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Author's Chapter Notes:
Still not happy with the chapter, but its past time to post. Hope it makes sense. Comment if it doesn't.
55. Perchance to dream


Groggy from an uncomfortable night’s sleep, Spike tried to piece together the pieces of his dream before they faded away. All he could think was that his current circumstances had inspired a dream about being in even worse straights than he was now. Back when he had been with Drusilla. He shivered and leaned back against the cold stone walls. Dreams about Drusilla never boded well.

The floor was hard and cold against his back, but it hardly mattered. His body ached everywhere. The pain from his hand was the worst. It felt like all 27 bones were shattered. With something resembling relief he noted vaguely that it was his right hand, not his left. If he ever recovered from this, he would still be able to write, to draw. “Just like the stupid bitch to never even notice that I use my left,” he thought darkly, only the words "stupid bitch" actually escaping the dream to be muttered aloud.

They had turned on him. Angelus, and Darla. They had lied to him – gods they had lied, and now he was left to pay the price. He had been a fool from the beginning, and that was almost as hard to take as the betrayal. He could only hope that he would never wake, that he would die in this place, and that would be the end of it. He deserved it, he knew. By his own actions he had brought this on himself. He didn’t deserve to live. Not when she…he hadn’t been able to save her. Everything he had done had been in order to save her… but it hadn’t been enough, and now he was doomed to die here cold and alone. It was fitting. He wouldn’t fight it.

The scene shifted and he was on a bed now, with two people hovering above him. He could barely make out the words. The man, obviously foreign, spoke only broken English. The other voice…the other voice belonged to his Drusilla. He had thought she was dead! Or had that been some other girl?

“The leg, it should heal. He should not try to stand too soon. The break was very bad.” The male voice was telling Dru that he had set the hand, and that his leg had been broken in three places. He recommended cold compresses for the bruises, and left her some pills for the pain. “If there was hospital, I would take.” He promised. “But is too far. Best to stay. If bleeding inside, trip too hard. Not good. If still alive by morning, maybe then we go. Understand?”

He could hear Dru thanking the man for coming, thanking him for keeping the matter private. He imagined that he could hear the clink of gold changing hands, and the man protesting that the payment was too much. He wished that Dru had saved her money. He didn’t want help. He wanted to die.

He didn’t want to live. He’d tried again and again to tell her, but Drusilla never listened to any advice but her own. Her lucid spell had apparently passed and she was back to being her old self again. Just his luck that she would be clever enough to find him a doctor, but mad enough not to follow his advice.

He could feel her lift his body up as if it was nothing, and helped him struggle into clothes that hurt his skin to wear. Somehow, she got him down the stairs, and the next time he awoke he found himself in the back of an old station wagon, jarred back and forth every time the car passed over a pothole in the rough terrain that passed for a road hereabout. Eventually, the sounds and motion eased, and he was starting to fall back into an exhausted sleep when he heard a voice whisper in his ear.

“Don’t leave me, William. Don’t go away. If you do, I will be alone. They always leave me. You may think I don’t need you, but I do, William. Please don’t leave me.”

As the dream form of Drusilla melted and was replaced with an image of Buffy, reluctantly, dream William agreed that he would try. His girl needed him to survive this, whether he wanted to or not. So he would do his best, even if he wasn’t at all sure that he was up to it.

Struggling to make sense from nonsense, Spike shrugged off the parts of the dream that felt like memory, or premonition. No doubt the physical discomfort of the evening he had just spent was responsible for the entire episode. Still, it seemed more than real in the cold confines that surrounded him, and his right hand was throbbing with remembered pain. Almost as far back as he could remember his hand had never been quite right. In the dream he remembered that Darla had smashed it with a wooden chair leg. But that was only a dream, wasn’t it?

The cell he was in was cold, and the mattress more uncomfortable than he remembered sleeping on in a long time. With any luck, his lawyers would manage to get bail set and get him out of here before he had to spend another night in this horrible place. He knew that some one had been trying to get him locked up for some reason or another for the last several months. He just hoped that his high paid lawyers would pull some trick so that they wouldn’t be able to make the charges stick. He couldn’t really imagine living for any length of time behind bars like this.

