Author: Slaymesoftly
Title: Wake up, I Love You
Summary: Dana’s drug has put Spike into a coma from which he will not emerge. Angel’s dip into his mind shows him that there is only one person who will be able to reach the sleeping vampire. He makes the call.
Rating: NC17 (sexual situations)
Banner Number: 33 by lilieath Banner and fic guidelines to be found at http://community.livejournal.com/spuffy_haven/155132.html#cutid1
Words 9300 +
Disclaimer – giving them the happy ending Joss didn’t, but he said I could!
AN: Beta’d by my wonderful Always_jbj
Wake Up, I Love You
Part One
“We don’t know what else to do.” The words from the head of Wolfram and Hart’s medical team were frightening. They had reattached Spike’s hands and, by any measure, they were healing beautifully. The combination of Wolfram and Hart’s excellent demon medicine department and Spike’s innate vampire healing meant that recovery was almost complete. And yet, the blond pain in his ass continued to remain unconscious.
Am I doomed to have the people I care about go into comas? What is it with this place?
“So, you’re saying that someone has to go into his mind and find out why he won’t wake up? Is that it?”
“Yes, Sir. There is no medical explanation for it; the drug is completely out of his system now, so it must be that he would rather not be awake. He’s happier wherever his mind has taken him.”
“Yeah, well, his happiness isn’t all that important to me,” Angel muttered. “I need him awake and functional.”
“I’ll do it,” Gunn said quietly. The vampire started in surprise. He had forgotten that Gunn was with him – and that the street smart boy-cum-brilliant lawyer had been the closest thing that Spike had to a male friend. Of course Harmony and Fred continued to pop in and out to see how he was, but Fred’s interest was as much scientific curiosity as affection for the flirty vampire; and Harmony’s was just...delusional, most likely. Spike had not paid much attention to his ex girlfriend after that initial encounter that ended with her trying to bite him and screaming about the Slayer.
“I can’t risk you,” Angel said with an abrupt headshake. “You have no idea what’s inside that mind...I think I’m going to have to do it. Only another vampire would be able to tolerate what’s probably going on in there.”
“I thought Spike had his soul – just like you do?” Gunn looked genuinely confused at the suggestion that his blond friend might be reliving his glory days as a killer.
“Having a soul doesn’t make you less of a vampire,” Angel explained. “Those cravings are still there, just...controlled...muffled, in a way. I’m sure he still dreams about killing.”
“Do you? “
“What? Oh, no, no, of course not. But I’m on the path to redemption and I’ve had my soul much longer than Spike has. I doubt he has my control over...” his voice trailed off as Gunn raised a skeptical eye.
“Yeah, all he did was go get himself a soul – for the love of a woman.”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time he made a fool of himself over a woman he was never going to have,” Angel growled. “He even calls himself ‘Love’s Bitch’ – like that’s something to be proud of.”
“So,” Gunn said in his best courtroom voice, ”what you’re saying is that even before he got his soul, Spike had more humanity than Angelus ever did?”
Angel’s glare said very clearly that he was done with the conversation and the man wisely backed off, just nodding as he added that knowledge to what he already knew about the two vampires.
“Let’s do it,” Angel interrupted his thoughts by speaking to the doctor still present in the room. “He’s my grandchilde, if anyone should go in and get him, it should be me. He should listen to me.”
Gunn couldn’t suppress a snort of laughter and he braved another amber-tinged glare as he asked, “Should or will? I can’t say I’ve noticed a whole lot of listening to you going on lately.”
“Very funny. Let’s go. I’ve got actual work to do today.”
The doctor nodded and brought out a syringe. “We can use this drug to put you under,” he said proudly. “Most people would need a powerful witch to accomplish the same thing. The shot will put you where you can observe what he’s thinking – you just need to be touching and concentrating on him while I inject you.”
Without comment, the older vampire sat down beside Spike’s bed and took his grandchilde’s cold, still hand in his own. He stared at Spike’s face, making note of how peaceful and young he appeared as he lay dreaming of happier times. So entranced was he by the look on Spike’s face, he barely noticed the prick of the needle entering his arm. He felt his eyes closing and he seemed to fall into the body in front of him.
He opened his eyes, expecting to see a scene of bloodshed and carnage, perhaps the fight with the Chinese slayer or worse. Instead, he found himself watching as Spike brushed some hair off Buffy’s face and sang to her. Sang? He’s singing to her? And she’s listening? What the hell....
