Chapter 2: A Way Out
Sunrise was still two or three hours away when Giles’ car pulled up in the mansion’s driveway. He had waited as long as he dared, hoping that Buffy would come back to them even if it meant she’d return with a newly resouled Angel. He wasn’t sure he wanted to consider his feelings for the vamp quite yet, but he would probably need to eventually. He needed to either accept that Angel and Angelus were truly two different persons or find it in himself to pretend he believed they were.
For Buffy’s sake.
Willow had told him about the spell they had attempted again and about being possessed, there was no other word for it, as she finished chanting the incantation. She seemed convinced it had worked, and some part of him wanted to believe her. Another part, the part that still hurt so much from Jenny’s death or maybe it was the one that had suffered under Angelus’ ministrations, simply hoped the vampire was dust and gone from their lives for good.
If he had been alone, Giles might have remained in the car for a few seconds in order to collect his thoughts, but Xander bolted for the mansion as soon as the engine stopped leaving him with no choice but to follow. His heart beat faster than it should have, anticipation mixed with the residual fear of his earlier torture; but he refused to show either to the young man. Xander had insisted on coming along, and Giles had hesitated, wavering between being thankful and annoyed. Thankful, in the end, because his bandaged hand could barely do more than hold a cross. But then, he was almost completely certain that neither the cross, nor the small bottles of holy water lining his jacket’s pockets, the stake in his left hand, or the crossbow in Xander’s possession would need to be used. The world had not been sucked into hell, which meant that they had won, either by ensouling or by dusting. They were only here to know how it had ended. And to make sure Buffy was alright.
Side by side, they walked toward the mansion they had left in such a hurry only a few hours before. The door was wide open, and no sound was coming from inside. Except for. a faint, very faint murmur. No, not a murmur. Moans. Painful moans. A sudden pang of guilt ran through Giles as he abandoned all caution and hurried inside. Was Buffy hurt? Had he hidden in safety while she laid here in pain, waiting for help to find her?
“Buffy?” he called out as he stepped in the mansion foyer, his voice holding more anxiety than he would have wished.
No answer, except for devastating silence as the moaning stopped.
For a second, the massive statue in the center of the room distracted him. There was no sword trapped in it anymore, so Angelus must have awakened Acathla. With the directions he had managed to extract from Giles. Once again, more guilt clawed at the Watcher. Yet, now the statue was dormant and no hell was threatening to swallow this world. So, how had Buffy reversed the process?
And where was she?
Clutching the cross so hard it dug into his injured hand, he looked around. For a body. For ashes. For blood. For any clue of what might have happened. He was aware, vaguely, of Xander doing the same, but couldn’t summon the force to advise him to be cautious. Not when he had found a sword that was stained with blood. Whose blood was it?
Hand trembling, he tucked the stake in his pocket and picked up the sword. It felt heavy in his hand, the thought that the dried blood could be Buffy’s weighing profoundly on him.
“Giles!”
Xander’s call pulled the Watcher from his increasingly worrisome thoughts; and he quickly turned to look at the youngster. The boy was on the other side of the room, the darker side, standing rigidly as he peered into the shadows. Giles’ heart clenched painfully as he wondered what was hiding in that recess of darkness.
Please, please, let her be safe.
With leaden steps, he joined the young man, the same plea running repeatedly through his mind. When he joined Xander and his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, he could only let out a relieved sigh. It wasn’t Buffy’s corpse that held Xander’s attention. Not Buffy at all.
Huddled against the wall, was a vampire Giles had last seen sitting in a wheelchair. Now, he was crouched on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around his torso, frantically rocking back and forth without interruption.
His hold on the sword became firmer, and Giles lifted it to place it under the vampire’s chin. It took a fair amount of pressure for the blonde to lift his head; and when he did, Giles felt a cold shiver run down his spine. The vampire’s eyes were bloodshot, completely expressionless, and there were tear tracks down his cheeks. What the hell had happened to put him in this state? Once more, fear for Buffy’s safety settled in her Watcher’s bones.
