Chapter 19.
Buffy went with Willow down the stairs and into the waiting crowd in the lobby, still a bit dazed from what had just gone on up in the bedroom, trying hard to change from "kissing Spike" mode, to "retrieving Wesley from hospital". She hoped dearly she had made the right choice, in giving her vampire a third chance. If another trip to the hospital would be in the near future, she didn't think she could bear it.
No, she was right. She had to be. Spike seemed to have finally actually listened to her. Now she just had to get the others to listen too, and get her truce with Gunn about not staking Spike be made permanent. However the hell it was she was gonna do that…
A strange, dense sensation in the air around her broke her ponders, and she looked up, startled to find herself entirely engulfed in Angel-spirit. "Huh, what? You're here too? On your way out with the rest of us? Shouldn't you be off somewhere hiding from the sunlight by now?" she rambled, as she tumbled out of his space. Angel chuckled and turned towards her. "I'm already deader than dead. There's nothing left to dust, that the necklace hasn't fried away already. I'm fine. And I dare say I know Wesley better than you, so yeah, I'm coming to get him."
Buffy nodded, and they headed towards the exit together. Everyone but Willow. "Come on" Buffy chided. "You're the one who picked me up for this! Do I have to come and get you now?" "No…" Willow replied airily. "I was just thinking. We haven't got anything ready for the Welcome Home party. Not that it needs to be much, I don't think we need a whole party in the making when we got the news that he was ready to come home so suddenly, and he'd probably appreciate it more if we were all quickly there to you know… actually welcome him home, but I just thought, if it was possible, that it would be nice to stay behind and prepare something a little extra, to make him feel safe and comfortable upon homecoming, with all the mayhem that was when he was hurt. I just though… " she trailed off.
Buffy rolled her eyes. She knew this twitchy version of rambling Willow all too well. She had something she was pining about, that made her uncomfortable about meeting up with Wesley right away. She smiled. "OK Willow. Stay back and prepare what you think is best. We'll be back."
"Thank you" Willow smiled, still as tense as ever. Buffy gave a fleeting thought to what might be eating her, but decided to just give it a slip and go. She had enough on her mind already.
Willow slid back, with a mixture of relief and fresh anguish. There was really something she needed to do, urgently, before Wesley came back. She had meant to go with them, but now she knew that she couldn't. She had stood next to Giles, and seen the bandages around his neck, and gotten reminded of how very close it was that he too was not in the hospital now, or worse. And it was his own magic, not hers, that had prevented it. With herbs they were currently out of. There were images floating through her head in quick succession, of him in a gush of blood in his own bed, and Spike on top of him. Of him earlier, asking that Spike be safely chained up, which she had helped Buffy refuse, by suggesting this lock up spell that she deep inside knew she couldn't do. She had failed, Spike had gotten out, and attacked again. Next time, Giles may not be as equipped and prepared as he was this time. Next time, Wesley, weakened as he may be after his current hospital stay, might be dead. And Buffy would never realize it before it was too late. Willow had seen what was going on upstairs. Spike had cuddled his way into Buffy's good graces again, and was left unchained. She had been worried about him for some time now. She knew what it was like to be in the deep pit of despair that she had seen him in for so long. She had had those sentiments. The need to lash out, against everyone who caused her pain, the need to damn it just make the world stop, so that it could stop hurting. He was dangerous. And a danger she had failed to protect against before. She had hoped so dearly that things would work out, she had tried to give him all the care and sympathy and opportunities to talk things through that she could. It wasn't working. Things were just getting worse. And she couldn't let Wes come back to a still dangerous home.
She walked off from the hallway, and around the hotel for a little bit, until she had ended up back in the reception area again. Nothing. She made her way into Wesley's office behind it, and gasped. There he was! Looking through Wesley's things with a determined, almost predatory glance, as if he had already resumed stalking him.
"What are you doing here?!" she asked, in a voice cold with threats.
"Willow!" Spike uttered, in mild confusion over her tone, "You're not with the others?"
"No." she said, trying to force trepidation out of her voice. "I stayed behind to prepare things, and make sure he's safe, when he gets here. " And with that, she reached out her hand, and started uttering the freeze spell.
