Title: Malkia Mpendwa
Author/Creator: Apache Firecat
Era/Season/Settings: Icons and puzzles come from all the seasons. The story is set post-cannon with a couple of slight, unimportant AU twists, but also reflects back on all previous seasons.
Rating: Icons and puzzles range from G/K to PG-13/T. Fic is R/M and includes mentions of character deaths, a CANNON character death, and non-con.
Spike/Buffy all the way throughout but there are nods to PAST Angel/Buffy in the story and a healthy helping of Angel/Cordelia. Also background Xander/Dawn.
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(Rated R/M)
(Total Word Count: 10,819)
(Banner provided by (with HUGE THANKS AND LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) TeraGramm)
The Slayer was gone. It couldn’t be true, not again, most certainly not for keeps. She had never failed to come back to them, to come back to him, before. Yet night after night, the different teams corresponded through Willow’s computers, each with an agonizingly long face.
“Guys, I hate to say it,” one of the younger Slayer’s voices came across his speakers, “but maybe it’s time… we gave up…”
“KENNEDY!”
Spike roared. He whirled away from the computer before he could smash the monitor and pounded his fist on the wall behind him.
“We’re not giving up,” Angel managed to keep his cool, at least for now. Spike knew Buffy’s disappearance was tearing at him too, especially now that they’d found a possible cure for his curse, but he was one of the two leaders in her absence. The other one was currently blasting her girlfriend.
Looking through the camera at where Angel would have been sitting (as they were Vampires, there was no actual image of either of them being recorded after all), Willow met Angel’s calmness with a calm, determined expression of her own. “Of course, we’re not. Besides, we’re still getting visions of her in the coven.”
“Then she’s got to be alive.”
“Precisely. It’s just…” The Witch frowned. “None of them are very… clear.”
“They never are, but they should be able to find something in their visions, some small detail that we can use to trace her. It may be something tiny, something insignificant.”
“There’s nothing like that showing, just her face, just her, just her panting and trying so hard to escape somewhere…” Willow shook her head. “Something?”
“There has to be something,” Angel argued as Spike lifted off of the wall behind him and looked in their doorway. There was something, something his “grandsire” was missing… He squinted and peered closer.
“There was always something there in Cordelia’s visions, Doyle’s too. It might something that seems completely insignificant. One letter on a billboard or something. A piece of cloth. Some musical notes. Something.” His voice was turning pleading, but Spike found himself tuning out the Great Poof as he followed something shimmering in their door.
Where were they tonight? His face scrunched as he tried to remember. It had been a harrowing few months as they’d search through city after city, on even the tiniest leads, trying desperately to find Buffy, to find… he had to admit, the woman they both loved. His blue eyes shot wide, suddenly, as he caught a full image of a face in their doorway. “Angel — ” he started to call but hushed when she placed a finger to her nose and lips, indicating he should be quiet. As usual, Angel dismissed him as he began to go through what little new information they had managed to garner which, as usual, wasn’t much, even with seven different teams scanning the globe.
He edged out of the hotel room and into the night. She made a pushing motion with her right hand, and he shut the door behind him. Cocking his blonde head to one side, he asked the woman floating before him in the cool, night air, “Why all the secrecy? Why me, cheerleader, and not him?” He jerked his head back toward where Angel was desperately trying to make another plan over technology he didn’t understand with Willow, Xander, Dawn, and Faith.
“Because he can’t see me,” she said and bit her lip. There were tears in her hazel eyes, and Spike instantly recognized the look on her beautiful, wispy face.
The rumors were true, he realized with a start: The cheerleader had fallen for the Great Poof too. “Not you too,” he murmured.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said and tried to smile through her tears. “What matters is finding Buffy. That’s why the Powers That Be sent me. In the last few months, you guys have lost sight of the true mission. I get it.” She rolled her eyes. “Everything’s always about Buffy,” she commented with a huff.
“It doesn’t have to be — “
“I’m dead, Spike.”
“I know that. That’s not even what I’m saying. But, since you are dead, why are you here?”
“The Powers That Be don’t like the way the powers are shifting in the world. Evil’s gaining an upper hand again, a decidedly upper hand. You guys have all been too busy hunting Buffy to keep fighting the good fight. The younger Slayers are dying by the dozens. Too many of them aren’t being found, and those who are aren’t being trained correctly. They realized that until you find Buffy, you’re going to keep up this hunt, so They sent me to… help. Besides, if you ask me, They owe her. Almost forty and still a Vampire Slayer with no life — “
“Hey!”
She shrugged. “I call them as I see them.”
“You always did,” he muttered, “but it’s not her fault she doesn’t have a life.”
“Exactly what I’m saying!” She shrugged again. “They owe her!”
“Why — ” he started to ask, puzzling, but then changed his question, “can I see you? You said he can’t?”
“SPIKE, GET IN HERE!”
“IN A MINUTE!” Spike snapped back. A grin toyed at his mouth. He’d always been afraid Buffy would choose Angel over him, but at least this was one thing he had over the Great Poof, with whom sharing tight spaces every night had gotten old about two months prior.
“Because I’m dead.”
“Yeah? So are we.” He lit up a cigarette.
“But you were a ghost for a while. It makes you… more susceptible to being able to see us.”
“Huh, what do ya know?” he muttered from around his cigarette. He dropped his lighter back into his duster’s pocket. “Something good came from that sodding mess after all.” He met her eyes over the dotted light of his cigarette. “So what do you have for me, cheerleader? What can you tell me — what will They let you tell me that I can use to get Buffy back?”
“I know where she’s at.”
“Where?”
“A place you know very well.”
He tilted his head and waited for her to continue.
“A place where you were born again.”
“England?” She shook her head mutely, and then it clicked. “Bloody Hell! Why is it always sodding Africa?!” Before she could answer, however, he darted back inside the hotel room. “I KNOW WHERE SHE IS!”
Angel’s brow furrowed. He turned from the computer, which he’d just turned off, to look incredulously at Spike. “How?” He shook his head. “What makes you think you know?”
“A little birdie told me,” he exclaimed, “but I know!”
Angel’s dark eyes flicked back to the darkening computer screen. There were no new leads. They had nothing else on which to go. “Fine,” he ground out. “We’ll leave for Africa tomorrow. But if they get something better — “
“No,” Spike interrupted him, speaking firm and already beginning to gather his few things, “we leave bloody now!”
Angel cocked his head to the side, studying the other Vampire he’d known for centuries. “You’re certain you’re right.” He shook his head again, more slowly this time. “But how?”
