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Hearts Breaking Even by slaymesoftly
 
Nine and Ten
 
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Chapter Nine

When several nights had gone by with no sign of Spike or Angel, Buffy began to worry that neither of the two old vampires had obeyed her demand that they stay away from each other. When she expressed to Willow her fear that they might have killed each other, Xander overheard.

“And that would be a bad thing because…?”

Giles and Cordelia turned to look at her with the same curiosity on their faces as was on Xander’s. Buffy’s eyes flew to Willow’s, then back to the others, her unwillingness to discuss the two vampires plain to see.

“Well…well, Angel is my boyfriend – sort of,” she stammered, only to be interrupted by Xander’s happy, “Sort of? Did you say, ‘sort of’? Does that mean you’re getting over your weird urge to socialize with the undead?”

Her friend’s happy countenance quickly gave way to suspicion as watched her cheeks redden with embarrassment. Her clear reluctance to say anything more also brought a frown to her watcher’s face and he said quietly, “Why don’t you and I have a little chat in my office, Buffy.” His tone made it very clear it was not a request, merely his polite British way of telling her he wanted answers.

With a final panicked look at a sympathetic Willow, Buffy slowly followed her watcher into his office and stood stubbornly just inside as he closed the door on the curious faces in the library.

“Buffy,” he began pompously, “I feel I have been very patient with you for the past couple of months, but I believe it is time for you to tell me what you know about William the Bloody and why you would feel anything but great relief at the thought of his demise.”

Her shoulders slumping in defeat, she threw herself down in a chair and said petulantly, “It’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“You made me jump through that stupid portal last year and left me there for three days! So, it’s your fault I don’t want Sp-William dead.”

Giles stared at her until she squirmed uncomfortably in her chair, then he sighed and leaned back in his own seat, pinching the bridge of his nose as he said quietly, “I take it that you somehow met Spike while you were in the other dimension?”

“It wasn’t another dimension,” she whispered. “It was just back in time in our own. Back to 1864, to a farm in Kent… England.”

“I know where Kent is, thank you, Buffy,” he snapped. “The question is, what has that to do with your reluctance to slay William the Bloody? Or his purported unwillingness to add you to his tally of slayers killed?”

When Buffy didn’t answer immediately, he sighed and continued, “I am assuming that you and William developed some kind of …relationship…while you were there? A romantic relationship, perhaps?”

“Ewwww, Giles! He was nine years old! What do you think I am?”

“I think you are a Slayer who has had the misfortune to develop emotional attachments to some of the very creatures you are destined to slay. And I am very afraid that it is going to get you killed.” The harshness of his words and tone belied the genuine concern on his face as he looked into Buffy’s unhappy eyes.

“I understand that you have some…feelings…for Angel, and it is quite obvious that he cares for you and your mission. However, I do not believe it is in your best interest to forget what he was before he got cursed with that soul. Just because he fought on the side of good after tha—“

Buffy interrupted him, speaking so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
“He didn’t start fighting for good as soon as he got the soul. Spike says he stayed with them for a long time before Darla kicked him out. He said I…I need to be careful of Angel. That he wasn’t a good man before he was turned and that he could still hurt me, even with his soul.”

“He is quite correct,” Giles answered, equally softly. “Although why he would tell you that, I cannot im-“

“You KNEW that about Angel? What he was like as a human? And you didn’t tell me?” Hurt and betrayal were plain in the Slayer’s face.

“Buffy, I work with and around teenagers. I think I have learned when to pick my battles.” He looked at her sternly. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you would have immediately stopped seeing Angel had I told you he was not a nice person and not a good choice for a romantic partner.”

Buffy’s automatic response died on her lips as her innate honesty made her admit, “No, I probably wouldn’t have. But at least I would have been warned and then you could say, ‘I told you so’. If there was ever any reason to,” she added hastily. “Which there isn’t. A reason to, I mean.”

“Not that we have seen,” Giles said in a tone that indicated he was not sure they never would. “Now, if you could explain to me why William the Bloody, who was a nine-year-old child when he last met you, is so concerned about your physical and emotional welfare, I would greatly appreciate it.”

