Title: Dreams of Death
Author: Kylia
Email: kylia_bug@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Nobody belongs to me, unfortunately. They belong to Joss & Mutant Enemy, and a few other people I don't know.
Rating: NC-17 - eventually
Spoilers: Wild At Heart, Lover's Walk, Graduation Day.
Category: Willow/Spike
Summary: Fate has brought Willow & Spike together… or has it?
Distribution: Fire & Ice Of Sire & Childe, anyone else, ask, and you shall receive
Author's Notes: Something new. Takes place Early Season 4; Spike was never captured by the Initiative; There are some references to a friendship between W/A friendship from season 3.
Dedication: To my girls; Kaitelynn.

Angel paced around the office, stopping every once in awhile to glance at the clock. He heard the chains rattling again and turned towards Spike, who was moving towards the elevator.

"You don't want to go down there." He warned.

Spike shot Angel a look. "Well someone has to. She could be hurting herself down there." He entered the elevator and leaned against the wall, as it made it's decent.

He didn't know what was going on. Why he had spent so many days, and nights dreaming about Willow's life. Things he couldn't possible have known. Things he never would have guessed. He didn't know why some unseen force had drawn him to her. It controlled him, drove him.

Angel had told him about Willow's dreams and he found himself at a loss to explain it. What he found most disturbing was the vision of Willow as an evil creature of the night. Logically, he should relish the idea of a vampire that could rival even Angelus in cruelty. A vampire as stunning as Willow would be. A vampire that could be his equal.

However, the thought of his Willow as a soulless killer bothered him to no end. He had seen her, as no one else had, through his dreams. He knew her like no one else had ever dared. He knew all parts of her, not just the parts she showed the world. And while he could sense darkness in her, it didn't consume her.

He had fallen in love with the Willow he had seen, the real Willow, and didn't want her to get lost in the primal urges of her demon. He didn't know what had driven him to take her life, to change her. Angel believed it was a sort of fate, and although he didn't believe in such things, Spike was unable to come up with another explanation, rational or not.

When he entered the apartment, he could hear her rattling around in the chains. He could feel her; she was calling to him.

"Spikey?" She sing-songed. "I know that's you. Come out, come out. Willow wants to play."

Spike entered the bedroom and stared down at her. She was magnificent. A truly stunning creature. She had power; he could feel it, coming off of her in waves. He refrained from stepping any closer.

Standing there, watching her, he realized that she was his equal. She was his mate.

Giles practically ran into the office. He looked around the room. "Where is she? Is she alright?"

Angel nodded. "She's been restrained." He handed the print out to Giles. "Can you make any sense of this. Will the curse work for her?"

Giles took the paper and scanned the ritual over. Something about two-thirds of the way down caught his eye. "No, that's not right. He shook his head as he sat down in a chair. "This doesn't make any sense."

"What?" Angel asked concerned.

Giles ignored him and read through the paper again. "Good lord, what has she done?"

"Giles?" Angel asked frantically. He didn't know what they would do if the spell wouldn't work for her.

"Well, according to this," he pointed to a spot on the paper. "This ritual is similar to yours, but not. It's actually more of a binding ceremony than a restoration."

"Will it work?"

Giles sighed. "I think so. It'll bind her soul and her demon together, tempering the demon, but…"

"But what?" Angel all but growled.

"Well, it won't work unless…." He paused and looked up at the vampire. "She needs to be bonded, blood-bonded, to her soul mate. Which we can't do if we don't know who that is." He explained.

"Not a problem." Angel answered quickly, relieved that it wasn't something more difficult.

Giles eyed the vampire curiously. "Do you know something that I don't?"

"Come on, Lover, just think of all the death, the blood, the violence. Think of the way the slayer's blood will taste going down your throat." Willow tempted him, her voice low and seductive.

"You know you want it. You want me." She purred.

Spike turned towards the bedroom door and left without replying. It was so tempting. To go to her, release her, make her his. Her words brought a thrill through his body. But it was only short-lived. He knew that in the end, it was his Willow he wanted, not this new version.

He didn't know when his thoughts had become so twisted, but he knew there wasn't much he could do about it now. And truthfully there wasn't much he wanted to do.

He left the apartment, hearing her rattling the heavy chains as she screamed insults at him. He hoped that the watcher could finish what Willow had started, otherwise, eternity wasn't looking nearly as promising as it once had.

Angel couldn't help the grin, which appeared over his normally stoic features. "Spike."

Giles looked strangely at the vampire, sure he had misheard him. "Sp... Spike?" He asked. That couldn't be what he said that was just… ludicrous.

"That's what he said, mate." Spike grinned as he walked into the room, but Angel could see the expression didn't reach his eyes. He looked the Watcher over for a second before turning to his sire. "Well?"

Angel grabbed the paper out of Giles grasp and handed them to Spike. "It's a binding spell. Binding her soul and demon together." Angel explained.

