CHAPTER SIX

The FUO in the isolation ward is not obeying anything that conventional medicines have to offer. Antibiotics have failed. General ibuprofens, analgesics, and the like have failed. Twenty four hours under ice cold packs have resulted in nothing but shivers. There is something wrong here.

Nurses check in, hourly, all wearing protective garb. No one wants to get this. Whatever it is. And no one knows.

She has spoken to a doctor. In a second of lucidness she asked the doctor if he thought there was any chance she would live through this. He didn’t know.

She tries to keep alert. It’s hard, when sleepiness directs adagios over arpeggios. She tries to rouse herself occasionally. But whatever this is, it’s too tough, even for the Slayer, who lies in a hospital bed, unable to speak for the tube in her throat, unable to move due to sudden paralysis.

When she closes her eyes, she sees him. And even when she opens them, she thinks she still sees him. But he wouldn’t come back for this. He doesn’t even know.

There is something in front of her. Someone. She sees the white, leaning in. It could be the top of his head. She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know until someone speaks to her.

“You all right, Miss Summers?” a female voice asks.

Buffy doesn’t know who’s asking the question. She doesn’t know the answer either.

She runs her tongue across her parched lips. She feels the scrap of her sandpapery lids as they pull away from her eyes.

“I want Spike…” she says.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” the nurse asks, soothingly.

“Spike…I need to see Spike…I’ve got to tell him something…” she asserts.

“Who is Spike?”

“Need to tell him…tell him that I really do love him…”

“Do you have his phone number? Can I call him for you?”

“No…I need to see him…”

“Honey, you know you’re not allowed visitors. For now anyway. When you’re better---

“Spike can’t get what I’ve got…he can’t get human diseases. He’s a vampire…” She feels the pull towards drowse and doesn’t even try to fight it. Her mind is slipping back into her dreams. Maybe this time she will be able to tell him before it’s too late.

The nurse waits by her bed to see if there will be any more from her patient. But she has fallen silent. She watches her as the dreams start to take hold. Her brow is knitted and slight, small moans are coming from her mouth. Her head turns against her pillow.

“I’ve got to tell him…” she says. “I’ve got to tell him…”

The nurse reaches to touch her shoulder. She’s delusional, she knows. Anyone would be at this temperature. The nurse has treated marathon runners with cooler temperatures. She has never seen anything like this in her life. And whatever it is, she doesn’t want it.

She withdraws her hand and leaves the room.

Giles replaces the phone in its cradle. This was not the phone call he was expecting. Every time the phone rings, he prepares himself for the worst. He has been rehearsing how he will react when he finally gets the news that she is gone. He has been doing this ever since he first heard there was nothing more that they could do for her. But for now he can rest easy. She has lasted another day. The night lies ahead. He has been told she is sleeping peacefully and that he will be called the minute something happens.

“Anything new?” Willow asks. She is seated at the desk with her laptop. Ever since she first heard about Buffy’s illness, she has been researching fevers. Nothing she has read about even remotely resembles what Buffy has. As a matter of fact, it seems like she has the nastiest parts of everything she has come upon.

“No, nothing new,” Giles says tiredly as he sinks into his sofa. He takes his glasses off and massages his temples. “She’s still at 105. Blast! One would think someone would know something by now.”

“I’m coming up empty here too,” Willow says.

“I just don’t understand how someone can be so healthy one day and at death’s door the next,” Giles says.

Xander is sitting in a chair not too far away. Anya is by him, but he is off in his own place. His eyes are burrowing through an invisible wall where he sees Buffy again as she was in the emergency room the last time he saw her. He wishes he hadn’t gone into see her. He doesn’t want this to be the memory that sticks with him when he thinks about her. She was being so brave. But he could tell she was really scared and there were no jokes he could tell her, or himself, to blot out the fact that this thing that had her in its grasp was taking her away from him and everyone who loves her.

“I’ve never seen her so helpless…” he says, to no one in particular.

“The doctors are completely frustrated,” Giles says. “This fever is resistant to everything they’ve tried. They’ll bring her temperature down and then it spikes back up to105.”

Dawn is sitting on the other side of the sofa when she hears this. Something stirs in her. Spike…Spike should know about this…

“There has to be something we’re missing here,” Giles says. “There must have been someone or some…thing she came in contact with to make her so ill so suddenly.”

Willow has been mulling over this to. She has researched vampire to human disease transmission, but it is unprecedented. She will not tell Giles about what she knows. That was her promise to Buffy. But if Giles knows something…

No, she can’t tell him. She remembers Buffy’s pleading eyes as they spilled over with tears. “Giles can’t know about this…I don’t want him to ever know what happened here tonight.” She seemed so hurt and so…sorry. Like her heart had been broken. Willow had heard stories about women dying of broken hearts. Could this be what was happening to Buffy? No, Willow says to herself. She wouldn’t be dying for Spike, Willow consoles herself. That was ludicrous. She puts that thought out of her mind and settles back into her research.

Dawn too is thinking about Buffy’s last night with Spike. There was something her sister wasn’t telling her. Something told her the evening was not the romantic vision she and Spike had plotted out as they lit candle after candle. Buffy was all alone when she came back from the movies and there was a shoe-sized hole in the front door. Buffy refused to talk about it. All she would say was that she had screwed up majorly and she didn’t believe Spike would be coming back.

But he would come back if he knew…

Dawn rises from the sofa. “Giles, if it’s all right with you, I’m gonna take a nap. Can I use your bed?”

“Well, Dawn, it’s nearly eight o’clock now. You’ll be turning in soon anyway,” he says.

“I know. I just want to be alone for a while.”

“If that’s what you want…” Giles says.

The minute she is gone, Giles rests his head on the back of the sofa. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her…”

“She’s taking it very well, I think.” Anya says.

“I don’t know. She’s holding a lot in. She won’t tell me how she’s feeling about all this,” Giles says.

“I know how she’s feeling,” Xander says. “She’s feeling like she’s losing a sister.” And so do I, he adds to himself.

“She’s being so stoic. I’m seeing a maturation in her almost as rapidly growing as this illness Buffy has,” Giles says. “But she’s still in many ways a little girl. She’s going to need us---every one of us---in case the worst happens.”

Giles has no way of knowing this, but shimmying down the drainpipe outside his bedroom window is a little girl, going out in the night, going to the person she thinks she needs most now.

At the entrance to the cemetery, Dawn pauses momentarily. She has run almost the whole way, but now that she’s there, she can’t make her legs move. She wasn’t afraid before. Not even when she thought her hands were slipping from the slick surface of the drainpipe. Not even when a car almost plowed into her on Main Street a few minutes before. She was on a mission then. I’ve got to tell Spike…I’ve got to tell Spike…she kept telling herself. And now, with that mission so close to completion, she is suddenly fearful.

This is Buffy’s domain. She probably enters the gate without the slightest twinge of fear. This is her workplace. Dawn thinks for a minute that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a stake. She could stake a vamp, she thinks. It’s all in the wrist. Her sister makes it look too easy. Dawn knows too well about those powerful arms. They wrestled her when she was little. They wore the sweaters she knew were taken from her closet. They held her when she thought she couldn’t stand…

She takes a breath. She’s got to do this. She’s got to find Spike for Buffy.

She is running now. She thinks that if she can just run fast enough she can forget where she is. This is one of the nevers she has been instructed about all her life. Never cross the street without looking both ways first. Never talk to strangers. Never invite a vampire into the house. Never go through the cemetery at night alone. That was two out of the four that she has disobeyed tonight.

As she makes her way through the cemetery, a feeling of rebelliousness starts to grow, spurring her on. Look at me, fifteen-year-old Dawn Summers, bein’ all bad, cruising through the cemetery at night. She thinks of a game that she and Buffy used to play. It was called There Ain’t No Vamps Out Tonight. One of them would hide, while the other would walk around saying, “There ain’t no vamps out tonight…there ain’t no vamps out tonight…” Then the one hiding would spring out and chase the other. The object was to make it to the designated base line without being captured. Dawn never made it without getting tackled and pretend-bitten. She remembers this. And she is afraid again.

“There ain’t no vamps out tonight…there ain’t no vamps out tonight…” she says to herself as she runs. “There ain’t no vamps out tonight…”

She is closing in now on Spike’s crypt. He told her he was living there again. He was thinking about fixing the place up. She offered to help. She was going to help him look for things at the dump. She was going to give him one of her old radios and the chair from her room that she pretty much used as a dirty clothes hamper.

