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Part One ~ As the Walls Tumble Down
Drusilla gave one last squeal of protest and slumped forward in his restraining arms. Spike scooped her up and headed for the garage and the waiting De Soto.
“Sorry, baby. Wish there was another way,” he mumbled.
Passing the doorway to the atrium with his precious burden, he caught sight of the Slayer on the ground, scooting backwards on her delectable ass as Angelus advanced, waving his sword lazily in her face.
“God, he’s gonna kill her.”
After watching the poof pontificate for a few moments, Spike shrugged. He had held up his end of the bargain. It wasn’t his fault if the Slayer couldn’t fulfill hers. It chapped his ass that Angelus was going to be the one to take down a Slayer that Spike himself had earmarked as his third, but certain sacrifices had to be made. His only concern was to get Drusilla as far away from Angelus as possible. South America was looking better and better.
Bouncing Dru into a more comfortable position, he resumed his trek to the car with grim determination.
In spite of himself, his footsteps slowed until he finally dragged his feet to a halt; his inner William nattering at the demon for leaving the Slayer to rot. He rolled his eyes in disgust and, with a stream of muttered curses, he propped Drusilla against the wall and turned back.
He arrived in time to see the Slayer slap her hands together over Angelus’ descending blade and spit out a defiant ‘ME!’.
Bloody good move, Spike cheered her inwardly. She was a sly little trick, that much was certain. He was forced to skitter out of the way when Buffy kicked Angelus back into the ceremonial chamber.
Her eyes met his as she barreled through in pursuit of her prey. She had been certain he and that dingbat of a ho-bag were long gone. Her surprise at his return was evident, but didn’t deter her from the task at hand.
Spike watched, completely entranced by the Slayer’s seamless moves and the steely determination on her small face as she whaled on his poncy grandsire’s ass.
He had been fully prepared to step in and help her, but she seemed to have the situation well in hand. He settled for keeping up a running commentary that he knew would annoy Angelus to no end.
“Mind his right side, luv,” Spike called out helpfully. “He always drops that shoulder. That’s it!” he cheered when she neatly sliced Angelus’ hand and forced him to drop his sword.
Buffy followed through with a high kick to the face that sent Angelus reeling into the statue and onto his knees before her. She stared down at her ill-fated lover, backlit by Acathla’s gaping maw.
Spike tensed as she drew back the sword and prepared to deal the blow that would send Angelus into hell. “Do it, Slayer!” he bellowed.
Baring her teeth, Buffy started to swing her weapon.
A sudden gasp and painful groan from the vampire stilled her sword. She looked on in amazement as his eyes glowed red for a moment and then faded.
“Buffy?”
Gone was the oily sarcasm that had coated Angelus’ voice and in its place was the hesitant, almost femininely soft tones of Angel. “What’s going on?”
Buffy darted a look of confusion at Spike as Angel stumbled to his feet and gathered her into his arms.
“I… I feel like I haven’t seen you in months,” Angel murmured.
Somehow, the great git’s soul had been restored to him.
The look of wild hope in the Slayer’s eyes twisted Spike’s gut. She didn’t yet realize that soul or no soul, she would still have to send her lover to hell.
She’ll never be able to do it, Spike thought. He tensed, preparing to leap forward and finish the job himself if she couldn’t.
Buffy hugged Angel joyfully, tears spilling down her cheeks as he kissed her passionately. A sudden rumble from Acathla drew her attention and she watched in horrified fascination as its mouth widened and a glowing red vortex began to swirl behind them.
Buffy knew what she had to do. She broke off what she knew would be her last kiss with Angel and stared into his beloved brown eyes. “I love you,” she whispered, her voice raw with pain.
“I love you,” he replied.
“Close your eyes.”
When he complied, Buffy stepped back and drew back her sword, an anguished sob shuddering through her.
No one noticed the now conscious Drusilla as she slipped in behind Spike. She watched with dismay as her beloved Daddy kissed that nasty Slayer. She wanted to howl her rage when she sensed Angel’s restored soul.
Ruined! All was ruined, and it was Spike’s fault! With a feral snarl, she flung herself at him.
Still not fully healed from his bout with paralysis, Spike staggered under her slight weight and they fell forward into Angel, pushing him away from the statue.
Unable to stop the momentum of her downswing, Buffy gasped in horror as the sword impaled the wrong vampire.
“Oh my God! Spike!” she cried.
Spike stared down at the sword and back up at the remorseful green eyes of the Slayer. He flung out a hand in protest as she stepped towards him. A pained caricature of a smile twitched at his mouth.
“Always knew I’d go out in a blaze of glory,” he quipped weakly while feeling the pull of Acathla’s vortex behind him.
Wracked with guilt, Buffy was completely oblivious to the other two vampires.
“Spike, I’m… God, I’m so sorry!” she sobbed.
Where he found the audacity to wink at her she would probably never know, but the fact that he did it meant more than she was willing to think about just yet.
“’S’alright, Slayer. At least one of us gets to be happy, yeah?”
