Spike took one last glance at his sleeping mate, before silently heading out of their bedroom. It was a quarter to seven and normally she’d be up by now but after yesterday and their night together, he knew she needed rest. He had no doubt she’d stir soon, his girl wasn’t one to laze in bed when there was work to be done but he wanted her to stay asleep as long as possible.
Moving down the stairs he noticed the various glares aimed in his direction and merely looked at Wes expectantly.
“You and Buffy were…err…quite vocal for most of the night.” Wes explained picking up his teacup. More than once he and Doyle had stopped someone from racing upstairs to ‘rescue’ Buffy and when they finally realized what was going on the situation had gotten even more awkward. But since he and Fred had no trouble falling asleep he focused on the more pressing matter. “I take it that your demon has returned to its rightful place?”
“Yeah but we’ll talk about that later.” Spike said not bothering to apologize for keeping the others awake. They hadn’t been loud on purpose but after living in the hotel they’d fallen out of the habit of keeping their voices down. “We need to have a little talk about the way things are gonna be around here. Buffy’s taking care of the big things but she’s not fighting this battle alone, we work as a team. You all keep expecting her to handle everything, explain everything and she’s got her hands full. So simply put you do what you can and earn your keep or you don’t get kept. Anyone that doesn’t like it can get the hell out right now because she did come here to do everything for you she came to help.”
Once again angry and moody as magick withdraw had set in Willow let out a bitter snort. “She comes back and expects us to be her obedient servants, all with the bowing and scraping huh.”
Narrowing his eyes Spike held back his temper and sent her a challenging smile. “She warded the house, kicked Glory’s ass and straightened out Angel…what did you do yesterday?” She flushed guiltily and he let his smile grow. “That’s right you sat around snippingat her while she’s was out there risking everything to save your bird.”
“Buffy can’t die, so it’s not like she’s risking anything.” Willow shot back.
“She told you herself that everything that lives can be killed, same goes for her and she feels pain, just like we do.” Spike said wishing he could just snap the bitch’s neck and be done with it. “She risking even more because we can only die once but if Glory captured her, she could kill her hundreds of times in an effort to find what she wants. She’d have to because Buffy would die a thousand times, a hundredthousand times to keep others safe and all she’s asking is return for all that she’s willing to do, is for you to help. She doesn’t want minions, she wants the same kind of support she gets back home for our team.”
“I would have been able to help if she hadn’t stolen my magicks!” Willow said viciously.
“She didn’t steal them she bound you so that you wouldn’t kill anyone else!” Spike shot back, reaching the very limit of his patience. “You murdered her and the soulless monster that I am, was the one to give her mercy! So what in the bloody hell does that say about you? Sides, you used to help before you learned your first incantation so that’s no excuse. Buffy saved her mum without her powers, Wes, Fred and Gunn all help out so that proves that you are capable of doing something as well.”
“You..ki..killed her?” Tara asked softly, her musical voice tinged with sadness.
“Tara, baby you don’t understand if she hadn’t run away you wouldn’t have been hurt.” Willow explained quickly, finding her reasoning rational inside her mind. “Her powers were given to her so she could help people so she should have been here to protect you.”
“Willow she has been helping people but she’s only one girl…she can’t always be there.” Tara reached out and took Willow’s hands in her own. “She also had every right to save herself when her life got to be too much. The point is that she came here to help because she wanted to and all Spike is doing is asking us to help her save us. I know you’re worried about me Willow but you can’t blame her for what’s happening because it’s not her fault. She didn’t choose to be a Slayer anymore than I chose to be the key.”
“Knew I liked you.” Spike said giving the shy blonde wicca a wink before turning to Wes. “Alright now you want to tell me how my demon went for a little walk?”
“You connection to one another obviously,” Wes said with a smirk before he reaching up to rub at his temples. “But what you two share is beyond anything that the Council has ever documented.”
“They’re one.” Angel said gruffly from his place in the doorway. He felt like a human experiencing their first hangover but since he could sense his family’s strength flowing around him like a welcoming cocoon, he’d never felt more powerful. “They haven’t just connected; they’ve truly bonded like the legend of old.”
“Legend?” Giles asked his voice ripe with curiosity.
“In the Kindred Grimoire it speaks about a Master vampire taking a human as his mate and partaking in her humanity and in turn she could harness his demon. But their joining was different, they could walk in daylight and she was as strong as a Slayer but they both become mortal.” Angel said trying to recall the legend. Darla had set at the Master side, listening to the words that left his mouth like they were gospel and since she wanted him to stand at the Master’s right hand she’d passed down all that knowledge to him. Needless to say it had been a while since he’d thought about his time with his old sire. “The way it sounded they were both vampire and human at the same time but it seems like Spike and Buffy are the mirror reflection of one another.”
“She’s my match in every way but we don’t share equally through the connection, we either get one side or the other.” Spike said working it out aloud.
“Because she’s the Alpha to your Omega, she is life, the beginning while you are death, the end. But you as you are a man and a vampire she is a woman and the Slayer.” Wesley said as their brainstorming session added their perspectives to his own. “Some Slayer’s are known to keep their souls upon turning but don’t retain their strength, merely get that of the demons. I believe it is because the Slayer presence inside them fights the demonic presence of the vampire, weakening it so that that it can’t cast out their soul. Since the power of the Slayer is a non-corporal entity, it stands to reason that it can’t defeat the corporal demon that is borne of the combined blood. The Slayer energy would be depleted so only a stronger Slayer would be powerful enough to adequately face the demon with any discernable effect. So when your demon went to Buffy her Slayer-ness could not remain but since it was her mate there was no need for a fight so it must have went to you.”
“Yeah, the bint and I figured that out for ourselves.” Spike said grateful he was once again a vampire or he might have blushed at just how they’d figured that out. “But that still doesn’t explain how my demon went to her in the sodden first place.”
“Your bond, you share thoughts and feelings even ones that cause physical reactions so if you two would explore how much you can truly accomplish with your connection perhaps we wouldn’t constantly be surprised.” Wes said with a note of censure in his voice since he’d often told them both that they should experiment and test the limits of their connection so they could learn all it encompasses. An idea they both patently chose to ignore with extreme prejudice.
“You two haven’t been doing that thus far?” Giles asked his voice almost as reproachful as Wesley’s. “Just think of all the potential power and tactical uses for such a connection!”
“No we haven’t, it’s not a bloody merging of superpowers it’s our marriage and the only reason we bothered to learn how to communicate thoughts was so that we could go to each other in times of need.” Spike said curling his upper lip in a sneer that perfectly expressed his disgust at such a notion. “It’s not the fucking mission that matters to her anymore and I’m not driven to make a right terrifying name for myself. It’s about us now. So other than keepin’ our family and each other safe we don’t give a hang about how strong we are or bein’ the most fearsome demon hunters on the block. We aren’t about to take the most amazing thing either of us have ever fucking experienced and strip it down to some cold weapon for us to wield.”
“Damn, that’s real poetic Blondie.” Faith said since his romantic declaration seemed to have temporarily short-circuited the Watcher’s analytic brains. She thought her sister Slayer had hit the jackpot with her vamp, who was quite the hottie but while she was touched by his outpouring she had a rep to maintain. “But now that you’ve got that outta your system and got you some answers, let’s get our heads back on the psycho bitch looking to give us all a one way ticket to hell, yeah?”