Tonight was the night.
Spike was not a patient vampire. It had been almost five weeks and the Slayer had yet to go patrolling. Hell, she hadn’t even stepped outside the house after darkness fell. He had been standing in the shadows beneath her bedroom window almost every single night. Sometimes he would stay for just ten minutes, sometimes for hours; watch her settle into bed and listen to her thumping heartbeat. Nightmares haunted her, he was certain. At least once every night he heard her trash and turn for some minutes, until she suddenly went completely still, her thundering heart telling him the dream had reached its climax.
She was the Slayer for Christ’s sake! He knew she went to school, he’d heard her mother ask her about class. So why wouldn’t she patrol?! Where was her sodding Watcher? Shouldn’t he be chasing her around the cemeteries?
Spike refused to just keep on waiting. Even though Angelus and Dru had been surprisingly quiet these weeks; he had felt them close once or twice, but otherwise there had been no sign of them.
Tonight was the night when he made the Slayer crawl out of her corner. Spike lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a deep drag, gaze fixed upon her window. Tonight he was standing in the center of the lawn instead of in the shadows. Tonight he had an absolutely clear view of her – just as clear view as she would have of him if she looked out. He took another drag just as he saw her freeze. For long seconds she was completely still before she walked over to the window, her moves achingly slow.
Some part of her that’s still the Slayer, then.
Even through the dark Spike could see her hand shaking as she opened the window. He felt a grin start to play in the corners of his mouth.
“Hey, Slayer!” Spike called, “Aren’t you gonna patrol tonight either?”
Their gazes clashed.
“Who are you?” Her voice was surprisingly steady and her eyes didn’t waver from his.
“Ah-ah, pet. Don’t say you don’t remember me?”
The same second he uttered the word ‘pet’ her eyes went wide with recognition, Spike was surprised she hadn’t known who he was immediately. On the other hand it was pretty dark outside, at least for humans. That, and she hadn’t been totally clear in her head the last time they met.
“So you do,” he said. “Are you coming out now?”
“What?! No!”
He arched an eyebrow. “No? I believe you owe me something.”
Slowly she turned her head away and he knew she’d closed her eyes. So she remembered after all. Spike dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the heel of his booth.
“You want me to take... them... on, now?” she asked.
“Hardly. You’ll just get yourself killed.”
She burst into laughter. A laugh that was totally humourless. Her head thrown back a fraction, golden hair spilling over her shoulders as her arms wrapped around her middle. Some seconds later the sound stopped as abruptly as it had started.
“I don’t owe you anything,” she said, “you’re a vampire.”
“I bloody well saved you!”
“I never promised anything!”
“So you’re just gonna stay in there forever? Hoping Angelus scampers away?”
“How do I know you won’t kill me the second I step outside?”
“Because I cannot take Angelus and Drusilla on my own.”
He hadn’t thought she’d be able to surprise him. She seemed so fragile, vulnerable. It was what was expected he supposed; things like that didn’t leave you without scars.
“You promise?” she asked, “Not to touch me?”
“Cross my unbeating heart.” Spike said, placing a hand on his chest.
She slung her legs over the window frame and jumped the ten feet to the ground. She landed a few feet away and crossed her arms over her chest. Spike could smell the fear on her though her eyes showed nothing but curiosity.
“What do you want exactly?”
“You know what I want,” he said, tilting his head to the side.
“To kill them,” she said “Him and his whore.”
If someone had called Dru a whore thirty years ago Spike would have snapped that someone’s neck. Funny how things changed; now he leered. “Yeah,” he said, “I suppose we’ve got something in common.”
“Huh?”
“Angelus. Drusilla. Dust flying in the wind?”
She hastily took a step backwards, eyes widening. “You don’t know anything about what I want,” she said shakily.
“Slayer...” He reached for her, almost touching her arm. Then he realized what he was doing and quickly withdrew it again. Instead he raised both hands in the air in a show of surrender.
“Of course not,” he said. “Tomorrow we are patrolling, pet.”
“What?! We so are not!”
“Yes we are. Your pathetic excuse of a Watcher is obviously not hunting you through the graveyards.” He pinned her with his gaze. “And you sure as hell can’t take Angelus on now.”
The girl opened her mouth, then closed it again. Spike flashed her an amused grin before turning around.
