Chapter Fifteen: Love, Buffy

Room Service delivered a box of first aid things and clean towels and Buffy took Spike upstairs to the bathroom, sat him on the edge of the bath, and got a pair of eyebrow tweezers from her bag.

“How did you not notice your arm was full of glass?”

“I was sort of concentrating on something else,” he darted a quick kiss on her lips.

“You really probably should see a-”

“No,” he said. “I’m fine. Had enough of hospitals for a lifetime.”

She pulled out bits of glass, some of them pretty big, some very tiny. Frowning, she reached for her reading glasses so she could see the little bits better.

“Did I tell you you look adorable in those?” Spike said.

“Not in the last five minutes.”

“You look adorable in those.”

Buffy glanced up, and smiled.

“Wow. What’s that - three smiles in one night? Hold on a bit, who is this girl?”

“Ha ha.”

“Seriously, Buffy-”

“You keep calling me that.”

Spike was nonplussed. “I was under the impression that was your name.”

“I mean, not Summers or ‘woman’ or ‘hey, fuck-buddy’.”

“You were never my fuck-buddy.”

“Oh, I so was.” She dug deep for a granule of glass and Spike winced.

“I mean, I never thought of it like that. It was always... You were always so angry but I just wanted...”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I know, Spike. I could see it. That’s what made me even angrier. I mean, couldn’t you just find it in your heart to get mad at me? Use me like I was using you? Just once, stop me feeling so bloody guilty?”

He stared.

“What?”

“You are sodding insane, woman.”

“Again with the ‘woman’.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“No, I think for once I am. Spike,” she put down the tweezers, “this whole thing has been about me wanting to punish myself.”

“What for?”

“Usually, what I was doing at the time. For screwing you over.”

“You didn’t screw me over.”

“You really don’t think so?”

“Newsflash, love: I don’t call getting regularly shagged by the woman I love, the same as getting screwed over.”

“Didn’t you hate that I was so...”

“Distant? Sure. I want every time to be like this time,” he stroked her face, and she nestled against his hand. “Well, most times. You do know how to hurt me in all the right places.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hold still while I get this bit.”

She swabbed his whole forearm with stinging antiseptic and covered the worst cuts with bits of gauze. Then came a bandage, and she wrapped it up so much Spike was practically mittened.

“You said you wanted a big fat glove,” she joked.

Spike caught her chin with his bandaged fingers. “I love you,” he said.

“I know.”

But she didn’t say it in return.

They went to bed and made love again, and again, and Spike fell asleep with Buffy’s arms around him, her head on his shoulder.

She watched him sleeping for a while. It didn’t seem to matter how much she kicked him, he always came back. Like a dog. A big, snarling, rabid, insane dog, who turned into a puppy if she tickled him right.

Yeah - that’s what he was. A guard dog. He didn’t like Xander, he just about tolerated the girls, but he loved her and Will and Dawn and guarded them fiercely. Even when Buffy savaged him. He still came back.

He loved her.

She sighed. The last few weeks it felt like everything had been going wrong, everything was a mess, she’d broken it all. And the only thing she had to anchor herself was Spike. And here he still was, still trying to make it better for her.

Man, she owed him.

In the morning, Buffy tried to sneak back in through the kitchen door, but Dawn was feeding William and herself, and she looked up and shook her head.

“Nice of you to call.”

“I was-”

“With Spike?” Dawn took in her mussed hair and bare face. “Got it.”

“Listen, Dawn,” Buffy sat down at the counter, “I - there are a couple things I have to tell you.”

Dawn looked pissy, but she didn’t interrupt.

“First of all, I’m sorry.”

Dawn looked up in surprise.

“The last few weeks... I’ve just been... I don’t know what I’ve been. Trying to work things out, trying to get through things and I didn’t even know why. I’ve been awful to you and not very fair to Will either. And I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Dawn said slowly.

“I spent last night with Spike,” Buffy said.

“Kinda gathered that.”

“And it wasn’t the first time. I mean, well, I haven’t spent the night with him since the Bronze, but...”

“You’ve been sleeping with him for weeks,” Dawn said matter-of-factly. “Oh, please, you thought I hadn’t noticed? We could power the whole street with the electricity you two generate. And all those sudden trips to the store? Jogging?”

