They drove the route they’d taken into Lestor until daybreak, barely making it back to their room before the sun rose.  Now Xander sat with his head in his hands, almost weeping with the frustration of not being able to find the landmark that Paige Willis had placed in his mind.

Spike had been angry when they’d set out, for all the usual reasons: Xander’s foolhardiness, his own inability to say no and mean it, the growing feeling that he’d rather humour Xander and let the world go, literally, to hell.

But he was no longer angry, he was…unsettled.  Seeing Xander so upset, hearing him blame himself for not being good enough, brought out Spike’s fiercest protective urges, and the one that unsettled him most was the one insisting that he remove his charge from the cause of his despair.  It unsettled him because he knew the right intentions would have absolutely the wrong result: Xander would drop him like a hot coal if he tried to take him out of this stressful and undermining environment and, out of sheer belligerence alone, he’d refuse to see why Spike was correct to do so.

Via the bathroom, quickly wetting and gelling his hair in a bid to look less Baaaaa and more Guardian, Spike crossed and crouched in front of Xander, prising the man’s hands away from his face, hanging onto them and squeezing the fingers to make Xander look at him.  Seeing concern rather than irritation broke apart the last of Xander’s fragile control, and the first of the tears brimmed and wavered before streaking down his face.

“She’s gonna die,” he managed to choke out.  “I’m not good enough and she…”

“No, Love.  Sometimes the first pieces of the puzzle are the hardest to find.  Whether you’re a cop or an investigator or, it seems, a medium.”  Xander, unable to force a word out, simply shook his head.  “If you were on your own patch you’d know what you were being shown, agreed?”  Nod.  “So, if it’s a completely alien environment it’s going to take a little longer.  Can you draw what you saw?  If we show that to Randall maybe it will give him the clue he needs to find this bloke.”

“It’s…”  Xander cleared his throat and tried again.  “It’s hazy now.  I think I’d know it the moment I saw it, but I can’t be accurate enough on paper to give it to Randall, I might send him in the wrong direction.  I…  I…  Why me?  How selfish is that?  Why me?”

Spike moved onto his knees, pulling Xander to the edge of the seat and wrapping him a hug.

“Why you?  ‘Cause she trusts you, you said it yourself.”

“She’s wrong to, and I hate that, I hate being so…”

“Shh-shh-shh.”

Surprisingly the shushing seemed to help – that, the zone, and the constant stroking to Xander’s back – and after a few more tears he recovered a little.

“Know what else I hate?  The damage this is doing to us.  Maybe that shouldn’t matter as much as it does ‘cause this – we’re – only short term, but I hate that we fight over what I do.  When we’re good it – it…  You make me…  When we’re good I feel like everything can be okay, that I can be better than I am.  You make me believe that I can save the world.”

The rhythmic touches to Xander’s back momentarily faltered.  And resumed.

“Shall I tell you why that is?  It’s because I’m a mirror.  You look at me and I reflect what you know you’re capable of.  Deep inside you know how good you can be, and I simply assure you that you’re right.”

“If that were true, wouldn’t I know?”

“You might have once, but this life has knocked the stuffing out of the old you, hasn’t it?”

Xander’s head shook no.

“Simpler than that.  Good sidekick, crap hero.  I always knew, and I never cared, not really.  Spotlight’s not for me, Spike.”

“Say what you like, I think you’ll find you’re the star of this spectacle.”

Xander wriggled in Spike’s grasp, hand coming up to grab a fistful of damp, sticky hair to bring Spike’s face around, and Xander kissed him quite urgently.

“Promise me,” he gasped between kisses, “that this won’t ruin what we have.  I need you, Spike.  I need you.”

Spike tilted his head back to examine the flushed face, coming to a swift decision.

“Tell you what, Petal…  Seeing as we both know the score, how about I never again remind you about staying safe?  No more nagging, threatening…”

“Are you sure?  I may not recognise you.”

“If you’re going to get us into trouble at every turn, let’s stop fretting about it, eh?  You don’t need pressure from me along with the rest.”

“You really mean it?”

“We’re both sick of me being the company man, aren’t we?”

“Not sick, no,” Xander diplomatically lied despite wanting to scream a resounding YES! at the top of his voice.  “I understand that you’ve got a job to do.”