“See ya tomorrow, Slayer.”
He must’ve gone insane. There was no other possibility. Making plans to tag along with the Slayer on patrol? Yeah, insane. Watching her kill his own kind. Insane. Insane. Insane. Spike finished his whiskey.
“Spike, d-don’t you think y-you should...”
Spike looked up. Willy.
“Gimme the bottle.”
“O-of course.”
A stupid fucking Fyarl demon had been staring at him for the last couple of minutes. Spike stumbled as he stood up and turned towards it.
“Something you wanted?”
Except it didn’t sound like that. It came out a lot more slurred than he had intended. The Fyarl demon grinned and stepped forward. Willy was somewhere to the left of Spike, begging them to take it outside. Spike raised his fist and slammed it into the demon’s face.
The hit barley budged the bigger demon and Spike scowled, moving forward to strike again. In some ways he supposed that he had been begging for a fight. Sitting alone, swallowing down shot after shot he looked like an easy target. The problem for the other demon though, was that it itself wasn’t really a challenge either – big and muscular yes, but without the moves. But then, most demons of this kind were of the growling sort; all show.
This time the demon caught his hand in the air and Spike became quite surprised – for a second. Then the demon rammed its own fist into his face and sent him flying backwards. Strong bastard. Perhaps he had misjudged it after all, or the alcohol had affected his brain more than he thought. Swaying a bit as he rose to his feet Spike tried to steel himself for the next blow. Which came in the form of the demon simply lifting him into the air.
“Hey!” Spike shouted, a lot more sober, “You’re not playing fair here, mate! Can’t-“
He was thrown into the side of the bar. Cursing at the pain that shot through him, Spike stood again. The demon was grinning like a fool, as if it had already won. Ha! No. Bloody. Way. Roaring, he threw himself onto the other. It fell under his weight, probably mostly out of surprise, and a stool was crushed as they landed on the floor.
Just what I needed. Spike punched the demon and it growled under him. He growled right back at it and raised his arm again. There was no way he would let a stupid Fyarl demon take him! With its clouded eyes and weak stank of alcohol and fast heartbeat and... How did it manage to roll them over?
Maybe a split lip had been just what he needed to compose himself. Growling again, he pushed the demon off him and struggled to get to his feet. Resting his hands on his knees and panting he glared at the demon.
“Last chance to back out, you wanker.”
The only answer was an ugly grin. Spike took it as a sign that the other welcomed death and fell into a fighting stance as it rushed forward. This time when the demon attacked he was prepared. There was no way he was going to lose this.
He left the other demon unconscious but still alive, mostly because Spike could barley stand himself. There was blood streaming from his nose and he suspected that some of his ribs were broken after the demon had thrown him into the bar. The woman in the reception of the motel stared at him when he passed by.
He fell onto the bed and closed his eyes. Sleep claimed him immediately.
“Sunshine wants you, my William.”
Drusilla was lying on the big wooden table, staring at the ceiling. Suddenly she giggled and ran her hands through her hair.
“Daddy will spoil her,” she said. “Twist her insides.”
Said Daddy stepped into the room a second later. Spike could smell the fresh blood on him. It was mixed with the scent of her, Drusilla, with her arousal and fear. She had never feared Spike, he had never wanted her to. Never before.
“Say, Dru,” Angelus leant over the vampiress, mouth close to her ear. “Why don’t we go someplace more private? I don’t like the company here.”
Spike rose from his chair on shaking legs, he was still weak. The other male chuckled when Spike had to support himself against the wall.
“Are you alright Willie?” Angelus asked in mock concern. “You look a little... what’s the word? Oh – pathetic.”
Dru’s laugh rang loudest in Spike’s ears as he clenched his jaw and forced his legs to take him towards the door. He had to feed tonight, he wouldn’t get better than this. But just as he placed his hand on the door handle the ground began to shake beneath him. ‘Bugger’ was all he had time to think before he began to fall.
He never hit the ground. Next moment he was standing in front of the Sunnydale sign.
“Home sweet home,” a female voice said.
Spike spun around.
“Hey! That’s my line!”
“If you want it, come and get it,” the female said. Spike couldn’t make out her face, but he was sure that she was some kind of demon. ”The light is so beautiful here, Spike.”
