Modus VivendiBy Wiseacress
Chapter Three
The door opened beside him and he jerked awake with a gasp, leaning away from the punch. But it wasn't a punch, it was hands reaching in and pulling him upright, then grabbing him under his arms and hauling him out of the car. He gave an involuntary yelp, then set his jaw against the pain.
"Come on," Spike said.
They were parked in a warehouse of some kind, grey cement walls and floor, old oil stains and abandoned garbage, stacks of spare tires, the smell of dust and transmission fluid and rats. That was what L.A. had taught him so far—what rats smelled like.
Spike pulled Xander's left arm around over his shoulder and grabbed Xander's waist. He kicked the car door closed and started walking quickly toward a door in the wall in front of them.
Xander turned his head to spit blood, and caught a glimpse of the DeSoto parked off against the wall. Oddly, it filled him with nostalgia. He wanted to call out to it—hi, DeSoto! Evil vampire conveyance. Catch you later, we're going in. Its left rear tire was flat, and it was canted at a sad, disused angle. Next to it was parked another car, sleek and black, with the smug look of an interloper.
As they reached the door, Spike looked up and said, "It's me." There was a slight click, and Spike pushed the door open with his free arm, taking them through to a cement staircase. They started up.
"Warehouse," Xander said thickly, as they tackled a second flight of stairs. "Nice. I can't believe you dissed my place."
"Shut up, pillock," Spike said, taking them up a third flight of stairs. Xander's feet hit a riser and pain shot through both his legs. He cried out, trying to pull them up. Spike shifted his grip and lifted Xander higher.
They came to the top of the flight and crossed a small cement landing. There was a door in the far wall, and Spike pushed through it without pausing.
It was a loft. Sort of. Still a cement floor, cement walls painted clean white, big windows with dark curtains. Spike was carrying him through it fast. A television, a sofa, a coffee table. Spike had a coffee table. Xander craned his head to look back, saw a framed print hung on the wall from a piece of wire. He couldn't see what it was. Spike had art.
They passed a fridge, stove, and sink. A heavy bag, speed bag, some mats. A bed. A bathtub in the middle of the room, with pipes running down through open space from the ceiling, thirty feet above. There wasn't much light, just a few standing lamps, and Spike hadn't slowed down. He walked straight to the bathtub and scooped Xander up in both arms without pausing.
"Hey," Xander said weakly.
Spike laid him down in the tub and pulled the coat out from under his shoulders. He stepped back and shook the coat out at arm's length, inspecting it critically. After a minute he sneered, bundled it in his hand, and hurled it across the room. It hit something with a thump.
"It's always warehouses with you people," Xander said, resting his face against the cool enamel of the tub. He was so hot. He could feel sweat running down the small of his back, and from under his arms. The tub felt good against his ribs.
"Well, that's a mess," Spike said conversationally. "Do a good deed, what do you get? Dry cleaning bills." Xander lay still, trying to think of something smart to say in response. Then he realized that Spike wasn't talking to him.
He was still staring in the direction he'd thrown his coat. Xander braced his good elbow and tried to sit up again.
After a moment, a woman appeared in Xander's view, holding the coat Spike had thrown. Dark hair and eyes. Shit, it was Drusilla. Xander's heart jerked, and he lost his breath. No, it wasn't. Not Dru. Someone else. He'd never seen her before. She looked down into the tub.
"Sweet Jesus," she said. "What is that?"
She was about the same height as Spike, with straight dark brown hair in a ponytail at the base of her neck. Tan skin, dark eyes. Kind of thin. A wide jaw and a bit of a widow's peak. Like Willow, he thought dazedly. She was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and that was kind of funny, her standing next to Spike in the exact opposite of what he was wearing. About three seconds’ worth of funny.
There was a smudge of blood on her bicep where the coat had hit her. She was holding it cradled in her arms, and her face was pissed.
"Not a what, love," Spike said in a mildly chastising tone. He sat down on the edge of the tub and fished his cigarettes out of his jeans. "A who."
She glanced at Spike, then back down at Xander. "Looks like it's had the who kicked out of it," she said.
Spike smiled slightly and bent his head to light his cigarette.
"And you brought him here...why?" Her voice was cold. Xander began to push his left palm against the base of the tub, trying to lever himself up.
"Good question," he croaked. "Spike? Plan?"
Spike blew smoke out and shrugged.
