Life Goes On
ATVS V+ : Soon after the season ending of ATVS
Rating: R
Disclaimer:  Joss’s world, Joss’s characters, Joss’s production company, Joss’s money.  All I have is my imagination.
Distribution:  Just let me know where it goes, please.
Feedback:  Please!  Is anyone reading this stuff?
Summary: Spike survives the final battle – but things aren’t quite the same......

Life Goes On ---CHAPTER ONE

Buffy walked into the conference room at Council Headquarters and looked around at the faces.

“Whoa!  Is there an apocalypse I should know about?” she joked as everyone looked at her with solemn expressions.

Giles sighed and took his glasses off to polish them.

(Uh oh, polishing the specs -not a good sign.)

“Ok, not a joking issue then.” She said, giving her own sigh.  “So, what’s up?”

Silently her former watcher pushed a packet of papers across the table to her.  She picked it up with an eye roll and glanced at the cover.  Whatever snarky comment she had been about to make about forcing reading material on her was quashed when she saw the LA postmark.

“And this is?”

“Something you need to read before we begin our strategy session,” Giles said quietly.

“You can’t just tell me about it?”

“I would prefer you get the entire story – as much as we have of it – directly from the source in chronological order,” he said.  “And you may want to read it in private,” he added, gesturing toward the adjacent office.

“Who is this source, which did such a good job of keeping things in chronological order?” she asked, still somewhat flippantly.

“Wesley.” Giles said.  “It is Wesley’s record of the events that took place at Wolfram and Hart over the past year or so.”

“Once a Watcher, always a Watcher, I guess.  Huh, Giles?”

The older man gave a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes.  “I suppose that’s true, Buffy.  We spend a lot of years learning to observe and record our observations.  Apparently old habits die hard.”

“So, Wesley sent this to us?” she asked, turning the packet over in her hands curiously.  “Why didn’t he just call you?”

“It appears that he was quite busy toward the......lately.  And somewhat distracted by personal issues.  This is information he obviously felt it would be important for us to have.”

Buffy dropped into a chair and pulled what was clearly a journal of some sort out of the envelope.  She opened it and started reading.  Giles cleared his throat and again suggested she might want to read it in private.  She looked at him in confusion and said firmly,  “Giles, I realize there’s probably stuff about Angel in here.  Surely you know that I’m OK with whatever he’s doing now? That ship sailed a long time ago.   I can’t imagine what Wesley could possible have in here that I......”

Her voice trailed off and he could see from the way her knuckles whitened that she had caught a glimpse of Spike’s name somewhere as she flipped through the notebook.  She immediately turned back to the first page and began reading with a speed that reminded him that despite her aversion to book work, she was actually quite bright and a very good reader. 

Wesley’s journal entries appeared to begin several months after they defeated the First Evil.  He talked about the meeting in Angel’s office, the accidental knock to the floor of the mysterious envelope on Angel’s desk and then described how the screaming Spike had emerged from the amulet.  He even quoted Spike’s first gasping words, asking for Buffy.  Her eyes squeezed shut momentarily at this reminder of how she was always his first priority.  Then she opened them quickly and continued reading.  Giles could see her jaw clench and knew she had read Angel’s offhand “somewhere in Europe” reply to Spike’s asking where she was.

Giles had read the account of the events in LA several times already and found it was possible to tell where Buffy was in the story by observing her closely.  She quickly closed down her face, hiding whatever emotions were being evoked by the ex-watcher’s tale, but she couldn’t hide her body’s responses and Giles could see the mounting tension in her as she understood that Spike had actually come back in one form or another.

Suddenly she leaped to her feet and headed for the private office behind Giles, mumbling something about needing to read where it was quiet.  Since no one in the conference room had so much as breathed heavily while Buffy was reading, he knew she had come to something that was going to make it hard for her to hide her emotions from them.

Once in the smaller room, behind closed doors, Buffy dropped the emotional shields she had put up outside and allowed herself to collapse onto the floor, clutching the journal to her chest and letting the tears flow.  All the grief and loss she had been suppressing for the past year, the aching empty place in her life that Spike filled - emptiness she hadn’t know was there until he was gone, she couldn’t ignore those feelings any more.  As she read Wesley’s meticulous account of Fred’s efforts to keep Spike from slipping into hell, her jerry-rigged machine to make him corporeal again and his willingness to give it up to save her life, a more familiar emotion began to emerge. 

Suddenly her grief was replaced with a cold anger – anger at everyone at Wolfram and Hart who knew about Spike and hadn’t thought to tell her.  She was mentally preparing a stake just for Angel as she thought about his refusal to tell Spike where she was – even though she knew he knew how to reach her if he really needed to.

As she continued reading and came to the part where Spike suddenly regained his solidity, she switched her anger to him.  He could have called somebody – he could have found Giles fairly easily.  He could have asked someone there how to reach the Council.  Fred and Willow talked, Wesley knew how to reach Giles, Angel knew how find all of them.

A block of ice settled in her chest as she read about his aborted trip to Europe to find her. (Why did he change his mind?  Did/does he not want me anymore?)

When she realized that Andrew had seen and talked to him, she threw a chair against the wall causing the small blond man to leap to his feet in the other room and run out of the building very quickly.  He wasn’t completely stupid, he had a pretty good idea what was causing her temper tantrum.  Fortunately for him, as Buffy threw open the door to the conference room and glared around it looking for him just seconds after his departure. When she didn’t see him, she went back into the smaller room, slamming the door behind her and muttering what she was going to do with his various body parts.

