PAGES SERIES

by - Gillian Silverlight

TITLE:	PAGES SERIES
AUTHOR:	Gillian Silverlight
DATE:	4/16/01 +
DISTRIBUTION:	My site, those that have permission to post my work, others please ask.
DISCLAIMER:	They belong to Joss and the WB, I just play with them.
SUMMARY:	Spike learns some very disturbing information about Buffy's feelings.
RATING:	PG
LYRICS THIS SECTION:	Jane Siberry "It Won't Rain All The Time" "In Walks the Night" by Heart

          

PART 3 - The Third Page

Angel walked slowly back into the mansion with the pages clinched in his hand. Spike had been pacing the floor, and from the looks of the cigarette butts, he'd been chain-smoking as well. The blonde vampire looked as if he'd like to crawl out of his skin; while Angel looked even more pale
than normal, haunted; like a man who had been dealt a mortal blow. Except that neither Angel or Spike were still mortal. They had left it behind them countless years ago when they were Turned to vampires.

"You found more." It wasn't a question from Spike. He took in Angel's countenance and the pages grasped in his hands, the tears on his face and knew.

"Spike...I had no idea. I read the next page on my way back. You better read it." "We need to read the rest of them together if they are anything like these last two."

Spike reached for the page with trembling hands. The words on that page couldn't have frightened him more, even unread, than if he was reaching for a poisonous snake had he been human. As Spike read the page, Angel stood facing the fireplace, oblivious to the heat, as his hands shook.

The tears continued to fall on Spike's face as he read the words his love had written on that page, He'd glance at Angel every few sentences as he read. As the blonde vampire finished reading, he hung his head, laying the age on the table before him. In a voice slightly more than a whisper he asked the brunette vampire, "You have more?"

Angel simple walked over and sat so he and Spike could share the next page as they read.

********************************************

'we walk the narrow path
beneath the smoking skies
sometimes, you barely tell the difference
between the darkness and light
do we have faith
in what we believe?'

Giles always told me all about my purpose as a slayer. To fight the good fight as Angel would say, to save the lives of others. But what do I do night after night? I kill. As a vampire, what do you do night after night? You kill. Where is the difference?

I can't see it sometimes. Oh, I say that I kill the vampires and the demons because I'm protecting my kind, humans. But when the demons kill, maybe they feel like they are protecting their own kind. I know as a vampire, you kill to live, to eat. The steak I ate so long ago used to be alive. It was killed so I could eat. The broccoli plant was cut down and died so someone could eat it. Where is the line?

Was Dracula right? Were you right? Am I really not very different than you are? How do I handle that? Does that make me more of a monster, or you less of one, or does it simple make neither one of us one? You see, that's part of the problem, too. Between loving Angel, and my feelings for you.. you've shown me that not all vampires are monsters. How many of the ones I kill each night might have someone they love or at least care about.

What do you do when the Calling you have in your life becomes unclear? How do I know that what I'm doing is right?

It has to be, or else everything has been an incredible cosmic joke on me. I feel like I've lost so much, so many people, my very future. We're not suppose to have a future, or friends, or family or people we love. I know we're not supposed to love a vampire, much less two. That's the problem. One can be... odd, a joke from the universe, a special case; god, so many things it could be called. But two.... Then it moves into something else. We get back to that gray of who's really a monster. Is it me, because I can love you two? Or because I can love you two and still keep killing those like you?

'the truest test is when we can not
when we can not see
I hear pounding feet in
in the streets below and
and a woman cried and
and the children moaned'

So I have to go on blind faith sometimes. I wonder what happens to the people I'm not there to save. I kill so many fledglings each night or in a week.. Where was I that that could happen to them? I can barely run on just faith sometimes with my life, with what is laughingly called my 'job'. I don't know how to do that with my heart.

I can act on blind faith and risk my life when it involves slaying; but if it's my heart involved, I can't. I just can't. What if I accepted you and something happened and you could kill again? My life would be in danger, and because mine is, then hundreds of other people would be in danger too. Or it was something like Acathala <Now there is a name I HATE!>, then the whole world would be in danger. It's just so wiggy sometimes. I don't know what to do and I can't talk to any of my friends. Oh, they care about me, but they have no idea whatit's like to be me, not even Giles. You used to know better than anyone, but now.....

'there is something wrong
it's hard to believe that
love will prevail'

I know people say that love will solve all. But we know that's not the case, you and I. If it were, I'd be with Angel, or I'd be with you. My mommy wouldn't be dead, Kendra wouldn't have had to die. No love doesn't solve everything. All I see that it does is make things worse. It makes things hurt more. All in the name of love, I hurt Angel, I hurt you, I hurt my friends. You hurt Angel, you hurt me, you hurt the people who might try to be your friends. Then we both lost my mom. I know it hurt you almost as much as it did me.