When Xander said Spike's name, the woman turned sharply and stared at him. He saw her hands close hard on the coat. Now she looked more startled than angry—or maybe not startled, exactly. More like scared. And young.
"You know each other?" she said tightly.
"We were at Eton together," Spike said. "He's from last night. Someone dropped by his place after I left and turned him into a Post-it note."
The woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Someone," she said, in a tone that Xander couldn't read.
Spike nodded, squinting up at her through the smoke. "Yeah," he said.
She looked down at the coat she was still holding, then pulled one hand free and examined the palm. It was smeared with blood.
Xander let out a long shaky breath and they both looked at him.
"Okay," the woman said. "So. What do you want to do with him?"
Spike stood up and started to walk away. "Fix him up," he said.
She glanced down at Xander. Her lip curled and she gave an angry laugh. "Fix him up?" she said. "What, find him a nice girl who shares his interests? You've got to be kidding."
Spike came back and peered down at Xander through a halo of smoke.
"Take a couple stitches," he said. "He'll bounce back."
She shook her head disbelievingly. "You idiot. He's—"
"Hey." Spike’s head whipped around and they stared at each other. The muscles in her neck and jaw worked. Spike was completely still, his face cold.
After a moment she looked down, stepped away and laid the coat carefully on the edge of the tub.
"I can't fix him," she said quietly. "He needs to go to the hospital. He needs X-rays, maybe surgery."
"Whoa," Xander said softly. "Hey, whoa." He was feeling light again, the tub wasn't cold anymore under his back. It felt soft and warm and buoyant. He felt like he could lie there forever.
Spike glanced down at him and shrugged. "So take him," he said.
She dropped her head and stared down at Xander. At that angle he saw that she had dark circles under her eyes. She was rubbing at the blood on her palm with the thumb of her other hand.
"Bring him back tonight," Spike said, then reached out and turned her wrist to look at her watch. "Or tomorrow. When he's fixed. I want to talk to him."
She didn't react when Spike took her wrist, just kept staring down at Xander. "Sure," she said after a moment. Spike turned away, pulling his bloody T-shirt out of his jeans.
"Take his car," he said over his shoulder. "And put some clothes on him."
She rolled her eyes up. "Oh please," she whispered.
"I can hear you, pet," Spike called mildly from somewhere behind Xander's head. She and Xander looked at each other. He tried to smile, and she closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.
"Man, I know what that's like," he said, and laughed. She opened her eyes and looked at him without expression.
"Don't run off," she said, and walked away.
He lay staring at the ceiling, at the pipes that ran up into darkness, listening to the sound of her footsteps heading to the back of the loft. It sounded like quite a distance. He was shivering, which was strange. He felt hot. If he could lift his arm and work his hand, he could turn the faucet on and lie under the cold water, and that would be the absolute best. He'd have to remember to suggest it when she came back.
Something banged, and footsteps started to come back toward him. Water was running somewhere, and he heard Spike cursing quietly, sounding pissed.
She appeared to his right, wearing a black coat over her T-shirt, holding a long-sleeved shirt in one hand and a pair of running shoes in the other. She leaned forward and hooked a hand around the back of his neck.
"Up," she said, and pulled. He sat up, gasping at the pain in his stomach. She slid one sleeve up his left arm and slipped the shirt around his back, pulled it across his right arm without bothering with the sleeve. That was good. He realized dizzily that if she'd tried to move that arm, he probably would have thrown up.
She laid him back down and slid the shoes onto his feet. They felt tight, and the pressure up his legs made his knees explode. He pressed his face into the tub and tried to count, tried not to make any noise.
"All right," she said. She put one hand on the side of the tub, and held the other out to him. He reached for it, but it wavered out of his reach and his hand fell back and rapped the side of the tub. She grimaced.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm a little—"
"No shit," she said, and grabbed his hand. She raised her leg and put one foot inside the tub, on top of his toes. She pressed with her foot and pulled his arm, and he found himself levered clumsily up toward her. His knees shrieked and he wondered if vomiting was on the agenda after all, even while part of him thought, Hey—neat trick. She slung his arm around her neck and grabbed him around the waist, just as Spike had done.
"Okay, Nova," she said. "Let' s go."
She pulled and he lifted his legs somehow, and he was out of the tub and half-dangling from her shoulder, while she shifted her hip to take his weight. He was taller than she was, and probably outweighed her by fifty pounds. Maybe forty. He'd lost weight in the last few weeks.
