Buffy slammed her fist down on the counter, hard. “Enough, Willie. You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to rearrange your face.”
Willie believed her. Everyone knew the Slayer was on edge lately. It showed up in her increased taste for violent confrontation. And everyone knew that Glory was the cause. But, while Willie would have loved to help her, if only because he happened to like his face the way it was, he didn’t have any info on the Hellgod or her scabby minions, and he’d told the Slayer that. Repeatedly. It wasn’t getting through. “Look, Slayer, I’d love to help,” he whined. “I don’t know anything. So she’s dropped out of sight. Be grateful for the breather.”
“The day I need your advice is the day I retire, Willie,” Buffy snarled in reply. Three weeks had passed, and no word from Glory. She was beginning to get a little nervous; silence did that to her occasionally. “Fine. Be happy you get to stay in one piece.”
“Wait,” Willie called. He glanced around nervously, not wanting to be overheard. Everyone knew he snitched sometimes, but they didn’t have to know what he said. “Look, you might want to look after your friends, Slayer.”
Buffy frowned and peered back at Xander, who shrugged. He had happily followed Buffy to Willie’s bar, especially since Willie was about the only person he had a shot at successfully intimidating. “My friends are fine.”
“What about Spike?” the bartender asked, more nervously still. “You seen him lately?”
Buffy actually laughed at that one. “Spike’s not my friend.”
“Oh yeah? Well, what he done the other day would seem to say otherwise, and there are some people out there who weren’t real appreciative, if you get what I’m saying.” Willie leaned in and looked Buffy in the eyes.
For Buffy’s part, she was both suspicious and a little concerned. Not that she was worried about Spike, but he was her next line of defense in the fight against Glory, and he’d been fairly helpful lately. She wanted all her fighters in one piece. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I owe him, and this pays the debt,” Willie said, satisfied that he’d gotten through to her as much as he was able. “So get out of here, Slayer. You’re scaring the customers.”
Buffy left, but only because she figured she’d gotten as much information out of the little scumbag as she was going to get. Xander was at her heels, and he looked at her uncertainly as she considered the information she’d been given. What she’d wanted was an update on Glory’s doings and whereabouts; what she’d gotten was the cryptic message that something may have gotten to Spike. She sighed. That vampire was nothing but a pain in her ass.
“So what now, Buf?” Xander asked.
The Slayer shook her head and looked down the street in the direction of Spike’s crypt. “I guess we go check on Spike. Not like I want to, but he’s about the only person who has a prayer against Glory except for me, and it would be nice if he were in one piece.”
Xander looked disgusted. “I don’t know, Bufster. Can’t the bloodsucker take care of himself?” At Buffy’s face, he laughed. “Okay, strike that. Can’t we pretend that he can take care of himself?”
She shook her head. “No. If Willie’s right, and something is after Spike, then we should probably check it out. If Willie thinks he’s on our side, that something may be coming after us next, and I want to know about it.”
They made their way to his crypt with little trouble. Not that the undead population had taken a vacation, but Buffy easily staked the two vampires they came across. In her heart of hearts, Buffy knew Spike had been right that night at the Bronze. She was much more vulnerable when she was distracted, and she’d been more distracted than usual lately. Her mom, her sister, her friends, were what tied her to the world, and with her mom sick and a Hellbitch after her sister, she hadn’t been nearly as focused as she needed to be. But things were better now, and she was focused. Intent. Right now she was intent on making sure that Spike hadn’t done anything so stupid as to get all of them killed.
Buffy didn’t bother knocking, she never did. And as she swung the door open, the smell hit her hard, and she took a shaky step back. “What is that?” Xander asked from behind her, his face pale in the moonlight.
She shook her head. “It’s blood.” With a sinking feeling, she entered the crypt. It didn’t smell as it usually did, of dust and dead things. Right now it had the sweet, coppery smell of blood. Not new blood though, old blood, with the edge of decay to it. There wasn’t any light to see by, as the moon was not bright enough to find its way through the small windows or the doorway, but she remembered well enough where the television was supposed to be, and she stumbled over to it in the dark, hopeful that it would work and could give her a little light to see by.
It did. The picture was all snow, but it lit the room enough to outline the still figure who hung on the wall. Buffy didn’t like Spike; she never had, and she strongly doubted that she ever would, but she’d never wanted this. A quick stake through the heart maybe, but not this. He hung by his arms, crucified, two thick pieces of rebar piercing his wrists and the stone wall behind. Buffy didn’t even want to meet the thing strong enough to do that, to get him up there in the first place.
The blood was his, of course. His chest had been carved to pieces; there hardly seemed to be an intact piece of skin, and his face was swollen out of all proportion. She heard Xander make a soft gagging noise behind her and had to agree. “My God,” he whispered, coming up next to her. “What did this?”
“I don’t know,” she replied softly, feeling the same need to whisper. “But I don’t want to find out. We need to get him down from there.” They came up next to him, and Xander braced the lifeless body against the wall as Buffy strained to pull out the metal spikes.
“Buf,” Xander said. “Look, I don’t think it would hurt him anymore than he is already to just pull him off.”
The Slayer winced, even as he said it, but nodded. The rebar was straight metal, and it would be just as bad pulling the metal out as it would to pull Spike off. “All right.” Between her and Xander it was a matter of minutes before he was off the wall and slumped between the two of them. He hadn’t even stirred, and the only indication that he was still unliving was that he wasn’t dust. “Now what?” Xander asked.
Buffy considered. She really didn’t like her options here, but there was only one that made sense. “My house.”
Xander argued with her all the way there, of course. And Buffy had to agree with most of his reasoning. Spike was a dangerous vampire, he had something dangerous after him, he was a bad influence on Dawn, all of it was true. Except maybe for the him being dangerous part. On the other hand, Buffy was completely certain that the only safe place to leave him right now was where she could keep an eye on him. Plus, there was the small issue of him actually having been of help recently, and not asking to get paid for it. Not that Buffy thought he deserved anything from her at all, because, hello, vampire, but she couldn’t help but remember the way he’d sat with her on her back porch the evening she’d found out her mom had to go to the hospital. And how he’d agreed to babysit both her mom and sister. And how he’d helped her look for Dawn after her sister found out she was the Key. She didn’t owe him anything, of course, but there was some small part of her that felt like maybe she did.
She at least owed him a place to stay until she could find out whether or not she needed to worry about something else coming after them.
Buffy opened the front door of her house as quietly as possible, not wanting to risk disturbing any of the other occupants. “I guess we can put him on the couch for right now,” she whispered quietly to Xander. “We’ll need to get him some blood, and—”
“Honey? Is that you?” Joyce’s voice floated down from the upper story. “Is something wrong?” Buffy wanted to tell her mom to stay upstairs, but Joyce was in the foyer before she could say anything. The older woman’s hand flew to her mouth at the sight of the battered vampire. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” her daughter replied truthfully. “I heard from a source that Spike might be in trouble, and this is how we found him.”
Joyce’s face hardened, getting much the same look as Buffy’s did right before she went into battle. “Put him on the couch.”
“Mom, I don’t think—”
“The couch.” There was no room for argument or negotiation in her voice, and Buffy and Xander did as they were told. “What does he need?”
The Slayer stared at her mother. “Mom, I’ve got it.”
“What does he need, Buffy?” Joyce asked again
“Mrs. Summers, it’s just Spike,” Xander broke in. “You don’t need to worry.”
Joyce favored him with her patented “disappointed mom” look, guaranteed to reduce a person to a puddle on the floor. It worked on Xander too. “Spike is a guest in my home, and he’s been injured. What does he need?”
Buffy shook her head, but gave in. “He needs blood.” She quickly checked the clock, noting that it was still relatively early, not yet ten. “The butcher shop should still be open. They don’t close till late.” And then, remembering, she sighed. “Of course, Spike probably still has blood in his fridge. I can check there too. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“I’m fine, Buffy.” Joyce met her daughter’s eyes and held her gaze for a long time, before the Slayer finally nodded and urged Xander out the door. Once alone, Joyce turned to look at the battered figure, still unconscious on her couch. She would need first aid supplies, and a lot of them, she realized. She gathered what she needed and began her work, starting with the puncture wound on his right wrist.
Cognitively she knew that Spike was a vampire, that she was helping one of the things her daughter fought every night. But Joyce had always had a small soft spot for Spike. Perhaps it was because he had no pretense whatsoever. From almost the very beginning he had been honest with her.
“Have we met?”
“Uh, you hit me with an ax once.”
Her lips twitched up in an involuntary smile. It might have been the night he showed up on her front porch, half-drunk and demanding to see Buffy. Spike had been disappointed that she wasn’t at home, and she half-wondered if he’d planned on killing her then. But he had looked so despondent that she had asked him if he was all right, and then asked him in for cocoa. She remembered that his face had changed in that moment, as though he couldn’t quite believe she cared if he was okay or not. Really, as though he couldn’t quite believe that anyone cared.
Ah, that was the moment. His face had changed in that instant, and he’d reminded her of a boy she knew once, a neighbor of theirs when she was a child. He had been a few years older, and hadn’t given her the time of day, and he was rebellious and angry. Dangerous, everyone had said. But she’d found him on his front porch one night, watching the stars, and he’d looked so lonely that she’d asked if everything was alright, and that’s when he told her that no, it really wasn’t. His mother was dying.
Joyce had smoked her first cigarette with him that night, just a puff or two off of his when he offered it to her, while he told her about the stars and the constellations, and his mother’s illness. He had been a very different boy with her than he was with everyone else, but he was back to his old ways the next day. And then they held the funeral a week later.
She had no idea what had happened to him; she’d heard that he’d gone into the Marines only a week after he’d graduated, probably because he didn’t have any other choice, and Joyce had a feeling that he’d probably done very well for himself. Either that or he was dead or maybe in jail. There was no in between for a man like that, and she thought Spike might be the same way. He would never be in between anything; it wasn’t in his nature.
Both wrists bandaged, Joyce began on his chest, gently sponging away the crusted blood to reveal deep cuts. And as she cleared more and more of his chest, she began to realize that there was a pattern there, that someone had carved something into his flesh and bone, though she couldn’t make it out. Wincing involuntarily, she made sure the deep gashes were clean before she began on his face, wiping away the blood, careful of the bruises. Not until then did he stir at all.
She knew he was regaining consciousness when he took a deep breath, almost a gasp, and she hurried to soothe him. “Shh. Spike, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
His eyes were too swollen to open at all, and she could tell that his blindness, however temporary, frightened him. “Joyce?”
“That’s right,” she said gently. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“Where am I?” The tone was almost desperate, his fear tangible, his voice a mere rasp from disuse and torture.
She went back to work on his face, trying to comfort him with touch. “My house. Buffy brought you. Don’t try to talk now.”
But he shook his head. “How?”
