Joyce half expected to find a pile of cinder, smoke and ash when she pulled into her driveway. She breathed a sigh of relief to see that her house was still standing and stepped from the car carrying two bags. One was full of Chinese take-out, Buffy’s favorite, and the other was full of plasma for Spike. Giles had taken it upon himself to secure Spike’s blood, ordering it from out of town. He had explained how important it was not to leave any sort of trail to Spike back to her door. If the vampires who were looking for him found out that she was having blood delivered from one of the butchers in town, they could piece it together. This way, no one would find out at all.
She balanced her bags and opened the front door, nervously glancing around the foyer as she stepped inside. After Buffy had mentioned railroad spikes and mutilation to her, she had been compelled to speak to Spike about his previous hobbies. She had regretted it immediately, since he held nothing back. Joyce was happy that she didn’t see her daughter’s body parts dangling from anything and cleared her throat. “Buffy?”
“In the living room.” Buffy called.
Joyce began to walk around the corner and met Spike coming out of the kitchen. “Oh, Spike, hello. I brought home Chinese food.”
“Mmm.” Spike grinned at her and took the bags. “Did you happen to bring me home the cook?” The woman paled and her eyes widened, causing Spike chuckle loudly. “Relax, Joyce, I was kidding.”
Joyce smiled, still looking perplexed, and walked further into the living room to see Buffy. She noticed the uneaten food immediately and frowned. “Have you eaten today?”
“No.” Buffy replied and sat up further on the couch. “I haven’t eaten at all and I haven’t had anything to drink either. And that, MONSTER, tried to take the hinges off the bathroom door when I was trying to have privacy.”
Joyce glanced up at Spike. “For future reference, the door doesn’t lock.”
“The door doesn’t lock? That’s all you can say?” Buffy shouted, pushing herself into a complete sitting position. “Mother, he came into the bathroom not knowing if I was half naked or using the restroom or anything else.”
Spike shifted uncomfortably and clutched the bags tighter. The little bitch was really going to try to get him fired. He shook his head and spoke up quickly. “She told me she was going to stay in there until you got home and I didn’t know how long that would be.”
“Spike, why don’t you take those bags into the kitchen for me?” Joyce asked, not taking her eyes off Buffy. She waited until the vampire had left the room and then cleared her throat. “I spoke with our insurance company today. Given our situation, they would be willing to pay for care for you.”
“Good. Fire Spike.” Buffy flopped back and crossed her arms. “I refuse to stay with him.”
“Buffy, the only way they will pay is if I have you institutionalized. I can do that because I can’t physically take care of you like you need or afford home care. It’s an option.”
“You want to put me in some home now? Some sterile facility with horny orderlies and mean nurses who let you sit in your own piss for days?” Reaching for her chair, Buffy’s voice rose. “I told you I can take care of myself! I don’t need anyone.”
She forgot to lock her wheels and when she put her weight on the chair to pull herself into it, it tipped to one side, causing her to fall off the edge of the couch. Joyce grabbed her shoulders before she fell completely and pulled her upright, shaking her angrily. “No, I don’t want to put you in a home, but I want you to be safe, Buffy. I want you to have someone here who can make sure that you are getting enough to eat and haven’t fallen. Either you help me out here or--.”
“You don’t want me here. I know that now more than ever.” Buffy yanked her arms loose and fumbled to pull her chair upright. “Go ahead, put me away. Then you can forget me just like dad did! You can’t take care of me, right? That’s your reason? Well guess what? You never could.”
Buffy managed to get herself into her chair, knocking over the coffee table in the process. She rolled toward the dining room and her voice rose. “You never could take care of me. You never stopped to ask me why I was bruised and bloody half the time. You never asked me why my clothes were always torn and why I had bags under my eyes. You never noticed the pain that I was in, inside and out, and when you finally did, you kicked me out! Go ahead, do it again!”
“Buffy!” Joyce had risen to her feet and was walking toward her daughter with her hands out, as if to pull her into her arms. “You can’t believe that. I never wanted you to leave, honey. Never.”
There was a knock at the door and Buffy rolled her eyes. “I don’t care what you do with me. Put me away, leave me with Spike, or toss me out again. I just don’t care.”
She rolled away, leaving Joyce standing with tears streaming down her face. Spike, who had listened from the kitchen doorway, followed her into the makeshift office that her mother used in the back of the house. Buffy realized he was behind her and stopped rolling. “What do you want?”
