Two more weeks, and it would be time to go back to school. Willow was both thrilled and anxious at the prospect. It was her high school senior year, the thing she had been waiting for since fourth grade that would open to her the doors of university and adulthood. Yet, it wouldn’t be the same without her best friend. And it certainly wouldn’t be easy if she had to patrol almost every night with the gang. How was she supposed to go to school, do her homework, practice magic, be with Oz, and be out late every night? Or for that matter, how was she going to convince her mother to let her out every night once the summer break was over?

She understood now the constraints of Buffy’s life. She even understood how easy it had been for her friend to fall in love with Angel. Not that Willow had any romantic feeling for Spike; Oz was all she wanted and more. But the souled vampire was… fascinating. She was kind of proud too, that she had been the one giving him a soul. Granted, it wasn’t what she had intended to do, but the simple fact that she had been able to successfully perform such a difficult spell… well, it gave her a lot of confidence in her magical abilities. Now if Giles would only help her practice and learn more, all would be perfect. As perfect as things could be, when school was only two weeks away and she had so many things on her plate. Like those vampires straight ahead.

She clutched her stake and watched apprehensively as Xander, Giles and Spike took on the three vamps. Oz, Cordelia and herself were backup, and all three of them waited for an opening to jump in and use their stakes. Their little group had gotten well organized over the summer; and with Spike leading them to vampires’ hunting grounds, they rarely spent a night without at least staking a couple of them. Their miss rate was lower every week; Willow kept detailed counts of their stats.

Giles was the first to stake his vamp. For an old man, he wasn’t so bad. Of course, he would probably have objected to her calling him old. Then it was Xander’s, staked by Oz while Xander held him down. Which left Spike’s. It felt rather weird to Willow that the one person amongst them who was the strongest was more often than not the last one to end his fight. And it was rare that Spike ended a night without new bruises or cuts visible on his body. Sometimes, she suspected he did it on purpose. She wished she could have talked to him, made sure he was alright – the blond had jumped into fights often enough to help a Scoobie for her not to want to return the favor – but he was keeping them all at bay. Very much like Angel had, she couldn’t help thinking to herself. He was there for them, but at the same time he seemed… elsewhere, in a place where talking was done only when necessary, smiling didn’t exist, and disappearing without a ‘good night’ was perfectly fine. Like he was doing right now. Giles had helped him by staking his vamp, before announcing that they were done for the night; and now, Spike was walking away. There was a slight limp to his step. Hurt again.

“You OK?” Oz asked as he slipped his arm around her.

“Fine,” she answered with a nod and a faint smile. “Just… a bit worried, I guess.”

They started walking, the five of them more aware of their surroundings than they appeared.

“Worried about what?” Cordelia asked. “We got them all, didn’t we?”

Willow felt like rolling her eyes at the statement. Cordelia hadn’t helped much tonight, although to be honest neither had Willow.

“Don’t you think,” she began hesitantly, then found confidence in Oz’s encouraging smile, “that Spike is fighting below his abilities? I mean, he killed two Slayers, and he managed to kill Angelus when… when we had so much trouble getting rid of him, so why is he barely able to stake one lowly vamp?”

She had been about to mention Buffy, but even now, that particular subject was still too painful. Better to avoid it as much as possible.

“Because if he kills them all in one night we won’t need him as often and Giles won’t give him any money?” Xander suggested, but his tone was only half joking. “I mean, he’s useful, sure, but he’s still a vamp. Don’t you think he worries that if we don’t need him anymore we’ll stake him? That was the initial plan.”

For a few seconds, no one answered. They had all begun to rely on Spike and hadn’t discussed staking him in quite some time. The last time was when they had talked about the curse and its clause with him, warning him about getting too happy. His reaction had been to shake his head, and mutter something about them having no clue about what he was going through. Although, he had said it in a much more colorful way.

Eventually, Giles sighed.

“I suppose I should talk to him.”


Like most evenings, as soon as patrol was over, Spike directed his steps toward Revello Drive. After that first night when he had decided, with a little help, that maybe assisting the Slayer’s gang might be a good idea, he had hesitated about coming back. Part of him wanted to tell Joyce about his accomplishments, but at the same time, he was afraid that she wouldn’t care and all of his efforts would seem futile. For a few nights, he had lurked, always going back to the mansion when the house’s lights were turned off. Then one evening she had seen him and offered to share a cup of hot chocolate she had just warmed. It had become an almost nightly ritual.

Forgoing the front door, the vampire slipped into the backyard and took a seat on the porch after knocking on the kitchen window. He didn’t have an invite in the house, at his own insistence. He was sane enough to realize that madness sometimes was more of an issue, and he didn’t want to be able to get into the house if his sanity ever shattered completely and the demon took over. At his demand too, Joyce was not sitting outside. She pulled a chair to the door, and remained safely inside as they shared hot chocolate and talked. Sometimes, she was the one doing the talking. Sometimes, he was. And sometimes, neither of them could say anything, and they just kept each other company.

Tonight, she was in a chatty mood, which was good because he didn’t feel like talking. She told him about her gallery and the shipment of Nigerian artifacts she had ordered. Then she told him about the book she had just finished, and although he had really no interest in the angst-filled story, he nodded at all the right places. When it was finally time for him to leave, he felt warm.

He knew, deep down, that there really was little in common between Joyce and his mother. And yet, each time he sat there and listened to her talk, however uninteresting their chat might be, he was taken back a hundred and twenty years before. The contact soothed his soul, enough for him to have some much needed peace and rest. It was always too soon when the time for goodbyes came.

