Chapter 25: Storm
awesome banner by sourbuckley
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Beta: dampersnspoons
A/N: This chapter might make you angry about the choices the characters make. You may feel that you (or Buffy or Lindsey) would act differently in this situation. But I'm going to stand by these choices because people often do crazy, unpredictable things without always thinking everything through -- and that's what makes them interesting to me. Also, I need them to do this for my plot. So, deal. =)
A/N#2: I revised some of the earlier chapters, most notably the one where Buffy finds the footage of Darla, so that we see more of Darla provoking Spike with her knowledge of his dirty secrets.
A/N#3: Thanks to sourbuckley (aka quilana) for the awesome new banner (with blonde Drusilla omg)! She also made this banner, which is supersexy too.
I don't want you anymore.
Buffy tried to put it out of her mind, get some sleep, but her ceiling kept blurring into that moment: Spike seething at her, his mouth tight, his eyes wet, his hand shaking... her skin burning from the impact of his slap.
I don't want you anymore. Get out!
Because I'm in love with you! Get out. I don't--
"She may be catatonic, doctor, but her eyes are telling me 'yes'." Lindsey came into focus and winked at her.
His delivery of that line was eerily reminiscent of his father -- and so was his sharky suit. Sliding her fingers down the crisp jacket lapel, it hit her that he wasn't sleeping at her side anymore. "What time is it?"
"Quarter to Late, for me," he said, checking his watch. "Trial starts today, remember?"
"Oh." She'd been lying there, staring at the ceiling all night. "Right."
"You feelin' all right?" He reached out to her forehead, but she evaded and climbed out of bed, insisting she was fine. "Just promise me, next time you run out of gas on a dark, stormy night, you'll call me? Or at least Triple A. I hate to sound like someone's mom but you coulda caught cold out there." He added under his breath, "Or worse."
Someone's mom. She rummaged through her bureau's top drawer for her birth control pills ...which were wedged next to the red Cartier box. Stifling an urge to check that the watch was still inside, she opened the pill compact. "The rain doesn't give you colds. Germs do."
"Fine. I'll sound like a broken record: I don't like the thought of my beautiful five-foot-three, ninety-five pound wife braving the Koreatown streets at night."
That sounded more like someone's dad. Not that the dad in question cared what happened to her last night. "I'm a hundred and two. And I told you," she furtively swallowed a Lybrel, praying he wouldn't start with the baby-making talk again, "I handled it."
"Such a control freak." Catching her at the door, he pulled her close. "Are you sure you're okay? Hey. How much sleep did you get?"
"Don't worry about me." Unable to meet his gaze, she straightened his tie. "Just gotta mainline a pot of coffee and I'm off to the salt mines. Now, scoot. Nobody likes a late defender."
Coiling his arms around her waist, he sighed. "I'm gonna miss you this week."
"You'll see me every single night."
"Sure, right before I pass out." He pressed his forehead to hers. "When this one's over, I wanna take you to the mountains. Just you, me and Huey. What do you say?"
Your mother is alive. I know about you and your stepmother. I've been sleeping with your father.
"I say yes."
* * *
Two days. Two days she'd been wandering around in this anesthetized fog, and there was not one single new message from 'Will'.
Not that she expected it. He didn't want her anymore.
And that was a good thing. She didn't want him either. She never wanted him. She was relieved to be cut loose at long last.
If only he'd done the cutting before showing her the horrible truth about her husband's mother; before leaving her with a huge mess to clean up and no mop big enough for the job. The bastard.
I'm in love with you! Get out! I don't want you anymore.
Her eyes rested on the flowerless plant on her cubicle desk, the dry, brown petals decaying in its soil. Gets what he wants and moves on, that's his M.O., isn't it? Although his M.O. probably didn't include crying and four-letter declarations.
Buffy wiped an errant tear from her cheek and got back to work.
* * *
Friday night came as a surprise.
For several days, she'd been comfortably adrift on a sea of not dealing, but Lindsey would be home soon, and he'd have an entire weekend to decide his father's fate. What was she going to do?
