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Forward to Time Past by Unbridled_Brunette
 
Chapter Sixty-Three
 
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Chapter Sixty-Three





So now she knew the truth. About everything.

No, not about everything. God only knew what else they might be hiding from her. But she knew a lot. She knew enough for it to be painful, and as she hovered near her sister’s bed in the TICU, Buffy gnawed on the inside of her cheek and turned over the events in her mind.

Giles. He had said—

No, not just said. He had done. He set all this in motion. He’d lied to her, watched her struggle. And for what? Because he wanted to get rid of Spike, because he thought that Spike was going to end up hurting her. He was right about that, of course, but it didn’t make the deed any more forgivable. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, she would never have needed money. Spike’s feet would never have been set on this destructive path; Dawn would never have been hurt. In a way, it all came back to Giles.

Even as the thought entered her head, Buffy knew it wasn’t fair. Giles deserved part of the blame, but not all of it. Spike was a big boy; he’d made his own decisions and they were bad ones. And she—

Me nothing, she insisted stubbornly. I didn’t know about all this. Maybe I suspected it was him, but I didn’t know. That money could have been from my father—

In Bizarro World it could have been. Still, she’d had no proof; she hadn’t wanted any. And, in typical Buffy fashion, she’d been able to stifle those fears and believe her own propaganda. She’d done it so well that, honestly, she had hardly even thought about the money in terms of where it came from. It was just money; it was just her good luck. Beyond that, she hadn’t known and beyond that, she hadn’t wanted to.

And now look at what had happened.

Her gaze drifted over to her sister’s bed. This wasn’t what she had expected when they led her back to TCIU. “Monitored care,” the section of the ward Dawn was in, was an open area rather a series of rooms. Almost a dozen beds were arranged in a line, each one separated from the next by a cloth screen, and while not all of them were occupied, still it depressed Buffy to see how many injured people there were. Dawn was in a bed near the end, and they were doing something to her, checking her IV or giving an injection—Buffy couldn’t see exactly what—and it meant that she had to wait a little off to the side until they were finished. The overweight nurse taking care of Dawn blocked most of Buffy’s view, and it set her teeth on edge. It was bad enough for them to bring her back here and then tell her to wait; now this snow beast wasn’t even allowing her the opportunity to look at her sister and see if she was all right.

“Here we are,” the Yeti-nurse murmured as she motioned Buffy forward. Her voice was so kind that the Slayer felt a dart of guilt for having had such callous thoughts about her. “She’s pretty well out of the anesthesia now, so if she’s feeling strong enough she might be able to talk to you.” Her voice dropped low. “Just be sure not to upset her or tire her out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Buffy nodded, rushing forward so eagerly that she hardly noticed it when the nurse shut the cloth curtain to give them privacy.

Dawn was lying on her back, her head only slightly elevated by a stiff hospital pillow. She looked small and pale against the stark white sheets. In addition to the IV line, she had a number of wires attached to her, presumably connecting her to the monitoring equipment that beeped a steady rhythm nearby. When she saw Buffy, her half-closed eyes struggled to come into focus.

Afraid to touch her, Buffy drew as close to the bed as she could and leaned over so that she could whisper into her sister’s ear.

“They treating you okay in this prison?”

Dawn gave her a small, trembling smile and absolutely no indication that she heard or understood what her sister said. Instead, she whispered in a voice still raspy from the intubation earlier, “…Spike okay?”

If she hadn’t been so close to tears, Buffy’s jaw might have dropped. There was her sister, in pain and maybe even still on the brink of death, and she was worried about Spike? He was the whole reason she was here. In spite of her concern, Buffy felt a flash of annoyance at her sister. Annoyance tinged with jealousy because she felt certain that Dawn loved Spike more than she loved her and that, despite her own intimate past with the poet-turned-vampire, Dawn probably understood him in his current incarnation better than anyone else did. Of course Dawn wouldn’t be angry with him.

“Spike is fine,” she said crisply. “At this very moment, Spike is standing, completely unscathed, in the hallway outside the unit.”

