Xander had woken up some time on that second day, but he was in a sort of stupor all week.  Occasionally the door would open and a carrier bag was thrown in with some food - bits of bread, some cheese, a couple of small bottles of water - but no one else came to see them until the third day, when Drusilla came back, this time with Angel in her wake.

            “Oh, good, she brought her puppy,” Spike said.  He noticed Anya curling herself up smaller and wondered what Angel had done to her.  They’d not spoken much since Drusilla’s last visit.  Spike had tried to sleep, to rest his body which ached and throbbed all over.  He’d heard Anya crying quietly sometimes in the dark, and he knew she wouldn’t want to talk to him about it.

            “Shut up, Spike,” Angel kicked at him, landing a steel-toed boot in Spike’s ribs.  Spike winced, but it was more of a reflex action than anything else.  One more pain hardly registered.

            Angel walked over to Xander and poked him in the ribs.  Xander’s eyes fluttered open, but he made little reaction.

            “It’s you lucky day,” Angel said, reaching up and unlocking each of Xander’s chains from the wall.  Xander fell to the ground, Anya crying out as he did.  Xander reached out to her, his arms stiff, but Angel trod on his fingers.  Spike heard a snap and knew Xander’s fingers were broken.

            Then Drusilla came over to him and hauled him half upright.  “Spike has got some clothes to wear,” she said, looking down at the shawl that Spike had made into a sort of loincloth.  “Shall we make a pretty picture of him?”

            He could hardly believe it when she unlocked his chains, dragging on them so he was tugged across the floor.  Angel, still standing on Xander’s hand, took the links, and Spike realised they were only going to put him in Xander’s place.  Chains clinking, Xander was manacled to the floor in Spike’s old spot, where he curled up and cradled his mashed hand, and Angel and Drusilla pulled and pushed Spike up against the wall.  He considered fighting back, but he knew he’d have no chance against them.  He could barely stand as it was - although now he was being forced to.  Arms wide apart, he looked down at himself as Angel and Dru left, closing the heavy door behind them.  Loincloth, chains - he looked like a stained glass window.

            “Xander?” Anya said in a small voice.  He’d forgotten she was there.  “Xander, can you hear me?  Are you alright?”

            Xander mumbled something that might have been, “I’m okay,” but it was impossible to tell.  He couldn’t speak, he’d lost some teeth and his jaw was hanging loose.

            Spike wondered why they’d stopped trying to get information now.  Surely they’d want to know where Buffy was?  Why he wasn’t with her.  Why had they shot him and let her escape?

            Unless Buffy had shot him.  That had to be the only answer.

            The rest of the week passed in a daze, a stupor, hope fading with every second.  Buffy had shot him, she hated him, and he was going to die in this cellar with two snivelling Yanks.

            Great.

*

            The way Buffy was feeling a gun might have helped her a bit.  She’d got on the train from the airport, but it was a different airport to the one she’d flown into before.  How many did London have?  Getting horribly lost on the Tube was one thing, but late at night with a giant suitcase was another, and Buffy felt like bursting into tears every few seconds.

            Finally she made it to Giles’s street and when he answered his door she threw her arms around him.

            “Giles!  I am so glad to see you!”

            He looked thoroughly confused, but he hugged her back for a bit before asking what the hell she was doing here.

            “I thought you were safe with Riley.”

            “I think Riley thought so too.  He was smothering me, Giles.  Wouldn’t let me out.  Kept talking about selling my ring... I had to get out.”  She brushed past him into the house.  “Seems empty without Xander and Anya.”

            “Yes, and tidier, too.”  Giles took off his glasses and wiped them, surreptitiously dabbing his eyes too.

            “They got home okay?”

            “I assume so, I haven’t heard anything... Buffy, what happened?  We only heard the bones of the story from Riley’s contacts.  Did Spike try to hurt you?”

            Buffy tried to block the memory but it still made her draw in her breath.  “No,” she said, taking a seat on Giles’s worn but deliciously comfortable sofa.  “I didn’t know... Didn’t know anything was wrong until Riley showed up...”

            “Then what happened?”