She shuddered, as she read of the loss of Spike’s hands – those wonderful hands that had soothed her when she needed soothing and had brought her to ecstasy when she needed release.  She smothered the urge to go to Dana’s locked-down room and strangle her.

Her emotions continued to roil as she followed the events of the past year. She smiled at Wesley’s descriptions of Spike and Angel arguing like children over ridiculous things; she laughed, picturing Angel as a puppet; she smiled warmly at his developing relationship with Nina  (And that pretty much says it all about my cookies, doesn’t it?)  she thought wryly, remembering how much pain that would have brought her a few years ago.  She shook her head at the idea of Spike and Angel trying to kill each other over a cup of Mountain Dew. 

She read Wesley’s account of Spike’s explanation for not going to find her. It made her angry to think that he thought she would love him better as a dead hero than a live boyfriend; then made her heart ache again as she realized he really hadn’t believed her when she told him she loved him.  He didn’t stay away because he didn’t love her anymore. He did it because he really believed she couldn’t love him.  Once again the tears filling her eyes made it impossible to read for several minutes. 

(Ok, granted I never gave him much reason before he came back with his soul to think that I could love him.  I spent a lot of time telling him how impossible it was.  But, surely those last few months.......how could he not have seen how I felt.  Those last two nights......Oh, Spike......)

She tried to shake off the grief once again threatening to paralyze her so that she could finish the chronicle.  It was obvious that it was leading to something else besides just telling them about Spike’s reappearance and she felt a small twinge of fear as events unfolded and became grimmer and grimmer.

She cringed for Wesley as he tried to discuss Fred’s death and the subsequent emergence of Illyria dispassionately.  His heartbreak and grief bled through the clinical description of her gradual deterioration and Buffy’s eyes welled up again in sympathy for the man who had been her Watcher so briefly so many years ago.

She unconsciously sucked in her breath when it appeared that Angel was succumbing to the evil influences of Wolfram and Hart, then relaxed as the real story was revealed.  Tears of pride prickled her eyes, as Spike’s hand was the first to go up when Angel asked for volunteers to take the fight to its bitter end.  The narrative ended the day before the planned attack on the great evil conspiracy that was clearly supported by the senior partners of the law firm.  Wesley made it very clear that he was not expecting to survive the coming battle, nor did he expect anyone else to.  He was sending the record to Giles and the Council so that they would know what happened and be prepared for whatever the outcome was.

For several minutes after she finished reading Buffy sat immobile, clutching the journal to her chest and trying to sort out and deal with the emotions rolling over her in waves.  For the past year she had done her best to subdue any kind of negative emotion – she had pushed all her grief, her fears for the future, her anger at the Powers that Be for making Spike their sacrifice so deep into her psyche that she had been able to pretend they weren’t there.   The hour spent reading the events of the past year in LA had made that impossible.  In that short space of time she had gone through every bit of pain and fear that she had so successfully hidden from herself for the past year.

She felt exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time.  (Nothing like a good cry, or two or three, to get the juices flowing)  she told herself as she got up and prepared to face the group in the other room.  Since it was supposed to be a strategy sessions, she assumed there was a situation to handle.  Mentally bracing herself for what ever else she might learn today, she reached for the handle and opened the door.

All conversation ceased when she entered the room, and Giles looked at her with concern.

“Are you all right, Buffy?”  he asked carefully.  Over the past year he had gradually regained much of her respect and the affection that he used to take for granted between them.  He had tried to apologize for his part in the attempt on Spike’s life, but she had refused to discuss it and he had to settle for admitting he had been wrong about the vampire.

Wesley’s journal had made it clear exactly how wrong he had been and he found himself wishing he could apologize to Spike in person for doubting him.  He knew that his wish to be able to talk to the blond vampire was nothing compared to what Buffy was feeling.

“I’m fine,” she answered firmly.  She squared her shoulders and looked around the table.  “What do we know?”

Everyone let out the breaths they had unconsciously been holding and relaxed back into their chairs, ready to begin the meeting.  Giles nodded to one of the few watchers who had escaped the explosion at headquarters and asked him to begin.

“Well,” he began somewhat pompously, “the only things we know for sure are that the senior partners of W and H were very angry and unleashed a horde of demons, etc. from another dimension on to LA in general and Angel’s group specifically.  Apparently the group was able to accomplish all their objectives on that last day, so the evil takeover of Los Angeles was averted.  We know that Mr. Wyndham-Pryce lost his life very early on, but his mission was completed by the entity using Ms Burkle’s body.  She/it effectively disposed of their target, then joined the others to face the coming battle.

“It was assumed that all that were left – Mr. Gunn, Illyria, and the two vampires - had all perished.  Although they did do an amazingly good job of destroying the incoming army of supernatural beings.  It appears that the vampire known as Angel was.......well, he did not survive his battle with the dragon.” 

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut briefly in pain, then opened them and nodded at him to go on.

“He did, however, take the dragon with him, so that particular danger was eliminated quickly.”  He had been briefed on Buffy’s relationships with both souled vampires and of course he had read Wesley’s account of the previous year, so he knew of the more recent connection between Buffy and Spike.

As the uncomfortable man hesitated, Buffy looked at him sternly and said, “Go on.  What do we know about......the others?”  She steeled herself for what she knew was coming.

