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The SETI Slayers | Fanfic
| Blood Ties | I Was Made to Love You |
Buffy sits alone at a table in the Bronze during its grand re-opening, watching Xander dance with Anya, and Willow dance with Tara. The place has had a complete overhaul after the job Olaf the Troll did demolishing it. New furniture, new logo, all the old band posters and things are gone from the walls. The whole place is looking much more upscale.
Spike sits down at the table with Buffy. He is not pleased with the new decor. Among other things they have jacked up the prices to pay for it, and they have remodeled the Flowering Onion right off the menu.
Buffy isn’t interested in his opinions of the place. She just wants to know why he is sitting talking to her like they are some sort of friends. Spike tells her she looked like she could use a little company. Buffy looks at him.
“Suit yourself. Well…” Spike starts to get up to go, but then he sits back down. “It’s just, we took on that Glory chippie together. I was right there with you, fighting the fight.”
“Actually, you were sleeping the sleep of the knocked unconscious,” says Buffy.
“Yeah. Still, points for intent,” says Spike. “You’d think that would be enough to cut me a sliver of slack, earn me a little consideration, respect.”
Buffy’s friends return from the dance floor, and Xander orders the evil dead guy to get out of his chair.
“Bugger it.” Spike starts to get up. He reaches for his beer, and manages to knock the bottle over, spilling it. He grabs the bottle before it is all gone, and leaves them.
“Xander, I think you may have hurt his feelings,” says Anya.
“And you should never hurt the feelings of a brutal killer,” says Xander sarcastically. Then he realizes what he just said. “You know, that’s actually some pretty good advice.”
Xander starts to get up, and asks if anyone wants a drink. He’s buying, for he is Payday Man today. Willow just wants some water. Xander figures he can afford that. He looks over at the tray on the table which had contained his change from the last round he bought, and notices that it only contains a nickel and a few pennies. “Hey, where’s my change?”
Buffy looks toward the bar. Xander follows her gaze and sees Spike buying himself another beer. “Spike, you diabolical fiend.” Xander heads toward the bar himself.
Buffy notices Willow dumping a couple of Aspirin out of a bottle into her hand and asks if she’s still getting the headaches. Willow tells her that they are getting less frequent, but they still keep coming.
“Honey,” says Tara, “in case you didn’t hear me the first 6,000 times, no more teleportation spells.”
“Well, it’s just we have squat in the way of Glory-fighting arsenal, and another run-in with her, and my headaches and nosebleeds are going to be the least of our problems.”
Buffy doesn’t want to talk about business. This is the first night off she’s had in a while, and she doesn’t want to hear the name ‘Glory’ again tonight.
“I’m down with that,” says Tara. “Let’s just call ‘she who will not be named’ another name. Let’s just call her—”
“Ben!” says Buffy. She has just spotted him sitting across the Bronze.
“For example,” says Tara, as Buffy excuses herself to go talk with him. She’s kind of surprised to see him there, and tells him she almost didn’t recognise him out of his hospital scrubs.
“Oh, you’d be surprised by the extent of my wardrobe.”1 says Ben. “I actually have entire outfits that aren’t blue pyjamas.”
Buffy wants to thank Ben for how he helped out Dawn at the hospital last week, Ben seems a little uncomfortable that she has brought that up, but he tells her he’s glad that Dawn’s okay.
Xander is over at the bar picking up the drinks, and complaining to Spike about him stealing his money. Spike isn’t much interested in Xander’s problems. He is too busy watching Buffy talk and laugh with Ben. Spike doesn’t think Xander can do anything to hurt him.
A porter stands reading a comic book on the platform of the Sunnydale train station. He rolls it up and puts it into his back pocket as a train rolls into the station. The trains stops and he stands waiting for the passengers to disembark. No one gets off the train. He is a little puzzled. He steps toward the door of the passenger car. “Sunnydale Station!” he calls out. “Last stop this line!” He doesn’t hear any response so he enters the car.
What he finds inside horrifies him. Dead bodies, and a lot of blood, mostly from their neck wounds. He slowly moves down the car, looking for signs of life. He only finds more bodies. He hears something move behind him, and looks around. His horror is replaced by terror. He tries to run, but whatever is on the train catches and kills him before he can make it to the door.