Spike understood where this was going in the last second, and threw himself to the side, neatly dodging the spell that went swirling past him. "Hey!" he shouted, and pulled around her, trying to get away, out of the confined space of the office. "The deal was, you were supposed to be in lock up until we had agreed to trust you again. You've forgotten that already?" She shot off another spell, and he dodged it, more narrowly this time, while pushing past her, and back out into the hall. "How am I supposed to..." he dropped off the sentence to duck another spell she flung at him. "… get you to agree to that, if you won't see me?" "Stop attacking us would be a good idea" she deadpanned, while turning to a coil of rope laying in a sack in a corner, making it uncoil itself in the air and rush towards him. "Well, I'm not the one who's attacking now, am I?" he snapped, but barely had time to finish the sentence before the ropes hit, from several angles at once, trying to wrap themselves around him. He grabbed a coat stand, now emptied of coats after everyone had gone, and used it as a stick to fight off the ropes, but they kept coming. Sneaking up and flying in from here, there and everywhere. It was all he could do to keep track of it, and in the end, he wasn't just fighting the assault of flying ropes, but a rising sense of panic as well. Tied up, locked down. Helpless, vulnerable, alone… the flashbacks were coming on so violently that it was all he could do to keep them at bay enough to keep the fight up. It pissed him off! Like hell if he was gonna put up with this bullshit, let alone from someone who should know better, who he had thought he could count on in this. A foolishly naïve thought. He went into game face, and started biting the ropes off as well. And noticed with a certain satisfaction that his attacker gasped and stepped back a little at that.
The hospital was as busy and chaotic as these places often could be during the height of the day, But the gang who burst in was still able to find the man they were looking for rather quickly. Wesley walked towards them with his arm in a sling, but otherwise looking fresh and healthy, and clearly very ready to get home. They were going through the procedure of checking out, and were introducing themselves to the hospital clerk taking care of the needed paper work as she looked up and said, rather matter-of-factly. "Angel, was it? We were just about to call you on a different matter. You are the emergency contact of Cordelia Chase, right? We just got word that she's awake."
Spike bit and tore at the coming ropes, turning one after the other to shrivels and noticing that they started coming slower and slower. Hmm, was the red little witch finally running out of juice? She was approaching closer too. Walking steadily towards him, with her face screwed up in concentration, her humming voice as intense as ever, in a steady chant. Perfect. One more step now, and he'd have her within such distance that it would be just to reach out and grab her, and put a stop to this nonsense. Then he collapsed with a blinding headache. Ah, bloody hell! At least that was supposed to be long over with! He writhed and trashed around on the floor, and wanted to curl up in a fetal position, but couldn't allow himself such luxury, for fear of losing sight of the wicked witch, who was now finishing her chant, and holding out her hand towards him, bending down towards his cringing form on the floor. "Sensory memory" she chirped. "No real harm. But your mind was wide open to reminders of previously suffered pain. I could sense it. " She turned a little around on the floor and collected a few ends of scattered rope. "And since you were so stubborn about not honoring our agreement of detainment in any other way, I needed a pacifier. I'm sorry."
Not nearly sorry enough! You try having your head exploding in phantom pain, and see how not real it is! But ok, this isn't really happening. It can be blocked out. Come on. He saw her approach again with the ropes, just lay there, rigid, and waited. Come on. Just a little better angle! There. She was passing by him just right, when he quickly turned around and gave her a solid kick in the chest, strong enough to send her square across the floor, and banging against the opposite wall. He was up in a heartbeat, noting with relief that the pain was gone. He was on top of this now. A predator on the prowl, just like before. He approached, ducked as she tried to send more little rays of magic at him, circling what was now his prey with the grace that knows not to stay too long in one spot, so as to be hard to fix a steady aim at. Around and around, closer and closer, constantly blocking off her escape routes, while always having found a new spot when she aimed at where he was a second ago. He felt the rush coming. The trill of a good hunt. The confidence booster he had felt so many times before, of getting into a situation that was dangerous, and slightly out of control, but still perfectly manageable for a fighter like him. He smiled and chuckled, and noticed her realize that she was not as skilled at the steps of this dance as she needed to be. He came down on her, one hand on each of her sides, and with his bared fangs going straight at her head.
