Spike was asleep when Kaylee came for him. He rarely slept in his own bunk, preferring River's quarters, but River had been touchy lately, and he thought it best to kip in his own bunk. Powdered blood always made him slightly lethargic.
The insistent knocking woke him. He sat bolt upright, his hand reaching for a weapon, before he remembered where he was.
"Come in."
Kaylee peered around the edge of the doorframe.
"Spike?"
Spike swung his legs over the edge of his bed, sitting up blearily and running a hand through his unruly curls. He was out of hair gel again.
"What is it, pet?" he asked.
Kaylee was troubled.
"It's River."
Spike was alert and on his feet in an instant, all the fogginess of sleep leaving him. Now that he was awake, his vampire senses could hear the commotion going on somewhere in the ship.
"Where is she?"
"Cargo bay."
Spike snatched up a shirt and pulled it over his head before hurrying after her.
"Simon said not to call you," Kaylee babbled nervously, "but you're the only one who can talk to her lately, and I ain't seen her this bad in a long time."
"You did the right thing, pet," Spike said. As they turned the corner towards the cargo bay, the shouting grew louder. As the metal grating of the stairs widened out into the open space of the cargo bay, he could see what the shouting was about.
River stood in the middle of the room, a blaster in one hand. Around her stood the crew, attempting by turns to coax her to let it go.
"This is it," Jayne grumbled. "Crazy's going to do herself in this time for sure. Or us. I'd rather it not be us, dong ma?"
"Shut it, Jayne," Mal said tersely.
"Give me the gun, River," Simon said, advancing towards her slowly. In his hand was clutched a syringe. He was going to try to sedate her.
"No!" River screamed. "No! You don't understand! Can't see what I see! Can't even burn the images out!" She pointed the gun to her head.
Spike acted on instinct. Instead of going down the metal stairs to the floor of the bay, he flung himself over the railing, landing graceful as a cat on the cargo bay floor.
"Put your poky stick away, Doc," he said as he brushed past the doctor, not a little bit disgusted with Simon's attitude towards his sister yet again.
"It will help her," Simon argued. "It's just a smoother. It will calm her down."
"Sedating her ain't the answer," Spike said, not taking his eyes off River. "Shame on you, Doc. You ought to know better by now."
"Don't presume to tell me what's best for my sister..."
Spike cut Simon off with a raised hand. Simon protested, but Spike ignored him completely, walking closer to River at a measured pace.
"Now then, luv, why don't you tell me what this is all about?" He said, keeping his voice calm and even.
River's eyes were wild.
"Can't you see it? Burning up the stars. Burning up my mind till there's nothing left. Better to end it now, fling yourself in the Black where it's quiet." She tapped her head with the muzzle of the blaster.
"What do you see?" Spike asked. He remembered when Dru used to get like this.
Behind him, Jayne snorted derisively.
"She's just babblin'. She's a moonbrain, Spike, she don't make no sense."
Spike ground his teeth together.
"Don't you people understand anything? She's a seer. Her visions are makin' her act like this, not cuz she's crazy. Now River," turning back to her. "Tell me what you saw."
"Evil," she whispered. "Everywhere. Can feel the sky tremble with it. In every heart. Hungry for blood."
"River, luv," said Spike in his best gentling tone. "Give me the gun, there's a good girl. Then we can talk about what you saw, alright? But right now you're scarin' your brother and the good captain. So you've got to give me the gun."
River looked down at her hand, as if surprised that there was a gun there. She looked from the gun to Spike's outstretched hand, then back again.
"Give it to me," Spike said again.
Slowly, River stretched out her arm, and laid the gun in Spike's open palm. Quicker than anyone could blink, Spike had passed the gun to Mal, and stepped forward, wrapping the trembling girl in his arms. She was so small already, and now she seemed to shrink, pulling her body in on itself.
"Shhh," he said, rubbing her back. With his free hand, he signaled to the crew that it was alright, that they could leave. He would take care of River.
"What about what she saw?" Simon asked.
"She'll talk about it when she's ready," said Spike.