“I’m still going to take care of you, but it would be a darn sight easier all round if I concentrated on the little picture rather than the big one.”

“Kinda.”

“Always worked in the past,” Spike said cheerfully, warming to this idea.

“Always—  Oh, God, we’re so gonna die,” Xander laughed tearfully.

Spike rose and drew Xander to his feet, to the bed, completely smug that, if he looked at this moment from a particularly skewed angle, he was no longer saving Xander so that the medium, in turn, could save the world, he was simply saving Xander…for himself.

…

The rather lovely shag hadn’t done the trick, Spike noted with regret as Xander fidgeted his way out of the embrace that usually brought him peace and comfort, muttering incomprehensibly as he only just managed to stay asleep.  Daft to think that sex could solve Xander’s problems, Spike conceded, when the man was haunted by a situation he shouldn’t be burdened with; however irate Spike got about it, he had to remind himself about Xander’s pain in the arse argument and adjust it slightly: no sense in taking up with a man you know to be decent and honourable and then expect him not to be decent and honourable.

Jerking awake, fleeing a particularly nasty dream, Xander was out of the bed in less than a second; he dragged on his boxers and t-shirt and stumbled his way to the room’s tiny fridge for a bottle of water.  Spike considered pretending to be asleep and letting Xander have some space, but not for long: he sat up and switched the lamp on; Xander seemed to be expecting it.

“Go back to sleep.”

“Thought I’d keep you company.”

“I’m fine.  You sleep.”

“Better me than the other nasties.”  Xander sent him a sharp, concerned look.  “The ones in your head,” Spike clarified.

“It’s not a big deal.”  Spike smiled and threw back the covers, swivelling to sit on the edge of the mattress.  “Really, Spike, I don’t want company.  Please, just go to sleep.”

“Come back to bed then.  I’ll hold you, make it quiet.  Might even find a few ways to distract you.”

Xander dropped wearily onto the nearest chair, giving an uncomfortably bitter laugh.

“I’m starting to miss the early days.  Wondering why the hell I was sleeping in the same bed as you.”

“Really?” Spike asked lightly, but his stomach did a slow roll.

“When it was about you offering me some peace.  When there was no ulterior motive.”

“Sorry to break it to you, Love, but after the first time we got off, there was always an ulterior motive.”

Xander closed his eye and took a deep breath.

“I should never have let that happen.”

“You want me,” Spike reminded him with wavering arrogance but growing indignation.  “You could have put a stop to this, you’re strong enough.”

“Oh, sure.  With you wearing me down…”

“Don’t give me that bollocks, you’re not some damsel in distress, you’re tough as old boots and if you hadn’t wanted me – if you didn’t, even now – then…”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Insufficient animosity for that to be truly insulting; Spike rose, stalking over to Xander and straddling his lap.

“No.  I’m not the one who fucks me, that’s your privilege.”

Suddenly there seemed to be nowhere for Xander to put his hands or even look without coming into contact with highly distracting bare flesh.

“You’re…umm…  You’re very…naked.”

“I do seem to be.”

“I’ve never known anyone be quite so naked as you are when you have no clothes on.”

“It is something I do particularly well.”

“Is it on your résumé?”

“Just beneath ‘Piss-takes to an Olympic standard’.”

Xander dropped the water bottle and picked up Spike’s hands, unexpectedly bringing them to be kissed.

“I’m starting to feel crazy.”

Spike reciprocated Xander’s show of affection with nuzzling kisses to the man’s temple.

“I know it’s not been easy for you.”

“That is such an understatement.  Nothing’s ever easy.  I remember myself at fourteen, fifteen, lying in bed at night and thinking about the future, being excited and a little scared, making impossible plans.  If I’d have known that before I was thirty I’d’ve killed Jesse, almost been strangled by my first sexual partner, seen Willow flay a man, lost an eye, found my head filled with the voices of dead people, had a vampire’s dick up my ass…”  Xander came to a resentful halt and pressed into the kisses that moved from his temple to his brow.  “I miss my home,” he whispered sadly.  “I miss my garden and the birds that visit, and I keep wondering if they’re hungry ‘cause I’m not putting out food for them.  I miss the chapel, my chapel, and the people – the friends – that come to my readings.  I miss the walk to work, and I miss the Mustang even if I hardly ever drive it.  I miss H giving me tea when I pass out.  Simone smelling like a storybook mom and holding me when I’m down.  I miss…Willow and Buffy and Dawn and Giles.”

