Chapter Ten
----====Spike====----
I saw the Watcher take the phone out into the garden. His face looked lighter at the prospect of the break. He deserved it after all we'd put him through in the last few hours, especially me after my little breakdown. It was appropriate really that I'd had my meltdown in a bathroom; it was another one that had sent me to Africa in the first place after all. Actually, just thinking that thought made me feel sick again.
I didn't deserve this kindness from Giles; it was what broke me. I didn't deserve kindness from anyone - not after everything I did for one hundred and twenty years. I certainly didn't deserve it from him - not after how I betrayed him, and his, to Adam after he took me in. After what I did in Buffy's bathroom, he should have staked me on sight. That was the only thing worth doing to me, and it would have stopped the pain.
But the thing I did deserve was to suffer through the pain. The peace of staking would have been too good for me after all I've done. In Africa, I'd made the decision to carry on with this miserable excuse for a half-life. I'd done it with my own soul-guaranteed free-will - acceptable to all as valid, hopefully. It was my call; and I wanted to make some kind of amends to the people I hurt so badly, so I had to live with the guilt and the anguish. No get out clause on the soul, or my decision. I made it at the top of a mountain in Africa, now I had to live up to that promise to myself. I had to live with the consequences.
Making the decision was much easier; this was hard.
It was hard being around Giles. I'd hurt him and the people we both love. The guilt about that, on top of everything else I did in all those years of blood, tore me apart. I remembered how good it felt when he hugged me before I left the Magic Box, when I thought I had a Dad. When we got our memories back, and I remembered how much he despised me, and wouldn't want my opinion in a month of Sundays - that hurt. I know now that I deserved that, and that he was right, but it still hurt.
The expression on his face when Wes let slip about my new possession was amazing. He saw me. That was a sweet feeling - hurt like buggery, but in a good way.
I'm still a bit pissed off with Wesley for blurting it out like that.
It was one thing to tell a stranger I only knew second-hand about the soul. He didn't know me, the evil, bloodsucking, unclean, thing - we got a fresh start so to say. He didn't know the difference. He wouldn't have been able to tell if there was one. I had to live with the difference inside me - and it's reality.
But I was terrified that someone who knew me, even if they hated me, wouldn't be able to see any difference, and that would have made it not real, and that I'd just finally flipped and followed Dru into the land of the pixies - not that I've seen any yet.
I'm not sure I could have taken it if Giles hadn't seen that it was real. If he couldn't, Buffy never would - although I wasn't ready to tell her. I wasn't sure I ever would be - she'd probably just laugh at the stupid vampire who thought he could make it all magically better with a soul.
Right then, out of everyone I'd hurt, Giles was all I could cope with, and he hadn't laughed. If he had, I wasn't sure what I'd have done. Belting me one, I could have lived with - I'd have deserved it, but laughter would have broken me.
Giles didn't laugh, he accepted me. Nobody ever accepted me, but he did, and that meant everything. He took me in despite all that I did back in Sunnydale, even before he knew about the soul, just because I needed help, and Wes too of course. Then there were the little things that meant everything, like getting me some Weetabix, even though adding it to the blood grossed him out. He bought me blood. He let me into his home, and tried to make me feel better when I made a complete exhibition of myself. I couldn't repay all that, but I intended to do my utmost to try. And that could be pretty effective if I didn't have to do the planning bit - which has never exactly been my forte.
I wasn't exactly at the top of my form, but maybe something I'd come across in a century plus in the demon world might just help him, and Wes, to work out what the hell was going on. I owed it to Giles to try at least. Besides the bastards might just hurt Buffy and Dawn, and that had happened enough - I should know. They could attack me all they liked - the fights had been fun, and had actually made me feel better for a while - but nobody threatened my girls, even if I had no right to call them that.
So I pulled myself together, and looked at the computer screen again. I had to do my bit in the fight against the mentholated maniacs out to get us. I also really badly needed something to focus on. This did the trick.
