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CHAPTER FOUR

To avoid Joyce’s probing questions about Spike and his crypt, Buffy left soon to go to the Magic Box, where she found Spike and Giles in the training room. Spike was laughing at Giles who was peppering him with questions. He held a clipboard in his hand and was jotting down Spike’s answers as he sputtered them out.

“No. I can’t turn into a bat whenever I want to. If I could, I wouldn’t! Don’t like not being able to take care of myself.”

“But when you’re a bat, you are one hundred percent a bat, are you not? You can’t speak so as to be understood, you have bat anatomy, you can fly, you have fur—”

“His eyes are still blue when he’s a bat,” Buffy interrupted. “That’s not a normal color for a bat. At least I don’t think it is….” she trailed off, realizing she hadn’t done any research on bat eye color.

“I don’t believe it is,” Giles agreed. “How interesting.” He scribbled more notes on his clipboard.

“How’s your arm?” Buffy asked Spike, noting that it was still wrapped inside his shirt.

“I’ll live. How about you?”

“A lot better, but there’s at least one place that is still pretty pissed off at me. I can’t reach up very high without feeling like I’m ripping something open.”

Giles glanced up from his clipboard. “You were injured? Seriously so?”

“Didn’t you tell him?” Buffy gawked at Spike. “We could have died and you didn’t tell him about it?”

“Hey, he’s not my watcher,” Spike blustered. “He didn’t even ask what was wrong with me. All he wanted to know was what it was like to turn into a bat every night.”

For the first time, Giles seemed to notice that Spike only had one arm visible. “Were you injured while you were a bat?”

“Oh, now you’re curious,” Spike snorted. “Yeah. The ghoul that was trying to take out the Slayer swatted me out of the sky and broke my wing. Which turns out to be my shoulder when I’m not in bat form. Hurts like a bloody bastard, in case you’re interested.”

Giles turned to Buffy. “And what happened to you? Was this all part of the same incident?”

Buffy glanced at Spike, who shrugged and leaned back against a pile of mats. “You tell him, luv,” he said.

Buffy quickly recapped the evening’s events, starting with Spike’s attempts to distract the ghoul, and ending with the long, painful trek to Spike’s crypt. Having already understood that Spike had been in bat form, as well as seriously injured, Giles didn’t have the shocked response that Joyce did at hearing that Buffy spent the night on Spike’s couch. Instead, he questioned her about how she’d injured herself, and what still seemed damaged.

“After I did it, everything hurt. My back, my stomach, my ribs…. I could barely stand up or walk. I sort of hobbled with little baby steps, hunched over like an old lady. I was better this morning, and after a good, long, hot bath and some heavy-duty Tylenol, I thought I was fine. Until I tried to reach a plate on a high shelf.” Buffy rubbed her side as she remembered the stabbing pain. “Something in here is still not happy about throwing that statue.”

Giles nodded his head, frowning at the way she was holding her side. “No doubt you tore a large muscle in there. I suggest you take some more time to heal. And try to avoid tossing large statues.” He cleared his throat. “You should probably always have a sword with you anyway.”

He glanced back at Spike. “As should you, I suppose. I see you brought one with you.”

Spike rolled his eyes and Buffy giggled. “Giles, when Spike is a bat, he doesn’t weigh as much as a stake—never mind a sword! And he can’t fly now, so all he can do is sit on my shoulder and try to tell me if he hears or smells something.”

“Or sees something,” Spike put in. “Vampire night sight is good, but when I’m a bat, it’s like I’m seeing and hearing a whole new world.”

“Interesting…. “ Giles scribbled again. “That could be very helpful for Buffy if there was only some way for you to communicate with her.” He stared at Buffy. “How do you communicate now?”

Buffy shrugged. “He can understand me, so he can nod ‘yes’ or shake his head ‘no’. And sometimes, when he’s really mad, I can tell he swearing. “ She giggled at Spike, who smirked at her.

Giles turned to Spike. “If you two could work out some sort of system of communication, it could be quite useful to Buffy to have eyes and ears in the air, so to speak.”

Buffy and Spike exchanged a long look. He quirked up one eyebrow at her. “Up to you, luv. It’s not like either one of us is going to be taking on anything tonight. We could work on a system of some sort.”

“I guess we could. I told Mom I’d bring you home with me so she could see what a cute little bat you are and not be worried that we spent the night together.”

“Together?” Giles looked back and forth between as Buffy stammered and tried to explain while Spike roared with laughter.

