Q & A 9

Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to wipe away the blurriness. She put her hand to her head trying to stop the throbbing, her efforts were useless. She looked up into the room gathering her senses. It was dark and empty. She threw the covers off of herself and tossed her legs over the bed her feet playing with the plush carpet. She stood and walked to the door pulling it open with little effort. The hallway was as dark as the bedroom and just as empty. "Dad?" She called out. Her words echoed off the walls filling her ears with the sound of her own voice. She walked the length of the hall every room she passed was dark and lifeless. "Dad?" She called louder. No answer came. The whole house was empty everyone was gone. "Where is everyone?" She asked herself. She descended down the staircase with minor caution. She passed into the living room on her way to the kitchen. Static billowed out from the previously off television. Instinctively she covered her ears trying to blot out the noise. "Hello?" She called out.

It's going to kill you, you know? A wind whipped through the room giving her a chill. She spun around finding no one behind her.

"Who are you? What will kill me?" Quinn called out retreating to the front door.

Your empathy, it's going to kill you. Your friends will be too late to save you. Quinn shivered as the invisible voice answered her questions.

"No. No they won't be they know what they have to do. I won't die!" She called out.

Yes. They will find the gem but when they do it will be too late. You'll have died. It sighed. Quinn could feel panic rising within her. Her life was a horror story hunting and killing demons. As much as it sucked she didn't want to die. She was too young. Angel…She felt a tear slip passed her emotional restraint and roll down her cheek. Her husband she couldn't leave Angel.

"I can't die. I can't. I won't." She yelled. The chuckle of the voice rang through the room.

I'm afraid you won't have a choice. But if you wish to live, there is…something you could do. The cripticness of the message the voice relayed caused Quinn to squint her eyes in suspicion. She crossed her arms.

"And that would be?" She asked. There was silence for a moment and then it spoke again.

Turn off your empathy. It said it as if it was just so obvious a solution. Give in to the demon and you'll live. Quinn was reeling.

"Empathy…To feel is what makes us human. If I give into the demon I will become no better than the things I hunt." She called out. With indifference it spoke.

But you'll live…

He watched her eyes roll beneath her eyelids as she lay otherwise motionless in Buffy's bed. He could hear her almost still heart beating quicker than it should be. Something was going on within her. "No, I can't." Her head turned to the side in distress. Spike leaned closer trying to hear. "I can't…Angel…" Her words came in fragments and he struggled to find their meaning. Spike heard the door push open behind him. The scent that wafted to his nose on the currents of air waving in through the room told him it was Willow. She came to stand beside him.

"How is she?" Spike looked to the side and shook his head.

"She speaks now, I guess that's better. But she isn't making any sense." He looked back reaching out to cup his hand around the side of her face. "Buffy back yet?"

"No. Angel should almost be here. If you need to go I can stay with her." Willow offered. Spike shook his head.

"There's still pigs blood in the fridge. I don't want to leave her." Willow nodded her understanding and walked back toward the doorway then she paused.

"She'll come through Spike. She'll be ok." Willow assured. Spike nodded. He kept watch over his daughter. The one thing in his undead existence he loved more than anything. He knew she would come back he could feel it. But how she was coming back was what worried him.

Willow shut the door quietly behind her standing there for a moment. She bit her lip casting a troubled gaze to the side. She felt for Spike she even felt some admiration for him. She couldn't excuse the things he's done, how he hurt Buffy. But she couldn't afford to be a hypocrite after all in his one hundred and some odd years of existing all of his bad deeds didn't almost end the world. It was because of this and that he had actually fought to be on the side of the good guys she was going to help him the only way that she knew how. She strode from the bedroom and into hers taking the book laying on her bed and set it on the floor. She knelt down before the book sitting with her legs crossed. The gem itself was pretty old and Quinn couldn't have been the only person to have been affected by it human or otherwise. Willow stared at the picture of the gem filling her mind with thoughts of only the cats eye. "Of people present and passed, reveal to me what has been unseen." The last thing Willow say before she blacked out was the single lit white candle on the window sill in front of her.