With a sigh, Buffy told Giles about nine-year old William, the sheep, the care he tried to take of her when she was so unceremoniously deposited in his field. She told him briefly about the well-mannered little boy who tried so hard to defend her against a gang of thugs much older than he. She gave an abbreviated version of her fight with the older boys, shrugging when he asked dryly if she had remembered she was fighting humans and saying, “I didn’t care at that point. They tried to rape William and they were planning to rape me.” When he looked at her apprehensively, she growled, “I didn’t kill them, Giles. Stop looking all Watcherly and worried. I just taught them a lesson in bullying.”

“So, you saved young William from death and from a fate worse than death. And this is why the adult vampire doesn’t want to kill you?”

“Pretty much,” she said, struggling to keep any sign of the heated thoughts the adult William generated from showing on her face. She did her best to look honest and innocent as she finished cheerfully, “He said then that I must be a warrior elf queen. I don’t think he thought I was real until we fought at Back to School Night.”

Buffy carefully left out any mention of William’s poetry, his last name, or the fact that the adult William seemed more than interested in having a physical if not romantic relationship with her. She just told Giles that she’d had to leave a note for the boy when the portal opened and that she hadn’t seen him since then, not until the adult, demon version of William showed up in the alley, threatening to kill her.

The Watcher’s face was a study in confusion and thought. He shook his head as he muttered, almost to himself, “Vampires with souls fighting on the side of the Slayer; vampires without souls who are capable of loving each other for over one hundred years…”

He missed Buffy’s softly indrawn breath when he mentioned Drusilla’s and Spike’s long term love affair. Without noticing her reaction, he kept talking to himself.

“Unsouled demons that can remember good deeds from when they were children and remain grateful hundreds of years later. Who are capable of acting on that gratitude to the point of protecting a Slayer…”

He stopped and looked at Buffy’s puzzled face. “I believe the Council is neither as all-knowing as they would like to think they are, nor as forthcoming with their employees as they could be.”

“And I’m shocked and amazed,” Buffy said sarcastically. She made no secret of her contempt for the organization that nominally “owned” her.

“So, are we done here?” she asked, standing up and edging toward the door.

“I suppose so,” he sighed, taking off his glasses. “Although I do wish you had shared this information with me right at the beginning. It would have explained a lot.”

“I’m sorry, Giles,” she said reluctantly. “I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business but mine and Spike’s. I just don’t understand why I haven’t seen him or Angel all week. He said it wouldn’t hurt Angel to give Drusilla what she needs, so why isn’t he around?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to tha-“ The watcher was interrupted by the loud slam of the door being thrown open as Xander, Cordelia, and Willow tumbled into the small room.

“Buffy! Slayer needed. Right now – right here,” Xander gestured behind them and continued to push his way into the room while Willow stood in the doorway looking somewhat sympathetically toward whatever had driven them into the Watcher’s office.

Buffy pushed her way past her friends to see what was so frightening. At first glance, she couldn’t see anything except a trail of blood from the library doors to the table. Then she caught a glimpse of a pale hand reaching to the tabletop and trying to pull a battered body to its feet.

“Spike!” She rushed to his side, heedless of the blood as she quickly put his arm over her shoulder and propped him up. He was a frightening sight – his throat torn and bloody, his vamp features fully visible as he struggled to remain upright.

“What happened to you?” She could see that one arm was dangling uselessly, and that in addition to his torn-out throat, he was covered in bites and claw marks. His tee shirt was hanging in bloody shreds, doing nothing to hide the gouges on his chest or the hole in his side.

As Buffy carefully helped him onto the table, taking care to lower his upper body gently until he was lying down, she repeated in a tight voice, “What did this to you?”

“Angelus,” he gasped, dropping his head onto the hard wood without so much as a wince.

“Angel? Angel did this?” Buffy’s anger was evident, but her concern for the blond vampire kept her from grabbing a stake and leaving immediately to search for her boyfriend. “After I told him to leave you alone?”

Spike shook his head gingerly, then met, not her eyes but those he quickly identified as belonging to her Watcher, saying clearly, “Not Angel. Angelus. ANGELUS.”

The widening of the watcher’s eyes told him his message had gotten through and he allowed his own eyes to close in exhaustion. He looked very much like the corpse he was as he lay on the table not breathing or moving, the blood no longer running freely from his almost drained body.

Buffy whirled to the man whom she trusted to know everything and said desperately, “What’s wrong with him? What do we need to do? And why does he keep calling Angel Angelus?”