"Need a hand?" They both looked up—Spike was standing by the sink, shirtless, smoking and watching them with amusement. There was blood on his stomach. "Oh hell, what am I thinking? I should just give you one." He put his cigarette in his mouth and clapped, grinning.
"Yeah, come a little closer and try that," Xander said. "Comedy boy."
"I'll call," she said. She swung around and Xander had a strange sensation of complete weightlessness. Her turn was smooth and quick, the way Buffy would do it when she was working the judo mojo. Which made this girl pretty strong.
For a moment he wondered if she was a vamp too, but her hands were warm, and he could feel her working to support his weight. She wasn't anywhere near as strong as Spike. When they made it to the door, she had to hold him up briefly with one arm, and she shook. She pushed the door open and they started down the stairs.
Behind them, Spike must have turned a stereo on, because the Sex Pistols started to chant about anarchy in the UK.
"Déjà vu," he said. The stairs went a little faster on the way down, but by the bottom she was breathing hard. They paused while she adjusted her grip on his arm and hoisted him higher. He tried to take his weight on his own feet, and the pain made him double over, yanking her with him.
"Fucking hell." She yanked on his arm and shot him a vicious look.
"Sorry," he gasped. "Trying to—help out, here."
She kept an arm around his waist and waited for him to straighten up. "Don't," she said.
She kicked the last door open and they were back in the garage, the smell of stale motor oil and dust in the air. The DeSoto was still in its corner, next to the shiny new thing, which he saw now was a Jag. Spike had a Jag.
She opened the Nova's passenger door and maneuvered him, not as smoothly as Spike had done, into the seat. He clipped the top of his head on the frame and jerked in pain. He felt her press a hand over the spot.
"Sorry."
Before he could look up, her hand was gone and she was walking around to the driver's side. She jerked the door open and slid in, slammed it closed after her. Spike had left the keys in the ignition and he expected her to start the engine right away, but she sat without moving.
He let the silence go, partly because he didn't know what to say, partly because he was melting into the roar inside his skull. She glanced over at him, then looked away again. Come on, he wanted to say. Time's wasting. Let's go get X-rays.
"What's your name?" she asked, reaching for the ignition key. He was surprised, and couldn't think for a moment.
"Xander," he said at last. She raised her eyebrows.
"Xander," she repeated. She turned the key and the engine struggled to life. For a moment she was distracted, and frowned.
"Timing's off," she said.
"Always has been," he said, and licked his lips. The thirst was swelling in his mouth. He was exhausted, his eyelids were grainy and heavy. He could still hear the Pistols booming faintly through the walls.
"I’m Liv," she said. She started to say something else, but stopped. She put the car into reverse and they peeled out backwards in a tight curve, the tires screaming. He jammed his good hand against the dash and braced as the nose of the car was slung sideways.
"Hey, whoa—"
The car came to a stop pointed in the opposite direction, and she sat silently, staring straight ahead, both hands on the wheel.
"Liv," he said after a moment. "Okay, hi. Nice to meet you." The shirt she'd put on him had fallen half off, exposing his bruised chest and stomach. He pulled it back over him, feeling the cold wet spots where he'd bled into it. How much had he bled so far? He raised his left hand, looked at the rust-colored scrapes and smears on the white skin, watched it tremble.
She pursed her lips, glanced at him, then looked back through the windshield and tapped the gas. They eased forward slowly, toward a garage door that was starting to open in the wall in front of them.
"Hey, very Bat-cave," he said. "Very cool."
"It's an electronic eye," she said absently. "You can get them at Home Depot."
"But still, cool."
"If I asked you to close your eyes, and keep them closed, would you do it?"
He laughed shakily. "That depends. Is it for a lovely surprise, or am I going to wake up minus a kidney?"
"I'd rather you didn't know how to find us."
He watched the garage door open to darkness.
Us.
That was weird. Was she Spike's girlfriend? Spike wouldn't date a human. Well, okay, Spike would do just about anything, if memory served, and there was the chip to consider. Back in Sunnydale, other vamps made fun of him, wouldn't let him join in all their vampire games. Maybe he was slumming.
He glanced sideways at her, trying not to be obvious. There were no bite marks on her neck, but Spike couldn't bite anyway. And now that he was looking, he saw she had a tattoo on the side of her neck, high up, on the skin below and almost behind her ear. He couldn't make out what it was, but it bothered him.
