As they drove further Buffy thought her heart was going to stop, staring at the sirens, focusing solely on the flashing lights as they drew closer for what seemed like forever. She went to open her mouth, to tell Spike to stop the car, because she had to get out now she couldn’t wait any longer, when suddenly he did. They were already outside and she hadn’t even noticed. Everything that happened next didn’t happen in slow motion like they say; everything was very real, intense and bright and painful and real.
Buffy got out of the car, leaving the car door open. Spike followed behind, but at a distance, trying to figure out what was going on, whilst Buffy just needed to know right the hell now. They both saw Giles talking to the police, but there was no sign of their little sister Dawn or Buffy’s mother Joyce.
“Giles!” Buffy yelled as she took the lawn and porch steps in a run, “What’s going on? What happened?”
Giles, the man Buffy had always relied on to get straight to the point, to give her answers or to help her when she was lost, that man just stared back at her unable to speak.
“Giles?” Buffy asked softer this time, knowing if Giles couldn’t even tell her it was worse than she thought.
“You’re Miss Summers, is that right?” the cop next to her stepfather asked, having been told the rest of the family was on the way, “Mrs Giles’s oldest daughter?”
Buffy nodded. She’d never changed her name; she didn’t know why she was thinking about that now, but there it was. It had never been so obvious to her, that she was the outsider. When she was little they didn’t think it was fair to take her name without asking, when she was old enough to be asked she didn’t see the point, now she felt cold. She briefly wondered if that’s why Giles wouldn’t speak to her, was he waiting for Spike to ask him, would he tell Spike? Because Spike was his real child? She knew that was a crazy thought, Giles wasn’t like that, he’d always treated her as a daughter, she brushed it aside, but the cold feeling still remained.
“And this is your brother? Mr Giles’s son?” the cop asked, pointing to Spike who was talking with another policeman further down the lawn.
The cop was obviously trying to ask him questions, burdened with a pad and pen, but Spike didn’t seem interested, he was just finding out what happened and the rest could save until later. But then something in him changed all of a sudden and she knew he’d been told. Whatever it was, he knew.
Spike felt Buffy’s eyes on him and looked to where she was. She turned her head sharply before he could meet her gaze. Even though she was asking what happened, she didn’t want to see it in his eyes; she didn’t want her memory of his eyes to be tainted with that.
She tried to remember the cop’s question to her about Spike being her brother, “No, yes, I mean…Can someone just tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m afraid earlier this evening there was an accident in your parent’s home. Your mother…”
Giles stepped forward then out of the shadows to prove he wasn’t completely absent, he put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder and interrupted the cop, “Your mother’s been taken to the hospital, she fell and hit her head on the kitchen counter. I came home and…I found her.”
“And?” Buffy pressed.
“It was…there wasn’t much blood, it didn’t look that bad, but she wouldn’t get up. She wasn’t breathing, Buffy.”
Buffy’s eyes widened about ten times their normal size; this didn’t make sense, what were they trying to say? “She’s going to be okay though, right?” she asked panicked.
Giles dropped his head, but said nothing comforting, so she turned to the cop, “Right?” Even he had nothing to say to her, or he didn’t know. She turned and Spike was walking towards her, just like she knew he would be. “Spike?” she made a last attempt to find some sign that she wasn’t alone in the world. Would somebody acknowledge her?
Spike stepped slowly up the stairs and pulled her into his chest. She didn’t know how long she was there for or how many times she soaked his t-shirt through with tears, but she felt safe, and she felt as if his body shielded her from everything, even the watching eyes of Giles, so she felt like she could cry. So she cried and sobbed and got away with no one seeing her walls break down. She vaguely felt him move them to let someone in a uniform get passed out of the house, and then suddenly they were sat on the porch swing in the same embrace and she didn’t remember getting there. He didn’t let her go until she was ready, or at least until she needed to move again.
“Are you ready to go to the hospital now, pet?” he asked when she shifted to hold her own weight again.
All she could do was nod, not because she was weak, but because all her energy was focused on trying not to think about what awaited them there. She stood up and looked at Giles; he’d taken his glasses off and was rubbing the bridge of his nose, something he used to do when her and Spike would test him, hide something from him, or do something obviously wrong and not own up to it.
“I just want to go check on my wife,” he said frustrated, “can’t this wait until later?”
“I’m sorry Mr. Giles, of course.” the cop said sincerely, “We have to ask these questions is all, to establish what happened. But we’ll continue it at a better time.”
“My wife fell and hit her head.” Giles said, his voice rising for no reason Buffy or Spike could fathom, “So what else do you need to establish?”
