=Chapter Two=
"So, how's the soul working out?"
Long moments of silence follow my statement. Spike is gaping at me, and I realize that I'm not above getting a small bit of satisfaction at having caught him so off guard. Though, I'm not sure if Spike really didn't know that I knew, or if he's just surprised at how I said it. Finally, his mouth snaps closed and he sinks back onto the bed.
"Khentimentiu told you," he mutters from his prone position.
"Yeah," I agree. "Um, before you even knew, actually." That's got him sitting up again, and this time I see the shudder of pain that ripples across his body as he does so. "It was one of the things that he talked around in Cairo," I explain. "It...clicked after what happened with you and Dawn."
He laughs harshly and leans forward, rubbing the back of his neck. "Didn't see a need to let me in on it, did you?" he asks bitterly. "Because I had no bloody idea."
I study his hunched form and sigh. We used to let lies like this slide, but that was before, so I say, "Sure you did."
He turns his head to the side, once piercing blue eyes now dull and lifeless. "That wanker sent you."
I nod slightly. "Mm. He said...he thought you could use a friend."
"Go home," he tells me again, but I shake my head, thinking back to when he found me in that hotel room in Cairo.
"I didn't haul my...arse to wherever the heck we are for--for shits and giggles," I deadpan. "And, uh, your head is crooked if you think I'm just walking away."
It takes him a moment to remember the words he said to me those months ago in Egypt. I can actually see him close himself off even further, see him shrink back from his skin and distance himself. But I'm not going anywhere, and Spike doesn't seem to be strong enough to even verbally attack me at the moment. I think he's going to ignore me, if his lying down and closing his eyes is anything to go by.
I still don't have a plan, but for the moment I don't need one. Whatever I end up doing, I'm not about to let him sit there injured the way he is. He needs blood. There's a small dormitory size refrigerator at the foot of the bed, and I go to it and open the door. I close it almost immediately, a hand quickly coming to my face to cover my nose. Wow. That's where that infection stench is coming from. Okay. Even if there is blood in there, I'm not about to let him drink it. No way. Yuck.
"I don't suppose you'll tell me where the local demon bar is?" I ask softly, kind of hoping he will, but knowing that he probably won't.
The eye on the uninjured side of his face opens. "I don't suppose you can still make demons run for the hills?" he parries.
He knows as well as I do that that particular trick came with Willow's power. So I take it to mean that he's not going to tell me.
I don't think he's given up or anything, which sounds strange since he's obviously not been eating. But I think that has more to do with his injuries and lack of mobility than any desire to waste away.
The lack of mobility limits my options. He won't be able to come out with me right now to accompany me to whatever demon bar that he frequents, but whose location he won't volunteer. In fact, my options are pretty much non- existent at the moment. I sit next to him on the bed again, and his hand snakes up to grab my wrist when I try to touch his face.
"Don't." His voice is almost desperate, and I close my eyes briefly.
"All right," I say quietly and tug my hand away. I sigh, not as quietly as I could, and make a small noise at the back of my throat. "Spike, please. We need to get you some blood," I tell him plaintively.
"Bloody headstrong witch," he murmurs with exasperation. His eyes open again and he glares at me. "This has nothing to do with you."
"The Cerno had nothing to do with you, either," I rejoin, arching a brow.
"Knew I was going to get punished for that," he grumbles. "I'm fine, all right?"
That he would dismiss his injuries like that just angers me. I once told him that I wouldn't let him treat himself like a thing, and I meant it. The anger is just what I need to realize a plan, and I reach out to his face again, and again he grabs my wrist. I twist my hand in his grip until my wrist is turned up and on display.
"You need blood," I tell him slowly, and his eyes widen when he realizes what I'm saying. He lets go of me quickly and presses himself against the mattress. "You can either tell me where to get some, or you can take mine."
There's something reminiscent of a cornered animal in him; his eyes are wide and skittish, a little wild around the edges, and he's started to tremble. It breaks my heart even more, but I keep the point of this in mind. It's not easy; I'm not really made for "tough love".
"Where is the demon bar?" I ask him lowly.
"Get the hell out of here. Now."
I keep my voice as steady and unemotional as I can. "The choice is yours, Spike."
He remains silent, and I don't hesitate at all before implementing the next part of my plan. When my elbow slams against the bone sticking out of his thigh, he screams loudly, his body pulling itself once again into a sitting position. His face has slid into its demon visage, and I lift my hand and sketch the air, murmur under my breath, and then he can't move. I caught him in the middle of the scream, and his mouth is still open, his fangs accessible.
"The choice is yours," I tell him again, watching his eyes carefully. They're shooting daggers at me, and I know he's not going to back down. He thinks I won't do it. Because there's nothing with which to cut my skin, and I'll have to use his fangs, which will hurt him. He doesn't think I'll go that far, but he doesn't realize that it's the lesser of two evils at the moment.
"And you say I'm the stubborn one," I grumble, pulling up the sleeve of my shirt and moving up on the bed. He's so helpless and broken that I soften and touch the unmarred side of his face. "You didn't let me, and I'm not going to let you," I whisper.
He's trying to struggle against the immobilization spell. A vampire of Spike's strength can break the spell pretty quickly, as I once found out the hard way. But he's not in the best of shape and it'll hold as long as I need it to.
I raise my hand and set my wrist against his fangs. A part of me wonders what the heck I'm doing, if I've gone a little crazy again. Maybe I have. I'm not sure. But it's the right thing to do, and it's what he needs. I bite my lip and push my wrist forward, flinching and hissing when his fangs slide into my skin. His body jerks and I know that the chip has just fired, but I can't let myself think too much about that.
