Chapter 17: February 2017
“Are you hungry?”
If Spike had a dollar for every time someone asked him that, he would be a rich man. They all tried to feed him, perhaps because they were afraid he wouldn’t eat if left to himself. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have. Spike still didn’t have much of an appetite.
Maybe it was the change from demon to something else. A vampire’s hunger was a near-constant, and he had learned to control it. Human hunger was something else altogether, and Spike hadn’t yet discovered how to deal with it. What the changed signals signified.
Spike hadn’t yet learned how to read the new signs.
He still found himself shying away from mirrors—these days because he didn’t want to see himself, rather than not wanting to see the empty space where he should have been. He still flinched at crosses and paused at holy water, although he had little contact with either.
Sunlight was the only change he actively welcomed.
Most days he felt like he was acting a part, as though he was playing a role in someone else’s life. Spike didn’t feel as though anything belonged to him, and he couldn’t help but wonder who the worthier party was—the old Spike or the new.
He didn’t feel like the same man.
Buffy had been wonderful, but he could see the uncertainty in her eyes, and he wondered if she didn’t have regrets about the transformation. Perhaps she resented what he had become almost as much as he did some days. Maybe she regretted staying with him.
Maybe she didn’t love this man who had come to take her husband’s place.
Spike lived out his days with a sense of unreality dogging his heels. He ate and slept and made love to his wife, all the while wondering if they noticed that he was no longer himself.
Wondering if he would ever figure out who he was.
~~~~~
Buffy watched him struggle to answer her, waiting patiently for him to reply. Spike didn’t seem to be quite all there a lot of times. She worried about him—a feeling that had become constant. The Slayer wondered if he had felt this way after she’d been resurrected, if Spike had seen that she wasn’t quite all there, and worried about her.
She kind of thought it might be.
It wasn’t that he was so different. Even though Spike kept insisting that he wasn’t the same, Buffy couldn’t see the change. He was a little more introspective, a little less into the hunt. He hadn’t been out with Hannah since he’d returned from Africa . It made sense for him to take it easy the first couple of weeks. It had taken that long to recover from all his injuries and the subsequent illness.
Now, it seemed that the reasons went deeper, but she couldn’t figure out what it meant.
Buffy could admit that she wasn’t good at this kind of thing. Spike was always the one who could read people, who knew what went on under the surface. Meg was just like him, except that if it was genetic, she had probably inherited the trait from Joyce.
Buffy wished she was more like her mom, like Spike, like Meg. She wished that she could just look in his eyes and know what it was that he feared so deeply. No matter how hard she tried, however, Spike continued to be inscrutable. This new version of him was foreign to her, and yet she loved him no less.
She just didn’t understand him these days, but she was trying. Patience had never been a strength for either of them, however.
“Spike? Are you hungry?” There was definitely a note of impatience in her voice now that she wished she had been able to erase.
He finally shrugged. “I could eat.”
It was his standard answer. Buffy thought it was like Spike couldn’t tell whether he was hungry or not. For some reason that frustrated her, and she spoke more harshly than she wanted. “That’s not an answer, Spike. Either you’re hungry or you aren’t.”
She knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left her mouth. Spike was delicate these days. Harsh words sent him running for cover—or just running. “Then I’m not.” It was the first sign of temper he’d shown since he’d returned, and absurdly Buffy’s heart leapt in her chest.
“Fine, Spike. Don’t eat.”
“I’m goin’ out.”
The door slammed behind him, and she sighed, not knowing whether to be happy that he seemed to be getting back to normal, or worried that he hadn’t engaged. Normally, when they fought, they locked horns and kept at it until things had been sorted. They didn’t run from each other any more.
At least, they hadn’t run from each other. This wasn’t precisely Spike, though.
“Mom?”
Buffy turned to look at Meg, who had a stack of plates in her hands. “What is it?”
“Should I set a place for Dad?”
She could hear the worry in her daughter’s voice. Spike was most like himself when he was with her, or the other children. For some reason, he could be the old Spike with them in a way he couldn’t with anyone else. Buffy didn’t understand, but she was thankful for Meg’s sake. “No, sweetie. He’ll eat when he gets back in.”
