Chapter Two

Spike continued to mutter to himself, alternating between poetry, lines from plays and apologies to invisible people. Holding tightly to one hand, Buffy towed him along behind her. As they approached the house, she began to regret not having had the planned talk with Dawn before she went out for the evening.

With some trepidation, she opened the front door and pulled a reluctant Spike and even more reluctant Harry into the house. Dawn glanced up, her face going hard and cold as she saw who Buffy was bringing in. She took in the cowering vampire and the uncomfortable and seedy–looking man behind him, then stood up and crossed her arms over her chest in an unconscious imitation of her sister.

“What is he doing here?”

“He’s…he needs…he’s got some problems, okay? I need to figure out what’s going on and what’s wrong with him before I let him go. I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself…”

“And that’s a bad thing, because….?”

“Dawn.” Buffy gave a sigh and signaled for the demon to close the door. “Just listen, okay? You can be mad at him if you want, but I need to talk to him; and you need to hear what he’s done.”

“I’ve already heard it,” Dawn said flatly, turning her back on them. Spike never saw the turned back, as his own gaze remained fixed on the floor. If he was at all bewildered or upset about her rejection, he gave no sign of it.

“No!” Buffy said loudly, causing Spike to whimper and pull away. She quickly pulled him back to her side, then forced him into a chair. She pointed at the wary Pigpen and said curtly, “Stay right there and make sure he doesn’t leave.”

She walked up and spoke to Dawn’s rigid back. “No, you don’t know,” she said firmly. “You know what Xander thinks he saw, and you heard his interpretation of what it was. And that’s not what I’m talking about now, anyway.”

“You never denied it.”

Buffy sighed. “No, I didn’t, and that was wrong of me. But I was angry and upset and…and then he was gone and it didn’t seem to matter what anyone thought.”

“So, you’re saying he didn’t try to rape you?”

“It’s complicated, Dawn…”

“Not really. It’s a pretty simple yes or no question. Either he did or he didn’t.”

While Buffy’s struggled with what to answer, Spike’s suddenly sane-sounding voice came from the depths of his chair.

“I did,” he said quietly. “You’re right to be angry, Bit.”

“Don’t call me that!” Dawn’s voice was trembling, whether with anger or something else, it wasn’t clear. “You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to call me anything. Don’t talk to me!”

Without another word, she left the room and stomped up the stairs to her room, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls.

“Well,” Harry said cheerily, “That went well, don’t you think?”

“Shut up.”

Before Buffy could elaborate, Dawn came storming back down the stairs and stopped in front of the startled demon.

“And who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house?” she demanded, casting an unforgiving teenaged eye over his rumpled and dirty clothing and lack of haircut.

“That’s Pigpen,” Buffy explained quickly. “The Powers that Be sent him here to--”

“Name’s actually Harry,” he interrupted, holding out one grimy hand; then thinking better of it, he stuffed the hand in his pocket and tried to look harmless. “And I’d be more than happy to be on my way now that I’ve shown the slayer here where her champion was hiding.”

“Her what?”

“If you’ll just sit down and listen for a minute, I – we – he can explain,” Buffy pleaded. “And stop yelling. It frightens Spike.”

“Spike is NOT afraid of my yelling,” Dawn huffed, as she came into the room further but remained standing. “He’s used to it.”

“That was before. He’s a little more…vulnerable now,” Buffy said softly.

“He’s going to be a little more dusty once Xander finds out he’s back,” Dawn pointed out. She cast a glance over the oddly silent vampire, taking in for the first time his half-dressed state, the gouges on his chest and the uncharacteristic meekness of his demeanor. “What happened to him?” she finally asked, doing her best to appear uninterested in the answer.

Buffy pointed to Harry. “You’re on, Pigpen,” she said.

“Harry,” he countered, crossing his arms stubbornly.

“Fine. Harry. Doesn’t make you any cleaner, you know,” she muttered.

Satisfied that he had gotten all he was going to get in the way of civility out of the slayer, the demon looked at Dawn and began to recite his orders.

“I’m here because the Powers sent me to help the Slayer find their new champion so that she can protect him until he has to do whatever it is they need him to do.”

“Spike is the champion?” Dawn put every ounce of disbelief she could into her voice, but she couldn’t resist taking another look at her former friend and caretaker.