Buffy returns home and finds her mother and Dawn in the living room watching TV. Giles is there too, sitting at the living room desk reading a book. Joyce hopes that Buffy had a good time, but she’s glad to see her home again. She wasn’t feeling too safe with her gone.
Buffy glances toward Giles. “At first,” Joyce recovers quickly, “and then I remembered that Rupert was here, and I felt much, much safer.”
“Yes. Thank you for the little backpedal, but I’m forced to agree that I’m barely an adequate substitute for a Slayer in the house. Good night.” Giles gets up and heads for the door.
Buffy goes along with him. As she sees Giles out she quietly asks him how he thinks Dawn is doing.
Giles thinks she’s coping quite well, considering the circumstances of her origin. Buffy quietly tells him that she and her mother have been going pretty easy on Dawn for the past week. Letting a lot of stuff slide. Giles doesn’t think that’s a good idea. Any special treatment will undermine Dawn’s sense of normalcy.
That was pretty much what Buffy was hoping Giles would say. She turns away from him. “Dawn!”
Dawn gets up off the floor. “What?”
“What did I tell you about borrowing my clothing?” asks Buffy.
“I didn’t take your clothes.”
“Bull!” says Buffy.
“I never touched your stuff.”
“Really? Then what happened to my blue cashmere sweater?”
Spike sits in his crypt fondling Buffy’s blue cashmere sweater. He hears Harmony coming and quickly hides it out of sight.
Harmony comes over to Spike, dressed in a neglige, and asks him if he’s coming to bed. Spike isn’t tired. That’s fine with Harmony, she isn’t tired either. She thinks they can tire each other out. She crawls into his lap, and starts to nibble at his ear.
Spike tries to push her away. “Harm, really not in the mood right now.”
“You’re never in the mood,” says Harmony. “We could do something different tonight.”
“Like what, you stop yammering for two seconds?” asks Spike.
“Well, we could… I don’t know…maybe play a game?” suggests Harmony. Spike gets an idea.
Harmony moves through the crypt with a stake in her hand, and wearing Buffy’s sweater. “Oh, I’m going to stake you! I’m coming after you, you bad, evil vampire, and I’m going to slay you! I’m sneaking up, and I’m going to stake you so much with my slaying powers that I have because I’m the Chosen—” She gets tackled by a shirtless Spike, who pulls her to the floor. “Oh Spike!”
Buffy, Willow and Tara enter the student lounge talking about Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Willow wishes that it could have had a happy ending, with Esmerelda marrying Quasimodo right there at the cathedral.
Tara doesn’t think that was possible. She thinks Quasimodo was totally selfishly motivated. “He had no moral compass, no understanding of right. Everything he did he did out of love for a woman who’d never be able to love him back. Also, you can tell it’s not going to have a happy ending when the main guy’s all bumpy.”
Willow asks Buffy what she thinks. Buffy doesn’t have an opinion yet. She still has a day before she has to have one for the test.
“But you read it, right?” asks Willow.
“Kind of not,” says Buffy. “I rented the movie.”
“Oh, with, um, with Charles Laughton?” asks Tara.
“I don’t know,” says Buffy. “Was he one of the singing gargoyles?”
Willow does not think that this bodes well, but Buffy tells her she’s kidding.
Buffy’s distracted from further conversation on 19th century French literature by the headline she sees on the paper a guy sitting in the lounge is reading. She snatches it out of his hands. “‘Six found murdered on train at Sunnydale Station.’” she reads out loud.
“Glory?” asks Willow.
Buffy keeps reading. “‘Unconfirmed reports of severe trauma to the throats of one or more of the victims.’ Survey says… Vampire.”
Spike comes up through a hole in the floor of his crypt and is surprised to discover that he isn’t alone. Dawn is waiting for him. He asks her what she’s doing lurking about.
“I’m not lurking, I’m looking.” Dawn asks Spike if that’s his access to the tunnels that let him get around town during the day.
Spike tells Dawn it isn’t, and quickly switches topics. He still wants to know what she’s doing there. He doesn’t think Buffy would appreciate Kid Sis hanging around his crypt. He tells her to get lost.
Dawn doesn’t care what Buffy thinks, and she doesn’t want to go. She asks why she should.
“Because I’ve got things to do,” says Spike. “Bad, evil things…that are not for a child’s eyes.” He lights up a cigarette.
