Fic: The Soul Lies Down (6/?)
Title: The Soul Lies Down (6/?)
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~6,400 this chapter (~20,700 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to Angearia's Fin Amour)
Notes: Many thanks to Yavannie82 and Angearia for beta work <3 Constructive crit is welcome, as ever.
6
Kith and Kin
It was a Saturday but Anya and Giles had closed up the shop for the Scooby meeting. There must have been something in her face because even Xander’s jovial greetings fell flat. Buffy felt twitchy and tired at the same time, unable to focus properly on anything, even her daughter, who’d woken up in the early hours grumpy and had been grizzling ever since. She stood now by the cash register as the others seated themselves around the table, rocking the stroller back and forth as Dawn snuffled fitfully, resisting a nap.
Buffy didn’t know how to start, some small part of her still reeling, the rest struggling to form the necessary words.
“Come on then, Buff,” Xander said finally. “We’re all here, and the long face is making me nervous.”
Buffy touched her cheek absently. “What does that mean, long face? Did my bone structure somehow change overnight?”
“Uh, noo,” Xander said slowly. “It means spit it out before I start freaking for real here.”
“Buffy?” Tara prodded gently. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
And there was one problem right there. Despite their misgivings, her friends had always followed her lead in who to trust - even though they might not always like it, they got the job done. She’d told them they could trust Spike, and they had - ever since he’d been back from the beyond, they’d worked alongside him at her say so, and though nobody had groused about it in front of her since that first meeting, Buffy wasn’t dumb enough to believe no grousing was happening at all. Now, when they found out she’d messed up? Tears and recriminations about covered her expectations.
Bracing herself, Buffy said, “I found out last night Spike’s chip has stopped working.”
Silence, as the words were digested. Then, “Oh,” Willow said quietly. “Oh.”
“What?” Xander said. “Spike’s off the leash? Free range Spike?”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh dear lord.” Giles looked too surprised to even reach for his glasses.
“What does this mean?” Anya asked, a shrill note entering her voice. “Does this mean he’s coming after us?” She looked over her shoulder as though Spike might be coming up the store room stairs right that moment, despite it being broad daylight. “Wait, you didn’t dust him?”
“No,” Buffy said. “I… I told him to get out of my sight.”
“You didn’t even try to stake him?” Xander all but squeaked at the same moment as Willow said, “Oh, well that’s good, I guess.”
Her friends looked at each other, something unspoken seeming to pass between them before Xander sighed explosively and said, “I know, I know, it’s ooky, we know him,” as though reciting the words from memory.
Willow just shook her head. “He’s dangerous, though, now. Again. Um… This is so confusing.”
“Spike has always been a vicious fighter, no matter what side he was fighting for,” Giles said, and Buffy had to acknowledge that. She’d been seeing it up close for the last few months, after all.
“But… but Spike,” Willow said. “Not to be all astonishing-volte-face-girl, but he’s our friendly neighborhood vampire guy. He gets cranky about having to pay for burba weed and has a love for bad soap operas bordering on the terrifying.”
“He’s never really seemed all that evil,” Tara added.
“It wasn’t your burba weed he was stealing,” Anya muttered darkly.
We all see him as a person now, Buffy thought, and it’s hard to unsee it again. Ever since last night, she’d found herself swinging between a heavy sense of sadness and an undefined, directionless rage. Furious at him, furious at herself, hurt beyond all reasonableness.
“Petty theft was all the evil he could manage, before,” she said. “Now…”
“How did you find out, anyway?” Willow asked in a big-eyed, cheerless tone of voice. “Did he attack you? Or, or did you catch him eating someone?”
“No, he was helping me,” Buffy said. “He… we… there was a demon, but it must have been some kind of glamour because it turned back into a guy, just as Spike… it was just a regular guy and… zilch, nothing, no more chips ahoy in Spike’s head.”
“How did it happen?” Tara asked. “I mean, was there… did he find a doctor? Or some kind of, of warlock? Or did it just… run out juice?”
“I didn’t let him stick around long enough to find out,” Buffy admitted. Too angry. Too shocked. “For all I know, he might have even got it done before the desert.”
“And for all we know, he might be long gone from where we can do anything about it,” Xander said glancing at Buffy, and she knew that although he said we, he meant you. God, it was Angelus all over again. She felt ill.
“What about staking, Buffy?” Giles asked softly, neatly avoiding eye-contact as his glasses finally came off. “Xander has a point. If Spike goes on a killing spree now it will be on all our heads.”
“Do you really think he would?” Tara didn’t look convinced, but then, she’d known Spike the least of all of them.
“You never really saw him in Big Bad mode, sweetie,” Willow said. “Remember the whole story with the broken bottle and the knee-wobbling fear? And that’s kind of the least of it, when it comes to Spike.”
“Yes,” Giles said, “let’s not forget how he got his moniker in the first place. William the Bloody has been a vampire for a very long time, well over a hundred years. The amount of carnage he must have caused during his existence is… unimaginable.”
“But…” Tara said, eyes lowered to the table top. “Don’t you think he’s changed? It suh-seemed like… isn’t it possible?”
I thought so. I wanted to think so. Maybe we all did. So why isn’t that the least bit comforting?
“What I don’t get is why he didn’t fake it,” Anya said, her voice almost too loud in the pensive silence that followed Tara’s question. “The chip zapping him, I mean. If he knew and wanted to keep it secret-”
“Maybe he didn’t know,” Xander said. “Doesn’t really change anything, Ahn. He’s still roaming free without a muzzle.”
Giles’s eyes had shot to Buffy at the word secret, and she looked back miserably.
“Guess I was wrong,” she said to his unasked question. “Spike said there was something he was keeping from me,” she explained to the others, “but he asked me not to make him tell. I trusted him.”
“Oh, Buffy,” Willow said. “You should have made him spill.”
“I know that. I know I was stupid. God, he even admitted it! I should know better by now - what good has ever come from trusting a vampire?”
“Well,” Anya said, fidgeting a little on the bench seat as her eyes darted around the table. “Dawn, for one. And the world. I’m quite attached to that.” She looped her arm through Xander’s, clinging in that way she always did when contemplating his mortality. Xander patted her hand absently.
“Spike, man,” he muttered. “We were playing pool two nights ago, right there at the Bronze. I bought him a beer.”
“Does this mean we’re going to have to start patrolling again?” Anya asked. “Because I can’t say the idea fills me with happiness.”
And that was another thing. If Spike was gone, who’d back Buffy up? Who’d fight with her - really fight - when they raided that demon nest for the book he’d tracked down on the First? Who’ll scoop Dawn up while she’s screaming her head off and deal with her until she’s calm again? Or swing her round on her stomach like an airplane? Or call her niblet and little bit and sugar lump?
God, Dawnie.
She’d let an unchipped vampire near her daughter. What was wrong with her?
“I need to stake him,” she said, her voice sounding irresolute to her own ears. She firmed it up. “I’m going to.” Better. “But in the meantime, Willow, there’s something you can do for me.”
And then it was somehow four days later, and Spike had disappeared from sight - crypt empty the two times she’d been over, no sightings by any of Willy’s patrons, locator spells fizzling as though he’d just… gone. School had been really busy this week, though, and Dawn was crying a lot, maybe starting to cut a new tooth - there hadn’t been a lot of time to go Spike hunting. The conflicted glances Willow, Tara, and to a certain extent even Xander kept sending her way every time she saw them hadn’t really been helping, either. Anya seemed to be zen on the matter, at least. Giles was frustratingly close-lipped. And Buffy still hadn’t figured out how to break it to her mom that she was probably going to have to dust Spike, or at the very least run him out of town, if he was even still around.
Of course, that didn’t mean she’d done a good job of hiding anything. They were bathing Dawn together up in the bathroom, a sea of brightly colored plastic toys bobbing all around, when Mom turned to her apropos of nothing and said, “Are you all right, dear?”
