Chapter Twenty-Four
Making A Splash
Spike decided that he needed to get some sleep before his afternoon session with Brad, which gave Buffy the opportunity to sneak away and get the things that Brad has asked her to. She called in at Moira’s office on the way and chatted to her whilst she awaited the arrival of the cab that Pamela in Reception had ordered for her.
Buffy was back before Spike woke up, having found what she needed in the first shop that the cabbie had recommended. She’d even had time to give them to Brad. She was sitting in a chair watching Spike sleep, smiling when she noticed his legs moving beneath the covers as he started to stir. He jerked suddenly and his eyes flew open. He looked around a bit wildly until his eyes settled on hers and he relaxed.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah…bad dream is all.” His heart was still thudding in his chest.
“What was it?”
“Er…nothing…doesn’t matter,” he said. There was no need to tell her that he’d been dreaming of when he got paralysed but this time it had been the Immortal who had run him through with a sword and not the Polgaras. He still hadn’t plucked up the courage to ask Buffy about him. “What time is it?”
“Two thirty.”
“Really? God, I can’t believe that I slept for so long. Better get ready for Brad then, we’ve to be there at three.”
“Yeah, we have,”
Buffy handed him his sweats and watched surreptitiously as he dressed. For the first time she saw him able to put his pants on without having to use his hands to move his legs. He tried to raise his bottom by pushing down on his legs but they weren’t strong enough to lift him so he had to do his usual little wriggle.
Brad was waiting for them when they got there.
“Come on, it’s this way,” he said, smiling at them.
“Where are we going? I thought we were going to do more exercises?” said Spike in confusion, looking at the door to the therapy room and then back at Brad.
“Just follow me,” replied Brad, glancing at Buffy and giving her a wink.
Spike looked at her sharply, “Are you in on something with Brad?”
Buffy chuckled, “Just wait and see.”
Spike pushed his chair after Brad, muttering under his breath about keeping secrets. He looked around as he followed Brad. He’d never been in this part of the building before. The three of them came to a set of double doors and Brad pushed them open. They went in and around a corner and there it was - a swimming pool.
“Oh shit,” thought Spike.
“We’ll be doing one session per day in here from now on,” said Brad, “We can get your legs moving without you getting so tired and without trying to get them to bear weight. You said how heavy they felt when you moved them. Well, once you’re in the water they’ll feel much lighter and easier to move.”
Spike rolled backwards about a yard. “No.”
“What?” Brad stared at him. He’d never refused to do any of the exercises he’d asked him to do. Spike complained a lot if he didn’t like them but he never said no.
“Why not?” asked Buffy.
“I’m not getting in there,” he said. He tried to roll backwards some more but Buffy put a hand on the chair to prevent him. He glanced over his shoulder at her and growled, “Get off of it.”
“Hey…hey,” soothed Brad, “Just calm down a bit Spike, talk to us.” He bent his knees so that his face was level with Spike’s.
Spike gulped. From the moment that the doors had opened and he could smell the chlorine, he knew what they were going to want him to do. And it was the one thing that he just couldn’t do. He shook his head trying to dispel the upsetting images that flooded his mind. He closed his eyes against their assault.
Suddenly he was nine years old again, running along the banks of the river Thames in London. Behind him, strolling arm in arm, were his mother and father, still very much in love after ten years of marriage. There was a low wall at the water’s edge that he couldn’t resist climbing on.
“Be careful, William,” called his mother.
He giggled and as he turned around to look at them, his foot slipped on the wet stone. It felt like he teetered on the edge for an age but in reality he had fallen headlong into murky water in an instant.
“William!”
He heard his mother scream and then he was beneath the water, sinking fast. He kicked out vainly but his heavy coat dragged him down. His lungs burned. He had to breathe. He knew that he shouldn’t but he couldn’t stop the huge gasp that he gave. Then everything went totally black.
