Sparks of hope: Chapter 1
by pagan pylea princess
Title: Sparks of Hope
Author: Pagan Pylea Princess
Characters: Spike
Summary: How Spike finds his way back to Sunnydale after getting his soul
Disclaimer: The lovely Joss owns the characters. If I had created Spike, he would be mine alone and you people wouldn’t know him!
Feedback: Please!

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Spike crawled across the ground, gasping in agony and desperately clinging to his chest. It wasn’t his wounds that caused him pain. No, it was something else entirely.

The dark cave seemed to engulf him in shadows, which were all trying to choke him, and cloak him in nightmares.
He moaned in sadness as he saw the cave’s entrance ahead. His heart, though not beating, was aching with misery and despair. He felt liberated, sure, but he didn’t expect this suffering to go on for so long.

He had sat in that dark cave alone for quite some time before remembering he didn’t belong there. He had begun to shuffle out by crawling on his stomach, using his fingertips to pull him along which were now bloody and raw. His chest bled from battle, and from his own self-inflicted wounds.
Had to cut the spark out. Had to try. Can’t keep goin on like this.

He felt like he’d been scrambling along for an eternity. In the dark he was plagued and tortured by images of a younger self, a devil child, feared along continents:
A young girl screaming for her life
“Me n Dru decimated that village in a night.”
Angelus giving him a tavern girl to feed on.
The snap of an innocent’s neck
That night at Revello Drive in the bathroom where…
He whimpered pitifully. What had he done?

But it didn’t matter now, he was almost there.
Reaching the cave’s mouth he collapsed.
The cool night air touched and caressed his face. It was a relief to finally be out. The shadows had surrendered back into the cave, hiding away like vampires shun from daylight. The warm white sand stung in his wounds but he didn’t care.
He heard a whisper on the breeze, a small laugh that made his insides flutter and his skin tingle. The breeze cooled him, and for a split second a hint of Jasmine on the air made him remember what his mission was for. What all this pain was about.
Buffy.
He giggled madly a second as he thought of the girl, his slayer, his love, back at home waiting for him.
Yeah right.
He remembered seeing her once, stood out side on the front porch while he hid pitifully in the bushes, thinking how beautiful she was. Crying, she looked feeble and weak. He had wanted to protect her. Fight for her.
Now he’d corrupted her. Ruined her. Hurt her.
“I just wanted you to love me Buffy.” He muttered, tears in his eyes and whimpering still.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, barely able to even do that. He clutched his chest in agony and waited for the pain to pass. If only it would stop wriggling inside.
He thought sorrowfully.
He looked up at the sky, and saw it begin to turn from black as a trace of blue began to appear.
The sun was coming up.
As Spike got to his feet unsteadily, he thought of what Buffy would say when he walked back into her life. Thought whether she would even care.
You tried to rape her Spike, of course she won’t care. He thought pathetically. He suddenly remembered her screaming for him to stop, crying out at him, and he winced. He put his hands to his head and dropped to his knees. “Stop it!” he cried, “I’m good now! Stop it!” He tore at his chest. He wanted it out. Not squirming inside him whatever he did.
But he knew it would go on punishing him until he was redeemed for what he had done.

Some guy began chattin on to him in a language he didn’t understand. He looked up suddenly, as though everything was perfectly normal and stood up.
“I hurt the girl.” He whispered. After a moment the guy spoke to him again and Spike turned to look toward the ocean that called to him.
“Sorry mate, I got to get home. She’s waitin. I got to get home.”
He heard the guy call after him as he made his way down the beach, but he ignored him. Few years ago I probably would have killed him, he thought, a pang of guilt striking his heart again. He wandered to the end of the beech and let the cool, refreshing surf surge around his bare ankles. He spotted a motorboat tethered to a post on the jetty.
“Got to get home.” He muttered again.
“Got to show Buffy. The Spark. She’ll see. Things’ll be different now.”
He clambered over the edge of the boat and collapsed. He was so tired from everything, clawing his way out, fighting against the shadows.
And the soul.
He’d just go to sleep and everything would be ok.

After a few minutes, the boat started up, and the driver shouted something out to a man on the jetty. The man untied the boat, completely missing the figure curled up asleep under one of the seats. A blonde vampire with gashes across his chest and bloodied fingernails, passed out from starvation and exhaustion.
And as the boat roared out of the jetty, Spike woke and looked up at the lightened sky and thought of Buffy’s reaction to his reappearance, when he tumbled back on to Sunnydale’s golden turf. Her shocked face. Her wide green eyes. Her wavering voice. Her tears. Maybe.
“A soul?”



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