BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

“What?”

Spike then opens his eyes to see Buffy by his side, wearing confusion and a blue Tinkerbell tank top with matching pajama bottoms.

“Oh, Buffy—sorry love.”

He sits up at this point and looks at her expectantly.

“I was wondering if you’d do me a favor.”

Spike peers more intently at her in response.

“I haven’t slept in days, not since Molly’s suicide and my vision of the übervamps—not even when we returned from horseback riding the other night. I lie in bed listening to make sure Dawn and the Potentials are all right. And I know I have slayer power and everything, but I have to get some sleep. I’m getting a little wigged. Will you come upstairs with me and listen out for the girls while I sleep?”

“Sure, supergirl,” Spike replies with forced nonchalance, “if that’s what you need then.”

Upstairs both climb into Buffy’s bed. Spike looks rather out of place beneath her frilly comforter and sheet set but seems content enough once he’s propped upon an elbow with Buffy curled spoon-style into him.

“Posh bed,” he comments.

Buffy falls almost immediately into slumber.

When dawn comes it is apparent. Even though Buffy’s blinds are closed, enough light filters through to signal the onset of day. Willow knocks and opens Buffy’s door simultaneously, only to be met with an odd sight. She sees Spike still propped upon the same elbow, watching over the sleeping slayer with more love in his eyes than she would have thought possible for him. He looks up, winks, and puts a finger to his lips to signal “hush.” Willow winks back and smiles widely while backing out of the entry way and closing the door.

Once Spike hears the Potentials beginning to stir, he decides that he had better go back to his cot. Trying hard not to disturb Buffy, he begins getting out of bed.

“Where are you going?” She asks, barely conscious.

“The teeny-boppers are beginning to wind up. Thought I’d ship off. I don’t want them to think—”

“Think what?” She mumbles. “The truth—that I love you?”

Having said this, she rolls over and slips back into unconsciousness.

Spike repositions himself around her. First he looks stunned, as if having been narrowly missed by a stake. Then he smiles. Then he stops smiling and begins to think.

Later, Buffy rouses. Spike is still at his post, alert, an incongruent combination of bodyguard and guardian angel. When she finally opens her eyes, he asks coolly, “Did you mean it?”

Buffy hesitates a moment and it’s uncertain if she is trying to get her bearings or figure out how to retract the honesty she had extended.

“I meant it,” she finally and decidedly answers.

“Then say it to me.”

She places one hand on Spike’s cheek and looks into his pale blue eyes. He leans in, intent upon her face.

“Spike, I love you.”

His tone changes instantly. It becomes more jocular as he teases, “I am older, you know.”

“I’ve dated older than you.”

It was true; her first love had been born in 1727, over a century before Spike.

He turns into his vampire self.

“I’ve been told this is a face that even a mother couldn’t love.”

Buffy kisses the ridge that has formed down the middle of his forehead and retorts, “You’ve been told wrong, ‘assface,’ but don’t let it freeze that way, okay?”

Spike returns to his human self and laughs aloud. However, when he stops, he becomes serious.

“You’re the only woman I have ever loved.”

They kiss committedly.

“Are you ready?”

Buffy nods her head “yes” and the two embark upon a tender yet passionate lovemaking session quite unlike the primal sex of their long ago last encounter.

The couple enters the kitchen arm-in-arm while the Scoobies and Potentials are having breakfast. They are both aglow, with Spike’s eyes clear and joyful. Willow grins when she sees this, but Giles brows’ furrow, and he ducks his head quickly to concentrate on the morning paper. Spike notices Rupert’s reaction and his eyes dim a bit and then flicker in anger; Buffy sees it too.

“I’m gonna head down to my cot now.”

He gives Buffy a peck on the forehead and walks stiffly toward the stairs.

“Problem, Giles?” Asks Buffy as she grabs a banana out of a basket in the middle of the table and leaves for her bedroom.

Once she has gone, Willow, who is sitting to Giles’ left, states, “Giles, you’re going to lose the closest thing you have to a daughter if you don’t smell the tea.”

Her eyes are big and concerned. Giles lifts his face from the paper to look at her.

