Spike pushed himself back on heels, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his leather duster, and treated his companions to a look of comical incredulity. Balanced precariously on the edge of the rather large pool he pointed a finger disbelievingly at the emptiness before him.
“You have got to be bleeding well kidding me.”
Angel’s smirk reeked of insider knowledge.
“It’s a leap of faith, Spike.”
“I hardly think Joyce or the Nibblet are up to that kind of faith, Peaches.”
“Not them, William. Just you. This is your trial.” Angel’s smug smile fought to hide his tremors of uneasiness. He was extremely unsure about this, noticing the still involuntary shakes that Spike’s body succumbed to periodically. A glance to his right proved to him that Joyce had seen it too, and the look in her eyes matched his worry.
“What kind of trials are you talking about, Angel?”
Joyce didn’t look at him as she asked, her gaze lost as she peered into the darker recesses of the empty pool, hypnotized, looking like she almost wished for water to fill it and allow her to fall, sucking her down into the swirling depths of forever. He felt there was something peculiar about her; knowing that she had recently been ill perhaps had him more on guard, but still, his musings were wasting valuable time. They had no idea how long they would be safe from Glory.
“I really can’t discuss it, Joyce. I would assume, though, that it would be different for everyone that attempts them. Probably depends on the rewards sought. Or the warrior seeking them.”
He turned reluctantly to Spike, and took in his pale weakened stance, even while standing with a determination that was hell-bent on achievement. Before him stood a Childe he’d had little hope for recovery just a day ago but who now stood rigid with the force of solid steel. With a small smile of approval, he watched the four, one vamp and a flock of Summers. A step back had him contemplating William and his family. It made his heart ache as well as sing. He was torn with the incongruity, and now that the test was to be undertaken, his nerves began to show.
“Just watch yourself, Spike. Whoever is in charge down there will likely double-cross.” His audience startled at the unrepentant bitterness in Angel’s voice.
Spike answered him with a confused but resigned nod and turned; without one final look at any of the women, he kept his eyes wide open before jumping forward and down, his duster flapping like bat wings in the inky night. Angel grinned when the site of bleached hair disappeared through an invisible floor and was lost to their view. In unexpected amusement he couldn’t help but wonder why Spike had taken the jump feet first when he was renowned for his ‘head first’ entry into every situation. His own leap such a short time ago seemed to have them swapping roles, and for the first time adopting a trait that was so strongly Spike didn’t infuriate him with disgust.
Within the minute, the rest of his companions vanished-- he knew-- to the waiting room like he had expected, and he took up a spot beside the pool to sit and wait it out. Whatever the outcome would be.
Spike couldn’t help but laugh at the butler-like man who addressed him.
“Are you for real, mate?”
“Perfectly real, sir,” he answered dryly.
“Right then. So what’s this all about?” Spike busied himself taking in his surroundings, caution screaming at him in bold. He was out of his element here, and on an extremely important mission with a body that was still feeling the aftereffects of his extended torture and starvation. And the prissy little butler type that seemed to be his guide for the night was just too serious to be true.
“You have shown us your faith, sir. Now we will see if you have the valour. I will be assisting you through the trials.”
“What…” Spike’s eyes boggled and his question stalled as the three women he would give his life to protect appeared like a ghostly apparition before gaining solid form. He hadn’t expected Buffy to be here, let alone the other two. For some reason, her presence made this harder for him. The guilty look he had spied in Angel’s eye earlier at the club made him feel on edge, wondering if this might be the last time he had to lay eyes on her. If she was going to be there, reminding him of what he had just gained, he might not be strong enough to do this. Strong enough to do whatever it took to ensure their safety. He didn’t want to have to stare goodbye in the face.
Temporarily mute, he turned back to the funny little butler type and gave him a hardened Spike stare, one indicating that he knew he wasn’t going to like what was ahead but was determined to face it no matter the cost.
“Why are they here?” he finally asked in a huskiness revealing his anxiety, relieved only at having reasonable control over his voice.
“You wish to save a life. They are here as your collateral.”
Ah, bargaining! A language that Spike understood, even though on this occasion it turned his stomach. Long ago, he would have sanctioned the use of humans as bargaining chips-- their continuing mortality of little interest to him as long as he gained his spoils. But now, with the eyes of Summers women staring at him one haunted with the fear of loss and desertion, one with motherly concern about his strength, and the other with all her hopes of him as her savior it loaded him down with the extra burden of their pain and he felt too whipped already to take the first step of challenge.
And his devil may care attitude raised up to bite him on the arse. Comprehension was a bitch.
“Ah, what happens if I don’t make it through these trials?”
