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Part Sixteen...

The Dance (cont.)



~~~~~~~~~~
"Holding you, I held everything
For a moment, wasn't I a king
But if I'd only known how the king would fall
Hey, who's to say, you know I might have changed it all.."
~~~~~~~~~~


Spike stood on the terrace overlooking the orchard,
watching as a fat yellow moon rose in the sky.

He had been on Isla Nueva for almost three weeks
now, and he didn't like it anymore than he had the
first night they had arrived.

Oh, the grounds were spectacular, and the castle
itself was magnificent, thoroughly befitting the warlock
who owned it. But for all it's beauty, the whole place
left him cold and uninterested, because it was lack-
ing the one thing that would make it heaven on earth.

Buffy...his sweet, shy little child bride. If she were here
with him, he would be content to stay forever.

The pain of missing her was almost physical. Leaving
Sunnydale had felt like hacking off a limb and being left
to slowly bleed to death.

The first cut had been shallow. He had received it the
morning he'd returned in response to Luke's increasingly
panicky messages.

Before he'd even gotten to the front door, he had known that
he would find trouble inside. He'd heard Drusilla screaming
all the way out in his car.

When he'd gotten in the house, he had stared around in shock
at the mess he'd found.

Every window in the place had been shattered. The furniture
had been hacked at by what looked like a fire ax. There was
a pile of books in the foyer, or what was left of them after they'd
been doused in lighter fluid and torched.

Upstairs was a hellish scene. The vamps he'd taken on as
hired help were being held at bay by their mistress. Fearsome
creatures they all might be in their own right, but each and
every one of them was frightened out of their meager wits by
Drusilla.

She'd stood on one side of her bedroom, throwing everything
she could lay her hands on at them. Everything that wasn't
nailed down became a missile lobbed straight at them; pic-
tures on the wall, bric-a-brac, books...anything at all.

He'd had to admit, she'd been a frightening sight. Her hair
was a mass of tangles, and her fingers were bent like claws.
She had scratched and cut herself, and there were ribbons
of blood running over her like a macabre road map.

She'd been shrieking accusations and epithets at them all,
singling them out individually for the punishments they would
receive when "her Spike" came home.

"Caroline" would have her hair torn out at the roots, for
accidentally snagging Dru's when she'd been brushing it
for her.

"Samuel" would have his fingers and toes chopped off one
by one for bringing her the wrong pair of shoes.

"Dalton" would have his eyes plucked from his head, be-
cause he had been "looking at her strangely."

"Benjamin" would have hot pokers jammed in his ears
until they popped through his brain, for talking about her
behind her back.

"Luke" would be chopped into small pieces, for no reason
at all except that she didn't like him.

They would all die horrible deaths, she'd screamed, because
they'd been deceiving her, keeping secrets from her, and keep-
ing Spike away from home on nonsensical errands.

By the time he'd managed to sedate her and put her to bed,
the entire household had been packed and ready to leave.

Although once he would have killed them all for their
disloyalty, something inside of him had changed. He didn't
want to be there anymore than they did, and they didn't
HAVE to be.

When the house was settled down, only Dalton and Luke
remained. The three of them sat in the library, drinking
steadily to calm their shattered nerves.

Luke had shot him several accusatory looks, but hadn't
had the balls to actually say anything, or ask him where
he'd been spending so much time lately.

Dalton had sensed the tension in the room and tried
to smooth it over with what he claimed was good news.

"Good news," Spike muttered, a little bitterly as he
watched an owl dive out of the sky and scoop up a field
mouse.

It hadn't been good news to him. It had been the most
horrible fucking news of his life. Dalton had finally managed
to locate the one individual who had any hope at all of
curing Drusilla. Only hitch was, he lived at the very southern-
most tip of South America, on a tiny island off the coast of
Tierra del Fuego.

Then the news got worse.