And picked out a spare piece of rope he had collected himself, deftly tied her hands together at the back of a chair that he forced her down into, and whispered in her ear. "You have been a very wicked witch, who needs to be tied up until you can be trusted again."
"Angel?" Cordelia whispered in bewilderment. "Yes." He confirmed, voice shaking, as he kneeled down by her bedside, in front of the crowd of others. At first, the doctors tried to stop everybody going in at the same time, saying a recently awakened coma patient should not be stressed out by such a crowd crowding in on her, but nobody listened, and just pushed past the flustered medics, until they decided to just allow them. "I thought you were dust! I saw it, in my sleep. There was a cave with all hordes of monsters in it, and you incinerated them all, and yourself as well, with light coming from a … hideously unfashionable necklace. I should've known it wasn't real. That no one, not even you, could have such a lousy sense of style as to wear something like that." Angel smiled, and reached out to take her hand, going straight through it. Her eyes widened. "You weren't wrong. What you see is true, as always." "What happened to you?" "According to Fred, the hideously unfashionable necklace turned me into a pure spirit being, popularly speaking a ghost, but not quite. I'm fine though. I can go out in the sunshine now. And I'm learning to move things around with willpower." She smiled, and got a determined look on her face. "You've got to get these doctors to let me go home, so I can help you sort this out." Just then, one of the said doctors stuck her head in, and caught the last snippet of the conversation. "No way, miss. You've just gotten out of coma. You're staying here for observation at least for a few more days before we can talk about going home." She gave the rest of the room a stern look. "And the rest of you? You do really need to go home now. It's not even visiting hours, and there are way too many of you to be in the same hospital room. Miss Chase has had a very eventful day already, and needs to rest. You can come back tomorrow… Or, some of you can, at least" she added, with a stern look around the crowd.
"Now, are you gonna sit still and not try anything now, or do I have to gag you?" Willow looked up at him with a mixture of fear and defiance. "I could still get you, you know." "I know. That's why I asked. I worry that I might have to shut your mouth, to stop this spellcasting. But I really don't want to hurt you. I know I've done enough of that already, and it needs to stop."
He'd done enough to create distrust and mayhem among the scoobies for a long time coming. And it had all been part of the First's plan. That fresh bit of insight annoyed him to no end. The First had played him – again! This had been one of It's probably many, perhaps alternative, plans with the ordeal It had put him through. Give the idea that not just was Buffy back with Angel and not interested in him anymore (had It wanted him to kill them too? Not good to know. He hoped so, since it would mean that at least something hadn't gone according to plan) but that the Watchers were after him too, and must be killed for him to remain safe. He chided himself for falling for it. But on the other hand, he had to admit that it had been very cleverly done, posing as "the Watcher's council" down in the caves. It had been packed in as an aside to the big deal, about Buffy and Angel, and all the rest of the crap that had been loaded on him down there, and it was rather low key and credible. No overkill, nothing more than he could readily imagine they could do, based on what he knew about them. And with that subtly slipped in mention they gave about having been tipped off about his whereabouts, to give the impression that Giles knew where he was, and had called them, and would send them to lock him up in another torture chamber first chance they got.
Had It known too, through It's careful espionage of the scooby gang, how Giles would play directly into such a setup once they met? Spike didn't know, but it gave him a certain satisfaction to acknowledge that this calamity he was stuck in right now, wasn't just his own or the First's making. Giles had behaved like a jerk through this whole ordeal, and it was something that needed to be addressed, but in a much calmer, and definitely not evil way.
Willow eyed him skeptically, but with a slight trace of surprised hope. "So you recognize that what you've done has been wrong?" "If you had only bothered to ask first and shoot later, I could've told you that half an hour ago. What's gotten into you, Red? You never were the most trigger happy bird I knew?" "As opposed to you, you mean? As I knew you, for years before getting your soul back, you weren't exactly hesitant about taking others down. You tried to kill me, twice, remember?" She gave him a sore look, and he didn't really know what to say to that, the old wall of guilt he'd been struggling with this whole year shooting up again. "I wouldn't…" he retorted, hotly, before she stared him down and interrupted. "I know. That was before. You have a soul now. You're not the monster you were anymore, and I respect that. I have seen the change." He gave her a mildly surprised look. "But you're still the kind of guy who doesn't give up on a project once started. Who will pursue it to the bitter end when you first have something on your mind. And who doesn't readily take crap from anyone. So, I'm very worried about how far this vendetta you seem to have going will go."
