Xander first became aware of the world around him through the jackhammer running through his head. Were they working on the road in front of his apartment building? Was it even daytime? He couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours. How much had he drunk the night before? He couldn’t remember drinking anything, but he felt like he’d drunk an entire brewery and then sent out for more. He’s head felt very large. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth. He’d never had such a bad case of cottonmouth before. His eyelids were way too heavy to even contemplate opening.
‘Huh’ Xander thought to himself. The jackhammer had too much of a rhythm to it to be a jackhammer. Sounded like it might be his heartbeat. His very loud and very fast heartbeat. Pounding in his skull, making him wince with every beat it put out. He was wishing now for nothing more than his heart to just stop. Even if that meant he would just stop, he didn’t care. At least his head would stop hurting. That would be something to be thankful to Death for.
“Is he awake?”
“I dunno. ‘is ‘eart’s beatin’ too fast ta tell.”
Xander could hear the voices, muffled though they were. They sounded a bit frantic, a bit worried. ‘Wonder who they’re worried about?’ Xander thought to himself. The voices sounded familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. He couldn’t get his disjointed thoughts to come together enough to form coherent sentences for any length of time.
He’d get flashes of white rooms, dirty pavement, cemeteries, people’s faces and voices. Nothing stayed long enough to make sense. He couldn’t get any of the pieces to fit together, and the ones that did didn’t make any sense. The more he tried to think about what had happened, the more the pain in his head increased and the faster his heart would beat.
“We need to get him and get out of here. The shields I put up to make us all invisible isn’t going to last much longer, and they are bound to notice he’s not in there sooner or later.”
Xander knew that voice, but the only thing his mind would supply him with was a red Weeping Willow tree. Red. Willow. He knew those two words meant something and struggled to wrap his mind around it.
Willow. Will. Wills. Willow! Willow was here, wherever here was. She was going to help him. She was going to make everything ok again. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he knew something had to be wrong. She sounded so worried, and he couldn’t get his body to cooperate so he could go help her. Which, his mind told him, must mean he was the one she was worried about.
He had to get up. Obviously something bad was going down. Now was not the time to be lazing around. He had to get up and get into the fight. Help the Buffster get rid of the latest Big Bad, other than Spike, he was in the safe spot for now. What, with the chip and all. Nice little thing the Initiative did there. If it hadn’t been for the complete disregard for the natural order of things, and their complete and total disbelief in the things they tried to capture, kill, and dissect.
A flash of memory suddenly infiltrated the pain that was hazing around in Xander’s brain, adding a fresh wave of pain to his already overtaxed mind. Xander withered and whimpered against the onslaught of new pain. Agony searing through his head and spreading out in a wave over his body and he remembered.
Xander walked down the street, singing quietly in his head. Patrol had gone well. Several vamps had been dusted. Three various types of demons trying to munch on the populous had been dispatched. He’d even managed to help in the killing of said demons in a non-bait type way. He was extremely proud of himself. And all of this without tasting of masonry or a sprain. Granted, he’d shot at the demons from a safe, out of reach distance. But it’d been those flying arrows that had helped keep them busy while the Slayer slayed. All in all, it had a been a good night.
Now he just had to go home, feed the blond menace who was currently residing with him, again, and get to bed. He had work to go to early the next morning. And for once that thought didn’t fill him with dread. He actually liked getting up to go to work. He enjoyed his job. He liked his co-workers. The pay was excellent. “And by Golly, I’ve had this job going on a year, and I still haven’t fucked it up.”
Xander continued on his way, following the winding street up to his apartment building, singing an oldies song in his head, and being abnormally introspective. This was the reason he was taken by surprise when he was ambushed. He never even heard them coming, which was strange, since he’d grown used to hearing things coming at him that didn’t even make a sound.
“What the…!” Xander yelled as he was tackled from behind. He fell forward, right into someone else’s arms. Immediately he began to struggle, but he was caught in a bear hug from in front and behind him. “Let go of me! Spike! Help, Spike!” Xander screamed. He couldn’t shake off his attackers, but he knew he was only a few yards from his apartment building, so there was always the chance Spike would be able to hear him. He wasn’t sure what the blonde vamp could do though. He could tell in the fighting and heartbeats, and breaths he heard that his attackers were human. He could tell that his attackers were also very combat oriented, if the camouflage were any clue.
“Shut him up and grab his arm!” One of the men growled, attempting to stuff a gag in Xander’s mouth as another tried to hold him still.
