Email: humbuggirl@hotmail.com
URL: http://www.geocities.com/humbuggirl or http://www.geocities.com/oddfiction
Pairing: Willow/Spike (friendship)
Rating: PG13 (I think), for imagery.
Summary: Spike POV on life before and after the season 6 finale. Spoilers: Post season 6 finale, I think it was called `Grave' but I'm useless with names.
Disclaimer: None of the BtVS or Angel characters belong to me. The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui, Sandollar, and Greenwolf Productions, 20th Century Fox, the WB Network, and whoever else may have a hold on them.
Author's Notes: 1) In this Spike doesn't have a soul. That plotline just bugs me for some reason. 2) I'm not sure whether I'm happy with this or not. It was just intended as something to get me back into the habit of writing shorter stories instead of all the mammoth pieces I seem to be working on at the moment. 3) This isn't beta'd because my beta hasn't got around to it and I'm impatient.
Feedback: Please.
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Little swirls of darkness seemed to make their way about her. They danced about making delicate, wispy patterns that disappeared nearly as quickly as they had at first appeared. They teased him, made him want to look again and again in her direction until he was sure that he was going to get caught staring. They seemed to make that possibility an acceptable risk when every rational part of his mind told him that wasn't the truth.
He had yet to decide whether these little manifestations he saw were really there or part of some hallucination. But he didn't ask anyone else if they saw them because he knew that to do so would set of a whole chain of reactions that might end in them trying to destroy the sight which he found to be intriguing and rather magnificent. They would rush around her, asking her what the matter was and reminding her that she didn't have to do anything that might put her in danger. They would reprimand her for delving into things that they dare not even look at, but that she had the courage to actually use and bend to her will. And he knew that when they did some of the light in her would go out. The knowledge pained him for some reason.
It had been a pleasure to sit back and watch her slow descent. And the process was slow, with many smaller things precipitating it until they snowballed and she was forced to accept those dark thoughts that had been tugging at her mind for so long. He wished that he could have walked over to her and embraced her, told her that it was natural and it was just another facet to her skills developing but instead they, her friends, had driven it back down inside of her until it was packed away in a tight ball and there was a huge void inside of her where it should have been.
And how glorious it would have been if she had only learned how to control it instead of trying to bury it when it was that just could not have stayed buried. Spike could have told them that. He could have told them of the madness that took hold when the power broke free again and took control of the person who should have been controlling it. He found it irritating that they seemed to think this was the first time that something like this had happened.
Of course when it did break free it was still a beautiful thing. It was a raging storm of pure power and emotions spreading out over the globe so that even creatures in the furthest most reaches of the planet trembled with fear and anticipation. A few phone calls had told him of men and women suddenly dropping dead in the streets as the psychic waves ripped through their minds leaving them unable to go on. They told him of animals going mad, turning rabid and killing each other, attacking their owners and gnawing on their own flesh, heedless of the pain it caused them. There were reports of earthquakes and floods and of lava gushing from long thought extinct craters. He heard of men and women turning mad as the wave passed by them and of prophets rising to tell of the approaching end of the world. There were five reports of stigmata like wounds appearing on bodies of children and the births of strange creatures the world had never seen before as peculiar storms raged overhead. It was magnificent and Spike almost believed for a second that it would have been a good time to die despite whatever he might have said in the past.
He would never tell any of the people in Sunnydale about these events though for fear of what they might decide to do about the cause of them. Though if he had told them he imagined that they would at last realise the enormity of the events they were trying to control and maybe, just maybe hold the power's source in a new regard. It seemed like a vain dream.
They thought they had bound her magic deep within her forever with chains made of spells and ancient runes and it made them feel safe again. It made them able to look at her again even after all she had done. But Spike could still see wisps of darkness dancing about her just waiting for a fleeting moment during which they would once again be able to invade her body again and tempt her to use them.
Whether or not the witch was aware of them Spike did not know. She lived her days now in quiet contemplation, rarely speaking to anyone and often hiding away in her darkened room for hours at a time until one or another of the Scoobies would work themselves into a worried enough state to go upstairs and check on her. On the few occasions she would sit around with them then she would remain withdrawn despite however much the others tried to pull her into a conversation. When she did answer she was often monosyllabic, just saying `yes' or `no' or even `if you think so' and many times she would not answer at all as the guilt that welled in her heart continued to eat away at her. And Spike knew that it was that, the guilt and her overactive conscious, and not the magic that would eventually kill her.
He wanted to go to her and tell her to wake up. He wanted to sit her down and talk at her until she woke up to the fact that the magic was a part of her that had always existed and that she just needed to learn how to control it. He wanted to tell her that everyone was allowed a little revenge and remind her that she hadn't been exactly herself at the time. He wanted to tell her that if anyone of her friends had been in the same situation then they would undoubtedly have reacted the same. And that now he thought about it, hadn't the Watcher once tried to kill Angelus because vampire had killed his love. He wanted to tell her that it had been that Warren bloke who had been evil, not her and that she had just ridded the world of just another sort of demon in the disguise of a human being.
He wanted her to be Willow again. He wanted her to be the girl who had offered him a cookie because she was trying to make up for something that she had believed was another great evil even though he was a demon. He wanted her to be the girl who had looked after him when he had first approached the Scoobies and who had tried to comfort him when he had failed while trying to kill her because even he had been all too aware of the fact that despite everything else she was a good person.
Suddenly he became aware that she had stopped pretending the read the book that had been in front of her for the last hour and was staring at him while he had been staring at her. Spike blinked wondering whether he had been imagining it and she quickly looked away again. "Was there something you wanted Spike?" she asked quietly and to him her voice sounded hoarse after being quiet for so long.
"No."
There was bitterness in her voice when she next spoke that he found surprising. "Then why are you still here? The others have been gone ages and the last I heard I hadn't been assigned a babysitter."
"Can't a bloke sit in the quiet and have a cig, pet?" he asked beginning to search through his pockets until he came up with the item in question.
"You weren't smoking."
"I am now."
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "You don't have to stay."
Phrasing the question carefully he asked, "What if I want to? Would you object?"
"No," she answered and as she did a pale blush washed over her cheeks.
"Then if it's okay with you I think I'll stay around for a while. Then, if you decide you want to talk there'll be someone here."
"You think I need to talk?"
"I think you want to talk but you haven't quite figured out how yet. Either that or you need to talk to someone who won't tut at you every other sentence."
There was a pause during which the room remained quiet. "Thank you, Spike."
"You're welcome, pet. You just let me know when you're ready."
THE END