“When this is done you’ll see them all, and you’ll go home, get your life back…”

“And take years to settle down again.”

“Nah.”

“It’s very decent of you to tell me how I feel, thanks.”

“No, I mean…  Before, you were…searching.  This time, it’ll be…going back to what you found.”

“I’m almost guilty for feeling so bad when you’re trying this hard to make me feel better.”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

“Hmm, didn’t think so.”

“Go back to bed, huh?”

“Not alone.”

“I need…”

“Some sleep.  Look at you, you’re exhausted, you can’t do this if you’re flying on fumes.  If you’re going to be fit for anything…”

“You said you wouldn’t nag me.”

“That was professionally.  I’m now nagging on a personal level.”

“And that makes all the difference,” Xander grumbled, but went with the flow as Spike climbed off his lap, tugged at his hands, and manoeuvred him back to bed.

They got comfortable in their usual position, but it was only minutes before Xander was fidgeting out of Spike’s embrace, turning himself and then the vampire, cuddling up to Spike’s back and holding on tightly.

“This ‘cause you don’t trust me not to try anything?”

“No,” Xander snapped scornfully.

Okay.  Spike took a mental step back and played with various ideas, from subconscious mistrust to…the obvious.  Xander was in protective mode, and this was his mind’s way of playing it out, trying to find a little comfort by holding and shielding the available body because he couldn’t hold and shield Tania.  Very touching, but it was still something that Xander needed distracting from, and desperate times yadda, yadda, yadda.

“Ask me a question.”

“What?”

“Is that the best you can manage?”

“I’m trying to sleep.”

“No, you’re trying to not be awake and you don’t do that too well by yourself, do you?”

Xander didn’t bother to argue that one.

“A question?”

“Yup.”

“Any question?”

“Yup.”

“And you’ll answer it, even if you hate it?”

“Within reason.”

“That’s crafty.  Always your own rules.”

“Ask me.  Then I’ll ask you.”

“There’s nothing left for you to ask about me.”

“Ask me.”

Xander thought, but this was a far healthier thinking than dwelling on abduction and torture and a potential lost life, and eventually he decided on a question that Spike would no doubt choose not to answer.

“Okay,” he said with firm resolution, before a tell-tale hesitation.

“C’mon, Love, I won’t bite your head off, whatever you ask.”

“You sure?”

“This could be a once in a lifetime offer and you’re…”

“Okay, okay.”  Another pause, and Spike could almost be heard rolling his eyes in the darkness.  “Tell me what happened to you to make you think so much about heaven.  You said near misses.”

Now Spike hesitated, but he’d started this and was determined to finish it, just as long as it kept Xander’s mind occupied.

“You know about the dragon,” he began quietly, “and I realise that was a while ago now but I think that’s where it started.  Close call: almost didn’t get out alive.”  Xander propped his head up on his hand as he listened, leaning in to kiss Spike's shoulder.  “Then there was this business, year or so ago.  It was a single case that stretched out in all directions, and it was one bizarre situation after another, and each of them a death trap.  Last one was the kind of near miss that left me watching my skin grow back for a month.  Not a good look on me, a tan.”

“How close did you get?” Xander asked in a horrified voice.

“To being dust?”  Spike stopped to consider, pretending he hadn’t gone over this a thousand times in his mind.  Xander’s hand lovingly caressing the once-destroyed skin made it so much easier to confront.  “Seconds.  If it hadn’t been for Zooza the magician stepping in…”

“Wait, what, who?”

“Bloke who works for us.  Name as long as your arm but he’ll answer to Zooza.”

“Zooza?  Zooza the magician?”

“Zooza the magician.”

“Pleasepleaseplease tell me he fights evil by making balloon animals.”

“That’s precisely it,” Spike smiled.  “When it looked like all was lost he turned up and squeaked his way through a giraffe, a poodle, and a duck-billed platypus.  While our criminal mastermind was preoccupied with choosing a colour for his monkey-up-a-pole, Angel took the opportunity to julienne him with a chainsaw.”

“Cool.”