            Buffy shrugged.  “Then I went away with Riley and his friend stayed behind to - I don’t know.  They said to ‘take care’ of Spike.  Giles, you don’t think they killed him?”

            “Well, if they did, then that’s all he deserves,” Giles said harshly.  “Poor Tara had to be operated on.  She could have died.”

            Buffy closed her eyes.  How had she trusted that man?

            Why did she still want to?

            “Buffy,” Giles said, more quietly this time.  “You look worn out.  You upstairs and get some sleep, and we’ll talk about this in the morning.”

            Buffy was too tired to do anything but agree.

*

            In the morning she awoke with a very clear idea of what she wanted to do, already formed in her head, as if her brain had been working out the details as she slept.  First go and see Tara and find out exactly what had happened at the museum.  Then find out from Giles everything he knew about the Angelus group.  Then put the two together and see if she could work out if Spike was working for them.

            If he was, she’d find him and give him the arse-kicking of a lifetime.

            If he wasn’t - and she truly hoped he wasn’t - she’d find him and try to figure out hat had happened.  Riley had shot Spike - he could be hurt, or worse - Buffy didn’t want to think about that.

            “Okay,” she said to Giles at breakfast.  “Is Tara out of hospital yet?”

            He nodded.  “Willow’s taking care of her.  She’s not back at work yet, or taking classes, she’s still a bit fragile.  But I think she might like to see you.”

            Buffy was glad to hear this.  She wanted to see Tara too, and not just to get information out of her.  She’d grown to like the shy girl and her eager girlfriend since they’d met.  Buffy would liked to have cultivated a friendship with them, but she had more important things to do.

            She found her way to the girls’ room and knocked gently.  Willow opened the door, looking pleased to see Buffy.

            “Giles said you were back.  Are you okay?”

            Buffy nodded for what felt like the millionth time.  “How’s Tara?”

            “Okay.  Still sleepy.  On a lot of meds.”  Willow opened the door and Buffy stepped into the bright room.  Tara was curled up in bed, there being nowhere else for her to sit, a book in her hands.  She looked up and smiled.

            “Buffy!  I’m s-so glad you’re all right.  M-Mr Giles said you’d been kidnapped.”

            “Well, not kidnapped exactly,” Buffy said.  “More of an unwanted vacation.  I used my first outside toilet.”

            The girls exchanged glances.

            “Okay, you didn’t need to know that,” Buffy said.  “Tara, I need to talk to you about Spike.  Riley said you told him the last thing you saw was Spike.”

            Tara nodded.

            “Did he really hit you?  Are you sure it wasn’t-” Buffy couldn’t think of a way to end that without implying that Tara had clonked herself on the head.

            But Tara was shaking her head.  “I d-don’t remember him hitting me,” she said.  “I saw him that afternoon.  He came to ask about - well, about you.  I think he likes you,” she added with a diffident smile.

            No kidding, Buffy thought.  “What did he want to know?”

            Tara frowned.  “About your ring.  Oh good, you still have it.  I told him Riley had given it to you... Where is Riley?  Is he here?”

            “No,” Buffy said.  “He’s - we parted ways.  That relationship is so over.”

            “But what about your relationship with Spike?” Tara asked, her expression saucy.  There was no other word for it.  Just saucy.

            “Tara,” Willow said, “he’s an evil man.  He tried to kill you and he kidnapped Buffy-”

            “Okay first of all,” Buffy said, “he didn’t kidnap anyone.  I wasn’t forced to do anything.  I mean, go anywhere.  And Tara, are you sure it was him who hit you?”

            Tara looked miserable.  “I don’t remember,” she said.  “I don’t remember anything at all after Spike left...”

            “Wait,” Buffy said, at the same time Willow said, “He left?”

            “We talked for a while - the museum was just closing, we were in the Victorian hall - and then he left.  I was there for hours in Mr Giles’s office and then I...” She shrugged helplessly.  “I don’t remember anything else.  Just working on a paper about tea sets.”

            Willow stroked her shoulder reassuringly.  Buffy took a deep breath.

