Family Reunion Part 5
Mar. 19th, 2007 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightFor rating/pairing/setting etc see Part 1. Previous parts here.
Family Reunion Part 5
They'd been two days into the voyage when Spike had finally understood that Dru wasn't going to get better. He'd had everything well set-up by then – quite cosy in fact, with bedding and all the home comforts of a well-stocked larder. His Spanish was pretty rudimentary of course but good enough to threaten in and the harbour-master had understood well enough what would happen to his wife and kids if he didn't co-operate.
Of course, it had happened anyway, but that was neither here nor there, and at least they were together, one not-so-happy family.
No, the set-up was sweet. They had access to a refrigerated compartment in the next container where the larder was and primitive bathroom facilities in the one beyond. The chemical toilet already stank of course but these modern container ships were fast. They'd be in Southampton in no time, Spike reckoned, and keeping the human stock, including the wet nurse, fed and watered wasn't too much trouble. Dru, however – that was another matter.
Once they were settled, he'd said the spell and given her the antidote. She lay on the mattress he'd set down for her in the corner, looking pale and fragile as only Dru could. Spike stroked the dark curls back from her forehead and smiled when her eyes opened and she gazed wonderingly about her. She seemed to have trouble recognising him at first, as so often. Instead, her smooth forehead creased in puzzlement and she whimpered a little.
"Where's my Mama?" she said.
Spike hesitated. He wasn't sure whether she meant Darla or her long-dead human mother. It wouldn't be the first time she'd woken up and behaved as if she were still asleep and dreaming of those distant times. He'd learned from experience that the best thing to do was to ground her quickly.
"She's dead, love, remember? Dear old daddy saw to that ages ago. How're you feeling?"
"My head hurts." As if to prove her point, Dru pressed slender fingers to her forehead then winced, as if the very contact were painful. "The naughty little cherub was sticking daggers in it."
Then suddenly, she screamed so loudly Spike almost jumped out of his skin. She began to thrash around on the mattress as if she were in terrible pain. "He's still here! Make him go away, Spike. He's hurting me so much."
She was twisting so violently, Spike was afraid she would injure herself. He put one hand on her arm to keep her still and glanced over his shoulder at Darla. Darla was pacing up and down in front of the terrified wet nurse, who was currently feeding the baby. It clung to her exposed breast like a parasite and the woman was slumped back against the metal wall behind her, eyes shut, tears rolling down her cheeks. Spike wondered briefly if she were thinking of her own dead baby. It certainly hadn't made much of a meal.
The blow to the jaw took him completely by surprise and he went sprawling, hitting his head on the wall with a dull, metallic clang. Dru was up and past him quick as a flash and across the space that separated them from Darla and the child. She'd gone into game face Spike saw, as he shook his head dazedly. He knew at once what she intended and so, it seemed, did Darla. At once she was suited up too and moving to intercept. She leapt across the intervening distance and brought Dru down in a fair approximation of a rugby tackle, pinning her to the container floor.
Dru was still screaming and thrashing, rolling her head from side to side as if to block out some terrible sound that only she could hear, but Darla seized hold of her hair and began to yank her head up and down by it, bashing it repeatedly against the damp metal. She was snarling, and just as Spike reached her, leaned down towards Dru to bite.
"Bitch!" He kicked her away, only to find himself now the target as she grabbed hold of the edge of his duster and brought him down with her, rolling them so that she straddled him. He put up his hands to fend her off, looking frantically to see what had become of Dru, who was half way up again, and crawling this time – not towards them but towards the wet-nurse and baby. As Darla's fist came towards his face, Spike seized it and used its momentum to flip her over his head. Then he was up and after Dru, reaching her just as her hand was pawing at the wet nurse's leg, the long fingernails digging in and drawing blood. He added his own blow to the ones that Darla had already given her and Dru went limp again. The wet nurse was screaming by this time of course, loud enough to wake the dead, even though it was too dark in the container for a human to see much. Spike wished he'd thought to gag her.
"Callate!"
He knew enough Spanish, too, to tell her to be quiet and she did so instantly. It had never taken him long to get the help well-trained. Neither the woman nor the baby seemed to be harmed. In fact, the brat was still sucking away as if nothing was happening. Spike grimaced in distaste and picked Dru up in his arms. He carried her back to her mattress and set her down, moving her limbs with care in case anything was broken and examining the bruises on her forehead anxiously. Darla had done a number on her.
And speak of the devil, she was right behind him.
"Don't let her do that again, William, or I'll kill her."
Spike put himself between the two women. Dru was slumped on the mattress, eyes closed, breathing raggedly, in great panting gasps like a dying human.
