Chapter 3. Part 2 - Relative Values

Spike closed his eyes, took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was to come.

“What are you waiting for?” Harmony asked him. “You don’t need an invite.”

Spike let out his breath, opened his eyes and stepped into the overly pink apartment. He shuddered; it was very much as he’d known it would be. The walls were painted pale rose, the furniture was ‘early girlie’, with frills, throws, quilts, and lots of stuffed animals, mostly unicorns.

Harmony pulled him into the small kitchen area. “Come on, you big baby.”

“I’m coming, luv,” he said as he looked around.

“You’re not going to change your mind about this, are you? Your roots are horrible. What have you been thinking? 'Soul now, so I don’t have to look hot’?” she chastised him.

“Can’t do it all pet. Looking good, being a champion, and fighting the good fight. Fella's got his limits! Been through a bit lately, that’s all.” Spike removed his duster and draped it across the back of one of the kitchen chairs beside the table in the middle of the room.

“Still, that doesn’t mean that you can’t look good. What happened to the Blondie Bear that I came to love?” Harmony pushed him down into a country style chair beside the sink.

“No time for those things. I have to...”

“Eeeww! Spike everyone has time for personal hygiene and grooming.” Harmony started to take the items out of the bag of supplies they’d picked up on the way to her apartment; one bottle of Ultimate Blonde, pack of smokes, and a small stuffed unicorn. “Oh, Spike, it’s wonderful!” she screeched as she hugged it. Then she kissed him on the cheek.

Spike recoiled. Maybe nicking the unicorn had been a bad idea. He’d decided to go along with Harmony’s plan on the spur of the moment. He saw it as a way of saying sorry for jumping her the moment he’d become corporeal. All his senses had come rushing back; taste, touch, smell. And his blood had rushed to the place it always did when he caught the scent of an attractive female, particularly one he’d known so well. Just because it was an instinctive reaction, didn’t make it right though. And now Harmony’s kiss had roused the instinct once again.

“You like it?” he asked, covering his confusion and a growing hardness in his pants with a copy of ‘Self’ he’d picked off the worktop beside him.

“Of course I do, ” replied Harmony as she wrapped a towel around his shoulders.

“Good.” Spike looked away from her. Going along with this makeover was definitely not one of his better ideas.

Harmony smiled as she squeezed the unicorn excitedly. “Oh my god, this is going to be so much fun!” She put the unicorn on the table, pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and started mixing the hair colorant. She looked down at Spike who sat uncomfortably in his chair, looking glum. “It’s your fault you know. I couldn’t live up to your standards,” she said seriously.

Spike was puzzled by her sudden change of mood. “What do you mean?”

“Coming to LA was the best thing I ever did. I couldn’t be Buffy for you and I wasn’t your Godzilla. I just don’t have it in me to be all Grrrr.” She took two towels from the drying rack and placed them on Spike’s lap. "Why the unicorn?" she asked, changing the subject.
.
Spike ignored the insult to Drusilla. “Thought if you were going to clutter your desk, you might as well have something I couldn’t some to any harm on,“ he lied.

“Harm on?” Harmony gave him a blank look. “Oh Harm – on. Joke, right?” She giggled nervously. “I get it. And you said I never understood your jokes.”

Spike raised his eyes to the ceiling. He’d forgotten just how irritating Harmony could be without really trying.

Harmony pushed his head down over the sink and doused it with water. She towelled it swiftly, parted his hair and started to apply the colour. “Harm on,” she giggled. “That’s really very funny. It’s one of those what d’you call thems - punks - you were always good at punks.”

“Punks?” Oh balls, it’s not worth the effort, just let it go. “That’s right, Harm.” Spike couldn’t think of a way of bringing the conversation round to the second reason that he’d decided to come to Harmony’s apartment. He settled for plunging straight in; Harmony never was one for subtlety.

“Harm, you don’t drink human blood anymore. Why?”

“Oh, that’s easy. It upsets me. At first, I thought it was way cool, but after I ate a little old lady onetime, she gave me heartburn, and I couldn’t drink human blood anymore after that.” Harmony gave the colorant bottle another shake. “I never liked all that stalking my prey,” she continued. “Hunting is so hard. I found a nice butcher shop that caters for vampires and I got the recipe for pig’s blood and otter that is out this world. I could write it out for you if you like. Or, better still, we could have a cook-in one night. That would be . . . ”

“Harm, you don’t have a soul,” Spike said, interrupting her and reaching for the towel she was handing out to him to wipe his face.