“Huh?” Buffy blinked herself back into focus, realizing she had no clue what they’d just been talking about. Okay, so maybe not a propos of nothing. She dredged up a smile for her mom. “Peachy.”
“Because you’ve been a little distant all week, and I think Dawn’s starting to notice.” Buffy looked guiltily down at her daughter, eyes very blue beneath dark eyelashes clumped together with water. She’d been home, but she hadn’t been there. She knew that. “You need to make time for your family, sweetheart, otherwise you're going to miss out on the most important parts of life.”
“I… yeah,” she said, nudging the little floating bucket back into Dawn’s reach. “It’s just… slaying, you know. And school. I think I might’ve permanently scarred Professor Lillian, because he’s still not talking to me.”
“There’ll always be demands on your time,” Joyce said gently, and Buffy was forcibly reminded of how well her mom had always done in that respect, even during the divorce, even after the move - she’d always had time for Buffy. “But is it really that?” she continued. “I haven’t seen Spike around lately either. I just wondered, did something… happen?”
Damn. For a moment, she considered lying, but just the thought of it felt like running up a brick wall. Maybe it was better that her mom be on her guard, anyway.
“Yeah,” she said softly, “something happened all right.”
She’d thought she was all talked out from turning it round and round with the others, but suddenly, everything she hadn’t said to them came flooding out, how she felt so betrayed, how sick the thought of Spike hurting people made her, how she feared she still wouldn’t be able to dust him even if he had. How she didn’t want it to be true at all, because she didn’t want to stop trusting him, working with him, letting him… be her friend.
By the time she was done, Dawn was dried, nursed and put down for the night, and the two women were sitting curled at opposite ends of the living room couch drinking hot cocoa with a mountain of mini marshmallows. Which, if she was honest, really wasn’t helping with the Spike confusion.
“Hmm,” Mom said thoughtfully when she was finally done.
“Good hmm or bad hmm?” Buffy asked, fiddling with the rim of her mug.
“Just… processing. Sometimes I forget…” She shook her head, leaving the thought unfinished. “It sounds to me that he was just as surprised by the chip not working as you. Do you think, um, did you give him a chance to explain?”
“No. I mean - no. I couldn’t even look at him.”
“So you don’t know for sure if he’s hurt anyone since.”
“Well, no. Maybe. He’s a vampire, Mom, it’s what they do. There’s no way he’d choose good over evil, given the option.”
“No, I suppose not. But I have to wonder, does he even know the difference? You always said he wasn’t like Angel.”
“Oh, he knows,” Buffy said darkly. “That’s why he takes so much pleasure in it.”
“Petty theft and soliciting alcohol from a minor - not exactly the work of Satan.” She paused for Buffy to give an obligatory eye roll. “I just wonder… the chip was supposed to restrain him from hurting anyone, but I just wonder if it also, to some extent, reconditioned him.”
“Like an old cell phone?”
“You know he can be a very polite, charming young man when he wants to be, and he obviously feels things deeply,” Joyce plowed on, ignoring the attempt at levity. “He seems to genuinely care for Dawn and you know what a help that’s been. Would it be such a stretch to, well. Could he be taught, you know, morals?”
“Spike?” Buffy couldn’t help but scoff, but it was more reflexive than anything. “I don’t know. I… Why do you like him, anyway?”
Her mother had always seemed to get along with Spike, more or less, ever since she’d first brought him home that night they stopped Acathla together. He’d been at the peak - depth? - of his evil then, but her mother always tried to be polite to everyone. Still. It was one of the great mysteries of her life.
Joyce smiled slightly. “He’s sociable, which you know I appreciate, especially now that Rupert has stopped coming over so often. Occasionally it’s nice to have a conversation with someone a little older-”
“Try three times your age!”
“-and he’s a good fighter; he protects you. What’s not to like about that?”
Buffy chewed on this new perspective for a moment. Thought about how it was kind of the same thing, with her own daughter. How Dawn’s safety trumped every other consideration, and always had.
“He just does it because he’s in love with me,” she said eventually. Then she realized how long it had been since he’d actually said as such. What if…?
“There’s no ‘just’ about feelings like that, sweetheart. Love is a force of nature. It can change the world.” Joyce reached over, stroking Buffy’s hair. She leaned into it, the pure animal comfort of momness. “If staking him is so hard, why not try something else?”
Buffy closed her eyes and sighed. “Because that might be even harder.”
*
By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, still with no sign of Spike, Buffy called another meeting in the Magic Box to try to figure out once and for all what to do. Mindful of what her mother had said, she’d come straight home after classes and spent most of the day with Dawnie, playing, reading and attempting to get her to try the mashed banana Mom had prepared. It had been hard work, though, her daughter still miserable over something Buffy had so far failed to divine; clingy and restless all at once. After Dawn bumped her head from tipping herself backward into the coffee table, and the following flurry of tears and screaming, Buffy had cut her losses and headed over to the shop early.
Giles had popped out somewhere and had yet to return, and Willow and Tara were still in the back room, trying a locator spell for something like the hundredth time, so it was just her and Anya, and Xander over at the table. She’d barely been in two minutes when Dawn started fussing again, and Buffy had to fight not to grind her teeth into oblivion.
“Ooh, can I try?” Anya asked, zooming around the cash register and over the stroller before Buffy could blink. You had to admire her persistence, she supposed. “I mean, if Spike isn’t going to be around anymore, we should all make more of an effort to get past the squalling, right?”
“Go right ahead,” Buffy said, wondering if Anya’s nerves would hold long enough for her to run to the bathroom. When she didn’t hear screaming, it was tempting to just hide in there for a bit. She did reemerge, though, to find Anya making silly faces and baby-talking at Dawn, who didn’t exactly look happy but at least wasn’t crying anymore.
“You know, Spike said Xander and I brought Dawnie up in the other reality,” Anya said, a note of pride in her voice. “Of course, I’m the natural choice - no good in an apocalyptic battle,” she explained, to Buffy’s raised eyebrows, “Very good at running away. I really feel I ought to take more of an active role in this universe as well.”
“We babysit twice a week,” Xander said around a mouthful of doughnut, sprinkling the books laid out in front of him liberally with sugar. Buffy noticed a comic tucked not-so-subtly inside an especially fat tome.
“Yes, but I always let you do all the work.”
“Fair point, well made.”
“She’s probably due a fresh diaper,” Buffy said dryly. “You know, if you want an active role.”
“Are you?” Anya said, lifting Dawn up to her eye level. “Are you due a fresh diaper-wiper, baby?”
It was quite sweet, really. And at least she wasn’t calling her ‘small human’ any longer.
Then Anya frowned. “Huh, she has blue eyes. I never noticed before.”
At the non-sequitur, Buffy glanced at Xander, a question on her face, but he just pointed his doughnut back at her. “This one’s yours.”
“Yes, she does,” Buffy said slowly.
“She has blue eyes,” Anya repeated. “But yours are green, and Joyce’s are brown.”
“Right…?”
“Well, no thanks to Giles, I did have to sit through high school biology, you know. Haven’t you ever wondered who her father is?”
Buffy shared another glance with Xander. “Uh, you do remember the part where she’s a magic baby? No boy parts required.”
“Well that can’t be right,” Anya said indignantly, “otherwise she’d be one of those whatjamacallits, you know, like the Scottish sheep?”
“Huh?”
“Ooh, I know this one!” Xander said. “Clones. Attack of the.”
“Exactly,” Anya said with a pleased nod. “Apart from the attacking bit. That’s just silly. But if there were no father, she’d be a little Buffy clone, and she isn’t.”
