Author's Note: Hey everyone, please don't kill me. I know That this chap has been long in the making and that's mostly because I was out of the country for a while. Sorry bout that i put up a long one just to make up for it! Okay, first off to address the 'Dutch' thing, I admit it, I use a translation website-don't pet me with tomatoes! I don't really speak dutch, just English, a little French anda very little of a few Asian languages since My Da (happy father's day!) moved us out here. So I've stopped using the Dutch, and anything in Dutch, doesn'treally need to be translated, because its there just to make me look cool.-and doesn't do anything to further the story. Secondly, I got nominated in an awards! ohmigod! I was really scared to post this because I worried that it wouldn't be up to par.(I also ignored the 'Choose their own adventure and made Angel come alone. Don't worry the scoobies will be back soon.) So vote for me at Love's last Glimpse awards -I'm not sure what the ettiquette for awards are, I've never won anything- and this chap is for whoever nominated me! and made my day! (you know what else would make my day? Winning:) just kidding. hahaha) ALSO, this is my big Angel bashing chapter and he is going to be a little whiny and wimpy-just figure thathe thinks he drove the woman he loved into madness and never really got forgiveness. Also got to figure, he never had the calming influence of Buffy's care after coming back from Hell and he had to deal with the hostile scoobies. The details of all of this are coming soon.
whoew! That was a long one. Now, on with the tale:
Chapter XIX – Amsterdam: A Study in Sage
Spike's study was his favorite room in the house and he spent many of his waking hours here. It was all manly and wood paneled, the furniture was done in matching dark walnut and the colour schemes stuck to the earthy greens and darker reds. There were several suede maroon easy chairs and burgundy upholstered stools. The walls that were not covered by shelves were painted a sage green. Several photos were hanging in the areas not dominated by books and electrical equipment.
"Those are really uh, nice photos." Angel said, glancing at a photo of the little girl pretending to be one of the queens guards-complete with the hat. The next one showed Buffy and Spike facing each other under the bridge of sighs in Venice, they didn't seem to know the picture was even being taken. There were more pictures, but Angel had to look away looked away. It was so painful.
Spike turned to him and nodded.
"Buffy took that one." He said nodding to the photo of little Kit. "Some people in our tour group took the others."
He walked behind the big desk and sat down. He gestured to the various other seats for Angel to sit down as well.
Angel nodded uncomfortably there were even framed pieces of paper with shapes painted on them in different colours, they were mounted and back lit like real master pieces.
"Who did those?" he asked curiously, he wondered when Spike all of a sudden become an art enthusiast. William had always been very vocal to Angel about how Nancy the elder vamp was being for being all about the opera and art and what he called the 'Frilly cuffs and collars' crowd.
Spike smiled at them fondly.
"The bit." He answered. The fatherly pride was evident in his voice. "She found er-impediments in her artistic ability and she said if she was not going to draw humans if all she could manage was stick figures." He shrugged and shook his head. "But she's far past that now. She likes drawing fish the most."
Angel nodded, noticing the more recent looking shaky fish in various different colours on blue backgrounds with twirl-ly lines he could only assume were sea plants.
They sat in silence for a little bit longer. Finally Angel had to speak.
"Spike, you said you were going to-"
Spike stood abruptly and pulled out a bottle of premium aged whisky. He held it out to Angel.
"Fancy a drink?"
The elder vampire nodded and Spike set a decanter in front of him, filling it with a few fingers of the amber liquid. He poured himself a less than generous helping and set the liquor aside.
"Right, then." He said settling back into his seat behind the desk. "I don't know where to begin really."
Angel nodded. He took a swallow of the drink before nodding for his grandchilde to continue.
"Look, Spike," he said lowly, he was still angry with the peroxide vampire sitting across from him, he still wanted to stake him through the heart after long hours of grueling torture, but he accepted that right now, he needed answers. Maybe he could somehow get Buffy out of the thrall that Spike had her in. "It's not like it all didn't already happen. Just begin at the beginning and end when I showed up."
