Your Local Monster Lover

Before he could decide on anything, the doctors were back. They always seemed to be here lately. He supposed it was more likely that his brain was beginning to adjust, switching itself half off during the times when nothing was happening, making the time feel shorter. It was not a comforting thought.

The doctors did not follow any of their old patterns, sitting beside him and messing with something near his head. The more their different tests and tortures varied, the more he worried about being able to escape. There were only so many parts of him they could break before he could no longer function at all.

He couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t see what they were doing. It was almost worse, with the lights on this way. He should have been able to see it, he could see the rest, the tools and elbow maneuvering right next to him. At least fully in the dark he hardly would have known anything was going on at all.

He would have known something, though, because there was an oppressive pressure building in his head. At first he’d thought he might be imagining it but as it built and built it shifted into tangibility.

And then the noise began, a ringing in his ears, high and piercing. It seemed to come from the pressure, worsening the tension in his head.  

He tried to move to no avail, head already pressed into the metal restraints as far from the doctor’s steady hands as he could get. He considered jerking around in the little space he’s been given but he supposed sudden movements were more likely to hurt him than they were to stop them. Anything he could do to foil them would just cause him more injury. It wasn’t worth the brain damage.

The ringing was so loud, so all encompassing, that it was hard to think, his thoughts getting lost to the ocean of sound. He wondered if he would be able to hear anything else, if he was to be deafened as well as blinded.

And then the doctor moved, shifting the many fabrics coating him, and Spike could hear it fine. It drowned out the ringing like it had no volume to it at all.

It’s a disorienting thing, realizing this sense too could no longer be trusted. The sound had been everywhere; how could it be so easy to penetrate?

They continued to do something at his side, unhindered by his quiet crisis. It felt almost wet, though he wasn’t sure if it was a real sensation or his mind searching for anything to latch onto.

Everything went black.

The sound got worse in the dark.

Not in volume. The ringing stayed consistent, never wavering from its shrieking. It just became harder to overpower, less willing to fade behind other noises. Maybe it was because he had less to latch onto without his sight. Maybe he was just getting lost in it, a creation of his own mind.

It took him too long to realize Lyra was speaking to him, too caught up in the new state of things, in the new sense they had altered. The realization came slowly, a distant patter that took a few tries to realize was her speaking. The doctors were almost certainly long gone; she never would have risked using her voice unprompted otherwise. He was lucky she hadn’t given up on him in the meantime.

She sounded real in a way she almost never did anymore. She had when he’d first arrived here but he’d ruined that.

She did get more lucid sometimes. When she saw him or touched him she came back to herself a little more. So long as he was starting from somewhere decent, they had a shot at something. It was what he had been banking on. Even more so now. She didn’t need to be firing on all cylinders; they’d already trained docility into her. She just needed to be aware enough to follow his orders.

But it had to happen soon. One of his senses was already lost to him, his sense of touch seemingly almost irreparable now. His sight was taken from him most of the time and now his hearing had begun to degrade. They were draining his capability out of him one piece at a time.

It would only get worse. They would not let him regain anything they had taken. They would just take more and more until there were no pieces left of him to give, nothing left to save. He needed to move quickly, to move now.

“What did you say?” he prompted, trying to figure out the state of her.

“I didn’t… I… You weren’t talking,” she decided on, which he supposed was true. It almost certainly wasn’t what she’d been saying.

“Tell me what you were saying.” It made him feel dirty to do, to command her like this. But they needed to get out he didn’t have any more time. There was no room left for the luxury of kindness.

“I was calling your name,” she admitted, sounding like she was pleading guilty.

“You know my name?”

“Yes.” It came out more like a wounded noise than a word.

It was as lucid as she ever got. He didn’t push, terrified to nudge her into one of her confused, desperate states caused by asking the wrong questions at the wrong time.

He had the syringes, the layout of the room. He had the lock jammed, still unnoticed by his unconcerned captors. He had all the tools he was going to get. He had her. It was time. If he waited any longer, there would be no escape for him.

He was woefully unprepared. At the very least he knew that much, he wasn’t going into this delusionally.

He hadn’t even had a chance to look at the doors, his vision rarely on when anyone entered. It had been before, but he hadn’t been paying enough attention. He’d allowed himself to become inattentive, passive.

Fine. They’d have to do it with someone in the room. If they could get out, he could manage it with them present.

In his normal state, he had more than enough resources to incapacitate someone. But now, he was barely able to walk, his litheness robbed from him by forced motionlessness.

Lyra could walk though. She’d been here so much longer, should have muscles that were far more degraded, and yet she seemed able to move far more easily than he was.

She would have to do. It would just have to be quick, would have to be before they could sound an alarm or give her an order. He was almost certain any order they gave her would override anything he said. So he would simply have to speak both first and last. He could do that; he could make it work. He would have to. There was no other choice, not now. The ringing in his ears was more than enough of a reminder of that.

There were certainly benefits to using her. They seemed to understand the danger that came with him; that he was a flight risk, that he was a resourceful, dangerous man. The same caution was never extended to her. They had come to rely on her complacency, giving her freedoms, disregarding her when she wasn’t relevant.

If he could make her act, it was a perfect setup.

He eyed the door nervously. There was no way to know if or when someone might come in. There was nothing to do but to move. He clicked his restraints open, the ones they still had not bothered to check after his many escapes. The disregard did not bode well for their odds but he tried not to think about that, it wasn’t a productive train of thought.

Discarded IV poles were still his best way of getting around. He knew better than to attempt walking on his own, there wasn’t time for that now. It wouldn’t work anyway.

The journey across the room was slow and laboured, his muscles refusing to listen to him. They probably ached, protesting the sudden uptick in use, but he could not feel it over the ever-present hum of agony that lived inside him now.

Eventually he made it to her. That was what counted in here. Out there was where they would need to move faster but that was a matter for later, no use worrying over it now.  

He took out her contacts, carefully watching her gaze as she blinked her eyes, getting used to the light. This time, when she saw his face, there was no blooming recognition, no deep-rooted resentment nor a return to herself. Her eyes remained just as blank as when she had been blind, seemingly only serving to make her more disoriented.

He clicked her restraints open, picking the locks one after the other. It didn’t matter which he picked first, none of the newfound freedom inspired her to move. She remained perfectly in place by the ghosts of her restraints. He supposed it was better than her collapsing in on herself. At least she remembered how to contract her muscles, keep herself upright.

Her gaze was still distant, focused off somewhere behind him. He didn’t look to confirm but he would have bet it was the dark corner she was staring at. She had no idea what they were doing, no lucidity left in her. He needed to push her towards something resembling functioning, even if she was not capable of personhood right now.

“Can you get us out of the labs?” he demanded.

A little wrinkle formed between her brows as she thought. “I don’t know.”

