"I died yesterday, I returned today, and a path has been made for me by the doorkeeper of the great arena." – The Book of Going Forth by Day.

Hiding from a small army of crazy humans was ignominious to say the least. Spike knew that without the chip, he would be through that throng and up the stairs in no time at all, but here, now, he was about as weak and powerless as a kitten.

It was galling.

And once he saw the figure on the tower with Dawn, it was terrifying as well.

“Someone’s up there,” he said, back to the others, where they were discussion the progress, or lack thereof, of the battle.

Xander and Anya were bickering. Marvelous. Then a voice cut through the din and gave him the answer he needed, Willow. “Spike, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he said into the air, knowing she would hear him anyway. “Loud and clear.”

“Is someone up there with Dawn?” Her voice was set, resolved. He could almost see the witch’s green eyes flashing.

Spike craned up to look again. He caught another glimpse of the figure, probably human if his luck held. “Yeah, can’t tell who.”

The response was instantaneous. “Get up there. Go, now!”

The vampire peeked over the wall again at the herd of chip-protected crazies, but beyond them, on the other side of the tower, something else caught his eye. Buffy was there, pummeling Glory into mush with her hammer. “Better idea, get me through to the slayer.”

There was a pause. Xander was asking him some inane question, but Spike steadfastly ignored him, focusing instead on Willow’s response.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Go!”

Spike leapt up, blindly running towards the tower. He felt a wash of tingling power speed past him, and all of the humans and scabby demons were swept wide in a raw display of Willow’s magical power. He vaulted over some wreckage and threw himself headlong into a bloody and weakened Glory.

A solid punch to her over-powdered nose knocked the hell goddess backwards, staggering into a pile of twisted metal. He spared a brief glance at Buffy, who was looking at him incredulously.

“Get to the Bit. Someone’s up there with her.” That got her attention. Hazel eyes flashed with determination and she nodded in mute thanks before turning and darting up the tower. Glory’s minions, still reeling from Willow’s spell, didn’t hinder her.

Spike looked back at the goddess who had tortured him for hours. “Looks like the slayer softened you up a little for me.” His smirk was nasty. Glory straightened, face lit with surprised indignation. The punch she threw sent Spike spinning away, but it held only a fraction of the strength she had previously brought to bear. And what was better, she was completely focused on him, Buffy and Dawn forgotten in the heat of the moment.

He straightened and threw himself back into the fray. These were the fights he lived for, real danger and uncertainty adding that extra spice that made the whole dance worthwhile.

Buffy would save Dawn, and he’d get the fight, and maybe even the revenge, he deserved.

*****

Day 10

There was some comfort in routine. You could slip into autopilot, shut down your brain, and just go through the motions. It was nice.

Spike’s routine was simple. Wake up, eat something, shadow Dawn until she was safely tucked in her bed for the night, patrol, return to his crypt, drink in order to stave off the dreams he knew were coming, pass out, relive the worst night of his unlife in some new variation, wake up, and start all over again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Only someone kept throwing monkey wrenches into the plan.

Patrols had been dead, an unfortunate metaphor, but true. A few demons here and there, one obviously magical circle drawn in Restfield’s small parking lot, but nothing else. It was starting to look like every horned, scaled, or fanged denizen of Sunnydale had gone to ground. Not that Spike could really blame them. It was a truly stupid demon who carelessly poked his nose out so soon after the death of a hell goddess. But their natural caution had the side-effect of leaving Spike frustrated and feeling useless at the end of his nights.

And then there were the dreams. To say that the alcohol wasn’t working was a massive understatement. The worst part, the part that made everything an even bigger sadistic dose of karma, was that he was happy when he was asleep. Every night he felt hope, pride, relief, all of the things that could have been if he had just been able to stop Doc. So every time he woke, his real memories were just that much worse. The dreams were a constant reminder of his failure, countering time’s subtle attempts to dull the pain.

