Buffy would eventually feel guilty knowing that she'd frozen in the foyer after closing the front door behind her, unable to move or think or breathe. She was sure that her heart had stopped too in that moment, the sight of her mother lying sprawled across the living room couch in half a dozen awkward angles enough to stop the world from spinning. It was only the crushing wave of fear that followed that sent her sailing forward with a pained cry, grabbing her mom by the shoulders and shaking her hard as she screamed her name. The faintest pulse, the shallowest of breathing had kept Buffy from losing it right there, but it still took her three tries before her shaking fingers managed to dial 911.
The operator kept her on the line until the ambulance arrived, shrieking into the driveway with lights and sirens blaring, and then there were three strange men in her house, all dressed in dark blue uniforms and carrying heavy yellow kits. One took her by the shoulders and guided her gently but firmly to the side as they began working over her mother, all equipment and frenetic movement that she didn't understand, and then they were lifting her from the couch and strapping her to a gurney as Buffy sobbed.
In the back of the ambulance she clutched at her mother's hand so hard that her knuckles turned white, tears streaming down her face all the way to the hospital. The EMT's did their best to reassure her but had more important taxes on their time and attention as they struggled to keep Joyce's pulse and blood pressure up. They pushed through the glass doors of the emergency bay with shouts and pounding feet, met by several white-coated surgeons as they sped towards an operating room. Buffy tried to follow but was pried away from her by an entire pack of nurses as her mother was immediately wheeled into surgery. They spared her a few words, tried to find out if they could call someone for her, but a numbness had swept through her chest and it was all she could do to shake her head and collapse into one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room and drop her head into her hands.
It was all desperate pleas and prayers after that, to any god who might be listening. The cold and tightness inside her rib cage had her sobbing and gasping quietly in her seat, hugging herself with shaking arms and ignoring all the looks and whispers being shot in her direction. They weren't important – nothing was – just her mother and what was going on in that operating room.
After a time she realized that she did need to call someone if only to pick up Dawn, who still didn't know what was happening, and pulled herself up out of her chair towards the bank of payphones along the wall. She fed the change for a single call into the slot automatically, dialing the number she knew by heart. Oddly enough, she didn't feel a thing when her Watcher didn't answer, not fear or anger or sadness, not disappointment. Instead she hung up quietly, lifting the phone to try again before she realized she didn't have the money and placing it back on the hook.
The only other person she might think to call didn't have a phone anyways.
A choking, hysterical sort of giggle broke out of her as that thought trotted through her muddled brain. It was the irony of ironies that she would be suddenly hit with wanting him, needing him to be there right after she'd told him to get gone for good. Right after he finally caved to that demand.
Buffy slapped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to hold in a sob, her body shaking with it so hard that she almost didn't hear her name being called by young man in pale green scrubs, a paper mask dangling from one ear.
Almost.
Swallowing down her fear just far enough that she could breathe, could force her feet to move one at a time across the floor, she tried to brace herself for the worst, as if such were possible for anyone to do. She practically collapsed when the surgeon informed her that her mother was still alive. Her knees had buckled but Slayer instincts had her hand flashing out to the wall, catching herself just in time, but nothing could stop the tears. They streamed down her cheeks like they would never stop, her relief rendered almost pointless when she was calmly but firmly informed that the doctors had contained the aneurism, gotten the bleeding under control but only for the time being. The remainder of the tumor that had caused the rupture, that damned little shadow that had almost taken her life and still might, would have to be removed.
The specialist had been called and the surgery scheduled for one am that morning.
Until then Joyce was to be sequestered, placed into a medically-induced coma that would leave her immobile and unaware.
She didn't have to ask to know that she wouldn't be allowed to see her mom before then.
Nodding with an acquiescence and understanding that her brain didn't know and her body didn't feel, Buffy signed her name to a stack of forms and scrawled her phone number in big, bold block script across the top, wandering out of the hospital into the deepening twilight with a heavy heart. She didn't know how long she'd been at the hospital, how many hours she'd cried, but when she arrived back at the house on Revello drive and let herself in the front door, intent on retrieving the keys to her mother's jeep, she was surprised to find that Dawn had already walked herself home and was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen counter.
What followed was another two hours of fear and sobbing, raw throats and stuffed noses and reassurances that she didn't quite feel. It had taken a tremendous amount of insistence on her part to make Dawn understand that driving up to the hospital wouldn't do any good, that they wouldn't be allowed to see their mother and even if they were, she wouldn't be responsive. Dawn had shrieked and screamed, struck out at her in pain before immediately breaking down even more, babbling apologies and wailing out all her hurt at the world and the unfairness of it, but Buffy couldn't do any more than hold her until she finally ran out of steam, passing out in a sniffly tangle of limbs and long hair on the couch that only hours ago had supported Joyce in much the same position.
