Chapter XII: The tragic conclusion of the one-night stand.

Sandra Langdon hates her job.

Over the last two years and three months she has been working with the network, she has been stuck in the field reporter position. Her work on the field is top-notch. She has been awarded several times for some of her most fine-tuned investigations and has a reputation of keeping a superbly objective eye on the field. She has written numerous articles that have all garnered very positive responses from everyone from academics to self-important people who like to pretend their academics.

Still, though, she hates her job. Because when it all comes down to it, she's not anchorwoman for the six o'clock news, and that's where the real money and glory lies. To her, reputation is nothing when you have nothing to show for. And when you have been working for faceless network suits for two years and three months relentlessly and you're sent to do a field-report on a murder inside an airliner in cold and clammy weather, instead of being pampered inside a studio by make-up artists and personal assistants all the while earning a six-figure salary for reading lines for an hour and pretending to like the pervert sitting next to you for the cameras, you have every right to hate your job. Yet, by her expression in front of the camera nobody would ever notice all of that. Her blue, glistening eyes exude comprehension, and the soft, well-rehearsed tremble of her gentle and warm voice fills your ears with compassion.

In earnest, Sandra Langdon should not be awarded for being a reporter. Sandra Langdon should be awarded for being an exceptional artist in deception. An actress.

"--airport officials have not been able to confirm the rumors that a member of the plane's staff was responsible for this brutal and heinous crime. Now for those of you that are joining us at this very moment, a young woman was just found murdered inside a--"

The television turns off. Spike scratches the back of his head with the remote and throws it to an armchair that sits beside him.

"You're one lucky lil' bastard, you know that?" he says turning towards the bed behind him.

Andrew is sitting upright drinking a juice box, clutching it with both arms. He's wearing a hospital gown and serum tubes are coming out of both his arms.

"I'd reckon I am, good sir," he says as he slurps the last, noisy remnants of the juice box. He looks awkwardly to Spike and sets it gently in the table next to his bed. "Um, can I have another?"

"No."

Andrew turns his gaze away from Spike towards the doorway. Rupert Giles is standing there anxiously, and to his apparent regret, for far longer than he had cared. "You won't get another one until you tell us what happened," he says sharply.

"Hey, listen, amigos," says Andrew through a nervous chuckle, "I went through a ghastly ordeal. Seriously, kids, unless you let me recover that strength that has waned from me unwillingly, I can't help you out. So... juice box... please?"

Spike takes a deep breath then says through gritted teeth, "Andrew..."

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you," he says droning. "I woke up that day in my hotel room at five in the a.m. by a call from the hotel staff. Apparently I had given them a call the night before while I was watching Gilligan's on TV Land. They were showing the episode where they find out that the whole island is sinking and they try to rebuild their houses on the highest point of the island, but then Gilligan knocks it down and it really wasn't that the island was sinki--"

A collective "Andrew!" cuts him short.

"Well," he says, slightly annoyed that they interrupted him, "as I was saying, the hotel people called me, and it was weird because I didn't really remembered giving them that call. But later I figured that it would have been over the commercials since I usually black-out during those and end up doing all this stuff that I don't usually remember afterwards, but anyway," he quickly continued after noticing their cold stares, "I got up and after I ordered a Brazilian omelet for breakfast I went and took a shower because I could still feel the Briddlamn demon blood in me."

"What, the slimy stuff they have in their skin?" Spike interrupts with concerned interest.

Andrew nods. "Yeah..."

"Oh," says Spike in utter surprise. "That ain't blood, mate. That's actually--"

"That's actually nothing that concerns me in any particular way," Rupert interrupts with a strange hint of anger mingling with disgust in his voice.

"Right," says Spike sharply. "Get to the point, kid. What happened on the plane?"

Andrew shrugs with apprehension. "Can I get another juice-box? How 'bout mixed berries? I haven't tried that one ye--"

"No!"

"Hmph," he grunts angrily. "I feel like I'm being interrogated while you stand around there mocking me with your cold-hearted stares and quips. Like Leia must have felt in Episode 4: lost and totally devoid of hope."