“Don’t…”

“Don’t what?” This must be a new personal low for her—snapping at someone in an Intensive Care Unit. Thankfully, Dawn didn’t even seem to notice.

“…be mad at him.”

All right, this was unbelievable. Buffy was certain that her life had reached a new level of insanity, because in no possible way could it be normal for someone with an intestinal wound to defend the person responsible for giving it to her. For a brief moment, her Introduction to Psychology class came back to her, and she wondered if her sister was suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

“He was stupid,” Dawn continued. Her voice was getting weaker, and it was obviously taking more effort for her to speak. Still, she pressed on. “But…didn’t mean to be…bad…”

“And just how was he bad, exactly? What did he do?” Buffy hated herself for asking right now, when Dawn was injured and so weak, when she only had five minutes to spend with her. Yet, she had a responsibility as a slayer as well as a sister, and if whatever had done this to Dawn was still on the loose, she had to know.

Dawn shook her head slightly; she was beginning to drift off. Buffy persisted in a gentler tone.

“It’s okay. Just tell me where.”

“…cave…up a hill…behind the cemetery.” Her eyelids drooped. “…it wasn’t all his fault …”

“I know,” Buffy whispered, trying to humor her sister, while inside she was still seething. “I know it wasn't, Dawn.”

Suddenly, the curtains drew back and the Yeti appeared from behind them.

“I’m sorry, dear. Time’s up.”

Buffy nodded and stood. As much as she despised herself for even thinking of leaving Dawn, her mind was already drifting away to the cave and whatever lay inside of it. To Spike…

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





One of the first lessons he’d ever learned in life was that anger was most easily dealt with if one had an object on which to release it. For a long time, he had focused it inward; it wasn’t until he’d met her that he’d learned to discharge it onto other people. Archer, to name one. Not that he’d always come out the victor in their spats, but there had been a certain pleasure in unleashing his rage—and anxiety—on another human being. Later, under Angelus’ tutelage, he would take things to a completely new level; the level on which he still stood over a century later.

His unsteady legs ate up miles of concrete and grass. Across the parking lot and down the streets, through the thick green lawn of the cemetery. Dawn’s blood was still on his hands and shirtfront, and the entire night was beginning to take on the quality of a dream, a nightmare. His brain hummed as he walked, and his jaw couldn’t seem to unclench; he could hear the uneven edges of his teeth grinding together and feel the heavy pressure in the roots of his fangs. His left hand flexed, opening and closing in anticipation as he ascended the rocky hill and entered the cave. The lantern he had lit earlier was still glowing at the far end of the tunnel, coaxing him forward like a dead man into hell. By its dim light Spike located a weapon—his crowbar—and went to work.

He didn’t want it to be quick and it wasn’t. Using the crowbar, he pried open the door of the demon’s cage and released her. Her green-tinged nostrils flared and her muddy eyes blinked as she tried to orient herself to the fact that, after months of captivity, she was finally free.

Her first instinct was to find fresh air, and if he’d been in his right senses, Spike wouldn’t have blamed her. The stench from her dung-littered cage was even more powerful now that the door was open; the unfortunate bitch was covered in dried chunks of feces and with the open sores of urine scald. Had he been her, he would have made a straight line for the mouth of the cave as well. Yet, when she did it now, Spike was decidedly not in his right senses, and the attempted escape made him even angrier.

He beat her across the shoulders with the crowbar, making her whirl on him with her fangs bared. Spike’s legs were wobbly, but the demon stood on shaky ground as well, her atrophied muscles betraying her as she tried to charge forward. She stumbled slightly, and he laid the bar across her skull, knowing, even as he did, that it would take a lot more than that to kill her. And it did. Much, much more.