"I'd like to see you fucking try," he said, but looking at Darla, he wasn't sure he fancied the odds all the same. He'd never seen her so close to the edge, all nerved-up, as if limned by lightning. The air seemed to crackle around her and he was sure he could smell ozone. When he'd known her before in his fledgling days, she'd always been the calm one – the one who'd look at him across the room and occasionally – very occasionally – roll her eyes and give him a conspiratorial grimace as they listened to Angelus encourage Dru's latest flight of fancy.
There was none of that now. Instead, she looked as crazy as Dru.
"Why's this happening to her?" Spike asked. And then, because he knew the answer already, "It's the kid, isn't it?"
Behind him, Dru whimpered again – a terrible, broken sound that tore at his heartstrings.
Darla was still poised as if to attack, but she relaxed fractionally and after a moment, her face slid back into its human features, sweetly poisonous and beautiful as sin. Spike felt a familiar stirring in his loins at the sight that he just couldn't seem to help. It wasn't just her beauty. Somehow, she smelt of power, like a Slayer, and it was a real turn-on.
"She can sense his destiny," Darla said, with no explanation of who 'he' was, but then Spike didn't need one. "His future greatness. That must be what it is."
"But why would that make her act so crazy – crazier?" Spike risked taking his eyes off Darla to glance over his shoulder at Dru. She was weeping softly now and muttering something about a destroyer and eternal darkness that sounded – well, maybe not so good.
"Who knows?" Darla was straightening her dress. "Just keep her sedated, William. It's best that way."
"And what if I don't want to?" He was tired suddenly of her assumption that he was there to wait on her. "Suppose instead I tell you to fuck off and throw you and that devil-brat of yours overboard? Dru and I – we don't need you. We've never needed anyone except each other."
She smiled and now she was doing the ice-queen act.
"That's not what Dru told me when she made me a vampire again a little while back."
Spike didn't let his guard down or his surprise show, but he risked turning his back on her to prepare another sleeping draught for Dru. It wasn't hard to make her drink it. Instead, she let him hold her head against his chest while she sipped the liquid straight from the bottle eagerly, as if she welcomed the oblivion it brought. He continued to hold her while she drifted off, stroking her face gently and whispering empty reassurances in her ears. In the meantime, Darla wandered back across the container and Spike heard her speaking to the wet nurse and then, when she got no answer, there was the sound of a slap and the woman crying again.
By the time Darla came back, Dru was out for the count once more, the creases of pain smoothed from her face, though the bruises were turning livid. Spike laid her down with care and covered her with a blanket. He stood up, glad that he could at least look down on Darla, though the dainty figure she cut was so very deceptive. He motioned with his head towards the wet nurse, who was rocking the baby in her arms and singing to it in wavering tear-filled Spanish.
"You'd better go easy on that one, love, or she might not last the trip."
Darla scowled but she looked worried for a moment too.
"She doesn't want to eat," she said. "If she doesn't eat, she can't feed my baby."
"Well, slapping her around isn't gonna help. They get as scared as that, you have to be a bit gentle with 'em, see?"
And just like that, she'd gone all helpless female on him too. Her eyes filled with tears again – the second time he'd seen her cry in as many days – and the next moment, she had her head buried in his chest where Dru's had been moments before. "I just get so angry," she wailed. "He makes me angry, Spike. This shouldn't be happening to me. Vampires don't have babies."
He found he'd wrapped his arms round her, stroking her hair as he'd stroked Dru's, and shushing her as best he could. She was right of course. They were in uncharted territory here. He thought how much easier it would be if they could just kill the brat and be done with it, but in spite of her momentary weakness he knew she wouldn't go for it. No, best to just revel in the fleeting sense of his own manliness that her going all soft on him gave him and sort out the practical stuff, like always. He was good at that.
"Come on, love," he said, after a while, when the only sound in the container was the breathing of the living humans and the faint drumming of their hearts – the kid's much faster than the woman's. "Let's have a seat and you can tell me all about it."
*
"So how's this gonna go?" Spike was sitting across the table from Darla again. It was late and the trains had stopped running for the night so he kept his voice down. Even though he knew it was stupid, he couldn't help thinking that if he spoke more loudly, Angel would hear them.
Darla was examining her perfect manicure. It should be perfect, Spike thought, considering how much time she spent on it every day. He didn’t think he'd ever met anyone so vain, except maybe Angelus.
"Like last time," she said, in answer to his question. "We'll gather in the meeting room and you can bring him there. He'll be allowed to see Connor but only from a distance."
"We'd better keep him in the dark about our numbers." He'd been thinking about this and it only made sense. "He doesn't miss a fucking thing - never has done." She nodded her agreement and he relaxed a little.
"You gonna let him talk to the kid?"
"I don't know." She looked pensive for a moment. Then she smiled. "I might. It'll only make it harder for him knowing he won't ever see him again."