A vivid mental image assailed her then, conjured from the descriptions Spike had given, of a willowy young woman with wide blue eyes, a smile that lit up the world, long chestnut hair and longer limbs, high cheekbones and Buffy’s pointy chin. Definitely not a clone. She frowned.
“What do you-?”
But Willow came running in just then, map in hand.
“He’s back,” she said. “He’s at your house.”
*
Her heart raced all the way there, but her feet wouldn’t match it. Her mind span with contingencies and possibilities, words and tactics. It was twilight when she left the shop, nearly dark by the time she arrived home. No sign of him by the tree out front. Quickly, she let herself in and left Dawn in the stroller, pushing her through to the kitchen. Unlocking the back door she opened it carefully and peered out into the night. Her stomach plunged. Nothing.
Except… a book.
*
Buffy sat in the rocking chair in the nursery, feet propped up on a stool, Dawn resting along the seam of her thighs. Time was she could fit in this position with room to spare, she’d been such a tiny little froglet when she was born, but now Buffy had to support her head so that it wouldn’t dangle over her knees.
She loved Dawn’s feet, the miniature toes and velvety soles, the way they stuck up in the air as though some part of her were still yearning for the fetal position she’d been pulled away from, thrust out into the big, bright world before her time. They were so incredibly soft, the skin there no different from the rest of her body, and Buffy sometimes wondered when the soles would toughen up with the wear and tear of life; found herself hoping absurdly that they never would.
On the floor by the stool sat the book. It was big and dry and parchmenty, and although she couldn’t read the language of the title embossed in flaking gold leaf on the cover, she knew it was the book they’d been looking for.
On the back were streaks of dried blood in the shape of fingers.
And she knew. She knew what it meant. But she didn’t want to.
So she sat in the nursery with Dawn’s serious, sleepy gaze on her, stroking the arch of one baby-foot softly with her thumb, and wondering when, despite all her efforts, she had become so hard.
*
There was the familiar gray stone and the window clouded with grime. There was the moss and the crack in the outer door. Everything about Spike’s crypt was familiar, and that should have been depressing, except it was more kind of… neutral. No better or worse than Willow’s dorm room or Xander’s apartment. When had that happened? Buffy hesitated at the door, wondering what she should say, but her mind came up as blank as it had during patrol and the subsequent walk over to the one place she’d been avoiding all night.
He was in there, she could sense him, the faint prickle of skin she got when a vampire was close. He could probably sense her too, her heartbeat or her scent, or something else slayerish. No point hanging around, then. Buffy pushed her way in with more conviction than she felt.
She didn’t see him at first. There were barely any candles lit and it was dark, the shadows deep. It was the rustle of clothing that cued her in, and she spun around to find him on top of a sarcophagus, in the process of dragging himself into a sitting position.
“Slayer,” Spike said, voice low and gritty. “Come to finish the job?”
There was something not quite right about his face, but it was too dark for her eyes to make out. Frowning, she reached for the nearest torch and held it over a candle flame until it caught. Then her mouth fell open.
“What the hell happened to you?”
He was… he was a mess. Shirt and jeans in tatters, and everywhere skin was visible it was damaged in some way, deep scratches, ragged cuts and across his flank, what looked like a bite mark. One eye was black and swollen shut, the side of his face caked in dry blood. His lower lip was split and bruised. Something rattled when he took a breath to speak.
“What do you think? A whole sodding nest of Uknar demons, that’s what.”
“You idiot,” she flared. “We were supposed to do that together! With back up! And, and a plan! Now you look like a demon chew toy and you’re lucky they didn’t rip your stupid head off.”
“Yeah, well,” Spike muttered. “Had to do something, didn’t I? Make you listen, make you see.”
“See what? How impulsive and reckless you are?”
“That I’m on your bloody side, you stupid bint! That all I want is to help you and your gang of overgrown Sunday schoolers fight the good fight. That I’ll protect what’s yours, and save the sodding world, ‘til I’m dust. Whether you want me to or not.” He glanced up at her, blue eyes luminous amidst the bruising as his tone gentled, became pleading. “I swear to you, Buffy, I didn’t know about the chip. I haven’t fed since I found out, either, haven’t killed anyone, and I won’t. I’ve changed…” his eyes fell from hers once more, “and I want to stay that way.”
Buffy’s throat felt thick, clotted with half-formed words. “Why?” she whispered.
He gave her a look like she was the stupid one. “Because I want to be worthy of you. I love you. How could I not?” His face twisted into a painful smile. “How could I not?”
And he’d said that to her before, she recalled, though the where and when were hazy. A lifetime ago she’d told him to stop telling her about his feelings, that she couldn’t hear it, and he had. She just hadn’t realized then how deep it all ran. Him. Her. The lives they took and the life they saved. It wasn’t relief that pushed her forward, it was just that she still didn’t know what to say, and Buffy had always done better with actions anyway.
Leaning in, she pressed her lips gently to his, and kissed him.
*
She didn’t see him for a couple of days after that. When she’d drawn back, after they… his look had been stunned and she’d had a moment of fear that… but he hadn’t said anything, for once. Maybe he’d understood her desire to very much not talk about it, or maybe words had just failed him. Maybe he’d taken her meaning without words being necessary (and if so maybe he’d let her in on it). Either way she’d told him to come around when he’d stopped looking like something out of the house of horrors, because there were still things they needed to talk about, and then she’d made a sharp exit stage left.
So it wasn’t until Monday night that the telltale scent of cigarette smoke drifting in from the back porch told her Spike was waiting for her out there, as close to neutral territory as they really had. The sun had not long set, the sky still light, and that felt appropriate - twilight had somehow become their time. She found herself smiling before she could stop it.
The only thing was, when she peeked out the window to try and judge if his half-healed face would scare Dawn, she saw him sitting with his head in his hands, cigarette slowly burning down between the fore and middle fingers of his left hand, forgotten. If it were anyone else, she’d say he looked as though he were crying, or trying hard not to. Lucky it was Spike and she knew better.
Still. Kind of unnerving. What was so interesting down there between his knees? And god her mind did not just go there…
“Did you tread in that glowy demon slime again?” she asked lightly, eyeing up his boots from the doorway. Spike didn’t turn around, but straightened up slowly, taking a long drag of his cigarette.
“Hell of a thing, Buffy,” he said at length. She waited for further explanation, but when none was forthcoming she unbuckled Dawn from the high chair and went out to join him. Seeing her bringing the baby, he tossed the cigarette into the plant pot Mom had left out there for him, but didn’t reach for Dawn, didn’t say anything at all.
“Okay, come on, spill,” Buffy sighed. “No more secrets, Spike. I need to know I can trust you.”
“Felt like you did, in my crypt,” he said quietly, and Buffy felt heat creeping up her neck, but thankfully he rolled right on. “What do you want to hear about first, then, love? The chip, or my big secret?”
“The chip,” Buffy decided, untangling Dawn’s fist from her earring. When he spoke, his voice was oddly dull.
“Don’t know much more than you, but my guess is it got fried some time during that fight with the knights of the forehead tattoo. Everything hurt so much by the end, it’s possible I just didn’t notice. Doubt it was Dawn, after she scooped me up. Think she would have mentioned it, but that’s possible too.” He glanced at her sideways. “Can’t say I’m sorry about it, though, all things considered.”
“No, I guess you’re not.” She took a deep breath, remembering what her mom had said about alternatives, remembering her own words to Giles just a few months ago. She’d been certain then that he’d earned her trust. Time to make good on it. “Maybe it’s even a good thing.”
His head whipped around. “Slayer, did I hear you right? Could’ve sworn you just said-”
“You heard me. It could be, if you’re serious about coming to our side - staying on our side,” she corrected herself. “You’ll never have to fight yourself to protect anyone again, like you did in the desert. But Spike, you have to know it’s not gonna be easy.”
