[Reviews - 26]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 939 times

- Text Size +




Spike let out a growl and was about to question his guards as to why they weren't standing guard inside the library. Instead, they were standing outside the doors when he heard Buffy's heartbroken voice. He slipped inside without making a noise and stood in the shadows, careful not to move too far into the room with the sun still setting and it's final rays hitting the desks.

"I don't know." Giles whispered, clearly shaken. He was walking over to where Buffy sat in the window seat and stood against the wall adjacent to the open window. They were oblivious to his presence, something Spike was thankful for. He watched on, the setting suns ray shining in her wet eyes.

She was crying.

"Sometimes I wish I was."

His demon silently howled in protest at hearing the defeat in her voice and Spike shifted his weight.

"Don't say that. Your parents wouldn't want that-" Giles started before Buffy cut him off

"They knew mom carried the blood and that I would eventually come into my powers. Why have me? Why?" Buffy let out a sob.

"Your father loved you, Elizabeth." Giles whispered remembering how fondly Hank always spoke of his daughter. There was a brief time when Hank had been in regular contact with him before he had all of a sudden requested a meeting in secret and demanded that he guard the parchments with his life.

"No one can know you have these! If they were to get into the wrong hands..."

"He loved you so much that he risked his life in giving me these parchments. If the wrong hands were to ever get hold of these." Giles motioned to the papers strewn across the desk and stared down at her, sadness in his eyes. He had never laid eyes on her before, but he knew Hank had a young child, a daughter. He hadn't understood half the words on the parchments and scrolls, the writing and statements erratic and out of order and in Latin, but he did as he was asked. Giles had thought at the time the image of the woman depicted on the parchments had been Joyce, Hank's wife who had been taken, having absolutely no idea that she had been from the chosen bloodline.

Blood that had been passed onto Buffy.

Hanks child was 'The One' depicted in the chosen's generation the prophecy spoke of.

"You have no idea how special you are."

"Mom always used to tell me I was special." Buffy whispered sadly, her hands shaking. "Special has given me nothing but pain and grief. Special had my mother ripped from my life at nine years old by Angelus and Drusilla. Do you have any idea what that was like?"

Angelus again, Spike silently growled. His hatred for the pillock seemed to grow as he felt his unbeating heart sink in his chest. When he had first seen Buffy laying and bleeding on the ground out in the woods after they had killed Riley's men and knocked him out he had paused. Did he leave her to die or take her back with him? His demon had taken one sniff and decided it wanted a taste, but Oz had jumped in his way and growled menacingly. Humanity. Always getting in the way of his dinner.

After discovering that Buffy was more than just another one of Angelus's pretty play things, he had been intrigued. Buffy was the missing link in his plan that would ultimately lead to Angelus's death once and for all, but the slight problematic discovery that Angelus had mated with his dark princess would prove to be a difficult bump to overcome.

That and the fact that the taste of Buffy's blood had sent his own demon into a raging lust. It wanted Buffy as his own. Drusilla be damned.

Life had seen it fit to deal Buffy the worst kinds of pain, coming in the forms of two very cruel and twisted vampires. Heart, head and demon torn he didn't know what to do. Listening to the way her voice shook when she spoke Spike's fingers itched at his side, his legs becoming restless as he forced himself not to move and walk towards her.

"I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you and I can't say I know what it was like to lose your mother like that, but I do know of grief. The pain that comes when your loved ones are ripped from this world. Angelus killed my wife and my five year old daughter and I will spend the rest of my life trying to exact my revenge on him for it."

Buffy heard Giles voice crack and looked up to see him wipe away a tear. There was silence for a few moments before she spoke again.

"I killed my first vampire at nine."

Spike raised an eyebrow.

Nine! She killed her first vampire at the young age of nine!

Buffy had the potential to be quite strong and if she was given the right training Spike had no doubt in his mind that she would actually stand a chance at killing Angelus.

"I watched from the shadows like a coward as Angelus took my mother and left a minion to finish off my father. He just laid there so still that I thought he was dead. I shot the vampire with an arrow and he just crumbled... We ran for so long after that. I can't remember a time we spent more than a week in the same place. Father had been training me every day since that day, helping me become stronger, faster... better." She glanced at the now darkening sky. "But it didn't make a difference. We were betrayed and he found us again. Father got away, I remember that much, but I guess he wasn't worth chasing down after they had me. I was the real prize."

The hands in her lap were wet with fallen tears, tears that streaked from her cheeks to chin, Giles had stood in silence not daring to interrupt, listening intently.

