14. Unwanted Help
"And how exactly would you propose that
we help him, Buffy?"
Giles' voice was impatient, and just a little bit bewildered -- and
Buffy suddenly realized that she did not really have an answer for his
question. As she had watched the clear evidence of Spike's painful
emotions play across his expressive features, Buffy had felt an
undeniable sympathy and compassion for the injured vampire, clearly
confused and tormented by the soul that had been inflicted on him,
followed by his lover's betrayal -- but what could they really do for
him, after all?
Of course, they could tend to his wounds and make sure that he got
blood enough to heal, and well -- *survive*. But -- beyond that - Buffy
had to admit that she was at a loss.
"Are you suggesting that we help him rid himself of the soul?" Giles
asked, echoing her own thoughts as she frowned in confusion, not quite
looking at him. "Clearly he doesn't want it, but as that is the only
thing standing between Spike and mass murder, then it's just as clearly
out of the question."
Buffy's frown deepened with troubled understanding, as she shook her
head and reminded her Watcher, "But -- if we *don't* get the soul out
of Spike -- then Angel can't be restored at all...and if we *do* take the
soul out of Spike, then I'll just have to..."
Her voice trailed off with a weary sigh, as she realized that there
just didn't seem to be a very positive option.
"*No*!" the vampire objected from across the room, rising weakly to his
feet from the spot where he sat on the sofa.
Buffy looked up at him in surprise -- and then suspicion, as she
realized that he had been listening to their entire conversation thus
far. But before the suspicion could really take root in her mind, she
found herself captivated by his wide, tearful blue eyes full of a
beseeching desperation.
"No, to which part exactly?" she asked in a flat tone of voice,
crossing her arms over her chest as she turned to face him fully,
moving slowly across the room toward him. "Which part of our personal,
private, and completely eavesdropped-on conversation do you have an
objection with, Spike?"
"You can't take it away from me! Please, Slayer, you can't!"
The vampire's words, spoken in a low, hushed, trembling tone of earnest
desperation, caught the Slayer off guard.
"Can't -- take -- the soul?" she had to ask for clarification, frowning
in confusion at the thought that Spike might actually want to *keep*
Angel's soul, after he had already made it very clear how much
suffering having it had caused him.
"Please," Spike repeated, shaking his head as his piercing blue eyes
met hers imploringly. "I can't...I can't imagine...going back to what I
was...doing the things I did...again. I just bloody well can't, Slayer, you
can't take it out of me now!"
"You -- actually *want* to keep it?" Giles asked, sounding even more
bewildered now.
"Well, yeah," Spike stated softly, in an isn't-it-obvious sort of tone.
"Lose it -- and I'll go back to doing the same things I've always done
-- and I couldn't take it. Couldn't take the guilt of knowing what a
bad,,,evil...vampire I am...would be...again..."
Fortunately for Spike, the surprise caused by his words kept the Slayer
and her Watcher from noticing his awkward, slightly forced phrasing.
Buffy opened her mouth as if to speak, but was promptly cut off by her
friend's sarcastic comment.
"Well, see that works out for everyone, then," Xander sneered. "Because
when they give that soul back to Angel, you won't *have* the guilt to
deal with -- you won't care anymore -- and Buffy will get to stake you
-- and everybody's happy."
Buffy's frown deepened at those words, and her eyes narrowed slightly
as she gave the vampire a skeptical look, stepping closer to him until
she stood only a couple of feet in front of him.
"Hadn't actually thought of that," she remarked in a dangerously soft
voice, her emerald eyes boring into his so intently that it was all
Spike could do not to look away -- but he didn't look away. "You're not
just saying all this, about how you want to keep the soul and all --
just to keep us from staking you -- are you?"
Spike tensed slightly at her nearness, as well as at the sudden, subtle
threat in her posture and her words, but held himself steady with an
effort, not breaking eye contact, resisting the instinct to take on a
fighting posture of his own -- not that he could have actually fought
her, anyway, he reminded himself cautiously.
That was the whole soddin' problem.
"No," he replied softly, shaking his head slowly but firmly. "No, I
wouldn't -- I'm telling you the truth, Slayer. I -- I didn't ask for
this bloody thing to get stuck in me -- but I've got it -- and I can't
go back to what I was before it. Please. Don't -- don't make me."
Buffy studied his expression for a long, terrifying moment, in which
the vampire was almost certain that she had seen straight through his
lies -- until finally she seemed to think that she had seen what she
sought, and looked away with a sigh, visibly easing her intimidating
stance as she took a step backward away from him, rolling her eyes in
irritated frustration.
"What a quandary," Giles remarked quietly, his eyes wide with wonder,
and a strange sort of excitement at the novelty of it all. "We've got
two vampires, each with somewhat of a claim to a single soul...can't
leave it in one without leaving the other a soulless killer..."
Buffy drew in a deep breath, lowering her head and raising one hand to
her eyes, as she muttered under her breath, "Looks like we've got a
problem."
************************************
"Gone...gone...my sweet William is gone away from me forever..."
