Startled, Buffy looked away from Spike and saw that Tara was struggling weakly to sit up.
“It wasn’t Spike,” the witch gasped. “There was another vampire….”
“I know,” Buffy soothed. “It’s ok.”
“Pity you couldn’t have woke up five minutes ago, Pet,” Spike said dryly. “Saved us all a bit of bother.”
“I’m sorry,” Tara said earnestly, leaning back against the bookcase and raising her hand cautiously to touch her head.
Buffy’s lips twitched in an affectionate smile. Leave it to Tara to apologize – and mean it – for being knocked out so long she inconvenienced someone.
The remnants of her amusement were still tugging at her mouth as she looked back down to order Spike to stop pestering Tara, and she found herself smiling into his eyes.
Blue eyes. Eyes that blinked up at her and then went wide and defenseless in a face that was suddenly free of its normal sneer.
Time seemed to pause, and everything felt as if it were holding its breath. Buffy was certainly holding hers, the smile sliding off her face as the ramifications of the evening’s events struck her.
Somebody, somewhere, had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make her think that Spike had been working with Ethan, probably to stop the Prophecy of the Adversary from being filled. Which meant that somebody, somewhere, thought she and Spike might start to…care about…each other.
Until a month ago, Buffy would have laughed her ass off over the concept of having feelings other than hatred and disgust for the vampire. However, when this batch of killings started, she’d discovered a part of her that had been miserable over his apparent involvement. Now, that part was starting to feel happy. Really happy. Run around and wave your arms and squeal happy. Not feelings Buffy was used to associating with Spike.
Plus, she had pretty much taken Sunnydale apart looking for Ethan and (as she had thought at the time) Spike. So, he had gone away somewhere but come back just in time to rescue Giles. Which meant that he might have come back because of her. Which meant that he might have some sort of feelings for her as well. Especially since he was staring up at her, mostly expressionless, but with something in his eyes that scared her if she thought about it too much.
He cleared his throat, and said a little hoarsely. “You want to move that, Slayer?”
She was still holding the stake, Buffy realized, the point resting against his chest directly over his heart. She pulled it back hastily. I should probably get off him while I’m at it, she thought, feeling her face turn hot at finding herself still perched on his ribcage.
Unfortunately, she began to stand at exactly the same moment Spike decided to move out from under her and, since Giles was to their left, there was really only one direction for either of them to go. As Buffy swung her leg over from where she had been straddling Spike, he rolled right and started to come up, crashing into her supporting leg.
Buffy overbalanced and fell, unintentionally grabbing at Spike for support and taking him down with her. She lay in stunned silence for an instant, the feeling of Spike sprawled across her body with his face buried in her hair not helping her calm down in the least.
A second, simultaneous attempt to free themselves only managed to tangle things up further.
“No!” cried a panicked British voice. “You must stop. Buffy, we were wrong. Ethan…”
Slayer and vampire both turned their heads to look at the now-conscious Watcher then looked back at each other. One of Spike’s arms was trapped under her back, and one of her legs seemed to be wrapped around one of his. Most importantly, his face was barely an inch from hers. If she raised her head even a little, the results would be interesting, to say the least.
Buffy kept her head down on the floor and closed her eyes. She had a feeling that she would be able to manage everything better if she didn’t look at Spike. “We know.” She said as calmly as she could. “We’re working on it. I’ll hold still,” she added to the vampire. “You get up.”
“You sure?” he sounded amused. “I’m starting to enjoy this.”
The snide comment was welcome. She could deal with Spike being a pain in the ass much more easily than she could deal with him being…whatever it was he had been being.
Buffy opened her eyes again and scowled into the vampire’s face. “Off,” she said firmly.
He smirked, and his gazed flicked down to her mouth for a heart-stopping instant. Then he started hastily disentangling from her, and Buffy told herself that the feeling that shot through her was relief.
Once Spike was on his feet, Buffy sat up and pushed herself over to Giles. “Are you guys ok?” she asked, including both Watcher and witch in her question.
