Chapter 13: Like Ashes
When Spike woke, his internal clock informed him that it was the middle of the afternoon – a few hours left before sunset. His pounding head reminded him that not only did cheap alcohol taste terrible, but it also made for atrocious hangovers. And his nose told him that he wasn’t alone; Drusilla was in the crypt with him.
That last bit, he dismissed without a second thought. Even with canons and fireworks echoing in his brain, he knew all too well where he was and why. He knew, just as well, that his Dru was gone.
Less than a week before, he had moved out of the mansion after having reached the limits of his endurance as far as angst was concerned. At the time, he had thought about leaving Sunnydale, but Joyce had easily convinced him otherwise, with the double argument that she would miss their talks and Buffy could certainly use his help on patrol. Instead, he had found himself a new place to call home before morning. It didn’t have the flair of the mansion, he admitted, but some cleaning and scavenging had turned a dreary, dusty, moldy crypt into. well, a still dreary but a bit less dusty and moldy crypt. And it was his. He had a bed – or rather, he had a mattress – to sleep on in the lower level, a few empty crates for storage ready for when he would actually own stuff, a nice exposed pipe to tap for cold but free showers, and a fridge – unplugged, therefore not so effective – where he stored his blood and booze.
The Slayer knew where he now resided, he had pointed out the crypt to her, but she had not been invited to visit nor had she asked for a tour. He had thought their first patrol after his little drunken speech about love would have been awkward; but she had acted as if nothing had happened, and he had taken his cue from her. Denial was as good a place as any to dwell, he supposed.
Spike massaged at his temples, desperately willing the headache away, when a whisper froze him. Slowly, oh so slowly, he opened his eyes. Still in the crypt, check. Soul? Still there with the guilt, voices and never faltering hand squeezing his heart. And yet. He took a deep breath, and there it was again, stronger and undeniable now. Drusilla’s scent. And again that tiny whisper.
Ignoring the pounding in his head, he sat up on the bed and quickly located the source of noise. Again, he froze.
“Drusilla? Kitten?”
His voice was a choked murmur that did not seem to reach the vampiress. She didn’t move from where she was sitting on the floor, legs drawn up in front of her and her arms wrapped around them. Naked and covered with cuts and bruises, she continued to whisper, so quietly he couldn’t make out the words. Finally shaking himself out of his torpor, Spike stood and slowly approached her, trying to appear as unthreatening as he could; he remembered how Angelus had been feral and disoriented when the older vampire had first reappeared. He knelt in front of her, reaching out to caress her hair, but before he could touch the tangled silk she raised her face to look at him.
“Princess is hungry,” she said in a whiny voice, and Spike had to suppress the laugh that wanted to bubble past his throat. Dru was back and fine, not broken like Angelus had been.
“I’ll be right back, luv,” he said quickly as he rose. “Going to get you food. Don’t move, OK?”
She didn’t reply, but already he was stumbling to the ladder, hurrying upstairs to his fridge and then back down with two containers of blood. He placed them by the bed, then went to Drusilla and gently lifted her from the floor and carried her to the mattress.
“I know it’s cold and not very good,” he murmured apologetically as he offered her the first container, “but it’s blood. It’ll make you right in a minute.”
She grimaced as she sniffed the blood, but drank it all anyway, before doing the same with the second jar. Still baffled by her presence, Spike only watched her, drinking in the sight of the woman he had spend so many years with, realizing that he had missed her more than he had thought. However, she wasn’t the sole owner of his heart anymore.
When she had drunk all the blood, she licked her lips clean, gazing at Spike from behind almost close eyelids.
“Still hungry,” she announced, and Spike sighed.
“I don’t have any more, luv. I’ll get more later, I promise. Why don’t you get some rest.”
He was startled when she shifted to game face and lunged at him; but he did not try to defend himself and instead offered her better access to his throat. Her fangs tearing into his flesh were pain and bliss all at once. He held her tight to him, trying to show her that he wasn’t going to pull away, that he was willing to give her anything she needed. She stopped drinking after only a few seconds; and when she moved back, he could see that she seemed confused.