“Then you forfeit a life. In the meantime, your guests can take a refreshment in our antechamber.” Dawn and Joyce shimmered then disappeared, leaving Buffy to watch him with horror stamped revealingly on her face.
“No,” he shouted out in denial and a frantic need to cling to life. “Bring them back.” The feral snarl of Spike’s response momentarily flustered the Jeeves reject and the women were again united.
“Oh, it’s better this way. In a few moments, no living thing will be safe in here.”
“You can’t bloody do this. I won’t let you. Peaches didn’t tell me this would happen.” His eyes pleaded with Buffy as they clashed with hers, brimming silently with tears.
“Life is the bargain here. You have put hers in the balance.” And he was lost again in the urgency of saving Nibblet, of letting her face life as a teen devoid of supernatural specialness, letting her grow old on her own schedule rather than die young at the hands of an insane hellgod. His eyes scorched the women with their heat, pumping forth a signature goodbye that required no voice. He hoped that Buffy could accept it if this was the end, and remember him for the gift he wanted to provide her family. And then it was that the thought of her new love for him gave him the courage to take that step forward, shrug off that hesitant hope that he wouldn’t have to do this. Just the reality of them all, the Scoobies, being in LA told him that there was little help left. No other hope, save his efforts. They had to do something-- he had to do something-- or Dawn could be lost.
As if the staid guide understood his thoughts in detail, he hurried things along with his own interjections.
“You’d best get ready now, Sir. Now is not the time to dwell on the negative.” The short pause allowed Spike to wonder if he was to die now when would he get that chance to dwell, to face the emptiness of perpetual torment? The cardboard recitation of the stranger also caused him to suspect that the guy was going by rote and he wondered if this was exactly what Angel heard on his own visit to this place. Darla. Spike had guessed whom Angel had come here for, and his continued existence told him of the failure of Angel to save her life. She was dead after all. Well, undead. No point arguing semantics.
He watched Buffy’s face as the voice continued on, watching her struggle to hold herself strong and steady, her arms clinging to her mother and sister like they were all she had left to hold her up. All evidence of the Slayer had left her as she surrendered to the fear of being a girl, and a girl about to lose her new love. Her fright was terrifying to him.
He didn’t think he could do it.
Suddenly there was silence and he realised the man had stopped talking, and that they were all watching him expectantly.
“What was that, mate? Drifted off a bit.”
Spike received a grim look of forbearance from the other male in the room before he was reminded of the earlier request.
“There will be three separate challenges. I’ll need your shirt and shoes.” The proffered arm stayed still as he tore off his shirt and pulled off his boots, his eyes stubbornly avoiding the women now that he had to enter a fight.
“You better send them off to thatantechamber with the beverages. I’m sure the ladies are a mite thirsty about now.”
Butler Jeeves nodded in relief and the women again disappeared form the room, a gasp of outrage from Buffy whispering from her lips as she was forcibly removed from his sight.
“Don’t suppose you could give me a bit of a clue about what’s going on here?”
The proper accent sounded inquisitive as the man tilted his head to the side in order to contemplate the newest challenger of the trials.
“I’ve never given information to a challenger before.”
Spike knew that he was lying, no way would Angel have gone through this without pushing for hints of what he’d be up against, but he bought into the atmosphere of the thing, and continued.
“First time for everything then, isn’t there.”
He gave a curt nod, revealed a small amused smirk before telling Spike that the ‘unarmed combat’ mainly pertained to his own condition. Spike barely had time to flinch before he was face to face with an ugly demon swinging a metal chain with a hook attached in one great meaty club, and a nice sharp sword in the other. Spike upped the stakes on his own survival by setting his eyes on the sword, determined to gain possession as soon as he possibly could.
With a rush of pure adrenaline, Spike turned and narrowly avoided the slash of the hook as it singed by and scraped the concrete walls behind him. He had seconds of recovery time before he was on the move once again, keeping steady eyes on the demon and trying to interpret the next move. Spike had always been good in a fight, and since being with the Slayer and taking on regular fights with demons, his strength had improved and his skills sharpened. However, he had just undertaken the slow return to health that this endeavor threatened to destroy, and as the demon made swift contact while Spike lost his concentration, he found himself screaming in pain as he hit the wall hard.
He felt himself weaken gradually, but the ugliness of the thing got his goat and he wouldn’t let himself go down just yet. He scraped himself off the floor and with a battle cry that rebounded off the walls, he grabbed the sword that the demon had unwillingly surrendered and sliced the thug through the middle, two halves falling detached to the floor. Falling to his knees and panting his relief, he allowed his eyes to linger on the two halves of the body and smirked in satisfaction.