"It won't" he said, with such stern determination that it gave her pause. "All that you said there is right. Which is why this is already over. Buffy had some pretty interesting tidbits of info to share, before you came in upstairs. The First had paid her a visit, one of the last days in Sunnydale. It had gloated…" He took a break, shaking, forcing himself to go on. "This was It's plan all along. It wants us at each other's throats. So that's the last thing it's gonna get." Willow's eyes widened. "Really? The First planned for this? How…" She looked him deep into the eyes, and he could see her features softening, while she asked, with a soft, sensitive voice: "What really happened, down there in the caves, alone with It and Wood for a month?"
He took in her warm, caring gaze, and told her. About the beatings, burns and other forms of physical torture. About the maddening silence, and stark painful light that was it's own form of torture on days when nothing happened. About the timeless, mind-numbing monotony, that made it so hard to maintain a normal critical attitude to what was happening, and in the end made him unable to keep up the awareness that the things he saw might well just be the First's mirages. So that he, when the "Watcher's council" had made their arrival, had had no mental resources left to fight with, and readily accepted their malign presence as god given truth.
"I can readily imagine that" Willow nodded. "I felt it, during the fight. Your aura, it was dented in a way. With a strong echo of too much suffered pain." She avoided his gaze, and started to cry. "I felt it, and I took advantage of it. I caught hold of that echo and supercharged it. I'm a terrible person. I'm so sorry!" "It hurt." He admitted, more scared by that exposition than he cared to let on. If she could sense and exploit this, then what about other witches? Was he a walking free target, for every warlock who might get a kick out of it in the future? He had to know more of this. "How much could you see?" "Not much." She pondered. Thinking about it, clearly trying to give him a full and honest answer. "I sensed a dent. A vulnerability. A resonance field of sore energy. But it took me a while to tap into it. It was hard. Any vision of more pain clearly wouldn't mesh with it. I understood it had to be recognizable. It had to invoke an actual memory. Something of that the sore energy field was build of itself. Which left the more recent trauma out of the question, since I have not witnessed that, and could not feed into it with enough detail and accuracy to make it real again. So, then I had only but one recourse, for something that would fill both criteria, of having once been profoundly hurtful enough, both physically and spiritually, to be part of the dent, and which I had seen happen enough times to be able to recreate perfectly. The chip migraines. But that wasn't enough either. I needed to stand physically inside the dented aura to be able to affect it. Which meant coming really close. Which meant getting a solid kick in the ribs in return for it." She smiled mirthfully. "So it turned out to not be much of a magical weapon after all" she reassured, happy to see him relax visibly.
They were still talking when the gang arrived with Wesley an hour later. They all stopped, and stared in various versions of shock at the scene in front of them, of Willow tied up to a chair, with trails of recently shed tears on her face, and Spike sitting next to her, loose and free. Both turning towards the newcomers, in a startled manner.
"What on God's green earth is going on here?" Giles asked in befuddlement. Xander rushed over to Willow, and bent down over her. "Are you hurt?" Gunn shot out towards Spike, who got up and took a step forward in response. "If you're hurting her too…" "He didn't!" Willow shouted sharply, and everyone turned to her. "I attacked him. We fought, he won, and could have done anything, but didn't. He just tied me up to stop the fight, and we had a long and nice conversation."
"You did what?" Gunn turned to her, and gave her a befuddled look. "Had a nice and long conversation. It cleared up a lot of things. I was wrong to attack and try to lock Spike up again. We've talked about why he started attacking the watchers, and why it was a mistake. I sincerely believe he's not dangerous any longer." "And you're basing that certainty on…?" Gunn was still clearly skeptical. "Forgive me for finding this situation slightly absurd. You've been tied up by a vampire who has recently been on a blood spree, and you're saying everything is fine?"
"Think about it." Willow said. "We've been here alone like this for more than an hour. If he had wanted to, he could have killed me, drained the corpse, and disposed of the leftovers by now. Nothing of the kind has happened. Like I said, I attacked him. And he even seemed to take care to hurt me as little as possible in return."