He didn’t blame her. How could he not blame her for this? She should have been able to stop once she realized that Angel was no longer her intended target.
The shimmering vortex rushed forward hungrily to claim Spike. In an instant, the statue’s mouth slammed closed and the vortex disappeared, taking her unlikely ally with it.
William the Bloody was no more.
In the resulting silence, guilt and shame warred within Buffy. Her hands came up to cover her mouth and she turned away, narrow shoulders shaking with the force of her grief.
Drusilla bent sharply at the waist, a high pitched keening noise escaping her. Her grief was short-lived; a mere token of remorse before she snapped upright with a snarl and threw herself at the unprotected back of the distracted Slayer.
Her wild move was miscalculated.
Angel didn’t think; he simply acted. One moment Drusilla was sailing through the air towards Buffy, the next her remains were showering gracefully to the floor. With a cry of abject misery, he dropped the stake and sank back to his knees.
Buffy could hardly find it within herself to acknowledge his sorrow when she was finding it almost impossible to deal with her own crushing sense of guilt. Spike had gone completely against his nature to help her take down Angelus and save the world.
And now, through a bizarre twist of fate, he was no longer a part of it.
“Buffy.”
Angel heaved himself to his feet and approached her. When he made as if to put his arms around her, Buffy flinched away, unwilling and unable to accept the comfort he offered.
“Don’t! Just… don’t. I can’t…” Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears and more than a little self-loathing as she twisted away from his clinging hands.
While a part of her was ecstatic to have Angel back, she couldn’t shake the feeling that a grave injustice had been served. Her duty as the Slayer had been to take out Angelus and she had been completely prepared to send him to hell, thus averting the apocalypse. By sending Spike in his stead, she had meted out punishment to the one who deserved it the least, evil or not. She had condemned the one who had helped her save the world.
Irony was the biggest bitch there ever was.
Maybe she wouldn’t have felt so bad if Angel had even shown the slightest hint of remorse. After a few token sniffles over the fate of Drusilla, he seemed pretty much okie dokie with the fact that the last of his line had been decimated between the two of them.
“I have to go.” Buffy shook her head as if to clear it and backed away. She suddenly couldn’t bear to look at him for another second. “I can’t be around you right now.” That said, she turned and walked swiftly from the mansion.
Angel was both surprised and a little irritated by her reaction to him. Where were the ardent kisses and fervent thanks for his safe return? He had his soul back and Angelus was banished once more. Where was the gratitude?
He could have gone after her, but something told him not to push her just now. There would be plenty of time later for them to play catch-up.
With a brooding sigh of resignation, Angel set about righting the damage they had caused.
Slamming into Giles’ apartment for a third time, Buffy wasted no time in cornering the slimy little man, slamming him down on the sofa with one savage push before he could utter a peep.
“Tell me it wasn’t supposed to go down like that,” she snarled.
“It wasn’t,” Whistler sputtered. “But to the people that matter, one Aurelian vampire is as good as the next.”
“What?”
“Aurelian. Angel got his soul back. That left Spike as the Master of the entire line. Why else do you think Angel was considered worthy to open Acathla? It wasn’t because of his good looks and impressive fashion sense, doll. It’s all about the blood. Aurelian’s are the purest of the vampire lineage, and William the Bloody was a direct descendant of Angelus.”
Buffy planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “This is wrong on so many levels; you know this, don’t you?”
Whistler shrugged. “All that matters is that the apocalypse was averted. Besides, I kinda figured you’d be a whole lot happier, seein’ that you got your Angel back.”
“You know what Spike did. You know that without his help I never would have been able to beat Angelus. He should have been rewarded, not punished!”
“There’s nothing I can do. Their minds are made up and everything stands as it is,” he said with an air of finality. “You did your job, kid. You should be proud of yourself; you saved the world.”
“Proud?” She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder, lines of self-loathing etching her delicate features. “Funny. I feel anything but ‘proud’ of myself right now.”
Whistler flinched as she slammed the door behind her.
The early morning streets were washed with pale gold sunshine, promising yet another gorgeous spring day.
Buffy plodded down the middle of Revello, her exhaustion such that she was completely oblivious to the birds singing and the purr of some ambitious homeowner’s lawnmower. She was halfway to the front door before she recalled the words spoken by her mother at the height of her ire.
“You walk out that door; don’t even think about coming back!”
She paused, trembling fingers hesitating on the burnished metal of the doorknob.
Did she mean it? Some pretty unforgivable things had been said and done by both of them. Wasn’t there an unwritten rule somewhere that your mother would always love you, no matter how much of a screw up you might turn out to be?
Giving the knob a decisive twist, she stepped warily inside and closed the door softly behind her. The house was as quiet as a grave with no sign of her mom. Buffy crept through to the kitchen, noting that the spilled liquor and broken glass had been cleaned up. There was no sign of the scuffle between them that had culminated in her mother’s spiteful words.
