Stage 3 - Bargaining
Spike
“Hey.” Her voice greeted him the second he entered the room.
Spike pouted. “How did you know I was there?” No bloody point in being a ghost if you couldn’t even sneak up and scare the bejesus out of people.
She took off her glasses and turned to face him with a lazy smile. “I’m gettin’ a sixth sense. How you doin’?”
“Oh, you know.” He pulled his duster tight around him and shrugged. “Legs are gettin’ kind of tired – all that straddling chasms of fire. Wears a bloke out.”
Fred picked up a scanner with a concerned frown. “I should check…”
“No.” He held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t need to have my fading away to nothin’ confirmed with your gizmos. It’s colder. Not sure I wanna know how much.”
“I’m working on it. Honest, I am. You just gotta… hang on in there.” She looked at him worriedly and bit her lip. “You’re lookin’ like someone who’s been rode hard ‘n’ put up wet.”
“Been a while since anyone rode me hard, pet.” He smirked and raised an eyebrow.
Fred blushed. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Hope so.” He wandered over to peer at the pile of papers and books on her desk, attempting to look knowledgeable in the face of her complicated scrawlings and obscure equations. “Yeah,” he drawled, “that’s my thinkin’ too. But you got a decimal point in the wrong place…”
“What? Where?” Fred stared anxiously at her notes. “It’s the Schrödinger equation, isn’t it? I always…” she looked up and caught his eye. “Oh, you…” she shook her head in exasperation.
Spike grinned. “So, have you figured out how come I can stand on the floor? I mean, I can walk through walls and stuff. An’ look,” he passed his hand through her desk, “I can do that. So, how come I don’t just sink through the floor? Keep on goin’ until I pop out ‘mong the kangaroos or whatever. S’been worrin’ me.”
“One of life’s big mysteries, huh? You think of the strangest things.”
“Well gotta think of somethin’. Other than the yawning pit of hell, naturally.”
“And Buffy? D’you think of Buffy?”
He blinked, taken by surprise by the unexpected uttering of her name and the associated customary twinge of pain in his chest. “What brought that on?”
“Oh, something Angel said.” Fred shrugged. “You know, no-one’ll fess up to what went on with you guys and Buffy. Seems every time her name comes up, you two get to be as friendly as fire ants.”
“Well, that’ll be ‘cause Angel’s a great big jealous poof who just can’t bear to think that maybe ‘forever’ turned into ‘until somethin’ better comes along’.” Spike glared at Fred. “Just wanna ask yourself, who was it Buffy kept close at the end? Not Borin’ an’ Broody up there! No, she sent him…”
Fred held up her hands. “Whoa! Slow down there!” She smiled and shook her head. “See what I mean?”
“Yeah.” Spike subsided with a frown and a shrug. “Well.”
“You know,“ Fred looked down at her notes. “I’d kinda like to meet the woman that has two of the main men in my life at each other’s throats so often,” she said casually.
“I’m one of your main men?” Spike felt a ridiculous surge of pleasure.
Fred smiled. “Maybe I should just invite her on over…”
“No!” Spike pointed a finger at her. “Oh, no! Don’t even think about it!”
“Why not?” She looked up at him. “Wouldn’t you like to see her?”
“Yes… no…” He frowned. “I dunno! Me an’ Buffy – it’s complicated…”
“You don’t say…” Fred drawled. “Where’s complicated? First thing you wanted to do short of killin’ Angel was rush to her side. What changed?”
“Well, bein’ all Casper doesn’t exactly make it easy.”
“Now, that’s just an excuse and you know it!” Her voice softened. “You feel like talkin’ about it?”
He stared at the floor for a moment, then shook his head. “Wouldn’t know where to start.”
“How ‘bout at the beginin’?”
He looked up at her. “Never seemed to have a beginin’ as such. Just a load of endings.”
“That’s sad.”
“No, not the last…” His voice was distant, his gaze inward-looking, reliving a memory, a moment, a truth.
“You miss her?” Fred said quietly.
Spike hung his head. “Yeah. I miss her.”
“You love her?”
He looked up into her concerned brown eyes and the protective sneer faded. “Yeah.” He shrugged uncomfortably, “but…”
“Did she love you?”
He wrapped his arms tightly around himself. “Said she did,” he muttered, frowning.
“And you had reason to doubt her?” Fred’s soft question made him wince.
“No…” But the thing that bothered him? What if he was wrong? The spark, the thing he’d seen in her, the thing that had healed his heart at the end, the possibility that she… what if he was wrong? He hardly had the best of track records getting things right where Buffy was concerned, so what if what he’d seen – thought he’d seen – back there was wrong? After everything he’d had thrown at him lately, all that was happening to him right now – could he bear that? Hard as it was to admit, and not that he’d ever admit it aloud, but – he was scared.