“Soul, why do you need one of those? I can see what you and Angel are going through, why I would want that? I have a good life, or un-life. I work; I have friends – well colleagues anyway. I can’t go out in the daylight, but hey other people have disabilities and they work around them.” She shrugged her shoulders and emptied the remainder of the bottle onto Spike’s head.

“Bloody hell woman! I forgot how much this stuff stings,” he cried.

“Don’t be such a big cry baby. You weren’t a wuss when you didn’t have a soul.”

“I am not a wuss!”

“Are too.”

“Not.”

“Too.” Harmony removed the plastic gloves and washed her hands.

Spike sat up and swung himself around to face her. “Enough, Harm.” he said gently, handing her the remaining dry towel from the top of the magazine on his lap.

Harmony opened her mouth to reply, gazed at him for a moment, and closed it again. She dried her hands, left the kitchen and returned holding a large see-through case containing her large collection of nail polish. She busied herself sorting through looking for the right colour. ” Passion black. No that’s not right. Ah, Midnight Black.” She reached out, grasped Spike’s hands and peered at his nails. “Nothing there to file. You’ve bitten them right down; you never used to do that.” She went back picking out nail polish bottles and was happy to find the one she really wanted. “Vampire Black. Perfect.”

“Not black, pet.”

Harmony pouted and resumed her search. She played with some bottles of nail polish for a while and took out some cotton balls. “I don’t know why you and Angel make such a big deal about having a soul anyway. Seems to me, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at you two; so serious and bent on becoming something you’re not. Why can’t you just be happy with who you are?” She applied some cleansing lotion to his nails and began working on the cuticles.

“I am happy with what I am,” Spike insisted.

“Yeah? Then why’d you go and get a soul? For Buffy? ‘Cos she treated you so well didn’t she? With her ‘Vampires are evil and I’m Miss Goody Two-Shoes. Well, she can stake herself.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?” Spike was having difficulty keeping up with Harmony’s line of reasoning. Nothing new there. How had they got from his soul to Harmony’s jealousy of Buffy?

“Last time I saw you in Sunnydale, you wanted to kill her; then you went and got a soul for her and look where that got you. Nowhere! You’re all broody and no fun.”

“Take that back! I’m fun!”

Harmony picked up the magazine that had fallen from Spike’s lap onto the floor. “Did you know that that having a good laugh can reduce stress, alleviate allergy symptoms and improve immunity?” she asked, flicking through the pages and holding the magazine up at one headed ‘Did you know?’

“Harm. We can’t catch viruses - not too sure about allergies . . . ”

“Or that having a manicure is part of a ten step plan to boosting your self-esteem?“ She shook the bottle of Vampire Black, took his hand into hers and started to paint his nails. “When was the last time you painted your nails?”

"Harm! - Hey, I told you, no black. Use the clear stuff."

Harmony ignored him and continued painting. “I’m doing all the right things; healthy diet, plenty of sleep, sunscreen every day to protect my skin from damage; everything on Bobbi's Beauty Commandments’ list. So why don’t I feel any better about myself?”

“Could be the sun screen,” muttered Spike. He couldn’t cope with Harmony’s butterfly mind and his irritation had notched up a level. With his free hand he reached for a pack of smokes, took one out, put it up to his lip, and lit it.

“You need to cut back on those!”

“I thought you were going to start?”

“That’s when I wanted to be evil, silly. Smoking is bad for you.”

“Harmony, we’re vampires. We do NOT get sick!”

“It’s disgusting. It gets into everything.”

Spike gave up. It really isn’t worth the effort, mate. “Fine!” He stubbed the cigarette out in the sink.

“You’ll cut back then?”

He gave her a non-committal shrug.

“Fine,” she said. She looked at the clock. “You still have ten minutes.”

“Great, it hurts like hell,” he grumbled.

“I still don’t know why you want a soul. You don’t need it.”

“Harm!” he growled threateningly.

“Blondie Bear,” she replied, smiling sweetly at him from under her lashes.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Fine. I won’t - Spikeypooh”

Spike groaned.

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“What I can’t get over,” said Spike, as Wesley handed him a mug of freshly-heated blood from the microwave, “Is how easy she seems to find it all. How come she doesn’t go on the rampage and bite people any more?”

