REPRECUSSIONS
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Kelli.
CHAPTER 17-A LITTLE HELP HERE…
Gunn cursed his lack of foresight having not skimmed over the plans of the hospital before he had rushed out of his office and made the decision to direct the Wolfram and Hart convoy to Sunnydale. At his side Fred was doing her best to keep up with Gunn's longer stride but quickly found herself falling behind and tearing through the hallways with a nervous Willow and a scared Dawn at her side. Gunn kept the safety off on his gun as more than once he could have sworn along the way that he had caught sight of something lurking in the shadows of the hospital that was anything but human. A couple of moments later Fred was just about to shout up to Gunn to ask for a quick breather when she very nearly bowled him over upon entering a hallway adjacent to one of the waiting rooms, one that seemed oddly familiar to Dawn.
"Charles…what," Fred started to ask with a confused and somewhat startled look on her face before Gunn held up a hand at his side, signaling Fred, Willow, and Dawn to stay quiet for a few seconds longer. Through the now dingy and grime covered windows of the waiting room the quartet could make out what looked like a fierce battle going on inside of the waiting room.
"What's going on," Dawn asked with a scared expression on her face as she inched a bit closer to the doors before Gunn reached out and pulled her back to his side.
"Looks like someone started World War Three and forgot to call us…," Gunn mumbled with a hesitant and confrontational scowl on his face before he half turned back to make sure that Dawn and the others were staying put before he reached for his radio. "Whedon come in…what's happening in the third floor waiting room," Gunn harshly whispered into his shoulder mounted radio receiver. After waiting several seconds and not receiving any sort of reply Gunn angrily shook his head.
"It's not your fault Charles," Fred said quickly with a sympathetic tone to her voice as she walked forward and laid a hand gently on Gunn's shoulder.
"It doesn't matter Fred, either way those men are still dead," Gunn coldly replied back with a rather pessimistic scowl on his face as he only half turned his head back towards Fred before he clicked the radio off.
"So what are we standing around here for, we have to find Buffy," Dawn interjected with a frustrated and scared look on her face as she edged closer to Willow.
"We will Dawn I swear, but we have to figure out what's going on here first," Willow answered with a reassuring smile sent Dawn's way before she flipped through the rolodex of spells in her mind in an attempt to find one that would help them in their current predicament.
"That's easy for you to say but what are…," Fred started to add with a worried look on her face before there was a giant explosion that ripped through the waiting room.
The ubervamp had almost been upon them when the explosions blasted the foul creature up off of its feet and crashing into the wall mere centimeters above Andrews head. The former nerd shrieked in terror as he let the slayer blood stained towel drop out of his shaking hand. Robin had just begun to try to stand back up when the blast had easily knocked him back off of his feet and tumbling to the floor. Buffy was far too busy fading in and out of consciousness to be fully aware of the event occurring around her. All that she could make out was a shrill screeching sound and then the eerie silence, only interrupted by the fragility of her own shallow labored breaths in and out. The fingers of her right hand had already begun to grow numb, only furthering her fear that these current moments would be her last. Through her blurry gaze she could no longer make out the outline of the gurney sitting directly in front of her.
"Eek…Buffy," Andrew shrieked with a five alarm fire look of panic on his face as he did his best to scramble away from the temporarily unconscious ubervamp and get to Buffy's side.
"A…Andrew…," Buffy mumbled out through lips that now seemed to refuse to fully adhere to her commands.
"We're in trouble here…Buffy," Andrew stated quickly as he desperately tried to keep from falling into a full blown fit of blubbering.
"N…no, shit…," Buffy managed to force out before she coughed violently, not noticing or caring that more blood than words was now spilling from between her lips.
"Oh God this is bad…Robin," Andrew exclaimed with a terrified beyond belief look on his face before he turned to the son of a slayer and hoped that he had finally recovered enough.
"What happened," Robin choked out through the dust before he waved his hand through the slowly settling cloud of dust in front of his face.
"What…you didn't, the ubervamp, the explosion…what were you thinking, she's dying and…," Andrew blurted out quickly, suddenly getting very red in the face, as he only half turned away from Buffy and clenched his hands up into fists.
"How bad is it," Robin asked with a concerned scowl on his face as he was finally able to gently push the gurney away from himself just enough to get back up to his feet.
"Didn't you hear me…she's dying, we have to get her to a hospital or something," Andrew screamed out with an anger that he didn't know that he had as he was half tempted to take a swing at the man standing directly in front of him.
"We're in a hospital Andrew…but I swear I didn't…I never meant to…," Robin replied coldly with a half sarcastic smirk on his face before he nearly choked on his words at the realization of what was truly transpiring around them.
"Buffy," A frantic voice screamed from down the hall before Robin and Andrew tore their gaze away from Buffy long enough to see three figures running down the hall towards them, bright lights attached to the end of their guns, which blurred out their faces. Robin was first to act as he started to stand up and put his hands in front of him. "Get away from her," The voice growled angrily before the two others that had rushed down the hallway behind the speaker stepped forward and rudely shoved Robin back away from Buffy while the speaker knelt down and laid his gun on the floor beside Buffy.
