ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 180 - NIGHTMARES, REDUX

DECEMBER 12, 2009
FRIDAY
2:00PM

Giles put down the file he'd been looking at, and picked up the remote. Clicking on the screen, he flipped through the channels, all linked to the lower levels of the Council, until he came to the third floor. He zoomed in to watch William fencing with one of the latest arrivals of slayers, this one from Amsterdam.

Giles recognized from the beginning of his stay that William wasn't only in search of answers to reconcile his past, but to find some meaning in this life. He also realized that had William’s quest only been about love, he could’ve easily stayed with Buffy. However, it went much deeper than that, because of who he was, and more importantly, who he’d been. As if she were his own daughter, he hurt for Buffy knowing how she must be suffering. Yet, he also found himself respecting William for trying to do what was right for both their sakes. He also knew that eventually, Buffy would find out his hand in what she would likely perceive as another betrayal by him, and that there was a good chance that any fragile trust he’d hoped to build with her again would be gone for good.

After his eyes had been opened to that, and seeing William desperately in need of guidance and some way to feel useful, he asked for his assistance in training the slayers. At first, William was loath to have much contact with the slayers at all, considering what he now knew of his, rather Spike’s, history in regards to them. However, Giles was able to appeal to his vanity.

“You ever fence?” he’d asked William, already knowing the answer.

“I took it in secondary school, then again at Oxford. More recently, Elizabeth and I took a class last summer.”

“That’s something we seem to be woefully lacking; someone who can teach the girls fencing. Don’t suppose you’d be interested, would you?”

“Me? You want me to teach them fencing? I don’t know, Giles,” William said, shaking his head.

Giles had let out a resigned sigh, “A pity,” he’s said, venturing a look out of the corner of his eye at William.

“But you fence, don’t you? Why can’t you...?”

“I do, um...rather I did. I’m afraid I have a trick knee, which prevents me from overexerting it. I suppose I could just hire someone outside The Council, or send the girls to a fencing academy, but it would’ve been nice if they could’ve be taught by someone who doesn’t just know proper form, but who also knows how to wield a sword when fighting demons.”

A few days later, William had brought up the offer to Giles himself, consenting to work with the slayers.

“One thing, Giles,” he said, fidgeting, apparently uncomfortable, “I’ve seen how they look at me, like I’m some...I don’t know, rock star; some sort of...”

“Hero?”

William acknowledged this, with a slight nod of his head.

“I’m not a bloody hero; I don’t want them...”

“I’ll talk to them, William,” Giles assured, and he had. He’d let the girls know that any undue response to William as though he were Spike, or as some object of hero worship would only serve to make William less likely to work with them.

“But he is a hero, Mr. Giles,” Vi had said, adamantly, and the other slayers nodded their agreement.

“That may very well be, but William doesn’t see it that way. I believe he sees it as Spike may have done this magnanimously, selfless thing, but that he was also a murderer for over one hundred years; and of your kind as well. You’d best not forget that. “

“But he didn’t have a soul then,” another slayer piped up.

And there it was again, that four-letter word - soul.

“I understand that, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is how William feels about it now, right?”

“So how do you want us to treat him?”

“Just like any other person. I think that should do for a start, don’t you?”


Now as Giles watched William and the slayer on the monitor, he couldn’t help feeling just a bit pleased with himself about how he’d gone about getting him to consent to work with the slayers. Not only that, but as good as William was with deciphering demon code - almost as good as Willow had been - it was a bookish pursuit. Being like-minded himself, he didn’t disparage such things. On the contrary, he understood them perfectly. Still, he understood that physically working out his frustrations, was also a worthwhile thing for William to be doing at this juncture.

It hadn’t taken long before he’d also begun to spar with the girls. Giles realized that watching William was almost like watching Spike. His grace as he circled the girls, easily dodging their blows, was a thing to behold. Even though William didn’t have Spike’s supernatural strength anymore, he still had that uncanny agility that had made him a vampire to be reckoned with.

Soon, a discernible pattern began to take shape. After they would talk about the past, Spike’s past, William would withdraw for a couple of days, staying away from The Council and the slayers. Then when William had processed whatever it was, he would turn up at dinner one afternoon, accompanying Giles back to work as though nothing had been amiss.

He also knew that William had heard from Buffy by email at least once; probably more, as he’d asked him about that a while back. That had also seemed to deeply affect him, and Giles suspected William was strongly fighting the urge to return to her, but was frightened. Of what, he wasn’t sure; it was just a feeling he had.