Something has grabbed her…

It has happened so fast that she can’t even scream. The thing has covered her mouth anyway. Her arms are held fast at her side. She feels her hair being moved away from her neck and cold air rushes across her skin. Oh God…she thinks breathlessly…Oh God…

“And where does this little morsel think she’s going tonight?” the creature asks her.

She is thinking now about her sister’s arms. Buffy has told her something before about these situations. All women have greater strength in their lower extremities. Dawn can’t scream and she can’t hit. But she can kick. And she does. A quick thrust is all it takes to momentarily stun the beast. His hand slips away from her mouth, just enough for her to get one word out. And it pierces the quiet of the night like the bleat of a whistle.

“Spike!” she screams.

Spike lifts his head from the stone top of the sarcophagus. Was someone calling him? He listens carefully. He hears it again. Chillingly so.

“Dawn!” he says, springing up instantly.

Outside his crypt, he sees the scuffle immediately. He sees that the vamp is zeroing in on his target. Rage fills him as he races towards the pair, stake in hand.

It takes one arm to pull the creature away from his intended victim. And it takes one hand to eliminate him all together.

“Sorry, mate,” Spike says. “If you were looking for a Taste of Summers tonight…” He then plunges the stake into the vampire’s chest. “That restaurant is closed.”

Dawn still stands there as though preparing for the vampire’s bite. But when she sees that the danger is over and her protector is in sight, she rushes to him. And once in the familiarity of his arms, she starts to cry.

“It’s all right, Little Bits,” he says soothingly as he strokes her hair. “Are you hurt? He didn’t get a nibble out of the niblet, did he?” He looks for the telltale puncture wounds. Finding none, he tries to calm her down. There is such an urgency in her grasp. It’s as though she’s trying to tell him something without saying a word.

But finally the words do come, though choked out and barely discernable. “Buffy’s…dying…”

He doesn’t know if he’s heard her correctly or not.

“Buffy’s what?”

She thinks she can’t force herself to say it again. If she says it again then it will be true.

She manages to say, “She’s got a fever…no one knows what it is…”

Spike’s mind is seized by the memory of the Indian’s visit the day before. He knows suddenly, and all too clearly, the purpose of that visit---and the meaning. He remembers as his teeth tore away at the Indian’s neck, some words the Indian spoke before his soul slipped away. He couldn’t understand them. Now he does.

“Oh, God, Dawn…where is she?” he asks.

“She’s in the hospital,” Dawn replies.

“Take me to her,” he instructs.

“They’re not letting anyone see her!”

“They’ll let me see her, Little Bits,” he says, kissing the top of her head. “They’ll have no choice.”

The pair enters the hospital a little after nine. It is quiet. Visiting hours are over. But theirs have just begun.

In the lobby they encounter a different set of operators at the information desk. They bypass the desk and head straight for the elevators. Dawn knows the number of Buffy’s room. She can’t remember if it’s on the eighth or the ninth floor. They will check the eighth floor first.

On the ride up, Dawn folds her arms and leans against the corner. Her eyes are lifeless and worry pinches her face. She is already thinking about what her world will be like without her sister. Spike can’t let her think that way.

He reaches for her and touches her face, giving her a slight smile. “She’s going to be all right, Dawn. She can’t die. I won’t let that happen.”

Dawn instantly knows his meaning. And another kind of worry crosses her face.

The elevator comes to a jolting stop. The doors open into a stark white hall. Before them are a group of chairs and a nearly leafless fern. There is no one around. Signs point them in the direction of rooms 810-825. Buffy will be in there, somewhere.

But as they try the swinging doors that lead to those rooms, they find the doors are locked. Beside the door is an insert for an ID card.

“What do we do now?” Dawn asks.

“I could knock them down…but I don’t want to call anymore attention to ourselves than I have to. Someone will come through here in a minute.”

They go over to the chairs and have a seat. Dawn knows that to the passerby they are quite an odd couple. Dawn is wearing a pair of bright pink shorts with a petal pink tee shirt and white sneakers. Spike is in his usual black ensemble. His hair seems whiter than usual. He keeps running his fingers through it as they sit there and wait. Dawn remembers how it looked the other morning, all mussed and going everywhere in these crazy curls. She remembers the obvious joy on Buffy and Spike’s faces as they held each other in the kitchen.

“Spike, do you love my sister?” Dawn asks.

This seems like an odd thing to ask now. But his answer is immediate.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then…you wouldn’t do anything to hurt her?”

Not intentionally, he thinks. “No, I wouldn’t. Ever.”

“Then you wouldn’t…try to make her like you.”

Before he can answer, the doors do come open. Approaching them now is a man sheathed head to toe in a white suit. On his head he wears what looks like a beekeeper’s helmet. Around his neck swings an ID card.

This is their salvation.

Spike rises to meet the man, saying, “Excuse me, sir. We’re looking for Buffy Summers.”

“Sorry. No visitors allowed beyond this point,” he says, like an automaton.

Spike smiles. “Wrong answer.”

And he fells him with one punch.

Dawn looks at the crumbled figure lying on the floor and wonders if Spike has killed him. It happened so fast…Spike leans over the man and snaps the ID card from his neck. Seeing that Dawn is dawdling, he barks, “Come on, Little Bits. We don’t have much time.”

Spike slices the ID card through the reader. Green lights blink and they are admitted.

The life on the other side of the doors has been silenced. On either side are closed doors. It’s as though they’ve entered a wardrobe that acts as a portal to a place where nothing exists but emptiness. Dawn is trying to remember her sister’s room. But she doesn’t have to. Before long they come upon a door with a red sign that reads, “No admittance.”

And this is it.

Now, as they’re about to enter, Spike is suddenly cautious. He regards Dawn’s eagerness to see her sister and knows that it can’t happen.

Buffy’s words come back to him with shocking resonance. I’ve got to protect her, he reminds himself. I can’t let her be exposed to this…

“Little Bits, I don’t think that man was wearing that suit because it’s all the rage in Paris this year,” he says. “I think you should stay out here.”

“But I want to see her!” Dawn says, almost in tears.

“I know, love. I know. You will. When she’s better.”

“She’s not going to get better…” Dawn says softly.

“Dawn, I told you that I wouldn’t let that happen. You’ve got to trust me on that one. Here…” He tries the door of the room across the hall. Finding it unoccupied, he motions for her. “You wait in here. I’ll be back for you soon, all right? I promise.”

Dawn sits uneasily on the bed. She wants to trust him. She really does. But she can’t help thinking that the reasons he wants to go in unaccompanied are not entirely altruistic. As she sits alone, she says to herself, almost prayerfully,

“Oh, Spike. Please don’t kill her and try to bring her back…she wouldn’t want to live like that. She wouldn’t be my sister anymore. Please don’t do it, Spike. Please…”

There is a girl in the room that Spike has just entered. He sees her blond hair. He sees her small head pressed deeply into a white pillow. But that is all he sees. For a minute, he stands there, wondering if he truly is in the right room. This girl looks a stranger to him. As he approaches the bed, his steps are slow, his breathing also. He doesn’t want to rush this. Part of him doesn’t want to see; the other urges him to look on, to see what he’s done to her.

She doesn’t know he is there, he is certain. He wants it to stay that way, for now. His footsteps are whispers against the shiny, white floor. It is dim and quiet; one light over the bed providing a warm glow over the figure lying serenely there, among the tubes and wires and machines. Her face is coming into his view now. But again, there are doubts in his head. He peers into the little features, combing through them for bits of familiarity, trying to salvage whatever is left. But there is only scant evidence that the girl lying still and the girl he loves are the same people. The face is distorted by a creeping blackness that looks as though she is bruised from within. There is a puffiness to the cheeks, to the jaw line, that makes it appear that she is holding her breath. Her lips are closed; her eyes sealed. Under the eyes are deep, cavernous swells, holding more blackness. The hair is stretched out all around her head, in a starburst almost. It is the one thing that he does truly recognize. He would know those locks anywhere. For years he has identified her by her hair: Goldilocks, he has called her, when taunting her before or during battle. Today he has another name to call her, and when he says it, it sounds like a plea for her not to answer. If she confirms that’s who she is, then he is losing her.

