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Three. Bloody. Days.
Three days of holding Thursday while the eighteen-month-old cried herself hoarse. Three days of those cries turning to screams if he so much as tried to put her down or hand her off. Including trying to give her to her mum for a nurse. She wasn’t having any of it. Something was very wrong with the poor little mite, and she wanted her daddy. Wanted him to make everything right again.
And there’s sod all I can do for it, Spike thought bleakly as he paced the lower level of the crypt, a nappy-clad Thursday held snugly against his bare chest. The skin-to-skin contact seemed to soothe her a little, but did nothing to actually fix whatever was wrong.
Three bloody days, and they still hadn’t a bloody clue. They’d taken her to Ben, of course, but every test had come back normal. They’d asked Tara and Bethany to do a diagnostic spell, but everything had been normal there, too. Except everything wasn’t bloody well normal. Thursday had been crying for three. Bloody. Days.
He’d brought her to the crypt after the first two days of it. Her crying tended to set off her little sister if she could hear it, and the both of them had enhanced hearing. Was also the fact that they’d a pretty full house, with most of the lot having either work or school. Both in the case of the two witches sharing the basement, who were also hard at work trying to research some way to help Thursday.
The room he shared with Buffy and Aliena had a soundproofing spell they could trigger when needed, but was specifically designed to let through legitimate cries of distress, wasn’t it? Thursday was definitely distressed. And off her feed, too. He’d been able to get a bit of blood into her, but she’d only taken half of her usual sippy cup. The only other thing she’d had was a spot of porridge mixed with her mum’s breast milk.
Spike’s cell phone rang, and Thursday jerked in his arms, her angry scream stabbing through his head like a jolt from the gone-but-not-forgot chip. He cursed and shifted the toddler to one arm before grabbing his phone from the dresser.
“What?” he snapped.
There was a moment of silence from the other end, and Spike was just about to throw the bloody thing at the wall when Buffy spoke. “Still pretty bad, huh?” She was trying to sound like she wasn’t worried, but he could hear the tension in her voice. She’d the normal worries of any mother paired with the ritual pushing at her. “Tara is watching Aliena, so I can come by the crypt for a little bit. Is there anything you need?”
Booze. Smokes. Buffy.
“Just get here.”
They said their goodbyes and “I love you”s, and Spike managed to gently put the phone down instead of flinging it somewhere. God, he hated this. Hated feeling helpless while his little girl suffered. Hated not knowing what was wrong. Hated not being able to just find a physical manifestation of it and rip it to shreds. And he couldn’t even take out his frustration and worry on anything. Not without being able to put Thursday down for a bit.
It wasn’t much as far as venting went, but he flipped the little mental switch in his head, letting his fangs out to play. There was an odd, muted crunching sound, then sudden silence. He glanced down at Thursday.
Oh god, her brain’s exploded, he thought in numb horror. Her forehead was swollen and something seemed off with her nose. And her eyes…. Her eyes had bloody well gone from blue to yellow. He reached up with his free hand to gently open her mouth. Spike’s knees suddenly went weak with relief, and he hastily sat down on the bed before they gave out on him.
Fangs. She had fangs. Well, of course she sodding well did. Was half vampire, wasn’t she? Drank blood and all, along with needing human food. She’d been doing the vampire version of teething, and hadn’t known what to do to bring it all forward. He’d gone all bumpy in front of her before, of course, but not during the past three days.
He took a deep breath, then slowly let it out before switching back. There was another muted crunch, then Thursday was peering at him through sleepy, bloodshot blue eyes. She yawned at him, snuggled in against his chest, and was fast asleep within seconds.
Spike stared down at her. He knew he should settle her on the bed and call Buffy to let her know what had happened. He would. He just needed to… rest… for a….
...
“Spike?” Buffy called as she went down into the lower level of the crypt. It was quiet. Too quiet, and she was desperately shoving down a tidal wave of fear. Why wasn’t Thursday crying? Had she…? No. No, no, no. Thursday was fine. She was… “Spike!”
There, on the bed. Spike was sprawled across it in a pair of black jeans, Thursday cuddled beside him. The little girl stirred suddenly, sitting up and looking at her.
“Mum-uh?”
“Hey, pumpkin,” Buffy said softly as she sat on the edge of the bed. Thursday crawled over into her lap. “Feeling better?”
She gave a solemn little nod, then patted at one of Buffy’s boobs. “Mek?”
Well, her appetite seemed to be back, which was very of the good. Buffy glanced over at Spike as she started to unbutton her shirt, then reached out with one hand to jostle his leg. No response. He was a pretty heavy sleeper even when he hadn’t been awake for three days, but she could probably wake him up if she tried hard enough.
She sighed and gathered Thursday close to nurse. She wanted to know what had happened, but it could wait. For now, it was enough to know that their little girl was alright.