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A/N just a short chapter I'm afraid but it was a ntural break and I wanted to get it out. I have a chapter winging it's way to my fantastically efficient proof reader April today so hopefully that'll be up before Christmas too

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There is nothing of his lover left. Those tiny fragments that remained of the girl who loved him are buried now, too deep beneath the mindless savagery of the demon to be recognised.

She focuses on Buffy, feral eyes flashing gold in her blood-coated face. He understands what drives her now, has felt the same many times before. Before Buffy. Their kind cannot help but recognise the slayer for what she is, just as she will always know them. And with that recognition comes a compelling need to destroy. He felt it himself before, acted on it more than once. Of course, that was before Buffy.

His instincts have spun a hundred and eighty degrees since then and he places himself bodily between Buffy and the advancing threat. "Lotta, listen to me…" But his words are wasted. He doubts she can even hear them, let alone find reason in them. She tosses him aside, sending him skidding along the floor on his already shredded back and moves again on the slayer.

She is dauntless, his fearless Buffy: she has never faced an enemy she cannot defeat, has never once hesitated to enter the fray, and this is no different. She attacks first—well, it's her bloody style, ain't it?—launching herself at Carlotta with a barrage of fierce blows. She might as well have tickled her for all the effect her attack had on the slayer vamp, and she is soon thrown against the wall, the sickening crunch as her head connects with the stone filling the sudden strained silence of the room.

She's dazed, staggering to her feet as he comes to his, one hand braced weakly against the wall in an attempt to pull herself upright. Dawn is a little to his left. Behind Carlotta he can see the open door of the old dining room. Perhaps he can still help Buffy.

"Barricade the door, bit," he orders, not taking his eyes off Carlotta as she takes slow, measured steps towards the struggling slayer. "Don't open it, no matter what you hear."

With a battle cry that is more desperate than fierce, he charges full tilt at Carlotta, colliding with her side on and sending them both sprawling through the open door, praying all the while that Dawn will have the sense enough to do as she's bloody well told.

He hears the door slam shut and breathes a sigh of relief; then she is on him.

……………………………

"Get out of my way!" It's an order, there's no mistaking the menace in her voice. She knows that every nuance of her posture conveys angry threat. So why the hell aren't they getting out of her way?

"Buffy, no." It's Dawn who tries to reason with her. "He said to keep it shut."

"I don't care what he said. Now move, all of you, or I'll make you move."

She hates the quiet coming from behind the locked door, hates it even more than the dogfight growling that preceded it. Although that was short lived, whatever fight there had been hadn't lasted long.

"Buffy." Angel's between her and the door, standing guard with Giles and Dawn, one hand clutching a balled up rag against his still bleeding head. She's so very grateful to all the gods she can think of that these three people who mean so very much to her have made it through the fight alive. But she'll thank the deities later; right now, she's crazed with worry and it's making her angry.

"One more time." Her voice is low, but the step she takes towards her pseudo family is distinctly threatening. "Move."

"Ya better get outta the girl's way." Xander, sounding groggy and swaying on his feet, steps up behind her. "I think you're making her cranky."

"Spike said—" begins Dawn, with tears in her eyes, frightened and conflicted, trying desperately to keep her sister safe.

"Yeah, well, Spike's an egotistical drama queen with a hero complex." He gives a choking laugh that turns into a gurgling cough. "But he's not as tough as he thinks he is. I reckon he might need a bit of help in there."

She will make a point of thanking Xander for everything before the next apocalypse, but for now all she has time for is an appreciative glance as she pushes past Dawn and into the silent dining room.

………………………………….

It is a scene from Greek tragedy, or perhaps from heartbreak. A wretched tableau of regret and forgiveness. She is huddled against the wall, curled up on herself like a frightened child as she stares in wide-eyed horror at the broken body of the man she loves.

There is enough sanity in her eyes that she must surely know what she has done and to whom. Guilt, too, in her tear-filled ebony eyes as she rocks herself and shakes her head in a slow motion denial of her own deeds.

And dear Lord, what she has done? His cloths are shredded, exposing flayed skin and blood flowing freely—it seems from every inch of his body. His bare torso is a mass of deep gouges, gruesome signatures of her blood-caked nails. His face and hair, too, are so coated in his own blood that one can barely make out the blond, but it is his throat that has received the best of her attentions.

Where there should be smooth white skin there is instead red, mangled flesh. Severed tendons and arteries hang from the wound and blood bubbles like a gurgling crimson brook from his torn oesophagus. It is a small mercy that he doesn't need to breathe; his airways are ruined and a human would be dead from that if they were not already long dead from blood loss.

He rolls towards her, a gurgling mewl emanating from his tattered voice box as he stretches a hand towards her in plaintive conciliation, and he must acknowledge that for all his many, well documented faults, Spike has an amazing capacity for forgiveness. She watches his hand with conflicted eyes, horror and fear at what she has done, what she has become, warring with the instinctive desire to go to him.

Buffy makes the decision for her. He will wonder years from now if that tiny moment was perhaps more pivotal for all of them than they could ever have imagined. Perhaps, he will ask himself, if Buffy had remained still and silent, frozen like the rest of them in shocked horror, she would have taken Spike's hand. Perhaps they all, Buffy and Spike in particular, could have been spared the pain that followed. But for now he watches numbly as his Slayer lurches forward in ragged ungainly movements, her natural grace sacrificed to fear and pain.

She drops to her knees at his side, hands hovering in undecided concern over his wounded throat, lips mumbling nonsense pleas that he find the strength to be okay. It is enough to jolt the frightened girl into action and with one quick panicked glance around the room she makes her choice, bursting past them in a lightning quick run and throwing herself through the window, and after the crash, silence, bare feet quiet on gravel, and over the hotel's manicured lawns as she makes her escape.

"Leave her," Buffy orders when Xander turns to follow the girl. "We have to get everyone to the infirmary." She pulls the barely conscious vampire to his feet, despite what it must cost her battered body in effort, and leads the slow procession of walking wounded, all of them leaning on one another as so often before. He follows behind, head spinning with pain and confusion, and wonders what the hell they will do now.

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A/N Cheers for the nice reviews

Hey Vamps glad you liked.

Yes Beth as you see they live, but only just in Spike's case.

Sorry CordyKitten, crazed as she was she did hurt her sire. She's still at odds with herself and always will be, neither pure demon nor true slayer ergo insanity and ripping apart the only man she's ever loved then running off into the night.

Lots of love and sloppy Christmas kissess under the mistletoe for one and all.

xxxxxxxxxxx





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