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‘You’ve changed my life Miss Summers...’

‘…thank you for granting me this honor…’

‘…I’ve never felt more alive than when I became a Slayer…’


It was that last line that made Buffy laugh out loud at her glowing laptop screen from inside her hotel bedroom. She was all snuggled up under the covers, and her own pillow she brought from home was propped up underneath her head. Three other flat Holiday Inn pillows were stacked beneath it.

“More alive?” Buffy couldn’t resist snorting at the comment. “Giles needs to mail Natalie Wilson of…” she scrolled down to the bottom of the email and read, “… Raleigh, North Carolina some monster flashcards ASAP.”

Any girl with more than a month of field time knew that ‘alive’ wasn’t the proper way of phrasing what a Slayer made you feel like. ‘What about lonely, Natalie? What about…’I’ve been never been more afraid in my life’ to end that paragraph?’

Some girls really didn’t want to accept the reality of their destiny and Buffy knew that from the get go. She understood that some girls would get their lucky nine lives and some were born for self destruction on their very first night of patrol. It became the main drawback to Willow’s spell back in Sunnydale a few years ago---there was no ‘Slayer Team Tryouts’ held inside a gym, and who was Chosen stayed that way until they died. There were no exceptions, no cut list, no trade-ins.

With a single click, Natalie’s email was closed and forgotten. Buffy scrolled down the subject column to see if anything looked important for her to address before she drifted off to sleep, her eyes were starting to feel heavy and get a bit blurry. She still wasn’t that use to reading computer screens for long amounts of time, so her eyes had been hurting more often lately.

Buffy was instantly shaken from her dreary state when she received a pop up through instant messenger asking if she would accept a message from someone named ‘Slayer24’

‘Slayer24?’


The screen name didn’t leave any clues to help Buffy break the code of who the mystery night time converser was, only that it had to be one of the thousands of slayers.

With a yawn and click on the ‘accept’ button; Buffy was now connected.

Slayer24: Buffy?

LeaderSquad1: Yes. Who is this?

Giles had devised the whole ‘squad’ thing after they had established the Slayer school in Scotland four years ago. As of now, there were 43 squads. Each team had there own leader and there own co-leader; only the best were recognized and given these jobs. Buffy had handpicked the first 10 squad leaders herself, and it was pretty much a given that she was the very first leader of the first squad made.

Slayer24: I’m Lia. I live in Queens. I just got a text alert that says there is trouble down around your area.

Buffy groaned, her sheets were starting to get warm and she had just started to feel comfortable enough to forget that she was about to sleep in a yucky hotel bed.

LeaderSquad1: How many? What kind? Address? Weapons provided?

Slayer24: About two dozen. Glorobro demon and vamps. Around 6th Ave and Bryant Park. Just need a stake.

Buffy got up and traded in her flannel pajamas for her sweatshirt, jeans, and coat. She grabbed her hotel swippy card thing and quickly typed one last message on her computer.

LeaderSquad1: I’ll be there.

********

Somewhere else in NYC…

“Of all the dives in the world, I had to stroll into the only one that had fighting Fyarl demons.” Spike grumbled as he limped down the sidewalk with an axe clenched in his left hand.

The last demon had knocked a barstool into back of his knee before he fell over onto the piss smelling floor and died with Spike's axe sticking out of his back.

“You move funny.” Illyria announced as she observed the bleach blonde limp his way through the darkness of downtown.

“Ya…” Spike groaned, “Getting hit in the back of the leg will do that to you.”

“Your fighting stance was weak and pathetic....and sloppy.”

“Well excuse me for being taken off guard!” Spike had to stop, the aching pain in his leg was too much, he had to sit. He glanced around and found an old homeless man sleeping on a bench nearby. Guess not there.

“Go find Mel…I’m just going to rest against this building for a few moments.” Spike said as limped closer to the wall an old apartment building and leaned on it. He waved Illyria off, gesturing for her leave his pathetic beaten sight.

“I will depart because you’re embarrassed, not because you demanded me.”

