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Chapter 56: Intervention

Even with the warning from Riley, when Giles confirmed it the news was a shock. However it had happened, Riley had made good on his threat, and Spike had been arrested. Buffy assumed that the evidence against him must have been pretty solid, because he was behind bars. But she couldn’t have been more surprised at the charges. She could scarcely believe the man that she thought she knew selling drugs. But that was the problem, how much did she really know about William Thorndale? Everything about him was so confusing. Including what had happened that night at his house.

She couldn’t get the thoughts of Spike out of her mind; knew she wouldn’t be good for anything until she got some closure. With new resolve to put the entire Thorndale episode out of her mind, she decided that she had to confront him one last time. After all, the man was behind bars. What harm could he do her?

~*~

By the time she arrived at the holding cell she was beginning to doubt her decision to do this. What could she possibly have to say to him? Of course with Spike, that wasn’t usually a problem. He was perfectly capable of holding the entire conversation himself with only the smallest input from her.

“Surprised to see you, Pet,” he snarked. Spending the night in jail hadn’t improved his disposition. “Come to tell me you’ve decided to add to the charges against me, or just to gawk at me – rub it in?” Spike didn’t act glad to see her.

Trapped behind bars, unshaved, without a shower and wearing the same clothes he had obviously slept in, he was surprisingly almost appealing. Except eww, at the very least, he had taken unfair advantage of her, and possibly much, much more. But she didn’t want to think about that now. If nothing else, she didn’t enjoy thinking of herself as a victim.

“No Spike. That’s not why I came.”

“Why then? Finally got what you wanted, didn’t you? Make you feel good, does it? Job well done and all that?” He came closer to the bars, emphasizing his captive state. It occurred to Buffy that it must be torture to the normally hyperactive Spike to cage him in such a small space with absolutely nothing to do.

“No. I didn’t have anything to do with this.” She protested. “You did this to yourself.”

“Right.” He didn’t have any smokes with him either, although he unconsciously patted himself down looking for some.

“It’s true.”

“Fine.”

“Why’d you do it? I didn’t think you were like that. I cared for you. Well, until recent events anyway. I tried to protect you…”

Spike seemed to think that it was Buffy who had turned him in. He hadn’t spotted Riley, the other, the real, undercover agent, the one who had actually gotten the goods on him. She should probably have been more specific when she warned him to be careful. At the time, she hadn’t wanted to blow Riley’s cover. Later, it wasn’t exactly at the top of her mind. And after that – well, she had no reason to do him a favor.

“Funny, in all our time together I never did figure out what a right lying bitch you are.” She never seen Spike quite this angry. Not even when they had been attacked in New York. “Quite the actress as it turns out. I didn’t think you were like this – cold, unfeeling, reveling in someone else’s misery…”

She tried to protest, but he wasn’t listening. “Me? What about you, prattling on about art and pretending that you really cared for me all the time planning to slip something into my drink so you could finally get what you wanted.”

“Now there’s the pot calling the kettle black! Not like you didn’t want it, Buffy, even if you were too stubborn to just come out and admit it. If they decide to extradite me, I’m as good as dead, you know. And there you stand, cool as a cucumber. But you know what – I’m still better than you. Least I never pretended to have feelings I didn’t. Never pretended that I cared when all I really wanted was to find evidence to put you behind bars.” Turning his back to her, Spike really hoped that she’d take the hint and leave.

Of course Buffy did the opposite, and approached until she was gripping the bars from her side. “It wasn’t like that Spike. I wanted you to be innocent. I always hoped that you were. And I never pretended with you, Spike. Never. I just didn’t tell you everything - but I couldn’t. But I did feel for you – that was real, Spike. Until I found out what you really are.”

Spike snorted and stood still with his back to her. “Well, you’d best leave before your virtue gets sullied any more from being in the same room with me.”

“I can’t believe your attitude! Aren’t you the least bit sorry?”

“Sorry I got caught, you mean?” he asked, whipping around so that they were standing nose to nose on either side of the bars. “I suppose. But given all of it to do over again, I’d still do the same.”

“How can you say that?” Buffy protested.

“Not everyone enjoys the same privileges we do, pet. Granted, there’s different points of view on the matter – but I’d rather leave that up to the individual and her conscience.”

