He was sitting in my chair with his feet propped up on the desk, his hands behind his head, and the sun setting across his face…again. I could kill him. If I had really wanted to, I could have answered his wishes. But the actual WANT to kill him had faded years ago, and now that he had what we … well, I, had been fighting for for so many years, I wasn’t going to take it from him. He deserved it, no matter what he thought, about not deserving it and not wanting it. I was jealous, envious, damn right pissed off, in the beginning, when the chips had fallen and Spike had come out as what the Powers thought of as deserving of the greatest gift a vampire could be granted, you know besides Buffy…but that’s a different kind of gift…and a different story. That first breath that he had taken in the alley that rainy night was so bitter sweet I can still taste it. The sound of the blood that had once been borrowed and not unlikely to be pig’s, rushing through his veins had made my skin quiver in want, to just launch at him and drain it all out of him, just to see if it still tasted of pig’s blood, or if it would taste human.

*****

I had slid down the dead dragon’s neck with grace, or what I’ll call grace because there wasn’t any one around to see me stumble when I hit the asphalt, that was oddly enough softer then the hide of the dragon. I was wondering what we were going to do with all the bodies, because there were so many, when I saw his body. Illyria was holding him, with the rain I couldn’t tell if she was crying or not, but if she had been I would never have held it against her. Losing her powers, losing Wesley, losing Gunn, because even though I hadn’t seen him go down, I knew he was gone, he had barely stood to march against the first wave, and that had been hours ago, was bound to take its toll eventually. She held him like a mother who had just picked up a dead child, or a favored pet, which considering their relationship the latter was most likely more accurate. I had blood dripping from me everywhere, one of the many times I was glad that blood loss was not a way to kill a vampire. The dragon had bitten into me and I was lucky to still be in one piece, so to walk, or stumble, whatever, away from that particular beast I was thanking the few things I still believed in.

“Is it just us?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.

She looked up at me with so much pain in her eyes; it was comforting to see her coming around to human emotions, right up until I remembered how many she had taken down with Wesley’s name on her lips. Homicidal rage had taken on a new meaning.

“I believe so, however, I am unsure how much longer the vampire will remain ‘one of us’,” the inflection in her voice clearly separating us from her but I guess she still had to maintain the semblance of the walls that separated the two.

That was ok though, if what she was saying was true and “us” consisted of her and I, with what we had just done, well I wasn’t really sure what that meant. Subsequently, I stood there thinking about the ramifications of my actions of earlier that night and the last few weeks when I heard it. It was like the strangled gasp of one of those people that is attacked by a shark and doesn’t die from the shark bite, but almost kicks it from the near drowning that is simultaneous. I think that if it hadn’t been raining, or if I had actually been paying attention instead of wondering if I was still going to have a job in the morning, I would have heard the six heart beats that came before the breath. However, as it was, I didn’t, and that gasp of a dead man that Spike’s unundead body emitted was a shot from left field, right to the center of my heart and soul. The second breath, sounding less ‘I just almost died from strangulation’ and more ‘I haven’t breathed for real in over a century how the heck does this work again’ hit my brain.

I fell to my knees at his side, which looked all the world like I was happy and rejoicing the great gift endowed upon my most beloved grandson(which, by the way, I despise when he refers to me as grand anything). However, the reality of the situation was that the Shanshu... was no longer a feasible reality for me. My thoughts from before the breath returned to me; the ramifications of my actions. When I signed away the Shanshu I hadn’t really thought about the possibility of never getting it, to actually being a possibility. I guess I had just thought that ‘hey, I’m doing this paramount deed to help rid the world of some of its most brutal evil even if it’s just for a little while, it’s not a big deal’. But in the moment of that breath, it became this gigantic deal, which I had lost. In the ultimate battle of Angel verses Spike, Spike had just chopped my legs off.

I was so freakin' mad, you don’t even know.

As his breaths evened out and his heart rate, that I could know hear because I had zeroed in on it as soon as I picked it out of the surrounding noise, slowed, my demon raged against my soul. Who would have thought that my demon would be the one angriest about not getting the Shanshu? Not me that’s for sure. So when it took all the power my soul possessed to rein it in, I knelt at Spike’s side.

“I believe this one can no longer carry the title I have bestowed upon him.”

If I didn’t know any better I would have thought she was cracking a joke, but I’m glad I did know better, because just the thought of Illyria making a joke out of the loss of all my hope had my demon eyeing her for the responsibility of its loss.

“I think you might be…” I was interrupted by Spike’s hand jumping up from its previous immobile position to clutch his chest.

“Bloody fuck,” the pain in his voice was startling, until I remembered the battle we had just fought.

Not counting my dragon holes, I was pretty beat up and knowing Spike and his ‘guts before glory’ attitude, his body was more than likely barely still in one piece. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I laughed at him. ‘Ha ha, now you hurt like a human too. See, we can live without that.’ (I surmise to myself that I was just trying to make myself feel better about having lost, because who doesn’t try to see the bad in the other persons win and the good in our loss.)

