Fall From Grace
Chapter 2
The first thing Buffy noticed when she came to was that she was in a sterile white room, much like the ones from the now-destroyed Initiative headquarters. The only difference was that in the upper right hand corner of this cell, a television was bolted to the wall. A small cot was tucked into the other corner. There was no toilet or sink. Obviously, this room had never been designed for a human.
Spike was nowhere to be seen, which strangely enough, worried her. For all his manly bravado at the time, Buffy could tell that the vampire hadn't been eager to return to the Initiative's compound when they'd gone to rescue Oz, even though Spike had secretly been working for Adam at the time.
She wondered just what it was that they wanted with Spike, anyway. If they were somewhere like the Initiative, or something even more sinister.
A man in a white lab coat approached her cell, clipboard in hand.
"Name?" he inquired, his tone bored. Buffy recognized the man as the same nasal-voiced one that had objected to taking her. She said nothing. "Name?" he repeated again, this time annoyed. The Slayer kept silent. "I won't ask again. We have much more painful ways of finding out this information. Name?"
"Buffy Summers," she relented. She wasn't stupid- during her brief alliance with the Initiative she'd seen the kind of resources they had at their disposal. Things that made demons who hadn't uttered a sound of pain as she'd slain them scream in agony. If these people were anything like the Initiative she figured it was safer to co-operate until there was a chance for escape.
"What am I doing here?" she demanded. The man raised an eyebrow at her.
"It's not you we were after, Miss Summers, but the vampire." He watched her reaction carefully. "You don't seem too surprised to learn that your friend is a vampire,"
"He's not my friend!" Buffy protested. He's more than that, the little voice in the back of her mind whispered, but she promptly ignored it.
The man stood there for a few minutes, observing and occasionally writing something down on the clipboard. Then, just as suddenly as he'd arrived, he turned and left. Perhaps an hour or so later (it was hard to tell, as she had no watch) another man arrived, carrying a tray of food. As he deactivated the electronic fence that separated the cell from the hallway, Buffy thought she saw her chance and leapt up, intent on escaping.
Only to collide with the electronic wall and fall to the ground, mildly shocked. Frowning in dismay, she looked up into the face of the man who'd delivered her dinner, who was smirking at her in a superior manner.
"Double shielding," he explained as he reactivated the outer wall, and then deactivated the inner one, giving Buffy access to the food they'd oh-so-generously provided her. "If I were you, I'd behave. The intent never was to capture you, only the vampire, but we couldn't let you tell others about our existence either. Co-operate, and you will be treated well. Don't co-operate, and we can make your time here a living hell. Good day, Miss Summers."
Buffy stared glumly at the meal in front of her. Some non-descript meat, limp vegetables, and one of those plastic cups of juice. Stabbing a string bean on her fork she eyed it warily before taking a hesitant bite. It tasted normal, so she assumed it wasn't drugged. Even if it was, it wasn't like she had much of a choice anyway. The way things looked, she could eat what was given or she could starve, that much was clear. So she ate the rest of the meal, the tastelessness reminding her of hospital food.
There was a routine, she would quickly learn. Every morning (at least, she assumed it was morning- there was no accurate way to tell the passage of time) she was awakened as someone delivered her breakfast. After breakfast, she was taken by two armed guards, both female, to a washroom, where she was permitted to use the toilet and take a quick shower. A few hours would pass, during which someone would come in and ask her questions about her history with Spike. She tried to be as vague and misleading as she could without coming off as being dishonest with her captors. They didn't seem to be aware that she was the Slayer, and frankly Buffy wished to keep it that way. Also, for some reason she felt the urge to do all she could to protect Spike from these people. After the interrogation- "information gathering" as they called it- session was over, lunch was delivered. Then she was left alone for a few hours, then finally dinner was delivered, after which she was expected to go to sleep.
After three days of this she got up the courage to ask for something to occupy the long boring hours she spent alone. Her request was met with only silence on the part of her captors.
* * *
Spike's fate, meanwhile, was somewhat worse than the Slayer's. Immediately upon his arrival, Spike was placed in a sterile, harshly lit room that was empty save for a steel operating table in the centre. The men who'd captured him strapped him down on the table and then left the room.
Spike's initial struggles proved fruitless- the straps held firm. Obviously, whoever had kidnapped him had done their homework, as had the straps been designed with a normal human in mind, a vampire could easily have broken free.
The vampire took a calming breath in an effort not to panic. This whole place was eerily reminiscent of the Initiative, and his memories of that place were mostly of poking, and prodding, and a certain operation that had rather forcefully catapulted him out of the unlife he had been enjoying for the past century.
At some point, a human in a white lab coat came into the room and injected a needle filled with a sedative into the vampire's arm. Watching in satisfaction as the vampire drifted into unconsciousness, the man nodded to someone on the other side of the observation window.
When he eventually came to, Spike felt groggy and weak. During the time he'd been unconscious, someone had removed the black t-shirt and jeans he'd been wearing and dressed him in hospital scrubs. Turning his head as much as the restraints would allow, he saw a needle with a long plastic tube attached to it was stuck in his arm. At first, he wondered why whoever had captured him was giving him blood this way, but then he realised that the IV wasn't putting blood in to his body, but rather taking it out. He watched with a kind of morbid fascination as the red liquid flowed slowly into the plastic bag that hung by his head.
He remembered the first time he'd come to the Watcher's for help, and how he'd told him about what happens to vampires that have no blood left. He'd seen an emaciated vampire once, all skin and bones. Dru had found him in a cave, nearly comatose. She'd wanted to take him home and nurse him back to health, but Spike had broken off a branch from a nearby tree and simply staked him. His Princess had pouted at him for days for that.
Spike's mind snapped back to the present as the man who'd been there when Spike was first brought in to the room returned. He disconnected the IV after it finished draining the blood and nodded in satisfaction.
"Doctor Walsh," the man said, pressing the intercom button on the wall, "the patient is ready for you."