“I told you, mate, a little birdie told me — “
Angel stood. “You expect me to believe that you just suddenly know where Buffy is, after we’ve been hunting her for months?!” At long last, he spat out the truth that had remained unspoken between them, “You’re as devoted to her as I am! You wouldn’t just now be having us go to Africa if you’d already known, so how the Hell did you find out?! You were five minutes out of my sight!” He sprang across the room, picked Spike up by his duster’s collar, and slammed him into the wall. “Who have you been talking to?! Who told you?!”
“You’re welcome,” Cordelia chimed in behind Angel.
“What?”
Angel shook him like a dog with an old slipper. “HOW DID YOU FIND OUT?!”
Spike leaned calmly back against the wall and met Angel’s glaring eyes straight on. “What does it matter? Do you want to beat me, Angel, or do you want to find her and rescue her while there’s still a bloody chance to save her?!”
Angel dropped him. Spike straightened his jacket. “That’s more like it,” he said, drawing a thumbnail across his lips, wet with Angel’s spittle. He moved silently around the room, picking up his things, packing his bag, and finally zipping it. Angel glowered at him with every step he took. “You’re wasting precious time, Poof.”
“Tell him or you’re going to have another fight on your hands!”
“I can take him,” Spike growled to the ghost.
“Who are you talking to?” Angel demanded, his voice bordering on a vicious snarl.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He grinned at him.
Angel snapped the laptop’s lid closed.
“Careful there, mate. You might break it.” He headed for the door, but in the doorway, he paused and looked back at Angel. Grinning toothily, he told him, “And by the way, a little cheerleading birdie seems quite insistent that I tell you she says you’re welcome.” He turned and walked out the door, not seeing Angel’s mouth drop wide open.
“Cordy?” he asked, but then he shook himself. His whispered cry of her name hung in the emptied room as he and Spike hurried to the airport.
“I appreciate it, Faith,” Angel spoke quickly and quietly into his cell phone.
“Don’t worry about it, A. You know I’ve got your back.”
“A? What is it with you and first initials?”
He could practically hear Faith rolling her dark eyes over the phone as she retorted, “Whatever. You know I’ve got you, Angel, after everything…”
“I know,” he cut in. “We’re unboarding now.”
“Be careful.”
“Always.” He couldn’t help a small smile gracing his lips as he slipped the phone into his pocket. He didn’t like the things, but they were convenient. “Backup will be here tomorrow,” he whispered to Spike.
“I’m not waiting,” the blonde retorted.
“Didn’t ask you to, but if she is here…”
“Yeah, I get it, but I’m not waiting.” He stalked off of the plane, the tails of his duster flapping around his jeaned legs. The minute he was off the airplane, he lit a cigarette and staunchly ignored the looked of the airplane workers. Glancing around, he spied two bikes and headed straight toward them. “Pretty nice deal you got with that Wolfram and Hart mess — “
“You know it’s not left over from LA,” Angel responded, a hint of a growl to his voice. He had lost so much trying to look out for the better good. Doyle, Cordy, Wesley, Fred, and Lorne had all died. He didn’t even know where Gunn was these days.
“Angel, behind you — ” Spike started, swinging one long leg over the bike as he smoothly climbed off of the vehicle.
Angel’s fist smacked straight back into the face of the guy who had been following them, but he wasn’t alone. Spike moved, as quick as lightning, to his side, grabbed the stick with which another man had been about to hit him, swept it out of his grip, and then rammed it first into his midsection and then into his groin. As the man doubled over, Angel took over, roundhouse kicking both of their heads, but the first guy swept his stick underneath his feet, knocking him off balance. As he jumped back, trying to recover his balance, Spike sprang forward. Angel was about to leap back into the fray when a stick rammed into his back. He growled, shifted into his game face, grabbed his attacker, and flipped him over him.
As the one who had actually managed to land a solid punch hit the hard concrete that was still hot despite the fact that the sun had set some time ago, Angel glanced to Spike, who now wore a look of confusion as he stood between two dead bodies. He’d plunged stakes into both of the other guys’ chests, but they had not exploded. They had not turned to dust. “They’re human,” he called.
Angel grabbed the third and yanked him up by his jacket. “Which means,” he growled into his dark, painted face, “we can beat answers out of them.”
“Only if we keep them alive — ” Spike tried to caution. He could already see the guy sneaking a sharp-looking dagger out of his jacket.
Angel grabbed his wrist. “You’re not getting out of this that easy.”
The native drove a second knife into Angel’s hand, cutting through flesh and scratching into the bone. Angel snarled but dropped him and grabbed his hand. Spike dove forward, but before he could reach the native, he’d plunged the first knife into his own chest. “I will tell you nothing, Vampire!”
“Yeah, you’d rather kill yourself.” Knowing there was no hope of getting any answers out of them now, he kicked the dying man in the ribs for delaying them in rescuing the woman they loved. Kneeling, he picked up the knife and examined all three weapons. The knife that he held was an ancient bowie with a fourteen-inch, carved blade that had wicked-looking teeth on it. Its hilt was made of pure ivory and inscribed with letters he’d never seen before. He glanced over the man as he struggled for his last breaths, spitting up blood; he’d purposefully carved into a vital organ of his own. He examined the white paintings on his face and swept his gaze over his normal, street clothes.
“They were ceremonial tribal warriors.”
“Duh, you think?” Spike retorted, and for just a moment, he thought of Dawn, only not as she was these days, married to Xander with a passel of her own children on the way. He thought of the kid he’d fought night and day to protect after her sister’s death. He thought of the kid who had enjoyed his company and believed in him before any other had. Her heart was on the line too, if he didn’t find her sister. The guy before him was still bleeding. Spike picked him the other knife, a smaller one that had no signs of being a ceremonial dagger, and sliced his jugular. At least the bastard would die quicker that way and not suffer as much.
Buffy wouldn’t want that, he thought, but then his mind shifted to wondering how badly she was being treated. He’d suffered a great deal on this continent. To think the kid had ever wanted to see it! She’d entertained him some nights while he’d been trying to keep her alive, initially for her sister’s sake, with videos on her phone, videos that people had made of different places she’d like to see before they died. She’d been quite certain that they would die, although she’d never confessed her disbelief in his ability to keep her alive. Hell, he’d been quite certain, but he’d never said a word, not aloud at least, not to her especially.
He glanced at Angel and found he’d taken one of the men’s shirts to bandage his hand. “We’ve got to find her,” he said quietly, and for the first time in a long time, he let the other man witness the tears in his eyes.
