The Night
by Saber ShadowKitten 

The cherry on the cigarette glowed bright orange as Spike took a slow drag. 
The smoke curled in his dead lungs, warming him briefly before he exhaled. 
The spring night air was crisp, and he could smell the coming rain that made 
the clouds above him thick and dark. Perfect, he thought. The day he chose 
to finally end it all and it looked as though the sun wouldn't be making an 
appearance. 

Spike sighed. Wasn't that just the bloody bollocks? After decades of 
preventing himself from being killed, when he actively sought death, it 
avoided him. Maybe he should go down to Willy's and see if someone would 
rip his head from his shoulders instead. Trying to stake himself hadn't 
worked, and it was apparent greeting the sunrise wasn't going to, either. 

The blond vampire took another drag on his smoke and stared unhappily at the 
town spread below him. Not a single being in residence wanted Spike around, 
which was why he was on the hilltop cemetery awaiting the sunrise. Until 
tonight, he'd been able to fool himself into thinking that someone wanted 
him at least a little bit, but that small hope had been effectively quashed. 
He'd been uninvited from Buffy's life, had been told by Dru that he was 
beyond help, and had been dumped by his shag-partner, Harmony. 

"Bitches, the lot of them," Spike grumbled, shifting on the large rock he 
was sitting on. "I should just give up women altogether." He'd said as 
much while he'd been getting his heart ripped out earlier that night. Who 
needed women anyway? They were all psychotic, emotional, fragile, and 
squishy. And they never shut up. It was always: "Spike, I hate you," 
"Spike, you're pathetic," "Spike, I'd rather shag a wart-hog than you." 

Well, they weren't going to have Spike to push around anymore. As soon as 
the sun came up, he'd be dust. If it didn't come up, he'd find a different 
way to end his miserable existence. At least then he'd finally be rid of 
the chip in his brain. 

Spike heard voices coming from somewhere behind him and groaned. Just what 
he needed, visitors. It was probably the hated Scooby gang, come to prevent 
him from committing suicide out of some sense of moral goody-two-shoedness. 

"We're lost." 

"We're not lost." 

"Yeah, we just got turned around." 

"Who has the map?" 

Silence. 

"Who lost the map?" 

"He did." "He did." "Don't look at me." 

"Check your pockets. If it's not found, I'll be seriously ticked off and 
will have to punish the one who lost it." 

Silence. 

"I lost it." 

"No, I lost it." 

"I used it as toilet paper." 

"Eew, that's gross." 

"Just... find it." 

Spike dropped his head in his hands. What he wanted less than the Scoobies 
was a bunch of lost humans, especially since he could do nothing to them. 
Worse, he'd probably end up helping them. He felt sick. 

Footsteps crunched the brittle grass as one of the lost rounded the corner 
of the crypt Spike was sitting near. The blond vampire silently cursed, 
raised his head, and turned to glare at the intruder. He gaped instead. 

The male that had been approaching Spike stopped walking abruptly and 
stared. "Woah. Deja vu," he said with disbelief. 

Spike blinked, but the apparition didn't disappear. If Spike hadn't seen a 
video of himself recently, he never would've recognized the fact that the 
man standing five-feet away was... well, himself. Only not a version of 
himself he'd seen even in his wildest dreams. 

The guy had shoulder-length dark blond hair woven into more than a dozen 
cornrow braids, each tied off with either a black or red bead. He was 
wearing a burgundy and gold football jersey with the number 14 on it in 
gold, and a pair of black shorts, exposing what had to be the whitest, 
knobbiest knees on the planet. White socks were scrunched down at the tops 
of scuffed black Doc Martens, and a pair of football cleats hung by their 
shoelaces over his shoulder. 

More people rounded the corner of the crypt, playfully punching at each 
other. They stumbled to a halt next to the look-a-like, a third silently 
walking up behind them. Spike recognized all three: Xander Harris, the 
wolf, Oz, and an old-looking, grey-haired version of Angel. 

"Dude, mirror, mirror on the wall," Oz murmured, adjusting the strap of a 
bag on his shoulder. 