“Slayer?” he whispers as his fingers stroke her hair. He feels his jaw is trembling; his voice too. “Slayer…” He can’t keep talking. It’s hard to him to even keep standing. He crouches now, there beside her, so that his head is level with hers. But he can’t bear to look at her. He has created death many times. He has committed atrocities a war crimes tribunal could not even begin to fathom. And he’s never given one a single thought, until now. This is too stark, too blindingly shocking. He has done this. The curse has found its way…to the love of his life.

There is a sob rising in his chest which tortures him as it makes the ascent to his throat, seemingly splintering bones as it goes. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Slayer…Oh, Buffy, I swear it! I would never hurt you. I made a promise to you and to myself. But I’ve done it after all. I had to kill that bloody Indian. Just had to kill him. Oh, God… I shouldn’t have killed him. If I had known…but there was no way I could have known…Oh, God, Buffy….Buffy, don’t leave me…I can’t stand the thought of being without you. Please, please don’t leave me…”

There is a sound. A pitiful noise is coming from her lips. And then, very clearly, he hears his name.

He lifts his head now, trying to look at her again, now through a veil of tears. Her features are stilled nonetheless. He wonders if he were just imagining that she heard him. But then, he sees her mouth form his name.

“Yes, Buffy, I’m here,” he says excitedly, grabbing for her hand. “I’m here right beside you, love.”

“Spike…I thought the vampires killed you. They showed me your coat…” she says slowly, her eyes still shut, her head slowly twisting against the pillow.

“What, love? No, no one got me, Buffy. I’m here with you, right now,” he says, flexing her open palm against his face.

There is a glimmer of hope that her eyes are stirring under the heavy lids. There is a brief moment when they do open, and Spike sees a hint of red. Blood red.

“Spike, I wanted to tell you something…” she says softly, dreamlike. “I wanted to tell you something so bad…”

“What is it, love?” he asks, kissing her hand now.

She touches the tip of her tongue to her dried and cracked lips, trying to ply them with moisture that isn’t there. “I love you, Spike…”

He sits there in the aftermath of her words, caught between wanting to lunge at her and take her into his arms, and just sitting back, wondering if what he has heard bares any resemblance to what she intended to say.

“I love you and I think I always have,” she continues to say.

He is held in the rapture of her words until, temporarily, he is lifted into such a joyous frenzy, he temporarily forgets where he is. In his mind, he is in that place where he has always wanted to be, loved by her, her eyes no longer seeing the demon within, but the man who has toiled and sweated for these words to the point of desperation. But he looks at her eyes. They remain closed. And death is within her grasp as surely as his hand clasps her fingers now.

“Oh, Buffy…I love you so much…I can’t let you go this way…” Purpose seizes his words as a new thought enters his head, one that he’s pushed to the side, not wanting to acknowledge until he was absolutely certain she felt the same way about him. “You don’t have to go like this. I could…I could bring you back, love. I could make you as I am. And then we really could be together forever. We’d have an entire eternity, just the two of us. I’d be there to protect you…I would help you.”

He silences his words, waiting for some reaction from her. At length there is a sound from her lips, a low moan, issued in a defeated sigh.

“No…I wouldn’t want to be like that…”

“The lover Wiccas could restore your soul. They’d do anything for you. And so would I, Buffy. Please, let me do this for you. There’s so little time…”

“No…” she says defiantly though her voice is weakening.

“You wouldn’t have to kill. I promise. I could teach you how to purge yourself of the rage and the thirst for blood. The Indian did manage to teach me something about that…” He catches his own words in his throat. He remembers again the visitation the other day. What was it the Indian said? It didn’t seem to have any relevance then…they were just words, words from a demented spirit out to make sure his curse was known. Was it a warning? And if so, why?

You will know. Remember all, and you will be saved. Remember nothing, and you will die…

Remember what?

Remember. Before it’s too late…

A thought shoots a beam through his head until his brain feels like it’s twitching inside his skull.

The cure…his grandfather knew the cure…

“The fever...” he says to himself. “His grandfather knew the cure for the fever!”

Now do I remember?

He is electrified with this new knowledge. She doesn’t have to die this way. And she doesn’t have to live the way she would hate.

“Buffy, I won’t let you die. I can save you. And I don’t have to insert a single fang, my love. I know what will rid you of this.” He peruses the perimeters of her lips with his, delivering a single, promising kiss. “Hold on, love. That’s all I ask. Just hold on.”

Dawn is still sitting on the bed, looking out the window at the parking lot. The lot is emptying and she sees a few nurses darting to their cars, shift over, freedom from the miseries in the hospital at hand. It’s cold in this room. She thinks about tearing off the covers and wrapping herself in the top sheet, but she doesn’t want to stir. She is trying to hear what is going on in the room across the hall…

But just then, the door bursts open. She hops to her feet, expecting to see security guards, another white-clad doctor in a protective suit. But, no. It is her black-clad protector.

He seizes her by her arms. He is breathless and there is a cagey look in his eyes. She looks for evidence of a feeding on his lips…

“Dawn, are you in the mood for a little pillaging tonight?” he says.

“What?”

“Come with me,” he says. “We’re going to ransack this town for every herb, every flower, anything that’s ever grown wild on a desert plain. And when we’re done, your sister’s health will be restored.” He pauses, taking the time to smile. “Your sister is as good as saved.”

Giles sits at his desk, bent over an open page in his journal. The lines are blank as his mind. He doesn’t know where to begin. There was a promise he made to Buffy a while ago, when her questions about former slayers had led her to think, pointedly, about her own mortality. She lamented to him that she wished previous Watchers had kept better records of how the Slayers were killed. Somehow, he has never imagined that her last breath would be drawn in a hospital bed. This is not how it is supposed to happen. She is supposed to be engaged in a fight with her prey. But she is human, after all. It is hard for him to remember this, except at moments when she does show this human side, when she is weak, when she is struggling for breath. And to think that just days ago she spent three hours at the practice dummy. It all seems so wretchedly sudden.

He presses his pen to the paper.

He knew that this would be a painful experience. Yes, this is why the Watchers didn’t keep better records. He is writing the last chapter on a life he has, in many ways, helped create. It is only natural for Watchers to feel a certain paternal instant towards their Slayers in their care. He is feeling it so keenly in any given moment, the tears he has been trying so hard to keep in check may fall.

Buffy’s friends remain scattered about his living room like stones in a rock garden. Each has found his or her own place and will not move or yield. Willow is still at her laptop and Tara sits by her, occasionally draping a supportive arm around her shoulder and whispering to her. No one has said a word in hours, it seems. If they speak, their words will be about Buffy, and no one wants to face the fact that she is so far away from them while she’s slipping away.

There is a knock at the door. All share looks to the tune of “Who could that be at this hour?” Giles is reluctant to go to the door. Willow and Tara share scared glances. Xander immediately thinks, “Maybe it’s the bad news being delivered in person, just like in the movies…”

Giles starts slowly for the door. The knocking resumes, louder this time. Giles quickens his steps as his anxiety increases.

Giles is too flabbergasted at the sight of Buffy’s younger sister standing before him that he is slow to respond. “Dawn, I thought you were upstairs? How did you get out?”

“Since when has a little thing like being in a second floor roomed stopped me from escaping?” she says, arms folded.

“Get in here…it’s not safe out alone at this hour,” he says, tugging her by the elbow. “Where did you go?”

She takes a breath. “Giles, you can scold me all you want, but I had to go find this person tonight because I thought he should know about Buffy. And it turns out, he might know how to save her.” She looks to her left and beckons an unseen person to appear.

Spike emerges from the dark. In his arms are two giant brown shopping bags. At the sight of the platinum blond visitor, Giles almost shuts the door, but Dawn stops him.

“Giles! He knows about a potion that cures fevers! You’ve got to listen to him!” Dawn urges, her hand on Giles’ arm.

“He knows nothing!” Giles hisses. “And he’s not welcome here by any means.”

“Think what you like, mate,” Spike says. “I might have expected this sort of reception from you. You genuinely hate me, don’t you?”

“Completely,” Giles answers coolly.

“Well, you love Buffy. And I love her too. And if you genuinely and completely love her as I do, you’ll put away the fizzy hate tablets you have dissolving in your blood and listen to me.”

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say, Spike. Not now or ever.”

Spike rolls his eyes. “For God’s sake, man! I’ve been to Buffy’s bedside tonight. I’ve seen her with my own eyes and what I saw scared the unlife out of me. She will be dead by tomorrow is something isn’t done to bring her ‘round. The doctors can’t do it. The machine jobbies they have her hooked up to are just prolonging her misery. You’re forgetting that I’ve been dead. I know what it’s like.” He takes a breath, fighting back the images in his head of her swollen face, her blackening skin. “Please, Giles. I’m begging you. I promised her I wouldn’t let her die. You’ve got to let me in. You’ve got to trust me, for once.”

