Indestructible
The view is great. Beautiful. The
best in
told. Top spot in the city to watch the
sunset. Ironic, being the
office of a vampire and all. He isn't really big on the ironic humor
these days. Truth be told, he's pretty sure he could go the
rest of
his unlife without another piece
of irony and be perfectly content.
Well, alright, not PERFECTLY content, not as in losing the
soul again
content, but, yeah, he could certainly do without the
constant irony
that is his existence.
"Sir, there is a woman here to see you."
The dark haired vampire quickly drops his feet down from
where they
are resting on his desk top and looks up at the secretary,
grinning.
She's interesting in a completely boring sort of way. She
has the
ability to appear both nervous and snooty at the same time.
It's fascinating in a way, although for the most part, he
just likes
to ruffle her feathers. After all, it's not like he's
actually going
to kill her or anything. I mean, vampire with a soul here,
remember?
Unless, of course, she turns out to be some sort of evil
demon bent
on destroying the world, which, to be quite honest, happens
more than
you'd think.
"Does she have an appointment?" He asks, glancing
toward his PDA.
There isn't actually anything on there other than some game
that Gunn
had loaded for him and if there was he'd have no idea how to
look it
up. He's never really gotten used to the whole computer age,
but
still, a guy can pretend.
"No, Sir, she just sort of appeared."
Yes, Sir. No, Sir. Right away, Sir.
Sometimes, as much as it
amazes him, he really misses Cordy.
Never a `right away, Sir' out of
her. Hell no. She told you how it was and how it was going to be,
whether you wanted her to or not. Enough to drive a man
crazy at
times, but then, always kept things interesting.
"She say why she was
here?" He asks.
"No, Sir. She said she was an old friend."
He raises an eyebrow at that. He has a lot of `old friends'
that he
would prefer not to run into on the street these days, let
alone
in his office. He's pretty sure most of them would be
quicker to
stake him rather than shake his hand, but then, he wouldn't
really
blame them.
Letting out a deep, unnecessary sigh, he tells Diane, or Linda
or, whatever her name is, he can never remember. 250-some years,
still no good with names. He tells her to send the woman in and
braces himself for the worst scenario, standing up behind
his desk
and watching the door.
When he says he doesn't care for irony, he really means just
that.
Big no on the irony.
After over two centuries of existence in this
world, you would think that Angel might have gotten used to
the idea
that you can't plan for things. Sometimes life just throws
stuff at
you, when you least expect it and yeah, usually there's a
big, red,
blinking neon sign pointing the way, but most people are too
busy
looking around at other things to notice it. He spends a
large part
of his time watching others as they miss their signs and
yet,
ironically enough, he never seems to catch his own until
weeks or
months later, when Fred or Wes is pointing them out just as
they are
about to avert an apocalypse. Yeah, he really doesn't like
irony.
Seeing the woman walk in, his eyes widen in shock. He thinks
it's
fairly safe to say that this is the very LAST person that he
expected
to see come walking through that door.
"You know, you're a hard guy to track down, and that's
saying a lot
for me," she says in her usually perky tone.
She smiles at him and he can't help but notice how beautiful
she's
become and how she just glows now, even looking as war-torn
and
disheveled as she does, which begs the question, "
you doing here? Is everything alright? Is Buffy…"
She holds up a hand to stop him, smiling softly and laughing
lightly.
"Buffy's fine, Angel.
Working with a group of girls in
heard, actually."
Hmmm…that's interesting. Last she heard. He
quirks an eyebrow at
that, but she chooses to ignore it and he decides to let it slide,
for the moment.
"So then, what's up? Hear about another vampire losing
his soul?
Cause I hear you're pretty good
with that."
"I…uh…I was actually called here. Something big is
coming, think you
might be able to use my help."
It's true. Something big IS coming, but then again, when
isn't
there. And yeah, of course they could use her help. Who is
going to
be crazy enough to turn down the help of a real and true,
flesh and
blood sorceress, especially when something big is coming?
"Yeah, actually, your timing couldn't be more perfect.
Wes is out of
town, gathering some info, should be back tomorrow night. It
would
probably be best to wait and let him fill you in on
everything. He's
more of the fact and info guy. I'm more the hand me a sword
and
point at what you want me to kill kind of guy."
The redhead simply nods with another, slightly weaker smile.
