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Author's Chapter Notes:
Here's chapter three for you, I hope you like it. Thanks for the reviews.

I don't own any of the characters.

Thanks to my Beta, Nichole.
Three


Buffy slowly closed the front door behind her. Because of her doctors appointment, she hadn’t met Riley after her last class. When she had gotten to the parking lot half an hour late, he had been gone and she had walked home. Now she was praying that he had gone out with his friends or something, just as long as he wasn’t home. Her hopes were shattered as she heard noise from the kitchen. She decided to face him right away, before her courage left her and walked into the kitchen.

“Where the hell have you been?” Riley yelled as she entered the room.

“At the doctors.” She replied.

“And why should I believe you?” He asked, anger in his voice.

“Call Student Health, they’ll tell you.” Buffy said, not knowing where the sudden rage inside her came from.

“Fine. What were you doing there?” Riley apparently chose to believe her.

“They got the results from my test, so I had to talk to Dr. Carey.”

“What test? What are you talking about?” Riley questioned. Buffy gave him a bitter-sweet smile.

“I’m pregnant.” She said, enjoying the look of surprise on his face. Then it was replaced with rage.

“You little whore! Who is it?” He grabbed her by the arm and threw her across the room. She moaned in pain as her head hit the kitchen counter. With in seconds, Riley was above her, furiously hitting and kicking her unprotected body.

“You thought you’d get away with it? That I wouldn’t get it? Who have you been screwing behind my back? Is it that bleached freak, or maybe your little friend Xander.” Buffy tried to cover her face with her arms as he kept hitting and kicking her, having lost all self control. Her last thought before everything went black was ‘He’s going to kill me’.

*****

Spike was reluctantly pulled out of a very nice dream by a persistent ringing. Realizing it was the phone, he reached for it on the bedside table.

“Hello?” He mumbled.

“Spike? You have to get here, I don’t know what to do, they won’t tell me anything and I can’t...” Spike cut Willow off in her rambling.

“Red, calm down, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” He waited for a moment, and then heard Xander’s voice over the line.

“Spike, you should come down here. We’re at Sunnydale Memorial.” Before Xander even told him what had happened, Spike knew.

“Buffy...” His voice was little more than a whisper.

“She was brought in a couple of hours ago. They called her dad who called me since he’s in Miami.” Xander was quiet for a moment. “It doesn’t look good.”

“I’m on my way.” Spike hung up the phone before Xander had a chance to response and threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before leaving his dorm room.

*****

“Is she OK? Where is she?” Spike ran into the waiting room, and was greeted by a crying Willow who threw her arms around him. He held her close for a few minutes, soothingly stroking her hair. “Shhhh... it’s OK.” He looked at Xander. “Have you heard anything?” Xander shook his head.

“The doctor was here a little while ago, she’s in surgery. He said a cop would come to talk to us in a little while.” As Xander uttered the words, a female police officer came into the waiting room. Spike carefully turned Willow to Xander and walked up to the woman.

“What’s going on?” He demanded to know. The woman indicated the plastic chairs that were against one of the walls, and he followed her lead and sat down. Xander lead Willow to the chair next to Spike’s and they both sat down.

“You’re Miss Summer’s family?” The police asked.

“We’re her friends.” Xander said. “She doesn’t have any family in Sunnydale. Her dad and sister live in Miami.” The officer nodded.

“I’m detective Collins, I’m in charge of this case. I need to ask you a few questions about earlier today, just to find out if you know anything of importance, OK?” They all nodded and detective Collins opened the notebook she had in her hand.

“Did you see Miss Summers today?”

“We had English together this morning.” Willow said in a weak voice. “Me and Buffy and Spike.”

“Did you talk to her? Did she seem upset about something?” The detective asked.

“We just talked about the assignments we had in class, nothing else.” Willow sniffled and buried her face against Xander’s shoulder. He put a protective arm around her.

“I talked to her.” Spike said. “She had a break and I waited for her in the cafeteria. I tried to get her to leave Riley, but she refused to admit something was wrong, kept telling me to stay out of it.”

“You suspected something was going on?” Collins asked, a frown on her face. Spike told her about the incident in the parking lot the previous week.

“I talked to her, but she wouldn’t tell me anything.” Willow turned to face the detective, her head still resting on Xander’s shoulder. “Then I talked to the police, but they said they couldn’t do anything.”

“Unless she reports him or there is some kind of evidence, there is nothing we can do.” The detective said.

“Then how come you’re doing something now?” Spike asked in a disbelieving voice.

“There was a report about domestic disturbance from 1628 Revello Drive earlier tonight. A woman called to say that her neighbors were yelling at each other, and that she thought she heard him hitting her. When a patrol arrived at the house, the front door was open and the man...” She looked through her papers. “Mr. Finn was nowhere to be seen. Miss Summers was found in the kitchen, badly beaten.”