“Spike and Buffy are really in love, and he’s changed a lot, and he’s been loyal to us for a long time now. He’s even been beat up very bad more than once and never betrayed us. And he’d do anything for Buffy—anything—and vice versa. It’s about time you see that.”

Willow looks around the table at Xander, Anya, Andrew, Dawn, and Kennedy. “It’s about time that we all see that.”

The remaining Potentials are scattered about, involved in their own chitchat.

Her comment is met with silence, each Scooby becoming immersed in his or her own thoughts. The gang breaks up just as Buffy returns to leave for school through the back door.

Willow is sitting on her bed lacing up suede, high-heeled boots when Kennedy enters and sits beside her.

“Why doesn’t Giles want Spike with Buffy? He seems really cool—for a vamp.”

How can I explain years of history to her that even Buffy and Spike probably don’t understand?

“It’s complicated. On one hand, Giles has been like Buffy’s surrogate father, and he wants the best for her, and Spike, being dead and allergic to the sun and all, doesn’t really have much to offer a girl like Buffy—at least on the surface. And Giles wants more for her.” Willow hesitates, and then continues, “Besides that, Spike got his name because he used to torment his victims with railroad spikes before draining their blood. And then last year, right before he went on the quest for his soul, he tried to rape Buffy because she rejected him. It wasn’t a good time. Now the chip’s gone, and theoretically he could return to his big, bad, ugly, evil self any time if he wanted to—or if someone controlled him.”

Willow pauses again, this time for breath, and then finishes: “On the other hand, it’s his love for Buffy that has made Spike become a better being. This morning I opened the door, not knowing Spike was in there, of course, and the way he looked at her—it was beautiful—like a seraphim watching over a soul he’s supposed to protect. And, and—Spike understands Buffy and isn’t threatened by her superslayer abilities like humans are—like Riley was.”

“I watch over you when you sleep too.”

“You do? That’s nice.”

“Yeah. And after we stop this apocalypse—”

“Yes?”

Willow stops lacing to listen.

“I’d like to be able to watch over you any time I want.”

“Do you mean—”

“I mean I want to stay in Sunnydale and for us to get a place of our own.”

“But I plan to continue to practice my witchcraft—for good, naturally. Kind of like Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, with less frou-frou.”

Kennedy lowers her head and stares at her hands and then looks back at Willow.

“I thought about it, and I was being selfish before.”

“You were scared; I sucked energy from you.”

“Yeah, but it was more than that. I guess I felt like Riley must have with Buffy—threatened because I can’t go where you go. And I’m only a Potential—not that I don’t hope to stay that way.”

“I understand. But Kennedy, you need to have faith that I will always return to be with you. Being a witch is part of who I am, but being with you is where I belong.”

Kennedy pushes Willow gently down on to her back, lies on top of her, and begins kissing her in a way that reassures.

Meanwhile, downstairs Anya is making herself useful by dusting the living room while Xander finishes staining window trim.

“You probably don’t want Spike and Buffy together,” says Xander. “You probably still have a thing for him.”

“A thing? Oh, you mean because of our night on the table at the Magic Box? No, actually I like them together.”

“You do? You actually want that monster with Buffy?”

“Monster? Don’t talk about Spike like that!”

Anya stops dusting and emphasizes each word with the duster, sending particles back to dust bunnies everywhere.

“See, you do have feelings for him!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just not making any sense, Xander LaVelle Harris. Don’t call him a monster!”

“Why? He almost raped my best friend!”

“That was before he got his soul back, and you know it!”

Anya collapses on the couch in sudden tears, and Xander realizes that he’s gotten to her—even moreso than he’d intended.

“If you think Spike is a monster then you think I’m a monster too because if you don’t believe that a vampire can become a good man, then you can’t possibly believe a much older vengeance demon can become a good woman! No wonder you didn’t marry me. Spike and I will always be demons to you!”

“No, Anya, no. I’ve told you over and over that calling off the wedding was about my history and fears, not yours. I do believe in change. I don’t know why I even lashed out at Spike like that—I really am okay with him now. He has been very loyal to Buff. It’s just—I never got over seeing that videotape of you two together. It made me feel such rage, seeing someone other than me touching you, and I just needed to know that you don’t feel anything for him.”

Anya looks at Xander and says, “But you didn’t want to touch me anymore.”

