Tuesday, April 27^th, 2010, 5:00pm, London:

Bess and Buffy both screamed, “NO!” at the same time, yanking Spike’s mind back to the moment and away from its effort to formulate a new plan. He opened his eyes and watched as the two guards unshackled Bess’ feet. Each guard held one of her legs to keep her from kicking and gave Weatherby room to work his ‘magic’. Weatherby snickered wickedly; he always knew there would be only one thing better than fucking this Slayer-vamp … and that was hearing her scream when he tortured her; he’d waited a long time for this. If he’d been alone, he would’ve fucked her with the closed pear and made her cum first … sent her soaring to heaven, then plunging to hell in a matter of seconds. As it was, he’d just have to settle for sending her to hell.

“It appears our Mr. Weatherby would rather begin lower,” Travers observed in a deadly calm voice. “Too bad you can’t have another go at her before we rip her womanhood to shreds … you looked like you thoroughly enjoyed giving it to her yesterday.  Did it feel good to have your dick inside your own daughter? Perhaps your wife would enjoy seeing that, as well…”

Spike turned back to Travers and growled low and threatening as he pulled harder on his restraints. “Tsk, tsk,” Travers clicked, chastising him. “There’s that sheep trying to be a wolf again…”

“You slept with her!?” Buffy questioned angrily, pulling against the guards that were holding her by her arms. “You fucking, two-timing son-of-a-bitch! You fucked her!?” she screamed at Spike as she struggled to get free from the guards.

“I’ll fuck whoever I bloody well please – ain’t up to you, Slayer! More man than one woman can handle, I am,” Spike retorted indignantly as he pulled harder on the restraints on his arms. The left one gave a little more … but still not enough.

“Not while you’re married to me you won’t, you fucking bastard!” Buffy snapped back as she pulled with all her strength and finally got loose from the guards that were holding her. "I bet if I 'Lorena Bobbitt' you you won't be sticking it in places it doesn't belong!"

Buffy launched herself at Spike, joining her hands and swinging her shackled arms in a wide arc at his jaw.  Spike’s head snapped to the side as the chain on the shackles made contact with his temple and he moaned loudly. 

The guards started to move towards Buffy to pull her back, to stop her, but Travers waved them off … this would be even better than the show in the white room the previous day …

Everyone stopped to watch the fight … which was rather one sided since Spike was still restrained hand and foot.

Left arm, Spike sent her through the bond as he barely ducked another swipe of her fists.

“Did you wrap your arms around her? Hold her in your arms? Tell her you loved her?!” Buffy screamed at him as she grabbed his left arm. “You’ll never hold another woman in these arms when I’m done with you, you sick, perverted bastard!”

Buffy pulled on his arm with all her strength, as if she was trying to break it, and the leather restraint gave more. If she could hold his arm and push up with her legs, she could get that arm free … with one painful effort she held to his arm, one hand on each side of the leather band holding him in place and pushed up, using the aching muscles in her legs … using her battered and bruised knees to give herself enough strength to break the restraint.

Buffy screamed out in pain as the leather gave way. As soon as his arm was free, Spike swung his fist at her face, grazing her nose with his knuckles.  “What’s the matter …truth hurt, Slayer? You’re just not woman enough to satisfy a real man!” Spike taunted as Buffy snapped her head to the side and fell to the floor in pain … at least she didn’t have to act much, the pain radiating out from her knees and back was enough to knock her down, Spike didn’t need to actually hit her.

Spike began unbuckling the leather strap from his right arm quickly while his wife was on the ground. Buffy started to unbuckle the one on his right leg when she saw an iron pin in the bottom of the chair that was holding it immobile on the floor.  She reached out and pulled the release and used all the remaining strength in her legs to push back up and tackle Spike, knocking him and the chair over.

“You aren’t a real man! You wouldn’t know a real man if one kicked you in the balls! You’re an animal – controlled by your dick – you’d fuck anything with a pulse! You make me sick!” Buffy screamed at him as Spike’s chair tumbled over backwards and they landed in a pile on the floor. Spike had just gotten his right hand free when she tackled him and they both began wrestling on the floor, knocking over the table that held Weatherby’s impressive array of knives, daggers, swords, and other sharp instruments.

Buffy wriggled around so her head was down towards Spike’s feet and picked up two bowie knives. She handed one to Spike, using the back of the chair to hide it from view of the others in the room, before starting to unbuckle the leather restraint on his right leg again.

Weatherby, Buffy sent Spike through the bond when she saw the sadist starting towards them angrily … no doubt unhappy that his neatly arranged and carefully selected instruments of pain had been dumped in the floor.