“I’m not a child,” says Dawn. “I’m not even human. Not originally.”
“Yeah, well, originally, I was,” says Spike. “I got over it. Doesn’t seem to me it matters very much how you start out.”
“That’s smart. I get that,” says Dawn. “I like how you talk to me like I can understand things. Everyone else is being all twitchy and secretive.”
“They’re just trying to keep you safe, I expect.”
“I feel safe with you,” says Dawn.
Spike nearly swallows his cigarette. “Take that back!”
“I mean, you have that whole superpower thing, and…you’re just as tough as Buffy is,” says Dawn. “Maybe tougher. Buffy thinks so, too. She’s always worried about what she’s going to do if you ever get that chip out of your head.”
“Is that right?” asks Spike. “So, um…what else does Buffy say about me?”
Buffy calls out a “hello” as she comes into the house. Her mother asks if Dawn is with her, she didn’t come home after school. Joyce is starting to get worried. She heard the news about the people killed on the train.
Buffy quickly assures her mother that she doesn’t think that incident has anything to do with Dawn or Glory. She tells her mother she’ll find Dawn, and goes back out.
Spike entertains Dawn with the story of how he massacred an entire family one time. They are both sitting cross legged on the lid of his sarcophagus facing each other. He pauses in his story to ask her if she really wants to hear this. Dawn tells him to continue.
“And I kill ’em! Right quick. The whole lot,” says Spike. “But, there’s someone missing. There’s supposed to be…this little girl. So, I get real quiet…and I hear this tiny noise coming from the coal bin. This little sigh. So, I listened harder. It’s very, very quiet.”
Dawn is listening with rapt attention. Buffy slams through the door, making Dawn gasp.
“Oh, bloody hell,” says Spike.
“Spike, I need your help,” says Buffy. “Dawn is…” She sees Dawn. “Here.”
Dawn tells Buffy that Spike was just telling her a story, and he was just getting to the real cool part. Buffy doesn’t care about that. She wants to know what the hell Dawn is doing there. Dawn wants to hear the rest of the story. Buffy can lecture her after he’s done.
Buffy turns and looks at Spike. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s hear the story that Spike is telling my little sister.”
“Right. Yeah,” says Spike. “So, uh, I knew the girl was in the coal bin. And I rip it open, very violent, and haul her out of there. And then…I gave her to a good family in a nice home where they’re never, ever mean to her and didn’t lock her in a coal bin.”
“What?” asks Dawn. “That’s so lame.”
Spike tells Buffy that he was just about to send Dawn home. He knew Buffy would be worried about her. Buffy ignores him, and tells Dawn to get her stuff. They are going.
Buffy lectures Dawn as they walk through the cemetery. Dawn doesn’t get what the big deal is, it was only Spike.
“Hanging out with Spike is not cool, Dawn, okay? It is—it is dangerous and…icky,” says Buffy.
“I don’t think Spike’s icky,” says Dawn.
“Yeah, well, think again, Sister—” says Buffy, then it hits her. “You have a crush on him.”
“No, I don’t,” says Dawn. “It’s just…he’s got cool hair and he wears cool leather coats and stuff, and he doesn’t treat me like an alien.”
“He’s a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is dead and evil and a vampire.”
“Right,” says Dawn. “That’s why you were never with Angel for three years.”
“Angel’s different. He has a soul.”
“Spike has a chip,” says Dawn. “Same diff.” Buffy really doesn’t want to hear this. Dawn doesn’t think it matters if she has a crush on him anyway. “He wouldn’t notice in a million years. Not with you around.”
“What does that mean?” asks Buffy.
“Spike’s totally into you,” says Dawn. Buffy just gives her a blank stare. “Oh, come on. You didn’t notice? Buffy, Spike’s completely in love with you.”
“Huh?” asks Buffy.
Buffy pulls the yellow police tape off the door of the train car, and she and Xander enter it to look for clues about the vampires who did this. Xander doesn’t expect to have much luck since the police and several other people have already been through it and removed anything useful they might find. About all that’s left are the tape outlines of the bodies of the people killed.
While they look Buffy makes a couple of false starts in attempting to tell Xander what Dawn told her about Spike. He tells her to just spill whatever it is she’s trying to say. “Dawn said that— She thinks that— She said that— Spike’s in love with me.”
