Betaed by: Goblin_Dae, Science, and Subtilior

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognizable characters, locations, and dialogue belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the various writers. This is written purely for fun.

 

 

20.

Buffy awoke Christmas morning to the sun shining into her room. She'd left the window open, and the curtains swayed lazily in the breeze. Downstairs on the porch, the wind chimes were ringing. She bounced out of bed and threw open her bedroom door—and promptly fell over Spike.

"Bloody hell!"

Buffy went sprawling on the carpet, while her vampire doorstop tried to scuttle out of the sunlight now pouring into the hallway.

"Spike?" She stared at him in horror. He'd clearly been sleeping in the hallway, just outside of her door. From the look of things, he'd never actually gone to bed. "Were you ... Oh, that is just creepy. What the hell are you doing?"

"Waiting," Spike said. His eyes narrowed, and a smirk flirted with the corner of his mouth. If smirk and mouth hooked up, she was going to punch him—holiday or no holiday.

"Well, go do it somewhere else," she said. "I don't want my mother to see you."

"Oh ..." Spike smiled slowly, his eyes shadowed beneath thick lashes. "I wouldn't worry about that."

Buffy glared, picked herself up, and went down the hall to her mother's bedroom. There, she paused and knocked. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead," she said, opening the door. "It's Christmas!"

Joyce didn't respond.

"Mom?" Buffy forced more cheer into her voice. "C'mon, wake up. I know, you've had a really long nap but ..."

Her mother only snored lightly.

"Mom?" Buffy approached, swallowing hard, her hands in fists. This wasn't happening. She was going to wake up. She had to wake up. She couldn't miss Christmas. "Mommy?"

Only Joyce wasn't waking up.

She was just ... sleeping, as if nothing at all were different. As if nothing at all had changed.

Buffy sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her mother's shoulder. "Mom, it's Christmas."

"You know, Slayer, I don't think she can hear you," Spike drawled from the doorway.

"Go away," Buffy said, not turning to look at him. If he even thought the phrase 'I told you so' he was gonna get staked. Later. Because right now she had to wake up her mother.

"Slayer—"

"I said, GO. Away."

Several long moments passed, and then she felt his presence fade.

Satisfied, Buffy moved around to the other side of the bed and crawled in beside her mother. She laid her head on Joyce's shoulder, wrapped an arm around her waist, and did the one thing she hadn't really let herself do in weeks: Buffy cried.

***

When he was anxious, Spike paced, and at that moment he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd worn a hole into the living room floor. She wasn't coming down. In fact, there was no noise from upstairs at all beyond the slightly muffled sounds of sobs. He'd expected her to be upset, expected her to be crushed, in fact. But this ...

He looked at the clock. For fuck's sake, she'd been crying for two solid hours. How much moisture did a human have in them, anyway? Angel probably knew the answer to that down to the milliliter; but Spike had never paid that much attention in his Torture 101 classes. In any case, he couldn't remember anyone ever crying for two hours straight, even when Angelus had let them keep their eyes.

If he could have, Spike would have punched something. There was this boiling frustration in him for no reason that he could name.

She knew, sod it all. She KNEW the spell wouldn't break. Why the bloody hell is she so upset?

He glanced at the living room, at the still lit up Christmas tree and the cold fireplace beside it, the stockings hung from the mantel. A memory flashed, brighter than the lights and too fast for him to catch the particulars—only the word mother and a feeling of crushing despair. Whirling around, Spike marched up the stairs as far as the landing, then paused, listening to the Slayer sob.

She wasn't coming down. He didn't know what to do.

He sagged against the wall. He hated this. Hated being her reluctant—and he was still reluctant, dammit—sidekick, hated living in her sodding house, hated being around her twenty-four seven, hated that he couldn't seem to escape her even in sleep—his dreams were full of death and blood and sex—hated above all the confusion that writhed in his gut whenever he fucking thought of her.

And now, to add to his list, he could include her tears.

He hated her tears. Hated that she had them in the first place, because she was the Slayer and what right did she have to something as human and female as tears? Hated that he couldn't do anything about them. Hated that he even wanted to do something about them in the first place.

He should kill her. Kill her and be done with it all. That's what he should do. Only he couldn't seem to switch into game face, and truth be told, he didn't want to. He didn't want to kill her because it was obvious, now more than ever, that she was his only option. His only connection to the world. They were in this together, till the end.