“We will,” Angel said, glancing at the lightening skies, “but first, we’ve gotta get to shelter.”
His phone pinged, and he pulled it out and glanced at it. “Willow’s got us set.”
“Of course, she does,” Spike acknowledged, collecting the knives, and standing. He glanced at the sticks, but they looked like some form of ceremonial rain sticks with feathers on each end. His mind flashed back to the last time he had been in this country and all the pain he’d suffered to get his soul back, to become a man worthy of Buffy’s love. He snorted at himself.
Such insanity, thinking anyone could ever deserve that wonderful, beautiful, and utterly good woman! She’d never been so awesome because she was the Slayer who had broken all the records and defied all the rules cast over her. It had always been her heart, her purity and determination held within, that had made her so awesome, so inspiring that even two evil Vampires turned from their ways and she had a passel of friends just waiting to help her any way they could. Of course, Willow had helped; they all loved her, were all inspired by her, and would all be completely crushed if she died again on them!
He wondered just what the redhead was thinking these days, knowing that her friend, a genuine, once-in-a-lifetime — no, he thought, glancing around him at the trees and mountains he could see in the distance — once-in-an-eternity heroine may well be dead before they could find her and knowing that she absolutely could not do as she had done the last time and bring her back from the dead. They had all agreed, after the last disaster, after how cruel their rescue had proven to be the last time she had died, that they would never do that again, or allow it to be done. If Buffy died, she would at least finally be able to rest. The idea tore viciously inside of him, however. She might get to rest, but he’d bloody well never stop grieving.
He blinked through his tears, realizing that he was hearing the engine of Angel’s bike gunning. Then he ran and pounced onto his own bike, and they were off… But his mind was still filled with aching, desperate thoughts. They had to find her, or none of them, especially he, would never be the same!
“Je, umemwona?” Spike asked, holding up his phone with his wallpaper on display. He hated the annoying, little devices, but at least they allowed him to still look at her beautiful face any time he felt the need. It also would have normally allowed him to actually communicate with her, but that was a privilege he’d not had in months. The African boy, who had to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, started to balk. Spike pressed hard, shoving his phone right into his face. “Je, umemwona?!”
“N-No, mister!” The boy slid pass him and ran out the door.
Spike dropped his phone to his side, turning the screen off with his thumb so its battery would last longer, and shook his head. That was the third guy to just up and run. At least some of these people knew something they weren’t telling him.
“We could tear the place apart,” Angel remarked, though he was usually the voice of reason. “Make them tell us!” He had slipped into his game face, and he snarled soundlessly through his fangs at the room at large.
Spike heard the telltale cock of a gun somewhere in the bar and a sharp piece of wood slapping a longer piece of wood. The barkeep and perhaps some of his employees, perhaps some of his customers, were getting ready to force them out, or so they thought. But he didn’t need another fight. All these fights were just wasting time, making it take longer to get to her, to save her from whatever bastard had her and whatever they might be doing to her!
Looking to the ceiling for help, he snarled. Where was Cordelia? He knew ghosts were flitting creatures, bound to drift wherever their minds took them at any time, but he needed help, damn it!
“You’re looking in all de wrong places, William,” a thickly accented voice came from behind them.
Spike turned slowly. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it, not yet at least. “You want to know where she is? I can tell you where she is, but you already know. It’s de same place you always find your heart, or, should I say, your soul.”
Spike’s fangs ground together at the portly, dark-skinned woman whose hoop earrings jingled with every step she took. “You’d better not be messing with me, Gypsy.”
“Why would I mess with you? Your story has almost come full round. Follow your legend to de place. Follow your heart.”
“What is this?” Angel asked. “Disney?”
Spike flicked a questioning gaze in his direction. The other Vampire shrugged. “Too much TV with Connor, Cordy, and Fred. Cordy insisted we watch something safe for him,” he explained, lifting his muscular shoulders in a shrug.
It was almost as though speaking the cheerleader’s name brought her to them for, suddenly, just beyond the Gypsy woman who was still scratching at a memory somewhere far back in the recesses of his mind, Spike saw Cordelia apparate. “It’s about bloody time!” he snapped.
“And then Fred caught us watching the silly things and I guess you might say that it became sort of a family thing. A boring family thing, but a family thing nonetheless,” Angel was mumbling in the background.
Spike saw Cordelia smile with tears shining in her misty, hazel eyes.
The Gypsy beamed approvingly at him. “Exactly what I am saying! It is about time you boys came full circle!”
Spike’s brow furrowed. He wanted to ask her more, but time was of the essence. Any second now, if she hadn’t already, Buffy could be taking her last breath. He ached to see her again, to hold her again… And he’d bloody well tear apart anything that thought it was going to kill his girl, if she somehow hadn’t been able to get to them first!
“You have questions, William Pratt, but you know what’s more important.”
Angel stopped his reminiscing, a sure sign that he was barely holding himself together as well, and asked with a deep frown, “Did she just call you Pratt?”
“Yeah, but there’s no time,” he said with a quick shake of his platinum blonde head. “Time is of the essence! Where do we go?” He was looking pass the Gypsy, but she answered first.
“I told you where, William Pratt: where you reclaimed your soul, your first championship for your love.”
“That wasn’t my first!” he snarled. “Cordelia, where?!”
Angel looked up, suddenly alert. “Cordelia?” His dark eyes swiftly scanned the bar, but he could see no sign of the ghost of his former best friend, his best friend and so very much more. “Spike,” he asked, looking to him again, “do you see her?”
“What she said,” Cordelia agreed, making Spike’s already furrowed brow furrow and darken some more.
“Are you seeing her again? Why can’t I see her again?”
“Those aren’t the pressing questions!” Spike exclaimed with a snarl. “We’re not here for your little cheerleader! We’re here for Buffy!” He turned and started to run out the door…
Spike barely dipped between the instruments he recognized far more closely as rain sticks as he darted out the door. Turning swiftly, in a whirl of black leather and jeans, he grabbed both sticks and yanked them down and then toward him, pulling his assailants with them. He dropped the sticks and slammed his fists into their faces, knocking them out cold. He charged down the steps into a group of five more of the natives, all swinging the same sticks.
“You mates are trying to cook up some storm. Your funeral!” He roundhouse kicked the first two, then grabbed the next two by their collars and bopped their heads together. He grabbed one of their sticks as they fell and used it to uppercut into the fifth assailant’s groin. As he fell to the side, clutching himself, Spike found himself looking at one small boy. He had slipped into his game face by this time and snarled at the lad, hoping the boy would be wise enough not to fight him.
