Part VI

The graveyard was quiet and the moon was full as Buffy moved through it. There wasn’t much action tonight, which meant she should probably patrol somewhere else... but she didn’t. He was here. Buffy looked up to the top of the crypt where Spike silently sat.

If Spike was someone else, Buffy might think she was worried about him. Worried that he was spending too much time brooding when it wasn’t in his nature to brood. Worried that he might do something rash like try to stake himself again or perhaps simply sit on the roof of his crypt until the sun rose. But she wasn’t worried, Buffy told herself. She was irritated. Irritated because she was here patrolling a graveyard that didn’t really need patrolling because Spike had pretty much staked claim to it. Most vamps were wise enough not to cross him.

Buffy was irritated that she’d been by his crypt every night this week, and Spike hadn’t looked at her even to insult her - not even to tell her that her hair looked stupid.

Okay! So she was worried. Sue her. She had gotten rather used to their verbal battles and when they weren’t having them, things just seemed... seemed... not right. Her world was off kilter somehow.

"I’m sick of you ignoring me." Buffy was shocked to hear her own voice. Had she really meant to say that out loud?

"Not ignorin’ you," Spike answered but it was a listless answer. "Just don’t feel like playin’ some bloody game with you is all."

"You’re brooding."

His brows drew down sharply over his eyes. "Am not. Take that back. I do NOT brood."

"Could’ve fooled me."

"Look, Slayer," he growled. "Your eyesight must be goin’ bad. You got the wrong vampire. This vamp doesn’t brood."

"Then prove it."

He crossed his arms. "Don’t need t’. I’m sulkin’ not broodin’. Not the same thing at all."

Buffy found herself frowning as she climbed up to the roof of his crypt. "You’re sure it’s just sulking?" Damn, was that worry in her voice? Concern? If she was becoming concerned about Spike... well just stake her now.

Spike glared at her. "Are you here just to irritate me?"

Buffy had to smile. "Looks like."

"Well you’re doin’ a bloody good job of it."

Then they both fell into silence, looking up at the big, fat moon that hung low in the sky.

Buffy sighed. "I wish I could say I was sorry she was dead. I wish... "

"Yeah, yeah, Slayer. Don’t feel like you have to make the right noises. You Slayer. Me vampire. Dru vampire. I know the drill. Let’s not pretend it was anything different."

It was different though. Maybe she had never really wanted to acknowledge it, but in the weeks since Dru’s death it had slowly come to Buffy that somehow this was different.

Night after night she went on patrol, staking vampires when they crossed her path. It’s what Buffy did, and she did it remorselessly for the most part. They were creatures she didn’t know and didn’t care to know, but Spike, Dru and Angel were different.

How many vampires had she crossed? Hundreds. And how many did she know by their human faces? Not many. Not many at all, but in the years Buffy had known Angel, Spike, and Dru, it was their human face that she knew best of all. Only rarely did they show the other. Perhaps there was some logical explanation she didn’t know. They all belonged to the same bloodline; they were "related" in a way. Maybe it was a peculiarity of their clan, something that set them apart from the others, or maybe Buffy was just grasping at straws because once she allowed herself to look beyond the demon curse to see the lost souls beneath, the world would become a darker place, a place where the lines between right and wrong, good and evil would become far less clear.

Unwillingly, Buffy allowed herself to look into Spike’s face, to really look, to really SEE him. He was handsome. An artist might have sculpted the aquiline lines and planes of his features; he was an astonishing example of stark male beauty. There was an aura about him suggesting energy, passion, and an irrepressible nature. And there was more. There was longing in his eyes that for the first time she saw were not black but midnight blue. There was a hint of gentleness in the curve of his mouth, and searing grief in the way he bowed his proud head.

There was love in him. Whatever else there might be.

Whatever rage and wildness and death, there was love, a wealth of it, in unending supply. How else could he have loved a wounded, hissing creature like Dru for not one lifetime but many? What kind of heart would it take to love so unselfishly for so very long? And how might that heart be breaking now?

"If it’s any help, I think Dru wanted…"

Spike cut her off. "I know what Dru wanted, Slayer. I know why she sought me out. This was the ending she planned."

But it didn’t help. Buffy knew that too. She also knew what it was like to kill what you loved. The grief could kill you if you let it, and Spike wasn’t looking so good.

"I’m not gonna stake myself if that’s what that look’s for," he grumbled.

"Did I say you were going to stake yourself?"

"No, but you thought it. Don’t deny it." He sighed then rolled his eyes. "I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but you’re givin’ me too much credit."

Buffy watched him. "This coming from the vamp that wondered why Dru didn’t cut off his head and set him on fire instead of leaving him?"

"I can be dramatic sometimes."

"You loved her." Buffy couldn’t quite believe she was insisting on this.

"More than life? Yeah. More than death?" He looked away from Buffy. "Apparently not."

"I don’t understand."

Spike began to look restless, edgy. Well, at least he was beginning to look like Spike again. The super still, brooding thing had creeped her out.

"Quick and simple?" he asked in an impatient voice. "I killed a creature I loved, and before you say a word about Angel trying to Hoover the world into the seventh ring of hell and you staking him, let me say this was different. I didn’t love Dru for a year or two. I loved her for a hundred and twenty. That’s twice many human lifetimes. That’s five times longer than the average Slayer expiration date."

