Chapter 3

William was alive. Alive was William. William was not dead. William was unconscious. William was alive. No matter how many times Buffy repeated the words, they didn't make sense. She knew what each word meant individually, but put together in that order, they made no sense.

"What was that?" Angel asked, bursting into the room, fangs bared. He paused to take in the tableaux before him. "What is going on?"

Nobody talked, nobody knew where to start.

"Well?" Angel asked.

"Dorjan is unconscious," Wes announced. "We should get him out of here."

"Before  I kill him," Buffy muttered. 

"Dorjan? What's going on here?" Angel demanded. "Lilah? Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Not me, Boss."

Angel crossed the room to the table. "Who is this? Oh God. Buffy?"

"It's not Spike," Buffy explained. "It's William."

Angel hesitantly reached out and brushed a curl off of William's forehead. "I know who it is. How did he get here?"

"I'm taking him," Wesley gestured to the witch, "upstairs. I'll bring some clothes back for—our guest."


Buffy nodded, then turned her attention back to the prone body before her. "Dorjan said we could bring Spike back, we just needed a body," she explained, tonelessly, "he said he could get a copy of William's dead body."

"When?" Angel didn't sound angry, yet.

"We talked last night. When I woke up this morning, I changed my mind. I tried to get him to stop, I begged him to stop, but he wouldn't listen. I got here too late."

"So you weren't expecting…this?"

Buffy shook her head. She just couldn't look away from William. "What are we going to do with him? He's here now."

"It's going to be really hard on him, Buffy, we might want to consider sending him back."

"We can't, Angel. We don't know what exactly Dorjan did, but I know what he said—he was making a replica of the body."

Angel sighed, "I guess somebody here can take care of him."

"You're just going to pass him off to some stranger?"

"Buffy, he's going to need a lot of care…"

"Look, we'll talk about it later. Right now we need to get him some help. Look at his neck. Dorjan pulled him forth right before he died."

"I'll call a doctor…"

"Already done," Lilah said. "I called him while you two were gabbing."

As if one cue, a squat, gray old man appeared at the door. Without a word, he bustled over to William's side and started to check him out.

"What did you do to this young man?"

"Nothing," Buffy said quickly.

"You're lucky he is still alive. He's lost a lot of blood. I'm going to have to take him to the lab."

"How long until he's better?"

The doctor shrugged. "Do I look like a psychic?"

"I'll carry him to the lab," Angel announced. "Can we wait until Wes comes back with the clothes?"

The doctor shook his head, "No, we need to get him down there right away."

Angel effortlessly lifted William's naked body and followed the doctor out the door. Buffy followed Angel closely, guilt and fear making her loath to let William out of her sight, even for a moment. She just could not get over how frail he looked. She had seen Spike naked before, seen him beat up, seen him abused, burnt, insane, and vulnerable. But she had never seen him look frail.

Buffy understood that the man Angel was carrying wasn't Spike, not entirely. But he was the core of Spike. He shared Spike's body. She just could not wrap her mind around the paradox. He was Spike, and yet, he wasn't Spike. He was a very human, very weak, very sick man, who would be very confused as soon as he was well enough to open his eyes.

And once he healed, then what? Could she really allow Angel to just pass him off to some stranger? It made a lot of practical sense. Buffy didn't have the time required to take care of him and introduce him to the world. She didn't really have the room for him in her apartment, and she certainly didn't have the money to feed and clothe him. Buffy was comfortable, but far from well off, and only because of very careful budgeting. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fit William into her life.

But morally, she had a duty to him, and she knew it. He wouldn't be in this strange, new world if it weren't for her drunken mistake. He wouldn't be all alone amongst a group of strangers, in a place he couldn't possibly imagine, far from his friends and family. She could not, in good conscience, leave him at Wolfram and Hart without a second thought. She owed him more than that.

