Hot.

Dry.

Bastards in the Council couldn't pay for an air-conditioned hotel?

Spike smoked another cigarette and looked anywhere but at Harris.

Wasn't that Spike didn't want to look at Harris.

Some part of Spike, some brain-damaged part of Spike he blamed on the Initiative - not for any good reason but because it was convenient blaming this sort of shite on someone - had been wanting to look at Harris for a bloody long time.

The problem was either that Spike didn't want to look at Harris like this or that this...wasn't Harris.

Spike shot a quick glance at the bed, the mummy-brown body in cheap off-white cotton sheets.

Not Harris.

For one, Harris was never this silent.

Never should have been sent to Africa on his own, that one. Never should have been allowed to go without contact for months, bloody months on end before someone thought to send Spike looking. Sodding hell, why not? He'd blame the bloody Council for this too.

The phone rang and everything under Spike's skin and over his bones jumped toward it so instead of a casual saunter, when Spike did allow himself to move, he moved like a marionette on a string. "What?"

"Andrew said you called. That you have him."

Spike snorted - folded himself into an easy chair and poured out the last three fingers of whiskey. "Got what's left of him."

"What's left? Bloody hell, Spike! Andrew said he was alive!"

Spike drained his glass and wished he felt more satisfaction in taunting the Watcher. "He is. If you call that living."

"Is he in immediate danger?"

Another glance at the bed - still body, skin and bones and a rabbit-fast heartbeat. Spike considered his options. On one hand, Harris didn't look anything like healthy, hadn't said a word since announcing his imminent death. On the other hand, that imminent death didn't seem so imminent after all. When Spike had moved the body - right, Harris - the back of his clothes had signs of ground rot, still a dark khaki color and there had been wriggling beetles beneath. An entire bloody colony grown up under Harris the rock. Yet when Spike had stripped him off, washed him down in water the color of desert sand, there hadn't been so much as a nibble on his bum.

"Spike?"

"What?" Spike snapped before he realized he'd been meant to answer. Right. "Nah. Only danger he's in is being mothered to death by the witches. Looks like he could use a few square meals, mind."

On the other end of the line, Giles sighed - that long, weary thing that set Spike's teeth on edge. *Right, tosser. If you were so worried about him, why'd you wait this long to send someone? Why'd you send me? Pillock.*

"Thank you, Spike."

"And?"

This time, the sigh had much more irritation in it. "And you will be paid for your services on arrival. There will be a light plane waiting for you after sunset to take you both to the airport in Windhoek."

Spike carried the phone and his whiskey to the bed and regarded Harris with a tilt of his head. "Might be a small problem with that."

"How small?"

"Well, he hasn't exactly been awake."

"Asleep?"

"Nnn-yes." Spike drained his whiskey quickly and listened to the silence from London.

"You're a terrible liar, Spike."

"Asleep and dreaming of half-naked bints serving beer," he added and listened to the clink and slosh of Giles pouring himself a drink. Spike cast a longing glance at his empty whiskey bottle.

"He's in a coma, isn't he?"

"Might be," Spike admitted cautiously. "He woke up when I found him."

"Did he say anything to give you an idea of what happened to him?"

"No," Spike lied with heartfelt sincerity. "Look, I'm knackered and a light plane to Windhoek isn't my idea of a great way to spend Saturday night."

"It's Wednesday."

"Every night is Saturday night when you're a vampire, mate. Have someone call 'round later, yeah?"

"Yes, well - do be ready by sundown, Spike."

Spike listened to the sounds of expensive whiskey going down and snorted. "Don't strain yourself on the pleasantries, Rupert. Hang up the bloody phone."

"Good night, Spike."

"Right." Spike flipped the phone closed, and looked at everything in the room that wasn't Harris. Covered window. Cracked walls. Two lamps - unmatched - one desk. Two empty bottles of whiskey without labels.

One bed.

Buggering bloody hell.

One Harris in the bed.

Spike jerked at the knots in his boot laces and kicked off his boots. "Shove over, Harris. Only a great lout like you could lose all that puppy fat and still hog the sodding bed."

And the only pillow.

Spike didn't comment on the pillow.

And when his hand crept across the mattress to rest on what was left of Harris’ bicep - hard and lean, warm and tough - Spike was asleep. Couldn't be blamed.

Wasn't a soul alive - or awake - to prove otherwise.

"Can I get anything for your companion, sir?"

Spike cast a critical glance at Harris - rabbity heartbeat, shallow, even breathing, light shivering that fluttered the eyelashes that lay dark against one cheek, and darker against the other where the patch had protected his skin from the sun. He shrugged "He'll have whiskey too - and a blanket."

The air stewardess brought the blanket - which Spike tucked carefully around Harris until his shivering eased - and the whiskeys. Spike drank both.

It'd be a bloody long flight and the only other bloke in first class wasn't the fount of charming conversation he used to be.

Spike blamed the council.

Spike also blamed Africa. The desert heat of the Namib glued a man's tongue to the bottom of his mouth, made him sweat away his words and filled his brain with pressure - pressure pressure and more heat.

But mostly, Spike blamed the council for sending Harris there all by his lonesome and that was why he wasn't going to turn him over to them.