            “Spike left?  If he wanted to hit you then wouldn’t he-”

            “I guess he would,” Tara said.  “Buffy, I’m sorry, I told Riley - but that was the last thing I remembered - I didn’t think-”

            “It’s okay,” Buffy said, although it couldn’t have been further from okay if it had tried.

*

            They turned Giles’s office into a sort of HQ.  Tara had decided she was tired of bed and insisted she came along too.  “After all,” she said, “I need to face my fears some time.  Maybe it’ll help me remember a few things.”

            “You know,” Giles said thoughtfully, “I should have realised when I saw the note.”

            “There was a note?” Buffy asked.

            He looked through his drawers.  “The police took the original, but I made a copy.  Here.”

            ‘We will find her.’  And you thought it was Spike?  He knew exactly where I was!”

            “Yes, well,” Giles polished his glasses nervously.  “I thought that was a decoy.”

            Buffy reached up and cuffed him around the head.  “Just for that you get the job of calling round all the hospitals in Yorkshire-”

            “Do you have any idea how big Yorkshire is?”

            Buffy narrowed her eyes.  “Ask them if Spike has come in.”

            “I don’t even know his last name...”

            “Are gunshot wounds common in North Yorkshire?”

            Giles hesitated.  “Well, it is game season...”

            “Just call them!”

            “I-is there anything I can do?” Tara asked diffidently.

            “Call the police and see if Spike’s car has been found.”

            She reached for a phone.  “Do you know the registration number?  The, uh, licence plate?”

            Buffy stamped her foot.  “No.  Damn.  It was blue,” she said helpfully.

            “What model?”

            “Um,” Buffy had never been good with cars.  And she didn’t recognise any of the British makes.  “It was quite small.”

            “A hatchback?”

            Buffy gave her a hopeful expression.

            “Bigger than Giles’s car?” Willow asked.

            “Smaller.”

            “Supermini,” the girls decided, and Tara started dialling.

            “What do you want me to do?” Willow asked, and Buffy thought about it.

            “You know Xander pretty well, right?”

            Willow nodded.  “Well, we haven’t been in touch since junior high, but yeah, I know him.”

            “Do you have his home phone number?”

            “Yeah, he told me his address when he and Anya left.”

            “I need you to find out if they got home okay.”

            Buffy stood back while they all made calls.  This felt good.  This was doing something.

            She picked up a phone from the bank on Giles’s desk (had he never heard of networking?) and got the number for the airline she’d used to get back to London.

            “Had a Riley Finn booked a flight out of Prague recently?”

            He had not.

            “Can you do me a favour?  If he calls up and asks about my reservation, tell him you’ve never heard of me.  It’s a US government thing,” she added, and the clerk agreed hastily.

            Then she sat down at the computer and went online to find all the other airlines that flew from Prague to London.  There were loads, and she was just writing down phone numbers when Willow tapped her on the arm.

            “Buffy?  I can’t get through to Xander.  His machine keeps picking up and his parents say they haven’t heard from him since before he left.”

            Buffy shoved a phone number at her.  “See if they took the flight okay.”

            But that was bad news too.  “They checked in, but they never got on the plane.  Their luggage is still at Heathrow.”  Willow’s face crumpled.  “They say if it’s not claimed soon, they’ll blow it up.”

            Buffy ran her hands over her face.  So Xander and Anya had disappeared too?  God, this could not be good.

            “Okay, Giles?”  She tapped him on the shoulder, and he covered the mouthpiece of his phone with one hand.  “Anything?”

            “Nothing so far,” he said.  “It’s very hard going, trying to investigate someone whose name you don’t even know.”

            “Try under William,” Buffy said with the ghost of a smile.  “Can you - and Tara, if she’s okay - check out these airlines for me?  I need to know if Riley’s left Prague yet.  The dose I gave him will probably have worn off by now.”

            Giles nodded distractedly.  “Where are you going?”

            “Airport.  I need to know if anyone saw Xander and Anya.”  She paused.  “Do you have any pictures of this Angelus gang?”

