Summary: Endings & beginnings. Searching for what was never lost. Post BtVS "Chosen" - AtS Season 5 AU fic.
Disclaimer: The show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of it's characters belong to Joss,
Mutant Enemy, & Fox Prod.
Feedback:ariane_five@yahoo.com
PART
ONE
"Yet in an hour to
come..."
Night is no longer day for him. He dreams of
sunlight, not shadow. He hunts for light with unquenchable lust. At night, he
loves the moon, illuminating his pale form as he roams the soft rolling hills,
winding and weaving through thickets of dying brush. And in the daylight, he
rejoices in the brutal sun upon his skin, as he wanders through forests rising
to granite and the finality of hard, cold ice.
A mountain, a valley, a
summer-dead river: all fall to dust before him. He is alive.
He is
walking into his being, into his unfamiliar flesh. Refuses to be lost. Refuses
to be unclaimed. He’s claiming himself. A hundred miles, a thousand miles; he
savors every step he takes, in sunlight and darkness, as he recreates his life.
Long tangles of dark brown hair frame his face. Skin burned and brown,
he’s become the earth. He avoids civilization; the mere glimpse of pavement, of
the metallic flash of an automobile makes him flinch and run. Later. Later, he
tells himself. There’s something, someone he must find first. His heart?
Himself?
He is a man and vaguely remembers that once he wasn’t. Remembers
that he’s died twice. And is now twice born. He’s trying to remember what blood
is for, what limbs and nerves and lungs and heart mean to a man. The world
beckons, but he’s disdainful. He hears the begging voices in his waking dreams
and nightmares, and he flees the face of humanity. A woman. A mother. Family.
Enemies. Friends. Victims and lovers.
Human. Humans. He is almost certain, now, that he
could live alone for the rest of his life. Except there’s something he must find
first. Something he lost that must be found.
Love. He pushes the word away like an
obscenity. And then, idly, thinks that perhaps what he’s lost is his
soul.
In this escape, this running, he’s come to know his body, to
understand the limits and thresholds of pain and the torments of desire. But
there’s this yearning in him that he struggles to define. He reluctantly admits
to himself, at last, that he cannot quench this longing inside, or find what
he’d lost in all this isolation. The natural world has given him back his
knowledge of living, but cannot give him back his soul.
* * * *
*
The foothills above Los Angeles are thick with predators: coyotes,
mountain lions, rattlesnakes, prowling among the outlandish homes of the living
and undead rich. Perched upon a small, granite outcrop, he kneels, gazing down
into the brownish yellow haze which covers the city below.
It’s Hell.
He frowns. He can almost taste the pain rising from the millions of anonymous
humans who inhabit this bit of scorched earth. Endings. He can deal with
endings; it’s beginnings that trouble him now. Where to start? Can he find his
soul in that morass of humanity below? For the first time since he was re-born,
he is afraid.
A wave of grudging admiration for Angel washes over him. A
city of wolves. What a futile task the old boy has set for himself. Sunnydale is
heaven compared to the cesspool whirling down there. And then he remembers that
Sunnydale is no more, and his thoughts of Angel turn darker. Had Angel known
what would happen? He sighs. Doesn’t matter now. He wonders again, for the
ten-thousandth time, if she’s still alive. And then tells himself again, for the
ten-thousandth time, that it’s not his problem anymore.
* * * *
*
“I must say, they were a little disappointed.” Lilah gives Angel an
appraising stare. He studiously avoids her gaze.
“Don’t really care.
Uh…and frankly, I’m tired of rehashing this conversation. It’s been over a year.
Can’t they just let it go?”
“I’m just amazed that you didn’t jump at the
chance to be a hero,” she laughs.
The phone rings, and Angel grabs it,
grateful for the interruption. His face darkens as he listens to the excited
voice on the other end of the line.
“Can you hold on a second?” he
speaks into the phone. He turns to Lilah. “Gotta take this. You know, people in
danger. Heroes needed.”
Lilah leans back in her chair. “I can wait. You
need to explain to me how you’re going to retrieve the amulet before I leave.
Orders from above. They’re not pleased.” She smiles, but her eyes are
cold.
Fifteen minutes later, Lilah leaves the office, still dissatisfied
with Angel’s plan. He listens as the click of her high heels fade in the
distance, and when he’s sure she’s gone, he pulls a small box from his pocket
and places it on the desk before him.
The box is made of a metallic
substance specially created for him by Fred in an underground lab in Pasadena,
far from the offices of Wolfram and Hart and their spies. He opens the box and
stares at the contents. There’s a soft glow emanating from the amulet as it
reflects the light streaming in from the window behind him. At least, he thinks
it’s the reflection of sunlight that makes it glow. He nervously shuts the lid.
He doesn’t want to think of the alternative.
“Where the hell is he?” he
mutters to himself.
* * * * *
There’s an emptiness to her days
that she can’t define. It’s not that her life isn’t full of people and things to
do; it’s just that she feels something is missing. Something haunts her,
something she forgot to do or say. Something that would end the curious flatness
of the world around her. When she dreams, it’s all in grays and shadows. She
longs for color; and she wakes each morning anxious and incomplete. There’s
something she’s left undone, although she can’t seem to name it. She carries an
unnamed burden inside her that torments her, burns her.
