Hey! So I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this since I've been posting on Mondays for the most part, but since I'm not going to be home until tomorrow night and I left you guys on a pretty big cliffhanger, I figured I'd go ahead and post tonight instead. Many thanks, as always, go to Love-el-ly Joy. Particularly since the original version of this was lousy with typos and twice she caught me trying to violate one of my big writing pet peeves. Anyway, MANY thanks go to all who reviewed. Hope you enjoy this one - let me know what you think!

"Buffy!" five different voices shouted at once. Angel and Spike stood as close to the sunlight as they could without actually standing in it. Written plainly across both faces was shock and pure frustration and rage at their inability to help. From beside them, Giles sprinted into the street, with Gunn close at his heels. The cars had all stopped while the driver of the car that hit her hurried out of said car.

Giles dropped to his knees beside the Slayer. "Buffy! Buffy, can you hear me?" he said frantically. He opened her eyelids, checking her non-responsive pupils. Discouraged, he put one hand on her chest, the other on her stomach to make sure she was still breathing.

He took a moment to get himself under control, but when he spoke, he couldn't prevent the tremor in his voice. "She's alive, but unconscious."

The girl who hit her was wringing her hands in distress. "I couldn't stop in time! She just landed right in front of me!"

"We need to get her inside," said Gunn. "We have a hospital wing that can take care of her."

"No! I've heard about things like this," said the frantic woman, still winging her hands. "You're not supposed to move her until the ambulance comes!"

Giles looked at Wes, who had just made his way to them. Wes smoothly stepped forward. "Why don't you come this way," he said. "I'll get you some tea to help soothe your nerves while we wait for the ambulance and such."

He walked the still-babbling woman away as Giles and Gunn looked at each other.

"Should we move her?" said Gunn uncertainly.

Giles frowned. "Probably not, but we're attracting attention. We can't stay-"

As if summoned by magic, which was not altogether improbable for Wolfram & Hart, four men with a backboard and stretcher came running full speed out of the building. Giles raised his brows at their pace.

Gunn just smirked. "Angel obviously put the fear of God into them," he remarked.

Giles meant to smile at the comment, but as he looked down at Buffy's unconscious form, he found he just didn't have it in him. As he watched the medics carefully put her on the backboard, he marveled, not for the first time, how someone who radiated such strength and vitality could look so small and delicate while unconscious.

They followed the stretcher into the building where Angel and Spike waited silently, neither daring to speak to the other in their mutual frustration. They both matched their pace to the stretcher, walking alongside it and clenching their fists. Desperate to feel some semblance of control over the situation to drown out his utter helplessness, Angel started barking out orders.

"Where's Wesley?" he said.

"Dealing with the driver," said Gunn.

"Fine, Gunn, go and find Fred. Tell her to expect us in the hospital wing."

As Gunn took off, an unconcerned Andrew walked around a corner. His eyes widened as he saw Buffy on the stretcher. "Holy crap! What happened?"

"Car," said Giles tersely.

"Felled by the most ord-"

Angel cut him off before he could start. "Andrew, go help Fred prep the room."

Andrew opened his mouth again, but Angel cut him off at the pass with a sharp "Now!"

"Giles," he said, turning to the man on the other side of the stretcher. Giles leveled a stare at him and Angel reminded himself that he wasn't the only one who cared about Buffy. "I imagine you'll want to stay with her."

"Yes," he said tersely.

"Spike-"

"Don't even try it, Peaches."

"…a sprained wrist," Fred was saying, reading from the report her medical team had written, "several contusions, of course, bruises and scrapes, but the real cause for concern is her cracked skull."

"But will she be okay?" asked Angel, still pacing around the small room adjoining Buffy's sickroom. Giles sat in a chair in the back of the room, his head in his hands.

Fred looked at both of them with a world of sympathy. "Nobody can ever guarantee what will come of a head wound; they're notoriously unpredictable. My opinion is that, particularly given her slayer healing, she'll be fine, though she will be out for a while. The good news is that we stopped the swelling in her brain before it had too much of a chance to start, but I can't promise you anything."

Angel swore under his breath before swiping a hand over his eyes. "Thanks, Fred, for everything."

She touched his arm. "She's strong. She'll be okay."

