Consciousness fades in and out. I never fully become coherent, but I'm just aware enough to feel the rushing of the wind whipping past us as we move quickly through the night. Enough to hear the low voice in my ear, but not enough to make out the words it's saying. Everything is black. Heavy, numb. My body is fighting it, I think. Trying at least.

I cling to the last vestiges of consciousness I have before the tranquilizer completes its job.

I wake up in pain.

Great, shuddering, full body heaving spasms of pain. It's the only thing I'm aware enough to recognize, to feel, the haze in my brain impossible to clear for all the spasms I feel rocketing through me now.

And every once in awhile, through the grogginess of the pain, I hear voices. Low murmurs, like they're trying not to wake me up, don't want me to hear what they're saying.

Low, growling. Male. For sure, two of the voice are male.

And one more high pitched, tinkling. Panicked.

Female.

"...we should think about this first. We don't want to risk doing any damage…"

"Think the damage has already been, done yeah?"

"That's all well and good, but we don't know what's going to happen if we—"

There's a rustling sound, like clothing, something heavy being thrown down to the ground and a menacing growling sound, followed quickly by another rippling wave of pain.

My eyes are open, I think. It's hard to tell because everything is so dark. And fuzzy.

Dark and fuzzy and distant, and every few seconds or so another earth shattering stab of pain comes rolling forward, starting at the base of my skull and radiating upward until it's everywhere.

The voices are still there, too. As the haziness subsides and the pain becomes stronger, I can hear them. Clearer, clear enough now for me to recognize who they're coming from.

"…don't care if you have to cut through the entire sodding thing," I hear, and the voice is unmistakeable to my ears, even with it fading in and out. I think I'd know it anywhere. Spike. "Just get it outta me."

Then, the other male voice, clearer this time. Clear enough for me to recognize it, too.

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Giles asks, sounding strained. Both annoyed and flustered. There's a clinking sound, maybe metal on metal, and he sighs loudly. "You have to hold still."

I blink again, vision still blurred, but slowly clearing. Like my hearing, like the voices earlier, the room around me starts to take shape. I can see outlines at least, shapes, enough now that I can see where it is that I am. Giles's apartment. His living room.

I shift slightly, my muscles like lead and realize that it's his sofa I'm lying on now.

And all the voices— Spike, Giles, the female voice that I'd be willing to bet is Willow—are coming from the other side of it, where I can't see. I'd have to lift myself up, grip the edge of the sofa's back and lean over it to see what it is that's happening.

And I don't think that's an option right now.

I open my mouth to try and speak, to call out. Maybe if they know I'm awake, if I call out, someone will have to tell me what exactly's going on here.

No sound comes out.

Just like back in the cemetery, my tongue won't move. It's thick and sticks to the roof of my mouth and the muscles in my throat are too tense.

So that's no good.

Gritting my teeth against the stiffness in my muscles, focusing all my energy on my movements, I attempt to shift the dead weight of my body back. Pressing my elbows into the sofa and hoisting myself up into something that vaguely resembles a sitting position. I manage, but it feels like it takes forever. Minutes that seem to stretch on for ages, the aching all over my body growing worse by the second.

But I manage, twisting around, peering over the edge of the sofa just in time for another gut wrenching stab of pain to hit my head, making me wince, squeeze my eyes closed tight against the onslaught.

"Bloody fuck," Spike hisses, and my eyes snap back open in time to see his arms jerking involuntarily where he's seated. Straddling the back of one of Giles's kitchen chairs, strong hands gripping the back of it so tightly that I can make out the blue veins running along his biceps. "That hurts, you git."

I turn my shaky gaze to Giles, who's holding a sharp looking knife in one hand and what looks like a pair of tweezers in the other. Willow stands behind him, a flashlight in her left hand and an open book laying flat across the palm of her left.

"I'm not a bloody surgeon, Spike," Giles says tersely, indicating for Willow to adjust the angle of the flashlight. "You wanted this done, and you wanted it done quickly. This is the best we could do on such short—"

Spike cries out again, his shoulder muscles spasming violently, corresponding to the spasms ricocheting through my own body, just as a sharp stabbing pain hits me hard in the back of my skull.

I cry out, too, before I can stop myself. The sound is strangled and hoarse, but it's there.

Several pairs of eyes shoot toward me at once. Willow's green, Giles's grey, and barest azure of Spike's as he swivels his head around as far as he can. It's his eyes I focus on, what I can see of them as they widen, taking in my appearance. It's a look I don't think I've seen on his face very often, but I don't think I'll forget it, even with the grogginess still surrounding me.

Fear.

"Willow," Giles says instantly, his voice it's own, slightly panicked timbre. He hardly bothers to look at me for longer than an extended second before his attention is back on the head of the vampire in front of him.

