Disclaimer:  I don’t own BtVS

Dawn of a New Age

Chapter Thirteen

Spike looked so morose it made her heart clench.  He sprawled inelegantly in the deep-set chair, his extended legs clad in dark dress trousers and the wine silk shirt opened at the collar.  The only light in the room came from the built in wet bar behind him, and the play of light and shadow only enhanced the natural cut plane beauty of Spike’s face.  His long, slender fingers gripped the rim of the crystal cut tumbler as he absently swirled the aged whiskey. The crystal refracted the blue backlighting, casting diamond prisms over the arms of the black leather chair where he lounged.  He looked like a man relaxing after a hard day’s work.  Or a man who knew his night would only be getting progressively worse, and needed a stiff drink to steel his nerves.

The soft click of the door closing was gunshot loud in the room.

“Said I didn’t want to be disturbed.”  His distinct growling voice rolled over her skin, leaving vibrations in it’s wake.

“Consider yourself disturbed, Spike.  Very disturbed.”

His vibrant blue eyes darted up, the lean muscle in his cheek jumping with repressed emotion when he saw her.

“Bloody buggering fuck.” 

Buffy chose to ignore the wealth of frustration and resignation harbored with those three disgusted words.  She advanced into the room, having no idea how her white blouse absorbed the electric blue light from the wet bar and made her glow ethereally.

“A strip club, Spike?” she spat with disgust.

Spike shot the last of his whiskey and levered himself out of the chair with a bitter sigh.  The heavy crystal tumbler made a loud clack as he set it carelessly on the bar to pour himself another two fingers.

“Not doing anything wrong, Buffy.”

He kept his back to her as he spoke, and she was mesmerized by the play of muscles beneath his shirt as he took a sip of his drink.  He was so unconsciously beautiful it hurt to look at him sometimes.

“If you believe that, then why’d you hide it from me?”

He braced his hands on the lip of the bar and hung his head.  Atlas with too much weight on his shoulders.

“’Cause I knew you’d take it the wrong way.”

“Then why do it if you knew I wouldn’t like it?”  She moved closer to him, a moth to a gaslight flame.

He whirled around and the depth of emotion in his gaze was like a thump in the chest.  The air left her lungs in a whoosh.

“I’m a vampire.”  He swiped his hand out, as if he could wipe the truth of his words away.  “Never had to worry about money before.  Just took wot I needed.  Can’t do that no more.  Gotta be respectable.  Or as close as I can get.  Needed the money for you and the Bit.  Needed to take care of you.”

Bright spots of outrage bloomed on her cheeks.  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me!”  She stabbed a finger at him, and he stepped forward, forcing her to flatten her palm on his chest.  The muscle was unyielding, begging for her to smooth her hand downwards to his silver belt buckle.

“Don’t I know it.  You don’t need me.  Don’t want me, neither, I suspect.  But I need it.  I need to feel like I’m contributin’ somehow.  You’re doin’ somethin’ amazing.  You’re givin’ our child life and I can’t help a bleedin’ bit with that.  But I can do other things.  I can make you comfortable.  Make sure you an’ the Bit want for nuthin’.”

Buffy searched his intense gaze, drowning deep in blue-black pools.  She never considered the helpless detachment he must feel while she struggled with the rigors of pregnancy.  The idea of creating life inside her body was disconcerting; the prospect of being a parent, terrifying, but it was all superseded by the connection she felt with her child.  Spike didn’t have that connection so he compensated by giving the only support he could.  Financial.  And on occasion, when she allowed it, emotional.

For some reason it made her feel…cherished.  Delicate, feminine and womanly.  For the first time in her life she wanted to be soft, and luxuriate in the sensation of being the one cared for, instead of the caretaker.  She was hard-pressed not to contrast his determination to be a part of his child’s life in any way possible, against her own father’s absenteeism.  Yes, Spike, like her father, offered money as a way to provide support.  The difference was the intent behind the act.  Spike wanted to offer more, be more, but was held in check by Buffy’s hesitation, while her father treated his monthly payments as an obligation or a pay off in exchange for his attention.  Her father didn’t want to spend time with her, while it would take an apocalypse to separate Spike from his child. 