“That’s not true. I’ve never stopped wanting to touch you. I just didn’t want to risk that there would come a day when neither of us would want each other any more, like my parents.”

“But we’re nothing like them.”

“I want to touch you now.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“But I thought that the other night we agreed—”

“Forget what we agreed.”

As he says this, he gathers Anya into his arms and takes her quickly upstairs to a bedroom since Spike is still asleep on his cot.

In the backyard Giles and Dawn are watching the Potentials train. Buffy has begun keeping Dawn and Amanda out of school again because of increased activity at her alma mater, “Hellmouth High.”

“Giles, have you ever been in love?” Dawn asks.

“Yes, quite, several times. Excuse me, Dawn. Amanda, that’s a jab and then a roundabout!.”

He takes off his spectacles and wipes his brow with a linen handkerchief. “Now, Dawn, you were saying?”

“Were you ever in love when you were young?”

Giles smiles at the insinuation that his youth has passed and he can wave at it from some distance away.

“Yes, I suppose I was.”

“Were you in love when you were still called ‘The Ripper’?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Were you?”

“Yes, very much.”

He wonders why he suddenly feels as though being interrogated.

“Well, how would you feel if that girl’s father hadn’t approved of you, “Ripper”? Figure that out and you’ll know how Spike feels!”

Dawn turns on her heel and marches away.

Had Spike known of her words, he’d have been so proud of his Little Bit. Had he known that three friends had come to his defense, he might even have felt overwhelmed.

Dawn really does have the same blood as Buffy, thinks Giles.

“Okay, girls, now today we’re going to begin to formulate a plan to attack the Hellmouth entrance if it opens. Gather around.”

How would I have felt had Lainey’s father been discourteous to me? Is that how I treat Spike?

Andrew, who is sitting in the kitchen, is restless. No one cares about his big board. He has completely lost enthusiasm for taping a day in the life of a slayer. Every cake and brownie mix in the house has been baked. The Potentials may even have gained a few ounces because of it.

He begins to think about Jonathon and how Jonathon had always made him feel like he mattered. “You’re a computer genius,” Jonathon would say or, “You make a great supervillian—don’t get down on yourself.” Here, at the “Summers’ Home for Wayward Potentials” though, he feels useless and like a joke. He thinks back to his days as a villian and his contributions then.

How can I put them to use for the Scoobies? How can I avenge Jonathon’s death against The First?

Getting out his big board, he erases it, and begins to write.

Around 6 p.m. Spike awakens, groggy, yet content. Who would ever have thought when I told Riley to “go home to his superhoney” that some day she would be my superhoney? This goofy thought produces an equally silly grin, which Spike basks in momentarily.

His mouth becomes a line, however, once he hears footfalls on the stairs and looks up to discover that it’s Giles.

What can that bugger want?

“I think that we should have a bit of a chat.”

“Concerning what, exactly, Rupert?”

Spike moves from having his hands behind his head, lying flat, his legs crossed, to an upright position. It isn’t often, well, actually, it’s been never that he has the dubious pleasure of Giles’ company. His brows form into a scowl as he repositions.

“It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t been very fair to you where Buffy is concerned. It’s just, well, that I had hoped that outside of slaying Buffy could lead a relatively normal life.”

Spike chortles. “Normal? Is that so? With a human, like Riley, Initiative minion, or perhaps Robin, who slays vamps as a hobby?”

“Yes, well—”

“Buffy needs a man who understands her past and her role in this hellish world, and I’m that man! What did you envision—Buffy behind white pickets with a 9 to 5, tucking hubby and the 2.5 into their respective beds, and then saying, ‘Dear, just some light patrolling of the Hellmouth with Mr. Pointy and I’ll be right to bed’?”

By this time the tow-head vampire is on his feet and pacing back and forth in front of a still Giles.

He continues, “What do you want from me, Giles? Should I invest in a navy suit, get an office job, and show up each morning peering out from underneath a smoking blanket? Would that amuse you? And what do I put on an application for date of birth—1857? Or do you think I might face ageism? And while I’m at it, how do I show proof of I.D. when I can’t even take a blimy picture?”