“Nah.  He killed twenty-six people before we finally got him.”

“But you did though.  Get him.”

“He was human.”

Xander huffed a cynical laugh.

“No surprises there.”

“Have you prised enough of an answer out of me?  Or are you planning to tear out my entrails too?”

“I—”  Xander stopped himself from pursuing this, despite wanting to hear more, made aware of how distressing it was for Spike by the way the vampire’s entire body had stiffened in anxiety.  “That depends on what you’re about to ask me if I’m done.”

“I’m going to ask you…”

Shifting onto his back, Spike peered thoughtfully at Xander.

“C’mon, Spike, just ask, I know it’s going to humiliating or painful or…”

“I want to know…what song makes you think of us.”

“Humiliating and painful.  You truly are a master of your mean art.”

Spike shrugged, looking suspiciously above suspicion.

“Just a song.”

“I have to think about this.”

“You knew the moment I asked, you lying little toe-rag.”

“No.  But…yeah.  I mean, it’s just ‘cause it’s the song you were listening to on my player when I took it back from you.  Or that’s how it started out.  Since then, some of it…creepily accurate.”

“I don’t remember what it was.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.  But…  It’s actually pretty funny too.”

“Funny?  Song or context?”

“Context.”

“Tell you what: you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

“You have a song?  An us song?  Damn, I have to tell you mine now, just so I get to hear you sing Ghostbusters.”

“Are you going to sing, or do I get to listen?”

“There goes the other shoe.  Innocently asking about us songs but wanting to get your thieving hands on my player.  Well, nuh-uh, Baby.”

“I’ll find it one day.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I will.”

“You won’t.”

“What’s the song?”  Xander began to tap an intro on Spike’s stomach.  “You going to get to the verse before I bring up my dinner?”

“‘Every breath you take.
Every move you make.
Every bond you break,
Every step you take,
I’ll be watching you.’”

Spike was grinning at the humour in context before Xander was a line in.

“Okay, you now,” Xander insisted, encouragingly singing, “‘Who you gonna call?’”

“More.”

“Uh…  ‘If there's something strange, in your…’”

“The other one.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be showing me yours?”

“More.”

Xander sighed and muttered his way through the first verse to get to the second.

“‘Every single day.
Every word you say.
Every game you play,
Every night you stay,
I’ll be watching you.’”

Knowing what came next, Xander stalled, but Spike was quick to continue.

“‘Oh, can’t you see,
You belong to me…’”

And Xander was forced to shut him up with a kiss that Spike laughed all the way through.

“How many songs do you know?” Xander asked.

“Twenty-seven-thousand-and-eight,” Spike convincingly pulled a number out of the air, and Xander grinned and kissed him again.

“Your turn.”

Spike positioned himself lying nose-to-nose with Xander.  A soft smile, and then he sang in an even softer, almost mournful voice:

“‘Ne me quitte pas,
Il faut oublier,
Tout peut s’oublier,
Qui s’enfuit déjâ,
Oublier le temps,
Des malentendus,
Et le temps perdu,
A savoir comment,
Oublier ces heures,
Qui tuaient parfois,
A coups de pourquoi,
Le coeur du bonheur.
Ne me quitte pas, ne me quitte pas, ne me quitte pas.’”

Xander stared for a moment, completely transfixed.

“Holy.  Fuck.  Now, that’s what I call oral sex.”

“It’s about…  Do you care?”

“Of course I do, tell me.”

“It’s about forgetting what should be forgotten.  Forgetting the times when we didn’t understand one another.  Forgetting the times that made us unhappy.”

“That’s perfect.”

“Until we get to the verse where you’re the queen of my domain.  Which is, from my perspective, fairly accurate, but I know you’ll be bound to object.”

“This is me objecting.  Pretend it’s loudly and strenuously.”

“Usually you hear one verse of French and then it skips to all-gender-encompassing English.”

“And I’d know the English version, yeah?  That’s why the tune is familiar?”

“Probably.”

“Sing that.”

“Not now.  It’s too depressing for words and I’m trying to cheer you up.”

“You have done.”

“Temporary fix, I know, but maybe you’ll get some sleep now.”

Xander pushed Spike onto his back and snuggled up, creaking in his throat as he pressed his face into Spike’s neck.  Spike hugged him tightly and he creaked again.