But there are
things she loves about her new life. She’s not ungrateful. It’s such a relief to
share the responsibilities of slaying. Weeks pass without her having to handle a
stake or gaze upon the undead. She has a secret aversion to killing vampires
which has not gone unnoticed by Giles and Faith. She prefers to stick with
killing demons.
Cleveland is rife with demons, so her little problem
remained hidden until last week when she and Faith were set upon by a
particularly nasty gang of vampires. The first vampire that attacked her had
blond hair and piercing blue eyes. The physical resemblance to Spike ended
there, but she couldn’t do it; couldn’t stake him, and almost got herself and
Faith killed.
“I think she needs a vacation, a little R and R. I’m not
sure I want to patrol with her. She’s kinda lost her edge. It was
that close.” Faith shudders. “Can’t you do
something?”
Giles sighs. He and Faith are sitting in his office, up in
the attic of the run-down brownstone he’d rented when they first moved to
Cleveland. “Perhaps a trip out to Los Angeles would set her to rights. Maybe
Angel can shed some light on her problem. And I’ve been meaning to send my copy
of the Demonic Verses to Wesley for translation. I’d prefer they be delivered by
hand. Do you think she’ll believe that?”
* * * * *
She insisted
on driving. No one could dissuade her. Giles even went to the expense of
purchasing her round trip tickets, but she refused to fly.
A week later,
the rental car is packed to the brim with luggage and presents. Giles’ carefully
sealed copy of the Demonic Verses is on the passenger seat beside
her.
“Don’t worry, you guys. I’m gonna be fine. I want to see the road
disappear behind me. I want to believe that I’m traveling several thousand miles
and not just poof –suddenly appear in L.A.; besides, I can use the time to think
and stuff.”
Giles gives her a skeptical glance. “Sometimes thinking isn’t
always the best thing to do in these circumstances.”
“What
‘circumstances’?” she snaps, offended by the word. “I’m fine. Five by five,
right, Faith?”
“Just be careful and watch out for vampires,” Giles
cautions. Faith gives him a little kick and rolls her eyes.
“Wow.
Amazing tact, brain boy,” she hisses.
They watch Buffy drive away.
* * * * *
For seven days, he’s cased out the offices of Wolfram
and Hart, watching and noting everyone who enters and leaves the building. He’s
invisible to the world around him. It appears that the last thing the people of
L.A. want to acknowledge is a dirty, homeless man lounging on the sidewalk. The
only people who seem to ever show an interest in him are the police who
occasionally sweep down the block ordering the loiterers to move on. He’s been
lucky. For some reason, he has a sixth sense when it comes to cops. Knows
exactly when to slip unnoticed down the dark alley, kitty-corner from the
gleaming Wolfram and Hart building.
He’s particularly interested in the
young black man who often accompanies Wes when they leave the building at night.
His name is Gunn. Funny name, but the man walks like a panther. Spike can sense
the predator in him. Wes appears oblivious to Gunn’s second nature, hidden deep
beneath the cool exterior.
* * * * *
Buffy’s car breaks down in
Wyoming; luckily for her, it splutters to a dead stop a few blocks from a
scruffy-looking gas station. The mechanic on duty gives her a long lecture on
the benefits of actually checking the oil gauge and coolant level when driving
up the Rockies in the high heat of summer.
“Red means trouble. Got
that?”
“Yeah. Red bad. Thanks. Is there a restaurant around here? ‘Cause
I’m starving. How long is it gonna take? I’m in a hurry.”
“Oh, three or
four days. If I can get parts.”
“Parts? Days?”
* * * *
*
He decides to clean up before approaching Gunn. Late one Friday night,
Spike waits on the front plaza outside the Wolfram and Hart building. He is
groomed to perfection, sporting a new suit which he’s nicked from the back of
one of the dry-cleaning trucks that roam the city. His hair is pulled back into
a tight ponytail, and his face is clean-shaven. The only incongruous aspects of
his attire are his tennis shoes. If a man needs to run, slick Italian shoes are
out.
Spike watches Wes and Gunn exit the building and stiffly nod their
goodbyes. Wesley turns left and strides briskly away.
Gunn pauses on the
steps and scans the plaza. Closing his eyes, he sniffs the air; and when he
opens his eyes, he’s staring directly at Spike. Spike walks nonchalantly in
Gunn’s direction, keeping his eyes fixed on the man before him. Gunn squats down
on his heels as if preparing to pounce.
“Hey.” Gunn stares up at the
darkly-tanned man standing in front of him.
“Hey,” Spike replies,
instinctively lowering his eyes.
“We’ve been wondering when you were
gonna get the nerve to show up,” Gunn says.
“Got nothing to do with
nerve. It’s all about timing.”
Gunn smiles and rises to his feet. He and
Spike shake hands and walk off together.
* * * * *
“So, sleeping
with the enemy, are you?” Spike sprawls on Gunn’s leather couch, drinking an
ice-cold beer.
“No. That would be Wes,” Gunn laughs. “Not sure how he
can make love to the woman he beheaded, but that’s another story.”
Spike
puts down his beer and stares at Gunn. “Never underestimate the power of love.
Can make a man completely daft.”
“Yeah. I heard. So what’s your side of
the story? And where’ve you been?”
“Not important to the matter at hand,
my friend. I’m here to retrieve a little something, get some information, and
then I’ll be out of your lives for good. I think you’re just the man to help
me.”
“Why should I help you? Why shouldn’t I just call Angel right now,
or Lilah, for that matter, and tell ‘em you’re in town?”