“Someone told her you might be in trouble, and she said she found you like this.” The silence held after that, and she finished cleaning his face. There was no chance of cleaning him up any more tonight; he was too broken to stand for long, and she wanted to get him to bed since Buffy wasn’t back yet. “I’m going to set up a bed for you in the basement,” Joyce informed him. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Joyce found the old Army cot easily, and quickly set it up with clean sheets and blankets. Then she headed back up the stairs to get Spike. He was weak, barely able to stand, but they managed the trip with him leaning on her heavily as they made their way slowly down the stairs. “Rest now,” she said softly, once she’d gotten him settled.
“Stay, please,” he whispered, grabbing at her hand blindly. Joyce sat obediently on the edge of the cot, understanding his need to not be alone. Even if he was supposed to be a big, bad vampire.
She left her hand in his, marveling at the inhuman coolness of his flesh. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
He gave a humorless chuckle. “I was stupid.” There was a long silence, and then he continued. “Heard a rumor ‘bout a warlock doin’ some ritual. Sounded bad, like somethin’ the Slayer should know about it, but she’s been busy with that Glory bint.”
“And you thought you’d do something about him.” Joyce couldn’t read the expression on his face, not with the swelling, but she could hear the amusement in his tone.
“Yeah. Disrupted the ritual fine, thought I’d gotten away without the bloke seein’ me, but he tracked me somehow. You can see the rest of the story for yourself.” Spike fell silent then, and Joyce could see that he was fighting a losing battle with sleep.
“Rest now,” Joyce said quietly. “I’ll be here.”
~~~~~
Buffy slipped into the house, brown paper bag in hand. “Mom?”
“In here, sweetheart,” Joyce called, directing her daughter into the living room.
The Slayer frowned when she saw her mom on the couch and no Spike in sight. “Where is he?”
“The basement,” Joyce said quietly. “I set the cot up for him.”
Buffy came and sat by her on the couch. “Did he say anything?”
Her mom quickly told her what Spike had said, and Buffy shook her head. “He’s lying.”
Joyce frowned. “Why? He’s certainly in bad enough shape to be telling the truth.”
There was a long silence as Buffy considered her words, realizing that there was some truth to them. Plus, he had been helping out more recently. “All right, so maybe he’s not lying, but he’s not telling us something. Why would he want to help, without getting paid? And why on earth would this guy do what he did and not kill him? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe,” her mother allowed, “but maybe you should wait and ask him yourself.”
Buffy nodded. “He’s going to need the blood tonight though, to heal. I guess I’ll get him fed and then call Giles. He’ll know what to do about Spike.” The Slayer took the blood downstairs after saying good-night, and gently shook the vampire awake. “I’ve got blood,” she said shortly. “I’m going to let you eat and sleep, but tomorrow you’re going to tell us what happened. I mean it, Spike. I want the whole truth.”
Too tired to do anything but nod, he reached for the plastic container of blood blindly, but his wrists had been too damaged to allow him to grasp it properly. With something nearing compassion, Buffy brought it up to his lips and watched as he drank deeply, trying not to get too grossed out. “Thanks,” he gasped as he finished it up.
“Whatever,” she replied, a trifle ungraciously. “Get some sleep, Spike.” And then she left him alone.
The next morning, Buffy sat with Giles at the dining room table, discussing what had happened. “When you called last night, I began to look for any significant events,” Giles said. “It seems Spike may have saved us from another apocalypse.”
Buffy’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean he might have actually done something good for a change?”
“Yes, well, it’s possible,” the Watcher acknowledged. “The ritual he most likely stopped was something similar to the Mayor’s Ascension. Only worse, since it most likely would have opened the Hellmouth.”
Buffy stared at him. “Why did I not know about this?”
Giles had the good grace to look a bit sheepish. “Well, no one in their right mind would perform the ritual at all. The last person who tried did so nearly a millennia ago, and he died horribly.”
“So we’re dealing with some insane-o warlock,” she muttered, “on top of a crazy Hellgod. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Sunnydale?”
Giles cleaned his glasses and gave a slight sigh. “Actually, the real damage has already been done, or I should say, averted. The ritual can only be performed at a certain conjunction of time and place. It won’t be possible to attempt it again for another fifty years or so.”
“And by that time, we won’t have to worry about it anymore,” she finished, and then looked up as her Slayer-senses tingled. Spike stood in the doorway, looking—well, she wasn’t sure better was the right word, but his right eye was actually open and the wounds on his chest had scabbed over.
Her Watcher turned around to see what she was staring at, and his eyes widened as he saw the vampire. “Spike. Good Lord. Buffy told me you’d been badly hurt, but—” He broke off. “You had better sit,” he finally said, and watched as Spike obediently limped over to one of the chairs.
“If you want a better look, just say so, Watcher,” Spike rasped, catching Giles staring at the marks on his chest.
Buffy realized with a very sick feeling in her stomach that what she had thought were just random cuts had some sort of pattern. Needing to get out of there, she took the less disgusting option. “There’s more blood if you need it,” she offered, rather nicely.
The vampire looked up at her with some surprise, both at the offer and the generous tone. “Yeah. Thanks.” There was a moment as they shared a glance and then Buffy left to get Spike’s blood, letting Giles get a better look at the vampire’s lacerated chest by himself. In the kitchen, she took a deep breath as she leaned on the counter. Her attitude had taken a turn during the night, as she’d thought about Spike’s condition as well as what he had told her mother. But there was something he hadn’t said, and that something was bothering her immensely. He hadn’t told Joyce why he had been so bent on stopping the lunatic warlock, other than the fact that she had enough on her plate with Glory. That might have been true enough, but the Spike she knew wouldn’t have cared one way or another. She shook her head. Trying to figure him out would only give her a headache.
When she got back into the dining room, Giles was making notes on the markings on the vampire’s chest, and Spike was looking none too pleased with the situation. “Can you tell me anything about what he did to you?” Giles asked, hurriedly finishing up his transcription.
“Sure,” Spike replied, taking the blood from the Slayer with a grateful nod. “Bloke nailed me to the wall before I knew anyone was even in my crypt, he carved up my chest a bit, and then he left me hanging. End of story.”
“I hardly think that’s the end of it,” the Watcher protested. “These aren’t simply random cuts. There’s a meaning to them, and—”
“Pain,” Spike snarled. “That’s the meaning, Watcher.” He quickly drained the blood. “Look, I stopped the bloody bastard from endin’ the world and all. Can we leave it at that?”
“How do we know he’s not going to return?” Giles protested. “If he’s as powerful as you’ve led me to believe, this could prove difficult and especially dangerous since the Glory problem has not yet been resolved.”
“Not my problem,” the vampire replied bluntly. “Besides, he’s not comin’ back. He came into town for the ceremony, I bollocksed it up, he tortured me, he left.”
“Are you sure he’s not coming back?” Buffy asked, her eyebrows raised. “Because if you’re wrong, you’re putting yourself and the rest of us in danger.”
“It’s done,” he nearly yelled in return, and if the Slayer wasn’t mistaken, there were tears in his eyes. “He’s satisfied, or at least he bloody well should be. There’s not a lot left for him to do.” And with that, he limped back down to the basement.
Buffy was about to follow when she felt a hand on her arm, and she looked over to see her mother standing there. “I’ll talk to him,” Joyce said gently.
~~~~~
Spike sat down on the cot with a muffled thump and cursed his temper. If he could just hold it
together for a little longer he would be able to leave. And then go somewhere and sit very, very quietly for a long while. He was exhausted, he hurt, and he couldn’t get the images out of his mind. All those people who had paraded in front of him for days, he wasn’t sure for how long, as he’d been trapped in his own mind, pinned to the wall. For a while he’d even believed what they’d been trying to tell him: there was nothing good about his life. Of course, waking up, he’d realized that it was pretty much true. That had been a disappointment.
Funny that it hadn’t ever occurred to him before that his life was a sad series of failures. He’d liked being a vampire. Hell, he still liked being a vampire, but there were things—He had been pathetic as a human, he’d known that already of course, but he was pathetic as a vampire too.
“Are you all right?” Joyce asked, startling him out of his thoughts.
“Fine,” he mumbled. “I’ve told them all I’m going to.”
She smiled at his stubbornness, as though she were humoring him. Which she was, of course. Joyce was a mother, first and foremost, and she knew how to get answers out of unresponsive children. Not that Spike was a child, or that she always succeeded with either of her daughters, but she had impressive range of arsenal. “Why don’t you tell me?” she asked.
Spike looked at her in surprise. “Huh?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” she repeated patiently. “I’ll tell them whatever you’d like me to.”
He stared at her, wondering if he should take her seriously. “You’re not going to go away until I do,” he said suspiciously.
“Probably not,” she admitted cheerfully.
Spike wasn’t used to admitting defeat, certainly wasn’t used to admitting it to a human, but he was tired, and he hurt. His very soul was bruised, never mind that he didn’t have one. Or maybe he should say his heart had been bruised, even though it didn’t beat. “Tell the Watcher that the ritual he used was the Blood of the Victims. He’ll know what it is, and it’ll tell him why that wanker’s not comin’ back.”
She left then, as he knew she would, and he lay back down on the cot, wanting to save his strength. He would need to leave soon, before he could screw this whole thing up any more than he had already.
~~~~~
“Okay,” Xander said skeptically. “What you’re saying is that this ritual makes a person relive
every bad thing they’ve done from the point of view of the person they did it to. I fail to see how that’s a bad thing.”
Anya glared at her boyfriend. She had known exactly what Giles was talking about the minute he named the ritual, and they were the only two people who seemed to have any understanding at all of what it entailed. And he wasn’t listening to her. “No one in their right mind performs the Blood of the Victims,” she said for the fifth time. “It’s the only curse forbidden to vengeance demons.”
“And it’s forbidden for Watchers as well,” Giles said tiredly. Once he’d discovered what Spike had been intent upon hiding, he’d felt much better. No doubt the vampire was right about the warlock leaving town. No one stuck around after cursing someone like that.
“It’s fair play, though,” Xander protested. “It’s giving them a taste of their own medicine. What’s so wrong about that?”
“You are so dense!” Anya exclaimed. “You don’t get it, Xander. I told you. It’s not just everything you’ve done, it’s everything that’s been done to you, too. Think of the absolute worst moment of your life. I mean the worst.”
The first thought, and the least embarrassing, was when he’d had to stake Jesse. From the look on his face, Anya knew he was thinking of something bad, and she went on. “Then imagine you had to relive that moment and every other horrible moment over and over again, an infinite number of times, until you couldn’t even remember being happy.” When he paled, the ex-demon knew he’d gotten it.
“Anya has hit it,” Giles admitted. “Actual experiences take much longer than their memories. The ritual traps the victims inside their own minds and forces them to relive their worst moments over and over again. While it was first created to punish those who had committed a crime like murder, it was soon being used even for petty revenge, and that’s when they discovered that it wasn’t just the crimes you committed, it was also all the horrors that had been perpetrated against you. Any number of people went mad.”
“Okay, but why can’t Watchers do the ritual thingy?” Buffy asked. She’d been listening to the whole explanation, uncharacteristically silent, still trying to figure out what was going on with Spike.
