Title: Family Part 4

Email: tirel@pcnuthut.com

Author: Velvet Crypt

Disclaimer: Joss is God. I own nothing.

Spoilers: Umm…total non canon.

Summary: The bond is formed.

Spike had the same series of thoughts pounding over and over through his brain: Get home. Warn the others. Protect my family. He couldn’t see. The blood flowed into his swollen eyes and obscured any part of his vision he had left. He hurt in so many places that he couldn’t concentrate on any one in particular. He knew he was practically dragging his right leg, and that it had to be broken, but he didn’t have time to stop and set it.

He kept one hand firmly pressed against his stomach. The only time he had let go, a swarm of intestines had threatened to spill out and trip him. He was operating on instinct now. He followed the tug that said ‘home’ and hoped he wouldn’t meet up with anything else tonight. He knew he’d made it home when he turned the knob on the door and fell through with no resistance.

Blinking rapidly he looked around for Xander. He tried calling, but the only sound he could muster was a croak. He felt the blackness calling him and he fought it tooth and nail. But, in the end, it pulled him under.

“Uncle Xander!” Nate shrieked, racing to Spike’s side. Xander came out of the kitchen carrying a handful of silverware and a dishtowel. Lys and Ellie followed. Xander’s face went stark white as he saw his love collapsed in a bloody heap on the floor. He dove to his side and began running his hands over the vamps body to assess the damage.

“Oh Jesus Fucking Christ,” he breathed when he got to the belly wound. “Lys, take Ellie out of here. Nate, call Giles and the others. Tell them we need blood. Lots of it. A shitload. And tell them to hurry.” Lys tried to pull Ellie away, but the little girl just looked at her with a calm expressionless face and Lys felt something steal over her. She couldn’t identify it, but she stopped trying to take her sister away.

Nate raced to the phone and speed dialed Giles.

“Hello?”

“Giles! You have to come quick! Uncle Wil is messed up bad. Uncle Xander says he needs blood. Please…you have to hurry!”

“Nate? What happened? Never mind. How much blood?”

“I don’t know. Uncle Xander just said ‘a shitload.’”

“A sh-. Ah, yes…well. I’m on my way. I’ll call the girls en route to the blood bank. What is Xander doing?”

“I don’t know. He checked Uncle Wil out and I’d say, now, from the look on his face, the knife in his hand and the big cut in his arm, he’s trying to keep Uncle Wil alive until you get here.”

“Oh, dear Lord. Don’t let him give too much, Nate. If he starts to sway, or get really pasty, pull him off.”

“Okay, I will. Please…hurry.”

Spike. Oh, fuck, Spike. What happened to you, love? Who did this to you? I’ll gut them. I swear. Can you hear me? Can you feel me? Fuck, where is Giles? Please, baby, don’t die on me. You’re so gray. You look like ash. Does that mean you’re close to final death? God, no. Please stay with me, love. What can I do? Ow, what the hell is that? Oh, the silverware. I wonder…yes! A knife! I’ll keep you with me until Giles gets here, baby. I won’t let you go.

Fuck, that hurt. Deeper, deeper…gotta keep it flowing for him. There. Now open your mouth, love. Open and drink from me. Drink and live.

“Uncle Xander, that’s enough.” He vaguely heard his name. He did, however, feel the tugging on his arm. He looked up to see Nate’s worried face and suddenly strong hands jerk his arm out of Spike’s mouth. “That’s enough. If you give too much you’ll pass out and I don’t know what to do.”

He nodded; it seemed to take forever to move his head up and down. “He needs more, though. I’ll just rest a minute and then I have to feed him again.” Nate furrowed his brow and snatched up the knife. He had it dug into his flesh before Xander could wrap his brain around his actions.

“Nate! No! What are you doing! You can’t-“

“I can’t what? You can’t give anymore, Uncle Xan. And I don’t know how long Giles will be. Uncle Wil’s leaking it out as fast as you can put it in him. He needs more.”

“But you’re a boy. You don’t understand what you’re doing.”

Nate snorted. “I’m 15, Uncle Xan. I can make this choice on my own.” He paused for a moment. “Do you love him?”

Xander’s eyes went wide and then they closed, tears leaking out of the corners. “Yes.”

“Then why is it so hard to believe that we love him too? He’d die for us. We know that. He loves us. We know that too. He’s family, Uncle Xan. Our family. And I won’t let him die either.”

Xander just looked away. Nate finished the cut and shoved his forearm into Spike’s mouth. He could understand why Xander had to be pulled away. The blood loss made him woozy, but there was something else. He felt as though he was becoming a part of Spike. He was drowning in him. He could feel the vamps pain, his fear, and his love. He didn’t want to let go. He was angry when small hands drug him away.

“Nate. Stop. That’s enough.” Lys shook him slightly. She smiled at him, reassuringly. “You were fading out.”

Nate slumped. He looked at the belly wound and saw that the blood flow had slowed, but was still sluggishly flowing. Lys followed his gaze and bit her lip. With a look of fierce determination on her face, she held her hand out for the knife. Nate handed it to her, squeezing her hand. She whimpered a bit as the blade cut into her, and she couldn’t watch as her blood started to flow, but she held her wrist to Spike’s lips and felt him begin to drink.

She too felt the pull. Only she felt it from Spike, from Uncle Xander, and from Nate as well. She felt herself fall against Nate’s side and tried to force her eyes open. When she did, she wished she hadn’t.

“Ellie, no!” She tried to move forward, but tangled in Nate’s legs. They wrestled to unravel each other. Xander snatched the knife out of Ellie’s hands, but not quickly enough. She hadn’t cut herself badly, but there was a drop of blood clinging to her arm. With a serious look, she pressed the drop against Spike’s lips. Xander tried to stop her, but found he couldn’t move at all.

