Chapter Text
A night without Ash isn’t a rare thing. Nor are several in a row. Spike doesn’t even know why she bothers coming in the first place, when she could be wrapped up warm in a vamp-proof home. She certainly doesn’t do it for him, vamp that he is, so he’s at a loss.
Not that he cares why. Or cares if she doesn’t show.
But apparently now there's nothing else to do when she doesn't rock up at the cemetery in the middle of the night.
Spike kicks at a gravestone and spins around for the hundredth time, throwing his head back and huffing at the sky. He can’t seriously be considering this. She’s the one who comes out here. He’s not gonna be a vamp who heels to someone’s beck and call – let alone one of the Slayer’s pack.
But he wheels around and glares through the night at the cemetery gate. A worn stripe of grass carved by his pacing boots points the way.
She’s just conversation. Which he has to begrudgingly admit is welcome, now he’s under the Slayer’s jurisdiction with much less carnage to be had than his previous lifestyle.
He tries to tell himself it’s for bonus points with Buffy when he finally stomps towards the gate and into the night. Not that her gang would bother asking him, but he hears things. Demons at the bar asking who they should be congratulating that one of the Slayer’s friends is missing. An overheard conversation as he kept out of the way of Buffy’s patrol, asking Xander if he’d tried calling again, if there had been anyone at home this time.
Not as if a demon like him could know her too, could help.
He sucks his teeth, staring anywhere but his decided path like he can pretend he’s not going there on purpose. There’s no one around to witness his indifferent performance, of course, and it steadily slips off the closer he gets.
Since the time she rocked up drunk, he’s shadowed Ash home a few times after sending her on her merry way from one of their countless nights of conversation. He can say it’s insurance: if he knows where she lives, he doesn’t have to trouble her with sleeping in the crypt if it happens again. Curiosity and suspicion both play their parts too, in case she’s only out on some Scooby mission or other, but she does always head slowly back to the same house whenever he checks. Sneaks in the window like any other naughty teenager.
He can’t deny that there’s some predatory thrill, haunting her from behind trees, some futile kind of reassurance that he could still do this if he wanted. Her, a human none the wiser, him…
What even was he anymore?
See, this is the precise reason he appreciates someone to talk to, even if she is a white hat. Stops him going all the way insane.
For the first time, when he gets to Ash’s house, he crosses the street towards it. Above his footfalls, noise filters through the night, quickly getting louder. His frown deepens at the same rate, quickly tucking himself against the side wall of the house. Safely veiled in shadow, he stalks around the front, following the sound of shouting. Someone is definitely inside. Whether they’re friendly or not is another matter. Given this is Sunnydale, it could be anything in there with her – if she is inside.
The words grow clearer, and he’s surprised to find they’re simply in English, not some demon tongue. A dim light filters from the window he now approaches, sliding to the corner to peer around.
As it turns out, he needn’t have bothered with such caution. No one is looking at him. In the low yellow light from beneath kitchen cabinets, the person’s back is to him as they continue screaming their profanities. The Victorian in him would faint clean away at the language, while the other part half wants to pat the wanker on the back. If it wasn’t for the vitriol behind it, that is.
“HOW FUCKING DARE YOU-! DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TALK BACK TO ME-!”
Spike barely has time to parse through the blur of targeted words before the figure raises their arm, punctuating their yell with a strike at something hidden from him. There’s a struggle; the one Spike can see lunges, grabs whoever is there, clearly grappling.
It’s the cry that makes Spike move. His morbid curiosity had him fixed in place by the window, witnessing something which is hidden within these walls for a reason – but then he hears her.
He was kidding himself if he expected to find anyone else. But there’s something about the sound when the man punches down again, and Ash’s pained, strangled yelp responds. She’s one to bite down on pain, he realises. Only hearing her like this – pitiful, scared – makes him race through a mental catalogue, makes him realise he hasn’t heard a sound like that leave her before. It’s a stark juxtaposition. All those times he’s seen her cut and bruised from bleedin’ demons, and it only takes one man to reduce her to this?
If he is a man. Looks human enough, but it’s hard to smell anything from out here.
Spike steps forwards without deciding to, knowing only that he’s never heard Ash like this. Some combination of his shift in angle and the scuffle inside brings her into view at last.