“I want to know why you’re such an ass, but wait, I’ve always wanted to know that. So that’s not new.” He stepped into the room and flipped on a lamp that was on one end of a computer desk. “What I want to know is when you’re going to stop thinking with legs that don’t work and start thinking with your head.”
“I don’t want to hear this.” Buffy closed her eyes and pressed her fingers over them, begging her emotions not to betray her and make her sob. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“Yes, I think I do.” Spike leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. For several seconds, he collected his thoughts, and then he spoke again. “I sat in your chair today when you were in the bathroom and I couldn’t take it. The minute I sat down, I remembered vividly what it felt like to be stuck there. I remembered how I hated everyone around me who could walk. I remembered how I hated myself for not being strong enough to get up and most of all I remembered how it felt to feel like you weren’t good enough. Weren’t worthy enough to be alive anymore.”
“You should feel like that all the time.” Buffy snapped angrily. “After all, you are a freak, just like me.”
“And your friends?” Spike didn’t flinch and kept talking instead. “You’re pushing them all away to make it easier for them to leave you. You’re afraid that they’re going to run out on you and you can’t catch up.” Spike saw the tears begin to roll down her cheeks and walked into the kitchen, grabbing a role of paper towels. When he went back into the room, Buffy was sobbing, her breath hitching in the back of her throat. He ripped one of the towels loose and handed it to her, kneeling beside her chair. “I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but this is the hand that we’ve been dealt. Now, you can accept that and get over it or you can pack up your things and go to a hospital with horny orderlies and if you think my cooking is bad-.”
“What do you know about hospitals?” Buffy blew her nose loudly and mopped at her eyes with her sleeve.
Spike glanced down at the floor, wondering if he should tell her the truth. She was the type of person who would most likely laugh at him and call him names. Deciding to tell her just enough, he shrugged and said, “Well, you know, I was a mortal once and one thing you can guarantee is the fact that hospital food is going to suck, no matter how much time passes.”
“I don’t want to have to go away.” Buffy’s voice broke again and her chin quivered. “I’ve lost everything. I don’t want to lose my home too.”
Spike watched her, hating the fact that he was going to have to hug her. She was staring at him like she expected it and if he wanted to keep the ‘job’, he would have to make sure she stayed there instead of some facility. If there was going to be a truce, he would wave the white flag, but this would not become a habit. Absolutely not. Shifting closer to her, he patted her on the shoulder uncomfortably, then slid his hand around her back. He felt her lean her head against his chest and gritted his teeth. This was not happening.
Buffy sniffled against him and pushed him away. Spike was pulled from his thoughts and looked up at her, still kneeling beside her chair. “So, what’s it gonna be, Slayer.”
“I hate this.” She said softly, staring at the tissue in her hand. There was a big difference between being trapped with a demon and being trapped inside yourself and Buffy was facing both. Hate was putting it mildly.
“I hate it too.” Spike looked at her distastefully. “Being cooped up here with you all day and night isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but I can just about guarantee you that it’s a lot better than the other alternatives that either of us have.”
“Buffy?” Willow suddenly poked her head around the doorway and gave her a smile. Her features fell immediately when she saw the tears on her friend’s face and she stepped into the room. With her purse, she slapped Spike over the head and pointed at Buffy with her free hand. “What the hell did you do to her?”
Spike caught her purse and yanked it out of her grasp. “I didn’t do a damned thing, Red.”
“It’s okay, Willow.” Buffy dried her face and nodded at her. “It’s fine. What’s up?”
Willow glared at Spike, causing him to throw his hands in the air and walk out, then she pulled a chair up beside Buffy. “How are you feeling?”
“You came here to ask me that? You could have just called. It’s dark out and without a Slayer in town-.”
“Right, I know.” Willow exhaled and ran a hand through her hair, wondering how to broach the topic of another possibly spell gone awry. “So, uhm, do you feel any better about, you know, what happened?” Buffy stared at her blankly and Willow fidgeted in her seat. “Are you happier or anything?”
“Do I look happy at all to you?” Buffy held up the tissue in her hand and pointed at her legs. “Do I look jovial in the least?”
“Well, no, but I was just curious.”
“And you came here to ask me that?”
“And to see you.”
Buffy narrowed her eyes. “What did you do?”
