Two days later Buffy was still confined to bed. It about drove her nuts not being able to move. She could breath now, which was a relief, but her ribs were still mending and she had to stay still for a couple more days. Faith had gone back out after spending the night to continue following their leads. As far as she knew Spike was still out of it and Diana had gone into withdrawal from the drugs the hospital had kept her on. During the fight Buffy had accidentally hit the wrong brunet and they had both kicked her at the same time breaking her ribs and sending her into a wall. Bed rest Buffy slowly started to go insane from Dawn's constant attention. So after a whole hour of incessant worry and questions, Buffy finally kicked Dawn out. Settling back into the pillows she resigned herself to spending at least thirty-six more hours in bed and grabbed the remote in hopes that she could stave off boredom for a couple hours.
Downstairs Giles rubbed his eyes grabbed his fresh cup of coffee and headed back to the basement. Normally he drank tea but three days without sleep called for something a little stronger. The drugs in Spike's system had worn off and they would be able to find out where he had been soon. As far as Daine was concerned he wasn't sure of the prognosis. She had gone into withdrawal from the drugs she had been on for half of her life and it looked like another day before they were completely out of her system. She had fallen into a fitful sleep a couple hours ago and he hope that she would be more clearheaded in the morning. He hoped but doubted. He settled himself into a chair and picked up one of the watcher's diaries and continued reading. They may be pompous and long-winded but knowing the past slayer's lives might help him relate to Daina. He looked at her in the cage for a second Daine moved every few seconds as she dreamed. He looked down and started reading again about Tomi, a slayer from the fifties.
The next morning Dawn started to worry. Buffy was usually ready to ream some one by now but she just sat there watching a children's show with puppets. She looked worse than she had when Faith had dragged her into the lobby of the Hyperion. Giles was on his fifth day at least with no sleep and Dawn was concerned that he would drop from exhaustion. All the worrying was starting to drive her nuts so Dawn went to check on Buffy and see if she was out of her puppet daze yet. Who knew, maybe they were all insane? Dawn went into Buffy's room and found her trying to get out of bed. She rushed over and threw Buffy back in bed and covered her with the blanket. "Where do you think your going? If I can throw you down your too weak to be out of bed." Dawn held Buffy down while she struggled then felt her forehead after she gave up. "Your fever is gone. Now if I can get Giles better we'll be doing good." Buffy was still a little muddled and tried to get out of bed again. "I have to slay the vampire puppet." Dawn wasn't taking chances now, she grabbed a rope and tied her sister to the bed. "You're still delusional Buffy and your not getting out of bed until I say otherwise."
Dawn checked on Spike then went back downstairs to talk to Willow. Only Willow was on the phone. And the snatches of conversation that Dawn caught didn't sound good. "What do you mean? You're saying that we have to take them. No you listen to me. I am up to my ears in slayers. One is missing, another is stuck in bed, and a third is insane. The only help I have here at the moment is a retired watcher who hasn't slept in a week, two watchers in training, a one eyed carpenter, and a high school principle. So you tell me what I have to do. Tell me I have to stand trial before the last remnants of the Watcher's council for helping save the world. I will definitely take the slayers who need training but I will not justify myself to you for activating the potential slayers. When does their flight get in? Do any of them speak English? Ok, that's good. How many watchers are left? Don't mess around with me. I want to know how many are active and how many I will have to call and talk into coming to LA to help me train slayers. That's not very many. Ok what about watchers that haven't been completely trained yet any of those? Still too few. We're talking about a slayer's school here, there will be slayers from around the world staying here to be trained to fight vampires and demons. Yes I'm aware that it's a lot to ask. No that's not it at all. I suggested it and I can handle it I'm just saying I could use a little help. Just a ballpark total how many active slayers out there? Ok we need to work something out so that all slayers get the proper training. And I've got several ideas as to what I'm going to do with them after they're trained. Just give me two weeks and call back I can tell you how it's going by then. Thanks, oh and don't forget to send watcher trainees when you find them. If I'm training slayers I may as well train watchers too. Yeah talk to you later." Willow hung up the phone and rubbed her head. Pierce Coffler just made her so mad sometimes. It was nuts. Only a hand full of watchers and twenty thousand slayers. That's how many they had identified so far. And that number grew hourly. She would have to start looking for potential watchers herself. They needed as many as possible. The watcher's council had been relatively small but they had only to deal with one slayer at a time. Willow looked up and saw Dawn watching her. "So Dawnie you're the top of the class so far. I've got twenty new slayers and one trainee watcher coming in on a plane tomorrow. Giles really needs some sleep but I can't convince him to go to bed. How's Buffy doing?" Dawn sighed and stopped leaning on the doorframe. She walked into the office and sat down in a chair facing Willow. Both of the girls were visibly exhausted but neither was willing to admit it yet. "Her fever is gone but she still a little nuts in my opinion. It might be the TV in her room. She was trying to get out of be so she could slay the vampire puppet." They sat in silence for a few minutes just happy for a break. But Dawn was never one to hold still for long. "I'm going down to the gym. I still haven't got that one sequence down right and I want to be able to move on tomorrow not practice the same thing for hours on end when I'm actually getting instruction from Giles." Dawn went to her room and changed into a tank top and sweat pants, tennis shoes replaced her heels and her hair went up into a ponytail.