Dawn pleads Spike’s case with dewing eyes. “Giles, he really does want to save her. And he knows how. I trust him. Buffy trusts him…” Her eyes seem to be saying, “Why can’t you?”

There are a million reasons not to trust him. But somewhere, across town, a girl he cares a great deal about needs a miracle. And with her mortality hanging in the balance, it seems foolish to tip the scales against her favor. There has to be something out there to save her…maybe this is it?

He knows it’s his own desperation crying out for an elixir that will make everything right again. And when he invites Spike in, he can barely say the words for fear of choking.

“Come in,” he says finally. And then, in a hushed breath, out of Dawn’s earshot, “bastard.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Spike comes into the apartment and instantly dumps the contents of his shopping bags onto the coffee table in front of the sofa. On top of Giles’ copies of Architectural Digest and National Geographic magazines is now a virtual cornucopia of dried herbs.

The Scoobies have gathered around, curiosity temporarily rousing them from their grief as they look on.

“I raided every health store and hippie guru shop in town. Even popped by your little Merlin hut, Rupert. Didn’t find what I needed there, though. Most of this came from Helena’s House of Herbs. And if this works, I owe Helena a new plate glass window.”

“Spike put his hand through that glass like it was I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter,” Dawn says with admiring eyes.

“How do you know this is going to work?” Giles asks.

Spike pauses, looking at the myriad ingredients on the table and wondering the same thing himself. “An Indian told me,” he says.

“An Indian told you?” Xander says. “Was this before or after he told you to organize a concert called Spikestock?”

Spike frowns. “All right. Long story short. After I left Sunnydale in February, I went on a journey. I ended up in the desert. I almost died, an Indian saved me, told me about how his grandfather had rescued his tribe from a deadly fever with a combination of herbs and flowers, how to overcome the pain in my head when I hurt someone, ya da ya da ya da, I killed the bloke. Seemed like the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it at the time, but now…” He avoids their eyes as he says this. “I think he may have cursed me when I killed him. And since I’m already cursed in some respects, I think the curse may have been passed onto Buffy.”

Spike knows Giles is coming for him. But as his back slams against a bookcase, there’s something that tells him he deserves this.

Gile’s voice is close. His left hand holds Spike’s shirt; the other a stake, close to Spike’s chest.

“You did this,” Giles hisses. “This sick, obsessive love you have for her. The Shaman couldn’t curse you with this fever. You’ve passed it onto Buffy.”

But on Spike’s face there is nothing but the sincerest of apologies. “Rupert, if I had known…Rupert, I would never hurt Buffy. Not now. You know that,” Spike says.

“Do I?” Giles asks, forcing the stake a little closer to Spike’s heart.

“If I had known…You have to know I love her so much. I love her more than anything in the world. When I was at her bedside, I felt things I haven’t allowed myself to feel for years. I love her, Rupert. It crushed me to see her like that. And to think that I had something to do with it…I can’t. But if I did, I’m going to make damn bloody certain that I make things right. Only I can save her now.”

Giles regards the struggling, white-headed figure in his grasp. He has always tried not to look into his eyes. Eyes are the windows to the soul. And Spike has none. But for a minute there he sees something mingling in the irises that looks like pain, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the stake is close to piercing his chest. It’s as though in that minute Giles knows every bit of turmoil Spike went through when he sat at Buffy’s bedside. He sees the pathetic figure he was, crumpled from the sight of his love hovering so close to death. But his grip on the vamp remains strong, as well as his doubts.

“I never thought I’d say this in a million years,” Xander says, “But Spike may be our only hope right now.”

Giles knows this. Spike isn’t stringing them along. He’s not going to suddenly flash demon eyes and have a feast. He hasn’t so far…but things can change on the turn of a dime. He remembers this as the stake remains strong and constant at Spike’s heart.

“I love her, Giles. I love her more than you can ever know. If anything, I’ll wager I’m the only one in this room who’s made love to her,” Spike says.

This is the last thing Spike should have said. And he realizes this quickly when the stake twists into him even further. He swears he can feel it poking at the vena cava with teasing ease.

Giles turns off any further exploration of Spike’s “soul.”

“I could stake you where you stand,” Giles says.

“Yeah,” Spike says. “And I could kill you where you live.” He doesn’t dare twist his face into the guise of his inner self, though the thought does occur to him, if only for extra emphasis.

But apparently this is all Giles needs to know. The hand and the stake both fall away.

With the sudden emergency over, all part and return to their chosen places.

“Well, if it’s a curse, Tara and I can reverse it,” Willow says hopefully.

“Not so, Red,” Spike says. “You and your lady love may rock with the levitation and relocation spells, but there’s something else at play here. Mysticism is not magic.”

“Spike’s right,” Tara concurs. “You may think that what we’re doing is intermingled with all the spirit world, but there is a definite difference. The Indian’s spirit appealed to a whole different level of spirits. And to explain the difference is like comparing…Apples to IBM’s.”

“I have to agree as well,” Giles says reluctantly. “There are forces at work that none of us can begin to understand. I may have a few books on Indian mysticism, but from what I’ve read, these curses cannot be reversed unless the intended victim learns something from the calamity that befalls him once the curse has been placed. And often times, that’s too late.”

“So how are these tumblin’ tumbleweeds going to help Buffy?” Xander asks.

“When brewed together,” Spike says, “they combine to create a powerful potion that wipes out the source of the fever, whatever it may be. There’s Carline Thistle, Cayenne, Chamomile, Horseradish, and Wild Root. Everything we need…all except one.”

“And which one is that?” Giles asks.

“That’s what I don’t know, Rupert. I searched and searched my memory banks and came up with nothing. But I know there is something I’m missing. There were six key ingredients. I’ve only got five. That’s where you come in, Buffy pals. So, Red, get clicking on that computer. Rupert, slip those specs back on your nose. Anya, supply your clueless wit. Xander, keep being the wise-acre wanker we’ve come to love and loathe. And Tara…” He swishes his hand around in the air. “You do whatever you do to contribute as usual.”

“But you have so much of everything…how do you know what amounts to put in?” Willow asks.

“I don’t know. That’s why I stole lots. If too little is not enough, we’ve got more.”

“And if too much is too much?” Giles asks slyly.

Spike regards Giles, still wanting to hate him so much he isn’t surprised that the stake remains in his hand.

“Rupert, it’s still more than we have now. It’s hope at least.” He realizes he needs to be a little more demonstrative about his intentions. He’s not going to get through to them without some dazzling display of their shared affection. But she is not there… He knows even now they are thinking this is some bizarre hoax and in the morning they’re going to be participants in an involuntary blood drive. “She told me she loved me tonight.”

There is a moment of silence, as though all are participating in a requiem for the death of all their preconceived notions of Buffy. But reason rules again.

Giles speaks, “She was in the throes of fever.”

“But I offered to save her the only way I know…” Spike says. “And she said no. And I didn’t do it. I came to you. Doesn’t that say something?”

It says a lot. More than Giles is willing to admit.

Dawn is at his side, hugging him close. He returns the gesture, wrapping his arms around her as well. He kisses her on the forehead as the others look on.

“It’s OK, Little Bits. I’m not going to let a thing happen to your sister. I’m the Big Bad, remember? Who’s afraid of the Big Bad?”

“The fever, hopefully,” Dawn says as she snuggles closer to him.

This is the first time any one of them has seen this kind of fondness for the vampire from a human who is not a determined victim. It collectively startles them…makes them wonder…

Giles is all too aware of the demises of the two Slayers that Spike had laid claim too. And tonight Spike chooses to save one. There has to be something else…there HAS to be something else…

“Please don’t let Buffy die, Spike,” Dawn implores.

“I won’t. You know that,” he answers.

“I love you, Spike,” Dawn says.

“I love you too, Little Bits,” he answers.

And Giles has a new reason to worry.

