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Author's Chapter Notes:
Here it is, my second update in a week! I was inspired by all the fabulous reviews, and honestly I have
been wanting to write this chapter since I first thought of this story. I hope you love it; please let me know!
Somewhere in the room something was buzzing, forcing it's way through the dazed recesses of Spike's consciousness. It had been four in the morning
before he had been able to fall into a troubled, somewhat intoxicated sleep and the annoying sound pricked his mind, gradually dragging him back to himself.
Fumbling for the nightstand, he found his cell phone and cracked open his eyes to check the caller id. The gallery. Buffy.

"Hello?" he answered somewhat foggily, rubbing his forehead in an attempt to kick start his brain.

"Spike." For the second time, he was greeted with an unexpected voice. Now, though, Drusilla's tone was clipped and urgent and soberness instantly
dawned on him.

"Dru? What is it?"

"You need to come back, Spike. Now."

He was already moving, frantically throwing things into his suitcase, heart pounding so loudly he was sure the people in the next room could hear. There
was only one reason he could think of for Drusilla to summon him so premptorily back to the town he had just left the previous day.

"Is she okay?" Please let her be okay. What had he been thinking, going off and leaving her like this?

Dru hesitated and Spike's heart stopped beating. Oh god. No.

"She's...going to be okay. I think. Just come home as soon as you can."

"I'm on my way," he said shortly, clicking the phone closed and rushing out of the room. There had better not be any police on the road this morning,
because he was planning on doing a lot of speeding and did not have time to stop for a ticket.

**********************************************************************************************************************************

Gingerly, Buffy opened the car door and got in. Her entire body ached and her right wrist was pretty much useless. She hoped it wasn't broken. Pretty sure
she was going to feel a lot worse when the adrenaline wore off, Buffy tried to think about the best place to go to recover, physically and emotionally. A sob
started in her throat. Had that really just happened? No. Can't think about that now. Have to get somewhere safe first. Of course, the first place that came
to mind was Spike's house, but he wasn't even home. She couldn't go back to the gallery. And Willow was too far away; Buffy would never be able to drive
into the city, and the idea of betraying her injuries to curious stares on the train was too much to bear. Again, her thoughts came back to Spike.
His home beckoned her heart like a lighthouse, and she made up her mind. Even if he wasn't there, she could still go to his house. She knew where
he kept a hidden key in case he locked himself out, as he confessed he was apt to do. And maybe it was for the best that he wasn't around. She had no
idea what he would do if he saw her like this. No, it was good that she could go there and be alone.

Barely twenty minutes later, and there she was. Paying no attention to her surroundings, she stumbled out of the car and bent down to retrieve the key
from under the front step. Her hands were starting to shake, and she could think of nothing but locking herself inside and curling up on his couch. As
she awkwardly put the key in the lock, she was startled to feel the knob turning in her hand. Head flying up wildly, she was shocked to meet the curious
hazel eyes of her new best friend.

"Buffy?" Willow asked inquisitively. "What are you doing here? You know Spike's not..." Suddenly she took in her friend's face, and the redhead's eyes
went wide. "Oh my god. What happened to you?"

Unable to speak, with no idea of how to explain this, Buffy only shook her head numbly. Gently, Willow drew her inside the house, shouting for Oz to
come downstairs. "We're house-sitting," she explained rapidly to the silent girl blindly following her through the kitchen and into the small
dining room. "Spike thought it might be nice for us to have a few days together, without Xander and Anya or my roommate around."

"Willow, what - " It was now Oz's turn to stop sharply at the sight of Buffy.

She wrung her hands together and pulled out a chair from the table. "Sit down, Buffy," she urged. "Let me see." Her eyes swept over her friend, noting,
beside the obvious discoloration of her face, the swelling of her left ankle, the way she cradled her right wrist and oh my god, were those fingerprints
on her arms? "What happened?" she asked again.

"I fell," Buffy responded in a small voice.

Something was not right here, but Willow shoved her uncertainties aside for the moment. What was currently most important was making sure her
friend was going to be okay. "What do you need, Buffy?"

"Will," Oz's shocked voice came from behind her. "She needs to go to the hospital."

Buffy's head came up rapidly at that. "No," she asserted vigorously. "No hospitals. I hate hospitals." People died there, people like her mom. And
hospitals meant questions that she was so not ready to answer.