Spike kicks a hamper of dirty laundry across the floor. “You think I haven’t considered these things when I’ve thought about your precious Buffy and me? You think I wouldn’t do anything to be able to give her the kind of life she deserves? I don’t know how! I don’t bloody know how!”

He drops back into a sitting position on his cot and fixes his gaze upon the floor. All along Giles has stood listening.

“William—may I call you William?”

Spike seems taken aback but nods “yes.”

“I spent the latter part of the afternoon discussing these very issues with Willow.”

“Terrific,” Spike eeks out painfully.

“Actually I have a contact, from back in my ‘Ripper Days,’ who solves these types of dilemmas for a nominal fee. I’ve contacted him and made the necessary arrangements.”

Spike looks at Giles as though he couldn’t have heard correctly.

“What about the picture? Know a bloke who resembles me, do you?”

“Willow solved that. She made a computer-generated likeness. It’s quite amazing, really; it’s your spitting image. Would you like to see it?”

Giles extends the offering, and Spike grabs hold of and peers anxiously at it. His expression is at first like that of a bird or a cat that looks in a mirror and isn’t quite sure of what it’s looking at.

“That’s me, ey? It’s been so long…”

“Driver’s license; social security; birth certificate—from England, of course; passport; and naturalization papers, will be delivered here inside of a week. The rest, of course, is up to you.”

Spike looks at Giles with changed eyes. “I’ll pay you back—I promise. Thank you, Rupert.”

He extends his hand, and Giles squeezes it firmly.

“The only thing I want is for Buffy’s happiness.”

Spike nods that he understands and adds, “I’ve thought in time I could teach night courses at the college—literature.”

Giles smiles and nods—Willow had already told him what Buffy just conveyed to her, that Spike had nearly graduated from Oxford when sired—and then heads back up the stairs.

Spike returns to his bed and sets the photo on the table beside it. He studies it for a minute. I’m really not faring too badly considering the decades and the beatings. He touches his one scarred eyebrow and then he lies on his back to think.

Spike has his leather trench on and is leaving the house when Buffy arrives from work.

“Things at school are becoming intense in an evilish kind of way,” she tells him first thing without even a hello. Noticing the coat, she asks, “Where are you going?”

“Off for a spot of blood and a chat with Clem. I’ll be back to patrol though—and so we can talk.”

His voice wafts in spite of Buffy’s foreboding tone.

“Okay.”

The two kiss quickly and rather awkwardly on the lips, comings and goings being new terrain in their romantic framework.

Soon after Spike arrives at the bar. “A pint of the good stuff, Charlie—no hyena!”

As he looks around the room at the garden variety of demons and vamp’s, he spots his buddy, Clem. Spike picks up his blood and goes over to join him.

Clem sees him before he can speak. “Spike, ol’ friend, how are you? I haven’t seen you here in ages. Those girls must be keeping you busy!” Without letting Spike speak, he continues, “Have you been watching ‘The Bachelorette’? You have to see what I’ve done with the crypt.”

After an hour or more of prattle, Clem invites him back to see his newly redecorated home. Spike figures he has just enough time for a polite glimpse before going back to meet Buffy. Clem is his best friend, so he feels obligated to this kindness. He follows him outside and then into the alley that leads almost straight to the graveyard, a path he has taken a thousand times. For a while after the implant he had made the trip nightly. He is about to tell Clem the great news about himself and Buffy when his arms are pinned to his sides by two Fyarl demons that immerge from the shadows. As a third one clocks him hard in the head, a slow smile creeps into the corners of Clem’s swine-like face.

In the meantime, Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Xander have been sitting in the living room strategizing. Strategy for closing the Hellmouth entrance should it open. Strategy for dealing with an army of übervamps, should they rise. When Buffy looks at the clock, she realizes that she should already be on patrol and that Spike is overdue. She can’t wait any longer though, so she dons her jacket and her favorite stake and leaves alone.

I wonder where he is? Here he was all ‘Mr. Cheerful’ and then he doesn’t even show. What’s that all about?

The night air feels enlivening to her and soon her thoughts fade and she is in full slayer mode. She waits next to a newly covered grave only to have two corpses rise together simultaneously.

“Two for one special?”

The undead explain, “Car accident.”

“How sweet!” She replies just before vanquishing them.

