Spike ran as fast as he could to get to Buffy when he heard her scream. Sam wasn't far behind him. When he made it up the stairs to where the Watcher was supposed to be hiding, he found Buffy surrounded by a whole bunch of ugly-looking buggers. He inhaled. They smelled human, but not. They looked like they had been human until they'd mutilated their faces and started messing with some dark mojo. Now they didn't know what they were. Right, then. His girl could handle a lot on her own, but one against twenty was over-the-top for anyone. Good thing she had him and Lawson to back her up. He could tell she was having a problem with hurting them too much, though, because they still looked human-like.

"Buffy, they don't smell human!" He yelled as he jumped into the fray, trying to take as many down as he could as quickly as he could.

"Oh, good!" Once she'd heard him, her attacks became a lot less restrained and defensive; now her only goal was to take them down.

Spike snuck a quick look at the sailor boy and saw that he was holding his own. And by the looks of it, he was having a right fine time doing so, too. It didn't take long for them to cut the number down by half, and that's when he realized someone was missing.

"Oi, luv, where's the Watcher?" he asked in between punches while dodging the bugger who'd tried to jump on his back.

Her breath hitched a little as she answered; he could tell she was worried and that got him worried as well. "I don't know, the only people here when I got up here were these uggos."

Spike couldn't help but to agree with her—they were ugly buggers. He decided he'd try to sniff the Watcher out when he had a mo'. Spike turned to look at Lawson who was yelling in agony and was immediately stabbed in the side. 'Christ that bloody hurts.'

He was able to ignore the pain for the time being and focused his energy on taking out the ponce that had wounded him. Once that was taken care of, he made his way over to Lawson to help him out, but not before taking a look at Buffy to make sure she was doing okay. She was bloody magnificent as always and was taking them down faster than Spike, maybe even faster than both him and Sam combined. He might have gotten a bit distracted watching his girl fight, but he was brought back to reality by Sam's repeated howl of pain.

Once he got to the sailor boy, they worked together to take the rest out that Buffy wasn't already taking care of. Spike knew better than to try to take a kill from her; he'd learned that the hard way the first time he went on patrol with her when she'd felt better after being Angelus's hostage. He shivered thinking of Angelus now that he was dust, but he didn't know if it was out of disgust or delight.

He bloody hated the ponce but he was still family, and now, with him and Dru gone, Spike was the last of the Whirlwind. Other than Lawson, he was the last of the line. Christ, he was the bloody head of the line now. He shook his head; now wasn't the time to think about that total mind fuck.

They finally finished taking all those weird buggers out, with no one on their side any worse for wear than they'd been beforehand. Well, other than his stab wound, but he could deal with that later. He just had to make sure to hide the pain from Buffy, as he didn't want her to worry about him. He adjusted his duster to cover it. 'Wait, the other Slayer, where'd she wander off to?' he wondered.

"Spike, can you, I don't know, use your weird vamp sniffy thing to try to find out where Giles went?"

He inhaled deeply. He walked over to a little balcony where the Watcher's scent was the strongest. This must have been where he was hiding out, waiting for his turn to use his mojo. It had a good view of where they'd been fighting. Spike saw Dru's dust but quickly turned away; he didn't have the time or bandwidth to think about that right then. He saw that the dark Slayer was right where they'd left her, still down for the count. They'd have to deal with that soon. He inhaled again, trying to figure out where the Watcher had gone from there.

"Seems to me the Watcher was waiting here for his cue to work his mojo when those ugly buggers surrounded him." He stopped talking and kept walking in the direction of where the scent led him. It wasn't easy to smell Rupert's because there'd been so many other people with him, but he had an easy enough time following the groups. That changed when they made it outside, as it was always harder to follow a scent outside since the air wasn't stagnant and there were a thousand other scents to distract you. He could still follow it, but it was going a lot slower. Lawson was helping out where he could, but he was younger than Spike and his sense of smell wasn't as refined.

Buffy was having a major freakout. She was imagining millions of terrible things that could be happening to her Watcher at that very moment. And given the things she'd seen, she had a very vivid imagination, which she also used to think up all the things she was going to do to those wiggy guys when she got to them. Any little bit of damage that had been inflicted on Giles would be quadrupled on them. She had complete trust in Spike's nose, but when she saw a payphone she figured it couldn't hurt to have the rest of the gang try to find him. If now wasn't a time to ask her witchy best friend for a spell, when would that be? So she made everyone stop. Thankfully, when she called Giles's place, Willow answered on the first ring. They were probably all waiting by the phone for an update.

"Hello?"

"Hey Wills, I'm going to need a location spell with the quickness," she said in a no-nonsense tone. She was really worried and needed this done as soon as possible.

Willow picked up on her tone and got down to business. "On who?"