“Where is Buffy?” he asked coldly, the sharp blade of the sword suddenly pressed a little more insistently for emphasis. The vampire did not seem to notice either the words or the death threat.
“Spike!” Giles shouted and the vampire’s head jerked up. “Where. Is. Buffy?”
The barest hint of recognition flickered in his eyes, though if at the name or Giles’ face, it wasn’t clear.
“Hurt,” he mumbled, turning his head away and not reacting in the slightest when the blade nicked his throat. “Hurt enough to die. Her. Me. He hurt too. But he didn’t die, I didn’t let him die. Had promised her. But hurt, couldn’t be helped. Couldn’t. Really couldn’t. Shut up, I’m telling you I couldn’t! Her dirty angel would have known. I couldn’t.”
The ramblings continued, too low now to understand. Giles stared at the blonde, trying to decipher what he had heard. Had he meant Buffy was hurt? Hurt enough to die? Was she laying somewhere, bleeding to death while they wasted time with this incoherent demon? This demon who was their only witness?
With some difficulty due to the cracked ribs that were suddenly reminding him of their need for attention, he put a knee to the ground and again used the sword to bring Spike’s attention back to him.
“Listen to me carefully,” he enunciated slowly, an edge of Ripper tainting his voice. “If you do not tell me where Buffy is, I swear I’ll leave you wishing you were in Angelus’ hands, not mine.”
“Angelus?” the vampire repeated, sounding confused. “Gone. To hell too. Swallowed by stone.”
Now that, at least, made some kind of sense. It seemed Angelus had been sent through Acathla. Good riddance. However, that didn’t explain where Buffy was. Unless she had been sucked in too?
“We don’t care about Angelus,” Xander said harshly when the blonde appeared to be drifting back to his own world. “Where is she? Where is Buffy?”
A brief look at Xander, and the vampire’s gaze was once again unfocused, looking at things that weren’t there.
“Gone. All gone. Left me alone. Alone with all of them, but then not really alone am I?”
An unexpected giggle passed the vampire’s lips, chilling in its high pitch and ending as abruptly as it had started. Slowly, Giles pulled the sword away from Spike’s throat and straightened.
“Is it just my impression or is he very slightly loony?” Xander asked with a trace of sarcasm. “Should we put him out of his misery and get moving?”
Giles pondered the suggestion, but finally shook his head. What the vampire was saying hinted that he knew what had become of Buffy, but it wasn’t enough to understand what her fate had been, what exactly had happened in this place. They couldn’t stake the vampire before he regained some kind of coherence.
“I think he may be in shock,” he told the young man, without ever taking his gaze off the blonde. He was rocking back and forth again, muttering nonsense. “When he snaps out of it, he’ll probably be able to tell us what happened. We need him alive, or at least undead.”
With as few words as possible, Giles directed Xander to go get rope in the trunk of the car; and while he waited, he kept an eye on the vampire at his feet. The idea on inviting yet another vamp into his flat wasn’t appealing, but he couldn’t think of any other solution. After all, it was only temporary. They would keep him secured – Giles was sure he could find a way to magically strengthen some chains – for as long as they needed to get a clear answer, and then. well, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Surprisingly, the vampire could stand and walk. Just as surprisingly, he allowed them to tie him up without protest, as he continued lost in his broken monologue. Giles searched each room of the mansion once he was sure Spike wouldn’t be a problem, but there was no trace of Buffy. No clue to what had become of her, except for the answers held by the still rambling vampire in Xander’s custody.
Sunnydale was still sleeping, ignorant that it had been on the edge of being the entrée to Acathla’s super sized dinner. Ignorance was bliss, wasn’t it? It was so much easier for the town’s citizens to sleep at night if they didn’t have to worry about vampires and demons, soul losing boyfriends, and a hell dimension being only a breath away. Buffy wished she too could have pretended that nothing went bump in the night. That the town didn’t have a plethora of people dying in freak accidents. That it was safe to walk the streets as she was doing now. Alas, she knew better than that.
