The Fever, Part Twelve Author: Elsa Frohman Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: Post Chosen. This is my AU AtS S5. Summary: Spike is back, and he's human -- sort of. He's
working for Wolfram & Hart as an outside contractor.
Spike woke chilled to the bone. The cement he lay on was
drawing all the warmth out of him.
But more than that, there had been a dream. It was already
fuzzy and indistinct. He couldn't remember much of it at all,
aside from a terrible loneliness. Isolation was his main
impression. Being the only one, unable to touch anyone else.
Being unable to feel anything or affect anything around him.
Being frozen in a block of ice.
He expelled a breath.
"You're being very unfair, you know," Maria said quietly. He
couldn't see her; the tunnel was much too dark.
Spike brought his wrist up in front of his face to read the
luminous dial on his watch.
"Still a bit early to go out, pet," he said evenly. "Won't be dark
for another two hours. You might as well go back to sleep."
"Who can sleep with you wheezing, wuffling and thumping
over there? I didn't know humans were so noisy when they
slept."
"Thumping?" Spike asked.
"Your heart -- I can hear it. I mean, I can always hear hearts
when I'm around humans. But it just keeps going and going.
How can you sleep with all that breathing and beating and
twitching going on?"
Spike laughed. "It bothered me a bit when I first came back,
but I got used to it."
"And you're terribly unfair!" Maria added.
"How so?"
"Just because I spent a couple of weeks with Ralph, it doesn't
mean he's my soul mate."
"No, it doesn't. But you could have a thought for his feelings.
"You mean everything to him. Meeting you changed him, pet.
He's been hiding in some basement for years, only coming out
once a week or so to munch a rat or two. But he meets you, and
suddenly he's makin' an effort -- trying to be better. He's taking
risks, and believe me, taking risks isn't him; it really isn't.
"And look at what he did for you. You'd be dust if it weren't for
him, love. If he hadn't taken care of you, you'd have gone mad
like the others and destroyed yourself."
Maria was quiet for a moment.
"So?" she said.
Spike sighed. "There, that's the problem. You're not even
trying."
"What am I supposed to do about it? Stay with him for
eternity? Do all his hunting for him because he's afraid to go
out of the basement? Wipe his sniveling nose?"
"No, you don't have to stay with him. Frankly, I don't think you
two have much in common. He can probably do a lot better,"
Spike snapped.
Spike patted his jacket to find his cigarettes.
"You really don't like me, do you?" Maria whimpered.
"It's not that I don't like you, sweetheart. You're a fine-looking
woman, and there was a time I'd have thought you were a right
catch. But you're stuck in a certain way of thinking. If you're
going to have a chance now, you've got to try to see things
from a different angle. And I don't think you're really making
much of an effort to change."
"If you think I'm so worthless, why didn't you just dust me?"
"I don't think you're worthless, love. If you can do this -- if you
can change, then you're worth the whole world and more."
"But you don't like me..."
"I want to help you."
"Why would you care? I'm just another soulless, evil vampire."
"What if what has happened to me isn't just a fluke?"
"What do you mean?"
"I understand that I'm the first vampire who ever willingly
regained his soul, pet. All of history, and I'm the first.
"Maybe I'm a perversion. Maybe what I did goes against all the
laws of the universe, and it's just as well that nobody else is
trying it. Maybe I'm not a vampire anymore because the
universe won't stand for a vampire who cares about people.
"That's one way of looking at it. But what if what I did isn't
wrong? What if any vamp who tries hard enough can do it? It
would change everything. Vampires, all vampires, wouldn't be
doomed anymore. There would be choices."
"Doomed? You think I'm doomed? What have you got --
maybe 50 years before that body wears out? And you think I'm
doomed?"
"You're doomed, love. Vampires don't live forever -- no matter
what you've been told. The oldest one I ever heard of was the
Master, and the Slayer got him a few years ago. He was
unusual.
"How many vamps older than a century have you met? You'd
think that after they got out of the first decade, they'd have
learned enough survival skills to keep themselves safe forever.
But it doesn't work that way. If it did, the world would be
overrun with vampires."
"So? Even if that's true, I'm going to live longer than you."
"If you're lucky. But that's not the point. When a living person
dies, he leaves something behind -- people who cared about
him, children, accomplishments, works of art and literature, or
just having an influence on other people.
"When a vampire dies, all that's left behind is dust."
"Thank you so much for that uplifting lecture," Maria said
sarcastically. "You've really brightened my day."
"I never expected you to get it right away, pet," Spike said with
resignation. "But, at least try to keep an open ..."
Maria shushed him. "Listen," she whispered.
Spike held his breath and listened. She was right. There was
something down the tunnel. It was moving all but silently, but
there was an occasional rustle of fabric.
