Chapter 44
How could she not have told him? All those moments they’d spent together, all of them prime opportunities for her to just go and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I spent a few hours sifting through your noggin. Mate, you’re pathetic.’ Yet she never had. Just what else was she hiding? And how much had she already seen?
Even when he sprang to his feet and kicked the bottom step of the back porch, tension still held his entire body hostage. Now all he had for his trouble was a throbbing big toe and wounded pride.
“Fuck,” he muttered, pacing back and forth, torn between asking what she’d witnessed and pretending nothing had happened at all.
Seeing Drusilla’s face had reminded him how much of a failure he’d been. All those memories she was a part of represented the time of his life when he’d hit rock bottom. Not something he’d ever talk about in detail. Not even with Buffy. Except he no longer had to because that choice had been torn out of his hands.
How could he look her in the eye ever again without knowing she’d seen him at his worst? As a pathetic, scrawny git who wasn’t worthy of love, who wasn’t strong enough to keep his life from flying apart? As a coward.
“Spike?”
The hesitantly spoken words stilled his pacing but he refused to glance up and meet her eyes.
“Can we talk?”
“I’d rather not,” he said through clenched teeth and turned his back on her. She made him feel so naked.
“I’ve tried to give you some space, but this isn’t just going to go away. We can’t just pretend nothing’s—”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who has no trouble pretending everything’s all right with the world.” His breath was coming shorter, his hands curling into fists. He’d never been more humiliated, just thinking of all she must have seen…
“I know. I should have told you.” She sniffed and he had to forcibly keep his feet planted where they were. “You think I wanted any part of this? T-the nightmares, without knowing what was going on? You know. You were there when I bled all over your bed… I didn’t ask for any of this.”
The wooden porch creaked.
“You didn’t tell me.”
She laughed, a strained wet sound. “Do you blame me? What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey Spike, remember those nightmares I had? Those were your memories I was living through.’”
“Would have been a start.” He finally turned around. Buffy was sitting on the top step and the sight of her tear-stained cheeks sent his heart plummeting to the soles of his feet.
“You hate me, don’t you?” The question took him so much by surprise that he was too stunned to respond. When Buffy hid her face in her knees, her shoulders wracked with silent sobs, he couldn’t stand not touching her anymore. Good job, wanker. Make a girl cry her eyes out over something that had been out of her hands.
So, what if she’d seen him stripped down to the marrow of his bones? Was his pride really more important than her?
He trudged over to the porch and sat down, his hand hovering over her back before he decided to make contact. “Don’t say that. I could never hate you. Never… I never want you to think that, even if I’m acting like a right prat.”
She lifted her head. “B-but… the way you… looked at me, as if—” Breath hitched in her throat. Her cheeks were blotchy, her eyes red rimmed and the sight of her hurt worse than being stabbed in the gut. And he’d know.
“I wasn’t angry at you. Not really.” He dropped his hand from her back and ran his fingers through his already messy hair. “Just the thought of you seeing me like that…”
She hugged herself and he wished he was brave enough to be the one holding her. Just for a while, he wanted to act as if everything was okay. “It was the spell, wasn’t it?” he finally asked, realising he was the one to blame, after all. “The forgetting spell I used to… she said you were tangled in it. That so was I.”
“She?”
“The resident barmy witch of Sunnyhell. None other than Mrs. Baum.”
“Mrs. Baum is a witch?” Buffy’s forehead wrinkled and though she was an utter mess, she still looked beautiful to him.
“Yeah. She mentioned the forgetting mojo.” He directed his gaze away from her face and chose to stare at a nearby shrubbery instead. “It must have created some kind of connection. Spells… they leave a mark. That’s whys she could see it at all, I reckon.”
“But those dreams didn’t start until last year.”
“The medallion,” Spike said, as if waking up from a daze. “It repels magic.”
“I thought it was cursed. How did you…?”
“Research. Rupert helped out.” The pieces were starting to fall into place. “It repels magic and… It must have disrupted the forgetting spell I placed on you all those years ago, created a link to the origin of the spell—”
“Which would be you?”
