London, 1777

The baby was born with a scream, little fists waving madly at being shoved from uterine bliss. Tiny brown curls clung wetly to his reddened face, and it wasn’t until the soothing voice of his mother reached him that he first opened his big blue eyes to the world around him.

"Shhh, sweet precious. You’re to have all the things I never did."

A maid took the baby from her arms to clean him up.

"What’ll ye call ‘im, mam?"

"He’s to be called William. And he will do great things." She rubbed his miniature fingers with hers, awestruck by how tiny they were.

"Yes, my William," she murmured. "Great things."





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Sunnydale, 1998


When Buffy saw him again, he was walking. It was barely dusk, the last traces of daylight casting the sky a smoky gray on its way to black. He stood at the far edge of the courtyard, his coat framing him dark against the paler stone wall.

She thought as she grew closer that he hadn’t been as tall in his chair, that he had been a man on equal footing with her for once in her life, instead of just towering over her. He had the advantage now of making her vulnerable by sheer height.

The words that first left her lips were a half-hearted attempt at being intimidating. She leaned up against the right wall of the courtyard, opposite of where she’d been chained, and folded her arms over her chest.

"Spike, I don’t want to have to kill you. Please tell me I won’t have to."

He just looked at her with those crystal blue eyes of his, eyes that seemed to see right through her defenses, to all the cracks and thin spots beneath the surface. She felt her heart speed up and licked her lips quickly. His eyes darkened at that, and after flicking his gaze to her lips, he finally looked away.

"You needn’t worry, pet; I’ve already decided to change my game. No more killing for Spike."

"And why would you decide a thing like that?" But she already knew, really, had known since she’d caught him watching her that night in the courtyard.

"Was always a rebel, Slayer. You should know that." He started coming slowly towards her, lazy speed amplifying with each step the slight thrust of his hips, the casual cockiness that made his every movement sensual.

"I was slow to realize I couldn’t kill you, and not because I couldn’t, mind you." He raised his hands and lowered his eyes, tapping his palms against his leather-clad chest.

"Big Bad here, eh? But I had to wonder why Drusilla always was quick to despise you, that you bothered her dollies so. She saw it and it worried her, my dark angel, that I couldn’t kill you like the rest of the bits. That my obsession for you wouldn’t stop."

"That I can’t stop." He halted a few feet from her. She watched as the layers fell away, the vampire’s cockiness, the abandoned lover’s rage, until there was only him, a smooth, peaceful presence: the man who had cared for her when she was so ill. His eyes were saying things to her his words only hinted at.

"Why do you keep coming back here, pet?" His voice had dropped to soft, caressing. She closed her eyes to it, to the feelings it invoked in her.

"And don’t say it’s for the weekly death match, ‘cause we’re well past that."

"Do I have to have a reason?" She let her eyes come open, to rest on his watchful face.

"I think its about time for a little sharing from the Slayer, since her pet vampire Spike has already done his spilling." She was silent to that and he smiled, pulling out a smoke and putting it to his lips.

"You’re frolicking with ghosties, pet, coming here." He lit the smoke, blew the stream to the right of him, away from her. Then he waited.

"I wanted it," she whispered finally, not meeting his eyes. He stayed silent, until finally she turned and looked at him and it all came out in a rush.

"I mean a part of me wanted it. There had only been that one night with Angel, and then he was gone, and my body just couldn’t tell the difference. He tasted the same, smelled the same, looked the same. He only felt different. The way he touched me…"

Buffy clenched her jaw as the pain came, but she didn’t cry.

"And now, I feel hollow inside, all-the-time empty."

She came closer to him and he froze as she ran her hands down the leather front of his coat, his cigarette dangling from his lifeless hand.

"But even that is changing. The only time I feel close to alive is when I’m with you. A killer, my enemy, and of my terrorizer’s bloodline."

Spike clenched his jaw at her words, could feel his muscles along his jaw twitching in time with his agitation.

"Where’s that leave me, pet, when you’re done getting filled. I’ve lost something here for you, and you’re not done taking yet." He backed slowly away, leaving her hands grasping at air.