It is much later. The night has that past midnight feel, but no one has bothered to look at a clock in a while. Willow remains at her laptop, with Tara close by as they peer into the screen, scrolling through endless names of herbs and their properties. They have tapped into a massive herb glossary on the web and have spent the past few hours combing through definitions and descriptions of every type of herb known to man on every continent in the world. Willow has made it through the all the way to the S’s now when she finds something that might jog Spike’s mind

“Sanguinary,” she announces. “Real name, Achillea Millefolium. Also known as Band Man’s Plaything, Bloodwart, Carpenters Weed, Devil’s Plaything, Milfoil, Nose Bleed, Old Man’s Pepper, Soldier’s Woundwort, Staunchweed, Thousand Weed, and Yarrow. Do any of those ring a bell?”

“They all sound delicious,” he says, tiredly, “But no, I don’t think that’s it.”

“I don’t think it is, either,” Willow says. “It says it’s found mostly in Europe.”

“Oh, and it may cause sensitivities,” Tara adds.

Dawn adjusts her head on Spike’s shoulder. She is dosing, but is not completely convinced she’s ready to sleep. She doesn’t want to leave Spike, but his body is making her chilly, she thinks. She folds her arms as his arm goes around her.

“You know, Spike,” Giles says. “We may be able to find this elusive herb a little quicker if you could simply remember the name of the Indian’s tribe.”

He closes his eyes and thinks. In a minute, his lids fly open again. “Oh! Ogakor!”

He sits back in self-congratulation, waiting for someone to grab a book and look for the name. But his answer is only met with sheepish glances.

“That’s a tribe on Survivor,” Xander says.

“Oh, bloody hell!” he says. “I watched far too much telly when I was at Buffy’s.”

“If you can’t remember the name of the tribe, they how do you expect to remember the name of the herb?” Giles asks.

“It will come to me soon. Now I really wish I hadn’t killed him. I could just get Red to e-mail him and ask him.”

“He had a computer?” Willow asks.

“Oh, yes! He was on it all the time playing Keno and checking his stock quotes. At first he let me use it, but he changed the password ‘cos he said I was downloading too much porn.”

“I had to do the same thing with Xander,” Anya says.

“Anya, I told you I didn’t know how those sites ended up in the history. I still think the super is to blame.”

“Xander, he’s seventy five years old!”

“So? Spike’s, like, 120.”

Spike cuts Xander a look.

“And you wear it very well, my friend,” Xander says quickly. “Do you moisturize?”

Spike decides to let this one go. “Onto the next one, Red.”

“Santonica,” Willow says. “Also known as Levant, sea wormwood, worm seed…”

“But it’s only found in Iran,” Tara says. “And is mostly used to treat round worm. Has no effect on tapeworm, though.”

“Well, that’s disappointing,” Xander says.

Giles has been consumed by his own reading for the most part. Though a librarian, he owns few books on Indians and even fewer titles dealing with Indian mysticism. But finally he does come upon something that does have an air of familiarity about it.

“This is interesting,” Giles says, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “Yes, this might be useful. But it’s is from Armand Peltier’s Tales of the Old West, so I don’t know how much merit the story warrants. It seems there was a settler, one Morris Colby, who encountered an Indian on the plains, and for no better reason than to just to prove he could do it, he shot the Indian and killed him.”

“Ooh, little existentialism on the prairie,” Xander says.

Giles reads from the text now. “‘Colby returned to his home, not the least bit remorseful for what had transpired on the plains. His wife inquired of his whereabouts that night, but he said nothing, seeing there was a cozy fire and stew for supper. He set about eating his supper and then retired early. He awoke the next morning to find his wife shivering at his side, wracked by a terrible fever. His sturdy son, in a room nearby, also awoke to the clutches of this fever. The fever was such that it caused them to see visions and disabled their movements, as well as their breathing. Within forty-eight hours, both were dead.’”

In the silence following his reading, thoughts are forming all around the room. And then all eyes turn to the pale, blond headed man seated calmly on the sofa and the teenaged girl snuggled next to him who has not moved from his side since he arrived.

Spike touches his chin to Dawn’s head and feels a slight singe. He then turns, taking her face in his hands.

“Dawn?” he asks.

She is slow to respond. Her eyes look as though they want to open, but she can’t seem to make them.

“Her head’s hot,” Spike says.

All start to approach as Spike continues to try and rouse the girl.

“Dawn? Dawn, answer me,” Spike commands.

“Mmm….so cold…” she says. Her lips open to the sight of her white teeth chattering together.

“Oh, dear God,” Spike says.

“Don’t tell me…” Giles says.

“I think she’s got it,” Spike says.

It’s becoming all too clear to Giles now, especially in light of what he has just read.

“The curse killed the two most important people in the settler’s life,” Giles says, “effectively destroying everything the man loved…”

“She was exposed to Buffy,” Spike is saying, “She could have caught it from her…”

“You killed that Shaman with your thirst for blood. You try and pretend you’re this docile, domesticated creature curled up in Buffy’s living room like a bleeding cocker spaniel, but you’re a killer, still,” Giles says through clenched teeth.

“Dawn and Buffy are the most precious things on earth to me,” Spike says, gently lifting Dawn’s hair away from her face.

“And that is precisely why they are ill,” Giles says. “We’ve got to get her to the hospital.”

“No!” Spike says. “There’s nothing they can do to help her there. They don’t know what they’re dealing with. We do.”

“Spike, Dawn needs to be in hospital. If her fever is as high as Buffy’s is, she could go into convulsions.”

“Then we’ll have to control it ourselves. Put her in a tub with ice or something. And when I’ve come up with the last ingredient for the potion, we can test it on Dawn.”

“Are you really suggesting that we use Dawn as a guinea pig for this little concoction that probably won’t work anyway?” Giles says.

Spike frowns. “You people still don’t trust me, do you? I’m wracking my brain trying to remember this formula, and you think I’m only doing it so I can see you squirm. You don’t believe I can do anything good because of all my evil past deeds.”

“Well, it is kinda hard to forget all those years when you treated the world like your own personal Columbine High School,” Xander says.

Spike is about to respond when his mind is jarred by something Xander has said. It wasn’t the insulting tone in his voice, it wasn’t the “yes, let’s make Spike feel even worse about what he’s done” tenor of the statement. It was the content. There was something there…something that sounded like an answer to his prayers.

“What did you say?” Spike asks.

Xander’s eyes bug out of his head for a brief instant. “Now look, Spike, if you think you can start something with me, I’m in the presence of friends and Giles has plenty of stakes for all of us. Aside from that, I’ve been working out and---

“Oh, shut it, Xander. You couldn’t hurt me if your workouts consisted soley of running about with a minivan strapped to your back. What did you say to me just now…the name of the high school.”

Xander reflects back. “Columbine?”

There is a light in Spike’s visage now. A slow, relieved smile spreads across his face as he begins to laugh.

“That’s it!” he says through his chortles.

“What?” Giles asks. “Columbine?”

“Columbine is the last ingredient!” Spike says triumphantly. “How could I have forgotten Columbine?”

“Are you certain, Spike? Columbine has no medicinal purpose whatsoever. It’s just a wildflower.”

“I know for certain. I remember when the Indian told me. Columbine, he said. Like the high school.”

Giles is still not convinced. He stands with his arms folded, scowling down at Spike and drawing his tongue across the bottom row of his teeth.

Just then, the phone sounds. It is a sound that startles the group, collectively. After midnight a phone call is always bad news or a sad apology. In this case, they are all suspecting both.

The phone rings again.

Willow clutches a hand to her heart. “Oh, God…”

Giles makes his way slowly to the phone. On his face is a look of expectation. He is rehearsing the words in his head again, planning his reaction. But when he answers after the third ring, he can barely remember to say “hello.”

Tara and Willow draw near one another. Anya grasps Xander’s hand. Spike keeps his eyes on Gile’s face as his hand reaches for Dawn’s small, sweaty fingers.

“Yes…” Giles is saying. “Any news…” His face falls. “Oh, God…”

This utterance inspires a premature tear to slip down Willow’s cheek as she leans in closer to hear, trying to discipher the words coming from the receiver.

“Is she all right?” Giles continues. “Oh, I see…I see…” He closes his eyes for a minute and there is a perceptible rise in his chest. “Well, thank you. You will call if there’s any change, won’t you? Yes, fine. Thank you again.”

They know by his words that Buffy is still alive. But what happened? Giles is hesitant to divulge anything after he sets the phone down, though in the air, his present company’s questions are being fired at him wordlessly in the form of furrowed brows.

