Rating - Overall, a hard NC-17

After the events "Not Fade Away," Spike is taken by the military and broken. Xander has to put him back together.

A/N - This was written as my Nanowrimo story last November. Several people looked over it for me - especially wesleysgirl and ladycat777

Warnings - There is offscreen non-con and abuse, as well D/s and mild s/m. Specific chapters will carry other warnings

True Strength

by
Wolfshark

Prologue, the first

They should have guessed. Hell, they should have known.

But they had no idea that Wolfram and Hart would have such poor control over the demons that they sent in. Within forty-eight hours, Los Angeles was burning. Within seventy-two, the military was moving in. And within a week, everyone in the world knew demons were real.

Well, that was an exaggeration. Most of Africa and Asia just blinked and thought how it was about time the west came to its senses. And Europe - especially Great Britain - had the Watchers to handle the spin.

But the United States - which had always been in a stubborn state of denial about the supernatural - suddenly had it face rubbed in the fact that demons and vampires were real, that the bogeyman under the bed really was more than a child's bad dream.

And their response was a typically heavy handed one.

Within days, demons that looked like demons were dead. Even former gods were not immune, as Illyria found out. There wasn't much that a suitably high dose of explosives could not deal with.

Those that could, fled. Those that couldn't, hid.

At first, it looked like vampires might survive the purge, but those hopes were quickly dashed. Public buildings added a pulse check to the metal detectors already omnipresent. Citizen's groups tracked anyone behaving suspiciously. And the hunters became the hunted in cemeteries and parks.

Angel was one of the first to die. Too high profile for his vampiric nature to stay a secret, he was dusted as he tried to get to a flight to England, where Giles had promised a bolthole.

Spike just… disappeared.

Everyone assumed he'd been dusted.

They were wrong.

Prologue, the second

Xander was part of the clean up crew rebuilding in Los Angeles. The money was good, and there was a desperate need for skilled labor that wouldn't run away from "Demon Central" as it was known. As much as the other members of the crew speculated about demons, making up stuff on the fly about what they wanted and where they came from, he just kept his mouth shut.

After all, what could he say?

"Yeah, I've been fighting demons since I was in high school, but you know, some of them aren't so bad, really?"

No one would believe the first part of it, and even if they did, the second would just get him harassed into quitting the crew, if he wasn't killed as a "demon lover" first.

So he didn't say anything, just helped demolish buildings too damaged by fire and weapons to ever be made stable again, and shore up those that could be made safe once more, and fought the urge to talk.

Buffy and Willow were safe in England, and that was a damn good thing, because anyone who exhibited "abnormal" abilities was either being cut down instantly or captured and "tested" - even if they were human. Xander and his crew had come across more than one example of the kind of testing that was being done. Even worse were the rumors that the military were back up to their old tricks, capturing some demons to use them to hunt others. He didn't want to believe that they'd be that stupid after Adam, but it wouldn't surprise him anymore.

It made him sick, and even more angry at Angel and his crew for unleashing this on them. This was all their fault, and then Angel had to go and die before he could clean it up.

Many of the guys on the crew speculated that they weren't really demons, but aliens come to take over the earth, a la "Independence Day." That made him laugh, but they had no idea why. He certainly couldn't tell them the story of the mayor and blowing up the school - though that's all he could think of .

He was pretty sure that some of the guys had caught on to the fact that he knew more than he was telling, but they accepted and didn't ask questions for the most part. Even if he was quiet, they mostly accepted him, and no one wanted to see what would happen to someone asking questions about demons - or what would happen to those who had answers.

Part One

Five years after Not Fade Away

Los Angeles was populated again.

Well, it had always been populated - by those too poor, too desperate or just too dumb to leave. But now it had a thriving population - enough to reopen larger stores, enough for some specialty shops. It would probably never be as large as it once was, but it could be home for some.