Choosing to answer what he considered the most important question first, Giles said tightly, “I believe he is telling us that Angel has lost his soul somehow and that Angelus is back among us.”

He looked at the anxious young faces peering out of his office and said sternly, “No one goes anywhere alone and you do not go anywhere to which Angel had an invitation. Can you think of a safe place?”

Willow was shaking her head, but Xander said, “Deadboy’s never been welcome in my house. We can go there.”

“Very well,” he instructed. “Use Cordelia’s car, keep holy water, crosses and stakes with you, and get there as quickly as you can. When it is once again daylight, you can go to your own homes and Willow can do disinvite spells everywhere that Angelus might have access.” He turned to Buffy, “I presume he has full access to your home?” He tried to keep the accusatory tone from his voice, but her glare told him he hadn’t succeeded very well.

“Yes,” she said shortly. “But my mom is out of town, so there’s no one there right now.”

“Fine. Then we shall retreat to my apartment and I will do the disinvite as soon as we get there.” He cast a dubious look at the inert man lying on his table and said with some reluctance, ”I suppose we will have to take him with us until he has recovered enough to give us some more information. I believe I have some chains somewhere—“

“He needs blood,” Buffy said abruptly, ignoring for the moment Giles’ suggestion that they chain Spike up. “We’ll have to stop at the butcher’s or the hospital…”

“The butcher will be closed by now, Buffy,” Giles said with a glance at his watch. While the butchers in Sunnydale tended to stay open after dark in order to accommodate their demon clientele, they did not remain open all night and it was well past the time for them to have closed. “And I do not believe that Sunnydale Hospital is going to be interested in sharing the blood they have need of so frequently with one of the creatures that causes it to be in such short supply.”

His voice softened as he saw Buffy tenderly stroke the ashen face on the table. He watched in amazement as the touch of her hand seemed to soothe away the demon and William the Bloody’s handsome human face emerged. Watcher training consisted primarily of teaching different ways to incapacitate or dust vampires and Giles was uncomfortably aware that it had not prepared him to diagnose or repair damage to one.

“Buffy,” he said gently so as not to startle her. “It is imperative that we leave here for someplace inaccessible to Angelus until we have some understanding of what we are facing.”

“If Spike looks like this, what must Angel-lus…” She stumbled over the extra syllable that meant the difference between the vampire who loved her and his unsouled persona. “What must he look like? Spike is the best fighter I’ve ever come up against- better than Angel when I fought him last year. Maybe he’s dust!” Her frightened eyes came up to meet the sympathetic brown ones of her Watcher.

“Buffy,” he said gently, “I am fairly certain that Spike came here to warn us – you. That would not have been necessary if Angelus was dust or even gravely injured. We must assume that he is at large and quite capable.”

“But Angel loves me,” she said pleadingly. “He’ll still love me, won’t he?”

“I cannot answer that, Buffy,” the older man said kindly. “I am not aware that it is possible for a soulless being to love – Spike’s affection for Drusilla not withstanding.”

“If Spike can love, then Angelus can love,” she repeated stubbornly. “He won’t try to hurt me.”

A gurgling growl from the vampire lying on the table brought their attention back to Spike and they found those brilliant blues eyes glaring at them.

“Can, wants to and will,” he managed to get out of his mangled throat.
“Don’t trust him, Buffy. Don’t let him—“ His voice faltered and he lost consciousness once again.

“Buffy!” Giles’ voice held a steely note that she rarely heard unless he was really angry. “We need to go. Now.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “Help me get Spike up.”

Between the two of them, Buffy’s slayer strength doing the heavy lifting and the Watcher helping her balance the load, they got the unconscious vampire out of the library. As a precaution, Giles grabbed a large cross from a shelf as they went out the door.


They reached his car without incident, loading the now-moaning vampire into the back seat and driving quickly to the Watcher’s apartment complex. Giles parked as close as he could to his front door, then stood outside the car holding the large cross and looking around warily as Buffy pulled Spike’s complete dead weight out of the car and partially onto her shoulder. She half-dragged, half-carried him toward to front door, the Watcher following behind, walking backwards with the cross held up as a warning. They had just reached the door and Giles was fumbling with the key when an eerily familiar voice floated out of the darkness.

“You don’t really think that pathetic religious symbol can protect you from two master vampires, do you, Giles?” Angelus silky purr was more chilling than an angry roar would have been and the hair stood up on the watcher’s neck.