Willow's eyes, however, are glued to mine. Wide, panicked. There's fear on her face, too, but I'm not sure it's for the same reasons.

Whatever it is they're seeing when they look at me, I get the bague, distant feeling that it has to be something bad.

"But—" she begins, but Spike's loud growl cuts her off.

"C'mon Red," he snarls, gritting his teeth as another wave of pain shoots through both of us. "You promised."

The redheaded witch is still staring at me, the deer in preverbal headlights. And I'm too out of it, in too much pain, to fully comprehend what it is that I'm seeing.

"I know," she says, conceding to the vampire, admitting that she promised him something. What, I don't know. "But—"

Another jerking spasm as the tweezers in Giles's hand come in contact with…something, and Spike's chip fires. My own strangled cry of pain is drowned out by his much louder roar. Giles hurriedly drops the knife down onto the table, using his free hand to clamp down on my vampire's shoulder to keep him steady, the pressure of his fingers easing the aftershocks there.

"Willow, please," he says, his voice rough and ragged, commanding her eyes back toward him and away from me.

I still don't know, can't understand what I'm seeing. What's happening.

All I can think of is the pain that won't stop.

And there's blood, too. I can smell it. Thick and coppery and right below my nose, dripping down into my shirt and staining the white fabric with crimson.

Hazily, I reach a leaden hand up and wipe it across my face, below my nose, watching through still-blurry eyes as it comes back stained red.

Oh. It's me.

I'm bleeding. My nose is bleeding.

I turn my eyes back toward the three of them and watch as Willow looks back at me one more time, her face scrunched up in indecision before she turns her attention down to the open book in her hand and begins to read. Whatever it is she's saying, I can't hear it. She's speaking too low, the words rushing too fast. I think it's English but I can't be sure.

It takes me starting to feel it before I realize what she's doing, that she's reading a spell. Putting some kind of spell on me. I can feel it, feel my eyelids drooping, getting tired, feel my grip on the sofa's edge loosening and my shoulders slumping back into the cushions behind me.

She's putting me to sleep.

And the last thing I hear is another anguished cry of pain from Spike before the world goes dark for the second time tonight.

When I come to the second time, there's no more pain.

Well, no more constant pain, I guess. I'm still aching. My muscles are tight, sore from the constant tightening they'd been doing earlier, and I can still smell the scent of blood in the air, though I think it's dry now.

I blink my eyes open to darkness, the only light in the room coming from a the tall floor lamp on the opposite side of Giles's small living room.

"Buffy," my Watcher's voice is soft, low, just beside my ear as I take in the room around me. "How are you feeling?"

Something cool and wet presses against my forehead, and I turn my head toward his voice to try and find him. He's sitting on the corner of the sofa, his hip beside my shoulder, looking down at me with worried eyes.

"What happened?" I ask, my voice hoarse. I wonder if it could be from all the screaming in pain I'd been doing.

"You were shot," he says calmly, his hand pressing the cool cloth closer to my heated skin. "A…tranquilizer dart of some kind, while you were patrolling. Spike brought you here after—"

I sit up so fast I knock the wash cloth from his hand, causing the hollow ache behind my eyes to return and sending the damp material flying toward my feet. I turn and grip his arm with entirely too much strength.

"Spike," I say urgently, my voice rising in pitch. The memories are starting to flood back to me now. Being in the cemetery. Getting shot. Running. Ending up here, on the sofa. "Where is he?" I ask, panicked. "Is he okay?"

I only dimly remember that I'd seen him here, in the apartment with me a few hours ago. I try and search for the memories, try and think about exactly what I'd seen. Sitting in that chair, Giles standing behind him. Willow, with the flashlight.

My heart is suddenly thundering against my chest.

"Shh," Giles soothes, sounding very father-like even as he grits his teeth against the pressure I'm exerting on his arm. "He's here. He's…resting."

It takes a minute for the pounding in my ears to slow down, but it does.

Here. Resting.

Right.

Resting from…whatever it is they'd been doing last night.

Because when I'd woken up before, they'd been…doing something. I think about the flashlight again. Giles and the knife, the tweezers.

And Giles's words float back to me, as though from a half remembered dream.

"I'm not a bloody surgeon, Spike."

That's it, then. They'd been in the middle of performing some kind of makeshift surgery. On Spike.

On Spike's head.

"The chip?" I ask tentatively, lowering my voice now that I've been assured of my vampire's non-dusty status.

Giles nods once, reaching up to place a reassuring hand on top of mine. "We were able to remove it."

My brow furrows.

