A Barely Breathing Story: Chapter Fifteen

[jesterladyfic]

Chapter Fifteen: Buffy and the Best Friend Freak Out

Buffy realizes she doesn’t know anything about guns. She’s a warrior, trained for battle, crafting death with her hands, but she knows nothing about guns. Her opponents have powers, strength, fangs, claws, but not guns. This whole scenario doesn’t make sense. She tries to think, wondering if there was a time, but all she can think of is Darla shooting at Angel and wasn’t that just laughable?

She scrambles up from the ground where Logan pushed her and stares at him on the ground. He’s bleeding, red blood, sticky and copper-y, pouring from his chest. Veronica’s there, applying pressure and probably doing all those things you’re supposed to do in a situation like this.

Spike’s eyes meet hers over their friends and something in his eyes makes her get up, makes her slam the door shut, keeping the sun from frying him alive. Veronica’s phone is lying on the ground and she picks it up, calling 911.

The operator answers and she’s hit with a flashback of the last time this happened, her on the phone, someone she loves not responding. She wants to fall back into the mists of the pain, but she’s not, she’s answering questions, and then there’s an anguished scream from the kitchen and she feels cold, like dark magic is sweeping over the house.

“Willow?” she whispers, looking up.

Willow’s on the ground, Tara in her arms, and there’s a black cloud shooting out of her mouth at the ceiling.

“Willow?” Spike asks from beside her.

Willow stands up and her eyes are jet black. Buffy takes an involuntary step back.

“Will?” she asks. “Tara…”

“She’s dead,” Willow says flatly and walks toward them.

Buffy’s heart is plummeting and she can’t breathe properly.

“Dead?”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a nerd to find,” Willow says, pushing past them.

The door blows off its hinges and Spike dives for cover again while Willow disappears outside. Buffy simply stares, so unable to function it’s not funny.

“Slayer!” Spike hisses from her left and Buffy tears her eyes away from Willow’s retreating form and looks at him, eyes wide. “Slayer, focus!”

“When’s that ambulance coming?” Veronica snaps, not even looking up from where Logan’s still on the ground, bleeding-bleeding-bleeding.

Buffy can’t look at the kitchen, she can’t. She drifts into the dining room.

Spike snatches the phone from Buffy’s numb fingers.

“1630 Revello Drive, yeah,” he says. “Hang a sec, hear ‘em coming now.”

With vampire hearing, she thinks, cause she can’t hear anything.

“Buffy, Buffy, I need you,” Veronica says, somehow penetrating into the haze. “Give me the phone.”

Buffy looks down and falls to her knees by Logan’s side, catching the phone Spike tosses to her and hands it to Veronica.

“Press down hard,” Veronica tells her and Buffy puts her hands on Logan’s chest.

In the background Veronica is spouting off information to the paramedics and Buffy’s just looking down at her blood covered hands and presses, pressing hard.

Then she’s shoved out of the way as the paramedics take over and she sits on the stairs, trying not to inhale. So much blood. The smell of it is thick in her nostrils and she spares a thought for how Spike must be handling the smell. It's too nauseating to contemplate.

“Spike, will you stay here and deal with…with Tara?” she asks, knowing he’ll hear her.

“Yeah,” he says and his voice is thick with sorrow. “Go, love.”

Buffy shakily gets to her feet and gets into the ambulance with Veronica, sitting small in the corner so the paramedics can keep working on Logan.

“Are you okay?” she finally asks Veronica.

The girl shudders beside her as if coming out of emergency response mode and puts her bloody hands to her face.

“He’s so still,” Veronica chokes out. “He’s never still.”

Buffy puts her arms around her and holds her till they reach the hospital.

It’s a jumble after that, but Buffy retains enough sense to call Giles and leaves a message for Xander and Anya, knowing they won’t get it until they get back even if that’s supposed to be today.

She doesn’t know how long she sits, waiting for news, and she’s going to call the house soon because Dawn will be coming back home and Spike will be there, but Willow’s out there somewhere and she should be doing something other than washing blood off her hands in a hospital sink.

“Buffy,” Giles says, sitting beside her.

“Giles,” she says and throws her arms around him.

