I'm back from Barra, but after a five-hour car journey home I'm rather deaded and seem to have lost the ability to type...so...here's the next chapter...Merry Christmas.

Spencer yawned and opened his eyes. Time to get up. It was light, so the others would be training by now...so... He went to get up, and found that his body had no energy. Which made him actually look around him for the first time. He was in a white room, in a white bed...and...was that Tala over there? And Bryan? He looked to his right and saw Ian tucked up in yet another white bed, eyes tightly closed. He tried to move again, and got as far as moving his leg about an inch to the left. Then he felt exhausted again.

"...Tala?" He asked. His voice was a breathless whisper. "Bryan?" Nothing. He lay back, feeling like he'd just gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer. He was just drifting into a doze when the door swung open and the White Tigers walked in, chattering and laughing. They dispersed; Rei going to Tala, Lee to Bryan, Kevin to Ian, and... "Spencer!" He looked up and found Mariah leaning over him looking joyous.

"What...what's going on?" Mariah fussed over his hair for a second before sitting down beside him.

"Do you remember Boris trying to drug you all? Well we found out, and we got Mr. D and the police to come and sort it out. You're in hospital. You've been asleep for...ages..." Spencer looked over at Tala, who was directly across from him.

"What about...the others?"

"Well...Boris wasn't very clever about it all. He gave you all the same dosage of that drug, so you having the biggest body mass you recovered quicker. The doctors have said they should be okay though." Mariah stroked his cheek fondly. "You were all really lucky. When they arrested him, they found out that Boris is...well, he's mad."

"He always has been." Mariah smiled.

"No, I mean seriously. He's clinically insane."

"He always has been." Spencer repeated. Mariah looked at him strangely.

"What do you mean? He's been like that for a long time?" Spencer looked away, suddenly fearful. This whole thing could be something Boris had cooked up to make them say they hated him, and then... "Spencer?"

"Yes?"

"Spencer...you can talk to me..."

"No I can't." Spencer replied automatically, closing his eyes.

"Spencer! What's the matter?" Her footsteps clicked away. "He was talking about Boris and now he won't say anything..." Lee's voice answered.

"He's only just up, Mariah, give him a while before you start asking about things like that. It's obvious that there was something strange going on with Boris before now, none of them are going to want to talk about it. Leave it for someone who knows how to ask without making them scared again."

Scared...yes, Spencer knew what it was like to be scared. Knew what it was like to wake up in the abbey and wish he was someone else, for fear that the day would end with being hurt again. He knew what it was like to hide under your bed at night because Boris was looking for someone to have fun with. He knew what it was like to be beaten until you dropped, then dragged away and experimented on until you felt like you just wanted to die...and that was why...

"Spencer..."

"I can't talk to you!" He whispered.

"Spencer...you're crying..." Mariah sounded so concerned, so pitying...Spencer tried to choke back a sob, then it all overcame him. He burst into tears, howling "Spencer..." A hand touched his cheek, then he found himself pulled into a warm embrace. "Hey, it's okay...just cry, Spencer, it's okay...he can't do anything else to you now...

Spencer knew he was being an idiot, crying like a little girl over someone he didn't even know...but she was -kind-...it was as if she cared...

"I -do- care..." Mariah said gently. It was then that Spencer realised he'd spoken out loud. He cried a little harder, burying his face in the neko-jin's shoulder and slumping against her weakly, cherishing the contact while it was still there. Gradually, his sobs died away and he was left snivelling. "Spencer? Are you...okay?" The Russian shook his head, clutching at Mariah weakly. Then another hand touched his shoulder.

"Spencer Rabinsky?" Spencer sniffed. "I'm Judith. I'm your doctor. Now, let's have a look at you..." He shook his head, but let himself be pulled away from Mariah gently and rested against the fluffed up pillows. "You were really in a rough way when you all got here, it's a good sign that you've woken up!" Spencer looked up into Judith's cheerful round face and felt his lip wobble again. "Hey, don't look like that! I just need to take a blood sample and then you can sit and talk to your girlfriend some more." Judith produced a sealed needle from her pocket and the protest about girlfriends that had been forming on Spencer's lips died.

"No...get away from me!" Spencer lashed out with a desperate hand and knocked the needle away. "Get away from me!" Judith sighed.

"Spencer...I know-"

"You don't know anything!"

