“We have to get rid of the guard in there,” Dawn whispered to her mother, both of their heads bowed near to each other as they hovered over the toilet in the motel bathroom, of all things! “Or – or find a way to get me out to the car…even just for a few minutes…”
Joyce looked away with a pensive frown, thinking hard as she tried to come up with the solution, while Dawn made terribly inappropriate retching noises that, under the circumstances – trying to deceive the man in the next room into thinking that she was terribly ill – were *completely* appropriate.
“Hey, Mom!” Dawn suddenly exclaimed in a whisper, a light of mischievous inspiration in her eyes. “Do you think you could fake – like – an attack of some kind? Asthma? Some allergic reaction? Massive coronary?” she suggested several options hopefully.
“What?” Joyce’s eyes widened in alarm. “Dawnie, what are you…”
“Anything that would require medication, fast?” Dawn went on, a slow, conspiratorial smile spreading across her face.
Then, Joyce realized what she was thinking – and gradually her _expression began to match her daughter’s smile – just before fading just as quickly back into anxious uncertainty.
“Oh, Dawnie – I don’t know if I can pull it off! I never have been a good actress, not since high school…I don’t know if I can convince him! If he figures out we’re lying – it could be really dangerous, Sweetie,” she whispered her concerns.
“Yeah,” Dawn agreed reluctantly. “Plus we’ll look really stupid.”
“Hey!” Joyce objected mildly to her daughter’s easy acceptance of her assessment of her own acting abilities.
“So – just like – pass out,” Dawn suggested. “That’s simple enough…and leave the rest to me. I’ll come up with something,” she went on with a casual shrug – followed by another loud, coughing, gagging fit.
“And why is that such a scary thought at the moment?” Joyce asked in a whisper, a frown of worry on her brow. “Okay,” she relented finally with a sigh, “let’s do it.”
Dawn grinned in eager anticipation, before letting out a couple of final exaggerated choking coughs over the toilet, and reaching up to flush the clear water in the bowl down the drain. Joyce made a big production of helping her to her feet, and leading her out of the little bathroom, back into the man’s line of vision, as she wet a cloth and gently washed her daughter’s face over the sink.
When they turned around and headed back into the bedroom area, Joyce noticed their guard staring dubiously at Dawn, as if he was afraid she might throw up on him if he allowed her to get to close to him.
That was fine with Joyce; she did not want him anywhere near her daughter.
Dawn and Joyce exchanged a communicative glance, as they sat down casually side by side on the bed farthest from the man sitting in the chair. But then, Joyce froze up. She was terribly nervous about this – ridiculously so. She wanted to be sure that she acted realistically enough to convince their guard that she was seriously in trouble. Hopefully, he would not catch on to the act – but then, honestly, it did not seem terribly likely.
Jenkins did not exactly seem to be the brightest crayon in the box – which was probably why he had been chosen to stay behind and hostage-sit.
Travers had badly misjudged the two non-Slayer Summers women.
After a couple of pointed, demanding looks from her daughter, Joyce suddenly allowed her body to relax, slumping down on the bed, her eyes closed and her jaw slack, as she feigned unconsciousness.
“Mom?” Dawn’s anxious voice filled her ears, and she stayed unresponsive as the girl shook her gently. Her voice rose slightly, trembling as she repeated urgently, “*Mom! Oh, my God…no, Mommy, not now! *Mom*!”
Joyce had to give Dawn credit – her acting was impressive.
“What’s the matter? What is it?”
Joyce counted slowly in her head, willing away the instinctive tensing of her body as she heard the man’s gruff voice, his heavy footsteps, growing nearer to where they sat. She had to stay calm – it was all part of the plan…
“She’s sick! She’s having an attack! She needs her medicine, *now*!” Dawn explained in a panicked rush.
"Medicine for what?" Jenkins demanded, his voice sounding worried and tense, despite his best efforts to appear not to care. "What's the matter with her?"
"It's happened a couple of times before," Dawn explained, her voice tinged with just the right notes of fear and desperation as she gently shook her mother again as if trying to rouse her. "She's going into anephemorphic shock -- if she doesn't get her medicine right away, she'll stop breathing..."
"Anephelactic what?" Jenkins echoed, shaking his head slighlty at the unfamiliar terms.
"Anephemorphic, moron!" Dawn snapped, forgetting herself in her ruse of "panic". "It's a brain condition...she could die!" She suddenly looked up at the man, her eyes wide and desperate and pleading. "Please -- let me get her her medicine! She left it in the car, in the first aid kit -- *please*!"
Jenkins' hesitation was visible in his stance, as he considered whether or not to allow her request. After all, he knew very well that when all was said and done, his boss's intention was not to let any of their hostages live. Why should he take a risk to save the life of a woman thatwas going to die in a few hours, anyway?
