Days in the Sun
“You know, I never knew Darla that much, but she was apparently the same bitch all of her life. Unlife. Whichever.”
A quiet laugh answered her words, and Buffy put down the slim leather-bound journal on the night table.
“Language, luv,” Spike chided her teasingly. “We have an audience here.”
He had his ear to her belly and had been listening to their soon to be born son, speaking to him too sometimes, for the past couple of hours.
Since Christmas, every time she opened what he had christened the ‘black book’, he would immediately drop whatever he was doing to come and stay next to her. When she had commented on it, he had admitted that he would rather be close in case anything shocked her or if she needed to talk about something she was reading. She suspected that it wasn’t only the baby’s heartbeat he was listening to, because, a couple of times, he had pulled the book from her hands just when things were getting too intense.
So far, she hadn’t asked questions. She hadn’t needed to. Everything was perfectly clear, actions as well as feelings; and if the story wasn’t always pleasant, it was written in such a captivating manner that it was hard for her to limit herself to a couple of pages every night. It had taken him almost a year to write this journal. She wanted to appreciate his gift fully, not rush through it. It helped that she knew most of the story, already, if only in a very general way. Reading these words that he had put on paper for her was a reminder of the one thing of her captivity that she remembered with some fondness – Spike telling her stories about his past to distract her from mind numbing boredom.
Back then his stories had been toned down, she now knew. He had either been afraid to scare her, gross her out, or give too much information to their captors. The story this journal told was much more detailed, with oftentimes finer points that she wouldn’t have minded not knowing about. She understood, however, what he wanted to accomplish by being completely honest – even brutally at times. It was right there, on the first page, in that short note addressed to her.
“I only wish that, if you ever read this, you’ll understand what kind of monster I was back then, and what kind of man I try to be now. For you.”
She understood very clearly how much he had changed, even if so far she had only read about the first few months after his turning. With this insight into what it meant exactly to become a vampire, a gift no other Slayer before her had been offered unless she had been turned, she could truly appreciate the depth of his transformation. To the point that, sometimes, it was hard to reconcile the impulsive, bragging, infuriating young vampire he had been with… No, come to think of it, he hadn’t changed that much.
He shifted against her, an ear always to her belly but now with his face turned up toward hers. A hesitant smile fluttered on his lips, and she knew what he would ask before he even did. Trying to soothe his apprehension in advance, she ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up in the most delicious way.
“Still not freaked out?”
She shook her head, answering his smile with one of her own.
“No freakage,” she assured him. “But it’s a good thing for her that Darla is dust already.”
Another quiet laugh. That was one of the things that somehow still puzzled her. He didn’t seem to have a trace of resentment toward Angelus or Darla; and they had both been anything but pleasant while teaching him how to survive as a vampire.
“It was more than a lifetime ago, luv,” he repeated what he had said when she had first voiced the feeling. “Too long to keep a grudge. And even back then, I didn’t. It was just normal for vampires.”
She couldn’t quite suppress a shudder, and he moved up the bed to take her in his arms.
“Just remember that you don’t have to read it if it becomes too much,” he murmured against her brow. “It’s quite alright if you decide you’d rather not know, I won’t be upset about it.”
One hand played in her hair while the other one rested against her belly. She loved his paternal side, but she couldn’t help thinking with some amusement that it would be nice to have his hands on her again without his attention drifting to their child.
“It’s alright so far, but I’ll stop if I need to. I promise.”
She meant it, but she doubted she would stop. She had accepted that the humans dying on these pages had been laid to rest too long ago for her to do anything about it. She could accept, also, that Spike had loved Drusilla, and that their love had not been platonic. Could accept even more disturbing images of what his most pleasurable days had been like. It was the rest that hurt. To read about him being hurt. To recognize in a few too precise words the cause of a faded, almost imperceptible scar that still adorned his body a century after the fact. This was why she was thankful that he remained with her while she read, and why she never started reading if he wasn’t in the house with her. With him right there, it was easier to reassure herself that he was fine, that it was another Spike who was hurting on the pages.
“I want to thank you,” she said with a caress of her lips to his.
“Thank me for what?”
“For sharing this with me. And making me realize what your redemption means exa…”
Again, he laughed. There was nothing funny in what she was saying though, and she punched his arm lightly.
“Hey, are you listening to me?”
“I am, luv. And you’re reading more into this book that there is.”
Frowning, she waited for him to explain himself.
“It’s not about redemption, Buffy,” he said with his most tender smile. “It’s not about me. It’s all about you. You are the reason why I’m not like that anymore. I didn’t decide one day to just stop feeding off humans, you know. It was… slow steps. The realization that I couldn’t ask you to change – didn’t want you to – and so I had to make a choice. And the idea of redemption played no role whatsoever in that matter, believe me.”
There was a lump in her throat that forbade the Slayer to reply in words. So she simply kissed the Vampire who had taken her as his soul.