“Remember how to get us out of the labs.”

Her face lit up, breaths coming faster. “I… He would let me out to talk to me. In the room. It was too cold, it wasn’t like here. Real people were in there, not only the doctors.”

It didn’t sound like outside, not fully. Likely just another part of whatever Syndicate building they’d been shipped off to. But at least it was something. With any luck, he could put on some clothes there, could limp around without arising as much suspicion. It was a long shot but then, all of this was.

“Hey, listen to me. I need you to remember this.” He paused for a moment before continuing on, putting more force behind his words this time. “You’re going to remember this.”

“I will.” Her voice was level, almost trance-like. Obedient.

“Next time a doctor comes in here, you are going to attack them. You’re going to kick and claw and bite and do whatever you can until I tell you to stop.”

The color drained from her face. “I am not supposed to do that. That’s not… I can’t…”

Her eyes darted around, panic blooming on her face. They had likely commanded the opposite, the contradiction fighting inside her to make her sick.

He needed something more, something to get through to her.

The idea he had made him feel ill, even worse than becoming some sort of puppet master had. But they were working with limited time; he needed her to understand, to be able to move without hesitation.

Her personhood and dignity could come after freedom.

“I know who put you in here.”

A flicker of recognition in her eyes. She spoke hesitantly, doubt coloring her words. “I am meant to be here. They make me into what I must be.”

“No, not them. Not the doctors. I know who put you in here, who took you out of the world and gave you to them. I can take you to them. You just need to do this, to listen to me.”

Her face morphed back and forth, from fear and obedience to something else, something that resembled anger.

Good. Anger made her lucid. Anger made her listen.

“You know them?”

“I know where to find them.” It wasn’t a lie, technically. “And I know who they are.”

“How?” She whispered it, so low he almost couldn’t make it out, like the question didn’t count if she was just quiet enough.

“I know lots of things. I’ll tell you about it once we get out of here.”

“Do you know about me?”

“Not as much as I should. We’ll figure it out together.”

Her gaze flickered between both of his eyes, like she was searching for something in them. It seemed like she found it. She nodded as much as she could in her now faux restraints.

“Alright,” he said, giving her arm a gentle squeeze before stepping back and collapsing back into his own chair. Even standing with support like that had winded him. “What are you going to do?”

“Kick and claw and bite. Fight them.”

“And when are you going to do it?”

“When you say now.”

He nodded, sinking back into his exhaustion. He should rest now, while they waited. He would need to use the little energy he had left if this had any chance of working.

And then they waited. It seemed his mind had begun filling in blanks, making the waiting feel shortened because now, full of dread and anticipation and adrenaline, the waiting felt like an eternity.

His whole body tensed as he heard the hiss of the door. He tried not to let it show, to ensure he didn’t give whoever entered any notice that things were not as they usually were. There was only one doctor, a man if Spike had to guess. He fiddled with something off to the side for a while and Spike wondered if he hadn’t been able to see, like they’d likely intended, if he even would have noticed the man's presence. He’d like to think he would have but wouldn’t put money on it.

Finally, he approached Lyra, some sort of syringe at the ready, pulling something from a sealed medicine bottle to give to her.

“Now.”

Her knee drove right up into his crotch, something he hadn’t instructed her to do explicitly but certainly an effective strategy, her hands rising from their position at her side to sink into him, clawing and ripping at him just as desperately as he needed her to.

He nudged his restraints open and stood on heavy, clumsy limbs. He moved as quickly and as quietly as one could when weighed down by what was probably months of ill use, tucking one of his contraband syringes into his hand and leaving his thumb ready, over the plunger.

Lyra wasn’t giving a particularly devastating performance. She was stronger than he was, clearly allowed to move more, but the element of surprise did most of the work for her. The doctor spent invaluable seconds stuck in confusion.

Spike shifted forwards, more a slump than a strike, and jammed the needle into his neck. Whatever mystery fluid he had syphoned into the syringe drained into the man before him.

He jerked around, eyes frantic and arms out in some ill-practiced facsimile of a defensive pose, likely more instinctual than intentional. The needle was still embedded in the meat of his neck.

For a horrible second, they just stared at each other and Spike thought it hadn’t worked. And then the screaming began, Familiar screaming. His own screams, the same color as these, had painted these walls dozens of times since he’d gotten here. There was a smug satisfaction that came with hearing them come from someone else.

But there was no time for smugness. He scooped up every syringe left in the room, those he had hidden and those that had been brought, clearly intended for the two of them, and took stock of things.

He couldn’t move. Not like he needed to, not in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. He could just barely navigate on shaky legs with the help of an IV pole or some other cane substitute, but it was too conspicuous.

He gestured towards the doctor. “Put those on.”

She looked up at him with the frantic look she got when she thought she’d been asked some sort of trick question. “Put… The man?”

Christ. “His clothes. Take them off of him and put them on you.”

Still she stared, eyes darting between him and the man on the floor, who was still writhing and whimpering in pain.

He waited for another question, or perhaps one of her oft-occurring non-questions, but she seemed perfectly content to just stare.

Finally, he took the initiative, not bothering with leaning on something and instead letting his limbs collapse as he shifted to the floor next to the doctor.

He wrestled with the man, or at least something that likely resembled wrestling from the outside. The doctor was less trying to get away from him and more trying to escape the now ever-present pain that was now worming its way around under his skin. Or maybe it had been too much altogether and he’d had some sort of seizure. Spike could only hope.

Normally he’d be able to hold the man steady and get the clothes from him with little fanfare. Right now the most he could do was shuffle the clothes off, barely keeping the strength to hold himself up and maintain a firm grip on them.

Eventually, after far too long, he got them off, piece by piece. Lyra was still watching, just staring at him like she was still trying to comprehend his last order.

He pushed the clothes in her direction. “Put them on.”

Her eyes grew even more desperate as she took them from him, staring down at the protective, white fabric and then looking back up at him as if for guidance. “How?”

He couldn’t help but snap at her. They needed to move; they didn’t have time for this. “You don’t know how to put clothes on?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t have any memories left that aren’t from here. It’s not-- I’ve never had to.”

It was absurd and frustrating but expressing that was wasting time they didn’t have. He instead focused on dressing her, on manipulating her limbs clumsily until she was poorly dressed in wrinkled clothes. She was, at the very least, a pliable mannequin, doing exactly as he had indicated with every word or nudge of his hands.

Even so, it took far longer than it should have. It didn’t help that she seemed overwhelmed by the sensations of cloth against her skin. Any time he was not giving her direct instructions she instead spent staring at her own arms like she had never seen them before and bending her limbs ever so slightly just to watch the fabric wrinkle.

Eventually, they did manage it. He collapsed back into the chair, exhaustion washing over him. He didn’t have time for that either.

