Chapter Sixty-One




“You have to take care of her?”

The scorn in Dawn’s voice might have felled a lesser man, but Spike stared back at her steadily, confident—if agonized—in the face of her criticism.

“Well, now. She doesn’t have anyone else to do it, does she?” His voice was bitter.

“That is so stupid,” she retorted. “You’re out of your mind! Do you honestly think it’s ‘taking care of her’ to do something that will ruin what she’s got with you? If you think she doesn’t have anyone else now, then what do you think will happen when you kill her trust and give her no choice but to toss you out on your ass?”

“You’re acting as if I have an alternative!” he bit back, his limited self-control snapping at the last. Tossed out on his ass…was that what he was destined to be?

“You do have an alternative!” she hissed. “And you’re just choosing to pay the electric bill instead of protecting what you’ve got with my sister.”

His hand itched to hit her, to knock her down, but he didn’t even raise it. Instead, he unlocked her bedroom door and wrenched it open with so much force it bounced back against the wall and left a nick in the plaster. He glanced back over his shoulder briefly—

“Just stay out of it, Dawn. Just stay the fuck out of it.”

—and then walked into the hallway.

By chance—or, as Spike saw it, incredibly poor luck—Buffy was walking down the hallway from her own bedroom. He paused just outside the doorway, and Dawn, who had been intent on following him and continuing their discussion, ran straight into his back, causing him to stumble forward.

“Buggering hell,” he swore, as he struggled to regain his balance. “Do you mind?”

Dawn started to say something in response—something sarcastic, no doubt—but she stopped so abruptly that Spike followed the line of her gaze to see what was wrong. She was staring at the bloodstained bandage on her sister’s neck. Her blue eyes darted from Buffy to Spike and then quickly back again.

“Buffy…” she whispered. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Buffy said quickly. “It’s fine. Spike just—we were just—nothing.”

Dawn’s brow furrowed, but it was clear from her sister’s demeanor that Buffy wasn’t upset by her injuries, and she was bright enough to know that whatever happened between them hadn’t happened out of hostile intent. Still, when she looked at him, Spike felt himself shrivel a little. Not because her glance was accusing or angry…but she seemed to know without being told. She seemed to be able to look right inside him and see all the cowardly feelings that had made him do it. He quickly looked away.

“What are you two doing, anyway?” Buffy was clearly eager to shift the conversation away from her neck.

“Doing?” Spike echoed blankly.

“Together, alone, when you are supposed to be downstairs getting a drink. Is something wrong?”

“’Course not, love. What’d be wrong?” He turned his back on her so she wouldn’t see the agitated look on his face. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll get that drink now.”

Both girls followed him down the hallway, talking, but it was Dawn’s voice that made Spike gnash his teeth in swift, impotent anger.

“Actually, Buffy, Spike and I…we were arguing.”

“Arguing?” Buffy echoed. Spike could hear the confusion in her tone, the curiosity, and he indulged in a brief fantasy of knocking Dawn down the stairs.

“What were you arguing about?”

“I was telling him that he should spend the night here, tonight. Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

“I think that’s up to him,” Buffy answered, as if Spike weren’t right there within earshot. “If he wants to stay, he knows he’s welcome. But seeing that it’s not even three o’clock yet, I think he’s got plenty of time to make up his mind.”

“But if we don’t argue about it now, odds are he’ll just walk out the door without saying anything about it.”

Buffy paused, clearly not liking that idea.

“Where were you planning to go?”

This question, of course, was directed at Spike. He sighed heavily and turned at the foot of the stairs, one hand resting lightly on the balustrade as he looked from one pretty, feminine face to the other. The expression in his eyes when he looked at Dawn was considerably different from the one bestowed on Buffy—it was almost murderous—but she merely smiled back triumphantly. Still, in spite of his anger, his mind wouldn’t stop circling around the words Buffy had said earlier.

He knows he’s welcome.

An open invitation, was that what she meant? Anytime he wanted? He hadn’t known that, not until just this moment, and suddenly he felt very tempted to say to hell with the eggs and the cave and all the rest of it, and to stay there with his girl. But he knew that he couldn’t. He had responsibilities.