“Hey, I was actually-” Buffy began. “Well, sometimes I was.” She sagged. “You really knew?”

“Uh-huh.” Dawn looked quite pleased with herself. “Tara too. We worked it out.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Well, we figured you’d tell us after a while. Although you didn’t...”

“Well,” Buffy twisted her hands, “um, it wasn’t exactly... We’re not - I mean, we weren’t really... together. It was a bit...”

“You were just sleeping with him.”

Deciding that was the cleanest way to put it, Buffy nodded. “Pretty much.”

“You were always so snippy with him. You know he still really loves you.”

“I know.”

“Do you still love him?”

Buffy was silent.

“Buffy?”

“I - I don’t know. I’ve been so horrible to him, I... How can I still love him and treat him like that?”

Dawn shrugged, reaching for the cloth on the counter and wiping some baby food from William’s chin. “He ever tell you about Drusilla?”

“I met Drusilla, remember?”

“Vividly. I remember her trying to kill me. And Spike. And you,” Dawn added as an afterthought. “He said he was in love with her for years, and she used to do awful things to him. Cheat on him, torture him, play mind games with him. But he still loved her. It was only when she left him for Angel that he realised she’d never loved him anyway.”

Buffy frowned. She knew all this. “Your point being?”

“Spike said he did some pretty awful things to her. He wouldn’t tell me what,” she put on her I’m-not-a-kid face, “but I can kinda figure it out. My point is, he still loved her, really loved her, but he still hurt her.”

“You think I still love Spike even after what I’ve been doing to him?”

“I think you wouldn’t even be thinking about whether you loved him, unless you really felt something.”

Buffy sighed. She stood up, feeling tired, but not as bone-deep weary as she had the last few weeks. Something in her was lighter.

“And while we’re on the subject of coming clean,” Dawn said as her sister flicked the kettle on, “there’s something else you should know. About the gallery.”

Buffy turned to face her, eyebrows raised. “Don’t tell me. Spike’s been secretly throwing money at it?”

Dawn made a face. “Well, um...”

He woke in the morning to find his big bed empty, and yelled in frustration. Up to her old tricks. Sodding off before it got light like some kind of bloody vampire.

And then he turned over, and saw the note written on hotel paper in Buffy’s handwriting.

‘Hey. You looked so peaceful when you slept. I didn’t want to disturb you. Have to go and open up shop and check the house hasn’t burned down or anything. Thank you for last night. Will you come by later?

He read it through again. Love, Buffy.

It wasn’t a runaway note. She wanted to see him again.

More fuck-buddy-ness? Or properly, this time?

He took a shower and shaved and got dressed, slowly, thoughtfully. Clean clothes. Less of the leather - not counting his duster, obviously. The light blue shirt she’d once admired him in. Leaving the hotel, he casually swiped one of the flower displays. No one stopped him - you didn’t argue with a man who had that much money, that much power, and came in at three am covered in bruises.

The gallery was peaceful, but by no means empty. Willow regarded him warily as he went past. Tara gave a hesitant smile.

“Buffy in the office?”

She shook her head and pointed upstairs. Spike jogged up the open steps and found her halfway up a stepladder, hanging paintings.

“Nice,” he said. “Bunny girl found a new medium?”

Buffy jumped, but held her balance. “They’re actually selling quite well. Anya came in and screamed at them and everyone’s convinced it’s shock art.”

“As opposed to just plain scary,” Spike tilted his head. “That’s not art.”

“Not like the stuff you’ve been sending.”

He froze.

Buffy climbed back down the ladder.

“I ought to be mad at you,” she said. “But it’s selling. It’s working. Without that, my whole life would be crap, as opposed to just most of it.”

“Most of it?”

“Well, Xander still hates me and - actually, Dawn and I sort of had a talk this morning. She was the one who told me.”

“Bloody little bit.”

Buffy regarded him for a while. Her eyes flickered over the massive flower arrangement. “Accessorising the leather?”

“They’re for you.”

“Did you steal them?”

“Love, I can’t be seen going into a sodding flower shop.”

Buffy laughed and took the flowers. “Thank you,” she said, and Spike knew she wasn’t just talking about the flowers.

“Welcome,” he said, and she knew he understood.

Buffy took the flowers downstairs, to the office, then she paused, turned around, and put them in the window instead.

“Brightens the place up,” she said.

