Pairing: Willow/Spike
Summary: Spike thinks about Willow's addiction to magick and reaches some conclusions.
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Distribution: If you already have fics of mine, you may have this one. If not, please ask first.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Joss and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
Author's Notes: This fic is for Angel S. Kat told me your birthday was this month. If I'm wrong, I'm so sorry!!!! And just consider this a little gift for a friend!
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Spike finally understood.
It had puzzled him for a long time, Willow's descent into magick addiction. She, out of all the Scoobies, had seemed the most pure, the most immune to the lure of the darkness that constantly surrounded her. But she had fallen, and fallen hard, winding up in thrall to the treacherous Rack and nearly getting Dawn killed. She had risked everything for magick, and Spike wondered why for the longest time.
But now he felt he knew the answer. It wasn't really power Willow had longed for, it was equality. And Spike's gut clenched with the knowledge that he himself might have had a hand in triggering her eventual fall into junkie-pariah-hood. He remembered his words to her that long ago night, calling her a sidekick, a groupie, the Slayer's shadow. And he knew how much those words had hurt her. Did she continue to hear them, echoing within her, reinforcing her ingrained sense of inferiority, driving her to greater and greater lengths to prove she was as good as the rest of them.as good as Buffy?
Spike's undead heart ached with the empathy he suddenly felt for the outcast redhead. He knew too well what it was like to strive so hard and do so much to prove oneself and have it all be for naught. Spike had killed two Slayers and blazed a trail of blood and gore across three continents and still, both Angelus and Dru had abandoned him. And now look at him, chipped, helpless and the Slayer's sex toy.
Then there was Willow, who had tried so hard to be more than just the geeky-research-gal-cum-patronized-Wicca. Look at where she was now. Alone, cast out, scorned, hated and reviled by everyone. Even the lover she had so tenderly cared for after Glory's assault on her very mind. Willow was more like Spike than he would have ever dreamed possible. And how unlikely was that?
Well, outcasts should stick together, Spike decided. And it was time he let the little witch know that she wasn't alone after all. With that thought in mind, he headed off in search of Willow, suddenly feeling less lonely than he ever had, and determined to make her feel the same way.
The End