"Giles. You should have what you need there, right? I mean you're at his house, there has to be something you can use."

"Yeah, we should be good. I think Giles also has all the other ingredients I'll need. Did Angelus take him?" Buffy could hear the fear and worry in her voice at the thought.

"No, Angelus is dust," she said, completely emotionless. "It's a group of baddies I've never seen before. Maybe they have something to do with The First? Or maybe we're already dealing with our next Big Bad. I don't know. All I know is that they're going to regret the day they took my Watcher from me," Buffy said in her most ominous tone.

Willow had never heard Buffy sound so scary; it made her uncomfortable. "O-okay, Buffy. I'm on it. I'll have an answer in about ten minutes. How should I tell you?"

"I'll call back from the next payphone I see. Right now we're using Spike's nose to follow their trail."

"Okay Buffy. You can count on me, I'll find him."

"Thanks Wills. I'll talk to you in a few… Wait!"

"What?!" Willow jumped when Buffy yelled.

"Faith. I can't believe we just left her there! She's at the mansion. She'll be unconscious for a while. I knocked her out pretty hard. Can you send Xander and Oz to get her? I don't know, I guess tie her up for now. I don't want her to disappear before I talk to her."

"Okay Buffy. No problem."

"Thanks."

Buffy hung up and looked at Spike, so Spike started back on the trail. Buffy was trying to be patient, she really was, but this was taking forever. Every second that they didn't have Giles was one more in which he could be getting hurt, or worse. No, she couldn't think like that right now. She had to stay focused on the mission. Getting lost in dark thoughts would only mess up her concentration. They'd been walking for about twenty minutes when they came across another payphone, so Buffy stopped to get an update.

"Any luck?" Buffy said before Willow even had a chance to say hello.

"Yes, but Buffy, it's saying they're at the high school."

"What?." Buffy looked around her and realized they were only about two blocks away from her school..

"I don't know, but that's what it's saying, and magic doesn't lie."

Buffy didn't know if she agreed with that statement but now was not the time to argue the point. "Okay, Spike's nose brought us close to there anyway. I guess it makes sense that The First Evil would be getting close to the Hellmouth. We'll check it out. Are they back from getting Faith yet?"

"Yes, they're tying her up as we speak. It's weird the amount of chains and ropes Giles has in his house. Oh, and I found handcuffs but they were in a drawer of his nightstand so I didn't think I should touch them."

Buffy shivered in disgust, she did not need to know that much about her Watcher. "Why were you looking in his nightstand?"

"I was looking for the key to his chest where he keeps all the magic ingredients."

"Okay, whatever, can't think about that right now. We're going into the school. Hopefully, we'll soon be back at the apartment with a healthy Watcher."

"Way to jinx yourself, Buffy."

"Yeah. Probably should have kept that thought to myself. Bye, Wills."

"Bye Buffy, be safe."

Buffy chuckled darkly as she hung up the phone. As if the Slayer was ever really safe. Spike didn't like hearing that tone in her voice so he walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. He knew they didn't have a lot of time and that Buffy would only take the comfort for a second or two, but he'd be there to give it to her anyway.

"It's alright, luv. You're the best Slayer I've ever seen. We can handle those poncy buggers, no problem." He kissed the top of her head and then pulled away. He gave her one of his signature smirks. "Now let's go get your Watcher."

She straightened her shoulders and nodded. She took the lead and started walking toward the high school. She cut her eyes to the side and smiled a little when she saw Spike to her left, right where he should be. She was actually starting to feel like she could rely on him to be there for the long haul. Which was a scary but appealing thought, and one she quickly shoved away so she could focus on what was important right now.

When they made it to the school it was quiet. There was no one there. And no one was really even sure where to look. Buffy started walking up to the building, listening as best she could, but she didn't hear anything. She looked at Spike and he shook his head once, which meant he didn't hear anything either. They had no choice but to go in. Spike could pick any lock, it seemed because the door was open in just a few seconds. Buffy gave him the side eye when he put his lock picking kit away but didn't say anything to reprimand him. As long as he was using it for non-evil type reasons, she could deal. Buffy was reminded that the school stood on top of the Hellmouth, and it felt gross.

"I bet they're in the basement."

"Right, lead the way, Slayer."

Buffy turned to continue walking but she bumped into Spike when she did. Spike flinched because she knocked into the stab wound that he'd been working mighty hard to ignore.

"Spike? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, luv. I'm fine. Let's go, we have a Watcher to find." He started walking again but Buffy grabbed his arm and stopped him. He tried to move away from her but Buffy was having none of it. She pushed his duster out of the way and saw that his shirt was covered in blood.

