Chapter Five
Angel of Mercy
Spike had never tried to enter a home on a long-distance invitation before, so he had no idea if Tara's words were any good. If the invitation didn't work, he would simply camp out at her doorstep until she got there. And when she did, he would just explain to her how it only made sense for him to go back to his crypt... how if he wasn't there when Buffy got there it would only be worse when she found him...how he was utterly and hopelessly trapped, beyond all help.
He turned the key in the lock, and the door swung open under his hand. He reached out, and his hand went through the doorway, no problem. With a sigh he went the rest of the way into Tara's dimly lit apartment. This changed nothing, he told himself. He would still go back to his crypt as soon as Tara got home.
He looked around the small apartment absently, restless and anxious and looking for a distraction. It was the type of place one would have expected for Tara: small and close, but with a warm, safe feeling. It was lit by a small table lamp on an end table at the far end of a soft, deep red loveseat, and a few scattered candles that cast a warm glow around the room. A small kitchenette lay beyond the living room, and a door to the left led to a bedroom, Spike assumed. And that was all. A very small apartment, probably all Tara could afford. But she had quite obviously made it home.
He let out an impatient sigh as he sat down on the end of the loveseat. If only Tara had an extra key! It would be so much easier to just slip out now while she was not here and go back to his crypt to wait for the inevitable. But leaving Tara unable to get into her apartment was not an option.
He thought of leaving the door unlocked, but on the Hellmouth, that was also not an option. He would never forgive himself if someone or something got into her apartment because he left the door unlocked, and something happened to Tara. The same reasoning eliminated the thought of leaving the key under the mat. It was the first place anyone would think to look, so Tara would not have a hard time getting in...but then, neither would anyone else.
Leaning back against the loveseat with another sigh of resignation, he thought he would just rest a bit until she got there. He closed his eyes...just a few minutes...
Tara knocked softly on the door of her apartment. No answer. She knocked a little louder, and there was still no response. Beginning to feel a little concerned, she fumbled in her purse for her spare key. The only-key thing had been just a ruse to keep Spike at her apartment until she got there. Tara knew enough to know that without some tangible thing to hold him there, he would surely have fled by the time she got there.
Quickly she unlocked the door and slipped inside, locking the door and deadbolting it behind her. She eyed it critically for a moment. She did not think that Buffy would have any idea that Spike was here, but it still made her feel more secure that her apartment had a steel door with a deadbolt.
Turning to face her living room, she felt a sense of relief at the sight of Spike, sprawled out on her loveseat...which was painfully small for him to sleep on, she thought. She slowly approached him, not wanting to wake him and frighten him. His features were smooth in a moment of peaceful slumber, thick dark lashes brushing elegant cheekbones of ivory. His perfect lips were parted slightly in sleep, and she noted with a frown that blood had dried on them. He had not taken the time...or the liberty...to clean the wound Buffy had given him.
She walked into the kitchen and took a small glass bowl, filled it with warm water, and returned to the living room, picking up a clean dishcloth on the way. As she neared him, his features suddenly twisted in fear, as he let out a soft little moan in his sleep.
"No," he whispered, the words little more than a breath. "No!" in pleading tones. "Please!"
Quickly kneeling beside him, Tara reached a gentle hand to touch his face. "Shhh," she whispered. "Spike...Spike wake up, Honey." With her other hand she gently shook his shoulder.
He woke up with a start, straining against her hand to sit up, with a final anguished cry, "No!"
Instinctively she put her arms around him from the side, gently rubbing her hand up and down his back in a soothing way, even as she did, surprised at how her instinct in this situation was to nurture and comfort him, instead of to run or shrink back in fear because, hello, vampire. But then, for some odd reason, she had never been afraid of Spike. And now, in this particular moment, he was so helpless, so vulnerable--her maternal instincts took over and all she could do was reach out to hold him. "Shhh," she whispered. "It was only a dream. It's ok. You're safe." She murmured comforting words until he seemed to recognize where he was.
He looked at her with startled eyes, and she could see the panic slowly subsiding in them. "Tara..." he whispered, as if just recognizing her.
She nodded with an encouraging smile. "You need to rest," she urged him softly. "Lie back down. I'm just going to clean up this nasty cut you've got here."
