Human

Human?

Part Seven

Sixteen days earlier...

"Bloody hell, pet, I was only gone a day." Spike exclaimed as he threw the last part of her lover out of the ten-storey window.

"You're always leavin' me, Spike. A girl has needs you know..." Drusilla frowned at him, wagging her finger up and down as though chastising a small child.

"I went for that bloody doll that you wanted. I wouldn't have gone if you hadn't have left it!" Spike argued, his yellow eyes flashing angrily.

"It wasn't he doll, you want to leave me! She's all around you. Floating, laughing at me!"

"I don’t know who you're going on about, Dru!" Spike repeated for what had to be the millionth time.

"The slayer!" She hissed.

"The SLAYER?!" He exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock.

"She's all you think about. I can hear your thoughts in my head, crying, aching...my boy wants to go to that nasty girl, he doesn't want his mummy anymore."

"Dru, of course I want you. I haven't even MENTIONED the bloody slayer since we left Sunnyhell." Spike grabbed her hands in his, imploring her with his eyes to believe him.

"I can see it in your soul. You want to be like her, you don't want to be like mummy anymore." Tears slipped down her porcelain features.

"Dru, baby, please don't cry....I don't even have a soul, love...." He brought her close to him and leaned down, brushing his cool lips against hers.

Drusilla moved her lips avidly against his, her fangs elongating as she nipped at his mouth. "My boy! Mine!" She murmured, growling a little as she slid down and bit into his neck.

---

The dark-haired vampiress watched as her childe fell asleep and sighed. "Bad Spike. You don't want mummy anymore....grrruff! Bad boy!"

She gasped as the images came to her uncalled; Her childe in the sun with the slayer. She let out an unhappy wail as she saw them together, making love. The sound caused Spike to tighten his arms around her but he didn't wake. Then she saw her Angel come back from Hell, she regarded how the slayer acted around him, completely unaware of Spike's presence. With a smile, she her boy come home to her, beaten, broken, but entirely hers.

Eternally.

"The spell!!!" She giggled, and rose from the bed.

Naked, she danced about the room, until she came to a stop in front of the large chest she kept Miss. Edith on. She lifted her up and twirled her around.

"Miss. Edith. You've been a very good girl...mummy loves you. Coo...coo, don't worry daddy will come around and our boy will come home forever. And then we'll have them both and the slayer will have no-one!" She giggled quietly as she opened the trunk, extracting the talisman she required.

Slowly she walked to where Spike still lay asleep, on his back, his chest still, his body silent. She placed the talisman over his heart and whispered to Miss. Edith,

"Come on my pet, we'll say it together then the order will start....

Let my childe of the night

Return to his former right

As his body is turned

And welcomed by the harsh sunlight.

Until the Angel returns

And his heart it is burned

Form his body

And fill it with life.

Nuce Vitae."

Light swirled around the vampire's body and Drusilla giggled hysterically, her eyes lighting up as her childe's body was raised above the bed, before it fell back down. The light dissipated and before her eyes her childe took his first breath in nearly two hundred years.

"We'll be together soon my love...a family again....I promise."

-------------

Sixteen days later....

"Oh...Buffy!" Angel rushed forward, unaware of the tension in the room at his movement he fell down in front of her, clasping her around her waist as he hugged her tightly.

Buffy's eyes were wide, rapidly filling with tears as she searched the room for someone who could make some sense of this. Her eyes settled on Willow and Giles who were standing a little in front of her.

"Maybe we should give you two a min-"

"No!" Buffy interrupted Giles, her eyes flashing a 'help' sign to Willow who quickly caught on.

"Giles, do you have any of that blood, maybe Angel's hungry?"

"Uh, yes, I do..." Giles wander off to get it, a little unsure of what had transcribed between the two.

"God, Buffy, I missed you so much...it was....I..." His voice cracked and a tear rolled down Buffy's cheek.

"W-why don't we s-sit down?" Buffy lead them over to the table in the middle of the room.

"Okay, some one tell me I'm hallucinating!?"

"Xander! Come out!" Willow quickly hurried him away, unwittingly leaving the two alone.

"H-How-?" Buffy began, faltering.

"I don't know...it just happened, I guess somebody up there still likes me." He smiled at his lame joke.

