Title: Eternal
Author: Northlight
email: uzenet@videotron.ca
Summary: Willow's a very patient woman...
Warning: One single swear word.
Distribution: Ask once -- take it all :) Also going to
"http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/campbell/234/fic.html"
Disclaimer: Joss owns all.
Written: June 22, 1999
Note: I'm not all that happy with this, but I had to write it -- this
idea had been bugging me for a while now.

***

They were screaming, always screaming. Faces flashed beneath his
closed eye lids, fast, unending blurs of flesh and eyes. The screams
pouring past parted lips fluctuated -- low and long, high and shrill,
sobbed and pleading, always fearful, always pained, dying. The world of
his dreams was painted red with blood, staining faces, dripping from
wounded necks, coating broken bodies.

When the twisted, screaming faces wound away into nothingness, others
took their places. Dark and pale, a Goddess smiling at him, lit by the
sun. Eyeless dolls... marching into eternity.

Dark eyes, sneering lips, deadly eyes. Towering and powerful,
dominance and rage marking the powerful lines of a leather clad form.
Blood in his wake, following as death left his eyes and agony replaced
it.

A flash of red hair, blood and fire streaming outwards in a proud
banner. Wide eyes, green and innocent... haunted and broken...
dangerous and loving.

Those faces, laughing and mocking and loving and hating, slipped away
from him as dust rose before his eyes. And he cried out now as he
realized that he dust was him, pulling apart, scattering and no more.

Paul's eyes snapped open, his breaths coming in quick, shallow pants.
Bright blue eyes stared at the ceiling sightlessly, the pale blue
surface hidden by a haze of fine grey dust. His eyes clenched shut, so
tight that colour burst to life against the dark backdrop. When the
peeled open once more, his view of the ceiling was uninhibited by a
cloud of dust.

His fingers twitched, testing to see if they could still move. The
slight motion did little to reassure Paul, the sensation of flying apart
still powerful in his mind. He shifted to his elbow, his eyes drinking
in the sight of the woman at his side. Her eyes were still closed,
eyelashes pale against her bronzed skin. This night, her warmth at his
side, her image in his mind, were not enough to banish the sense of
unease that had followed him into wakefulness.

He moved from the bed, careful not to disturb her, and padded across
their room. He slipped out of the balcony doors, the warm wind
caressing his skin as he leaned against the banister. The scent of
pine, flowers, and water was strong when he drew in a deep, calming
breath.

His body had tensed before his mind even recognized the presence at his
side -- more than the instinctive reaction to the feeling of danger
nearby, but a deep recognition that made his knees tremble. His head
shifted slightly, eyeing the woman at his side warily.

The dream sprung into the forefront of his mind as he saw the sweep of
red hair and the deep green eyes watching him with mingled amusement and
longing. He wanted to reach out to her, draw her into his arms and
never release her. He wanted to run, to escape the intensity of her
gaze and forget that answering longing that sprung to life within him.

Her fingers wound around his wrist when he stumbled back a step, moving
back towards the safety of the room he had left. She was cool against
his flesh, and he trembled inside. "Who are you?" he managed to ask,
his throat dry and his heart pounding.

A thin eyebrow arched upwards. "I think you remember," she smiled.
"You couldn't forget me any more that I can you."

The words sent a shock of emotion through him -- something he dared not
examine. "I-- I'm married," he finally mumbled, shocked to find that he
found himself resenting the woman still sleeping in the room behind
him. Had it not been for her, he could have lost himself in the stead
gaze of the woman who held onto him.

Her lips twisted in distaste as her eyes tore away from his, swinging
towards the shadowed bedroom visible through the slightly open door.
"Drusilla... I should have figured that she'd get her claws into you
again," she sighed.

"Drusilla?" Paul asked blankly. He could barely think, everything had
suddenly become so confused... unreal and yet sharper and more intense
that anything that he had ever imagined.

"Do you believe that the soul travels from life to life, taking new
form and yet always drawn to those that it had known before?" she
questioned, her voice low. It washed over his senses, and he thought
that he could willingly drown within her. "I knew her once... lifetimes
ago, as enemy and rival. You, I knew too -- as something much more
intimate," she smiled again, predatory and sensual.

"I don't-"

"Shh..." she cautioned, her finger resting against his lips. "You
rescued me, a terrified little fledgling bowing to Angelus' will. You
took me away, loved me, promised me forever. And then one of the
Slayers came and took you away from me... but I saw you again, later.
Different but same." His eyes drifted shut as her fingers reached up,
tracing over his eyelids. "The eyes are always the same. Beautiful."

"And I told him what I tell you know, and he ran from me -- frightened
and disbelieving... ran right into the street," she said, her voice
hitching. "And he came back to me, and I told him again, and I made him
mine. We hunted by moonlight and loved each other as we were meant
to... and then the Slayer came, and you left me again. And now, we're
together again, tonight."

"You're crazy," he said, not believing the words he spoke.

"You always liked crazy, Spike," she smiled.

Her face shifted and she was on him, teeth tearing past the skin
stretched across his neck. Her wrist rose to his lips, rich blood
dribbled past them. Before the world went dark, he felt her lips soft
against his forehead. Her humming accompanied him into death.

Willow smiled, shifting Spike until he was more comfortable in her
arms. She rose, and looking into the room that her beloved had shared
with his wife, her grin widened in triumph. "Won again, bitch," she
laughed before slipping into the darkness with her prize.


~End~