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Chapter 9

Fear and doubt ran through her over and over as she sat in the waiting room for news from the ER doctor about how William was doing. When she had come running around the corner and saw the vampires making a meal out of him, something inside her just flipped. Slaying vampires was what she did. It was her calling. She didn’t take it personally, too much, when they fought her or wanted her dead. It was just part of the job. But seeing Spike…. William, a very human William, being helplessly sucked dry… well, it made her angry. And she’d taken that anger out on every one of them.

When it was all over with, she looked around to make sure that one of the others had gotten to him. She spotted Xander and Anya, doing their best to keep him upright, and William was giving her that look, right before he passed out, almost taking Xander and Anya to the ground. She’d seen that look a hand full of times; when she came down the stairs the night that Willow resurrected her, that night in the abandoned house, and others. It was always the same look, like he’d just witnessed a miracle or a blessing, or heck found the holy grail or something. There was something about that look that made her feel weird. One part of her felt confident and warm and special, like she could make his entire world worth living ten lifetimes. The other part of her felt horrible that he would think of her that way when in reality, she was just a girl. A flawed and mixed up girl who had used him and his feelings against him just because they were there and she could, and she’d really needed to feel something other than hollow.

And now, because of Spike’s stupid, careless, soulless, actions… and her errant wish, she had this new person to take care of. This person who looked exactly like Spike, but was in so many ways very unlike him. But then there were times like when he had that look; it was so easy to forget that he wasn’t Spike at all. Angel had said that who they were in life informed who they were in death. So how did Spike get from William to, well, Spike? Was he really that far from him? Somehow she couldn’t see William jumping into a fight or relishing their creative and twisted sex life, with the joy de vive that Spike exuded in almost everything he did. William seemed a lot like the rest of Sunnydale, ready to pretend that the bad things didn’t exist and that if they did, then it was someone else’s job to do something to take care of it. Her job, in fact. And so they all went about their normal little lives with their normal little spouses and normal little 2.5 children until they died a normal death and were planted in a normal little cemetery for all their future generations to ignore. William definitely seemed like he would fit right in with that lifestyle.

So now they had normal old William, whom they couldn’t even figure out how to explain in a way he’d understand that he’d been transported a hundred plus years into the future, and who was now in an ER bay because he’d nearly been drained by a gang of vamps. How was she supposed to protect him? Should she even try? Maybe she should send him to Giles; he’d at least be able to help him locate any family he might have left. Maybe they could come up with a story about him being a long-lost nephew, or a great-great-great grandson by some secret lover, or something. He’d be home at least, back in England. Then again, hadn’t Giles cleaned up enough of her messes? No, this one was definitely her mess to clean up.

The doctor finally emerged and gave everyone the good news that William seemed to be doing ok, and they had stitched up all his wounds and given him a transfusion, and something to help him relax since he’d “understandably” been a little hysterical when he woke up in the hospital. Boy, if they only knew! She could only imagine his terror. The doctor said he was resting comfortably now though, and they were going to watch him a few more hours and then let him go home. He’s been so pale, even for Spike, when they’d brought him in. She’d been worried that he might have lost too much blood. She didn’t know anything about his health or family history before he’d been turned. Heck, at this point the only thing they really knew was his name and that somehow he’d been a nobleman. And wasn’t that a kick in the head?

When she was younger, she’d dressed as a noblewoman in an attempt to catch Angel’s eye, not knowing at the time that he didn’t even like noblewomen in life. And here Spike was, an actual nobleman in his former life who apparently wouldn’t even look at anyone who hadn’t been a noblewoman. That was definitely not the way she would have pegged either of those two. Then again, that was all in the past, and the hear and now was, well, hear and now. They could only move forward. It was time to start cleaning up, and there was no time like the present.

She made her way down the hallway following the doctor, and then through the door indicated. There, she was greeted with a sight she really had never in her life she thought she would ever see in a million years. A pale and battered looking young man, a stranger really, who looked exactly like a pale and battered looking Spike, laying in a hospital bed, with IV’s in his arms, breathing slowly, as monitors all around beeped out his steady heart rate and other things that left no doubt that this man was very much alive and not undead. She pulled the chair up closer to the bed and waited for him to wake.

She knew the moment he started to wake up because almost before he was really awake to know what he was doing, his left hand started to scratch and worry with the IV in his right arm.

“Hey there,” She tried to be soothing, as she placed her hand over his to try and still his movements. “I know those are super annoying, but you need to leave them alone. Trust me on this one.”

A set of sky blue eyes blinked open to stare at her, a little blankly at first as if he wasn’t sure of what he was seeing, and then he seemed to really focus on her.

“Ms. Buffy?”

“The one and only,” She was trying to be cheery.

