ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 148 - THE ELEPHANT FALLS

Buffy followed him into the living room. He stood staring out the window, the muscles in his back trembling slightly.

"William..." she said, in a quiet voice, filled with her own pain, as she neared him.

"Who am I, Elizabeth?" he asked, his voice strained and so quiet she barely heard him.

She stopped her advance, and inhaled deeply, "You’re William Worthington, a nearly 29 year old man; the man that I love. That’s who you are."

He snorted softly, he turned to her, looking her in his eyes, locking her there, "And him? What about Spike, then? Who or what was he?"

Her mouth trembled, as she searched for the right words that he could understand.

"Tell me!" he said, walking up to her grabgrabbing her roughly by the arms.

"William...maybe you should sit down..."

"I don’t bleedin’ want to sit down!" he yelled at her. "Tell me!"

"You," she began, her mouth dry, "that is...when you went by Spike, you were a... She turned you...Dru. You told me about it; she found you alone and upset one night, after a party you’d been attending. Some woman you cared for had rejected you. You were vulnerable, you..."
"Say it! Damn you! Say it!" he yelled, still gripping her arms tightly, even as she flinched at his words.

The moment she'd been dreading for over a year had finally arrived. She nodded briefly, as she looked into his eyes, so full of pain and anger. She took a deep breath, "You were a vampire, William," she said softly.

Time seemed to stand still then, as she watched his face reflect everything at once; disbelief, fear, anger, betrayal, horror, and everything in between.

His hands let go of her, as he stumbled backwards, shaking his head, "No, no, no, no, no, no...not possible, not possible..." he mumbled as he blindly paced the living room.
"I’m so sorry, William," Buffy said, as tears filled her eyes.

He didn’t seem to hear her, as he continued talking to himself, laughing, cursing even, as he paced around the room.

Buffy stood frozen to her spot, as she watched him. Finally, after a few minutes, he stopped in front of her.

"How long?" he asked.

"How long?"

"How long was I...was he...?"

"A vampire?"

He nodded, wide eyed.

"Over 120 years. From 1880 until 2003."

His face grew paler than it already was, and he staggered away from her, almost falling. She reached out to grab his arm, but he violently shook it off, "Get away!" he said, in a raspy voice.

"Please, William! You have to listen to me; there’s so much to tell you...so much..."

"You knew...all this time, you knew," he said, turning to her. "How could you not tell me? How could you...let me believe that I was...," he looked down at himself, gesturing, then towards her, them, and everything in the room. "How could you let me believe that I was a...man?"
"Oh, God William! You are a man!"

He went on, not listening; "All this time...all the memories I had of my life before, how I lived, old things, the not remembering..." he turned to her, accusingly. "You let me believe that it was memory loss, some sort of mental condition!"

Buffy shook her head, as the tears streamed down her face, "I wanted to...I was so happy, so overjoyed to find out that you were alive. Then, when I first came to see you at the hospital, you were so confused, and scared. You didn’t remember anything, not even me. How could I lay that at your feet? Then with what happened to you there. I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just didn’t want to hurt you...you’d already suffered enough. I just wanted you to be happy," she said in a small voice, "I love you."

Suddenly he grimaced in pain, "My mother, what happened to her? To my brother?"

Buffy looked at him and shook her head.

"Tell me!"

"You’re not going to like it..."

"Tell me!"

"You told me how your mom was already sick with consumption, that it was likely going to kill her. After Dru sired you..."

"Sired?"

"Um...yeah, that’s the term when a vampire turns a human into a vampire."

"How?"

"Instead of killing a human outright, a vampire drains their victim nearly to death, then offers them a drink of their blood. I’m guessing that at that point, most people would do almost anything to stay alive, not knowing the consequences... Afterwards, the person’s body dies, once it’s drunk enough demon blood. The one that did the siring, buries it, then within the next night or two, the new vampire rises, looking for it’s own meal."

"Undead," Wim sam said, looking at Buffy for confirmation.

"Yes."

He shuddered, looking small and frail in his pajamas, "Tell me," he said again.

"After you became a vampire...you still loved you mom," Buffy said. "You wanted to save her from dying from consumption..."

"It’s true then? What that thing...Dru told me? I sired her? Oh God," he said, reeling away.
"William," Buffy said, reaching out to grab him, but he shook her off.

"She changed," Buffy said quietly, "once she became the demon, she wasn’t the same person you knew...and you couldn’t stand to see her like that, to know that you’d done that to her, so you...you staked her."

"Oh God, no..." William said, as he backed into the wall by the desk, slipping down to the floor. He held his head in his hands, knees drawn up. "I killed my mother, I killed my own mother! Oh God," he said, pulling at his hair.

"I’m so sorry," Buffy said, kneeling down in front of him.

He looked up at her, and the pain in his eyes was unlike any she’d ever seen. She reached out and put her arms around him. He tried to resist, but she held fast. "I’m so very sorry," she said, holding on, as he fell apart.

"What about Henry? My brother?" he said, his eyes downcast.

She didn’t answer right away, not until he looked up. He could see the answer in her eyes.

"How?"

"I don’t know the details, just that you killed him soon after you were sired."

"Did my...did my mum know of that...before I...sired her?"

"I don’t think so, William. You never said, so I don’t think so. I think that it all happened within a couple of days, when you were a fledgling, still."

"A fledgling?"

"A new vamp, a young vampire."

"Oh God, oh God," he repeated again and again, as he rocked himself.

"It’s going to be alright, I promise you," Buffy said, holding onto him, rubbing his back.