“Got a poker game at Willie’s tonight,” he lied.

“A poker game?” Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Do you honestly think you should go to Willie’s, Spike? Someone is always getting into a fight there, and you still look so unsteady…like you’re dizzy.”

He was dizzy; his head hurt and he felt queasy. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.

“Yeah, well. It’s just a few vampires…maybe a coupla demons. I have to get my blood money somehow, right?”

“See!” Dawn barked to her sister. “Don’t you think he’s being an idiot? I told him it was dumb to risk his neck going to some stupid poker game when he’s so dizzy he can hardly stand.”

Spike shot her an annoyed frown. Not only was she continuing to push when he’d made it so abundantly clear he wanted her to stop, but now she was behaving as if she knew the first thing about his dizziness or what had caused it. It was obviously her way of trying to prevent him from doing something she considered needlessly self-destructive, and he was getting bloody tired of it. He narrowed his eyes.

“And then, I reminded Dawn that I’m a vampire and don’t need any mollycoddling from her or anybody else. I’d hardly consider it ‘risking my neck’ to play poker just because I’ve got a little bit of a headache. Or, a bloody concussion for that matter. It’s five-card stud, for Christ’s sake, not blue collar construction.”

But it was too late. Or, perhaps he was doomed from the start. At any rate, Buffy suddenly decided to join forces with her sister in the battle of wills.

“There’ll be other games, Spike. And we have plenty of blood in the fridge now; I made sure of that. You don’t have to worry about getting more money.”

“Don’t want to be living off you, love—” he began.

“You’re not!” She said it with such vehemence it startled him. Regardless, there were other excuses in his head, a dozen valid reasons for him to leave. But then her small, soft hand was cupping his cheek, and she was saying softly, “Spike…you’re more important than money.”

And that was when he knew he was defeated.

Nonetheless, the moment Buffy disappeared into the downstairs bathroom to get a fresh bandage for her neck—the moment he and Dawn were alone— Spike pounced on the teenager angrily. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded. “I’m supposed to be feeding the breeder tonight; the bitch won’t lay if she doesn’t get something to eat every couple of days. I took that bloke’s money, and now I’ve got to put in the work—”

“I know I can’t stop you from doing this,” Dawn interrupted quietly. “I know I don’t have the power over you that Buffy does. But there is no way I’d just sit on my butt and watch you destroy yourself. If I can get one night, maybe I can talk some sense into you…or maybe you’ll actually get some sense on your own. It’ll keep you from getting killed so soon, anyway.”

“God damn it!” he bit out, forgetting to keep his voice down. “I am a vampire! A fucking headache isn’t going to kill me!”

“It’s more than a headache, and you know it. If you met another vampire or demon along the way—if you got into a fight—you’d be toast. You can’t even walk a straight line, for God’s sake. How do you expect to make it all the way up to that cave? Anyway—” She hesitated.

“Anyway what?” he demanded.

“Spike, you don’t want to go, not tonight. Even a blind idiot could see that. You want to stay here with her. You’ve not been able to do that much and—and now—” She paused. “Well, it’s why you bit her, isn’t it? Because you wanted—”

“You don’t know anything about that,” Spike cut across her words angrily. “You don’t know anything—”

“Well, I’m not stupid. I know that’s why your head is messed up. The chip went off, didn’t it? I heard you shouting this morning…if you’d been playing some kind of bitey sex game, you wouldn’t have sounded so pissed off. Anyway, those marks on her neck…they’re pretty deep to be just play. I guess it means she’ll have a new scar for her collection.”

Not just a new scar; the only scar. His teeth had obliterated the others.

Mine.

“Well, of course I miss her when I’m gone,” he muttered gruffly. “Any man misses his girl when he spends a night away from her. But this sure as hell won’t be the first night I’ve done it, or the last, and I’ll survive. It’d be bloody stupid to forget my obligations just so I can play slumber party.”

