“We’ve got a blunt force trauma to the head, and an abdominal stab wound with what appeared to be a five inch blade. Approximately 20 year-old female, attacked outside of her work by four male attackers.” The EMT reported to the ER trauma team as they rolled the blonde girl on the stretcher into the entrances of the ER. They transferred her from the stretcher to the hospital gurney with ease trying not to disturb the pressure on the woman’s stab wound. The patient’s eyes began to flutter under her closed lids as they made their way to the first empty trauma room.
“Do we have a name?” The head nurse asked him as they wheeled into the room and the others began to go about hooking her up to the proper machines.
“Co-workers said her name is Buffy Summers, no emergency contact, pretty much a loner.”
“Alright then,” The nurse said. She grabbed her penlight and checked the pupils of the patient, “Buffy? Can you hear me? My name is Rose and I’m a nurse do you know where you are?”
The girl’s head began to sway back and forth as she swam to consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open and closed as she tried to take in her surroundings not bothering to answer the question that had awoken her.
“Does she have any allergies to any medications?” Rose asked the EMT who followed suit by looking at his chart, before shaking his head.
“None of her co-workers could really tell me much about her, just the basics.”
“Buffy, I need you to tell me if you have any allergies, can you do that for me? Buffy?”
Buffy shook her head as she tried to sit up but both Rose and another nurse urged her to lie back down.
“No! I need to get up, I have to go.”
“I’m sorry, my dear but you’ve been attacked and we need to check you over and make sure nothing was seriously damaged with your stab wound and from the sounds of it you might have a concussion.”
Buffy stared at the woman that had said her name was Rose just a minute ago. She looked like a kind woman, however that was not going to keep Buffy in this hospital. The slayer hated hospitals with a passion and she knew – unlike them, she had super healing on her side and being admitted into a hospital was a waste of time. Sure she’d be woozy but most likely her stab wound would had quicker than a paper cut they might get.
“No, no I’m fine. I need to go. LET ME GO!” Buffy screamed as she attempted to sit up again. Her hand went to pull the IV the nurse had just finished putting into her but the head nurse grabbed her wrist to stop any movement. With all the strength that she had in her, Buffy pushed the nurse away from her body, causing her to fly across the room.
The rest of the trauma team stood shocked for a second in complete disbelief until the head doctor finally reacted.
“Grab the restraints and a sedative. She’s going to fight us on this but we need to get her stitched up before her wound gets worse.”
Buffy kicked out as both the EMT and paramedic made a dive to catch her wrists and pin them. She screamed in agony, for a second time that night she was held down. Her neck burned as she struggled to get free and get out of here but before she could break free the nurses had aided with attaching the restraints to Buffy’s arms keeping them locked down at her side and to the metal sides of the gurney.
With all her might a harsh scream ripped from her throat, her eyes begging as the nurse administered the sedative into her IV.
She tried to fight it, she’d been able to stave off drugs forced into her system before but with her already weakened state she didn’t think she could stop it now.
Her body dropped exhausted against the hospital gurney, desperate pleas for freedom. The slayer’s blood pulsated to the bite that she had gotten the night before and for the second time before slipping into unconsciousness she uttered the one thing that she desperately needed. “Spike.”
Spike paced the exterior of the hospital, an outside observer would say his pacing was graceful as agitated and tense as he was. He had gone through practically a whole pack of cigarettes as he listened and waited. From what he could pick up on even through the brick of the hospitals fortress and the sixth sense he was getting from Buffy, they had put her under, and were currently finishing with stitching her wounds up before moving her into her own room to recover.
Spike had spent a little bit in the shadows of Elegant Secrets after the cops had packed it up trying to gain a sense of what had gone on, but he couldn’t pick up on anything. There were too many that had walked through that alley at one point and even those that had been then to help Buffy. Not only that but under the grime and trash of the alley Buffy’s blood reeked all over the ground and her fear had permeated the whole area. This pissed Spike further off into a higher rage. The second he got a hold of whatever had hurt his future mate they would live out the torture that he had reserved specially to ones to give him the moniker Spike. Only this one would be slow and ten times worse.
In the meantime he needed to get to the hospital and be near her, even if she pushed him away. Spike was never one to give up easily even if Buffy was the same way.