Instead, the boy looked dead at him and brought a stake out of his meager, robe-like clothing. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”
The boy was uncannily swift and agile, but Spike, fueled by adrenaline and his sheer determination to reach Buffy, was faster. He knocked the stake from his hand after the boy’s third attempt to plunge the deadly, sharp piece of wood home in Spike’s chest. Then he grabbed his hand, twisted his arm behind him, and lifted his body. He literally tossed him back into the pile of men and noticed that, while he’d been fighting, the pile had been growing bigger.
“They really want us dead for some reason!”
“Yeah,” Spike’s fists shot out, adding two more to the pile, “come on! We don’t have time for this!”
Angel leapt, kicked three more heads, and then ran after Spike to their bikes. They moved together, neither seeing the spirit watching over them and smirking, as they fluidly dispatched three more each and then leapt simultaneously onto their bikes. They were off in the next second, each almost running over another assailant, as they headed for the jungle.
“Those boys could really do some great work if they could just get along together for five minutes!” Cordelia smirked, almost feeling like giggling.
“Do you t’ink,” the Gypsy asked, “dey will make it on time?”
The former Seer glanced at her, only mildly surprised that she could see her. Then she looked back toward where Spike and Angel had disappeared in twin clouds of smoke and dust. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about heroes,” she quietly told her, “it’s that they always make it in time. They may not think they do, but they do, in the end, always make it in time.” She smiled and vanished, with the Gypsy lady disappearing from sight a moment thereafter.
Dawn had told him there were presumed extinct species being found alive and new species still being discovered in these woods almost daily. He knew from personal experience that there were many Demon tribes scattered about, living underneath the underbrush and underneath humanity’s radar. They were often believed to be extinct, and even those who were not were not considered enough of a threat to the magical communities at large to bring attention to themselves. He felt eyes on him as he traveled through jungles and forest alike, but he dismissed each sensation as just being a wild animal or a lower Demon, nothing with which to concern himself.
Besides, he could be concerned with nothing beyond saving Buffy at this point. Nothing else was worth his attention. Anything else, including his own memories here, would only distract him from being able to rescue her as soon as bloody possible. It didn’t matter what he had endured before. It didn’t matter what this place meant to him or the fact that just passing under these towering trees and lush, darkened vegetation gave him the downright willies.
Nothing mattered but Buffy, Spike sternly reminded himself as he and Angel made a path of their own, zooming on their bikes over pathways that had never seen a vehicle before. For once, he didn’t care about the manmade destruction he was bringing to an otherwise almost pristine place or what cosmic spirits he might be pissing off by doing so. He cared only about reaching, and saving, Buffy. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Spike muttered, “Cheerleader, you better — “
Strong hands grasped him suddenly and whisked him off of his bike, sending it crashing headlong into a tree ahead. He heard Angel slam on his brakes as he was swung through the air. He found himself staring at a tree with a very angry face. “DON’T PICK A FIGHT!” he snarled. “I DON’T HAVE BLOODY TIME FOR IT!”
He noticed, suddenly, that all the trees on the pathway had faces and all eyes were on him. “BOLLOCKS!” The tree who grasped him in its branches swung him from one to the other. He could hear a hissing sound coming from somewhere, but before it could become an actual voice, Angel had sliced through the limb. He started to drop after Spike, intending to catch him, but was grabbed by another branch.
Spike pounced next, drawing the normal dagger out of his jacket pocket. He was still loath to use the ceremonial bowie, knowing how spirits tended to cling to such weapons, but he would if he ran out of all other resources. He dodged another limb, leapt through the air, and sliced the limb that held Angel. Just as his dagger cutting through the bark, however, vines whipped around him, entwining swiftly around his legs, torso, and neck. Their coils tightened so fast and hard that had he been a normal man, with a heart that needed to beat and lungs to breathe, he would have been screwed, but of course, he wasn’t. Spike tried to yell to Angel, but a vine wrapped around his head, covering his eyes and mouth.
He could feel Angel hacking away at the vines in the next second, but then something pulled him away. The vines kept their coils tightened around him for how long he did not know until he at last felt Angel stabbing them again. When the vine around his eyes began to loosen, however, it wasn’t Angel he saw.
“Bet you guys are glad Willow put trackers on those phones now!”
“Just get me the Hell out of here, Faith!”
“We’re working on it!” Her efforts to free him were forced to a pause as vines and limbs alike reached for her. She spun, slashing through them with a sword, but more came. Suddenly there was another blade cutting away at his vines.
As he watched Dawn hack, he couldn’t help but to see the similarity between her and her sister. The Powers That Be may have taken a cosmic key and put it into a fleshy, human form, but she could have no more been his beloved’s sister than if the same blood had actually run through them. “WE’RE GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF THIS, SPIKE!”
“I know, Nibblet,” he called back, keeping his voice calm in hopes it would sooth her as well. “Where’s the Poof?”
“Xander and Kennedy have him.”
“Good. How many do we have?”
“Not enough!” She cut through the thickest vine which had been wrapped around his torso, and he managed to kick himself free the rest of the way. Glimpsing at her, he realized she’d been standing on a limb herself and jumped, wrapped his arms around her, and tumbled them both to the ground. Still sheltering her in his arms, he looked around them and instantly understood what she had meant.
The jungle had become a battlefield. The normal-sized tree Dawn and Faith had stood on to reach him had been conjured by one of Willow’s little Witch trainees, but it was immensely dwarfed by all the other trees surrounding them. They had brought at least one more Witchling with them as well as several Slayerettes. Xander and Angel were fighting back to back, each wielding a sword, but as fast as any of their people sliced through branches and vines, more came.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Dawn cried.
“We can’t!”
“What do you mean we can’t?”
“He means we’re close to Buffy!” Faith called as she continued to shield them. “A little help here?!” Something had cut through her shoulder, and she was seeping blood. At first, Spike thought it was just one of the razor-sharp tips of the vines, but then he saw the arrow sticking out of her shoulder. She ripped it out, threw it to the ground, and almost had her sword snatched from her hands. She kicked away the limbs, bit through a vine, and went back to hacking.
Before he could stop her, Dawn leapt to join Faith. He stood, slowly getting his balance back, as he surveyed the scene. They truly did have the losing hand despite having brought a veritable, small army with them. The trees were too numerous, and the vines were coming out of the earth itself. Demons slithered in the shadows, but he noticed most of them were trying to flee in the opposite directions. There were people coming, charging their people. They were more of the same tribe of natives, more of those who wielded the rain sticks like billy clubs and those ceremonial bowies. A few had bows and arrows, like the one that Faith had just snatched out of her shoulder.
