CHAPTER SIX
The FUO in the isolation ward is not obeying anything that conventional medicines have to offer. Antibiotics have failed. General ibuprofens, analgesics, and the like have failed. Twenty four hours under ice cold packs have resulted in nothing but shivers. There is something wrong here.
Nurses check in, hourly, all wearing protective garb. No one wants to get this. Whatever it is. And no one knows.
She has spoken to a doctor. In a second of lucidness she asked the doctor if he thought there was any chance she would live through this. He didn't know.
She tries to keep alert. It's hard, when sleepiness directs adagios over arpeggios. She tries to rouse herself occasionally. But whatever this is, it's too tough, even for the Slayer, who lies in a hospital bed, unable to speak for the tube in her throat, unable to move due to sudden paralysis.
When she closes her eyes, she sees him. And even when she opens them, she thinks she still sees him. But he wouldn't come back for this. He doesn't even know.
There is something in front of her. Someone. She sees white. It could be the top of his head. She doesn't know.
She doesn't know until someone speaks to her.
"You all right, Miss Summers?" a female voice asks.
Buffy doesn't know who's asking the question. She doesn't know the answer either.
She runs her tongue across her parched lips. She feels the scrap of her sandpapery lids as they pull away from her eyes.
"I want Spike…" she says.
"What's that, sweetheart?" the nurse asks, soothingly.
"Spike…I need to see Spike…I've got to tell him something…" she asserts.
"Who is Spike?"
"Need to tell him…tell him that I really do love him…"
"Do you have his phone number? Can I call him for you?"
"No…I need to see him…"
"Honey, you know you're not allowed visitors. For now anyway. When you're better---
"Spike can't get what I've got…he can't get human diseases. He's a vampire…" She feels the pull towards drowse and doesn't even try to fight it. Her mind is slipping back into her dreams. Maybe this time she will be able to tell him before it's too late.
The nurse waits by her bed to see if there will be any more from her patient. But she has fallen silent. She watches her as the dreams start to take hold. Buffy's brow is knitted and slight, small moans are coming from her mouth. Her head turns against her pillow.
"I've got to tell him…" she says. "I've got to tell him…"
The nurse reaches to touch her shoulder. She's delusional, she knows. Anyone would be at this temperature. The nurse has treated marathon runners with cooler temperatures. She has never seen anything like this in her life. And whatever it is, she doesn't want it.
She withdraws her hand and leaves the room.
Giles replaces the phone in its cradle. This was not the phone call he was expecting. Every time the phone rings, he prepares himself for the worst. He has been rehearsing how he will react when he finally gets the news that she is gone. He has been doing this ever since he first heard there was nothing more that they could do for her. But for now he can rest easy. She has lasted another day. The night lies ahead. He has been told she is sleeping peacefully and that he will be called the minute something happens.
"Anything new?" Willow asks. She is seated at the desk with her laptop. Ever since she first heard about Buffy's illness, she has been researching fevers. Nothing she has read about even remotely resembles what Buffy has. As a matter of fact, it seems like she has the nastiest parts of everything she has come upon.
"No, nothing new," Giles says tiredly as he sinks into his sofa. He takes his glasses off and massages his temples. "She's still at 105. Blast! One would think someone would know something by now."
"I'm coming up empty here too," Willow says.
"I just don't understand how someone can be so healthy one day and at death's door the next," Giles says.
Xander is sitting in a chair not too far away. Anya is by him, but he is off in his own place. His eyes are burrowing through an invisible wall where he sees Buffy again as she was in the emergency room the last time he saw her. He wishes he hadn't gone into see her. He doesn't want this to be the memory that sticks with him when he thinks about her. She was being so brave. But he could tell she was really scared and there were no jokes he could tell her, or himself, to blot out the fact that this thing that had her in its grasp was taking her away from him and everyone who loves her.
"I've never seen her so helpless…" he says, to no one in particular.
"The doctors are completely frustrated," Giles says. "This fever is resistant to everything they've tried. They'll bring her temperature down and then it spikes back up to105."
Dawn is sitting on the other side of the sofa when she hears this. Something stirs in her. Spike…Spike should know about this…
"There has to be something we're missing here," Giles says. "There must have been someone or some…thing she came in contact with to make her so ill so suddenly."