Finally, a few days ago, William had confessed to him about the nightmares he’d been having, starting before he’d found out he was a vampire, and increasing in horrifying vividness and terror after the incident that had brought it all to the fore.

“As you know, I first left a few weeks after it happened; when I found out everything. I couldn’t stand to be around Elizabeth, knowing what I’d been, what I’d done to countless, innocent people. I was afraid to accept her solace, afraid to need, and frankly, also upset to find she’d ever entered into relationships with vampires in the first place. I judged her, Giles. Me, of all people.” he said, sadly shaking his head.

The irony was not lost on Giles. He, who, time after time had warned Buffy about entering into relationships with both Angel, then later Spike. Of course, with Spike, she’d already become deeply involved before he’d ever known. With Angel, well, that had been another lifetime ago, so it seemed.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I see I was just running scared. I didn’t want to leave her. God, I didn’t want to leave her,” he’d repeated, putting his head into his hands.

“Later, Elizabeth found me in Los Angeles. You probably know what a bloody mess I was,” William said, looking up at Giles.

“Um...yes. Buffy called me afterwards. She was quite concerned.”

William stared at the carpet, shamed far beyond what Giles most likely had been told.

William continued in an almost inaudible voice, “Then, this last time, when I found Elizabeth so ill, I really wanted to stay. Despite the circumstances, things between us were...good, really good. It felt like we were almost back to normal,” he’d said, smiling briefly at what must have been a good memory for him. The smile had quickly faded. “Then they started again... the nightmares.”

"How long have you been having them?" Giles asked.

"Ever since I came back, I guess," William answered. "At first; in the nightmares, I would be me, but I would also be watching myself, like one sometimes does in dreams. Only that me - the one I was watching - would turn into him, into Spike. I'd see him or Drusilla, or other vampires, killing; and in almost all of them, Elizabeth would die. If it were by another's hand, then I would be impotent to stop it. Otherwise, it was me - him -- who was doing the killing. I'd wake up terrified. I couldn't understand how I could love someone so much, yet dream I was this...this thing that would kill...like that," he said, shuddering.

"Did Buffy know about the nightmares?"

William nodded, "She knew. She couldn't help but know. I'd come out of them by her shaking me awake sometimes; comforting me. She didn't know all the ones I had, and I never volunteered the specifics. Though once, a few weeks after we returned to Julian...guess it was right after I’d met Edna again...I had one of the worst nightmares I’d had up to that point. That time I told her that I’d dreamed I’d hurt her, and asked her if Spike had actually ever hurt her before."

"And what was her response?" Giles asked.

"She told me that Spike wouldn’t hurt her, and neither would I. That's not quite the truth though, is it?" he asked, his voice harsh.

Giles took a deep breath, as he collected his thoughts. No way was he going to tread those murky waters

“Although I was Buffy’s Watcher for a number of years, I’ve come to realize that there was a bond, a level of intimacy between you, and I'm not speaking of only in the physical sense, that started even before you got your soul. I shan’t attempt to speak to that which went on between you that I was not privy to,” Giles said, therefore, deftly evading the worst; most of which he’d only heard second hand.

“If there is something that warrants such discussion, then those matters are strictly for you and Buffy to come to terms with,” Giles said firmly.

William looked into Giles eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Fair enough.”

"What I will speak to is this: for all of Spike's braggadocio about killing the next slayer on his list, that being Buffy; in all honesty, you...I mean he... never got very far. That's not to say that you never hurt her, or intended to. In my viewpoint, even when chipped, you did plenty to put Buffy in harms way. You allied yourself with those who would try to take her down when you were no longer able to, and more than once you tried to drive a wedge between her and her friends. On the other hand, by either true lack of willingness, or your poor planning, you never quite seemed able to go through it. On more than one occasion, at the last minute, you'd fling yourself into the fray, siding with Buffy against those that might have done her in for good.”

“In retrospect, the first time I ever considered that Spike really might not be in it all for purely self-serving reasons was when you...er, he, nearly let himself be killed. Rather than reveal to Glory that Dawn was The Key; Spike let himself be tortured, even when there was no apparent gain to be had.”

"Spike loved Dawn," William said simply.

"Yes, I do believe that you did, even as Spike, but by all intents, you shouldn't have."

"Because I was a vampire? Or because I didn't have a soul?"

“Well, that my dear boy,” Giles said, taking off his glasses, and placing them on the desk, “is your million dollar question, isn’t it?”