Xander hurried through the local mall. He'd only stopped by for latest Trek movie, and now that he'd picked it up at the video store, he just wanted to get out - away from the crowds and the rowdy kids.

A flash of black in the corner of his eye caught his attention and without thought he turned to track on it.

That looks an awful lot like Spike - but he's been dead for years. The man in question was walking slowly through the mall. He had none of Spike's old flash or fury - even the duster was different, cloth instead of leather - but the lines of his face were similar. The biggest single difference was the hair, though, golden brown instead of the stark white that he'd known.

And then the collar around his neck and the soldier behind Spike clued him in. Spike apparently had been recaptured - and turned into a hunting guide. As Xander watched, Spike stopped dead, head cocking and eyes searching. Before they could find him, Xander slipped into the crowd and away.

There was no real question that that was Spike, somehow. He wanted to doubt, wanted to make up something that would explain another vampire - and it had to be a vampire with that collar - who could look so much like Spike. While he was even thinner than Xander remembered, almost gaunt now, there was no real mistaking it. The question was what - if anything - he should do about it. Should he try to find Spike, set him free? Ignore it? Maybe get a slayer or two here so that if he couldn't get him free, he could at least stake the poor bastard, who Xander knew would rather be dead than a prisoner.

Xander had usually hated Spike, an antipathy that was mutual. But when the chips had been down, Spike had come through and they owed him big time. Doing something to help him would at least let them come close to paying him back.

First things first. Picking up the phone as soon as he got home, he called Giles.

"Hello?"

"Hey, G-man!"

"Xander, how many times do I have to ask you not to call me that?" Xander could hear the familiar fond exasperation in Giles' voice.

"Oh, at least a hundred more times. You'll never guess who I saw today."

"I have no times for guessing games - especially not this late. Who did you see?"

"I saw Spike."

Dead silence on the other end of the phone. Xander knew that the assumption was that either Spike had managed to get out of the US and was lying low somewhere, or that he'd been dusted like Angel.

"Are you sure it was him?"

"Well, I don't know - his face was the same, if a lot thinner. He was wearing a duster, even if it was a cheap cotton one instead of leather. And oh, yeah, he was wearing a collar and accompanied by a unit of soldiers."

Xander could hear the muttered obscenity on the other end of the phone, but for Giles' sake, didn't say anything. "They got him, then. I was afraid of this when we couldn't find him in any of his known hiding places."

"Yeah, I know. The question is what do we do about it?"

"You? You don't do anything. You made it very clear that you were retired the last time we talked. I'll figure out something at this end."

"Aw, come on, Giles. You know that when it comes to paying my debts, I'm in. I'm just not willing to come to Britain and sit behind a desk all day." Unspoken was the fact that there was part of Xander that missed the adventure, and he wasn't willing to let the Watchers wrap him in cotton wool just because he was missing an eye.

"All right. I suppose you have a point there. For right now, don't do anything. I may be able to resolve this rather easily. Just be aware that Spike may not be the same person you knew - he'd already had a hell of a time at Wolfram and Hart, and that was before the foolhardy attempt to take out the Black Thorn. We don't know when he was taken prisoner, either, so god only knows what they've done to him there."

"You'll call me when you have some idea of what we're going to do, right?"

"Right. Take care, Xander, and keep me posted as to what happens."

Hanging up the phone, he puttered about, waiting for a call back.

Hours later he was still waiting when he gave up and went to bed.

Xander was woken up by a fierce pounding on the door. A glance at the clock showed that it was still before dawn. Hastily checking that the prosthetic was still in place, he stumbled to open it.

Then all he could do was stand in shock for an unacceptably long time, because it was a soldier, with Spike - on a leash. The soldier held out a clipboard and said, "I'm here for the delivery of Hostile Seventeen. He's been ordered into your custody."

Xander rubbed under his eye. "What? Who ordered it? What do you mean, ordered?"

"I'm sure I don't know, sir. But I have orders to get your signature on the receipt and deliver him to you. He's your problem, now."

