When Buffy woke up, she was a bit disoriented at first, not sure where she was -- and even after she remembered where she was, she had no idea how late it was, as the apartment was underground, not allowing for even a sliver of sunlight to give her an idea as to the hour of the day.

She knew that it was early evening, however -- because Angel had returned.

He was across the room from her, piling clothing -- mostly black -- and other items into a dark colored suitcase sitting on his table. When she sat up suddenly and silently, blinking sleepily in the stillness of the room, he froze, staring back at her with a calm, quiet sort of expression on his face for a moment, before bending over the suitcase again and putting more things into it.”

“Shoot,” he remarked mildly. “I was hoping not to wake you.”

Buffy’s eyes widened in surprise, as she began to wake up, and she rose from the bed, rushing to his side and reaching out to touch his hand.

“Why? So you’d be two for two?” she asked flatly, her tone not matching the anxious expression in her eyes. “Why’d you let me sleep when you left earlier? Where’d you go?”

“I had stuff to do,” the vampire muttered without looking at her, irritably pulling his hand away from hers and turning away from her to open one of his dresser drawers.

Buffy recoiled slightly, hurt and confused by his reaction. “Angel?” she whispered, not quite daring to do as she wanted, and go around to face him, not with the way he was acting toward her at the moment.

He closed his suitcase, latched it, and then stopped, both hands resting on it, as he sighed heavily, before turning to give her an overly patient smile. “What is it, Buffy?” he asked her calmly.

Buffy just stared at him for a long moment, bewildered, searching his impassive dark eyes for some explanation for his unusual -- and troubling -- behavior. After a moment she shook her head slowly, at a bit of a loss.

“I just -- Angel -- what’s wrong?”

“What makes you think anything is wrong, Buff?” he asked her in that same calm, distant, patronizing voice that set her stomach quivering with a sort of self-conscious uncertainty.

“You -- you’re just acting so -- so strange…”

He just shrugged, lifting the suitcase off the table and setting it on the floor, taking another, smaller one from beneath the table and opening it.

“Angel -- did I -- do something? Are you mad at me?” Buffy asked slowly, still just trying so hard to figure the whole thing out.

The night before had been the best night of her entire life, and all she wanted now was to spend some time in the arms of her lover, cherishing the new closeness that was supposed to exist between them now.

At least -- she thought it was.

She really had no way of knowing, did she?

But -- surely this wasn’t *normal* behavior for a man, after -- after what they had shared?

“No, Buff,” he told her, sighing sympathetically. “I’m not mad. Just -- disappointed.” As he spoke the words, his expression was tired and a little sad, but Buffy thought just for a moment that she saw a brief flash of amusement in his hooded eyes.

It only made the whole thing that much worse, more confusing.

“Disappointed?” she echoed, her voice a whisper full of dread. When he just gave her a sort of sympathetic nod, giving her nothing else to work with, and turned back to his packing, Buffy took an urgent step toward him, swallowing hard as she tried again, “W-why disappointed, Angel?” She hesitated, cringing with humiliation even as she forced out the soft, tentative question.

“Was I -- was I -- not *good*?”

Angel turned toward her then, and this time he was unable to hide the amusement in his voice as he replied with false sincerity, “You were great -- really, Buffy. I thought you were a pro.”

She flinched as if he had slapped her in the face; in truth, she felt as if he had. Stunned, just shaking her head slightly in disbelief, Buffy had no words for what she felt in that moment.

Angel shook his head too, a pitying expression on his face as he turned back to his suitcase.

Buffy’s mind was mostly refusing to process what he had said to her, what it seemed to mean -- because her vulnerable heart just couldn’t take it. This was so terribly, horribly far from what she had hoped to be experiencing right now. It was like the worst nightmare that her insecurities and self-doubts could possibly conjure up, come to life before her.

“I’m -- um -- I’m sorry,“ she stammered flatly, her mind responding automatically, though her heart had not quite caught up with it. “I -- what did…I mean…”

“Oh, Buffy,” Angel cut her off with a little grimace of distaste. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Sweetie. It wasn’t really your fault. You can’t help it if you’re -- inexperienced. Really -- I’d really rather not talk about it. It happened -- okay? I mean, we both probably wish it hadn’t now -- but it happened. So let’s just let it go.”

Buffy had thought she could not be any more shattered, more stunned by his behavior.
She had been wrong.