“You taste like ashes,” she said sadly as she ran a nail down his cheek, drawing up a bloodless welt.
His throat tightened. Four words that summed up what he knew was going to be the biggest obstacle in front of them. No human blood in his veins – and none in hers if he could help it. He watched her lie down on the bed, her back to him, his lone sheet drawn up to hide everything but the top of her head. He had many questions for her, about whether she remembered where she had been, and how she had been brought back. And he had decisions to make, with her, or maybe for her.
If she was going to stay with him, there was no doubt in his mind that she would, he wouldn’t be able to let her kill, and so another soul spell would be needed. It would be difficult for her, after all she already had more voices in her head that she should have had, but he would be there for her, would help her, and she would help him.
Such were Spike’s thoughts as he took the sewer tunnels to his car, then drove to the mansion. Ignoring a startled Angel who was reading by the fire, he strode into the master bedroom, trying not to flinch as he entered it. It didn’t take long for him to find the chest containing Drusilla’s things, and he grabbed a dress, the porcelain doll and hair brush that were in it. When he stood again with his bounty, Angel was by the door, watching him with an incredulous look.
“Drusilla?” he questioned quietly. “How did she.”
“Don’t know how,” Spike cut in sharply as he pushed by him and left the mansion again. He didn’t have time to chat. He wanted to be back in his crypt before Dru awoke if he could.
She was awake when he arrived though, and dripping wet. Apparently, she had discovered what passed for a shower in his not so luxurious accommodations, but had not found his motel-borrowed towels. He wrapped her in the largest one, gently rubbing her skin dry and wincing at the bruises marring her flesh, before making her sit on the bed so he could work on her hair with the brush. The action was domestic, soothing, something he had done for her countless times in the past. But unlike the past when she had regaled him with sweet stories about pixies and stars, now she was now strangely quiet. He couldn’t make himself talk either; he wasn’t sure what to tell her, how to explain how deeply things had changed. Part of him remembered Darla’s rejection of Angel because of his soul, and the idea that his own sire could reject him the same way was painful. And terrifying.
“Are you feeling alright, princess?” he asked at last. “Apart from being hungry?”
She tilted her head slightly, and he adapted his strokes to the new position.
“It’s very noisy in here,” she stated calmly. “Don’t the voices ever quiet down?”
His hand faltered for an instant.
“No they don’t, luv,” he replied as coolly as he could. “You can hear them?”
“William is cross.”
“That he is.”
Letting go of the brush, he ran a towel over her hair, drying it gently as he fought to find the words to explain. He finally knelt in front of her and took her hands in his.
“I am different, now, kitten,” he said softly.
“I know. Like daddy.”
He managed to suppress the grimace that her words inspired, but before he could say anymore she was talking again, freeing her hands from his to gesture around his head.
“I can see her floating all around you. Even brighter than your soul.”
Frowning, Spike watched her stand and discard the towel as she reached for the dress he had brought back.
“Her?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “Who, luv?”
She clucked her tongue reprovingly. “No more love for you. Miss Edith and princess can’t stay with someone who taste like ashes.”
All his fears resurfaced.
“Dru, it’s the soul, I can’t.”
“Not the soul, silly. You didn’t have a soul when you fought with the Slayer and sent me to hell, did you? You thought I’d forget? I’m insane, Spike. Not stupid.”
Wide-eyed, he watched her slip the dress on, the protest that Angelus had sent her through Acathla, not him, dying on his lips. Insane? She didn’t sound insane at all. Actually, she had never sounded so rational before. In other circumstances, he might have found it funny how going through Acathla had made Angelus lose his mind, if only for a time, but had apparently done the exact opposite for Dru.
“The soul is lovely,” she said when she was clothed and came to stand in front of his still kneeling form. “Bright and singing like a delicious bird. I would have stayed just to hear you sing. It is your pretty soul that drew me to you, don’t you remember? Effulgent William. Then it was gone but I still kept you. Different, and singing another song, but still bright so I let you be my knight.”
