegetable that wet his pants.
Grosser functions dealt with and shower behind him, Spike stepped out into the sunlight once again and headed for the nearest bus stop. He quickly caught a bus, lamenting the loss of his car and motorcycle, and traveled to the nearest mall. Once there, he ate an early lunch and bought more necessities, including a couple changes of clothes.
The next stop was Kinko's, where they allowed him access to the Internet for an exorbitant fee. He quickly discovered that his former home was now the site of the world's largest sinkhole. Geologists were baffled by the occurrence, stating that all previous surveys of the land showed that it was stable. Spike smiled at the Sunnydale Effect, as they always had jokingly called it.
He did a people search for the Scoobies. Willow was the only one that displayed any information, unsurprisingly showing an e-mail address. He hoped that that didn't mean that she was the only one that survived the devastation that had been the Hellmouth.
He signed up for a free e-mail account and dashed off a note to her, praying that she would believe the outlandish claim of a resurrected dead enemy-sometimes-friend. Since she had been known to do a little resurrecting herself, he felt the chances were pretty good.
Satisfied with the afternoon's work, he headed back to his motel, determined to rest up a bit before hunting that night.
"There's a call for you on line one," Lilah Morgan told her boss, striding into his office with no preamble. When she had been instructed to lure Angel and his team to their side of the fence, using the vast resources of Wolfram and Hart as the bait, she never thought she would end up as the new Head's personal assistant. Of course, the fact that his friend had killed her only added to her amazement over her change in status.
Angel had driven a hard bargain when he accepted the job. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought the famous vampire with a soul had been a lawyour in his human past. He had sniffed out every loophole, every trap in the proposed contract and tore it to shreds. She had had to rewrite the papers again and again to his exacting specifications. For a creature that was supposed to be inherently evil, he had protected his people well.
All of them, bar Lilah, could walk out at any time, never to look back. All projects had to have the express verbal and written approval of Angel and his Board of Directors, to the point that every single step had to be approved. The decision did not need to be unanimous, but majority ruled in the boardroom.
Lilah herself attended every meeting, an occurrence that would have once caused Angel Investigations a whole heap of trouble. But a clause in her new contract insured her loyalty to her boss. It was not that she had been redeemed, but as if she had a chip similar to that installed in William the Bloody's head. She could not take any action that would endanger an innocent life. Wasn't magic grand?
"It's the witch," she told her boss off his questioning look. "She assures me that it is not concerning the death of the slayer or any of her little pets, nor an apocalypse."
"I wasn't aware that your job was to question my friends, Lilah."
She straightened her shoulders and shook the hair off her shoulders. A slight tightness appeared around her mouth and eyes, the only visual indication that she was annoyed. "My job is to screen your calls so that you aren't unnecessarily burdened with riff raff. Had Ms. Rosenberg stated that the call was personal, I would have put her straight through. Or, if she had called your private number instead of going through the channels of the office, it would be different. As it is, I am only doing my job."
Angel raised his eyebrows at her outburst. In response, she turned her back on him and slammed out of the inner office. She had just settled behind her own desk when he strode out, barked out a brief command and headed towards the boardroom.
Lilah shrugged at the terse tone and pressed the button that would send a signal to the beepers of the members of the board. That completed, she gathered her note-taking materials and followed after her boss.
He was in the boardroom, pacing back and forth behind his chair. Nervously, she played with the scarf at her neck, the scarf that hid the line created by her lover's axe. Not that she blamed him. Actually, she was rather proud of the fact that he had overcome his personal feelings in order to do what had to be done. The man might be brilliant, but he did tend to think with his heart.
Charles Gunn, head of Special Projects, was the first to enter. The muscled young black man strode with a confidence that betrayed his conversion to a werecat, if you knew what to look for. Not that he hadn't always been confident, but now it was more than the bravado of the streets that he had before. It was the knowledge that he was more than human.
Lorne, the friendly, horned, green-skinned head of Entertainment came next. His vermillion suit jacket made her head hurt, but highlighted the red of his eyes and horns. He hummed to himself as he settled into his preferred seat, hands moving slightly to direct his internal orchestra.
Winifred Burkle, Fred to her friends, and Boss to the people who worked in the Science Department of the company, wandered in soon afterwards. Lilah silently counted the pencils sticking out of the frail-looking girl's messy bun. A total of eight today and it wasn't even noon. Another pencil was clenched in her teeth and she flipped through a stack of papers as she walked. Angel barely managed to miss running into her as he continued his pacing, vampiric grace coming into play to avoid the collision.
The distinguished head of Research was last. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's hair was casually rumpled, his face sporting several days' worth of scruff. While he had been raised to be perfectly groomed at all times, the new, grungier look fitted him. The coifed look had been a remnant of the Wesley that was all book smarts and cowardice. The Watcher's Council Wesley.
Taking in his just-out-of-bed appearance, Lilah silently lamented their lost… thing. While she had no problems continuing their association, Wesley was apparently squeamish about sleeping with the person he had decapitated. Which was silly, really, in her opinion, it's not like her head had stayed detached.
