Chapter Twenty Five – Small World?

Torchwood's angry ramblings were interrupted by the shout of "Vampire!"

The team, along with Buffy and Xander, looked at the only other person in the room, a small blonde girl. They followed her gesture towards the door, where Spike stood, looking dazed.

"Vampire?" Owen asked, snorting. "That's ridiculous. Vampires don't exist."

"But you believe in aliens?" Xander asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah, but there's proof of that!" Owen protested.

"Owen, vampires are real," Jack said calmly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Get over it."

Everyone in Torchwood stared at him.

"You're serious?" Gwen asked him.

"Of course."

"What about werewolves?" Ianto asked.

"Yes," Jack said.

"Or witches?" Toshiko asked.

Buffy spoke up. "Our resident witch is out right now, contacting a friend, but you can meet her when she returns." Willow had left to call Giles.

They all stared at her.

The girl broke the silence. "Excuse me, but there's a vampire right. There." She grabbed a stake from her belt.

"Rowena, relax," Buffy said. "This guy's on our side. Sort of. But no dusting."

"Wait, are you telling me John is a vampire?" Jack asked incredulously. "But…oh. Oh. Oh."

"What is it?" Gwen asked.

"He's a vampire," Jack said. "It makes sense now. The sun. His aging. Coughing up blood. Duh. I can't believe I missed it!" He walked over to Spike and slung his arm around his shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me that you were a vampire, John? I could've gotten you into the Academy so much sooner!"

"What the hell is he talking about?" Xander asked Gwen.

She shook her head. "Truthfully, you probably know more than us at this point."

"Wait, why do you keep calling him John?" Buffy asked, coming up next to Spike and Jack.

"That's his name!" Jack said.

"No it's not," Buffy said, shaking her head.

Jack froze. "What?"

"That's not his name," Buffy said. "Look, when did you meet him? What year?"

"Look, I know that you call him Spike, and he's gone by some weird names in the past…"

"When did you meet him?" Buffy demanded.

"Uh…"

"When?"

"…The 51st century," Jack answered.

"…I'm sorry, what?" Buffy asked.

"The 51st century," Jack said.

"But then how…" Xander asked.

"It's simple, really," Spike said. "Time travel."

They all turned to look at him.

"Spike? You're…coherent…" Buffy drifted off.

"Yeah. Probably not gonna last long, tho'. 'M starting to feel it slipping, so let's hurry."

They all sat gathered around a table (they being Buffy, Spike, Xander, Willow (who returned), Dawn, Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Toshiko, and Owen).

"Let's start from the beginning," Spike said, taking a deep breath, inhaling the blood from the cup in front of him. Buffy had poured some of her blood into it, realizing that Slayer blood kept him sane; if only for a little while. Buffy kept stubbornly doing it, so Spike had stopped complaining, giving her a small nod of thanks. "I was born in the 1850s – I don't even know the exact date anymore, it's been so long. I was an English gentleman, but lower class. I was…a prat. I was a scholar, I graduated top of my class from Cambridge, and I spent my time writing…poetry. I was nicknamed 'William the Bloody Awful Poet'. Some would say things like, 'I'd rather have a railroad spike shoved through my head than listen to his poetry'. I…was in love…with a woman named Cecily. One night, I told her of my feelings of her, and she…turned me down. I fled from the party, crying, and I hid in an alley. That was when…Drusilla found me. Drusilla was my sire; she was the vampire that turned me. After that, I went back to my mother, and…let's skip that part. Anyways, so I became a vampire. I hunted down anyone who called my poetry terrible, and granted their wish – I shoved metal railroad spikes through their skulls. And then I read my poetry to them anyway. After that, 'Awful Poet' was dropped from my name, so it was just 'William the Bloody'. I picked up 'Spike' not too long after that, (cause of the railroad spikes), and kept it. Over the next few decades, I traveled with Drusilla, her sire, Angelus, and his sire, Darla. The four of us became known as 'The Whirlwind' or 'The Scourge of Europe'. Right before the end of the 19th century, Angelus became cursed. He fed off a Gypsy, one who was revered by her clan, so they cursed him. They returned his soul to his body, so that he would feel the guilt and horror of his actions as a vampire. He left us soon after that, unable to stand the killings. He rejoined us a few years later, trying to…'fit in' again. Dru and I never really knew what was going on – it was Darla who made all of the decisions. That night, during the Boxer Rebellion, I killed my first Slayer. Angel left us again after that, after saving a family from Darla. I didn't see him again until the 1940s, when I was caught in Germany be the Nazis who were hoping to utilize vampires into creating a vampire army – the original Initiative. We escaped, and I didn't see him again. Not long after the Boxer Rebellion, Darla left us too, to return to her sire, the Master, and then it was just Dru an' me. In the seventies, I killed my second Slayer. After that, I traveled with Dru to Praque where she nearly died. We went to California's Hellmouth, in Sunnydale, hoping that it would heal her. That was where I met my next Slayer."