The most passionate, intense, important night of her entire life -- and he wanted to “just let it go”?

She had given him everything she had to give -- how was she supposed to just let that go?

But Angel’s back was to her again, his posture rigid and unwelcoming, and she knew that he was not willing to discuss it further. And perhaps, judging from his tone, his treatment of her -- perhaps there was nothing to discuss. She felt her eyes welling with tears, as her heart was forced to ask the painful question.

*Is it possible that he really cares for me so little…that he would…would do this?*
She waited, desperate, hoping that maybe he would take it back -- maybe she had imagined it all -- maybe it was all a horrible dream.

But each passing moment only further convinced her that this was the stark, raw, humiliating truth.

There was nothing else she could do in that moment but head for the door; Angel had made it abundantly clear that he did not really want her around at the moment. And in that moment, her shame swelling up like a sickness inside her until she felt hot, flushed with humiliation -- all she wanted was to escape.

She flinched as she opened the door, and heard Angel’s derisive laugh behind her, his taunting words just as the door closed.

“Bye, Buff. I’ll call you!”

It was only after she was halfway down the street, blinded by her tears, that Buffy thought to wonder why Angel had been packing his bags.

*********************************

Spike awoke rather suddenly all at once, over a full twenty-four hours after the soldiers had found him in the church. It was as if his undead body had simply shut down, reserving all its energy to heal his severe, but not permanent, injuries sustained in the fire at the church.

When he awakened, he thought at first that he was dreaming. He was lying on a strange, narrow, uncomfortable bed, in a room that at first appeared to be all white -- not exactly the stuff of reality, in his experience. But as his sensitive eyes began to gradually adjust to the light, Spike realized that the room was not completely white, as he had thought, but simply flooded by a bright overhead light that cast a jarring glare on everything and made it all the more difficult for him to catch his bearings.

Sitting up in the bed and swinging his legs over the side, he took a closer look at his surroundings. The walls, which appeared to be stone, were painted a very light shade of gray, that helped to give the room its white appearance. The room was large, but very sparsely furnished.

Besides the bed, which was against one wall, there was only a small rectangular table at the other end of the room, and two plain wooden chairs that did not appear overly comfortable. On the table was a simple, older model tape recorder, and a yellow legal pad accompanied by a couple of pencils.

As Spike slowly rose to his feet, he became aware of a slight pulling, stinging sensation in the back of his hand, and looked down with surprise to see an IV needle attached to a bag of blood hanging on a stand beside him.

“All right,” he said slowly to himself, frowning pensively as he looked up and around the room again. “Where the bloody hell am I?”

He was relieved to find that his injuries were nearly non-existent by this point. His legs had healed completely, as well as the other injuries the Slayer had managed to inflict during the course of their battle. Strangely, the only one that still felt a bit sore and tender was the spot on the back of his head, presumably where she had hit him with the censer from the altar.

Perhaps something to do with religious relics, he thought with a dismissive shrug.

Right now, he had bigger things to worry about than a single injury that was slow in healing.

Like figuring out where he was, and how he got there.

And where was Dru?

He tried to remember what had happened to her, when he had last seen her, but his memory of anything after the church organ had collapsed on them was still a bit fuzzy. Had it not been, he might have remembered the call Angelus had sent out to his childer; but by this point, the older vampire had Drusilla by his side, and not really interested in what had happened to Spike, had ceased sending out the call.

The last thing that he remembered clearly was grabbing Dru and running when it appeared that the battle was turning in favor of the Slayer…

*The Slayer!*

“Soddin’ bitch,” he muttered under his breath, suddenly feeling much more energetic, as he tore the needle from the back of his hand and stalked away from the bed. “She must have done this to me.”

There was a narrow door along the same wall the bed was against, metal, but painted the same gray color as the walls, with a small window near the top of it. He could see nothing through the window, but that was most likely as much due to the impossible brightness of this room as to anything else. The door could open onto a bright, sunlight outdoor scene, for all he knew.

That thought gave him a moment’s pause, and he stopped in front of the door, inspecting it warily. Suddenly, it seemed strange to him, a bit unsettling -- and then he realized why.

There was no handle -- at least, not on his side of the door.

His eyes narrowed in anger and frustration, as he drew back his fist and slammed it furiously against the metal door, several times, thinking that if it wouldn’t open as a door was *supposed* to open, well, there were always ways of getting around the rules.