“Well, maybe if I didn’t have a cold, dead fish for a bloody wife, I wouldn’t have to go looking for someone with a fucking heartbeat!” Spike continued their mock argument, trying to keep the guards at bay a few moments longer as they continued to wrestle on the floor. 

Buffy had just gotten Spike’s right leg freed when Weatherby got to them – Spike’s left leg was still strapped to the heavy chair. When Weatherby reached down and began to yank Buffy up by the hair, Spike swung the bowie knife into the henchman’s stomach with all his strength.  Weatherby’s eyes went wide with surprise, then pain, shock, and fear took its place, as he released Buffy and reached for Spike’s arm.  Spike pulled down on the razor-sharp knife, slicing through Weatherby’s stomach from his navel down to his groin.

“Too bloody good for ya,” Spike murmured as he pulled the knife out and his tormentor fell to his knees, holding the gaping wound in his abdomen with both hands as his life's blood poured in rivers through his fingers and onto the floor. Weatherby's eyes were wide as he looked at Spike in utter disbelief ... his brain unable to process the reality of it - the sheep had just become the wolf.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose.  The remaining guards descended on the warriors like hungry locusts.  Buffy had managed to get Spike’s last restraint free, but they were outnumbered and far from full strength.  Buffy found a sword that had fallen on the floor; she dropped the bowie knife and picked the larger weapon up with both hands. Since her hands were still shackled, it would make a better option than the bowie knife, plus she could strike at a distance and hopefully not have to move very much on her weak knees.

Giles had watched the fight between Buffy and Spike at first with confusion, then with understanding. Buffy had told him what had happened between Spike and Bess in the white room … there was no reason for her to be upset or jealous, but when she pulled Spike’s arm free, the Watcher suddenly understood and he bided his time, waiting for the right moment to help. 

That moment came when Weatherby fell to his knees and the three guards standing near Giles (two that had been holding Buffy and one holding him) realized they had made an enormous mistake … or more accurately, their boss had.  As the three guards started moving towards the warriors, Giles stuck a foot out and tripped two of them while grabbing the third by the back of the shirt and slinging him back against the wall behind them.

Ripper turned his attention to the third guard, hoping that he had at least given Buffy and Spike enough time to get to their feet by tripping the other two.  The stunned man recovered quickly from hitting the wall and reached down into his boot and retrieved his expanding, friction-lock baton.  Just as the guard snapped the stick to full length and locked it, Giles grasped the man’s wrist and twisted his arm up behind his back, turning the larger man around and pressing his face against the rock wall.

“I’ll take that, thank you…” Giles murmured as he easily pulled the weapon from the guard's hand, which was twisted well up behind his back. The man screamed out as his shoulder dislocated and tried to use his other hand to push off the wall and dislodge the ex-Watcher, but stopped struggling when Giles brought the baton down on the back of the larger man’s neck.  The guard fell to his knees, which wrenched his shoulder further, and Giles came down on the back of the man’s head with the weapon. Ripper smiled ruefully as the man collapsed onto the floor unconscious – payback was sweet.

Buffy caught the first guard to reach them by surprise and took him out easily with the sword, slicing through his abdomen cleanly. With Giles engaged with one guard and Weatherby lying in a pool of blood nearby, that left only three more guards for her and Spike to fight … that seemed almost too easy, even in their impaired and weakened states.

Buffy stood at the ready as the other three pulled up short, stopping just out of reach when they realized she had a sword.  She held them at bay while Spike struggled to his feet next to her. He still couldn’t see the best and he hurt all over … which actually was a good thing, because he had been afraid that he wouldn’t be able to walk or feel his legs and feet at all.  The worst pain came from his ravaged stomach, which kept him from standing up straight, not just from the shooting pain, but to keep his entrails from exploding out from the gaping wound.  Spike held one hand over the large hole in his stomach and kept trying to blink the blood from his eyes as he swayed unsteadily on his feet, holding the bowie knife at the ready, prepared to swing at anyone or anything that came within reach.

Buffy lunged at one of the guards with the sword, but missed as he parried her thrust. Guard number two, on her left, seized the opportunity while she was off balance and came down with all his strength on her forearms with his nightstick.  Buffy screamed out in pain and the sword fell from her hands, landing with a loud clatter onto the stone floor.  Buffy swung her shackled fists at the guard who had hit her, whipping the chain that was between her wrists violently against the side of his head and sending him reeling back.