“It seems so. I mean what with the having got his soul, and all…”

“His soul?” Her eyes flew to Buffy who nodded reluctantly.

“We’ll have to ask Willow to find out for sure, but Harry says he’s got it. And he did it on purpose – not a curse like Angel’s. He wanted it.” She looked at Spike’s chest and absently batted his hand down as he began to scratch at it again. “Although, it kinda looks like he might have changed his mind…”

“Is that why he’s acting so weird?” Dawn moved closer to the vampire, her curiosity overcoming her reluctance to talk to him. “Is that why you’re acting so weird?” she asked directly. “Cause you got your soul?”

“Can’t hurt the girl,” he mumbled, not meeting her eyes. “Give her what she wants, what she deserves. Don’t hurt the girl – never again.”

Dawn gave Buffy a suspicious look, then said shrewdly, “I’m guessing you’re the girl he’s babbling about?”

“Maybe. It’s not clear.” Buffy refused to meet Dawn’s eyes, clearing her throat and trying not to seem as uncomfortable as she felt. “The point is, it’s making him crazy – and scared of everything –so we have to be really…nice…to him for awhile.”

Dawn shrugged. “You’re the only one who wasn’t nice to him,” she said disdainfully. “You, and maybe Xander after the whole Anya thing…”

“Sorry,” Spike blurted. “Sorry, sorry. Hurt the girl. Didn’t mean to hurt the girl. Jus’ wanted to forget--”

“That’s enough, Spike,” Buffy said firmly. “You didn’t hurt Anya. At least not while I was watching,” she added bitterly.

“Not demon-girl,” he growled. “Didn’t hurt her. Someone else did that. I hurt--” He stopped, shaking his head. “Always hurt the girl. Bad rude man, I am.”

“Can I go now?” Harry’s plaintive voice broke into the vampire’s whimpering confession. “I mean, now you’ve got a witness – and whoever this tree person is--”

“Willow,” Buffy said without taking her eyes off the muttering vampire. “She’s a powerful witch. Should be back tomorrow.”

“Right, Willow. Anyway, if she can see souls in vampires, you’ll be golden. You could also ask another demon – if you know any live ones.” He raised an eyebrow at her doubtfully.

“Anya,” Dawn said quickly. “She went back to being a vengeance demon. She’ll be able to tell.”

“Well, there you go.” Harry sighed in relief. “You’ve got your champion – all you need to do is keep him safe until it’s time for him to do whatever it is he needs to do. It’s been a pleasure.” He had his hand on the doorknob when Buffy’s voice cut through air.

“He’s crazy!” Buffy protested. “What am I supposed to do with a crazy vampire?”

“Well, I didn’t know him before, but… are you sure he’s crazy? Maybe he’s just a little confused?”

“He wasn’t crazy before. He was a little…” Buffy searched for a word. “…impulsive, but he wasn’t crazy."

“He probably just needs a little TLC. I mean, it’s got to be a shock, having a soul after all those years without one. Might take him a while to get used to it.”

“Fine,” Buffy huffed. “Go. I don’t want you around here anyway. But you can tell the Powers that Be that it seems to me he’d be a lot more useful if he was sane!” She waved her hand in dismissal and Harry quickly let himself out the door, muttering to himself about slayers with PMS and unreasonable expectations and issues.

“What are you going to do with him?” Dawn questioned, as the door shut behind the demon’s dirt-covered back. “How do you know he’s safe to be around?”

“Look at him,” Buffy said quietly. “He’s afraid of his own shadow. I can’t even touch him without sending him scuttling away. He isn’t going to hurt anybody. Not while I’m around, anyway.”

Dawn walked over to the muttering vampire and bent down to stare into his eyes. When he tried to turn away, she grabbed his chin and forced him to look back at her. As she watched the fear and remorse whirling in his eyes, her expression softened.

“It’s okay, Spike,” she whispered. “I was mad at you, but I’m over it. We aren’t going to hurt you; we’ll take care of you.”

“Hey, hey! What are you promising, Dawn?”

Her sister straightened up and stared at her. “Well, we are, aren’t we? Isn’t that what Dirty Harry said? That he was yours to take care of until he has to do his champion thing? Anyway, he was my friend, and if he really didn’t try to rape you, then I’m going to take care of him.”

