Wow, you guys don't take too kindly to Spike-icide do you?
Thankyou for the reviews... and thanks for sticking around and not shooting me.
Hope you like :-)
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
"There. All better."
Buffy wiggled her newly splintered fingers and made a small noise she hoped would be interpreted as a 'thankyou'. "How's Dawn?"
"She's still at Xander's. I told Xander not to tell her about..." Willow's voice drifted off and she began to clear the first aid paraphernalia off the table.
Buffy nodded. "That's probably for the best. Is she staying at there tonight?"
"Yup, unless you want -"
"No. Not tonight. Just in case, you know... Glory."
"Yeah, I know." Willow's brow furrowed as she sat down opposite Buffy.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I know you, Will. That is *so* not a 'nothing' face. That is very much a 'something' face. So, come on, out with it."
"I've just been thinking, is all."
Buffy smiled. "That makes a change. So what's that brain of yours been all contemplative over now?"
"I was just -- are you sure Glory would have killed Spike? I mean, I know she hasn't got the sharpest mind but... don't you think there's even the possibility that -?"
"Will... I-I can't think like that right now, or *ever* even. I don't have the energy." She winced as she pressed on her broken hand to push herself up to stand. "I really think this makes sense. I mean it happens - people spend too long around me they end up... gone."
Willow's eyes widened as she said with conviction: "Buffy, that's not true."
Buffy hung her head. "Maybe. I'm just not big on the idea of embracing I-love-life-isms right now, OK?"
"It's always OK."
They shared a look and Buffy forced a small smile. "A-are you going to stay?"
"Yep, if that's what you want?"
"It's what I want... I'm gonna go to go to bed for a bit."
"Sure. I'll be here."
Buffy walked steadily upstairs. She wondered vaguely why she didn't feel worse and if she was still in shock but she remembered shock, she remembered everything that came after it. She remembered enough to know that this wasn't shock. It was something else. Something she couldn't name but had experienced all too often.
She walked into her blacked-out room and didn't bother removing the blankets from the windows. It was dark outside anyway. She gravitated to her desk and sat in front of the mirror. Her gaze locked on her shadowed reflection, trying to make out her features in the darkness.
After staring for immeasurable eternities her focus slipped and the silhouette of her head became just another indefinable shape to add to the myriad of grey forms that clouded the mirror. She stared into the mass as it swarmed and spiralled around her. Eventually the stinging of her unblinking eyes forced her to break away. As she closed her eyes she became aware of something and simultaneously a thought struck her.
(Didn't I take those blankets down last night?)
Her head spun round and she finally saw it. The body on her bed, so dark, so deathly still, so asleep, so... him.
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"Willow!" She half-squeaked, half-whispered when she found her friend reading a magazine in the kitchen. Willow read to the end of the sentence and looked up.
"Hey Buffy, you decided against bed? You hungry? I could probably make you something. Well, you know, as long as that 'something' doesn't involve cook-"
"Willow, I can't go to bed."
"Can't you sleep? I suppose it's only to be expected." she glanced into her coffee momentarily, "I can do a 'sweet dreams' spell for you i-if you like. It's no big..."
"No, Willow. You don't understand, there's -"
"You know, I'm getting pretty tired of hearing that lately!"
"H-hearing what?"
"That 'I don't understand'." Willow rolled her eyes as she gestured the quotation marks. "I'm really trying here, I know -"
"Willow! No, that's not it. You're doing great, really." Buffy reinforced the statement by fixing Willow's eyes. "I need you to come upstairs and tell me what you see."
"What I see?"
"Just... please!"
"Well OK, but if you want me to look at one of those Magic-Eye posters, you're about four years too late."
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"Well?!" Buffy prodded her friend in the arm but didn't succeed in breaking her stare.
"B...uf...fy."
"Willow?"
"Sp...ike, he's..."
"You see him?"
"Uh-huh... and he's *in* your bed."
The relief was immense. She wasn't just suffering from a bad case of wishful thinking. He *was* really here. But then - Where did that leave her? Leave them?
She stepped forward, over the threshold and over to his body. With the light from the hall streaming through into the room she could make out the different hues of monochrome shading on his body and clothing. In the light she could make out the tear of his T-shirt and not much else, his face masked in heavy shadow. Holding her breath, she reached down and gently touched his arm to stir him. When he made no move she pressed his arm harder and then harder gain, impacting the mattress.
She frowned. "Spike?"
Nothing.
"Spike?" She said it louder and began to shake him.
Still nothing.
"Willow?" She looked back at the doorway and Willow took a step forward to flick the light switch.
