Written for Zandee's birthday, and fondly dedicated to her.
PG. Story goes AU after 'Normal Again'.
As always feedback is greatly appreciated.
All Humans
She should have known she would see him again, Buffy told herself afterwards. It had just been a matter of time.
When she had met the tutor who would help her through her GED and known
before the name had even passed her lips that the redhead was called
Willow, she had only thought it was a coincidence. When Willow had let
it slip, a few days later, that she had a girlfriend named Tara,
Buffy’s conviction had wavered; even more so when the young woman, now
her friend, had invited her to a party several weeks later and Buffy
had met her friend Xander.
One by one, the people she had known in her fantasy world were
reappearing, and Buffy was a little scared and a little excited by all
of it. She had met Willow a month after being released from the clinic,
and at the time, had been too afraid of being sent back to tell her mom
or her counselor about it. After that, each person she had met that was
supposed to be a part of her imagination had remained her little
secret. It had been hard and joyful, all at once, to meet Giles on the
campus library after ten months of living this life. She had had the
urge to hug him, talk to him, ask him about the Council and vampires,
ask him if it all existed or if she had truly been insane. The look in
his eyes as he had checked out her books, perfectly polite but without
the smallest flicker of recognition, had broken her heart and kept her
quiet.
She had seen other familiar faces on campus, in her street, at the
mall. People she had seen at the Bronze, people that she had slain as
vampires, random inhabitants from Sunnydale. She kept expecting –
hoping – to see Dawn. She was a little anxious about ever coming across
Angel. She had thought, also, of Spike, but her mind had shut down at
that, refusing to even consider it.
And that was why she was now standing frozen in the middle of the path
that ran through the park, a few feet away from a stranger sitting on a
bench. Her heart was beating fast, too fast, and she clutched her books
to her chest as if it would force it to calm down. He hadn’t noticed
her yet, it was still time to get away, but she simply couldn’t move.
Her eyes skimmed his face, high cheekbones she couldn’t fail to
recognize, blue eyes hiding behind glasses, sensuous lips moving
without a sound as he read from a notebook. His hair was different,
shades of honey rather than platinum, but it was he, no doubt there. To
see him like this, sitting in a sunny park, oblivious to the rest of
the world and to her was too much; she had to know.
“Spike?”
Her voice was barely a whisper; she couldn’t make herself speak any
louder for fear that she would break the spell. He heard her however,
and raised his eyes to her. He smiled and Buffy felt the world wavering
around her.
Absorbed in a particularly difficult verse, William didn’t notice the
young woman until she had spoken his name. It was the first time anyone
had recognized him, and he grinned at her, questions already rushing to
his lips as to whether she had been at the bar the previous night,
which of his compositions she had liked best. Before he could say a
word however, she appeared to faint and he stood in time to catch her
and prevent her fall. Both her books – she had to be a student too –
and the notebook he had been scribbling in spilled at their feet, but
for the time being, he didn’t worry about it and helped her instead to
sit down on the bench. Her hands gripped the edge of the seat on each
side of her and he kept a hand on her shoulder as he crouched in front
of her.
“Miss? Do you want to lie down for a moment?”
She shook her head and her eyes, which had closed as she had fainted,
fluttered open. She had lovely eyes, was his first thought, and he
found himself already looking for an adjective to describe them. Hazel
was accurate, but far too plain.
“Spike? Is it really you?”
There was something in her voice, hope and fear all in one, that made
William think that maybe he wasn’t the Spike she was looking for. He
wasn’t sure how to respond to her, so he proceeded with caution.
“I’m Spike, yes. But it’s only my stage name, you can call me William if you…”
He stopped as her eyes shut tight and she started muttering a litany of ‘oh God’ under her breath.
“Miss? Are you alright?”
“Buffy.”
Unsure he had heard correctly, he hesitated before he answered. Her
eyes opened again, and she murmured: “That’s my name. Buffy.”
He smiled uncertainly. “Nice to meet you, Buffy. Although I can’t say
that the circumstances are reassuring. Is there anything I can do? Do
you need water or…”
Again, she shook her head, and indicated that she wanted to stand. He moved back, giving her some space.