Xander starts to laugh.
“I’m not joking!” says Buffy.
“Oh, I hope not,” laughs Xander. “It’s funnier if it’s true.”
“I’m serious,” says Buffy. “Xander, this is serious.”
Xander gets control of himself. “You’re right.” Then he loses it again, and resumes laughing.
Buffy sits down inside a body outline in one of the train seats. “It’s creepy.”
“No, not creepy,” says Xander. “’Cause it’s not real. I mean, how upset can you really get over one of Spike’s fevered daydreams that’s not going to happen?” He wants to know how Dawn came to this extremely entertaining conclusion.
Buffy tells him that Dawn was hanging out with Spike. “I think she has a crush on him.”
Xander does not like the sound of that. He’s the one Dawn has the crush on. “It’s always been me. Big, funny Xander. Oh, what? She just suddenly decides I’m not the cool one anymore? Why is that okay?”
Buffy gets out of the seat. She doesn’t think they will find anything useful there, they should go. She and Xander head for the exit. Neither of them notices the blindfolded antique doll lying in one of the overhead baggage compartments.
Buffy arrives home and hears the sound of her mother’s voice coming from the kitchen. Joyce is entertaining someone with a story about a mistaken shipment of Greek amphorae received by her gallery.
Buffy enters the kitchen and sees that Joyce’s audience consists of Dawn and Spike. She is not pleased to see him. Joyce tells Buffy that Spike stopped by to apologise for yesterday’s missing child drama.
In that case Buffy wonders what he’s still doing there. Spike says that he also wants to talk with her. He has some information for her.
“Sorry. All out of cash,” says Buffy. “Why don’t you hit on Giles—hit up Giles.”
Spike doesn’t want cash. He just has some information on where to find the vamps who killed the people on the train. Buffy asks him to tell her.
“I’ll do better than that,” says Spike. “I’ll show. Come on, what are you waiting for? Grab your coat and your pointy sticks.”
Buffy and Spike sit in the front seat of his DeSoto, watching a warehouse. They’ve been there a while, and Buffy is starting to get impatient. She is also not very comfortable being this close to him.
Spike leans toward Buffy, and reaches out his hand.
“Hey!” says Buffy, but Spike’s just reaching for the glove compartment. He pulls out a flask and takes a drink. Then he offers it to her. “Eww,” says Buffy.
“It’s not blood. It’s bourbon,” he tells her.
“Eww!” says Buffy again.
“Suit yourself.” Spike starts to hum, and drum his hands on the steering wheel. The humming turns into quiet singing. “…I want to be sedated… Do you like the Ramones?”
Buffy is close to having had enough of this. She asks Spike why he’s doing this if it isn’t for the money. Spike shushes her. The vampires they have been waiting for have come home.
The two vampires sit in their nest. One of them makes some Jiffy Pop popcorn over a propane burner, while the other looks through a stack of CDs on their table. Buffy enters, followed by Spike.
The vampires jump to their feet. “Slayer!” says one of them, and then he, and his friend turn and run.
“Well, that was sad,” says Spike. “I’m embarrassed for our kind. So, should we chase after ’em, then? They couldn’t have gone far.”
Buffy has been looking around the nest. It’s clear to her that these two vampires have been living here for a while. Whatever killed those people came into town on that train. It wasn’t them.
“Looks like you’ve wasted my time.” Buffy turns and heads for the door. Spike rushes to get ahead of her, and opens the door for her.
“What are you doing?” asks Buffy. “What is this?” Spike starts to tell her not to get her knickers in a knot. “What is this?” asks Buffy again. “The late-night stakeout, the bogus suspects, the flask. Is this a date?”
“A d—please!” says Spike. “A date! You are completely off your bird. I mean—do you want it to be?”
“Unh,” says Buffy. “Oh, my god. Oh…oh, no. Are you out of your mind?”
“It’s not so unusual,” says Spike. “Two people…in the workplace…feelings develop. You can’t deny it. There’s something between us.”
“Loathing. Disgust,” says Buffy.
“Heat. Desire,” says Spike.
“Please. Spike, you’re a vampire!”
“Angel was a vampire.”
“Angel was good.”
