“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” – Dale Carnegie

“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.” – Anonymous

“We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.” – Walter Anderson

******************

Spike walked away from the slayer’s room and knew at that moment that he’d probably given up any chance of being around her. There was no way that she’d let him near her precious friends, her family, knowing that the chip had been rendered useless the moment he’d ended up in middle earth.

Having revealed his unleashed status to them, the vampire had pretty much guaranteed himself a staking at her hand.

Well, she could try anyway. His strength and abilities had seemed to triple during the daylight hours. But at night…that’s when he’d earned his nickname. Ironically, the same moniker he’d acquired so long ago.

Spike had let slip his surname at one point – many, many years ago, after a particularly gruesome battle in which he and Strider had routed a band of orcs from some peaceful village – and once someone witnessed the carnage, he’d been christened.

William the Bloody.

Although, no one ever dared say it to his face.

It was always a respectful “Kriger,” even sometimes a “Mr. Kriger,” while he was in their presence. But, he’d heard the whispered gossip, witnessed his name spread like wildfire, the awed look upon their faces as he rode into town after town. Like they didn’t know if they should kiss his feet in gratitude, or run in fear for their lives.

The re-telling of his and Strider’s feats had often preceded their journey across middle earth – how he fought with an almost inhuman strength. The only thing left of the vultures preying on the townsfolk, a bloody mass of severed limbs and heads as his sword had cleaved his enemies to pieces.

If he hadn’t been fighting on their side, defending them, the vampire was sure that there would have been cause for him to be wary of entering the various settlements. As it was, women and children were often trying to press gifts into his hands, anything that they thought he might like or could use to repay him for his services. The men, eager to listen to his tales over a pint of ale – which he never did. He didn’t like to talk, unless it was to his brother, or once home among the elves in Rivendell.

He’d always left it to Strider to make his apologies as he more often than not, reined his stallion through town in a quick pass to get his bearings before taking up point, usually somewhere just outside of the village proper, sleeping out in the open to better hear the night sounds. His brother would usually join him after about an hour of listening to the townsfolk and getting a quick lay of the land, gaining the necessary information needed to rid the various places of whatever had thought to harm those they would protect.

His lack of communication just seemed to perpetuate the nickname, his aloofness breeding everyone’s fascination with him, until it seemed that everyone knew that Kriger, the blood brother to fellow Ranger, Strider, was William the Bloody.

Lost in thought, Spike’s feet carried him towards his “spot.” The place he went to work out whatever may have been troubling him at any given time when he found himself within the walls of Rivendell.

When he’d first stepped outside Elrond’s home, the vampire had noticed the barely leashed excitement in the air, as if the city’s inhabitants knew what had recently transpired and seemed almost hopeful that the fellowship would succeed, that Sauron would finally be destroyed. Spike murmured a greeting to a few elves that happened to be about, but he didn’t linger – and they seemed to sense his distance and didn’t try to engage him in conversation.

Before long he was walking among the well-worn trail that led him towards the tranquility of the waterfall.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, gazing into the rushing waters, the steady crashing it made against the rocks soothing to his sensitive ears. But, the loud noise in no way drowned out her approach.

******************

True to his word, a young male elf – who looked in his teens but, she was certain, was probably decades, if not centuries, older – stopped by her room, shortly after Spike’s departure. In his hands a small stack of nondescript clothing. He didn’t say much more than a short greeting, something along the lines of, “Hello, Ms. Buffy, Kriger asked me to bring these by.”

Kriger, she took it, was Spike.

She thanked him, and he nodded and went about his way, as if instinctively sensing the cold atmosphere in the room displayed by her friends, and not wanting to linger.

“You can’t still mean to go.”

Xander. Leave it to him to not know when to quit. But, when she turned to confront him, his wasn’t the only face set in a grim mask of determination.

She ignored them all for the moment, placing the borrowed clothes upon her bed, her unwillingness to discuss the coming trip heightening her friends’ restlessness. Only Tara seemed to want to stay out of the impending argument, moving towards the window to look down upon the lush landscaping that comprised Rivendell. When she finally turned towards them, gone was the sweet, pushover Buffy; in her place stood one hundred percent pissed off slayer.

“Of course I mean to go!”

