Title: Wake up dead man

Author: Joy

Email: SleepingBeauty2@ziplip.com

            Buffy and Tara drove in silence for a long while. Buffy didn't feel like making the effort without hearing something from Dawn. Tara just allowed her friend the space she needed and drove quickly through the rain.

            Gunn checked on Dawn in the rearview mirror as she attended to Spike's body, which he couldn't see. He wanted to have vampire hearing for this trip just to know what Dawn was saying.

            For Dawn's part she was trying to say things to aggravate the vampire enough to rouse him. "I'm sure he's like ten years older then me and I bet he has tons of experience…" Dawn was whispering to Spike when she caught Gunn's eyes in the mirror again. She instinctively blushed at the attention and the possibility that he could hear her talking about him.
            Gunn saw the blush rise over the teen's cheeks and felt himself grow warm. Why would she blush at him? Was she talking about him to Spike? Was she shy? Well he knew that wasn't true. The words that had come out of her mouth disproved that theory. Maybe she wasn't used to attention from a guy?

            "Ah… Is your sister on the road?" Gunn ventured.

            "Yeah… She was already driving when you picked us up," Dawn responded.

            "So I get to meet the infamous 'Buffy' after all," he said with an engaging smile.

            "Infamous…yes. Meet… I'm not sure. She will be slightly focused on arrival. If you thought I could be bitchy and controlling during this visit you ain't seen nothing till you see Buffy in action."

            Gunn looked back at her curiously, "I don't think you were being either. You were taking care of your own. I get that…I'm an orphan who's fought vampires for years. I got a bit of bad-ass in me when need be."
            Dawn smirked, "Well at least someone understands me other then Spike."

            "I'm not going to get the whole older then time thing but as far as the family stuff that I get," he assured her.

            "Thanks."

            "Your welcome… Be there soon."

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            "There's Angel's car," Cordelia said from the door propping it open for the vampire and key.

            "Fred," Wesley said softly. "I know he's a bit gruff but you know the most biology… Would you take a look at him?"

            Fred swallowed and nodded. A very wet Dawn carried a very lifeless Spike into the conference room as directed. "Uhh… Get me some rubbing alcohol, gauze, towels, and scissors.

            "What are you going to do with the scissors?" Dawn asked frantically. Gunn came up behind her putting only an inch between them. Dawn's hand grazed Gunn's. She instinctively clutched it for dear life. He held on rubbing his thumb over the top of her hand in soothing circles.

            "I need to cut open his pants… It looks like his legs were run over," Fred said going into clinical mode.

            Dawn squeezed Gunn's hand harder as Wesley and Cordelia brought in the needed items. Fred soaked a cloth with alcohol clearing the remaining blood from the side of Spike's head. His scull was obviously cracked. "There will be intense swelling in the brain from an injury like this. A human would be dead… There's a scar on the side of his head over here. Do you know what that's from?"

            All color drained from Dawn's face. "His chip… The government put this chip in his head so he couldn't hurt humans… He tried to have it removed…that's the scar. Oh god… I hate Riley so much!" the teen ground out. "It's not bad enough that he flacks on my sister, he has to have that stupid chip in Spike's head that could be killing him or god only knows."

            "Shhh…" Gunn soothed drawing her closer to himself having her lean on him. The hand that was told hers wound around her front as a backward hug. "We don't know anything."

            "We should see about getting him to a hospital or someplace with an ex-ray machine. In this case a cat scan would be best…" Fred said looking over Spike's legs. "They're definitely broken…but they're resetting wrong."

            "What does that mean?" Dawn asked hurriedly.

            "The bones aren't healing in the right direction," Lorn said from the door.

            Dawn's eyes flashed with recognition. She launched herself at Lorn only to be restrained by Gunn. "You knew this was going to happen, that's why you gave us the phone…" Her eyes got bigger. "You were talking about this with Spike… He knew this was going to happen too. That is why he was so reassuring that everything would be fine and so sweet to Buffy before we left. He was wrapping up business. You told him he was going to die and you didn't try to stop it!" she screamed.

            Lorn took a deep breath and said, "He's not dead, is he?"

            "He may as well be… If he wakes up and that chip doesn't work Buffy's going to kill him no matter what. It won't matter how much I love him or need him or how much she supposedly loves him. It will be Angel all over again. She'll have to kill him to save the world without waiting to see if he could be good or restrained…Angel killed Jenny so of course Spike will kill someone that we love…" Dawn growled at the green man. "You could have stopped this!"

            "No he couldn't," Angel said from behind the host. "Spike said it before he left. Destiny finds you if you're standing still or if you're running away. No one could have stopped this."

            Dawn dissolved into a lump on the floor crying, "It's not fair…it's just not fair. Everyone I love dies. Everyone I need leaves. Everything I care about gets yanked away… I've been in human form for what a year and a half. How do humans do it? How do you not just kill yourself from the sorrow?" Gunn swallowed hard and sat down on the floor next to her. He slowly pulled her to him and let her cry on his crest.