“Spike?”

“Mmm?”

“Tell me it’ll be okay.”

“Which it?”

“Any.”

Pause.

“Xander.”

“Yeah?”

“It’ll be okay.”

Pause.

“Thanks.”

…

A little after sundown and they sat in the motel’s diner, Xander not eating his food and Spike closely watching him not eat.  Any cheerfulness that he’d managed to instil in the man had been sucked out by a phone call from John Randall shortly after they’d woken.  Spike was heartily pissed off about the call, which he’d felt was not only pointless, but badly disruptive to Xander’s fragile peace of mind.  Hardly a progress call when there was none, it was a further understated plea for help that left Xander frazzled and fearing his inadequacy more with every moment that passed.

Throwing some money on the table, Spike reached across and grabbed Xander’s hand, relieving it of the fork and keeping a firm hold as he led him from the building and to the car.

“Right, what the girl showed you: you said it’s something you’ve seen.”

“Yes, but we’ve looked…”

“You assumed it was when we were driving here.”

“It was.”

“It can’t be, or we’d’ve found it.  We’re going to take a drive along every stretch of road we’ve been on since we got here and, I promise you, if it’s there to be found…”

Xander tugged Spike into a relieved and grateful embrace.

“Thank you.  Thank you.”

“C’mon, let’s get going, you know if you stay this close for more than fifteen seconds I need to shag you.”

Reluctantly letting go, Xander stood back and just looked at Spike for a moment.  He’d lost count of how many times he’d done this in the last few weeks, staring at the vampire and trying to figure out if this had always been Spike and if he’d just never known - never wanted to know, if he were honest with himself.

“Were you always like this?” he finally asked.

“Like what?”

“This person.”

Spike took a moment to consider and gestured at Xander.

“No more than you were this one.”

Yes, they were works in progress, Xander appreciated that.  And more.

“I’m really glad I got to know this you,” he said with a sincerity that left Spike speechless.

A quick nod of acceptance and Spike was climbing into the driver’s seat; Xander followed, feeling far more optimistic now that Spike was actively on side.

“Chapel first,” Spike announced, “that’s the obvious route.”

“Okay.”

“How did it look when she showed you?”

“It was quick, kinda…snapshotty, if you…”

“Yep, know what you mean.  Don’t concentrate too hard then.”

“How can I not?”

“Keep looking around, not just staring out of your window.”

“What if I miss it?”

“Miss it the first time and we’ll drive every road a dozen times until you see it.”

“Okay.”

“Anything seems familiar to you, we’ll park up so you can get away from me and listen for the girl again.”

…

For what felt like a long time the endeavour seemed pointless.  Although some of the landscape seemed vaguely similar to what Xander was looking for, nothing quite matched the picture that Paige had placed, fleetingly, in his mind.

“This is hopeless.”

“It’s not even been two hours, Love.”

“Really?  Seems like we’ve been looking all night.  And there aren’t that many roads to try, we’ve done every one of them…how many times?”

“Try to stay positive.”

“The news reports said that this whole area had been searched, from Lestor all the way back to Woodbury, for miles in every direction; we’re wasting our time, why the hell did you ever listen to me?”

“I didn’t listen.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“So…?”

“I looked.  At your face.”  Xander sent a curious glance in Spike’s direction.  “I don’t like to see it miserable.”

“Yeah.  I remember.  Not so pretty.”  Xander lurched violently in his seat as Spike slammed on the brakes.  “What?” he demanded anxiously.

The car was still shuddering as Spike turned and grabbed the collar of Xander’s coat, pulling him close and peppering his face with kisses.

“I lied.”  Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.  “You’re always pretty.”

By the time Spike let Xander go the man was happier, if not happy, and permitted the brief, playful interlude in the midst of the crushing gloom to re-invigorate him.

“’Kay, one more time.  One more circuit and we go back to the motel so I can get away from you and wait for more information.”

“Fancy a beer along the way?”

“No, I…  Yeah, what the hell.  Make it several.”

“Am I allowed to get you drunk and do a runner with you?”

“I wish.”

“Xander…”

“No.”

“To what?”

“To…anything that has a scrap of sense involved.”

“Hmm,” Spike acknowledged as he started the car.  “Good call.”

