A/N: Started something new against my own wishes, but I couldn't stop myself. I hope you like it. A little S/D at first, but this will quickly move into Spuffy. Let me know if you like the idea or if it's all shit. Hoping for the former.

***

***

Buffy Summers had been a psychiatrist for a few years now, and she'd seen some horrible things. The file she was looking at now didn't seem so terrible at first. William Giles, late twenties, moving his way up in a law firm, living with his girlfriend and his cousin and her boyfriend. He'd disappeared for a few months, when he came back he was different.

His family believed he'd been kidnapped but he claimed he couldn't remember what had happened. He'd withdrawn from everyone, taken a leave of absence from work, and he'd tried to kill himself three times before they'd brought him to her.

Buffy understood the reasons for his family's reticence about bringing in William for any treatment. They were afraid he'd be sent to the mental ward, and they didn't want any of his problems now to affect his future with Wolfram and Hart.

Mental Breakdowns in L.A. weren't rare, but it didn't help to advertise them.

Buffy turned through the pages of her predecessor's notes. William had been seeing someone else before being brought to Buffy, and Buffy could see why none of this man's work had helped. There were mentions of a twisted sexual life and perverse and unhealthy relationships. She'd been interested at first, but then she'd read accounts of the "twisted" and "perverse" and decided the man was simply a prude, and obviously not up to date on the modern views of certain sexual practices.

The man was damn near old enough, she decided, to be an actual student of Freud's.

She finished the notes and tossed them aside. He'd probably done more damage with the disapproving and disgusted looks she could imagine him giving William, than the actual thing that had made him want to end his life. He'd been unable to break through William's mental wall surrounding the events of his three month absence. No one could even get past the fight with his girlfriend, Drusilla.

William remembered leaving the house, walking to the bar nearby and ordering some whiskey. After that he either froze or claimed ignorance.

Buffy took out the interviews conducted with his family and friends. They talked about William's attitude before and after, some so heartbreaking, Buffy could barely maintain a professional distance. Drusilla, and her friend Angel, both of whom lived with William, had probably the most terrible stories.

She set them aside for later perusal when she could get her emotions under control.

After a few more police reports and some random interviews from doctors that had treated him after his return, Buffy found the pictures.

This was what made his case a little bit hard to take. He'd been mightily abused while he was away. Beaten and raped, that much she would have expected, but the marks on his skin. The words that had been carved into his back and chest, the places where it looked as if they'd branded him...

Buffy turned the photos over and sat back to take a deep breath. She would have to face William tomorrow and see it all in living color. She couldn't do that unless she calmed down and distanced herself completely. It didn't matter that she'd never treated someone who'd been so disfigured both physically and emotionally, it didn't matter that with him an entire family and circle of friends had been brought low.

All that mattered was making him better, and she could do it, only if she kept her heart out of this.

***

***

Spike sat in the bathroom and tried not to think.

Dru was in the other room waiting for him and he knew he couldn't go in there unless everyone in his head shut-up. Dru tried to teach him how to meditate, how to clear his mind.

He was just as crazy as she'd ever been, probably crazier. She didn't still jump at every loud noise, or wake up screaming, or cover the mirrors so she didn't have to look at herself. She didn't have a panic attack if she got a little aroused. She didn't look like a bloody book under her clothes.

He put his face in his hands and tried to forget everything but her. They were so good together, so perfect for each other and he hadn't been able to show her how much he still loved her for almost half a year now, more than that if you counted all the time he'd been gone.

She hadn't pushed him to restart their sexual relationship, she seemed to understand that he needed the distance and the time, but he could see how much she missed it.

It had been so long since they'd been together. He literally couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten off. He could remember the last time he'd made love to Dru, but he knew that wasn't it.

He stood and shook his head, taking a deep breath. He put his hand on the door that lead to their bedroom and stopped. He waited for a minute until he could breathe normally and pushed it open.

She was sitting on the bed in one of his t-shirts. He used to love it when she wore his shirts, something about it got to him, but right now none of it was registering. He fought down his growing panic and walked toward her, she stood and met him.

They stood for a moment and Spike leaned in to kiss her softly. This was something he could handle. Kissing her, holding her, he could do that, no problem, and he'd be satisfied with it if that were all she wanted, but he knew she needed more and didn't understand why he would stop.

Spike pushed all his anxieties aside and focused on Dru's mouth. He ran his tongue along her lips and coaxed her to open up for him. She did so eagerly and soon their kisses were getting more passionate than Spike had intended. He slowed down and could feel her frustration, and his own, even though she did nothing to make it known.

He pushed her back toward the bed and knelt at her feet, running his hands up her legs. She looked at him questioningly but he just kissed her once and pushed her back, lifting the shirt until he could pull it off of her.

He ducked and took a nipple into his mouth, sucking gently. She closed her eyes and sighed before letting out a low moan.