Spike’s eyes were moving anxiously back and forth between the two girls – one so small and deadly, the other so tall and passionate. His gaze stopped on Buffy, uncertainty temporarily replacing the remorse that seemed to be his most consistent emotion. She gazed back at him, her expression softening as his obvious vulnerability tugged at her.

“Buffy?” His voice was small and hesitant; his eyes questioned her – unsure, but suddenly sane. “Did you come for me? Did you bring me…here…to your house?”

She exhaled loudly and came to kneel in front of him.

“I guess I did,” she said, touching his hand briefly and drawing back before he could finish his flinch. “So don’t make me sorry I did it, huh? Can we just be done with ‘crazy Spike’?”

“I’ll do my best, pet,” he smiled briefly as he spoke, sounding almost like himself for a second, before reverting to the shy, uncertain man who seemed so much smaller than the vampire she’d known.

Buffy said quietly, “Dawn? Would you go upstairs, please? I need to talk to Spike for a few minutes.”

Dawn’s normal rebelliousness was quelled by the unusually soft look on her sister’s face and by the way the former Big Bad was huddled in the chair.

“Okay,” she agreed. “But I’m not staying up there all night. I need to know that you’re taking care of him.”

Buffy nodded, not taking her gaze off the vampire and his downcast eyes. “Fine,” she responded. “Just give us a little while, huh? I think we have some stuff to work out.”

“Ya think?” Dawn snorted as she started up the stairs.

Spike turned his head just enough to watch the teenager leave the room, then looked down at the hands he was twisting in his lap. Buffy was still kneeling in front of him, but after Dawn left the room she shifted so as to be sitting on the couch. She stared at him for a few minutes, not sure where to begin; but when his eyes began to dart about and she was afraid that he was going to go back into what she was already referring to mentally as his crazy place, she quickly spoke up.

“Why did you do it, Spike? What would possess you to get your soul back?”

He shot her a disbelieving look from under his brows, then dropped his eyes again.

“’s what you want, isn’t it? What you need? Somebody who wouldn’t hurt you? Couldn’t hurt you now. Wouldn’t.”

“You weren’t trying to hurt me, Spike. I know that.” Buffy’s voice was soft, her expression sad. “You just wanted me to…acknowledge my feelings.”

“Hurt you,” he said stubbornly. “Hurt the girl.”

Buffy waved her hand in front of his face. “Whoa, there, buddy. Don’t go wandering off into crazy Spike land again.” The import of what he’d said finally sank in and she sank back with a gasp. “For me? You got your soul for me?”

“’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Suddenly, the fear and uncertainly was back in full force. His eyes began to dart around the room, and he rose to his feet. “Not what you wanted. Stupid, stupid.” He grabbed his head as though the chip was firing and moaned; then headed for the door, head down and muttering to himself.

“Spike!”

He paused with his hand on the door, but didn’t turn. She could see the tremor in his arm as he tightened his grip on the doorknob. She leapt to her feet and ran to get between him and the door, resting a hand on his chest lightly.

“Come back,” she said softly. “Please? I didn’t…I don’t…Please don’t think you’ve done something wrong. You just surprised me, that’s all. Come back to the living room.”

He stared at her hand where it rested just over his heart, trembling all over with the effort not to flinch away from her. When she noticed his distress, she snatched her hand back but remained between him and the door. With a nod, he turned to go back into the living room, his hand brushing her arm as he took it off the doorknob.

“S…sorry!”

Buffy shook her head and gave him a gentle shove towards the couch, following him and sitting down beside him, but safely out of accidental touching range.

“You know, if that soul means you’re going to be apologizing every time we touch, I think it might be defective.” She smiled softly, willing him to see the humor in her words. Instead, he flinched again. “Not a good soul? Not what you wanted? Wrong. I did it wrong. Not what you wanted…”

“Shhhh, shhhh.” Ignoring the way he cringed away from her, she took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them gently, only releasing her hold when he stopped trying to pull away. “I was making a joke. Because you won’t touch me – or let me touch you. There’s nothing wrong with your soul. It’s beautiful.”

In one of his sudden shifts from bewildered and confused to focused and sane, he reared back and raised one eyebrow at her.

“You can’t see it, you daft bint. It’s inside me. Here.” He rested a hand on his chest just over the ragged wounds from his fingernails. “The spark is here.”

She rested one hand lightly on top of his, leaving it there long enough to be sure that he wasn’t going to pull away.

“I know,” she said. “And I know what’s in there. I know the heart in there, and I know that any soul taking up space with it would have to be beautiful.”

