Chapter Twenty-Five
He jerked abruptly from sleep with a scream on his lips and a sheen of sweat on his naked chest. The terrified wails of at least a thousand of his victims reverberated in his head and Angel shuddered with arrogance-breaking enlightenment.
He’d lost his way.
He’d veered so far from the path gifted to him because of a stupid sense of competition with Spike. The bleached wannabe had stolen his history, as well as his girl, and Angel had practically stood by and handed over his destiny. Having to share so much as soon as he’d arrived in Sunnydale had soured the experience for him and Angel felt the shame of his superficiality clench his gut. For once it wasn’t the result of his grief at the loss of his sire. He was so stupid for allowing her presence to distract him, and even more foolish for basing his ability to do good on whether or not he got a schoolgirl to fall as far for him as he’d thought he had for her.
She’d dented his pride, choosing a lying sneak like Spike over him. Even now, he had no faith in Spike’s actions. Angel knew deep down that Spike was here to wreak havoc—and already had with the siring of Buffy’s friend. The kid had been doomed from the moment Darla had him in her clutches. It took quite a man to walk away from her unaffected, to not be seduced by her beauty; Angel himself hadn’t been that. How could he condemn an unworldly schoolboy for doing what he had gladly done over two and a half centuries before?
Xander Harris was an idiot. Angel wasn’t blind to what the fool had thought he was doing in begging Spike to give his friend new life. He’d bought into Spike’s game, seriously believing that Spike was the poster child for reformed demons everywhere. Even without the deceitful cover story stolen from Angel himself, he couldn’t believe Spike had chosen Buffy over an existence of evil, blood and death.
It was no longer his place to judge. He had a path to tread and he was sent here to help and so far he’d done everything possible to turn his necessary allies from his side. His example of help had been tainted and it would take a powerful show of selflessness to regain their favour. Handing over a book of prophecy thought lost to the human world just wouldn’t cut it. He needed to help Buffy take down the Master; he needed to make sure Spike hadn’t killed her.
Cold purpose propelled him from his comfortable bed and Angel dressed in a hurry, donning his usual and fleeing out the door into the night. It was never fresh evening air he smelt on the Hellmouth. The faint waft of blood always met his nose and despite himself, Angel felt his spirits perk. Yes, it was selfish for him to be pleased that death still tainted the town, giving him a usefulness that he wouldn’t have if creatures such as him didn’t wreak havoc with every non-breath. But despite how much the soul changed him, there were parts of him that were still demon-controlled, and the lust for blood was inherently one of them. He had control now and the lack of desire to see his fangs buried in some innocent’s neck, but he still craved the taste. He’d lost sleep about it in the beginning—a hundred years ago when there had been too much blood to educate his discriminating palette. Now he dealt with it; he didn’t embrace that side exactly, but denying its existence would only take him places he couldn’t allow himself to be.
It was a strange night. As he walked along, hushed quiet seemed to surround him. People stared at him nervously, voiceless as they hurried by. Did they suspect his break from his mission? Did they know he’d all but condemned their slayer to death?
Angel tried to shake the paranoia from his back but stepped up his pace nonetheless. He needed to know if he was right and Buffy was gone. He hoped he’d been wrong but found himself too inclined to accept the nature of his protégé of twenty years. He’d taught Spike to scheme, to taunt, to play and torture. He’d gloried in introducing the young fop to the more sadistic and macabre elements of his new existence. Spike hadn’t been an unwilling student, but he’d taken delight in being contrary ever since Angel had shown him how little of Dru he really had a claim on. Little fool had had his nose out of joint ever since. Maybe that’s why he’d pipped him at the Buffy post. Maybe somehow he’d learned of Angel’s new destiny and decided he was going to ruin it just as spectacularly as Angel had whipped his out from under him.
Angel really had no clue what to believe, and even if Spike had been kidnapped and tortured by The Master’s minions, it still wasn’t proof that Spike wasn’t playing some kind of elaborate game with the aim of taking Buffy out.
As a surprising bolt of remorse sliced through him, Angel found himself contemplating the prospect of a changed Spike. Was it possible for a demon to shed its spots and change their role in the world? He hoped so. For Buffy’s heart and her life, he hoped so, because if it wasn’t and Spike was just biding his time, Buffy was as good as dead.