Giles began to rub his glasses. “The head of the Council performed the curse on a vampire who had murdered a number of people. It was done as an experiment, because they wanted to know what would happen. The vampire went crazy and killed itself, but a member of its family went and performed the same curse on the Watcher. Because of the nature of the spell, to make one relive all the crimes, he relived not only all of his, but also all of the vampire’s he’d cursed, since that was one of his crimes against another. He died, but not before the Council learned a valuable lesson and forbade its usage again.”
“And that’s why vengeance demons won’t do it either,” Anya said smugly. “You do it one time, and it’s that much easier for anybody to turn the tables on you.”
Buffy frowned. “So you’re saying that the people that had this done to them went crazy?”
“That’s one response,” Giles replied. “Sometimes they killed themselves, others seem to have an easier time handling it.”
“So Spike’s not going to go crazy,” she stated.
Anya shrugged. “He probably would have already gone nuts.”
“There’s something that I don’t understand though,” Xander said. “Why would Spike even try to stop this guy in the first place? What’s in it for him?”
~~~~~
That was the question, Buffy thought later as she walked home. As she walked by Spike’s
cemetery, she made a quick detour to his crypt. Why had Spike gone after the warlock when he didn’t have to? Talking about the timing of it all, from what the vampire had told Giles, there had been a day or two at least when he could have told her what he’d done, tried to garner brownie points, but he hadn’t. And from what he’d said, he’d spent at least five days on that wall, maybe six. Even if he hadn’t planned on getting caught, he had taken care of a potentially dangerous enemy, with apparently no thought of recompense. It made no sense.
She paused once she’d gotten into his crypt, realizing suddenly that she really didn’t want to go looking for a clean set of clothing for him. Who knew what she’d find? But she saw the duster where it lay discarded on the stone bier, and refused to think about why she was even doing this for him.
The house was quiet when she got home, and Buffy figured that her mom and Dawn were already in bed. Opening the door to the basement slowly to avoid the squeaky hinge, she stepped softly down the stairs. She could see that the cot was empty immediately, and she called out quietly. “Spike?”
Silence met her question, her only response was a slight shifting from a corner, and she could see him suddenly. It seemed impossible that a man who was so bright, so fair could blend so well in the darkness, vampire or no. “I brought your coat.”
He uncurled himself from the tight ball he was sitting in and stepped out towards her. “Yeah? Thanks.” The coat hung limply from his hand once he’d taken it, and he seemed to be forcing himself to move, to even speak to her. “I’ll be gone by morning.”
“What?” Buffy asked incredulously. “Why? You’re not in any shape to—”
He pulled his coat on wearily. “I’ll be fine, Slayer. Doesn’t matter anyway. Not now.”
Buffy bit her lip. “Spike, I know there’s something that you’re not telling me, and I want the rest of it.”
“Slayer—”
“So here’s the deal,” she continued, as though she hadn’t heard him. “We go to your crypt, you get clean clothes, and then we go to the Bronze where you explain to me why you’d even want to take on a warlock in the first place.”
Spike wanted to tell her to bugger off. He was not in the mood for any of this, and yet it didn’t seem like she was going to give him a choice. “Fine.”
They walked to his crypt in silence, the night settling in around them with its usual sounds. The wind and the crickets played their symphony, and Buffy wondered idly what it would be like to walk the darkness without fear. Without wondering what lay in the shadows. What it would be like if Spike were simply a man she knew, rather than a vampire she hated. She clamped down on that thought quickly, having no idea where it had come from.
When they arrived at their destination, Spike looked at her and said curtly, “Wait here.”
Stung by his tone, and never liking imperatives, she asked, “Why should I?”
“Because there’s blood all over in there, Slayer, and since you probably don’t want to watch me change, there’s no point you following me in,” he explained patiently, and then ducked in the door.
Buffy stayed, but only because she realized that he had a point and because she didn’t really want to go inside. It wasn’t like she was actually following Spike’s directions. And then, just a few minutes later he came out. The shirt he wore was a button-down, and for once it was buttoned, probably because it wouldn’t rub against his chest quite so much. But the black jeans and duster were firmly in place, and he was even lighting up a cigarette, so he really was back to his normal, annoying self. Unless you caught the slight tremor of his hands, or you knew that for Spike’s hair to be anything other than slicked down was unusual in the extreme. But Buffy was intent upon answers, not on the psychological state of her erstwhile ally, and she didn’t notice. Spike, for his part, was grateful.
They maintained their silence all the way to the Bronze, and neither could help remembering what had happened between them the last time they were here together. The circumstances were the same to a large extent; Buffy wanted answers from Spike again. On the other hand, Spike knew now what he should have known then: she believed him beneath her. And he was.
Buffy managed to snag a table in an out-of-the-way corner, where hopefully they wouldn’t be interrupted. Without preamble, she said, “Spill.”
“What do you want to know, Summers?” he asked tiredly. There was little snark in his tone, unlike last time. He was the one beaten and confused; she the one on solid ground.
She stared at him, and her voice was hard as steel when she said, “I want to know why, Spike. Why you’d even risk yourself for something like this.”
“Did Giles tell you what the key ingredient for the spell was?” he asked, almost hopefully. She raised a skeptical eyebrow, and didn’t respond, knowing by now that to ask would be to feed his ego. “Blood. Blood of an innocent, to be specific,” the vampire said. “And only one way to make sure he couldn’t use it.”
“You drank the sacrifice?” Buffy asked, horrified.
Spike shrugged, nonchalantly. “’Course. How else am I gonna get human blood, Slayer, with this bloody chip in my brain? So, free meal and a chance to bugger someone else. What more reason would I need?”
But Buffy wasn’t buying it. Maybe there had been something special about the ritual sacrifice, maybe all Spike had wanted was a spot of violence before bedtime and a good meal. But he could get blood at Willy’s if he wanted it that badly. He could even steal it from the hospital. No, there was something else going on here, and she wanted to know what it was. “All right. Now you can tell me the real reason.”
“Buffy—” All pretense was gone, both knew.
“Spike.” She was implacable.
He met her eyes, and in their depths she could see the truth, the burning of emotion that had, perhaps, been there all along. It was impossible. “No,” she said firmly. “Oh, no. There’s no way.”
“Fine,” he grated out, standing to leave. Spike didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to be with her, the girl who had managed to turn his unlife upside down with a punch and a kick. Suddenly, he didn’t want to hear what he knew was coming. ‘I hate you, Spike. It’ll never be you, Spike.’ What he wanted was to get away, lick his wounds, and figure out the best way to leave Sunnyhell behind him.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
He rounded on her, snarling, blue eyes sparking yellow. “I’m getting the bloody hell out of here and leavin’ you alone, Slayer. Isn’t that what you wanted? You don’t want to know, and I don’t really want to tell you, so it works out for both of us now, yeah?”
“Wait.” Buffy thought furiously. If Spike thought he was in love with her—if he was obsessed with her—it could get dangerous. She needed to know the depth of his obsession, and what he was planning on doing about it, besides trying to get himself killed. She needed to make sure he wasn’t going to put her family in danger. “We never had this conversation.”
“Huh?” he asked, not understanding, and not sure he cared to.
Buffy motioned for him to sit. “If we have this conversation, it never happened. No one ever knows, nothing is ever mentioned, and we never bring it up again.”
Spike eyed her suspiciously, and then gingerly sat down again, still not sure he should be staying. “Fine. I—” he broke off, and then finished, “I don’t want to see you dead anymore. Can we leave it at that?”
For a moment Buffy was about ready to get up and pound it out of him, to make him admit, in words, what he felt. But something stopped her. “Alright. That’s why you took care of the warlock?”
“Yeah,” he said, no longer meeting her gaze. “You had enough to deal with in the Hellbitch, I figured I’d cut you a break.” He laughed ruefully. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”
Buffy let that thought sink in for a minute, and then asked, “What changed, Spike? You hate me.”
He shrugged gracefully. Even torn up, he moved like the fighter he was. “Dunno. Just did. Look, Buffy, I’m tired, and you know now. There’s no point in goin’ over it anymore.”
She hesitated and then nodded reluctantly. “You’re right. You know that—”
“I know.” He looked at her full in the face. “Please. Don’t say it.”
“Okay.” She watched him leave, and felt as though she were still missing something very important.
Buffy came downstairs the next morning to find Dawn staring in horror at the newspaper, a hand over her mouth. “Dawn, sweetie—” Joyce began, but her youngest daughter bolted from the kitchen, tears already evident.
“What happened?” Buffy asked quickly, concerned.
Her mother shook her head. “There was a story in the paper. A young intern from the hospital was killed in a car accident. Dawn knew him.”
Buffy leaned in over Joyce’s shoulder to get a better look at the story, and frowned as she saw the name and the picture. “Ben? Oh, wow. I knew him too. He was there when you were sick.” She felt a sick sensation in her stomach. “That’s so sad.”
“I know,” Joyce replied, hating the fact that someone so young had been killed so senselessly. It didn’t make much sense. “The front page news was worse though,” she said, turning the paper over so Buffy could see the headlines.
The Slayer shook her head as she saw the story about the train massacre. “I’m going to have to check this out.”
“Alone?” her mother asked, a touch worried.
Buffy looked thoughtful. “No, I think I’m going to ask for a little assistance on this one.”
~~~~~
The blood-smell still lingered in the air, though she could see the signs of cleaning. There was no
sign of the vampire himself. Buffy sighed. Her mom had asked about him earlier that morning, had asked if he would be safe back in his crypt or if he shouldn’t possibly stay with them for a while longer. Buffy definitely thought that was a bad idea, but had simply said that he had insisted, and she couldn’t force him to stay. Now she wondered if she’d made the right decision.
Not that she thought she should drag him back to her basement, but the right decision about keeping their conversation private. She wondered if she shouldn’t tell someone about his feelings for her, to make them aware of it. Except that he didn’t seem to be doing anything about it, unless you counted his being marginally more helpful. And really, she had enough trouble at this point without dealing with a lovesick vampire. She would much rather ignore it and hope it went away.
“Slayer?” His voice startled her out of her reverie, and she realized that he’d come from some kind of lower level she’d never realized was there before. It was no wonder he could get around town so easily.
“You have a basement,” she blurted.
He looked down at the trapdoor and then back at her, cocking his head. “You need something?”
Spike’s face looked better, less swollen for sure, though he was still wearing a button-down, telling her that his chest hadn’t yet healed. “There was a massacre on a train coming in from L.A.,” she said bluntly. “I think it was vampires. I want you to help me catch whoever did it.”
“Why?”
The question caught her off-guard. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why?” He rolled his eyes expressively. “The conversation we had last night never happened, which means you don’t ask for my help without either offerin’ me money, or a beating or possibly both. So I’m wonderin’ why you’re strollin’ into my crypt askin’ for aid from somebody you hate.”
“You’re a vampire,” she said.
“That’s obvious enough,” he interrupted.
She glared at him. “Shut up, Spike. Look, our conversation happened. You now have an opportunity to give me a hand and get brownie points. Why pass it up?”