It doesn’t matter that he left or why he did, because he’s there and she just needs him.

“Can you forgive me?”

“For what?” she asks, wiping her eyes.

“I should never have left. I should never have abandoned you.”

“Yeah, but no,” she says. “Giles, you were right about everything. It is time I was an adult.”

“Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is...ask for help when you need it.”

“Now you tell me,” she says wryly, shoving away feelings of grief and focusing. “I guess...I wasn't ready before. It took a long time for that feeling to go away...the feeling that I wasn't really here. It was like when I clawed my way out of that grave, I left something behind. Part of me. I just…”

She can’t finish but he hugs her again and it’s okay that she doesn’t.

“Buffy, Willow…” he says.

“Giles, she just snapped. I don’t know what-“

“We must find her. Find her before it’s too late.”

“But Logan…”

“Logan will not be helped by you sitting here. But you can still help Willow.”

“Then we should go,” she says, standing up.

She tells Veronica who simply nods and turns away.

“I will be back,” Buffy promises her. “Can I get someone to come and be with you?”

“I called my family,” she says stiffly. “My dad, Mac, and Wallace are on their way.”

“I will be back,” Buffy says firmly.

Veronica finally looks at her and hugs her.

“Find her and keep her safe,” she whispers.

“I will,” Buffy tells her.

“We need to get to the Magic Box,” Giles tells her.

“How are we going to find her? You don’t think she went there?”

“I think she went there and then left again,” Giles says, looking apologetic, and somehow not at the same time, which she thinks is quite the feat. “I put what you might call a ‘magical lowjack’ on her.”

“Giles with the slang,” Buffy says. “This day is practically apocalyptic.”

“I sincerely hope not,” Giles says, looking grim. “But I can sense Willow and she’s on the move. But I need to check and see what she’s taken.”

“Taken?”

Buffy understands when they get to the Magic Box and the door’s blown out and all the seriously evil and squick-y books from the restricted area are spread out on the floor, drained of their words and, presumably, magic.

“This is worse than I feared,” Giles says. “Come on.”

“You wanna give me the skinny here?” Buffy says, getting into his rental car.

She’s feeling it now, the Slayer adrenaline, the satisfaction of having a goal, of knowing there’s something to do.

“Willow has embraced much dark magic and she’s after revenge.”

“But this is Willow.”

“Barely.”

Buffy swallows hard at that and the last six years flashes through her brain and she still can’t accept the concept.

“So where is she?”

“She’s in the woods,” Giles says, shifting into a higher gear.

They reach the woods and then Buffy’s running, running and brushing past the wind, urgent in her need. She can hear screams.

She bursts into the clearing and Giles is running ragged behind her somewhere.

Warren’s tied to a tree, his eye wide and terrified, his mouth actually sewn shut. Willow is standing before him, hair black as the night around her.

“W-Willow, please, just stop. I love you. And Tara. But we don't kill humans. It's not the way.”

Willow turns and the dead look in her black eyes makes Buffy's heart pound with terror.

“How can you say that? Tara is dead.”

“I know, I know. And I...can't understand...anything. Not what happened...a-and not what you must be going through. Willow, if you do this, you let Warren destroy you too.”

Giles comes into the clearing and Willow’s face gets even darker though Buffy wouldn’t say it was possible five seconds earlier.

“Willow, the magic's too strong, there's no coming back from it. From this act,” Giles says strongly.

“I'm not coming back.”

Willow raises her hands and Warren winces in pain. Buffy leaps forward and grabs her hand.

“Will, please. Please, we'll get through this together.”

“We won't! Not your way.”

“Please, just-“

“No! No more talking. Bored now.”

Willow’s hand flings upward and Buffy stares in horror as Warren’s skin flays off his body, leaving only the meat and bone underneath. It’s one of the most horrific things she’s ever seen and she’s a vampire Slayer.

And it’s done by her best friend. Her best friend. Sweet, loveable, quirky, nerdy Willow. Willow who’s now so powerful she pulled Buffy back from the dead and just killed someone.

“One down,” Willow says somewhere in the back of Buffy’s mind and then she vanishes, leaving Buffy’s world in pieces.

Again.