He watched, unseen and unnoticed, as Giles and Dawn, Willow and Xander and two women he didn’t recognize joined Buffy and Spike in holding hands and singing together. Spike abruptly broke off from the group, waving his hand in disgust and leaving the building. He leaned against the wall outside, shaking his head as though to clear it of the music. Suddenly, Buffy was joining him, countering his curt suggestion that she let him know when she decided what she wanted by beginning to sing again. As she did so, her eyes never left Spike’s face, and Angel watched in horror and amazement as they both sang while moving closer and closer together. When they came together in a kiss that was as intense as it was unexpected, the older vampire groaned.
He watched, unable to look away, as the girl he had fallen in love with when he first saw her and the grandchilde that had been both the bane of his existence and the source of many pleasant memories, stood embracing tightly and kissing as though they were starving. To his relief, they eventually stopped, still standing with their arms around each other, foreheads pressed together. Spike opened his mouth and whispered, “Buffy—“
“Jackass,” Angel scoffed, as Buffy immediately realized what they’d been doing and pulled herself away.
“It was the spell!” she blurted, as the blond vampire reached a pleading hand toward her cheek. “Don’t”, she whispered, taking his hand with surprising gentleness and forcing it down to his side. “Just don’t, okay?”
“Alright, love,” Spike amazed his grandsire by agreeing. “Let’s just get you and the Bit home then, yeah?’
As if on cue, Buffy’s sister emerged from what Angel now realized was the Bronze and joined them in the alley. Angel was amazed at how comfortable she clearly was with the unsouled vampire, and at the open affection in Spike’s eyes as he pulled her into his side.
“You alright there, Bit? Don’t have to follow that wanker into hell and tear his delicate parts off for touchin’ you do I?”
“No, he didn’t touch me. And, ewwww, gross!”
Angel watched with interest as Buffy seemed to relax and enjoy the banter between her sister and Spike, walking silently beside them as they made their way back to Revello Drive.
Suddenly the scene switched and Angel was watching a much younger Buffy and a much rougher-looking Spike as they sat together in an overstuffed chair kissing and cooing. He shook his head in disbelief as Buffy brought out a tiny bride and groom set. She giggled as she pointed out the tiny fangs on the groom and the spot of red on his chin. The look of adoration on Spike’s face as he glanced from the cake decorations to the Slayer gave Angel an uncomfortable feeling in his gut.
It wasn’t long before he realized that he was watching a reenactment of the spell Willow had done after Oz left her. He was momentarily puzzled about Spike’s presence until he remembered being told about the chip, which prevented Spike from killing and sent him crawling to his mortal enemy for aid when he could no longer feed himself. Angel had a vague memory of sensing family when he’d shown up on Thanksgiving to offer unseen, and apparently unneeded, help; he wondered if Spike had even then been living in the watcher’s apartment. His fists clenched as he watched Buffy’s fingers trailing down Spike’s muscular arm, and watched her giggle at the vampire’s soft growl of arousal. It was clear from the amount of time Spike spent dreaming of the spell-induced engagement that it had meant something to him even then.
The younger vampire’s thoughts moved around from year to year – forward, then back, with no apparent focus except for Buffy’s constant presence and her willingness to let him spend time with her. Angel had to close his eyes during the scenes of their love-making – both because he hated the thought of anyone else enjoying what he knew he couldn’t, and also because the passionate, inventive and enthusiastic woman he saw enjoying his grandchilde’s skills bore little resemblance to the shy virgin that he remembered. Even the day they had spent together when he was human had been tame and boring compared to Spike’s memories.
There was no doubt in his mind that they were memories – not dreams of something that Spike had wished would happen, but memories of actual events. If he were honest, Angel would have had to admit that he had expected to see more sexual activity than he did. Much of what Spike was replaying over and over were scenes of tenderness - few and far between as they obviously had been – and scenes that indicating a surprising level of trust in him. Buffy’s leaving Joyce and Dawn in his crypt long before she could have known about his feelings for her, was a definite surprise. That Spike could have remembered it so fondly was another.
Angel found himself wishing he could leave; he was having no problem understanding why Spike didn’t want to wake up, and he had no desire to watch any more scenes of the budding friendship between the two blonds, or the violent and raunchy sex that followed Buffy’s return from the grave. Her rescue of the now-souled vampire from the First’s torture chamber, her refusal to stake him even when he’d confessed to killing, his taste of her blood and it’s immediate affect on his demon, their entire friendship during that last awful year in Sunnydale, gave Angel a completely different perspective on the relationship between the two people who meant more to him than almost anyone else in his life. Their obvious closeness, in spite of its lack of physical expression, was so much deeper than what he remembered of his time with Buffy that he could no longer deny what he was seeing. His grandchilde and the last Chosen One had something very special; something that no one except they, themselves, had ever imagined.