He looked around the room, probably trying to figure out where he was and why. Unfortunately, that seemed to make him more and more worried, if the frantic beeping of the monitors were any indication.

“William? Hey, it’s ok!” She tried to get him to calm down, but he didn’t seem to be hearing her. He was on the verge of hyperventilating and looked like he was going to bolt for the door until he realized the only clothing he had on was one of those delightful hospital gowns. She could almost see the thoughts in his mind as they flew across his face, and she had to stifle a giggle as he looked rather indignant and worried about his lack of clothing.

“William, please, take it easy! I know you’re confused and scared. It’s ok.”

The look he sent her told her what he thought about that statement, but at least he started to settle down.

“You’re safe, ok?” She looked at him, and sat down again, hoping it would get him to relax more. “You lost a lot of blood and passed out, so we brought you to the hospital. The doctors took care of all your injuries and gave you some blood.”

“Hospital?” His voice held a slight edge of hysteria, and she briefly wondered what hospitals were like in his time.

“Hey, right there with you. I hate ‘em too, but you needed a doctor, and this place is pretty skilled at handling injuries like yours.”

He relaxed a little, and let his head rest back again the bed.

“What were those… things? Were they…” He left the question unfinished.

“Vampires?” She asked in return. “Yes. They almost killed you.”

“I remember,” He was staring at nothing for a moment, then he looked back at her, his brow creased in confusion. “They seemed to think that I was this vampire, Spike, you spoke of earlier,” He paused. “But then you, you killed them… all of them.” He was looking at her like he expected her to tell him that he was wrong.

“Yes,” she smiled softly.

He seemed to consider that for a long time.

“I, I don’t understand… how? How could you?”

She thought about that question for a long time. How did she answer that? How much did she tell him? Finally, she decided just to tell him everything. She could at least give him the truth. He deserved to know.

“William, I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to hear me out and let me finish before you interrupt, ok?”

He looked like he was a little worried, but nodded a yes.

“All of those stories your parents told you as a kid about the things that go bump in the night? They’re true. And I’m the thing that kills them. Every generation, one girl is given the power to defeat the vampires and demons. A vampire slayer. And right now, that’s me. You with me so far?”

He looked like the wheels in his brain were running a million miles a minute, but he nodded again.

“Since you were born… When were you born?” She asked.

It took him a second to switch gears with her, but he finally answered.

“What? Oh, uh, July twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred fifty-three, why do you ask?”

So William was almost a hundred and forty-nine. Or, well, Spike was almost a hundred and forty-nine. William was really just twenty-six, sort of. Ugh, this getting rather hard to keep track of.

“OK! So now we know your birthday. That’s good! You’re a Leo. Well, if you believe in that sort of thing.” Judging by his expression, he had no clue what she was talking about.

“Anyway, as I was saying, since you were born in 1853, there have been at around thirty different vampire slayers. Some of us make it several years, some of us only months… days even. I’ve been the slayer for six years now. I was called in 1997 when I was fifteen.”

His eyebrows shut up about 3 feet at that. She almost laughed. She could only imagine how hard this must be for him to believe. Heck, it was hard enough for her to believe it some days. Now to get to the hard part.

“Yes, that means that it is currently 2002. May 7th, to be exact. Confused yet?” His expression answered the question for her.

“It gets even more complicated. See, not only are all the stories you were told real, but so is magic.” He rolled his eyes at that.

“I know, hard to believe. But without magic, I wouldn’t be here.” That earned her a curious look.

“When a slayer dies, her powers are given to the next girl to be called. How do you think that happens without magic?”

He seemed to concede her point.

“And then there is the fact that Willow and Tara are both pretty powerful witches.”

A tiny bit of fear flashed in his eyes. Crap! Did they still believe witches were all evil in 1880? Didn’t a lot of people still believe it now?

“Good witches! Helping people, healing, finding lost stuff, all good! No evil at all!”

He still didn’t look convinced.

“In fact, when I died almost a year ago, Willow used her magic to bring me back.” A shiver ran up her spine at that thought, and when she looked up again, she could swear William looked curiously concerned. “It was a little… traumatic… for me.” She smiled, hoping it would put an end to that point of the conversation. It seemed to work.

“So, you see, magic is all around us. It is a living part of our world. And it is what lets a demon animate the undead, vampires, zombies, all of that.”

He again seemed to consider everything. At least he was still listening and didn’t seem to be wigging out yet.

“That’s all quite fascinating Ms. Buffy, but I’m not certain as to how any of this pertains…”

“To you?” Buffy interrupted. He nodded.

“I’m getting there. See, in 1880 you left a meeting at a club, upset over something that was said,” She saw him flinch at the mention of the painful, and to him still fresh, memory. “After you left, you ran into a vampire named Drusilla. She…” She took a breath and prepared to say the rest of it. “She killed and turned you.”