Buffy's lips didn't move. "How long?"

"About a two weeks, I-"

"Two weeks! Why didn't you come sooner?" She was doing the math in her head. Spike had only been here 13 days. *Huh, thirteen, unlucky for some...or in this case, me.*

"I've been recuperating." Buffy saw the scars, cuts and bruises that marred his previously perfect features.

"Oh, God Angel, I'm so sorry!" Buffy suddenly burst into tears, and, without pause, the dark-haired vampire immediately took her into his arms, soothing her pain.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." The litany continued.

Angel closed his eyes, rocking his lover in his arms as she continued to cry, grateful that someone had given them this chance to be together.

"I missed you so much.....I'm so sorry...I love you." Buffy whimpered into the front of his shirt as she continued to cry.

---

Spike whistled to himself as he walked down the corridor at the high school, batting at the hanging posters overhead. He'd just heard the bell go but since he knew Buffy didn't have a lesson the first two periods he figured he'd surprise her.

He looked up as he heard familiar voices up a head; Willow and Xander were arguing.

"What the hell is he doing back, never mind here?"

"Xander, look, we don’t know how it happened but we have to be here for Buffy."

"God, do none of you remember what he did to us, to her...to your fish?! He killed Miss. Calendar for god's sake and now we're just gonna welcome him back with open arms?"

Willow shivered at the awful reminders of the past year but stuck to her guns. "No, but we have to be here for Buffy."

"We should stake him, that’s what we should do."

"Stake who? I take you don't mean me since I now have a heartbeat."

The two teens' heads whipped round at the British voice and gapped at him.

"uh...Spike, um...we were talking about...um, fish! Yeah, fish!"

"Okaaaay, Red, you been at the sauce again?" Spike asked, with a smile, totally oblivious.

"Here, Spike'll side with me. We should stake him right?" Xander started.

"Xander.." Willow warned.

"Stake who?" Spike asked again.

"Xander, no!" Willow tried to stop him, but the words were already out of his mouth.

"Angel."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis then right itself just as suddenly. The name pounded around in his skull.

"Angelus?" He growled, and his eyes swung in an accusatory fashion to Willow. "He's in hell, floating on a big cross, right?"

"Well..." Willow began.

"Nope, his sitting there macking on Buffy again." Xander completed, watching the fury rise in the ex-vampires eyes and suddenly realised that maybe telling Spike wasn’t such a good idea after all; though he had no idea why. "Oops?"

"Spike, wait!"

Spike didn’t hear the witch as he pushed past them, slamming open the doors to the library, just in time to hear Buffy's whispered words.

"....I love you."

Buffy looked up, jumping off Angel's lap as the doors slammed open. "Spike!" She breathed.

"Spike!" Angel growled, shooting to his feet as well.

The man in question, however, was oblivious to every one. All he could concentrate on was the pain in his heart. And in his head. The room spun around, his chest constricted. He couldn't breath, the room was now just a blur. Buffy was calling him but he couldn't answer, he had to get out of there but he couldn't move.

Buffy screamed as Spike collapsed to the ground and she rushed to him, sliding on the wooden floor as she fell to her knees next to him.

Light engulfed the ex-vampire, magically throwing the slayer away from Spike when she tried to reach out to touch him. She was thrown into Angel, and the two toppled to the floor.

Spike was lifted into the air, an inhuman scream piercing the otherwise silent room. Outside the sunset, despite it being midday. Magicks wove around his prone body, and with a final gasp he came to rest in the centre of the library floor.

Buffy struggled in Angel's grasp as Spike stood up, his vampiric face evident. But Angel held on.

The whole room jumped as Willow and Xander were thrown through the air, over the blonde vampire's head and in the doorway stood Drusilla.

"Hello, love." She smiled at Spike, who looked completely dazed. "Come on, pet, we're going home." She took his hand, patting it like a child.

"Spike!" Buffy whimpered, tears falling freely down her face as she watched him be guided out of the library by a crazy vampiress who talked to him quietly.

"What the hell is going on here?" Angel growled, finally releasing the squirming Buffy as he heard the familiar tones of the Desoto pull away.

Buffy whimpered again, throwing herself out of the library.

Leaving everyone in the dark.

Part Eight…