He again notices her appearance. Clearly she's been through
some
sort of fight or battle recently. Torn clothes, a few
smudges of
dirt on her face, rumpled hair that contains bits of grass
and dirt
from rolling around on the ground, as opposed to the sexy
sort of
rumpled hair from sleeping after a long night of
love-making. And he
has NO idea where that thought just came from. This is
Rosenberg!
Angel doesn't have sexy thoughts about
over blonde slayers and maybe the occasional half-demon
half-prom
queen or was it May-queen? Either way, it's never been
just isn't the way it works.
"Are you alright?" He asks. "You look a
little…" Don't say rumpled.
Don't say rumpled. Anything but rumpled.
Disheveled, tired, worn
out, beat, haggard even… "rumpled."
Damn it!
She chuckles and stretches her back a little bit. "Yeah. Had sort
of a rough day at the office. You know, I think it's a little ironic
that I was always top of my class and worked so hard in
school and
all that, and ended up three classes short of a degree from
a college
that no longer exists, and now I spend my days or more my
nights
really, fighting the evils of the world, no degree required,
training
on sight, and you know, despite what you might think, based
on what
you have going here, really doesn't pay very well."
Yeah, whoever
said that knowing that you did good
was reward enough, they never had
car payments or rent or any of that other fun stuff.
He smiles at her. He forgot how interesting and hard to
follow her
babbling could be. He misses that more than he had realized.
"Do you have a place to stay?"
This time she gives him more of a shy, sheepish grin and her
cheeks
turn pink. "I hadn't really thought about that,"
she tells
him. "Last I knew, you still had the hotel, but I
guess," She
gestures to their surroundings and he nods.
"Yeah, pretty nice, huh? Cordy would be in her glory here."
They both look down a little awkwardly at the mention of the
former
cheerleader, before he continues. "I have an apartment
on the top
floor. Plenty of room. I'd like it
if you'd stay."
She smiles appreciatively at him. "Don't have much with
me. I tend
to travel light."
suspects she carries a lot more with her than is easily
perceivable. "I could really use a shower though."
"Of course," he replies, quickly snatching up her
bag and leading her
out to the elevator and up to his apartment. As they walk
through
the large foyer and into a long hallway, she tries not to
gape openly
at everything she sees and he tries not to look too proud or
smug.
"You can keep your things in here," he tells her
as he stops at one
of the spare bedrooms and sets her bag on the bed.
"Bathroom's in
there," he says, pointing toward a doorway. "It
extends into my room
as well and the sitting room is through that door," he
adds, pointing
toward the other doorway.
Again, she simply tries not to gape like a wide-eyed child. A
sitting room? She has a sitting room? How
unnecessarily extravagant
of him.
Angel leaves her alone finally, and Willow plops herself
down onto
the bed for a moment, closing her eyes and sighing. She
tries to
clear her thoughts as best she can, though that's been an
increasingly difficult task these days. Finally, she drags
herself
back up and toward the bathroom, in desperate need of a
long, hot
shower.
Turning on the water, she quickly discards her ragged
clothes and
steps into the already steamy shower stall. She wets her
hair and
quickly lathers it up with shampoo before rinsing it. Thank
the
Goddess that the white hair is only a temporary side-effect,
because
an eternity of having to dye it? She thinks that right there
might be
the deal breaker.
Glancing down, she looks at her abdomen for a moment,
running a hand
lightly over the already healing wound. She figures that one
had to
have punctured a kidney, but she knows it doesn't really
matter.
Tomorrow, there won't even be so
much as a scar. There never is,
even when the wound should be fatal.
Of course, it would be nice if she could just not get
wounded. Even
though they heal, it still hurts like hell. Yeah, that's
pretty much
her goal right now, learn to not get wounded. That would be
nice.
Leaning her head on the wall, she feels her tense body begin
to relax
as the hot water beats against her back. Slowly, she feels
her
resolve crumble and breaks down crying, her tears mixing
with the
cascading water as she sobs. At the moment, nothing else
around her
exists, and she fears that this is the way it will always be
from now
on.
or the man coming into the bathroom.
"Hey, I went out looking for that book you wanted, but
I couldn't
find-" He stops and listens for a moment, hearing a
faint sound
hidden behind the shower spray. It's the sound of someone
crying,
he's sure of that, just as he's sure of the fact that it
isn't
Angel. Before he has a chance to ponder this further, the
spray
shuts off and curtain is pulled back, just before a scream
is
elicited by the shocked redhead.
grabbing a hold of the shower curtain and holding it in
front of
herself. Her fingers are clenched around the slippery
material
tightly, her knuckles turning white and she brings her other
hand to
her chest, feeling her heart beat so fast that she's sure
it's about
to rip through the skin. Hmmm, that would be interesting.