Spike let himself slide down the wall, folding up until his elbows rested on his knees and his hands dangled uselessly.

Damned, that's what he was.

***

Buffy didn't know when the tears finally stopped, only that her head ached, and her eyes ached, and her heart ached. Her face was probably a mess, and she'd soaked her mother's pillow. Somehow, she just couldn't seem to work up the energy to care.

It was her fault, she knew. Spike had picked up on it the night before: those tiny seeds of doubt that she'd refused to admit existed at all. A Christmas miracle was an easy answer, but hard to believe—and maybe there was something to that whole belief thing. She hadn't believed, deep down, not really. And maybe that's why it failed to work.

Or maybe Spike was right, and there were no such things as miracles. Maybe the snow last year had just been a crazy wintery coincidence. Maybe she'd wasted time wishing for the impossible.

Either way, it was her fault that her mother wasn't awake for Christmas, that her friends would miss it, and she would miss them. Either she hadn't believed enough, or she hadn't focused enough on breaking the spell herself. Her fault. Bad Buffy once again.

With a shuddering sigh she turned her face back into the pillow and let a few more tears fall. There were things to do, spells to research, and a big sparkly waste of time to clean up downstairs. There was an unleashed vampire in her house and an enchanted town to awaken. But those things could wait. It wasn't like she didn't have time. She had all the time in the world.

Buffy laughed softly, but it sounded cracked and dry to her ears. It was like that Twilight Zone episode she'd watched once, at Xander's. The guy with all the books and all the time to finally read them ... only he'd broken his glasses. They had plenty of time to research, hell, she could teach herself to be a fully functional witch, if she wanted. The spell would wait … maybe even forever.

She was tired of this, tired of trudging through old books and trudging through the town, looking for whatever slim thread of hope she could to grasp on to. She was tired of having no one to talk to, to give her advice, to comfort her. If it hadn't been for Spike's antagonism she'd have no one to talk to at all.

She'd deal, she supposed. Tomorrow, maybe, when the hurt from this latest disappointment had faded a bit. Maybe then she'd be able to focus on what needed done.

Or maybe the next day.

There was no rush, after all.

So she laid her head on her mother's shoulder, and listened to the wind chimes outside, and closed her eyes. If she was really lucky, Buffy thought, she'd fall asleep forever, too.

***

Spike woke up sometime after noon, surprised that he'd nodded off in the first place. True, he hadn't really gone to bed the night before. Instead he'd lurked outside of Buffy's bedroom like some house-trained mutt. His back and neck were cramped from sleeping against the wall, and he wondered briefly why she hadn't woken him to complain that he wasn't researching or something.

From down the hall, the sounds of quiet, hitching breaths reminded him. Oh. Right. Slayer was indisposed.

Still, she wasn't the type to lay about all day when there was work to be done—that was his job. One he was bloody good at, thank you very much. Silently, he ascended the stairs and approached the door, which had been left conveniently ajar. "Slayer?" he said, peering in.

Even with his enhanced vision, it took him a moment to locate her in the dark room. She was curled up in a tight little ball on the far side of the bed. Her head lay on her mother's shoulder. As good as her sudden imitation of a coma patient was, her heartbeat gave her away; she was awake and the room smelt salty with tears. With the blinds closed, it was safe enough for him to enter; hell, safer than standing in the hall, what with the diffused sunlight pouring in from the window at the end. Still, he hovered at the threshold, not quite willing yet to intrude—not because of her sodding house rules, of course, but because a brassed off and emotional Slayer was unpredictable at best.

"Slayer? Know you're awake."

"Go away," she said, without opening her eyes or moving. Her voice sounded dried out and hollow, and Spike found himself swallowing convulsively, as if he could somehow wet her throat for her. Disgusted by that thought, he shook his head, and put on his best I-don't-give-a-bloody-damn voice.

"We gonna research?"

"Do what you want." She burrowed deeper into her mother's slack embrace. "Just go away."

He hesitated. This wasn't like her, or not the 'her' he was used to. The Slayer was vibrant, full of passion and energy. This girl was just a shadow.

He supposed he understood her being upset—her hopes had been catastrophically high, after all. Perhaps she only needed a bit of time to come to terms with it.

In the meantime, he'd been released from the obligation of moldy Watcher books and the baleful eye of the Slayer for a little while, at least. As he sauntered down the hall, headed for the living room, Spike decided that, it being Christmas and all, he was obliged to eat, drink, and be merry—preferably in front of the telly.

