Part 25: Phoenix Rising

Tears could only last so long and finally there was nothing left in her. She knelt, silent and unmoving, pressing his head to her breast and bringing his hands up across his chest with her free hand. Her fingertips caressed his still body through the thin fabric of his tee shirt.

Buffy froze abruptly as her fingers detected the tiniest tremor in his chest, no more than the faintest trembling of sensation. She pressed her ear to him and was rewarded with an erratic flutter, dup... dup, dup. She surged to her feet, lifting him easily with newfound strength, and ran for the salvation represented by the strobing lights of the ambulance still parked in the street.

The paramedics had stowed their equipment again and were about to pull away with the body from the Orange Grove when Buffy burst out of the alley in front of them. Before she had gone even a few steps, they had leapt from the cab and were easing Spike's limp form from her arms. "He's lost a lot of blood, but he's still alive," she said, her voice controlled and low. "You have to help him. Please." Only on the last word did her voice threaten to break.

Within moments, it seemed, they were in radio contact with the hospital, administering intravenous fluids and had Spike intubated and hooked up to various arcane medical devices in preparation for transporting him. After a moment to find an alternate place for the body they were already carrying, the paramedics strapped Spike to the gurney and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. But when Buffy would have climbed in as well, they blocked her way.

"Are you the next of kin?" one of them asked.

"No, I..." How could she possibly begin to describe her relationship with this man?

"Then I'm afraid you can't come with us. We're taking him to Sunnydale Memorial; you'll be able to see him there." If he makes it, was the unspoken coda. "Don't worry, miss," he added softly. "We'll do our best for him." With that, he slammed the rear doors and the ambulance was underway, wailing down the street.

**********

Less than two hours after they had left Desperados together, Buffy pushed back in through the crowds. She spotted Joey behind the bar and didn't mince words. "I need a phone. Now. It's an emergency." It was her grim expression more than her words that sent him a step back, letting her behind the counter to reach the phone on the wall.

Buffy let Xander's number ring a dozen times before giving up. Leaning her forehead against the wall, she racked her brain furiously, trying to recall Anya's new number. Finally giving up, she called Giles and Willow. When Willow answered, Buffy didn't waste any time letting her interrupt with questions. "Willow, Spike's been hurt. Paramedics are taking him to Sunnydale Memorial. I need you to get hold of Xander at Anya's. Tell him to pick me up at Desperados, over on Roosevelt. Got it?"

"Never mind that," interrupted a deep voice from behind her. "I'll take you there myself."

Buffy let the receiver fall from her ear, Willow's voice continuing tinny and unheeded from the earpiece, and turned to see who had spoken.

"Jake," the large man said shortly in response to her scrutiny. "Spike works for me. Are you coming, or are you going to waste more time?"

She brought up the receiver again. "Never mind. I've got a ride," she said, and hung up without waiting for a reply. "Let's go."

**********

Buffy strode into the emergency department of Sunnydale Memorial ready to demand answers. Unfortunately, expertise as a Slayer in dealing with vampire-inflicted wounds did not translate automatically into respect from hospital authorities. The nurse handling the triage in the emergency room had little patience with her questions about Spike's condition.

"If you have information about the John Doe stabbing, you should be speaking with the police," she insisted, lifting her hand to beckon over one of the officers stationed near the main entrance.

Buffy desperately waved him away. "No! I mean... I don't know anything that would help." There's no criminal left to arrest. "I just want to know how he is. And... his name is William."

The nurse made a notation on her clipboard. "Miss, if his condition can be stabilized, he'll be moved to a bed in the intensive care unit. At that time, and not before then, family members can be admitted one at a time to see him."

"It's William Summers," said a voice suddenly behind Buffy. She whirled to see Dawn striding towards her, followed closely by Anya. "He's her husband - my brother-in-law," Dawn added. Buffy frowned at her, trying to convey the furious comments she didn't dare speak lest she attract more unwelcome interest from the attentive triage nurse. Dawn just raised expressive brows. You've got a better idea how to get in to see him?

Buffy spared Dawn another glare, then turned back to the nurse. "I'm sorry, it's just that I'm so worried about him that I'm not thinking straight. I don't know what came over me." She gave the nurse a wan smile and concentrated on looking like a distraught, helpless wife and not like a deadly Slayer of demons various and sundry.

It seemed to work; the nurse thawed far enough that it didn't seem like a smile would shatter her. "In that case... Mrs. Summers, you and your family should wait in the lounge down the hall." She indicated a set of double doors leading to a quiet corridor. "Someone will find you there when there's news. Now, if you'll excuse me." She was soon swallowed up again in the chaos of the emergency admissions.

"You know, Buffy," Anya said, "you could have let us know. On the other hand," she observed brightly, "I don't believe I'm obligated to provide you with a present if you eloped."

"We are not married," Buffy hissed. "That was just Dawn's idea to get us in to see him - and we'll talk about that later," she added, with a dire look at her sister.

Dawn let the implicit threat slide easily by her. "Like you could have done better on short notice. Now there won't be any inconvenient questions."

"Until they want the name of our health insurance provider, or his social security number," Buffy pointed out.

"The first one's easy enough," Dawn retorted. "We don't have health insurance. Just another charity case, you know."

"Who's a charity case?" Xander asked, coming up behind them.

Before dropping her at the hospital, Jake had said 'If there's anything I can do...' But potentially spending thousands of dollars on a casual employee of only a few months? She doubted Jake's philanthropy would extend that far. "We are," she sighed. "And now, thanks to Dawn, they think Spike and I are married. So now they'll be coming after me for all his personal information. And he's never even so much as told me his last name."

"Don't worry, Buffy," Xander said, circling her shoulders with a supportive arm. "We'll come up with something. We always do."

"That's probably what I should be afraid of," she retorted, still worried, but relieved enough by his unwavering support to laugh weakly. "Are Willow and Giles--?"

Xander shook his head. "Willow has got a major wiggins about hospitals right now, so they stayed at home. But Giles said he'd come by later, if you needed him."

What I need is for Spike to live. I can't believe we've let things go so wrong...

**********

In the waiting area, Dawn and Anya were deep in conversation.

"I've screwed things up big time," Dawn admitted. "I never thought past getting us in to see him."

"I've noticed that humans often tend to make snap decisions without thinking of the consequences. It's one of the more interesting parts of being in the vengeance business." Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Although what if he actually were an upstanding citizen? With immigration, employment and tax records, and a marriage certificate... and everything. After all, Buffy did summon me for vengeance."

Dawn's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "He'd hate that! It's perfect."

"Do you really think so?" Anya asked, anxiously. "I haven't managed a proper vengeance since I got my powers back. But if you think he'd really suffer, then maybe it would be enough to satisfy D'Hoffryn. And since there's that whole blood thing between you and Buffy - which I still don't get, by the way - you should be able to take her place in the wish."

"Okay. Let's work out exactly what I have to say, so that nothing backfires on us."

**********

"Mrs. Summers?" Buffy looked around, startled, wondering who could be looking for her mother here, now. A sharp nudge from Dawn reminded her of their ruse, and she stood to meet the doctor.

"I'm Dr. Hernandez," he said, taking her hand. "I've been working on your husband."

"Is he--" Buffy couldn't bring herself to say what she feared most, as though doing so would make it true.

"He's stabilized for now," he said, and she drew a long shuddering breath in relief. "But I need to get your permission to administer an experimental treatment."

"Experimental? What is it? Why?"

"It's a blood surrogate. We've managed to get his overall blood volume back up with plasma transfusions and saline, but in order to carry oxygen efficiently, he needs more whole blood or something as close as we can get. Without that, he'll eventually suffer brain damage."

Oh god, the thefts. "Give me whatever forms you need me to sign." Buffy scrawled her signature quickly, where Dr. Hernandez indicated.

"Can we donate blood for him?" Dawn asked, coming to stand beside her sister.

