Chapter Sixteen

Never knew the words you said were true
Never thought you said just what you meant
~ Empty Chairs, Don McLean

When Buffy heard the sound of the front door — the previously barred front door that could only signal Spike's exit — she'd been frozen in shock. When she got it together to chase after him and found him not twenty yards from the house fighting a small pack of hooded demons, her primary feeling was relief. Of course he must have heard the demons and gone outside to deal with them; the Slayer gave herself a mental ticking off for not thinking of such an innocent explanation when she'd first heard the click of the door.

She didn't have time to ponder how he'd gotten outside. Spike wasn't fighting well, his movements slow and awkward, outnumbered and outarmed. Buffy didn't waste time on analysis before wading in to join the fight. And for the next couple of minutes, all she could see were the demons she was punching. Her opponents were many and armed with knives, but they lacked the strength to stand against a Slayer and damaged as easily as humans. And they didn't seem interested in a do or die stand; after an embarrassingly short scuffle they fled, though they were a dozen to two, leaving behind just one corpse.

The demon was even less intimidating in death. Pasty and thin under its cowl, eyes desecrated in a way that was disturbingly familiar to the Slayer. Spike was nearly doubled over, leaning against her neighbour's fence and clutching his stomach, but with great effort he straightened himself out as she approached.

"I'm okay. Good to go." The vampire waved her away with a hand and took a few tottering steps down the sidewalk.

"Whoa there, soldier." Buffy caught his shoulder and turned Spike to the direction of her house. It was a sudden enough movement to upset the injured vampire's precarious balance and Buffy found herself taking his weight. "The stoic bravery is all well and good," she joked lightly, "but you're going the wrong way."

Spike looked at her suspiciously, as if he might like to argue that point, but allowed her to lead him back to the house in silence. Buffy gave him little choice, half carrying him as she was, and even so the vampire was limping badly. They had to step around the hooded demon corpse on the slow journey to Buffy's front yard and she took another long look as they went past. It could almost be human, apart from the lack of eyes, and Buffy could've sworn she'd fought them before, though for the life of her she couldn't place the fight. Yet another mystery on which to set Willow to work; the demons could be coincidence and nothing to do with Spike's oddities. Given the notable lack of nightlife in Sunnydale recently, though, Buffy definitely thought they were worth investigating.

The vampire was quite deliberately not looking at her as Buffy propelled him in through the back door and into the kitchen. He kept his eyes on the floor as Buffy carefully peeled his hands away from his stomach, didn't react as she ripped his T-shirt open to look at the wound. There wasn't much left to rip, a knife had carved the diagonal of a Zorro logo across his shirt and the skin beneath. The lips of the wound were gaping grotesquely, as if Spike was preparing to turn completely inside-out, and now she could see a second stab wound in his side, smaller and deeper. Reaching for the first aid kit, Buffy offered the vampire some blood but he shook his head.

"You just stick me back together and I'll be off, yeah?"

"I'll be off?" questioned Buffy. "Is that British slang for 'not leaking intestines'?"

"Leaving," translated Spike flatly. "Departing. Exiting. Going. Trespassing no longer on your hospitality."

His voice was strangely hostile considering Buffy had just saved his ass — again — and the words not at all what she wanted to hear. But when she glanced sharply at the vampire, he was still looking at the floor, clutching tightly at the kitchen counter for support and definitely not well placed for an escape attempt.

"I think not," answered Buffy with forced lightness. "Especially if you want to be taking your innards on that little stroll."

She started rooting though a jumble of gauze and bandages for something big enough to repair a bisected vampire, but her attention was dragged back to Spike as he exploded.

"Well bugger what you think!" Spike met her eye then, face hard and determined and a little desperate—Buffy almost flinched from the sudden wash of unpleasant memory. "If you can't make up your bleeding mind I'll think for myself, thank you very much. You tell me to fuck off then you wanna play Florence - well screw you, Slayer, I'm not a fucking stray dog! You wanna keep me around for the next kicking then best you get an urn to keep me in!"

Buffy was stunned speechless by this doubly unexpected assault. The same vampire who had let her chain him up without a word of protest was now screaming at her for no reason that Buffy could see. And he didn't sound like either of the Spikes she'd grown used to. In fact, he sounded like Dawn in one of her more dramatic snits, one short rant away from bursting into tears and wailing about the unfairness of life. She could only watch as Spike gritted his teeth against the pain of his wounds and forced himself upright.

