Chapter Fifteen

The Slayer's house was in near darkness when Spike returned, one lone lit upstairs window telling him the sister had probably retired for the night. Still, Spike didn't feel like making himself at home in the living room. He'd survived too much to fall prey to the Slayer's rampant protective instincts, or be staked by a PMTing teenager, best to strenuously avoid the girl altogether. From inside he could hear voices, or rather one voice, too faint through the floorboards to make out what was being said. Presumably this was one of the marathon phone conversations American teens were famous for.

He nuked some blood as quickly and quietly as he could, and was retreating into his underground guest room when he heard footsteps on the stairs. They were loud and hurried and the vampire ducked out of sight and pulled the door closed behind him. The girl didn't follow him into the basement much to Spike's relief; the footsteps paused for a second as a handle turned with a click and then the front door was slamming behind her. The relief was short-lived when he considered what the Slayer's reaction might be on coming home and finding her sister absent but Spike didn't fancy his chances ordering the girl back into the house. And despite what his eyes and nose and sixth sense told him, the girl wasn't human and could presumably handle herself.

It was a long hour later he heard the front door open again. The Slayer's clear voice ordering her sister straight to bed let Spike know right off who was there.

"Are you going to stake him?" he heard the teen retort. At least, Spike assumed it was Dawn, though her voice was lacking the snide antipathy she'd displayed earlier in the day it was still familiar. Younger though, smaller, her tone more suited to a question such as 'are you going to tell?' Her sister paused long enough before answering for Spike to grow worried.

"I hope not," Buffy said eventually, the words so soft they barely made it through the basement door to Spike's eager ears. "Now go to bed, you've got a big day tomorrow."

The girl's footsteps were still tapping up the stairs when the basement door opened and the Slayer appeared. She stood at the top of the stairs and stared at the vampire a long moment, until Spike was almost wriggling with uncomfortable feeling. The tension built and built, but when she finally spoke it wasn't the earth shattering revelation Spike was beginning to suspect but a simple question.

"Have you seen Dawn?"

Spike blinked. "Didn't she just come in with you?"

"Earlier," the Slayer clarified, her voice carefully even. "Did you see her when you got home?"

"No. Heard her go out. Should I have stopped her?"

But Buffy had lost interest in his answer after the negative and to Spike's bafflement was dragging his fold out cot out from its position against the wall. Puzzled, the vampire ran his eye over the earth floor, half expecting some kind of trap door, but the Slayer kept dragging the bed towards the opposite wall. Obligingly, Spike caught the far end of the frame and helped shove it into place. Unnerved by the girl's strange and silent behaviour, he went with a joke.

"This really the time for a bit of feng shui?"

Buffy smiled grimly but didn't answer. She abandoned the bed for a stack of cardboard boxes along the cluttered east wall, rooting around until she finally pulled out a long coil of heavy duty chain. She flexed the heavy links between her hands as if testing a weapon as she turned back to Spike, and despite himself he shivered.

"Dawn says she saw you. That you went upstairs and... spoke to her."

"She's lying!" Spike blurted.

"I don't think she is," Buffy answered slowly. She lifted one shoulder diffidently in a lopsided shrug. "But then I didn't think you were, so what do I know?"

"I wasn't. I'm not."

"I believe you. Are you seeing my dilemma here?"

"Uh..." Spike was seeing the dilemma okay, but he wasn't seeing a solution in rearranging furniture and the Slayer's new weapon was an unsettling thing. Spike knew all manner of unseemly uses for it and none at all that might count as anyway good if you happened to be him.

He could hardly expect the Slayer to take his word over her own sister and Spike briefly wondered what he could have done to the girl to make her want to bring this down on him. The sense of vertigo that had started with Buffy's ominous pause as she'd talked to her sister was rapidly growing - Spike could almost feel the rug being pulled out from under his feet. The tension such that the natural urge to run was almost unconquerable, even though the Slayer was between him and the door. In the larger sense, she was standing in the closest thing to a safe haven Spike had and there was nowhere to run to.

"I'm sorry," said the Slayer softly. And she did indeed look regretful, but it didn't stop her from stepping towards Spike, chain in hand. "But I have to be sure."

Spike took an involuntary step back, and damnit all if she wasn't making him feel guilty, the girl looked so uncomfortable. And surely she wasn't intending to beat a confession out of him? Spike had been here long enough to realize that a spot of Slayer torture would damage her more than him. And Spike couldn't confess - he wasn't even sure what he was supposed to have done Three years of conditioning told Spike quite plainly what to do - keep quiet, take the punishment and hope to survive it. But three days of living had shown him merely surviving wasn't always worth it.