“Do? Me?” Willow felt every bit of the nerve she had built up start to diminish. “I didn’t do a thing. Mmm mmm, no way. Nothing at all.”
Spike stepped into the room and put his hands on his hips. “Are you doing some kind of magickal mojo on her, Witch?”
“Spike, quit eavesdropping!” Willow got to her feet and pushed him out of the room, closing the door behind him. She took a deep breath and went to her seat again. “Buffy, let’s just say, hypothetically, that if you do start to feel a wiggins, don’t ignore it. Let me know.”
“You did do a spell!” Buffy tossed her tissue angrily and rolled her chair as far away from Willow as she could. “You -would- use magick to deal with me. You can’t accept me this way so you have to try to change me.”
Willow’s face flushed red. “You would think that. You have absolutely no faith in me as your friend at all. I want to help you, Buffy, but I’m not going to let you keep doing this to me. You can’t keep making me feel bad for wanting to help you.”
“Then go. It’s simple.” Buffy turned toward the door. “Spike!” The door opened immediately and she shoved the blanket off her legs. “I want to go to my room now. Please?”
Spike nodded and brushed past Willow, lifting the Slayer from her seat. He paused before he got out the door and glanced back at Willow. “You can’t fix everything. Some people are better off with friends instead of sorcerers.”
Buffy said nothing as Spike carried her back through the house, past her mother and Tara, who watched them as they made their way up the stairs. She turned the knob on her door and flipped the light switch. She noticed that Spike was staring around her room and pointed toward her bed. “Just put me on the bed.”
Spike nodded and sat her on the edge of her bed. “Do you want me to bring up your chair?”
“No. Just leave me alone, okay?”
“How about your dinner?”
“Please. Leave. Me. Alone.”
Spike turned on the heel of his boot and left the room, leaving her door open. Walking down the stairs, he paused at the bottom of the stairs long enough to watch Willow and Tara leave, then glanced at Joyce. “She wants to be left alone.”
“She needs to eat.”
“She needs to learn that she gets what she asks for.” Spike walked around her, into the kitchen, then turned and came back. “And just for the record, telling her that you were going to have her committed was a really low blow.”
“I-I-.”
Spike held up a hand and interrupted. “No. There was no excuse for that. She needs to know that people are not going to take the easy road out of her life, Joyce. No matter how intolerable she is, you have to tolerate her and be there.” He took a deep, unneeded breath and nodded toward the kitchen. “Dinner?”
Joyce followed him into the kitchen, pondering what he had said. “I was only trying to scare her into complying.”
“Scare tactics don’t work. Especially on a Slayer.” Spike rammed a knife through the tip of his blood bag and emptied the contents into a mug.
Joyce regarded him for several seconds. When she spoke again, her tone was thoughtful and her eyes had misted over. “You know, Spike, granted, I haven’t been around many vampires or demons for that matter, but speaking with you like this, I wonder why there needs to be a Slayer.” Joyce opened the cartons of Chinese food and dipped several spoonfuls onto a plate.
“Because we’re evil.” Spike stuck his cup into the microwave and turned to face her, shrugging indifferently. “That’s how it works.”
“Well, I think there is an exception to every rule. You’re the exception.” Joyce lifted her plate and nodded toward her office. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go over some paperwork.”
“Of course.” Spike waited until she was securely confined in her office and pulled a plate from the cabinet. He filled it with contents from every container and grabbed a glass of juice from the refrigerator before he made his way up the stairs.
The door was open and he paused, staring in. She seemed to be asleep, lying on her back with her arms tossed over her head. She was still on the foot of the bed and her legs dangled over the side. He put the plate on top of her dresser and gently tugged the cover down on her bed. Lifting her slowly, he positioned her in the bed and pulled the cover up, then put the plate and drink beside her bed so she could reach it.
He decided to bring her chair up and left the room. Joyce sidetracked him, asking him to retrieve a box of paperwork from the basement, and when he finally found the time to take her chair, the plate of food he had left was empty and Buffy was snoring. He pushed her chair close to her bed, locked the wheels and lifted the dirty dishes. Shaking his head, he growled low in his throat, cursing himself for keeping a slayer, of all things, alive.
Joyce cleared her throat behind him and he walked toward her. She pointed at the plates. “What happened to her getting what she asked for? I didn’t hear her ask.”
Spike chuckled. “There’s an exception to every rule, just like you said.”
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