I am afraid of myself and the darkness that’s rising inside of my heart
So I hope I can trust you
Because I know I can’t trust myself
Open my eyes remove anything in the way
-Lonely Forest-
Chapter 11
Spike and Dru.
Buffy shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She knew she was seeing William and Dru, prey and predator, but there was something basic and visceral, rooted in her history, which caused her to see them as she’d always known them: a pair of monsters.
Except … the look on William’s face was anything but monstrous. Pale and wide-eyed, he was terrified. With one hand, Dru had him pinned onto the chair like a butterfly to a mounting board; her other hand had snaked its way into his trousers.
Though without Slayer strength, Buffy’s mind immediately lept into warrior mode, like Pavlov’s dogs hearing the gong of a dinner bell she’d long since grown conditioned for battle.
Buffy reached over to the umbrella stand just inside the door and whipped an umbrella out, bringing it over her knee with a sharp cracking sound -fuck that hurt-. She’d snapped off the wooden handle, creating a stake-with-a-handle. As she raised it, she continued rushing towards Dru, keeping slightly to the side.
Even as she flew towards Dru, her Slayer experience told her one thing, very clearly: Dru would win in a fight. Physically, they didn’t hold a hope against her. They, no, she would have to find another way to best the vampire. The only advantage Buffy had in this fight was experience. She knew vampires, and she knew this specific vampire very well. The first step was to get Dru talking, keep her distracted from William.
“I told you to get your hands off my husband.”
“Not your husband. He’s my Dark Prince,” Dru hissed at her.
“Hands off, or I dust you. How about that, Drusilla?”
Dru looked at her, startled. Rather than reacting thoughtlessly, as Buffy had hoped, Dru stood up and narrowed her eyes at Buffy, considering her thoughtfully before saying, “Didn’t tell William my name. Didn’t tell anybody. How is it that you know it?”
“I’m the Slayer,” Buffy intoned, trying to make her voice sound as bad-ass as possible.
“The Slayer?” Dru looked skeptical, tilting her face to the side, studying Buffy as she took a small step toward her.
Knowing that eye-contact was crucial in establishing dominance, Buffy met Dru’s intense blue-eyed stare for an instant before being forced to drop her gaze. Buffy could feel the pull of Dru’s thrall working its way into the back of her mind, crawling around like worms at the base of her spine.
Dru’s laugh confirmed Buffy’s fear. She wasn’t buying it.
“Not the Slayer. I’d be able to sense it if you were. Just a pretender. Just playing dress-up in mummy’s clothes,” Dru said in an unsettling sing-song tone.
Dru took another baby-step toward Buffy, her grin widening, stretching grotesquely as she morphed into game-face. “I see things, wife of William. You’re not anything like a Slayer. Truth is, you’re just a girl,” Dru drawled around her fangs.
“Oh yeah? You don’t think that Slayers have protection against your thrall? And if I’m not the Slayer, how would I even know what thrall is? If I’m ‘just a girl,’ how do I know your name, Drusilla?”
Thoughts and logic had never been Dru’s strong point, but this seemed to stop her, if only for a moment. Buffy was going to have to bring something much stronger to the table if they were going to leave the room alive.
“Can’t be the Slayer. The prophecy says that my Dark Prince William and I will kill a Slayer. And I’ve not crowned him my Prince yet.”
“That whole ‘batshit insane’ thing wasn’t a recent development. Who’da thunk?”
Dru took another step toward her, and Buffy lifted her umbrella handle stake over her head. Maybe, if she got very lucky and Dru was having an off-day, Buffy could get in one correctly-placed poke. And if she missed, or if Dru countered cleverly, both she and William would pay. She with her life, and William with his soul.
Buffy thought frantically, searching for anything she could use in this battle of wits, something to throw this battle of wits in their favor.
“You know things, don’t you, Dru? You can sense things. Not just things that humans can’t see, but things that other vampires are blind to. You live in worlds invisible to them all.”