Spike set his jaw but nodded.
"Very well." He said taking a deep breath. He then outlined the events of the last seven years, telling his grandsire precious little about the details their life together and focusing mostly on how he found and retrieved the gem of amarra.
"-it was all there." Spike said, "I just offered Doyle 10 of what he found."
Angel glared at Spike.
"That wasn't what I was interested in Spike." He said. "What did you do to Buffy?"
"She came with me." Spike answered simply.
"What?"
"She. Came. With. Me." The younger vampire repeated as if he was talking to a toddler who didn't understand English.
"There has to be more than that." Angel said narrowing his brown eyes. It was a statement not a question. He had expected some sort of persuasion on Spike's part. "Did you put her in thrall?"
The younger vampire froze, highly insulted and enraged that Angel had accused him of what was basically rape.
"I would never in a million years force myself on a girl." He hissed dangerously, his wordage and accent immediately slipping back into the rougher lower class cockney he cultivated in his 'scourge' years. "Takin' something a chit wasn't offering was your bag, Angelus."
Angel flinched.
He was right. Spike had never-even in his worst years-forced himself on a woman. Seduced and taken advantage, but never raped, everything was consensual.
It had been him who raped. And killed and pillaged and maimed and tortured and killed and insulted and sullied and stolen and killed.
He steeled himself, pushing away the heart wrenching guilt to be dealt with later. He convinced himself that Spike was hurting Buffy in someway and it was his duty to get to the bottom of it.
"There has to be more than that, William."
Spike conceded, seeing the anguish and feeling strangely juvenile for causing it. He had the girl, he had the life, might as well just give the wanker what he wanted and let him be off.
"Right," he said impatiently deciding that he wanted more than anything to just have the great poof turn tail and never come back. "After she had to send you to hell for killing the watcher's pet gypsy," Angel flinched. "Torturing her watcher and forcing her though the bloody mind games you are oh-so fond of," he looked down ashamed. "She got fed up with you-killed you." Spike could have sworn he saw tears in the elder Vamp's eyes. "Oh bloody snap out of it. She's over it, bout time you're get over it to."
Angel glared at Spike.
"I just need her forgiveness." He said.
Spike snorted.
"And you'll be hard pressed to find it." He said helpfully. "So Anyway, then came with me to start again in a new town, a new country and a new continent-she found out than vampires don't need bloody souls to give a damn about others. Since then, she's never left my side."
It was the closest he would come to telling Angel what was really between him and Buffy.
And already the poofter was assuming brooding position.
Spike paused and internally laughed at Angel's tortured and kicked puppy routine. The poof suddenly looked like his insides had just been ripped out and then chewed up, spat onto a plate and then offered to him.
"Oh, Bloody quit your whining, you ponce." Spike snapped smirking at the reaction he elicited. "She isn't here to see your gut wrenching display."
Angel's face snapped back to an indiscernible mask and Spike could hear him growling softly. He had noticed that Spike had not touched his alcohol, a simple action like that was pretty telling. His Grandchilde who previously drank any alcohol he could get his hands on, now Spike hadn't touched a drop. However, he let the thought pass without comment. He wasn't able to concentrate on the significance, too distracted with Buffy's lingering scent on Spike.
"Get on with it." He growled shutting out the possibilities that his senses elicited.
Spike glared at him, and then let of slowly, realizing just how terrible this was for Angel. So of course, he was going to have to do everything in his power to make it that much worse.
"What good will this do you, peaches?" he asked seriously. As much as he loved to jerk ol' Forehead's chain he really didn't want to have to deal with all his soulful nonsense. Plus if the git started crying it would ruin the suede seat he was sitting on. "You hear the story about how The Slayer and I got to where we are? You wanna know the truth?"
Angel snorted.