She lands harshly on the kitchen floor, the man gripping her hair painfully. The dim, yellowish light paints bruises in deep mauve where they coat her jaw and temple.
Another punch. Her body clatters against the kitchen cupboards.
“UNGRATEFUL–” a fist at her collar slams her into them again “–WORTHLESS BITCH!”
Fuck, he’s going to kill her.
Her mouth moves, pleading from a place of blind hope, but Spike can’t hear her over the tirade from her assailant. Her chest rises and falls erratically, eyes big and desperate. She flinches back in vain as a blow knocks her to the floor. The impact is strong enough it wrenches her from his grip.
That, she can work with.
Spike doesn’t take his eyes off her. She stumbles up, dragging herself away. Her fingers scrabble for the door handle.
“Atta girl,” Spike finds himself saying, eyes locked on the scene.
The man is bigger, faster. He charges after her as the handle twists, and they’re falling through, bodies clattering halfway out of sight.
Spike dashes to his left, following the fight. They land in the hallway, and he’s feet away, squinting through the frosted glass of the front door.
Another blow.
“Dad, please!” Comes Ash’s gasping cry.
Spike freezes.
Static crashes in his ears.
Dad.
They’re close enough now, close enough to sense their heartbeats – two, human, heartbeats. Fear leaks noxious through the keyhole, and rage.
Dad. Who else could it be? The guy looks like a man, which rules out most demons, and Ash is certainly smart enough not to invite vamps into her pad. It’s obvious.
But something about it – about hearing it. Hearing her plead with this bastard who’s supposed to be her bloody father–
Spike grasps the doorknob, turning it roughly. Of course it’s locked. Another thump sounds through the door. The pungent scent of fear spikes.
Stomping backwards, Spike launches a decisive boot and kicks. Hard.
The door comes splintering open. Two pairs of eyes flick to him. Ash, a line of blood now trickling from her temple, is pinned against the wall, her dad’s burly hand at her throat. Her feet scrabble fruitlessly for the ground, just too far for her to reach.
Her heartbeat stutters. Spike hears it, and no sooner has the door ricocheted from the wall than he’s rushing forwards–
Something stops him. Panting, he looks up desperately at the invisible barrier.
She’s never invited him in.
A muffled sort of cry chokes from Ash’s throat. Her dad shoves her harder into the wall, recovering from his shock. He glares at Spike with murderous eyes. Daring him.
Spike stands poised, fists clenched, practically snarling on the doorstep, his demon barely in check. His own glare flicks from Ash’s dad to his hand, where Ash is weakly trying to tug his fingers away.
Then Spike meets her eyes.
His, hard, livid. Hers, growing dull. It’s barely a blink, but it stretches cruelly as he watches her throat bob, clawing for air.
It’s breath she doesn’t have, but she uses it anyway. What leaves her is a ghost of air, less than a whisper, less than a gasp. He barely even hears her.
“Come… in…”
Her eyes flutter even as she chokes out the words.
Spike moves like a shot through the night. A blur of black leather, he pounces, ripping dad away from her. The tackle sends them both to the floor, and then Spike is the one pinning someone by the neck, the first punch landing true before he can blink.
Behind them, Ash crashes to the ground. Nothing left, she crumples, blinking through a haze of spots that whirl through her vision. Her throat burns, impaled by air, her lungs drinking it greedily in spasms that wrack her frame. Floor spinning, she chokes and hacks, each gasp tripping over the next. Can’t move, can’t lift herself, surrendered to the tide roaring through her ears.
Dad catches Spike’s fist, but Spike only slams it to the ground next to his now-bloodied face.
“Get out of my fucking house,” the man spits.
“Her bloody house too,” Spike grits. He tightens his grip, making sure this low-life feels every drop of his inhuman strength. Doesn’t care too much if he accidentally breaks the bugger’s hand. “The lady invited me in, didn’t you hear?”
He smirks when he gets a cry out of him.
“Get off!”
The bastard’s voice wavers satisfyingly.
“You don’t fucking touch her, got it?” Spike punctuates his question with a spot of extra trachea-crushing.
“Who… the fuck… are you?”
“I’m the one telling you not to lay a hand on your own sodding daughter! An’ I’m bloody evil – what’s your excuse?”