“I don’t think
you’ll do it.”
“What makes you think that?”
“’Cause you have the
look of a man who can’t be bought.”
Gunn stares out the window at the
fading light. He thinks of Fred. Thinks of what he’s done for love. What he’s
done for hate. He thinks about screwing up Wolfram and Hart’s plan of seduction:
their temptations of power, both physical and metaphysical. He smiles to
himself. He’d like to believe they don’t completely understand what they
unleashed in him in the White Room.
“I’ll do it,” Gunn says. His voice
has a slight rasp to it, and when he turns away from the window, his eyes narrow
and flash with an inhuman glint.
“Are you sure? You don’t know what I’m
gonna ask of you yet,” Spike gives Gunn a long, blank stare.
“Hey, I’m
always up for a little trouble,” Gunn laughs. He meets Spike’s eyes and has a
sudden feeling of discomfort. Something’s wrong with the man, he thinks.
Something’s off.
* * * * *
The first day, she sleeps. The second
day, she explores the one-stop-light town. Actually, it only takes her a half
hour. She spends the rest of the day wandering in the fields which stretch out
forever behind the gas station. The land flows unbroken until it washes up
against the impossibly high mountain peaks which frame the little valley. She
spends several hours sitting on a log staring up at the mountains. They are an
immovable force: inhuman and cold. Even in the heat of summer, they are capped
with thick glaciers of snow and ice. When the sun sets, they are tipped briefly
with a golden fire and then fade quickly to dark ash.
The darkness up
here is especially black. When the sun sets, and before the moon rises, the
night is thick. Even with her Slayer senses, she has trouble finding her way
back through the fields to her little motel. For one moment, she panics,
suddenly thinking of bears and mountain lions and sharp teeth.
Back in
her bed at the motel, she wonders briefly why she’s not worrying about demons or
vampires.
The third day, she gets restless and is constantly underfoot
at the garage, bothering the mechanic. He finally orders her to scram. She
leaves, insulted by his harsh words. She wanders out to the meadows again and
lies down in a soft bed of pine needles beneath a small grove of trees.
There’s a faint wind blowing down from the mountains that smells of
snow. Suspended here between worlds, she’s filled with an indescribable feeling
of peace. No responsibilities, no demons, no vampires. Just a woman traveling
along a road, leaving things behind her. She’s almost grateful the car broke
down.
The light is peculiar in this little valley, high in the foothills
of the Rockies. There’s something pure and clean about it; reflecting off the
high mountain glaciers, falling from the sky, innocent and free from human care.
Like the first light that shone at the beginning of the world. Before demons.
Before man. Before vampires. It reminds her of Spike, that purity which shone so
strangely in his eyes before he died. Odd to think about Spike being pure.
Sometimes, she has the eerie feeling that he’s with her. “Spike’s in my heart,”
she’d told Angel. And it was true. And since then, she’s thought of him at the
most inappropriate times. What he would think or say about something. What he
would do, if he were there with her.
She thinks this is the root of her
problem. The strange burden she’s been carrying inside her. Why she can’t slay
vampires, why she feels at times as if she’s carrying something, holding on to
something that doesn’t really belong to her.
“I have to let go of Spike. Let him
rest in peace.”
With that thought, she curls up on her side and
yawns.
She hears his voice as she drifts off to sleep…
Can we
rest?
When she wakes, she senses that she’s being
observed. Stalked. She lies perfectly still, holding her breath. Opening one
eye, she sees a huge, black, cat-like creature sitting beside a tree about ten
feet away. Her heart racing, she jumps to her feet; and the animal arches its
back and bares its teeth.
“Go away,” she shouts and then immediately
berates herself. “Idiot. I’m sure he speaks English. Maybe he’ll say thank you
before eating me for lunch.”
But to her surprise, the creature gives her
one last, long look and saunters off. A soft breeze carries the distinct scent
of pine needles and strangely, Old Spice aftershave. She runs the whole way back
to the motel.
The next day, she stays in her motel room and reads a
dog-eared pamphlet about the geology and history of geothermal power in northern
Wyoming. By evening, she has it memorized.
PART
TWO
"...disdainful
dust"
Gunn appears to have unlimited access to
money. He helps Spike find a small, furnished studio apartment near the Wolfram
and Hart building and pays for a few months’ rent in cash. Before he leaves, he
hands Spike a thick envelope.
“What’s this?” Spike asks, pulling out a
wad of bills.
“A little something to live on.” Gunn shrugs off Spike’s
sudden look of gratitude. “I’ll stop by tonight, and we can discuss your little
plan.” He gives Spike a hard look. “I’d like all the details. Like, why
now?”
As Gunn exits the building, he glances up at Spike’s apartment.
Spike is staring out of the window; he’s not looking down at the street but
gazing up at the hills, at the sky. Gunn wonders to himself, again, just what’s
wrong with the man? Something’s off about Spike that he can’t exactly pinpoint.
“Well, at least I’ve contained the problem,” Gunn tells himself as he
heads back to work. “I’ll decide, later, which side of the game to play when I
hear what he’s up to.”
* * * * *
Of course, Buffy completely
ignores the mechanic’s advice on car maintenance, and the rental car dies on the
outskirts of L.A. She calls Angel from a phone booth, and an hour later, a long,
black stretch limousine pulls up next to the curb where she’s camped out, all
her luggage stacked about her.
