Disclaimers etc remain as with part one.
Gargoyles Don't Cry!
by Shamenka

***

After the tears came sleep. Spike slept through the perfect day into the perfect evening before he woke again. Hera and Oz still sitting by his side. He couldn't even summon up the energy needed to be rude to them. Spike still felt exhausted, but more, worse than that, he felt deeply, deeply embarrassed. He had failed to stake himself for a second time, and far worse than anything else - he had cried before the mutt and a Goddess of all creatures. There was no doubt in his mind that the lady who called herself Hera and Queen was indeed the Goddess Hera. And before her William the Bloody had wept very real tears for his very real pain and profound shame. Why didn't they let him die?

"Why didn't you let me die?" Spike whispered his question to the ceiling rather than either of his companions. He couldn't face either of them, or the future. As for the past, he wanted to draw a veil over it all and never look behind it ever again. Failing that, he wished he had been allowed to die. If he could have wished a stake in his heart as he lay there, he would have. He continued to lie there, looking steadfastly ceilingward, wishing with all his might. Nothing happened. His heart continued to not beat, to be steadfastly stake free. He continued to exist, certainly he would never call it living ever again.

"You have a destiny, child, a very large role in the coming end game." Hera held onto Spike's left hand with both of hers, patting it softly, stroking his long fingers. Touching him with such delicacy that part of him hoped she would never let go.

"A destiny? As what? My insane sire's punch bag? Buffy's chew toy? Is that all my life and death amount to? A means to let my..." He barked out a short bitter laugh. "Fuck, but I almost called them my friends. That's rich, isn't it? Friends, them, me?" Finally he looked at her, meeting her eyes squarely, letting her see his pain in all its dark glory. "Why should I bother to fulfil such a destiny, huh? Did your Fates tell you that too? Did they?"

Hera was bathed in the agony of Spike's hidden soul, beyond responding for the moment, swamped by his feelings, the effect made all the worse by her continuing to hold him. She did not let go however. She held all the tighter. It was left to Oz to try and respond to Spike's pain driven questions. Words were not normally his strong suit, but his words were at least mostly always honest. So long as he didn't mention Tibet. That notion made him smile briefly, warmly, finding hope he spoke.

"Our destiny is not to be either of their kick toys. You and me are going to be partners, the werewolf and the vampire. Warriors for the Powers that Were and Will Be Again. You and I, us together, we're going into direct competition with Angel and his team of demon killers. They kill the demons to the favour of humans, always, well almost always anyway. You and I will be like bounty hunters, balancing the forces that drive the world. Bringing the guilty humans and demons alike to the... place..." He made a vague gesture with his hands obviously searching for an unfamiliar term.

"The Areiopagus Demonicus, as some of the others call it. The demon court is its real title." Hera smiled at Oz and turned once more to face Spike. Taking up the narrative from the point Oz stopped. "You see, child, it had been agreed between us and those that came after that all matters between our excluded children and humans would be adjudged fairly. Until belief in our powers returned sufficiently we could do nothing but watch. Watch as they betrayed and ignore every promise they ever made to us. Now, however, we can and will act. All those lying..." She stopped talking, fumed quietly for a few moments, looked at Spike in an almost frustrated silence.

"Bastards, gits, scum, fuck witted mammal lovers?" Spike offered her a few emotive alternative terms of reference to choose from. He saw a fire burn in Hera's eyes at each pro-offered choice. He heard the stifled snort of laughter from Oz too, although he didn't turn to look at the young werewolf. He couldn't, Hera's rage was such a thing of beauty he could not look away. So pure and clearly defined, it was powerful, almost hypnotic to a creature born out of rage and violence.

"All of them!" Hera snarled. "They lied, they didn't keep a single promise to maintain the balance with the children they wouldn't let us take with us into exile. No, on the contrary they hunted them down, killing them. Unbalancing the world, removing the natural predator that hunted on the foolish, the week, the unfit to survive mortals. Just as the strong mortals preyed on them. Two sides of a balance, but they tipped it in favour of the mortals, letting them breed and spread like a disease. Driving the demons into deep hiding. Not it's time we redressed that imbalance." Again Hera fell silent.

