Next part up! Let me know what you think.

The first thing Wilson was aware of was that he was freezing. The side of his face pressed to the floor felt like it had been coated in ice. Linoleum shouldn't be this cold, he thought muzzily. Satisfied with this analysis, he lay limply in place until the rest of his thoughts slowly crept forward and nudged him towards consciousness. Cold. Head hurt, back hurt, arms hurt. He cautiously opened an eye: it was dark. Ah. Not the hospital.

He curled upwards until he was in what might charitably be called a sitting position, stomach muscles protesting angrily. Moving his hands to prop his weight up a little, he realised they were bound in front of him with rope. Chunky, fraying, heavy-duty stuff knotted messily but with a no-nonsense tightness. It was wrapped around his ankles too. He blinked stupidly at it. Why aren't I panicking yet?

He decided to ride the wave of sleepy detachment and looked round inquisitively. Water was dripping with irritating little plinking sounds from some rusted pipes near the ceiling. Unsanitary, sniped a little voice in his head, and he wondered briefly about what this voice revealed about him given his current situation. Concrete, bricks, something that looked a little like an oil drum, a steel door, a piece of sacking strung up over what might be a window high up the wall. That was it. The room was square and dull and dark. No mouldering skeletons in the corner, no manacles hanging from hooks, no distant screams. He'd been dumped in an abandoned building, maybe a warehouse cellar. Huh. With dopey complacence, he considered lying back down and just sleeping through whatever was happening. Then a rat scurried forward and he let out a small scream and pushed himself backwards frantically until he hit the far wall.

And suddenly he was actually here: adrenaline flooded him, his heart smacked into his ribs and his breathing bounced harshly in his ears, oh shit oh shit oh shit where the hell am I?

He stared, petrified, as the rat sniffed the floor where he had been lying and looked up at him with bright-eyed malevolence.

It's just a rodent. Like Steve, only probably carrying some horrific strain of rabies. Don't panic.

Synapses sparked dully in his head underneath his terror, thoughts colliding clumsily.

Steve. Steve is a rat. Steve is House's rat. House is . . House was . . Not in this room. A new fear, heavier, but without the eye-popping sharpness of the former, slowly seeped into his stomach and burned there. Wilson looked round for some clue of his friend, the awkward slump of House's body on the hospital floor rising out of his memory. He tugged at the bindings on his wrists and felt the skin rubbed raw beneath the coarse rope. Within a minute it hurt enough to make him gasp with each new twist, but it helped to focus his thoughts.

Ok, be calm. Assess. Don't freak out.

Another lance of pain. House wasn't here. Given where 'here' was, that was probably a good thing. He must have been left at the hospital; a nurse would have found him by now. House was ok. Wilson punctuated each stub of a thought with a twist and a gasp. The pattern made him feel perversely calmer.

So, meanwhile, he actually was here. It wasn't . . good, but Spike probably didn't want to add to the criminal charges he was mounting up; maybe - (tug, twist, gasp) - maybe, he was just here as revenge for the punches. He'd be found, or he'd escape, and then go to bed and it would all be over. Denial! sang out another voice from inside his head, but the rest of him wheeled round and mentally screamed at it to shut up. He squeezed his eyes shut and repeated his former conclusion under his breath until he could almost believe it was true. When he opened his eyes, he felt marginally calmer.

God, he was dumb. The door might be open; he could just crawl for help. It lacked a certain something in the dignity department, but he was too busy lacking feeling in his extremities to care. Wilson shuffled forward on his ass and tried not to imagine the expression on the face of whatever poor person he would have to ask for help.

Why on earth had Spike left him in a warehouse? Teach him a lesson? It didn't make sense. He didn't care; he was going to leave, and thus make sure it never mattered. He reached the door, managed to kneel and contemplated dragging himself into a standing position on his bound ankles, when there was a faint click. He froze as panic surged freshly through him.

Not 'left' in a warehouse. 'Kept' in a warehouse.

The door slammed open and smashed him back across the floor. He lay on his back dizzily, only half-aware of the voices that followed the thunderclap of the steel door.

"Look at that, the doc's awake already! How you feeling?"

Deliberate steps, and suddenly Wilson was blinking up at Spike, absurdly tall and unfairly nonchalant as he peered down at the floored doctor. He rolled up and frantically pushed himself back a few paces. Spike snorted and easily closed the distance until he was looking directly down at him. "What you running away for? How unfriendly. Is that a way to reward us for our hospitality?"

Wilson stared at him, speechless. Spike rolled his eyes in exasperation and grabbed Wilson's shirt-front, pulling him up until he hung face-to-face before him, pale and wide-eyed. "What . . . do you want?" Wilson managed to croak out, and some small part of him was grateful that the frantic shrill of horrific possibilities that had been racing through his mind had been dulled to leave it white and empty and filled with air, only capable processing big, simple thoughts like 'How is he so strong?' and 'I wish I could touch the floor'.

Spike grinned and turned his head. "Dru! Come over here, darlin'. Got a treat for you." A strange, lilting voice floated through the dark space beyond the door:

"Can I play with it now?"

Spike turned back and cast him an odd look that was half-taunting, half-jealous. Wilson didn't feel reassured. The hand dropped him and he fell on his ass painfully as a woman drifted into the room and focussed on him in delight.