…

A third of one beer, that was all, and Xander’s face was showing the guilt for having stopped the search.  He leant against the bar and drew precise lines in the condensation on his glass.

“That shows the state of your mind, you know that?”

“What does?”

“Look.  It’s like you’re drawing prison bars.”

“I’ve always done it.”

“Didn’t say the state of mind was new, did I?"

Xander stared at the glass.  Then Xander stared at Spike.  Back to the glass.

“If Willow were here, she’d be able to find Tania,” he said unexpectedly.

“She’s not here.”

“I should have paid more attention when I had the chance, should have learned…stuff.  A locator spell.  That’s all it would take and…”

“I think you need something special inside you for that to work properly.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.  Or every thirteen-year-old girl would be a bloody nightmare with their love spells, eh?”

Xander snorted.

“Not just the thirteen-year-old girls.”

“You going to drink that?”

Pushing the glass away, Xander sighed.

“No.  Sorry.  No drunken sex for you tonight.”

“How about we nip upstairs then?  Maple pecan slices, or an hour of brain-blending music, up to you.”

“Think we’ll run into Tyrone?” Xander asked with the slightest hint of a smile.  “That’d be…”

“…fucking awesome,” they finished together.

Spike closed the gap between them, shoulder to shoulder and he nudged until Xander turned to look at him.  A further tilt and their lips barely met before…

“Not here, boys,” the woman behind the bar warned them as she passed by; Spike immediately pulled away.

“Huh?”

“Upstairs then?”

“You’re actually listening to someone?” Xander asked, bemused.

“She’s four-hundred if she’s a day, and I’m not here to cause trouble.”

“She’s – she’s…”

Spike gave the woman a friendly wave and guided Xander from the bar and into the complex’s main thoroughfare.

“A vampire, yes.”

“Wow.”

“A Master.  This is obviously her patch, so we play nicely.”

“Wow.”

Xander leaned into the doorway for another look, squeaking as Spike not-so-gently yanked him back outside.

“What’s it to be then?”

“Shouldn’t we leave?”

“No,” Spike frowned.  “Not because of her.  She’s not going to screw up a cushy little number like this by starting fights with passing demons, is she?”

“Oh.  Right.”

Xander followed Spike to the elevator and they rode up to the level that housed the café and entrance to the club.  Spike wasn’t fooling himself about a night out, and he went to the café to buy a few of the pastries that Xander had enjoyed so much on their previous visit.  An urgent call of his name swung him back in Xander’s direction, and he sped through the drifts of people to where Xander was leaning on the plate glass window he’d been staring out of prior to entering the club on Sunday night.  Xander’s hands were spread out on the glass as if he were trying to touch something beyond it.

“That’s it,” he said, wide-eyed and mesmerized, as Spike arrived at his side.  “There.”  Spike stared out into the murk and could make out the distinct shape of a wooded ridge in the landscape about a mile from the complex.  “That’s it,” Xander repeated.

“We’d never have seen that from the road.”

“Oh, yeah.  Beer receives absolution.”

“You think Paige was taken from here?  Was Tania?”

“Maybe.  But more importantly Paige knows where she was taken to, and this, to her, is the familiar view of it.”

“Want to check around?  In case he did get Tania here.  See if you pick anything up?”

“No, I don’t want to waste time.”

“Want to call Randall?”

“No.”  An excited glance at one another…  “Let’s go find Tania.”  …and they rushed back to the elevator.

…

Once again the rock formation proved impossible to spot from the road and it was only Spike’s ability to gauge distance and perspective that allowed them to find the general area, then it was out of the Cadillac and on foot, Spike taking the lead and Xander cautiously following, trying his best to manage in the intermittently bright moonlight, rather than take a chance on alerting the kidnapper by using a flashlight.

Xander soon fell behind, but it was intent rather than inability to see.  Spike paused and turned back, watching as Xander listened, fingers impatiently twitching.

“Okay, I can see that in my mind, can’t see it from the ground.  You’ll have to—  …  Okay.  Okay.  Thank you, Saul.”

Xander gestured for Spike to keep going in the same direction, and they moved into deeper scrub, naturally darker as it was overshadowed by the rock formation that had proved so distinctive.  Xander grabbed the tail of Spike’s duster and let himself be led, still trying to put as much distance between them as possible.  Eventually he gave a sharp yank and Spike came to a halt.