"I’m changing, too, pet, but I’ll not be your puppet on a string, parading in step to your whims." He flicked his dying cigarette across the courtyard.

Buffy dropped her hands and stepped back, confusion and pain warring inside her.

"Slayer, I’m not trying to hurt your bloody feelings, but you’re coming up here, all high and mighty telling me I’m a killer, then switching your game to tell me I’m your bloody salvation."

His voice got softer, and he reached out to touch her cheek briefly. Buffy felt warmed by the gesture, and her confusion faded.

"You’ll daze a man with such up and down talk, pet."

"I didn’t mean anything by it… I’m just trying to figure things out, Spike, deal with things. And you’re a part of that."

A big part, apparently, she thought. A monster who’s not so much a monster… Who without a soul chose to give up evil for me, while Angel just lost his.

"Look, it’s Friday night, and you’re spending it chattin’ up the undead here. Your Watcher mentioned you were back on patrol, but said you were teaming up with your mates for a relaxation bit tonight."

Buffy went instantly cold, icy rage chilling her just warm system. "You talked to Giles about me?"

"No, no," Spike said hurriedly. "He, uh, just wanted to know if I’d seen Angelus back yet. I heard your friend bits and he apologized for the noise and told me the nights plans, is all."

"Oh." He watched her anger fall slowly away, unfortunately taking with it old sparks that had flared only temporarily in her eyes.

"I told them I wasn’t up to going," she said just a touch sullenly.

"There’s always time to tell them otherwise, pet. They may be a bit poncey, but they’re yours ‘till the end."

"Yeah, maybe."

The light was almost completely gone, but it wasn’t a problem for either one of them. Really it was more of a comfort. And Spike saw with his night vision Buffy’s hunched shoulders and sad eyes, and felt pain for his earlier words.

"’Member what I told you, Slayer: shake it off."

She smiled at him, and though it was a small smile, it gave him hope for her.

"I’m working on it," she said softly, smile holding. "And I think I will go to that ‘relaxation gig’ after all. I’ll see you."

She turned to go, and Spike wanted to curse himself for sending her away.

"Hey, uh, Slayer!" He finally gave in and called her attention. She paused and looked back at him.

"Yeah?"

"You, uh, mind if I go patrolling with you tomorrow night? All this violent potential shouldn’t be going to waste, you know?"

"It doesn’t bother you, dusting other vamps?"

He gave a sneer. "Nah. After dusting the Master’s promised vamp brat awhile back, I got kind of a taste for it. And ‘sides… it’s a territory thing."

And Slayers are my territory… that’d be making you my territory. Spike tried to ignore that last thought.

She barely even hesitated before nodding her head. "Yeah, that’d be okay."

Spike let out the unnecessary breath he’d been holding and hid it with a smirk.

"Good then. Meet here ‘bout this time?"

"Ok. I’ll bring weapons."

"Right, weapons. For the killing."

She looked at him.

"Of only demonic creatures, o’ course," he amended hastily. "Non human only, pet, I promise."

This time when she left, it was for real, but Spike felt calmer, because he knew she would be back the next day.

"I don’t even need to sodding breath," he muttered to himself as she finally disappeared from view. Then he spun around and went back inside his cold mansion.


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London, 1802


By the time he reached her, she was beyond help; the man she had called master had seen to that. William stood in the door to her bedroom, and a terrific rage filled him.

This death was for him. She had sold herself for years, to lord after lord, to ensure his education, his chance at real life, freedom from obligation to any man. He could go from cursing, street-wise William to eloquent, Cambridge William at the tip of a hat.

"It was Lord Covington, wasn’t it?" He kept his voice soft to shield her from the rage screaming inside him.

"Now, my William. Mustn’t go… looking for trouble."

Her eyes reflected pain and, miraculously, the humor she always wore for only him.
"Why didn’t you tell me it had gotten so bad, Mother?"

