Chapter Three

 

 

“What?”  Buffy swivelled toward Angel, her fist cocked back ready to let fly.  “Spike doesn’t have a soul.  I just fought him last week when he had the ring of Amara, standing in the sunlight and all You’re going to die slayer.  He was still obnoxiously evil then.”

 

Angel’s only reply was a raised eyebrow.

 

“I can smell it on him Buffy.  He definitely has a soul.”

 

All three stood staring at the horizontal figure of Spike in equal parts amazement and shock. 

 

Unaccountably, Buffy’s heart rate picked up a few beats and she could feel the steady thump, thump pounding against her ribs.  She couldn’t tear her eyes from him.  It was only last week he had cut her to the quick with his insensitive ribs about Parker.  Why did his words shred her heart so?  It didn’t make sense, but not only did it hurt to hear him say those things, for some reason it made her feel sick that he even knew she had slept with that waste of space.

 

Now Angel said Spike has a soul.  Why?  Where did it come from?  How did he get it?  And yeah, again, why?  For one very strange but giddy moment she knew he had gotten it for her.  That, however, did not make sense.

 

“Aargh…” Spikes sudden scream of pain made all three jump, their collective feeling suddenly turning from introspection to concern.  Buffy fell forward and dropped to her knees at his side.

 

“Buffy.” His eyes were closed; he did not see her.

 

She clasped his hand and Angel and Giles gasped in astonishment.  The connection of their hands erupted in flame, bright but non-igniting.  Buffy continued to cling to his hand, completely unaware; with her other hand she allowed her fingers to sift gently through his hair, trying to calm him.

 

“Buffy, it’s so beautiful.  I can see it; my soul. There isn’t much time.  Get out baby, live.”  Tears fell from his eyes, the lids squeezed tightly shut.  Tears slowly slid down Buffy’s cheeks in sympathy for this fierce and frightening warrior, becoming more and more confused not only by what was going on, but also by her reactions to him, to his voice.  ‘He called me baby’ and suddenly she smiled happily, just for a moment, blissful that he chose her for the endearment. ‘He can see his soul.  I bet it is beautiful.’  The smile began to wane though in view of his obvious torment.

 

“It burns.  Buffy, it hurts.”

 

The three interlopers just stared at him bewildered anew, all falling back as Spike suddenly opened his eyes and he jacknifed in the chair, dragging Buffy forward with him.  As he turned towards them he caught Buffy’s eye and the expression in them was tender.  Like an earthquake her world shook and she was transported to a place she didn’t know, standing before her champion and telling him of her love while he stared disbelievingly into her eyes.  His reply was heard only by her, and she gasped, knowing that she had spoken the truth and hurt beyond measure that he was about to die not knowing how much she wanted him to live. Then she let go of his hand and ran, except she could still see him laughing while he was engulfed in flame and light, disintegrating and turning to dust.  ‘No’, she screamed almost hysterically and started sobbing, ‘Please don’t leave me.’  But in one final burst of bright, he was gone, like so many other worthless and unworthy vampires.  Not him though, never him.  He was her champion.  And then the earthquake was over.

 

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Buffy stared into his eyes, confused and upset by her vision.  She still shook her head from side to side in denial and a wave of fierce possessiveness swept her away and she gripped his hand hard.

 

It couldn’t remain, though, and as one they turned to their held hands and stared in shock at the flames still binding them together, but neither trying to pull away.  Ever so slowly Buffy let go of her tight hold of his hand but didn’t pull completely away.  She stroked her fingers sensually against his skin before they fell away and into her lap.  She continued to stare at her hands clasped together on her knees and tried to sort out what had just happened.  She had had a vision, of that much she knew, but how could it be.  In that vision she told Spike she loved him and felt devastated at his demise.  That wasn’t right though, because she didn’t need a vision to know that his final dusting would be devastating to her.  The single most important fact that she gleaned from the moment though was that he was her champion.  Not Angel, but Spike, and could anything be any weirder?

 

She raised her eyes hesitantly to him, her gaze resting on his shoulder, lifting slowly to his neck.  She was almost afraid to go any further. Then she really looked at his neck, the skin a sort of grey, not the white she had expected and her eyes flew to his in alarm.  The flash of fear and confusion in his own electrifyingly blue orbs brought her back to Giles’s living room with a bump.  She remembered, finding him unconscious under that tree, his half starved appearance freaking her out.  She searched now, for a reason of why he was in such poor shape.  He seemed shell-shocked however, and she doubted that at this moment he could tell anything more than he had already relayed in his unconscious rambling. 