Then again -- the girl would surely be much more difficult to control if he allowed her mother to die before her eyes.
At least -- he told himself that that was the reason that he wanted to grant Dawn's request.
"I could get it...or...well..." he hesitated, frowning with realization.
Dawn knew what he was thinking. He did not want to let her leave the motel room, thinking it too risky -- and yet, he knew that if he left the room, it would leave Dawn free to grab the phone and call for help. It left him with quite a dilemma.
"Please," Dawn whispered, her voice trembling, on the edge of a sob. "You can see me from the door...please, just let me get her medicine..."
After a moment more of consideration, the burly man let out a weary sigh of resignation, and nodded toward the door. "Go on," he ordered gruffly. "Get the medicine."
"Thank you!" Dawn gushed, her eyes brimming with quite genuine tears of relief. "Thank you so much!"
Jenkins followed behind her as she stepped out onto the walkway, watching her closely as she quickly made her way down the stairs and to the ground floor of the parking lot, and then across the lot to Spike's car. She tried the handle, relieved to find it locked -- though she knew that Spike would have left it open for her.
This was, after all, *his* plan to begin with.
She opened the back passenger door -- and froze at the sight that met her eyes.
Her sister's still, apparently lifeless body lay, gently laid across the backseat, her eyes closed, her body utterly still -- looking for all the world as if she was peacefully asleep.
Except -- she wasn't breathing.
She was *too* still.
Suddenly, Dawn did not want to look too closely. She fought back the queasy, unsettled, frightened feeling that rose in her, concentrating again on the sensation of her sister's presence with her as she felt Buffy rising toward the surface, as if in response to the nearness of her body.
*You okay, Dawnie?* her voice echoed gently in her head. *You are so brave, you know that? Thank you so much for doing this, Dawn...I know it's hard...*
*Yeah, I know -- and you're gonna owe me therapy for life -- but let's just hurry up and get this done, okay? Before Jeffries up there gets twitchy and hurts Mom...* Dawn replied, speaking only in her head.
Her hand trembled, but Buffy's reassuring words in her head made it easier for her to reach out and gently grip the cool, still arm of her sister.
And in the moment that she did -- an electric current of feeling swept through her, renewing the sense of connection that she only felt with her sister when they were in contact like this. She felt the power of their connection, swirling around them, as the energy that made up her existence worked to put things to rights again.
After a moment that felt like an eternity, Dawn began to feel her sister's presence pulling away from her, and fought back an unsettling sense of sudden apprehension. What if it didn't work? What if she was doing something wrong -- what if she lost her sister for good, into the void of space and time, rather than emptying her essence back into her body as she was attempting to do?
But the sudden soft stirring of the body on the backseat of the car, the soft little moan of pain that left Buffy's lips, was all the reassurance Dawn needed that things, so far, had gone exactly according to plan.
“Hey! What’s going on down there?” Jenkins called over the railing on the second level – the same railing that Spike had thrown Buffy over earlier that same evening – peering down into the parking lot as the teenage girl scrambled from the car, though empty-handed. “Hurry it up!”
“I can’t find it!” Dawn called back in a mockery of a stage whisper, already leaning back into the car as she added, “Give me a minute!” And without giving him time to object, she ducked back into the car, eyes wide and searching her sister’s face for the assurance that Buffy was, once again, herself.
“Buffy?” she whispered anxiously. “How do you feel? Are you okay?”
The groggy, slightly disoriented Slayer blinked at her a couple of times, then glanced around at the dark interior of the car – then down at her own body, bruised and battered from the beating Spike had dealt it – but already healing. Apparently, everything had gone back to normal when they had sent the Slayer back to where she had come from – with the exception of her recent series of body swaps.
“Gotta love that Slayer healing,” Buffy groaned softly by way of response, stretching slightly and wincing at the dull ache that was, thankfully, fading more with each minute. She was still tired and sore and not in top condition – but she was more than capable of taking on one human guard.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured Dawn in a whisper, glancing up toward the windows of the car – realizing with relief that they were covered, and Jenkins could not see her. “I’m just a little – um – I just need a second to…”
“Deal with the weirdness?” Dawn guessed, quite accurately. She could completely understand how her sister might need a minute or two, at the very least, to readjust after finding herself suddenly back in her own body – and *alone* in that body.
“You have *no* idea,” Buffy remarked with a weighted sigh of relief that she would not have to try to explain the strange feeling of it all that she could not begin to put into words, even in her mind.