“You brighten it,” Spike said. “You’ve got your glow back.”

Buffy stood on the other side of the gallery and regarded him. Clean and shiny, paler colours than usual, although of course he still had the duster. He wouldn’t be Spike without the duster. She really loved that duster.

She walked over and softly kissed him on the lips. “You gave it back to me,” she said quietly.

Spike looked down at her, and the love in his eyes was shining.

Buffy made a decision. “It’s kinda quiet around here,” she said. “Afternoon lull. You reckon the girls could handle it on their own?”

He frowned warily. “Probably, pet...”

“Well, I have to finish with the bunny girl’s daubs of horror, but when I’m done, maybe we could... go for a walk, or something? In the park?”

“Just you and me?”

“Well, and maybe Will, too.”

“I’d like that.” He smiled, and she smiled back.

“Cool. Okay. You go and pick him up, and I’ll meet you back a the house in, say, half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”

He nodded and kissed her lips again. “It’s a plan.”

She watched him leave in a swirl of leather and pheromones, and turned to find Tara grinning at her and Willow smiling a bit.

“Can’t believe you guys have been lying to me all this time,” Buffy grumbled.

“Got the job done, didn’t we?”

“I suppose now you’re gonna go back to England?”

They exchanged looks. “Well, actually... We were kinda planning on staying. Spike’s paying us okay and-”

“No,” Buffy said, “I’m going to be paying you. You work for the gallery, you get paid by the gallery. You guys have made this work. You deserve a share of the profits. A big share.”

Willow gave a little happy wiggle. Tara smiled gratefully. “Whatever you can afford,” she said.

“You’ll get a bonus if you look after the place while I take the afternoon off?”

“Deal,” Willow said, and stuck out her hand. “And be nice to Spike.”

“I thought you hated Spike?”

“I thought you did. I was being supportive.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and not for the first time that day, she felt like laughing.

Spike had picked William up from his daycare centre a couple of times before, and the staff no longer asked him for ID or phoned Buffy to check if William was really allowed to leave with this maniac. He strapped the baby seat into the DeSoto and drove as carefully as he ever would to Buffy’s house. He didn’t have a key, but then that was never much of a problem to someone who’d learned to pick a lock when he was eight.

Feeling very modern and super-dad, Spike took the baby upstairs and changed his diaper. Just as he was fastening William’s clothes, he heard something downstairs.

“Buffy?” He glanced at his watch. “That was quick.”

Nothing.

“Dawn?”

Silence.

Spike frowned. He carried William through into his room, set him in his playpen and pressed his finger to his lips. Then he headed for the stairs, picking up a candlestick from Buffy’s room as he went.

He heard someone moving around in the kitchen and made to go that way, and then suddenly, horribly, his nostrils filled with smoke. Not the nicotine kind. The fire kind.

Shit. There had to be a fire extinguisher around here somewhere. At home he’d have laughed at someone who put something like that in his house, but this was California. Everyone was paranoid about everything.

“Looking for this?” came a voice, and Spike froze, because it was Glory. And she was throwing the fire extinguisher out of the kitchen window. The living room was full of cracking flames and the kitchen wasn’t far behind.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Duh,” she said, “I’m setting the house on fire.” She clocked his candlestick. “Nice weapon. Lord Black, in the hallway, with the candlestick.”

“Good guess,” Spike said, and lobbed it at her. Glory shrieked and ducked and it caught her shoulder.

“Ow,” she said, sounding very annoyed, and pulled a gun out from her bag. “Look, Precious, just be a good boy and pop into the kitchen for me, will you? I’ll even shoot you so it’ll be nice and quick.”

“You’re trying to kill me?”

“Wow, you’re smart. I can see that private school education did you some good.”

“It was a public school,” Spike rolled his eyes, looking around for something else to use as a weapon.

“No, your daddy paid for it-”

“That’s what they’re called in England, you dink. Bloody hell. What’s this all for, Glory?”

“Again with the ‘duh’. I want the title,” Glory stamped her pretty little foot in its expensive heel that somehow looked quite cheap on her.

“You can’t have it.” The fire was mostly at the back of the house, and Will’s room was at the front. He just needed to stop Glory from shooting him, and then he could go and get the kid. Get out. Call the fire department-

“I can be a dowager countess,” she tossed her hair. “If I marry someone and have a kid, he can inherit-”

“Did you forget about my sisters?”