“What’s gonna happen now?” Willow asked, drying her tears. “What if she still won’t turn him in? Then what?”

“We have other evidence to go on, we don’t need her to testify. During the search of the house, a box of Polaroid photos were found. Apparently, Miss Summers had been documenting her injuries.” Collins looked up as a doctor entered the room. Quickly she gathered her papers and stood up. “I’ll get this down to the station. We have enough to put out a warrant on Mr Finn at the moment. When Miss Summers regains consciousness, I’ll be back to talk to her.” She smiled at the three friends before leaving the room.

“Doctor? How is she?” Xander asked.

“She’s pulled out of the surgery just fine and I believe she will fully recover. It will, however take some time. We had to operate since her left lung was punctured by a broken rib. She also have fractures on both of her legs as well as her right arm, along with a concussion and several bruises and cuts.” He gave them a sympathetic look. “It also appears that she has been raped. And, unfortunately, she lost the baby.”

They were all surprised by the doctor’s last words.

“She was pregnant?” Willow asked in disbelief. The doctor nodded.

“About thirteen weeks, as far as I could tell. The damage to Miss Summer’s abdomen was too much for the fetus to survive. I’m sorry.”

“Can we see her?” Spike asked, inhaling deeply as he tried to calm down.

“Normally, I would only let family in, but since she doesn’t have any family here at the moment, I will make an exception. She is unconscious after the surgery, and she needs to hear familiar voices. It will help her to wake up on her own.” The doctor led them down a corridor and stopped outside a door.

“I’ll be back to check on her during rounds in the morning. A nurse will be in every two hours during the night.” The doctor walked back down the corridor they had come from.

Willow opened the door and they all went in. Spike stopped right inside the door, afraid of seeing her in the state she was in. Willow and Xander went up to the bed. Willow sat down in one of the chairs and took Buffy’s hand. Xander stood next to her, and Spike could see tears running down his face. Willow looked up and saw Spike standing by the door. She motioned for him to come closer, and he did, sitting down in the chair on the opposite side of the bed. When he was able to bring himself to looking at the girl in the bed, his self-control broke and he let the tears run freely. Xander came over and put a hand on his shoulder.

“She’s gonna be OK, Spike.” He heard Willow whisper and nodded.

“I know.” He managed to get back control. “I just hate seeing her like this.”

“Me too.” Willow agreed. “But we have to be strong, she’s gonna need us. Can you do that?” He nodded again, his eyes fixed on Buffy. He could do that.

*****

Spike was walking past the waiting room a few hours later, he had gone to get coffee to keep awake, when he heard raised voices in the otherwise quiet hospital.

“Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on? Where is my daughter?” Spike heard a man in his late forties yell at one of the night nurses. Recognizing the man from a picture Buffy always carried with her, he approached him.

“Mr Summers?” He asked. The man turned to look at him.

“Who are you?” Mr Summers asked.

“My name’s William Giles, I’m a friend of your daughter’s.” Spike said.

“Do you know where she is? Is she OK? What happened?” Spike saw the desperate need in the other man’s eyes for him to say that everything was fine.

“Come on.” He motioned for Mr Summers to follow him down the corridor. “I was just on my way back, got some coffee.” He opened the door to Buffy’s room and let Mr Summers go in first. Spike heard him gasp for air as he saw his daughter in the bed. Xander, who had been half sleeping in one of the chairs, heard him and got up.

“Hey, Mr Summers.” He said in a hushed voice, indicating Willow who was asleep with her head on the bed, still holding Buffy’s hand. Mr Summers slowly walked up to the bed and sat down in the chair next to it.

“What happened? Who did this?” He asked no one in particular. Spike decided to explain.

“The police think she and Riley had a fight. A neighbor reported disturbance, and when the police got there they found her like this.”

“Riley did this?” The other man’s voice was cold. “I accepted him into my home, treated him like the son I never had, and this is what he does?” He stood up and walked towards the door. “Where is he?” Spike put himself between Mr Summers and the door, wanting to calm him down.

“The police are out looking for him. There’s nothing for you to do.”

“Like hell there isn’t. That monster hurt my little girl, and he’s going to pay for it.”

“Daddy?” They both turned their attention to the bed where Buffy had opened her eyes. Spike quickly made his way over to her.

“Hey. How you feeling?” He asked, smiling at her.

“Am I dead?” She asked in a shaky voice that broke Spike’s heart.

“No, baby, you’re not dead. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“I thought he was going to kill me.” She started to cry, and Spike carefully pulled her closer.

“Shh, it’s OK. Everything’s gonna be fine.”





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