Spike examined his own fingernails. He still painted them black sometimes and they needed doing. Carefully, he said, "He admitted it to me – to my face – that's what he'd come for – to take Connor away. He bribed old Drac to write to us for him – and of course, Drac only wrote to him in the first place because we bankrupted the old tosser and he was after a hand-out."
It occurred to him there was something unpleasantly circular about this whole business but she merely smiled. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
Spike wasn't much in the mood to argue with her after the fraught day he'd had but all the same, he had to speak up. "I still don't get it. Why take the risk? Even if everything goes off all right, he's twigged where he is. It won't take him long to go through a list of abandoned Tube stations and find out which one we're in. He has contacts, same as we do."
She was listening but she didn't say anything so he pressed on. "At the very least, the moment we're shot of him, we'll have to move on – another hiding place – maybe another country. He won't give up – unless -" he hesitated, "unless you're gonna let me dust him."
She'd gone very still.
"You think you could?" she asked, and she sounded genuinely curious.
He thought about it for a moment. On the surface of it, it seemed only too easy and besides, Angel hadn't had any trouble doing the same to Darla for the sake of his nubile little Slayer. It seemed only fair to return the compliment. And if that weren't bad enough, there was the time he'd set Darla and Dru on fire. That was bloody unforgivable in Spike's opinion.
All the same, thinking about it couldn't help but remind him of what it'd been like when the four of them had been a family, back before Angelus got a soul and started thinking himself too good for the rest of them. Of course, there'd been a lot of pain and blood and humiliation mixed in with the sheer joy of the hunt and the slaking of all kinds of appetites, but still –
"I could do it," he said, emphatically.
"Sweet William." Darla reached out and ran a cold finger down his cheek. "So loyal and true. But you've forgotten something, dear heart – that we don't kill family. Your very own words."
He had forgotten, and her reminding him of it now couldn't be coincidence. The bitch was up to something, no doubt about it, and it looked like Spike would be the last to find out what.
"Don't look so angry, Spike." Her voice was cajoling. "I took what you said to heart, didn't I, in spite of everything?"
"Yes." He could hardly trust himself to speak and when she ordered him to strip and get on his knees he obeyed her like an automaton.
*
Later, when he was sure Darla slept, Spike slid out of the bed again. She'd used him hard and he was sore all over, his lips still puffy and swollen. Sitting down for the next few hours was going to be a bitch as well. He dressed quietly and slipped from the room, making his way back along the corridor towards the eastbound platform. It was hot and the air was dead and still. He could hear voices out in the tunnel from the direction of Piccadilly – maintenance men repairing the sleepers, most likely. They were talking loudly, as if to keep their courage up, and Spike had a sudden urge to shout out or maybe laugh just to scare them. They must know something was up at Down Street after all since it'd once been used as an access point in case of emergencies – hence the good state of repair of the staircase – and now it just – wasn't. Now, passengers would be expected to escape through the M.O.D. property at Brompton Road instead.
It'd taken a shedload of dosh to set that up but Spike considered it money well-spent.
He resisted the temptation to frighten the workers and went on. Part of him was dismayed that caution seemed to have become such a habit with him, but then he didn't have Angelus to annoy any more. Besides, he'd been the responsible one for Dru for a hundred years. Thinking of her still hurt, even after all this time, and yet he couldn't stop himself doing it.
He checked up on the guards – Jez and Simon now, both of them pretty reliable if not up to Erroll's standard – then made his way along the platform to the meat locker. At first glimpse, the contents weren't very promising but in the end, Spike unchained one of the homeless kids. This one was bigger than the others and still had some juice in him – enough that Spike had to knock him out to make him stop struggling. Still – she'd always liked them feisty.
He slung the boy's slight, naked body over his shoulder and went back the way he'd come, then up the other stairs, the unlit ones, plunging into the dark. The air smelt dank here – stale – but even so, there was some movement of air from below, the sound soughing through the concrete baffles in the old lift shaft. When Spike entered the shaft, he stood for a moment, listening, and sure enough, he could hear her singing.
Quickly, he climbed down the flights of rickety stairs that lined the shaft, until he reached the bottom. One flickering light lit the way into the lower tunnel – the one no one mentioned – and he tapped it impatiently with his finger. He'd have to get Erroll to repair it. Making his way along the tunnel, surrounded by the smells of damp and mould, he thought again what it must have been like to be stationed here during the war – bloody claustrophobic, that's for certain. The part of the tunnel he was walking through still bore marks on the walls from where metal bunks had been fitted to them. Churchill's bodyguard had needed somewhere to sleep.
Ahead of him, where the air was most dead – not fit to breathe if you were human – the tunnel opened out into one large room, most of which was taken up by a big metal cage, firmly padlocked. There were rats down here – big as cats, he'd seen them – but they never ventured in here.
