This chapter PG, but the whole series is very much NC17.

Disclaimer: Fox, Joss, Mutant Enemy...all those wonderful people (some more than others) own the characters and shows. I'm just borrowing for some fun.

* * * *

"Ow."

"Hush up. You've practically got a tree in your stomach." Buffy brushed a stray hair from her face before returning to her rough examination of the broken wood. The branch that projected from his wounded body had to be nearly five inches in diameter and seeing as it was a tree branch, it wasn't the slightest bit smooth.

"Precisely why it hurts!" Spike's hands curled into fists, his anger at his unfortunate situation and at the Slayer's brutal treatment increasing with each passing second.

Buffy stopped and gave the vampire an irritated look. "Do you want me to take it out or would you rather I leave and you get the honors?"

Spike scowled, debating for a moment in his mind whether it would be more painful to gather the strength to remove the wood himself or to swallow his pride and let his mortal enemy do it for him. It was a tough decision to make. A bolt of pain shot from his stomach and straight to his brain, forcing Spike to decide quickly. "Take it out already."

"This *will* hurt," Buffy said, sympathetically. Gripping the chunk of wood in both hands, Buffy braced herself and then yanked it out.

Spike let out a cry of pain that could be heard for miles.

* * * * *

"You want to explain what happened?" Buffy handed a cup of blood to Spike then knelt down in front of the couch, opening a bottle of disinfectant and drenching a cloth with the cleansing liquid.

Spike glared at the offensive container of blood, hating the fact that he was hungry enough to accept *animal* blood from someone he should be fighting and eventually killing, not having a conversation with while his wounds were cleaned and dressed. "You were there. I was attacked by a dozen angry demons and impaled on a fucking tree branch!" Fighting the sickening feeling in his healing gut, Spike took a tentative drink of the blood the Slayer had taken from a local butcher on the way back to her place.

She examined the wound with her eyes, trying to see where pieces of wood still remained. "Yeah, but I can't fully enjoy it if I don't know 'why.'"

Spike yelped as Buffy dabbed at his abraded skin with the cloth. "It's not gonna get infected, woman. Lay off!"

"Oh, stop being a baby. I have to get all the wood out. Unless you'd like to spend the rest of eternity with chunks of wood in you..." Leaving the last sentence hanging, Buffy smiled as Spike accepted his fate.

"Of all the people who could have come to my rescue, it had to be you." He downed the rest of the blood before putting the empty container down on the couch beside him. The small apartment barely had enough room for a bed, a sink and a couch, there certainly wasn't any room for a table...or a trash can, it seemed. "Why the bleeding hell are you in L.A., anyway?"

Buffy's face reflected pain for a brief moment before her composure was regained and she continued with her pestering. "Come on, tell me your story," she whined.

Not missing her sudden change of subject, or the pain he'd seen in her expression, Spike sighed. "It was Drusilla, alright? She was pissed that I took her away from 'Daddy' and convinced a bar full of demonic thugs that I needed a good thrashing." Spike hissed as Buffy used a tweezers to pluck a few stray splinters from his body.

"And here I thought I didn't like her..." Buffy swiped at his skin with the now-bloody cloth, looking for any wood that may have escaped her. Most of his wound had begun to heal, closing up on it's own thanks to an incredible healing ability generally known only to the superhuman.

"Are you bloody well finished yet?" Spike growled.

"Yes, Spikey's all better now. Next time, I suggest you run, and somewhere without trees."

"Ha ha," Spike said dryly.

"Well, you'll survive…unfortunately. I've got places to be." Buffy wiped her hands off on a towel and attempted to straighten her hair without the assistance of a mirror.

"Like where?"

"What do you care?"

"I don't," Spike replied, bothered by her sudden change and the feeling that somehow he really did care.

"You can stay here until you have the strength to move, but I suggest you leave as soon as you can. Or I'll put the next piece of wood into you, and I won't miss your heart."

* * * * * *

Buffy returned from a long shift at the diner she'd been working at for the past week. It wasn't an ideal job to be working, but it gave her enough money to pay for rent and some food. Upon entering her small apartment, she wasn't surprised to see that Spike was still there.

Still, she couldn't stop from asking, "Why haven't you left yet?"

