Minutes were devoured within the frozen vacuum of time that Buffy had almost instantly surrendered too. Those words had tripped her alarm triggers and suspended her rational belief. Leaving. She felt numb, vacant of all feeling until the hurt from her chafed wrists bled through the walls of her denial, and she understood. Spike was gone. She had sat almost comatose with disbelief and hurt throughout his little speech, his tears crashing through her defenses until all her hope exploded outward, but all she could do was sit silently. Spike was gone.
Feeling leaked steadily into her limbs and the numbness began to subside, leaving her with gaping wounds and sores that she wished were physical. Her brain regained activity last and when it kicked in; Spike was gone. Spike was gone.
“No,” she called out frantically, tugging hard on the ropes that cut into her flesh. “No,” she protested louder, but as the ropes loosened and finally fell from her bloodies wrists, she knew it was too late. Her vampire tingle had been fading as she had resembled her statue routine in the chair, and now it was gone. Continuing to deny like had been her habit all night, she wrestled with the final ropes around her ankles and stumbled forward to her knees. Crawling urgently forward, she gripped the poles of the ladder and almost threw herself to the lower level. Her knees ached with the thud of landing and she surged to motion again, seeking through instinct for his trail. Chains still swayed in movement from where he obviously had kept her safe from Drusilla, and an entrance to the sewers seemed to leer at her in victory.
The emptiness of the cave around her forced her to admit defeat and she collapsed to her knees on the dusty flooring. The shrine was still in place, though through suddenly blurry vision she could see spaces. Where before drawings and photos of her had covered every space, now there was bare wall where her face used to reside. That he had taken something to remind him of her should have freaked her out, make her want to go all Slayer on his ass, but for this one moment all she felt was hope.
He didn’t want to forget her completely. Just remembering his words the ones that made him crytold her all she needed to know about his feelings for her, and his lack of desire to abandon her. He didn’t want to let her go, and he wouldn’t cut himself off from her either. He had offered her help if she needed it for Dawn or her mother. He had offered himself for her benefit also, and that last one she couldn’t deny to herself any longer. Nor could she deny the sharp, almost searing pain she felt in her heart for the loss of him in her life. She could blame no one but herself for his need to leave.
She got to her feet and looked around slowly, not willing yet to leave the one space he had been last. She found his trunk of clothing all the new pants, and shirts and the chocolate leather jacketthat were really very nice. She found a few books on a shelf, and picked them up thoughtfully. She dumped them in the trunk and moved on to the shrine in her honour. Carefully removing the pictures and her sweater, she placed them in the trunk with the rest and decided to pull it up the ladder with her.
Upstairs she found bottles of bourbon, a very warm looking blanket, and a ‘Kiss the Librarian’ novelty mug. In they went. The television and chair…well, she wasn’t Superwoman. Holding the trunk with deliberate possessive care, she left the crypt and took her bounty home, hoping no one would be up to quiz her about her night or her new box of goodies.
She made her stealthy way upstairs unobserved and dived for the bed, the trunk bouncing softly on the mattress. The blanketmore an old-fashioned quilt she now observed was first out of the pile. The bourbon was set immediately into her cupboard to stave off temptation. Almost reverently she pulled out photos and drawings and really looked. The pencil and charcoal lines of her face betrayed a sensual hand that caused her breath to hitch painfully in her throat.
Had Spike done these? His vision had been inspired, wanting, caressing, the lines flowing sensually over her features like warmed satin over cold curves. Sensual and erotic. His care swept her up in a draft of longing, and her lower lip trembled. Not until she saw several drops of moisture hit the surface of the top picture did she realise that she was crying. Her body shook with the effort to keep her cries silent.
Putting the pile of pictures aside, she withdrew a pile of shirts clingy spandex that had warmed his flesh. The colours were altered forms of his traditional standby, amidst them all was only one black and this she scrunched into a ball and held to her face. Comforted by his scent, the faint drop of alcohol and tar, she let the hurt go and sobbed. She curled into a ball on the surface of her bed, shuddering at intervals.
His face…the resignation on his face as he told her what she had been convinced were lies, a story concocted to knock down her guard and take over her mind. His misery was so beautiful in its reality; the expression of emotion more convincing than his words. The one thing she felt caught in, however, was his decision to leave. To not stay and fight. Spike had always been a fighter, but then details niggled at her memory and the burden was uncovered for her useless mind to grasp.
He always gave up, when it came to love an exercise in futility and heartbreak. When it came to Cecily. When it came to Drusilla. Turned by the rejection of one, and abandoned through the rejection of the other, she had uncovered a pattern that she found personally wounding. He doesn’t fight for the ones he loves, not when their refusal to have him is absolute. Or at least appears to be.