"Dru?" Spike stopped beside the cage. "I've brought you something to eat, love."
Dru had stopped singing. She sat as she usually sat, leaning against the filthy wall with her arms wrapped around her as if to protect herself. She didn't react to Spike's voice or look up. He bit his lip, feeling the tears start up in his eyes at the sight of her in such a state. Every time he saw it, he asked himself why he stayed – why the hell he let her suffer this way. But he already knew the answer - that there was a part of him that wanted to punish her for all the secrets she'd kept from him.
Still, he thought, as he took the key out of his pocket and unlocked the cage, he was nothing without her and once Darla didn't need him any more – and that day would come - he'd take Dru and go. He'd been warned it might be disastrous for her – finish her off for good – but maybe that wasn't true? Maybe she'd get better – as better as Dru could get – once she was away from the kid? He just wished he didn't have the nasty feeling there'd be nowhere in the world far enough away from Connor for them to escape him.
Setting the boy's body down, Spike locked the cage again and knelt down by Dru.
"Sweetheart?" He brushed the dark hair back from her face but she didn't look at him. Instead, she stared off into some nightmare distance that only she could see. "Oh, love!" He kissed her forehead tenderly, then dragged the limp body into her lap. "See – just for you – all young and succulent."
In actual fact, the kid smelt foul and Dru was far from the first one to have a go at him. Spike waited, hoping she'd take the initiative but, as usual, she sat there and did nothing, though now she was making that strange, high-pitched wailing sound – the one that carried up the shaft so well – that didn't seem as if it could issue from a human throat.
After a moment, Spike realised that she wasn't going to help herself. He sighed with irritation, bent down and pierced the boy's jugular as daintily as he could. Pinching the wound so the blood wouldn't go all to waste, he smeared some on his fingers and put them to her mouth. "Here, love. You must eat."
At first, she hardly reacted, but then, slowly, she opened her mouth and began to lick. Pleased, Spike hefted the dying boy and offered him to her and this time she took him, gathering him into her arms with a rattle of chains and holding him to her breast while she fed from him in an eerie imitation of a mother nursing her child. Dru had always had a thing for kids, of course, but it gave Spike the creeps all the same, thinking about what had got her in this parlous state in the first place.
Still, beggars couldn't be choosers and at least she fed well. Soon, there was nothing but a cooling corpse across her knees, which Spike cast aside into the corner. The Gravids would dispose of it soon enough.
He took Dru into his arms, drawing her head down onto his shoulder and stroking her tangled hair. He'd tried to keep her clean and tidy for a while but she didn't make it easy. Instead, she'd backcomb her hair into wild ringlets, and push him away if he came near her with a sponge. Now, he just gave her a cursory wash and brush-up and tried to ignore the smell of neglect.
"I'm so tired, Spike," she said, suddenly. "I wish I could sleep."
"You do sleep, love." He continued to soothe her. "I bring you your draft every day, remember?"
"No, no." She sounded impatient. "I wish I could sleep forever, like my mummy."
And now she was crying and he didn't know what to do except hold her and rock her. "It'll be better soon, love, you'll see," he said, as he always did. "One day soon, I'll take you away from here and you'll be better again, just like you used to be."
"No." And suddenly, she sounded completely sane. He lifted his head and looked at her. Her pale eyes were luminous in the gloom. "He's eaten too much of me," she said, sadly. "I'll never be right again, Spike. Never."
"Oh, God!" He hugged her convulsively and now he felt eaten up by guilt. She could still do it to him the way no one else could.
"The father took the light away from me," she said, sadly, "and now the son is taking the darkness too and I'm all alone, Spike. All alone where there's nothing."
"You're not alone!" He seized hold of her chin and tipped it up so she had to look at him. "You've still got me."
"Have I?" She touched his cheek. "My dear boy's gone all away, hasn't he - to her – to Darla. She never liked me having anything of my own."
"Bollocks." He was wishing this moment would never end but already he could feel her growing tense again. "I'm still yours, love, you'll see. You just have to be patient."
Suddenly, the hand on his cheek was claw-like and her eyes went feral. A moment later, she'd lunged forward and bitten him in the neck, worrying at the flesh as if he were her next meal rather than her saviour.
"Stop it, Dru!" He pushed her off easily, she was so weak, but when he tried to hold her again, her eyes rolled up in her skull and she began to shake all over in one of her fits. Quickly, he took the flask of mandragora out of his pocket and brought it to her mouth, the metal clashing against her clenched teeth as he forced her to drink it. Then, he held her thrashing body until at last she went limp again.
But she hadn't finished with him yet. As she drifted into unconsciousness once more, she whispered, "Tell Daddy I love him."
