"Get out of my head!" he shrieked, clutching his skull as he curled into a ball. His face showed that he was in severe pain, and it hurt Buffy as well, knowing she could do nothing to fix it.
She stood about three yards away observing warily, afraid to get any closer. "You okay?" She carefully moved closer, little by little, until she wasn't more than a foot away. Gently, she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, kneeling beside him.
He jumped and turned his head, shrugging her hand away. "Don't touch. Can't, can't look, you can't. Fragile."
"Hey," she soothed. "It's okay. You're okay."
"Hurt her," he muttered brokenly, sobbing now. "I hurt her. Now she won't talk. Not to me, not to anyone else. Mute." He turned his head violently to face her, anger making his features more sharp somehow. "Cat got your tongue? You little stuck-up idiot. Too good to talk to us?" His spat his words as if they were poison. To Buffy, they were. Burning a hole in her heart, like sulfuric acid.
"She will talk. See? She's talking right now. She will."
Spike's face fell. Tears still streaked salty paths down his cheeks, and he brushed them away roughly. She hoped this was a sign that the old Spike was showing through. He would have hated for her to see him cry.
"No." He was still crying. "No. Chance is gone. No more, never more. The puddles… I dropped my papers. The ink ran, ran like my tears, mixing in the puddles." His eyes cleared in a rare moment of lucidity. "You should be disgusted."
"Never. I couldn't be disgusted by you." This was a lie, but she hoped that in his current state he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he wailed. "Sorry, sorry, sorry."
"It's okay." She pulled him into her arms, hugging him to her chest. "I forgive you."
That was all he needed to hear. He knew that she could help him. Heal him. Maybe even, someday, love him.