She looked at him. "Or you could ride in the trunk."
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. "Wake me up when we get there."
He felt the car pull forward sharply and take a left turn, and streetlights started to strobe across his lids. He'd meant it as a joke, but hot darkness came swarming up again and he hardly had a minute to himself before his grip slipped and he was gone.
The door opened again and he flinched—it was like a routine, the hands grabbing him, the awkward haul, shoulder and knees screaming for mercy. But this time his skin was on fire, he felt crushed and swollen, the white lights cut into his eyes and tears ran down his cheeks. Sounds came through thick and molten, and he watched from somewhere far off as a man in a white uniform walked toward him, saying something slow and garbled. He must be the Walrus.
He was floating forward easily, weightlessly, and he looked to his left and saw the woman, Spike's girlfriend, struggling with his arm around her neck. She was saying something to the man in white in the same Wavy Gravy voice. He caught his own name, a bunch of stuff that made no sense. He didn't even have a sister. The man in white walked off down the hall, then came back with a wheelchair.
The spokes flickered in the light as the wheels turned.
Entrancing.
He was sitting in the chair, shuttling along the hallway past gurneys and carts and people in pastel scrubs. His head fell back and he watched the fluorescent lights zoom past. It was like that movie, the one with Tim Robbins, where they wheeled him into an operating room from hell. For a moment he picked his head up and tried to track, to make sure they weren't taking him anywhere with body parts swept into the corners. Everything was clean and painfully white, and for some reason he thought of Rosie, at The Summer Place. Rosie seemed like years ago.
They banged through a set of doors and stopped at what looked like a table with sheets. Hands pulled him up and onto it, and then someone counted to three. He laughed. Good job, guys. Next time, warn me.
Someone was shining a light into his eyes, and cutting his jeans off from the ankles up, and the scissors made a neato zipping sound, like a torpedo. He was cooler without the jeans, and his knees hurt less. Someone asked him what was funny, in a deep basso warble that made him laugh harder. They were washing him off with little cotton swabs, and that was hilarious. He was so hot. He could feel sweat running down his ribs.
Someone touched his right knee and for a moment everything came clear and bright and up to speed. The faces over him, two black women and a white man. Their voices calm and normal, through the rush of pain in his ears.
"Looks partially detached. Yeah, it's floating. Look at that. See the edema?" One of the women, the older one, was looking down at his knee and the man was looking over her shoulder, nodding solemnly. "Do we have a history? Somebody brought him in?"
The man opened his mouth and Xander closed his eyes. Everything slowed down again, and he felt a hot pinch inside his left elbow, and when he looked over a sweet-faced Asian girl was patting a bandage over the tube she'd just put there, smiling at him. He smiled back. Someone clicked a light on over his head, then off, then on again a minute later, and he wanted to open his eyes and tell them enough already, but he couldn't think how to begin.
They banged him into every wall in the building, and he lay dazed in the hall for hours, staring at the ceiling, thirsty and thinking he heard familiar voices. He'd start to fall smoothly backward into darkness, and then Willow would say, "Here's a nice case of inferior dislocation, with surrounding soft tissue damage," and pull down the shoulder of his gown, and he'd slowly open his eyes to find a group of people in pastel scrubs staring down at him. Down the hall, Buffy was telling someone to pick her up a coffee and one of those bagels with the cheese on top. If they were going out, that is. Otherwise, don't bother.
There was a bright light in his eyes, and a beeping noise, and a woman smiled down at him from behind a blue surgery mask.
"You're doing fine, Xander," she said. "They're almost finished."
He opened his mouth and closed it again. From somewhere far away, he could hear a man talking about turf.
"So we tore it all out and got the Kentucky Bluegrass. It's the best. Disease resistant, deep roots, gorgeous color. We love it. Suction."
There was a sucking noise, and Xander blinked at the ceiling. The woman patted his forehead with a little cotton square.
"Vast improvement over the fescue," the man said, and Xander closed his eyes.
He woke up in a bed without enough blankets, cold and nauseated. A thin curtain was pulled halfway around the bed, but he could see an empty bed to his left, and hear a television blaring Bob Barker, the sepia-toned old bastard. The window was bright with sun.
It felt like years since he'd seen daylight.