“But, Buffy…he’s got his chip out. Or it doesn’t seem to work here.”

“He does make a valid point, Buffy,” Giles added.

“Oh God! Not you too!” Buffy was ready to pull out her hair in frustration. Even Dawn, her own sister, who for months had been bemoaning the fact that she’d not handled the situation on the tower well, looked like she was going to side with them. Or, maybe it was the fact that she didn’t want her big sister to leave without her.

Anya, for her part, seemed rather bored with the whole subject, but was standing by Xander doing the supportive girlfriend thing.

“He’s a killer, Buffy. And, now that you’re here, the first chance he gets he’ll—”

“Shut up! Just shut up, Xander,” she yelled at him. “Spike isn’t going to do anything to me. Gah! Do you honestly thing everyone here would be practically worshipping at his feet if he was out draining them dry on a nightly basis…or did you miss the homecoming he got when he arrived?”

Giles actually seemed shamefaced at her argument. He had forgotten what had transpired when the blond-headed vampire had arrived in town. And, apparently, the elven lord held him in high regard, given Spike’s and his daughter’s exuberant reunion.

“You’re so quick to judge, but then refuse to budge when the evidence refutes your stance. He. Died. For. Me. He’s changed. Has been for a long time now, only I was too stupid and set in my ways to believe it. But, I’ve seen it. Both in Sunnydale and here. It’s time for you to quit punishing him because of what happened to Jesse.”

Apparently, that wasn’t the right thing to say, because his mouth just seemed to open and close for a moment, no words being uttered, before he gave her a look of such hate, grabbing Anya’s hand and storming from the room.

But, Buffy refused to dwell on him, her mind already on the coming mission.

“Buffy…” Dawn began.

“Not you too!”

“What? Oh, no…” The girl shook her head in denial. She wasn’t upset about Spike. She’d known all along how much the vampire loved her sister. Had always thought that even if he had gotten the chip out, he wouldn’t have reverted to his old ways. Like Buffy said, he’d changed. “I just…what am I gonna do…why do you hafta—”

Buffy walked over to her sister, pulling her down beside her on one of the short couches.

“I’ve got to do this, Dawnie. If we hope to get home, we’re going to need Willow. And, right now, she’s been infused with some sort of dark magicks. If we destroy the ring, the hold over her should be broken…you do want to go home, right?”

Dawn nodded, not speaking.

“You’ll be safe here.”

“Buffy’s right, Dawn,” Tara added as she moved away from the window and joined them. “Rivendell…it’s…peaceful here. Full of good magick. I’ll look out for you. Buffy will help the Fellowship to destroy the ring and then we can go home. All of us.”

The witch smiled, and Dawn couldn’t help but smile back. Hope that Buffy could do this, that the fellowship could do this – destroy the ring and enable them to return home, a bright beacon in the witch’s eyes.

“Now, come on. Buffy’s got some stuff I’m sure she needs to do before they set off. Let’s get out of her hair for awhile…maybe I can take you to see the horses?”

“As long as we’re not going to ride them. My butt’s still sore from before,” Dawn told her, attempting to cover her insecurities behind a cheerful mask of excitement. She turned to her sister to see her nodding her approval. Dawn gave Buffy a quick, hard, hug, then shot off the couch to leave with Tara.

“Buffy, I…”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Giles,” she told him, resigned to not being able to change her watcher’s mind. “It’s over. The subject of Spike is closed. Now, I’ve got some clothes to try on and some packing to do.”

“I…I wasn’t going to…that is…” he stammered, then grumbled, “Bloody hell.”

He sounded so much like a disgruntled Spike in that moment that she couldn’t help but laugh. Giles soon joined her, their lighthearted chuckles paving over whatever awkwardness they felt.

“I’m proud of you,” he told her once he’d calmed. At her look, he expounded. “As far back as I can remember, the Council has held the belief that demons are…just that. There is no change. No shades of gray. Only black and white. Good versus evil. It’s something we’ve drummed into our slayers. I suppose it was arrogance on our part. But then we were confronted with Angel. A vampire with a soul. And, I started to slowly trust him. Believe a little more in those shades of gray.”