"Oh God, Buffy!"
Willow wasn't looking at Buffy though. Her horror-filled eyes were fixed on the bed. Buffy's insides filled with the familiar dread (He can't be dead, he's a Vampire, he can't be dead.) as she turned round to it. Him.
"Oh my God."
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"Is he still out of it?" Willow asked as Buffy entered the kitchen.
"Out for the count. Whatever that means."
"Maybe it's something to do with sheep." Willow said, the majority of her attention focused on the spell ingredients on front of her.
"Sheep?"
"Yeah, you know, like counting sheep when you can't get to sleep."
"Right, you may be on to something there. So... how's that going?" Buffy leaned against the worktop and looked into the bowl of herb-y stuff Willow was mixing. "Is that sage?"
"Uh-huh, with a few other things you *really* don't want to know about."
"And you say you can't cook." They shared a momentary grin before Willow went back to work. "Thanks for doing this, Will - you don't have to, you know."
Willow silenced Buffy with a wave of her pestle. "Yes I do! Magic's what I do best... Besides, it's not the Big Cure - at most it'll bring him to and ease a few of his... wounds and stuff." Returning to her spell book she gave the 'recipe' a quick once-over. Satisfied with that she smiled as she sprinkled some crystallised substance over the mix with a whispered incantation.
Buffy waited for something to happen... but nothing.
"Did it work?"
"Yep."
"H-how can you tell?"
Willow shrugged. "I just know."
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"Done."
"Done?" Buffy's gaze flickered from Willow to Spike and back again.
"Well, er, it may take some time." Her friend smiled with a shrug and then seemed to remember something. "I'll leave you two alo - well, you know."
"Thanks, Will."
"No, problem." Willow glanced at Spike. "I think it's working." With that she left the room, closing the door to as she went.
Buffy sighed wearily, all the stress of the day beginning to tire her. (Has it really only been one day? No... It's been a lifetime.) Her eyes settled on Spike's form and she decided, with pleasant surprise, that Willow was right. The bruises on his face were still there but they had faded from black to a midnight blue in just a few seconds. The changes subtle but perceptible.
Instinctively she reached out and brushed his blood-caked hair back off his face, only to pull away with a start as she felt him stir. She became aware of her heartbeat quickening and forgot how to breathe as she watched him intently, waiting for another movement, no matter how small.
Nothing. Those eternities stretched out their tired muscles and Buffy decided she should do the same.
With another sigh, she felt her mind call 'time' and shut down for the day. (Enough. Too much.) She settled herself down next to him, watching his unflinching face until her eyelids could hold themselves open no longer and she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
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Swimming into consciousness, she was aware of his eyes on her before she was even aware of herself. Her body tensed as she summoned up the will to open her eyes and see him.
The blue of his irises was the first thing she saw and as their gazes locked, something struck through her body like a sliver of electricity. Tearing her eyes from his, she took in the rest of his face. The bruises had faded even further and now his face was coloured with shades of green, yellow and pale blue. She saw fingers come up to caress his cheek and took a moment to recognise them as her own. His eyelids fluttered to as she carefully traced the edges of his bruises, drawing an invisible pattern over his marred features. (Deja vu.) Bringing her fingers down his neck she rested her hand lightly against his chest.
He was looking at her again and there was something in his eyes she recognised: a pleading, an invitation. She understood and shifted her body against his, resting her head on his shoulder. He drew his arm around her momentarily, before letting it drop weakly round her back. She felt him suck in a sharp intake of air.
"Does this hurt... my head here?"
"Yes!" He hissed. "But don't you dare move."
She took a deep breath and inhaled him. His familiar scent mixed in with the unmistakable pungency of dried blood and something else, something putrid. She knew the smell but didn't have to energy to question it. Smiling slightly, she let the air out of her lungs with a long, shaky sigh while retaining the inherent comfort his smell gave her. Relaxing into him, she closed her eyes once again, the relief washing her with another wave of weariness.
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He shifted slightly, wincing at every tiny movement. "...So I made it... Took me long enough."
"A day."
"Is that all it was? I felt like forever."
"I know."
Their eyes met again and one side of his mouth pulled up into a lop-sided smile, an irresistible smile. Leaning forward she pressed her lips against his, smiling into the kiss as she felt him respond, matching her lightness. As they parted she took one of his hands onto her lap and absently toyed with it.
"Glory, s-she told me you were dead." She didn't look up from his hand.
