Chapter 41: Wake Up
awesome banner by sourbuckley
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A/N: Thanks, dampersnspoons, for the beta.
Buffy had become an abstract sunflower.
She was an exquisite sight; laughing and dancing, leaving squiggles of color across a boundless white canvas. Spike knew he couldn't join her, but he didn't mind. Her joy was infectious.
"Wake up, Boy Wonder," a teenaged Liam said, slinging a gangly arm around Spike's neck. "The world is waiting."
Liam had a point. A masterpiece like this didn't belong to any one person. It belonged to the entire world. They needed to set her free, so that everyone could experience her power.
"We should set her free," he told his boyhood chum, "so that everyone can--"
"WAKE UP!"
Startled out of his vivid dream, Spike opened his eyes. Liam wasn't there, and Buffy wasn't a painted sunflower.
She was beside him, jolting upright in alarm, his son's name on her lips.
That woke him up -- and so did the sight of Lindsey in the room, trembling with rage, pointing a semiautomatic pistol at Spike's head.
"I don't want to hurt you, Buffy," Lindsey said. "Move away."
She didn't budge. "What the hell are you doing, Lindsey? Put the gun down!"
"Shut up! Shut your mouth and move away or I swear to God I'll--"
"You'll shoot me?"
Spike knew he very well could -- by accident. The boy was hanging on by a thread. "Buffy, do as he says. Move away."
"I will not! This is insane! You're not a killer, Lindsey! You're angry, and you have every right to be, but you're not--"
He fired at the chaise by the window, causing a plume of stuffing to fly out its back. Either Lindsey knew that the deluxe suites were soundproof, or he didn't care.
In any case, it had the desired effect: Buffy shrieked and jumped out of bed. Spike stayed put.
"I come from a long line of killers, don't I, Dad?" Lindsey advanced, nostrils flared. "I'm thinkin' I should embrace my true nature. Like father, like son?"
"Go on, then." With unwavering eye contact, Spike peeled back the duvet that covered him and said, "Shoot me."
"Spike, don't be an idiot!" Buffy hissed, "Tell him!"
Lindsey seemed momentarily thrown by the fact that Spike was wearing trousers. They'd spent the night in a chaste embrace -- she hadn't taken off her shirt or sweatpants either; he was probably noticing that now.
If he hadn't known their affair went beyond the pleasures of the flesh, he knew it now.
"What are you waiting for, son?" Fairly confident that it would have the opposite effect, he provoked him, "Follow in my footsteps."
Predictably rattled by that, Lindsey swung the gun toward Buffy. "Don't touch that phone!"
She held her hands up. "I wasn't!"
"Lindsey," Spike reasoned, "no one's making any calls. It's me you want, not her, yeah?"
"Yeah," Lindsey agreed with a sneer, returning his aim to Spike's forehead. "It really is."
Buffy whispered tremulously, "This is so stupid--"
"Shut up." Lindsey glanced at her as he kept Spike in the crosshairs. "You don't get to talk, you lying, cheating, monster-loving whore."
"She didn't do this to hurt you," Spike said. "Neither did I."
"No, of course you didn't. You just saw something shiny that you couldn't have, and you stole it from me, just like you steal everything else!"
"You're right. I was selfish. It wasn't fair to you."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for not being in the most forgiving mood right now, my wife just left me for a murderer!"
"He's not a murderer," Buffy insisted through grit teeth. "He didn't kill anyone. Tell him, Spike."
"Don't, Buffy, let it go."
"No! The lies end here and now. Tell him about Darla, or I will."
Lindsey tutted in bitter amusement. "Yeah, tell me. What bullshit line did you feed Buffy to convince her you didn't strangle my mother to death?"
Spike heaved a sigh of resignation. Buffy was right, there was no point in lying anymore. No one left to protect, aside from a tiny, frightened William, shivering on a cross. He'd projected that child onto Lindsey for far too long. So, he said it: "She's alive."
Lindsey opened his mouth, sputtered for a moment as he processed this information. "You think I'm stupid? What the hell are you two trying to pull?"
"It's true," Buffy said. "I saw her. I saw her with my own eyes. Just... please put the gun down and we can talk about this--"
"No! I don't believe you! I don't believe either of you!" Confounded, stupefied, his adrenaline fuel running out, he lowered the pistol. "What... You saw her?"
Buffy nodded.
Cautiously, Spike got out of bed. "Give me the gun, and I'll tell you everything. I'll even take you to her."
