|
|
Changing Hearts Series - Times Past -- by Ruby
Rating: PG-13
Description: Spike's gift to Willow, sequel to Time.
Note: Spoilers -- Wild at Heart, The Initiative.
Disclaimer: Joss owns all.
Spike opened the front door a mere crack and allowed the gift he'd propped against it before he'd climbed onto Willow's balcony earlier that morning to tumble just over the threshold. He grabbed it and quickly pushed the door shut. Willow reappeared from the kitchen as he returned to the sofa.
"You going to drink some of that or just let it go cold like the last one?" he asked as she held the mug in her hands.
She rolled her eyes and took several careful swallows before setting it down and joining him on the sofa.
"There, is that better? Now, give," she ordered. He chuckled and handed her the thin, rectangular package, studying her expression as she tore away the wrapping. She looked down at the slim, leather bound book. It had no title, and the cover was a bit tattered at the corners. She opened it to the first page and ran her eyes over the handwritten words.
"It's my journal," he told her. "Well, it was my journal, when I was human, before I was turned."
She looked up at him, her eyes reflecting unmistakable surprise.
He smiled, "I didn't write in it regularly. Just when something important happened, events I wanted to remember, for whatever reason. I don't know why I've held onto it all these years. Maybe because I was meant to give it somebody, someday."
"Spike," she said softly. "I can't accept this. I can't read it. It's too personal."
He shook his head, "I want you to have it. There are things in there I've never shared with anyone else. Not even Dru, not that she would have been interested, anyway. I'm not the human that exists in those pages, but I was, once. And parts of that man are still here, inside me, even though I tend to push them aside most of the time."
"Are you really sure you want to share them with me?" she asked.
"I'm sure, pet. You know, after I fought my way out of that underground lab and discovered what had been done to me, I honestly didn't know how I was going to survive. Hell, I wasn't even sure I wanted to. The things I'd enjoyed the most--the hunting, the killing--were torn away from me. And if that weren't bad enough, I had to go to the people I hated the most--the slayer and her watcher--and beg for my survival. Do you have any idea what that cost me?"
She blinked back the tears behind her eyes and shook her head slightly, "Probably not."
"And then I stopped watching them and started watching you," he continued. "You were in such pain--a different pain than mine, but just as unbearable. And you were trying so hard to fight your way through it."
She grinned sadly, "Are you kidding? I was pathetic. A complete basket case."
He took her hand, "No. You were stumbling, sometimes walking in the wrong directions, but you were trying. It made me angry, the way the others couldn't see that. All they wanted was for you to drop it, get over it, let them all get back to their own self-centered lives without having to listen to your pain."
"To be fair, I did carry it too far, for too long," she told him.
"Don't say that. Don't ever say that," he demanded.
"The slayer, off all people--after what she'd been through with her bloody poof--how the hell could she not understand? They spent _years_ crying over each other, over the things that could never be. Bloody hell, they were brooding even while they were together! But she couldn't allow you a few weeks, a few months? She should have been telling you to yell, cry, scream, get angry--anything, anything you needed to get through it. But all she did was whine because you were taking too damned long to move on for her liking. I wanted to gouge her unseeing eyes right out of her thick skull."
Willow was staring at him, riveted by the intensity of his emotions. He paused for a moment, visibly reigning in his anger, and gave her a small smile. "Anyway, the slayer finally got it, finally realized how desperately you were hurting. But by the time it finally seeped through her dense brain, you were so far inside your pain, I wasn't sure you'd ever find your way back out," he said softly.
"But I did. Because of you," she responded.
"Sorry, pet. I'm not taking the credit for your strength. I may have been there to listen, to talk through your pain, but you did the rest. You're a fighter, Willow. Just like I am, just like I was even back then," he tapped a finger against the journal. "My problem was, I was railing so hard against what those sadistic scientists had done to my head, I couldn't move beyond it. You gave me the kick in the ass that I needed."
"I did?" she frowned. "How?"
"I watched you trying to change a situation that _couldn't_ be changed. And I realized I was doing the same thing. You were barely hanging on, and something inside me wanted to grab hold of you and help you back up. But I couldn't do that until I yanked myself back up, first. So--I did."
"And then you came after me," she smiled.
"And then I came after you," he nodded. "So, you see, we were fighting together, even though you never realized it."
"We make a pretty good team," she told him.
"That we do, pet," he grinned. "So, I want you to know the man I once was, in a long-ago existence. You know the vampire. I want you to know the human he was. Someone once told me I reek of humanity. In a twisted way, I'm rather proud of that. The vampire doesn't love so very differently than the human once did. I don't show that to very many people, but I want to show it to you."
A single tear slipped from the redhead's eye as she looked up at him and whispered, "Thank you."
He shook his head and dried her cheek with his hand, "Other way around, luv."
She smiled softly, "I know I'm supposed to crack a lame joke right about now, but I'd really rather do this."
She slid closer to him and pressed her lips to his, sliding her tongue inside his mouth to glide against his as she laced her fingers through his hair. Spike wrapped his arms around her and returned the slow kiss until she pulled away to commune with his eyes for a silent moment. She smiled contentedly and let her gaze wander back to the journal that had somehow managed to remain on her lap.
"Can I hold you while you read it?" Spike asked.
"I wish you would," she nodded.
He leaned back against the arm of the sofa, and Willow raised herself up as he stretched his legs out over the cushions. He reached for her, pulling her down to sit between his legs, her back settled against his chest, his arm curled firmly around her stomach. She bent her knees and propped the journal against them, and he rested his cheek against the side of her head.
The house fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the occasional sound of a page being turned, as they read.
The End
Tell the author what you think: