Buffy was bored. The slayer college was closed for the holiday season and Dawn was taking a short break with some of her new friends. Willow was away somewhere, with Kennedy and Xander was just away. Giles was always busy and even Andrew had a life - at least, Buffy hadn’t seen him since ‘That Night’.

That Night’, was how she referred to it, in her head. The night that Angel had come and the ghost of Spike had sent Buffy fleeing from the night club. So much had happened since ‘That Night’.

Giles had reluctantly revealed that Winifred Burkle was not what she seemed. He confessed that he’d received a phone call from Angel, months ago, saying that Fred had been taken over by an ‘Old One’ and could Willow come and help. Since Wolfram and Hart and, hence, Angel couldn’t be trusted, Giles had turned him down flat and hadn’t even bothered to tell Willow. When Fred had turned up, at the Watchers meeting, Giles had assumed that Angel and his friends had coped with the crisis, after all.

Willow had been furious. She had liked Fred and would have done anything to help. Buffy had just chalked it up as one more instance of Giles thinking he knew better. She hoped that losing a senior watcher had taught him a lesson.

Buffy logged on to the website.

‘The Watcher’s Website’ was mostly Andrew’s baby but even Giles had agreed that it needed to be done. After so many records had been lost in the bombing of Council Headquarters, it made sense to put as much as possible online. Andrew had been sent to England, to Giles’ private library, to scan books. He’d been warned about the ‘Moloch’ debacle and knew enough about the demon world, not to repeat it.

‘Angelus’ Buffy typed, then clicked on ‘search’.

She’d been doing this for a while. Reading up on Angel’s past. She hadn’t wanted to know, before but now he was gone, it didn’t matter. What she had learned, reading between the lines, had stunned her.

Angel and Angelus really were the same person.

For years, she had been convinced that, with his soul, Angel was not Angelus. Convinced that a soulless vampire was incapable of love, she had treated Spike like dirt. Angel’s fault. He had been so evil, without his soul, that it had ruined her for Spike’s love.

Now, she had the evidence and, for the first time, saw it all clearly. Willow had said it, years ago, while Angelus was terrorizing them all, ‘You’re still all he thinks about.

Angel had told her himself, that he had seen her, in L.A., just before she met her first watcher. He had followed her to Sunnydale and done the whole ‘mysterious stalker’ bit. Turning up, giving cryptic messages, ‘helping‘.

Lying to her. Pretending he was too scared to enter the Master’s lair, when really he didn’t want her to find out about his past, before he was ready. Worming his way into her life and her affections. Manipulating her - an underage girl - into falling for him.

Angelus had operated the same way, obsessing over young virgins and tormenting them to the point of insanity, before raping and killing them.

Corrupting the innocent.

Of course, Buffy herself had to shoulder part of the blame. She had wanted the fairytale. The young heroine and her dark prince, living happily ever after.

What a crock.

He’d admitted to her himself, what he’d done to Drusilla but he had never recognized what he had done to Buffy. He had seduced her, on her seventeenth birthday and the act of taking her virginity had given him that moment of perfect happiness. Buffy knew for a fact, that he had slept with other women, since her and come away with his soul intact. Obviously it was the taking of innocents that really did it for him.

Angelus was, of course, famous for psychologically tormenting his victims and Angel’s trying to convince Buffy that she had to have a ‘normal’ life, was just as bad. How dare he talk her into striving for something that she could never have? Amazingly, Cordelia had said it, years ago in Sunnydale, ‘I’m Buffy, freak of nature; naturally I choose a freak for a boyfriend…’ Why had Buffy never listened to her friends?

Then again, she had. She’d listened to Xander, with his prejudice against all things vampire. She’d imagined the looks of horror on their faces if they’d found out she was sleeping with Spike; what would they have thought if they’d known she loved him?

She wasn’t sure exactly when it had dawned on her. She loved Spike. She remembered coming down the stairs, hearing him blustering at Dawn - unrealistic threats, he loved Dawn - the anxiety evident in his voice. The look on his face when he saw her. No one had ever looked at her that way; it wasn’t just the whole ‘coming back from the dead’ thing, either. This man loved her.

She’d done her best to spoil it, of course; trying to button her blouse with raw, bloody fingers - as if Spike was looking anywhere but at her face. Sitting, staring into his awe-filled eyes, she felt love swelling inside her and probably would have told him but for her friends. Bursting through the door, all talking at her, proud of the terrible thing they had done. Spike, her only lifeline, leaving…

Corruption of innocents.

It was all here. Angelus’ crimes. He had considered Drusilla to be his masterpiece. Tormented to insanity, raped, sired and stripped of her holy orders and, hence, God’s protection. All she could do was turn to her abuser, with adoration. She was still the same person, without her soul. Still insane.

In the twenty years before Spike, Drusilla sired quite a few ‘playmates’, all of them short lived. Then, she turned William the Bloody. Everyone assumed that he’d earned that name in some foul, depraved way but Spike had confessed to Buffy that it was because of his lack of skills as a poet. Bloody awful poetry.