Nobody spoke until William was safely deposited on a hospital bed. This place really has everything, Buffy thought idly. As soon as Angel stepped back from the bed, the doctor immediately hooked William up to two IVs, and then bandaged his neck. Buffy watched silently until the old man was done fussing with his patient.

"He should be OK." The doctor announced. "He'll need to stay here for at least another 24 hours, if not more."

"Thank you, Doctor—"

"Roberts. You guys should clear out now."

Dr. Roberts herded them out of the room, and shut the door behind them.

"So? What are you going to do now?" Angel asked.

"I'm going to go home, and talk to Dawn. Then I'm going to go to bed because I have to work tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon I'll fix up a place for William, and come get him tomorrow night."

"What? Buffy, you can't take him home with you."

"I have to!"

"He's not a pet, Buffy! You can't afford to take care of him."

"I can't afford to leave him here, either. He's going to need a friend when he wakes up, not a babysitter."

"Buffy, don't think I don't know what you are doing."

"What am I doing?"

"You can't have Spike, so you're taking the next best thing."

"That's not true at all," she exclaimed. "It's my fault he's here. He's my responsibility."

"You aren't thinking clearly, is all I'm trying to say."

"Angel, I don't want to fight with you about this. It's not your decision."

"Buffy, you have no idea what he's going to need…"

"I'm not stupid Angel, I'm sure I can figure out what a grown man needs." She paused and grimaced. "That came out wrong."

"What's he going to do, Buffy? Sleep on the couch?"

"I'll think of something. Look, I've got to get home. I'll be back tomorrow. Oh, and Angel? I got pulled over tonight."

"Yeah?"

"For speeding, and he said my license was expired."

"Is it?"

"No! I think Dorjan did something to my license."

"You want me to check it out?"

"Could you?"

"Yeah, I'll be taking care of Dorjan…"

Buffy left Angel standing outside William's room, and slowly made her way to the parking garage. She still hadn't fully processed all of the events of the past 24 hours. Understanding in an abstract way that it would be difficult to help William was one thing, but actually re-working her entire life to accommodate him was another thing all together. And how could she possibly explain this whole mess Dawn.

During the long, slow, careful drive home, Buffy carefully rehearsed exactly how she would explain the situation to Dawn. She figured Dawn would be fairly understanding and adult about the whole thing—well, she hoped so anyway. The last thing she needed was for Dawn to go fucking ballistic on her, or get all judgmental and whiny. In order for this to work, she would need Dawn's full support.

Dawn, you ever wonder who Spike was before he was a vampire? Dawn, you know what would be fun? Inviting a strange man to live with us! and Dawn, would you be willing to share your bedroom were also bad ideas. How do you explain to your little sister, the girl that you are supposed to raise, that you got drunk off your ass and raised the dead? Or at least, tried to? So much for setting a good example.

She also had to plan the living arrangements. It made the most sense to give William her bed and take the couch for the time being. It wouldn't do to make her ill, displaced guest sleep on the hard, unforgiving, second-hand sofa. She'd have to shopping for clothes and figure out what he liked to eat.

Dawn was waiting up for her when Buffy finally opened her front door. "

"What are you still doing up?"

"Waiting for you. Where have you been?"

Buffy sighed, "It's a long story. I'll simplify it as much as possible. I tried to bring back Spike. I got William instead. He's sick and staying at W&H tonight, and I'm bringing him here tomorrow." There, that wasn't so bad.

Dawn blinked. "You tried to bring back Spike?"

She shrugged. "I was told it was possible."

"And instead you brought back the man Spike was before he died?"

"Right."

"And he's going to live here?"

"Uh huh."

"I'm…I'm going to bed."

"Dawn, don't you want to talk about this?"

"I'm tired. We can talk tomorrow."

"We need to make plans though, and I need your…"

"Do what you want Buffy, just don't mess with my room."