Pulling back, I let the blood drip into his mouth. Whether it's the pain of the chip, or the taste of my blood, that does the trick doesn't matter. What matters is that when I look at him, there's only the demon behind his yellow eyes. I can hear his throat working convulsively, and I lift the spell from his head and neck. His head dips, and his lips close around the wound and then he's drinking me down.
I shift closer and pet his hair, humming a tune my mom used to use whenever I was upset. There are sounds emanating from his throat that I've only rarely heard. Desperate growls and satisfied snarls. I think he wants to tear into me, but he knows the chip will go off again. I hum a little louder and murmur nonsense and he settles down just a little.
It's like a lull, sitting there with him attached to my arm, a lull in space and time and life, but I keep myself from falling into it. As much as I'd like to let him drink until he's better, I'm not bottomless. When I can't spare anymore, I free him again and draw my wrist away, and I only loosen the spell when the demon retreats a few minutes later.
Then all that's left is Spike, glaring hatefully at me. I suddenly know what it's like to be a mother, because right now his feelings and wants are completely unimportant. All that's important is *him* and if he hates me, so be it.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that it had to be me here, at this time. Because I've learned how to be the excuse, and I've learned how to be sly, and I've learned how to be strong. Spike really doesn't stand a chance.
"You're a bleedin' idiot," he hisses at me, ripping a dangling strip of his shirt off and shoving it at me.
I take it, but decide against using it to bind my wound. It doesn't look or smell all that clean, really. Instead, I press the bite against my jeans for a moment, and then some kind of morbid curiosity has me turning my hand over. It's a small, neat bite. Only his two most prominent fangs broke skin.
In Florence, the vampire who bit my neck wasn't nearly so neat. He laid into me with his mouth wide open, then tore himself roughly away. The scar is long and wide, a highway of shiny white tissue that attests to the fact that vampires have more than two pointy teeth. They've got a mouthful of razor sharp fangs that can slice through skin like a knife through butter.
"Put pressure on it," Spike snaps at me.
Absently, I turn my wrist over again and hold the wound to my thigh. Taking stock of myself, I realize that I don't feel weak or sick, but I think I might feel both if I try to stand right now. So I'll sit and try to figure out what to do next.
I'm more than a little tempted to have Marianna bring both Spike and me back to Sunnydale. He wouldn't need to be all that mobile for the passageways, and I could get blood for him back home. But I really don't think he'll agree to that, and forcing him is out of the question; I've pretty much used up a year's worth of tough love already.
A loud cracking sound and a muffled scream bring my head swiveling to the side. Spike is leaning forward again, hands wrapped around either side of his broken thigh. He's resetting it. The bone is back inside skin, but his leg is still positioned wrong. I see him grit his teeth, and my stomach tumbles as he gives a hard jerk, and there's another cracking sound as the bones are set right.
"You've got half an hour," he grinds out from behind clenched teeth, "to recover from your stupidity. Then I'm putting you on the next plane or bus or whatever back to Sunnydale
I swallow in an effort to convince my stomach that there's no need to reject my dinner, then look at Spike innocently. "Oh. You'll be up to dragging me away, kicking and screaming, in half an hour? Impressive."
He glares at me. "Why are you here?" he asks me for what feels like the hundredth time since I arrived.
If I had an answer to that question while I was standing in front of Khentimentiu earlier, then I lost track of it.
"Because you're here," I simply tell him. Then I look around the room and grimace. "It's, uh, not because of your charming...hovel."
He laughs tiredly, sadly. "Serves its purpose."
"Hm. How far is it to get you blood?"
Poor Spike. He really wants to argue with me, rant and rave until I turn around and go back home like a good little Tara. But he doesn't have the energy and he was the first one to point out that I'm stubborn. He realizes this and shifts to the foot of the bed, glowering at me along the way. He bends over and rifles through some clothing, pulling out a clean--well, a *different* shirt. Nothing in this place seems to be anywhere close to clean.
As he's ripping the last remaining bits of his old shirt off, I got to my bag and take out my cell phone and enter the family plan code that connects me directly to Faith's phone.
There's a certain quality to her greeting of "Hey" that tells me she's not feeling so great about how she let me leave.
"Hey yourself," I say quietly, trying to let her hear a smile. "Um, I'm all right and everything."
"Where are you?" she asks and she sounds more like her normal self again.
Now, that's a good question. I glance at Spike and see him contemplating the fresh shirt. "Haven't gotten around to asking," I reply.
"You haven't? Shit, that would've been my first question," she snorts. There's a pause, then she continues with, "Well, right after, 'why the fuck haven't you called' that is. What's the deal with him, anyway?"
Spike is still staring at the t-shirt like it holds the answer to some great cosmic mystery. "I'm not sure yet," I say vaguely.
Faith's earlier attitude is going to be nothing at all compared to how she's going to act when she finds out that I've known for months that Spike got a soul but didn't tell anyone. They've all asked me about him, more than once, and I've pretended ignorance. It wasn't necessary to out-and-out lie, but that's only because I always changed the subject and let them mistakenly believe it was too painful to talk about him.
I didn't feel like I had the right to tell anyone, so I didn't. Not even Dawn knows, and she's probably the one who needs to know the most. After Spike left, she learned that just because you can't have someone in your life doesn't mean you stop caring. She made the right choice for herself, but she still misses Spike terribly, worries a great deal about his safety.
"Yeah, well, if you need one of us or something, just say the word, all right?" she offers awkwardly.
That's the closest thing to an apology I'm likely to get and I take it readily. "Okay. Thanks. For the offer, and, um, everything."
"No prob. Olson wants you to check in a couple of times a day," she adds as an afterthought. The truth of that statement is debatable. Olson might have requested I call in, but my gut tells me it's Faith's idea and that she's just tacking Olson's name to it.
"Twice a day," I promise. "I, um, better go. Bye."
"Bye."
