And Are We Yet Alive?

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Summary: Spike meets up with Giles and Willow in Devon, post Africa.

AUTHOR: Elsa Frohman
EMAIL: elsa@frohman.net
RATING: G
PAIRING: Spike, Willow
SPOILERS: Through end of S6
DISCLAIMER: We don't need no steeking disclaimer.
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What troubles have we seen,
What mighty conflicts past,
Fightings without, and fears within,
Since we assembled last!

-- Exerpt from "And Are We Yet Alive?" Charles Wesley,
Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1749.

Night rested softly on the moor, silver moonlight frosting the rolling terrain. It was a warm night, still and fragrant with the scent of wild flowers and fresh grass. The cattle in this meadow were sleeping. Spike closed the gate behind him and continued along the footpath. The copse of trees he was headed for was visible in the pale light ahead. He walked quietly -- his Doc Martens making little or no sound on the packed dirt of the path, a solitary figure in blue jeans and a chambray shirt.

They'd told him back in Exeter where the coven held its rituals. And they'd warned him that the witches didn't like to be disturbed when they were worshipping. They'd eyed him with suspicion -- a stranger asking about their local coven of witches. But they'd told him where to go all the same.

"Aye, it'll be you, not them tha' suffers if you disturb them, an' you're not welcome," the barman had said.

Spike doubted he would be welcome. White witches and vampires were clearly unmixy things. But when had that stopped him?

It had been a long journey: Uganda to Morocco on a series of buses and trains; a ferry from Tangier to Gibraltar; a train to the mountainous area that separated Spain from France; across the border on foot (no passport and no identity was a definite disadvantage for a traveler in this age of nationalist paranoia); another train to Avignon; slipping through the Chunnel with a group of refugees; a train from Victoria Station to Bath; finding out from Giles' landlady that he had been in Devon for weeks; walking through the villages of the southern coast, asking after the former Watcher at every pub.

He supposed he could have waited for a better time, now that he had talked to people who had seen the man he sought just a few hours ago -- but he'd been on this quest for a while, and patience was not in his nature.

He could hear soft voices chanting as he approached the sacred grove. The rhythmic rise and fall of ancient words drifted on the breeze. A human might not have heard it at all. A human might have stayed on the path to the next village, never aware that elder powers were gathering in the trees to the south of the path.

Spike hesitated a moment. The kind of power they were summoning was not kind to vampires. If he intruded now, he might find himself face-to-face with something that would take him apart bit by bit. Bugger that -- if it was going to do him, it would. It was time to finish this.

The voices stopped as he stepped through the trees into the open space within. The witches were huddled together, gathered around something hidden from Spike's view. Fourteen faces turned to see him.

"Vampire! Why to you come where YOU DO NOT BELONG?" said a commanding female voice.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, ladies. I mean no harm. Only came to have a few words with your gentleman friend."

Rupert Giles stepped out of the knot of women. "Spike! Is that you?"

"None other than, Rupes. Let the ladies get back to their group chant and come over here and talk to me."

"You're interrupting something rather important here, Spike. Go back to Exeter. I'll talk to you when I get back to my room above the Gathering Arms."

"Spike?"

The familiar voice came from the center of the group of women. The witches parted and Willow stepped out to peer through the pale moonlight at him. She was dressed like the other witches, in a simple white gown. Her red hair was loose around a face that looked like it hadn't smiled in ages.

"That you, Red?"

Willow started toward him, then stopped in her tracks.

"That's not Spike. Who are you? Why are you disguised as Spike?" Willow backed up a step, her face suddenly showing fear. "You're a changeling! It's a trick! That isn't Spike!" she said in increasing panic.

"Not Spike?" Giles gave him a suspicious look. "Why don't you think that's Spike?" he said slowly.

The witches had gathered protectively around Willow again. They regarded their intruder with increasing hostility.

"I know Spike's aura. That's not him."

"Yes it is," Spike replied. "The one and only. Ask me anything. I'll prove I'm who I am."

Giles thought for a moment. "How much did I pay you when you helped me when I was transformed into a demon?"

"Three hundred dollars -- but you took most of it back when I needed help getting the Initiative off my ass."

"Correct -- but I supposed you might have taken Spike's memories along with his looks."

"Nobody would want them, mate. Believe me, if I could get rid of them I would."

An older woman separated herself from the group protecting Willow. Her steel gray hair was pulled back from a severe face. She walked with stiff dignity, approaching Spike and looking him up and down.

"Who are you?"

"Spike. Also known as William the Bloody, the Scourge of Europe, Slayer of Slayers. But don't let the titles fool you. I'm a pathetic punter."

"You are not Angelus."

"Got that right." Spike said with a frown of disgust.

"We were given to know that Angelus was the only vampire with a soul."

"Guess your info is out of date."

"A soul?" Giles asked. "You have a soul?"