"So what do you say? You want to finish this?"

Buffy waved the roll of surgical tape at him. Pointedly. "Do I look like I'm gearing up for a fight to you? You've gone completely- Oh. Oh!"

A sudden flash of inspiration sent Buffy racing for the basement door, but a flick of the light switch proved her brainwave false. There was no sign of another, meeker Spike waiting patiently in the basement, only two open manacles lying on the cot.

"Sorry," she said absently as she walked back into the kitchen. "I just thought for a second... Never mind."

Spike's little tirade had shocked the Slayer but it was still impossible to see him as a threat as he squared up to her unsteadily under the fluorescent kitchen lights. He looked so pathetic that she couldn't even manage to stay angry. He was either dangerously unstable or just as confused as Buffy herself and she didn't know which, didn't trust her own judgment; she just wanted to get him safely back under lock and key for Willow’s inspection. With stronger manacles, obviously.

"There was this one time Xander got split in two," she explained, mostly for something to say that wouldn't inflame the vampire further. "Dawn reminded me earlier. There were two Xanders, one had all his good traits and the other... I was just checking your better mannered self wasn't... y'know. You don't really want to fight, do you?"

The vampire slumped back against the counter with a defeated little sigh. "No. Course not. Just..."

"It's okay, I get it." And Buffy thought she did. She'd promised he wasn't a prisoner, after all, and gone back on that promise. She could hardly blame him now for being angry or for not wanting to trust her, though whichever way she twisted it he wasn't quite making sense. "But you have to understand it's not safe. I can't risk-"

"S'alright, Slayer. I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you. I just want to split before the sun comes up."

"And let me list the ways that's not going to happen."

Spike gaped at her, actually gaped, as if he'd expected her to just let him walk. Buffy was starting to wonder if they were even speaking the same language. "I'm sorry," she said, a little acidly. "Were the chains not a clear enough message for you? It might not be fair, Spike, but you're staying put until I've figured out what the hell's going on around here."

"I know what's going on. Clearly, I've driven you right ‘round the bend. And I'm mighty sorry for it Slayer, truly I am, but I can't take it back and I can't even remember, so this mindfuck's a waste of time, don't you think? Just get it over with. Do your fucking job because I'm getting tired of your shit!"

"My shit?" Was it really only hours ago Buffy was mourning Spike's lost ability to really piss her off? Looked like he just recalled exactly how to push her buttons. The Slayer went from puzzled and largely sympathetic to incensed in a split second. "My shit! You mean like busting you out of your little vampire brothel? Or saving your ass outside just a minute ago? Or maybe you mean taking you in and trying to be nice to you even though you're such a... a..."

And there the Slayer had to stop, finding there was no word in her vocabulary sufficient for Spike at that moment. She was so indignant she could hardy form words at all. For three nights Spike had kept her awake, worrying about him, mostly, what he might be feeling instead of what he might be up to. She'd felt guilty for chaining him up, though he was proving her quite right by being crazy and unpredictable. Even when he'd started shouting she'd tried to keep her cool, put herself in his shoes. This complete lack of gratitude was a slap in the face.

"What's happened to you is not my fault. I'm trying to help, when really, my job description begins and ends with the killing. You threatened my sister and you still get the benefit of the doubt and I should... I should... stake you!"

"That's what I said," interjected the vampire softly.

"Well I guess you're right then. Of all the..." But his quiet words had taken the wind out of Buffy's sails. Spike might be an ungrateful and crazy bastard but he was looking no happier than she felt. "Do you really want to be dust?"

"Can't stay, can't go. Only leaves the one option, really."

"Why can't you-"

"Guys!" Buffy whirled around to see her sister in the doorway, pyjama-clad and rubbing her eyes sleepily. "It's like, four o'clock in the morning — what’s with all the yelling? And, eew, Spike! Shouldn't that stuff be on the inside?"

The vampire put a self-conscious hand over the gash across his stomach, where blue-pink ropes of intestines were trying to escape into the big wide world.

"Sorry Dawnie," said Buffy, catching her sister's yawn as she spoke. "Spike went crazy... er. More crazy."

"So you thought you'd disembowel him? 'Cause - majorly gross. And should you really have all those guts? You don't digest stuff, right?"