A grim-faced driver piles her things into
the trunk and ushers her into the cool, dark interior of the car. She tries to
start a conversation with the man, but he ignores her; and after a few minutes,
he closes the window between them.
“Yeah, welcome to L.A. At least
there’s ice,” she mumbles, opening the wet bar in the well-appointed car. She
scoops out some ice and rubs it on the back of her neck. It reminds her of …
Spike. She remembers how he used to steal ice for her after
patrol and other things. Rub it on her neck, and if clothes were not a problem,
all the way down her naked back. Lick the drops of water off with his soft
tongue. He loved kissing her neck, probably just the vampire in him. It’s all he
did that last night before he died. All night long, with his face buried against
her skin. Was he seeking sanctuary?
He never bit me. He could’ve. He
could’ve killed me. Before his soul. Why didn’t I ever tell anyone that?
Ashamed. Shamed.
The limousine pulls to an abrupt stop inside a
dark garage.
Buffy firmly pushes her memories of Spike away; jumping out
of the car, she rushes into Angel’s arms.
“Angel!” Suddenly she’s weepy,
and it feels as if only a day has passed since he came to Sunnydale to provide
them with the key to stop the Apocalypse.
Angel holds her tightly as she
shakes in his arms. He strokes her hair and whispers to her softly, trying to
calm her down. He curses Giles for letting her drive out here by herself. What
could the man have been thinking? His anger passes as he reminds himself that
this is Buffy. She does what she wants. Always.
“Come on, Buffy. Let’s
go inside. You can clean up in my suite.”
“Sweet? Chocolate?” she sniffs,
brushing past him.
“Not exactly. My home away from home. Up there.” He
points up, and Buffy gazes in confusion at the cement roof of the garage. “No,
no!” Angel laughs. “Penthouse suite. A little job perk.”
They step into a
wood-paneled elevator and stare nervously at each other as they’re swept up to
the top floor.
Angel flings open the door to his penthouse suite, and
Buffy stands in the doorway, her eyes widening at the luxuriousness displayed
before her.
“Wow. This is perky,” she says, stepping inside.
* *
* * *
“We’ve got a little complication,” Gunn says, dropping a bag of
take-out food on the table. “Dinner.”
“Thanks, but I already ate,” Spike
says.
“It’s not for you,” Gunn replies, sitting down at the tiny kitchen
table. He rips open the bag and starts eating.
Spike lies down on the
bed and waits patiently for him to finish. Gunn tosses the empty containers into
the trash and looks uncomfortably around the small apartment. The bed is
rumpled, and clothes are strewn about the floor and couch. He removes a pair of
stained, dirty jeans from the couch and sits down. He doesn’t look at Spike.
“It’s Buffy,” Gunn says at last. “She’s in town.”
“Buffy,” Spike
repeats slowly. He turns over and lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
“So she’s still alive.”
“You didn’t know?” Gunn asks with
surprise.
“Not really. I knew she survived the big show in Sunnydale. But
wasn’t sure what happened later. Always some big bad got it in for the Slayer,
you know.”
“Didn’t you wonder? Didn’t you try to find out?”
“Not
my problem. Not anymore. But, yeah. I did. Wonder. A little,” Spike sighs. He
sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed and puts his head in his
hands. “So she’s come to Angel, has she?”
“She’s in pretty bad shape,
according to Fred.”
“That so? Hmm. Well, Angel’ll take good care of
her.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Gunn’s voice rises. “From what I heard,
you were mad for her for years.”
“Right. Mad for her.” Spike gives a
bitter laugh. “Insane for her. Died for her. Died…”
Jumping to his feet, he strides nervously
about the small apartment. Gunn thinks he’s never seen so much self-contained
anger. He stands up and grabs Spike by the shoulder.
“You want to know
what’s wrong with me?” Spike says, his voice ice-cold. “I died. For all of them.
But you know what? I crawled naked and bleeding and blind out of that little
hell-hole. And you know what I heard? You know what I heard?” His voice rises to
a shout. “The damned Scoobies. Standing over my grave. Laughing, joking. And
then they just drove away.”
“What about Buffy?”
“Doesn’t matter.
She left. End of story.”
“Jesus, Spike. Sorry, man. Look, forget it.
Forget her. Let’s get on with it.” Gunn leads Spike over to the couch and pushes
him down and sits next to him. “Tell me why you’re here and what you want.”
* * * * *
“Is she brain-damaged or something?” Fred and Angel are
having a quick conference in his kitchen while Buffy takes a
shower.
“No!” Angel gives her a puzzled look. “What makes you think
that?”
“First, she wants a bucket of ice, and then she gets all freaked
out when I bring it to her. She punched me!” Fred replied, rubbing her shoulder.
“She’s got issues, that’s all.”
“Yeah, remind me to stay out of
the way of her issues.”
“Look, Fred. Giles says she hasn’t been quite
herself since Sunnydale turned into a big crater. I should’ve stayed. She needed
me. I shouldn’t have left her to deal with The First alone.”
“From what I
heard, she wasn’t alone,” Fred says, giving Angel a cautious look. “Wasn’t
Spike…”
“Don’t say that name!” Angel growls. “And don’t mention his name
around her, got that?”
“Okay, okay. Wow. This has been the day from Hell.
Hey, she’s all yours. Find yourself another nursemaid!” Fred stomps angrily out
of the kitchen. Angel listens to the door of the penthouse slam shut as she
leaves.