Buffy frowned at Dawn's back. Ok, maybe it wasn't the best decision she had ever made, but would it kill her to offer a bit of support and understanding? She collapsed onto the sofa, too exhausted to even make it to her own bed. She could only hope that when she woke up the next morning, the events of the past 24 hours would be nothing more than the figments of a bad dream.

~*~

William felt horrible. There wasn't a part of his body that didn't ache. His neck throbbed, his head throbbed, his mouth felt like it was full of sand, and he couldn't swallow. He wiggled his fingers and his toes. Good, they were still attached to his body.

Where was he? He vaguely recalled seeing a woman, a strange blonde woman, standing over him. He didn't remember much other than that. He knew that he had been at a party, and that he left, and ran into a rather stunning creature. But that was the extent of his ability to recall what happened.

He wanted to die. At least if he died, the pain would stop. Had he been mugged? That was a distinct possibility; he knew that there had been a rash of crimes in his area of London. If that was the case, then he was lucky he was still alive.

A deep fear, something unnamable and indescribable, forced William to keep his eyes screwed tightly shut. A part of him knew that when he did open his eyes, it would be painful and frightening, and change his life completely. It was the blonde woman, the one that called him Spike, that had terrified him so. She was different from anything he had ever seen before.

Unfortunately, his innate curiosity eventually got the best of him. With a Herculean effort, William forced his heavy eyelids opened. And instantly regretted it. The world around him was beyond anything he could imagine. Bright lamp—candles?—shown in his eyes,  some sort of machines surrounded him, and there were needles sticking out of his arm. He focused his attention on the room, and finally heard the steady rhythm of the heart monitor and the constant whir of dozens of machines surrounding him. Sounds he had no name for, coming from objects he had never seen before.

The scream started in the back of this throat and built until it burst from his mouth, high-pitched and blood-curdling. He didn't want to scream, and even as the awful sound was coming from him, he cursed himself as a coward. A real man would not scream like a girl, regardless of how bizarre things were. A real man would take stock of the situation, form a plan of action, and get out of the predicament. Though a part of William knew this, the rest of him could not stop screaming.

Unfamiliar people rushed to his side. Three men and a woman. Something about the tallest man scared him more than anything ever had before in his life. Scared him more than the room, and the weird sounds, and the aches and pains that increased with the volume of his anguished shouts.

"Can you calm him down?" The tall man shouted. William barely heard him though. Now that the shouting had morphed into full hysterics, and far from making him feel better, it only terrified him more.

"Yes, yes," an older man said. "Hold him."

They grabbed his thrashing limbs and forced him to down onto the bed. Angel and Wes easily kept him still, but William did not stop struggling to break free from his captors. Every instinct in his body was telling him to run, and the accompanying adrenalin rush made him completely forget his previous agony.

"William, hold still!"

The words didn't penetrate the fog that had surrounded his brain. Then suddenly, the horrible screaming stopped. No more sound came from William's throat. He looked up at Angel with wide, angry blue eyes, and Angel sucked in air sharply. For just a brief second, he looked like Spike. Then the blue eyes dimmed, the eyelids fell shut, and William slumped in the bed.

"What the hell was all that about?" Angel asked, more shaken up by the whole episode than he would ever like to admit.

"He fell asleep in Victorian London and woke up here, Angel. It's no surprise that he was shocked," Wesley said calmly.

"He didn't sound shocked. He sounded hysterical."

"Well, now the question is, how do we keep him from freaking out again?"

"One of us will have to stay with him," Angel suggested. "And since I know…knew…him, I guess I will."

"Are you sure that's wise Angel? He started screaming louder when he saw your beefy head," Lilah observed.

"Do you want to stay with him?" Angel asked.

She held up her hands in mock surrender, "Not me Boss."

"I gave him a large dose," Dr. Roberts said. "He should be out for quite awhile. Enough time to give you an idea of what you want to do with him, at least."

"Well, that's something. I can't let Buffy take him though until I'm sure he won't go crazy," Angel announced. Nobody argued with him.