Chapter Nine
William showed her to the guest room and to give him credit, Buffy thought he was pretty easy going about it all.
"There's a phone right there." He pointed to the nightstand.
"Okay," she answered. "Do you have a picture of the tattoo?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I sent it to several well known artists when – when I was trying to figure out who had done the work."
"That must have been fun trying to explain," she said, striving for a lighter tone.
He actually smiled. "Indeed. Try telling someone that you were drunk and passed out for at least ten hours while someone did this." He held up his arm.
She chuckled. "Nice. I want to email it to Will so she can start researching."
He nodded. "When you're done, meet me in my office; it's right next door."
"See ya in a sec."
When he was gone, she unpacked her bag and then sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. She took a deep breath. How was she going to tell Willow? My God, how was she going to tell Dawn?
She quickly dialed their number.
"L.A coroner, you bag em', we tag em'."
Buffy paused, frowning. "Xander?"
"The Buffster! How are you!?"
She chuckled. "Good, great actually. Um, has the Council taken on a new contract that I don't know about?"
"Nah, I'm just screwing around. Dawn challenged me to answer the phone with something new and different every time."
"Great, so I was the lucky one to get the coroner's office?"
Xander chuckled. "Yeah, the last telemarketer that called got the Death Star."
She rolled her eyes. "Is Will there?"
"Yeap, just a sec," he stepped away from the phone and yelled.
Within seconds, Willow was on the line.
"Buffy! How are you?"
"I'm good – overwhelmed."
Willow paused for a sec. "Overwhelmed? Why? What happened? Where are you?"
"I'm in Charleston."
Silence.
"Willow?"
"Charleston, South Carolina?" Willow asked, her voice cracking.
Buffy frowned. An odd undercurrent had suddenly infused the conversation; Will's tone was just – off.
"Is there another?"
Willow exhaled sharply. "For my sake I really hope so," she murmured.
Buffy froze. The thought came to her, clanging as loudly and insistently as church bells. As soon as she thought it, she dismissed it. No. It wasn't possible. Willow wouldn't have…
"Will?" she whispered.
"Oh God, Buffy, I – I didn't want to say anything to you," Willow cried.
Buffy felt all the sensation seep away from her lower body as her stomach dropped to the floor and her knees went weak. She was grateful to be sitting because if she'd been standing, she'd have fallen.
"You knew? You knew he was alive and you didn't say anything?" Her voice cracked.
"No! Buffy I didn't know he was alive!"
"But you suspected?"
Willow sighed. "Yes."
"When?"
"When the book first came out. Because of the name, Grigori is Greek for Watcher, I had it flagged and when I read it I sort of wondered if, maybe, Spike had something to do with it."
Buffy looked down at the clenched fist in her lap. "And you didn't say anything to me? Even when I asked you about it? You didn't think, gee – I should tell Buffy that I think she might be on to something important?"
"Angel insisted-"
"Angel? Angel knew about this?" Buffy bit out.
"I mentioned it to him," explained Willow. "He insisted that it wasn't possible."
"You both kept this from me," Buffy said slowly in amazement.
"We didn't want to get your hopes up," Willow said. "You've been hurt so much already. There didn't seem to be a point in setting you up for disappointment just when you were getting your life back together."
"But it is him Will."
"What?"
"Your suspicions were correct," Buffy bit out angrily. "Spike is alive. He did write that book!"
There was no response and this angered her even more.
"You have nothing to say? Nothing?" she yelled.
"Buffy?" Xander asked, his voice replacing Willow's.
"Where is Willow?"
"She left. Crying. What's going on?"
"Willow betrayed me, that's what's going on. Angel, I expect it from. But Willow?"
"Buffy, what did she do?"
"Spike is alive, Xander. And Willow suspected. She told Angel and they did nothing about it. They didn't tell me. They simply fed me a line of bull over and over again. Poor Buffy can't handle it. Let's protect poor Buffy!"
"Wait a sec, back the soul train up Buff. Spike is alive?"
Overwhelmed, Buffy bit back the sobs that threatened. "Yes, he's alive. I found him. But he doesn't know anything. Doesn't know me, doesn't even know who he was."
