Spike dreamed. At least, he thought they were dreams. Everything was so confusing. He could feel stone, sticky and wet, against his face. The scent of his own blood filled his nostrils, blocking out everything else. His body tingled, but he could not move. There were hands too, insistent hands tugging at him, and voices that grazed against the edges of his mind. Voices that spoke with familiar tones, telling him sweet lies.

“Help me with his hands.”

“Is he gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know. We need to get him back to Giles.”

“Buffy, you know it was the only way, right?”

Silence.

“I know.”

Strong arms lifted him. He hung, broken and numb, in their grasp.

“Dawnie, I’ve got him. Could you get Meret?”

He felt something nudge against his mind, and it was met with searing agony. He fell again into the blackness.

*****

Something was broken; some switch or connection that made his mind work properly. Nothing made sense. Spike drifted somewhere between dark oblivion and the world of sound and scent that so tortured him even as it offered comfort. His mind cast about, searching for some anchor in a world gone mad. When he could hear the voices he clung to them.

“…heal him, but he’s a real mess. The chip…”

“…link is the only thing keeping me…”

“…starts killing again? What about…”

“…thinks I’m dead. Meret can’t reach…”

“…stupid vampire. Why did you have to…”

“…never done before. He deserves better than…”

Time had lost all meaning for the vampire. He floated in the dark, alone with his guilt. It was the only clear thought left to him.

*****

A familiar prickling drew Spike back from the blackness.

Magic.

“I need to be alone for this Willow.”

He could hear a soft click of a door closing.

Then the hands were back, cradling him, opening his mouth and pressing something warm against it.

Liquid trickled into his mouth, hot and rich: blood, but not just blood. Power flowed in it, primal energy blended with white magic. He could feel the elixir coating his throat, sinking into his very bones. After what felt like an eternity, the numbness started to retreat and he could move again.

His face shifted and realigned, fangs descending into the unresisting flesh under his teeth. He thought he heard a gasp, but he was too lost in the moment to pay the sound much heed. Something stung his mind, but the slight pain was nothing in comparison to the rapture held in the blood. He had never felt anything like it. Magic sang in his veins, dancing along his nerves and setting his body aflame. The warmth settled behind his eyes, weaving together pathways burned away by the chip’s punishment.

As his mind healed, realization sank in. Augmented as it was with spells, he could still recognize the taste in his mouth: slayer’s blood. He jerked away, still weak but fully aware of his surroundings at long last. He was in the Summers’ house, in Joyce’s old bedroom to be exact. And sitting next to him, shakily wrapping a bandage around her bleeding wrist…

“You’re dead.” His voice sounded scratchy and hoarse.

Buffy’s smile was wan, but Spike thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “Never stopped me before,” she tried to quip.

Spike was at a loss. “How?” he finally managed to ask.

She raised her bandaged right hand, the Sangre de Cristo ruby flashing from her ring finger. “Meret’s full of nifty gifts these days.”

He reached out a hand and brushed his fingertips against her wrist and turned her hand over to look at the blood-stained gauze. He was surprised when she did not pull away from his touch. “Why…?”

“I,” Buffy flushed and looked down at her hand. She started toying with the loose end of the bandage. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t stand seeing you like that.”

The once mortal enemies faced one another for a long moment, neither daring to move. What had passed between them was so new, so fragile that the slightest breeze could have destroyed it.

Buffy’s eyes dropped to her wrist again. “Remember when I told you about what it was like… before?” She continued hesitantly, “About how I felt warm and loved? Well, now when I concentrate I can feel Meret… and I’m not saying it’s the same… but it’s enough you know?” She continued staring at her hands, unwilling or unable to lift her eyes. “It’s enough.”

Spike realized that he was going to cry. Of all the nancyish things he could have done in that exact moment, William the Bloody was going to dissolve into tears, blubbering like a child in the slayer’s lap.

He was saved by the bedroom door bursting open. Dawn, with Meret winging close behind, skidded into the room at a dead run. She froze for a moment, eyes wide before her face erupted into a dazzling grin. Before he knew what had happened, the teenager had launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug that would have strangled a human. Meret’s touch blossomed in his mind with love and relief as the little coatl showed her joy in a wheeling aerial display.

Spike looked at the slayer and found Buffy smiling. For once, the smile touched her eyes as well. Willow and Tara, conspicuously holding hands, appeared in the doorway. Willow looked unsure of the situation, but Tara was wearing the small, warm smile he had come to treasure. All his girls were there together, safe and sound.