Wincing as she let Spike slide to the ground, Buffy whirled around, pulling a stake from her waistband as she did so.

“I think this will work, pretty well, Angelus.” She sneered his name even as her heart clenched at the thought of having to kill him.

With the Slayer between him and the menacing voice, Giles got the door open and stepped inside, trying to drag Spike with him. He paused uncertainly when he couldn’t pull the vampire through the invisible barrier, then sighed and mumbled, “Come in, Spike,” as he yanked the body through the door.

“Buffy, come in, now,” he ordered as she wavered uncertainly, still facing in the direction of the voice but feeling the tingles on her neck that said there was another vampire somewhere close. Just as she began backing up toward the door, still searching the darkness for any sign of Angel, she felt a whisper of moving air. Her Slayer reflexes gave her a split second to react before a pale hand with talons for fingernails slid across the space her face had just been. With a disappointed hiss, a tall curvy brunette vampire in a flowing white dress stepped in front of the startled Slayer.

Deep brown eyes stared into cold green ones as the two natural enemies took each other’s measure. The vampire began to sway back and forth, smiling as the Slayer unconsciously mimicked her actions.

“Be in me,” she cooed, gliding closer to the suddenly still Slayer. “Look into my eyes and be in me.”

An outraged roar from her Watcher, and his hand yanking her into the apartment snapped Buffy out of the fog into which she’d been slipping just in time for her to see the fury and frustration on the face that she assumed belonged to Drusilla.

“Another time, Slayer,” the vampire hissed again. “I will be back for what’s mine. You may not have him, my sweet William.”

“Did you do this to him?” Buffy’s voice was cold and hard. She carefully avoided looking into the vampire’s eyes this time as she gestured at Spike’s drained body.

“He was fighting with my Daddy,” Dru answered, as though there could be no argument. “I could not let him hurt my Angelus. Spike was a bad doggie and needed to be punished.”

“Bitch!” Buffy snarled. “He loves you. How could you—“

Angelus finally stepped out of the shadows and into the reflected light from the apartment’s open door. Buffy almost gasped at his appearance as it became obvious that Spike had given as good as he got in their fight. The old vampire did not approach the doorway, carefully staying well out of reach of Buffy’s tightly clenched stake. Drusilla immediately moved to his side, smiling and murmuring when he pulled her against his chest, running one hand over her breasts as the other crossed her stomach possessively.

The two vampires faced the teen-aged Slayer, laughing at the look of sudden understanding and dismay on her face as her former boyfriend’s hands began to stroke and caress the now-moaning vampiress. Buffy watched in horror as Angelus ran a hand under Drusilla’s long dress and up her leg, pulling the dress with it. He was just slipping the hand between her opening thighs when Giles pulled Buffy further into the room and slammed the door.

He sighed in sympathetic understanding as Buffy’s face crumpled and she collapsed to the floor in tears. He allowed her to cry for her lost naivete for a few minutes, then gently pulled her to her feet and guided her toward the still inert vampire on the floor.

“Rather than crying for the vampire that is trying to hurt you, Buffy, I think you need to concentrate on the one who clearly was trying to save you. Without Spike’s warning, we would have been completely unprepared for an attack and I doubt it would have gone so well for us.”

Buffy took a shuddering breath and nodded her head in agreement. She fell to her knees beside Spike and stroked his cold, pale face before looking up at her Watcher for help.

“What do I do for him? I don’t know what’s wrong. He isn’t dust, so I guess that means he’ll heal…?”

“I feel sure he will heal eventually, Buffy. We will have to get some blood for him as soon as the stores open in the morning. In the meantime…”

As he spoke, he was spreading a sheet on his couch and gestured toward it. Buffy nodded and picked up the vampire, carefully dragging him to the makeshift bed and placing him on it. She removed his heavy boots and the leather duster that had somehow survived the battle with only a few new tears, then covered him with a light blanket. She stepped back, unsure of what else she could do but knowing that she had to do something.

A sound at the window brought her head around and she grabbed her stake again as Angelus leered in at her. She heard a muttered, “Bloody hell, I almost forgot!” behind her as Giles quickly began a disinvite spell against the vampire.

