A Lifetime Ago

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Title: A Lifetime Ago

Author: Amanda

Disclaimer: Blah, Blah FOX and Joss Whedon, Blah, blah bitty blah all the rights to the show and the characters blah, blah please don’t sue me - blah

~~~

Spike grinned evilly “What can I say baby? I’ve always been bad.”

~~~

So much had happened over the last weeks, Riley leaving, Dawn, the council, Glory, and then last nigh, Spike…

Buffy rolled over and stared at the ceiling blankly remembering what had gone on just a few short hours before. Spike of all people – wow of all people, no not of all people, he wasn’t a person; according to him he was never a person even when he was human. But over the last weeks since the night on her porch when she cried her eyes out to her worst enemy, who in the weeks that followed had turned in to a friend who she felt she could confide in. And then last night…

<<< “Buffy…. I love you”>>>

She remembered just standing there unable to speak. Standing there watching him waiting for her response or even a reaction, any reaction. She didn’t know what to do, that was the last thing she was expecting to hear and the last being on earth she expected to hear it from. She told him to get out with tears in her eyes, it appeared the wounds that Riley made when he left her standing alone on the platform, were still there and as bad as ever. She didn’t know what to make of what she was feeling, she half wanted to run to Spike and melt in to his arms and tell him how wrong and stupid and confused she was last night, and the
other half of her wanted to march up to Spikes crypt and introduce him to Mr. Point. Was she wrong to feel something for Spike? He wasn’t a monster, not like the rest, not like Angelus. He projected the air of the British bad boy, who always was on the wrong side of the tracks, but his actions over the last weeks didn’t fit with that, they didn’t fit with that at all.

Buffy got up and got dressed; she remembered that she had the end of year prom to go to and nothing to wear to it. She had promised Willow she would go, even if it was stag. So she gathered her things, checked on Dawn and left the house still in her bewildered daze to buy a dress so she would look presentable, hellmouth permitting.

She drifted through shop after shop, still with the events of the nigh before fresh in her mind. The dresses all looked the same, one after the other, none jumped out at her and said ‘buy me Buffy’ as they usually did usually. She drifted down the main street, when suddenly she stopped, shaken out of her trance by a sign. “Have a question you need answered? Enter and find out that which eludes you.” Buffy never when in for all that bull and as her feet guided her in to the small shop and
threw to the back room she felt truly ridiculous, but still her feet moved one in front of the other toward the young woman sitting at the table. Buffy sat, eyes scanning the room, finally setting upon the small attractive female smiling back at her.

“I am just now, realising how ridiculous this is and an leaving I am sorry to disturb, whatever it is you do” Buffy said as she shuffled to the edge of the uncomfortable seat.

“But I thought you wanted to know the nature of the best” The girl said smiling at her.

“What?!” Buffy hissed, freezing.

“The nature of the best, isn’t that why you are here?” the girl repeated.

Buffy sat gingerly and resumed looking at the girl sceptically “Maybe”, she stated softly.

“You wish to know his past, yes?”

“Yes”

“Close your eyes” the girl said firmly.

“I don’t know-”

“He wears a mask, don’t you want to know what’s underneath?”

Buffy closed her eyes slowly and relaxed as the girl put her hand gently on Buffy’s forehead, and closed her own. Buffy began to feel light and her mind drifted away from her body. It was the strangest sensation as she felt her thoughts being pulled through time and space, finally coming to rest in a dirty English street. The girl appeared next to her and began to speak again.

“No-one cant see either you or I, this is not the past, it is a replay of it, you cannot influence any actions, you are here to observe and that is all you are able to do.” She said slowly.

“Where- where are we” Buffy asked feeling groggy and disorientated.

“We are where he lived, before he died. You wished to know his nature if the beast always stirred below the surface.”

“Yes, but I don’t see him”

“Follow Me,” she said as she walked through the wall of a nearby house. The house was decedent and old, with period furniture and two servants scurrying around at the boom of a loud male voice. “This is his home,” she said gently. “That is his father.”

A young stringy boy decided the stairs clutching a wad of paper tightly. “William” the voice boomed loudly.

“Yes-s yes sir” the boy stopped dead, his head down and his hair in his face.

“Where on earth do you think you are going boy”

“To the tavern sir just – just”

“Just to socialise with those useless sods you refer to as friends”

“Y-yes” William said gently. His reply was a backhand. William hit the floor and the wad of papers scattered everywhere. Through the tears, William quickly picked up the papers he dropped and ran out the door.

“Worthless pillock”

Buffy was shocked at what was Spike, he wasn’t bad, he wasn’t the monster, his father was. William was a boy, a frightened abused boy.

“There is more”, the girl continued, “Follow me”.

Buffy drifted down the streets looking at the people of the period and the way they lived, soon they arrived at the tavern and saw William sitting alone scribbling furiously on the same paper he had guarded as he scurried out to his home. Buffy noted that he occasionally glanced up at a girl at a near by table. She was amazed at how similar the girl at the table looked to her. Buffy drifted around the tables until she over heard a conversation centred around Spike.

