Equinoxium: Chapter 26
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
For an endless moment, Aragorn's threat hung before them all as Buffy's solemn gaze met that of the King. His eyes, once filled with warmth and kindness, were now empty and devoid of all friendship; flat gray slates that reflected the moonlight and the flickering flames of the torches that were bracketed upon the sealed gate behind her. Gone was the quiet healer who had helped see to her injuries. In his place stood the King that governed the race of Men and who held her life in his hands.
"You bluff," Vashnak stated, his clear voice cutting through the thick, heavy silence as he tightened his hold around Finduilas' slender frame. "The elves have already proven that they value her life when they did not kill her at Tol Brandir. You will not kill her now," he reasoned with far more surety than Buffy was feeling at the moment, particularly since the only elf that she could see was Thoron - the one elf who hadn't even tried to hide his dislike for her from the very beginning.
"Her life was spared then," Aragorn acknowledged with a slow nod, drawing Buffy's attention away from the tip of Thoron's arrow. "But it was spared by the Elf that she betrayed earlier today," he continued, his tightly controlled voice finally slipping to allow a hint of grief to color his rough words. "The one that you killed."
Gasping raggedly, Buffy felt the world tilt as she stumbled back, as if seeking to distance herself from Aragorn's words. "No," she whispered, one hand pressing against a heart that she could literally feel breaking. Recoiling, she turned wide eyes to the king, shaking her head as she struggled to grasp what he had just said.
Legolas couldn't be dead. He was supposed to sail to the Undying Lands to be reunited with his father and brothers. He was immortal! It didn't matter that she had seen the gaping wounds with her own eyes and felt the warmth of his blood as it coated her skin. It didn't matter that she had heard his screams. It didn't even matter that she knew death was inevitable when one had sustained such mortal wounds, for some part of her had refused to believe that Death's lurking shadow could possibly take hold within the strong elf.
But in Aragorn's hard eyes she could find no comfort - no relief from these damning words. He was Legolas' dearest friend, and she knew that he would have never left the elf's side unless there was no more life left in the archer's body. Aragorn's eyes were cold and empty, and with a pained sob, Buffy understood the brutal truth: the fair-haired elf was dead. He had taken her from the hell of Tol-Brandir, had spared her life and given her hope. He had been her truest friend in this strange world, and now his immortal life had been snuffed like a bright flame smothered between cruel fingertips.
"Her life has no worth to us," Aragorn continued, seemingly immune to the torment that filled Buffy's body with every beat of her stammering heart. His eyes were closed to her. They were flat and unyielding and cruel in their raking glare.
"And these are the creatures that you choose to align yourself with?" Vashnak murmured to her, his sibilant whisper sliding over her devastated form. "They want you dead."
"Rather dead than back in your hands," Aragorn returned, his voice laced with venom. "We will not allow her to leave these walls to fuel your army."
"Oh, so you wish to be her jailer, then," Vashnak laughed as he turned dark eyes to Buffy, the slayer listlessly meeting his narrowed gaze. "They wish to forever lock you in these walls, to imprison you in stone. I offer to make you our queen," he hissed as Buffy's hot tears caused his body to waver before the crystalline drops broke free to trail down her cheeks. "You will be cherished and honored. You will never want for anything ever again," he continued as she began to sway weakly, her strength abandoning her.
"I'd want for my humanity," Buffy whispered as she turned away, her hand now gripping her left shoulder as the pain in her chest began to blossom in a wave of agony. It grew in long, pinching tendrils that raked over her cold body, bringing throbbing pain that seemed more real than the world around her.
Scowling at Buffy's response, Vashnak readjusted his grip on Finduilas' trembling form as he turned back to Aragorn. "Either way, it seems we are at an impasse. Again. For if you kill what is mine, I kill the child and if I kill the child, you kill what is mine. It seems as though a trade is the only answer."
"No trade," Aragorn countered, his words temporarily grounding Buffy and renewing Faramir's frantic struggles. "We will never allow her to leave this place alive," the king vowed as the slayer turned incredulous eyes upon the stern-faced man.
While she understood all too well his refusal to allow her back into enemy hands, a fact that she was almost grateful for, to do so at the cost of Faramir's eldest daughter was something entirely different. Bargaining with her own life was one thing, but to do so with the life of an innocent? Frowning, Buffy blocked out her own grief and pain as she glared at Aragorn, Finduilas' terrified sobs and Faramir's frantic pleas the only disruption to the heavy silence that had fallen. The First had told her that in order to be a general, you had to be able to make the difficult decisions. But if these were the kind of decisions that it had been talking about, it was evident that Aragorn was far more suited to this role than she ever was. She was a Slayer and Slayers weren't meant to lead - not even armies of terrified girls.