Sure, he’d lived rough at some points in his life, but that had been a long time ago. He was used to the finer things in life now, even if that didn’t always include everything he would have wanted, good food and a comfortable bed in which to spend the night were highly under rated.

The cops who’d come to arrest him hadn’t been gentle, even though he knew better than to put up any resistance. Still, he was sore in places that he hadn’t even known were places until today.

But the physical discomfort wasn’t nearly as troubling as the thoughts of what was to come. The police had read him his rights, but they hadn’t told him what crime he was accused of having done. Formal charges conveniently would not be filed until morning, making it impossible for him to do anything but spend the night in the inhospitable cell he’d been shoved into.

The thought that Buffy might have decided to press charges was almost more than he could stand to think about. Surely, she would have told him first? Or Dawn would have. He’d explained himself to Dawn as much as he could, and he had hoped that Dawn would be able to convince Buffy of his innocence. But perhaps that idea had backfired, and caused Buffy to file charges instead.

It wasn’t right that that due process should take so long. His lawyers should have sorted things out long before now. It didn’t bode well that he had spent the entire night in jail without the benefit of counsel.

If it came down to it, he knew that his defense that it had been someone else who had drugged Buffy’s drink would sound weak at best. Without any evidence to back him up, his case wasn’t looking good. Unfortunately, the tampered wineglass had been efficiently washed and put away before he’d had a chance to check it for prints. Then again, even that probably wouldn’t have helped him – Warren had been part of the crew that had set up the party – of course his prints might be on some of the glassware. No, neither Buffy nor the Judge was likely to believe his innocence.

~ * ~


Waking refreshed and renewed, Buffy smiled at remembering what she had learned just yesterday - that she and Dawn were really and truly sisters. All of which made the whole hard to get along thing seem much more natural. Buffy was still a little uncertain about how it felt to know Giles was her Dad, but the old man had been right – it was comforting to know that she had some family, that she wasn’t alone in the world anymore.

Humming on her way into work, her good mood lasted until she arrived at her desk at the Agency and found a note from Riley. Determined that she wasn’t going to let that oaf destroy her new found happiness, she determined to put off calling him for as long as possible. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing he could say that she wanted to hear.

What she hadn’t expected was that when she hadn’t returned his call immediately, Riley took it upon himself to appear. There was no reason for him to be on this floor except to see her, so it wasn’t like she could hide herself among the cubbyholes and hope that he would go away. Determined to not let him ruin her good mood, she stood and greeted him outside her office door.

“Sorry I didn’t get around to returning your call yet,” she lied. “It’s been such a busy morning.”

“That’s okay, Buffy. I’m just happy that you’re happy. I wanted to check for myself and see how you were taking it, but I guess I should have known. You won’t have to worry about William Thorndale ever again, Buffy. I promise.”

“What are you talking about?” she hissed, pushing him inside the office and closing the door. This so wasn’t a conversation she wanted to become general office gossip. It was bad enough that Riley had come down to visit her – let alone bring up personal matters that she never ever wanted to think about again.

“You haven’t heard?” Riley snickered. “I assumed that was why you were in such a good mood. William Thorndale was brought in on charges late last night. Smuggling drugs. The evidence is pretty solid, and I imagine he’ll be spending quite a few years behind bars. And you won’t have to do a thing. I know the prospect of airing all that dirty laundry out in court was bothering you. Cases like that are never easy to prosecute, and Fred told me that the results of her exam turned out inconclusive. This way, you get the result that you want without having to go to trial.”

If Riley knew her at all, he would know that she felt sick, not elated at the news that William was in jail. Sick, and angry. What business did Riley have sticking his nose into her affairs? And worse, what if… “You didn’t… Riley, tell me you didn’t plant evidence on him just so you could get back at him for something that I never even told you he did.” Outwardly she hoped that she appeared calm, although she was seething on the inside.