"Oh, Spike. It's lovely."

Wilson glanced stupidly down at his own torn shirt as he realised the woman was wearing his white lab coat, fondling the sleeves absently as it hung over what looked like a black evening gown. He found his voice, and tried to muster some force into it. "What's going on?"

"All in good time," Spike said coolly. He stretched out an arm to the dawdling woman. Their fingers entwined and he twirled her towards them. Wilson half-raised his bound hands in front of his chest and gazed at them both imploringly, trying to sound calm, rational, use some of those damn persuasive skills House was always mocking him about. Maybe I can get a release and a thank-you if I word it right, he thought desperately.

"Look, I don't know what this is but - but I won't press charges or anything, I don't know who either of you are, so," - he paused as the eyes of the woman, unnervingly managing to be both piercing and vacant, roamed over his face, - "so, whatever this is, . . I won't cause any trouble, I'll just go - "

"And leave us alone after we've grown so close?" smirked Spike. "We got quite intimate back there at the hospital, didn't we doc? Cracked my face open good and proper." Wilson blanched and began to stutter out an apology even as he registered the flawless, unbroken skin he'd been hitting what could only have been a couple of hours ago. "No, no, don't apologise. We were having a scrap: fair's fair."

Spike started circling him casually as Dru giggled and stroked her new coat. Circling, registered Wilson numbly. Like a shark.

Spike bent down suddenly and laid his arm conspiratorially on Wilson's shoulder, and Wilson realised that he had been holding his breath. "If I was really a man to hold a grudge, well - " Spike smiled in a way that made his stomach shrink. "They'd still be looking for the bits next Christmas." He laughed and turned to the woman. "Well, my love?"

She has to help me, prayed Wilson (and he knew he was panicking when the voice in his head started babbling,) she can't be like him, vicious, maybe she's scared of him too, what can she possibly be getting out of this?!

"Oh Spike, he's perfect." She crouched down and looked at him with the fascination of a child with a new plaything, reminding him uncomfortably of that same dangerous edge that led children to hurl their dolls out of the pram or to burn the wings off insects. She reached out to touch him and he recoiled. She didn't look concerned, Wilson realised in a moment of sickly clarity. She looked gleeful, feral. "He's so afraid, look."

Wilson was still himself enough to flush at this commentary and he shouted suddenly, his voice breaking a little on the last words: "Look, what the hell do you want? I'm not playing your games!"

Drusilla hissed like she'd been bitten and stood abruptly and Wilson prayed he hadn't just made the worst, the last mistake of his life. He waited desperately in the tense silence for something to happen. Finally Spike exhaled, and looked at him inquiringly."You're a doctor, right, doc?"

"Y-Yes. . ."

"A good one?"

"I - " he saw impatience gleam in Spike's eyes and spoke more hurriedly, "Yes, I'm good, I'm, I'm the head of Oncology, I'm a good doctor." So don't kill me, he added privately. "Is - do you know someone sick?" he ventured. "I could help - "

"Dru, come here, love." Wilson watched her half-dance back across the room towards him. Well, she's most definitely crazy, he thought flatly. Perfect. They're both psychotic. Spike watched her affectionately and then turned, suddenly serious.

"What about Dru, then? Think she's sick?"

Something in the way he said it made Wilson feel like there was a lot riding on his answer. Like whether or not he'd live through the next ten minutes. He swallowed nervously. "Well . . I mean, I don't - "

Drusilla knelt down again, reaching out, and Wilson steeled himself not to flinch away as her fingers began a slow, threading dance down his cheek. He inhaled sharply at the coldness of her fingers as they slid into the hollow beneath his jaw-line and lay thumping dully against his pulse.

"Well?" Spike's eyes looked threatening.

You mean apart from the fact she's clearly fucking insane?! Words, he realised dimly, were expected of him.

"She - she's very cold, . . . she could have - hypothermia - ?"

There was a terrible silence. Then Spike burst into laughter and swept Drusilla up and away from him.

"Hear that baby? There's nothing wrong with your insides. You passed the first test, doc." Drusilla mewled and curled into his chest.

"That man said my head was all mixed up, Spike - but he was wrong, wasn't he?"

"He was mad." They kissed passionately. Absurdly, Wilson wondered where he should look. "Doc didn't diagnose you with crazy, pet. We'll have to go and tell him the good news."

"Can I tell him, Spike? I'll let you watch . . .".

Wilson felt sick from the tension and uncertainty of it all - he didn't know the right thing to say, or what might be the wrong thing, the thing that might unleash all of their fucking lunacy and anger on him. He'd spent so long around so many people with fear and pain and death on their horizons, people with every reason to go off the rails, but he still felt horribly out of his depth. He watched them as they laughed softly together and wandered back to the door. Wilson didn't know these people; what they wanted or why they were acting this way. They were alien, and they terrified him.

They were leaving. He was torn between relief that the interview seemed to be over, and the desperate urge to shout out, what about me? What are you going to do? Spike stuck his head back over his shoulder as he guided Drusilla out the door.

"You stick around now, doc. We've got a job for you later."

And the door closed. A bolt slid home, and Wilson sank back in a boneless heap onto the floor.

Christ. I have to get out of here.

And then all over again, there was a movement behind him, and a hand pressed over his mouth.