Slayers were meant to stand alone.
Slayers were meant to die alone.
Then again, it was that alone part that had always given Buffy so much trouble in the past. If left alone for too long, she soon lost track of what she was fighting for. She lost her will to fight. She had lost that will when she had sentenced Angel's soul to an eternity in hell and thought that everyone had turned from her. She had lost that will again after her mother had died and when the world became too much. She had even lost that will when the agony of being ripped from heaven and forced to live in a world that was so harsh, vibrant, and loud that it may as well have been hell. Here in Middle-earth she had encountered her weakness once more when a prisoner of Tol Brandir, only to recover a semblance of that earlier peace thanks to the friendship that Legolas had offered.
And now Legolas was dead.
What would become of her now?
Suddenly a loud clamoring of many voices broke through Buffy's muddled thoughts, their startled shouts and exclamations riding on the frigid night.
"Soldier, report!" Aragorn demanded as sharp gray eyes landed upon one of the guards that stood atop the looming second wall.
"My Lord, it is Osgiliath!" the man reported, listening to the cries of his fellows that were posted upon the stone rampart of the massive wall of the circle below - the final circle and the outer wall of Minas Tirith. Yet with each echoing shout, the man's face became more and more pale as he quickly turned, his eyes large in his young face. "Sire, the city burns!" he shouted, his voice betraying the panic that was spreading to all who could see the faint flickers of firelight from the city that straddled the river Anduin, and stood between Minas Tirith and the walls of Mordor.
"Osgiliath?" Aragorn muttered, his brow creased as Buffy slowly turned to the only one amongst them to receive this news with a knowing smile.
"Did you really think that I came alone?" Vashnak asked, his silky voice cutting through the faint echo of screams that were carried into the second circle by the brisk wind.
"Sire, the people flee Osgiliath!" the soldier continued, his voice adding to those of the men that shifted anxiously beside their king.
Aragorn glared at the smug dark-elf. "Open the Main Gate and allow our people entrance!" he ordered, his gaze never once straying from the one who held Faramir's youngest daughter before him. "But allow no elves to pass through the outer gates!" he thundered as Buffy's gaze shifted between Vashnak and the furious king.
She didn't know this city that she had awoken in, and to her it seemed as though they had moved from the Houses of Healing into a maze of tall buildings and high stone walls that pressed against either side of the wide avenue. She had lost count of the number of heavily fortified gates they had passed through as Vashnak had forced his three captives to move ever lower through the twisting streets of Minas Tirith. They had passed by a large stable and exited the first gate only to turn immediately to their left, passing through a tunnel that was carved through stone to emerge through the other side at yet another heavily fortified gate. Once through this new barrier, they then turned back in the direction that they had just walked, only now a level lower to walk even farther than the first time to arrive at the next gate. They had continued like this, twisting back and forth and ever lower through the sleeping city. A city that was about to receive an influx of people from a nearby town that was busy getting razed by the creatures that her blood had created.
Eyes slipping shut as this thought slammed against her, Buffy felt the rest of the world dissolve, Aragorn and Vashnak's angry words becoming muted as she slowly began to understand the answer to her earlier question. As a slayer, the one person who was tasked to keep the darkness at bay, Buffy was no stranger to carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, nor to the responsibility that was forever laid at her feet. She had tried to escape it before, but long ago she had come to realize that no matter where she ran, this responsibility would always be hers to bear. By now, she was accustomed to living with the knowledge that by allowing one vampire or demon to escape her grasp, it could spell death for an innocent. Yet how could that knowledge even begin to compare with the understanding that because of her, new friends were dying and entire cities full of innocent strangers were having their peace shattered and their lives destroyed? On her world she thwarted evil plots and prevented apocalypse after apocalypse, but never had she been responsible for so much innocent death.
Never before had she failed so spectacularly.
Feeling that great weight shift in its incessant press upon her narrow shoulders, Buffy finally understood the decisions that Aragorn was forced to make. No, a slayer wasn't meant to lead armies into battle and to their deaths. Death was something that a slayer lived and breathed - something that was hers to give. Yet death was also something that a slayer coveted. It was personal and her only precious burden. Thus while a slayer wasn't meant to lead armies, she was meant to be her own army. She was meant to make the kind of decisions that would mean life or death for entire worlds. And right now she felt one of those decisions waver before her, for in the end, what was one life when she could spare so many others?