Fred watched the play of emotions on his face and shook her head. “Spike… what if… what if I can’t… sort this out. I mean,” she added quickly at Spike’s sharp look, “I’m not sayin’ I can’t but… what if? What if you haven’t got the time you think you have? Shouldn’t you just be grabbing the chance while you can?” She gave a despairing sigh at his resolutely drooping head. “I loved someone as much as that – I wouldn’t hesitate. Call her,” she said softly holding out a Post-It note. “Buffy’s number. Really.” She grinned at his look of surprise. “Only don’t tell Angel I gave it to you.” He hesitated and then reached out to take it. His hand went straight through the bright yellow paper, without even a breeze to mark its passing. Fred bit her lip. “Oh, I’m…”
His shoulders slumped and he gave a wry shake of his head. “Don’t worry about it. See now why I can’t see Buffy?”
“You could call her. Just let her know you’re back…”
“Not like this.”
“You think she’ll care?”
“I care, OK?”
“But I’ll bet she wouldn’t!”
“Look…” he took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh. “I got a bargain for you,” he said eventually. “You sort out the mojo, make me solid again. Then I’ll call her.”
Fred smiled. “You got yourself a deal.”
“An’ maybe then we can discuss the ridin’ hard thing, too.” He gave her the patent smirk.
“I did mention incorrigible?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Now off you go an’ haunt someone else. This gal’s got work to do.”
“Me too. Gotta get back to my job as voice of reason and conscience for Captain Forehead. He’d be lost without me.” He hesitated. “Fred?” he said finally, “Thanks. For… you know.”
She looked up at him, at the vulnerability in suddenly gentle blue eyes and smiled. “Yeah. Spike, whatever happens, you know I’m gonna be here for you. We’ll crack it. ‘Kay?”
He nodded and swallowed hard. She watched him shrug his duster straight, resume the mask of confidence that covered the insecurity, and stride off through the wall purposefully. She gazed sightlessly at where he’d been for a long moment, then sighed, shook her head and bent back to her calculations.
Buffy
Willow had looked at her as if she had completely lost her mind. A cosy, girlie evening in front of the beaten-up TV in the shabby motel, a shared bottle of wine – the perfect setting for a carefully manipulated conversation. At the first hesitant admission of her feelings, of how she missed him, a look of relief had flooded Willow’s face and she’d listened, the desire to help her friend almost palpable – until Buffy mentioned the spell. Willow, remember when… Buffy had backtracked quickly at the look of horror on her friend’s face, shrugged with a “what was I thinking?” smile and told Willow that no, of course she wasn’t serious, and she wasn’t considering… no way. Been there; seen the consequences. Besides, she was hardly going to be responsible for more Bambi killing. She’d topped up Willow’s glass, switched the channel to a classic comedy and the conversation to safer ground.
The moment passed. But the germ of the idea continued to grow, to send its tendrils through Buffy’s mind until it occupied her day and disturbed her nights with ghosts of hope.
There were plenty of demons willing to help out to gain favour with a slayer. Those that weren’t so willing were open to… persuasion. And the trail had led her here, to a room hidden behind shields of shifting otherness, that seethed with dark shadows and whispered promises, where the air reeked of subtle menace and an underlying power that made her eyes sting and her breath catch in her throat.
The demon watched her carefully through narrowed eyes. It chose to take human form; a tall, slim woman, long black hair curling around a perfect porcelain-pale oval of a face sat calmly on an ebony chair, hands crossed on her lap. Only her eyes gave away her origins – unblinking, fathomless black orbs, surfaced with shifting colours like oil on water, unreadable, alien. Between them, a small silver lamp burned on an ebony table, the light of its flickering, yellow flame swallowed avidly by the shadows.
“You’ve come to bargain for a life.” The demon’s voice was soft and low. “Or rather, an unlife.” She tilted her head. “So much pain. I can see it. You draw it close to yourself like a lover…”
“I am not in love with pain.”
The demon watched her with detached, almost clinical, interest. “You are in love with this pain. This pain is all you have of him. You are afraid to lose the pain, and so to lose him.”
“If you say so.” Buffy gritted her teeth against a stab of hurt. “Can you do it?”
“Bring back the vampire hero?” The demon smiled slowly. “Champion? Bane of the First Evil? Beloved of the slayer?” The last word hissed sibilantly in the darkness.
Buffy shrugged. “The one and only.”
“Indeed.” The demon studied her impassively. “And what… benefit do I derive from this?”
“How about I let you live?”
The encroaching darkness rustled and demon arched one delicate eyebrow. “I hardly think you are in a position to threaten me!”
“No.” Buffy swallowed hard against the bile that rose in her throat. “I’m sorry.” The demon inclined her head graciously and Buffy started again. “OK.” She sat back in her chair, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel. “You start. What do you want?”
“Want? I have no needs.” Around her the darkness seethed and hissed, but the demon’s impassive gaze didn’t falter.
Buffy shook her head. “Tell me what you want.”
The demon smiled briefly. “Ah, now, that will depend on what you want from me.”
There was a moment’s silence. When Buffy spoke her voice was touched with apprehension. “Take me back. Before. Before he… before the Hellmouth.”
“To stop his ending?” The request didn’t disturb the demon’s calm gaze. “What you would do would assure victory for the First. Is the life of your lover worth the freeing of evil? Would you see his legions walk your world to assuage your pain?”