He hadn't gone all the way through the soggy heart and dusty soul of bleeding Africa after Harris only to let the council bollocks up his recuperation. Spike sucked the whiskey off an ice cube. "Protective custody, mate. That's what this is."

"They don't know how to treat their toys. Always leavin' 'em out and getting 'em broken. Another two whiskeys, luv. Would you?"

He knew that look. The look that said he wasn't fooling anyone. The look that said she was onto him, getting extra whiskey while his traveling companion slept on.

The look that said Spike could ask for an entire big bottle of the good stuff and get it with a wink and a smile.

Yeah. Spike knew that look.

Wasn't the look he wanted just then.

The look he wanted was an eyelash-flutter away, tucked up in an airline blanket with its cheek mashed against the airplane window.

"Wake up, you stubborn git. Starting to feel crazy again, all this talking to myself. I've done crazy." Spike fidgeted in his seat, fiddled with his Zippo in one pocket and wished for a cigarette. A lit one.

Spike smoked after they landed in Madrid, a pack of cigarettes in the forty five minute wait between flights and Harris slept on. Oh, he walked - and he didn't drool for which Spike was grateful - but he slept.

Didn't speak.

Hadn't said a sodding word since opening his eye in the desert. 'Hey Spike. I'm dying.'

Except, near as Spike could tell, Harris wasn't dying. His heart kept drumming on, pumping god knew what since Harris himself was practically mummified, and his lungs kept wheezing air in and out of him.

Hadn't missed a beat or a breath since Spike found him.

But the stupid sod was doing something. A bloke didn't lie down in the desert and cheerfully announce his own death by accident.

Spike lit his last cigarette and drew deeply, squinting through the smoke at Harris' closed eyelids and slumped form. "What the buggering fuck are you about, Harris? I know you can hear me, you stubborn pillock. Piss poor manners to leave me in the dark like this when I've gone to all the trouble of rescuing you."

Though it wasn't trouble. Not like Spike had anything better to do what with the bit away on a witchy retreat and Buffy off gallivanting across - god, where was she now? Some Baltic state. And it was beginning to make his stomach churn, all the boo-hooing because Harris hasn't checked in.

And he was being well-paid.

And it'd make Dawn and Buffy happy having Harris back in the family fold. Oh, all right, it'd make them happy once Harris put on a few pounds and found his tongue again.

Spike resisted the urge to pry Harris’ mouth open to make sure his tongue was still there. In a world filled with so much magic, a bloke could never be too sure.

"British Airways flight 2471 Madrid to London Gatwick is boarding at gate twelve."

Spike tuned out the announcement in Spanish and flicked his cigarette into the ash tray. "That's us - " Spike told an empty chair. "Mate?"

Harris was already up and walking out the door.

*Well bugger me.*

Spike grabbed his coat and carry on and caught up with Harris, watching the glassy open eye with curiosity. "Someone's home in there after all."

Harris didn't respond.

Spike didn't expect him to.

"This is it, Harris. Home sweet home." Spike threw his duster over a chair and watched Harris stare at it which proved entertaining for a whole thirty seven seconds.

"Get yourself settled on the couch. Unless you've got somewhere better to be," Spike added, almost hoping Harris did.

Harris didn't answer.

But then, Harris didn't do a lot of things - like talk, sit on his own, or feed himself unless Spike put food directly in front of him. Harris had eaten two airplane meals without complaint - it was unsettling.

"How about a regular meal, then? Don't want the girls coming back to see you like this. I'd make you look in the mirror if I didn't think the shock might kill you." Spike banged around the kitchen before locating a small collection of delivery menus in the silverware drawer. "You look like shit."

Harris didn't react but Spike was beginning to expect this from him. With all the things Harris didn't do, what was one more?

Harris continued to stare at his coat. Spike wondered if Harris was puzzling out what was different about it - if Harris could sense the way Spike could that this wasn't the coat. That all Spike had left of that coat was scraps and memories.

"All right. Stand until you fall over then. It's a comfortable couch, mind. Nothing wrong with it." Spike knew. He'd spent hours, days, weeks lying on it and cursing the BBC, drinking beer after beer.

Then he'd bought an Xbox and spent hours lying on it cursing his way through mindless digital bloodbaths.

He wondered if Harris played video games. "Remote's on the table. Might as well settle in here, mate. The girls won't be back in London for a while. Red and the Bit are off to a witchy retreat on the continent. Slayer's in Morocco with her new bloke. You'd like him. Nothing like the poof or soldier boy." Or the Immortal but the less said about him, the better.

A soft shuffle from the couch and the snick of Spike's Zippo, rising scent of tobacco smoke.

And Xander Harris sitting on his couch, lit cigarette in one hand, television remote in the other - looked almost normal but for the skeletal shaking hands.

"Didn't know you smoked," he said carefully - like Harris' sense was a small and skittish creature that might bolt if he spoke too loud.

Harris looked at the cigarette, shrugged and brought it unsteadily to his mouth.

"It'll kill you, mate."

Harris snorted - streaming smoke from his nostrils like a dragon - and set down the remote to watch Scooby Doo.