“You remember the doctors? How they’d move you around?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed in recognition, fingers running absentmindedly over the stiff fabric that now coated her torso.

“Good. I need you to do that. Be them.”

That seemed to make more sense to her than putting on clothes had. She moved resolutely behind him, hands settling into place on his chair.

She moved with a sureness he had not expected of her. It really did seem as if her only real hesitation stemmed from a lack of instruction as she waited to be puppetted.

The door out into the halls of the labs didn’t even have any security on it. He kept waiting for some ID he needed to scan or to need to cut off a finger of the doctor’s for fingerprint recognition, maybe pull an eye out for an ocular scan. Wouldn’t that be karmic.

But instead, there was nothing. Not so much as a lock on the door, just a button to hiss the doors open and lead then through a decontamination chamber and then, with one more hiss, outside. It was as if they really were relying only on restrictions on their movement and independence to do all the work.

It was hard to know if it should be concerning. Everything inside of him wanted to consider it so, wanted to see it as some kind of trap, but then again, he didn’t exactly cut the most imposing silhouette right now. It was barely even an underestimation to consider him useless in his current state. Even less so Lyra, who he was sure would never have escaped without prodding even if she’d been left unrestrained consistently. He supposed that was probably why she could walk and navigate them out of the labs while he remained stagnant and incapable.

As they walked by their first bystander in the halls, one of the doctors by the look of him, he prepared another one of his syringes with as little movement as he could in his lap, this one from the supplies the doctor had brought into the room before they’d incapacitated him, shifting the restraints to look properly shut to an unsuspecting onlooker. The rest had been moved out of the deeper mechanisms of the chair where he’d been stashing them to being tucked behind him for easier access. It might have been suspicious to someone who was really looking, but Spike intended to take out anyone who got close enough to notice anyway so it was no great loss.

The doctor didn’t so much as look.

They drew surprisingly little attention. Barely anyone seemed inclined to so much as give them a second look. It did nothing to stop him from being on edge, coiled and ready to spring on anyone who seemed even the slightest bit suspicious of them.

And then, instead of a doctor or two walking by, someone walked by with another victim. They were in the same chair he sat in, the same mechanisms and restraints he had fiddled with in his attempt to find a way out. His eyes were distant and clouded and empty, likely blinded. Every now and then he twitched, banging his limbs into the restraints with the little freedom he was provided.  

His neck was split open, the skin almost entirely absent, replaced by dozens of tubes, pumping fluid in and out of him, burying themselves in his sternum and winding down into whatever reserves were buried in his chair.

And then they wheeled him past them and Spike could see them no longer, incapable of turning to look without giving himself away.

He couldn't help but wonder if Lyra had looked, had stared at this man, had felt a kinship with him. Maybe she wished he too could escape, felt a guilt at trying to get out while inevitably leaving so many behind. He wondered if she’d felt anything at all. Maybe she had been envious even, wishing she was still bound, not forced to think or do, just exist blindly.

But he could not turn and look so he supposed he’d never know.

They strolled past dozens more doctors, none of whom seemed to notice anything, eyes skating easily over the pair of them.

He also saw the second a pair of eyes didn’t, one of the doctor’s eyes seemingly catching on him, lingering for a moment too long before darting down at the paper he was holding.

Spike was up before he had a chance to so much as think, lunging across the few feet separating them with all the strength he had and plunging a syringe into the side of his neck. As he emptied it, the doctor hissed in pain and reeled back but remained standing, disoriented and in pain with the needle still embedded into his skin but still more than capable of moving.

He stumbled back until he was hitting something solid, collapsing back into his chair. He groped at his hiding place, fingers fumbling for another syringe. He could see Lyra from his peripheral vision, just standing motionless, waiting.

He shifted forwards again. This time the movement was slower and jerkier, too much of his strength used in the first attack. The doctor, still slow from the shock, was reeling back, instincts telling him he needed to get away. Even as dazed as he was, he almost moved faster than Spike.

Almost. As soon as he got close enough, Spike used gravity to propel him forward, falling into the man and letting the second syringe embed itself between his ribs, the weight of the fall sinking the plunger down and sending the fluid inside the man. He needed this one to work; he knew he would not have the time nor energy for a third attempt.

Seconds after they both hit the floor, Spike felt the man go rigid below him, beginning to jerk violently as the medicine began to pump through his body. Spike struggled to his feet, allowing gravity to take him once more as soon as he was close enough to settle back into the chair. The tool of his imprisonment provided more comfort than it should have.

Lyra stood motionless through it all. “It’s suspicious,” she finally said, proof she was a real girl instead of a mannequin, staring down at the undulating body on the ground. “He should not be left out here.”

“We don’t have time to hide him,” he insisted, frustrated that she was more lucid than she had ever been and that she was right but that it didn’t matter. “We have to keep moving.”

She nodded, hands settling back onto his chair, head directed forwards once more. He stopped her before she could keep walking and slid one of his siphoned syringes full of a mix of chemicals behind a dirty needle into her hand. “If anyone but me tried to touch you, stab them with this and inject it into them.” There, now at least he had something resembling backup. Frankly, he missed having half-competent people behind him, being able to call up Jet or Ed or even Faye. He was so tired, he could barely think and the only support he had was a shell of a person that he had to puppet around.

For not the first time, a resentment boiled inside of him, rising in line with his frustration.

He pushed it down and gripped the makeshift weapon of his syringe tighter.

Lyra never stopped moving, propelled forwards by his commands, her own newfound weapon hopefully at the ready.

She finally reached their destination, whatever room she had recalled that seemed different from the rest.

It was a morgue. That fact was immediately clear to him.

Why would this be where they brought her? “Do you remember what you did here?” he asked hesitantly as he oriented himself, taking stock of the potential exits.

“They let me stand here sometimes. The man likes it here.”

“The man?”

“Not a doctor. Not like us. So it seemed like it’s not part of the… this place. The labs.”

It did seem different from the labs, less sterile and impersonal. More legitimate. There were signs and a map on the wall, a door that said staff only. Illegal Syndicate labs didn’t need to tell people what rooms were staff only. Everyone inside who was allowed to move already knew.

They were underneath a real hospital, or at least some sort of medical building. The morgue seemed tacked on so it was not the main feature, delegated off to the basement. He supposed it could be some sort of police station but hospital seemed most likely. It looked, for the most part, like every other morgue he’d ever been in. He hadn’t been in many, though probably more than most people had. It was usually to tie up loose ends, to find some evidence left on a dead man and threaten anyone who had poked around before he’d gotten there and seen it. Or worse, depending on their attitude. They had been convenient locations, certainly. Lots of places to hide a body until he was long gone.

And there, amongst the closed-off, cold, impersonal boxes of metal, was Julia. There she lay, in front of him and perfectly preserved, frozen in some sort of tube.

