Chapter 15
Could Spike look beyond her idiocy that night? She knew that she needed to focus, that she was still in Spike’s head and that there was still work to be done there, but she was so scared that she’d lost him already. She was hoping so fervently that he could forgive her that she missed most of the next memory.
It had something to do with Spike watching Harmony leave town on a bus. Buffy couldn’t feel much sympathy on that count. If Harmony was finally gone, that meant one less obstacle between them. She’d made enough stumbling blocks already; she didn’t need competition. Not that Harmony was much competition. Spike was wandering through the cemetery, heading for home, when suddenly a large, pale demon leaped out of nowhere and stabbed him with a deadly looking spine.
Then everything went black. The memory just ended, not fading out as the others had, but just halting. Was that strange demon the reason Spike had gone into a coma? Had he escaped, stumbled back to the crypt, then fallen under the influence of whatever poison had been injected into him?
It must have been terrifying to be alone in the dark, slowly succumbing to these memories.
When the picture came into focus again, she was on a rocky beach at dusk. She could hear crying; it was coming from a little curly-haired boy about five years old. He was dressed in short pants and a tailored jacket.
She sighed. They were back to the beginning.
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Willow ladled some of the goopy liquid out of the cooling cauldron and into a glass. She looked to Tara for confirmation and got a nod from her girlfriend. Willow stood and walked toward Giles, who was watching the immobile Buffy and Spike. “Giles?” He looked over. “It’s ready.”
“Good,” was his brusque reply. “Let’s get her out of there so we can end this night.”
Tara frowned at Giles’s request. Hesitantly, she prompted, “I t-think it might be best to give Buffy a little longer. It’s better if we can let t-them come out of this on t-their own. S-safer.” She hastened to add, “And S-spike’s aura has been changing since she went inside. I t-think s-she’s getting closer to bringing him out.”
Giles’s lips thinned and his eyes cooled. Tara could tell that he wanted to object, but he held his peace. He gave a slow nod. “Very well. Thirty minutes.”
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Buffy was tempted to speak the words to end the mind-meld spell when she saw little William on the beach for the second time. She didn’t seem any closer to reaching Spike than when she’d first stepped inside his head. And she now knew Spike had been attacked by another demon. She could leave and tell Giles that they needed some kind of antidote. He’d know what to do.
She’d waited, though, taking a few moments to stare at the little boy, so scared and alone. It amazed her that she hadn’t believed Spike capable of human feelings. He smiled, he wept, and he loved. She wanted so much to help him, to see him free of these horrors. The beach faded away to be replaced by a family meeting in which a teenage William discovered that his father had died.
Wait. Hadn’t there been something between these two memories? She could remember William being punished for dropping his chalkboard. The memories had changed for some reason. Willow’s magic words were forgotten as Buffy watched to see what other changes had occurred.
The cycle from past to present was infinitely faster this time. Almost half the memories Buffy had seen previously were missing. She noted that the scenes that had slid out of the slide show were the least terrible ones, including some of Angelus’s less horrifying torments and the loss of the Gem of Amarra.
The remaining flashes were shortened versions of the memories Buffy had previously viewed, the worst moments of the individual scenarios having been preserved. The instant that William’s sister died remained, while her words of comfort for her brother disappeared. Dru was tied by the mob in Prague, abused by her captors, while Spike’s rescue of her did not occur.
It was as though the tragedy of Spike’s life was being compressed and concentrated into the most humbling spiral of pain possible. It was hurricane of thought, whipping around and around and around.
Another memory cycle began, skipping the early deaths of Spike’s family and going straight to the party scene with Cecily. Then to his mother’s turning, then to his first beating by Angelus. The sea of memories had grown choppy from all the scene-shortening. Each moment was being stripped to its harshest core.
Another cycle, Cecily and his vampire mother preserved, but Angelus was first present in an alley, raping William. Most of the twentieth century was missing now.
Buffy knew, suddenly, where this was headed. She was approaching the eye of this storm of anguish. The center of it all. Spike. The memories began to bleed together the closer she got to him. They didn’t happen in separate rooms or alleys or times. There was no longer any background but stark black, with guest figures appearing suddenly in a tiny circle of light, seven feet across.
Buffy watched as William, in glasses and uncomfortable suit, confessed his love to Cecily. “You’re beneath me,” she murmured.
Game face at the fore, William’s mother leered at her horrified son. “There, there, precious. It will only hurt for a moment.” William murmured, “I’m sorry,” as he staked her.
Fledgling Spike, violated and battered half beyond recognition, lay on the ground before Angelus. “Consider it a test of what you're made of. You pass, and you keep your existence another day. If not...well, then I'll take good care of Dru.”
On the floor beside a dresser in China, Spike watched Darla leave without looking back, abandoning him and Dru to their fate.
An injured Spike whose legs barely functioned sank to the ground, too exhausted to reach the Mansion’s courtyard and kill himself. Gradually he sat up, covering his face to weep.
Drusilla spoke quietly to her betrayed childe. “I have to find my pleasures, Spike. You taste like ashes.”
Spike, chipped and helpless, pleaded with the men who’d assaulted him. “You've got my cash. Please, just take it and go.”
