Title: Shadows of the past
Author: Kur
Disclaimer: nothing is mine. Only the plot.
Rating: G?
Pairing: Buffy & Spike
Spoilers: Season 2
Summary: Buffy gets more than transformed by the costume in S2's Halloween and discovers the reason she couldn't ever beat Spike.
Thanks: to Melissa, my wonderful, extraordinary beta. She’s the best!

CHAPTER 5

Make me strong but not at this price. Make me inflexible; make me of stone, but never at this cost. I should have asked that. Buffy looked down to the grave where Ms. Calendar would rest for all the years to come. The wind blew and swirled among the trees. Was it true that you could actually know what it said but simply paying attention to it? Buffy closed her eyes but all she could hear was Xander yelling in the library and Willow asking if she wanted to try that old curse. How could she tell them she didn’t want him back? How could she tell her friends that all she wanted was for them to be saved, to be always happy or at least as happy as they could be? She wanted them to have the kind of normal life she’d never had. To have a loving couple to hug them and kiss them and make love to them without going mad. Without turning into a copycat of Ted Bundy with fangs. Most of all, she wanted this nightmare to end. No more deaths or grieving on somebody’s grave. At least not on the graves of those she cared.



Buffy let herself drop on the library chair. She should be grateful for the help. She was in spite of that tickle in her guts. Kendra meant help. And memories not too well buried. All she needed to make up her mind was the demon issue. A world-sucker demon. Maybe they’d find a demon-sucker demon to summon in one of Giles’s book. If any of that existed. Or she could always accept Willow’s offer…

“Willow, I think you should try the curse.” She tried to smile, but frowned instead.

“I tend to side with your friend Xander on this one. Angel should be eliminated.” Kendra… always so practical. Straight to the point.

“Oh, I’ll fight him. I’ll kill him if I have to. But if I don’t get there in time, or if I lose, then Willow might be our only hope.”

She couldn’t believe how relieved she felt after saying it aloud. Not matter if they didn’t believe her. Didn’t matter now that she had finally let half of the truth come to light. While looking at the orb Giles handled to her friend, Buffy made a mental promise. Once this is over I’ll tell her everything. All of it. No more secrets. After all, we are friends.



She felt this déjà vu… Looking into dead eyes and a police officer yelling at her. She almost waited for a whistle and a cart to appear in a flash of blue light. The numbness wasn’t there, though. Big run away was. After checking in the hospital for her friends the numbness came back with a blow. Straight to her heart. She couldn’t lose Giles too. Not more pain. Where’s my granted wish? Why had I to do all these? If I had been faithful to my heart… If I hadn’t let him touch me… If he kills him… Another grave. And mine ‘cause I won’t be able to bear it. No more. I’m two thousands years old. So tired… So…
Damned idiot that I can’t avoid a police car!!!

A police officer that was suddenly beaten unconscious and thrown on the bonnet of the car while her eyes grew wider as moon hollows.

“Hello cutie.” Spike smirked tilting his head. Amused. He managed to look amused. Freaking unbelievable.

“What?! How?! You!” Her heartbeat was a hurricane. As well as her fist. Straight to his nose, to his face, to all the pain he’d caused her. The most amazing thing was that beyond everything that was going on her lips threatened to draw a stupid, out of place smile.

“What? You thought I was all cripple and weeping? Sorry, love. Alive…well, sort of, and kicking here.”

“Never wanted…” She shut up just in time. The words were dancing in her mind and almost jumped out against her will.

Spike raised one eyebrow. So easy to hear those unspoken words... “Oh, no? So I think you’re the best actor ever.”

“What do you want? ‘Cause frankly, I don’t have much time for this.”

“Well, I want to stop Angel. I want to save the world.” His smile went ever wider. She inhaled sharply. There’s something of William in that smile that shook her to the core. Some childish thing. Something touching and…Please don’t start now. Why don’t you get your ass out of the streets? Just in case. Far away from the police if I want to get Giles back.


Buffy hang up the phone after talking to Willow. At least one of them was better. She opened the tap to fill a glass and kept on gazing at the running water. One look and he willingly helped her. With her mother. As if he’d be able to read the plea in them. As if he cared. Odd. That bonding between them. Not friends but mortal enemies and yet…
She went back to the living room and desperately begged Joyce to leave them alone for a second. Her mother stared at her for a long moment but finally she nodded and climbed the stairs. Buffy’s tired eyes fixed on the vampire sitting on a chair.

“Don’t.”

She frowned.

“Look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking. Poor William. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save you…” – he lit a cigarette and the smoke waved in the air as carnival serpentines – “Guess what. Didn’t want to be saved. As bloody freaky as it might sound to you I like being a vampire.”

“How can you say that?” Buffy sat at the edge of the sofa, her hands squeezed on her lap.

“Oh, come on love. You took a peek at my life back then…”

Buffy jumped from the couch. Her nerves were hot wires hopping inside her veins. “I only took a peek of a fucking bitch rejecting you. It was only that. And you dumped your life only for a woman.”

Spike’s lips curled in a grin. The butt crashed under his boot when he stood up. “Think we’re even then, pet. You’re throwing yours for a man. Only for a man. And one who doesn’t deserve you either, - he snorted, and shortened the gap between them, - Believe me, I know. I’ve known him for more than one hundred and plus years and he’s not worth it. Anyway, I want Dru back as I said.

