Two weeks earlier
Everything was fuzzy, and everything was wrong.
Buffy, beautiful Buffy, was crying. Screaming. Desperately clawing at some statue as though it had devoured her very soul. Angel tried to reach out to her, to hold her and take whatever pain she was feeling away, but she wouldn’t let him.
When he touched her she cried harder. She pushed him. Shoved him so hard he stumbled. She didn’t want him near her, and he couldn’t understand why.
She cried herself hoarse, before stumbling to a corner and slumping on the ground. Angel watched her and a feeling of dread grew within him. Everything was wrong.
Angel remembered.
It came to him in flashes and bursts, horrific in their vividness.
He remembered everything he had said and done and he felt sick. Standing upright was difficult, his head was swimming. His restored soul throbbed mockingly in his chest, each throb a reminder of the blood he had drenched it with.
Angel watched Buffy with an ache in his chest. Her bloodied hands lay in her lap, her eyes were closed and the look of defeat on her face severely etched. She had loved him, and he had made her pay dearly for that love.
Angel remembered everything.
“Buffy? Buffy, I’m so sorry.”
Buffy sighed. When she spoke her voice was strained. “I know you are Angel”. She didn’t open her eyes.
Angel dared a step closer. “It wasn’t me, It really wasn’t. I never would have done that to you, not any of it. I... I love you.”
Buffy’s eye lids fluttered open and a ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know. I know I can’t ever make this right, can’t ever make up for what I... he... did. I know I’ve hurt you more then... then I can believe. But I am so sorry, and I do love you.”
While he had been talking Angel had been slowly stepping closer, and was now crouched on the ground, on eye level with Buffy.
She met his eyes and while his were pleading hers were cold. “Tell me Angel, what does the name Spike mean to you?”
Angel flinched. “Spike?”
“I’m sorry, you refer to him as ‘the boy’, don’t you?”
Angel flinched again. “He was here tonight wasn’t he?”
Buffy’s voice was tight with pain. “He was, but he’s gone now. He cleared up the mess you made. And he’s gone now.”
The guilt over his actions burnt strongly in Angel’s chest, but jealousy suddenly burnt stronger. Spike had been here, around for months, obviously spending time with Buffy. Angel had smelt him at the school but he hadn’t believed he could be there, and Buffy had never said a word about it. After he had lost his soul it was understandable why she would keep Spikes presence a secret, but why had she before? Were all these tears, this pain, was it all for him?
“Why do you want to know about Spike?”
Buffy almost growled. “Because I do Angel. How do...did you know him?”
Angel rubbed his brow. “Buffy I don’t want- I can’t talk about it.”
“Angel, this is the least you owe me. The very least. And you are not leaving here without telling me everything.”
Angel was silent for a very long time. Then- “What did he tell you?”
Buffy wiped the salty tang of loss from her face. “Not much, just that you were sort of his uncle, that he was part of your ‘family’. That he had been made to give a blood oath of loyalty to you.”
Angel nodded slowly. “Buffy, when I tell you what you want to hear, remember, it wasn’t me, not the me you know.”
Buffy snorted, “I think I know both sides of you now.”
Angel sighed heavily. “What Spike told you was true. He was part of our family, only he was William then. When he was born we hadn’t seen his father for several decades, he resented Darla for siring me, and for preferring me when she had. He went off, causing devastation of his own. We heard about him through the grapevine, Darla liked to keep tabs on her childe, so we knew when he’d taken up with the slayer-“
“Jane. Her name was Jane.”
Angel nodded slightly. “Yes. We heard about that. And then William was born. After Jane ran off The Predator (as he liked to call himself) found us, asked us for our help in tracking her down. It sounded- it sounded like fun. Darla was bored, and we agreed. But she proved hard to find. By the time we succeeded William wasn’t a baby anymore, and it was clear that he was more than human. After Jane... died we all took to training William, to initiating him into our little family. The Predator wasn’t much interested in him beyond using what powers he had, but we liked him, as much as vampires can like anyone. We kept him close when he was a child.”
