For a brief second, silence settled in the hotel foyer. Then the door opened yet again as someone new rushed in. All eyes tracked to Cordelia - except Angel's, he still couldn't tear his eyes away from Spike.
"Angel, I had a vision. It was Spike he..." She stopped short and gaped at the vampire sitting in front of her, large as unlife. Buffy was on one side, Faith to the other, with Angel across the foyer, sitting staring at him like he was a starving man's last meal. "Oh, he's here. Damn, cross town traffic was pretty heavy. Sorry!"
"You could have phoned." Buffy pointed out.
She glared at the Slayers. "Some things shouldn't be discussed over the phone. Like some things shouldn't be sent as anonymous video tapes either." Then she turned to coo at the vampire. "Spike! You're undead! This is so cool! And hey, less blond than I remember. Looks good on you."
"Can we get on? Before my headache explodes fully?" Spike had had enough, that much was very obvious.
"What can I do? I'll do whatever you ask of me, fight whoever you want fighting. Anything, anything at all." Angel started. "Please, you must let me help you."
"Oh yeah? Why?" Spike asked, sneering at his sire.
"Then I'll have time. Time to show you." Angel pointed out, never rising from his appointed seat.
"Show me what?" Spike spat back at him quickly, glad of the distance between them.
"Time to show you how sorry I am that I ever hurt you - try and make something right from all I've done wrong. Damn it, Spike please, I love you. Just give me chance to earn your forgiveness."
"And you believe this shit?" Spike threw his head back and laughed, the touch of hysteria in that sound indication enough that he didn't trust Angel, didn't forgive him, didn't love him. Was in truth very, very frightened of him.
That was going to be Angel's first task, to allay those fears.
"Look, will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on here? There's been mention of rape, of death, of pregnant men, or vampires or whatever. We've had Goddesses and bimboids bursting in, Wes and Gunn dashing out. Like I said earlier... What the fuck is going on!" Kate stood in the centre of the foyer, every eye on her, not a sound could be heard, not a whisper. Slowly, Angel stood up and faced her.
"Remember when you told me to get a life?" He waited as she nodded, slowly. "You wondered what had happened to make me as 'broody as all hell on a wet Tuesday' as you nicely keep calling me?" Again she nodded. "About four and a half months ago, at the end of a long period of torment from Wolfram and Hart." He met her eyes, letting her see clearly the pain in his. "I told you about them resurrecting my sire. Anyway, I got a call from Buffy. That's Buffy!" He pointed out the blonde girl standing by Spike's side.
For her part Buffy waved at the strange woman Angel had pointed her out to. Spike looked at Buffy and wondered how the young woman managed to get so much sarcasm into a single small hand gesture that didn't involve only two fingers. Shrugging it aside he turned to see what Angel would do, or say, next.
"She wanted me to have a talk with Spike. That's Spike, my childe." Spike declined to acknowledge Angel's words in any way other than staring at him. Angel didn't mind Spike's silence, he was at least there, alive. He continued his story, not looking at his friend, but at Spike as he spoke. " I created him in 1873, I betrayed him then and over and over again, and finally I betrayed him four and a half months ago. Angelus was in control and he is me without the slightest inkling of what guilt is. At least he was. The demon and the soul merged because the demon tortured, raped, impregnated and drove Spike to his final death. As Angelus I found these demons with that collar round Spike's neck. I took it from the demons, put it on him and did what I already said. I did it just because the thing has spikes. Spikes for Spike, I never said Angelus was original. He was and is still here, always will be jealous of anyone getting near our Spike. Like I am, only I know it's wrong. And I'm sorry."
Spike looked at his sire, looking for Liam, for Angelus even looking for Angel, if he really was a discernibly different being. All he saw was all he ever saw. The demon that had created him out of spite. To be jealous there first had to be feelings there, something to be jealous of.
"You trying to convince your bint or yourself?" He snarled his question at his sire. "'Cos you sure as shit stinks ain't convincing me!" He turned to the woman he had saved all those months back. "Listen lady, I didn't revive you to have you listen to shit like this. The truth is he felt like it. Felt like creatin' me, felt like torturing me, felt like raping me. If he'd known what the fuckin' collar was he'd never have touched it. He's taken parenthood from me once, he'd never willingly offer it back to me. He's a rapist, a torturer, a sick fuckin' bastard all the ways you look at it. That's all, pure and simple." He turned to Hera and begged her for escape, silently, with his inner prayers.