With a quick glance at Giles, who nodded firmly, he continued in a shaky voice.  “Well, we know that Mr. Gunn was apparently already wounded when the final battle began and he did not make it.  We don’t know how long he lasted exactly.  Our observer could see the other vampire and the blue....person.....fighting from a position in front of him, but he was forced to leave the scene at that time and cannot verify that they saved him.  He assumes not, as they were seen later that night fighting in other areas of the city and Mr. Gunn was not with them.

“And Spike and Fr-Illyria?” Buffy was very proud of how steady her voice was as she asked him to break her heart.

The watcher blew out a breath – “We....we don’t know.  No one has seen the vampire since that night.  There are rumors of a woman wearing a blue unitard –"  He paused as everyone in the room looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Un, blue unitard?” Willow put in for the first time.  “not really Fred’s style at all.”

“Please be assured,” he said, suddenly sounding very sure and very much like a member of the Council,  “that the entity using Fred’s body is in no way her.  It is from an ancient race of beings that are very close to being gods.  As you know from the journal, it was necessary that they take steps to remove much of her - its - power simply to prevent it from exploding and taking the entire city with it.  This being does bear some physical resemblance to the original owner of the body and has her memories, but it is not and never will be her.  In spite of its ability to appear to be Fred if it chooses, its actual physical appearance is what it has been since it appeared.  It seems to be wearing some sort of close fitting armor and is almost entirely blue.  We have Mr. Wyndham-Pryce’s quite specific description of Illyria to tell us what it looks like.

“As I was saying,” he continued with a glare toward Willow, “there have been stories of a woman wearing blue showing up to confront pockets of demons and destroy them. She doesn’t speak to anyone and vanishes as soon as she has destroyed the demons.  We are assuming this is Illyria, although we don’t know why it/she would continue to fight after everyone else was gone.”

Buffy bit her lip before she spoke, telling herself there was no point in crying over Spike’s apparent death when she’d been living with it for over a year. She pushed down the sickening feeling that if she’d known she could have been with him all this time to focus on business.

“So, if Illyria is still fighting demons, there are still problems in LA?”

Giles took over the story, thanking the other man for his information and allowing him to sit down.  “Yes, it would appear that even though Angel and his group did an amazing job of taking out the most dangerous of the things let through when the dimensional portal was opened,  they were not able to get them all before.....succumbing.....” He could see that Buffy, in spite of her impassive face, was clutching her own upper arms so tightly he was sure there would be bruises there for days. 

“It appears Illyria is taking them out as she finds them, but I think a contingent of slayers to back her up would go a long way toward ridding the world of whatever is left of that horrific army.”

“So, when do we leave?”  Buffy kept a tight rein on her voice and face as she prepared to return to a place that she knew could only create more unhappy memories for her.

“We’re prepared to leave tomorrow.  We were actually just waiting for you to get here.”  Giles studied her face carefully, then turned to Nigel.  “Please tell her the rest of it,” he ordered. At the same time he gestured to the others in the room to leave and they filed out quickly, glancing back at Buffy and wondering what else was going on.

“The rest of it?” she asked carefully.  “What haven’t you told me?”

Nigel took a deep breath and said,  “The other place that Illyria has apparently been seen once or twice is at a hospital where many of the victims of the original assault were taken.  She-it-has been seen going in or out of the room housing a comatose man who authorities have not been able to identify.”

“A man?” Buffy asked meaningfully.  “We know it’s a man she’s visiting – not a....a......” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.  Shaking herself slightly she said,  “It must be Gunn, then”.

“ The man is white,” Nigel said quietly.  “and blond, with a scar on his eyebrow.”

Buffy felt the room spinning and was surprised to find that Giles was holding her up and guiding her to a chair. 

“Buffy,” he said gently, “that’s all we know.  It’s a blond man.  Could be anybody.  Someone Illyria knows from Wolfram and Hart, a friend of Angel’s, a friend of Fred’s......”

Buffy looked up at the man who had been like a father to her since she was 15 and he winced at the pain and hope he saw warring in her eyes.  “But it could also be..... It could be, Giles!”

“We won’t know till we see him, will we?” he said as he brushed her hair gently with his hand.  “And don’t forget, the man, whoever he turns out to be, is in a coma.  He has obviously been grievously injured.”

Buffy ignored him and stood up. 

“Where are you going?  Are you going to be OK?”

“I’m going to pack,” she said without looking at either of them.  “I’m getting on a plane tomorrow.”



The man lying in the hospital bed seemed to be as unresponsive mentally as he was physically, but that was an illusion.  In realty, from time to time he was awake and able to hear what was going on around him.  He couldn’t see anything, nor could he let anyone know he was awake, as he couldn’t make any of his voluntary muscles respond to his commands.

The only one who seemed to be aware of when he was awake was Illyria. He knew she came to see him sometimes.  He had no way of knowing how often she came, or if he was always awake, but he could tell when she was there. When she could sense he was awake, she would talk to him about the demons she had killed and sometimes her voice would soften so that she almost sounded like Fred when she spoke of Wesley and mentioned some demon he would have liked to study before she killed it.

He already knew they were they only ones to survive that final battle.  Even if she hadn’t told him, he would have known that Angel was gone. He could sense the empty space where some small part of him could feel the presence of members of his vampire “family”.  He never dwelled on the emptiness where the Master or Darla had been, but he was surprised to find that the loss of his grandsire left a painful hole that he knew wasn’t going to stop hurting anytime soon. 

If he could have, he would have smiled when Illyria described seeing Angel riding the dragon and sawing away at its neck with his sword as it screamed and flew into a burning building.  (Way to go out in blaze of glory, you great poofter!) he thought. (The slayer would be proud of you).