Spike nodded. "Wasn't going to say anything about it. Didn't think anyone would believe me. But, yeah, I've got a soul
now."

"You've been cursed?"

"No, not a curse. My choice."

"This has not been foretold," the woman said. "We must seek guidance." She clapped her hands. "We cannot continue the ritual tonight. The energies have been disturbed."

"Sorry to bugger up your little group chant," Spike said, quietly.

"Why do you come here?" the woman said, fixing Spike with a hostile stare.

"Just what I said. I need to talk to Rupert here. Don't mean any harm to your little girls club."

"You would be most unwise to do harm to anyone here," the woman replied.

"None intended. I'm out of the harm business. Just came looking for Rupert here. Need some help. I don't guess he'd call me a friend -- after all that's happened, I don't know there's anybody left who would call me a friend -- but he's helped me in the past, and I hope I can appeal to him to help me again."

"A soul? You chose to have a soul?" Giles said, clearly having trouble digesting that last bit of information.

"Yeah. There's a demon down in Uganda hands 'em out."

"Really?" the old woman said, registering some surprise. "I've always thought he was a sham. Never heard of anyone surviving the trials and actually getting the payoff before."

"I'm here, and you seem to be smelling my soul, so must be true."

"We can do no more here tonight," the woman said.

"Rupert, take Willow back to town. We will further examine this creature," she added, looking directly at Spike.

"Like hell, you will. I'll be goin' back with them."

Giles turned to the coven leader. "Let him go with us, Ellen. I'll vouch for him. Perhaps I can prevail upon him to let you examine him later."

"Like hell," Spike growled.

Giles took his arm and led him away from the witches. "Keep your mouth shut," he whispered. "You're lucky to be getting away with your life -- or unlife, as the case may be. The coven doesn't take kindly to vampires, souled or otherwise."

Willow caught up with them.

"You're really Spike?" she said in a tiny, plaintive voice.

"Yeah -- you seem a bit different yourself, Red. What's happened to you? What are you doing here? Didn't think I'd run into you outside SunnyD."

They walked back to the footpath and started back toward
town.

"What's happened to me -- got a month?"

"To put things concisely, Willow had a bit of a dark magic relapse. The coven has been conducting weekly rituals to cleanse her. It's difficult with the amount of dark magic she channeled. There will have to be many more cleansings."

"Giles is being nice," Willow said glumly. "They keep trying to cleanse me, but I'm still hanging on to the corrupt essence. Can't seem to make myself let it go. They start getting inside me and I start getting scared and I shut down and cast them out. They've got an inhibiting spell on me so I can't do any harm, but I'm not getting any better."

"It will take time," Giles said patiently. "If you stay the course, I'm sure we'll succeed in the end."

They walked in silence for a while.

"What do you want help with, Spike?"

"I need to establish an identity," the vampire said. "I thought you might have some contacts. I'll never get back into the United States without documents, the way things are now."

"How did you get out?"

"Cargo."

"Can't go back that way?"

"They're a lot more careful about checking the containers going in than coming out."

"Yes, I suppose they would be. Are you sure going back -- and I'm assuming here you're planning to go back to Sunnydale -- is a good idea?"

"You heard about what I did..."

"Yes, Buffy told me what happened. I'm not sure you should go back."

"I have to go back. How can I make amends if I don't?"

"Sometimes staying away is the best thing you can do."

"No. Not for me. Not for Buffy. I have to go back."

They walked on, letting the quiet of the empty moor surround them.

"Spike's right. I have to go back, too. I have so much to make up for," Willow said softly.

"You're not ready, yet. If you go back before you've been healed, it will only be a matter of time before you'll have another episode," Giles said.

"I know. But when it's done, I've got to go back. I've got to let Dawn know I didn't mean those horrible things I said. I've got to let Buffy know I still want to be her friend. And somehow, I've got to make up for what I did ... to Warren -- and even to Rack."

"Warren? Rack? What did you do?" Spike asked.

Giles stepped in. "Suffice it to say, Willow has some fences to mend."

"I'm sure whatever you did is nothing compared to what I've done," Spike said gently. "You'll manage to make it right."

"Are you going to try to make everything you've done right, Spike?" Giles asked.

Spike shook his head. "Don't see how I can. Most of the people I've harmed are dead and gone. Can't do anything about that. All I can do is see that I don't do any more harm -- and try to use what resources I have to make things better. Not for the specific people I've wronged, for everybody."

"People who aren't us?"

"Yeah, them -- whoever they are."

"You probably don't know," Giles said as they walked on. "Tara is dead."

Spike stopped in his tracks. "No! I'm sorry, Red. I know that must have been awful for you. What happened?"

"Warren killed her," Giles explained. "And Willow killed Warren. And later, Rack."