A shudder had rippled down her spine at the sight of it, and exhausted as she herself was, Buffy tugged her little sister round until she was lying curled on her side with her head on a throw pillow, covering her with a light quilt – just to reassure herself.
The quiet of the house echoed around her, the silence, and Buffy felt goosebumps rise on her forearms, felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and suddenly she felt caged, trapped and terribly alone. She thought to try Giles again, Xander or Willow or Tara, anyone at all, but what could they do for her now? Walking into the hallway she found a heavy cable-knit sweater in the closet, far too large for her and in a color that vaguely registered with her as one she shoulder never wear, but she pulled it on anyway, tugging the sleeves down over her hands and hugging herself tightly as she ghosted silently through the house.
She of all people should be more aware of the hard reality of death. She saw it every night, brought it to creatures who had lived for decades, centuries even, and might've gone on for eons if it weren't for her.
She, of all people, knew that there was no such thing as immortality.
But none of that seemed to matter when it was you and yours.
Shivering, Buffy huddled inside her sweater, casting a brief glance in at her sister who was sleeping the sleep of a cried-out teen before slipping outside onto the back porch and dropping down onto the steps. Pulling her knees in to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and rocked herself, once, twice before she forced herself to stop with a ragged sigh. The stars seemed cold above her, shining down hard and unforgiving, and not for the first time she wondered if this was the balance the world required of her, the sacrifice or maybe the punishment for who she was and what she had.
Perhaps it was that cold starlight, maybe the heartbroken numbness that had a hold of her, but whatever it was, it transported her back to another night not so long ago, when she'd very first learned of the shadow that marred her mother's cat scan. When she'd come out to sit on the porch in the chill night air, to stare at the night sky with the acute understanding that she didn't know what to do. That had been a terrible night, but this one was worse.
Worse, because this time she didn't have that silent presence next to her, offering her strength, support, caring even though she pushed it away again and again and again.
No, this time she'd pushed away once too often.
Hugging herself tightly around the ribs, Buffy wept silently, letting the tears stream down her cheeks without bothering to brush them away.
She was always meant to be alone. That was her calling, the price of her power. Somewhere in the pit of her heart she'd always known that much.
Now she wondered if she didn't deserve it too.
Spike left the deSoto parked on top of the twisted remains of the Welcome to Sunnydale sign. He wasn't sure whether or not crunching the damned thing beneath the tires had brought him good luck or bad over the years, but it was a tradition he didn't intend to break.
Exactly what he did intend he still wasn't sure.
Prowling through the night towards the house on Revello Drive, a dozen words and a dozen wants crashing through his head like a snowstorm, churning up a blinding froth of pain and anger and yeah, even some soddin' fear. For the first time in a very long time he had no idea what to do and he didn't like it. It bit at him, uneasiness sliding down his spine like cool, slick oil, but he shrugged it off, jerking his duster roughly up around his shoulders and putting some heavy stalk in his walk.
Infuriating, inconstant bitch.
Never a clue what she wanted, her resolve as weak as water.
He'd thought her friends and loved ones to be her saving grace once, the steel in her spine that kept her kicking, but she'd gotten complacent over the years, her Slayer strength and instinct cowing beneath social pressures and half a dozen voices pulling her in all directions.
And maybe that was a bit of his fault too.
God knows he'd given the girl a hundred reasons to stake him over the years, but hadn't he given her another hundred not to?
Spike snarled quietly under his breath, his eyes flaring bright gold in the dark.
Didn't matter.
He wasn't holdin' with it anymore.
Shoving viciously through the trees and scrub, he pushed his way into the Summers' backyard, intent on the door, but the sight that greeted him brought him up short.
She was sitting in a crumbled heap on the porch steps, limp and pale and broken, her hair a mess and her cheeks stained with tear tracks. She was hunched inside someone else's sweater, hugging herself tightly, and the thought whispered along the back of his neck that even like this she was still beautiful. Swallowing hard, he shifted minutely on his feet, his duster swishing gently around his ankles, and she must have sensed him there because her face snapped up, wide, glassy eyes meeting his with a heat he didn't recognize or understand.
He was probably wrong, but he imagined he saw his name on her lips.
But then she was on her feet and barreling straight towards him, catching him low in the chest as she tackled him to the ground.