Chapter Twenty-Six
Willow and Buffy stared at the pod positioned in the centre of the cell in the basement of the Council’s safe house. They’d all decided that it was best to keep Spike in it until they could undo some of the damage that Walsh and her cronies had done.
“Buffy,” cautioned Willow, as her friend moved to open the lid.
“I can’t help it, Will. I just have to see him. Make sure he’s okay.”
Buffy, usually so good at hiding her emotions from everyone, could barely keep from weeping every time she thought of Spike’s or Cameron’s ordeals. It was so far out from the things she’d dealt with as a slayer. It used to be so much easier to tell the bad guys from the good guys. Now that line was blurred forever in her mind.
“The stimulation won’t help him, Buff,” said Willow.
“I know.” Despite her words, she opened the catches and raised the lid. “Shh, baby,” she said. “It’s going to be all right.”
Spike hissed at her and bared his fangs. The hiss deepened to a low wheezy growl as she stroked his cheek.
“Oh, God!” Buffy fled the room, leaving Willow to close the pod.
As she did she muttered an incantation and the vampire was asleep before she’d done up the catches.
Upstairs, Buffy found no escape from her spiralling emotions, as she walked into the lounge to see Cam, sitting in his chair staring at the blank TV screen.
“Hey,” she said softly, rubbing a hand over his arm.
He turned to look up at her, the corners of his mouth twitching in what seemed to pass as a smile.
“How are you doing?”
“Craig is setting up the computer for me.”
“I meant—”
Cam’s mouth set into a grim line. “I’ve got to put that right.”
“But—”
“Don’t, Mom. Don’t ask me how I am.” He blinked back tears. “I need to stay focussed.”
He put his hands on the wheels and turned the chair away from her. Buffy reached out to touch his shoulder but let her hand fall away before it touched him. What comfort could she really offer him? Craig walked into the room and paused when he saw Cam with his back to Buffy. His heart twisted at the pain etched on his Mom’s face, but understood a little of how Cam must be feeling.
“Uh…the computer’s all fired up and ready to go.” His tone didn’t match the light-hearted words.
“Great.” Cam wheeled round to head to the door.
Craig shifted awkwardly, eyes downcast. “Cam…there are steps to the room. I’ll have to help you.”
Buffy’s heart tightened as she saw Cam close his eyes briefly and grit his teeth. “Okay. Is there room for the chair?”
“Yeah, loads of room, just got three steps down at the end of the hallway.” Craig walked behind Cam and put his hands on the grips on the back of the wheelchair.
“Come on then. I need to get started.”
Cam stared straight ahead as Craig pushed him forwards. Galvanised by their movement, Buffy’s hand finally touched Cam’s shoulder. “If you need—”
“I’ll call for help, okay? It’s not like I’m going to be going anywhere, is it?”
Both Buffy and Craig winced at that, and his shoulders slumped.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, hands twisting in his lap.
He didn’t mean to be like that but his head was buzzing with thoughts not his own, and whatever drugs they’d fed him in the Initiative had long since worn off, leaving him with pain radiating through his body from the base of his neck where the clamp had done its damage.
Hatred for Maggie Walsh and all in the Initiative swelled in him as Craig tipped his chair backwards and bounced him down the steps. How could they do what they did? Not just to him, but to Spike, and those other godforsaken creatures?
Once inside the room, he pushed himself to the computer desk and without a word to Craig, he began tapping at the keypad, staring at the screen as he did so.
Craig had never felt more useless in his life than he did at that moment, watching his little brother – his crippled little brother – trying to figure out how to help Spike.
*~*~*~*
“Cam, honey?” The voice was tentative.
“I’m busy.”
“You need to take a break. You haven’t eaten a thing all day,” Willow said.
Cam shuddered. Nor am I going to! “I’m not hungry. I don’t want to lose track of where I’ve got to.”
Willow walked closer. “You’ll make yourself ill – what good will you do Spike if you’re ill?”
Glancing up at her, he said, “You don’t understand. They did…something…to me and I don’t need to eat, okay?” Not quite true – without the drip he wasn’t getting any sustenance – but he couldn’t bear the thought of having to have someone help him to the toilet. Would he even know when he needed to go? He certainly couldn’t tell when he urinated.
“Well, take a break then? Just for ten minutes.”
“No!” He turned back to the screen. “How can I take a break when Spike’s…when…” He swallowed hard. “I’m not stopping until I’ve worked out what needs doing.”
“Can I help?”
With a sigh, Cam said, “Yes.”
Her face brightened with a smile. “What do you want me to do?”