"And you want Oz, a relatively inexperienced werewolf, and me, a pregnant vampire of all things, to redress this balance? Look, I'm having enough trouble believing I'm not dead, like dusted dead. That's twice I've failed at it now! And... and now you say that I'm pregnant, me, a bloke, a male vampire, a man that died in 1873, knocked up, up the duff, ensprogged by... by..." He couldn't say it, it turned his gut so much he rolled over and threw up onto the smooth, polished, expensive looking marble floor.

With a wave of her hand the mess was gone. With another wave of her hand a goblet of still warm blood appeared in her hand.

"Here, drink this. And didn't it ever occur to you that you might have been saved from dusting yourself for some higher reason?" She handed the goblet over, once Oz had Spike sitting upright.

With shaking hands the vampire took the blood and gulped down a long draft of the warm, sweetly bitter fluid. At the taste of it, his eyes flew open and he slowly lowered the goblet, careful to not spill a drop. It was not pig, cow or any other domesticated animals blood. Nor was it human blood. It was rich, powerful, beyond any word he could envision. It had to be Gods blood. If Hera had been telling him the truth and the ancient Greek Gods were the true Gods of all demons natural to this dimension, then his Gods had given up their blood to feed him. Him! They valued him, he was worth something to someone after all. To the Gods.

"Oh, God.." Spike whispered.

"Most assuredly not, that lying old fart wouldn't give up a molecule to save anyone, let alone his blood for a child. Granted he only had the one, allegedly, but I always thought that story far too much like Herakles' life story to be true personally. Only Herakles enjoyed sex more." Hera grinned impishly as she responded to Spike's involuntary comment.

"Oh, Gods and Goddesses then." The vampire tried again, he had to be feeling better, his sarcastic tendencies were showing itself once more.

"Better." Hera cautioned, letting him know she was allowing the sarcasm pass this once. "Now, have you understood what we've been saying?"

"I think so. You want me, him and me, us like, to go out and kick ass for your cause. Save the innocents, bring the bad guys to justice, your justice. As in your actual demons court and fair trial justice. And generally work against... him!" The goblet held such interest at that moment, it was far better than thinking about him. The name he didn't want to think of, let alone say. He drank the last of the blood these Gods had given him. Savouring the very last trace of its flavour as he swallowed it down.

"That about covers it. Of course there are practical details to work out and what not. But you've got the essential parts of things down pat." Hera retook a hold of Spike's hand, waving the now empty goblet away. "One of those details is the baby you are now carrying. We didn't actually count that into our plans. We suspect one of the other players got wind of our plans and tried to counter our emergence into the field of play. We have been directing your life and destiny from the side lines for a while now, getting you into position to allow you to make the transition from random killer to one of our champions. Hey, they've got two, we want two. It's only fair after all. The chip in your head was part of our over all plan. We had to get you thinking of the inhabitants of the world, human and demons alike, as something other than things to eat or fight. And you were doing so well too, until you fell for that Herakles clone with breasts and a vampire fixation." Hera snarled again. It managed to sound both lady like and definitely unlady like at one and the same time. Spike was impressed. Angered at their interference but still bloody annoyed with their high handed attitude to his future however. Then the truth of her words sunk in and he stared at her quite blankly for a heartbeat, if he had a heartbeat to measure time against. As he opened his mouth to speak his eyes flooded with emotion, not happiness and joy either.

"You had them put that bloody fuckin' piece of shit chip in m'bleedin' head? You lot were behind the fuckin' Initiative? And you're supposed t'be on our bleedin' side? Why?" The angered vampire was trembling with the rage that Hera's confession triggered.

"As I said, to teach you. To show you there are other things in the world besides destruction and mayhem and violence. You have learned to get yourself out of situations without using your fists. Granted you tended to use the slayers fists, but you learned that there are always options. You learned that killing isn't enough. It has causes and effects. And when the cause is you killing demons just to be killing someone then the effect is you get hit back by all the rest of the demons. I'd say you learned that lesson rather well. Wouldn't you?" Hera drew her shoulders back and sat a little straighter in her chair, it was obvious she hadn't expected Spike to react quite as negatively as he had.

"Fuckin' hell woman, what the fuck were you playing at? Teachin' me! Fuckin' Sesame Street for the undead? Teachin' me! Teachin' me? Christ on fuckin' skewer, you coulda' just givin' m'the fuckin' book. I can read you know! Have done since I went t'the fuckin' university, an' before!" Spike glowed in his rage. Hera and Oz finally sat back and shared a strained but happy smile; an angry vampire was normally a non suicidal vampire.