 

“Champion,” he whispered through cracked, dry lips and she jumped in recognition of her vision. 

 

“Spike,” she whispered back, raising her fingers to her lips as though to catch a kiss.  ‘Oh man, this is weird,’ she thought, rolling her head from side to side as if to view him from the different angles.  Or even to get comfortable for a real kiss, and she stopped abruptly.

 

“You need to feed, Spike.  You look like you haven’t had any blood for weeks.”  Buffy could hear her voice getting weaker as she spoke.  “What happened to you?” And again the tears came, and she tried desperately to not let them fall.  Even though she had seen what happened to him in her vision, it still didn’t explain this, his current state of starvation.

 

“Yes Spike, that is something I think we all would like to know.” And just like that she remembered there were others in the room.

 

Spike had obviously not worked out yet where he was or what was happening, possibly still lost in the same vision as she had seen, still her champion and denying her love.  His gaze fell on her lips and seemed unable to leave and she could feel a very odd shiver begin to travel up her spine.  Suddenly she felt warm and her skin flushed, and those words came back to her in a rush and she just knew that she was in trouble.  At some time or place, or maybe yet to come, she had told Spike that she loved him.  She knew it was true, yet he hadn’t believed it.  Where did all that hate, and mortal enemy stuff go though, that she couldn’t even look at him with any trace of animosity?  She was stumped.

 

 Oh that’s right, Angel and Giles.  Still kneeling beside the sofa she turned to the other two occupants behind her and tried really hard to work out what they were doing here.  Take charge, she silently pleaded, and Giles, God love him, came to her rescue.

 

“Angel, perhaps you could go to Willy’s and get Spike some blood.”

 

Angel looked angrily at Giles then seemed to cower under Giles’s penetrating glare, suddenly thinking what a very good idea it might be to escape this weirdo house for a while.

 

“It’s not like getting a soul these days is something wild and new.  Been there, got the coffee mug,” he muttered bitterly as he made his way out the door, grabbing his leather coat on the way out.

 

“Well Spike,” Giles started, about to begin a tirade centring on his desire to not have Spike in his home, when one look from Buffy had him taking off rapidly for the kitchen.  “Time for a spot of tea then, I think,” he spluttered and he was off.

 

That left them alone.  Buffy stood and made her way to sit beside him on the sofa, with Spike following every movement, an almost giddy expression on his face.

 

“So,” she breathed.  “My champion, huh?” And her breath hitched in her throat as he grinned at her.  Then like an owl, his eyes widened to their full capacity and he stood, shouting “Bloody hell,” before grabbing his skull and falling gracefully to his knees.

 

“I got knabbed Slayer, by bloody soldiers no less.  I can’t feed anymore, and I was so hungry.  All I could think to do was come to you, though I knew you would probably want to dust me, then something came over me while I was on my way here and I collapsed.”  His broken voice for that moment matched his body, and she again struggled to remember how she had felt about this vampire only last week.  Weirdness was definitely in the air because all she could think of were those three little words, and how unbelievably right they felt.

 

“ What came over you Spike?”  He looked startled at the softness of her voice, but turned to face her and placed a hand on either side of her knees.

 

“I don’t know what it was, it felt like a burning, like a spark, and then I fell into a kind of dream State I guess, though it felt more like a bloody nightmare.  Now I feel…” He looked to her as if she could tell him how he now felt.  He was grasping for something, she could tell, but even though she suspected the ‘spark’ was his soul, how he felt remained a mystery.  He may have always been able to read her but she wasn’t exactly Miss Observant when it came to people and their emotions.

 

“Wretched,” he almost spat it out, the word obviously distasteful.  “That’s how I bloody feel, wretched.  What the hell happened to me?”  She was stunned to again see the shimmering of new tears in his eyes and she felt a gush of tenderness flood her system.

 

Reaching out her hand she placed the palm very softly against the skin of his cheekbone.

 

“I don’t know how it’s happened, but I think I saw something when I held your hand earlier.  I saw you turn to dust.” Her tears fell silently as she whispered the last.  She looked at him in beatific wonder as she traced a finger, barely touching, down to outline his lips.  “Spike, I think you have your soul back.”  Again their eyes clashed, the shock of her statement rivetting his eyes upon hers, unable to shift even slightly.

 

And then the panic set in.