"You wanna be sure, Slayer, best you stake me now."

The girl rolled her eyes and caught his arm, propelling the puzzled vampire backwards until his legs hit the bed. "Don't be so melodramatic," she snapped. "It's only until Willow gets here and we can make sure you're... safe."

The Slayer leaned past him and threaded the chain through an iron hoop that was set in the wall. A few things fell in place for Spike, so quickly he couldn't stifle a laugh. The Slayer's serious demeanour and general air of regret, coupled with the conversation he'd overheard, had spooked the vampire to all sorts of dire conclusions, realising she only intended to chain him up was a tremendous relief. But his sudden, slightly hysterical, good humour earned him another searching glare from the Slayer.

"Are you going to fight me?" she asked sharply. "Because, kinda determined here and-"

"No!" Spike sat on the cot, held up his hands obediently for the shackles, and tried to explain himself in a way that wouldn't offend his gaoler. "I thought... that is I didn't... I just worked out why you moved my bed," he concluded lamely.

"Well I wouldn't make you sleep on the floor." She still sounded irritable, avoiding his eye, but she fastened his manacles carefully, left them so loose that if she hadn't fattened him up so much the last couple days he'd have easily been able to slide his hands out. And when she was finished she sat down next to him with a sigh.

"This gets weirder and weirder," the Slayer complained.

In another lifetime Spike might have pointed out it was her idea to start with the bondage, but he refrained. Girl looked harried enough without poking fun at her, didn't want to make her think he blamed her for chaining him up. If anything, he'd blame the little sis for making up tales about him.

"I am sorry," she said again. "I know I promised. But I can't... I don't take chances with Dawn."

"And I'm a risky proposition. Don't blame you, Slayer. Attacked you in your own home last time, didn't I?"

She got up swiftly, eyes narrowed in annoyance, and Spike wondered what had possessed him to bring that up.

"Who told you that?"

"You did. You said... In your bathroom... Remember?"

"Right."

And like that she was gone, leaving Spike cursing his big mouth. Neither of them noticed the key to his cuffs was sitting on the ledge by Spike's head.

********

When Dawn had burst into the Magic Box with her dramatic declaration, Buffy's first thought was, predictably, 'what have I done?'. And her conscience, already uneasy, quickly told her she'd sent a potentially very dangerous vampire home alone to her defenceless little sister, and this was All Her Fault. And as she'd listened to Dawn's garbled account of their conversation her conscience helpfully added that he could be anywhere by now and, if what he'd hinted to Dawn about the chip was true, doing anything.

Immediate action was obviously required. Hunt Spike down and make sure he wasn't killing again. And hope the hunt kept her too busy to think too hard on what the 'making sure' might entail. That plan was knocked on the head when they got within sight of the house and Buffy could sense Spike - right where he ought to be.

Dawn, in another of those one-eighties Buffy was coming to expect, had subtly defended the vampire for most of the walk home. She'd chattered hopefully about brainwashing spells and split personalities, had alluded to Willow being able to fix him, and not once, until they'd placed Spike and the Slayer herself stood down from battle mode, had Dawn admitted the possibility of imminent stake-age. Buffy couldn't blame her, she didn't want to believe Spike could ever be a threat to Dawn either, and not just because Spike must know that hurting her sister would be the cruelest way of hurting Buffy herself. And he hadn't hurt her, a big point in his favour, maybe the only point. But that didn't change the hard truth - if Spike was dechipped and running round Sunnydale there was only one possible ending.

But there was Spike, in her basement. Whatever else addled his brain right now Spike wasn't stupid. He must have known Dawn would go rushing off for the cavalry and to stay in her house, after threatening the Slayer's sister, was beyond stupid. Out and out suicidal. So Buffy allowed herself to give her sister's hopes some credence, maybe Spike was a problem that could be fixed with research rather than slayage.

Though now, lying in her bed, Buffy had no idea how. Her head hurt from trying to believe so many contradictory facts simultaneously.

If Spike had been faking amnesia for the last three days, Buffy would eat her hat. If Spike, the one she knew, could stick to an intricate plan with patience and some grade A acting, Buffy would wash that hat down with the rest of her wardrobe and the closet she kept it in. But he'd known things he couldn't when speaking to Dawn.

