Disclaimer & Author's Note: The usual.

Earlier that night...

Veronica pushed Spike back against the door, her insistent lips on his, and...

He remembered. In a sudden inspiration, it came back to him. He pushed Veronica back off of him in triumph. "That's it!" he exclaimed in delight and relief.

Veronica blinked up at him, bewildered. She'd just thrown herself at him and... Why wasn't he kissing her back? What on earth was wrong with him?! "Huh?" she asked confused.

"Why this all seems so familiar," he clarified, still proud that he'd solved the mystery that had been picking at the back of his mind since he had first arrived. "The meaningless sex reminded me. I know when I was 'ere before."

" 'Meaningless'?!" Veronica felt obliged to throw a hissy fit.

"Came here right outta Sunnyhell. This is where it all started..."

"What are you talking about?" Veronica was very put out right about now. He was supposed to be her tasty midnight snack and... Was he walking away?!

"Gotta tell Dawn," he shot back before dashing off down the hallway.

And Veronica's jaw dropped before slowly a pit of deep, red anger rose up in her belly. How dare he?! Well, she would show him!

A small smile lit up Dawn's face as she entered the kitchen, and she walked on her tiptoes as she snuck up on her unsuspecting prey, ready to strike...

"You cannot sneak up on me," Rick informed her with a small smile, back still to her.

Dawn pouted that her plot had been foiled. "How's the food coming?" she inquired.

He shrugged. "We can eat whenever you want. I am not much of a chef, so it is nothing fancy."

"You made edible omelets this morning," Dawn countered. "Compared to me, you're a culinary genius."

He chuckled at that and sat down on the edge of the table beside her. "I am beginning to agree with Veronica's assessment that the loss of room service is a tragedy," he joked lightly. "I feel as though I have been relegated to the sidelines."

Dawn frowned and took his hand at that, still marveling at the contrast between his strong, chocolate brown fingers and her slighter, paler ones. "You're not," she assured him. "I'm really sorry today had to be so hectic but..." A slight blush. "I haven't forgotten about you, even for a minute."

He sighed and brushed one long lock of brunette hair from her face. "I have been unable to stop thinking about you, either," he admitted.

"Maybe," Dawn began with a coy smile, "we'll have a quiet night tonight, and we can get some more alone time to..." She trailed off, a dancing light in her eyes.

Rick smiled at that as well and pulled her in closer. "You are amazing, you know that?" he whispered softly against her ear. "You are strong and compassionate and just...and very beautiful."

Dawn sunk into his embrace with a contented sigh. "What's going to happen to us when this is all finished and we leave?" she voiced the question in both their minds.

"You will return home?" he inquired softly.

She nodded. "I've got a business to run," she pointed out. "Although...there's nothing to say that you can't come on over to the Big Apple, take a little vacation of your own... If you want to," she added hastily.

He smiled. "I would love to," he assured her. "It would give me cause to stop dreading the end of this case."

Dawn's face lit up as well. "You know, I kinda think that you're amazing, too," she offered before leaning in to steal a tender kiss from his lips...

"Bit?"

Spike quickly scanned the common room of their suite before ducking his head in each of the rooms. He frowned. No Dawn. Better not be off with Demon-Boy... He grumbled internally, insisting on being inwardly sullen about the whole thing, even if some part of him that he kept very tightly closed off was sort of happy that she'd finally found someone. Even if he was a Kayeri. And a complete wanker.

The more he thought about his flight from Sunnydale, the more memories surfaced of his first trip to the lodge seven years ago. He vaguely remembered stopping just before daylight, the raw emotional breakdown in the lobby, a pretty young blond he'd used to forget his troubles, even if only for a few hours...

Having firmly established that the suite was empty, Spike swore and pondered where Dawn could've gone. The recreation room was a good bet – probably was still working away in there. He left the suite in a flurry of excited leather, not noticing in his haste that he'd left the door ajar.

However, his trip to the recreation room also met with failure – or, partial failure in any case.

"Snow White," Spike demanded of Siggy. "Where's my Platelet?"

