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Author's Chapter Notes:
Gahhh, so close. Just an epilogue after this one, and if you're good, I'll have it up tomorrow. ;o)

Oh, and character death.
Chapter Twenty-One

She sounded like a wounded animal. The second the light of his soul flashed inside the orb, Joyce was tearing at her hair and moaning like a fox with its leg caught and severed in a hunter’s trap. Her reaction was so sudden, so startling that it shook everyone in the room—particularly as she’d had her turn as recipient of the spell and had spent the last hour dealing with her pain in a huddle on the floor.

Her heartbroken screams seemed to be some kind of doomsayer and the Scoobies shuddered violently. Buffy rushed forward awkwardly to try and sooth her mother to quiet, ever mindful that as oblivious as the citizens of Sunnydale were, it wouldn’t stop them reporting an apparent murder next door.

“Mom? It’s okay. Angel would want this.” Buffy went ignored, but decided to persist by reaching her hand out to touch her mother, only to retract it fast as Joyce flinched away from the possibility of her daughter’s touch.

It had apparently been enough to stop the squall of noise, though, and Buffy was able to concentrate on the strangeness of this soul spell to the last one.

“What’s going on?” She stared at the glowing orb, mesmerised by Angel’s soul that had flashed away and then returned almost with the speed of light, before finally leaving for good. The first time around, her mother hadn’t reacted half as terrified and out of control as she was now.

Jenny looked up, obviously having no clue what to tell Buffy. “I’m not sure. Everything seems to have worked out fine. But your mother—” She shrugged helplessly.

There was no need to continue—everyone could see that Joyce Summers was beside herself with some kind of pain. It wasn’t until Buffy turned to Spike, hoping he might have an opinion on the problem, when his own expression of horrified disbelief struck her like a jab to the heart. Something was wrong—with the spell, with the air, with her. She was fresh out of clues, but whatever it was, Spike knew.

Buffy watched him, her eyes imploring him to share the assumed catastrophe rather than have her be the one to break into the confusion. She stood as his mouth opened, then closed as he was forced to swallow hard against the surge of tears in his throat.

“Bloody hell,” he exploded in disbelief, and then the pacing and the frantic hand movements began. The full length of the room, he strode back and forth, passed stunned onlookers as they stared in anxious curiosity. “I’ll be buggered.” And then the unthinkable happened; Buffy saw the sparkle of new tears as the salty liquid acquainted itself with the smooth plains of his face. He was staring at the only other vampire in the room—the only other vampire that could feel the sudden departure as he did. The only other vampire—possibly in the world—that could know the heartache of being irrevocably alone. His family was split. The one that had given him life and tormented him into obscene understanding of his new lot in life, and the human, half demon one he’d come to know with accepting Buffy as his mate for eternity. There was no swinging choice between the two any longer. He had Buffy, and he had Joyce. That was it now: total.

It was far too devastating for him to formulate an explanation in his head, let alone one he could share. His sire and Angelus—they’d chosen each other and forsaken him and their newest creation. It hurt more than he could have ever imagined, leaving a hollow of grief inside that he didn’t have the first inkling or skill to deal with. And Buffy. God, how would she take the news?

He was back to being reminded of Angel, whom he’d wanted to forget the second he’d first run from this flat earlier in the night. He’d accepted the presence of Angelus in his life—hardly being able to ignore it with Joyce teasing at his senses. And now he was…

“Dust.”

It was the only word he could expel. His mouth was dry, his lips numb and his tongue was swollen obscenely in his mouth. And then he laughed, some crack of hysteria splitting wide open and letting the sound obliterate the howling destruction of Joyce’s grief.

The human contingent stared at the unhinged vampire pair with horror. What on earth could have happened to make two vampires become completely with the split personality in a matter of minutes? Buffy felt angry and struggled with herself not to go over there and punch one or the both of them into some kind of sense. She resented this; she resented Spike making her feel on guard and wary, not knowing if this was some weird reaction to his grandsire’s reunion with his soul or if he’d somehow managed to catch it for himself.

Oh!

Oh God. A more alert set of eyes suddenly narrowed and studied Spike’s every move. Buffy needed to see that there was some sanity still clinging to the edges of him—that the vampire she loved and had pledged her eternity to hadn’t suddenly become ensouled and was facing over a century of remorse and grief.

And then Joyce seemed to snap out of it, only to fling herself in supernatural glory to latch at Spike’s throat, furious intent in the harsh line of her mouth and the dangerous glitter of her green eyes. “You bastard!” she screeched, shaking an unresisting hysterical Spike like a rag doll. He swayed as if his spine had been liquefied, and there was such crippling pain in his eyes that it left Buffy with a sour taste in her mouth.

“What’s going on?” She almost had to shout while she definitely had to barge her way into the melee and tear her mother away from her incoherent boyfriend.