“Yeah, I know it. Don’t exactly have a moral compass, but you’re the only lodestone I need, Buffy. You’re my north star, you and Dawn. I’ll always do my best to steer right by you.”
“Okay,” Buffy said, touched despite herself. “Okay. I’ll help you.”
He narrowed his eyes, searching her face for a moment, a piercing look that for some reason made her flush all over. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it and ducked his head, sounding sorta choked when he said, “Thanks. That means...”
“So, ground rules,” Buffy said, trying to break the brittle air between them. “No killing. No feeding. No hurting humans unless it’s in self-defense, or defending someone else. No disproportionate force when you do - you can get your jollies fighting demons.”
“Like you, kitten?” His expression was wicked, but distant.
“Like you, the last two years,” she shot back, frowning. “No stealing blood from the hospital, unless it’s out of date. Actually, no stealing period.”
“Oh come on! It’s just a bit of-”
“Maybe you should think about getting a job.” The prospect amused her and she let him see it.
“Oi, I could if I wanted,” he replied immediately, because there were times he’d swear rain wasn’t wet if it meant disagreeing with her.
“And no smoking around the house, it’s not good for Dawn. If you managed it when I was pregnant you can do it again now.”
“That it? Anything else you’d like? The moon on a stick, perhaps.”
“Spike.”
“Yeah all right, Buffy,” he said, folding like a house of cards. “Like I’m going to put up a fight after everything.”
“Well that doesn’t really sound like you,” she pointed out. When he didn’t reply, she turned to see a tendon straining in his jaw. Huh. He really was moody tonight. “So, time for the other thing?”
“Time for the other thing.” He fidgeted a moment, picking at his nail polish, and then he stopped and without a word, lifted Dawn from Buffy’s arms and set her down on his knee. “Hey, niblet,” he said softly, and pressed his nose to her downy hair, breathing deeply. Dawn made a grab for the neckline of his black tee, and for the first time in over a week, her sweet burbling laugh broke through the night. Buffy’s heart squeezed at the sound. Spike drew back and smiled down at Dawn, an unguarded, boyish smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners and for a moment the two of them just grinned at each other, her baby girl and her wannabe noble vampire. Then he took a deep breath and lifted his eyes to the darkening sky. “Dawn, if you’re watching, now would be a great time to fade in and come back me up,” he called, and it took Buffy a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to the girl in his lap, but the mystical woman who’d spirited him away and saved his life. Who’d told him he would save the world.
They waited.
“Uh, don’t think she’s coming,” Buffy said after a while, not sure if she was disappointed or relieved.
“Right,” Spike said, resigned. “I’ll just say it, then. When I met her, Dawn said… she said that I’m her father.”
Buffy blinked. She heard the words, knew what they each meant by themselves, but the sentence refused to resolve itself into anything that made sense.
“Wha-huh?”
“Listen, don’t stake me, all right? I didn’t do anything unchivalrous. This time, anyway.” She snorted involuntarily at that. “Dawn said, because I died for her, traded my existence for hers, we became connected. She’s the key and… part of her magic is about opening doors, beginnings and endings. She said our energies merged or something like, because of where we were and what I did, what she is, because she’s a bloody force as well as a girl.” He shook his head. “Believe me, I saw it. So her blood is the same as yours and mine. Not… not because of whatever you call it - genetics - but because what animates her body comes partly from me. It all merged together at her birth, her keyness, and you, and me, and somehow her essence - what she is - was forged from it all. She’s mine, Buffy, as much as she’s yours. My daughter.”
Buffy just stared.
“Slayer?” Spike gave her a worried look. “You in there?”
“You…” she tried. “I…”
Nope. No good.
“Give me a minute,” she croaked.
Dawn made a loud squawking noise and Spike returned his attention to her, bouncing her on his leg and murmuring nonsense. Buffy watched them in a silence that felt like thunder, their faces tipped towards one another, two pairs of bright blue eyes. Anya’s voice rang in her memory, forgotten until now, she has blue eyes, haven’t you ever wondered who her father is? She thought of Spike’s protectiveness, the bond he’d formed with Dawn almost immediately. His unfaltering determination to be at her side.
“Crap,” she murmured, heartfelt. “It’s true, isn’t it? That’s why… that’s the real reason you wanted to… with the white hat and…”
“I never lied to you,” he said, trying to get her to meet his eyes. “I would still want to, without this. But she makes it even more important to me. So yeah, it’s a big part of the reason.”
“Good reason,” Buffy said faintly.
“I love her,” Spike said, looking down at Dawn with such bewildered tenderness she felt something inside her shift and start to give. “Not like I love you. Feels different. But it’s strong, Buffy. I’d do anything for her, to keep her safe. Scares me, a little.”
“I know what you mean,” she said softly.
“Yeah, course you do,” he said. “Thing is… Buffy, when I’m near her, it feels like nothing else in the world. Your mum said something that got me thinking, and it made me wonder… how deep does the connection go? Part of me got into her, right, but what if part of her got into me, too?”
“What are you saying?”
“I look at her and it’s like a spark in my chest. And I feel like… like it could catch, and burn me proper. But I want it to. Because everything’s brighter, the colors, and I feel things I shouldn’t - haven’t, in a hundred and twenty years. Like I’m more alive when I’m with her. Like it would be easy to be good. Like one day, maybe, I could know what good is.”
“You… no,” Buffy said. “No. It’s impossible. She’s a human girl, Spike. She’s not your soul.”
He turned to her, his eyes so full that for a moment her conviction wavered. “Why not, when you’re my heart?”
She wanted to scoff at the overblown sentiment, but they’d spent so long doing that to one another already - years, it felt like - and it was all too much right then.
“I need to think about this,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
“Yeah, okay.” Spike looked as wrung out as she felt, shoulders rising and falling as he drew in air like he needed it, always his biggest tell.
On the street a car went by, and Mrs. Davis’s dog started yapping. Buffy laced her fingers together again and again. The roar in her head was deafening.
“So,” she said, reaching desperately for a shiny new subject, “that book. Giles says-” but the front door slamming brought her up short.
“Sounds like Joyce’s back from her date,” Spike said, and Buffy didn’t even bother to ask how he knew about that. “Think I should go round front, give him the once over?”
“Nuh uh, you’re staying right here, buddy. You think I’m going to explain all this to my mom by myself?”
“You want to tell her?” he asked, incredulous.
She shrugged. “Maybe it’ll make more sense the second time through.”
“Yeah good luck with that,” he muttered, eyes darting to the kitchen door as her mom’s voice floated through, calling out for Buffy. “It’s all right, I’ll wait out here,” he said, and moved to pass Dawn back to her.
“What?” Buffy said, rising. “No, come in, my ass is starting to go numb out here.”
On his feet now, Spike froze. “You sure about that?”
“Uh, yes,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. It was only as she was putting the cocoa mugs in the microwave while he leant on the door frame watching with a weird, tentative air, that she remembered his strange behavior at the start of their conversation. And then she remembered how, a week and a half ago, she’d asked Willow to disinvite him from the house. Had he tried to come in earlier, before she saw him?
Why had she ever thought that was necessary?
The past was a foreign country - who’d said that? It had never felt truer. Her world had tilted on its axis tonight, and she had the sense that things were changed irrevocably. Looking up she saw Spike still standing in the doorway, Dawn gumming contentedly on his scarred forearm while he stroked small circles in her skin almost absently. She put her mug down and said clearly - unnecessary and yet so very needed - “Come in, Spike.”
Buffy didn’t know how much she believed of what had been said tonight, but one thing she knew she’d already accepted was the futility of trying to keep him away. His smile lit up the world as he relaxed all at once and sauntered in, greeting her mom with a sudden ease Buffy envied. She supposed the situation from his perspective was simple, now. She envied that, too.