"Billy-goat, why am I seeing double?" Xander said. He and the wolf were 
wearing matching burgundy and gold shirts with numbers and black shorts - 
team jerseys, Spike realized - and both of their hair was dyed burgundy and 
gold. 

"Don't know," the strange-looking Spike-clone replied. 

"I told you we were lost," the grey-haired Angel said in a quiet tone. 

"You did not," Xander countered. 

"Did, too," Angel said. 

"Did not," Xander returned. "You said: 'no, no, no, we're not lost, it's 
the portal by the bacla tree.'" 

"I said *left* at the portal by the bacla tree," Angel said. 

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Xander sang. 

"I am not." 

"Are, too." 

"Not." 

"Too, too, too." 

"I'm not listening," Angel sang, putting his fingers to his ears and walking 
away from Xander. 

"He did say left," Oz broached. 

Xander shot him a dirty look. "Who's the one who lost the map?" 

"That'd be you," Oz replied dryly. 

"Ooh, goody," Xander rubbed his hands together, "that means Billy's gonna 
punish *me.*" 

"Children," the braided-blond - '*Billy*?', Spike wondered incredulously - 
sighed. The beads clacked as Billy shook his head, then gave Spike an 
exasperated look that read: 'what can you do?' 

"Who the bloody hell are you people?" Spike finally blurted, jumping to his 
feet. 

"Xander," Xander introduced, pointing to himself. He pointed to the wolf, 
"Oz," to the other Spike, "Billy," to Angel, "Angel." He pointed to Spike. 
"Who are you?" 

"Spike," Spike replied. 

"Well, bugger, it really is me," Billy said in amazement, a light English 
accent highlighting his words. He took a step closer to Spike and looked 
the vampire up and down. "Look at me. I look like a thug." 

"Didn't you go through a thug-period, once upon a time?" Xander asked. "I 
seem to remember thuggage." 

Billy's brows furrowed in thought, staring at Spike like he was a bug under 
a microscope. Spike could almost see the lightbulb that appeared above the 
other him's head. "Oh, right. I remember, now. That was during your 
'Three's Company' phase, Xan." 

Xander whimpered and hung his head in shame. "Hawaiian shirts. What was I 
thinking?" 

"Hawaiian shirts?" Oz said. "You haven't worn anything like that in... 
what, three hundred years?" 

"Four," Xander corrected. "At least four. I don't even want to admit to 
four; but four." 

"It was pre-bite," Oz added. "I seem to recall you shredding all your 
clothes post-bite, including the shirts." 

Pre-bite? Post-bite? Four hundred years? Billy? *Braids*?? Spike looked 
at the three before him, looked down at his cigarette, and flicked it away. 
He didn't want to know what he was really smoking. 

"I think we're scaring him... er, me," Billy said. He glanced at his 
companions. "Not that you two don't scare people normally." 

"Hey! The only one scary here is Angel when he takes out his teeth," Xander 
stated, folding his arms across his chest. He leaned forward and called to 
the grey-haired man pruning a nearby wreath. "Right, Angel?" No answer 
from the gardener. "Angel?" No reply. Xander rolled his eyes. "He turned 
off his hearing aid again." 

"I got him," Billy said. "You two start backtracking. We'll catch up." 

Oz nodded, then turned to Spike. "Nice to see you," he said. 

"Yeah, bye, Billy-look-a-like," Xander said. He and Oz started back the way 
they came, and Spike heard Xander say, "I think I remember exactly why I 
fell for Billy. You?" 

"Definitely," Oz replied as they disappeared around the corner of the crypt. 

Billy tilted his head and studied Spike as the silence stretched between 
them. "I think I remember this night," the braided-blond eventually said. 
"You're waiting for the sun, aren't you?" 

"Uh... yeah," Spike answered slowly. 

Billy suddenly smiled, his eyes crinkling in the corners, and he laughed. 
"Oh man, this is '*The Night.*' Sod all, I can't believe it." 

"What do you mean?" Spike said. 

"Mate, you're unlife's about to change forever... and for the better," Billy 
said, grinning widely. He gestured to Angel. "See that old fart over 
there? In a few days time, if I remember correctly, Angel's going to shag 
you into a second death. Then you'll follow him around like a puppy for the 
next few centuries, gaining a litter of your own along the way." 