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, pulling his hand away and leaning back. “Who are you? Where’s the Slayer?”

Buffy gave a shaky laugh and moved back far enough to give him some space.

“Okay, I guess that was a bit much - especially for me. But you…you’re so…fragile…right now. I’m trying to keep you from running away again.”

“Again?” He glanced around. “Haven’t gone anywhere, have I? Did I go somewhere? Where did I go?”

She could see the agitation building again and quickly, interrupted his string of questions.

“I meant…when you left…before. When you ran away after you…we…” She twisted her hands together, then stood up and began to pace. “I know that was partly my fau—“

Suddenly sounding very much like his old self, he snarled, “Don’t you even THINK about finishing that sentence, Slayer. There was only one monster in that bathroom, and it wasn’t the injured girl fighting off a rapist.”

“All right, fine!” she responded impatiently. “Have it your way. You were wrong, okay? It was a shitty thing to do to somebody who couldn’t fight back…” She froze, memories of a bloody beating administered in an alley flooding her mind.

“Don’t go there either, love,” he said, more softly but still sounding very certain. “I didn’t fight back then because I didn’t want to – not because I couldn’t. You know that. Not the same thing at all.”

“Close enough,” she muttered, resuming her pacing. “Where was I?”

“It was shitty thing to do…” he contributed helpfully.

“Right.” She resumed her rant. “It was a terrible thing to do. You’d just…with Anya…and then you wanted me to…and it was wrong! You needed to be groveling, and bringing me flowers and…and…not trying to have sex with me! I don’t care if you did think you could use it to prove to me that I love you! It was inexcusable!”

“And yet, you seem to have excused it,” he said quietly. “Else, why am I here, Buffy?”

“And, we’re back to it was partly my fault,” she replied, resuming her seat on the couch. “I know that I was the queen of mixed signals the whole time we were…whatever we were…together. And I know that Dawn had told you how much it hur--how I reacted to seeing you with Anya’s legs wrapped around...” She bit her lip, which wanted to tremble at the memory of seeing him buried in another woman.

He grabbed his bloody chest with one hand and clutched at the skin there. “You know I would rip this heart out and hand it to you, if I thought it would make up for hurtin’ you like that.”

“I told you to move on,” she sniffed. “I just wasn’t expecting….”

“I wasn’t expectin’ it either, love,” he said, his eyes pleading for understanding. “Didn’t go there for that - I went for something to make my pain go away and all she had was a bottle of scotch. And her own crushed dreams to cry over. We got drunk and sought some solace with each other. That’s all it was, Buffy. Just solace for two miserably unhappy demons whose humans didn’t want them anymore.”

“So, you’re saying it’s my fault that you were boinking one of my friends? And Xander’s fault that she was boinkable?” Her face settled into very dangerous lines, and he flinched in spite of himself.

“Not saying that, love. Nothing was your fault. You did what you thought you had to do. And, I guess the whelp did what he thought he had to do…” He snorted. “Stupid git. Like he’ll ever get another girl to love him like that.”

“Xander was an ass,” she agreed quietly. “But I thought I was-- I didn’t like myself very much just then and I didn’t like knowing that I was using you and your feelings for me. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who would use someone who loved her. I thought I was doing the right thing – for both of us.”

“You know how much you hate it when somebody does something ‘for your own good?’ he asked mildly. At her guilty nod, he continued, “Don’t fancy it all that much myself. Don’t know how you could think that taking away what little I had of you was goin’ to be good for me.”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” she grumbled. “I didn’t think I loved you back, so it was wro--”

“That’s twice now that you’ve said ‘love’ and ‘you’ in the same sentence.” Spike’s voice was tightly controlled, but his hands were clenched into fists. “You want to explain that to me?”

Buffy’s eyes darted around the room and she wrapped her arms around herself as she realized what she’d been implying. She didn’t respond, too engrossed in what her subconscious had done to her to notice his tense posture.

“Buffy?”

“Huh? Oh. No.”

“No? No, what?” His eyes hardened, even as his shoulders slumped.

“No, I don’t want to explain…anything. No explaining. Explaining wouldn’t be good. It could lead to badness…”

“How bad could it get? If you want to, you can always tell me I’m daft and didn’t hear you right.”

“You ARE daft, whatever that means. You were acting crazy as a…a crazy person. And now you’re all…you again. It’s confusing.”