Shrugging, Xander signed the offered form and took Spike's leash and the fat envelope that was offered to him with an expression of distaste. Somehow, he thought it might be a bad idea if he indicated that he knew Spike, or was relieved at how easy this was. It could get not easy very quickly if he did.

"Look, what do I- "

But the soldier had already turned around and was on his way down the porch steps. As soon as he'd gotten in the waiting car and driven away, he turned to face the vampire. "Spi -"

"You need to invite me in, sir. Unless you wish me to stand out here?"

Even Spike's voice was different, flat and quiet. "Oh, right. C'mon in, uh, Seventeen."

"Thank you, sir." Spike stepped through the door and came to almost parade rest right inside the door. Silent, still, it was really, really freaky to see him acting like this.

Removing the leash in disgust, he dropped it with the packet on the coffee table. "Uh, make yourself comfortable while I try to wake up, okay?"

Spike nodded, and Xander took himself off to the bathroom. A hot shower, clean teeth, and some clothes later, he felt ready to deal with whatever life threw at him - even if it threw a silent Spike.

When Xander came back out, Spike didn't look like he'd moved at all. Xander picked up his copy of the receipt and walked over to the couch, not checking to see if he was being followed. Picking up the phone for the second time in twenty four hours, he called Giles, who confirmed that yes, the council had pulled some strings with the British military, who'd pulled some on the US side. Result, one Spike on his doorstep at oh, god, early in the morning.

"What am I supposed to do with him, Giles? He's acting like he doesn't even know who I am, and according to this paperwork I now own him."

"Well, it seemed the most expedient way to get Spike out of their hands and into some that were... friendlier."

Xander turned to stare at the silent Spike who looked as if he was staring into space. Friendlier. Yeah. Xander had heard rumors about what was done to train hunting guides, and to break Spike to this level, god only knew what they'd done. But it was probably worse than any of the rumors had it.

Giles cleared his throat and then coughed. "Can you send him to us?"

And that was the first indication that Spike had been listening, because suddenly he was on his knees in front of Xander, eyes locked on the floor, hands behind his back. Every line of muscle was tight and clearly miserable. "Giles, I'm going to have to call you back. Don't do anything yet, okay?"

Without listening to Giles' response, he hung up the phone and looked down at the kneeling man. "Spike?"

"Please don't send me away." Spike's voice still had that peculiar flat tone, that almost managed to camouflage the terror behind it. Xander tried to wrap his mind around this as Spike continued. "I'll be good for you."

Xander sat, shocked, as Spike started to run his hands up his thighs, petting and stroking. It took him a minute to realize what he was doing, and then he stood up as if someone lit a fire under his ass. "What the hell?" Xander might have come out as gay a long time before, but he'd never even thought of Spike in that way.

Spike pulled in on himself, folding his arms across his chest and staring hard at the floor. Xander was more than a little surprised it hadn't caught fire, as hard as Spike was staring at it.

"Look, Spike. Just talk to me, okay? Why don't you want to go to Giles?"

"My name is Hostile Seventeen."

"What?" Xander was getting more confused by the moment.

"My name is Hostile Seventeen, not Sp-sp- what you just said." Spike finally looked up at him, his face a mass of anguish.

Part Two

Xander stared at him in confusion. What the hell did he mean, his name was Hostile Seventeen? Did Spike not know who he was, after all? Did he have some sort of amnesia, or had they wiped his mind… His head spun with one possibility after another presenting itself from science fiction.

Finally, he decided to start with basics, hoping that would give him some sort of footing to proceed with. "Look, Spi - Seventeen. Let's start with, have you eaten today? We can go from there."

Spike shook his head, returning his look to the floor. "It's not a feeding day."

"What the hell do you mean, feeding day?"