“Oh, like they’re ever gonna have kids. And if they do,” she shrugged, “I’ll just get rid of them too.”

“You’re planning to knock out my entire family just so your nonexistant kid can inherit a title that means fuck-all anyway? And maybe you’re forgetting something, but there is still the slight problem of my father. Or are you planning on killing him too?”

“Spike,” Glory looked impatient, “he’s already dying.”

His eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. If you corresponded with him every now and then you might know that he has a heart defect. It’s been killing him for years.”

Was it his imagination, or did she actually look slightly sad at that?

“He needs an heir before he dies.”

“He has one,” Spike said, pointing at himself. “Two, actually.”

“But the wrong ones,” Glory shook her head, levelling the pistol at him. “You’ve been shot before, right? A bit of melted metal inside you won’t puzzle the coroner too much.”

There was nothing to hand, so Spike used what he had. He ran at Glory, kicked the gun from her hand. A shot fired somewhere at the ceiling, and above the crackle of the fire, something groaned ominously.

William started crying.

Spike smacked his fist into Glory’s face, her re-made nose snapping with a satisfying crack. But she surprised him, belting her fist around, knocking him off balance with a punch in the face and a kick to the stomach. She brought her knee up to his groin and Spike doubled over on the floor.

Glory darted for the gun, which had landed in the burning kitchen, and rolled on her back, pistol raised.

She fired once, and the bullet hit the stairs. The second one caught Spike’s foot.

The third one hit his stomach.

Suddenly hardly able to breathe, he willed his legs to work, but his right foot was agony. Glory lay there, looking grubby but triumphant.

“Three left,” she said. “That should be good enough for the brat upst-”

And then there was an almighty explosion, and the whole house shuddered and groaned, and Spike instinctively curled into a very painful ball as hot things splattered all over him.

Hot, wet things.

He chanced a look up, and saw that where Glory had been was half a pair of legs and some bits of fabric. The heat had exploded her gun, and her with it.

“Snap, crackle, and pop,” he muttered, and tried to haul himself to his feet. His foot. The fire was spreading - the explosion had sent sparks through the hall, the fire gobbling up the wooden floors, crawling up the curtains, the stairs.

The stairs.

William.

When Drusilla had had him chained in that cellar, he’d thought he knew pain. But it was nothing compared to trying to move with a mashed foot and a bullet in his gut.

Spike made it up about three steps before the railing collapsed under his weight and he fell back on the floor. The fire crept over him.

Buffy finished the paintings rather more quickly than she should have, grabbed her bag and said goodbye to the girls, who grinned and waved her off. She drove rather too quickly back to Ravello Drive - even Spike’s driving was wearing off on her - and jerked to a stop in front of her house.

Boy, something smelled smoky.

A window shattered, and her head snapped up.

Her house smelled smoky.

Her house was on fire!

Buffy leapt out of the car and raced in. The front door was open - or rather, the front door was hanging on its hinges, slowly turning to ashes.

“William!” she screamed. “Spike!”

The stairs were on fire, but the blaze seemed to be worst downstairs. The kitchen was just a massive inferno.

She started up the stairs, then caught a glimpse of something below, behind a heap of burning stair railings.

“Spike?”

Oh God, he wasn’t moving. Buffy made two attempts to get past the fire in her way, but she couldn’t. He was half in the kitchen doorway, half in the hall. She was cut off - she couldn’t get through the living room and she couldn’t get down the hall. “Spike!”

His eyelids flickered. “Buffy?”

“I’m right here. I - I can’t get to you. Hold on, I’ll, er-”

“Go get Will.”

“What?” The fire was deafening.

Spike raised an arm. In horror, she realised his sleeve was on fire. “Go get William. He’s upstairs. Playpen.”

Buffy was torn. She couldn’t leave him. But neither could she leave Will up there, all on his own, in this heat - he hated too much heat - he’d be so frightened...

“I’ll come back for you,” she yelled to Spike, and darted up the stairs. She made it up four before they started shuddering under her slight weight, and accelerated up the rest, sticking to the wall, away from the flames.

The staircase started to buckle, and Buffy leapt for the landing just as the steps fell away beneath her.

“Buffy!” Spike yelled, from somewhere down under the flames.