"I remember him talking about you, you know. I remember the day he left to give you his papers while I hid. He said if I was ever in real trouble that you would help. That I could count on you-"

Spike couldn't take the silence anymore and moved past the desks, Giles looked his way and seemed startled to see him. He motioned towards the door with his head, signaling for him to leave before he followed a few seconds later to close the door. When Spike turned back around he wasn't surprised to see that Buffy hadn't lifted her head. She just sat staring into the night, the moon shining its small light down at her.

"I'm sorry, luv." He didn't know what possessed him to say it. Her back stiffened when he sat next to her, her heart racing as she met his eyes momentarily. "How is your back feeling?" He had noticed the dress she was wearing when he had entered the room, and smiled on in appreciation at seeing the low cut top and not seeing the thick bandages she had been wearing for the last few days.

"Better."

Her whispered responses made his heart sink. The scars she wore on her skin weren't the only scars she carried and it was a miracle that after being held captive by Angelus and Drusilla for so long that she wasn't insane herself.

"Are you hungry?"

"Why do you care? You cared just enough about my comfort in the carriage and now you're asking me if I'm hungry? I'm your prisoner yo-"

He slipped a hand through her arm and grasped her elbow lightly, coming to a stand. She certainly was something else.

Spike wasn't sure if it was because he had tasted her blood and the desperate want his demon had for her or if it was just the fact that he hated to see a woman cry when he spoke.

"The way I see it, this is the safest place for you to be right now."

Buffy couldn't argue with him on that point.

With the freezing cold temperatures winter was bringing in, it wasn't safe to travel outdoors and she knew Angelus would be looking for her again. With Spike holding her in his house surrounded by guards day and night she knew he wouldn't be breaking in without a large fight. Still she couldn't help but ask.

"So I'm free to leave?'

"Not quite." Spike smirked, the hand on her arm going stiff. Just because he had decided to be nice did not mean he was letting her out of his sight. Buffy was his bargaining chip to get his dark princess back. Once Drusilla was his again he along with the help of Giles and Oz, would finally kill Angelus.

The hatred in Buffy's voice towards Angelus, Spike knew she was more than willing to help kill him if he asked, but he paused. Drusilla was no doubt on Buffy's kill list and there was no way he was going to let her harm a single hair on Dru's perfect head.

"So I'm your prisoner still."

"Yes, but I'm no' going to keep you locked up in a dark cold dungeon if that's wha' you're asking."

"It might as well be." Buffy grumbled, thinking to the pitch black room that awaited her. "Would it be too much to ask for a room with a window at least?"

Spike seemed to think it over before nodding, opening the double doors to the library and escorting her out.

"I will grant your request on one condition."

"Which is?"

"I have a lot of questions that need answering."

"I'll try my best to answer them."

"I also have a proposition for you."

Buffy waited for him to continue, but when it never came she frowned. Spike was acting strange and she knew there was a plot forming in that head of his.

They walked through the castle, his cool arm never leaving hers. Buffy scratched at her hip a few times, a movement Spike didn't seem to notice. The bite on her hip was becoming warm again, faster than it had any other night. Buffy's brows furrowed.

They wound their way down a staircase and into a dining hall. A long table was situated in the middle, a fire burning in the fireplace off to the side of the room. There were only two place settings set out, one on the end of the table and one adjacent to it making Buffy wonder for the first time since she had been taken from the carriage as to where Tara and Oz were.

As they walked closer to the table Spike slipped his arm from hers and pulled out her chair. She raised one eyebrow at his chivalry and sat down, watching his every move as he walked to his own chair at the end of the table and sat down.

What are you planning?

"The former Mr. Finn tells me that Angelus wanted to try and 'breed' you-"

What?

"Former?"

"Which is absurd because vampire can't have children. Yes, I got rather impatient and killed him." His blue crystalline eyes met hers and her shoulders tensed, breath quickening. Spike raised one eyebrow. She was angry. "I would have though' you'd want Finn dead for what he's done to you."

"He said something to me before you- he said Angelus turned my mother."

Spike was silent, not sure what to say. Buffy looked so small, sitting in her chair, her shoulders sinking, her eyes watering. So fragile. He coughed and stumbled over his words before collecting himself.

"If he did... she's not your mother anymore." Spike turned away and Buffy thought she saw something in his eyes, regret, sadness. A memory from his past?

She sat in silence for a few moments as Spike stared at her, obviously waiting for her response to his earlier statement, but she still couldn't think.

Riley was dead.


Chapter End Notes:
Things are just starting to get interesting!!



You must login (register) to review.