Spike gestured towards the packet he had sat on the table, having completely forgotten about it. Confusion edging over towards anger, he tore open the flap. It turned out to have a small black remote and a book of instructions. Opening it at random, he read out loud, "Hostiles are most effectively governed using negative reinforcement, but extraordinary actions may, rarely, warrant positive reinforcement. This may include, but isn't limited to, extra rations, access to entertainment, sexual release…"

Xander dropped the notebook in disgust. "What is this, your operating instructions, like you're a DVD player or something?"

Somehow, he wasn't surprised when Spike nodded.

"Okay, look, I'll read the damn thing later, but right now, I want to know how long it's been since you've eaten."

Spike squirmed, but answered. "Two days."

"You haven't eaten since Thursday? And when is your next 'feeding day?'"

"Monday, sir."

Well, no wonder he looked positively gaunt. Vampires could skip a day here or there, but they generally needed to eat every day or they lost weight. "Right. First order of business is finding out where I can get some blood for you."

Opening up the phone book, he started flipping through trying to find a butcher shop. Finally finding one, he called them and explained that he was having British guests for the next few days and one of them wanted to make a blood pudding - could he possibly buy a gallon or so of blood? He could? Fantastic. If he combined it with some other things, could he have that delivered? Great.

When he hung up the phone, he was disturbed by the look that Spike was giving him. Trying to think of a way to get a little space without shoving Spike away - god knows, he didn't want to give him any more "negative reinforcement," - he asked, "So, did you shower today?"

A headshake.

Trying not to shout out, "Score," he instead sent Spike to the shower, with instructions to not come out till the hot water ran out. He knew how much Spike hated to be dirty - almost as much as he hated to be cold - and figured that with an order like that he'd actually have to pry him out of the bathroom.

That gave him time to go and fetch a pair of sweats - way too big, but warm - and toss them onto the toilet seat. Then he started to go through the notebook that came with Spike. Hopefully it would give him some idea of what was going on.

When the doorbell rang, he started, having gotten completely lost in the complexities of the notes that had come with Spike.

Paying absent-mindedly, he stashed the steaks that he'd ordered in the freezer and poured a mug of the pig's blood for Spike. Heating it up, he brought it back out to the living room just as he finally heard the shower cut off.

After a few minutes, Spike appeared and Xander didn’t even try to hold back the snigger at how he looked in his sweats. He was pretty much swimming in them, and even Spike looked fairly disgusted at it.

"I know - we're going to need to get you some new clothes. Sit down, drink your blood, and then maybe we can talk." Xander's eye was drawn to the collar still around Spike's neck.

Spike hesitated; staring at the mug like it contained the answer to life and the universe, but didn't actually move. "What? I know you don't care for pig, but it's what I could get on short notice."

There was another pause, and then Spike sank gracefully to his knees next to the coffee table, reaching out cautiously for the mug. Xander started to say something, to tell him to sit on the couch, but as soon as Spike had his hands on the mug, he brought it to his mouth, drinking it as fast as he could as if he expected to have it taken away at any moment.

Xander had read enough of the instructions at this point to realize that Spike expected exactly that - that most likely it happened to him more than once. So instead of saying anything, he simply waited.

It didn't take long before Spike had drained the mug to the last drop. Slowly, he set the mug down and then lowered his head, licking his lips. "You know, there's a whole gallon of it in the 'fridge if you want more."

Pause. Spike then shook his head, as if he was afraid what this generosity of Xander's was going to cost him. But Xander just sighed and picked up the mug, taking it to the kitchen and pouring it full. Sixty seconds later, and he carried out the warm cup to Spike. "Okay, first rule - if you're hungry, you eat. Forget this crap about 'feeding day' - you will eat every day, as much as you need. I want you healthy, okay?" Xander didn't want to think about why it was so important to him to get Spike healthy. It just was, like the sky was blue or water was wet.

Xander waited until Spike nodded, and then asked, "So, are you still hungry?" Spike paused long enough that Xander was sure he wasn't going to answer and then shook his head no.

