Chapter 21

It was well after dark by the time Buffy left Lowell House, trudging across campus back to her dorm room. She could scarcely believe that it had only been that afternoon when she’d confronted Riley on the quad and learned about the tape. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Despite her protestations and assurances of accelerated slayer healing, Graham had insisted that she be taken to the Initiative infirmary so they could take care of her gunshot wound. The doctors had removed the bullet and put her arm in a sling, but she figured she wouldn’t need to use it longer than a day or so. Riley had also been taken to the infirmary, and he’d been stable by the time she was allowed in to see him. He was pretty banged up, and he’d lost a lot of blood, but none of his injuries were life-threatening.

There were a lot of questions, of course, and she’d had to give a statement to one of the soldiers, about both the rape and Forrest’s subsequent attempts to kill her. Even though she’d known in the back of her mind that this day might come, that if she ever found her rapist, she’d have to hand him over to the authorities and go through the formalities the law required, she still wasn’t quite prepared to tell her story to a dispassionate stranger concerned with “just the facts.”

It was reassuring, of course, that Riley and Graham were willing to back up everything she said. She knew they were both shocked and horrified at the turn of events, but they had seen the lengths Forrest was willing to go to keep Buffy from talking, and they had no illusions that he was the same guy they thought they knew.

Lost in her thoughts, Buffy was almost at Stevenson Hall when a familiar figure suddenly crossed her path. She stopped in her tracks, valiantly resisting the surge of longing that flared up at the sight of him, narrowing her eyes in steely disapproval.

“Buffy,” Spike said, a hopeful look on his face. His expression grew grave, however, when he caught sight of the sling and scented her blood in the air. “You’re hurt.”

“What are you doing here, Spike?” she asked tiredly.

“On my way to see you. Are you all right? What happened?” He reached out to ghost his fingers over the bandage on her arm, only to have her jerk away angrily. He dropped his hand and nodded as though he’d expected her rejection. “Look, Buffy, I know that what I did was wrong –”

“No,” she interrupted him, shaking her head and holding up her good hand. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Buffy, please –”

“I mean it, Spike! I’m tired, and I’m sore, and I’ve just been through hell, so unless you’re looking for a beat down, just leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

“I’m sorry,” he tried, unable to just give up and let her go. “Buffy, really, I’m –”

“Goodbye, Spike,” she said pointedly, walking away from him without looking back. He didn’t follow her into the dorm.

Willow was at the library, according to the note on her desk, and Buffy was grateful for the solitude. Tearing off the neat bandages the Initiative doctor had put on her arm, she stripped out of her clothes and wrapped herself in a towel, padding down the hall to the girls’ bathroom. The hot shower eased her aching muscles and washed away the sweat and grime and demon blood. Little red burns were visible where the spitting demons’ acid had touched her skin, and her limbs were bruised from blocking kicks and punches.

Physically and emotionally exhausted, she fell into bed without bothering to put on pajamas or put a fresh bandage on her arm, her wet hair dampening the pillow. She was out cold by the time Willow got home.

*****

Spike was very, very drunk.

He considered it a success, really, since his goal had been to get so smashed that he couldn’t remember his own name, let alone how badly he’d screwed up with Buffy. After receiving a rebuff of his attempted apology, he’d headed back to his crypt to drown his sorrows, but even after draining every bottle he had stashed, he still found himself merely wading in the shallow end. Needing something stronger to dull the pain, he’d dragged himself to Willy’s and parked himself at the bar, running up a tab he couldn’t pay drinking pure grain alcohol. It was technically illegal in California, but that was the least of his worries.

“I’m scum,” he pouted to Willy, who seemed not the least bit interested. “I’m the filthiest scum that ever walked th’ earth, an’ I oughta go up to Buffy an’ tell ’er to stake me.”

“If it’ll shut you up, I’m all for that,” grumbled the Kznennitz demon nursing a beer next to him.

“Oughta go right up to ’er, yeah,” Spike went on, as though he hadn’t heard the demon. “Right on up with a – with my chest bared. Do your worst, Slayer!” He flung his arms out, crucifixion-style, knocking the demon’s beer into his lap.

The Kznennitz let out a roar, leaping to his feet and toppling his bar stool. Spike just started to giggle, bending over until his forehead was touching the bar. A moment later, he was yanked up by his collar, dangling with his feet several inches off the floor.

“Hey, watch it!” Willy chastised them. “We’re family-friendly now, remember?”

The demon just grunted in response and flung Spike over the bar, shattering bottles as he slid to the floor in a pool of broken glass.

“Ow,” Spike replied, but soon he was scrambling to his feet, somewhat unsteady on the slippery floor. “C’mon!” he challenged the Kznennitz. “Izzat the best you got?” He clambered on top of the bar and launched himself at the demon. They crashed to the floor, breaking a bar stool on the way down.

“Fellas, fellas, let’s take this outside, all right?” Willy fretted. “I got paying customers in here, and no one wants any trouble.”