“I don’t know why you think that,” Dawn shot back. “You’ve been forgetting everything else lately. Even eating.”

“Well, yeah. You got me there.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, but Dawn didn’t take the bait. Instead, she looked at him sadly.

“Anyway, you might be stupid, but you deserve tonight. You deserve to be with her…to spend time with her…” Her voice trailed away.

And although the rest of the sentence remained unspoken, the words hung heavy between them: Before things are over between the two of you.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




So, Spike stayed.

But it wasn’t the same as before; it wasn’t as good. Today, even being with her didn’t alleviate his anxiety. If anything, it compounded it. Borrowed time, that’s what this was, and he couldn’t enjoy a second because of that. He kept telling himself that he could make it under the wire, that one more paycheck would make all the difference, and she’d never even have to know about any of it. But he didn’t really believe that.

He lay on the sofa most of the evening, staring blankly at the telly. He listened to Buffy argue with her sister about what to have for dinner; he suffered through the unpleasant and vaguely smoky scent of Buffy cooking—and inevitably burning—whatever it was they finally decided to eat. She pushed blood at him afterward, but he couldn’t drink it. Although his vertigo had left him by then, his head still ached and the smell of burnt cheese sandwiches and scorched tomato soup made him feel slightly queasy. Mostly, he just wanted to sleep.

But he couldn’t. Not without her touching him.

Ever since she returned from London, Buffy seemed to be able to read his mind; she’d never been able to do that before. Was it because she’d met him while he was innocent and still open? Did it teach her how to read his eyes for the thoughts behind them? Or, could she have done it all along and was only now making the effort? It hardly mattered, given the result and the result was that she knew, without being told, how to give him exactly what he needed.

Long after the sun went down, he was still stretched supine across the sofa, his sweetheart sitting patiently on the edge of it, holding a school brochure in one hand while stroking his shoulders and chest with her other. He didn’t wake up until Willow and Tara returned.

Spike had forgotten about the witches entirely; they’d made it easy by disappearing for the past two days and avoiding him for weeks before that. Now, their sudden, noisy arrival startled him. He blinked his eyes and twisted his upper body, trying to catch Buffy’s arm as she slid off the sofa and walked out of his line of sight. She patted him with what he perceived as indifference, and it cut into him like a razorblade.

“Where on earth have you two been? I’ve been worried—” Although Spike hadn’t heard her mention either of her friends during their absence, Buffy certainly seemed to be telling the truth now. At least, the relief in her tone sounded genuine. Spike felt a sudden, sharp stab of jealousy. Because, he’d been with her all day and half the night before that…because she was all he could think about and the same evidently wasn’t true for her. She’d been talking to him and touching him, feeding him, kissing him…and all the while she was worried about a couple of bints who didn’t care two pins for her. The realization of it was so upsetting, he completely missed the witches’ answers.

However, he did hear what came next.

“We’re, uh, we’re not actually here to stay,” Tara said softly. “W—we—the reason we were gone—”

“We were looking for another place to stay,” Willow cut in.

“What?”

Spike climbed to his feet, not bothering to hide his smirk. This was a good thing; this was bloody great. Those bitches hadn’t paid a dime of rent since they’d been there; they bought groceries only sporadically. It was about sodding time they cottoned on and got the hell out. Buffy was better off without them leeching off her, poking their noses everywhere and giving disapproving looks whenever they caught her with him. If they wanted to move, he’d eagerly help them pack their shit.

“We found a student apartment, and we don’t even have to wait to move in, if you can believe it. Right near campus and pretty cheap.” Willow’s voice sounded hollow.

“We just think that maybe it would be better for you if we weren’t here,” Tara added gently. “You’ve got so much to worry about right now, without adding us to it. And—and the only reason we moved in to begin with was to take care of Dawn while you were gone. You’re back now, so it stands to reason that we should…uh…” Her voice trailed away.

It was Spike who broke the awkward silence that followed. He wasn’t only jealous now. He was angry about what he perceived as an empty threat meant to make Buffy feel guilty and a means to avoid paying the money they all knew the bitches owed her. He narrowed his eyes and said maliciously, “Yeah, good wishes and the like. When can she expect the check for your overdue rent?”