His voice cracked like old plaster, as he pushed her back onto her bottom, "How can it be alright? Don’t you realize what this means? What I’ve done? How the hell can it be alright? I’ve..." he looked at her, shaking his head, "I’ve killed people! People Ied, ed, family! My own mother and brother! God, how can it ever be alright?"

"I know you have," she said quietly, "remember William, I knew you as Spike. I knew you when you...when the demon inside ruled. But I also saw you change, saw you try to become a better man. You did, William. You did. You always had some of William inside you, even before you went to get your soul back..."

"My soul?"

Buffy looked at him and nodded. "Yes, your soul."

He looked at her, confused, "Where was it? Where did my soul go?" he asked, looking like a little lost boy.

She shook her head, "I don’t know. Only that you, well, all vampires lose their souls when they become vampires. That’s why the demon is able to kill without remorse, or feeling. But I think you were always different. Even before you got your soul back, you did good things. For me, for my friends, you even took care of Dawn after I died."

"Died? You died? Were you a...?" he said, then it clicked, "What were you, Elizabeth?"

She took a breath, "I was a vampire slayer. The vampire slayer. Technically, I still am a slayer, only now there’re hundreds, maybe thousands more...but that’s another story."

"Then that’s true, too? I killed...oh God!"

She nodded, "Yes, you killed two slayers. One during the Boxer Rebellion in China, around the beginning of the 1900’s, and another one in New York in the 1970’s."

He looked at her; "Did I want to kill you, then?"

She nodded again, with a small smile, "At first. Before you fell in love with me."

He shook his head, "And you...why didn’t you kill me, then?"

Buffy shrugged, "I tried to, but then you got the chip put in your brain, and it didn’t seem very fair, since you could no longer hurt humans..."

"Chip?" he asked, his head spinning.

"There was a secret government operation. They captured demons and studied them. Well, some they studied...with vampires, they put chips into their brains. If they...you tried to hurt a human, it fired, and you’d get a huge headache. Actually, much, much more than a headache," she said, remembering the intense, searing pain he’d suffered before it had finally been removed.

"Why? Why would they bother to do that? Why not just kill it, kill the vampires? Me?"

Buffy looked at him and shook her head, "I don’t know the answer, it’s the government, you know? Maybe they thought they could harness a vampire’s strength; use them for their own killing machines," she said.

Over the next two hours Buffy told him about how he’d let Glory torture him, rather than give Dawn up, and how he tried to protect Dawn from Glory at the end; how she’d had to die in order to close the hell dimension, which had opened with Dawn’s blood.

"You looked after Dawn, even after I died," she said. "Even before you got your soul back, you stayed in her life to protect her, and you fought alongside my friends against evil."

He shattered even more, when he found out about Dawn. He’d felt immediately drawn to her, since he’d ‘met’ her again. He felt a sense of closeness and protectiveness over Dawn, matched only by what he felt for Elizabeth.

Buffy wearily looked up at the clock, it was now past 4:00am, and she’d been talking for over 3 hours. A couple of times, she thought that William had fallen asleep,ningning up against the wall, or she’d nod off, leaning up against the couch. But then he’d jerk awake to ask more questions, demand more answers.

"I can’t tell you everything in one night," she'd pleaded, but he wouldn’t relent.

"Why am I alive; human now?" he asked.

She told him about the Shanshu prophecy, and the fight against The First. Without telling him how she came by it, she told him how he’d worn the amulet into the Hellmouth, and how monumentally important that had been; his role in the ultimate fight against evil.

"It was you who saved the world, by killing all the ubervamps, and by closing the Hellmouth. It was the power of the amulet, activated by the goodness and light in your soul, William," she said, nodding her head. "I felt it. Moments before the end, I held your hand, and I felt your soul enter mine, before you sent me away. To save me, to live. You said I had to live for both of us. That connected us forever, William, do you understand?" she asked, as he shook his head.

She crawled over to him, and grabbed his hand, and interlacing her fingers with his. Like then, her fingers urged his own, to close around hers. He wouldn't, only looked down at their hands, then back to her.

"Tell me how I got my soul back," he said, pulling his hand away.

"It’s not just that you got it back, William, but that as far as anybody knows, you’re the only vampire in history, to have ever voluntarily done so," she answered, retreating back to her spot in front of the couch.

"You mean there were others, who got their souls back?"

"Only one, that I know of, and his was a curse. He’d killed the daughter of a Gypsy, who then cursed his soul back into him; but that’s another story, another vampire. As for you...you went to the other side of the world to seek out a legend, you told me. Africa, I believe. There, you had to endure trials and torture, and when you’d prevailed, the demon or whatever it was, returned your soul to you."

"Why? Why did I do it?"

"You said you did it in order to give me what I deserved, because I couldn’t, I didn’t trust you without it," she said, her voice barely perceptible. "Maybe I should’ve tried harder...

He looked at her, "Why? Why would you have? How could you have even...?"

"It’s late," she said, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the couch."

He snorted, "Been late for a long time," he answered. "Too late," he added bitterly, glancing up at her.

"Please," she said, shivering from his words, as much as the chill in the room, "please don’t say that."

"Why not? Did you think that we were just going to go on like before? Me being blind to the truth, and you letting me? The happy couple?" he asked, in a voice hoarse from crying, lack of sleep, and thirst.

She sniffed back her own tears, "I don’t know. All I know is that we’ll get through this; I swear it! It’s you and it’s me, we’ll get through it."

He looked at her and shook his head sadly, "Never."

END CHAPTER 148