The Magic Number

by
Witling

Part Three

The best way to learn more about the situation, he realized, was to get close to Red, promote the fluffy puppy angle. Between her and Dawn, dropping by the crypt to report alternately on traumas (Xander won't eat, he has nightmares) and successes (he's using a fork, he smiled), Spike kept pretty close tabs on the Harris front.

Then things heated up with Glory--minions everywhere, giant snakes, confusion--and suddenly he was back in the Slayer's good books. Or if not her good books, at least her ranks. A night or two after the anaconda visit, Buffy dropped by the crypt and told him he was needed back at the house.

"Won't I upset Nell?" he asked, because there were such things as principles.

"Don't push me," she said, and slammed the door when she walked out.

The idea was to keep Xander and Spike in opposite ends of the house at all times. They still didn't know why Xander was afraid of Spike--nobody'd cracked the code in the weeks since he'd reappeared, so they couldn't ask him. Spike suggested hand puppets, and Buffy almost kicked him out again.

"You're here in case Glory shows up," she told him in a private military meeting, locked in the bathroom. "If anything happens to me, you're the next strongest in line to protect the others."

"I know why I'm here," he said sourly, and when her back was turned, "Because you can't keep your eyes off me, you greedy little--"

"You're disgusting," she snapped, and slammed yet another door in his face.

Keeping out of Harris's way was easier than he'd thought it would be, since Xander spent most of his time confined to Joyce's old bedroom. It was the witches' room now; apparently Harris slept on a cot at the foot of their bed. Spike entertained a few brief mental filmreels of how he might himself exploit such a position, then found himself abruptly too busy to do much of that.

With two major crises happening simultaneously, the Scoobies were spread thin. Willow and Tara seemed to be focusing on trying to figure out what had happened to Xander and whether they could reverse it. Rupert was busy with the Glorificus question, and Buffy had her hands full making Dawn's life miserable.

"You're killing her yourself," he told her after watching her deliver a ten-minute tirade when Dawn came home late from school. Not the best choice of words, he could later admit. It led to a period of even higher household tension, and then an abrupt about-face in which Buffy took Dawn to movies, the mall, mini golf--anything useless and sisterly and unaffordable.

"I could raise her better and I'm a vampire," he groused to the back yard during evening cigarette sessions.

It all left him alone in the house during daylight hours--alone except for Xander, who was a silent, unseen presence somewhere upstairs, like the ghost of Joyce. One Thursday afternoon, dragging himself to the kitchen for another mug of blood, Spike saw the ghost. They practically ran right into each other, in fact.

Spike stopped short and so did Xander, both of them heading kitchenward from different directions. Before he could do anything about it, Spike realized he'd boxed Xander into the little hall alcove. He took a quick step back and held his hands out to show how harmless he was. Then he realized he had a mug of blood dregs in one hand, and hid it behind his back.

Xander, meanwhile, had pressed himself against the wall, as if he were trying to disappear straight through it. He'd gained some weight, didn't look quite so starved anymore. They'd cut his hair, but there was still grey in it. Still lines around his eyes and his mouth, and a red scar on his lip where the stitches had been, and fatigue stamped all over him like an expired warranty. Still breathing fast and scared through his mouth, whistling a little in the base of his throat.

"Don't pee," Spike said automatically, and then regretted it. Not fair, kicking a man when he was that far down. "Look, it's all right, I'm backing away--" He took slow, careful steps back the way he'd come. Xander stayed where he was. His face was turned slightly away, his eyes down and to the side. Avoiding eye contact, the way you did when you didn't want something big and bad to notice you. His breathing sounded like a saw chewing through wood. His larynx is just--

On the other hand, a Harris sighting was a rare opportunity to collect a little more information. Spike paused, considered, then said, "Xander." No reaction. "You know who I am?"

A slight flicker of the eyes, there. Red said it was like he didn't really remember any of them, or like he knew who they were the way you knew characters in a play, without caring much about them one way or another.

"You know what my name is?" Spike asked, wondering where he was going with this.

No response, but the breathing quickened, and he noticed that Harris's hands were behind his back, palms pressed to the wall. Head down, legs apart. Submisive posture, like a dog. Which Red wouldn't let herself say, but calling a dog a dog was Spike's specialty.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, feeling like an idiot. "I mean, I could. It's not that I can't hurt people, but I'm in a good mood and I like you." That was almost true, he realized. Harris was interesting, and that was almost the same as liking him. "I live here now. I keep you and Dawn safe. You know that?"