Hands buried in his jeans pockets, he walked back to the mansion, his eyes on the ground in front of him the entire way. He only looked up when he reached the door and found it open. A now well-known scent in the air made it clear who was there, and he almost left again, unwilling to talk to the human now. But after a short hesitation, he finally entered the mansion. Being uncomfortable around Giles was certainly the least of the possible punishments that could be inflicted on him.


Giles was ready to leave when Spike finally arrived. Staying in the mansion alone, for more than an hour, was hardly on his list of interesting things to do. Yet he had stayed, waiting for the vampire, partly because he wanted to know where he had been, and partly because he knew that if he didn’t talk to him right away, he would conveniently forget to do it at all.

He had waited in the main room, unwilling to view any more of the mansion and reopen painful memories. Acathla was still there, and for a while, he studied the stone. It was closed for good, he knew that, and there was nothing malevolent about it anymore. So why did Giles feel like the demon was watching him, ready to awaken at the first mistake?

“Rupert,” the vampire acknowledged his presence as he walked in.

As usual, Spike refused to meet his gaze. It was sometimes hard to believe that the blonde had been – still was actually – a Master vampire. But then, he no longer looked like he used to. His hair was unkempt, the loose shirts he wore did nothing to hide his weight loss, and ever since he had stopped wearing his leather duster, he appeared oddly… frail. Almost as if the coat had been armor and now that it was gone the vampire was exposed.

“Why did you stop wearing that coat of yours?”

That wasn’t what Giles had meant to say, far from it, but now that he had noticed it again, it was hard not to ask. Spike seemed startled by the question; it obviously had not been what he had expected.

“Because I got it in New York,” he answered cryptically.

For the first time in what was probably months, Spike looked straight at him, the guilt clearly etched on his features.

“New York,” Giles repeated blankly when he understood. “I see.”

The Watcher was the one who broke eye contact. Sometimes, it seemed frighteningly easy to forget exactly what Spike was.

“We should get rid of that thing,” he said as he gestured toward Acathla. “Drop it at the bottom of the ocean, maybe, so that…”

“No.”

The word was uttered quietly, but with a strength that Giles couldn’t recall having heard in the vampire’s voice since he had been cursed.

“Why not?” he countered. “As far as home decoration goes, I am quite sure you could find better. A sofa would be good, for one thing, so that your guests don’t have to stand for hours on end. Where were you, anyway?”

The vampire didn’t react at all to the sarcasm. In fact, he almost seemed ashamed.

“Was talking with Joyce,” he said slowly, reluctantly. “And I need the stone there.”

Both statements upset Giles more than they should have. He took a couple of steps toward the vampire until he stood right in front of him.

“Explain yourself,” he demanded coldly.

Giles wasn’t sure which was most troubling. That Spike complied, or that he had been sure he would.

“Joyce… she’s lonely with the Slayer gone. So I stop by sometimes. She likes the company. I stay outside, though. Never in. And Acathla… I need it. To remember. Can’t forget. Don’t want to forget. Ever.”

The variations of Spike’s voice when he talked of Joyce and when he talked of remembering were impossible to miss. Fondness for the first, despair for the second. And that despair allowed Giles to let drop the subject of Mrs. Summers – he’d have to talk to her though, caution her about trusting the vampire too much – to get back to the initial reason of his visit.

“Spike? The children and I have been wondering if you are… alright. You seem a little… off, however inadequate that expression may be.”

For the second time in one night, the vampire’s eyes sought Giles’, and the Watcher shivered at the deadness he saw there.

“I’m a vampire and I have a soul,” he said blankly. “What the hell is right with that, Watcher?”

Giles didn’t have any answer to that, and he simply watched the vampire retreat to what was presumably his room without another word.


Just a night amongst many others. They all blur in my mind now. Day after day, night after night, the same thing. Wake up with my throat raw from screaming because of nightmares that felt too much like the past. Feed on cold pig’s blood when I had some, or go hungry when I didn’t. Pace like a caged wolf and wait for the sun to go down. Find the humans and trail after them, showing them where to find vampires since that was what they expected from me. Inflict some pain, receive some back in return. Go spend a quiet hour or few minutes with Joyce. Get a smile or two from the Bit – although she wasn’t really there, was she? Damn these monks for messing with my mind. Anyway, whether it was only to see Joyce or to see both Summers ladies, Revello was often on my way. After that, back to the mansion. Follow my nightly penance rituals. Drink booze when I had some. Try to fall asleep, knowing that with sleep the nightmares would eventually come.

I’m not sure what to make of Giles’ concern that night. I always assumed he was keeping an eye on me because he was still half-convinced he had made a mistake by releasing me, but maybe it wasn’t entirely that. Same thing for the Scoobies. It never occurred to me that they might see how bad I felt and care about it. Shows how much I know, huh?

I wasn’t lying when I told him I needed Acathla to remember, but it was more than that. As long as the stone was there, I could pretend to myself that I still hoped it was going to open. Open and swallow me. Open and give me back my Princess. Either one would have been good, or so I thought. In my deluded mind, she had a soul too, and we would have helped each other to be stronger than the pain. Bloody romantic, ain’t it?

Sometimes, I even dared hope that Angel would be back. He had survived a hundred years with a soul, and I was certain he would have been able to tell me how he had done it, give me the answers that would make everything easier and simpler and the sunlight less appealing. I never thought until it was pointed out to me that I didn’t have to try to be like him. Never thought that his way of dealing with his soul wasn’t the only way, and might not be the best either. I got the point, eventually. I guess I have to thank the Slayer for that. Though helping me was certainly the farthest thing from her mind at that time.