Chapter 9 - Searching for Civility

"Lyra?" Buffy called up the stairs. She exchanged an amused smile with Giles. "We're going to make some popcorn and watch a movie… sure you don't want to come down?"

Faint rustling sounds, combined with a sulky female voice, emanated from above, so Buffy, grinning, strode over to the microwave. From the living room, Giles raised his eyebrows as he watched her start the popcorn. "Will we have the pleasure of her presence?" he asked mildly.

While not exactly grounded, Lyra was currently on a two-week Slaying hiatus (or "Slaycation", as the practice had become known over Giles's vociferous protests) due to her role in the latest love spell debacle. Willow's student (the one who actually cast the spell) had the opposite punishment; she was out watching the slayers patrol until she understood that magic had serious consequences on a Hellmouth.

Although her sprained ankle from the night before was barely twinging, Buffy wasn't protesting the rare opportunity to spend some quality time with her favorite Watcher while the rest of the house was out. In a single move, she jumped the back of the couch and landed softly beside Giles. "Nope, still pouting." She lowered her voice and poked him in the side. "C'mon, say it… You know I was never this bad!"

"You were never this bad," Giles recited obediently. He waited for Buffy's celebratory fist-pump before adding, "You were worse."

"What?" Buffy squawked, shoving Giles—then hauling him back onto the sofa when he nearly toppled over from her strength. "Whoops. Sorry about that. But I thought you said my teenage self was broodier than the drama queen in there."

"I heard that!" wafted downstairs, and Buffy winced.

"Sorry, Lyra," she bellowed.

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. "Buffy. She heard you when you were speaking normally."

Buffy blinked innocently at him. "Yeah, so?"

"So…" Giles glanced over in time to catch a smirk, and he rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, very funny. I expect a modicum of respect in my dotage, when teenage screeching has left me all but deaf."

"Aw, we'll never stop respecting you," Buffy said cheerfully.

"Yes, but will you ever start?"

Eyes sparkling, Buffy opened her mouth in mock-outrage—and went still, a snake waiting to strike. Giles, no fool, followed her lead, waiting, motionless, for a hint as to what had his Slayer so suddenly spooked.

"Down!" Buffy shouted, diving at him a split second before the front door exploded inward, shards of wood raining about the room. She darted across the room with inhuman speed, twisting impossibly to avoid the spells flying at her, and grabbed a sword (ordinarily decorative) from above the mantle. The action paused, the men piling into the room hesitating at her bloodthirsty smile. "You wanna give me a name before we dance?" she asked breathlessly.

"Ah, the original Slayer," a cultured voice drawled into the silence as the crowd of wizards parted to let a single man through. He eyed her up and down. "I must say… I expected someone taller."

Buffy snorted. "So far from original, dye job. Or should I say, padre de Xander?" She grinned to herself—that Spanish class was totally working better than French had!

The man bowed elegantly, his eyes never leaving hers. "Miss Summers. And Mr. Giles, I believe?"

Ignoring Buffy's claims that he was out with the patrol, Giles stood from his position behind the sofa. "I would say it's a pleasure, Mr. Malfoy, but I don't enjoy lying," he said dryly.

Malfoy chuckled. "I'm afraid the pleasure is most assuredly all mine, Rupert." He snapped a finger, and one of the men shouted, "Stupefy!" Too far away to assist, Buffy watched in horror as Giles went down hard, hitting the coffee table on the way. Once on the floor, he did not move.

Buffy slowly lifted her gaze from her Watcher to her tormentor. "You shouldn't have done that," she said coldly, her eyes black and dangerous. "I was gonna let you go with minimum bloodshed, but we're talking 'not safe for children' levels, now."

"Oh, my dear girl," Malfoy said in an absurdly patient tone of voice. "The blood shed will not be mine."

Buffy shifted into motion before he finished speaking, flipping herself over a small end table and transferring her motion into a strong kick before she hit the ground. Malfoy flew back and hit the wall. He did not come up swinging.

Without pausing, she grabbed the next closest man as a human shield, feeling him go limp as several spells hit him. She heard Lyra—damnit, Lyra!—scream once, then go silent, but Buffy couldn't see the small Slayer among the robed men. Suddenly, she heard an odd pop, and an arm came around her throat, holding her long enough for the man to whisper, "Mobilicorpus."

