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Chapter Eleven

Giles had felt it necessary for everyone to witness the spell. Willow’s triumphant ‘Eureka’ had set the tone for the rest of the day, and the in depth demystification of all elements of the spell meant that it could proceed as soon as possible. A quick trip to the magic shop to purchase elemental ingredients; a wait for the end of the working day and the final arrival of Xander, and the living room was filled once again to capacity with Scoobyness.

Buffy stood apart from all as she darted between excitement at getting a glimpse of her future, and nervousness about the possible negative origins of Spike’s soul. In her self-absorbed daze she missed the preparations of the spell and letting Willow and Tara undertake the necessary preparations, felt a little stage fright as she took note of how many people really were crammed into the little flat. Oz sat back, solemn and quiet, with Xander and Anya, while Angel and Giles were spaced around the edge of the room but in an easy distance for the scenic view. All that Buffy had gotten so far was that she and Spike were to sit holding hands within a circle of sand, magic sand she supposed, she was ignorant of all things mystical, well, some things mystical. As long as it wasn’t slayer mystical. Damn, she didn’t know about the sand.

All the words and incantations were a blur as she took her place on the floor opposite Spike. When Tara joined them in the circle Buffy looked up in surprise, thinking she must have missed an instruction or three somewhere along the way. The room remained quiet except for Spike’s continual grumbling : “I don’t trust magic, always consequences ya know?”, and that just made Buffy’s nerves crash their little party. Tara took a hand in each of hers and Buffy had to commend her for her lack of fear in dealing with the vampire when Xander and Willow still maintained a hesitant distance. Perhaps she was still too new to the concept of the supernatural to take it seriously, or perhaps she trusted in her belief in Buffy and Spike’s connection. She drew all of their hands together to form a circle.

Before she began Tara turned to both her partners within the protected circle to explain her presence.

“Buffy, I explained earlier my concerns about the possibility of you getting caught, so I am going to be your anchor.” She spoke quietly, her tone soothing as well as making sure to not be overheard, and Buffy was grateful. She suddenly saw herself on display as if for a performance, with her closest friends about to be critics. Something heavy dropped in her gut. She gave Tara a brief nod to show her understanding and turned her fearful gaze to Spike. She swallowed hard on recognising his apprehension and wondered what she had gotten herself into. “I will be here if it looks like things are getting out of control, so I can pull both of you back.” Buffy and Spike both indicated their consent, thinking this was it and they were about to begin. Tara gave them one more shyer look and her earlier confidence took a dive as she approached her final message. Her voice fell to a new hush as she reverted to her stammering speech. “I-I-I w-will be able to s-see what you are s-seeing.” Her shyness wouldn’t allow her to look either in the eye, but her final declaration required a belief in her honesty and she mustered the courage to raise her eyes to them both. “I promise I won’t tell anyone anything I see. Whatever you tell everyone is up to you. Especially you Spike, this is going to be the story of your soul, and that will be very personal.” They both gave her an encouraging smile and bade her to continue, and the spell incantation began.

Buffy intentionally didn’t pay attention to the words, lost in what Tara had said. ‘The story of Spike’s soul’, and her earlier elation was returning in leaps and bounds. ‘With a little luck’, she thought, ‘I’ll be able to see what kind of relationship Spike and I have in the future’. With her hopes and expectations all settled in her head she ignorantly sat back and waited for it all to begin.

It was like the first time they clasped hands and they became alight. Her world shifted like an earthquake and she found herself once again inside that cavern that she presumed was the Hellmouth. It looked different to what she remembered, but the one thing to make her recognise it was all the scary, nasty looking demons that threatened to overtake the place. Realising she had no impact here, this time a non-lethal observer, she turned to concentrate on Spike.

She saw him stumble backwards as he seemed to be invisibly restrained against the cave wall, light bearing down on him with a chilling intensity. Even though she knew she could do nothing, Buffy called out in fear and warning and once again witnessed her futile attempts to prise him away from the destruction and run with her. Again she told him of her love and again he withheld belief and sent her packing, walls and debris collapsing all around her. Racing up the stairs she looked back once and saw him combust and felt her heart tear at her chest, desperate to go back to him. She could understand now that something monumental occurred when their hands had ignited in glorious fire; she had departed with a piece of her own soul, shredded and gone. She belonged to him whole; heart, mind and soul, and instead of protecting her balance for her he had turned to dust before her eyes. Running, running, dying, she jumped to the roof of the bus and decayed a little more each metre it pulled away from him. The grief that arose in her chest and throat was going to kill her and though the bus finally stopped and she climbed off, all she could say when asked was that Spike had done it; he had saved them all, his rejection too raw for her to share.