All he gets is a sort of growl in response. He shakes him.
“Well?”
“Fine!”
“You won’t hurt her again?”
“Agh- I won’t!”
“Won’t come after her? ‘Cause she’s damn well not comin’ back here.”
The man grunts again, but caves under Spike’s unrelenting grip. “I won’t!”
“Bloody right too. Sorry excuse for a human.”
He relinquishes the man with one last shove. Looms above him. The bastard glowers, but makes no move.
“I’ll call the police–”
“Be my bleedin’ guest. I’ll show ‘em how your new shiners match up to your daughter’s.”
The man seems to be chewing on something bitter. He stares sourly at Spike, but all the vampire can hear as the silence stretches are Ash’s quick, rasping breaths behind him.
He feigns a lunge forwards.
Her dad starts and scrambles away, slamming himself on the other side of a door.
Spike hopes he’s bloody cowering behind it. The state of his front door should teach the guy how safe he would be in his hiding spot, if Spike really wanted his head.
Which he does. Badly.
But there are bigger things to deal with.
Turning, he keeps himself between the door and Ash.
She’s staring, jaw slack, eyes glassy. Slumped on the floor, one violently trembling elbow is all that props her up, although her head looks ready to sag back down to the ground at any moment.
“Ash, pet…”
Her breath shudders even more, and for a terrifying moment, he thinks she’s going to cry. It’s kind of worse when she doesn’t. She swallows it down, staring at the door behind which her father retreated.
Spike glances back.
“We’re leaving.”
His first instinct is to swoop down and drag her out by her arm, but she’s probably been thrown around enough for one evening. He sighs, long and hard. Threats and punches, he can do. But him and Ash… How are a few nights of banter meant to prepare him for this? Well, more than a few, he supposes. And there was that one time…
The closest they’ve ever come to this has to be the night she stole his whiskey. There were tears then, but only a little blood. And–
A sudden thought sends his gut plummeting. He forces down the images of various littered wounds, all written off with some excuse. That can come later. He takes stock of the ones currently in front of him.
Bracing himself with a breath, he forces his overcharged muscles to move slowly, stepping closer and crouching in front of her. Her eyes follow him the whole way. The one who always has something to add, who always takes him off-guard with her quips, the one he’s seen hatch plans for the Slayer herself – and she’s looking to him. Waiting, as if he has the words to make this okay. It unnerves him.
Eyes flicking to her forehead, he reaches slowly up to stem the blood. Not slowly enough, though.
A shallow breath sticks in her throat; he hears it. Hears her pulse jump. Her muscles clamp, but she doesn’t flinch, to her credit. Brave bloody girl, he thinks, even now.
He finds he has to swallow before he can speak.
“Let me take a look, yeah?”
Her eyes are bright with moisture, flitting between each of his, lost and searching. Still, she nods without breaking their gaze. The movement comes almost without her decision, her body disconnected.
Even with the assurance of her approval, Spike moves slower than before. His concerned frown shifts to the gash weeping at her temple. He gulps down a lump in his throat as his thumb presses over the blood at last. It’s hot and fresh.
Ash’s parted lips abruptly close, biting down a hiss.
This close, he can feel the tiny tremors shaking her frame. He’s felt her fear before, but never like this. Even when he fought her himself, though he smelled fear, she never let it through the cracks. Now, it rolls off her, nearly drowning him.
And he’s still starkly aware of another heartbeat, still in the house behind him.
“You’re alright now, pet, ‘kay? But we gotta get out of here.”
He moves his hand away. Blood springs to the surface as if he had never been there, begins its weeping wind down her cheek anew.
Setting his face, he eyes her up and down.
“Can you walk?”
The question seems to startle some reality into her. She blinks, looking down at herself even though her gaze stays distant, distracted.
She nods again. Pushes herself up, drags her feet under her. Both of them seem unconvinced that her legs will work, apparently, because Spike hovers, and then he’s holding an arm out, and she takes it wordlessly, her hand warm and quivering over his sleeve.
Senses going haywire, he can hear her every laboured breath, each hitch – and there are several. It’s not right, not her.
These senses exist for the hunt. He doesn’t allow himself to think about how, a short time ago, having a shaking, bleeding girl in front of him would have had a very different ending. How her panting breaths would broadcast signs of weakness. Of opportunity.