Angel just nodded. "I want someone in there with her at all times. Just in case someone evil got past Lorne's screening, or…"

Fred nodded as Harmony knocked on the door. "Boss," she said, her squeaky voice oddly unperturbed against the tension of the room, "that Anne girl you wanted me to call is on the phone for you."

Angel blew out a deep breath. "Thanks, Harm"

"I need to make a call over to Europe," said Giles without taking his head from his hands.

Harmony almost rolled her eyes. "I don't know what you guys are so worried about, it's not like she ever stays dead anyway."

"That's enough, Harm!" Angel said as he walked out of the room to take the phone call.

Spike looked down at Buffy as she lay unconscious in the hospital bed. Filled with nervous energy, he got up and paced the room, his eyes landing on Buffy every few seconds. He sat back down in the chair beside her bed and looked back down at her again. His knee started to jiggle. He got up and walked to the window. He walked back to her bed again. After pacing the room a few more times like a caged tiger, he finally exploded.

"Goddamnit, Buffy!" he yelled angrily at the unconscious girl. "How could you be so bloody stupid? Running blindly after people you know are dead? Since when is that a good idea?" He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "I mean, did you learn nothing from the First? Or, you know, seven years on the Hellmouth? You know better!"

She lay still and silent in response, which only seemed to enrage Spike further. "What the hell happened to 'I'll be careful, I can take care of myself,' huh? Is this you being careful?" he stopped pacing and grabbed the handles on the side of the bed. "You're smarter than this!" he yelled.

The door clicked shut and Spike's head whipped around to see Angel standing in the doorway. He straightened up, wiping his palms on his pants. "I… uh… was just checking… No reactions, or… um, non-responsive. She's still out."

"So I see," Angel said. A small smile played around his lips, but other than that, he made no comment about what he'd overheard. He walked over to Buffy's bedside and picked up her hand, stroking her ring finger, where she once wore his ring. His fingers brushed her pulse point, just long enough to feel her strong, steady pulse. She would be fine. Head injury or no, this was Buffy. Somewhat steadier withthat certainty strong in his gut, he turned to Spike.

"We're going to need to talk to Fred and Lorne about what we saw out there," he said. "The sooner the better."

Spike looked about ready to argue, but bit his tongue and nodded. "I guess the rest of my lecture can wait till she wakes up. Shouldn't someone be in here though?"

Angel nodded. "Giles should be coming in any minute, once he gets off the phone with Xander or Willow or whoever he's talking to."

Two figures sat in a large, shadowy room, one across from the other. The taller of the two leaned back into his chair, his pose displaying a deceptive sense of ease and leisure which only seemed to unsettle the creature across from him.

"So the Slayer has an informant," he said, as his bright yellow eyes seemed to glow out from the shadow of his face. "You're sure."

"As sure as I'm sitting here. I overheard an empath demon and another girl talking about a Dankaar demon going after the Slayer on their way out of the bar."

"I see."

The second man fought the urge to fidget in his chair.

"Is that all the information you have for me?"

"I didn't-" the man cut himself off. "Yes," he said.

The tall figure silently stared at the man for a moment, before finally speaking. "You may go."

After two hours of Angel demanding that Fred get to work on finding out the cause of what they'd seen in the street, then changing his mind and demanding that she keep Buffy's medical progress her first priority, then changing his mind again, a very frustrated Fred had ordered him out of the room to go check on Buffy.

And so a few minutes later, Angel opened the door to Buffy's hospital room to find Giles asleep in his chair, his head pillowed on his arm next to Buffy on the mattress, his mouth slightly open and his glasses askew. With a small smile, Angel gently touched his shoulder, waking him up.

"Giles. Let's get you into an actual room."

The older man slowly set up, blinking a few times and fixing his glasses. "Angel," he said, his voice still somewhat rough from sleep. He took in his surroundings, then looked down next to him, finally awake. "I'm sorry, it seems Buffy was right about my, erm, need for rest."

Angel looked at the clearly exhausted Watcher. "It's no problem, I can watch after her for now, you go get some sleep."

"No, no I'm quite alright."

Angel frowned. "Really, Giles, it's no problem. It would probably be better if-"

"No," Giles said sharply. "I can stay."

Angel frowned, obviously taken aback. "Why?"

Giles looked at the vampire and sighed. He looked down at Buffy and said nothing for a while. Angel remained silent as well, letting the moment stretch from seconds to minutes. Angel had given up on getting an answer by the time Giles finally spoke.