Features grim, Buffy lifted her eyes as the sounds of a panicked, frightened world once more clamored for her attention. By now the screams of the fleeing citizens of Osgiliath were unmistakable, their terrified voices vying with Faramir's hoarse shouts, Finduilas' teary cries for her father, and the angry words between Aragorn and Vashnak. But Buffy was silent as she looked upon the soldiers that stood beside their liege, their arms trembling with strain as the arrows remained trained upon her.
One life given.
Finding the one she sought, Buffy's green eyes locked with the immortal gaze that had seen hundreds and thousands of years of service to a king that had departed these shores for lands that would never see the death that she had brought to this world; that would never see the pain that her blood had inflicted upon one of their fair children. The pain that she had inflicted upon her only friend and the one that this elf had been charged to protect. The one that they both had failed.
Thousands of lives spared.
Meeting that immortal gaze, Buffy eased her trembling hand from her aching shoulder and gently patted it against her heart, tapping her chest in time with the stammering cadence which hammered painfully against her breast. For a moment, the tall, dark-haired elf tilted his head quizzically to the side before his eyes widened in understanding. Slowly, he nodded his acceptance, a small glimmer of something shining in his eyes as Buffy's hand fell back to her side.
A willing trade.
Buffy watched as Thoron's fingers released their tireless hold on the taut bowstring with a soft twang, his green-fletched arrow cutting through the air with a shrill whistle as it screamed towards her heart. Time seemed to slow as her eyes remained locked on that sharpened point that sang its promise of an end to all pain and uncertainty. A promise that spoke of reunions with those that she had lost to death, and a return to that beautiful place that she barely remembered. A promise that would finally bring her home.
She knew what was to become of her now. Closing her eyes, Buffy awaited her final end with a peace that had long been denied her.
A peace that was shattered as a body staggered against her, rocking her back a couple of steps as an unmistakable voice bellowed his curse aloud.
"Bloody hell!"
Eyes flying open, Buffy felt as though her heart had completely stopped beating as silence fell upon the stone street, every eye riveted upon the platinum-haired man with an arrow lodged in his shoulder. The arrow that he had unwittingly taken for her. "Spike?" Buffy whispered as his body turned, her eyes frantically tracing the pale, chiseled features, the familiar spiked hair, and the lean form that was clothed in black leather and form-fitting jeans.
"Bloody hell that hurts!" Spike growled as he tentatively touched the shaft that protruded from his right shoulder, his pale fingers coming away dripping with blood. "Damnit, Slayer, why do I always seem to be taking arrows for you?" he demanded, intense blue eyes meeting hers for the briefest of moments before his handsome face shifted, his brow extending, his cheek bones becoming more defined, and his eyes glowing yellow as his canines lengthened into twin fangs. Growling, he seized the end of the arrow and ripped it from his shoulder before throwing the bloody shaft to the stone street beside him.
And in that moment, pandemonium erupted.
"Demon! Demon!" the men shouted as they charged towards Spike, the vampire lifting the sword he carried and meeting their frenzied thrusts with practiced ease. Just as quickly Buffy felt strong hands grip her shoulders as she was bustled back and pushed against the stone wall, a large, bulky frame bending low as a familiar tanned face that was framed with shaggy black hair was pushed before her.
"Buffy, are you alright?" he demanded, warm, beautiful brown eyes worriedly meeting her own.
"Xander?" Buffy returned, the beloved name no more than a pained, ragged whisper as her eyes greedily devoured her friend's boyish features, feeling the tears cloud her vision.
"In the flesh," the young man guaranteed with a small, goofy smile as he gently squeezed her hand in his large, calloused grip. "Now just stay down," he ordered as he gently pushed her until she was pressed against the wall, a wry smile flitting across his lips at the obvious irony of the carpenter protecting the slayer. Turning, he then stepped forward, moving protectively before her as he raised a crossbow threateningly towards any that dared come near him or his charge.
Nodding dumbly, Buffy slouched against the wall's support as small tremors wracked her bent frame, her head spinning maddeningly as she drew quick, shallow breaths. She didn't know how any of this was possible. She couldn't understand how both Xander and Spike, two of those that she had resigned herself to never see again, could now be standing with her in Middle-earth. It was all so impossible and far too much for her to comprehend as she looked through dazed eyes at a sea of black-clothed men that surged around Spike's lean frame.
He was stunning to behold, moving with a grace and speed that belied all reason and left the men sorely unmatched. He was like Legolas, Buffy realized with a feverish start. The only difference lay in their beginnings, for despite Spike's soul, his was a form that was entrenched in darkness while Legolas had been filled with blinding light. Spike was of the shadows while Legolas had been of the starlight. And she... she was mired somewhere in between. She was a creature of darkness that had been created by Man to protect the light. Her strength came from demons but it was used to destroy the darkness in which they thrived. She was a living contradiction. Or perhaps living was too strong of a word.