No movement at all. Whoever trained him had done a bang-up job.

"D'you remember anything?" Spike asked, taking a step forward in spite of better judgment. Maybe if he could get a better look at some of those scars--

Harris flinched, so abruptly that his elbows knocked the wall. Spike paused. A setback now would be bad. Better to just lay low, take it slowly. He had a good thing going here, all the free blood he could drink and full use of the cable.

"Right, off you go." Rikki was talking to pyromaniacs, and he was missing it. He turned and went back into the living room, still carrying his empty mug. Behind him, there was the rapid pitter-pat of little feet haring straight back up the stairs, as if the devil himself were in pursuit.

Part Four

A week went by. Spike said nothing to anyone about his encounter with Harris--what was there to say? The man was mute, monastic, took off running when you came within ten yards of him. Spike had had better times tormenting fish. And unlike everyone else in the house, he didn't care to spend his evenings speculating in hushed tones about what was wrong, what might have happened, what kind of a god could have allowed this? There was telly to be watched.

"You lot aren't doing him any favors," he told Dawn one night on the back porch, hiding his cigarette alongside his leg. "Whatever happened's happened. Best thing you can do is move on and stop nursing him so much."

Dawn looked doubtful but didn't say anything, and he had a moment of satisfaction. Thinking, Take notes, Slayer. That's how you parent. That was followed by a wave of absurd self-awareness that made him stand up suddenly, drag hard on the smoke, and mumble something about walksies before escaping stage left.

Living full-time with the Scoobies was beginning to get to him, he realized.

Still, it was blood in his mug and there was satisfaction in poking holes in all of them day to day, especially with so much anxiety in the air. And there were little surprises, too, like the morning Dawn came down for school with a little shadow in tow.

"What's wrong?" Red was getting her own kit together, off to meet Glinda and the Watcher for more study. She stared over Dawn's shoulder, shock and worry in her face. Spike peered around the doorframe from the living room, where he was setting up for a day of Montel and onion crisps. Dawn stood at the foot of the stairs with a defiant look on her face. Harris hovered on the step behind her.

"Nothing. I think Xander should spend more time downstairs, that's all."

"But Spike's downstairs," Red said, apparently not caring that Spike was standing right next to her. "And Xander's scared of Spike."

"Spike's not going to hurt him. And we can't keep nursing him forever."

"But we don't know what he's been through."

"It doesn't matter," Dawn said firmly, reaching back and taking hold of Harris's hand. He let her, but didn't seem much comforted by it. "What matters is that he gets better, and he won't get better lying in bed all by himself forever."

"I'm not getting in bed with him," Spike muttered, which was enough to make Harris's eyes flick over to him, and the breathing ratchet up again. "Look, niblet, I don't think this is the best--"

"You said we had to stop nursing him," she said, and Spike winced. Red was eyeing him now, and Buffy was coming down the stairs behind Dawn, death glare already set.

"I didn't mean you had to drag him down here right now."

"He's better than he used to be," Dawn said, rubbing Harris's hand briskly. "Look. Xander, you're safe. Spike isn't going to hurt you." She over-enunciated, and Spike thought briefly, irritably, Is he deaf now too?

"What's going on?" Buffy asked.

"Dawn wants Xander to stay downstairs," Red said, and the two of them did that silent communication gaze thing they did now. "I don't know, Dawnie, I think it's too soon."

"He's getting better!" Dawn said a little desperately, letting go of Harris's hand. He stood there, eyes down, breathing fast, surrounded by women who wanted to fix him. Spike felt a rush of something strange and unfamiliar. Pity, he realized after a minute.

"Xander?" Buffy pitched her voice low and gentle, as if he were an alley cat who might take off running at any moment. Which, well. Fair enough. "Xander, do you want to stay downstairs today?"

He just stood there, staring at the carpet. They all stood watching him. Finally Spike opened his mouth to say Look, he's a vegetable, have pity and take him back up to bed. Before he could, though, Dawn broke in.

"He's better," she said definitively. "He's not as scared now. Are you, Xander?"

It was true, Spike realized. The man's breathing had slowed down and got quieter. He glanced up when Dawn said his name, and while he didn't smile or nod or say Downstairs? Sure, no problem!, just the fact that he responded seemed to be a huge gain. Buffy and Red did another eye conversation, this time in a different key.