She hauled herself up by her arms. The fire was inching along the landing now. As she passed her room she realised that half the floor had fallen in. Oh God, William. She could hear him crying - screaming, bawling - so at least she knew he was still alive.

She found him in his playpen, standing up, his little face red with heat and fear and misery, screaming at the highest capacity of his rather strong lungs.

He wasn’t hurt. He was all right. Buffy grabbed him to her, snatched up huis teddy bear and his blankie, and wrapped him up tight, the blanket across his face to keep out the smoke. She glanced out at the landing - no, there was no way they could get out that way. Shit.

The bathroom window looked out over the back porch. Buffy smashed her arm right at it - glass under her skin, now, too - and glanced out. William was still bawling with fear and she wished she had something to quieten him, keep him still, hold him with, so she could climb out.

Inspiration struck her. She snatched the shower curtain from its rail and wrapped it around herself and the baby, making a very bad makeshift sling. The flames were crackling at the bathroom door now. The window was the only way out.

Buffy put one leg through, then her body, and then her other leg.

The porch roof swayed and wobbled. The fire was about to break through. It would never hold her weight.

Buffy made a hop, skip and a jump and threw herself off the edge of the porch just as it all caved in. She contracted into a ball and wrapped her arms tight around William as she landed, rolling over and over, away from the house. Far from the flames. They were safe.

She reached the garden bench and quickly pulled William free. He was still screaming, but as far as she could tell, unharmed. She kissed his head and ran back to the house. The whole of the back of it was raging with fire. If she went in she’d be dead in minutes. But she had to get to Spike.

She ran around the front of the house. The front porch was crackling and unsafe - surely someone else must have noticed the inferno by now? - but she ventured onto it anyway. The hall was far worse than it had been last time. She couldn’t even see Spike now.

Eyes streaming with tears that were only partly caused by the smoke, Buffy pushed in a bit further. She didn’t see the falling beam that cracked her on the head until it was too late.

Chapter Sixteen: Don’t ever leave me

As it happened, several neighbours saw the fire and called 911 at the same time. Dawn arrived home from school just in time to see Glory’s remains being zipped into a bag and loaded into the coroner’s van. Her home was a shell.

She dropped her bag on the lawn and ran. “What the hell happened?” She grabbed the nearest fireman and spun him round. “What happened? Was there-”

“Don’t know how it started yet,” he said. “You live here?”

Dawn nodded, shocked tears coming to her eyes. “Was there - was there anyone in there?” She flicked a glance at the coroner’s van. Oh God, not another death. She truly couldn’t bear it.

“Yes,” he said, “they’ve gone to the hospital.”

“Are they - is anyone-” she couldn’t say it. Tears overwhelmed her and she sat down hard on the dirty ground.

She wasn’t sure who called Xander - someone took her cell phone from her, maybe a policeman - but he turned up, held her in his arms like the darling big brother he practically was, and got her into his car. He didn’t say anything on the way to the hospital, except to tell her that he’d called the gallery and Anya’s shop and they were all closing down and coming to the hospital.

“Anya’s closing down?” Dawn sniffed in disbelief.

“Some things are more important than business.”

“Even to Anya?” Dawn asked, making Xander smile.

They rushed in and were made to wait. No one could tell them anything. Anya arrived, then Willow and Tara, and they all hugged Dawn but no one could think of anything to say. Xander and Anya had done this all before, with Joyce, and it was too awful to bear.

Eventually an ER doctor came out and asked, “You family?”

“Of a sort,” Xander said.

“I’m her sister,” Dawn gulped. “Is she-”

“A little worse for wear, but she’ll be fine.”

“And William? The baby?”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with his lungs, that’s for sure. We had to sedate him just to quieten him down. He’s fine too.”

Dawn slumped with relief. “Can I see?”

They were allowed in to see William who was fast asleep, but he wasn’t covered in wires and tubes and bandages, so Dawn figured that he must be pretty much okay.

“Can I see Buffy?”

The doctor nodded. “But don’t wake her up.”

Dawn stepped into her sister’s room, and saw her hooked up to several machines, drips, swarming with tubes like snakes, covered in bandages. Tears spilled out over Dawn’s face. She curled up on a chair, and waited for her sister to wake up.

Buffy’s eyes felt like they were full of grit. Her skin burned and her lungs chafed. She dragged in a breath, and it hurt.