Almost immediately, however, the smirk slid from his face and pure panic directed his ungainly return to his feet as he saw the slide of each severed end try to reattach itself. He grabbed a hook and shoved it into the flesh of one of the moving halves. In a desperate attempt to prevent the body from reassembling, he dragged his captured end to one corner of the room and fixed it there on a light fixture before returning and repeating the process with the other half to the opposite side of the room.
Skittish eyes watched for a few moments before he released a breath of pained deliverance and gave heartfelt thanks for the reprieve gained from not allowing the demon to become whole again and thus being forced to continue the fight. He felt rather proud of himself for thinking of the solution so quickly, and he stood with a cocky grin as the demon growled ineffectually against the wall.
Behind him he heard the crank signalling the opening of the gate and he slowly ambled over and through. His body hurt though it revealed no real injury at this point, and from the bottom of his blood, he was grateful.
“One down, two to go,” he called out to no one, though he was sure that he was being watched. “Did Peaches get this far?” His irrepressible humour fell to the forefront and he laughed, his exhilaration over the first pass buoying his spirits.
He jumped as the gate behind him closed suddenly and he was left alone facing down a corridor. Light spilled into the room from the silver glaring moon as the ceiling drifted to the side. The romance of the moment tugged at his lips, until he saw the room lined with crosses every where he looked. There was no way to avoid them.
Choosing for once to observe before diving into the situation, he decided that the basin situated in the middle of the cross-lined path must contain something important, and if he had to guess it would be the key for the door at the end. And if these people were as evil as he was beginning to suspect, it must be filled to the brim with holy water. Suddenly all those sessions of dripping holy water on the minions, and even that time on Angel when he came to the Hellmouth to save Dru, weren’t particularly funny.
“Bollocks,” he spat with feeling as he began his run to the basin, smoke rising around his bare feet. He paused just seconds to thrust his arm in the water, screaming as his arm burned and the water bubbled around his searing flesh. He retrieved the key and was off again, limping now, and unlocked the door. Falling through it he once again collapsed to his knees, pain roaring through his body as he vaguely took notice of the ugly red burns over his hands. Tears fought to reach his eyes but he held them back, clenching his jaw so as to not give away the degree of his torment. The corridor did little but to remind him of the evil that he was. All he needed now was a mirror to show that he shouldn’t exist and a stake to prove that he did.
He dragged himself back to his aching feet, and looked nervously around the room, not knowing whether to expect another demon to slash him to pieces or another form of torture to take him out. He did know that this was the third and final trial and he didn’t expect to make it through this one. A monotonous litany tore through his head, ‘an eye for an eye, a life for a life’, and he understood that the meaning of the balance was that he must give up what he hoped to save. For Dawn to be safe, he had to surrender himself to his own end.
A solitary tear escaped his eye as he took that final stephis one physical goodbye to the woman he had hoped he could admire and share her life for however long she had and was captured by automatic manacles clamping his wrists and ankles, restraining him spread-eagled vertically in the room. Spike bowed his head in defeat, acknowledging that he had reached his end, and accepting it. Really, by now he found that the decision was not that hard.
But then Jeeves was back, clapping in his understated approval, with Buffy crying freely at his side.
“Well played. You fielded our strokes from beginning to end. And might I say, Sir, you are cleverer than the other vampire. Are you sure he didn’t give you hints?” At Spikes arched brow and gleaming yellow eye, Jeeves stepped back out of snapping distance. “Of course, Sir. We know he didn’t. My hat’s off to you. You worked out the puzzles so much quicker. But there is one final challenge.”
Spike gulped hard as the wall of stakes was revealed, then he burst out laughing.
“Right then.” Spike nodded toward the wall, ignoring Buffy’s increasingly loud sobbing. “That ought to do it then.” Then he sucked up his courage and faced her, allowed his eyes to gaze over her face, taking in the smoky green of her eyes, the plush poutiness of her lips, the flat little end of her nose. And her glistening tears of fright, for him.
“There’s no need to explain this one. A life for a life. I expected it.”
His easy acceptance startled the butler type for a moment, but then he pulls the lever that pulls the wall of stakes back, ready to spring forth and make dust.
Buffy jumps and steps forward.
“Don’t do this,” she begged, her hand reaching out to stroke softly against his chest.
“Buffy, luv…there isn’t any choice.”
She shook her head against his words, denial straightening her body into taut preparation.
“There is another choice,” she stalled as words shared not too long ago circled in her mind. Resigned to her fate, she turned to the strange uptight man and offered him her solution.
“Death is my gift,” she whispered to him and he nodded at her, a smile on his face that could almost be seen as sad.