"We?" I ask, still feeling a little hazy, knowing even as the word leaves my lips that he's talking about Willow. I relax slightly, letting my sore shoulder muscles sink back down into the pillows of the sofa.

Another nod from my Watcher. "Willow and I, with a little help from the magicks." Then he makes an almost pained face, and glances away from me. "And a sharp kitchen knife and some tweezers."

For some reason, hearing him say it feels worse than remembering the images themselves.

I grimace at the description, the words bringing fresh rounds of mental pictures to my mind's eye. I fight the urge to reach back around and cradle my own head. No wonder it had hurt so much when I'd woken up. I hadn't just been feeling the chip firing, but the surgery itself.

Giles must see the expression on my face, because his expression shifts to a more apologetic one.

"Spike had wanted it out as quickly as possible," he explains, as though telling me that will make the choice of surgical implements seem less gruesome. "He'd…well he'd assumed it would cause you pain, so he'd been hoping to remove it while you were still under the effects of the tranquilizer."

And that's probably why things had been so foggy. The tranquilizer wearing off, coupled with the pain from the emergency surgery.

I nod, understanding dawning, the memories I do have from last night starting to crystalize and make sense. "And when I woke up…" I begin, purposefully leaving it open ended for Giles to finish.

Which he does, without missing a beat.

"We had Willow put you back under," he says, "yes."

That's what Spike had meant then, when he'd made a reference to a promise. He'd made Willow promise to use…whatever spell she'd used on me, once the tranq dart wore off.

It must have been a pretty powerful one, if she'd been so hesitant to use it. Or maybe she just hadn't felt like doing magic on me at all.

I'll have to ask her about it.

"But it's out?" I ask Giles now, searching his eyes with mine. "It's gone now?"

Something dark flickers behind his eyes at my question, but he nods anyway.

"Yes, Buffy," he says, and the way he says my name makes me feel kind of funny. "It's gone now."

It's weird. We'd been fighting over removing the chip for weeks now, and Giles had remained firm. He hadn't wanted to risk removing it until we understood better what it is we were dealing with, in terms of our connection.

So what had happened last night? What had Spike said to him to turn the tide, and so immediately?

"What made you change your mind?" I ask, frowning slightly as I consider what must have happened.

Giles leans back a ways so his back is against the sofa's armrest, folding his arms as best he can over his chest.

He isn't looking at me now.

"Honestly, Spike didn't give me much of a choice." He pauses briefly, his eyes down on the ground. "He was…quite shaken up when he came here. Worried about you, demanding that I take it out tonight."

But that can't be the only reason. After weeks of being so firm in his decision to wait, there had to have been something else. Something different about tonight.

"Still," I say softly, wishing that he'd look at me. "You don't trust Spike. That's what you'd said."

His eyes shoot toward mine so rapidly, flashing and hard, I almost think I've said something to offend him. His lips form a thin line as he looks at me before he agrees with me, his voice somber.

It catches me off guard when he adds, almost as an afterthought, "But you do."

It's this extra admission that makes me think that something else has happened. That something else is…wrong, here. But I'm not ready to delve into that mess quite yet, so I just nod, turning my own eyes down toward the ground and biting down on my lip.

"It's because of the Initiative," I say softly, thinking about the thought that had flashed through my head earlier, before I'd succumbed to the dart. "That's why Spike probably wanted it out tonight." I shift my eyes toward Giles, who's still looking at me. "They're back in town."

And the reasoning makes sense to me. What I know about what happened last night, coupled with what I'd seen when I'd woken up and the things Giles has told me now.

Of course Spike would want the chip removed after seeing them. How else would he be able to defend himself from them, and without causing me massive amounts of pain in the process?

"Yes," Giles murmurs his agreement, more like he's talking to himself now than to me. "That's what we'd feared."

It takes me a second once again to register what he's just said.

"Wait, what?" I shift back on the sofa so I can see him better, my forehead creasing in confusion. "You knew they were back?" And then I pause, frowning. "And who's we?"

Giles takes a minute to think about what he wants to say before he opens his mouth to speak, but I think I know what he's going to say before he does.

"Spike had his suspicions," he explains, and I feel my jaw tightening as I listen to him. "Things he'd seen himself, others he'd picked up here and there during his patrols from other demons." He sighs, getting to his feet, stepping around the coffee table to look back down at me. "There hadn't been any way to be certain, of course. Until now."

I feel fire blazing in my eyes as I gaze back at him, wondering if he'd anticipated my reaction and that's why he'd gotten up when he had. My cheeks are hot.

"Why didn't either you bother to tell me about this?" I ask, voice tight, working hard to keep control of the temper I feel flaring wildly in my chest.