He looked as if he wanted to resist, but was simply too exhausted and drained to have any fight left in him. Obediently he laid back down, and she gently blotted the ugly gash Buffy's fist had made in his lip with the soft, warm towel. As she worked, he closed his eyes again, and she could see his chest moving up and down...slow, even breaths. She knew he didn't have to breathe; he was trying to calm himself down.
Deliberately she took her time, using gentle, soothing strokes with the cloth, then setting it aside and just lightly stroking the backs of her fingers down the side of his face in a comforting way, mimicking actions her mother had done when she had had nightmares as a small child. As she did--slow, even, soothing movements--she could feel him leaning just slightly into her touch, and her heart ached with the depth of his need, just for a simple touch that did not seek to break him, to take from him.
Finally, when he seemed to be asleep again, she stood up and started to take the bowl back to the kitchen. But as she did he suddenly reached out and took her arm in a desperate grip. "Wait," he rasped.
She turned and saw him leaning up on one arm, gazing up at her with tear-filled eyes, and with a trembling mouth he whispered, "Please...don't go."
Her own eyes filled with tears, and she set the bowl back down on the floor.
"Sit up a little," she murmured softly, helping him up just enough for her to slide onto the loveseat, then gently lowering his head back down onto her lap. His knees were drawn up to fit his body onto the small piece of furniture, and he seemed so small and vulnerable.
At first he tried to sit up when he realized what she was doing. "No," he whispered in a small, frightened voice that made her heart ache. "You don't have to..."
"You're right," she said firmly, pushing him back down gently, and looking him in the eye. "I don't have to. I want to. Just rest..." Her voice was hypnoticly soothing, and he obeyed, lying his head back down on her lap.
With soft, gentle hands she tenderly caressed his face, ran her fingers slowly through his hair. As she did she continued to speak softly to him, using her hands and her words to soothe and comfort him. "It's all right. You're safe here," she told him. "No one can hurt you here. Just rest."
She repeated herself many times, and the words themselves began to lose meaning. All that mattered was the soft cadence of her voice, moving in lulling rhythm with her hands, as he slowly drifted back into a much-needed rest.
Spike woke with a start, disoriented and fighting off a sense of panic that had followed him from his dreams to wakefulness. Looking hurriedly around the room, trying to place the unfamiliar surroundings, he looked down at the blood-red loveseat beneath him--the glass bowl on the floor at its side...
Tara's apartment.
Strangely, with the heavy brocade curtains carefully drawn so as to shut out all possible sunlight, the room was actually darker in the morning than it had been the night before. The candles were no longer lit, and the lamp had been turned off.
Tara was nowhere in sight. She must have gotten up at some point during the night and gone to sleep in her bed. The memories of the night before, drifting off to sleep in comforting, soft arms, made him feel warm and peaceful even now.
But then he remembered reality.
He stood up anxiously, looking about the room for something he could cover up with to make the dash from shadow to shadow to make his way back to his crypt in the daylight. There was a throw blanket across the back of the loveseat, but when he thought about taking it, he didn't want to destroy anything of Tara's, not after she had been so kind to him.
He had to get back. Buffy would have been there the night before, looking for him. When she found the crypt empty, she had surely become even more enraged than she had been at the Magic Box. He shuddered at the thought of what she would do to him when she found him.
It was best to get back as quickly as possible. Perhaps he could even save it, make up some plausible reason for why he had not been home all night, somehow try to convince her that he had not dared to attempt to hide from her.
But he had to find a way to leave, first.
Just as he was casting about in his mind for some way to escape, the door to Tara's room opened and shut again softly. He looked up to see her standing in front of him, wearing a luxuriously soft, thick red bathrobe, and a warm smile on her face.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," she spoke, and the warmth of her voice flooded his head.
"Morning," he replied softly, hoping the wave of adoration he felt at the sight of her did not show in his eyes.
The memory of the perfect peace, safety, of the night before was etched in his mind irrevocably. And Tara was the one who had brought it. In the miserable, painful mess his un-life had become, Tara had been his savior--if only for one night. No matter what happened now, no matter what Buffy did to him, nothing could change that in his mind.
He looked away from her, focusing his eyes on the bowl at his feet, just to avert his eyes from her face. It seemed somehow presumptuous to gaze at her like that...he felt undeserving of her kindness, and ashamed that he had been so in need of it.
