Fire from the reception desk reflected off the ax blade the Hellion held as it laughed. "Stupid blood rat." As it pulled the blade back, Spike closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool white tiled floor, welcoming oblivion. His epiphany horrified him so much that he'd rather be dust than unlive like this. Hadn't this damn chip stripped away his identity enough?
A whoosh urged his eyes open just in time to see the Hellion go up in green flames, the weight of the ax smashed a few tiles. Spike continued to lay there, eyes glued to the drop ceiling visualizing patterns in the little black holes. The electricity switched over to a generator, scattered flood lights now the only light. So when someone forced the doors to the ER open, the loud pop and crack announced they'd been broken. And Spike continued to lay there, disappointed and unconcerned.
He didn't even care to move when he heard Anya say, "Of course the demons are gone. Didn't you see how four of them died in Jell-O green flames? If four of them went up, they all went up. Trust me. I've seen this type of thing many times."
"Fine, Ahn. Let's just get a doctor." Xander's exasperation extra obnoxious right now.
Tara found an 'authorized personnel only' sign. "There have to be s-s-some doctors a-a-and nurses up that hall."
With the electricity out they had to break that door too, and the wood splitting echoed through the barren waiting room.
Spike caught Dawn's scent when she returned from wherever she'd hid. He knew her squeal of delight would be loud at seeing her only family. "Oh my god guys! What's… is that - is that Buffy?"
"Willow brought her back." Xander sounded like he was about to choke on his tongue.
"What's wrong with her?"
"We think it's jet lag from hell." Anya, as always, blunt and with a skewed perspective. He often felt like he was the only one to appreciate it.
"She might need an IV or something too, right?" Dawn asked. "To re-hydrate?"
"Ah huh."
"I'll help look for a doctor or someone… Wait. Where's Willow? And where's Spike?"
"Didn't Spike make it to you?" Xander's anger dispirited. "Lazy bastard."
"No. He made it and helped get me and Giles here, but then there was an attack and he sent me to hide."
"He probably ran like the fuck up he is." While annoying, Spike had none of the homicidal thoughts toward Xander that a statement like that usually did.
"Spike wouldn't do that!" Dawn remembered a second after speaking he couldn't run. She'd busted out his knee.
"Think whatever you want. I'll find a doctor for Buffy. Come on, Tara." Xander's and Tara's shoes crunched across the debris as they disappeared down the hall.
"What about Willow?" Dawn asked.
"I'm sorry." Anya sounded guilt-ridden for the first time since Spike had met her. "We didn't have time to save Buffy and Willow. She was still in the Magic Box when it got overrun."
The sound of Dawn crying pulled Spike out of his ennui. To cover his ass, he popped out from behind the reception desk with his good leg. He knew that if he acted like he'd just regained consciousness they'd buy it. "Huh! Where'd the bastards go? Run off? That's right. You can't mess with the big bad and live!"
In a millisecond his arms were full of a sobbing Li'l Bit. "Spike! You're okay." She pulled away and looked up at him and he tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Nothing in any dimension could make me leave my girl, yeah?"
She gave him a weak smile as he thumbed her tears away. "Yeah." Dawn hugged him quick and tight again, and then her expression filled with determination. "You need to find Willow. There's still a couple hours before sunup. Get to her. She might be hurt or… she could be hurt really bad. Help her. Please?"
While Spike had nothing against the witch, he had nothing for her either. Unless he counted how much Willow meant to Dawn. Buffy's attachment to Willow didn't even mean anything to Spike. "For you, Bit, I'd move the sun." He kissed her forehead and limped out the door, broken glass crunching under his boots.
That Buffy had returned hadn't sunk in. And he knew that she hadn't been truly resurrected until she could smile and laugh. Things he couldn't give her in any real way. Smiles or laughs made from bitterness and desperation didn't count, did they?
As a predator of humans there were advantages. One of those being the keen ability to find any person whose scent he'd caught. Willow had a smell so easy to distinguish that he found her in time, even if only just, since he was working with a handicap. She'd been a lump of ugly velvet, not that there was any attractive velvet, in an alley in the warehouse district.
These areas had the unfortunate tendency to have reinforced steel doors. And while that would never stop him, the economics didn't work out this time. So the closest building with a wooden door had a devastating run in with his boot. He dropped the unconscious bitch on a pallet and then found his wrist crushed in a superhuman grip. He crumbled under pain he hadn't known since the last time Angelus tortured him. Worse than the broken knee, this pain drained his energy and blinded him as the bones got ground down to dust. If he survived this attack, this would take longer to heal than his pulverized spine had. This was so not his night.
