Xander glared at Liam. "What'd you do that for?!"

"That was really low!" Cordelia piped up. Xander shot her a look
that plainly said to stop talking and maybe Liam would forget
about her.

"He didn't do anything," Oz added. "And look at what you did to
Buffy."

So much blood. Way too much blood. His hands were starting to
lose their warmth. He was going to die. Oh god, Spike was going
to die.

She managed to maneuver her hand around in the ropes so she
could grip Spike's hand in hers. Once she threaded her fingers
through his, she didn't feel the little squeeze the hand of the dying
peroxide blond bad boy gave her. She dismissed it as the ropes
pulling at her hand, or her imagination.

"Oh my god, that's so much blood," Cordelia muttered from her pole,
looking sickly green. It wasn't too much longer before she vomited.

"Which one of you is next," Liam walked slowly around the room. He
quickly passed Cordelia, stopping at Oz and Xander. "One of you
two, I suppose. Which of you is Willow's boyfriend?"

Neither answered.

Liam kicked both of them in the gut. "Which of you is attached to
Willow Rosenberg? Come now, I know it's one of you."

No one noticed the woman standing in the doorway until she spoke.
No one had even noticed the door had opened. "It's the brown haired
kid with the pointy face."

Everyone looked up at the woman standing there, a gun pointed at
Liam's head. She held her stomach, but one could see blood seeping
out of a stomach wound.

"Put the gun down. I won't hes-hesitate to shoot you," she told him,
her voice wavering.

Liam laughed. "You? Kill me?"

"Don't test me," she growled. "You killed Spike. An eye for an eye."

Oz stared at her, being closest to the door. Cordelia kept her head
hung, her face still green. Xander tried to crane his neck around the
pole, and Buffy was still shocked by Spike's death to barely even
move.

Oz saw another someone's silhouette sneak up behind the woman in
the doorway. The woman crumpled as the butt of a pistol landed on
the back of her head.

"Nuisance," the new woman said, shrugging.

The first woman shot the new woman in the leg.

"Ow!" she cried, falling into the room.

"Drusilla!" Liam exclaimed. Then his eyes shot to the woman
struggling to her feet in the doorway. Liam abandoned his pistol on
the floor and knelt next to Drusilla's prone body.

"Untie them," the first woman commanded. Everyone still had yet to
identify her.

Liam didn't move.

"Untie them, damn you!" she yelled.

Liam glared.

The woman shot Drusilla in the back. "Move!"

Liam rose to his feet, untying Cordelia, then Xander and Oz, and
finally Spike and Buffy. Buffy simply moved around and settled
herself in Spike's limp lap.

Oz and Xander rose slowly, Xander rushing over to Cordelia once
he was standing. Oz stared at the woman in the doorway.

"Willow?"

"The police should be here any minute," she said gruffly. Moments
later they heard sirens. Police stormed the place.

Willow dropped the gun, staring at it as it clattered to the floor. She
gripped at her stomach painfully, falling to her knees. Oz was at her
side instantly.

"Somebody call 911!" Xander yelled over the noise of the police officers
hurrying in and handcuffing and subduing Liam.

A few minutes later, someone yelled in reply, "The paramedics are on
their way!"
***

Willow and Spike had immediately been rushed to the emergency room
and operated on. Willow had a series of stitches on her stomach from
when one of Liam's minions tried to slice and dice her on her way in.
She had managed to subdue the minion and take his gun. The moment
Spike got to the hospital, he hadn't reacted to anyone or anything. His
eyes were closed, and his lungs worked sluggishly, as did his heart.
Darla had also been found and admitted into the hospital, but had been
proclaimed DOA--dead on arrival.

Drusilla had somehow managed to flee farther into the lair and was
found by the officers, paralyzed from the middle of her back down, on
the staircase. Willow had had a deadly aim with that pistol.

The rest were deemed well enough to leave, except Buffy had rubbed
her wrist so raw that it had bled. They'd wrapped it up in a bandage and
told her to take it easy.

"Who is Mr. Walthrop's next of kin, Miss Summers?" the receptionist asked.

Buffy looked down the hallway where Spike's room was, and looked at the
woman behind the desk. The woman studied her intently. "Me."

"And what relationship are you to Mr. Walthrop, Miss Summers?"

"I'm his fiancée."
***

Joyce had rushed to the hospital as soon as she received a phone call
from the distantly cold Buffy. When she arrived at the hospital, she
found Buffy pacing in the waiting room, rubbing her bandaged wrist
nervously. "Mom," she looked up. Joyce ran over and hugged her
daughter, who returned the embrace mechanically. "They won't let me
wait for him in his room..."

"What happened, Buffy?" she asked.

Buffy looked at Joyce beseechingly, then proceeded to burst into tears.
She shuffled over to am empty chair in the corner.

Joyce turned to Xander. "Xander, what in the world is going on?"

Xander took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's a long story,
Joyce. You'd better sit down."

Oz sat on the coffee table near Xander, Joyce, and Cordelia, deciding
to aid in the telling of the tale.

"Liam was an international criminal of some kind," Xander started.

"Sort of a terrorist," Cordelia added.

Joyce looked horrified as she covered her mouth.