The guard who had parried her sword attack tackled Buffy from behind when she swung at the other guard, and they both tumbled to the floor.  Buffy felt like she’d just gotten flogged all over again when the guard hit her bruised and bloodied back, and stars danced in front of her eyes for several seconds as she tried to breathe and get the debilitating pain to stop.  The guard took the opportunity to slide his baton under her throat and pull up on it – cutting off her airway and choking her.  Buffy screeched in pain and anger and used every ounce of adrenaline and energy she had to push up with her hands and flip them over. Even knowing how much it was going to hurt when she landed, it was better than the alternative; losing was not an option. 

The guard screamed out in anguish as he landed hard on top of a spiked club that had been knocked onto the floor from one of the tables. The sharp spikes embedded in his upper back between his shoulder blades and he struggled to push Buffy off him, to get up off the painful barbs.  When the guard released his hold on her throat, Buffy turned on top of him and quickly reversed their roles as she pressed the chain between her wrists against the man’s throat.  The guard struggled against her, landing two or three painful blows on her swollen jaw, but ultimately, he couldn’t dislodge her and he succumbed to darkness as she choked the breath out of him.

**~**

When Buffy lunged at guard number one with her sword, guard number three, who was closest to Spike, kicked the knife out of the vamp’s hand and it skittered across the stone floor, out of reach.  When the guard raised his arm to come down on Spike’s head with his nightstick, Spike used his free arm to punch the man right in the solar plexus with all his remaining strength. The hub of nerves in the guard’s stomach sent pain shooting out to every part of his body and knocked the breath out of him, causing him to double over in utter misery. When he bent over, Spike brought his fist down on the back of the man’s neck and dropped him to his knees, but the effort also pushed some of Spike’s innards outwards through the gaping hole in his stomach and brought Spike to his knees, as well. 

The guard recovered and took advantage of Spike’s pain by punching him hard in the abdomen, right on top of the hand Spike had holding his stomach. Spike ‘oomphed’ and his eyes closed involuntarily against the unbearable pain that knifed through his body.  The guard continued his assault on the injured vamp, alternating between punching Spike in the stomach and in the face.  Blood poured anew from Spike’s broken nose and he felt like he was being turned inside-out through his bellybutton with each blow.  Spike tried to fight back, but his one handed, nearly blind punches were ineffectual against the adrenaline charged guard, who could smell victory over the legendary ‘William the Bloody’.

Spike collapsed from his knees down onto his side on the hard floor of the torture chamber and the guard moved over him and continued to pummel him with his fists. Spike could see Buffy struggling with another guard just a few feet away – she was being choked … his only clear thought was that he needed to help her. Spike’s head jerked violently to the other side as the guard punched him in the jaw and he lost sight of his wife.  Spike tried to push the man off him, tired to block the blows that rocked his head back and forth, but he was losing the battle with his pain. He pulled his other hand from between them, there was no way he could fight him one handed. As soon as he let the pressure off his stomach, Spike could feel his entrails pressing out of the wide maw in his abdominal wall and his brain briefly wondered if that was what having a baby felt like … like your guts were being literally ripped out of your body. 

The guard noticed the new bloody ‘appendages’ squeezing through, as well, and grabbed a hold of the pink ribbons of intestines and began twisting and pulling them out further.  Spike screamed out in brutal agony as he punched wildly at the guard’s face in a blind, adrenaline-driven fit of pain and rage, and finally his left fist connected with the man’s nose and stopped him momentarily. Spike punched again and again as the guard tried to clear his head, some punches landing firmly, but most just glancing off the side of the man’s head.  The guard redoubled his efforts to stop Spike by winding Spike’s entrails around one hand and pulling with all his strength.  Spike’s mind went blank as white-hot searing pain engulfed him, and his brain did what he’d been practicing these last days – it went away.  Suddenly, he was sitting on the edge of their eldest daughter’s bed looking down into her tear-stained face as he told her how much he loved Buffy and assured her that they would both be back … the whole scene flashed in his mind in just a millisecond.

“Do you love Mama as much your other wife?” Annie had continued her interrogation of him.

“More …” Spike answered her simply and honestly. “There’s no one that could ever compare to your mum … not for me. She’s my soul mate … do you know what that is?”

Annie shook her head.

“A soul mate is someone who is the other half of you. Before you find them, you feel like a puzzle with a piece missin’ … but when you finally find that piece, your whole world changes. It goes from black ‘n white to Technicolor, it’s bloody brilliant,” Spike told her. “One day you’ll know … one day you’ll come and tell me you’ve found the one that completes you. It’ll be the happiest and saddest day of my life.”