Finally, he says, “Buffy went into cardiac arrest about an hour ago…” He waits for that information to be digested before getting on with the rest of the news. “The doctor was able to get her heart started again. She was down about twenty minutes. And now…” Giles looks down at the floor. “She has…she has slipped into a coma…”

Willow is the first to speak. “Well, comas aren’t so bad, are they? People come out of comas all the time…”

Her hopeful words do nothing to raise the group’s spirits. Giles looks over her as if to say, “Buffy won’t come out of this one…”

There is no talking as Giles strides across the floor and heads for the door. No one tries to follow him. He needs to be alone now.

In his absence, all eyes fall to Spike and the shivering girl on the sofa. Spike has thought that Dawn’s euphoria has prevented her from hearing the news. But she knows. She is whispering to him now, in a distant, laborious voice. He bends near to hear her better.

“Ulll be nes,” she says.

“What did you say, love? I can’t hear you,” Spike says.

She licks her lips as she struggles to amplify her voice. “I’ll be next,” she says clearly.

Spike is quick to soothe her, though the only words in his head now are dark thoughts of the inevitable. He looks at her lying there, helpless in his arms. How many times has he held someone like this, marking a victim for death, endeavoring for a feast. And now, here he is, wanting to pummel this demon curse with his fists until it’s broken and shamed away, until it’s nothing at all but a slight scare.

The door opens again. It is an effort for everyone to look up. It is as though if they look up, they might see the fear in each others faces and what is going to happen to Buffy will be real.

But inquisitiveness directs their stares to a bunch of light blue flowers in Giles’ hand. He brings them into the room as though he is carrying a bridesmaid’s nosegay. They look so pretty and out of place, so cheerful.

Spike is still looking down at Dawn when Giles comes in. He doesn’t see the flowers until they are almost right under his nose.

“Here,” Giles said. “I had some growing in the courtyard.”

Spike regards the flowers with an open mouthed stare. “Columbine?
Giles nods slowly. “Columbine.” He snaps the flowers away from Spike just as he’s about to touch them. “This had better work,” he says in a dark and threatening voice.

“It will work. I swear it. And if this doesn’t work…” he takes a breath, remembering the Indian’s words the day he saw him in his crypt. Remember nothing and you will die… He swallows hard before speaking. “You can kill me. As a matter of fact, I’ll lend a hand.” He touches the side of Dawn’s stilled face. “If something happens to these two girls, there’s not much point in being around anyway.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

There is activity now in Giles’ apartment, replacing the piquant lethargy of the hours before. Most of the activity is centered on Giles’ kitchen where a saucepot slowly simmers with the ingredients that will make a potion to cure the little girl who shivers under a dozen plus bags of ice in Giles’ bathtub. Xander had bought all the minimart had. With each addition to the pile, Dawn’s eyes widened and she rose, as though ready to spring clear out of the tub. The burst of energy lasted only so long. Soon she was soon back under the fast melting glob of ice. Her pink shirt and shorts now gleam from down below like hints of morning in the clouds.

And it is almost morning.

“It’s too cold…” Dawn says through chattering teeth. “I can’t stand it!”

“I know, love, I know,” Spike says as he strokes her hair. “It won’t be for long.”

“Spike, we don’t know how much more to put in!” Willow’s voice calls from the kitchen.

“Well you’re the damn witch, Red! Double double toil and trouble and all that? You’ll figure it out!” Spike shouts over his shoulder.

“It would help if you gave us some guide to go by!” she retaliates.

“The Indian said it should be a light blue color.”

Willow looks down at the potion. Is sort of looks blue. Then again, it’s in a black saucepan. Willow goes over to the cupboards. In the first cupboard is an assortment of cookbooks; in the second, some Fiesta plates; in the third, glasses. She seizes a small juice glass and hastily dips it into the now near boiling liquid on the stove. As she hoists it up into the light, it shows its true color.

“It’s something blue, all right,” Willow says.

In a few minutes, Willow is in the bathroom. She is holding the potion in her hands, in a tea cup. Spike doesn’t see her when she enters. His chin is on the bathtub, his hands still stroking Dawn’s hair. Dawn’s eyes are closed, but her mouth is open slightly, emitting slow breaths.

“Is she asleep?” Willow asks.

“I don’t know,” Spike says. “She’ll speak and then go back to where ever she is in her mind.” Spike turns to Willow at last. “You got the potion?”

Willow extends her arms, the cup between her hands.

Spike motions for her to give her the cup.

“It’s still really hot,” Willow warns.

When Spike takes the cup in his hands, he knows what she means. “Bloody hell! She’s got a fever so you’re going to scald her to death?” He dips his hand in for some ice and plops a few pieces into the cup. “Here, Dawn,” he says, cupping her head in his hands, “Drink this…carefully…”

There is some protestation is Dawn in the form of a vague, I don’t wanna. But Spike forces the bottom of the cup to the bottom of her lip.

“Drink this, dear. It’ll help you. And Buffy. You want to help your big sis, don’t you?”

“Mmmmm,” Dawn responds. Her eyes open lazily for a second before closing again.

“Bits, please. Drink this. You’ve got to do this, love. Please?” Spike implores, pressing the cup closer to her lip.

Her top lip folds over the rim of the cup. A bit of the liquid invades her mouth and falls down onto her chin.

“Drink it all, Bits,” Spike encourages. “Every last sip.”

He dips the cup a little further. More flows into her mouth. She swallows, eventually. And there are more swallows to come.

“Drink, love,” Spike insists. “Drink every bit of it. And you’ll be better. I promise.”

Willow waits by the door until Dawn finishes the cup. She doesn’t know if Spike knows if she’s still there. He seems oblivious to anything but the small girl’s sipping. He watches every gulp as though he’s taking it himself and occasionally mutters, “That’s good. Drink it down.” When he returns the cup to examine it for emptiness, he presses on. Within five minutes, she has finished the brew. And Spike holds the drunk-up cup in his pinky, as he leans closer to Dawn, impressing a kiss on her forehead.

“You did well, Dawn. You’ll be better soon.”

“And Buffy too?” Dawn asks, through the grating of her white, evenly spaced teeth.

“And Buffy too,” Spike says.

Willow walks away slowly down the hall from Giles’ bedroom. She has just helped Dawn into her pajamas and put her to bed. She has left the vampire to tend to the girl. He will not sleep tonight, he has said. He will stay by Dawn until she wakes. In the living room, she finds Xander and Anya curled up with each other on the sofa, slowly sipping from ceramic mugs. Tara is taking her turn at the laptop. As Willow passes, she notices the screen. There is a sprig of light blue flowers…the Columbine.

Willow squeezes Tara’s shoulder as she passes into the kitchen, where Giles remains, cup in hand, sitting at the table.

“Preventive medicine,” Giles says. “There’s still some on the range, if you want it. I gave it to the others, just in case.”

Willow dips a mug into the saucepan on the stove. She tastes it and then understands Dawn’s reluctance to finish it.
“It’s bitter,” Willow says.

“I know,” Giles says, “It tastes a little better with honey.”

“You got some?”

“There’s a bear of it up in the cupboard.”

“Ooh, a bear!” Willow says, going in search of the honey.

As Willow is swirling a golden strand of honey into her cup, she regards Giles, sitting at the table, rubbing his temples. He looks completely exhausted and Willow wonders what is keeping him awake at this point. His thoughts are ringing loudly throughout the room and they’re all about Buffy…and Spike.

Willow slips into a chair across from Giles, though for a minute he doesn’t seem to notice she’s there. She sips carefully from the cup, remembering the care that Spike took cooling the brew with ice cubes before he let Dawn drink. In that small, simple gesture she had seen much that she hadn’t allowed herself to see before. And she was beginning to think Buffy wasn’t totally off her goard the other night when she sat on the floor of her apartment, among the burning candles and wilting rose petals, and said, “Thing is, I think I really love the guy…”

“How’s Dawn?” Giles asks.

“She got it all down. Spike insisted.”

“Spike…” Giles says in a disparaging voice. “If he’s the hero in all this…” Giles cannot find the words to finish, but Willow suspects they would have gone something like, “I may kill him anyway.”

There’s something Willow needs to know, but she doesn’t quite know how to phrase it, because Giles’ attitude is clearly still “down with Spike.” Finally, she sputters, “You know…I’ve been thinking…about Spike and the no violence thing even with the V-chip not working thing anymore.” Giles peers at her quizzically. “I mean, he’s sat here all evening and hasn’t made a move towards any of us, except Xander, and he kinda deserved it because he was being a smartass. But, all-in-all, he’s been kind of a non-creep and…sweet and all with Dawn. Like he really cares about her.”