"Sometimes the lesson is lost in the translation." Hera held out her hand, fist curled downwards. "Here." She shook the hand getting Spike's attention and the automatic hand in response to her offering him something. Curiosity wasn't something created solely to orchestrate the demise of cats. It had long been the best means for Gods, or indeed Goddesses, to get the humans in the world to sit up and pay better attention.

Spike opened his hand and a small black chip fell into it.

He could say nothing. For once the bleach blond vampire was entirely speechless. All he could do was sit there and stare at the little lump of plastic and metal that had caused him so much damn grief and pain.

"Granted this does mean you can fight humans, you can defend yourself, even initiate a fight if you need to. But try and drink from one, without their express permission, and you're going to find out that that chip was really your very best friend, ever!" The Goddess' voice left him in no doubt that she was telling the truth. He slowly looked from the chip to her, unsure of what he wanted to ask. "It's simple, William Mansfield, you work for us, we see to your every need. Our blood will more than just quell your hunger. You need less, it does more. You get to..." she seemed to pause to consider the best choice of words to go with, "Kick butt, knock heads, wallop the opposition. And generally mess with him and her and their precious one sided game plans."

The very idea of a Goddess using such an obscure term as wallop had Spike clutching his belly as he laughed. He roared with laughter until the tears threatened to return once more. And he totally failed to respond to her use of his real name. At least it meant she didn't have to explain to the vampire how come Oz didn't react at all to her mentioning it. He finally gasped for breath to speak and asked the werewolf the question uppermost in his mind, locking eyes with the younger man.

"I take it you're up for this then?"

"Yup!" Oz replied, sounding inordinately keen on the idea.

"Why?" Spike questioned him some more, laughter all gone, deadly serious.

"Because I am what I am all because someone messed with the balance a thousand years ago, or more. Because I don't want it to happen to others, if we can help it. You've learned to control the beast within, with out the stupid curse and the thou shall not be happy tag! Why can't other demon's. I've learned. They've taught me to master the beast, a thing Buffy and them said couldn't be done. They lied, they destroyed me and Willow, so I want to fight back." Oz fell silent, remembering the manner in which he discovered the woman he had loved and struggled for now loved another. She hadn't even had the courage or honesty to tell him. He had had to smell the truth from another.

"Tibet eh?" Spike teased.

"Tibet." Oz laughed, softly.

"About me being pregnant..." He didn't know quite what question he wanted to ask, but saw that Hera understood him better than he understood himself.

______________

Gargoyles Don't Cry!
by Shamenka

"It alters things somewhat. Instead of one of the Muses going with you as your liaison, I'll be going. Pregnancy is my.. oh, what's the current term... bag, it's my bag. So the team will be a werewolf, a vampire and a senior Goddess. Think you can cope with us? You will have to go through the full term of the pregnancy anyway. Might as well do it with me around." Hera rested a hand over Spike's still flat stomach.

"Yeah, you said, you can't terminate, but afterwards, who'll take it? I don't want it, I never wanted it. Never wanted to be a dad, let alone a fuckin' mum!" The omnipresent rage and fear returned to the blond's face once more.

"Wait and see, you don't know how you'll feel when the baby comes." Hera tried to get away with platitudes. She knew so much about what possible futures lay ahead for the child, depending on whether it was to be a boy or a girl. And even the Gods wouldn't know that until the eighth week of gestation.

"Don't I?" Spike snarled at her, fear, hate, loathing for Angel and Buffy and their precious powers that be filling him with rage once more.

"So, putting Angel's involvement aside for now, what did the baby do to you? What evil did it do?" Oz sat on the side of Spike's bed and looked at him, holding the vampire's gaze almost effortlessly.

"Well, nothin' so far." Spike reluctantly replied.

"Then let's take it one day at a time. You, me, Hera and the nameless one. Is the baby really responsible for Angel's guilt? Did he or she demand their creation? Is it even any of Angel's concern? Do you have to acknowledge it has anything to do with the bastard anyway? Can't it belong to just you instead?" Oz was certainly not his usual quiet self. When he had something to say, he said it.

"Will it be mortal or a vampire?" Spike asked Hera directly.

"Why does it matter to you?" She countered.

"Because I've seen child vampires, they're never very sane, even by vampire standards. I need to know if I'm going to have to carry this thing for nine fuckin' months only to have t'stake it the minute it pops out. However it's gonna pop out!" The images in his head left him unsure whether to laugh or throw up again. He settled on shuddering slightly as a compromise.

