Buffy’s startling speech seemed to have taken the fight right out of the souled vampire. Spike was actually almost disappointed by Angel’s lack of effort in defending himself against his childe’s renewed attack. The younger vampire now easily managed to back his sire into a corner, pummeling with his fists while Angel did little except to attempt to block his blows.
And those attempts mostly failed, at that.
“Right easy, wasn’t it, Angelus?” Spike sneered triumphantly, his eyes blazing with a century’s worth of anger and resentment. “Taking a newborn fledge – one who bloody well worshipped you at the time, I’ll admit – and turning him into your soddin’ slave – your bloody *toy*, to torture and rape and abuse any bloody way you felt like it! Tell me, Angelus – was it worth it?”
Buffy realized suddenly as she watched the scene, transfixed by the intense drama playing out before her eyes, that there were tears streaming down her face. She would not have noticed them, except that they had begun to obscure her view of the tragically painful, raw scene taking shape before her.
And deep within her heart, she felt the stirrings of a deep-seated hurt, a sense of wounded dignity and betrayal that she knew belonged to her mate. She was quite literally feeling Spike’s pain, the bittersweet tumult of emotions that engulfed him as he finally received the opportunity to face down his abuser, his destroyer – the one who had battered and tortured him and eventually turned him into the creature he was today.
“Stop calling me that!” Angel demanded furiously, his voice shaking with the powerful emotions that he was struggling to suppress. “I’m not him! I’m not! *Stop calling me Angelus*!”
Gripping his sire’s throat and slamming him back against the wall, forcing him to meet his eyes, Spike leaned in close to him to declare softly but emphatically, in a threatening growl that dared Angel to attempt to deny the truth of his words, “Yes – you – bloody – well – *are*!”
“No!” Angel gasped out, struggling weakly to break his childe’s grip on his throat. “No – I have it under control now – now that I have a soul! I haven’t been evil in years, Spike…”
“Because you’ve *chosen* not to be,” Spike pointed out, even as he nodded his acknowledgement of Angel’s words. “Doesn’t mean it’s not still in you to be evil, *Angelus*. It’s all a matter of your choice – soul or no soul.”
“No – I could never do the things that Angelus did…”
“Couldn’t you?” Spike cut him off, challenging his words, as he eased his grip on his throat ever so slightly – just enough to allow him to speak. He planned to make his point to his sire, once and for all – and it would be pretty difficult for Angel to concede defeat if he couldn’t draw breath at all.
Spike went on, his eyes narrowed in accusation, “Because a few minutes ago, you were all too happy to remember those things – seemed bloody intent on doing them again, too!”
The trapped expression in Angel’s eyes told Spike just how right his words were. Angel had been very much out of control during the fight that had preceded this one, before Buffy had interrupted with her well-timed words – but he clearly remembered every last thing he had said and done – every last thought that had gone through his mind, of past crimes against the blonde vampire facing him now.
And not every one of those thoughts had been entirely unpleasant to him at the time.
In fact, though he was loathe to admit it – quite the contrary.
Spike was right – Angel had *wanted* to recreate the past that lay between them.
“No – I wouldn’t have let it go that far…” Angel insisted, shaking his head in desperate denial.
“Please!” Spike scoffed dismissively. “I’ve known you for a bloody century, Peaches! Don’t think for a second I couldn’t recognize that look in your eyes!”
His unyielding, frank gaze drove Angel’s eyes down with shame, at the knowledge that he was not fooling his childe for a second. Spike knew Angel’s darkness far too well to miss it in this instance.
“It – it was Angelus – I don’t understand what happened…I must have – must have lost…”
“You didn’t lose your bloody soul,” Spike cut him off again, determined not to allow Angel to hide behind the defenses that had allowed him to live with his crimes for so long, without really dealing with them – to find a false sense of security in the false belief that he was not really responsible for the things he had done.
