Chapter 3
Buffy sat on a chair in front of Spike, breathing deeply as Willow chanted. The main room of the crypt faded from view. Suddenly, the crypt faded from view and Buffy was on her feet in a shadowy space. She tried to discern her surroundings but every time she thought she saw a familiar shape it disappeared. Once she was sure she was standing beside a chair, but it faded out an instant later. Something else popped up in its place. Light flashed intermittently and voices whispered out of nowhere. If this was Spike’s mind, she couldn’t imagine why he would hide in here. There were no constants. Nothing to hold on to.
Willow said she’d see three dimensional images of what was going through Spike’s mind…was that what the flashes were? They were going way too fast for her to understand them. It didn’t seem like there was a point to being here; if she couldn’t see what was going on, she couldn’t wake Spike up. Buffy was tempted to call out the words that were supposed to end the spell…and hadn’t ‘Let the spell be ended’ been used way too many times? But she was here. She might as well wait a while.
After a few minutes she noticed that the pictures seemed to be slowing down. At least, she could see them better. Hmm. Maybe it just took a while for her to get up to speed on them. Bad pun, Buffy. Ooh, yeah, that was definitely a flash of Spike off to her left. She could see his radioactive hair. Hey, was that her? It looked like her.
More time passed. It felt like forever, but then a watched thought never uncoils. Ugh. Giles would roll his eyes over that one. Anyway. She watched the still shots in Spike’s mind flip by. They didn’t seem to relate to each other. The scene would go from some little kid, to a teenager and a woman, then bounce off to Spike and – Angel? No, must have been Angelus because they were wearing old clothes and Angel had long puffy hair. Maybe these were memories of Spike’s. That would make sense, because in some of the shots he hadn’t discovered peroxide.
She saw a picture of her and Spike in an alley. Yes, definitely memories. She recognized that alley; it was behind the Bronze. They’d been there the other night, talking about his slayer kills. She saw a flash that looked like Harmony then whoosh, back to people in old clothing. Same little kid, followed after a bit by the same woman, and the same poses of Spike and Angelus. Whatever these scenes had in common, they were stuck in repeat.
The memories reached the present time then started cycling again. Buffy strained her eyes, trying to get a good look around at the earliest memory. It was a little boy sitting on a beach at night and – he moved! Buffy jumped a foot backwards, certain that the child had turned his head toward her. He’d been crying.
The subsequent figures moved too. Not much, certainly not enough to understand what they were doing, but they did move. Buffy suspected that it wouldn’t be much longer before Spike’s memories became clear. She sighed. If only Spike himself would come into focus.
So maybe she was obsessing. Was it really such a big deal? Trust? Buffy knew she had problems trusting people. But she had her reasons. People usually turned out to be liars who said they’d take you to the ice show then skipped out or cheats who went to vamp whores. Okay, maybe that was just her dad and Riley. But if you couldn’t depend on the people who were closest to you, how could you think about relying on anyone else?
Maybe if she figured out when she started trusting him, she could answer the question. Well, she hadn’t trusted him when he stepped out of the shadows with those predatory movements and said he was going to kill her on St. Vigeous’s Day. Did she trust him with Acathla? Did it actually start all the way back then, with their truce? No, not really. More like she believed that he would stick to his part of the agreement. Trust seemed to imply more than that; Buffy didn’t feel that at that point Spike had her back then as he did now. He left her to Angelus so he could escape with Dru.
So not with the trusting when he kidnapped Willow and Xander. He nearly got Cordy killed! But then there was that strange conversation between Spike and her mom in the kitchen. Her mom obviously trusted him, even when Buffy didn’t.
Buffy was tempted to award negative trust points for the Gem of Amara fiasco. Criticizing her abilities in bed, such that they were, and trying to kill her definitely damaged his credibility. Buffy supposed that she’d kind of ignored him for a few months after that since his chipped status meant he wasn’t an issue. Then he was playing both sides when Adam was around.
She’d already covered trying to get the chip out and Harmony – oops, Buffy hoped she didn’t show while they were at the crypt. The last thing she was in the mood to deal with was one of Spike’s creepy girlfriends. So sometime between the kidnapping of the doctor Riley needed and now. Taking her to the vamp house wasn’t a thing to build trust…
Buffy paused in her musings. She heard crying nearby. Without her realizing it, the memories had begun playing at a speed she could comprehend. Buffy turned around. She was on a rocky beach at dusk. She rubbed her arms as a chill breeze blew past. This was so real. If Buffy didn’t know that this was Spike’s mind, she would have thought she was actually in this place, where ever it was.
The crying was coming from a little curly-haired boy about five years old. He was dressed in short pants and a tailored jacket. The child was kneeling on the beach, all alone. Buffy looked around for parents, but no one was within sight. Jeez, who left a little kid out here all alone at night? No wonder the kid was crying. Buffy wondered what this had to do with Spike. Maybe the boy was a victim. She walked toward him, but the boy didn’t seem to notice her.
“Hello,” she said, kneeling down beside him. “I’m Buffy. What’s your name?” He didn’t respond. Didn’t flinch, didn’t look, just kept crying. Buffy was about to try again when a dog howled loudly at the moon.
