'Oh this road has been hard
On my feet, on my heart,
Led me to the gates of hell:
I know sorrow all too well.'

"I Surrender" ~ Aron Wright

Dreams and their twisted fog hover across the horizon of his mind, something about a candle under a frozen pond. It doesn't melt the ice but ignites it, from shore to shore, fire flickering over the natural ice rink in a blaze of frost.

There's smoke everywhere, up in the trees. A flock of birds flies away as the fireball eats its way through the winter landscape.

Smoke…the smoke doesn't smell right. More like diesel. A gasoline smell.

Wake up. Urgency accelerates his heart. Open your eyes right now.

Is it possible to get barbells or weight training for eyelids? If so, Spike thinks, he's in desperate need of some.

They don't want to open, and his chest has gone from tight to just plain fuzzy.

There's a deadness in his limbs that he refuses to study further. He's breathing through muslin now, just enough oxygen to tease at him and not enough to send blood to his extremities. They prickle faintly.

When Spike finally wrangles his body into cooperation, he opens his eyes…

And can't see a thing. Not even the hand he waves in front of his face.

He blinks but it's still there—a pitch black curtain enveloping the world. But that can't be right…didn't they just go to sleep at sunrise? He remembers waking once already, the coughing fit and realizing where they are.

Amish country.

Spike is so overwrought by that one that he doesn't even give it a second thought. He compartmentalizes it in a box full of other screeching, ghastly things in the back of his mind.

Cold has such an intimate, skin tight grip on him that it's almost like warmth. Heat bursts. Ed's heart still beats away under his ear, much slower than before.

Spike half listens for the crackle of fire in his dream, a much better mental picture than his earlier nightmare, where Tattoo had squeezed at his chest until he asphyxiated to death.

But the only sound is Ed and the dying of an engine—

Spike sits bolt upright.

We slept the rest of the day away—it's night time! We were supposed to be on the move by now!

There's a voice, distant and too close all in one, "Got blood here!"

"Here too!"

Spike wonders how in the world they found a blood trail. Then he glances down at his feet. Though he can't see them, he knows they were bleeding for most of the walk here—hopefully Ed carried him far enough to confuse them when the trail stops.

We've got to get out of here. Looking around, he has a sinking suspicion they didn't get as far away from the factory as they thought they did, especially when Ed lost the road, which they'd been keeping to their left, at dusk. Could they have accidentally circled back?

Either way, they need to be long gone by the time Tattoo finds them. Preferably somewhere with technology or at least a farmer he can flag down for help.

Spike shuffles around to his knees so he's facing Ed. He prods the older man but there's no motion.

"Ed?" He risks it to whisper the name. A slight breeze helps to mask the sound. "You awake?"

Nothing. Ed's eyes are closed. Even through the numb, Spike can feel the skin of Ed's eyelids under his fingertips.

He taps Ed's cheek next, hard as he dares. Ed doesn't even groan. His pulse is too slow, too weak.

"Wake up." Spike trembles, and it's not from the cold. "Please, wake up!"

"You got those flashlights, Rook? Come on!"

Spike glances up and then mentally apologizes to Ed. His hand hovers over Ed's cheek. He can't do it.

You have to.

Spike winces with his eyes clenched shut. Timid, halting, he slaps Ed's cheek.

"I'm so sorry. I promise I'll never do that again," Spike breathes. "Ed?"

Ed might as well be a corpse for how animated he is. A frigid splash of dread crashes over Spike's crown. There's no avoiding the truth, the symptoms they could only run from for so long:

Ed is unconscious, possibly in a coma.

Oh no. No—

"I lost the trail!" Tattoo's voice is still far away but closer than before. "I told you we should have gone with the trackers!"

Spike closes his eyes again, this time panting out the fear and panic, increasing his oxygenation for what he's about to do. For what he has to do.

Just the thought of standing is insurmountable. Spike does so anyway. He falls the first three times, knees giving out with the tight pressure inside his chest and abdomen. There's pain too, but he finds that the lack of oxygen works slightly in his favour that way, in the sense that he can't feel his injuries so keenly.

The fourth time it sticks. Spike sways on his feet for a moment, hands out to either side. His ankles quiver but he steels himself and his trembling eases.

He retrieves the rifle and loops its strap around his own shoulders. The backpack he leaves on Ed, for cushioning.

Here goes nothing.

Spike reaches down and grasps the shoulder of Ed's sweater, where he lies on his back. Spike's feet scrabble in the dirt for a micro second of straining effort. Pulse beats in his neck pause, an arrhythmia of physical exertion and pain, before Ed's dead weight starts to move.