“No,” Spike insisted firmly, “it’s been very much in place for the past while, Peaches – and you *still* had no problem with knocking me about – threatening me with things that you claim to be so bloody ashamed of – so *sorry* for! With or without the soul, Angelus – you’re a self-important, power-mad, manipulative, wanker of a pompous…”
*Spike…*
Buffy’s gently reproving voice in his head seemed more focused on the element of the time -- time they had already spent too much of here, when they needed to get home – than it was on how hard he was being on Angel.
*Right, love – wind it down, then,* he agreed, never taking his eyes off Angel’s face.
Aloud he finished, “Well – you’ve never been a very nice person – have you, Peaches? Way I see it – getting your soul back wasn’t necessarily much of an improvement. Your main concern with the things you’ve done *still* seems to be how bad they make you look to other people – more than it is how you’ve actually *hurt* those other people…”
“That’s not true,” Angel insisted, though he couldn’t seem to look Spike directly in the eyes. “You can’t see inside my head, Spike – you can’t possibly know…”
“Oh, but I can, *Sire*,” Spike interrupted, his voice soft, his eyes lit with a strangely bittersweet triumph, a slightly distant expression on his face, as he remembered the many instances that had allowed him to know the dark workings of Angel’s mind so very well.
Better than he had ever wanted to.
“So – all souled up at the moment, right?” Spike asked him, his eyebrows raised in a matter-of-fact question. “No worries over whether or not you’re gonna try and dominate me again if I let you go?”
Angel shook his head quickly, eagerly grasping at the opportunity Spike seemed so willing to extend to him at the moment. “No – I’m in control, Spike.” He paused for a moment before adding, “The soul *does* make me different – I know it does. I can prove it…”
Spike regarded him speculatively for a moment, as if trying to decide, before loosening his grip on Angel’s throat, and then releasing him entirely.
“Right, then,” he said with a half-shrug as he turned halfway away from his sire with a careless air. “Guess it’s no problem then if I feel like telling you that your former told me there’s no question as to who’s more -- *talented* -- between you and I. No bloody contest, I believe she said.” He glanced pointedly back at Angel with a smirk as he added casually,
“Don’t believe she actually said ‘bloody’, though.”
*Spike – what are you doing?* Buffy asked anxiously in his mind, though her expression betrayed none of her feelings. *Is this really necessary?*
Spike’s words were accurate enough in his assessment of his and Angel’s comparative – er – abilities…though she had never said anything outright to indicate that. And quite honestly, she did not think that bringing it up now was necessary, or wise. Her anger over the things that Angel had done to Spike had abated upon watching her mate take back his dignity, his sense of self-worth, from his sire – and now, she was simply ready to go home.
*Oh, yes, pet,* Spike replied, and she could hear the grin that he did not allow to show on his face. *It’s *very* necessary!*
Angel’s eyes narrowed with barely restrained anger, and Spike’s vampire hearing could just barely pick up the soft growl he let out under his breath.
Suppressing a smile, he turned away again and said, “Bet you thought you’d broken her heart when you ran off and left…” He laughed mockingly, shaking his head, “Girl was right happy to see you go…was a relief not to have to pretend to feel something for you anymore…”
Angel's growl increased in volume slightly, as he edged nearer to his childe, almost without meaning to, before taking a step back again, shaking his head slightly as he visibly attempted to rein in his temper.
"You're lying," he accused Spike in a voice that trembled with fury. "She never said that!"
"No," Spike corrected him with calm, mocking patience, "*she* was lying, Peaches -- when she told you it was good for her..."
Buffy's eyes widened in surprise at Spike's words, even as she stifled a laugh at his words -- truer than he realized. He was simply trying to get a rise out of Angel, really having little concept of how accurate his assessment might be.
A dark thought occurred to her, one she would really rather not consider, and a brooding frown to rival one of her former lover's crossed her face, as she realized.
Actually -- he *did*.
Buffy’s grim observations were drawn to an abrupt close when Angel suddenly lunged at her mate without warning, grabbing him around the waist in a strong grip that held his arms pinned to his sides, as his free hand gripped his hair and yanked his head to the side in preparation to bite him.
