Chapter 4
She hadn’t seen any lions in the Sahara nor bears. Where the hell did that roar come from?
Her throat hurt, it was dry and felt like someone squeezed the life from her. Carefully, she tried to feel every bone in her body, stretch her conscience without moving. She felt something at her side, heard a shuffle and then silence. She wasn’t safe yet, something was there, next to her and she had no idea what just happened.
She hadn't been raped; her body plainly told her that. Not to say that she wasn’t injured, her body was definitely injured. Cool, she felt cool. She wasn’t plagued by the constant heat that seemed to surround her day and night. She was cool and the air was… moist. Where the hell was she?
More shuffling to her left. She felt a familiar presence, something that she never thought that she would feel again.
“Spike,” her lips barely whispered.
“Is all right, Slayer. You’re safe.” His voice sounded so distant, different.
She pried her eyes open, where ever she was, it was dark, no glaring lights, no hot fire. Moving her head towards the sound of her vampire moving around. Wait, when did he become her anything?
“What,” her voice failed. She paused and tried again, “what happened?”
He moved quickly to her side with a pan of water. “Here, drink.” She nodded in thanks and moved her lips along the rim of the pan, gently sipping at it. “Is not the best, but it’s safe and you lost a lot of blood.”
He watched as she greedily accepted his offering. His soul wept. He was almost too late, almost couldn’t save her. He wasn’t good enough, not then and not now. He couldn’t even save her when he knew they were going to attack her.
“Why?” She questioned as she laid down, her eyes closed again.
“Tried to get there in time, they got you good,” his voice sounded so soft, so apologetic. She opened her eyes and watched him put the pan of water down.
He looked different… something had changed. His bleached hair curled on top of his head, a definitely improvement in her opinion. His lip looked busted as if he took a punch to his mouth, bruises and scraps littered the rest of his visible body. He definitel fought recently.
“But don’t worry; they won’t be coming for you.” Her eyebrows rose with question. “I didn’t kill them… but they won’t be doing a lot of things.” She coughed, her body protesting at each spasm. “Shit! What the fuck did they think they were doing? Practically choked the life out of ya… Bastards!”
Lying down, Buffy slightly smiled and rested her hand on his. He was a sight for her sore eyes, despite everything. She missed him with an intensity she never thought herself capable of. She tried searching for him, trying to correct what went wrong, but she kept running into dead ends. With a partially broken voice, “How you here?”
Shocked, Spike stared at her hand so innocently touching him. Moving away and losing her touch was one of the hardest things that he had to do. He craved her touch. Clearing his throat, he started, “Clem, he tracked me down.”
Nodding, Buffy closed her eyes once more. “It hurts.”
Clem, she knew that wrinkled demon jumped on the ‘Let’s go to Africa place’ too quickly. Sure, they were friends, she protected him when he was caught cheating at poker, despite the kitten currency he insisted on using. He kept her company during the long nights when she would feel the pain of losing… heaven.
“I know, Slayer, but hold on a little while longer. Got me a medicine man on his way. Should fix you up just right.”
Shaking her head, “Shaman from village. Traveling with. Get him.”
He glanced at her open eyes and took pity on her. “Shaman won’t be of any help. He traded you. Heard it myself.”
“What?” Her heart rate increased. “No, you misunderstood. Got it wrong.”
“Vampire hearing, remember?” He shuffled around and brought the pan of water back to her lips. “I might not be up on all the languages but I do know what femme and salope mean.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He was all journey. Made me drink… and the fire faces.”
“I’m sorry, Slayer,” Spike was truly apologetic. “He told the men that you like it rough.”
In fact, both remember she did like it rough. She liked the small mementos of their passionate couplings. In her life, bruises meant that you survived, meant you lived another day. And, that’s all she was doing those months after her reincarnation. Everything was so dull, felt dead in her soul. She needed to feel… significant emotions and senses those first months, needed to feel anything other than dead.
Could that shaman have turned his back to her, offer her up as the sacrificial lamb? Cast her aside as payment when it was her journey to begin with? The journey… blood and fire. His journey.
“I don’t…” tears ran down her face as she realized Spike was telling the truth. “Betrayed,” her body shook with uncontrollable anger. How dare he!
“Shh,” his hand hovered over her hair, afraid to touch her. “You’ll be all right, you’ll see. Just a few bumps and bruises, be better by tomorrow.”
“Must get Dawn!”
“I know,” he nodded. “Sun’s almost down and we can head off to that village. Clem gave me the details.”
“Where did he find you?” She tried to sit.
Avoiding her gaze, he moved into the shadows. “The medicine man should be here at sundown and then we can start to move. You should rest. I’ll… sit over here,” and watch you.
“Spike.. where were you? What happened? Something is different.” She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about Spike changed. He didn’t carry his usual bravado; he seemed distant, so far away. This was not the Spike she knew.
He began to pace. “No time, Slayer. Got to get a-packing, ya’know. Time to get lil’ sis, then I’ll let you get back to Sunnyhell and you won’t have to hear from old Spike again.”
“Stop it,” she coughed. “You’re making me dizzy. Just… we’ve been looking for you, Dawn and me… where were you?” It was hard to believe that he was there, that he swooped in and saved her, finally succeeding where he'd failed in the past.
Dejected, Spike sat beside Buffy, his eyes cast down. “Saw a demon,” his eyes unwittingly filled with water as he continued. “Wanted to give you what you deserved, get the chip out and show you who I am.”
“And did you?” Oh God! I trusted you, please, please no!
“He granted my wish, yes.”
“And, what? You wanted to come back and torture me? You could have done that already, the chip didn’t work on me, remember, came back wrong?” She shook her head. Typical Spike, tie and torture until the woman he loved accepted him back. Didn’t he realize that he was enough? That torturing someone into love just didn’t work?