“Because I’m movin’ today,” he said easily. “And I don’t really feel like helpin’ anybody at the moment. Besides, you aren’t givin’ out brownie points to the likes of me, so why try?” He shrugged philosophically. “We both know it’s true, pet. No use in fightin’ reality now.”
Buffy stared at him. Something was really, really not right. Spike wasn’t acting like his old self. Except that he was. Buffy was suddenly both angry and confused, and just a tiny bit hurt. Apparently she’d come to rely on his help these last weeks, which should have scared her badly enough to immediately walk out of his crypt, but she didn’t. Instead, she blurted out, “I’ll help you move.”
“Huh?” He stared at her, his mouth slightly open.
Buffy raised her chin just a bit defiantly. “I’ll help you move, you help me track whoever killed those people on the train. Call it quid pro quo.”
“When did you learn Latin, Slayer?” Spike asked with a smirk.
She glared. “Just answer the damn question, Spike.”
Something in his face changed then, and he cocked his head to the side slightly, staring at her, measuring her. “All right,” he said softly. “I’ve just got the one box and the TV to move anyway. With you to help, one more trip should do it.”
“Where are you moving?” Buffy finally asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
He hesitated, and then replied, “The old house on Anders Street. You know it?”
“The abandoned one?”
“That’s right.” Spike waved her down the ladder, and followed close behind. He’d already moved everything down below; it was just a matter of carting it from place to place at this point. “There isn’t anyone in there anymore; checked it out earlier. Figured it wouldn’t be too hard to make it livable.”
“Well, it’ll probably be better than your crypt anyway,” Buffy said, her tone just a hair away from friendly. “What are you going to do about the windows?”
“Dunno,” he admitted. “I’ll have to find some old blankets or something.”
“Mom might have some you could use,” Buffy half offered, and Spike stopped to look at her. “What?”
“Nothin’,” he replied, picking up the TV, and motioning to the lone box with his head. “That’s the last of it there. We can go through the tunnels. By the time we get there and drop this stuff off, should be safe enough to get to the train station above-ground.”
Buffy watched as he started walking, and she reached down and picked up the box, which was lighter than she’d thought. “What made you decide to move anyway?” she asked, surreptitiously trying to figure out what was inside.
“Too many people know where I am,” he said wryly. “Guess I’ll need to keep my head down for a bit, try not to piss anyone off too bad. Don’t really want to end up on another wall.”
Buffy watched his back as he walked. The duster, which she’d thought physically attached to him, was nowhere to be seen. And, despite the fact that they were moving through sewer tunnels, he looked almost normal down here, carrying his TV, she carrying his box. And she was suddenly reminded of helping Xander move into his new apartment, and everyone else helping her move out of the dorms back home. It was odd to think of such normal things in conjunction with the blonde vampire, but then again, what in her life was actually normal?
Spike glanced back over his shoulder at the Slayer, and saw that she wasn’t having a problem keeping up with him. Even in the tunnels, her beauty tore at his heart. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with this new side of her, this almost-kindness she was showing him. Spike had actually expected quite the opposite after what had happened at the Bronze. He had expected her to avoid him like the plague, and here she was yet again. It was inexplicable.
At the moment, he was simply glad that he’d dismantled his shrine. The dreams had woken him after only a few hours sleep, and he’d been unable to drop off again. Lying there, Spike had made the decision that he really didn’t like everyone knowing where to find him and that it was time to find a new place. The Anders place had been vacated about six months before by the most recent tenants, and no one was living there now, nor were they likely to any time soon. The place was rumored to be haunted, and a few lights at odd hours of the day would only substantiate the rumors.
So, he’d started packing. There wasn’t much to move really; this was only the third trip and it took care of everything except his old armchair, which he might come back for later. What had taken the most time was the shrine, and he had carefully dismantled it, making sure the things like the mannequin’s torso and stolen clothing were where they would never be found, burning some of it, and tucking away bits and pieces he couldn’t bear to get rid of. Spike had been packing away a dream, and he knew it. If there was one favor the warlock had done for him it was to show him how desperately insane he’d been to even hope that Buffy might return his affections. How insane he’d been to go after the warlock in hopes of doing her a favor. He hadn’t lied; he wasn’t planning on telling her. On the contrary, he had been scheming to find out how to let her “discover” his aid on her own. Learning his lesson with Olaf the Troll, it didn’t pay to point out his good deeds, since she didn’t seem to care.
Well, it didn’t matter anymore; he knew better now.
“Here we are,” he said abruptly, stopping just below a manhole cover.
Buffy checked her watch. “I’ll take the TV,” she said. “It’s going to be hard for you to make a run for it carrying that thing, and it’s still light enough outside to do some damage.”
Spike stared at her, not understanding where her consideration was coming from, and finally nodded. “Yeah, or I can come back for it later. Doesn’t matter.”
But she climbed the ladder and took the television from him, and then he came up and made a mad dash for the house. The front porch was old, rickety, and shaded. The huge, ancient trees in the front and the overgrown grass made it look that much less inviting, which was just what Spike wanted at the moment.
Buffy was already inside. She set the television down on the floor in the small living room and took a look around. “I guess there really aren’t that many windows.” It was an older house, which meant lots of walls and doors, and not a lot of light.
“One of the bedrooms upstairs faces north,” Spike said quietly. “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem during the day anyway.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, but what if you want to watch TV or something during the day?” she asked pragmatically. “You could probably find a blanket or something to go over the window down here.” And then she gave him a sly look filled with good humor. “Or, here’s a thought. You could actually get curtains.”
Spike stared at her, and slowly returned her smile. “Could. But shoppin’ for that kind of thing isn’t my idea of a good time.” There was a beat when both of them realized exactly where they could go with that statement, that they were actually talking like friends, and time seemed to freeze-frame itself.
“I’ll check with Mom,” Buffy finally said. “She might have something you can use.” He nodded, and then they both glanced out the windows, taking a look at the rapidly setting sun. “We should go. It should be safe enough by now, and I really want to get this over with.”
“You got a flashlight, Slayer?” Spike asked, and she winced. “I’ll take that as a no. Give me a mo.”
He disappeared off into another room, and returned a few minutes later with a small flashlight. “I didn’t think vampires needed this kind of thing,” Buffy said with raised eyebrows.
Spike shrugged and grinned at her. “Found it at the dump,” he admitted. “What can I say? I’m a bit of a packrat.”
They made the trip to the station in companionable silence, Buffy wondering once again at the changes in him. It wasn’t like he was different, she supposed, it was more like—She just couldn’t put her finger on it. Something had altered, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. And it was bugging her.
The train station was quiet and deserted, the car itself roped off with yellow tape and easily spotted. “No one’s here,” Spike said quietly, his eyes narrowing as he listened intently.
“Good,” Buffy said. “Let’s get this over with then.”
At least the bodies were gone, but there were signs of blood all over the seats and floor. “What are we lookin’ for exactly, Slayer?” Spike asked, his deep voice resonating in the small space.
Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know. Can’t you do your vampire-sensing thing and tell me—I don’t know, tell me if this was a vampire attack or whatever?”
Spike looked highly amused. “I don’t know what vampire-sensing thing you’re talking about, pet, but—” He froze in place, his eye suddenly caught by something in the luggage rack. Almost against his will, he walked over to it and pulled the doll down, turning it over in his hands.
“Spike?” Buffy stared at him impatiently. “What is it?”
He shook his head wordlessly, unsure of what to tell her. He could put her off probably; she might figure out that he wasn’t telling her everything, but she’d get over it. The best thing to do would be to go hunting Dru on his own, tell her to get out of town. But if she decided to go after Buffy, or after the Slayer’s family—That wouldn’t be completely unheard of for her, and he would never forgive himself if something bad happened to any of the Summers women.
Spike turned and held out the doll. “It’s Dru’s, Slayer.”
Buffy looked at him, and frowned, something in her face gentling. “You’re sure?”
“I was with her for over a hundred bloody years,” he reminded her. “I think I’d know her soddin’ doll when I see it.” Spike hesitated, and then looked over at her, “Look, I’m sorry, Slayer, but I don’t think—”
“Shut up, Spike,” she said, not unkindly. “I’m not going to ask you to kill her or even help me hunt her down. Just, don’t let her hurt anyone, okay? If you need to, chase her out of town.”
There was gratitude in his eyes when he looked at her, along with that emotion she’d begun to realize was love. Or a vampire’s strange idea of love. Buffy suddenly wished that she could be certain that he wouldn’t go all evil and obsessed with her, and then manage to get them all killed. Because really, if love made him act like a guard dog, keeping all harm from family and friends, it couldn’t be a bad thing. Even if she did feel a twinge of conscience at using him.
“Thanks.” It was all that needed to be said, and they stared at each other for a few moments more.
Buffy finally sighed. “Well, we’re not going to find her tonight, and I’m tired. I hate to say it, but I think we should get out of here and let it go for now. I’ll talk to Giles in the morning, and we can both figure something out.”
He nodded. “Sure, ducks. I’ll see you around, then.”
Buffy followed Spike out of the car and watched as he turned to back towards his new place. “Wait. Spike.” He looked back over his shoulder at her expectantly. “Why don’t you walk me home. Like I said, Mom might have something you can use, and she was asking how you were anyway. Might as well put her fears to rest, I guess.”
He shrugged and came back to her side. “If that’s what you want, Slayer.”
It was the second time that night that they’d walked somewhere in a way that bordered on friendly. There was silence, but it wasn’t the silence you find between people who hated each other, but between those who had learned to enjoy each other’s company. An odd sort of silence for the Slayer and a vampire.
When they reached the house, Spike opened the door for her and motioned Buffy to precede him inside. Buffy gave him an odd look, but she let it go, calling for her mom as soon as she was inside. “Mom?”
“In the kitchen, sweetheart,” Joyce called back. She smiled at Spike when she saw him following close at Buffy’s heels. “Spike. You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”
He looked almost embarrassed, to Buffy’s great amusement. “Yeah, well, thanks for fixin’ me up.”
She smiled at him warmly. “You’re welcome. Are you sure you’ll be fine at your, um, house? If you need a place to stay—”
Spike shook his head. “No, I’ve got a new place, should be safe enough.”
“You found a new house?” Dawn came into the kitchen behind them, glaring at Spike. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
He raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Just moved today, bite size. Your sis is the only other person who knows.”
Dawn unbent enough to smile at him. “Okay, as long as you tell me where your new place is. You never know when I’ll need to run for help.”
“You aren’t going to be bothering Spike all the time, Dawn,” Buffy said in her best warning tone.
He shook his head quickly. “s okay, Slayer. She can visit. If it’s all right with her mum,” he finished quickly looking over at Joyce.
“We’ll talk about it later,” the older woman declared, and then gave Spike another smile. “Do you want to stay for dinner? I mean, I know you don’t eat, but you could stay if you like.”
Spike hesitated, and then looked over at Buffy who gave an almost imperceptible shrug, as though she didn’t care. Perhaps she didn’t. “That would be nice,” he finally admitted. He liked the atmosphere of the Summers’ house, and had no desire to go back to his own. When he was around people he could ignore the thoughts and voices that haunted him.
