Chapter One

For four hours, Angel stared through the window into Buffy’s room. How could he even be thinking of doing this? He should just stake Spike and sweep up the dust. The vampire he hated more than any other, was in love with Buffy. And he looked like hell too. That thought caused him to happily smirk. Willow had explained that Spike hadn’t moved from that chair, not even to feed, in the four weeks since he'd found Buffy. What the hell had happened? He needed to know more.

“I need blood,” He told Willow, but didn’t turn to look at her. She'd been sitting in the chair behind him.

“The thermos on the table is fresh, but we can't get him to take it. It’s even human, we bought it from Willy’s old place. So… does this mean you’re going to help?” Wilow’s hopeful expression pleaded with him.

“I’m not promising anything. I just need to know what happened.” He was still staring at Spike through the window.

Angel walked into the room with slow purposeful steps until he stopped right in between Spike’s chair and Buffy’s bedside. She looked like she always did one of the hundreds of times he had watched her sleeping. Like she would wake any second. He silently begged her to wake and tell him that Willow was wrong. After a few minutes, he turned and his right hand shot out and violently met with Spike’s left eye sending him out of the chair and a few feet across the room.

Spike took several seconds to recover, but he eventually sat up and inched back to the chair that Angel had righted, and stared again at the floor. Angel watched this in curious fascination. Spike had never been one to back down from a fight, and that was what Angel wanted right now. He wanted to beat Spike until his brain leaked out. He gave Spike another right, but Spike just sat there, unfazed. Angel turned and stared out the window. The sun would be up soon. Maybe he could just throw him outside.

“I’m not leaving them.”

It was soft whisper Angel didn’t think he’d heard. He glanced warily at Spike.

“Do what you like, I’m not leaving them,” Spike said flatly.

Angel looked hard at Spike, deciding the newly souled vampire was definitely in the land of the insane. Them? Them who?

“It’s my fault you know. I shouldn’t have let her patrol. Not like that. My..fault...” Spike was still looking at the same spot on the floor.

Angel sucked in a sharp breath in anger. Ok, so Spike had hurt Buffy somehow. But what did he do? Angel needed to know. He picked up the thermos and threw it in Spike’s lap. “What happened Spike?” Angel bit out, “What did you do to her?” Spike didn’t touch the thermos and for several seconds Spike didn’t answer either.

“Pentain....for her birthday” Spike finally uttered.

“The Spell?” Angel asked. “You did the Pentain Spell? That doesn’t make sense. Buffy’s human, Spike. That spell only works on vampires.” Angel shook his head, Spike wasn’t responding and was looking much less sane than usual, and besides, Buffy’s birthday was a few months ago, not four weeks ago.

“SPIKE! It’s a 1 day spell for vamps, there’s got to be something else. Spike…what. did. you. do?” Still no reply.
Angel turned and stared back at Buffy.

“Do you hear them?” Spike finally whispered.

“Hear what, Spike?”

“Little drums, pounding away. Beating in my head. Reminding me of what I did to her. It’s my fault, my fault...my....” Spike had trailed off as tears began to emerge from his eyes.

“Spike, you’re not making any sense here. You’re starting to sound like Drusilla.” Yep, Spike was definitely in la-la-land. What the heck was he talking about? Drums? In his head? OK, he needed a break. Maybe he could find a doctor or nurse who could shed some light on the situation.

Willow had fallen asleep in the chair outside the room, so Angel wandered down the hallway and found a doctor at the nurses station, writing on a chart. Angel cleared his throat, “Excuse me, are you Buffy’s doctor? Can you tell me how she is?”

“Ms. Summers? Yes, I’m Dr. Miller. Are you family?” The doctor asked.

“She’s my wife.” OK, it wasn’t really a 100 percent pure lie, he thought. At the doctor’s shocked look he quickly added, “Uh, we’ve been separated. I just found out today she was here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps you can talk some sense into her brother? My nurses have given up trying to get him to leave the room. I fear he is taking this rather hard,” The doctor looked beseachingly at Angel.

“Brother? What br… oh… yeah… well, I’m not holding my breath. Now, about Buffy?” Angel hoped the doctor didn’t catch that slip.

“Well, Ms…sorry, Mrs. Summers, seems to be doing remarkably well given the extent of her initial injuries. She is still in a coma, but at the rate she is healing I’m still hoping she will come out of it sooner rather than later. She had a skull fracture, which is healing amazingly well, and all the rest of her wounds are all but gone. There is some residual swelling around the brain, which is why we are monitoring her more closely. Oh, and her pregnancy seems to have been unaffected by her trauma and is progressing normally.” He stated very matter of factly.

Angel stared at the doctor like he had just grown an extra head, and just blinked. Then before the doctor himself could blink twice, Angel was gone.

Angel ran back into Buffy’s room and came to a stop just inside the room. He looked back and forth between Spike and Buffy, taking giant gulps of air his lungs didn’t even need.

This couldn’t be right. The doctor must have been thinking of someone else. Then Spike’s seemingly disjointed words echoed through his mind. “Drums....”. Angel stilled himself and willed his lungs to stop. He closed his eyes and he listened.

There were a million sounds. Hospital sounds. Machines. People. Focus, damn it. OK. Buffy... Buffy’s heart beating.

But then he heard it.

There were three heart beats in the room. One strong, slow, and loud...and two very fast and much, much, softer ones.....