Before arriving to the hospital the connection he felt to Buffy had escalated to a higher fear and agony, which only made him run faster before he realized it was the hospital. He growled and for the past half hour since then he had continued to pace outside the entrance. He couldn’t just walk in there, and the information was not going to be simply handed over to him no matter how much he claimed to be her kin. Instead he had to wait until he knew she’d be alone and from what he could sense was just about now.
He walked into the entrance, and the lobby was pretty bare only a couple sitting in the corner obviously awaiting news on their loved one. There was no one at the receptions desk, only an occasional staff of the hospital walking by quickly trying to reach his or her destination. This is just going to be too easy… Spike observed, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his duster. He walked up to the desk, noticing the couple paid no attention to him. Leaning over, he rummaged through the clipboards stacked neatly until he found the file with Buffy’s name on it. He checked quickly, taking notice of her assigned room before heading off the in the direction.
Spike traveled down the corridor with determination, a set grim look, daring anyone he passed to just fuck with him. He was here for Buffy and wouldn’t hesitate to snap any human that would possibly get in his way. His demon raged, and while Spike saw it justified, he was almost hesitant at his borderline obsession with her. Hardly knew the girl, knew enough to know she was skittish towards him and anything to do with getting to close to feeling something. Spike wouldn’t set a claim in, no matter how much his demon wanted it, until he could break through it. Nor was Spike one to force himself on a woman, and instilling a familial claim left a guilty feeling in him. When it came to the mating he’d make sure she wanted it and he’d break through her walls. The electricity between them was too hard to ignore, and he was drawn to her like a bloody moth with a death wish to the bright eternal flame.
The stench of the hospital was giving him a headache. The vampire hated these places, the reeked of sterility and death. Spike was a tool the death itself but it was cold and lifeless in places like hospitals. The whole building set Spike on edge and he wanted Buffy out of here. If she were any normal human he wouldn’t be against her treatment here, but he knew slayers. They healed quickly, and no staff of any hospital in the world could comprehend the complexity of a slayer.
Where is her damn watcher? Spike growled in his head.
He almost passed Buffy’s room but retraced his steps quickly when her noticed the right number that had been on her chart. The door was open and only a small light above her hospital bed was on in the room, the window’s curtrains were wide open and the moon was the largest source of light that covered her room, but it was still dark in there, however not for Spike. He stepped over the threshold hesitantly as he stared at the little blonde slayer in the hospital gurney. The heart monitor machine was beeping normal, and the IV hooked to her arm had a saline bag that was dripping steadily.
Her head was turned the other way, but he could tell she was still under a sedative. He came to step closer and growled. Her body limply laid in the small hospital bed, arms at her sides and restraint to the side guards. A small bandage was on the back of her head, and bruises marred her arms that he could see peaking from her hospital gown that she was practically drowning in.
Spike tapped at the restraints of the arm closest to him, and he let out another growl of disgust. This was the fear he had felt while he had stood outside waiting. Probably tried to get loose and the bastards tied her down, knocked her out like she was some wild beast that needed to be tamed. She was wild alright, something that drew him to her. He understood, the doctors did need her get stitched up, but it still angered him to see the Slayer he was working to make his mate reduced to something weak, and frail in a hospital bed.
The desire to hunt down the filth that put her there only burned more. They’d meet the wrath of the master vampire in Sunnydale.
A whimper escaped her lips; the fog that was seemingly lifting inside of him to his connection to her was an obvious indicator that the sedative was wearing off. Her body began to tense as she began to cry in her sleep, as if trying to search for a relief she needed.
Spike’s eyes flew to the exposed part of her neck, the side with his marks. He could smell her blood flowing all to that point and she was screaming for a relief, he could sense her deep in his whole being.
On instinct his hand flew to gently caress the column of her neck, his fingers tracing over his mark, and within seconds she calmed. Spike beamed with pride. The marks would burn; it was part of the claim but only if she needed him. It served as a reminder that she had someone that could comfort her. They could only be agonized if she truly wanted him, the claim didn’t instill the need – she did.
It was good to know this, for when she later would try to argue again about the claim, she couldn’t hide behind a veil of no desire towards him.
Spike’s head snapped to across the room where he spotted a sealed plastic bag on one of the chairs. Stomping over there, he read over the tag tied to the top Summers, Buffy. Personal Belongings. Without hesitating he ripped the seal and pulled out the flowy top and pressed it close to his nose trying to pinpoint a scent.