For her, simplicity had just become a thing of the past.
Chapter Index | Next
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~6,400 this chapter (~20,700 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to Angearia's Fin Amour)
Notes: Many thanks to Yavannie82 and Angearia for beta work <3 Constructive crit is welcome, as ever.
6
Kith and Kin
It was a Saturday but Anya and Giles had closed up the shop for the Scooby meeting. There must have been something in her face because even Xander’s jovial greetings fell flat. Buffy felt twitchy and tired at the same time, unable to focus properly on anything, even her daughter, who’d woken up in the early hours grumpy and had been grizzling ever since. She stood now by the cash register as the others seated themselves around the table, rocking the stroller back and forth as Dawn snuffled fitfully, resisting a nap.
Buffy didn’t know how to start, some small part of her still reeling, the rest struggling to form the necessary words.
“Come on then, Buff,” Xander said finally. “We’re all here, and the long face is making me nervous.”
Buffy touched her cheek absently. “What does that mean, long face? Did my bone structure somehow change overnight?”
“Uh, noo,” Xander said slowly. “It means spit it out before I start freaking for real here.”
“Buffy?” Tara prodded gently. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
And there was one problem right there. Despite their misgivings, her friends had always followed her lead in who to trust - even though they might not always like it, they got the job done. She’d told them they could trust Spike, and they had - ever since he’d been back from the beyond, they’d worked alongside him at her say so, and though nobody had groused about it in front of her since that first meeting, Buffy wasn’t dumb enough to believe no grousing was happening at all. Now, when they found out she’d messed up? Tears and recriminations about covered her expectations.
Bracing herself, Buffy said, “I found out last night Spike’s chip has stopped working.”
Silence, as the words were digested. Then, “Oh,” Willow said quietly. “Oh.”
“What?” Xander said. “Spike’s off the leash? Free range Spike?”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh dear lord.” Giles looked too surprised to even reach for his glasses.
“What does this mean?” Anya asked, a shrill note entering her voice. “Does this mean he’s coming after us?” She looked over her shoulder as though Spike might be coming up the store room stairs right that moment, despite it being broad daylight. “Wait, you didn’t dust him?”
“No,” Buffy said. “I… I told him to get out of my sight.”
“You didn’t even try to stake him?” Xander all but squeaked at the same moment as Willow said, “Oh, well that’s good, I guess.”
Her friends looked at each other, something unspoken seeming to pass between them before Xander sighed explosively and said, “I know, I know, it’s ooky, we know him,” as though reciting the words from memory.
Willow just shook her head. “He’s dangerous, though, now. Again. Um… This is so confusing.”
“Spike has always been a vicious fighter, no matter what side he was fighting for,” Giles said, and Buffy had to acknowledge that. She’d been seeing it up close for the last few months, after all.
“But… but Spike,” Willow said. “Not to be all astonishing-volte-face-girl, but he’s our friendly neighborhood vampire guy. He gets cranky about having to pay for burba weed and has a love for bad soap operas bordering on the terrifying.”
“He’s never really seemed all that evil,” Tara added.
“It wasn’t your burba weed he was stealing,” Anya muttered darkly.
We all see him as a person now, Buffy thought, and it’s hard to unsee it again. Ever since last night, she’d found herself swinging between a heavy sense of sadness and an undefined, directionless rage. Furious at him, furious at herself, hurt beyond all reasonableness.
“Petty theft was all the evil he could manage, before,” she said. “Now…”
“How did you find out, anyway?” Willow asked in a big-eyed, cheerless tone of voice. “Did he attack you? Or, or did you catch him eating someone?”
“No, he was helping me,” Buffy said. “He… we… there was a demon, but it must have been some kind of glamour because it turned back into a guy, just as Spike… it was just a regular guy and… zilch, nothing, no more chips ahoy in Spike’s head.”
“How did it happen?” Tara asked. “I mean, was there… did he find a doctor? Or some kind of, of warlock? Or did it just… run out juice?”
“I didn’t let him stick around long enough to find out,” Buffy admitted. Too angry. Too shocked. “For all I know, he might have even got it done before the desert.”
“And for all we know, he might be long gone from where we can do anything about it,” Xander said glancing at Buffy, and she knew that although he said we, he meant you. God, it was Angelus all over again. She felt ill.
“What about staking, Buffy?” Giles asked softly, neatly avoiding eye-contact as his glasses finally came off. “Xander has a point. If Spike goes on a killing spree now it will be on all our heads.”
“Do you really think he would?” Tara didn’t look convinced, but then, she’d known Spike the least of all of them.
“You never really saw him in Big Bad mode, sweetie,” Willow said. “Remember the whole story with the broken bottle and the knee-wobbling fear? And that’s kind of the least of it, when it comes to Spike.”
“Yes,” Giles said, “let’s not forget how he got his moniker in the first place. William the Bloody has been a vampire for a very long time, well over a hundred years. The amount of carnage he must have caused during his existence is… unimaginable.”
“But…” Tara said, eyes lowered to the table top. “Don’t you think he’s changed? It suh-seemed like… isn’t it possible?”
I thought so. I wanted to think so. Maybe we all did. So why isn’t that the least bit comforting?
“What I don’t get is why he didn’t fake it,” Anya said, her voice almost too loud in the pensive silence that followed Tara’s question. “The chip zapping him, I mean. If he knew and wanted to keep it secret-”
“Maybe he didn’t know,” Xander said. “Doesn’t really change anything, Ahn. He’s still roaming free without a muzzle.”
Giles’s eyes had shot to Buffy at the word secret, and she looked back miserably.
“Guess I was wrong,” she said to his unasked question. “Spike said there was something he was keeping from me,” she explained to the others, “but he asked me not to make him tell. I trusted him.”
“Oh, Buffy,” Willow said. “You should have made him spill.”
“I know that. I know I was stupid. God, he even admitted it! I should know better by now - what good has ever come from trusting a vampire?”
“Well,” Anya said, fidgeting a little on the bench seat as her eyes darted around the table. “Dawn, for one. And the world. I’m quite attached to that.” She looped her arm through Xander’s, clinging in that way she always did when contemplating his mortality. Xander patted her hand absently.
“Spike, man,” he muttered. “We were playing pool two nights ago, right there at the Bronze. I bought him a beer.”
“Does this mean we’re going to have to start patrolling again?” Anya asked. “Because I can’t say the idea fills me with happiness.”
And that was another thing. If Spike was gone, who’d back Buffy up? Who’d fight with her - really fight - when they raided that demon nest for the book he’d tracked down on the First? Who’ll scoop Dawn up while she’s screaming her head off and deal with her until she’s calm again? Or swing her round on her stomach like an airplane? Or call her niblet and little bit and sugar lump?
God, Dawnie.
She’d let an unchipped vampire near her daughter. What was wrong with her?
“I need to stake him,” she said, her voice sounding irresolute to her own ears. She firmed it up. “I’m going to.” Better. “But in the meantime, Willow, there’s something you can do for me.”
And then it was somehow four days later, and Spike had disappeared from sight - crypt empty the two times she’d been over, no sightings by any of Willy’s patrons, locator spells fizzling as though he’d just… gone. School had been really busy this week, though, and Dawn was crying a lot, maybe starting to cut a new tooth - there hadn’t been a lot of time to go Spike hunting. The conflicted glances Willow, Tara, and to a certain extent even Xander kept sending her way every time she saw them hadn’t really been helping, either. Anya seemed to be zen on the matter, at least. Giles was frustratingly close-lipped. And Buffy still hadn’t figured out how to break it to her mom that she was probably going to have to dust Spike, or at the very least run him out of town, if he was even still around.
Of course, that didn’t mean she’d done a good job of hiding anything. They were bathing Dawn together up in the bathroom, a sea of brightly colored plastic toys bobbing all around, when Mom turned to her apropos of nothing and said, “Are you all right, dear?”