All of which would have been possible, if he hadn't forgotten about the blood. She'd only gotten him enough blood on her last trip for food to last him through Christmas. Well, it was bloody Christmas and he was bloody hungry and there was no bloody ... blood.

Spike stood in front of the refrigerator, staring accusingly at the lone packet that lay at the bottom of the drawer. Then he stomped back upstairs, not caring if he disturbed her.

"We're out of blood," he announced.

She didn't answer.

"Slayer, I'm hungry, and this is all that's left." He waved the last blood bag at her. She ignored him. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing," she said, after awhile. "Go away."

"What do you sodding mean, 'nothing'?"

"Go away, Spike," she said, and then refused to say anything else even when he started lobbing threats at her.

"... and if you won't feed me, I'll go to the hospital myself, Slayer. See if I won't."

More nothing.

Finally he gave up and stomped downstairs in a seethe, frustrated and hungry and irritated all out of proportion. If the Slayer wasn't going to feed him, then he was going to feed himself, and she could suffer the buggering consequences. For the second time in two days Spike left the house and made a dash for the sewers.

It was about time he'd reclaimed his balls. He wasn't the Slayer's pet, no matter what she seemed to think. She wasn't holding his leash anymore, and besides, if she was going to quibble about truces and what all, then he'd done what she wanted: he'd told her where he was going to grab a bite.

Let her conscience wrestle with the fact that she'd not lifted a single sodding finger to stop him.

***

Sunnydale's underground tunnel system never ceased to please Spike. It was like the entire town had been built for the convenience of the daylight challenged. When he'd first come here, he'd spent nearly a week learning how to get around town via the massive network of tunnels, only some of which were thinly disguised as sewers. For hundreds of years the nightmare residents of the sleepy little 'burb had been adapting and adding to the system, meaning that it was often faster to get from place to place underground than it was above—provided you could read demon street signs.

The tunnels dumped him out in the basement of Sunnydale Memorial, and Spike spent a long moment enjoying being on his own for the first time in weeks. No little Slayer ball and chain to hold him back from the things he enjoyed most. He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and pulled out his lighter, ready to have a smoke ... only to notice in the nick of time that he'd come out near the oxygen tank storage area. Reluctantly he put the lighter back in his pocket. Stupid Slayer destroyed all his fun. Even if she wasn't there.

Right. First things first. Spike was feeling peckish.

He took the stairs up to the first floor and found himself surrounded by the scents of blood and death and illness, which, without any recent applications of cleansers and bleach, hung ripe in the air. It wasn't the first time in the last few weeks that Spike found himself ravenously hungry. However, it was the first time he didn't have a convenient Slayer-shaped reminder why he shouldn't be sampling the occupants of the hospital rooms like the contents of a forty-eight piece box of chocolates.

What had been easy enough to ignore in the open streets of Sunnydale was suddenly surrounding him. The scent of so much blood left him light-headed with hunger. Then there was the fear and despair that seemed to waft through the halls of hospitals the world over. His mouth flooded with saliva, his fangs ached, and he wondered whether he really had anything to fear if he decided to snack on a sleeper or five.

Spike crouched down beside the slumped figure of a receptionist dressed in nurse's scrubs, his fingers hovering over the warmth of her exposed neck. The spell didn't seem to be catching. It'd been more than a month now since he'd arrived, and if he hadn't caught it in all this time then the chances of being snared just for a little taste were slim.

It'd be so easy, too. Just a sip to remind him of what hot blood tasted like straight from the tap. What were the odds of the Slayer eyeballing the neck of some random patient stuck in a corner room? Or, what if it was more than just a taste? It was a hospital, after all—easy enough to hide the body in the morgue, after. Strip its clothes off and stuff it in a drawer where the Slayer wouldn't think to look. Hell, he could do a half-dozen that way. There was an incinerator, too, he'd wager, down in the basement somewhere. Someplace where they chucked amputated limbs and such. He could toss the bodies in there and let them burn, taking all the evidence of his little truce-trespass with them.

Ashes to ashes and all.

The Slayer would never have to know.

Not like she cared anyway, sulking about in her mum's room when they had a spell to solve. Oh, it was all well and good for her to bitch at him for watching an hour's worth of Passions here and there, but when she got herself all het up over a sodding holiday miracle ...

Spike growled and shifted into game face.

He'd show her. Just one, for now, so she'd know he hadn't been tamed. He reared back, prepared to bite.