"Spencer-"

"NO!"

Mariah watched Spencer starting to panic sadly. His chest was heaving, and his eyes were wide with fear. "You're with him! You all are! Get away from me!" Judith took a noticeable step back, and Spencer started to calm down.

"Now Spencer...we need to take a sample of your blood."

"No...you can't..."

"Spencer...I'm going to send a psychologist up to talk to you in half an hour. When he leaves, I have to take a sample. Your girlfriend can sit with you and everything, but we need to take one. So just think about it, okay? It's just an empty needle, there's nothing in it, so I'm not injecting you with anything. It's just routine, you'll barely even feel it." Spencer shook his head, adamant. "We don't have the option of -not- taking a blood test. If you don't try to co-operate, we'll either have to drug you beforehand or hold you down. You still have traces of the drug in your system, we need to know how much of it there is." Spencer shook his head again, more out of reflex than anything else. Judith simply sighed and left.

"Spencer...I'll hold your hand if you're scared..." Mariah said gently. Spencer swivelled his eyes to look at her, incredulous. Scared? He wasn't scared. It was more than being scared...

"Don't let him hurt me...please..." He begged tearfully. "Please..." His voice was barely a whisper, and his eyes were already filling with tears again. Mariah sat down beside him and took hold of his hand, squeezing it tightly.

"He isn't here, Spencer. He's in an institute."

"He'll get out...you don't know him! You don't know what he's like!"

"Spencer...he can't get out. Mr. Dickensons's seeing to it all."

"He'll get out." Spencer insisted, closing his eyes and sinking back into his pillows. "You can't stop him. No-one can stop him." He was slightly surprised when Mariah snuggled up beside him, laying an arm over his stomach.

"He can't get out. And anyway, he doesn't know you're here and we're all here to protect you. Lee said he would have killed Boris if Mr. Dickenson hadn't come."

"You don't understand...you don't understand or you'd -know-..." And with that Spencer shut his eyes tightly and refused to speak another word.

"Spencer?"

"Don't wake him up! If he's asleep he won't be able to feel it, and that's better for all of us." Spencer heard these voices vaguely, rolling over onto his side. "...Can you just hold the needle for me?" Needle? Oh no...no...they said they weren't on Boris' side...they'd lied...they'd -lied-! With a frightened gasp he scrabbled away, falling off the bed and hitting himself hard on the floor. From there he moved into a crawl, too scared to know where he was going. He had to stop a few metres away, retching and panting. Judith appeared before him and he backed himself up to the wall, terrified. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

"Spencer-"

"YOU LIARS!"

"Spencer-" Mariah suddenly appeared, crouching beside him and touching his shoulder. Spencer grabbed her, hysterical and angry, and started to shake her as violently as he could manage. "You lied! You lied to me! You were on his side all along!" He was barely aware of Judith shouting, and then three people leapt on top of him, pinning him down. He felt something jab into his arm and then started to feel drowsy...and...and...

Lee, Rei and Kevin receded, letting Judith get a look at Spencer. He'd been terrified. She didn't think she'd ever seen anyone so afraid of having needles near them...and the fear he held about Boris was worrying too. It made her wonder exactly what had happened during all those years Spencer had spent in the abbey... Quickly taking a blood sample and hefting Spencer back onto his bed, Judith left the room.

"Where's Bryan?" Everyone in the room suddenly turned to Lee, who was pointing at Bryan's bed. Where the Russian currently wasn't. Lee ran over to the bed, moving aside the duvet, checking behind the curtain, and then-

"Bryan...what are you doing under the bed?" A pair of dull eyes stared at him. "Bryan?"

"Where is he?"

"Who, Spencer?"

"No...-him-...where is he?"

"Boris?" Bryan flinched. "He's been locked up. He isn't here." He held out a hand and Bryan took it slightly doubtfully.

"You helped us..." Lee nodded, giving Bryan a hand out.

"Bryan...why did you go under the bed?" Bryan's eyes darted from side to side.

"...If...if he...if he wants...you have to hide...unless you want...but no-one wants that...but..." Lee lifted Bryan up, sitting him on the bed.

"I'm going to get you a doctor, okay?" Bryan suddenly looked panicked.

"Don't do that!"