He lifted his head and looked down at himself. He had a strange half-memory of disinfectant, a hand moving past his face in a latex glove stained dark red, banks of fluorescent lights gliding. He was covered in sheets, but when he wiggled them down from his chin he found his right arm tied snugly against his chest in a sling, and a tube inside his left elbow. His face felt hot and stiff, and he had bandages over his left eye, on his cheek.
He couldn't feel his feet.
Dear God.
They'd cut his legs off.
He yanked at the blanket and his legs were still there. They looked like shit. The right one was wrapped in bandages; the left was black with bruises and swollen grotesquely. Carefully, he moved his toes. They worked. He'd never write a sonnet with them, but they worked.
He eased his head back and took a deep breath. He was in the hospital. Had Spike brought him here? Spike had come to his apartment, taken him... A warehouse, some kind of warehouse. With a coffee table.
And now he was in hospital, and his heart was going insane, it was doing the tarantella. He couldn't breathe. He was hit with a crashing wave of fear and panic, the certainty that he was going to die. He was having a heart attack. He was going to be sick.
He scrabbled for the little kidney-shaped basin propped against the bedrail beside him, and puked. It was just bile and foam, and it hurt like hell. He gasped and coughed, tears running down his face. Jesus Christ. When it was over he pushed the basin away weakly and wiped his mouth on a corner of the sheet.
The curtain around the bed was raked back and he jumped, tried to cover up. A chubby middle-aged woman in pink scrubs walked up and put her hand on his forehead.
"It's okay, hon," she said. "It's just the drugs. Happens to everyone."
He stared at her while she picked up the basin and set it on the table by his bed. She took his left wrist and pressed her fingers over the vein, staring at her watch. On the television, Bob Barker laughed and leaned into the camera.
"That's good," she said, and tucked his arm back down beside him. "You're doing just great. How do you feel?"
He opened his mouth and a high cracked wheeze came out. "Feel--thirsty," he whispered.
She smiled and stroked his hair, and he closed his eyes for a second, no shame, just feeling her fingers move gently on his scalp. It felt fine.
"I'll get you some water," she said, and walked out.
He woke up a second later with a straw against his lips, and she was smiling at him, pale blue eyes and round pink cheeks and cool fingers on his forearm.
"Sorry for the wait," she said. He sucked on the straw and the water was tepid, sweet, better even than breathing. He drank half the cup in two gulps and she pulled the straw away. "Better take it slow for now."
She put the cup on the bedside table, and he noticed that she'd taken the basin away at some point. There was a new one, empty, at his elbow, but he didn't plan to use it. Hadn't planned to use the first one, come to think of it.
She was fiddling with the television remote, trying to turn the volume down. "This man," she said, gesturing at Barker. "He gets under my skin."
"I hear you." His voice was thin and papery, but the water was seeping into his throat and he could swear he felt stronger for it. He reached out for the cup, but his hand was shaking too much to grab it.
"Let me get that," she said. "You'll be pretty knocked out for a bit. It's the surgery."
He drank the rest of the water while she held the cup for him. "Surgery," he said, when the water was gone. "What was surgered, exactly?"
"Just the knee," she said. "The right one. The left one wasn't too bad, so they're letting it go."
He blinked. His eyelids were heavy again—he'd just woken up, he couldn't be sleepy again. But he was, and he didn't seem to have any say in it.
"What happened to the knee?" he asked weakly. "I mean, what was wrong with it?"
"Detached patella," she said, smiling gently. "That's the kneecap. They just sew it right back on, it's a local. I think your relative signed the release."
"My relative?"
She went to the end of his bed and picked up a metal clipboard. "Your sister," she said after a moment. "She signed for the surgery."
"I don't—" He stopped. Spike's girlfriend. The girl who'd brought him in, he remembered now. She'd authorized surgery for him? Didn't they at least ask for a driver's license first? The room was getting fuzzy. He had to call Willow, Buffy, Giles. Had to tell them he was—in hospital, being fitted for a plastic hip. Tell them he'd been attacked. Beaten up. Put in hospital. He should have kept a little Buffy in his pocket.
She'd picked up the remote again and was aiming it at Bob Barker. "She said she'd be back this afternoon," she said. "You should get some sleep until then."
He should call Willow, but he could hardly turn his head to see the phone on the table beside him. His eyes slipped closed and he shook his head to open them. "Want to call someone," he said, but his mouth was too thick and it came out blurred. She pushed a button and the TV clicked off, taking Bob with it. She smiled.