***
----====Wesley====----
I looked up at the vampire. He was clearly under strain. Despite my previous promise to myself not to try to help Spike, I found I couldn't pretend to ignore his condition.
"Would it help to talk about it?" I asked cautiously.
"Probably," he admitted, "But not right now." I nodded, accepting this.
We were using the sitting room of this Council safe-house as our research headquarters. Spike had taken on my laptop after I connected the modem card, while I returned to the stolen PDA. When Giles returned, I allocated him the simple task of data entry into the Access database I had quickly contrived on his laptop. He didn't argue; and I noted that he looked tired.
I frowned in realisation at the trouble we had really quite consciously brought into his life. What right had we to ask all this of him? The man was enjoying a partial retirement, and apparently engaged in some kind of romantic endeavour with the vaguely familiar woman who had been accompanying him in Bath... and who disappeared.
We had thoughtlessly descended upon him with our demonic trail, and our ridiculously oversized emotional baggage.
You'd think that it would be possible to fill up on guilt, to reach a point where it was impossible to contain any more. But there's always room for another wafer-thin mint of blame.
We worked with the addresses first; it was a long list. There was a mixture of organisations and individuals, and many entries included a brief alpha-numeric code within the usually redundant 'pager' cell, which we could find no key to explain. I had ensured that the spreadsheet on Giles' machine had columns for these mysterious figures.
I scrolled through the names from beginning to end, scanning for people or groups I recognised. I saw several. With a shock that left me momentarily speechless, I discovered that I myself was listed, both with my home address and as the manager of Angel Investigations. The code by my name was 'P1A', and I strongly wanted to know what it meant.
The other two looked at me, concerned and curious. Giles enquired, "Wesley, is there something wrong?"
"I don't know why I'm surprised really," I replied numbly. "It's obvious I would be listed." I turned the PDA around so that they could see the screen.
Giles frowned, and Spike said thoughtfully, "So we can guess that others with the same mystery field code as yours might also be blokes they want to recruit." I nodded agreement to the vampire's conclusion.
Spike, surprisingly Internet-aware for a century old being, ran map searches online. He was trying to fix locations and look for hot-spots, which all took some time. Some of the European addresses didn’t register on any of the sites, and so Giles made notes for more old-fashioned investigation later. The American locations were easier.
Predictably, there was a cluster of addresses in Sunnydale, California. Three businesses that the other two recognised, and a handful of individuals whose names, apparently, were not so familiar. As Giles pointed out, if there was to be a new kind of demon arising, the Hellmouth would be the obvious place to look for it.
Spike was instantly on edge with the topic of Sunnydale and spun out of his chair. He started pacing again and shakily lit up a cigarette. I feigned a cough. I knew he was upset, but that was no excuse to poison the rest of us. He threw me a glance straight from his demon within, but he kept moving – up, around, back, around. Then on one of his lightning turns, he announced,
"Rupert, you have to tell her."
Giles looked up. "I assume you mean Buffy."
He shivered as if frost-burned "Yeah. She... all of them could be in danger. The Scoobies. If the demonic bastards are going after AI people..."
I frowned, thinking about the lack of Scooby names on the address list we were transposing. "I don't think they're in any immediate danger, as far as we know." I waved a plume of smoke away.
"You don’t know though, do you, Junior?" Now that was a nasty tone of voice.
I replied coldly, "I would suggest that you stop calling me 'Junior', Spike."
Spike flicked another razor-glance in my direction, clearly peeved with me, yet more immediately distressed by something else. He stopped prowling, and grasped the back of his chair, knuckles going white from pressure. "You bloody have to tell her, Rupert," he said in a low and very strained voice.
"I'll ensure she knows," Giles reassured him, making sure he gained eye contact first.
The vampire nodded, and stalked off to the kitchen. I realised that I had become tensed, almost combat ready, during that encounter, and I forced my muscles to relax.