“Spike,” I dared a few fingers on his shoulder, ”How do you feel?”

“Like I just got ‘it by a bloody truck, or per’aps a dragon.”

I saw him make the first attempts to sit up, and the waves of pain that rippled across his face. I was about to tell him not to sit up, when he fell back down the half a centimeter he had gotten up, and when Illyria spoke.

“I do not believe you should attempt to move as of yet, vam.., Spike,” the word sounded strange from her voice, I doubt she had used it more than a hand full of times, “Your injuries are extensive and your healing process has just downgraded many steps.”

She had made a joke, that sly little…well, anyways. It was a relief, maybe, that Illyria was the one to reveal to him his new status in life, because I don’t think I could have. My blood was still boiling and all I wanted to do was rip his now very human throat out, just for all the heartache and grief he had caused me all these years. That want to kill him, yeah it came back with the full force of a pissed off Angelus for about five minutes. But I couldn’t.

“What 're you talkin’ bout? Ugh,” he paused...to breath, I guess, maybe he had a few broken ribs (good!), “It ‘urts ta breathe.”

He wrapped his arms around his body in the cradle of Illyria’s arms.

“Why does it ‘urt ta breathe?”

Illyria looked up at me then, my internal battle ended, and I became Spike’s protector all in that moment.

******

“GET OUT OF MY CHAIR!!”

It was like a routine. I leave my desk…for whatever reason, do what I have to do, come back, and there he is, propped up in my chair gazing at the sky. Like he couldn’t be at some beach somewhere doing the same thing, and actually feel the sun kiss his skin. Lucky bastard. But no, always my chair, always when I return. Which was really odd, because it didn’t matter the time of day either. Only thing that stopped him was when he physically couldn’t move. Despite all that uncannyness, I still can’t afford to let him leave W & H by himself, not after last week.

He slowly turned his face to look at me, his left eye still swollen shut, his nose still swollen from this latest break, and both of his lips scabbed over in a few places.

The cut on his cheek is ready for the stitches to come out, I thought. The eye that could open, even if it was just enough to see through, gazed at me with contempt. Even when he could barely walk, he only allowed himself two days to heal before he was back to being in my chair.

Slowly, he removed his hands from behind his head. The right one sported a cast up to the elbow, while the left had gotten away with just an assortment of cuts and bruises. Just as slowly, he brought his feet from the desk and rose from the chair. Spike had looked much the same after that rainy night as he did right now.

As he moved away from my chair to carefully deposit his body in to one of the ones situated in front of my desk, I sat down...in a small puddle of blood. Damn it, Spike.

“You need to go to the infirmary and get your bandages checked, you bled on my chair.”

I had tried to be the nice gentle guy for about three months, but I’m not a saint and that’s the kind of patience this former vampire required, and that was while he WAS a vampire. As a human, I don’t even think a saint’s patience would have held for long.

“Don’t ya e’er get tired of savin’ me?”

The contempt in his voice was so strong, but I had learned to ignore it after the first few weeks.

“Don’t you ever get tired of getting into fights you know you’re not gonna win?”

I countered not even looking up from my paper work. I had ended up having a job in the morning after all, and while it was a little more docile then before, it still required a great deal of attention and hard work, that I was forced to complete without my team. The pain of that loss being a huge bump in the road as it was without the added distraction that Spike proved time and time again to be.

“If ya wou’n’t pull your hero act fer just one night, it wou’n’t be a problem fer either of us,” his head hung back on the chair, not even bothering to look at me with deep seeded hate any more.

It was as if we just went through the motions now. Sad that in just three months we had entered this particular dance routine.

He would go out, get into, pick, or stick his nose into some fight against now impossible odds, because even as a vampire, some of the scraps I pulled him out of would have been iffy. I would find out he had gotten out long after he was gone, which don’t think that I’m not trying to get better alarms to catch him before he gets out. I would jump in, save his beaten body from some stupid fight. He would recover and turn up in my office no less than two days later to bitch at me about saving him.

So far, this fight was the softest one we’ve had. I wonder what that means.

“Spike, I know you want to berate me and act all disgruntled and hurt that I had to save you…again,” I looked at his half broken body not quite lounging in the high armed, stuffed chair, “but you look like shit. Your face is a mess, you arm is broken, and your bleeding all over my office. I can smell it, if I hadn’t seen it. Go to the infirmary, get checked out, and go to your room and get some rest. It’s not gonna kill you to heal a little before you come in here all anger and petulant child.”

His snort of laughter was hallow and disturbing. However, it was the look he gave me with that one eye, and his words that chilled my blood just a little more than it already was.

“To bad, cause then I wou’n’t 'ave ta keep sneakin' out.”

The choice to call Buffy hadn’t really been a hard one. Spike was just getting too reckless. There were many days that I cursed myself when I noticed an escape technique that I know he learned from me. In the five months before I called her, I only saw him smile a hand full of times, but I’m sure he was smiling every time he thought about using my own teachings against me.

