AUTHOR'S NOTE: Some dates have changed. The story flow makes more sense now. Sorry for the confusion.
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DEVON, ENGLAND-

As much as she wanted to talk to Willow, and see how she was doing, Dawn wanted to know about her sister, and Spike, more, “That’s great Willow,” Dawn smiled, “I’m glad you’re doing better, really,” she gave Willow a reassuring nod, “But, um, can we talk about Buffy now? And Spike?”

Willow’s eyes widened and she took a breath, “Oh I’m sorry. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“Kinda, yeah,” she shrugged, “Which would be totally okay with me, except that,” she looked around sheepishly at her still packed bag and the unfamiliar bedroom, “I’ve had a really long flight. And, I haven’t even unpacked yet. And, I’m worried about Buffy. You understand that, right?”

“Oh yeah! I so get that. Giles called this morning and said that Buffy was on her way here,” Willow smiled as she came further into the room and sat down next to Dawn on the bed, “”Giles is coming too, of course,” she added nervously.

Dawn couldn’t help but notice the glaring omission. She sighed, afraid of the answer to the question she was going to ask. Keeping her eyes downcast, she asked, “Have you… heard about Spike?”

Then came the silence. Dawn waited patiently for Willow to say something, anything really. Well, just don’t sit here, Willow. Tell me he’s in the other room and he’d love to see me, but he’s too nervous to, and that’s why he’s hiding. You can tell him not to worry because I’m nervous too. I want to tell him that I miss him. And that I…

Come on Willow. Tell me.

Tell me.

Please?

The silence seemed to stretch into forever. Dawn couldn’t take it. She gathered the courage she needed to look at Willow’s face and saw her brows knitted in worry and surprise; as if Willow had forgotten that Spike even existed for a while.

She wanted so much to know what that was like- to forget him. She had spent weeks trying to do what seemed so natural for Willow, but found it nearly impossible.

How does she do it?

Willow’s eyes quivered a little, and shone with mist, like the air does in hot weather. And suddenly Dawn couldn’t breathe. She had seen that look before, too many times. When something bad happened, the faces of people she loved looked like that. That was when she knew.

Something happened to Spike. Something bad.

Dawn was really not prepared for how that made her feel. Suddenly, in a room that was bright and full of oxygen, she couldn’t see or breathe. She looked pleadingly into her friend’s eyes, “Willow,” she whimpered, hating how her own voice sounded; making her seem like a child, “what happened to Spike?”

Willow held Dawn’s hand, trying to reassure her, “I don’t know everything, yet. But Giles said that…”

“What?” Dawn asked breathlessly.

“Dawnie…Giles thinks that Spike may have been kidnapped.”
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Buffy looked at the vine-covered cottage. It was beautiful. But she couldn’t enjoy it; she was too preoccupied with thoughts of Spike, and what the Council could be doing to him.

She knew that the scenery was breathtaking, but all she saw was the look in Spike’s eyes as he left the cave. He seemed utterly lost in a sea of guilt.

I have to find him.

She remembered the bruises that were all over his body after days at the mercy of an insane Hellgod. The sight of them had made it difficult to maintain the false Buffy-bot persona.

The idea that he would endure that kind of torture for her and her sister was mind-blowing. And that was before the soul.

She knew how sadistic the Council could be, and Giles had given her an inkling of what Spike might be going through. Without the soul, Spike might hold up under the strain. But now, with the soul in place, would he be able to hold on, at least until she could find him?

Buffy wasn’t sure he could. Hell, I’m not sure * I * could. But, she hoped he could.

Buffy hurried to catch up with her Watcher, who had somehow gone ahead of her, and was now in the house.

As she walked up the pavestone path, Buffy wondered why the door was shut. What, Giles can’t even wait for me to come up the sidewalk? I mean, I know I pack like a girl, but can’t you hold a door open? I didn’t pack that much.

When, after struggling with her luggage, she managed to open the door on her own, Buffy saw the reason she was ignored.

There, frozen on Giles’s small television screen, was the image of a badly beaten Spike. There was a female voice coming out of the speaker, accompanying the image. A voice she barely remembered. She could hear that voice talking, but couldn’t understand the words.

Her eyes were locked on the battered face that seemed to fill the screen, and she felt her heart drop to her toes, “Oh God,” she hadn’t even realized she had spoken aloud until all the eyes, including the shocked and pleading eyes of her sister, in the room had turned to look at her, “We have to find him,” she whispered.
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06 AUGUST, 2002- SAINT THOMAS’S HOSPITAL- LONDON

Both of her legs were broken in three places, and she had a severe concussion, as well as a deep scalp laceration, but she was alive.

It would take some time to recover and to rehabilitate and learn to walk again, but she would do just that. She was a fighter, and despite Quentin Travers’s best efforts, she was alive.

She was alive. She might be down, but not for long. She was going to live another eighty years. She knew it. This was not going to keep her down.

As she lie in her hospital bed, Lydia Chalmers knew that there was one person who did not have much longer to live. And, oddly enough, where she should have felt disgust, instead she felt satisfaction.

It was true that, to the best of her knowledge, William was still caged, but that wouldn’t last forever. The punishment for Quentin Travers’s arrogance however, would be more permanent.
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Spike hated to let the Watcher know how much these little visits affected him. Every time the man appeared, if his heart could have, it would beat so fast it might fly from his ribcage from both fear and a sick kind of joy. Fear because, like it or not, the man was starting to break him down. And when that finally did happen, there was no telling what he could be made to do. And joy because even though everything inside him railed against it, he needed the contact from another being- even the likes of a man so evil he rivaled Angelus- to keep from going insane in the lifeless, dark pit he’d been thrown into.

