Part VI - Healing Wounds

She tossed and turned as the dream she had had the night before came to her once more. She knew it was a dream, but for some strange reason she couldn’t wake up. “Wake up, Buffy. It’s just a stupid dream.” She told herself over and over again. She kept moving around on the bed, gripping her pillow tightly between her sweaty arms. Finally, after a while she jumped up and was able to wake up. She sat there, hyperventilating uncontrollably.

“It’s just a dream.” She repeated out loud.

Knock, knock.

“Who is it?” she asked wiping away the beads of sweat on her face with her blanket.

“It’s me.” Dawn’s familiar voice came from the other side of the door.

“Come in.”

“Hey, you ok?” the young teenager enquired. “I heard something break.”

Buffy looked at the shattered glass on the floor next to her nightstand.

“I knocked over the lamp during my sleep.” She explained to her younger sister.

“Bad dream, huh?” Dawn continued the conversation sitting on the bed.

Buffy nodded. She was about to say something, but was interrupted by her door being abruptly opened.

“Dawn’s missing! We’ve… Dawn, you’re here!” a very tired, weak and worried Spike clung to the doorknob for support and stared at the two Summers girls.

“I heard a noise coming from Buffy’s room and came to check it out.” Dawn clarified looking concerned at Spike’s clearly faltering legs.

“You two are ok then?” he asked. Both girls nodded affirmatively. “Good! Then I can pass out.” Spike sighed as he dropped to the floor with a thud.

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As conciousness came, so did a series of sensory stabbings. The most painful was the sting in his chest, closely followed by the frightening feeling of helplessness. Hunger was another issue that dawned on him. But in the mixture of nausea, pain and discomfort his nervous system alerted him to something else. That smell, that faint pure scent of the Slayer masked by the artificial, but delicate aroma of tropical fruits. God, he love that! He desperately tried to open his eyes and after a while he was able to do so.

“No! Keep the curtains closed or tomorrow morning I’ll have a pile of dust on my bed instead of Spike.”

The vampire squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, trying to focus on the two figures standing next to the window. He moaned a little when he attempted to sit up. Immediately, he felt a strong hand push him back down.

“Don’t get up, I don’t want you bleeding all over my new sheets.” Buffy protested, but he could tell she was a bit concerned.

Reluctantly he obeyed. With a hoarse voice he murmured:

”I’m hungry.”

He didn’t have to wait two seconds; Buffy was already holding a mug up to his cold lips. He could smell the microwave-heated pig’s blood. He was so tired and hungry he didn’t even have the strength in him to make some smug remark about it. He just drank the whole cup.

“Better?” she asked with a sweet tone. A very strange tone for the old vampire, it caused butterflies in his stomach.

“He better be ok or I won’t have anyone to make me a Special-Spike for lunch tomorrow.” Dawn joked as she walked from the window to the side of the bed, opposite to where Buffy was.

Spike smiled.

“Is he ok now?” a very sleepy Willow asked walking into the room rubbing her left eye. She sat down next to Dawn on the bed.

“Oh, so that’s what a fellow’s gotta… cough… do to have three lovely ladies around him. I gotta… cough… get stabbed more often.” Spike joked with a silly grin on his lips.

“Don’t even joke about it.” Willow reprehended him with a slap on his leg.

Spike immediately hissed in false pain.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” A very worried Wicca apologized.

“Just kidding!” the vampire gagged as his crunched face turned into a grinning one.

“You… you… faker!” she complained.

“Come on, you guys. He’s got to rest. And the two of you’ve got classes tomorrow morning.” Buffy interrupted, standing up from the bed and leading the two sleepy girls out of the room.

“Yes, mommy!” the two mocked in unison.

As they left the room, Buffy went back to get the cup she had conveniently forgotten by her nightstand. She also picked up a strange device which looked a lot like a walkie-talkie.

”If you need anything, just call me. I’ll hear you through this.” And she pointed to the device, then she turned back to leave.

“What? You’re not sleeping with me?” Spike asked innocently.

“Don’t push you’re luck, Spike!” she warned him with a slight smile. “Goodnight!”

“I don’t even get a goodnight kiss?” he continued, curling his lower lip into the cutest pout.

“No.” she answered promptly, the smile on her face grew clearly. “Goodnight.”

“Kiss.” The pout still there.

“No.”

“Pleaaaaaase. Kiss.”

“No.”

“Come on I almost got stake tonight.” He argued.

“No.” she refused to grant him his wish.

“You know you want to.” Suddenly his tone wasn’t childish or playful anymore.

“I do not!” she denied. Her heart started racing. “Oh, please don’t look at me like that.” She begged him in her thoughts.

“You don’t know or you don’t want to?” he enquired, his eyes burning into hers. Buffy just stared back and then he added with a soft tone: “If you didn’t want to, you’d have left by now.”

They gazed at each other in silence. And then she did something that even caught herself off guard. She leaned in and let her lips brush over his. Spike didn’t dare move. He waited for her to deepen the kiss, but she didn’t. Slowly she pulled away, smiled and began walking away.

“Buffy…” he started to speak, but she cut him off without even turning to face him.

“Goodnight, Spike!” was the last thing he heard from her as she closed the door behind her.

The vampire sighed as he laid back down on the bed: “Man, I gotta get stabbed more often.” He said to himself.