"It was well, my William, until I told him… I had gotten a better offer from another patron." Guilt flooded him; there had been a jump in his schooling expenses this year.

Her maid Mary came forward to pat her forehead with a dampened cloth. William caught her by the arm as she went to leave them.

"How bad is it," he whispered, watching his mother’s shallow breathing, the trembling and shivering.

"He threw her down the stair, messir. The doctor says she’s only got a little while."

Rage was blackness, suffocating him, oozing from pores of skin, the taste in his mouth so terrible that he wanted to vomit it out. He brain was screaming one thing, in sync with the pounding of his blood:

REVENGE!

He could not look back, could not face the whispered ‘Williams,’ the dying voice begging him not to do anything rash.

"Tell her I love her, if she’s going before I get back," he told Mary. His hands were trembling with fury.

"I have some business needs attending to."



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Spike was thinking hard on recent dreams. They were more like reenacted memories: vivid in color, surround-sound story telling of his human past, focused on a limited period of time. Those were the days leading up to his eventual turning by Drusilla; his descent to darkness fueled by the love of a crazy woman, the path to her arms paved by the grief over his first love: his mother.

He had always walked a fine line, one foot in heaven, the other in hell. And while heaven had its angels and gold-paved streets, hell kept a man’s interest for much longer, its dark beauties much more satisfying to the tastes and needs of a worldly man.

Buffy was such a beauty in that she existed in hell. But not since his mother had he met a woman so surrounded by evil yet so untainted by it. Affected, yes, but not tainted. Buffy was a light in the darkness, an angel who had dared to brave the depths of hell, only now she was flickering. And it was bothering the hell out of him.

Just as the thoughts of her rose in a maddening swell, the phone broke through the crush with a wailing ring. Spike walked from where he’d been pacing in front of the fireplace to the old fashioned whirl-a-dial and picked it up.

"’Lo?"

The upper crust accent immediately identified the caller.

"Spike? It’s Rupert Giles again."

"Yeah, Watcher. ‘Cause I got so many Oxford boys ringing me at the mansion that I’m taking firs t and last names."

Spike could practically hear Giles miffed, and an evil smile spread across his face at the thought of the other man’s irritation.

"Be that as it may, I’ve called you to talk about Buffy."

Spike sat down on the couch closest to the fire, instantly serious. The phone line was stretched out taut, and he was careful not to pull it much more lest he lose the call.

"What about Buffy?"

"It seems… Well, to be honest, her despondency is a growing concern of mine, and for whatever reasons it appears she’s reaching out to you. For all our love of Buffy, I fear that we may be simply too close."

Spike thought about his hand on her cheek, her hands caressing the front of his jacket.

,i>Oh, we’re close. And gettin' closer.

"Yeah, mate, I can see how that could be a problem. But I’m William the Bloody, the Slayer of Slayers. ‘Member, or did all that slip past your Watcher brains somehow?"

"Oh yes, Slayer of Slayers. Indeed. But before that, you were someone’s son."

"What are you saying, Watcher?" asked Spike, wary of where the conversation seemed to be headed.

"I’ve done some deeper digging into your past, Spike." Giles left it hanging.

Spike was silent for a good bit, centering in on the flames that licked golden red at the stone hearth.

"How deep?" he asked finally.

"Back as far as your pre-vampire days would go. I gathered a good bit of pertinent information that took me by surprise. Cambridge?"

Spike let out a bitter laugh.

"I was a street urchin turned civilized, mate. It wasn’t too much of a stretch going back."

"You were among the most educated men in London at that time, with only a year to finish. But you dropped it all, your bright future, for a woman, your mother. Then you went above and beyond for Drusilla when she fell ill, nearly dying in the process."

"I have some business needs attending to."

"I was raised to take care of my own, and I remember it well."

"And now again, here you are for Buffy, and I can see that much is the same. Where she is concerned, I… accept that you have good intentions."

That gave Spike another serious pause. "Oh?"

"Talk to her, patrol with her, whatever you feel with help. I just need to know she’s letting someone, anyone, help her." Spike could feel the older man’s frustration at feeling useless, and suddenly hated him less.