Slowly Spike stepped forward. She matched his steps, backing in a circle against the sign. When she couldn’t go anywhere she lifted a hand and he saw it glisten of something. She licked her index finger slowly, like it was a delicacy.
“I’m sure you’ll think she is as sweet as this, William,” she said. “But then you’ve always had a strange taste.”
Slowly Buffy lay down on the bed, pulling the comforter up around her. The girlie room surrounding her had no longer given her the fragile peace it had since that vampire had taken her here.
I’m supposed to be the Slayer.
But she didn’t feel like the Slayer anymore. She had barley had time to get used to the fact that vampires were real when Merrick died, became just another cold body with two gaping wholes in the neck. White walls followed that and when they let go of her… his face flashed before her. She had superpowers, wasn’t she supposed to have a super mind too?
She had recognized the vampire immediately, even though she two minutes earlier couldn’t have described him if someone had asked. Last time they met she had only seen the pretty blue. But she remembered his way to move, to talk. Now Buffy had thought he looked kind of... she wasn’t sure. Different, maybe. With black leather and bleached hair, an amused smirk tugging at his lips.
What had made her climb out of the window down to an evil, bloodsucking thing? To the same sort of creature as him. And the things he’d said! She wasn’t ready to start patrolling. She doubted she would ever be ready. Buffy pulled the comforter tighter around herself. Maybe it wasn’t about becoming ready but her choosing to take control over who she was.
“Hello Buffy.” Giles greeted her with a wide smile when she entered the library. “How are you feeling today?”
“Just fine,” she said, hugging her books tight to her chest. “You said something about training?”
‘Something’ was an understatement. His words had haunted her the last few weeks. She knew he didn’t want to pressure her, but the Watcher in him refused to leave the world without a Slayer. In the beginning he had hinted about starting up the training again, and last week he had began to bluntly ask her if she felt up for it. Until today she had desperately avoided the question.
Now Giles’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and he looked her over as if he was searching for physical sign that she was feeling better.
“So you’re feeling ready?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
Immediately he went to put the ‘closed’ sign outside the library doors. When he opened the doors to his weapon chamber, or more like a giant cabinet, she couldn’t help but grin as well. The collection he had always made the Slayer in her do a Snoopy dance. Today was strangely not an exception.
Then he handed her a staff and her smile dropped.
“Giles... I know how to use this,” Buffy said.
“Well, yes,” Giles said, “But you have been taking it slow lately Buffy, after... everything.”
The last word came hastily, almost apologetic. She didn’t say anything, just took the staff he had handed her, then raised it when he said ‘an guard’.
Giles went easy on her. The problem was that ‘easy’ for Giles meant fighting a combination of a dying snail. She had never seen her Watcher grin so broadly as when she knocked him onto the floor the first time.
“Very well,” he said half an hour later, rubbing his lower back with a small grimace, “I’m sorry to bring this up so quickly, Buffy, but you do realize that you have to start patrolling again soon?”
“I guess.” She shrugged, watching as he straightened himself.
“Buffy.” Giles placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I know this is hard for you but... you are the Chosen One, we cannot leave the hellmouth unguarded.”
She just nodded.
“Why don’t you head home now,” Giles said. “I know how easily your mother becomes worried these days.”
This had to be the moment.
“Giles...” She drew in a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about... telling her, that I’m the Slayer.”
“Buffy! You know that-”
“That everyone I tell is in danger, yeah. But she’s talking about moving out of town; the only reason why we haven’t done it yet is because I’ve refused, Giles.”
She met her Watcher’s eyes and for a second they just looked at each other. Then he nodded slowly. “All right, I’ll think of the best way to tell her.”
“Thank you.”
Spike stirred soon after the sun began to set. At first he wasn’t sure what had woken him up, then he felt the strong signature of his Grandsire. Still he lay completely motionless for a moment, blinking. His thoughts were foggy and he felt almost dizzy. The bed beneath him wasn’t familiar at all and the room... He lifted his head slightly, where the hell was he? Wait. Sunnydale – the Slayer – Patrolling – Willy’s – Angelus. Next second he was on his feet. His head immediately began to spin, but he forced himself to ignore it and scanned the room. A grinning vampire sat in a worn armchair in a corner of the room. Spike sank back onto the bed, eyes fixed at Angelus.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, mate?”
TBC