"I'm sorry Spike, you go nowhere, we need you, we need to fight Glory where we have the upper hand." She spoke aloud to him, as she always did, the silent, unspoken words of duty, of destiny, of all the noble and bright reasons went unsaid, unshowen, but never unthought.
"Isn't there a fluence, a magic something your Goddess friend here can put on Angel to prove that he'll not hurt Spike like ever again?" Cordielia asked the group, smiling in a hopeful way.
"Hera?" Buffy spoke the name hopefully. Not sure herself if she hoped the Goddess could or couldn't do as the would be actress asked.
"That could possibly be arranged." Hera smiled at the Slayer, then looked first at Angel and lastly as Spike. "There is something Apollo or his boy can do to modify his behaviour along those lines. It's not in my field, so it would have to wait until after this damned battle however." She saw that Spike knew what she thought her stepson could do. A chip very much like the one he had had in his head for so long. "It's a drastic step, but if I were the one requesting it, they'd have little cause to refuse."
"Would it be a blanket ban on hitting vampires or just me?" Even though he hated his sire and all that he had done to him, he didn't want him to die at the hand of the first pissed off vamp to come along. And that notion threw him for a loop. That he still cared even a little bit? Or was it that he just wanted the privilege of staking the sick fuck himself? He tried so very hard to make it that choice.
"Oh, very specific. And Apollo would know every time he has those kinds of thoughts, if he ever did." This time she fixed her gaze on Angel and left it there. "Well, vampire? Are you willing to protect your childe from yourself?" In truth she half expected him to prevaricate, to refuse even. To demand time to think it over at the very least. Not his instant agreement.
"Yes, very willing. Do it, whatever it is, if it means my Spike will feel safe around me again."
"What do you mean again? Like I was ever safe around you?" Spike looked Angel square in the eye as he damned him.
"You were, a long time ago. When Liam Saunders courted William Mansfield and won his heart. Then I had to go and spoil it all." Angel turned from his estranged childe to the Goddess. "Do it, now!"
"Isn't this all a bit sudden?" Buffy tried to put the brakes on the situation. She didn't want Spike to feel safe with Angel. She wanted him to feel safe with her! Yes, she knew he didn't love her anymore, but she was fast learning to love him. And she needed time to remind him of what he had once upon a time felt for her. He was hers and she steadfastly refused to share him with anyone, especially Angel!
"If it's what it takes, Buffy, Spike has to feel safe." Angel smiled at her, he could smell her attraction to his childe, he wasn't having her as Spike's only shelter from all the badness out there, himself included. "What are you going to do?" He asked Hera directly.
"You really don't listen do you, Angelus? What did I just get through saying? I am not Goddess of Healing, I'm empowered in Childbirth and Faithful Marriages. Bloody Christians, you never did learn anything of value. Only endless reams of Pagan Gods are bad! Why are they bad oh wondrous priest? Because we say they are bad! Let me spell it out in simple little words for you: I am not Goddess of Healing, I can not put the behaviour modification chip in your head. My stepson and his son are the ones for that and, oh my, they are so very not here!" Hera glared at Angel, not dropping her eyes from his face until he blushed and looked away first.
"Do you talk to Zeus like that?" Spike asked her, smiling at her. "'Cause if you did I don't see how he ever had the balls to betray you!"
"Ah!" Hera sighed deeply, eyes dancing with rekindled mirth. "That's where I went wrong! I should have shouted at him then, hmm?"
"Or just nailed his balls to a tree." Faith offered her own theory on husband training.
Hera looked at the young, dark haired slayer and laughed. The sound of pure delight filled the foyer as she put a warm arm around Faith's shoulders.
"I think I just might try that when I next get home. With our greater involvement in human affairs it won't be too long before the old goat comes here and sees all the near naked pretty young things on offer. But if I nails his balls to a tree..." She giggled again and hugged the slayer once more. "Sorry, but I can just envision his face.."
Apparently so too could Faith, she turned into Hera's embrace and laughed right along with her.