“And I can be, too,” says Spike. “I’ve changed, Buffy.”
“What, that chip in your head?” asks Buffy. “That’s not change. That’s just holding you back. You’re like a serial killer in prison!”
“Women marry ’em all the time!” says Spike.
“Unh!” says Buffy.
“But I’m not like that,” says Spike. “Something’s happening to me. I can’t stop thinking about you. And if that means turning my back on the whole evil thing—”
“You don’t know what you mean. You don’t know what feelings are.”
“I damn well do!” says Spike. “I lie awake every night.”
“You sleep during the day!”
“Yeah, but— You are missing the point. This is real here. I love—”
“Don’t! Don’t say it. I’m going.” Buffy starts toward the door. Spike tries to stop her, they need to talk.
“We don’t need to do anything, okay?” says Buffy. “There is no we. Understand?” She leaves him standing alone in the vampire’s nest.
Spike returns to his crypt, but he senses he isn’t alone. “Who’s there?” he asks the darkness.
“A happy memory, pretty Spike,” says a familiar voice from the shadows. “Look who’s come to make everything right again.” Drusilla steps out of the darkness. She’s holding a single red rose, which she runs across her cheek.
Drusilla has filled Spike in on what has been going on in Los Angeles.2 “Sounds fun,” he tells her.
“It is,” says Drusilla. “Like lollipops at the circus. Although…didn’t care for Angelus setting us on fire.” She is still carrying some scars from that incident. She has come to Sunnydale to get Spike to come back to L.A. with her. Reunite their little family.
Spike says he doesn’t want to go. He’s done the L.A. scene, and doesn’t want to go back to it. Plus he likes it here in Sunny-D. “Decent digs,” He gestures around his crypt, “not to mention all the tasty townies I can eat.”
“Naughty. Shh,” scolds Drusilla. “You needn’t make up stories. I already know why you’re not coming. Poor boy. Tin soldiers put funny little knickknacks in your brain.” She puts her hands up against her head. “Can’t hunt!” She jerks her head. “Can’t hurt!” Jerk. “Can’t kill!” Jerk. “You’ve got a chip.”
Spike is really not pleased to learn that Dru knows about that. “Right. So you’ve heard. Poor Spike’s become a cautionary tale for vampires, right? ‘You better be good, kiddies, or else they might wire you up some day.’”
“I don’t believe in science,” says Dru. “All those bits and molecules no one’s ever seen. I trust eyes and heart alone. And do you know what mine is singing out right now? You’re a killer. Born to slash, and bash, and— Oh! Bleed like beautiful poetry. No little tinkertoy could ever stop you from flowing.”
“Yeah, but the pain, love, you don’t understand. It’s—it’s searing, it’s blinding.”
Dru thinks it is all in his head. All those nasty electric shocks the chip sends out are nothing but lies. “Electricity lies, Spike. It tells you you’re not a bad dog, but you are.” She growls at him.
Spike and Dru are interrupted by the arrival of Harmony. She wants to know what’s going on, but she thinks she knows. “Our little sex game was just the beginning. Now you’ve gone and picked up some cheap queen of the damned to dress up like your precious Droodzilla. You better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking, ’cause my answer is the same as always. No threesomes unless it’s boy, boy, girl. Or Charlize Theron.”
“Harm, you moron, this is Drusilla,” says Spike.
“Oh. Well.” The wind has gone out of Harmony’s sails, but she recovers quickly. She steps around Spike to confront Dru directly. “You’ve got some nerve showing up here like this. After all this time. After breaking my sweet Boo-Boo’s heart!”
“Boo-Boo?” mouths Dru to Spike.
“Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to break down the walls he put up after you left?” asks Harmony. “I mean, serious trust issues. So it’s no use, you crawling back to him, ’cause Spikey don’t play that game anymore, Morticia.”
Spike grabs Harmony by the throat. “It’s been fun while it lasted, Harm,” he says, all the time looking at Drusilla instead of Harmony, “But I think it’d be best now if you hit the road.” He throws Harmony against the wall of the crypt, and she slumps to the floor.
“Why? Because she’s back?” asks Harmony.
“No,” says Spike. “Because I am.”
“And there you are, my darling, deadly boy,” says Dru.
Spike grabs Drusilla, and kisses her.