Willow has been mulling over this to. She has researched vampire to human disease transmission, but it is unprecedented. She will not tell Giles about what she knows. That was her promise to Buffy. But if Giles knows something…
No, she can't tell him. She remembers Buffy's pleading eyes as they spilled over with tears. "Giles can't know about this…I don't want him to ever know what happened here tonight." She seemed so hurt and so…sorry. Like her heart had been broken. Willow had heard stories about women dying of broken hearts. Could this be what was happening to Buffy? No, Willow says to herself. She wouldn't be dying for Spike, Willow consoles herself. That was ludicrous. She puts that thought out of her mind and settles back into her research.
Dawn too is thinking about Buffy's last night with Spike. There was something her sister wasn't telling her. Something told her the evening was not the romantic vision she and Spike had plotted out as they lit candle after candle. Buffy was all alone when she came back from the movies and there was a shoe-sized hole in the front door. Buffy refused to talk about it. All she would say was that she had screwed up majorly and she didn't believe Spike would be coming back.
But he would come back if he knew…
Dawn rises from the sofa. "Giles, if it's all right with you, I'm gonna take a nap. Can I use your bed?"
"Well, Dawn, it's nearly eight o'clock now. You'll be turning in soon anyway," he says.
"I know. I just want to be alone for a while."
"If that's what you want…" Giles says.
The minute she is gone, Giles rests his head on the back of the sofa. "I don't know what I'm going to do with her…"
"She's taking it very well, I think." Anya says.
"I don't know. She's holding in a lot in. She won't tell me how she's feeling about all this," Giles says.
"I know how she's feeling," Xander says. "She's feeling like she's losing a sister." And so do I, he adds to himself.
"She's being so stoic. I'm seeing a maturation in her growing almost as rapidly as this illness Buffy has," Giles says. "But she's still in many ways a little girl. She's going to need us---every one of us---in case the worst happens."
Giles has no way of knowing this, but shimmying down the drainpipe outside his bedroom window is the topic of their conversation, going out in the night, going to the person she thinks she needs most now.
At the entrance to the cemetery, Dawn pauses momentarily. She has run almost the whole way, but now that she's there, she can't make her legs move. She wasn't afraid before. Not even when she thought her hands were slipping from the slick surface of the drainpipe. Not even when a car almost plowed into her on Main Street a few minutes before. She was on a mission then. I've got to tell Spike…I've got to tell Spike…she kept telling herself. And now, with that mission so close to completion, she is suddenly fearful.
This is Buffy's domain. She probably enters the gate without the slightest twinge of fear. This is her workplace. Dawn thinks for a minute that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a stake. She could stake a vamp, she thinks. It's all in the wrist. Her sister makes it look too easy. Dawn knows too well about those powerful arms. They wrestled her when she was little. They wore the sweaters she knew were taken from her closet. They held her when she thought she couldn't stand…
She takes a breath. She's got to do this. She's got to find Spike for Buffy.
She is running now. She thinks that if she can just run fast enough she can forget where she is. This is one of the nevers she has been instructed about all her life. Never cross the street without looking both ways first. Never talk to strangers. Never invite a vampire into the house. Never go through the cemetery at night alone. That was two out of the four that she has disobeyed tonight.
As she makes her way through the cemetery, a feeling of rebelliousness starts to grow, spurring her on. Look at me, fifteen-year-old Dawn Summers, bein' all bad, cruising through the cemetery at night. She thinks of a game that she and Buffy used to play. It was called There Ain't No Vamps Out Tonight. One of them would hide, while the other would walk around saying, "There ain't no vamps out tonight…there ain't no vamps out tonight…" Then the one hiding would spring out and chase the other. The object was to make it to the designated base line without being captured. Dawn never made it without getting tackled and pretend-bitten. She remembers this. And she is afraid again.
"There ain't no vamps out tonight…there ain't no vamps out tonight…" she says to herself as she runs. "There ain't no vamps out tonight…"
She is closing in now on Spike's crypt. He told her he was living there again. He was thinking about fixing the place up. She offered to help. She was going to help him look for things at the dump. She was going to give him one of her old radios and the chair from her room that she pretty much used as a dirty clothes hamper.
Something has grabbed her…
It has happened so fast that she can't even scream. The thing has covered her mouth anyway. Her arms are held fast at her side. She feels her hair being moved away from her neck and cold air rushes across her skin. Oh God…she thinks breathlessly…Oh God…
"And where does this little morsel think she's going tonight?" the creature asks her.
She is thinking now about her sister's arms. Buffy has told her something before about these situations. All women have greater strength in their lower extremities. Dawn can't scream and she can't hit. But she can kick. And she does. A quick thrust is all it takes to momentarily stun the beast. His hand slips away from her mouth, just enough for her to get one word out. And it pierces the quiet of the night like the bleat of a whistle.