I end the call and slip the phone back in my bag, removing a small jar as I do so.
"You didn't tell them," Spike comments without inflection.
"Of course not." I bring the jar to him and stay his hands when he raises his arms to put the shirt on. I hold up the jar and uncap it. "Should help with the pain a little," I explain. "It's a homemade...anesthetic cream. Pretty strong. Oh, and it smells nice."
He tries to take it from me, but I brush his hands aside and kneel on the clothing at his feet. Up close, the bruises look worse. The cream is cool on my fingers, and Spike hisses a little when I brush some against his torso, taking care not to press too hard against his injuries.
"Does the other guy look worse?" I ask idly as I gather another bit of cream. Spike doesn't answer, and I don't push. His eyes follow my movements, tracking every motion with confusion and a little bit of helplessness. Like he doesn't know what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, or if he should stop me. "Is it helping?" I ask once I'm almost done with his chest.
Spike nods, his gaze narrowing. I get to my feet and sit behind him on the bed. His back is just as bad as his front, and I make a choked noise. My hand is shaking as I dip my fingers into the cream again. When I've coated his back, I stand up, and he thinks I'm finished.
Instead, I move in front of him, nudging his thighs apart so I can stand between them. He flinches and closes his eyes when I touch the cream to the places on his face that aren't cuts or gashes. A reflexive breath fills his lungs but isn't let go.
"Oh, Spike," I whisper. He flinches again, and I'm surprised I don't have a complex, what with how often people do that when I touch them.
My thoughts wander as my fingers drift across his face. I looked in the Watcher's journals after Spike left. There weren't many details about Angel's adjustment to his soul, since it hadn't really been known about for a while. All I found were precious few notes that Giles made about what Angel and Buffy told him. I suspect Spike is still being strangled by guilt. I know the feeling. If it hadn't been for Spike, I'd still be choking for air.
Despite the similarities--between both Spike and Angel, and Spike and me-- the situations are completely different. Angel was cursed and lost for a long, long while. The guilt I was shouldering wasn't deserved. Spike doesn't seem lost so much as...scattered, and his guilt is deserved. Still, I can't stand seeing him like this; gasping for something he doesn't even need.
"Don't cry for me, Tara," Spike rasps out. I start at his words, then notice the tears on my cheeks. His eyes are open again, and they're clear despite the wretched emotions. Spike is in there, still. Clawing at the hands around his neck and remembering that vampires can't be killed by strangulation.
"I'll just..." I look wildly around the room, trying to blink the tears away because they won't help anything, and catch side of the doorway. "Go. In there. So that you can, um, change."
He shakes his head and gets to his feet, forcing me to back up or get knocked down. "It's not fit for anything living," he tells me. "Stay here."
I stay. And I blink. And the view doesn't change.
***
It's not until Spike is locking the door behind us that I think to ask where we are. He looks at me strangely, but then his lips twist knowingly. "Can I just shove you home through a passageway, then?" he asks as he leads me down the hall to a stairwell.
I shake my head, and he shrugs as if to say that it was worth a try, but he hadn't been all that hopeful. "New Orleans," he says suddenly.
"Oh." We walk down two flights of stairs and then come out into a narrow foyer with a door leading out to the street. "Isn't New Orleans kind of, um- -" I wrinkle my nose and tilt my head. "You know."
He holds the door open for me and waves me out. "Yeah, I do, and yeah, it is," he replies and I leave it at that.
The neighborhood is full of tall, narrow buildings, but after a few blocks, space begins to develop. We change direction and we're on a wide street, with a meridian in the middle. I crane my neck up and catch sight of a street sign. Esplanade.
It smells green here, green and lush. This time of year, I guess there isn't much humidity even in the south, but I can taste in the air that it's just biding its time, waiting to roll out and smother me. I've never much liked humidity.
"I don't need saving," he say suddenly. When I look at him, he's staring down the street, frowning. I'm not sure if he means that he's all right, or that he doesn't *deserve* to be saved. I make a small noise. "Don't give me that," he snaps.
Well. Apparently there's a demon language that Spike knows in which "Hm" translates into something other than a non-committal sound.
"I wasn't starving myself," he tells me flatly. "Or some other kind of nonsense."
I stop walking, and he doesn't notice at first. When he does, he spins around a little too quickly for his injuries and relaxes when he sees me standing there. I'm not sure what he sees on my face, but he comes back to me and tilts his head to the sky for a moment. Then his hand is on mine, and he turns it palm up and touches the bite mark on my wrist.
There's something dark, yet soft, on his features. Something that ripples across his face as he runs his fingers over the wound. Then his grip tightens a bit and he tugs me to him. I step into him and rest my head against his shoulder, inching closer until there's barely any space between us. My arms creep up to circle his waist. It's not like coming home, but it's close.
After everyone died, I couldn't stand to have anyone touch me. It had to do with Willow's power, which wouldn't "take" because her power and mine were two different beasts. I was overly sensitive to everything magical. Dawn and Giles have more than their fair share of magical energies, and it literally hurt when they got too close. Burned me raw on the inside while at the same time it sheered into every bit of my skin.
But Spike was different. I'm still not sure why. I would think that being a vampire would impart its own magical signature on him, but maybe not. Either way, he was an oasis, the only one I could touch. I don't know why he did it. Touched me, let me touch him. I think he got something out of it, but he never told me what.
So hugging him, being pressed against him is familiar. It's also a bit alien, because it was always my mother who bestowed the affection when I was growing up. And I've always known I was gay, so all intimate experiences were only with women. The hardness of his body, the strange angles and lines, feel odd for a moment. Then I remember. I remember *Spike* and I sigh.
I pull back a little and touch his cheek. He swallows thickly and I wonder if he's been without any kind of physical touch since he left. His eyes flicker, and they're amazing. All those layers of Spike are no longer hidden away behind a carefully constructed façade.