"Well, they've heard us," Maria said, "no use trying to be
quiet."
"They? More than one?"
"At least three, maybe five," Maria said. "Really, have you got
cotton in your ears? Or maybe all that breathing drowns out the
sound."
Spike reached over and switched on the lantern. He blinked as
the bright light stabbed his dark-accustomed eyes. There was
nothing to see. The intruders were still outside the reach of the
lantern light.
"I suppose the big question now is, do they want to eat you or
me?" Maria said quietly. "I'm thinking you. If they were second
stage, they wouldn't be working together."
"Let's see if you're right," Spike said, standing up and
stretching like a big cat.
Ralph sat in a corner and tried to make himself so small and so
motionless that nobody would notice him. The crew was gone,
leaving Ralph, Gunn and the children behind.
Gunn was walking back and forth carrying a fussy two-year-
old, trying, with little success, to settle her down. He was ill-
suited for the task. Frustration showed in his every jerky
movement. He bounced the little girl and cajoled her. But each
time that it seemed that she was going to stop crying, and he
got ready to set her down, she let out a fresh wail of despair.
"Come on, doll," Gunn said with clenched teeth, "everything's
OK. You just settle down and go to sleep." It was even more
frustrating because he knew perfectly well that his tone of
voice was anything but reassuring, and he couldn't help it.
Ralph was fighting panic. It wasn't the absence of the fighters
that bothered him -- it was the presence of the children. He'd
seldom been around children in the past twenty years. Now, he
had no choice. He was trapped here, surrounded, with no way
out.
He remembered the first days after being sired. Drusilla. She
loved children, but in a distinctly non-maternal way.
The image formed in front of his eyes. Dru with her teeth deep
in the throat of a five-year-old boy. She looks up and holds the
limp body out to him.
"Want to taste?" she says.
Ralph winced and wrapped his arms more tightly around
himself. Gunn noticed.
"You OK, man?" he asked with a frown.
Ralph nodded, but couldn't look Gunn in the eye. He started to
rock.
"You don't look OK," Gunn said slowly. He handed off his
burden to Sonic and came over to crouch in front of Ralph.
"Can you hold it together?" he whispered. "'Cause, if you're
going to vamp out, I gotta get you out of here."
Ralph stopped himself. "I'll be OK," he said.
Gunn looked worried, but got up and left Ralph to his own
devices.
Sonic seemed to have a better knack with the little ones than
Gunn. The little girl was settling down now that she was on his
lap. The boy hummed softly and rocked her gently.
Most of the children were getting ready for bed. They laid out
bedrolls on the floor, the older ones preparing beds for the
younger ones.
Ralph tried to think of anything except a room full of sleeping
youngsters. They filled him with dread. It wasn't because he
envisioned himself biting them. No, he couldn't imagine
touching any of these creatures. He wasn't sure why they
bothered him so. There was something -- something that hurt
like hell if he remembered it. It was smoldering at the back of
his brain, ready to burst into flames and consume him if he
looked directly at it.
It wasn't supposed to hurt like this. She told him it would stop
when he woke after she drank his blood, and he drank hers.
It was supposed to stop -- but it never did.
Two little hands came down on his knees and Ralph startled.
Little Lonna was looking directly into his face again.
"Blue!" she exclaimed, just as she had before. She bounced
once and giggled.
Ralph barely managed to avoid going into game face.
Sonic set down his sleeping burden and hurried over.
"Better leave the man alone, baby," he said hastily, hustling the
little girl away.
Matt was settling into his bedroll, his precious box of comics
pulled close by his pillow. He'd laid out his bed a little bit away
from the other children. Sonic tucked Lonna into her bed, then
went around and turned off all the lights but one.
"You can turn in too, Sonic," Gunn said quietly. "I'll keep
watch."
"I usually stay up a little while after the others," the boy said.
"Makes them feel safer."
Gunn smiled at the boy. Sonic was twelve going on thirty-five.
That's what this life did to kids. He remembered it only too
well. Somewhere, there were children who played video games
and stickball, collected Pokemon, and worried about nothing
more serious than the next episode of Power Rangers. But
Sonic wasn't one of them. He'd shouldered a full set of adult
responsibilities long before he should have had to.
But at the same time, Gunn couldn't feel entirely sorry for the
boy. This life produced two main types of young men. There
were the ones that turned hard and mean, like Kareem. And the
ones like Sonic, who held onto their humanity and kept trying
to make things a little better, no matter how bad things got.
Sonic was a survivor. And if he managed to live long enough,
he was going to be a good man.