Buffy was speaking Dru’s language now, and Dru straightened up in a jerking motion, as if she were a puppet whose strings had just been snapped. She tilted her head in a jerking motion and looked into Buffy’s eyes with her thrall set on stun. The wriggling sensation against the base of Buffy’s spine intensified as she strove to dig her way out.
“Think I’m lying about being the Slayer? Then look into my eyes and answer this. If I’m not the Slayer, how did I kill the Master?”
Dru’s yellow eyes narrowed as she looked at Buffy. The crawling feeling in Buffy’s spine wormed its way to the back of her skull as Buffy resisted, remembered to breathe, stay calm, and remain in charge.
“It’s … true.” Dru was incredulous. “You ended the Master!”
”Tossed him onto a stake, right in his Nehru-jacket wearing chest,” Buffy confirmed.
Buffy took another step to the side, generously giving Dru a very clear path to the open door. “And that’s not all. Angelus is…” The moment she said the A-word, Dru’s game-face melted like a sno-cone in a microwave.
“Angelus?” Dru cast a worried look toward the open door.
“Angelus and Darla. They’re on the ship and they’re pissed.”
“Pissed?” A combination of fear and confusion was keeping Dru dazed and thoughtless.
“They’re angry at you, Dru. Very, very angry.”
Dru’s self-preservation instinct kicked all predatory thoughts to the curb.
“Where is Daddy?” Dru’s voice was tremulous, belying the monster within.
Thinking quickly, attempting to not just get them out of this current jam, but to locate Dru’s lair, Buffy responded, “You already know where they’re waiting for you.” Okay, if ever there was a most obvious bluff in the history of Bluffington, this was it.
Dru, luckily, had turned the wheel over to fear at this point and was blind to Buffy’s lie. Once she’d sensed the truth of the Master’s demise, she’d taken everything else Buffy said at face value.
“They’re with my little ladies? And…” Dru’s face collapsed as she put a hand to her mouth. “…Miss Edith?”
“Darla said she had plans for Miss Edith specifically.” Buffy nodded enthusiastically.
Dru’s wide blue eyes filled with tears as she sped towards the door. Ignoring Buffy, she glanced back at William. “I’ll be back for you, my Dark Prince.” She paused for a moment, as if she wanted to say more, then shuddered and moved out the door and down the hall in a blur.
For a nanosecond, Buffy was pulled in two directions: following Dru or protecting William. With a thin hope of doing both at the same time, she shouted to William, who remained rooted to his chair, “Run to our cabin, and don’t let anybody in but me.” She ran after Dru as fast as her non-slayer legs would carry her.
Buffy didn’t get far. Dru flew amidship and down a stairwell, but at such great speed that Buffy lost her trail after the first set of stairs. Buffy would have more time to explore the possibilities later. Though the sun would be up soon, Dru still might be crazy or angry enough to launch a counter-offensive and until then, it would be wisest to return to her cabin. At least within the confines of their room, they’d be under the protection of magic. Dru would require an invitation to pass through the mystical wall of protection.
She rushed to room seventeen, knocking on the door with a frantic fist. “William?”
He opened the door instantaneously and she fell into the room.
As William moved to slam the door shut, she stayed his hand. “No, wait. We need to keep it open. Need to know if she returns.”
William looked at her, dumbfounded.
“She won’t be able to cross the threshold of our cabin without an invitation. At least, I don’t think she will.”
“Buffy, you’ve no idea of her strength. You cannot imagine to take her on yourself.”
“I do know her strength, William. I know her.”
“What…what is she?”
“She’s a vampire, a creature that has the appearance of a human, but who hosts a demon inside.”
The eastern horizon was lightening considerably now. Daybreak would come any moment and she’d have time to regroup, figure out a plan of attack. So intent was she that she jumped a little when he spoke, his voice deadly serious. “I was one of those creatures, wasn’t I? In the life where you knew me, the life that you rescued me from. I was a vampire.”