He was still in the hospital bed, week two, when I made the call.

*******

“Spike, where are you going now?” he had a determined look in his eyes, and that could only mean one thing.

“Ta m’room, like a good li’boy aught ta.”

He didn’t even turn around to answer me. I had just finished yelling at him for abusing his expense card; no one needs three 62-inch plasma T.V.s.

“Do you intend to stay there, so I can get some sleep tonight, or should I not bother to go to bed?”

At least if I knew he was going to sneak out I could not be half asleep as I traipsed after him.

From the other side of the foyer he turned around and winked at me, with almost a smirk on his face.

“Of course, Pops.”

I rolled my eyes, Yeah right, that wasn’t even a yes or no question.

He would be gone first chance he thought it was clear. Therefore, I stayed up that night in a fairly comfortable chair down the hall from his room. The nights I sat guard outside his door gave me time to go over neglected work, and on the off occasion to catch up on some reading. Books were really the only thing I had left in the world, besides Spike. After pushing Nina away for safety purposes while fighting the Black Thorn, she didn’t want anything to do with me. Which I would have understood, except it was to save her life and I…. just got to upset about something that doesn’t matter anymore. Anyways. In the first few weeks after that rainy night of hell, I had recognized a person here and there. However, it slowly seemed everyone that I knew in the building was replaced. I even chased after a girl with long blonde hair hoping it was Harmony one day, just to be able to talk to somebody from before. But it wasn’t her. There wasn’t any one left. Even Illyria had left.

**

She stormed into my office in the guise of Fred with a bag over her shoulder. I had put down my papers and raised an eyebrow at her as she dropped her bag to the floor.

“Going somewhere?”

She had told me once before how much she despised Fred’s body, so to have her standing here in it was more than odd.

“There is nothing for me here,” her voice was still Illyria, so I began to wonder if this was another lessening of her powers.

“There’s plenty here for you.”

I started to panic a little, I couldn’t lose another team member, there were so few of us left. Gunn’s body had been found and buried, along with Wesley’s and even Lindsey’s. There was no point in holding grudges anymore. No expenses spared on a midnight funeral that three people attended.

“I have become even more bored now then I was before our great battle. My...” her head tilted to the side as if she didn’t quite know what the right word would be, “My… heart hurts.”

Straightening her head, she held me in her gaze as if she thought it odd that mine didn’t as well. Little did she know, I’d just had years to perfect the ability to not show it.

I sighed, as much as I wanted to give her something to do; I had lied, there really wasn’t anything. Not for her abilities, or mine really. Everything I did these days was superficial busy work. None of the decisions I made meant anything, and none of them were enacted even if they did. The Senior Partners had taken over and worked around me, without even really trying to hide it.

“Where do you intend to go?”

If she was becoming human she would need money and a home. Hell, even if she were a super being she would need those things as well.

“Back to my family.” She stated matter-of-factly.

My brow furrowed in confusion, her family, did she mean…

“You mean Fred’s family?” she bowed her head in a half moment of… shame, maybe.

“Yes,” she paused to look out the window, “I am tormented with all of these memories and I do not know what to make of them. The human has helped me to understand the possibility that I may be becoming human myself.”

She stopped; being human was obviously something that didn’t sit well with her. In addition, all the time she was spending with Spike wasn’t helping, he cursed his own race every chance he got now. No longer were they the greatest things to ever walk the planet.

“If I am to be human, I would like to spend the few years I will have left on this world with people who will believe that they love me. Wesley…” she stopped, the pain on her face heart breaking,” Wesley taught me that to be loved is one of the greatest gifts a human may receive. It will be the gift of another, but in my short time being loved, I found that it was enjoyable. I wish to return to that environment.”

I just stared at her. How lucky was she to be able to have someone TO go to. Every one that I loved had died, didn’t want me, or didn’t want to remember me. What could I say?

“Will you need anything?”

“I shall continue to utilize the ‘expense account’ until I find my host’s family. After that, I do not except to see you again. I am just here to say good bye.”

“What about Spike?”

After ‘the breath’ they had been nearly inseparable, and there were times that I only found him because she had known where he was going to be.

“He knows of my plans and has made plans of his own. We have said our farewells; you are the last to know.”

Like always, I thought. Spike has made plans of his own, what did that mean?

There was nothing left to say, I guessed. My heart was heavy to see her go, but I couldn’t stop her, physically, or any other way. All three of us were just trying to find some kind of happiness these days, and if she thought to return to Fred’s parents, pretending to be their daughter was the way, well then, more power to her. At least one of us would have a semblance of serenity.

“You’ll be missed.”

“As will you, vampire, as will you.”

She picked her bag up and turned away from me. At the door she paused turning just slightly, her final words to me before she walked out, closing the door behind her were, “He grieves greatly for all of his losses and will not be able to maintain his false bravado for much longer.”