She forced her eyes open, and everything was a bit bleary. She was getting a bit tired of waking up in unfamiliar beds with injuries she didn’t remember getting.

“Buffy?” Dawn said. “You’re awake!”

“Apparently.” She blinked a few times. “Hospital?”

Dawn nodded. “I’m just gonna fetch the doctor,” she said, and was gone before Buffy could ask her anything else. Spike, she thought. William she was pretty sure would be okay - if they’d found her and got her to the hospital, they’d have found him too, and he’d have been fine that far away from the blaze. It was Spike she was most worried about.

But everyone ignored her, the doctors and nurses who swarmed around calling confusing medical things to each other, telling her to flex this, move that, breathe like this, cough like that. Buffy learnt that she had a dislocated shoulder - vaguely, she remembered something hurting when she’d landed in the back garden - lacerations on her other arm from the bathroom window, her lungs were full of smoke and she had first degree burns on most parts of her body, and a few second degree ones on her shoulder and arm.

“Could I get some more morphine?” she asked, and that was the only request they listened to. Eventually, they all swarmed out, just as they’d swarmed in, and Buffy waved frantically at Dawn to stop someone. “Hey! Can you even hear me?”

The last nurse got caught by Dawn, and Buffy said, slowly and clearly, “What about William and Spike?”

“William - your son?”

Buffy nodded.

“He’s just fine. Would you like me to get him?”

Buffy nodded a little too eagerly, because the woman vanished in a second, before she could ask about her husband.

“Dawn,” she said instead, “do you know what happened to Spike?”

“Spike? I haven’t seen him. I called the hotel but they said he hadn’t been there since yesterday-”

“Wait, it’s tomorrow?”

“Interesting philosophical question,” said a wonderfully familiar voice, and she looked up to see Xander lurking in the doorway, hands in pockets. “How ya doing?”

Buffy shrugged. “The drugs are good,” she said.

“As I dimly recall.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Hospitalisation last year, broken jaw, anyone remember?”

“Actually, it was the year before,” Dawn told him.

“I stand corrected.” Xander looked Buffy over slightly shyly. “Sorry I haven’t been around much.”

“Sorry I’ve been a Buffy-shaped shell.”

They gave each other small smiles, and then the nurse came back in, carrying William, who looked cross. Buffy reached out with her less-restricted arm and awkwardly held him against her, and he looked up and smiled. Buffy’s heart turned over.

“Be careful, now,” the nurse said.

“I thought you said he was fine?”

“Oh, he is. But you’re not.”

Buffy made a face. “I feel fine.”

“Again, drugs,” Xander said.

“And again,” Buffy looked up at them all. “What. About. Spike?”

“I said I’d tried to call him,” Dawn said. “His cell was off-”

“He was there,” Buffy said, starting to panic. “In the house. He was there in the house. You did get him out, right?” Her voice rose, her words got quicker. “You got me out, what about Spike? He was right there, down the hall-”

The nurse hurried out to see what she could find out, and Dawn went with her. Buffy clutched at Xander’s hand. “He was right there,” she repeated. “He was trapped, I couldn’t get to him. I tried to get there but I couldn’t and then something hit me and I-” she dissolved into tears. “Xander, where is he?”

He put his arms around her. “He’ll turn up,” he said. “Probably outside having a smoke.”

“Smoke bad!”

“Bad choice of words. I’m sure he’s not gone far.”

Buffy looked up at him. “No, you’re not. You hate Spike, remember?”

“But I don’t think you do.” He wiped her tears away. “Dawn told me. I know things have been a little weird lately. Seems like he was the only one trying to help you. Can’t hate him for that.”

No, Buffy thought, I can’t either.

Dawn came back in. “She’s checking records. They found someone else in the house.”

Buffy didn’t want to ask. “Alive?”

“Well, she’s not checking morgue records so - oh,” she suddenly remembered. “But there was, er, I had to ask them about it and they, uh... You remember Glory?”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Been trying to forget.”

“She was there.”

“In my house?”

“Hey, our house,” Dawn corrected sharply. “Well, our ashy shell, but anyway. They found her body. Bits of it. Had to identify her by her signet ring...” She gulped, not sure how Buffy would take the news.

Xander held Buffy’s hand. They waited.

“Glory’s dead?”

Dawn nodded.