The fleeting smile playing on her lips disappeared, and her face slowly locked into an icy mask. Spike didn’t notice. He was still trying to comprehend. She couldn’t mean. What did she mean exactly?
“But you’re hers already, and I don’t want to play with another little girl’s toys. The pixies don’t like to share. Better to get far away before she even knows I was here.”
The last words were murmured, as if she were talking to herself, and already she was walking to the ladder. Feet bare, damp hair sticking to the back of her dress, a porcelain doll under one arm, she had all the grace of a queen stepping on her throne. Belatedly realizing that she was leaving, Spike darted after her, catching her just as she opened the crypt’s door on the quickly falling dusk.
“Drusilla, don’t.”
A gentle smile and a finger to his lips stopped him. “Goodbye, Spike. Goodbye, sweet William.”
He wanted to grab her, prevent her from going anywhere; but he couldn’t move a muscle. She hadn’t used her thrall on him more than a couple of times in the past, but he still recognized the helpless feeling never the less. All he could do was watch her walk away from him, and let the certitude sink in that he’d never see her again.
After Spike’s short visit, Angel was restless until nightfall, trying to understand what was happening. He had smelled Drusilla on the blond as soon as he had walked in, and the thought that she was back was both incredible and frightening. She had gone through Acathla before him, and if he still had trouble remembering what had happened after he had lost his soul, he could on the other hand perfectly remember centuries of torture and torment. The idea that Drusilla might have gone through the same thing was intolerable. Hadn’t she suffered enough, already?
Suspecting that Buffy would come to the mansion and unsure whether he would be back, Angel left a note for her, telling her he had business to conduct and not to wait for him. He would miss her; he sometimes felt that he only endured the endless days for the pleasure of seeing her at night. But at the same time, he couldn’t help the twinge of relief that, for once, he wouldn’t have to battle himself in her presence. The fight was getting incredibly difficult, a little more every night, and he didn’t know how long he could resist before succumbing.
Somehow, it would have been easier if they had cursed him like the first time around. At least, they knew the loophole of that spell, and all he would have had to do was stay clear of too complete happiness. But the fact that they had changed the spell complicated everything. They thought his soul was anchored now. Thought that he could be as perfectly happy as he wished. What if they were wrong? What if the loophole was still there? Could he allow himself to take the risk, knowing what hell he would unleash for all of them, and especially Buffy, if his soul disappeared again?
And furthermore, did he even have the right to try to be happy after what he had done? He had gone to Jenny Calendar’s grave and had tried to remember her death, without success. What he could remember however was the pencil in his hand as he sketched her, lying on Giles’ bed. He hadn’t faced the Watcher yet. He wasn’t sure he would be able to. And Buffy’s behavior, as she tried to pretend nothing irreparable had happened, only complicated things. He didn’t want to patrol with her and risk coming face to face with the Scoobies or even Giles. He didn’t want to come to a research party. What he wanted was to be sure he’d never be Angelus again. If it meant he couldn’t be more than a friend for Buffy. well, he was ready for that eventuality. Better to be her friend than her enemy. Which was apparently also Spike’s motto.
Over the past weeks, he had become thoroughly annoyed that his grand-childe was regularly patrolling with the Slayer. He couldn’t understand why Spike did it – to alleviate his guilt? Did he really think it would be enough? – nor did he understand why Buffy allowed it. Did she really trust Spike? Even with a soul, Angel couldn’t make himself trust the blond. He had waited for days for him to finally come clean and tell him why he hadn’t staked Angelus the minute he had come back, or why he had insisted for his soul to be restored, but Spike had moved out of the mansion without ever explaining himself. And now, if Drusilla really was back, it was time to get these answers and even more.
Buffy had pointed out Spike’s new home to him during one of the few times he had patrolled with her, and he had no trouble finding the place again. The place was empty when he arrived there half an hour after sunset, and Angel supposed that Spike had gone out to patrol with Buffy. Either that, or he was out with Dru. Now that he was in the crypt, her scent was much stronger and made it clear that he hadn’t been mistaken earlier. Drusilla had indeed returned.