"I don't know for certain, there are many possible futures for your child. None of them fixed. I won't know for several weeks what to expect from your child. By the time I have a fix on it's gender I'll know it's true nature, vampire or mortal too." Hera broke the news honestly, she couldn't lie to the traumatised vampire. He had had too many false promises of hope broken already. Too many promises of eternal joy turn quite literally to ashes in his hands.

"Oh fuck!" Spike let his head fall back and closed his eyes. Fighting fatigue, fear and all his other far too near the surface emotions. Unsure himself if he wanted a living mortal child or an excuse to kill a twisted, insane vampiric child.

Taking advantage of his position, Hera pushed him once more into a deep sleep.

"Let's leave him in the capable arms of Morpheus and go get something to eat for ourselves. Vampires are hardy creatures, nature demands that - given the hardships of their existence. Leave him with Morph." Hera indicated the door out from Spike's bed chamber and they both left the vampire to sleep.

Guarded over by Morpheus himself.

***

It had been twenty four hours since his world had turned upside down and inside out yet again. Angel had become Angelus who had in turn became this half and half nameless, childeless wonder. He had his soul and he had his demon's rage, and both wanted revenge. Both wanted to make the pain go away, the pain of knowing that he had destroyed his childe. For the remainder of his existence he vowed that he would never make another childe, Spike had been his last. And no one could take his place.

Not in his life and most definitely not in Hell. A Hell Angel was all too familiar with. It tore at both the demon and the soul to know that they had driven his childe to welcome those eternal torments as opposed to the torments he had promised him.

Dru no longer counted as his childe. Her share of the guilt prohibited it. She was as responsible as he for Spike's death. She had willingly sided with Wolfram and Hart, just like Darla had. He had offered to give his former sire his help, what she wanted was to take his soul. In the end, all she had taken was his childe. And with him went her last chance to avoid Hell once more.

So now it was time to extend her invitation back to that same Hell Spike had gone to, time to help her park and let her start her return journey. Payment for their sins was now due - and he was going to collect.

Angel looked up at the light that spilled out from Lindsey McDonald's apartment. Once, he had looked upon such light as a little morsel day in the eternal night, as a warm haven. But those fool enough to challenge him, and think that that domestic little light would shield them, were sorely wrong. It was time the stupid lawyer learned his final lesson. Never live with a vampire, especially if you want protection from another vampire. Your home, the vampire's lair, his hunting ground. It was so obvious that Lindsey felt himself so safe from any and all vampires, his lights and life spewed forth from an open window. Unfettered, unbarred, unbelievable.

"Say bye-bye Lindsey old man." He whispered to the darkness inside and out, where his soul used to burn brightly. Now it was in permanent shadow. He looked up at that open invitation, if you could get to it and grinned in anticipation. Then he jumped. It was almost too high, but his rage leant him strength. And he made contact and entry with that too happy light.

"Angel!" The little lawyer panicked as the vampire descended from the window ledge, entering his mortal home. "How?" He looked around, trying to recall where Darla was, trying to get Angel with his back to the vampiress.

"You fuck a vampire, she hides out here, consequently she fucked your protection. Her lair, dear boy, your grave yard." The Irish lilt tinged his voice, with the souls grace and approval the demon showed forth in all it's malevolent glory.

"Angelus?" A hesitant smile dared to cross the lawyer's face, a hope sprung into sharp focus in that squalid little soul. He thought he had won. That the game was over and he the eternal victor.

Angelus lifted a gentle hand to smooth the dark haired mortal's cheek. As his other hand echoed the action and warm smile broke onto Lindsey's ugly features.

"Angelus!" He whispered the name like an acolyte's fevered prayer.

"Well, you know how it is?" Angelus smiled at the lawyer, savouring the moment. "You gotta be careful what ya' wish for, me lad, ya' jus' might get it!" Smile dissolving into rage he tightened his hold on the lawyer's head and twisted and pulled with his full vampiric strength and ripped the offending head clean of its cringing back. The decapitated body fell backwards with the heads last command to jerk away still locking its reaction. The thud drew the attention of the second player in the nights little drama. Dara ran into the room, skidding to a halt when she saw Angel's back to her.

"Lindsey? Angel?" Darla's startled voice gave the vampire the exact location for his former sire's position.