Buffy didn’t like the way Angel spoke. “You mean he was your toy don’t you? You pushed him and manipulated him to see how much it would take for him to break.”
“Buffy, it wasn’t like that. He needed to be taught how to survive. Vampires live on instinct, but he had a child’s instincts. He wouldn’t have survived if we hadn’t toughened him up. And it wasn’t always bad. Drusilla was often kind to him, or as kind as she knows how to be. He was her ‘little prince’, she often protected him from the rest of us.
When we first made the blood bond, tying him to us, we didn’t realise it would break. But it did, when he turned sixteen. We didn’t feel it, But Drusilla knew, somehow. Maybe the stars told her” Angel barked a laugh that sounded oddly loud in that quiet place. He sobered instantly. “None of us knew, but she claimed William as a mate, tying him to her permanently.”
Buffy’s eyes widened. “And he let her? After everything you had done to him, after what his father did to his mother? He willingly let himself get shackled to that nut job?”
Angel closed his eyes, as though relieving a memory that was partly painful, partly not. “You can’t understand what it was like Buffy. William remembered his father killing his mother, and he hated him for it, though none of us could have guessed quite how much. But he had been surrounded by evil for the majority of his life, it was all he really knew. He didn’t understand good. He hated his father, but we were his family. And Drusilla, he was young, and she is beautiful, persuasive. He believed he was in love with her, though it was never really anything more than an infatuation.
After he killed his father he could have turned on the rest of us. He was certainly strong enough. But he didn’t. He stayed with us for several years after that.”
Buffy shook her head to get rid of the confusion. “Why did you let him? After what he’d done to one of your own, why didn’t you all turn on him?”
Angel almost smiled. “None of us, particularly me, were very fond of his father. His actions with the slayer-Jane- had drawn unwanted council attention on us. He was all about the attention, not the art of the kill. Even Darla had had enough of him. None of us were sorry to see him go, and we all wanted to keep William.
He didn’t want to leave us either. We were all he had in the world. As dysfunctional, as evil and cruel as we were, he was ours.”
“So Spike hunted? He killed?”
“Yes. For a short time anyway.”
Buffy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. And she didn’t want to. Spike, the saviour of slayers, her saviour, was a cold blooded killer. Either he didn’t have a soul, or he just didn’t care.
Angel noticed the fresh wave of hurt crashing over Buffy, and though his instincts were screaming at him not to, he decided to be honest. “Buffy, William didn’t like killing. He never relished the hunt, or sought it out. He just didn’t know he could live another way. When he could he would feed off our kills, but we thought that made him soft, and we punished him for it.
He’d started having slayer visions when he was about eighteen, though none of us knew that’s what they were. He thought he was like Drusilla, a little addled in the mind, seeing things that weren’t there. Because of that he relied on us, and our judgement, more than he should have. He didn’t really have a choice about killing, not back then. We didn’t give him one.”
Buffy felt a little better, and it wasn’t as if Spike hadn’t tried to make amends after. He’d saved countless slayers, countless times, after all. Herself included. “So what changed? Why did he suddenly decide to leave your ‘family’? He seems to really hate you now.” There was an emphasis, a relish on the word hate, that Angel didn’t like.
Angel was reluctant to continue, but one look from Buffy made him realise he’d have to. “Love. Love changed him. Changed everything. It always does” his intense gaze made Buffy tremble with remembered feeling, but she ignored it and after a moment he spoke again. “William could go out in the daylight, we’d always known that, but we’d never really thought about what he did in those daylight hours. One day we found out.
When he was about twenty one we settled in London. There was a lot of fun to be had in London, in those days. All of a sudden William became different, secretive and quiet, when he never had been before. He stopped coming hunting with us, and wouldn’t feed from our kills, no matter how much he was... encouraged.
Then Drusilla had a vision, or rather, she saw something through the mating bond. William had been going out during the day, for walks, exploring the town. And on one of these explorations he met a girl. The only women he had ever known were Darla and Drusilla, but this was a human. A girl of warmth, of flesh and blood.