"And you're sure it's him?"
"Without a doubt," she whispered. And she was certain. In her heart and in her soul, she knew it was Spike.
"I – I don't know what to say Buff."
She sighed. "Just promise me that you didn't know."
"God, no. I had no idea."
She had to believe him.
"I'm going to send you a picture of a tattoo, I want Dawn to research it and see what she can find. Don't tell her about Spike. And I want you guys to find out everything you can about the Shanshu Prophecy."
"What about Angel?"
"Screw him," she said bitterly.
"Buf-"
"I don't care what you do or say to him, Xander; just keep him out of it."
"That might be impossible," he said. "Angel knows more about the prophecy than anyone else."
"Just keep him away from me and from Spike."
"I'll try."
They said goodbye and Buffy hung up and sat on the edge of the bed, staring off at nothing.
"You okay?"
She looked up. William was slouched in the doorway, looking dangerous in a black t-shirt and jeans. Buffy had to remind herself that there was nothing dangerous about him anymore. He was utterly and truly leashed.
"I need a drink," she said, standing.
He grinned, curling his tongue behind his teeth. He straightened and stepped aside. "That I can take care of with extreme pleasure. Come with me."
She followed him back to the family room and curled up on the couch while he poured each of them a generous tumbler of bourbon and brought the bottle with him back to the couch. He lounged at the other end and placed the bottle on the coffee table.
"Want to talk about it?"
"Nope!" she said as she took a big sip of her drink. Her face burned and she coughed, tears smarting her eyes. "Whoa!"
He grinned as he sipped his. "Take it easy, slayer."
She froze, her eyes peeled on him.
"What?"
"That's what yo- Spike used to call me all the time, in that exact tone."
"A tone of amusement and condescension?" he asked with a smile.
She grinned back, feeling much, much better suddenly. "Yes. That's exactly it. No wonder it drove me so crazy."
"You loved it, don't deny it," he said.
She looked down at her drink and then glanced up at him through her lashes. "Yeah, you're probably right."
He took another sip. "So. What do you want to do? Movie? TV? Music? A rousing game of bridge?"
She chuckled.
"How about a small game of Truth or Dare?"
He choked on the sip he had just taken and stared at her. "Right. You're joking."
"No."
He shrugged. "Truth or dare then, you go first."
"Okay, William. Truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"Have you ever dreamed of being a vampire? Had dreams where you were the vampire, not some character in a story?"
He eyed her over his glass. "Yes."
"Repeated dreams?"
"Yes."
"Did you –"
"My turn," he said, holding up a hand.
Buffy grinned. "Sorry, got carried away."
"Hmm…that's what you call it. Truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"Was Spike the only vampire you slept with?"
Buffy winced. "Um, no."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Really? A fang banger then?"
"No! And I take exception to that term. It was never about the banging," she retorted.
William laughed. "So it was about the fangs?"
She waved her empty glass in his face. "No! It – it wasn't about any of that. With either Spike or – or Angel."
"You've mentioned him before. So he's a vampire as well. Did he have a soul?"
She frowned bitterly. "So he said. At times I wonder." She held out her glass. "More bourbon."
He smiled and bending forward, grabbed the bottle and filled her glass.
She sipped it, grimaced, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "We've done this before, the drinking thing." Glancing around the room, she continued. "Mind you, in less comfortable digs."
"Where?"
"You lived in a crypt, in Sunnydale."
William stared at her. This time, there was a part of him that believed her. In his dreams of vampires and demons, the dreams he had, as she'd correctly assumed, built his novels around, he'd lived in a crypt. A crypt with a battered recliner and a TV. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes.
"Your turn," he said.
"Truth or dare?"
"Dare."
"I dare you to take your shirt off and show me those scars that you don't remember getting."
He stared at her, his grin fading. "How do you know about them?"
"Dahlia mentioned them. But even if she hadn't said anything, I'd recognize them," she explained. "The one on your back, top left? That was the stake that took you out that last time in L.A."
His hand wandered up to his heart and he stared at her, his face pale. How could she know these things?