He looked at her carefully. "Are you seventeen?"

"Yes," she lied promptly. "Well... in two months."

"I'm her guardian," Buffy interjected quickly. "If I donate blood too, and give my permission for her..."

"Let's get the two of you typed, then. Come with me."

"Buffy." She turned to see Xander had risen to his feet. "I'd like to help too."

With a smile, she beckoned for him to join them, and together they looked back at Anya expectantly.

"Oh no," she said, shaking her head firmly. "My blood is much too precious to me, and it's staying right here in my body where it belongs."

In the end, Xander's type B blood was incompatible with Spike's type A, but he gave a donation anyway, to the effusive gratitude of the hospital staff. Buffy and Dawn had better luck; both were typed O positive, with blood suitable for almost anyone to receive.

They returned to the lounge, identically bandaged, and settled back in to wait for news.

**********

"--coming out of--"
"--trying to breathe--"
"--kill the vent--"

Suddenly he could hear his breath whistling strangely in his ears. There was still something blocking his throat, but he couldn't move to reach for it.

A blurred and mask-obscured face with kind eyes leaned over him. "Relax. You were on a ventilator to help you breathe. We've turned it off, but you've still got the tube in your throat. If you're ready, we can take it out now."

His only response was a minute motion that was nonetheless taken for assent. "Right. I need you to count to three with me, and then blow as hard as you can, okay?"

He must have agreed, because the voice was counting now, and before he could react he felt as though he were being turned inside out. He coughed and gasped, and was more than a little gratified to not see his lungs lying pinkish-grey and wet before him on his chest. Someone slipped a mask over his face and he sucked gratefully at the blessedly cool moist air it provided. His look down his body had shown him tubes and wires emerging from everywhere, and though he couldn't recall how he knew, he understood that it wasn't a good sign at all.

He flailed wildly with one arm, and managed to catch his fingers in the clothing of the person nearest to him. With his other hand, he clawed the mask away from his face, but no words would come - only a growling wheeze.

"Shh... don't try to talk yet." The masked figure gently disentangled his hand.

He had to speak. It was vital, to talk, to communicate in some way. And he had to know.

"Is this..." he finally managed to force out. "Is this hell?"

The figure's eyes darted suddenly sideways above the mask in a manner he didn't trust at all, but this one rebellion had stolen all his strength, and he felt himself slipping away.

**********

After a time, the blackness receded, and the first sensation he felt was that he was flat on his back once more, only this time he was breathing easily. He could feel the hard outline of the plastic oxygen mask pressing into his cheeks. He shifted experimentally to feel the tug and pull of various medical devices attached in intimate ways all over his body. Behind him, something whirred and clicked with every breath, and a muffled beeping kept time with his pulse.

New sensations imposed themselves on his awareness; there were fingers entwined in his, and a soft hand caressing his forehead. His eyes opened reluctantly, gummed and crusted from his lengthy unconsciousness, and he had to force them into focus. I've gone from hell straight into heaven, he decided, looking at the face over him.

She found the switch that raised the head of his bed so she could see him better. "I thought we were going to lose you." Unshed tears sparkled in her dark lashes.

Don't. Don't cry. Not for me. Never for me. Memory came back to him, and reason said hospital, and probably going to live. A wave of self-loathing swept over him, and the anger carried over into his voice as he pulled his mask down to reply. "It would have been kinder to let me go. But then kindness isn't one of the Slayer's known virtues, is it?"

"Suicide by Slayer, Spike?" The pain he heard in her quiet tone burned like acid. "Would you really have made me do that?"

"Slayer's job, innit? Get rid of the monsters. No grief, no pity, just... pfft! We're gone. Better all 'round."

She looked at him with wounded eyes. "Why?" she cried softly. "Why do I always have to be the one who's so damn hard, and cold? It's killing me, Spike. Can't you see that?"

He went on as though he hadn't heard. "Thought it would be easier for you. If I were only a vampire again."

"I could never kill you, vampire or not. I thought you knew that by now." She tightened her fingers in his.

"I've done... terrible things. I don't deserve to live."

"You've changed," she insisted. "That part of you is gone."

He shook his head. "The demon in me wasn't the monster, Buffy. It never was." An endless loop of violence played itself out behind his eyes. "Learned that this week. I lost control. I... can't be trusted. Safer for everyone to just put me down."

He was frightening her in earnest now - and she'd never been truly afraid of him, from the first - with his flat voice and implacable desire to die.

"I told you," he insisted. "You need to call Angel. He can help you put and end to this charade, once and for all."

"I did call him - the day after I talked to you. I didn't tell anyone - not even Dawn."

"And he hasn't swept into town yet, all righteous and full of himself? That's unlike him."

"If you hate him so much, why do you want to see me with him again?"

"I don't hate him. He's--" --better than me-- "--better for you. He's the one you really love."

"Don't you tell me who I love! I - I love you! "

He shook his head sadly. "No, you don't. I won't be your consolation prize. You belong with Angel. I can admit that, now."

"And I don't get any say in the matter? You and Angel just hand me off between you?" Anger at him flattened her fear for him, momentarily. "Well here's a newsflash - he's not coming."

Spike just lay unresponsive before her, his usually expressive features uncharacteristically void of all emotion. He said nothing, did nothing - and she found herself willing to say anything to fill the unbearable silence.

"He said no." She tried to hide the way her voice trembled when she said it, but he'd known her for too long and too well for it to escape his notice. "He said that he knew it would never work, and that I would just have to trust him that his reasons were good ones. Then he said he loved me, and believed that I would make the right decision... and then he hung up." Her fists shook where they were clenched at her sides, fingernails cutting bloody crescents into her palms.

"I would have thought he loved you like I love you - like I loved you," he corrected brutally. "I loved you. And I will always want you. Would have tried to pull heaven's stars from the sky to cast under your feet, if you'd only asked me."

"I don't need to be worshipped, Spike," she said softly. "I just... want someone to love me. Not the Slayer - me. Someone who will stay by me, no matter what stupid mistakes I make."

He fidgeted, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bed. "Then tell grampa to shift his arse. He doesn't have to be human again. It only took me across half the planet to find someone to make me human again, and all I really wanted was a soul. Someone to just reattach his Peter-Pan's-shadow soul ought to be found practically on his back doorstep."

Buffy's face set in hard lines, as an uncomfortable truth made itself known to her. "If he wanted to," she admitted slowly, "he would have tried to find a way by now." A deep breath steadied her voice. "Right now, the work he's doing in LA is more important."

"More important than you?" Spike asked, a hint of his former intensity creeping back into his voice - and just incidentally echoing the words in her heart.

Talk about selfish, egotistical, arrogant-- She administered a sharp mental slap to her inner spoiled brat. "He has to do what's right for him. And at least he isn't giving up!"

"I killed her," he said flatly, undercutting her before she could get started on a really good tirade.

This is what it's all about, isn't it? "You didn't have a choice, once she'd been turned." She tried to keep her voice gentle, tried to draw him out.

"No. I mean that it's because of me that she even considered it. Hell, she wanted it. Wanted to be stronger, faster, more dangerous... She only heard half of what I told her. In many ways I was her sire, more than the one who turned her, because I taught her everything she wanted to know."

"You can't blame yourself for that. We've both met that type before."

"There isn't anyone else I can blame." His voice was raw again with remembered pain.

"Did you... love her?" Is that why you won't let yourself stay with me?

He sighed, and cast his mind back over might-have-beens. "It could have come to that, if we'd had more time. Doesn't matter, though - she'd never have returned the sentiment. To Allie, I love you was about equivalent to I own you - and she'd never let that happen. Even if she'd come to understand I love you really means please, let me be yours, she'd never have put that much of herself into someone else's hands. She guarded herself too closely to ever offer herself to anyone that way." He closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the pillow. "All the same now, one way or the other." Oh Allie. You didn't deserve what I did to you.