I had thought her words were about me.

***

I was pulled out of my reverie that night by the sound of the door at the end of the hall opening.

“Ya gonna sit down there all nite or d’ya wanna join me fer a drink?”

He stood at the end of the hall, black T., black pants, and strangely enough white socks. He looked like a backwards Oreo. However, even without his vampire attributes, he still managed to always know when I was around. It was uncanny.

“I’m supposed to be guarding you, not hanging out with you.” I called down the corridor.

“Cause I’m such terr’ble comp’ny? Com’on Peaches, how lame ya gotta be ta stalk a man wi’ no super powers?”

I stood up and began down the wall way, “I’m not stalking you.”

I stopped in front of him before I entered his room to look into his sad eyes. They were always sad these days.

“Coulda fooled me, ole man.”

He chuckled lightly, something that was never true anymore and headed inside. I followed him in, figuring if I was with him he couldn’t sneak out.

And he didn’t, that night.

Or for the next week after that, even. We started hanging out; talking. About books, movies, girls, the good old days. I had thought it would be a sore spot for him, seeing as he would never be able to do many of the things we rejoiced over the most, but those seemed to be the only times he wasn’t in a pit of despair. We spoke of Buffy in reverence, and of the thrill of the kill. Of the many regrets we had, and of the things we still kind of wished we had done before we got our souls.

He taught me how to play Crash Bandicoot, and we argued endlessly over the battle of cavemen versus astronauts using many of the firm’s resources to enact battles and scenarios. He was right. Like always it seemed. He lulled me, in to what I now know, was a false sense of security.

It was three maybe four weeks after his broken arm fight (I had started categorizing them by the worse injury he received; broken arm fight, head stitches scrap, and so on), all of almost two weeks since we had started hanging out together, when I got the call.

Ring.

“Yes.”

“He’s gotten out again, sir,”

I was only about an hour late for when I usually got to Spike’s room, so I hadn’t thought that much about it. I mean, I didn’t go over there every night, but I had thought we were becoming friends. Something that neither of us had ever thought imaginable. So to hear those words, I thought they were about something else.

“Who’s out?”

I’m sure I sounded like a moron.

“Spike, sir, we figure he’s been gone about an hour, maybe more. We have a team on it already. Do you know where he might have been headed?”

An hour, maybe more. With Spike's ability to piss people off, he could be dead already. But why? Things were better, we were better. I was so confused, and so mad. He had done it again. Not that I didn’t expect it, but… I shook my head and scoffed at the man on the other end of the line. As if Spike would ever tell me where he was going to go. Come to think of it now, he didn’t even talk about himself any more, not in the last couple of days.

“No, I don’t, try his usually haunts, the seedier parts of town. Send someone to show me were you think he may have exited the building from.”

An hour wasn’t that long, and I had spent enough time with Spike to know his sent anywhere.

“Yes, sir. This is a capture only mission, as per usual, I assume?”

I rolled my eyes in my empty office. Did they really expect me to send out a death warrant for my only connection to this world?

“As per usual.”

“Roger, sir, out.”

Shaking my head, I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair and headed for the door. I didn’t know what I was madder at, the thought that the Senior Partners were now hinting at killing Spike, or that I had let myself believe that he and I were becoming friends and he wouldn’t skip out on me again.

Ok, so let me set the scene, so you understand my frustration at this one two-toned ex-vampire that I know.

I get sired as a vampire. I wreak alittle havoc, do a little evil, drive a clairvoyant maiden insane. Every thing's good. 'Till one day my mad seer comes home with this little English báltaí *. And man did I hate him. He gets in to fights with humans and demons, draws attention to us, and in general annoys me. So then, I eat the wrong man's daughter, and boom, I spend the next hundred years feeling guilty for my sins and sorry for myself. All the while, that little fucker is off living it up. Time flies when you’re brooding, and I meet a man that introduces me to a girl, cause there’s always a girl, and I start to try to redeem myself. I fall for this girl, hard, but I have enough since to know, that we can never be together forever. I mean hello, gonna be here forever (me)…not gonna be here forever (her). So, I do the responsible thing, the hard thing, and I walk away. Not before that guy comes and mucks up the works a few times. Not even after I’m off doing my own good thing, can he leave me alone. But wait, it gets better. I’m working hard to redeem my long damned soul when he decides that he’s gonna take a go at my girl, too. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, if she wouldn’t have die and then decided that he was the best thing since sliced bread. Following in MY footsteps, he goes and steals my soul glory by going through trials for his. Psht, I bet they weren’t even hard. Still doing my hero thing, I find out my girl needs a champion, so I go to her with a nice little champion trinket and offer up my services. Only to be turned down in favor of… guess who, that’s right, the bane of my existence. Still, that wasn’t enough. He had to DIE…saving the world. Cause I haven’t ever saved the world, he’s got to go down in a blaze of glory…literally. And what do I get? An evil law firm. All that, and the little shit still bothers me. Comes back from the grave, albeit, incorporeal, but still to haunt and drive me insane. Stealing all my friends and my motto. I’m s'pose to help the helpless. Not him, his soul didn’t even change him. What was up with that? Nonetheless, I power through, I’ve got a mission and evil to fight. I come up with a great scheme using my losses to my advantage and not dwelling on the things I can’t change about my world. The fight comes, and many good people fall. We all fall in some way or another. Everyone, except him. The rain falls and he gets everything I ever wanted. And he doesn’t even want it. Never did. That being the case he tries his damndest to rid himself of my prize.