Siggy, thoroughly used to all his nonsensical nicknames, merely pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "She is 'helping' Rick to prepare dinner," she joked lightly.

Spike groaned and collapsed into one of the armchairs that lined the room. "Great." He could just manage to restrain from perpetual snark around the young man as it was. And that was only because Dawn had done a really good job of yelling at him. But if he happened to catch them together in a compromising position... He was certain he would have coronary, whether or not that was physically possible with vampire physiology.

"Something has come up?" Siggy inquired curiously, looking up from her notes.

"Finally remembered when I was 'ere before," he announced proudly.

"Senile in old age," Siggy teased lightly. "When was it?"

And Spike went into the tale with gusto...

A sly smile lit up Veronica's face as a plan landed in her lap.

"Veronica," Xel drawled with a smile, sidling up to her and placing his hand oh-so-not-subtly in the small of her back. "Where on earth have you been? I've been looking everywhere!"

"A coincidence then," Veronica flirted with a enticing little smile, "because I've been looking everywhere for you, too."

"Oh...really?" Xel asked with his most charming smile.

"Actually," Veronica agreed, "I was wondering if you could help me with something...personal?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"Anything you want," he practically purred.

Veronica caught his hand in hers and guided it to her shoulder. "I've just got the most awful kinks," she said, looking out at him through lowered lashes so that the secondary meaning wasn't lost. "Would you be at all willing to come back to my room to help me work them out?" she asked mock-innocently.

An all-out leer crossed Xel's face. "Anything to help a lady in distress," he agreed, taking her arm in his and leading her eagerly down the hallway.

Ha! Still got it! She congratulated herself inwardly. She had known that technique still worked; it was obviously just Spike that had been defective. But, as they turned to head in the direction of her room, she saw something that gave her pause. "Hold on a second," she cooed to Xel. "I want to check on something..." She cautiously walked down the hallway to Dawn and Spike's suite, surprised to find the door wide open and no one inside.

"I don't think anyone's here," Xel commented, somewhat confused by the delay and more than a little horny. Figuratively speaking, of course. His kind didn't actually have horns.

Veronica snuck a quick peek in Spike's room. "No..." she agreed with a wicked little smile, "nobody is..."

"Let's go, then," Xel practically purred. "After all, those kinks..."

"Mmm," Veronica smiled. "How about this?" she asked coyly. "How would you like to do something absolutely sinful?"

An eager leer. "What do you have in mind?" he inquired hopefully.

Veronica gestured to Spike's bed. "The danger of getting caught is half the fun," she said with a seductive wink. And then that bastard will have to smell what he missed every night, the scorned woman in her added with glee.

Xel hesitated for a second. "Are you sure that—?"

Veronica cut him off by yanking him to her with a kiss, pulling him back into Spike's room and letting the door swing shut behind them...

"And you did not sense the Haunting's presence at that time?" Siggy pressed, taking scrupulous notes on everything Spike said.

He shook his head. "Wasn't exactly at my best that day," he admitted ruefully.

Siggy frowned and turned back to the text before her. "Just another piece of new information that does not quite fit into our puzzle."

"Oh?" Spike asked curiously. "What's that, then?"

"If I read correctly, our Haunting must have a vessel – a host – that it drains from its life. If the Haunting is still partially bound to the inn, that must mean there is someone here that—"

Spike cut her off at that moment with a sharp bark for silence. He cocked his head to one side carefully and slowly sniffed the air.

Siggy was instantly on alert. "Has something else happened?" she inquired nervously.

Spike's eyes narrowed. "That bitch!" he suddenly exclaimed in outrage, practically launching himself from his chair and out the door.

Not one to resist such an intriguing segue as that, Siggy rose as well and followed after...

Lena didn't know what had caused her to rise that night. But it felt as though a soft voice were whispering in the back of her ear, urging her on, telling her there was something she had to see.

She dressed silently in the still darkness of her and Xel's room before venturing out into the hallway, letting her feet guide her throughout the winding corridors. The wind was whistling again now with the dark of the evening, but she barely even heard it so intent was she upon following the ghostly guide that led her...