Spike returned Dawn’s embrace, hiding his wet eyes in the girls long brown hair.

*****

Spike took up residence in the Summers’ basement. The sisters had insisted that he stay with them until he was fully healed, but the vampire felt distinctly uncomfortable sleeping in Joyce’s bed. In spite of their worry, Willow’s spell and Buffy’s blood did their work well. Spike was nearly back to full health by the next night. This was very important for two reasons, the first of which being that the Scoobies held a meeting at the Magic Box to bring the vampire up to speed on the events of the past few days.

As a first order of business, Giles had told Spike how long he had been unconscious: six days. The revelation had been sufficient to keep the vampire quiet for at least the first part of the debriefing.

Maclin’s portal had closed with his death, leaving behind a debris ridden, but dimensionally sound system of caverns on the edge of town. The earthquake had made national news, but the damage had been minimal and the Hellmouth itself seemed unchanged, for better or for worse, by the entire affair.

The more interesting information, to the vampire at least, came next. It seemed that after Maclin had kidnapped Spike and Dawn, Meret had found the Scoobies and browbeat them into action. She gave Buffy the Sangre de Cristo ruby, plagued Willow and Tara with visions until the two cast the spell that made her resistant to magic, and lead the slayer to the site of Maclin’s ritual. When Maclin tried to anchor the new gateway through the coatl, the witches’ enchantment had deflected the magical energies, stunning the warlock and interrupting his spell. Spike remembered the moment well. Meret had preened during the litany.

Amid the aftershocks of Maclin’s spell and subsequent death, the remaining faceless demons had put in an appearance. Buffy had killed those she could and sent the others retreating into the tunnels. They had not been heard from since.

When asked about Maclin’s elusive “patron,” Giles roundly rejected the need to research further. Spike knew that the watcher was hiding something, but the man would not meet the vampire’s eyes, and the subject was soon dropped.

The room quieted abruptly when the subject of Spike’s chip was raised. Willow explained in a hesitant tone of voice that the chip had nearly burned itself out, along with much of Spike’s mind, when the vampire had attacked the warlock. Consequently, it would still give Spike a twinge if he tried to hurt a human, and the pain would still be intense if he went in for a kill, but the chip’s power had been strongly diminished.

Spike had sat in silence for a moment under the watchful and worried eyes of the others, a wicked grin slowly spreading across his features. At length he rose and walked around the table, ignoring the wary glances being tossed his way. Xander’s eyes had widened comically in fear when the vampire stopped behind his seat… and delivered a sound swat to the back of the boy’s head. Spike winced a little at the sting from the chip, but it was nothing in comparison to the device’s previous power. He had laughed uproariously and spent the rest of the evening playing little pranks on the others: pinching Anya on the rear, treading on the watcher’s foot, and the like. Despite a rising irritation at his antics, the others seemed intensely relieved that his little acts of rebellion never grew more violent.

Not that he would have tried to really hurt them, but there was no way to explain that to the Scoobies in terms they would have understood. The truth was that Spike could finally see a future for himself among them. The slayer’s acceptance, Dawn and Tara’s friendship, his tentative alliance with the watcher and ex-demon: all of these things had given him hope. His life as a demon had died that night in the Initiative’s labs two years before, and he had desperately searched for a new path, one that he would not have to walk alone. When the Scoobies had decided to give him a chance instead of simply staking him in his sleep, they had given Spike what he had been searching for over the past century and a half: a sense of belonging.

The demon in him accepted the Scoobies as its new clan, one it felt worthy of him, and the man saw them as his family, a group to be protected and cherished. They would never be rid of him now.

The other reason why it was fortunate that Spike was well on the way to health had to do with the date. It was Christmas Eve. While vampires typically had little use for the holiday, Spike had hidden a few things away in his crypt that he meant to dole out in the morning. Leaving Meret asleep on his basement cot, the vampire set out for his crypt. He stopped at an all-night drug store near the graveyard to pick up tissue and ribbon, simple white and red like he had used as a child. On the way to the front of the store he stopped for a moment in thought. Finally making his decision, Spike slipped an empty red envelope into his coat pocket and sauntered up to the cash register.

After taking a creative turn through his minor treasure trove, Spike set to work wrapping and writing. When he finally retired to the basement at 1630 Revello Drive, three white packages and an elegantly addressed red envelope had joined the brightly wrapped gifts under the tree.