The mad, dark vampiress wept and moaned the same words over and over,
lying across the bed where Spike had spent so many hours alone in the
past few days while she had been otherwise occupied with Angelus,
sobbing and wailing and thrashing about in a torment of grief and
despair. As unexpected as the sudden loss of Drusilla's childe had
been, Angelus was still rather surprised at how deepy she seemed to
feel the loss of the insolent boy, especially after how thoroughly she
had ignored Spike since her sire had returned.
It was driving him freaking insane.
"Dru...Sweetheart..." he said in a soft, overly patient voice, his last
words gradually rising until they became a violent roar of frustrated
rage, "...would you kindly get a hold of yourself and *shut up*!"
Dru flinched on the bed, but her moaning only quieted some, did not
cease completely.
"The nasty stars all lied to me...played cruel tricks with my head...got me
all muddled up to let the sunshine take my William...he was mine, mine he
was, and now she's got him! Stolen him away from me! My William is
gone, gone from me..."
Angelus ignored her words, as he was used to do, a dark mood stealing
over him as he walked around the room, half-heartedly searching for any
sign of what exactly had taken place here the night before.
It seemed fairly obvious.
The Slayer's scent still lingered in the room.
"How'd she manage to get in here without anyone noticing her?" Angelus
growled softly with anger, staring moodily at the wall, before suddenly
snatching up the candlestick from the bedside table and hurling it
furiously at the wall with a vicious snarl. "I'll kill our minions," he
declared in a low, dangerous voice. "Every last one of them. How did
she get past them so easily? Why didn't we even hear...?"
His voice suddenly trailed off, his eyes widening slightly as a memory
dimmed by the lust that had nearly consumed him during the actual event
returned to him, and he turned narrowed, slightly suspicious eyes on
the keening vampiress on the bed.
"We *did* hear her," he stated softly. "At least -- I heard her. You
said you didn't hear anything. That must have been when she was here."
Dru wasn't really paying attention to him, still sobbing inconsolably
over the loss of her insufferable childe. "The stars deceived me...told
me he was hers...he's hers already, he's been hers since long before
now...never mine at all...and now my William is all gone, all gone away
from me..."
"Dru, will you *shut up* and listen to me!" Angelus snarled, suddenly
right by the bed and snatching her up by the shoulders with cruel,
bruising hands, as he shook her and accused her furiously, "You knew
she was here, didn't you? You knew, and you just let her go, and take
Spike with her! We've said things, in this room, Dru -- we've talked
about important things! And I didn't worry about Spike hearing them,
because he wasn't ever supposed to go anywhere again!"
As he spoke, Angelus' voice vacillated madly between blind,
uncontrolled rage, and that soft veiled menace that was so much more
frightening, his golden eyes glinting with fury as he shook her,
snarling in her face until she whimpered and cowered away from his
touch.
"Now who knows what he might have told her? Who knows what he might
have heard, about our plans, about what we're going to do?" Angelus
seethed, dropping her roughly back onto the bed and beginning to pace
the floor at an almost manic speed.
"Gotta get him back," he muttered. "Stake the little bastard before she
gets anything out of him..."
Dru just kept on moaning and crying about the lying stars and her
missing childe and how badly she missed him, wanted him, and Angelus
was trying to *think*, and it was just too hard with her incessant,
meaningless, incoherent *noise*...!
He crossed the room to her again in an instant, jerking her up by the
hair and delivering a sharp, resounding backhand across her face, as he
screamed at her, "*Shut up*!"
She looked up at him through fathomless dark eyes, wide with stunned
hurt and betrayal, one hand rising to her swiftly bruising cheek, as
she shook her head slightly.
"Bad, hateful Daddy," she whispered reproachfully. "Mummy hadn't any
choice...hadn't any choice...the stars..."
Angelus couldn't stand another word about the damned stars.
He was furious -- but Dru was not either of the two he wanted to take
it out on.
Without another word or a backward glance, he stormed out of the room,
slamming the door behind him -- and a few minutes later Dru felt his
absence, as he stalked out of the mansion completely and into the night.
As her tears slowly ebbed away, she rose up from the bed, her wide eyes
distant as she listened to the things the stars were speaking to her
again -- quickly forgetting their earlier deceptions. She nodded slowly
as a rapturous smile came across her darkly beautiful face, and a sense
of hope and expectancy rose up within her.
"Yes," she murmured, heading toward the door out into the rest of the
mansion. "Yes -- Mummy shall have her boy back -- put all back like it
should be -- all back as it's meant to be -- and my Spike shall return
to me...and be mine again...forever..."
********************************
"Okay...I think we've got something here!"
Willow's voice sounded excited for the first time since he'd been
there, and Spike was fairly certain that that was a bad thing as far as
he was concerned. In fact, progress of any kind on the part of these
White Hats was probably not to his benefit, considering that at the
moment he was simply playing a stalling game with them all.
He was healing quickly as a result of the potent Slayer's blood they
had given him -- and wasn't *that* a bloody kick in the head? He
certainly hadn't expected *that*! -- but he was still weak from the
torture he had undergone that had gone unmended for so long, and the
starvation that Angelus had inflicted upon him -- not to mention the
bloody chip in his head, that would keep him from defending himself
against these pathetic human children.