“Different points of view? What are you talking about? There are no points of view here. You’re despicable. You’ve ruined lives, destroyed families…”

“So pure, so bloody righteous. I’m sure you’re as pure as the driven snow, sweetheart. In all your lame excuses to put me off, you never once used that line, so don’t tell me now how innocent you are.”

Buffy was confused. “Drugs? No, I’ve never used drugs, Spike.”

Finally something she’d said seemed to register with him, and she could tell Spike was actually thinking about what she had said by the way he titled his head. Her Aunt’s poodle had sometimes worn a similar expression. She used to think it was endearing, now it was just annoying.

“Pet, what do you think we’re talking about here?”

“You got caught smuggling drugs,” Buffy shrugged, as if all her past boyfriends were guilty of heinous crimes. “I didn’t ask what kind.”

“Yeah, I suppose I was at that.” Fleetingly, a look of hope crossed his face. “Buffy, who told you that? Told you I was smuggling drugs? It’s not what you think. I swear it’s not.”

“Right. They locked you up for no reason then? Criminals always claim to be innocent.”

“It wasn’t illegal drugs, Buffy, I swear. I wasn’t smuggling illegal drugs into the United States, Buffy. I was smuggling drugs out. Pharmaceuticals, luv. Not heroin, not cocaine. Everything I’ve been charged with is perfectly legal here. All perfectly legal in the good old USA – but that’s not true everywhere, pet. I know there’s some equate birth control and abortion with murder – but you’re a modern American girl – grew up in LA. I’m betting my life here that you don’t see it that way, Buffy.”

“You’re not making sense, Spike. What are you talking about?”

“Contraceptives, luv. I was smuggling contraceptives overseas to countries where they’ve been banned. Not cocaine, not heroin. Just simple things you can get at any drug store.”

Buffy still wasn’t sure. “Not drugs?”

“NO love. Contraceptives. I own a pharmaceutical company, remember. Lawyer came down here just a minute ago to tell me, pay the bail so I can go home. Thought you were Gunn, ready to take he outta here. Go ask if you don’t believe me. Or ask yourself one question, who was it told you otherwise?”

“They didn’t. I mean, I didn’t ask, and they just let me assume… Why would Riley try to mislead me like that?”

“Riley? As in former boyfriend Riley? Maybe he thinks he has something to gain by getting rid of me, pet?”

“He wouldn’t do that!”

“Wouldn’t he now?”

“I have to go. I have to tell Giles. Maybe he can do something. This isn’t right. He owes you, Spike. For what you did for Dawn. He owes you big time. That’s what I came to tell you.” At last she had an excuse for why she had felt the need to come down here and see him. “The paternity test you made him run on her? We got the results back. Giles is her father. I never would have believed it, but Willow ran it through the computer half a dozen times. Dawn’s DNA didn’t match any of the criminals in our database, but then Willow had the idea to try to run it through the entire database. She came up with two matches. Her mother may be that bitch, Glory, but her father is Rupert Giles.”

“Didn’t know the old man had it in him!” Spike smirked. “Wonder how that happened to come about, and why that whore decided to keep the child?”

“Giles came clean when Willow and I announced the news. He claimed it must have been while he and Ethan Rayne had been working undercover in vice. I guess he got a little too close to his work.”

Spike snickered, then considered everything she had said. “But you said there were two matches, pet?”

“Yeah, that was the other surprise.” Buffy wasn’t looking at Spike now. “As it turns out, Dawn is my sister. It’s no wonder Hank always hated me. He must have known that he wasn’t my real father. That my Mom had an affair with Rupert Giles. He’s not only Dawn’s father – he’s mine too.

“If it hadn’t been for you, he would have never have known about Dawn, and although he suspected that he was my real father, he probably never would have told me the truth if it hadn’t been forced out of him. Plus, what you did for Dawn, getting her away from Glory… under whatever pretext. He owes you, Spike. And you don’t deserve to rot away in prison in some third world country I’ve never even heard of for selling condoms and birth control pills, even if it is illegal in outer wherever. Someone, probably someone right here at the Agency has something against you, and they’ve been trying to frame you with something for months. But this charge is ridiculous, worth a few fines at most. Giles owes you big, Spike. It’s time he paid you back.”