“Damn women!”
And he thinks to himself again…
It should’ve
been me. Not Spike. It should’ve been me.
* * * * *
“I’ve been
traveling around. Walking, hiding, living off the land and what I could steal.
At first, I thought I’d try to look up Angel and thank him for his little
present, but I always seemed to find myself going in the opposite direction of
L.A. Couldn’t bring myself to face him until I understood why.”
“Why,
what?”
“Why I was here. Why I was alive. Why I couldn’t have just gone
nicely to my glory and stayed there. Why there was so much pain. And why my s…”
Spike pauses. “Why there’s something missing. Here.” He puts his hand on his
chest.
“Your heart?” Gunn asks, puzzled.
“No.” Spike gives Gunn
a hopeful look. “The spark.”
Gunn stares at him as if he’s crazy. “Not
following you. What the hell is a ‘spark’?”
“You know. The spark. What I
got for her. It’s gone. And damned if I’m gonna live another life without a
soul.”
“You don’t have a soul?” Gunn stares at Spike in disbelief. “What
are you?”
“Not really sure, mate. But I got a sneaking suspicion it’s got
something to do with that little present Angel brought Buffy last
year.”
“You mean the amulet?”
“Yeah, the pretty, little trinket
that I wore to my death. I need to know what it was. I need to know why I’m
alive.” Spike’s face hardens. “I don’t deserve to live like this. Nobody
does.”
* * * * *
Buffy is driving Angel crazy, tagging along
beside him all day long; she won’t let him out of her sight. Finally he takes
her aside in his office and explains to her that he has a lot of business to
take care of, and some of his clients get a little nervous when they realize a
Slayer is in the room with them.
“Who are these clients of yours, Angel?
Some of them look downright evil to me. What are you guys doing
here?”
“Look, it’s none of your business, Buffy. But understand this:
we’re helping to fight evil. We just have access to a lot more resources and
power now, thanks to Wolfram and Hart.”
“You’re using evil to fight
evil?” She looks at him in disbelief.
“You’re one to judge!” Angel
shouts, finally losing his temper with her. “Didn’t you use Spike to fight The
First?”
“Spike wasn’t evil…anymore. He had a soul, remember? He had a
soul…” her voice trembles.
“Great. Good for him. God, I can’t take this!
Wait here.” He points to the chair behind his desk. “Don’t move.” His voice
softens, and he tries to take her in his arms. She resists at first and then
slumps against him. “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he says, kissing her
forehead. “I’ll take the rest of the day off, and we can spend it together. Just
us. We can talk, then. Okay?”
She nods against his shoulder. He releases
her and leaves her alone in his office.
* * * * *
Buffy sits
obediently for a few minutes and then starts exploring Angel’s office.
“I’m not snooping. Just checking up,” she tells herself guiltily. After
she searches through his files and finds only lots of boring legal papers on
corporate re-structuring, she sits back down on his desk chair and twirls it
around several times. When it stops spinning, she stares thoughtfully at his
desk and begins searching through the drawers. The drawers are filled with
stationary, pens, and several empty containers of blood.
She pulls on
the lower left-hand drawer; it’s locked. She sits back and stares at the drawer.
With sudden resolve, she yanks the drawer open, breaking the lock.
She
reaches into the drawer, searching blindly with her hand, and touches a metal
box which she withdraws and places on the desk before her. Her heart is beating
rapidly. She opens the box and looks inside.
* * * * *
Gunn
saunters into Wes’ office. Wes is writing furiously on a yellow legal pad. Gunn
leans over and looks at what Wes is writing.
“Excuse me!” Wes exclaims
and turns over the pad. “May I help you?”
“Whatcha doing?”
“A
very difficult translation, thank you very much. Which you’ve interrupted at a
key point. Do you mind?”
“Nope. Not at all.” Gunn sits down on the edge
of Wes’ desk. “What is it?”
Wes eyes Gunn suspiciously and then shrugs
his shoulders. “Well, if you must know, it’s the papers Giles sent out here with
Buffy. They’re the ones Lilah gave to Angel with the amulet. The papers he took
to Buffy before the Sunnydale Apocalypse. Unfortunately, Giles was not up to the
translation task.” Wes gives a smug smile and pushes one of the papers across
the table to Gunn.
“Does Lilah know you’ve got these?” Gunn
asks.
“Not exactly…” Wes replies, a little flustered. “But they’re quite
amazing. Written in an extremely obscure and archaic demonic script. It could
well be an example of the demonic proto-language. If I’m able to translate
this…” Wes gets a dreamy look on his face.
“Fame and glory?” Gunn
laughs.
“Well, yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Nothing.
So any luck?”
“I have managed to identify one word.” Wes preens.
“What’s that?” Gunn asks.
“Quite surprising to find it in such
text; perhaps that’s why it jumped out at me. It’s still in common use in
several demonic dialects to this day. The word hasn’t changed, but I find it
curious…”
“What’s the word?” Gunn interrupts
softly.
“Atgrhz.”
“What’s it mean?”
Wes sits back and gives
Gunn a long look before responding.
“Soul fire.”
* * * *
*
Gunn decides to take the back service stairs which are being repaired.
No sense in arousing suspicion, he thinks. He feels silly, but he wants to slip
out unnoticed. The monitors have been disabled while the construction workers
finish their repairs. As he descends, he must jump over ladders, buckets of
spackle and boards of sheet rock which are propped up haphazardly on the stairs.