Buffy hit the ground, knocking her head hard enough to see stars for a moment. When everything cleared, Lucius Malfoy stood over her. Carefully placing himself in her field of vision, he smiled victoriously, ignoring the blood streaming from his temple. "As you said, my dear, you should not have done that." He waved his wand and Buffy felt a tickle in her throat. "A small spell of my own invention—I do so love to hear the screams."

Buffy opened her mouth to reply before he cut her off. "Crucio!"

No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?

Only Buffy remained. Buffy and the pain.

A bit of entertainment.

That was what Lucius had described. Come, boy, I've gathered the fellows for a bit of entertainment. Draco (stupid, stupid Draco) had hoped for a dinner, perhaps a concert.

Once upon a time, Malfoys had been civilized. Even when his father had served Voldemort, torture had been an indelicate procedure Lucius endured rather than enjoyed.

So Draco had expected music, though he should have known better. Yes, Malfoys had been civilized, but that was before Azkaban, before the Dark Lord's death, before the Ministry seized the Malfoy estate and Narcissa died by her own hand.

Sanity and civility… for a Malfoy, they went hand in hand. (What that meant for Draco, he preferred not to consider.)

A bit of entertainment, Lucius said, but Draco wasn't amused. Horrified by his own helplessness, he stood with his fellows, watching as his father tortured the Slayer. He was not prone to melodramatic declarations, but he was certain Buffy Summer's screams would never leave his ears.

He'd heard such screams before, had even been the one holding the wand, but for Merlin's sake, the woman was a Slayer! The Slayer, even, and his father had her under Cruciatus like a common Muggle.

In a world teeming with dragons and unicorns, the Slayer was nearly a myth to the average wizard. Born to fight and destined to die, she was almost sacred.

There had to be a special level of Hell waiting for Lucius, and another one for Draco for failing to stop him.

Long after the average human would be dead, Summers' screams finally died down and her flailing took a different, achingly familiar rhythm. Her body was no longer fighting, and her mind wouldn't be far behind.

Injecting a calm he did not feel into his voice, Draco stepped forward. "Father. Father!"

Lucius stopped the spell and stared at the gasping woman for a long, ominous moment before he turned to face his son. "I am rather busy at the moment," he said, not completely hiding his irritation. "What is it?"

The others shrank away from Draco, leaving him alone to face Lucius' wrath. Internally, Draco rolled his eyes. Cowards. "She must be insane at this point," he said, thinking quickly. "Don't you think we should let her be found in this state? It would send a strong message, I believe."

Lucius smiled. "An admirable idea." Rather than being relieved, this sign of approval left Draco with a knot of resigned anticipation in his gut. "However, I do not mean to leave anything to be found."

He raised his wand. Draco was searching his mind for an argument that would stop his father, when the remains of the shattered door splintered further as Albus Dumbledore apparated into the entranceway, followed by a dozen of his comrades.

For a single beat, both sides stared at each other. From his place beside Giles, Lucius seized the stunned man and apparated away without a single word, followed by his men.

When Draco left, he "forgot" to take the Slayer with him. He could not tell if he acted from cowardice, or from mercy.

As his father turned toward him, grey eyes flashing, Draco decided that it did not matter. For once in his blood-soaked, regret-filled life, he had made the civilized choice.

For a long moment, Xander could not tell what had woken him. He vaguely remembered falling asleep sometime after his (very manly) temper tantrum about the prophecy, then nothing until now. From the deathly still weight against his side, he discerned that Angel was asleep, and the hospital wing was dark, the only illumination the flickering candlelight from the sconces.

A loud whisper provided a clue, and he sat up, unconsciously holding Angel's hand to his chest. If he squinted through the dim infirmary lighting, he could make out two woman huddled over a bed at the opposite end of the room.

"…not responding to the calming potion," he made out. "…metabolism too fast for…"

The words faded into a steady mumble, and Xander relaxed, laying back. He was almost asleep again when he heard the sound that had originally awakened him.

A moan, a soft, pained, familiar sound. He knew that sound and he knew that voice.

"Buffy," he gasped, rolling out of bed and landing painfully on the stone floor. He whimpered, terrified, as magic began building.

"Xander!" Angel sat up the moment Xander fell off the bed, and rolled (far more gracefully) to crouch beside him.

Driven by an instinct he still did not wholly understand, Xander threw himself in Angel's arms, sighing in relief as the magic faded. "Angel," he breathed, taking comfort in the embrace for a long moment before he remembered. "Angel!" he exclaimed, leaning back far enough to see Angel's face without letting go completely. "It's Buffy, she's here and she's hurt."

