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WARNING: A little gory this one, but any body seeing a certain episode of Angel should be okay with this
Chapter 10


Buffy reached and caught the strap of her rucksack and pulled it towards her. She unzipped one of the side pockets, rootling around inside………it was in here somewhere………ah-ha! Her fingers closed around a small square of foil-covered chocolate. She took it out, peeled and began to eat – the sugar would give her some much-needed energy.

She closed her eyes and rested her head back, trying to get some semblance of order to her jumbled thoughts – she glanced at Spike, he didn’t look any different, hell, she could hardly see him, but she knew he wasn’t in good shape, she stroked his face gently.

Screwing the wrapper up she threw it down, and opened the main body of the bag, drew out the groundsheet and draped it over them, she then felt for the mini-medi-kit. She found the hypodermic needle and syringe in it’s sterile pack – she swallowed and ripped it open with her teeth, she took three deep breaths, she HATED needles, funny that, the slayer, not frightened by the ‘Godzilla’ like creature she slayed earlier, but show her a creepy-crawly or a needle and she was jellified!

She practically threw the needle like a dart into her wounded leg and depressed the plunger, sending the painkiller deep into her thigh muscle. She pulled it out and threw that across the space, where she heard it plop into the water.

Bending to kiss Spike’s forehead, she stroked his face gently again

“Soon be out of here baby” Spike didn’t reply She tried to squint to see his hand, she could see it was very swollen and tears came to her eyes – she didn’t know how long he’d got left – she was feeling guilty, Spike should have fed, but he put it off so he could do something for her, then they decided to press on – if he’d have fed, he’d have been stronger now………still, no use beating herself up over what might have beens, what’s done is done, can’t go back and change things now – if only he could feed without the poison in his hand moving Buffy thought, resting her head a while, while the painkiller kicked in…………………………


************************


“Bastards, BASTARD!” Angel shouted, shaking his fist at the retreating Jeep with all the soldiers and Riley in it, as they headed for HQ.

“Calm down Angel, you loosing it isn’t going to help” Wesley said quietly

“Besides which, he said once the colonel has gone, he’ll-“ Gunn began

“I KNOW what he said, more than likely be too bloody late by then”

Giles looked ashen, he dropped down by a tree, head in his hands.

“It’s all my fault, I said she should do the job”

“Look, please, will everybody stop beating themselves up over who said what and did what and such, Buffy did the job, she knew what she was getting herself into – so did Spike – we should concentrate on how to get them out, that’s the most important thing” Everybody looked at Cordelia and nodded.

“Right then, can we first establish how long they’ve been missing”

“Nearly twelve hours since they slayed the beast and lost contact – it’ll be twelve hours in twenty minutes time” Giles said

“Okay, and how long do you think, would it be before Buffy’s healing thingy kicks in, hmm?” Cordelia asked

Giles shrugged and said,

“Well um, er – I always assumed that it began straight away. A cut that would last a week with us would be gone in an hour or so with Buffy”

“So what about a gunshot wound do you think?” Cordelia persisted

“Well, depends I suppose – what sort of shot, if the bullet was lodged in the wound in some way – it might have even shattered her bone – it could easily get infected, all that would hamper the healing process – something like that could take a couple of days easily. Then there’s the blood loss of course – if she was knocked out and Spike could get to her………”

“He’s injured too, don’t forget – you said something about his hand, Cordy?”

Cordelia pulled a face

“Hmm, looked awful the few seconds I visioned it…so that would slow down any rescue attempts on his part too”

“The stupid bastard idiot!” Angel spat out

Everybody looked at him

“What?” Angel asked frowning

“Who’s a stupid bastard idiot?”

“Bloody Spike of course, that’s who – I mean, I ask you – a stupid snake bite, what’s the big deal, not as like it could kill him! Angel said with disgust

“Now hold on Angel, we don’t know the circumstances, he might have been saving Buffy from getting bitten” Gunn said

“Yes, AND? – Poison isn’t going to kill him, is it – he’s already dead!” Angel reasoned

“There is a way it could, well, ‘kill him,’ if he fed after the bite – it would reanimate his heart, sending the poison round in his circulation – once it hit the heart muscles – that would be it! It would kill him like it would kill a human, except he wouldn’t be able to feed so he’d starve to death rather than a heart attack – but he’d still cease to exist” Wesley said

“And he obviously knows that, so if he HASN’T fed, he could be very weak – I bet that’s it – coupled with Buffy’s injury – that’s why they’re taking so long” Giles said panic-stricken.

“Giles, calm down, So, this is what we’ve got to go on, worst-case scenario:

Buffy with a serious gunshot wound, and Spike very weak from lack of feeding, which he can’t do because of the snake venom…” Cordelia sighed, things wasn’t looking good at all………

“Do you understand these at all – they’re the Global satellite pictures
they’re not a map as such, but the deeper the green colour, the deeper the depth of the rainforest”

Gunn unrolled three large sheets of paper, that were completely green in colour, varying from pale lime, to the deepest almost black

Wesley fixed the arc lamp over them so they could see better

“See, this is where those soldiers went missing…now there are some fairly mid-green area’s around there, that would mean you could see the sky if you looked up to the canopy of the forest…but see here and then again, over here, there are some almost black areas, that means the forest is virtually impenetrable by sunlight it goes so deep, a ravine…I’m worried that they may have stumbled on, and down one of those areas – in which case, it would be impossible to get them out” Wesley said

“So the colonel was right” Giles said softly

“Hey, none of that old man – come on, where’s your fighting spirit?” Gunn put his arm around Giles’ shoulders.

**********************

Buffy opened her eyes, and looked at her leg, the bullet-wound looked like a black hole, it was swollen still, but when she scratched the flesh with her finger, she couldn’t feel it! Good- that’s the exact thing she wanted. Reaching for the med-kit again, she began to rip open the four packs of bandages, she used three on her leg, and the other one she began to wind very tightly around Spike’s left wrist.

“Hmm…ba-babe…what are you doing?”

“Tourniquet – old fashioned remedy to stop bleeding – they don’t like to use it in this day and age, can cause damage to surrounding tissues – but I figure if you can feed just enough to get a little energy, without sending the poison around your – please Spike, please let me try!” Spike had taken his hand out of hers so she couldn’t wind the bandage.

“So that’s it is it, we just sit here and wait to die?” Buffy asked quietly

“Save yourself, kitten”

“I’ve TOLD you!” Buffy said angrily wiping her tears

Spike too got angry, and summoning up strength he didn’t know he had, he crawled slowly and reached for the machete, he wielded it above his head, and Buffy thought that he was going to kill her – to put a quick end to their misery. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t move a muscle she just closed her eyes and whispered ‘I love you’ – Spike bought the machete down and with clean accuracy, totally cleaved off his left hand

Buffy’s eyes, when she opened them nearly popped and she covered her mouth

Spike dropped the machete in stared at the bloody stump, swaying, before he fell in a crumpled heap.

Buffy quickly grabbed his arm and covered the stump with a dressing – it wasn’t bleeding, he had no circulation, but if she could get him to eat and stop him leaking out too much blood, they had a chance!





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