Spike stared at Billy. "No bloody way. I *hate* Angel." 

"Not for long," Billy said with a twinkle in his intimately familiar blue 
eyes. "Plus, you'll have Xan and Oz to play with in about five years, give 
or take." 

"Bullshit." 

Billy snickered. "Just you wait." 

"You're wrong," Spike said. 

"Why would I lie to myself?" 

"You can't be me," Spike protested. "You look like an effin' nancy. And 
that can't be Angel, either. He's all wrinkly." 

"I normally don't dress like this," Billy said. "There's a pick-up footy 
game on Terran Atlantis that we're going to play in. The Prionail have been 
bombing the portal pathway stations again, which is probably why we ended up 
here." 

"What about the hair?" Spike touched his own platinum locks 
self-consciously. 

"Angel," Billy said as if that explained everything. He glanced over at the 
man in question, fondness spreading over his features. "That man could 
paint me with glue and cover me in feathers, and I would happily 
cock-a-doodle-doo for him." 

Spike turned and looked at Angel, who was quietly pulling dead leaves and 
flowers from cemetery wreathes. The tall man was stoop-shouldered, and his 
dark grey chinos and sweater hung loosely on his thin form. His white-grey 
hair was neatly combed and framed the wrinkled, papery skin of his face. 

"He turned seventy-eight last month," Billy said softly. "We started 
celebrating his birthday the day he became human again, beginning with his 
twenty-seventh, which is how old he was when he met Darla. It's his reward, 
you know; being human again after all those years as a vampire with a soul, 
fighting and atoning and acting like a guilt-plagued poofter." 

Spike glanced at Billy and saw the other man brush his hand across his eyes. 
"He won't make eighty," Billy continued, a sad smile gracing lips. "I can 
hear the sickness in his lungs when I lay with him at night. After nearly 
five hundred years together, he's going to be leaving me." 

"What'll you do then?" Spike asked quietly, surprised by the emotion 
thickening his voice. 

Billy shrugged. "Grieve and carry on. I'll still have Xan and Oz to care 
for and love. Werewolves are a right pain three nights a month. The only 
benefits I've seen about being one is enhanced hearing and smell, and 
relative immortality. Silver's the only thing that'll kill them, and they 
both stopped aging when they reached thirty." 

Billy wiped his eyes again, then crossed to Angel. He laid a hand on the 
older man's shoulder, and Angel turned and gave him a smile that went right 
to Spike's heart. Spike watched as Angel tucked a pink blossom from one of 
the wreathes behind Billy's ear and heard Angel's low, happy laugh when 
Billy rolled his eyes. Billy did not remove the blossom, though. 

The braided-blond flicked Angel's earlobe and yelled, "Turn your hearing aid 
back on, dolt!" 

Angel touched his ears, all the while scowling teasingly at Billy. "You 
don't have to yell. I'm not deaf, you know." 

"Right, and my middle name isn't Eugene," Billy said. 

Spike's jaw dropped again. Holy crap! It really was him! 

Billy took Angel's arm and the two began walking away. Billy winked at 
Spike as he passed by the peroxide-blond vampire. "Sun's not going to be 
coming out today, mate, which makes it a great day for a drive. I hear Los 
Angeles is nice." 

They were almost around the corner of the crypt when Spike realized 
something. "Hey, erm, Billy," he called. "What about the chip? Do you 
still have it?" 

Billy paused, looked up at the grey-haired Angel, smiled tenderly at the 
older man, then looked back at Spike. "Does it matter?" he asked softly, 
then disappeared around the corner with Angel at his side. 

Spike stared at the spot his other self had occupied for a long time, then 
turned and looked out over Sunnydale. The street lights shined invitingly 
in the town, but he knew he was not wanted. He took a slow breath, sighed, 
and started down the hill. "Might as well take my own advice and go visit 
the Batponce. Since I have this effin' chip, the worst he'll do is turn me 
away, but not without blood and some dosh, the guilt-plagued poofter..." 


End