A/N: To everyone who was worried that Dawn and Spike were done for...I hope this chapter puts your mind at ease. I also hope it seems believable...I'm still not sure I'm happy with the way I had Dawn address her feelings for Spike. Also, I should point out that actual canon makes an appearance in this chapter. A lot of the scene between Spike and Glory comes from the episode Intervention. I've changes some things to fit this story, but it is definitely based on the actual episode.
Giles paced furiously in the waiting room of the hospital. It was killing him, not knowing exactly what was going on with the two Summers women who were now in the hospital. Angrily, he recommenced his ongoing argument with the nurse at the front desk.
"As I've explained several times, Mr. Giles, Buffy is with the doctors. I don't know why it's taking so long for 'just a couple bloody stitches,' as you so eloquently put it. And Mrs. Summers is still unavailable as well. I'm not at liberty to divulge patient information to a non-family member, so if you would kindly take your seat, I will notify you as soon as either of the Summers women is ready to receive a visitor."
The nurse ended her speech with a glare that would have daunted most men, but Giles had become quite accustomed to glares from determined women, and he was not about to back down. "I most certainly will not take a seat," Giles said loudly. "I have been sitting for hours. I have put up with this nonsense long enough, and you will take me to Buffy or I will find her myself!"
Giles moved to stride past the nurses' station and into the area where they treated patients. The nurse placed a firm hand on Giles's chest and said evenly, "Sit down, Mr. Giles. Do not force me to call security."
Luckily, at that moment Dawn came around the corner carrying two cups of coffee. Seeing the angry look on Giles' face, she quickly set down the steaming beverages and raced over to provide a calming influence on the situation. "C'mon, Giles," she said, taking his hand. "I come bearing caffeine. So why don't we sit down and relax and leave the nice nurse alone. I'm sure she'll let us know about Buffy and my mom as soon as she can. If you leave or get arrested or something, I'll be here all alone, and I just don't think I could take that right now."
Giles looked down at Dawn's pleading face and grudgingly acquiesced. "Very well," he said with a sigh. "I suppose waiting a bit longer will do no harm."
Giles and Dawn had just begun to walk back to their seats when Dawn stopped dead in her tracks, a strange look on her face. At first she just gasped, looking slightly bewildered, then she screamed and fell to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Giles quickly knelt next to the writhing girl as she clasped her stomach and moaned in pain. "Dawn," he said urgently, "what is it?"
"I think it's Spike," she said through clenched teeth, giving Giles the answer he had feared. Before he could speak to her anymore, a flurry of nurses and doctors pushed him to the side. He lunged through them and whispered fervently in her ear, "Remember your training, Dawn!" And then it was too late to say any more. He was roughly pushed back and Dawn was lifted to a gurney and carried away.
"Please, let me accompany her!" he pleaded.
Again he came face to face with the nurse who was quickly becoming a bane to his existence. "You know that's not possible, Mr. Giles," she said with an exasperated sigh. "I'm afraid you'll have to just wait out here until the doctors have finished. Perhaps if you had let us know your young friend was injured as well, we could have avoided such a drastic situation."
"Bloody hell!" Giles growled, punching the wall in frustration.
Spike struggled against his bonds as the lumpy demons dragged him into Glory's lair. She began to look him over as the cowering head minion, Jinx, spoke. "Most splendiferous one, we believe we have brought you..." he looked at his fellow minions and they responded in unison, "...The Key!"
Glory paced around Spike, squeezing him in various places as if she were buying fruit at the market. "Hey, watch the hands lady!" Spike yelped in protest. Glory continued her examination, completely ignoring her victim's discomfort. She leaned in close to his face and sniffed his neck, even giving him a quick lick before grabbing Jinx and throwing him to the ground.
"He can't be the Key, because, see, the Key has to be pure. This is a vampire. Lesson number one...vampire equals impure."
"Yeah, damn right I'm impure," Spike retorted. "I'm as impure as the driven yellow snow. So why don't you be a nice goddess and let me go."
Glory ran her hands seductively through Spike's hair. "You can't even brain-suck a vampire," she said, giving his head a rough shove. "He's completely useless."
"But, your holiness," Jinx humbly interjected, "we observed the Slayer. She held this one above all others. She treated him as precious."
Glory perked up, spinning to face Spike. "Really? Precious? Well, let's take a peek at you, precious." Glory looked him up and down, running her finger down the middle of his chest.
"Sod off," Spike growled, flinching at her touch.