As the barrier went up, the old vampire laughed, shaking his finger at the Watcher as though to scold him for locking him out. Then his face was gone and Giles hastily pulled the curtains, gesturing for Buffy to do the same at the other windows. When the apartment was secured and secluded from the outside, they relaxed and dropped into chairs, each lost in thought over the way life had changed for them.



Chapter Ten

When it became apparent that Spike was not going to wake up anytime soon, Giles suggested they get some sleep so as to be up early in the morning to prepare for what might come next. Buffy nodded reluctantly, politely refusing his offer of his guest room and insisting she was going to stay where she could see what was going on with Spike.

They both peered closely at the vampire’s wounds, Giles agreeing with Buffy that she should cut off the tattered shirt and clean the ones they could see so that they could tell if the vampire was beginning to heal himself. He held the surprisingly small vampire up while she cut off the shirt and quickly inspected the wounds and bruises. In addition to the arm, which Giles felt sure was dislocated rather than broken, Spike had a gaping hole in his throat where one of the other vampires had clearly bitten him. He was covered in gouges that Buffy felt confident had come from Drusilla’s lethal-looking nails, as well as other bites and the hole in his side which looked like it might be from some sort of pole.

The wounds had long since stopped bleeding; probably, Giles told her quietly, because the vampire had little or no borrowed blood left in his body, and they did not appear to be healing at all. Buffy agreed to the watcher’s suggestion that they snap the shoulder back into place while Spike was mercifully unconscious. The satisfying “pop” as it went back into its socket brought a low moan from the still oblivious vamp and, in spite of her regret at having hurt him, Buffy felt a jolt of happiness at this sign of life in the otherwise dead body lying on the couch.

They stepped back and looked at the corpse in front of them, Buffy’s worried face reflecting her more-than-casual concern for the blond vamp.

“Do you think he’ll be all right?’ she asked anxiously for the third time since they’d begun to work on him.

“I can’t answer that, Buffy,” her watcher said kindly. “As far as I know, an injured vampire can always heal as long as he is not dust. How long it takes may well be dependent upon the care and…feeding…he gets.”

“He had to get sire’s blood for Drusilla to heal her,” Buffy said quietly. “Maybe that would help him.”

She turned and walked toward the door, picking up her stake and the large cross as she did so.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Giles’ voice was almost a shriek as her purpose became obvious.

“I’m going to get that bitch and drag her back her by her messy hair,” Buffy said flatly. “And then I’m going to feed her to Spike until he doesn’t want any more of her disgusting blood.”

“You cannot be thinking of going after that lunatic by yourself. I forbid it.”

She looked at her the man who was rapidly becoming a surrogate father to her and said coldly, “Isn’t it your job to send me out there? This vampire is much more dangerous than the fledglings I slay every night. She needs to be—“

“Buffy.” The weak croak from the couch erased the stubborn, hard look on her face, replacing it with one of concern and hope.

“Spike?” She ran back to the couch, kneeling beside it where she could look into his eyes.

“Watcher’s right, pet. You’re not up to taking on a healthy Dru; not on her own terms and with the poof to back her up. She’s got a really strong thrall; might take you right out without even touching you. Don’t want you goin’ after them until I’m able to help you.”

“Which part of I am the Slayer are you two not getting here?” She glared back and forth from her watcher’s concerned face to the equally worried one inches away from hers. She tried to ignore the truth in what he was saying about the thrall. “This is what I do. It’s what I’m made for. Slaying monsters.”

Spike’s mouth twitched slightly and he whispered, “And you will, luv. I promise. Just not tonight, alright?”

“You need her blood,” she insisted stubbornly. “You can’t help me like this.”

“I’ll heal, Slayer. It might take a few days, but soon as I get some blood in me, I’ll start healing. Ole Angelus is too weak from fighting me and feeding Dru to be much of a danger for a couple of days; he’s not in a whole lot better shape than I am.”

“That would, no doubt, be why he remained safely away from Buffy when we were outside.”

Spike nodded weakly. “He’s in no shape to take on a Slayer. He’ll be lucky to be able to feed himself.”

In the face of the opposition from the two men in the room, and the fact that Spike seemed to be marginally stronger than before, Buffy reluctantly agreed to wait before going after Angelus and Drusilla. As soon as he was sure she wasn’t planning to go out on her own, Spike allowed his eyes to drift closed again, smiling slightly when Buffy touched them gently with her fingertips.