~~~~~
Stepping through the door was like putting on his old boots—comfortable and secure. Spike wasn’t quite sure why things had to be that way, but they were. Where Buffy made him tense, Nika’s house soothed. He wasn’t quite sure why.
No, he did know. It was because they had never expected him to be anything other than what he was. Spike never could tell what Buffy wanted, and these days he was afraid to ask.
They accepted his presence as they always did. Wesley handed Spike a beer, and Nika fixed him a plate, and the boys chattered on about their days. At some point during the meal, Enid handed Carwen to him, and she put her chubby arms around his neck and gave him a wet baby kiss on the cheek.
It nearly brought tears to his eyes, although he couldn’t have said why. If he wasn’t feeling disconnected, everything felt entirely too real.
After dinner, Spike went out and sat on the back porch. He wanted a cigarette badly, but when he’d tried to light up around Buffy, she had gotten angry at him. “Those things will kill you,” she had said.
Spike wasn’t sure it mattered. He still wanted one.
“Spike?”
He turned slightly to see Hannah come out the back door, sitting down next to him. “Hey.”
“Do you mind?”
Spike moved over to make room for her. They sat quietly for a while before Hannah spoke again. “Do you want to come with me tonight? There’s a nest we’ve been hearing about.”
“I don’t—”
“Wesley’s too busy with everything going on,” she continued in a rush. “I could call Angel, but he’s weird about that kind of thing. He’s always killing more than his fair share of vampires.” Hannah felt a sense of satisfaction when Spike’s lips twitched. “So will you come with me?”
Spike shook his head. “Hannah, I’m human now. We don’t know what, if anything, I can do.”
“Wesley’s human,” Hannah replied stubbornly. “And you’re my slaying buddy. Please.”
He hadn’t gone out hunting since before he’d left for Africa , and Spike wasn’t so sure it was such a good idea. He half-feared what it would do to him. He did have a duty to Hannah and Wesley. The expectation had long been that he would handle most of the fieldwork.
“Right,” Spike said, pushing himself up off the steps. “Let’s get going, shall we?”
~~~~~
Hannah had a plan. No one was asking much of Spike. They kept tip-toeing around him as though he would break. She was getting a little tired of it. Hannah wanted her friend back.
It wasn’t that she wanted to be harsh, or that she wanted to push him into doing something he wasn’t ready for, but Spike had loved the hunt as much as she did. After the fiasco with her mother, it had been Spike who had finally brought her out of her funk.
Hannah just wanted to return the favor.
She had chosen the nest very carefully, not wanting to get either of them killed. It was one she probably could have handled by herself, if Wesley wasn’t always insisting that she have backup. There were only five vampires, and they were all there, drinking from various bottles and telling tall tales about their most recent kills.
It didn’t surprise Hannah one bit when Spike sprang into action. In fact, after staking one vampire, she sat back and watched him dispatch the other four. His movements were still fluid, still precise. When Spike staked the last one and looked at her with joy in his eyes, Hannah knew she’d done the right thing.
Then the light faded.
“Hannah—”
“Do you think I don’t get it?” she asked quietly.
Spike shook his head. “Sweet, I know you think you’re all grown up, but you don’t know everything.”
“No, I don’t,” she agreed amiably. “What I do know is that you used to enjoy this, and I thought you might again. I think you did.”
He shook his head. Spike had no idea how to explain what he felt, that even the fight was tainted for him now.
“I always wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with me,” she said conversationally. “I mean, because I like the slaying so much.”
Spike shook his head. “It’s the way you are. Slayers—”
“Slayers aren’t like most people,” she finished for him, having heard the speech a thousand times for a thousand different reasons. “Neither are you.”
Sitting down next to her, he looked off into the darkness. “It’s not that simple.”
“I always wondered if something was wrong with me, even before I was Chosen,” Hannah said softly. “I mean, my mom was a nut job even before she refused to get out of bed. My dad took off when the pregnancy test turned out to be positive. If anyone was ever going to flake out on their big destiny it would be me.”
“You’re not like that.”
“No, but you know how I figured that out?” she asked. When Spike remained silent, Hannah said, “You. I figured that if a vampire could go against everything he was , I could too.” She smiled. “If you’re thinking about atonement, Spike, think about this. You might have killed two Slayers, but you saved two as well.”