"He might be right, sweetie," Willow said gently, kneeling on the floor in front of Buffy's chair.
"I don't know how badly you're hurt."

"No," Buffy repeated, high-pitched and frightened. With surprising strength, she gripped her friend's hand. "Please, no. I'm okay. Please, Willow,"
she begged.

"All right, all right," soothed Willow, startled by her vehemence.

"Willow," Oz said again, more insistently. "She needs to go."

Buffy whimpered, and Willow stood up, blocking her from her boyfriend. "She's scared, Oz," she said quietly. "Let's just leave it awhile."

"No. This is ridiculous, look at her!"

With a start, Willow prepared to defend Buffy. She had no idea what had happened, but she didn't want her friend any more traumatized than she
already was.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

As Spike jumped out of the car and approached his house, he could hear upraised voices coming from inside. When he arrived back in town, he
hadn't been sure where to go. He knew Buffy wasn't at the gallery with Dru, and her car hadn't been at her own home, although Angel's had, a fact
which did not make Spike at all more comfortable. Remembering the last time she had been hurt, he had then gone to his house, and sure enough, her
car was in his driveway. Seeing that she was well enough to drive made him breath a sigh of relief, but the shouting coming from inside made him
even more apprehensive.

Without bothering to announce his arrival, he burst into the dining room, taking in the scene in one swift glance. Oz and Willow were yelling at each
other from opposite sides of the table, Oz angry and Willow's stance screaming defiance. In between them, a small slight figure was curled into a
chair, head resting on the table, blond hair spilling out in a tangle. From the slight shaking of her shoulders, he could easily tell she was crying, and
his fists clenched in anger.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" he roared, cutting through their argument, slicing silence into the room. Oz and Willow stared, shocked at
his sudden appearance, but Spike's eyes were focused on Buffy. "Kitten?" he asked, his voice infinitely gentle, a drastic contrast to his last statement.

Through a collectively held breath, she slowly raised her head. Tears sparkled in her green eyes, and there were wet tracks down her cheeks. Her
hair was mussed, and her lips convulsed silently. But her face, oh her face. All of his very worst nightmares were made manifest in her face. One
cheekbone was rapidly turning green, while the other struggled between red and black and the skin between her eyebrow and temple was
mottled and dark. Spike could not breathe. His lungs were collapsing and he was absolutely certain he was going to throw up. He held her eyes for
a long moment, not wanting to believe what he was seeing, praying he was caught in a very bad dream, knowing it was all too real. In the next
instant fury, blinding white hot fury, like nothing he had ever felt before, roared up in him, momentarily blinding him, and he spun around and headed for
the door.

Buffy choked out a cry and pushed herself up from the table, intent on reaching him, but her battered body slowed her down considerably, and he was
outside before she could get to him. "Spike!" she cried, clinging to the front door, forcing her feet down the stairs, moving past the pain. He
stopped, wordless, watching her struggle forward. "Stop. Where are you going?" Finally, finally she was within touching distance, and
she stumbled, forcing him to either catch her or let her fall. The feel of his warm, strong arms around her waist, all but holding her up, released a
fresh torrent of tears.

"Where do you think I'm going?" His words were clipped, angry, belying the tenderness with which he supported her weight. "I'm going to
kill him."

"No, you can't," she pleaded.

"Why not?" Still, he had that terrible terseness in his voice, each word cut off on the point of a dagger. "It's very simple. He hit you. I'm going to kill him."

"He didn't hit me." Her quiet words penetrated the raging fog filling his brain, and he brough his head down to look her over again.

"So how exactly did you end up looking like you've gone ten rounds with a bloody bus?"

"I, he, we were arguing, and then the stairs," she struggled to explain.

Fresh horror blossomed in the pit of his stomach. "He pushed you down the stairs?" he breathed.

"No. Maybe. I'm not sure. It all happened so fast..." she trailed off, seeing the awful fear in his eyes.

"Buffy," her name was a prayer on his lips. "If he hit you, I would happily murder him. But," he struggled to talk, closing his eyes briefly, a lump suddenly
in his throat. "People die from falling down stairs. He could have killed you." A sudden image of her, lying on the floor, small body impossibly twisted,
eyes open and staring swam behind his eyelids. Spike caught his breath, almost choking, and reflexively closed his hands tighter on
her skin. Buffy forced herself not to flinch, even as his fingers scraped the bruises on her back. He felt the slight movement though, and his
eyes flew open. "Now," he said in a tight, wire-strung voice. "Now I'm going to have to torture him."

