"Why do they call it a CAT scan?" Dawn has her feet up on the chair of the waiting room. Buffy flicks at the tab of a soda can, making a dull pinging sound, and fidgets in her seat.

"I dunno." The smell of the hospital feels like it's pawing at her, seeping into her clothes and her hair, and settling in her lungs like a poisonous fog that she'll never be able to breath all the way out. Sterile, and soapy and clinical, with something rotting underneath. Something decomposing, like a fungus. But maybe that's just her imagination. That sour bleachy smell lingers around her in a suffocating cloud, and she fidgets more, trying to win over some minor comfort from the stiff plastic cushioning of the waiting room chairs.

"Dyu think it's because they tested it on cats?" Dawn continues, seemingly oblivious to the edge of hysteria Buffy is hanging over. "Or that the machine looks like a cat?"

"I think it probably stands for something..." Buffy runs her hand through her hair. It's hot, why is it so hot? Should hospitals be this hot? Isn't it bad for hospitals to be this hot, like a breeding ground for bacteria or something? And where is all the air suddenly?

"But what is a CAT scan? It's like an X-ray or something? But X-rays only show bones right? So it wouldn't be any good in... in brain scanning with an x-ray? Right? Because brains are all mushy and stuff, so an x-ray would only show you the skull? 'Cus Janice's dad broke his foot last winter and he had to get an x-ray and Janice said you could see all the bones but no muscles and so they didn't notice he'd also torn a ligament as well and that's why-"

"Dawn- I don't-" Buffy catches herself before she snaps. Dawn's unending questions and monologuing are wearing away at her last frail nerve like a maggot biting a hole into an apple, but the look in her eyes pulls her back from the edge. She looks so small and terrified, and a cascade of guilt hits Buffy in the stomach.

I can't take this.

I should've let Riley come, he could at least keep Dawn from spiralling down with me.

She takes a deep breath, and wraps an arm across Dawn's shoulder.

"I don't know."

Dawn settles into the crook of her arm, opening the tab of her own soda.

"...Do you think it hurts?" Her voice is pained, almost a whisper. Buffy strokes Dawns head as she leans further into her.

"I'm sure it doesn't-"

"Buffy!"

Her head jerks round to see Riley half walking half jogging into the waiting room.

"Riley?" She gets up out of the chair, letting Dawn resettle herself against the plastic cushioning.

"I...I thought-" Riley regroups himself, sweat is shining on his forehead from having rushed through the hospital in piercing Sunnydale heat, "I heard about the scan, I thought you could use-"

He gestures emptily, but Buffy embraces him hard, clinging to him like a life-raft.

"I could. I could definitely use."

She deflates a little, feeling a sudden desperate need to be held like a child, tears stinging her eyes uncomfortable as she pushes them away.

I want my mom. I want my mom so so bad because this sucks, this completely fucking sucks and I want to go home.

Riley wraps his arms around her back, settling his chin on the top of her head, and tries not to think about the fact that he's only hear on Spike's word.

Joyce is settled on a hospital bed, wearing the gown they'd given her for the x-ray, when the doctors finally let Buffy back in to her room.

"Hey sweetie." She let's herself be enveloped by Buffy and hugs her back hard.

"So.. the... the scan? Did they have results already? Or... or is it something they-"

"They've got the results." Joyce sighs, feeling a sudden wave of nausea pulse through her down from her head. "They say there's a shadow. I've got a shadow."

"A... a shadow?"

"They don't know what it is yet. But they have to do a biopsy tomorrow to find out what it is."

"Ok.." Buffy puts on a resolve face. "They've booked you in? It's all... all ready to get looked at?"

"I'm booked for the biopsy tomorrow morning. They said I'm lucky to have a slot so quickly, people can wait days, sometimes weeks."

"Good. That's good." Joyce squeezes her hand hard. Be brave. Got to be brave.

"They said it's too early to be concerned."

Buffy nods, hardening her face to stop the tears from starting to pool in her eyes.

"Then no concern. We are concern free. It's just a shadow."

"Just a shadow."

"...Do you want me to tell Dawn?"

"Just tell her they've got to do more tests, that's all it is. Just another test. It might not even be related, the shadow and the wooziness. They've just got to check everything out."

"Right. Ok." Buffy smiles down at Joyce, smoothing her hair back from her face, swallowing down the rising panic as best she can.

Visiting hours wind down, and Buffy starts to shepherd Dawn out of Joyce's room as her head starts to drop onto the pillow.

"I'll come back tomorrow?"

"We will!" Dawn interjects.

"You have school, young lady." Joyce gives Dawn a firm eyeball.

"But-"

Buffy squeezes Dawn's arm.

