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No I don't hate SPIKE.
Part 11

Spike stared at Angel and for a second wanted to embrace his grandsire. The memories of those last days in L.A. when they had been so close, but then the memory of the alley hit him. The knowledge that he would be eternally a second thought compared to the man in front of him. From Dru to the Powers that bloody be, and finally to Buffy; Spike would always be second to Angel. In that moment all Spike could see was red, and he launched himself at Angel. Spike’s fists connecting with the face that tormented him for so long, and would haunt him for far longer.

The problem was Spike simple didn’t have the energy for the fight, and in truth he didn’t even care. Angel got in a good punch which sent Spike flying, and Spike just let himself collapse to the ground. Spike couldn’t even bring himself to fight with Angel anymore. All Spike managed was to roll himself on to his side. Everything around him was spilling, and for a second he thought he saw Joyce standing in front of him. Joyce’s gentle hands holding him as her eyes looked at him with compassion.

If there was anyone besides Buffy who Spike longed to held by it was Joyce. Hoping he had finally made her proud to have called him her friend. If he could achieve that Spike knew he could endure an eternity of hell. Then very softly he thought he heard Joyce’s voice, “Hold on Spike. Don’t give up hope. Hope will give you love.”

Before Spike could answer Joyce was gone and Angel was standing over him ready to strike. When a bright white light flashed in front of Spike’s eyes, and everything froze. “Okay, enough with the testosterone boys. Geez I leave you alone for a minute and you two are at each other’s throats.”

Spike knew he had to be crazy. Not only was Angel here, but the cheerleader as well. “Cordellia?”

“In the flesh, okay well not the flesh, but you get the idea. So Spike how you been?” She said with a big smile then turned an angry glare on Angel.

“And you! What the hell do you think you’re doing? You know why we are here. You should know better.”

“He hit me first!”

“Well you probably deserved it,” She said as she rolled her eyes and turned back to Spike.

“So how are you feeling?”

“You mean besides the massive amount of confusion at seeing two people who I know are dead, in a place I know was destroyed over two years ago? Yeah I doing just great.”

“And you question why I hit him.”

“Not now Angel, or someone is sleeping on the couch tonight. Look Spike I know this probably seems like…”

“Like I lost my marbles again, and all of this just proves how crazy I am?”

“Yeah. But you aren’t crazy. You were hit with a poison. That poison sent into your deepest darkest nightmares.”

Spike just looks at Cordellia like she’d grown a second head. “I don’t know what you are talking…”

The images come rushing up behind his eyes. The memories hit Spike harder then one of Glory’s fists. The crushing overwhelming despair at the truth of the words from Cecily, Dru, and finally Buffy. “I remember.”

------

Willow stared at the desk in front of her and the piles of books on it, and for a brief second she felt like she was back in the old high school library. The connection to Sunnydale made her feel more hopeful about their situation. At that library the scoobies had been almost God’s, nothing could stop them, and nothing could destroy them. They had been connected like nothing else in her life, Willow thought.

The problem was as Willow’s highly logical brain told her, number one, we are not in that library, and we are not gods. The situation with Spike was looking more and more hopeless. Whatever poison had been used seemed to have no cure that they could find, and time was running out. Willow could not read auras as well as Tara could, but even she could see the weakening of Spike’s aura.

God Damn it, Spike’s a vampire! He should be stronger then this. I mean just a little blood and he should be awake and back on his feet. He always was before. Suddenly something in her brain tripped up Willow’s thoughts. Wait what was I thinking? Yeah Spike... Vampire…blood…wait that’s it! Blood. Slayer blood.

“Eureka!”

------

Spike stepped away from Cordy. Before Spike can do anything Cordellia speaks. “Spike you have to listen to me, okay? You have to focus. You can’t believe what those nightmares are telling you. They aren’t real.”
“Sure, they’re not real. Nothing here is real. I have dead people talking to me. I’m a vampire not stupid. Of course this isn’t really. All this is just in my head. Just going crazy again.”

“Spike shut up.”

“Angel behave. Spike shut up. You’re not going crazy, okay. The poison that was used on you attacks your mind with your worst fears as if they were real. If you give into them then you can end up in a coma, and your own private hell for as long as you live or unlive since you are a vampire.”

“And which part of that little statement explains you luv? Cause before this most of what I’ve seen doesn’t seem so much as fears as truths I’ve been ignoring.”

“If you believe that you really are an idiot.”

“Right cause what? Buffy is sitting right next to me right now professing her undying love, and the powers that be sent you here to save me from ending up in a hell of my own making? I think I’m going to go with the more likely, I’m losing my mind, and you two are just some more delusions come to torment me like ghosts to Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Angel slugs Spike in the jaw. “Why did you do that?” Cordellia asked.

“He needed it.”