Hissing as her frantically pumping heart caused a numbing wave of agony, Buffy turned her eyes away - and then felt her breath catch as she caught sight of the tall, brown-haired figure that moved with a similar grace and speed on the other side of the bleached-vampire. He swung and parried with a long broadsword in tight, familiar arcs around his wider frame, his dark coat billowing around him. In a brief lull, his warm brown eyes met her own and she felt transfixed by Angel's piercing stare as they silently asked if she was alright. Nodding shakily, she watched as he flashed her a brief reassuring smile before he became lost in the melee.
Eyes slipping shut, Buffy slowly shook her head before searching once more for Spike and Angel, wondering if they were some sort of hallucination or if they had been no more than a trick of the flickering torch light. But as her eyes slid open, she found herself riveted by Xander's quiet surety as he stood guard before her, warning away any who tried to come too close.
There was no way that she could be imagining this. There was no way that she could be in the grip of some sort of madness, lost to her dreams and nightmares. Even during her brief encounter with insanity in Tol Brandir, never had her demons been this real. Never had her mind supplied so much scurrying movement, cloying smells, aching feeling and loud sound. There was the glint of flashing blades, the speeding blur of loosed arrows, and the awkward and graceful movements of those who fought with a fierce vengeance before her. There was the sterile scent of winter, the stench of burning wood and of fire-eaten oil, and the unmistakable smell of freshly spilled blood. There was numbing cold as the wind brushed frozen tendrils against her cheek, and then there was blinding pain as agony coursed through her veins with each trembling breath. There was the clang of metal upon metal, the twang of taut bowstrings being released, the moans of the wounded and the war cries of those who still pressed on - and there was Finduilas' soft, terrified sobs which somehow carried above the rest.
Turning to the side, Buffy watched as a shadowed figure leaned over the girl where she huddled against the closed gate - a shadowed figure that was a little too broad and short to be Vashnak. Vashnak! Desperate to know where her tormentor had gone, the slayer frantically turned her eyes to the throng of fighting men before a man's pained cry caused her to lift her attention to the stone wall above and behind her. There, backlit by the wan moonlight, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the dark-elf before he disappeared over the lip of the final step that led onto the rampart of the second wall - a wall that had been constructed to keep people out, not in. Horrified, Buffy saw that the dark-elf had taken full advantage of the confusion to make his escape up the stairwell to the ramparts above, killing any that stood in his way.
"Can someone tell me why King Arthur and all the bloody blokes from the round table are out to get Buffy?"
Distracted by Spike's shouted demand, Buffy turned back in time to witness another guard drop in an unconscious heap before the vampire's sword. Both Spike and Angel were on the defensive, having arrived in the middle of a situation that they obviously didn't understand. Instinctually, that meant that both had opted for non-lethal force - a fact for which Buffy was eternally grateful. At this point, she doubted that she could handle any more guilt added to the burden that she already carried.
"And what the hell are you supposed to be?" the vampire continued as Gimli stepped forward to replace the fallen guard, his axe raised threateningly before him. "One of that Snow Bird's lackeys? Or are you with that Dorothy bint?"
"I am a Dwarf, demon, and you would do well to remember that," the stout-warrior promised, a feral smile hidden beneath his long red beard.
"The Snow Bird," Spike confirmed as he eyed his adversary. "So which one are you and where are the other six? And you better be careful with that," he added with a lazy smirk as he eyed the weapon that was almost longer than the dwarf. A smirk that was promptly wiped from his face as he scrabbled back to avoid the first, precise swing.
"Spike! Would you quit talking and get with the fighting?" Angel demanded, causing Buffy's head to swivel in his direction in time to witness Aragorn himself stepping forward to face her ex-lover. Aragorn who, according to Legolas, was the most skilled swordsman in all of Middle-earth. Breath catching in her throat, Buffy watched with wide eyes as the two began to exchange vicious blows. Angel was good with a sword - she knew this from personal experience. Yet just by looking at the way that Aragorn carried himself and the long, beautifully crafted sword that he wielded, she suddenly knew that the vampire wasn't nearly good enough. And while Angel wouldn't kill Aragorn, by the grim and determined look in the king's eye, she knew that the king harbored no such restraints.