            Cordelia ushered everyone else out of the room and shut the door. The shades to the windows were drawn shutting out light and life from the room. Gunn let Dawn continue to cry and whispered to her that things would work out some how and how strong she was. Dawn leaned away from Gunn's face and kissed him softly. She looked at him through shy eyes. "Close your eyes," she whispered. Gunn obeyed her direction. He was out cold in a second from Dawn's sharp punch.

            Dawn coaxed the pocketknife out of Gunn's pocket that she had found while he was holding her. She crossed to the door and locked it noiselessly. Carefully pulling Spike off the table she leaned him back against her chest as she seated them on the couch. Dawn grabbed a rag that Fred had been using and bit down on it hard. She then cut her wrist long ways following a vein up her arm an inch.

            The blood came out hot and fast. Dawn opened Spike's mouth and latched it on to her arm. She manually moved his Adam's apple to get him to swallow the blood. Spike's teeth elongated again and he grazed her flesh. Dawn smiled removing the towel a little and whispered in his ear, "There you go Spike. Drink up."

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"Buffy is going to freak when she sees how despondent Dawn is," Cordelia said passing the floor. "I for one hate it when Buffy gets pissed so Lorn you and Angel are handling the slayer!"

            "We really should get him to a doctor's office so I can at least take a head ex-ray," Fred offered.

            "Dawn needs a few minutes to herself," Wesley offered.

            "A few minutes will be too much," Angel growled. "A smell blood!" In one quick kick the door gave way and they took in the scene. Gunn lay unconscious on the floor in a heap. Spike was sucking at Dawn's arm. And Dawn was barely conscious herself. "Damn it."

Angel pried Dawn's arm away from Spike's mouth having her blood spill over him. He took the towel from her mouth pressing it to her arm to stop the bleeding. "Fred! Come do this before I vamp out!" She nodded as he ran to the kitchen tugging Cordelia with him. "Heat as much blood as you can… We need to keep Spike drinking if possible."

Wesley and Fred were tending to Dawn as Lorn roused Gunn. "What happened?" he muttered looking around.

"Dawn decided to give slayer blood to Daddy," Lorn said smoothly.

"What happened to me?" Gunn asked.

"I'm assuming she punched you…and I believe that is your pocketknife," Lorn pointed at the knife covered in blood on the floor.

"Oh god…I'm so stupid," the young man growled at himself.

            "Hey… She trusted you enough to keep you here with her and to lean on you. Don't take the punch personally."

            "How do I get him to drink the blood?" Cordelia asked looking tupified as Fred finished a quick stitch job on Dawn's arm.

            "We'll transfuse him," Fred said grabbing at beakers and tubes from her things.

            "Can we do that?" Cordy asked.

            "We're about to find out," the small woman responded, preparing Spike for the blood.

Angel stayed out of the room doing his best to not get to close. He had tasted that slayer blood before. It was intoxicating. He wanted to feed with everything that he was. "I've got to do something," he groaned.

            "Call Buffy," Lorn offered.

            "I can't… She was supposed to be safe with me."

            "I'll do it," Gunn offered. "It's my fault… I should have seen it coming."

            "No Gunn… She's a Summers woman. You don't see a lot of what they have coming," Angel answered. "But if you want to call her that's fine."

"Wes how's Dawn?" Gunn asked before doing anything else.

"She's groggy and out of it. She'll need to sleep for a long while…but the blood loss isn't fatal."

"Thanks."

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            The cell phone began to ring in the car. The caller id showed it was Angel's office. "Hey Dawnie… You made it there safe."

            "Uhh… Sorry this is Gunn… Charles… Whatever," he stumbled.

            "Where's Dawn?"

            "Resting."

            Buffy felt her skin crawl. "Why?"

            "She'll be fine… Wesley says it's nothing fatal…that's not the way I meant it. She's fine. Just needs to rest," Gunn said finally.

Her stomach dropped, "How much blood has she lost?"

            "What?"

            "She was bleeding herself for him before you arrived…I'm guessing she continued and that is why you won't tell me what happened," Buffy stated gruffly. "Put Angel on the phone."

            "Please talk to me… This is my fault. I'm the one that fell for it… She was so upset and she was crying so much I didn't realize she had gotten my pocketknife… This isn't Angel's fault. It's mine," the young man groaned.

            Buffy breathed deeply, "Charles… She's cut herself before, when she felt like she wasn't real… She would die to protect Spike like he would die to protect her…that's all that happened tonight. She got scared and she went for what she knew. This isn't your fault."

            "But she said…she said 'how do humans do it? How do you not just kill yourself from the sorrow?' I should have known," Gunn said so confused.

            "No…I shouldn't have encouraged her to give him blood… We'll be there as soon as we possibly can be. Stop beating yourself up," she soothed.

            "Okay…"

            "Did she punch you?"

            "What?"

            "When Angel was sick and he needed the blood of a slayer I punched him with a metal pot on my hand to get his attention… I was just curious to know what she did to get passed you," Buffy commented.

            "She… She kissed me…then she punched me."

            "I'm sorry… If it makes you feel any better she's only ever kissed one other guy so…it is still special in a weird way."

            Gunn laughed a little, "She's like you…your humor is the same."

            "Yeah well," Buffy sighed. "So is our tendency toward the dramatic."

TBC…