His attention is snatched by a quickening in her chest, just as she sways and lists into him. Being starved of oxygen will do that, he supposes.
He doesn’t know how his arm ends up around her back, but now she clings to his other hand, squeezing like she’s testing if he’s real. Daring herself to wake up.
Her breathing is snowballing with each tentative step. As another waft of unbridled rage hits him from somewhere at their backs, Spike decides they aren’t going nearly fast enough.
“Sorry, luv.”
And then he’s scooping her up and striding past the wreckage he’s made of her front door. He hears her gasp at the sudden move – feels it judder down her spine – but she says nothing. They’re soon out into the darkness. As they reach the treeline, she finally starts to relax, though her shakes don’t abate. She could almost be shivering, with how constant they are. Except it’s bloody California. Even in the middle of the night, there’s no risk of catching a chill.
Shock, his mind supplies. Doesn’t think he’s ever cared about a human going into that state. But that must be what it is.
She did nearly get killed right in front of him.
Can vampires get shock too?
He marches on past that thought until the cemetery, daring any passing beasties to come for them. Ash smells like blood and weakness, and Spike is starting to wish he had hit her sorry excuse for a father harder than he did. The blood coating his knuckles is starting to crack.
The tripping, tumbling hammer of her heart doesn’t slow, but she starts to shift.
“Spike…”
It’s more noise than word. Her voice cracks through her throat, dry and rasping.
Glancing down at her, he finds her wincing. Though she says no more, she lightly touches his arm. He could pretend he doesn’t know what she’s asking – but he slows between the headstones and sets her down.
Taking her feet shakily, she sinks onto the nearest tomb.
They’re silent. It might be the first time the two of them seem unable to find words. Nights in this graveyard normally see a steady tirade of bickering and laughter despite themselves. Now…
Spike’s jaw ticks. Is this the reason she even visited him in the first place? The reason she never seems fussed about going home?
“This is where you’ve been?”
His question comes out brusquer than he anticipated, rupturing the silence. Ash, sitting across from him, winces.
Throat still burning, her voice can’t push past the borders of a croaking whisper, but she protests anyway.
“It’s not usually this bad, I swear! I just, I really pissed him off this time, and-”
“This time? He do that a lot, does he?”
Ash’s mouth flounders for words, outlining thoughts she never voices.
Nose flaring, Spike turns half away from her, hands on his hips.
Chewing her lip, Ash watches him warily. Awaiting judgment.
Halfway in darkness, Spike changes tack.
“Your Slayer isn’t half as prolific as I’ve been giving ‘er credit for, is she?”
She blinks.
“…What–?”
“All those demons you lot supposedly slay day in, day out. How many of them were real, hm? What was that last one you told me about? Kovitch demon, my arse.”
Turning to fix her with his scrutiny, he watches her gulp painfully.
“We do fight demons…”
“That right?”
“Well… Buffy is normally the only one in hitting range.” Wringing her hands, Ash stares anywhere but Spike. He watches the corners of her mouth fight a downward quiver. “It’s just… easier to explain.”
Her scratchy words die away again, and she hangs her head.
Spike just stares, frowning, just as lost as she is. What the fuck is he supposed to do?
A fresh scent hits his nose: the acrid sting of tears. They don’t fall, not yet, but in the deafening quiet of Restfield, all he can hear are her watery, uneven breaths.
Dark blood slides like a surrogate tear over her cheek.
“How about letting me see to that head, luv?”
“No, I-I’ll be okay, I just… need some air.”
“Air isn’t gonna stop you bleedin’, pet.”
But the moment he moves, her heartrate rockets. Shrinking back on instinct, she hunches into herself, twisting away as if she can hide the wound he’s already seen. Her lips make the shape of a panicked ‘no,’ but instead of sound, it only brings another wince from her raw throat.
Turning away, she staggers to the next headstone, bracing her arms against it. Spike can only stare, locked in place on the other side of the tombstone as she dips her head, breathing hard. Her knuckles strain against the stone.
“I’m in so much trouble, oh my god…”
Spike’s breath catches. She sounds almost like she did back at the house. Small. Voice edging on tears.