Buffy tells Willow and her mother about what she has discovered about Spike’s feelings toward her. They are both pretty shocked, and worried. Joyce asks if Buffy has ever said or done anything that might have led Spike on.
“Well, I do beat him up a lot,” says Buffy. “For Spike, that’s like third base.”
Spike can get pretty twisted, but Buffy doesn’t have any fears that he will actually do anything to hurt her, or anyone else. He can’t as long as he has the chip in his head. “Besides, this’ll probably just blow over, you know? It’s just some weird Spike thing. He’ll have the hots for some gak demon before we know it.”
“Well, you made it clear, right?” asks Willow. “That it could never happen. That there’s no possible way ever.”
“Yeah. I think so,” says Buffy. “I don’t know. I was just so thrown.”
Willow thinks that Buffy needs to go have another talk with Spike, but that is the last thing Buffy wants to do right now. She just wants to avoid him.
“Not until you shut him down completely,” says Willow. “If he thinks there’s even a little chance with you, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
Spike and Dru enter the Bronze. Spike grabs a beer and a champagne glass for him and Dru off the tray of a passing waitress. She starts to object, but she thinks better of the idea, and leaves them alone. They head out onto the dance floor, and dance together while they survey the place, looking for victims. They spot a couple of teenaged kids making out up on the balcony. They are the only ones up there.
Buffy puts on her jacket to go see Spike again. Willow asks her if she wants her to come along for moral support, and to scowl at Spike. Buffy thinks that this is something she should do alone.
“Besides, you know, maybe I’m wrong,” says Buffy. “Maybe this whole thing’s just been blown way out of proportion and he’s already gone back to wanting me dead.”
“Here’s hoping.” Willow holds up crossed fingers. Buffy tells her that there is something she can do for her though.
Spike and Dru approach the two kids on the balcony. The kids don’t even notice them. Dru transforms, grabs the girl’s head, pulls her away from her boyfriend, and gives it a sharp twist, snapping her neck. She dumps the body into Spike’s waiting arms. She kills the boy the same way before he can make a sound.
Spike holds the girl, looking at her neck. He looks up at Drusilla, holding the boy. Drusilla starts to feed. Spike vamps out, and bites into the girl’s neck.
Buffy arrives at the crypt, and calls out for Spike. She doesn’t get an answer, so she starts to look around. She shoves aside the cover to the hole in the floor, and climbs down the ladder into the space roughly carved out of the rock below the crypt. It’s lit by a torch held in a bracket on the wall.
Buffy takes the torch and starts to look around. The space is mostly full of junk, and human skulls. She finds something covered by a sheet. She pulls it aside, revealing Spike’s Buffy mannequin. Behind the mannequin is a wall covered with photos and drawings of her. Spike’s shrine to Buffy. A table is covered with items Spike has stolen from her, including a few of her stakes.
Buffy climbs back up the ladder. She is shocked to see Spike at the top waiting for her. He still has blood on his lips. “See anything interesting?” he asks.
Buffy is at a loss for words. She climbs the rest of the way out of the hole. “Spike…I…uh, what…uh…what happened?”
“Me,” says Drusilla from behind her. She zaps Buffy with a cattle prod. Buffy collapses to the floor, stunned.
“You remember my ex, don’t you, Slayer?” asks Spike. “Come back, she did. Couldn’t live without me.”
“My boy’s been feeding again, but I know what he really wants to eat.” Drusilla zaps Buffy with the cattle prod again, and Buffy passes out.
“Shall we tie her up?” asks Dru. “Play with her a teensy bit first.”
“I’m through playing,” says Spike.
“Ooh, I like it when you’re all dour and straight to business-like.” Dru passes the prod over to Spike, and moves toward Buffy. Spike zaps Drusilla with the cattle prod. She collapses beside Buffy.
“Bloody well through playing,” says Spike.
Buffy wakes up in the chamber under Spike’s crypt. She’s standing, held up by chains manacled to her wrists.
Spike is standing in front of her. “There she is. I was beginning to think you’d sleep the night away.”
“Dru…Drusilla?” asks Buffy.
Spike steps aside, and Buffy sees that Dru is there too, tied to a column on the other side of the chamber.
“Not nice to change the game in midplay, Spike,” says Dru. “You’ve taken my chair, and the music hasn’t stopped. I think I shall be very cross with you when I’m free again.”