"Buffy tried to get in touch with her father."

Angel looked up, his brows rising in surprise, both by the news and the non-sequitor.

Giles continued. "It was shortly after we had moved to Europe. Sunnydale had just collapsed, taking her mother's grave with it, Dawn was at school in Rome, and Buffy was… Well, I imagine she was lonely. We were… not quite as close as we had once been. I agreed to help her find him in between trying to set up the new Council and school."

Giles sighed, leaning back and taking off his glasses to clean them with his handkerchief. "She finally found him, still in Spain with some woman or other maybe five or ten years older than Buffy herself." Giles smiled faintly. "Living the stereotype, as she said."

Angel looked at Buffy, feeling, for some reason, almost surprised to find her still unconscious, still oblivious to the conversation going on around her.

"She came into my office, quite clearly nervous. More nervous than I could ever recall seeing her. I-it very nearly broke my heart. Still worse was the fact that she was trying to conceal her nervousness from me." Giles looked down. "As I said, we hadn't been as close as we once were and…" He sighed again. "In any event, she told me she was flying out to Spain in a few days. I-I feared she was setting herself up for disappointment. We quarreled and she left angry, but I still arrived to the airport to see her off a few days later."

Angel found himself hooked, desperate to hear more though entirely clueless as to how it was related. "What happened?" he asked.

Giles looked at him. "I don't know; she never told me exactly what happened. All I know is that a few days later, she showed up in front of my flat, tearstained face, luggage in tow. It was the first time she had cried in front of me in… in quite a long time."

Angel stared at Buffy, resentment coursing through him at the man who didn't appreciate the precious gifts he had.

"A few days later," Giles continued, "we were walking back from a lunch meeting with a benefactor when we saw the aftermath of a car accident. Two women were involved, both injured badly. One girl's parents rushed on the scene, frantic and fussing over their daughter, talking to the paramedics, riding in the ambulance with her. The other… well she was quite alone a-and unnoticed. I imagine Buffy was the only one watching her as they loaded the girl into the ambulance alone and drove away."

Giles looked at Angel, finally getting to the point. "She turned to me and said 'If that happens to me, I want you to stay with me.'"

Angel stood, dumbfounded. He ached at the fact that Buffy, though always surrounded by people, could feel so alone. He finally walked over to the other side of the bed, pulling a chair with him, and sat down across from the Watcher.

Several hours, a nap, and a quick shower later (at the direction of Anne, who had taken over Buffy's room and shooed him out to take care of himself) Giles made his way to the cafeteria. Stepping into the noisy, brightly lit room, he was only slightly surprised to see options for human and demon alike. After selecting his meal and fixing a decent cup of tea, (finally!) he found Wesley sitting alone at a table. Somewhat relieved, he made his way over.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked, feeling almost like the new kid at school.

Mug halfway up to his lips, Wesley looked up before gesturing to the seat in front of him. "Not at all! Please."

Giles sat down, picking up his fork and taking a sip of his tea. "Mmm, your cafeteria has surprisingly good tea; my compliments."

"Does it?" said Wesley. "I haven't actually tried it, but that's nice to know."

Giles looked at him in surprise. "You haven't had it? What do you drink?"

Wesley shifted uncomfortably, oddly reluctant to admit it. "Coffee."

Giles's wide-eyed shock would have been hilarious to anyone else. Instead, it left Wesley feeling inexplicably guilty. "The caffeine helps with the long hours," he said, almost defensively.

"O-of course!" Giles said. "Sorry, it was just a surprise."

"It's not as if I don't drink tea at all. I do have a supply at home."

"Of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise."

An uncomfortable silence settled over them for a moment, as both concentrated on eating. Wesley cleared his throat awkwardly. "What happened to Buffy was almost certainly related to the demon she's after."

"I agree. The Kennedy impersonation was, of course, a dead giveaway. And whatever was trapping her in the street was designed to work exclusively on her. The barrier had no effect at all on the car," said Giles, trying to mentally brush away the image he had of Buffy, held completely helpless as a car came at her.

"The Dankaar doesn't have the power to create invisible barriers like that," said Wesley.

Giles looked at him. "We don't know what the Dankaar can do. We can't translate half of the passage."