On the other side of the entrance to her room, Buffy leaned on the wooden door trying very hard to stop her heart from jumping out of her chest. “God, why do you always have to make me feel like a giddy little schoolgirl with a crush.”

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

The next day, Spike woke up with a slight knock on the door.

“Spike, you up?” Dawn’s soft voice came from the corridor.

“I am now.” He answered, not bothering to open his eyes and look at the young girl who came in.

“Are you feeling any better?”

With some effort he forced his eyelids to rise and focused his sight on the small figure standing at the foot of the bed. The room was dark and the only light that came in was through the door left open and a small line of sunlight that came from under the opaque curtains.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be up and running in a day or two.” He said hopefully.

“Good, that means tomorrow I won’t have to eat Buffy’s version of a healthy lunch. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister, but she really sucks when it comes to cooking.” Dawn complained as she sat down on the bed.

“I heard that.” Buffy’s voice came from the corridor and soon she was standing on the doorway holding a brown paper bag. “Tofu is a very nutritious food and you will eat it all up, young lady. Now hurry, Willow’s waiting downstairs.”

Grudgingly Dawn jumped off the bed and started walking out of the room.

“Na-na-na. Aren’t we forgetting something?” Buffy asked.

“Goodbye?”

Buffy moved her head from side to side.

“See you latter?” Dawn pretended not to know what her sister was referring to, but when Buffy held up the brown paper bag she had no excuse. Unwillingly, she took the bag from the Slayer’s hand. “Bye, Spike! I’ll see you after classes. Please be a good vampire and get those superhuman healing powers to work their charm.” She walked out and started down the corridor. She opened the bag and peeked inside and couldn’t help but shout back: “Quickly!!”

In Buffy’s room Spike choked back the powerful laugh.

“Hey, don’t encourage her.” Buffy warned.

“Wha?” he enquired innocently, watching her move closer to him. She handed him a mug full of blood.

“Shut up and drink!” she ordered shoving the cup to him.

“So what’s today’s agenda.” Spike asked as he drank the whole mug.

“No plan. You stay in bed, I clean the house.” Buffy explained taking the cup from the vampire and making her way out of the room.

“You’re gonna leave me here alone all day.” He mopped.

“What, little Spikie-Wikie afraid of being alone all day?” she mocked him. “Afraid the Big Bad is going to get him?”

“Hey, I AM the Big Bad.” He explained with a smug look on his face.

“Spike, you haven’t been the Big Bad in a long time.” She continued the mockery.

“Really? That didn’t seem to be your opinion when we played Big Bad Wo-“

“Don’t even mention that. You bring that up once more and-“ she threatened.

“Ashamed of what you like to play?” he asked, it was his turn to tease her.”

“Liked. You seem to have a big problem with the pass tense, don’t you?” she hissed a little bit annoyed.

“I call ‘em as I see ‘em.” He sneered.

“Get some glasses, Spike. There is nothing here to see.”

“That’s true, can’t say there is much I haven’t seen.” He continued to successfully annoy her.

“God, you can be so insuperable sometimes.” She sighed angrily.

“Uh, learned a new word today, have we?”

“I give up.” She raised her tone, setting the mug down on the nightstand with a noisy thud. “There is no way we could ever get along. You always find a way to screw things up. You-you… Forget it.” She waved her hands in the air and left the room.

“Buffy!” he yelled after her. He tried to get up but the pain in his chest wouldn’t let him move. “Buffy!” he shouted once more. This time the effort to call her made him start coughing uncontrollably.

From the corridor she heard him. A worrying pain in her torso immediately replaced her anger and in a second she was sitting next to him patting him on the back.

“I-“ cough “I-I” cough.

“Shh… Don’t try to talk. For once do what I tell you and shut up.”

He stopped trying to speak and gradually the coughing subsided.

“I didn’t mean-“ he started explaining but was cut off by Buffy’s cold and distant tone.

“Forget it.” She made a move to stand up but, before she could move more that an inch, he had a tight grip on her forearm.

“Why do you always do this?” he asked with all the calm he could muster.

“Do what? What did I do now?” she cried out. Her anger and annoyance were palpable in the air.

“Why do you always have to hide? Whenever there is a problem that is not flesh and demon smear you just ignore it.” He continued making his point.

“I-“

“Stop doing this. Stop pushing everyone away and pretend everything is fine, when I know there is so much that is eating you up inside. Just-“

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” she yelled, pulling her arm out of his grip and standing.

“I WANT YOU TO TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG!” he shouted back at her. As he realised what he had just done, he paused, took a deep breath and started to explain once more: “I want you to be able to tell me what’s wrong.”

She looked at him, eyes filled with bitter tears that threatened to overflow. Buffy tried to speak but the words got caught in her throat. She closed her mouth, pushed her dry lips together and swallowed hard before she was finally able to utter painfully:

“I can’t.”

“Why?” he questioned quietly. When she didn’t answer he dared to add: “What happen to us? When you came back we… we were…” he paused, forced the fear and hesitation in his chest to settle and finished: “we were almost friends.”

“You and I are NOT friends.” She started slowly as she remembered what he had told her years ago in the shop that was to later become Giles’ Magic Shop and unknowingly she rephrased it: “We’ll never BE friends.” She looked at him for a while. It was clear he didn’t recall that conversation. All he read from her words was: “You are not good enough to be my friend.” Maybe it was better that way.