Chapter 3
Giles stared into the blank eyes of the vampire. He could see why Dawn was so frightened. Frankly, he was unnerved as well. He pulled out his pen light and aimed it into Spike’s left eye. The pupil contracted. Giles removed the light, and it dilated. He repeated the procedure on the right eye. Contract, dilate. That made a coma unlikely, not that there were any signs of trauma to begin with. “I’m not sure what to make of this, Buffy. It would seem that he is functioning normally, other than the fact that he doesn’t seem to be in touch with reality just now.”
Buffy crossed her arms in irritation. She looked over at the vampire in the chair. She’d said Spike could take care of himself, but now she wasn’t so sure. He looked so…vulnerable. It surprised her. “Since when is Spike ever in touch with reality.” Maybe that was a bit harsh. Her mom was right. Spike had been doing a lot for them lately. Without pay even. Weird. She sighed. “So now what?”
Giles straightened and put his light back in his pocket. “Willow, Tara, do you sense any magic at work here?”
Willow shrugged. She looked at Tara, who shook her head. They didn’t need the herbs they’d brought with them to know that this wasn’t a spell. “Nadda.”
Tara tilted her head, looking at the immobile vampire. “His aura is kind of off. Like he’s c-conflicted. Or thinking about s-something unpleasant. Almost like he’s having a n-nightmare.”
Giles frowned. “Do you think that this ailment has some psychological cause?”
Buffy shuddered unconsciously. This was Spike. Spike didn’t go into a trance because he was unhappy. When life was rough Spike drank too much, and swore, and smoked. He wasn’t the type to have a nervous breakdown. He didn’t just sit in his chair and hide from the world. He always found something to do. Some way to get his mind off the bad and onto something else. Buffy sometimes secretly envied him for that ability to put an apocalypse on hold because he needed chicken wings. And no matter how bad things got, he could still crack jokes.
Well, maybe not when Dru left him. But he’d even gotten over that after a while. With Harmony. That one still made her go ‘huh?’ Buffy had credited Spike with better taste than that. But then, she was so distraught when Angel left that she’d fallen for Parker’s lines, so…great, now she was comparing her love life (or lack of one) to Spike’s to justify his boinking Harmony.
Since when did she justify Spike? Since when did she trust Spike? She hated to admit twice in one day that her mother was a better judge of people than she was, but it was true. Buffy trusted Spike. And that bothered her. She was surrounded by friends who were willing to do anything, including two increasingly powerful witches, and it was Spike she turned to. Not just because of his strength; because she trusted him.
Talk about a one-eighty. He was harboring Harmony and had tried to get his chip out not long ago. He’d been insulting and vile to her on patrol, even if he did help. He showed her Riley in that…place. He’d obviously enjoyed parading that before her. Yet in the midst of jeering her he was being useful.
Spike had helped Tara, helped troll victims, helped Dawn, helped Buffy’s mom, and helped Buffy. It was so much easier when he was trying to kill her. It was hard to know what to think of him anymore. Used to be Spike was reliable: will work for cash, will betray for free. But now, Buffy kept having to remind herself sometimes that he was evil. Not often, since Spike’s annoyingness and recent clingy behavior made it much easier to be suspicious of him. But still, it didn’t do for a slayer to forget that a potential enemy was a potential enemy.
And yet in letting her sister and her mother stay with him, Buffy had been treating Spike as a potential ally. Because in those moments when she forgot he was an enemy, Spike seemed to forget too. Right now, Buffy’d welcome anyone, even a vampire, willing to stick it out and fight with her. She was tired of doing it alone. Her friends and her watcher could help, but in the end they still expected her to be the Chosen One. They looked to her for guidance. Spike thought for himself; he made all the right calls when Dawn ran away, maybe he could do it in other areas. That was reason enough to help him out of whatever this was. “So what do we do? Call a shrink?”
Giles shook his head. “I’m afraid that would only be useful if Spike were able to interact with that person. We need someway of finding out was going on in Spike’s mind without his help.”
“Oh!” Willow gasped. “I have an idea. We were reading this intermediate level spell the other day that allowed someone to enter another person’s thoughts, as long as the other person was in a trance. I think that would apply here?” She looked to Tara for confirmation.
Tara thought for a moment and nodded. “It’s worth a t-try. It’s a form of astral projection into another being’s mind. I don’t know how it w-would work with a vampire’s mind…”
Giles stared at the ceiling in thought. “Vampires have essentially the same brain structure as humans. I wouldn’t think a spell for a human mind would malfunction on a vampire. Once inside the mind, however, there is the issue of the vampire’s demon consciousness. It couldn’t fail to be terrifying; might even be dangerous to the person trying to penetrate the vampire’s thoughts.”
“Then I’m the one going in.” Buffy looked at the surprised faces around her. “What? I deal with demons all the time. Trust me, there’s nothing in Spike’s brain I can’t handle.” Slowly, the other three nodded in agreement. “So, what do I need to know about this spell?”
Willow frowned. “Well, this is mostly the meditation kind of spell, not the flashy ‘fire extinguisher needed’ kind. You’ll sit across from Spike, Tara and I will chant, we’ll light a candle, and you’ll just kind of close your eyes. Voila, Buffy vacationing in Spike’s head. You’ll see a physical representation of whatever he’s thinking about. You should be able to talk to him and try to convince him to come back to reality. The spell would end on its own if you both come back. We’ll give you a rune to recite in case something goes wrong, so you can get out of there.”
Buffy nodded. “Okay, let’s do it.” Maybe this would show her if her inexplicable trust in Spike was justified.
*****
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