"Well, that's just evil." She still didn't look up but she could tell he was smiling, she could feel it. "I don't know which was worse, the really quite imaginative torture, or the incessant *yammering* about a bloody 'key'." Buffy's head shot up. "I thought, if she says that word one more time, I'm gonna -" He was stopped by the urgency of Buffy's expression. "What?"
"There's something you should know... A-about The Key... I-it's -"
"Dawn."
Her eyes widened with surprise the panic had surged through her before her common sense could inform her that Glory hadn't known.
"Wha - How did you know?"
He shrugged and obviously regretted the action. "Ow! Remind me not to do that again." A grin flitted over his scowling face, only to falter when Buffy's seriousness didn't abate. "I don't know, this 'Glory' bint was just prattling on and on and, all of a sudden, I just... knew. Like epiphany, you know? Bang!" He made an explosive gesture just in front of his face with his free hand.
"Bang?"
"Alright then, if you're gonna get all pedantic on me, maybe it was more of a quiet but profound click."
His eyes danced with mirth and Buffy smiled. She looked down to see that she was running her finger along the groove of his lifeline and frowned back up at him. (So many damn questions.) "Why didn't you tell Glory?"
His shrug was followed by another wince. "Din't occur to me."
"It 'didn't *occur* to you'?! It never occurred to you, while Glory was pummelling you into your component parts, that you should give her what she wanted?" She stared incredulously at him, her mind racing over all sorts of possibilities.
"It's precisely *because* she was getting all creative with the canvas of my body that I didn't give her what she wanted." His voice grazed against her nerves, it was so raw, so harsh... so alive.
"She thought she could see right inside of me with them fingers of hers," he pointed to a circular wound on his chest, "but she didn't know anything about me. She didn't realise that if I gave up Dawn, then I..." His voice wavered and he drew to a close, his eyes falling from hers.
"Go on." She had to hear this. She had to know.
He still didn't meet her eyes and she didn't force him to. After an eternity of silence, after she had begun to think, with regret, that she would never hear his voice again, he began again, with little more than a whisper. "W-when Drusilla left me, two years ago, I had one thought and it brought me back here... And then when she - after what happened, I had one thought that kept me alive, one thought and it keeps on bringing me back here."
He took a breath for his next sentence, only to let it out, unused. His eyes met hers and she was startled by the intensity of his stare, by what fuelled the intensity.
"All the time Glory had me, all I could think about... was getting back to you."
END PART ONE - PART TWO -
Thankyou for the reviews... and thanks for sticking around and not shooting me.
Hope you like :-)
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
"There. All better."
Buffy wiggled her newly splintered fingers and made a small noise she hoped would be interpreted as a 'thankyou'. "How's Dawn?"
"She's still at Xander's. I told Xander not to tell her about..." Willow's voice drifted off and she began to clear the first aid paraphernalia off the table.
Buffy nodded. "That's probably for the best. Is she staying at there tonight?"
"Yup, unless you want -"
"No. Not tonight. Just in case, you know... Glory."
"Yeah, I know." Willow's brow furrowed as she sat down opposite Buffy.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I know you, Will. That is *so* not a 'nothing' face. That is very much a 'something' face. So, come on, out with it."
"I've just been thinking, is all."
Buffy smiled. "That makes a change. So what's that brain of yours been all contemplative over now?"
"I was just -- are you sure Glory would have killed Spike? I mean, I know she hasn't got the sharpest mind but... don't you think there's even the possibility that -?"
"Will... I-I can't think like that right now, or *ever* even. I don't have the energy." She winced as she pressed on her broken hand to push herself up to stand. "I really think this makes sense. I mean it happens - people spend too long around me they end up... gone."
Willow's eyes widened as she said with conviction: "Buffy, that's not true."
Buffy hung her head. "Maybe. I'm just not big on the idea of embracing I-love-life-isms right now, OK?"
"It's always OK."
They shared a look and Buffy forced a small smile. "A-are you going to stay?"
"Yep, if that's what you want?"
"It's what I want... I'm gonna go to go to bed for a bit."
"Sure. I'll be here."
Buffy walked steadily upstairs. She wondered vaguely why she didn't feel worse and if she was still in shock but she remembered shock, she remembered everything that came after it. She remembered enough to know that this wasn't shock. It was something else. Something she couldn't name but had experienced all too often.
She walked into her blacked-out room and didn't bother removing the blankets from the windows. It was dark outside anyway. She gravitated to her desk and sat in front of the mirror. Her gaze locked on her shadowed reflection, trying to make out her features in the darkness.
