Fic - Chicken and Waffles - Meant to Be Ch 44

Sep 28, 2004 18:55

Howdy, all!

Okay, I think I’m back. Well, back enough. To all of you who sent along birthday wishes, many thanks! And my weekend was spectacular thanks to my family and a very good friend.

So, another installment. We’re winding down, so I hope I can do this justice. Please note, I have the flu and hope my betas were able to cut through the nonsense and find the story inside. I thank them for all of their hard work.

I hope you like the story and please, feedback is welcome.

Enjoy!

~~@~~ Cheery Vibes ~~@~~

Nimue

"Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~ William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night’s Dream

www.DragonflyMoon(dot)net

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Title: Chicken and Waffles (Chapter Forty-Four - Meant to Be)

Author: Nimue

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Spike/Buffy (Most major characters included)

Feedback: Yes, please NimueofAvalon71 (at) yahoo.com

Disclaimer: All characters belong to someone other than me; they belong to Mutant Enemy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Fox, UPN, WB, their affiliates, lawyers and all sorts of other folks that aren’t me. :::sigh::::

Summary: Buffy finally corners Spike about their child’s soul. Cordelia wakes up.

Chicken and Waffles

The crew stood quietly in the sunshine outside Spike’s crypt, pondering the gravity of it all. Cordelia was dead. And now undead. The new Master was gone. The Sky Queen had subdued Luke and Draconius for now at least, and they were left standing, in flux.

Again, the world had almost ended, and again they were the only people who knew. What does one do after such an event, Wesley pondered? What do we always do?

“Anyone up for some chicken and waffles?” Buffy asked as they took their first steps up into the bright sunlight. Spike chuckled at his partner’s one-track mind. Well, he thought, it actually has several tracks, but this one is one of its favourites.

“Think I’ll pass, Mighty Mouse,” Gunn answered, yawning and stretching. “I need a nap.”

“We should check on the others,” Wesley commented, a steadying arm still wrapped around Willow and Tara.

“Oh!” Willow contributed. “I kinda locked down the other house. We’d better go let them out.”

Spike pondered, “How ‘bout I take the hungry bird out for brekky and we’ll meet you all back round in a few hours?”

The crew nodded their agreement.

Buffy smirked. “Good. It’ll give us a chance to talk about Drusilla.”

Spike’s smile dropped.

~~@~~~@~~~

Every clack as the fork hit the plate was like a cymbal crash. She was silent as she ate, staring down at the table in deep thought, a look of concentration furrowing her brow. As if she was thinking of what to say, or at least a way not to explode in the confines of a public diner.

Spike itched for a smoke. His hands patted his duster pockets as he sipped strong coffee and watched her. Waiting. Wondering if this apocalypse could be worse than the last.

Finally, the last scrap of waffle was cleared and she pushed the plate to the side of the table, taking a long draw of water and looking up at him. What he saw wasn’t quite what he expected.

Confusion, mostly. A little sadness. A good dose of anger. And hope.

“You going to tell me what happened?” Buffy asked quietly, trying to rein in her myriad emotions and be logical for a moment.

“You really want to know, Pet?” Spike asked, breathing in sharply as if taking a draw from a cigarette.

She nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to know why you chose the soul of a serial killer, not to mention your ex, for our child.”

Spike closed his eyes. The line was delivered flatly, so if anyone else around could hear, it would just sound like two lovers in a deep discussion. But the venom was there. The sting in the words. The anger.

A small shake of his head. “I didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

“S’not Dru’s soul. Not the Dru you or I knew, at least. She didn’t *have* one,” Spike began, taking another sip of his coffee. “The soul is the human girl’s.”

Buffy nodded. “I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t explain why. There must have been a million….”

“Because,” Spike interrupted, “as you know, a soul was already chosen. In order to reverse that, Pet, I had to make a new choice, then and there. I had to find a replacement, and the Sky bint handed me an option on a silver platter. Things started to happen down here and I had to make a call.” Another long breath in and out from his imaginary cigarette.

Buffy was silent for a moment. “Whose was the soul?”

Spike cocked a brow. “Best left unsaid, Love.”

“No,” she insisted. “I need to know.”

A long sigh as Spike decided that secrets were not what had gotten them through several years of turmoil inside and out. Another deep breath. “Buffy, you have to understand….”

“Who was it?” She asked again, in that same, flat, voice.

“Joyce,” Spike whispered, inaudible to anyone but his mate. He stared at the table for a moment, watching ice melt in the glass of water. “Was your mum, Pet.”