He frowned a moment, then seemed to be trying to think of something. Then the monitors started beeping faster and faster.

“But you’re not a vampire now!” She rushed out, to try and get him to calm down.

That got her an even more confused look.

“So, someone cured me?”

How did she answer that one? How much about Spike did she tell him? How did she tell him he got from 1880 to now without telling him, unless she planned on lying to him.

“No,” She answered, carefully avoiding eye contact. “There isn’t a cure for being a vampire. A few spells that can give them more human-like characteristics, a soul, stuff like that, but those are pretty rare and don’t usually work out very well.”

“But, you said…”

“You’re alive? Yes, very much so.” She was avoiding looking at him again. She was afraid he would see through her. She didn’t know how much of Spike was really William, but better safe than sorry.

“Then, I’m afraid I’m not understanding…”

“I made a wish.” It just kind of flew out of her mouth. Stupid mouth. Now he looked more confused than ever.

“Sorry. Let me back up. After you were turned, you changed your name to Spike, and you spent the next hundred plus years taking care of Drusilla. She’s kind of a little bit insane.Anyway, you traveled with Drusilla, and two other vampires, Angelus and Darla all over the world for the next twenty or thirty years killing and destroying everyting in your path. Collectively you were known as The Scourge of Europe.”

He seemed to be taken aback.

“At some point, Drusilla was injured by a mob and you brought her here to Sunnydale, California to find her sire, Angelus, so you could do a spell to heal her with his blood. That’s how you met me. Angelus had been cursed with a soul and he was here in Sunnydale helping me here on the Hellmouth. You and I, we fought. A lot. Neither one of us ever did manage to kill the other.”

She decided she’d skip over the whole Angel losing his soul part. And the wheelchair, too.

“I stopped you from killing Angel, but Dru has healed anyway, and you took her to South America for a while. Then, she cheated on you, so you came back to Sunnydale three years ago. Soon after that, you were captured by a government agency, and they put a behavior modification chip in your head that made it so you couldn’t hurt anyone. After that, you start helping us. Helping me.”

She took another deep breath. She could tell he was still waiting for her to get to the part about how he was alive.

“Last year you helped me defeat a hell god.” She decided she needed to give him something good in there. He looked a little shocked. Maybe a tiny bit proud, even. “But she had already opened a portal. And the only way to close it was to sacrifice myself.”

“You really died? You were serious?”

She nodded.

“And while I was… gone… you took care of Dawn for me,” She smiled. “You promised me that night that you would protect her, until the end of the world. You also helped Xander, Willow, and the others, keep the vampires and demons under control until Willow brought me back.” Again with the shiver.

“After that, you… helped me… adjust. You listened to me, let me be just…me. We… we, um… we became… involved… physically.” She chanced a glance at him. His look went from confused to shocked to open wonder in the space of just a few seconds.

“Were we …?” He blushed just a tiny bit and cleared his throat. “That is to say, were we…” He stuttered out.

“In love?” She finished.

His face was so hopeful; it was almost painful for her to see.

“You told me at least a thousand times,” She smiled at the memory of how annoyed she’d felt every time he’d said it. “But, we had… stopped… seeing each other, recently. And then earlier today, you came by to talk, and uh… we, um… we… had a… a, fight... about us.” Moments flashed through her mind. Fight wasn’t exactly the word for it, but William didn’t need to know that. “After you left, Anya appeared. She’s a vengeance demon. She grants wishes to women who have been hurt. I wasn’t paying much attention, and I said that I wished…” She didn’t finish the sentence, finding it rather hard to say the words out loud suddenly.

“You wished…?” He asked.

“I wished that Spike didn’t exist.” She looked at him, silently begging forgiveness from him, even though he wasn’t the person whose forgiveness she wanted to beg. That would be Spike. And he was gone. She felt the telling sting of tears forming in her eyes.

For someone who wasn’t Spike, he sure looked like Spike after she’d just kicked him in the head again and told him how beneath her he was.

“Anya knew I didn’t mean it.” Words just started spilling out. “She didn’t want to do it, but her boss was going to if she didn’t, and she knew… she knew I didn’t mean it! I didn’t!” Tears were falling hard now as she shook her head. “I didn’t want you dust. I didn’t. So she, she unmade you. She took you from the moment you died and turned you back into William, and Spike just stopped existing. Oh god, I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, please, please, forgive me. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry,” She was now just repeating herself as the tears burned dozens of searing tracks down her face.

He took it all in, staring at her forever it seemed. And then she saw it in his eyes. That look. Whenever Spike was hurt, he turned it into anger. Apparently, so did William. The muscles of his neck and jaw were tensing as he clenched his teeth, and venom filled his eyes.

“William, I’m so sorry…”

“I wish you would leave,”

She didn’t need to be told twice.





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