Giles sighs. “To tell you the truth, Willow, I am just as perplexed as you are about all this. When Buffy first told me that Spike loved her, I couldn’t even begin to fathom what was going on in his mind. I rationalized that by the chip controlling his instinct to kill, he was feeling vulnerable and subconsciously allied himself with Buffy to protect himself. As time went on, I began to think that Spike was embracing memories of his humanity because he couldn’t act the part of the vampire anymore. He was recalling feelings he once had, not experiencing them in his current reality. He moved in with Buffy and Dawn and felt the closeness of a familial unit again. He wanted to be a part of their bond, because his own kind had rejected him so brutally and with Buffy and Dawn he felt protected and safe.”

“He felt,” Willow says.

“Pardon?”

“You said, he felt, twice. I didn’t think vampires were supposed to have feelings.”

“They don’t. They rely completely on instinct and desire.”

“But he’s acting like he really cares about Buffy and Dawn and has for a long, long time.”

“If he thinks that he loves Buffy, then naturally he would think that he loves all that is important in her life. I don’t believe his efforts were entirely charitable when he agreed to look after Dawn. He was looking for a way to Buffy, and evidently, he found it. Now it appears he’s convinced her she loves him as well.”

Willow hesitates before venturing to say her next comment. She takes another sip of the brew and says behind the shield of the cup, “She does.”

Giles raises an eyebrow.

“Now, Giles, don’t be mad. I wasn’t going to tell you this because Buffy made me promise I wouldn’t. But I think you should know now. Tara and I were at Buffy’s apartment the night before she got sick. We came to put the de-invite spell back on the apartment, but our timing was a little off. He had been there that night. And he had stayed with her the night before.”

“I had some idea that. She was hiding something from me when she was training the other day. Why did he leave this time?”

“She and Spike had a fight. He was angry that she had asked us to re-spell him out of Buffy’s place. Angry enough to put a hole in the door with his boot and smash the table, but not angry enough to kill her. He didn’t even threaten her. And she was worried that she had hurt him so much that he wouldn’t come back.” She won’t divulge why, but she remembers Buffy’s words with all the clarity of a playback in her head. When we make love, it’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced. When I feel him close to me, I just want to get closer. When he touches me, I want his hands all over me, everywhere. He makes me completely, totally insane and it’s like I get lost somewhere with him, in a place where I’m not the Slayer and he is not a vampire. We’re just two lovers locked in a passionate embrace, loving each other ‘til it hurts. We shake and we quiver until we almost cry…And then it’s over and we’re the Slayer and a vampire again and I can’t love him and he can’t love me. But I do. I really do love him…Willow shakes off the memory of Buffy’s confession and settles back into the conversation at hand. “I know you’re just going to yell at me for this and give me one of your disapproving stares, but Spike really loves her. I mean, it’s hard to forget all the psycho stuff he’s pulled and the tally of innocent people he’s put six feet under, but…maybe, his love for Buffy has really changed him.”

Giles is silent for a long time. And the look on his face isn’t one of disapproval. It’s one of acceptance.

“I think you may be right, Willow,” he says softly. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the late hour or the fact that I’ve had precisely two hours of sleep in the past forty-eight hours, but I do see some alteration in his general directive. But that doesn’t mean that he still isn’t dangerous, though. Something keeps telling me that once he gets what he truly wants, we might see shades of his former self again in Technicolor.”

“I don’t know, Giles. Do you think he would really go to all this trouble of trying to save Buffy just to kill her? I mean, if you could see him up there with Dawn. I almost cried. For a minute I was even able to put aside my own feelings about what’s going on and think to myself, ‘God. He’s going to be totally devastated if something happens to Buffy and Dawn.”

Giles lifts the mug to his lips. There are doubts forming in his head about the words he is saying, but he won’t confess them. Why is he fighting so hard to keep her alive? Is there love in that cold, dead heart? Or something else? He has seen the evil in this vampire far too often to think that it could be vanquished by any human touch other than the thrusting of a stake. But maybe there is something to this…

Giles sips at the brew and stares off in another direction. Willow, sensing the conversation is over, grabs her mug and heads for the living room.

There is a soft touch of morning now glowing in the apartment. The first sunbeams fall on the sleeping forms of Xander and Anya, entwined on the sofa. On the floor lay Tara and Willow, snoozing on a pallet of blankets and pillows. Giles remains face down on the kitchen table where he has been all night, except for the times he made periodic checks on Dawn. Spike remains there by Dawn, his head resting on the edge of the bed, his hand still on her shoulder. Presently he is waking to the touch of a warm hand on his and the gentle mewling of a girl.

“Spike?” she says.

“I’m here, Bits,” he says, automatically, as he’s said about a hundred times during the course of the night. But then he feels the warmth of her hand…

He lifts his head slowly. When his eyes finally focus, he sees brown eyes staring back at him, wide, brown, awake eyes. There is a red flush on her face, not from sickness, but glowing health.

“Dawn?” he gasps. He scoots closer to her. A smile springs to his lips as he reaches for her. “Bits, are you all right now?”

“Tired,” she says

“I’ll bet you are, Niblet. I’ll bet you are,” he says softly as he presses a hand for her forehead. “But you feel better?”

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t feel like something in a meat locker anymore.”

He smiles again as he leans over and kisses her cool cheek. And then in a voice that everyone can hear, he says, “Hey! It worked! The bloody thing worked!”

Within seconds the sleeping bunch in the living room are crowding the door for a look.

“She’s OK?” Willow asks.

“There’s no fever now,” he says proudly.

Giles is now making his way into the bedroom. “Are you certain?” Giles asks as he reaches to touch her forehead.

Spike stares up at him with an “I told you so” gleam in his eyes. “Cool as the proverbial cucumber, eh, Rupert?”

“We’ll see. Let me get a thermometer…” he mutters as he reaches for the thermometer by the bed.

As Spike is securing the blankets around her, Giles inserts the thermometer into her mouth. Her teeth clatter against the glass as she tries to speak.

“Mwows Buppy?” she asks.

He smiles warmly. “She’s going to be fine now, love. You’re the proof. We’re going to get your sister back.”

“Of course,” Giles says. “the ice submersion could have something to do with this.”

When his statement is met with exasperated looks, he back peddles feebly.

“But, then again, the potion couldn’t have hurt.”

“Speaking of which,” Xander says. “Shouldn’t we be getting it over to the hospital?”

“Yes, right. We should,” Giles says. “Straight away.”

“I’ll stay here with Bits,” Spike says.

“Oh, no, Spike. I’ll stay with her,” Willow volunteers. “You should be there when she wakes up.”

Spike nods towards the streaming rays of light coming through the window. “This isn’t my time of the day. I’ll sit tight here. But you give me a ring when something happens, and I’ll be there.”

“But we may need you to play Chewbacca in case the doctors aren’t too keen on using non-FDA approved Indian herb cures,” Xander says.

“Sorry, mate. Wookie costumes’s at the cleaners,” Spike says. “You go. This is the sort of thing you folks do all the time. After defeating evil government zombie makers and a trio of hellgods, a team of Harvard grads should be no problem for you to get past.” He looks at Dawn squarely in the face and smiles. “This is my job.”

It is a little after eleven o’clock when Spike gets the phone call he has been waiting for all morning.

“She’s all right now, Spike,” Giles tells him with reluctance tensing his words into hushed bytes of sound.

Spike releases the breath he’s been holding since the night before, it seems. “Oh, thank God.”

“They’ve brought her fever down to about 99.7 which is the coolest she’s been in days. And thankfully, there’s no evidence of any permanent damage to the organs the fever affected. She’s awake and sitting up in her bed having a late breakfast now.” Giles pauses. “And she’s been asking for you.”

Oh, my love…he thinks as he closes his eyes. “Tell her I’ll be there as soon as someone can relieve me of Dawn patrol. And I’ll need the cloak from my crypt.”

“I’m sending Tara and Willow now.”

Spike is waiting outside Buffy’s door, wondering just what he’ll see inside. His memories of the previous night are haunting him. Everything recognizable about his love had vanished to the ravages of the fever. He remembers the swollen face, the blackening skin. He remembers how it was a struggle for her to even grip his hand. It was a touch that was foreign to him. He sensed she was letting go. She was prepared to die. But he wasn’t going to let her. She should have known better.

