Becoming Me

Disclaimer: see chapter 1

I apologize for how unpolished this chapter is - I don't like it very much and I'm going to rewrite it soon. I just didn't want to keep everyone waiting, so at least you can have the next installment, plot-wise. It will probably be revised in the next few days, so stay tuned.

On with the story!!


25: OBLIGATED

The month since Buffy and Willow had arrived back in Sunnydale had, in everyone’s opinion, been a very productive one. Joyce had threatened Snyder, gone to the school board for back up, and then returned to threaten Snyder some more. Xander was glad Buffy was back and thought she had recovered nicely from the initial shock of her return. Willow had been practicing more magic after having noticed, due to recent events, how useful she could be to Buffy by doing more than floating pencils. Oz thought he was the only one who noticed the way Buffy’s two weeks in L.A. had affected her. She was more quiet and withdrawn, and he caught Willow looking at her oddly when the Slayer’s head was turned. Sometimes the werewolf thought that maybe Giles was aware of something odd, because he would occasionally frown and clean his glasses for no reason, but otherwise he behaved like a father whose child has suddenly taken an interest in his father’s favorite pastime. Oz didn’t want to say anything to anyone when people were so happy and there was no proof that anything was wrong.

Buffy heard the phone ring through the voices from the TV. Sluggishly she leaned across the couch and pulled the receiver off its hook. “Hello, Buffy Summers.”

“Hey, Buff.”

“Hey, Wil.”

“Buffy, Xander, Cordelia, Oz, and I are going to a movie…Um, 2:30-ish. You’re not doing anything, are you?”

Buffy laughed dryly. “What would I be doing, exactly?” She shook her head to clear it and added, brightly, “I mean, sure. I’d love to do something with you guys.”

“So you’re coming?”

Buffy watched the sitcom characters dump iced beverages over each other’s heads, causing an explosion of canned laughter. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come.” Buffy held the phone in her hand after the click of Willow’s hanging up, gaze fixed to the television program. Then Buffy stood up, hung up the phone, and turned off the TV.

Fifteen minutes later, the Scooby gang hopped out of Oz’s van and entered the theater complex. The air conditioning was cold and Buffy wished she’d brought a coat. As she walked beside her friends, she entertained herself with imagining having a coat. She could have that coat. The one that was lying folded and untouched at the bottom of her closet. She imagined the soft, worn black leather, the smell of cigarettes, sunk into the material like a particularly alluring cologne…He’d been wearing it during the switch and she’d ended up with it and she had it still.

He’d run off to quickly to notice.

“Buff?” Buffy looked up at Willow. “Do you want any yummy munchies?”

“Oh…” Buffy grinned. “Sure, I’ll have some of those two-sided gummy things. White and green?” All of a sudden, Buffy heard a familiar voice catch her attention from amid the hubbub of other moviegoers. She snapped her head around, trying to place the voice’s owner.

Buffy saw a flash of purple hair. Just outside the food area, sitting comfortably on the countertop, Amber lounged, sipping a soda. “I’m broke, ya moron. Fuckin’ get some yourself. Panhandle, shoplift, pickpocket, I don’t give a damn so long as ya leave me alone.”

Buffy couldn’t tell who the vampire was talking to, but Amber didn’t strike her as the type to be afraid to cause trouble. “You guys just go on,” she said to her friends. “I’ll find you in a bit.” She patted herself over and realized, angry at herself, that she had not brought a stake. “I’ve got something to do first. Y’know, ‘sacred duty’ and all that crap.”

“What? What’s a vampire doing here?” exclaimed Cordelia, with the same tone she’d use if Willow were to turn up, decked out in Prada from head to toe.

Xander rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t hear you, Cordy. D’you think you could say that any louder?”

“Watching a movie, maybe?” Willow suggested

Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Amber leap off the counter and dive for a small child in the crowd. “Hunting, more like. Go on, I’ll catch up.” Buffy ran from her friends toward the vampire.

