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Chapter 11

Spike could feel the Slayer’s distraught emotions and thought she’d been discovered by the Order. He raced along the sewers to the school’s entrance via the basement, an overwhelming urge for him to get there. To save her.

He couldn’t lose her now. Not now that this thing between them had started to develop.

‘Mommy.’

A single thought, though no less traumatic – for the Slayer, at least. But, it caused Spike to slow his headlong run down the tunnel. She’d apparently just seen her mum. Probably thrown her for a loop, not having seen her in over a month. What was her mum doing at the school on a Friday night anyway?

Spike had just reached the ladder leading up to the school’s basement when he saw the trap door open. In the blink of an eye, the Slayer was standing before him, throwing her arms about him and crying like the little girl she hadn’t been for some time. Spike just held her close until she slowly got her emotions under control, helping her by rubbing her back and murmuring soothing platitudes to calm her. After awhile, she drew away, and he couldn’t help the smirk that came to his lips once he got a look at her face. He didn’t outright laugh, no matter how much her tear-streaked make-up made her appear like a clown – but it was bloody well close.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” she told him, suddenly overcome with embarrassment at her breakdown.

“No worries, luv,” he replied, trying to wipe away the black smudges from beneath her eyes but with little success. “How’s it look up there?” He inclined his head in the direction of the school, trying to steer her away from her melancholy, get her back to the business at hand.

Her smile indicated her appreciation and when she spoke her voice was much more steady. “Scooby gang all present and accounted for, and it looks like they’ve done a bit of recruiting– my mom.”

“Ahhh… So that’s what the waterworks were about,” he replied, not letting on that he’d known all along what was bothering her. No need to get into the ramifications of his having claimed her just yet. Plenty of time for that later. Say– many years from now.

“Yeah. Sorry,” she mumbled yet again. “I just wasn’t expecting my mom to be sitting there right in the middle of them, her nose stuck in one of Giles' demon books, looking for all the world like she belonged.”

“What did you expect would happen when you jus’ up and disappeared?”

“I dunno. I hadn’t really planned that far ahead. I just– I just needed to keep her safe. Make the Order follow me. Ya know?”

“Yeah, I do. Come on,” he told her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and steering her towards another part of town. “Let’s finish up our sweep of good ole Sunnyhell. See how many of the Order’s faithful have hung around.”

“Alright.”

The two walked for a bit, the only sound, that of their feet as they sloshed in the puddles.

“Thanks, Spike,” Buffy spoke after a time.

Spike didn’t say anything, unaccustomed to receiving thanks of any kind– from anyone.

“Really. I—”

“Don’t make me bite you, Slayer,” he responded rather gruffly. Spike hauled her close, masking his brief hug within a bid to get her to move. “Now, come on.”

Buffy smiled anyway, her mood suddenly lightened in his presence– even if he was more prickly than a lion with a thorn in its paw.

~*~*~*~*~

By the time they’d finished reconnoitering the town, they’d counted a total of six assassins; they added a few more to that number, just in case they’d missed one or two. Two were stationed at the school. One each was also at her mom’s, her watcher’s, Willow’s, and Xander’s homes.  

They arrived separately back at the hotel, Spike returning some time later because he stopped for a bite to eat along the way – some would be mugger that took one look at his stylish clothes as he walked along the rundown section of Sunnydale and thought Spike might be easy pickings, especially with the added courage in the form of the handgun the man had been sporting. The thief had gotten quite the surprise when the bullet didn’t kill his intended victim – had, in fact, just hurt like hell and really pissed Spike off.

Spike calmly took off his glasses and slid them into his pants pocket, unmindful of the blood oozing from the wound to his stomach, then allowed his demon to spring forth, sensing the man’s escalating fear.

“W-wha…w-what are you?” the mugger managed to gasp out as he fell over backwards onto a crate, scrambling to get away from the… thing… the monster slowly advancing on him.

Spike reached down, pulling up the human by the lapels of his coat.  