At this, Angel came forward, and announced, plain and simple, in his 'in command' voice: "With so much to sort through, I think its best to make a proper meeting about this. Would everyone please find a seat, so that we can discuss this in an organized manner?" He looked around the room and found everyone's eyes. Then he walked over to the reception seating area, and added as an aside "and someone cut Willow loose, so she can join too?"
Buffy looked around and saw everyone picking up to do as they were told, and felt a huge rush of gratitude towards Angel. She had been getting more and more worried of having to dive in to settle this matter herself, and with the last outbreak she had to deal with, over the dinner table, fresh in mind, she wasn't sure how much authority she had left to do it. But he had come through for her, just like he had promised her he would, back when he let her cry on his non-corporeal shoulder after said dinner table row.
They all filed into the lobby seating area and took their seats, with Angel choosing to stand at the forefront of the seated group. Partly for the authority of being the only one standing up, but also because he feared he might fall straight through it if he tried to use a chair, and didn't want to be made a laughing stock. "Willow" he said, turned towards the latest arrival. "Now that we're all seated, can you please answer the question Gunn asked you in more detail, why you are convinced that Spike will no longer hurt, not just you but any of us, including Giles and Wesley?"
Willow nodded, and recounted, without going into any much sensitive details, the tale Spike had given her, about the First's plan and manipulations. The others listened, some with various degrees of scepticism, but said nothing to interrupt her. Buffy felt secretly jealous at the thought that Spike might well have confided in Willow lots of details of that terrible month, that he had never confided in her. But she pushed that feeling back. This was not the time for such pettiness. And besides a little voice inside chided her have you ever really asked him about it?
"Buffy" Angel addressed her, breaking into her train of thought. "What exactly did the First say to you, as Willow tells us? How do you know that it was talking about this." "Oh, " she said, trying to gather her mind on the question. "Well, it didn't mention this situation in detail, It was it's usual vague self, but it did say that it had wanted me to find Spike down in that cave, because It had played with his mind, to make him destroy our gang for It. It bragged that it hadn't even needed to inset a trigger this time, that It had sooner made him want to do it"
"So the First used the dead Council to set Spike up against us all? And then, when I told him I was making a call to the new Council in England … it must have sounded like the call he'd been afraid someone might give them" Wesley mused. "That's rather interesting. And.. quite disturbing really. A really scarily crafted mind game. Especially since it worked."
He gulped, and looked at Spike, who took up the thread. "Until now! I'm nobody's bitch, and now that I know this, I'm certainly not playing the First's game any longer. So, I'm sorry everyone. Especially you watchers. I should not have attacked you." He looked at both of them in turn, and added, directed at Giles. "One question though, even if the debacle with the Council wasn't real, how many times were you really plotting to kill me lately? A lot? I heard several things that gave that impression. From the tale of your aid to the attempt down in that garage, through our first meeting after the First's latest stunt, outside of Buffy's door, where you were most obviously not happy to see me, to the conversation you had with her inside a little later, where you outright tried to persuade her to stake me. So, if we are gonna have a truce, is it mutual?"
Giles sat rigid for a few seconds, took out a handkerchief and busied himself with cleaning his glasses for a few seconds more, and then mumbled "Eh, yeah, I can understand where you might have gotten that impression. I can see now, in hindsight, how I might have played right into the First's intentions by so clearly supporting such overt measures. My analysis proved correct though. The First had done something with you that would prove dangerous to the lot of us. It was a looming threat, that no one else seemed to see, and that I have to admit has given me a lot of worries." He looked around the table "It's something we should have been able to find a solution to a long time ago."
"We should" Angel concurred, before anyone else had the time to seize the word. "And if all hell hadn't broke loose, and we hadn't had so much else to deal with, I'm sure we would've come together and dealt with this situation the way we, and the way I know you, you scoobies too, normally deal with it when one of our own get into serious trouble and cause havoc because of it." He made carefully sure to meet the eyes of each one of them. Spike felt a somewhat unwelcome lump rise in his throat by the sound of his grand-sire so naturally claiming him as one of his own. It had been so long since the last time that happened.