“SPIKE! SOMEONE!” Xander yelled before the gag was forced into his mouth, cutting his lips on his teeth as his pleas for help were silence.
Xander grunted against the gag as his arm was wrestled away from him. He resisted with all he had in him, but two men holding him and two more straightening his arm were worse odds than he could fight against. His arm finally straightened, they pulled it up and slightly behind Xander, so he was slightly bent over and had no control of the limb.
Xander’s eyes widened when he saw the needle one of the men was pulling out. His struggles intensified as he tried to break free. He felt tears stinging his eyes as the needle was inserted brutally into the skin of his bared arm. The tears did fall as he started to feel dizzy and faint, all of the strength leaving his body as the anonymous drug took over his bloodstream.
Paralyzed by the drug, and consciousness quickly fading from him, Xander nearly bit through the gag in his mouth when he saw a bleached blond, duster clad figure come bursting from the front doors of the apartment building in his eye site. ‘Spike is on his way. Spike’s going to get me out of this, whatever it is I’ve gotten myself into.’ Xander thought with relief.
“Xander! Let go ‘a him ya bloody gits!” Spike shouted, running towards them.
Xander felt his heart stop in his chest as the same man that had injected him, turned, and cleanly fired a taser at Spike, incapacitating the vampire where he was in the middle of the side walk. As Spike fell, so did Xander’s hope of rescue. There was no one else to hear him. No one else to save him.
‘I hope Spike wakes up before the sun does.’ Was Xander’s last conscious thought before everything went black.
~*~
Willow fidgeted anxiously next to Spike. He knew that she was worried, he could completely sympathize with that. But her incessant babbling and shifting about was driving him even more insane. He needed to concentrate and he couldn’t do it with her moving about as she was.
They had only been in the compound for fifteen minutes, but he knew that any second, they were bound to realize that their screens were showing an empty cell, where Xander should be. The spell Red had spun would make them invisible for an hour. Invisible to cameras, microphones, and motion detectors, but not to real, live soldiers.
Add to the pressure of hoping their little diversion kept all of the soldiers busy until they could make their escape, Xander was laying in his cell, completely unresponsive to them. On the other side of the glass partition, Spike could see Xander lying there, his heart beat accelerating.
Spike thought he’d lose it when Xander started to whimper, his heart rate doubling from its already fast pace. Spike and Willow could only watch as the man they had come to save withered on the floor, in what looked like excruciating pain.
Spike didn’t know what was going on, but he was positive that he was going to kill the guys when they got back. The little gadget they had given to him to break the magnetic locks, wasn’t working. Time was running short, something was happening to Xander. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he was sure it couldn’t be good.
“Sod it all!” Spike hissed, vamping out under the pressure. “Why isn’t this blasted thing working?! They said it was guaranteed to work!”
“Just, I don’t know. Wiggle it around a little in the lock. We haven’t got much time Spike, so hurry up.” Willow said, glancing down at where Spike was kneeling down on the ground, eye level with the lock.
“That’s all you’ve got for me? ‘Wiggle it around.’” Spike growled. He knew it wasn’t her fault, and he could see the worry and nervousness in her eyes, so he couldn’t even blame her for the idiotic advice.
Sighing, Spike wiggled the stupid device. It couldn’t hurt, right? It already wasn’t working. He nearly passed out and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head when the little light turned from red to green and the glass partition swooshed open.
“Told you.” Willow said offhandedly, rushing forwards.
Spike was right on her heels. He slid to a stop on the floor next to where Xander lay, whimpering. Spike could tell the boy was actually awake. His scent was different than when he was asleep. He could also tell that he was in a lot of pain, but that it was slowly ebbing away.
Spike wanted to sit on that floor and just hold Xander until the fear, and the pain went away. Until Xander opened his eyes and looked at him, making a lame joke. The same lame jokes Spike would have never thought he’d miss, but had. Tremendously. They didn’t have time for comfort though. They didn’t have time for the small necessities of life at all these days.
Quickly, Spike scooped the tall boy into his arms. He was bombarded with the feeling of how heavy Xander was. Or maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t heavy at all. Even to vampiric strength, picking Xander up, before everything had fallen apart, would have been a little straining. Now, it was like lifting a paperweight. Spike put it down to the fact that he was fed regularly now, and had more of a chance to work out, but he knew that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t going to dwell on it now though.