Success!

Spike walks backwards, pulling twice as hard for every inch of ground covered. It's just like weighing day. He's shimmied Greg Parker—and Ed, back when he was desperate to prove himself—across the linoleum floor of the SRU training room many times; this should be a cake run.

"If you can't pull the heaviest member of your team," Holleran always says, "Then you're a liability."

Spike hauls them out of the forest depression and into the more open air of the clearing. It's immediately even colder, with the wind exposed, able to rake its cruel fingers through his hair and clothes.

"I've gotcha," Spike breathes to Ed. "I won't let you get hurt."

Though Spike and Ed are almost the same height, Ed has over thirty pounds on him. All muscle.

It's the same story with Sam and Wordy, whose chests are wider and burlier than Spike's. Spike sometimes looks at his bony body in the locker room mirrors and wonders if it'll ever stop looking like it belongs to a teenager.

He dreads the day Dean bulks up enough to surpass his weight. The boy is already well on his way.

"We never discussed motive," Spike pants out. "The whole reason for this fiesta. I'm thinking human trafficking, but that's a working theory."

He drops his voice an octave to imitate Ed's baritone. "'That's great, Spike. But I knew that ages ago. Keep up.' You probably have it all figured out, knowing your track record."

The night wind increases, potent. Spike's knees buckle at a wonky angle and he just barely catches himself on a tree. The bark is rough, snagging his makeshift bandage and sending a jangle of pain down his arm. Coughing, he tastes blood and spits it out.

Spike feels more alone than before, more even than when they tore Ed from his arms. Ed is right here. But he may never open those eyes again and there's nothing standing between Spike and their abductors.

"They stopped here! I see our food, or what's left of it."

Tattoo and Ponytail's flashlights are visible, little pinpricks of light.

Spike deflates. They're about fifty yards away—exactly how far he's dragged Ed since he woke up.

We're not going to make it.

Squinting, Spike can't tell if either man has a gun so he can justify shooting them. It's too dark anyway; he'd miss before being taken out himself.

The numbing cold is nice if for no other reason than the fact it means he can't feel the gashes and punctures in his feet. Or the wounds on his wind-bitten face.

Blood…wounds…

That's it!

He rushes back to Ed and kneels down, covering him with the leaves until only the man's nose is visible to keep receiving air.

"I'll be right back, Ed."

Spike touches the man's forehead with a bloody hand before concealing that too. He feels suddenly small, a child caught out in the woods alone at night for the first time in this big, cold country with no ocean or Italian language at every corner, lost and looking for Pa.

Spike shakes himself. "I'll lead them far away, don't you worry."

He rips the bandage off his palm and coughs into it, making it oozing and sticky, so saturated it drips onto the ground.

Perfect.

The plan is simple, tested, and true: he'll create a fake blood trail so they'll follow, miles away from Ed. Then, Spike either doubles back or goes for help and returns to his side with the cavalry.

The prospect of being ahead in this game energizes Spike. He wrings out the bandage every ten feet or so. He's sure to make lots of noise on the way.

"I've got blood!"

"You follow that," Tattoo yells, much closer. "I'll bring the van around. They can't have gotten far!"

Ponytail's steps are heavier through the brush. He comes so close it's in stereo. Like a loyal puppy, Spike listens to him follow the blood trail right past Ed's spot and deeper into the trees.

That's it…walk just a little farther…

Ponytail does, swearing up a storm—most of it aimed at his partner—and wrestling with the distinct click-slide of Spike's own service weapon.

Two can play at that game.

Spike whips the rifle around so he's at least holding it in both hands and feels worlds better. In control of what's happening.

And then Ponytail stops.

So does Spike, straining to hear. The flashlight is aimed in his direction for a moment and then swings back.

No…no!

Spike freezes in the dark, trying to hear Ponytail's movements. They're hesitant, confused, and then suddenly very determined.

"I've got him, Saul!"

The van growls to life in reply. The sound of trees cracking under the pressure of the vehicle turns deafening, their clearing swelling with diesel smoke.

"No!" Spike shouts it aloud this time, racing back, hardly aware of the branches tearing at his face. "Stop! Ed!"

Spike bursts through a particularly dense thicket to see Ed being loaded into the van, backed into the trees. He flicks on the rifle scope light, halogen and far too new. After so long in pitch black, his eyes stream.

"Drop him!" Spike's scream is hardly human and he's shaking again.

Ponytail whirls around, gun lowered. He smirks at Spike. "Well look here: he's still alive! Can you believe it?"

Tattoo scowls. "Grab him, Delancy."

