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Part Six, Making Contact



Consciousness overtakes her brain, but Buffy doesn’t dare move or make a sound.



Spike is awake, and his body is still snug against hers, but his head is up. She can feel his arm pinning her hair to the bed but not pulling too hard. . . just enough so that she knows he’s there.



Spike’s not alive. His chest doesn’t rise and fall, and he doesn’t have a heartbeat or take in the air like someone who needs oxygen. He does breathe though. . . when he speaks or when he’s exerting himself. . . probably something leftover from his human days over a century ago.



Sometimes she’s still amazed that he remembers that droplet of years that he was human.



And sometimes she’s amazed that he seems so human when he’s so clearly not.



Buffy almost gives her awareness away by gasping when his fingers brush back the hair covering her neck. A single digit glides over the recently re-opened wound on her neck, sending the intermingled sensation of pain and pleasure rippling over her body.



She’s never experienced so much power behind a single touch.



And she’s pretty sure Spike hasn’t either.



When the contact ceases, she resists the urge to insist that he return, afraid that if he knows she is awake, he will pull away from her all together. He’s done it enough in the last couple of years.



He moves from her anyway.



Cool air rushes between them. The mattress rises with the loss of his weight next to her.



Although she tries, she can’t see him in the unyielding darkness. But she hears him, circling the bed, bumping into the corner of the bed frame with a muffled curse, and planting his feet onto the rickety stool.



A little hurt that he left her side without acknowledging what happened between them, without realizing she was awake, she speaks, “How do you know Dru won’t just kill us both? I mean, we’re sorta stuck here. She could do anything she wants to us.”



His hand covering the smooth surface of the transmitter above his head, Spike closes his eyes. His body aches. Although his healing powers are swifter than a human’s, they still lag behind a Slayer’s. His soul tickles a bit. He doesn’t want to worry her; he’s done that enough this mission. “She won’t kill us. I know Dru. She’s a bit dotty but by no means is she stupid. She won’t jeopardize losing what she needs.”



She remembers something, but she wants to see him when she asks. She sits up. Flicking on the wrist computer that she finds next to her head, she narrows her eyes. “Bright.”



“You forget how bright the light can be when you get used to the dark,” Spike comments, the truth of his words edged with the crust of sarcasm.



“Hush,” she says, grateful for the return to the surface-y ease between them. “Damn. It’s eight o’clock!”



“In the morning?”



“In the evening. Twenty hundred hours. That’s eight P.M., right?” Buffy still isn’t good at the military time even though most of the human race has been using the system since they went underground.



“Right.”



“Means we slept a long time.” She stretches her legs tentatively. No twinge in her belly. There’s a little stiffness but no pain. Huh. She blinks at Spike’s hazy blue silhouette. Back to her thoughts on Drusilla. “You said something to her.”



His voice is slightly muffled because he’s facing the wall, “Said a lot of things to Dru, pet.”



“You said she would be fed. What does that mean? Are we taking her with us? Did you trade our lives for some others’? ‘Cause well, if you did, I’m not sure. . .”



He glances over his shoulder with raised eyebrows and a half-smirk, half-frown to let her know that what’s she’s suggesting is total bunk. Going back to his work, he jerks a set of wires out of the wall. “I would never let innocent people purposefully die, Buffy.” He fumbles with the wires, separating and twisting. “Things are more complicated than us versus them. Doesn’t Rupert explain all this to you?”



Giles is patient with her and elucidates all the nuances of the underground factions, but there’s just so much she can hear before her brain goes on overload, and she asks him for the bottom line. Apparently, Spike is more in the know than she is, and that makes her snappish, “He does, but I’m just a Slayer, not a politician.” So, spill it already.



Spike works as he talks. “You know that there are three main factions in the underground, right?”



“Right.” She hesitates. “Well, I just know about two.”



“Those who want to stay put and make do with what we have left. They want to avoid contact with demons at all costs. . .”



“Even the good ones. Humans good; demons bad is their philosophy.” Buffy had heard stories of certain members of that faction hunting down and murdering innocent demons who were trying to do the right thing in the underground. Some extremists even viewed Slayers as part of the demon race, and they’d lost a handful of Slayers to bullets or poison.