He pauses then says matter-of-factly, "Utterly inappropriate behavior for Watchers."

"Trust me," says Spike crossing his arms as if restraining himself, "I've got half a mind to start using needles if you don't quit yappin' about stuff that I don't care about! What happened on the plane, Andrew?"

"I'm sorry!" Andrew yells, still whining.

He takes a deep breath of reassurance and says, "It was a very trying and difficult experience for me. I believe that with a little more time I will be able to fend these haunting demons off and come forth with my tale. In the meantime, I would very much appreciate a Mixed Berries Blast. Please."

Giles and Spike exchange looks of desperation. Clearly Andrew was considerably unwilling to share the details of how he lost the artifact he was traveling with from Cairo. Spike takes a step towards him and moves in front of his bed, arms still crossed.

"Giles," he says pointedly, "fetch the Veritaserum."

Giles raises an eyebrow dubiously.

"If the little git can't bring himself to talk, then I think a little motivation is in order. Wouldn't you think?"

Andrew scoffs. "Come on, Spike. I'm insulted. Veritaserum isn't real." He chuckles amused. "If you're going to threaten me try being more ambiguous than Harry Potter, okay?"

He scoffs again in a self-important tone. "Honestly..."

Giles shakes his head. "Spike?" he calls rubbing his eyes fiercely.

Turning to Rupert, "Yeah?"

"Torture him if you have to, but make him talk."

Spike smiles. "Will do."

Giles walks out of the room in the infirmary and an uncomfortable silence falls upon the two of them. Andrew looks awkwardly to his left, where a small refrigerator is sitting beside the bed. He tries to reach for it to no avail, until Spike swings its door open and hands him another juice-box.

"Thanks," says Andrew appreciatively.

Spike sits on the armchair next to the bed and lets out an exuberant sigh. "Prego," he says callously.

"Seriously, dude. Veritaserum?"

"I know, I know. I've been reading her Order of the Phoenix and I came across it."

Andrew ponders on this for a few seconds, then says, "Oh, you mean when Umbridge-?"

"Yeah."

They remain silent for a few seconds.

"Good book," finally says Andrew.

"Oh, hell of a book. She really likes that series. Been reading them for years, but never got around to reading that one, so I'm doing it for her. Helps her with the, uh... y'know..."

There's a short yet thick silence before Andrew dares to speak. "Does she, um..." he mutters nervously, trying to avoid Spike's gaze. "Does she..." He pauses, then snickers uncomfortably. "Never mind."

"What?" Spike leans forward.

"No, I, uh... I just wondered if she... you know... remembers the, um... the books?"

Spike takes a moment to consider the question, then a sad smile seamlessly forms in his lips. "Sometimes."

"But she's... she's getting better. Right?"

"I don't know, Andrew. I think so. Maybe."

They look at each other cautiously avoiding eye contact, then Spike stands to his feet to leave.

"I'm sorry."

He turns towards Andrew. He's clutching the juice box between his shaking fingers. Spike takes an exasperated breath and puts his hands in his pockets.

"Andrew," he says carefully, "do you know what it is they took?"

"The Eye of Light," says Andrew sharply. "An artifact that is used to find any gateway for inter-dimensional travel in this dimension. Only one to be known in existence, it was hand crafted during the course of fifty-seven years by a magician that went by the name of Marko Luminos in the sixteenth century. Luminos crafted it with the help of Cyvus Vail and claimed that the orb allowed lesser-beings that sought enlightenment to travel across the Universe. His belief was that the Universe was a juxtaposition of dimensions that existed parallel to one another and that humanity should be able to look at it for what it really was. Luminos eventually disappeared. There are no official records of his demise or anything concrete, for that matter, after 1576. The Eye itself was found in Egypt in 1799 in an archaeological dig, during Napoleon's tenure in the country. It's been in one of the many vaults at the Museum of Cairo ever since."

Andrew takes a sip of his Mixed-Berries Blast, then stares at Spike, an uneasy smile on his lips.