"Spike, I--"

"I'm tired now, Buffy. You should go." He slipped the oxygen mask back over his nose and mouth, cutting himself off from her.

"I'm not finished--"

"Get out!" he roared, before collapsing back to the bed, breathing heavily, his eyes squeezed tightly closed in pain. Machinery sounded an angry tone, and behind her Buffy could see curious ICU nurses looking through the observation windows into the room. She gathered herself together and left before they could request it or reprimand her for agitating their patient.

At the door, she paused for one look back. His tired face was lined with sorrow, and his hands twisted in the blankets that lay loosely over him. The sight made her heart ache. What do I have to do to help you find your way back from where you're so lost?

**********

Spike spent half the night dreading that Buffy would return the next day and that he'd not be able to stay strong but would beg her to let him be hers. He knew that the combination of her stultifying work and her worry for her sister and her friends left her vulnerable, and feared he wouldn't be able to resist playing on her sympathy. I have to manage to do what's right at least once in my sodding life.

But it was Dawn whose anxious but smiling face he saw not long after waking.

"I brought you some flowers, but they said I couldn't bring them into the intensive care rooms. So the nurses have them at the desk."

"Thank you, Dawn," he said, and meant it. "No one's ever brought me flowers before."

She just stood for a while and looked at him with huge eyes, until finally working up the courage to ask the question that had been bothering her for days. "What did she mean, when she said you liked her to punish you?"

Spike closed his eyes. "Some things aren't meant for young ears, Little Bit," he sighed. "Let it go." It wasn't ever as much as I deserved, in any case. I should know. The punishment you do to yourself is always the most destructive.

"Buffy said you wanted to kill yourself, that you still wanted to die." She stared at him, pleading wordlessly for him to tell her that it wasn't true, that her sister had been mistaken. He couldn't answer her, and looked away.

"Buffy said that when she found you, you'd drunk Allie's blood so you'd be a vampire again and she'd have to stake you."

"Buffy's said entirely too damn much," he replied hotly.

She threw herself against his chest, sobbing, and his arms came up around her to hold her soothingly. He silently cursed the IV lines and sensor wires that trailed from his arms as he tried to stroke her hair. "You were going to leave me! You promised Buffy you'd always protect me!"

He gently lifted her away from him so he could see her face. "It was because of me that Allie nearly killed you; because I didn't stop her when I first found she'd been turned. That's hardly protecting you," he said, brushing her tears away with one thumb.

Dawn refused to listen. "What about all the times you looked out for me when Buffy was gone? Or when I--" her voice was near breaking.

Tears of his own now squeezed from under his tightly closed eyelids; droplets of molten lead that seared his skin. "I can't be what you want me to be. I'm not that strong. I never was."

Dawn's face crumpled further. "I hate you!" she cried, pounding at his chest and abandoning any semblance of the poise she'd always tried so hard to cultivate to seem older than her sixteen years. "I hate you!"

Alarms on the monitors brought nurses running.

**********

After a few days, they moved him to a standard ward room of four beds, of which two were momentarily unoccupied. The medical staff had expressed some surprise at the speed with which he was healing, but were still grateful for the opportunity to make more room in the ICU.

Neither Buffy nor Dawn had returned since their first abortive visits, and he let himself settle into the mindless routine of hospital care. Sleep was no refuge for him; most days found him flipping aimlessly through magazines left by aggressively cheerful hospital volunteers, taking in only one word in five.

Willow's appearance in the doorway promised a welcome distraction, even if only for a few minutes. She entered, and pulled the privacy curtain around his bed to shield them from the potentially prying eyes of his lone roommate, currently asleep and snoring noisily.

"You're scaring Buffy, you know," she said without preamble.

Not wanting to face more well-intentioned probing into his mental state, Spike took refuge in sarcasm. "Am I going to get the full-on Scooby presence, now that I'm almost mended? Who's next? Giles? Harris? To what do I owe the singular honour?"

Willow shifted immediately into a take-no-prisoners mode. "How about to the fact that you're treating people who care about you like shit? Good enough reason for you?"

He sneered. "I thought I could come to terms with all the horrors I'd committed as a vampire. Make some peace. But then I...No one knows what it feels like, to have done what I've done - as a man - and still live."

"You mean how you don't know if you're going to cry, or scream, or throw up - or maybe all three at once?" He looked up at her, belated awareness of with whom he was speaking dawning in his downcast eyes. "I won't tell you to snap out of it, if you won't tell me I can't possibly understand," she said. "Deal?"

Willow pulled up one of the room's extra chairs beside the bed and settled herself comfortably into it. "You came and told me things that I didn't want to hear, but desperately needed to. I'm just here to return the favour. Or maybe I'm just here to keep you company while you talk. You decide."

To his mingled surprise and relief, Spike found himself letting the whole sorry story about his life of the past year spill from his lips. He grew hoarse in the retelling, and Willow filled a cup with water for him, and held the bent straw to his lips while he drank.

She listened without comment, but her eyes widened with shock and her face paled at some of what she heard. When he described his assault on Tonio, she winced. And when he told her what he had had to do to Allie, her eyes misted in empathy. It had been seven years since Xander had told her what he'd done to Jesse, but she still remembered every word, and the pain in his voice.

"I'm sorry. I can't imagine how awful you must have felt." Willow chose her following words with extreme care. "But did you ever think that maybe you were using her? You thought because you paid her she'd always be there for you, and you wouldn't have to try to find someone who could care about you for yourself."

He frowned, clearly never having looked at it from that angle.

"I mean... I know you cared about her, but... She'd almost always do what you wanted, because you paid her. You didn't have to risk yourself at all, trying to find someone to care about you in return. She was safe."

"Who gave you the right to criticize my relationships?"

"Relationship?" she said incredulously. "She was a prostitute, Spike. You had to pay her to sleep with you."

He turned his face away on the pillow. "It's easy to just say 'she was a prostitute', or 'she was a vampire'. I may only have gotten what I paid for, but it was mine. I did care about her. I loved her - as her friend. And ultimately, I failed her. As a vampire, she became an abomination, taking everything I told her, everything we'd shared and turning it inside out. Dragged everything into muck and filth. No one sees past that; no one remembers her for anything else.

"But I'm the only one, now, who knew the woman. She was lonely, and scared sometimes - which she hid with cruel words to keep people away - but she could have been so much more than she was. I could see it, there behind her eyes. Maybe if I'd had longer to tell her I believed in her.

"When she was eleven years old, her uncle raped her." Willow's eyes closed in sympathy, and Spike went on. "And then he took her for ice cream. Told her she was his sweet, pretty whore - and that she'd never amount to much else. Told her enough times, and she believed it. Her father - the drunken sot - said she must have asked for it, the way she dressed." He rubbed at his face wearily. "How could I fix something like that?"

"You can't. It's something she would have had to do for herself."

"I had to try. But if she'd known what I did to Tonio on her behalf, her only thought would have been that another man was trying to interfere in her life. And it was all for nothing in the end. Even if she'd lived, I'd still have to pay for what I'd done."

Willow surveyed his injuries with a critical eye. "Seems to me like you already are."

"This?" His laugh held no trace of humour. "This is nothing."

A nurse entered the room bearing a tray of medications and diverted their attention. "I'm sorry dear," she said to Willow. "Visiting hours are over for the day. You can come back and seem him tomorrow, if you like." She bustled professionally about the room, making further private conversation impossible in any case.

Willow levered herself up out of her chair and turned to go, then hesitated. "I know how it feels to want to make yourself pay. I'm keeping the geas," she admitted.

He nodded understanding. "Will you come back tomorrow? There's something I'd like you to find out for me. And... it's good to have someone to talk to."

She agreed, smiling to acknowledge receipt of his unspoken apology, and left. Spike accepted his allotment of pills from the nurse, swallowed them under her watchful eye, and closed his eyes to begin the wait.

