Lessons

In the high school basement, Buffy is trying to get past the zombies to a door, which she thinks Dawn is behind. They push her back, and she shakes them off. She looks at them, determined. "If at first you don't succeed," she says, and flips right over them, "Cheat." She pulls at the door, calling for Dawn, but the zombies pull her away. She throws them off, rushes back to the door. "Dawnie, we have to get out..."

The door slams open. Spike is standing there. His hair is a riot of curls, and he hasn't bleached it in weeks. He looks at Buffy, his face grim. There are shadows under his eyes and he looks as though he's ten minutes past the end of a crying jag. Buffy stares at him, her mouth open, shock plain on her face. For a moment she stares, unable to speak, unable to believe he's really in front of her.

"Spike?" she says, very tentative, not quite a whisper, and when he hears his name, his face softens. It's almost as though he wasn't sure she was real. "Are you real?" she says, and seems a little afraid of the answer.

He laughs at that, a wild, mad laugh that goes on too long. But he shakes off the madness, looks at her, makes some inner decision. "Buffy," he says softly, and reaches out, touches the side of her face. She watches his hand, and maybe it's wishful thinking, but she seems to lean into his touch just a fraction.

"Duck," he says in the same soft tone of voice.

"What?" She's confused. "Duck? There's a duck?" A steel pipe comes down on the back of her neck; the zombie janitor has blindsided her. She falls.

Spike steps back. We see that his shirt is open, and there are healing cuts all over his torso. "No visitors today," he says. "Terribly busy." He steps back into the room.

The janitor zombie whacks at her with the pipe again. "Told you he'd get out," Zombie #2 says.

Buffy fights off the janitor and backs into the room with Spike. She closes and bolts the door. "They'll probably show up in a sec."

From behind her, Spike says, "Nobody comes here." He's standing in the shadows, and he can't look at her. "It's just the three of us," he says. She doesn't catch the number; she's too worried about Dawn.

"Spike," she says, all business now, "Have you seen Dawn? She came down here with some kids..."

But he doesn't let her finish. "Don't you think I'm TRYING?" he says, almost shouting. He's distraught now, and I don't think he's really talking to Buffy, here. He backs up, toward the wall. "I'm not fast," he says, "I'm not a quick study."

Buffy stares at him. Something is drastically wrong, here...

Spike looks at her, lost, frightened, ashamed. "I dropped my board in the water," he says, his voice breaking, "and the chalk all ran." He looks down, unable to meet her eyes. "I should have been caned."

Buffy is very concerned now. This is wrong on SO many levels...

Spike laughs, short and bitter. "Shoulda seen =that= coming," he says. The laugh has a tinge of hysteria in it.

Buffy starts toward him, slowly, carefully, and he pulls his shirt tight around him and moves away, back against the wall, toward the dark corner. She follows him, taking care not to frighten him, and slowly reaches out to move the shirt. He turns his head, but lets her.

She sees the welter of long, healing slashes over his heart, and it frightens her. "What did you do?" she asks.

He still won't look at her. His voice is very low and full of shame. "I tried to... I... tried to cut it out."

She stares at him for a moment, appalled and more worried now than she was before. Perhaps she' about to say something, but her cell phone rings. She steps away from him to answer it, buit turns when she hears Spike slump to the floor, his hand to his head, muttering.

She asks where Dawn is, and they try to figure out what the zombie things are. They disappear too quickly to be zombies, and they're too solid for ghosts...

"Not ghosts," Spike says. She turns to him.

"You know what they are?"

He gives a slight nod. "Manifest spirits," he says, stumbling a little over the words at first. "Controlled by a talisman. Raised to seek vengeance. A four year old could figure it." He's a little defensive, as though he wants to prove he's not as slow as he said he was.

Buffy tells Dawn to hang tight, that she can hurt the creatures and to find a weapon. She hangs up when Spike stands. "Spike, you gonna help me out?" she says, as though she expects him to say yes.