Once he was assured that Buffy did not intend to go out after Drusilla, Giles excused himself and went to bed where he soon fell into an exhausted slumber that was full of dreams of Angelus rampaging through Sunnydale.

Buffy remained on the floor beside the couch for quite a while, reluctant to move too far away from the once again dead-seeming vampire. She turned off the lights and rested her head against the cushion, determined to remain where she wouldn’t miss any change in Spike’s condition. Taking advantage of his unconsciousness, she studied his beautiful human features while he couldn’t see her doing so. When she had completely familiarized herself with his long lashes, prominent cheekbones, and the full soft mouth only inches from her own, she raised her head and looked at his partially exposed chest.

She squirmed a little at her reaction when she remembered what he’d looked like after they cut his shirt off. Even with the wounds and bruises all over his torso, it had been obvious that William had grown up into a very well-built man. She glanced down the lean body that was concealed by the blanket she’d placed over him and wondered briefly what the rest of him looked like.

Telling herself she was only checking for overlooked wounds, she carefully peeled back the blanket and ran her eyes down his torso to his denim-clad lower body. His flat abdomen, visible above the low-cut jeans, drew her attention until she noticed the blood-caked tear in his jeans. With a guilty gasp, she pulled back the edges of the ripped material to find what appeared to be knife wound in his upper thigh.

She was unable to see the whole wound as the fabric seemed insistent upon falling back over it and frustration made her growl low in her throat as she tried to get at the cut. Finally deciding she could probably get at it better from above, she reached a timid hand toward the waistband of his jeans, unconsciously holding her breath as she popped the snap and reached for the zipper.

She had just eased the zipper down and slipped her warm hand into the jeans, trying to push them away from the knife wound, when a rumbling purr caused her to jump. A quick glance at his face showed no signs of consciousness and she worried at her lip with her teeth while she debated what to do. She clearly was not going to be able to reach the wound from that direction either; not without pulling his pants completely off his hips and thighs.

Buffy could not bring herself to remove the jeans completely, particularly in light of the fact that she saw no trace of underwear either below or above the wound. Reaching for the scissors that she’d used to cut off his bloody shirt, she was just inserting them into the rip when Spike’s warm voice washed over her.

“If you want to get my pants off, luv, you know all you have to do is ask.”

Blushing furiously, Buffy quickly took her hands away from his cool flesh and put them behind her back.

“I was just…you have a cut…I wanted to…I thought you were out of it!” she finished defensively,

“Gonna take advantage of me while I’m unconscious, were you? Pretty kinky, Slayer,” he whispered, a choked laugh escaping his chest when she continued to blush and stammer.

He stopped laughing when she dropped her head and whispered, “I’m sorry. I WAS peeking. But then I saw that wound, and I couldn’t get at it to see how bad it was, and I thought maybe if I –“

Taking pity on her, he painfully lifted one hand far enough to touch hers and bring it back to his leg.

“I’m only teasing you, luv,” he said softly. “I know you’re tryin’ to take care of me. An’ I appreciate it. I do. But putting that hot little hand in my pants is just going to make me WISH I was stronger, not make it happen.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t think it would wake you up. I just wanted to clean that wound too.”

“I’m just dead, Buffy, not buried,” he said, his voice getting weaker. “There’s no way having your hand that close to my dangly bits wasn’t going to wake me up. Jus’ give us a minute here and I’ll show you…”

His voice trailed off as he exhausted what little strength he’d had left. Buffy got a clean cloth and washed the wound as best she could without actually taking his pants off, carefully keeping her hands and eyes away from the soft curls trailing down his stomach and disappearing into his jeans. To avoid that area, she worked blindly with her hand inside the ripped denim, taking great care not to let it wander too close to the inside of his thigh. When she’d cleaned the cut - which she now realized had been aimed at his femoral artery - and placed a large piece of gauze over it, she taped the gauze to his leg, blushing again as she reached cautiously around the inside of his thigh to press the tape against his skin.

Thanking the powers that she hadn’t accidentally run into anything she hadn’t been planning to touch, she tugged his jeans back together and pulled the zipper back up but leaving the snap open . She breathed a sigh of relief when she had the blanket back in place, covering both the wounded leg and the exposed chest that kept drawing her eyes and making her want to run her hands over it.

She cast another worried look at his immobile face before laying her own head down next to his shoulder and allowing herself to drift off to sleep.



 
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