“Oi, I’m not your little pony.”

“Shh.”  Xander moved close and whispered.  “There’s a kind of…of…vertical fold in the rocks, it looks like a solid piece of stone, but there’s a way in, there’s a cave.”

“Paige here?”

Xander backed up.

“Yeah.”

Spike closed the gap between them.

“You want to wait here and listen to the girl while I look around?”

“I don’t think you’ll recognise it if you see it.  And it’s very overgrown.”

“Then there must be disturbance in the vegetation: I’ll spot that.”

“The police have searched here, and they never did.”

“There’s a reason why my pay is five times higher than John Randall’s.”

Xander hesitated.

“Try then.  But come back for me if you find anything.”

“Yeah, and you be ready to scream your head off if you need me, sod the circumstances.”

“Okay.”

“And no wandering off.”

“No.”

With a last squeeze to Xander’s hand, Spike silently disappeared into the gloom.

It was hard to dismiss the immediate sensation of vulnerability but, Xander reasoned, that was neither unexpected nor original.  The cavalry was now a frightened guy with a dead girl in his head rather than a rock in his hand, but what else was new?  He scanned the ground, picked up a fairly hefty piece of stone and grinned to himself.

More pictures flooded his mind and he peered into the darkness, trying to match the images inside and outside of his head, walking slowly in the direction that Spike had taken as he was lured by the unfolding detail within the residual energy.  Stumbling once too often, he tossed the stone away and reached for the flashlight in his pocket, smothering most of the lens with his hand and allowing himself a rapid examination of the ground lay-out and nearest rock face before switching the light off again.  Further mental pictures in a rapid-fire series, Paige’s presence strongly felt, Paige and…allegedly there were two further victims, but Xander knew from what he was experiencing that this place had witnessed more brutality, more deaths that had not been attributed to this evil individual.

Xander simply went with what he was reading, following where the information led as he trod in the dragged footsteps of multiple young victims, tensing as he felt their terror and the chilling sensation that represented the cruelty of the man who had held them captive.

Flashlight back in his pocket, Xander took a short yet convoluted path that led through the brush, noticing that this route disturbed none of the surrounding vegetation and realising with a shiver that Spike would have overshot this area and, with his speed, could be quite a distance away.  No time – well, not much – to worry about that; Xander held both hands out before him and laid them on the cold rock, feeling his way along until his senses were completely at odds, hands following a recess that his eye refused to see, even this close up.

Even in spirit Paige’s fear was devastating, and Xander was forced to ask Saul to intervene to ensure he wasn’t overwhelmed.  A return to the familiar hum of massed voices, not enough of a distraction under these circumstances to prevent Xander from focusing on the residual energy and, with a final glance back and the wish that Spike would magically appear – which, naturally, he didn’t – Xander pressed on.

Complete darkness as Xander groped his way along a narrow passage in the rock face, and he hated that he was trembling, with the residue of Paige’s fear, with his own that he wouldn’t be able to find Tania, or it would be too late and she would have suffered the same horrible fate as the others, fear that he wouldn’t live through this to say goodbye to his friends, or to save the world, which was growing increasingly unlikely anyway as the apocalypse seemed to be taking, as Spike would put it, a bugger of a time arriving, or…

The passage began to widen and there was the faintest glimmer of yellow a short distance away.  A cave, this was the mouth of a cave, and the scents that hung in the air of this contained space were nauseating: rotting food and human waste, some kind of gas that Xander guessed was heating and lighting the place.  Beyond the voices in his head there was silence, and Xander considered returning to where he’d been left in the hope that Spike would show up sooner rather than later, but now he was so potentially close to ending this he was frightened to leave and chance losing what could be vital minutes for Tania.

Xander was only vaguely concerned about the presence of the kidnapper: it wasn’t as if he was some defenceless teenage girl, he had a man’s strength and, post-Sunnydale, an ingrained knowledge of self-defence, however rudimentary.  Spike would fuss, he knew that.  Actually Spike was going to be so furious that he’d ‘wandered off’ that getting into a fight with a serial killer would simply be the icing on a highly unpalatable cake.