~*~
Buffy was exasperated. After her big speech back at the jail about how much they owed Spike, Giles was being difficult. Unfortunately, Giles didn’t see things quite the same way that she did.

“Giles, he wasn’t smuggling heroin! He was smuggling contraceptives. Into South America, or some where. That’s not the same thing at all!”

“It’s still illegal, Buffy.” Admitting that he was her birth father hadn’t changed their relationship at all. Giles was still implacable, intractable and over protective. As bad as Hank had been, she had the uncharitable thought that she was probably better off that she hadn’t been raised with him as her father.

“Yes, it is, but it’s not the same and you know it. You lied to me, Giles. You knew what I thought and you let me believe it was true.”

“That’s unfair, Buffy. It was obvious that you were conflicted about your feelings for Spike. You accepted what Riley told you without question, and that seemed to be the end of it. I thought it was rather a good end to things. You didn’t have to be involved in the take down, and yet a dangerous criminal was out of the way.”

“Oh yeah, and contraceptives are sooo dangerous.”

“You do realize that there were more than just prophylactics in that shipment? The pill is only the most mild form of birth control. That packing crate also contained what is commonly referred to as Plan B, as well as drugs used to actually cause an abortion. Some people would equate that with infanticide.”

“I know that, Giles. But they’re not illegal. At least not here. Plus, well, I’ve spent most of my life in LA, and I know that what people can’t get legally they’ll try to get any other way they can. If contraceptives aren’t available, they’ll settle for abortion. And if safe abortions aren’t available, well, they may turn to whatever witch doctors they can find. Shipping those drugs where he did may be illegal, but it’s a far cry from murder. In fact, it might have saved some women’s lives. If his actions stopped even one woman from doing something desperate, then it was worth it. If he were charged with something else, something, I don’t know, something evil, I might not ask this. But he just shipped pharmaceuticals, prophylactics and drugs that are perfectly legal here. And they were going to a clinic, not some dictator or drug lord. Besides, it proves my point. If someone went to all these pains to bring him in on such trumped up charges, it proves that Spike’s being set up. Someone powerful wants him brought down, and that’s who you should be going after. Not Spike.”

“Buffy, just because someone else wants to see him behind bars, doesn’t mean that he is not in fact guilty of the things he’s been charged with. You and I both know that this is only the tip of the iceberg of his probable illegal activity. He’s guilty, and as such he deserves to be punished. That’s the law.”

“It may be the law, but you owe him Giles. If it wasn’t for him, you never would have known about Dawn. Never knew that you had two daughters. And he protected Dawn, when there was absolutely no reason for him to. At great cost, and from her own mother I might add, for no other reason than that he’s a nice guy who didn’t want to see a young girl forced into a life that she didn’t choose. So, no, I don’t think it’s asking too much to see if you might be able to find a reason to convince the Powers that Be to let this one go. Turn a blind eye, make a deal. I don’t care. But Spike doesn’t deserve to go to prison, Giles. Not for this. If I didn’t know there must be someone else behind the scenes pulling his strings, I’d be tempted to say that Riley set it all up. He was so smug about it when he told me. And he made sure to phrase it in such a way that I was certain to misunderstand. But he’s not smart enough to come up with this whole operation on his own. Someone else is behind this – and I think it’s important that we find out who.”

“Fine Buffy. You win. As a favor to you and because of what he did for Dawn, I’ll see what I can do.”

A/N: Not being well versed in legalese, I can’t say much about US laws regarding extradition, most of what I could find was concerned with extraditing U.S. criminals from other countries to stand trial in the U.S., not the other way around. My justification for those that want a more accurate approach is that and even if it may not be a likely response for the crimes Spike is charged with, the mere threat could be used as intimidation. And of course we are talking about powerful and unscrupulous people here – could be they’d find a way to circumvent inconvenient legal truths if they wanted to. However, it is a fact that many types of contraceptives are illegal in parts of Central and South America (as well as other places) so it seemed plausible. Mostly, I wanted to show what an ass Riley is, and how easy it is for him to make Buffy believe the worst about Spike. Also, I don’t mean to take any particular political stand here, tried to be sympathetic to all points of view, and go back and see above re Riley being an ass by purposely trying to mislead Buffy into thinking something that is entirely not true. For any of you who are counting coup – this was my take on the demon eggs episode.





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