When he reaches the first floor, the door to the stairwell swings open,
and a young blonde woman peers inside. They freeze, staring at each other
uncertainly. He recognizes the woman from his waking dream. She recognizes his
eyes and his scent: Old Spice.
“Buffy?”
“You!” she says, backing
away nervously.
He grabs her by the arm and pulls her into the
stairwell. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“I’m hungry,” she lies, trying
to hide the metal box behind her back.
“What’ve you got there?” Gunn
demands.
They wrestle briefly for possession of the box; it slips out of
Buffy’s hand and tumbles down the stairs. They both scramble after it, and then
stop as the box pops open and spills its contents on the floor. In the dark
stairwell, the amulet glows with an unearthly, golden light.
* * * *
*
“Why should I go anywhere with you?” Buffy shouts at Gunn’s retreating
back.
She’s following Gunn as he slips down the dark alley behind the
service entrance to Wolfram and Hart.
“’Cause I’ve got this?” He waves
the amulet over his shoulder and keeps moving. “And you’re a thief?”
“Am
not!”
“Yeah, tell it to Angel.”
This quiets her, and she steps
up beside him. “Where’re we going?”
“To meet a man.”
* * * *
*
Angel’s sitting on Cordelia’s bed. He comes here everyday at precisely
the same time. He’s feeling bad because of the way he shouted at Buffy, but he
couldn’t bring her here. This is his time with Cordelia; somehow he feels that
Cordelia wouldn’t appreciate him dragging Buffy along with him.
He’s
been talking non-stop for several hours. He doesn’t care anymore if the room is
bugged. Sitting on the bed beside her, he holds her hand and tells her about his
day, his worries, his fears and his dreams. She stood by him all those years;
it’s the least he can do for her. They’ve gone through so much and she’s his
friend. Friend. And there’s that thing that remains unspoken between them. He
misses her, that’s all. Misses her.
She’s so vulnerable lying here,
hooked up to life-support machines, and fed intravenously. So beautiful, he
thinks, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead, his fingers lingering against
her skin. So warm. He closes his eyes, and his face hardens as he thinks of what
she’s suffered. What she’s gone through. Will she remember when she awakens? He
doesn’t question that someday she will awaken.
You will wake. That’s all there is to
it. No matter what it takes.
When Lorne first brought Angel the amulet, he
thought it was a fake. But Lorne had convinced him otherwise. One of Lorne's
demon friends had discovered it in a pawnshop twenty miles north of Sunnydale.
After speaking with Buffy, any doubts Angel had, that the amulet was
real, vanished.
At first, she’d told him that both the amulet and Spike
went up in a blaze of glory. But later, when he’d questioned her carefully, she
admitted that she hadn’t seen Spike or the amulet turn to dust. She just assumed
it was so because of the intensity of the fire.
He didn’t press her
further, for when she said the word ‘fire’, she broke down in tears; and Giles
had gotten on the phone and given him a stern lecture about digging up things
that were best left buried. An interesting choice of words, he’d thought at the
time. Spike buried. Spike the hero. Spike averting the apocalypse.
It
was after that phone call that Angel sent Lorne up north to question the owner
of the pawnshop. The amulet had been pawned by a scraggly-looking homeless man
with sharp cheekbones and an even sharper tongue, so the proprietor had claimed.
He began to worry that Spike might not be dead after all. That perhaps
he’d fulfilled the prophecy that Angel always assumed was meant for him.
Shanshu.
His carrot on a string. His destiny.
* * * *
*
Spike is dreaming. He’s in the cavern beneath the school again, pinned
against the wall, pain searing through his chest as the amulet begins to radiate
its deadly light. But whose light is it, really? He groans in his sleep and
flings his hand out of the covers. And then Buffy is there beside him, clasping
his hand. Their hands ignite, and they stare at each other with wonder.
She tells him that she loves him. And he wants to believe her. Wants to
believe more than anything he’s ever wanted in his long, sorry life. But there’s
no time. It’s too late. He can’t watch her die again. So he tries to show her
that he believes her with his eyes, but lies to her with his words. And then
pain, endless pain and a wild joy surge through him. Darkness, darkness
everywhere, and he’s crawling through the rubble calling for her. But she
doesn’t come. She doesn’t come.
PART
THREE
"You shall be bowed and brought to bed with
me..."
“Are you ready?” Gunn says to Buffy, pausing
outside the door to Spike’s apartment. “Get ready for a shock.”
“You’re
pretty annoying. Don’t you know who I…” She gasps as Gunn swings open the
door.
She walks slowly into the small apartment; it’s only a few steps to
the bed shoved up against the wall next to the front door. A man is sleeping on
the bed, his face drawn down into a frown, his fingers curling and uncurling as
if he’s struggling out of a nightmare.
Buffy kneels down next to the bed
and automatically grasps the man’s hand; he squeezes her fingers with almost
inhuman strength. And then his eyes open, and he sees her kneeling beside him,
and he panics.
“I told you to leave!” he shouts incoherently. He releases
her hand and rubs his eyes. He sits up in the bed and pulls the covers about him
protectively.
“Bloody hell, what’s she doing here?” he shouts at Gunn.
“Nice to see you, too, Spike,” Buffy says, sitting back on her heels.
“You look like hell. You look like…” She reaches out her hand to him.