"This is... I don't even... I don't believe you."
Lindsey was so disoriented that Spike was able to gently wrest the gun away. Safety engaged, he tucked it into the back waistband of his khakis and put an open palm on Lindsey's shoulder.
Lindsey pulled away, but it was an afterthought. Dazed, he sat on the bed.
Crisis averted... thanks to Buffy. Spike cast her a glance.
She was solemnly gathering her things. "I'll go," she said, bag strap on her shoulder. "You two have a lot to talk about."
Wait. She was leaving him? Now? Before they'd even had a chance to say their proper goodbyes? "Buffy..."
She gave him a sweet, sad smile. This was it. The end. "Goodbye, Spike."
He sighed, helpless and heartbroken. After she left the room, he sat on the bed and noticed Lindsey furrowing at him sidelong. He'd gotten the picture.
He was a smart boy. ...Man. A smart man.
Perhaps they did have a lot to talk about.
"Or, not," he heard Buffy say in a strange voice, and she was back in the doorway, this time with a wild-eyed brunette holding a compact silver handgun to her chin.
Lindsey sprang up. "Lilah, what are you--?"
"Back off, Lindsey. This isn't about you." Her glare was settled on Spike. "Hands in the air, both of you."
Spike raised his arms, at a loss as to how -- and why -- Lilah Morgan had ended up in this hotel room.
"Hey," Buffy said with mock cheer, "look who I ran into at the elevator."
"Lilah, what's going on?" Lindsey asked.
"That's enough out of you, kids," Lilah said, riveted by Spike. "The grown-ups are talking now."
"That we are," Spike said carefully, reading her for clues. She was staring at him like she knew him, intimately. Had he bedded this girl a decade ago? She looked to be in her late twenties, early thirties; that would make her old enough. Or perhaps she'd been a Masterson girl... "What can I do for you?"
"Tell me what I need to know, and I might not blow her pretty pink brains all over your love motel."
Buffy was wearing a brave face, but she was terrified, and so was he. If anything happened to her because of some misstep he'd made in the past, Spike would never forgive himself. "Let her go, I'll tell you anyway."
"Ha. No. Who's the body?"
"The...?"
"Body. The dead one that you passed off as Darla? Her name wouldn't be Drusilla Davies, would it?"
Spike stared at her anew. "Who are you?"
Lilah cocked the gun she held to Buffy's throat. "Answer the bloody question!"
"Yes! Yes, that was her name."
"She ever mention a little girl named Edith?"
"Wh..." She had, as a matter of fact. That was the name Dru had given the love child they'd created in her incestuous, vampiric Bonnie and Clyde fantasy. But that was just a fantasy, it wasn't... real... "Edith?"
She smiled, sardonic. "Hi, Dad."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Buffy muttered, while Lindsey echoed, "'Dad'?"
"Oh. Yeah." Lilah informed Lindsey, "You banged your big sister. Several times. Sorry to break it to you like this."
Buffy's nose wrinkled, and Lindsey reeled.
"Hang on, all of you. I never slept with Dru before that night--"
"Sure about that, Batman?"
Batman. Spike frowned as that triggered a long-buried memory of a seemingly insignificant night: Liam gave him quaaludes, stuck a Batman mask on his head and they raced across the river on stolen bikes to a squat crawling with new wave runaways.
"She was sixteen, just like you. You were at a masquerade of some kind. You may not remember, but you were her first."
Spike didn't recall shagging anyone that night, but then he didn't recall anything between the time he walked in and the time he woke up in a dusty clawfoot bathtub the next afternoon. Try to look surly, Liam had told him on the way. No woman can resist a dark knight. "I had no idea."
"Neither did I. I had to figure it out myself. From the clues in her daft rantings and riddles!" As her veneer cracked, a hint of English accent surfaced through the American one she'd clearly cultivated. "I had to figure all of this out myself. Even what you did to her. It was an accident, wasn't it?"
Her death, she meant. "Yes."
She took a breath, straightened. "I could accidentally pull this trigger."
"Don't you fucking dare," Lindsey warned her, but Spike held up a hand to quiet him.
"Or, you could let her go, Edith. This is between you and me."
Her lashes fluttered at the sound of her name, but she held her ground. "You took away the only thing that mattered to me. I should do the same to you."
"She doesn't want me." His gaze met Buffy's for a moment. "Nothing matters anymore."