“Yes, Miss. So I have heard.”
“What?” Spike couldn’t believe the words she was speaking, and then realisation hit him like a tank and he began to fight against his restraints. “Buffy, I already made my choice. The Bit needs you. Your mum needs you. I’m evil, Buffy. The world can do without me.”
Her tears hadn’t ceased their flow and her lips trembled with the gravity of the situation. But she shook her head even as she wrapped her arms around his waist and let her head fall against his chest. The tugs on the manacles become more urgent as Spike tried in earnest to release himself and stop her offering. He started to murmur frantic words to her, begging words, all of which she ignored as she sobbed onto his chest. Then he heard the words that he knew were going to break him completely, his body already useless in holding her still.
“I love you,” she whispered into the skin and, as he rubbed his mouth into the hair at her crown, she raised her eyes and let him sink in her despair.
“I will always love you. Take care of them for me?”
He felt his own eyes blur as he took in her plea and he could do nothing but agree to anything she wished of him.
“Always,” he croaked, his throat clogging with the onslaught of emotion and tears. “Till the end of the world.”
With one gentle hand she cups his chin, fingers caressing and passing down his neck but her eyes never leaving his lips. And for the sake of continued heartbreak she took from his mouth one final time, taking all his passion and love inside her to keep forever wherever she was going. Pulling back, their lips clung to each other, both eager to forget the situation and just indulge in their feeling for the other. She hoped her death would take her to heaven, but she isn’t entirely positive. Some of her past actions made the prospect a little iffy in her book, but as long as she could retain some essence of Spike, she would cope.
Her greedy eyes took him in, sliding knowingly over his exposed skin and regretting now that she hadn’t taken the chance to truly experience him. She accepted it was too late, that maybe it was never meant to be, otherwise the monks wouldn’t have made Dawn’s image so spectacularly prominent in her mind. If left to herself, without the supernatural spell of interference, she might have chosen to not go through with it. But the weight of the world was once again her deal, and the choice as Slayer was hers. Knowing it was time, she stepped away from Spike and allowed herself to watch the other man without trying to go for his throat.
“How do we do this? As elegant as a wall of stakes might be, don’t think the clean-up would be as mess free with me and my annoying blood as it might have been with the dustiness. Also, a corpse, so not easy to explain to the authorities.”
Jeeves stepped aside to show that the wall of stakes had been replaced with a shimmering gateway that looked suspiciously like a portal. Crackles of intense white light pulsed around the edges of the gateway and Buffy stared at it transfixed.
“Death is my gift,” she repeated to the men, almost as if trying to talk herself into the prediction. Her arms hugged her own body as swirls of defeat climbed up her tiny frame, starting her to tremble with the momentum of what she was about to do. Die. She was giving her life to save her sister, to save her man. And those words finally released the tightness around her heart, and she felt herself break. She had only just found him in her heart and now she was to give him up to save the world. She so hated her life, but that didn’t mean she wanted it to end.
“By stepping though this portal, Miss, you will die, thus safeguarding the life you came here to save.”
Buffy nodded, her body swaying slightly to the rhythm of the throbbing lights. Her mind went blank as she focused on what she was about to do. What she had to do. This wasn’t Spike’s calling. Underneath it all she felt that he did have a calling, his passage of change could not be for no reason. He had a purpose, and right now-- standing before his imprisoned form-- she grieved. No one had passed yet; no death had visited their present, yet the pain of permanent separation shook her chaotically.
And she grieved.
Mesmerised by the light, she took one step toward the portal, not hearing the metallic ‘shing’ of Spike’s restraints retracting.
“Buffy!” he shouted, but his imploring halt fell stunted in the air as she stepped closer. With a boatload of determination and a lack of sense he took off after her, grabbing her round the waist just as she stepped through the swirling mass of electric heat and light, pulling him along with her. He felt the splintering heat of fire as his body began to crumble and then disintegrated, felt her screaming cells as her body jerked spasmodically in death.
Then he knew nothing more.
Until they fell in a tangle of limbs on the floor of what could only be the antechamber. Both rolling together to their backs their eyes took a few minutes of silence to recover from the glare of the light before they could see their audience.
The white faces of Dawn and Joyce shared their stunned disbelief that they still existed, their bodies tingling from the after effects of being dead, of being nothing in the cosmos. Their tear-streaked cheeks told the tale of their knowledge of what Buffy had just done, and Buffy flinched at the look of anger causing her mother’s lips to scrunch and the little lines around them pronouncing her age to deepen and furrow.
The mounting fury of her mother was thankfully eclipsed by the arrival of Jeeves as he stepped in between the two groups, calling attention away from the decision of the act toward the result of the achievement.
