Chapter 16
It was an hour since the trauma staff at the hospital had wheeled Aurora away. Buffy paced up. Spike paced down. Whenever someone in surgical greens or a white lab coat passed, they halted, breaths held in expectation of bad news.
"Mrs Liam?"
Buffy spun around to the male voice that called her name, hoping (fearing) to see the doctor. In stead, there stood a well-dressed middle aged man with remarkable blue eyes. He was accompanied another man who looked like he slept in the suit he was wearing and two uniformed officers.
"Mrs Liam?" he asked again, glancing quickly at Spike and frowning lightly before introducing himself. "My name is Lindsey MacDonald. I'm the District Attorney. This is Detective Richmond."
Buffy shook the DA's offered hand quickly, frowning, "What do you want, Mr MacDonald?"
"Are you aware there's a warrant out for your daughter's arrest?" Lindsey was all business outside, even though curiosity over the absence of Angel and the state of the two people in front of him (not to mention the wanted girl still being worked on by the doctors) was eating him alive.
"Her arrest? Why?" Buffy demanded, straightening her back. Her anger at this interloper drowned out the incessant worry for her daughter a little.
"She skipped bail and missed her parole hearing," the rumpled detective interrupted rudely.
"Bloody hell!" Spike blustered, but shut up when he saw the dark fury on his companion's face.
Buffy returned her gaze to the two men before her and ground out between clenched teeth, "My daughter was kidnapped and tortured. She's in there fighting for her life. If you think I'm going to let you take her away, you are very much mistaken."
Richmond stepped up to the bristling mother and looked down on her from his intimidating 6 ft 5" frame. "Look, lady," he started, thrilling at the prospect of reducing this tiny woman to tears. "Your kid killed a guy. She jumped bail. She's going back to jail."
With each statement he poked his finger in Buffy's face, as if accusing her of some unforgivable sin. Buffy bit harder and harder on her teeth to keep herself from ripping that damned finger right off and throwing it back in his face, but when he actually poked her in the chest, she lost it.
She grabbed the insolent detective's finger and twisted it back, bending his wrist at a highly painful angle and his finger close to breaking, driving the big man to his knees.
Buffy's face was so close to the detective's that he could only see her eyes. She growled, "The only place my daughter's going is home with me. Try to stop me and I will rip your throat out."
Her eyes flashed golden before returning to its natural hazel. She released the stunned detective and backed away, her hands raised to show the crowding officers her 'surrender'.
"Mrs Liam?" All eyes turned to the doctor standing in the doorway of the waiting room. "Could I have a moment?"
Buffy paled at the worry she was reading in the doctor's eyes. "Is she…?" she tried to ask, her mouth suddenly very dry.
"It would be better if we spoke in private."
Spike took Buffy's icy hand and squeezed it, leading her to follow the doctor out into the hallway. When the unwanted guests also turned to follow, Spike growled menacingly, freezing them in their tracks.
"Okay, Doctor," Buffy said, trembling. "Tell me. Is she going to make it?"
"Your daughter had lost a lot of blood and her wounds were quite severe. By the time you brought her in, her body had already gone into shock," the doctor explained, not quite meeting the worried mother and (he assumed) father's eyes.
Buffy interrupted. "You're not answering me. Is she going to make it?"
"It worries me that she's not responding to the transfusions like she should be, but at the moment she is stable. The next 24 hours are critical, but if she makes it through the next day, she'll be fine."
"Can I see her?"
The doctor nodded. "I had her moved to ICU for observation. I'll take you to her."
Aurora looked so fragile lying in that hospital bed with tubes and wires hooked up to bags and bleeping machines. Buffy sobbed, burying her face in Spike's shoulder.
"It's okay, Buffy. She'll be okay," Spike soothed softly.
Buffy nodded, working hard to get herself under control. She didn't want Aurora to see her so upset. "Aurora?" Buffy whispered softly, bending over the bed and lightly kissing her daughter's cool forehead. "Baby, can you hear me?"
Aurora's eyelids fluttered and opened. "Mom?" she croaked softly, no strength in her voice at all.
"Yes, baby, I'm right here," Buffy answered, squeezing Aurora's hand to prove it.
Aurora looked past her mother, meeting her undead boyfriend's sky-blue eyes and she smiled. He quickly took position on the other side of the bed and, lifting her hand, kissed the fingers softly. "Princess," he said and kissed her fingers again.
"Where's Dad?" she asked, wincing at the effort to take a breath. The memories of the last few hours were a little hazy, but why weren't her father also by her bedside? Then she remembered.
"Your dad's away right now, but he'll be back soon," Buffy was saying when Aurora turned away, shaking her head in denial.
"Dad's dead. I remember now. You killed him." Aurora looked at her mother, misery, anger and hatred clearly written in her near-black eyes.
Buffy recoiled inwardly at the loathing in her only child's eyes. "Aurora, he's not dead. I swear it! He said he'll be back and your father is a man of his word. He'll be back."
At that moment, Angel was ducking and dodging the snapping jaws of an enormous snake-monster. Its breath reeked of decomposing flesh and Angel thought he saw a piece of leg stuck between the monster's back teeth.
Angel dodged again, landing with a hard thump on the soft ground of the swamp surrounding him. His hand sank into the soggy earth when he tried to push up. Angel's fingers brushed over something hard and round. They closed around whatever it might be instinctively; the need for a weapon great.
Angel jumped back to his feet just in time to duck another biting attack by his slithering foe, bringing a piece of broken-off wood with him. He eyed its denseness, tested the weight and brought it crashing down on the snake-monster's head in a matter of seconds.
The club made a satisfying wet crunching sound when it made contact with the reptilian anatomy. Angel roared and swung the club hard and fast, beating the monster into the muck. "Do you know how much I hate snakes?" he growled, bashing his makeshift weapon into the creature's head over and over again. "Your breath stinks!" Blood flew everywhere, the flesh being quickly beaten into pulp. "And I am not! Your!! DINNER!!!" A loud cracking sound echoed over the instantly silent marsh as Angel caved the hungry beast's head in, killing it dead.
Angel stepped back, panting. Welcome to hell, he thought sourly and started walking, cleaning blood and grime off his coat.
The moons above him were only quarter full and the constellations were completely alien to the vampire who had navigated his many centuries of life by the stars. Angel had no idea where he was or where he was going. He simply followed the eerie pull in his blood.
On some metaphysical level, he and Acathla were connected through the blood that flowed through his veins. The same blood that nearly got my daughter killed, he brooded bitterly, the anger at his sire still smoldering hot in his gut.
He already had so many innocents' blood on his hands; it would never matter how much he washed them. The blood would never wash away. Now he could add his own child's blood to the list of regrets.
Buffy hated it when he got like this. She would say that the Powers forgave him and that should be enough for him, but she could never understand. Not until she had maimed, tortured and killed the thousands he had.
Angel's heart shrunk painfully at the thought of his beautiful wife and daughter. He missed them desperately and this distance between them felt like a sword through his soul. Angel closed his eyes, "Let them be okay," he prayed silently and walked on.
In another reality, Buffy woke up from a dream; Angel's eyes still in front of her, his words of love and longing in her ears. 'We're okay, my love,' her heart answered. 'Hurry home.'