After staring for immeasurable eternities her focus slipped and the silhouette of her head became just another indefinable shape to add to the myriad of grey forms that clouded the mirror. She stared into the mass as it swarmed and spiralled around her. Eventually the stinging of her unblinking eyes forced her to break away. As she closed her eyes she became aware of something and simultaneously a thought struck her.
(Didn't I take those blankets down last night?)
Her head spun round and she finally saw it. The body on her bed, so dark, so deathly still, so asleep, so... him.
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"Willow!" She half-squeaked, half-whispered when she found her friend reading a magazine in the kitchen. Willow read to the end of the sentence and looked up.
"Hey Buffy, you decided against bed? You hungry? I could probably make you something. Well, you know, as long as that 'something' doesn't involve cook-"
"Willow, I can't go to bed."
"Can't you sleep? I suppose it's only to be expected." she glanced into her coffee momentarily, "I can do a 'sweet dreams' spell for you i-if you like. It's no big..."
"No, Willow. You don't understand, there's -"
"You know, I'm getting pretty tired of hearing that lately!"
"H-hearing what?"
"That 'I don't understand'." Willow rolled her eyes as she gestured the quotation marks. "I'm really trying here, I know -"
"Willow! No, that's not it. You're doing great, really." Buffy reinforced the statement by fixing Willow's eyes. "I need you to come upstairs and tell me what you see."
"What I see?"
"Just... please!"
"Well OK, but if you want me to look at one of those Magic-Eye posters, you're about four years too late."
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"Well?!" Buffy prodded her friend in the arm but didn't succeed in breaking her stare.
"B...uf...fy."
"Willow?"
"Sp...ike, he's..."
"You see him?"
"Uh-huh... and he's *in* your bed."
The relief was immense. She wasn't just suffering from a bad case of wishful thinking. He *was* really here. But then - Where did that leave her? Leave them?
She stepped forward, over the threshold and over to his body. With the light from the hall streaming through into the room she could make out the different hues of monochrome shading on his body and clothing. In the light she could make out the tear of his T-shirt and not much else, his face masked in heavy shadow. Holding her breath, she reached down and gently touched his arm to stir him. When he made no move she pressed his arm harder and then harder gain, impacting the mattress.
She frowned. "Spike?"
Nothing.
"Spike?" She said it louder and began to shake him.
Still nothing.
"Willow?" She looked back at the doorway and Willow took a step forward to flick the light switch.
"Oh God, Buffy!"
Willow wasn't looking at Buffy though. Her horror-filled eyes were fixed on the bed. Buffy's insides filled with the familiar dread (He can't be dead, he's a Vampire, he can't be dead.) as she turned round to it. Him.
"Oh my God."
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"Is he still out of it?" Willow asked as Buffy entered the kitchen.
"Out for the count. Whatever that means."
"Maybe it's something to do with sheep." Willow said, the majority of her attention focused on the spell ingredients on front of her.
"Sheep?"
"Yeah, you know, like counting sheep when you can't get to sleep."
"Right, you may be on to something there. So... how's that going?" Buffy leaned against the worktop and looked into the bowl of herb-y stuff Willow was mixing. "Is that sage?"
"Uh-huh, with a few other things you *really* don't want to know about."
"And you say you can't cook." They shared a momentary grin before Willow went back to work. "Thanks for doing this, Will - you don't have to, you know."
Willow silenced Buffy with a wave of her pestle. "Yes I do! Magic's what I do best... Besides, it's not the Big Cure - at most it'll bring him to and ease a few of his... wounds and stuff." Returning to her spell book she gave the 'recipe' a quick once-over. Satisfied with that she smiled as she sprinkled some crystallised substance over the mix with a whispered incantation.
Buffy waited for something to happen... but nothing.
"Did it work?"
"Yep."
"H-how can you tell?"
Willow shrugged. "I just know."
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"Done."
"Done?" Buffy's gaze flickered from Willow to Spike and back again.
"Well, er, it may take some time." Her friend smiled with a shrug and then seemed to remember something. "I'll leave you two alo - well, you know."
"Thanks, Will."
"No, problem." Willow glanced at Spike. "I think it's working." With that she left the room, closing the door to as she went.
Buffy sighed wearily, all the stress of the day beginning to tire her. (Has it really only been one day? No... It's been a lifetime.) Her eyes settled on Spike's form and she decided, with pleasant surprise, that Willow was right. The bruises on his face were still there but they had faded from black to a midnight blue in just a few seconds. The changes subtle but perceptible.
Instinctively she reached out and brushed his blood-caked hair back off his face, only to pull away with a start as she felt him stir. She became aware of her heartbeat quickening and forgot how to breathe as she watched him intently, waiting for another movement, no matter how small.