"That wasn't very nice," Glory said in a saccharine sweet voice as she punched him in the face, sending him flying across the room. A trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, and before he could even get his bearings, she was attacking him again. She grabbed him by the front of his jacket and threw him onto her bed. Glory crawled on top of him as he groaned in pain, straddling his waist and letting her hand creep down between his thighs. "Just tell me what you know, and I can make it good for you. You'll die quickly, I promise."
Spike looked at her in horror. "What makes you think I'd even want to touch the likes of a skanky…psychotic…whorish…ex-god like you? You're second rate all the way," Spike said with false bravado, emphasizing each insult, giving them a chance to sink in.
"I don't care what you want!" Glory screamed, punching him in the face again. "I want to be inside you," she whispered into his ear.
A confused look flitted across Spike's face. "I think you've got things a bit backwards."
Glory quickly demonstrated what she meant, taking one finger and thrusting it into Spike's stomach. He arched his back and released a guttural scream. "Shhh. What do you know, precious? What can I dig out of you?" Glory cooed, stroking the side of his face gently as she pushed her finger in deeper.
After listening to him scream for a several minutes, Glory violently pushed herself away from Spike, not caring that she cracked a few of his ribs in the process. With an idle wave of her hand, she motioned to her minions. "String him up, boys."
Rapidly, the minions scurried over to Spike and lifted his body from the bed. They firmly wrapped chains around his wrists and hauled him to the ceiling, hanging him like he was a piece of meat. Glory walked towards him, her high heels clicking on the tile. "Why don't you just make this easy on yourself, sweetie. I haven't even begun to cause you pain."
She punched him in the stomach several times, and once more in the face for good measure. Spike groaned with every hit, but managed to keep his mouth firmly shut. Glory took her finger and began to point back and forth between his eyes. "Eeny, meeny, miney, moe...which eye should I poke out?" she said in a sing-song voice.
"Stupid bint, doesn't even rhyme," Spike coughed out.
"Shut up!" Glory said, offended. "I'm a god, you know. You should be nice to me..." Glory looked as though she was about to start pouting, then she hauled off and punched Spike again.
"Would you look what you did?" Glory screeched, examining her hand. "You got blood all over my nail polish...and I just painted them!" The flaky god took one of her fingers and slowly licked the blood off it. Startled, she held out her hand and looked at her finger in awe. Then she approached Spike and licked his stomach, near where she had punctured it earlier.
"Back off, bitch," Spike said through clenched teeth. "Already said I'm not interested."
"How did you do it?" she yelled, shaking him violently. "Why do you taste like my Key?"
Spike couldn't quite manage a cocky grin through all the swelling, but his tone was arrogant. "I'm a vampire, you see. Corruptin' innocents is a daily affair. You can't expect me to remember them all."
"You fed from her, didn't you? Damnit!" Glory screamed.
"Tell me who she is," Glory pleaded.
Spike noticed a tone of desperation in her voice that hadn't been there before. Something had changed. He didn't know what it was, but for some reason the outcast god seemed to need him now. This tiny tidbit of information was enough to restore Spike's confidence.
He responded to her question with a disdainful air.
"Not bloody likely."
"Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!" Glory yelled in frustration, punctuating each curse with another sharp blow to Spike's abdomen. Finally, she collapsed onto her bed with a sigh. "Get him down from there," she said, motioning to her minions.
"But most holy one, don't you wish to continue pummeling him for information?" Jinx timidly asked.
"No, you idiot. I need him now. He's got some of the Key's blood in him. I need as much blood as I can get. We'll bleed him too, when the time comes. Go tie him up somewhere. If he escapes, you die, k?" That said, Glory flopped back on her bed and stared at the ceiling while her minions scurried to obey her commands.
Dawn laughed in relief...she laughed so hard that tears were beginning to run down her face. She had done it! Her world had been nothing but pain, and now it was gone...just vanished.
The confused looks on the doctors' faces only made her laugh harder. She couldn't blame them though. When they first brought her back, there were signs of internal bleeding, and bruises populated her body. Now she was already healing. Not as quickly as if she had been a vampire, but more rapidly than any normal human, even the Slayer. One of the few small advantages to being bound to a vampire.
"I just don't understand it," a young intern said to the doctor that was berating him for incompetence. "I know I did the tests right...there's no way we should be getting such drastically different results. It's like she's healing before our very eyes!" The frustrated young man ran his fingers through his hair and paced in annoyance.
"I've had quite enough of your theatrics. You obviously did something wrong," said the doctor contemptuously. "Drastically wounded patients don't just spontaneously heal themselves! I believe this girl merely had a nasty fall, and the blood made it seem worse than it really was. That, coupled with worry over her family, is most likely the source of the pain she seemed to be in…not massive internal injuries that have suddenly vanished. Just look at her...she's hysterical, but not dying."