TBC
Notes:
MOD: Ministry of Defence
Brompton Road: Another 'ghost' station on the Piccadilly Line of the Underground.
Family Reunion Part 5
They'd been two days into the voyage when Spike had finally understood that Dru wasn't going to get better. He'd had everything well set-up by then – quite cosy in fact, with bedding and all the home comforts of a well-stocked larder. His Spanish was pretty rudimentary of course but good enough to threaten in and the harbour-master had understood well enough what would happen to his wife and kids if he didn't co-operate.
Of course, it had happened anyway, but that was neither here nor there, and at least they were together, one not-so-happy family.
No, the set-up was sweet. They had access to a refrigerated compartment in the next container where the larder was and primitive bathroom facilities in the one beyond. The chemical toilet already stank of course but these modern container ships were fast. They'd be in Southampton in no time, Spike reckoned, and keeping the human stock, including the wet nurse, fed and watered wasn't too much trouble. Dru, however – that was another matter.
Once they were settled, he'd said the spell and given her the antidote. She lay on the mattress he'd set down for her in the corner, looking pale and fragile as only Dru could. Spike stroked the dark curls back from her forehead and smiled when her eyes opened and she gazed wonderingly about her. She seemed to have trouble recognising him at first, as so often. Instead, her smooth forehead creased in puzzlement and she whimpered a little.
"Where's my Mama?" she said.
Spike hesitated. He wasn't sure whether she meant Darla or her long-dead human mother. It wouldn't be the first time she'd woken up and behaved as if she were still asleep and dreaming of those distant times. He'd learned from experience that the best thing to do was to ground her quickly.
"She's dead, love, remember? Dear old daddy saw to that ages ago. How're you feeling?"
"My head hurts." As if to prove her point, Dru pressed slender fingers to her forehead then winced, as if the very contact were painful. "The naughty little cherub was sticking daggers in it."
Then suddenly, she screamed so loudly Spike almost jumped out of his skin. She began to thrash around on the mattress as if she were in terrible pain. "He's still here! Make him go away, Spike. He's hurting me so much."
She was twisting so violently, Spike was afraid she would injure herself. He put one hand on her arm to keep her still and glanced over his shoulder at Darla. Darla was pacing up and down in front of the terrified wet nurse, who was currently feeding the baby. It clung to her exposed breast like a parasite and the woman was slumped back against the metal wall behind her, eyes shut, tears rolling down her cheeks. Spike wondered briefly if she were thinking of her own dead baby. It certainly hadn't made much of a meal.
The blow to the jaw took him completely by surprise and he went sprawling, hitting his head on the wall with a dull, metallic clang. Dru was up and past him quick as a flash and across the space that separated them from Darla and the child. She'd gone into game face Spike saw, as he shook his head dazedly. He knew at once what she intended and so, it seemed, did Darla. At once she was suited up too and moving to intercept. She leapt across the intervening distance and brought Dru down in a fair approximation of a rugby tackle, pinning her to the container floor.
Dru was still screaming and thrashing, rolling her head from side to side as if to block out some terrible sound that only she could hear, but Darla seized hold of her hair and began to yank her head up and down by it, bashing it repeatedly against the damp metal. She was snarling, and just as Spike reached her, leaned down towards Dru to bite.
"Bitch!" He kicked her away, only to find himself now the target as she grabbed hold of the edge of his duster and brought him down with her, rolling them so that she straddled him. He put up his hands to fend her off, looking frantically to see what had become of Dru, who was half way up again, and crawling this time – not towards them but towards the wet-nurse and baby. As Darla's fist came towards his face, Spike seized it and used its momentum to flip her over his head. Then he was up and after Dru, reaching her just as her hand was pawing at the wet nurse's leg, the long fingernails digging in and drawing blood. He added his own blow to the ones that Darla had already given her and Dru went limp again. The wet nurse was screaming by this time of course, loud enough to wake the dead, even though it was too dark in the container for a human to see much. Spike wished he'd thought to gag her.
"Callate!"
He knew enough Spanish, too, to tell her to be quiet and she did so instantly. It had never taken him long to get the help well-trained. Neither the woman nor the baby seemed to be harmed. In fact, the brat was still sucking away as if nothing was happening. Spike grimaced in distaste and picked Dru up in his arms. He carried her back to her mattress and set her down, moving her limbs with care in case anything was broken and examining the bruises on her forehead anxiously. Darla had done a number on her.
And speak of the devil, she was right behind him.
"Don't let her do that again, William, or I'll kill her."
Spike put himself between the two women. Dru was slumped on the mattress, eyes closed, breathing raggedly, in great panting gasps like a dying human.