“Fuck off!”
Willow gasped and backed away.
“I’m sorry!” He turned to the door but it was too late; she’d already gone.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered as he refocused on the computer.
*~*~*~*
“What does he want to eat?” said Buffy, looking up as Willow walked into the kitchen.
“He doesn’t. They’ve made it so he doesn’t need to eat. Oh, Buffy…that poor boy.” She sat on a chair with a thump. “How could they…?”
Cutting the cheese sandwich she’d just made in half, Buffy said bitterly, “The real thing is how could we let them do what they did to the vampires? We should have seen that they’d be capable of doing more than just turning vamps into bloodhounds!”
“We thought they were doing good.”
“No, Willow. Deep down I think I always knew that the Initiative was as evil as the demons they used, but I was too focussed on trying to have a normal life and to bring up the boys to really care about it.” She paced to the window and looked out, arms wrapped around her body. “I let them blind and control vampires – Spike – and as long as I could feel normal then I didn’t care. As long as it didn’t affect me…” She wiped her eyes with the back of her right hand. “Only it has now hasn’t it? Craig’s dreams shattered. Cam…paralysed and subjected to God knows what. Spike…” She took in a shuddering breath. “He’d be better off dust. All because I wanted to deny what I was – what I am.”
Willow rose from her chair, went to Buffy and put her arms around her shoulders. “It’s not your fault, sweetie. We’ll get through it. We always did – remember?”
Buffy squeezed her eyes tight shut, knowing if tears began to fall she’d never be able to stop.
*~*~*~*
The Initiative was in uproar. Maggie had predictably gone ballistic. She was currently staring down at Mark.
“How could you let it happen? Get outwitted by a teenaged boy? Did you learn nothing from me?”
Mark would have said he was sorry - would have appealed to the good side that he wasn’t sure that she had. But talking was impossible when your mouth was stuffed with a ball gag, so big that he thought his jaw was going to dislocate.
She walked around the table he was strapped down on, her fingers trailing along his naked goose-pimpled skin. His eyes never left her as she caressed his genitals, eliciting a moan as she squeezed his balls so hard he feared they’d rupture.
“So what should I do with you, Mark? I can never trust you again. I’m sure that the goddamn slayer won’t just be content to have her son back.” She released his balls and continued around the table. “And she took Seventeen. I don’t like people taking away my possessions. And that brings me back to what I should do about you.”
Mark’s eyes widened as she smiled at him. The woman only ever smiled when she was going to inflict some torture or other. The door opened and she turned away.
“Ah! Perfect timing. Set it down over there.”
Rolling his head to the side, Mark frowned at the glass jar on the trolley beside his bed. A soul? What was she doing with that?
“Well, Mark,” said Maggie, conversationally. “I took a leaf out of Wolfram & Hart’s book. When you started here, you signed away your soul.”
He shook his head. It couldn’t be true.
“See the colour of it. You were quite the little goody goody when I enlisted you, weren’t you? Shall we see what effect, twelve years of working at my side has done to it?”
More frantic shaking of his head.
Maggie began the ritual to restore the soul to its rightful owner. Mark screamed around the gag and thrashed wildly, as the ball of light worked its way into his body. Moments later he went limp.
“See how you like that,” said Maggie, glaring at her former right hand man.
She strode over to push the button on the intercom. “He’s ready for the cells. Better put him in a padded one. Oh, make it the cell opposite Lilah, keep the fronts clear – let him see what he has helped achieve.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Two guards walked in the room a couple of minutes later, and Maggie watched dispassionately as the gurney was wheeled away. With that problem out of the way, she now needed to focus on locating her escapees.
*~*~*~*
As Cam worked in solitude, searching desperately for a way to reverse what he’d done to Spike, Willow took her laptop and sitting at the kitchen table, she hit research mode to try to find a spell that would restore Cam to full mobility.
*~*~*~*
Mark woke with a scream and found he couldn’t stop. His eyes flew open and darted around the cell, meeting the gaze of Lilah who had been standing at the front of her cell waiting for this moment. She grinned at him and licked her lips. He screamed louder and scuttled backwards until he was huddled in a corner. Lilah threw her head back, tossing her luxuriant brown hair, and laughed as hard as Mark screamed.
A shudder ran through her as her penis filled and rose, she stared at Mark as she rubbed her hand over her cock. Catching her bottom lip in her teeth, she wondered if the professor would let her play with him. It had been a long time since they’d let her have sex. Her mouth fell open as she brought herself to a climax, when her eyes met those of Mark, she swore she could hear his sanity snap.