And that sat heavily on his conscience.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
He’d forgotten how to sleep.
Eyes bloodshot and stinging, Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his lids, finally giving in to the crushing sense of failure that he felt toward Buffy. His slayer was going to die. While that had been a pretty regular phenomena in all things slayers and the Council, Giles felt a bigger failure than ever because this slayer, he knew. This slayer had blood running through her veins, an education in progress, a mother oblivious to her nightly excursions to keep the world asafer place for all, and a destiny that gave her no real future other than death.
He’d never suspected it would happen so soon.
The very last thing he’d expected to do was to care for Buffy Summers. His training had continually emphasised a sustained detachment from the warriors that fought like an army but stood as a tiny girl. He’d never spent much time wondering about the mission of the others; he’d often immersed himself in the diaries of his forebears with astonishment and awe and had prayed he might one day get the chance to record events so life altering, so esteemed for those that followed.
He didn’t want to record the details of his slayer’s death.
He couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if the codex had never been placed in his palm. It had been believed to be fully destroyed, not available anywhere on earth for reading. Yet Angel had had a copy and had so easily passed it to him. What had he hoped for? Had the supposedly souled vampire read it first? Did he know that Buffy was to die at the hands of The Master?
It was plausible, as much as he didn’t wish to think it. The avid declarations that, if left alone with him, Spike would surely rip Buffy apart and laugh at the prospect was something that was perhaps the motivation of a vampire intent on allowing the prophecy precedence. And yet these things always prevailed, so by virtue of this fact, one could believe that Buffy was more than safe in the arms of her chosen vampire—soulless or not.
She would not be safe if she attempted to save the world this time. And yet, there was nothing that predicted the true end of the world. The codex foretold of Buffy’s demise at the hands of that Hell-dwelling monster, but not that he fully escaped and destroyed everything as Giles and his fellow human’s knew it.
He was weary with wondering what to do about it. He grew more afraid of telling Buffy the news the longer he put it off. And yet, how did one go about breaking such news? That doing their duty within a specified set of days would mean the end of their life. No options? No rewards?
Giles replaced his glasses with hands that shook and finally gave in to the wall of tears that had been pushing against his barriers for too long now. He felt broken as he gave in to the inevitable. His slayer was going to die for the good of the world, and rather than be proud of her, he was furious. Where was the free will? How could she choose without ties to fight the Master when it seemed already preordained that she was to fail? That she was to die for the cause of good? The sheer uselessness of it all almost crippled him, and as he’d not stopped doing for the days since he’d discovered this hateful passage, Giles bent his head and began to read again, hoping against hope that this time he’d find the solution.
Unless Spike had circumvented everything and already killed her.
He’d wondered at himself after he’d returned home, vaguely going through the motions of dropping off Willow and Xander to their homes while he muddled further around a solution to his dilemma. He’d not fully understood the dynamics of the situation, but since he’d collapsed back into his comfortable chair and considered what he’d left Buffy with—a vampire bereft of his senses and craving blood and strength—did he wonder if he’d already abandoned her to a fate worse than death.
Giles was confident that Buffy could take care of herself. And he felt more faith in an unsouled Spike not to hurt her than he would have done in a souled Angel, had the positions been reversed. Something very deep inside him said that Buffy had had a lucky escape by falling for the more dynamic Spike than if he’d not shown up and lied his way into the group. It was absurd how much trust he’d placed in a vampire renowned for the lives he’d destroyed with his violence and thirst for evil, but he would remain on his guard concerning both, and his senses were telling him right now that Angel was the bigger threat.
The night outside was growing tired and surrendering its hold on the sky, specks of sunlight pushing the barrier into the pits of nothingness. Giles warned himself that he’d be no help to Buffy if he didn’t get some sleep soon, and despite his fear that he’d not be able to close his eyes, he stood and stumbled his way up to the loft and tried.
It was the only thing any of them had left to do.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“You didn’t do anything that I didn’t want.”