“I’ll teach you to talk to your sire like that, boy!”
*Spike!* Buffy’s voice in his head was full of alarm – but his calm, unworried response stopped her before she could make a move forward to help him.
**Wait*, love…*
Angel’s fangs plunged downward toward Spike’s throat, clearly intent on dominating him again, on forcing him back into subjection and ending his brutally truthful words – words that were still too painful for Angel to allow himself to process.
A part of Buffy’s mind wondered why Spike made no move to try to stop him – no attempt to break his sire’s hold on him or defend himself in any way. Surely Angel had not regained enough strength in the past few minutes to manage to subdue Spike, and reassert his former claim…
And then – she remembered.
And her fears melted away, as a slow smile spread across her face.
At precisely that moment – the same moment in which Angel’s glistening fangs came into contact with Spike’s throat – the older vampire jerked back away from him with a strangled cry of pain, releasing him and staggering backward a few steps, the back of his hand raised to cover his mouth, his eyes wide with surprise as he stared at his childe.
Spike’s signature smirk was in place as he turned slowly to face him, meeting his eyes boldly. “Tingles a bit, don’t it, mate?” he remarked with quiet mockery.
The recognition slowly dawned in Angel’s eyes as he remembered what he had already known about the claim between Spike and Buffy – what he would have remembered, had his rage not so consumed him in that moment, screaming for him to make what was once his, his again.
But he barely had time to register the information, before the blonde vampire was stalking toward him with the feral grace of a predator, eyes narrowed and blazing with anger and determination – no trace of humor in those steel blue eyes now.
“Thought you were gonna teach me my place again, *Sire*,” he remarked pointedly, his tone low, dark and deadly as he narrowed the gap between himself and Angel. “Thought you were gonna remind me who I belong to!” He paused, a few feet from Angel, with exaggerated thoughtfulness, before smiling and adding, “Oh, right – you did.”
“Spike – don’t,” Angel said, his voice quiet and trembling slightly. “I wasn’t – I mean – I wouldn’t have…”
“You *couldn’t* have,” Spike corrected sharply, his tone unyielding. “But you would have, Peaches. Don’t try and tell me that wasn’t what you were going to do!”
“I’m still your sire, Spike,” Angel insisted, meeting his eyes in a last ditch, desperate effort to draw on the younger vampire’s natural respect for the position. “You can’t – you wouldn’t…”
“See – that’s the tricky part, Angelus,” Spike said, stepping slowly toward him again, so that he was now a bare foot from Angel, whose back was to the wall. “To be a sire – you’d have to have a childe – wouldn’t you?”
Angel stared at him blankly, not quite comprehending what he was getting at.
“I was many things to you, Peaches,” Spike continued, his voice soft and serious now, his eyes shining with deep, long-remembered pain. “Slave – minion – whipping boy…”
He shrugged slightly, and Buffy swallowed back a lump of tears that rose in her throat at the momentary vulnerability she saw in the gesture, in the briefly downcast glance of his expressive blue eyes, before he raised them to meet Angel’s again, open and honest in his anger and hurt.
“I was whatever you bloody wanted me to be – but I was *never* your ‘childe’. Not really.”
Angel’s eyes widened – and finally, as he understood what Spike was really saying…remorse became visible in his eyes.
“Spike – I…”
Spike swiftly cut him off, not ready or willing to hear his meaningless apologies right then. “Childer deserve – some sort of – of protection – of concern…if not love, than at least the right to some shred of dignity. Apparently – you didn’t see me as fit to be your childe. Not really.”
He was silent for a moment, holding Angel’s gaze with a firm, intent look in his eyes that would not allow him to look away, as he finished softly,
“So I don’t see you fit to be my sire.”
While Angel stood there, stunned to silence by the words, Spike leaned in quickly, pushing him back against the wall and jerking his head to the side, sliding into game face at the exact moment that he lowered his mouth to Angel’s throat, plunging his fangs through his skin and drinking deeply of the blood of his sire.