"It's beautiful," I breathe. "*You're* beautiful." He lowers his head until his forehead is against mine. I can feel him shudder. "I've missed you," I tell him.
My throat is getting tight, and there are tears in my eyes again. Then the tears fall, and they're not just mine. I move my arms around his neck, and his arms are around my waist. My feet leave the ground. I hum softly, threading my fingers through his hair--which is so soft and a little bit curly without the gel in it.
Finally he sets me down and steps back, face averted. "Come on, then," he says gruffly and we start walking again.
A few blocks later we come to a narrow side street, and Spike tells me to wait there and then heads down the street.
The temperature here isn't that much different than in Sunnydale, and the wool sweater I pulled on before we left is keeping me warm enough. Spike appears a few minutes later, walking with a slight limp and holding himself stiffly. He's got a large plastic take-out cup in one hand, and I watch him drain the contents and then shove the empty cup in the paper bag he's holding in his other hand.
I stifle a yawn and he says, "We'll get you some coffee."
There's a confusing set of turns and then we emerge from a side street onto Royal. We pass several places that have coffee, but Spike keeps going and then we're turning onto Decatur. It's ten minutes of walking, total, and Spike seems to be moving slightly more naturally when we come to our destination.
The sign on the large awning says "Café Du Monde" and we sit at one of the tables only long enough to get served. I think it's the drunken kids having a powdered sugar fight that has Spike abruptly getting to his feet. I follow him over and down a monument whose plaque I don't get a glimpse of, and then we're at a set of wide, deep steps that lead down to the river.
We sit on a row that's only a step higher than the water level, and I hold down the lid of my coffee while I shake it around. Spike takes out his cup and pours himself more blood.
"One of these days," I comment, "we need to take a trip." I bring the iced café au lait to my lips and sip. It's pretty good. Not that I'm a coffee aficionado, or anything, but it doesn't make my tongue curl into a ball and hide away.
Spike slants a curious look in my direction. "A trip? Think we've taken enough of those."
"A good trip," I clarify, staring at the gently lapping water and resisting the urge to dip my feet in. "We could go someplace I haven't been before. Like London. Oh. Or the Orient." I curl my lips into a smile, still watching the river. "I'll be all wide-eyed. You'll be all snarky. We'll have fun."
Surprised laughter comes from him in a choppy burst. "Leave it to you to not bring up anything significant," he drawls.
"Everything is significant," I murmur, shaking the coffee again. The sugar doesn't want to dissolve in the iced coffee. "You'll get through. Then we'll take a trip."
"Don't know if you're blindingly simple, or astoundingly wise."
"Oh, I'm wise," I inform him immediately, my voice confident. "I had a great teacher."
"Yeah? Who was that?"
I smile and say, "I know that you don't need to be saved." A quick look in his direction shows me that I've surprised him again. Wow. I think I'm breaking records tonight. "I also know you didn't need the soul."
He snorts and I hear the rustling of the bag as he gets more blood. "Blindingly simple," he concludes.
We'll never agree, but it doesn't matter. I know the truth of it. For him, the soul was a formality.
"What have you been doing?" I ask casually.
"Blundering around in shock," he says after a lengthy pause. "You?"
My answer doesn't come quickly either. "Waking up," is how I sum up the past few months.
Silence falls and drags on for a long while until Spike breaks it, his voice soft. "You want me to come back, don't you?"
Of all the questions I've been asked tonight, this one is the easiest to answer. "Yeah, I do."
He grunts. "Not as selfless as you used to be, huh?" I turn a frown on him. "Was expecting some kind of answer that had my best interests in mind, not yours," he explains.
"You asked if I wanted you to come back," I reply gently. "It's kind of a selfish question."
"Right. I guess." He narrows his eyes, seemingly trying to see me for the first time tonight "How are you doing?"
That he's asking about me when he's in his current shape is just so...Spike. A lot has changed, but I'm glad to see that some is the same. I flash him a smile and respond with, "Pretty good. Everyone's been, um, nice. And really supportive."
More narrow eyed scrutiny, and I don't try to shield anything from him. He nods slowly. "Good. Glad to hear it."
I'm done with my coffee, so I set it at my feet. "I'm here for--" I stop and realize I genuinely don't know how long I'll be sticking around. "Well, I'm not going back tonight, or tomorrow. Maybe not even the next day."
A small flicker of amusement comes to life in him. "I had picked up on that, pet," he drawls.
"I was thinking." He quirks a brow at me. "There's, uh, not much room. In your hovel. Plus, there's probably bugs, and I haven't done well with those since I was kooky."
"You should get a hotel room," he suggests blandly.
There's a little something in his tone that tells me he knows where I'm going with this. Seeing his carefully blank face, the eyes that he can now only hide by looking away, I forget my little scheme of getting him to stay at a hotel with me. "Come home," I whisper instead. "You don't have to stay if you don't want. Just...come home."
"Hellmouth's not my home," he says quickly, getting to his feet and keeping his face averted.
It took me a long time before I thought of Sunnydale as home. It took me until Willow, until I understood emotionally and not just logically that home isn't about location at all. I lost that feeling when I lost Willow, and it's only been recently that I've recovered it thanks to Faith and the others. I think about how fast that denial flew from his lips and I know that truth is he thinks he no longer has a place in Sunnydale.
I stand up and say it again: "Come home."
Another flinch, and lids fall over bright blue eyes. "I'll--I'll think about it," he whispers raggedly.
I step closer and wrap my hand around his. "Come home," I insist gently.
His hand tightens almost painfully on mine. "All right."
It's not. All right, that is. But it might be. Because we have a leaf for our table, and there's plenty of room for Spike and his soul.
