Vengeance

Home : Stories by Author : Stories by Elsa Frohman : Vengeance

Summary: What is the price of a mother's life?

AUTHOR: Elsa Frohman
EMAIL: elsa@frohman.net
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Buffy/Spike
SPOILERS: 'First Date' Season 7.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was inspired by Colleen's "Choose" yesterday, so I wrote out my imaginary ending for the Spike/Wood arc. I'm reasonably certain this isn't the way it's going to play out -- what can I say, my imagination is an optimist. :-) Thanks to my beta reader Jan for some very good tweaks.
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Robin Wood waited in the shadows in the alley behind the Bronze. He'd made the call, now all that remained was for the vampire to arrive.

How long had he waited for this night? Most of his life, that's how long. He'd known through all those empty years growing up in the home of his mother's Watcher -- who regarded him as a duty rather than a member of his family -- that this day would come. He'd searched for a decade, and even when he'd put the search aside, he'd still known this day would come.

And now, it was here. He clutched the stake hidden under his coat. The wood was reassuring and solid, and it was sharpened to a fine point. This would be the night when he paid back the monster who robbed him of his childhood. Tonight, he would destroy the undead creature that killed his mother.

He leaned back against the cool cinderblock and calmed himself. He had to be centered. This wasn't just any vampire. It was a vampire who had killed a Slayer. Any hesitation on his part and the creature would add him to its victims. He had to be ready to strike when the vampire least expected it.

He took deep breaths and concentrated on keeping his heart beating slowly. He listened to the distant sounds of traffic and humanity, the barking of a dog blocks away, the hum of a transformer overhead, the low steady beat of the band playing inside the Bronze.

This was the night. Tonight, he would have his vengeance. There was so much the vampire had to answer for. His mother hadn't been there when he made the valedictory speech at his high school graduation. She hadn't been there when he graduated from college summa cum laude. She would have been proud, but she never got to see what sort of man her son grew up to be.

The vampire was going to pay.

He looked up when he heard a light footfall. The vampire came toward him, his bleached hair shining under the light of the street lamp. The same vampire who worked with Buffy Summers. He was going to have to find out how that came about. A Slayer sheltering a vamp. Something was seriously out of whack.

Spike stopped in front of him. The vampire was wearing a short, denim jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans -- except for the shirt, pretty much what he'd been wearing the night they'd rescued the construction worker from the demon. He was slight in build, but Wood wasn't fooled. He knew the kind of power a vampire had in a fight.

He had to be vigilant now. The slightest slip would cost him his life and allow this monster to walk free.

"So, what is it you needed to tell me, that you couldn't tell me over the phone?" Spike asked. His hands were in his pockets; his shoulders set with mild impatience.

Wood hesitated. How to start? He could simply whip the stake out from under his coat and plunge it into the vampire's heart before he knew anything was wrong -- but he wanted the creature to know why he was going to die. Just killing him wasn't enough.

"Were you in New York City in 1977?" Wood asked, trying to sound casual -- as if this was a minor question and the answer was trivial.

Spike's eyes widened. He took a step back.

"Wood... Nikki Wood. You're her son!"

"Don't say her name," Wood spat. "You aren't worthy to speak her name."

The vampire's face was a mask of pain. He looked down at the dirty pavement.

"No. I'm not."

Wood tensed. Don't try it now. He knows you're here to kill him. If you make your move now, he'll have you down before you get the stake out. Got to keep him wondering. Wait until he's off balance.

"Don't pretend you're sorry. I'm not buying it. I know your kind."

Spike looked him in the eye.

"I won't try to tell you I'm sorry, because it wouldn't matter. There's nothing I could possibly say that would make up for what I've done. I don't have any right to ask you to forgive me, so I won't."

The vampire was a wily one. He sounded sincere. If Wood didn't know that vampires were incapable of feeling remorse, he'd think Spike was suffering from the memory.

"You know why I called you, then," Wood said coldly.

"Yeah. Not too hard to figure that out. If it's any consolation, if I was in your place, I'd do the same."

"No, you wouldn't. You're nothing like me. You're evil. You're dead. You can't understand what you did. You can't comprehend the value of the life you ended."

"You're wrong about that. I can. That one, and all the others. Every one of them was somebody who had a right to live. Every one of them had people who loved them, people they loved. And if I go on another hundred years, there will still be nothing I can do to make up for even one of them. They were precious. They were unique. They were beautiful. They were God's creatures. And I destroyed them."

Wood frowned. He'd expected the monster to lie. He'd expected Spike to claim he wasn't the one. And even if the vampire was willing to admit what he'd done, Wood had expected contempt. The last thing he'd expected was sincere remorse.

But it didn't matter. It couldn't matter. She hadn't deserved to die that way. The vampire had to pay.