It's funny.. She hit you in the head with an ax, yet she still always liked you. Angel was always polite to her <We won't talk about Angelus> and she never did like him, she tolerated him for my sake.

'when I'm lonely
I lay awake at night
and I wish you were here
I miss you
can you tell me
is there something more to believe in
or is this all there is?'

It used to be Angel I missed every night. I missed him so badly I couldn't move. I had to force myself to breath. It faded with time, but I found out when he was here for Mom's funeral, I'll always love him. Just like I know regardless of how you feel about me, you'll always love
Dru. I know you were willing to stake her for me.. but, I know you'd hate me for that after a while. You may not want to be with her any longer, but she has a place in your heart always, just as Angel has a place in my heart always.

I shut you out to keep from letting you any closer, to keep me from getting any closer. But I miss you. I'll never tell you that, but here in these pages, I can tell you. It's safe here where you can't see. I never knew where I'd find you in the house, or when you'd be in my room when I woke up. I always yelled at you, but I miss you. I miss our fights, the insults, the constant bickering we did. I guess that makes me weird, huh? But no more so than loving a vampire, or two of them. I know if you were to read this, you'd pick up on what I've only just realized.. I keep talking about loving two vampires. I guess you were right at least in that. There is something between us. I do love you.

And that's why I have to keep all the walls between us, as many of them as I can cram in there to protect me from being hurt by you. Or even more important for me, to keep from hurting you any more than I have already.

I should laugh, you know, if I could stop crying. I always got so angry with Angel for making decisions for me. Here I am making them for you. I guess he did teach me a few things.

'last night I had a dream
you came into my room
you took me into your arms
whispering and kissing me and telling me
to still believe'

Did you know I dream about you a lot? Especially since the night you came to tell me about.. well about Riley.
You come in my room, you hold me, you kiss me, and whisper in my ear, straight to my heart. You tell me to believe, to feel, to dare, to love.

I remember Willow's spell. I remember the feel of your arms around me. I remember the taste of your lips on mine.
I almost wish she'd never broken that spell. If she could have fixed everyone else and just left us like we were......

'the very emptiness
of the burning seas
against which we see our darkest decides'

Do you feel as empty as I do without you? Someone said one time that our darker nature calls to us. Does yours still whisper in your ear, in your heart? What would you do if you didn't have that chip in your head to stop you? Would your darker nature call you back?

Sometimes my darker side does rule me. Like when I went to LA because of Faith. Or when I tried to kill her and feed her to Angel. But it wouldn't let me kill Angelus. It never let me kill you.

Is it my darker side that tells me I want you? I don't know.. I just don't know. I do know what I would like, since I'm talking about dreams. I dream about you holding me at night.

'until I
felt safe and warm
I fell asleep in your arms'

Would you hold me and keep me safe? Let me fall asleep in your arms? I know you have no idea, but the few times I've been in your arms, I felt safe. I've never felt safe in anyone's arms except Angel's. But I do, I feel safe and sheltered and secure in your arms.

God, I want you to hold me, but I can't. When you came to kill me and I was sitting on the back steps crying because of my mom, you got so concerned and just sat and laid your hand on my back to comfort me.

Why do you think I hugged my self? To stay out of your arms! I knew if I went there, I'd never want back out again. So my heart was safer if I got the cold lack of comfort from my own arms instead of the strength and love and safety that would have been in yours.

See, because of that night I slept in Angel's arms.. I thought I'd wake up there, held and loved. Instead I woke alone, scared, unsure, and finally frightened.

What would you do? I don't dare find out.

'when I awoke
I cried again
for you were gone
oh, can you hear me??'

Can you hear me when my heart cries for you?
Can you hear my heart break?
Can you hear the screams from fear?
Can you hear how much I want you?
But I sleep alone in my cold bed, no one to hold me, to keep me safe, to
share my life with.
I keep my heart safe now, but at what price?

***********************************************

Angel looked up from the page he and Spike were reading together. The anguish and guilt that looked out of his eyes, and sat heavily upon his face could have wrung tears from a statue of stone. He looked at Spike, "I had no idea! Oh god, help me, I didn't know!"

"Angel. She was 17, you were her first love, the first man she'd ever been with. She was already insecure from her parents getting divorced and the way her dad made promises and never kept them. Joyce told me about that. Then, you know how Angelus is... and you loved her. He brutalized her when the most important thing was to feel that same love
the next day."

"Right after she started college, she met a guy that talked sweet to her, like you did. Made her think he cared. He used her once, like you did; and then he was a human version of Angelus. He made her feel horrible about herself."