Her brow creased in sudden confusion. Was her rejection absolute? He had only just professed his love tonight; an inkling of his interest was fresh. The course of their history ran through her mind like a motion picture screening the highlights of summer, and she gasped in knowing. She had always used her hate, her disdain and disgust to keep him below. Once the government had taken care of his lethal tendencies his predatory powershe had stuck in her blade of emotional wounding to keep him vulnerable. One small computer chip modified his behaviour while she alone devastated his nature.
He had handed her a gift tonight had offered her his heart on a shiny but dented platter. And though he suspected her of wanting to pitch any of his offering to the nearest bonfire and destroy, he had made himself weak to her so that she could know the truth. That in itself was something Buffy Summers had trouble with: the truth.
But the shininess of his eyes was too intense, too beseeching for her to ignore, or bury her head in the sand in ignorance. As torn as she now felt in her beliefs and expectations, she could not deny to herself that he had told her a fundamental truth; his love for her was deep. It was consuming. It was necessary to him. And he had left rather than let her use the knowledge against him and hurt him further than she already had been.
The fear that engulfed her washed steadily over her long-standing defenses until all she felt was tiredness and acceptance. Another had left, promising devotion and help when needed, would be back if wanted. Could she trust in him to not get rid of the chip, and believe that he would never be a threat to her family and friends? She wanted it so much suddenly felt desperate for him to not be like Angel, full of empty promises and hope.
Sitting up, she stroked the leather jacket, admiring its sheen and colour and wondered when Spike had found (adopted) good taste. Then she wondered why she hadn’t noticed his change. His permanent black should have been conspicuous in its absence, yet no one had realised.
And his claims. He had told her that he had tried to change, that he wanted to be different for her; and this is what caused the hurt to well up inside again, promoting a tremendous sense of failure and confusion. Could Giles be wrong? Was it possible for demons to change? She preferred to think no, comfortable in her worldview. But, as usual, it didn’t sit with their knowledge of Spike. Spike was the breaker of moulds, a trendsetter not a follower. His actions had never been consistent with normal observed vampire behaviour, so why had they forced him into that box?
His face would haunt her dreams tonight, she knew. That smooth white skin of his stunningly attractive face would stick in her thoughts until she wanted to stab herself to escape the torture.
His sincerity warmed her heart and all of a sudden reality slammed into her like a semi into the front of a house. Its impact obliterated her self-control. Internal screams held her captive as she came to know, she was on her own. Up against Glory she now had no strength in her hip pocket, no back-up plan or sanctuary for Dawn should Glory get too close. She had driven away her only hope of getting out of this alive. Sure, he said he would come back if she needed him, but she needed him now and he had already left. It wasn’t what they did…come back.
No, she had to face it. Spike was gone.
And she had never felt so cold.
The steady hum of the engine had numbed his mind of all interference. Dru chattered beside him in riddles until he withdrew into himself to keep his sanity intact. His past held her in over a century of affection and compassion, but now he felt like ripping her bleeding head off just to shut her up. She felt like a stranger to him now only two years apart and he felt like he had never spent more than a second in her crazy presence.
He had become so wrapped up in Buffy that his whole past seemed to be wiped clean, and that thought held him in shocked quiet. If he had such a clean bloody slate, then what was he doing leaving her? Getting himself involved in this evil again? He hung his head, defeated, knowing that he was one step closer to proving himself the monster that she claimed him to be.
His retreat from Buffy and his sincere declarations had not been swift; in fact, he could be accused rightly of dragging his heals on the escape. He had unchained Dru then lead her out at a walk, that little light of hope that Buffy would unravel herself and come after him and beg him not to leave still resisting extinguishing with each dragging step.
But of course, she didn’t. He had strained to listen for any movement at all to show that she had come undone from the ropes, and he had heard nothing. Long, long minutes of nothing. And to him, those minutes had been telling.
When that realisation hit, he had felt like running; running like William, crying and broken for the failure to win love yet again. But Dru would have caught him again, tuned in to his pain she was. Instead, he walked and her conversation with pixies had begun.
He had pointed the De Soto in the direction of LA but shrunk away every time Dru reached over to caress him, to congratulate him on being such a good boy or such a bad doggie. He hadn’t even made it out of the sewers before he could admit to himself that he had made a huge mistake. Dru was going to expect him to feed from her kills, and later kill again on his own.
