Her Saving Grace, 9/?, Spike/Fred, R

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

Title: Her Saving Grace
Rating: R
Pairing: Spike/Fred, mentions slight Fred/Wesley
Spoilers: Angel S5
Chapter: Nine of ?
Prompt: #29 - Et tu, Brute? for tamingthemuse
Warnings: Character death (not the permanent variety)
Summary: An accident one night changes Fred's entire world. Shunned by the people who should care the most, she turns to the one person who does care, and finds something beyond friendship.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Seriously. Not even my mind these days.

Word count: 3334



Pretty by garnettrees

Previous parts here





Pretty by spikeshunny

Chapter 9: What a Feeling

“I guess it's a good thing I didn't get all of this packed up,” Fred said. Her clothes were being packed back neatly as they could into the suitcases they'd originally been brought over in. Spike was packing up his own belongings, and Fred was surprised to see some color in his clothes as he packed. She'd seen him wear nothing but black ever since he'd been brought back in Angel's office.

The thought of her friend brought the usual tightness in her chest, but it wasn't as tight anymore. Maybe she was coping. Maybe she was finally letting it go.

Or maybe she was secretly waiting for the day when Angel would welcome her back with open arms, and tell her how sorry he was. With chocolate. And flowers. All delivered while on his knees. Maybe a few tears to give it some sincerity.

To hell with it. She wanted a bucket full of sobs to tell her just how wrong Angel was and how right she'd been. Maybe she'd make him do the chicken dance in front of everyone.

“My, that is an evil grin,” Spike noted from his corner. Fred blinked and brought herself back from her thoughts. “You must've been thinking something wonderful,” he said, starting to grin himself.

“Angel doing the chicken dance,” she told him. “Maybe dressed in a pink dress.”

Spike snickered, turning back to his packing. “Not sure we'd want to inflict that sight on the rest of the world, though. Have to think about the children now.”

“Good point,” she said, pausing for a moment to think it over. “He can recite the ABC's while he does it to add some educational value. Child problem solved.”

Spike laughed out loud at that, and Fred remembered why she liked him laughing. His smile was wide and genuine, and he looked adorable with his eyes closed just like that, and the melodious sound of joy coming from his beautiful lips. He looked younger when he did that, though she knew vampires couldn't age. Of course, that didn't mean he'd been young when he'd been turned; she'd always assumed, but again on the assuming and what it did for you...

“Remind me to never EVER let you near a vengeance demon,” Spike said, still chuckling helplessly. “You've got a wicked mind.”

“So I've been told,” she said, folding another shirt. Stuffing them in only got them wrinkled.

It occurred to her that she couldn't hear Spike moving and shifting things around anymore, and with that thought came the realization that she'd been hearing him do it in the first place. She turned and found him gazing at her curiously. “There's a story behind that simple little thing you said,” Spike said softly.

Fred put the shirt away before turning to tell it. “I think I've told you about Pylea, and my stay there?” He nodded. “After I'd gotten back, I'd been asked by my university to come and give a speech about a theory. In the middle of the speech, a portal opened, and I was terrified that I was going to get sucked back in thanks in part to the creature that came out of it after me.”

Spike stiffened, and it was amazing that she could actually not just sense but see his muscles tightening, the cords in his throat tightening, his entire body tightening, tense and anxious. “It turned out that it was from the same person who had sent me to Pylea in the first place: my professor. I got really upset.”

“Understandably,” Spike said, and she wondered what would've happened if she'd gone in there with Spike that night.

“I confronted him, got the whole reason why, but I didn't really care. I opened up a portal to a horrible dimension that would've tortured him for years, and I was going to shove him in, except...except Charles came in. Just as I made my professor step in, Charles killed him, to spare him. I don't really think I've ever forgiven Charles for that,” she said suddenly. She hadn't, she realized. Part of her still resented Gunn for having jumped in when he did.

There'd never really been a part of her that had felt badly for what she'd been going to do to the professor. After what she'd endured, he'd more than deserved the fate she'd been going to give him. Gunn hadn't understood, had thought she was a terribly wronged, but sweet, girl who would've regretted it.

