********************

 

Spike took another deep swig of the warm liquid in his mug and kept talking. "I don't know why I let myself keep living like this, Joyce.  I mean, look at me. I'm pathetic. I should just talk a nice long walk in the sun and end it all."

Spike felt Joyce's hand entwine with his own and he felt her hand raising his dejected chin. She smiled at him the same way any mother smiles to one of her children in need.  "I don't want to hear you talking like that again, Spike. You are a big scary vampire and the most evil person I've ever met." The hand that hand lifted his chin was now squeezing his shoulder, "I'm sure you'll be back on you're feet in no time."

For some strange reason, Spike felt instantly better. He didn't know why but this dear woman always knew how to cheer him up with cocoa and a smile.

"Thanks Joyce, yer a right ol' bird."

"You're very welcome." Joyce said with a grin before taking a sip of cocoa, "You ain't so bad yourself."

"Y'know, Joyce, I was wondering. Have you ever given eternal life any thoughts?"

Joyce laughed deeply and had to keep herself from spilling her drink all over her sundress. "I'm sorry to turn you down, Spike, but I don't date older men."

Spike put on a mock look of hurt before collapsing into giggles himself. 
 

********************
 

Buffy settled into Riley's embrace, well aware of what a traitorous thing she had been doing.

Thinking about Spike while making love to Riley, she was pretty certain Anya had cast spells over people for doing that sort of thing. Unfortunately, she couldn't seem to care.

She just wished she had someone to talk to about this.

"Buffy, you've been distant all night and its got me worried. What's wrong?" Riley was looking down on her with soft eyes and an open heart. She really wanted to tell him something but knew that the last thing she could do was ask Riley advice about picking up another man. Unless….

The lie was out of her mouth before she had time to reconsider.

"Dawn. I-it's Dawn."

Riley shifted in bed to face me at eye level. "What about her?"

Buffy took a deep breath and tried not give anything away. She tried to separate her self from the situation.  "She's going on and on about this boy at school and I'm worried that he may break her heart or something."

"That's no big deal, you just have to make sure this guy is worthy of your little sister's affection." Riley muttered with a yawn. This was not a conversation he wanted to have at 11:30 pm; it required way too much thought.

"But how do I know that? How do I know if he's a good person?" She tried to keep the desperation from her voice but some of it got through, giving her words a strangled quality.

Riley thankfully didn't notice, "All people are generally good, Buffy, you just have to dig deep enough." Smiling warmly again, Riley wrapped his arms around her and began to rock her slowly. "Hey, its late why don't we just get back to-"

"I have to go." Buffy was on her feet and in her jeans faster then most track stars.
 

********************
 

Spike groaned when he reached into his pocket only to retrieve nothing.

He was officially out of cigarettes. That wouldn't have been so bad if he had money in his other pocket.

He needed to make some cash really fast before he ran out of blood too.  Unfortunately he had a small problem with that to.

Spike couldn't just beat someone up and rob them, now he had to earn money like everybody else.

He smirked wickedly.

Or steal it from someone who owed him something anyway.


******************** 
 

There had to be something.

After breaking into the apartment, Buffy had practically torn apart every book and Watcher's diary Giles owned looking for the information that she needed to justify her feelings.

"He can't be all bad." She whispered, "I'd never love someone who was all bad!"

She would have accepted anything at this point. A death certificate, a police report, a theater ticket, anything at all that could prove that Spike had once been a good person.

It had taken her all night but her search finally led her to a very large tome of several volumes that was buried next to her Watcher's copy of "Egon's Spirit Guide"

She smiled when she saw the title:

Great Figures of Vampire History in Three Volumes
revised twelfth edition
Watcher's Press 1999

"Gotcha!" She cooed.
 

********************
 

Spike smiled as the front door of the Magic Box opened with a satisfying click. If there was one thing Spike still had it was a set of lock picks and the knowledge to use them. With the silence of most household cats, Spike stepped over the threshold and into the
darkened shop. His game face whispered silently into place and the darkened world became a little brighter to his demon eyes.

He had only walked two and a half feet into the store before Giles decided it was time to switch on the lights. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"

Spike froze in mid stride. He struggled to think up an appropriate quip or jib for the situation but instead could only manage:

"Working late, Old Bean?" 

Spike could plainly see the rage on the other man's face but he was surprised to see betrayal too. Like a teacher who caught his star pupil cheating.

"Yes, `Old Bean' I was!" Giles practically spat the words in Spike's direction. There was a terrible fire in the old man's eyes that the vampire had never seen before. Something that gave him the distinct feeling he was about to be on the wrong end of a stake.

A hasty retreat was definitely in order.

"Well, Rupes, I guess you're pretty busy. I should be goin'…" Turning slowly away, Spike tried to keep his cool. He tried not to start running like hell out the door like a scared child; problem was he didn't feel especially safe with his back to the angry Watcher.

He was almost home free when he heard three words float into his ears.

"What a waste."

There had been a million things that he'd expected to hear Rupert say. `Get out of my shop.'  Or `I should stake you, you heartless bastard.' had been naturally been at the top of his list but what he said just now…

That wasn't even on the same planet.

Spike whirled around to face Giles eye to eye, daring him to explain. "'Scuse me mate?" He let the menace soak into his cockney accent for maximum effect. "What's that s`posed to mean?" Sure, he'd been caught stealing.

But that didn't mean he was going to take any shit for it.

Giles returned the glare with equal the intensity. After all, he had a right to be confidant.

This was his home turf. It was an entire building filled to the brim with occult books and devices that Giles could easily turn against any enemy that dared stumble into it.

Including any would be burglars like Spike.

"You know exactly what I mean, vampire!"

"Pretend I don't!"