She
wonders if she would survive that.
Finally, she peers back around and gasps, as if she is
seeing him
again for the first time.
"Red?"
He asks, clearly just as surprised to see her. Well, he can't
be JUST as surprised. After all, she's not the one that is
supposed
to be dead and gone. Not that dead and gone every really
meant much,
just a stumbling block really.
"My god!
Spike, what- how- I-" She's at a loss for words, something
that doesn't happen to her very often. When she finally
stops
gasping and closes her mouth, she notices that he is staring
at her,
an all too familiar smirk on his face. Suddenly, she glances
down
and remembers that behind this thin, translucent piece of
wet
material, she's completely naked and not really doing a very
good job
of hiding her charms.
"Could you, uh, hand me a towel?" She asks weakly,
pointing toward a
big fluffy blue towel hanging on a nearby rack.
He nods and grabs it, handing it to her, never taking his
eyes off of
the witch. She gives him a look which he doesn't seem to
even
register and she sighs, grabbing the towel out of his hands.
"Could you, you know, turn around for a minute?"
She asks and he
seems to be brought out of his reverie for the moment.
"Oh, right, sorry `bout that," he mumbles, turning
around and
thanking the gods above that Angel had installed that large
mirror on
the opposite wall. He never really understood the point of a
vampire
having mirrors around, but right now he couldn't understand
why he
would not want the entire apartment walled in the shiny
metal. He
isn't able to see as much as he'd like to, watching the bit of flesh
that is visible where the glass isn't fogged up. Hey, no one
ever
accused William the Bloody of being a gentleman.
She turns her back to him and he notices a wound, which
appears to
already be healing, on her lower back.
"Spike, we thought that you died when," she
begins, turning back
around, the fluffy towel now secured around her aching body.
The blonde turns back to look at her and though he suspects
she's
still talking, he's ceased hearing anything she's saying.
His eyes
are riveted on a small water droplet resting on her
shoulder, and
they follow it as it slowly descends down her arm and
eventually to
her hand, weeping from her finger tips. His eyes snap back
up and
again, he notices another droplet, at the base of her neck,
which
slowly makes its way down her chest and eventually
disappears behind
the towel, dipping into the valley between her breasts. He's
never
noticed how soft and creamy white her skin is and...
"What's that?" He asks, suddenly remembering that
she had been
talking to him.
The redhead lets out a sigh and rolls her eyes. "Spike,
what
happened? We thought, well, you know."
"Oh, right, that. Sort of a long
story. I did die. Was nothing but
dust. Saved the world too,
didn't I?" He says proudly, holding his
head up, chin tilted high. "Got my
redemption. Was a champion, just
like Buffy said."
"And now, you're here, how exactly?" It wasn't
that she didn't
believe it was possible for him to be back. She knew now all
sorts of
impossibilities were, well, possible, but the how, that
always
remained fascinating.
"Not entirely sure, really," he tells her, and he
isn't lying. He's
tried to figure it out, they all have. But the bottom line
is, he's
back, it doesn't matter how. He knows the why and that's
what
matters to him. "Died. Was,
well, no where for a little while, and
then suddenly, I was here."
"And you remember everything? From
before?" She asks.
He nods. "Every second. I'm
different now, though."
"The soul?" She assumes
that's what he means, but really, that's not
all that's different now.
"The lack of the demon," he explains, grinning as
her eyes widen.
"Don't get me wrong. I can still be a real son of a
bitch when I
wanna be. The demon, he's still
there, but bonded to the soul, just
not the same anymore. I'm a champion. They sent me back to
fight
with Angel. It was my choice of course, but come on,
eternity of
bobbing around in nothingness or eternity to annoy and
torment Angel,
which would you pick?"
"So, you're telling me that you have your soul but
you're still a
vampire and you were sent back here by the Powers That Be to
help
Angel fight the forces of evil?" She sums up.
"Well, yeah, guess it's not that long a story after
all," he says
with a grin. "Really pisses Angel off too, you know?
He's not the
only vamp with a soul anymore, not the one and only
champion. Makes
him crazy." He snickers and grins at that thought.
bed. It's so much to take in. She should probably call Buffy
and
let her know what she's just learned. That's the first
thought that
pops into her head, though it's quickly replaced with the
reminder
that doing so would also tip Buffy off as to where she was
and...
