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Joyce lifted Buffy from the tub and sat her on the towel that was spread over the toilet. Buffy quickly pulled the edges over her lap and grabbed another towel from the sink, wrapping it over her hair. “I can do it myself.”




“I want to help you, Buffy.” Joyce said softly and lifted a third towel, rubbing down her daughter’s feet and legs. That was the first time that Buffy had spoken to her since the Spike fiasco in the kitchen and the silence was beginning to ache. Her hands were tied as far as work and taking care of Buffy was concerned and she had no other options. And it had pushed her even further away.




Cringing, Buffy swallowed her pride and allowed her mother to dry her off. She blushed slightly when her mother kneeled before her and lifted her feet, putting them into her panties. Joyce urged her to put her arms around her and pulled her upward, sliding her panties into place. Buffy felt tears of humiliation burning behind her eyelids as Joyce lifted her nightgown, slipped it over her head and then picked her up and moved to put her in her wheelchair.




Holding Buffy firmly around the waist, Joyce paused before she sat her in the seat, enjoying the only physical contact Buffy allowed her to have since she had been injured. This was as close to a hug as she was allowed. “When you were little, I had to beg you to take a bath. Your grandma let you watch Jaws and you were convinced that a shark was in the tub.”




Buffy had her arms around her mom’s neck and she relaxed a little. “I remember. You used to promise to make me popcorn if I would let you wash my hair.”




“If I offered to make you popcorn, would you quit giving me the silent treatment?”




“If you tell me that you’re going to get rid of Spike, I’ll-“




“I can’t do that, Buffy.” Placing her in her chair, Joyce stood and ran her hands through her hair. “Do you understand that I have to work to provide for us and keep our insurance? As it stands, the parts that the insurance didn’t pay are through the roof. There is no one else and Spike can’t hurt you.”




“Can’t hurt me?” Buffy narrowed her eyes. “He can damn well drive me crazy though! I hate him!”




“My hands are tied. I’m out of options.”




“Well, one day when you come home to find me hog tied with a million railroad spikes through me, you’ll realize how many other options there were.” Buffy wheeled herself out of the bathroom and down the short hallway into the living room.




Spike was folding up the blankets that constituted her bed on the sofa and he turned to look at her. “Your mom said for me to carry you upstairs. I’ll bring you back down when she leaves tomorrow.”




“I don’t want to go upstairs.” Buffy replied, grabbing the blankets he had folded and tossing them to the floor. “I want to sleep here.”




“Pick those back up.” Spike told her, sitting on the arm of the sofa and crossing his arms.




She lifted her chin defiantly and stared at him. His cheekbones caught her attention as he ground his teeth back and forth and she was struck, not for the first time, by how good looking he was. His black t-shirt clung to his chest and she rolled her eyes, willing herself not to go there. Ever since Willow had done the marriage spell, she had found herself ‘going there’ more and more. Especially since she had been injured and had nothing but time on her hands. “You pick them up.”




“I didn’t throw them in the floor. And don’t you roll your eyes at me, Slayer!”




“Put them back on the couch, Spike. I’m sleeping here.”




Spike got to his feet when he noticed Joyce in the doorway. She was listening intently to them and he shook his head slightly, telling her not to intervene. “I’ll tell you what, Slayer. I’m going to go into the kitchen and see about my dinner. If you want to sleep here, you remake the bed. If you don’t, I’ll carry you upstairs.”




“My bed was already made here, asshole. Remake it!” Buffy cried, grabbing a knickknack off the table. She drew it back to toss at him, but he caught her wrist and twisted, forcing her to drop it. “You bastard!”




“Let’s get something clear right now. You don’t give me orders. You don’t throw things at me and you don’t treat me like you do the other people around you because I’m not going to take it like they do. I’m going to give as good as I get, Buffy.”




“My mom won’t allow you to mistreat me.”




“Your mom won’t allow you to mistreat Spike either.” Joyce replied, coming into the room all the way. “This has to work out, Buffy. It has to.”