Once everyone was seated, Angel turned and rocked back on his heels. "I just got off the phone with Willow."
"Oh!" Fred squealed, bouncing a bit in her chair. "How is she? How does she like living in New York?"
"She said New York was great," Angel told her, obviously forgetting his previous agitation. "She been dutifully preparing for her midterms and is planning on going to see The Sound of Music on Broadway."
He physically shook himself to get back on track. "She called to tell me that she had gotten an e-mail from Spike."
Lilah instantly sat up straighter in her chair. Now this was interesting.
"Angel, from what Giles told me about the collapse of Sunnydale, that is impossible."
"Exactly," Angel agreed, focusing on the ex-watcher. "Which is why she asked us to check it out. The e-mail said he was in LA, but didn't give any indication as to where. She traced it to a public computer on Oakdale."
"Um… Excuse me," Fred said with her hand in the air. She pinkened slightly when everyone focused on her. "But, who's Spike?"
All gazes turned back to Angel, who sighed heavily and fell into his chair.
"Spike," Wesley stated, reciting the file he had once studied at the Academy. At the time he thought it would be prudent to be familiar with the slayer's past enemies, especially one that had survived the encounter. "So named for his predilection for torturing victims with railroad spikes. Also known as William the Bloody. Turned in the early 1800s, it is believed. Not much is known about him during those first hundred years. We do know that he appeared in London in 1880, whereupon he took up with Drusilla, Angelus, and Darla. He has bragged about killing two slayers, but the only confirmed kill was that of Nikki Wood in 1977 New York. In '99 he was captured by a government agency that installed a behavior modification chip in his brain. The chip caused pain whenever he tried to harm a human. From then on he was a reluctant ally of Buffy Summers. Thought to have been killed during the closing of the Hellmouth."
"Is that what the Council says about him?" Angel asked. At Wesley's nod he continued. "One day I'm going to get you to show me the information they have on me, just to see how close they are."
Wesley shrugged. "Giles updated your information heavily during your time in Sunnydale. It is believed that your information is possibly the most accurate they have on any vampire. You have to remember that much of the information gathered is based on rumors and supposition. You can't very well go up to a vampire and ask them to give you the details of their life."
"This is all very interesting," Gunn interrupted, tapping his fingers on the table in a bored fashion. "But it doesn't really help."
"Angel-cakes," Lorne said, drawing attention to him. "Wes said you knew him, what can you tell us about him? Is he going to come down on us all fire and brimstone?"
Angel sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Spike… Spike is ruthless when he wants something. He doesn't let anything get in his way. Contrary to the Watcher's supposed information, Spike was turned in 1880 by Dru."
"Hold up," Gunn interrupted again. "Crazy, ho-bag, childe of Angelus, Dru?"
"That's the one," Angel muttered.
"So," Fred stated nervously. "That makes him like your grandson?"
Angel sighed again and leaned back in his chair. "If vampire bloodlines were human bloodlines, then yes."
"What is it with you and crazy family members?" Gun muttered.
Wesley was silent, staring at Angel in shock. Lilah worried for a moment that he had gone non-verbal. Then she saw him start to furiously scribble down what Angel had revealed, no doubt ecstatic at the thought of thumbing his nose at the memory of the Council that had sacked him for being incompetent. He had come a long way from that weak bookworm.
"Anyway," Angel said, straightening back up and shooting a glare at Gunn. "I don't know much about his life before Dru found him. She kept him to herself for a few days. When I first met him he dressed and talked like a gentleman. Within a few months, you never would have guessed he was raised anywhere but the streets. He insisted on being called Spike.
"He loved violence and was totally devoted to Drusilla. The four of us roamed Europe for about twenty years, until the gypsies cursed me. I caught up with them in China, 1900, 1901, something like that. At the time I was trying to prove to myself and others that the curse hadn't changed who I was. Didn't work out very well.
"It was in China that Spike killed his first slayer. I can still remember him gloating about it. He even offered me first shot at the new one, if we ever ran across her."
Wesley made a few more notes before looking up. "1900, China? You're positive that's when it happened?" When Angel nodded he continued. "That would have been Mai Lin. With the Boxer Rebellion it was damn near impossible to keep track of the movements of vampires. Her watcher was killed a few weeks beforehand in a fire and the Council never knew what exactly happened to her."
"Now you know," Gunn stated.
"What happened after that?" Fred prodded.
"Not sure," Angel confessed. "When I realized I could never go back to being what I had been, I ran as far and as fast as possible. I kept track of everybody's movements, if for no other reason to avoid them. Darla broke off from Spike and Dru sometime in the early 1900s. Probably to join the Master in his efforts to open the Hellmouth. As far as I know, she remained in Sunnydale after that."
"Until you staked her," Fred reminded him quietly.
"Until I staked her and our lovely Lilah brought her back. Lilah, you wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"
"Angel," she said, the picture of innocence. "Why would I do a thing like that?" Instantly Angel was in her face, one hand wrapped around her throat.
"Need I remind you that I am the only one who has the power to free you from your pathetic body? Yes or no, do you know anything about why the apparently dead Spike is not dust?"
