A loud snapping noise echoed in the library and Giles threw a stern glance across the table at Spike. The vampire replied with a somewhat apologetic look as he placed the ancient book he had angrily closed on top of the other ones, all just as old. Giles could agree that the exercise was frustrating, but there was no point in damaging precious volumes.

They were the only two still awake. Xander was asleep at the counter, Willow in Giles’ office, and Buffy up in the stacks. They had spent the night researching, hardly the best way to spend their end of year vacation. Sunrise was slowly approaching, and the vampire had an hour left, maybe a little less, to get back safely to his crypt. Not that Giles would have admitted to caring about the blond’s safety.

“Still nothing?” he asked quietly.

Spike shook his head. “Hard to find anything when you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

The Watcher acquiesced. He glanced again at the book on his lap before adding it to the table’s pile. He then stood and began pacing, anything to try to awaken his tired mind so he could decide where to search next.

“You’re sure Angel said nothing more that we could use?” he inquired again. His voice was devoid of emotion when he said the vampire’s name. It still surprised him how much harder it was to adjust to Angel’s return, when he had accepted Spike’s help somewhat easily. Of course, Spike hadn’t killed the woman Giles had loved or tortured him, mentally or physically.

“Told you, he was rather incoherent,” the vampire replied, sounding exhausted. “Wanted to know why he had been brought back and...”

“You mean, why Angelus was brought back, right?” Giles cut in harshly.

Spike sighed. “As I see it, that’s part of the problem. He blames himself for what happened, doesn’t want things to repeat themselves. He’s afraid he’ll revert to Angelus. Probably thinks whoever or whatever brought him back has plans for him. And I think he was seeing things that weren’t there while he was talking to me.”

For long seconds, Giles observed the blond, who, as was so often the case, wouldn’t return his gaze without flinching. Anyone looking for the signs could see that Spike still suffered from his guilt, but the vampire had become better at hiding it from the younger members of the group and acted as if he were perfectly fine around them. Tonight however, he was particularly distracted, and more than once Giles had noticed his almost inaudible muttering, something he had done in the first days after he had been souled.

“You didn’t mention hallucinations earlier,” Giles finally pointed out. “And how do you know what Angel is afraid of? Did he say…”

“He didn’t say it in so many words, but I know him well enough to read between the lines. Know what I’d think if I was in his place.”

There was something Spike wasn’t saying. It had been there all night long, but only now could Giles realize what it might be.

“Whatever is affecting Angel… it’s affecting you too, isn’t it? Do you have hallucinations?”

The vampire looked startled for an instant, and then his face was an expressionless mask. “I didn’t go to hell, Watcher, at least not yet. And no one brought me back.”

“But you’re afraid to lose your soul and go back to what you were,” Giles insisted, following his intuition. “That’s how you know how Angel feels; it’s the same for you.”

Pale blue eyes left Giles to quickly look up to the stacks. Giles glanced there too, seeing nothing but hearing quiet steps that meant Buffy was awake. When he returned his attention to Spike, the vampire was standing and slipping his coat on.

“Remember what you said this summer?” Spike asked quietly, almost absently. “About me having a soul being part of someone’s grand plan or something. Did you really believe that?”

In truth, at the time, Giles had been trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing. Nevertheless, things had changed since then.

“What I believe,” he replied with as much conviction as he could muster, “is that something as extraordinary as the return of your soul would not happen without a meaning. You have a soul for a reason, and I think it’s up to you to find out what that reason is.”

Strangely, Spike’s gaze wasn’t on him as Giles spoke, but instead slightly to his left. When the vampire shook his head before leaving without another word, the human was convinced Spike’s reaction hadn’t been in response to his voice.

Hallucinations… A slight frown creased Giles’ brow as he remembered fragments of something he had read years before. Letters, if his memory was to be trusted. About the first of a kind, or something along those lines. Now if he could only find them, maybe they’d have the beginning of an answer.


The last couple of days had been increasingly difficult, and Spike was telling himself that he shouldn’t have accepted Joyce’s invitation. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, researching with the Scoobies despite the taunting and suggestions to kill murmured into his ear. The ghost had followed him back to the crypt, and he had had a hellish day, and still no rest. It was dangerous that he was here. Dangerous for Joyce and her daughter.

He was about to walk away, anywhere as long as it was away from the Summers women, when the door opened and Joyce smiled at him, inviting him inside the house with a gesture. Apprehensive, he crossed the threshold, hoping that the ghost following him would stay outside, but knowing it wouldn’t. He tried to focus on Joyce’s words so as not to hear the other’s.