"No," Buffy gasped, her hand clawing at her shoulder as the agony pulsed through her body with every stammering beat of her heart. "No, don't hurt him," she moaned as she tried to push away from the wall, Xander's cautious hand holding her in place.
"Finduilas, are you well? Finduilas!"
Head snapping back to where the little girl knelt, Buffy saw that Faramir now held the shadowed figure against the stone wall at the tip of a borrowed sword. Immediately the trembling child staggered to her feet before throwing herself at her father's side, burying her face in his tunic as the steward's free hand dropped to her golden head. But then Buffy heard Angel's cry of pain and she felt her attention diverted as she turned back to find that Aragorn had managed to best Angel, the vampire clutching his bleeding hand against his chest.
"No," Buffy stammered as she pushed away from the wall, weakly forcing Xander aside as she staggered to the king and vampire. Everything was happening too fast, and Buffy's overloaded senses didn't have time to process the chaotic night. All she knew was that somehow Angel was there, and if Aragorn decided to behead him instead of running him through with his blade, the ensouled vampire would be gone forever.
"No, Aragorn stop!" she pleaded as she pushed herself past the startled soldiers, hearing Xander's frantic shouts as he chased after her desperate form. But there was no stopping her now, weakness, pain, or confusion be damned, and she rushed forward, throwing herself between vampire and king, Aragorn's sword leveled at her breast. "Please don't," she begged as her eyes met the tall man's silver glare. A glare that hardened as it lifted to meet the luminescent yellow eyes of the creature that stood behind her - a creature whose face shifted back to that of a man who watched him warily.
"Please," Buffy repeated, the word a broken whisper as Aragorn stared into her tear-brimmed eyes. But his gaze was hard and cold, and with a soft sob Buffy realized that the kind-hearted healer she had known had been buried beneath the strong king that would protect his city against any threat - even those that he did not understand. Silently, she watched as he drew back the pommel of his sword, preparing to drive the sharpened tip through both her and the vampire that stood behind her.
"Daro, Aragorn! Daro!"
In that moment, Buffy felt the world skitter even further off balance as Aragorn stilled his hand and spun towards the third gate. Face draining of all color, Buffy followed the king's sharp gaze, watching as the crowd of soldiers parted to allow a tall, fair-haired elf to dart lightly towards them, the twin sons of Elrond following swiftly on his heels.
"Legolas?" she breathed as the elf brought his hand down upon Aragorn's arm and swept the king's blade aside, his beautiful blue eyes narrowed dangerously upon his mortal friend. But upon hearing her soft, tremulous whisper Legolas turned from him and smiled reassuringly at the pale slayer, his free hand reaching out to steady her as she gazed at him in open astonishment.
"Easy, mellon-nin," Legolas soothed, his eyes creasing as he looked upon her pale features. "You are not well," he murmured, one long finger gently lifting to brush against her sweat-soaked cheek.
"But... but they said you were dead," Buffy stammered as she gripped his forearms, her eyes desperately scouring his otherworldly features and the immaculate silver tunic that was spotless of the blood that had covered his weakened form several hours ago.
"He should be dead," Elladan agreed as he looked quizzically between Aragorn's guarded stance and the peculiar-looking strangers that slowly gathered towards the small slayer.
"But I am not dead. I am well," Legolas assured with a tired sigh, evidently having repeated those exact same words many times in the past few hours.
"Elladan, I told you to keep him in bed," Aragorn hissed as he reluctantly lowered his blade.
"We tried," Elrohir sighed as he shot the archer an annoyed glare, "but he is an even worse patient than you. He would not listen!"
"And it seems we should all be thankful that I did not," Legolas cut in, his voice curt as his full elven stare fell upon the ranger-turned-king. "What were you doing?"
"My Lord, they are demons!" one of the guards stammered as he waved towards Spike, who was glaring at a furious Gimli.
"They are her friends," Legolas countered as he waved for Gimli to lower his axe, Buffy's eyes tracing his every move. "I recognize most of them from her pho-to-graph."
"Hardly reassuring," Thoron groused - but by this point, Buffy was done listening to the quiet mutterings of the men and elves as, assured that Legolas wasn't going to disappear on her, she turned to look upon a face that she never thought she would see again.
"Angel?" she murmured, her voice a weak whisper as she lifted one shaking hand to press it against his cool cheek, ignoring the agony that coursed through her body. "Is it really you?" she asked as his large hand lifted to rest atop her own, his brown eyes looking at her with all of the love and passion that she remembered.
"Yes, it's-"
"Hey, don't forget about me," Spike cut in, the lean vampire pushing past Gimli's axe, silently daring the gruff dwarf to try anything before he elbowed Angel aside. "The poof wasn't the one to take the arrow for you, you know."