“Right. Must be the reason you were able to… see. Get in my head.”
“But I didn’t know. Not until you—” She shot him a questioning glance. “The reversal spell. Once the forgetting spell broke, the dreams stopped.”
“We broke that link, but those things you saw in your dreams, I figure they were still stuck somewhere in your subconscious.” His chest felt too tight, as though someone had knocked the air out of his lungs, but despite his reluctance to know, he knew he had to ask. “What… what did you see?”
There were a few inches of space between them though it felt like miles he desperately wanted to cross. The seconds stretched as he waited for her to speak.
“I tried to stop it, you know,” she said urgently, as though she was running out of time. “I didn’t want to see and I learned… I learned to block it out—”
“Buffy, just tell me,” he said, suddenly weary. He just wanted to have it over with.
“I didn’t exactly… see it. I was… I was you, I think. It was as if I was a part of you and everything that you felt and saw, I did too,” she whispered and he had to strain his ears to catch the words. Had to hold himself tethered so he wouldn’t run. “The day your family died, and after, when you were at the foster home, and I… I wanted to do something so bad, but all I could do was just feel it all. I learned to control the memories after that and I barely even get the flashes anymore. Only when there’s a… umm… a strong catalyst. The last flash I got was from the time you ran away, and you were with…her… looking up at the stars—”
“Stop.” He didn’t realise he’d said it out loud until he registered the deafening silence. “Why are you still here?”
“I don’t underst—”
“Why are you here, Buffy? I don’t get how you can just sit here next to me when you saw all those things that happened, things I’ve done. When you lived through them. How can you say you love me when I’m so royally fucked up?”
“Spike, this may come as a shock to you, but everyone is.”
“Yeah, well, they should invent a whole new category for me.” His entire being itched with the need to light up a fag, just so he’d have something to do with his idle hands. “The funny thing is, you trust me to protect you and I know I’ll somehow screw it up. Sure, I’m bloody brilliant when it comes to saving the hides of people whose faces I’ll forget in two seconds flat, but when it comes to people that matter, they have a habit of dying around me. I wasn’t good enough to save any of them.” Why should Buffy be any different?
“None of it has been your fault,” she said, as though she actually believed it.
“Wasn’t it? If I’d been stronger, faster—” The rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat when she gripped his chin and forced him to face her.
“You were a child. There was nothing you could have done to change any of it.” Her eyes were solemn, reflecting over a decade of pain she hadn’t lived through. Only in some bizarre, twisted way, she had. “You’re a hypocrite, you know that? You were the one who told me my mother’s death wasn’t my fault.”
He laughed. “You’re right. That one is all on me.”
Buffy’s jaw tightened and he wondered how long it would take for her to give up on him.
“At some point, you’re going to have to grow up,” she said and although she’d relinquished her hold, he didn’t turn away again. “Shit happens, Spike. No matter what you do or how hard you try, some things just can’t be stopped. And you know what? I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. So, try and tell me that it doesn’t count.”
Just hearing those words made his gut tighten with dread and he’d never wanted to tell her he loved her more than he did now. Because those flaring green eyes told him she believed every syllable. That she believed in him.
“Blaming yourself is a hard habit to break,” he said, dropping his gaze to the scuffed toes of his boots.
“I know.” Her voice was much softer now and he could feel her breath graze the side of his neck right before she leaned into his side, her arm wrapped around him in a loose embrace. “But I want you to say it out loud. Say that it wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated dryly, flinching when she pinched his side.
“Spike.” The warning bordering on a threat wasn’t hard to miss.
Damn it, he was a sucker for pleasing her. Sighing, he tried to force those elusive words out of his mouth. “It… It wasn’t my fault.”
She whispered into his skin, “It wasn’t.”
It was stupid. The way he had to bite down on his lip and blink the tears out of his eyes. How for the first time in his life, a tiny part of him wondered, ‘what if she’s right?’
