Buffy leaned over the bathroom sink, splashing her face with cool water before grabbing a small towel and drying off carelessly. She braced her hand on the counter, gasping for breath that she had not yet regained, despite the fact that she had been back in the safety of her house for more than ten minutes now.

She had spent the first five wandering aimlessly through the empty rooms, staring blankly into space as her mind struggled to process the powerful, startling, and infinitely confusing revelation Spike had just made. It felt like a strange, impossible dream…but it was terribly real. She had finally climbed the stairs to the bathroom, hoping to somehow shake herself out of the daze in which she was lost.

She looked up, staring bleakly at her pale, disheveled reflection in the mirror.

Her mind flashed unwillingly back to another night, months earlier, when she had felt every bit as lost and confused as she did right now.

*You felt it…you’ll feel it again…I’ll *make* you feel it!*

Buffy suppressed a shudder, pushing the troubling memories out of her mind.

She was suddenly startled by the sound of the front door swinging open downstairs, and for a moment her mind went into panic mode, as for a brief moment she was absolutely sure that it was Spike; he had followed her back to her house, and was headed up the stairs, and the entire nightmare scene was about to play itself out again.

“Buffy? Buffy!”

Dawn’s frantic, tearful voice snapped the Slayer out of her reverie in an instant, as she rushed down the stairs to where her littler sister stood in the foyer, her hair windblown and cluttered with dried leaves and bits of grass, her face streaked with terrified tears.

“Dawn, what happened? What’s the matter?” Buffy paused, frowning suspiciously as she added with a raised brow, “And where were you?” As she spoke, she took her little sister’s arms in her hands, steadying her slight, trembling shoulders.

“I followed you to the school, and I saw Spike and I yelled at him and kicked him and told him I hated him, and he…he followed me, and…” Dawn broke down, her head bowed as a strangled sob escaped her throat.

Buffy’s eyes went wide with alarm, remembering how strangely Spike had been behaving in the school basement. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”

Dawn looked up at her in startled disbelief at the question, before a hysterical laugh left her lips, and she shook her head. “No,” she replied in an anguished voice. “No, he…he *saved* me! There was…there were vampires…like, at least a dozen of them…he stopped them, Buffy! He saved me, and…and they hurt him, really bad...you have to help him, Buffy, we have to go back…”

“No, *you’re* not going anywhere!” Buffy declared, shaking her head emphatically, though her eyes were full of fear as the story came together in her mind. “Where did you leave him?”

“In the middle of R-restfield Cemetery. Not far from his crypt.”

“You took a shortcut through the cemetery in the middle of the night *alone*?” Buffy demanded, incredulous. “Those monks didn’t implant the memories of when you developed common sense, did they? Knew they had to have left something out.”

Dawn ignored the jibe, tears streaming from her eyes again as she gazed up at her sister pleadingly. “Just help him, Buffy…hurry, please! He was h-helping me…if they kill him because he was helping me…and…and after what I said…”

Dawn broke down again, her hands rising to cover her face as Buffy released her arms and grabbed her jacket off the hook by the door, shrugging into it as she opened the door and hurried outside.

**************************************

“Oh, my God.”

Buffy stumbled to a stop a few yards from the crumpled pile of black cloth on the ground in front of her. It took her a moment to realize that Spike was still inside it; his hair was dark and matted with blood and dirt, and with the ends grown out and darker than she remembered, it was harder to spot his bloodied, bruised face against the ground.

Buffy allowed herself only a moment’s stunned inaction before she stumbled forward, dropping to her knees beside him and reaching out a gentle hand to carefully lift his head.

The damage was worse than she had imagined.

Every visible part of him was covered in blood and bruises, and one of his legs was bent beneath him at an awkward angle. The pale, once-perfect skin at his throat was marred with jagged, overlapping bite marks, too many to count; and it was clear that his attackers had taken no thought for his comfort as they had savaged him, drawing his blood until there was barely any left, if his unusually pale appearance was any indication.

*Can a vampire be drained to death? No, no, please, Spike…*

“Spike?” she whispered. “God, Spike, can you hear me?”

Tears of relief sprang to her eyes when the vampire let out a weak moan, turning his head away, his body clenching in a spasm of pain. “Please,” he gasped out, his back arching with agony, his voice piteous and trembling. “Don’t…”

“Shhh,” Buffy soothed him, her own face streaked with tears that cooled quickly in the cold night air, leaving icy tracks on her cheeks. “It’s okay, Spike…it’s all right, I’m here…I’m gonna take you home…”

“Buffy?” He turned his head painfully back toward her, eyes nearly swollen shut struggling to focus on her. In spite of his injuries that made any sort of recognizable expression nearly impossible, the wonder in his crystal blue eyes was apparent. “You…you came…?”