Then Spike looked at her, and Buffy almost gasped. In the deep, dark blue of his eyes she saw confusion and even despair. She never thought she would see Spike in real despair. Dramatic angst? Sure. But lost soul despair? Never.

But there he was with eyes so blue and so deep she lost her reflection in them as Spike said the most unexpected, nonsensical thing that Buffy could imagine. "You know, fleas helped create western civilization."

Glancing around as if some headstone in the graveyard could explain what he meant Buffy searched for answers. "What?"

"In the middle ages. The Black Death. The plague. It was caused by fleas on rats."

Buffy frowned. "Yeah, so?"

"So, all these peasants and serfs got killed off. Helped the labor market. Up until then you were born, you lived, you died all on a little piece of land owned by some toff in the castle. Nothin’ you could do about it. But after the plague, if some Lord got the idea to jack up the rents the serf could tell him to sod off. He could pick up his things and move to the next town ‘cause there was another toff needing someone to till his fields. It was a workers market, so to speak. Cities and towns got created because the little guy suddenly had a choice about what he wanted to do."

Buffy was completely confused. "And the point of this little history lesson would be?"

Spike pinned her with his darkly beautiful blue gaze. "The point being, even pestilence has a purpose." He turned again to face the night. "My purpose was to love Dru, to protect her. Even when I wasn’t with her, I knew she was somewhere in the world, and if she needed me all she’d have to do is let me know. I wouldn’t turn her away. I couldn’t."

Spike sighed. "She came here because she’d lost her reason to go on. For a while, Dru lived to be punished for having lived... or at least for having survived her death. Then she lived because deep down she knew her existence was a burr under Angel’s saddle. She was the monster that he’d created but couldn’t bring himself to kill. She became his punishment. Only the poof doesn’t seem to be interested in masochism any more. He’s beyond that and is in some deep dark place where he just doesn’t care. Not bothered much by guilt if you can set a girl on fire, now are you? And if Angel wasn’t sufferin’ Dru didn’t have a reason to stick around. She no longer served a purpose."

Buffy cringed. Even if Dru had been evil, Buffy didn’t like to hear about some of the horrible acts Angel was capable of committing. Buffy remembered a time of two - or three or four - where she had mocked Spike’s affection for Dru. But how judgmental could Buffy be about Spike loving a monster, when for so long she had loved the monster who had created Dru?

"The thing is, Dru was right. All things die," Spike mused. "They go out spectacularly with a bang, or they just quietly slip away when they stop serving any kind of purpose. Not to sound all hoity-toity philosophical or anything, but what purpose do I serve? Why am I here if there’s no point in it?"

Spike glanced over his shoulder. "Feel like staking a vamp tonight?"

Buffy was shocked, surprised, and more reluctant than she would ever admit. "Can’t do it if you want it. It’s against Slayer policy."

"Coward." Again he bowed his head. "I killed her though, without a thought. Just did it."

"To protect Dawn."

He lifted his head. "You think? Nah, that can’t be it. You hero. Me villain. It’s that simple."

Was it?

Spike shook his leonine head. "No, I killed what I loved. What I needed, the one thing that gave my existence meaning. Takes real evil to do that."

For once Spike didn’t sound proud. He didn’t sound eager to be bad, or scheming. Spike sounded lost.

"I am evil." He said it as if it was a sudden, shocking realization.

Buffy couldn’t understand her urge to say no. No, he was more than that. That look in his eyes HAD to be more. Didn’t it? She caught him looking at her.

As if Spike knew of her uncharacteristically charitable thoughts he repeated for her benefit: "Even pestilence has a purpose. Fleas can free the masses, and a vampire can do the odd good deed but make no mistake, I AM a scourge. If I can kill what I love, I can kill anything - even the ghost of humanity still left inside me. And if that’s dead then no one is safe... not even me." He looked at her, and Buffy wondered what REAL truth was hidden by his deep blue gaze. She was starting to think not even Spike knew for sure.

"I’m evil," he said quietly.

But was he? Was he really? Or was Spike, like her, groping blindly for answers, desperate to make sense of the world and his place in it?

Buffy was sad. Spike’s resignation made her sad. Spike calling himself ‘evil’ was nothing more than what she’d said to his face a thousand times. That he was vile, evil, irredeemable. And yet... and yet... what had Dru said? That even in darkness his heart held some light? Could Buffy truly not allow herself to pity a creature who loved for lifetimes? Who could sacrifice his own reason to live... for love? For no reason but love.

Whatever else Spike may be, whatever fate Spike might meet, he loved; and it was a pity he had never been loved equally well in return. Buffy followed the line of Spike’s vision and noticed a new headstone just below his crypt. Only two words were etched on the granite - perhaps because Spike couldn’t afford for it to say anything more. Two words.

Drusilla. Beloved.

And Buffy felt a tear fall from her lashes for two cursed creatures the world didn’t allow to be pitied. Two creatures who were cursed for no wrong they had committed in life, but who faced death and eternal damnation with fierce pride, defiance, laughter and love. It was almost heroic in a way.

Buffy gazed at the handsome lines of a beautiful male face, Spike’s face, and wished she had known the gentle soul that Drusilla said she had met long ago. Buffy found herself wishing that she could have saved him.

And so the enemies who might have been friends sat under the silent gaze of Dawn’s broken angel.

The End