Buffy was all for truth and justice, but turning this case over to the authorities would open a can of worms that would eat through the very fabric of Lindsey's belief system. What's more, it would spawn years of litigation and misery and heartache for everyone involved -- and maybe even jail time for Spike, if his amazing lawyers didn't manage to clear his name. Arguably, he deserved it, but Buffy was convinced that what Spike did was an act of emotional desperation, not malice, and for that, he was pardoned in her eyes. A jury, however, might not see it the same way.
She thought about her mother, the one who'd taught her that there was a solid line between right and wrong. That a strong set of principles could guide you through any fix, and that following your heart was, by and large, irresponsible.
But life just wasn't that easy to define, was it?
She looked at Sunflower IV and asked it, "What would you tell me now, Mom? If you knew everything, you wouldn't..."
Buffy trailed off and looked down. She was talking to the painting again. And if her mother knew everything, she would tell Buffy she was out of her damned mind. Much like Lindsey would, if given the chance.
They were a lot alike, Lindsey and her mother, and Buffy was self-aware enough to know that wasn't a coincidence. For the first nineteen years of her life, Joyce Summers had been Buffy's best friend, her guiding light, her rock -- and every guy she'd seriously dated since her mother's sudden passing was, in some way or another, a means to fill that void. Xander Harris, Riley Finn, Forrest Gates, Lindsey Pratt... Good-natured, moralistic, dependable guys she could laugh with.
Don't you mean safe?
If she thought about it, wasn't Spike the flipside of that coin? The opposite of everything she knew was good for her? An extreme representation of her negligent, alcoholic, self-serving father?
Of course he was. Spike gave her the raw, rapt, unapologetically male attention she'd never dared to dream of but had obviously always sought -- even moreso in light of her father's recent death. That's why she'd eaten it up, that's why she'd felt an immediate connection, that's why she'd let it go so far... That's why it broke her heart to hear him say the words, "I don't want you." It crystallized her hidden fear of abandonment.
Of course that's all he was. A rich, cultured version of her deadbeat father. And if her mother was here, she'd say he was a vampire: he reels you in with charming little lies, then drains the life out of you when you bare your neck.
I'm in love with you for god bloody's sake haven't you figured that out by now
Sick of his voice haunting her head, she shoved the offending folders onto the living room floor with a grunt, the papers inside flying every which way. She wished she could just light them on fire or feed them to the shredder, or...
Huey got up to sniff a news clipping.
"The dog ate your casework," Buffy tried on for size. "Sorry! What are the chances, right? Guess we'll have to start all over again..."
Typically uncooperative, Huey turned around and walked away.
While she moved to her knees to rebuild the folders -- and contemplated slathering them with dog food -- she came across that old photo of Harmony.
Maybe this was less a quest for justice than a thirst for revenge.
Lindsey clearly blamed Spike for what Harmony did to him. God knows he didn't blame his 'dead' mother; despite her obvious failings as a parent he chose to remember her as a child would, at her very best. But he wasn't a child anymore, he could handle a partial truth, and maybe, just maybe, if he started to see Darla as less than a saint and Spike as less than a demon -- if he saw all of them as what they were then: human -- his perspective would change, and he'd let this go.
Besides, it pissed her off that he'd never told her. Yes, she'd been lying to him about Spike, but when it came to her past, she'd always been an open book. Despite everything she knew -- and everything she'd done -- it still bothered her that he was so closed off.
Maybe all it took to make things right was a trip down repressed memory lane.
* * *
Buffy sat indian-style on the bed, casually perusing the evidence as Lindsey undressed. He'd had a few beers with Charles after work, he was pliant and relaxed... As good a time as any to broach the subject. "She was really pretty."
"Who was?"
She touched the clipping and watched him out of the corner of her eye. "Harmony Kendall."
Lindsey froze, fingers paused at his cuff links, then went on as normal. "I guess."
"But, clearly lacking the personality to match," Buffy prompted.
"Think... Paris Hilton," he said, whipping off his shirt and avoiding eye contact, "only more self-absorbed. Whinier. Dumb as a rock."
"Maybe she was just playing dumb. I hear blondes do that sometimes."
He unzipped and stepped out of his slacks, then carefully hung them up before attempting a casual tone as he asked, "Why are you so interested in her, anyway?"