Xander tried to stand, but his legs felt as strong as wet noodles. Angel solved the problem by neatly scooping him up and carrying him across the room. Manly, it wasn't, but Xander would deal with being carried like a baby when he had the capacity to do so—he figured that would be in approximately eight months and ten days, give or take an hour.

"Who the hell are you?" Angel demanded roughly of the tall, curly-haired woman standing at Buffy's bedside. The other woman murmured in surprise and hurried away. "Where's Albus? What the hell happened?"

The woman straightened, looking Angel in the eye. "Sit down," she said firmly. "We'll explain when we have time."

It was then that Xander realized the woman had her wand out and trained on Buffy. He started struggling to get down so vigorously that Angel almost dropped him before Xander gave it up as a lost cause. "What are you doing to her?" he asked. His attempt at a strong, demanding tone came out more like a tiny whisper. Xander added that to his "worry later" list.

The woman's gaze softened somewhat when she turned to Xander, probably out of pity. "I'm trying to keep her sedated," she explained. "Your friend burns through a stupefy in minutes, and attacks as soon as she is awake." She pointed at her eye, which Xander realized was swollen shut. "Unless…" she said slowly, giving Xander a speculative look, "can you keep her calm the next time she comes to?"

Xander hesitated, staring at the woman. "Who are you?" he blurted.

The woman smiled, her eyes warm and friendly. "My name's Hermione," she said easily. "I'm a friend of Harry—I believe you met him earlier." She leaned forward slightly and added, "I'm trying to help your friend; she's in some pain right now, but if she can stop fighting and rest naturally she'll be fine."

"Hermione," Xander repeated. My friend Hermione would be better at this. Hermione met his gaze without blinking.

"Yes. And you are Angel, and he is Xander." Her patience seemed to be rapidly running out. "And this is Buffy, who is about to wake."

Xander tugged at Angel's shirtsleeve. "I can stand," he said unconvincingly. Angel sighed, but put him down, carefully arranging himself to take most of Xander's weight. Xander rolled his eyes. "Much better."

Buffy began to stir, and Xander leaned closer, trusting Angel to help him keep his balance. "Hey Buff, it's me, Xan. Wanna wake up for us? You're not going to believe this place."

She continued to shift restlessly about the bed. "Xander?" she whispered, her eyes still closed. "Hurts."

"I know it does," Xander said. He reached out to take her hand but was intercepted by Hermione, who shook her head.

"Touch makes it worse," she murmured.

What the fuck? Xander wanted nothing better than to rant and rave, but Buffy came first. "Just relax, Buffy, can you do that for me? I promise we'll catch the bad guys in the morning, but you need to sleep and give yourself time for that super-slayer healing action."

Her eyelids fluttered, and she smiled faintly. "Promise?"

Xander clenched his jaw and fought to keep his voice soothing while his body screamed to kill whatever hurt her. "I promise."

"'Kay." Trustingly, she fell into a deeper sleep as soon as the word left her mouth.

"Ah, excellent," came from behind them, and Xander, Angel and Hermione turned to see Albus Dumbledore framed by the hospital bay doors. "I see she's sleeping now."

Xander squinted at the man, before turning to Angel. Since they were standing so close, they ended up nose to nose. Xander blinked, momentarily cross-eyed before he straightened himself out. "Why do I think this is at least a little his fault?"

Angel smiled at him, and Xander's stomach flipped from sheer bewilderment. Other than his dreams, Angel had never smiled at him like that. "It usually is," he agreed. He turned to smile at Dumbledore. Unlike before, this was not a nice smile. "But I'm sure he'll tell us what happened. Right, Albus?"

Angel was having difficulty concentrating on the conversation. Too much of his being was currently wrapped up in Xander—his thoughts, his feelings, his very humanity, bubbling so tantalizingly close on the edges of Angel's awareness. Almost strangled by Xander's terror over Buffy and the others (the others, damnit, where were the others?), Angel found himself disinclined to humor Albus' grandiloquence. "The truth, Dumbledore," he snapped. "What happened, and where is everyone else?"

"Shh!" Hermione waved her hands for silence before waving her wand in Buffy's direction. A globe of light settled over the bed, shimmering slightly before disappearing. "Sound travels only outward." Seeing Xander's blank expression, she huffed exasperatedly. "She won't hear us."