**********

"I hate this place," Willow said conversationally the next day as she entered his room. "Hospitals have this... smell, you know? You just can't get used to it."

"I'm sorry. If I'd known, I'd not have asked you to come back." He pushed his tray table aside to make more room for her.

"It's all right. Having something to complain about is almost as good a distraction as researching, at least for a little while. I've got my laptop, so I thought I'd come by and-- Oooh... is that strawberry Jell-O?" she asked, catching sight of his lunch, barely touched on his table.

A weak smile tugged at his mouth. "Knock yourself out, Red."

Willow took the dish and settled cross-legged on the end of Spike's bed. "So," she began, after a large mouthful, "you want me to look something up for you."

"I want to know if there's an official police record of my... assault on Tonio."

"That's simple enough." Willow reached into the bag at her side and pulled out her laptop and a phone cord. "I'll just plug in and see what's the what."

"Didn't pay for a phone," Spike observed, as Willow hooked her computer to the room's phone jack.

"Oh, that doesn't matter," she replied. "A little tweak here, and... there!" She settled back onto the bed at his feet, tucked the wings of her hair securely behind her ears again, and began typing in earnest. "Just have to access some of the police files."

Spike reflected that it didn't take magic to make Willow one of the most dangerous people in the world, and that it was a very good thing she didn't realize it. In only minutes she had found what she wanted.

"Here he is. Tonio - Antonio Vigna. Hmm. He's got quite the record: assault; racketeering; pandering... But there's no record of a recent assault on him. He never reported it. Must have thought it was some rival challenging him for territory. And the injuries reported at the autopsy match those that Allie inflicted, before she killed him, not... what you did. You're in the clear."

"Never that," he replied darkly.

"Spike," she said gently. "I'm not in jail either, though I should be. What would they do - lock us up because we said we'd done something? There will never be that much room in prison. We'll still pay, both of us, because we can't live with ourselves unless we do. But maybe we have to find a way to pay it forward to the people who are still living."

He frowned, an idea forming in the back of his brain. "There's something else I'd like you to check out for me, Red. Something about the blood."

"What is it?"

"Somewhere in the industrial district, probably near Desperados, there's a warehouse that's a base for the theft ring - and more, if I'm right. See if you can find anything, any records that don't quite gel, something to help me locate them."

"Oh, that narrows it down a lot. Could you possibly be less helpful?"

"Don't snark, Red. It doesn't suit you. And lack of information's never held you back before."

"Well..." She nodded, in spite of herself. "Okay. I'll see what I can do."

"When you do find something, don't tell Buffy. Come straight to me."

"You shouldn't keep her out of this, you know." But some part of her thrilled to the secret, and to the fact that Spike simply assumed that she'd be able to do what he had asked.

"Just call it my reason to go on, then. Something I have to do for myself - and for Allie."

Willow nodded. That was something she could understand.

Chapter 26:

----------------

Picking up the Pieces

"I need to know everything about Spike's history," Buffy demanded without preamble when Giles opened the door early in the morning. "Tell me what you know, or find me the right Watcher's diary or dusty old tome."

Giles cinched the belt of his dressing gown more securely around his waist. "Are you certain? It doesn't make for pleasant reading."

"I'll bet. But I have to know, when I ask him, if he's telling me the truth. I don't want any more secrets."

**********

"Are you finding what you had hoped?"

Buffy looked up and nodded absent thanks when Giles set the steaming cup of tea on the table by her side. She closed the book with a sigh. "You know, five years ago if you'd asked me, I'd have had no trouble at all telling apart the man from the vampire. 'Not the man, but the thing that killed him,' just like you told me."

He settled in to the chair opposite her. "Angel and Angelus certainly provided an object lesson in that regard."

"No kidding. But now with Spike, it seems completely different. Or maybe I should say that almost nothing is different. He's a little sadder, a little less cocky - but he's still Spike. Only more so, if you see what I mean. And then I sit here and I read about the carnage he left behind him and I wonder... if he hasn't really changed all that much, then how do I... how can we ever manage to put it behind us?"

Giles weighed his words carefully. "You've decided that 'we' is something wise to pursue? You and Spike, together?"

"It was all really clear once. I knew that when the end came all I would have would be myself. Maybe that's why Faith and I could never connect - we weren't even supposed to even exist at the same time. One of those weird science ideas that Dawn and Willow like so well, about how two objects can't be in the same space... or something." She shrugged.

"It helped, when my friends, and even my mom, found out that I was the Slayer. I had all of you, and you loved me, and it made me stronger. Gave me a better reason to keep fighting. But no matter how much I talked about it to Willow, or how much my mom tried to be the best and most supportive Slayer's mom ever, no one ever really knew how lonely it was. But Spike knows. More now than ever before.

"Underneath it all, nothing's really changed. I still have that expiration date," she said bluntly. "But maybe... I won't have to be alone. And neither will he."

He had been so certain, when he had returned to England last year, that what Buffy needed was to learn to make decisions for herself. How could he complain, now that she was doing just that, for all that it scared him so?

"You're the Slayer, Buffy, and a grown woman. I shouldn't be the one to tell you what to do anymore. Not that I ever was able to," he added wryly.

She smiled. "I'm sorry that I wasn't always - okay, ever - the model Slayer for you. I never really did get into the whole 'following orders' thing. Probably got you loads of demerit points with the Council."

"I think that perhaps blind obedience is greatly overrated. You were everything a Watcher... that I could ever have hoped for. And more." So much so that even a vampire would deny his basic nature and change for you.

"So, as my friend, and not my Watcher - who I never listened to anyway - what should I do about Spike?"

"I suppose that depends very much on what you truly feel for him, Buffy." He removed his glasses and looked down at her tenderly. "I won't interfere any more in what you choose. I should have known, from all our experience together, that your heart will lead you to places that logic would never dare - and we're often the better for it. While you have the chance, make the choice that will make you happy."

**********

All four men looked up as the visitor entered, but three of them soon turned away to other distractions.

"Good morning, Spike," Giles said evenly.

"Name something good about it," he retorted sourly.

"You've lost none of your special charm, I see. And yet you still have a clutch of admirers." He nodded towards the ledge where Dawn's flowers had been joined by several other bouquets from his coworkers at Desperados. Corey had come with awkward sympathy, and Tina with cautious smiles. Jake had been his usual booming self. Spike thought he must have been sufficiently surly because Jake was the only one to come by more than once - to tell him that both the staff and many customers were taking up a collection to help defray his medical expenses, which only added to his shame.

"Where's Red?" he demanded, annoyed that Giles had so easily made him remember what he'd rather forget. "She's the only person I'm interested in seeing today."

"I've asked Willow to remain outside for a moment. There is something I wish to discuss with you."

"Why? You planning on going slumming, Rupes?"

"You play the part of the fool well, Spike. But I don't believe it any more. You told me yourself what you feel for Buffy, and Willow has told me some of what you did for her. There's a great depth to you that you've been hiding from us." He took a moment to remove and polish his glasses. He probably wasn't even aware he did so anymore, it had become simply an unconscious technique for focussing his thoughts.

Giles replaced his glasses securely on the bridge of his nose and continued. "Knowing what I do of your history, I suspect your education may rival mine. Your Greek and Latin are likely better, and you've shown that you understand and speak a number of demonic tongues as well. And no matter how dissolute your last century, you can't have helped but pick up lifetimes of experience in a variety of areas."

"This is all very flattering, Rupert, but do get to the point," Spike complained. "I've got things to do."

Giles settled himself into the chair at his bedside. "I have something of a proposal to put to you."

"A modest proposal? Best make it swift, then."

Giles returned him only a pained look. "Waste of a good education," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm sure that you knew that I had resigned as Buffy's Watcher and returned to England. While I am still convinced that I made the choice that was best for her, it damaged the trust we once had between us. There's been a certain hesitancy at times when I..."

