Buffy and Spike stood there for a moment, staring in surprise at Xander, leaning casually in the doorway, calmly watching the dramatic little scene. Buffy wondered how long he had been standing there, just how much he had seen and heard.

Then her eyes narrowed in anger, born of her frustration over Spike’s refusal to fight her, and the mistrust she still held for Xander. “What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded defensively, stepping immediately between Spike and Xander in a protective way, facing her friend down coldly. If Xander thought to hurt Spike again, he was gravely mistaken.

“I didn’t ask you, Buffy.” Xander’s voice was strangely cool as he stepped slowly toward them, his pace measured and even. “I’m talking to Spike.” He moved as close as he could get to Spike before encountering the obstacle that was Buffy.

She stood firm between Xander and Spike, glaring at the taller, dark-haired man in front of her. “I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing here, Xander, but if you think I’m letting you come one step closer to Spike, you…”

Completely unexpectedly, Xander reached out a hand and pushed her to the side, out of his way. He was only able to actually push her aside because she was caught completely off guard. He hadn’t hurt her in the slightest, but she had never thought for a moment that he would actually lay a hand on her, and was unprepared for it when he did.

As Xander moved to stand directly in front of Spike, his posture not exactly threatening, but definitely challenging, Buffy indignantly moved forward to step between them again. That boy had some nerve! She had always held back with Xander, knowing that she had an incredible advantage over him physically, but now she fully intended to give him the butt-kicking of his life.

But before she could move, Spike suddenly stepped closer to Xander, filling in the slight space left between them in an instant. “What the bleedin’ hell do you think you’re doing, you bloody ponce?” he demanded, furious, glancing back toward Buffy for a moment. “Shoving her around like that?”

Xander met Buffy’s eyes for just the briefest instant over Spike’s shoulder, pleading silently for her understanding, and realization suddenly dawned on her, before she could follow her protective instinct and try again to get between them. She looked carefully at Spike, who was too focused on Xander to notice her scrutiny.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen that fire of anger in his eyes.

Xander knew exactly what he was doing, after all -- and now she did, too.

“Buffy’s a big girl,” Xander pointed out, his voice calm and mild. “She can take care of herself. It’s not really your business, is it?”

“It bloody well is my business!” Spike insisted, advancing a couple of steps on Xander, forcing him to back up a little, without even realizing he was doing it. He was genuinely angry now. “The fact that she could kick your soddin’ arse halfway to China doesn’t matter, boy. You’ve put her through a lot lately; you’ve no idea how hurt she’s been over all you’ve done. And you’ve got no call shoving her around, Slayer or not!”

For months Spike had been beaten, tortured, degraded, and humiliated – and all without any possible outlet for the painful feelings brought on by it all. To have shown anger or even disagreement with the way he was treated would have only brought on more suffering, as he had been utterly powerless to actually change anything about his situation.

So, he had repressed the anger, the hatred, forced it back so as not to reveal it to his tormentor, who was constantly looking for the smallest reason to cause him even more pain. It had become so ingrained in him that he had no right to show such feelings, that his was only to shut up and take whatever was dealt him, that even now in safety he found it difficult to stand up for himself and his rights.

Buffy and her rights, however, were an entirely different matter.

The rage that had built in him, though buried, during the past six months, had been boiling under the surface, growing stronger and stronger, until by the time he had been rescued it had been becoming difficult to hold it back. Now, the sparring match and the heated conversation with Buffy that followed had gotten his adrenaline flowing, heightened his senses and emotions, bringing them that much nearer to the surface – and making them that much more difficult to control.

So it was that when Xander strolled into the room like that, in the middle of a very private, personal conversation, and proceeded to interrupt as if he belonged there, even going so far as to push Buffy out of his way like that…

“Oh, yeah? Why don’t you do something about it, Spike?” Xander challenged him, crossing his arms over his chest, regarding him with raised eyebrows over an expectant gaze.

Something snapped in Spike at that moment – something that had been desperate to “do something about” all the horrible injustices and abuses that he had taken, but had been forced into submission and not permitted to do anything about, for far too long.

“Believe I will,” he muttered, swinging at Xander before he even realized he had done it.

The punch landed, hard, across Xander’s jaw, and he staggered back a couple of steps, his hand gingerly touching the sore spot there. Then he laughed, softly, shaking his head. “Man, is that all you’ve got?” he asked incredulously. “No wonder you’ve been getting your ass kicked for the past five months!”