"Have you heard? They call him "William the Bloody" because of his bloody awful poetry." Said the female

"It suits him. I'd rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff!" Replied the male.

“William the Bloody – THAT’S how he got the name” Buffy exclaimed, “I thought it was because he, I don’t know tortured someone when he was alive… I never thought” Just as Buffy said that the girl, who she, found out was called Cecily, walked swiftly out of the tavern with William in toe. Buffy hurried out after them.

“Cecily...”

“Leave me alone.”

“They're vulgarians. Can't you see? They're not like you and I.”

“You and I? ….. I'm going to ask you a very personal question, and I demand an honest answer. Do you understand? Your poetry. It's, they're not written about me... Are they?”

“They're about how I feel.”

“Yes, but are they about me?”

“Every syllable.”

“Oh, God...”

“I know... This is sudden. And - and, please, if they're no good, they're only words.But the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily.”

“Please stop.”

“I know I'm a bad poet. But I'm a good man. All I ask is that you try to see me...”

“I do see you. That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me.”

As Cecily uttered those words and turned to leave, Buffy put her hand over mouth remembering the night outside the Bronze when those same words had come out of her mouth. She looked back to William, he was broken, and the stream of tears he had earlier dried started once more. William began to march off his face still full of tears Buffy and the girl
followed him as he shuffled down the dirty streets of England. He was so distraught he did not notice the group of three people walking toward him, and bumped in to them. “Bloody... watch where you're going!” he said as he shuffled past. Buffy recognised the three… she knew them well. Darla, Angelus and Drusilla. Something was said that Buffy couldn’t hear and Drusilla turned on her heal and followed in William’s footsteps. Buffy slowed to a stop… she knew what was to come. Slowly she again started pursuit. Buffy and the girl, who had stayed her constant shadow, reached Williams location. Drusilla’s fangs were deeply in his neck and she was finishing draining the life away. All Buffy could do was turn away.

“I have seen enough; take me home” Buffy stuttered.

“There is still more…”

“I said… take me home” Buffy repeated strongly.

Buffy’s eyes sprung open and the girl removed her hand from Buffy’s temple. “Did you find the answers to your questions?”

“How much” Buffy said hurriedly standing up digging through her purse.

“If it was what you wanted to know – nothing”

“Yes it was, I-I have to go – thank you,” Buffy said as she hurried out the door. She ran basically the whole way to Spike’s crypt. She burst through the door waking the sleeping vampire up.

“What the hell-”

“Shut up and listen. ‘You have always been bad’ Spike who are you kidding! Why did you lie to me, God if what your feeling is true, why the hell did you lie to me!”

“Wha-”

“Ohhhh ho I am not near done yet, I am not Cecily”

“How did-”

“Zip it! I am not Drusilla, I am not Angelus and I am not Darla… if you are going to say something like what you did to me and mean it… get that straight. I do care and, God I am sorry for what happened… but you can’t use me as an escape damn it. I am Buffy not some noble woman from your past, I am not feminine, and I don’t like poetry and I wont change. And I wont let you use me…”

“But…”

“And now I am going home” She finished as she hurried out in to the harsh light of day. Spike tried to follow but was stopped by its burning rays.

“Bloody hell” he swore as he watched Buffy run away.

Buffy returned home and stormed up to her room being stopped by Dawn on the way.

“Hey, can I go to Kathy’s”

“Do what you want just leave me alone” Buffy said pushing past her and in to her room.

“I am going to take that as a yes” Dawn said as Buffy slammed her door. “Jeepers what bug crawled up your butt”.

~~~

Buffy cried in her room for hours, she cried for the William that was, the Spike that is and she cried for herself. The truth was Spike was the only thing that had kept her sane ever since the night she found out about her mother. The whole Riley thing hurt, but when she saw Spike – it went away. That scared her. She had been falling for Spike for a while now. Longer than she would ever care to admit. But she was the slayer, and he was a vampire. But Angel was a vampire. She was so confused.

“The door was unlocked” Spike said from the frame Buffy’s bedroom door.

“S-spike” Buffy collected herself.

“Um… yeah… how did you know about Cecily”

“Does it matter, I am not her!”

“I am more than well aware of that fact luv. That’s not the reason I feel the way I do” Spike said moving in to her room and sitting on the end of her bed.

“Then why?”

“Bloody hell slayer, if I knew that, I might have a chance of making it stop. It would be a lot less painful”

“Oh”

“Yeah Oh”

“I am sorry for what I said at the Bronze that night, I was wrong-”

“No you weren’t, you are right, I am beneath you, just a pitiful little demon I don’t blame you for what you said”

“But… I was wrong. Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I am having a ping of something or other for you as well.”

“You are?” Spike said surprised.

“Yes”

“Oh please do sound so happy”

“Well Spike, I mean this is not going to be easy I mean if I discover this is more than a ping”

“I am well aware of that Slayer – Buffy”

“Yeah well I just want to get one thing through your thick skull, I am NOT Cecily” Buffy said sharply.

“She is in my past”

“Really? Do you mean that?”

“Yes, what I felt for her was a life time ago.”

END