Buffy’s head dropped and she stared at a spot on the placemat, her fingers toying with the edges. “She didn’t want to come back?”

“Of course she did!” The Vampire responded, hand shooting across the table to find hers and take it into the safety of his grip. “Had a hell of a time convincing her to give it up. Only reason she did was for you. For us.”

Tears began to well behind green eyes. “Why?”

Spike stood and walked around the side of the booth, sliding in next to her and wrapping an arm around her, feeling the weight of her head settle against his shoulder. “Because, Love, those hell gits got to her. Put a mark on her soul, one that’ll fade in time, but it allows them to control her. She’d’ve come back to us and they could have made her do anything. Like hurt Emma or Will. Hurt *us* to get us out of the way. Can you imagine how she could have lived with herself if she’d come back and then….”

Buffy nodded, the tears beginning to escape. “She wouldn’t have been able to.”

“Right,” Spike answered, putting his fingers under her chin and tilting her head up to place a gentle kiss against her lips. “And she didn’t want that, much as she wanted to come back. Much as I wanted her to.”

The Slayer looked up at him with child-like eyes. “Did she really want to come?”

Spike smiled, nodding. “That’s all she ever wanted, Pet. To see you. To see Dawn. Even if it’d be you doing the ordering round this time.”

She chuckled, thinking about the logistics of *that*. “Is she… okay?”

Again, he nodded his reply. “Sky Queen’s taken a liking to her. Has her living in the palace with her and someone you know fairly well.”

“I know?” Buffy asked, brow furrowed.

Spike smiled. “Little blonde bint who died back in high school to make way for a Slayer and her pet Vampire.”

“Me?” Buffy asked. “How?”

“From what I can understand, when you died… well, one of the times… your human self actually did go to Heaven. The human part of your soul, not part of the One. What was left was….”

“Incomplete,” Buffy answered. “Not human, not whole on its own.”

Spike nodded. “Half of the One.”

“And so I’m in Heaven?”

“Not you, Pet, but the part of you that was a child. The part of you too innocent to live the life you’ve been forced to live.”

“I’m in Heaven? That’s so…. weird.”

“Try having most of you up there for over a century then coming round again as your son,” Spike commented, chuckling and pulling her closer.

Buffy snorted, thinking of the sweet soul of William. William, her lover’s first incarnation. William, her son. “This is all so … weird.”

“A bit of the obvious, Pet,” Spike replied, taking a sip of coffee.

A pregnant pause before either of them spoke. “So, why didn’t you just pick me, then?” Buffy asked, craning her head to look up at Spike.

He was silent, his fingers rimming the top of the white mug. “Few reasons, I suppose. First off, when I knew I’d have to leave Joyce behind, I didn’t want to leave her alone. This way she still had a part of you to go home to.”

Buffy closed her eyes, tears welling, wanting to see her mother. Remembering years of hugs and hot chocolate and late night talks and love. “I get that.”

“And because that part of you is innocent, Buffy, it doesn’t see, doesn’t remember, any of the horrible things you’ve seen. Doesn’t know this world can be ugly past bad clothes and algebra homework,” Spike continued. “Think your heart has been through enough, without having to show that one part of you that’s left what kinds of nightmares lurk under the bed. Selfish, maybe, but I want that part to be there. To be safe.”

“In case anything happens to me?” Buffy asked, watching him try to hold back his own emotion.

“Something like that. Just need to know that part of you is always safe,” Spike continued. “Even if the part I fell for is the hard headed bint who can kick the arse of demons thrice her size and thinks a trip to a cemetery is as normal as a trip to the mall.”

Buffy chuckled, feeling the first of her tears escape. “Guess I lost some of the dainty along the way.”

“And some of the snob,” Spike continued. “But I love them all the same.”

Another long, pause as they both thought. “So tell me about her. Tell me why you chose Dru,” Buffy finally queried. “Is it because you miss her?”

Loaded question.

Spike thought for a long moment. Did he miss her? Did he have a right to, as he was the one who… sent her away? Some part of him did. She had given him this life, and accompanied him through close to a century of existence, showing him things that he’d never seen. Some of which he’d never wanted to. Some of them beautiful beyond all comprehension.

But most of all, she’d led him to the Slayer.

The wounds of her death, or lack of existence, were still fresh in his heart.

“S’a bit of a question, Love,” Spike said quietly, his arm dropping from around her shoulder. “If I told you that I did, I think you’d take it wrong, as it’s not for the reasons you think. But I can tell you I didn’t choose Dru’s mortal soul because of it.”