            On the Tube on the way to the airport, Willow and Buffy sat looking through the meagre file Giles had given them.  There was a blurry photo of a tall, dark-haired man, as if taken from a CCTV capture.  There was also a file photo of a woman with black hair and evil eyes, along with a police report on suspected arson.  She had been cleared.

            “Drusilla deVille,” Willow read.  “More like Cruella.”

            “And this guy... No name, he’s just known as Angel.  The head of the gang.”

            They peered closer at the picture.  “He’s kinda cute,” Willow said.  2If you like that sort of thing.”

            “Nah, not my type,” Buffy said.

            “Mine either,” Willow said.  “But then I guess you knew that.”

            They got to the airport and found the check-in desks for the airline Xander had booked with.  Buffy showed them a photo of Xander and Anya and asked if they’d been seen.

            “Well, I don’t know,” said the check-in assistant.  “We have thousands of people through here every day, and there are half a dozen shift rotations.”

            “What about this guy?” Buffy showed them the Angel picture.

            “I’m sorry,” the girl said, shaking her head.

            “Can we talk to the staff at the gate?  Can we go through?”

            “You have to be a passenger to go through.  Security regulations,” the girl explained.

            “Can you found out who was on their flight?  It’s really important,” Buffy added desperately.  “They’ve gone missing and we need to find out where they might have been.”

            She sighed and got up from her seat.  “Hold on, I’ll go and check.”

            Buffy and Willow were left waiting there as she disappeared towards the back of the desks, and came back five minutes later with a woman in a suit.

            “Do you have any ID?”

            Buffy blinked.  “ID?”

            “I have my drivers licence,” Willow offered.

            “Official ID.  You’re not with the police?”

            Buffy exchanged a stricken glance with Willow, who immediately began crying.  I’m not that desperate, Buffy thought in annoyance.

            But Willow sniffed, “I just want to find my baby brother!  The police are useless!  I just want to find him, he’s deaf and he has all these problems, his carer’s only young and I want him to be safe, please help us...”

            The woman in the suit looked torn.  Eventually she gave a distracted nod and picked up the phone on the desk.

            “Is Carrie there?  Can you send her back here?  No, it’s not a problem, I just need to talk to her.  Not in trouble, no!  But quickly, please.”

            Buffy and Willow were taken to a room behind the desks and Willow, who was still sobbing authentically, prompted an offer of tea or coffee.  Biscuits?  There was a Starbucks just around the corner...

            They said no and waited politely while the supervisor explained that by luck, she’d found the gate report (Buffy wondered what sort of filing system they had if they needed luck to find a gate report) and the gate agent who had boarded Xander and Anya’s flight was on shift today.

            “But I don’t know if she’ll be able to help you.  We see so many passengers, they rarely stand out...”

            Carrie, who looked as if she’d been up since last night, appeared and took one look at the Angel picture.

            “I saw him.”

            “You’re sure?”  Buffy and Willow looked at each other with excitement.

            “Yeah.  Don’t forget someone as cute as that.”

            “Did he get on the plane?” Buffy asked, hoping he had and they’d be able to trace his name.

            “No.  He was in a hi-vis - I thought he was from baggage or something... Anyway he went over to talk to this couple-” Buffy showed her the photo of Anya and Xander.  “Yeah, that’s them.  They went off down one of the jetbridges to talk.  Figured they were friends of his or something.”

            “Did you see them come back?”

            Carrie frowned.  “I don’t think so.  But then we were busy: people are always complaining about delays.”

            “Can’t imagine why,” Willow muttered.

            “We don’t delay things on purpose,” the supervisor said from her desk, and Willow shrank a little.

            “Where would the jetbridge have led?” Buffy asked.  She’d never been in an airport before she left for this trip to England.

            “Well, down to the tarmac.  Or maybe a plane...” Carrie turned to a computer.  “I think it was Gate Twelve, so the stand would have been... A week ago today?”

            Willow and Buffy nodded.

            “There was a private plane on that stand.  It was going to... Ireland.”

            Jesus, another country?  “Where exactly?” Buffy asked.

            “Galway.”

            “West coast,” the supervisor supplied.

            “Do you fly there?” Buffy asked hopefully.