“DON’T JUST STAND THERE!” Faith yelled at him.
He knew he had to help, but he also had to find her. Buffy couldn’t be far now, and every moment counted. Turning slowly in a circle, he spotted Cordelia, but she wasn’t looking at him. “CORDELIA!” She didn’t turn toward him. She was focused entirely on Angel. A bowie whizzed at his back, and Spike witnessed the cheerleader, with a graceful twirl of her hand, deflect it back to the one who had thrown it, embedded the knife instead into the native’s heart.
“BOLLOCKS!” He turned again, having caught a familiar but impossible whiff and a flash of blonde and white out of the corner of his blue eyes. That was when he saw her, and his mouth dropped open.
Buffy stood in the shadows between two trees. Her hair was a mess, and her clothes were gone. Her body was covered in dirt, bruises, and more of the same, strange markings like those he’d witnessed on the ceremonial bowies’ hilts. But that wasn’t what shocked at him. Not even the craziness or emptiness in her eyes disturbed him as much as how terribly old and fragile she looked. His mind flashed back to another of the Summers women, her mother, the first women to ever truly befriend him with hot cups of cocoa, little marshmallows, and idle chitter chatter while they’d both waited on Buffy, but it wasn’t Joyce.
It was Buffy. She looked as old as her mother had on that terrible day when she’d passed. Actually, he gulped, she looked older. “Bloody Hell,” he whispered, but his words were lost in the frenzied, loud sounds of the battle. He moved slowly forward. A limb shot toward him, and he shot back, slamming the ceremonial bowie he’d been carrying backwards into it without a look. His eyes would not move from her as he deflected both limbs and vines and ducked arrows and knives. Then, suddenly, she looked at him, right at him, into his eyes from the distance that separated them, and in the next second, she bolted.
He thrashed through the jungle, heartbeats that were, of course, not his pounding in his ears. He could hear the animals, terrified and hungry; somewhere in the thick brushery, he heard the dying screech of a monkey. He heard the deafening roar of a jaguar coming from another direction. The Demons and villagers alike were shouting now, all terrified. Terror seemed to sweep the entire area, but there was no time to slow, no time to pause or to even question into what he might next find himself.
Above all the other sounds was her frantic, terrified heartbeat. He had never known Buffy to be so terrified, not when she’d been under any other spell, not when her mother had died, not when she’d sacrificed herself to save Dawn, not even during that last battle, including when she’d watched him die to save the world. He had saved the world. He had saved her then. Yet here was again, facing the impossible to save not the world, but his world, to save her. Hell, he wouldn’t even have a world worth saving if it wasn’t for her!
He’d talked a good talk — well, always –, but the particular moment that came to his mind was the first time he had ever helped her save the world. He’d claimed it had been for Drusilla. He’d believed, at the time, that it had been, and perhaps it had. But she had been the one who had inspired him. She had been the one who had given him the strength and validity of mind to be able to look beyond himself and Dru and the very moment in which they’d been caught and to the future — to a future where, if he had not helped her save it, would have been without Dru or without any of those little Happy Meals he’d so enjoyed eating back during the day. Some of them had deserved to be eaten — he could see that now –, but he’d killed far too many who hadn’t.
He’d saved the world for Dru then, and he couldn’t really regret it. It had been a major step on his journey, on his journey to reclaim his soul, on his journey to Buffy, on his journey to becoming the man he now was. Yet if not for Buffy, he never would have even tried. In the end, he’d lost Dru because he had, but if she’d never moved out of the way, he perhaps would have always stayed chained to her and never seen what was right before him.
Buffy was so very well worth his dying no matter how many times he had to perish to give her life, but what he wanted — what he really wanted — was impossible. She’d never look at him the way she once had Angel. She’d never love him as he did her. No, he didn’t need to torture himself with such thoughts. What he needed to focus on was her, saving her now, this time, and then fading from her life again until she needed him once more. She would never, could never, love him, so what was the point in hanging around?
Making another leap, he entered into a clearing. At first, he saw only her. She stood, huddling in place, across from him right before another vast array of bushes. If she moved into them, he might never find her again or, at least, not in time, so he stopped running. He moved slower, inching closer toward her and stopping every time she looked like she might be about to bolt again. “Buffy — ” He mentally kicked himself for his voice trembling. Clearing his throat, he tried again, “Buffy? Come on now, luv. This isn’t like you.”
She was under a spell. She had to be under a spell. There was no other explanation for it. The questions, of course, were what kind of spell and how to break it? “Bloody Hell,” he muttered underneath his breath, hoping she wouldn’t hear him and get spooked again. “I should’ve brought one of the Witches with me.”
“You brought better,” Cordelia’s voice spoke firmly from somewhere behind him. “You brought me. Careful, Spike. Don’t lose your head. She’s not alone.”
“Come on out,” he spoke louder. “No sense in hiding. I’m gonna find you sooner or later.” He revealed his fangs in full in a soundless snarl. He kept it silent not because he was not threatening whoever was hidden from him but because, again, he did not want to scare Buffy into running again. She was still looking at him in such horror… His mind flicked back to the last time she’d watched it like that night, shortly after he’d so foolishly attempted to have his way with her against his will.
He should have known better. It was no wonder she could never love him! He’d gone and gotten his soul, but it could never change what had happened. It could never change the way he had treated her while professing to love her, but of course, he’d not truly understood the meaning of love until after he’d gotten his soul back. Love sometimes meant letting go, no matter how painful the experience. If it was the best thing for the other person, then it was always better to set them free. Of course, she’d been like a wild animal then too, but in a different definition, and she’d been bloody well confusing as well, especially without the benefit of a soul to see the truths on so many things.
“Pet,” he whispered, beginning to near her. “Buffy… Luv…” He held both hands out so that she could see he meant her no harm, then realized he’d picked up another rain stick somewhere along the way. Gonna be one Hell of a storm, he thought, but bent very slowly and laid the stick, his only weapon beyond himself (but, of course, that was almost always more than enough of a weapon to beat almost anything he came against), on the ground. The grass was wet and cool beneath his opening fingers.
Ever slowly, he stood back up and continued to come forward. His darkened blue eyes swept what he could see of the jungle he was approaching. “Don’t want to come out, huh?” He kept his tone nice and docile still, desperate not to set her back into running again. “Fine, but tell me this, mate? Or is it mates?” Still no answer came. “What do you want with her? Yeah, she’s the big, bad Slayer and all, but do you know how much trouble that comes with me? She’s got a whole, bloody army of Vampires, Slayers, and Witches looking for her. Watchers and others too, more.”