A small frown creased her brow when her wanderings led her straight to the door of Spike and Dawn's suite, but then she heard and all too distinctive sound, and suddenly everything was clear. Red rage swelling through her brain, she grabbed the nearest weapon – one of Tucker's old hunting rifles – and opened the door to Spike's room to see for herself...

Buffy felt her heart die in her chest at the noises coming from Spike's room. In fact, she was so out of it that she didn't even detect the figure racing down the hallway until he crashed into her. They collided with bone-crunching intensity – fortunately, both of them had strength and healing powerful enough that neither was injured – and only quick action on both their parts caused them to grab onto each other instead of toppling to the floor in a messy tangle of limbs.

"Bloody hell, Slayer!" Spike exclaimed in outrage. "What're you, a zombie?"

"I-I'm sorry..." Buffy began to stammer. And then she realized who she was talking to. "Spike?" she asked in relief, the realization that she hadn't lost him to Veronica, of all people, sending delightful little tingles of joy down her veins. "It's you!" She caught him up in an impulsive hug.

Spike blinked, completely bewildered by the odd mood change. "Uh...right..." He slowly extricated himself from her grip. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy this at another time, luv, but a certain whiny redhead's askin' for a world 'f misery right about now, so..." He dashed off to his room, froze in the doorway, and cried out with eyes wide: "Stop!"

An explosion. The sound of a rifle firing.

"Fuck."

Buffy dashed for the suite as well, skidding to a halt in the doorway just in time to hear Veronica's scream and see Lena raise the rifle for a second shot. Spike had already run in after the distraught demoness, but apparently she was more aware of what was going on than she let on because she leapt free of his lunge with a lithe twist. The motion put the wall between Lena and Veronica, though, sparing the woman in bed for the moment.

Lena cocked the trigger frantically, and then her red eyes alighted on Buffy. "Did you enjoy playing with my husband behind my back, too, bitch?" she hissed angrily, pulling the trigger and...

Buffy heard the second explosion ring in her ears and felt a heavy weight land on her chest before a veil of blackness fell over her. For a second she wondered if she'd just forgotten what death felt like until her rational mind kicked in again, and she felt that she hadn't been hit. Realization that the weight on her chest wasn't metaphorical slowly set in, and with it panicked understanding.

"S-Spike?" He felt dead on top of her, just like in her dream, so still and...

A soft mumble as her desperate hands found the hole through the back of his duster and came away stained with red blood.

"Spike, stay with me," she pleaded. Oh god, it felt like the bullet had hit his heart. If it had been made of wood, he would probably be dust by now. She was dimly aware that Lena must've left after shooting Spike since the demoness wasn't in the room. Ignoring the frantic shouts that seemed to be all around her, she managed to pull herself out from under where Spike's body had protected her from the deadly bullet. "Spike?" she repeated frantically.

"Nobody 'urts my girls," were his final words before he went still...

Rick skidded around the corner, dashing after the fleeing Lena. He could hear Dawn and Siggy behind him, but they were both human and too slow to keep up with the D'vorak they were pursuing. Rick, on the other hand, was quickly gaining on Lena, and she was mere inches from his grasp when she suddenly ducked into a side room, eluding his grasp.

He skidded to a halt and darted back in the other direction, only to find the door locked behind her. He twisted wildly at the knob a few times, trying to jar the door open, but it was no use. Just as he'd taken a step back to kick the door open, Dawn rounded the final bend.

"Don't," she warned. "That gun could be loaded and just waiting for you to kick the door in."

Rick froze at that and nodded. "What do we do, then?" he inquired anxiously.

Dawn panted a bit, still out of breath from the run. Siggy had arrived by now as well and was leaning heavily against the wall as she tried to catch her breath.

"Is there another way in—?" Dawn began.

And a third shot, one of chilling finality, rang from behind the locked door.

The three of them froze.

"Do you think...?" Rick began hesitantly.