"It's more than that." Giles interrupted after he regained some composure. When the two vampires turned to look at him, he continued. "This ritual will bind her soul to her demon, but at the same time it will bind her demon to another… to her soul mate, for lack of a better word. But…" He paused not knowing exactly how to tell them the rest.

"Get on with it!" Spike snapped.

Giles glared briefly before sleeping back into his 'lecture voice'. "This ritual, it's permanent, there's no way around it once its complete. No clauses, no hidden loopholes, no magic could undo it."

Spike turned to look at his sire, clearly not understanding how that could be a bad thing. Angel shrugged slightly and turned to Giles. "What else?"

Giles sighed. "I know you want to help her, so do i. But this isn't something you can do without thinking about the consequences."

"What consequences?" Spike all but snarled. He didn't like the thought that Willow could be in some sort of danger.

Giles turned to the blonde vampire, his gaze never wavering as he explained. "If you do this, it will be forever, for eternity. You can't bind yourselves together and then decide later you want to go your separate ways." He told him solemnly.

"Never happen." Spike's voice was so serious, Giles couldn't help but believe him.

"There's more." He stared. "She'll be different. She'll have her soul, but she won't be like Angel." He looked from one vampire to other and then back again finally settling on Spike. "Nor will she be like you." He took a deep breath. "Her soul won't prevent her from killing, but I thin that it will keep her from killing discriminately."

Spike took in what he said. She wouldn't be a killer, at least not as she was at that moment. That was good. And if she wouldn't be a brooding mess like his pouf of a sire, that was also good. He looked up at the watcher. "So, lets get started already!"

Several hours later, the three men surrounded the bed Willow was chained to. She had this amused expression of her face, not entirely pleasant.

"Why do you resist, luv? You know you want it? You want me." She asked seductively as Giles set out the supplies.

Spike groaned to himself. The sexually sound to her voice was beginning to wear him down. His demon rejoiced at her power, her desire. He couldn't deny her, but he couldn't succumb either.

"Ready?" Angel asked, breaking Spike out of his internal debate.

Spike nodded and stepped into the circle as Giles handed him the dagger he would need to cut himself if Willow refused to bite.

Giles handed a bowl to Angel, who bit into his wrist and dropped a few drops into it before handing it over to Spike. His blood wasn't necessary, but since he was Spikes sire, and Willow's grand sire, his blessing, given in blood would strengthen the bond.

Spike accepted the bowl with a nodded and a silent thank you, and turned back to the bed. Willow was sitting completely still, but he could see the golden flecks in her green eyes. She was restraining the demon, which he found to be impressive considering how young she was, and the fact that she had been chained to a bed for hours on end.

"Will I need this?" Spike asked her with the raise of his scarred eyebrow as he motioned with the knife.

"Will you enjoy it?" She asked him, a smile quirking on her lips.

Spike bit off his retort as he heard Giles start the chant. He offered his wrist to her. For a moment she hesitated and he was about to pull it away when he saw her face shift and she savagely bit into his cold skin. Spike closed his eyes and felt his own demon take root as the pleasurable sensations washed over him. If he hadn't felt the firm, but reassuring hand of his sire on his shoulder, he may have forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

Pulling his wrist away, he squeezed some of the dripping blood into the bowl. With a strength he didn't know he possessed, Spike avoided Willow's feral gaze, which was hitting his cold flesh. He grasped her wrist and tore into it with a savagery similar to her own. He sucked some of her blood into his mouth and smirked into her cool skin as he heard her moan in pleasure.

Remembering why he was feeding off of her, Spike moved the bowl under where his mouth and her wrist met. He pulled away gently and let her blood dribble into the blood already mixing at the bottom.

Listening to Giles continue the chant, Spike finally allowed his eyes to meet hers, and took a deep unnecessary breath at what he saw there. No longer was their barely restrained rage, but acceptance, and something he had never seen her eyes, not as a mortal, and not as a vampire. Love.

"My blood to your blood." He took a drink of the blood. It was rich, and powerful.

"My demon to your demon." He tilted the bowl to her lips and watched as she drank.

"I bind the to me."

There was a strange light and their bodies were surrounded by a bluish glow. Almost as soon as it had started it was over. It had so quickly, Giles, as the only non-vampire in the room, wasn't even sure if it had.

When Spike's eyes readjusted to the darkness and turned towards his mate. She was unconscious, and looked truly dead, but her pale skin just added this ethereal beauty to her magnificence.

"Did it work?" Giles asked, unsure if anything had actually been accomplished.

Spike stood up and left the room to shower and change. She probably wouldn't waken for awhile and then they would have lots to discuss.

After Spike had left, Angel turned towards the watcher who was nervously gathering the supplies. "It worked."

Giles stopped and faced the vampire. "Are you certain?"

Angel nodded. "She's different I can feel it." He paused, not sure how he was going to say what he needed to. "I think it's time for you to go."

Giles blanched. "What?"

Angel sighed uselessly. "She'll wake up… eventually, and she'll have… questions. She probably won't want to see you, or anyone really."

