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Bloodshedbaby
Chapter 14
Joyce rushed into the Emergency Room like a mad woman.
Nothing and no one was going to stop her from seeing her daughter this
instant. She was just about to burst
through the double doors when a male nurse came out at hearing shouts of
“Buffy!” cried repeatedly.
“Mrs. Summers?”
She paused in her tracks to focus on the man standing
before her. It took a few moments but soon his words started to penetrate her
panic-stricken haze.
“…prepped for surgery.”
“I’m sorry.” Her face showed her confusion.
“Surgery?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your
daughter…well, she was hurt real bad. She’s
being rushed to OR as we speak,” he told her as gently as he could.
He tried as much as possible to prepare families for the worst, and this
girl, with her knife wounds, definitely fell into the latter group. That she was
even alive showed a strength of spirit he’d never before witnessed, her
willingness to hold on amazing the very doctors doing everything within their
power to save her. “We’ve a
special waiting room, away from all this noise that I can take you to while you
wait.”
“That would be most appreciated,” Giles murmured,
settling a supportive arm around Joyce’s shoulders.
The room the nurse led them to was fairly dark, the few
scant table lamps providing more of a muted atmosphere than any type of actual
lighting. The shadows were numerous,
and if it weren’t for the flare of a lighter some several minutes later, Giles
would have figured that he and Joyce were alone.
The watcher was just about to tell the man that the
hospital was a “no smoking” zone, but the emotion in the eyes of the vaguely
familiar man caused him to bite back the retort.
It was the same look he no doubt would see if he happened to glance in a
mirror.
Anguish.
So, Giles let him be. Besides,
it wasn’t like Joyce noticed or even cared about the smoke, her mind consumed
with thoughts of her daughter.
The three sat there in the barely lit room, Giles and Joyce
huddled together, staring at the neon-colored fish in the tank that formed a
partition in the room, while the other man chain-smoked in a darkened corner.
All of them, ironically, thinking about the same girl.
~*~*~*~*~
Spike sensed the moment the two humans drifted off to
sleep, no longer able to fight the lure of the sandman – no matter how much
they might wish it weren’t so. He
expelled an unnecessary breath that the Slayer’s watcher hadn’t seen fit to
confront him. The vampire really
hadn’t wanted to alert the others to his presence, and he’d given his word
not to harm the Slayer’s mates, no matter how much they might provoke him.
With the two sleeping peacefully, he took a moment to
observe the pair. Something was
brewing there. Their unguarded
actions spoke more than just Slayer’s mom and Slayer’s watcher, momentarily
united during this latest crisis. He’d
noticed it the man’s touch, even if the watcher had tried his best to mask it.
But, the vampire knew body language.
Knew, also, that the mom wasn’t averse to his attentions.
They just needed some catalyst to spark the flame.
He dismissed them from his mind and concentrated on the
Slayer. He could barely feel her
through the claim, the mind-altering drugs sending her into too deep a slumber
that even he could not penetrate. It
made him nervous. No.
It made him want to get up out of his chair and find out what was taking
so bloody long.
Spike had been told the procedure would take several hours,
the blade had nicked several internal organs that would require painstakingly
precise sewing to see the damage corrected.
Then there was the matter of seeing the gaping wound closed.
Just another thing to see that the Order paid for.
The hours slipped by as the vampire imagined scenario after
scenario of the final takedown of the Order of Taraka at his and the Slayer’s
hands.
~*~*~*~*~
“Mr. and Mrs. Summers?” The soft-spoken voice cut into
their light sleep. The couple
managed to rouse themselves on the second address.
“I-I’m Joyce Summers.”
“I’ve got good news.”
Remarkable, near miracle, news actually.
That the girl managed to live and was even now on the mend, her flesh
knitting back together at an alarming rate, was something for the record books.
“Your daughter made it through the surgery without any
complications.”
The doctor watched as the woman seemed to sag into the man
sitting beside her. “W-When can I
see her?”
“We’re moving her from post-op to ICU for the next
twenty-four hours, just to monitor her. She
had a very close call and we want to pay particular attention to any signs of
internal bleeding. When she’s
settled, a nurse will be down to show you to her room.
You can visit for an hour, no more. She
needs her rest, and frankly, so do you.”
“Yes…thank you, doctor.”
“It was my pleasure.
It’s always nice to give these kinds of speeches.
Rather makes my day…” He
smiled at the pair then moved off, back the way he’d come.
In his darkened corner, Spike sent up a silent prayer of
thanks to a God that he’d forsaken over one hundred years ago in an abandoned
alley in
Thirty minutes later, a nurse showed up.
Spike followed at a respectable distance, not wanting to alert the
watcher to his presence. He just
needed to mark the room, then once the Slayer’s mom left, he’d slip in to
make sure that she was all right, before nipping out for a bit of kip.
He wouldn’t go far, just to a secure spot away from any sunlight that
would soon be beaming in through the various windows of the hospital.