The only thing she regretted about it was not having been able to shove a live body through the portal.

“I would've regretted that, too,” Spike said. She must've been thinking out loud again.

“Does it make me a bad person?” she asked. “If I wanted to shove him in?”

“No,” Spike said immediately. “It makes you human for wanting to give the pain that you didn't deserve back to the person who gave it to you in the first place. What he did was wrong. I am glad that you didn't get to, though,” he admitted. “You would've fought with yourself over whether you should've done it then, or done it a different way, or not done it at all.”

Fred didn't answer that, and she was relieved when Spike didn't seem to expect her to. He went back to packing, leaving the air between them comfortable. Spike was good like that.

He was also really good about finding places to stay. Apparently, he had a few friends in the demon community here in LA, and they were going to scout out somewhere that was out of Angel's reach. She hated to run like this, and she knew Spike did, too. Until Angel had stopped chasing after them, though, they didn't really have a choice.

A knock on the front door made her tense, but Spike was already heading out of the room. “It's Buffy, pet,” he threw over his shoulder. “No worries.”

“How do you know?” she asked, standing to follow him. If he said it was Buffy, she believed him one hundred percent, but she'd like to know how to get to that percentage like he seemed to be able to.

He paused in the doorway, then stepped back to her. “Listen,” he said. “Concentrate on what's around you. Block out the bloody water in the pipes, and focus on what the demon wants.”

She frowned slightly but did as he said, letting herself hear everything around her. She could definitely hear the water in the pipes; it was so constant these days she took it for granted. Someone moved in the apartment above them, and she closed her eyes, frustrated that she wasn't getting it.

What the demon wants, she reminded herself. I have to think about what the demon wants. Right. It wasn't as if she knew how to tap and ask the demon on the shoulder what it wanted, so how did she know? Should she go by what Angel thought the demon always wanted, or...

Maybe if she brought the demon out, she could feel its wants with it being closer. Deep in her thoughts and heart, she could feel the demon, the other half of her new whole. Letting it slide over her thoughts and rest over them was easier than when she'd first tried all that time ago, and she felt the bones shift in her face. She'd drive her biology and anatomy professors bonkers.

Everything felt even more heightened, and suddenly, she knew exactly what she was looking for. Not a scent, but a hearing. No, a feeling. Every heartbeat in the building built up a staccato rhythm inside her mind, and she knew intimately where every pulse belonged. Some where fainter than others, thanks to distance. Some were closer, and had a stronger beat than the rest.

She became aware of another heartbeat, and the others had no meaning compared to this one. Its steady pulse beat strongly in her heart, and she could feel the blood in her body flying through dead veins, making her feel stronger, faster, more in tune with everything, making her feel alive. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end at the sensation, and she opened her eyes at last.

Spike and Buffy stood in front of her. Spike nodded slowly with approval and a smile that looked appreciative. She couldn't imagine over what, but she'd leave that for later. Buffy's eyes were round, but her gaze was one of wonder, not fear. “Wow,” she said.

Fred nodded. “Yeah. Wow. That's...incredible.”

“That's the Slayer you're feelin',” Spike told her. “Sort of an instant 'x marks the spot' on the Slayer's whereabouts.”

Buffy frowned. “Like my whole tingling feeling whenever you guys hang around?”

“Basically. We're aware of the people around us, but your heartbeat, your very existence makes us feel alive.”

Buffy blinked, before shrugging. “Learn something new every day. In my case, though, it'd be two new things.”

“You know why Angel's on our case?” Fred asked hopefully.

Buffy bit her lip, and Fred knew it wasn't going to be easy or nice to hear. “It's...complicated,” Buffy said apologetically. Spike clenched his fists behind her, but Buffy seemed to know. “And knock it off, Spike. Let me explain what could constitute as his 'defense'.”

“Bloody pillock doesn't have a defense except the one where he's an idiot,” Spike growled.