“Is…is he alright?” Willow asked, hovering protectively around the pair, looking worriedly at Xander’s sweat soaked face.
“Would anyone be alright if they’d been in here, Red?” Spike nearly spat. He knew Willow wouldn’t take it personally.
“I suppose not. So why don’t we get him, and ourselves out of here?” Willow said, resolve masking over her face as she moved to the door.
Spike smirked. He’d hate it if one of the soldier gits got in her way now. Well, actually he’d love it. She’d tear them from limb to limb. They’d hurt her ‘brother’. They were all going to pay.
Spike followed closely behind Willow as they quickly made their way back down the hallway they’d come out of.
~*~
Getting out of the compound was the easy part, it was getting back to the safe house that was dangerous. The streets were overrun with demons of varying degrees. Some benevolent, and some down right evil. Given another situation, Spike would have reveled in the current state of Sunnydale, but the situation wasn’t one he would have liked five years ago, and he wasn’t the same vampire he was five years ago. Sure he still loved murder and mayhem, but he knew these people. He knew this town. He knew that he didn’t want it destroyed at the hands of demons, who would destroy it just to say they could.
Spike knew that at the shop on the corner, old Mrs. Blakley made fresh fudge cakes every evening to freeze for the following business day. She would always give one to Spike as he passed, on his way to a Scooby meeting.
And Jack, who owned the shoe store down the street, would always call him every other Monday, just after sunset, to let him know that the weeks shipment had come in. He set aside Spike’s size Doc Martin’s in just the right color.
The movie store a few streets over was one of his favorites. They would call as soon as they got the new releases, and he and Xander would get first pick of the videos as soon as the Scooby meetings were over. They’d spent many a nights watching discount new releases the night before they were put on the shelf.
Of course, this was all before everything went to hell. This was before everyone knew what went bump in the night. Before the town died at sunset. Before Xander had gone missing, and Buffy…
That’s how it was now. There was Now, and there was Before. Before was better. Before, everything was ok. Before, Spike had something he’d never had in his life, no matter how dysfunctional it was. Before, he’d had a family, friends, people he could grudgingly say he cared about.
Now, many of them were gone. Only a few people remained to fight the good fight. Spike was proud to say he was one of those. Now, the streets were littered with denizens, and carrion feeders. Parasitic monsters, of which he was a member in species only. Now, he was proud to say he had something they didn’t have. He didn’t care whether anyone believed it was possible or not. He knew it had to be true, with or without a spell, he had a soul. But the soulless were the ones running the town Now.
Taking side streets and the occasional sewer tunnel, Willow and Spike made it back to the safe house relatively quickly. They were met at the door by two lookouts. Shouts were raised when the guards yelled that they were back, but the celebration quickly died when they saw that not all was well yet. The atmosphere turned tense quickly as they waited for news on one of their own, despite the fact that they didn’t even know the young man yet.
“Giles!” Willow yelled, practically running down the stairs in front of Spike.
“Willow. I hadn’t realized you were back. Why didn’t you send word down? How is Xander? Is he with you?” Giles fired questions off quickly, his stuffy librarian masque dropped. It had been dropped since the world went to hell in the Hellmouth.
“I think ya better come have a look yerself.” Spike said, walking down the stairwell more sedately than Willow had. The precious cargo he carried in his arms hung limply.
“Dear lord.” Giles breathed rushing over to them. Quickly, Spike was relieved of his burden. He felt more than heard, Giles’ sharp intake of breath when the ex-watcher realized how light the man was.
“Is he ok Giles?” Willow asked, flitting about around them.
“I don’t know. What did they do to him?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, mate.” Spike said, watching closely as Giles laid Xander out on the cot in the makeshift library.
Giles made short work of looking over his long missing charge. He coolly and professionally catalogued everything he found. Sighing, he removed is glasses and sat back on his heels when his impromptu examination was over.
“Well?” Willow asked nervously.
“There….are some scars that I don’t remember being there before.” Giles said. There was the word again. Before. “Some bruises, some cuts. Track marks that look relatively fresh on his arms. Looks to be surgical incisions in various places.” Placing his glasses back on his face, Giles turned to the anxious duo. “We’ll just have to see if he wakes up any time soon. That’s all that’s left to do now. Why don’t you two get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow looks to be longer.”
Spike and Willow walked back up the stairs, as dejected as their comrades. Both knew that sleep would not be coming quickly that night.