"Yeah, Watcher. I’m your man."

"Good, that’s good. Thank you. Oh, we’re having a sort of meeting about Angelus, Willow, Jenny and I, on Saturday and we’d like you to come. We’re grouping around 9 o’clock."

"The boy ponce won’t be there?"

"No, no, he’ll be in LA that day with his parents, attending a cousin’s funereal."

"And the Slayer?"

"I’m going to have her patrolling. Just don’t agree to go with her on that day."

"Right mate. Will be at your place?"

"Yes. It appears my flat is going to be the center of operations from here on out."

"Right then. Saturday it is, Watcher." Once the niceties were said and done, Spike got up and put the phone back. Closing his eyes, he twisted sideways and a bit closer to the fire.

Like a snake lying on a rock out in the sun, Spike basked in the glow of the flames, absorbing heat he could get from only one other source: blood. He was hungry, and dangerously close to being dehydrated.

Better go about feeding the fangs.

Getting up, he walked the span of the living room and into the kitchen, pulling the refrigerator door open and looking inside. Only one bag was left, and from first impressions, the blood was gone rotten.

"Bloody hell." The blood bank had closed over four hours ago, and getting anything from them required a day’s advanced notice anyway.

"The butcher shop it is for Spike the whipped bitch," he said in disgust, slamming the fridge door shut.



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The nightmares were getting worse. Nightly they came, black reminders of Angelus twisted with other horrors of her Slayer past. When she got home from the Bronze and dancing with the gang, she fell to a fitful sleep plagued by a particularly brutal nightmare:

The bed she was on was angelic white, and she was lain out on it like a sacrifice. Her hands and feet were bound with chains, mimicking Angelus’ bedroom restraints. She stared down at her spread thighs, looking so pale and so thin, fragile, trembling from fear and something darker she dared not contemplate. Thighs of the Slayer quivering so?

She felt him come up beside her, would always know his presence, an echo of terror that left a chalky taste in her mouth. His breath on her neck, cool with the under stench of ancient blood, and that sing-song voice calling her name…

"Slayer…"

The scar on her neck tightened, itched. It felt like the skin was trying to jump off of her throat; that skin was always alien anyway.

"You are damned, Slayer. I will win, and taste your death with my teeth." She shivered as his lips caressed puckered white flesh.

"Just give over to it child…"

Mutely, she twisted her head, looked up, and saw a legion. Here in front of her bed was the army that was every demon she had ever killed, lined up in militant fashion with their yellow eyes glowing. The trembling grew until the chains rattled with it.

"Where are all your friends, lover? Why aren’t they here, protecting you from me?"

Buffy jumped against her restraints, looking down to the voice, seeing the dark head between her legs. She felt Angelus’ tongue run a cool wet line up her thigh; it was the one violation he had spared her that night…

"Yes, I did overlook this little treasure trove, didn’t I, Lover? I was too busy trying to stick you with other things here. But my fangs are just begging for a taste."

She closed her eyes to them, the demons that were everywhere, always, shadows in the back of her mind and now suddenly solid. But with eyes closed, the voices only grew stronger.

"Slayer…"

"Lover…"

The Master’s bloodstained mouth on her throat, Angelus’s wicked tongue on her thigh, and legions waiting their turn at vengeance. It was enough.

"NO!"

The chains snapped and she swung them out towards her demons. They faded with their grins and wickedness intact and…

Buffy woke gasping, the sheets drenched in sweat and tears.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god!" She rubbed at her goose-pimpled arms, ignoring the tears. She felt as if she would never be warm again, and the air around her reeked of death so strongly she could taste it.

There would be no more sleep tonight, she knew, and the echoes of her nightmare were choking her. There was only one person who would understand this, who had seen the worst and not recoiled in fear or denial. And she needed to see him.




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London, 1802


William the Bloody’s first mouthful of blood was his own. Face down on the reeking cobblestone ground, drops of it dripped down and over his split lip, cast eerily black from the gas lights overhead.