She was clearly dead, her skin pallid and lifeless, looking like it had made it through the early stages of decay before someone had managed to get her here.

A door swung open, not the one they had entered through but one on the other side of the room. He locked eyes with the newcomer and suddenly Spike remembered what he had forgotten. He recognized the man.

He was so hollow. He didn’t have it in him to get angry or taunt him. He was just tired. “You died.”

Vicious sneered. “I could say the same about you. Although I seem to be in decidedly better shape.”

Spike had grown accustomed to the cold exposure that the lack of clothes afforded him. It had almost been easy to ignore it, with the dark and Lyra and the doctor’s identical, anonymizing outfits.

Now it rose to the forefront of his mind again, his shoulders curling in as if that might hide some of him from Vicious’s gaze.

Vicious noticed the action, a demeaning huff of laughter escaping him. “Cold?”

Spike’s eyes flitted to Julia, to her corpse, kept and lifeless. That seemed to pull something from Vicious, morphing sadistic amusement into genuine anger.

“Don’t look at her. You ruined everything. I would kill you if I didn’t think that was exactly what you wanted.”

“She would hate you for this. She did hate you.” He didn’t know if it was true but it didn’t matter. It got a rise out of Vicious all the same.

“You’re the one who got her killed. You’re the one she would hate.”

He couldn’t have this fight. Not now, not after everything he’d been through. He didn’t have the energy for it. “You can’t keep me here,” he tried instead, his jaw cracking as he spoke when he dared to open his mouth just a little too wide.

“Can’t I? What does it look like I’ve been doing?”

“And how does that seem to be going for you?”

“It doesn’t matter. You can do nothing. You clearly couldn’t do it on your own.” His eyes flitted over to Lyra, disguised under layers of medical equipment. “The traitor will be dealt with. You always were a smooth talker. I’ll have to vet the doctors better. Reassure them of the consequences of crossing me. How helpful of you to provide me with someone to make an example of. You won’t get this far again.”

Traitor. He thought Spike had gotten help from a doctor. Of course he did; how would two completely incapacitated people find their way here? Spike did not correct him. “You’ll never keep me here. You never were a match for me. Not when it counted.”

“You can’t fight me,” Vicious growled, drawing a gun. “You’re weak now. There’s nothing you can do. You’re mine, and I swear, I will make you feel worse pain than anyone has ever imagined. And then you’ll be useful to me once more.”

Vicious shifted forward, moving past Lyra. They barely touched, their clothes only just brushing.

That was all it took to goad Lyra to strike, the syringe she’d been holding embedding itself deep in his shoulder.

She did exactly what he’d told her to do, depressed the plunger into him and then retreated, still clutching the now empty syringe tight in her hand, knuckles white with the force of it.

Vicious went down immediately, an animal scream escaping him as he folded in on himself, muscles spasming with the sheer force of the pain. Spike could feel his own body thrum as he watched. The ever-present, aching hurt that now lived in his bones seemed to hum at the sight of it, seemed to celebrate that it was no longer lonely in the misery it caused.

Spike dropped to the floor, fighting once more with a writhing body as he struggled to get its clothes off. It was more difficult this time, though he couldn’t quite place why. It could be that Vicious was a more formidable opponent than the doctor had been, even when incapacitated like this, or some psychological block holding Spike back. Or maybe he was just tired.

Getting into the stolen clothes was an arduous process. It was more exhausting trying to support himself and walk on his own but the sheer amount of time that fighting the folds of the fabric took with no strength to hold himself up rose an anxiety in him, his eyes constantly flicking towards the door.

Finally, he managed to dress himself in the first clothes he had worn in months. The fabric felt strange against his skin. Restricting, almost suffocating.

He grabbed the gun off of the floor, where it had tumbled after Vicious had been incapacitated. There was a holster but it seemed more trouble than it was worth. Spike just tucked it into the waistband of his newly acquired pants.

It seemed odd that Vicious hadn’t had his sword on him. He’d always been incredibly partial to it. Even though Vicious had almost certainly not been expecting to see Spike today, he should have had it on him.

Maybe his near-death experience had left him as weak as Spike was, despite his ability to move and recover properly, a luxury Spike had not been afforded. Or maybe the near-death experience had jolted some survival instinct into place, had knocked some sense into him. Spike always thought the sword was stupid anyway.

He opted out of wearing the ostentatious coat Vicious preferred. It would draw more attention than anything else. He did pat down the pockets though, searching for anything useful.

There was a wad of cash and a vial of something in one side, a half used pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and some sort of ID card without a photo on it in the other. He shoved them all in his new pants pockets and struggled to his feet.

“We can’t use the chair. I doubt it’s the kind they use upstairs, it might draw attention.”

Lyra just stared at him, eyes wide and blank.

He took a hesitant step forward, trying to support himself, and almost collapsed, grabbing at the nearest hard surface to support himself.

It was only after he stopped his fall that he realized he was leaning on Julia’s frozen casket, her uncanny, half-rotted face staring up at him.

It seemed cruel that she should still be beautiful, even when she was in so horrifying a state.

He drew his eyes away, forcing them back to the room. She would not want to be wept over; she would want him to get out. He eyed the fire alarm on the wall. “Do alarms ever go off? When you were downstairs, I mean.”

She blinked. “Sometimes.”

“What happened when they did?”

“Nothing happened. They were very loud.”

“They didn’t come get you?”

“No. They came after they were over, sometimes. They would usually complain. Or laugh.”

“About what?”

Another blank stare.

Fine. It wasn’t enough information to really know anything but at least it was something to go off. For all he knew, the alarms she heard could have been for hazardous material exposure or escapees in other rooms.

But the morgue was painting a picture of a hospital that was far bigger and more public-facing than he would like and the longer they took to notice the pair of them were missing, the better of a shot they would have at actually getting somewhere halfway safe.

He was sure he could hardly manage stairs in his condition, dreading using them. It did not seem to be an issue because next to the doors that seemed to lead to a set of stairs, there was a number pad, seemingly requiring a pin to unlock. That, at least, was not typical of hospitals. People needed codes to get into morgues, on occasion, but something designed to trap people inside was far less common. He avoided looking down at Julia’s body and did his best not to think about it.

The elevator in the corner of the room seemingly did not require a pin, though surely it could not be that easy. He pressed the button and waited, every second that passed feeling like an eternity.

When the door slid open, he saw the slot for a keycard. A staff elevator then. That was fine, this he could get around. He shoved some metal tool he was not familiar with into the elevator door and then pulled the alarm. The blaring was immediate, deafening. For the first time since they’d poked around in his head, the ringing in his ears was entirely drowned out.

He shifted towards Lyra, holding his arm out. “Come on, help me out of here.” He looked around, hoping he would be able to find some sort of makeshift cane that he could use to hobble his way out of here. He wasn’t sure Lyra could support him the whole way out. She was clearly stronger than him, but that wasn’t a particularly high bar to clear anymore and she was certainly still weaker than the average person.  