*******
Was it possible to miss someone to the point that checking the time every five minutes became a habit, yet at the same time the idea of meeting his or her gaze again caused dread? Because that’s all Spike could think of as he re-read the same line of the translation of Valley of the Sun for the hundredth time. He and Buffy had had a heart to heart and while that had loosened the strain between them, he still felt entirely too naked. And not in a good way.
Joyce had whisked Buffy off somewhere, most likely the gallery. Once they returned and the entirety of what had transpired settled in Buffy’s head, he wondered whether she’d look at him differently. But that was a stupid thought wasn’t it? She’d known all along and never before had he felt as though she was judging him. Except now that he knew that she knew, it was bound to get awkward.
“Would you please stop tapping your foot?”
He blinked and glanced up from his reading to see Giles looking as disgruntled as he always did when Spike plucked on his nerves.
“Right. Sorry.” He’d never even realised he’d been tapping his foot.
Giles tilted his head, pushed the glasses further up his nose and regarded him in the way that made him want to shift in his seat. “What?” he finally snapped.
“Are you all right?”
“Sure.”
Giles sighed. “Joyce told me—”
Nothing good ever came after those three words, especially not when Spike knew what this particular line was all about. “Well, that’s just bloody great, isn’t it?” The muscle in his jaw was ticking, a sure sign that his self-control was on the brink of snapping. “Didn’t know I was the newest object of marital gossip.”
“Are you and Buffy having trouble?”
He pointed at the papers scattered on the desk. “Aren’t we supposed to concentrate on more pressing matters? Like keeping the world from going apeshit?”
“Does that mean yes then?” Giles asked.
Spike slumped back into the armchair. “You’re worse than a meddling middle-aged woman.”
“Yes, now, Joyce told me that there might be some kind of mystical connection between you and Buffy?”
“How the hell would she know that?” He sat up in the seat, glowering. “Was she eavesdropping on us?”
Giles’ gaze darted to the desk as he pretended to sort through the papers. “Ah, well, sounds… carry, in and around this house.”
“Yeah, I bet they do,” Spike said dryly, not too keen on rehashing the entire sordid tête-à-tête.
“So?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He rolled his eyes. “Buffy was having dreams of being me, all right? Nice full Technicolour, complete with seeing the most painful, humiliating moments in my life. The forgetting spell I cast on her created a connection between us… you were there, you ought to know.”
“What on earth are you talking about? I’ve never met Buffy before.”
Spike shook his head. “Oh, but you have. Remember the first time I went hunting with you? LA about nine years ago? There was a ritual, a little girl I took back to her home?”
It was almost funny to see recognition slowly creep into Giles’ countenance. “That was Buffy?”
“I’m sure you remember what happened after.”
Giles went pale, apparently putting two and two together. “It never occurred to me… Yes, I remember now. I just didn’t think… the scars. Didn’t even think about it.”
“Well, it was years ago,” Spike noted and leaned his elbows on the desk. “Now that I’ve satisfied your inner gossip whore, can we get on with the work?”
Seeing Giles’ cheeks redden in indignation never got old. “Must you be so terribly crass?”
“Must you be so terribly uptight?”
Giles raised his eyebrow and pointedly picked up a photocopy. “I have half a mind not to tell you what I found.” A burdened sigh as he reconsidered. “The weapon Buffy gave you is the key, I believe. See here?” He passed the photocopy to Spike. “The image is identical, but that’s not all. The chapter says the weapon is meant to be wielded against the ultimate evil. The ‘impervious one’.”
“Sounds like the Poof all right. What with his bloody gem.”
“I’m inclined to agree.” With a bright red pen, Giles circled a paragraph right beneath the image. “Now, this here says that the weapon will draw from a magical source of power to counter the magic that keeps true death at bay. Which makes me believe the weapon is the tool that can cause Angelus damage, damage that doesn’t heal. That it can kill him.”
“You’d better be more than sure because unlike him, I don’t grow back any parts that might get hacked off.”
