Bloody Intervention

Summary: Buffy sees the torture Spike endured to protect her and her sister. Wracked by doubt about her calling and her coming fight with Glory she turns to Spike. Takes place at end of S5 Intervention and goes off-canon from there.

Credits: Intervention was written by the wonderful Jane Espenson and her words are respectfully quoted here to set the scene, and have surely influenced this fanfic.

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Mutant Enemy, and were made flesh by the actors that gave them life. I borrow them here out of reverence, with respect and for fun, not profit. I promise to return them when I've finished with them (but can I keep Spike, pretty please? I'll treat him well, sooo well!).

Chapter One - Wounds

Previously on Buffy: Spike has been tortured by Glory in an unsuccessful attempt to make him reveal the identity of the Key. Spike is now lying on top of a sarcophagus in his crypt, covered in the wounds evincing Glory's sadistic torture of him. Buffy enters the crypt pretending to be the Buffybot.

Buffy: Spike! You're covered in sexy wounds.
Spike: Yeah. I feel real sexy. Where you been?
Buffy: I fell down and got confused. Willow fixed me. She's gay.
Spike: Will fixed you? I thought they'd melt you into scrap.
Buffy: They were confused too. Do you wanna ravage me now?
Spike: Give us a minute. Got some bones need mending.
Buffy: Why did you let that Glory hurt you?
Spike: She wanted to know who the key was.
Buffy: Oh, well, I can tell her, and then you'll-
Spike: No! You can't ever. Glory never finds out.
Buffy: Why?
Spike: 'Cause Buffy ... the other, not so pleasant Buffy ... anything happened to Dawn, it'd destroy her. I couldn't live, her bein' in that much pain. Let Glory kill me first. Nearly bloody did.
Buffy leans up and kisses Spike gently. Spike looks at her in surprised wonder as he realises that she is the real Buffy.

Spike: And my robot?
Buffy: The robot is gone. The robot was gross and obscene.
Spike: It wasn't supposed to-
Buffy: Don't. That ... thing, it ... it wasn't even real. What you did, for me, and Dawn - that was real. I won't forget it.

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Buffy turned and headed towards the heavy door of the crypt as Spike groaned quietly and, with difficulty, lay back down on the sarcophagus lid.

Spike thought that as long as he existed, and, barring staking and sunshine, that could be an eternity, he would never see anything as beautiful as the look on Buffy's face when she told him, "What you did, for me, and Dawn - that was real. I won't forget it."

If he had been staked then and there he couldn't have dusted any happier. At that moment, the pain of the wounds Glory had inflicted dissolved from his mind as he drunk in the drop of gratitude that Buffy had bestowed on him.

But his reverie was short-lived as he sensed the approach of trouble. He raised his head painfully, sniffing the air, "Fear," he said quickly, almost to himself.

Buffy turned back, looking questioningly at Spike.

"Red and the Whelp, coming here. They're frightened," Spike winced as the effort of talking caused his broken ribs to grind together and his damaged jaw to grate.

Without a word Buffy marched determinedly to the door, flung it open and stepped out of the crypt, closing the door behind her firmly, but without slamming it.

Walking into the clearing in front of the crypt, Willow and Xander looked relieved to see their friend unharmed.

"Buffy, we were worried. Are you ok?" Willow asked, her forehead creasing with concern.

"Yes, Buff, after you were gone we panicked. If Dead Boy Jnr saw through your act as Robo-Buff, I mean, he's still a vampire, right, and you were walking into the lion's den."

Buffy huffed, unaccountably annoyed at Xander's assumption, "Xander, you and Giles saw what Glory did to Spike. Do you honestly think he's in a fit state to even DEFEND himself, much less attack me?"

"Like I said, Buff, he's a vampire. They heal quick, don't they." Xander folded his arms across his chest as if to emphasise the undeniable logic of his statement.

Willow was uncharacteristically quiet as she watched her best friend take a deep breathe, as if to calm herself, before disabusing Xander of his theory.

"Xander Harris, do you even have a clue what you are saying?" Buffy began. "Yes, Spike's a vampire, but, hey," she waved her hand in the air, "Vampire Slayer here, so not likely to be in danger! And, yes, vampires heal more quickly than humans, but you saw how hurt he was, Xan. You yourself said he was 'whupped' and 'so thrashed', if I remember? You know those injuries aren't disappearing overnight, not damage that bad."

Xander opened his mouth to defend himself, or more likely to assail Spike, but Buffy stopped him dead, drawing herself into her fighting stance as she began to realise herself just what Spike had been through to protect Dawn, to protect her.

Buffy stepped closer to Xander and stabbed the air in front of him with her right index finger as she continued, "The irony of Spike's ability to heal himself is that Glory could inflict that much more pain than she could on a human. Pain that would have had YOU passing out, Spike had no such escape from. He had to endure torture that would have killed you several times over and yet still he did NOT reveal the identity of the Key!"

"He…he didn't?" gasped Willow. She and the rest of the Scoobies had been so convinced that their secret was out.

"No he didn't. And d'you know what? He never would. Glory would never have got him to spill. He would have dusted first. Could you say the same, Xander?"

"But Buffy, I'm not a vampire. You couldn't expect me to put up with …. with what Glory did to Spike." In spite of himself, Xander shivered.

"But Spike IS a vampire, Xander. That's just the point, isn't it? Buffy grumbled, as the scales dropped from her own eyes. "What allegiance does he owe any of us? Do we treat him with respect or dignity? Are we even grateful when, against his instincts, he helps us? No we assume that 'vampire' always equals 'evil' equals 'must slay'."

Buffy was red in the face, her eyes blazing and her breathing hard, partly because she was angry at herself as she realised what a hypocrite she had become.