------

Dawn tried to figure if she should knock. Buffy had kicked her out of the room the night before. Dawn wasn’t going to let Buffy do that again. She wasn’t going to be Buffy’s convenient little sister. Spike was her friend long before Buffy started screwing him into the ground, and before she decided she loved him. At one time she’d dreamed of them getting together, but instead of the stuff of dreams it had all become the stuff of nightmares.

After that one conversation right after his return to Sunnydale they had never talked. She’d threatened him, and he’d just accepted she didn’t want him anymore. He even came back from the dead and still believed she hated him. Now he was less then fifteen feet from her, and she felt like he was miles away. Dawn decided to risk Buffy’s wrath, and opened the door.

Spike was laid out on the bed with Buffy curled up against him. Streaks of what looked dried tears on Buffy’s face. However, what really interested her was the man Buffy was clinging to in a death grip. She placed her hand on Spike’s. “Please Spike. Come back. I’m so sorry.”

Dawn never saw Buffy wake up. Dawn never saw the anger that flared in Buffy’s eyes at the site of seeing Dawn next to Spike. All Dawn saw was Buffy’s fist as it slammed into her face. Dawn flew backward from the force of the blow. Trying desperately to clear her head before he enraged sister could free herself from Spike. Buffy’s fists were coming full speed judging by that first hit, and Dawn didn’t expect Buffy to cool down enough to pull the rest of her punches.

Despite all the training from Buffy and the Slayers over the last couple of years there was one thing that training could not do. It could not give Dawn Slayer powers, and so Dawn couldn’t clear her head enough to escape the enraged Elder Slayer. “I told you not to come in here, DAWN!” Buffy screamed as she forced her sister against the wall.

Buffy’s fist squeezed Dawn’s throat like a vice. “Spike doesn’t need someone like you near him right now,” Buffy’s words all carried the implication of further violence should Dawn say or do the wrong thing.

“And of course you get to make that decision, right? He was my friend. My best friend, and for 147 days he was the only family I had. He stayed when Angel, Giles, and the scoobies could because of their own grief. They all looked at me like I was the one that took you from them. All of them except Spike; Spike looked at me like I was what you died to give the world.”

Dawn felt her grip weaken at her words. Please let me reach her, Dawn prayed. Her prayers were not answered as Buffy’s grips tightened as she answered, “And you betrayed him.”

------

Buffy couldn’t believe Dawn had come back. Not now. Not when Spike’s live still hung in the balance. Not when she might not have a chance to make things right, or even more important lose the chance to try.

“You’re right I did. I betrayed him because my sister came back. My sister came back and used and abused my friend. She took his guilt and shame and hope and played with them to make her feel better. He made one mistake in a year of nothing but mistakes. But I stood by my sister, and he never talked to me again. He died and came back. He still didn’t talk to me. He still thought I hated him because apparently in his mind Summer’s women never forgive. They never make mistakes. Yeah I betrayed him, but you…you Buffy Anne Summer’s destroyed him. You destroyed him and he would still die for you.”

Dawn’s words cut into Buffy like a knife, and Buffy felt her grip on Dawn weaken. Her body screamed at her as she entered emotional pain that was as real as that inflicted by a battle ax.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about Spike. I know what I did, but one word from the man you’re screwing and all of this could have been changed. One word from Andrew and I could have tried to make up for what I did. You didn’t betray him Dawn when he came back to Sunnydale. You betrayed him when you decided to let Andrew into your pants.”

“You BITCH! This has nothing to do with Andrew. Andrew is your crutch. Your way of getting around the fact that you beat Spike so far down that he came back from the dead, and didn’t believe you’d even want to know he was alive. Or that I wouldn’t either. You should have staked him it would have been kinder. If either of us has no right to be here it is you. Hit me again if you want! Taking a beating for him is the least I can do, but I’m not leaving him this time.”

Buffy step back and considered her sister for a moment. The sent her fist flying. Dawn dropped unconscious from the force of Buffy’s impact. “Yes you are, Dawnie.”

Buffy picked up Dawn’s unconscious body and headed for the door only to have it fly open as Willow came running through screaming.

“Buffy! I have an idea! I think I know how to cure Spike!”

-----

Whistler rubbed his head desperately hoping to get rid of the painful headache that resulted from the dimension shift. Damn Oracles, Whistler cursed. Looking around at the location hoping it wasn’t too far from any major population areas. He still remembered how painful it was the last time when he got pulled into Oracles dimension by the powers. They really didn’t have a very good concept of location on Earth. They’d sent him back in Antarctica. He’d almost been too late to tell the Slayer what she needed to know before Acathla sucked the world into hell.

At least the world around him was green and not covered in snow. Now all he needed was to get to England, and keep the slayer from giving Spike Slayer blood. Otherwise things were going to get really bad. Not that they weren’t already. God Damn would it kill them just once to put me right next to the person I’m supposed to help instead of the otherside of the damn world.





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