Chapter 8
She could feel it, feel whatever it was, as it tried to push her back. Push her back into herself, her body .. her real body. In this place it was strong ... but she knew that she could be stronger. She could fight, she could push back ... it was the cost of it that occupied her. You might not be Willow any more not Willow not Willow ... if you go there, you're not you ... what if one day you never come back ...?
Buffy, Spike ... they needed her. They were stuck. She couldn't just abandon them, not when this was intended as her fate and they were caught in the middle. She was their only hope - she'd seen it in their eyes. She could do this. She could dip in and still remain Willow. She could, knew she could. Risk it all or gain nothing, she thought. Just push, keep pushing, push harder - she couldn't leave this plain until she found whatever it was that was trying to throw her back.
I'm coming forward, she thought threateningly. Whatever you are, I'm coming ...
"You should have seen her, she was so .. different" she said sadly, fixing her gaze on Oz. "It was like she wasn't anything to do with me."
"Will, we only saw her for a second, you can't know .." Xander started.
"You don't understand Xander, it's like ... just wait til you see your future self and he's got, uh" she sputtered, trying to think "I don't know, green hair and .. and an elbow where his .. nose .. should be" she finished, wincing. Oz smiled at her and pushed his hand through her hair, drawing an expression of thankful happiness on her face.
"Riiight, what a perfect example, I completely understand now" Xander deadpanned.
No, you don't but Buffy does, she thought to herself, and she looked much more wigged out than me. They were sitting in the quad in the sunshine, waiting for Buffy to join them for their first class of the day. Willow hadn't seen her yet, not since the night before when they'd left them alone in the library - the strangest foursome she'd ever seen. She wondered what truths had been exhanged between them all. Such a quiet childhood had taught her the art of observation .. not that she needed it to see what was going on between the two vampires and the two Buffys - two unlikely couples in love ... only one was just a smidge more unlikely than the other, she thought. It was plain enough from the moment they had 'landed'. Although she'd had to open Xander's eyes on the ride home. Thinking of his reaction was almost enough to bring a smile to her face. Almost.
Seeing herself appear from nothing in front of her, seeing the power coming from her - it didn't seem like it could really be her. Yeah she looked the same - hair a little longer, still the same face, same mouth, same voice - but her other self's eyes ... they looked so ... how did I get that kind of power? And why did I look so haunted? She had wanted to ask so many questions but she understood. She could wait. If that 30 second look at herself had caused her to question so many things about who she was, who she'd become, how would Buffy have felt? Her future had turned up and was accompanying them on patrol. She was with Spike - Spike who had tried to kill them all more than anyone else and only a few short months before had threatened to rip her own face off with a bottle - and Buffy was looking at him like he really mattered to her, treating him like she and he were ... she could see Buffy wanted .. no, needed an explanation and knew her own would come soon enough. Best not to be around when things came to a head. She could see it in Buffy's stance, her posture and even before Angel's outburst she could see it in his. Yes, they were confused but more than that - they were pissed. And Willow knew her best friend very well - if she was pissed, she wanted answers and if those answers didn't make her happy, she'd want to be alone to digest them. She knew Buffy would come to her when she was ready, no sense in pushing.
She looked back up to see Oz quietly staring at her, as she'd been lost in her thoughts for a moment. His eyes met hers and she took in the silent support with gratitude. He's being so .. Oz about it all, she thought smiling. His girlfriend phones him late at night and says guess what? My best friend from the future showed up with her arch nemesis in tow and when they weren't making googly eyes at each other, they were getting help from - you guessed it - MY future self and it looks like I keep on keeping on with the magick cause the power radiating from the future me? Almost gave me sunstroke. A normal guy would freak. Even an abnormal supernatural guy might freak. But Oz? I always knew you were powerful, he said. Quiet, calm, loving Oz. Could she get any luckier?
"Maybe we should just go in, I don't think Buffy's going to be in a school mood" she started, drawing Xander's eyes away from Cordelia across the quad, her hand on some jock's arm. His eyes met hers and for a moment she saw the hurt in them before it was shielded behind his usual bluster.
"Oh the Buff'll be alright! Don't fret little Willow" he said, patting her head in a deliberate act of condescendence to which she quirked an eyebrow.