“But a strip club?” she whined.  Her mind was screaming at her to step away, but her body wouldn’t obey.  He shrugged, and his muscles rippled under her hand.

“Not a lot of options, kitten.  I’m runnin’ it as clean as I can.  Try to give the girls a way to earn decent dosh without sellin’ their dignity.”

The mention of Spike’s stable of beautiful women gave Buffy the resolution she needed to move away from him.

“You’re exploiting them.”

She folded her arms, tucking her fingers beneath her elbows so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch him again.  She wasn’t even sure if she believed her own words.  The feminist inside of her, who insisted all wasn’t equal in the world of men, wanted to believe the women she met outside were brainwashed into thinking it was their choice to be used as sex objects.  But another, pragmatic voice objected.  It asked her what lengths she would go through to support her child.  Even herself.  It reminded her that their bodies were theirs to do with as they pleased and it was wrong for her to judge them.

“I am not,” he snarled.  His tone and expression were pure affront.  “I pay them well and make sure they’re safe.”

“It’s still exploitation, Spike.”

“Bloody hell.  Is that the word of the week on your college campus?”  Buffy’s brows snapped together, and he blew out a gusty sigh.  “I’m not forcing them to work here.  They don’t do anything they don’t want to and no one touches them.”

“Not even you?”  She refused to look at him.  The women assured her they weren’t appeasing ‘the Boss’ as part of their employment duties, but that didn’t mean much.  No one wanted a scorned slayer pointed in their direction.

He glided up behind her, his hands settling lightly on her shoulders.  He pulled her into him.  She wanted to resist, but his pull was too great.  The pull of his sexual heat, his magnetism, of him.  Every fiber of her being ached to connect to him.  Angel’s harsh words became a distant memory and she found it nearly impossible to connect them to the man behind her.  It was so easy to forget sometimes that he was an evil, soulless monster.  Especially when he masqueraded at being a man better than most human men she knew.

“Never.”  His breath whispered over the sensitive shell of her ear and she shivered against him.  “Aside it bein’ wrong, the only woman I want is you, Buffy.”

“Why?”

A question for the ages.  Why did he want her so desperately?  Why did she yearn to be wanted by him?

“Dunno, kitten.  ‘M covered in you.  Your scent, your heat.  I ache to hear your voice, even when I know you’re gonna say somethin’ to brass me off.  I just want to be around you, baby.”

Buffy almost gave in.  It would be easy to melt into him and let him wipe away the world.  To hide away with him behind a diaphanous veil and ignore the plague of reality.  But she couldn’t allow him to overcome her.  Not when she needed answers.

She pulled away from his embrace, circling around so his sleek, black glass desk was between them.  She glanced at it briefly, but his blotter was clear and his PC monitor turned off.

“Your extracurriculars aside, Spike.  The fact is you’ve become powerful among the demons.”  She cast around for the right words.  “A leader in the community.  How do I know you aren’t planning something?”

He cocked an amused brow, before realization darkened his features.

“Ah, that’s why the great wanker came a’calling.  Seeding fear and doubt wherever he goes.”  Spike returned to the bar to pour himself another drink.

“What are you talking about, Spike?”

He sprawled in his chair with a sigh, and sipped his whiskey.  “Well, out with it then.  What did Angelus have to say?  He promise to still love you from afar even though you’re carrying my demon spawn?”

Buffy braced her hands on his desk and carefully sat in the leather chair.  She kept her head lowered and the expanse of the room between them, hiding the hurt his words cause her.  Her avoidance meant she missed the barely there spasm of agony on Spike’s face.

When she felt she had her emotions under control, she brushed back her hair to pin him with a cold glare.

“How did you know Angel was in town?”

His silence was mocking and she exploded in fury.

“This is what I’m talking about!  How much power do you have?”  She swept her hand outward, encompassing the world around them.  “How much do you control?”

Spike’s lips were thin.  The amber whiskey in his glass was of immediate interest.  She hated that he wouldn’t look at her.  “’M not out to hurt anyone, Buffy.”

“How do I know that?  For all I know you’re planning the next apocalypse.”