***
"So, how's the soul working out?"
Long moments of silence follow my statement. Spike is gaping at me, and I realize that I'm not above getting a small bit of satisfaction at having caught him so off guard. Though, I'm not sure if Spike really didn't know that I knew, or if he's just surprised at how I said it. Finally, his mouth snaps closed and he sinks back onto the bed.
"Khentimentiu told you," he mutters from his prone position.
"Yeah," I agree. "Um, before you even knew, actually." That's got him sitting up again, and this time I see the shudder of pain that ripples across his body as he does so. "It was one of the things that he talked around in Cairo," I explain. "It...clicked after what happened with you and Dawn."
He laughs harshly and leans forward, rubbing the back of his neck. "Didn't see a need to let me in on it, did you?" he asks bitterly. "Because I had no bloody idea."
I study his hunched form and sigh. We used to let lies like this slide, but that was before, so I say, "Sure you did."
He turns his head to the side, once piercing blue eyes now dull and lifeless. "That wanker sent you."
I nod slightly. "Mm. He said...he thought you could use a friend."
"Go home," he tells me again, but I shake my head, thinking back to when he found me in that hotel room in Cairo.
"I didn't haul my...arse to wherever the heck we are for--for shits and giggles," I deadpan. "And, uh, your head is crooked if you think I'm just walking away."
It takes him a moment to remember the words he said to me those months ago in Egypt. I can actually see him close himself off even further, see him shrink back from his skin and distance himself. But I'm not going anywhere, and Spike doesn't seem to be strong enough to even verbally attack me at the moment. I think he's going to ignore me, if his lying down and closing his eyes is anything to go by.
I still don't have a plan, but for the moment I don't need one. Whatever I end up doing, I'm not about to let him sit there injured the way he is. He needs blood. There's a small dormitory size refrigerator at the foot of the bed, and I go to it and open the door. I close it almost immediately, a hand quickly coming to my face to cover my nose. Wow. That's where that infection stench is coming from. Okay. Even if there is blood in there, I'm not about to let him drink it. No way. Yuck.
"I don't suppose you'll tell me where the local demon bar is?" I ask softly, kind of hoping he will, but knowing that he probably won't.
The eye on the uninjured side of his face opens. "I don't suppose you can still make demons run for the hills?" he parries.
He knows as well as I do that that particular trick came with Willow's power. So I take it to mean that he's not going to tell me.
I don't think he's given up or anything, which sounds strange since he's obviously not been eating. But I think that has more to do with his injuries and lack of mobility than any desire to waste away.
The lack of mobility limits my options. He won't be able to come out with me right now to accompany me to whatever demon bar that he frequents, but whose location he won't volunteer. In fact, my options are pretty much non- existent at the moment. I sit next to him on the bed again, and his hand snakes up to grab my wrist when I try to touch his face.
"Don't." His voice is almost desperate, and I close my eyes briefly.
"All right," I say quietly and tug my hand away. I sigh, not as quietly as I could, and make a small noise at the back of my throat. "Spike, please. We need to get you some blood," I tell him plaintively.
"Bloody headstrong witch," he murmurs with exasperation. His eyes open again and he glares at me. "This has nothing to do with you."
"The Cerno had nothing to do with you, either," I rejoin, arching a brow.
"Knew I was going to get punished for that," he grumbles. "I'm fine, all right?"
That he would dismiss his injuries like that just angers me. I once told him that I wouldn't let him treat himself like a thing, and I meant it. The anger is just what I need to realize a plan, and I reach out to his face again, and again he grabs my wrist. I twist my hand in his grip until my wrist is turned up and on display.
"You need blood," I tell him slowly, and his eyes widen when he realizes what I'm saying. He lets go of me quickly and presses himself against the mattress. "You can either tell me where to get some, or you can take mine."
There's something reminiscent of a cornered animal in him; his eyes are wide and skittish, a little wild around the edges, and he's started to tremble. It breaks my heart even more, but I keep the point of this in mind. It's not easy; I'm not really made for "tough love".
"Where is the demon bar?" I ask him lowly.
"Get the hell out of here. Now."
I keep my voice as steady and unemotional as I can. "The choice is yours, Spike."
He remains silent, and I don't hesitate at all before implementing the next part of my plan. When my elbow slams against the bone sticking out of his thigh, he screams loudly, his body pulling itself once again into a sitting position. His face has slid into its demon visage, and I lift my hand and sketch the air, murmur under my breath, and then he can't move. I caught him in the middle of the scream, and his mouth is still open, his fangs accessible.
"The choice is yours," I tell him again, watching his eyes carefully. They're shooting daggers at me, and I know he's not going to back down. He thinks I won't do it. Because there's nothing with which to cut my skin, and I'll have to use his fangs, which will hurt him. He doesn't think I'll go that far, but he doesn't realize that it's the lesser of two evils at the moment.
"And you say I'm the stubborn one," I grumble, pulling up the sleeve of my shirt and moving up on the bed. He's so helpless and broken that I soften and touch the unmarred side of his face. "You didn't let me, and I'm not going to let you," I whisper.
He's trying to struggle against the immobilization spell. A vampire of Spike's strength can break the spell pretty quickly, as I once found out the hard way. But he's not in the best of shape and it'll hold as long as I need it to.
I raise my hand and set my wrist against his fangs. A part of me wonders what the heck I'm doing, if I've gone a little crazy again. Maybe I have. I'm not sure. But it's the right thing to do, and it's what he needs. I bite my lip and push my wrist forward, flinching and hissing when his fangs slide into my skin. His body jerks and I know that the chip has just fired, but I can't let myself think too much about that.