Dawn calmed herself down until her laughter subsided to soft giggles. Boy, these doctors sure have denial down to an art, she thought to herself. They must have to do this every night, living on the Hellmouth and all.
Dawn sat up and stared at the people around her. They all seemed so intent of finding out 'what went wrong,' i.e., a patient actually getting better without their intervention, that most of them were completely ignoring her. She waited for a slight pause in the noise, before interrupting.
"Excuse me," she said softly. When everyone continued to ignore her, she said "Hello!" a bit more loudly, waving her hand back and forth until she finally caught their attention. "I'm feeling much better now. Is there any chance I could see my mom and my sister?"
"You seem to have been through quite an accident, young lady. You should have told the nurse on duty immediately rather than staying so long in the waiting area with your surly friend. After the way you collapsed, I'm surprised to see you escaped with only a few minor scrapes and bruises. We'd like to observe you for a bit longer to be on the safe side," said the doctor, "but we can put you in the same room as your sister. Your mother is still undergoing some tests, but we'll certainly let you know when she is finished," he said with a placating smile.
They put Dawn in a wheelchair and had the intern take her to the part of the ER where Buffy was resting. Inside the curtained off room, Dawn could hear talking. "Giles!" Dawn exclaimed as they wheeled her in. "What happened?"
"Dawn!" both Giles and Buffy cried in unison.
Dawn raced over and embraced her sister and then Giles, who was sitting in a chair right next to Buffy's bed. Then, realizing the intern was still watching her intently, she swayed a little bit, pretending to be woozy.
The intern pushed the other bed in the room close to Buffy's and gave it a small pat. "Here, why don't you sit down," he said with a small smile. "They're going to want to keep you here overnight, for observation. Pretend that you're still weak, but feeling better, and they should let you go home tomorrow with your sister."
"What do you mean pretend?" Dawn said with wide eyes as she climbed into the bed.
"I'm not as willing to delude myself as most of the people here," he said with a slight tone of bitterness. "Weird stuff happens in this town. Bodies drained of blood coming back to life...'wolf' and 'bear' attacks in a town that hasn't seen that kind of wildlife in half a century or more...patients healing themselves on the table," he concluded, with a knowing look at Dawn. "I might not know what causes it all, but I certainly won't ignore it. Don't worry though, unless you sprout fangs and try to attack me, your secret's safe with me."
He had meant that last statement as a joke, but the sudden silence that filled the room spoke much louder than any words. A chill went down his spine as he realized that none of them were even attempting to deny any of the seemingly impossible things he was suggesting. Instead, they all seemed to be avoiding his gaze, silently begging him not to pry any further. The confirmation that at least some of his assumptions were true was strangely unwelcome. It was almost better to believe he was crazy than to know that there really were supernatural things that went bump in the night. Quickly, he grabbed the wheelchair and muttered a goodbye, leaving them to whatever they had to discuss.
A perceptible sigh went through the group once the intern left the room. "I suppose it's good to know that not all of the residents of Sunnydale are living in complete denial," Giles said, trying to break the tension. "But do tell me Dawn, what happened to give our friend such a burst of insight?"
"No way, mister. I asked you first. What happened while I was gone?" Dawn crossed her arms and gave an attempt at a stern face.
"Yeah, c'mon Mr. Self-Restraint. Why don't you tell Dawn about your fine example of proper waiting room etiquette?" Buffy teased.
Giles looked sheepishly down at his hand, bandaged and splinted, and now resting easily in a sling. "Yes, well, I'm afraid with the entire Summers family now residing in the hospital, I became slightly fed up with waiting. When the ever discourteous staff informed me yet again that I should take a seat, I became a bit...disgruntled."
"I'm a big girl, Giles. You can say 'pissed off,'" Dawn smirked.
Giles glared at her, but he continued his story. "Yes, well, in my angered state, I vented my frustration on the nearest wall, to the consternation of the staff, I'm sure. And the result was this," he said, indicating his bandaged hand.
"Oh cool, Giles punched a wall!" Dawn said gleefully. "And here I thought he was always Mr. Prim and Proper."
"No, not cool," Buffy admonished. "It was stupid, and dangerous. And...well...stupid."
"Yes, Dawn. Buffy is quite correct in this instance. You'd do well not to follow my example. But let's shift the focus off of me for just a moment, shall we? What happened to you?"
Dawn grimaced slightly. "It was Spike...again. I think he's in trouble with another ex-girlfriend or something," she said with disdain. "For a second, I felt kinda turned on and mad at the same time. I just don't get guys... Spike definitely did not like this girl, but I could feel him getting…you know…aroused."