Tara was looking from Buffy to Spike with a slightly startled expression, but she nodded. “Just a bump. Mostly I’m still kind of sleepy from the spell.”
“I’m fine,” Giles sounded bewildered as he looked at the blood on the floor. “Which is somewhat surprising, given that I was bleeding to death.” He touched his neck, felt the wound’s scabbing. “You stopped it.” He looked at Spike and turned green. Oh, God, and I know how you did it too.”
Leaning negligently against the wall, Spike slid a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and said, “You mean it wasn’t good for you, Rupert? I’m crushed.”
He doesn’t have to be that much of a pain in the ass, Buffy thought crossly. Aloud, she said firmly, “Do either of you think you need to go to the hospital?”
Both shook their heads.
Tara gasped. “What happened to Willow? She was with me in the library!”
Buffy went cold with a fresh wave of panic, but Giles said, “Ethan told me he put her under the sleep spell when he took you. She should be asleep in one of the storage closets.”
“Ok,” Buffy counted off on her fingers. “Somebody needs to let Will out of the closet, you two need to finish getting patched up, and we need to clean up this stuff,” she gestured around at the majority of the Magic Box’s stock which was scattered across the store.
“Need to get rid of the body,” Spike drawled. “’Less you’re planning to leave it here for dramatic effect.”
“Right,” Buffy nodded at him. She was proud of the steadiness of her voice. She had been thrown for a few minutes, but now it was business as usual. The moment of weirdness between she and Spike had passed, and she had that little bit of herself that was way too interested in the vampire was back under control.
There was a screech of tires from outside and almost immediately Xander, Willow, and Anya, armed with a fairly impressive assortment of crosses, stakes, and spell components, poured in through the smashed door of the Magic Box. They staggered to a brief halt at the sight of Ethan’s dead body, but then their eyes locked on Spike.
“You!” Willow shouted. “You better not have hurt Tara! Or Buffy! Or Giles!”
“I’m ok…” Tara began.
Anya interrupted her. “You should be glad I don’t have my demon powers,” she snapped. “Willow, turn him into a roach. We can all step on him.”
“Please calm down…” Giles said.
Xander broke in. “You always have great ideas, honey. Go for it, Will.”
Willow reached into a small bag at her waist and began to chant. Spike pushed off the wall, morphing into vampire face. “No one’s turning me into anything,” he snarled, starting for the group of Scoobies.
“STOP IT!” Buffy threw herself between Spike and the group, one hand on his chest and the other on Willow’s wrist. Everyone ground to a halt.
“Stop chanting,” she told Willow “Put down the crosses and stuff.” She turned to Spike, “Stop threatening them. De-vamp. That’s not helping anything.”
Frowning, Willow pulled her hand out of the pouch and moved around Buffy to go to Tara. “Are you ok?” she murmured to her lover, smoothing back Tara’s hair. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Tara hugged her. “It wasn’t him,” she whispered back. “Wait. Listen.”
Xander and Anya still gripped their weapons, looking suspicious.
“It’s ok,” Buffy said. “Really.” Without looking behind her she kicked backwards, catching Spike in the shin. “De-vamp, I said.”
“Ow,” he muttered, but Slayer sense told her that Spike had shifted to human, and he stepped back. “Yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t working with the bloke.”
“He’s right,” Giles confirmed. “I saw the vampire who was working with Ethan, and it wasn’t Spike. As a matter of fact, Spike…uh…rescued me.”
Xander and Anya looked at each other, looked around the shambles of the Magic Box, and said in unison, “What’s going on?”
Buffy felt her face turn red. Having everyone, including Spike, hear about the prophecy was going to be embarrassing to say the very least. But there was no help for it. They were all involved and it wasn’t fair to keep them in the dark.
No one said she had to be the one doing the illuminating, however. Buffy retreated to the edge of the research table, which was miraculously still standing, and perched on the corner.
“Giles,” she said tiredly. “You tell it."