“I’m glad you came,” the human was saying, and looked like she meant it. “Faith is coming too. It didn’t feel right to leave you two all alone on Christmas’ eve.”

She frowned suddenly, as if an idea had just struck her. “Do vampires… do you celebrate Christmas?”

Looking distractedly at the tree – and no, not at the Slayer hanging up ornaments while wearing a lovely little dress, he certainly had no reason to look at the Slayer – he replied with thoughts of long-gone winters.

“I used to. Not recently, though.”

Behind Joyce, someone laughed, a hard, cruel laugh so unlike the person he refused to acknowledge. He closed his eyes and fists tightly, trying unsuccessfully to block the words that followed. He had been hearing them for days already, and when Angel had turned up at his crypt door with a haunted look and babbling senselessly, he had realized that someone was playing both of them. Or something. Whatever it was had managed with frightening ease to bring forth Spike’s cruelest memory and fears; and he knew he was becoming more and more vulnerable to the hateful words spilling from the lips of the long dead woman.

A hand closing on his arm startled him, and he opened his eyes fearing to discover his nightmare was now corporeal. Instead, he found a concerned mother.

“Are you alright?” Joyce asked, and as he lied and assured her he was fine, his darting eyes noticed that now two Slayers were observing him. When had Faith arrived? And why did Buffy look like she had seen a ghost, too?

“Spike, can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?”

Throat tight, he followed the Slayer out, afraid that she had seen and heard. Afraid that, again, she would threaten to stake him but not follow through.

“Who was it?” she asked as the door closed behind him.

“Looked like the other slayer to me,” he tried to evade with a small smile that faded on Buffy’s dark look.

“It’s haunting you too, isn’t it?” she asked through clenched teeth. “That’s why you’ve been so distracted. Why didn’t you tell us?”

He shrugged, looked away from her, only to be distressed by a ghostly sad smile a few feet behind the unsuspecting Slayer.

“You can’t let it get to you,” she stated as if it were the most evident thing in the world. “You’re stronger than it, and you…”

He interrupted her abruptly. “What’s the point of being stronger? It’s right. She’s right.”

He gestured toward the grinning woman behind Buffy, but when Buffy turned, she didn’t appear to see anything.

“I am a murderer,” he muttered, “and fighting by your side doesn’t change that. Your mother’s not safe with me, and neither are you. You should have staked me long ago. And you should stake me now before that thing drives me insane and makes me hurt one of you.”

If possible, Buffy seemed even more resolute. Not worried or frightened, as she should have been, but determined to reach him. And as he tried to listen to her rather than to the reminders of how sweet the blood of a Slayer was, sweet enough maybe to reach perfect happiness, he couldn’t help but wonder why she was even trying.

“You think I’d have let her invite you tonight if I wasn’t entirely sure you were incapable of hurting her? You think I’d patrol with you if I didn’t trust you with my back? What are you saying, that I’m stupid? I’m not stupid. I see what you’ve become; I see how hard you try to do the right thing. And I say whatever that thing is telling you, it’s wrong. You were a killer but…” 

“Still am,” he muttered.

“Were,” she insisted. “You are making a difference. You do help. And your help is very much appreciated.”

Frowning, he shook his head. “My help is appreciated? Since when?”

Her mouth opened and closed again without a sound, a perfect imitation of a fish.

“Ever since you came back,” he continued with a small snort, “you’ve either ignored me, refused my help or treated me like your lackey. Appreciation is the very last thing you’ve showed toward me. So you’ll excuse me if I can’t quite believe you there.”

If he wasn’t imagining things, a hint of red was now tinting her cheeks, and once again, he concentrated on that rather than on the too tempting suggestion to taste the ungrateful Slayer’s blood that only he could hear.

“Since when?” she repeated quietly. “Since William. And no, I’m not making fun of him. Or you. Just saying… You’re guarding my back, as he tried to do. It’s more than even…”

She cut herself short, and Spike would have given a lot to know what name she had been about to pronounce. Angel hadn’t been accompanying her for patrols very often since being cursed again.

“You’re doing good things,” she reiterated her previous sentiment. “It never occurred to me you’d want to hear any encouragements from me. Or thanks. But you’ve definitely earned both.”

For a few long seconds, he detailed her features, tried to decide if she meant her words or was simply telling him what she thought he needed to hear.