"Do we really still need him?" Ponytail—Delancy—argues. "He's dead soon anyway."

"The officer's a liability, I suppose." Tattoo reaches behind him. "Just like you."

Spike's adrenaline goes through the roof. "Don't—!"

Tattoo whips out the Sig.

Spike's vision spins in an array of neon colours. He fires off a shot anyway.

Tattoo drops to one knee, but not before he shoots Delancy straight through the head. He clutches at his shoulder, a rose blossom unfurling upon it from Spike's bullet.

It's not shocking, not after being at this job so long. But Spike is already at his wit's end, vision greying out, and he can only stare at the dead body beside his feet.

By the time he resurfaces, the van is driving away. Spike screams again, feral. It's loud enough to be heard even over the volley he sprays at the van tires. One hits, but Tattoo—and Ed—are long gone by the time Spike falls against a nearby oak.

He spits out a clot of blood and feels his nose streaming, the tang of it floating between his teeth. Spike wheezes with the breathless emptiness of an old man.

"Spike?"

His weapon is back up in a heartbeat. He hisses a defeated, wild snarl and glares ahead.

If he's about to murdered out here in back country US woods, already dying from who-knows-what raging through his immune system, not a friend in sight, he'll do so standing up. On his terms and with dignity.

Death is no less than he deserves anyway.

"Spike! Guys, it's Spike!"

Spike's eyes are huge. He fights the shake in his hands to aim the barrel at a smaller profile inching closer. The rifle light slides around until it finds a head of brunette hair.

"Stay back!" Spike barks. His finger rests on the trigger.

"Okay." The man raises his hands. His eyes are wide too. "Okay, I'm…I'm standing right here and I won't move. Sound good?"

Spike doesn't reply. He wants to take one hand off the weapon to rub at his bucking chest but he also doesn't fancy getting shot. Who knows how many concealed firearms this man has?

"You look like a set extra off a slasher film. Wanna tell me what you're seeing right now, Spike?"

Spike isn't seeing much of anything. That's the problem. His vision hazes in and out, jitters assaulting every inch of his spine. Hairs are straight up on his arms.

"We don't want to do anything rash, huh?" The voice is soothing, if blocky and a touch nervous. "Just you and me, man. There's no rush."

The sound of running footfalls up the road makes Spike jump. There's also the approach of a siren, at a great distance away. Coming closer.

The tone turns dry. "Or not."

All at once, the number of people doubles, triples, quadruples. Spike presses himself into the tree, breaths coming faster now that he's cornered. It's all blurring together.

"Spike!"

"I can't believe it!"

"Don't press him back any more. He's spooked. Give him some room."

"The ambulances can't get through the brush but Thomas and Ben are here with a cart."

"Excellent. Hartford, get those ambulances to park down the road when they arrive."

"You got it."

"Spike?" The first figure waves to catch his attention. "It's me. I'm—"

"No closer!" Spike bares his teeth for effect. He can't keep upright for much longer. Once he collapses, they'll be able to do whatever they want with him. "I've had enough."

The youth turns to a taller, older man who places a hand on his shoulder. "Why doesn't he recognize me, Dad?"

The older man doesn't answer this. His eyes are narrowed in study, fingers ticking against his leg. He proceeds to do the last thing Spike ever expects:

He crouches down.

It seems to be an effort for him too. Hands help take the weight off and hold him up, a wobbling leg on the ground while he rests his arms on the other, stable knee and a metal cane. The whole effect is that he's small, much too small to be an immediate threat.

Spike's eyes dart around. His breathing speeds up in gawky polyrhythms. Is this a new trick?

Stars race around his head, a ringing in his ears, and he vaguely notes that his fingers on the rifle are blue around the nailbed.

He starts to aim at the older man instead…but something stops him. Pure instinct.

He physically, deep in his soul, cannot point a weapon at this man. Spike settles for keeping it in the general direction of a small crowd huddling in the dark. A horse appears in negative relief against all the flashlights.

The older man must be watching him, for his head doesn't move.

Giving in to the urge and feeling vulnerable, Spike snaps one hand off the rifle to wipe some of the blood away from his nostrils. It unglues the insides so he can get a few more millimeters of air.

"Figlio?"

Spike blinks. The crowd hushes at unfamiliar sounds, language inflections, from a familiar voice.

The man says it again, lower. He sounds like he might be crying. "Ti sei perso qui, figlio? Huh?"

There were times, back in the earliest of police days, when Spike would balk at firing a gun. The finality and violence of it. Something inside him flipped just to prevent it, a fail safe. It wouldn't allow him to be offensive to such an ugly degree.