Although he had gotten the gist of the story from Mattie, he paid careful attention to the additional detail Giles supplied, particularly the wording of the prophecy. It was interesting, but the whole bit about having his darkness illuminated left him cold. He liked his darkness just the way it was, thanks.
For the most part, Spike kept his eyes on Giles, but he felt the glances of the Scoobies. None of them would have been happy about a prophecy that linked Buffy to any vampire, except possibly Angel, but having the vampire be Spike seemed to add insult to injury.
Occasionally, he sneaked a look at Buffy, but she kept her head down and seemed fascinated by the wood grain of the research table where she sat. He could feel the extra blood that had rushed to her face in a permanent blush and would have teased her about it except that he was absolutely terrified.
The terror didn’t result from the prophecy, or not entirely. While it was uncomfortable knowing that such a thing existed, the prophecy didn’t exactly provide names and addresses. It was simple enough to decide it referred to someone else.
No, Spike was frightened of what he had felt when Buffy had inadvertently smiled down at him. The exquisite pain had almost made him look down to see if she’d run the stake through his heart. For a few moments, nothing had existed for him except her smile.
Even that wasn’t the main thing. He knew that her smile hadn’t really been intended for him. But the quick indrawn breath, increased heartbeat, and flare of her eyes into huge black pools had been for him. She had felt something too, and the knowledge made him want to run and hide.
It was one thing to say he loved the Slayer, or to even actually love the Slayer when that love was a hopeless never-to-be-returned sort of thing. As Spike had told Riley, he knew he didn’t have any real chance with Buffy. It was a yearning, a fantasy, and on some level, that was ok because it meant that no real effort was required of him. He could go on as he always had, William the Bloody, vampire extraordinaire, especially now that the chip was out of his head. But if it was real, if Buffy could come to return his love, that meant change beyond what he could grasp.
The sudden silence in the room made him realize that Giles had finished the explanation. Buffy had looked up from her rapt contemplation of the table and was watching the others while chewing on her lower lip. The Watcher wasn’t looking terribly happy as he removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. The Scoobies weren’t overjoyed either. Tara looked faintly worried, but Willow, Anya, and Xander were all scowling.
Xander finally broke the silence. “What you’re saying is that somebody thinks Buffy and Spike might get together, which would be bad for that particular somebody, and that’s why they’re doing this?”
“Essentially,” Giles answered.
“But that’s just what someone thinks, right, Buffy?” He crossed the room to stand in front of the Slayer, who straightened in response. “I mean, that’s just some stupid idea somebody got because Spike hung around a lot, isn’t it? Not something that would really happen. Because, this is Spike. Who spent a lot of time attacking us. Some of us more recently than others.”
Xander's words and voice were angry, but there was pain behind them. The pain of someone who anticipated betrayal. Spike saw Buffy swallow hard.
“I’m sorry,” he cut across her before she could to start to answer.
Every eye in the room fastened on the vampire. Spike rather desperately wished for another cigarette, or anything to do with his hands, but he continued to lean indolently on the wall and raised an eyebrow.
“What can I say?” he asked. “I shouldn’t have done it. I knew the bloody mage was up to something when he removed my chip, but I was too sodding happy to care. So, I’m sorry for attacking you. You too,” he nodded to Willow who struggled to form a faint smile.
“Sorry?” Xander turned away from Buffy and walked toward him. “You’re never sorry. You killed people for 120 years, and you’re sorry for attacking me and Willow?”
Spike shrugged. “I did what I did. Weeping and wailing won’t change it now. But for what it’s worth, I am sorry for what I did to you.”
Xander folded his arms and glared. “Not good enough.”
“Xander,” Willow whispered.
“No. It’s not good enough. You can’t wipe everything out by one ‘sorry’. It’s too easy.”
“Fine.” Spike moved away from the bookcase to where they had dropped their weapons. “How’s this, then?”
Not letting himself think about how bad it was going to hurt, he caught up one of the discarded crosses.
