He stared at her, dumbfounded, trying to recall what could possibly have occurred. He didn't remember - well, of course one never remembered the act of being unconscious, but - he didn't remember her, who she was, how he got there, any of what she had described. And he had been there, for twelve days? About one thousand questions passed by his lips before any could be phrased out, and yet her green eyes turned off from him, because she heard the voices carrying from down the stairs:

  "Xander!" Dawn had yelled, her voice raised but, not so much in anger, as it was in alarm.

  "Ow, what? Just saying what everyone else already thought." The man she yelled at had answered back. The woman before him heard the voices too.

  "Excuse me." She said to him, and he felt like he ought say something, do something, but he couldn't be sure what would be right or not. She turned to leave, and he saw tucked in her belt, at her back, she had had a sharp bit of wood the entire time they'd been talking. He heard her steps as she left the room, went down the stairs, he was surprised at how well he could hear everything as the ringing in his ears had all but left, and listened as the commotion down the stairs only got worse:

  "Xander Harris don't you dare!" Dawn had yelled, worried and alarmed over whatever his suggestion was.

  "He attacked you!" The man she'd called Xander had yelled back, but Dawn was, apparently, not backing down an inch.

  "He wasn't going to hurt me. He saved me, and you attacked him!" Dawn accused him and the other man both.

  "Dawn, you must understand: the scene Xander and I walked in on was... quite damning..." The older man justified his and Xander's actions, speaking with a calmer tone of voice than the others.

  "No! I dropped the bowl, I was just going to give him the blood and - I didn't think he was going to be awake." Dawn said, and that didn't make too much sense, 'give him blood', why would Dawn be doing that?

  "He attacked me! And Giles, and we don't even know if his chip is working or not." Xander shot back, not listening, convinced that he had done the right thing.

  "I was protecting you, not him!" Xander explained, filled with anger, his tone surging in frustration, arguing with a little girl as he was.

  "You nearly hit me with a crossbow bolt!" Dawn shouted back, but the blonde woman had heard enough.

  "He doesn't remember." The blonde, the one with the fierce eyes that had had no patience for nonsense, descended the last of the stairs and cut into their argument.

  "Well it happened not that long ago, why don't I remind him?" Xander said in a tone that was too cheerful for the context it was in, and the shuffle of a crossbow accented his words in a manner that had certainly not been calm.

  "No! I mean..." The blonde woman refuted sharply, but then was more careful. She trailed off, before she went on. He'd held his breath, as he listened from the bedroom upstairs, and waited for what she might say.

  "He doesn't remember - anything. Not the fight, not the tower. Not..." She trailed off, and again, he yearned to hear her finish those words, but she didn't. Not then, not whatever had stuck on her lips and had refused to be said for whatever consequence the word had held. Instead it was the grating anger and doubt of the man that had come assailing the air to his ears up the stairs.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Oh come on, you don't expect me to believe-!" Xander supplied as the four of them resumed arguing.

  "Yes. Well, it is entirely normal after such trauma to expect some form of repercussion. His chip was firing constantly for a long time, perhaps it effected-" The older man mused but Dawn wasn't listening to him.

  "Spike doesn't remember what he did for me?" Dawn asked, and her voice was meeker, then, than it had been when she'd been arguing with Harris.

  "Well it's a miracle he wasn't dusted. After surviving such an ordeal, really, the vampire constitution is quite remarkable," The old man went on.

  "No, Dawn, he doesn't remember." The blonde woman supplied gently to Dawn, her tone, that voice, it made his fingers curl. As he listened to the conversation, to every word, he felt as though he'd failed at something by not managing to remember. He was ashamed of the loss, of the lack, of the absence; he wished he could hide the fact - that he could not recall who they were, what they meant - until they might stop asking him to remember what he couldn't.

  "He's faking!" Xander had been the naysayer in the conversation, speaking loudly, angry, Xander had refused to believe that the man who had fought him was entirely innocent, not for a minute.

  "What if he's not?" The woman with the green eyes had asked, perhaps rhetorically, sounding like she hadn't been convinced.

  "What if he's not!" Xander shot back, and there was a charged quiet after that.

  "What? What if he's not! What if he doesn't remember being evil? It won't change what he is, he's still the same." Xander went on, and Dawn started shouting.

  "No! You can't hurt him! Buffy, he saved me! Please don't hurt him!" She pleaded and the sound of her little voice breaking, it made him feel sorrow, like he'd hurt her. He moved, he had to go down there, had to see what all this was about, why it had hurt her...

  "I won't." The voice of the woman, the voice of the one with the blonde hair, and those green eyes, had not been shouted or angry, but her words of quiet, stubborn assurance, had pinned him to the spot. He'd gotten as far as out the bed, one arm on the wall for support, a hand on his side where bandages were left in wake of a crossbow bolt, his breath uneven. He had been about to move through the discomfort, but the words that she spoke had halted his progress.

  "Buffy... You must understand..." The older man tried to advise the woman gently.

  "Giles, I do. But he protected her. Spike protected Dawn. He saved her, and it nearly dusted him. Now he's awake, it's cost him all his memories. Spike's a blank slate." Buffy said, they'd called her Buffy. The conversation divulged into a circular argument after that, Buffy, Xander, and Giles trying to decide what to do, with him, while he heard every word. He let a breath out through his nose, he sank back into the bed. He sat there, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, stunned, hurt; wondering what kind of monster he must have been, for them to fear him this much despite his actions. He heard a small flutter of a heart, behind the door, just before it opened slowly. He straightened his posture.

  "It's you. What are you doing here lurking about?" He asked, but in lieu of an answer, her little feet ran across the short distance from the door to the bed and Dawn threw her arms around him.

  "Spike! You're back!" She said, rushing to him in joy, having snuck away from the others as she lunged at him.

  "You saved me, and you're back! Thank you, Spike!" She was so overcome with joy and disbelief, he had been shocked a moment so that he acted without thought. He put his arms around her, before thinking about it, but then took the conscious choice to pat her back, to try and console her. Because she was sobbing.

  "You saved me again! You saved me, thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyou!" She sobbed the words, Dawn trembling, he frowned. He patted her head and his shoulders relaxed a fraction, letting her get it out. She'd called him her saviour... Spike, he had saved Dawn. He thought, maybe he could take the suspicion, the pain, the wounds, gladly, if it meant that she would be alright.