Chapter 6 – Confessions

The silence in the room was starting to make him nervous; he opened his eyes to stare at Buffy, wondering what she was thinking. Her face was closed to him; blank and expressionless. Spike could feel the hope inside him fading away; she was going to hate him now, plunge a stake through his heart and turn him to dust. He wondered idly how Dawn would be able to finish their mission alone.

Buffy suddenly leapt forward slapping his shoulder forcefully before grabbing his head and wrenching it around for inspection. “How could you?” she asked accusingly. “How could you go and let someone dig around in your brain without telling us.” Her hands began to move frantically through his hair, probing his scalp for evidence of a healing wound. “What if they botched it? You could be lying in a coma somewhere and we wouldn’t even know.” Her voice hitched as she tried to hold back a sob. “You could be dust and we wouldn’t even …” She trailed off, letting the tears slide down her face unchecked.

Willow and Tara rushed to her side simultaneously comforting an obviously distressed slayer, and admonishing Spike for doing something so dangerous without anyone’s knowledge.

Dawn sat quietly staring at Spike with a puzzled expression. “Spike?”

Spike stared at the women, a look of shear terror fixed firmly on his face; a pissed off slayer he could handle, but this… this filled him with an emotion that he’d never experienced before. “Slayer? Buffy? Luv, it’s ok, ‘m fine,” he tried to reassure her.

“Fine?” Buffy stared at him incredulously. “FINE!” she almost shouted the word at him. “I know EXACTLY how risky brain surgery can be, remember?” She jabbed an angry finger at his chest.

An image of Joyce flashed through his thoughts, no wonder his slayer was so upset. Finally he got it, relief and guilt settled over him as he hurriedly tried to explain what had happened. “’m sorry for scaring you, Slayer, but I didn’t go away looking to get the chip out. I never would have put you through that if I’d had a choice. If it makes you feel any better I didn’t go see any doc to get the thing cut out.”

“You didn’t?” Buffy’s voice held a note of confusion as his words sank in.

“Magic?” Tara asked, frowning when he shook his head.

“It kinda happened by accident, luv.”

“Accident? How can you get a military chip removed from your brain by accident? What did you sneeze too hard and the thing flew out your nose?” Buffy waited for him to respond, suddenly back to pissed off because Spike was keeping something from her. The expression on his face gave her pause, though; there was something there, something she couldn’t quite place, a seriousness… no, not that, something deeper.

Spike rose from the ground, he wanted to pace, to swagger, to make light of what had happened to him, but he just couldn’t. “When I left here, I went to Africa,” he began quietly. “Went to see a demon, not about the chip, but for something else.”

Buffy wanted to interrupt, to ask him all the questions that were starting to crowd into her mind; he had mentioned nothing of going that far away, or of seeking out demons for who knows what reason.

Spike’s hands nervously patted down his duster; searching for the cigarettes that had, as promised, given up during his trip. Finally deciding to get straight to the point he stilled and looked directly at Buffy, although still vaguely aware of the others by her side. “This demon, if you pass it’s trials it grants you, I don’t know… a wish, I suppose. No, not a wish, more of a desire. It grants you your inner-most desire.”

“The chip?” Buffy couldn’t still the question.

Spike shook his head. “Not what I desired most, Slayer.’

“What?” the question slipped past Buffy’s lips.

“He gave me back my soul.” The words were spoken softly, not quite with reverence, but with a sense of awe, as though he could not really believe what had happened.

The silence seemed to press in on him from all sides; Dawn sat with her hands neatly folded, her eyes encouraging and supporting him. It was easy to stay calm when you knew what was happening. As for the three other women, they all sat completely stunned, none of them able to process what he had told them.

“Wow!” Willow was the first to break the silence. “That’s just… wow.”

“Why would you do that?” Buffy stared at him, puzzled. “I remember what Angel said he went through, the torment…” She stared at him, frown lines creasing her forehead. “You don’t look very tormented.” It wasn’t said as an accusation, more a statement of fact.

For some reason Spike felt no annoyance at the mention of his grandsire. “ ‘m not feeling very tormented, Slayer.”

“Why?”

“Not really sure.” He moved to sit beside her, smiling his thanks as Dawn moved across to allow him room. “They’re here, all those that I…they’re all here, it’s just they aren’t angry.”

Dawn took the opportunity to speak up. “Do you think it’s because he wasn’t cursed with his soul?” She was a little stunned by this revelation, the last time the spirits of his victims had attacked him ruthlessly. It had been a credit to Spike that he had not allowed them to drive him into madness; pure stubbornness eventually pushing them into the background of his mind.

“It’s not a curse?” Buffy expelled a breath she had realised she was holding; her body finally relaxing.

“So that means there’s no hidden… ummmm… clauses?” Willow blushed as she spoke.

Spike suddenly brightened, flashing her a saucy grin and a quick wink. “Nope, it’s all mine. Nothing can take it away, can do anything I want with it.”

“Did you get it for me?” Buffy was frightened of his response.

“Sorry, luv, but I got it for me.” Spike studied her, waiting to see how the slayer was going to handle that piece of information. The first time, in that world that no longer existed, she HAD been the driving force behind his quest; well, her and Dawn. This time, however, it was about him, it was about preparing himself for what was to come; arming himself in preparation for the payment of his part of the price for this new world—a world that had not only returned Buffy, but others who had been lost as well.