At the thought of Buffy, the mental smile went away and he wondered where she was and if she had any idea what had happened in the city of her birth.  His dreams while he slept were full of images of her – golden hair and skin shimmering in the sun, smiling at him, beckoning him to follow her into the sunshine.

It was several weeks before he realized that the heartbeat he was hearing was his own, and that the rise and fall of his chest was due to a need for oxygen, not just habit.

(Bloody hell!  I got the Shanshu?  I’m a real boy now?)

Spike wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  He had no desire to go back to being William and was afraid that the combination of the soul, which had already changed him, and being human again would result in his turning into the meek, bookish man he had once been.

Eventually he realized the fear was irrelevant as he was helpless to move or talk anyway.  When he was aware of Illyria’s presence, he tried as hard as he could to move some body part.  Anything to let her know that he still inhabited the inert body in the hospital bed. The frustration of not being able to so much as open his eyes or blink was mounting to the point that he was sure he was going to spontaneously combust during one of her visits.

After a particularly grueling attempt to open his eyes during one of her monologues, he was surprised to feel a touch on his arm and her voice saying to him,  “Do not try so hard to do what you cannot.  I can tell you hear me.  It is not necessary that you respond.”

Astonishment at both the touch and the attempt at comfort left him unable to even pay attention to anything else she said and he almost missed it when she mentioned that there appeared to be many new demon fighters in the city.

“They are all young female humans.  Could these be the Slayers of which I have been told?”

Even as he mentally screamed to be allowed to stay conscious, he felt himself slipping away and Illyria soon left, knowing he was no longer able to hear her.  Since he wasn’t able to answer her, she determined to find one of these humans herself and learn what they were.
 

CHAPTER TWO

Buffy was impatient.  Giles was insisting that they get the small army of Slayers settled and comfortable with the city before he tried to contact the informants who had seen Illyria and knew which hospital she visited. They found that Angel had left a will and Buffy was now the owner of the Hyperion, so finding a place for a small army to stay was not the problem they had anticipated. However, after a week of slaying demons, rearranging roommates who wanted to kill each other, and sitting in her room at night staring out the window as though she could see into the buildings in front of her, she told Giles he had two days to find out where Illyria had been seen or she was going to leave the Slayers on their own while she started through the city hospital by hospital.

By Sunday morning, she had all the waiting she could stand and was sitting in the lobby with the phone book in her lap, jotting down the locations of all the hospitals in LA.  When Giles saw what she was doing, he sighed and handed her a small piece of paper with St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Center and an address on it.  Snatching it out of his hand, Buffy started for the door, hesitating when her ex-watcher asked gently, “Do you want me to go with you, Buffy?”

She paused and looked back over her shoulder.  She resisted the urge to snap at him that she wanted to do this herself, knowing he was only worried about her state of mind if the man turned out not to be who she wanted him to be.  “Thank you, Giles. I suppose I could use a little moral support......”  She tried not to think about how much she wanted the man to be Spike.  Or how she would handle the disappointment if it turned out not to be him.

The woman at the front desk was reluctant to give them much information about the patient in Room 321 until Giles explained that they thought he might be a friend of theirs, and that, in fact, it might be Buffy’s fiancée that she had thought slain in the battle. While Buffy tried to close her mouth, which had gaped open and was busy doing a fish imitation, Giles blithely ignored her and poured on his British charm to cement the idea that they were as close to a family as the patient had in this country. 

That changed her attitude completely and she chattered away about how hard they had tried to find out who he was, but his fingerprints weren’t on file anywhere, no local dentists could match his teeth - Buffy had to smother a giggle at the idea of an LA dentist finding X-rays of Spike’s teeth in his files - and no one knew who the strange woman who came to visit him was or even how she got into the building.

Eventually she stopped talking and allowed them to go to the elevators. Buffy stood patiently for about 30 seconds, then, saying she would meet him there, she left Giles in front of the elevator bank and ran to the stairwell.  She took the stairs three at a time and was soon opening the door to the third floor and following the signs to Room 321.

Suddenly the woman who had faced down the worst that hell had to throw at her was frozen with fear.  She just stared at the door of the room, unable to make her feet carry her forward. (As long as I stand out here, there’s a 50/50 chance it’s Spike in there.  As soon as I go in......)  Finally, a short dark-haired girl in hospital scrubs who was leaving the room shook her out of her immobility.  She saw Buffy staring at the door and asked her kindly,  “Can I help you find someone?”

Buffy just shook her head and moved slowly toward the door of the room. She could feel her heart pounding, her palms were sweating and her mouth was dry.

“Are you here to see “El Rubio?”, the girl asked curiously.  “Do you know him?”

“I.....I don’t know.  Maybe.....I hope so.....”  Buffy clenched her fists and moved into the room and toward the bed.  The girl came back in the room with her, watching her anxiously.

“I hope so too.  El Rubio needs his people.” 

Buffy approached the bed and caught her breath with an audible gasp.  Lying there, lightly covered with a sheet, was the man/vampire she’d thought was gone forever.  Soft blond curls with honey-colored roots almost an inch long covered his head.  His eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking those features.  The scar on his eyebrow, those chiseled cheekbones, and the soft full lips she remembered so well.  He looked like he was sleeping, but where he used to look like a marble statue when he was still, now there was a flush of color to his face and his chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm.

Buffy came to the bedside and reached a shaky hand toward his face. “S-Spike, “ she whispered, stepping even closer.  She stopped before she actually touched him and glanced at the nurse questioningly.