"Hungry?" she asked.
In spite of it all his eyes raised to meet hers, his eyebrows raised quizzically, and one corner of his mouth turning up in a gently mocking smirk.
Tara blushed, realizing her mistake. Then she quickly covered, and quite well, laughing softly. "Oh please, Spike, I've seen you put away the food. Don't tell me you'd turn down homemade waffles right now."
Her smiling eyes and lips tempted him in ways he did not want to contemplate...ways that seemed somehow disrespectful in light of the past few days.
Get a hold of yourself you bloody wanker he told himself. She doesn't even like men. And even if she did, you'd never have a soddin' chance with a girl like that.
He smiled back at her, hoping it masked the inner whirlwind of his emotions, and nodded defeat. "Right you are, love. You've got me again."
Tara nodded emphatically once. "Comfort food it is then," she smiled, and headed to the kitchenette, beckoning with her hand for him to follow.
He seated himself comfortably on a stool at the counter and contently watched her preparations.
"I want you to know," Tara said softly, her back to him, "you can stay here as long as you like."
He looked down at the counter. "I know, love. I mean... I know you'd let me...but...the longer I stay away...the worse it's gonna be..."
"Buffy can't find you here," Tara interrupted quietly, turning around to look him in the eye.
Feeling guilty, he looked down again, nodding. "I know, love. If she does, there's no tellin what she'd do and I don't want you hurt because of me..."
"No," Tara shook her head, walking to stand across the counter from him, placing her warm, steady hand on top of his cool, trembling one, forcing him with the contact to look up and meet her eye again. "I mean she can't find you here. I...took some precautions last night...after you went to sleep," she explained. "Buffy told me before that she can sense vampires...and whenever she told me about the two of you...she said she can sense you especially...and know it's you."
"She told you all that?" Spike was surprised, and a little nervous. "What all did she tell you exactly?"
Tara smiled, her finger making small patterns on the back of his hand in a tender caress. "Just that you two were sleeping together," she said bluntly. "Basically. That's about it, really."
"Yeah. That is about it, really," Spike's voice was disgusted, ashamed.
Tara's hand closed over his comfortingly again, a wordless affirmation of understanding. "What I'm saying is, I did a special kind of ward so that she won't be able to sense you here. I mean, she might come and ask me if you're here, or knock on the door if I'm not here...but if she can't sense you...she knows she usually can...she'll trust her Slayer-sense and she'll assume you're not here."
Spike thought for a moment, digesting that. It seemed foolproof enough. Of course, that was usually a dead giveaway that something would go wrong.
"I can't just stay here indefinitely, love," he argued quietly. "I wouldn't impose on you. I have to at least go out for blood on occasion. And one of those times, she'd catch me, pet. And the longer I'm gone..."
"Not indefinitely," Tara broke in, her voice still soft and even...as soothing to him as it had been the night before. "I can get your blood for you. Just for a little while...just til we can figure out what's wrong with her... and help her."
He looked up at her quickly. "That's what I was hoping..." He looked down again; why was it so impossible for him to hold anyone's gaze lately, he wondered. "That's why I came to you...in the Magic Box the other day," he confessed softly. "I wanted you to help me find out what was wrong with her so we could help her. Because this...this isn't her, Tara. She was never like this before..." There was such quiet desperation, such aching grief and agony in his voice, that she could hardly bear it.
Unexpectedly, Tara came around the counter and wrapped a gentle arm around his shoulders, her other hand gently running through his now soft blonde hair, most of the gel having worked itself out during his fitful tossings of the night before. "I know," she murmured gently. "and we'll figure it out. We'll help her. But in the meantime," she moved her hand from his hair to gently turn his face toward hers, meeting his eye with a firm, holding gaze, "you don't need to be around her...at least not alone with her. She will kill you, Spike. She will kill you." She repeated the words to be sure they had the full impact. "Just stay here for a little while, where you're safe. Where she can't get to you. Please? Just a little while, while we work this out?"
Her warm, compassionate eyes pleaded with him, and he could not deny her...not when he owed her as much as he did. Reluctantly, he nodded, lowering his eyes again, and he knew that he would keep his word to her, this soft and strong, surprising woman, his angel of mercy.