Laughing through her tears, Buffy gently lifted her other hand to Spike's cheek as Xander shoved through the silent guards to stand beside them. Sniffling back her tears, the slayer felt as though the rest of the world could cease to exist if only that moment could last forever. "But how can you be here?" she asked, ignoring the throbbing pulse that surged through her devastated body as she looked to each of the three in turn, desperately drinking in every cut to the smooth planes of their cheeks and the exact color of their eyes.
"Didn't Dawn promise you that she was going to send help?" Xander asked. "I mean, after what she saw, there was no way that any of us were going to sit there until we were sure you were going to be alright."
"Dawn?" Buffy murmured, her mind going blank as she looked at the three in confusion - confusion that slowly melted beneath the weight of dreams half-remembered. Vaguely she recalled the shadows and phantoms that tormented her in her small prison in Tol Brandir. She had been visited by friends and family, some coming to taunt her while others carried words of encouragement. When sanity had returned she hadn't thought again of those visits, thinking them to be nothing more than flights of madness. Apparently, one visit had been more than madness.
"Buffy?"
Stifling a sob, the petite slayer turned her head to find Dawn standing uncertainly by the door to the chamber, her hands fluttering at her side, her long face pale, with tears pooling in her large brown eyes. "Not you," Buffy whispered. "Please not you too," she begged as she turned her head away.
"Buffy! Oh God, Buffy, what's happened to you?" the phantom demanded as the bed seemed to shift beneath her weight, her warm hands turning Buffy's face towards her.
"Dawnie, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this!" Buffy sobbed as her sister finally threw off her hesitation as the younger girl gathered Buffy in her imagined embrace, her phantom arms wrapping around the slayer and somehow seeming more real than anything else in this horrid nightmare.
"Buffy, what's going on? Who's done this to you? What's happened to you?" the phantom repeated, her voice a strangled plea.
"They want my blood to make them strong, and I can't stop them anymore. I try to catch my breath again but I hurt so much. Dawnie... I can't breathe," Buffy gasped as her strained lungs tried to find the oxygen that her traumatized body desperately needed. "I can't breathe."
"Yes, yes you can!" Dawn stated as her phantom hands released her to begin pulling ineffectively at the heavy chains. "I just... I just need to get you free!" she grunted as she strained against the unyielding metal, her movements becoming frantic. "I just need to get you free and then you can fight again," she whimpered as Buffy gently lifted a hand to touch this phantom's beautiful, tear-stained cheek.
"I'll never fight again," the slayer whispered. "This is how it ends," she whispered as she slowly turned her head away.
"No, Buffy, listen to me! I don't have much time. I just... I just wanted to... Listen to me!" Dawn ordered as she forced Buffy's chin towards her. "Just hang on and.. and we'll think of something."
"I thought she was a dream," Buffy whispered.
"No, luv, she was real," Spike reassured as he glanced anxiously at the small slayer. "Red and the Bit worked day and night to get that spell ready, and when the Bit popped over here to check on you and saw..." he trailed off, his eyes narrowing dangerously on the men that were still scattered around them, obviously assuming that it was these people that had driven the slayer to these depths. "No way in hell the rest of us were going to let you go like that."
"But I don't-" Buffy began, her quiet whisper drowned beneath the last voice that she had ever thought to hear again. The one voice that she should never have been able to hear again.
"Damnit man, I already told you that I was just trying to help the child, not harm her!"
Hands falling to her side, Buffy slowly turned her head and dimly watched as the shadowed figure shifted beneath the tip of Faramir's sword, his clipped words ringing off of walls and streets of stone. "Giles?" she murmured, the name a silent, desperate plea to someone who had died months before.
Turning as the name was called out, the shadowed man impatiently brushed aside Faramir's blade and stepped into the flickering light of the mounted torches, revealing lined, craggy features that she knew better than her own, thin graying hair, and glasses that caught the flickering light and caused it to dance upon his eyes. Upon Giles' unmistakable green eyes.
Instantly Buffy felt the world crash around her as this last shock proved to be one too many to a body that was far too frail from the trials that it had endured. Shaking legs crumbling beneath her, Buffy felt Angel and Spike's arms wrap around her slender waist, gently easing her to the cold street as their worried faces swam before her hazy vision. She could feel the blood rushing through her veins now, the pain in her chest becoming unbearable as it radiated into her neck, jaw, arms and back. It was pain unlike anything she had ever felt before, as though a huge weight was pressing down upon her, and she felt her breath wheeze through parted lips as her watcher's face suddenly appeared above her.
