One Good Day Author: Elsa Frohman Rating: PG-13 for violence Spoilers: Through The Killer in Me and Awkening on AtS.
He's lying on a cot, and his head hurts. Not the shrieking, skull-
splitting pain of the chip's death throes, though. That's good.
This is just a dull ache -- a low hum in the background. He can
live with it.
He moves his hand and feels the cold metal of the manacle.
Good, he's safe, back in the basement. He's safe, and everyone
else is too -- at least from him. He's come to view the manacles
as a comfort. He sits up and deals with the wave of dizziness
that accompanies the motion. A hand to the back of his head
confirms that there has been surgery. They must have repaired
the chip. Good again -- his brain isn't going to be liquefied after
all. He might just make it a while longer. So much for
expiration dates.
He rolls his neck to loosen the tight muscles, then leans back
against the cinderblock wall. Another day facing his nemesis --
boredom.
He hears steps on the stairs and perks up. Maybe she was
bringing him a mug of pig's blood. He wouldn't mind a bit of
Wheatabix or burba weed to go with it, but he isn't going to
complain.
"Spike, you're awake. Thank goodness!" She comes to him and
starts unfastening the manacles without any further greeting.
She's tense. She's been tense for weeks, but this is a notch
worse. He can tell that she's nearly panicking.
He gives her a questioning look.
"I know you're still recovering from having your chip removed,
but I need your help," she says, her voice barely controlled. "I
can't ask the girls to do this, they're not ready."
"What's wrong?"
"They've got Dawn!"
"Who?"
"Bringers. They grabbed her at school. I couldn't get to her in
time," the Slayer's voice is trembling. She's holding back tears.
"We'll get her back," he says firmly. "Nobody is going to hurt
the Bit while I can still move."
She looks at him and draws strength from his determination.
She nods.
"I think they took her back to the caves. The caves where...
Spike, I wouldn't ask you to go back there. I know how hard
this must be for you. But ..."
"No worries, pet. We'd better get going."
He stands up and stretches, feeling the power in his muscles.
This is what he's been spared for. He can help the Slayer as no
one else can. He has the strength. He has the fighting skills.
When they go in together, what foe can stand against them?
His headache is forgotten.
The caves don't bother him. It's just a place -- like any other.
They have to get to Dawn before the Bringers can hurt her. He
shudders to imagine what they want her for. It's too awful to
contemplate. More ritual bleeding? Something worse? Or is the
teenager just bait to lure the Slayer into a trap? It doesn't
matter. They're going in and woe to whoever stands in their
way.
Buffy is at his side, and together, they are focused on one
thing. For the first time in ages, he feels something he used to
feel occasionally when they patrolled together. They are one.
When they fight, they are two parts of a single weapon.
He knows now that moments like this are the ones that make
him feel close to the Slayer -- not the times when they shagged.
No, the times when he can anticipate her every move and shape
his own motion to complement her. He feels a flush of pleasure
at the thought of entering a desperate fight at her side. Fists and
fangs -- and the one thing that was missing all those years
before -- the Slayer.
The fight is desperate. They are outnumbered -- he hasn't
bothered to count the robed Bringers who fight with knives,
clubs and axes, not to mention the fervor of true believers.
Vampire and Slayer stand back to back and take on the hoard.
He swings his battleaxe again and again, and foe after foe falls.
Corpses surround them, but still the Bringers come.
Then he feels it. The Slayer has been forced away from her
position behind him. They're being separated. He spins and
takes out the attacker behind him. He sees the Slayer pushed
farther and farther from him by the pressure of the battle. But
she's still on her feet, and still making them pay with a life for
each step they make her take.
He begins to work his way toward her.
"Spike, no!" she shouts, as she continues to fight for her life.
"They're keeping us away from the tunnel over there. Don't
come for me. Go for Dawn!"