Agony shot through him, searing through his hand. Compared to this, the chip had been about as bad as a stubbed toe. A chorus of yells came from the others as the smell of his burning flesh filled the shop.
Buffy leaped off the table and reached his side in one move. “Stop that!” she said sharply, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and trying to break his hold.
“Not…until…they…say…” he gritted.
“Put it down!” Willow cried.
“Yeah,” Xander said shakily, “Geez, I accept your apology. Put it down already.”
Spike dropped the cross. Despite a strong desire to curl up in a ball around his mutilated hand and cry, he yanked his arm from Buffy’s grasp and stood straight. Everyone was staring at him white-faced except Anya who just looked mildly interested.
“If we’re all square now,” he growled. “I think I’ll be on my way. I’ll see you lot later.”
“You need to have your hand seen to,” Giles said faintly.
“I’ll manage.” He didn’t look at Buffy as he turned his back on them and strode from the shop.
Giles said he could dispose of Ethan’s body, and Buffy decided she just didn’t want to know any details. What with one thing and another, the evening had added up to being fairly intense, and everyone was tired.
I sure am, anyway. Buffy entered her bedroom, yawning hugely. She had patrolled very late every night since the killings started, hoping the catch Ethan and Spike. Since she had released some of the guilt, she was sleeping slightly better once she actually got in bed, but still not deeply, and only for a few hours at a time.
Well, Ethan and the non-Spike were dead now, and even if someone was behind them, she should have a few quiet nights while whoever-it-was regrouped. Buffy eyed her bed fondly. I can use them too.
She stripped hastily, snuggled down under the covers, and closed her eyes.
I hope Spike’s ok.
Her eyes popped open. Stop it, she told herself. Spike managed for more than 100 years without you. He’s a big bad vampire. He’ll be fine.
Buffy closed her eyes again firmly.
His hand was in bad shape.
She sat up and punched the pillow as if it were responsible for her thoughts.
Like Spike hasn’t been injured before. I’ve probably hurt him worse then that burn. Giles offered to fix his hand, and probably would have given him somewhere to sleep, but he got all stubborn about everything. Besides, even if I wanted to do something, I don’t even know where he is. And I’m not going back out to look for him.
She flopped back down, having settled that once and for all.
He’s in his old crypt.
“Damnit,” Buffy whispered. She knew where Spike was with the same certainty she had known Giles was dying. She didn’t want a link like this between herself and a vampire. Any vampire. Particularly this vampire.
Well, if he was in the crypt, then he was safe and would be fine until tomorrow, so she could stop worrying about him.
Except his hand had been badly burned, and the crypt didn’t have anything in it other than the tomb, because she had removed and broken or burned everything in the place.
Buffy groaned, but it was no use. Somehow, Spike had gotten on the Official List of People Buffy had to Worry About, and she wasn’t going to be able to sleep until she knew he was ok. Wearily, she dragged herself out of bed and grabbed for her clothes.
Buffy grimaced and turned to see Dawn standing on the basement stairs. She’d been trying to be quiet, but it was apparently one of the powers of the Key to turn up in places where she really wasn’t wanted.
“I need a sleeping bag,” hoping faintly that her sister would take the statement at face value.
No such luck. “Now? Why?”
She was going to have to explain sometime. “I need it for Spike.”
Dawn sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I thought you wanted to kill Spike. Are you going to smother him? Are you going to zip him up in the sleeping bag and let the sun slowly burn his head off? Because that would be gross.” She paused. “Can I watch?”
“Dawn!” Buffy was horrified. “That’s awful! I would never do something like that!” She turned away and fiddled with the camping gear. “I was wrong about Spike. The wizard, Ethan, was trying to make us think Spike was helping him, but he wasn’t.”
Dawn brightened, having heard the three magic words. “You were wrong?”
“Yes, I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Enjoy.”
“I will,” Dawn smiled. “A lot. So, do we like Spike again?”
“I don’t know that ‘like’ is the right word,” I don’t know what the right word is, Buffy added silently. But I’m pretty sure ‘like’ isn’t it. Aloud, she continued, “We aren’t actively trying to kill Spike at the moment.”