Nothing. Those eternities stretched out their tired muscles and Buffy decided she should do the same.
With another sigh, she felt her mind call 'time' and shut down for the day. (Enough. Too much.) She settled herself down next to him, watching his unflinching face until her eyelids could hold themselves open no longer and she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
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Swimming into consciousness, she was aware of his eyes on her before she was even aware of herself. Her body tensed as she summoned up the will to open her eyes and see him.
The blue of his irises was the first thing she saw and as their gazes locked, something struck through her body like a sliver of electricity. Tearing her eyes from his, she took in the rest of his face. The bruises had faded even further and now his face was coloured with shades of green, yellow and pale blue. She saw fingers come up to caress his cheek and took a moment to recognise them as her own. His eyelids fluttered to as she carefully traced the edges of his bruises, drawing an invisible pattern over his marred features. (Deja vu.) Bringing her fingers down his neck she rested her hand lightly against his chest.
He was looking at her again and there was something in his eyes she recognised: a pleading, an invitation. She understood and shifted her body against his, resting her head on his shoulder. He drew his arm around her momentarily, before letting it drop weakly round her back. She felt him suck in a sharp intake of air.
"Does this hurt... my head here?"
"Yes!" He hissed. "But don't you dare move."
She took a deep breath and inhaled him. His familiar scent mixed in with the unmistakable pungency of dried blood and something else, something putrid. She knew the smell but didn't have to energy to question it. Smiling slightly, she let the air out of her lungs with a long, shaky sigh while retaining the inherent comfort his smell gave her. Relaxing into him, she closed her eyes once again, the relief washing her with another wave of weariness.
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He shifted slightly, wincing at every tiny movement. "...So I made it... Took me long enough."
"A day."
"Is that all it was? I felt like forever."
"I know."
Their eyes met again and one side of his mouth pulled up into a lop-sided smile, an irresistible smile. Leaning forward she pressed her lips against his, smiling into the kiss as she felt him respond, matching her lightness. As they parted she took one of his hands onto her lap and absently toyed with it.
"Glory, s-she told me you were dead." She didn't look up from his hand.
"Well, that's just evil." She still didn't look up but she could tell he was smiling, she could feel it. "I don't know which was worse, the really quite imaginative torture, or the incessant *yammering* about a bloody 'key'." Buffy's head shot up. "I thought, if she says that word one more time, I'm gonna -" He was stopped by the urgency of Buffy's expression. "What?"
"There's something you should know... A-about The Key... I-it's -"
"Dawn."
Her eyes widened with surprise the panic had surged through her before her common sense could inform her that Glory hadn't known.
"Wha - How did you know?"
He shrugged and obviously regretted the action. "Ow! Remind me not to do that again." A grin flitted over his scowling face, only to falter when Buffy's seriousness didn't abate. "I don't know, this 'Glory' bint was just prattling on and on and, all of a sudden, I just... knew. Like epiphany, you know? Bang!" He made an explosive gesture just in front of his face with his free hand.
"Bang?"
"Alright then, if you're gonna get all pedantic on me, maybe it was more of a quiet but profound click."
His eyes danced with mirth and Buffy smiled. She looked down to see that she was running her finger along the groove of his lifeline and frowned back up at him. (So many damn questions.) "Why didn't you tell Glory?"
His shrug was followed by another wince. "Din't occur to me."
"It 'didn't *occur* to you'?! It never occurred to you, while Glory was pummelling you into your component parts, that you should give her what she wanted?" She stared incredulously at him, her mind racing over all sorts of possibilities.
"It's precisely *because* she was getting all creative with the canvas of my body that I didn't give her what she wanted." His voice grazed against her nerves, it was so raw, so harsh... so alive.
"She thought she could see right inside of me with them fingers of hers," he pointed to a circular wound on his chest, "but she didn't know anything about me. She didn't realise that if I gave up Dawn, then I..." His voice wavered and he drew to a close, his eyes falling from hers.
"Go on." She had to hear this. She had to know.
He still didn't meet her eyes and she didn't force him to. After an eternity of silence, after she had begun to think, with regret, that she would never hear his voice again, he began again, with little more than a whisper. "W-when Drusilla left me, two years ago, I had one thought and it brought me back here... And then when she - after what happened, I had one thought that kept me alive, one thought and it keeps on bringing me back here."
He took a breath for his next sentence, only to let it out, unused. His eyes met hers and she was startled by the intensity of his stare, by what fuelled the intensity.
"All the time Glory had me, all I could think about... was getting back to you."
END PART ONE - PART TWO -