Wood nodded curtly. "So, we fight now," he said flatly.

"No. I'm not going to fight you. You do what you have to do."

The stake was solid in his hand. He took it out from under his coat. Spike stood there waiting for him to strike.

"I've been waiting for this day," Wood said quietly, still tense and ready for a sudden attack by the vampire. Maybe it would be better to keep him talking for a while. He was ready for it now.

"I think I saw you once," Spike said hesitantly.

"What?"

"The first time I saw her. She had a little boy with her."

"Yeah, probably me."

"She was walking down the street holding your hand, and you were fussing about something. I had no idea she was a Slayer.

"I'd just come up out of the subway. It was about four in the afternoon. Dru and me had a lair in a utility closet off one of the tunnels. It was summer, so it was still light, but the buildings were tall enough that I could come out in the late afternoon. It was hot that day, and humid, and I could smell onions frying somewhere nearby.

"You and your mum were across the street. I was hunting -- meant to catch someone and take 'em back to Dru, 'cause she wasn't feeling like going out -- and a mother and kid looked like just what Dru would like."

Wood listened transfixed. Was the vampire working a thrall on him? He should end this now, but he wanted to hear Spike's first impression of his mother.

"It was a scorcher that day. She was wearing a halter-top and jeans, and she was beautiful. Her skin was so smooth and dark. And she was built like a real woman." Spike paused for a moment, bringing the details of the scene back to his mind. "The kid, that'd be you, was holding an empty ice cream cone. Come to think of it, that's probably what you were fussing about -- dropped your ice cream."

Wood felt his stomach twist as the memory suddenly came back to him. He went cold for a second.

"Then the Grithnaks attacked us," Wood said, as the scene came into focus in his memory.

"Yeah," Spike said with a nod. "You remember then. I was just watching from the other side of the street. None of my business, after all. She picks you up and pops you into a garbage can and slams the lid on, then turns and faces down the Grithnaks. There were six of 'em. That's when I knew I was looking at a Slayer. She just wades in and starts taking them out."

"I didn't see anything after that," Wood said. "Just heard a lot of thumps and yells."

"Imagine so," Spike said. "It was quite a fight. But she was way out numbered. Grithnaks aren't all that tough, but there were six of them, and they were going to get her."

Wood looked at Spike in shock. "You were the one who helped her."

Spike nodded. "Yeah, I came across the street and took out a couple of the beasts. That evened it up enough that she got the rest."

"Why?"

"'Twasn't anything noble," Spike said, a faint look of disgust on his face. "I had a thing for Slayers. I wanted to make sure I was the one to kill her, so I made sure the Grishnaks didn't."

"But you let us go then."

"Yeah, wasn't about to fight a Slayer when she had her kid right there. Got better sense than to try to go after a lioness when she's with her cub."

Wood fought off any temptation to feel nostalgic. He could remember huddling frightened in that garbage can, the smell of rotting fruit and stale cigarette ashes surrounding him as he feared that any moment a demon would snatch the lid off and pull him out to tear him to bits. He'd been afraid for his mother, fighting against the monsters where he could only hear the impacts and couldn't see who was winning or losing. And when she'd finally freed him, he remembered the tense look on his mother's face. He'd had the sense that she'd been afraid -- probably because she was fighting not just to defend herself, but her child as well.

"That was weeks before she died," Wood said with a frown.

"Yeah. I hung around and watched her for quite a while. I always liked to get a sense for how the enemy fights. I stalked her, and I learned what she liked to do in a brawl, and what her weaknesses were."

"Weaknesses?"

"Didn't have many. She could fight, I'll tell you that. I've only seen one better in all my years."

"What else?"

"What do you mean?"

"What else did you learn about her?"

Spike shrugged. "That she liked Coney dogs from that place around the corner from where you lived. She liked music -- she'd always stop and listen when someone was playing a radio too loud. I'd see her sort of dancing, standing there on the sidewalk outside someone's window. Then she'd walk on, bouncing with the beat. And when she started to fight, she was all business. Every bit of her was a weapon. She'd shut down everything but her body, and she'd fight like her power was coming from somewhere else -- she was just channeling it. It was like the power was music, and she was dancing to it."

"If she was so good, how'd you take her out?" Wood asked, his jaws clenched.

"Somebody asked me that once before ..."

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Buffy came in the backdoor after patrol and rummaged in the refrigerator for something to eat. The locusts had beat her to it, though. Unless she was in the mood for the tablespoon of mayonnaise left in the bottom of the jar, or something green, fuzzy and possibly demonic stored in Tupperware at the back of the crisper, she was out of luck. Maybe she could talk someone into making a food run.

She shouted down the basement stairs. "Spike! Any chance you'd run for pizza?" She got silence for a reply.

Xander came in from the living room.

"He's not down there. I don't think he's back yet."