“Congratulations. You’ve passed the third testby accepting deathI’m told no one has ever gone that far before in terms of sacrificekudos! You’re friend, of course, did accept his final challenge, but you were offered freedom and still chose death. Utterly amazing.”
Spike ignored him as he first crouched, then sprung to his feet, the pain in his body pulling his attention in many different directions but focused on the act of pulling Buffy to her feet.
“We did what we had to do, so ante up, mate.”
“Of course, though we have a bit of a dilemma. Two for the price of one wasn’t originally agreed upon. However, you did both agree before the vampire decided to be extra heroic, and we were unable to help your vampire friend with his quest, so we will grant yours.”
He stepped away from the two blondes, both clinging to each other in a shaking grasp at renewed existence, and stood in front of the other two Summers women. His hands reached to hover around Joyce’s head and Buffy jumped forward in sudden anxiety.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t turn to her, or even stop what he was doing.
“Your mother has been living on borrowed time, Miss. I am making her aneurysm disappear and strengthening her life.”
Buffy gasped her shock.
“Mommy?” she asked her mother in her little girl voice she was unable to repress when she became frightened.
Joyce stood as surprised by the words as Buffy appeared to be, but slowly she closed her eyes as a feeling of warmth and peace swept through her body and settled in her head. Something popped and her limbs weakened, allowing her to slide soundlessly to the floor. She didn’t quite make it as Spike dived for her. She ended up sprawled within his arms while he sat down hard, his own injuries lending him only enough strength to make the leap, but no further. Her lack of consciousness lasted barely a minute before her eyes opened once again; she took in her position and tried to get to her feet. Spike helped by pushing from the floor but his own weakness meant he’d rather remain sprawled on the tiles for the present time.
Joyce made it again to her feet and she looked around at her daughters, feeling the change like a dirty gray veil had been pulled back from her eyes, allowing her to see clearly for the first time in months. Then the words and implications of this enterprise sank in and she felt like collapsing back on Spike.
“I…I was going to die?”
Her voice revealed her horror at the close call, but Jeeves smiled reassuringly as he patted her hand. “You are in tip top condition now, though, Madam.”
Joyce fell forward and encased Buffy in a special mother/daughter hug that lent the illusion of strength, and the reality of power.
Then all eyes turned to Dawn as she shifted from foot to foot nervously.
“Ah yes, the Key. Rather selfish and unthinking of your creators to leave you in such a mess.”
His hands hovered around Dawn’s head in a replica move of the action he took with Joyce, his eyes tightly closed as he concentrated. All in the room held their breath and bodies still, anticipation of the feat almost crippling. The impact of swirling green energy sizzled in the air around Dawn’s head, eliciting gasps of wonder and concern from the onlookers, before the last small trail of liquid mystical green disappeared within the fist of butler Jeeves. All remained quiet for a space as they all struggled to deal with the strange phenomena, but then they all stepped forward to embrace Dawn as Jeeves fell back. The relieved cries and laughs simmered until they eventually shifted away from the girl, and then they all looked to the other man for reassurance that the ordeal was finally at an end.
His first true, genuine smile visited his lips as he opened his fist and revealed a rather large emerald situated within a claw around a shiny new golden ring. The women admired the beauty of the stone, and then began to fight over who got to wear it. He held it away from their tangling, reaching hands and passed it to Spike.
“Here you go, Sir. I feel positive you will know exactly what to do with it to keep it safe.” Jeeves winked as he passed the stone over to Spike.
“Why, you cheeky devil!” But then his expression of awe fell on his girl and she smiled sweetly, holding out her hand palm down in silent encouragement. “Ah ah ah, not so fast, pet.” He tucked the piece of jewelry in a secure pocket of his duster, starting in surprise when he finally noticed that he once again was fully clothed, and the burns on his hands and feet felt like they had never happened. Buffy’s face fell at the disappearance of the ring, but Spike stepped forward and grabbed her and tossed her in the air, catching her safely on her descent. “Plenty of time…”he whispered in her ear before claiming her lips in a heated kiss, the purpose of which to hold and secure what he would never let go.
A nervous ‘hmmm’ and a variety of throat clearing exercises took place in the background and Buffy giggled once her lips were yet again her own.
“Yes, Miss. Death is indeed your gift. And now I will show you the way out?”
A flight of stairs materialised before them and they fumbled their way to the top, euphorically on high as their troubles finally dissipated. Only at the top, facing a much relieved Angel, did Spike realise that he still held Buffy in his arms.
And he felt that that was perfect balance.
A/N...okay, one chapter to go. Let me know if you want it!