"I…I didn't mean to…it was an accident, Spike…," Robin stuttered with a nervous scowl on his face as he tried to find out as much as he could about who it was that was pointing their guns his way while trying not to anger them.
"Spike…," The kneeling man asked with a confused and somewhat startled look on his face as he tore his gaze away from Buffy only momentarily.
"He…he's over there, on the gurney…he's hurt pretty bad," Andrew blurted out through fearfully chattering teeth as he pointed a shaking finger towards the gurney a scant foot away.
"What the hell…Perkins," The man said with a very firm tone to his voice as he slightly nodded his head towards the gurney.
"It's him sir, hostile seventeen, from the looks of things he's seen better days…," Perkins stated with a slightly sickened blanch on his face as he turned back to the kneeling man and nodded his head.
"Ri…ley…," Buffy said, more letting the words tumble out of her almost motionless lips than anything else, as she could only manage to open one eye and half turn in up towards her former lover.
"Buffy…you sick son of a bitch…," Riley started to say as he looked down at Buffy, fighting back the tears in his eyes, before a rage overtook him and he reach out and grabbed the front of Robin's shirt before slamming him into the wall beside the elevator.
"Sir…," Perkins exclaimed with a shocked look on his face as he quickly snapped his gun over to where the ubervamp that had intended to kill them all was just starting to come around.
"What…," Riley spat out with an angry sneer on his face before he rather forcefully shoved Robin to the ground and hurried back to his gun, just in time to see the ubervamp shake its head and spin around to face them. With an evil glint in its eyes the ubervamp sprang from its place on the floor and locked its jaws tightly around the only remaining undisclosed mans throat.
"Shausy…," Perkins cried with a look of both terror and disgust as he fumbled with his gun.
"He…," Was all that Shausy could get out through the gaping wound in his throat before the ubervamp snapped his neck and drank deep. The sight of the ubervamp drinking deeply from his friend finally snapped Perkins out of his state of fumbling and the soldier caught his gun up and squeezed the trigger. The ubervamp growled in both pain and anger as first the bullets from Perkins gun and then from Riley's shredded through the flesh on its back. Riley and Perkins continued to fire until the ubervamp spun off of Shausy and crumpled to the floor, giving one final jerking spasm before it died. During the firefight a terrified Andrew had scrambled away from Buffy's side and dove underneath the gurney, still feeling in the back of his mind that the terribly wounded Spike could still protect him somehow.
"Angel," Faith screamed, most likely for the first time in her entire life, not out of fear or panic for herself but for the welfare of someone that she had begun to care about a great deal.
"Faith not…," Angel started to growl with an unhappy expression on his face before his gaze fell onto the wretched look of fear and panic on Faith's face as tears streamed down her cheeks and her lower lip quivered a bit. Angel had only known Faith to truly cry, as she was now, only once before, and that moment in time was burned into his memory forever. That night he had cradled the dark slayer in his arms as if she had been a mere babe, allowing her to cry her eyes out if need be. He had, of course, known that Wesley had been standing not to far behind them, mostly because of the smell of his still outgoing blood, but an unneeded breath had caught in his throat for a few seconds when he had heard the sound of a knife clattering to the street. At that moment he had silently wondered if he would have had the fortitude to actually stop Wesley from doing what he had originally intended to do with the knife, enact some form of revenge. But in the coming years he had come to know that as furious as Wesley had been at Faith that night he would never have been able to vent his anger on Faith with the knife, even if she had knelt down in front of him and begged him to slice her throat open from ear to ear.
"Hey what happened to the rhino…," Lorne moaned with a pained expression on his face before Angel gently leaned him up against the wall of the hospital and sprinted over to kneel down beside Faith and Wesley as the bullets continued to fly back and forth between the soldiers of the Initiative and those loyal to Wolfram and Hart.
"He's not breathing…," Faith gasped out nearly in a whisper as Angel noticed that she had gone far whiter in the face that any vampire that he had ever seen, making her look almost as if someone had turned her into a mime on the spot and forgotten the colors of the other marks.
"Lilah," Angel shouted at the top of his dead lungs twice before Lilah slipped out through the back door of the hospital, at first appearing to care less what Angel was going off about before her gaze fell onto Wesley's limp body on the ground. Had she not been dead already Angel guessed that Lilah would have died on the spot from the look on her face when she saw Wesley's body and all of the blood. Lilah stood rigid in place for what seemed like eons before she ran to his side, sending a venomous glare Faith's way before Angel reached out and latched onto Lilah's shoulder, with a hand that was wet with Wesley's blood, and cut her off. "It's not her fault Lilah, the Initiative got them both…," Angel interjected with a very stern scowl on his face before a quick glance to the side caught a sad sight. Faith looked about ready to pass out and lose her lunch all at the same time from the sweaty and vapid expression on her face and in her eyes. But before Angel could say another word Faith's eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped forward, her body falling straightaway on top of Wesley's.