“You didn’t have to tell me, Buffy. I saw what you looked like that morning. I saw what you were wearing, and how wild you looked. You didn’t even protest when I dropped you off at Fred’s clinic. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what must have happened. And I don’t blame you for not filing charges immediately. Rape cases like that are hard to prove. But I believe you, Buffy. I was there, and I know what Thorndale is capable of. He tries to make people believe that he has a conscience, but I know it is all nothing but lies.”

“Riley, you didn’t answer my question. Did you plant false evidence on him? Is this a frame up?” She had a pretty good right hook when she needed it, but knocking Riley out cold in the middle of the office was probably not a very good idea if she didn’t want to call attention to herself.


“Of course not.” Riley protested. “Not that I wouldn’t if you wanted me too. But I caught him fair and square. Red handed as it were. I don’t see how he can possibly get out of it. The courts don’t take these things lightly these days.”

“What is he charged with, Riley, what did he do?”

“Thought I told you. You must not have been listening, Buffy. He was smuggling drugs. He’s going to be out of your hair for a very long time, Buffy.”

Riley might have said more, but Buffy couldn’t hear it. She felt vaguely faint, and a white noise had replaced any sounds from the outside world. Riley’s mouth was moving, but she didn’t hear it. Finally, getting no further response, Riley clomped off back to wherever he belonged.

Taking herself in hand, Buffy made a beeline for Giles’s office. It was still hard to think of him as her father as well as her boss, but she was making an effort to do so. This was just the latest in a long line of complaints she had against Rupert Giles and the way that he ran his department. She should have been the first person that he informed. It was unconscionable that she had had to find out through a personal friend in another division.

As she threw open the door she was surprised Giles deep in conference with one of the Agency lawyers. “I want to make provisions for Dawn as well,” was all she could make out before all conversation came to a stuttering halt.

“Sorry,” Buffy allowed peremptorily. “Giles, I need to talk to you. Now. It’s about Spike.”

“Oh, then you’ve heard. I hope you don’t mind, but you did tell me not to tell you about him last night.” Giles didn’t look the least bit guilty, only slightly perplexed as the lawyer hastily shuffled his papers together and back into his briefcase. “I thought you’d be happy.” He waved the lawyer out of the way. “I think we’re done here, Lindsay. If you would make the changes we discussed, I’d be ever so grateful. Thank you. Buffy?”

With the door firmly closed behind him, Buffy finally had a target for the rage that was unaccountably growing stronger by the minute. “How could you not tell me! You knew last night, didn’t you?”

“Yes, well, we were all so happy, and to be fair Buffy, you did say that you didn’t want to know.”

“You should have known I didn’t mean it that way,” she countered, hoping that the guilt she felt could be so easily fooled. “Not if it was something so important. You knew that we’d been close.”

“Yes, but I also knew that you had finally heeded my advice and had recently broken things off. Or was I wrong about that?”

“No, but still you should have told me. Professional courtesy if nothing else. Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know the particulars. I know that you thought that you cared for William Thorndale, Buffy. But you have to realize that the man that you thought he was - that man does not exist. He never did. Now there’s no more mystery. Now we all know what kind of man he really is.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure. Ethan Rayne himself told me that the evidence against Thorndale was air tight.”

“Rayne? If it was a drug charge, if Riley was involved, wouldn’t Maggie’s men have brought him in?”

“Quite right. But this case is very high profile, Buffy. Thorndale is a rich and powerful man. Ethan thought it wise to get personally involved before anything hit the papers. Make sure that we have all our facts straight and papers in order – because you better believe that if we don’t Thorndale’s lawyers will exploit it as far as they possibly can. Men like that do not go down quietly. I’m just glad that in light of recent circumstances that you and Dawn do not have to be involved.”

“But that’s just it. Without William, we never would have found Dawn, never thought to check the Agency database, we never would have known we were a family.”

“Coincidence. Thorndale had nothing to do with it. Just let it go, Buffy. The courts will decide what type of punishment is appropriate for his crimes. Let the system work, Buffy. Our job is done. It’s up to the legal types now.”





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