Pulling back, I let the blood drip into his mouth. Whether it's the pain of the chip, or the taste of my blood, that does the trick doesn't matter. What matters is that when I look at him, there's only the demon behind his yellow eyes. I can hear his throat working convulsively, and I lift the spell from his head and neck. His head dips, and his lips close around the wound and then he's drinking me down.
I shift closer and pet his hair, humming a tune my mom used to use whenever I was upset. There are sounds emanating from his throat that I've only rarely heard. Desperate growls and satisfied snarls. I think he wants to tear into me, but he knows the chip will go off again. I hum a little louder and murmur nonsense and he settles down just a little.
It's like a lull, sitting there with him attached to my arm, a lull in space and time and life, but I keep myself from falling into it. As much as I'd like to let him drink until he's better, I'm not bottomless. When I can't spare anymore, I free him again and draw my wrist away, and I only loosen the spell when the demon retreats a few minutes later.
Then all that's left is Spike, glaring hatefully at me. I suddenly know what it's like to be a mother, because right now his feelings and wants are completely unimportant. All that's important is *him* and if he hates me, so be it.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that it had to be me here, at this time. Because I've learned how to be the excuse, and I've learned how to be sly, and I've learned how to be strong. Spike really doesn't stand a chance.
"You're a bleedin' idiot," he hisses at me, ripping a dangling strip of his shirt off and shoving it at me.
I take it, but decide against using it to bind my wound. It doesn't look or smell all that clean, really. Instead, I press the bite against my jeans for a moment, and then some kind of morbid curiosity has me turning my hand over. It's a small, neat bite. Only his two most prominent fangs broke skin.
In Florence, the vampire who bit my neck wasn't nearly so neat. He laid into me with his mouth wide open, then tore himself roughly away. The scar is long and wide, a highway of shiny white tissue that attests to the fact that vampires have more than two pointy teeth. They've got a mouthful of razor sharp fangs that can slice through skin like a knife through butter.
"Put pressure on it," Spike snaps at me.
Absently, I turn my wrist over again and hold the wound to my thigh. Taking stock of myself, I realize that I don't feel weak or sick, but I think I might feel both if I try to stand right now. So I'll sit and try to figure out what to do next.
I'm more than a little tempted to have Marianna bring both Spike and me back to Sunnydale. He wouldn't need to be all that mobile for the passageways, and I could get blood for him back home. But I really don't think he'll agree to that, and forcing him is out of the question; I've pretty much used up a year's worth of tough love already.
A loud cracking sound and a muffled scream bring my head swiveling to the side. Spike is leaning forward again, hands wrapped around either side of his broken thigh. He's resetting it. The bone is back inside skin, but his leg is still positioned wrong. I see him grit his teeth, and my stomach tumbles as he gives a hard jerk, and there's another cracking sound as the bones are set right.
"You've got half an hour," he grinds out from behind clenched teeth, "to recover from your stupidity. Then I'm putting you on the next plane or bus or whatever back to Sunnydale
I swallow in an effort to convince my stomach that there's no need to reject my dinner, then look at Spike innocently. "Oh. You'll be up to dragging me away, kicking and screaming, in half an hour? Impressive."
He glares at me. "Why are you here?" he asks me for what feels like the hundredth time since I arrived.
If I had an answer to that question while I was standing in front of Khentimentiu earlier, then I lost track of it.
"Because you're here," I simply tell him. Then I look around the room and grimace. "It's, uh, not because of your charming...hovel."
He laughs tiredly, sadly. "Serves its purpose."
"Hm. How far is it to get you blood?"
Poor Spike. He really wants to argue with me, rant and rave until I turn around and go back home like a good little Tara. But he doesn't have the energy and he was the first one to point out that I'm stubborn. He realizes this and shifts to the foot of the bed, glowering at me along the way. He bends over and rifles through some clothing, pulling out a clean--well, a *different* shirt. Nothing in this place seems to be anywhere close to clean.
As he's ripping the last remaining bits of his old shirt off, I got to my bag and take out my cell phone and enter the family plan code that connects me directly to Faith's phone.
There's a certain quality to her greeting of "Hey" that tells me she's not feeling so great about how she let me leave.
"Hey yourself," I say quietly, trying to let her hear a smile. "Um, I'm all right and everything."
"Where are you?" she asks and she sounds more like her normal self again.
Now, that's a good question. I glance at Spike and see him contemplating the fresh shirt. "Haven't gotten around to asking," I reply.
"You haven't? Shit, that would've been my first question," she snorts. There's a pause, then she continues with, "Well, right after, 'why the fuck haven't you called' that is. What's the deal with him, anyway?"
Spike is still staring at the t-shirt like it holds the answer to some great cosmic mystery. "I'm not sure yet," I say vaguely.
Faith's earlier attitude is going to be nothing at all compared to how she's going to act when she finds out that I've known for months that Spike got a soul but didn't tell anyone. They've all asked me about him, more than once, and I've pretended ignorance. It wasn't necessary to out-and-out lie, but that's only because I always changed the subject and let them mistakenly believe it was too painful to talk about him.
I didn't feel like I had the right to tell anyone, so I didn't. Not even Dawn knows, and she's probably the one who needs to know the most. After Spike left, she learned that just because you can't have someone in your life doesn't mean you stop caring. She made the right choice for herself, but she still misses Spike terribly, worries a great deal about his safety.
"Yeah, well, if you need one of us or something, just say the word, all right?" she offers awkwardly.
That's the closest thing to an apology I'm likely to get and I take it readily. "Okay. Thanks. For the offer, and, um, everything."
"No prob. Olson wants you to check in a couple of times a day," she adds as an afterthought. The truth of that statement is debatable. Olson might have requested I call in, but my gut tells me it's Faith's idea and that she's just tacking Olson's name to it.
"Twice a day," I promise. "I, um, better go. Bye."
"Bye."