“Not together, together! I mean he was a bat! I just meant that she was all ‘why did you spend the night with Spike?’ and I tried to explain that I couldn’t come home because I couldn’t move without crying, and that Spike wasn’t as big as my hand, and he was a bat with a broken wing, so my virtue wasn’t in any danger, and….” Buffy ran out of breath, shooting a glare at Spike, who was still laughing.

“Ah,” Giles said, also glaring at Spike who subsided to silent tiny smirk. “Indeed. You were perfectly safe from the big bad vampire…bat.” He gave a sigh. “And will be again tonight, I presume, unless Willow and Tara have had better success than I at coming up with a counter spell.”

“Exactly. Not to mention the chip and his broken shoulder—not that I’d use that against him unless he was trying to kill me, but he’s pretty harmless now too. Just not as cuddly.”

“Speaking of harmless,” Giles said, reaching for his notes. “Does the chip not work when you are a bat?”

Spike blinked. “Got no bloody idea, do I? I eat bugs when I’m a bat, except when the Slayer pours blood into a bowl for me. It’s not like I’ve got a death wish and started trying to bite humans while she was around.”

“So, you don’t know then?”

“We can try to find out tonight while we’re working on learning to communicate. He’s bound to get mad at me for something, and he can try to bite me,” Buffy threw out casually.

Both men stared at her with mouths agape and eyes wide. Spike recovered first, purring, “Could do that any time you want to, Slayer. I’ll wager if you ask me to do it, the chip might not even care….”

Sending Spike a threatening look, Giles said, “That’s a terrible idea, Buffy! What if it turns out he can bite?”

She frowned at both of them. “Then you’ll have an answer to your question. Sheesh, Giles. It’s not like a teeny little bat is going to hurt me. And if he did try to really hurt me, I’d smack him down and break his other wing!”

“Meanwhile,” Spike said, “do me a favor and keep looking for some way to break this bloody curse. I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life being a flying rodent for half of it.”

“Yes, yes. We’ll continue to work on it. In the meantime, I should like very much to observe the transformation myself. Perhaps I will notice something that—”

“Bugger!” Spike said, just before his clothes collapsed onto the floor, leaving a small, snarling bat under them.

“Too late!” Buffy said, lifting the shirt up as carefully as possible in case Spike’s wing was caught in it. Which is was, so she just held it up until he managed to crawl out using only his left wing.

“He said something just before he transformed. What was it?”

“I think he said ‘bugger”. Maybe he felt it coming on?” She knelt down near Spike and asked, “did you know it was going to happen?”

He nodded against the hand she was reaching out, snuggling into it as she lifted him from the floor and set him on the top of a pile of mats. She set him down gently, stroking his fur when he made squeaky little complaining noises.

“Well, that’s new, I think. Maybe it’s starting to wear off? If he can tell when it’s going to happen, maybe he can learn how to stop it.” Buffy looked at Giles for his thoughts.

He nodded. “Also an avenue to approach if we don’t have more success breaking the spell. It may turn out to be something he has control over, as Dracula himself appears to have. It’s possible he’s given Spike a new skill, just not let him in on how to utilize it properly.”

“That could be pretty cool, Spike,” Buffy said with enthusiasm. “Think about it! You could ride around on my shoulder until there was something to fight, then transform back to a vampire and help me kick butt. You’d be like my secret weapon!”

A tiny bat snort was the only reply.

Buffy picked him up again, being careful not to jostle his broken wing now that it wasn’t being held in place by anything. “We can work on that while we’re figuring out how to communicate while you’re a bat.”

She set him on her shoulder and waited until she felt his little claws grasping the fabric. “Is that going to work? Can you hang on with only one wing?”

He gave one of his nods, but squeaked until she frowned and looked around. “What? What are you squealing about?”

“Perhaps he wants you to take his clothes?”

“What? Oh, no. The idea is that he can leave something to wear any place he might need to have it. So, these will be his Magic Box clothes. Just put them in the weapon closet or somewhere he can find them if he has to change here. I’m going to collect some more tonight or tomorrow to leave at my mom’s and maybe your apartment. Any places he might find himself stuck until morning.”

She picked up the sword Spike had used to get through the tunnels safely, and said, “I’ll take this with us, though. Just in case.” She frowned at the way Spike was clinging to her shoulder, which didn’t seem very stable as he was clearly protecting the broken wing. “Maybe we should hold that wing down somehow? I think it really helped that his bad shoulder was inside a tight tee shirt all day. I’ll bet it would be good for the wing too. What do you think, Spike?”