"No," she croaked, drawing a relieved breath once he withdrew his hand. She didn't really need to breathe, it was a comfort thing. Silently she cursed the compulsion that made it impossible for her to lie to him.
Angel was back in his seat, looking calm and collected. "Spike and Dru roamed around a bit after that. I know he was in New York in the seventies and Prague in the nineties.
"He brought Dru to Sunnydale in '97. She had been hurt by a mob and he thought the Hellmouth would restore her. They did a ritual using my blood, which Buffy and Kendra interrupted. Buffy put Spike in a wheelchair for a few months, much to both his and my annoyance."
He took another deep breath and continued. "One thing Wes doesn't know, that I don't think Giles even knows, is that Spike worked with Buffy before the Initiative. After I lost my soul, he made a truce with her. He would help her fight me in return for his and Dru's safe passage from Sunnydale."
"Oh, that is so sweet," the little Texan cooed from her seat near Angel. "He made a deal with his enemy in order to save his true love."
The men at the table looked indulgently at Fred while Lilah rolled her eyes.
"You might appreciate it, but Dru didn't. She left him in Brazil. I think that that was the first time he had been truly alone since he was sired. It was the first time I had ever seen a vamp, other than Drusilla, depressed. He returned to Sunnydale for a couple of days before deciding to torture Dru into loving him again."
"OK, definitely not of the sweet," Gunn murmured.
"He returned to Sunnydale in '99, looking for a mystical gem that would allow him to walk in the daylight. He found it, Buffy got it back from him and sent it to me, which led to Spike coming to LA and terrorizing me, Cordelia, and Doyle. We sent him back with his tail tucked between his legs."
"Whoa, Sugar," Lorne interrupted. "You have some mystical gem that would let you walk around like a normal human and you don't use it?"
Angel shook his head. "It was called the Gem of Amara. It made vampires invulnerable. I destroyed it."
The occupants of the room looked at their friendly neighborhood vampire in disbelief before rolling their eyes.
"That was when the government got him. He must have been pretty desperate to go to Buffy and her friends for help. He worked with them, not always willingly, until Sunnydale collapsed a year ago. Everyone thought that he had died, at least until Willow opened her e-mail today."
The room was silent for a minute before Lorne spoke up. "Nuh uh, Sweet Cheeks. I can tell you're not telling us the whole story and you're not even singing. What really happened?"
Angel gave a low moan and rubbed his face vigorously. "That's all you need to know."
"I think not, Angel," Wesley stated, frowning at his friend. "If you want us to help you on this, we have to know everything."
The CEO of Wolfram and Hart looked mutinous for a moment before nodding.
"Most vampires feel nothing but hate and anger. There are a few exceptions: James and Elizabeth being two. Spike is another one. He was completely devoted to Dru. He worshiped the very ground she walked on. The very fact that he made a deal with Buffy in order to protect Dru just goes to show how much he cared for her.
"After she took off and he got chipped, he transferred that devotion to Buffy. Actually, to Buffy's whole family. Before Buffy died, he promised her he would protect Dawn. When she got back, he was there for her in ways no one else was."
"Something happened," Gunn stated, understanding the human need to make a connection.
"Something happened. And then it ended. Spike disappeared for about three months. No one's sure of exactly when he left or when he got back. Buffy found him in the basement of the high school, talking to himself. And before you ask, no, insanity isn't transferred through blood, so he didn't 'inherit' it from Dru.
"Like I said, I'm sketchy on the details, but wherever he went, he came back with a soul." The others spluttered in shock. He thought back to his conversation with Buffy after she and the new slayers had arrived in LA. "Buffy said that it wasn't a curse, not like mine. Or if it was a curse he had it done deliberately. He did it because she couldn't love a soulless demon."
Fred sniffled, a tear in her eye at the thought of someone risking everything for true love. "Wow," she whispered.
Lilah snorted at the sentimentality of it all. A waste of time in her opinion.
"So," Gunn said. "Souled Vamp, Jr. is still kickin'. And we need to find him, right?"
Angel nodded. "Yeah, we need to find out if he somehow survived the collapse. Do whatever you can to find him. Gunn, I want you to give this priority. Wes, see if you can find out anything about how he could have survived."
"Have you considered the idea that the prophecy may have been referring to him," Wesley ventured, wincing as Angel scowled.
"The Shanshu prophecy? I considered it when I was talking to Willow. But I just can't believe that the Powers have dangled that particular carrot in front of me for so long only to jerk it away and give it to Spike. Unless we hear otherwise, assume that he's still a vampire. Worst case: without a soul."
"But," Fred pointed out hesitatingly. "The chip would prevent him from hurting anyone, even without a soul."
"No. It malfunctioned at some point after he got the soul. It was removed."
Wesley and Gunn quickly stood and left. Fred glanced at Angel, silently asking if there was a specific task he wanted her to do before hurrying out of the room.
The vampire stared at the demon and undead employee for a moment before signaling Lilah to leave. He made sure she was out of ear shot before looking back at his friend.
"You know the routine, Pastry," the empathic demon told him.