"Medic," Lilah screamed loud enough that Angel thought that she'd go hoarse from the effort as she tore her gaze away from the sight in front of her and back towards a group of robed men hurrying towards them.
"Dawn," Willow cried with a great amount of worry in her voice as she coughed a bit to clear her lungs of the sticky dust that had billowed up seemingly unrelentingly after the explosion.
"Unnhh…," Dawn moaned out softly with a sickly frown on her face though she did not wake up.
"Charles," Fred called out frantically as she bolted upright to a seated position and turned to her side to see Gunn trying to wipe the dirt from about his eyes.
"I'm…okay," Gunn spat out through spitting as he tasted blood in the spit before he was momentarily silenced as Fred threw her arms around him and gave him a quick and strong bear hug.
"Dawn," Willow nearly shrieked with a panic-stricken look of fear on her face as she crawled over to the former key and spotted the thin trail of blood oozing from beneath Dawn's hairline.
"What's wrong," Gunn asked loudly as he tore himself away from Fred and got up to a kneeling position, scrounging around in the debris for his gun.
"She's hurt, Buffy's going to kill me when she finds out," Willow answered quickly with the first part of her response but fell to babbling out the rest, even though both Fred and Gunn could make out what she said and glanced at each other with concern clearly evident in their gazes.
"We can't do anything for her right now…Fred you and Willow get her to the medics while I…," Gunn started to add with a heavy heart before Fred turned on a dime and set a menacing glare at him, the one that she always swung his way when she would refuse to follow along with one of his plans or thought it to be far to risky on his part.
"Oh no you don't Charles…if you think for one second that I'm going to help Willow get Dawn to safety while you go running into…God knows what in there then…well then that explosion must have knocked something loose," Fred stated with a very clear edge to her voice as she clenched her hands into fists and took a step towards Gunn.
"Just do it Fred…please, we can't bring Dawn with us, she needs a doctor and…," Gunn started to plead with a nervous smile on his face before Willow made up both of their minds for them and grabbed a hold of Fred's arm and gave it a tug.
"Come on Fred, we have to go," Willow called out with a very forceful and in no mood to debate scowl on her face before Fred reluctantly agreed and helped Willow pick Dawn up off of the floor just enough so that neither would be strained in her transport.
"Hurry," Gunn exclaimed with a very worried look on his face as he bowed slightly to Fred and Willow before he turned on his heel and rushed forward into the unknown that had once been the waiting room.
"Do you have any idea where you're going," Kelli huffed out, red in the face from the exertion, as she tried to keep up with Molly even though her restraints were making it hard for her to do anything more than an odd hurried waddle.
"Sure I do…do you really think that I'd be stupid enough to going running off through the hallways of this hospital without a bloody clue where I was going do you," Molly nearly growled back her reply even though she knew that every single word of it was a blatant lie as she in truth had absolutely no clue where she was going but was far to proud and scared to admit it.
"Okay then Ms know it all, where to…," Kelli asked with an almost mocking sneer on her face as she tried to keep from laughing at Molly's dismal response.
"The parking garage, that's where Buffy and Spike and the others were before we split up, maybe they're all back there…," Molly started to guess with a heart full of both hope and worry before both she and Kelli were thrown off of their feet and into the nearest wall by a powerful explosion that shook the building around them. "Bloody," Molly grunted out through gritted teeth as she shook her head back and forth to try to get her ears to stop ringing.
"Ow…what the hell was that," Kelli moaned for a bit at first before she posed the question that both of the potentials was asking themselves.
"You're asking me…everything's gone all wrong for me since I crossed the pond and came here…back home everything was fine, sure the mind numbing nightmares weren't fun but…," Molly blurted out with an impatient scowl on her face before she noticed that Kelli was giving her a very confused and worried expression. "Alright already I give…I haven't a clue where I'm going…at least we got away from those guards…," Molly finally admitted with an embarrassed frown on her face before she and Kelli helped each other to their feet.
"True…but now were just about as likely to run into one of those super vamps that attacked Kennedy and the others before Buffy showed up," Kelli offered with a slightly scared smile on her face as it was evident that she was trying to sound and appear braver than she actually felt.
"With our luck…," Molly began with a timid look of fear on her face as she looked across the hallway at Kelli before the two nodded in silent agreement and sped off as best they could down the long hallway, endlessly sneaking a quick peek down each new hallway that they came to before proceeding.
"Riley," Sam shrieked with a worried and panicked look of exasperation on her face before she steadied herself and turned back to Xander and the others, although Kennedy could see the fear in her eyes.
"I'm sure that he's okay Sam, he's probably rushing to investigate the explosion as we speak…right now," Xander stated with an optimistic smile on his face as he hoped that his words of encouragement would help lighten Sam's mood, but she only stared back oddly at him as he wiped a bead of sweat away from slipping underneath the eye patch.
"Oh right…for all we know Xander he was there when the explosion…hey," Anya started to add with an unconvinced scowl on her face before Kennedy slugged her in the arm and then walked off past Sam down the darkened hallway.
END OF CHAPTER 17