Xander wasn't too sure how he'd gotten here.

He remembered following Buffy and that soldier boy of hers. Watched them both get back safely. Patrolling around town like he always did, checking on Wills and her guy. Everyone home and safe.

Then landing on the roof and something stinging him.

"What the hell?"

Groaning softly he took in his surroundings. The walls and ceiling were blindingly white. The wall in front of his was glass.

And across the hall he could see the curled up form of Spike the vampire.

There was a bad splotch of blood on the back of his head and it looked like he was in pain. And a lot of it.

"Hey, bleach job."

"Sod off, wanker."

"Well at least your personality hasn't changed much. Know where we are?"

"Some place that thinks of things like us as toys to be fucked around with."

That elicited a growl from the feline form.

At least on the upside he'd gotten himself some tough leather pants and a simple shirt. He looked like a dressed cat-man rather than a circus act.

"What did they do to you?"

"Shoved a chip in my head. Made it so I can't feed off of humans. Heard them talk about putting in another, or messing with this. Make it so I have to do what they say."

For as long as he'd known and known about Spike aka William the Bloody, he'd never once heard him sound that dejected or downright scared.

Thinking for a moment he walked to the glass, tapping it with one claw. There was a zap of electricity and a dull tone that told him it was thick.

Not too thick though.

Dropping his voice so that only the vamp could hear he planned.

"Wanna get out of here?"

The blonde turned.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dr. Walsh walked down the bright hallways, looking in on some of the latest acquisitions.

"What's this one?"

"Hostile 25. Caught him on the roof of one of the education buildings. Haven't ID'd it yet. It's been seen flying around, fighting other hostiles or following some students, the Slayer and her group."

"Bloody idiots. Thing's not a demon it's a pet."

Usually Dr. Walsh ignored hostile 17, but the …. Treatments seemed to be working.

"What do you mean?"

"That's a gargoyle. A real one. They protect what they see as theirs. It obviously likes the Slayer, protector likes protector, instinct. They probably got it to wear the clothes and have been rewarding it for helping out."

"Intelligence level?"

"A good cat or well trained dog. Depends on how well it was raised and all that."

As much as it was part of the plan it still rankled to be called stupid. Still Xander pulled up his best confused kitty look, complete with twitching ears, tail flick and a tentative sounding purr.

Dr. Walsh watched the feline creature carefully. It showed no reaction to the vampire's speech, just looked like any confused housecat might.

"Open the door. You guard it. I want to try something."

"Ma'am."

The door to his cell opened and Xander carefully didn't act like a sentient creature trying to escape. He just lifted his ears, looked confused and waited while the doctor and a guard entered. When the guard tried to get closer to him he hissed warningly and backed away a bit, growling softly.

"The guns. It'll know what those are. Might tolerate them, but won't like them near."

"Stand down."

The guard moved back towards the door, looking tense. Xander stopped growling, but didn't get up from his crouch.

The doctor approached, hand out, palm up. For a moment he kept up the 'wary cat' look them slowly arched his neck forward and sniffed her hand. Ugh, absolutely revolting, dead things and demon carcasses. Thankfully that didn't show on his face.

He finally let up on the agitated twitching and perked his ears. She took the signal and rubbed behind one and he let loose a bone rattling purr.

When she grinned and turned towards the door his hand snaked out and touched the glass wall. The electricity jumped from the wall, through him, into the human doctor and from her to the guard.

Xander had underestimated the amount of juice the walls and such could dish out though. The electric eel in his DNA let him absorb it to an extent, but he knew it was coming close to 'freaking stupid' level when his arms and chest started to hurt.

With a roar he let go of all the built up electricity plus his own stores, feeding it back through the system.

Pandemonium broke out as doors opened and soldiers rushed through trying to contain or kill the hostiles. Xander managed to knock out the first wave that made it towards him, but nothing more. The overload was too much and he fell to the floor.

For just a moment he thought that Spike glanced back at him before everything went dark.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike was careful and crafty and he was very, very smart. One did not live a century under the thumb of Angelus and not learn to survive by wits while seeming a dotard.

He had found a place to use, a house, complete with window coverings and furniture and a nicely well-built basement for the things he needed for his flat mate.

The cat had helped him when he hadn't needed to, gotten them all out of that hell pit. And the damned fur ball would have died in there if they'd found him. Now many thought that Spike had no honor, that wasn't true. It just took a lot to get it where it was noticed.

When the cat had shocked that doctor to death, intentional or no, he was grateful because they could never go back in his head and make him their puppet.

Dru's ramblings about a dark kitten were making much more sense now.

Tray in hand he headed for the basement.

The cat had knocked himself out good and proper, used up a rather large amount of energy too. His hands were burnt and hurting, his chest was tight and twitched a bit from muscle stress.

"All right mate, let's get you cleaned up."

The clothes had been removed, the pants stripped off and the shirt cut, leaving the feline flyer naked as a jaybird on the bed the vampire set up. Two tubs of warm water later and the cat was clean, back on the bed with Spike wrapping his hands up.

A bit of a tilt and some maneuvering and warm broth went down the throat easily, never causing a cough or choke. Over a century with a mad sire taught one many things.

His stomach hurt, and he looked at the sleeping cat, the marks at the join of neck and shoulder.

He vamped out and bit down carefully.

There's never be a scar, and he couldn't exactly stay strong on otter blood alone, especially since it was hard to get. Even if it took him longer to heal, at least they'd both be safe in the house with the wards up. That was worth keeping up his strength.

Belly filled comfortably, he let go of the bite and lapped at it to help it heal. The cat slept on, dreams uninterrupted. Good, the bloke needed it. Spike put the things back on the tray and headed upstairs to get his own things in order.

The fact that the cat-creatures blood tasted so good was beside the point.