Spike took Joyce’s elbow and led her toward the kitchen. “Don’t worry, Joyce. It’s going to work out. I’ve been putting up with her venom for a while now. I’m immune.”




“We’ll see about that!” Buffy shouted. She rolled toward the sheets on the coffee table and pushed the table out of the way. Rolling back and forth in front of the sofa, she smoothed the sheets in place and then retrieved the blankets. Once her makeshift bed was back in order, she pulled herself out of the chair and struggled to get her legs up onto the couch. After several attempts, she finally won the war and flopped back, totally out of breath.




Spike watched from the doorway and applauded noisily. He walked into the room and leaned over the back of the couch, smiling down at her. “Now, was it worth it? You went to all that trouble to keep me from taking you up the stairs for nothing. You didn’t hurt me at all and all you succeeded in proving is that you can do more for yourself than I thought.”




“Piss off.” Buffy growled, rolling away from him. She almost rolled off the sofa and he caught her, pulling her back in place with one arm. “Get off me.”




“Joyce wants to know if you want a snack.”




“I want you to go to hell.”




“Sorry, ducks. Free cable television, warm shelter, a nice lady who can actually carry on a conversation and you to keep me entertained. I think I’ll stay here. Hell can wait.”




Buffy glared at him for a few long seconds, then turned toward the television. The remote control was lying on the coffee table, quite a few feet away. “Get me the remote, Spike.”




“What was that?” He had leaned over the couch again and was watching her closely. “Did you want to -ask- me to do something for you?”




“I said get me the remote.” Buffy sighed and waved toward it. “It’s all the way over there.”




“And over there is where it will stay unless you rephrase.” He smiled sweetly when she glared up at him. “You decide.”




“Spike, Roswell is going to be on in three minutes!”




“So?”

Buffy swallowed her pride and glanced back at the remote. “Will you please get the remote control and give it to me?”




Spike nodded and made his way around the sofa. He grabbed the remote and handed it to her. “God forbid you should miss Max and Liz acting out the Buffy and Angel torment hour.”




“Hey!” Buffy growled, turning on the television. “We did not brood and mope all over the place. And we didn’t fight it and whine so much.”




“Yeah, you keep believing that.” Spike raised his eyebrows and flopped into the recliner near the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes dramatically. In a high pitched voice, he wailed, “Oh, Angel, you are so dashing in your leather and the envy of every other hormonal teen girl in the Bronze and you ’re mine, mine, mine.” Then he sat up and exhaled, looking pained. “Oh, Buffy, my heart, my soul, my loins ache for you, but no, we have to fight it. We can’t give in.” He leaned back again and whimpered, “But, but, Angel, my forbidden fruit, my demon boytoy, who will I shag now?” Sitting up, he looked pained again. “Please, Buffy, don’t mention that to me. Don’t remind me of what I can’t do. Remain celibate, Buffy. If nothing else, let our one night teach you that sex is evil and bad. And it messes up your hair.” Spike stood and bowed, “Ta-da.”




Buffy watched him for a second, too stunned to say a word. When he fell back into the chair and stared at the television, she cleared her throat. “What the hell are you doing?”




“The cable isn’t working in the basement yet.” He shrugged.




“Oh, wonderful. I have to put up with you at night now too?”




“Sod off, it’s starting.” Spike waved his hand at her, silencing her, and leaned his head back.




Buffy frowned, but focused on the television instead of him. Instead of his blond hair, his smooth skin and piercing blue eyes. No matter how many comments he made or how many opinions he had about where the show was heading, she did not reply. By the time the show ended, she had no clue what had happened, but she did know that Spike was going to be an interesting installment in the house. Maybe it was the medication, maybe it was the fact that he was so annoying or maybe it was the fact that he stood up to her without a moment’s hesitation.




Whatever it was had her attention.




And she hated it.