He had made a promise to Buffy that he wouldn’t get the chip out, and he would stand by that. He had to be sure that she would not be afraid that they would be back to a 'to the death' relationship, and he owed the Nibblet, even if this was all her fault. If she had only stayed quiet on the topic he could have stayed watching from the shadows, never revealing to Buffy how he truly felt. Her ignorance could have been his bliss, but now he was lost to it all. No more brown baggies from the blood bank, and at that he had at least expected himself to be pleased. Instead, he just felt more damned, like his bridges were burned before he ever had the opportunity to make the choice of crossing.
Very little that Dru had relayed once they hit the road had made much sense to him, so he had no idea where they were headed. Other than it might be a good idea to avoid Peaches for the moment. Her bizarre language chattered on like talktime radio and he marvelled at how out of practice he was at deciphering her meaning. He supposed that was as good a sign as any to prove to him how far apart he had grown from her. Not his frail princess anymore, she resembled a mentally fractured child. Spike cringed at the implication that he would need to return to the passive carer for Dru. He felt beyond that now. Beyond it, but running from what he could have been.
It was taking awhile for his head to clear anyway, and if he heard Dru try and take him over again tonight he could very well stake her. He was feeling pretty irritated with the bitch, annoyed at her for coming to town and giving him the opportunity to leave Buffy behind.
She stood as a symbol of his cowardice.
He was running away.
He could hardly believe it, but that was exactly what he was doing. The coldness in Buffy’s eyes clenched hard on something he thought he had been protecting for years, and he just couldn’t take her knowing he loved her but treating him with disdain anyway. If he stayed, he knew that she would turn his love into something evil.
The heady thrum of the vehicle on the highway kept his preoccupied mind on track, a very narrow track that refused to consider the real implications of his decision.
“They’ll all be laughing, William, that you have come to town. The Angelbeast is changing, but William can help him find his place. He’s the one, my Spike. He’ll have all the answers you’ll seek.” Her face was concerned, imparting news that did not make her smile.
“What’s that, luv?” His gaze never wavered from the road, with the heavy thwacking of rubber tyres on tarmac lulling him away from the car, from her. He was amazed at the rise of anger he felt toward her. His patience was completely shot and he would rather tune her out than hear what doom she had to inform him of the decision he had made.
Steady multitudes of lights began to greet him as he drew closer to his destination and he realised he would need some kind of direction. If it were up to him, he’d forget all about Darla and make his own way, but now Dru had a taste for her family he knew she would not be content until they were all clinging together like girls at a wedding.
Entering the city, the apprehension he hadn’t really been expecting started to spread across his skin, causing cold bumps to appear across his arms. This city brought memories, nothing too hideous, but it set a standard nonetheless. It called to William the Bloody in a way that he hadn’t experienced since he had been shoved together with that bloody chip, and in a way, he was warmed by it. Excited even.
As he stopped at lights, he searched out the blood, sweet little morsels wandering around in packs completely clueless about what way they were about to go. Like herds of sheep. His gaze flickered back and forth, refusing to settle on one and making a choice about his dinner. As his eyes finally settled on a young blonde girl, she looked up at him and he fancied he saw green eyes before gunning the engine and getting away from her as fast as possible.
“Not to worry, my little love. We’ll stick to brunettes. No pretty little blondes for you!”
He closed his eyes in sudden fear of what he had just been doing. No. This isn’t what he wanted. He said he would stay safe for Buffy. He knew how dangerous things were for her right now and he hoped in the back of his heart that she would seek him out for support, or his strength if that was the only thing he could give her that the Scoobies couldn’t. If he succumbed to bloodlust, resumed the hunt, it was just another step to becoming that creature who would never have allowed himself to risk a closeness and bond with the Slayer.
He felt a sudden panic, a flash of want almost searing through his gut in memory of the girl in the Bronze. How wrong her blood felt, how wrong everything felt about the act. He would never have guessed he could see his past actions as evil, and perhaps he still couldn’t say it now, but this human consumption gig? Was feeding his anxiety rather than his hunger.
Suddenly he felt grateful that they were to pick up Darla as it delayed the inevitable, giving him vital extra minutes to think. It kept Dru on the passenger side talking up her storm of discontent. It kept happy meals off the menu.
What it didn’t do, however, was keep Buffy out of his head.
Tears welled up again in his eyes as he remembered the completely fucked up night he’d had, how he had royally cocked up any chance he may have had of one day being her friend, of gaining her trust. He knew she was on the way there as leaving her mother and sister with him for protection was tantamount to proof. An annoyingly emotional lump settled in his throat, clogging all passage up and becoming painful as he accepted that he had blown it. Big. Fucking. Time.
He had to get it all out of his head before he became as loony as Dru.
No, all he had to concentrate on was finding Darla.
A/N...hmmm, how are you all going with this one?