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CHAPTER TWO
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Hours later, when he staggered into his apartment reeking of bad booze and way too many cigarettes, Angel was there waiting.
At first, there seemed to be two of him, but then Spike squinted and the wavering figures solidified into one. The older vampire was seated at the kitchen table, his face a steely mask of determination.
“Sodding hell,” Spike complained, making a valiant effort not to slur his words but with only minimal success. “Should’a known ol’ Charlie couldn’t keep his trap shut.”
Angel looked back at him, gaze unwavering. “Harmony told me.”
“Yeah?” Spike frowned, thinking about it, then shrugged. “Well…tha’s all right then,” he allowed. “To be expected, I s’pose.”
Abandoning the doorway, he beat a more-or-less straight path to the cupboard where a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels resided. Before he could retrieve it, Angel’s voice stopped him.
“You gonna make me ask?”
Head canted to one side, Spike turned, fingers curling possessively around the crumpled letter he’d stuffed into his coat pocket. His answer was deliberately slow in coming.
“Think I might, yeah. ’S not that much I find entertainin’ these days. Vamp’s gotta take his pleasure where he can.”
And there it was. A crack in the facade – a tiny tick in the old grandsire’s clenched jaw. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but he did. Spike felt a triumphant smirk coming on, and he didn’t bother to hide it.
“Did she send for you?”
The question sounded like ground glass on gravel, and it cut just as hard.
Spike froze for an instant, then a crazed giggle bubbled up, releasing him. “Send for me?” he choked out, still chortling.
It wasn’t really funny, of course – far from it. But it was either that or cry, which he buggering well wouldn’t do in front of Angelus-lite, no matter how many sheets to the wind he was. Nevertheless, the full impact of the question abruptly slammed into him, and he realized with dismay that he was sobering up fast.
He laughed again, this time more softly. “Send for me,” he repeated, shaking his head. “You daft bugger. You really think I’d be here now if she had?”
The faint hum of the refrigerator was his only answer. When Angel finally spoke again, his voice had lost its edge, though what replaced it didn’t set very well with Spike. Understanding he could tolerate, just barely, considering everything they’d been through. But pity…
“You want to talk about it?”
“You want to get stuffed?” He glared dangerously, but the effect was ruined as the free hand he’d placed on the counter slipped, sending him tilting sideways before he found his balance again.
Right, then. Not completely sober yet, and slurring that last bit hadn’t been part of the plan. Still, bonus points for pithiness.
The great lummox sat there with a knowing look in his eyes that threatened to set Spike off if he didn’t ignore it and fast. Deciding to take a pass on the Jack Daniels, he navigated his way over to the sofa instead. He could feel Angel’s gaze follow him, but when he met his eyes again he found a weary resignation there that mirrored his own. It broke through his defenses more effectively than a thousand battering rams, draining him of all his piss and vinegar.
“Bloody hell.” He sighed heavily, dropping onto the sofa with knees splayed wide and elbows out, a hand resting on each thigh. Maybe drowning his sorrows hadn’t been such a brilliant move after all. His head was too muddled to think clearly.
“Just tell me…is she okay?”
Like now, for instance. He actually felt sorry for the wanker. Not as sorry as he felt for himself, but there was a faint ripple of empathy, much like Angel had shown him. They were a sad, pitiful piece of work, the pair of them.
Yeah. Moving on. Right.
“She’s fine, far as I know.” It pained him to share even that much, but Angel wouldn’t budge until he got something and Spike wasn’t in any shape to toss him out on his ear. He sighed again. “The letter wasn’t … look, Dawn wrote it, all right? That’s as much as you need to know, so just leave it.”
More silence, then…
“Why a letter? She could have just picked up the phone.”
“Fuck!” Spike wisely resisted the urge to leap up and throw something. The spirit was willing, but there was a better than even chance his advanced motor skills were taking a sabbatical. Instead, he leaned as far forward as he could without falling flat on his face.