Even now his demon was telling him to seek shelter, the
approaching dawn causing prickles of awareness to skate up and down along the
back of his neck.
The Slayer’s mom and watcher didn’t stay long, wanting
only to reassure themselves that she was ok before moving out of the way of the
nurse that was seeing to her care. After
they left and the nurse moved off to see to another patient, Spike slipped
inside her room. One hand sought to
hold hers, while the other pushed the hair back from her face.
She was pale. Paler
than normal. But Spike could see
faint traces of returning life in how she seemed to lean into his caress.
The soft mumble of his name on her lips.
He didn’t smell her blood, or any signs of disease, to
which he was extremely grateful. After
a soft kiss to her brow, Spike slipped from the room and took the stairs to the
basement.
Crouched in a darkened corner, the vampire leaned back
against the wall and let sleep overtake him.
It was a deep sleep, rife with dreams.
About the Slayer…and him. In
the last segue, he was racing after her, her pleas for help getting further and
further away until he could barely hear her call his name…
Spike woke with a start.
In a flash, he was on his feet and racing up the stairs
leading to her room. The sunbeams
filtering in through the windows of the staircase singed parts of his skin, but
he didn’t care, paying little mind to the pain.
His one thought: reach the Slayer.
She’d been calling him.
~*~*~*~*~
For the first time in over a month, Buffy awoke alone, no
sign of the vampire that had been her constant companion anywhere in sight.
That freaked her out almost as much as the fact that she’d woken in a
hospital with various monitors hooked up to her body.
She began pulling at the lines, setting off various alarms.
Moments later, a nurse showed, and as Buffy continued to struggle to gain
her freedom, another, and then another, rushed into her room to get her to calm
down. It wasn’t working, the
people holding her squirming body down flat against the bed just increased her
anxiety. When she felt one foot
secured by a restraint, quickly followed by one to her hand, Buffy lost it.
“Spike!” she screamed his name over and over as she
struggled to be free.
The Slayer was oblivious to the nurses as they attempted to
calm her down, reassure her that she was ok and just recovering from surgery –
she didn’t hear any of it. Her
mind cried out for the vampire to rescue her, to take her away from these people
and this place.
She felt the familiar tinglings that signaled his presence
and she stopped struggling briefly – just long enough for a nurse to inject
her with a sedative. Her eyes grew
heavy, the drug rushing through her system quickly lulling her to sleep; she
tried to stay awake to tell him not to hurt anyone – that she just wanted out
of here – but her body was no match against the intravenous injection and went
lax against her restraints, sinking back into the mattress.
Buffy didn’t hear the noise as people went crashing into
equipment scattered about the small room. Nor
did she feel the cool fingers that ripped sensors and IVs from her arms, legs,
chest, and neck before the vampire hefted her into his arms and close to his
chest to make good his escape.
~*~*~*~*~
The next time Buffy woke was to find her face pressed up
against a cool, bare chest. She
snuggled closer and felt the arms wrapped loosely around her back tighten in
reflex. If it weren’t for the
bandages wrapped around her middle, and the fact that there wasn’t a spot on
her that didn’t ache in some way, she would have thought the confrontation
with the assassins was just a dream. That
her waking up alone and seemingly abandoned in some hospital room, no more than
something conjured in her mind.
She lifted her head and wasn’t surprised to see him awake
and watching her.
“Hey,” she mumbled.
“Hey there yourself, kitten.
How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck,” she grumbled.
He smiled at her response. “Yeah, well, I imagine a sword
to the gullet tends to do that.”
Amusement lit her eyes, his gentle teasing just what she
needed to take her mind off her aches. She
snuggled back against his chest and closed her eyes, the two just laying there
in companionable silence. Buffy must
have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes it was dark.
Spike wasn’t in bed with her, but he was near.
She rolled over and watched as he walked out of the bathroom, a towel
slung low on his hips.
“Jus’ gonna nip out and get us a bite to eat.
Hungry?” He walked over and sat down on the mattress beside her.
Tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear, he eyed her intently, looking
for any signs that she might still be in pain.
“How do you feel?”
“Sore…but better.”
Her hand reached up to grip the one he still held against her cheek.
“Hurry back?”
Spike nodded then rose to slip into a dark pair of slacks
and pullover shirt, forgoing his Doc Martins for the casual shoes he’d been
wearing when he arrived in Sunnydale.
Buffy watched every move he made, the unconscious
sensuality of his movements making her wish she wasn’t quite as banged up as
she was. She spotted his glasses
lying on the nightstand and reached her hand out to grab them.
“Don’t forget these,” she called out, dangling them
between thumb and forefinger.
The vampire quirked his brow at her.
“What? I
think they’re sexy.” She tried
to wiggle her eyebrows at him, but failed miserably.
He grumbled under his breath but snatched the glasses out
of her hand, nonetheless.
“Don’t open the door for anyone.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at him.
“As if I could get out of bed.”
“See that you don’t.”
Then he was gone and already she was missing him.