"I don't know" Oz started, drawing their gazes. When Oz talked, it was generally worth listening to. "Buffy's strong but no-one can hurt you as much as you can hurt yourself" he finished quietly, looking steadily into her eyes as he did so. He could probably read my mind if he wanted to, she thought. But something told her he didn't need to, it was all over her face. He was right. She had felt a little of it herself when she saw her future in front of her face. Buffy had her future walking around in front of her ...
"We should go" she said glancing at Xander, "we'll head to the library later and see who's checked in. I think Buffy and Sp .. uh, they'll probably come back after school when the sun's down" she said, gathering her bag and turning to walk into the school. Oz took her hand and Xander fell into step beside them as they made their way inside.
Please don't let it get any worse, she thought to herself as they passed into the lounge, on their way to the normalcy of class.
He watched them. Watched them as they clung to each other, desperate to ward off whatever might try to tear them apart. Their arms encircling each other, holding the two together. Her head was resting on his, barely touching but he could practically see, across the room, the depth of feeling passing between them. The electricity passing between them, through them, engulfing them. He shifted in his spot by the french windows, uncomfortable at witnessing this most private of moments, unsure of whether he should go or stay and confront them. How could they be so calm while he was so torn apart? Didn't she see what this was doing to him? Didn't she care?
They never care, part of him said. Have you learned nothing William?
His shuffling drew her attention. She slowly swivelled her head to regard him with her eyes - eyes that seconds before had been filled with love, happiness, contentment ... he saw it drain from her as she looked upon him. Her beautiful eyes. Eyes that had displayed in his presence every emotion possible for a human to feel, eyes that had for such a long time now - such a long time, surely - shown a love so strong and good and right. Her beautiful eyes ... eyes that now swept over his form with contempt, hostility ... hatred. This isn't right, he screamed silently, this isn't the way it's meant to be! We're supposed to be half of each other! We're the same, we're the same ...
"But we're not - he is my half, the close of my circle. I thought you knew, you said you saw it" she whispered cruelly. "You took it from me" she accused, "you took it and now I'm only half, I'm only half ... how can I fight if I'm only half?"
He swallowed the gasp that formed in his throat and sank back into the shadows, his feet finding the way out, his body moving on instinct .. his mind running a million miles a minute, his heart .. broken. Broken again. He'd always known it was coming .. it always happened, he was the other half .. Dru, Buffy .. he was always the other half, always ... not me, never me ...
"How could you do this to me Spike?" her voice floated to him across the courtyard he was stumbling through. "Why do you hurt me? I thought you loved me ..."
He tried to outrun it, move away from that pain he'd never wanted to hear in her voice again - that pain he had so often put there.
"I thought you loved me Spike ..."
I do luv, I do.
"Spike ... Spike ..."
"Spike!"
He sat up suddenly, almost smacking into her face as she leaned down over him. He blinked, adjusted his eyesight and his lungs gulped for unneeded air as he took in his surroundings.
They were still in the factory. He was still lying on the bed and she was perched on her side next to him, looking at him with apprehension on her face, her hand pressing on his chest.
"You really do sleep like the, uh, dead" she half smiled at him sheepishly.
"Sorry luv, I guess I was out like a light" he said, laying his head back on the makeshift pillow of a torn blanket they'd shared, his voice attempting to hide the pain still so fresh in his heart at the dream he'd been having. She was having none of it apparently.
"What is it Spike?"
"What d'you mean?"
"I mean why were you moaning my name and saying sorry over and over?" she said quietly, knowingly.
He was silent for a moment, inwardly sighing at his ability, even in his sleep, to put his foot in his mouth.
"Nothing. Just .. a demon, we were fighting a demon and I missed a sitter and he got you, that's all, nothing serious" he said in a clipped tone. End of conversation his voice said. Not bloody likely her eyes said. Bugger.
"I'm only a bottle blonde Spike" she said pointedly. She was considering him, trying to gage the issues swirling behind his eyes, when he sat up suddenly, throwing his legs over the edge of the bed.
"Sun's down, I can smell it ... must've slept all day, guess we needed it eh?" he said conversationally as he reached for his coat laying sprawled on the bed. She caught his hand as he grasped for it.
"What is it?" she said softly.
"It's nothing! Why are you so interested in what goes through my noggin' when I'm out?" he barked.
"Because it clearly bothers you enough to act like a dick when you wake up" she replied, her hackles rising.
"You're slipping slayer, your put downs used to hurt more."
"Stop it!" she commanded, kneeling up on the bed, levelling her eyes with his. "Just because we're in this room doesn't mean we're not still Spike and Buffy from 2003 and they don't act like this with each other."