Angel did not resist – did not attempt to stop him – as tears streamed from his eyes, down his face, mingling with the blood that ran down his throat, stinging the open wound, as Spike finally withdrew his fangs to look once more into his sire’s eyes.
He could see it there – acceptance, sorrow and shame. He could make the claim now, if he wanted to – reverse whatever rights Angel might have once had to control him, and bring the elder vampire under his dominance – and Angel would not so much as resist.
He knew that he deserved that, and more.
Spike stared at him for a moment, choking back a wave of emotion that washed over him with his memories, with the weight of the decision he was about to make.
And then – he released him.
He stepped back away from Angel, allowing the weakened vampire to slide down to the floor against the wall, faint from the loss of the blood Spike had taken.
“No,” Spike decided, his voice soft, barely over a whisper, full of a falsely casual air that was meant to mask his overwhelming emotions. “Truth be told – don’t really want you that much.”
But he could not mask his emotions from his mate.
*Spike…*
*Wait, Buffy – please wait,* he cut her off gently – and she knew why he wanted her to wait.
His emotions were in a precarious state, where a single well-placed tender word could tip the balance – and Angel had seen all of Spike’s tears that he ever would see, as far as Spike was concerned.
Into the still silence of the scene, Buffy’s family and friends returned, falling into the silent mood that permeated the room, as they glanced around with confused, questioning expressions.
“Um – what’d we miss?” Xander asked lightly, though there was concern in his eyes as they met Buffy’s.
She quickly looked away from him, and he frowned, bothered by her reaction.
Suddenly – every cruel word and thoughtless action of the past few days came back to her memory – and Buffy really did not *want* to talk to her friends – not until she had had time to decide *exactly* what she wanted to say.
Spike knew her feelings immediately, and quickly took charge, finally breaking his intense gaze away from his defeated sire.
“Slayer’s ready to go,” he said, his voice low and gruff, not quite looking at any of them. “Let’s get to the cars.”
“Buffy?” Joyce’s voice was tentative, concerned, as she came up beside her daughter and touched her arm.
“Let’s just go, Mom,” Buffy agreed with her mate quietly. “We’ll talk in the car.”
That was all the encouragement Joyce needed to begin performing her motherly role, and ushering the curious Scoobies away and out into the sunlight, to the cars. She managed to locate an old blanket in one of the rooms where the Scoobies had slept, and tossed it over Spike, going out to open the door for him as he rushed back to his car.
As all the others prepared to leave, Buffy lingered behind, her eyes fastened on the vampire she had once thought was the love of her life.
He sensed her eyes on him, as the last of the Scoobies filed out of the room, and looked up at her for just a moment before looking away in shame.
“Buffy – I didn’t mean to…I’m so sor…”
“*Don’t*.”
Her hard, trembling voice stopped him cold, and he waited in silence for the Slayer’s judgment.
It was much gentler than he expected.
“It *was* you, Angel. Maybe you don’t *want* to do the same things you once did. Maybe you *want* to be good. But some part of you *does* still want those things…and it’s up to *you* to keep it under control. You can’t use your soul as an excuse – as a – a way out of being responsible for the things you’ve done.”
Angel had no protest – no argument. He had not quite accepted her words yet – but he knew that he could not deny them.
“I don’t think Spike’s going to want to see you anytime soon,” Buffy went on quietly. “And I know I don’t.” She paused, before adding more softly, “But someday – that might change. I know you want to do the right thing, Angel. I know you want to be good. But until you can come to terms with the fact that on some level – you’re just *not*, and that’s something you’re always going to have to deal with – you can’t be a part of our lives.”
Angel lowered his head, swallowing back tears that rose in his throat at her words, as she turned and slowly headed toward the door.
At the door, she stopped, half-turning to add in a soft, tender voice that spoke of the affection she had once held for him.
“But – I hope that you *can* come to terms with it. Someday. I really hope that you can.”
And with those words of hope, and a sort of bittersweet, ironic acceptance – the Slayer walked out of her past, and into the brilliant future that awaited her.
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