Cool air blasted her in the face and Buffy propped herself on one elbow, glancing over the arm of the sofa in time to see her mother close the front door behind her. She blinked several times, wiping the sleep from her eyes, and looked at the clock. It was after eight. Five months ago, she would have been walking to her first class of the day at UC-Sunnydale. Willow would be beside her, probably quizzing her on the content for a test and Buffy would have been half listening and half contemplating her hair and wardrobe.




Five months ago, she would have gotten up on her own, walked to the bathroom and taken care of her business. Now she had to roll there. Reaching for her chair, she pulled it as close as she could, locked the wheels and crawled up into it. Her legs made a disgusting dragging sound and Buffy squeezed her eyes closed, unable to look back at them dangling behind her. After several attempts, and almost tipping her chair over, she made it in and rolled down the hallway.




Her mother had safety rails installed in the bathroom and with her extra strength, Buffy had no trouble hefting herself out of the chair. She used the restroom quickly, then moved back to her chair. As she fumbled for her toothbrush and cup of water, she stared at her reflection. Her hair needed to be bleached again. There were dark roots at least two inches long and she could use a trim. Her features were sunken and her eyes appeared to bulge, contrasted against the pale skin and dark bags that had become commonplace on her face.




She brushed her teeth and studied her reflection again. Her shirt was pulled to one side, twisted from her attempts to get into her chair and her collarbone protruded grotesquely, threatening to break through her thin layer of skin. Glancing downward, she lifted the front of her shirt and stared at her stomach. It shocked her to see her ribs so visible and her stomach curving inward. It had been five months since she had seen herself nude or really looked at herself in a mirror.




With a flick of her wrist, she tossed water on the mirror, momentarily blurring her image and giving her a chance to escape without seeing it again. She rolled back down the hallway and into the kitchen. Her mother had moved most of the snack food to the lower cabinets and Buffy opened and closed several, looking for pop tarts. She found an empty box and tossed it across the room and into the trash, when Spike cleared his throat behind her.




“You’re supposed to wake me up.” He said, walking into the kitchen. His hair was sticking out everywhere, he had no shoes on and he pulled a light blue T-shirt over his naked chest as she watched. It matched his boxer shorts, which depicted beach scenes.




“Nice ensemble.” Buffy said, not bothering to stifle her giggle.




Spike ignored her and pushed her out of the way. “What do you want. Eggs? Toast? I can probably even make an omelet.”




“Pop tarts are fine.” Buffy replied, wheeling around to watch him sort through the cabinets. She studied his back, drinking in the cool muscular lines that she had never been able to see under his coat. Her gaze lowered, roaming the curve of his backside and then the toned muscles of his legs. When they had made out, under the marriage spell that neither spoke of, she had been shocked to feel how hard his body was. Now, she was seeing it for the first time and it was causing her to replay that night in her head. He was a really good kisser. Really good.




“Slayer?” Spike asked for the third time. “What the hell are you looking at?”




“Oh, uh, your boxers. I was wondering why a vampire would wear underwear with beachballs, sandcastles and a big yellow sun.” She spoke rapidly, blushing a little. She couldn’t possibly tell him that she was admiring his body. “Oh, that’s right, you aren’t a vampire anymore.”




“I stole them from Giles and yes I am a vampire. It’s probably a good thing you’re no longer a slayer, right? I might be in trouble if you were.” Spike shrugged when she didn’t reply and grabbed a box of oatmeal from the pantry. “You like this, yes?”




“No, not really.”




“Today you do. This can’t be that hard.”




Buffy sighed and rolled away, making her way to the living room again. She busied herself with flipping through the TV Guide and listening to the sounds coming from the kitchen. Pots and pans banged, his bare feet slapped back and forth on the linoleum and it was accentuated by a swear word every few minutes, usually followed by ‘Slayer’ or her name. She grinned, wondering how this had become her life and how she could find it funny that a vampire was cursing her name.