"It looks like we're already well on our way to finding a way through this. Evil knows that we're only as strong as we are together. It will constantly find new ways to try to split us up. Then we have to be as good at keeping together, and working through all the difficulties that gets thrown at us. You all have already been pretty good at it when my inner demon breaks loose and does insufferable things. So though it may not be easy, I know from experience that we can be stronger than this."
"That's not quite the same though." Dawn injected, when everyone fell into a strained silence. "When you lose your soul, you like, become someone else, who does all these things until someone finds the right spell to cast to fix it. But Spike didn't do this under a spell. Or any other magical or mystical influence. It was really his doing."
"Yes" replied Fred thoughtfully. "This isn't a magical problem. It's a human one. You're right, Giles" she looked at him. "This is a problem that should have been carefully talked about and dealt with better much before now. It being a human problem though, it would perhaps have been a lot easier to tackle if Spike was actually, you know, human." She blushed slightly at the thought of giving her opinion on this touchy subject, in this tense atmosphere, but pressed on. "An ordinary, vanilla, human, who had been through a trauma like what Spike has had to deal with, could see a therapist. Preferably one who specializes in trauma treatment for PTSD patients."
The whole room gave her focused attention as she continued. "I looked it up and read about it when I was going through a lot myself after those years in hell. I think that's what we're dealing with here. Depression, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, difficulties sleeping and concentrating. Avoiding situations reminiscent of what happened down in the caves at all cost." She stopped, upon noticing how Spike looked more and more tense, and gave him a warm reassuring smile. "Like the little painkiller incident shortly after you came here. When you made it so obvious that you preferred going through all that pain you were in, rather than being drugged again, like down there. It's ok." She smiled, reacting to his obvious discomfort at getting so exposed. "We've all seen it, more or less. And those who haven't, much, need to know, so that we have a good idea what we're dealing with here. It's natural. That's why it's in the books. Anyone can get there, if we go through something terrible enough"
"And everyone has it in their own way." She continued, looking out in the room again, at the gang. "I hid in my room for weeks on end, and drew on the walls, afraid to go out and face the world in any way. For someone like Spike, a vampire with a long violent history, it makes sense that there would be a lot more aggressive reactions. Anger and irritability and paranoia. But it's not coming out of nowhere. As we have detected here now, it's something that's possible to figure out and stop. It's not inevitable, and probably has gone a long way towards getting worked out just now during this hour. We can handle this. One day at the time. You guys were wonderful with me, when I had, literally, been through hell. Giving me all the time and space and help I needed to get by and move on." She stopped a little, to catch breath and bite back a sob rising in her throat. "I'm sure we can do the same for Spike. It looks to me like he's well under way to recovery already, really." She stopped again, and gave him another warm sweet smile. "From being suicidal, to, in a misguided and violent way, at least fighting for his life, wanting to keep it, to now reaching this level of reflecting and analyzing distance to what happened. Relating the whole tale to Willow, and allowing her to share it with us all, allowing us to discuss and figure out what is really going on here and why. I think it's safe to say that the violent phase of this problem may be over here and now, assuming we stop playing into it. "
"Which includes a guarantee that it actually was misguided." Chirped Spike, feeling massively uncomfortable with this intense collective attention and exposure. "Still haven't got that from you, Giles. Are you going to keep trying to kill me or not?"
Giles was once again too heavily engaged in wiping his glasses to give an immediate response, but after a while it came, in a reasonably clear voice. "I should not have done that. I admit to a certain fault at that point. I suspected what the First was up to, but no better than that it made me play directly into It's hands. It was wrong of me, and both I myself and the rest of us got to suffer for that mistake later on." He looked directly at Spike, and reached out a hand towards him. "I offer a truce. I will never again try to kill you, if you grant me the same favor." Spike smiled, and took his outreached hand. "Deal!" He turned to Wesley, and asked "What about you? Do you forgive me too?" "Yes" Wes nodded, after a moment's hesitation, and put his hand on top of the other two.
Buffy beamed, and looked from the one to the other of them, before reaching out her hand too, and putting it into the joint handshake. Then Xander did the same, Willow, Dawn and in the end, Gunn as well, completing the circle.