The Slayer can defend herself. He knows she's right, but he's
still reluctant to leave her. He's got to get to Dawn, though. The
First wouldn't be putting up this sort of resistance if whatever
he had planned for the girl wasn't important.
He turns and begins to slowly work his way toward the
passage. The Bringers fight hard, but they fall, and finally he
breaks out of the crowd and runs down the corridor. He can tell
that Dawn is ahead. Her scent is in the air. And just as surely,
he can tell that she's terrified. The odor of fear is sharp.
"I'm coming for you, nibblet," he mutters. "Nobody is going to
hurt you."
The girl is tied to a great wooden wheel -- just like ... no, he
can't think of that now. The good news is all the Bringers are
apparently engaged in the fight behind him. Dawn is
unprotected. The relief in her eyes as she sees him is better
than anything he could have imagined.
"Spike," Dawn sobs, "you came for me. You came."
"Nothing in this world could have kept me away," he says as
he uses his axe to cut her bonds. She collapses into his arms.
"There, there, bit," he murmurs. "Everything's going to be all
right. Nothing can hurt you now. I'm here and I won't let
anyone get to you."
The teenager clings to him, her slight body wracked with sobs.
He sweeps the girl up and starts back, wondering how they're
going to get through the remaining Bringers. But he figures
they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.
In the chamber where he left the Slayer, he finds his fighting
partner, tired, but whole, standing in the midst of a field of
death. The Bringers are no more.
"You found her! Thank goodness," the Slayer cries out in
relief.
"Buffy!" Dawn says.
He sets her down and she runs to her sister.
"Spike saved me," the girl says as she hugs the Slayer.
The Slayer looks up at him. "I wouldn't have made it without
you," she says. "Thank you, Spike."
He smiles down at her. There are no words to express how that
look on her face makes him feel.
"We'd better get out of here before the reinforcements arrive,"
he says, stopping before he can get sappy and promise to
always be there for her.
He pulls up short when he sees who blocks their way now.
Bugger. No, it's got to be the First. If so, it's non-corporeal.
"Angel, what are you doing here?" the Slayer says, looking
from one vampire to the other.
"Angel?" the figure ahead says. "I don't think so..."
"Angelus?" the Slayer asks. The grief in her face is too easy to
read.
"None other than," the other vampire says with a smirk.
"You lost your soul AGAIN?" the Slayer asks incredulously.
"What can I say? I'm careless." Angelus stalks toward them,
menace in every step.
He sets the girl down and steps in front of the Slayer.
"Stay back," he says, narrowing his eyes.
"Run away, William," Angelus sneers. "This is between me
and the Slayer."
"Not while I'm still standing."
"No, Spike. I'll take care of this," the Slayer says.
She steps forward and braces for the onslaught. Angelus goes
game face and launches himself at her. They tear into one
another with ferocity seldom seen on this plane. The Slayer is
fast and strong, but Angelus is a vampire like few others. A
rock that turns beneath the Slayer's foot betrays her and she
falls. Angelus is on her in less than a heartbeat. His fangs are
descending toward her throat.
It's time to act. He grabs the first thing he can reach, the back
of Angelus collar, and hauls him away from the Slayer. It's
vampire against vampire now, and there will be no quarter.
Rock crumbles as they fling one another against the walls. He
loses all connection to anything but the power of his fists and
feet. He kicks, he punches, he tears at his foe. He is the power.
He feels it in every fiber of his being. He cannot be defeated.
And finally, he straddles the beaten Angelus. He has no stake,
so he'll have to tear the fallen vampire's head off. But he stops
himself. This is her former lover. He is coming back to himself
and realizes that killing isn't always the answer.
He looks up at her with a silent question.
Her face is set and hard. "He has to die," she says simply.
But he can tell that it costs her to say so.
"Maybe Red could get his soul back again," he suggests.
"No. He's not reliable," she says, her voice trembling. "If we
get his soul back, he'll just lose it again. He's too dangerous."
"Look, pet," he begins.