If Dawn had still been hostile to the vampire, Buffy might even have considered that she'd made the whole thing up. She was willing to believe almost anything if it gave her a rational explanation and Dawn had wanted him out of the house. But the teen had been so shaken, and at the same time so eager to deny that Spike could really mean her harm, that it was easy to see she was just as worried as Buffy. When she'd checked on Dawn after her shower, her sister had been relieved to hear Spike didn't even remember talking to her, and voiced no objection to 'that psycho killer' still sleeping in their basement. And Dawn wasn't stupid either, she must have known Buffy might stake him, even in the midst of a fearful sulk she wasn't capable of murder.

And the Spike she'd just chained up, the one she couldn't imagine threatening her sister, well he'd known things he shouldn't too. So now even Dawn's more inventive theories were nixed one way or another. If there were two Spike's running round, a-la Xander and the rod of split personalities, they would have met and killed one another when her Spike returned to the house. If the vampire was suffering a severe case of Jekyll and Hyde, then how had he known what happened in Buffy's bathroom? And if he remembered perfectly, if it was all an act, then why couldn't Spike have said something more convincing than claiming she'd told him?

Her brain kept going back to that stupid little lie in the basement. Buffy had been more irritated than suspicious until that moment, had assumed Dawn or Anya had been filling him in on things they couldn't understand. If it had been a slip, then why try to cover by saying the one thing she knew wasn't true? If it wasn't a slip, if there was some innocent explanation, then why lie at all?

And Buffy knew he wasn't faking. Her Spike, the non-meek version, might have had the brass balls to threaten her sister then sit in her house as if nothing had happened, but she was sure he didn't have the acting ability to be anything other than the cocky aggravating bastard he was. Or the reason. Afraid her wishes might be blinding her, Buffy forced herself to consider the possibility that this was all some crazy scheme of Spike's, but if so it was utterly senseless. And went against every single thing she knew about the vampire. She couldn't dismiss the possibility that Spike might have left Sunnydale wanting her dead. But to imagine him coming after her in such a convoluted way, for no discernable benefit, well that was bizarre even for a girl who lived on the hellmouth. And if this was a plan of Spike's, it involved a degree of self-mutilation Buffy didn't like to think about.

No-one knew better than Buffy the lengths Spike could go to if he thought the reason good enough, but there was no reason. If he'd wanted revenge he'd had opportunity. And if this was his weird stalkerish way of worming himself back into her good graces, he'd have left her sister well alone.

An hour of tossing and turning and objective thinking brought Buffy to the conclusion her instincts had reached immediately - the whole idea was nonsense. Something Else was at work here. And Willow would have to work out what that Something Else was, because Buffy had given it her undivided attention and a good portion of her beauty sleep and she had zip.

If Willow had been hoping to ease herself gently back into Scooby life, she was in for a rude shock when she landed on American soil tomorrow. The problems Buffy was planning to dump in her lap were piling up thick and fast. But shifting the burden didn't help Buffy sleep. Willow wasn't here now and however Buffy tried to twist it, Willow wasn't responsible for the vampire chained up in her basement.

The Slayer refused to feel guilty about that. Spike could be dangerous and not even know it, and he was indisputably out of his right mind. Anything could be about to happen and precautions had to be taken, if only for Buffy's peace of mind, to mollify her sense of duty. She'd bolted all the doors and windows to guard against a second Spike - though bolts might not prove a barrier they would at least make enough noise for an early warning system. But Buffy couldn't go to sleep if there was even the remote possibility that Spike might sneak upstairs and kill her sister, whether he was aware of doing it or not.

But then, she couldn't sleep anyway. And if it wasn't guilt keeping her awake then at least a certain empathy for the vampire she'd chained up. He'd seemed to take her sparse explanation at face value, hadn't objected to the shackles, but he must be wondering what she intended to do next. Wondering and worrying. And it wasn't like Buffy had clearly explained herself, not least because she'd no clear idea herself what was going on. She'd not wanted to talk to him, not at all really, right then, so soon after thinking about killing him. But it would ease his mind if she shared what she did know and possibly, if Buffy managed to ask the right questions, Spike might even have some answers for her.

And if she wasn't going to get any sleep anyway, she may as well unchain him. Spike couldn't very well go on a killing spree with her sitting right there in the living room. And okay, maybe she felt a tiny bit guilty. Buffy had the kind of conscience that could simultaneously blame her for not staking a vampire and not being kinder to him.

So two hours after getting into bed Buffy gave up on sleep and got up again, got dressed. She was opening her bedroom door when a noise froze her in her tracks and, listening hard, she heard the unmistakable click of the basement door closing. The Slayer was still frozen on the spot when the front door banged shut behind Spike.