Dalton had informed him that he'd taken the initiative and
booked passage for them on an outgoing cargo ship. He'd
arranged for them to meet up with an old friend in La Paz,
Mexico. This old friend owned a very luxurious yacht, per-
fectly outfitted for vamps, as he was one himself.

The four of them would board the yacht at midnight, then
cruise along to their final destination. The problem was,
they had to be at the Port of Los Angeles that very night,
which meant they had to leave immediately.

Spike had raged at them for this. He couldn't leave that
night. He had to see Buffy, to tell her what was happening.
There was no goddamn way he was leaving Sunnydale with-
out saying goodbye to his bride.

But, in the end, both Dalton and Luke had made him face
the fact that he had no choice. Dru was getting steadily worse,
and soon there might be no helping her at all. If they were
gonna go...then they had to go now!

He'd sat in the backseat of the car that night, Dru's head in
his lap as she slept, unaware of anything going on around her.
The entire packing up of the car and transferring her into it had
been done without her waking.

As he'd watched the miles fly by, he had tried to compose a
proper letter to Buffy. He'd begun and torn up three of them where
he'd told her he had every intention of returning to her as soon as
he could.

Apologizing profusely for abandoning her so abruptly, he had
promised her the sun, the moon, and the stars when he returned.
He would bring her beautiful clothes and jewels, including a ring
with a three carat diamond to grace her tiny hand.

When he came back, he told her, the first thing they would do
would be to find a new house. He didn't want to bring her to
the one he'd been renting. This was a fresh new life, and she
deserved a house of her own. They would look for one together,
and he would give her carte blanche to decorate it any way she
liked.

Then, after he'd seen to it that she had proper driving lessons,
he would buy her any car she chose. Reading that back to him-
self, he'd chuckled. Maybe it would be better, and safer, to pro-
vide her with a driver for the times when she wanted to go out
during the day.

He promised her that he would meet her mother and all her
friends, and he would help her break the news to them that her
husband was a vampire. It wouldn't be easy for her, and he was
fairly certain that they would all want to stake him on sight, es-
pecially her watcher.

But he would do whatever he had to do in order to spend the
rest of his time on this earth with Buffy, even to the extent of
living on packaged blood or blood obtained at a butcher shop.

And, if her first experience was anything to judge by, he knew
that Buffy would allow him a taste of slayers blood once in a
while.


~~~~~~~~~~
"And now, I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go

Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance.."
~~~~~~~~~~


He'd had every intention of mailing that letter. Had
actually been standing in front of a mailbox, ready
to drop it in, when his attention was caught by the
sound of a child laughing.

Turning around, he'd seen a small family consisting of
a mother, a father, and a little girl who couldn't be
more than five years old.

The three of them walked along side-by-side, the
child in between her parents, holding both their
hands.

She was a beautiful little girl, and the first thought
that came to him was "My, God...she looks like
Buffy."

Long, light brown braids...large expressive
eyes...and an air of innocence as she bounced
happily along, obviously enjoying the fun of
being out so late at night.

As they'd passed by him, Spike had heard the
parents talking about the outings they had plan-
ned. Tomorow, the beach. After that, the zoo.

He'd frowned. For some reason, the sight of
the little tableau made him uncomfortably sad.

Watching them walk along, he'd tried to analyze
just what there was about this family unit that
was making him react in this manner.

Realization came to him, followed by the cold reality
of the situation sinking in, possibly for the first
time since he'd set eyes on Buffy.

This was what she should be doing a few years
down the road, mothering a child, married to a man
capable of taking her and their child out into the
sun to play.

As long as HE was in her life taking up room, it
was something she would never have.

So, reluctantly, he'd torn the letter in half and con-
signed it to the first trash can he came across.

"Fuck, this hurts," he'd said, returning to the car,
and to Drusilla, and to a future he no longer cared
anything about.


~~~~~~~~~~
"Yes, our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance..."
~~~~~~~~~~


TBC....
Feedback is appreciated.





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