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any emails or update notices or whatever that are supposed to be sent out are going to be sent out later because I'm getting over a really horrible migraine and am just managing to do this--so if you feel like telling people i updated...then thank you
Chapter 46

Rupert Giles was well and thoroughly drunk…sloshed….pissed….whatever you wanted to call it, it was what he was by the time Angel arrived at ten forty seven. He knew the forty seven because he had been staring at the clock since nine thirty nine wondering if this was the right thing to do. His stupid drunk mind felt like reminding him of all the times he’d promised to take care of Buffy to keep her best interests in mind—and apparently that was not how his drunk brain saw what he was doing.

His drunk brain, he decided, was stupid and vampire loving—evidence enough that it was stupid. And who really cared if he used being stupid as a reason for being stupid. It was all the scotch’s fault damnit! He couldn’t be expected to be scholarly when he’d had…a lot of scotch. And good scotch at that.

Now Angel was here though and he had to figure out how to be…not drunk.

Right.

He could do that.

Just as soon as he managed to get up off the sofa and answer the door.





”What do you mean ‘heal’ me?”

“While your surgery—to remove the tumor—was successful there is still a small piece left and it is going to grow again.”

“How do you know?”

“We just do, Joyce. It’s going to be worse this time around, its location will make surgery next to impossible and if they do succeed in surgery, then something like a blood clot or aneurism will happen.”

“Why are you being so morbid? There is always the possibility that I—“

“No, Joyce, that is the heart of the problem right there; there is no possibility. This has all been decided, fated if you will.”

“So this is just some sort of warning? Let me know I’m going to die?”

“Correction, I we had left you on Earth and under the care of the doctors there you would die; we’ve brought you here to change that. As a repayment for caring for the Slayer and the Key.’

“But you just said that it was fated,” Joyce wasn’t sure just what exactly was going on.

“It is fated, true. But we are the ones that decide fate, we make it so we can unmake or change it. We are going to change it for you—or rather, I am.”

“Why couldn’t you have changed it and left me on Earth?” It sounded strange to be talking about Earth as if it were some place else—which, she figured, it was at the moment.

“The process has already begun.” The blonde rolled her eyes, “They took a little too long in agreeing to my plan. You have to be incapacitated for everything to work—we can’t very well change what’s happening in your brain with you up and about now can we?”

“Well, I’d suppose so,” in a way it did make sense.

“And I brought you here because…well I thought it might get a bit boring just dreaming day after day; and this way you know what is happening. And why.”

“What am I supposed to do here day after day though?”

“Don’t you worry, honey. Time here moves very differently than it does in your world; much, much faster. It’s only been a short time to you, but to everyone on Earth, it’s been quite a few days.”

“So basically, I stay here while you magically heal my brain because I’ve loved my daughters and when I go back, though it will only have been a few hours here, it will have been weeks there?”

“I knew you’d get it.”





Angel could hear Giles muttering to himself and after several minutes of knocking at the door he began to think that the man was not going to let him in. When it was coming up on five minutes and he could tell that Giles was in the room on the other side of the door, Angel decided to take advantage of the invitation he had been granted the year before and reached for the doorknob.

Twisting the knob, Angel carefully opened the door, making sure he wasn’t about to walk into a trap. It wasn’t a trap he found, just a drunk man.

“Hello, Giles

“Good,, good, you’re here. Now you can help us save Buffy.”

“Are you…well enough to explain thing tonight? You wouldn’t say what it was on the phone—just that Buffy needed my help. Where is she, by the way?”

“She’s in the hospital,” Giles said, sitting back down on the sofa he’d only moments ago managed to get up from.

“I’m not too late am I?” Angel asked already fearing the worst.

“No, you see…Buffy being in the hospital is why she needs your help.”

“Perhaps we could have Willow come explain things.”

”That is not necessary; I may be right pissed at the moment, but I still know what I’m talking about,” Giles explained tersely. “Buffy has been ill for quite some time. We felt that it was something Slayer related and would cure itself so when we couldn’t find any prophecy that related, we took it as just her being sick. But she has yet to get well. Over a week ago now she finally was checked into the hospital and they are fixing things,” he said, truly believing his last statement.

“I don’t understand—what do you need my help with then.”

“Spike is the one who checked her into the hospital. Spike has been living in her home for quite some time now. Spike somehow convinced Joyce to give him basically everything in the event that both she and Buffy should die. Joyce is still recovering from her brain surgery and…You need to get her to see that somehow Spike is clouding her judgment and that following him like she is, is not the right course of action.”

“Her mother had brain surgery?”

“Yes, it seems she had a bit of a brain tumor. We’ve only seen Buffy once since Joyce was admitted to the hospital; Anya and Xander had a falling out and for some reason Buffy sided with that…demon.” Apparently he forgot whose company he was in.

“You don’t do dull, do you?”

“Oh how I wish we did. Now, are you ready to go to the hospital? You would have to drive, but…”

“You want me to go now?”

“Yes! The sooner the better; if Spike is doing something to her, we need him away from her as soon as possible.”

“I’ll go,” Angel agreed. “But I’ll go alone—you stay here.”

Giles started to voice his objection but then he remembered his trouble just a few minutes before with standing. “Very well, but let us know how it goes.”

Angel didn’t say anything as he headed back out the door, to focused on trying to figure out just what the idiot had done now to have Buffy’s watcher calling him for help.

One thing he knew for sure was that if Spike was hurting Buffy he’d kill the bastard.





Buffy hated that Spike wasn’t able to be there yet that night—she hated being alone in the hospital, especially at night, and she missed his company. She understood his reasons though. He was letting Dawn have a few friends over for a girls movie night. They were only going to stay until eleven or so, not sleep over, but she knew Dawn would love it just the same. Hopefully it would allow her sister just a few hours away from the incredible stress she’d been put under lately.

She wasn’t sure just how well Spike was going to do with a roomful of teenage girls, but he’d promised not to scare any of them and he had been the one to come up with the idea in the first place so she hoped he’d do alright.

Which was all great…except it meant she had to wait.

Ten fifty eight, now, he’d be there any minute.



TBC…….





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