He was barely conscious when the words filtered through, but they encouraged him to finish the process of waking up and Spike opened his eyes at the exact time his brain registered the searing pain that ripped through his body.
“B-Buffy?” Chapped lips and a dry throat distracted him from the thing he most wanted to ignore, but she was relentless, repeating the words until she’d raised his anger enough for him to respond to it, acknowledge the horror he wanted to believe never happened.
“How can you say that?” He felt like weeping. His eyes ached at the sight of her, her face ravaged by fear and worry and her body now the one of a woman, though not through choice. “How could you have wanted what I did to you?”
Her head jerked up and he gasped at the look of longing and amazement that reflected in her eyes. “You didn’t do anything to me, Spike. They tortured you, starved you and treated you like the monster you haven’t been in a long time.”
He couldn’t look at her. Had she somehow talked herself into believing it was okay to allow a demon to attack her and take one of the most precious things she had to give? “That’s poppycock. There’s no excuse for taking a woman by force.”
Her expression was riddled with guilt he couldn’t decipher as she blushed and tried to regain the courage to resume her argument.
“You give me no credit. I’m the Slayer; I know how primal you can feel when you’ve retreated inside yourself and all you want is to protect what you sense is yours. I know what it’s like to want someone so badly you’ll forget all sense of what society dictates is right to make sure that person knows it.” She gulped and then plunged in, nerves making her hands shake slightly as she scrunched handfuls of his blanket in them.
“I did feel…shocked when you tore my shirt and bit my breast in front of Xander and Willow.” She ignored his flinch, tried to show him with the touch of her hand as she released the bedding and reached for his tightened fist that it wasn’t something she would ever hold against him. “A-and later, when you…it was my decision, Spike. If anything, I forced you, and I won’t apologise for it. I don’t think I can explain how I felt, not in a way that will make any kind of sense to probably anyone but me, but it was something I had to do. For me. You’d taken it so far, and I needed to take some of the power back, take some of myself back, and so I…I…” The tears rushed down her cheeks and she dashed at them angrily, obviously annoyed that they’d entered the argument at this time when it had been far from her plan.
Spike felt misery so deep he wanted to die. That he’d made Buffy feel powerless, worthless, dirty and degraded… God, someone should take him out the back and shoot him until he was completely full of holes. Plug them up and then do it all over again. How could he claim to love her when he did something like this? How could he stay and fight with her when he couldn’t be trusted?
His own answering knot of tears clogged his throat and in a voice that was obviously choked, he rushed out the words that would make her back away. “You need to let me go, Buffy. I’m no good for you, not when I bring you down to this.”
“Stop it.” The demand was short and harsh and Spike flinched at eyes that glittered with determination, almost feeling singed by the fire that sparked down at him. “We are not doing this. This is neither of our faults and I’m not losing you just because of some misguided guilt complex.” She sniffled and all Spike could do was stare at her in wonder. “I love you, you big bleached poophead.” And then she burst into tears before collapsing onto his chest, her arms seeking to hold him tight around his neck as she finally gave in to the mountain of stress she’d borne in such cold detachment for days.
“I love you, Spike. I know this is all mixed up and I didn’t help things at all with what I did, but somehow I guess I thought you might not take on so much of the blame when I made the really big decision. I mean, you should be mad at me more than I should be mad at you.” Without a thought to his injuries, she pushed against his chest and looked down at him with heartbreaking fear leeching the life from her usually sparkling eyes. “Are you mad at me? I don’t think I could bear it if you’re mad and leave me now. Not with Jesse and the Master and Angel going all weird. I need you by my side now, so, you can’t be mad.” She was almost ready to launch into emotional breakdown, and as much emotional strength as Spike still had, he loaned it all to her.
“I’m not mad, sweetness.” He tried to smile in reassurance, though it was weak. “Disappointed how things happened, and maybe miserable that I hurt you and forced you into that kind of a corner, but no, not mad.”
He was shaking on the inside at the lie.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Can you believe it? Another chapter! I have one more in reserve, i think, and then it's finally to writing and hopefully wrap this fic. It is many years old now! thank you all for taking the time to re-familiarise with this tale, and for those who have reviewed. you make it all worthwhile!