“Oh, please, Go ahead and touch him.  He needs all the touching he can get.  The more stimulation, the better for him.”

Buffy’s hand dropped down and she softly traced his cheek and jaw, moving her fingers to his lips and gently touching them with her fingertips.  With a strangled cry, she dropped into the nearby chair and put her head on the bed next to his shoulder.  If there had been any doubt in the nurse’s mind that the blond girl knew who Spike was, it was gone when she heard the soft sobbing and saw her entwine her fingers with his.

She waited respectfully for a few minutes, then asked tentatively,   “Can you tell us his name, Miss?  We just call him El Rubio because we don’t know who he is.”

Buffy raised tear-filled eyes and managed to get out, “William. His name is William.....” She was horrified when she realized they were going to expect her to know his last name, and she had no idea what it was.

“His name is William?  William .......?”

Before Buffy could think of something to say (Quick! What’s a good excuse for not knowing my boy friend’s last name?), she heard Giles voice as he stepped into the room, “His name is William Sinclair.  He is Ms Summer’s fiancée.  We thought he was dead and just recently heard that there was a comatose man who could be he.”

“Oh!  That is so wonderful.” She turned to Giles and beamed at him. “We have been so worried about him – not having anyone....” her voice trailed off and Giles knew she was thinking about Illyria’s nocturnal visits. 

“Yes, well.  Now that we’ve found him, I’m sure he will have plenty of visitors.  May I speak to you out here for a moment?  We should discuss.....”

As Giles steered the nurse out of the room, Buffy mentally thanked him for giving her some privacy.  With no one watching, she began touching Spike again, running her hands over his face, through his curls, up and down his arms, across his chest.  She pulled the sheet back to assure herself that he was in one piece and smiled as she saw the hospital gown he was wearing. 

(Oh, I’m never going to let him live this down.  I need to bring a camera tomorrow.  He’s going to hate that anyone has seen him like this......) 

She firmly pushed any thoughts that his condition wasn’t temporary to the back of her brain.  Buffy was in full denial mode about Spike’s chances of recovering from a twelve-month long coma. 

When Giles came back into the room after having assured the nurse that he would return with paperwork authenticating Spike’s citizenship and whatever else the hospital required in order to allow them to make decisions about his care, he saw that Buffy had moved up onto the bed and was lying curled up next to Spike’s inert body, tracing small circles on his chest.  Her head was resting on his shoulder and her eyes were shut. 

He waited quietly for several minutes, torn between his concern for her emotional well being if Spike stayed unconscious and his relief at not having to deal with her disappointment if it had not been him in the bed.   Finally he touched her gently on the shoulder and asked if she would be all right if he went out for a while.

She opened her eyes and blinked up at him without the shadows that had hidden in her eyes since they left Sunnydale.

“Sure, Giles.  I’ll be fine.  I’m staying right here until he wakes up.”  She spoke with such assurance and conviction that he decided he would wait until later to discuss the gloomy prognosis that the nurse had shared with him.

“Okay, Buffy.  I’m going to go take care of the necessary paperwork we need to have for him.   I presume being identified as his fiancée is acceptable to you?” he asked wryly.

She sat up reluctantly and nodded her head.  “That’s fine.  Whatever it takes for them to let me stay here.”   She shifted uncomfortably for a minute then asked, “Giles?  The name you gave them – is that really Spike’s name?  And how do you know it?”

“I believe it is, Buffy.  The Council had pretty extensive records on William the Bloody – particularly after he killed his second slayer.  And then, when he began helping us.....” he cleared his throat and finished, “of course, all those things were lost when the Council Headquarters was blown up.”

“How will you get papers for him?”

“Actually, that should be fairly easy.  Wolfram and Hart had full sets of papers for everyone there and Wesley sent me a copy of Angel’s and Spike’s. All I have to do is bring them in.  He even has medical insurance through Wolfram and Hart.”

“Oh,” Buffy tried to wrap her mind around the idea of Spike, William the Bloody, being a documented resident of Los Angeles.  (This is the man who used to live in a crypt?)

After Giles had left, Buffy lay back down beside the bed and tried to get used to a warm, breathing Spike.  Of course, he’d often breathed when he didn’t need to, but to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest and see the pulse beating in his throat was a new experience. 

She spent the next week at the hospital – only leaving to go back to the hotel for showers and a change of clothes.  She found that even with being unconscious, Spike had accumulated a small admiring group of female hospital employees who came by regularly to check on “El Rubio” as the Mexican-American nurse had named him. 

They all insisted they were delighted to find that their favorite patient had not only friends, but also a fiancée to care about him; but Buffy caught the disappointment on the faces of several of the younger women when they were introduced to Buffy.  They very quickly learned that touching the patient in 321, even on his tempting cheekbones, was not the thing to do when his blond girl friend was around.  Those that had become accustomed to pulling the sheets back to admire his less visible attributes were soon finding something else to do with their time once Buffy walked in on a show and tell scene and almost broke the arm of the girl holding the sheet up.

By the end of the week, the “hospital ho’s” as Buffy insisted on calling them, were no longer visiting as often and Buffy had made friends with the workers who had legitimate reasons for being there.  The physical therapist was willing to teach Buffy how to move Spike’s arms and legs to prevent the muscles from atrophying.  Once she was sure Buffy had mastered all the proper movements, she turned his daily workout over to her, confident her patient was in good hands.