They sat wrapped in each other's arms for a long time. Spike had managed to get River into his quarters, but for several hours she hadn't said a word, only holding him tighter and letting his thoughts flow over her mind like the gentle rush of water. He was worried about her.
"Sorry," she whispered, breaking the silence for the first time in hours. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry."
"For what, luv?" Spike murmured.
River shook her head sadly.
"For making you worry. For being a headcase. Crazy girl. Can't control the things she sees. She thought she could stop them from taking over, but they still do."
Spike pulled away from her so that he could see his face, gently stroking her dark hair away from her pale face.
"Never apologize for who you are."
"Who I am is not who I was supposed to be," River said.
"But it's who you are now," Spike reminded her. He was always so adamant about the fact that there was nothing wrong with her, even with the modifications the Academy had done to her.
River gave a shuddering sigh.
"Feel like I'm falling apart. Bits of me flying off. Nothing's holding me together."
Spike smiled, remembering how they had met, the collapsed cave where they had spent days alone in the dark thinking they were going to die.
"I'm holding you," he whispered.
River gave a half sob, and hid her face in her hands, her dark hair falling around her like a curtain.
Spike stroked River's hair soothingly and made a decision. The people who had done this to his River, they couldn't be allowed to live any more. He was a champion, he was in the business of defeating evil. This was one evil that was going to feel the full force of William the Bloody.
River pulled away from him, her eyes huge and dark in her pale face.
"You're going to go after them," she whispered.
"Can't let them do this to a single other person," Spike replied. "That's my job, innit? Stop the baddies. And these are baddies of the first order."
"I'm coming with you," River said, feeling dizzy at the whorl of Spike's thoughts as plans spun crazily in his head.
Spike gave her one long, hard look, then nodded.
"Tomorrow we'll tell Captain America we're taking the shuttle for a little private vendetta. For now, sleep, River, luv. You need your strength."
River settled down in his arms, snuggling against him and breathing in the familiar odour of leather and cigarette smoke.
"Tomorrow the drumming stops," she agreed.
It took a lot of convincing, but in the end Mal agreed to lend them the extra shuttle. They didn't tell him why they wanted it, but the look in Spike's eye – cold and still to the point of being unnerving – was enough to convince the Captain that this wasn't just a romantic getaway. That, and the wickedly sharp knife that River strapped to her thigh, then covered demurely with her skirt.
"A trip?" asked Simon, surprised, when River told him. "A trip where?"
River shook her head at her brother.
"Got business to finish," she said. "Left things undone far too long."
Simon glared at Spike, whose fault this obviously was, but Spike gave him a blank expression, and holstered his old fashioned gun.
"Guess I better go get my white hat," Spike said with a glance at River. "Today I'm a Champion."
Col. Joran MacKenzie was having a bad day. What was supposed to be a routine maintenance check of all the systems had turned into a full-scale investigation after the base on Isis had gone silent. They'd missed their last four scheduled checkups, and they weren't responding to waves. Then the logged security footage had arrived, and all hell had broken loose.
MacKenzie glared ferociously at the sergeant who was furiously typing at his console. He could already feel the pressure headache building up behind his eyes.
"How could this happen?" MacKenzie ground out. "Isis is the most secure base in the entire Alliance of Planets, and you're telling me two malcontents just waltzed in there and started shooting?"
"I don't know how this could have happened, sir," stuttered the unfortunate sergeant. "No one does. They came out of nowhere."
"Show me the vid," MacKenzie barked.
The sergeant typed frantically, and the screen in front of him lit up with a grainy black and white picture. It was of the lab on Isis, the place known colloquially as "the Academy". MacKenzie didn't even want to think about the experiments done there. It was better for his sanity if he didn't.
Two scientists were going about their business, chatting to each other as they mucked around with beakers and test tubes. A loud explosion outside the door made them both turn. The door burst open, and in walked two figures. One was a tall man with bleached blond hair slicked back to accentuate his angular features. His long black leather coat, which fell to his ankles, billowed out behind him like the wings of an avenging angel. He was holding a smoking gun easily in his hand. Behind him was a tiny girl, all dark hair and flowing purple dress, the long, wickedly sharp knife in her hands dripping blood.