“Yep.” Spike nods and bends his head to splice a wire with his teeth. “Then, there are those who. . .” He winces as a lance of pain shoots through his ribcage.



“You okay?” She moves closer to him but doesn’t touch him. His focus on making contact with the underground has made it clear that she is to ignore the hours they spent curled up together. She’s letting him get away with it for now.



He leans heavily against the wall. “Yeah. I’m okay.”



Deciding to talk him through the pain, she persists for him, “There are those who are doing what we’re doing. . . trying to fight back. . . trying to win back pieces of the surface even if they have to bring it underground for the time being.” They’re us. . . the Slayers, the Slayers’ friends, and the Watchers.



Spike sits on the stool, forearms on his thighs. “We’re doing a right fine job of it, too.”



“Oh yeah! We kick ass, especially if we get out of this one alive and with our pretty little prize!” She grins at him. “And the third group?”



“Are new. . . well, within the last year, give or take a few months. They want to negotiate with the vamps.”



Buffy snorts. “They’ve been reading too many novels. That’s like playing Russian Roulette or committing suicide!” She frowns. “Wait, isn’t that the same thing?”



Spike resists the urge to pull her onto his lap. He doesn’t think the stool could take the weight, and he isn’t sure Buffy would take so kindly to mixed signals. . . not that he isn’t doing a fine job with the mixed signal bit. “But it’s a popular idea. People are getting tired of waiting around for something to happen. . . tired of lurking about in the dark. They are afraid of what will happen to their children if they remain hidden away in their rabbit burrows.”



“What does all this have to do with Dru?”



“Well, since the humans are underground, vamps are starving.”



“Know that part.” The vampires started invading the underground a few months after they took over the surface; hence, the magically-inclined humans erected the barriers. They were still working out the kinks, but overall, the barriers were well-managed and fewer deaths were occurring as a result. No one mentioned that the vampires were still starving.



“So, Dru is hungry, and the third faction wants to negotiate.”



Buffy’s more than incredulous. “Uh huh. I can see that one working.” She deepens her voice, “‘Hello! We’d like to negotiate world peace.’” Then, she switches to a bad, slightly too insane version of Drusilla’s voice, “‘All the better to eat you, my dears. The stars told me you were coming for dinner.’” She glides her legs over the edge of the bed so that her knees are almost touching Spike’s. “Shouldn’t we be trying to talk them out of it?”



Spike shrugs. “They’re going to try to make it happen anyway. Why not facilitate it for them? ‘Sides, I made it part of the bargain with Dru.”



“I still have my doubts about her.”



“As I expect you should, pet,” he admits.



Maybe there’s still a way out of that part of the bargain. Buffy studies her partner. “You feeling any better?”



Spike averts his gaze, standing on the stool again. “Good as can be expected. Just about got this done.”



Working quickly in case the pain rears its ugly head, he hooks the transmitter back up. On the bottom of the device, he finds the crest of a button and presses it. The wall begins moving. . . or rather, the TV-shaped section of the wall emits a mechanical shriek and settles into a hum as it peels back from its casing.



Entranced by the illumination, Buffy’s eyes widen, and her face glows. She scrambles to the end of the bed. “Wow! This is our way home?”



Numbers fly across and fill the monitor of the transmitter’s operating system. Everything is working faster than Spike expected. He just hopes they make it out alive.



“It is. The operating system works automatically; lets the underground know where we are.”



“What was all that fumbling with the transmitter then?” she asks, eyes roving over the hundreds of buttons covering the panels surrounding the monitor.



“It just had to be activated.”



“Oh.”



An unseen slot in the door to their prison opens, and a slim, metal box tumbles to the ground.



The slot closes.



Buffy leaps to her feet and snatches up the box. “What the. . .?”



“Pet, that’s our cue. Open the box.”



Without hesitation, she flips open the lid. Their guns, four boxes of wood-laced bullets, two silver knives, and a flat protein bar lay before her. She looks at Spike with wide green eyes.



Spike meets her gaze in mutual understanding. “We have exactly five minutes to get out of the building and out of the city. . . starting. . .”



The door to their cell bangs open with enough force to rattle the thick stone walls.



“Now!”





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