All that culminates to this moment. I’ve just spent the better part of a half an hour sloshing through some of L.A.’s worse swears, which I’m fairly certain he chose on purpose; just because he didn’t have a sensitive nose anymore didn’t mean he had to be an ass. Well…besides the whole running off business in the first place…anyways. I’m running down the road when I hear the sounds of a fight, thirty maybe forty yards up there’s an alley entrance. I’m closing in on the alley when I see him, flying out of the alley, across the street, and into the wall of the building on the other side of the road missing a telephone poll by inches. He hits the wall back first, sliding down it like one of those Wily Coyote cartoons. Even as a vampire that would have hurt, as a man, I was sure Spike was dead. My suspicions were damn near made certainties when I saw what had thrown him emerge from the alley.

I radioed to the team.

“Team one, this is Alpha.”

I had stopped when I saw Spike’s bird impersonation, and was now advancing slowly, very slowly.

“Go ahead, sir.”

“You guys are gonna need some bigger guns, and bring me a sword or an ax or something.”

“Sir?”

I didn’t know what that thing was. It was about 7 foot tall, maybe 250, 300 pounds of what looked like all muscle, a ring of short horns around its head and a huge sword. It was clothed in a black leather vest that revealed pale green arms of some nice definition and a full-length skirt, that didn’t seem to slow it down one bit.

“Just hurry.”

Spike hadn’t picked a fight with anything this big since I had become his protector. Or anything with a weapon as big as this guy’s sword. It had to be at least five foot long. Maybe he was compensating.

“Hey,” maybe if I got his attention off Spike, if he was still conscious, or alive, he could crawl away, “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

It lowered it sword just enough to seem less threatening and turned slightly in my direction. We made a triangle in the street, it on the far side of the road, Spike lying against the other side of the street, and me in between, about 10 feet out.

“Is this human yours?”

His voice was deep and low, barely above a growl. I wondered if that was out of anger at Spike, or just the way he talked.

“I wouldn’t say that, but I have sworn to protect him, yes.”

I would never claim Spike as my anything.

“His tongue is explicit and should be removed.”

The demon didn’t seem to be moving forward any more, and I could hear my team moving around us. Hopefully he couldn’t, and if he could, that he didn’t feel threatened.

“I’ll have to agree with you on that one. However, as much as I do love to see Spike in pain, I can’t let you kill him.”

I shrugged my shoulders at him, hoping he would understand my interference was out of obligation above anything else.

The demon titled his head to the left side, opposite of his sword, “But he wishes it.”

Huh?

“Excuse me? I know he hasn’t been too happy the last couple of months, but I don’t think he’s really suicidal.”

From behind me, I heard a cough, the wind bringing me a fresh whiff of Spike’s fallen blood on it.

“W w …we’re not done…yet.” He finished, spitting up blood.

Well, at least now I knew he wasn’t dead. The demon nodded his head at Spike with an accepting look on his face and began to stride forward. I turned around to see Spike nearly crawling up the wall to stand. Did he seriously want to continue to fight this behemoth?

I moved to intercept the demon, as he passed me I reached out a hand to his arm. His gaze slowly moved to my hand and then back to my face, a look of disapproval at being touched clear in his eyes.

Removing my hand, I …well pleaded would have to be the word, with him.

“You can’t seriously think this is a fair fight. You’ll kill him.”

The demon returned his gaze to Spike for a moment before he responded with a shrug.

“He has asked for it, I have agreed. I shall not go back on my word now.”

“Spike’s mouth is always asking to get punched, but he doesn’t mean the things he said. He’s just a troublemaker. You shouldn’t let him rile you up like that.”

I really didn’t want to fight this guy, he was huge. Talking him out of killing Spike seemed the best way to get him out of this one.

The demon surprised me by chuckling, “While I know of how you speak of this one, I do not mean his explicit tongue has warranted his death this night. He and I,” he gestured to Spike who was taking slow steps in our direction, “we go back far into history. He has literally asked for me to take his life, a death in a battle, the way he was meant to go down. The death of a warrior. I’m sure one such as yourself understands.”

With that, he moved away, raising his sword directing his attention at Spike.

“You stand, still, William,” he called out from the middle of the street to Spike who was leaning on the light pole that he had missed by inches in his flight across the road. The demon snorted a bark of laughter, “So to speak.”