It was hard to weed through, Spike tried to ignore the intoxicating scent of her blood that had stained the front, grimacing that she had been obviously stabbed. Beyond that, smoke and alcohol laced through the fabric from the environment of her job, but it was still damp and smelled musky from the alley. So many different scents assaulted his bloodhound like nose but he luckily honed in on one, heavy in the area of her blouse at the tops of her shoulders. He stored the foul scent to his memory, being sure his demon would never forget it. Definitely human, and soon to be torn to shreds the second Spike had a chance.
Another whimper from her bed drew his attention back to her as she began to really stir, her body shifting uncomfortably and her arms were obviously trying to break fry. Tears broke through her sedation, and tracked down her cheeks, she was trapped in her mind, and bound physically, and from his link to her, it was becoming a hell for her conscious. Spike dropped her ruined top on the bag and crossed back over to her, leaning over the side of the bed, and cupping her cheek. His demon didn’t balk at the gentle touches he was giving her; it needed to reassure her just as much.
“Shhh…open those pretty eyes Slayer, let’s see that fire in them that drew me to you.”
Buffy’s head turned towards his cool palm, nuzzling it as if it were almost giving her warmth instead of chills. Slowly her lids fluttered open, unshed tears at the brink of escaping as she gasped for air, her eyes searching at her surroundings.
“Where…what’s going on?” She regarded his hand on her cheek following the arm until her eyes landed on him, and she swallowed nervously. “Where am I?” Her questions came out harsh and panicked.
“Hospital, luv.”
“Oh god…” A heavy needed breath was sucked in as everything that had occurred came rushing back. The men in the alley behind the club, their overtaking her, and the beating that she couldn’t stop. She remembered hearing Matt coming out as she was close to passing out from the stab wound they had given her. Images of slipping in and out of consciousness during the ambulance ride and then the struggle to get free when she arrived at the hospital all came to the front. Her eyes flew to the restraints on her wrists and panic rose even higher.
She hated hospitals. They had given her the creeps when she was younger, well after she her cousin had died in one. Now that she was she couldn’t help but remember back to the short time she had spent in the institution after her calling. She tugged on them, trying to break free, but they wouldn’t budge, she was so was weak, tired still from the affects of the heavy sedative they had given her. As she struggled she almost forgot about the vampires presence, but as his fingers wrapped around her wrist stilling her of any movements she looked back up into his piercing azure gaze.
“What are you doing here?!?” Buffy questioned. How could he possibly be here was an even better question.
He didn’t answer her right away, his jaw tight with tension; instead he focused on undoing the buckle of the restraint he held. “Felt you were in trouble, saw the aftermath when I finally got my arse down to your work.”
Buffy stared at him in disbelief, he was actually undoing her restraints, and although being free was easing the panic in her, his close proximity was still putting her on edge. She tried to ignore the cool feeling in her neck where he had bitten her, the complete opposite of the tension she had felt there all night.
“Felt?”
Spike grimaced as he worked on the other restraint and she could tell he was trying to choose his words carefully for his explanation.
“Through the claim I put on you.”
Claim? What claim? She kept running these questions through her mind silently before the burning in her neck made its presence known again. The feeling of the night before, and Spike’s hold on her while his fangs had pierced her skin assaulted her memory, and it fell into place.
The way he had smoothly said ‘Mine’ as he had finished drinking the little he had taken from her, the soft feel of his hand on her hip that contained her to him in a steel grip. The excitement that had pulsed in her blood, and now that she recalled it now, her blood was beginning to hum with excitement again. She peaked a glance at Spike, whose brow was arched in amused curiosity as his nostrils flared.
Her cheeks tinged a bright pink. Jump back in Denial River, Summers!
“You claimed me?! I told you I didn’t want that!” That memory too came back and she focused on the idea of being forced to keep her anger higher and the arousal down. She sat up, easier now that she wasn’t tied to the bed, but the tender spot at the top of her hand reminded her of the IV she was still connected to. Anger and fire was in her eyes as she stared him down, and he only stared back with even more amusement.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” He said in harsh quiet voice. His hands braced the side guards on her bed as he leaned close to her the challenging glares matching. “I only claimed you in the simplest of terms. A bond of protection. Feel what you feel, easier to track you down, however that would have been so much easier if you weren’t unconscious like tonight and I had felt what was going on sooner.” Buffy adopted her long time practiced Valley girl ‘Huh?’ expression. One she hadn’t worn much since she was still training Giles and he would go off on watcher scholarly tangents.
