She couldn’t stop shaking. Shock had begun to seize her limbs and her face felt numb from the cold of her tears. Buffy hugged cold, numb arms around herself, her mind almost blank as the torn flesh at her back almost crippled her to pain.
Angel had attacked her.
The thought was terrifying in itself. Buffy remained huddled on the bed, naked and shaking as she replayed the event in her mind, only snippets and no words sinking through the barrier that wanted to protect her even now. But Spike’s voice carried a name as he shouted and tried to pull her out of the way, and her back itched and seared with fire as her flesh was viciously cut into with wood. She’d seen that much, seen Spike in his protective rage bury the implement in the far wall after seizing it from Angel’s hand. Blurred to the impact the event then had as she faded from consciousness.
She’d thought she was safe. It was irony at its best. One vamp had tried to stake her in the back, and another was all vamped fury in her honour. A Slayer at the mercy of vampiric whim, and yet she’d felt safe with Spike watching her back. Literally.
It all seemed different when she’d pried her eyes open again. She was weak. Afraid. Obviously in need of medical attention as she felt the slow flow of blood as it again took to trailing down her skin. And she was alone. With no explanation other than threats against Angel, he was gone, leaving her to stain a bed that didn’t belong to her. A bed in which she’d been left naked and weak.
She wasn’t alone, though. Buffy could feel her neck tingling with awareness of the presence beyond this room. Knew without any doubt that too many minions lay just beyond her and she would be dead before she even got out of the building. She was bleeding profusely; it felt warm as it slid over the skin of her back. It would be some kind of miracle if she made it to the top of the stairs without a swarm of vamps waiting just on the other side of the door.
But the continued loss of blood was making her weak, and Buffy came to the frightening reality that she didn’t have a choice. She could feel the thumps of her own straining heart as they echoed throughout her entire body. For any kind of a chance she had to leave; had to attempt to make it to a hospital where she could have her wound treated and possibly submit to a blood transfusion.
When the colour seemed to seep from every object she looked at, she made up her mind. On spaghetti strong legs, Buffy regained her feet and felt around for her clothes. Her slayer vision was failing, some things blurring even as the black clothing around her stood out stark in memory—if not in sight. The Slayer cringed when the back of her shirt stuck to her back, blood seeping through and making it stick tighter than any bandage. That was bad. Had to mean all kinds of bad that there was so much blood. Spike must have only stopped it for awhile.
Finally the struggle with shoes was at an end and one foot rested on the bottom of the stairs. No amount of directed breathing or slayer pep talk could calm the fear and her heart beat a rhythm loud enough to wake the dead. Being that it was night, and she was surrounded by at least twenty walking demons, she wasn’t thinking they really needed the extra help. The scent of Slayer blood was more than enough to have them gathered and snarling over an easy meal.
Then again, miracles had happened before. She’d lived through the previous night, despite being at the mercy of a grieving vampire who’d been after her blood since he rolled into town. Events had been turned so far to the other side of what should have been expected, that Buffy was more than willing to take another gamble right now. If she didn’t—if she remained naked on that bed waiting for her world to suddenly once again make sense—she had no doubts the minions would find her dead on the comforter anyway.
The first step hurt, but the second step was much worse. Pain wracked her body in excruciating detail, leaving no cell bereft of the message. Yet still a foot matched a step until she was at the door, a shaking hand raised to push it open and face almost certain death in an effort to save her own life.
The door opened too slowly, the creak of the hinge echoing throughout the factory like an injured calf baying for its mother. It was almost prophetic, that sound that warned of her entry as she stared at a multitude of glowing amber eyes all aimed at her, almost eating up her pain and fear. Whatever hope she had clung to—that the factory would be empty or that Spike would come running to her rescue, or even that she was dreaming and Angel hadn’t really stabbed her with her own chosen weapon—crash dived in the face of over twenty ravenous vampires. Elongated fangs salivated at the scent of her strong blood.
Buffy closed her eyes as she took the first step into the room, keeping them closed when she took another and another. Tingles raced over her skin and pounded into the back of her skull, the inherent demon warning almost knocking her out in inbred Slayer panic. Her will hadn’t yet deserted her, but Buffy did not retain the strength needed to take them all on and keep walking.
She was barely walking now, and as she made the fifth step and remained unharmed, she allowed her eyes to hesitantly slide open. The sight made her scream and she stopped still, heart thudding a race to get out of her body. To run and never quit running until someone forced her to.