"I don't know," Red said again, chewing her lip. "Xander, you know you don't have to, right?"

No response, but it seemed less like catatonia and more like he just wasn't paying attention. Good for you, Spike thought. Nice to see someone give Red the cold shoulder once in a while.

"If he's really okay with it," Buffy said. "If you're really okay with it, Xander."

He ignored her too, and Spike felt a whole new level of liking for the git.

"He's getting better all the time," Dawn said, pulling her coat on with an air of I am fifteen years old and I know better than all of you. "He's sleeping more and he eats by himself sometimes now--"

"I'll just set up his Jolly Jumper in the kitchen doorway then," Spike said, turning back to the living room. He heard the Slayer coming after him, surprise surprise.

"Spike. Spike. If you do anything to scare him--"

"I'll have to clean up the mess. I know."

"He needs breakfast," Red said from the hallway. "I'm late, and Dawn's bus has already gone. Spike, could you--?"

"I'm not feeding him," he said, schlumping into the couch, eyes on the telly. "And I don't change diapers."

There was Slayer in front of him, blocking the remote. "You do anything to hurt him, Spike, and so help me God I'll scatter your ashes from here to Pasadena."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Spike."

He looked up and met her eyes. "Slayer."

"I mean it."

"I see that."

She hung there a minute longer in indecision, clearly wanting to smack him and not quite knowing how to justify it. Finally Dawn put her head through the door and said, "Buffy, I'm late for school."

I'll stake you, she mouthed, making a quick one-two jabbing motion with her hand where Dawn couldn't see it.

"Have a nice day, niblet," he called. "Witch."

"There's cornflakes on the counter, okay? And--oh God, where's my lichen?"

The Slayer gave him one last pre-emptively murderous look, and he smiled back, and then they were bustling out in a tangle of girl-scented purses and coats and little bags of sphagnum. The door closed behind them, and there was silence.

For a second or two Spike just sat with his eyes closed, soaking it in. Then he remembered he wasn't alone, and raised his head again. Harris was standing in the living room doorway, looking not terrified for once, but as if he didn't know what to do with himself. Studying the carpet.

"There's cornflakes on the counter," Spike said sourly, and turned the telly on.

Having Harris downstairs wasn't all that different from having him upstairs, it turned out. He didn't talk, didn't get in the way of the telly, didn't actually do much of anything apart from disappear into the kitchen and not come out. There were a couple of clanking sounds, the gasp of the fridge--human minutiae. Spike kept an ear cocked but didn't interfere. The man could get his own bloody cornflakes.

After an hour or so, though, curiosity and blood lust got the better of him. His mug needed filling, and there hadn't been a sound from the kitchen in ages. Eerie, frankly.

"Like living with a dead man," Spike groused, shoveling himself out of his chair.

Harris was sitting at the kitchen table, half-empty bowl of soggy flakes at his elbow, staring at the paper. The funnies, Spike noticed. He looked up when Spike came in, though, and for just a second his eyes were pure fear response. Nice.

"Like Mary Worth, do you?" Spike said, deliberately keeping his voice low and neutral, heading to the sink. Leaving plenty of escape route, in case Harris decided to use it. "Always thought you were a bit of a Mary."

Harris was silent. Spike took a minute or two to rinse his mug, shake it dry, towel it off. All with careful, intentional, unthreatening movements. Felt like he was in a bloody pantomime.

"And what are the international economic developments?" he asked quietly, turning around with the mug still in his hands. "Whither the yuan?"

Harris was staring at him, fingertips smoothing the edge of the newspaper with a light, absent touch. He didn't look terrified now--lost and wary, yes, but not scared out of his wits. What wits, Spike corrected himself.

"Don't know what Dawn said to you," he went on, heading for the fridge, "but just so you know, we don't like each other. You and me, that is. Dawn's all right." The blood supply was getting low; he finished out a bag with a grimace, and left it slumped on the counter. "Be better if she didn't have to worry about taking care of you all the time, though."

Putting the cup in the microwave, he glanced back over his shoulder to see if any of that was sinking in. Hard to say. Harris was still sitting there, motionless, watching Spike with a combination of unease and fascination.

"Don't know if you've realized, but there's a spot of bother right now. There's this god." None of this was making any impression, he realized. "Look, do you even speak English anymore?"