I end the call and slip the phone back in my bag, removing a small jar as I do so.
"You didn't tell them," Spike comments without inflection.
"Of course not." I bring the jar to him and stay his hands when he raises his arms to put the shirt on. I hold up the jar and uncap it. "Should help with the pain a little," I explain. "It's a homemade...anesthetic cream. Pretty strong. Oh, and it smells nice."
He tries to take it from me, but I brush his hands aside and kneel on the clothing at his feet. Up close, the bruises look worse. The cream is cool on my fingers, and Spike hisses a little when I brush some against his torso, taking care not to press too hard against his injuries.
"Does the other guy look worse?" I ask idly as I gather another bit of cream. Spike doesn't answer, and I don't push. His eyes follow my movements, tracking every motion with confusion and a little bit of helplessness. Like he doesn't know what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, or if he should stop me. "Is it helping?" I ask once I'm almost done with his chest.
Spike nods, his gaze narrowing. I get to my feet and sit behind him on the bed. His back is just as bad as his front, and I make a choked noise. My hand is shaking as I dip my fingers into the cream again. When I've coated his back, I stand up, and he thinks I'm finished.
Instead, I move in front of him, nudging his thighs apart so I can stand between them. He flinches and closes his eyes when I touch the cream to the places on his face that aren't cuts or gashes. A reflexive breath fills his lungs but isn't let go.
"Oh, Spike," I whisper. He flinches again, and I'm surprised I don't have a complex, what with how often people do that when I touch them.
My thoughts wander as my fingers drift across his face. I looked in the Watcher's journals after Spike left. There weren't many details about Angel's adjustment to his soul, since it hadn't really been known about for a while. All I found were precious few notes that Giles made about what Angel and Buffy told him. I suspect Spike is still being strangled by guilt. I know the feeling. If it hadn't been for Spike, I'd still be choking for air.
Despite the similarities--between both Spike and Angel, and Spike and me-- the situations are completely different. Angel was cursed and lost for a long, long while. The guilt I was shouldering wasn't deserved. Spike doesn't seem lost so much as...scattered, and his guilt is deserved. Still, I can't stand seeing him like this; gasping for something he doesn't even need.
"Don't cry for me, Tara," Spike rasps out. I start at his words, then notice the tears on my cheeks. His eyes are open again, and they're clear despite the wretched emotions. Spike is in there, still. Clawing at the hands around his neck and remembering that vampires can't be killed by strangulation.
"I'll just..." I look wildly around the room, trying to blink the tears away because they won't help anything, and catch side of the doorway. "Go. In there. So that you can, um, change."
He shakes his head and gets to his feet, forcing me to back up or get knocked down. "It's not fit for anything living," he tells me. "Stay here."
I stay. And I blink. And the view doesn't change.
***
It's not until Spike is locking the door behind us that I think to ask where we are. He looks at me strangely, but then his lips twist knowingly. "Can I just shove you home through a passageway, then?" he asks as he leads me down the hall to a stairwell.
I shake my head, and he shrugs as if to say that it was worth a try, but he hadn't been all that hopeful. "New Orleans," he says suddenly.
"Oh." We walk down two flights of stairs and then come out into a narrow foyer with a door leading out to the street. "Isn't New Orleans kind of, um- -" I wrinkle my nose and tilt my head. "You know."
He holds the door open for me and waves me out. "Yeah, I do, and yeah, it is," he replies and I leave it at that.
The neighborhood is full of tall, narrow buildings, but after a few blocks, space begins to develop. We change direction and we're on a wide street, with a meridian in the middle. I crane my neck up and catch sight of a street sign. Esplanade.
It smells green here, green and lush. This time of year, I guess there isn't much humidity even in the south, but I can taste in the air that it's just biding its time, waiting to roll out and smother me. I've never much liked humidity.
"I don't need saving," he say suddenly. When I look at him, he's staring down the street, frowning. I'm not sure if he means that he's all right, or that he doesn't *deserve* to be saved. I make a small noise. "Don't give me that," he snaps.
Well. Apparently there's a demon language that Spike knows in which "Hm" translates into something other than a non-committal sound.
"I wasn't starving myself," he tells me flatly. "Or some other kind of nonsense."
I stop walking, and he doesn't notice at first. When he does, he spins around a little too quickly for his injuries and relaxes when he sees me standing there. I'm not sure what he sees on my face, but he comes back to me and tilts his head to the sky for a moment. Then his hand is on mine, and he turns it palm up and touches the bite mark on my wrist.
There's something dark, yet soft, on his features. Something that ripples across his face as he runs his fingers over the wound. Then his grip tightens a bit and he tugs me to him. I step into him and rest my head against his shoulder, inching closer until there's barely any space between us. My arms creep up to circle his waist. It's not like coming home, but it's close.
After everyone died, I couldn't stand to have anyone touch me. It had to do with Willow's power, which wouldn't "take" because her power and mine were two different beasts. I was overly sensitive to everything magical. Dawn and Giles have more than their fair share of magical energies, and it literally hurt when they got too close. Burned me raw on the inside while at the same time it sheered into every bit of my skin.
But Spike was different. I'm still not sure why. I would think that being a vampire would impart its own magical signature on him, but maybe not. Either way, he was an oasis, the only one I could touch. I don't know why he did it. Touched me, let me touch him. I think he got something out of it, but he never told me what.
So hugging him, being pressed against him is familiar. It's also a bit alien, because it was always my mother who bestowed the affection when I was growing up. And I've always known I was gay, so all intimate experiences were only with women. The hardness of his body, the strange angles and lines, feel odd for a moment. Then I remember. I remember *Spike* and I sigh.
I pull back a little and touch his cheek. He swallows thickly and I wonder if he's been without any kind of physical touch since he left. His eyes flicker, and they're amazing. All those layers of Spike are no longer hidden away behind a carefully constructed façade.