"I'll come get you after school ok? You don't need to spend the whole day eating vending machine food. Again."

Dawn rolls her eyes grumbling as she heaves her bag onto her shoulder. Buffy's smooths Joyce's hair and tucks her in underneath the hospital blanket.

"Get some rest."

"It's all I'm doing at the moment."

The hours and minutes tick by. Joyce dozes and wakes periodically, listening to the sound of the hospital around her. Patients shuffling in the hallway. Carts being wheeled past her room. Somewhere the low murmuring of doctors talking and once or twice running feet as nurses speed to some casualty or other down the hall.

The evening edges further into night, hours slipping passed at a crawl, and she finds she can't sleep. She turns on the TV suspended from the ceiling to listen to something other that the movements outside her room. More murmurs from doctors. More nurses clomping somewhere or other. The sound of the patient next door talking to himself in a low whispery stream of endless babbling. On and on until the monotony is broken- broken by heavy clad footsteps in the hall.

She turns the TV down low, pulling herself up to sit higher in the bed as the door opens. She blinks in the light from the hallway.

"What are you doing here?"

Spike lifts a hand out of his pocket, guiltily holding up two red squishy blood bags.

"Should you be taking those? People donated them you know."

"Probably not, no. Beats the pigs blood they sell in the butchers though." He hovers on the threshold, shuffling uncomfortable.
Joyce rolls her eyes and Spike, for a moment, catches his breath at how much her look of disdain-covering-amusement is identical to Buffy's.

That's where she gets it from.

"Can I come in?"

"Do you need to be invited in? In a hospital room even?"

"No I'm just..." He shrugs, leaning against the frame, "just wanted to see how you were doing."

"You know, visiting hours ended a long time ago."

Spike nods, shuffling in his coat, looking more like a worried little boy than a hundred year old serial killer.

"Want me to push off? I don't want to disturb your beauty sleep."

"No, it's fine. I can't sleep anyway."

Spike steps into her room, closing the door gently behind him. He takes a seat next to her bed, and Joyce turns the TV back up.

"What're we watching?" He asks as he bites into a blood bag, expertly not spilling a drop.

"Dawson's Creek re-run."

Spike shuffles down further into the chair, sucking on his blood bag like a juice box. Joyce watches him from the corner of her eye.

He's older than me, by a lot. And yet he looks so much like a little kid sometimes...

There are smudges of eyeliner around his eyes and she resists the urge to reach over and wipe them off with a thumb like a clucking mother hen.

"How was the scan?" He asks, not taking his eyes off the TV.

Joyce blinks.

"Buffy told you I had a scan?"

He meets her eyes, and the depth of concern inside those pale blue irises jolts her like an electric shock. She shuffles in the bed, sitting further up and pulling up her knees, resting her arms on them, and turning her head back to the TV.

"They say I've got a shadow. Somewhere. They showed it to me but I couldn't see it. I've got to have a biopsy tomorrow."

Spike nods, finishing the last of the blood in the bag and tossing it in the trashcan by the bed.

"How're you feeling?"

"Bored mainly."

He smirks, glancing to the door as he hears a nurse walking passed. He relaxes once the footsteps pass by Joyce's room.

"How's the Sl- how're Buffy and Dawn doing?"

"They're holding up. I think. I don't think they'd tell me otherwise though. Riley seems like he's helping Buffy a lot."

Spike snorts and Joyce takes her eyes off the TV again, raising an eyebrow.

"You don't like him."

"What's to like?"

"I thought you and the, what does she call it... Scoobies? That you were sort of a united front of sorts now?"

"Doesn't mean I have to like him. Overly sensitive types like that. Always have something to hide. More than one thing, usually."

"You don't trust him?"

"He's not really my cuppa tea, no." He turns his gaze back to Joyce, and is taken aback by what he sees in her face. Concern, sure, but certainly not shock. Something a little akin to agreement. "...Not yours either, I take it?"

Joyce purses her lips, resettling herself against the cushions of the bed.

There's something not quite right there. He's sweet and thoughtful and attentive sure... but sometimes clingy. I don't trust clingy. Clingy can turn into possessive far too often. Clingy men don't do well with strong women. It always seems like they have to take them down a peg or two to make themselves feel better. I hope Buffy has sense enough not to let that happen...I know she has strength, more than she needs, but emotionally she's so easily bruised.

And so easily manipulated...

"I like him fine."

"Uh huh." He says, cocking an eyebrow.

She's got hawk eyes when it comes to her kids. Bet she's picked up on something Buffy hasn't. Maybe even I haven't. She won't come out and say it though...