Fresh tears spilled from Buffy’s eyes at the awe and disbelief in his hoarse whisper. She nodded, swallowing back a sob as she replied in a trembling voice, “Of course I came. I couldn’t just…Spike, of course I came…”

For a moment, Spike’s eyes lit up with a tumult of mingled relief and joy and gratitude; but just as quickly those emotions gave way to sorrow and shame, his eyes lowering as he whispered brokenly, “I…I have to…I need to…tell you…”

“Don’t,” Buffy shushed him with a gentle press of her fingertips against his lips, a brave smile on her lips through her tears. “Don’t try to talk right now, Spike. Just be still. I’m gonna try not to hurt you, okay? But…” She grimaced as she admitted apologetically, “…it’s probably gonna hurt a little…”

“’S all right, love,” Spike murmured, a little sleepily, turning his head away again and steeling his jaw for the expected agony of movement. “Used to the pain by now…”

Those words made Buffy flinch, as she was reminded of a thousand dark memories shared between them, as well as of the strange mental condition in which she had found Spike earlier that night. Much to her relief, he was surprisingly lucid at the moment.

With a sympathetic grimace, she wondered if he might be better off if he was a bit out of his head at the moment.

Cautiously, she slipped her arms underneath him, trying her best not to hurt him, but he bit back a sharp cry of pain anyway. Aware that it was not really something she could prevent, Buffy stood carefully, lifting the broken vampire in her arms, shifting his weight slightly until she knew that she could carry him the rest of the way home.

“Shhh,” she whispered soothingly, cradling his head against her throat, her chin resting lightly at his temple for just a moment before she moved it, afraid of hurting him worse. “It’s all right; I’ve got you.” She hesitated for an instant before giving in to her next impulse and brushing a feather light kiss across his matted curls. “Time to go home.”

***************************************

“Get the door,” Buffy commanded Dawn as she shoved it open with her shoulder, moving swiftly toward the couch.

She had Slayer strength on her side, so carrying Spike from Restfield back to the house was not exactly difficult for her. Still, she was alarmed at the slight weight of his body, how thin and frail he felt in her arms – nothing like the finely formed, toned frame she had become intimately familiar with over the past year.

“He’s alive,” Dawn stated, almost as if to convince herself, her voice trembling with relief. “He’s not dust. They didn’t kill him.”

“Not quite,” Buffy muttered grimly as she laid the unconscious vampire down on the sofa, heedless of the blood and grime that covered him. “But nearly.”

She winced as Spike let out a soft moan, even in his sleep, as his abused body came into contact with the soft sofa.

“Shhh,” she whispered yet again, unconsciously reaching up to stroke his filthy curls back from his face. “It’s all right. It’s gonna be fine, Spike, everything’s gonna be fine…” She hesitated, waiting for Dawn to hurry off toward the bathroom, most likely in search of a first aid kit, before she lowered her voice and added in a whisper, “I’m sorry, Spike. I shouldn’t have just left you there. I’m so, so sorry.”

The vampire was completely unresponsive, apparently not aware of anything she had said.

Buffy blinked back tears as Dawn brought her the first aid kit and set it down on the coffee table, hovering anxiously nearby, wanting to do what she could to help her one-time best friend, but unsure whether or not there was even anything she *could* do. Buffy’s next words provided the answer to that question.

“Dawnie, honey,” the Slayer said in a voice that was unusually soft and affectionate, her eyes focused on Spike, her expression carefully blank as she reached for his shirt and began to carefully unbutton the dirty, blood-soaked garment. “I need you to go upstairs. I don’t think you should…should see this.”

Dawn swallowed hard, her eyes widening as she realized that in order to reach all his injuries, Buffy was going to have to undress Spike completely. Without a word she turned and headed up the stairs to her own room.

Buffy slid the shirt back off Spike’s shoulders as far as it would go, frowning when she realized that she would have to cut the garment off in order to get it off without hurting him. Her eyes welled with tears as she took the tiny pair of scissors from the first aid kit and brought it toward the tattered black shirt Spike wore.

His confused, disoriented words back in the school basement echoed in her mind, and she swallowed back a sob as she realized just how far the vampire had gone in order to prove his love for her – and how far he was still willing to go to protect her, and Dawn.

“It’s all right, Spike,” she whispered, though the reassuring words were more for her own benefit than for his. “It’s all right…you’re home now.”

******************************************

Buffy was almost finished cleaning and bandaging the worst of Spike’s injuries when he awakened again, once again murmuring incoherent ramblings like those he had spoken in the basement.