“It's getting hard to keep track of this. We need one of those magnets like you put on dishwashers,” Dawn said thoughtfully. “You know, the ones that say ‘Clean’ or ‘Dirty’? We could have ‘Hate Spike’ and ‘Don’t hate Spike’.”
“Go to bed, Dawn,” Buffy glared.
“Ok, ok.” She started up the stairs, then looked at the bag Buffy had dragged out without looking at what she was doing. “Hey, you probably shouldn’t take your old one. I don’t think he’d like the pink bunnies.”
It had taken everything he had to make it from the Magic Box to the crypt. He hadn’t even attempted driving, just grabbed two bottles, Scotch and blood, out of the boot and staggered for shelter.
Spike slid to the floor of the crypt and leaned against the side of the tomb, shaking. He used his good hand and his teeth to uncork one of the bottles, it didn’t matter which, and took a swig.
Scotch. Good, that would dull the pain faster, although injuries caused by religious implements hurt more than others and took longer to heal. He took another swallow and hoped the bottle had enough. He’d held the cross for a good twenty seconds, and the flesh had seared almost to the bone.
Waves of nausea coursed through Spike, and he closed his eyes against the spinning of the room. He was cold too, colder than usual, as chills took him and made his teeth chatter. He got the blood opened and drank from that as well, letting it warm him slightly.
If this didn’t ease up, he was going to cut his fucking hand off. It would probably hurt less.
He drifted for a time on a haze of alcohol, pain, and sickness until he was jerked back to reality by a disgusted voice.
“What kind of fool trick was that? What would you have done if they hadn't said you could drop the cross? Let your hand burn off?"
Painfully, Spike opened his eyes to see Mattie scowling down at him, hands on her non-existent hips.
“Nice bedside manner, Love,” he muttered. “Thanks.”
“Huh.” She squatted down beside him. “You’re only feelin’ this bad ‘cause of your pride. The Watcher would’a fixed your hand and give you a bed. What are you doin’ here?”
“Making a point.”
“The point that you ain’t all that bright? I’m pretty sure they know that. I didn't think you were all broody and sulky like that other one.”
He glared at her in utter outrage. “I AM NOTHING LIKE ANGEL! The point is that I was sorry for what I did to them! All right? Look, if you’re just going to scold, how about leaving?”
Something like a breeze ruffled his hair, and he opened his eyes to see that her pointed face had softened. “And are you sorry?”
“S’pose so,” he muttered, looking away again. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure why he had held the cross. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If it helps, you and Buffy already did better then me and Jarrod. Try and not be stupid and you might go
far.”
“I’ll make a real effort. Aah!” He had shifted unintentionally and the movement brought a fresh wave of pain. “Can you do anything about this?”
“Not a thing,” her voice wasn’t unkind. “I can help out with you not bein’ stupid though. Already have.”
“Really?” he sneered. “How, pray tell?”
Her grin was sheer evil as she began to fade. “If you’d scented Buffy coming, you’d a run off, pain or no. But talkin’ to me kept you from knowin. And now, she’s right outside your door.”
Spike’s head came up, senses extending in panic. Mattie was right. Buffy was at the crypt porch. She was right too, that he would left at the Slayer’s approach. He didn’t want her to see him in this weakened state, especially as confused as he was about the events of the evening. No, he needed time to regroup, time to become his old swaggering self again. At the moment, he felt more Wiliam than Spike, something that hadn't happened in over a century.
There was a pounding on the door. “Spike?” Buffy called.
At least she didn’t kick it in. Progress of a sort. He held quiet and still. Maybe she would leave.
"Spike, I know you're in there."A few moments later, the door swung open with a familiar crash and Buffy was frowning at him with the same expression Mattie had worn. “What the hell is the matter with you? Why didn’t you open the door?”
A strong wish that he could wave his hand and free himself from all women, particularly Slayers, both past and present, filled his heart.