He twisted her hand away from his T-shirt, where it had been grasping it into a ball in her fist.
"Maybe they do luv, they're just a little out of practice" he answered coldly. What are you doing Spike? Stop, just stop ...
She grabbed for him again but he pushed away from the end of the bed and made for the slope upward into the main factory.
"Sooner we get out of here, sooner we can get back to our time and put everything right" he said, sauntering across the room. As he reached the bottom of the slope he felt her hand on his arm, whipping him round to face her.
"Put everything right?" she asked coldly, quietly. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Oh don't give me the puppy dog look slayer, I'm not him, it doesn't work on me" he answered viciously.
"What the hell is wrong with you!" she demanded, tears threatening in her voice. Don't cry, please don't cry Buffy, I love you ... that swell in his chest as he looked at her, that swelling that would douse the fear and unworthiness he should be feeling and make it all okay and he couldn't let that happen. He was a fool, love's fool ...
"What is wrong with you?" she tried again, quieter.
"Everything!" he screamed, his anger hitting her like a wall and forcing her backward. "Every bloody thing!"
Her eyes shook in her head as she watched him and he could feel it in him, in his soul ... I love you Buffy, I love you ...
"I know I'm not known for my brain power slayer but I'm not stupid" he continued, more reserved but with the same conviction, the same surety.
"What are you talking about?" she asked in a lost voice.
"I'm talking about this, us, you and me, what we're doing, what we are to .. with each other" he said in a rush, his eyes focused on the wall beside him, unable to look at her face, at her eyes ... "Why do you hurt me? I thought you loved me" ... he shuddered in pain.
"I'm not Angel pet" he started in a hushed voice, "I'm not going to make some big speech about how we shouldn't be .. what we are, I'm not telling you the way it is, I'm not deciding what should happen" he said quickly, pausing "... I'm only telling you how I feel, like I tried to last night" he glanced up at her at that, seeing her standing there a few feet away from him, her eyes driving into his, alight with challenge, a glaze of unshed tears shining in them.
"And how do you feel?" she asked boldly, defiantly.
He took an unneeded breath and tried to think of how to answer that. How do you condense 130 years of being love's bitch into a sentence? How do you explain losing everyone you ever wanted and realising only after that you never actually had them to begin with. How do you say yes we're in love but it won't matter in the end because you'll see ... you'll eventually see the truth of me.
"Worthless" he answered shortly. "Unworthy. When I look at you with him, I feel like I'm ..." he laughed and shook his head, trying to grasp at the right words, "... the boobie prize is the best way I can think of to say it, as uncouth a picture as that paints" he half-laughed sadly. She didn't return the warmth.
"I make you feel .. unworthy?" she said slowly, something shining in her eyes beyond the tears ... oh no, not gonna happen luv ...
"Oh no, don't start with the martyr bit woman" he berated, "this isn't anything to do with you or something you've done wrong or something you lack so just stop it!"
"Then what is it about?" she angrily sobbed, "what? You can't stand that you're not the only man I've fallen in love with? Is that it Spike? Or is it that you can't stand I once loved Angel!" she demanded. "Well I'm sorry, you know what? I didn't realise I was just event no. 150 in the Spike and Angel Pissing Contest! I thought we were past all this jealous vampire crap!" she fumed, standing at her full height, energy and fire leaping across her eyes as she bared her anger at him. "This is not what we are and you know it Spike! We don't hide behind jealousy and pain any more ..."
"This isn't jealousy!" he yelled, cutting off her tirade. "This isn't me against him ... this is me and you and what we've been pretending we can forget."
"Pretending we can ... are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me!" she advanced on him, grabbing him and roughly pushing him against the wall perpendicular to the bottom of the slope. The air rushed out of his lungs as he hit the solid surface but he had little time to retaliate as she thrust her lips onto his and pressed into him, her body moulding itself to his. It wasn't soft, it was an assault, a connection to bring him back, bring him back to her ... he had mere seconds to react before she had pulled away from him, her face remaining so close to him he could see the flecks of gold in her green eyes ... her eyes ...