"You've had other things to worry about, Buffy." His hands are twitching nervously, one of them shoved into his pants pocket and the other reaching up to toy with the frames of his glasses. "We know how much you've had on your mind lately and we didn't think worrying you unduly was in your best interest."

Normally, under any other circumstance, I think I'd be sort of happy to hear that Giles and Spike had agreed on something. Now, though, all it does is feed the fire that's rapidly building in me, spreading now from my chest down to my gut. That they'd both known, or had their suspicions, and confide in each other about it but had never come to me? I'm the Slayer. I'm the one everyone is supposed to go to first.

I shift again, making a show of considering this new information, turning my eyes up to a corner of the ceiling.

"So the two of you just….got together and decided to wait for me to get shot before telling me this?" I ask, sitting up a little straighter on the sofa so I can let the full range of my temper flare. I whip my eyes back to his, throw my hands up, gesturing vaguely around the room. "God, Giles, what if I'd been out there by myself tonight? I mean, if Spike hadn't…" I trail off, the words growing thick on my tongue and my blood running cold as I think about other, much worse implications of what could have happened. I swallow hard, my eyes starting to burn from out of nowhere as I turn my eyes away from Giles and down to my hands. "What if Spike had been out there by himself?"

Giles nods thoughtfully, his eyes angled down toward the open book on his coffee table. "That's something we discussed after dinner," he admits.

And it clicks with me. The tale end of whatever fight the two of them had been having over by the sink, after we'd cleared the dishes. Voices low and tense, talking about how whatever Spike had said was the most logical explanation, and Giles had said that his opinion wasn't unbiased…

"That's what you were arguing about in the kitchen?" I ask, needing the clarification from him out loud.

Giles just nods in answer. "Spike didn't want you going out to patrol alone anymore, and believed that if it was the Initiative we were dealing with, then the chip's removal should be a higher priority." Giles frowns, clearing his throat. I watch from my spot on the sore as that same cold look from before passes over his face. "And as it turns out, he was quite right to be concerned."

In spite of myself, I feel the corners of my lips tug up just slightly, tilting my head to the side to consider him. "That hard for you to admit, huh?"

The turn of his eyes up toward the ceiling is all the answer I need, but there's almost something soft in his voice when he responds with a muttered "You've no idea."

The smile that had been ghosting my lips falls a little as I start to glance around the room. I realize now I haven't seen Spike. Haven't even heard him since I'd woken up.

I frown, trying to figure where he might be. I've been lying on the sofa, the overstuffed chair is empty, and there's no place for Spike to be hiding anywhere else in the room.

Giles does have a guest bedroom, doesn't he? I'm not sure. I've never gone on the grand tour.

"Where is he?" I ask suddenly, not bothering to clarify who it is I'm talking about. If it isn't obvious by now, we have some bigger issues.

I'd expected a quick, easy answer.

That's not what I get.

Giles doesn't answer me for a very long minute. He just stands in front of me with his hands in his pockets, a strange look on his face. Like he isn't sure what it is he wants to say to me.

And I get that feeling again. That weird, aching feeling in my chest that something isn't right. That something isn't right, and that he doesn't want me to know about it.

My muscles tense as I lean forward. "Giles?"

Another beat.

Then, "Upstairs, in the loft."

In…the loft.

But that bed up there…that's Giles's bed. That's where he sleeps.

Why would he have Spike rest there? Of all the places in the apartment he could catch a quick nap…

Giles sees it happen. Sees my eyes widen, my lips form a silent "o". That look that someone gets when they realize something horrible has happened.

I leap to my feet in an instant, ignoring the pounding in my head as I move for the stairs.

Giles lunges for me, wrapping a firm hand around my wrist and tugging me to a stop. I stop to turn toward him, my chest heaving now, heart hammering wildly against my ribs.

"What happened?" I ask him point blank, voice tight.

Giles doesn't let go of my wrist, and I don't try to pull away. He casts a cautious glance up toward the loft before sighing and focusing in on me.

"Removing the chip proved to be more…difficult than we'd anticipated. It was harder to find, deeper than we…Spike passed out from the pain, before we could finish." I watch him swallow hard, eyes searching mine almost pleadingly through the glass of his spectacles. When he speaks again, he almost sounds sorry. "I don't know for certain if I did any permanent damage or not."

My stomach drops, blood running cold. The room feels a little like it's spinning.

"What…what do you mean, permanent damage?" I ask him, and I'm only a little surprised at the unsteadiness of my voice. My eyes are burning.