A shudder runs down her back, gut twisting. She clamps a hand over her mouth.
“Pet…” Spike stammers. He’s out of his depth.
Her eyes widen.
“The door! He’s gonna kill me…”
“Almost bloody did.”
She flinches at that. It startles the tears out of her, and now they’ve finally started, she gives in. Thick streams flow between her fingers where they cover her mouth.
Shit.
Spike tries for a gentler tack.
“Not gonna get you, though, pet. Not now. ‘S not like you’re goin’ back there.”
An even bigger gasp judders through her, a wince following the next moment. Did she even hear him?
The only sound in the graveyard is her sobbing, much as she tries to subdue it. A heavy feeling starts to sink in Spike’s gut.
“…You’re not seriously planning on going back?”
She pulls her hands down enough to talk. Her whispers crack, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“He’s got my… all my money. I was saving it, and – shit – I was going to pay you back for that whiskey and everything, but he found it when he was looking for my report card, and he found both– oh, god…”
As she speaks, Spike paces slowly – as slowly as he has the patience for – around the tombstone, brow creasing as she rambles.
“Slow down, pet. Report card?”
This time, she shoves her head into her hands.
“I told you I messed up. I’m not gonna graduate…”
“That’s what this is about? Bloody school? He nearly offed you right in front of me, and all over some bloody grades on a piece of paper?”
Ash only cries harder. She creases, unable to bear the weight. Only the gravestone keeps her up.
“And my savings. He was so mad…”
Spike’s been floundering ever since he ran into that house, and he feels more lost than ever. He stares down at her, a useless bloody pillock as she cries.
“Does your mum know, pet?”
For a second, he’s afraid he’s stepped on a bigger landmine, because she goes still. Oh god, her mum must be bloody dead–
Ash looks at her lap.
“She… knows.”
Ah.
“Any of these her handywork, n all?” He asks, quiet.
When she stays silent, a stray tear slipping over a painful bruise, he spins around cursing into the night. He catches the jolt in her heartbeat and forces himself to slow, jamming his hands through his hair.
“I’m sorry, pet. I’m bollocksing this all up. You should be with your bloody friends; get you fixed up.”
“No, it’s ok, I just need a minute to- to walk it off.”
“Walk it off?”
He whirls back to face her, unable to believe what he’s hearing.
“Or- do you have something cold?” When he only stares, she shifts and goes on. “It helps, with the… with the bruises.”
He gapes. How many times has she done this before? How many times has she fucking walked it off before coming out to the cemetery, and he was none the wiser?
He really fucking wants to break something.
When he speaks, it’s slow and low. Carefully so.
“Ash. I’m taking you to your sodding friends, and I’m not listening to you because you’re in bleeding shock and, demon or no, I’m telling you a parent shouldn’t lay so much as a finger on their own sprogs.”
Ash’s lip wobbles, but she keeps her mouth closed. His sudden firmness shakes her enough that she almost forgets her tears.
Spike eyes her across the short distance, both of them breathing a little shakily. The moment hangs there between them, clear and fragile as glass.
He lets a breath out slowly through his nose.
“An’ that door got what was bloody coming to it, so no more crying over that.”
She lets out a wet sort of breath which could be laughter or a leftover from her tears.
Spike nods towards the path.
“Are you coming?”
“Okay.”
This time, she walks by herself. Slower than normal, Spike notes, but as long as she isn’t on the verge of collapse and they don’t have a maniacal father on their heels, he decides he’s happy to keep his hands to himself and let her slog it out. Buffy’s isn’t too far. The closer they get, though, it becomes harder to ignore how much Ash slows down.
They turn onto Revello Drive, and Spike finally stops, fixing her with a look.
“Got nothing to worry about, pet. Just reckoned you could do with somewhere warm and non-crypt-like where you can rest. They’ll patch you up. Aren’t your lot used to that?”
“I guess…”
But she doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Come on, this is the one-and-only Slayer we’re talking about it here. What’s she going to do, go all squeamish on you?”
“I dunno… it’s… different,” Ash finishes quietly.
Spike sighs through his nose. It is, at that, but she doesn’t need to hear it.
“Think the bleeding’s stopped,” he says quietly instead, gesturing to her face. “Could clean you up a bit, lessen the blow.”