Wesley conceded the point with a nod. "Of course. We should check the untranslated passages against any words we can find that could indicate these barriers, but I suspect this has more to do with this mysterious second player."

"I expect you're right about that. Any theories?"

"Maybe a spell?" Wesley suggested halfheartedly.

Giles frowned. "It's possible, of course, I can talk to Willow about that, but I rather doubt it. It all happened too quickly, especially since it was clearly designed to be very specific to her."

Wesley learned back in his chair in contemplation. "How is Buffy?" he asked, changing the subject.

Giles sighed. "No change. She's quite stable, we just…" he cleared his throat. "We need wait until she wakes up to see if the head wound had any impact on... on her brain."

Wesley nodded. "She's sustained heavy injuries before, though. Slayer healing is certainly nothing to sneeze at."

"Yes, of course," said Giles, staring off into space. Wesley didn't envy the man his position as surrogate father to a woman slated to die young. And often, it seemed.

Wesley stood, holding his mug. "I need a refill. Would you like some more tea?"

Giles looked up in surprise at Wesley's outstretched hand.

"I promise I can still make a decent cup of British tea," Wesley said wryly at Giles's surprise.

Giles smiled faintly, passing his mug to the other man. "I would like some, thank you."

Two more days went by in this fashion. Giles spent as much time in Buffy's room as possible while still researching and, occasionally, eating and sleeping at the demands of Annie. Angel spent as much time in her room as he could as well, while still using all of his contacts to track down information on the demon and its accomplice. He often took the paperwork Harmony thrust at him into Buffy's room to finish, just to be there.

Spike and Gunn continued with recon and research into odd deaths. Useless as it sometimes felt, it felt good to be doing something. Angel watched over her in the first half of the night while Spike took the second half, just after his patrol with Gunn. In the mid-afternoon, Annie would show up, demanding to know when everyone involved last ate or slept, and ordered everyone out of the room to take care of their own business while she kept Buffywatch.

The longer she stayed unconscious, of course, the more concerned everyone became. Angel spent his time with her talking to her. She had been out for four days when Angel sat by her bedside, once again holding her hand and talking to her. He brushed her hair off her face, his hand lingering over the scar on her neck. The one he gave her.

"It's so odd to have you so silent and still," he told her. "You're never this quiet."

Once again, he lightly brushed his fingers over her scar before picking her hand up again.

"Even when you sleep, you make little noises. Like a cat, or-"

He broke off abruptly as he felt her fingers tighten slightly on his.

"Buffy? Buffy!"

He punched the button by her bed to call someone in. He could see her fingers twitching some more. Her breathing changed slightly. He had no idea if this was good news or terrible.

"Buffy, please wake up. I know you're trying to." He looked around the room, then back at her, willing her to wake up. "I know you hate hospitals, but-"

"And yet," she said from her bed in a very weak, yet very much alert voice as Giles and Fed came rushing in, "Here I am. In a hospital."

Fred and Giles stared in openmouthed shock, before huge grins broke over their faces. Angel struggled to tamp down his own elation, staring openly at her. Finally he spoke.

"You're not in the hospital."

Buffy raised her eyebrows, which hurt so she stopped. "Angel, I think I know a hospital when I'm in one. Which I am. Frequently."

" You're in the hospital wing of an office building."

"Don't argue semantics with me," she said, her throat clearly dry. "Hospital wing. As in hospital. Which is where I am."

Giles smiled as Angel poured her a glass of water and helped her tip it to her mouth. "Yes, you'll be just fine."

Grateful for the water, she smiled at both Angel and Giles. "Please," she said, a little more easily. "It takes ore than a car to the face to take me down."

"How silly of us to worry," said Giles.

She smiled at him before the thought occurred to her. "My face! How does it-"

"You look just fine," Fred assured her. "Barely any scarring."

"Thank God for slayer healing."

Fred smiled at her. "Okay, everybody out," she ordered. "I need to run some tests, and then you're going to need to rest," she said to Buffy, who nodded, used to injuries and their aftermath.

Angel and Giles reluctantly turned to leave before she spoke. "Angel?"

"Yes?" he asked, turning around, still overjoyed to have her awake and looking at him.

'I don't really sound like a cat when I sleep, do I?"

Angel struggled to keep a straight face. "No…more like a little kitten."

He ducked as she threw a pillow at him, closing the door behind him with one of the first real smiles he'd had in days.