I was dumbfounded. I had thought Spikes idle suicidal remarks were…just that; idle. His whole life, unlife, he had always joked about death. Spike had always been the one most full of live. I couldn’t believe that he would actually want to die. Be that as it may, the conversation between the demon and Spike sure did lead one to believe that’s what he was going for.

“Not fer much longer *spit out blood* I can’t let ya take me out tha’ easily.”

Pushing off the pole he put on his best swagger, well, the best he could pull off with what I assumed were various injuries. There was a small pool of blood everywhere Spike had stopped for more than a second, and the smell of it filled the air. Any vampire in a mile radius would be able to smell it.

“Your vampire seems to believe that you should live.”

The demon nodded his head back in my direction.

Spike shook his head,”‘S cause I got ‘is grand prize an’ don’t wan’ it. But I got ya this time, Peaches,” the raise in his voice caused him to stop and double over with a cough, spitting out a few more ounces of blood.

“I picked a goo’ne wit this guy,” he continued when he was upright again, “I’d like ta see ya try an’ take this guy on, ‘im wit da sword you wit what...?”

He looked me over.

He was right I didn’t have a weapon, that he could see, but his senses had been dulled in his new form; the W&H guys had us surrounded and were just waiting for my signal to take out the muscled demon.

“You don’t have to do this Spike, we can find somewhere better for you to be. Something for you to do. It’s stupid to waste this gift that has been bestowed upon you.”

Spike snorted, blood, and shook his head, “Ya’d never un’erstan’.” Then nodded at the demon.

It was too bad he didn’t understand that I did know what he was going through, that I cursed myself everyday for having given it up after having had it. Choosing to be a vampire over humanity haunted my every nightmare. That all I had to do was nod my head and eight different kinds of bullets from eight different directions would fly into his waiting death. Which I did when I saw Spike launch at the demon.

The size of this horned demon belied his speed, should have seen that coming, his sword met Spike half way even as the bullets ripped through his torso. Spike screamed, in pain or anger at the sight of his (friend) death-in-leather’s torso ripping to shreds. The demon grunted, falling to his knees, causing the sword to slice down through Spikes gut.

The rest of the team moved in, loading the demon’s body with a few more rounds, to make sure he was dead, closing in a circle around it. I stood there and stared at Spike, the blade’s hilt had fallen to the ground without the demon’s hands to hold it perpendicular into Spike. He looked like a cocktail weenie on one of those little plastic swords you get at parties.

I didn’t know what to do. The demon had moved much faster than I thought he would have, but I should have known that. They always move faster than you think they’re going to. I spent nearly two minutes in shock staring at Spike staring at the sword in his belly. He stayed on his feet the whole time. The special ops team was moving franticly around us dispatching the demon, which wasn’t killed with just a few bullets, a few even freaking out about the exchange between Spike and I.

“Spike,” I all but whispered.

It was slowly dawning on me that Spike was about to fall into the category of another innocent that I didn’t save. Another member of my team that uselessly lost his life in my battle. The last person I had in this Hell called Los Angeles.

He swallowed, probably blood, it was everywhere, and slowly turned his head to look at me. There was a look of relief in his eyes, as well as fear, but mostly relief.

“I jus’ couldn’t take it,” he replied just before sinking to his knees.

I used all my vampire speed to be there to catch him before he hit the ground. Ripping the sword from his chest, I slammed my left hand over the hole holding him up with my other arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“A vehicle, we need to get him to a hospital, NOW!”

I don’t know what it was, I was not about to let him die on me. We’d spent too much time together to be separated now from a thing as silly as a hole in the stomach.

Plus, I just wasn’t ready to let him go.




* Báltaí - Gaelic for pussy

He looked so helpless and pale in the hospital bed. Looked like he had looked after Dana had removed his hands. However, he also looked sick. The very human sick look. Like he was dying, but he wasn’t. I was not about to let that happen.

**

The vehicles had arrived no less than five minutes after the green barbarian had deposited his weapon into Spike’s abdomen. The short trip at dangerously high speeds to W & H seemed to take an eternity while I held him in my arms trying to stunt the persistent blood intent on leaving his body. I felt responsible for it, for all of it, whatever that entailed. How many times had I held someone as their life flowed from them, listening as their heartbeat slowed and their life came to a halt, just to lengthen my own? Their spark of life flickering diligently only to be snuffed out by my hands.

Tears came to my eyes at the thought of losing Spike, causing the black of his clothes and the red on my hands to blur. In those few minutes, I hated myself for every bad thing I had ever done to him. Cursed myself even more for all the things I said to erode his confidence causing him to be unsure of himself and not seek out Buffy’s love. He had always been so much better at loving then I. I remembered how mad I was when I found out about their sordid affair, how I had seethed when I saw in her eyes the way she said his name. I don’t think she even noticed. Moreover, I had taken that all away from him. By not letting him go to her when he first could, and then again by not bringing it up once he was human.