“Good,” Buffy nodded as though emphasising her words. “It took me a long time but I worked out that you can’t live your life, or make decisions, based on what other people want or expect.”

“So what happened to the chip, Spike?” Tara spoke up quietly; it seemed to her that there was something more than it just being taken by magic.

“After,” Spike rubbed his chest absently, the move reminiscent of his actions after their return to this world. “After the trials I had some… visitors?

“Visitors?” Dawn questioned.

Spike nodded. “’s not something ‘m willin to share,” he paused as though considering his words. “Jus’ had some ghosties from the past come calling, one of ‘em took the chip, said it was a boon.”

“What’s a boon?” Buffy asked Willow.

“It’s kind of a bonus, like something extra than what you were expecting.” Willow supplied. “Though I don’t know why the spirits of Spike’s victims,” she paused waiting for Spike to confirm that the visits had been from someone he had killed, “would remove the thing that kept him from killing.”

“Maybe it happened because he sought out the soul? Because he didn’t get cursed with it?” Tara offered in explanation.

“We need to research this.” Buffy grew serious. “Make sure there aren’t any hidden surprises waiting for us… for Spike.”

Willow laughed. “I can just picture Giles reaching for his journal and saying ‘oh my’.” Willow did her best to mimic the watcher’s British accent.

“Don’ want the watcher to know,’ Spike almost shouted. He looked down as if embarrassed. “Would prefer if we kept it just between us ‘til I get used to what's happening.”

Dawn came to his rescue, “It’s ok, Spike, we won’t tell anybody else.” She sent a warning look to the others, just in case anyone was going to disagree, none of them looked like they were, though. In her mind Dawn was already making plans to get Spike somewhere private and talk to him about his visits, and her encounter with a slayer from his past.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Three weeks had passed since Spike’s revelation in the living room of the Summers home. Dawn had pulled him aside later that evening, explaining to him about her visit from Nikki and the slayer’s parting words. Spike had taken them, and filed them away in his mind as he and Dawn focused fully on their mission; subtly directing Willow and Tara towards the books that would provide them with clues to finding the ‘right’ spell to detect the latent slayer powers that resided within certain girls around the world.

To reach their goal they’d had to approach Giles, a tentative truce being established between the vampire and watcher. Spike was insistent that Giles not be told about his soul; wanting the man to accept him for him and not for his actions alone. Inside he knew that the watcher would eventually find out, and he would have to deal with the barrage of questions that he knew would follow the discovery.

“Spike?” Giles stopped short when he came across the vampire sprawled across the lounge. “I didn’t realise you were awake.”

“You know how hard it is to sleep in a house with two women, let alone Red and her girl popping in every other minute?” Spike rubbed his eyes wearily.

“Yes, well, I’ve never had that problem myself, but I can imagine.” Giles sat on one of the chairs, not quite comfortable in Spike’s presence, a part of him suspicious of what the vampire was hoping to gain from his current arrangement.

“You have no idea, Watcher.” Spike stretched, yawning widely as he did.

Giles couldn’t help but grimace at Spike’s display, completely comfortable in his new home. The word bought a distaste to his mouth, ‘home’, the thought that this was now truly that for the vampire raised his ire in a way he had not experienced since his younger years.

Spike tried to ignore the look on the man’s face; resisting the urge to bait him with some carefully chosen words. Instead he sat up preparing to do something he never thought would happen. “Look, Watcher, I know you don’t like me, know you don’t really want me livin’ here either…”

“Yes, well, it’s not my decision is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Spike agreed with him. “But you’re the closest thing to a father that the girls have; all the girls, too, not just Buffy and Dawn. You and me fightin’, even the silent little dance we’ve been tiptoeing about… it hurts them.”

“It is not my intention to hurt Buffy or the others.”

“Mine either.” Spike waited for a moment, a part of him rebelling at what he was about to say. “An’ if I do you can stake me good an’ proper. Until then how about we try working together; for the girls?”

Giles stayed silent, understanding what the vampire was saying but hesitant to make the first move.

Spike could see the man’s hesitation; he went to speak again, pausing when he noticed the book resting in the watcher’s hands. “What’s that?”

Giles glanced at the small leather bound book he clasped in his hands; he had called in every favour and spoken to contacts long neglected to lay his hands on it. “I believe this may assist Willow with the last part of her spell.” He turned the book over slowly in his hands. “I’m just not sure I want Buffy to see the information it contains, though.”

“Scared the chit’ll find out about being part demon?” Spike waited for the watcher’s reaction.

Giles sighed. “She's not a demon, Spike…”

“Really?” Spike raised and eyebrow in disbelief.

“The book does state that the slayer power originally stemmed from demonic origins,” Giles finally admitted. “That, however, does not mean that Buffy is a demon herself.”

“Still muddies the water, doesn’t it?”

Giles shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clutching at the book in his hands as though willing the words inside it to change. “How do you explain to a young woman that the powers that enable her to fight evil actually originate from that very evil?”

Spike sat up suddenly curious, holding his hand out for the book.

Giles hesitated for a moment before handing it across. “You’ll see the pages that I’ve marked.”

Spike flipped through the pages until he came across a folded sheet of paper covered in the watcher’s neat hand writing. Glancing at it briefly he put it aside and began to read.