“I’d say somethin’ like ‘Your worst nightmare’ but ‘s too cliché. So, I’ll go with the “’m a bloody vampire, you git, what does it look like?’” Spike replied, just before sinking his fangs into the human’s throat. Mindful of his bleeding wound, he drank fast and dropped the corpse to the ground. He glanced down at his ruined sweater and mentally cringed at the confrontation he’d most likely have with the Slayer once he returned.

~*~*~*~*~

As expected, the Slayer had let him have it with both barrels, even as she hauled him into the bathroom and practically ripped his clothes off him to see to his wound. She’d muttered under her breath–  a lot. Stupid vampire an oft-repeated phrase of hers, and it seemed to Spike like she took perverse pleasure in pulling the slug from his body – an extra jab here, an extra twist there. He didn’t give her the satisfaction that knowing her supposed tender ministrations hurt like a right bitch. He’d dust himself first. Christ! He knew of undertakers with better bedside manner than she exhibited!

Spike eyed the small sewing kit she set beside him warily, about to object that he’d heal just fine on his own with a little rest, but she spoke before he had the chance. So, he just nodded at her explanation and closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her hands.

~*~

Buffy knew she was hurting Spike, but couldn’t seem to help herself. She was so nervous, and worried. When he’d shown up, she’d nearly fainted when she’d seen the hole in his sweater and taken in his paler than normal complexion. He was hiding it, but Spike appeared moments from passing out.

She’d dragged him in none to gently and cleaned him up, before setting to his abdomen with one of the knives she carried on her person. Her emotions made her more clumsy than normal, and what would have normally taken her five minutes to accomplish had taken her at least twice that long.

And, through it all, he’d not said a word. Just lay passively beneath her. Even when she pulled out needle and thread and set to stitching his wound closed.

“It’ll help it heal faster,” she explained. Spike just nodded and closed his eyes while she went to work on him.

Afterward, she crawled up on the bed beside him, leaning against the headboard – pillows propped up behind her – and staring at the television. Spike had curled into her left side, his head lying on her stomach, seemingly fast asleep. Her right hand held the remote and she channel-surfed as thoughts of his condition seemed to plague her mind.

She knew he’d fed, most likely from the person that had shot him, given the false warmth of his skin when she’d first stripped him down and shoved him under the showerhead. But, the fact that he appeared to be sleeping, and it being barely eleven o’clock at night, spoke volumes. Buffy called his name a few times to see if he was actually asleep, or just laying passively against her listening to the TV. When he didn’t respond, she reached a decision.

She set the remote beside her and fished out 4”-knife she kept on her person at all times. A moment later, she had it open and had sliced into her wrist, letting the blood pool to the surface a moment before lowering it to Spike's lips. Having scented her blood, his mouth opened instinctively to close around her self-inflicted wound; he didn’t sink his fangs into her, though, just lapped at the blood as poured forth from the cut.

Smiling at his rumble of pleasure, Buffy tossed her knife onto the bedside table and curled around Spike. Her eyes closed, and she drifted off to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~

Spike woke about an hour after he dozed off; the warm body draped around him and the drops of blood as they hit his tongue an Eden unlike any he could have ever imagined. Still half asleep, his fangs elongated to sink into the flesh before his lips. The flinch of the person wrapped around him didn’t register, but the first hard pull of blood that filled his mouth did.

He froze, eyes shooting open to take in his surroundings. The only light coming from the room was from the television that had been left on.

Carefully, so as not to wake the Slayer, he removed his fangs from her wrist and lapped at wrist until her blood ceased to flow. His eyes shifted to her face looking for any signs of trauma or discomfort she may be feeling at having fed him for so long; she appeared to be suffering no ill effects and Spike let out an unconscious sigh.

Then promptly got angry.  