To compound matters further, the banal necessities of unlife were rearing their ugly heads. Spike needed blood. He had run out of the human variety, which was so chalk-full of anticoagulants and other chemicals that it lasted damned-near forever in his ancient, rickety refrigerator, four days ago. That left him with two jars of pigs’ blood from the butchers, but nothing about it was appetizing enough to tempt him to drink more than was absolutely necessary. The mason jars didn’t come with expiration dates, but he got the feeling that they had been tucked away next to the baking soda for a long, long time. Long experience and common sense told him that when the liquid started to separate into layers of stinking red and yellow, it was well past time to restock.

He could have gone to Willy, added a few more strikes against his tab, and been fine, but he was cautious of going there. One slip of the tongue, one demon who took a little too much interest in the dark circles under Spike’s eyes and his unusually withdrawn demeanor, and the game would be up. The demonic community still thought the slayer was alive, but one wrong step in The Alibi Room and that would all be over.

That left the butchers, who wouldn’t take an IOU.

And Spike was broke.

And taking time to scare up cash wasn’t part of the routine.

But tonight, Dawn had pointedly asked him about his diet, worry obvious in her drawn, pale face. Without a reflection, it was hard to keep track of his own appearance, but even he had noticed that his collar bones were sticking out a little further, that his stomach was taking on a concave profile, and that his skin was a sickly grey instead of its usual off-white.

To her, he must look absolutely terrible.

He couldn’t have his Nibblet worrying about him, not when she was having to deal with so much else. On top of the loss of her sister, the continuing absence of her other family members in the wake of her mother’s recent death, and a whole boatload of guilt to go along with her misery, Dawn was having to attending summer school in order to make up all the finals she had missed. Apparently ‘kidnapped and almost sacrificed by a hell god’ wasn’t on the school’s list of excused absences. Willow had done some of her more metaphorical magic on the school’s records, so summer school it was.

Not that scholastic aptitude was high on Dawn’s list of priorities, but she had the Scoobies for that kind of support.

Spike was around for the Untoile demon who had done its level best to wreck Dawn’s after school study session at the Espresso Pump. Well, that and the cigarette she had wanted to try afterwards. Thankfully she had hated it, so Spike had been able to remain in her good graces while not completely betraying what her older sister would have wanted.

Small blessings.

He was taking care of Dawn as best he could, and it looked like she had taken a similar task upon herself. No one else seemed terribly concerned about his wellbeing, especially after the Scoobies had figured out that he wasn’t going to try to kill himself again. It was an odd dance, him trying to play big brother to a teenaged human, her trying to play mother hen a century old vampire, him trying to find ways to keep her from worrying about him, her doing the same. For the moment, it seemed to be working.

Present situation excluded.

Three vampires, the first he had seen since Buffy’s fall, had taken exception to Spike interrupting their raid on St. Maria’s General’s biohazard shipment. The easy way out, stocking up on the hospital’s old blood, was taking a serious downward dive. He had missed out on chasing off the truck drivers and hospital staff, but at least the abandoned truck wasn’t already picked clean.

“We were here first,” the scrawny one whined. He couldn’t be more than a few weeks old, dead skin still tan and freckled.

The biggest of the lot, muscled like only professional football players and wrestlers had any right to be, chuckled darkly. “What’s wrong, Spike? Did the Slayer take you off your feed?"

“He does look pretty starved.” The sultry voice belonged to the last, and if Spike’s senses were right, oldest of the lot. Not that she looked it. She was all leg and revealing leather. She was also carrying a long stake, which was of significantly greater interest to Spike in that moment than her delicate Asian features. “It doesn’t look like playing traitor pays well.”

Spike just watched them, running calloused fingers over the stake in his left hand. He found he just wasn’t in the mood for trading witty ripostes anymore. The comment about Buffy had earned a wince, but everything else they said was falling flat. And they said quite a lot.

“I bet I could crush your head like a melon,” said the big one. He flexed one meaty paw as if to provide a pre-show.

The skinny fledgling edged towards the back of the truck where it was butted against the loading dock. “Elisa, can we just do this? I’m starving.” The vampiress rolled her eyes and started to reply, but that was a good enough invitation for Spike.

He lashed out with one booted foot and had the brief satisfaction of hearing bone crack. Scrawny went down with a surprised cry against the side of the delivery truck. Spike dove to the side, more slowly than usual, but still fast enough to avoid the lumbering attack from Meat Slab.