"Spike!" she screams.
Spike lifts his head from the stone top of the sarcophagus. Is someone calling him? He listens carefully. He hears it again. Chillingly so.
"Dawn!" he says, springing up instantly.
Outside his crypt, he sees the scuffle immediately. He sees that the vamp is zeroing in on his target. Rage fills him as he races towards the pair, stake in hand.
It takes one arm to pull the creature away from his intended victim. And it takes one hand to eliminate him all together.
"Sorry, mate," Spike says. "If you were looking for a Taste of Summers tonight…" He then plunges the stake into the vampire's chest. "That restaurant is closed."
Dawn still stands there as though preparing for the vampire's bite. But when she sees that the danger is over and her protector is in sight, she rushes to him. And once in the familiarity of his arms, she starts to cry.
"It's all right, Little Bit," he says soothingly as he strokes her hair. "Are you hurt? He didn't get a nibble out of the Nibblet, did he?" He looks for the telltale puncture wounds. Finding none, he tries to calm her down. There is such an urgency in her grasp. It's as though she's trying to tell him something.
But finally the words do come, though choked out and barely discernable. "Buffy's…dying…"
He doesn't know if he's heard her correctly or not.
"Buffy's what?"
She thinks she can't force herself to say it again. If she says it again then it will be true.
She manages to say, "She's got a fever…no one knows what it is…"
Spike's mind is seized by the memory of the Indian's visit the day before. He knows suddenly, and all too clearly, the purpose of that visit---and the meaning. He remembers as his teeth tore away at the Indian's neck, some words the Indian spoke before his soul slipped away. He couldn't understand them. Now he does.
The curse…the curse has found it's way…It's found it's way to Buffy.
"Oh, God, Dawn…where is she?" he asks.
"She's in the hospital," Dawn replies.
"Take me to her," he instructs.
"They're not letting anyone see her!"
"They'll let me see her, Little Bit," he says, kissing the top of her head. "They'll have no choice."
The pair enters the hospital a little after nine. It is quiet. Visiting hours are over. But theirs have just begun.
In the lobby they encounter a different set of operators at the information desk. They bypass the desk and head straight for the elevators. Dawn knows the number of Buffy's room. She can't remember if it's on the eighth or the ninth floor. They will check the eighth floor first.
On the ride up, Dawn folds her arms and leans against the corner. Her eyes are lifeless and worry pinches her face. She is already thinking about what her world will be like without her sister. Spike can't let her think that way.
He reaches for her and touches her face, giving her a slight smile. "She's going to be all right, Dawn. She is not going to die. I won't let that happen."
Dawn instantly knows his meaning. And another kind of worry crosses her face.
The elevator comes to a jolting stop. The doors open into a stark white hall. Before them are a group of chairs and a nearly leafless fern. There is no one around. Signs point them in the direction of rooms 810-825. Buffy will be in there, somewhere.
But as they try the swinging doors that lead to those rooms, they find the doors are locked. Beside the door is an insert for an ID card.
"What do we do now?" Dawn asks.
"I could knock them down…but I don't want to call any more attention to ourselves than I have to. Someone will come through here in a minute."
They go over to the chairs and have a seat. Dawn knows that to the passerby they are quite an odd couple. Dawn is wearing a pair of bright pink shorts with a petal pink tee shirt and white sneakers. Spike is in his usual black ensemble. His hair seems whiter than usual. He keeps running his fingers through it as they sit there and wait. Dawn remembers how it looked the other morning, all mussed and going everywhere in these crazy curls. She remembers the obvious joy on Buffy and Spike's faces as they held each other in the kitchen.
"Spike, do you love my sister?" Dawn asks.
This seems like an odd thing to ask now. But his answer is immediate.
"Yes, I do."
"Then…you wouldn't do anything to hurt her?"
Not intentionally, he thinks. "No, I wouldn't. Ever."
"Then you wouldn't…try to make her like you."
Before he can answer, the doors do come open. Approaching them now is a man sheathed head to toe in a white suit. On his head he wears what looks like a beekeeper's helmet. Around his neck swings an ID card.
This is their salvation.
Spike rises to meet the man, saying, "Excuse me, sir. We're looking for Buffy Summers."
"Sorry. No visitors allowed beyond this point," he says, like an automaton.
Spike smiles. "Wrong answer."