The smell of something burning assaulted her senses and she frowned. The smoke detector went off suddenly and she jumped, tossing the TV Guide onto the sofa. She rolled herself into the kitchen quickly and stared at the smoke boiling from the pan on the stove. Trying not to giggle, Buffy watched Spike fan the smoke out of the way and climb into a chair to yank the battery out of the smoke detector. She lost the battle and snorted when his boxer shorts fell low, exposing half of his ass.




“Laugh not, Slayer.” Spike ignored his boxers as he stepped off the chair and lifted the pot off the burner of the stove. He lifted the lid, slammed it back on quickly and shuddered. “You’re the one eating it, not me.”




Still chuckling, Buffy shook her head. “Even a Slayer can’t digest rocks. What did you do to it?”




“I cooked it.” Spike picked up the box of oatmeal and shook it. “This is instant, right?”




“Did you add enough water?” Buffy lifted the lid herself and craned her neck to peek over the rim. As soon as she did, she slammed it back on tightly. “Why is it black?”




“I was supposed to use water?” He grinned sheepishly. “I thought since you like chocolate milk so much, you’d like the flavor.”




Buffy wrinkled her nose and shook her head in disbelief. “You boiled oatmeal in chocolate MILK?” And how did he know she loved chocolate milk?




“What do I know? My food usually comes in O positive! Or it used to, back in the day.” Spike glanced at Buffy pointedly. “It burned anyway, so now what?”




“I’m not hungry.” Buffy replied, clutching her wheels and propelling herself forward. Despite how cute he was in his morning wear, he was still an asshole.




“Not so fast.” He caught her chair and blocked her, not letting her through the door. “I have a job to do here. I intend to do it well. Now, you’re supposed to eat twice a day and stay out of trouble until your mom gets home. You’re going to do just that.”




“You can’t make me do a damn thing.” Buffy tried to roll past him, but he gripped the chair tighter and locked the wheels. She struggled, trying to push him away, but he pinned her wrists to the arms of the chair. “Let me go!” With all of her might, she tried to will her legs to kick him, to lash out in any way possible, but they didn’t comply.




Spike waited until she stopped struggling and shook his head. “See there? If you would eat a decent meal every now and then, you might have a little strength. As it is, you couldn’t fight off a newborn baby.”




“I hate you.” She growled through clenched teeth.




He winked at her. “And you can’t do a thing about it.”




Using every ounce of her strength, she wrenched an arm free and let her fist fly. He caught it right before it connected with his jaw and held it firm. She shrieked again, yanking on her arm and said, “You just wait until I tell my mother about this.”




“About what? Me trying to feed your bony ass? Or about how you wouldn’t cooperate with a damn thing?”




Buffy pulled her arm loose and shoved him away, barely causing him to move an inch. “I hate you!” She screamed again, her voice breaking this time. “I hate you so much it kills me.”




Spike stood and stared down at her. “No. What’s killing you is the fact that you can’t walk. Now, roll on out of here and let me clean up this mess.”




“I hope the blind falls off the window and you fry.” She rolled away fast so he wouldn’t see the hot tears that were blinding her.




Spike waited until she was out of earshot and glanced at the dirty pans on the stove. “Fry? Hmm. Maybe that’s easier than boiling.”









Buffy’s stomach growled loudly and she clenched her jaw, hoping that Spike had not heard it. It was almost four in the afternoon and she had not eaten or had anything to drink for the entire day. A glass of cola sat on the coffee table; condensation making a million beads of water roll off the sides. She eyed it for several seconds, then looked at the sandwich that was beside it on a plate. He had given her eggs and toast that morning after the oatmeal fiasco and had taken it away, untouched, at noon. He replaced it with a ham and cheese sandwich at one-thirty, then flopped into the recliner beside the sofa and stayed there, staring at her intently.




“Why don’t you watch television instead of me?” Buffy asked finally, tired of having to concentrate on the carpet or the walls to keep from looking at him. The remote control was on the table beside his chair and she wasn’t itching to get close enough to him to retrieve it.




“Because, watching you wallow in self pity and starve is far more interesting to me than what’s on the telly at this time of day.” He leaned forward and pushed the plate of food toward her. “And you’re more fun to listen to, with the stomach noises and all, but I’m pretty tired of hearing it now, so why don’t you eat?”