He wondered if any amount of time or complicity there would have led to him also getting the exercise Lyra was clearly afforded, at least on occasion. Considering Vicious was apparently still manning the operation, he very much doubted it.

He looked at Julia one last time. He wished he had longer here, with her, but there was no time for sentimentality.

The morgue seemed to be the basement of whatever medical center they were in, the rooms they had been occupying falling below that. He imagined most doctors here had no idea they even existed. The door to the labs below was hidden, looking like a door from the labs side but hidden behind a cabinet from out here, barely even visible. He wanted to try and barricade it shut but anything he could move in his current state would not be particularly difficult to push away.

Instead, he tucked himself into the elevator and made sure Lyra was inside with him and removed the tool, letting the elevator doors pull shut. He pulled out Vicious’s keycard but found the elevator already recalling back to the ground floor of the hospital in response to the alarm.

Once released onto the ground floor, his options for canes were plentiful, IV stands littering the halls. The building was steadily emptying, plenty of them abandoned in the name of being able to get out of there faster.

From there, exits weren’t hard to find. With the alarm pulled, the most they needed to do was follow the flow of traffic and it spit them out onto the street.

His head began to spin as he stepped out back into… a city. He wasn’t sure which one. The sheer quantity of noises clashing against the alarm, the colors and lights and shadows, the people shuffling around him… He could see them bumping into him but he couldn’t feel it. He could tell his clothes were scratchy but wouldn’t have noticed someone stepping on his foot in the chaos if he hadn’t watched it happen. The alarm had been almost comforting in its loudness but as it faded into the distance, the chaos of the city began making his head spin. He couldn’t focus on anything, his attention unwilling to stay put, jumping around at every new noise. Every now and then he’d catch the ringing again and turn his head, looking for the source of it, before realizing it was in his head.

He could orient himself later; right now he just needed to get out. He grabbed Lyra’s hand with his free hand and began pulling her through the crowd into an alley, walking on and on past layers of exhaustion, knowing right now their most valuable asset was distance.

Eventually, no matter how determined he was, he could push himself no farther.

Lyra didn’t even seem to be registering what was going on, seemingly happy to trail beside him eternally. He wondered if her aversion to recognizing pain worked for her exhaustion as well.

He had dragged them into a shady part of the city, opting for dingy alleyways at every turn until he was in the least reputable neighborhood he could find. He scanned the street for a shitty hotel, someplace that wouldn’t ask any questions.

It wasn’t particularly hard to find.

Lyra trailed after him per usual. He doubted she even noticed the shady nature of where they were, too far removed from society to be able to recognize that sort of thing. If she did notice, she didn’t say anything.

He was sure the two of them were quite a sight, both looking emaciated and limping, him more than Lyra. She was still in the doctor’s clothes, he realized with a start. He would have to do something about that.

The woman at the front desk didn’t so much as give them a second look. He handed over a wad of Vicious’s cash and she handed him a key with a room number on it, not so much as bothering to speak. It was fine by him.

They hobbled to their room. It probably was not the most strategically positioned room he could have picked but he did not have any more scheming in him. He just needed to rest.

It only had one bed but then, shady off-book places like this didn’t have much use for rooms with twin beds, in his experience. He couldn’t bring himself to care about it. It would just be good to lie down.

Lyra walked into the room and settled almost instantly, sitting on the bed, her back straightening and her arms falling to her sides, resting ever so lightly on the bed below her.

It took a moment to realize what she was doing. It was the exact same posture that she had been forced into in the restraints.

“Stop it,” he snapped. “Sit normally. Lie down.”

She locked up for a second, limbs twitching as she shifted back and then lurched forward again, back to her seated position. Her spine relaxed and then straightened once more. He realized the orders contradicted, that she was trying to comply with both.

He took a deep breath in. This wasn’t her fault. “Ignore that. Just go to sleep.”

She seemed to relax at that and shifted ramrod straight again. Her posture barely collapsed in on itself as she fell asleep, her breathing steadying almost instantly.

He went to focus his attention elsewhere, to try and figure out how to keep them safe and free for any significant amount of time, and then paused, looking back at her. He reluctantly planted himself on the bed beside her and tried to shift her towards the headboard.

It would have been simple, a few months ago. Before he had died. He could have picked her up and thrown her to the top of the bed if he wanted.

Now half of his energy went to supporting himself, leaning on the mattress as he tried to shuffle her up the bed into something that might resemble a comfortable position.

He gave up fairly quickly, the frustration of the moment overwhelming any altruistic inclinations he might’ve had.

He grabbed a pillow and propped it behind her. It wasn’t much but at least it was something.

He realized belatedly that it probably didn’t matter how she slept. She seemed to have been trained out of feeling pain; it wasn’t like she would be achy in the morning.

He probably should address that, figure out what the root cause might be. It was a matter for later, for when he had rested and called for help.

With that addressed, he shuffled down the bed, reaching for the phone.

He began building his resolve for it, for talking to them again, for asking for help, for telling them he was alive.

He typed in a number for the Bebop and held his breath.

One ring. Then another.

A screeching noise followed, harmonizing with the ringing in his ears. The line was out of service.

Fine. He called Faye. It rang out. He called Jet’s emergency line. Nothing.

So no phones. Maybe something had happened, made their phones unusable or made them mistrustful of them.

He fiddled with the screen, trying to open the messaging system. It was janky, an old thing clearly halfway broken down. He managed to pull up a messaging system, though the screen seemed inclined to flash static at him. He’d have to try everyone’s numbers again later, on a different phone that didn’t seem minutes away from self-destruction.

He left messages in every place he thought someone might see them. Personal numbers, old pseudonyms, ghost accounts Ed had used. They’d notice one of them sooner or later.

He supposed that was all there was to be done. In a perfect world, he’d get them farther, would have a plan to get off-world already in motion. In a perfect world, Jet would have picked up the goddamn phone.

But this was not, nor had it ever been, a perfect world. He collapsed into the bed, Lyra bouncing slightly beside him where she sat as he hit the uncomfortable mattress.

It was odd. Lying down, after being vertical for so long. He felt the way his blood began to pool, sinking down to the back of him. He did his best to ignore it.

His hair was overgrown, almost blocking out his vision on its own. Her own head felt lighter now. Maybe that was why she could see now, eyes no longer blocked by dark tresses. 

His eyes were visible though, just barely. They peered out at her, bloodshot and frantic. 

His behavior was odd, like he was trying to bargain with an invisible enemy more than he was trying to communicate anything with her. The rules he stated were circular, twisting in her mind as if his words held slightly different meanings to the ones the doctors wielded. 