How dare she take such chances with her life like that! He could have killed her before he even realized what he was doing. He had half a mind to wake her up and lay into her for acting so foolishly. Instead, he shifted her body to lie more comfortably on the mattress, pulling her close. He didn’t bother to remove her clothes, not wanting to wake her. Just dragged the comforter over both of them.

For a long time, Spike did nothing but hold her; listening to her deep, even breathing and her slow, but steady, heartbeat. He didn’t bother with leaving their room – Sunnydale being unlike the other places they’d stayed. His actions wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, and he needed to maintain a low profile until they’d enacted their plan for ridding Sunnydale of the assassins lurking around the Slayer’s family and friends.

So far as the Order knew, the Slayer was working alone, and it gave them the decided advantage.

One he wasn’t going to muck up because he felt he needed to escape the girl that was steadily slipping through the barriers he’d erected around his heart.

~*~*~*~*~

When Buffy awoke, the sun was trying to peek around the curtains of the window. At some point during the night, Spike had to have woken because she was now lying on her side – still fully clothed – a naked, very aroused vampire half-draped over her.

As much as she would love to wile away a few hours, she had to be in position near the bus station to see if any of the assassins took her bait. Hopefully, she’d be able to shrink their numbers while she was at it.

Carefully disentangling herself from Spike, she paused only long enough to change her t-shirt, before grabbing one of the key cards and slipping soundlessly from the room. She’d not shared this particular part of the plan with him, especially since he wouldn’t actually be able to help her out, being that it was daylight – which was why she hadn’t told him.

He would have just argued against it.

Spike had developed this strange habit of seeing to her back. Not that she didn’t like it. But, she was the Slayer; she was used to fighting her own battles.

~*~*~*~*~

Buffy looked down at the bus station from one of the broken windows of the abandoned building she’d secreted herself inside. A movement on the rooftop caught her eye, and she noticed a figure hunched down behind one of the structures on the flat roof as it sought to spy on the inbound bus from Las Vegas. Another sweep proved that there was only one assassin there to meet the bus, and Buffy left her hiding spot to narrow the odds a little more in her favor.

She took the long way to avoid detection, gaining the rooftop by shimmying up the drainpipe that was bolted to the exterior wall. She took no unnecessary chances, stalking her prey with a silent determination that would have made Spike proud. Before the assassin had a chance to grasp that he was being scoped out by his intended victim, he was flat on his back with a knife to his throat.

His surprised expression indicated that he’d clearly not been expecting her. And in her present condition. She smiled then, pleased with her disguise. Apparently, the Order had lumped her into a particular box and hadn’t expected her to stray too far from the norm. A nice little tidbit he’d inadvertently given her that she filed away for later.

“How many?” she growled out without preamble.

“I-I don’t know,” the assassin gasped out.

Buffy nicked his skin, causing him to hiss in pain. “I’m not going to ask you again.” Her grip shifted on her knife, digging a little deeper into his neck.

“Seven. Seven! Including me,” he choked.

“Human or demon?”

“Both.”

Buffy leaned close, her eyes boring into the frightened brown of the man beneath her. “You should have just stuck with me. You should have left my family and friends out of it.”

He started to make some type of excuse, anything to get her to remove the knife from his throat.

“Save it. Since you’re in such an accommodating mood– feel like telling me the location of the Order?” she asked him conversationally, as if the information she’d just requested didn’t equal that of the keys to the pearly gates.

The assassin’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, his negative shake causing the knife at his throat to dig deeper into his skin.

“No?” Without so much as a pause, Buffy slit the man’s throat. “Yeah. Didn’t think so.” With cold, precise movements, Buffy searched the corpse for any means of identification. A wasted cause, she was sure, but it didn’t hurt to check. When her search revealed nothing, she slipped the fire-like designed gold emblem ring from his finger, proof of his membership in the Order – a souvenir of sorts. Or, a tool that might gain her precious seconds when dealing with the remaining assassins.

She pocketed the gold piece of jewelry and walked away without a backward glance.

One down. Six more to go.

And, no doubt, one pissed off vampire to deal with.

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