"I don't know why you think the way you do Spike" she whispered, her voice losing none of its defiancy in her hushed tones, "I don't know what made you think so little of yourself but don't you dare put those insecurities onto me, don't you dare. I have never pretended with you - not for one moment since the minute I met you. You know what we are now and how long it took us to get here, you know what it gives us ..." her eyes never wavering from his, "... there's nothing you can say that changes it. God, haven't we tried that enough by now? Even if we wanted it to, it doesn't go away, it'll never go away" she pleaded, her voice softening as she took in the blue of his eyes, watching as they got clearer at her words. "You're right, this isn't about me and him at all, this is about you and the warped way you see yourself. It stops now" she said, levelling him with the assurance oozing out of her. She paused, piercing him with her gaze. "You heard me say it right?"
He'd heard it alright ... "you can't stand that you're not the only man I've fallen in love with?" ... he nodded.
"You know it, you've known it forever" she breathed. "You can have all the insecurities you want - you can wonder why this happened to you, to me, to us, you can feel sorry for yourself, put yourself down and rank every guy I've ever looked at higher than you ... but it won't change it Spike. It'll never change the truth of what we are - it'll never change what you are to me, what you fill in me and what I fill in you", he'd never heard her voice so full of conviction before and it bewitched him, gazing at her as she poured it out of her into him. "This is us" she put one hand on his chest over his unbeating heart and placed her other over her own, "I tried to tell you that last night - this is us" her voice wavering as she pleaded with him to understand.
"Luv ..."
"No, don't ... just please understand, please" she blinked back her tears in an effort to be as clear as she could. "Don't let all this" she gestured to the burnt out surroundings of their past, "drag us back ... not when the two of us have finally found it" she finished, her eyes boring into his.
All the times they'd pummelled each other, all the times they'd gone at it long and hard, all the fights, all the passion, all the death and mayhem, all the moments of reflection and understanding, comfort and love ... it flowed through them at that moment, the good and the bad, passing from one to the other and back, it passed between them and he thought he could hear a silent click, hell he could feel it ... she filled him and he filled her .. two halves of one ... I'm her half, he thought as his hand came up to cup her cheek, staring for endless moments into her eyes before drawing her closer to him, his intent as clear as hers, now their eyes said and he smiled in wonder at her, watching her return it with a rush of relief as his lips softly, slowly sought hers ...
I'm her half and she's mine, was his last coherent thought.
When they came into the library she could feel that pit in her stomach widen. There they were. Her future. The reason for the end of her happiness. The reason for the apprehension and worry on the face of her best friend who sat across the table from her, her hand held tightly in Oz's. The reason Giles stiffened in what she could only perceive as disappointment. The reason for Angel to drop his eyes from hers, preferring to feel that emptiness alone rather than let her try to lessen it. She could feel Xander behind her brimming with confusion. Good old Xander, always the easiest to satisfy.
Confusion was something she could fix.
"I want to know it all. Everything. What happens, when it happens, where everyone in this room is in 2003 and I want to know right now".
AN: First of all, I'm really sorry it took me over a week to get this posted, life has pretty much been kicking me in the arse the last few days - well, actually it's more like kicking me in the arse, stealing my lunch money and rubbing dog poo in my hair. But hopefully things are back on track and I hope this chapter makes it up to you a little. I can't say I'm that happy with it, it's a little .. well anyway, I'll do better in the future if you stick with me.
Also just about Spike in this chapter - I always got the impression that Spike's insecurities were far more deep-rooted than Buffy's. After all he'd had 100 plus years to hone them lol. The way he is in this chapter is how I believe he would be when he finally had everything he wanted - he wouldn't believe it. Just like he didn't believe her when she said she loved him in the show (which BTW only made her love him more). So while it might seem like he's turning into Angel and deciding they weren't right for each other, I tried to show that he was the exact opposite actually. He knows they are perfect for each other but being confronted with Buffy and Angel so in love, the guy he was always second to in the past, he just doesn't believe it's really happening for him, so he pulls back .. only to be smacked back into reality by Buffy. Don't you just love that girl? ;) Spike doesn't make decisions for Buffy, that's what Angel always did. Spike lets her know how he feels and waits for her to counter. That's the biggest difference between Spuffy and Bangel IMO. Anyway, I hope I made it clear. I don't feel like I did, hence this note and my disappointment with this chapter but oh well, what can you do. We can't all be Joss 'The God' Whedon can we? ;)
Emperor's Sister: Just to answer your queries - yes Spike has his soul in this story. The only changes to the canon of the show that I made were the ones mentioned in the AN in chapter one :)
Once again, thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed and read my story. I can't tell you how awesome it is to see the response from you all. It makes up for the dog poo in my hair lol :)