"This is my home," he says, his voice much stronger; almost like the old Spike. "I belong here. I've always been here." He steps back, tries for the old, confident slouch against the wall, but he can't
pull it off. He tips her a mock salute. "Cheers for stopping by," he says, but his voice wavers and he turns away from her. "Through the wall," he mutters. She starts to turn away, but looks back at him, worried, and his shoulders hunch as he turns his back to her, his hands on the wall, fingers clenching on it. Though he's trying not to let her hear, he's whimpering. Or crying. Or perhaps both.

She doesn't know what to do for him, doesn't know how to deal with this; something is dreadfully wrong. Besides, Dawn's in danger. "Well, I'll...get back to you," she says, very troubled, and leaves.

***

Over the last shot of Buffy at the school, we hear Spike's voice. "Everything is..."

He is hunkered down on the floor in a squat, his arms wrapped around his chest, hugging himself, as close to a fetal position as it's possible to get without lying on the floor.

"I had a speech," he says, as though trying to explain something. "I learned it all. Oh God, She won't understand." He brings his arms up, trying to cover his head. He's very upset. "She won't understand."

Warren crosses behind him. "Of *course* she won't understand, Sparky. I'm *beyond* her understanding. She's a *girl*! Sugar and Spice and everything....useless unless you're baking."

Spike is listening, but he's very still, almost afraid to move, I think. Warren goes on. "I'm more than that. More than flesh..." He morphs into Glory, who continues the thought.

"More than blood...I am..." she pauses, looking for the right word, but can't find it. "You know I honestly don't think there's a human word fabulous enough for me."

She looks down at Spike who cuts his eyes toward her but averts his eyes again when he realizes she's looking at him. She smiles. "Oh, my name will be on *everyone's* lips," she says, relishing the
notion. "Assuming their lips haven't been torn off..." That notion is appealing, too. "But not just yet. That's all right though."

As she walks away, she morphs into Adam, who continues as though nothing has happened. "I can be patient," he says. "Everything is well within parameters. She's exactly where I want her to be." He looks down at Spike, "and so are you, Number 17."

Spike turns his head slowly to look at Adam, who moves toward him. "You're right where you belong," the creature says, and starts to kneel. But it's Mayor Wilkins who comes into frame beside Spike.

"So what did you think," he says, "you'd get your soul back and everything would be Jim-dandy? A soul's slipperier than a greased weasel. Why do you think I sold mine?"

Wilkins laughs, that deeply amused Mayor laugh. "Well, you probably thought that you'd be your own man," he goes on, "and I respect that." He reaches out to touch Spike's face, and as he speaks, his voice is overlaid with Drusilla's. "But you never will." She caresses his cheek, and he holds very still. "You'll always be mine," she says, her voice soft and soothing. "You'll always be in
the dark with me."

He moves his head slightly, away from her touch, and his lips begin to move. It looks like he's reciting something, but without any sound. She reaches out to trace his bottom lip with her finger, perhaps to stop the recitation."

"Singing our little songs," she says. "You like our little songs, dont you? You've always liked them...right from the beginning." She leans in, whispers, "And that's where we're going."

She morphs into the Master, who stands.

"RIGHT back to the beginning," he says. "Not the 'bang' not the 'Word' --" and here his voice is dripping contempt-- "the *true* beginning. The next few months are going to be quite a ride. And I think we're all going to learn something about ourselves in the process." He looks down at Spike. "You'll learn you're a pathetic schmuck...if it hasn't sunk in already." Spike, who hasn't quite been looking at him, turns his head away, rests his cheek on his arm, begins to rock ever so slightly.

"Look at you," the Master goes on, contempt in his tone. "Trying to do what's right. Just like her. "You still don't get it. It's not about right." He crosses behind Spike, who is careful not to look at him. "Not about wrong."

Spike is silent, still--he knows better than to speak.

When we pull back, the Master has turned into Buffy, dressed in black, her arms folded across her chest. She smiles, as though in blessing. "Its about power."

--

Dori

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