“No,” he whined. “Wanted to… show you that I wasn’t some serial killer in prison, I changed. And the bloody chip had nothing to do with that change. I didn’t have to be evil; I didn’t have to be ...”
Realization filtered across her face, with a gasp. What should she expect; he was a demon, a vampire, had no morals, no obligation to the side of good. She fooled herself that he'd fought on the side of good for something more than selfish reasons. It was always about him: safety, money and then her.
“It wasn’t like that,” he insisted, cursing himself for not explaining it right.
“So what changed? Why didn’t you come back, kill everyone that meant anything to me, take away my life? Why are you here helping me rescue Dawn?” His face contorted with pain and self-loathing. Something definitely was different.
“Arg, I didn’t say that! I wasn’t going to, not really. I just wanted to prove to you that I…” his voice trailed off, inhaling, he calmed. “I want to help find Dawn. She’s a good kid and just because that rot of Scoobies that insist on hanging around aren’t about, doesn’t mean you don’t need a bit of help.”
That didn’t change, even as enemies, he stood behind her and helped her when the going got tough. The truce during Angelus’ reign, the love spell debacle, even more so when he became chipped. He moved from fighting behind her to her side. He liked Dawn, genuinely liked her. He didn’t try and corrupt the innocent Key, even when given more than half the chance. That was an aspect she admired about him… his loyalty.
“You may have saved me from one rape, but that doesn’t mean that I forgive what you tried…” she wanted to stay angry. Wanted to hold on to that hatred, but she couldn’t. Despite everything, he was there at her side when no one else was.
Screaming, “I’m not asking for forgiveness, am I?” Again, he paused to calm his nerves. “There is nothing in this world that will change that night; is there? I don’t deserve forgiveness even if there was. I may have not done it that night, but there are plenty of other nights that… plenty of other innocent women that I took… The look in their eyes when they realized what was about to happen.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she denied his words. “I don’t want to hear the past!” She didn’t want him to alter her picture, as awful as it already was. She needed him to stay her ally, even in tarnished armor.
“You don’t?” he smirked. “Don’t want to hear what a monster you let into your life, your bed? Don’t want to know how much to drain a girl just so she would recover and I could feel the power again? Don’t want to hear about the innocent babes I trapped, tortured and destroyed?”
“What did you do?” Tears streamed down her face. Why was he telling her this? Offering his sins as evidence against him?
“I told you, I’m a monster. Won’t forget it, now,” he sneered.
“No,” she muttered. “There’s no problem of that.”
~*~*~
Buffy ignored Spike, she just couldn’t talk to him, couldn’t forget the look on his face when he talked about his past, about what he did, what he gloried in. His past leading up to the bathroom shouldn’t have been a surprise, should always remain on her mind, but she couldn’t hold the hatred she once had. He’s a monster, it’s true, but when given a chance, didn’t he try to do right by human morals? Going against his nature to live with humans, to be human, if only in his dreams?
Self-gratification was what his demon wanted. Blood, violence and sex. It didn’t crave companionship in the human sense, didn’t care if its actions affected anyone else. It wanted. It took. It had.
And, for a while, it had what it wanted, only to have it abruptly ripped away with canned explanation. Love
Did vampires love? In the human sense? They’re social creatures in the first place, forming families and clans, hunting together. They formed mating bonds that lasted for life, chose those mates carefully unlike humans that married easily knowing that divorce was just a few years away. But was that love? Was it enough?
Despite the disgusting things he did with his family, the things they taught him… he held onto the human part of himself, the poet that longed for love, longed for something more than just bodily delights of the demon. That part of him was the scariest part… it shone brightly from his eyes every time he would kiss her, would touch her. She closed her eyes to that part of him, took his passion into her body, but she couldn’t take that… couldn’t accept it.
~*~*~
The medicine man was really an old woman. She wrapped Buffy’s ribs and checked her neck for long-term damage. She muttered the whole time she examined Buffy. Spike stood in the shadows, watching; she knew he was watching, her being examined by this woman that muttered.
Once the all clear was issued, Spike led the way out of the cave to a waiting jeep. He watched as the medicine woman helped Buffy buckle into the front seat. “Journey not complete,” her mutters became audible. “Must reconcile life with death to become one.”
She stepped away as Buffy gasped. The shaman said something similar. Could this be the journey he was speaking of? Did he purposefully turn her over to the warrior men of that last village to ignite the start of whatever destiny he thought she had. She knew what her destiny was, what it would always be. Her gift was given and taken and will be once more. Death. The only life left for her was Dawn’s. Her life had to be held sacred above everything else. That was Buffy’s purpose, her destiny before death. .
But what if death was angry at her? Had she cheated the grim reaper? Not only once, but twice? Did the shaman mean that the grim reaper would come for her life, exchange it once more? Would he take her again, this time trapping her where she couldn’t escape? Not even the blackest of magic's could find her under the grim reaper’s cloak.
She looked at Spike in the moonlight. He looked like death. Was he her grim reaper, ready to collect the price of her gift? His eyes were dark, sunken into his sockets. Her head hurt from the riddles surrounding her. He jumped into the jeep and turned the ignition. “Next stop: Hell.”
tbc...
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you for all the comments and reviews.
I did recieve a comment that didn't believe Buffy would allow humans to attack her. I believe her character would do everything in order not to hurt another human... and by the time she realized she would have to fight back, it was too late. Plus, it would not have given Spike an opportunity to "save" her.
I did recieve a comment that didn't believe Buffy would allow humans to attack her. I believe her character would do everything in order not to hurt another human... and by the time she realized she would have to fight back, it was too late. Plus, it would not have given Spike an opportunity to "save" her.