“No, of course not!” Buffy shook her head vehemently. “But I could make a difference! If I did it differently, if I… I’d thought it through, known about the amulet. Give me a second chance and I could make it right.”
“Your arrogance astounds me.” The demon steepled her fingers and watched Buffy with what was almost mild amusement. She gave a small shake of her head. “It was what he chose. You could not save him. I can not do as you ask. What is written I will not change.”
Buffy closed her eyes and drew a steadying breath. “Then you save him. Bring him back. We can start writing again from here.” Her final card. Her last hope.
There was a long, expectant silence as the demon considered. “It may be possible,” she conceded. “But I need a focus for which to search. I need to know your vampire. All that is left of him is what lies in your mind. You must share it with me.”
“Share?”
“You must let me touch your mind.” Around her the darkness shaded closer and the air was tense with waiting.
“No.”
“Why not?” The demon’s voice was calm, apparently unruffled.
“My mind? How do I know I can trust you? I mean, you evil types are hardly known for your trustworthiness…”
“Evil? Evil is a mortal concept. I am not bound by your mortal rules. I am before. Besides…” she shrugged one shoulder eloquently. “Good, evil… what does it matter? Much wrong is done in the name of goodness and evil can become the greatest good. You more than anyone should know this.”
“Look, I’m not here for some sort of amateur philosophy lesson…”
“I know why you are here.” The demon watched her impassively. “There is great power in you,” she mused quietly. “Much of it I can see, much of it is written. But… there is more,” she tilted her head slightly “that is hidden to me. I would understand that power. I would… see it.”
“Oh, right! And I’m supposed to just trust you? You’re not just gonna sail in there and take what you want.”
“If I wanted to take it, I would strike you down where you sit. Your puny mortal frame could not hold power to equal mine. I do not wish to possess. Merely to understand. I crave the knowledge hidden from me.”
“To do what? Use it against the slayer line?”
“I owe allegiance to no race." Her voice hissed with scorn. She held Buffy's eyes and repeated slowly and emphatically "I am before.” She sat back in her chair and watched Buffy, considering. Eventually she inclined her head. “Within you is something that only the Powers comprehend, that they keep hidden from others. Even from the Elders such as I. This is… unacceptable. I would know. I would know what they fear and hide.” The demon’s voice was suddenly hard. “That is my bargain. I will do nothing to harm you. Let me touch your mind and I will search for your lover. Or go. I tire of this.”
Buffy closed her eyes wearily. Years of experience and all her ingrained slayer instincts railed against the thought of trusting a demon, of opening herself up to this creature. But if it was the only way…? She opened her eyes. The demon wanted a taste of slayerpower? Right at that moment, she didn’t much care if she took it all. “I have your word? As an Elder?”
“You have my word.”
Buffy nodded tersely. She braced herself, waited for whatever was to come and hung on to the bright core of her hopes. The demon closed her eyes and reached out. Her touch took Buffy by surprise. It was gentle and warm, sinuously sliding through her mind, calming and comforting. The supple fingers of darkness roused an answer from something, a pull in the centre of her chest that made Buffy gasp. The demon-darkness continued to infiltrate her consciousness, slow and calming, but now with an air of focus, a suggestion of purpose. There was more – something behind the soothing caress, something Buffy felt that if she concentrated might just – might just – be important. But the pull she felt answering the demon’s touch stopped the thought, and she pushed back a sudden surge of fear.
Then suddenly there was something else; a bright harsh whiteness tore the soft touch of the demon from her mind with gut-wrenching force and threw Buffy to the floor, leaving her retching helplessly. Around her the room was a silent cacophony of power, a stinging slap of discord that sent the darkness cringing back as if reprimanded.
As her consciousness cleared, Buffy raised her head to look at the demon. She sat as if nothing had happened, upright and calm in her chair, but around her the shifting darkness had retreated, crawled away to seethe in the corners of the room. Buffy pushed sweat-damp hair back from her face, wiped the taste of bile from her lips with the back of her hand. “What the hell was that?” Her voice was harsh, her throat vomit-raw.
The demon watched her impassively. “I will not help you,” she said, her voice emotionless.
“What? Why?” She gasped for breath against the crushing hurt in her chest.
“Because I cannot. It is too late.”
“No!”
“He has…” she hesitated then went on carefully, “moved beyond. He is beyond my influence.”
Buffy pulled herself onto unsteady legs, hugging her aching ribs, a sudden numbing cold clutching at her bones. “That’s it?”
The demon inclined her head.
“I don’t believe you.” Buffy forced the words through chattering teeth as the cold struck deeper.
“Nevertheless. I cannot summon him from where he is.” The inky-black depths of the demon’s eyes were touched with something that looked fleetingly like sympathy, her words rich with hidden meaning. “The game has moved on.” She rose from her chair, snuffed out the small flame of the lamp and the darkness moved to cloak her. “We are all but pawns.” The bitterness of her voice faded with her image until all that remained was an abandoned, hurting slayer in a rain-wet, darkened alley leading nowhere.
[Reviews - 15]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 2190 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +