Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Chp.5

Not so Cold Comfort

If you really want information, go to chapter one


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Spike couldn't believe that Buffy had asked him to stay in the room with her. She'd explained that she didn't want to be alone. If truth be told when he'd heard the girl screaming, and had finally found her. He didn't for one moment think about leaving her side, for fear that when he showed up at the door tomorrow she wouldn't be there. He was so stunned when she asked, the only reply he could come up with was to wrap his arms tightly around her. He'd never let go if she didn't want him too.

He'd laid there with her head on his chest, and listened as she sobbed herself to sleep. His heart broke with every quavering breath she had drawn into her lungs.

He hadn't asked why she was crying, but had come to the conclusion that it was because she was in the loony bin and not with her soddin' little Scooby's back in Sunnyhell. The thought made him growl, low in his chest.

*****


He feels a slight stirring against his chest.

Smiling despite the thoughts running through his mind, he looks down at the blonde, tangled, mass of hair splayed across his body.

Just as she waking,. She's really disoriented, and she starts to wonder why someone's arms are around her. Thinking maybe when she fell at the crater maybe Giles or Xander had rushed
to her aid.

Then she feels the arms tighten about her more, and she opens her eyes to a gray burlap covered chest, that's most certainly not her watcher's or her best friends. Her hand slides up the material, and comes to stop over the heartbeat under the coarse fabric.

Suddenly she hears the deep baritone of the English accent that she had most wanted to hear, and a warm, rough hand smoothing the hair back from her face. As
it makes its way back down from her head, it stops on her cheek.

"Hey, beautiful." He whispers, the words rumbling through his chest and sending shivers down her body. She slowly turns her eyes into the most amazing blue gaze she's ever seen, and almost starts to cry again. She'd thought she'd
dreamed all the happenings of the last night.

Coming to her senses and finally figuring it out, she slowly smiles at the man holding her, "Hey." she replies, smile still spreading across her tear-streaked face. "Did you sleep at all?"

He sees the smile spread on her face, and gives her one of his own. "No, can't say I did. Just sat here, watched you sleep, and made sure you were goin' to be all right. Held you like you asked." He hangs his head shyly, at the last of the confession, not able to meet her eyes.

She watches the expressions play across his face, her smile never leaves her face, but it brightens a little as his head hits the top of his chest. "This feels good." She stretches, and then lays an arm over his stomach as she lies
back on her side, and looks back to his blue eyes. "And right." She finishes the sentence with a big yawn.

Running his hand through the hair that's not tangled in a rat's nest on the side of her head, he chuckles. "It's nice. You not runnin' off, before I wake up. Like the last time, well not the last time, but before." He glances at her through his eyelashes, " the last time you were at least still in the room when I awoke." He smirks slightly, making the accusation a little less scathing.

She looks up at him, asking him with her eyes, 'Just what the hell are you talking about?'

"Come now. I know you remember that last night in Sunny hell. Right before it fell into whatever happened after you bleedin' run out of the place." He drawls out, making it sound like a cross between a growl, and his actual
voice.

He didn't think her smile could get any brighter, but she proved him wrong. The brightest smile he'd ever seen crosses her face as she realizes what he's talking about.

"I hate this place. You know?"

Spikes heart shatters at the implication that maybe his thoughts of a few moments ago were correct. She wanted to be in a world that didn't have him in
it. Then the thought hits, why would she be lying here with me if that were true. He really didn't know what to think.

"But I'm glad to see that you're not dust, like you would be if I were still stuck in that 'so called' delusion, of Sunnydale." She continues without noticing the tension that had hit him as she spoke the first sentence.

After what she'd just said registers with his brain, he lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding, and looks back down on the head of the blonde beauty lying curled into his side. "So called, Pet?" He asks, thinking
that this place is the delusion and that Sunnyhell is the real world.

"Yeah, so called. For the past seven years I've been supposedly having delusions of sexy vampires and grungy demons. Friends they say are imaginary. Sunnydale was just a figment and this was the reality. The other world was
totally real to me."

He twines a piece of her hair around his thumb, and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, Luv, it was real for me, too. More real than a soddin' mental hospital, that's situated right in the middle of Los Angeles, any way. How do you explain us bein' here, if it's not real?" He puzzles as she watches a smirk cross his features, and an eyebrow quirk.

Running the questions through her mind and mulling them over and over.

"I don't know, Spike. I know that I feel the same as I did while I was traipsingthrough my mind. From the way you are, you seem to be the same as you were, too." An afterthought hits her. "Minus, the fangs and mad craving for blood,
that is. Plus, a heart beat and no sun allergy." She says excitedly, and then sobers as she looks upon his face once again. There's really nothing written there to make her back off, but she could feel it. She knew she'd said
something, but didn't know what.