“They are not Watchers!” The voice came whispering over the slowly rising wind. It almost seemed to come from the grass, but he knew better. His hunting skills were far too great to be so easily tricked by whatever they were using to disguise their voice. There was a slight sound of a scuffle. Buffy glanced over her bare, painted shoulder, and it stopped almost as quickly as it had begun.
“Take me instead,” Spike offered. “Let her go. Nobody’ll come after me, and I’m quite the prize.” He grinned, tongue flicking naturally over his moonlight-kissed fangs. “I’m sure you’ve heard about me. William the Bloody? True lover of the Slayer?” Yeah, right, he wished! “Vampire who fought to get his soul back and then went out in a bright, shiny explosion to seal the Hellmouth? Yeah, that’s the kinda power I’ve got, mate. I saved the bloody world. What can you do?”
His eyes fixed right above Buffy’s scraggly head, just over the bushes pressing and scratching into her back (he could smell her freshly blood from the holes they’d made and continued expertly to reel in his Vampiric blood lust). In that moment was when he saw them: three white men, two elder, all, he knew with a quick sniff of the African air, British. “There you are,” he said and couldn’t help smiling at the way all their eyes widened. “Didn’t think you’d be found, did you? Come now. You really think you can hide from the best? Buffy doesn’t pick wimps for her friends, mate, especially not for her rescue party.”
“Careful, Spike — “
The sound of Angel’s voice behind him made Spike grimace. His eyes flashed momentarily closed. Of course, he’d have to come and appear just in time to be the actual bloody hero! He couldn’t even give him that —
” — they’re Watchers.”
“You’re arriving late to the party, Poo–” He stopped talking for upon opening his eyes, his gaze had fallen upon Buffy’s tattooed breasts. They were as luscious and full as always, bombarding his mind with a thousand memories and intense desire, but he recognized the word there. Beginning. They’d taken her back to the beginning, back — he realized with a disgusted swirl of emotions passing through his gut — to their beginnings, when the Slayer had been nothing more than a tool to them.
He watched, fangs setting in grim, furious determination and black-polished nails digging into his pale palms, as the Watchers stepped through the bushes. They moved together in perfect synchronization, the eldest stepping up right behind Buffy and daring to place a hand on top of her head. Spike recognized the unspoken symbolism immediately — She was not even a tool to these bastards! He started to growl but was barely aware of it himself as Buffy allowed the eldest Watcher to pet her head!
The Vampires surged forward as the two inferior Watchers launched themselves. Spike grabbed the youngest and ripped his head from his shoulders with his bare hand, spurring the eldest to jump over Buffy and come at him with a longer, bigger version of the rain stick billy clubs. As he struck Spike in the face, between the legs, and in the chest all within a matter of seconds, Spike heard Cordelia cry. “TRUE LOVE’S KISS!”
He’d lost, he realized as the stick slammed into his jawbone. He spat out a fang, but it barely mattered. All that mattered, he reminded himself firmly, was saving Buffy, no matter who did it. “KISS HER!”
“WHAT?!” Angel demanded, ducking the swinging blow from the other Watcher. He doubled his fists into his stomach.
“KISS HER!” Spike snarled again. Catching their leader’s club in his hands, he used it, striking fast and repeatedly, to spin him around in a backwards circle and into the other, younger Watcher.
Angel didn’t ask a second time. He sprang forward; moving faster than Buffy could think to run with seeing her masters under attack; and firmly kissed her lips. Spike grimaced and turned away, simultaneously taking hits from both the remaining Watchers. The elder began to chant some strange words of one of the few ancient languages Spike still didn’t recognize. The blonde Vampire felt a strange tightening in his ribcage and organs, but he didn’t care. Nothing else mattered. Buffy was saved. He was ready to die.
But wait, what was Cordelia screaming at the top of her lungs now? That little bird always had had a set on her… Wait, what was it? he clawed through the sorrow and pain fogging his mind as he tried to decipher her meaning. What was she saying? Not you, dumb ass? He looked toward Buffy one last time as he felt the Watcher’s stick ram through his chest like it was paper machete…
Every bone in Spike’s body felt like it was breaking at once, but when Cordelia’s persistent scream of “NOT YOU, DUMB ASS!” broke through his pain and sorrow, he twisted, screaming in agony, to catch one last look at Buffy. He had this much pain before, but it had been very rare. He’d felt it when he’d fought in this very jungle to reclaim his soul so that he might be worthy of Buffy and be able to become a man she could find it within herself, if she so chose, to love, but of course, that had never worked. He had felt it quite often in her dejection of him, just not in an actual physical sense of the term. And, of course, he had felt it when he’d given his life to save the world, so that she didn’t have to again and so that she might, at long last, actually be proud of him.
He screamed as he turned, ripping the head Watcher’s staff out of him and striking it behind him, hitting both the Watchers directly in their heads. He heard the younger hit the hard, wet ground like a sack of potatoes, but although he felt renewed tightening around his organs as the elder picked up his chanting, the hope that soared through him at what he was witnessing dulled the pain for Angel’s lips were lifting from Buffy’s and she clearly didn’t look cured. The poor woman, if anything, looked even more bewildered.
As he watched her, his fury began building again at what had happened to her. Just what all had the Watchers done to her? The sick bastards had always thought their Slayer was theirs to toy with however they saw fit, but this brought new lows that even some Vampires and other Demons would not have dared attempt! Hell, he’d known Demons and Vamps alike would never have even thought of messing with someone’s mind as terribly as they had hers! They had raped her mind, reverted her back to a primal form not seen since the days of the cavemen, and if they had raped her mind… What else had they raped?
Angel was lifting his head as these thoughts built up Spike’s pain tolerance, rage, and determination. He lifted his head, his eyes searching the night sky. “Cordy?”
Spike heard his whisper and managed to snort. “Dumb ass!” Why the Hell would he still be calling on bloody Cordelia Chase when he had Buffy to love and to love him in return?! Only — Spike’s face exploded into a happy, approving grin the second Buffy’s fist shocked Angel’s jaw.
Gingerly rubbing his jaw, Angel looked back at her in shock as Spike allowed his knees to be buckled. He had to see this, after all! He had to be sure —
Buffy followed her initial punch with a rapid series of high, powerful kicks. When she landed a bare foot determinedly in Angel’s groin, driving him down onto his back in the muddy ground (it had finally started raining, Spike realized), Spike nodded his head once and forced himself not only back to a standing position but back into the game. He whirled, twirling the rain stick.