“You really can’t stand it, can you? That there’s a part of Buffy’s life…a part of my life…that has nothing to do with you. Want to know everything. Want to be the big man. You’ve got your bloody nerve, you have! The Bit wasn’t important enough for you to bother with before. It’s too late to show an interest now. Should have paid her some mind when you had the chance and then maybe this would actually be your bloody buggering business! Which it’s not.”
Angel glowered back at him. “I didn’t get close because it wouldn’t have been safe for her. She was a kid, Spike!”
“No, she was a key, Peaches. And just because it was all made up, don’t think that lets you off the hook.” Spike aimed an accusing finger at him. “Reckon the monks knew how it would have been when they fixed things the way they did. Knew you’d have no use for her. Oh, you thought she was real enough, even when she wasn’t, but you didn’t treat her that way, did you? Not once the whole time!”
He looked away, suddenly overwhelmed by past memories that surged up to engulf him in a wave of bittersweet nostalgia. He barely noticed as his voice fell to a soft murmur. “That’s just one more difference between us. She was always real to me. Never knew her when she wasn’t.” When he glanced up again he found Angel staring at him, totally at sea.
“What the hell are you babbling about?”
Spike blinked and cleared his throat as he shrugged, trying to hide the fact he’d just given away a bit more than he should have. If Angel didn’t know the truth about Dawn, it wasn’t his business to enlighten him. “Not babblin’. Just sayin’.”
“Saying what? That you’ve lost what little mind you ever had? Hate to break it to you, Spike, but I already knew that. It’s this ‘key’ business and the whole ‘monks’ thing I don’t get.”
“Well, ain’t that a shame. Looks like you’re out of luck then, ’cause guess what? I’m not feelin’ so chatty anymore.” He sniffed defiantly.
“Damn it, Spike! Just tell me what all this has to do with Buffy!”
For what seemed like a mini eon, the tension in the room flared and the air crackled angrily between them. But it slowly dissipated as Spike slumped back against the sofa cushions, chin on his chest as he glumly contemplated his belt buckle. “Nothing, you git,” he muttered truculently. “Told you, Dawn sent the letter.”
Then his gaze rose, reluctantly meeting Angel’s head on. “Only…she didn’t, you see…since I’m dead and gone forever and she never meant for me to read it. It was that prat, Andrew. He tricked her into writing it then sent it to me. Stickin’ his pointy Watcher-wannabe nose into things that don’t concern him. Should’ve just left it alone. Things were right where they needed to be. No more than I deserve,” he added softly.
Angel rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “And he’s babbling again.”
Spike scowled. “Am not.”
Angel studied him. “Something’s got you all worked up, even more than usual, and it started with that letter. If it’s not Buffy, then…” Trailing off, he shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but…whatever it is, maybe it would help if you talked about it. I mean…I’m already here.” He shrugged awkwardly. “I could…you know…listen.”
Spike stared.
“Look, I won’t use it against you or anything, okay? I’m just offering because…oh, hell, I don’t know why I’m offering. But I am.” Looking at Spike, he waited.
Spike blinked.
Angel’s jaw tightened. “Fine. Forget I asked.” Surging to his feet, he glowered down at Spike. “You want to wallow in it? Don’t let me get in your way.” Three steps and he was at the door, yanking it open with a strange savageness Spike wouldn’t have expected.
“She hates me.”
Halting, Angel turned his head. “Buffy?”
Spike glared silently, and Angel corrected himself. “Dawn.”
He didn’t bother to nod. “But she loves me, too. Still. Doesn’t want to…doesn’t think she should. And she’d be right about that. But she couldn’t have written what she did if the feelings were all gone.”
Angel’s face darkened ominously. “What exactly does that mean? She ‘loves’ you? Are you telling me—?”
“What?” Spike frowned then realized what Angel had assumed. “No! You daft git, it was nothin’ like that!” He spat out the words, furious and appalled at the implication. Back in the day such a prospect wouldn’t have bothered him at all, but he’d been a different creature then. Even before the soul he’d changed enough that, in all their time together and for all Dawn’s misguided hero worship, it had never once crossed his mind to take advantage.
Angel closed the door, moving back to his seat at the table. He eyed Spike warily. “So you two were close?”