Buffy shrugged. "We know she's innocent, but no one else does. You gotta admit, jealous wife, prime suspect material. If she has no solid alibi, we're leaving this open to a mistrial--"
"She has a solid alibi." Clearly regretting this blurt, he turned his back to her and unclasped his watch.
"You know for a fact?"
"Just... trust me on this." He dropped his watch into the clay bowl he'd bought her in Mexico. "She has one."
"'Trust' you on this? You want me to trust you on something you don't trust me knowing?"
"It's not that I don't trust you!" He faced her again. "I'm tired, I've had a long week; I was kinda hoping it would just be you and me in here tonight!"
Here. In the bedroom. It dawned on her then that she hadn't made love to her husband since he'd told her about the murder. Actually, not since she rode him on the couch after her nightclub encounter with Spike. Spike was the last person she'd had sex with. Feeling guilty, she closed the folder and put it on the bedside table. "I'm sorry. Forget I brought it up. I'm... I don't know what I'm doing."
With a muted groan, he sat at the foot of the bed and put his head in his hands.
After a moment, she crawled toward him, gave his bare shoulderblade a soft kiss. He flinched. "Linds?"
He shook his head, and she sat back on her heels. Almost too quietly to hear, he said, "I'm her alibi."
Buffy drew in a long, steady breath and held it before asking, "What do you mean?"
"I was with her that night. She was in my..." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh man, I did not want to tell you this."
"Why? You can tell me anything, Lindsey," Buffy said. Did he honestly think she couldn't handle his secrets? She was a Pratt now. She could handle anything. "You were with Harmony. ...Sexually."
"I don't expect you to understand." He got up and began to pace the bedroom. "You would never sleep with someone you hate, but I... Before you, that's pretty much all I did."
Yeah. She'd never do that... "What I don't understand is why you didn't feel like you could tell me."
"Never really knew when to drop it, you know? 'Hey, my name's Lindsey, I used to nail my stepmom'?"
"I'm serious. You act like I would judge you for being abused."
"No," he said with a bitter laugh, "you're gonna judge me because I abused her. She wasn't some maneating pedophile, Buffy, I wasn't her helpless victim. I was old enough to know exactly what I was doing, she was hot and stupid and starving for attention; I made the first move, and you know what? I left bruises all over her body." As Buffy absorbed this shocker, he looked at the floor and said, "Awaiting judgment."
"It... it doesn't matter," she told herself, and him. "You were thirteen. She was ten years older than you. She should have known better."
"You want me to be ashamed? Is that what you want?"
"Ashamed? No, of course not--"
"'Cause I got plenty shame, Buffy. You have no idea the shame I carry with me every goddamn day of my life. For that, for... everything. You keep asking me, 'What happened, what happened in Paris?' If I told you what happened there, you would never look at me the same way again."
"Nothing you did as a child would change my opinion of you!"
"My grandmother raped me!"
Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and he pointed at her. "There it is."
"Lindsey." She got out of bed to go to him. "What?"
He shut his eyes. "Fuck."
"Spike's mother," she whispered. "She raped you? When?"
He let out a rueful moan. "Little while after I met him. He didn't know what to do with me, Harm didn't want me around, so he just... dropped me off at Grandma's."
When he was twelve? "Oh, god."
He found and put on a t-shirt as he said, "Three weeks with that pseudo-Christian witch, at the end of it I'm tied buck naked to a fucking cross."
"Oh, my god," she said into her hand, a tear spilling down her cheek. "She tied you to a cross?"
"I told you she was sick," he said with a mirthless chuckle, shaking his head. "She had a room just for praying, there was this big wooden cross inside? Most of the time she'd ignore me -- until she got wasted. Then she'd rant at me in this... jumble of French and English, tellin' me I'm just like my Dad. I'm evil, I'm ruining her, what the fuck ever."
Her mind worked frantically through his pause.
"Out of the blue he calls up to say he's back in town and he'll 'fetch' me tomorrow. I'm actually pretty stoked about it, 'cause, slight improvement." Nervously, Lindsey ran a hand through his hair. "But he musta said something to set her off, 'cause she had this royal meltdown when she got off the phone. Throwing things and screaming and tearing at her hair... and then she hit the bottle. Real hard."