Spike didn’t have a witty come back for the blue haired smurf. ‘I’ll get her back with an insult tomorrow’ he made the mental note to himself.

He pressed his back further into the building, closed his eyes, and let out a painful roar, “Should have stolen the whisky before leaving the bar.” ‘Stupid Spike, stupid’

“…lets go…go!”

Spike slowly popped one eye open to look across the street. Even thought it was late at night and he was in a busy city, Spike thought it was a bit strange to hear the sound of a young girl, possibly in her late teens or early 20s outside at this time of night and in this neighborhood. Only criminals, drunks, crazy people, and homeless people were venturing the surrounding area.

A few moments later the bleached blonde watched three girls exit a dark alleyway running. ‘Seem to be a bit flustered…’ Spike noted as he watched one girl bump into a trashcan and an old homeless man as she attempted to run away. The three girls scattered in different directions and the only description he could get out of one was that the trashcan tipper was wearing red shoes. ‘Might be Slayers…’ he noted.

Deciding not to deal with the matter at the moment, Spike started to straighten up and head back to his apartment.

He only got three steps out when he smelled blood.

******

The alley was dark and long, the only light provided for the narrow passage was coming from the tiny street lamps from outside the alleyway. The smell of that rich metallic red stuff was stronger than ever.

Spike limped forward. His big black boots shuffled across a dusting of snow that had fallen not an hour ago. He looked down to see many footprints etched in the white flakes as he ventured further.

“Hello?” he called out as he slowly made his way deeper into the alley. When he felt like his knee was about to give out he grabbed a hold of the bricks on the side of the building. Spike growled and let out a gasp in pain. ‘More painful than when my arms were sawed off by that crazy Slayer, Dana' he thought to himself, ‘…least the bird gave me drugs while she was doing it.’

Spike stopped panting when he took another sniff of the winter air. He knew he was close, if not right on top of the spot where he thought the source of the blood was coming from. He limped a few more feet down and looked behind a large dumpster.

Her face was cut up and her hands were bruised. With the layering of clothing still on her body, Spike couldn’t tell if there was any other damage. He didn’t even wince when he dropped down onto his knees to get a better look.

“Buffy?”

*****

Spike decided that he really didn’t like hospitals. It was where people asked too many questions. It was where restrictions were placed on souled vampires about seeing their badly hurt friend…ummm old lover? Silent supporter/a little bit more than a friend that you haven’t seen in a while? Well, whatever Buffy was to him after four long years of not hearing a peep from her, he still wasn't allowed to see her at the moment.

The bleached blonde grumbled to himself when he made the wrong call of saying he wasn’t a relative of Buffy, and Nurse I-Follow-The-Rules-And-Feel-I-Have-All-The-Power was not going to make any exceptions for letting him go to her.

After forty minutes of nearly going crazy with worry and rage, Spike whipped out his cell phone and decided he needed some help.

*****

“Hey Spike…” the bleached blonde’s head shot up as a girl with long brown hair walked into the waiting room, she was followed by Illyria in her ‘Fred’ mask.

The old evil blue smurf didn’t look too keen at portraying the young Texas girl at the moment, but Spike had explained to her before that it was the only way she could go out in public. ‘You are no longer my pet, you are the goo on the bottom of everyone’s shoe’ she said after the first time he asked her to switch her face.

“Hey Mel.” Spike greeted the brown haired girl and got up out of the waiting room chair. When Mel saw he was in pain, she moved forward and tried to hold him upright.

“You’re in a hospital and you didn’t even think to have them look at your disfigured leg?” Mel whispered while shaking her head in disbelief.

“It’s fine. I need you to go over to Ms. Nurse Bitch and say you’re Buffy’s sister.” Spike whispered.

“But she is not.” Illyria tilted her head and looked a bit confused; she obviously was not familiar with the concept of lying to get what you want.

“No kidding.” Spike growled and then turned to Mel, “You have to do this Melanie…I have no idea how she is and they’re telling me nada information. I have no clue if she’s alive or…” ‘No…no.’ Spike instantly thought when he considered the worse case scenario, ‘…not like this. Not today.’