Buffy found herself watching him through dinner. Watched as he listened politely to all her mom’s gallery stories which should have bored him to tears. Watched as he snitched food from Dawn’s plate, and then looked completely innocent when Dawn glared at him. Watched as he watched her and pretended to be looking at something or someone else every time she caught him at it.
It wasn’t fair, she decided. This was what she would have loved to have from Angel, to have been able to have him over for dinner, to see him getting along with her mom and little sister. And Riley had tried, to be perfectly honest. And he’d come so close, and yet there had always been a little distance between he and them. Maybe it had been her fault for not bringing him home sooner, and maybe it was because Dawn thought Spike that much cooler, but Spike was succeeding in a way no one else ever had.
After a while, Joyce sent Dawn off to bed, and then she sent Buffy to the basement to go find some blankets she didn’t need anymore for Spike. The vampire had risen to follow, but the older woman held him back and motioned for him to sit again. “I need to know what you’re going to do,” Joyce said evenly.
Spike stared at her, and then swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Of course you do,” Joyce replied. “I know you have feelings for my daughter, Spike. I’m not blind or stupid.”
“Never said you were,” he replied, sighing. And then, “Nothin’. She knows, and I know she knows, an’ we both pretend it’s not there.” Spike let his shield drop for a minute, looking her in the eye. “’m goin’ to take care of her, much as she’ll let me, an’ ‘m goin’ to try not to let anythin’ happen to you or the Niblet. ‘s all I can do.”
“Maybe it will be enough,” Joyce replied softly. “What else did he do to you, Spike?”
Spike stared at her, wondering how she knew, how she of all people had guessed. “Said he cursed me. Said it would take effect soon’s anybody pulled me off that wall, guaranteed to give me perpetual torment, an’ all that rot. Bunch of bollocks if you ask me.”
Joyce hesitated, hearing her daughter’s footsteps on the stairs, and then she stood swiftly, and dropped a kiss on the top of Spike’s head, stunning him. “I’m glad you’re looking out for her, Spike,” she said softly, and then turned as Buffy entered the room. “I should clean up the kitchen, and then I’m going to head to bed as well.”
Spike took that as his cue to leave. “I should get goin’. Thanks for the blankets an’ all, Mrs. Summers.”
Joyce looked at him, and a moment of understanding passed between them. “It’s Joyce, Spike. Just Joyce.”
Buffy walked him to the front door, and handed him the blankets. “Can I ask you a question?”
He stared at her for a moment, and then shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah.”
“Who are you and what did you do with the real Spike?”
Spike suddenly smiled, cocking his head to the side with real good humor. “How do you know that this isn’t the real Spike, Slayer? I’m a vampire of many facets.”
Buffy smiled back. “Well, I like this side. He can stick around for a while.”
He looked away. “I’ll let you know if I see Dru, Slayer,” he promised.
“Thank you.” And she watched as he disappeared into the night.
“What’s up, Buffy?” Willow asked, just a tad too casually as she sat down next to her best friend.
“Not much,” the Slayer replied carefully. She honestly wasn’t sure how to describe the events of the last couple days. Her entire world had seemed to change overnight.
Willow looked at her. “Do you see this face?” she asked seriously. “This is my resolve face, Buf. What’s up?”
Buffy laughed a little. “I can’t resist the resolve face!” she protested.
“No one can,” Willow replied. “So spill.”
Buffy hesitated, and then said, “I took Spike to the Bronze the other night to get some information out of him. You know how Xander was wondering why he’d take on a warlock in the first place?” When Willow nodded, she continued, “Well, he told me why. He said he was in love with me.”
Willow’s eyes went wide with shock. She hadn’t been expecting that. “He actually said that?” she asked incredulously.
Buffy shook her head. “Huh uh. I kind of sensed something and I called him on it. And then he threatened to leave, so I told him that our conversation had never happened. Spike’s exact words were, ‘I don’t want to see you dead anymore.’”
“Oh.” Willow considered that for a minute, and then asked, “What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” Buffy replied quietly. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted to tell anybody. It’s not that I like him or anything, Will, but he’s different sometimes. When he’s not being incredibly annoying, he’s almost nice to be with.” She shook her head. “I just don’t get him.”
Willow frowned. “Has he changed? I mean, with the whole torture thing and all, it seemed like it was pretty likely he was going to go crazy or something, and if he hasn’t, maybe it changed him another way.”
“I don’t know,” Buffy admitted. “But as long as he doesn’t go all psycho-stalker on me, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for him to be hanging around. He’s basically told me he’s not going to let anything happen to Mom or Dawn.”
Willow shrugged. “Well, Angel was helpful. When he had his soul anyway. Are you going to tell Giles?”
Buffy shook her head emphatically. “He’ll flip. And Spike doesn’t deserve the wrath of Giles right now.” She quickly told Willow what she and Spike had managed to discover on their trip to the train station. “If he didn’t want to help, he wouldn’t have told me it was Drusilla,” Buffy said. “I think we should stick to telling Giles that and let the rest of it go. It’ll work itself out eventually.”
~~~~~
Giles frowned. “I don’t know what to tell you about tracking Drusilla down.” Classes were over for the day, and she and Willow had headed over to the Magic Box immediately to let the Watcher know what Buffy had discovered. “Spike might be able to do that, considering that he’s her childe, but if he wasn’t willing to, I don’t see where that leaves us. I’m not sure we have another way to trace her.”
“I think he would have if I asked him,” Buffy said slowly. “He basically asked me not to ask him to, and I agreed. It wouldn’t be fair to him, and he might not be able to keep himself from helping her.”
Giles nodded, giving Buffy a measuring look. He didn’t think he’d ever heard the words “fair” and “Spike” in the same sentence before. “Speaking of Spike, I think you should know what I’ve discovered about the—wounds on his chest.” The Watcher pulled out a notebook where he’d made a replica of the carving that had been done on the vampire. “As I suspected, the marks were not random, but were rather words. A curse, to be precise.”
Willow leaned over the notebook to take a closer look. “A part of the ritual? The Blood of the Victims?”
Giles shook his head. “No. The ritual itself calls for nothing of the sort. If you were to do this kind of thing to a human, they most likely would soon die from blood loss and shock, negating the efficacy of the ritual. It says, ‘Unbearable torment from harm done as long as this mark lasts.’” He pulled off his glasses and began to clean them. “That’s a translation, and a paraphrase. The actual language doesn’t use articles, so they aren’t there, of course…” He trailed off as he saw the bored look on Buffy’s face. “Yes, well, it seems as though this curse was to begin as soon as the ritual was interrupted. You initiated it by pulling Spike off the wall, in fact, Buffy.”
Buffy made an alarmed face. “I didn’t mean to.”
“No, of course not,” Giles said impatiently. “There was no way you could avoid it, in this case.”
“But what does it mean, Giles?” Willow asked. “Spike doesn’t seem to be going crazy or anything with unbearable torment. What would that mean for a vampire?”
Giles didn’t reply, but only looked carefully at the two girls, waiting for them to come up with their own explanation. He had no proof, but there was no denying that the wording was very interesting indeed. “His soul?” Buffy suddenly whispered. “Angel was supposed to suffer unbearable torment with his soul.”
Willow’s eyes went wide. “Oh boy.” She looked at Giles in alarm. “Is he going to lose it? Can he lose it?”
Giles shook his head. “Vampires do not scar easily, but they can be scarred, as far as I know. It’s a very good possibility that if Spike did get his soul returned to him, or cursed on him, it will never be removed.”
Buffy shook her head. “I can’t believe he wouldn’t tell me.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know,” Giles suggested. “Or perhaps the curse itself means something else; it is difficult to say. You might want to ask him.”
The Slayer nodded slowly. “I think that’s exactly what I want to do.”
~~~~~
Spike woke from the nightmare with a gasp. He sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and putting
his head down. This one had been particularly bad, filled with images of him killing. And every time he saw the face of his victim, it was Buffy’s face.
He rose from his nest of blankets with a sigh and pulled on a pair of jeans, deciding to forgo the shirt for the present. Tracing a careful finger over the almost-healed scars on his chest, he winced. Spike knew, of course, what it was supposed to be for, and he hadn’t lied to Giles when he’d said they represented pain. There was good reason for the warlock not to return; he didn’t need to. Killing Spike would not prolong the torture, and that had been his goal, to make the torment last for as long as possible. Spike was fairly certain the warlock had known the story of Angel, because that was basically what he had been duplicating, except that the torment for Spike would never end. He wouldn’t be able to get rid of the curse, not unless he wanted to skin his chest. Not a pleasant thought.
A small noise from downstairs alerted him to the fact that he seemed to have a guest. Spike grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it over his head as he navigated the rickety stairwell. “What are you doing here?”
Dawn looked up guiltily. “I wanted to be sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine, Snack Size,” he said. “So what are you doing here?”
The girl shrugged unhappily. “I didn’t really want to go home or to the Magic Box, you know? They still look at me funny sometimes.” She glanced up at him. “I feel real when I’m with you.”
Spike looked at her hard for a second and then shrugged, relaxing. “Soon’s it gets dark, I’ll walk you home, Bit. Just because Glory hasn’t shown her face for a while, no sense in taking stupid risks.” And then he smiled. “And I’d bet you’d taste real enough, pet. You smell real, and I always trust my nose.”
Dawn followed him as he went into the dilapidated kitchen. “You actually get electricity in here?” she asked, watching as he pulled a bag of blood out of the small fridge.
“Wouldn’t have moved in if I couldn’t. Have to have my telly, don’t I?” Spike looked over at Dawn suspiciously. “Who knows you’re here, Bit?”
Suddenly looking guilty, she stared at the floor. “No one. But they won’t be expecting me for a while yet. It’ll be fine, Spike.”
“Better be,” he muttered.
They spent the afternoon playing gin rummy, while Dawn filled him in on the goings on at the Summers’ house, and talked about the boy she liked. Spike found himself feeling a real fondness for the girl, beyond the fact that she was related to Buffy. Dawn was spunky; she had a mouth on her like no other, and she treated him as much like a real person as he treated her. As soon as the sun set, he found himself walking her home, and he glanced over at her as they neared Revello Drive. “Look, Niblet, you need a place to go, you can come over. But let somebody know, alright? Last thing I need is your sister coming after my head.”
“Thanks, Spike,” Dawn said, and then scampered off home as Spike went back to his, hopefully for a few hours of sleep if he could manage it.
Unfortunately, sleep didn’t seem to be on the menu for him. As soon as he entered the old house, he could sense someone else’s presence, and there was only one person in all the world who had that particular scent. “Hello, Dru,” he said flatly.
“My Spike,” she purred, coming out of the shadows. “I missed you.”
“Too bad,” he murmured, lighting a cigarette. “Maybe you shouldn’t have left.”
Dru came up to him, trailing one limp hand along his shoulder blades. “Poor Spike. Dog can’t bite.”