**

Seeing him now though, I knew why he did not bring it up.

When two days had passed and I entered my office, I hoped, wished, wanted Spike to be in my chair so bad it was a physical ache that stabbed into my heart when he wasn’t there. I spent that day leaving every chance I got, praying that when I returned he would be there. Nevertheless, he was never there. Spike was in the infirmary, in a coma. He had lost so much blood, all over my hands it had leaked, but other than that, he had been lucky. The sword cut a gaping hole into his flesh, but missed the important stuff, only nicking a few small notches in his intestines here and there. I wondered if he was in the coma because of the blood loss, or because of the emotional tilt awhirl he had been living in, that I had totally missed.

Standing in the corner of his infirmary room, I stared at his pale skin, wondering why he had never taken the opportunity to go out and get a tan. The human Spike wasn’t that much different from the vampire Spike. He still kept the same hours, played the same games, and said all the same incredibly annoying things. I wondered why he hadn’t wanted to change. The only thing he had changed was his hair. Or rather, it wasn’t so much that he hadn’t changed it, as he hadn’t touched it. It had grown out in loose curls that now, five months later lying in a white sheeted hospital bed, framed his face. The tips were still colored but had shifted from shock white blonde to a pale yellow and the rest of it, well it was natural. A soft brown that suited him better then the blonde. I never will understand what possessed him to dye it like that.

Shaking my head slightly at the though, I chuckled a little. Spike, always to do whatever HE thought was cool.

“I’m thinking about calling Buffy,” my voice was barely over a whisper, but I don’t think he could hear anyways.

“I know you think that she wouldn’t want to see you after how you to parted ways, but if what you said was true…” I paused.

****

We were sitting on the floor our backs against the couch in his apartment swapping stories. Spike had had quite a few drinks when I had made an off-handed comment about Buffy. It was in reference to something else entirely, just a small piece of the story I happened to be sharing at the time. He eyes had sobered immediately and his gaze held mine. It was strong, defiant, and sad all in the same look.

“She told me she loves me,” the statement was intense, mixed with the look in his eyes, I didn’t doubt him.

“When?”

He eyes fell way from mine then. He breathed a small sigh that was half-indignant laugh reaching up to push his growing locks away from his eyes. A movement that he had taken to with ease as they grew longer.

“It was stupid; I don’t think she meant it.”

He sloshed what remained of his drink around in its cup.

I was… somewhat sad, but not because she had expressed love for him. Buffy didn’t love me like that anymore and I had come to terms with it already. Didn’t like it, but wasn’t going to die because of it. I was sad for Spike. All his life all he wanted was for someone to love him, and I had always managed to already have everything he wanted. I was also mystified.

Shaking my head I spoke my thoughts to Spike, “I don’t think she would have said it if she didn’t mean it.”

The look he gave me was almost humorous. His head lifted and one eyebrow had climbed as far up into his now shaggy curls as it could go. It was a look that stated ‘shyeah right’ strait out of a teen angst show. The seriousness of the situation was all that keep my chuckle in.

“You weren’t there.”

Was all that he said, returning his gaze to his cup. Sighing, Spike brought it to his lips and finished it off, as if it would help him forget the pain. Even though we both knew it wouldn’t.

“Tell me about it.”

I thought that maybe if I knew the circumstances I would be able to allay his fears and reassure him that her words were true. That she wasn’t just someone else to reject him. At that point it time, it didn’t even matter that it was my Buffy. Just so that it would be someone.

He breathed deep, held it for a second and let it out in a sigh that spoke the volumes of pain that resided in his heart. He was silent for so long, I almost thought he wouldn’t tell me. It wouldn’t be the first time I asked about something and he skirted the issue.

“It was on the Hellmouth. Right before…,” his eyes searched mine for a moment before returning to his now empty cup and continuing.

“Before I wen’ up in flames. The light, was eve’ywhe’e, and it was sooo bright,” he squinted his eyes as if the light was around us then, his voice lowering to barely over a whisper, ”the girls were getting’ out. Runnin’ out, the ones that were left. And she stopped…she came to me and told I had to come with. But...but I knew,” he shook his head, ”I knew I wa’n’t gettin’ outta there. Not that day.”

He snorted.

“Was s’pose to be not any day after that. But we all know ‘ow that goes…” he paused.

Swallowing hard he continued. “An’ she knew too. She could see that it was the end fer me. An’...she topk my ‘and and she looked in to my eyes, straight into my eyes.”

He stopped. His breathing had become erratic and I thought he would burst into tears by the look on his face. He swallowed hard a few more times, taking the effort to regain control of his breathing. When he turned back to me, you would have never thought that we were talking about what he had thought would be his last moments on earth, that he had died saving his girl and the world in an apocalyptic battle. He was all hard Spike and false bravado that I was slightly taken aback.

“An’ then she said it, an’ I knew it wa’n’t true, cause I mean, I was gonna die, of course she said it. So yeah. Let’s play Crash.”