This girl must be ‘it’ to have him asking a favor from me.’ Melanie thought.

“Alright.” She whispered and told him to sit back down.

Spike watched Melanie tap on the glass of the front desk and speak quietly with the nurse. Then, after a few moments of the nurse making phone calls, Melanie, who was now ‘Ms. Dawn Summers’, was being directed down the hall and toward intensive care.


************

Even though Buffy was badly bruised, had a huge gash on her cheek, and was unconscious, Melanie felt a little intimidated.

“So you’re Buffy…” Melanie said in the quiet private room. The nurse had already left, allowing the girl to spend a few moments with her ‘sister’. “…the Slayer…the original one.”

Beep

Beep

The heart monitor echoed throughout the white room.

“Guess I have you to thank for me being a Slayer…” Melanie smiled, “…I’ll thank you again when you wake up…you know, so you’ll remember.”


******

Illyria and Spike rose from their seats as soon as they spotted a nervous Melanie come rushing towards them.

“I hate hospitals…” the Slayer shuttered and wrapped her wool coat closer to her body.

“Well?” Spike got straight down to business.

“Broken hand, deep cut to the right cheek, badly bruised legs, and concussion.” Melanie said, listing out all of Buffy’s injuries.

“She awake?”

Melanie shook her head, “They gave her a bunch of pain pills…she should be out for the rest of the night. Nurse Bitch, as you call her, said to come back around ten in the morning.”

“You two go…I’m staying.” Spike said.

“You’re going to wait seven hours?”

Obviously Melanie didn’t know Spike as well as she thought she did.

“Listen, I’ve waited four years to see her again. Just try and stop me from leaving.”

*******

Spike had a plan. He wasn’t just going to sit around in the waiting room and read month old magazines and listen to doctors get paged all over the hospital on the intercom. No, he knew that these waiting room nurses weren’t always at their post, and as soon as Ms. Bitch left, Spike made his move.

Now, Spike had prepared himself to see a vulnerable Slayer when he walked through Buffy’s hospital room. One that was all bloody and beaten up, unconscious and pale. Helpless. Well, wasn’t he a bit surprised when he saw just an empty bed and no beeping monitors?

It was nearly six in the morning and Spike had waited three hours to sneak into her room. ‘She can’t be fully recovered and walking about…can she?’

He took a few steps forward before he felt a rough tug behind him.

“Buffy?!” his voice was loud enough to alert someone outside in the halls, but thankfully no one was passing.

Spike instantly saw that she was upset. He glanced down below at her bandaged hand and saw a surgeon knife in her hand; she was clenching it in her defense.

“…Buffy?” he whispered this time.

“Spike…?” her voice was rough and scratchy, like she was loosing her voice or hadn’t talked in days.

“Ya…it’s me.” He grabbed her arms gently, keeping her from following through if she decided to attack him again.

“Spike…?”

“What are you doing out of bed? You need to rest and lay down.”

“No…” she shook her head fiercely, “No, I need to stand guard. There was a girl in here earlier…the nurse said she was my sister.”

“That was Melanie.”

“Huh?”

“Melanie, I-I guess you can say she is a friend of mine.” He explained as he placed his hand on her back and started to shuffle her towards her bed. “Sent her in here to check on you, make sure you’re alright. They wouldn’t let me in and so—“

“You found me?” Buffy interrupted.

There was a pause and Spike pushed Buffy back down on her pillow, “Ya…I did. Didn’t catch the buggers that did this, but give me a day or so and I’ll make sure they receive all the torture they deserve.”

“The girls—“

“Ya…saw those girls.” Buffy eyed Spike suspiciously, but he didn’t notice and continued, “Ran off like death was on their heels. Were they Slayers?”

Buffy gave a tiny nod, not breaking her eye contact with him. “Ya.”

“Sorry excuse of heroes if you ask me. They—“

“They did it.”

Spike narrowed his eyes, he really didn’t understand.

“They did this to me.”




TBC….





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