“Can’t…can’t let me do it…can’t let me hurt her…had to do it, don’t you understand?”

Buffy drew back slightly, a concerned frown on her face as she watched his gradual return to consciousness, if not lucidity. Spike cringed back against the sofa, raising one arm weakly to cover his face as he cried out softly.

“No, stop it! I’m not listening, not listening to you! You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re dead and gone you are! Not listening to you!”

“Spike,” she gently interrupted his rambling, reaching out a careful hand to touch his upraised, trembling arm. “Spike…look at me…”

“No, no, don’t touch…don’t touch, unclean…make you dirty, make you wrong, and you can’t be…you can’t be…” Spike’s voice broke on the last phrase, a choked sob wrung from his throat as he shook his head, withdrawing from her touch. “All my fault…all my fault…”

The raw emotion in his words, jumbled and confused but still making a terrible, painful sort of sense, tore at Buffy’s heart. Tears streaked her face, blinding her as she insistently reached out to the vampire, moving as if to pull his arm down from his face as she leaned in closer.

“Spike…Spike, no…it’s not,” she argued softly. “It’s not…all your fault…”

He pulled away from her almost frantically, even as he drew in a sharp, pained breath at the sudden motion, shaking his head emphatically, his voice low and trembling with anguish. “You’re lying, you’re always lying to me! Telling me the things that are right are wrong and the things that are wrong are right and that I can be yours and I can *never* be yours, never again, not after what I’ve done…never be my girl and I’ll never be yours, never, never, don’t deserve it…”

“*Spike*!” Buffy reached out and caught his arms firmly, forcing him to face her.

Spike froze under her touch, staring at her hands on his arms in turn, before raising wide, startled eyes to hers, a sort of bewildered wonder in his tearful gaze. “You…you touched me,” he whispered in disbelief. “You touched me. Real….you’re…you’re not…like the others…it’s you, it’s really you…B-buffy…”

Relieved at what appeared to be near-sanity, Buffy gave him an encouraging smile. “Yes, Spike. It’s me.”

The vampire stared at her, his elated smile fading slowly into a stricken, sorrowful expression. “Buffy,” he sobbed softly, his hands clutching weakly at her arms as he lowered his head in shame. “So sorry, love…so sorry, Buffy…”

Buffy’s swallowed back a sob, pulling him in closer to her, but stopping when he winced with pain, easing him back down onto the sofa and moving from her perch on the edge of it to kneel beside him, never ceasing the gentle contact that seemed to be somehow grounding him with her..

“Spike,” she murmured, her throat aching as she struggled to get the words out. “It’s okay, Spike…I know…it’s okay, it…it wasn’t just you, okay? It wasn’t just your fault…”

“No,” Spike protested, despairing, unable to bring himself to meet her gaze. “Never okay…never okay again…I’m so sorry, Buffy…wanted to make it right…’s why I did it…got the spark…but…but all it did was make it worse…”

Buffy could not remember the last time she had been at such a loss. She had no idea what to say, if there even was anything she could say to help him. Angel had always been pretty vague about what exactly he had gone through when his soul had been restored, but she had understood that it was terribly disorienting and confusing and painful, centuries’ worth of guilt flooding in and overwhelming him in an instant’s time.

*And now…now Spike’s going through that…*

“It’s okay, Spike,” Buffy assured him, freeing one of her arms from his desperate, clutching fingers to run soothingly through his hair. “It’s all right, I promise…it doesn’t matter anymore. Not…not after…”

Spike looked up at her incredulously, shaking his head slowly in denial. “Doesn’t matter?” he echoed in a disbelieving whisper. “Of course it bloody well matters! It will *always* matter, Buffy! Don’t you get it? I’ll never get away from it…never! It’ll always be there, because I *hurt you*, Buffy! I hurt you! And you’ll never be able to forgive me for that, Buffy, never!”

“Spike, that’s…that’s not true,” Buffy argued weakly, though she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, as she wondered if he could be right.

“Isn’t it?” Spike asked in a whisper that was bleak and desolate, and yet tinged with a note of pleading hope, as he looked up to meet her eyes, his own wide and searching. “Could you, ever? Can you look at me…and tell me that you forgive me, Buffy?”

Buffy opened her mouth to respond, but found that she choked on the words she wanted to be able to say.

Her heart broke within her as Spike’s face fell, and he swallowed hard, his jaw setting with broken resignation as he looked away. “Knew you couldn’t, love,” he whispered. “Too much…too bad…I hurt you, Buffy. And…no matter how much I want to…I can’t ever take that back.”