Buffy gasped involuntarily, cringing at the words, glancing anxiously at Spike. She had become so accustomed to being so cautious about his brutalized emotions, being so careful to say only things that would rebuild his self-esteem, and never to say anything to tear it down.

But Xander’s words only seemed to bring out more of the seething rage that had been slowly consuming Spike, eating away at him. He lunged for the boy again in a fury, knocking him backward a second time.

“I’ll *show* you what I’ve got, you soddin’ idiot!” he muttered, moving in in preparation for another blow.

Xander dodged backward, not allowing that one to fall. “Still not impressed,” he said in a voice that was slightly mocking, but not cruelly so. “You know, it kinda surprised me when *I* was able to freak you out so bad before – I mean, you’ve got years of fighting experience on me – but now I think I’m starting to see why!”

Spike’s expression darkened, as the image of Xander, standing before him brandishing the control device for his chip, mocking and using his pain to his own advantage, came unbidden into his mind. His eyes were blue flames of fury as he came at Xander again, this time hitting him hard enough to knock him to the ground, and following it up with a hard kick to the boy’s stomach.

As Xander coughed and struggled slowly to rise, Buffy wondered for a moment if maybe she should step in. It was a good thing that Xander was trying to do, but Spike had regained more of his strength than he realized, and he seemed to be losing control. No matter how angry she had been with her friend lately, she really didn’t want Spike to hurt Xander badly.

But before she could move, Spike began to speak, and she froze. Standing over Xander as he rose back to his knees, resting there for a moment before getting up, Spike’s jaw was working with anger, and his balled fists at his sides were trembling in rage.

“You can’t begin to understand *why*, Xander!” he snarled, his voice low and shaking. “A git like you’s got no idea what real fear feels like…do you? No, you’ve had the Slayer there to chase the monsters away for you ever since you’ve known there *were* monsters to fear at all!”

Carefully, Xander rose to his feet, focused on Spike’s face, keeping his own expression neutral. “I think I do understand,” he said softly.

“You couldn’t possibly,” Spike whispered, shaking his head slightly, his eyes fixed on some point just beyond Xander. “There’s no way.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to me?” Xander’s voice was slightly goading, but Buffy could hear the sympathy in it, as he took a couple of steps toward Spike, deliberately aggressive, pushing him into action again.

In an instinct reaction, Spike lashed out with a couple of quick blows, sending Xander back to his knees, as he snapped in a trembling voice, “Don’t bloody touch me!”

Xander held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, to indicate that he would comply.

There was a brief, heavily weighted silence, in which the only sound was Spike’s ragged, labored breathing. Neither Buffy nor Xander moved, sensing that he was on the verge of a major breakthrough.

Finally Spike spoke in a voice that was quiet but intense, “You couldn’t know what it’s like…to be at the mercy of a sadistic little prick who gets his kicks from your…your pain…your…fear. Knowing that if all was as it should be, he wouldn’t be able to touch you…you could tear the bloody git to pieces with your bare hands…but all’s *not* as it should be. He’s a hundred times stronger than you, and then there’s the soddin’ chip… you can’t fight…can’t run…can’t do a bleedin’ thing but sit there and take it like…like the pathetic little ponce that you are…”

His voice was full of pain and fury, and Buffy couldn’t tell how much of it was directed at Warren and how much was directed at himself.

He paused for a moment, swallowing hard, trying to get his composure. A part of Buffy wanted to speak up, to argue with his assessment of his own weakness, but the better part of her knew that silence was the wisest course of action at this moment. He needed to get these things out.

“Not to mention the fact,” Spike finally went on, his eyes welling with angry tears that he refused to let fall. “that not a bleedin’ soul even knows where you are. There’s absolutely. No. Bloody. Hope. You know you’re stuck in that hell until he gets mad enough one day to finally dust you…’cept you know that’s not gonna happen. He likes his little game to much to break his toy too badly.”