Buffy nodded. She remembered the first time she’d seen his vampiric features. She’d screamed, looking frantically about her room for a stake. It was only later that she’d learned about the soul, and then little by little, fell in love with the broody vampire.

Then he’d lost it.

They looked at each other, sharing in the other’s pain. Both had felt betrayed by the vampire’s actions, not able to reconcile the “good” Angel with the “evil” Angelus.

It had just proven to Giles that, once a demon, always a demon.

And then Spike had come along.

For the first year after having the behavioral modification chip implanted in his brain, the vampire had played at being the big bad, even while offering the reluctant aid. Then his feelings for the slayer had become apparent, and it had disgusted the watcher. All he could think about was a repeat of before. The slayer would fall for him and then he’d get his chip out – disaster following in his wake. When Buffy had told him all that Spike had suffered at the hands of Glory and still not given up Dawn, he’d been stunned, but refused to believe that a vampire – or any demon for that matter – could change their nature.

His bones barely knitted together, Spike had stayed by the slayer’s side as they’d raced away from Sunnydale. Determined to keep both Dawn and her safe.

And in the end, he had.

Giles had spent weeks going over the past two years in the wake of Glory’s destruction and the closing of the portal. Writing down every scenario involving the blond-headed vampire he could remember. As he reread his chronicles, he’d been amazed – and shamed – by having been too blinded by his prejudice to see his transformation.

And yet, here he’d been, ready to jump on the old bandwagon of “Spike is evil” once more. Even after all appearances indicated that he’d continued his “white hat” ways here – completely unencumbered by the chip’s zap. Or the sun’s deadly rays. His watcher’s mind wondered what else he might have gained here in middle earth.

He laid it all out for her. How his mistrust of Angel had cast a shadow over Spike’s evolution. How he’d encouraged the vampire to make the most of his new “status” then practically spit in the vampire’s face whenever he tried to offer a hand. How, even now, believing in the vampire’s changed character, a small part of him just refused to let go. To trust him. It was something that he’d have to deal with on his own.

At the end of his one-sided conversation, Buffy nodded. She’d been where he was. But, she’d also witnessed first-hand his loyalty to her. His love…

That he loved another didn’t matter. He still wouldn’t hurt her.

She could trust him with her life.

******************

Even with the noise from the waterfall practically ringing in his ears, he heard her approach. Smelled her too. Part natural musk, part flowery scent – all woman. He didn’t know why she tried to sneak up on him; she knew his abilities. Knew that there was no way that she could expect to get close to him without him knowing.

He smiled to himself and waited for her to join him.

He didn’t mind sharing this place with her. She calmed him almost as much as the waterfalls did. Her presence alone could force back the worse bloodlust, but when she spoke, her lyrical voice invaded his senses until he was all but purring in contentment.

Then she was by his side, her palm pressed against his cool cheek. And he couldn’t help himself as he leaned into her soft caress.

“What troubles you, golden warrior?” she spoke in elvish, concern evident in her voice.

Spike shook his head, not responding. He couldn’t give voice to his despair, for to say it aloud would make it true. Better to hold it in and pray, just pray that he was wrong. And that the slayer wouldn’t come looking for him with a stake in her hand.

But she knew, damn her. And as he thought it, he regretted his mental outburst. She couldn’t help what she was. It was one of the things he loved about her. She could see into anyone, realize their pain and try to take it for her own. Only, he wouldn’t let her. The slayer was his, good or bad, and he’d not give up any part of her if he could help it.

Arwen nodded, accepting his refusal. She settled herself beside him on a nearby rock, neither speaking.

“You’re worried,” he told her after a bit, shoving aside his own problems to deal with hers.

She nodded. At times like this, she wished she had her father’s gift of sight.

“Have I ever not brought him back to you?” he questioned.

“This time is different. It’s like I can feel Sauron’s evil trying to worm its way inside. Promise me you’ll be careful. I couldn’t bear it if I were to lose either of you.”

“’S gonna take a lot more than some orcs to stop us. We’ll see our task done, then we’ll be home. Only this time for good.”

The two lapsed into silence, both thinking of the future and what it might bring.

After a time, Spike sent her off to be with Strider. They wanted to be gone at first light, and if the members of the group were smart, they’d be in bed not long after the sun set.

He didn’t think he’d be sleeping at all.