“In my house?”

She nodded again.

“Bits of her?”

“Like she exploded or something... They’re still not sure.”

Buffy looked pale. “Do they have drugs for queasiness?”

The nurse came back in. “What was the name of the man you’re looking for?”

“Spike. William - uh, Lord Dashwood - no, Lord Spellingdon-”

“See, she can’t remember either, and she’s married to him,” Dawn said.

“He’s my husband,” Buffy said, ignoring her sister.

“William Dashwood? We have him.”

“Is he - is he okay?” Buffy asked, frightened to hear the answer.

The nurse paused. “He’s in Intensive Care. He was quite badly hurt.”

Buffy clutched at Xander’s hand and held Will close. The tears had come back, but she’d hardly noticed. “Will he be okay?”

“He’s still unconscious. We’ll know more when he wakes up.”

“When will that be?”

The nurse’s shoulders lifted, then fell gently. “We can’t say. The sooner the better.”

Buffy whined and bullied and eventually resorted to tears in order to get them to take her to see Spike. She wasn’t allowed in because there was a doctor in with him, but they put her in a wheelchair and took her up to the window on his room. He looked terrible: burnt and scorched, his hair singed, covered with more tubes than Buffy herself, attached to a respirator.

“Wait, he can’t breathe?”

“He inhaled a lot of smoke. It’s just to keep his lungs working, get some oxygen pumping round his blood.”

Buffy closed her eyes and tried hard not to cry. She failed.

They let her in to see him eventually, told her to talk to him because it might help. She kept Will with her as much as she was allowed, read to him from baby books, got the newspapers and told Spike what was going on in the world. She tried not to cry. She didn’t want him to wake up and see her bawling.

And sometimes, when Will was asleep on her lap, curled up with his (newly washed) teddy bear, looking angelic, she just sat and talked to Spike. Told him everything about Will: about the birth, about bringing him over to America, taking him to see his grandmother in the cemetery. About his first steps and baby noises. About the time he’d eaten a handful of grass and got sick and she’d been terrified it was a dreadful fever, only to be told he’d be fine in a few hours. About how much he loved his daddy and how alike they were.

She told him how she’d coped before he came back, how she’d cried, how she’d wished for him and wanted him. How incredibly grateful she was to him for everything he’d done: the money and the gallery and talking to Dawn and bonding with Will.

And sometimes she just sobbed, especially when it got late, and the nurse’s words rang in her ears. The sooner the better.

“Wake up,” she half shouted. “For God’s sake. I just got you back. You just made me feel okay, you saved me from myself - you keep doing this, Spike, you keep coming back and making me feel like everything’s going to be fine, and then you just go away and leave and you’re not going to this time! I won’t let you. It’s not fair!”

He lay there, still. He was off the respirator now - and that was progress. He could breathe for himself, which had to be a good thing.

“Spike, please don’t go,” Buffy whispered, reaching out and touching his cool hand. “I need you to be here and love me and love Will. I love how you love him. I love you.”

He didn’t move.

“I love you so much,” Buffy sniffed, and closed her eyes in an effort to keep the tears in.

“Can I have that in writing, love?” came a voice, a fabulously familiar, wonderfully warm, delightfully dry voice, and Buffy’s eyes flew open.

“You’re awake?”

His eyebrows flickered. “Apparently.”

Buffy laughed hoarsely. “That’s just what I said.”

He turned his head a little. “You’re crying.”

“You’ve been unconscious for a week.”

He looked shocked. “Bloody hell. The - there was a fire...?”

She nodded. “I tried to get back in but something knocked me out.”

“Are you okay?” He looked at her arm in its sling. “What happened?”

“Had to jump out of the bathroom to get Will out.”

His eyes darted down to the sleeping baby. “He’s all right?”

“Better than you or me.”

Spike paused. “Question still stands.”

She laughed again. “He’s fine.”

Spike sighed. “Bloody hell,” he looked down at himself, at the burns and scars and tubes. “I look like a pile-up on Spaghetti Junction.”

“You look better than you did.”

“I do? You know, Summers, I’m gonna have to stop telling you I love you. I always seem to end up in hospital.” A thought occurred to him. “Is Glory dead?”

“Dead dead. They said her gun exploded her.”

“Ha! Stupid bint.” Another thought. “Did she shoot me?”