The cop hesitated, “We know, but we just have to find out how that came about.” He probably could have phrased it a hell of a lot better, but he was only young. Giles was staring at him and he rambled a little, “I mean you say you weren’t with her…so if that’s true we need to try and find out if she did actually fall or…”
“What are you trying to say, are you saying I pushed her?! I would never hurt my own wife! I would never!” Giles shouted.
Suddenly out of nowhere he lunged at the cop.
“Giles!” Buffy shouted reaching for him, but Spike was there in a flash holding him back before he got a chance to do anything he would have regretted later.
“Chill old man,” he said squeezing his arms where he held him, “He’s just doing his job.”
Buffy would have been impressed if it wasn’t for everything, she’d never seen Spike hold back Giles after loosing his temper; it had always been the other way around.
Spike glanced at Buffy to let her know it was okay, even though she could see Giles’s frame relaxing and knew it herself. Giles wasn’t an angry man, but all things considered everyone had the potential to get violent when someone they loved was thrown into the mix.
After that they left the house pretty quickly, on the way Spike went to pick up Dawn from her friend Janice’s house. Giles had insisted on going, but no one wanted him going on his own and Buffy wasn’t ready to face Dawn just yet with Spike in-tow so Giles went with her straight to the hospital. She instantly regretted it when they got there, because when they asked for Joyce Giles at the reception and were ushered into a private waiting room she knew it was bad news, and all she wanted was to see Spike.
She spent the next 10minutes waiting for him, praying he would get there before the doctor did, so she wouldn’t have to hear whatever it was alone. Giles was here in body, but she had no idea where his head was right now.
The door opened, and there was Spike, she thanked God. Dawn came in behind him snivelling, her eyes red raw, but for now her tears were dried up. Buffy knew that wouldn’t last long.
Before she could say anything to either of them the door opened again.
“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” the doctor said, “I was working on another patient. Mrs Giles…”
“Joyce.” Giles corrected. If the man was going to talk about his wife he wanted him to use her first name, he didn’t want it to sound so clinical.
“I’m sorry, Joyce. Joyce came into emergency a little over 3 hours ago. She was unresponsive and we did all we could…”
“Oh God.” Giles said knowing what was coming next.
“We were unable to resuscitate her. I am truly sorry.”
There was a moment where Buffy felt like her stomach had fallen out, onto the floor, there was a hole in her gut she couldn’t keep closed and the emptiness seemed to expand minute by minute. Then she felt as if it wasn’t just her stomach falling out, but her whole self, she was falling.
Dawn ran to where Giles was, burying her face in his tweed jacket, crying into his body. He put an arm around her, but apart from that he didn’t even seem aware that she was there beside him.
“What happened?” asked Spike bewildered.
Buffy would rather not hear, but she couldn’t move her body to leave right now, she couldn’t make her mouth open to ask him to be quiet either, so she had to listen anyway.
“We believe the fall triggered her brain aneurysm to rupture, and the blood leaked so fast into her brain that she was disorientated and couldn’t get help.”
“She had a brain aneurysm?” Buffy asked.
“Yes, she’d had some tests a few months ago, because of her dizzy spells and we found it in one of her scans.” The doctor replied to Buffy as if she should already know.
“Aneurysm?” Buffy repeated, looking at Giles questioningly.
“She didn’t want you to worry.” That was all he said to her as he continued to stare into nothing.
“I’m sorry, Miss Summers,” the doctor said, “the aneurysm was very large and in a very difficult to operate area, she opted not to have surgery on it. I thought you already knew or I wouldn’t have said it like that without explaining.”
Spike put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder.
“Not all of us knew apparently.” she said coldly as she glanced at Dawn and saw her shaking, trying to fight her tears. She obviously wasn’t told either, but that made more sense because of her age, and because she was…well, because she was Dawn.
“These ruptures happen I’m so sorry, normally we can stop the leak, but your mother’s condition on arrival was too severe, she’d already lost consciousness and suffered too much cerebral damage.” The doctor finished and paused, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Loss, Buffy thought, that means she’s really gone? Her mother as far as she had known had been perfectly healthy this morning, and now she had simply fallen over and that was that. She had flickered out of the world and the only people that would ever remember her were in this room. That didn’t just happen, did it?
She closed her eyes, retreated into the blackness behind her eyelids and felt like she was falling again, she wasn’t but she still hit something solid in her decent, it was Spike. His arms encircled her from behind. She stopped falling for a while, but didn’t come out of the blackness; she didn’t want to hear or see the world right now, but she knew when she did he would be there.