And although Buffy seemed to believe his story about somehow getting
Angel's soul, the others did not trust him one little bit -- certainly
not enough to leave the exits to the room they were all in unguarded.
Spike could not take the chance of accidentally hurting one of them in
an attempt to shove past them, setting off his chip, and then suffering
the painful consequences -- *twice* -- for his deception and duplicity.
So, making a mad dash for the door from his seat on the sofa didn't
exactly seem to be an option.
Yet.
"What have you got?" Buffy asked, her voice sharp and all business,
sounding very much more the Slayer than the 17-year-old high school
girl, as she turned to face her friend.
"Well, this almost looks as if it could be the spell that was
originally used on Angel," Willow explained, gesturing to a place in
the huge, dusty book she held, though Buffy didn't even glance at it.
"I mean -- we have no way of knowing for sure, but it seems like it
could be -- basically, it requires something that's belonged to the
vampire -- something he's had a lot of contact with -- and it locates
the vampire's former soul, wherever it might be, and returns it to
them."
Spike swallowed hard, trying not to look as sick as he suddenly felt.
Locating Angel's soul would not be a good thing at this point --
because the Slayer's finding out that it was anywhere but here would
surely result in his getting promptly staked.
"So -- okay -- so we return Angel's soul to him," Buffy said softly,
thinking aloud, a pensive frown on her face. "But then -- where does
that leave Spike? I mean -- if he wants to keep the soul -- wants to do
good -- it seems wrong to take it..."
"I thought of that," Jenny remarked from beside Willow, and Spike was
almost certain there was an almost malicious glint in her dark eyes as
she glanced at him over the Slayer's shoulder. "See -- we can return
Angel's soul to him -- from -- out of Spike..."
Spike glanced around anxiously, certain that the others had to have
caught the skeptical note in her voice -- though apparently they hadn't.
"...and then," Jenny went on, "we can locate *Spike's* original soul, and
return it to him. So everyone's happy, and you have not one but *two*
souled vampires to fight on the side of good. How does that sound?"
Buffy was nodding eagerly, a slow smile forming on her lips --
oblivious to Spike's wide-eyed expression of horror behind her.
"That sounds perfect," she agreed.
"Spike?" Jenny asked innocently, looking at Spike with an encouraging
smile, drawing the attention of the others to him as well. "How does
that sound to you?"
Spike swallowed back the bile rising in his throat at the thought, and
forced his shocked, stricken expression to turn into a brilliant,
grateful smile that he hoped did not appear as forced as it was.
"Sounds bloody brilliant, love," he replied in a quiet, slightly
trembling voice. He allowed the smile to fade a bit, as he added
regretfully, "There's only -- one slight problem..."
Buffy frowned in anticipation of his words, and he could not quite meet
her eyes as he went on, "Once the soul's out of me and back in Angelus
-- Angel -- well, I'm not likely to be as willing as I am at the moment
to get my own soul shoved back in me, yeah?"
Buffy's frown faded, and Spike felt his heart sink with the smile of
relief that came over her face, even before she spoke.
"Oh, that's easy," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "*You*
want the soul back, right?"
Spike forced a nod and a brittle smile.
"Well, the will of a souled person with a conscience means more than
the will of an evil vampire to me any day," she declared. "You want it
now, so what you want once you lose the soul doesn't matter."
"Might matter to me." Spike's voice was low and a bit ominous, and he
quickly cleared his throat at the strange looks they were beginning to
give him, adding in a more casual tone, "Then, I mean. Once I'm all --
soulless and evil and all."
"Well -- I guess we could chain you up again," the Slayer shrugged, and
Spike looked at her sharply in alarm -- but her voice was still
completely sincere, and she was looking at him for his acceptance of
that idea, which she obviously fully expected. "I mean, before we take
Angel's soul out. So then while we're putting yours in, it won't be a
problem. You wouldn't mind, would you?"
Weakly, feeling as if he would be physically sick for the first time in
nearly a hundred years, Spike shook his head to indicate he had no
objections.
The dark-haired boy picked up the shackles from beside the chair he was
sitting in, standing up with a nasty smile.
"Not yet, Xander," Buffy stopped him, a frown of disapproval on her
face at his malicious pleasure in the vampire's situation -- and again,
Spike found himself feeling a strange, heavy sensation at her obvious
concern for him. "There's no need to chain him back up until it's time
for the ritual. He's got a soul, he's not gonna try to get away."
As Xander sat back down, looking clearly disappointed, Spike breathed a
sigh of relief.
"Er -- if I might ask," he said, hoping they didn't notice that his
voice sounded a bit faint and quavery, "how -- how long do you think it
might be? Before the ritual is ready?"
Willow glanced down at the book in her hands thoughtfully, shrugging as
she looked up and guessed, "A few hours?"
Spike nodded, his forced smile widening slightly. "Right," he agreed.
"Sounds great."
*A few hours...a few hours to get the bloody hell out of here before they
turn me into a carbon copy of the soddin' pouf!*