“Be kind and rewind bleach boy!”
“Bloody hell didn’t your watcher teach you anything?! Speaking of which where the is member of tweed and book council?”
Buffy tried to stifle her chuckle at how dead on the description of her watcher and every member of the council Spike had taken.
“I don’t have a watcher.” Buffy said quietly.
“Bollocks! Every slayer has to have a watcher pestering her. It’s how the council keeps you girls on such tight leashes.”
Buffy sighed and looked down at her hands. Obviously Spike hadn’t got the memo from around the demon population. The chosen one now worked alone. He obviously knew so much about her, but that significant detail apparently did not come to his knowledge.
“I work alone.” Buffy said, her tone obvious that was the end of this discussion. New subject.
“I didn’t make you my mate, if that’s you’re getting into hissy about. Can’t unless you want it, and claiming you as my mate is a little more complex than simply a bite.” Buffy gaped at him, trying to process the information he just threw at her. “I just put a protection claim over you. No vamps will touch you if they know what’s good for them.”
She shook her head, looking down at her hands in her lap. “How the hell will your claim stop a vamp from biting me?”
Before she could stop him, his hand came to caress her neck, his thumb brushing over the healed over puncture marks of his fangs. She whimpered and pushed more into his touch, seeking more attention. Her mind was screaming at her, but it wasn’t something she could control. There was something deep inside of her that was craving his touch now, and beyond that…craving him. “It’s the mark I have on you. Vamps just sense it, and it’s strong since I’m a master vamp.”
As if needing reminder of his status, Buffy slapped his hand away and tried to shove him away from her bed, but she was still too weakened and he only wavered slightly. She grimaced and cursed the stupid imbeciles that had sedated her earlier.
“I told you, I don’t want to be claimed…nor do I want to be a mate! I’m a slayer for god’s sake. What is your damage?”
“Trust me, goldilocks, took me by surprise too. Killed two slayers –“ Her head shot up and she glared at him but he ignored it, “Made it my un-life mission to take down as many of you as I could. Bloody obsession since I was first told about you bints.”
If this was Spike’s way of trying to convince her to be completely claimed by him, he sure had a stupid way of going about it. Not that she’d even consider it. No, must stay alone. Safer that way.
“But I’m love’s bitch, and my side demon wants that love.”
“Vampires can’t love!” She cried out, her hands going to push through her hair completely frustrated.
“Bollocks Slayer! Who told you that, your watcher’s council? Those wankers couldn’t find their thumbs if it was shoved up their asses.” Her nose wrinkled at his use of words. “Vampires love, or it wouldn’t be possible for a claim to take place. Sure it’s a rare practice, but it’s true. I loved my sire for over a century until she died, vampires feel emotions just like you humans do.”
Buffy tried to ignore the sting of jealousy at the mention of him loving another woman. She didn’t care, as she tried to convince herself. “You kill people, you can’t possibly love, and you have no soul.” Angel had loved her, it’s why he had left, and he had a soul, but that didn’t stop him from breaking her heart.
Spike stuffed his hands in his pockets for his cigarettes as he chuckled. “Boy Slayer I thought you were smart, but you’re a bloody idiot!” She made a grab at his cigarette, scolding him by telling him there was no smoking in a hospital, but he evaded her reach. “Humans have souls and look what they’ve done. Stalin alone killed more people in his reign than I have in my time being a vamp. Need I point out the bugger did it for no proper reason. Vamps kill to survive, sure we get a thrill out of it, but that’s the consequence of having a demon in you pet.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he beat her to it, knowing just what she was going to say, “And the demon isn’t just what’s in a vampire, love. It is simply an enhanced version of Freud’s id.”
Buffy looked at him, baffled that he actually referred to a logical point such as Freud. What baffled her more was that she actually knew what he was talking about. “There are vamps who let that side of them take complete control, but you’ll notice those vamps aren’t likely to make it to the top of the pyramid, like I myself have.”
She dropped her head as he finished his cigarette, his eyes watching her every movement. “Spike...I can’t.”
“Bollocks again! You can!” He stepped closer to her, leaning over the side of her hospital bed until he was so close to her she could smell every intoxicating scent about him. His stare was firm and deadly, but she didn’t fear him. “You feel me in you, I told you there was a fire that drew us together, my demon or I don’t care what you are, it sees you as my equal match –“
“No, there’s a difference, I don’t kill people! I can’t be your equal.”
