Chapter 5: Reflections
Looking over Dawn’s shoulder, Spike frowned at what the girl was writing. This was a bad idea. He was a bad teacher. They had been practicing for half an hour and she still didn’t have it right.
“The agreement,” he growled. “What did I tell you about the agreement?”
She turned to him, looking sheepish. “Uh. The adjective agrees with the noun?”
He looked up, wishing for the hundredth time since the lesson had started that he could light a fag without risking death at the oldest Summers hand. Strange. Two days ago he would have welcomed death, but not anymore.
“You know it, so why don’t you apply it?” he said as calmly as he could. “La tueuse is a feminine noun, the adjective must agree with the noun, so the adjective must be feminine, and we make it feminine by adding.”
He watched her questioningly, waiting for her to finish. If she didn’t know it by now, she never would, and he was giving up.
“By adding a E?” she said tentatively.
He raised his hands to the ceiling, thanking whatever god there was.
“YES! Add a E to make an adjective feminine, a S.”
“To make it plural and ES to make it feminine plural!”
She smiled at him proudly, waiting for a praise. He only shook his head and repeated, pointing at the errors on her paper: “You know it so apply it.”
She corrected her mistakes, adding a E here and there, a S somewhere else.
“OK, nibblet. Good. Now read it.”
She shook her head, her eyes growing wide. “I don’t know how to speak French, I can’t.”
“If you don’t try, you will never learn,” he interrupted. “Just try and I will correct your pronunciation if needed.”
Grudgingly she obliged and read the last few sentences she had written. He pronounced a couple of words for her, but commented that her accent was fine. She repeated the lines again, with more confidence this time. “La tueuse est dangereuse. Sa sour est charmante et jolie. Ses amis sont étranges.”
The slayer is dangerous. Her sister is charming and lovely. Her friends are strange.
He smiled at the teenager, happy that at last she seemed to have the agreement right.
“Alors bout de chou, qu’est ce qu’il y d’autre que tu ne comprends pas?”
She looked at him dumbfounded, and he repeated his question in English.
“Uh, there’s that whole conjugating thing that I don’t get. Like the ending of the verbs changing and everything.”
He sat down at the kitchen table, across her. This was going to be a long lesson. Someone remind him again why he was doing that?
Oh, right.
La tueuse.
“It’s just another kind of agreement, nibblet. Lets see.”
By 6.30, Spike and Dawn agreed that it was enough French agreements for one night. He would have denied it if asked, but the vampire had finally enjoyed helping the girl with her study. He had not had the occasion of speaking the language in years, and he had surprised himself by remembering so much of it.
Tutoring the teenager had brought his mind back to his own teen years. Sitting on the back porch, protected by the shadow of the house, he finally indulged in that cigarette he needed so badly. Thinking of his human life was something he avoided as much as possible, for it usually left him with a burning need for violence.
After a few minutes, Giles joined him. He wasn’t surprised by the Watcher’s presence, as Dawn had mentioned he would be staying in the house until his return to England. However Spike had not expected that he would seek his company. He waited for the fellow Englishman to tell what he had to say. It didn’t take long.
“Spike, I was wondering if you would tell me more about how you regained your soul. Buffy mentioned the intervention of a demon ..?”
Spike forced himself to calm down. His daydreaming about William’s life had upset him, and the Watcher’s words just made matters worse. He tried not to let the distress he felt pierce in his voice when he asked: “She told you? Why did she tell you when she didn’t even tell the Nibblet?”
The other man leaned against the railing of the porch, his fingers tapping against a little notebook. It seemed he was always ready to take notes.
“Well, Buffy has been talking to me about, hmm, the two of you. I suppose that’s why she told me.”
Spike eyed Giles warily, wondering how much she had told him, and why he wasn’t a pile of ashes already.
“What did she tell you exactly?”
Giles sighed and shook his head. “She told me a lot more than I wanted to know. Everything, I would say.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, everything. Her mistakes and, hmm, yours.”
Mistakes. Was it all it was for Buffy?
He could not understand her. For months, she had pleaded to keep their relationship a secret, and as soon as her Watcher was back, she told him about it. He was the last person Spike would have thought she would tell. And there he was. Standing over him, watching him questioningly, but without the hatred or disgust Spike would have expected.
“You know, it’s her fault I got that bloody soul.” Spike said quietly.
“How so?”
The vampire took a long drag on his cigarette. How much should he tell the man? How could he explain what he wasn’t sure he understood himself?
“You lot always said I couldn’t be trusted because I would turn back to my bad self without the sodding chip. So even when I told her I wouldn’t, she didn’t believe me. Didn’t trust me. I wanted to show her.”
Giles frowned. Putting his notebook aside, he started cleaning his glasses with a handkerchief. That habit was so annoying.
“Show her she could trust you? She said you wanted the chip out to. I think her words were ‘to be the Big Bad again’.”
A smile came to Spike’s lips, though he felt like anything but smiling.
“Both. I wanted to prove her she couldn’t treat me like a harmless thing. And at the same time I wanted to show her she had been wrong all this time, that I was choosing to be good, and it wasn’t the chip forcing me. It sounds weird now but then it was so clear in my mind. I needed the chip out so I could deal with her. But. Did she tell you I could harm her even with the chip?”
At Giles nod, Spike continued. “I thought I wanted to kill her. That’s what I told her. ‘Was hoping she would stake me when I said it. But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. If killing her was what I wanted, removing the chip wasn’t necessary. So why?”