Xander inched forward, pausing to listen carefully with every cautious step.  The light was brighter as he approached the dogleg bend that stood between him and whatever next, and turning that blind corner was going to be about as stressful as taking on the average mad god; a few deep breaths, and Xander slowly, slowly sneaked to where he could see something of what was around the bend.  Which proved to be very little.  Two more steps and he could see a wooden work bench, cluttered with various items that Xander didn’t want to think too closely about, bearing in mind the kidnapper’s penchant for torture; a third step and he could see an armchair, empty food packaging, chains, rope, a reel of wire; a fourth step and Xander held his breath when he saw a mattress pushed up against the cave wall, and on that mattress was a single person.  The Please be alive mantra in his head picked up to double speed.

Despite the urge to rush to help, Xander took his time surveying the remainder of the cave before establishing it was deserted.  With a heaved breath of relief, he ran the last few steps to the mattress, kneeling beside it and examining the frail body through the thin and filthy blanket, checking for a pulse and having to press hard to feel a faint flutter beneath his fingers.  The girl’s face, when Xander found the courage to turn it toward him, was a mass of grazes and bruises, and there was a pattern surrounding her eyes, picked out in cigarette burns.  Xander’s stomach rolled and he turned away from Tania in the pretence of looking for her clothes, but there was nothing to be found; Xander walked a little further onto the cave, gagging as he skirted the stinking container that was half-full of human waste, and barely stopped himself tumbling down a shaft in the rocks.  Shining the flashlight down the channel he discovered what he assumed were the girl’s clothes on the top of a pile of material, food remnants, other objects that he couldn’t discern and probably didn’t want to.

Pulling off his coat as he returned to Tania, he did his best to keep her covered as he dressed her in it, hoping that she was so deeply unconscious that she wouldn’t experience any pain from what he was convinced was a broken arm, awkwardly using the blanket to bind it to her and prevent it from moving about too much.

“Hey, Tania,” he whispered, “I don’t know if you can hear me, Honey, I’m Xander, and I’m one of the good guys.  That bastard isn’t going to hurt you again, I promise.  But…I might as I move you, so…sorry.  Be worth it to be safe, huh?”

Xander charily lifted Tania into his arms, concerned by the weak moan she gave and hesitating to see if she would wake; when it became clear that she was still fully unconscious Xander bundled her closer and hurriedly turned toward the exit, feeling the shock from head to toe as he came face-to-face with a thirty-something man who might have been considered unremarkable if he hadn’t been shaking with fury and wielding a large wrench.

There was a moment’s stand-off as they stared at one another, Xander’s apparent composure masking his consternation that he had unwittingly placed Tania between them, and his grip tightened further when the man’s gaze dropped to her inert form.

“Put it down,” he demanded with unexpected restraint.  “Put.  It.  Down.”

“No,” Xander replied as pseudo-calmly.  “Tania is going home.”

The arm holding the wrench flexed.

“It’s mine.”

“You need to accept that this is over.  You think I’m here alone?  You think you’re going to get anything more out of this now, other than an injection, courtesy of the state?”

“It’s mine.”

Time for a little of the screaming Spike had prescribed, and Xander managed to yell the vampire’s name before the man lurched forward; Xander jerked back, already starting to turn in a bid to protect Tania, barely seeing the wrench swiping in his direction but feeling it skid across his shoulder as he ducked away, bracing himself for the next strike as he lowered Tania to the mattress as gently but as quickly as possible so he’d be free to protect them.

The strike never came; there was a shuffling sound that lasted seconds, a strange, muted cry that was cut short, and then…nothing.  Even before he looked Xander knew Spike had intervened, knew that the situation had been dealt with as quickly and efficiently as one would expect from a Master vampire.  There was a surge of relief when Xander swivelled around to find Spike with the kidnapper locked in a firm grasp, but it was soon joined by a trickle of anxiety because of the peculiarly blank look on Spike’s face.

“Spike?”  Their eyes met and Spike frowned.  “Spike?  What…?”  Spike relaxed his hold and the man slumped heavily to the ground.  Xander watched in stunned silence as Spike poked a limp hand with his foot.  “Is he…?”

“Yes.”  Spike looked back to Xander with that same curious lack of emotion.  “I seem to have…killed him.”

Manifestation 24       Manifestation Index       Manifestation Notes

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