"So when Liam started threatening Spike," Oz said, "and even beat him
up in the park, and when he had a truck put my girlfriend in a car wreck,
we decided to get him back for it."

Joyce gasped. "That's so dangerous...why didn't you just tell the
police?"

"Buffy said she tried, and that's why Spike got beat up," Xander told her.
"So we came up with a plan this..." he checked his watch, "yesterday
afternoon and set it in motion. The specifics of the plan don't really
matter, just that it was a whole not very good plan to infiltrate Liam's
lair. Spike's cousin, Darla, decided she wanted to help us out."

"I didn't trust her," Cordelia and Oz said at the same time. They glanced
at each other and laughed softly.

"So Darla actually ended up telling Liam about our plan," Xander sighed.
"Or so we think. And somehow Liam managed to get all of us unconcious
and tied up in some cellar in his lair. Willow, we thought, was still in the
hospital."

"We came to and found Liam taunting Spike, and Spike egging him on,"
Oz picked up. "Buffy was kinda horrified."

"Liam threatened to kill us all, and Spike tried to bargain for our lives
with his own. Liam said that Spike was going to be the first to go, and
Spike said that if Liam was going to shoot him he would've done it
already," Cordelia told Joyce solemnly.

Xander picked up the story then. "Liam shrugged and said, 'see you in
hell, bastard' and pulled the trigger on Spike. Willow then came in and
kicked some serious behind for someone as injured as she was. I mean,
the girl had just been in a car crash and she got sliced and diced in the
hallway trying to rescue us."

"She's my brave girl," Oz murmured, more to himself than Joyce.

"Are they going to be okay?" Joyce wanted to know, seriously worried.

"Spike...we don't know if Spike's going to make it," Xander said softly,
trying not to upset Buffy. "Will's going to be fine, and Darla's dead."

"Oh my," Joyce rubbed her temples. "Are you three okay?"

"We're fine," Cordelia offered. "I'm just a little queasy from all the
blood."

Joyce turned to face Buffy. "Honey, are you okay?"

Buffy shook her head and buried her head in her arms resting on her
knees.

"She's really traumatized about this," Oz whispered. "For awhile all
she could say was, 'no'."

Joyce bit her lip and moved over to her daughter, who curled up as
close on Joyce's lap as she could.
***

A week later, on Tuesday, Buffy rushed into the hospital and down
to Spike's room. The man was in a coma, having been shot in the
shoulder and losing a lot of blood. Apparently, Liam wasn't the best
aim with a gun. But every day since the incident, Buffy had run to
the hospital as soon as she could and visited with him. Today was
no different.

She entered his room quietly. The heart monitor next to his bed
beeped softly in time with his heartbeat, and two tubes extended
from his nose to a life support machine nearby. He was dressed in
an open-backed, minty green hospital gown. Pristine white pillows
propped his head up, the top one with a dent in the shape of his
head. It looked like he hadn't moved since they'd laid him there--
which, in all logicality, he hadn't.

"Hi honey," Buffy said softly, sitting in the red chair next to the
bed. "I'm here. Again. I brought you something though." She
dug in her backpack for something. "I know it's tradition for the
guy to ask this question, but you kinda can't do that right now. I
told the receptionist lady that I was your next of kin, and that I
was your fiancée. So...William Walthrop, will you marry me?" She
opened the ring box she'd pulled from her backpack out. "And yes,
I can officially ask you this now. It's my birthday today, I'm eigh-
teen, and I'd be honored to share this day with you." She slipped
the simple gold band on his finger. "I saved all my lunch money to
buy this for you, and then I borrowed some money from Mom.
She knows I was going to buy you a ring, but she didn't know why.
Or if she knew, she didn't say anything.

"So where were we in the book, hm?" she pulled a book out of her
backpack. Spike's favorite book--Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's
Stone. But no one was supposed to know that except for herself.
"Chapter seven? All right."

She began to read from the book in a desperate attempt to pull
her fiancée out of his coma.
***

Around five-thirty, Buffy's voice started to become raw.
"Goodness," she rasped. "Guess I read more than I intended too."
She sighed. "I love you, you know that, don't you? I guess I kinda
took advantage of it before, since I figured you'd always be there.
But...Spike...I may lose you," she didn't even try to stop the tears
from spilling over onto her cheeks, "and I need you. I need you baby,
and if you die, I...I don't know what I'd do..."

She rested her forehead on his leg. "Spike, don't die...please don't
die..."

Suddenly, she felt stiff fingers slowly stroke her hair. "No one's,"
grunted a scratchy voice that hadn't been used for more than a
week, "gonna die..."

The fingers stopped moving as much and Spike fell silent again. But
his eyes remained half open.

Buffy's eyes went wide. "Spike?" she whispered, fearing it was dream.
"Spike...you're awake!"

"Yes," he grunted.

"Oh, my baby," she couldn't help herself and started crying again. This
panicked Spike.

"Princess?" he asked, not as scratchy anymore. "Okay?"

"I'm okay," she affirmed, "I'm just so happy you're awake..."

Spike managed to smile for her. Then he noticed the ring on his left
finger and gave her a questioning look.

She smiled back at him, wiping away her tears. "William Walthrop, will
you marry me?"

He smiled. "O'course."

Epilogue/Normal