Willow spared Spike a single, withering glance—and Buffy a single hurt one—before turning and marching up the stairs. Tara, blushing and clearly embarrassed, her eyes fixed on the carpet, followed at a slower pace.

They had hardly turned the corner at the top of the landing when Buffy turned to Spike furiously. “Why did you have to say that?” she demanded.

“Say what?” he asked defensively. “The truth? It’s about bloody time somebody said it around here. You’ve been letting your friends treat you like a doormat for months now, and those two bitches are the worst ones to do it—”

“And it’s none of your business! God! Why do you always have to open your mouth and make everything worse?” Her voice was impatient, angry in a way he hadn’t heard in a long time. Spike winced at the sound of it and, even more so, at the words that followed: “You’re always messing everything up!”

She disappeared up the staircase after her friends, leaving Spike standing stunned in the entrance to the foyer.

What the hell had he done wrong?

His shock and confusion quickly gave way to hurt, and the only means he had of expressing it was anger. He savagely kicked the newel post at the base of the staircase, splintering the wood and effectively ruining Xander’s repair job. Then, he grabbed his duster from where it lay draped over the railing and pulled it on.

Drawn out of her room by all noise, Dawn suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. She was looking down at Spike with something that might have been fear. For him, not of him. Clearly. She watched him throw open the front door and just barely managed to call out before he stepped through it.

“Spike, where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” he snapped. He hesitated only a nanosecond, but it was enough time to allow Dawn to catch up with him before he was out of sight. She lunged down the steps and out the door, following him across the lawn and jogging to match his quick strides.

“I though you were taking the night off—” she began.

“Yeah. Well, looks like you were wrong, doesn’t it?” He wouldn’t even look at her. He was afraid that if he did, he would misplace all that anger right onto her, that, once unleashed, he wouldn’t be able to stop it before he said things for which he would never be able to forgive himself.

“Don’t do this—Spike—” She reached out to touch his arm, but he shook her off.

“Always messing everything up, am I?” he muttered, near tears in spite of his fury. “Make it all worse…”

“She was just annoyed with you,” Dawn insisted. “She can get snappy and bitchy sometimes; you ought to know that. It’s all Willow’s fault. Buffy didn’t mean it. She didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Not good for anything—never good enough for her. No matter what I fucking do—”

“Spike, why are you taking this so hard? It’s not a big deal! I mean, you bit her and she forgave you—”

On the edge of the cemetery now, he whirled to face her, his eyes glittering and half-mad in the dim glow of the streetlights.

“Belt up, Dawn. I’m warning you; don’t say one more bloody word about that. And get out of here.”

“No.”

He grabbed her forearms roughly, turning her so that her back was pressed against the wrought-iron archway that decorated the cemetery entrance.

“Don’t you get it? I don’t want you here! Push off!”

“I’m not leaving you,” she answered evenly, enraging him even more with her calm exterior. “Not when you’re like this.”

“Goddamn it!” he swore. But he released her and turned, continuing his journey to the hill-path that led to the cave. Dawn trotted at his heels, for the most part silent now, and he ignored her.

Up the path and through the woods—his boots slipped on the loose rocks, and he could hear Dawn struggling behind him—but Spike didn’t slow down.

The food for the breeder was kept in a metal bin just inside the mouth of the cave. It was some type of raw meat—horse, maybe—hacked into large, uneven pieces. It wasn’t refrigerated and, in the mild weather of a typical California December, it was beginning to turn. Spike didn’t care; it wasn’t his job to replace it. He grabbed a handful of the spoiled flesh and strode down the dark corridor, dragging a match-head along the stone wall as he did so. He lit a lantern that was bolted to the rock, and suddenly the cage was visible, looming in front of them.

“Hey, bitch,” he growled, kicking at the side of the crate. The resulting metallic clang echoed off the walls so loudly and for so long that, behind him, Dawn covered her ears with her hands. He did it again, this time drawing an answering snarl from the demon within.