“How — How can you — ?” the wide-eyed Watcher questioned in shock. “Your organs should be mine to control!”
“May not have a heart, you bloody Yank, but that woman there,” he jerked his head backwards towards Buffy who was still battling Angel. “She is my heart,” he announced through clenching fangs. He drove himself through the pain as he thought of all the times she had actually allowed him to be there for her, all the times he’d found comfort with her even if she had been cruel to him while taking care of him, such as when she’d kept him tied up shortly after the chip. He still remembered the horror of being taken down by mere mortal humans, a bunch of bloody Army brats, and waking to find that thing in his head. They had joked that he’d been neutered, but it had been so much worse —
Although nothing compared to the way these bloody Watchers had dared to try to neuter his beloved! He had driven the Watcher down into the ground, but now he tossed the stick away, grabbed him by his throat, and snatched him to him. Glaring directly into his eyes, he told him firmly, “I’m gonna keep you alive. I’m gonna find out exactly every single bloody thing you monsters did to her. Your cock’s getting cut off, and then I’m gonna take the sharpest, meanest-looking steel rod I can find — “
“SPIKE!”
He heard his name shouted by a familiar voice, though he wasn’t sure if it was the cheerleader or her dumb, little, wannabe boyfriend, and whirled, tossing the Watcher away from him and into a tree.
“I’VE GOT THE BASTARD!” That was Faith, but it had been Dawn who had shouted after him. The Nibblet really had become quite the little warrior, but he had no time to praise her because he turned right into Buffy’s dagger-like, dirty fingernails scratching bloody gashes across his face.
“Missed you too, pet,” he said and snatched her deftly to him. “Luv,” he corrected himself, making a mental note that she had been right all those years ago when she’d told him that was a bad pet name. He needed to eliminate that word from his vocabulary, though he’d never meant it as these bastards had done to her.
She was struggling like a wildcat against him, but he was used to her wildness. He held her firmly against him, her arms pinned to her side. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Somehow, she turned his weight against him with only her legs and flipped him over her head, breaking his hold on her. She turned and kicked after he’d landed, then darted after the elder Watcher. Faith, who had just finished tying the bastard up with the vines that appeared to no longer be fighting them, shook her head at her. “You don’t want to do this, B — “
Buffy’s fist slammed into her mouth, cutting her off mid-sentence, but then Spike was there, pulling her back, pulling her around, and finally planting his lips over hers. He stood there with plummeting rain driving down on them both, Buffy’s heart pounding in terror against his aching ribs. He hated forcing himself on her now, but he had no choice. From what the dead cheerleader had said, there was no other way to bring her back to herself.
Only… He was assuming he was the one she loved, since it clearly wasn’t Angel she’d chosen in the end. He was assuming a lot, he realized, giving himself a sharp, mental kick. He was assuming she could love him. He was assuming she hadn’t just moved on from them both. After all, they were both blood-thirsty monsters, and neither deserved her. But no one could have ever deserved her! She was too beautiful, too —
His spinning, worrying, self-doubting thoughts came to a screeching halt in shock the very moment he heard the slight change of her heart. Her terror was lessening, and so, too, was the stiffness of her body. Tentatively, he poked his tongue at her lips, and her mouth parted, welcoming his tongue. He slid his tongue over hers, then around it… He clutched her more tightly to him, not daring to touch her breasts or her ass but instead clinging to the small of her back, clinging to the rebuilding hope that maybe, just maybe, by some miracle he could never deserve, . . .
She did love him! The knowledge boasted in his heart and sang throughout his entire essence, it felt like, as her beautiful, green eyes opened and looked up into his not with anger, not with hate… but with a longing and a familiarity. She was no longer struggling, but when he slowly began to let up the pressure of his arms around her body, she slid her hands instead underneath his shirt and across his muscles.
;
Suddenly, he felt no more pain, only joy, only happiness… He wanted to just stand there forever, hold her for the rest of eternity, and kiss her. He wanted to shout for all to hear how much he loved her, except that would mean removing his lips from hers, and even if only for a second, that was not something he ever wanted to do again.
But he had to. She needed answers, and she only needed to be kissing him if she chose to do so. It didn’t matter, he told himself. She loved him! She really loved him! Even if she ended up walking away from him again tonight, he would always know he was the one she had finally chosen! He was the one she loved! That was what her heart and soul had decreed by allowing him to break her curse! Whatever lies her lips might spoke would hurt, but they were meaningless against the facts as he now knew them.
Slowly, with regret already piercing his heart, he lifted his head.
“Spike…” Buffy’s eyes searched his. “Why’d you stop?” Her voice sounded so small, so timid and pleading that it tore instantly at his heart.
“Luv,” he spoke softly, stepping back up to her. His hands raised to touch her again, to bring her back to his side, but then dropped down again. After all she had been through, how could he ask her to let him touch her? How could he allow a creature such as himself to touch her? He might be pissed at the Watchers, but had he himself not attempted that very same thing?
“Buffy?” His eyes flicked over to Dawn. She turned and saw her sister standing between Xander and Faith. All three had blood-tipped weapons raised, and more people were rushing up behind them.
She frowned and looked back to Spike. “What… happened?” she asked softly.
He tilted his head slightly to one sided and studied her. “You don’t remember?” That would be best — Not because it would be best for him and make things easier for them, but because he wouldn’t wish those kinds of memories on any way. Yet… How many had he raped? How many had he raped in front of their husbands even, the type who were usually the big, billy badass types and thought they could walk all over little guys like the person he had been before Drusilla had turned him? How many innocent lives had he discovered?
Nausea washed over him, and he felt suddenly weak. But then she was there, standing beside him, draping one of his arms over her slim, petite, bare shoulders. It was then that he remembered that she was naked, but before he could move to do something about it, he heard Xander call to her, “Hey, Buffy,” and his jacket came slinging their way.
Buffy looked down as Spike caught Xander’s jacket. “Why,” she asked, “am I naked?!”
And then she saw the bodies on the forest floor and recognized them as three of the several Watchers who had been pissed when Giles and Willow had taken control of the Council and all its assets. “What… happened?” she asked again, but Spike heard the reflection in her last word and recognized instantly that she was slowly beginning to remember.
Wrapping Xander’s jacket around her with a nod to his former room mate and Buffy’s best guy friend, her only one really outside of Rupert who was sadly no longer with them (he’d never have let this mess happen like this if he’d still been with them!), Spike held Buffy from behind. He was careful that his pelvis did not touch her even as he rocked her gently. “What do you remember?”