Then paused.

Only, he couldn't have just one. If she saw the body, or marks where he'd fed off someone, he'd be dust before he could think up a good excuse. And she'd been through this hospital a couple of times now. She'd remember to check these people and where they'd been. If he moved them she'd know something was up, and she'd hunt them down or hunt him down. One way or the other.

Still, he doubted she'd done too much recon on the upper floors. Why would she have done? He could feast like a king up there, pick people off one at a time and she'd never know. Reluctantly, Spike stepped away from the juicy-looking receptionist—but when he reached the stairs he took them two at a time, new plan firmly in mind.

Of course, when he got to the top floor, he realized that it was closest to heaven—literally: chock full of long term care patients, most of them obscenely old. Spike wasn't that picky of an eater, but he preferred that his food not have one foot already in the grave. Old people were gamy. Better to try the next floor down.

Unfortunately, that floor was the maternity ward, and between the babies—which reminded him of Dru—and the new mothers—which reminded him of his own mother—Spike couldn't bring himself to do more than sniff the air and head for the next flight.

This floor was more to his liking: kids with terminal diseases. Oh, sure, they were on the road to Deadsville like the old coots upstairs, but there was still something fresh and sweet to their blood. Innocence, maybe, if he was going to buy into all of Angelus' crap.

He spent a few minutes browsing the halls, popping his head into rooms and discarding potential meals. Too thin, too fat, too young, too bald, too stringy, too pink ... This one smelled, that one was too close to the door, and the last one, the kid at the end of the hall, had a great big "We Love You, William! Get Well Soon!" banner tacked to the wall above the little sot's bed.

Bloody fucking hell.

Feeling a bit desperate, he checked out the nurses, but none of them met with his approval, either. Brassed off, Spike lashed out at a medical cart, spilling little plastic cups of meds everywhere. He sank to the floor amongst the wreckage, picked up a handful of pills and started chucking them at the wall, listening to them ping off the surface and skitter down the hall.

The truth was that while the chances of the spell suddenly taking him were slim, they still weren't zilch. And he knew that tomorrow, when the Slayer figured out that he'd hied himself off to the hospital while she was busy having a sulk, she'd be in here counting heads and checking throats. Even if he hid the evidence, it'd come to light eventually—he'd fuck it up somehow, she'd find it, and with the end of the sodding spell nowhere in sight, it was a risk he couldn't take.

It was bloody unfair, was what it was, he concluded. He was hungry, surrounded by fresh, hot blood, and he didn't dare take even a nip. Not yet, anyway. Under other circumstances he'd have slaughtered the entire building and bathed in their blood ... but he couldn't. In the end, self-preservation meant more to Spike than a meal, even if it made him feel like an absolute git.

He looked at the mess he'd made, did a few mental calculations to decide how likely it was that the Slayer would think him at fault for it, and resignedly pulled himself to his feet. As he pocketed a few bottles of interesting looking medication, he decided that this was going to be one of those things he never, ever told to another unliving soul (so to speak). It was just too sodding pathetic for words.

It only took a couple of minutes to find a likely looking nurse and drape her over the toppled wreckage of the cart. With any luck, the Slayer would assume the woman had fallen asleep and made the mess herself.

***

The sun was still up by the time Spike returned to the house, "shopping" in tow. He loaded the vegetable drawer with more blood bags, then stocked the fridge with a fine assortment of alcohol—lifted from the one place he was certain the Slayer wouldn't give a toss if he robbed blind. For a slimy weasel, Willy stocked some quality booze. Of course, most of it was kept locked up, but Spike had found that axes worked just as well as keys. Better, sometimes. He was also the proud owner of a brand new carton of Morley's, courtesy of a vamp who'd been nesting in the sewers like a drowned rat. All in all, it was a decent take, and if he'd found himself wondering (far more than he'd like to admit) about what the Slayer would think of his "purchases" … that wasn't going to stop him from enjoying the stuff.

Once he'd stashed his loot, he went upstairs to see if she'd emerged from her mum's room. She had not. In fact, it looked as though the Slayer had decided to take up permanent residence.

"Are you planning to come out of there any time soon?" He wasn't particularly expecting an answer.

For that matter, he wasn't particularly expecting her to raise a crossbow from the side of the bed, point it in his direction, and say in a flat tone: "Get out and stay out."

"Right. I can see you're busy," Spike said, and slunk back down the hall, cursing all the way.