“She does seem to have adjusted to her new diet remarkably well,” agreed Wesley, “although Angel’s zero-tolerance policy could have something to do with it.”

“Could be. Mind you, she never was much good at the evil bit; too scatty to stay focused. Makes the whole working for the good guys without a soul all the more . . . what’s the word?”

“Inconceivable?” Wesley checked the teapot, gave the leaves a final stir and poured himself a cup.

“Well, was gonna go with ‘impossible’ but one ‘i word’ is as good as another.”

“It wasn’t impossible in your case, from what I’ve heard,” observed Wesley, taking a milk bottle from the fridge and checking it for freshness before adding a drop to his tea.

“Come again? – I have a soul. How can you forget, what with all the problems two vamps with souls seem to be causing?”

“I don’t mean now. I mean before the soul. I’ve heard all about the things, good things, you did back then.”

“Who? . . . “

“Giles. You didn’t think that Andrew could keep news as big as your resurrection from Giles did you?” Seeing Spike’s sudden fearful look, Wesley went on hurriedly, “Oh, don’t worry. No one else has been told. Giles felt it was his duty to speak only to me. He told me some things I wouldn’t have thought possible.”

“Did he also tell you the reason I went to the ends of the earth to fight for my soul?”

“Not in detail.” Wesley knew he had to tread carefully from now on. He’d hoped to get Spike to open up to him about the soul but never dreamed that an opportunity would present itself so early. He waited; Spike appeared lost in thought and Wesley feared that he’d trespassed too far. He took a sip from his cup and waited.

Spike finally shook himself out of his reverie. He swallowed a mouthful of blood. “The chip was what stopped me hurting humans. When it stopped working on Buffy, it led to . . . “Spike stopped again.

“Your having to reassess your true nature?” Wesley ventured.

“Something like that. – Anyway, got the soul for Buffy. The demon, the one I went to see, he told me she’d castrated me, that I was no longer the powerful dark warrior I once was. “

“Was he right?”

“Half-right. - Was still a warrior. Didn’t want to be on the dark side anymore. Wanted to be what she deserved.”

“Quad erat demonstrandum,” concluded Wesley.

“How d’you reckon that?”

“You renounced evil even before you’d earned your soul. That wasn’t a decision that the chip helped you make.”

“It was for Buffy, not for me.”

“And at the Hellmouth? Was that just for Buffy?”

“Perhaps. - Mostly. - No. - Not just for Buffy. I could feel my soul, really feel it. And when Buffy took my hand in hers, . . . I felt hers too.” Spike struggled to find the words to express what he’d felt. “I needed to do it, for me. I just, - I had to stay and finish it.”

“Finish it as her Champion?” Wesley knew he was pushing him hard but Spike had opened up in a way Angel never would, so he risked another step. “As the one who saved the world?”

“No. Not that. Never thought of myself as a Champion, not until the night Buffy handed me the amulet. “

“The amulet had to be worn by someone with a soul but stronger than a human. Did it ever occur to you that this was the reason you got your soul back?”

“C’mon Percy. When did I have time to think about any of that? When I was luney tunes in the school basement? Or when I was being tortured by The First Evil? Anyway, told you, I don’t go in much for thinking. Leave that to the Mighty Broody One.”

Wesley doubted that Spike was even close to telling the truth as far as thinking was concerned. He might not be in the same league as Angel, but there was directness in his speech that came from some introspection.

“Well then, I’ll bring it back to the question of Harmony. It appears that she is able to function perfectly adequately without a soul. You could probably do likewise. Your soul may no longer be required. If, as you claim, you sought it for Buffy, it may have already served its purpose; that of providing her with her Champion who would close the Hellmouth forever.”

“And if I don’t need it for her anymore, were I to lose it,” Spike suddenly stepped threateningly close to Wesley, “that would leave the way clear for your boy to claim the Shanshu.”

I knew his intelligence shouldn’t be underestimated, thought Wesley holding his ground. “That’s not what I was getting at,” he said firmly. “But you do have a point.” He paused and returned Spike’s gaze, noticing his blue eyes flecking orange then yellow around the iris, but refusing to back down.

Watcher’s got balls, thought Spike. Got to admire that.

“Look at it this way,” said Wesley. “You won your soul for Buffy. It served its purpose and gave you the chance to redefine who you are. You died; and yet here you are, back again, in L.A. Why? Why are you here? Perhaps it’s not to replace Angel, – Please don’t interrupt,”

Spike grumbled, a low growl escaping his lips, his eyes yellowing further.

