4- Coming Home
Spike felt the cold, hard African ground against his chest when he woke up. His eyes were full of dust and he could barely keep them open. There wasn’t really much to see. After all, it was the middle of the night and the cave was pitch black. It was a while before he regained his senses, and he started to feel certain pain from his larger wounds.
With the pain, he remembered various happenings in the cave the previous night: the fighting, the bugs, the torture, the tests. He also remembered his wish: to be turned… wait, something was wrong. Something beyond his flesh wounds was also hurting. His heart, could it be? Or could he just be making up stuff in his delirium? No, something deep inside him, some feeling, was hurting him.
He replayed the words the demon lord had told him right before he passed out. He could barely remember. It congratulated him on his victory… no, it just accepted it and gave him his prize, his trophy. But, what was it? And suddenly it hit him. His pain, deep inside him, was recognizable from hundreds of years before.
“Oh, bloody hell.”
* * * * *
They sat in the living room silently. Buffy played with her hands, Anya sat completely still, and Dawn paced. Giles slept soundlessly in Buffy’s room. They steps on the porch made them all jump, but they were careful not to scream so as to not wake Giles. To them, it seemed like forever until the door finally creaked open.
“You know, you should build the habit of locking your door more often,” Xander mentioned as he slipped into sight.
Buffy and Dawn ran up to him and gave him two extremely bone-crunching hugs. Anya was a little more hesitant, but soon her hate for Xander was not enough to keep her from expressing her happiness. She joined the group hug. It was almost five minutes before they pulled apart from each other.
“What happened?” Buffy whispered eager to know the details.
“Is she okay? Where is she anyway?” Dawn asked, much louder than Buffy.
“She’s fine, or at least I hope she is. I took her to my apartment. She was sleeping when I left,” He whispered also, noticing that this was more of a situation of quietness.
“Are you sure it’s…” Buffy seemed unsure.
“… safe?” Xander interrupted, “As I said before, I hope so. But I had to come here. Find out how everyone is. Besides, I don’t think I could’ve gotten much sleep anyway.”
As he finished talking, Buffy noticed the deep gash that ran across his left cheek. Dried blood crawled its way down to his chin. He had also changed his shirt. She wondered how much damage Willow had done to him. “Xand, we should clean that up,” she said, motioning to the scratch.
“Oh, right,” he gently placed the tips of his fingers on the gash, “it’s pretty much healed by now. What’s it been? Five hours?”
“About,” Dawn told him.
“Umm… I hate to ask you this but,” Buffy stammered, “did she do anything worse to you?”
“Well, yeah. But it really okay by now.”
Buffy sighed, “Why don’t you come upstairs and we’ll get you cleaned up.” Xander grinned, and they both climbed the stairs.
However, as they reached the upstairs landing, they saw Giles waiting for them. Before Buffy could say a word, Giles had his arms tightly around Xander. Xander’s face showed pain, and it made her wonder how much it had pained him when he was hugged by the three of the girls downstairs.
“I knew you wouldn’t fail me,” Giles whispered in his ear. Xander’s expression turned confused. Giles took a long while to pull away, and when he did he held Xander at arm’s length by the shoulders. “You made me prouder than I have ever been today, Xander.” Xander grinned slightly.
Buffy finally got to pull Xander away to the bathroom.
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