And he fells him with one punch.
Dawn looks at the crumpled figure lying on the floor and wonders if Spike has killed him. It happened so fast…Spike leans over the man and snaps the ID card from his neck. Seeing that Dawn is dawdling, he barks, "Come on, Little Bit. We don't have much time."
Spike slices the ID card through the reader. Green lights blink and they are admitted.
The life on the other side of the doors has been silenced. On either side are closed doors. It's as though they've entered a wardrobe that acts as a portal to a place where nothing exists but emptiness. Dawn is trying to remember her sister's room. But she doesn't have to. Before long they come upon a door with a red sign that reads, "No admittance."
And this is it.
Now, as they're about to enter, Spike is suddenly cautious. He regards Dawn's eagerness to see her sister and knows that it can't happen.
Spike, I need you to look after Dawn…
Buffy's words come back to him with shocking resonance. I've got to protect her, he reminds himself. I can't let her be exposed to this…
"Little Bit, I don't think that man was wearing that suit because it's all the rage in Paris this year," he says. "I think you should stay out here."
"But I want to see her!" Dawn says, almost in tears.
"I know, love. I know. You will. When she's better."
"She's not going to get better…" Dawn says softly.
"Dawn, I told you that I wouldn't let that happen. You've got to trust me on that one. Here…" He tries the door of the room across the hall. Finding it unoccupied, he motions for her. "You wait in here. I'll be back for you soon, all right? I promise."
Dawn sits uneasily on the bed. She wants to trust him. She really does. But she can't help thinking that the reasons he wants to go in unaccompanied are not entirely altruistic. As she sits alone, she says to herself, almost prayerfully,
"Oh, Spike. Please don't kill her and try to bring her back…she wouldn't want to live like that. She wouldn't be my sister anymore. Please don't do it, Spike. Please…"
There is a girl in the room that Spike has just entered. He sees her blond hair. He sees her small head pressed deeply into a white pillow. But that is all he sees. For a minute, he stands there, wondering if he truly is in the right room. This girl looks a stranger to him. As he approaches the bed, his steps are slow, his breathing also. He doesn't want to rush this. Part of him doesn't want to see; the other urges him to look on, to see what he's done to her.
She doesn't know he is there, he is certain. He wants it to stay that way, for now. His footsteps are whispers against the shiny, white floor. It is dim and quiet; one light over the bed provides a warm glow over the figure lying serenely there, among the tubes and wires and machines. Her face is coming into his view now. But again, there are doubts in his head. He peers into the little features, combing through them for bits of familiarity, trying to salvage whatever is left. But there is only scant evidence that the girl lying still and the girl he loves are the same people. The face is distorted by a creeping blackness that makes it look as though she is bruised from within. There is a puffiness to the cheeks, to the jaw line, like she is holding her breath. Her lips are closed; her eyes sealed. Under the eyes are deep, cavernous swells, holding more blackness. The hair is stretched out all around her head, in a starburst almost. It is the one thing that he does truly recognize. He would know those locks anywhere. For years he has identified her by her hair: Goldilocks, he has called her, when taunting her before or during battle. Today he has another name to call her, and when he says it, it sounds like a plea for her not to answer. If she confirms that's who she is, then he really is losing her.
"Slayer?" he whispers as his fingers stroke her hair. He feels his jaw is trembling; his voice too. "Slayer…" He can't keep talking. It's hard to him to even keep standing. He crouches now, there beside her, so that his head is level with hers. But he can't bear to look at her. He has created death many times. He has committed atrocities a war crimes tribunal could not even begin to fathom. And he's never given one a single thought, until now. This is too stark, too blindingly shocking. He has done this. The curse has found its way…to the love of his life.
There is a sob rising in his chest which tortures him as it makes the ascent to his throat, seemingly splintering bones as it goes. "I didn't mean for this to happen, Slayer…Oh, Buffy, I swear it! I would never hurt you. I made a promise to you and to myself. But I've done it after all. I had to kill that bloody Indian. Just had to kill him. Oh, God… I shouldn't have killed him. If I had known…but there was no way I could have known…Oh, God, Buffy….Buffy, don't leave me…I can't stand the thought of being without you. Please, please don't leave me…"
There is a sound. A pitiful noise is coming from her lips. And then, very clearly, he hears his name.
He lifts his head now, trying to look at her again, now through a veil of tears. Her features are stilled nonetheless. He wonders if he were just imagining that she heard him. But then, he sees her mouth form his name.