The eyes that were focused intently on her, incredulous, were dull and more lifeless than they’d been since Mrs. Summers returned to them dead. “Nothing’s going on, Buffy. Everything is gone, nothing left to make anything go on with.”

“Never thought he could do it. I mean, knew the ponce was a grade-A wanker, but this…never thought he’d be able to…that he could…” And that was it, Spike sat down hard on the couch, his head buried in his hands and his hunched shoulders shaking violently in what Buffy was assuming was some kind of emotional devastation. His fingers clutched at his hair and he rocked; Buffy had never felt so hopeless or clueless in all her life.

“Someone needs to explain this. Are we safe? Because as weird as this is getting, so not going home if Angelus is hunting out there without that flashy soul that went looking for him.” Xander appealed to them all, though he looked hardest at Spike. The vampire took no notice, was, in fact, in no state to be listening to anything much around him. So it was Jenny that answered.

“The spell worked. Angel has his soul back, I’m completely sure of that. What has gotten into them? It has nothing to do with this spell.”

Spike snorted, and when he finally looked up and challenged Buffy to stay in his eyes, he barked out a humourless laugh. “Oh it bloody worked, all right. The stupid git accepted it back the second before Dru slipped wood through his breast.”

It took Buffy a while to add that up. Angel was back with the soul, which was of the major goodness where she was concerned. It was a cause for a party, not this wailing funeral dirge that was giving her chills. And then the second part of the explanation hit her, and it was obviously the most important part. She felt sadness settle along with the knowledge that Angel was gone, but it didn’t tear her apart like it seemed to for Spike and her mom. Neither of them had been sired by Angelus; neither of them considered him anything much but a tormenting bully in the vampiric world of training to hunt and be evil to the fullest extent.

The only explanation for this plaintive display of grief was the loss of someone closer—someone whose loss would have impact and consequences. “Dru,” she gasped with an unwilling croak. Spike’s blurred gaze wrought an impact that turned her blood ice cold in her veins. She felt like her normal bodily functioning came to a screeching halt, her blood stilling and her heart thudding to a stop, only for everything to speed into overdrive in the next heavy second and the desire to hyperventilate and ignore it all almost having her rush out of there in a screaming, disbelieving panic.

The blow was crushing. Her jealousy was still so new and now she had to face her vampire lover with the loss of his direction; the loss of his first real adult love—even if she had been cruel and twisted.

“No, Buffy. Still know who I am, an’ where I’m going.” And despite his distance, she was in his arms in a vampire move of stealth and flight, his action ushering her outside and into the night.

He was kissing her hungrily before they took two steps into the courtyard. This passion in the face of tragedy scared her, but Buffy didn’t want to know what she’d be facing if he’d reacted any way but this. She loved him—the Slayer loved a vampire that wasn’t Angel, a vampire with no soul but who loved her in return with the depths of one.

“Drusilla’s dust.” His lips seemed to smack apart from hers and Buffy felt appalled that she’d let her apprehension slide with the power of Spike’s kiss. Voicing exactly what she’d been afraid of didn’t make it easier to face the reality, not when Spike still seemed so affected by it. As much as she wanted to be cold-hearted and refuse to understand how it could be so painful for him, she knew…if it had been her—her mother…

Buffy grew within herself and wrapped Spike in the only acceptance she had the ability right then to offer. Her arms seemed to swallow his frame, his body hunched in on itself with the loss of half of its purpose.

It took a while, but then he looked up, speared her with the intelligence of his gaze and made Buffy swallow compulsively. “It’s hard, yeah? I’d forgotten that connection. Been driftin’ along at her side for over a hundred years, thinking she was mine. Took the link for granted, didn’t need for it to be anything other than what it was when I was right there. But now it’s gone…feels like she’s taken a chunk of me with her.”

Buffy nodded, understanding and yet so far from it that she was speechless. “An’ Angel. Bloody hell, bloke got his soul back and got sent straight to Hell.” His eyes were haunted; guilty.

And Buffy locked up in shock.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

She’d confirmed it was safe. Around apologies that were eagerly accepted, Joyce confirmed it was safe. Angelus was no more, and that’s all she would say. But it was enough and Giles’s little flat emptied rather faster than he might have expected. Jenny left with Willow and Xander, even though he’d implored her to stay, still feeling the uncertainty of almost losing her to their own stupidity. She’d smiled, kissed his cheek and whispered a promise to get together soon, and then they were gone, passing Buffy and Spike’s blissfully unaware desperation to find some kind of understanding in this confusion of a night.

He was left alone with Joyce—with a vampire newly souled and in grief. Giles sighed as he helped her up off the floor and guided her without fear to a seat at his dinner table. And as uncomfortable as he felt with this, he could understand Buffy’s reluctance to face this situation. The pain in her face every time she was forced to look at her mother betrayed how guilty and terrified she was. He knew she wasn’t ready to take those first steps in re-establishing a relationship that whose dynamics had changed so dramatically.