Spike turned and snarled at her. “Dog won’t bite, Dru, as you probably already know.” He stalked over to the door. “Slayer’s goin’ to kill you for the train, pet. My advice is to get out of town before I’m forced to give her a hand.” Then he left. If he wasn’t going to get any sleep, he was going to get something to drink.
~~~~~
Buffy knocked on Spike’s front door. She wasn’t sure why she was knocking; she never had before. But it just seemed more impolite to burst in on somebody’s house than it did a crypt, she supposed.
There was no response to her knock, and she tried the door, not surprised when it swung open. “Spike?” she called as she entered. “You here?” Sighing she turned and looked over the room. He still didn’t have any furniture, but it seemed he’d made use of her mom’s blankets to cover the windows. Buffy was tempted to sit around and wait for him to come home, but there was no telling when he’d return. Best just to leave and maybe he’d turn up later in the evening.
The Slayer turned back towards the front door when something warned her of a presence behind her. She hadn’t even got all the way turned around when the cattle prod hit her in the back, and she stiffened and fell to the floor, unconscious, dimly hearing Drusilla’s insane laughter.
~~~~~
Spike had three beers under his belt, and they weren’t even taking the edge off. He half-wondered if that curse had something to do with it; couldn’t experience unending torment if you were shit-faced, now could you? He tossed another couple bills on the bar and took the proffered bottle, deciding that this one was going to be his last. If he really wanted to get drunk, he needed more serious liquor to do it.
“Spike!” The vampire turned to see the red-headed witch waving at him. He frowned, and went over to where she was sitting with her girlfriend. “Hey,” she greeted him. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” he admitted, trying not to think about the fact that he’d left Drusilla back at his house. He should be trying to find the Slayer to let her know. He’d promised after all. “Where’s Buffy?”
Willow frowned. “You haven’t seen her? She wanted to talk to you. She said she was going to meet you at your place.”
Spike shook his head. “No, I had to walk the Little Bit home, and then—” He broke off abruptly as he realized exactly what Willow was saying. There was every possibility that he had just missed Buffy, which meant that she would have been left alone with Dru. “Bloody hell,” he swore, setting his bottle down on the table and taking off, not even bothering to try to explain.
His feet hit the ground in a fast-paced rhythm as he used his vampiric speed to his advantage. How could he have just left Dru there? He should have run her out of town himself, made sure she left. The house was silent when he got there, with no signs of life at all, but he knew better. Spike could still scent both Buffy and Dru, and knowing his sire, she would have already found the cellar.
Spike clattered down the ladder-like stairs, not bothering with a sneak attack. Dru had probably sensed him as soon as he came through the front door anyway. And sure enough, there was his sire, squatting in front of Buffy who was just starting to come around. The Slayer’s hands had been tied behind her back, and she was leaning, half-conscious against the wall. Spike wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get to Dru before she took a chunk out of Buffy’s neck, her teeth were that close.
“Get away from her,” Spike growled.
Dru sniggered, not a very nice sound really. “My Spike came back to play.”
He trembled where he stood, wanting to pull her away from Buffy, but not sure how to do it without getting the Slayer hurt. “I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s.” He felt his own face shift. “Back off, Dru, before I do something we’ll both regret.”
She narrowed green-gold eyes at him. “Nasty bits of wire and plastic,” she pouted. “It’s the heart that counts, luv. You could kill if you wanted to. You should come back to Mummy.”
Spike smiled coldly. “That’s just the thing, pet. Don’t want to. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Surreptitiously, he reached into his duster pocket for the stake he knew was there. He didn’t want to kill her, but he might have to if she didn’t get away from Buffy. “Face it, Dru. If you hadn’t left me, none of this would have happened. We were happy in Brazil, before you took up with that Chaos demon.” He let vent some of the bitterness he still felt over that deal. “A Chaos demon! With the slime, and the horns.”
“I shouldn’t have let you leave,” Drusilla purred quietly. “My brave knight. But I’ll get rid of the Slayer, dancing all ‘round your head.”
And with that she was very ready to plunge her teeth into Buffy’s neck, even as the Slayer opened her mouth to tell him to do something constructive about his ex. Spike could see the fear in the Slayer’s eyes, and it was all the impetus he needed to do what had to be done. With a cry of rage, he thrust the stake into his sire’s unprotected back and pushed her body aside. He knew he’d missed the heart. Barely. “Told you, I’m not yours anymore. Tired of playin’ everybody else’s bloody games.”
Spike waited until Drusilla rose, swaying with pain. “Get out,” he gritted between clenched teeth. “I mean it, Dru. That’s the last time I tell you and the last time I miss. You come back, you won’t even get a warning from me.”
She left then, as he knew she would. Drusilla had a healthy sense of self-preservation, for all her madness. She knew he was serious, and she knew he’d changed, even if no one else seemed to have realized it.
Once she’d gone, he knelt down next to the Slayer, trying to get his fingers around the rope to undo the knots. Fingers that were suddenly clumsy with reaction and grief. “Bloody hell,” he whispered furiously as he tried and failed to undo the knots once again.
“Do you have a knife?” Buffy asked, slightly amused at his frustration and anger.
He nodded. “I’ll be right back, luv.” Spike’s eyes suddenly met hers. “You alright?” When she nodded at him, he left to get the promised knife in order to cut her bonds. A couple minutes later and she was free, already heading up the ladder.
“Coming?” she called behind her, and she heard the heavy creak of wood as Spike’s boots hit the stairs. She turned to look at him as he followed her up and shut the door to the cellar behind him. “You okay?” she asked softly.
“’m fine,” he managed. “You should get home.”
“Spike—”
“’m fine!” he cried angrily. “Sod off, Slayer! I told Dru I’m tired of bein’ everybody else’s Spike. I’m sick of bein’ love’s bitch. What the hell do I get in return?”
Buffy stared at him. He was angry and in pain, and most of it was because of her. At least, partially. Spike had gone after the warlock for her, and gotten cursed for his troubles. He’d come very close to killing his sire for her tonight. And she did the only thing she could think of doing. She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Spike struggled, but only for a moment. Then he relaxed and buried his face in her hair. “Dammit,” he muttered.
Buffy stifled a giggle. It really wasn’t funny, but he was such a drama queen sometimes. “Thank you,” she murmured into his chest.
He heaved a sigh. “’s okay,” Spike replied, tired. “I knew she was here; I was goin’ to try findin’ you.”
“It’s all right,” Buffy said. “Really. No harm done.” She pulled back and looked at him, grabbing his chin when he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Look at me,” she commanded. “I know a little about what that cost you. So thanks.”
Spike pulled away and went to sit down, sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. “It was time. Dru needed to realize I wasn’t comin’ back, an’ that was the only way to get through to her.”
Buffy sat down next to him, their arms barely touching in a companionable distance. “Whatever happens after this, Spike, I won’t forget what you did for me tonight.” She looked over and met his eyes. “We’re friends.”
He cocked his head to the side, brows drawn together in a puzzled frown, as though testing to see whether or not she was telling the truth. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” They sat there until the sun rose, and Spike drifted off to sleep. Buffy left then, but not until she’d found a blanket to put over him and another to pillow his head.
Buffy made her way through the crowded frat party, trying not to spill her drink. This was supposed to be fun, she knew, but she found herself beyond bored. Other than the Scoobies, there really wasn’t anyone else she knew, and she’d never been good at making small talk with people. Something about being a Slayer didn’t lend itself well to idle chit chat. (‘Oh, what do you do with your free time?’ ‘You know, kill vampires and demons.’ Right.)
Trying to get herself around a knot of people, she managed to run right into someone’s chest. “Ow! Watch it!” Buffy winced and managed a step back, only to see Spike looking at her with a very annoyed expression on his face. But the annoyance quickly faded when he saw who it was that had bumped him, and he reached out a steadying hand. “You alright there, pet?”
“Fine,” she replied, shaking liquid off her fingers ruefully. “Just being a klutz, I guess. So what are you doing here?”
Spike held up a drink. “Free beer and snacks, luv. Couldn’t pass it up. You?”
“About the same,” she admitted. “Come on. Let’s get out of the way.” Buffy could sense him following her, and she realized that she wasn’t nearly as bored anymore. Spike had a way of spicing up just about any engagement. Willow, Tara, and Xander were all standing in a small group, and they smiled at her even as they glanced at Spike suspiciously. No one, not even Xander, said anything about his presence. All of them knew about the curse at this point.
“Hey, Spike,” Tara said shyly, the only one to acknowledge him. “You came.”
“Free beer,” he replied, smiling a little at her. And then he frowned as a pretty brunette walked right up to them, looking from one to another.
“Hi. Have you seen Warren? He needs me.” She smiled, blinking in a steady, regular pattern that somehow creeped Spike out. Well, actually, she creeped everybody out.
“Um, no. Sorry,” Buffy replied, she and Spike sharing a look, and then watching as she went off to ask someone else about “Warren.” They might have gone back to chatting but a loud crash startled everyone, and they all turned just in time to see the tail end of a guy go flying through the window. Buffy sighed, handed her drink to Spike, and waded through the crowd to confront the girl, not sure of what it was she was dealing with.
“Hi. Look, I don’t know what he said to you or anything, but you can’t throw people through windows,” Buffy said as politely as she could. “It’s really not done.”
The girl blinked at her twice, and then said, “Do you know my boyfriend?”
Buffy grimaced. “Tell you what. Why don’t you stop looking for your boyfriend, because—”
Whatever she might have said was interrupted by the girl throwing her across the room with no warning whatsoever. Buffy fell hard, stunned, as the strange girl stood over her. “I’m sorry if I hurt you just now, but I need to find Warren. He needs me. I hope your boyfriend takes good care of you.”
“Too right.” Spike’s voice came from the side, and she felt strong hands pick her up and set her back on her feet. When she gave him a look, he shrugged. “Bloke can dream.” They both looked at the girl, who was leaving. “Now that was just a bit odd,” he murmured.
Buffy nodded, rubbing her arm reflexively as the rest of her friends came to stand around her. “Did anybody else think she was a little off? Like she was a—”
“A robot.” Tara looked at the others, who nodded, and Spike got a look of dawning realization on his face.
“Knew something was off,” he said. “Couldn’t hear the heart beat or the blood…” Spike trailed off at the looks the others were giving him. “Knew something was wrong, anyway.”
Buffy sighed. “I suppose we’re going to have to try and find her. Or whoever made her.”
“Well,” Willow pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. “If Warren’s her boyfriend, he’s probably the one that made her. It’s not a common name, and I could probably get a list tonight. Though, we wouldn’t actually be able to narrow it down until tomorrow.”
Buffy nodded. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow then. It didn’t seem as if she was too dangerous, as long as you don’t tell her not to look for her boyfriend.” She rubbed the now-fading ache in her arm reflexively. “I should probably get home, though. Giles is watching Dawn while Mom’s out on her date tonight. It might be a good idea to keep the torture to a minimum.”
“Giles and Dawn?” Tara looked a little surprised. “They’re probably having a great time.”