William slowly nodded his head.

"Getting back to your nightmares; it would appear to me that your subconscious is trying to suppress memories it still must carry from when you were a vampire. As much as I'm loath to say it, that the content of those nightmares includes killing Buffy is quite understandable."

William shot him a surprised look.

"What I mean," Giles explained, "is that trying to kill each other is the usual nature of relations between vampire and slayer."

William rose from the chair, and nervously paced the parlor, stopping in front of the fireplace. “See, the thing is, I would tend to agree with you, if they’d stayed the same, but they changed,” William said, absentmindedly watching the flames dance over the logs.

“How?” Giles asked.

“Before Drusilla, before I found out what I’d been, I would be as horrified in my nightmares, as I would be when I’d awaken from them.”

“And now?”

“And now, in them I feel the hate, the desire to do evil, be evil; overwhelming, unquenchable, and undeniable. I feel the thrill of the kill. Now in my nightmares I’m not horrified. Quite the contrary; I revel in the power; in the bloodlust, in the killing...in killing her,” William said, in a voice filled with anguish.

Giles felt his blood run cold. The little veins in his temples throbbed silently in anger, fueled more by his former disgust and loathing of Spike, than in William's confessional.

“Still,” Giles said quickly, his calm voice reigning in his errant emotions before they became evident; “you’ve only felt this way in your nightmares, correct? The urge to do Buffy, or anyone else any harm while awake hasn't changed has it?”

“No, of course not! Most definitely not!” William denied vehemently, as he turned around to face Giles. Hesitantly, and with great sorrow in his voice, he added, “But, I can’t really be sure what it means now, can I? That’s why I couldn’t possibly stay. I didn’t know; still don’t know, if Elizabeth will be safe with me around in the future.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Good-night, William. Try not to worry too much,” Giles called, watching as William silently made his way up the stairs. He’d tried to assure him that nothing pointed to his nightmares being anything other than just that. However, he himself was still bothered.

Giles made his way back into the study, pouring himself a stiff drink before settling down behind his desk. Withdrawing a key chain from his inner jacket pocket, he carefully unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. Lifting off the false bottom, he pulled out the folder he had started keeping on William before he arrived. He felt a pang of guilt every time he saw it as he remembered Buffy’s words to him, before she’d told him about William.

"This is my life Giles, mine and William's. It's private, shared only with a few close people. It's not to be dissected, speculated upon, written about, or otherwise discussed with anyone, understood? Promise me Giles, no matter what!”

He tried to comfort himself that he hadn’t totally gone back on his word to Buffy; the folder he had started keeping on William, was for his eyes alone, not the Council’s in general. However, in order for him to think rationally about this turn of events, it was necessary to have a place to start. That place was usually with the written word of recorded events; and that meant him doing the recording.

He flipped back at the scattered notes he’d taken right after Buffy called him to tell him that they’d been attacked. At that point, he’d also tried to reconstruct the things he could recall her telling him the previous spring from memory.

‘On their cross-country drive back to California, Buffy said that whilst at the Grand Canyon, William had what could only be called a most dramatic episode of memory fusion/confusion. Buffy stated that William reacted as though he were once again Spike; reliving the last battle which took place five years previous on Sunnydale’s Hellmouth. The episode left him temporarily catatonic. Afterwards, when he came to, he didn’t recall anything of it.

As for nightmares, William seems to have had them when they first returned to Julian. Though, by last March, Buffy stated they appeared to have ceased altogether. It was her contention, at that point, to not tell William about his past at all, despite my advising her to the contrary.

Note: William’s nightmares have appeared to be the only evidence that he still carries actual memories of his years as Spike; otherwise, his only memories were of his human years from approximately 1852 -1880, and those since he came back.’

“Came back, came back,” Giles mumbled to himself, as he looked for the copy of the Shanshu Prophecy he had gotten from Willow. He quickly read through it, stopping when he got to the end. There it was the mention of the prophecy’s two-year condition, seemingly simple, yet maddeningly vague.

Giles tapped his fingers along the edge of his desk as he stared at the words. There just had to be something he was missing. Unfortunately, he couldn’t very well call Willow for any clarification she might lend to the situation, without alerting her, and hence, Buffy, to the fact that he had been in contact with William, to say the least.

Giles glanced at the mantle’s clock, then took out his cell phone. He punched in the prefix for the States, then the rest of the number to the one person who might be able to help.

END CHAPTER 180