She turned to look at him. Whenever he was troubled, he tugged on his hair and at present it was disheveled to the point of looking like Albert Einstein on a bad day. His eyes burned with sincerity and something inside her chest tugged a little at the sight of him.
“Yes, when I knew you as Spike, you were a vampire.”
“And this Drucinda - she seemed to know me, to be expecting me. Did I know her in my other life?”
“Yes, Drusilla was the vampire who made you.”
He gave her a puzzled glance.
“This kind of monster can make another monster. She made you. Well, she killed you and turned what was left of you into a vampire, like her.”
“And she seeks to replicate this?” William tugged on his hair.
“It looks like it. Somehow she found out you’re on board and she’s targeting you specifically. It seems to be … directed action. Like someone is telling her what to do. I handled her last night by keeping her off guard, but I may only get that lucky once.”
The first rays of dawn began to bathe the deck in an orange glow. Certain that Dru would remain…wherever she was, until sunset, Buffy shut the cabin door and leaned against it with a sigh.
“William, apparently the ‘me from 2011’ left out a few critical details about your past. I’m going to need to fill you in on vampires and slayers. That’ll be the easy part. The hard part is gonna be coming up with a plan for what to do about Dru.”
~*~
When George arrived several hours later to collect their untouched breakfast tray, he gave them a concerned look. Buffy wanted to reassure the boy that all was well, but truth be told, all was far from being well; the best she could offer George was a weak smile.
They were just finishing their talk in which she’d filled him in on much of his history. It had been an especially bumpy road and William was in worse shape than she. He reminded her of a man she’d seen in a World War I documentary about shell shock. His eyes had taken on a wide and glassy appearance and his movements were jerky and skittish.
He’d sat in the camp stool opposite her, hands on his knees, his expression heartbreakingly earnest. He’d wanted to know the whole truth of it – of who he was and what he’d done. Whenever she’d tried to evade or show him a kindness of skimming over an especially bad topic, he’d pushed through to the truth anyway.
Now he knew his entire ‘other’ history, or as much of it as Buffy herself knew. William now knew of Angel and the Scourge of Europe. He knew of his lover and sire Drusilla and of how long they’d been lovers. He knew of Slayers and his killing of two of them. He had been pushing her to tell him about their own history just as George interrupted them.
Once the porter had left them alone again, he scooted his chair back against the wall and began to pace the room. Since Dr. Crowdner had the ‘therapeutic’ machine removed a few days ago, they at least had a bit more room in the small cabin. Buffy watched him, trying to discern what was going on beneath his troubled exterior.
He forced himself to stop pacing and leaned against the door, seeming to steel himself for a blow. He looked at her and tilted his head to the side, his sincerity palpable. “As Elizabeth you told me that you loved me, that I loved you. Yet when you speak of my past, it sounds as if we were enemies. Which is it, Buffy?”
She didn’t quite know what to say to him. He seemed so wounded and yet, the idea of them being lovers sounded so incredulous.
“As Elizabeth, you told me I’d saved the world.”
It was so utterly unbelievable that she wanted to laugh. Wanted to, but couldn’t. The miserable expression on his face was just too much, so in the end, she’d found a kindness within herself. “Those events haven’t happened in my memory, William. I wish I knew more, but I just … don’t.”
He didn’t look terribly reassured.
“What did I tell you of my mother?” He pushed. “As Elizabeth you intimated that Mother had a somewhat unpleasant ending during my incarnation as Spike.”
Here she was at a loss. “I honestly don’t know how she died. There was nothing in the books about it and you never talked about it at all. At least, up to the point I can remember.”
He looked at her gravely and nodded, but she could see how distraught he was. She was halfway to his side before she realized she’d even moved toward him. His hand was once again tangled in his unruly mop of hair. Gently, she reached up to take his hand in hers.
“William, it didn’t happen. This is the reality we have now. Knowing what happened in the other reality is like knowing what happened in a dream.”
