Note: BIG thanks to my beta Marsters’ Girl for
getting it back to me so quickly!
She was hungry.
And, ow, her head kinda hurt. She gingerly
rolled her head to the side, trying to work out where she was.
Her eyes refused to cooperate and open, so
she extended her other senses.
It was dark, cold and dank - but it didn't
bother her.
She was lying on something soft, it felt
like silk.
She felt the bed move next to her and her
senses alerted her to a familiar presence.
"Spike?" She croaked, forcing to
her eyes open and focus on the blonde she knew to be sitting next to her.
"You must be hungry, pet." It
wasn't a question.
She accepted the red liquid eagerly, her
tongue savoring the scent and taste of the miraculous liquid. She heard herself
growl a little as the last on it slipped down her throat. She raised amber eyes
to the vampire.
"I can feel you inside of me."
She whispered, staring at him.
"I know." He whispered back,
taking the styrofoam cup from her and placing it on the floor.
"I guess I was your third after
all." She said quietly, and then doubled over as silent tears slipped down
her face. Spike awkwardly moved so that his back was against the headboard, and
carefully placed an arm around the sobbing girl. He was shocked when she curved
her body into his, even more so when he felt hot tears through his shirt.
*I'm so sorry.* He whispered in his head,
closing his eyes as he leant back, still cuddling the crying slayer in his
arms.
---
Three
Weeks Later
"So...Buffy, you want to come out with
us, you know - a little after patrol relaxing?" Xander asked the silent
slayer.
"Umm..."
"You don't have to, right
Xander?" Willow quickly put in.
"It's not that..." Buffy
hesitated.
The three of them had been patrolling for
about half an hour. It was part of their whole
make-Buffy-the-vampire-vampire-slayer-feel-human deal. They hadn't really found
any big baddie so far, but Buffy was scared that they would. So far she had
managed to control the demon pretty well, but after last week...
"Buffy?"
"I think I just wanna go home, is that
okay with you guys?" She tried a smile, but couldn't quite make it form
her lips.
"Sure..." Willow murmured, but
the slayer had already turned and started to leave the graveyard.
"Let her go, Wills...she'll come when
she’s ready."
Willow nodded resignedly, and her and
Xander left in the other direction.
---
It had been three weeks.
Twenty-one...a nearby church-clock struck
one o'clock...twenty-two days since she had woken up at Spike's crypt...woken
up a vampire.
And her whole world had changed again.
If she had thought that getting called had
messed with her life, it was a walk in the park compared to this.
Riley...her loving, steady,
never-gonna-leave-you Riley had actually been surprisingly cool about everything.
Once he had beaten the shit out of Spike and she'd dragged him from the crypt.
Two weeks ago they had had a talk, he still loved her - being a vampire didn't
change that.
She asked that they take it slow. He said
that was okay.
And it was okay, until last week.
It had been a Kregnokh demon according to
Giles, very slimy, very hard to kill, very tough; almost too tough. But she'd
managed it, but not without changing.
Apparently being a vampire had changed a
few things.
He needed time to think. Time to work
things out for himself.
She needed someone who could be there for
her, now.
Buffy crawled into bed, after dragging her
emotionally tired body up the tree outside her old room. It had been twenty-two
days since she had seen him and it was like an ache in her chest that wouldn't
go away.
She could feel him every hour of the day.
When she was patrolling he was near. When she slept he was in her dreams. Her
blood called for him.
It didn't call, it screamed.
She had heard that a bond between a sire
and a childe could be strong, but...this was different. She wasn't sure how,
but it felt different.
She rolled over in her bed, her face
changing as her demon cried for the safety and protection of her sire.
---
Across the hall, Joyce's heart sank a
little further at the sound.
Every night it was the same. She would
return home from patrolling, late so that she wouldn't have to talk to any
body.
Somehow, and Joyce suspected via the tree
next to her window, she made it to her room.
Once inside she was silent...every night
Joyce prayed that it was sleep that made her so quiet.
Then it started.
They were quiet at first, barely
perceptible except to a mother's ears, but soon the wails grew in intensity. The
only way to describe it was to compare it to the sound an animal makes when
it's in pain.
Joyce was torn. She was having a hard
enough time proving to Buffy that she loved her, whatever she was, without
worrying about breaking her trust by talking to Mr. Giles about her slayer's
nighttime distress.
So she said nothing.
The two of them suffered in silence.
---
Spike sat alone in his crypt, staring at
the blank TV screen, a half-empty whisky bottle in his un-bandaged hand. The crypt
was silent expect for the rhythmic swish made as he lilted the glass to his
lips.
He hadn't seen her.
No one had come to him after the soldier
confrontation.
He hadn't said a thing since then.
There had been no one to talk to.
She hadn't come, but he'd followed her at
night. Not in the old creepy-stalker way, but in a protective-sire way. He'd
seen the fight she'd had with soldier-boy and it had nearly forced him out of
the shadows but then the whelp had arrived and the two had left together.
But he watched her nightly.
She looked beautiful. Ethereal. Not-of-this
World...if she ever was.
And she looked sad, so sad.
Defeated.
And it killed him inside.