He was glad that she had closed her eyes, he couldn't bear her to look at him. Not when he was painfully aware that there was absolutely nothing going on downstairs.

He spent more time at her breasts, waiting until she was practically begging him to touch her where she needed it most.

She wouldn't beg him out loud though. Since he had come back he'd been significantly less vocal. He talked only when he really needed to. She realized that he didn't really like to communicate with words anymore at all, and she'd gone near silent along with him.

He looked up before moving down her body and studied her face.

"I love you," he whispered, and he managed a smile when he heard her echo him.

On his way down he reached down a hand and tried in vain to provoke some kind of response in himself manually. He prayed his tongue would make her come hard enough that she wouldn't notice his lack. He doubted it though. They never talked about it, but he knew she knew.

He couldn't get it up, not with himself, not with her, not with anything or anyone. He fucking hated it, and he hated whatever it was that had done this to him. Made him into nothing, a scared, scarred, half-man, with a girlfriend (almost fiance) he couldn't please.

He made love to her with his mouth and when it was over her kissed her quickly before disappearing into the bathroom.

Dru pulled on her shirt and pulled the covers around her, feeling more lonely then, than before he had started.

***

***

"Giles! Come on in."

"Thank you Darla, how are things?"

Darla turned and walked into the kitchen motioning for her uncle to follow. He looked around the sunny room and wondered what his son thought about when he was in there. Surely such a happy space would have some kind of affect on him, somehow he didn't really believe it.

"William's up, I heard he and Dru earlier. He should be down any minute. Angel's not here of he'd be down to say hello."

"How is Angel?"

"Same as always, working hard."

They were quiet for a moment, both understanding the unspoken pain between them. Angel had blamed himself partially for Spike's disappearance and he'd been working non-stop to either forget or make up for whatever slight he understood himself to have committed.

Truth was, everyone felt guilty for one reason or another. Dru for letting him leave, Giles for not looking hard enough, Darla for telling Angel not to go looking for him when he'd left, determined to let him sulk alone, and Angel for listening to her.

There was no way any of them could have known he'd be preyed upon at that bar. No way to know this little tantrum would end any differently than the rest of them.

It felt like there was however, and no one took it as hard and Angel and Dru. The fact that Dru was already unstable lead the others to question whether or not letting Spike and Dru remain in such closed quarters was a good idea. They fed off of each other's emotions, and they couldn't help but allow for unhealthy habits to persist, but everyone had agreed that separating them would probably be more detrimental than leaving them together.

Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them slowly, trying to stop thinking too hard about things that couldn't be helped. He hoped that a visit to a new and well-recommended doctor would help William, but he could only do so cautiously.

Darla moved next to him and put a hand over his.

"He's going to be ok."

Giles didn't look convinced. "Do you really think it will ever be possible?"

"To get him back completely? I don't... I think the Spike we knew, I think he's gone. But people are constantly changing, what makes him your son, the things that made him the man you knew, I think they'll always be there. They just may take on different forms."

"How can he be the same son I raised?"

Darla was quiet for a minute then looked over as Drusilla came into the kitchen. She pulled an apple from the bowl of fruit and smiled at Giles before kissing his cheek and walking back to her bedroom.

"Remember what she was like before? Remember how different she was?" Giles nodded slowly. "She's still her though, she's still the same Dru we knew, just a little more fragile, a little more afraid, but she's brave, and so is Spike, he'll get through this."

"I'm so happy he has you. I've never been a perfect father, and his mother..." Giles still shook with anger thinking about the woman who had abandoned her son so callously. "You've helped him all his life, and I'm glad you're here to keep them all together and safe."

Darla nodded but couldn't think of anything to say so she squeezed his hand and moved away to pour herself some coffee.

Spike chose that moment to come down the stairs and stand silently in the doorway of the kitchen.

Giles stood and smiled weakly. "Are you ready, son?"

Spike looked as if he would reach for a cup of coffee but changed his mind and nodded. Giles wanted to reach for his child to guide him to the car, any contact to reassure himself that his son was here and eventually would be ok, but he knew that was impossible. Spike shied away from the touch of any person but Drusilla. Giles couldn't alarm his son just to comfort himself.

They walked to the car in silence and were halfway to the appointment before Spike finally spoke.

"Dad?"

Giles was startled more by the quality of Spike's voice than the noise in the silence. It was rough with disuse, and choked, like it was almost impossible to get it out. His heart ached to hear it.

"Yes?"

Spike was silent for a moment as he struggled to get his thoughts in order, then tried to force them past his lips. Before... everything, he'd been more than candid with his father regarding everything from work to sex to his struggles with Drusilla's sanity. Now he had a hard time answering 'how are you feeling today?'.