Nothing. Spike sighed and watched his cup go round and round. Once upon a time, a mute and mentally defective Harris would have been his heart's dearest wish. The reality, however, was less exciting. Especially when you weren't allowed to stick pins in it.

"Somebody ought to put you out of your misery," he muttered, and then realized that he actually sort of meant it. There was something unfair about this. Obviously it wasn't going to get much better; if the man's larynx was gone he wasn't ever going to talk again. Playing with your food was one thing. Cutting a man's legs out from under him and then dragging him around on a leash for thirty years was another.

The microwave dinged and his blood came out warm and steaming, salty and sweet and completely fake. He could still smell the plastic on it. He took a sip, and realized he'd lost his appetite.

"Poor bugger," he said, walking over to the sink and sluicing the blood down it. Harris, of course, didn't say a thing.

At some point between Judge Judy and the shitty Stallone film, Harris entered the living room. Spike didn't notice exactly when it was; he just woke up and found the man on the far end of the couch, curled up snug against the arm in a disturbingly girly way. Knees up to his chest, hands jammed in between, feet slipped under the cushion. Watching Spike sleep.

"Where the hell'd you come from?" Spike asked indignantly, checking his chin for drool. Harris dropped his gaze, then shifted it to the telly as if he'd been watching it all along. "Git."

Watching telly turned into a strangely formal affair, with every program seeming too crass, too dumb, or too effete to settle on. He'd never given a damn before what Harris thought of him; in that hellhole basement, he'd turned the volume on Passions up loud enough to make the twit's parents apoplectic. Now, suddenly, he felt strangely self-conscious, as if sitting here watching daytime telly made him less of a man, or less of a vampire.

"Don't you have baskets to weave?" he asked grimly, flicking.

They watched a bad American soap opera in silence, Spike fingering the remote but not using it. While they waited for the results of the DNA tests, he half-turned in his chair and studied Harris back. Maybe not thirty-five after all. A few weeks of food, sleep, and girls making a fuss over him had restored him a bit. He was twenty-something, probably. With grey hairs and blank eyes and a lot of scars, yeah. Maybe twenty-nine.

"Where'd you get that shirt?" Spike asked, tapping the remote on the arm of the chair. Harris stared at him, the way dogs looked at you when you told them things. "The one you had on, the red one." He paused. "Twenty-three?"

No reaction.

"What were you, a miner?" Harris's hands were hidden, tucked between his chest and his knees as if he was keeping them warm. "Show us your paws, puppy." Spike held his own hand out, palm up, and Harris flinched back. "God, this is depressing."

He went back to watching television, and it took him until the confrontation about lesbian tendencies to realize that Harris's hand was out. Not very far, but out in the open, hovering.

"Right, thanks." He leaned over a few degrees, careful not to get too close, and studied it. The girls had done some work there, too. The skin was smooth, no blisters or open cracks. Dawn had said something about a lotion, vitamins, herbs. They hadn't got the nails to grow back properly--those were still black and broken--but otherwise it looked all right. Big and scarred, but clean. Better.

"What'd they have you digging for?" Spike asked absently, trying to think of demons that cared about rocky things. There were those things, the ones he couldn't remember, they looked like hot cross buns, but a hot cross bun couldn't hold a whip. Dwarves weren't interested in human slaves. Morlocks just ate you.

"You're an enigma," he said, settling back in his chair. Harris took his hand back quickly. "Don't suppose you want to just, say, write it all down for us?"

Harris watched the hospital confession scene with an aura of confusion and dismay, as if he were just as bewildered about his own backstory as the rest of them.

The girls got home en masse at six o'clock. Spike was in the chair, Harris was asleep on the couch. Hadn't moved all day.

"How was it?" Red asked quietly, sitting down next to Harris and stroking his hair. He came awake with a start, looked panicked, then saw her and relaxed.

"Like spending eight hours with a marmot," Spike said. "I want better blood. And Weetabix. And video rentals."

She sat curling Harris's hair around her fingers, smiling when he gave her a sleepy blink. Spike watched in silence. In the kitchen, Dawn was exclaiming over the half-empty cereal bowl. Groceries were being unpacked. Slayer was sharpening her stakes, no doubt.

"We'll see what we can do," Willow said at last, sounding so tired and so happy that Spike felt briefly evil again.