No. I can’t let him know how close I am to… I can’t let him see.

So instead, he smiled a wry smile as he listened to the man’s heart rate increase, “Good show, Watcher,” his head inclined in contemplation as he watched his pupils dilate, “Have you ever taken up poker? Your mates could really clean up,” he smiled and his chains rattled as he took his wrist from its resting place on his knee as he waved the Watcher off. He shook his head, “You nearly had me convinced. Care to give it another try? Because, to be brutally honest, your delivery was a bit…wooden.”

Quentin eyed the vampire as it sat with its back against the cell wall. It seemed genuinely unperturbed by its treatment at his hands. It seemed almost… gleeful, in fact. Even the removal of the fangs, the creature’s very means of survival, had failed to tame its biting tongue, “I’d be very careful if I were you, William,” Quentin said coolly, “Or our next conversation won’t be nearly as pleasant for you.”

The cell rang with brass laughter, “Oh poor old Watcher. Your new toy not as fun as you thought it’d be? The feed and care of your new pet too much responsibility? What’s the matter lad? The pup won’t perform tricks for you?” Spike hoped that an air of contempt would serve as a shield. Because the Watcher could not, would not know how close he was to truly breaking down. The isolation and the pain from little Adolf’s do-it-yourself torture sessions were starting to get to him, and he didn’t know how much more he could take. Oh God…Buffy, I don’t know… “Enough with the kiddie show. When does the main event begin?” And who on earth showed you how to use an acetylene torch properly? “Because I am not at all impressed!”

“Is that what you think I’m trying to do?” Quentin Travers seemed surprised at this notion, “No William,” he said calmly as he walked the short distance to the black bag he had left on the floor of the cell, just out of the vampire’s reach. He reached down into it and brought out the torch once more. He turned slowly, and the vampire drew back, instinctively at the sight of it. Quentin smirked, “that is not what I am trying to do. I don’t need to impress you. I just need to break you, make you remember what you are. Once that’s done, everything will be set right.”

The pop of the gas from the acetylene torch filled the tiny space, and Spike gasped involuntarily at the blue spark that flared briefly. As he tried to ignore the flame that the Watcher was bringing closer to him, he cursed the unnecessary breath that came rapidly in and out of his dead lungs.

The Watcher seemed delighted at his reaction, “Now,” he smiled, “I’ve done research, as I have already said. I could not be head of the Watchers’ Council for thirty years without learning something of the secrets about vampires. I know the fangs will grow back. That can’t be helped. But, if I cauterize the site of the extraction, it will reduce the amount of pain that is being felt now . Of course, if I do that, when the fangs do grow in again, and they will, the pain will be like it was upon awakening,” Quentin frowned, seemingly concerned for Spike’s well-being, “I’m told that that pain is like nothing else. I’m told that it’s something that is remembered, even in the oldest of your kind. I’ve always wondered about that, but…” he shrugged, “I’ve never before had the opportunity to test it- until now.”

Spike watched as the blue flame came closer to him. He felt the hot gas sear his skin, and he screamed.

He knew he’d screamed, but it didn’t help. The pain was so great that it took everything, even his ability to scream.

He felt his sanity slipping away from him, along with his consciousness.

The hiss of gas and the inert chink of metal on concrete were the only sounds in the cell.
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It began as a sliver, then flooded his vision. He was surprised to find that it didn’t hurt. He would have laughed if he’d had the strength.

This is it then. Thought it would hurt more. How could they let me into the light, after all the things I’ve done? There must be some mistake.

I’m dust, and it doesn’t hurt? Either that, or I’m insane.

He began to recognize a shape that came out of the light, and his suspicion was confirmed.

Ah, I am insane. There’s no way she’s here. Not here.

Buffy tried to hold back the tears. Tried to be the Slayer he would need, but he was so beaten and confused, so dazed by Quentin’s torture, that she wasn’t even sure if he knew she was there. His eyes were open, but they were a feverish blue and he wasn’t focusing on her at all.

The purple bruising around his jaw gave the hint that something unthinkable had been done to him. Buffy wasn’t even sure Spike could respond, or even understand her, “Spike,” she said tenderly, trying to avoid looking at the chains that still bound him, “can you hear me? It’s me, Buffy. You’re all right now,” she tried to keep the tremor out of her voice and tried to hold his eyes on hers. She couldn’t allow herself to fall apart- not yet, “You’re all right now. It’ll be all right.”

A rage boiled up in her as she looked at the photos on the corkboard. She had been shocked at Giles’s reaction.

He’d run into the cell, positive that he’d located Spike’s exact cell in the maze of cells beneath the Council’s headquarters; looked around, and the next thing she knew, Giles had pulled a gun, she had no idea from where, and shot Quentin Travers, point-blank, in the back of the head, killing him.

It all happened so fast that she had no time to think. Buffy was aware that Giles was capable of that kind of violence. But she hadn’t seen it in such a long time.

Looking at the photos, Buffy understood.

Yeah, I think I’d kill him too if my picture were up there.

“Spike,” she whispered again, cradling his head in her lap, “you’re safe now.”
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