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"Spike? If you don't come inside, I'm going to think there's another monster in the house."
Joyce hugged her bedspread to her chest. For all she knew, she had been imagining things all night. Among the fears the brain tumor had brought with it -- fear of pain, fear of leaving her girls alone, some honest-to-God spiritual fear that had shocked her silly -- the most disquieting thing was not knowing if what she saw and heard was real.
A hand reached through the dark window, followed by platinum hair and black-clad shoulders. "Actually, there is." Spike kept his voice low as he stepped over the sill. "A monster." He shrugged, embarrassed.
"That little porch roof can't be a comfortable place to sit."
"Just wanted to see you were all right. Didn't fancy a conversation with the soldier boys."
"I'm -- well, not fine, but still here, anyway. I heard you helped with the thing Buffy was fighting downstairs. Thank you."
"'S nothing." He moved to step back out the window.
"Could I ask you a favor?"
Spike turned to look back at her, eyebrow raised.
"I can't sleep, and Buffy and Dawn have been hovering over me all day. They need their rest. Would you stay and talk?"
"Sure." He settled onto the windowsill and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. "D'you mind?"
Joyce smiled ruefully. "I'm not exactly worried about second-hand smoke at the moment. Go ahead."
Spike lit up, a brief flare of red illuminating his angular face. He drew in a puff and blew smoke out the window.
"There was something on my ceiling earlier, wasn't there?"
"Dunno about the ceiling. Dawn said she found it already on you. Ugly grub-like thing, face like a tapeworm." Spike grimaced.
Joyce rubbed at her forehead. "Just when I have a handle on these... supernatural events, along comes something so weird, I think I must be dreaming." Spike nodded, flicking ash out onto the asphalt shingles. "And now, with the tumor messing with my head, I -- I feel like I'm in Limbo. I'm not dead, but I'm not really here either."
Spike laughed a soundless huff. "Well, I'm no Beatrice, but--" He broke off as Joyce looked at him strangely. "It's a story, never mind."
"You just quoted Dante to me."
"Won't happen again. Don't tell anyone."
"Sure."
They sat in silence for a few moments.
Joyce blurted, "Dawn says you can't bite people anymore."
Spike gaped. "She said what? Does everyone know now?" He waved his hands. "Look, I've got a reputation to maintain." He muttered, "Need to have a talk with that girl."
"So, can you?"
He clenched his jaw, looking away. "Hurts too much. Makes my head feel on fire."
"There's a difference between hurts too much and can't."
Spike busied himself lighting a new cigarette.
Joyce picked at a loose thread on the bedspread. "I'm not asking, but I wondered. If the doctors can't stop this cancer... you could. Couldn't you?"
Spike looked at her blankly a moment. When the understanding hit him he recoiled so hard he nearly fell out the window. He grabbed for the sill and righted himself.
"Don't say that," he hissed. "Don't even think it."
She held up her hands, placating. "I wasn't asking, just wondering--"
"Tried something like that once," he interrupted. "A long time ago. It didn't go well."
"I'm sorry. For whatever happened, Spike, I'm very sorry."
He fortified himself with another drag, then stared out the window. "You wouldn't be who you are now. Wouldn't want the same things. First thing most vamps do is kill their family. You'd kill Dawn, then Buffy'd have to dust you." He looked up and caught her eyes with that clear blue gaze. "If I thought it'd make Buffy happy, I'd do it in a heartbeat, 'f you wanted. It wouldn't. You wouldn't be you," he repeated.
"But you're still you."
Spike laughed bitterly. "You wouldn't say so if you knew the wanker I was before Dru turned me."
"All right. You've made your point. Just put it down to crazy talk, okay?"
He smiled so sweetly it took her breath away. "Crazy doesn't bother me."
Oh, Buffy. You're in trouble with this one.
"Spike, are you stalking my daughter?"
"Suppose I am." He looked for all the world like a boy scuffling his foot.
"'Cause I've still got an axe in the garage I could hit you with."
He laughed, a merry one this time. "You'd make a brilliant vampire, Joyce."
"That's kind of disturbing."
Spike pinched out his last cigarette and stepped over the windowsill. "Evil ought to disturb," he said over his shoulder. She heard a soft thump as his feet hit the ground outside.
Joyce sighed and wished she could get to sleep.