"And I'm the biggest culprit here," she continued honestly, "I have been trained to see only humans: good; vampires: bad. Well, I think they have a word for that: 'prejudice'."

Willow tried to ease the tension that was palpable around the three of them. "Buffy, it's been a long and tiring day for all of us. How's about we head for town and hit the Ice Cream Parlour? I know I could do with some chilly chocolate goodness."

Ignoring Willow, Buffy continued, in a softer tone. "You know usually we try to treat others with respect, our opinions of them based on their actions, not on superficial distinctions or assumed differences. We try not to jump to conclusions and try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Unless, it seems, we are judging a vampire. Then it's all about our assumptions of who they are, what they'll do. We make small concessions to vampires with souls, but they come back to bite us, er …" Buffy cringed and added quickly, "figuratively speaking."

Continuing, she said, almost kindly, "Xander, I've never known you to judge a human by the colour of their skin or by their disability. Why is it so hard to extend the same courtesy to vampires? To realise that not all vampires are evil, at least, not all of the time?" Buffy was trying not to listen to herself for fear of being overwhelmed by her feelings as she realised she was guilty of monumental hypocrisy.

"Buffy," Xander began softly, realising that his friend must be really shaken up by recent events, otherwise how could he explain her seeming about-face. It couldn't be easy for her knowing that someone had been tortured to protect her sister, even if that someone was a gross, blood-sucking vampire. "It's because vampires ARE evil. That's what they are, what they do. And I've never been convinced that having a soul actually changes what they are. I'm sorry if you don't like that, but I'm being honest here, Buff."

Worried by the direction the conversation was taking, Willow stepped between her two friends. "Hey, guys, why don't we continue this riveting conversation somewhere more comfortable? The Magic Box, say? What about it?"

"You go," Buffy relaxed her posture and sighed, but still managed to make her comment sound like a command, "I have some things to do first. It may take me sometime. I'll see you later, or tomorrow maybe."

"But Buffy," Willow and Xander began together, stopping abruptly as Buffy assumed her slayer stance again.

"Go," she almost whispered, but her tone was one that would brook no argument.

Xander opened his mouth to argue but was yanked sideways by Willow as she attempted to pull him away from putting more of his feet into his mouth.

"Okey-dokey, Buffy, we'll just skedaddle down to the Magic Box." Willow was pulling Xander with her out of the clearing in the direction of the cemetery gates. "Er, join us if you like, later. Or not, whatever suits. Okay then, we're going. Stay safe. See you later. Whenever. Later's fine. It's cool. Com'on Xan, lets see if Anya's found that missing invoice for Giles yet." And with that Willow and Xander disappeared out of sight behind a family mausoleum.

Buffy stood stock-still, staring in the direction of her fleeing friends. She thought she ought to be angry with herself for rounding on Xander like that, but she couldn't honestly feel that she had done anything wrong. He was a loving, caring, charitable friend who had an unhelpful and irritating blind spot when it came to vampires. And whilst she knew that her black and white attitude to the whole vampire versus human situation, while not excusing it completely, was down to her calling as the Slayer, she couldn't quite understand why Xander was so antagonistic towards vampires in general and Spike in particular (and before that, Angel, she remembered).

Turning, she made her way slowly back to the door of Spike's crypt. Opening the door gingerly she slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind her. Spike raised his head painfully from the sarcophagus lid. "Thanks, pet," he breathed softly, although he wasn't sure if Buffy had actually said those things, or if he had brain damage and imagined it.

"You heard." It was a statement rather than a question as Buffy realised whatever else Glory had done to him, his vampire hearing had not been damaged. Buffy moved closer to him and cast her practised eye over the wounds visible on his torso, face and arms.

There was a moment of silence before an abashed Spike asked raspingly, "Slayer, could you do me a favour? I don't think I can make it to the lower chamber by m'self, and up here I'm a sitting duck for any brassed off demon." He caught his breath before continuing. "Could you help me down the ladder and close the trapdoor after me so it looks like the crypt is empty?" His head fell back on the stone lid with a thump at the effort of speaking.

Buffy nodded, and moved to the back of the crypt to open the trapdoor. She dropped down to the lower level briefly and when she returned candlelight flickered from below. Coming back to where Spike was laying she lifted his shoulders and supported his weight as he painfully swung his legs round until he was sitting on the edge of the sarcophagus. Buffy inwardly cringed as she saw the wounds on Spike's back clearly for the first time. Amongst a myriad of smaller nicks and cuts and abrasions, there was were three deep welts running across his back from his left shoulder blade to his right hip, one of which was cut deep into his flesh exposing his spine.

As delicately as possible, Buffy moved her arm from his shoulders to his waist to support him, flinching inwardly as she necessarily pressed against the open diagonal gash where it cut across his waist. She helped Spike down from the stone lid, taking almost all of his weight, as he put his right arm across her shoulders and tentatively put one foot in front of the other. Buffy realised that his right knee was badly damaged and could not support him but although his left leg had fared little better he could put a little weight on it.

The painful journey to the lower level took several minutes. Twice Buffy had asked Spike if he wanted to stop and rest but Spike had shaken his head with a look of grim determination on his bloodied face.

Once in the chamber below Buffy laid Spike carefully on his bed, nodding as he mumbled a grateful "Thanks, Slayer", and looked around her. The cosy room he had created for himself had all the comforts of home (but no mirror, she noted) and when her eyes alighted on a small china bowl and pitcher on a washstand in the corner of the room, she made her decision.

TBC

A/N: I'll try to post every other day or so but I'm throwing a 'Bard's Night' party at the weekend to celebrate Shakespeare's birth & St Georges Day so please bear with me.