Her hand is shaking. He stares at it and draws away from
her.
“What do you want from me?” he whispers.
* * * *
*
“I’d like to stick around and enjoy your little reunion, but I gotta
get back before I’m missed. So if you two could stop arguing for a minute and
listen to what I have to say, I can get out of here.”
Buffy and Spike
turn to Gunn. In their wild tumble of accusations, they’d forgotten he was in
the room.
“First, Buffy… I need you to write a note to Angel. Something
to keep him off our backs for a while. And second, I’m worried about
Wesley.”
“Wesley?” Spike struggles out of bed, wrapping a sheet around
his waist.
“He’s translating some papers that she,” Gunn smiles at Buffy,
“brought from Giles. Seems they might throw some light on this.” Gunn takes the
amulet out of his pocket and tosses it down on the kitchen table. “Might answer
some of your questions about what happened to your…” Gunn pauses and looks
pointedly at Spike.
“I’ll be back later, if I can get away. Don’t try to
go back to Wolfram and Hart. I have a feeling they’d do just about anything to
get that amulet back. Anything.”
Ten minutes later, Buffy finishes
writing her note to Angel and hands it to Gunn. He stuffs it into his back
pocket, giving them both a stern look. “Why don’t you two talk things over like
adults. And Spike, maybe you can explain your little problem to
her.”
Gunn walks over to Spike and thumps him on the chest and then nods
back at Buffy.
“Adults,” he repeats. as he leaves the
apartment.
* * * * *
Angel leaves Cordelia’s room and runs all the
way back to his office. He hadn’t meant to leave Buffy for so long, but it
couldn’t be helped. When he opens the door to his office, the room is empty. He
closes the door without entering and trudges over to the elevator, thinking that
she’s given up waiting for him and gone back to his penthouse.
“Buffy!
I’m back. Sorry it took so long.” Angel’s voice echoes through the empty
apartment. “Buffy?”
He’s emotionally exhausted, and so, stretching out
on one of his couches in the living room, he waits for her return.
An
hour later, he’s fast asleep and doesn’t notice as someone slips a long, white
envelope beneath his door.
* * * * *
“She just left. No, nothing
happened!” Angel listens to Giles’ angry voice on the other end of the phone
line. “Look, she left me a note. Yeah, it’s her handwriting. Do you think I’m a
fool?” Angel’s face begins to morph at Giles’ response. “I don’t have to take
this, you know. You’re the one who let her come out here by herself. Yeah, she
told me to ship her stuff back to Cleveland. I don’t know, it’s just clothes and
stuff. Makeup? I’m not going to paw through her things. Okay, don’t shout. Just
a second.”
Angel puts down the phone and rubs his ear. He goes into the
room where Buffy’s suitcases are neatly stacked. She hadn’t even unpacked yet.
He locates a small leather case and opens it. Bottles of perfume, make-up and
long, silver and gold tubes of lipstick tumble out of the case. He dumps the
case on the bed and walks back to the phone.
“Yeah, it’s still here. So
what’s the big deal?” He listens as Giles explains to him what a big deal it is.
“You’ve got a point. Okay, okay. I’ll look into it. But she’s gonna be pissed if
nothing’s wrong, you know. At you.” He slams down the phone.
“As if I
don’t have enough things to worry about.”
* * * * *
“What
problem?” Buffy looks at Spike.
“Got no problems. Seems to me you’re the
one with the problem.”
“I don’t have any problems,” she says indignantly.
“Right. Heard that song before.”
“Pig.”
“You’re
insufferable!”
“I’m sorry.” They both speak the words simultaneously and
smile awkwardly at each other.
“What are you sorry for?” she
asks.
“You first,” he replies.
“No, you.”
“You.”
“Still the same, old Spike. Okay. I didn’t know. How could
I know? Last time I saw you, you were all…flamey.”
“Didn’t want to stick
around for the barbecue?”
“That’s cold.”
“No, it was bloody hot,
love. As I recall.”
“So what’s with the breathing and the hair?”
“No peroxide in the wilderness. As for the breathing, I don’t know. A
happy side effect of being burned to a crisp to save your little Scooby hides
and avert the apocalypse?”
“I tried to get you to leave,” she stammers,
tears rising to her eyes.
“You left me.”
“You told me to leave,”
she protests.
“No. You left me...afterward. After I came back to life.
Heard your friends laughing and joking. Heard the bleeding signpost topple over.
Heard you drive away.”
“Oh, my God. How?”
“I was there, trying to
climb out my grave.”
“Spike…”
“I thought you were dead at first.
But then I heard you say my name. Your voice. Most beautiful sound in the
world.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say. You left
me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t hear you. How could I
know?”
“You could’ve come back to check for dust. Maybe if you tried….Oh,
hell, Buffy. It doesn’t matter. Not your problem anymore.”
She has a
sudden urge to bolt from the apartment. Wants to be anywhere but next to this
stranger with Spike’s face. She gazes over at the amulet with a look of
sadness.
“So what’re you sorry for, Spike?” she whispers.
He
follows her glance to the amulet. “Sorry I didn’t stay dead.”
* * * *
*
Gunn doesn’t return to Spike’s apartment that night, and around two
a.m., they’re still awake, discussing what could’ve kept him away.
“Do
you trust him?” Buffy asks.
“As much as I trust anyone in this world.