Spike looked at the floor, the fire, anywhere but Angel, as his voice clogged, thick with unshed tears. "I was angry at her because of Dru. I used that as a weapon against her. I used Angelus's words against her. I don't deserve anything except her hatred."

"Where is a vengeance demon when you need one." Angel bemoaned. He was more than half serious. "So what do we do Spike? How do we fix everything we've done to her?"

"Let's finish reading and see if there are any more clues there. I hate to even bloody look at another word though." Spike told his sire, weariness evident in every line of his body.

"If we haven't gotten anything else positive out of this, I know she still loves me and always will. I have no right to that. It's keeping her from moving on, except possibly to you. And you know now that she does love you. Maybe it took this to get her to know it as well"

"That's a bloody rationalization, Angel and you know it! We.. you and me both, have hurt her horribly! We bleedin' damned well know that too!" Spike was getting angry for the pain they had both caused her. The same woman they both loved more than their own life.

Spike lit another cigarette before going back to the next page. Angel reached for one as well. Spike never said a word, just lit it and handed it to him. It looked like a very long night.

PART 4 - Four Pages of Pain

Angel and Spike were shaken to the core by the words they had read in the last three pages that had been ripped from Buffy's diary. Spike had found the first page accidentally when the wind blew the page from the trash behind Buffy's house. He'd taken the page to Angel. Angel had gone back to look for more and had returned to the mansion with several pages he'd found, also ripped from the diary.

"Angel, why do you think Buffy ripped these pages from her diary and threw them away?" Spike asked the older vampire, puzzled about the situation?

"I don't know. Maybe once she wrote them, she wanted to get rid of them so she didn't have to see them again, or to symbolically throw the pain away with the pages." Angel answered his childe in a weary voice. What they had both read had both given them hope and hurt them as they realized exactly how much they had hurt this woman they loved.

"I don't think so, Angel. Something doesn't feel right." Spike replied, worry creasing his forehead.

"Well, let's each take a page and see if we can find out anything else that will help." Angel reached for the top page I the pitifully small pile of them they had lying in front of them. Spike took the next one. He lit another cigarette as he braced himself for what he might find in this one.

******************************************************

'The night is falling like an angel on your
memory
And we are well acquainted
We are sworn enemies
And the lonely beating of my heart tonight
is only one more thing I gotta fight'

Spike, you have got to be one of the most aggravating vampires I've every met. You've been a thorn in my side since day one, in one way or another. Yet, I've never been able to stake you.

You've never been able to kill me.

You've also been the most honorable enemy it has ever been my privilege to know.

And I do know you. I don't let you know that I do. I don't let anyone know. But we understand each other.

You.. You've always known me better than anyone, for some reason. You've known me better than Angel ever has, you know?

I wish I could come to you, but you know I can't. Even though you'll never read anything I've written here, I do wish I could come to you.

I'm so lonely, Spike. I think you could end that for me, but there is too much damage. I'd only hurt you even more and you'd leave me. So I'll just stay here alone.

Besides, you'd try to stop what I know I have to do.

'Well I think about you baby
Days of heaven that we had
Then I get to thinking maybe
-Maybe too much thinking's bad'

I've thought often about what it might be like between us. I can dream and have my fantasies as well. I just can't tell anyone. I have to keep them to myself.

As hard as it has been to admit it, as I've written these pages in my diary, I've had to face the fact that I do love you. I'll never be able to do anything about it, and you'll never know; but I do.

It's funny in a way.. What was that line we all had to learn from Shakespeare? 'My only love sprung from my only hate, too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy.'

That's you. You used to be an enemy. If that chip were out of your head, would you be again? See, I don't know and I can't take that chance. Its not because you might kill me, but because you might Turn me. That would be the worst thing that could happen. So I can't let you in. That would be worse than you leaving me.

That's me.. Damned if I do, and damned if I don't.

'Well my mind takes no prisoners
-pities no one
Spares not even me 'til the harm is done
Here I go again
The night just walked in'

Too much thinking is definitely bad for you. Or at least it is for me. I can see too many of the problems and never any of the good parts. But what if there aren't any good parts? See that thinking thing again.

First there was Angel, and now you. Both of you are of the dark. Both what I'm supposed to be fighting.

How can I fight you when I love you? How can I love you if you're bad or evil? Does that mean there is something wrong with me?

God, I know there is something wrong with me, I just don't know what it is or how to find out or even how to fix it if it can be fixed.

Everyone wigged bad enough about Angel, but you, Spike... You're my own personal dark. The Night in my life. You walk in a room with me, or close to me when I'm on patrol and I feel the night, the dark.