It was amazing what Xander, Robin, And Andrew had accomplished in the time they had been here. The Hyperion was almost in working order. Most of the rooms had been repaired and they had transformed the ballroom and kitchens downstairs. Now there was a mess hall that also functioned as a classroom, and a training room. The gym was huge. One corner held gymnastics equipment, another strength training, one was just open space but it had mirrors in the walls. Dawn went to this corner and stretched before beginning her warm up. Dawn went through every sequence that Giles had taught her before moving on to the latest sequence. It was a triple kick round off that always landed her on her ass. It should have been easy by now. Two hours later she was still at it. Sometimes she thought it wasn't fair that Buffy was able to do this stuff so easily. But then she would have to remind herself that Buffy had been a gymnast and a cheerleader. Dawn had never done any physical training and that made it a little difficult to keep up with the regiment Giles had her on. She tried really hard and she had improved rapidly. She was proud of her now slightly muscular frame. But despite hours upon hours of practice some things just didn't come easily. Dawn smiled when she heard Andrew coming down the stairs. "Finally, I've been down here for hours. You warm up and then we can spar." Andrew stretched and went through his own set of sequences. He had been training with her from the beginning but because he was helping Xander all the time he was slightly behind her when it came to their physical training. "Try shifting your weight to the left after the second kick." Dawn got up off the floor and tried what Andrew had suggested. It worked! She landed on her feet and jumped for joy. She went through the sequence two more times then ran up to Andrew and nearly knocked him off his feet when she kissed him. "That was so great thank you. I could kiss you again." "Don't your sister might get mad at me. Besides I wouldn't want to kiss you back and ruin our great working relationship." Andrew continued his exercises and pretty soon they were both ready to start sparing.
Dawn and Andrew made their way over to the large red circle painted in the middle of the room. This was their sparing circle. Giles wanted them to get used to close quarters during combat incase they ever had to fight in limited space and it kept them from tearing apart the rest of the gym during a fight. Dawn jumped right in and threw a series of attacks at Andrew hoping to catch him off guard and gain an early advantage. It didn't work though Andrew just blocked everything and turned it back at her. They had spared so often that they knew what the other would do and no one gained an advantage until the end when one of them got tired. It depended on what they had done during the day and how long they had been working out usually. Even though Andrew had been carrying wood up five flights of stairs because the elevator broke down Dawn was the one that got tired first. The stress of taking care of several people who were or should have been bed ridden was taking more out of her then she realized. Andrew saw her tiring and ended it quick by kicking her legs out from under her and pinning her to the floor. "It's over so don't try to throw me off. You're tired I want you to cool down, shower and go to bed. I'll watch Buffy and Spike for a while." Dawn sighed but decided she did need a little rest. She and Andrew cooled down then headed to their rooms for showers. By the time Dawn was ready for bed Willow had finally convinced Giles to put a cot in the basement and sleep there if he wasn't going to go to his room to sleep. That night everyone slept peacefully with the exception of Faith who was still out chasing leads about Angle.