While she worked his body, Buffy kept up a running monologue, telling him what she’d been doing, what Dawn was doing. Where Willow was.  She even told him what Xander was doing.  She apologized for not knowing what was happening on Passions, as it wasn’t on TV in Europe.

After some rancorous discussions with the hospital staff, which Giles was eventually able to smooth over, Buffy received permission to sleep in the room with Spike.  It was tacitly understood that no one would mention that the cot provided for her was never slept in as long as she didn’t make a big deal of it.

One night, after life had settled in to something of a routine, a tingling of her Slayer senses awakened Buffy.  Putting an arm across Spike protectively, she opened her eyes and looked around the dimly lit room.  Her eyes were immediately drawn to a slim blue figure standing beside the bed, looking at her coldly.

Sitting up carefully, and keeping one hand possessively on the man in the bed, she said quietly,  “Illyria.”

The strange-looking being cocked her head to the side and asked, “How do you know me?  And why do you try to protect my comrade from me? I would not harm him.  He was Wesley’s friend.......and mine.” She finished softly.

Buffy smothered the pang of jealousy that shot through her at Illyria’s obvious concern for Spike and her doubt about Buffy’s right to be in his bed.

“I’m Buffy,” she said clearly and waited to see if that meant anything to the increasingly tense creature in front of her.  In case it didn’t, she slid cautiously off the bed and took a relaxed but ready stance.

“Buffy.” Illyria said the name slowly as though testing it on her tongue.  “The vampire said that name often.  Usually when he was sleeping.”  She didn’t miss the anger in Buffy’s eyes and the slight tensing of her body at hearing that Illyria knew what Spike talked about in his sleep.

“You cannot fight me you know,” she said clearly.  “It is foolish of you to think about harming me.  I am a god.”

“Been there, done that, got the dead hell-god to show for it,” Buffy growled out as she moved around the bed.  “You’ve seen one skanky god wannabe, you’ve seen them all.”

Illyria cocked her head again, then backed up to the side of the room. “Because the vampire-that-isn’t seems to value you, I will let you live.  For now.” She finished speaking and slipped out the door. When Buffy got to the entrance to the room and looked up and down the hall there was nothing to see.

Shaken more than she was willing to admit to herself, she slid back into the bed and curled up beside the immobile man there. 

“Can’t say I’m crazy about your blue friend,” she grumbled as she put her head on his shoulder and wrapped her leg over his.  “When you wake up, we’re going to have a talk about just how friendly you two are...” She snuggled into him and tried to relax and go back to sleep herself.

She told Giles about Illyria’s nocturnal visit, trying to remain detached and not allowing her jealousy to affect her description of the god.  However, when she referred to her as a “blue skank”, he took his glasses off and cleaned them vigorously as he reminded her, “ Buffy, lllyria is a very powerful being. And one that appears to be on our side.  Please do not allow your......concern......over her relationship with Spike to do anything to alter that arrangement.”

Buffy huffed and rolled her eyes, but she agreed to try to be less antagonistic if Illyria visited again.  When Giles suggested she offer the assistance of the Slayers to rid LA of the remaining demons, she huffed again but eventually relented.
 

CHAPTER THREE

As much as Buffy tried to remain positive and hopeful about Spike’s condition, it was beginning to wear on her after a while that nothing seemed to change.  Every day she woke up next to the warm, breathing and totally unaware body of the man she loved.  She dressed, ran down to the cafeteria for breakfast, then spent the morning working his arms and legs as the physical therapist had taught her.  She talked to him as she worked,  “Come on, Spike, move this arm.  Got to keep those biceps strong so you can handle a sword again.  Sit up, baby, work those abs for me.  Don’t want to lose that sexy body....”

At noon she went back to the hotel for several hours to shower, change clothes and catch up on what the Slayers were doing each night.  Everyone was very understanding about where she was spending her time, but she could tell they were beginning to wonder how long she was going to keep spending her evenings at the hospital rather than helping them. 

(I fought demons by myself for 7 years) she grumbled to herself, (I’m entitled to take a vacation if I want to.)  Giles assured her that she was perfectly within her rights and he supported her decision to stay with Spike and leave the slaying to the other girls, but years of feeling responsible for the world kept her from feeling anything but guilt.

To assuage said guilt, she decided to go out with the slayers that evening and contribute what she could to the fight.  She found that she had missed slaying and actually enjoyed the evening’s bloodshed.  Slaying put her into a really good mood and she walked toward the hospital, waving her “good night” to everyone she saw.

She started chattering to Spike as soon as she entered his room. Telling him about the night’s fight, where she was sore, how much she missed it.  “I’ll be glad when you’re up and fighting with me.  I miss having you to watch my back....” She was talking as she pulled her shirt over her head and froze when she dropped her arms and saw Illyria standing by the bed.

She immediately stopped talking to Spike and stepped toward the blue warrior. She reminded herself of her promise to Giles and tried to keep the anger from her voice as she asked,  “Why are you here?”

Illyria ignored her question. Instead she shocked Buffy by gesturing to Spike and saying,  “Don’t stop talking to him.  He listens.”

“Wha?” Buffy whirled to look at Spike, but he appeared the same as always.  “No, he’s still....”

“He hears you.” Illyria said firmly. “Sometimes he hears.  He is awake in his head.  You should talk to him now.”  With that, the earth-bound god disappeared from the room.

Buffy approached the bed slowly, reaching out a hand to touch Spike’s face.  “Is she right?  Are you in there?  Can you hear me?   Did you know I was here?  Spike?  Spike?  Can you hear me?”  The idea that he was awake and could actually hear what she was saying took her usually easy stream-of-conscious rambling away and she was left struggling for something important to say to him.

