What's Wrong With Spike?

On, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off...

"Spike, come here," Buffy said.

Spike took his hand off the light switch, slumped his shoulders and shuffled over to her. Little Buffy sounded mad. Mad, mad. He sat down on the chair she pointed to and sighed. Bored, bored, bored at the doctor. Nothing to play with, nothing to do.

"Hello, Buffy, Angel," Dr. Walters said, entering the spacious office with a large file in his hands. He stopped in front of Spike and pulled a sucker out of his pocket. "And hello to you, Spike."

"Sucker!" Spike exclaimed, snatching it from the doctor. He quickly unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth. Grape, grape, he had more grape. Grape sucker, the sucker was grape. "'S-wape."

"What do you say, Spike?" Buffy said.

"'Shanksh," Spike said around the sucker. He began to alternate raising his toes off the ground, watching them with great concentration.

"So, how has this week been?" Dr. Walters asked, taking films from the file and sticking them up on the medical light-board on the wall. "Has there been any changes?"

"No," Angel replied. "He's the same as we discussed last time."

"He can still walk, talk and generally function on his own without help?" he asked.

"We had to put locks on the cabinets and drawers because he cut himself with a knife," Buffy admitted. "But other than that..."

"That's good," Dr. Walters said. "It means that his condition has not worsened."

"Condition?" Buffy and Angel said in unison.

Spike started to giggle. Funny, funny, Angel and Buffy. Little Buffy made a funny with Angel, Daddy, Angel, Dad. Loved him, hated him, dear old Dad. Took Dru away and he got mad.

Angel put his hand on Spike's knee and Spike lolled his head to the side to look at him, his giggling coming to a stop. Daddy made mean face. Be good, be good. Good little boys get toys. Spike took the sucker out of his mouth and offered it to Angel.

"Keep it," Angel said quietly to him.

Spike nodded and stuck the sucker back in his mouth. He looked down at Angel's hand on his knee, then began to trace patterns on the back of it with his finger.

"Dr. Walters, what's wrong with Spike?" Buffy asked, worry in her voice.

Don't worry little Buffy. No sad, no sad. He didn't like when little Buffy was sad. His Daddy had a big hand. Big, big, big hand, big cock. Had to have big hand to tickle big cock. Did Angel tickle his cock in the bubbles with little Buffy? Naughty, naughty Buffy. Buffy bubbles was naughty.

"Let me start at the beginning, so that I may explain this the best way I know how, considering Spike's state of 'living,'" Dr. Walters began. "As you know, a vampire is a demon that resides in a human host. This demon takes over the body and that human's mind to preform its night to night activities."

"Yeah, we know this. Get to Spike," Buffy said.

"Buffy, calm down," Angel said. "Sorry. Go ahead."

"That's quite alright, Angel. I understand the stress both of you must be going through," the doctor said. "To go on, if a vampire is created out of, say, Billy Bob Joe Smith from Hickville whose IQ is less than his shoe size, the vampire is going to have that same IQ."

"This is true," Angel commented.

True, shoe, he had shoes. Two shoes. One on each feet. Feet, fight, foot, fum. He smelled the blood of an Englishman. He was an Englishman. Did he smell his own feets? Angel's hand was as big as his feets.

"Which means that the brain is important for a demon, and thus continues to function in the most normal manner, although by somewhat non-normal ways, considering a vampire's heart does not beat and therefore blood does not pump through the arteries," Dr. Walters said. "And that means the brain can get damaged, just as a human's does. The animalistic instincts won't kick in, because the demon can still use the brain."

"Wait, Spike has brain damage?" Buffy said. "That doesn't make sense. Vampire bodies heal themselves from almost everything."

Confused little Buffy. Not happy, not sad. Out of her mind, out of his mind. All lost, all found. Run 'round and 'round. Spike took Angel's hand and turned it over, then began tracing patterns on his palm.

Dr. Walters stood and turned on the medical light-board. He pointed at the film of Spike's brain with his pen. "You see this large spot? That's a mass of blood that has collected due to a head injury and is pressing into Spike's brain."

"I don't remember him getting hurt that bad," Buffy said.

Little Buffy sounded scared. Unhappy, not good. Slayer not scared. Slayer big, tough, mean, beat up bad guys. He was a good guy. Angel was a good guy. Dru was a bad guy but the little Slayer didn't beat her up because Daddy said not to. No, no, no. Don't beat up Dru.

"Chronic subdural hematomas can be caused by a simple bump on the head. It doesn't have to be something drastic like a car accident or a fight. He could have hit his head on a shelf when reaching for something under a cabinet. Or bumped it on a low overhang," Dr. Walters explained. "In both a vampire's and human's body, the blood mass happens while the brain is healing from its injury."

The doctor turned off the light-board and returned to his desk. "This hematoma is what has caused Spike's behavior. The night he 'flipped,' as you put it Buffy, and everything leading up to and since then is a side effect of the hematoma called Dementia."

"Spike's demented?" Buffy said. "Now why doesn't that strike me as odd?"

Angel chuckled, as did the doctor. Spike looked up at Angel and grinned around his sucker. Laugh, laugh, everybody laugh. Happy, laugh. He liked it when they laughed. Why did they laugh? He wanted to laugh.

Spike giggled again and Buffy put her hand on his other knee. He turned his head to her and smiled brightly. He took the sucker out of his mouth and offered it to her. Buffy took the sucker, licked it, then gave it back. "Little Buffy licked my sucker," he said, holding the sucker up in the air.

"Yes, we saw," Dr. Walters said. "Why don't you suck on it some more while Angel and Buffy and I talk, ok?"

"Talk, talk, talk is boring. Spike don't like to talk," Spike said, shoving the sucker back in his mouth. "Spike wants to play with little Buffy in the bubbles. Fun, fun. Lotsa bloody fun. Daddy don't want me to do that in the bathtub."

Angel put a hand over his face and sighed. He looked at the doctor. "I promised to let him have a bath when we got home. Drusilla got new bubble bath and it's been driving him wild since she showed it to him, before we came."

"Dru, Dru, I love Dru," Spike said. "I love Dru and Buffy, too. Three, three, one."

"Spike, it's time to be quiet now so we can hear what the doctor has to say," Buffy said quietly. "Will you be quiet for me?"

"'K," Spike whispered. "I be quiet for little Buffy. But only for little Buffy."

Spike closed his mouth around the sucker and began twirling the stick, watching the doctor. He was a good boy. Good boys got little Buffy's in the bubbles. Naughty Buffy in the bubbles.

"Go ahead, Dr. Walters," Buffy said. "You were about to explain...?"

"Dementia," Dr. Walters said. "A group of symptoms involving progressive impairment of all aspects of brain function. His impaired language ability, his persistent repetition of words, for example, is one of the effects of Dementia. Others are confusion, large mood swings, and also his nightdreams or other hallucinations."

The doctor set his pen down on the desk and folded his hands. "Which brings me to the hard part. If Spike isn't treated for the chronic subdural hematoma, it will continue to press down on his brain until he is no longer able to function and, in essence, he will fall into a vegetative state. If he were human, I'd say that he would eventually die from it. However, since he is a vampire..."

"Is there...can he be fixed?"

Spike looked over at Buffy. Buffy sounded sad, sad, very, very sad. He saw tears. Crying, dying, why was she crying? Was somebody dying? He didn't want to cry. He didn't want to die. Cry, die, sad, sad. Dad was sad. Little Buffy was sad. No one should be sad.

"With a blood mass as large as the one he has, the only way to remove it is by preforming a craniotomy," Dr. Walters said seriously. "And I suggest it as soon as possible."

End