"I've taught her everything that I could, but she will still be much more likely to survive if there is someone in her life whose skills complement her own. Someone who will care about her welfare as deeply as I do, and who will help prepare her for what she may have to face. Someone she trusts. In short, she still needs a Watcher, and I believe that you may be the one who would best serve her in that capacity."

Spike was aghast. Whatever he might have expected, this was not it. "Me? A Watcher? Bloody hell, Rupert, you're off your chump."

"Yes, well... she'll take your advice; she won't take mine any more. And I believe you'll never abandon her." He looked away for a moment. "I may even be able to convince the Council that a small stipend is in order - just a pittance, I'm afraid, since you don't really possess any formal training. But given your, ah, extensive field experience..."

"Will wonders never cease. There's only one thing wrong with your plan."

"And that is?"

"I am abandoning her. One last thing I can do for her, and then I'll be gone."

"I don't understand--" Giles stammered. This was not the same man who had confronted him at Buffy's house, declaring that he would rather die than live in a world without her.

"No, you don't," Spike agreed maddeningly. "Now get the hell out and let me see Willow."

**********

"I am so sorry." Willow surveyed the four faces turned to her, one by one. Dawn was hesitant, Xander forgiving, Anya suspicious and Buffy... inscrutable. She pressed on. "Sorry about everything that happened last year."

"You don't have to apologize to us, Will," Xander protested.

"Yes she does," Anya insisted. "That's the least she has to do."

"Yes, I do," Willow agreed before Xander could take issue with his demon girlfriend yet again. "Xander, even if you don't need to have me apologize, it's still something I need to do, a step I have to take for myself. And Anya's right. It is the very least I can do, and it will never come close to being enough for the things I did."

Anya settled back in her chair, mollified.

Willow turned to Buffy. "I think you're the one I've hurt the most."

Reflex made Buffy shake her head, but Willow wasn't going to let her give in that easily.

"All I knew is that I was hurting, and I had the power to do something about it. I didn't want to think about where you might have gone; I just convinced the others that you were trapped in some hell dimension and that we had to bring you out. I never thought what it would do to you. " She looked down for a moment, before continuing. "And I still can't say that I'm sorry you're not dead - but I am sorry I put you through hell after I brought you back."

"I'm not sorry to be here, Will. Not anymore. However it happened."

"I was selfish. It's not a very nice thing to learn about yourself."

"Everyone is selfish," Anya said. "Just not everyone has the power to indulge themselves. That's why so many people make wishes. And not even just vengeance ones. All sorts."

"Sometimes I think that the only people who should be given power are the ones who don't want it," Dawn said.

"That's ridiculous," Anya retorted. "Everyone wants power. Look at Buffy." Everyone did, of course, and Buffy frowned. "You can't tell me that she'd go back to being who she was before she was the Slayer."

"I so would," Buffy exclaimed hotly. "You have no idea what it's like--"

"You'd still be in LA; you'd never have moved to Sunnydale." Anya ticked off points on her fingers. "You wouldn't have met Willow or Xander..."

Buffy took up the count in her mind. Or Angel. Or Giles. My parents wouldn't have divorced - but I'd still be an only child. She slid her hand over Dawn's where it lay next to hers on the couch and laced their fingers together, then gave her sister what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Dawn squeezed her fingers in return.

I'd never have met Spike. I'd never have seen him undergo such heart-stopping changes, trying to become a better man. I never would have... Her mind shied away from completing that thought.

"You're right," Buffy acquiesced. "If I really take the time to think about it, I wouldn't change anything. I've been able to make a difference here, and there are too many things in this world I'm grateful for to want to go back to what I was before. I wouldn't be the same person if I weren't the Slayer - and I think I like the person that I am."

"You've learned the Peter Parker lesson," Anya observed with satisfaction.

"The what?" Buffy raised her eyebrows. Xander just sighed; he knew what was coming.

"You know... 'With great power comes great responsibility.' He doesn't look for a way to get rid of his powers, because he knows what good he can do with them. Of course, this means that his life is all angst and drama as a result, suitable for multi-episode story arcs."

"Anya, that's not..." Xander began. "Actually... that's a pretty good analogy."

She beamed at his approval, and at finally feeling as though she were making a useful contribution to a Scooby meeting.

"Angst and drama," Buffy mused. "That certainly describes all our lives, doesn't it?"

"Oh, I didn't mean Willow," Anya explained blithely. "She was more Dark Phoenix than Spiderman."

"Hey! What about you?" Willow protested. "I haven't seen you being all responsible with your power."

"I'm a demon. There are different rules."

"That must be convenient," Dawn said sarcastically.

"Oh, it is," Anya agreed, glad she was being clearly understood. "Very much so. But you all see my point: Buffy wouldn't give up her power that made her life what it is. And especially not now that she's in love with Spike."

There was dead silence except for the sounds of rustling fabric and creaking seat springs as everyone turned to look at Buffy. Again. The colour drained from her face. I'm not ready for this...

"Do you love him?" Willow asked her gently. "Because it's okay if you love him. It's not up to us to decide."

Buffy took a deep breath. "When I was with Angel, I gave him my heart and soul. It nearly destroyed me when I had to send him to hell - and then killed something in me when he came back, and we couldn't be together and he left. I'll never love anyone the way I loved Angel."

"Spike isn't Angel," Dawn observed quietly. "You can love him like Spike."

Buffy went on as though she hadn't heard. "But although I know he loved me - still loves me - with all his heart and soul, he never really needed me the way I needed him. That was why he could leave me. That was why he didn't understand how much it hurt when he told me I should have a normal life. What did I care about normal? I wanted him."

Wordlessly, Dawn handed her a tissue to blot the tears she hadn't realized had pooled in her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.

"Then when I met Riley, I remember thinking that Angel would have to be happy for me because I had found someone normal that I could love. But this time, no matter how hard I tried to love him - and I did love him - I didn't need him. And he knew it."

"But you need Spike?" Anya asked, wishing that Buffy would finally get to the point. "And you love him?"

"He's never lied to me," Buffy said, sidestepping the question. "Not once. And if I'm being a bitch, he'll tell me as much to my face without mincing words."

"Honesty's a good trait in a man," Anya observed. "More men should be like that. But not about our hair. Or our weight. Or--"

"Buffy needs us to listen now, Ahn, not offer opinions," Xander interrupted, taking her at her word.

Buffy smiled weakly at him. "I trust him. And I can't imagine now what my life would be like if he hadn't been in it. Is that love? I don't know. It's... harder than it was before, to figure that out. But I know that he needs me, and I... I need him too. It's like he completes a part of me that I didn't even know was missing, but now I can't live without."

"Then you should go after him, Buffy, if he's the one who will make you happy now," Xander said.

"Why is it that you can offer an opinion on Buffy's love life, but I can't?" Anya queried irately. "Is your opinion more valuable than mine? Is it because I'm not human? And I thought you didn't like Spike, anyway."

"Yeah, what's made you so willing to take Spike's side in this, Xander?" Willow asked, trying to defuse the incipient argument, and honestly curious as to the reason for the about-face in his attitude towards vampires - or in this case, an ex-vampire. More specifically, she thought, in his attitude toward Buffy dating anyone not him, vampire or not.

Xander shrugged sheepishly. "I never liked Angel. I mean, we all know how dangerous he can be when his soul's gone. And I suppose it was really mostly because of jealousy that Buffy would choose him and not me." He patted Anya's hand absently, lost in memory, as though to reassure her it was all in the past. "But I've grown up a bit since then, and if I'm going to be fair then I have to admit I admire what Angel's chosen to do in LA. When he's cursed with his soul, he finally gets around to doing some good with it. He's playing the cards he was dealt." He took a deep breath, struggling for words to explain the contradictory emotions inside. "But Spike wasn't cursed. He... he bullied the dealer into giving him a new hand. A better hand. And he never gives up." He looked at Anya, as though trying to tell her that he wouldn't be giving up any time soon either. Soothed by his clear devotion, she relaxed against him, snuggling in closely.