"Alright, then. Now, why don't you come sit on the couch while I finish skimming this."

Spike did as he was told, still silently. The quiet was starting to really wig out Xander, but he didn't say anything, just opening the operating guide and starting to flip through it. The damn thing really did read like a dvd instruction manual - the same stilted language, the same directions that you had to practically read backwards to get them to make sense.

The hostile will typically fight conditioning at first, requiring that the handler be extremely quick in triggering the mechanism…

Keeping the hostile underfed will allow for greater control…

Constant supervision is necessary so that the hostile takes no unpunished independent action…

Hostiles should be taught to respond to their number, not whatever name that they choose to use…

Triggering of the device at the least sign of independent thought is a necessary part of the training process. One should feel no pity or sympathy towards the hostile as they do not feel pain the way that humans do…

By the time he was done flipping through it, he was beyond angry. No wonder Spike was being so, so, so… un-Spike-like. He'd been tortured by the bastards till he'd broken. At this point, he was operating like a damn robot - not thinking at all.

Setting the book down on the coffee table so as to resist the urge to throw it across the room, Xander stared at Spike, not really seeing him. Is it possible to fix him - make him the Spike that I know? Or should I just send him to Giles to be cared for? But he already knew the answer to that - he was going to do everything he could to help Spike become Spike again. He owed him that much for saving Buffy and the world.

When Xander picked up the remote sitting on the table with the other papers, Spike flinched and then slid to his knees, as if he was waiting for punishment. "No, Sp - Seventeen. I'm putting this away - I'll never use it on you."

Spike looked up at that, with an expression of doubt on his face. While his voice may have become flat and emotionless, he still wrote every emotion large across his sharp features, and they clearly said, "If you expect me to believe you you're dumber than you look. I've been lied to before."

"Seriously. Watch." And with that, Xander stood and carried the evil thing over to the sideboard, to be locked inside. The look of relief on Spike's face was something that made Xander grateful to see - he hated the fact that the military had taken Spike again, but to have reduced him to this was an even worse crime as far as he was concerned.

Having turned the key and returned to the key, he patted the sofa and said, "Okay, so come back up here and talk to me. How did they get you, anyway?" But Spike just shook his head, staring at his hands. "What? You can't talk about that, either?" Another headshake.

"What can you talk about? I know you can still speak, Spike, I've heard you."

Spike looked frustrated. "Sir?"

Xander sighed. This was going to be difficult. Good thing he had some time off coming from work. Leaving Spike sitting on the couch, he called his supervisor and asked for a week off for "personal reasons." Max agreed, and Xander hung up, standing there with one hand on the phone and staring at Spike. Picking up the phone again, he called Giles.

"It looks like they really did a job on him, Giles. He won't even respond to his own name - just his number. He flinches if I move too fast, if I raise my voice…"

Giles was silent for a moment, then spoke slowly, as if he was trying to feel out each word before he said it. "It almost sounds as if he's reacting like an abuse victim, which is not too far off from the truth, Xander. Are you certain that you want to try to deal with this? You could send him to me, you know. I can see what we can do to help him."

"No. I want to at least try, before I send him away. But I could use some help, if you could."

"Like what, Xander? You know I'll do whatever I can to help you if it's possible."

"I really could use a source for blood - especially human blood. He's really badly out of condition - they were starving him, Giles! I've got enough for a few days, but there's a limit to how much I'm going to be able to buy without a good excuse."

Giles cleared his throat, and then said, "Surely the local butcher shops - "

"I'm in Los Angeles, Giles. Only a few butcher shops have reopened since it was flattened, and most of those are Kosher. Once I've gone through the ones that aren't, I'm shit out of luck unless I want someone to connect the dots and realize I have a vampire living here. You got him away from the military, but I can't protect him from a mob."

There was a moment of silence on the other end. Finally, he said, "Giles? We owe it to him to see if I can fix him. Give me a couple of weeks and if I can't get it done, we'll reevaluate the two of us coming to England, okay?"