"Yes, Buffy, I'm here," he says excitedly, grabbing for her hand. "I'm here right beside you, love."
"Spike…I thought the vampires killed you. They showed me your coat…" she says slowly, her eyes still shut, her head slowly twisting against the pillow.
"What, love? No, no one got me, Buffy. I'm here with you, right now," he says, flexing her open palm against his face.
There is a glimmer of hope that her eyes are stirring under the heavy lids. There is a brief moment when they do open, and Spike sees a hint of red. Blood red.
"Spike, I wanted to tell you something…" she says softly, dreamlike. "I wanted to tell you something so bad…"
"What is it, love?" he asks, kissing her hand now.
She touches the tip of her tongue to her dried and cracked lips, trying to ply them with moisture that isn't there. "I love you, Spike…"
He sits there in the aftermath of her words, caught between wanting to lunge at her and take her into his arms, and just sitting back, wondering if what he has heard bears any resemblance to what she intended to say.
"I love you and I think I always have," she continues to say.
He is held in the rapture of her words until, temporarily, he is lifted into such a joyous frenzy, he forgets where he is. In his mind, he is in that place where he has always wanted to be, loved by her, her eyes no longer seeing the demon within, but the man who has toiled and sweated for these words to the point of desperation. But he looks at her eyes. They remain closed. And death is within her grasp as surely as his hand clasps her fingers now.
"Oh, Buffy…I love you so much…I can't let you go this way…" Purpose seizes his words as a new thought enters his head, one that he's pushed to the side, not wanting to acknowledge until he was absolutely certain she felt the same way about him. "You don't have to go like this. I could…I could bring you back, love. I could make you as I am. And then we really could be together forever. We'd have an entire eternity, just the two of us. I'd be there to protect you…I would help you."
He silences his words, waiting for some reaction from her. At length there is a sound from her lips, a low moan, issued in a defeated sigh.
"No…I wouldn't want to be like that…"
"The lover Wiccas could restore your soul. They'd do anything for you. And so would I, Buffy. Please, let me do this for you. There's so little time…"
"No…" she says defiantly though her voice is weakening.
"You wouldn't have to kill. I promise. I could teach you how to purge yourself of the rage and the thirst for blood. The Indian did manage to teach me something about that…" He catches his own words in his throat. He remembers again the visitation the other day. What was it the Indian said? It didn't seem to have any relevance then…they were just words, words from a demented spirit out to make sure his curse was known. Was it a warning? And if so, why?
You will know. Remember all, and you will be saved. Remember nothing, and you will die…
Remember what?
Remember. Before it's too late…A thought shoots a beam through his head until his brain feels like it's twitching inside his skull.
The cure…his grandfather knew the cure…"The fever..." he says to himself. "His grandfather knew the cure for the fever!"
Now does he remember?Remember. Before it's too late…
He is electrified with this new knowledge. She doesn't have to die this way. And she doesn't have to live the way she would hate.
"Buffy, I won't let you die. I can save you. And I don't have to insert a single fang, my love. I know what will rid you of this." He peruses the perimeters of her lips with his, delivering a single, promising kiss. "Hold on, love. That's all I ask. Just hold on."
Dawn is still sitting on the bed, looking out the window at the parking lot. The lot is emptying and she sees a few nurses darting to their cars, shift over, freedom from the miseries in the hospital at hand. It's cold in this room. She thinks about tearing off the covers and wrapping herself in the top sheet, but she doesn't want to stir. She is trying to hear what is going on in the room across the hall…
But just then, the door bursts open. She hops to her feet, expecting to see security guards, another white-clad doctor in a protective suit. But, no. It is her black-clad protector.
He seizes her by her arms. He is breathless and there is a cagey look in his eyes. She looks for evidence of a feeding on his lips…
"Dawn, are you in the mood for a little pillaging tonight?" he says.
"What?"
"Come with me," he says. "We're going to ransack this town for every herb, every flower, anything that's ever grown wild on a desert plain. And when we're done, your sister's health will be restored." He pauses, taking the time to smile. "Your sister is as good as saved."
Giles sits at his desk, bent over an open page in his journal. The lines are blank as his mind. He doesn't know where to begin. There was a promise he made to Buffy a while ago, when her questions about former slayers had led her to think, pointedly, about her own mortality. She lamented to him that she wished previous Watchers had kept better records of how the Slayers were killed. Somehow, he has never imagined that her last breath would be drawn in a hospital bed. This is not how it is supposed to happen. She is supposed to be engaged in a fight with her prey. But she is human, after all. It is hard for him to remember this, except at moments when she does show this human side, when she is weak, when she is struggling for breath. And to think that just days ago she spent three hours at the practice dummy. It all seems so wretchedly sudden.
