Days in the Sun
February 24th, 2005 – BBB (2)
“...We left town that same night, the rumors that something terrible had happened at the manor already beginning to spread. We stole a small coach and horses and traveled until daybreak, finding shelter by stopping as far inside a forest as we could go without breaking a wheel, and covered the coach’s windows with our cloaks. It was a tight fit, the four of us sleeping in that small thing, and not the safest place to spend a full day. Anyone passing by could have tried to steal our horses, or open the doors and let daylight in. Safe or not, we didn’t have much choice about it. The worst though was Darla’s temper.
She was enraged at having abandoned most of her dresses and things. She only calmed down when Angelus showed her the gold we had ‘found’ at the manor and promised to replace everything she had lost before starting to travel down toward Italy. We had time, still, before the rendezvous in Rome, enough time that we wouldn’t appear to be beggars once we arrived. We weren’t going to make the rendezvous, but we didn’t know it then.
Once Darla stopped rambling, it was Drusilla’s turn. Same thing. We had left her favorite doll behind, and I had to reassure her we’d find an even nicer one for her along with a new tea set, of all things. I had no clue how much of a pain these would be to find in Romania, as that was where we were headed…”
Buffy blinked, a slow, long blink, and closed the slim book on her knees. Immediately, Spike’s gaze was on her, tender and, as always when she was reading his diaries, a little worried.
They were in his office, he at the desk, reading something on the computer, and Buffy in the rocking chair by the window, the elegant lamp at her side providing her with needed light as night had fallen a little while before. Their children were upstairs sleeping, and Buffy enjoyed very much this quiet moment they could share, simply being in the same room, each doing their own thing but together.
“Already stopping?” Spike asked quietly.
She heard the question behind his words, and reassured him with a smile.
“I’m fine. I just realized…”
A scarred eyebrow arched and she rose to her feet, leaving the book on the chair as she came to the desk. Spike reached out to her and she took his hand, allowing him to pull her onto his lap. She curled against him, her body instantly finding the most comfortable position. God, she could have spent the rest of her life right where she was now…
“Realized what, kitten?” he asked, his words a soft caress on her forehead.
“That this one would tell about Angel’s curse. I knew it’d come up eventually, but…”
She shrugged against him, observing his reaction carefully. Angel was still a touchy subject. Spike gave no sign however at being displeased. Rather, there was again a worried crease in his forehead.
“If you’d rather not read about…”
She interrupted him with a finger across his lips, chuckling when his tongue sneaked out to tease her finger.
“I do want to read about it. It’s just…”
She paused then, trying to express something she had thought more and more often of in the last couple of years but had never voiced. Uncharacteristically, Spike showed some patience and waited for her to complete her thought.
“Every time I think of his soul,” she said a little hesitantly, “it makes me think of you, and how you can be as you are without one. And it makes me wonder… all these vampires I’ve staked over the years, maybe they could have…”
Shaking his head, Spike stopped her.
“Don’t even think about it, luv. Most vampires we dust are fledglings, and they don’t have enough control over themselves to do anything as I’ve done. And those old enough to control the demon… Because they can do it doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that they want to.”
Tracing his features lightly with her fingers, she considered his words, what she knew, what she had inferred from years of living by his side. It still wasn’t easy for him, even now.
“Do you think… do you think it might be easier for you if you had a soul?”
Spike’s answer was flat and unequivocal.
“No.”
The silence stretched between them; as she realized his body had tensed – and not in the good way – Buffy wondered if she had unintentionally hurt him. She was about to ask him and apologize if necessary when he said:
“Did you ever wish I had one?”
Her answer was just as quick – and just as explicit as his was.
“No. I don’t think you need one.”
A slow smile appeared on his lips, and he cupped her face to bring it closer to his. The instant their lips touched, they could hear knocking on the front door. Giles was there to baby-sit; it was time to go patrol.
It had been hours since Buffy had fallen asleep in his arms, and she had now rolled on her side and out of Spike’s embrace, but was still close enough to touch. He knew from experience that she would rouse when he slipped out of the bed; so, he hesitated for a long time. But in the end, he couldn’t delay anymore.
Ever since they had talked about Angel and souls earlier, Spike had had a nagging feeling that something was going on with his Sire. It was probably stupid, but he had to check, just to be sure, that Angel was alright. He would call himself a fool afterwards, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep before he did.
As he had thought, as soon as he wasn’t touching his lover anymore, she stirred, mumbling an incoherent protest. He leaned back toward her, pressed a kiss to her neck, another to her shoulder.
“Be right back, luv. Keep dreaming for me, alright?”