Giles cleared his throat. "You promise you'll come as well if you can't make it work there?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'll come too. Now, can you work something out or not?"

"You'll keep in touch about your progress. And yes, I'll figure out something in the next day or two."

"Thanks, Giles. I'll call you in three days, okay?"

"That's fine, Xander. I trust that you'll ask if you need any other help, and Xander? I have faith in you."

Xander blinked in surprise, but before he could get rid of the sudden lump in his throat, Giles had disconnected the call.

Hanging up, Xander turned back to Spike, who looked away just as he looked over. "It's fine, Spike. You're entitled to know what's happening to you. I won't keep secrets from you, either. Now, let's get started."

Two hours later, after meticulously phrasing and rephrasing questions, Xander had learned only a little.

Spike wouldn't or couldn't talk about his capture or his early days back in the hands of the military. He'd been used mostly to track down other vampires, as well as being expected to stake them on sight. He didn't fight that, which made sense since he'd been fighting demons with the scoobies and Angel for several years. What he'd fought was the other conditioning.

Xander got the feeling that the single largest sticking point - and the one that Spike had received the most punishment for - had been the use of his name. Spike consistently refused to answer to anything but "Seventeen," and every time Xander said, "Spike," he flinched.

Whenever Xander got frustrated or upset over the partial answers and evasions, Spike would pull in on himself, and the one time that Xander got angry, Spike had slid back to his knees, reaching out and offering to do "whatever sir wanted." It was clear that he wasn't offering to chug a beer and watch Dr. Who reruns.

The worst part of that was that Xander could see a point at which he'd take advantage of that offer. It had been a long time since he'd had a lover, and his right hand could get pretty lonely after all that time and there was no denying that Spike was attractive, and at least on the surface, willing.

But he knew that if he did, he'd never forgive himself. And worse, if - no, when, not if. Never think if - Spike got himself back together he wouldn't forgive him either.

But oh, it was so, so tempting.

Instead, Xander gently helped Spike up on the couch and kept up the questioning, trying to force himself to look at Spike's eyes, not his lips. Getting direct answers was next to impossible, but gradually Xander started to get enough information to be able to fill in blanks.

As far as he was concerned, the first thing was to break some of the conditioning around Spike's name, because he flat refused to call him Seventeen. But, never having dealt with anything like this before, he turned to the one expert in the room to see how it can be done.

"Your name is Spike. You know that, right?"

Flinch. Headshake.

"Spike. Not Seventeen. Not hostile. Spike. If you think about it, you know it, down in your gut."

Another flinch, and maybe the tiniest of nods.

"So, how can we make it so that you start responding to the right name again?"

Spike looked meaningfully over at the drawer where Xander had locked the controller and then back, but didn't say anything.

"I told you that I wasn't going to use that damn thing. Are you afraid that I lied - that I'll zap you if you tell me?"

He shook his head, finally speaking. "No, you're going to have to use it, sir. I was trained with pain, and it's going to take pain to break it."

"What? No!" Xander exclaimed. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

Voice flat, Spike responded, "You have another option, sir. Don't retrain me - maybe the British gentleman can find a use for me if you don't have one." But the shaking of his hands gave away the fear that this gave him. Xander wasn't so sure what scared Spike so badly about Giles, but it was obvious that he was terrified.

"Let me... just let me think on this, okay?" Xander could remember the pain that the chip put Spike through, and watching it malfunction and fire randomly was a terrible memory of the last days of Sunnydale.

He couldn't do it - he just couldn't. But maybe... he remembered some of the pictures that he'd flipped through on the 'net when he was coming to grips with his sexuality. "Does it have to be the damned chip? Could we try something else instead?"

Spike looked thoughtful. "I... I don't know, sir. Maybe something else will work."

Setting that aside to think about, Xander asked the question that he most dreaded the answer to.

"Spike? Do you remember who I am?"

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