            “No,” she said, but told them an airline that did.

            Willow thought Buffy was insane for booking a flight there immediately, no luggage or anything.  Just a credit card, passport, and a cell phone she bought in a box at the airport.

            She gave the number to Willow and prayed to the God of Bank Managers not to be struck down for all this spending.  She was only a student, after all.

            “How can you afford this?” Willow asked in amazement.  “Did the US government bring in a new law that you get paid to study now?  ‘Cos I think I might go back...”

            Buffy laughed.  “It helps that I didn’t have to pay for the Prague flights.  Riley paid for the hotel with his credit card,” she explained.  “So I, uh, told Reception to book the flight on the same account...”

            “Buffy, you are so bad,” Willow giggled.

            “Well, he deserved it.”

            “He probably did.”

            “Only probably?  Aren’t you supposed to be all man-hating?”

            Willow smiled.  “No, just woman-loving.”

            They said goodbye and Buffy suddenly felt very alone.  She called Giles on her new phone and asked if there was any information on Spike.  But he hadn’t turned up in any Yorkshire hospitals, and the police hadn’t found any cars that matched even Buffy’s hazy description.  He asked her what she wanted him to do now and Buffy wondered when she’d become the leader.

            When someone started tracking her with the possible intention of killing her.  Oh yeah.

            “Well,” she said, “it would help if I could find out who that private plane belongs to.  And if they hired a car or anything at the other end.”

            “I’m not sure the Angelus group would need to hire a car.  Besides, Angel himself is Irish.  It’s possible he has a home there.”

            “Then it’s possible we could find it.  Giles.  You’re old-school British.  Don’t you have some friends at, I don’t know, Scotland Yard or something?”

            “This is not an Agatha Christie-”

            “Can you find out anything at all?”

            Giles sighed.  “I know someone in the Civil Aviation Authority,” he said.  “I don’t suppose you got the registration number of the plane?”

            Buffy hadn’t, but she got it quickly off Carrie from the airline and text it to Giles.  He replied that he’d tell her what he could.

            For the second time in as many days, Buffy boarded a plane alone and when she landed, looked about her in confusion.  Another airport to try and navigate, another country to figure out.

            She bought a load of Euros on her poor abused credit card and wondered what the hell her mother would say when the bill arrived.

            Like that was her worst problem.

            Keeping her mother fresh in her mind helped Buffy get some perspective.  She missed her family horribly, but she told herself that she’d be going home to them soon.

            Her new phone rang almost as soon as she switched it on.  She answered with a “Hello?” but all she got in reply was a computerised voice telling her, “You have one new message.  Message one...”

            And then Giles came on the line.  “Buffy.  I thought you might like to know.  I’ve managed to find out who owns the plane.  An Angel Services Ltd.  I don’t think I need to tell you the name is not a coincidence.  I got an address also but Buffy, listen, you shouldn’t go off there on your own.  Call the police - the Garda - and tell them what you suspect.”

            Police? Buffy thought.  If they’re as useless over here as they are in America we’ll get nowhere.  They don’t even carry guns, do they?

            She didn’t call Giles, but Willow instead, and the redhead gave her the address.  “I looked on the Internet,” she said, “and it’s only about ten miles outside of Galway.  A taxi should be able to take you there.  It’s out in, uh, Connacht.  Buffy, please be careful.  Giles has already told me not to give you the address.”

            “I’ll be careful,” Buffy promised.  “Super careful.  I promise.  Thanks, Willow.”

            “You can call me Will,” the other girl said shyly, and Buffy smiled.

            “Thanks, Will.”

            She went outside to the taxi rank and got in a car.  It took twenty minutes to get to the address, a lonely house on the edge of a cliff, high above monstrous crashing waves.  Buffy paid the driver and watched him go, the number of the taxi firm and the emergency services at the ready in her mobile.

            She looked at the house, suddenly afraid.  What the hell was she going to find there?

            There was no car outside, and nothing proclaiming Angel Services.  Buffy had the feeling the address was probably just something Angel had put on paper to get his plane registered.  She knew now strict airline security was nowadays.  Even supervillains had to register their aircraft.