He crossed the distance in a blink.  He planted his palms on the desk, and leaned over so he could look her in the eye.

“You know that’s bollox!  ‘M not plannin’ a damn thing.  All ‘m tryin’ to do is keep you and the Bit safe while keeping those Initiative buggers off all our backs.”

“The Initiative isn’t doing anything wrong, you are!” she blindly accused.

“Bullshit.”

The word rang in the room, and Buffy inhaled sharply at the unrepressed vehemence of it.

“Not all demons are human devourin’ monsters.  Most are just tryin’ to get by.  You may not consciously know you’re doin’ it, but even you make the distinction when you choose to hunt only those that attack humans.  The Initiative doesn’t.  They are sweepin’ up innocent men, women and children.”  Buffy withdrew as he hissed out the last word.

“They’re terrorizin’ us and we have no recourse.  There’s no law to protect us.  No Constitution sayin’ we have equal rights.  All ‘m tryin’ to do is keep us organized enough to stay off the streets and out of their nets.”

‘You talk like you’re some great leader of a resistance.  Like these demons are people.  Well, they’re not.  They’re demons!”  The words had to fight their way through a minefield of doubt.  These demons weren’t just mindless killing machines causing destruction in their wakes.  They were a society.  They were families.  Males and females mated with little broodlings they cared for, living together in a community.  It was hard to refute when it was right in her face, but every cell in her body needed to deny it.  Acceptance would mean changing everything she believed in.  It meant doubting herself, her watcher, and her calling.  She held herself apart from Spike, every muscle in her body locked into unnatural stillness. 

Spike shook his head.  The expression on his face making her feel a deep sense of shame.

“So all that noise about exploitation was just that.  Noise.  Can’t take advantage of soulless things can you, Buffy?  So go on.  Go out there and tell those women their lives don’t matter.  Go tell them their babies---“ he jabbed his finger towards her belly---“deserve to be tortured and gassed in that underground Nazi lab just ‘cause they were born demons.”

She instinctively spread her hand protectively over her stomach as she faced off with Spike, her jaw locked with stubbornness.  “Nazi is a pretty strong accusation, Spike.”

“Ever met one?”  His jaw flexed in fury.  “Ever seen what they did?  Up close and personal like?  You know how it sounds when an entire race of people scream in fear?  Do you know what genocide smells like?”  Burnt flesh, she thought.  Images of smoke stacks and ovens the size of rooms came to mind.  She choked back a gag, her gaze unable to break away from his.  His eyes glittered and Buffy was shocked at the amount of emotion a vampire could feel for beings he should only consider to be his food. 

How was it possible that a soulless thing could feel such a deep sense of responsibility for his community?  For family?  How could he behave more humanely than humans?

“I do.  I was there, Buffy.  Here and now, and back during the War.  It’s the same damn setup.”

Buffy’s lip quivered and she could feel the hot streaks of tears on her cheeks.  What Spike described was terrible.  It made her belly feel tight and sick.  Like maybe she was infecting her child with evil by talking about the atrocities committed by human beings against other human beings.

“’M sorry, baby.”  Spike rounded the desk and knelt at her feet where she sat.  “I didn’t mean it.  Don’t cry.”

She stared down at their tightly intertwined hands in her lap for long minutes while the tears slipped down her cheeks and onto Spike’s fingers.  Spike’s babble became a soft, comforting murmur in the background of her thoughts.

Before her calling, Buffy had lived in a shiny-bright world where the shoes were cute, the clothes expensive, and monsters were made up by boys to cop feels in dark theaters.  Then Merrick came along and gave her clear cut lessons on the black and white existence of her world.  Demons were evil.  Evil needed to be exterminated.  She was the exterminator.  Over the years, her experiences only reinforce those truths.  But she realized now she purposely didn’t look too closely.  She hadn’t wanted to see the cracks in-between the dichotomy of good and evil.  She didn’t want to question the who or the why or the how come.  It was easier to live on one side of the line, instead of straddling it.