"Foolish William, thinking yourself above your station. You are nothing more than the son of a whore in gentleman’s clothes."

William let out a bellow and leapt back up, charging like a bleeding madman towards Covington. As he clashed with him, he felt a line of cold enter his gut and looked down. Covington’s hand was clenched tight around the handle, and twisted it viciously as he pulled it out.

"What a shame, I cut my suit," he said as the knife shred the side of William’s coat.

"Bastard," William managed.

"No, son, that would be you." Covington turned to his laughing men.

"Dump him in the alley, boys." Eyes closed, he felt himself roughly lifted and thrown down into the dirt alleyway. It was growing so cold…

Even in his death, William felt her presence, a slow tremble of a thing. He opened his eyes, and saw her coming, swaying sweetly as she did with each step. She bent over him, with her sweet mouth and black curls falling prettily around her face, and he fell in love with his last moments of life.

She reached down, picked him up and cradled him to her like a child.

"I heard your pain like a pretty monster. It screamed of desperate things, and giggled in my ear."

William struggled to open his eyes and see his dark angel. Her voice was a lifeline.

"Do you want it, my pretty? To be the shadow that makes the nasties quiver?"

"Yes," he whispered, and tasted her blood mingling with his own. He swallowed it in salty gulps that would have had him vomiting, had he the strength to do so.

"Sweet William. Swallowed up in blood and rage. What a killer you will be…"




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Sunnydale, 1998

"No!" Spike came awake on a roar, throwing bed clothes, pillows, anything that was touching him violently away. He was twisted sideways on the bed, supported by trembling forearms slicked with sweat.

He smelled her first, that musk she’d started wearing, it stood out over the blood-tinged smell of his own sweat. At first he thought it was his imagination, but raised his head and saw otherwise.

She was sitting in a chair in the dark corner of his room, legs sprawled out carelessly in front of her, watching him. Her face was gray from nighttime shadows, but they did little to hide the puzzled expression on her face.

"Buffy." He struggled to sit up right, grabbing for the tossed sheet to cover his nude form.

"What’re you doing here, pet?"

She ignored the question. "I didn’t know vampires had nightmares."

"Occasionally. But that still doesn’t answer the question as to why you’re here."

Spike made an attempt at wrapping the sheet into some sort of cover, but finally reached for his pants. He glanced up, hesitant, and saw Buffy gazing at him through slitted eyes. He turned around to pull them on, feeling the heat from her gaze the entire time.

Buffy stared at the unblemished alabaster skin before her: sinewy thighs leading up to tight butt cheeks, uninterrupted flesh extending to a beautiful back and wide shoulders. His back muscles tightened deliciously as he slid his pants on, and she caught the backside view of his balls hitting his thighs. She let out a little sigh.

Spike whirled around at that sigh, barely having zipped his pants.

"Buffy, what in the hell is the matter with you?"

"I had a nightmare," she said calmly, aware that in his presence it didn’t even bother her anymore.

She stood, and the shadows slid away.

"What’s it mean when heroes have nightmares, anyway? Who do they think of to protect them from the monsters?"

"Well, I don’t really know, pet." Spike struggled to focus on her words instead of his prick.

"And what, tell me, does it mean when one monster makes the other ones go away?"

"I…" Spike stared down at her, with her flush cheeks and pink lips. Her blood was screaming in his ears, and he had never wanted anything so much as he craved her.

Instead he turned away, turned his voice cold. "What you got right, pet, is that I am monster. I could rip you apart, you and your soft flesh and your crack blood running in my ears every time you’re bloody near. I am monster, and you best not forget it."

"Not so much."

She went around him and gathering up the pillows and blanket, putting them neatly back on the bed. Then she folded down the blanket on one side, pushed her shoes off, and climbed under it.

"Coming?" she asked pointedly.

He clenched his teeth. "Fine, but if I bloody eat you while I’m sleeping, don’t say you weren’t warned."

He climbed into the bed, laying awkwardly next to her.

He fell asleep with Buffy curled up in his arms.


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