"Me," Buffy filled in.

"Yeah. So, we went through a whirlwind during those…what, six years?"

"Yeah," Buffy said.

"Seems shorter. Anyway, we went through a hell of a lot during those years…during which, I got my soul returned to my body, which…kind of left me insane."

"Understatement," Buffy muttered.

"Not long after, we had to fight the 'First' Evil, and during that time, Buffy used Red," he gestured to Willow, "the resident witch, to use the Slayer's Scythe to unlock the power of the Slayer from every potential. We fought against the First Evil, and I died in a blaze of glory. And then, because God forbid I get some rest, I woke up in Angel Investigations at Wolfram and Hart. Nasty buggers. Angel had joined the enemy in order to try and take control from within. Unfortunately, it wasn't going well. Cordelia fell into a coma from the previous…incidents they've had, and died after waking up for one day, even though, on the record, it says that she never woke up from the coma and that she laid there the whole day. Afterward, Fred died. Winifred Burkle, she was a genius, she was. You see, when I woke up at Wolfram and Hart, I didn't have a…physical…form. I was a ghost, for lack of a better word. Fred helped me get my body back…somewhat, I'm still not really sure how that happened. But then Fred had gotten sick, and her body was possessed by a god of some sort – her name was Illyria. We stayed at the firm for a bit longer, and Angel tried to get into the Black Thorn – the big league of evil. We took down separate members. During that, Wesley died. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce – he was great, he was. Deserved a better end." Spike picked up the glass and drank some blood like a shot before putting it back on the table and continuing. "Illyria stayed by his side and pretended to be Fred for him, because he loved Fred. Later, me, Angel, Illyria, and Gunn met up in the back alley of their old hotel. Gunn had a stomach wound – he wasn't going to last long, and we all knew it. Illyria told us of Wesley's death, and we took on the 60,000 or so minions of the Circle of the Black Thorn." He hesitated, taking a sip from Buffy's blood. "That's the last I remember. When I woke up again, over eight hundred years had passed."

"Eight hundred years?" Buffy asked incredulously. Everyone wore similar expressions around the circle.

Spike nodded. "Yeah. I just have a blank memory. After that, I kept living, for some reason. I didn't have hope until around the 49th century. That when Earth received the news – we were getting a Time Agency."

"Time Agency?" Xander repeated.

Spike and Jack both nodded. "You would work for the agency, carrying messages throughout time and space. Each member that could 'Travel' would receive one of these." They both held up their wrist straps. "These are vortex manipulators," Spike continued. "But it was still a long while until I got mine. I applied hundreds, thousands of different times to the Academy, but they never let me in because of my…condition. One day, I climbed the big tree behind the Academy, telling myself that I would actually stay to watch the sunrise that day, when this idiotic kid starts bothering me. He climbs the tree and asks me all of these questions, being a little shit an' such. And then he says something like, 'I'm gonna call you John,' so I turn to him and start ripping him a new one because do I look like a bloody John to you? We became friends, he told me his name, and I told him the name I had recently applied to the Academy with. Which…at the time…just so happened to be John."

"Who was this guy?" Gwen asked. Even though she, along with the rest of the Torchwood team, was confused and clueless about what was going on, they couldn't help leaning closer.

"Me," Jack said, and everyone turned to look at him. "I was the 'idiotic kid'. But that wasn't until the 51st century."

"Yeah," Spike said, nodding. "Two hundred years after I first started applying. Afterwards, Jack pulled some strings and managed to get them to build a special type of faux vortex manipulator that would protect me from the sun. They said that it would allow me to attend the Academy as anyone else would, and, if I passed, I would receive a real Vortex Manipulator with additional functions to protect me from the sun like the fake one. As you can see," he held up his Vortex Manipulator, "I passed."

