Chapter 2: Strong Like An Amazon

Willow and Tara had been standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when they heard the gunshots. Willow jumped and dropped the jelly. The jar shattered upon impact. Tara rushed to the window in time to see Warren shouting and running off, and Buffy crumpling to the ground.

"Oh my god," Tara breathed. Then she grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed 911 as Willow ran out the door.

"Oh god oh god oh god," the redhead was crying as she reached the still form of her best friend. "Buffy, oh god, Buffy," she sobbed as she knelt by her side and pressed the dishcloth she had been using to open the jar of jelly to the Slayer's chest.

The blood seeped through it and didn't stop. Buffy's torso was already soaked in it. Willow's knees were touching a pool of blood that was growing with frightening speed. But bleeding was good, her brain told her. Bleeding meant a pulse. Buffy's eyes were open but unseeing. Her mouth was parted slightly, and Willow could hear her struggling for breath. Then she felt comforting arms around her.

"The ambulance is on its way," Tara told her.

Willow's vision blurred but she couldn't look away from her friend. She could feel Tara's arms stroking her back and arms. Tara pressed her cheek against the top of Willow's head as they both cried. Willow took Buffy's limp hand in her own. The pulse was weak, but it was there. Willow was still sitting there, holding her friend's hand, tears cascading down her cheeks, when Tara led the paramedics to Buffy's prone form. A man quietly asked her to step away, but she couldn't move. Tara wrapped her in a warm embrace, and gently led her away.

"Someone has to tell Dawnie. And Xander," the witch said softly.

Willow turned her tear-streaked face to Tara. She opened her mouth to say something, but only a strangled sob came out. Tara bit her lip and pressed her forehead to Willow's, their tears mingling.

"Shhh, shhh," she whispered, although her own voice was breaking. She had to be strong for Willow. Like an Amazon. "You should g-go. Be with h-her. I'll tell them."

Willow found her voice long enough to whisper, "Thank you." The two turned back to where the men were rushing the stretcher bearing Buffy to the ambulance waiting in front of the house. The lovers hurried after them. They were standing there watching the men load the stretcher into the vehicle when Xander's car pulled up. He got out and ran towards them.

"What happened?" he said. "What's going on?"

"W-warren," Tara stammered. "He had a gun."

"God," Xander said, stunned. "Are you guys okay?"

Tara looked at Willow, who was staring at the ambulance and the paramedics attending Buffy. "We were in the k-kitchen," Tara told Xander. "We heard the gunshots," she added in a near whisper.

Xander opens his mouth, unsure of what to say or do. A paramedic calls out to them before he gets the chance to do anything.

"We have to go. Are you coming?"

Willow looks back at Tara, who squeezes her hand once, then drops it. Willow jumps into the back of the vehicle. Tara and Xander are left standing there, watching it drive away down the street.

Finally, Xander broke the tense silence. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Yes." Tara looked down. She was having trouble finding the words. "Chest," she managed. She heard his sharp intake of breath.

"My car. We should get to the hospital," was all he said.

Tara looked up at him. She could see the tears forming in his eyes. He was trying to be strong, to hold it in. Nervously, she took his hand in hers, trying to comfort him. She wanted to say it was going to be okay, but she couldn't. He wouldn't believe her anyway.

"We should get Dawn from school," she said instead.

"Yeah," he whispered. Letting go of her hand, he walked to his car and climbed into the driver's seat. She slid into the seat next to him. Neither of them said anything on the drive. Not even when he speeded, or when he ran a red light. Tara wanted to say that this was dangerous, but there weren't many cars, so she held her tongue. She wasn't sure she could find the words anyway.

---

"That son of a bitch," Janice said to Dawn, as they did the whole "best friends, share my pain" thing before the bell rang for fifth period.

"I know," Dawn said as she put her backpack down beside her desk. "Nick is such a jackass."

"The guy could've at least apologized for running us over in the hall!" Janice raged on.

Dawn nodded sympathetically, but her heart wasn't really in it. Sure the jock had been rude to them, but she was having difficulty staying angry. Never mind that some things were still really screwed up at home. Xander and Anya were a mess. Buffy and Xander were fighting over the whole Spike thing, which was weird and messy by itself. None of that could darken her mood. Willow and Tara were back together. All she could think about was how happy they were. When Tara had walked into the hall with only a sheet, she'd been so happy...well, she couldn't think of a way to describe how happy she'd been. She almost giggled out loud as she thought of the couple giggling and holding hands while they researched between make-out sessions.