“Once upon a time…yeah.” His eyes closed – god, he was suddenly so very tired – and opened again to find Angel’s unwavering gaze still focused on his face. “Until I went an’ bollixed it all up.”
“Now there’s a shocker.” Angel snorted softly, but there was a surprising lack of malice behind the words. “What happened?”
At first, Spike didn’t reply. Even though he’d asked, one look at him told Spike that Angel didn’t expect an answer. Instead, he waited for the patented sneer, the trademark posturing, the caustic “bugger off and mind your own bloody business” response he’d heard so many times before. Angel was dead certain Spike would never trust him with a truth that painful.
So he did.
Not the whole story. One memory was too raw, too shameful, despite the time that had passed and everything that had happened in between.
Besides, Angel would almost certainly tear his head off – an idea that Spike, still slightly drunk and marginally maudlin, found just a little too appealing at the moment. The way he felt, he wasn’t sure he’d even put up a fight, and that was something he wouldn’t risk. If he’d wanted the easy way out, he would have taken it two years ago.
“So this thing you did that made Dawn hate you…that you won’t tell me about…is that why you changed your mind a while back about going to find Buffy?” Angel asked.
“No, had nothing to do with that. Buffy and I…it was something we’d got past. But the Bit and me…we never worked it out.” His voice deepened with regret. “Just one more thing I could have done better.”
Then, remembering where he was and who was listening, Spike stiffened. “Could’ve done worse, too,” he added. “Like leavin’ for good when things got too messy. Didn’t do that, did I?” He looked pointedly at Angel.
Spike could have cut diamonds on Angel’s expression. “I didn’t –” Face grim, he broke off. “Look…I’m not getting into this with you. This isn’t a competition to see which one of us screwed up the most.”
And all of a sudden Spike was on his feet. “The bloody buggering hell it isn’t!”
His strident yell shocked even himself. It was a desperate, outraged cry that revealed just how close to the edge he really was. He hadn’t even realized it until that moment. But just as quickly, the hot wave of anguish and rage receded, leaving him shaken and completely drained.
Collapsing against the cushions, he let his head fall back to stare blindly up at the ceiling. Chaotic thoughts chased each other through his mind, none of them good, and a sea of conflicting emotions surged in his chest, regret foremost among them. But when he finally spoke again, the only emotion coloring his voice was resignation.
“Was me she had, and you she wanted. Was always you. Never could admit it, but it’s true. I see that now. Accept it, too.” A harsh laugh escaped. “Still makes me want to heave, thinkin’ of her forever mooning over a big, stupid git like you.”
He frowned then as an even more disturbing thought surfaced. “Only…she’s not anymore, is she? Now she’s gone and got herself a new honey. Forgotten both of us. Like we’d never been.” Straightening, he raised his chin defiantly. “But at least I tried. Made plenty of mistakes, but I bloody well didn’t give up.
“Until now,” he amended, his tone turning morose. “Course, it’s not really giving up, is it now? It’s more like what Andrew was sayin’…moving on.”
A rude snort interrupted Spike’s musing, eliciting a frown. Bloody typical. Here he was having a major epiphany and Angel couldn’t even show the proper respect.
“C’mon, Spike, you expect me to buy that? You never walk away from anything you want. You just keep hammering away until you get it, or you keep ramming your head into the same brick wall. Either way, you don’t give up.”
“My point exactly, yeah? I’m not like you. Don’t get all boo-hoo and broody every time things aren’t going my way.”
“Right.” Angel’s voice was dry. “That’s why when Dru dumped you, you took it like a man. You could have gone crawling back to Sunnydale all drunk and weepy with some pathetic plan to magic her into taking you back, but…Oh, wait. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what you did.”
Turning his head, Spike sent him a death glare. Or what would have been a death glare if he could only focus properly. “What I’m getting at…is that things have changed. I’ve changed, as you’ve damn well noticed, and I don’t mean just this Champion gig. I still want Buffy. Still love her…more now than ever. And I know she cared, in her own way, there towards the end. But I’ve finally figured out that loving and wanting isn’t enough. Sometimes…no matter how much it hurts…you have to let go.”