"Please." Her voice was small and breakable, her hands scrabbling for purchase on his shirt, trying to hold him to her. "I'm afraid," she
whispered.

"I will never, ever let him hurt you again, sweetheart," he swore passionately, meaning it with every fiber of his body.

"No, I'm afraid for you. If you go over there..." she trailed off, eyes wide with panic.

"Buffy, baby, I can more than take care of myself. He deserves," Spike broke off, shaking his head, unable to think of a punishment bad enough.
"Whatever it is, I deserve to do it to him."

"You can't. Please, Spike," she repeated desperately. "I'm not even sure what happened."

He released her slightly, fingers ghosting over her arms, caressing the bruising fingerprints adorning her skin. "And these? Are you not sure how
these got here?"

"Spike, please!" Buffy was sobbing again, wretchedly sure that if he left her sight, horrible things would happen.

"Spike," Willow's soft voice broke through as she came down off the porch from where she and Oz had been standing, their own argument forgotten.
"She's upset enough. Come on inside. Don't make it worse for her."

With a deep, bone-chilling sigh, Spike dropped his head, feeling some of the blind rage draining away. Buffy was almost hysterical in his arms,
clutching hard at his skin, and he knew that no matter how much he really wanted to inflict damage on her husband, he could never tear her away
from him, not like this. Taking a deep breath, Spike smoothed her hair, even now, under these awful circumstances, wondering at it's
softness. "Okay, luv," he whispered. "You win." He turned his energy away from revenge and instead channeled it into trying to calm her
down with gentle caresses and whispered endearments, until finally with a deep shudder her tears began to trail off.

Willow watched with tears in her own eyes as Spike gently lifted Buffy into his arms, not allowing her to even take a single step, and motioning
for Oz to hold the door, carried her back into the dining room. He carefully deposited her into a chair then took the seat next to her, lifting her injured foot
tenderly into his lap. Oz and Willow trailed behind, taking the remaining chairs. The room was silent, no one quite sure what to say in the wake of
such strong emotion. Suddenly, Buffy's phone pinged loudly, making them all jump. Her purse was lying on the table within reach, so Buffy pulled it over and easily tugged out the phone. She held it lightly
in her hand, not sure what to do.

"It's him," she said quietly.

"Don't answer it," Spike growled. Buffy obeyed, laying the cell down on the table, and they all listened as the ring echoed into silence. Moments later,
Willow's phone began pealing. Startled, she automatically reached for it, but Spike stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"Don't," he said. "He's looking for her."

When his own phone began to chime, though, Spike was ready. He grabbed it and violently flipped it open, hatred in his eyes. "You fucking bastard.
How dare you touch her -" The venom in his voice shocked no one, but Buffy firmly extricating the phone from his hand did.

"Angel," she murmured quietly, voice devoid of emotion. They could all hear the rattle of his voice on the other side. She said only two more
words before hanging up, an adamant "no" and a quiet, "maybe."

Every eye was on her as she tossed the phone down, bringing her hand up to her forehead and wincing in pain.

"He wants me to go home now."

Spike started to speak, but she cut him off with an upraised hand. "I told him I wasn't ready yet. He wants to talk to me in the morning, though."
She paused, dropping her eyes. "I have to face him eventually."

"No way in hell are you going over there alone," Spike said fiercely. It was Buffy's turn to protest, and his to stop her. "No. I'll go with you."

"Spike," Oz began hesitantly. "That might not be a good idea. It might be a little...inflamatory."

"Good," he replied bluntly.

"No," Willow cut in. "Oz is right. Buffy doesn't need to see you get into it with Angel. I'll go with her."

At this, Oz looked like he was going to protest. "Me being there won't upset him, like seeing one of you might," the redhead continued sensibly.
"And he's not going to do anything in front of me. If it'll make you feel better, you can drive us and stay out of sight."

With a sigh, Spike gave in. "Okay. Come by in the morning, then." Willow and Oz knew when they were getting the brush off, and really, there
had been no doubt about where Buffy would stay the night. After gathering up their stuff, Willow gently hugged her friend goodbye. "I'll see
you in the morning. Spike," she admonished. "Take care of her, okay?"

Meeting Buffy's soft eyes, Spike could only nod. He would care for her forever, if he could.





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