But now she knows that he brought the fever on her. He prepares himself for an adverse reaction to his appearance. She may not be so willing for him to rush into her arms if she thinks of him as her would-be killer.

He presses the door and swings in with it. First he sees Xander, Anya and Giles all huddled about the bed. And then he sees her, sitting up against her pillows, her face still showing the fever’s wrath. Her skin is slowly returning to its slightly tanned and rosy hue. Her eyes are bright and shiny as she smiles over at him.

Giles turns slowly to the figure inspiring the twinkle in her eyes.

“Right,” he says. “Well, we’ll leave the two of you alone for a bit, I suppose,” Giles says. He leans over and brushes his lips across her forehead. “Glad you’re feeling better, Buffy.”

“Well, not comatose anymore, at least. But slowly getting to the better part,” she says.

Giles nods slowly and starts for the door. As Xander and Anya file past Spike, they both smile, knowingly. Xander curls his fist and gives Spike an “atta boy!” punch to the shoulder. He supposes this is his way of saying thank you. When Giles walks by, he acknowledges Spike with a slight shift in his lips that suggests a smile, but he can’t quite go through with it. Spike understands. Giles is a very proud man. Proud and rock stupid.

“Oh, and Spike,” Giles says, turning around before heading for the door. “Tara did some checking on the formula last night. It turns out that the Columbine wasn’t really necessary. It’s the flower that gives the potion its unique, blue coloring.”

Spike only rolls his eyes.

“But, who am I to be a nay sayer now. The damn thing worked after all,” as he is leaving he is still muttering, “the damn thing worked” as though he can’t believe it.

“Killjoy!” Spike says in annoyance.

“He’s really jealous, you know. As my Watcher, he felt that he should have come up with something to cure me,” Buffy explains. “So…I understand that you had something to do with this. Both the getting really sick and almost dying thing and then the waking up not feverish and not seeing scary visions stuff in my head anymore thing.”

He knew this was coming. “Buffy, I didn’t mean---

“I know you didn’t, Spike,” she says softly. “I know you’d never do anything to hurt me on purpose. You don’t have to apologize for anything.” She reaches out her arms to him. “Come here.”

She doesn’t have to even ask. He is there the minute he sees her arms are open wide just for him. Once he’s there, he doesn’t know if he’s going to burst into tears or burst into song. He leans heavily against her, pining inwardly to get closer, as close as he can manage. His lips are traveling across her cheek now to her mouth. There is apology in this kiss. And relief.

“I never thought I’d be able to do this again,” he says. “I was so worried I was seeing you for the last time last night,” he says against her breast and she holds him close to her. “Buffy, I just couldn’t make it without you.”

“I know. The whole time I was sick, I kept having these dreams that you were dead. I couldn’t believe how lost and alone I felt in those dreams. It was like I couldn’t stand to be alive not being able to find you anywhere in the world ever again.”

“Oh, Buffy…” he says, kissing her again. But then something occurs to him. What she said last night. Did she remember? Was it real? Or was it the fever talking?

He takes her hand and presses it against his lips. “Buffy, while I was in here last night, you said something. And I was just wondering---

“Yeah, I know. I told you I loved you. And I do. I love you.”

Now that he can hear her say it with her eyes looking straight into his it means so much more. Now he wishes the others were here. He hopes Giles is listening outside. He hopes old Rupert is about to burst into flame hearing what’s going on between the two of them.

But they are all alone, in this new knowledge that there is love between them, shared love.

“Say it again, love,” he begs breathlessly as he kisses her.

“I love you,” she says, with a slight laugh in her voice.

“And again and again and again…” he says, his hands bringing her face closer to his.

“Now you’re just getting greedy,” she says.

“Oh, Buffy, I’ve waited so long for you to say that. Humor me,” he says.

“All right. I love you, I love you, I love you…” she coos. And then finally, with her hand caressing his cheek. “I love you, Spike.”

He still can’t believe this. He hears her speaking. He sees her mouth forming the words. And she’s looking right at him. He thinks to himself that if all this is being caused by the aftermath of the fever, then let her never see 98.6 again.

“Buffy, the thought of you dying terrified me, even more so the thought that I was partially to blame,” he says, continuing to kiss her.

“Oh, well. At least maybe you’ve finally learned your lesson about blood sports,” she says.

“I almost lost you, Buffy.”

“You got me back,” she reminds him, returning a kiss. “Would you do me a favor?”

“Anything, love,” he says.

“Will you stay with me this time and not run away?”

He looks at her a minute with that sloe-eyed look of someone deeply smitten. “Buffy, I’ve got an entire eternity ahead of me. And if I had to go through it without you, I’d stake myself. There’s no me without you, love.”

She pulls his close to her, letting his head fall on her shoulder. He is trembling, and his breath is slow and labored against her neck. She lets him kiss her there. She trusts him now.

“Spike, what are we going to do? I mean, my friends will never accept you. Giles won’t accept you.”

“And I would say that I don’t bloody well care, because you’re the only one I want to have orgasms with. But I know your friends are important to you.”

“I don’t want to be put in the position of having to choose between you.”

“And I’d never make you do that, love. They’ll come ‘round eventually. They liked Angel, didn’t they?”

“You’re no Angel,” Buffy says without a trace of irony in her voice.

“Damn straight, I’m not that poof. Angel let you go. Somebody would have to kill me to get me away from you. Only death will part us now, love.” He snuggles closer to her, whispering into her ear, “Only death.”

She feels a shadow pass over her. She shivers a bit and pulls Spike closer. He is almost lying in the bed with her now.

“No Slayer has ever lived past 25,” she says.

“You’ll be the first, Buffy. I’ll make sure of that.”

Just then the door comes open and a woman dressed in pink scrubs enters with a small cup. She automatically sees she is interrupting something and rushes to apologize.

“Oh, excuse me,” she says, her eyes widening behind her large-framed glasses. “I’m just here to give Miss Summers some acetaminophen.” She pauses for a minute as though something has grabbed her. “Oh! I know who you are. You must be Spike.”

Buffy and Spike exchange disturbed glances. Did you tell? No. Did you tell? They seem to be asking one another.

“I’m Spike,” he says.

“Oh, good to meet you. She talked about you the whole time she was unconscious,” The nurse hands Buffy her meds and then a cup of water from the bedside table. “You kept saying that you had something to tell him.”

“Yes, I did,” she says, after swallowing the pill.

“And did you tell him?”

“Oh, yeah. Message sent.”

“She was having some very strange fever dreams about you, Spike. In one of them you were a vampire.”

Spike cocks his head to one side as a slow smile spreads across his face. Buffy is silently berating herself for not dreaming more quietly. She wonders what other secrets she has divulged while lost in slumber.

She laughs. “Vampire!”

Spike is laughing too, his eyes mercurial and loving. “Slayer!”

Later that night, Giles is alone with his thoughts. The house is empty for the first time in days. Only Dawn remains and she is presently sleeping on the sofa. He has checked her temperature every hour since he’s been home and it remains at a comfortable 98.6, just where it should be. But she is exhausted and has slept most of the day. Tomorrow she will go home and Buffy will be released from the hospital. She too has not shown a sign of the fever’s return. She is lucid and slowly returning to her strong, capable self. Giles wouldn’t be surprised if she were back slaying by week’s end.

He has his journal open to the part where he left off the night before. His hopelessness returns once again as he reads the dreary passage. No, there wasn’t much hope last night. He was recounting the final battle of a Slayer who was, as two of her predecessors, dying because of Spike. And in a move that would have surprised the hell out of Watchers throughout history, he saved her. This is on his mind as he starts to write.

He looks at what he has written. As he reads he can hear his inner self shaking its finger and saying, “Shame on you!” A vampire showing an expressing love for a Slayer, and a soulless one at that. He wonders where his mind is sometime.

“Oh, piffle!” he says, ripping the page from the journal and tossing it into a nearby wastepaper basket.

The FOU in room 816 in sleeping now and at her side is a man, dressed in black, his head on her pillow, his hand holding hers. Visiting hours have been over since 9:00, but he’s not going anywhere. He insists. And he’s not hurting anyone by being there. All evening the nurses have checked on her with the question, “Do you need anything?” and always the reply is, “No, I have everything I need.” As sick as she was, the nurses on the ward are showing a little humanity by relaxing the rules. He thought he was going to lose her, after all. They need time to be together, the nurses have decided. He will be there all night. And he will be the first thing she sees when she wakes in the morning.