Dawn bit her lip and then nodded nervously. "Bust it in."

One powerful kick and Rick was in the room, and...

"Another casualty to the Haunting," he practically whispered before turning rapidly away from where Lena had taken her own life.

Dawn nodded shakily at closed the door once more before the growing pool of blood. "Oh god..." she gasped, everything that had happened recently suddenly overwhelming her. "Oh god..." She shakily dropped to her knees and fisted her hands into balls.

Rick, still looking a bit queasy from the sight of Lena's suicide, slumped against the wall beside her, his own mind screaming at the injustice of it all. "I-I did not mind the extra 'R's she put in my name so much," he finally admitted with a gulp. "She was not so bad, you know?"

Dawn nodded numbly. "G-God, she's..." She trailed off. "I blew it," she began slowly. "I failed them all..."

Siggy, still breathing heavily, saw that the situation was deteriorating rapidly. It wasn't that the demons' deaths hadn't been traumatic, but she had known them less well, and that seemed to allow her to see more clearly that the crisis wasn't fully over yet.

"It was not your fault," she informed Dawn confidently. "They were all experienced demon hunters, and they were well aware of the danger."

"B-But I was their leader..."

"And you have gotten us to the point where we are ready to defeat the Haunting. It has caused all of this, not you," Siggy insisted. "And if you allow yourselves to break down like this, you will just be feeding it further."

That seemed to catch Dawn and Rick's attention, but for the first time in years Dawn had absolutely no clue what to do. "W-What...?" she began shakily.

"We must go back and check to see who is still alive," Siggy persisted, pulling Dawn up to her feet first, followed by Rick. "Our help may be badly needed."

A shaky nod from Dawn. "You're right, of course. It's just that—" She broke off with a gulp.

"Think about it later," Siggy instructed. "Right now we must check on the others..."

Oh god, she'd never seen so much blood in all her life.

Buffy pulled gently at the blood-caked leather that surrounded the wound and slowly stripped off Spike's duster. He had long since passed out from the pain, and given that vampires could stay conscious through almost anything, that was saying something. His shirt was drenched with blood as well, of course, and when Buffy took one deep breath and a wipe of her forehead to try to focus, she smeared the lukewarm red all over herself as well.

"F-First aid kit..." The sound of her own voice was reassuring in the deafening quiet of the inn, giving her the focus she needed to scramble through Dawn's bathroom and find a well-stocked field medic's kit.

In relief, she ran back to where Spike still lay prone in the center of the common room and settled herself down beside him. She found the scissors right away and cut through the wet fabric of his shirt, hands shaking and fingers slippery from the blood that coated them. The fabric peeled away slowly under her ministrations, and she found that the wound was still dribbling blood. It didn't bleed the same way humans did, but rather seemed to bubble up slowly and flow from his body like a thick syrup.

Buffy bit down the anxiety that was threatening to overcome her and tried to wipe the wound clean with a towel. The white cloth turned instantly red, and Buffy realized that this wasn't going to work. She looked around frantically for anything she could use, until she finally remembered the bathtub.

Cautiously, she managed to pull Spike over into the bathroom, careful not to jar the still-bleeding wound in his back. God, vampires weren't supposed to bleed this much. Wasn't it technically impossible or something? Of course, she'd never seen a vampire this badly injured, either...

Fortunately, the tub edge was low, designed more as a shower than a real bathtub. Buffy managed to get him inside and quickly rung out the towel in the inflowing water, Spike's head on her lap in an unnecessary gesture to keep him able to breathe.

Pale skin was now visible amidst the red as she wiped the wound clean. A sympathetic wince at the ugly wound, and then she slowly reached outside the tub for the first aid kit.

If nothing else, the water had at least cleaned her hands, allowing them to hold the tweezers steadily. The wound continued to drip blood even as the tip of the metal probed it, and Buffy winced. If he was still bleeding, that had to mean that the bullet was lodged someplace vital where vamp healing wouldn't be able to close up the blood flow around it. Either that, or he'd already lost too much blood to heal properly. She hoped it was the former.