He watched the replay of those final moments in the Hellmouth, saw Buffy look up at Spike in awe, eyes brimming with unshed tears. Angel tried to will her not to say what he could read in her eyes. He could almost feel the swell of happiness from the unconscious vampire as the woman he loved beyond life itself told him that she loved him. In spite of Spike’s response, obviously designed to force her to leave, Angel was sure that Spike must have realized the truth in her words.
“Come on, Spike,” Angel spoke up suddenly. “She loves you. I get it. I’m going to call her. Right now. Don’t you want to be awake when she gets here? Come on, William, wake up. Now!”
He got no response, just the beginning of another scene in which a naked Buffy sat astride Spike’s hips, head thrown back and eyes closed in ecstasy. While she kept her eyes shut and rode Spike into his release, the vampire never took his eyes off her, closing them only when she had collapsed upon his chest. They lay together in a spent heap, Buffy eventually sliding off to snuggle next to his side in a position that seemed more than familiar to both of them. Spike was stroking her arm where it lay across his chest, and kissing the top of her head as it nestled under his chin.
In spite of himself, Angel groaned in sympathy as Buffy’s eyes opened and she obviously regretted finding herself cuddling with Spike. She was pulling away when his whispered “please” caught her attention. She remained frozen for a few seconds, then with a nod of acquiescence, she put her head back down and allowed him to cover them both with a blanket. “Just for a little while,” she murmured into his chest as her eyes drifted closed.
“Just for a little while, love,” he agreed, wrapping both arms around her, and falling asleep himself, a happy smile curving his lips.
With a sudden wrench, Angel pulled himself back out of Spike’s mind, dropping his hand and stepping back from the bed. He stared hard at the still-immobile vampire on the bed and wondered if he was imagining the tiny smile on Spike’s face.
“Well?” Gunn’s tone was both curious and demanding.
“I can’t do it,” Angel said firmly. At the other man’s disappointed look, he added quietly, “But I know who can.”
Part Two
Buffy was with the Immortal when the call came in. She smiled apologetically when she saw Angel’s number come up on her screen, and excused herself from the table, flipping the phone open as she did so.
“Hi, Angel. What’s up? Nothing apocalypty, I hope. I’m wearing my good clothes and new shoes.”
“Buffy,” he plunged right in, hoping he was right and that Spike hadn’t been imagining the events he was reliving. “Buffy, it’s...it’s Spike.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Are you there?” he finally asked when she said nothing.
“What about Spike?” she replied woodenly. “Haven’t we already had this conversation?”
“Buffy...he’s alive.”
“Not funny, Angel.” Her voice was pure Slayer and he was suddenly glad they were having the conversation via long distance phone call.
“It’s not meant to be funny; he was trapped in the amulet and it spit him out in my office. He’s here. With me.”
“With you? At Wolfram and Hart? Are you sure it’s Spike? Not the First?”
“It’s Spike,” he said wearily. “Trust me. I’d know that bleached pain in my ass anywhere.”
“If it’s Spike, then why isn’t he calling me? Why isn’t he here?”
The beginning traces of hope in her voice almost undid him, as he accepted that Spike had not misheard or misinterpreted her last words to him.
“That’s what I need to talk you about,” Angel responded. “It’s a long story, you probably should sit down.”
“I’m not sitting down, I’m hailing a cab. I have to get home and pack. You can tell me about it while I’m on the way.”
Without a backward glance, she walked out of the restaurant, remembering at the last second to ask the Maitre ’d to tell the Immortal that she’d been called away for an emergency.
By the time she reached her apartment, Angel had provided her with as many details as he felt she needed to understand the importance of his request that she come to LA. At her angry demand that Angel do something to wake him up, he stammered his careful reply. “Buffy... I don’t think he can...he’s happy where he is now. He just keeps replaying...he can be with you in his head. The only one who is going to be able to get him out of there is you. As long as you’re in there, he isn’t going to leave.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can get a pla-“
“The Wolfram and Hart jet has already left. It will be waiting for you at the Rome airport by tomorrow morning.” Angel’s voice left no room for argument and only the thought that Spike needed her kept her from telling him what he could do with his evil law firm airplane.