I know what it's like to have a sorry excuse for a mother, he'd said.
"That night, I wake up choking. She's got her scarf around my neck, like a noose. Apparently I'm the devil's spawn and it's her mission to scare my demons out."
A chill ran through her bones as every missing puzzle piece snapped into place, and as she predicted, dreaded, what he'd say next:
"She drags me to that altar, and she starts whipping me. Choking me. Sticks this... thing in me." Shuddering at the memory, his tone shifted from anger to despair. "'Til I cried, and begged her not to kill me."
Buffy felt his fear, saw him trembling there. He was just a little boy, and he thought he was going to die.
"Then all of a sudden, she breaks down crying, cuts me loose. Suddenly she's sorry. Some bullshit about me being 'God's child'; her 'darling boy'; her 'only love'..." He inhaled, exhaled and announced bitterly, "And then she sucked my dick."
She tried to touch his hand, knuckles white from gripping the edge of the bureau, but he withdrew.
"Next day, I tried to tell him," Lindsey said. "Know what he did?"
Buffy slowly shook her head.
"He shoved me against a fence and said, 'It's over. Be a man. Let it go'. Never said another word."
Her eyes fell closed. "Because it happened to him." Repeatedly. "Just like you, he wanted to forget--"
"Fuck him! If it happened to him, why would he send me there? Why did he set her off? He wanted it to happen to me!"
"No! He made a mistake. A horrible, stupid mistake."
"There are no mistakes! He wanted me to suffer because he hated my mom, end of story. He's exactly like her."
"No, baby, no!" She cradled his face. "God, what you've been holding in all this time..."
"Shut up!" He tore her hands away and suddenly he'd pushed her hard against the bureau, shouting, "Don't talk to me like that! I'm not your 'baby', I don't want your fucking pity or your psychobabble, I knew you'd do this if I told y--!" He gasped.
His fingers closed around her throat, Buffy stared at her husband in shock.
Eyes widening, Lindsey let go of her, let the bureau fall back into place, and stepped back. Hands opening and closing, whispered to himself, "Fuck me."
Buffy watched him rummage through his drawer. "Lindsey..."
He shook his head, looking queasy, and stepped into his jeans. "I gotta... I gotta get out of here."
"Where... Where are you going?"
"Away from you."
"Away from..." Her voice got strange and small. "Please don't leave me."
He searched her eyes as if he wanted to say something, then left the room.
After he was gone, she sank to her knees in front of Sunflower IV until the dog came over to lick her tear-streaked face.
* * *
Buffy slept fitfully on the couch that night, television on, phone by her head in case Lindsey called. He didn't.
She'd really gotten more than she'd bargained for, hadn't she? It served her right, pushing and pushing until he reached a breaking point... Not that she deserved to be throttled. Or slapped.
Yeah. They had a lot in common, those two. More than she'd ever known.
She looked at her phone again. At Lindsey's number... then Spike's.
It was 3am. Would he answer his phone if she called him at 3am?
What would she say to him if he did? I'm sorry I said that about your mom, didn't know she beat and molested you. I should have guessed from all those hints Darla dropped but I was kind of overwhelmed at the time...
How did Darla witness it? If she did, that meant it didn't stop after he left home -- after the cathartic slap that sent him packing. If he still felt obligated to take care of her, to see her when he went to Paris... that was one seriously complex relationship.
Mind racing with new questions, she muted the television and reached for the laptop. Typed into the search box: "Spike Pratt mother".
The only entry with a photo was in French, on a site about the nation's notable families and their living legacies.
Monique Gentile (mother of business titan Spike Pratt) of the once thriving Gentile family, said to lose the bulk of its fortune to Englishman Colin Pratt, a con artist who impregnated Monique at the age of sixteen.
While with child, she escaped a convent in Northern France and gave birth to Spike (given name William) in England, presumably to live in secret with his father. However Colin Pratt vanished within the year, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Monique was left disowned and penniless in London, where she found work cleaning hotels and became active in several church groups. She currently resides in Paris.