By the time it was over, he was bruised and exhausted, though not as badly beaten as one might expect. In a way, that disappointed him. A bit more physical pain would have been welcome right now; it would have taken his mind off the aching in his dead heart. And from far back in his memory, he could remember the night in London…that fierce night when he was armed with nothing but a sack of railway spikes and his own misery. His back against the wall, fighting tooth and claw, laughing in the face of friendly death. Yet, like then, tonight he found himself cheated out of that half-desired demise. As he slid down to the ground and leaned against the rock, his own blood mingling with Bit’s as it dripped onto his t-shirt, he wondered at his own unwanted luck.

Spike didn’t hear the footsteps approaching him from the other end of the tunnel, but he felt the presence almost immediately. All blood, sweat, and adrenaline. Human and angry. He looked up and turned his head, and he wasn’t at all surprised by what he saw.

It was the Dark Suit, and he didn’t look happy.

Spike’s eyes, still gold, narrowed as he regarded the source—or perceived source—of all his troubles.

“Looks like I put down your puppies,” he said in a hoarse half-chuckle. “Oops.”

“You think I don’t already know what you’ve done?” The man’s voice was dangerously low.

“Yeah, well.” Spike shrugged. “You should’ve gotten a better generator. That one gave out on us.”

“That one…was out of oil.”

Oil. Huh. Imagine that. Spike had seen the small black cap with the illustration of an oil can on it, but he had never paid it any mind, any more than he had paid mind to the maintenance needs of his De Soto. Which might explain why the latter had been grounded as of late and sat like some gigantic steel toadstool at the edge of the cemetery lawn. However, as guilty as he felt about what happened to Bit, he refused to take responsibility for the generator. Nowhere in his contract did it state that he had to be a bloody mechanic to ensure that the eggs remained cold. The blame lay solely with the man standing before him, and the only emotions Spike could summon were a weary feeling of hatred and a vague sense of disappointment that he could not kill the bastard. The chip, of course. The mysterious workings of modern technology at its finest.

Except that nothing—not even the finest military circuitry—could be considered altogether foolproof.

“Do you think I don’t know who you are?” the man cut across his thoughts. “Or what you are? William the Bloody—William the weak and helpless—Spike the neutered dog. What other vampire would need money but a vampire not in a position to take what he wanted?”

Spike’s ridged brow furrowed and his yellow eyes became slits—a cat in a corner, a cat ready to strike.

“It’s the only reason I’d hire your ilk in the first place,” the man continued softly, one hand slowly dipping into the pocket of his coat. “Because I knew that if it all went wrong, I would have no problem exacting the proper penalty.”

The stake, when it appeared, was no surprise. It was some type of hard, fragrant wood—cedar, Spike realized, once the man drew closer—and it was ornately carved. So, this was planned then. Once the vampire was unneeded, the vampire would have been disposed of in order to keep the secret. He said as much to the Dark Suit, who laughed a hyena’s laugh into the dark.

“And this is the first time the thought occurred to you? Your faith in me is rather charming, Spike, if pathetic and ill-advised.”

So, then this was friendly death, stalking toward him with a raised stake and keen eyes. Despite his anger, this one was very obviously not of the type who would want to draw out a battle; it could have all been over in a moment if Spike wanted it to be. A plunge of the man’s arm, a throb in Spike’s chest…and that would have been the end of him. All that misery mercifully finished.

Yet, still—still—he could not bow to it.

Instead, anger flared. The same anger previously directed at the now-dead breeder demon at their feet. And when the man stepped forward, indolent and graceful, Spike dove on him like the demon he had long considered himself to be.

The chip screamed in protest, but Spike was already in so much pain at that point he hardly even noticed it. Even if he had, his hatred was such that the severest of agonies couldn’t have stopped him now. The flaw in the design; a mistake on the part of the Initiative. The chained dog could bite…if he wanted to badly enough. If he was completely out of his wits.

However, Spike didn’t exactly bite. Their bodies tangled on impact, both of them landing heavily against the stone floor, wrestling blindly. The man was jabbing at him with the stake, but he could get no force behind the blows because Spike was leaning on his arm, and he could not reach the heart, anyway, because their chests were pressed together. Instead, he battered the vampire’s back with its sharp tip, leaving purple indentations like Morse code and a pain so insignificant Spike didn’t even notice it.