They sit in silence for a long time, companionably watching the TV together as the night draws on. After a while Joyce's breathing changes, from soft and steady to a low deep sighing sleep.

Spike gets up out of the chair, cracking his back and pulling at his neck to unknot a kink that's starting to work its way into his muscles. He shuts off the TV and pulls the blankets up a little higher around Joyce. She shifts a deeper under the blanket, settling into a full doze as he makes his way to the door and closes it silently behind him.

Riley and Buffy walk hand in hand down towards the cemetery, having spoken minimal words to each other since leaving the hospital.

"So. How did your recon mission go?"

Riley glances over at her, brow furrowed.

"This morning?" Buffy prompts. "You said you were looking into a nest."

"Oh! Uh... yeah, nothing to it. Just rumours."

"Oh."

They trudge through the graves. Buffy twirls her stake absentmindedly in her hand.

"Thanks for coming to the hospital."

"You don't need to thank me Buffy. I wanted to be there anyway. I told you earlier I wanted to be there." His words are kind enough but there's a bitterness hiding underneath and Buffy stiffens at it.

"I didn't say I didn't want you there."

"You didn't exactly beg me to come." He mumbles, although purposely clearly enough for her to hear.

Buffy turns to face him, an incredulous look of shock on her face, pulling her hand out of his.

"So... what I'm supposed to beg you?"

"No of course not! That's not what I meant!"

"What did you mean?"

"I just meant that you don't exactly... make me feel welcome."

"Riley... You know what I'm going through, are you really trying to tell me that I'm not rolling out the welcome enough right now?"

"NO, it's not like that, it would just be better if maybe you didn't keep everything to yourself! I want to be there, I want to help but I mean for God's sake Buffy you're like a brick wall!"

"I'm trying to keep it together seeing as my mother is in the hospital and I'm taking care of a teenager who seems intent on pushing me over the edge at any given moment! So I'm so sorry I'm not pouring my heart out and kicking and screaming right now!"

"But I'm here for you to be able to do that Buffy! Just let me in, it's not healthy bottling it all up!"

"I"m NOT bottling up! I'm just trying to deal! I'm sorry that's not what you want but throwing a tantrum isn't going to fix anything!"

"I'm not asking for the full waterworks, just a little intimacy!"

"Riley." Buffy takes a long slow shaking breath, "I'm really walking a tightrope here. I'm being as open as I can, but if I open the flood gates right now I won't be able to cope. This isn't about me bottling up, I'm just trying to stay focussed so I don't fall apart!"

"Your mom's in the hospital, Buffy, it's ok to fall apart-"

"It's ok for you! I don't want to fall apart! That's not how I work! That's never been how I work! And FYI, Slayer's generally get rather dead after the falling apartness."

I don't need more things fuelling my 'deathwish' or however Spike put it. I'll cope with it all when I need to, why doesn't he get it?! Why is he pushing me to be some big blubbering mess? Wouldn't most guys want the stoic non-over-emotionalness? Why can't he grasp that I don't want to ball my eyes out right now!? I don't want to have to crumble to pieces, just to make him feel better! If I need to cry, I'll cry but not because he needs me to!

"You don't have to be the Slayer 24/7. You know for once, you could just be Buffy Summers, college student going through a rough time."

Buffy feels the blood in her veins turn to ice. Tears of anger flood her eyes and she bites them back down.

"I didn't get to chose what I am. But I'm not ashamed of it. And I'm certainly not going to hide it so that you get to feel better about yourself."

Riley shakes his head, chuckling sourly.

"I'm not asking you to hide it Buffy. I'm just asking to take some of the burden off you."

"No, what you're doing is trying to push me towards a breakdown so you can pick up the pieces and feel like you're the stronger one for a change. This has nothing to do with what's best for me."

"Buffy-"

"That's what this is really all about isn't it! You want to be the hero, and you can't stand it that I'm dealing with it by myself!"

"I wouldn't call hanging out in a crypt with Spike "dealing with it", actually." Riley lowers his tone, drowning her with a vicious glare. Buffy blinks, completely stunned.

"What the hell does that even mean?"

"Your stomach wound? I know it was him that helped patch you up Buffy."

"He gave me the bandages, so what?"

"SO it should've been ME!"

"Ok." Buffy laughs, taking a step away from him. "Sure. No problem. The next time I get stabbed I'll make sure to wait around for you instead. Hell, I'll crawl on my hands and knees to your apartment, or bleed out on principle, rather than let anyone else in the entire world help me."

"You lied to me."

"Yeah, no prizes for guessing why."

She storms off, yanking an arm out of his grasp as he tries to reach for her, and stomps her way off into the darkness.

"BUFFY!" Riley yells after her, but she's already gone.