She wished he would stop speaking. The only thing he seemed capable of doing was getting things tangled up inside of her. But then, she didn’t dare act out of turn. It was clear this meeting was for some purpose, set into motion by people who mattered. She didn’t understand but she could fall in line. 

And so she did. 

He seemed upset by it, every kind word causing a proportional negative reaction. 

She wished she could shut her eyes. It was too much, this brightness and color and movement. His reactions, trying to make sense of them. They had been right to take it from her. They knew best, at the end of the day; knew what she should not be made to handle. 

She tried her best to adjust her eyes to it, to let it filter through her brain without interference the way the dark could. 

It was harder than she’d anticipated. She couldn’t stop noticing things, couldn’t narrow her field of view or prevent distraction. 

The light felt sharp, almost penetrative. Nothing like the soft, noncommittal possibility of the dark. The dark didn’t ask anything of her. 

“Do you want to close your eyes?”

Want. A difficult sort of question, the sort she could change her answer to. She wished she could ask, could try and prompt a direction out of him. “I try not to want.”

“That’s not an answer. Give me a real answer.”

“I don’t want to have to choose.”

He scoffed. “Tough. You can, though. If you want.”

Can. She didn’t like the way he spoke. She kept her eyes open and refused to vocalize it. 

“You know, when we met, you were rude to me.” He spoke almost wistfully, which didn’t make sense. They hadn’t met. Or…

Maybe they had. He would be allowed to remember things she was not, there was nothing to stop him. He wasn’t like her, he wasn’t molded like this. 

Or maybe he was. He looked like she did, looked like he would fit. But something there just didn’t. It felt wrong. Like she knew something, somewhere. Somewhere she shouldn’t have access to. 

But she needed to know it, needed to know if he was one of them, if she should listen. 

She was rude? She wouldn’t do that if he was one of them. Had she known then? Was she allowed to think about this? 

The silence had apparently gone on for too long. Spike huffed. “You can speak. I know you can.”

“We met.” Not a question. She knew that logic wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, but it might get her something.

“We did.” He understood, she could hear it in his voice alongside something else, a quiet dare to push.

“We’re meeting.” There. That was something, at least. A delineation. 

 “To you, maybe. We met a long time ago.”

When? That’s all she wanted to ask, just one word. She knew she couldn’t. 

Had it been here? Or maybe before? She knew there had been a before, there had to have been.

“I haven’t known you very long.”

“You have. You’ve just forgotten. You know, I can’t be too upset. I think I’ve forgotten too. Our meeting.”

“When I was rude.”

“No. Well, maybe, I guess. I don’t really know. You were rude in a sort of… second meeting. Like this one, I guess.”

“I remembered you. In the second meeting.”

“No.” She winced at the response. It felt like she’d given a wrong answer. “You didn’t. You weren’t allowed to.”

“I don’t remember that either.”

“No, I know.”

“I’m happier now,” she posited, not because she remembered before or had any concept of relative happiness, but because something in her said it was what he wanted to hear. “I’m happier being this. Now.”

It seemed to have the opposite effect of what she had intended. He seemed to hollow at the words. He was stuck in the same position, of course, but she watched something inside him collapse through his eyes. It was disconcerting. One was never faced with truths like this when the world was black. If it had happened before, she had not been able to know it. She selfishly thought she preferred it that way. 

Or maybe it wasn’t selfish. If she became hollow, she doesn’t know if she would want him to see. If he was like her, she certainly wouldn’t.  But she didn’t know if he was, couldn’t figure it out. If he was like them, she would never presume to want or not want anything from him, of course. 

“Do you want to know something?” he asked. 

She didn’t. “Yes.” It was what he wanted to hear. 

“It’s my fault. You were rude when we met, you asked me questions. And now you’re nothing. A puppet who’s master doesn’t bother to enliven anymore.”

She was right. She hadn’t wanted to know that. “I’m not supposed to ask questions, I think. I’m never sure.”

“You thought that then too. I think I didn’t count as much because I was like you.”

It made sense. She’d considered that very thing mere minutes ago. “You’re not like me.”

He sagged at that, head pushing up against the restraints, refusing to allow him the slack his body clearly wanted. “No. But I thought I was, back then.”

A mistake, then. But not one of hers. She didn’t know what the consequences were, when they got things wrong. But then, she could hardly remember what her own consequences were. She only knew they existed, that they loomed over her perpetually. 

“You forgot,” she tried, trying to order the events in her head. She didn’t think she was supposed to understand it but it was unravelling all the same. This stranger felt almost in kind to her, parallel to who she had been formed into. 

“Yeah.” His voice was soft, almost sad. “I forgot.”

They didn’t talk after that, but still she looked at him, watched him breathe in shaky breaths and blink heavily behind shaggy hair. 

Eventually, he slept, some heavy sheet of exhaustion overwhelming him. That too she could understand. She could not join him, now, with all this light, but she could understand. And maybe that was what counted in the end. 

When the doctors entered the room, he was none the wiser. 

She did not call out to him. That would be unwise, would run counter to the person she was supposed to be. Still, something in her pulled taut at the sight of them approaching him, of cold gloved hands running over warm skin. 

Was his skin warm? Their hands were always cold. How would she know the difference? 

The cold, ungiving metal around her wrists snapped open and her arms slid off the sides of the chair. Her whole body slumped over as her head was no longer held up and. All she could do was stare. It was not supposed to do that, she knew that much. Or did she? She supposed perhaps it was. They did not seem concerned so perhaps she should not be either. 

They were looking at her. She could not tell why, could only see their heads trailed in her direction. They were covered completely, impossible to read. Then how did she always know when they were upset, when she had done something wrong? She looked at them expectantly, eyes darting between the two men. 

The doctor came over and pulled her to her feet. She followed the motion reflexively, obediently. 

It was easier to see him this way, looming over him. She watched his struggle to tilt his head back as much as he could to look at her, fighting against the unyielding metal of his restraints. 

Wasn’t he supposed to be the one who was with them? Why was this line being drawn, her standing with a doctor while he stayed restrained? It wasn’t right, she couldn’t do it. 

She shouldn’t. Something resembling guilt tangled itself in her stomach. 

Standing like this, she could see things she hadn’t been able to see before. The man’s arm was peeled open, its insides revealed to her, alive and pulsing. 

It wasn’t right to see him like this. Cut open. Laid bare. 

Her hand twitched towards her stomach. She stopped it when it actually moved, no longer held steady by the metal. It was harder to keep herself in check this way, no longer guided by the firm hands of people who knew better. She resolved herself not to move unguided again. 

The doctor led her over to him. Her feet moved forward, out of her control. It was what they wanted her to do. 

The man strained his eyes to look up at her, having given up on shifting his head. It looked painful. Those sorts of things didn’t matter in the dark. 

She didn’t know why she was being shown this. She didn’t know why she was being shown anything. 