"...Why? They're good doctors, they know what they're doing. Look," Lee said placatingly, seeing Bryan's horrified expression. "Let's just sit and talk about what happened for a second, and then we'll see, okay?" He sat down beside the Russian, laying an arm around his shoulders. "So...after we went back to Boris' room, we took you all down to some ambulances. The drug he'd given you...well they're not quite sure what it is yet, but you were all in a pretty bad way. But...he wasn't clever about it, so he gave you all the same dose. Spencer's already come out of...well, it's a coma, really...and now you, and then they think it'll be Tala, and then Ian. But they say you're all going to be fine." Bryan looked slightly nonplussed by the whole thing. Lee weighed up the possibilities and then pulled Bryan in to his arms, holding him close.

"Why did you help us?" Bryan asked softly, pressed up against Lee's chest.

"What do you mean why?"

"What we did...why did you bother when we were so horrible...why didn't you just leave it? He'll kill you all...he'll kill us..."

"Bryan, look, calm down...hey...look, we helped you because you were in trouble." Lee tucked Bryan's head under his chin, stroking the Russian's back as he started to cry. "Shall I go and find a doctor now? They need to know you're awake..."

"No! You can't! You can't...don't trust them...even if they say it won't hurt it does...it does!"

"No...these aren't that kind of doctor...they're not going to put anything into you, they just want to check you're okay. They're good doctors..." Bryan mumbled something into Lee's chest. "What?"

"Oxymoron."

"What's that?"

"Two words. Don't fit together. Doctor's aren't good!"

"These ones are."

"How do you know?" Bryan asked, looking up. "How do you know? I thought everyone at the abbey was nice until...until..." With a sob, Bryan clutched at Lee, as a white-coated doctor came in.

"Bryan Kuznetsov?" Bryan looked up, saw the white coat, and seemed to descend into a mad panic. He made a cracking noise in his throat and then screamed, trying to struggle out of Lee's arms. The neko-jin made the drastic mistake of trying to hold him there. For his pains he received a scratch across his face, a bitten arm, and a screeched torrent of mad Russian in his ear. Bryan made his escape and crawled under the bed again. Everyone could hear him crying and muttering in Russian.

The doctor, a good looking man who looked around thirty, sighed. "A fear of needles, a fear of doctors...I'm beginning to think this abbey wasn't much of an asset to the medical profession...my wife thinks that we should take more samples of blood so we can analyse it- Judith is my wife, of course- but then there's the problem of actually getting the blood out of them without terrorising them...I'm James, by the way..."

James took off his coat, revealing a smart shirt and tie. He put on a pair of glasses and leaned down, peering under the bed. "Bryan? It's okay, the doctor's gone. It's just me, and I'm not going to hurt you." Lee expected Bryan to send James away with a flea in his ear, but Bryan emerged a few seconds later, still shaking and crying. "Right, now let's sit you down and we can talk about everything, okay?" Bryan nodded numbly, sitting down and staring off into the distance.

"Are you sure you aren't a doctor?" He asked suspiciously.

"If I was a doctor, wouldn't I be wearing a coat and carrying a stethoscope?"

"No." Bryan glared at him, then closed his eyes, falling backwards with a flump. "I'm not talking to you about anything."

"Bryan...why won't you talk to me?"

"Because you're with -them-. With the doctors. Even worse if you're a psychologist. I HATE psychologists!"

"Why?" Lee put in, bewildered. Bryan shrugged, still with his eyes shut.

"They tell you things...they make you think things..."

"Those can't have been real psychologists, then." Bryan's eyes snapped open and swivelled onto James, full of hatred.

"You're a -psychologist-!" He spat, as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. "Don't talk to me! I don't want to hear anything you have to say!"

In what Lee deemed a rather facetious gesture, James started to use sign language. Apparently Bryan understood it perfectly, because he made a few rather aggressive gestures back and then crawled under the bed again, dragging the duvet with him. Lee looked at James and blinked. Were the Demolition boys really this messed up? When Spencer had turned on Mariah when confronted with a needle...when Bryan expressed such a violent hatred of psychologists...something had been going on. And it wasn't a good something. It was like a spider web, and now they'd shaken the edges they were starting to find out about the fat, malevolent spider that lived in the middle.

Decisively, Lee got down onto his hands and knees and joined Bryan under the bed. The Russian glared at him, then turned his back. Lee simply laid an arm over his waist, holding him close. After a while, Bryan fell asleep.

R&R, if you would be so kind...