"How sweet and tragic and patently false. Where is Darla?"
He cocked his head. "What do you want with Darla?"
"It was her idea, wasn't it? To invite my mother over that night. Darla knew about me, you know, but she hated that I existed. That there was another link to you out there." She stepped forward with Buffy in her grasp. "Did she make you do it? Egg you on?"
"No," Spike said, aware that telling her the truth could lead to an even messier situation. "It was all me."
"My mother promised me she would introduce me to my father. But before she could do that, she disappeared." A tear ran down her cheek. "Drusilla Davies was crazy as a loon, and she was a godawful mother, but you killed her and disposed of her like she was a piece of trash. Like I... was..."
"I wish I had known about you," Spike said, earnestly, and that made her falter.
"This is bullshit," Lindsey said, and snatched the gun out of Spike's waistband.
Reflexively, Lilah aimed her gun at Lindsey, and reflexively, Spike stood in front of his son.
There was a pop, and a strange, hot sensation. Spike sussed out what had happened by watching Buffy's horrified face.
He'd been shot.
He lost his balance, and collapsed onto one knee.
"NO!" Buffy snapped her head backward, stunning Lilah, and ran to Spike just as he toppled to his back. She covered his spurting wound. Was that his heart? "Spike? Spike. Spike! You're okay. You're okay. You're gonna be okay."
She didn't sound very convinced. She looked lovely, though. Like an angel. He saw a gun, pointed in Lindsey's direction... "Behind you."
Another shot rang out, but it didn't come from Lilah's gun. Lilah disappeared from view, and he heard a thud. Buffy turned around, crawled away, and came back with his blood-spattered phone.
"What happened? Is Lindsey..."
"Shhh, he's okay. We're all okay." Hand on his chest, she put the phone to her ear. "Garrett? Spike's hurt." Tears began to stream down her face. "We need a... helicopter... medevac thing... Hurry." She shut the phone.
"Don't cry." He wanted to touch her face, but he couldn't move his arm. "I love you."
"I love you, too," she said, sobbing. "I love you so much."
Well, that was overdue. With what breath he had left, he chuckled. "What's a fella got to do, get shot?"
"Don't laugh." She pressed her lips to his ear. "I love you, Spike. I love you..."
Those were the last words he heard.
* * *
Spike was an abstract sunflower, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Outside the canvas, Buffy stood in her pink bikini, hands cupped over her ears. "Holy melodrama, Batman. Will you quit that? It's hurting my ears."
He closed his mouth, but still heard the screams, though they'd been shortened to quick, panicked pulses.
"Also, you as a flower? Not your best look. You're all... painty."
"But I understand art now, love."
"I know. That's why all the screaming, right?"
"I'm not screaming anymore." Eek! "Was that me?"
Buffy listened for the next one. Eek! "Weird."
"What is that noise?"
"I don't know, just come out of there and we'll deal with it, okay?" She extended her hand. He took it, and stepped through the threshold of the canvas.
The pulsing screams turned to mechanical beeps, and Spike's groggy head made sense of it: A heart rate monitor.
He was in a hospital bed. He'd been shot. There was a bandage on his chest. He was alive.
He could move his feet, too. All parts in working order. Definite plus.
With a glance at the darkened windows, however, he wondered if his eyes or brain had been damaged: Buffy was asleep, her head resting on the shoulder of his bodyguard, who sat beside his butler. The two men were wide awake, hurriedly knitting from the same hot pink ball of yarn.
"Will I bust anything if I laugh?"
"Boss," Garrett said, while Nigel said, "You're awake."
Buffy was roused by Garrett's movement. At the sight of him, she seemed to swell up with happiness, but then she notched it down. "Hey."
"Hey," he said weakly.
She got out of her chair, straightened her sweater, and tentatively approached his bedside.
"We'll, uh, we'll come back later," Nigel said, giving her a chair to sit in.
Garrett paused on his way out, and with barely restrained emotion, said, "Glad you're okay, man."
As they left, Spike frowned at Buffy. "What was that all about?"
Buffy sat down. "Garrett feels really guilty about what happened."
"I meant..." he cleared his rusty throat, "the knitting."
"Oh." She laughed, and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. "Nigel bet Garrett he couldn't learn in one day. It's been three, and now they're having knitting races. They're onto capelets, I think."
He laughed. It hurt.
"Ooh." She touched his chest, near his bandage. "Sorry. Don't laugh."