“Fine,” she answered tightly. “We’ll be there as soon as we...as your plane can get us there.”
“We?”
“Dawn would never forgive me if I didn’t bring her. I’m not the only Summers woman to have been mourning him.” She thought for a second and said somewhat reluctantly, “I suppose I should call Giles and—“
“No!” She blinked at the certainty in his voice. “No,” he repeated less forcefully. “Giles doesn’t need to know anything about this.”
“But Angel...I saw him burn up, we all saw Sunnydale collapse on top of his ashes. This is important stuff—“
“This is my grandchilde we’re talking about – the one your watcher has already tried to kill once. He’s not going to have a chance to succeed on my watch.”
Saving her arguments for when she could face down her former lover in person, she just nodded silently, then realized he couldn’t see her and said, “All right, Angel. I’ll see you soon. And...thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome, Buffy.”
She hung up and immediately redialed, getting Dawn’s cell phone on the second ring. She gave a brief explanation of Angel’s call and told her sister to come home to pack. Dawn gave her friends a quickly made-up explanation for why she was making an emergency trip back to the States and accepted a ride home on the back of a scooter. She was home and already stuffing clothes in a bag before Buffy had even finished notifying everyone she needed to that they would be gone for a while.
She hesitated as she finished talking to the Rome-based slayer – wondering how much to share of her reasons for leaving. Remembering what Angel had said about telling Giles about Spike, she glossed over the reasons for the trip, just saying that she would call from LA and let them know how long she would have to stay there.
As she packed her bag, she tried to smother the steadily growing ball of hope warming her chest from the inside.
He’s back. He’s alive and...Dana cut his hands off? It’s a good thing she’s insane or I’d have to kill her for that. In a coma. Can vampires actually go into comas? This is Spike – he does things no other vampire can do all the time. If anyone can do a coma, it would be Spike. Stupid vampire.
The flight across the Atlantic and then across the continental US to Los Angeles was long, even at jet speed, and the two girls eventually dozed off in their comfortable seats. The whole vibe of the plane, owned by the notorious evil law firm of Wolfram and Hart was making Buffy’s slayer instincts scream with frustration. The urge to do damage to it and to the obsequious humans doing their best to make her journey comfortable was making her skin crawl; she opted for sleep as a way to avoid scratching herself raw.
Dawn remained awake a bit longer, chatting quietly with the flight attendant about Angel and Spike and what it was like to work for an evil law firm. The man’s shrug and “Their money spends just as well as anyone’s” was as much as she could get out of him about his bosses and she soon gave up and closed her own eyes. When next she opened them, they were approaching Los Angeles and preparing to land. Buffy, whose popping ears had alerted her to the descent, was already awake and looking eagerly out the window.
The plane landed smoothly, taxied to the terminal reserved for private planes, and came to a halt within a few feet of a long black car. The girls emerged, blinking in the bright sunlight, to find the driver waving for them and calling their names.
“Ms Summers! Welcome to Los Angeles. If you’ll just step into the car, I’ll get your luggage and we’ll be on our way.”
Eyeing the man dubiously, Buffy approached the open door and peered inside, finding, to her surprise, that Angel was seated in the back seat, safely away from the open door, but near a window that allowed sunlight to bathe his arm and face.
“Angel! I wasn’t expecting you to meet us...is something wrong?”
He sighed, as her immediate concern for Spike took obvious precedence over any happiness to see him, and tried to answer her in a friendly fashion.
“Nothing more than what you already know,” he said tightly. “I just thought it would be- that you’d like it if I met you myself rather than leaving you to ride with a stranger.”
Giving him a guilty smile, she entered the small limo and brushed her lips against his cheek before settling into the seat beside him.
“I’m sorry, Angel. I do appreciate it...especially since you’re risking flames for me,” she added, gesturing at his sunlit arm and face.
“It’s treated glass,” he responded, watching her eyes widen. “It protects me – us – from the sun without blocking it out.”
“Pretty cool.” Dawn spoke for the first time.
“Yes, it is.” Angel’s response was short – his usual discomfort with Buffy’s sister evident. Even though the monks had given him memories of Dawn to match everyone else’s, his knowledge that she hadn’t really existed when he lived in Sunnydale was always there and he wasn’t sure how to talk to her. He remembered Spike’s ready affection for the girl and realized that, as far as Buffy’s sister was concerned, there was only one vampire in her life and it wasn’t the first one to have a soul.