“Huh?” Buffy blinked herself back into focus, realizing she had no clue what they’d just been talking about. Okay, so maybe not a propos of nothing. She dredged up a smile for her mom. “Peachy.”
“Because you’ve been a little distant all week, and I think Dawn’s starting to notice.” Buffy looked guiltily down at her daughter, eyes very blue beneath dark eyelashes clumped together with water. She’d been home, but she hadn’t been there. She knew that. “You need to make time for your family, sweetheart, otherwise you're going to miss out on the most important parts of life.”
“I… yeah,” she said, nudging the little floating bucket back into Dawn’s reach. “It’s just… slaying, you know. And school. I think I might’ve permanently scarred Professor Lillian, because he’s still not talking to me.”
“There’ll always be demands on your time,” Joyce said gently, and Buffy was forcibly reminded of how well her mom had always done in that respect, even during the divorce, even after the move - she’d always had time for Buffy. “But is it really that?” she continued. “I haven’t seen Spike around lately either. I just wondered, did something… happen?”
Damn. For a moment, she considered lying, but just the thought of it felt like running up a brick wall. Maybe it was better that her mom be on her guard, anyway.
“Yeah,” she said softly, “something happened all right.”
She’d thought she was all talked out from turning it round and round with the others, but suddenly, everything she hadn’t said to them came flooding out, how she felt so betrayed, how sick the thought of Spike hurting people made her, how she feared she still wouldn’t be able to dust him even if he had. How she didn’t want it to be true at all, because she didn’t want to stop trusting him, working with him, letting him… be her friend.
By the time she was done, Dawn was dried, nursed and put down for the night, and the two women were sitting curled at opposite ends of the living room couch drinking hot cocoa with a mountain of mini marshmallows. Which, if she was honest, really wasn’t helping with the Spike confusion.
“Hmm,” Mom said thoughtfully when she was finally done.
“Good hmm or bad hmm?” Buffy asked, fiddling with the rim of her mug.
“Just… processing. Sometimes I forget…” She shook her head, leaving the thought unfinished. “It sounds to me that he was just as surprised by the chip not working as you. Do you think, um, did you give him a chance to explain?”
“No. I mean - no. I couldn’t even look at him.”
“So you don’t know for sure if he’s hurt anyone since.”
“Well, no. Maybe. He’s a vampire, Mom, it’s what they do. There’s no way he’d choose good over evil, given the option.”
“No, I suppose not. But I have to wonder, does he even know the difference? You always said he wasn’t like Angel.”
“Oh, he knows,” Buffy said darkly. “That’s why he takes so much pleasure in it.”
“Petty theft and soliciting alcohol from a minor - not exactly the work of Satan.” She paused for Buffy to give an obligatory eye roll. “I just wonder… the chip was supposed to restrain him from hurting anyone, but I just wonder if it also, to some extent, reconditioned him.”
“Like an old cell phone?”
“You know he can be a very polite, charming young man when he wants to be, and he obviously feels things deeply,” Joyce plowed on, ignoring the attempt at levity. “He seems to genuinely care for Dawn and you know what a help that’s been. Would it be such a stretch to, well. Could he be taught, you know, morals?”
“Spike?” Buffy couldn’t help but scoff, but it was more reflexive than anything. “I don’t know. I… Why do you like him, anyway?”
Her mother had always seemed to get along with Spike, more or less, ever since she’d first brought him home that night they stopped Acathla together. He’d been at the peak - depth? - of his evil then, but her mother always tried to be polite to everyone. Still. It was one of the great mysteries of her life.
Joyce smiled slightly. “He’s sociable, which you know I appreciate, especially now that Rupert has stopped coming over so often. Occasionally it’s nice to have a conversation with someone a little older-”
“Try three times your age!”
“-and he’s a good fighter; he protects you. What’s not to like about that?”
Buffy chewed on this new perspective for a moment. Thought about how it was kind of the same thing, with her own daughter. How Dawn’s safety trumped every other consideration, and always had.
“He just does it because he’s in love with me,” she said eventually. Then she realized how long it had been since he’d actually said as such. What if…?
“There’s no ‘just’ about feelings like that, sweetheart. Love is a force of nature. It can change the world.” Joyce reached over, stroking Buffy’s hair. She leaned into it, the pure animal comfort of momness. “If staking him is so hard, why not try something else?”
Buffy closed her eyes and sighed. “Because that might be even harder.”
*
By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, still with no sign of Spike, Buffy called another meeting in the Magic Box to try to figure out once and for all what to do. Mindful of what her mother had said, she’d come straight home after classes and spent most of the day with Dawnie, playing, reading and attempting to get her to try the mashed banana Mom had prepared. It had been hard work, though, her daughter still miserable over something Buffy had so far failed to divine; clingy and restless all at once. After Dawn bumped her head from tipping herself backward into the coffee table, and the following flurry of tears and screaming, Buffy had cut her losses and headed over to the shop early.
Giles had popped out somewhere and had yet to return, and Willow and Tara were still in the back room, trying a locator spell for something like the hundredth time, so it was just her and Anya, and Xander over at the table. She’d barely been in two minutes when Dawn started fussing again, and Buffy had to fight not to grind her teeth into oblivion.
“Ooh, can I try?” Anya asked, zooming around the cash register and over the stroller before Buffy could blink. You had to admire her persistence, she supposed. “I mean, if Spike isn’t going to be around anymore, we should all make more of an effort to get past the squalling, right?”
“Go right ahead,” Buffy said, wondering if Anya’s nerves would hold long enough for her to run to the bathroom. When she didn’t hear screaming, it was tempting to just hide in there for a bit. She did reemerge, though, to find Anya making silly faces and baby-talking at Dawn, who didn’t exactly look happy but at least wasn’t crying anymore.
“You know, Spike said Xander and I brought Dawnie up in the other reality,” Anya said, a note of pride in her voice. “Of course, I’m the natural choice - no good in an apocalyptic battle,” she explained, to Buffy’s raised eyebrows, “Very good at running away. I really feel I ought to take more of an active role in this universe as well.”
“We babysit twice a week,” Xander said around a mouthful of doughnut, sprinkling the books laid out in front of him liberally with sugar. Buffy noticed a comic tucked not-so-subtly inside an especially fat tome.
“Yes, but I always let you do all the work.”
“Fair point, well made.”
“She’s probably due a fresh diaper,” Buffy said dryly. “You know, if you want an active role.”
“Are you?” Anya said, lifting Dawn up to her eye level. “Are you due a fresh diaper-wiper, baby?”
It was quite sweet, really. And at least she wasn’t calling her ‘small human’ any longer.
Then Anya frowned. “Huh, she has blue eyes. I never noticed before.”
At the non-sequitur, Buffy glanced at Xander, a question on her face, but he just pointed his doughnut back at her. “This one’s yours.”
“Yes, she does,” Buffy said slowly.
“She has blue eyes,” Anya repeated. “But yours are green, and Joyce’s are brown.”
“Right…?”
“Well, no thanks to Giles, I did have to sit through high school biology, you know. Haven’t you ever wondered who her father is?”
Buffy shared another glance with Xander. “Uh, you do remember the part where she’s a magic baby? No boy parts required.”
“Well that can’t be right,” Anya said indignantly, “otherwise she’d be one of those whatjamacallits, you know, like the Scottish sheep?”
“Huh?”
“Ooh, I know this one!” Xander said. “Clones. Attack of the.”
“Exactly,” Anya said with a pleased nod. “Apart from the attacking bit. That’s just silly. But if there were no father, she’d be a little Buffy clone, and she isn’t.”