“Why do I have this feeling that you’re practicing a speech you’re going to give Angel?”

She shook her head, a cheerless grin touching her lips. “Angel’s not here, is he? I’m talking to you, Spike. No one else.”

More silent staring, and at last Spike slowly nodded, wordlessly pledging not to stop fighting. Buffy seemed to relax ever so slightly.

“They must be waiting for us,” she said with a gesture toward the house. “We’d better get in.”

“Go ahead. I’ll have a smoke and then join you.”

She opened the door and went to step in, but paused to look at him and asked again:

“Who is she?”

As his gaze drifted back to the now silent, frowning ghost who still observed them, Spike let a small smile curl the corner of his mouth.

“My mum,” he replied quietly, thankful that the Slayer only answered with a brief touch to his shoulder.


As I recall, I never got to finish that fag. Minutes later the Slayer ran out of the house and asked me to come along, explaining on our way to the Watcher’s flat that Angel had visited her, apparently back to his old tricks of using windows rather than doors, and that he wasn’t exactly on the sane side of things. I left her a block from Giles’ place. Didn’t have an invite, still didn’t want one. Told her I’d go check on Angel. She seemed grateful at my offer.

I went to the mansion, and from there I found him easily enough. Understood immediately what he was waiting for on top of that hill. I can’t say I hadn’t thought of doing it myself more than once in the past couple of days.

“Always taking the easy way out, aren’t you?” I said to try to snap him out of it.

He reacted to my words as if they were a physical attack, body tensing and eyes glowing with anger.

“You think what I’m doing is easy? You have no idea…”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Know exactly where you are. Have the same past, fangs, soul and nasty ghosts as you do. Only difference is that I’m not a fucking coward.”

I had hoped for a reaction; didn’t have to wait long to get it. A closed fist crashed against my jaw, and I replied in kind. Neither of us had any weapon, so it was just hands and feet, until we were both too tired and bloodied to do more than stay down for a minute or ten and catch a breath neither of us needed.

“It’s the only way,” I heard him murmur. “I’ll end up killing her if I don’t… Or she’ll have to kill me. I want her so badly, it scares me. Want all of her, body and soul, blood and life. I’m still a monster, and I shouldn’t subject her to that.”

“Oh, come of it already,” I snapped, sitting up to glare at him. “She knows exactly what you are. Once in your unlife, give the benefit of the doubt to the person who loves you rather than assuming the worst. Aren’t you tired of running away?”

He frowned as he stood, towering over me as I remained on the ground. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you bloody think it means?”

He never answered. Typical Angel. Although that time he had an excuse, in the form of a breathless Slayer who had found us God only knows how.

I stepped back and let her have the scene, listening silently as she tried to convince him, with no more success than me, that it didn’t have to end with the sunrise, that he – and I – had been targeted by the First and that the nightmare was over now. And as her words glided in the fading night, it struck me how similar yet different they were from the ones she had offered me earlier. Same affirmation that Angel and I weren’t killers anymore, that we could do good things. But where she had stated her trust in me, she voiced her need for him. Where she had convinced me that I had something to give to the world, she expressed what she wanted him to give to her.

As I listened her words and to what he replied, I wondered if they were already over without even knowing it. Yes, the improbable snow came and saved the day – saved me too, by the way, because I was too out of it to think of getting inside. I watched them walk away hand in hand – depressing, but at least they were both safe. Only then did I grasp that it was important to me the poof remained safe, even if he was a bloody idiot. But words had been spoken that they couldn’t take back. Hers, methinks, showed that she didn’t really see Angel for who he was, but had that romanticized idea of her first love and first lover that she couldn’t shake off. His words were worse. He had admitted to wanting her blood as well as her body. And if sleeping with her wasn’t going to cost him his soul, the temptation for more would always be there now that it had appeared. Hell, I know it from firsthand knowledge. The question was whether he would run away or give in first.

Beyond what that night meant for them, and to this day I remain convinced that it was only the beginning of the end, it meant a lot more for me, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Seeing an image of Anne, even if it wasn’t really her, made me confront what I consider is my biggest crime – one of the first, and certainly the most unforgivable. And as I did, I started to realize why I craved Joyce’s presence and approval. I started to realize too that the Slayer did trust me. She wasn’t allowing me to live out of pity, but because she valued my help – valued me, in a sense. First steps on a road that, eventually, wasn’t that long.