As quickly as that vision had begun, she hurtled into another cave, another time, but just as gruesomely violent. Spike fought, he burned, his skin crawled, but at last he won just before Buffy was about to relieve herself of everything she thought she had ever eaten in her lifetime. Bugs always made her queasy, and scarab beetles? No way was that fun! But then Spike could be heard, thrashed and beaten down, but still determined. His demon requesting something almost unheard of; his desperation to prove his love and forever keep her safe from himself. He asked to be ‘made what I was, so I can give her what she deserves’. And he was, his soul burned into him like a Buffy brand on a cattle rump. He was marked, forever hers to take or discard. He descended into crazy land, his constant memory an attack on a blonde goddess on her bathroom floor.

Another flash and she was getting that it was all out of sequence. ‘Huh! Wonder how that works?’ But still strong, a tower of strength, she could cope even though the images may be harrowing. The time in fast-forward, Scoobies in her house, permanently it seems, and many, many girls, young and potential, training relentless. Strange men with their eyes cut out slashing, and crashing until few were left. The faces of her friends, the harsh and hard words of a general preparing for battle.

She sees some strange black man still in her future lure Spike to an ambush, with Giles’ support, and her held at bay so as not to be able to rescue the one, her only one of support, who had relentless faith. The others had lost it, kicked her out of her own home, his black leather coat not changing who he is but bringing him back, and that speech; ‘I love how you try. You’re a hell of a woman, Buffy. You’re the One.’ And as she curls into his side, the outcast in her own fight, she finally accepts it, that he is her one, and no other. Flash, too late for Xander but Spike saves him from losing both eyes. Flash, Spike rescues her from that other dimension by killing the demon to return. Flash, feels his gut wrenching sense of betrayal because she kisses Angel, but she knows he is her champion, Angel brings her the means to prove it, and she does not allow him to stay.

All of a sudden the world tips and Buffy finally sees why Tara was concerned her joined soul could alter the spell. Without warning she was catapulted further into her own story, no longer Spikes point of view, but his pain is her pain. She feels like screaming, kicking and clawing away from the relentless images, no happiness, all pain. A swan dive; courage or defeat? A home in heaven and she was awash with that tantalising cover of peace wrapped up in an outer layer of spongy cloud. Then ripped, torn…grief and badly broken. Spike by her side, friend and confidante, though she treated him cruelly. Words, he stayed, words, he protected. Dawn. A chestnut haired teenager; her sister, is it true? A key and Glory, a God. Spike’s torture for her, but no betrayal.

She beats him, fucks him into the ground, sees him weeping but turns away in horror. She knows then but can’t give it voice, love, so sorry Spike, too late, too late for love, not real, wrong, came back so wrong. Help me, you make me feel, I need you to hurt me, using you, but God, I love you. Can’t let you see. Screaming, God, ‘stop it, I can’t take anymore, Mom’s gone’. Shooting, Tara gone, Willow black, and then the biggest betrayal of all. Willow rush, no magic Willow, too many images, graveyards, burning corpses, on the hill and thank God for Xander. SCREAMING. TARA. HELP ME. STOP. Please God stop. Sobbing out of control.

Her hands tore apart from Spike and Tara’s and she came to with the most disgusted realisation of herself. No other words for horror as her eyes collide with Spike’s and she saw that he saw all that she did. Confusion and shock grip all three, but Buffy was on the move. Disaster was all she can hold onto, such evil and meanness, and not from those you would expect. One sudden memory nearly causes her to whiplash as she sought confirmation from Tara. The girl’s sad eyes, on the brink of brutal fear, Buffy pulled away even more. She was frantic, unaware of the multitude of eyes alarmed at her inability to absorb. She shook her head violently and gasped for breath as she shifted between looking at the MAN who sacrificed his all for her, whom she abused so relentlessly for her own grubby needs, and the gentle woman who was her friend in the future, but for an unforgivably short time.

Panic bubbled up and over and her body started to shut down its defences, the pace of her heart steadily increasing to accommodate her rising hysteria. Enough! Scream all ready, she shrieked to herself, her inner voice already raw from the effort. Tears poured in a rush down her face.

“We’ll stop it,” she nearly shouted at Tara. “We have to. It can’t go like that. So bad.” She choked and began to cry helplessly.

“I won’t do that,” she pleads with Spike, searching, hoping, and she thought, receiving. “I won’t be like that.” And at last it was too much and she collapsed in his arms in uncontrollable grief, marvelling that he could bear to touch her, let alone console her. Again, her protector, her champion. Out of them all he was her only true support, and she would never let him go. Not in a pink fit. She would kill anyone who tried to make her.

She clung to him and in front of them all she claimed his lips desperately, seeking forgiveness from the only one who could grant it. And through her tears, she really believed he gave it.





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