He covered her hand with his. "Why are you here?"
"That's a silly question."
"Is it?"
She traced little circles over his heart. "Uh-huh."
He let her do that for a while. It was comforting. "Have I really been out for three whole days?"
"There were a couple of surgeries. To get the bullet out. Half an inch to the left, it would have been your heart." Her eyes welled, and he noticed how red-rimmed they were. Had she been crying over him, or...
"Is Lindsey all right?" He was struck with unexpected panic.
She looked down. "Yeah. He's fine. It got a little hairy, he spent the first few hours at the police station. Because of, um..."
"Edith."
She nodded. "Who was not your daughter. We just got the tests back this afternoon."
Spike was deeply relieved to hear it, but she was still someone's daughter. Probably Liam's. It was possible he even knew about Edith and had denied culpability, as he was wont to do. And all that time, poor, crazy Dru thought Spike was her dark knight, when all he'd done was pass out in a sodding bathtub.
"Anyway, Lindsey was cleared. It was obviously self-defense. Plus they found these journals at her apartment... mega freaky. Charts and diagrams and the floor plans of your house... She had this elaborate plan of attack set for a specific date: the tenth anniversary of her mother's death."
Which would be coming up soon. "Bloody hell." He had honestly thought Lilah Morgan wasn't a threat to anything but Buffy's marriage -- that she was no more than a typical femme fatale who merely didn't want to be found by an abusive ex-boyfriend or husband, or something.
He would never doubt Buffy's instinct ever again. Given the chance.
"We talked, though. Lindsey and I. We're not gonna be best buds any time soon, but I think we're kinda square now, what with him almost shooting me in the face."
It was charming, the way she could reframe even the most horrid events as lighthearted farce. "I'm glad you're not enemies."
"You're not enemies, either."
He scoffed, raised a brow.
"You took a bullet for him, Spike. Cosmic scales? Consider them balanced. I know he does."
He shook his head in awe. "He's a better man than I."
"No, he's not," she whispered, bit her lip, and his still-intact heart fluttered.
Or, more scientifically, it was beating a bit faster, according to the monitor.
He squinted at her. "Did you--?"
"Oh," she said, clearly stalling, "We rehired your publicist. I hope you don't mind. There's kind of a media frenzy going on."
"Right... Yes. That's what they're for. Damage control, and all of that. Did you tell me you love me or did I dream that?"
She smiled to herself. "You didn't dream that."
"But... that was just because you thought I was dying. Right?"
Her eyes met his. "No."
"Help me out here, pet, I'm a little foggy. Hooked up to machines and drips and likely hopped up on morphine or somesuch wonderful drug... What's that mean to you?"
"It means..." she let her green-eyed gaze slide around the room, "Life is short. Time is precious. It means I don't have to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or kayak through the Amazon or learn to belly dance in Marrakesh to find myself. I know exactly who I am, and where I want to be. And that's with you."
"I'm still dying, aren't I? They found a tumor."
"No," she said, laughing. "Your doctor says you'll be back on your feet in a few days. But no strenuous activity for six weeks."
"Does that mean what I think it does?"
She nodded, using her flirty lips when she answered, "I'm afraid so."
Mesmerized, he said, "Will you marry me?"
"Never." She was smiling.
"Move in with me?"
"Cool your jets, mister." She sat up straight. "I think we both have a few things to take care of first."
"No, I'm ready, really. Can't think of anything."
She smirked. "I'll make you a checklist."
"And when I've checked it all off...?"
"We start over. In six weeks, you take me out on a real date. We go dutch, and I choose the venue."
He tried not to grin from ear to ear, really he did. "I accept these terms and conditions."
"Good," she said. "'Cause you really didn't have a choice."
She was so beautiful. "Do me one favor. I am in a hospital bed, that grants me one favor, right?"
"Depends what it is..."
"Nothing naughty," he promised, and tapped his earlobe. "I'm not sure I heard you the first time."
With a sly grin, she moved close to his ear, and he felt her breath on his skin as she whispered, "I'm in love with you, Spike Pratt."
He sucked in a breath, felt his cock throb. "Six weeks." He exhaled hotly. "Yeah. Don't do that again."
She giggled.
Read on... >>
A/N: This story ain't over yet. There are at least two more epilogue-ish chapters to go, but this was essentially the conclusion of the plot, and now I'm all sad and lonely. HOLD ME WITH YOUR FEEDBACK
...Please?
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.