"It's got to be done. He's not like you, Spike. I see that now. I
know I'll always be able to depend on you. You wanted a soul.
You wanted to be good, and you suffered more than anyone
should have to to achieve it. He's only good when someone
forces him to be."
"I know you still care about him," he says carefully. "You
shouldn't have to ..."
"If you don't do it, I will," she says.
"You heard the verdict," he says, looking down at the vampire
beneath him.
"Do it," Angelus snarls. "Just do it. You've beaten me."
Buffy paced the length of the small room. They'd been working
on him for hours. She stopped as the white-coated doctor came
through the door with one of Riley's military men.
"Is he going to be all right?"
The doctor shrugged. "Who can say? It's not like I can take his
pulse or his blood pressure. It seems to have gone right. That's
all I can say."
"Can I see him?"
"You might want to wait a while, Miss. He's still out."
The doctor turned to the soldier who had accompanied him.
"You tell Colonel Finn that I'm never working with that
anesthesiologist again. That guy is weird."
"It's not like anesthesiologists who specialize in demons are
easy to find. What was the problem?"
"He didn't hurt Spike, did he?" Buffy asked.
"No, as far as I can tell, he did his job. It's just he keeps
mumbling. I hate doing surgery with that sort of distraction.
But don't worry, Miss. I did my job."
The soldier shook his head. "A mumbler. Well, if he knows his
job... Finn said he just showed up and volunteered last week.
Kind of strange if you ask me. When we were driving over, he
kept talking to invisible people."
Buffy registered shock. "Talking to invisible people? Where is
he?"
"Now, Miss Summers..."
Buffy had the soldier by the neck against the wall. "Where is
he?" she said between clenched teeth.
"He's probably washing up and changing in the room down the
hall," the soldier said.
Buffy was down the hall before the soldier started breathing
again.
She found the man she was looking for in a locker room.
"What did you do to him?" she demanded, advancing on the
doctor with unmistakable menace.
The doctor was a small, Asian man, still wearing his surgical
mask and cap. All Buffy could see was his eyes, but those eyes
told her he knew what she was talking about.
"Nothing."
"What.Did.You.Do?" Buffy repeated, taking a step closer.
"It didn't work. I don't know what went wrong."
"You'd better have a happy ending for this story, or you're not
leaving this room -- ever," Buffy said, her eyes narrowing.
"I didn't hurt your vampire. It didn't work. He's still got his
soul."
Buffy's jaw dropped. "You were trying to extract his soul? You
work for the First..."
The Asian shrugged. "I failed. That's all that matters."
"What did you do?"
"I made him happy. Really happy. I don't know how much
happier a person could be, but the soul's still there."
"What made you think happiness would remove his soul?"
"It worked with the other one."
"The other souled vampire?" Buffy asked, her blood turning
cold.
"The one in LA."
Spike woke with a headache. Not the shrieking, skull-splitting
pain of the chip's death throes, though. That was good. Buffy
was sitting beside his cot.
"Hey."
He looked up at her. Her mascara was streaked. She'd been
crying.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing, you're going to be fine."
"They fixed it?"
"No. It's gone."
"Do you think..."
"I trust you, Spike. What you've become, you became of your
own will. Nobody forced you to get a soul. Nobody made you
want to be something better. It all came from you. It's who you
are. You don't need a leash. You're not going to turn on me."
Spike laid his aching head back down on the pillow.
"At least that part of the dream was real," he said with a twinge
of regret.
"Sometime you're going to have to tell me what makes you
happy," Buffy said with a little smile. "Right now, there's more
to worry about."
"The First?"
Buffy let out an ironic laugh. "There are moments when I think
the First is a real wuss, you know? I mean, it really misses the
boat sometimes. It doesn't know the difference between you
and Angel."
She touched his face, laying her hand on his cheek.
"We know who we are, Spike. I think that's the best defense
there is. It can't mess with us if we remember that."