He presses his pen to the paper.
Buffy Summers, aged 20, on the 21st of August, 2001, awoke with a dreadfully high fever. Assistance was called immediately and she was taken to hospital. The doctors who initially treated her could only describe what was happening to her as "just a fever." But within twenty-four hours' time, the ague which had taken hold proved virulent and fiercely stubborn to all modes of treatment. She was then removed to an isolation ward where she is being kept on twenty-four hour watch. As of the last hour, her doctor described her condition as steadily worsening. Her fever remains high, so high that the doctors fear brain damage, as well as permanent injury to the kidneys and liver. Her heart remains, strong though. At this juncture, her physicians are not hopeful for a recovery, complete or otherwise. They will phone the minute something happens…
He knew that this would be a painful experience. Yes, this is why the Watchers didn't keep better records. He is writing the last chapter on a life he has, in many ways, helped create. It is only natural for Watchers to feel a certain paternal instant towards the Slayers in their care. He is feeling it so keenly that in any given moment, the tears he has been trying so hard to keep in check may fall.
Buffy's friends remain scattered about his living room like stones in a rock garden. Each has found his or her own place and will not move or yield. Willow is still at her laptop and Tara sits by her, occasionally draping a supportive arm around her shoulder and whispering to her. No one has said a word in hours, it seems. If they speak, their words will be about Buffy, and no one wants to face the fact that she is so far away from them while she's slipping away.
There is a knock at the door. All share looks to the tune of "Who could that be at this hour?" Giles is reluctant to go to the door. Willow and Tara share scared glances. Xander immediately thinks, "Maybe it's the bad news being delivered in person, just like in the movies…"
Giles starts slowly for the door. The knocking resumes, louder this time. Giles quickens his steps as his anxiety increases.
Giles is too flabbergasted at the sight of Buffy's younger sister standing before him that he is slow to respond. "Dawn, I thought you were upstairs? How did you get out?"
"Since when has a little thing like being in a second floor roomed stopped me from escaping?" she says, arms folded.
"Get in here…it's not safe out alone at this hour," he says, tugging her by the elbow. "Where did you go?"
She takes a breath. "Giles, you can scold me all you want, but I had to go find this person tonight because I thought he should know about Buffy. And it turns out, he might know how to save her." She looks to her left and beckons an unseen person to appear.
Spike emerges from the dark. In his arms are two giant brown shopping bags. At the sight of the platinum blond visitor, Giles almost shuts the door, but Dawn stops him.
"Giles! He knows about a potion that cures fevers! You've got to listen to him!" Dawn urges, her hand on Giles' arm.
"He knows nothing!" Giles hisses. "And he's not welcome here by any means."
"Think what you like, mate," Spike says. "I might have expected this sort of reception from you. You genuinely hate me, don't you?"
"Completely," Giles answers coolly.
"Well, you love Buffy. And I love her too. And if you genuinely and completely love her as I do, you'll put away the fizzy hate tablets you have dissolving in your blood and listen to me."
"I'm not interested in anything you have to say, Spike. Not now or ever."
Spike rolls his eyes. "For God's sake, man! I've been to Buffy's bedside tonight. I've seen her with my own eyes and what I saw scared the unlife out of me. She will be dead by tomorrow is something isn't done to bring her 'round. The doctors can't do it. The machine jobbies they have her hooked up to are just prolonging her misery. You're forgetting that I've been dead. I know what it's like." He takes a breath, fighting back the images in his head of her swollen face, her blackening skin. "Please, Giles. I'm begging you. I promised her I wouldn't let her die. You've got to let me in. You've got to trust me, for once."
Dawn pleads Spike's case with dewing eyes. "Giles, he really does want to save her. And he knows how. I trust him. Buffy trusts him…" Her eyes seem to be saying, "Why can't you?"
There are a million reasons not to trust him. But somewhere, across town, a girl he cares a great deal about needs a miracle. And with her mortality hanging in the balance, it seems foolish to tip the scales against her favor. There has to be something out there to save her…maybe this is it?
He knows it's his own desperation crying out for an elixir that will make everything right again. And when he invites Spike in, he can barely say the words for fear of choking.
"Come in," he says finally. And then, in a hushed breath, out of Dawn's earshot, "bastard."