Which is to say, not much. Humans. He said he might not be able to come back here
tonight. Probably best if he stays away for a while until things settle
down.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Just wait?”
“Yeah. And, if
you don’t mind, I’m gonna sleep.” Spike curls up on the bed and pulls the covers
over his head.
“And where am I supposed to sleep?”
“Don’t care,”
Spike mumbles from beneath the blankets, and a few minutes later, he’s snoring.
Buffy tries sleeping on the small couch; it’s lumpy and smells of
cigarettes. She gets up and roams about the small apartment, angrily eyeing
Spike’s peacefully sleeping form. He rolls over on his side, and she takes the
opportunity to slip onto the bed next to him.
She yanks the pillow from
under his head, and he groans in his sleep and moves further away from her. Soon
she’s fast asleep and dreams that a large, black panther is chasing her through
the mountains.
* * * * *
“Remarkable!” Wes puts down his pen and
leans back in his chair. “Absolutely stunning. Maybe I should call Giles.” He
looks at the small, bronze clock on his desk. “Let’s see, five a.m. in
Cleveland. He won’t mind.”
Wes reaches for the phone and has a second
thought. He doesn’t want the pleasure of his accomplishment spoiled by Giles’
anger. The man never had any discipline. Always slept in to the most unseemly
hours, he thinks to himself.
“Perhaps, Lilah?” He frowns. “No. Angel.
Angel deserves to hear this first.” He sighs to himself and thinks that maybe a
little nap would be nice so he will be refreshed when he presents the
translation to Angel. He lays his head down on his desk and promptly falls
asleep.
A half hour later, a dark form slinks soundlessly into the room
and removes Wesley’s papers from his desk.
* * * * *
The panther
has his paws around her and is chewing contentedly on her neck. She wakes with a
start and gazes blindly into the darkness. But the panther’s paws are still
wrapped around her waist. She grabs onto them. They’re furless, strong and so
familiar. Spike.
“Spike!” She turns in his arms and tries to wake him up.
In his sleep, he pulls her closer, covers her mouth with his and proceeds to
give her a long, warm, deep kiss. She falls into him, falls into a moment of
surrender as his arms grip her tighter, and his kisses grow more ferocious.
She moans and wraps her arms around his neck. Now awakened, he gives a
low groan and rolls on top of her, pinning her against the bed with the length
of his body, his tongue still between her lips. It’s a kiss far beyond hunger or
desire; he kisses her as if his very life depends upon it.
She’s tugging
on his shirt and rips it open, trying to get to his skin; and he shreds her
shirt off in the same, desperate manner. They struggle to a sitting position;
the rest of their clothes end up in a heap on the floor. She reaches over,
placing her hand upon his chest. His skin is warm. His heart races beneath her
fingers.
“What did Gunn mean? What’s wrong with you?” she whispers.
Spikes eyes grow cold and bleak. The look he gives her makes her shiver.
It’s the look of a man without hope.
“I’m alive, Buffy. Alive. But I’ve
lost something.” Turning away from her gaze, he stares down at his hands. “What
am I doing? What are we doing?” He starts to rise from the bed, but she pulls
him back roughly.
“You’re not going anywhere. Do you understand?” She’s
crying now, pulling him down on top of her as she falls back onto the bed. “You
think you’re the only one who’s suffered?”
This time she’s the one
kissing him as if her life depends on it, and they both surrender to each
other’s need. Their coupling is a furious confusion of arms, hands, legs. Lips
are bruised, skin broken, hair pulled. Cries, groans, screams echo through the
night as they merge, rising into a fiery release.
Later, they lie
tangled together, trying to catch their breath.
“Ow,” he says, rubbing
his lip.
“What?”
“You bit me!”
“I didn’t!”
“Got
the blood to prove it. See?”
“Can’t see anything. It’s too dark. Let me
check.” She presses her lips against his, and as she gently licks his bottom lip
with the tip of her tongue, she tastes blood.
“You’re right. Sorry,” she
whispers.
“More,” he groans and nudges her thighs apart with his
knee.
“You want me to bite you again?” She laughs softly, opening herself
to him as he mounts her. “Or is this what you want?” She swings her legs over
his hips and arches up against him as he slowly penetrates her.
They move
gently together, a slow, lush rhythm building between them, their hands entwined
together. She reaches up to kiss him again, but he pulls back, gazing down at
her with soulless eyes as he thrusts inside her.
* * * * *
When
they finally wake, it’s late afternoon, and Gunn hasn’t returned. Spike crawls
from bed and puts on his ragged jeans. Buffy watches as he walks over to the
kitchen table and stares down at the amulet. The amulet is glowing softly in
the light filtering through the partially drawn blinds. Pulling out a chair, he
sits down and contemplates the tool of his destruction. Buffy rises from bed and
stands behind him, resting her hand lightly upon his shoulder. He shrugs her
off, flinching from her touch.
“Nothing’s changed,” he says.
Hurt
by the implication of his words and his withdrawal from her touch, a look of
intense pain crosses her face. She flops down on a chair across from him,
defensively folding her arms across her chest.
“Aren’t you gonna get
dressed?” he asks, not looking at her.
“What’s your problem?” she blurts
out. “Last night. I thought we…”
“There’s no 'we', Buffy. There’s never
been a ‘we’ when it comes to you and me,” he interrupts.
“So last night
was…”
“Just sex. A mistake.”
"Liar," she mutters beneath her
breath.
TBC...
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