How was it that a sensitive, virginal poet became one quarter of ‘the scourge of Europe’? Reading Angel’s file gave Buffy the answer: Angelus.

Spike loved Drusilla but she practically worshiped her sire; Spike would have changed to impress her, the way he would change over a century later, for Buffy. Angelus had a fondness for training young vampires, to be like him. The previous century, it had been carving crosses on the victim’s cheek, as an affront to God; by the time Spike came along, psychological torture was the order of the day. Turning gentle, refined William into a monster, using his natural feelings for his sire, to goad him into greater excesses, was the perfect combination of victim and trainee.

More than ever, Buffy found herself wishing that she had had the strength to stake Angelus.

* * * * *

“…Have a free sample, bitch!” The vampire sneered, as he pounded Lily in the back. Seconds later he screamed as he became dust on the point of Spike’s stake.

Spike swore, as he saw the empty hypodermic sticking out of Lily’s back. He pulled it free.

“Feels funny…” Lily murmured, then her eyes rolled back and she slumped against Spike.

They’d come upon the group of vampires, hanging around the back of Lorne’s club, openly dealing. The inevitable fight had ensued.

Spike had been amazed, the first time he had watched Lily fight, then he had realized: of course she would fight like him. That’s why she hadn’t needed to train in Rome, she’d picked up all his fighting skills. Trouble was, she was right handed but she’d ‘learned’ to fight left handed. Despite Spike trying to train it out of her, there was still a slight awkwardness to her fighting style. Now, because of the sheer number of vamps, one of them had got in a lucky shot.

Spike scooped Lily’s limp body into his arms and carried her back into the club.

"What happened?" Lorne asked as he led Spike to one of his spare rooms.

"Vampire stuck her with a hypo." Spike replied as he lay her on the large bed. "Orpheus. Overdose, I‘d wager."

"I’ve only seen one girl recover from that," Lorne said, "Faith."

"What was she doing, messing with it?"

"Dosing Angelus."

"You mean Angel."

"No, I don't."

"How did she survive?"

"She didn’t go through it alone. You'll have to help Lily."

"How?"

Lorne couldn’t meet Spike's eyes.

"You’ll have to drink." he said, at last. "Deep." he added, when Spike said nothing.

"I can't."

"You have to."

"You don't understand, I don't do that anymore. After The First got me to…kill and sire… What if I can't stop?"

"We both know that that won't happen, you have enough control. Believe in yourself."

Laying next to Lily on the bed, Spike slipped the Gem of Amara off his finger and under the pillow - he couldn’t even get drunk while wearing it - reluctantly brushed her hair back from her throat and looked at the inviting sight of her throbbing jugular. The drug in her blood made her smell even more enticing than normal and he understood why this stuff was so popular amongst vampires. He leaned in, gently kissing her, feeling her pulse beating under his lips. Almost without him realizing, his fangs slid into her and her loaded blood filled his mouth. He swallowed and fell into the old rhythm: pull swallow, pull swallow; don’t stop ‘til you feel the heart falter. His head spun and he fell back onto the bed, a thin line of Lily’s blood staining his lower lip.

* * * * *

It was bright, in the cellar, not at all the way it looked now. The walls were stark, cold concrete and the floors were bare. In the corner was a curtained area and Spike walked towards it.

“There’s nothing worth seeing, behind there.” Lily said.

Spike started; how long had she been standing next to him?

“All I did there was sleep.”

She took his hand.

* * * * *

They were in another cave, the one beneath Sunnydale. The First had Spike tied to a rock and was pretending to be Drusilla.

“Little girls tear so easily… Like pink paper.” She said and Spike, hanging miserably from his leather cuffs, flashed back to all the young girls he had raped, for Dru’s amusement.

He had tried to tell Buffy. Chained in her basement, finding out how his strings were being pulled, he had wanted her to kill him; to hate him enough to kill him but he just couldn’t say the words. Not to her. Not Buffy.

So, he had let her read between the lines, knowing that she would never figure out that, when he did those things, he was only competing with Angelus. Why had Dru never loved him the way she loved Angelus?

Why would Buffy never love him the way she loved Angel? The question burned in his mind as he watched himself - broken and despairing - consoling himself that Buffy believed in him.

Looking closely at his other self, he could just see Lily, like a double image, looking out of his eyes and suffering with him. The question burning in him was the wrong one.

Why could he not love Lily, the way he loved Buffy?

He was fond of her and he was willing to stay with her, fight at her side against multi-dimensional nasties but nothing could ever touch the feelings he had for Buffy.

Had he moved on or was he just paddling in that Egyptian river?

“You don’t have to love me.” Lily touched his face and everything around them blurred.

* * * * *

Another basement. Earth floor, recently disturbed. All the people he had sired while under the control of the First, digging their way out.