A face that was more beautiful than any she had ever seen before.
Pushing his way through the crowd of armed onlookers, Giles made it to his slayer's side in moments. "Buffy?" he murmured as he knelt beside her, her name catching on his lips as his gaze raked over the young woman that had been his charge for so many years, feeling his heart tighten at what he saw. While always rather petite, the long, simple white dress that she wore did little to hide how thin she had become in the months that she had been gone, with nothing but a dark cloak of some kind that was bunched beneath her crumpled form to shield her from the cold. Her arms looked thin, her skin a sickly pale color that contrasted sharply with the golden tan he had always remembered, and her hair was longer, and not nearly as light as before - as though her usual sun-bleached locks had been deprived of the sunshine she had always loved. Yet what captured his attention more than anything else were her familiar green eyes, clouded with pain, twin trails of tears dripping unashamedly down her cheeks.
"Giles?" she panted as he quickly twined his hand with her own, his eyes skipping worriedly over a blood-stained bandage that wrapped her slender wrist. "But... but you're dead," she moaned as he pressed his other hand against her clammy cheek, cursing quietly at how chilled her skin felt. "Is this a trick? Are you the First or... or am I... am I still crazy?"
"No, no you are not crazy," Giles assured, his eyes creasing in concern as he noted the sweat that created a soft sheen on her brow. "And you defeated the First when you allowed Willow to do that blasted spell," he added, frowning at the pained rasp of every breath she drew.
"But the First-"
"Left me for dead," Giles hastily explained as he pressed his fingers against the inside of her unblemished wrist, his gaze locked on his wristwatch. "The others found me in time," he murmured as he silently gauged her thready pulse, his features becoming even more grim with what he learned.
"But how-"
"Later," the watcher insisted, gently hushing his pained slayer as he released her wrist and pressed his hand against her cool skin.
"Giles, what's wrong with her?" Xander whispered from beside him, his features creasing as Buffy whimpered in pain, her lips beginning to turn a sickly, bluish color.
Sighing softly, Giles paused in his examination long enough to admit that which he had feared all along. "I believe that she is having a heart attack," he murmured as he tenderly brushed a sweaty strand of hair from his slayer's forehead.
"A what?"
Startled by the unfamiliar voice and the lyrical qualities of the soft tenor, the watcher lifted his eyes to find a young man crouched opposite him - a young man whose features seemed chiseled from alabaster, with long, golden blond hair that trailed over slender shoulders and which framed blue eyes of impossible depths. And... was he glowing?
Frowning, Giles quickly turned away from the stranger. "After Dawn's description, I knew that something like this could happen," he murmured as he returned his attentions to his slayer. "If someone was truly taking her blood over an extended period of time, as Dawn has insisted, then Buffy's body may have been able to replenish the lost fluid, but even a slayer needs more time to restore the red blood cells which have been lost. When there is not enough, the body becomes anemic, and severe anemia puts untold amounts of stress on the body's organs. Most notably, the heart."
"So what does that mean?" Xander persisted.
"That we need to get her to a hospital as quickly as possible," the watcher muttered as he began searching through the large duffel that he had dropped on the stone road beside him.
The blond being lifted his worried gaze from Buffy's pale, sweat-drenched features, a look of confusion on his face. "She has mentioned such a place before, but I know not of which you speak."
"It means that she needs a bleeding doctor!" Spike barked, causing the blond to beckon for three others to join their small huddle - three others that were comprised of a tall, stern-looking man dressed in rich robes, and a pair of twins that shared the blond's delicate features.
Distracted for the briefest of moments, Giles looked from the blond to his two dark-haired companions in wonder, somehow understanding that they were not the young men he had initially assumed them to be. He supposed that the finely tapered ears that peeked through their thick locks, in addition to the soft luminescence of their pale skin, attested to that fact.
"What?" Spike growled, breaking the watcher's intense scrutiny as the bleached-vampire shrugged off Xander's restraining grip, his blue eyes narrowed upon the new arrivals. "You'd have me believe that the git with the big sword and faerie boy one and two are doctors?"
The blond creature scowled at Spike, evidently irritated with the vampire's sharp tongue. "They are the most skilled Healers in all of Middle-earth."
"And that's supposed to be reassuring?" Spike bit back as Giles sighed heavily, pausing in his search long enough to glare at the vampire.