A vivid mental image assailed her then, conjured from the descriptions Spike had given, of a willowy young woman with wide blue eyes, a smile that lit up the world, long chestnut hair and longer limbs, high cheekbones and Buffy’s pointy chin. Definitely not a clone. She frowned.
“What do you-?”
But Willow came running in just then, map in hand.
“He’s back,” she said. “He’s at your house.”
*
Her heart raced all the way there, but her feet wouldn’t match it. Her mind span with contingencies and possibilities, words and tactics. It was twilight when she left the shop, nearly dark by the time she arrived home. No sign of him by the tree out front. Quickly, she let herself in and left Dawn in the stroller, pushing her through to the kitchen. Unlocking the back door she opened it carefully and peered out into the night. Her stomach plunged. Nothing.
Except… a book.
*
Buffy sat in the rocking chair in the nursery, feet propped up on a stool, Dawn resting along the seam of her thighs. Time was she could fit in this position with room to spare, she’d been such a tiny little froglet when she was born, but now Buffy had to support her head so that it wouldn’t dangle over her knees.
She loved Dawn’s feet, the miniature toes and velvety soles, the way they stuck up in the air as though some part of her were still yearning for the fetal position she’d been pulled away from, thrust out into the big, bright world before her time. They were so incredibly soft, the skin there no different from the rest of her body, and Buffy sometimes wondered when the soles would toughen up with the wear and tear of life; found herself hoping absurdly that they never would.
On the floor by the stool sat the book. It was big and dry and parchmenty, and although she couldn’t read the language of the title embossed in flaking gold leaf on the cover, she knew it was the book they’d been looking for.
On the back were streaks of dried blood in the shape of fingers.
And she knew. She knew what it meant. But she didn’t want to.
So she sat in the nursery with Dawn’s serious, sleepy gaze on her, stroking the arch of one baby-foot softly with her thumb, and wondering when, despite all her efforts, she had become so hard.
*
There was the familiar gray stone and the window clouded with grime. There was the moss and the crack in the outer door. Everything about Spike’s crypt was familiar, and that should have been depressing, except it was more kind of… neutral. No better or worse than Willow’s dorm room or Xander’s apartment. When had that happened? Buffy hesitated at the door, wondering what she should say, but her mind came up as blank as it had during patrol and the subsequent walk over to the one place she’d been avoiding all night.
He was in there, she could sense him, the faint prickle of skin she got when a vampire was close. He could probably sense her too, her heartbeat or her scent, or something else slayerish. No point hanging around, then. Buffy pushed her way in with more conviction than she felt.
She didn’t see him at first. There were barely any candles lit and it was dark, the shadows deep. It was the rustle of clothing that cued her in, and she spun around to find him on top of a sarcophagus, in the process of dragging himself into a sitting position.
“Slayer,” Spike said, voice low and gritty. “Come to finish the job?”
There was something not quite right about his face, but it was too dark for her eyes to make out. Frowning, she reached for the nearest torch and held it over a candle flame until it caught. Then her mouth fell open.
“What the hell happened to you?”
He was… he was a mess. Shirt and jeans in tatters, and everywhere skin was visible it was damaged in some way, deep scratches, ragged cuts and across his flank, what looked like a bite mark. One eye was black and swollen shut, the side of his face caked in dry blood. His lower lip was split and bruised. Something rattled when he took a breath to speak.
“What do you think? A whole sodding nest of Uknar demons, that’s what.”
“You idiot,” she flared. “We were supposed to do that together! With back up! And, and a plan! Now you look like a demon chew toy and you’re lucky they didn’t rip your stupid head off.”
“Yeah, well,” Spike muttered. “Had to do something, didn’t I? Make you listen, make you see.”
“See what? How impulsive and reckless you are?”
“That I’m on your bloody side, you stupid bint! That all I want is to help you and your gang of overgrown Sunday schoolers fight the good fight. That I’ll protect what’s yours, and save the sodding world, ‘til I’m dust. Whether you want me to or not.” He glanced up at her, blue eyes luminous amidst the bruising as his tone gentled, became pleading. “I swear to you, Buffy, I didn’t know about the chip. I haven’t fed since I found out, either, haven’t killed anyone, and I won’t. I’ve changed…” his eyes fell from hers once more, “and I want to stay that way.”
Buffy’s throat felt thick, clotted with half-formed words. “Why?” she whispered.
He gave her a look like she was the stupid one. “Because I want to be worthy of you. I love you. How could I not?” His face twisted into a painful smile. “How could I not?”
And he’d said that to her before, she recalled, though the where and when were hazy. A lifetime ago she’d told him to stop telling her about his feelings, that she couldn’t hear it, and he had. She just hadn’t realized then how deep it all ran. Him. Her. The lives they took and the life they saved. It wasn’t relief that pushed her forward, it was just that she still didn’t know what to say, and Buffy had always done better with actions anyway.
Leaning in, she pressed her lips gently to his, and kissed him.
*
She didn’t see him for a couple of days after that. When she’d drawn back, after they… his look had been stunned and she’d had a moment of fear that… but he hadn’t said anything, for once. Maybe he’d understood her desire to very much not talk about it, or maybe words had just failed him. Maybe he’d taken her meaning without words being necessary (and if so maybe he’d let her in on it). Either way she’d told him to come around when he’d stopped looking like something out of the house of horrors, because there were still things they needed to talk about, and then she’d made a sharp exit stage left.
So it wasn’t until Monday night that the telltale scent of cigarette smoke drifting in from the back porch told her Spike was waiting for her out there, as close to neutral territory as they really had. The sun had not long set, the sky still light, and that felt appropriate - twilight had somehow become their time. She found herself smiling before she could stop it.
The only thing was, when she peeked out the window to try and judge if his half-healed face would scare Dawn, she saw him sitting with his head in his hands, cigarette slowly burning down between the fore and middle fingers of his left hand, forgotten. If it were anyone else, she’d say he looked as though he were crying, or trying hard not to. Lucky it was Spike and she knew better.
Still. Kind of unnerving. What was so interesting down there between his knees? And god her mind did not just go there…
“Did you tread in that glowy demon slime again?” she asked lightly, eyeing up his boots from the doorway. Spike didn’t turn around, but straightened up slowly, taking a long drag of his cigarette.
“Hell of a thing, Buffy,” he said at length. She waited for further explanation, but when none was forthcoming she unbuckled Dawn from the high chair and went out to join him. Seeing her bringing the baby, he tossed the cigarette into the plant pot Mom had left out there for him, but didn’t reach for Dawn, didn’t say anything at all.
“Okay, come on, spill,” Buffy sighed. “No more secrets, Spike. I need to know I can trust you.”
“Felt like you did, in my crypt,” he said quietly, and Buffy felt heat creeping up her neck, but thankfully he rolled right on. “What do you want to hear about first, then, love? The chip, or my big secret?”
“The chip,” Buffy decided, untangling Dawn’s fist from her earring. When he spoke, his voice was oddly dull.
“Don’t know much more than you, but my guess is it got fried some time during that fight with the knights of the forehead tattoo. Everything hurt so much by the end, it’s possible I just didn’t notice. Doubt it was Dawn, after she scooped me up. Think she would have mentioned it, but that’s possible too.” He glanced at her sideways. “Can’t say I’m sorry about it, though, all things considered.”
“No, I guess you’re not.” She took a deep breath, remembering what her mom had said about alternatives, remembering her own words to Giles just a few months ago. She’d been certain then that he’d earned her trust. Time to make good on it. “Maybe it’s even a good thing.”
His head whipped around. “Slayer, did I hear you right? Could’ve sworn you just said-”
“You heard me. It could be, if you’re serious about coming to our side - staying on our side,” she corrected herself. “You’ll never have to fight yourself to protect anyone again, like you did in the desert. But Spike, you have to know it’s not gonna be easy.”