“I’m still looking deeper into it, though I’m hard-pressed to see how you’d miss your head since you hardly ever use it.”
“Ha bloody ha,” Spike said, giving him the best glare he could manage.
“Another thing,” Giles continued as though he’d never been interrupted. “The weapon can only be wielded by ‘a warrior of light’. Which is good news because it means if used by the forces of darkness, it only becomes your regular blade rather than one with mystical powers.”
“Seems like the odds are tipping in our favour,” Spike said.
“W-well, there’s still quite a lot…” Giles paused, probably noticing his annoyed look. “But yes, essentially. What about you? What did you find out?”
“The apocalypse is supposed to kick off ‘at the mouth of hell’.” Spike smirked. “Guess we won’t have to travel far, eh?”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, Cleveland is the only active Hellmouth that I know of,” Spike said with a shrug. “Makes for cheap real estate.”
“I’ll look deeper into the issue of Hellmouths to see if I can find another active one, just to be sure we have the location right,” Giles said, making a note down on a scrap of paper. “Do we know the time?”
It was strange, the knowledge he’d had right under his nose the entire time, facts he couldn’t see. Refused to see, perhaps. But now it snuck up on him seemingly out of nowhere. He opened his mouth to reply, to say ‘no’ when a voice whispered in his ear, almost as though the person was standing right next to him, leaning in.
“Fuck!”
He would have laughed at the way Giles jumped up in his seat, but was too preoccupied to give it much notice.
“I hardly think—”
“The day sun reigns in the sky the longest,” Spike said, feeling almost feverish with the conviction of his words.
“Summer solstice? Are you sure?”
“I am,” Spike said, almost in a daze. “When is that again?”
“Uh, either June 20 or June 21, I believe. It changes depending on the year,” Giles said, rising up from his armchair to go sift through his vast collection of journals and notes stashed in folders behind the desk. Had he never heard of the Internet?
“That’s about three weeks away,” Spike said.
Giles glanced at him over his shoulder, perplexed. “You sound surprised, William. You’re the one who knew the date.”
“Yeah I just… it just hit me all of a sudden, you know.” In three weeks, everything would change and he was terrified to know who’d draw the short end of a stick.
Giles thumbed through a diary, nodding and muttering to himself. “Yes, June 20.” He returned to his seat. “You know you don’t have to be the one to do this. There’s still time to change your mind. We can—”
“I’m not changing my mind.” All these years, his entire existence had been building up to this single moment, the one deed that would grant him relief and a sense of justice. But never before had there been so much at stake.
Three weeks. Three weeks and everything will be over. He’d just have to make sure he ended up on the winning team.
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
To refresh your memory: Previously, Spike found out Buffy dreamt his memories and all hell broke loose... well, not literally, but you get my drift. Angelus is getting close and Dru beat Eline in a game of chess. I LOVE CHESS! Sorry, I just do, but everyone I know is lame enough not to know how to play it. :(
Giant thank you to All4Spike who betas like a boss.
AND, completely unrelated... if you know anyone who did volunteering work in Kenya, or is a S&M escort (preferably someone smart/funny), e-mail me on the.enemy.of.reality@hotmail.com. Yes, I'm being serious about the escort thing, and no, it's not for my personal pleasure, you perverts. ;) It's for a feature I'm writing for my major project. We're supposed to make a magazine and mine is on strange/funny/interesting things. Sorry for the shamelessness that is me, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. :(
Giant thank you to All4Spike who betas like a boss.
AND, completely unrelated... if you know anyone who did volunteering work in Kenya, or is a S&M escort (preferably someone smart/funny), e-mail me on the.enemy.of.reality@hotmail.com. Yes, I'm being serious about the escort thing, and no, it's not for my personal pleasure, you perverts. ;) It's for a feature I'm writing for my major project. We're supposed to make a magazine and mine is on strange/funny/interesting things. Sorry for the shamelessness that is me, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. :(
Chapter End Notes:
Hope you enjoyed! :)