Spike didn't answer, but switched his wary gaze to the younger girl and Buffy took the opportunity to corner him with the surgical tape. Despite his bravado of earlier, the vampire winced as she pulled his hand away for a second time and gave no argument as she tried to close the wound.

"There were demons," said the Slayer for Dawn's benefit. "Like monks, with knives. There's something bugging me about them, I do wish Giles was here. Anyway, Spike went out to fight them, or went out and... How did you get out, by the way?"

Spike narrowed his eyes at her and for a second Buffy expected more yelling, but it didn't come. Maybe, she mused, this was a new hybrid Spike, half old evil vampire, half new kicked puppy.

"You let me out," he enunciated slowly and clearly. "You told me to leave. You were quite emphatic on that point."

The Slayer digested that as she finished her rudimentary first-aid with a few strategically placed strips of tape. It was either a stupid lie or another clue, and Buffy had so many clues she felt like she should be able to make some sense of them. But the jigsaw pieces didn't fit, didn't even resemble each other. Really, she needed Giles' brain, because Buffy's own was still trying to figure out the demons she'd chased off earlier. The ones that had seemed far keener to be fighting a vampire than a Slayer. That had seemed so familiar.

Trying to look at the big picture made her head hurt. Like staring at a Magic Eye and seeing only dots. Every individual point was swimming in front of her eyes and she couldn't see even the outline of a pattern.

********

Getting stabbed had cheered Spike up, just a little.

After the Slayer had — in no uncertain terms — turned him out, there'd only been an up to go, really. At least during that brief fight Spike had been in control of his own destiny. He'd been rusty, and stabbed, and it was looking to be a very short destiny indeed, but he'd definitely been in charge of it. Then the Slayer had saved his arse again. And Spike was grateful she'd stopped looking at him with that trembly-lipped venom, but as far as the saving thing went, he'd rather resented it.

Bitch was doing a number on his head. All smiles and concern, luring him in, waiting for the second he started to feel comfortable, safe, then bam!, there was the seething hatred. And maybe she could flick the switch back a minute later and pretend nothing had happened, but Spike couldn't. She'd suckered him in good with her solicitous attention then flayed him with mere words and as much as he might deserve it, Spike wasn't stepping back on that rollercoaster, not even if the alternative was a staking. He'd just faced death, after all, had been resigned, more or less. Didn't have a better plan or a better option, was the sad truth. Hell had to be better than this.

Trusting the Slayer had been a big mistake. Putting his trust in anyone or anything was a mistake; hoping, even — because Spike was all out of bounce, had lost the resilience to pick himself up after each disappointment. But hope was a hard thing to deny and everybody, even vampires, it turned out, wanted to believe in something. So Spike had been letting himself believe that she genuinely cared for him, that it was the moment in the shower that had been the anomaly, that he'd made more of it in his head than the reality of a brief bad temper. Even while his conscious mind had been bracing for impact, a part of Spike had put his faith in Buffy.

So no, he wouldn't be suckered in again. Except he kinda was. Sitting in her kitchen ten minutes after saying his forever farewells to the Summers' residence trying to tell himself that her patching him up meant something, when really he knew it meant she’d just swallowed her revulsion long enough to stick the fake smile back in place. Wasn't even doing it on purpose, far as Spike could tell. He'd been right the first time - he'd driven her clean ‘round the bend. Got the stupid notion into her head that she was obliged to help him, had repressed the hate so hard it was like she didn't even remember screaming at him in the basement. That couldn't be healthy. And Spike couldn't stay where he was causing so much harm, where he was so little wanted. Where the perils of hope lurked around every corner.

So Spike had put his foot down - time to end this one way or another and maybe it was best for both of them if she'd just bloody well stake him. But damnit all if she hadn't ignored him. Okay, there'd been a little shouting, Slayer'd seemed indignant that he was growing his balls back, but hardly the fatal showdown he'd been expecting.

And now he was sitting, bemused, in the middle of an impossible domestic scene while the two sisters bustled and bantered around him. It was all so enticing. There was nothing Spike wanted to do more than sit and soak up the company, let himself feel at home here, like he hadn't fallen for that trick twice before. The last straw came when the youngest finished boiling her potions and handed him a mug of steaming chocolate. Spike was stuttering his thanks before he remembered he'd had enough of this insanity and enough of pretending it was normal.