“Lilia! I was kidding! C’mon, don’t – ” Buffy watched as Amber scooped the girl up in her arms.

Buffy came up close behind them. “Sad to say, lunch time is over…’P.’ Oh, wait, it’s ‘Amber’ now, isn’t it? My bad.”

Amber swiveled around. “How do you –“ Her eyes swept over Buffy. “Oh, it’s you.” Amber opened her mouth, but Buffy stepped into a fighting stance and Amber closed her jaw tightly and set Lilia on the floor. “You Slayer brats are all the same, huh. Kill first, ask questions later?”

“Pretty much. Assuming there’s anything I’d actually want to ask a vampire – “

“What about, ‘’How big is your dick? Care to stick it in my’ –“ Buffy kicked Amber in the jaw. The vampire reeled back from the impact.

“You really suck, you know that?”

Amber kicked Buffy back and ran to Lilia. “Get the hell out of here! What are you, stupid?”

“What if you get beat upped?” Lilia asked with concern.

Buffy got back up on her feet and ran over to where Amber kneeled by Lilia. “Real pro, Amber. Run off to eat the kid when I’m right here?”

Amber growled warningly, and something about the vampire’s face made Buffy feel old.

“Oh, Amber wouldn’t eat me!” Lilia laughed. “She’s a good vampire!”

What?! Buffy asked herself, remembering Mr. Brown. In a rage Amber demolished a sign with a ferocious kick. She planted both feet firmly on the ground, arms clenched to her sides, breathing deeply for a fleeting second. She looked explosive, murderous, insane.

“NO I’M NOT!” she bellowed. “I’m bad! I’M EVIL! I AM NOT GOOD!“

Her voice died in her throat. The entire theater rang with sudden silence as every voice paused to listen and every pair of eyes turned to stare. Buffy watched, incredulous, as Lilia scampered over to Amber and hugged the teen around the middle, burying her face in Amber’s shirt. Amber’s golden eyes locked with Buffy’s. The vampire’s face was twisted into a hateful expression, but somehow she appeared more vulnerable than dangerous.

“Amber,” began Buffy, the fire in her voice somewhat muted. She didn’t really want to fight. But she knew she had to. “I’m warning you…I’ve seen your handiwork. Do you honestly expect me to believe you aren’t going to kill her?”

“Amber…wouldn’t kill me…” Lilia said slowly, glancing tearfully up at the ridges of Amber’s forehead and the small sharp teeth poking out below her upper lip. “She’s nice! She…doesn’t hurt good people…”

Buffy snorted. “What did you do, brainwash her?” But Buffy realized Amber wasn’t paying attention. The golden eyes squinted and then Amber’s bones shifted, her forehead smoothing out and allowing her eyebrows to draw into a frown.

“Lilia…” she murmured, and she kneeled, bringing her head to the same level as the child’s. “Lilia, I won’t hurt you. You’ve got to believe me! Lilia…”

Lilia backed up in fear, causing Amber to exclaim, “God! Lilia, what the hell am I supposed to say!? Don’t you get it? I don’t fucking know how to do this!” She swallowed and looked at Lilia as if the girl was a gamble of her most precious commodities, the precarious balance deciding between all or nothing.

She looked crushed when Lilia backed up even further.

Buffy suddenly nauseous. It was unfair, for Amber to look so distressed, to have feelings, after what she’d heartlessly done at Mr. Brown’s…Vampires weren’t supposed to have feelings, to care about anything. To care what little children thought. Amber was breaking all the rules, and it was obnoxious and for some reason threatening. Buffy ran towards screen # 3.

The heavy wood doors closed behind Buffy, blocking out the sound. She leaned against the wall, huddling in the darkness. She wondered what all the people out there had thought, whether they’d remember weird girls talking about vampires and killing or whether they’d struggle to find a way to explain the strangeness away. Buffy knew, from experience, that they would believe whatever they wanted to. That’s what people did, unless they were absolutely forced to do otherwise. She shivered, and again wished she had a coat.