“It’s not equality of interests, love. This isn’t some ideal love where two like people come together. This is real; it’s rare, and powerful. It burns in us –“
“Until there’s nothing left, Spike! That kind of love doesn’t last. It’s just passion, and lust and it will burn but it will never last. Nothing ever lasts.”
“My existence begs to differ with you, Slayer.” He stomped the cigarette out on the tiled floor with the heel of his boot.
Buffy continued to shake your head. “I won’t be a rebound Spike. You said so yourself you loved your sire and she died. You’re just looking to replace your mate. I won’t be that.”
Spike sneered but he gently reached out to stroke her hair. She was so lost and alone. She denied him, denied the idea of being with someone but everything about her screamed for it. Her blood and her attraction to him. The need for a companion was almost as strong as his. They were truly matched.
“Dru and I was never mated kitten. If we had been, I’d have perished when she did. I loved Dru, she was my salvation from the dismal and pathetic thing that was my human life.” He knelt closer to her, and she didn’t push him away. She could hear in his voice the pain, and it shocked her. Maybe vampires could feel and if so something deep inside of her wanted to sooth his aches. “We were together yes, for over a century, but she’s dust now, taken by an angry mob in Prague. It hurts, and yes I don’t want to be alone, but I know Dru wasn’t that one for me now. She was never supposed to be my mate, as she so quietly put it, before she was killed. I was always to find a beautiful sunshine, at the time I thought it was Dru talking about my ending – she had some intune psychic tendencies, but I know what she was seeing.” His thump stroked against her cheek and looked at him with pitiful eyes. “She was seeing you.”
“You barely know me.”
“And yet, at the same time I feel like I know you perfectly well.”
Buffy’s eyes closed against his touch. Hadn’t that been exactly how she had felt about Spike a few nights ago. She didn’t know much about him, but there was something within her that knew him perfectly well.
“How did you get here, Slayer?” Buffy reveled in the change of subject but she knew Spike would bring it up again. She could tell he was just as stubborn as her. Truly she should be staking him, but the small side of her argued she was too weak to do so right now, and it wasn’t like he was banging the door down to kill her. She simply wanted to go back home.
“Was attacked outside of work by four drunks. I had been taking out the garbage, and I thought I had the upper hand,” She grimaced at how she had lost control of the situation so quickly. “Though Mr. Cheater whacked the crap out of me with a piece of wood on my head and I was too disorientated.”
Buffy pouted and she ignored the angry and very possessive growl that was coming from Spike, it was almost nice to have someone that truly cared.
“They didn’t…” Spike’s face screwed up into disgust which shocked her, knowing exactly what he was trying to ask.
“No, but I know they were trying to...” Tears formed at her lids again, it killed her to know four simple humans had bested her and now she was stuck in this hospital something she absolutely despised. “I wasn’t on my A-game.”
Spike nodded, he was still silent though, and he recalled the scent that he had locked away in his memory. Find the bastards and tear their arms off to beat them with before snapping their necks. He focused on the Slayer huddled on the bed, looking at the moment so powerless. She was exhausted, but he could tell though her wounds were healing quickly.
“Spike…” Her soft whisper of his name jump-started him, and he looked at her expectantly. “I don’t want to be here. I can’t stand hospitals.”
Buffy’s voice broke his heart; she sounded so lost and empty. Spike knew what she was asking of him, and he forced himself to realize that this was not her giving into him. Though in some way she was letting her guard down. He still had some work ahead of him until he convinced her how great they could be, but right now she wanted him to take her away from here.
“I got you,”
Slowly he pulled the IV from her hand, trying to not make her wince in discomfort, and he took the heart monitor off her finger tossing them away. Grabbing the sides of the sheet he bundled them around her small figure before he scooped her up into his arms. Her shaking stopped the second she was closer to him, and she let her head rest against his chest.
She didn’t give in, certainly not tonight, but she trusted him enough to help her escape this prison of a hospital and get her home safely. She’d figure out the rest come morning.
As he stepped into the hall after grabbing her bag of personal belongings, he carried her effortlessly.
No one stopped the intimidating figure that carried the tired girl wrapped in a hospital sheet, no one that had maybe seen at least. The halls were a ghost town and with out interruption he stepped out into the night, where dawn would be approaching in a couple hours. It was cold out, but Buffy noticed in his arms, she didn’t shiver once.