“Yeah, I know it. Don’t exactly have a moral compass, but you’re the only lodestone I need, Buffy. You’re my north star, you and Dawn. I’ll always do my best to steer right by you.”
“Okay,” Buffy said, touched despite herself. “Okay. I’ll help you.”
He narrowed his eyes, searching her face for a moment, a piercing look that for some reason made her flush all over. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it and ducked his head, sounding sorta choked when he said, “Thanks. That means...”
“So, ground rules,” Buffy said, trying to break the brittle air between them. “No killing. No feeding. No hurting humans unless it’s in self-defense, or defending someone else. No disproportionate force when you do - you can get your jollies fighting demons.”
“Like you, kitten?” His expression was wicked, but distant.
“Like you, the last two years,” she shot back, frowning. “No stealing blood from the hospital, unless it’s out of date. Actually, no stealing period.”
“Oh come on! It’s just a bit of-”
“Maybe you should think about getting a job.” The prospect amused her and she let him see it.
“Oi, I could if I wanted,” he replied immediately, because there were times he’d swear rain wasn’t wet if it meant disagreeing with her.
“And no smoking around the house, it’s not good for Dawn. If you managed it when I was pregnant you can do it again now.”
“That it? Anything else you’d like? The moon on a stick, perhaps.”
“Spike.”
“Yeah all right, Buffy,” he said, folding like a house of cards. “Like I’m going to put up a fight after everything.”
“Well that doesn’t really sound like you,” she pointed out. When he didn’t reply, she turned to see a tendon straining in his jaw. Huh. He really was moody tonight. “So, time for the other thing?”
“Time for the other thing.” He fidgeted a moment, picking at his nail polish, and then he stopped and without a word, lifted Dawn from Buffy’s arms and set her down on his knee. “Hey, niblet,” he said softly, and pressed his nose to her downy hair, breathing deeply. Dawn made a grab for the neckline of his black tee, and for the first time in over a week, her sweet burbling laugh broke through the night. Buffy’s heart squeezed at the sound. Spike drew back and smiled down at Dawn, an unguarded, boyish smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners and for a moment the two of them just grinned at each other, her baby girl and her wannabe noble vampire. Then he took a deep breath and lifted his eyes to the darkening sky. “Dawn, if you’re watching, now would be a great time to fade in and come back me up,” he called, and it took Buffy a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to the girl in his lap, but the mystical woman who’d spirited him away and saved his life. Who’d told him he would save the world.
They waited.
“Uh, don’t think she’s coming,” Buffy said after a while, not sure if she was disappointed or relieved.
“Right,” Spike said, resigned. “I’ll just say it, then. When I met her, Dawn said… she said that I’m her father.”
Buffy blinked. She heard the words, knew what they each meant by themselves, but the sentence refused to resolve itself into anything that made sense.
“Wha-huh?”
“Listen, don’t stake me, all right? I didn’t do anything unchivalrous. This time, anyway.” She snorted involuntarily at that. “Dawn said, because I died for her, traded my existence for hers, we became connected. She’s the key and… part of her magic is about opening doors, beginnings and endings. She said our energies merged or something like, because of where we were and what I did, what she is, because she’s a bloody force as well as a girl.” He shook his head. “Believe me, I saw it. So her blood is the same as yours and mine. Not… not because of whatever you call it - genetics - but because what animates her body comes partly from me. It all merged together at her birth, her keyness, and you, and me, and somehow her essence - what she is - was forged from it all. She’s mine, Buffy, as much as she’s yours. My daughter.”
Buffy just stared.
“Slayer?” Spike gave her a worried look. “You in there?”
“You…” she tried. “I…”
Nope. No good.
“Give me a minute,” she croaked.
Dawn made a loud squawking noise and Spike returned his attention to her, bouncing her on his leg and murmuring nonsense. Buffy watched them in a silence that felt like thunder, their faces tipped towards one another, two pairs of bright blue eyes. Anya’s voice rang in her memory, forgotten until now, she has blue eyes, haven’t you ever wondered who her father is? She thought of Spike’s protectiveness, the bond he’d formed with Dawn almost immediately. His unfaltering determination to be at her side.
“Crap,” she murmured, heartfelt. “It’s true, isn’t it? That’s why… that’s the real reason you wanted to… with the white hat and…”
“I never lied to you,” he said, trying to get her to meet his eyes. “I would still want to, without this. But she makes it even more important to me. So yeah, it’s a big part of the reason.”
“Good reason,” Buffy said faintly.
“I love her,” Spike said, looking down at Dawn with such bewildered tenderness she felt something inside her shift and start to give. “Not like I love you. Feels different. But it’s strong, Buffy. I’d do anything for her, to keep her safe. Scares me, a little.”
“I know what you mean,” she said softly.
“Yeah, course you do,” he said. “Thing is… Buffy, when I’m near her, it feels like nothing else in the world. Your mum said something that got me thinking, and it made me wonder… how deep does the connection go? Part of me got into her, right, but what if part of her got into me, too?”
“What are you saying?”
“I look at her and it’s like a spark in my chest. And I feel like… like it could catch, and burn me proper. But I want it to. Because everything’s brighter, the colors, and I feel things I shouldn’t - haven’t, in a hundred and twenty years. Like I’m more alive when I’m with her. Like it would be easy to be good. Like one day, maybe, I could know what good is.”
“You… no,” Buffy said. “No. It’s impossible. She’s a human girl, Spike. She’s not your soul.”
He turned to her, his eyes so full that for a moment her conviction wavered. “Why not, when you’re my heart?”
She wanted to scoff at the overblown sentiment, but they’d spent so long doing that to one another already - years, it felt like - and it was all too much right then.
“I need to think about this,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
“Yeah, okay.” Spike looked as wrung out as she felt, shoulders rising and falling as he drew in air like he needed it, always his biggest tell.
On the street a car went by, and Mrs. Davis’s dog started yapping. Buffy laced her fingers together again and again. The roar in her head was deafening.
“So,” she said, reaching desperately for a shiny new subject, “that book. Giles says-” but the front door slamming brought her up short.
“Sounds like Joyce’s back from her date,” Spike said, and Buffy didn’t even bother to ask how he knew about that. “Think I should go round front, give him the once over?”
“Nuh uh, you’re staying right here, buddy. You think I’m going to explain all this to my mom by myself?”
“You want to tell her?” he asked, incredulous.
She shrugged. “Maybe it’ll make more sense the second time through.”
“Yeah good luck with that,” he muttered, eyes darting to the kitchen door as her mom’s voice floated through, calling out for Buffy. “It’s all right, I’ll wait out here,” he said, and moved to pass Dawn back to her.
“What?” Buffy said, rising. “No, come in, my ass is starting to go numb out here.”
On his feet now, Spike froze. “You sure about that?”
“Uh, yes,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. It was only as she was putting the cocoa mugs in the microwave while he leant on the door frame watching with a weird, tentative air, that she remembered his strange behavior at the start of their conversation. And then she remembered how, a week and a half ago, she’d asked Willow to disinvite him from the house. Had he tried to come in earlier, before she saw him?
Why had she ever thought that was necessary?
The past was a foreign country - who’d said that? It had never felt truer. Her world had tilted on its axis tonight, and she had the sense that things were changed irrevocably. Looking up she saw Spike still standing in the doorway, Dawn gumming contentedly on his scarred forearm while he stroked small circles in her skin almost absently. She put her mug down and said clearly - unnecessary and yet so very needed - “Come in, Spike.”
Buffy didn’t know how much she believed of what had been said tonight, but one thing she knew she’d already accepted was the futility of trying to keep him away. His smile lit up the world as he relaxed all at once and sauntered in, greeting her mom with a sudden ease Buffy envied. She supposed the situation from his perspective was simple, now. She envied that, too.
For her, simplicity had just become a thing of the past.
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