After a cursory inspection of both levels of the crypt, Angel settled on the sarcophagus on the ground level and waited. It was long past midnight when Spike finally returned.
“Where is she?” were Angel’s first words as the blond closed the heavy door behind him.
Spike didn’t seem surprised to see him there and barely shrugged. “Gone.”
Angel frowned, unsure about how to take that, unsure which possibility he favored. “Dusted gone or left gone?”
“She left. Left me, left Sunnydale probably. She didn’t seem too keen on meeting the Slayer.”
There was a lot of pain in those few words, and Angel watched as the other vampire tried to wash it down with a swig of bourbon.
“Alcohol doesn’t help.”
Spike’s head instantly turned, and for the first time cool blue eyes settled on him. “Does anything?”
The brunet shook his head. He didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t have any answer, do you?” Spike asked blankly after a few seconds. “I thought you’d show me, but you have no fucking clue. Bloody fucking.”
Angel watched, impassible, as Spike shattered a couple of empty bottles on the wall – not the full one, however – before kicking at the shards, all the while cursing profusely and quite inventively. He now had one of his answers. Spike had hoped to get answers from him, which was why he had kept him around. The disappointment must have been very sharp.
“Do you think Dru ever loved me?”
The quiet question startled Angel as much as Spike’s sudden stillness. The blond wasn’t looking at him, his gaze fixed on the wall in front of him, but Angel could guess by the tension in his body that whatever answer he gave would mean a lot to Spike. The question was, how should he answer?
“I do not believe Dru was able to love,” he said after long seconds of heavy silence. “At least, not like you loved her.”
The only indication Spike gave that he had heard was a small nod. He then took a long swig of alcohol, and walked to the ladder that led to the lower level. Angel took this as his cue to leave, but before he had reached the door Spike once again startled him.
“Did you?”
That was another question Angel had no answer for.
For a while, I thought that Dru had reappeared like Angelus, without rhyme or reason. Then I met Anyanka – no, Anya by then – and learned what kind of demon she had been. I remembered crossing her path before while I was a bit too drunk to recall much more than having talked to a stranger. When I learned that she specialized in avenging scorned women, I told myself that couldn’t have been it; it was just a coincidence. But I eventually asked her if she had granted me a wish, and she admitted she had. I asked her why – ’cause you know, I might have been scorned but I wasn’t exactly female. The answer was disappointingly simple. She had seen me around the Slayer, and she had thought that giving me a wish would disrupt Buffy’s life enough to make it worthwhile for her to grant an exception for a man.
There’s something though that I didn’t found the guts to ask. I didn’t dare ask if my wish got cancelled when Anyanka lost her powers. I couldn’t bear to think that Dru had returned straight to Acathla’s hell, and it was easier to tell myself she was off somewhere, safe and happily back to her insane self. Yeah, the idea that I let her go while I knew that she’d feed and kill was nagging at my soul for a while, but I tried to convince myself that by hunting and dusting vamps every night I made enough of a difference not to feel guilty about her continued existence.
Even today, I still love her a bit, I suppose. I don’t think it’s possible to love someone for so long and have all of it disappear when another person take their place. At least, that’s not how it works for me. I still have a soft spot for her, for the decades we spent together, even if I still wonder if during all this time she ever really loved me. Probably not like I thought she did. It was painful to realize that my love had not been returned as I believed for so long, but it was also an eye-opener. It proved to me that it’s possible to love in different ways, to show it in different manners. Possible to love several persons at once. But most importantly it showed me that love doesn’t need to be requited to exist. It just is, and there’s nothing to be done about it. As I had told the Slayer and the poof, the only thing to do is to follow your blood. I’m kinda proud that it’s the only thing I ever did.
The greatest lesson of all, I had already learned it long before though. It’s the one humans find so hard to believe, especially the Slayer.
It is possible to love, truly love, without a soul. I am the unliving proof of that.