Spike managed a smile. “It’s not that simple, pet. Not so much about atonement as it is figurin’ out what the bloody hell ‘m supposed to do now.”
“What makes you think you have to do anything?” Hannah asked, sounding amused. “Why not just take it a day at a time?”
Spike scowled at her. “That’s not fair.”
“It was good advice.”
“You weren’t s’posed to use it on me.”
“Then don’t give out good advice,” Hannah shot back, sticking out her tongue at him.
“Maybe I won’t.” Spike sounded much like his old self at this point, which Hannah considered a job well done.
Hannah smiled smugly. “Then I guess now is probably a good time to tell you that I slept with Sam.”
“You what?” Spike was on his feet, glaring down at her. “That’s a bleedin’ stupid thing to do! I’ll—”
“I’m kidding.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I was kidding, Spike. Geez.” Hannah grinned. “I just wanted to see the look on your face.”
“Why you—”
She just sat there, grinning at him, and it suddenly hit him that for a moment he had forgotten everything. Spike had been pissed as hell, and all he’d wanted to do was find the boy and rip his arms off. He shook his head. “Pull another one like that on me, and you’ll regret it.”
“Promises, promises,” Hannah replied easily.
“I mean it.” Spike smirked. “You haven’t seen the Big Bad come out to play for real yet.”
Hannah just laughed at him. Spike couldn’t help but laugh a little himself.
~~~~~
Spike slipped inside the house. It was later than he’d meant to be home, and he was hoping that Buffy wouldn’t be waiting for him. The couch seemed like the best option for tonight.
“You were out late.”
Her voice came from the living room, and Spike froze in the darkness. “Yeah. I took Hannah to clear out a nest.”
“How did that go?” Buffy asked, coming out into the hallway to meet him.
Spike shrugged. “Fine. We got them all.”
“That’s good.” She gave him a hesitant look. “You haven’t wanted to go out since…” Buffy trailed off, not quite sure whether or not Spike wanted her to bring that up.
“Slayer needed the supervision,” Spike offered by way of explanation.
Buffy nodded, feeling a pang. He could be with Hannah, but not with her. “Are you hungry?”
“No. I ate at Nika’s.”
“You’ve been eating there a lot lately. Is there something wrong with my cooking?”
It was meant to be a joke, to sound light-hearted, as though she couldn’t care less where Spike was eating his meals. Instead, it sounded like she was trying to pick a fight, and as Spike’s face shut down, Buffy knew that was how he was going to take it.
“No. Just wasn’t hungry earlier, that’s all.”
Spike turned sharply to go to the kitchen, hoping that Buffy would take a hint and head upstairs to bed. “Spike, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I don’t know what you want.”
It seemed a complete non-sequitor. Buffy blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m not him,” Spike said. “I don’t know who the hell I am these days, but I don’t know what you want from me.”
Buffy struggled to find the words to say. Spike’s back was to her, and she suddenly knew that he couldn’t say it to her face. She could appreciate the guts it took to say that much. “I don’t know how to answer that,” she said honestly. “What would you want me to do?”
“I don’t know!” The words sounded as though they’d been torn from his throat. “I don’t know,” Spike whispered. “Buffy, what are we doing?”
“We’re getting through this as best we can,” she replied. “We’re doing what we’ve always done.”
“Everything’s sharper,” he muttered. “An’ yet it’s all dulled. It’s real, an’ it’s not real enough. Every day, feels like ‘m dyin’ all over again. Don’t know how to describe it exactly.”
Buffy sighed. “I know. It’s okay, Spike. I understand.”
“How can you?”
“Maybe I can’t, but I know what it’s like to feel lost inside your own life.”
She put her arms around him then, thinking that he might be able to accept the gesture for what it was. His strong, warm hands came down over hers, giving them a squeeze. “I don’t know how to be with you.”
“Then just be here,” Buffy replied. “Time will take care of the rest.”
They didn’t know that, not for sure, but Spike wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that Buffy loved him, in any incarnation. He wanted to believe that she didn’t need a little monster in her man.
Spike wanted to be enough.