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Author's Chapter Notes:
I got reviews:)
my thanks to Brandy, Cordykitten, Dusty, Ariadne, and Bridgete for reviewing. It makes my day
Cathy looked around the darkened Panic room. There was one in each Slayer House, and this one was no different in design. Bunks along either wall, table down the middle, bathroom at one end and kitchen beside it. Sealable door, and supplies, magical and tinned foods, in a cupboard. Weapons along each wall above each bunk. The basics needed for the slayers in any situation. The main difference was that this room had blood in it, everywhere. The bulkhead lights had been smashed and the broken glass crunched underfoot. The door had been torn off its hinges. There was blue and purple goo down one side of it and the arm from some demon or other flopped and wriggled on a spike driven through it. She could hear shouting and screams from through the doorway. They didn’t sound either human or female. In fact they sounded decidedly male and non-human. Cathy and Mary surveyed the scene again, not wanting to miss something obvious and advanced slowly. There was nothing around them to give them away. In fact the only thing they could see through the door were mounds of Vampire dust and bits of demon. They made their way to the stairs carefully, slowly, not wanting to bring any attention to themselves.

Then there was Caitlin, wrapped in a blood stained blanket with a shield of white light around her and Cordy standing over her looking pissed.

‘Where’s Buffy?’ Cathy asked. Cordy just pointed further up the stairs, from where the inhuman screams were coming from.

Mary picked up the bundle that was Caitlin and she didn’t make a sound, just lay like dead. The sheet was dripping with blood and goo, not all of it human. Mary readjusted Caitlin and started back to the portal.

‘I’ll carry her back through to The Hyperion and come back,’ she whispered to Cordy.

‘There’s no need to come back,’ Cordy said in her normal tone, ‘Buffy only needs one of you to fetch her.’

‘But the demons?’

‘Dead, or at least the last will be by the time you get there.’ Came the short reply and Cordy vanished in a bright white light, blinding the two slayers for a moment.

Mary turned and carried the badly wounded Caitlin through the portal, into the waiting arms of Martin. He hurried them through to the medical unit.

Spike could smell the blood coming from her. He could also hear her heart beating, slowly, too slowly. Poor girl was in a bad way. He hoped that Martin could do something, perhaps they would have enough blood to replace what the girl had lost. Luckily, because they’d all been feeding him, they had plenty of slayer blood on tap.

Cathy watched as Mary vanished and then followed the sounds of the screams. They were more female than male and sounded more human than inhuman. She put on extra spurt of speed, desperate to rescue Buffy from whatever was attacking her. The scene she found chilled her to the core. There were no demons, no vampires left alive. Every single one had been ripped to pieces. Buffy stood in the middle of the mass of gore and guts, stabbing herself with a knife over and over again. Screaming, not with pain but with anguish and anger. She didn’t look like just Buffy either: there was a shadow of something on her, the first Slayer interposed over Buffy’s features. They, she, was crying and screaming, not noticing anything around her.

Cathy called out to Buffy but she didn’t seem to hear. The first slayer was in total control. When Cathy looked closely she could see little fangs peeping through Buffy’s lips. She watched as the slayer part seemed to step back and fade, leaving just Buffy who promptly fainted.

Cathy caught her before Buffy collapsed completely and heaved her up over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift, carrying the unconscious slayer towards the portal and home.

Coming through the portal with a bleeding Buffy failed to seal the doorway. It took an unbleeding Summers to close them so Dawn waved a hand in the direction of the lights and they went out leaving an empty space behind. His niblet was getting to be powerful little spellcaster.

All eyes, however, were on Buffy. She was still unconscious, hanging like a sack over Cathy’s shoulder.

‘She was taken over by the first Slayer, fangs and all,’ the girl said, ‘she’d killed everything in sight and was screaming, and there were fangs,’ she repeated. ‘I have never been so scared, not even in the pit that was Sunnydale. She was terrifying: I told you there were fangs?’

‘There were bits of demon everywhere,’ she added as Johnson and Xander put Buffy carefully onto a gurney and wheeled her towards the medical room. Spike was using what strength he had to follow on, hobbling from one piece of furniture to the next. He couldn’t believe that his Buffy was hurt, she wasn’t supposed to be hurt. He could smell the blood and something else, it reminded him of…

‘Get Clem!’ he shouted at Xander and hurried into the room where he saw Martin lifting a still unconscious Buffy onto a bed. He growled as the man started undressing HIS slayer to examine her for wounds, never mind that he was keeping her decently covered or Willow was doing most of the undressing; no man should be touching her like that.

Willow noticed the growling and smiled to herself. ‘Seems our Spike is getting territorial.’

Martin glanced across at the vampire. ‘I have to undress her, I have to see where she's hurt, but I'll be careful.’

‘You had better be,’ Spike growled out loud and allowed Dawn to give him a seat where he could see what was happening but was well out of the way.

Clem arrived slightly out of breath and ran straight into Spike.

‘What you want, Xander said you needed me?’

‘That smell, do you know what it is? Cause I think…’

Clem hurried over to the little group before Spike could even finish; he recognised the blue goo and the distinctive smell of a Seraga demon, the bringer of essence. No wonder Buffy had been going all original slayer on them. The blood would allow the original slayer to make her appearance.

Clem looked at poor Spike. ‘It’s good to see you Spike,’ he said, ‘and you were right, it is Seraga blood on her. She needs it cleaned off quickly and thoroughly, then she should wake up her old self again.’

Spike was still cursing his near useless legs as Cathy picked her up and headed for the showers. They could hear the water running as the girl cleaned Buffy off, Willow holding the towel to dry her when they were finished.

Buffy looked so tiny asleep on the bed. She looked delicate and fragile and not the amazing warrior she was. Spike pulled up his chair and sat holding her hand.

‘Come on pet, I'm sorry I was a prat, but come back to me baby, please.’ His finger found the ring on her finger and started fidgeting with it. Spike never could sit still for long.

Buffy started to come round; hearing his voice, she thought it a dream and started crying. She didn't know if she could continue in a world where Spike didn't want her...





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