Gathering his conviction and blocking out the pain, he punched the thing with everything he had. Turned out that thing had a name he knew too well. "Ah bugger all."
Willow looked up at him with a red cheek that would all too soon sport a large fresh bruise she got from Spike's fist. "What the hell is going on?" Her voice took on a distinct accent. His accent. She rolled her eyes when she realized how she sounded.
"Bollocks," they said at the same time.
The decision hadn't been difficult. Dawn felt like it should have been. It should have been like trying to decide between parents that loved her and were wonderful. But in reality, she'd pick Buffy over everyone in the universe no matter what, every time. Giles had Xander, Anya, and Tara fussing over him, or he would when he woke up from the anesthetic.
Buffy couldn't even get treatment. The doctor couldn't find anything wrong with the limited equipment available. Once the electricity came back on though, Buffy would get the full work up.
The sky hadn't gotten light enough for Spike to have stopped looking for Willow. But she wouldn't know if he found her until it got dark again. The image of him limping with a crappy makeshift brace out of the hospital pulled the strings of the entire harp quartet of guilt. No matter how mad she got, crippling the only person helping her during a siege had been stupid. It was beyond all the stupid things she'd ever done in her entire real and fabricated life put together.
When Buffy made noises and blink rapidly, Dawn took her hand. "Buffy? Hey. It's Dawn."
"Dawn? What's, um, what's going on?" Buffy looked around the room and then back at Dawn.
"You're in the hospital. You've been out of it for a while." Dawn rubbed Buffy's knuckles with her thumb.
"It was a dream?" Buffy sounded confused as her voice crackled from disuse. "But it felt so real. The electricity, the light, the floating and feelings of completeness. How long ago was the fight with Glory? You don't look older."
"It's been a few months." Dawn smiled with the butterflies of awkwardness beating their wings against her stomach walls. Her brain worked the problem as she got up and backed toward the door. "You thirsty? IV's tend to take care of that problem but you sound like you could use something to wet your whistle."
Dawn ran out of the room before Buffy could answer and down to Giles's room. The rushed entrance got everyone's attention and there was a cacophony to greet her. "Buffy thinks she's been in a coma since the Glory fight."
That news shut everyone up, Anya being the first to bounce back. "Oh. That might be helpful. If she was in one of the lesser hells than she probably thinks it was all a nightmare."
"Wait, what?" Dawn's face contorted with a thought just at the edge of her brain.
"If she was in one of the lesser hells than she probably thinks it was all a nightmare." Anya's repetitious tendency helped for a switch.
"She wasn't in hell." Dawn's eyes moved fast as the thought coalesced. "She said she felt complete, and that there was light and floating. That doesn't sound like hell."
Silence as seven eyes stared at Dawn not helping her nervous stomach any.
"Giles! Um…how long have you been awake?"
"Long enough to know I'm in hell, I suppose." Bandages covered half his face, his arm had a cast on it, and his stump had thick white bandages with red spots.
Dawn had to rip her gaze away. "Sorry." Her head shake was slight this time. "I'm glad you're awake because, and I can't believe I'm about to say this but, I need you to tell me what to do."
A sigh followed a wince as he moved in discomfort. "We should ease Buffy into the idea she died, has been dead for months. Now if you don't mind, I need pain medication and sleep."
Xander gave the man a tentative wave as he exited the room. Tara patted Giles's hand then followed Xander. Anya kissed his good cheek, and followed the others out the door, leaving Dawn and Giles alone together. "Giles, I'm so sorry for everything. You wouldn't be like this if you weren't protecting me. I promise I'll do everything I can to get you, um, up and around again. I love you. You know you're more my father than my own ever was. I promise…"
"Dawn!" His anger died before gaining steam. "I need to rest."
She stepped forward to kiss his cheek like Anya had, but he turned his head so that only his nose was visible. Not knowing what to say, Dawn swallowed and crept out of the room. She got the water she'd promised Buffy and returned to her sister.
The gang surrounded the Buffster as they tried to explain the last few months around the collective anxiety. Dawn handed Buffy a paper cup with ice water and then sat down, staring at the floor. Dawn, distracted by her uncomfortable interaction with Giles, only half heard the conversation. They summed up Dawn's summer as troubled, that Giles's injuries were bad, and Willow would be fine as soon as they found her. Somewhere in there Dawn drifted off to sleep, all traces of adrenaline gone.