I don’t care if it blows my brains out. I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch.

Perhaps he would have. Spike felt the man’s moist breath against his cheek and the sticky, hot sweat seeping through his expensive clothes. Yet, there was no fear. Like him, the man didn’t dread death and didn’t kneel to it. For some reason, that similarity to himself made Spike even angrier. His teeth were closing in on the exposed throat when suddenly he heard a voice ring out across the tunnel, echoing and re-echoing along the rocks. Feminine and authoritative. Full of righteous indignation.

Buffy.

“Spike, stop it!” she shouted again, and this time Spike did stop. He released the man and stood up, the fog of his hatred fading away along with its visage. His blue eyes regarded Buffy with something akin to confusion.

But she wasn’t looking at him.

“Are you the one behind it all?” she asked, directing the question at the battered man who was slowly climbing to his feet. The man didn’t answer, but amazingly enough, for the first time he actually looked apprehensive.

Rightfully so, if one judged by the words that came next.

“Get out of here. If I see you in this town again—if I even feel your presence—I’ll kill you myself and I’ll make it painful.”

It was a bluff. A good one, but still a bluff. A real killer would have done it then, made it quick and easy. Spike knew that even if the man danced naked in the city streets with a disembodied head in each hand, Buffy wouldn’t kill him. She was a hero, of course, and heroes didn’t do things like that.

The Dark Suit didn’t know that. He turned and fled, and perhaps he wouldn’t reappear, though Spike doubted it. He would turn up somewhere, sometime, with the exact same intentions he’d had here. It was just the nature of business. But, now, he and Buffy were alone, and Spike didn’t really give a shit about any of that.

Their eyes met and in spite of everything else that had happened, he felt the familiar, possessive rush.

Mine.

“Are there more?” she asked without emotion. At first, Spike didn’t understand what she meant. Then he looked at the corpses on the floor.

“No…no more,” he said softly in what he imagined was a reassuring tone. “I did them all.”

Her eyes narrowed—she gave a slight nod—and then she turned her back on him. She began to walk away. Just like before, except that now he was so unhinged he refused to allow it. There was no shove in the chest this time, no cold order for him to retreat; Spike didn’t give her time for any of that. He darted across the blood-soaked earth and grabbed her upper arms, pushing her up against the tunnel wall. But gently. He didn’t want to hurt her.

“You can’t just walk away from me.”

“Can’t I?” She struggled to push him away, but his grip was too strong.

“I’m not going to let you just walk away,” he insisted. “You’re mine, Buffy.”

“Yours,” she echoed, her voice full of scorn. “And just what makes me yours, Spike? Is it what we had back in London? Because you sure as hell haven’t tried to recreate that trust here. Am I yours because we’ve been together since I got back? You can see where that’s gotten us. Or, am I yours because you bit me, because you tried to put that stupid vampire mystical mojo on me to keep me with you?”

“You think it didn’t work?” he demanded. The desperation in Spike’s voice frightened even himself, and he saw Buffy flinch. Still, he pushed on, “If you walk away now, do you really think you can stay away? I’m in your blood, Buffy. I’ve had you, every part of you. You’ll always be mine—you’re mine—”

Without warning, she brought her knee up to his stomach in a blow so powerful that it caused him to stumble backward. His shaking knees buckled before he could catch himself, and he fell hard onto his back.

“No,” she said softly. “I’m not.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





It was full dawn when Buffy walked out of the cave a few minutes later, and she was glad of it. The pink sky and blazing red sun meant that Spike couldn’t follow her, that he wouldn’t be able to see the tears that threatened to spill over the corners of her eyes.

Most of all, it meant that he wouldn’t be able to offer her comfort. He wouldn’t be able to worm his way back into her heart.

Except that he was in her heart. It had been easy to piece together what he’d been doing; the broken eggs and dead hatchlings strewn along the tunnel, the fully grown demon beaten to death with a crowbar, made explanations unnecessary. She should have hated him for it; she should have seen him for the monster he was and been disgusted by it. But she couldn’t.