The next thing he was aware of was coughing up the filthy water from his lungs. He saw his mother’s face swimming in and out of focus. She was crying. At the time he thought that she was crying for him. He tried to speak but lost consciousness once more.
He woke fully some time later, laid in his own comfortable bed. His mother was holding his hand and stroking his brow. He glanced around the room.
“Where’s father?” he asked, his voice sounding hoarse.
To his horror his mother told him how his father had leapt into the Thames to save his beloved son but had been drowned before the passer-by that pulled William out could get to him. His mother had never been the same after that day. It was like a part of her died along with her husband, neither her smile seemed so wide nor her eyes so bright again.
Even now, over a century later, his fears of going into the water hadn’t faded. By falling in he’d killed his father as surely as he killed his mother years later when he staked her after turning her in the mistaken belief that it would make her well.
The fact that in the nineteen forties, Angel had kicked him out of a submarine hadn’t helped conquer them. Even though he no longer relied on breathing to survive the feeling of water filling his lungs had terrified him just the same as it had when he was a boy. The First had also played on his fears when it had captured him.
Buffy glanced up at Brad and whispered for him to give them a moment alone. Spike was so lost in his memories that he never even noticed him move away.
“Spike, what’s wrong?” she whispered, holding his hand.
Spike’s eyes regained focus and he gazed at Buffy. Christ, she was going to think that he was a right pillock being scared of water.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice sounded petulant even to his own ears.
“Well you’re going to have to, ‘cause we’re not moving until you do,” said Buffy firmly. “I was afraid of water for a long time after I nearly drowned when I was sixteen.”
Spike’s eyes widened, “You nearly drowned?” he whispered.
“Yeah, I was fighting the Master and…” she paused, remembering Brad’s presence, “Um…long story but I didn’t go near the water for ages afterwards, but with the help of my friends I got through it and I’m sure that you can too.”
Spike stared at her; she truly was the strongest person that he’d ever known. In fact, the only thing that she hadn’t been able to take was his own ‘death’.
“My dad died trying to save me when I fell in the Thames,” he said, his voice low, “I got pulled out but they didn’t get him in time.”
Buffy hugged him tightly, amazed that he’d kept that depth of emotion for so long. It was astonishing that it had still been retained after being a vampire for so long. He truly was an anomaly, his emotions so strong that they were sometimes crippling. She gave a rueful smile as she thought how they literally had been crippling this time. She knelt in front of him.
“You can do this, Spike. It’s really important for your legs and you want to get healthy, don’t you?”
“’Course I do but…” he swallowed hard, “I don’t know if I can.”
“You can, I know you can. I’ll be there with you and Brad will too. You’ll be safe, I promise. Do it for me, please?” She could see him beginning to waver. He really was just about unable to refuse her anything. She added the final incentive. “Plus you’ll get to see me in the skimpiest bikini that the shop had!” She giggled.
“So you’re coming in too?”
“We both will be, you dope. What did you think that we would do? I won’t let anything happen to you – slayer strength, remember? I could haul your skinny ass out of there with one hand tied behind my back.” She grinned at him.
“Hey, I’m not skinny, just…” He was going to say his usual comeback of athletic but he really wasn’t that these days so he settled for… “Lean.”
“You forgot ‘handsome’,” said Buffy. She knew his catchphrase too. “So are we going to do this then?”
Spike put a hand out and caught her behind her head, pulling her to him and kissing her so passionately that Brad coughed a few times to remind them of his presence.
“We’ll do it, pet,” he whispered as their lips parted. His heart was hammering but he couldn’t let Buffy down.
“Okay,” she said and she walked over to Brad and quietly explained the situation to him.
“We’ll take it real slow then,” said Brad, “Let him get a bit of confidence first. Go and get changed. I put your bag in the first changing room on the right. Then come and meet me at the Jacuzzi. We’ll get him in there first rather than the big pool.”
Buffy returned to Spike, seeing from his slightly flushed face that he hated Brad knowing his fear. Hopefully that pride wouldn’t let him down now and would help him to have the nerve to get into the water.