He looked so outraged that Buffy laughed again. “Yes. But they got it out.” She started to wake the sleeping William. “I should probably go and get a doctor or something.”

“Wait-” Spike held out a hand with a needle inserted in it. “Buffy. You aren’t still going to divorce me, are you?”

She nodded.

He stared.

Buffy took off her wedding and engagement rings, and handed the latter to Spike. “You’re going to need that,” she folded his fingers around it, “for when you get the use of your legs back.”

“You’re div - what, what’s that about my legs?”

“Well, one of them. Third degree burns. I wouldn’t move it too much if I was you.”

She seemed so horribly calm. Slightly happy, even. “Is this a joke to you?”

“No,” she said, “no joke. This marriage never went right from the start. I want a divorce.”

Speechless, horrified, Spike stared at her some more.

“And then I want a proposal.”

He blinked.

“A what?”

“A proper, down-on-one-knee - but maybe we can waive that clause for now - I-love-you, romantic proposal. And an engagement party. And a ceremony with just the people we actually like. And no title. I won’t be a viscountess even if you pay me.” She gave him a stubborn, so-there look, and Spike suddenly burst out laughing.

“Summers,” he said, “you are going to be the death of me.”

Epilogue

“I can do this,” Spike said. “I’ve been doing it for bloody years. I can do it now. No problem.”

“You want a hand?” Buffy offered.

“No! I can manage.”

“Okey dokey.” She watched him. “You sure?”

He gave her a murderous look.

“Fine, whatever.” Trying not to laugh, she stood back and watched her husband very carefully stand up. And walk. And stand and grin.

“See? I sodding did it!”

“Well done! Will only beat you by nine months-” she darted out of the way as he swatted her.

William came rushing across the lawn and this time it was Spike’s turn to flinch out of the way as his son came barrelling towards his still rather painful leg.

“Watch the leg, kid, watch the-!”

Buffy grabbed the little boy and hefted him up into her arms. “Oof, you’re heavy. What did we agree about Daddy’s legs?”

“Ow?” Will suggested.

“Yep. ‘Ow’. See, do we have a smart kid, or what?”

“Genius.” Spike looked around the small garden, the trees, the flowers, the back of the house he and Buffy had bought together. Dawn was living on campus and Willow and Tara’s apartment wasn’t far away. They’d decided to sell what was left of the old house and start again - if it worked for marriage, they reasoned, it could work for bricks and mortar.

Spike’s eyes settled on his wheelchair. He gave it a swift kick with his good leg. “Poxy sodding thing.”

Buffy let Will down and he ran to his sandbox. Maybe it was an age thing, but the kid never walked. He always ran. “What did it do now?”

“Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be stuck in one of those things and never be able to move at all by yourself?”

Buffy widened her eyes and shook her head. “Gosh, why, no idea at all. Must be dreadful to never be able to walk anywhere-”

“Hey, that was for your own good,” he caught her to him, “and besides, you could walk if you wanted to.”

“You never let me!”

“Can you blame me for being protective?”

She stuck her chin in the air. “Yes.”

“Oh, you know you love it,” he teased, and Buffy rolled her eyes. Damn him, he was right. Again. “And you know it’s gonna get a whole lot worse.”

She groaned. “We can’t have the both of us in wheelchairs. That would be ridiculous.”

“Hey, I’m never getting back in that thing.”

“Well, you have your crutch-”

Spike shuddered. “Ugh.”

Buffy laughed. “If you fall over and it really hurts, I’m not gonna come a-runnin’.”

Spike pouted.

“All right, maybe I will.”

“And this time if any of my relatives come round and start arguing-”

“I can take Darla or Harmony,” Buffy protested. After Glory’s rather unglorious death, her mother had left Ethan, and he had died alone in a hospital in England. They hadn’t gone to his funeral, and neither had anyone else. Spike was officially the earl, but he was considering selling the title. After all, Buffy and Will were expensive.

“You are not going to ‘take’ anyone,” he nuzzled her neck. “Except for me.”

“Just no wrapping me up in cotton wool this time, okay?”

“Oh go on,” he said. “Please.”

Buffy groaned again as he started kissing her neck. “I can’t believe I let you get me pregnant again!”

Spike grinned devilishly. “It’s a dirty job,” he slid down her shoulder strap, “but someone has to do it...”