“Not to replace Angel, but to help him by offering your soul...”

“ . . . as the honour price,” finished Spike.

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” Wesley was amused to find himself mildly irritated. Why had Spike allowed him to lead him down this line of thought when he’d obviously reached this conclusion before? Testing my motives. Not as dim as he would have us believe.

“Some,” admitted Spike.

“I suspected as much. You’re a terrible liar.”

“I need a smoke,” said Spike abruptly, relaxing his features and walking over to the desk.

Wesley let out the breath he’d been unaware he’d been holding. “It’s your office,” he reminded him.

“Why, so it is. Right. Get out then. Leave a bloke to listen to some music and have a fag in peace will you. It’s not every day he gets to hear he might be the Chosen One. Being Angel’s progeny might come at too high a price, though. Haven’t decided yet.”

Angel’s progeny! Lilah’s words again. As he stepped into the corridor and closed the door to Spike’s office behind him, Wesley had another flash of memory. Angel’s son must save the world. Where had that come from? Spike had saved the world. But Spike wasn’t Angel’s son; technically, Angel was only Spike’s grandsire. Angel’s son - a baby. Wesley closed his eyes against the darkness that threatened to swallow him and put a steadying hand on the door behind him. As he made his way slowly towards his own office, his thoughts took him back to Lilah, blood, and the ocean.

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Spike stubbed out his cigarette in the marble ashtray on the coffee table, drained his beer glass and leaned back against the arm of the leather sofa. Perhaps your purpose is not to replace Angel as the one who Shanshus, but to help him. Spike mulled the words over. They were remarkably close to something Giles had once said. What was it? Something about having a higher purpose. He couldn’t remember; Giles was a lifetime away, and, whatever Wesley might believe, Spike was not the same vampire he’d been back then.

Did Wesley have a point? Spike was the offspring to whom the contract referred as far as he was concerned; he couldn’t possibly remember that Angel had a son. Spike didn’t like what he was now considering. Was it even remotely likely that he might have been brought back to help Angel, not by dying, but by giving up his soul?

“Bollocks to that!” he exclaimed, swirling the fine lacing of beer round his empty glass. His head was aching. All this metaphysical musing was giving him a headache not unlike the dull after-effects of a warning from the now defunct chip. “Was hard enough getting the bloody thing in the first place. Got it for Buffy; not giving it up for Angel.” Spike leapt to his feet and strode over to the refrigerator for another beer. “Promised to help him but don’t owe the Bugger that much. What’s he ever done for me? Nothing! ‘cept make me miserable.” He pulled out a can and kicked the door shut with his heel. “Made it clear, right from day one, he didn’t consider me a fit member of his family; barley tolerated me; used me that’s what he did; used me to keep Dru amused when he was too busy to bother with her.” Spike ripped off the ring-pull from the top of the can. The contents spilled out in a fountain of foam, covering his boots with a coating of froth. The sight fuelled his rising anger. “Made sure she only ever wanted me when he wasn’t available. Took everything I ever loved, Dru, . . .”

Spike stopped and took a swig from the can, stopping the remainder of the spume of beer and his own vitriolic outburst. This wasn’t Angel he was recollecting; it was Angelus. Typical of the Ponce to have two completely separate personalities. Not a lot I can pin on Angel, unless bad hair decisions count. Spike considered this as he watched the final droplets of beer dripping off his hand and down onto boots, then shook his head and grimaced. Probably not, he decided.

He had to get out for a while and do something. Inactivity was playing havoc with his sense of well-being. Not that he’d felt very well since he’d come back but who’d cared? Perhaps Fred, fleetingly, when he was helpless and harmless and a not-quite-a-ghost. Now he was able to look after himself and get into trouble, Fred had cooled off with the sympathy. Angel had probably got to her; told her how unreliable he was. Well, he’d show them all just how responsible he could be if he chose. He’d go and speak to Gunn; he had a special project for him, so he said; something about a student who needed an eye kept on him while he settled in on the Wolfram and Hart scholarship at USC. Gunn had come up with the idea to keep Spike out of mischief, he was sure of it. What could he do that would keep him out of trouble? They could go to a match; the kid had an Irish sounding name so it was possible he liked footie. What was his name? Spike searched his memory.

Connor. That’s it!