Another murmur, this one sounding like an agreement, and Spike left the room as silent as a shadow. Without even thinking about it, he stopped by each of the kids’ door, checking on their sleep before he walked down to the kitchen. Paying only half a mind to what he was doing, he warmed some blood and thought of a reason to call Angel. He had no wish to simply say he had a bad feeling about the other vampire, even if it was the truth. Therefore, he needed an excuse.
Once he had an appropriate line, he took his snack to his office and hunted down the post-it note where he had written Angel’s number many months before. He dialed and received no answer. Annoyed, he dialed it again, wondering if he might have misdialed; this time the receiver was picked up.
“What the hell do you want?” a voice barked on the other side of the line.
Stunned, Spike wasn’t sure he had reached the person he wanted:
“Angel? ‘S that you?”
A pause followed, long enough that Spike wondered again who was on the line.
“What do you want, boy?”
His lips suddenly as dry as his throat, Spike tried to remember the stupid excuse he had found to justify this late night call. All that came out however was a questioning word.
“Angelus?”
There was no answer, this time, save for the dial tone that informed Spike that the other vampire had hung up the phone. The blood grew cold on the desk as Spike rushed upstairs and woke Buffy to tell her he needed to get to LA as soon as possible. He kissed her and their children goodbye, called the Witches, and left the house and Sunnydale just as the sun was setting the horizon on fire.
It was already late in the afternoon when Buffy heard a car pull into the open garage, and she hurried to the door, reaching it as Spike was walking in.
She had called in sick to work that morning and had kept both children home rather than send Lisa to preschool. Both her little girl and William had asked for Spike, and it had been hard to reassure them that he would be home soon. Hard to smile when she was so worried.
All he had said before leaving was that he needed to go to LA and make sure Angel was alright. She had learned more when, an hour later, Willow and Tara had showed up on her doorstep, ready to perform a disinvite spell at Spike’s request. It wasn’t difficult to guess whom the disinvite was targeting, but it didn’t explain why Spike was suddenly wary enough of Angel that he didn’t want to leave him the opportunity to come in.
She had been ready to berate him for scaring her like this; but when he walked in, a large purple bruise marring his right cheek, she lost her words and simply hugged him tight. His slight wince didn’t escape her, and she pulled away, wondering where else he was hurt.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice catching as she realized he had fought someone, her intuition claiming it had probably been Angel.
“’M famished,” he replied with an absent smile. “Mind if I grab a bite?”
Without waiting for her answer, he walked to the kitchen, and she followed him, observing the tense but controlled movements as he retrieved a bag of blood in the fridge and emptied it in a mug before warming it in the microwave. Simple gestures that she had seen him perform a thousand times before, ones that she had done herself for him almost as often, but that now suddenly struck her as odd. It was even stranger when the two children, who had been playing in the living room, ran into the kitchen and straight to their father’s open arms.
She watched him interact with them, answer Lisa’s question of where he had been by a short ‘to see Uncle Angel’, ask in turn what they had done all day, and finally release them so that they could get back to their game. The more she watched him, the more she became certain that something was off; and as soon as his arms were free, she stepped into his embrace.
“What happened?” she repeated, and she could hear the fear in her own voice.
Spike took a deep breath before he answered.
“Went to see Angel, like I told you.”
“You two fought?” she asked, touching his bruised face with the lightest touch.
“Yeah, a bit. It’s what we do best.”
The smile on his lips was fake; but she didn’t call him on it.
“Why? Why did you go there? Why did you fight? Why did you get Willow to disinvite him?”
The smile faded.
“I called him, last night. Just felt like something was wrong, and I had to call. Felt the same way before. When he was cursed, and when he lost it. I never realized what it meant until long after.”
Buffy blinked twice, her heart skipping a beat.
“Did he…”
She swallowed hard.
“Did he lose his soul again?”
Spike sighed and pulled her tighter.
“Nah, it’s still there. He’s just not listening to it anymore.”
Suddenly frozen to the bones, she listened to his incredible tale of dusted vampire brought back to life by evil lawyers, of old acquaintances showing up again in Angel’s life, of his apparent descent into darkness without his soul stopping him. She listened, and closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them, it would only be a nightmare.
“His mates are going to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t go too far. And if he does…”
The rest remained unvoiced, but it was clear. Whatever was happening to Angel, if he seemed to become a threat, Spike would go back and dust him. Or at least, try.
As she listened to her children chattering only a few steps away, as she felt Spike’s edginess in the way he was holding her, Buffy realized she would have no qualms sending Angel back to hell if he even appeared to be a potential danger to her family. And she knew Spike would be ready to do exactly the same if needed.
The characters and names used in these stories do not belong to me. All copyrights remain with Fox and Mutant Enemy. No profit is made from this fanfiction.