They sat in a shared, thoughtful silence for several minutes before Joyce looked at him, her hand wandering slowly up to her face and tracing along the newly deformed bumps that had altered the beauty of her face.

“Oh God. I killed people. Slaughtered them for fun and had filthy, perverted sex while their dead eyes watched me.” The mother of the vampire slayer looked at him with some kind of need that he had no way of interpreting. She wanted him to slake her guilt, end her misery, but it was something Giles was unable to do. She’d not yet spoken to Buffy—not explained or grieved her own death with her daughter. Giles felt his own guilt in allowing this multiply tenfold, feeling deeply the imprint of this night on his own soul and knew it was going to fill with lessons that would not be too soon forgotten.

“I assure you, Joyce, that you had no control while the demon corrupted your every move, your every emotion. You will learn to live with what has happened, though I realise it will take time.” He was startled at her bitter laugh.

“Time? Oh well, that’s okay then. Not like I don’t have an eternity of that to work with, do I?” And she crumbled again right in front of him. “I’m cursed. I know this story—or parts of it anyway. Angelus had one, but he lost it.” Terrified eyes shot to his with the horror of realisation, causing them to deepen in amber before suddenly reverting back to green. She seemingly had no control over the change, her features switching back and forth with each alteration of emotion. “God, what if I lose it? Buffy can’t be watching me all the time. I can’t do this to her. It isn’t right for a mother to be a burden on her child like this.”

He had no words of reassurance, finding it difficult to resolve years of council training that had him agreeing to the sentiments she expressed. He also saw the difficulty in knowing this particular creature in life and could easily predict how devastated Buffy would be by all of this when she finally slowed and was able to process everything that had been happening in her life.

His empty meaningless offering remained in his head and they lapsed once again into a solicitous silence that resolved nothing and expanded little. Giles felt stiff with exhaustion, his older bones craving a flat surface on which to sleep and his eyes began to drift closed as the morning sun rose to bathe the world outside his window. He was almost incoherent when he asked Joyce to explain the note she was trying to write—almost frantically fast as his eyelids drooped and he succumbed to the tiredness he felt and slept. He missed the final sad smile Joyce aimed at him as she folded her piece of paper and wrote Buffy on the blank side. She gently placed it beside his relaxed hand and took unsteadily to her feet.

“Please help her to understand,” she whispered at the one man she hoped could guide Buffy through the rest of her life, and she quickly walked to the door. She opened it onto the beginning of a beautiful day and basked in the sunshine on her face.

And crumbled her way to dust.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

They’d made love. Not as unaware as the others may have thought, Buffy had waited for her friends and teacher to tiptoe by them and then had dragged Spike away, taking him to the only home she had in this town. She’d undressed him in her room, and then proceeded to show him that their love would be everything for her and that whatever he needed to get through this pain, she would be there to give. His kisses showed her how grateful he was, and the slow steady glide of him inside her proved to be just the distraction they needed.

After, when they lay still in each other’s arms, Buffy felt relaxed enough to finally sleep, being lured there by the warming sun as it began to bless her house. And then Spike jerked upright and swore furiously.

When he’d explained this last devastating turn, Buffy shed tears. She was engulfed with sadness that so many were lost, and she could easily acknowledge that her mother’s decision to end her existence hadn’t quite caught her with the power that it should have. It hurt now, but later it would bring her to her knees. She knew it, and for the moment Buffy chose to allow it its place and concentrated on cementing the one thing she did have and couldn’t lose ever.

Spike.

Her eyes stung throughout that horrible morning and sleep didn’t come again. Buffy rose and dressed, needing to do something that would take her mind off her life and then try to make sense of what it had become when that mission failed. Aimless argument with herself resulted in wandering focus and Buffy collapsed in defeat.

There was nothing salvageable about this experience. She’d loved Angel and lost him, but that didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as knowing how Spike felt at losing his family.

She didn’t know what their sanctioned joining meant, but knowing her life it would be answered in some cryptic way—more than likely by some badly dressed small guy in a weird hat. All she knew was that out of the whole mess, having Spike end up at her side felt like the only right thing that had happened. She felt whole when she was with him, like a part of her might be lost but he could always fill it back up again with love.

Buffy stood slowly, stretching out the cramps in her legs that had been the result of hours of non-moving and realised the moon was high in the sky. She could hear Spike quietly moving around upstairs, probably dressing and trying to sense where she was. Knowing she wanted him was only half the battle. He was in her life now and the purpose of that seemed to be written by Powers they had no memo from, so they had nothing to lead them but their own sense of right.

With a small, fragile smile settling on her lips, Buffy went in search of her vampire and thanked the day he’d decided to have a death wish. If he’d not wanted to die she might not have known life. The trade off was exciting and Buffy celebrated in her heart the gains she’d made.

Now, the world was waiting for them.

The Slayer and her vampire.





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