Having been thrown to the ground behind the Bronze, Spike could only stare at Buffy as she sneered, “You're beneath me.”
When memories next cycled it wasn't William that appeared before Cecily. It was the Spike that Buffy knew, dressed all in black from docs to duster that kneeled on the ground, head bowed, that heard Cecily's dreaded phrase. And when his mother mocked him next, the figure on the ground sat immobile and unchanged, arms crossed and rocking slightly back and forth.
This was her one and only chance to reach her vampire. For the first time since she’d entered his head, she was facing his conscious self, not a mere memory. Buffy walked forward carefully so as not to frighten Spike. She stopped about two feet away from him and called quietly, "Spike?" His head turned slowly toward her. His eyes, dull and glassy, met hers for a few instants, before he dropped his gaze to the ground again.
Buffy frowned as Dru murmurred in a sad tone, "You taste like ashes." Her own shadow self appeared a moment after Dru faded. Buffy stepped quickly between Spike and the ghost of Buffy's past. She kneeled in front of him and put a hand to the side of his face. Once again he looked at her, apparently surprised by her actions. She didn't blame him. He'd been listening to a memory of her tell him that he was beneath her for hours.
"Spike, I need you to listen to me."
He shook his head, trying to look away, but she pushed her hand back to the nape of his neck to keep his eyes facing hers. "Not how it goes," he mumbled.
She took a deep breath. "This isn't real Spike. You were stung by a demon. You're hallucinating. We're inside your memories. We need to get out of here-"
"No!" he said forcefully, and shoved her arm away. He stood and stormed away, to the edge of his small circular world. "It's a trick. It's not how it goes. It doesn't change." He kept his back toward her, tension obvious in its lines.
Buffy stood and followed him cautiously. "It doesn't change for you. I understand that. But it should, Spike. You should be able to make new memories, not just relive these same ones again and again and again."
His head shook and he flexed his fists at his side. "No. No. It doesn't get any worse. New memories mean it gets worse."
She was tempted to touch him, comfort him physically, but he hadn't reacted well to that the first time. "But it can't get any better either, Spike. It can only get better if you make new memories. And to make new memories I need you to come with me." She pressed her palms together, pleading silently.
He spun slowly to look at her, head cocked to one side, eyes suspicious. "You want to make it worse..."
Adamant, Buffy shook her head, "No, Spike, I-"
He advanced, his menace clear. "Haven't you done enough?" He stopped less than an inch from her, but Buffy refused to retreat. "You said it. I'm beneath you. I get it. I knew it before you said it. Now leave me alone!" He grabbed her by the arms and shook her violently. "Why? Why won't you leave me alone!"
Buffy pushed back against his chest, keeping her focus on his eyes. "I came to take you out of here, Spike. I'm not leaving without you." He roared with anger and his fangs and sloped forehead burst forth. Buffy realized what was coming an instant before his fangs were in her neck. It hurt, which didn’t shock her, because she wouldn't have expected him to be gentle. He thought she was a new tormentor come to taunt him.
The violence stopped instantly. Almost as soon as his fangs penetrated her, his attack ceased. After a moment he pulled back, a look of uncertainty and bewilderment on his wrinkled face. Buffy put a hand to her neck where he'd bitten her. No blood. No wound. She supposed astral projections didn't have blood.
"You're not bleedin'," Spike murmurred. "Chip didn't fire."
She put her hand back on his face, and this time he didn't shake it off. "That's because this isn't real Spike. This is just memories. We need to get back to the real world."
He frowned, his fangs worrying his lower lip. "It'll get worse..."
"It won't get worse," she said urgently. "It'll get better. I promise you, Spike. I'll make it better."
He sniffed. "You hate me out there."
Buffy lowered her eyes for a moment, unable to face the raw fear and loneliness in his yellow gaze. Her voice shook a little as she answered him. "Maybe I used to, Spike. But that's changed now that I finally understand who you are."
"I love you," Spike said in a quiet, hoarse voice. He looked away, awaiting her rejection.
"I know. I know," she petted his cheek, trying to reassure him. But she wouldn't lie to him. "I don't love you Spike." She could see tears starting in his eyes. "But I think I could. And I want to try."
"Really?" The hope his voice held was painfully sincere.
"Yeah," Buffy replied softly.
His game face receded cautiously. "This a crumb, then? Somethin' to keep me goin'?"
Buffy's other hand came up to frame his face. "Spike, if you'll trust me, if you'll come with me, you can have the whole damn cookie."
His answer was so quiet, Buffy barely heard it. "Okay."
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Buffy was sitting down with her eyes closed. Slowly, she opened them and saw Spike seated across from her in his chintz arm chair, rigid as he had been when Willow began the spell to put Buffy inside his mind. His blank, fixed eyes still stared straight ahead, unwavering. Out of the corner of her eye Buffy could see Giles and Willow heading her direction, but she remained focused on Spike, searching for any sign that he’d followed her back into the real world.
Very slowly, Spike blinked.
The blinked again.
And then chaos broke out in the crypt.
*****
Please let me know what you thought! Thanks as always to my beta, Linda.
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