In her mind, the scene kept replaying, over and over, an endless loop she couldn’t escape. Angelus sucked into hell. Her relief that the nightmare was over. Grief that all of this had happened because of her, because of her attachment to Angel, because she was the Slayer. And over the images in slow motion, the soundtrack was her mother’s voice.
Have you tried not being a Slayer?
You walk out of this house, don’t even think about coming back!
Maybe her mother was right after all. Maybe all Buffy had to do was try. Try hard enough. If she pretended there was nothing abnormal about her life, if she made herself forget that demons existed and that her job was to kill them, maybe she would be able to live – really live – like any other girl her age.
Before the sun rose, she snuck into her house – no, not her house, not anymore – into her mother’s house. She took the little money she kept in the top dresser drawer, gathered a few clothes, wrote a quick note, and was out without a backward glance. It was easier that way.
She went to the bus station and bought a ticket, but the bus wasn’t leaving before the middle of the morning. Once more, her feet took her through the town, until she was near Sunnydale High, close enough to see, but not enough to be seen. She felt calmer as she saw her friends and Watcher in front of the school, together, present for each other. She couldn’t hear them, but seeing them was enough. Reassured that they were alright, and certain that they would be better if she wasn’t there to mess up their lives anymore, she turned her back on them and walked away.
Am I sensing a pattern here or what? First, she turns her back on me, then on her mum and friends. That’s my Slayer, alright. Ready for the worse if the world’s safety is menaced, but choosing the path of least resistance for herself. So strong and so bloody fragile all at once.
Although in this case, I probably shouldn’t criticize her. If she had stayed, the Watcher would have staked me right away. All he needed me for was information, and I have no doubt my execution would have been swift if she had come back to him that morning.
So, Giles and the whelp took me to the Watcher’s flat. I could have freed myself at any time; I just had no desire to do so. No desire for anything at all, actually. All I wanted was for the voices to stop, to be quiet for an instant, but of course, it didn’t work like that. Actually, being close to Giles made things worse. Much worse. He was the last person, who had been hurt, although not directly by me, by my lack of doing anything to prevent it. I did nothing while Angelus tortured him; merely prevented his death in exchange for Drusilla’s life and no other reason. Every time he looked at me, every time, I saw his bandaged hand and bruises, I felt renewed guilt.
I am quite sure I talked too much, in these moments. Let things slip about my fucking soul, about feeling bad for letting him get hurt, about being sorry, and all of that useless rot. I’m not sure whether I should be thankful that he didn’t understand right away. My words were probably too jumbled to make much sense, and from what he says I was talking too quietly most of the time for him to make out what I was saying. He also says he tried to talk to me, to snap me out of the little hellish world I had been caged – or caged myself – in, but he didn’t manage to reach me, and honestly I don’t remember him trying. I know I was chained in his bathtub and sometimes to a chair, but I don’t actually remember much of it. I remember mostly that he was there, always there even when he was gone, and that the voices inside were loudest when he came closer. I remember knowing that he wanted something from me, something I had and could give him, if I just managed to figure out what it was exactly.
It’s this knowledge that slowly, as a few days went by, gave me the strength to learn how to control the voices, how to make them quiet long enough to be able to hear, understand questions, and give somewhat coherent answers. Many people had been hurt or had died because of me, but Giles was still there, still alive, and I could do something for him. Not much, but something. The beginning of my atonement.
As if atonement meant anything.
Still, I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had this reason to fight my insanity. I suspect I would have retreated farther and farther into myself, until I had no connection left to the world, until I was reduced to little more than an animal. Until I had followed Angel’s footsteps from a century before.
Now, he would probably get all flustered and start a new round of glasses polishing if I ever told him, and it would be just as bloody embarrassing for me, but part of me is grateful that the Watcher took me in. By doing that, he gave me a link to humans that was impossible to ignore. Started the process of giving me a purpose, a way out of my madness. And he did all that without even knowing it, or knowing what was going on in my head. So yeah, grateful.
You realize that if you tell him I’ll not only deny it but the consequences will be very unpleasant for you, don’t you? Good. Glad that we understand each other.