She moved away before Spike could begin sucking and deliberately took a place above Spike’s head. She pointed to Spike’s side and Xander scooted over, bewildered at why he was doing so. She pointed just below her position to the right and Lys crawled to there. She gestured to an opposing spot on the left and Nate took up that position.

The door flew open and Giles, Willow, Tara, Buffy and Dawn jostled for the lead into the room. As they stepped in, they stopped dead in their tracks. The green glow was back. Only this time, everyone could see it. It covered the five figures in the floor and the lines began to draw themselves. They went from person to person, touching each and moving on to the next, until they were all connected. Then, the line shot out and encircled the little group. They all jerked slightly, and then slumped to a prone position as the green dissipated.

Giles, Willow and Tara stared in awe at the sight. Buffy and Dawn stood and looked panicked. “What is it?” Dawn finally whispered.

“It’s a pentacle.” Willow breathed. “An absolutely perfect pentacle created by the life force of five people.”

Dawn looked again, tilting her head. “And what does that mean?”

As they watched, the green grew softer and faded away. Xander woke from his daze first. He took a moment to reassure himself that Nate, Lys and Ellie were opening their eyes as well and then turned his attention to Spike. His brow furrowed and he jerked the vampire’s shirt nearly off of him. He prodded Spike’s belly and ran his hand over his leg.

No, he wasn’t seeing things. The gut wound was no more. The flesh was gloriously unmarred. His leg was no longer broken. His face was pale and bloody, but there were no wounds. He leaned over the blonde’s body and tried to control his tears. He found he was fighting a losing battle and gave up when he felt Lys’s arm snake around his waist.

He began to sob; huge wracking sobs that shook his whole body. He wanted to reach out to the kids, to hold them and reassure them that it was all going to be okay. But he was pretty sure they’d think he was insane, telling them it was all hunky dory while bawling his head off. As he thought about telling them, he felt a strange tingle in his head.

He couldn’t identify it, but just as soon as he thought, /It’ll be okay/, Lys squeezed him.

“Of course it will, Uncle Xan.”

He lifted his head and looked at her in confusion. /But I didn’t say anything./

“What do you mean, you didn’t say anything?” Lys turned to him. “I heard you. You just said It’ll be okay. And it will. Ellie thinks so too.”

Xander looked at Ellie. She returned his gaze with a calm, serene, totally not a five year old look. /Uncle Wil is all better. We fixed him./

“Ellie?”

/We got put together. That fixed him. Now he’ll be okay./

“What does she mean, we got put together?” Nate asked. Xander’s head shot to him.

“You heard her, too?” Nate looked a little nervous, but nodded.

“I heard her too.” Lys volunteered.

“Willow?” Xander turned scared eyes to his friends. “What the hell is going on?”

_________________________________

Nearly 30 minutes later, everyone was curled up on a couch. They had hot chocolate in hands and were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Nate, Spike, Lys, Ellie and Xander sat on one couch; Ellie in Lys’s lap, Spike sprawled across Xander and Nate. Giles, Buffy and Willow sat on the other, with Dawn and Tara curled at their feet.

Willow took a deep breath. “I really don’t know what happened.” She began. “I know what I saw. I know what I think it means. But why it happened? No idea.”

“So, just tell us what you think it is.” Buffy encouraged.

“They made a pentacle. A five pointed star with an encompassing circle. They made it with their life forces.”

She waved her hand in the air helplessly. Tara cut in.

“A pentacle is a symbol. Each point represents a part of the whole of a person. The circle forms a protective and completing part. It makes the pentacle, or the spirit represented whole.” She leaned forward and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from off of the coffee table. “Here, it looks like this…”

She drew a five-pointed star, surrounded by a circle. “This part,” pointing to the bottom left, “represents the element of Earth. It also stands for stability and endurance.” She looked up. “This is the position Xander took.” Eyes darted to him, but he only had eyes for the symbol Tara was drawing. “This part, the bottom right, represents fire, also, courage and daring. From what I could see, Spike took this position.”

She moved on. “The top right represents water, also emotions and intuition. Lys took this position. The top left is air. Intelligence and wisdom fall here. Nate took this position. The top of the pentacle is the spirit. It stands for the heart, the soul, and the divinity in a person. Ellie had that position.” She looked up from her drawing. “I think that the five of them created a bond. They created a connection to each other with their own life forces and each one of them took on the aspect most suited to them in the whole of the new entity they created.”

Giles wiped his glasses. “Are you suggesting they created a…thing?”

Tara shook her head. “No, not at all. Each person has a spirit. Each spirit can be represented by a pentacle. Some have stronger pieces of the pentacle. Some don’t have the completing circle. Some, practitioners of the dark arts, have perverted the pentacle into it’s opposite. In that instance, the spirit is on the bottom and each corner represents the…well, to be frank, the rape of that which it represents.”

She smiled. “I just think that each of them took their strongest piece of their own pentacle, and merged it with the other four. I think the love and protectiveness that they each feel for each other created the circle. They were five separate, lonely entities. Now they are bound into one content entity.”

Everyone still looked confused. Willow sighed. “You saw how they could hear each others thoughts?” Nods all around. “And how, when they mixed their blood and wanted more than anything to heal Spike, he healed?” More nods. “They took the strongest parts of themselves and threw them into the middle of the table. The parts found each other, bonded to each other, and created a new vessel to reside in. They are each a human…well, human and vamp, vessel like they always were. But together, they have formed a new vessel that is five times as strong as any one of them. And they are all connected to it.”