Authors Note: Thanks so much for all the subscription alerts, and thanks especially to isisgoddess2000 for the comment and the dedication. Makes this all worth while. And once again, thanks to badfishmuser for the encouragement, and special thanks to wolf for the last minute beta work.

Chapter Six: Endure

"How could you ever think you'd make it here?
Was it greed that pushed your heart through the struggles you've endured?
You've come so far from innocence,
Provided all the consequence
Only what does it matter now?"

The Running Free, Coheed and Cambria

It was an hour before sunset when he finally jerked awake, shaking off the clinging fragments of whatever nightmare he couldn't quite grasp anymore. He fumbled for a cigarette, and had to spend several minutes just breathing to calm himself enough to light the bloody thing. He didn't remember being this jittery the last time he'd gone without feeding for a while, but then again, he wasn't quite fitting in his own head at the moment, so there could be things he wasn't remembering correctly.

A nice, hot shower would calm him enough for the road. He had a hell of a long way to go, and he didn't need this shit slowing him down. Spike eyed his dirty clothing with distaste, but there wasn't much to be done about that; not like he'd packed for this little jaunt. Puling his t-shirt off with only a minimal amount of wincing, he thought for a moment he'd caught movement in the bathroom mirror. Movement that, out of the corner of his eyes, vaguely resembled the same colours and shapes he'd seen in the last photograph of himself he'd had done. But no, there was nothing there, nothing but the peeling wallpaper behind him. Besides, that was just insane. He hadn't seen a damned thing.

He quickly stripped the rest of his clothes off and twisted the shower on as hot as it would go, which in a cheap, middle of nowhere hotel, wasn't that hot. It didn't matter though; he was consumed with the need to be clean, free of the blood and road grime that he hadn't been able to wash off since he'd left Sunnydale. He put the mirror phantom out of his mind, decidedly not thinking about it.

The little bottle of shampoo the hotel provided was nearly empty by the time the soap running down the drain stopped being tinged pink. He wondered how the hell something like that had gone without notice for as long as it had. His scalp was still very tender, and he could make out the edges of a gash over his left ear.

There was a thread bare dingy white rag hanging within reach on a towel bar that he soon put to diligent use. This time all he had was a little paper wrapped bar of soap that barely produced any suds, but it would have to do. The water wasn't near hot enough, and getting colder, but it didn't matter. He was filthy, and no matter how hard he scrubbed, he wasn't getting any cleaner.

The water was ice cold by the time he noticed that he was scrubbing himself raw; that blood was beginning to pepper his skin where he was too rough, that he was panting and shaking like a blown horse and close to just fucking breaking down and sobbing like...like some crazy souled vampire.

He ran the rag over his face one more time to get rid of any evidence of tears and yanked on the faucet until the water shut off. The towels were way too small to actually dry him individually, but there were three of them and he managed. Knowing that his hair had turned to soft springy curls once again didn't bother him the way it used to.

His cloths smelled of blood and dirt when he struggled into them, and it turned his stomach to have them so close to his skin. As soon as he got home, he'd burn them. Light fire to the whole lot of them, and dig out new ones, assuming any had been spared the Slayer's rage or whatever demon had likely kicked Clem out, and...

He paused, noticing that he was playing with his lighter, and the flame was dangerously close to his face. He jerked back and snapped the thing shut, shoving it into his pocket. More calming breaths followed.

Nothing wrong here. Just get your kit and get out, get home. Get soul, get home. Fucked up visions and having moments where you want to tear at your own skin can be set aside until later.

Realizing his kit consisted of what he had on him wasn't as depressing as it should have been. He peeked out from behind the curtain, and determined that the sun was low enough to start out. Shutting off his brain again, he did just that.

Five hours later, some four hundred miles of blacktop and two fuel stops behind him, he was barely hanging onto the bike. He was absolutely exhausted, and it was pissing him the hell off. He'd once driven three days straight with the windows of the De Soto blacked out, and Dru fighting like a wild cat to get back to her precious Angelus. By the time they'd stopped somewhere deep in Mexico, his hands had been covered in burns from jerking her back when she'd tried to dive out of the car in the middle of the fucking day. Even then, he wasn't as tired as he was now. He blew past a sign that claimed you could visit the world famous Carlsbad Caverns, only 14 miles!, and he knew he'd never make it that far. Besides, from what he could recall Carlsbad was a tourist trap, full of people, and right now he didn't even want to lay eyes on a human, much less be surrounded by them. So when the next sign announced the village of Loving, New Mexico, population 1300, he pulled off the road and briefly considered his options. This place wasn't even a dot on a fucking map; there was a 24 hour gas station and little else. He kicked the bike back into action and rolled through town, looking for something abandoned, but everything looked fucking abandoned at this time of night. Finally he caught sight of a few grain elevators with steel buildings attached, rusty from disuse, and figured it was his best option. He hid the bike in the overgrown yellow grass beside one of the buildings, and kicked a door in.

The entire place smelled heavily of bird shit. The windows on the top floor were broken and thousands of pigeons had decided it was a lovely place to make a home. The sun was starting to rise, so he didn't have much choice.

A piece of broken rafter served to wedge the broken door shut. He scouted around, kicking aside faded beer cans and other litter that spoke of teenagers using the place to get high and drunk. The windows were all broken, he discovered, but there was a room without them. He'd slept in worse places, the Watchers bath tub being in the top three, so it didn't bother him much to find a mostly clear-of-bird-shit spot on the concrete and curl up.

His eyes drifted closed, and before he passed out, he sure as hell did not hear Drusilla's giggle echoing through the empty room.

"It's alright, you're almost there, you can do it."

Tara's fingers carded through his hair. His head was lying on her knee, the rest of him still stretched out along the cold hard floor somewhere in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. She felt warm and alive beneath his cheek, and for a moment he wondered why in the hell he would dream of Tara watching over him and not Buffy.

"Tara?" he whispered, his voice feeling rough from disuse.

"Shh. Rest. You have to get back to her. She needs you. She is going to need you more than ever. But it's going to be hard, Spike, so hard..." She almost sounded like she was going to cry. Her fingers continued their rhythmic movements in his hair, teasing the windblown tangles from the curls.

He knew, then, why his subconscious had summoned her up for him. She'd been the only one of the whole lot them to ever give him a kind word. In the dream, she even smelled like Tara, that earthy, comforting scent, with deep and ancient power a subtle undertone. Red had always given off a whiff of smoke and fire, like a match waiting to be struck, but Tara was solid.

"I think I am dying, Tara. By inches." he whispered again, his voice unnaturally loud in this place.

"You aren't. You are strong. But something is coming, something worse, and it will swallow them whole if you aren't there. You need to eat. You need to rest. And most of all, you need to get there."

He swallowed, and nodded, turning his face further into her lap to hide the sudden flow of tears. Her fingers where beginning to lull him, and he breathed slow and deep, devouring the comfort and feeling of safety she seemed to be oozing out of her pores.

"Rest, William. Rest and get home."

The dream slipped away to where ever dreams did, and the rest of the day passed without incident. When he awoke, an hour after sunset and cursing at the fact he'd overslept, the memory of her scent stayed with him as he prepared for yet another exhausting night on the road.