I’m in your blood, Buffy. I’ve had you, every part of you. You’ll always be mine.

Buffy touched the bandage on her neck, wincing a little, though not from the slight pressure of her fingertips on the wound. Oh, God. What if he was right? What if he’d done something to her so that she couldn’t leave him? She knew nothing at all about claims, and it had never occurred to her before that they might take away free will. A flood of anger washed over her, heating her cheeks. In an instant, her tears dried up.

Damn you, Spike. How could you do this—?

But she knew how. She knew why. He loved her; he would have done anything to keep her with him. He was insane; he was obsessed. He was—

William.

This time, Buffy began to cry in earnest. Because he was. He was William, and she was incredibly disappointed in him.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





He was dying. He was dead. Right through the heart; she’d finally succeeded in doing it.

All that sunny winter day, Spike sat in the cave and stared out into nothing. He couldn’t understand what had happened, couldn’t quite wrap his tortured, chip-addled brain around it. Because he’d done his best to take care of her. He had taken care of her. The bills were paid, and she and Dawn had new clothes. She was thinking of going back to school to earn her degree. He’d done a good job of taking care of her. Of course, he’d known she would be upset when she found out…if she found out. He’d expected her to scream and hit him; he’d expected her not to understand.

But he’d never really expected her to stop loving him.

Now she hated him. She wasn’t his after all. Or, she said she wasn’t. Or, she thought she wasn’t. It all meant the same thing in the end. She was gone.

He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered in the dark. Oh, Jesus. She couldn’t be gone. She bloody couldn’t. Not after everything he’d gone through for her. A hundred years and more…he didn’t think he could do it again. He wasn’t strong enough.

At nightfall, he slowly rose to his feet. He hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, hadn’t eaten in even longer than that, and his head hurt so badly he saw flashes of light behind his eyes when he moved. It didn’t matter. Physically, he’d been through worse. Emotionally…well…it was the emotional part that made forgetting the physical part absurdly easy.

Because of the aforementioned neglect, his De Soto was in no shape to take him anywhere, but Spike needed transportation. He needed to get the hell out of here, and the bus wouldn’t cut it. He stole a battered Volkswagen Rabbit from the cracked cement driveway of a nearby duplex. Probably they wouldn’t even miss it. They’d be glad to get rid of it, revolting piece of junk that it was. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have left the keys inside it.

He didn’t bother covering the glass to block out sunshine. He would reach his destination before daybreak and, even if he did not, what did it matter? It didn’t. He could roast in hell for all he cared because nothing mattered at all anymore.

Nothing except her.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





“Good God,” Angel exclaimed.

By chance, he had been on his way out of the hotel just as the other vampire arrived, and Spike didn’t even have time to knock before his grandsire opened the door. Under the best of circumstances, Angel would have been startled and surprised by the visit, but Spike’s haggard appearance made him even more so. He had lost weight and his eyes looked sunken, his cheeks so hollow that it threw his perfect cheekbones into a high relief that looked anything but attractive. His shirt was covered with dried blood, and his hair was full of dirt.

“Spike, what in the hell did you…” Angel began, but his voice trailed away almost immediately. He had no idea what to say.

“I’ve never asked you for anything,” Spike said quickly. His bloodshot eyes looked desperate in a way that was almost painful to behold, and Angel—who despite their violent past did have some affection for the younger vampire—had to turn his head away.

“My life…my whole life…I’ve never asked you for a single thing.”

It was the truth and Angel couldn’t deny it. He nodded slowly, wishing that he could ask Spike about his bloodstained clothing, his wretched appearance, but he dreaded the answer. He was afraid.

Again, the miserable blue eyes found Angel's and, this time, the gaze held.

“Help me.”

There was a hesitation following Spike’s request. Not more than a nanosecond, but it was there. Then, with a sigh that clearly spoke of his reluctance, Angel opened the door wider and invited his visitor to come inside.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 
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