Spike went flying through the air again, this time sailing through the closed door that led to the street. The demon lumbered after him, ripping away the jagged remnants of the door as he left.

“Uh, thank you?” Willy said, eyes wide.

Out in the alley, Spike laughed, flecks of blood staining his lips. “A’right, ya big oaf, lessee what you got.”

As it turned out, he had rather a lot, and Spike was way off his game. It didn’t matter though, because this was one fight Spike wasn’t aiming to win. Every blow gave him pain to concentrate on, pain to take his mind away from the desperate ache in his chest.

“Yeah, give it me good,” he rasped, throwing out half-hearted punches as the Kznennitz demon pounded him with his meaty fists. “Bet a hairy git like you’s never been in love, have ya?” Spike slurred. “Dunno what it’s like t’ have your heart broken, knowin’ it’s all your own fault.”

The demon threw Spike into the wall, and his head cracked against the brick. Still seeing stars, Spike stumbled forward, punching at the air where he thought the demon should be. A kick to the gut came from about forty-five degrees to the left, and he teetered unsteadily for a moment before falling to his knees.

“Nothin’ you do… could hurt worse ’n her,” he mumbled, just before losing consciousness and slumping to the ground.

*****

It was raining the next day as Buffy walked across town to Giles’ apartment. She wouldn’t have bothered, except Willow had mentioned that he was somewhat concerned by the way she kept disappearing for days on end without notice. She still hadn’t talked to him since she’d left to go after the Polgara with Spike, and although Willow had reported back that she was alive and the mission successful, Giles still seemed eager to see her.

She knocked on his door, soaked to the skin and shivering from the walk over.

“Buffy, good heavens!” he said, ushering her inside. “Didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

“No, I – I guess I forgot,” she said, her voice flat and detached. It hadn’t seemed to matter to her when she’d left the dorm; the rain suited her mood.

Giles disappeared upstairs, and then returned with a soft woolen blanket, which he wrapped around her shoulders. “You foolish girl, you’ll catch cold like that.”

Buffy hissed in pain as he accidentally bumped her wounded arm, and Giles glanced at her curiously.

“Buffy, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, but her tone was half-hearted at best.

Seeing through her protestation, Giles bundled her up in the blanket and led her over to the sofa, sitting beside her. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he instructed her gently.

She stared at him with wide eyes for a moment, and then it all came spilling out. The party and the morning after, her whole investigation, her growing relationship with Spike, the horrible revelations, culminating in the fight with Forrest. She was crying quietly by the end of it, her face buried against her Watcher’s shoulder.

“My poor girl,” he murmured as he held her. “The burden you’ve had to bear.”

“You’re not disappointed in me?” she asked with slight surprise. “No lectures about being a bad Slayer?”

“You are a wonderful Slayer,” he assured her. “The best I’ve ever seen. What happened to you wasn’t your fault.”

“And you’re not mad about the Spike thing?”

Giles sighed. “I’d say that I’m furious with him for taking advantage of you when you were out of sorts, and I should like to stake him for lying to you about his involvement. But quite honestly, Buffy, it seems he’s helped you more than any of us were able to, and for that, I owe him a debt of gratitude.”

“I know,” she said softly, his words mirroring her own feelings. “But I mean… you’re not mad that I got involved with another vampire?”

He gave her a small smile. “It seems it would be rather futile for me to try to prevent it. You cannot control who you fall in love with.”

She opened her mouth to protest that she wasn’t in love with Spike, but she remembered the heartbreak of the past few days, and the words died in her throat.

*****

Spike awoke to a constant dripping on his face, and briefly wondered if he’d stumbled into some sort of Chinese water torture. Before he could admit to himself that he probably deserved that, too, he slowly realized that the dripping was all over, not just on his face, and he was lying in the middle of an alley during a downpour.

His preternatural body clock kicked in, telling him it was well after sunrise, and he jerked himself to his feet as fast as his aching limbs would allow. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on one’s point of view – the cloud cover was thick enough to prevent him from burning up.

Battling against the sensation that his head was about four times its proper size, he slowly made his way out of the alley and back to his crypt, where he could better nurse his hangover. His rain-drenched coat felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, causing his shoulders to slump.

Without realizing where his feet were headed, he found himself going out of his way to pass by Giles’ apartment complex. He hesitated at the entrance to the courtyard, staring longingly at the fountain where he and Buffy had sat not that long ago. Where they’d had their second kiss… and their third, where he’d confessed his feelings for her, and where she’d made him indescribably happy by saying she wanted to be with him.

Bending down, he scooped up a small stone and flung it into the fountain with a frustrated, wordless cry. It landed with a splash, but the ripples were quickly obliterated by the heavy rain hitting the surface of the water.

Choking on his sorrow, Spike turned away from the courtyard, shoving his hands in his duster pockets as he trudged home.

*****

A/N: I'm leaving for DC tomorrow, but I'll try to get to all the comments in between conference events, and I'll update again before I go on vacation.