They were so close. Not touching her but less than an arms length away. She could reach out and rest a hand on them if the thought didn’t completely squick her out. Buffy could feel the blood gurgling at her open wound, could feel the cold of helpless tears as they asserted a path down her cheeks. Could almost smell the fetid breath of these less grooming friendly minions.
She didn’t know what to do. They were in front of her, behind her, beside her, all eyeing her neck greedily like she was some special entrée they had all been fighting over and now still hadn’t reached the decision of who got to bite her first.
She couldn’t look. Even if she’d had a stake and hadn’t been incapacitated, Buffy couldn’t take on twenty vamps and made it out alive. The odds were more than against her, and yet on trembling legs she reached the factory exit and found herself surrounded by the cool reassurance of the night.
More followed as Buffy ventured her way to the hospital, darting frightened looks over her shoulder at the enlarging number of vampires that were following her path. She suspected her wiggins levels had just been blown right off the chart. Forcing herself to move on, to ignore the strangeness of what was happening, Buffy pushed on. One step after another until in a particularly dark alley had her turning slightly and crying out in distress to see her following had swelled in number to such a degree that it looked like a parade.
None of them came more than a step closer to her. None of them pushed the very obvious advantage they had to attack and tear her broken body apart.
Buffy’s body was shaking alarmingly in shock as she descended the steps into the hospital, almost fainting in relief on a free passing gurney. Falling face forward, she finally gave in to her terror and cried, allowing the blood that saturated the back of her shirt to tell the tale while emotion allowed her to claim some semblance of sanity.
Then painkillers and Doctor’s voices reassured her that if the monsters of the night hadn’t killed her outside when there were no witnesses, then they weren’t going to do it once she’d reached a kind of haven.
Her last thought was of a confused collage of Spike’s attitude and care before her world went thoroughly black.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It had not been a conscious decision, but rather one based more on vampire code and instinct. She’d reeked of Spike; they’d scented his scars on her body. So, though enticed almost out of their minds by the high of her blood, the claim their master had on this Slayer through bite and sex was far more than what a little taste would be worth. Spike may be new to their group, might be new to them as Master, but his reputation wasn’t exactly non-existent. He’d lost one of his women this night—if they’d dared take another…it just wasn’t worth the pain. The end to their existence. The quick introduction to hell.
The aroma had been too strong to ignore altogether, though. It had called to them like a siren song and so minion after minion succumbed and crowded her, imagining what that one little taste must have been like. Spike must have had more than a taste as more than one bite could be scented. They’d followed her like dogs eager to not lose their bone, pulling in a crowd as they drifted past other nests and dreamed of that one taste all the way to her destination.
The strange behaviour of explicit looking but not touching the Slayer must have intimidated the newcomers. The ones that didn’t bow down to Spike’s rule yet were wary enough to not want to cross the unknown element. His strength was renowned for sure and any challenge on a woman covered in vamp bites and still walked…well, none of them admittedly had the balls. So they walked alongside her as if in a funeral brigade and then mourned once she passed into the relative safety of the hospital.
They didn’t disperse until close to sunup.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“H-hello?”
“Can I speak to a Mr. Rupert Giles, please?” The efficient nurse glanced up from the file in her hand and smiled briefly at a passing nurse.
“Speaking. W-who is this?” The voice was worried, suspecting as if he’d been waiting a long time for news of tragedy.
“Mr. Giles, this is nurse Johnstone calling from Sunnydale Memorial. You are listed on Ms. Buffy Summers file as next of kin. She has just come in and is being treated in Emergency. Would it be possible for you to come in and take care of admittance details?”
“Oh Lord, how is she?” The British accent cracked a little and then there was some kind of interference over the phone as the nurse suspected she heard some kind of fabric muffling the sound.
“You would need to discuss Ms. Summers’ condition with her doctor. I’m sorry I can’t help you, but I am not up to date with her circumstances. Will you be able to come in soon?”
“Oh yes, yes, of course. I am on my way.” The phone clicked abruptly and was obviously disconnected.
Nurse Johnstone was almost disappointed that the nice sounding man had clicked off the connection, doubting she would get to put a face to the voice as her shift ended and she gathered her jacket and headed for her locker.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
They’d been gathered around the table looking up any information on William the Bloody and his girlfriend, Drusilla. Trying to fill in the time with purpose while waiting for Angel to show up with some kind of news. Xander spent most of his time staring with blurred eyes at pictures and words that didn’t relate to anything he knew, and looking up to share terrified looks with Willow. Giles had uncharacteristically thrown one book after another aside, parrying off his own desperate need for alcohol with numerous excursions to his kitchen and subsequent kettle, not returning to the teenagers till he had a tray laden with cups of tea that no one intended to drink.