“Uh huh.” Buffy wasn’t buying that idea for a minute. “I think I’ll do a sweep on the way. Spike, you want to come along?”
The vampire looked a little startled to be the one addressed, but he nodded and quickly set down his glass. “Sure. Why not?” There was actually a chorus of good-nights directed at both of them as Buffy and Spike made their way through the dwindling crowd at the party. “What was that about?” Spike asked suspiciously as they left.
“What was what about?” Buffy asked innocently.
“They were bein’ nice.” At Buffy’s look, he added. “You’re bein’ nice too.”
“Gift horse? Mouth?”
He sighed. “Right. Sorry.” There didn’t seem to be much to say as they made their way to Buffy’s house. They weren’t too far from Revello Drive, when Spike finally broke the silence. “You know, Slayer…”
She gave him an amused look. “Just spit it out, Spike.”
“If you ever need someone to look after the Niblet and the Watcher’s busy or something, you could ask me.” Spike really couldn’t believe he was offering himself up as a babysitter for the Slayer’s little sister. He hadn’t wanted to be at anyone’s beck and call. “If I’m not busy or anythin’,” he quickly added.
“And you want to know why I didn’t ask you tonight?” Buffy said, now highly amused. “I just thought you could use some, you know, alone time or something, after what happened with Drusilla.”
“I told you, Buffy, it had to be done.”
But the Slayer could hear something wistful in his tone, a note of longing for what could not be. “What did you mean about not wanting to be anyone’s?”
Spike looked over at her, and Buffy could see he wanted to say something snarky, something nasty, but whatever he saw in her eyes changed his mind. “I want choices, Slayer,” he finally said. “When Dru made me, I didn’t get much of a choice, an’ then I didn’t have a lot of choices after that. It was always about her. And then I got this bleedin’ chip in my head, and suddenly I had even fewer choices.”
Buffy stared at him, wondering how he could articulate so clearly what she wanted so desperately—to have a choice in life, to be able to make a decision as to what she wanted and where she wanted to go. And she wondered again how it was that she and a vampire could have so much in common in the first place. “I know the feeling,” she murmured.
They walked up to her front door, and it looked as though Spike was going to turn around and leave. Buffy still hadn’t gotten a chance to ask him about the curse, and she turned to him. “Do you want to come in?”
A glimmer of a smile, almost a smirk, hovered around his lips, but all he did was nod. “Sure, luv. That’d be right nice.”
The door suddenly swung open, and Giles stood in the doorway. If he was surprised to see Spike, he gave nothing away. “Buffy, thank God you’re home. We have to change the system. A fourteen-year-old girl is too old to have a babysitter. It’s not fair to her.”
Buffy grinned broadly. “What did she make you do?”
Giles rubbed his aching head. “We listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance, and then we ate cookie dough and talked about boys.”
Spike was having a very hard time not laughing in the other man’s face. “You should have pulled out the cards, mate.”
“The cards?” Giles looked at him, puzzled.
The vampire shrugged. “She’ll clean you out, since she learned how to play from yours truly, but it keeps her away from both cookie dough and the music. Maybe not the talking about boys though,” he added thoughtfully.
Giles looked at Buffy. “Do you mean to tell me Spike knows the secret to babysitting Dawn, and no one thought to ask him?”
Buffy couldn’t help laughing. “Apparently not. Who knew that Spike was the fountain of wisdom for all things Dawn? If it makes you feel better, my evening was pretty boring, the highlight being seeing a guy getting thrown through a window by a robot.”
“A robot?” Giles suddenly looked interested.
“Willow’s looking into it,” Buffy said. “If you wanted, you could stay, and we could—”
Joyce breezed up to the front door. “Who wants to hear everything?”
“—listen to mom talk about boys,” the Slayer finished, smiling as Giles quickly excused himself, and said good night to both women and Spike. She shared a look with the vampire, who followed her inside. Buffy still wasn’t sure what had happened in the last few days. Spike had quickly gone from being a complete and utter pest to being a friend. A friend whom she was becoming very fond of.
Buffy could hear Spike chuckling quietly as her mom teased her about her dating exploits. But, really, the thought of your mother’s bra left anywhere was enough to induce major trauma. After she’d tortured Buffy sufficiently, and when Spike was having a great deal of trouble stifling his laughter, Joyce headed up to bed, leaving Buffy and Spike alone downstairs.
“Give me just a minute, okay?” Buffy asked, glancing at him before heading up the stairs to her room.
Spike stayed where he was on the couch, his duster laid beside him, not quite believing the events of the evening. It was more than Buffy’s kindness towards him, or everyone else’s tolerance. It almost felt as though he was making a place for himself here, with her, and the thought caused the burden he carried to lighten just a little. When the Slayer came back downstairs, she was in loose-fitting knit pants and a sweat-shirt. “You want something to drink?” she offered. “I think we’ve still got some blood left over from when you were here.”
He shrugged. “I ate earlier, pet, but thanks.”
“Hot chocolate?”
“Little marshmallows?”
Buffy grinned at him. “I think I can manage that.” They were soon sipping their drinks companionably at the kitchen island. “So, when were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asked, startled by the question.
“About the curse.” At his stare, she explained, “Giles translated the stuff on your chest. He said it meant you might have your soul back. I was coming to ask you about it the other night, but then there was that thing with your ex.”
“Dunno, luv,” he admitted quietly. “It hurts. It hurts all the time, but I dunno what it means, if I have my soul back or not. Kind of feels like it maybe, but—don’t want what I used to want.”
Buffy hesitated. “Can I see?”
There was a long moment, and then Spike lifted up his shirt. The wounds had faded to angry red marks, and Buffy touched one gently. “Does it hurt?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Not there.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What was I goin’ to say, Slayer?” he replied in turn. “Why should I say anythin’?” Spike frowned. “I saw—I saw what you see every time you look at me when I was on that wall. An’ there was no relief when you pulled me down. Their voices, their faces were still there every time I closed my eyes or stopped for a moment. What could you do? Why would you want to do anythin’ at all?”
Buffy was silent. He had a really good point, actually, and she understood. She really did. “Spike—why? I mean, I know why you went after that guy, but why would you even feel that way in the first place? I didn’t do anything.”
Spike looked surprised, and then shook his head. “Why would you think you needed to do anythin’ at all, luv? It’s who you are that matters.” When Buffy didn’t look convinced, he continued. “You’re so alive, pet. You move—like no one I’ve ever seen. And you try, even when you know you’re going to lose, you try. Question isn’t why do I feel the way I do, it’s why wouldn’t I?”
Buffy stared at him, almost frightened. Angel had said something like that to her once, when she’d been put through that test the Watcher’s Council had set up. But this was Spike, and there was no denying that he’d felt something even before this mysterious curse was placed on him. It was suddenly time to change the subject. “Do you think Glory’s coming back?”
Spike blinked, confused by the sudden change in topic, but then shrugged. “Dunno. It has been pretty quiet, but it’s hard to tell whether she’s just lyin’ low for a while, or if she’s got some grand scheme in mind.” He paused. “No, actually, probably no grand scheme. Too airheaded.”
Buffy giggled a little, and he smiled in reply, pleased to have been able to make her laugh. She asked him another question, one about his new house. For some reason, it was easy to talk to him, maybe because there was so little acting with Spike. He was who he was, and she was who she was, and that was the end of it.
Except that it was hard to know him, hard to understand who he was underneath all those layers. And somewhere in the midst of her trying to find out what exactly he represented for her, they found themselves on the couch, watching television and talking. It was four in the morning, and near dawn, when he finally stood to go, reluctantly. “I should get home before I’m stuck here for the rest of the day.”
“You could stay,” Buffy offered. “I could set the cot up in the basement again.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s fine. If I leave now, I’ll just make it. Wouldn’t do to make a nuisance of myself.”
“You’re not a nuisance, Spike,” she replied, with more feeling than she’d intended.
He looked surprised. “Buffy—”
“Friends, remember?” she asked.
“I remember.” Spike looked off into the middle distance and smiled thoughtfully. “I know I said I didn’t want to belong to anyone, but if you need me…”
“I’ll call.” She paused. “Well, I probably won’t call, since you don’t have a phone, but I’ll come by or something.”
Spike nodded and went to the door, and Buffy called out after him. “Spike? Same goes for you.”
He smirked. “Better not make that kind of offer around me, luv. You never know what I’ll need.” And with that comment he disappeared out into the night.
“And you’ll never know what I’d offer,” Buffy murmured, once she was certain he was out of ear shot.
Chapter 6: Comforting Those Who Mourn
Spike suppressed the urge to whistle as he neared 1630 Revello Drive. The burden of the curse had lifted significantly with Buffy’s offer of friendship. On this night he’d thought to ask Buffy if she’d like company on patrol, and he had every hope that she’d accept. He wasn’t precisely certain what had changed over the last few days, but something had. Buffy seemed to be warming to him in more ways than one, and he was beginning to hope that perhaps his love was not as hopeless as he had thought.
There were no lights on when he approached, and something about the darkness unsettled him. He had expected Joyce to be home at least, and had half-hoped that if Buffy wasn’t available he might have a nice chat with her or the Niblet. But when no one answered the door at his knock, he turned to go, his hands tucked in the pockets of his duster uncertainly. Spike thought about waiting on the porch, or maybe—
The vampire went around back, and knocked on the back door, then tried the knob. It turned easily under his touch, and he frowned in concern. It wasn’t right for the Summers’ place to be so easily accessible. House should have been locked up tight. And he could smell it when he entered, the smell of sickness and sudden death.
Spike took two steps into the kitchen, fear gripping his chest. A noise at the front door warned him that someone was coming home, and he was torn between leaving before anyone could discover that he’d snuck in and finding out what had happened. Curiosity won out, and he passed through the kitchen into the hall to find Buffy, Dawn, and Giles at the front door. The Watcher was asking them if they wanted him to stay, and the Slayer was shaking her head.
“No, that’s okay, Giles. I think both Dawn and I are just going to try and get some sleep. It’s been a long day.” She turned to see Spike standing there, a dawning realization on his face. “Spike? What are you doing here?”
“Came to see if you wanted to patrol, but—” Spike broke off. “What happened?”
Dawn shot over to his side, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Spike, it’s Mom.”
The vampire could feel her shaking, and he reflexively tightened his grip on her. He looked from Giles to Buffy, and it was the Watcher who answered, his own demeanor softened by the look of grief on Spike’s face. “Joyce had an aneurysm earlier today. There was nothing to be done.”
Spike wasn’t sure what to say. He felt just as he had that night on Buffy’s back porch when he’d found out that Joyce was sick; it was a feeling of complete helplessness. His eyes met the Slayer’s, and he nodded. “How long you need me to take patrol for you, Buffy?” he asked.
Buffy gave him a grateful look. “Maybe the next couple days?” she suggested.
“Will do. I’ll see you around, Slayer.” Spike gently disengaged himself from Dawn’s grip. “Keep your chin up, Bit,” he said softly, gently touching Dawn’s cheek.