            Even so, the house could easily be empty.  Buffy hoped sincerely that it was.  She had nothing to defend herself with.  Not even Mace, which Spike had been right about customs confiscating.

            She crept up to the back window and peeked in.  A kitchen, looking empty, unused.  The next window was a bare room with no furniture in it, but indentations on the carpet from a heavy table.  A dining room.  Then a living room with some cushions on the floor and a TV and VCR.  Buffy glanced at the upstairs windows but they were empty too.  Not even curtains to flutter in the breeze.

            It was starting to get dark, and Buffy wished she’d got a flashlight.  Or a scarf.  The wind up here was really fierce.

            She was just about to go when she spotted a small window at ground level.  A cellar.

            Of course, if she was an evil mastermind, then she might hide out in a cellar.

            Buffy cautiously peered through the filthy window.

            Then without thinking for another second she smashed her elbow at the dining room window, vaulted in and rushed to the kitchen.  There was a door there that opened into a huge larder, and at the back of that was a metal door.  Buffy slammed her weight against it but it wouldn’t open.

            Almost crying with sudden desperation, she looked around.  There was a fire axe by the kitchen door.  She grabbed it and hacked at the wall by the door.  The plaster cracked and crumbled, bits flew in Buffy’s eyes and eventually the wall fell away from the lock.

            Buffy stumbled straight down the concrete steps and tripped over to the body hanging from the wall.

            “Spike!  God, Spike...”

            She threw her arms around him, then recoiled in horror as she realised what a state he was in.  Half naked, covered in bruises that were swollen up in places, his face a mess of purple skin and black crusts of dried blood.

            “Oh, Spike...”

            He raised his head and opened one eye a crack.  “Buffy,” he mumbled, and Buffy started hacking at the chains holding him to the wall.

            He collapsed in her arms and she held him, feeling his spine through his skin, he was so thin, so hurt, poor Spike, they’d kept him here, chained up, left him to die...

            “When you have a moment,” came a voice from behind Buffy, and she looked around in alarm to see Anya huddled in a corner, “a little medical attention might help.”

*

            Later, Buffy wondered how she’d held up so well.  She called the Irish emergency services and got an ambulance to come and take Spike, Anya and Xander to the nearest hospital, then she called Giles to tell him she’d found them, but Angel and Drusilla were nowhere to be seen.  She told the police she’d been looking for Angel Services on business and was horrified to find her friends chained in the basement.  Would she suspect that Angel Services had had a hand in this?  Yes, she would.

            Anya was mostly unharmed, but her body was cut and bruised and her mind fragile.  Xander had broken fingers and his jaw needed wiring, and one of his shoulders had nearly been dislocated by the wall chains.

            Spike had broken ribs and horrific bruising all over his lovely face.  There were what looked like cigarette burns on his chest, and his wrists and ankles, like Anya and Xander’s, had been chafed raw by the manacles.  He’s been shot in the back and the bullet had exited from his side.  Buffy’d looked for an inch of unbroken skin and found one, right behind his left knee.  But that was it.

            She curled herself on a chair by his hospital bed and waited for him to wake up.

*

            Spike opened one eye, confused that he appeared to be lying down.  On a bed.  A soft, clean bed.  He looked fuzzily at himself.  There were wires and tubes across his body, which was heavily bandaged all over.  He could barely lift his hands for all the bandaging on his wrists and his ribcage felt constricted, but considerably less painful than before.

            He turned his head, which hurt a lot, and saw Buffy curled asleep in a horribly uncomfortable-looking chair, her hair and clothes dirty, smudged with his blood.  Her feet were bare and her eyes looked pink around the edges.  She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

            “Hey, Summers,” he said thickly, and Buffy started.

            “Spike.”  She blinked and yawned, stretching like a cat.  Spike admired the movement.  “How do you feel?”

            He considered this.  “Am I on a lot of drugs?”

            “Well, no-”

            “Can I be?”

            She smiled.  “Does it really hurt that much?”

            He sighed.  “Are my ribs broken?”

            “Two of them, yes.”

            “But my face is okay?”