As the semen spattered on the glass at the front of the cell, Mark’s screams stopped. His mind simply shut down, no longer able to deal with the horrors that he’d seen, participated in or ordered. The tension left his body, as his face went slack, mouth slightly open, he stared at nothing and drool trickled from the right corner of his mouth.
*~*~*~*
They finally managed to get Cam away from the computer when Buffy went to check on him and found him slumped over, head on the keypad, fast asleep. Disconnecting the waste tube from the container in the base of the wheelchair, Buffy lifted him as easily as if he were as child and carried him to the bedroom that he and Craig were to share.
Craig pulled back the covers on the bed when Buffy walked into the room. Between them, they got him settled and put the end of the tube into a container they’d adapted for the purpose.
A fat tear rolled down Buffy’s cheek as she pulled the quilt up over her son. He should be in a hospital, getting the help he so desperately needed, but she was terrified of Maggie Walsh finding him if he wasn’t safe inside the warded house.
She turned as Craig put his hand on her arm. “I’ll watch over him, Mom. Get some rest, okay?”
Smiling weakly, she nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Craig closed the door behind her and sat on the other bed, elbows on knees, his chin cupped in his hands.
It must have been an hour later that Cam began to stir, soft whimpers escaping as his upper body twitched and shuddered. Craig knelt beside the bed and took one of Cam’s clenched fists in his hands.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Craig said as Cam’s eyes fluttered open. “You’re…” He opted against saying all right and settled, instead, for, “safe.”
“Wha…?” Cam blinked. “How?”
“You fell asleep on your keypad. Mom brought you up here.”
Cameron pushed himself up, with his hands, until he was sitting. “Take me back – I’ve nearly found it.”
“No, Cam…you need to rest.”
“I don’t--I’ve got to…” He paled as swayed, and his head banged against the wall, hard enough to make Craig wince in sympathy.
“Cam!” Craig got hold of his shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
The feeling passed and Cam glanced up at his brother. “Nothing. I’m okay. Just felt a bit dizzy.”
Standing, Craig said, “I’ll get Mom.”
“No! I’m just…” His stomach rumbled loudly.
“Freaking starving!” said Craig. “All that I don’t need to eat stuff you told Aunt Willow was just bullshit, wasn’t it?”
“No.” Cam dropped his eyes to his hands which were twisting into the bed covers.
“Liar.” Craig sank to his knees beside the bed. “Why won’t you eat? If you pass out you can’t help Spike, can you?”
“No. Suppose not, but…”
“But what, Cam?” said Craig. “What’s wrong? You can tell me.”
Bringing his head up, so that their eyes met, Cam said, “You laughed at me.”
“What?” His brother frowned. “When?”
“When Aunt Willow brought me to the cottage.”
Craig shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“You did – or would have if Aunt Willow hadn’t glared at you.”
“No, I…oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Thought it hilarious that I’d peed my pants, didn’t you?”
“But I didn’t know…”
Neither boy could meet the other’s eye. After a pause, Cam added, “I hate it. Not knowing when I need a piss is worse than not being able to…not being able to walk.”
Craig thought his heart would cease to beat as Cam spoke so quietly.
“I don’t want to eat…’cause…what if I don’t know that either?”
“Oh, Christ, Cam!” Craig threw his arms around his brother, pulling him to his chest. “I’ll help you, okay? We’ll get through this. If you…well, if you need help getting cleaned up, I’m here for you, okay?” When Cam remained silent, he pulled back so he could see his brother’s face. “We’ll get through this, Cam. I’ll look after you.”
Cam nodded slightly and put his arms around Craig, pulling him closer so he wouldn’t see his tears. But I don’t want to have to be looked after.
When they untangled themselves, Craig sniffed a couple of times, to get his own emotions back under control. “I’ll get you something to eat. I won’t be long.”
After Craig had left, Cam rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes to try to banish the vision of having a colostomy bag fitted from his mind. It didn’t work. And even worse, he knew exactly how the procedure was done.
He remembered Mark’s words about how vampire blood could heal him over time, but how could he take Spike’s blood after all that he’d done to him? Cam had drifted off into a restless sleep by the time his brother returned, so Craig put the sandwich and soda on the bedside table and climbed into bed. He stared at the ceiling for a long time before he could sleep.
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Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. I may not post on Friday as I'm feeling pretty ill so doubt I'll be online. Sorry - but least not an awful cliffhanger. Oh...what Cam says to Craig towards the end when they talk about his condition. I'm not belittling the inability to walk, I have a friend who was paralysed years ago and I'm using his words when Cam talks.