"You said I could stay until I have the strength to move...I don't yet." Spike was sprawled out on the couch/bed that took up a large part of her apartment.

"Weakling." Buffy grabbed a water bottle from her purse and took a drink. "Only one more container of blood left. You want now or would you rather save it?"

"Save it," Spike answered her as he dropped his legs to the floor and sat back on the couch. He ignored his need for the blood, not sure he could get more from the Slayer or by himself in the near future. The hole in his stomach was healing nicely, but it had done some serious damage and his body wouldn't let him forget that.

"So," he began, patting the seat next to him. "I told you my story. What's yours?"

Buffy nearly choked on her water, finding his interest in her situation startling. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm kinda stuck here until this hole in my gut heals enough that I can walk. I'm bored...amuse me."

Strangely compelled to talk to someone about the problems her life had been filled with over the past few weeks, Buffy considered the plusses and minuses of talking to Spike. Despite all the negatives, he was better than talking to herself. "It's kind of a long story..." she said quietly as she sat down beside him.

"Got plenty of time."

Hours passed as Buffy told Spike about everything that happened from the moment she was expelled from her school and home to the night she found him passed out hanging from a tree like some sort of a sick ornament. She even went as far as to explain how her guilt led to rescuing him, although she immediately covered it with the excuse of wanting to kill him herself.

Buffy finished off the rest of her water after she had finished telling her long and rather sad story of her recent life events. She waited impatiently for his reaction, not sure what she could expect from her enemy.

"You have to go back."

Taken aback by his sudden words, Buffy's eyes widened. He had remained completely silent the entire time she had spoken, keeping eye contact with her most of the time, except for the occasional glances down at his hands. "Who are you, my guardian angel?"

"No, your guardian angel's in hell right now, or did you forget?"

"Fuck you!" Buffy shouted. She jumped to her feet and immediately regretted ever helping the blond annoyance in her life. How stupid had she been to think she could have trusted him to listen to her?

Spike pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain that radiated through his whole body. "I tried to be nice for once, pay you back for helping me out and you insist on being a bitch." Spike turned and headed for the door, stopping when he heard Buffy's quiet voice.

"I'm sorry," Buffy said again, louder this time. "I miss him, and I don't want to go back to the nothingness Sunnydale has to offer me."

"It's not about what it has to offer you. It's what you have to offer it."

Buffy shook her head and laughed quietly. "You're becoming a sap. Guess that's what happens when a vampire helps a Slayer."

"Well, this is the last fucking time. You Slayers are more bleeding work than you're worth."

Buffy's face scrunched up in confusion. "What am I going to do in Sunnydale? I've been kicked out of school, out of my home, I killed my boyfriend and my friends probably think I'm dead."

The grin that appeared on Spike's face was uncontrollable. "And this is abnormal for you?"

"Shut up. You're not helping."

"Wasn't trying to." Spike shrugged. "Look, soon as this thing heals a bit more, I'm getting out of this town. I'm only offering once and this ends my debt to you. You want a ride to Sunnyhell, I'm passing through there on my way to wherever the hell I'm going."

Buffy's eyes shut for what felt like an eternity, her breaths coming slowly and deeply as she considered her decision.

Finally, she nodded. "Okay."

**************

Spike rushed through the front doors of the mansion, hiding behind the security of one thick door as Buffy took her sweet time getting inside. The sun had just begun to rise as he parked the car out front and started a mad dash for protection from the sun.

Buffy yelped as Spike barely avoided slamming the door on her arm. "You were driving. Not my fault the sun rose."

"No, it's just your fault I had to get another car, without any sun protection. If you hadn't of dragged me off to your place, I never would have left my car in that parking lot and it never would have been bloody towed away!"

Buffy pretended to ignore the last part of his comment, knowing as well as he that he had been in no condition to walk let alone drive a car anywhere that night. "You can survive one night at the mansion, you big baby."

"Watch it girl, now that your spirits are better, I might feel motivated to kill you."

Buffy gave him an annoyed look. He was good with the psychological and emotional phrases, but when it came to threats, his bite was worse than his bark.

"Buffy?"

Turning to the source of her name being called, Buffy suddenly became very pale. "Oh my god."

Wearing a similar expression of shock and standing at the top of the stairs was the last person she expected to see.

Angel.