“What’s going on?” asks Buffy.
“Simple,” says Spike. “I’m going to prove something. I love you.”
“Oh, my god.” Buffy looks away from him.
“Hey, no. Look at me.” Spike grabs Buffy’s chin and pulls her head around to face him. “I…love you.”
Buffy reacts like she’s been hit when he says it.
“You’re all I bloody think about…dream about. You’re in my gut…my throat. I’m drowning in you, Summers. I’m drowning in you.”
Drusilla starts to laugh. Spike looks around at her. “I can do without the laugh track, Dru.”
“But it’s so funny,” says Dru. “I knew…before you did. I knew you loved the Slayer. The pixies in my head whispered it to me.”
Spike turns his attention back to Buffy. “You can’t tell me that there isn’t anything there between you and me. I know you feel something.”
“It’s called revulsion,” says Buffy. “And whatever you think you’re feeling, it’s not love. You can’t love without a soul.”
“Oh, we can, you know,” says Drusilla. “We can love quite well, if not wisely.”
Spike thinks he has a way to convince Buffy that he loves her. He picks up one of Buffy’s stakes and puts it to Drusilla’s chest. “How’s this? I’m going to kill Drusilla for you.”
Dru laughs.
Buffy doesn’t think that would prove anything other than Spike is a sick miserable vampire she should have dusted long ago. “And, hey, already there.”
“Don’t mock this. This is Drusilla, girl. Do you have the slightest idea what she means to me? It’s the face of my salvation. She delivered me from mediocrity. For over a century, we cut a swath through continents. A hundred years, she never stopped surprising me. Never stopped taking me to new depths. Oh…I was a lucky bloke, just to touch such a black beauty.”
Spike and Dru gaze into each other’s eyes. Spike suddenly brings the stake up again and plunges it toward Dru’s chest. This time it penetrates enough for her to feel a little pain. “So you see, it means something.”
“Not to me,” says Buffy. “Kill her. Why do I care?”
“Here’s why,” says Spike. “If you don’t admit that there’s something there, some tiny feeling for me, then I’ll untie Dru, let her kill you instead.”
“Yes, please,” says Drusilla. “I like that game much more.”
“Just…give me something,” says Spike. “A crumb. The barest smidgen. Tell me maybe, someday, there’s a chance.” He steps up close to Buffy.
Buffy looks at Spike calmly, and he steps toward her. “Spike…the only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious.”
“Oh, wha—” What Buffy said sinks in. Spike flies into a rage. “Aargh! Gargh!” He throws the stake at the wall. “What the bleeding hell is wrong with you bloody women? What the hell does it take? Why do you bitches torture me?”
“Which question do you want me to answer first?” asks Buffy.
“I’m at the end of my bleeding tether. I don’t know why I even bother, you know.” Spike turns to Drusilla. “It’s your fault. You’re the one to blame for all this, you know.”
“Am I?” asks Dru.
“Bloody right you are!” yells Spike. “If you hadn’t left me for that chaos demon, I never would’ve come back here. Never would’ve had this sodding chip in my skull.”
Spike turns back to Buffy. “And you wouldn’t be able to touch me, because this…” Spike points back and forth between himself and Buffy. “…with you…is wrong. I know it. I’m not a complete idiot. Do you think I like having you in here? Destroying everything that was me until all that’s left is you in a dead shell.
“You say you hate it, but you won’t leave. You know, what I should just do is get rid of both of you. Burn you! Cut you into little pieces so there won’t be any more bints to cock things up for Spi— unh!”
Spike collapses with an arrow in his back. Fortunately for him it missed his heart. He looks around and sees Harmony holding a crossbow. “Oh, great.”
“What about me, Spike?” asks Harmony. “You forget about me again? The actual girlfriend? I gave you the best…bunch of months of my life!” She hits him with the crossbow.
“That’s right, little girl,” says Drusilla. “Teach our naughty boy a lesson.”
“Oh, now you’re all ganging up,” says Spike.