Buffy sighed and shook her head. Treacherous drops were forming inside her eyes. “Why?”

His thumb caught the unshed tear hanging from her eyelash. “’Cause it’s the way it has to be.” He whispered before turning to the front door.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her searing throat. Her dragon throat. “If Giles dies…she dies.”

He didn’t slam the door shut.



“You walk out of this house…” Joyce’s voice was still hammering in her ears. And in her heart. She had never expected her mother to fully understand but…some support? Some encouraging words? Something that would make the heavy burden of “you’re special” a little lighter? How was it that even after that dust sample her mother didn’t accept anything? God bless the ignorant ones. God bless the others as well. “Angel’s blood…one blow…back to Hell…” Her lungs breathed in and out the words. “Kick his ass.” The sword weighted in her hand as if she was carrying all the forges in Hell. A trickle of sweat ran down her back making her shudder. The cold touch of the dead. The dark façade of the mansion stood there as a pagan icon staring at her with defiant eyes. “See if you’re capable of this. See if you can kill those you’d claimed to love.”

So the show was about to start. Buffy felt her stomach sink like a ball of lead. Heavy and choking. Her gaze met Angel’s and all she could think was about that stupid truce and the promise Spike’d made. Her stupid ideas about bonding. Her stupid feelings for someone who had been dead for more than a century even though it wasn’t for that long in her own memories. William would have kept his word but Spike? How could she trust in him so quickly, so blindly? Yet, something inside her clutched to that hope as if it had been the only safe belt in a shipwreck. She squared her shoulders and faced the eyes of the shark.
“Do you really think you can take us all on?”

“No. I don’t.” And that was it. For some reason that escaped to her, that was the only words Spike needed to jump from his seat. As if they’d agreed on that. “I’ll say this…” And he’d start to pummel Angel with some tool that he’d kept hidden while that crazy bitch looked at him in awe. Buffy could only stare at her as the fear in her veins turned muddy and profound. She had to stop that loony before… A vamp attacked her.



“Painful, isn’t it?” How many times in his unlife had he wished to do this? Spike had missed the amount. For being an insufferable bastard. For teaching me all those things I didn’t want to be taught. For crashing every single thread of fun. For messing with MY things. For destroying this ideal bubble of love and happiness I made up for my vacuous existence. For trashing even this little girl I met long time ago. So short ago. So hated and so cared. Each swing of the andiron marked one milestone of his unlife.

His own cherished, beloved Dru stole from him the fun. It didn’t matter. His other girl, the golden one, the not cherished, not beloved but why do I care this much? tiny warrior would dispatch that bloody excuse for a grandsire out of this world with rock demon within the package. Extra bonus delivery. She was graceful. A little feline glowing with fierce determination. He finally choked Dru enough to make her fall in his arm. And his warrior’s sword flew across the air. A useless piece of shining metal. A fighter with her back against a wall facing the tip of a lethal tongue. Spike stopped for a while but then shrugged and left her to her fate. Behind. In the past. Where she should have stayed.



The bright light enfolded Angel as she stared at it till it was nothing but blue dots in her eyes. While she couldn’t help but remember another bright light. Another vortex. One that had changed history. Her History. One that had filled a century of absence with a painful presence. His Presence. Unknown, feared demon turned into a helpful, allied demon.

Her tears crashed against a black T-shirt; her shaking hands, killing hands, justice hands grabbed the red shirt, the black leather. Another stone demon holding her pain. One fistful of golden hair. One fistful of air. His blue gaze fixed on her trembling shape. The frantic sobs receded and Buffy raised her head. A pair of cold, wet lips captured her salty mouth. His arms didn’t move; her hands fell to her sides. Two sculptures joined by their lips. By their tongues. Her mouth was her only feature. The rest of her body had disappeared in a fog of obliviousness. Welcomed. Obscured. A Cheshire cat. Without the smile.


The promise. After all, we are friends… Buffy, hidden behind a tree, watched her friends as they went into the school. They looked as distant as those who had walked along a faraway street in London. As if she was only there watching the telly, a huge screen rolling images of her past life. I’ll tell her everything… But I can’t Willow. I’m so sorry! Would you ever understand? Growing up so soon as though she had been stretched in a rack. A life rack.
The bus that took her away was another vortex. No blue light in it. Only a constant torrent of street lights glimmering briefly on the stained glass. A dark road. Black trees and black houses. Not even a candlelight twinkling its yellow eye behind the curtains. She closed her eyes. Someone was listening to the radio. Maybe the driver.

The winter here is cold and bitter
It’s chilled us to the bone
We haven’t seen the sun for weeks
Too long, too far from home
I feel just like I’m sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
And, oh darkness, I fell like letting go
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I can love you much better than this
Full of grace
Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
It’s just that we stayed too long
In the same old sickly skin
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
And, oh darkness, I fell like letting go
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I can love you much better than this
Full of grace
I know I can love you much better than this

Buffy leant back, her hands resting on the necklace concealed by her shirt. A sad smile worked its way to her still tingling lips. I know. Yes. I know. Too far away from home.

FIN