Finally, Ash looks up, experimentally touching her fingers to the now-sticky streak of blood at the side of her face. Stepping closer, Spike takes over, thumbing away the residue as best he can. She pretends not to flinch when he strays too close to the wound, and for a second he freezes.
After a breath, he continues, gentler this time. Slides his fingertips below the place her skin has split, her bruises hot and throbbing under his touch.
For the first time, something in her scent shifts. He’d been tuning in without realising; hard to avoid when her fear, though lessened, still hangs in a cloud around them, and her breathing won’t settle. But now… he frowns down at her to find her shoulders loosening, eyes slipping closed.
“Turns out I do have something cold,” he muses.
That gets him a half-smile. Bringing his hand down, he presses the back of his fingers to her jaw. Lets her enjoy it for a moment.
“They’ll have proper ice packs inside, you know.”
Her tensions leaks back in immediately, but she sets her shoulders and nods nonetheless.
He steps back; she stares at him.
“Well?”
Spike gives her face the once-over.
It’s still pretty fucking bad. Erasing one small streak of blood won’t lessen the effect of her ordeal. He’s fairly sure she’ll have a black eye by morning.
He tells her none of this.
“Good enough. Let’s get this over with.”
And he marches away down the road, leaving her without time for her own hesitation.
She’s at his shoulder when Buffy’s house finally comes into view, and his own doubts arrive. How exactly does one go about visiting the Slayer’s abode in the middle of the night? Knock on the door? The window?
He’s saved the confusion because the light’s on in the living room. From the path, he sees a blonde head turn around, at the same moment that his own Slayer-warning-tingles kick in. Buffy’s eyes widen when she sees him coming up the path, Ash trailing behind him. Willow is there too, following her friend’s gaze when she notices her distraction. The two of them have colourful headbands on, and Buffy seems to be holding a bowl of… are they cucumber slices?
Either way, their girls’ night is about to implode quite spectacularly, Spike reflects. Buffy exchanges words with Willow, and by the time Spike reaches the door, it’s already opening.
“Don’t ring the bell!” Buffy hisses, halfway through pulling off her fluffy hairband, “Mum’s upstairs! What do you–”
Spike nods subtly down at Ash. Leans out the way just enough, and Buffy peers around him.
Her eyes widen even more.
He sees the moment Slayer-brain kicks in when she frowns, eyes darting between him and Ash.
“Ash! What happened? Come i–”
She stops herself before she can say a proper invitation. Spike isn’t sure himself if it would have worked at all, given she’s talking to Ash. He bites back a scowl as Buffy reaches an arm to Ash instead, glaring suspiciously Spike’s way as she welcomes her friend inside protectively.
Willow peers from the living room, green furry headband still firmly in place. Worried eyes flit over Ash’s form as Buffy runs a hand over her bruised temple.
“What did this?”
Ash’s eyes are stuck to the floor.
Spike sighs through his nose.
“Are you gonna say or shall I, pet?”
Willow reaches Ash’s side, wrapping an arm around her. Ash looks up helplessly at Spike, the remnants of tears shining in her eyes, and he flattens his mouth to a line.
“Alright. Maybe we’d best have a talk, Slayer.”
Buffy glares at him for a moment, and he can sense her chewing over retorts in her head before she forces herself round. She always does, when her friends are concerned. She’s not about to make a scene with Ash in the state she is.
“Fine,” she bites, then softens as she turns to the other girls. “Willow, take Ash inside and get mom.”
Willow nods hurriedly, and then she’s moving down the hall while Buffy steps over the threshold towards Spike. She eases the door to behind them, then folds her arms tightly in front of her and leans forward.
“Where did you find her?” She hisses at him.
“Bloody hell Slayer, calm down. Brought her right back, didn’ I?”
“And where was she? Do I wanna know what kind of places you were going? If you were there with the ones that did this to her–?”
“She was at her home, Slayer.”
Buffy blinks.
“What? But we- we checked there–”
“An’ who answered?”
“Her… her parents…”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Buffy stares at him. She’s not stupid, but he can tell she doesn’t want to piece together what he’s spelling out.
“Spike, you can’t be…? Tell me her parents weren’t the ones that did this.”