“You hungry, you cunt?” Another kick. “You little motherfucking whore for hire. You want a nosh?”

He threw the meat at her, and a few chunks made it into the ventilation slats on the sides of the cage. Most of it, however, fell to the floor outside of her reach. The demon—hungry after two days without food—gobbled up what she could and then lunged against the wall of her prison, trying to reach the rest.

Spike laughed harshly; spoke to her mockingly as if she were a pet dog, “C’mon girl. That’s a girl. Come get it.”

Up to this point, Dawn had been watching him, too stunned even to speak. Now, she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back down the tunnel.

“Spike—stop—!”

He turned on her, erupting into his game face now, although his eyes remained no less tormented because they were gold. “Yeah, right.” His voice cracked. “Go on. Defend the caged bird, Dawn. Big Bad’s just fucking with everyone tonight, isn’t he?”

“What is wrong with you?” she shouted. “Have you gone completely out of your mind?”

He started laughing and couldn’t stop. Out of his mind. Jesus. He was out of his mind. For her. Because he loved her. He’d been out of his mind for weeks now…for months…years. A century. It was just that now it was finally beginning to show; he couldn’t control it anymore.

“Couldn’t hardly help it if I was, Niblet—”

Dawn hesitated. Spike could see the struggle plain in her eyes, but he didn’t understand it until she pulled back her hand and slapped him across the face. She used all the force in her arm—which, to a vampire, wasn’t much—and afterward she stood there, panting. Watching him.

His laughter wound down like a dying engine.

“Niblet…” Dazed, he looked around them—at the rotten meat on the floor, the indents in the wall of the demon’s cage, and the snarling, miserable creature inside of it—and his demon-face smoothed away. “Christ, I…”

“It’s okay,” she said softly. In another minute, her arms were around his waist. “It’s okay, Spike.”

But it wasn’t. She just couldn’t see that.

His chest was heaving against hers, painfully tight on the rise and fall, aching for something he couldn’t have. “You don’t understand, Bit,” he whispered hoarsely. “You don’t get it. She doesn’t love me.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she answered immediately. “Of course she loves you. Look at everything she’s done for you. She stood up to Giles and everyone. She takes care of you, makes you eat when you’re too stupid to do it yourself. She does love you…more than she’s ever loved…”

“Not enough, though. Not nearly enough.” His hand fisted in her long hair, and the grip was tight enough to hurt her. But she made no complaint, and because any pain he might have caused was unintentional, neither did the chip.

“How much do you want, Spike?”

“Everything. Hell, Dawn. I want—everything.”

“You’ve already got everything. It’s just…hard for her to show it. She didn’t mean anything before. She was probably just upset about Willow and Tara. You know Buffy; she wants everyone to like her. She wants everyone happy with her all the time.”

Everyone except me.

However, he did not say that aloud for fear that Dawn would grow tired of reassuring him. Instead, he stood silently, gripping a hank of her hair and bowing his face into the crown of her head. Slowly, his superfluous breathing began to return to its normal rhythm.

Dawn was awkwardly patting his back.

“You okay now?”

He opened his eyes, raised his head.

“No—”

“No?” she echoed. “What’s the matter?”

“Dawn…” His hand dropped from her hair to the wall, and he braced himself against it, suddenly overwhelmed by a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“…do you hear the cooling units running?”

Her eyes widened.

“No.” Then, again, “No, I don’t. Spike—!”

“Follow me,” he barked harshly, already breaking into a run. He weaved through the familiar rows of egg flats, jumping over a stack of boxes that half-blocked the generator that stood beside the cave’s entrance.

It wasn’t working.

“Shit,” he cursed. “Oh, goddamn buggering hell.”

Dawn was standing next to him, over him as he knelt beside the silent motor. “Need a flashlight,” he muttered to her, running his hands blindly across the metal surface. “’s over there somewhere…across the aisle, near the wall.”