"Now that that's sort of settled, can we get back to this bloody battle... shouldn't the others be here by now and shouldn't we be getting ready?" There was hope for his safety on the horizon. For the first time since they realised this battle was coming, he was eager for it to happen. Finally, with so many people around them he was beginning to feel somewhat safer in his sire's presence. For the first time since he had arrived at the Hyperion Spike turned his back on his sire.
Angel had never been so happy to see the back of Spike's head since the last time he and his William had made love. All the violent sex he had had with his childe in the intervening years would never count in that tally.
***
Spike paced the foyer. Swinging like a pendulum, a different emotion at the apogee and perigee of his journeys arc. He was waiting for Red and the others to arrive. Their motley band of warriors for good against the truly demonic Godhood of Glory. He didn't give much for their chances. Then he thought of the passion and belief his side had going for them and didn't give much for Glory's chances. No one threatened his Dawn and lived to tell the tale. Not if he could do something about it.
From the office area Angel watched his childe pacing. He wished he could take him in his arms and protect him, and their baby, from all the fears he saw echoed in Spike's body language. Even if the biggest fear in Spike's life was he himself.
Still seated on the sofas both slayers sat with Hera, the Goddess sitting directly between them. Forcing them to face the battle ahead, not their petty squabbles of the past. In between refereeing the girls occasional snipes at each other, the Goddess of Marriage alternatively watched Angel and Spike. She saw the love and pain in Angel's so called imposed soul, and wondered if she should ever tell either vampire that it wasn't a soul Angelus had been missing, but his conscience. That young man had been born with no sense of guilt what so ever. A true sociopath, only his dislike of the pain of punishment had held him in check as a mortal. A fact that the demon in his soul simply took advantage of. Conversely, young William Mansfield had had enough guilt for several men in his soul. No doubt why he had never lost touch with his true soul, no matter how hard he tried to deny it.
Even vampires didn't know they all had a soul, the core of their individuality, just as they had been as mortals. But their parasitic demon kept that fact hidden, telling the human mind it had no soul left, that all that remained was eternal despair. Months of observing young Spike and the other vampires in the temple had shown her that the demon that touches them controlled so much of what they perceived as their remaining humanity. But if they could reach beyond the demon the humanity could reassert itself, a little at any rate. Some more than others. Like in all things, everyone was different.
Looking at Spike, at his true soul, she saw that in all the time he had been with Drucilla, he had never betrayed their relationship. Not once. Even though he hadn't really loved her in the beginning, he had come to love her for her own being in the fullness of time. Although only after their sire had abandoned them. Despite everything he had remained steadfastly loyal to her, ignoring her countless affairs with other male creatures, not only vampires. Until she went one step too far and his love turned to loathing, by way of heart break, again.
"He never once betrayed Drucilla with another lover. Not once!" She muttered, only half aware that she had spoken aloud, even if in a whisper. The slayers had heard her. As did Angel, that much was evident from the way his head whipped over to look at her and then back to watching his beloved Spike.
"He's loyal to his lovers, and friends, and those he considers family." Buffy pointed out. All but canonising the younger vampire.
"Man, one hundred years and he's only had the one fuck bunny?" Faith asked, somewhat less subtlety than Buffy had put it. "And then Angel there happens?" As she looked at the formerly blond vampire she felt something stir. Not love, not desire, not even sympathy. But understanding, fellow feeling. She knew exactly where he was coming from. "Poor bastard."
"He had Harmony, and he loved me for a while. But I didn't understand. Didn't see what made him so special, so unique." Buffy leaned in against Hera. "Wish he still felt like that about me now. We could raise Alicia together, as parents." She sighed again. "But I suppose being Aunty Buffy is going to be better than nothing."
"It's going to have to be, child. You killed any love he had for you with a phone call. Yes, I know. Before you drag it all up all over again. You didn't know Angelus was loose. That's not the point. Not all of it anyway. The fact that you phoned anyone, especially Angel, to deal with Spike's love for you, like getting someone to kill an unwanted pet, that is what he'll never forgive." Hera hissed her comments back to Buffy and pushed her awareness out towards her missing children. "They're on their way. Another minute maximum and the Key will be here." She faced the door and Spike as he paused mid arc. She briefly wondered if he had been listening to their quiet conversation. Casting a quick glance at Angel showed her that he had continued to listen. So now he had the name of his daughter and a single ray of hope, that Spike would never again think himself in love with Buffy.