"I'd like to see you fucking try," he said, but looking at Darla, he wasn't sure he fancied the odds all the same. He'd never seen her so close to the edge, all nerved-up, as if limned by lightning. The air seemed to crackle around her and he was sure he could smell ozone. When he'd known her before in his fledgling days, she'd always been the calm one – the one who'd look at him across the room and occasionally – very occasionally – roll her eyes and give him a conspiratorial grimace as they listened to Angelus encourage Dru's latest flight of fancy.
There was none of that now. Instead, she looked as crazy as Dru.
"Why's this happening to her?" Spike asked. And then, because he knew the answer already, "It's the kid, isn't it?"
Behind him, Dru whimpered again – a terrible, broken sound that tore at his heartstrings.
Darla was still poised as if to attack, but she relaxed fractionally and after a moment, her face slid back into its human features, sweetly poisonous and beautiful as sin. Spike felt a familiar stirring in his loins at the sight that he just couldn't seem to help. It wasn't just her beauty. Somehow, she smelt of power, like a Slayer, and it was a real turn-on.
"She can sense his destiny," Darla said, with no explanation of who 'he' was, but then Spike didn't need one. "His future greatness. That must be what it is."
"But why would that make her act so crazy – crazier?" Spike risked taking his eyes off Darla to glance over his shoulder at Dru. She was weeping softly now and muttering something about a destroyer and eternal darkness that sounded – well, maybe not so good.
"Who knows?" Darla was straightening her dress. "Just keep her sedated, William. It's best that way."
"And what if I don't want to?" He was tired suddenly of her assumption that he was there to wait on her. "Suppose instead I tell you to fuck off and throw you and that devil-brat of yours overboard? Dru and I – we don't need you. We've never needed anyone except each other."
She smiled and now she was doing the ice-queen act.
"That's not what Dru told me when she made me a vampire again a little while back."
Spike didn't let his guard down or his surprise show, but he risked turning his back on her to prepare another sleeping draught for Dru. It wasn't hard to make her drink it. Instead, she let him hold her head against his chest while she sipped the liquid straight from the bottle eagerly, as if she welcomed the oblivion it brought. He continued to hold her while she drifted off, stroking her face gently and whispering empty reassurances in her ears. In the meantime, Darla wandered back across the container and Spike heard her speaking to the wet nurse and then, when she got no answer, there was the sound of a slap and the woman crying again.
By the time Darla came back, Dru was out for the count once more, the creases of pain smoothed from her face, though the bruises were turning livid. Spike laid her down with care and covered her with a blanket. He stood up, glad that he could at least look down on Darla, though the dainty figure she cut was so very deceptive. He motioned with his head towards the wet nurse, who was rocking the baby in her arms and singing to it in wavering tear-filled Spanish.
"You'd better go easy on that one, love, or she might not last the trip."
Darla scowled but she looked worried for a moment too.
"She doesn't want to eat," she said. "If she doesn't eat, she can't feed my baby."
"Well, slapping her around isn't gonna help. They get as scared as that, you have to be a bit gentle with 'em, see?"
And just like that, she'd gone all helpless female on him too. Her eyes filled with tears again – the second time he'd seen her cry in as many days – and the next moment, she had her head buried in his chest where Dru's had been moments before. "I just get so angry," she wailed. "He makes me angry, Spike. This shouldn't be happening to me. Vampires don't have babies."
He found he'd wrapped his arms round her, stroking her hair as he'd stroked Dru's, and shushing her as best he could. She was right of course. They were in uncharted territory here. He thought how much easier it would be if they could just kill the brat and be done with it, but in spite of her momentary weakness he knew she wouldn't go for it. No, best to just revel in the fleeting sense of his own manliness that her going all soft on him gave him and sort out the practical stuff, like always. He was good at that.
"Come on, love," he said, after a while, when the only sound in the container was the breathing of the living humans and the faint drumming of their hearts – the kid's much faster than the woman's. "Let's have a seat and you can tell me all about it."
"So how's this gonna go?" Spike was sitting across the table from Darla again. It was late and the trains had stopped running for the night so he kept his voice down. Even though he knew it was stupid, he couldn't help thinking that if he spoke more loudly, Angel would hear them.
Darla was examining her perfect manicure. It should be perfect, Spike thought, considering how much time she spent on it every day. He didn’t think he'd ever met anyone so vain, except maybe Angelus.
"Like last time," she said, in answer to his question. "We'll gather in the meeting room and you can bring him there. He'll be allowed to see Connor but only from a distance."
"We'd better keep him in the dark about our numbers." He'd been thinking about this and it only made sense. "He doesn't miss a fucking thing - never has done." She nodded her agreement and he relaxed a little.
"You gonna let him talk to the kid?"
"I don't know." She looked pensive for a moment. Then she smiled. "I might. It'll only make it harder for him knowing he won't ever see him again."