“I’m fine. Just a little dizzy spell, I’m better now.”
As if to demonstrate, she knelt and gathered her books. She had
finished before he could help. She then gave him a quick goodbye and
practically ran away, leaving William too baffled to do anything more
than watch her go. When he realized she had taken his notebook, she had
already disappeared and there was nothing left to do but curse a blue
streak.
Buffy didn’t notice the notebook amongst her books for three days. She
had been so agitated after coming across Spike that she had almost –
almost – gone to her counselor to talk about it, about the mess that
her mind had become upon seeing him. Because it was him. Not just
someone who looked like him, but really him. How could it not be, when
he had answered to Spike, yet told her his real name was William?
All these months, as the people she had once known reappeared in her
life, she had tried not to question what she had chosen to consider a
blessing. Seeing them alive and well attenuated somewhat the guilt she
couldn’t help feeling whenever she remembered leaving them in that
other place. But now that it was Spike who had reentered the scene, her
confusion was boundless, to the point that her parents noticed her
distress and carefully suggested she might benefit from an unscheduled
counseling session.
She calmed herself after that, at least in appearance, and returned to
her studying to occupy her mind. That was when she found it.
It was a simple notebook; the same kind she used herself, which might
have been why she didn’t realize it wasn’t hers until she opened it.
Puzzled, she stared at the scrawling script for a few instants before
actually trying to decipher it. Short lines, rhymes… a poem. She turned
to the next page and the following ones, and one after the other
discovered dozens of poems – the notebook only had a few blank pages
left. Dates at the bottom of each page told her that it represented two
years worth of writing. A couple of flyers seemed to indicate that the
owner was a patron of a bar that hosted poetry slams every Tuesday. On
the back of one of these flyers, the same name was written over and
over again, as if someone had been practicing signing it, and Buffy’s
heart tightened as she discovered who owned the notebook.
Spike.
She closed it, shoved it to the bottom of a drawer, and tried to forget
about it. But constantly, her thoughts and eyes were drawn back to the
closed drawer and what it contained. It was as if the words were
calling her, begging her to read them. She resisted until night. But
after an hour of tossing and turning, she gave up, turned her bedside
lamp on and pulled the notebook out. She held it on her lap for a
little while, both hands resting on the closed cover. She was scared to
read it, she could admit to herself. Scared that she would discover
through his words someone who was too much like the Spike she had
known. Even more scared that she wouldn’t recognize him at all.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the notebook to the last page that
held writing. The date was the day of their meeting, and the poem
didn’t seem complete, a couple of blank spaces marking where he had
erased words. She had interrupted him, she realized. The poem spoke of
a lost love, images so vivid that she ached for him. Had he written
anything like this when she had broken up their relationship, in that
other world?
As she read the poems, one after the other, the Spike she had known,
the one who had been her lover, the one whom she had been unable to
love, her Spike inextricably melded with this one. The one who wrote
verses that were sometimes inspired, sometimes a bit clumsy, many of
them, if not most, about a broken heart.
She fell asleep holding the notebook to her chest.
William was about to step on the stage when she entered the bar, and if
not for the host’s hand on his back, guiding him forward, he would have
gone straight to her and given her a piece of his mind. She had his
notebook with her, he noticed with relief, but his anger remained the
same. She appeared startled when the host introduced him as Spike to
the crowd, and her head whipped toward the stage. Her eyes widened a
little when her gaze crossed William’s and she had the decency to blush
as he glared at her. He recited the poem without ever looking away from
her; it was hardly the best thing he had ever written, but Lorne had
insisted that he perform tonight. William had been coming to the bar
for a year now, and he had become friend with its eccentric owner. Time
and again, Lorne had promised him a bright future as a writer if he
only kept writing whatever the circumstances, and that was how he had
convinced him to get up on the stage even without his anchor – his
notebook.
“A smile and a name are all she offers me,
That, and a look through whole universes
Contained in the depths of her eyes.
I err in her gaze, and soon I am lost
When she flees.
She takes with her more than she gave,
And steals what is more precious
Than even my life or sanity;
She takes my words.”