"Good," Xander snapped. "Then I don't have to worry about waking her when I ask what the fuck is going on?" Angel winced at Xander's outburst, closing his eyes for a moment as he sorted through the anger, separating it from his demon and Xander's magic. When he opened his eyes, Xander was staring at him. "Um. Sorry," Xander said uncertainly.

Angel waved a hand. "Not important. Not compared to other things," he said pointedly, staring at Albus.

The old wizard nodded, and gestured toward their bed. "Why don't we sit down." It was not a suggestion.

Angel herded Xander back to the bed, where they sat, shoulders touching and feet dangling off the side as they faced the two wizards seated across from them. Albus, Angel noted with some amusement, had changed his stiff hospital chair to a bright blue, poofy monstrosity that looked as comfortable as it was an eyesore.

Xander's anxious shifting beside him ended his distraction. "There was another attack," Xander said flatly. "What happened? Where's Willow, and Giles, and everyone else?" Without thinking, Angel reached out and wrapped an arm around Xander, providing what comfort he could.

Before Albus could respond, the hospital doors banged open and Draco Malfoy ran in. "I'm so sorry, Xander," he said, his expression oddly distant. He seemed unable to meet Xander's eyes, and, with a pang of unease, Angel pulled Xander closer as if to protect him from the coming news.

"Why are you sorry?" Xander asked, his voice close to a shriek. "What happened?"

"Willow's okay," Hermione said hastily, taking over the explication duty. "So are her wiccans and most of the slayers. We've put the slayer house under Fidelius—Malfoy cannot find them anymore. The attack happened while the slayers were on patrol. Buffy sprained her ankle badly last night, so she stayed behind with…" she hesitated.

"With Giles," Angel filled in. Giles never would have left his slayer alone and injured, even if Buffy would have barely felt the sprain a day after the fact. Just as he would not have left her now, had he the option. Entirely certain he did not want to know the answer, Angel asked, "Where's Giles?"

Ashen, Draco woodenly replied, "He's with Lucius." Hermione stood and moved close enough that Draco would feel her presence, but did not actually touch him. Angel narrowed his eyes. Touch makes it worse, Hermione had said. He knew which curse that meant.

But that didn't matter now, not to Angel. He turned on the bed and pulled Xander fully into his embrace, concentrating on sharing Xander's pain and fear as much as possible. Long moments passed before Xander stirred. "You said 'most of the slayers,'" he said slowly, looking at Hermione expectantly.

To her credit, Hermione met his gaze without blinking. "Lyra Lamarr was killed," she said bluntly.

Angel felt a sharp spike of grief and rage before it was viciously tamped down with skill Angel did not know Xander possessed. It made him feel oddly unnecessary. Xander turned to Albus. "How are we getting Giles back?" he asked coldly.

"We're formulating plans," Albus said vaguely. He focused on Xander, suddenly sharp. "Are you prepared to discuss such things?"

Xander matched him glare for glare. "Are you prepared to try and keep me out of it?" he asked, his tone like ice.

They stared at each other in silence for long moments, before Hermione sighed deeply. "You aren't leaving him out of this, Albus," she said, her tone sharp enough that Draco gave her a mildly impressed look. "Let's go; I know the Order has been gathering as we speak."

It was Angel's turn to stare. "You still head the Order of the Phoenix?" he asked, more surprised than he should have been, considering.

Albus winked at him. "And you are still a member."

Angel raised his eyebrows. "Then you won't be leaving either of us out."

"Of course not," Albus declared, as if the idea had never occurred to him. He clapped his hands. "Let's go, and leave Miss Patil to her work."

The second woman from before stepped out of the mediwitch's office and moved toward Buffy. She spared a moment to gaze skeptically at Xander, and shove a goblet of blood at Angel. Apparently his earlier rudeness had not been forgotten. "Mister Harris will need a wheelchair," she said coolly. She shook her head at his protest. "You aren't a vampire; do not pretend you have the recovery time of one." To Hermione, she repeated, "He goes in a wheelchair, or not at all. I'll not deal with Poppy's anger merely because he's afraid to seem weak."

Hermione nodded, lips twitching. "You heard the woman," she said cheerfully. "You want the wheelchair, or do you want to waste time arguing about it?" She bit her lip, transferring her gaze to Angel. "And you'll need to hold hands. We aren't risking no physical contact between you two yet."

Xander sighed heavily, looking decidedly sulky, but apparently decided to choose his battles. "Point me to the chair, then. I'm not staying here, that's for damn sure."