Spike chews at the inside of his cheeks, cocks his head. He can’t look her in the eye.
“How did you find out? Why did you even…?”
Shifting uncomfortably, Spike makes the mistake of glancing up at the Slayer. She’s squinting back at him with those unnervingly bright eyes, her posture looser.
“An’ what? I’m in your bloody demon-fighting assignment detail, aren’ I? Heard something was going on, an’ I didn’ exactly want a brassed-off Slayer on my hands.”
“And just how peacefully did you help her out of there?” Buffy asks, but it isn’t accusatory. Spike knows she would have reacted just the same had she been the one to see it.
His face takes on a dark scowl.
“Well, given that her sorry excuse for a father looked set to kill her with his own bare hands, I didn’t feel the urge to wait around until I could talk to them calmly.”
“Her father…?” Buffy echoes numbly.
“Yeah,” Spike says thickly, then huffs. “You know, plain old blood-drinking, I’m all in favour of. But you bloody humans blow my mind. If it was a demon, I would have left them to it, but that… that…”
“Something’s always been wrong,” Buffy whispers. Perhaps it was for the best that she hadn’t paid close attention to his last outburst.
“Slayer?” He prompts, when he’s had enough of her staring into space.
She startles, eyes widening as if just remembering he’s there.
“I mean, her… her family. She never talks about them. And – oh, god –” she buries her face in her hands “– she’s always getting hurt. I always worried I was letting them get too close to the fight, but maybe… this whole time…”
“Slayer,” Spike says sternly. He forces his hands to fists at his side; he’s having all the same realisations, but it won’t do to think too hard about them now. “Just tell me you’re not gonna let her go back there.”
“Yeah, I– yeah, of course! They’re… they’re really the reason she disappeared? This whole time she was missing, they had her locked her up in her own house?”
“It was them, alright.”
“Then they’d better count their blessings I’m not at their house right now,” she says, a satisfying dose of cold fire behind her words.
After a moment standing there side by side, glaring at the dark and empty lawn, Spike sighs.
“Right, well. Better attend the patient, no?”
Buffy nods, but she’s still staring out into the night, brows pinched.
“Yeah.” Then, after a breath: “Why didn’t she tell us?”
Spike inhales, holds it. Tension spreads over him, old and familiar.
“D’you know what it’s like, when the people you’ve been around forever do nothin’ but tread on you? When it’s always been that way? Makes you blind to a way out. Makes you believe them, half the time. It doesn’t make sense, but when you’re scared of them, really, truly scared for your safety, it’s easier to hide it. Easier not to take the risk.”
Buffy watches as he answers, her eyes wide and conflicted.
“Maybe,” she whispers.
Spike knows it’s true. Knows the feeling, even if the drivel that comes out of his mouth hardly covers it.
Then Buffy shakes herself.
“Look, Spike, I need to stay here and take care of her. Can you tell Giles?”
Normally, plan-making between the two of them is full of squabbles and shouting. Now, Spike, only nods.
“Sure thing, pet.”
She nods back. For a teetering moment he thinks she might be about to thank him. Then she drops her arms and walks away, shutting the door between them.
~
One look tells her the living room is empty, so Buffy heads to the kitchen where the light is on. There, she finds her mom rinsing out a pair of mugs. She turns as Buffy comes in, setting them down.
“How is she?” Buffy asks.
“Upstairs, with Willow. She wasn’t, uh, exactly in the mood for socialising.”
Joyce purses her lips and looks down. Her fingers trace restlessly around the edge of one of the cups.
“She said… Well, I managed to get it out of her, really. Buffy, she said her parents did this.”
“I know.”
Buffy goes quiet and her mom sighs, expression still steeped in concern.
“That poor girl. Do we have to– We should tell someone, right?”
“I dunno, mom. I’d rather make sure she’s okay first – then she can decide what’s gonna happen. Except going back. She’s not allowed to decide that,” she laughs bitterly.
“Right you are,” Joyce says fiercely. “Oh, it’s just awful. I can’t imagine it. She’s bruised all over. Listen, I said she could use the spare room. She seemed pretty tired. Maybe she’s asleep already, but perhaps you should go and check on them.”
Buffy squeezes as much of a smile as she can, but it feels flat.
“Yeah. I’ll do that.”