"So, witch, now that I've shown you mine," Spike
says, sitting down
next to her. "What are YOU doing here?"
"I-I was called here," she tells him, her head
still reeling. "To
help Angel with whatever is coming."
"That right? So, I'm guessing that back in Sunnydale your little
spell worked?"
She nods, smiling slightly to herself at the memory of that
day. It
was only a few years ago, but it seems like ages. She
wonders at
that and how time seems to already be moving so fast now.
"They didn't have to kill me," she muses, laughing
a little to
herself. She suspects that he might think she's just a tad
bit
crazy, but then again, who among them isn't? And after all,
she
might be little bit crazy, but that doesn't mean that there
aren't
still demons out there to fight.
"Well, that's always a plus, I guess," he replies,
not sure of what
he should be saying to that.
She looks up at him and he can see that look of happy
reminiscing in
her eyes. She looks back at that day as one of the great
ones and he
wonders at that, thinking it sad that a girl so sweet and
bright
counts that as a good day.
"I was imbued with the Goddess's power that day,"
she tells him,
delighting in the shock she sees in his eyes. "Pure white magic.
Changed me.
Guess you know what that's like, though, huh?"
He nods thoughtfully, "So, what does that make you now
then?"
"A sorceress, working for the
Powers."
"Well, aren't we all these days?" He quips.
She smiles. He has no idea how much that response means to
her.
Finally, someone that wasn't going to act all strange
around her. To
Spike, she was still just
"And, you've come to help us with whatever big bad is
on its way?"
The redhead nods, looking away from him.
"Looks like you got into a bit of a fight with a big
bad before you
got here," he muses, grinning as her head shoots up to
look at him in
surprise.
"Sorry," he says, though they are both well aware
that he's not, "I
saw the wound on your back. You should have that tended
to."
tomorrow," she tells him.
"Would have to be a pretty damn strong healing spell to
make that
disappear by tomorrow, Red," he says, becoming somewhat
annoyed,
though neither of them knows why.
Again, she shakes her head. "No spell, Spike." She
looks up at him
and he's surprised to see the change in her eyes.
There's something, different, something he's never seen
there before.
Sadness?
No, he's seen that there. This is something deeper than that.
"I'm immortal," she tells him, choking on the
words as if they were
poison, and he feels his eyes widen as, once again, the
little witch
shocks him.
"Immortal. As in-"
"As in, really, REALLY hard to kill, protector of the good."
Actually, it's more like protector of protectors, if you
want to get
technical, which for once, she really doesn't.
He senses her reluctance to talk about it and decides to
leave it,
for now. There are a million questions he'd like to ask her,
just as
he's sure there are a million she'd like to ask him. He
could
inquire about Buffy, or how Dawn is doing, or what Xander or Giles
are up to, or how all of the Slayers are coming along, but
one
questions jumps into his head and
he just has to ask.
"What ever happened with you and that Slayer, the dark
haired one
with the loud mouth and big ego?"
frown. Kennedy. There was one more thing she really didn't
want to
think about right now.
"Kennedy? Yeah, well, you know how kites are, even the
best one
eventually breaks off of the string and floats away."
Spike nods even though he really doesn't understand her
response.
He's pretty sure he's not entirely meant to.
"Course, they usually end up crashing or getting caught
in a tree,"
she adds as an afterthought.
This time, he doesn't try to hide his confusion but she just
shakes
her head a little and rolls her eyes at her own rambling.
She wonders
if and when she will crash and how much damage it will do.
Or, if
it's the other, what the tree will look like and if she'll
recognize
it before she becomes tangled in its branches.
"Slayers die and immortals, well, they don't," she
explains briefly
and that's all he needs to hear to understand.
"I-I- don't really know what to say," he mumbles
and for once, Spike,
William the Bloody, has absolutely no witty response at all.
"How about saying `I'll leave you alone to get
dressed,'" she
suggests, hoping he'll take the hint and thankful when he
does.
Spike quickly jumps up. "Oh, right, sorry," he
mumbles, heading
toward the door. Just before walking out, he turns around
and gives
her his trademark grin, the one that she's secretly missed
for so
long.
"Glad you're here, Red," he tells her. "No
one I would rather have
on my side, especially when something big is coming."
Spike turns and walks out, leaving the redhead alone with
her
thoughts and her rolling droplets and her healing wounds.
Yeah,
something big is definitely coming.