"I-I'm not going to hurt you, baby," she cooed softly, holding the edges of the wound back as she fished around for the offending bullet. God, he was a mess – shattered bone, torn muscles, and some other stuff she didn't even want to begin to guess at. "You'll be all right," she continued in a soothing voice. "I promise everything will be all right..."

The tip of the tweezers hit metal.

She gulped. God, fishing around inside him like this, it felt horrible, an odd flashback to that horrible dream she'd had when she'd...

"I'm not hurting you," she repeated more vehemently, forcing the thoughts down as she concentrated on removing the slug. "I'll save you. Don't worry, love..."

Shakily, she pulled the tweezers out of the wound, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that she'd indeed gotten the piece of deformed metal.

"See, baby?" she continued to talk to him. "I got it out. You'll be just fine now." She patted his hair lightly before running more water, cleaning off the excess blood that had accumulated in the meantime.

For the first time, the sounds of voices in the common room caught her attention, and she shouted out to them.

Dawn dashed into the bathroom, and her face paled. "Jesus..."

"He was shot," Buffy said in a calmer voice than she would've imagined possible. "He lost a lot of blood..."

"All that back there is his?" Dawn pointed behind her, still shaken by the sight of her overprotective surrogate brother with a hole through his back.

Buffy nodded. "I-I think we need to get blood in him fast. He's getting...thinner, I think." Indeed, the vampire did seem to be growing more emaciated before her eyes. "He'll need blood to heal."

Dawn nodded numbly and raced over to the mini-fridge to grab the packages of blood there. She glanced up to see Rick and Siggy leading a shaken Veronica away. The woman was shivering in the blanket wrapped around her and had the most dead look in her eyes. The blue D'vorak blood that covered Veronica would've told Dawn that Xel was also dead, even without Rick's rueful shake of the head. Turning her attention back to Spike, she raced back to the bathroom.

"Human," she provided breathlessly. "We keep it for emergencies."

Buffy nodded. "How're we gonna get him to...?"

Dawn cut the corner of the bag with the scissors and waved in under his nose. No reaction. "Y-Yeah, we're going to hafta feed it to him," she agreed shakily. "We need to get his head tilted back somehow..."

Buffy nodded and pulled him up her body so that he was slumped over her. She tilted his chin back and grimaced that she couldn't do better. "That's as close as I can get," she said apologetically.

"We'll try it," Dawn agreed. She managed to get his mouth open and felt around in his gums.

"What are you—?" Buffy began, but the answer came to her with startling speed when his fangs extended, and he snapped at Dawn's fingers instinctively, vamping out.

Dawn, who had been thoroughly prepared for the involuntary reaction, yanked her fingers back just in time. She placed the blood bag there in their stead, and he slowly began to drink, looking for all the world like a fragile – if someone disturbing – baby bird, cheeping upward for food.

"Will he be all right?" Buffy's whispered words were the first doubt she'd allowed herself to express.

Dawn grimaced. "Physically? Sure. But sometimes when vampires get starved...it does things to their minds."

Buffy nodded. "What can I do?"

"Keep feeding him," Dawn instructed, handing her the next bag. "And keep him warm. Vampires heal best when they're human body temperature."

"O-Okay, I can do that," Buffy agreed. She placed the second bag at his lips after he had finished with Dawn's.

"I'll find you two someplace more comfortable than the bathtub," Dawn offered, getting up. "Hopefully, that's not covered in blood..."

"My room," Buffy offered.

Dawn nodded before checking the wound at Spike's back. "It's not bleeding anymore," she announced. "As long as he keeps getting blood..."

"Right," Buffy nodded with a sigh, watching as Dawn left. "You'll be okay," she turned back to the vampire in her arms, stroking his platinum hair tenderly as she watched him feed. "You have to be. Because I love you, Spike..." she whispered against his cheek before placing a soft kiss on his closed eyelid.

He didn't respond, still completely unconscious, but continued to instinctively drink...

More to come, obviously... ~_^