“And no one’s coming for you. Not ever. Because you’ve gone, like the bloody monster you are, and driven away anyone who even cared for you in the slightest. There’s no one who even cares enough to look for you…to wonder where you are or if you’re…you’re all right, or…”

His voice broke there, and he shook his head again, looking away, trembling all over with intense emotion. Buffy dropped her head, choking back a sob, overwhelmed with pain and guilt again over leaving him there to suffer at Warren’s hands for so long. She should have looked for him, she should have found him long before she had…

Spike turned halfway toward her, sensing her pain, and said softly, “But you can’t blame them…it’s not their fault. They’ve no way of knowing you haven’t just run away… anyone *would* run away after what you’ve done. So it’s your own fault that no one’s trying to find you. It’s *all* your own fault.”

“It’s a prison, a bloody torture chamber, of your own making, and you know you’re never…ever…getting…out,” he finished, his voice barely above a whisper by now.

“So,” Xander began cautiously, from where he stood a few steps from Spike. He had risen to his feet again at some point during Spike’s painful remembrances, and the vampire had not even noticed, trapped in the world of his memories, somewhere between the present and the past. “you think it’s all *your* fault then…you *deserved* to be beaten and tortured and starved and God knows what else because you made one – granted, really big -- mistake…he was right to do what he did, then? Because you *deserved* it?”

Spike’s eyes shot up to his, furious. “No, he bloody was *not* right to do it!” he practically spat the words out in resentment and hurt. “He’s a sick little pervert who got *pleasure* out of what he did to me, and he had no right…no matter what I’d done…he had no right…”

His voice broke off again, and he looked at the floor, swallowing hard as he fought once again not to break down, not to let his rage take him over completely. Finally he finished, almost as if just realizing the truth of his own words, “He had no right. No one deserves what he did to me. Never.”

Xander nodded thoughtfully, stepping closer to Spike again. “So…what Warren did was wrong. He had no right to do that to you. We’ve established that.” He paused before continuing, “But you know he’s gonna come after you again. You know that, right?” His tone was matter-of-fact. “And you’re just gonna…what? Lie down and take it? Cause ya know, you’re sure don’t seem to be willing to put up much of a fight!”

As he spoke, he suddenly advanced on him again, moving forward in an intimidating way. “What are you gonna do about it, Spike?” he demanded, his voice intensifying to match his physical attack. “What are you going to do?”

Spike immediately caught his arm and countered with a punch of his own, sending Xander staggering back into the wall, punctuating his trembling, furiously tearful words with several more hard blows. “You don’t know a bloody thing about it!” he shot back, his voice low and trembling with rage. “I’m gonna bloody fight back is what I’m going to do! I’m not lying down and taking a bloody thing anymore! Not from you! Not from Warren! Not from anyone!”

He stood there in front of Xander, furious and shaking violently, breathing hard with the exertion of the beating he had just dealt him, as he glared defiantly at the boy who had once gone out of his way to torment and terrify him – and now had gone much further to rebuild the confidence he had helped to shatter.

A slow smile spread across Xander’s bruised, bloodied face as he met Spike’s eyes with his own fiery, unyielding gaze. “Glad to hear it,” he said softly.

His eyes widening as he realized what Xander had just said, he frowned in confusion. “What…?”

“I’m sorry, Spike,” Xander went on, holding his gaze, his voice quiet and sincere. “I’m really sorry for what I did to you. And I’m sorry if I’ve…if I’ve crossed the line just now. But you’ve got to know that *you* are the only one who can keep yourself from being a victim again, Spike. You. Nobody else can protect you all the time.”

He glanced at Buffy with a sort of sad smile. “No matter how bad they want to. You have to know that you have both the right and the power to defend yourself. And you can’t let anyone push you around and make you believe that you don’t. Not Warren…not me…not anyone.” There was a deep sorrow in Xander’s eyes as they met Spike’s unflinchingly, accepting the full responsibility for the mistakes he had made, and going far beyond words to set them right again.

Spike stared at him in disbelief as he began to realize just exactly what the boy had done. Xander slowly, painfully, moved past him away from the wall and toward the door. Spike turned slowly to watch him, his eyes wide with shock as he noticed for the first time Xander’s battered face, and realized that he was the one who had done it to him – and that Xander had willingly allowed it to be done, even *caused* it to be done.

“Why?” he asked simply, softly, feeling a rush of overwhelming gratitude for Xander’s unexpected sacrifice.

Xander stopped in the doorway, without turning, and paused for a moment before responding. “Because I *do* understand,” he said quietly, and without another word he was gone.