They got talking. She was a society girl, she should never have been going anywhere un-chaperoned, but she was wilful and headstrong, and she found a way. They began to meet regularly. William discovered goodness in her, real kindness and affection. He realised he could eat human food to supplement his blood. He realised he didn’t have to be the monster we’d made him. He made plans with her, plans for their future, and they didn’t include us.
This had been going on for months secretly, before Drusilla had her vision. She saw it all, right from the beginning, and she was furious that her darling prince could want to leave her. She told us, actually making sense for once, and we were equally disgusted with him, that he could turn his back on being what he truly was for some human.” Angel swallowed heavily. Buffy got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she had a terrible feeling she knew how the story would end.
It was obviously difficult for Angel to tell the next part, but he did, making no attempt to meet Buffy’s eyes now.
“One night we sent William out on an errand. Another vampire clan had come to the area, and we wanted it to be clear which parts of the city belonged to us. William went off to deliver the message, and Drusilla used her thrall to draw William’s girl to us. She was dead by the time William returned.”
Fresh tears had begun to make their way down the now familiar paths that streaked Buffy’s face as she remembered the way Giles had found Miss Calendar. With a definite tremble in her voice Buffy asked, “But you didn’t just kill her, did you?”
Angel was paler then ever as he shook his head. “No, we didn’t. By the time we were through with her William only recognised her by what was left of her dress... and the necklace she wore. He’d given it to her.”
Buffy knew that was not all. “And?”
Angel rose to his feet and took several steps away from Buffy. His hands were clenched into fists so tight the knuckles appeared to be bursting from the skin. “We didn’t realise at first, not for a while after we had her, but then Darla pointed it out. She always had the best hearing. It was so faint... barely recognisable. I’ve never heard anything like it. We cut her open to... to get it out, and we laid it by her body when we were done. Then we left. When William came back he found them side by side. The woman he loved and-“
“Their baby.” Buffy’s voice cracked on the word. She stood on shaky legs and had to stop herself from picking up the remaining sword and finishing the job she had set out to do that evening.
“Why didn’t he kill you? All of you, when he found out what you’d done?”
Angel smiled sadly, “He wanted to. God how he wanted to. And he did try, but Drusilla had made sure that he couldn’t. As they’re mated, and because she was the more senior vampire in the pairing, she could command him to not kill us. It was physically impossible for him not to obey. We all thought he’d get over it, and come back to the fold. None of us thought he could really love, he was half vampire after all. But he never came back. He left, and we didn’t see him again for some time.
He figured out what the slayer visions meant, after a time, and he focused his energies on that. It drove Drusilla even more insane, she was determined that she would get him back somehow, and she thought that going after slayers would bring him back to her. It didn’t of course.
Our paths didn’t cross until one night, in Romania. William had been tracking our movements, waiting for his moment to get what revenge he could, and he found the perfect one. He made sure the gypsies knew it was me who had killed their daughter. He helped them cast the spell that cursed me with a soul. He made sure I knew where my suffering came from.”
Buffy snapped. “You brought your suffering on yourself, he just made sure you felt it.”
Angel turned pleading eyes on Buffy, “I do feel it Buffy, I do. Everyday, all day, I regret the things I did. And now I have even more things to regret.”
Buffy ignored him, “So you’re sick little family went their separate ways and you never saw them again? Is that it?”
Angel nodded.
“Thank you. Right now, I need to be as far away from you as I can possibly get. Stay the hell away from me okay? Spike isn’t around to save your life again.”
Buffy walked straight past him, without looking back, leaving a confused and devastated Angel behind her.
Buffy didn’t care. Her love for Angel, all of the heartbreak she had felt the last few months, had faded to grey. All she was thinking about, all she was focused on; was Spike, and the fact that, because of her, he was now in hell.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry again about the wait, and thank you so much for the reviews, they really mean a lot to me! will try and update sooner next time and try and get into a weekly routine. :)