Giles thought about what Angel had said. "You're here. Spike is here."

Angel ran a hand through his hair and walked out of the room, willing the watcher to follow him. For all of Giles' knowledge, and wisdom, there was stills o much he didn't know, or understand.

"We are the same." He stated simply, knowing that that wasn't an explanation, but he really had no desire to elaborate further, unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Because of your soul? Angel I told you…" Giles started before Angel cut him off.

"No, we're family. I'm her grandsire, Spike is her mate." He stopped, hoping that would be enough, and then turned his dark eyes to the watcher. "Rupert, we're vampires. No amount of soul restoration will change that. Some things don't change. Something never will. Some things… we don't want to change." He said the last part quietly, but Giles heard him.

As the meaning to his words sunk into Giles brain, he stood up. "Yes, well, I'll be… I'll be going." He turned towards the door, but stopped before he reached it. "You'll take care of her?" He asked without turning around.

"Yes." Angel spoke softly.

Giles nodded and left the office. Angel sank into the couch and ran another hand through his hair. He hadn't meant to say some of those things to Giles, but he didn't think that the watcher would have left anyway. How would he explain to a man he had once tortured that although he now had his soul, and his guilt weighed heavily on his conscious, he didn't not wish to loose who he was and become something he could no longer being.

Although he knew that Willow had been a vampire for less than twenty-four hours, he also recognized something in her, something he knew would not go quietly back to what she had been. She was forever changed now. But maybe she really hadn't changed that much; maybe the turning had simply released something that had always been there.

Either way, things had gotten extremely more complicated.

Willow sat at the table staring into the red liquid growing cold in the mug. It wasn’t that she was disgusted by the substance, because she wasn’t. It wasn’t even that she wasn’t hungry, because she was, but feeding wasn’t at the top of things she felt she should be doing, regardless of its necessity.

Her life had changed drastically in the past twenty-fours hours. She had died, and been reborn, into something new, something different. Despite what one would think, she wasn’t angry or disgusted or even afraid of what she had become. It felt natural, normal somehow.

Willow had woken up with an odd sense of clarity. She knew what she was, and how she had come to be. She remembered everything that had happened. Every dream had etched itself into her mind. Every feeling which had dominated her now made sense.

Her senses were on overdrive. She could feel things in the air, hear the sounds surrounding her, see patterns in things she had never before witnessed, taste the very essence of life that permeated this place.

She had never known the silence of death, and had it not been for the rushing sound of blood through the veins of a friend, she wouldn’t not have known it now. Cordelia had entered the office above them several hours ago. She could feel her life, her blood as it pounded in her heart. Willow wondered briefly if it was always this way for Angel, but then realized it didn’t matter. They were not the same. Similar maybe, but he had his own path, as did she. *They* had told her as much.

Willow struggled to regain consciousness. She could feel her mate close-by, but she was still drifting in the nowhere place between the sleep of death, and the comprehensibility of life.

"Vampire, you have come full circle" A voice sounded from somewhere inside her own mind, but it was not her own.

"What?" She asked silently, somehow knowing the voice would understand.

"You have chosen the right path. You’re a warrior for our cause."

Willow’s mind searched for the meaning behind the words, finally settling on something angel had once told her.

"Like Angel?"

"He fights for redemption, your is another path." The voice paused a moment before continuing. "You have chosen well, continue to do so, and all will become clear."

Willow turned around from her place at the table when she felt his presence.

"You haven’t eaten." Spike sat at the table across from her.

Willow looked down into the cooled liquid. Allowing her face to shift, she drank the blood, feeling it sate her hunger. Her golden eyes met Spike’s blue as she set the mug back onto the table.

"Better?"

Willow nodded as she face shifted back to her human guise. "What now?"

Before he could answer, Angel stepped into the kitchen. The two vampires turned to him.

"Delia’s had another vision."

Willow quirked an eyebrow. "And?"

"A small clan in New Orleans. Taking a bite out of Mardi Gras." Angel stared pointedly at Willow, daring her to deny what he was implying.

"You think this is where we’re supposed to go?" She asked, knowing that it was true.

Angel nodded. Willow sighed fruitlessly and stood up. She held out a cool hand to Spike. "I think this is our cue to leave, Blondie."

Angel watched the couple leave his kitchen. "You’ll always have a home here." He told them honestly.

Willow smiled and walked back to her grandsire. She cupped his cheek. "And we will be back… someday."

Angel returned her smile and gripped her wrist firmly before speaking. "Don’t deny what you are, Willow, it will only go badly… for all of us."

Willow grinned, kissing his cheek. "I know."

Angel watched as his childe and grandchilde left. He sat in his apartment for nearly an hour, unmoving. When Cordelia had had the vision, he had known immediately what it meant. He knew that Willow’s destiny had been steadily unfolding and it was now time for her to continue her journey.

He would miss them both, and hoped that one day they would see each other again. Until then, they each had something they needed to be doing.


The End


Their adventures will be furthered in The Path of Darkness Series