He outgrew it, of course. Learned to dull the feeling and pull the trigger when needed to save lives. Qualification exams went well, at least where the gun range was concerned. So well that no one had any idea of his inner turmoil.

Now, Spike's hands shake around the gun and he feels like that gangly seventeen year old again.

This has to be another dream. He hasn't woken yet. Maybe he's unconscious like Ed.

"Ti senti male?"

Spike hesitates. There's no way this is real, the prospect of him, of them, being all the way here. If this is fake, if he's hallucinating it…

He's not sure his battered spirit will recover. The emotional savagery of all this has been just as agonizing as the physical.

"Piccolo?" The man's volume rises in concern when he doesn't get an answer. "Senti dolore?"

Spike's nostrils flare. He nods.

Someone breathes a very loud sigh of relief and a woman next to him mutters, "thank you."

Wait—a woman? There's no woman in Tattoo's crew.

Spike rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palm. It helps, the world coming into focus even while his legs lose feeling. Everything clears.

And there they are.

Another question is directed at him—"Sei stanco?"

Spike's lower lip wobbles only once. He nods again.

He's so tired. The tired is down in his marrow and the tendons cleaving to his bones, one hundred pound bowling balls strapped to every joint with a cool fire. In an aborted motion, Spike drops the rifle. His arms swing, ragdoll style, and his feet roll forward.

It's a lurch, an eleventh hour prayer before the world ends.

Greg still catches him anyway. He stands a split second before Spike moves. The others hoist him to his feet and Greg drops the cane to wrap Spike up in his arms, as much of him as he can reach.

Spike continues to shake…

But he closes his eyes into Greg's jacket, that signature smell of musk and caramel coffee. The sounds, albeit emotional, of his team. His home.

And his knees finally give out.

"Whoa!" cries Sam. He and Jules brace their weight on the descent.

Greg adjusts without a pause, sitting Spike practically in his lap. He rubs up and down Spike's back, hitching breaths puffing across the crimson stained skin. His tears are warm where they fishtail through Spike's hair.

"It's really us and we're not a hallucination." Because Greg always knows exactly what people need to hear. "You're safe now. We've got you."

Jules grabs a quick kiss to Spike's temple where she kneels. Then another one. She's sobbing. "I didn't think we'd find you! Our crazy plan actually worked! You're going to be alright, Spike."

There's a flutter of small, warm fingers over Spike's cheek.

Dean.

Spike reaches up to grasp them, and Dean murmurs something too low to hear. A reassurance, one not really for Spike's benefit at all but his own.

Sam's hands, for his part, are all over him. He pokes and prods at Spike, unzipping the jacket. Spike is a limp patient while Sam sticks two fingers under his jaw and palpitates his stomach. He lists off injuries as he finds them.

It feels too much like Ed's first examination of him in the woods, which sends a sharp pang of longing down his chest. Spike takes his hand out of Dean's to squeeze his fingers into fists.

Sam's touch instantly disappears.

"Hey, easy," Greg rumbles. "It's just Sam. Just Sam, and nobody's here to hurt you. Easy."

"Spike?" Sam asks. He waves a slow hand in front of Spike's eyes. "You with me? Did something I do hurt more?"

Spike coughs into Greg's shirt. He knows he's spraying blood everywhere but he can't bring himself to feel sorry. Someone throws a musty smelling blanket over him and oh that's much better, a scrumptious warmth. There's hay sticking to the wool.

"Spike?" Greg leans back so they can look each other in the eye. "I know you're a little in shock and having trouble breathing. But we need a verbal response, bud."

Spike thinks of Ed, helpless and alone. Because he, Spike, abandoned him.

"Why won't he talk?"

"Is there something wrong with his larynx, Sam? Did you check it?"

Greg ignores the Braddocks' chatter. His eyes cloud with worry. "Spike?"

There's a filthy slime all over Spike's body. Inky and choking. It's appropriate, a teaspoon of the punishment he deserves. He throws the blanket off too for good measure.

An increase of frantic voices fills the clearing.

"Can you talk to me, figlio?"

I'm so sorry. Spike shakes his head.


AN: So, fun story time: the difference in Spike and Ed's weight is yet another headcanon that I thought I made up but then, in rewatching the show - season 1, ep. 6 - they have "weighing day." They practice dragging Greg by order of weight, heaviest to smallest. Guess who's the lightest on their team aside from Jules?

They even call out everyone's weight and Spike is around 165 lb, about twenty five pounds lighter than Ed. Thought that was neat. Justification, baby!