"Until now." Buffy's voice was tired, and she felt far older than her twenty one years - no, twenty two now, because hadn't another birthday slipped by unnoticed in the chaos that was her life? "You should have heard him, denying that he ever cared about me, trying to make me leave. It's like he's trying to turn himself inside out, and it hurts so much just to see it. That's why I haven't been able to go back to see him," she admitted, shamefaced.

"Buffy, if you love him... you have to tell him," Willow said. "Maybe that's the only thing that can help him now. Make him believe you." She looked over at Xander with a soul-deep love in her own eyes. "Because that's the only thing that reached me, when I needed it."

***********

Buffy approached the door to the room Spike shared with some trepidation. She had rehearsed with Willow and Dawn some of the things she might say to him, but none of them, herself included, had felt they would be able to predict his likely responses. Taking a deep breath, Buffy pushed open the door. "Spike?"

Spike's bed was empty, the sheets in disarray. She thought that he might have been taken away for therapy or something, until she saw the meal tray sitting untouched on his side table. A small unconscious frown creased her features. Buffy moved further into the room, looking carefully at the other occupied beds. I'm sure I have the right room...

Another idea occurred to her, and she tapped on the closed door to the bathroom. "Spike? It's Buffy. I need to talk to you."

The door opened suddenly, startling her. "He's not here," said the dark bearded face that appeared in the opening. "He took off."

"What?" she gasped. "When?"

"Prob'ly after lunch. Leastways, I ain't seen him since then." The man - clearly another patient in his thin cotton hospital gown and robe - walked past her, settled back into his own bed and turned on his television. "That's all I know, sister." He shrugged apologetically, and then let his attention be absorbed again by quality programming likely involving car chases and explosions. Or possibly women bouncing on trampolines.

A sound at the door made Buffy turn. A nurse entered with a tray of medications for the room's occupants and nodded pleasantly in greeting. She handed out the paper cups of pills to the other patients, but when she took in the state of Spike's bed, she set the tray down, and pulled back the rumpled sheets to reveal concealed IV baggies and assorted tubes and needles.

"Where's Mr. Summers?"

A small twinge of fear twisted Buffy's gut. "That's what I was going to ask you."

"And you are?"

"Buffy Summers. Ah... his wife."

"I don't remember meeting you." Her disapproval was clear from her tone.

She looked Buffy over sharply. "Mrs. Summers, we really must protest. Your husband is in no condition for you to remove him from the hospital."

For the second time in minutes, Buffy was stunned nearly speechless. "What? I didn't--"

"You must understand that doing so is completely against medical advice, and the hospital and staff can't be held responsible for complications in his condition." Her fear was obvious.

Buffy stared her down. "I did not take him out of here... Linda," she read from the woman's nametag. "Anything that happens to him is your responsibility - he could have vanished hours ago, and you've only just noticed it now?"

"He was always so quiet... and we've been so busy..." Realizing that this argument wasn't going to win her any points with Buffy, Linda turned instead to inspect Spike's bed again. "He pulled out the IVs, the catheter - everything - and just walked out, from the looks of things."

Buffy's stomach fluttered at the thought of what that might have involved, and covered the feeling with anger. "He's barely able to walk yet. Isn't that what you just told me?"

"I assumed that you--"

"Well, I didn't. Can't you find him?"

"I'll call security. He shouldn't even be out of bed."

With Linda gone, Buffy inspected Spike's bed, table and locker for any clues to his whereabouts. In the bottom of the locker, she found a small folded plastic bag labelled 'patient personal effects'. Clearly it had lain there untouched since he had been transferred into the room. She rummaged through his meagre belongings, at a loss for what to do next. She picked out a wallet and flipped absently through it until something caught her eye. When did Spike ever care if he had a driver's licence? Or even a wallet...? I suppose if he needed it for some scam... Looking at it more closely, she only grew more puzzled. His name was listed as William Summers, and the home address shown was her own. More inspection of the wallet revealed further mysteries, such as the resident alien's green card and a months-old paycheque stub from Desperados made out in the false name Dawn had given for him only a week before.

Her attention was diverted from this new puzzle by the sound of Linda's urgent voice on the hospital PA calling security to the floor, and realized that the last thing she needed right now was to get further tangled up in hospital bureaucracy. She headed for the stairs and the payphones in the hospital entrance. If he has as much of a head start as I'm afraid of, hospital security isn't going to be enough. I need help.

It took her a few moments to put together enough change for the phone, but then her fingers dialled the old familiar number without conscious thought.

"Hello?"

"Xander, Spike's disappeared from the hospital; no one knows where he is. Can you pick up Willow and meet me at--"

"No." Xander knew exactly what Buffy's shocked expression would be, as though it had traveled to him straight down the telephone line.

"What--?" was all she managed.

"I'm sorry Buffy, but this time I can't," he went on. "Anya's here. She's in pretty bad shape right now, because we've just had a visit from D'Hoffryn and some of his goons. I guess the last wish she granted didn't go over too well with the boss - he's revoked her powers again. To make it worse, he's also threatened to have her killed if she so much as thinks of trying to contact him again."

He tried hard to keep his voice gentle. "Buffy, you know I love you - and if it meant the end of the world then I'd be the first one there by your side. But Anya needs me right now - like maybe Spike needs you - and if I really want this to work, I've got to be here for her. She's got to know she's number one in my life."

Buffy leaned her forehead against the cool plaster of the wall and closed her eyes. "I understand, Xander. Really, I do. I hope... good luck to you both. If there's anything I can... if there's anything you need slayed... call me, okay?"

The relief in Xander's voice was palpable. "You know I will. And Buffy?" He concentrated carefully so he wouldn't begin his next sentence with 'if'. "When you find him, don't let him go again. Do what you have to do. Make it right."

Buffy couldn't answer. She made a sound that she hoped he would take as 'goodbye' and hung up the phone.

After several deep breaths - and another frantic search for coins - she picked up the handset again and dialled Willow's number. When her friend answered, she wasted no time. "Willow, Spike's missing. I think he left the hospital some time after lunch, and I need your help to find him."

Willow was silent for so long that Buffy was afraid something was wrong with the phone. "Willow? Are you still there?"

"Buffy... I think I know where he's gone."

She sagged against the wall in relief.

"We'll be there in ten minutes."

**********

Buffy was so busy looking for Giles's nondescript rental car that she didn't notice her own mother's SUV pulling up - she still couldn't think of it as hers - until the horn beeped for her attention. Peering in through the tinted glass, she was astonished to see Dawn behind the wheel, with Willow belted into the passenger seat. Frowning, she pulled open the rear door and wedged the bag with Spike's personal effects in beside the satchel of assorted weapons on the back seat, and climbed in herself.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy demanded as Dawn pulled away abruptly from the curb. "And when did you get your licence?"

"I didn't," Dawn confessed with a grin, ignoring her sister's dark look. "But I did take driver's ed this year," she went on earnestly.

"Yeah, Buffy, Dawn's a great driver," Willow insisted, though Buffy looked scandalized at this mutinous show of support for her little sister. "Besides, licence or not, no reasonable person should ever have to be a passenger with you."

Buffy finally had to let her face crack into a smile as the two of them giggled. At least things seemed to have thawed between them.

"And I can help you out if there's a fight, too. Spike taught me a lot of stuff, and I've been practicing every day." Dawn caught Buffy's gaze in the mirror, and braced herself for the automatic rejection of her offer. To her surprise, her sister only nodded.

The mention of Spike's name had thrown cold water on Buffy's emotions again. "If we find him. Will, you said you knew where he went?"

When she turned in her seat to face Buffy, Willow's face was troubled. "When I saw him this morning, I had information for him on a possible location for the vampires involved with the blood bank robberies."