Tears prickled her eyes as she kissed his face and whispered in his ear, “Can you hear me tell you how much I love you?  How much I missed you?  I’m right here, Spike.   I’ll be here when you wake up.  I promise.  I won’t leave you. I’m waiting for you.”

Spike was sure he was dreaming.  He knew Illyria was there, and he listened to her tell him about that night’s demons and the Slayers.  He was just absorbing what she was telling him about the blond woman who wouldn’t let her near him when Buffy’s voice came through and he decided he wasn’t really awake.  He smiled mentally as she chattered on about her activities that night, picturing her gestures and facial expressions.  He wondered briefly why, if he was dreaming, he wasn’t having visual images to go with the voice.

Then he heard Illyria speak to Buffy and his heart sped up, as he understood that she was actually there in his room.  He remembered bits and pieces of things he’d thought he heard recently.  Buffy’s voice telling him to move his arms and legs, talking to him about Dawn; her touch on his face and body. With sudden clarity he realized that what he thought were dreams were actual events.  She was here. In his room.  With him.

If he’d thought he was frustrated before, trying to speak with Illyria, the white-hot rage that went through him when he tried to speak to Buffy and couldn’t even open his lips almost burned his brain out.  When he heard her tell him she loved him, tears of frustration and longing filled his eyes and leaked out onto his cheeks.

Buffy’s face was pressed to his as she kept up her litany of “I love you”s in his ear and she gradually noticed that her cheeks were getting wet.  Thinking she was crying, she sat up and swiped at her face, only to find that her eyes were dry.  The dryness lasted only until she saw the tears on Spike’s cheeks and realized where they were coming from. 

With a sob of relief, she threw herself on top of him, soaking his chest and clutching his inert body to her.  “You hear me! You hear me!” she sobbed. She cried until she was exhausted and fell asleep wrapped around him even more than usual.

As if the tears had opened some sort of pathway, Spike found that he was able to remain conscious and aware for much longer periods of time.  He stayed awake long after Buffy cried herself to sleep, enjoying the feeling of her warm body on his, her breath on his neck and the scent of her hair in his nostrils.  When he finally did fall asleep again, it was with a firm determination to find a way to stay awake.

Throughout the following days he was awake more and more.  As he noticed the routine that had been established, he began to realize how long Buffy had been there with him and how she had been caring for him.  The humiliation of having her help the nurses with his bodily functions was tempered by the humbling knowledge that she was willing to do this for him.

The morning he woke up with long forgotten sensations in his lower body, they both cried again.  Spike, with frustration that he still responded to her body and couldn’t do anything about it; Buffy with joy that at least one body part was able to function.

The fact that her body pressed up to his could cause him to get hard gave both of them hope that it was only a question of time before other parts would wake up and be functional. 

During that morning’s physical therapy, Buffy couldn’t resist running her hand gently over his now-soft penis.  “They tell me stimulation is good for you,” she murmured as she slid her hands under the hospital gown. “What do you think, hmmm?”  She continued to rub gently, stroking him the way she knew he liked and was rewarded with a twitch and then a gradual hardening of the part under her hand. 

Spike didn’t know whether to be grateful for her touch, or angry that she would tease him when he couldn’t respond the way he wanted to.  (You’re going to pay for this, Slayer.  We’re going to have a conversation about this particular “stimulation”)  When she leaned closer – after a quick glance to be sure there were no nurses ready to enter the room – and pressed her lips to the head of his cock, he gave a gasp.  The fact that he was able to do something other than breathe in and out regularly, even if it was involuntary, was such a surprise that he almost didn’t notice that she had stopped her ministrations as soon as she heard the gasp.

When the physical therapist came in the room a couple of minutes later, Buffy was still looking at Spike with huge eyes, willing him to make another sound. She tried to explain to the therapist what was going on, without going into intimate details.  Fortunately, the therapist was a very understanding and wise woman and she smiled gently at Buffy’s flaming cheeks as she asked, “So, what you’re saying is, he is responding to certain kinds of stimulation?”

Buffy gratefully nodded her head and looked at the woman eagerly.  “Does this mean he’s getting better?”  The hope in her eyes was painful to see and the therapist chose her words carefully.

“I think these are good signs....the tears, the gasp, the.......arousal.  These are all things we haven’t observed before.  Certainly we will look for more signs that he is regaining some bodily functions, but you need to understand....these are all involuntary reactions.  Until we see some sign that he is able to control his body, we cannot be sure he is really waking up.”

At Buffy’s crestfallen face, she hastened to add, “But you should certainly continue your.....activities.  Whatever is evoking these reactions could also stimulate other muscles to react.  And, as soon as we can identify some voluntary reactions, we will know he is waking up.”

Buffy thought briefly about what Illyria had said about Spike’s being awake and aware some of the time, but didn’t want to try to explain who or what Illyria was – not to mention, she had no idea how Illyria knew when Spike was awake when no one else could tell.

When it was time for her to go to bed, she slid into her normal spot beside Spike in the hospital bed, preparing to sleep curled up into his side as usual.  As she rolled her leg over his, she accidentally bumped his penis with her thigh and thought she felt another twitch.  Her breath caught in her throat and she moaned as she pressed her crotch against his thigh.  She was rewarded with a definite nudge on her leg from his rapidly hardening cock.