"Spike, would you please desist in your ranting?" he hissed before briefly turning to the newcomers. "It is her heart," he explained as one of the dark-haired twins lifted a slender hand and placed it on Buffy's chest, his face creased in concentration as though he could somehow feel the weakened organ as it hammered its distress. "We need to take her someplace quiet and warm - someplace away from all of this," Giles continued, ignoring both Spike, and now Angel as well, as both vampires protested loudly to the twin's actions.
"Aragorn, she needs to go back to the Houses of Healing," Giles heard the blond murmur as the watcher finally found the small bottle of aspirin that he had been searching for, his fingers fumbling with the child-proof cap.
"Allow this to dissolve upon your tongue," he murmured distractedly as he forced one of the chalky tablets past Buffy's clenched lips, her eyes briefly meeting with his own before they slipped shut, the skin pinched around the fine edges. Gently he ran his fingers over her slick brow as he turned his eyes back to the blond creature and the tall, dark-haired man that the blond had addressed - the one that seemed to be in charge of the soldiers that lingered warily about the wide street.
"Faramir, where is Vashnak?" the tall man, or Aragorn, as it seemed, asked as he turned from his fair-faced companion to Finduilas' father, the small child clinging to the other man's side.
"He escaped over the wall in the chaos," the father returned as he held his daughter against him. "I have already sent some of the men into the first circle, but I fear that he has used the attack on Osgiliath to his advantage."
"As I'm sure was his intention all along," Aragorn agreed as his eyes darted towards Buffy, causing Giles' hand to fall protectively upon her shoulder. While the watcher wasn't certain what exactly his slayer had gotten herself into this time, from the look in the man's gray eyes, it was evident that it was serious. Very serious.
"And what of Osgiliath?" the father persisted.
"Dispatch riders and see that they get as many citizens behind the safety of our walls as they can," Aragorn ordered, his glower deepening as his eyes lifted to the imposing second wall that stood tall behind Giles and his downed slayer, "but ensure that they do not engage the enemy. Also see that the watch towers are lit to notify Rohan of our situation - and dispatch messengers with all haste to Dol Amroth and north to the Dnedain," he added before Buffy's pained moan once more captured his attention.
"Aragorn-" the blond creature began, his fair features pinched in worry.
"Bring her to the Houses of Healing," the man interrupted with a resigned sigh.
"The Houses of Healing?" Giles queried as the blond creature immediately gathered Buffy's limp frame into his slender arms, as though she weighed nothing at all. "Where-" he began, his question faltering as the creature nodded reassuringly at him and the others.
"Follow me - it is not far," the blond stated before turning and hurrying down the wide stone avenue, the guards parting in a black wave before his graceful, luminescent form.
A luminescent form that was quickly disappearing with the slayer that they had traveled all this way to rescue.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Angel called out, apparently realizing this same fact as all four began to move.
Scowling, Giles allowed Xander to pull him to his feet, the younger man stooping to sling the black duffel over his shoulder. Giles had been with his slayer for barely five minutes and already he was allowing her to slip through his fingers. Again.
"Who does the glowing nancy boy think he is, anyway?" Spike groused as he fell into step beside the aged watcher.
"Competition?" Xander offered with a cheeky grin as both vampires glared at the carpenter.
"Xander, now is not the time for your baiting," Giles sighed as his fast walk turned into an easy jog, the hard clap of his shoes echoing off of the all encompassing-stone as his curious eyes darted to the towering structures that seemed to come straight from the tale of some ancient, medieval kingdom.
"Competition?" Spike echoed incredulously, evidently choosing to ignore Giles' terse warning. "That poncy twit? He's prettier than she is! She couldn't possibly be interested in that... that faerie....... could she?" he asked, his brave words faltering beneath this final question.
"Spike, that will be quite enough," the watcher warned as Angel snorted from beside him, finally breaking his broody silence.
"The Buffy I knew wouldn't be," the older vampire agreed. "Then again, the Buffy I knew also hated you," he added as he glared at his grand-childe.
"Oh dear Lord," Giles grumbled as he tried to quicken their pace.
"Yeah, but that was before I got meself a soul," Spike corrected with a smug smile as Giles tried in vain to outdistance the squabbling vampires.
"So now everyone's got a soul," Angel muttered. "Welcome to the club."
"Hey, I had to earn me soul. I didn't have it handed to me by a bunch of-"
"Now do you see what you have started?" Giles hissed as he glared at the young man that loped lazily beside him, a contented smile lifting his broad lips.
"Hey - gotta get your kicks where you can," Xander defended with a bright smile. "And Spike and Angel? Even better than watching Willow and Anya get into it... and did I really just say that? Because when I said 'get into it,' I really didn't mean get into it. What I meant was-"
"Enough, Xander. Dear Lord let that be enough."