"I really don't have much of a choice do I?" he snarked. He expected to get a rise out of his volatile grandchilde, some sort of reaction, but Spike held firm. "After what I did? I don't get forgiveness. I mean Only the Powers that be-the people that chose Buffy forgave me and took me out of hell. But Buffy-"
"No." he said in quiet rage. "You don't get any sort of say after what you did to Buffy."
Angel was surprised at the response, Spike had not yelled it, not ever raised his voice, and yet his tone belied that Angelus had not been forgiven. Nor would he be soon.
It was more effective than if Spike had roared at full volume.
Spike snapped out of it, almost immediately. A few moments ago he had actually felt sorry for the broodster. He knew what it was like to be kilted by a woman who was your world, but now he remembered just who Dru had left him for and, more importantly, just who had nearly broken his Buffy. At this point his demon demanded vengeance but he willed it down. If he lost his temper now he would loose his edge, and the next part was so much fun.
The bleached blonde vampire almost grinned in perverse amusement. He knew what he was about to say was going to rip Angel to shreds.
"You brought us together, you know." He informed the dark vampire. "When you had that moment of pure happiness-just YOU by the way, she didn't quite make it- you began pushing her to me. And when you took Dru away, you pushed me to her. This, Angelus, is your fault."
The anguish on Angel's face made Spike snicker, he really couldn't help it. Really, it had nothing to do with the great poof, but he couldn't help but phrase it that way just to torture the sadistic bastard that much more.
"So," he said in a cruelly cheerful manner. "How's Sunnyhell?"
Angel didn't reply, lost in a sea of guilt and despair. His beautiful, perfect Buffy had been tainted. Spike was right, for once, it was all his fault. He had snuffed out Buffy's light and left only darkness. He had caused it. He had broken her.
Angel was so lost in his brooding thoughts that he didn't hear the door open and Buffy walk in. She saw Spike leaning forward in his seat, a trademark smirk on his face and his finger steepled in front of him, trying very hard not to laugh.
She studied him for a minute, despite his cockiness and amusement she knew that there was an underlying pensive-ness. She turned to Angel to find him staring off into space. She waved a hand in his face and when she got no reaction turned to her husband.
"What did you do, Spike?" she demanded of him. "He looks like he swallowed a sock."
His last words had actually got him thinking. Dammit! That was supposed to make Angel brood! Bloody mood swings. Having His grandsire here was complicating everything. It brough up a lot of questions he didn't want to ask. Like would she stay with him? Would she want to go back to Sunnydale? He was so distracted he didn't even shoot her a strange look for her analogy.
"Told him that what happened between us was all his fault." He said truthfully. He jerked his eyebrows. "Told him he pushed us together."
Buffy's eye widened.
"But that is so not true!" she said. "What happened between us was-" and then she realized why Spike had looked so tickled when she entered. "-you said it on purpose didn't you?"
Spike grinned.
"What can I say, pet?" he asked folding his hands behind his head and leaning back in his leather chair. "M'evil."
Buffy rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers at a catatonic Angel.
"Hey! Brood boy!" she said sharply. "Hey! Angel! Oi!"
All this emotion must really be exhausting him, she thought, but this drama was beginning to get really very tiresome and she wanted nothing more than to just send Angel on his way and get on with the life she had built. The Life that she had made when Angelus-Angel had robbed her of her last one.
She really liked this one better, and now he was back to ruin it again.
And just like that, she felt her inner slayer lock into place. She had been shocked and frustrated before, now she was just pissed.
Spike saw the shift and decided not to intervene, he was just going to sit back and watch the fireworks. All his life-and unlife, He had always felt second best. It was a feeling and inner turmoil that Angelus had promoted, now the vile sadist turned prancing poof was going to have a taste of his own medicine.
"ANGEL!"
The tall broody one snapped back to reality and peered at Buffy with betrayal soaked eyes. He was so focused on his pain that he didn't see the danger in hers.