            She laughed.  “You’re so vain!”

            “Hey, my face is my fortune, love.  What about the others?  Did you get them out?  I - I don’t remember...”

            “They’re out.  Xander’s in pretty bad shape, but he’ll be okay.”

            “Anya still trying to play I Spy?”

            “What?”

            “Never mind.”  He closed his eyes.  “What day is it?”

            “Thursday.  It’s been a week.”

            “Where did you go?”

            Buffy sighed.  “Riley took me away.  He convinced me you were evil, that you’d tried to kill Tara, that you were-”

            “That I was what?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Buffy, don’t lie to a man who has two broken ribs.”

            “Or what, you’ll hit me?  Spike, can you even lift your hand?”

            Spike couldn’t, but he lifted a finger in her direction and Buffy found herself laughing.

            “Did you hit Tara?”

            “No!  Why would I do that?  She’s a sweet kid.”

            “She said you were the last person she saw.  What she meant was, several hours before she was attacked.  But no one realised that and Tara was in a kind of bad state so...”

            “Everyone thought I’d had a go at her and was taking you for my next victim.”  Spike opened his eyes.  “Even you?”

            “Well,” Buffy played anxiously with her hair, “you were being pretty brutal with me-”

            “Hey, you know a lot of these bruises came from you, Summers.”

            “I know.  I was in shock.  Riley told me you were trying to hurt me so I believed him and... Well I figured it out, obviously, but for a while there I...”

            Spike was looking at her steadily.

            “What?” Buffy asked nervously.

            “Still think I’m evil?”

            She paused, then shook her head.

            “What clinched it?”

            “The fact that you were chained up like a crucifixion in the cellar of a house belonging to one Liam Donnelly.”

            Spike blinked tiredly at her.

            “Angel,” Buffy explained.  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that?”

            He made a face - at least, Buffy thought it was a face.  Under all that bruising it was hard to tell.

            “I’ve been chained in a cellar for a bloody week, my cognitive functions are not at their best, okay?”

            “You still managed to use the word 'cognitive',” Buffy said, impressed.  “I didn’t even know that word.”

            Spike smiled tiredly.  “They weren’t there, then?”

            “No.  No one was there.  I don't know how long they’d been gone.”

            “A day,” Spike said.  “I think.  Can’t have been much longer or we’d have dehydrated.  You,” he looked up at her with slight awe, “you saved us, Buffy.”

            “Well, really I was just... Okay,” she grinned, “I saved your butt.”  And what a fine butt it was, too.  “And weren’t you supposed to be protecting me?”

            “I’m working on it.”

            “How?  I’m the one who found out what Angel’s real name is.  And found his house.  In a foreign country.”

            “I’m very impressed.”

            “I had a little help from my friends,” Buffy said modestly.  She yawned.  “God, I’m tired.”

            “My heart bleeds for you,” Spike said.  “Possibly literally.”

            Buffy climbed off her chair and went over to his bed.  “I’m sorry,” she said, running her hand over his bruised face.  God, he was still really, really hot, even as wrecked as he looked now.  “So,” she walked her fingers down his bare chest, covered with tubes and bandages, “exactly how fragile are you?”

            Spike caught her eye and the corner of his mouth turned up a little bit.

            “I’m sure a kiss will make me better,” he suggested, and Buffy complied, tasting his cracked lips with her tongue, slipping her hand up to cradle his dishevelled hair, dark roots and white highlights tangling around her fingers.

            Someone cleared her throat in the doorway, and Buffy looked up guiltily to see the ward Sister standing there, clipboard in hand, not looking very amused.

            “He needs rest, Miss Summers,” she said, “not stimulation.”

            Buffy slithered inelegantly away, trying not to look at Spike in case she burst out laughing.

            “I’ll go and see how Anya and Xander are doing,” she said, and the nurse watched her go.

            “Your girlfriend?” she asked Spike.

            “Uh - well, not exactly,” he said.  “She’s my, um... we’re... she’s just Buffy.”

            “Is that a new slang word, now?”

            “What?”

            “Buffy.  Does that mean you think she’s pretty?”