"Well, you know for Spike, getting beat up is like third base," Buffy commented. "Anyway, guys are pigs. They get turned on by anyone in a skirt who shows them even the tiniest bit of attention. Spike's almost normal that way."
"Ahem," Giles muttered, looking slightly offended.
"Present company excluded of course," Buffy said as she gave Giles a placating pat on the cheek.
Dawn raised her eyebrows as Giles turned a slight shade of red. "D…do go on, Dawn," Giles stuttered, wanting to keep them from noticing his sudden embarrassment. He wasn't immune to the effect of beautiful women after all…Buffy in particular.
Dawn smiled and continued her story. "Well, this girl must have really hated Spike, because the next thing I knew, it felt like someone was beating me up...I hurt all over, especially my stomach. She must be strong in a not-quite-human way to work him over like that. Then I did the whole Zen thing Giles taught me, and I distanced myself from my link with Spike. It still hurt for a while, but then it suddenly stopped. I think Spike's beating is probably over for now. And I'd say he deserved every second of it if I didn't have to live with the lovely side effects," she added bitterly, her anger with Spike very evident.
"Well I'm glad you're ok," Buffy said, reaching over and giving Dawn's hand a squeeze. "And I'd like to officially welcome you into the world of boy trouble, Hellmouth style."
"Yeah, dating a vampire sure is weird."
"Hold on a sec…" Buffy said slowly. "You said 'dating'…as in present tense. What happened to the whole 'Spike is such a disgusting pig and I hate him for what he did to you' rant you gave me during the drive to the hospital? Shouldn't talk of Spike in the dating sense now be firmly in the past tense?"
Dawn blushed and looked down at her lap. "I'm not sure it's that easy," she said. "I don't want you to think I'm not still angry with him. I'm furious at him for what he did to you…and that freakish android he made is just icing on the Spike's-an-asshole cake. But he was right about one thing…we are bound. I can't just cut him out of my life…he's always going to be there in the back of my mind…literally. And I really do have strong feelings for him. I'm not sure if it's fair to call it quits just because things aren't all sunshine and roses right now. Even though I'm so angry with him, I still miss him in the 'I can't live without you' sort of way. If I end this now, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering 'what if.' So I think I owe it to myself to try to work things out…after letting him stew for a while, of course."
"Wow," Buffy said with admiration. "When did you get all grown up and mature?"
"You don't hate me?" Dawn asked nervously.
"No, I don't hate you. I can't say I'm thrilled with your decision, but I don't hate you. And this is really going to surprise you, but I don't hate Spike either. I'd like to pummel him myself for the trick he pulled…but I don't hate him. He's helped us over and over again...he's even saved my life, and more importantly yours, on several occasions, and all he wanted, besides blood and cigarettes that is, was a little bit of recognition. I treated him like dirt, and I can admit I was wrong. Well, to you at least…I'd never let him know that to his face…he'd never let me live it down. But anyway, if you really want to work things out with him, I'll do my best to not interfere…too much. Not that I want to be all buddy-buddy with a vampire, but I think a...truce...could be established."
"Do you mean it?" Dawn said hopefully.
"Yeah, I mean it," Buffy smiled. "Anyway, what choice do I have? It's not like I can go beat the crap out of him if every time I hit him it hurts you."
"Thanks, Buffy. That means a lot to me, it really does," Dawn said quietly.
"I'm so proud of you both," Giles said, a fatherly smile on his face. "You are both turning into remarkable young women so quickly, it astounds me."
"Does that mean I finally get to go patrolling," Dawn asked.
"Not in a million years," Buffy laughed.
"Well, can I at least date without fear of my sister staking my boyfriend?"
"I suppose," Buffy said with an exaggerated sigh.
"I wonder where Spike is anyway," Dawn mused.
Spike groaned in his chair. He almost wished Glory were beating him up again. Anything had to be better than listening to her insane drivel. At least she had been making sense before, trying to pry information out of him. Now she almost seemed to be talking to the voices in her head. The only thing that kept him from provoking her was the laughing presence in the back of his mind. Dawn felt happy and safe. He knew that everything that happened to him affected her strongly. To keep her from any more pain, he gritted his teeth and continued to placidly sit while Glory paced in front of him.
"No, no, no, no, no! You can't do this! Not now...not when I'm finally getting close. My vampire knows something about the Key. Just...just let me have some more time. Ahhh...I need to eat...need...NOOO!" Glory ceased her pacing and held her head as she screamed. Her high-pitched tones deepened into a rich bass as her mortal half came to the forefront.
"Well, would you look at that," Spike said, things suddenly looking a bit brighter.