“Yeah, it’s a mite unsettling from my side, too,” he said with a wry twist of his mouth.

“Well, there you go! See? You’re all…weird and crazy and it would be very wrong of me to say anything that might confuse you even more.”

Buffy beamed at him, quite proud of the way she’d saved herself. As he just held her gaze, his eyes never wavering from hers, her smile faded and she swallowed hard.

“Not buying that, huh?”

He shook his head silently, waiting patiently for her to acknowledge her own words. She took a deep breath and slid to the floor in front of him, resting her hands on his knees and gazing up at his puzzled face.

“So, is this where I tell you that you were right? That I did love you? That if I hadn’t been so hurt and angry about Anya – not to mention the big ouchie on my back – that you probably would have got what you wanted that night? That I would have admitted it?”

“Did love me,” he repeated dully. “Buggered that up, didn’t I? Showed you how much beneath you I am. Showed you just how right you were to hate it that you wanted me.”

Buffy shook her head. “All you showed me was the pain you were in and how much damage my denial was doing to both of us. “ She moved from her knees back to a seat on the couch, keeping one hand resting lightly on the arm closest to her. “My stubbornness hurt you, hurt me, hurt Xander – the only one who didn’t come out of it more hurt than she was before I did it, is Anya. She got her vengeance on Xander…and she got to make…have…get…with you. She’s lucky I’m a forgiving person, or…”

Spike’s head shot up and he stared at her with wide eyes.

“You didn’t hurt her, did you, Slayer? Wasn’t her fault – I made the move. An’ the poor bint had no idea that the girl I was torn up about was one of her friends.”

“You do understand that defending her like that isn’t exactly helping her case, don’t you?” Buffy gave him a twisted smile, but she couldn’t hide the very real jealousy behind her question. “And, no, I didn’t hurt her. I’m not that unfair.”

She ignored his snort, choosing to believe it was only an unconscious reaction to some scent in air.

“You weren’t mine anymore – and she didn’t know that you ever were. Things were a little tense for a while, but I think we’ve worked it out. It’s not like she’s around a lot anyway.” She waved her hand around in a circle. “She’s always off doing vengeance demony things, I guess. Anyway, we don’t see much of her.”

“And the whelp?”

Buffy smiled, happy at the change of subject.

“Xander’s done a lot of growing up in the past few months. He still loves her, you know – and I think she still loves him. She’s just still really, really mad at him. He’s taking it one day at a time. I know they’ve been out on dates once or twice, but now that she’s a demon again…”

“Right up his alley, isn’t it?”

Buffy nodded at his small smile and agreed with a rueful one of her own.

“Well, yeah, in a way it is, I guess. But he didn’t know the other girls were demons until they tried to kill him. Anya isn’t hiding it. She’s a full-fledged vengeance demon and she doesn’t care who knows it…”

“Bit of a dilemma for Mr ‘All demons are evil’ innit?” Spike’s face was carefully neutral. “What with the lack of soul, an’ all.”

“He’s having to do a little attitude adjusting,” she admitted. “So am I, for that matter. Anya’s a working vengeance demon; I should probably slay her.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Well…in the first place, I haven’t actually caught her doing anything vengeancey around here. So I don’t know that she is for absolute sure. And in the second place, Xander would never forgive me if I did. He does still love her. And nobody would believe I was doing it because of her being a demon – they’d all think it was because of you.”

“Should I be flattered, or just gobsmacked that your friends think you cared that much?” He shook his head and muttered to himself. “All that time I wanted you to tell them about us, and turns out all I had to do was shag somebody else.” He gave her a look that wavered between fearful and wistful. “Think of the all the opportunities I wasted, when I could have been…”

“I’d have staked you,” she said flatly.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I suppose you would have.” He brightened up. “Might’ve been worth it, though. There was this girl I knew, with really big--- Did you just growl at me?”

“No!”

“You sure? Cause it definitely sounded like a growl.” He drew himself up and said with great dignity, “I might be crazy, but I’m not deaf, you know.”

“I did NOT growl at you just because you were talking about some other girl with big…whatevers.”

“You growled.”

“I did not!”

“Did too.”

“Did not!”

“Too”

“Not”

“Well,” Dawn’s voice preceded her into the room. “It’s nice to see you two having a calm, adult conversation for a change.”