"Present for ya' Darla!" He spun, threw the head at her and as she instinctively caught it, the spring loaded stake hidden up his sleeve descended and he thrust it right into her heart one more time. For the last time. This time she would stay dead, he swore it!

Lindsey McDonald's head with its still startled expression fell onto the grey, cold unwelcoming pile of dry ash that had been the greatest love affair of his entire life. Angel didn't even spare him a moment's pity that the demon he loved so much could never love him. After all, she had never known how to love. Not like his Spike had. Spike had loved and they had made him take it all away.

One down, about a hundred more to go!

***

In Sunnydale, in a busy corner of the graveyard Spike had called home, a practised hand put a new weapon into use. A quiet pump, pump hiss and Spike's water pistol discharged a measured dose of holy water right into a vampire's face. Followed by a stake to the heart and it crumbled to dust. Its pain wracked scream silenced for ever.

"Woah, this is almost fun." Xander's voice tried its very best to sound cheerful, and almost made it. "Makes slayage faster, safer, more accurate. The hissing, dissolving ones stand out clearly marked, ready to be staked." He looked over at the slayer as she staked his next victim. He wished he could find the right words to ease Buffy's guilt, even a little.

Buffy's arm shot out, following each jet of water to its disabled target. She knew just what Xander was doing, even appreciated his attempts at bridging the gap Spike's death had opened up between them all. But the wounds she carried were far too raw to want anyone treating them.

"And Spike devised this? The most important weapon to be added to the slayer's armoury in God knows how long and it came from a vampire?" He wasn't rude, he wasn't disrespectful, just amazed. "Wonder what else he would have thought up to help you, if we hadn't fucked things up so badly?"

"There's no we, Xander, just me. I fucked things up, I got him killed. I couldn't tell Angel from Angelus. I didn't want him dead, just to stop chaining me up and demanding I said I loved him, felt anything for him." Buffy staked the last vampire and turned to face the still tense Xander. Showing him just where the hurts lay, not that he really needed her telegraphing her pain. Finally, she realised that Xander, and all of them, felt as guilty as she did over Spike's death. It had been Xander that had offered to patrol with her. She hadn't wanted to ask, hadn't wanted to patrol alone, especially this close to Spike's crypt. "Thanks for coming on patrol with me, after last night and all."

"Didn't you feel anything at all for Spike? He loved you. It's bizarre but true. He went against his own vampire nature so much, just for you. And you never noticed, felt anything?" Xander blurted out the questions burning in his head as he relaxed his trigger finger and raised the muzzle of his brightly coloured weapon to the sky.

"Fear." Buffy looked at her friend and smiled a little shakily at him. "I felt fear for Spike, of Spike. I couldn't figure him out. He was so human, too human. Not what an evil vampire should be. He didn't follow the script and I feared him because of it. Just as he died because of it too. I didn't understand till way too late. He wasn't like Angel, he was always so comfortable with who and what he was. It was more than I've ever managed to be, being the Slayer has interfered with every relationship I ever had, or wanted, or didn't want."

"At least you felt something." He looked at the lights from the rest of the town, wondered how many vampires, demons and other beasts of the night were out there. Wondered if there was any other vampire like Spike, waiting for them. And he shuddered. "I guess we all felt fear. None of us understood him and we were all too afraid to try and understand him. Like you said, too human, knowing Spike was like looking into a perfect mirror in the night. All he reflected was human nature, and we're none of us angels." He turned back to her at her sharp intake of breath. "Sorry, bad analogy."

"'S ok, really. And you're right. About everything." She smiled at her companion and finally found a real laugh, a gentle laugh, in her heart. "When did you become so wise then, oh profound one?"

"Erm, would you believe while living with Spike under my roof?"

"Actually, I would." Buffy looked at the now dark and empty again crypt that had been Spike's home. So often her first port of call when she needed help, and even if he did sometimes make her pay for his help, he always gave it. "You know, I think I'm going to miss him even more than I ever missed Angel. Angel gave up nothing for me, Spike gave up everything and I never noticed until it was far too late."

"Come on, let's call it quits for tonight and go home, you can fret over Dawn, I'll comfort Anya, we'll all say sorry and cry some more and tell do you remember when stories and try to smile."

"Sounds like a plan." A shaky smile was his reward and they headed back to Buffy's home, silent, remembering and wondering what might have been.

***

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