part 2
Angel burst into the library's double doors with weakening
force. Giles and the rest of the scooby gang<what's left of it. . .
but don't think about that right now> looked up, startled to see the strong
vampire staggering about with a very unconcious Willow in his arms. He
dropped her onto the main table, then bent over with cramps...he didn't
think it was possible for a vampire to get cramps... or for a slayer to
die during a routine binding. <You learn new things everyday, boyo>
he told himself half-hysterically. Tears drowned his vision .
Giles placed his hands on Willow's neck and took her
pulse. It was weak and thready, and her skin was clammy. <She should
have been taken to the hospital immeadiatly...why did Angel bring her here?>
He glanced at the doubled-up vampire beside him.
"Angel?" he asked, concerned"Willow needs a doctor...What
the bullocks happened? Where's Buffy?" His whole body went cold at Angel's
gasping silence "Where's Buffy?!" he demanded.
"She's dead," he squeezed out painfully, then vomited
blood all over the linoleum.
***
At Sunnydale General Hospital
"She was...attacked,"Giles said as he ran along side
the hospital gurney."By...um..."he tried to stammer out a decent lie. The
middle-aged E.R. doctor met his eyes and sighed.
"Say no more,"he said. "Alright, people, we've got another
pcp gang mugging!" he announced to the trauma room. Giles shook his head
in disbelief at the pattern the nurses fell into out of habit.
"You'll have to wait outside," one of them told him.
Giles backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on the last of two girls he
considered to be his daughters.
Four terrified faces met him in the waiting room.
"The doctors are doing the best they can,"he said, removing
his glasses.
Oz looked up from his hands."When can I see her?" he
asked.
"I don't know. They just threw me out."
Angel rocked back and forth against the wall he was leaning
on. The bare constrait he had over his emotions was etched in every line
of his face. For the first time that Giles had known him, he looked his
full age.
"What happened, chap?" Giles asked him privately. Angel
looked at him with eyes that were endless pools of hell. He started to
speak, but his voice choked and died. He went back to rocking.
"Xander," Cordelia said suddenly. Her face was staring
and blank. "Was he...Is he really dead?"
Angel looked at her and nodded. Tears spilled out of
his hooded eyes.
"Oh, god," she whispered.
"Cordelia....Ms. Chase...I'm. . .I don't know what to
say...I--" Wesley stuttered.
"Wesley?" she said
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
"Right then. Coffee anyone?"
Giles sat down in a cracked, orange chair. The smell
of amonia coolly filled his lungs. The day he'd dreaded his entire career,
and feared the past three years, had arrived.
He'd lost a Slayer.
Granted, she wasn't his, technically, anymore, since
he'd been removed from his duties, but Buffy was still HIS, goddamnit.
He could see her so clearly, too, in his mind, performing calestetics to
that godawful music...what was it she called it? Chemical Brothers? In
her prom dress, graceful and composed, despite having saved the entire
senior class from being eaten...Standing over the Master's skeleton and
destroying it. . .Bloody hell, even WITHOUT her powers she had defeated
one of the world's most dangerous vampires...That girl...that teenage,
five-foot-four, one-hundren-and-two-pound piece of blonde fluff had looked
the Hellmouth straight in the face and spit in its eye...all while 'punning'...
Giles put his head into his hands and let out a soul-killing
sob. Oz, in the chair next to him, placed a hand on his arm and they all
sat in silence, waiting for Willow. . .