"Chest, one over your heart?" she asked. She tossed back the last of her drink and set the glass on the table. The she slid across the couch towards him. "You went through some trials, to get your soul back. We never spoke about them, but I know that what you went through was torturous. Having your soul back was difficult at first," she knelt on the couch next to him. "Afterwards, you tried cutting it out."
She took his hands in hers and looked down, her nail trailing, lightly scratching over the faint memory of a scar that encircled both wrists. "Your hands were cut off by a slayer gone bad. I – I wasn't there for you." She looked up at him.
William had forgotten how to breathe. Her hands on him, her nails just lightly scratching, stole every coherent thought from his mind and every last breath straight from his lungs. The urge to push her back to the couch and cover her body with his was strong and he shook from the effort it took to resist it.
"I dare you William. Take off your shirt and show them to me," she whispered.
He pulled his hands from hers and began unbuttoning his shirt. His eyes never left hers. Buttons undone, he slipped the shirt from his shoulders and let it slip to the floor. Buffy leaned forward, breaking the eye contact to look down at his naked chest. She ran her hand down his chest, over his nipple and the sickle shaped scars over his heart. William inhaled sharply, his nipples hardening.
Buffy pressed her hand against the scar on his side. "Glory," she explained, her voice hoarse with her own arousal. "A hell Goddess who captured you and tortured you, trying to get you to tell her about my sister Dawn."
Buffy shook her head. "I don't know why all these scars are still here," she murmured, leaning forward. "They had healed." She pressed her lips against the rough, puckered scar on his shoulder.
William gasped and his hands rose to her hips, pulling her closer, needing to feel her against his heat.
"Buffy," he gasped.
"Mmm?"
"What are you doing?"
Her hands were all over him. Caressing his lean chest and his well defined arms. Finally, she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her forehead against his.
"Reminding you," she murmured.
"Of what?"
"Of this," she said and then covered his mouth with hers.
William growled and wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her as close as possible to him as they kissed. The heat and the arousal quickly spun out of control as their lips and tongues meshed and fought. He nipped at her bottom lip and felt her moan vibrate through his entire body. He plundered her mouth, driving his tongue in and out in a poor imitation of what he wanted to do with other luscious parts of her.
And she met him, thrust for thrust, her tongue and teeth and lips aggressively demanding satisfaction and satiation. His hands gripped the bottom of her shirt and he pulled it up, breaking the kiss to tug it over her head. He paused and looked down at her small breasts cupped in a pink lace bra.
"Beautiful," he muttered. "God, you're beautiful."
Suddenly shy, Buffy ducked her head. "Thanks."
He ran his hand lightly down her chest, his fingers teasing the lacy edge of the bra. Her nipples hardened and he flicked his thumb over her, causing them to tighten even more. He lowered his head, his lips following his fingers, pressing hot kisses against her soft skin. First his lips, then his tongue and finally his teeth, gently teased her nipple through the lace, the material adding to the sensation.
William was lost; lost in dreams and memories of other nights, other times.
Everything about this woman was familiar. He knew without looking that there was a tiny beauty mark to the left of her right nipple. If he turned her over and kissed a path to her bottom, he'd find a heart shaped birthmark between the two dimples there.
William didn't know how he knew these things. But he did.
"Buffy," he moaned, coming up and covering her lips in a passionate kiss. He wrapped his arms around her and carefully laid her down on the couch and covered her body with his own. His arousal pressed into the hot cradle of her hips and he ground into her, loving the feel of her bare skin against his.
"Spike," Buffy gasped, digging her nails into his back as he lightly bit the tender skin beneath her ear.
William froze.
"Spike?" she asked, running her hands slowly up and down his back.
William lifted and braced himself on his two arms and stared down at her. Her hair was mussed, her face was flushed, and her lips swollen from his kisses.
She raised her hand and gently ran a finger over his lips.
"I've missed you," she said, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes and trailing down into her hair. "Oh God," she sobbed. "I've missed you."
He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to take the rest of their clothes off and bury himself into her over and over again.
But he couldn't.
Not until the name falling from her lips like a prayer was his.
William pulled back, and grabbing his shirt from the floor, he stood up and walked away from her.
TBC