The question was rhetorical, and of course Giles didn’t have an answer.
“I told the demon. told him I wanted the chip out to take care of the Slayer. Give her what she deserved. My exact words. ‘Guess the demon had his own idea of what I meant. I’m not even sure I knew what I meant.”
He paused a brief second, flicking the cigarette away. He had replayed his conversation with the bloody demon a thousand times in his mind, and still couldn’t tell why he had chosen these particular words to make his request. He glanced at Giles, who was still watching him intently, as if considering whether to stake him yet or not.
“I don’t know anymore what I wanted. I was mad at Buffy for making me love her and rejecting me. Mad for not being good enough for her. Mad for hurting her. Mad for not killing her and ending it once and for all. I don’t know, Watcher. You tell me, how can this girl mess up my mind like that?”
Spike was startled as Giles let out a genuine laugh.
“It’s an art with her, I’m afraid. If it’s of any comfort, she is just as confused as you.”
“Who is confused?”
Both Giles and Spike jumped at the intervention. Buffy was standing by the door, a glass of orange juice in one hand, looking from one man to the other.
“How long have you been here, Slayer?” Spike asked, hoping she hadn’t heard what he had said. Telling the Watcher was one thing; telling Buffy was completely different.
“Just arrived from work. How was the French lesson?”
Spike repressed a sigh as she changed the subject. They chatted about Dawn for a moment then left for patrol. The vampire made a mental note to find the Watcher later, tell him what he wanted to know about the demon, and make him promise to keep their little conversation between them.
“Slayer, why didn’t you tell Dawn?”
The question, coming in the middle of a fight between four fledgings and the Buffy/Spike team, surprised Buffy enough that she missed the heart and staked a vamp in the abdomen. She promptly rectified her mistake, replying as she gave Spike a quick glance: “Tell her what?”
He was fighting two vamps at once, distributing kicks and punches, forgetting to use his stake.
“Soul.” he simply said between two blows.
Buffy returned her full attention to her opponent and quickly dispatched him.
“I thought you would want to tell her yourself.”
She observed several minutes as he kept bloodying the two creatures. Finally stepping in, she staked one of them; he took her cue and finished the other.
“What’s wrong Spike? We’re here to dust them, not play with them.”
He shrugged and started walking away. However he stopped after a few steps, waiting for her. Shaking her head, she followed, wondering what had caused this outburst. He usually was quick at slaying, especially inexperienced vampires like these. She knew the feeling, having herself more than once used her preys for some displaced violence, but she had never witnessed Spike doing the same. He still seemed in a bad mood, but she was too curious to leave the matter alone.
“So tell me what’s bugging you,” she asked. “Is it because I didn’t tell Dawn about the brand new, soul improved you? I promise, I thought you.”
“Dance with me, Slayer.”
I don’t know why I said that. And from the way she looks at me, she has no clue either. But she knows what I mean. No need for music for this kind of dance.
“Are you mad at me?” she asks, still surveying me.
I can see she is tense. Is she afraid? Afraid of me? Hell, doesn’t she know by now I would never hurt her? Except. Except I did. So I guess she can’t know.
“No,” I partially lie, “I am not mad at you. I just want a good fight. With an opponent that actually knows what she’s doing. Don’t tell me you’re scared, Slayer.”
Yes, I’m mad at her. At me. At the demon who gave me this cursed gift. At the Watcher for making me talk too much. I’m mad at the whole world. She just happens to be right here.
She sheds the duster, draping it carefully over a tombstone. I had not actually expected her to wear it when I told her to keep it. It’s strange to see her in my clothes. Strange but nice.
When she turns back toward me, I see the fire in her hazel eyes. Not anger, though, but rather anticipation.
“I’m not scared of you, Soulboy. Never was, never will be.”
Without another word, we dance.
I love fighting her. We know each other’s moves so well by now that it’s like I’m reading her mind and she reads mine. Like we follow a choreography. It doesn’t make for a very effective fight, pain wise, but probably interesting to watch.
And watch, I do.
God, she’s so beautiful.
Why are we doing this? He says he’s not mad at me, but he certainly seems to be. As he seems to be giving all he has. I know I am.
Time to end this before it gets too far. I fake a stumble, and when he tries to take advantage of it, roll him down to the ground. Before I know it, I’m straddling his waist, the stake in my hand coming down to his chest.
I stop my movement just in time, and, breathless, look into his eyes. There’s no fear in them. No surprise. As if he want me to do it. Why?
“Spike? What.”
A blow of his hand sends the stake flying out of my reach. He rolls us, and now he’s the one looming over me, pinning my hands down with his, his eyes into mine. Inches from my face, he shifts to his game mask, and it is now gold eyes that seem to be looking into my soul. Ever so slowly, his head comes down to my neck, and I can feel the fangs against my skin, just pressing, not even drawing blood.
I should be scared. I should scream. I should try to get out of his grip. But I don’t. And I know why, a few seconds ago, there was no fear in his eyes, just like I know there is no fear in mine now.
He pushes himself off me, and lies down on his back by my side.
“Why didn’t you bite me?”
“Why didn’t you stake me?”
Probably for the same reasons.
“I mean, why didn’t you ever bite me? When we were. you know… doing it? More than once I thought you would. but you never did. And I was wondering. why?”
“You never proposed, luv.”
“Oh.”
Oh.