But she couldn’t keep her eyes closed forever.  It was time for her to grow up and let go of childhood ideals of how the world was constructed.  Life, all life, wasn’t black and white.  It wasn’t even shades of gray.  The world was vibrant with color.  Every shade, every possible variation.  It was red for passion and murder.  It was blue for serenity and sadness.  Like the brightly colored demon women who bravely put aside their fear to congratulate her on her miracle, the world was beautiful in all its dazzling shades.

She may not like some of the darker aspects and as a warrior of light she would always seek to destroy evil, but she could no longer go on thinking the vast cosmos were ordered in binary simplicity.  To continue to believe in such concrete negativity only served to rob herself and her child of the richness of life.  To be a good mother to her child, she needed to stop being a child herself.

“I understand, Spike.”  She met his concerned, wide-eyed gaze with conviction.  “I get it.  I do,” she soothed.  “There is good and evil in this world, but not everything falls simply into those categories.  You trying to help these people is a good thing.  It makes you”---she licked her lips nervously---“not good.  But maybe, something gray.”

Spike rocked back on his heels in compete shock.  She didn’t think she had ever seen the vampire look so bewildered.  He opened his mouth to reply but she forestalled him with an upraised hand.

“Angel said some things to me tonight that I need to think long and hard about.”

Thunderclouds settled heavy on Spike’s open features, and for the first time Buffy clued in on the insecurity he must feel.  She could imagine that one of his greatest fears was that she would take his child away to be raised by Angel.  It hurt her heart that he believed her capable of such cruelty.  It broke her even more to know she had been willing to do that very thing just hours ago, if only Angel had said the word.

“This child is ours and we’ll raise it together.”  She placed her hand on his shoulder to convey the seriousness of her next words.  “I need you to know that while I think what you’re doing here is a good thing, all of it could change if something happens to your chip.”

His muscles tensed under her hand.  “The chip is a handicap, Buffy.  I can’t protect you or our child while it’s playin’ Kick the Spike with my brain.”

“I know you feel that way, and that you hate being constrained, but you are just going to have to trust me to protect her from humans.”

“So I have to trust you, but you can’t trust me,” he spat bitterly.  She gripped his hands, caging them in her lap when he would move away from her.

“I’m willing to give you a chance, us a chance, but I want to be honest with you,” she told him earnestly.  She pressed her brow into his, forcing him to look her in the eyes.  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to completely trust you.  It’s your nature to be a killer.  It isn’t a choice.  It’s what you are.  You’re a predator.”

“Buffy…”

She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting the urge to cry.  She could feel Spike’s pain emanating from him.  She was hurting him, but she didn’t know what choice she had.  She refused to have a relationship based in dishonestly.  “I know it sounds like I’m holding it against you, but I’m not.  I’m accepting your nature and part of that is understanding what you are.  We can play house and pretend that you’re tame all we want, but just because you have a tiger in a cage doesn’t mean it won’t tear your head off one day.”

“I will never hurt you or yours.  Not your mother or your watcher.  Not even that annoying whelp you insist on hangin’ around with.  The chip could stop workin’ tomorrow and I’ll still be here, drinking bagged blood, and not so much as looking sidewise at a happy meal,” he whispered fiercely his eyes blazing in the shadows.  “Our child—us--is more important than all the sweetest elixir in the world.”

She leaned forward cupping his cheeks in her hands.  “And I believe that you believe that, but ultimately my responsibility lies with our child.  The temptation…” she glanced away, shaking her head.  “I can’t imagine how great it must be.  The desire, the need you must feel every second of the day.  It’s a craving in your blood.  If the chip was out it would just be that much easier to give in.”  Spike’s desire for blood was greater than any addiction.  It was life.  Blood was life.  How could anyone, no matter how strong they were, say no to life?

“The moment I think you’re a threat I’ll either cut you out or stake you dead.  Would you expect me to do anything less?  For my family?  For our girl?”

He held her gaze for decades.  She could read a plethora of emotions in his eyes.  Fury, denial, knowledge, understanding and resignation.  Love?

Buff caught her breath and waited.  Could they move beyond this or would he ultimately reject her.  How could he not?  Why would any man want a woman who could only offer parts of herself and not the whole?  A woman who demanded too much, and offered so little in return.  What man would want someone as damaged as her?