"Are you people all on drugs?" He demanded, and the words came out louder and harsher than he intended. The Slayer pulled her attention away from the first aid box she'd been repacking and took a protective step towards her sister.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're both bloody schizophrenic! If looks could kill this little'un would've melted me into a puddle this afternoon - now she's bringing me cocoa!"

The two girls exchanged a quick glance and the youngest shrugged. "I think the word is 'ambivalent'," the Slayer answered for her sister.

"And you!" Spike continued. "One minute you're chaining me up, next you want me out of your town and off your fucking plane of existence, now you're patching up my boo-boos as if you didn't hate me down to the last molecule of dust. Ain't right, Slayer, but you're both chattering away s'if everything's fine and dandy - and you say I'm crazy!"

The Slayer was keeping herself carefully between her sister and the vampire, but her indignation of earlier was lacking. She cocked her head on one side and gave Spike a puzzled stare. "You are crazy," she said firmly. "And besides, I think you might be imagining us."

"That's what I thought at first," he snorted. "But you know what? I'm not this fucking twisted."

"You're not imagining me," put in Dawn. "I'm sure I'm really here."

"No," the Slayer corrected. "Not now, before. He said I told him to leave but I didn't. I chained him up to stop him leaving. And there was this other thing that he said... that I said... But I didn't. So it must be-"

"But didn't you chain him up? He imagine the key?"

"I don't know! Maybe it's... magic? It wasn't me, that's the point."

"And then this 'magic' turned itself into Spike and came and threatened me?"

"Maybe," returned the Slayer defensively. "It would explain how he was wearing his coat when it was still at the Magic Box. Or maybe you imagined-"

"That's so lame! We live on the hell mouth and your best guess is imagination?"

And just like that Spike was invisible. He watched from the sidelines as the two girls argued back and forth, half sisterly bicker, half serious debate. Slayer was saying she'd never thrown him out, he got that much, but Spike was withholding judgment until they reached some kind of conclusion. He wasn't about to let himself feel safe when it might still turn out that the Slayer was just gone in the head. The vampire didn't really understand why the need for debate at all, he could see one perfectly simple solution, but still he joined in.

"She left the key behind." His words interrupted Dawn's list of imps and goblins that could shapeshift and reminded both girls he was still there.

"What's that?"

"When you chained me up, you left the key behind. When you came back you just pointed it out, I unchained myself."

"Buffy?"

The Slayer shrugged, somewhat abashed. "It's possible," she conceded. "The key part, anyway. I don't remember what I did with it, so... But that just proves my point — no one let him out. He imagined me."

"Buffy! You say that word one more time and I swear— This isn't Narnia, you know. And if you never unchained him it could be a ghost. They can't touch stuff, right?"

"Not currently dead," the Slayer pointed out. "And if I were a ghost, I don't think I'd want to spend my after-life messing with Spike. Why would any ghost want to haunt a vampire?"

"Well duh, why do ghosts haunt anybody? And didn't Angel have ghosts that one time? When he went a bit crazy?"

"He wasn't forget-who-he-was crazy. And they weren't ghosts..."

The Slayer trailed off into a thoughtful silence, leaving her sister to carry on the argument single handed. Spike let her rattle on about manifest spirits and glamours and every other idea that popped into her busy little head before pointing out the obvious.

"Why do you care?" he asked bluntly. This speaking-your-mind thing was proving addictive and Spike was beginning to wonder how he'd done without for so long. There was a certain freedom in giving up. When you hit bottom you couldn't make things any worse by running your mouth.

Dawn rolled her eyes in her patented 'duh' gesture before answering. "Well, Spike, sometimes the evil things that pop up in Sunnydale are evil. They try and destroy the world, which is bad, and—"

"So slay me. Any other Spikes pop up giving you lip, slay them too. Sooner or later you'll all be Spike free and happy."

"But you'd be dust," the teen objected, for all the world like that wasn't something she'd proposed herself several times. The Slayer herself didn't seem to be listening at all, taking an absent-minded sip of her cocoa and staring into the middle distance.

"Yes," Spike agreed patiently. "I'd be dust. Problem solved."

The girl opened her mouth but no words came out. Didn't have an argument for that one, apparently. Spike met her eye evenly and waited for her to agree.

"Verruca!" Buffy announced, startling the vampire.

"Verruca?" questioned Dawn.

"Yes. No. I mean Eureka! I mean, by Jove I think I've got it. Or something." She smiled smugly at her sister. "I've figured it out."

TBC....