Giles tightens his grip on my wrist, trying for reassuring I think. "We had to essentially perform brain surgery, Buffy," he says, his voice low, measured. The grip of his hand tenses and I feel my chest tighten again at his words. I'm not standing here anymore. Not standing in Giles's apartment, but in the Magic Box. All those months ago, standing in front of Giles and my friends and begging them for a way to help Mom. My head is aching, filled with all the things he'd told me that day. All the risks, the damage that could be done to someone's personality, whether through magic or medicine. "And as you know that comes with it's own risks–"

He stops mid-sentence when I yank my wrist violently free from his grip, panic rising in my throat, making my stomach roll. I'm over at the stairs, charging up them on slightly shaky legs before he can get another two words in. And when I reach the top of the stairs, I freeze.

In all the time I've known Spike, all the times I've fought him, worked with him, patrolled with him, slept with him…in four long years, I've never seen the vampire look like the dead man he is.

Until now.

Whoever brought him up here had taken their time to lay him out carefully, stretching his body gently across my Watcher's bed, on top of the comforter. His head is back, nestled into the pillow, his cheek turned to the side to allow the bandage at the back of his head room to breathe. His tousled platinum curls fall down over his forehead, his lips pale, cheeks sunken in.

It's his hands that really get to me, though. Folded together and resting low on his chest, which is immobile. Silent.

If I didn't have the presence of mind to recognize that he'd only be dead, truly dead, if he was a pile of dust…I think I'd collapse to the ground right now.

That's how truly horrifying it is to see him like this.

"Buffy," Giles begins, laying a firm hand on my shoulder and guiding me further into the loft space.

"How long has he been like this?" I ask, letting his touch maneuver me into the room. I can't take my eyes off how incredibly still Spike looks. Before, even in sleep, he'd been moving. Fidgeting. Shifting from one side of the pillow to the other, murmuring softly under his breath. This is different.

Behind me, Giles sighs. "You've both been unconscious for almost a day."

I whip my head around to stare at him, wide eyed, but don't say anything. I'm too shocked to say anything.

A day.

My God, twenty four hours ago we were eating Christmas dinner and now…

My hands curl into fists at my sides as I think about the Initiative. Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this, what's happened to me, to Spike, is their fault.

He wouldn't have asked, demanded that Giles remove it so hastily if they hadn't…if he hadn't been afraid for me.

"I had hoped he might wake up when you did," he tells me softly, letting go of my shoulder and stepping up beside me.

I nod, eyes raking over Spike's immobile form, lingering on the hollows of his throat, how dark his lashes look across the ashen skin of his cheeks.

"What does it mean that he didn't?" I ask, half dreading the answer as I turn to meet my Watcher's eyes. He looks at me steadily for a long moment, grey gaze piercing in the moonlight that filters in behind him. Finally, he sighs, reaching up to remove his glasses and turning back to look at the inert vampire on his bed.

When he speaks, his voice is quiet. "I don't know."

I can hear it in the way he says it, too. What it means to him. What he thinks he's really saying. How bad he might really think things are, and how he won't tell me that.

So I don't press him. Just nod my head and step further into the room, leaving him staring into my back as I approach the bed. There's not one ounce, not a single moment of hesitation in my body. My knees brush the edge of the mattress and I reach up to remove my unbuttoned coat, letting it drop to the floor as I lower myself down onto the bed beside Spike.

Giles makes a small noise from behind me, but I ignore him.

My vampire doesn't move as I do it, but I don't expect him to. I lay down, stretching the length of my body alongside his, picking up his right arm and moving the dead weight of it until it's curling around my back. I drop my head down, tucking it into the curve of his shoulder, carefully entwining my fingers with his.

And I bury my face into Spike's neck, inhaling the scent of him, hoping that somehow my being here might be enough to get him to move. That my body heat will leech into his cool skin and wake him up.

I wait for what feels like ages, still aware that my Watcher is somewhere behind me, watching, Not caring that he is.

Long seconds melt into minutes, which turn into longer stretches. And still, nothing. No change.

I'm vaguely aware of the noises behind me. Giles clearing his throat, the sound of wood scraping over wood, the soft creak of the chair in the corner of Giles's bedroom as he sinks down into it.

"I'm not sure how long it'll take, Buffy," he says after another long while. Gently, his voice very soft in the silence of his apartment.

I sigh against Spike, curling my body more tightly into his and wondering if he can feel the heat radiating off me even with the whole being unconscious thing.

I take another deep breath and grimace at how shuddery it sounds before I exhale again and respond, my voice it's own low murmur. "Then I'll stay here as long as I have to."

The hours pass slowly. Six turns into twelve, twelve turns into twenty-four, and before I know it it's been a full day and a half of nothing. No movement. No stirring. No muffled moans, no eye movement.

Nothing.

That day and a half turns into two. Then three.

And after three, I lose count. All I know is that the days are passing. The sun rises in the east, floats across the sky, sets in the west. People wake up and go to work, drive to the store, visit with their friends.