“I thought I could change you, Spike,” says Harmony. “I thought maybe if I gave, and I gave, and gave, maybe you’d come around. Maybe be a little nicer. Stop treating me like your dog.” She starts to reload the crossbow. “But now I see it’s you. You’re the dog…who needs to be put d—”
Spike tackles Harmony, and knocks the crossbow away from her. Harmony punches at Spike. She has gotten a lot better since her hair pulling contest with Xander. While Spike is distracted by Harmony, Buffy and Drusilla start working at getting loose from their bonds. Dru manages to pull her hands free from the ropes tying them while Buffy is still struggling with her chains, and she attacks Buffy.
Buffy is severely handicapped by still having her hands chained, but her feet are free. She kicks Dru away, and then swings herself around on the chains, and grabs Dru in a headlock with her legs and flips her to the floor.
Spike pins Harmony to the floor. She reaches up and grabs the arrow still sticking out of his back and gives it a twist. He howls in pain, and she gets loose from him. She hangs onto the arrow, pulling it from his back. She comes at him again, trying to use it to stake him. Spike knocks her away.
Dru picks up a piece of 2x4 and comes at Buffy again. The wood lets her strike at Buffy while staying out of range of Buffy’s legs. She nearly beats Buffy unconscious, and then goes for her throat.
Spike grabs Drusilla, and throws her away from Buffy. He quickly unlocks Buffy’s restraints.
Drusilla gets up and looks at Spike with Buffy. “Poor Spike. So lost. Even I can’t help you now.” She backs away into the darkness, and vanishes.
“Oh, Spikey!” says Harmony.
Buffy rolls her eyes as she and Spike turn to look at Harmony.
“And you can say good-bye to this.” Harmony sticks out her ass, and points at it. “Because you’re not going to see it anymore.” She starts to turn to go, but she stops half way. “Unless you run into me somewhere and it’s me walking away from you. But even then, I’ll probably just…you know…back away.” Harmony backs away from Spike and Buffy, and disappears too.
Buffy turns and looks at Spike. She doesn’t say anything. She musters all her strength and punches him. She knocks him flying into his Buffy shrine, and shatters it.
Buffy walks quickly down the street toward her home.
Spike runs to catch up with her. “Buffy! Come on now, stop! You can’t just walk away from this.”
Buffy doesn’t slow down. “What part of punching you in the face did you not understand?”
“So we had a fight. It’s not our first, love. It doesn’t change anything.”
Buffy has reached her front yard. “It changes everything, Spike!” She stops and turns to look at him. “I want you out! I want you out of this town, I want you off this planet! You don’t come near me, my friends, or my family again, ever! Understand?” She turns away, and goes up onto the porch.
Spike follows her. “No. It’s not that easy. We have something, Buffy. It’s not pretty, but it’s real. And there’s nothing either one of us can do about it.” Buffy has reached her front door and goes inside. Spike tries to follow her in. “Like it or not, I’m in your life. You can’t just shut me out.”
Spike stops when he hits the invisible barrier at the Summers front door which Willow has reestablished. He looks hurt and confused as Buffy closes the door in his face.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Five train passengers | A railway car | Killed by Drusilla |
| Railway porter | Railway car | Killed by Drusilla |
| A teenaged girl | Balcony in the Bronze | Killed by Drusilla |
| A teenaged boy | Balcony in the Bronze | Killed by Drusilla |
The evil lawyers from Wolfram and Hart’s special projects division brought Darla back from the dead, but she came back as a human instead of a vampire. She started playing mind games with Angel, invading his dreams, framing him for a murder, trying to drive him around the bend and get him to vamp her again.
It didn’t quite work out that way. Instead of bringing Angel around to the dark side, Darla rediscovers her humanity…about the same time she also discovers that she’s still dying from the syphilis that was killing her 400 years ago when the Master first vamped her.
As Darla is just beginning to accept her mortality the Wolfram and Hart lawyers bring in Drusilla, who vamps her again. (Thus Darla becomes her own great-grandsire, an idea that really tickles Dru’s funny bone.)
Darla and Dru go on a bit of a killing spree, killing—among other things—most of the lawyers in Wolfram and Hart’s special projects division, with a little help from Angel. It seems that they are having some luck in driving him around the bend. The senior partners of Wolfram and Hart are quite pleased with the way things are developing.
Angel does track Darla and Dru down a bit later and sets them both on fire, but he doesn’t stick around to make sure he finished the job, and Darla manages to break open a fire hydrant which extinguishes the flames before they are consumed.