She had gone from feeling out-of-control, like a prisoner in her own body – to leaping into Spike’s body, and watching the Slayer use it to viciously abuse her mate – to leaping into *Dawn’s* body – as a means of getting back into her own body again.
And now, it felt strange to be – well, *herself* again.
She paused for a moment, just thinking and feeling, reassuring herself that she was indeed alone in her own mind. A slow smile spread across her face as she met her sister’s eyes again, a glimmer of mischief and anticipation in her shimmering emerald gaze.
“Ready?” Dawn nodded leadingly, her own smile widening at the look on Buffy’s face.
Her sister the Slayer was back.
“Yeah,” Buffy nodded slowly, glancing back up toward the covered windows. “Just go on back upstairs – fake it a minute or two longer…” At Dawn’s questioning look, she added, “I wanna make an entrance.”
Dawn rolled her eyes and suddenly frowned. “I said I was coming down here for medicine!”
Buffy looked at her blankly for a moment, confused.
“Okay – I’ll give you that blonde moment on account of body-snatching and extreme confusion,” Dawn informed her sister calmly, with an overly patient sigh, pausing for impact before stating slowly and simply, “We *have* no medicine. So how am I gonna convince…”
“Check Mom’s purse,” Buffy interrupted her. “There should be…”
Dawn frowned, puzzled, as she pulled the prescription bottle out of her mother’s handbag and gave Buffy a questioning, troubled look.
Buffy shrugged casually. “Migraines.”
“Mom doesn’t get migraines.”
“She’s had a few these past few weeks,” Buffy corrected her, trying not to show the concern she actually felt to her younger sister. “But that’ll work – he won’t have time to look too close – not before I’m up there kicking his skanky British butt around the room.”
Dawn’s concerns faded away at the very promising sound of her sister’s words, and she nodded, getting out of the car and closing the door. They had no time left to waste; if she did not get upstairs, and fast, Jenkins would start getting suspicious – and she knew that he was not above hurting her mother in order to attempt to control her.
“You found them?” he asked her anxiously, following her as she made her way to her mother’s side.
She nodded tersely, fumbling realistically with the bottle, her hands trembling slightly, as she shook a couple of the pills into her hand. “Water!” she snapped in a commanding tone that surprised even her.
To her greater surprise, Jenkins actually moved toward the sink, unwrapping one of the little plastic hotel cups and filling it with ice and water, and hurrying to return to where Dawn was awkwardly trying to shift her limp, apparently unconscious mother’s body around, tilting her head back so that she could drink.
She gestured for him to come and help her as she put the pills in her mother’s mouth, her mind racing.
*Come on, Buffy, hurry up!* she thought, nervous about what would happen if they had to take the act so far as Joyce’s actually taking the medication. Wasn’t it supposed to be bad for someone to take prescription drugs when they weren’t sick?
But she couldn’t stop – not until Buffy was here to protect them from what this man would do to them when he found out he had been tricked.
Suddenly, as Jenkins leaned over the bed, raising the cup to Joyce’s lips – Dawn saw her chance to end this confrontation, before her mother had to take the pills. The British man’s hands were both raised, hovering near Joyce’s head as he focused on giving the apparently dying woman her life-giving medication – leaving his gun exposed and well within Dawn’s reach.
Without stopping to think about whether or not it was really a good idea, Dawn reached over swiftly and smoothly to take the weapon from his holster, immediately backing away a few steps, out of his reach.
The cup of water dropped onto the mattress, spilling the cool fluid onto the comforter – and Joyce.
“Hey! Careful with that!”
With a yelp the woman sat up on the bed, opening her eyes and looking around to take in the scene – and a slow smile spread across her face, as she quickly scooted across the bed on the other side, away from the man, before he could get any ideas about using her as a hostage to get Dawn to put down the weapon.
Jenkins was just realizing the dangerous turn the situation had taken – wondering if there was any way to keep things from getting any worse – when he suddenly found out that it was about to get a *lot* worse.
With a dramatic effect that she had perfected in her years as the Slayer, the door was violently kicked open – revealing the powerful, petite blonde standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, taking in the scene before her with cool, appraising eyes.
The Council member’s eyes widened as he realized who he was faced with – the “rogue Slayer” that Travers described as so deadly and dangerous and out of control – a small, pretty girl who possessed incredible power, belied by her appearance – who was currently glaring at him, her eyes narrowing as she thought of the threat he had posed to her loved ones.
Jenkins glanced at the splintered door, now hanging from a single hinge, and swallowed hard, his eyes widening further.
When he looked back at the Slayer, she was smiling at him, a dangerous gleam in her eyes that sent a shiver down his spine, as she spoke as she stalked into the room, her every move speaking of pure power.
“It’s *really* good to be me!”
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