“Come on, let’s get changed and you can tell me if you like my bikini.”
Once inside the large cubicle she got the bikini out of the bag and held it for Spike to see.
“So what have you got for me to wear?” he asked doubtfully, as he eyed the tiny scraps of cloth that made up her bikini.
She grinned wickedly and with a flourish pulled out the skimpiest pair of black swimming trunks that Spike had ever seen. They were made of such a stretchy material that Spike knew they would hug his body like a second skin and with Buffy in that outfit…
“Bloody hell,” he spluttered.
“Gotcha!”
Buffy laughed, putting them down and reaching into the bag once more. This time she brought out a pair of bright blue swim shorts like the kind favoured by surfer dudes worldwide.
“Oh thank God,” said Spike, laughing despite his nerves.
Moments later they went to find Brad. When he saw Buffy he smiled and glanced at Spike, raising an eyebrow appreciatively. Spike grinned back. Yeah, she was his girl and boy did she look hot! In fact he was starting to hope that the water would be cold because he wasn’t sure that even these baggy shorts could disguise how he felt about her for long.
Brad had changed too and soon all three were sitting in the tub, one sitting on either side of an almost completely rigid Spike. Before he turned the jets on Brad got Spike to run through a few exercises, as much to give him something else to think about as to test the legs themselves. Spike held onto the handles in the specially designed tub for dear life, grateful that the water only came halfway up his body as he sat. The thought of his head going beneath the water still terrified him. Soon he was so lost in watching how much he could get his legs to do with the buoyancy the water offered, that he started to relax.
“Okay, that’s enough for now. Let’s put the jets on,” said Brad as he pressed the controls and the water began to bubble.
“Hey, that feels really good,” said Spike, smiling.
The bubbles made the water opaque and Spike nearly jumped out of the tub when Buffy’s small hand slipped down inside his shorts.
“Yeah, that feels really good,” he said, winking at Buffy.
A few minutes later, Brad turned off the jets. “Okay, let’s get you into the pool.”
“Shit,” thought Spike, then he smiled despite himself as the worry he’d had about Brad noticing the erection he’d been sporting since Buffy’s hand had found him was instantly erased by the cold shaft of fear that ran through him, “Okay,” he said weakly.
Soon Spike, swaddled with floatation aids, got into the pool with Brad. Buffy sat on the side with her feet dangling in the water, watching them. She’d seen Spike crack his neck and lift his chin like he did when he was going into a fight and she knew just how brave he was being to get in there.
Brad guided Spike to some rails sticking out of the water and once in position he and Spike worked on the legs, making them move as if he were walking, his feet just touching the bottom of the pool. One thing that Spike liked was the fact that in the pool he and Brad were more or less the same height. He hated having to look up at everyone when he was in the chair.
They stopped before Spike got too exhausted and they were all delighted with how the session had gone. With the buoyancy of the water to help him, Spike had the full range of movement in his legs. Now they just had to hope that they became strong enough to bear his weight. As they made their way back to where Buffy was sitting, she saw Brad whisper something to Spike, who nodded solemnly in return. As Spike lay back against Brad to be helped out of the pool, he lifted his legs and kicked them as hard as he could, the water splashing all over Buffy. They laughed as she squealed when the water hit her.
“You’re going to pay for that later,” she warned with grin.
“I hope so,” replied Spike, smirking.
Spike gazed at Buffy as she dried herself and got dressed. With her support he suddenly realised that he could do anything. He’d actually enjoyed working in the pool once he’d seen how much more he could do with his legs. He winked at her and she smiled knowingly back. She knew the power that she had over her man.
tbc
[Reviews - 450]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 4827 times
- Text Size +
BANNER BY DAWNOFME
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
BANNER BY DAWNOFMEAuthor's Chapter Notes:
thanks as ever to Carol for her beta work! Sorry again that the updates have slowed a little, normal service will be resumed soon!! :) thanks for your patience!