JOHN AND SUSAN ANDERSON

She reads on their headstone.

“It really is,” she insists before walking away.

Her body count has been growing rapidly for the past two weeks. Instead of two to three newby vamp’s per night, she has been up to 10 or 12. This slay-heaviness is another reason she finds it odd that Spike has blown her off.

Maybe he’s scared of us?

She slays an all-time high of 15 vampires and kills four demons to boot before heading home. On her way, she thinks about when her feelings for Spike had begun to change.

When Spike was dating Dru a stake through the heart would’ve been too slow for my tastes. It wasn’t until the chip—and Dawn. She’s the one who kept turning up at his crypt! All of a sudden I’m having a harmless vampire babysit my li’l sister! I liked how he called her “Little Bit” though; there was sweetness in his voice. I bet he’d called Sarah “Little Bit” too…

She had never made that connection before.

It must have been hard for him to never get to see her finish growing up. Her thoughts circled back. It was because of Dawn that I ever even began to respect Spike.

Buffy visualized approaching him as he was trying to lie back on the lid of his sarcophagus that night. His face was bruised and horribly swollen, disfigured, really, unlike she had ever seen before, and he was in agony. Had he been human he’d have been in Intensive Care with a long road to wellness ahead.

I was furious with him! A “Buffy-bot.” What was he thinking? Buffy stopped a minute in the middle of the deserted street.

He was probably thinking that he was awfully lonely and needed to be loved. At the time I was wigged and thought it was just sexual. It may have been—who knows? “Gross!” about summed up my feelings then.

Now the thought of Spike forcing a teenage boy to build him a Buffy robot made the corners of her mouth curl upward ever so slightly. I’d been so sure he’d told our secret to Glory, that Dawnie was “The Key,” and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was so scared for her. I’d have bet my life that he’d talked. And I’d have been wrong. When Xander came back from taking him to his crypt, he said, “I don’t think Spike would’ve gotten tortured so badly if he had squealed. I think he’s telling us the truth.” In fact, it’s the only time I remember Xander ever sticking up for Spike.

When I walked toward him he assumed I was his robot, even though she, it, had gone out of commission earlier that day. I honestly didn’t know why I’d come or what my intentions were; I just knew that I had to. Glory was brutal—it would have been so easy for him to just tell her what she’d wanted to know and be done with it. Instead, there he was alone, his barely recognizable face looking at me, and when I got to him, I couldn’t help it—I kissed him out of gratitude. He knew instantly it was me. Then I walked away.

First light has already come by the time she approaches her block. I’ve always had to be so hard on him. He’s deserved it; there’s been such anger tied in to everything.

She thought about when he had first returned to Sunnydale with his soul. We were in the cemetery chapel when he finally admitted it to me. She could still picture a crushed Spike, a devastated man, tormenting himself out of remorse for close to a century of crimes against humanity.

He hugged a large crucifix. His body smoked and scorched and still he held that cross and cried and cried. I wanted nothing more than to tear him away from it and hold him and tell him it would be all right, everything would be all right. But I couldn’t. Even if he hadn’t had free will, so many people had died. He had almost raped me. He had to deal with what he was going through. Otherwise he’d never have been able to move beyond it. Still, it was hard not to go to him that night. It was so hard.

Buffy is almost to the house. I can’t believe how much I missed him tonight. It’s funny how I started looking forward to patrolling so I could see him. A date in the life of a slayer… Pathetic! And it’s funny how in just a couple of days so much has changed. I wonder what he wanted to talk about?

She enters wearily, locks the door behind her, and makes straight for the basement stairs.

I’ll surprise him. Then: I wonder if he got drunk?

Somehow she didn’t think so though. In fact, she’d been a little on edge all night because he hadn’t joined her. It was so unlike him. But he’d been through a lot in the past couple of days too, so she’d thought it best to leave him be.

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs she sees that his cot is still made—it hasn’t been slept on at all.

She jogs back up the stairs to look through the kitchen window at the sky.

It’s too bright for him. He should be here by now.

A scream that knows no words forms suddenly deep inside of her, and she feels rendered immobile.

I must.

Forcing her body into motion, she dashes madly up to the second floor, yelling, “Spike! Spike!”