"You know what I mean?" Janice said, still angry.

"Totally," Dawn agreed.

The bell rang, and they took their seats. Still distracted, Dawn sort of wrote down her homework, sort of paid attention, and sort of took notes. The hottest guy in the school, Jake Thornton, sat in front and to the right of her. She had a perfect view of his profile. She was shocked out of her daydreaming when he suddenly rose from his seat. Dawn sighed as he asked the teacher for a pass to the bathroom. Janice looked at her and laughed. Dawn glared at her friend in mock anger, and then started tapping her pencil frenetically against her desk, bored without her crush in view. She was idly doodling in her binder when the teacher called her name. She snapped to attention, frantically trying to figure out what she had been asked to do.

"Yes?" she said, looking to Janice in desperation. Her friend only gave her a strange look and jerked her head at the front of the classroom. The teacher was holding out a piece of paper to her.

"Your...guardian is in the main office. Take your belongings with you," Ms. Lerone said, reading from the slip of paper.

Dawn quietly gathered her things, exchanging a "what the hell?" look with Janice before taking the paper from her teacher and walking out the door. She walked down the nearly empty hallway. A few teachers and janitors passed by, none even glancing at her. Three girls came out of the girls' bathroom as she walked by. Kirsty, Dawn thought. Great.

"Hi Dawn," the blond girl said softly while the other girls whom Dawn thought of as "Kirsty's minions" giggled in the background. "Where are you going?" Kirsty asked in that faux nice voice.

"Bathroom," Dawn lied, quickly ducking into said room.

She went into a stall and closed the door just in case the girls were listening in. She stood in there for about 30 seconds, then walked out, pausing only to check her reflection in the mirrors. As she turned left out of the bathroom and continued down the hall, she passed Jake leaving the boys' bathroom. He smiled at her. Her insides turned to jelly and she smiled nervously back, then continued on her way. Once he was behind her, she turned around, walking backwards so she could get the best view of the back of his head. He rounded the corner and she turned back around, giving a little shriek as she narrowly avoided a collision with a teacher.

"Watch where you're going, dear," the old lady said, not unkindly.

Dawn's face burned with embarrassment. "Sorry," she muttered, then almost ran to the main office.

She hadn't known what to expect there. She thought perhaps there was some new featured creature, or even something of the apocalyptic variety. But she certainly hadn't expected Xander and Tara, their faces ashen and tear-streaked, standing awkwardly against the wall of the office. Dawn flashed back to the last year, when Buffy had come to her classroom to tell her of their mother's death. She had collapsed in the hall while the entire class looked on. One look at Xander and Tara's faces was all she needed to know that whatever they had to say, whether it be about apocalypses or some horrible disaster, would be better said outside. They seemed to agree, for as soon as they saw her, they walked out to the parking lot with her between them. As soon as they were outdoors, Dawn stopped walking and turned to them.

"What's going on?" she asked, trying to keep calm.

Xander and Tara glanced at each other. Please let it be just an apocalypse, and not the end of the world, Dawn thought. She realized that she sounded ridiculous, but they had faced lots of apocalypses and come through relatively unscathed. Her mother's death, however...that had been the world of her world as she'd known it.

"There's been an...an accident," Tara began quietly. "Well, n-not an accident, really."

Dawn felt the tears welling up. She suddenly began to wonder why they had come, and not Buffy. Or Willow. "Buffy?" she whispered. "Willow?"

"The hospital," Xander said. "That's where they are and that's where we're going."

Dawn stared at the two adults. "What happened? Are they okay? Are they—" she stopped as tears began to spill down her cheeks. Tara looked like she was going to cry as well.

"Willow's f-fine," Tara began. "She went with B-buffy." The witch took a deep breath before continuing. "Warren came to the house. The backyard. Buffy was th-there. He shot her...in the chest."

Dawn could feel her heart thumping in her own chest as her mouth began to form her next question. "Is she...going to be okay?"

"We don't know, sweetie," Tara whispered sadly.

Dawn's face crumpled as she felt the familiar end-of-the-world feeling. She squeezed her eyes shut as the hot tears poured down her cheeks and a sob rose in her throat. Then she felt strong arms encircling her, and Tara's voice trying to be soothing.

"We should go," Xander said.