The doors swung open and Willow entered with Tara shadowing her the other side of Dawn. A couple of women that Faith only latterly realised were vampires came in after them. At least one of them was, the scent on the other one was confused.
"Hi! We're here!" Willow sing songed her greeting, hugging Spike as she saw his open relief at their safe arrival. "And this is for you. Go change from lawyer man into fighter man." She handed him a bag and pushed him towards the back of the foyer. "And don't forget the chain mail!"
"Yes mother!" Spike took the bag, the instructions and Willow's worrying all in good stead.
"Need any help changing?" The female vampire asked, rather suggestively. Which earned her synchronised glares from Angel and Buffy.
"No, that's okay, but thanks for the offer anyway Harm." Spike disappeared into the gents toilet to change for the up coming fight. As he did so he did not see the darkening glower on Angel's face as realisation dawned on him. This blonde vampiress was Harmony. The female Spike had taken as lover after Drucilla broke his heart. This one was his rival, not Buffy. Spike still liked this Harmony.
Angel hated her already.
***
Sitting in Angel's bedroom, tears streaming down her face, Kate now knew what heavy secret the brooding vampire had been hiding all those months since her arrival. There, on the bright, shiny and new television Angel had bought himself she had watched the rape, the suicide.
Cordeilia wasn't in any better shape. She had seen and heard the tape so very often, yet it never failed to affect her. Even though she knew that the victim was down stairs, as unalive as ever he was, it still hurt. Knowing her best friend was even capable of such an act, hurt.
"Thanks for showing me the tape. It couldn't have been easy." Kate gave her companion a watery smile. "At least we can be grateful that Angel does feel remorse for his actions. If he didn't... Damn, but then I'd be first to stake him myself!" Anger was brewing. She had done all the required sensitivity courses, she knew how to empathise with a victim. She knew how to distance herself from that same victim. What those courses had never taught her was how to cope when the victim had died, and you'd seen that victim die, and then come back to life in time to save yours.
"No, you'd be way down the line Kate, I'd be first, Wesley and Gunn right along with me. Buffy only escapes staking because she's a human. Or so I'm told." The would be actress was telling the absolute truth. Her hatred for the blonde so called Slayer down stairs was a very palpable thing.
"You hate her, don't you?"
"Yup, even when I was one of them, the so called Scoobies, I still hated her. She was so arrogant. Okay, I can be a stuck up bitch with the best of them, but my arrogance never caused that!" She pointed directly to the now thankfully blank screen. "I have never set myself up as judge, jury and executioner over anything more profound than who was in and who was out in the High School popularity stakes. If somebody says they love me I either say 'yeah' or cut them down to size myself. That's why we've got tongues in out heads! To use them for something other than oral sex and ice-cream!" She looked ready to punch someone, a diminutive blonde someone.
"I think we'd better get down there. The others might have turned up by now." Kate stood up and headed for the door, Cordeilia hot on her heals.
"But don't you think Spike looks kinda sexy all pregnant and hurting though?" She asked the former cop, obviously saying the first thing to cross her mind.
"Well, actually, yeah, I do. But, can you see Angel letting anyone close enough to hold him and pet him and make it all better? I can't!" Kate headed for the stairs and the foyer below.
"Me niether." Cordeilia agreed.
They arrived just as Spike exited the gents toilets, suitably attired for the fight to come. Still in black pants and black tee shirt, just wider sized, the younger vampire looked even better than he had in his business suit. The fine chain mail he wore over the tee shirt and bump was so fine it almost looked like fabric.
"Wow, warrior Spike to the rescue!" Cordeilia smiled at the suddenly blushing vampire. She linked an arm through his and lead him forwards. "Have you eaten lately? Are you hungry? We got blood bags in the kitchen. Pig, cow even a couple of human I think." She looked from the vampire towards the kitchen door, her eyes swinging past Angel in the process. She let go Spike almost immediately.