"Finally."
The curtain raked back and he jerked awake. A small dark Asian-looking woman in peach scrubs checked the clipboard at the foot of his bed, then inspected the tube leading from his left arm to the IV drip beside him. He lay silent while she fiddled with the feed on the bag. When she was done she turned on her heel and walked away again, her eyes flicking over him without stopping.
"It was good for me too," he said. There was a cup of water on the bedside table, and when he reached for it his hand didn't shake too much. He drank half of it and then forced himself to pause. While he was waiting he plucked the kidney basin from beside his elbow and dropped it beneath the bed. Few things were eviler than a kidney-shaped vomit basin. Unless you really, really needed one.
He drank the rest of the water and put the cup shakily back on the table—drinking was hard work, practically nap-worthy—and when he looked up Spike's girlfriend was just walking around the curtain.
She was wearing the same black coat and jeans, with a white T-shirt underneath. Her hair was in a ponytail at the back of her neck. Her eyes flickered over him quickly and then around the room. She looked nervous and tired and about nineteen years old.
"Hi, Nova."
He just sat there. Not to prove a point, just—he couldn't think what to say. He couldn't remember whether he was supposed to be angry at her, or afraid of her, or happy to see her again. Surgery did that to a guy. Beatings, too.
She came around the side of the bed and stood looking down at him. She didn't come too close, not close enough for him to reach out and grab her unless he was really fast. Which he wasn't.
"You look..." she said, and paused. "Fairly bad."
"Thanks. They said that after the swelling goes down, I'll look just like Cher."
She looked away again. "How are your legs?" Before he could react she leaned forward and lifted the sheets over his knees. He stiffened and she stared for a moment with pursed lips, then dropped the sheet. "Uh-huh."
"See, I like that you're not all encouraging and optimistic right now. Wait—no, I don't."
"You're not walking anytime soon," she said. "And you're probably not getting out of here for a day or two."
"Not if the sponge baths are all they're rumored to be."
"I'd like to get you out tonight."
He lay back on the pillow and looked at her. "Tell me, do you get the crack in your own neighborhood, or do you have to take a trip? I'm not going anywhere."
Her face hardened, and he thought—mad. That's Spike's lady, looking mad and stubborn. I hope she doesn't play poker.
She put the calm face back on in an instant, and he smiled. His face hurt. "Will you pass me the phone? I want to make a call."
She didn't move, but her eyes shot quickly to the phone, to the window, back to him. He waited, but she didn't say anything.
"If you don't want to, I'll just ask the nurse," he said, and raised the buzzer. The calm face slipped again and her jaw worked. After a moment she turned, picked up the phone, and held it out to him.
He dialed the Sunnydale area code, glancing out the window at the late afternoon sunshine. It was maybe five o'clock; Buff and Will would be stopping off in their room after class, dropping off their books, talking about nail polish, boys, campaign finance reform. Perfect time to catch them, tell them to get here and not dilly-dally. He wanted to present Buffy with a reasonable facsimile of the Gleesome Threesome, so she could go out and detach some patellas all the way to Fresno.
"I'd rather you didn't."
He paused and looked up at her. Her name came back to him suddenly—Liv. Like Liv Tyler, only not. Why couldn't Spike be dating Liv Tyler? That would have made things interesting.
"Didn't what?"
"Call anyone."
"It's a little early in our relationship to get so grabby, don't you think?" He started to dial, but the tone cut in after the first digits. He'd forgotten to dial out. He pressed the pins down and waited for the line to disconnect.
"It's not safe," she said again. He laughed and hit the nine.
"It will be when my friends get here," he said.
He was sort of expecting her to grab the phone out of his hands—it was what Spike would have done. She didn't. When he thought about it for a minute, he realized that she couldn't, really. They were in a hospital, and she was supposed to be his concerned sister, not his overbearing warden. He dialed the girls' dorm room and she watched in silence.
After four rings the machine picked up, and Willow's voice came on. "Buffy and Willow can't come to the phone right now," she said, "but we'll call you back as soon as we can. Come to the phone, that is." There was a scuffling sound, and then she added, "Thanks for calling!" Beep. She could reconfigure her hard drive in the time it took him to make raisin bran, but the answering machine would never be her servant.
The tape was recording, and he wasn't speaking. He started to talk in a hurry, suddenly hyper-aware of Liv standing three feet away.