She then hears a deep rumbling in his chest.

"Still the same person, Luv. Although before I showed up in this place, I remember bein' a right ponce, to you." He says, as he chuckles at his stupidity.

"Spike, I don't think you could ever be a right ponce. Whatever that may be, but I don't think that you could ever be that. Apain in my ass, yes, but a ponce, never."

Spike's mouth opens to respond to her little ramble that almost made
sense, but gets distracted by a knock on the door of the room.

The two on the bed look over at each other, "Come in." They say in
unison.

Sticking her head in the door, the nurse smiles at the couple curled up together on the entirely too small bed. "William? Thank the goddess; I went to your room a-and you weren't th-there. I-I figured th- that you might be here. I
a-at least hoped y-you were. In any case, th-that is." The semi-blonde says, stuttering a few words. Her face turned a fetching shade of pink, and the way the couple on the bed are all cuddled up together.

Amazement crosses the faces of the couple on the bed; they stare in
disbelief at the woman standing in the door.

"Tara?" Buffy whispers, and looks over to the man beside her, his face registering the same shock as she is feeling. "Oh, god, Spike! It's Tara." The girls eyes brim with unshed tears, as the man takes a deep breath, and shakes
his head.

Tara looks at the poor girl, who has her head buried up against
Williams's chest. "A-are you O-okay, H-honey?" She asks with concern.

Spike smiles at the nervous woman. "Yeah, Glinda. She's all right. Was just startled there for a minute. You reminded her of some one she thought she'd never see again. Innit right, Pet?" He says, placing his hand back on Buffy's
head, and gently smoothing down the hair there.

Tara nods her head in understanding, even if she doesn't understand at all. "Th-that's good. I was just wondering if you might need anything?" She asks, just getting to the point of why she was searching for him. She always was to be the one concerned about every one else. That's why she makes such a good nurse. Always putting others welfare, before her own.

"No, pet. Buffy and I are fine. Aren't we Buff?" He feels her head nod up and down, as it's still buried deeply into his chest. "See all good, here." He smiles, as he looks down on his loves head.

Buffy lifts her head, after wiping the tears from her face on his shirt.

"We're fine." She sniffles a bit. "But, some food wouldn't hurt any." She finishes with the smile coming back to her face.

Smiling back, "S-sure, I-I'll show you where the cafeteria is, or if
you'd rather eat here. I can send someone to get you guys something," Tara says, relaxing and losing the stutter as she gets a little more comfortable with her patient and his friend.

Buffy vehemently shakes her head. "No, no!" She didn't mean to shout, but she wants to get out this room. "Sorry, didn't mean to make your ears bleed, but getting out of this room is of the good." She looks down and plays with a
loose string on her ugly ass gray pants. "I don't like it here." She confesses, barely above a whisper, and feels Spikes arm come back around her, and move her
impossibly close to him, as he consoles her.

She gently removes his hand from her waist, and scoots to the edge of the bed. "Uh, are there any other clothes I could change into?" She asks. Looking over to Tara, for negation or confirmation.

Behind her, Spike chuckles, and shakes his head.

Hearing him chuckle, she turns back to look at him in askance.

"Food, and clothing, Luv? You're most definitely the Buffy Summers I know and . . ." He trails off, after almost saying love.

She lets it slide, and goes for the snark instead of registering the hurt that had hit her heart. "Spike have you seen what we're wearing? I feel like I should be in prison, instead of a hospital." So it certainly wasn't the best comeback she could come up with, but damn it he'd almost said that little four-letter word and she was hurt. Beyond belief.

"Yeah, Luv. I've noticed. I can't say that drab gray is anyone's color, but you certainly do it justice." He tilts his head slightly, and appraises her
lithe little body as she stands looking down on him. "Hell, Goldilocks! You could make burlap, and larvae look smashing." He reiterates, and gives her a
cocky little smirk.

Okay that took the sting out of the not saying of the l-word. She smiles at him, "You know that was kinda gross, but sweet." She says, taking him in also. "Can honestly say, it's better than all black, but still not your color."
A better come back, but still not up to the slayer snarkiness that she usually had. She'd have to work on that.

Tara stands by, and watches the two, hand out compliments in a non- complimentary way. She smiles at them, thinking 'it's hard to believe that they're not supposed to know each other. They're so comfortable together, it's
like they've known each other their whole lives. Just like she and Willow.'

Buffy turns back to the green-eyed nurse, bringing her out of her
thoughts. "So, where do we go to get that grub, I'm starving?" Her stomach growls to punctuate the request.

Tara smiles at the rumbling noise emanating from the other blonde, and Spike lets out a full and robust laugh.

The nurse turns back to the door, and opens it. "Follow me."

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(Whew, that took a while to write. A not so new character, but everyone now knows whom Spikes nurse is.)



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