Spike examined his own fingernails. He still painted them black sometimes and they needed doing. Carefully, he said, "He admitted it to me – to my face – that's what he'd come for – to take Connor away. He bribed old Drac to write to us for him – and of course, Drac only wrote to him in the first place because we bankrupted the old tosser and he was after a hand-out."
It occurred to him there was something unpleasantly circular about this whole business but she merely smiled. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
Spike wasn't much in the mood to argue with her after the fraught day he'd had but all the same, he had to speak up. "I still don't get it. Why take the risk? Even if everything goes off all right, he's twigged where he is. It won't take him long to go through a list of abandoned Tube stations and find out which one we're in. He has contacts, same as we do."
She was listening but she didn't say anything so he pressed on. "At the very least, the moment we're shot of him, we'll have to move on – another hiding place – maybe another country. He won't give up – unless -" he hesitated, "unless you're gonna let me dust him."
She'd gone very still.
"You think you could?" she asked, and she sounded genuinely curious.
He thought about it for a moment. On the surface of it, it seemed only too easy and besides, Angel hadn't had any trouble doing the same to Darla for the sake of his nubile little Slayer. It seemed only fair to return the compliment. And if that weren't bad enough, there was the time he'd set Darla and Dru on fire. That was bloody unforgivable in Spike's opinion.
All the same, thinking about it couldn't help but remind him of what it'd been like when the four of them had been a family, back before Angelus got a soul and started thinking himself too good for the rest of them. Of course, there'd been a lot of pain and blood and humiliation mixed in with the sheer joy of the hunt and the slaking of all kinds of appetites, but still –
"I could do it," he said, emphatically.
"Sweet William." Darla reached out and ran a cold finger down his cheek. "So loyal and true. But you've forgotten something, dear heart – that we don't kill family. Your very own words."
He had forgotten, and her reminding him of it now couldn't be coincidence. The bitch was up to something, no doubt about it, and it looked like Spike would be the last to find out what.
"Don't look so angry, Spike." Her voice was cajoling. "I took what you said to heart, didn't I, in spite of everything?"
"Yes." He could hardly trust himself to speak and when she ordered him to strip and get on his knees he obeyed her like an automaton.
Later, when he was sure Darla slept, Spike slid out of the bed again. She'd used him hard and he was sore all over, his lips still puffy and swollen. Sitting down for the next few hours was going to be a bitch as well. He dressed quietly and slipped from the room, making his way back along the corridor towards the eastbound platform. It was hot and the air was dead and still. He could hear voices out in the tunnel from the direction of Piccadilly – maintenance men repairing the sleepers, most likely. They were talking loudly, as if to keep their courage up, and Spike had a sudden urge to shout out or maybe laugh just to scare them. They must know something was up at Down Street after all since it'd once been used as an access point in case of emergencies – hence the good state of repair of the staircase – and now it just – wasn't. Now, passengers would be expected to escape through the M.O.D. property at Brompton Road instead.
It'd taken a shedload of dosh to set that up but Spike considered it money well-spent.
He resisted the temptation to frighten the workers and went on. Part of him was dismayed that caution seemed to have become such a habit with him, but then he didn't have Angelus to annoy any more. Besides, he'd been the responsible one for Dru for a hundred years. Thinking of her still hurt, even after all this time, and yet he couldn't stop himself doing it.
He checked up on the guards – Jez and Simon now, both of them pretty reliable if not up to Erroll's standard – then made his way along the platform to the meat locker. At first glimpse, the contents weren't very promising but in the end, Spike unchained one of the homeless kids. This one was bigger than the others and still had some juice in him – enough that Spike had to knock him out to make him stop struggling. Still – she'd always liked them feisty.
He slung the boy's slight, naked body over his shoulder and went back the way he'd come, then up the other stairs, the unlit ones, plunging into the dark. The air smelt dank here – stale – but even so, there was some movement of air from below, the sound soughing through the concrete baffles in the old lift shaft. When Spike entered the shaft, he stood for a moment, listening, and sure enough, he could hear her singing.
Quickly, he climbed down the flights of rickety stairs that lined the shaft, until he reached the bottom. One flickering light lit the way into the lower tunnel – the one no one mentioned – and he tapped it impatiently with his finger. He'd have to get Erroll to repair it. Making his way along the tunnel, surrounded by the smells of damp and mould, he thought again what it must have been like to be stationed here during the war – bloody claustrophobic, that's for certain. The part of the tunnel he was walking through still bore marks on the walls from where metal bunks had been fitted to them. Churchill's bodyguard had needed somewhere to sleep.
Ahead of him, where the air was most dead – not fit to breathe if you were human – the tunnel opened out into one large room, most of which was taken up by a big metal cage, firmly padlocked. There were rats down here – big as cats, he'd seen them – but they never ventured in here.
"Dru?" Spike stopped beside the cage. "I've brought you something to eat, love."