Jack snorted. "Yeah, by lying."

"You didn't have to lie for me, you know," Spike said. "You just influenced my bad habits."

"Sure," Jack said sarcastically. He fake coughed into his hand and said, "Rehabs."

"Anyway, we traveled together for a while. And then…jeez, so many things happened that I don't really know what happened." Spike paused, and swallowed. "Time can be a tricky thing. You can have different timelines, and different realities. You have paradoxes and fixed points. But I didn't remember anything that happened in that eight hundred year time span, which meant that I could go and do whatever the hell I wanted during those years and not mess up the timeline at all. If I don't know the events that happen, I'll get the same results that led to the current timeline. However, if I do know what events take place during those years, then it will become a fixed point in time, and I won't be able to change it, no matter how much I want to. I've purposely stayed away from the history books about those years. I had joined the Time Agency in order to travel back in time to this time period." So I could be with you again. The words weren't spoken, but they hovered in the air, unsaid. Even to the Torchwood team, it was fairly obvious that Spike did it for Buffy, from the way he spoke and gazed at her.

"So now you're here," Xander said.

Spike snorted, "Yeah, accidentally. I followed some residual energy back here – I was never able to transport here on my own. I couldn't go back before 2500, no matter how hard I tried. I don't even know how long it's been since I've last seen Jack. I have no idea how old I am."

"Really?" Dawn asked.

"Well, I've got to be over three thousand years old, mathematically, even though I only remember about twenty five hundred years of it. Plus there's all the time I spend time traveling." He shrugged. "I'm old. I can tell you that much."

"Why don't you look like the Master?" Buffy asked.

"Hmm?" Spike asked.

"The Master. He was only like...a thousand when I killed him, but he was in vamp face," Buffy explained.

Spike chortled. "Yeah, that's 'cause he got some inferiority disorder about being the leader of the Order of Aurelius. He probably felt like he had to make himself seem more powerful. He did have a human form – Darla told me that she'd seen it once, but I never had."

"So where was the Time Agency?" Dawn asked.

"What?" Spike asked, directing his attention to her.

"You said that the Time Agency came to earth. Where? Cardiff?"

"No," Spike said curtly.

"Why does everyone think that the Time Agency was in Cardiff?" Jack asked.

"Should you really be saying 'was'?" Xander asked Jack. "I mean, it technically wasn't made yet, right?"

Buffy put her head in her hands. "My head hurts," she complained.

"Well, you were found in Cardiff," Willow said, continuing Dawn's line of questioning. "So you can't blame us for thinking that it was there."

"There's also the Rift," Tosh said suddenly.

"What?" Xander asked.

"There's a Rift in space and time in Cardiff, which draws lots of extraterrestrial attention and energy," Tosh explained. "That might be another reason why the Time Agency was there."

"Well, it wasn't made in Cardiff," Spike said. "And they didn't build a new place. They used an old…building."

"Well, where was it?" Dawn asked excitedly. Buffy dragged her head up and looked at Spike, and everyone turned their attention to him.

"You mean, where is it," Spike corrected. He took a deep breath. "Right here."

Hey everyone. First things first - I will try to update once a week. Second - the Doctor will not be appearing in the story (or at least he won't be currently), and once we enter Part Three (you'll notice I have Part One and we're currently on Part Two) I don't believe that we'll be seeing Torchwood again, either (though that may be subject to change). As to your comments, thank you for commenting, and to the guest, you have a good point (even though it was mostly in there for a joke). Still, if you want to see a larger explanation, check out my Supernatural, Doctor Who, Avengers, Harry Potter, and Sherlock fanfiction crossover, The Girl Who Knew Too Much. It would be AWESOME if you guys could read all of it (you only need basic knowledge on each of the fandoms), but if you don't want to read the whole thing, I can't really blame you. Specifically go to chapter 109 (titled Chapter Ninety Eight) and chapter 110 (titled Chapter Ninety Nine). That should cover everything (you'll notice that my chapters are off because of my odd-organizing habits). Some parts of it won't exactly make sense, you just need to know that when it's in 1st person, it's from the POV of an OC who is this world's AU version of Clara, Clarissa Osbourne (or Rissa as she likes to call it. The 'I' is pronounced with a long 'E'. R-EE-sah)

Sweet dreams everyone.