He was on his way out the door, Giles just in front of him, when Buffy took him by the arm. “Come by after patrol, Spike,” she murmured. “Please?”
“Sure thing, luv.” He followed the Watcher out the door, pulling a stake out of his pocket.
“Spike?” Giles stopped him with his call. “Thank you for taking patrol. It is a help.”
Spike shrugged. “No worries, Watcher.”
“How are you? With the curse?”
“What, with the unbearable torment?” Spike’s smile was self-deprecatory. “Those are the good days.”
Giles looked as though he wanted to say something, but grief and uncertainty closed his mouth, and he said nothing.
Spike took out his worry and anger and grief on the demons and vampires he ran across that night, getting as much of it out of his system as he could before going back to meet the Slayer at her house. It was nearly unbearable to think of Joyce as dead; he wasn’t sure how it was possible. She had been so alive such a short time before that it didn’t make any sense to him.
When he’d finished his rounds he went back towards Buffy’s house, his heart much heavier than it had been when he’d begun his evening. Spike knocked on the front door this time, rather than going around back, and Buffy opened it. He met her eyes reluctantly, unsure of how to comfort her, how to tell her how very sorry he was.
“Liked your mum,” he finally murmured after a long silence. “Joyce was decent. She always had a cuppa, and she never treated me like a freak.”
“Thanks, Spike,” Buffy replied. And then she motioned him inside. Spike decided not to question why she was coming to him for comfort, why she wasn’t going to one of her friends or the Watcher. Perhaps she knew that he, too, wanted to be comforted. “It was horrible,” she said into the darkness of the house. “I found her when I came home today. She was on the couch, and I thought maybe she’d just gone to sleep, but…”
Spike wanted to hold her, to pull her into his arms and offer her the comfort of touch. It was what her friends had most likely done, but it was something he was afraid to offer her. “If there’s anything you need, just name it, luv.”
“Stay,” she replied in answer. “Please. I don’t think I want to be by myself tonight.”
“One of your friends…” he began.
Buffy shook her head. “No, not tonight.” Spike met her eyes, wondering silently if she knew what she was doing, but she nodded, as though in response to his unspoken thoughts.
“If that’s what you need,” he agreed.
They didn’t go into the living room, not where Joyce had been. It was easier for the both of them to go into the kitchen where her presence was tangible, but not overwhelming. “You want something, pet?” Spike asked.
Buffy shook her head. “No, not really.”
“You should try to sleep y’know,” Spike said gently.
“I don’t think I could.”
Spike was at a loss, unable to find the words to say to make it better, unable to do anything to ease the pain. “I should have stayed,” he finally said. When Buffy looked at him in surprise, he explained. “Last night, I should have stayed. I would have been here.”
She gave him what might have been a smile, except that it was so sad. “I said the same thing, that I should have been here. The doctor said that there wasn’t anything anybody could have done, it happened so fast. Mom probably didn’t even know what had happened.” Buffy was suddenly desperate for something, anything to take her mind off of the day’s events. She wanted to feel something other than this numbness, this sense of helplessness. Perhaps that was why she had wanted to be with Spike; there was so little of her life that was connected with him, even though he seemed such an integral part. His role had been at the periphery of things, and sitting here with him held less sadness than it had with Willow or Xander or any of the others.
“Remember the first time I saw your mum,” Spike said suddenly, with a small wistful smile. “You remember that? She hit me over the head with an ax, told me to get the hell away from her daughter.” He looked at her with a tenderness barely hidden. “You have her strength, Buffy.”
“I’m not sure I do,” she replied. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Spike.” It was somehow easier to admit it to him than to anyone else. Changing the subject, she asked, “What about your parents?”
He looked startled. He truthfully hadn’t given any thoughts to his human origins until recently, preferring to focus on the beauty of being a vampire. But he remembered all too well what had become of both of his parents, and he hardly wanted to tell the Slayer. “I don’t think you want to know.”
“If you’re telling me that because you think I can’t handle it, I know what probably happened, Spike. But I need—” Buffy stopped, unsure of how to tell him that she needed to not think about her mom for a while, because tomorrow would be full of funeral arrangements and the mundanities of grief. There were so many things to consider, things that no one ever told you about. They didn’t tell you that you had to pick out a casket and flowers, that you had to call relatives and friends and try not to forget anyone. They didn’t tell you that you had to do all of that while swimming in a sea of grief so deep that you thought you’d never touch bottom, until all you wanted was to forget it had ever happened. No one ever said anything about that.
But Spike seemed to read all of that in her eyes, and he could not refuse. “My father died when I wasn’t much older than the Bit,” he replied softly. “Still remember the funeral an’ all that. He was a good man, y’know?” It got harder to look into her eyes after that. “Mum was sick with consumption when I was turned. I went back…” He made a pattern on the counter with his finger. “You know. I wanted to cure her, and instead I turned her into a monster, so I killed her.”
Spike looked up, expecting to see disgust or anger in Buffy’s eyes, but instead saw only a shared grief. “What was she like?” Buffy asked quietly. It wasn’t a question she had ever asked anyone before, she didn’t think. Angel certainly hadn’t wanted to talk about what he had been like as a human, and Buffy had half-thought he didn’t even remember sometimes. Riley had rarely spoken of his parents; Buffy had often wondered about that, since what he did say was relatively positive. Perhaps he had simply wanted to escape his farm-grown Iowa past. But she thought perhaps Spike had always been more connected to his human roots than most vampires.
Spike was surprised at her question, and part of him was hesitant to share anything with her, because whatever he did say would tell her that he had lied to her that night in the Bronze. She would know who he was, who he had been, and he feared such exposure.
But he told her anyway, telling her about his mother, about her gentle spirit, the way she had always listened to him. (He didn’t tell her he had been a poet.) From there, he found himself weaving stories of growing up in Victorian England, of traveling over the world, of sights he had seen, the smells, the tastes. And for a few hours he gave her the distraction she needed.
The sun had to rise, however, and life had to go on. As on the previous night, just before dawn, Spike took his reluctant leave. “I need to go, luv.”
“I know,” she said. “Thanks. For staying tonight.”
“Anytime.” Spike paused on his way out the back door. “Do you need me to do anything, luv? Other than patrol?”
Buffy was quiet. “If you could look after Dawn—I have to make arrangements, and it might be easier for her to have a place to go to get away from everything. If you don’t mind.”
“Send her over, Slayer. Do what I can.”
“I know, Spike. Thank you.”
The vampire turned, suddenly feeling helpless again, sensing that the weight of her responsibilities was coming back to rest on her shoulders, even if she’d had some time to forget. “Make you the same offer, luv,” he murmured. “You need a place to get away, a shoulder to cry on—” Spike deliberately made the last comment just a little bit suggestive, knowing she’d either laugh or punch him in the nose, figuring either might make her feel better.
To his astonishment, she managed a wan smile. “Nice try, buddy.” And then, surprisingly, “I might take you up on that.”
~~~~~
Spike awoke knowing that he wasn’t alone in the house, and he dressed quickly and went downstairs to find Dawn watching TV listlessly. “Buffy said I could come over.”
“She said you might.” He came to sit next to her where she leaned against the wall, her arms linked loosely around her knees. “You okay?”
“What do you think?” There was really no malice in Dawn’s tone, just a weariness that he hated to hear in a child’s voice.
“Stupid question,” he agreed.
“They were talking about her funeral,” Dawn said quietly. “Buffy said if I needed to get away I could come stay with you for a while. They’re all busy.”
There was a lonely ache in her voice. “I’m not.”
“I know.” And she laid her head on his leg and slept.
~~~~~
Spike woke Dawn up and walked her home as soon as it was dark, dropping her off at the front door and leaving to patrol without going in. He could hear the voices of Buffy and her friends inside, and he thought it might be better if he stayed away. He wasn’t comfortable around them, and knew very well that they felt the same. Again, as he had before, he took out his anger and frustration on the members of the undead population he could find, and then he went home to sleep, though he was tempted to see if the Slayer was as welcoming as she had been previously.
He knew when the funeral was, of course. Dawn had relayed the information. And there was no way he could attend; Sunnydale did not hold funerals after dark. But he went that evening, after the sun had gone down, and he wore his nicest shirt and best pants. There would be no one there to see him, but Joyce would have appreciated the gesture, he was certain. And he brought daisies, because he thought she might have liked those as well, and they reminded him of her.
Spike had no way of knowing that Buffy had stayed, unwilling to leave her mother’s grave on the first night. He certainly couldn’t have known that the great Poof would have shown up to comfort his beloved by the light of the moon. Because honestly, if he had known any of that, he most likely would have put off paying his respects for at least another night, having no desire to air his grief in public.
As it was, he approached the grave from upwind, unarmed, and not thinking of attacks that came from the side. Imagine his surprise when Angel tackled him.
Spike was too surprised to fight back at first, but he soon regained enough equilibrium to get in a few good hits of his own, and for a second it even looked like he might get the upper hand when he heard Buffy shout, “Angel! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Her voice stopped both of them in mid-punch, and Angel looked at her in surprise. “It’s Spike,” he replied, as though that explained everything.
She was hardly appeased. “And?”
“Buffy, it’s Spike.” Angel was surprised at his obtuseness, and the younger vampire took the opportunity to throw his grandsire off and put a few feet in between them.
Buffy rolled her eyes in response. “I know that, Angel. But he has a chip; he doesn’t hurt people now. And besides, he has a soul.”
The look on Angel’s face was almost worth Spike’s sore jaw. The poof looked as though someone had hit him on the back of the head with a board; it was really rather satisfying. At least until Angel’s eyes narrowed. “Look, Buffy, I don’t know what kind of a game he’s playing with you, but Spike doesn’t have a soul.”
“Sod off, Angelus,” Spike growled, feeling himself growing angrier by the second. “You don’t know anything about it.”
Buffy shook her head. “Spike was cursed, Angel. He’s different.”
Angel shook his head more emphatically. “I don’t care what he’s told you, Buffy, or what he wants. He’s lying. I can’t smell a soul on him.”
Spike frowned, suddenly feeling the first pangs of fear. What if it was true? What if the curse that warlock had laid on him was simply an extension of the first, no soul involved? In that case, however Buffy happened to be treating him now wasn’t going to last for very much longer if she believed his grandsire. And suddenly, Spike thought he might believe his grandsire. Maybe he just hurt, aftereffects of being hung on a wall. Maybe he was still just half-crazy with the pain.
“Spike—” Buffy looked at him, and he could see it in her eyes, see that she believed Angel, and that whatever she might feel for him was a fleeting thing. He wasn’t the one she loved. She hadn’t asked him to stand vigil at Joyce’s graveside, she’d asked Angel. She would always choose Angel.
And quite suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore. He was tired of being Love’s bitch, tired of always falling in love with women who couldn’t or wouldn’t love him back. He was really and truly tired of hurting. “Forget it,” he growled, stalking off into the night, leaving the daisies where they had fallen, crushed, by his and Angel’s tumbling. He would find another place to take his grief, and leave her to her own.