So many, just minions but still, every one of them weakened him. How many had he made in a night?

Buffy was there, witnessing his shame. She’d kill him this time, for sure.

The First, wearing Spike’s own face, taunting him, telling him that he was going to die at Buffy’s hand; not realizing that he wanted it. He considered it a final act of love; she had taken him in so many different ways, why not his existence, too?

Singing. NO, not the singing. The singing that would make him kill. Kill Buffy.

And still, Lily looking out of his eyes, screaming at him to stop.

“I can still taste them.” She said, watching the scene unfold. “Their blood in my mouth, the betrayal on their faces.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “I tried so hard to make you stop.”

“You had to live it and still be just a spectator. What kind of power would demand that of a child?” Spike asked.

“I wasn’t a child. Not once I woke up.”

“You were when you fell asleep. Why do you love me?”

“Because I know your soul.”

Reality shifted.

Another cave. The demon’s cave, in Africa.

YOU HAVE WHAT YOU CAME FOR, VAMPIRE. NOW, LEAVE.” The demon said.

Spike staggered out of the cave. He was exhausted. There was no part of him that wasn’t screaming in agony. Burns on his skin, broken ribs, cuts and bruises on his insides, caused by bugs of all things.

His soul.

He had no words for the way that that felt.

He was half way to the village when he decided to stop. What was the point of carrying on?

He could hear his victims, inside his head, crying out their outrage at what he had done. He knew that they would never be silenced and why would he want them to be? He deserved to burn in hell.

He would just lie here, in the sand and wait for the sun to rise.

“You’re going to throw it all away?”

He looked up; standing over him was a woman. She was white - bleached bone white - middle aged but still attractive and had long silvery-blond hair. She spoke with, what sounded like, an English accent.

You’re a long way from home.” Spike said.

“So are you, William. Will you waste your prize?”

“Prize?”

“You have your soul. You, an evil soulless vampire, asked for your soul to be restored.” Her voice made Spike shiver. It was clear and somehow crystalline. It made him feel as though he were drinking pure, clear, cold spring water, on the hottest day of the year.

“It hurts.” He whispered.

“Nothing that is worth having, comes without a price.” She held her hand out to him. He slapped it aside.

“I’m hungry, don’t get too close.” He growled.

“Oh, William,” she laughed, “You can’t kill me, no matter how hungry you are.”

“Say that again, when I’ve been gnawing on your wrist for an hour.” He muttered, as she led him to her place.

She had, what looked like, a stone lean-to, up against the cliff but, when Spike got inside, he realized that it was partially underground. There were no windows and the sloping sides made it look like the inside of a small pyramid. There were stone columns, hieroglyphics and flaming torches on the walls.

Once she had him comfortable on her bed roll, she knelt beside him and put her wrist against his lips.

“I can’t feed from you.” He said, “I have a chip.”

“I know. Feed.”

Bracing himself for the pain but unable to resist, he sank his fangs into her. The chip didn’t fire.

“I’d forgotten this.” Spike said to Lily, as they watched him feed.

“I hadn’t. What was she?”

“I don’t know. I fed from her for hours, she tasted human. She gave me the strength to make it back to Sunnydale. The locals called her ‘The White Ghost’; I must have taken enough blood to drain her dry four times over. I thought I’d dreamed her.”

They stood in the woman’s home and watched Spike drain her, watched her shrivelling in his arms until she was a fragile husk. Her skin like paper and her blood vessels collapsed and empty.

Incredibly, she stood up.

Slowly, imperceptively, her body restored itself and she turned from where she had been watching over Spike, to the corner of the room where Spike and Lily stood, watching.

“Eternity’s gate opens wide,

“Multitudes do dwell inside,

“Have a care whose blood you spill,

“She’ll forgive - you never will.” She recited, looking straight at them.

“I don’t remember that.” Lily said.

“Because it didn’t happen then, child, it‘s happening now.” The woman said.

Spike - the Spike on the bed, moaned and the woman turned back to him. Extending her wrist to him again, she let him feed some more. He pulled her close to his body and slept.

Although there was no way to tell, from watching, both Spike and Lily knew that a lot of time passed, this way. Both of them had lived through it, after all.

Abruptly, the woman gently shook Spike awake.

“You have to go back to the hell mouth, now.” The woman said.

“I’d sooner stay here and die. Or stay here with you.” Spike said, looking up at her, hopefully.

“You owe it to the child of your blood, who even now lives within you. Return to the mouth of hell and your destiny.”

“She knew I was there.” Lily said, as the scene before them changed again.

* * * * *

Back to the start, a curtained off bed in a stark concrete bomb shelter. This time, Spike strode over to it and pulled the curtain aside.

Both Lily and Spike expected to see an earlier version of Lily, sleeping, hooked up to machines.

The Lily that confronted them was awake. She was sitting up on the bed and was heavily pregnant. She looked up into Spike’s eyes.

“Won’t Daddy be pleased!” she said, excitedly.






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