"Spike, what the hell?" she asked as she lifted up his shirt even though he flinched again. She took in a sharp inhale when she saw the damage. Spike had to admit, if only to himself, that it looked bad. If he were human, he'd probably be dying right about now. "When did this happen?"

"When one of those ugly buggers stabbed me."

"And you weren't going to say anything? You were just going to go down there with me to face whatever is waiting for us, already injured?"

"Well, I wasn't going to let you go down there by yourself, now, was I?" He asked, on the defensive.

"Let? Spike, you don't let me do anything. I'm the Slayer, I do what I have to."

"Know that, don't I? That's not what I bloody meant and you know it!" They were almost yelling now.

"Guys…" Sam cut in, and both of them turned their furious eyes on him. He took an unconscious step back. Then after a few seconds he took an unneeded deep breath before continuing. "Any element of surprise we had is going to be lost if you two don't keep it down. Both of you are only mad at the other because you're worried about each other. Buffy, you're worried he'd get hurt worse going to fight again. Spike, you're worried she'd get hurt badly if you're not there to watch her back. Stop fighting about it! You're not actually mad at each other," Sam said in a tone that made it clear he thought they should have already figured that out.

Both Spike and Buffy stayed quiet for a few seconds and realized that Lawson was right. Spike looked sheepishly at Buffy. "Sorry, luv."

"Me too," she said, with a small smile. "But you can't go into battle like that."

Spike's hackles began to rise again. "Where you go, I go."

"I know, and that's why you're going to drink from me, so you can start to heal."

Spike's whole body gave an enthusiastic yes to that thought, especially his prick. But his brain wouldn't shut up and eventually won his internal argument. "Can't do that, kitten. Don't want to weaken you."

"You won't, I was fine after I gave you blood when you had an ax in your stomach, and this wound is much smaller. You don't need much, only a few mouthfuls, right?"

He thought it over for a while before reluctantly agreeing. "Yeah, suppose you're right. Are you sure, Buffy?" he asked earnestly.

This would be different than the other times. There was no cup to pour the blood into, so he'd have to bite her. She'd be putting a lot of trust in him to not hurt her or take too much. Did she trust him enough? Did he trust himself that much? He knew he'd never do anything to hurt her on purpose, but he was afraid his demon could take over if he tasted Slayer's blood and he would not be able to stop. No, that wouldn't happen, as even the demon in him felt disgusted at the idea of hurting Buffy. That part of himself loved her as much as the rest of him did.

"Yes, Spike. I trust you." She held her neck to the side in invitation.

Spike went into game face without thinking about it. He turned his head to look at Lawson. He knew he wasn't going to just bite her without prepping her. He didn't want to hurt her. Lawson got the point and walked down the hall, so he wouldn't see.

Spike walked over to her. No, walk wasn't the right word. He prowled over to her. When he got to her, he grabbed her hips and pulled her close, but he slipped his knee in between her legs to spread them. Once he had some room he bent his head down to start licking, sucking, and nipping at her neck. He could smell that she was getting aroused and heard her breathing pick up. He moved his hand from her hip to the button on her jeans and opened it. She put her hands over his to stop him from lowering the zipper.

"Spike, what are you doing?"

"Don't worry, kitten, I'll be fast. I know we're on a time limit, yeah? But I don't want to hurt you by just biting you. This way, it'll feel good."

She scoffed. She doubted a bite could feel good. She trusted him, though, so she moved her hand away and let him continue. Once her zipper was down, he slid his hand into her underwear and her breath hitched when his cool hand reached her hot center. He used his fingers to spread her open then slipped his middle finger into her slit and circled her clit. She sighed her enjoyment and her body lost its stiffness, so he went back to licking and kissing her neck. He brought his thumb to her clit and moved it in the motion he'd learned she liked while entering her with two of his fingers.

Though he'd have liked to take his time getting her off, he'd promised her he'd be quick, so he started moving his fingers faster and felt her center tightening around his fingers. When she was wound so tight he was sure he'd have lost circulation in his fingers if he were alive, he bit her neck.

She couldn't help but scream as her orgasm took her over. Thankfully, Spike was in his right mind enough to cover her mouth. When Buffy came down from her high she was surprised because that was one of the most intense orgasms of her life and she wasn't even having sex. She couldn't believe that a vampire bite could feel that good; it was something she'd have to think about later because she could see herself wanting that again.

Spike took one more slow drag of her blood before pulling away. He looked at his marks on her that he'd made sure covered Angelus's, and couldn't help but feel proud. He zipped up her jeans and buttoned them before pulling back enough to look at her.

"Thank you, Buffy," he said gratefully.

She could tell that he was thanking her for more than just the blood but also for the trust she'd put in him. She smiled, then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. He tried to turn it into more but she stopped him. "You're welcome. Now that you're getting better, let's go save my Watcher."