"And you didn't tell me?" Buffy protested. "Will--"

"Spike asked me not to. He said that it was something he needed to do for himself. His reason to go on living." I couldn't take that away from him.

"He'll be too weak to defend himself properly, and he's probably headed into the midst of a nest of vampires." She had a sudden terrible insight, as though she could clearly see all of Spike's motivations laid out bare before her. "He meant something he could do to himself. He's not looking for a reason to live - he's trying to find another way to die."

The truck lurched as it picked up speed, but no one commented.

"So, is Xander meeting us there?" Dawn asked. "If we're picking him up, I need to turn up ahead."

"No. It's just us on this one." Buffy filled them in on her earlier conversation.

Dawn's lips pursed in a silent whistle. "Wow. Good for Xander."

Willow nodded. "Yeah. But his timing stinks."

Strained laughter diverted their thoughts for only a moment. Searching for a new distraction so she didn't have to let her mind dwell on what they might find when they located Spike, Buffy pulled his wallet from the bag on the seat beside her. "What do you make of this?" she asked, holding out the faux driver's licence to Willow.

"Nice picture?" Willow took it and read out the name and address in a wondering voice, turning it over in her hands. "I guess we have another mystery on our hands."

Dawn had paled as soon as Willow had started reading. "Um," she ventured, wondering just how she was going to talk her way out of this one. "That one I can explain..."

**********

Dawn brought the vehicle to a halt outside a nondescript warehouse with only one tire up on the curb. Buffy climbed out first and looked it up and down. "Are you sure this is the place, Will? 'Cause it looks kinda non-headquarters-y."

Willow joined her on the sidewalk. "I checked everything on this place: deliveries, shipments, utility payments - you name it. Too many things didn't add up for it to be a legitimate business."

"It does seem awfully quiet for being the centre of vampire activity, though," Dawn said as she came around the front of the truck, Buffy's bag of weapons over her shoulder.

Willow looked uncertain. "Well... whether or not there actually are vampires here, this is the address I gave to Spike. So that makes it the best place to start looking for him."

"Right." Buffy rummaged in the bag that Dawn held open before her to retrieve a couple of stakes, which she tucked into her waistband. Dawn armed herself in turn with more stakes, but added a pistol crossbow and a quiver of bolts for it that she strapped to her forearm.

When Willow went to pick out something for herself, Buffy laid a hand on her arm. "You don't have to come with us, Will."

"Hey," Willow protested. "Let me remind you that even before the big magic, Xander and Cordy and I patrolled together. We did a good job, too."

"I remember," Buffy said fondly. "You dusted six out of ten on average, right? I just want you to be sure."

"I am sure. Don't make me pull out my resolve face..."

Buffy made no more protest. With her in the lead the trio approached the doors. They opened outward to reveal a small reception area, complete with desks and cabinets, but no sign of life. A glass-walled private office took up one corner of the room, and double swinging doors presumably led to the warehouse space that made up the bulk of the building.

"Hello?" Buffy ventured quietly as they entered. When there was no response, they readied their weapons and moved in. Buffy peered over the counter that ran the width of the space. "This is the place, alright," she said.

"You can feel vampires in here?" Dawn asked.

"Don't have to," Buffy replied, pointing at something behind the counter. "Look." She could feel it now though, a subsonic buzz that settled like an ache into her bones. Vampires. A lot of them.

A man in a lab coat lay sprawled face-up and unconscious on the floor behind the counter. Wire-rim glasses hung askew from one ear, and blood trickled slowly from his nose and the large and very painful-looking lump at his temple.

Willow was at the man's side in a moment, fingers reaching for his throat. "He's human, and he's still alive," she reported. "Buffy, he's still bleeding. That means this couldn't have happened more than about ten minutes ago."

"Nice to know we're not too late for the party," Buffy observed dryly. "Will, do what you can for him and call 9-1-1. Dawn and I will check out the back." Despite her earlier protests of wanting to be involved, Willow looked relieved.

Buffy eased open one of the large doors and peered into the dim warehouse. Nothing visible moved within.

Dawn manoeuvred to look in over Buffy's head. "Do you think we should scout around from up there first?" she asked, referring to a set of stairs just inside the doors leading to a catwalk around the perimeter of the building. A loud splintering crash resonated throughout the space before Buffy could reply.

"Oh yeah. Because Spike's always been known for his stealth," she sighed, when the echoes had died away. "Let's move. But stay behind me."

They came around the corner into a scene out of hell. The warehouse lights were dimmed because much of the power had been diverted to the dozens of commercial refrigeration units lining the walls, stacked high with plastic baggies of presumably human blood that glowed like rubies in the gloom. Weak light from the refrigerators, filtered by the blood, cast a lurid pall over the figures before them.

Spike stood unsteadily in the open space, challenged by three vampires while a dozen or more grinned down in anticipation from their various perches on shelves and walkways overhead. From somewhere he had obtained a sword, which he held upright before him, pale light shivering along its length as his hands trembled. He was stained crimson from his neck to his knees, and he stood in a lake of blood spilled out from a glass-fronted case that now lay overturned and shattered.

A bowstring thrummed behind her, and Buffy saw one of the vampires facing Spike explode into dust. She looked back over her shoulder to see Dawn calmly loading another bolt into the crossbow.

"Well, you said there wasn't much point in stealth any more," she said defensively, in response to Buffy's sharp glance.

"I didn't mean us," she hissed in exasperation, then turned back to attack. Spike had taken advantage of the distraction to strike at the two remaining vampires directly in front of him, taking both heads off with a single clean stroke. Untold more poured down from the walls.

Everything descended into red-tinged chaos after that.

Buffy's focus narrowed until her entire world contained only the smooth rise and fall of the stake in her hand - twist and bend and strike, then recover to strike again and again. The sound of her own quickening breaths and the stamp and shuffle of feet filled her ears. She was dimly aware that Spike had fallen under the onslaught, his sword skittering away across the floor. But before she could do more than start towards him, he'd thrown one off of him and at least ten feet across the room with a well-placed kick. He kicked out back to his feet, knocking down a second with a wild swing, and then he reached over the head of a third, jammed his fingers into its mouth and tore the head away from the body entirely.

Some part of her brain found time to register this anomalous strength, but all she did was toss him her second stake, saying "Here. It's easier."

Behind her, Dawn continued methodically reloading and firing until her supply of bolts finally ran out. She dove and rolled across the dusty floor in an effort to get to Spike's lost sword. Just as she reached it, a vampire caught her, tangling one hand in her hair and raking at her face with the other. She spun, adding the force of its pull to her own movement. The vampire didn't even have time to look surprised as its head parted company with its neck.

Almost as suddenly as the battle had begun, it was over, and the three of them stared bemusedly at one another through the ash-hazed air.

Dawn leaned on the crosspiece of the sword that was balanced point down between her feet. She looked for all the world like a valkyrie, Buffy decided, with her long hair wild about her shoulders and blood from a gash on her forehead streaming down her face to drip from her chin.

"What?" Dawn asked sharply, seeing her sister's gaze resting on her. "I told you I've been practicing." For all her bravado, her voice trembled.

"Why am I still alive? I wasn't supposed to be alive." Buffy tore her eyes away from her sister in time to see Spike collapse to his knees, his hands fisting in his hair and streaking the dark and light strands with bright gore. "What have you done to me?" he raged, bowed over on the dusty floor.

"I don't know," Buffy whispered. I let you love me, and just see what it's done...

She went to her own knees before him then, taking his wrists in a firm grip and pulling his hands away before they could crook into claws and tear at his face. He offered no resistance. Releasing him, she tore his blood-soaked shirt in two from neck to hem, and then ran her hands over him frantically searching for the source of the bleeding.

"It's not mine," he said, with a disturbing sound somewhere between a manic giggle and a sob. "Not a scratch."