"You don't have authorization to be here," said one of the scientists, with all the bravado a trembling voice could display.
The tall man smiled, and his smile was like a razor cut.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure we don't have authorization for much, mate," he replied, his accent a strange cant that MacKenzie had never heard before. He aimed his gun at the scientist.
"Security will be here any minute," said the other scientist, who was still clutching a beaker as if it would save him.
"No," said the girl in a sing-song voice. "They won't." She took a step forward, her dark purple dress billowing around her legs. MacKenzie noticed, with a sort of detached curiosity, that despite her delicate dress, she was wearing heavy combat boots on her feet.
"Who are you?" the scientist with the beaker gasped.
The man with the black coat chuckled deep in his chest.
"I'm a ghost," he replied. "And as for this girl, well you ought to know that for yourself, seein' as she was a guest here for a time."
"Don't you recognize me?" asked the girl.
The two scientists stared at her like she'd gone mad. And perhaps she had. She had a glint in her eye that made MacKenzie's blood run cold.
"I was a 'patient' of yours," the girl continued. "You took away my innocence and made me into a soldier." She raised her knife. "You'll not do it again." Her knife blurred into action. Two bloodstained heaps fell to the floor, amid the sound of shattering glass.
Through the door filed four men in suits, their gloves a startling blue colour. MacKenzie felt himself tense. He'd never seen a Gentleman in real life before, he didn't have high enough clearance. But he knew what they could do. He'd seen the damage reports and clean-up bills.
"You will come with us now," said one of the blue-handed men.
"Nah," drawled the tall man with the bleached hair. "I don't think we will. You want to go with them, luv?"
The girl shook her head, her eyes fixed on the men in the doorway.
"It ends here," she said, her voice shaking only slightly. "You will never come in my dreams again. You will never cut and cut and tear out parts of people till they scream to make the pictures stop."
The blue-handed men, as one, pulled out small pen-like objects from their pockets. Before they could move, the man and the girl were once again a blur of motion. The blue-gloved men were dead before they could even move.
The girl stared dispassionately at the carnage that was left in the room. She cocked her head at her companion, who was calmly lighting up a cigarette.
"Can I borrow your gun?" she asked.
The man handed it to her.
"Not going to blow your own brains out, are you?" he asked, with an edge of a amusement in his voice.
The girl cocked her head at him, her dark hair falling around her shoulders like curtain.
"Got a better use for this," she replied. She turned, and looked straight at the camera. MacKenzie had to stop himself from jumping backwards. The girl was looking directly at the hidden security camera, her eyes large and dark in her pale face, with rivulets of hair hanging down on either side of it. It was like the girl was looking right at them.
"Message received?" she asked, in her sing-song voice. Then, she aimed her gun, and shot out the camera.
The image instantly dissolved into fuzz.
MacKenzie took a shaky step backwards.
"Is there anything left of the base on Isis?" he asked the sergeant.
The sergeant shook his head.
"Nothing, sir," said the sergeant, who looked as shaken up as the colonel felt. "No responses to any of our waves, and flyovers indicate the base is on fire. We can't get a clear reading through the smoke."
"Who are they?" he asked, jabbing his finger at the screen, which was frozen on an image of the girl and the man in the black coat.
"We're running facial recognition software now, sir," he said. "The girl we've already identified as River Tam. She was a patient of the Academy until her escape at the hands of her brother three years ago."
"River Tam," said MacKenzie musingly. "She was behind the Miranda Broadwave, wasn't she?"
The sergeant nodded.
"And the other one? The man in the black coat?"
The sergeant shook his head.
"We've run him three times, and nothing. No records, no pictures, not even a whisper. He's no one, sir. Like he said, a ghost."
"There has to be something," MacKenzie insisted. "This man just helped River Tam take out the entire Academy. There must be something on him."
The sergeant shook his head.
"The only thing that keeps coming up is two words sir."
"Which are?" MacKenzie said, feeling his impatience rise.
The sergeant was still and quiet as he read the words out from his screen.
"Watcher's Council."