"Hi guys, it's me. Xander. In L.A., yeah, you know that. Sorry I missed you, kind of thought you'd be around right now, but I guess not. Anyway, yeah. Just wanted to, uh, say hi and see how you guys are doing. Classes and stuff. Things here are..." He paused.
He wasn't exactly looking at Liv, but he could see her in his peripheral vision, and her face was hard and...well, unhappy. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and she was breathing a little fast. Her chin was set, her brows were pinched, and she looked frustrated. And scared. Scared of what? Not Spike, he couldn’t hurt her.
He was leaving an awfully long pause on the machine.
"Things here are fine," he said. "Not that—not that I don't miss me some Scooby gang," he added, looking up at Liv. She was watching him intently. "Because I do. And you guys have to come visit sometime soon. I mean that." He looked at Liv for emphasis. "I mean, it's good knowing you guys are out there, you know? Makes me feel safe. Like I could call you up anytime, if anything bad happened, and you'd drop your knapsacks and come running."
He inclined his head meaningfully at Liv. She looked away.
"Okay, anyway, just wanted to say hi, hope everything's cool with you, it's all good here." He paused. "Sorry about that 'it's all good' thing. I'm going to get it looked at right away. Okay. Love you guys. Bye."
He hung up and stared at the phone for a minute. Why had he done that? Because of her. Spike's girlfriend looked pouty, and he caved. To be—what, a gentleman? He was an idiot. An idiot and a gentleman.
And okay, just possibly it was the fact that leaving a message telling Buffy that he was in the Rodney King wing of L.A. General was…humiliating. He could already see the gang packing his futon into the Citroen and hauling him and his patella back to Sunnydale. So maybe the call for help could just wait a while. Until he sorted things out a bit on his own. Until some of the swelling went down.
"You're quite an orator," she said, taking the phone from him and putting it back on the table.
"And you're quite a pain in the ass," he said. "Does Spike give actual lessons in that, or does it just rub off?"
"I'm a quick study," she said. She was smiling, just a bit. Sure she was. She'd got what she wanted. Still, he had an impulse to smile back. Spike's girlfriend, he reminded himself. That brought on a few visuals he really didn't want to have.
"Don't get all happy," he said. "The phone lines are still functioning, and while I may not actually be walking, my fingers still can."
"You made the right choice."
"Thanks, Wilford. Of course, it's the choice you wanted me to make, so forgive me if I think, Not. Now here's what I want. I want to stay here until the doctor—the guy with the diploma on his wall—tells me to go home. I want plenty of painkillers and lots of sleeping. And more blankets. And the remote."
She frowned and opened her mouth to speak.
"No, see, that's the other thing I want. No more discussion about whether it's 'safe' for me to be here. Actually, no more discussion at all. I hear discussion, I call home. Is that clear?"
She closed her mouth and nodded. He settled back into the pillows.
"Good. Remote." He held out one hand.
She hesitated a moment, then walked around the end of the bed and picked the remote off the far table. She came back and passed it to him, and he clicked the TV on.
"You realize this makes things much more complicated," she said, and he shrugged.
"Cope and deal. And I hope that's not discussing I hear. Cause my dialing finger's getting itchy."
Laverne and Shirley was on. Schlemiel, schlemozzle. What the hell did that mean? Maybe if he was lucky there'd be a Bosom Buddies rerun, and he'd have a quiet aneurysm, and this whole mess would be solved.
Liv checked her watch and glanced at the window.
"I need to make a call," she said. "If the police show up, try not to say anything until I get back."
"The Police? Oh man, they broke up ages ago," he said, trying to find the channel buttons. He was getting sleepy again, and his fingers were thick and clumsy. His legs ached. Ah, good. A nature program. Meerkats. They got up to the darndest things.
She had turned to go, but she paused at the foot of his bed and turned back. "You're very lucky, you know."
He let the remote drop into his lap and looked at her. "Lucky."
"No lasting damage. And you're alive."
"The day is young."
She shook her head. "You'll be all right. They won’t get another go at you."
"Observe me scoffing."
She tilted her head and met his eyes squarely. Her face was calm, and this time he couldn't see signs of anything else beneath the calm. It looked real; she looked certain.
"You'll be all right."
She walked around the curtain and disappeared.