Except -- the door didn’t budge.

Not even a dent.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, rolling his eyes as he turned away from the door to survey the rest of the room.

He noticed with a cautious hope that there was another door on the other side of the room, the side with the table and chairs -- and to his eyes, from this distance, it appeared to be a regular old wooden door, the kind that was easily dealt with by a vampire’s strength -- as long as the vampire in question was reasonably careful about splinters.

Of course, a part of his mind realized that it was simply too easy; why would someone take the care to place him in a room with an iron-reinforced door with no handle, only to leave the other, weaker door so carelessly unattended?

*We *are* talking about the bloody *Slayer*, here, mate,* he smirked inwardly. *Not exactly the brightest bulb in the room, is she? Least of all *this* room…*

He had just taken a step toward the unguarded, vulnerable wooden door, when it suddenly opened, and two uniformed humans entered the room, closing it firmly behind them. One was a tall, solid-looking male soldier, his expression one of that blank sternness so common to men used to taking orders that usually involved violence. The other was a much smaller, middle-aged woman, much less physically intimidating -- though there was something about her that made Spike feel a bit uneasy…a certain cold, clinical detachment in her eyes that was far more frightening than any bloodlust he had seen before in any vampire or demon.

It was obvious with a single look that she was the one in charge.

But not for long.

Without taking time for introductions, Spike swiftly moved toward them, more than ready to drain the both of them dry and leave this strange place through the same door they had come in by. His game face came to the forefront with a snarl, as he lunged toward the woman first, aware of the first rule of these sorts of engagements.

*Take out the leader first…makes the others so much easier to cont…*

As he reached the center of the wide room, the thought was jolted from his mind with a sudden, painful shock that felt like fire blazing through his veins, and he was thrown several yards back to the floor by some invisible force. He shook his head, trying to clear it, as he stumbled to his feet in a dazed manner of confusion, staring incredulously at the empty space that had somehow delivered such a powerful electrical current to his body.

His eyes finally returned to the woman in charge, wide and indignant, with just the slightest hint of apprehension beginning in them. “What the bloody hell…?”

“Oh, good,” she said with a quiet, calm smile. “It’s awake.”

“ ‘It’?” he echoed, raising one eyebrow dubiously in her direction as he took a couple angry steps toward her, stopping a few feet shy of the invisible wall that had stopped him before. “ ‘It’ has a name, love, and is standing right here. No need to be so bloody unfriendly, now, is there? Me being your unwilling guest and all? Now what the bloody hell was that? What did it do to me? And what am I doing here? ”

“It’s also rather talkative,” the soldier put in, a slight smirk turning up the edges of his mouth.

It was bloody infuriating.

“It’s an electronic shield that serves as an invisible wall, administering a powerful electric shock to any moving thing that tries to cross it,” the woman answered, in that same calm, clinical voice that Spike was finding more and more unsettling with each passing moment.

When that was all she said, he lowered his head slightly, looking up at her with clear sarcasm in his eyes at the obvious nature of the information she had given him -- nothing that he had not already known.

She shrugged slightly with a small, unpleasant smile. “You asked,” she pointed out.

“Stupid question,” he acknowledged with a sigh. “All right,” he began again, shaking his head in momentary defeat as he looked expectantly between the two of them. “What is this place? What am I doing here?” With another disgusted glance around the room, he sneered with dark amusement, “Should’ve known this wasn’t the Slayer’s doin’ -- all clean and high tech and professional-like. If it was up to her it’d be all with the torture and the agonizing pain before an untimely staking.”

“We may yet get to that.”

He looked sharply up at the woman again at those words and the subtle menace in them, trying to gauge her intent by her mostly unreadable expression.

She just smiled that same cold smile as she added softly, “That will be up to you, vampire.” She gestured with her hand to the soldier, who took a key from his pocket and locked it visibly, before replacing the key in an inside pocket of his uniform jacket and turning to face Spike again.

“Yeah -- up to me as in I plan to be out of here or dust before you get the chance to lay one hand on me,” Spike replied in a low, level voice that was deadly serious, his eyes narrowed and challenging in response to her clear threat.

She shrugged slightly, her hands raised slightly in a gesture that seemed to say, “Give it your best shot,” and then spoke aloud to the soldier at her side, without taking her eyes off Spike and his reaction.

“Agent Finn -- turn off the shield.”