She wanted desperately to ask for guidance, to ask why. She refrained, instead looking blankly at the doctor, waiting for any guidance. 

She received it. “Go on. Touch.”

She knew she shouldn’t, knew somewhere inherent inside of her that it was wrong. Her hand creeped forward, brushing against the least invasive piece of him, touching at the skin on the outside of the gaping wound, holding loose, unmoored. It shifted easily at her touch, with nothing to cling to. Even still, like this, separated from its master, it was warm. 

He jerked at the contact, not a wince of pain nor a start of surprise, but something she couldn’t quite identify. Almost like she’d shocked him. 

She remembered that, she realized belatedly. Remembered shocking people; dragging her socks across carpets, sending a small burst of electricity through her fingers. 

It didn’t seem likely here. She had no socks, let alone a carpet. She rarely had so much as the ability to drag her feet, though she supposed she'd now been given that privilege. And besides, she had the nagging feeling that she would have known if that’s what she’d done to him. 

She went to withdraw her hand, her mission completed, but the doctor tsked at her. “Stay there. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

The words hit her like a blow, her body locking in place. As the doctor shuffled over, filling a syringe with something, she heard a crack. She turned to see the man, jaw now open, stretching it from side to side. 

“It’s alright,” he said, words coming fast as he nervously glimpsed at the doctor. It almost seemed like he was scared the doctor might take his words away. It didn’t make sense, the man didn’t follow orders. The doctor could do nothing to him. “They’re making you do this. It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

She didn’t like his words. Putting a name to the guilt sent it bubbling up through her, rising outside of the depths of her guts where it had settled, happy to be ignored in favor of complacency. 

The doctor returned, fiddling with the plastic bits of the man, running his fluids through him. The doctor inserted the needle, sending the contents of the syringe flooding through them, churning into the rest of his body. 

She wasn’t sure where the instinct came from, but she braced for screaming, her muscles tightening. 

It never came. 

Instead, the main in the chair convulsed a little, a wet rattling coming through his chest. And then he was looking at her again, eyes sad and angry and almost a little damp. Almost. 

She wished his hair was longer. Then she wouldn’t have to see them. 

His arm twitched under her fingers, the skin loose and shifting with every tensing of his muscles. 

And then he shuddered, his eyes going glassy. 

She wanted to pull away. She shifted back, onto the heels of her feet, feeling unsteady. 

The doctor’s hand cradled hers, pushing her harder into his flesh. She could feel his veins thrumming in time with the throbbing she could see, the way they wound endlessly around and around inside his arm. Was hers like that, on the inside? Or had they reordered the veins, rearranged his insides to suit their needs?

It upset her how dry it was, how sterile. There should be insides on the inside, a wet mass that bled when cut into. It wasn’t right, to see it splayed like this, to have it so perfectly organized so as to almost not be recognizable as flesh. 

As soon as the doctor let go of her hand, she let it fall to her side. She knew it wasn’t permission to let go, but she decided to take it as such anyway

They started speaking about something. She didn’t know what, she wasn’t listening. Instead, she began a slow shuffle back to her chair. This time, she had to think about every movement, forcing herself forwards. It was a relief to slump back onto her chair, lifting her hands so they fell in line with the restraints. 

One of the doctors looked back at her, as unreadable as ever, and muttered something to the other. She was glad it was too quiet to hear, she didn’t have to focus on ignoring it. 

The restraints snapped shut and she was able to relax once more, being held up by forces outside of herself. 

They did not stay long after that, seeming disinterested in whatever they’d been doing now that she was not involved. Something inside her fluttered at the idea that her action, unguided and independent, had saved him from more pain. She was unsure if it was a good or a bad fluttering. It did not seem for her to decide. 

The man stared at his arm, face forlorn and unreadable, looking bare without protective equipment. It was a privilege, she supposed, to be able to hide like the doctors did. He made no move to leave, though something inside her said that he could if he wanted to. She was not sure where that left him, what side she should categorize him on. 

“They’re chemically stimulating emotions,” he informed her unbidden, pulling her from her thoughts. It was for the best, she wasn’t sure if she should be having them. 

“It made you feel something.” Still not a question. A stupid technicality, something that could be toppled over with a look. She tried not to think about it. It was harder to do, when she could see. She mourned the dark once more. 

“Yeah.”

“It was…” she struggled to get the words right. “I don’t know what they made you feel.”

“And you won’t know,” he snapped. 

“Your name is Spike,” she said, the fact slotting into place like it had always been there. There was some emotion behind it, something it took some force to shove away. 

They hadn’t planned it. At least that much was evident to him, that his reveal to Lyra was unexpected and threw off some sort of plan. Not enough to cause real problems, it seemed, but enough to cause a disturbance. 

It was for the best. He didn’t know if he could’ve handled it, playing into their hands like this. 

They were like vultures, circling and circling, pumping her with stuff and asking her the same questions over and over. What did she remember? Who was he? How did she get here? Who put her here? Who was she? How did she feel? Was she hurt? Who was he? 

It was enough to drive him crazy and he wasn’t the one having to answer them. 

Not that she seemed to mind. She barely even seemed to notice, happy to go round and round and round. Her answers never really seemed to differ, though her tone did, wavering in and out of confidence, oscillating between nervous and unemotive. 

At some point, they seemed to remember him, one of them mumbling something and another glancing his way. 

And then everything went black. 

Even without his vision, he could tell they still weren’t focused on him, still buzzing endlessly around Lyra, more concerned with whatever he had shaken loose by letting her see his face than they were with their feeble escape attempt. 

They hauled her away before long, taking her to fuss over her in another room. 

And then they didn’t bring her back. 

Stuck here, blind and motionless, he wasn’t good at keeping track of time. He didn’t know how long she was usually gone but it wasn’t longer than this. 

He tried counting but got lost in it after a while, his thoughts tugging him in every direction, the beginnings of panic taking hold of him. 

He tried to force a state of calm, to quiet his mind. He used to be good at meditation, he was sure of it. Now it seemed a perpetually elusive state, impossible to find in the dark and the quiet. 

He tried to sleep. It wasn’t that far from meditation, really. And he could use the rest, he thought, though he could not quite get himself to believe it. It has been so long since he’s actually done anything, why would he need rest? He’d gotten better at it while he’d been here at least, sleeping while sitting up, cold and restrained. Even still, it wouldn’t come. 

He’d never panicked from being alone before. Plenty of other things in this place had left him spiralling and afraid but never being alone. But then, he’d never been left for this long. 

Or had he? It was a difficult situation, high stress. He had no way of properly tracking time, anxiety could play tricks like this on people. He was well aware of that. 

“Spike?”

A voice called out to him. Familiar, low, questioning. He knew that voice. Where did he know it from? 