Fortunately, Dawn had no more interest in Buffy’s ex than he had in her and she devoted the rest of the drive to staring out the windows and trying to identify landmarks that she remembered from her imaginary childhood in the city.
“How is he?” Buffy’s voice was quiet and controlled, giving no hint of the emotions roiling through her. Had she been able to, she would have willed the car to go faster. Now that she knew she was in the same city as the man she’d thought dead for the past several months, the urge to find him and see for herself was becoming overwhelming.
“Pretty much the same as what I explained over the phone. Physically, he seems healthy—“
“For a dead man,” she put in, sounding much too much like the subject of discussion than he would have preferred.
“For a dead man,” he agreed with a sigh. “He seems to be completely healed, he just won’t wake up from the coma. Whatever Dana used on him is what put him into it, but it’s his own stubbornness that’s keeping him there.” He couldn’t keep the aggrieved tone out of his voice, and she looked at him suspiciously.
“Tell me again what’s going on in his head – and how you know about it.”
“I was injected with a drug that allowed me to enter his coma – but it didn’t allow me to interact or communicate with him, so I wasn’t able to bring him out. And nothing that anyone does from the outside seems to reach him at all. I think everyone in the building who knows him – including some people I had no idea he’d even talked to – has tried to talk him out of there. Nothing works.”
“Because he thinks he’s with me – in his head – he thinks we’re together.”
“So it would seem.”
“Dumbass!” Dawn’s interjection made Angel sit up straighter.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not you; Spike. It’s just like him to want to play pretend in his head rather than have to face us and explain why he wasn’t on a plane to Rome the minute he popped out of that amulet.” Dawn’s disgruntled look said that the blond vampire might be in for a rough time once he was actually conscious, and Buffy smiled at the thought of how he was going to have to grovel in apology.
The girls were unfastening their seatbelts before the car had rolled to a stop in the underground garage, and Angel put a restraining hand on Buffy’s arm when she reached for the door. “Let it stop moving before you jump out, Buffy. He isn’t going anywhere.”
Ignoring him, she opened the door and was on her feet by the time the driver had shut the engine off. Dawn was right behind her, standing by the trunk to grab their luggage.
“Don’t worry about your bags, George will bring them to my office,” Angel said, beginning to walk toward the elevators. “I can see that you’re anxious to see him.”
Buffy studied the face of the vampire she had once thought was her soulmate, searching it for any sign of the pain she expected. He kept it resolutely blank, waiting until Dawn had exited the elevator and followed his pointing finger toward the medical wing before turning to Buffy.
“I learned a lot while I was inside Spike’s head,” he said slowly. “About him and about you and how much you two...mean to each other. I’m not going to pretend that knowing you love someone else is making me happy, but I think I understand it.”
“So, you’re all right with this?” Her voice was soft, full of the affection she still felt for her first love, even as she chaffed at the delay in getting to her new one.
“I’m as all right as I can be,” he said with a sigh. “We’ve moved on – both of us. I understand that. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I know that Spike will never knowingly hurt you. When he loves...it tends to be pretty permanent. For what it’s worth, you have my...” He threw his hands up in the air. “I just can’t say ‘blessing’ – you have my willing acceptance. Is that good enough?”
“It’s good enough,” she said gently. “And, thank you. Now where’s my vampire?”
Without waiting for his answer, she began walking in the direction she had seen Dawn take, Angel striding quickly behind her in an effort to keep up. He indicated direction with a hand on her elbow and she soon found herself standing outside a large window and staring into a hospital room where her sister, tears streaming down her face, was clearly yelling at the comatose vampire. With a grimace, Angel flipped a switch and Dawn’s voice carried to them clearly.
“How could you do that to me? How could you d-die without making up with me? I wasn’t mad any more. Well, okay, I was mad, but I never stopped loving you. Since when do you stay away from somebody just because they tell you to? I forgave you. You should have given me a chance to say so.”
Her voice rising, she began a whole new rant, completely ignoring the fact that the object of her ire was peacefully sleeping with a small smile upon his face.
“And don’t get me started on what a jerk you are for not telling us you were alive! Did you think we didn’t care? Didn’t you know we were...we were mourning you! We were crying – Buffy didn’t let anybody else see it, but I could hear her at night. It wasn’t enough that we thought you were dead, you couldn’t be bothered to let us know when you weren’t dead anymore?
“Forget what I said about not being mad – I AM mad. And when you wake up, I’m going to make your life so miserable....”
Her voice trailed off and she sniffled before adding quietly, “If you wake up...please...wake up?”