Her stomach rumbled again and she looked away, glancing at the clock on the wall. Her mother wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. “I would rather faint from dehydration than touch anything you make for me.”




“Is that right?” Spike leaned back in the chair and shrugged. “Fine. Could you hurry and faint though? You might fall out of your chair and I could use a good belly laugh at your expense.”




Buffy bit her lip and backed her chair up, rolling it around the sofa and out the door. She rolled into the bathroom, pulled herself up on one of the rails and moved to sit on the toilet. As she turned, she saw him leaning against the hallway wall, watching her closely, and she shoved her chair back through the door and slammed it. For several seconds, she didn’t move, and then she pulled herself up beside the sink and turned the water on. It was hard to support her weight with one arm, but she was finally able to wrap one arm behind the faucet and bring handfuls of water to her mouth.




Spike pushed her chair, which had toppled onto its side, toward the door and knocked lightly. “Your chair is right here when you’re finished, okay?”




“Go away.” Buffy called, letting herself drop down to the floor and scooting back to lean against the tub. “I’m not coming out until my mother gets home.”




“That could be a while. She said she had a lot to do today.” Spike replied and moved around to sit in her chair, ready to wait her out. The minute he sat down, he was taken back to a place that he didn’t want to go to. The minute he felt the soft seat mold around him, felt the leg supports behind his calves and laid his hands on the wheels, he was repulsed. He stood quickly and ran his hand over his face. “Come on out now, Slayer. Your mom told me not to let you sit in your chair all day."




“I’m not in my chair, freak.”




“If I have to take the hinges off of the door, I will.” Spike ran a hand over the hinges and nodded. “It wouldn’t be hard. It would only take me a couple of minutes.”




“You wouldn’t dare.” Buffy snapped. “I am a woman and I need privacy and if you just broke in here-,” She heard him click something that sounded like a pocket knife, then heard loud squeaking as he began to work the bottom hinge loose. “Spike!”




“Just a minute, Slayer, and you can talk to my face.”




“Just turn the fucking door knob.” She shouted, throwing her hands in the air. She waited until he swung the door open and then she shook her head. “You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?”




“Your mouth is getting too big for your muzzle.” Spike told her, and leaned to pick her up. “Why are you on the floor?”




“If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.” Buffy shook her head and pushed his hand away. “Where else should I be? Standing in the shower? Standing at the sink? I’m pretty limited in options, just in case you failed to notice.”




“I didn’t fail to notice. I’ve actually been there, in case you failed to remember.”




Confusion wrinkled her forehead and then Buffy gasped. “I put you in a wheelchair.”




“I was there.”




“That’s why you took this job! Poetic justice for you to get to see me in the same boat!”




“No, I took this job because I needed a safe place to stay and I’m willing to put up with your ass to save mine.”




“It’s that bad, huh?” Buffy made eye contact and held it. “What? Are you hiding out from demons? Some big bad monster want you for his plaything? You owe money to someone? Or wait, maybe the demon world finally realizes what a liability you are and they want to nuke you. Am I getting warm?”




“It’s vampires.” Spike told her, rubbing his palms up and down his thighs. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”




“You’re running from vampires? That’s kind of pathetic.” Buffy smiled cruelly at him. “You’d think you could take on your own kind. Wimp.”




Spike cupped her jaw and leaned down, a few inches from her face. “You’d think you could take on my kind. You are the Slayer after all.” He watched her face cloud and continued. “Those vampires who did this to you are the same ones after me. If you couldn’t take them in your peak, then what in the hell makes you think I can take them with the way I am?”




“Why don’t you just leave town?” Buffy shoved his hand off her face and pulled herself to one side, trying to get away from him.