The days keep coming, passing, and my vampire still hasn't woken up.

I sit in Giles's bedroom and I stare at him, watch him, will him with everything I have to wake up. To open those beautiful indigo eyes of his and look at me. Say my name. Pull me into his arms and tell me everything's going to be fine.

But as much as I will it, as much as I so desperately want it, nothing happens. There's no change.

And I feel perfectly, utterly, massively useless. If some big nasty wanted to try and drag the world into hell right about now, it'd be as good a time to try as any. I wouldn't be able to leave this stupid loft even if I'd wanted to.

Which I don't. Want to, I mean.

Giles seems to think it has something to do with the connection, my not wanting to go anywhere, not wanting to be separated from my vampire. It isn't though. It's so much more than that.

It's the fact that I feel responsible for him being so desperate to get the chip removed. It's the fact that I'd disgraced him, us, when we were out on patrol and that's the reason I'd gotten shot in the first place. It's the fact that I love him, and every day I sit and watch him not wake up makes my chest ache in ways I'd never imagined it could.

True, the connection might be part of it. But mostly I think it's love.

So I don't leave Giles's apartment once. Not to patrol, not to get something to eat, not even to go home and get a change of clothes. I don't think about anything, anyone, other than Spike. Don't feel the need to visit anyone, talk to anyone. Not even Mom and Dawn. They visit me, though.

They all visit me.

Willow and Tara, Mom and Dawn, even Xander and Anya. They all come and sit with me during the never ending stretch of days, talk to me, try and make me laugh. And it works, a little. Having them here helps.

Part of me always hopes that Spike will overhear us. Xander making some off handed joke that I know Spike would hate. Or me sharing stories with Dawn about him, when we first met. Or Willow and Tara telling me about how he'd requested their help with my Christmas gift. Or that he'll somehow recognize Mom's voice when she sits in the chair at the corner of the bedroom and reads bits and pieces of Pride and Prejudice aloud.

Those are my favorite times. Yeah, it's nice when we're cracking jokes, or laughing over old stories, like when we'd teasingly recalled how Spike had convinced Dawn that Billy Idol stole his look and not the other way around…

But it's the readings that I love the most, and it's the readings that I always secretly hope will be the thing that finally works. Willow had said she'd read about it working for other people in comas, so there was a good chance it'd work for us, too.

And I just like listening to it. It isn't the story itself that I like so much as it is the way the words sound, the flow of the sentences, the grace of the dialogue. Recognizing certain phrasing or words that I know I've heard Spike use, and recognizing that they're from his life before.

It's actually kind of amazing, the way my family and friends come together. Granted, there's always a little niggle in the back of my mind that tells me Xander's only being nice now because Spike's not awake to hear it…

But as great as everyone's been, I know they're worried, too. About me just as much as they seem to be about Spike.

"How are you doing, Buffy?" Tara asks me on the third day.

She and Willow had come by a couple hours ago and had stayed to test out a few different spells, see if anything might work to wake the comatose vampire. So far, nothing's worked, and I haven't been willing to let them try anything more...invasive than they already have.

Now, Willow is downstairs talking to Giles, and Tara had offered to help me with my daily attempt to feed Spike.

I offer her a thin smile from my perch on the mattress, running a cool washcloth over his forehead, turning from my task long enough to look at her.

"Uh, I'm okay," I say honestly, shrugging, turning back to brush the cloth over the purpling shadows underneath Spike's eyes, down to his pale lips. "I mean, I'd feel better if I could get him to eat something, but—"

"Have you eaten?" Tara interrupts me gently. I turn my eyes to hers, frowning. She sits down in the corner chair, eyeing me thoughtfully.

"I…" I trail off, brow furrowed, finding that I don't know the honest answer to that. I know I've eaten something. Mom had brought cookies at some point and I'd definitely had a few of those. I pull the cloth away from Spike's face and set it on the nightstand, picking up the mug of blood and the straw in it's place. "I mean, I've…" At the knowing look on her face, I sigh, shoulders sagging. "I haven't been hungry."

Tara nods but shifts her eyes away from mine, down toward Spike. "I know this hasn't been an easy few days for you," she says softly, nibbling on her lip. "A-and I wish we could have done...more."

"No," I say quickly, setting the mug down in my lap and shaking my head. "No, you guys have done plenty." I think about it for a second, turning to look down at Spike again, how much worse he looks now than he had before. The last time I'd seen him look this badly was over a year ago, when he'd first gotten the chip. I make a face, thinking out loud, "Unless you have like a...blood transfusion spell or something?"

Tara gives me a soft, appreciative laugh and I smile too, just a little, when I look back toward her.

But her eyes are serious.