Spike got up from the floor, turned the game on and that was the end of that conversation.

****

“If what you said was true, I think she’ll want to know. I think she’ll come.”

I was thinking aloud. I wasn’t sure if she would come or not. I doubt she would have told Spike she loved him at any moment in time regardless of the situation if she didn’t mean it. She didn’t play with words like that. I paused to think about the time she killed me for the world. She had told me she loved me then, and it was true, then.

I nodded my head.

“Yeah, I think she’ll come.”

Returning to my office I only had one obstacle to overcome in calling her. Myself. How would she react to find out that he had been here all this time? If for the reasons that I was calling her were true, that we had kept from her that he was here. All. This. Time. How furious would she be to find out the changes that Spike had undergone without her knowledge.

Running my hand through my hair, I resigned myself to a lie. That she wouldn’t take it out on me because of the condition Spike was in. That she would just be glad to see him and she would come, help him recover, then together they would ride off into the sunrise without the time to beat the holy heck out of me. I winced at the lie; it sucked, because I wasn’t the one she rode out with, and because it ultimately left me alone. All that as well as, I also was no fool and knew she would make the time to be angry with somebody, be it he or I.

I stared at the phone for a few more minutes before I rubbed my hands together and picked it up. Only to set it down again. Frustrated with myself, I growled and picked it up again, quickly dialing the numbers so I couldn’t chicken out on myself again.

Ring.

Ring.

Great, here I was barely hanging on to my courage and she was out.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end was male. What the…

“Hello, is this the Summer’s residence?”

“Yes it is, how may I direct your call?”

What? When had Buffy gotten an answering service, I know I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but…geez.

“Um...I’m looking for Buffy.”

“Yeah, she lives here.”

…. Some people.

“Is she home, can I talk to her?”

What was with this guy, his voice sounded distantly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It wasn’t Giles or Xander. Hopefully this dimwit wasn’t Buffy’s newest interest (I was hoping she had ditched the Immortal).

“Ah…” the male paused,” yeah, hold on. BUFFY!”

The male voice screeched her name and had obviously not moved the phone very far from his mouth. I quickly jerked the phone away from my ear, positive that even Spike had heard the call.

In the background, I heard shuffling around and a faint ‘that wasn’t necessary’ in Buffy’s voice. Good she was home.

“Hello?” came from the other end of the line, slightly annoyed.

“Buffy.”

I never was good with words when it came to her; I shook my head in disappointment at myself. I heard her tense through the phone. Great.

“Angel? How’d you get this number?”

“I know people.”

She had been listed in the Rome directory, it wasn’t that hard.

“Oh,” there was an uncomfortable pause before she continued,” So ah, what’s up?”

“Nothing, I’m good. How are you?”

I momentarily forgot my reasons behind calling. I always seemed to forget myself around her after long breaks without her.

I could hear the confusion in her voice, ”I’m good.”

She paused again, “Did you just call to see how I was, or was there something you needed.”

For someone that had half way promised herself to me just a year and a half ago, she seemed like she didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe she did just play with words. I guess my pause for thought was too long for her, because she came back her voice alittle more than slightly annoyed.

“Angel? Hey look, if you don’t have anything to say, I was in the middle of som…”

“I need you to come here.”

I figured the best way would be to just throw it out there.

“Why?”

“I…have a situation that needs your immediate attention.”

There, go business on her.

“Like apocalyptic, cause I’m not into that stuff anymore,” the way she said it made it sound like we were dealing in drugs, ”there’s tons of Slayers out there. And besides, I thought you had your own evil law firm to handle all that stuff for you. Wouldn’t me being there be against everything you work for now?”

Yeah, that stung alittle, I’ll have to admit. However, it wasn’t as if I didn’t know where she was coming from. We had taken out the Black Thorn, but nothing had changed. Not that I could tell, not that I really went out any more, but still. The firm seemed to be running smoothly as if nothing had happened. Dealing in most of the same stuff it had before my team had come on. Maybe I could convince her to take me with her, if she took Spike.

“It’s about Spike.”

If she wouldn’t take business, then I guess it would have to be the truth. I know she doesn’t want me lying to her anymore then I have.

Her breath hitched, and I could hear her heart rate as it increase. Maybe she would come.

“What about him?”

“He needs you.”

“He’s dead.”

She said it so firmly, with such conviction, so softly, that I could tell she wanted me to tell her she was lying. God, how much did that hurt.

“No, he’s not. Hasn’t been. And now, he needs you.”

There was a long pause. So long, so that I was certain that she was going to say ‘no’.

“You still at the law firm?”

“Yeah,” What did that have to do with any…?

“I’ll be on the next flight out.”

Ah. I released the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

“There’ll be a car to pick you up at the airport.”

“Ok.” Click.

I sighed a heavy sigh of relief. I’ve lost everything that’s mattered to me, but I can still save Spike.