He looked at her, his blue eyes crackling with vulnerability. “Am I to become a monster? Does she seek me because my becoming a vampire is meant to be? Am I intended to become Spike, no matter my incarnation?”
“Do you want to become Spike?” she asked simply.
“No!” he shouted.
“Then I don’t think the rest of it matters - what Dru wants, what destiny wants. As you would have said when you were Spike, ‘sod that.’ You decide your own destiny, William.”
He didn’t look terribly convinced. She couldn’t have been more surprised when she saw her hand reach up to smooth down his unruly curls. He gave her a wary smile in return.
“And since I’m being all Destiny Girl here, it’s time I took my own advice.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“For the last few days I’ve felt like a victim, like something has been taken away from me. At first I thought my life had been taken away – that I’d been tricked into living a life not of my own choosing. Come to find out, this is the life I’d chosen. I just don’t remember making that choice. And when I realized this was real, again, on with the victimhood and the Poor Buffy Pity Party. But, whether I remember doing it or not, this is the life I chose, the time I chose.”
It was almost funny, really. All those days alone in her room she hadn’t felt this kind of direction, this level of determination. But now, looking at him and hearing herself articulate it, for the first time since she’d landed in this strange place, she began to feel a real sense of self, a sense of power.
Letting go of his hand, she strode to the back of the room. “So destiny gave me a mindwipe. So destiny took away my Slayer powers. So what? It’s about what I want. Even without powers, I still know how to think like the Slayer. I still decide my own fate.”
At that, she reached over and opened the wardrobe door, fishing out a pair of boots and the dreaded button-hook. She slipped the first boot on her foot and began pulling the buttons through with the hook.
“Where are you going, Buffy?” He looked at her with eyes full of concern.
“Need to dig around some dark places on board to see if Dru is holing up where I think she is. Then I’ll need to figure out what to do about having a vampire on board.” She finished hooking one boot and began on the other.
“Would you like … no, that’s not right. I should like to join you, if you wouldn’t mind.” He looked at her, serious and committed.
“Thank you, William. I would like that.” She looked at him, startled at the depth of her own sincerity. She really would like to have him by her side as she stepped into this new world, to be a kind of partner to her.
Oddly, it reminded her of a movie her mom had forced her to watch a few weeks ago: Pride and Prejudice. William and Buffy, however, had a much odder version of ‘May I have this dance?’ Theirs was both wordier and stranger. ‘Would you like to accompany me into the dank belly of the ship? I expect we’ll meet some charming vermin!’ ‘Why yes, that sounds divine.’
Smiling at her secret joke, she looked up to find his blue eyes trained on her, eyebrows raised quizzically. “You still find amusement in the oddest of occasion.” He grinned.
“You’re not doing so bad yourself, Smiley. Besides, you might as well laugh in the face of danger. Keeps him off balance.” She took his arm as they made their way toward the cabin door.
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End Notes: My head is often in the story so much that 'real life' passes me by. This week, I had to take my car to a tire shop, due to a slow leak in a tire. Jose, the service counter guy asks, "Which tire is leaking?" Me: "Rear, but...left or right depends on which way you're facing. Um, it's port!" Jose is perplexed. "Port?" Me: "You know, not starboard. Portside." I gesture with my right hand, helpfully! Jose is not following. Trying to clarify, I ask, "What do they call that on cars? You know, portside on cars is...?" "Passenger side?" Jose asks. Ahh, yes! That probably would be a better way to refer to things on a car! Then I got to endure the smirks of the dudes in the waiting room who thought I was wack for using nautical terms on a Mazda 5. But guess what? Jose fixed my tire for free! Thanks guy! And though it was dreaded tire shop, Warren didn't show up! So there's that!
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you to Science for being mean. :) Thanks to DK and Lutamira and Capella42 for beta-ing. Thanks to Amy for the banner. Thanks to YOU for reviewing because that is full of awesome!