He wanted reassurance, he wanted love. He wanted to know that he would get better, that he would be able to touch Dru like he used to, love her like he used to. He just wanted to hear his father's voice.

But he couldn't ask for any of it.

"Never mind."

Giles clenched the steering wheel tighter and fought back the tears he hadn’t yet cried for his son.

***

***

Buffy stood when she heard the front door to her offices open. She could hear Dawn dealing with all the technicalities and trying to make them comfortable.

She hadn’t been this nervous about a patient since her first few. Of course, she hadn’t dealt with anyone as potentially damaged as William was. She’d certainly never encountered a patient that had been abducted.

Buffy took a deep breath and relaxed, being as out of control emotionally as the patient was the worst way to start this. She put all the images of his mutilated body out of her mind, she refused to acknowledge the instinct to nurture him, she remembered her textbooks and her professors and the reason she was here in the first place.

The door cracked open and Dawn peeked inside. “Ready?”

Buffy smiled slightly and nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

“I’ll send him in.”

She had only seconds to wait before William Giles stepped into her office and stood awkwardly at the door. She stood and walked closer to him, slowly as to avoid frightening him.

“William?”

He looked up sharply, seemingly shocked by the use of his name then looked down quickly. “’S Spike.”

“Sorry?”

He cleared his throat and fidgeted a bit. Buffy noted silently all of his responses trying to get a clear picture of his mental state.

“My name, Spike.”

“Ahh, ok, I’ll have to remember that. Want to tell me how you got it?”

He shrugged. “Work.. I was a lawyer... just a stupid nickname.”

Buffy nodded and gestured for him to sit. He did and she moved across from him. She thought about picking up her notepad, but decided against it. He was extra skittish and she didn’t think he’d take too kindly to her writing down something after every word. His previous doctor had done it, and it seemed to agitate him.

That man’s apparent attitude toward William, or Spike rather, probably didn’t help.

“Ok, Spike, why don’t we start with something easy. Tell me why you’re here.”

He ran a hand through his hair and she noticed that though once it had been bleached near white, it had grown out and he hadn’t bothered to touch it up. His hands shook almost constantly, one of them held a cigarette that he twirled through his fingers but never attempted to light. His eyes were empty of emotion most of the time, only when startled did he seem animated. He seemed to touch his right upper arm a good deal, and he rubbed his left wrist almost as much. He rarely lifted his head and he kept himself hunched over.

Buffy realized this was going to be a long road.

“I need help." He didn't sound convinced, and she told him so. Spike just shrugged.

"Do you want to be here?"

He was silent for a moment, then he began to speak, though it was stilted and seemed to pain him.

"Sometimes. For Dru. Mostly, I don't care."

"Spike, this will take a while. It will take longer if you fight it. I'm not the guy you were with before, I'm not here to decide that you deserved to be taken. No one deserves what happened to you. I want you to be able to go back to work, to be able to have a good relationship with Drusilla, to be able to take care of yourself confidently. I can't do that if you don't want it to happen."

He looked up and she saw that her words had a some effect, even if he wasn't completely open to her yet.

"Spike, do you believe me?"

"Yeah. . . I believe you."

***

***

Buffy showed Spike and Giles to the door and set up a schedule for their sessions together. Spike hadn't said much, but when he did speak she could hear some confidence he hadn't entered her office with returning.

Buffy felt connected to Spike more than her other patients. She could not only hear and see his pain written so clearly on his face, but feel it in herself. She wanted to help him more than she'd wished to help any other patient before. It wasn't just the challenge, although that did add a certain appeal, it was him.

There was a man in there with a life that he needed to get back to. A man that had once been successful and full of love. She was determined to bring him out.

Spike left Buffy's office with more hope than he'd had since before he'd come home. He'd forgotten what hope was like to have. It was warm in his chest. Warmth that was seeping out all over his body and he thought that as soon as he came home he would hold Dru and really mean it when he said he'd never leave.

He didn't want to leave so much anymore. He didn't want Dru to be alone, and he didn't want his father to feel like he'd failed. He didn't want to hurt Darla, he didn't want Angel...

He wrist burned a little and he rubbed it. His scars did that sometimes. If he thought too hard about things, if he tried to hard to remember or force out some emotion that wouldn't come. Usually it was just the ones on his arms, but sometimes his chest and back, those were the most painful.

When he woke up from nightmares in a cold sweat screaming for Dru to help him, those burned at such an intensity he expected to see blood pouring from them again, expected to see the blade.

Them.

He shook his head and thought back to Ms. Summers. She was so willing to help him, willing to look at him without pity or disgust. He missed clear eyes seeing him as he was, as the man he could be if he could manage to forget.

She would help him, she would be there for him. She would chase away his demons with her calm eyes and her determination. He'd be forever in her debt but that was far better than what he was currently reduced to.

She'd given him hope, no one had ever done so much for him.

***