With Angel I could feel the quiet inside and I wanted to reach inside of it and be calm. With you, that quiet spot is hidden deep inside. You're so alive to be undead. Right now, I'm so alive to feel so very dead.

'In walks the night
In walks my fantasy
Darkness all around me
And I'm dying for the light
Reach down for a little strength
deep inside'

Every time you come near me, I have to be so strong and so hard toward you. You're there and my own personal night arrives, my own darkness, the fantasy I sleep with every night for a long time now. I rather sleep with you.

Could that happen? I mean, if we had ever managed to be together, if I'd been able to open that icy cavern called my heart; could you sleep with me at night instead of being awake? What do vampires do when they are awake at night?

I've seen you awake during the day, so it's not like you have set hours your body forces you to keep. You just can't go into the sunlight.

Angel told me he wanted me to find someone to walk in the sunlight with me. I told him I didn't look that great in direct light. But you saw me do that, and saw how miserably I failed at it. What's wrong with me, Spike that I go for the monsters, the demons?

I go out and fight the demons, the other vampires every night. I'm supposed to be working for the good guys, the 'light' as Willow would call it. Yet here I am attracted to the dark.

I'd ask if you knew how frightening that is, but I know that you do know.

I'm the Slayer. The scourge of vampire kind. Like you said.. Once you're a vampire you have nothing to worry about except for one girl. And this time it's me. So not only do I fall in love with a second vampire, one who has killed two slayers already, but you fall for the slayer you wanted to kill. It's definitely the universe having a major joke on us.

What a pair we are, Spike.

'Well I know I love my freedom
But lonely feelings come and go
And night time is a season
Feel the cold wind blow
And I toss and I turn and I walk the floor
I don't wanna cry - don't wanna cry no more
Here I go again
The night just walked in'

I feel so alone, especially now. I can understand how you feel. Alone, isolated.

I can't even hug a normal guy without having to think about what I'm doing constantly or I'll hurt him. I can pound you into the floor and you get up and just keep coming. You're not a vampire; you're that damned pink energizer bunny!

But I'm so tired of being alone, of being hurt, of crying myself to sleep at night.

This has been the proverbial straw, you know? I can't do this any more, Spike.

If I thought I could trust you to not Turn me; I'd give you that 'one good day' you want.

You were right about that death wish.

It's here now.

To trust you, I'd have to let you in, but to let you in; I'd have to trust you. I'm really a mess.

'I reach down for my sanity
If only these eyes could see through all
the emptiness I found around me
In walks the night'

You're the only one who even still knows me at all. That's one reason I can't let you near me. You'd see too much and tell someone, or just try to stop what I know I have to do anyway. I can't let you do that.

I feel so empty inside. I just want the darkness to fill me up and rock me gently to sleep where there is no more pain, no more loneliness.

I just need the pain to stop. It's tearing me to shreds. It makes it harder to stay away from you, so I get even angrier with you. But it's not really you that I'm angry at, it's me. I wish I could be angry with Angel, but I can't. That was me too. I insisted, I pushed it, I cost him his soul, I threaten it every time I see him. Maybe the problem isn't you or Angel at all. Maybe you were right.

The problem is me

'I can almost feel you in the darkness all around
Still I'm waiting for the break of day
Waiting for a miracle
A dream that won't wander away'

I can always feel you when you are there, you know. I could never feel Angel that way. Oh, I knew when it was around, but it was so vague. Not like you. I can feel you like a vibration in the air. It's there with every breath I take. The sense of you fills me up.

I know that is a danger sign for me.

You have no idea how hard I have to fight sometimes to think when you're around.

I wish.... I wish I could have known you when you were William. You must have been a very good man. Then again, that's not a great idea. I've seen what I do to good men. I really do need a bit more monster in my man.

'I reach down for my sanity
If only these eyes could see through all
the emptiness I found around me
In walks the night
The night just walked in
In walks the night
The night just walked in
Maybe I'll be all right
In walks the night'

Falling in love with two vampires, one with no soul at all, I have to question my sanity. I don't think there is much of it left.

But I have to keep you away because you always do see too much of me and right now I can't let you see what's inside.

Because my own personal darkness, my own personal night has come to fill me up.

**********************************************
Spike put down the sheet of paper. He would exchange it with Angel as soon as the brunette vampire was finished with his page. From the looks on Angel's face, he wasn't doing much better. That constant calm and indecipherable expression had vanished with the deep and unsettling insight into the slayer's heart and soul and mind.

As Spike waited, he thought about it. Perhaps he should put his own thoughts down on paper for her. She was right; it was easier to tell everything to a blank bit of paper. It didn't interrupt, or talk back and never looked you in the eyes. You had to do that to yourself.

The miserable blonde vampire reached for a sheet of paper and pen.