Dru had stopped singing. She sat as she usually sat, leaning against the filthy wall with her arms wrapped around her as if to protect herself. She didn't react to Spike's voice or look up. He bit his lip, feeling the tears start up in his eyes at the sight of her in such a state. Every time he saw it, he asked himself why he stayed – why the hell he let her suffer this way. But he already knew the answer - that there was a part of him that wanted to punish her for all the secrets she'd kept from him.
Still, he thought, as he took the key out of his pocket and unlocked the cage, he was nothing without her and once Darla didn't need him any more – and that day would come - he'd take Dru and go. He'd been warned it might be disastrous for her – finish her off for good – but maybe that wasn't true? Maybe she'd get better – as better as Dru could get – once she was away from the kid? He just wished he didn't have the nasty feeling there'd be nowhere in the world far enough away from Connor for them to escape him.
Setting the boy's body down, Spike locked the cage again and knelt down by Dru.
"Sweetheart?" He brushed the dark hair back from her face but she didn't look at him. Instead, she stared off into some nightmare distance that only she could see. "Oh, love!" He kissed her forehead tenderly, then dragged the limp body into her lap. "See – just for you – all young and succulent."
In actual fact, the kid smelt foul and Dru was far from the first one to have a go at him. Spike waited, hoping she'd take the initiative but, as usual, she sat there and did nothing, though now she was making that strange, high-pitched wailing sound – the one that carried up the shaft so well – that didn't seem as if it could issue from a human throat.
After a moment, Spike realised that she wasn't going to help herself. He sighed with irritation, bent down and pierced the boy's jugular as daintily as he could. Pinching the wound so the blood wouldn't go all to waste, he smeared some on his fingers and put them to her mouth. "Here, love. You must eat."
At first, she hardly reacted, but then, slowly, she opened her mouth and began to lick. Pleased, Spike hefted the dying boy and offered him to her and this time she took him, gathering him into her arms with a rattle of chains and holding him to her breast while she fed from him in an eerie imitation of a mother nursing her child. Dru had always had a thing for kids, of course, but it gave Spike the creeps all the same, thinking about what had got her in this parlous state in the first place.
Still, beggars couldn't be choosers and at least she fed well. Soon, there was nothing but a cooling corpse across her knees, which Spike cast aside into the corner. The Gravids would dispose of it soon enough.
He took Dru into his arms, drawing her head down onto his shoulder and stroking her tangled hair. He'd tried to keep her clean and tidy for a while but she didn't make it easy. Instead, she'd backcomb her hair into wild ringlets, and push him away if he came near her with a sponge. Now, he just gave her a cursory wash and brush-up and tried to ignore the smell of neglect.
"I'm so tired, Spike," she said, suddenly. "I wish I could sleep."
"You do sleep, love." He continued to soothe her. "I bring you your draft every day, remember?"
"No, no." She sounded impatient. "I wish I could sleep forever, like my mummy."
And now she was crying and he didn't know what to do except hold her and rock her. "It'll be better soon, love, you'll see," he said, as he always did. "One day soon, I'll take you away from here and you'll be better again, just like you used to be."
"No." And suddenly, she sounded completely sane. He lifted his head and looked at her. Her pale eyes were luminous in the gloom. "He's eaten too much of me," she said, sadly. "I'll never be right again, Spike. Never."
"Oh, God!" He hugged her convulsively and now he felt eaten up by guilt. She could still do it to him the way no one else could.
"The father took the light away from me," she said, sadly, "and now the son is taking the darkness too and I'm all alone, Spike. All alone where there's nothing."
"You're not alone!" He seized hold of her chin and tipped it up so she had to look at him. "You've still got me."
"Have I?" She touched his cheek. "My dear boy's gone all away, hasn't he - to her – to Darla. She never liked me having anything of my own."
"Bollocks." He was wishing this moment would never end but already he could feel her growing tense again. "I'm still yours, love, you'll see. You just have to be patient."
Suddenly, the hand on his cheek was claw-like and her eyes went feral. A moment later, she'd lunged forward and bitten him in the neck, worrying at the flesh as if he were her next meal rather than her saviour.
"Stop it, Dru!" He pushed her off easily, she was so weak, but when he tried to hold her again, her eyes rolled up in her skull and she began to shake all over in one of her fits. Quickly, he took the flask of mandragora out of his pocket and brought it to her mouth, the metal clashing against her clenched teeth as he forced her to drink it. Then, he held her thrashing body until at last she went limp again.
But she hadn't finished with him yet. As she drifted into unconsciousness once more, she whispered, "Tell Daddy I love him."
TBC
Notes:
MOD: Ministry of Defence
Brompton Road: Another 'ghost' station on the Piccadilly Line of the Underground.