"You can't take care of him if you don't take care of yourself," she says, and her voice is as stern as I think I've ever heard it. "Take a break, Buffy. Clean yourself up a-and eat something."

I shake my head. "I can't—"

But Tara's up on her feet now, moving toward me before I can finish the thought.

"I'll sit with him. Maybe I can work a little magic," she says, indicating with a tilt of her head toward the mug in my hands.

Even after my talk with Tara, I scarcely make time to leave the vampire's side long enough to shower, to change my clothes. And when I do leave I'll only allow certain of the others to stay with him by themselves. Tara I've found comforting, but am hesitant with Willow. Giles is fine, but Xander isn't. Mom and Dawn, of course, I trust…they just aren't here as often as the others seem to be.

I don't let myself cry, even though I want to. I don't know if that's because I don't want the others to see me upset, or if it just feels like that would be…admitting defeat or something.

I don't know.

There's nothing in the Slayer handbook about what to do when your vampire lover is in a coma because he'd panicked and undergone some shoddy surgery to have his behavior modification software removed in order to better protect you from a governmental demon hunting agency.

Giles had tried, on more than one occasion, to tell me that Spike's situation hadn't been my fault. That he'd been the one to demand they remove the chip, that what had happened to me, that the Initiative possibly being back, hadn't been the only reason. I'd told him that I knew that, but it had been a lie.

I've spent the better part of the last five days blaming myself.

Giles had also tried to explain to me the way that comas work. At least, the way they work in living patients. He'd told me a little bit about what I might expect when Spike does wake up.

But I'd overheard him telling Mom that he'd begun to think he might not wake up at all. We hadn't been able to feed him, and without the blood he'd needed so desperately to heal, Giles believed there'd be little chance of him coming to without it.

I'd chosen not to listen, not to take anything I'd overheard to heart, choosing instead to keep reminding myself that he isn't dust. And as long as he's not dust, he's fine.

He'll be fine.

He has to be.

It's close to midnight, now. Dead silent in the apartment, the little alarm clock on Giles's nightstand ticking down the minutes until we stretch on into day number six. Mom and Dawn had been by earlier, and the five of us had eaten dinner together. School is starting back up in a few days and and they'd asked me to go shopping with them.

I think they'd known even as they'd asked me what the answer would be.

So they had left after dinner, and Giles had made me a cup of tea that I think had been supposed to make me sleepy. It hadn't worked.

We'd talked briefly about what it is we're going to do about the Initiative, but I don't think either of our hearts had been in it. Then I'd said goodnight and headed up to the loft for another semi-sleepless night.

I'm almost asleep.

Listening to the soft ticking of the bedside clock, the cool pre-January wind whipping around outside, battering against the loft's window. I can feel sleep tugging on me, my eyelids drooping as I curl instinctively tighter into the vampire beside me. I let my lashes flutter closed, listening for the tell-tale chime of the stroke of twelve when it happens. I feel it.

Spike's hand twitches.

I'd made it a habit after the first night to sleep beside him in the bed, my head resting against his shoulder, left hand folded into his right, splayed across his stomach.

"Just in case," I'd told Giles when he'd given me a look. "I want to be here when he wakes up."

So I feel it immediately, jerking myself awake when his fingers suddenly tighten around mine.

I sit bolt upright in the bed, twisting around to look up into his face. His eyes are still closed, the planes of his face still quiet, serene.

But there's movement. His eyes, I can see them moving beneath his lids. Lashes fluttering slightly like he might be struggling to wake up.

I twist further around, careful to keep my hand still tucked firmly into his, and prop myself up on my elbow.

"Come on, sweetheart," I whisper, using my favorite of his pet names for me, the same way I've been doing all week. I reluctantly release his hand and reach mine up to brush a wayward platinum curl off his forehead. I stare down at him, threading it through his hair before letting it move down and around to trace over his cheek. "Open your eyes."

My own eyes are stinging, rapidly filling up with days and days worth of unshed tears as hope blooms bright in my chest and I look down at his perfect face. Sending prayer after silent prayer up to whoever might be listening that he'll hear me this time.

God, I've begged him countless times over the past few days. Just like this, in the middle of the night, leaning over him and whispering encouraging words against his skin.

No one's ever heard me before.

Until now.

I watch, sucking in a deep, ragged breath as his thick lashes flutter against the pale flesh of his cheeks one last time before opening up wide, blinking into the darkness of the loft. He doesn't see me at first, the soft blue of his irises focused instead up on the ceiling.

But I don't care.

The only thing that matters to me is that his eyes are open, and for the first time in days I can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest where mine is pressed against it.