He sat holding the remote, watching the curtain waver slightly after her. It was strange, the feeling he had. Hot. Tight in the chest. Skin prickling. He pressed his lips together and stared out the window, at the blue California sky, while meerkats chattered busily to each other.
He woke up with the police at the foot of his bed, and Liv at his side.
"Xander," she said. "They want to ask some questions. Can you do this now?"
He licked his lips and tried to remember where he was, what was going on. There were two of them, both men, one tall and thin and black, the other heavyset and redheaded. They were in LAPD uniforms, and some far-flung part of his mind thought about the parking tickets he owed, which he hadn't paid yet. But it hadn't been that long, just a couple of days. It seemed like weeks.
"Do you want some water?" Liv asked. Her voice was softer and warmer than it had been before, and he remembered she was supposed to be his sister. She had her hand on his shoulder. He nodded, and she helped him sit up, then held the cup for him to drink from. The water was...damn fine. He'd have to write a letter to the city, thanking them for the superior quality of Los Angeles tap water.
"Okay?" Liv was taking the cup away, and he nodded.
"Thanks." His voice was squeaky and too quiet, and he coughed.
"Appreciate it, Mr. Phillips. This won't take too long." The white cop flipped open a pad and pulled a pen from his pocket.
Mr. Phillips? She'd made a name up. Well, she hadn't known his last name when she'd checked him in, so that made sense. But what else was going to get made up, and what was he supposed to say to the questions they were going to ask? He looked at her quickly, sideways, and she smiled in a sisterly, encouraging way.
"Mr. Phillips, your sister's already told us what she knows, and we know you're tired, but just a few questions-"
It turned out she'd told them the truth, more or less. More than one guy—she didn’t know how many. His apartment. Beating. In her version, though, he opened the door because they were drinking in the hallway, whooping it up. He tried to tell them to shut up and move along, and they turned on him. Beat him unconscious and left him for the roaches. And that part was pretty much true.
In her version, the Spike-free version, she'd found him. Came to check up after he didn't answer his phone all day on a Saturday. Scraped him off the floor and brought him in.
"I told you that neighbourhood isn't safe," she said softly at one point, and he looked up and saw that she was wearing an expression of pain and dismay that made him cringe. Made him think of Willow. Just for a second.
The police wanted to know what the three men had looked like.
"One Hispanic," he said, and saw Bony Nose standing in front of him, his right foot pulled back, his whole body tensed for the kick.
You think you can remember that?
His grandchildren would be born remembering it.
"Two white," he said, and saw Tan take off his gayboy vest and lay it neatly over the back of the chair. Bullet tossed the roll of tape through the air behind him.
Oh, does that mean we can-?
He had a good memory. He could see Tan's scalp through his hair, it was cut so close. Bullet had a tattoo on his neck, some kind of snake. He remembered that now, although he couldn't remember seeing it at the time.
He told them what he could remember, and they thanked him and then asked him the same questions over and he said all the same stuff again. Then they went through Liv's story again, and she told it quietly, looking worried and strained. Finally the notebook was closed.
"Thanks for your help, Mr. Phillips. We'll be in touch."
"Sure."
The black one smiled ruefully, tapped his fingers on the rail along the bottom of the bed, and then they were both gone. Disappeared to the other side of the curtain. Xander lay feeling light and hollow and cold, wondering what he'd done. Lied to the cops. Thrown his lot in with Spike and Liv. And it felt—strangely, it felt all right. Almost good.
Liv was holding the cup of water up to his lips again, and he drank without thinking, loving the coolness over his tongue and throat. His face hurt. His shoulder hurt, and his legs. Well, it all hurt. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back into the pillow.
Liv still had her hand on his shoulder, he realized. He opened his eyes and looked fuzzily up at her.
"So? Ten points from the American judge, seven from the surly Czech?"
She didn't say anything, just looked at him with an unreadable expression. He swallowed and tried to smile. After a moment she looked away, toward the window. He followed her gaze and saw that it was almost dark outside.
"You should sleep."
"Okay." He closed his eyes again, but she didn't move.
"Xander, it really isn't safe for you to be here."
"Pass me the phone."
"I just want you to think about it. That's all."
He didn't say anything, and after a moment her hand went away. He heard her walk to the far side of the room and pull a chair up to the bed.
"I'll stay here tonight," she said. "Tomorrow, we'll... We'll talk more about this."
"Uh-huh."
He was tilting and sliding, he was gone.
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