Perhaps he should find room for at least a little exercise in the routine. Spike turned just in time to see a stake, held in one huge fist, descend unerringly towards his chest. That earned some hasty scrambling and some fancy footwork, but in the end, he found himself rolling onto the loading dock, dust free.

Spike kicked Elisa’s last ambulatory minion across the face when he tried to vault up onto the ledge. Scrawny was down for the count, screams still managing to sound whiney. Elisa herself had vaulted onto the other end of the dock, and was advancing purposefully towards him, stake at the ready. Taking the lesser of two evils, Spike leapt on the reeling vampire’s back and away from the approaching vampiress.

Meat Slab shook him off, but Spike was expecting it. His feet hit the ground, and before the larger vampire could turn, Spike slammed his stake into the wide expanse of back, driving the piece of wood home.

He knew without looking that he had hit the heart.

Two down, one to go.

Spike spun, allowing himself to feel the rush of the fight. Sure enough, Elisa was there, face twisted with rage. She tensed to leap, stake held at the ready, but her angry eyes turned triumphant and her weapon hand dropped. Spike cocked his head to the side, caught off guard and thoroughly confused.

Until the stake slammed into his own back.

He staggered forward, gasping in shocked pain, body instinctively curling in agony. He had felt this before, thanks to the slayer’s unlamented ex. But this wasn’t a plastic stake, this was the real deal. Any second now, he would crumble to dust in this god forsaken alley.

Any second now.

“Why aren’t you dust?”

That was an excellent question. Spike looked at the speaker and his attacker, Meat Slab.

“Why aren’t you?” he retorted, snarling against the burning pain in his back.

The three vampires traded surprised looks that were quickly hidden behind guarded, calculating masks. Scrawny didn’t join in, having passed out from the pain of a busted knee cap. Spike spared him the briefest of glances and snorted in disgust.

Minions these days.

Elisa stuck the stake in the back of her waistband and hopped to the ground. Spike slumped against the concrete ledge, watching the vampiress warily. She tossed him a disparaging look, but continued past him. Firm hands turned Meat Slab around and probed the wound where the stake was still embedded. She grabbed the piece of wood and pulled it free, which earned a rumbling growl from the huge vampire. Elisa just swatted the back of his head and looked more closely at the gaping wound.

“Thomas, can you carry Mouse?” Her voice was strangely gentle. Meat Slab, who was apparently named Thomas, nodded. She gave him a little shove in the right direction before turning to face Spike. There was a question there, but he didn’t know the answer. Suddenly it seemed less likely that his gravesite suicide attempt hadn’t been foiled by an insufficient dose of holy water. Something else was afoot.

Something big.

But he wasn’t going to share anything. Elise shrugged and lashed out, lightning fast fist slamming into Spike’s jaw. He hit the concrete, further jarring the length of rough wood lodged in his back. The pain was as debilitating as it was humiliating. He slumped with a groan against the front wheel well of the truck.

“Don’t touch anyone in my family again.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, giving the threat even more weight. Even through the haze of pain, Spike could respect that. He wondered if the two male vampires knew how lucky they were to have a sire who gave half a damn about their well being.

The trio ignored him after that. Thomas shouldered Mouse with more than a little wincing and stumbling of his own. Elisa dragged two crates out of the back of the truck and shouldered them easily. The alley wasn’t that long, and they were soon gone.

Spike, biting back an endless litany of profanities, manage to lever himself up. It took some interesting contortions, but he managed to get the stake out of his back. The perverse relief that he hadn’t been wearing his coat formed in his mind, quickly forgotten in the aching pull of a sucking chest wound.

He should have been dead. Again. One time he could dismiss as good, or bad depending on the point of view, luck, but two? Two was starting to smack of higher powers, a disturbance in the Force, cats and dogs living together, and all of the other fun things that made unlife in Sunnydale so unpredictable.

Spike needed to call in the cavalry.

He also needed someone with a deft hand and a pair of tweezers to remove the splinters from his back and bandage the wound. The process of elimination didn’t take long; his list of options was pretty short. Soon the vampire found himself slowly making his way towards Giles’ flat.