His hand lifted, heading off the pending protest. “And before you start blathering on about figuring that out a long time ago and that’s why you took off when you did, it’s not the same thing. You left, but you never let go, and you sure as hell didn’t like it when she tried to let go of you. Your leavin’ was all about Buffy, not because you had some big, important destiny waiting for you somewhere else. That didn’t come till later, did it? And even then…”
Trailing off, he let a weary sigh escape. “Face it, Angel. We screwed up, the both of us. You by leaving the way you did, and me by stayin’ too long. ’Cause the truth is, it wasn’t until I wound up here that I really understood what it could be like. Bein’ my own man. Doing something for the right reasons, and only for the right reasons. Never had that before. Never knew how much it could mean. Much as I love her, much as I miss her…and I do…god, how I do…part of me knows I’d miss all this even more. And I know it couldn’t have happened if I’d gone to her all those months ago – been with her, the way I wanted to be.”
He shrugged, a careless gesture totally at odds with the impact of this revelation. “So I reckon if that’s how it had to be, then I’m okay with it.”
A strained silence followed that pronouncement and, for once, Spike hadn’t a buggering clue what was going on inside Angel’s head. Something told him it might be better that way.
When Angel finally responded, his tone was mildly curious. “If you’re really so okay, why are you sitting there looking like a kicked puppy?”
Spike looked away. “Because it hurts like a bloody sonofabitch.”
Neither said anything for a time, but when Spike met his gaze again Angel slowly nodded. “Yeah. It does.” He rose from his chair. “You do realize you contradicted yourself at least six different times during that whole speech, right? Still…there might have been a valid point or two.” The scowl reappeared. “But only one or two.”
Spike watched him move to the door then stop, hand resting on the doorknob as he looked back. “For what it’s worth, it gets easier. You may not stop wanting, but you learn to live with it. And you find other things…people who matter…to fill the empty space.”
Their gazes met and held in a brief synergy of understanding. Then, before he could blink, Angel was gone.
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The knock on the door caught him off guard. Partly because he was still basking in the glow of his unexpected success at the poetry slam and hadn’t been as aware of his surroundings as he should have been. But mostly because, in Spike’s experience, people who called on him usually didn’t feel the need to knock.
Wesley and Gunn had once, but what with the end of the world looming and all – at least as far as their merry band was concerned, once they succeeded in taking out the Circle of the Black Thorn – Spike hardly expected them to stand on ceremony.
It was too soon for Percy and Her Royal Blueness to have returned from the mysterious last-minute errand they’d decided to run, and from the sound of the rapid heartbeat on the other side of the door, he knew it couldn’t be Angel. Must be Gunn, then, or possibly Lorne, which meant he wasn’t the only one who’d finished his special day a little ahead of schedule.
He just hoped that, whatever Charlie boy and Kermit had chosen to do, it had worked out okay for them. They’d proven themselves friends of a sort these last few weeks, and Spike figured they’d earned some degree of happiness in what could easily be their final hours.
His final hours.
The knock sounded again, louder and less tentative than before.
“Yeah, hang on!” he called, crossing the room. “A tad eager, aren’t you, mate? Got at least a couple of hours before we put our heads on the chopping block. Don’t tell me you’ve got a bloody death wish…”
The words died on his lips as he yanked open the door and found Buffy staring back at him, eyes luminous above the barest hint of a wry smile. “Can’t say I do, actually. Been there, done that, not especially keen to repeat it just yet.”
Then the smile faltered, her heart beating more loudly in his ears as her voice dropped to a breathy whisper. “Hey. Long time, no see.”
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TBC in Part 3
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This story is a Spuffy companion piece (or sequel of sorts) to a very brief vignette I wrote called “Dear Departed.” It isn't necessary to read that one first, but you may understand some things a little better if you do. I posted this story to TSR a long time ago but it was lost not long after that when the site’s server had some technical difficulties. I’m finally getting around to posting it again. Hope you enjoy!