Giles edged closer, he was a little taller the Spike so he let his shadow fall over him. He removed his glasses as though he was preparing for a fist fight. "Its very simple, Spike." He said evenly, but allowing him to hear just how pissed he really was, "It has to do
with potential…"
 

****************
 

Buffy had tried to flip through the book that might've contained Spike in it quickly but realized she wasn't pressed for time and allowed herself to be sidetracked when she saw her name under one of the entries. It said:

/…this demon's reign was brought to a deserving end by Elizabeth Anne Summers, a slayer operating in the Los Angeles area at the time. Sadly, Lothos killed her Watcher (Merrick, Michael- see also Nichol the Terrible and The Merrick Family) before she was able to accomplish this…/

Buffy sighed. Poor Merrick, she thought.

If she had it to do all over again she would've stuck a bigger stake in Lothos' evil ass, him and that stupid Pee-wee Herman minion of his.

Returning from her trip down memory lane, Buffy again began flipping through the book until she reached the `W' section.

To her immense convenience, Spike's article began on the first page.
 

***************************
 

"Potential? What in the hell are you talking about?" Spike was growing impatient and considered punching Giles despite the chip. What right did this old fart have to call HIM a waste?

Giles wasn't at all afraid of the chipped vampire; he stared back with a matching intensity. "That chip in your head, Spike, it's giving you a second chance and you're wasting it."

Spike snorted and smirked at Giles like he was crazy.

The Watcher continued his speech as though Spike had never responded. "I told you before, everything happens for a reason. Even that chip." He pointed at the spot on the vampire's head that most likely held the electronic device, "That chip was your destiny, a destiny that could be used to save thousands of lives. You have second chance to be a good man, to atone for your mistakes and have the life that I assume you never got to have." The finger that had been pointing at the chip returned to pointing at Spike's face like an unspoken accusation. "But what do you do with this chance, Spike?
Nothing. You sit and whine and scheme instead of using all that intelligence and power to help-"

In that moment, Spike had heard enough. He quickly let his human
guise slid from his face and revealed the demon beneath.

"Help who, Rupert? My fellow man? You got the wrong vampire, mate! The guy you want lives in LA and has a cute lil' cheerleader in a Gucci dress for a secretary." He grinned broadly to show off the pearly fangs resting just past his lips, "Me, I'm a killer. A demon. I don't save the innocent; I tear their throats out and drink their blood. This chip in me `ead? It ain't my destiny, it's a set back. A set back that I'll be getting' rid of real soon."

Giles sneered at the vampire with disgust, "And when you do? What then?"

A hideous skin crawling cackle erupted from the blonde demon and there was suddenly a glint of something in his gold eyes. "What then? Why I think I'll come back to this town and kill that fuckin' Slayer o' yours. I'll snap her neck real quick, like a chicken bone. Then I'll go to work on those Scoobies. First the whelp and followed that stupid dyke witch an' `er girl friend."

He carefully laid a hand on Giles' shoulder in a way that almost seemed tender. For a second, The Watcher wished he had some kind of skin disease so that the vampire could catch it and spend the rest of eternity writhing in pain.

"But you, Giles," Spike continued, "You I'd save `fer last. I'd torture you for days until you begged for mercy. Then I'd turn ya and make you my glorified pet for a hundred years before finally staking you with your own glasses."

Satisfied that he'd driven his point home, Spike stepped back and slid his human guise back on. He waited to hear the Watcher scream at him with rage or disgust. He gleefully pictured the Old man as he throwing a punch at his face and instead hurting his back.

Giles did neither. He merely asked in calm and even tone, "What about Joyce?"

"What?"

"What are you going to do to Joyce? And Dawn? How are you going to kill them?" Giles paused and smiled, "or are you going to?"

Spike faltered as he felt his face twitch, "C-course, I am!"

"Then how are you going to do it, Spike?" Giles' smile grew broader and more sinister, "Come on, tell me. How is the fearsome Slayer-killer going to finish off the Slayer's family? Will you snap Joyce's neck and drink her blood or are just going to, as you put
it, `torture her for days'? Will you make a mess? Will her gore be everywhere?"

Spike suddenly felt sick, like someone had spiked his blood with garlic. "Shut up you crazy old fool!"

Giles paid him absolutely no mind what so ever and continued talking, "Tell me, Spike, what kind of hell would you inflict on Dawn? Will you rape her before you kill her, like Angelus would have?"

"Shut up!"

"Yes, I bet you would, wouldn't you. Give the little girl one last thrill before sending her off to see her sister. Let her die as a woman. Or maybe you'll turn her. After all, you need to make money some how, right? You could turn her and then sell her to all your
demon friends. Think she's worth five bucks a go, mate?"

"SHUT UP GODDMANIT!"

As Giles had been speaking, Spike had been seeing images of Dawn as the Watcher had described her. A vampire hooker working the streets for blood and money, dropping to her knees for any man that was willing to pay her price. He saw a parade of demons lining up to buy her wares and he shuddered. That was wrong. It was wrong. Dawn was so young; she had her whole existence ahead of her. It would be wrong to
condemn her to that life.

And Spike knew that if anyone ever did, he'd kill them.

She was innocent and Spike was already protecting her. What was wrong with him? What kind of vampire protects innocent little girls and their mothers?

Giles chuckled menacingly at the reaction his words were having. When he spoke again, it was as though he was reading the vampire's mind. "You're a demon, Spike why should you care what happens to them. Aren't you a bad evil man?"

Feeling empty inside, Spike pushed past Giles and strode quickly out the door, the Watcher's voice still ringing in his ears.

Giles' evil grin turned into a soft, thankful smile. "Some demon." He said with relief.

No matter what he was going to gain or lose in his life, Giles was forever thankful he was a good judge of character.





TBC...