Buffy stood and looked down at the man chained to the bedframe before her and wondered again if the price they had paid for his release had been too high. It had been her decision to take the battle to the First instead of always having to react, and she had insisted that rescuing Spike - if he still lived - be part of their plan. She remembered her earliest meeting with it as though it were yesterday, not four Christmasses ago. She had only seen second hand the despair it was capable of inflicting when it had tormented Angel, but she knew that no one deserved to be left to that if it were possible for her to do something about it. So they had attacked. It had probably been a Pyrrhic victory at best, but a victory just the same when they had needed it most.
She set the basin of water on the bedside table and once again bent to the task of cleaning the blood from his still form. "I'm sorry you still have to be chained, Spike," she said softly as she worked. "But until we know if you can be free of its influence, we can't take a chance on letting you loose."
Buffy didn't really think he could hear her, but she kept talking so that she didn't have to think too closely about what had been done to him. His wounds weren't recent, but they were still only half-healed, deep and oozing. His body and face were covered with bone-deep bruises, one of which had swollen his left eye completely shut. He hadn't looked this bad since he had defied Glory on her behalf. Or, she amended to herself in sad acknowledgement, since I beat him for not understanding why I felt guilt over Katrina - something he wasn't actually capable of understanding back then.
Now everything had changed. The need for forgiveness went both ways. If they both survived the trials ahead, there would have to be a quiet time to talk about what had been and what ever might be possible between them.
**********
His fevered brain had presented him with her image more than once in his torment. He still wasn't certain if this wasn't just another of his hallucinations. For all Buffy had told him about how he was being manipulated by the First Evil, Spike still more than half believed that it was all a delusion brought upon him by guilt over several lifetimes of murder and destruction.
"You can't play me any more," he whispered defiantly through cracked lips. "You want me to choose sides? Fine. I choose hers."
The hands caring for him paused for a moment, then resumed their soothing motions. A voice murmured words too low even for him to hear. He didn't want to give in, to believe that he was free - that was when they would break him for certain. But her gentle touch, caring for him, felt like the caress of an angel.
The one eye that could see couldn't see very well, but he thought that she was the most battered looking angel he'd ever seen. Not that he had even a nodding acquaintance with angels, mind. But surely they ought to keep themselves in better order than this.
"Buffy?" he dared at last. "I didn't give in. I didn't let them-" His words broke off in a spasm of coughing. She held him until it passed, then offered him small, careful sips of water from a glass.
"I believe you, Spike," she said gently. "And I believe in you. I do."
Not in William, but in Spike. Not the man he had been - the unsuccessful poet who had almost willingly chosen death over disgrace - but the man he was on the verge of becoming. In the basement only weeks before, that had been the man she had been speaking of. The man who had lived more than one lifetime bathed in blood and yet had somehow clawed his way out of that pit, reaching at last for redemption.
There was something precious there that needed to be nurtured, and she was suddenly and fiercely glad they had managed to save him. Nothing had really changed, but a tiny sprig of hope and peace unexpectedly sent forth its root into her heart.
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the forehead, promising nothing and yet giving him everything. "Merry Christmas, Spike,"
For a priceless moment, the voices in his head stilled, and peace descended.
Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, lord; Thou art Holy;
Make me meek, Lord; Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.
Gerard Manley Hopkins