"You know, I'm kinda glad you're both staying here", Pat let both Xander and Anya know as she returned to the apartment with them; if it had been possible, she would have stayed at the hospital all night, but the doctor had made it quite clear that he had no intention of letting this happen and that she had to leave when the visiting hours ended, not even giving in when she gave him her best death glare, merely explaining that his patient needed a proper night of rest.
"It'd really suck if I was here all alone today, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about what happened", she went on, briefly looking in dismay at the ruined door and asking herself how to bar it up for the night, "so I'm glad you guys… are…" She trailed off as she entered the hallway and saw the shockingly big bloodstain which had dried on the wooden floor there, remembering what she had seen when Willow had let her look into her memories, how the assailant had grabbed her and smashed her head against said floor numerous times.
"So, hey, about that door", Xander spoke up behind her, gently pushing her to move on and past the bloodstain, the demon smiling weakly as she realized what he was doing, "we should bar that up for the night, we don't want any nasty burglars to enter, right?"
"Right", the demon agreed, letting the young man push her past the stain and then taking the initiative again by walking on a bit faster, getting his hands off her back, "and we better… clean that up."
"I'll do that!" Anya piped up immediately, shrugging at the surprising look this earned her from both her boyfriend and Pat, sounding just a tad defensive when she spoke on. "What? I want to be useful, because even though Buffy said I shouldn't, I still feel a bit bad about what happened to Willow. Maybe cleaning that up will help with that."
"Hey, if I'm not allowed to feel guilty, neither are you", Pat gave back, smiling slightly at her, "but of course that doesn't mean I'll stop you from cleaning that up."
"Of course not", Anya rolled her eyes; for a moment, Xander feared that this reaction might cause a slightly unfriendly one from Pat as well, but then, to his amazement, the two women grinned at each other before they made their way to the kitchen together where the demon found a bucket for the brunette, filling it with hot water and adding a generous splash of cleaner.
"There you go", she then said, handing the bucket to the ex-demon, along with a sponge; smiling brightly at her, Anya hurried off to start cleaning while Xander looked at the demon again, sounding mildly amused when he asked her if she had any wooden boards lying around they could use to bar up the door.
"Well, as any normal person presumably would say, no, I don't", the taller woman smirked in reply, "but we can look in the cellar, maybe we'll find some there."
"If not, I can drop by at the construction site I'm currently working on and sneak some out of there", Xander grinned, already moving towards the door again; nodding, Pat followed him, and they made their way into the cellar together while Anya remained upstairs, scrubbing furiously.
"So", the young man started as they walked down the stairs, "now I'm out of the hospital, but Willow's in it. How is she doing?"
"He beat her up quite badly", Pat sighed out in reply, stopping in front of the door leading to the cellar and starting to go through the keys on her key ring as she searched for the right one, "and I got a first hand view of it, she let me look into her memories so I'd know what he looks like."
"Oh man, that must have been harsh", Xander grimaced, "don't get me wrong, I'm all for action flicks, but that takes it a bit too far."
"Indeed it did", Pat agreed, finally finding the right key and unlocking the cellar door, "it actually made me puke."
"And I imagine there are not many things which can make a demon as old as you puke", Xander grimaced, "so I have a pretty good mental image of how bad that beating must have been. Not to mention that bloodstain in the hallway."
"You make it sound as if I'm like a thousand years old", Pat grumbled, looking for boards they could use to more or less fix the door in the quite messy cellar, "and, just for your information, there are other things which make me… puke…"
She trailed off as a familiar spell reached her nostrils, sniffing audibly and holding up her hand to keep Xander quiet when he started to say something; frowning to herself, she sniffed again, then told the young man to step back, something he did immediately, by now knowing her well enough to know that she usually had a good reason for telling him to do so.
Just a few seconds later, he saw why exactly she had asked him to move back; she clenched her fists and let out a satisfied sounding grunt as she started to change into her "furrier form", as Buffy usually put it, to his relief quickly toning down her flames and then letting them vanish, not wanting to set the cellar on fire.
Sniffing audibly again, she squinted as she focused fully on what her now enhanced sense of smell was telling her; and then she started moving, deeper into the cluttered cellar, Xander picking up the first weapon-like object he could find and following her, with the rusty metal pipe he had gotten his hands on raised to shoulder height.
"What are you smelling?" he asked in a hushed voice, "vampire?"
"No", Pat grumbled, "nothing supernatural… human…"
"And that is a reason to demon out why?" the young man wanted to know, glancing around nervously, suddenly realizing how many dark corners the clutter in the cellar was providing to hide in, the demon giving him a brief glance before she explained, keeping her gaze fixed on the ground now.
"Because no one ever goes down here", she let him know, "just look at all the stuff here. And I smell food and cigarette smoke, and even if someone ever would come down here, they wouldn't stay long enough to eat."
"That makes sense", Xander had to admit, going back to looking around nervously, "so who do you think…"
A soft, but audible twang interrupted him, and he automatically looked up, later not even sure why he had done so; in this case, it turned out to be lucky though, as he had moved his gaze to the low ceiling just in time to see the axe come swinging down, an axe Pat clearly was missing since she was still staring at the thin length of thread her leg just had torn in two.
"Get down!" Xander shouted, at the same time launching himself forward and tackling her, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt the axe actually slice off the ends of his hair as he went to the ground with the demon.
"Oh for fuck's sake", Pat grumbled, looking at the weapon as it slowly swung back and forth above them until it came to a stop, "a goddamn booby trap? And I missed it like that? What the fuck is wrong with me?"
"Language", Xander took over Willow's part as he rolled off the taller woman and made it possible for her to get up as well, "and, well, I guess we all have our bad days, huh?"
"I was so focused on the smell that I didn't even pay attention", Pat gave back with a roll of her good eye, "if it hadn't been for you… thanks, mate."
"Welcome", the young man beamed, even though by now, his hands had started to shake as the adrenaline rush wore off and he realized how close he had been to having his head sliced in two, "I'm glad I could save your life for once, after you saved mine like a thousand times by now."
"I'm glad about that, too", Pat smirked at him, looking at the axe for a moment longer before she moved passed it, "and this booby trap makes it quite obvious that someone who's not supposed to be here has been hanging around here lately."
"Also, the mattress there is a pretty good hint", Xander added, pointing said mattress out; it was clearly new, but had been slept on, a surprisingly large number of empty pizza and take out boxes making it obvious that whoever had been using it had been around for quite a while.
"Looks like someone set up shop in here", the young man commented, poking one of the empty pizza boxes with his foot, "a hobo, maybe?"
"No, I don't think so", Pat gave back, sounding thoughtful as she returned to her human form and knelt down next to the mattress, then lifted it, exposing the shockingly big arsenal of guns and knives hidden clumsily beneath it, Xander's eyes going wide at the sight.
"Hobos don't usually walk around armed to the teeth", she added, letting the mattress drop back down and coming to her feet, "and I think I already know who has been hiding out here. We better go and tell the others."
Nodding, Xander threw another look at the weapon arsenal, then Pat let the mattress drop back down and obscured it from view; then, without another word, she turned and walked back to the cellar door, snatching the axe from the thread it had been hanging on without missing a beat, leaving the cellar again with Xander in tow a minute later and heading upstairs to get Anya and to drop the axe in the apartment before they left for the hospital, calling everyone else of the group on the way there.