Without actually thinking about what she was doing, Buffy started placing light, open-mouthed kisses on his chest, stopping to suck on his nipples and smiling when they hardened under her lips. 

“Do you think this is weird?  Am I being a perv?  I missed you so much, Spike.  I missed this-“ she took his cock in her hand and squeezed it gently.  “Would you mind if I.....?” 

(Bloody hell!  Would I mind?  Has the stupid bint forgot who she’s talking to? Oh, yes, baby, like that.  Do that again, love.  No! No! Don’t stop!)  Once again Spike raged against his inability to communicate as Buffy stopped touching him and got off the bed.  He relaxed when he heard her cross the room and close the door to the hall.  When she slipped back into the bed and pulled the sheet up over them, he felt his body responding to her nearness as it always had and almost forgot that he had no control over it.

Although he remained outwardly inert, his heart rate increased and his breathing got deeper and faster as Buffy’s hands stroked his cock and she rubbed against his thigh. She rolled on top of him and put him between her thighs, squeezing with her powerful muscles and rubbing herself against him, whimpering with the need for more friction. 

(Ah, that’s it, love.  Ride me, Buffy, ride me hard.  Missed you so much.  Love you so much.  Come for me, my love.  Use me to pleasure yourself.)

With a sudden twist, Buffy wrenched off her pajama bottoms and lowered herself on to him.  “I’m sorry, Spike.  I need to feel you inside me.  I have to – please forgive me,” she murmured as she slid down on him and clenched around him.  “I’m sorry.”

Spike was so overwhelmed by the feel of her surrounding him after so long that he barely paid any attention to her murmurs.  He put everything he had into trying to move his hips, but could only lie still and feel her as she began slowly sliding up and down his willing cock.  Eventually her murmured apologies reached his brain and he groaned inwardly.   (Don’t be sorry, love.  Don’t be sorry for me.  I love you, Buffy.   Want to be in you; want to be under you; you’re making me very happy, love.  Don’t be sorry.  Love you. Want you. Ride me, love.  Love me, Buffy. Love me hard.)

As Buffy’s motions became harder and faster, she could feel Spike’s heart beating rapidly and his chest rising and falling at the same rate as her rapid panting.  She tilted her hips so as to rub her clit on his pubic bone with every stroke and soon she was gasping and giving the little whimpers that he knew meant she was very close to orgasm.  When her powerful internal muscles closed around him tightly as she spasmed, he felt himself release and spurt into her. As he did, his hips rose up to meet hers and he opened his mouth to gasp her name.

Buffy was still shuddering from her climax when her brain began to register that not only had Spike moved, but he had spoken.  Her head flew up and she stared at his face only to be crushed that it looked just as immobile as before.  “Spike?  Can you talk to me?  Tell me I wasn’t imagining.  I know I felt you move, I heard you, didn’t I?  Please, Spike, please......”

Spike felt as though something broke loose inside him when he heard her pleading.  With great effort and concentration, he found that he was able to force open his eyes to meet hers.  “’Lo, Love,” he croaked in a voice that was rusty from disuse.  Tears of joy and gratitude filled her eyes as she stared into the brilliant blue orbs gazing at her as only Spike could.

“Hi,” she said softly through her tears.  “Welcome back.”

He managed a weak smile before his eyes slid closed again and he gave in to exhaustion.  He could feel Buffy’s hand as she entwined their fingers and he was able to manage a soft squeeze before he fell asleep.

When morning came and the nurses opened the door, they were amazed and thrilled to find their formerly non-responsive patient sleeping on his side with his arms around the woman who had brought such a wonderful change in such a short amount of time.  The gasps of amazement from the doorway woke Buffy and she raised her head to give them a dazzling smile.

“Hi!” she greeted them.  “Isn’t it a wonderful morning?” 

When he felt her sit up, Spike stirred and reached his arm around her again, trying to pull her down with him on the bed, mumbling as he did so.   Buffy tried to extricate herself without losing the sheet that was hiding the fact that she wasn’t wearing her pajama bottoms.

The little dark-haired nurse who had initially taken Buffy into Spike’s room, quickly hustled the others out, telling Buffy over her shoulder that she was going to get the doctor.  Buffy quickly got up and grabbed her pajamas, taking them into the bathroom with her while she threw on some clothes and washed her face.

She came back out to find Spike sitting up and gingerly moving his arms around and flexing his muscles. 

“Hey,” she said in a scolding tone, “don’t be messing with those arms. I’ve put a lot of work into them these last few weeks.”

“Just wanted to be sure they were in working order, love.” He smiled, held them out, and lifted one eyebrow at her.  She crossed the room without even touching the ground and threw herself into his embrace.  When the doctor came into the room he found it hard to tell where one blond left off and the other began.

He cleared his throat and commented, “I take this to mean you are now awake and know what you’re doing?”

Spike looked up and growled,  “I’m either awake or dreamin’.  Either way, I know what I’m doing!”  He buried his face in Buffy’s neck again and inhaled her scent like it was oxygen.

Embarrassed, Buffy pushed him back and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.  “Behave and let’s hear what the doctor has to say about your recovery.”

When it became clear that Spike was going to spend the rest of the morning going through multiple tests, Buffy took the opportunity to return to the hotel for clean clothes and to bring Giles up to date.  She flew through the door of the hotel and took the stairs up to her room rather than wait for the elevator.  After a quick shower and after spending much more time than she had for the past weeks picking out her clothes, she was ready to go looking for Giles. She gave her hair a last good brushing, swiped some gloss on her lips and went out the door.

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