For the first time ever, his heart didn’t skip a beat on the last
verse; he couldn’t have cared less how the crowd welcomed this
particular creation, not when the thief was back. He jumped off the
platform, oblivious to whether people were clapping or booing, and went
straight to her. She had sat at a table against the wall as he spoke,
and now that he approached her he could see she looked guilty. And a
little afraid.
It was that hint of fear that calmed William’s temper; and rather than
snatching the notebook out of her hands and striding away as he had
intended, he sat down across from her at the table.
“It was an accident,” she said quickly. “I didn’t want to steal anything of yours, I promise.”
He had wondered a lot about that during the past week; she knew his
stage name, and he had imagined this whole theory about how she had
wanted to steal his poems and had faked feeling faint to do it. He had
never truly believed the story himself though; the notebook had no
value for anyone who wasn’t him.
Nodding to show he believed her, he flipped through the pages,
reassuring himself that everything was there. Two years of his life on
a few pages. All his hopes, all his fears, anger and love. All that he
was.
“Thank you,” he said shortly as he began to stand, but fleeting fingers
on his wrist stopped him. The contact startled him and he looked at the
girl questioningly.
“Would you… I mean… Do you want to go have coffee with me?”
There was the same expectation and fear in her voice that there had
been that day in the park, as if she had wanted more than a coffee, but
was afraid she would get her wish. Something about her intrigued him,
and without thinking, he sat down again; his week-old anger was no more
than a memory.
“I’d rather have tea,” was his way to accept her invitation, and it was worth it if only for the shy smile she gave him.
“Do you think I’m insane?”
William hadn’t said a word in a long time, and Buffy was increasingly
worried that she had said too much. He had to think she was crazy,
rambling on about vampires and demons, telling him that she had known
him as a century old vamp who had been head over heels in love with her.
“I’ve seen insanity from closer than I would have wished,” he murmured,
meeting her eyes as he frowned slightly. “You don’t seem insane to me.
But you sure have interesting dreams.”
She was about to tell him that it hadn’t been a dream when she realized
that she had told him it had been one. A long, very long, extremely
detailed and convincing dream. She picked up instead on the first part
of his comment.
“You’ve seen insanity, you say… Was it Drusilla?”
His head jerked back as if she had slapped him; and for a moment, his gaze sharpened as he appraised her.
“How would you know that?” he asked blankly. “I haven’t said her name out loud since I arrived in this country.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “The Spike in my dream… his ex’s
name was Drusilla. She was completely batty. Voices, visions…”
Her voice trailed off as she saw the shock plainly written on William’s face.
“It’s incredible,” he whispered.
“So you don’t believe me?”
He looked down into his cup, which had been empty for more than an
hour; she could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. She had
come to the bar only with the intention of returning his notebook, but
something had clicked in her as she listened to his poem, and she had
decided to tell him what she hadn’t been able to tell anyone so far.
She needed to tell someone, and Spike had been the one she had turned
to before. Turning to this Spike – this William – felt almost too
natural.
“I believe you,” he admitted. “But I don’t understand why you’re
telling me. You admitted yourself you had no feelings for your dream
Spike.”
Was she imagining things or was there a hint of disappointment hidden in his words?
“I couldn’t have feelings for him,” she replied, strangely uneasy to
say this when the rest had come out without trouble. “I couldn’t let
myself love him. He was a vampire. I should have hated him.”
“But you didn’t hate him either, did you?”
“No.”
There was a long pause, and just as Buffy was getting ready to leave –
what had she been hoping would happen anyway? – William finally said:
“I’m not your Spike, Buffy.”
“I know you’re not him. But at the same time… you are. A little. If that makes any sense.”
She didn’t know how to explain herself; everything was so confusing… She should never have told him…
“Head over heels, huh?” he smirked. “At least he had good taste.”
Unsure of what to make of his comment, she smiled tentatively.
“You’ve told me about the Slayer,” he continued. “How about you tell me
about the woman? And if you want I’ll tell you about the non-vampire
me.”
Her smile a little more certain, she nodded. She thought she had heard
the beginning of something in his words. Maybe she would get a second
chance at treating Spike – William – the way he truly deserved.
the end
sequel
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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.