Spike nodded. "Vengeance. I'd have done the same, Red, if it makes any difference to you."

"Vengeance is not a good thing," Willow said. "I think I've got that now."

"Do you?" Giles asked. "I keep wondering. I think when you've really learned that -- made it part of you -- the coven will be able to complete the cleansing."

"Hard thing to let go of," Spike said. "Even now, with all these do-good impulses running my thoughts -- if someone killed Buffy, I don't think they'd be safe from me. Even with this chip
in my head."

"How do you live with it?" Willow asked. "All the people you've hurt and killed. I've got two on my conscience, and it's killing me. How do you live with the hundreds?"

"Not hundreds, love, thousands. A hundred and eighteen years times three hundred and sixty-five days. Maybe I didn't kill anybody some days, but there were enough days that I killed more than one to make up the difference. You do the maths.

"How do I live with it? I just do. I'm not going to be like Angel -- sitting in the dark and punishing myself. That doesn't do any good -- not for me or anybody else. Wouldn't have been much point to trying to get a soul if that's all I was going to do with it. I could have taken myself out of the game a lot easier by
staying outside to greet the sunrise. The multitude of my victims -- it isn't like having one apple or two apples or a bushel. I've killed. That's all there is to it. How many isn't important. Killing one person -- deliberately -- is no different from killing a thousand."

"That's all? Just do it?" Willow asked. "There's got to be more to it than that."

"Depth of mercy! can there be," Spike recited.
"Mercy still reserved for me?
"Can my God his wrath forbear?
"Me, the chief of sinners, spare?
"I have long withstood his grace,
"Long provoked him to his face,
"Would not hearken to his calls,
"Grieved him by a thousand falls.

"Pity from thine eye let fall,
"By a look my soul recall;
"Now the stone to flesh convert,
"Cast a look, and break my heart.
"Now incline me to repent,
"Let me now my fall lament,
"Now my foul revolt deplore,
"Weep, believe, and sin no more."

Giles looked at Spike in surprise. "I never thought I'd live to hear a vampire quoting the Methodist Hymnal."

Spike shrugged. "Can't say I've got religion, but the sentiment fits."

"Oh, right. Don't suppose you've got any Jewish cultural references to offer."

"Does it matter, Red? I'm certainly not a Christian myself -- and certainly never was a Methodist. The point is, you just have to go on. You can't go back and change anything. You have to make up your mind to break with the past and do better -- or give up and die."

Willow was silent for a while. Then a sob escaped her. She stopped and covered her face with her hands.

"I can't. I do that. The past is where Tara is. I can't just leave her behind."

"You don't have to," Spike said gently. "Breaking with the past doesn't mean forgetting the people you've loved. You carry them with you -- always. Tara is still with you. Even if you love someone else someday. The people we love and who have loved us are ours to keep -- forever.

"The question is, will you honor what she meant to you by killing the person she loved? Or will you go forward and live the way she would have wanted you to?"

"You make it sound easy."

"Hardest thing there is, pet."

The lights of the village loomed ahead.

"All this wisdom," Giles said as they passed into the yellow light of street lamps. "I suppose you got it with your soul?"

Spike shook his head. "Don't know anything now I didn't know before. The soul comes without any flash of insight, no user manual, no halo, no certificate of authenticity. All I got was the sense that for once in my life, I'd done something that was completely right. Never felt that before."

"That's all? I would have thought it would have been more profound."

"It is profound, Rupert. I did something that was completely right. I am worth something. I am somebody. I matter.

"Being a vampire is sort of existential. Nothing matters, you're dead already, your destiny is disconnected. So why not do what ever you want?

"But I know now that I do matter. What I do makes a difference. So I have to consider what I do and try to make sure I do it right."

"I've got a soul. Always had one. Why don't I feel that?" Willow asked plaintively.

"Have you ever noticed how when you're in a room with a strong odor, after a few minutes you don't smell it any more?" Spike asked. "I think that's how you are with your soul. You need to stop and look for it. Look deep enough, and you'll find it."

They were outside the Gathering Arms.

"You staying here with Rupert?" Spike asked Willow.

"Separate rooms," she answered with a smile.

"Think they've got another?"

"We'll ask," Giles said. "Come on in. We'll have a drink before we turn in."

"I'm going up now," Willow said. "Pretty tired. Nice seeing you again, Spike. I think I've missed you. I think I've been missing you ever since Buffy came back. Isn't that funny? I think we've all missed you."

"I think Harris ain't missing me much."

"Oh, I don't know. Give him a chance. He may come around. If you can come to terms with all you've done, then maybe I can too. And if I can, surely he can. And Buffy and Anya. We've all done bad things. Seeing you -- well, I think I'm finally feeling some hope that things can get better."

"Thanks, Red. Nicest thing anyone ever said to me."

The End

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Elsa Frohman - elsa@frohman.net