Spike woke with a blinding headache; it felt as if he had just tried to sucker punch a nun.

"Christ aw'mighty!" Spike groaned as he rolled over and sat up in the bed he was lying on. Apparently the Watchers had been accommodating enough to give him something nice and soft while he recovered his perception.

"Well, aren't they friendly? All they forgot was the mint on my bleedin' pillow!" Spike muttered as he slowly got up to peruse his surroundings. He heard the central air conditioning kick in overhead as he stood up. It was only when a cool draft from the vent above caressed his body that Spike realized something; he was completely naked.

"Shit!" He yelped, and made a move to cover himself. As he looked around though, Spike become conscious of the fact that he was alone and it was dark; so his hands slowly dropped from where they had been covering his crotch.

"What the fuck is goin' on around here?" Spike shouted to no one in particular. Suddenly, he heard a muffled voice coming from behind one of the walls.

"Spike? Spike is that you?"

Spike narrowed his eyes and looked to the left where he had discerned that the voice was coming from.

"Slayer?" Spike asked cautiously as he slowly made his way over to the wall.

"Spike, thank God you are ok. I saw them zap you."

"Yeah, well other than one hell of a headache, I'm all right....what about you?"

"After they zapped you, they gave you some kind of shot in the arm. Then they zapped me and I woke up here."

"Shot? What kind of shot?"

"You know, like a shot? Of medicine or something, one of those."

"I hardly think it was medicine, love."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do...." Spike was perplexed; why had they even bothered to let him live? Much less shoot him up with weird potions. Were they using him as a guinea pig or some such? Spike felt all the panic of a rat in a maze; he knew the answer was somewhere but he had yet to find the cheese.

Spike leaned up against the wall and let his head thunk against it softly. He looked up suddenly, the partition was very thin and shook when he had hit his head on it.

Should he even try it? Why not, Spike reasoned with himself, what else could they do to him that they hadn't already done?

"Buffy, get away from the wall."

"What are you going to do?

"Just trust me, pet. Back up."

"Ok."

Spike moved back a couple of feet and slammed his fist into the barrier which separated him from Buffy. The thin plaster gave way easily, almost too easily. Putting his eye up to the hole he had just made, Spike's enhanced night vision slowly picked out Buffy's face in the darkness.

"Buffy? You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm ok."

"Stay back. I'm gonna finish off this wall right quick."

After throwing a few more punches at the divider, Spike then took his hands and pulled off chunks of the drywall until he had made a fairly large hole. Climbing through it, he walked into Buffy's room. Looking around, he saw that it was set up pretty much the same as his, accept that it had a toilet in one corner and a small refrigerator next to the door; both were equipped with showers. Buffy had wrapped the sheet from her bed around her body, forming a sort of tunic. Spike, remembering his nakedness, covered himself with both hands.

"Can you, uh, toss me that pillow over there, pet?"

Buffy snickered and grabbed a pillow, handing it to the vampire and wondering if Spike would be blushing if he was human.

"Guess they didn't get the newsflash that Adam and Eve invented clothing."

"Guess not."

Spike backed over to the bed and sat down, keeping his front covered with the pillow. "I wonder what their game is."

Buffy sat down and shrugged. "I don't know, I'm not really sure that I want to know either."

"I hear you there. Ignorance being bliss and all."

Buffy and Spike sat on the bed in silence for a few minutes, each thinking the same things.

"Well, it looks like they aren't going to come and force you back to your room. I don't hear any sirens going off or anything, so I guess we are all right until they come back to do whatever."

Spike nodded and lay back, putting his hands behind his head. Buffy got up off of the bed and went over to inspect the small fridge.

"At least they are feeding me. I'm starved."

Spike sat up. "Better be careful, love. They might have drugged the food or something."

Buffy looked back at him, and then at the fridge. "You know what? At this point I really don't care. There isn't much more that they can do to me that they haven't done yet."

Buffy opened up the icebox and a small light came on, illuminating the room. "If we leave this open at least we will have some light."

She picked up an apple and took a bite. Spike stretched back out on the bed and kept a careful eye on Buffy as she continued to happily rummage through the tiny fridge and munch on her apple.

"Hey Spike! Look at this."

Buffy held up a plastic bag, full of blood. Spike's eyebrows shot up and he got off the bed and went to kneel beside her in front of the fridge. The aroma coming from the bag was overwhelming and he had to fight the urge to rip it from Buffy's hand. He felt so weak and hungry; even more so now that he saw the blood.

"Why did they put blood in your icebox?"

"I don't know. I would think that they would put it in your room."

Spike narrowed his eyes, this was getting stranger and stranger. He glanced over to the broken wall. It was thin, and had broken so easily; the plaster crumbling effortlessly under his hands. No studs, no structure, nothing to really hold it up even. And yet, all the other walls were solid concrete. It didn't make sense; it was almost as if they had anticipated him breaking down the wall between his room and Buffy's. They were playing some kind of game, and so far, Spike had played right into their hands.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this, Buffy. They expected me to break down that wall and come here. Obviously if they put blood for me in your refrigerator. What are they getting at?"

"I don't know. I've kinda given up on figuring out what they are up to. But you aren't---you aren't planning on going back to your room are you?"

Spike looked at Buffy and realized that even if they were doing just what the Watchers wanted, he didn't care; he wasn't about to leave Buffy here in the dark by herself.

"No, love. I'm not goin' anywhere if I can help it."

Buffy smiled. "That's good, cause frankly, I feel better when you're around."

Spike grinned impishly. "Oh yeah? Well, why don't we take advantage of our situation, eh? Have a little fun while we can and all."

Buffy punched him hard on his arm.

"Hey now, it's not right you hittin' me when I can't hit you back!"

Buffy grinned and said. "Well, I guess that you have to use the other weapons at your disposal, huh?"

"Is that a threat, love?" Spike asked, one eyebrow arched up so that it wrinkled his forehead.

Buffy got a seductive gleam in her eye. "No, it's a promise."

*****

Willow felt like she was about to lose her mind. Giles had finally come clean about who it was that the gang was running from after they had discovered that Liam too was missing; and of course after Dawn had found a message scrawled in wet sand behind the house.

It had been two weeks almost since Buffy, Spike, and Liam had disappeared and Willow was getting desperate for an answer to where they were, or what had happened to them. Every spell she had used to locate them had failed miserably; the Watchers probably had some kind of shield spell up. But that wasn't the worst part; Willow had read Buffy's diary.

It started out as idle curiosity when she found it lying on Buffy's nightstand. It was locked of course, but with a chant and a wave of her hand it was open and Willow started to read. It still sickened her. In fact, she had vomited into the small trashcan next to Buffy's bed after she had read it.

Buffy had been in Heaven, and she, Willow had pulled her away from the only peace and happiness Buffy had ever known to calm her own selfish grief and sense of loss. She had been vulnerable without Buffy; like wandering in a dark place and not knowing the way because she had never been there before, never been so truly lost.

Now, Willow felt sick again as she thought about what she was about to do to save Buffy again. But this was different, Buffy wasn't dead, she was in danger. And if she had to sacrifice herself in order to save Buffy... well it was worth it. Willow owed it to her.

Pulling out a small, silvery talisman, Willow recited the spell engraved on the back. There was a bright swirl of colour as Willow found she standing within a circle of hooded figures. Walking towards one of them, she stopped and addressed the shape that was looming before her.

"I want to take you up on that offer...."