Eyes spoke louder than words as each of the three periodically studied the clock on the wall, trying to tamp down rising fear every hour on the hour when Angel failed to show. When the phone rang, the only worry that flittered through their minds would be that Mrs. Summers had for some reason gotten the number from someone and was wondering where the hell her daughter was. No one expected it to be news of Buffy herself, and certainly not from the hospital. That Angel had failed to gather the information or save Buffy from whatever hell she had been catapulted into had never crossed their minds. Despite his vampiric status, they trusted him to find Buffy and make their world okay again. Make their world once again safe enough to sleep in.
So, it was in varying shades of shock that they made their way to the hospital, finding it necessary to dodge a number of vampire groups on their way from the carpark to the front entrance. Just that short trip was fraught with enough fear to keep their hearts pumping and to stave off total exhaustion and catatonic shock.
They found Buffy unconscious, dressed head to toe in white and lying on her side. A Doctor outside her room informed them of the damage to Buffy’s back, the need to boost her blood supplies with transfusion and the very real need for a restful recovery. They had no information on how she came to be stabbed so viciously in the back, but he was very caring in his relief that she had survived the attack.
“I-it’s almost like she’s been…staked.” Giles thought about his Slayer’s condition in a quiet stunned fashion, hardly believing that this girl he had begun to very much care for was not only still alive, but had almost been killed in the manner of the vampires she was charged to eradicate each and every night of her life.
“But, why G-man? I mean, a vampire would know she’s not dead, and even if they thought she was—and I can’t even imagine how those perky vamp ears wouldn’t hear her heartbeat—why would they kill her with a stake in the back?” Xander stood staring at his unconscious friend, a look of dazed puzzlement on his face.
“I-it could be some kind of bizarre retribution. Kill the Slayer in the manner she kills.” Giles stood beside Xander, both opposite a silent Buffy and a contemplative Willow.
“Or…maybe someone felt she had been turned and they thought they had to kill her before she could start to hunt on her friends.” Willow refused to look at Giles, only chancing the smallest look at Xander before she had the courage to continue. “We haven’t seen Angel. What if he thought she was dead? Thought she was a vampire? If he was all grievy it could be possible, right? He might have been too heartbroken to hear her heartbeat. So, just maybe, he staked her and now he’s either all dusty from Buffy protecting himself or all of the hiding because he is freaked out from almost killing her.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense. And if that’s what happened, then Evil Undead better not come around here no more.” Xander puffed out his chest against his crossed arms, a furious line of hate straightening his lips.
“Was that an obscure Tom Petty reference? I never thought you listened to him, Xander. I might have to reassess your intelligence in regards to good music,” Giles told him with a burgeoning pleased smile.
“Say what now? Never heard of him. Does he do country?”
“Oh, I give up,” Giles conceded and shook his head as he fell back into the only visitor’s chair in the room.
They resumed the awkward silence of earlier and just waited. For what they didn’t know. Sunrise? Angel to return and straighten out this mess…or maybe best of all, for Buffy to wake up and tell them where she had been for the past two nights and why she was sporting the gaping hole in her back that was the rage amongst all fashionably unlucky vamps in the Hellmouth area.
No answers materialised as the night wore on, leaving them to greet a tired sun with a continually confused frown. Buffy was yet to wake, and for them to still be out when school beckoned for their presence, questions would possibly need to be answered when they showed up to get either sleep or a book bag.
In tacit agreement they stayed, shifting uncomfortably on chairs that had been provided by thoughtful and compassionate staff. Buffy’s waking up was the priority, and knowledge of the situation at hand of the utmost importance.
Giles was the first to call in and beg off work for the day, citing the accident of a close family friend. When Willow took the risk and told her mother where she was, the woman who supposedly knew Willow best told her it was perfectly acceptable for her to want to spend her time at Muffy’s bedside. As long as she returned some time that day. Xander made no move to phone the school or his parents, figuring neither would really care or miss him till the damage had been done.
So, together they stuck side by side, waiting for their warrior to return to them and shed what light she could.
There was little more they could do.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey look, it's back!! Am hopeful I can keep some momentum up on this fic--if you all are interested, that is. ;o)