A/N: Yay! I have a review! Thank you angeleyes! Now, without further ado, I present to you chapter three!

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Both Buffy and Dawn froze dead in their tracks. Dawn's furious expression immediately gave way to that of terror, while Buffy rushed over to them.

"What- how- Oz!" Buffy stammered. "What happened?"

"No time to explain," Oz replied, walking as quickly as he could without hurting Willow. "She needs help. Now. We have to get her to the hospital.

Buffy turned to face the direction Oz was walking and noticed his van parked in the street. It occurred to her to ask herself how she had managed to not notice that, but there were more important issues at hand. She ran past Oz and slid open the back door for him.

"Dawn, you sit in the back with Willow," Oz shouted over his shoulder in Dawn's general direction as he carefully laid Willow down on his backseat. He ran around to the other side of his van, wrenched open the door, threw himself into the driver's seat, and started the engine. Buffy looked around urgently.

"Dawn!" she screamed, looking around for her sister, she turned around and saw that Dawn had sunken to the ground with her face in her hands. "Come on, Dawn! We don't have time! Get in the van!"

Dawn looked up at her with seething hatred, tears of anguish running down her face. She jumped to her feet and stomped over to the van, getting in next to Willow. Buffy slid the door closed behind her, lunged into the passenger's seat, and slammed the door. With that, Oz stomped on the gas, leaving dust in the air and tracks on the street.

Oz felt absolutely terrible. He knew it was his fault. He had gotten too wrapped up in saving Willow and staying by her side that he had waited too long to get her to someone who could really help. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if she died. No, he thought, commanding himself not to think about that. He set his jaw and pushed the old van even harder.

In the next seat, Buffy had finally gotten over the initial shock of the whole situation and had entered the confusion phase. Now feeling a desperate need for answers, she turned to Oz and was about to demand an explanation but stopped when she noticed the look in his eyes. It was one of guilt. She could tell he was blaming himself for whatever had happened to Willow. She knew Oz would never doing anything to hurt Willow, and she didn't want to make him feel any worse than he already did by making him relive it, so she kept her mouth shut. They spent the rest of the ride in agonizing silence.

Finally, the reached the hospital, a place Buffy was all-to-familiar with. Buffy, Oz, and Dawn got out of the van and Oz carried Willow into the hospital. He brought her to the front desk.

"We need a doctor right now," Oz informed the receptionist.

"And who is the patient?" she asked, looking over her glasses at him.

Oz gave her an incredulous look. "That would be the unconscious girl I'm holding."

"Sir, I would appreciate it if you would not take that tone with me. Now, I'll need to know what her ailment is, and then you'll have to fill out some paperwork."

Oz looked furious, but he tried to speak calmly to her, "Look. She's dehydrated, starving, delusional, and suffering major head trauma and maybe broken bones. Is that good enough?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to complete these forms first," the receptionist responded patiently, placing a clipboard and a pen on the counter in front of her.

"She needs a doctor NOW!" Oz yelled, in one of his rare moments of losing his temper. Buffy looked at him and noticed his eyes rapidly changing color and that his hands were getting hairier by the second.

"Oz, let me handle this," Buffy said to him quietly. "The last thing we need right now is for you to go all Kujo on us." Oz exhaled slowly and nodded, his eyes returning to their normal color. Buffy stepped in front of him.

"Ah, Miss Summers! Back again, I see," the receptionist said, smiling at her.

"Yeah. Hey, listen, my friend here really needs some help. Do you think you could get us a room now and we could do the paperwork later?" Buffy asked her sweetly.

"Why sure," she answered, pressing a button on the phone to page a doctor.

Oz arched an eyebrow at Buffy, who simply give him a small grin and said in a lower tone, "Just another perk of being the Slayer." Just then, a team came running up with a bed. Oz let Willow down gently and followed as they rolled her away. Buffy took the paperwork from the receptionist and gestured for Dawn to sit down in one of the waiting room chairs. Dawn sat, red-eyed and cross-armed. Buffy sat down next to her and began filling out the forms.

"I hate this place," Dawn complained. "It reminds me of death."

Buffy didn't answer. She didn't feel up to trying to communicate with Dawn at this point. She busied herself with trying to remember Willow's blood type.

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Oz followed faithfully into the hospital room. He hated seeing Willow like this. They removed the bandage from her forehead, which was full of blood even though it had only been on for about an hour. A doctor remarked that she would need stitches. He winced for her as they put the IV into her arm. They felt around her abdomen, one of the doctors noting out loud swelling on her right side.

"What happened to her?" one of the doctors asked Oz.

"She fell down the stairs. I found her unconscious when I came in. I don't think she's eaten anything in a while. I revived her and gave her something to drink, but she passed out again." Oz answered as calmly as he could.

"Did she speak to you?"

Oz felt an unexplained lump in his throat when he said that she was delirious.

The doctors continued examining her, Oz keeping a close watch on all of them. Suddenly one of the doctors stepped in front of him and told him that he would have to leave.

"I'm not leaving her," Oz said flatly, side-stepping him.

"Sir-"

"I said, I'm not leaving her."

"If you don't leave now, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call security."

Oz glared at him and left. He reached the waiting room, where he found Buffy and Dawn sitting in silence.

"Well, I guess I owe you guys an explanation," he said, taking a seat next to Buffy.

"Please," Buffy responded.

"Well… I was in Nepal for a month, doing some studying, when Giles showed up. He told me about everything that had happened with Willow. I knew that I had to help her, so I came as soon as I could. When I got to your house, I found her knocked out on the bottom of the stairs. I was able to revive her, but the blows to the head had really gotten to her. She didn't know what she was doing or saying. I cleaned her up a bit and gave her something to drink, but she obviously hadn't eaten in a long time. I tried to feed her, but she threw it back up. Her body just wasn't strong enough to hold up under her injuries, so she passed out again. That's when I knew I had to take her here."

Buffy looked shocked. "How could I have been so… so clueless? How could I have not noticed that she wasn't eating? What's wrong with me?"

Dawn gave her another one of her poisonous looks. "Easy. You never even notice that I exist."

Buffy closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. "Now is not the time, Dawn."

"You never have time for me, do you?" Dawn demanded.

"Please Dawn… don't do this," Buffy pleaded.

"I'll do what I want! You're not mom! My life went down the crapper since I was 14, and you want to know why? It's because of you! Everything, all these pains, they're all from you. You found out about me being the Key. You let mom die. You died. You let Willow get addicted to magic. You let Tara die. And now, you're going to let Willow die!"

Buffy doubled over in tears, Dawn's words killing her slowly with every syllable. Oz's expression was stony. He put his hand on Buffy's back and looked Dawn straight in the face.

"Willow is not going to die," he stated.

Dawn stood up and walked off towards the bathrooms. Buffy gasped for breath.

"It's been like this ever since Mom died. She's convinced it's my fault. I'm starting to believe her," Buffy sobbed.

Oz took her by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Buffy. I don't know what happened with your mom, but I know that you would never hurt the people you love like that. Don't listen to her. Her issues are her issues."

Buffy sniffled. "You're right…. But I guess I'd better go talk to her." She got up and went the direction that Dawn had just fled in. Oz got up, walked over to the pay phone, and dialed Giles's number, thinking to himself that I agreed with Dawn on one thing: he hated this place too.

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