“How come?” she questioned.

“‘Cos you won’t be my girl anymore, you’ll be his.”

“I’ll always be your girl, Papa,” Annie assured him.

Spike hugged her to him and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I love you, Niblett.”

“I love you too, Papa. Please be careful … ‘cos if anything happened to you it would break our hearts … you wouldn’t want that, would you?” she tossed his own words back at him as she hugged his neck tightly.

“No, Niblett, I’d never want that.”

Her words echoed in his empty brain, bouncing off his skull and ricocheting wildly through his mind  … if anything happened to you it would break our hearts … break our hearts … break our hearts.

Spike growled fiercely as he raised both hands over his head and interlaced his fingers then swung as hard as he could at the guard’s face. When Spike’s ‘human hammer’ slammed against the man’s nose, blood spurted in all directions and the guard instinctively released his hold of Spike’s guts to grab his broken nose. When Spike raised his arms over his head again, his hands felt something on the floor above his head … the bowie knife that Buffy had dropped. Spike grabbed it and swung in a wide arc at the guard’s neck, cutting all the way through to his spine with one swipe. Blood spewed from the guard’s neck like a broken, demonic fire hydrant, covering Spike and everything near them with a brilliant spray of red.

Spike pushed the slumping, bloody body off him and tried to get up to help Buffy, but collapsed back down when he tried to move.  Long ribbons of intestines had been pulled out of his stomach and were now dragging the ground – every move he made forced more of his insides out of the abdominal cavity and sent blistering bolts of pain shooting through him.  Spike looked over to where he knew she was … she had gotten control and was choking her opponent … she was alright … they had won.

Spike blew out a deep breath and braced himself for what had to be done. He closed his eyes and began pushing his mangled and gritty entrails back into his abdomen. Spike clenched his jaw against the pain as he slowly threaded his intestines back through the gaping wound in his stomach; it was a slow and painful process, but it had to be done and he wouldn’t ask anyone else to bear the burden of it for him, least of all Buffy.  He needed to get it done before she came to him … before she saw it; he’d seen such a sight before and he knew it wasn’t something she’d ever forget.

**~**

Buffy finally realized that the man under her had passed out and pushed herself up off him and slowly got to her feet. Her breathing was labored and her chest heaved from exertion and adrenaline as she looked around – trying to see if there were any more attacks coming, but her eyes stopped when she saw Spike.  Buffy felt bile rise in her throat at the sight of her husband; there wasn’t a spot on him that wasn’t bloody, burnt, bruised, or battered … but that was only the beginning – his stomach was covered with long, pink … snakes?  For a moment, her brain couldn’t process it … it looked like he was covered with some kind of demonic ropes … or?? Buffy rubbed her eyes, trying to get them to focus, trying to get her brain to process what it was seeing …when she looked back at him, she finally realized what it was.

Buffy turned to the side and bent forward, resting her hands on her knees, as the bile exploded out of her mouth, she was powerless to stop it. Even with her eyes closed, that nightmarish vision was burned into her brain … and she continued to heave violently, even after there was nothing left to come up.  Buffy finally wiped at her damp eyes and mouth as she tried to get air back in her lungs and steel herself to look back at Spike … to go to him, to help him.  As Buffy stood back up straight she heard voices behind her and turned just in time to see another guard coming in through the door.

“GILES!” Buffy screamed at her Watcher, who was just in the process of lifting Bess down off the hook on the wall near the door. “DOOR! BLOCK THE FUCKING DOOR!”

Buffy looked down for her sword, but before she could pick it up, the new guard that had stormed into the fray tackled her and knocked her to the floor.  He had a stun gun in his hand and pressed it against her chest as she tried to get out from under him.  Buffy’s back arched and she screamed out in anguish … she could actually feel her heart racing faster in her chest as the electricity surged through her.

She felt like she’d lost all control of her muscles … the voltage was confusing her nerves and nothing would move, no matter how hard she tried. When the guard pulled the hot-shot off her in order to get a new grip on it, Buffy’s body went limp, as if the only thing powering her was the electricity from the stun gun … or perhaps as if it had sucked all the energy from her muscles by constricting them so tightly with its voltage. Buffy tried to move, to push the man off … but she could barely lift her arms with the weight of the shackles. The guard smirked at her as he easily pushed her hands away and pressed the stun gun against the side of her neck. Buffy’s body convulsed under him, bucking and writhing as the voltage traveled down her spine and fired the nerves that controlled her muscles randomly, making her whole body twitch uncontrollably.