"Back? Where'd he go?"

"Your boss called earlier. You weren't here. He wanted something, so Spike went to meet him and see if he could help."

Buffy frowned.

"Help him with what?"

"Got the impression he didn't say. Spike had sort of a 'wonder what this is about,' look on his face when he left."

"Do you know where he went?"

"Is there a problem?"

"I don't know. I'm just not comfortable leaving Spike and Robin alone together. Robin's mother was killed by a vamp. I think he's got issues..."

Xander shrugged. "Said he was meeting him behind the Bronze."

Buffy was gone before Xander finished the sentence.

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The alley behind the Bronze was empty. Buffy stood there for several minutes trying to decide where she should look next. Inside seemed reasonable.

And it was. They were there at the bar. She couldn't have found too men more opposite in looks. Robin with his dark skin and smooth, shaven head. Spike with his pale skin, blue eyes and bleached waves. They sat on barstools facing one another, each with a beer at his elbow. Spike was talking, his eyes cast down, his face serious. He was hunched over slightly, looking miserable. Robin was watching him with eyes that bored into the vampire's face.

Neither man noticed her approach.

And as she walked up watching them, suddenly, she knew. She could have kicked herself for not realizing when Robin told her his mother had been a Slayer, and that she'd been killed by a vampire in New York. She went cold thinking what Robin must be thinking. Did Spike know who he was talking to?

"Um... hi..." Buffy said when she was next to them.

They both turned to look at her, regarding her with wide eyes, as if they'd been caught at something.

"You two getting to know each other?" she said lamely, as she grasped for a reason to insert herself in their conversation.

"Yeah, sort of," Spike said, turning back to the bar and taking a slug of his beer.

"Um... Robin, I think you should know..." Buffy started off, wondering how to tell Spike's story without sounding like it was coming out of left field.

"That Spike's the vampire who killed my mother," Robin said, finishing her sentence for her. "I know."

"Yes, but you should also know..."

"It's all right, Buffy," Spike said. "You don't have to defend me."

Buffy turned to Robin, who was studying his beer stein as if he'd never seen anything so fascinating.

"Oh... Then I guess I'll stop sticking my nose where it's not needed and leave you two..." Buffy said carefully.

She started to back away.

"Um, I think we've about covered it," Robin said. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and put several bills on the bar. "Can I walk you home, Buffy?"

Buffy looked from one man to the other. Spike was very carefully looking at anything but her.

"I don't exactly need an escort," Buffy said. "I'll see you at home, Spike."

Spike nodded.

Buffy paused and took another look at her boss and her ... what was Spike anyway? She couldn't begin to fathom what had happened between Spike and Robin, but she was certain it had been something powerful.

Robin turned to Buffy.

"The First came to me," he said to Buffy flatly. "I thought you should know that. It came in the form of my mother."

"That's how you knew..." Spike said.

"Yeah, that's how I knew."

"We've all got to be careful about acting on things the First tells us," Buffy said, still puzzled by Wood's intense expression.

"That's the thing, isn't it. It told me the truth. But finding the one -- it wasn't what I always thought it would be."

"You have a right to vengeance," Spike said quietly.

"Maybe, but ..." Robin fell silent, collecting his thoughts. "All these years I've been looking. All this time I thought what I owed her was killing the one who killed her. But if I killed you now, I wouldn't feel any better.

"I grew up without her. There was an empty spot in my life where she was supposed to be. But tonight, when you told me about her -- when you told me all the things you learned about her watching her before you killed her -- I felt more of a connection to her than I ever have before in my life. You took some of her with you, and you've kept it alive all these years. You knew her -- better than I ever did.

"And the thing that wore her face when it talked to me -- that's what needs killing."

"You shouldn't forgive me," Spike said.

"Forgive -- I don't think so. Not right now, anyway. I still hate that you killed her. But, I'm not going to make it better by killing you."

He slid off the barstool and walked out without another word.

"Wow," Buffy said softly as she watched him go.

She turned back to Spike. "Ready to go?" she asked.

"You go on back, pet," he said. "I think I'm going to take a walk. Get some air."

"Are you OK?" Buffy asked, puzzled that Spike didn't seem to be registering any relief.

"Nothing can be more wounding than a generous forgiveness," Spike replied. "Samuel Richardson said that, long before I was born. I think I know what it means now."

"Want any company?"

"Nah... think I'd just bring you down. Not feeling very convivial at the moment, pet. You run along. I'll be back later. Don't need to worry about me. Seems my number isn't up."

Spike got up and started to leave.

"Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"This was a good thing, wasn't it?"

Spike shrugged. "Suppose so. It just doesn't feel ..."

Buffy nodded.

"I'll leave the backdoor unlocked."

"Thanks."

The End

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Elsa Frohman - elsa@frohman.net