Comment: I can't believe I actually made it this far, and it's all thanks to you. My life has been a constant Spike&Willow-rush for the last couple of days, and it's been such fun!! Thanks for enjoying my story.



Chapter 7


In Willow's dorm there was this girl who had a whole wall of her room literally covered with pictures of her dogs. Mr. Puppy eating, Mr. Puppy sleeping on the couch, Mr. Puppy taking a pee, Mr. Puppy wearing a mexican hat... There were three dogs - at least -, but she called them al Mr. Puppy. The girl even kissed the pictures before she went to bed at night.

They had pictures in there too. Not just a wall, but the four walls of a large room covered with pictures from floor to ceiling. Vampires of all races, all colours, large demons, small demons, green demons, yellow demons, grey demons, demons with ridges, with claws, with four eyes or none. And then there were creatures Willow had never spotted in any of the ancient books, and that Spike had never even heard of.

Reluctantly, Willow stepped closer to the wall on her left. "They have little post-it notes for most of them", she said.

"Read them to me." Spike hadn't moved from his position two steps away from the entrance door.

"Subject 3441, Jonesville, Indiana. Unclassified. 14 days of sleep deprivation. Selfmutilation of both eyes."

"More."

"Spike..."

"I said I want to hear more. Read!"

"Subject 5871, White Plains, Colorado. Tunante Demon. Surgical extirpation of all four hands. No food or sleep deprivation. Cause of death unknown."

"More."

"No."

"I said more!"

"Shshsh, Spike, are you out of your mind? They're gonna hear us! I'm not reading anymore, this is making me sick, and you too."

Spike didn't contradict her. His face was like a stone and the colour of ash. His fists were jammed in his pockets, but Willow could see them contracting convulsively.

"Besides, I'm guessing they have rooms and rooms and rooms, all like this one. This seems to be the general headquarters, I bet they have a picture of every single - creature they have captured all over the States, maybe even all over the world, along with notes about every disgusting thing they did to it. We have to take as many of these as we can to show Buffy and the others that this is not just one madwoman at work. And then we have to clear out their computers and get the hell out of here. Spike? Spike! Are you listening to me?"

"Find me."

"What?"

"There has to be a picture of me. Find it."

Willow stepped closer to him and laid her hand on his arm. "Spike, I'm so sorry." He looked down on her face and there it was: sorrow as clean and pure as he had never seen, tears welling up in her eyes. Spike shook his head, took his hand out of his pockets and laid them on the girl's shoulders.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to be here, I'm sorry you have to see this, and I'm sorry you have to be in this with such a bastard as me. I'll try to pull myself together, ok? It's just - hard for me to be down here."

Willow nodded.

"But I mean it about the picture. Otherwise, Buffy might try to convince us that these people just work for Industrial Light&Magic in their spare time. I am the living proof, you understand?"

"Well..."

"You know I'm right. So, tell you what we'll do: you scan the walls and I go picking off the pictures after you. That way I won't have to look at them too closely. I think it's better that way."

Willow shuddered, but nodded again, her eyes never leaving Spike's face. His eyes seemed to have cleared up, but there were nervous flickers rushing through them, and he was doing this clenching-unclenching thing with his fists again. She turned to the wall again and began looking at the pictures, trying to clear her mind. She wasn't really SEEING all these creatures, tied down, screaming, bleeding, dead or wishing to be, she was just looking for Spike. And when she found him, she could forget all the other faces, dozens of them, hundreds, thousands of them, each going through his or her own personal hell, that had nothing to do with the hell they had all come from. That was another thing she was to learn: there was not just one hell. Man could create an infinite variety of hells, and she was standing before a selection of the very best.

The picture of Spike was not one of the worst. It must have been taken a couple of days before she had found him, because he was standing up and seemed to be alert. That's all he was doing, just standing there, hands hanging limply down his sides, looking straight ahead. The white glaring walls were surrounding him, and he was all alone. Waiting for something to be done with him. Out of options, out of hope. Defeated.

A white, blinding surge of hot fury raged through Willow's body. If she focused all her energy right now, she was sure she could blow up the entire place, she could just WILL it to explode and it would. She drew a ragged, deep breath, and turned towards Spike, in time to see him collapse on the floor, eyes wide open and rolling up in the sockets. "SPIKE!"

His knees were almost touching his chin, he was just one tense ball of muscle and nerve, head banging against the floor. Then he threw up. The floor and Willow's hands, holding his head, were stained in red, but Spike's seizure seemed to be passing. For a minute, he just lay there in Willow's arms, trembling, unable to speak. Willow's heart raced in her breast. She could hear footsteps outside. Oh, they had heard them, they were coming for them, and what would they do to Spike?

The footsteps passed along. Willow turned Spike gently over, so that he came to lay in her lap, face looking up at her. "Spike... you ok?"

He coughed, then rasped: "No, not ok." He paused, and then: "Got angry, did you?"

"Oh God, this was because of me? I did this to you?", she gasped, horrified.

He coughed again, then laid a hand on her cheek. "Well, next time you might try to take a deep breath and count to twothousand backward."

"I'm so sorry, Spike, I had no idea this could happen, I- it's because of the... the bond, is it?"

"Yes."

He didn't like the darkness clouding the girl's eyes, so he spoke again: "It's just because we were in the same room, and I'm not exactly in my best shape. Nothing to worry about, ok? Hey, Willow - ok?"

She nodded, but the darkness didn't leave her eyes.

"Hey, Redhead, got a cancerstick for me?"

Finally, Willow's eyes cleared and she pressed a fist to her mouth to repress a giggle. She knew this was not funny, she was merely inches away from a nervous breakdown. No time for that.

"Spike, can you walk? We need to get out of here."

"Yeah, just give me a second." He rolled over to his knees, and Willow slipped his arm around her shoulders and helped him to stand. He leaned heavily on her for a moment, then straightened up. "I'm fine now, let's go."