"Spike," I breathe, and it comes out torn, strangled on the sob that I've been holding in since I'd lain down beside him that first night. I lean further into him, reaching my right hand up to his cheek, letting my left hand close back around the fingers still splayed over his stomach.

His eyes do turn toward me now, as soon as he hears my voice. Fathomless azure, gleaming at me in the stray moonlight filtering through the window. His hand instinctively closes more tightly over mine, and I can't help the fresh wave of sobs that bubble past my lips.

"Oh my God," I manage between gasps, half crying and half laughing. "You scared me, you big idiot." I bring his hand to my lips and press tiny, fluttering kisses all along his knuckles.

Spike blinks up at me, watching my movements warily. He looks confused. Dazed. Giles had warned about this part, that it might take him a few minutes to come back to himself, to remember everything that had happened.

At least, that was the case with most coma victims. Granted, most coma victims weren't long dead, over one hundred year old vampires, so…we'd sort of been flying blind in taking care of him this whole time.

"What…" he begins, and his voice is hoarse, scratchy. Probably a combination of the lack of talking and the lack of feeding over the last five or so days. He clears his throat and tries again. "What happened?"

"Shh," I soothe, putting two of my fingers to his lips to quiet him. "Don't...talk yet." I swivel around on the bed, listening to the springs squeak as I do, grabbing the long-cooled mug of blood off the nightstand and stirring it absently with the straw. I lean toward him, placing the straw within easy reach of his lips. His eyes struggle to focus on the straw, and he looks back up to me once he does, as if he needs my permission to take it. I nod encouragingly, angling it even closer to him. I breathe a long, audible sigh of relief when he takes it between his parched lips and begins hesitantly drinking.

My eyes sweep his face hungrily, taking in the animation of his jaw, the way his cheek bones move below the pale skin. He has deep bags under his eyes, and his lips are dry. Dimly I recognize that he'll need to eat something more than just this chilled blood, and soon.

But it can wait. It can wait five more minutes.

He drains the mug quickly, but I wait for the hollow sucking sounds of the straw meeting the empty ceramic before I pull it away and set it back on the nightstand, grabbing the wash cloth and using it to wipe the slight flecks of crimson from the corners of his lips. He gazes up at me with wide, wondrous eyes as I do, searching my face almost as hungrily as I'd been scanning his.

I lean in and impulsively press my lips to his, my free hand going to his cheek, forgetting for just a moment about the wound that still hasn't quite healed on the back of his head. He winces below me, but whatever pain I've just caused him doesn't prevent him from kissing me back. Instantly, instinctively. Just the slightest of pressures returning mine, his hand finding it's way to rest against the swell of my hip. And I'm lost in him, in every subtle movement, in every touch of mine he returns. It feels like years have passed since I've felt him respond to me.

I hear him inhale sharply when I finally pull away. He blinks at me, flecks of gold swirling in the blue.

"You've been out for days," I tell him, and the tears are falling freely now. I'm no longer sobbing, so they flow silently down my cheeks in a steady stream that feels like it's at once relief and sorrow.

And he's still looking at me, but something seems different. I haven't seen his eyes this distant, so unfocused in…well, ever, maybe.

But at least he's looking at me. At least those gorgeous, impossible eyes of his are open.

"Giles was starting to think you wouldn't wake up at all," I tell him, sniffling, pulling my right hand away from his face to run it below my eyes, wiping the salty liquid away.

And something that I've said has his dark brows knitting together, his eyes moving back and forth between the hand I've brought back up to my lips, the tears trekking down my cheeks and my own eyes.

"Giles?" he asks, his voice still not quite normal. And apart from the hoarseness, there's something else, too. A weird inflection. Like the name sounds a little foreign on his tongue. Like he should recognize it, or vaguely does, but can't place it.

Something in me freezes.

I frown against his hand, bringing it down, away from my mouth.

And I know that something's wrong. It hits me hard, this kind of absolute knowing. Immediate, instant, as only I can know Spike. I continue to stare into his eyes as I feel the flood of emotions I hadn't bothered to think about until now. Confusion, remnants of pain, anger, a hint of fear, distrust, confusion again.

And my stomach twists up into thousands of intricate knots before it drops as I see now what it is that's flashing in the azure of his eyes.

"Spike?" I say again, more slowly, tentatively this time. My left hand unconsciously squeezes his as I do.

The vampire stares up at me for a long moment. I watch the emotions flicker across his face, watch as he swallows hard, his Adam's Apple bobbing in this throat. His tongue darts out to wet his parched lips.

And then he shifts slightly, head tilting to the side on the pillow like he's trying to get a read on me.

And when he finally speaks again, his voice that same deep, rumbling timbre I've grown to know so well, it's his words that make my blood run cold.

"Who are you?"