“And do what, Slayer? I can’t just take food when I need it anymore. I can’t bite anything. I have to buy my dinner and to do that, I need money. And I’m not leaving this town until those idiotic soldier boys fix my head.” Spike gripped her under the arms and pulled her upright, holding her in front of his face as he stood. “The chance of me surviving out there the way I am is zero. I can still fight a demon, hell so can you, but I’m not like them anymore and they want to make me pay for that.”




Buffy said nothing. He stared at her for a few more seconds, then stalked with her to her chair and put her down. She watched him lean against the doorjamb and for the first time in months, she felt sorry for someone other than herself. He was just as crippled as she was. The chip in his head, or wherever it was, had left him just as broken as the vampires had left her. Sure, he could walk, but the thing that set him apart, the thing that made him a vampire, had been stripped away. Just like the thing that made her a Slayer had been stripped away. For the first time in her life, she relied on others for everything. She was dependent on -him- during the day and he was dependent on the safety of her home.




She cleared her throat and started to roll away, then paused and glanced back at him. “People shouldn’t have to be in a wheelchair.”




“Is that your way of apologizing for putting me in one?”




“No.” Buffy shook her head and clutched her wheels tighter, hating him for making her feel anything at all. “I said people. You aren’t a person. You’re a thing and you’re a broken thing.”




“You should talk.” Spike brushed past her. “I’ll be in the basement if you should decide you need something.”




Buffy watched him go, hating him for walking, hating him for standing up to her and hating him for saying what no one else would say to her. And hating herself for respecting that he could do that.




And would.









“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tara asked, watching as Willow began to light candles. “I mean, the human spirit isn’t really something you want to mess with, you know?”




“Buffy has no spirit. You said yourself that she’s hollow inside.” Willow lit the final candle and blew out the match. Motioning Tara to sit down across from her, she took a deep breath. “It has to work.”




“We’ve been doing it for three days and it hasn’t worked yet.”




“We didn’t have all the ingredients, that’s all.”




Tara sighed and took the hand that Willow held out. “I just think that it’s wiser to let her heart and soul come to terms with her body’s limitations on its own. You can’t manufacture closure and magick can’t resolve feelings, Willow. Not really.”




“Tara, we’re just opening her up to her unresolved feelings and letting her admit it to herself. That’s it. She’s in denial about her disability and she ’s not willing to accept that she needs help. We’re just going to open her mind to all the possibilities. It’s going to be okay.” Pulling several petals from a wilting rose, Willow dropped them into a bowl and used the thorny stem to stir the concoction she had mixed. “Are you ready?”




Nodding, Tara dropped a strand of Buffy’s hair into the potion. “Wilting rose and candlelight, open up her mind tonight, make her recognize her fear and let her strength begin right here.”




Willow used a dropper to add vanilla into the mixture and spoke softly. “I offer the sweetness of vanilla and rose, to call upon the one who knows, shine a light into the dark and let the truth speak to her heart.”




“Willow!” Tara cried, leaping to her feet. She grabbed a book off the bed and flipped the pages. “You aren’t supposed to speak to her heart! You were supposed to shine the light into the dark and let it show her where to start.”




“Oh no.” The redhead took the book and stared at the spell. “What do you think will happen?”




“Nothing.” Tara said quickly, closing the book. “You did it wrong so nothing should happen, but-.”




“But?”




“Well, we asked for her to recognize her fear. Those are matters of the mind. When you get her heart involved, it can confuse it. Confuse the magick.”




“Confuse it how?”




“Well, if she wants to care about someone again, and stop pushing them away, and is scared of that, it will be less scary now. We’ve given her strength to admit her pain and the feelings in her heart. At least to herself.”




“Tara?”




“Yeah.”




“The rose isn’t wilted anymore.” Willow held it up what had been the dying flower, turning the stem in her fingers to show the deep crimson petals on the full bloom.




“Oh, boy.” Tara took the rose and sniffed. “It smells like vanilla.”




“Buffy’s favorite scent.” Willow bit her bottom lip and glanced at the photo of Buffy on her nightstand. “Next time I want to do magick, please turn me into a toad.”




“You got it.”





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