Fred slowly shook her demon back, and she wondered how Angel had to feel when he did it. Was the demon more resistant? Hers went easily; it was content where it was, but each time Angel was mentioned, it almost felt like it...growled. And she knew it was impossible to growl in her head, but that was the feeling she had. There weren't any vibrations in her skull or anything silly like that, but it was as if the demon knew that there was something to be worried about and protected from, and it was going to do the protecting while she did the worrying.

Buffy was already in the living room, and Spike waited at the doorway. “It'll start comin' more naturally now that you know what to look for,” he said. “Makes it easy to find people, or NOT get found by people.”

“And I can still sense vamps, so there really isn't any likelihood of me getting a surprise attack,” Fred said.

Spike cringed. “Well...it can still happen, let's put it that way. Whether your concentration's blown, you're fightin' something and a little busy, or whatever reason: you'll sense it, but you won't really know that you've sensed it.”

Fred pouted and stepped into the living room. She took a seat across from Buffy, giving her a perky smile. “But I can still sense everything, so I've just to be careful. Right?”

Buffy shook her head. “Not necessarily. Not all demons pop on your radar. They don't on mine either, so don't feel bad.”

“Phooey,” Fred grumbled. She wasn't sure if this was a perk or a downside; she'd think about it more later.

“What'd the hulk say?” Spike asked.

Buffy inhaled deeply, then let out a heavy sigh. “For starters, he thinks that Fred's a danger, and I got that after I finally badgered him into telling me who we were after What he wanted originally was to get her soul stuck on before she could go out killing people, but that had been the first day, and then she'd disappeared. That day in the lab, apparently, he'd been trying to appeal to the 'little piece of her humanity left', and had thought that her demon was covering for her, that it needed to be broken down in order to let his Fred back up to the surface.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I was right then: he basically thinks that the demon's overpowered her.”

Buffy nodded. “He was hoping that by grabbing one of you, he could lure the other one in with the first as bait. He thinks you're her sire, by the way,” she added. “He was pretty sure on that one. No room for arguments, and I obviously couldn't voice one because I'd never seen you two before, wink wink.”

“The 'wink wink' doesn't work unless you're actually doin' the winkin', pet,” Spike said, frowning.

“It's a Willow-ism,” Buffy said, turning to Fred. “Here's the complicated part. He's wrong. Dead wrong, and no pun intended. We know that much, but Angel's not just worried about the city in general. He doesn't want to have to dust either of you. In his mind, Spike's lost his soul somehow, sired you, and now the two of you are running rampant in a Spike and Dru sort of way. What he wants is the two of you for sure ensouled so you're not a danger to the city. I know you're both fine, but we just need to prove it to him, because...I feel sorry for him,” Buffy admitted.

Spike snorted. “Sorry pet, but it just means his hero complex has gotten in the way. Again. I don't feel sorry for the ponce in the slightest.”

He glanced at Fred, and she bit her lip, giving him a sheepish smile. “You do?” he asked, shocked.

“Yeah, I think I do,” she said softly. “It's not just the city he's got preying on his mind: it's his own heart. He still cares about you, and me, and he's trying not to let it get in the way of what he might have to do, but...” She still wanted him begging for her forgiveness, but she might not make him wear the dress. He was just being Angel with Angel's mindset. Unless she proved him differently, he wasn't going to simply believe it because they said so. He should, because it was her they were talking about, but she could sort of see where he was on the matter.

“Et tu, Brute?” Spike groaned, sinking into the kitchen chair behind him.

Buffy glanced at Fred as Fred glanced at her, and as one they both started to giggle. Spike glanced up at them with a scowl. “Sorry,” Buffy said between snickers, “but you are such a geek.”

“You even fell like Caesar,” Fred managed to get out. “And you sounded like you'd been stabbed, and you fell back into the chair, and...”

“NOW who's the geek?” Spike said, raising his eyebrows at her as he began to grin. Buffy laughed out loud, and Fred lost it completely.

“Heel, Shakespeare,” Buffy called out a few moments later, wiping at her eyes. “And let's talk about what you two are going to do with my help, because I'm not going anywhere until I'm certain that Angel's off your ass.”