Buffy felt herself losing consciousness – the voltage radiating out from the side of her neck was making bright lights dance and flash in her brain, but between each flash all she could see was the image of Spike that was tattooed on her mind. She’d let him down by being weak and squicking … and now she was about to let him down completely. She tried again to gain control of her muscles back from the electric prod, but it was no use – she couldn’t break the hold it had on her body.  They had been so close … so very close to winning … so very close to getting out of this hell hole. Buffy wondered briefly what Spike’s next punishment would be for her failure to finish what she started – but she didn’t have time to ponder that for long as darkness descended on her mind.  Her last thought before losing consciousness was of Spike and an overwhelming feeling of guilt for the pain he’d suffered because of her.

 **~**

Spike opened his eyes when he heard Buffy scream at Giles to block the door.  He was working feverishly, trying to get his insides put back inside when the new guard tackled Buffy and pressed the stun gun against her chest. Giles had gotten Bess down off the hook she had been hanging on and together they were blocking anyone else from entering the room.

Spike took a deep breath and gathered all the intestines that remained outside his body in his hand and pressed them inside in a grotesque, bloody wad.  Holding one hand over his abdomen to keep everything in, he pushed up to a sitting position with the other. When he moved, it felt like someone was inside him, pulling and tugging on his guts, wrapping them round and round each other and tying them in knots.  Spike stopped moving when he got to a sitting position, closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the sharp stabbing pain of his intestines shifting within him. 

Spike took one last deep breath and rolled over onto his one free hand and knees, letting out a scream of absolute agony as he did so. It was the first time he’d screamed in pain since he’d entered this room … at least Weatherby didn’t live to hear it, which was one small consolation. Spike reached out and grabbed the handle of Buffy’s sword and used it like a ski-pole to press up to standing.  Spike wobbled on his feet when he stood up – between the blood loss and the agony of his guts doing literal flip-flops within him, Spike’s head was reeling ... spinning like a top. It didn’t help that the adrenaline high he’d been running on since Buffy started the ‘fight’ with him had waned and left him even weaker than he’d been before.  Spike leaned heavily on the handle of the sword, bent over and pressing his right hand against his stomach as hard as he could, as he tried to steady himself on his feet.

The guard atop Buffy hadn’t even noticed Spike stand up, hadn’t even heard him scream, so focused was he on Buffy.  Spike took a tentative step forward, breathing deeply from the exertion and pain that now seemed to engulf his whole body.  Tears of anguish came to Spike’s eyes as he took another shaky step towards Buffy and her attacker … and another, using the sword as a cane to stay upright.

Suddenly, the guard, who was straddling Buffy’s prone body as he held the stun gun against her neck, looked up – finally noticing Spike.  Spike let out a blood curdling scream as he removed his right hand from his stomach and lifted the sword up with both hands at the same time the guard swung the stun gun it at Spike’s midsection.  The sword came straight down, piercing the guard’s left rhomboid, the spot between the shoulder blade and spine, exiting through his chest, and heading straight for Buffy’s abdomen … and the baby growing there. 

The stun gun in the guard’s hand hit Spike’s tortured stomach and the entrails that had escaped when he raised the sword, causing Spike’s body to twitch and jerk violently, inside and out. Spike tried to pull up on the sword at the last minute, but he’d lost his ability to hold it or even stand up any longer, and both Spike and the guard collapsed at the same time.  As Spike fell to the ground, he could see the sword moving as if in slow motion towards Buffy as she lay helpless under the guard. It was headed straight towards the baby – but he was powerless to do anything about it. 

Spike felt his head crack on the hard stone floor as he landed next to his wife.  His vision blurred and swirled … he could see Buffy for an instant, then the guard’s face blocked his view as the injured man collapsed on top of her.  Spike blinked and shook his head, trying to clear his vision, but it was like a curtain was slowly lowering in front of his eyes … he finally realized that curtain was his own eyelids. 

Spike could smell fresh blood … Slayer blood, and he knew the sword - his sword, had drawn it. He fought to remain conscious, reaching out towards his wife and touching her bare arm with his blood-soaked hand. He tried to move … to get back up, as his mind swirled and fluttered in and out of darkness. They were so close …they’d fought, they’d nearly won, but it was no use … he’d used every ounce of strength he had, he had nothing left to give.  His last thought was that he had failed … again he’d failed to keep his promise. He couldn’t get them out … he couldn’t save them, not Bess or Buffy or their unborn child … and he’d promised that he would …

**~**