"That's actually more information than I'd like to hear," says Spike blankly, "but, yeah, that's pretty much it."

He walks over to Andrew's side, Andrew himself following his gaze while slurping his juice-box dry.

"So you understand why Giles is a little cross with you, right?" he asks calmly. Andrew nods. "What happened on the plane?"

And so, with much reluctance on his part, Andrew tells him. Detail by excruciating detail, he goes over the course of events and tells Spike everything that happened. After he finishes, he takes a long, deep breath, and exhales in sorrowful relief.

Spike stares at him. He sees his eyes welling. The weight of his mistake is finally dawning upon Andrew, and he can't restrain his regret and misery. He has disgraced himself. Despite everything that he has done in the past to compensate for his actions prior of joining Buffy's cause in Sunnydale, he is still the whimpering little boy in third grade that trips and falls flat on his face for the whole of his class to jeer and mock at. The little boy that was always degraded for the enjoyment of school-yard bullies. The same little boy who almost three years before had killed his best friend in cold-blood, and lay whimpering at the realization that for all he had done, he was nothing. A murderer with delusions.

Then, without an ounce of consideration, Spike bursts suddenly into a fit of unrelenting laughter. Andrew looks at him shocked, and Spike, upon noticing, struggles to confine his unwelcome roaring of laughter back.

"I-I'm sorry," he says in between the laughs.

"Dude? What the hell, man?" yells Andrew angrily.

"I'm sorry," he says as he finally starts to calm down. "Oh, I'm sorry, Andrew. It's just that... you thought you were gonna lose your cherry!" He bursts into laughter. "That must've been quite a surprise, eh?"

Andrew shrugs uncomfortably. "Yeah, laugh all you want, she still's got the orb."

Spike chuckles lightly. "Yeah, she does at that," he says, slowly coming into reality. "Ah, well, if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be, yeah?"

"Seriously, though..." he pauses to ponder, then says assuring, "that woman was so awesome. Too bad about the stabbing. Otherwise, I would have taken her in all manner of unseemly fashion, my friend." Andrew takes a long sip of his juice.

Spike scoffs. "Yeah, I'd bet at that. One question, though, just one. Don't you think that it was a little off for a girl like that to be in any way interested in anything particular that you had to say to her?"

Andrew stares at him blankly, then after a quick sip of his juice he says, "Yeah. After getting stabbed with Chinese sticks and left for dead it sort of dawned upon me."

"Well, I'm very happy you finally realized that. Because no woman that looks like that would ever want to hear about demons and ghouls from a twenty-something that still finds D&D cool."

Andrew looks at him with a somewhat terrified expression. "Really? All of them?"

Spike inhales a breath melancholy. "I'm afraid so."

Andrew scoffs resentfully. "Women."

"Yeah. Women."

For a moment they stare blankly in opposite directions. Then slowly, their eyes meet, and they are shaken out of hypnosis. Spike shrugs and turns awkwardly towards the door.

"I, uh..."

"No, of course," says Andrew calmly. "I understand."

"Yeah, well, you take care now."

Spike turns towards the door and takes a heavy step in its direction when Andrew calls from behind him.

"Yeah?"

Andrew stares at him, his small eyes glistening. He coughs uncomfortably, then says in a calm and pleading voice, "Will you read to me?"

Spike looks at table next to Andrew's bed and sees a large, hard-cover book that reads in beautiful silver letters on its front, The Lord of the Rings. Spike looks back at Andrew, then without uttering a single word he turns around and walks out of the room.

Andrew looks at the door at the door, slightly surprised and saddened. Then the door opens again and Spike enters gritting his teeth.

"You're one right, foul lil' bastard, you know that?"

Andrew smiles, then says with a small bow, "Many thanks, my most gracious sensei."

"Stop that!" hisses Spike with certain disgust in his voice. "Someone might hear you."

Andrew grins even wider as Spike sits beside the bed and picks the book into his lap. Andrew clings to his juice-box while Spike reads. The sun begins to settle behind the windows, but they don't notice.

It has been a long day for the great warrior. Yet, somehow, not a care in the world worries him right now.