I shoved my mother, Buffy thought dazedly. I pushed her into that counter and turned my back on her. She thinks I’m crazy. I wish it were that simple.
She moved to the refrigerator and found the orange juice. The glass she poured went untasted as she stared sightlessly at the immaculate countertop, trying to make the smallest bit of sense out of her chaotic thoughts.
Angel was back. Spike and Drusilla were gone. Life on the Hellmouth could go on as it had before the oddly matched duo had come crashing into town.
Only it couldn’t.
As happy as she might be that Angel was restored to his former, more amenable self, it would be both naïve and stupid of her to just pretend that Angelus hadn’t existed.
She was blindingly certain that her experiences with his soulless alter-ego had irreparably damaged the dynamics of their relationship. That his many cruelties and the senseless death of Jenny Calendar had forever banished the sweet innocence inherent in all first loves.
It was foolish to assume that she could simply forget the heartbreak that his presence had brought to her life. Certainly Giles and her friends wouldn’t be able to.
She dumped her untouched juice in the sink and dragged herself up the endless stairs to her room. The healing wound on her arm from Angelus’ sword itched and burned with every movement, and the urge to curl up in a ball in the middle of her bed and pull the quilt over her head was strong. Her hands were in fact stretching towards the coolness of the flowered cotton sheets when the faintest of noises behind her brought her up short.
Buffy turned to confront the tired, red-rimmed eyes of her mother, her chin lifting several notches as they stared each other down.
“I’m not crazy.” Her voice was clogged with suppressed tears as she confronted her parent. “I’m all that I said I am and I can prove it to you this time if you’ll just give me the chance.”
When Joyce made no reply to her impassioned speech, Buffy’s shoulders drooped and she ran a trembling hand through her tangled hair. “Or I can just grab a few things and go,” she muttered as she moved towards the closet.
“Buffy, wait,” Joyce cried out desperately. Her hands came out in supplication and she moved a few steps further into the room. “Please, sweetheart, talk to me. Help me understand.”
Moving hesitantly, almost fearfully, she joined her mother. Both of them perched uneasily on the edge of the tumbled bed, each unable to meet the other’s eyes.
Just when she thought she couldn’t stand the tension another moment, Buffy was wrapped in the near-smothering embrace of her mother’s trembling arms. A ragged sigh of relief shuddered through her as she breathed in the familiar, powdery scent that soothed her inner child.
In a voice that was flat and devoid of drama, she told her mother the whole sad tale, beginning with Merrick approaching her at Hemery and ending with Spike’s unintentional and untimely demise. She spared nothing in the telling, baring her battered soul to her quietly horrified parent. When she finished, she knew that she had quite effectively stripped every illusion about their life in Sunnydale from Joyce’s eyes.
“All this time,” Joyce muttered dazedly. “I let myself believe when they told me you were a discipline case. How could I have been so blind to what was really going on with my own child?”
“You saw what I wanted you to see, Mom. Besides, look at how bad you wigged out when I did finally tell you the truth.”
Joyce smothered a laugh behind her hand as she recalled her earlier actions. “That young man probably thought I was the crazy one!” She shook her head, still bedazzled by the sensational truth of her daughter’s life. “I can’t believe I sat in the same room with a vampire,” she mused. “He was just so…”
Buffy nodded. “Handsome? Yeah, I know. Pretty hard to believe that he was over a hundred years old, isn’t it?”
Joyce frowned. “I was going to say ‘full of life’, but handsome works as well.”
A fiery blush stained Buffy’s cheeks. “Oh.”
“Well, regardless, I liked him. He was very polite and he didn’t make that first attempt to bite me.” Her gentle face hardened into implacable lines. “I don’t like, nor do I trust Angel, and believe me when I say that I felt this way about him before I even knew he was a two-hundred year old vampire pursuing my teenaged daughter. To me, that soul he claims to have is just a muzzle that keeps him from being what he really wants to be,” Joyce said firmly. “Apparently you feel the same, or you wouldn’t feel so badly about sending Spike to Hell.”
She reached out and grasped her daughter’s wobbling chin, forcing tearful hazel eyes to meet hers. “Just answer me this. Would you have left me alone in the living room like that with Angelus?”
Buffy shook her head mutely. It was true. For some unfathomable reason, she had instinctively trusted Spike more than the supposed love of her young life.
“I can’t forget his eyes, Mom.” Buffy sniffled and swiped at her wet cheeks with the edge of the sheet.
“Shh, baby. I have faith in you. You’ll find a way to make it right, no matter what those higher powers say.”
With all that was left of her idealistic young heart, Buffy wanted to believe her. The desire to right that which was wrong burned righteously within her.
But for now, her tired mind could no longer war with the confusion and misery that dwelled in her heart. She lay back against the fluffy, scented pillows with a weary sigh, bitter tears scalding her cheeks as she gave herself over to the soothing touch of her mother’s hand caressing her hair.
Joyce sat with her long after she fell into a fitful doze, the tenderness of a mother’s love keeping the demons at bay while her child slept.