Production of three films based on her life story have been halted by her son over the years, and the scandal itself has been alternately disputed and confirmed by its survivors. The British true crime novel, Devil In Disguise, no longer in print, was a sensationalized account of Colin Pratt's exploits, detailing his myriad aliases, grifts, and the impressive scope of his sexual prowess. The author speculated that Colin had fallen in love with Monique and intended to stay with her, but was promptly hunted down and slain by members of the Gentile family. Offering no evidence to support this theory, the author was discredited and the publisher sued for slander by Pratt Enterprises.
Spike Pratt has been quoted as saying, "My mother is my greatest motivator."
(Photographed with son Spike in 1989 at opening of first Pratt Hotel in Paris.)
While with child, she escaped a convent in Northern France and gave birth to Spike (given name William) in England, presumably to live in secret with his father. However Colin Pratt vanished within the year, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Monique was left disowned and penniless in London, where she found work cleaning hotels and became active in several church groups. She currently resides in Paris.
Production of three films based on her life story have been halted by her son over the years, and the scandal itself has been alternately disputed and confirmed by its survivors. The British true crime novel, Devil In Disguise, no longer in print, was a sensationalized account of Colin Pratt's exploits, detailing his myriad aliases, grifts, and the impressive scope of his sexual prowess. The author speculated that Colin had fallen in love with Monique and intended to stay with her, but was promptly hunted down and slain by members of the Gentile family. Offering no evidence to support this theory, the author was discredited and the publisher sued for slander by Pratt Enterprises.
Spike Pratt has been quoted as saying, "My mother is my greatest motivator."
(Photographed with son Spike in 1989 at opening of first Pratt Hotel in Paris.)
Buffy wasn't sure what was more striking: the sad story of his conception, the eye-opening truth about his father, or the chilling fact that Monique Gentile was a dead ringer for Chanterelle.
* * *
Lindsey came home while she was getting Huey ready for his afternoon walk. He didn't speak or make eye contact as he shed his jacket, took out his keys.
"I was worried about you," she said.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Where did you sleep?"
With a level gaze, he said, "Not with Lilah."
She looked away. Huey fussed. "I uh, I better walk him."
"I'll walk him--"
"No," she insisted. "I got it."
Out on the street, Buffy noticed an idling rented limousine. It drove away before she got close.
Suspicious -- or was it hopeful? -- she took out her phone and called Spike.
It didn't ring. A computerized voice told her the number she dialed was out of service.
Buffy's heart sank. He changed his number on her?
Maybe he was away. Maybe he wasn't getting reception.
Maybe he was that hurt by what she said.
* * *
Lindsey went out with the boys that night, and the day after. Came home plastered and went straight to bed. She knew what he was doing, why he was doing it, but there was no talking to him.
She just had to weather the storm.
~
"I'm sorry, he's in a meeting right now. Can I take a message?"
According to the receptionist at Pratt Enterprises, Spike had been in a meeting for two straight days now. Buffy sighed. "No. No message."
She put down the receiver and stared glumly at her computer screen. Was that receptionist a new hire? Was she pretty? Was she blonde? Was she the meeting?
Did he find someone new and easy, someone who wouldn't ask questions, wouldn't get involved, wouldn't constantly remind him of his past?
Someone who wouldn't tell him he was just like his abusive mother?
She wouldn't blame him if he did.
Her phone buzzed, and with it all doubt was erased: a text message from an unknown number! He missed her, he wanted to see her, he--
Hi Anne, it's me Lily aka Chanterelle.
Big bad is back!!! & I'm out of town 2nite.
u want in? Let me no & I'll set u up. -L
Buffy slumped in defeat.
The big bad was back.
It was over.
Deleting the message, she eulogized quietly, "It all ended with a slap."
~
Hours later, at 6:17 on a Tuesday night, she found herself standing at his wrought iron gate, an inscribed Cartier watch in her hand.
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A NOTE ABOUT PLAGIARISM: Don't do it. Call me crazy, but I don't like finding my hard work pasted into other people's stories. If I find out you've plagiarized me or any other author, I will make sure everyone knows it. If you're not clear on what 'plagiarism' means, the definition is here.