The liquid dropping from the IV into the pool of fluids was deafening. The heart rate monitor beeped with activity. Willow open her eyes slowly looking up at the ceiling. She pushed herself up onto an elbow looking around the room. She found herself in an old hospital bed. She heard the faint sound of sobbing. She looked over finding an older woman probably in her early thirties holding the hand of the girl lying in the hospital bed. "I'm sorry but there is nothing else I can do." The dr said sympathetically. The mother looked up from where she sat.

"I don't understand." The doctor sighed.

"Whatever you said she was exposed to, caused extreme sensory overload. To such an effect that it has shut down just about all of her involuntary and voluntary functions. She can breathe on her own, her kidneys, and lungs are 100% functional on their own. However, she's in acoma. Her brain activity, I'm afraid, well there just isn't any. I'm sorry but I must attend to my other patients." Before Willow could formulate a question she was tugged forward. She left the hospital room to stand into the middle of an older style kitchen. She heard short ragged sobs. Cautiously Willow stepped closer peering around the kitchen island. Sitting on the floor was a older girl probably ten years older than the girl in the hospital bed. The girl clutched a large butcher knife in one hand. Willow gasped and surged forward wanting to stop the girl but ended up falling threw her instead. She fell to the tiled floor on the other side of the girl watching in horror as she drug the large blade harshly across her skin. A huge gash formed where she cut blood forming a line and pooling over dripping down her arm onto the tile. The girl cried harder picking up a wash rag she had had in her lap with it she wiped away the blood. Willow leaned closer her eyes widened. The huge gash had healed into a faint red line. "Accelerated healing…" Willow whispered. She went through several more flashes of more of the same things. Both humans, demons, and hybrids with heightened powers. In one final tug she appeared in Buffy's living room. Willow looked around. "This isn't where I passed out." She said thoughtfully.

"Hello?" Willow spun on her heel seeing Quinn coming down the stairs. A smile sprang over her bright features and she sprang forward.

"You're up! You're ok!" Willow said. It will kill you, you know…Willow stiffened.

"Who's there?" Willow and Quinn mirrored responses. Willow listened as the voice continued in explanation. Staring with her mouth open she turned to Quinn.

"No…No..no no. Quinn you can't!" Willow shouted waving her arms to no avail. "Oh crap! This isn't good. Oh no!" Willow stepped further away from Quinn she needed to get back she needed to warn Spike. "With what is revealed I now see take me back to the place I be." Willow closed her eyes. A gust of sudden wind swirled her hair around her shoulders.

Her eyes fluttered open and she was right where she had passed out. Remembering everything she jumped, a little too quickly to her feet and ran to the back bedroom. She burst through the door forgetting all pleasantries. The look Spike tossed back at her would have at one point scared her but right now there were more urgent matters pressing. "We have a problem."

Her head reeled she fell back a few steps taking a seat on the bottom stair. If she did what the voice suggested if she switched off her empathy the part of her that made her human she would be no better than the ones she hunts. She would be without boundaries. She could cause chaos in the waking hours. She would wreak havoc in the night. How many lives would she ruin before she could turn back? If she could turn back? If she destroyed any she wouldn't want to. Her father went through trials, fought relentlessly for his humanity and she was debating about just turning hers over. Quinn laid her head in her hands feeling tears roll down the sides of her arms. She shook her head. She was one life she wasn't about to save hers if it meant taking the life of another, a dozen, or several hundred. She just wished she could talk to Angel one more time. Wish she could tell her dad the things she'd never gotten the chance to. She rose to her feet having made her choice. "I don't want to die. But I won't allow others to suffer at my hands." She spoke. There was silence in the room and then a loud cackle broke out through the silence. The sound was shrill raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

So modest…You have no choice...Quinn felt a freezing pressure on her chest as if someone had left their hand in a bucket of ice water and was pressing it to her chest. Chills ran through her body. Her head shot back her eyes widened. Searing pain ripped through her spreading from the center of her chest outward. Through her arms down her spine through her legs. She screamed hoping to relieve whatever it was that was happening to her. The voice that had rang out through the room whispered in her ear. The destroyer will parish by your hands…Laughter rang out Quinn struggled.

"Noooo! Connor!"