Buffy looked at him for a long moment, wondering which part of that to tackle first. Did he regret…. Would he rather have been… ? “You do miss her.”

“Sometimes,” Spike began, hesitantly, “but not so much because I miss her company, more that as it’s hard to say goodbye to someone you’ve loved.”

She thought for a moment on that, remembering all of the goodbyes that she’d said in her day. All of the funerals, all of the people walking away, all of the helicopters, or at least the one, flying as far away as they could get. “I think I understand.”

“She made me, Buffy. She was utterly sack of hammers, but she knew enough to know I meant something, and, for the most part, stayed by my side for a hundred years. And if she hadn’t done those things, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Spike finished, trying to be nonchalant as the thought of her disintegrating into dust by his hand tore through his memory. “If she hadn’t been who she was, and done what she did, then there would be no One, there would be no Emma nor Will, nor the next in line. I’d have died before the turn of the century of some sickness or other, alone and untalented, with nothing to show but…”

“You were beautiful then,” Buffy said quietly, taking his hand. “Remember, I met that you. We brought that you back.”

“We did,” Spike answered, hanging on to her hand. “But that me would never have met you.”

Another tense lapse in conversation before Buffy thought of what to say. “So why, Spike? Why did you pick her? You said it wasn’t because you missed her.”

“It isn’t,” Spike answered simply. “To be honest, I don’t even *know* that her. I never knew the girl before Angelus took her life and tortured her into insanity. I had heard stories of a wholly different person. Quiet and graceful and good. Not the Dru I knew. “

“So why?” Buffy pressed again.

Spike sighed, closing his eyes. “Because when the Joyce understood what was at stake, and chose, of her own free will, not to come back, I was left with having to choose another. The Sky Queen came down with this little girl and she was… She looked so alone, Buffy. So quiet and shy and alone.”

“The Queen brought her to you?” Buffy asked, a bit incredulous.

“Brought her down on that great winged beast of hers,” Spike continued, hoping the rest of the diner couldn’t hear this story, lest they call the men in the pretty white coats.

“Winged beast?”

“Long story, Pet,” Spike continued. “But suffice it to say, I felt that Queenie brought her along for a reason.”

“Like maybe she’d be important to the fight?” Buffy asked, not sure what to make of it.

Spike shook his head. “Think it’s the other way round, Love. Like maybe we needed to pay a little back. Maybe we’d be good for her. She had her life taken away in the cruelest of manners by my lot, and maybe it was time to make up for it.”

“And give her the life she would have wanted,” Buffy mused.

Spike nodded. “The one that the human girl deserved. So Emma and me… we made a choice.”

“Does Emma know?”

“What doesn’t she?” Spike asked, slyly.

Buffy chuckled. “And Emma said…”

“Emma promised that we’d take care of her. So I ….” He stopped, toying with the corner of the napkin placed under his mug. “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Buffy sighed, her hand over the growing bulge in her belly. “I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but I trust you, Spike. I know you did what you thought was right.”

“Doesn’t always pan out that way, Love,” Spike retorted, chuckling.

She giggled in return. “No, you and plans are still kinda non-mixy. But if you think you did what you were meant to do, and Emma was in on it as well, then I guess we get to try and show this one the life that she never got to live. And do our best to make it work.”

He turned his head, studying Buffy’s face before planting a kiss on her lips. “What happened to you?” He asked, lips still grazing hers.

She chuckled. “Grew up?”

“Anything I can do that will still get you mad?”

“Not take me home and love me like there’s no tomorrow.”

A lascivious grin crossed his face. “That I *can* do. By the way, is there a tomorrow?”

“We’ll see after Cordelia wakes up.”

~~@~~@~~

Sunlight faded from the one small window at the top of the crypt, pulling back its rays across the stone floor until the room was nearly black. Only one rose-gold tip of light remained, dancing below the window like the flame of a candle flickering out.

Angel watched that pinpoint as it grew smaller. Smaller. Fainter. Gone.

He closed his eyes and waited, huddled between the sarcophagus and the wall, his beloved still cradled against his chest. Holding on to what was left. Holding on for what was to come.

A low, feminine growl started deep in her chest. A rumble. A purr. The feeling of lifeless life flowing into the limbs stretched out above him. With a blink, he opened his eyes, and stared down at her. Waiting. Watching.

Until coffee brown eyes flickered open, then snapped to amber under his gaze.

To be contd.

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