It was only too clear to Gunn that he'd been well along
Kareem's path when he met Angel. That chance meeting had
changed his life. Not all at once, but one step at a time during
the years that came afterward. A new path had opened for him,
and he'd left this desperate, tooth-and-nail war behind. He was
still fighting, but it was different. He knew what he was
fighting for now. He was protecting something -- the world, if
that's what he wanted to call it. Before, he'd just been fighting -
- for no better reason than he couldn't stand losing.
Gunn looked up and saw that Ralph had left his corner. The
vampire had gone over to the boy with the cardboard box and
sat down next to him. One hand rested on the box, as if he was
drawing some comfort from it.
The boy raised his head to see who was with him, but seemed
to accept that it was Ralph without any apprehension. The boy
laid his head back down.
"It's OK," he heard the boy whisper. "You can read them if you
want. I know you'll treat them right."
"Thanks," Ralph whispered back.
Ralph pulled a comic from the box, but rather than taking it out
of it's bag and opening it, he simply pressed it against his chest,
wrapping his arms tightly around himself and the comic book.
Gunn watched, mildly puzzled. The light was dim, but with a
vampire's eyes, Ralph wouldn't have had any trouble reading.
There was a loud crash that shook the building -- even the
cement of the basement floor. Gunn raced out of the room to
the main door. There was only one thing he could think of that
would have shaken the building that way. Someone had just
driven a vehicle directly into the wall upstairs at full speed.
Spike took a quick inventory. He had no stake, nor anything
else wooden that could be made to serve as a weapon. Other
than the folding knife in his pocket, he had nothing sharp. That
was the bad of it. The good was that the tunnel presented a
narrow space that would limit the vampires' ability to attack in
force. There was a way up into the warehouse above about
twenty-five yards down the tunnel, but if they ran for it, they'd
be attacked from behind. He looked over at Maria.
"Ready, love?"
Maria shrugged. "I'm not so good at fighting," she said. "But I
guess I'm gonna have to do my best."
"You could run. I could hold them back a while. They're
probably only interested in me, anyway."
"Yeah, but I think I'm not gonna last long without you," she
said with an ironic smile.
Spike could see eyes glinting in the dark now. Maria had been
right. There were five he could see. They were moving up
cautiously, all watching him hungrily.
As the pack advanced, Spike waited, his body loose, his weight
on the balls of his feet.
"Well, come on now, if you think you're hard enough," he
called out. "I don't have all night. Got places to go."
The closest of the vampires launched himself toward Spike,
who stepped back quickly and jumped to snap a kick to the
attacker's head. The vampire reeled backward, stumbling into
the one behind him. Spike pressed his advantage, surging
forward to grab the stunned vampire by the shoulders and toss
him into the wall. A moment later, the creature screamed as
Spike's kick landed on the small of his back, snapping its spine.
He collapsed to the floor.
At the same time, two more barreled into Spike, forcing him
back. They used their momentum to drive him into the wall and
pin him there. He struggled for a moment as the vampires tried
to get their mouths to his neck, as he used all his strength to
keep them away. Then one of the two fell back and collapsed,
and Spike made short work of the other. With one arm now
free, and he got the vampire by the head and twisted sharply.
The creature exploded into dust as his neck separated. Maria
was standing over the other, still holding the lantern she had
used as a club. He started to get up. Spike kicked him in the
head.
The two remaining vampires rushed him, their shrieks echoing
off the walls of the tunnel. Spike let them reach him, then fell
back, throwing them off balance as they expected to connect
with him. As his back hit the floor, he swept his leg out to trip
one of the two. That one fell, and the other stumbled past,
carried by his own momentum. Spike rolled over and pinned
the fallen vampire by the shoulders. He pounded his foe's head
into the floor until the creature went limp.
As he was doing that, Maria leapt up and caught hold of one of
the pipes running along the ceiling. She swung her body to kick
the other attacker as he reached her. The vampire staggered
back, then moved forward again. Maria caught him around the
neck with her legs and twisted as hard as she could. The
vampire resisted, struggling and nearly making her lose her
grip on the pipe. There was an agonized scream as Spike came
up from behind and slammed his knee into the struggling
vampire's kidneys. Maria released his neck and Spike twisted
his head off.
"Three dust, two disabled," Spike said, brushing the vampire
dust off his slacks. "Not bad."
Maria touched his arm and pointed down the tunnel. "And
more coming," she said, sounding worried.
Spike looked off into the gloom. He wasn't sure how many
there were, but it was more than five.
"This is the sort of moment when the best thing to do is...
RUN!" Spike said. They pounded down the tunnel toward the
ladder and grating that would let them up and out. The pack
wasn't far behind. Maria scrambled up the ladder and pushed
the grating aside. As she disappeared through the opening,
Spike followed her up.
His head came through the floor -- and he found himself
looking directly into the barrel of an assault rifle.
"Move away from the opening," the agent holding the weapon
barked. "Hands over your head, no sudden moves."