She thought about the duster, getting creased on the floor of her closet. Her friends were in the theater, probably watching trailers or maybe the movie had started already, and they’d wonder where she was. She wished she’d never come.

She also wished she’d never come back to Sunnydale. Either that, or she wished she’d never left. She wasn’t sure.

Buffy gripped her hands around her goosebumpy arms, and wished she had time to cry.

* * * * *

“You can have anything! Anything you want…I’ve got a wallet, a credit card – please, don’t hurt me –“ The woman trembled in front of the monstrous looking man. What is he? she wondered, some part of her realizing that he couldn’t be human, that he couldn’t care less about her credit card.

The vampire laughed in predatory delight. “I want to feel your fear. Your instincts are telling you to run, aren’t they? Bet you wish you listened better…”

“Now, I bet you wish you’d listened better, mate,” the vampire heard from behind him, just as he felt a sharp stake penetrate his skin and burn its way through his heart.

“What…what was that thing?” the woman asked her savior as he tucked the stake back inside his jeans pocket.

“Vampire,” he said casually. There was something intimidating about him, a hard-to-place eerie feeling like a ghost of a nightmare. His pale hair and skin and black clothes made him look monochrome and reminded the lady of moonlit sprites peering out of dark tangles of plants and crawling out of obsidian lakes.

“Oh,” she hiccoughed.

He stared at her, his gaze pulling her further into a world of allusions, of faint threats. His dark brows were creased in a puzzling frown. She wanted to know, who was he? What was he? How had he destroyed the monster – the vampire – and floated him away like an incomprehensible memory?

“Thanks…You know, for…” Words like ‘rescue’ and ‘save’ went with gallant knights and warmth, and strong, broad smiles, and she couldn’t bring herself to sound ridiculous and say them. “Killing him.”

The man in front of her shrugged. He seemed to be looking into the shadows and listening cautiously. “Couldn’t very well leave you there, now could I?” he asked in his purring, British voice, but she couldn’t help but imagine that he sounded haunted. He walked away, leaving her more confused and with the impression that he had saved her life grudgingly.

Spike closed the door softly behind him and rolled the stake under the bed. He slid under the covers, feeling Drusilla’s sleeping body beside him. He fell asleep and dreamed of the warm bodies lying in his arms, necks snapped and blood dripping like a fountain and begging to be tasted, and Dru laughing as she killed beside him. Then he dreamed of the faces he’d saved, falling under his body and bleeding, faces screwed up in pain and fear as he couldn’t stop their blood from flowing out and sticking his lips and fingers together.

He is young again. There is dirt and a willow tree and a gravestone that he knows is his. His vision is blurry and he thinks, This isn’t heaven. I’m back where I started. He hears an imposing voice telling him all he needs to do is kill the woman in front of him. Isn’t that wrong? Just to follow his instincts. This is being a vampire, some more conscious part of his mind remembers. All animal, predator and prey, the deepest instincts from the cruelest part of the heart…

But I don’t want to kill her! he thinks. What feels natural is to rock her in his arms until she feels no fear, but it also feels vulnerable. Strong is the dark power surging through his veins, blinding him to reason or feelings or second thoughts. Strong is the taste of the woman’s life draining away.

Spike woke up in a silent scream. He hadn’t dreamed about his first night in over a century, but he had never forgotten it. He had never forgotten the second he made the choice, the second he allowed himself to be a vampire.


On a note that I know a large majority of you care about, the SPUFFY LUVIN' is coming SOON! My plan is the next chapter, although that might change just a little bit (as in it's in the chapter after that) it is SOON. HAVE NO FEAR. Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing, it's great to read what you write. And for those of you who read Memories and liked it but were appalled by the number of typos and inconsistencies and such, I am currently in the act of editing it, and I will post the revised edition as soon as possible. Have fun!