The boy was startled, falling back on the sand. He raised his head and looked around for the dog with a forlorn expression. He had such piercing blue eyes. Buffy gasped. She recognized those eyes. And those cheekbones, half-hidden by still round cheeks. This was Spike. No, she corrected herself, this was William. He looked so innocent. That was all she could think. This little boy would become one of the most feared demons on Earth, but right now he just wanted his mommy.
*****Flash*****
The beach and William blinked out of existence. Buffy was in a courtyard between two wings of a large building. It seemed to be a school, judging by the number of children with books that were milling back and forth. They were all boys, none older than ten. Once again no one seemed to notice her; she was sure these kids would have commented on her obscene outfit if they had seen it. She looked around for William, assuming he would be here somewhere. The courtyard began to empty, probably the end of passing period.
Finally, she spotted a boy with curly hair kneeling by the building. William was older than he had been, taller, and with a more defined face. He was pulling something out of a puddle. It was a small chalkboard, with all the writing smudged. He looked as scared as he had on the beach. Suddenly the scene morphed to a classroom. William was standing at the front, next to a man in an ugly black suit. The professor.
The professor was holding a cane in one hand and tapping it lightly against the palm of the other. Buffy saw the chalkboard that had fallen in the water sitting on his desk. The professor began to speak. “Blackwell, you have proven once again how clumsy and foolish you are. Turn around.” Obediently William turned, and then leaned over and grabbed his ankles.
The professor raised his cane and swung hard at William’s rump. Buffy flinched at the impact. It had to have been horribly painful. Where did the guy get off beating a poor kid? It’s not like accidents didn’t happen. Buffy frowned, thinking of how many homework assignments she had intentionally skipped. The cane kept striking, to the count of twenty. William’s classmates pointed and snickered at him. Will was not a popular boy.
When the teacher finished Will straightened painfully. He limped back to his seat with teary eyes. As Buffy watched him, he turned to stare at the back of his teacher’s head. She noticed a flash of something like resentment flare behind his tears before he could hide it. She smiled. So far, she hadn’t seen much in this kid to remind her of Spike the Big Bad. But that little shine in his eyes just then that said he wasn’t as repentant and resigned as everyone seemed to think – that was her Spike. Her Spike?
*****Flash*****
Okay, seriously, this was making her dizzy. Buffy was in a fairly well-to-do living room. There was a group of people in the center. Two girls, one about fourteen and one about twelve, were sitting on a small sofa, weeping into their handkerchiefs. Beside the sofa stood a middle-aged woman that Buffy assumed was their mother. The mother was also crying quietly, but she was focused on a disheveled man standing before the sofa, literally hat in hand. He was crying too.
Beside the mother stood a young man that Buffy couldn’t see very well from her angle. She strongly suspected that she was about to get a look at a teenage William. She walked around in front of the sofa, past the guy holding his hat, and gasped. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or just keep staring. William was about seventeen, standing stiffly beside his mother in a suit cut close to his body. He looked so thin and fragile, with wire-rim glasses and dark blonde curly hair.
He had that same expression he’d had as a little boy on the beach. Lost. Forlorn. Buffy always thought it was a vampire thing, but in actuality Spike’s eyes were intense and raw no matter how young he’d been. They made the teen in front of her look much older than he was. Buffy had to stop herself from putting a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
Buffy shook herself. She wasn’t supposed to be just standing here and reliving Spike’s memories with him. She was supposed to be trying to reach him. She cleared her throat and walked straight into William’s field of vision. “Spike!” she called. No answer from him and no one else moved. “William!” Still nothing. Dammit, how was she supposed to get him out of here if she couldn’t even get him to hear her?
Everyone except Buffy was staring at the admittedly plush rugs on the floor. Suddenly William moved next to her, lifting his head to look at the rumpled little man before him. His eyes had cleared. They were still bright and teary, but there was anger behind them. The tiniest beginnings of authority. “Did he suffer?” Whoa, that wasn’t Spike’s voice. That was all refined and Giles-y. Actually, with the glasses and the suit, William was kind of like Giles squared. Ugh, worse. He was almost Wesley.
The guy William was talking to raised his head for a moment, but didn’t make direct eye contact. “No Master William, I don’t believe so. Your father was gone before we got to him.”
Buffy saw the woman – William’s mom – stand a little straighter. She spoke softly, “We shall be grateful for that mercy, then.” Her children nodded. William whispered something in his mother’s ear and she nodded. The teen went to his sisters on the sofa, mumbled something about adjourning to pray, and led them out of the parlor. Buffy followed them to another room, less grand but comfortable. The three siblings sat down together on a couch, with William in the center. His baby sisters clung to him, still weeping, as he did his best to comfort them.
Watching the grieving children, Buffy finally felt like she had the gist of what was going on in Spike’s mind. The only thing these memories had in common was the utter badness of what happened to Spike, er, William, in them. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when Giles started talking about psychological causes for Spike’s not coma, but this wasn’t it. Spike was a demon. He should be bothered by burning up or being staked or starving.
So far, Buffy’d seen memories about being abandoned, humiliated, and losing someone he obviously loved. These things were all so…human.
*****
Thank you to all my wonderful readers and reviewers! Thanks Linda!
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