TITLE:
Darkest Before Dawn #18 "the healing"
AUTHOR:
Nmissi
PART:18/?
DISCLAIMER: I own Nothing and No one. Especially not Spike. If I did,
what makes you think I'd share him with you?
DISTRIBUTION: Want it? Take it. Just let me know where it's going.
Feedback:
Please. Nmissi@aol.com
SUMMARY: The way the world would work if I wrote the Buffyverse.
He looked remarkably like an
ordinary man. And Giles could vouch for his simplistic conversational skills
after spending several hours beside him on a plane. Even his attire was
commonplace; a blue sweatshirt with a team logo, and jeans. He looked like
Everyman.
It was good cover for a demigod in
exile.
"What exactly are you, um…Going to
do for her?"
Beneficus, better known to his
coworkers at Sunnydale Southwest Hospital as Ben, shrugged his shoulders at
Buffy as she asked her question.
"It's hard to explain. It's just my
hand of power, it's what I do."
Then he looked at Dawn as he
explained carefully.
"I'm going to put my fingers right
here, on your neck. It's the site of the most damage, according to the x-rays."
He looked over his shoulder back at Buffy and Giles.
Giles looked very worried, but Buffy was merely attentive.
" And it might look a little scary. I'm going to put
my hands through the skin, into the neck, and repair the injury. It might get a
little bright, too."
Giles spoke up, hesitantly.
"You have, erm. Done this before?"
Ben grinned back.
"Yes. I've been healing humans for thousands of
years, Sir. It's what I'm good at."
His expression darkened.
"There's only one thing that concerns me. It's
possible Glory will sense Dawn, when I heal her. I'm weak still, from a full
schedule at work, and the botched heal a few weeks ago."
"B-Botched? Heal?" stammered Giles.
"It's nothing. I tried to heal somebody who was
already dead."
He glanced at Buffy.
"Your friend with the sucking chest wound. Is he
okay?"
She nodded, her brow furrowing.
"What is it, Buffy?" prompted her watcher.
She shook her head.
"It's nothing."
She gave Dawn her brightest smile.
"Ready to get started?"
The girl nodded.
Ben continued.
"Anyway, since I'm not at full strength, there's a
danger I might not can keep her out. We have to share the vessel, and primary
control belongs to whichever of us is strongest at any given time. Glory hasn't
drank in a long while, so she's very weak. But if Dawn drains me low enough,
Glory will emerge."
He looked at the young girl in the bed again,
searching her eyes for evidence she understood the danger to her if that should
happen.
Buffy watched, as he stroked her sister's neck, right
at the base of the hairline. Then his fingers lit up, glowing somehow, and he
pushed them through the skin into Dawn's neck.
His face was tense, his brows knit together as he
worked. Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down the bridge of his nose.
"Does it hurt?" asked Buffy tentatively of her
sister.
"Nuh uh. No, not at all."
Dawn's voice conveyed her amazement. She could FEEL
his fingers, inside her bones, beneath her skin- It was a remarkably intimate
feeling, like a caress. But it had the immediacy of a punch, the full-flesh
contact sensation of pain, without, well- Pain.
Ben stepped back suddenly, pulling his hands out of
the girl.
Dawn bounced up off of the bed.
"It worked! Ben, It worked!"
She tossed her arms around him, hugging him close. He
staggered and she caught the full weight of him in her arms, up against her
chest.
"too much. Too much reality to shift probabilities-"
He fainted, and Buffy dragged him off Dawn and lay
him back on Dawn's bed.
Giles fretted nervously in the corner. He'd been
against this from the beginning. but Buffy had been insistent.
Ben's eyes snapped open, and he looked directly at
Dawn.
"She's coming. Go. Now."
There was pleading in his gaze. Dawn backed out of
the room, and ran down the hall. Giles pursued her, but Buffy stood in the
hospital room interrogating the healer.
"Okay. "She's coming". But she's supposed to be weak,
right? What do I do, how do I stop her?"
"You don't. You just run, Buffy."
"If she's weak, why can't I kill her?" asked the
girl.
"We share the vessel. If the vessel perishes, we
both-"
Giles ran back into the room.
" Too fast. Buffy, I can't – I can't find her," he
panted.
"Go, Now, both of you. She's coming."
The Slayer and the Watcher fled, leaving the god
alone.
Within minutes, Ben's labored breathing was replaced
by a low, feminine groan. And a wet, thin, deranged goddess in jeans and a blue
sweatshirt crawled towards the hospital room door.