She'd just seen him take the most appalling beating, but apparently he wasn't even bruised. His heart pounded heavily under the hand she'd laid on his chest. Not a vampire... what are you?

"Now what?" Dawn wanted to know.

If I only knew... Buffy got up reluctantly from Spike's side, hoping that his life wouldn't be in danger - not even from himself - in the next few minutes. "Now we have a quick look around to make sure we haven't missed anything, and we call the police and report that the blood's here. Then we get the hell out of here before they arrive." She wiped as much blood from her hands onto her jeans as she could. "Come on."

Buffy and Dawn moved further into the warehouse. Instead of more shelves and the refrigeration units she had expected to see, they were surprised to find a large area left clear. The floor had been swept clean, and a giant ring of twisting symbols had been painted onto it. Buffy's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch at the sight of it, and the traces of blood on her hands grew warm. Her palms tingled as she approached. Voices whispered and muttered in her ears, and she thought that if she held her head in just the right way, she might make out what they were saying. She stepped forward - it was some sort of invitation...

"Buffy, stop! "

Willow's voice - better than a bucket of ice water over the head - snapped her back into reality, one foot poised to step into the circle. Wincing with the effort required, Buffy drew herself back from the brink.

"It's a summoning circle," Willow explained as she drew nearer. "If you had--" she bit off her words and doubled over, clutching at herself.

"Willow, what's wrong?" Dawn exclaimed, taking her arm in support.

Willow exhaled noisily. "Ooh. Just a few bad thoughts. I'm okay."

Buffy examined her friend more closely. The sleeve of her sweater was torn, and when the fabric fluttered open it revealed an angry-looking slice down her forearm.

"Surprised a pesky pint-sized demon in the inner office when I went to use the phone," she explained, seeing Buffy's concern. "It took me a little while to get rid of it." She mimed pounding motions.

"Interesting security system."

"It turned out that it was really trying to keep me from getting near the computer in there, not the phone. I've found some incredible stuff - I'll show you. Whoever was behind all of this was setting up to summon something - something really big, from the looks of that circle. I didn't have time to look for the details. The plan was to collect an enormous amount of human blood and then pour it all in at once as an offering to open the door between dimensions."

Buffy looked around the warehouse, at row upon row of tidy packages of blood, refrigerated and waiting. "All that blood..." she whispered.

"It would have been huge," Willow confirmed. "End-of-the-world huge. Or at least most of the state."

"So we actually prevented another apocalypse without even realizing it?" Dawn asked, and Willow nodded. "Cool."

Buffy smiled at her little... her not-so-little sister's enthusiasm. "That would make what now, Will? Seven? Or is it eight?"

"Depends what you count as really apocalypse-y, I suppose," Willow replied. "Glory... or me... sure. The mayor or Adam maybe not so much."

"Watch that ego there, Will." Buffy grinned. "Whichever. If it had happened, it would still have been one too many." Buffy took the sword from Dawn and swung it with all her strength at the edge of the circle. Shards of concrete flew at the impact, and she thought she heard a protesting scream deep inside her head. It faded as she continued to strike, until most of the circle's symbols were obliterated. "There. No one will be messing around with that again any time soon."

Abandoning the ruined sword, the three of them linked arms and turned towards the front of the building and the office. In the distance, they finally heard a siren wailing. "Sunnydale paramedics have impeccable timing," Buffy observed. "Let's collect Spike and get the hell out of here. They can call the police themselves, when they see this place."

When they rounded the corner again, all they saw was a set of sticky red footprints that faded away near the front door. Spike was gone.

**********

"He's strong," Buffy commented as she placed the last of the butterfly bandages across the cut on Dawn's forehead. "More than human strong, I mean."

Giles looked up from where he was performing a similar service for Willow's injured arm. "But not a vampire."

Buffy shook her head. No. I don't know. "And he only left the hospital this afternoon. According to them, he should have had trouble walking, much less fighting off a dozen vampires on his own."

"Fascinating." Giles straightened in his seat, his eyes bright with the promise of an intellectual challenge. "Let me think about it for a while."

Thinking, for Giles, always seemed to involve riffling the pages of some ponderous dusty tome, whether or not his limited travelling library contained anything relevant to the subject. Buffy left him to it and turned to cleaning up the debris of first aid they'd left scattered about the small living room of the apartment he shared with Willow.

"Shit!" Dawn exclaimed suddenly, startling them all. Three pairs of curious eyes turned her way, and she reddened. "Um... darn?"

"What is it, Dawn?" Giles inquired. "Is there something you need to add regarding the events of the day?"

"Oh no, no," she was quick to insist. "It's nothing, really." Under their insistent stares, she found herself forced to continue. "It's just that..." --she took a deep breath-- "I was supposed to meet Phil Letourneau tonight. What with all the fun we've been having, I completely forgot. "

"Phil of the algebra notes? Creepy Phil?" Buffy smiled in amusement.

"Yeah, well... he's not really that creepy, I guess," Dawn admitted. "He was going to pick me up for a movie."

"You should still go," Willow insisted. "It's important to keep your life as normal as possible, between apocalypses. Good mental health and all."

"So that's the plural of apocalypse," Buffy said thoughtfully. "I've always wondered about that."

"Do you think I should tell him I ran into a door?" Dawn asked, fingering her bandaged forehead gingerly.

Buffy grinned. "Welcome to the world of creative slaying-related excuses. You'll think of something. I'm still not sure I'm going to be able to come up with something that's going to do the trick for me. I may already be fired." Her grin slipped and she sighed heavily. "I'll worry about it tomorrow, I guess. Tonight I find Spike. Are you okay to get home alone?"

"I'll walk her home, Buffy," Willow volunteered. "It's not that far, and Giles can come and pick me up after he's done with all the thinking."

Dawn looked up, her face grave. "Buffy? When you find him... bring him home."

Buffy nodded. "I will," she promised.

**********

"Do you have anything yet?"

"Possibly. I have a theory that it might be a synergistic consequence of the combination of --"

"In English, Giles? Buffy English, not English English."

"Yes, right. Actually, it depends on your understanding of the origin of the Primal Slayer."

Buffy frowned at this non sequitur. "To know what happened to Spike, I need to know about the first Slayer? What's to know? 'One girl, in all the world, she is the chosen one,' yada, yada, yada. She was just the first one of all of us."

"There's rather more to it than that. To create the first Slayer, the men who would become the first Watchers summoned a demon. A girl was... bound... to the earth, and the demon's essence merged with hers, to give her power over other demons."

"Like rape? That's... that's just sick." Oh god, what if Spike was right all along? Does that mean I'm-- "I'm not a demon!"

"No, you're more than human, not less. But that is the source of your power, all the same. And at the moment of a Slayer's death, that essence is transferred to another girl capable of receiving it. To be a potential Slayer is to simply be strong enough to be able to hold that kind of power.

"Now consider what has happened to Spike. He was literally minutes away from death - killed by a vampire whose blood he had drunk."

"So he could be a vampire again, so that I would have to kill him." Her face was cold. "I know that part."

"And he was held by medical science just at the very moment of death, at which point his body should have become host to a demon - and given the blood of a Slayer."

Buffy's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "So he received... some of my demon? He's a... a Slayer now?"

Giles shook his head. "I don't know. Let's not forget that he also received an experimental blood substitute, of which we don't know the long-term effects, as well as blood from Dawn. And I don't believe that anything has fundamentally changed about Dawn simply because Glory was defeated. The mystical nature of the Key has never been fully understood."

"So we don't know what he is now, or what he can do."

"No. It's definitely a topic that requires in-depth research." Giles sounded very kid-in-a-candy-store about the whole prospect. "Perhaps it's only that he was a vampire, his body hosting a demon for more than a century, that gave him the ability to survive such a thing. There's a reason there are no male Slayers, after all. They aren't strong enough, in the ways a Slayer must be."

"When you figure it out, you let me know. I'm going to find him." There's just one stop I need to make on the way.

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