“Too…” He felt a shudder pass through her and was simultaneously met with renewed self-hatred. “Too much…”
Buffy turned and saw the once head Watcher laying, unconscious, on the jungle floor. “He — ” Revulsion and hatred powered through her word. “He did all this!” Clutching Xander’s jacket to her, she stepped to his body and kicked him firmly in the balls. Dawn turned and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder. Faith walked to Buffy, the closest thing she’d ever had to a sister or, really, any family other than Angel who had actually loved her.
“B — ” she spoke simply.
Buffy turned and looked at her fellow Slayer, the only other woman she knew except Willow who had come as close to enduring as much trauma as she had over their years. Wordlessly, Faith flipped the dagger she held around in her hand and offered its hilt to Buffy. Buffy glowered down at the Watcher, took Faith’s knife, and pulled back her arm… But she flipped the blade around again at the last second and drove its hilt hard into the Watcher’s cock.
She handed the knife back to Faith. “Want me to finish the job?” Faith asked softly.
“Nah.” Buffy shook her head. “It’s too good for him. He needs to be awake for his punishments.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The two Slayers looked at each other, remembering so many of their battles over the years and all the times they’d thought the other one dead.
“Faith, are you — “
“Shut up,” Faith hissed, denying the tears in her dark eyes, but then drew her into a tight hug.
Buffy gasped as Dawn hit her side, throwing her arms around both of them.
Xander nodded at Spike, but then his eye moved to the ground. “Well, how do ya like that?” he asked with a sly, knowing smile. “After all this time, I guess she’s finally done baking.”
“XANDER, I DIDN’T TELL YOU ABOUT THAT!” Dawn protested, breaking from the hug.
Buffy frowned again. Her eyes darted between her sister and one of her oldest and dearest friends before narrowing suspiciously at both Xander and Spike. “What are you talking about?”
“True love’s spell,” Faith supplied with a knowing smirk. “Turns out the old spell’s way more powerful if you’re not actually asleep. And you chose Spike to break it. Not Angel.”
Buffy’s eyes trailed to Angel, who she was just then noticing. His head and shoulders were slumped, and both his beautiful eyes were swelling. She did love him, but not in the way it took to break any spell. Nor did he love her in such a way. They’d talked about it years ago. “Of course, he couldn’t break the spell,” she murmured. “We don’t love each other like that anymore. He loves Cordelia.”
Angel looked up at her, his lips twinging upward into the smallest smile at her understanding. “Go to Willow,” Buffy told him. “Cordelia’s here.”
“What?! How the Hell can you see me?!”
“I’m the Slayer,” Buffy reminded her hovering ghost. “It comes with certain perks. Willow can help,” she added again. “She talks to Tara almost every night.” Both women turned at the sounds of Angel thrashing through the bushes. “You’d better hurry and catch up!”
And then she moved to Spike, and her next words shocked him, “I’m sorry.”
He stared at her in disbelief before finally asking, “For what?!”
Behind them, Xander and Faith exchanged nods. Then, as one, with Faith nudging Dawn’s shoulder, they gathered the two still-breathing Watchers and headed back to the rest of the group.
“For not telling you. For not finding you when I found out you were alive again. I — ” She shrugged one shoulder, allowing Xander’s jacket to slip now that they were alone. “I kinda figured you were better off without me.”
“BOLLOCKS!” Spike roared, sending animals and lower Demons alike again skittering away through the trees. “Buffy, I’M A MONSTER! I’M THE ONE WHO CAN NEVER DESERVE YOU!”
“Spike,” she slowly shook her head, “I can’t offer you an even slightly peaceful life. I can’t say I’m always going to be there for you. I can’t — “
“All I want is your love.”
“You have it.”
He grinned. Talking had never been their strong point. “Hey, have you ever done it in an African rainforest?” Lightning cracked and thunder boomed over their heads. It was almost as though someone liked his suggestion quite a lot, but then he realized that it might be too soon, what with everything she’d just endured over the last several months…
His thoughts were silenced again by the woman he loved, the woman he had loved for years and who he finally knew loved him. For how long, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she did love him! Her hands clasping his face, Buffy kissed him hard, long, and firm on the mouth.
She was right, of course. Their loves would never be peaceful, but then he’d never known peace. He had sought it at one time in his life — everybody does –, but he’d never found it. Claiming power had never given him peace, just more headaches as others kept trying to stop him from having so much power. Being a Vampire had never brought him peace. It had not even managed to keep him from being bullied, but it had given him the ability to be here over two hundred years later, to meet this amazing woman, to get to know her, to get to love her, and finally — sweet, sweet triumphantly finally — to be loved by her!!!!!! It was a road that, no matter how hard or long, he would gladly take every single time to get to her again, to get back into her arms as he was now, to get back into her heart and with her lips on his, on his face, on his neck…
Spike roared not with pain or anguish but with pure, complete happiness. Buffy giggled, something he’d feared for so long he would never hear again, as he swept her up into an immense bear hug and then spun her around through the rain. He set her down suddenly, shrugged out of his jacket, and threw it onto the ground. “We’re not gonna do it like animals this time,” he told her, picking her up again into his arms. She actually let him lead as he laid her, slowly and gently, down onto his leather duster. “From this night on, I’m always going to try you like the Queen you are. My Queen! I love you!” And he proceeded to show that undying, unyielding love to her with every kiss, nibble, and lick he placed onto her fabulous, wonderous body. Someone had once wrote a song she’d secretly liked about his woman’s body being his wonderland, and tonight, Spike showed her she would always be his wonderland, his love, his inspiration for becoming the man he had become, and everything that made this world truly worth fighting for and even just existing in.
The End
15 Dark Secrets Even Huge Buffy Fans Never Knew About Spike (or at least they say!)
Buffy’s Choice: Joss Whedon Gets Political — And look at who he has choose to go with Buffy!
The Perfect Comparison (IMNSHO) of Angel/Buffy to Spike/Buffy!
from Compared to Spike, Angel has always been a shit boyfriend. Change my mind!
It always floors me how so many people try to say Spike never actually even cared about Buffy, that he supposedly couldn’t. Here’s two scenes that I had forgotten about but fell over while doing research to get inspired that show yet again that he cared so immensely for her:
These scenes do not get anywhere near the credit they deserve!
James Marsters:
Cap To ItKiss Them GoodbyeWhedonverse
Originally posted at: https://seasonal-spuffy.dreamwidth.org/976868.html