"Buffy?" he said in an anguished, tortured-emotion choked voice. He stood up and took a step towards her, ready to take her hands in his if he needed to entwine them with hers to assure her of his real-ness. He seemed to have repressed most of what Spike had told him and the events of the last few hours. "I fought through hell to get back to you! And I find you here-with him. How could you Buffy?"
Buffy's eye widened, an expression Angel took to mean guilt and pain and he took her hands in his big-meaty ones and almost crushed them in an effort to declare that he was there, back from hell. He had come back to her.
He was actually surprised when she whipped them away.
"Have you not been listening to a single thing we've been saying?" she demanded angrily, finally fed up with all of this babble that the dark vamp had been babbling. "Are you just being delusional?"
Angel shook his head.
"Buffy, whatever thrall Spike has you in I'll make him relinquish it." He said gently. "I promise."
Buffy rolled her eyes.
"I so can't believe this." She said throwing her hands up and then placing them down on Angel's shoulders. He seemed pleased at the contact until he realized that Buffy was pushing him down onto a chair. "Angel, get it through your thick skull-I'm not enthralled-Buffy. I'm just happy-Buffy who is in love with her husband and whose husband loves her. I'm also family-Buffy with my little baby who is with her godfather in the other room. This is my life now and you have come back to ruin it." She paused- making sure Angel was listening. "Look, Angel, you and I? OVER. Pretty much over since the moment you threatened my friends seven years ago. You never loved me. You loved the idea of loving me."
"B-b-but we were soul mates!" Angel insisted sounding petulant and not a little desperate. This slip of a girl meant the world and all of heaven to him, and here she was standing in front of him in all her glory, something he thought he would never see ever again. It was a scene from his dreams. And-in a scene from a nightmare-she was choosing his crude grandchilde over him.
Buffy burst out laughing. She glanced at Spike to see if he could join her in her mirth but was flabbergasted to see that he was watching the scene seriously. She could feel his insecurity, a sudden timidity that she knew he hadn't felt in a very long while.
And that pained her.
She knew that this situation needed to be handled carefully and finally. Spike had suffered under Angel since he was turned, and suffered under others before that. His hardened shell was a farce and Buffy knew he had not yet really gotten over all of it. Even if Spike knew she loved him, now that Angel was back in the picture, he couldn't help the tendril of fear that plagued and prodded him.
Buffy could feel it, it was one more thing to hate Angel for.
"I can't believe you just said that!" she said, her laughter switching off as suddenly as it came. "First off, Angel, I'm not fifteen anymore-soul mate just sounds like a stupid cliché to me." She leaned forward to poke Angel in the chest. "And second you kinda need a soul for the whole 'soul-mates' thing to work."
Angel looked confused.
"But, I did have a-"
"you didn't have a soul, Angel," she interrupted. "You never had a soul. You had a curse."
Angel growled.
"And I supposed Spike has one?" he demanded jerking his head in his childe's direction. Spike stared back unwaveringly, but Buffy saw the slight uncomfortable shift.
She shook her head.
"Please. Nothing nearly that corny." She said dismissively. "Spike just doesn't need one."
She turned to her husband and was overwhelmed by the sudden unabashed joy, wonder and awe in his expression. She would have dropped into his lap at that moment and let the whole world melt away as she made love to him, but this situation needed to be dealt with. She contented herself to just wink at him saucily, hoping he caught her meaning. His lecherous smile and the answering bolt of lust that shot through them both was evidence that he had gotten the message.
"Besides," she said tearing her gaze away from Spike and looking back at Angel. He didn't seem to notice the exchange. "He's not and he will never be my soul mate." She said, ignoring the elder vamp's smug expression as she tilted her head, exposing her neck, the marks she knew Angel sensed but couldn't acknowledge. Well, she was going to make the stubborn vamp acknowledge them. "I believe the technical term, Angel, is MATE."