Chapter Nineteen

 

Buffy sat on Willow’s bed holding the redhead’s hand and wondered how everything had gone so wrong.  It wasn’t like they hadn’t had warning.  Willow had told her of her suspicions, but she had blown them off, trusting in Oz before her own best friend.  Watching Willow’s tears fall and hearing her choked off sobs tore at Buffy’s heart, and she felt like slapping herself for her stupidity.  She should have listened. Willow would not be so broken now if she had.  She lay down beside her friend and pulled her into her arms, and they cried; Willow for lost love, and Buffy for lost friends.  Infidelity was one thing, but Oz had killed now.  Perhaps the boundaries were a little blurred because Veruca was also a wolf, but it was there all the same.

 

The two girls remained lying on the bed for a long time, the room remaining dark.  They flinched when there was a knock on the door, and tacitly agreed to ignore it.  Several minutes went by until Buffy began to feel the silence to be stifling- rather than reassuring- when in juxtaposition with the frenzied activity on the other side of the dorm door.  She sat up and sent Willow a cautious smile.

 

“I should get to Giles’s and let him know what’s happened with Oz.  Do you wanna come with?  Or I could go get Tara to come sit with you?”

 

Willow shook her head no and forced a fake smile of conviction.

 

“No, I’m fine. Think I’ll just go to sleep.”

 

Buffy nodded sadly and left, clicking the door softly behind her.  She turned and bumped into Riley.

 

“Oh!”  She looked up at him and her mind went blank.  “Um, Riley.  What can I do for you?”

 

“Actually,” he stumbled, opening his mouth to say something then closed it quickly as if he had suddenly changed his mind.  “I wanted to talk to Willow.  Is she in?”

 

Buffy blinked in surprise, her mind on vacation, too tired and sad to think.

 

“Now’s not a good time.  She needs some time on her own.”

 

“Oh, of course.  So, Buffy, I was thinking that…”

 

“Look Riley, I’m sorry if I’m being rude, but I have to go and talk to someone about a situation.  It’s rather important.”  She saw his crushed face and suddenly remembered where this was leading to.  “Look, we can have a coffee or something later, or when you get back from break?”  She tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it.  All of a sudden she felt an intense need to get back to Spike, to reassure herself that he was still here, that he still had a soul, and the whole love thing wasn’t just a dream she had made up over the last couple of nights.

 

“Sure, that sounds great.”  Buffy blinked, surprised to find that she was still standing in front of him.  “I’m leaving for Iowa tomorrow.  Have some things to do first.”

 

“Okay,” she told him before tossing  “Have a good holiday,” over her shoulder as she headed out of the dorm.

 

Once she got outside and crossed the grass to the road, she stopped and thought again of the image of Oz going for Willow.  She almost hadn’t made it in time.  If that commando hadn’t slammed into her then she could have been there to sedate both of them. Seeing the other wolf- Veruca- with her throat torn out was enough to make Buffy sick.  Not because of the carnage, but because Willow would have been next.  She was just grateful that Oz had been filled with enough rage and protectiveness toward his girlfriend to go for Veruca first.  She shuddered to think how it might have been with both of them going for Willow.  Luck had held out for the Scoobies once again. 

 

With a jolt of insight, Buffy stopped her progress to Giles’s remembering the commando.  Could he have been Riley?  She didn’t know what to think of the Initiative, or more particularly Riley.  She knew, due to the spell, what they were capable of, and what monster would be released because of her psycho lecturer, Dr. Walsh.  But what about Riley?  On the one hand, she was angry about the chip.  The chip plus the experimentation they did on demons and the way they interfered with her job.  But in the path her life had been on, before Spike was granted his soul ahead of schedule, she had forgiven Riley and allowed him to be part of the Scoobies while making sure Spike stayed on the periphery.  With a little snort of amusement, she wondered where that word had sprung from and continued on her way.  But if not for the chip, Spike could never have proven himself to her, fallen in love with her, and sought his soul for her.  The world may not have been lost without him; Angel most likely would have been her champion.  But that seemed wrong.  Her heart told her that Spike was meant to be this vampire that she found now.  He was meant for redemption.  Ultimately, he was meant for her.  Angel wasn’t, and never had been.

 

The thing was, Spike was different.  Not just from getting his soul.  Receiving it out of the blue, like Angel had received his, would have been devastating, and she had a sudden sympathy for the one hundred years of shame and grief Angel must have suffered after the curse; before he was able to get a handle on it and fight for good.  No, the Spike she had been battling for the past year and a half would have been destroyed if it had happened in that way, rendered useless and insane.  She recognised now that the Spike of now and the Spike of the future were blended in some way.  And she was glad.  Glad for so many things.  She was glad that the Powers had returned to him his soul- that they had given Spike another chance at existence.  That they had given both of them a chance at happiness and love.

 

Though the Scoobies didn’t know, she had learnt from the spell that their future did not embrace Spike.  Not until it was too late.  She had difficulty  containing the revulsion she felt for herself, let alone her various friends, for the way they had been going to treat him. Not for the first time, she wondered how he could have loved her.  She had felt his soul exist through the spell, and also when they gripped hands and allowed sparks to flame while at the Hellmouth, and she knew, deep in her gut, how profound his love for her was.  She suddenly felt like a criminal at stealing this chance and his affection while knowing that she didn’t deserve it, but wanting it so much all the same. 

 

She knew that it wasn’t just Spike who had been changed from this.  She felt the residue of grief; for her mother, for being torn from heaven, from losing the man she loved before she could make him believe in her. But most of all, in the change of her personality and her spirit that allowed her to be cruel, and distant, and hateful.  She wanted so much to change it all- starting with acceptance and tolerance for the little she understood even as the events of the day made her stumble. 

 

Things she had never really thought of started to tumble rapidly though her mind.  Oz had a demon, Oz had now killed; did he have a soul?  Anya was a demon, she had done worse than all, existing for so much longer than even Angel, and she had not shed a single tear for her past.  Did she have a soul?  And if they did have them, and they weren’t distraught over their activities- past or present- how could she be sure that Spike wouldn’t fall with one? That his guilt wouldn’t remain motivating? He had already shown more remorse than Anya, and she herself knew what he had to pay for, visions of his past flashing periodically behind her eyes, causing rivers of freezing ice to grate against her spine.  She was learning to block, but the horror was inescapable sometimes.  But she would embrace it, if only to lighten his load.  For they would need him strong, and focused, and loving.

 

Ah, the things one does for love.  And that thought brought her up sharp.  That was the whole point.  She loved him.  Not in the future, but now.  But these feelings frightened her.  She might have let go of her fantasy reunion with Angel; she knew that she belonged now with Spike, but something held her back.  Not that she could remember that when she laid eyes on him, or better, when he kissed her.  When that happened she felt transformed, and all her fears melted away.  And in a sudden epiphany, she had it.  She still clung to those images of being left; by her father, by Angel, and the melded images of Riley and her mother.  Her hesitation had a human background, nothing supernatural that she should be on her guard about.  So, with a sigh of relief, she continued on to her destination: Spike.