"It's beautiful," I breathe. "*You're* beautiful." He lowers his head until his forehead is against mine. I can feel him shudder. "I've missed you," I tell him.
My throat is getting tight, and there are tears in my eyes again. Then the tears fall, and they're not just mine. I move my arms around his neck, and his arms are around my waist. My feet leave the ground. I hum softly, threading my fingers through his hair--which is so soft and a little bit curly without the gel in it.
Finally he sets me down and steps back, face averted. "Come on, then," he says gruffly and we start walking again.
A few blocks later we come to a narrow side street, and Spike tells me to wait there and then heads down the street.
The temperature here isn't that much different than in Sunnydale, and the wool sweater I pulled on before we left is keeping me warm enough. Spike appears a few minutes later, walking with a slight limp and holding himself stiffly. He's got a large plastic take-out cup in one hand, and I watch him drain the contents and then shove the empty cup in the paper bag he's holding in his other hand.
I stifle a yawn and he says, "We'll get you some coffee."
There's a confusing set of turns and then we emerge from a side street onto Royal. We pass several places that have coffee, but Spike keeps going and then we're turning onto Decatur. It's ten minutes of walking, total, and Spike seems to be moving slightly more naturally when we come to our destination.
The sign on the large awning says "Café Du Monde" and we sit at one of the tables only long enough to get served. I think it's the drunken kids having a powdered sugar fight that has Spike abruptly getting to his feet. I follow him over and down a monument whose plaque I don't get a glimpse of, and then we're at a set of wide, deep steps that lead down to the river.
We sit on a row that's only a step higher than the water level, and I hold down the lid of my coffee while I shake it around. Spike takes out his cup and pours himself more blood.
"One of these days," I comment, "we need to take a trip." I bring the iced café au lait to my lips and sip. It's pretty good. Not that I'm a coffee aficionado, or anything, but it doesn't make my tongue curl into a ball and hide away.
Spike slants a curious look in my direction. "A trip? Think we've taken enough of those."
"A good trip," I clarify, staring at the gently lapping water and resisting the urge to dip my feet in. "We could go someplace I haven't been before. Like London. Oh. Or the Orient." I curl my lips into a smile, still watching the river. "I'll be all wide-eyed. You'll be all snarky. We'll have fun."
Surprised laughter comes from him in a choppy burst. "Leave it to you to not bring up anything significant," he drawls.
"Everything is significant," I murmur, shaking the coffee again. The sugar doesn't want to dissolve in the iced coffee. "You'll get through. Then we'll take a trip."
"Don't know if you're blindingly simple, or astoundingly wise."
"Oh, I'm wise," I inform him immediately, my voice confident. "I had a great teacher."
"Yeah? Who was that?"
I smile and say, "I know that you don't need to be saved." A quick look in his direction shows me that I've surprised him again. Wow. I think I'm breaking records tonight. "I also know you didn't need the soul."
He snorts and I hear the rustling of the bag as he gets more blood. "Blindingly simple," he concludes.
We'll never agree, but it doesn't matter. I know the truth of it. For him, the soul was a formality.
"What have you been doing?" I ask casually.
"Blundering around in shock," he says after a lengthy pause. "You?"
My answer doesn't come quickly either. "Waking up," is how I sum up the past few months.
Silence falls and drags on for a long while until Spike breaks it, his voice soft. "You want me to come back, don't you?"
Of all the questions I've been asked tonight, this one is the easiest to answer. "Yeah, I do."
He grunts. "Not as selfless as you used to be, huh?" I turn a frown on him. "Was expecting some kind of answer that had my best interests in mind, not yours," he explains.
"You asked if I wanted you to come back," I reply gently. "It's kind of a selfish question."
"Right. I guess." He narrows his eyes, seemingly trying to see me for the first time tonight "How are you doing?"
That he's asking about me when he's in his current shape is just so...Spike. A lot has changed, but I'm glad to see that some is the same. I flash him a smile and respond with, "Pretty good. Everyone's been, um, nice. And really supportive."
More narrow eyed scrutiny, and I don't try to shield anything from him. He nods slowly. "Good. Glad to hear it."
I'm done with my coffee, so I set it at my feet. "I'm here for--" I stop and realize I genuinely don't know how long I'll be sticking around. "Well, I'm not going back tonight, or tomorrow. Maybe not even the next day."
A small flicker of amusement comes to life in him. "I had picked up on that, pet," he drawls.
"I was thinking." He quirks a brow at me. "There's, uh, not much room. In your hovel. Plus, there's probably bugs, and I haven't done well with those since I was kooky."
"You should get a hotel room," he suggests blandly.
There's a little something in his tone that tells me he knows where I'm going with this. Seeing his carefully blank face, the eyes that he can now only hide by looking away, I forget my little scheme of getting him to stay at a hotel with me. "Come home," I whisper instead. "You don't have to stay if you don't want. Just...come home."
"Hellmouth's not my home," he says quickly, getting to his feet and keeping his face averted.
It took me a long time before I thought of Sunnydale as home. It took me until Willow, until I understood emotionally and not just logically that home isn't about location at all. I lost that feeling when I lost Willow, and it's only been recently that I've recovered it thanks to Faith and the others. I think about how fast that denial flew from his lips and I know that truth is he thinks he no longer has a place in Sunnydale.
I stand up and say it again: "Come home."
Another flinch, and lids fall over bright blue eyes. "I'll--I'll think about it," he whispers raggedly.
I step closer and wrap my hand around his. "Come home," I insist gently.
His hand tightens almost painfully on mine. "All right."
It's not. All right, that is. But it might be. Because we have a leaf for our table, and there's plenty of room for Spike and his soul.
***