Talking wound up being a very hungry exercise, and after an hour or two Spike headed out to grab food under the assurance from Buffy that no, Angel wasn't going hunting for them anymore: he was firmly locked in his office having a good brood. It was only after he left that they realized there weren't any clean forks for the Chinese.

“It's really weird,” Fred said, drying the cup Buffy handed her. “I remember a time when the oddest thing to grasp was quantum theoretics. Now, I'm a vampire, you're the Slayer of vampires, and I'm drying dishes while you wash them.”

Buffy giggled, and Fred decided she liked it when Buffy laughed, too. She looked younger when she did it, less stressed. And a happy Slayer was a good Slayer to be around. Not that she thought that Buffy would actually stake her or hurt her, but it was still a rule of thumb, no matter what side of her you were on.

“You really like him, don't you?”

Fred blinked, the out-of-left-field question enough to pull her back to the present. Buffy had a soft smile on her face, one that almost looked wistful. “You do too,” Fred found herself saying.

“I do,” Buffy acknowledged quietly. “But...Spike and I don't work as well as a couple as we do friends. Spike's always been the one who's known me better than anyone else. Even Angel never really got that part of me, the things I didn't even know about myself, but Spike did. Every single time he made me face myself, and I used to hate him for it. Then I started realizing that I really needed to hear it, because I needed to know it to live.”

“You still like him,” Fred said, happy that her voice came out calm when inside she was anything but. She'd never really had a romantic exchange with Spike; she hadn't even come out and said that she actually liked him yet.

She still felt it, though, and she thought he did, too. And that was what mattered.

“As a friend. There's, um, someone else,” Buffy said, her cheeks turning pink. “Someone I realize I've loved for awhile, but didn't really know if I could or should. So no, Spike's not my guy anymore, and to be honest...I'm not really sure he ever was.”

“He's hot,” Fred said, realizing two seconds after the words had left her mouth just what exactly it was she'd said.

Buffy grinned. “Yeah, that's the understatement of the year. But I've got my own hot guy, one I'm content with. Very content with.” The emphasis on the word left no room for arguing just what she meant.

“The point I guess I'm trying to make is that I know you like Spike. Spike knows you like Spike. And Spike does like you. I called him on it the other day, when he was against leaving until you spoke up?”

“He had this look in his eyes I couldn't figure out,” Fred said, nodding at the memory.

Buffy turned back to the sink. “It's called utter and absolute devotion. He likes you. A lot. I got that much out of him even when he said very little. You're good for him,” she said. “And he needs someone that'll be good to him. I think he needs you.”

Fred mulled that over while she continued to dry. The water was turned off, and Buffy shook her wet hands out into the sink while reaching for a dry towel. “I won't hurt him,” Fred said, causing the blonde to turn. “I would never hurt him. That is, if we'd, you know, get in a situation where I could.”

“You could now, but I get what you mean,” Buffy said, smiling. “Spike's a lot more breakable then he likes to admit. He's got a hard exterior shell, but inside, he's marshmallow puff.”

“Am not,” Spike said as he came in the front door, his arms laden with two large brown bags. The aroma hit Fred instantly, and she gave a happy sigh as wontons and rice filled her senses.

“You are too,” Buffy said, stepping over to grab one of his bags. “Did you get egg rolls?”

“Um, yeah, duh,” Spike said, giving her a look. “Hasn't been that long since Sunnydale. I got you extra sweet and sour sauce too, Fred, and a note of caution Buffy: let her get her sauce first before you try for any. It's her favorite thing, and it goes on everything.”

“Everything tastes better when it's sweet,” Fred defended, but she smiled all the same when she took her seat.

He hadn't forgotten Buffy's egg rolls, and Fred was fairly certain that the Chinese places had been a staple in the lives of those on the Hellmouth. They were open late, after all, later than most.

Fred had only ordered Chinese with Spike once, while she'd been in the lab working on something. Once. And he'd remembered.

Buffy's words from earlier rang very clearly in Fred's mind. I think he needs you. This was just further proof of that.

And further proof that Fred needed him, too.

~Nebula

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Now you really have me wanting to see what happens next!


Gabrielle