"I can't drink human blood. It's one of the restrictions on me being able to go out in the daylight." Spike watched that piece of news strike Angel from the corner of his eye, mostly he looked at the former cheer leader and caught the increased tension in his sire's body. "I could go a cup of pig blood, if you have any little marshmallows to float on top though." He smiled as she moved slightly back from him, Angel's sub human vocalised growl impinging on her subconscious.
"Can do." Cordeilia stepped even further away from Spike, covertly watching Angel calm down as she did so. She had to conclude that her friend was one seriously in love vampire. And possibly on a hiding to nothing in getting his Spike back. "You can walk by day? Like out in the daylight day?" She suddenly realised what Spike had said to her. Proving to one and all that Cordeilia Chase had grown up, she did listen to what other's had to say.
"Only for a little while. I try not to do it on a whim, much!" Spike grinned at her. "Does help with the case work though. You think you're safe from vampires, just 'cos the sun is shining? Think again fuck wit!" Spike enacted the role he was describing. "Vamping out in the daylight sure puts the willys up a lot of folks." He added, somewhat tamely.
"I bet!" Cordeilia's awe-struck voice headed further towards the kitchen. "Pigs blood, I'll just get that." She turned away from Spike and looked at Angel and his own awe-struck expression. "Angel, do you want to eat?" He shook his head, not even looking at her, which annoyed her no end. "I remind you that we have a real big battle ahead and you haven't eaten at all today, and I can't even guarantee yesterday had you eat either!"
"Fine, same as Spike, only without the marshmallows. I'd rather save them for chocolate." Angel spared a glance and very brief smile for his friend before he turned back to Spike. "What's it like?" He asked his question directly of Spike.
"Huh?" Was Spike's less than coherent answer.
"Walking in sunlight? What's it like?" Angel's face fell as he realised daylight gave his childe a sanctuary he simply couldn't go in to. Someplace he could run away from him. Anywhere, outside, in the warmth of the sun.
"Bright and hot mostly. Give's me a bit of a headache even with shades on." Spike answered his sire automatically.
"Does too. Gives him the headache, like he said." Oz finally spoke up, the rest of the group might have been forgiven for thinking he had vanished somewhere. Even after living with Spike and Hera for several months, he still managed to cloak himself in silence most of the time. "Real tension stomper."
"A good massage would probably sort that out." Angel talked directly to Oz then flicked a glance at Spike. His childe 's face was screwed up on abject horror.
"Massage? That requires touching, requires going near the collar. One false move and me and Alicia are just so much dust." And he turned away from the others, looking towards the kitchen door and the young woman beyond. Focusing on anything other than the mixed bag of feelings the very idea of intimate touching brought boiling to the fore.
"I didn't think... sorry." Angel tried to offer his heart felt apology for his faux pas, but as always Spike chose to take even that the wrong way.
"What else is new where I'm concerned? You never think, not about me at least." He spun to round to glare at Angel, missing the kitchen door opening once more to let an angered Cordeilia out.
"Here's your blood Spike, and yours Angel. And just you listen here, mister I've been seriously hurt. Which you have, I know. But Angel is sorry, so fucking sorry he's spent every night since we got that damned tape trying to find a beast that will put him out of his pain. What pain? I don't hear you ask. Well, since you so desperately want to know, the pain of realising just what he had done to the one being in all the damn planet that he loved above everything. Us included!" She dragged in a deep, hasty breath and did not give up the floor, she was speaking and if the others had any sense they'd simply shut up and listen. "And if I ever thought he would hurt you ever again like he did that night, I'd stake him myself. That is not Angelus!" She pointed to the deeply ashamed and embarrassed vampire by the door. "That is what you get when Angelus and Angel combine. A deeply ashamed and passionate manic depressive vampire with an obsessional love complex directed at his supposedly dead childe whom he loves... Passionately! And they're murder to live with!"
"Oh..." Spike finally managed when it became obvious that Cordeilia had ran out of rant. "Oh.." he managed again when he looked at his sire and saw that the former cheer leader had spoken the truth. "Oh shit!" He finally vocalised as Glory smashed through the glass doors straight towards Angel.
[Reviews - 0] [Kudos - 298]
Download story PDF format or ePUB format or MOBI format
Table of Contents
Download story PDF format or ePUB format or MOBI format
Table of Contents