“Spike?” It called out again, insistent and beckoning. Jet. 

He couldn’t be here. It was impossible, must be some trick, something they’d dosed him with.  

“Spike!”

Another voice, shrill and irritated. Faye. She was looking for him, they were both looking for him. 

He tried to open his mouth, terrified it wouldn’t work, that it would be locked closed once more. It opened, his jaw cracking at the side, but it didn’t matter. He attempted to shout, to call back to them, but no words would come out. 

And then they were gone. 

They left. Why wouldn’t they? He had left them first. He didn’t even understand why they would look for him in the first place. 

He could see something, someone begin to take shape in front of him. Were they still there? Someone familiar with shaggy silver hair and deep bags under his eyes. He should know him, his mind helpfully supplied. Why didn’t he?

A warm hand at his jaw. He leaned into it on instinct, his movements blocked by the ungiving restraints. 

“Hello again Spike.”

Julia. Alive and warm against him. It didn’t make sense, she couldn’t be here. 

But then again, he couldn’t be here either. He’d felt the bullet rip through him, had known they were fatal shots. And yet, here he was. Why couldn’t she be too? 

And then the hand was gone, the cold stinging worse on his cheek as her warmth pulled away. He couldn’t see her. He just wanted to see her one more time, skin vibrant and eyes bright instead of clouded. All he could see was that man. 

The man opened his mouth and spoke. “You’re a wretched beast, Spiegel. Always have been.”

And he should know him, he recognized that fact at least. Why didn’t he?

He turned on his heels and walked away. Spike was helpless to do anything but watch him leave, trying to hold onto the image of his face, desperately searching through his memories to figure out why it seemed so familiar. 

And then he was alone again, nothing to do but cling to the memory. It faded quickly. It was hard to keep an image in mind with no visual feedback, hard to remember what seeing was like at all. It was difficult to remember anything really, seconds blurring together where he simply forgot to think, forgot to be. He supposed he had wanted to meditate so badly, he shouldn’t be upset about this new development. It wasn’t so different from meditation, really. Just a sort of meditation one was dragged into, unwilling and unable to escape. But he had wanted it, minutes ago, or maybe hours. He shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. 

He didn’t have so much as a guess of how long it had been when they hauled Lyra back into the room. He just knew all of a sudden he could see and there she was. 

He supposed hauled was the wrong word. Someone hauled her chair in certainly, but she was led in, kept close to the chair so the various IV’s and medical scanners attached to her didn’t disconnect, but walking all the same. 

It should have made her look more free, more independent. Instead, she looked like a walking corpse, shambling hesitantly, following the lead of the doctor guiding her exactly. 

She looked terrible.

The first thing he noticed about her was her hair. It wasn’t the most notable change, far from it, but he couldn’t help but stare. It was inexplicably shorter now. Before it had spilled down the chair, pooling on her hips. Now it barely reached her mid back, the hair now oddly uniform, looking stiff in its neatness. 

Her skin was pallid, veins more visible than they’d even been before, her eyes watering like she might cry. 

Not that her face showed it. It was completely blank, devoid of anything even resembling an emotion. 

He was lucid enough to know they were doing this on purpose, to know his vision was allowed for a reason. It was some form of torture. He knew by looking and by reacting he was letting them win. He just couldn’t bring himself to look away or close his eyes. 

At least he was getting more information this way, he thought. It sounded a weak justification even in his own mind.

As he watched, he noticed the way she moved, how she was being guided along. She was weak, certainly, muscles atrophied from ill use, but she somehow seemed more capable of walking than he was despite having been here far longer. In the movement, he could tell that she could see. She seemed unfamiliar with it, doubting the information her eyes were giving her, but that wasn’t how someone blind moved. It was something in between, someone accustomed to darkness being thrown in the deep end. 

She settled back into her chair, arms moving to their places in her open restraints. They didn’t snap shut, not yet. She kept her arms there anyway, completely motionless. 

She held her eyes forward, unmoving, staring at something. As he followed her gaze, he found that it was the closest thing to a dark corner the room had.

One of the doctors shifted forward, hand rising to hold her chin and direct her head. They moved it slowly, deliberately. She followed the motion, eyes still perfectly forward, easy to direct. 

And then they locked onto Spike. There was nothing behind them, no anger or sadness or fondness. No recognition. 

The doctors waited for a minute, watching her, like they thought she might revert back, might remember. It was odd. They seemed to have less faith in their control over her than he did. He didn’t doubt for a second that they’d pulled those memories from her, that she was fully complacent once more. He could see it in her eyes. There was nothing coming. She was a hollow shell. 

And then they planted her back in her spot, sitting her in her chair as if she had never left, and abandoned them, alone in their room. 

She could still see. He could tell, could see it in how uncomfortable she was, the way it edged into her otherwise neutral body language. It scared her, unfamiliar, out of her routine. She didn’t know how to react correctly. 

He had no idea how to proceed, no idea what might help return her personhood. But he had to do something, had to fix this somehow. 

“You know me,” he blurted out, trying to put force behind it. Was it enough of a command? Would it even matter?

Hesitation flickered on her face. “Wh-- I do not.”

She was trying to read it as a question, to find some way to make sense of it. 

“You will know me.”

Muscles twitched, flexing and unflexing. “I… can.”

“Remember me,” he tried, putting even more force behind it. 

There was something there, something small. A glimmer of recognition. For a second, he was foolish enough to have hope. “The beast from the room. You’re… the man. It’s up to me if I’m supposed to know your name.”

Something in him snapped. “No. I am Spike Spiegal. I shot you, I put you here. I ruined your life and I don’t even remember your face. You hate me, want me to suffer so badly that you don’t even care if it means you get tortured too. You wouldn’t help me escape, wouldn’t take my orders. You have to remember, you hate me.” It sounded too angry to be pleading, though there was a desperation in it anyway. 

She slumped over, limp but still held up by her restraints, position barely even changing as all the life left her. Her eyes didn’t even shut, remaining open and cold, looking half dead. For a second, he was worried he really had killed her, that maybe they’d put some sort of kill switch on certain memories to keep this from happening again. 

And then her eyes darted, first to him and then pointedly away, her body regaining a little structure. And she didn’t get mad, didn’t get scared. She just stared, like nothing had happened. 

“How are you feeling?” he forced out. 

She gave him a poor facsimile of a smile. “I feel no pain.”

He couldn’t live with this, couldn’t sit in the same room with the husk of a woman he’d put in here, that he had pushed to this breaking point. The isolation had consumed him but this was no better. Being in here with her like this was suffocating, bringing wave and waves of guilt over him with nothing to do to distract himself. 

He looked at her and she looked back, eyes unfocused and overwhelmed. She was fighting to keep her eyes open, likely on a latent order he hadn’t heard. He wasn’t going to try and undo it, not after everything else he’d done.