He nodded against her face and huddled close to her neck.

“Not only is that probably an excellent idea, but it would probably be better for helping that wing…or shoulder… to heal if it was not only immobilized, but if he wasn’t risking jostling it by trying to hold on to you. Wait here a moment.”

Leaving them in the training room, he disappeared into the shop, returning soon with scissors, an Ace bandage, and a small box. “Let’s try this, shall we?” When Spike clearly growled at his approach, Giles handed the bandage material to Buffy. “Here. It seems he isn’t as tame as he appears,” he sniffed as though offended by the bat’s rejection.

Buffy took Spike off her shoulder and set him back on the mats. She took the scissors and cut a small strip of bandage. “Okay, Spike. I’m going to try to wrap your wing. If it hurts or I make it too tight, just say something.”

He gazed at her, his bright little eyes so full of trust that it made her uncomfortable. She bit her lip and carefully tried to strap his injured wing against his body without interfering with his use of the left one. Which turned out to be tricky, as the wings were attached to almost his entire little torso. She made one wrap around his lower abdomen, then decided it would be better to wrap it up and over his good shoulder. She frowned, then smiled at him in what she hoped looked like a reassuring fashion, as she brought the stretchy bandage around, up, and over again until she felt it was secure enough to tie off.

“Is that okay? It isn’t too tight is it?” Buffy tried to slip a finger between the fabric and his soft lower belly, flinching when he gave a little squeak. “I’m sorry! Did that hurt?”

Bat-Spike shook his head vigorously and Buffy was suddenly reminded of his gasp when she’d brushed the skin of his stomach that morning when he was in his normal form. She flushed and pulled her finger away.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t think….”

He looked up and nudged her hand gently.

“Does that mean it’s okay? You aren’t mad at me?”

He nodded, and Buffy looked at Giles with excitement. “We communicated! Now I know how he says okay!”

Not having a clue what Buffy apologized for, and assuming it had to do with causing Spike pain, Giles smiled his agreement. “It’s a beginning,” he said. “Yes, no, and ‘it’s all right’ are a good start. Perhaps, as you experiment this evening, you will find ways for him to communicate important things that can warn you of dangers.”

“Like the bat version of ‘Duck’!” Buffy laughed, but Giles just nodded his head. “Exactly!”

Spike gave a short squeak, waited, then repeated it until Buffy said, “Is that ‘duck’?” He nodded and she beamed at him. “You can talk! I just need to learn the words you’re using.” Her smile faded. “I kind of suck at languages… this might be harder than I thought.”

Giles shook his head. “I shouldn’t think so. You’ve had no trouble picking up on his physical cues, and it’s not like you’ll be having lengthy conversations. A few more simple sounds like that one should be all you’ll need. Perhaps, when Spike is in his own form, you and he can work out a small vocabulary of sounds with meaning.”

“I guess that’s our cue to head for Mom’s to show her how harmless Spike is as a bat—” There was a tiny growl from Spike, who was glaring at her from his place on the mats. “Get over it,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of her words. “You’re not dangerous and you’re not even scary. You’re just adorable and harmless.” She stroked a finger across his head in what she hoped was a soothing manner.

Spike’s response was to nip at her finger with his tiny fangs, causing her to wince, but not drawing blood.

“He bit me!” She glared at the little creature staring at her defiantly. “I guess that answers your chip question, Giles.”

“So it seems,” he said thoughtfully. “So it seems….” Shaking himself and muttering, “something else to worry about,” he handed Buffy the small box, which she could now see was a sort of wooden cage. “I’d suggest you carry him in this if you can. There is less chance of something happening to him than if he is clinging to your clothing with only one ‘hand’.”

“It’s a cage, Giles!”

“And he is, temporarily or not, a wild animal. A crippled wild animal and unable to defend himself or even to avoid danger. I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.”

He avoided looking at Spike, whose glittering blue eyes, and muttered squeaks were making it obvious exactly how not fine he was with the idea of being in a cage, but when he tried to walk across the mat and lost his balance, saved from a fall only by Buffy’s slayer speed, he stopped complaining and with a sigh, allowed Buffy to place him in the box with bars and a roof. He hunkered down in one corner and refused to look at either one of them.

Buffy rolled her eyes at his behavior, but carefully picked up the cage and walked toward the exit.

“We’ll come back tomorrow and tell you what we’ve worked out.”





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