She was back in an instant.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know—fuck, I don’t know.” Spike was getting desperate, getting nowhere. He didn’t know anything about mechanics or machinery. He glanced up at Dawn, wide-eyed with a sudden realization. “Shit, Niblet. You’ve got to get out of here.”

“What?” she choked. “Why?”

“You’ve got to get out,” he repeated, scrambling to his feet. “If they’re warm, they’ll have to be destroyed. If they’re warm, they might start hatching.”

“I’m not going to leave you here alone! If these things are as dangerous as you say, then you’ve got to get out, too.”

He could feel her watching him as he ran lightly down the rows of flats, stooping over each one almost without pausing; but he didn’t have time to argue with her. He was checking the temperature of the eggs, checking to see—

Warm...warm...warm...warm...

Oh, Christ—they’re all—

“Weapon. I need a weapon.”

There was a crowbar near the breeder’s cage; he used it to open the bottom slot when it stuck and he needed to collect eggs. Spike grabbed it and worked his way back to the end of the tunnel, swinging the bar from side to side like a scythe in a wheat field, smashing the eggs that flanked his path. Behind him, the breeder was violently slamming herself against the wall of the cage, agitated by the smell of the meat just outside her reach—or by the destruction of her young. Spike had no idea whether this type of demon laid her eggs and left them, or cared for them until they hatched. He didn’t care. The fuckers had to go.

“Dawn, didn’t I tell you to get your arse out of here?” Because she was still lingering in the mouth of the cave.

“Are you going to be—?”

“Just fine. I’ll catch up as soon as I’m done. Just—”

Dawn shrieked and he jumped back as something leapt out of the egg whose top he had just smashed.

“Bloody hell—”

It was fast and blended in with the shadows; all Spike could see was that it was roughly the size of an English bulldog and it had claws almost as long as its adult counterpart’s. He darted after it, lurching in and out of the stacks and swinging his crowbar blindly.

“Dawn, I said get the fuck out!”

“I can’t!” she cried back, just as his weapon crunched against bone. Spike looked up, and to his horror, he saw that she was standing on top of the generator, trapped by another young demon, who leaping up, snapping and clawing. He threw the bar like a javelin, driving it straight through the creature’s chest from a distance of fifty feet. But now his weapon was gone and more were coming.

“Don’t get down, Bit,” he snapped furiously as she began to do that. “They’re coming out over there; they’ll grab you before you hit the exit. Use the crowbar to keep them off.”

“But what about—”

“Do it!” He snarled around rapidly descending fangs.

Weapon, weapon…need a weapon.

There was a torch on the wall midway down from the entrance. Not lit, but then beggars couldn’t be choosers. He grabbed it and lunged for the nearest hatchling. There’d be no stabbing with such a dull weapon, but the torch worked fine for beating it to death. One good crack across the skull, and he was moving on to the next one.

Fortunately, he had destroyed most of the eggs already, and there were only about a dozen of the little bastards left to fight. He took them out individually and in sets, all with the easy brutality of a practiced killer. It wasn’t until he was finished that Spike realized he was shaking.

“Damn it if that wasn’t close.” He tried to laugh offhandedly, but it came out more as a hysterical yelp. The knowledge of just how close Dawn had come to being killed made his stomach writhe and for a moment, he wondered if he was going to be sick on the ground.

Slowly, he made his way through the corpse-littered passageway to where she still stood on top of the generator. She was staring straight ahead.

“Dawn, are you okay?” he asked, furrowing his brow. She looked so pale.

“My stomach hurts,” she whispered in a quivering voice.

And then she fell against him.

She weighed practically nothing, but when she dropped, her legs tangled with his, and Spike had to struggle to stay upright. The scent of blood was suddenly so strong that it overpowered everything else in the room. He pushed up her shirt, which was soaked in the source of the odor, but there was no need to search for the wound. It was right there in the middle of her abdomen, a long slit gaping open like a mouth, welling with red. Suddenly, blood was joined by the sharper smell of living entrails. When he looked, he thought he could see them in the depths of the wound, pulsing and slick—but still inside.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, God. Bit—”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~