“I had hoped it wouldn’t-“ Giles says from behind her and she turns to see him leaning against a tree for support.

“I…“ she says.

“Yes,” Giles says.

“What now?”

“I have an idea, but I will need to convene with the coven.”

“Then I’m going back to the hospital,” Buffy says, “and then getting Spike to go look for her. We have to stop her from hurting Andrew and Jonathan too.”

“I will take the car,” Giles says. “You’ll go faster on your own.”

And she will, she does. She almost flies. She imagines that she runs faster than her problems, faster than her despair, faster than her memories.

When she gets back to the hospital Spike, Dawn, and Veronica are in the waiting room.

“Warren’s dead,” she gasps out, bent double.

Dawn gets her water and she gulps it down gratefully.

“Red?”

“Her work,” Buffy says and feels like throwing up. “How’s Logan?”

“The doctors are working,” Veronica says quietly, “but it’s extremely dangerous to operate so close to his heart to get the bullet out. I think…I think magic might be the only thing that can save him.”

“We’re fresh out of magic people,” Buffy says. “Tara-“ she chokes out.

“She’s back there too,” Spike says, jerking his head.

“That’s not the morgue,” Buffy says because she knows.

She knows.

“She’s not dead, Buffy,” Dawn says, putting her hand on her shoulder.

“Thought she was too,” Spike says, “until I got close enough. Faint heartbeat. Called another ambulance and got her here. She’s real bad off, practically same situation as Scottie, but she could make it.”

It’s not possible, but Buffy will take any good news she can right now. For the first time in twenty-four hours, in six months, hope rises in her chest.

“Then we just tell Willow,” Buffy says. “She’ll save them.”

“Logan’s worse than Tara,” Veronica says tightly. “She won’t save him first.”

“Besides, Willow might be…” Spike says. “Just saying I’ve seen this before. Witch goes down the killing road, she might not come back.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Buffy says and it’s her grief saying it.

Spike’s jaw tightens and he doesn’t say anything.

“I- we have to find her,” she says instead of apologizing like she should. “Then we’ll deal with saving people. She said-she said she was going to kill Jonathan and Andrew. We have to protect them. Spike…will you help?”

He nods but doesn’t say anything.

“My family will be here soon,” Veronica says.

“I need your help,” Buffy says softly, looking at Veronica.

“I can’t leave Logan.”

“I know. I know it’s horrible to ask. But if what you say is true, we need Willow to help him. Please.”

Veronica sighs and then nods as well.

“Dawn, can you please wait here for them to get here?” Veronica asks. “Watch over them for us?”

Buffy should’ve been the one to say it. She knows that just looking at Dawn’s face.

But she can’t change that now.

“Yes,” Dawn says.

“Thank you,” Buffy tells her. “I promise I’ll come get you.”

On the way to the jail Buffy tells them what happened in the woods.

“Not sorry the wanker’s dead,” Spike says. “Would’ve done it myself. You could’ve done it.”

“Being a Slayer doesn't give me a license to kill. Warren's human,” Buffy says sharply.

“So?”

“So the human world has its own rules for dealing with people like him.”

“Yeah, we all know how well those rules work,” Veronica says and Buffy thinks back to the last criminal Veronica put away who got off scot-free.

“Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. We can't control the universe. If we were supposed to...then we would change this whole mess. We’d bring people back. There are limits to what we can do. There should be. Willow doesn't want to believe that. And now she's messing with forces that want to hurt her. All of us.”

Spike looks strangely at her at that. But she’s feeling it. She’s feeling that fire inside of her that tells her what to do. She’s missed it so much. She feels more like Buffy. More like the Slayer. More like a person. More like she can love and live and connect and grow.

“Gotta tell you something, Slayer,” Spike says, sounding reluctant.

“Now is not the time,” Veronica interrupts him.

“Always the time for truth, ain’t that what you always say,” he tells her. “Besides, it’s never gonna come out right. Might as well pull the trigger, yeah?”

“If you must,” she says and sighs.

“Someone wanna fill me in here?” Buffy asks.

“Chip’s not working.”

“I know that.”

“On people other than you.”

She stops dead.

“What?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Veronica warns.

“Haven’t hurt anyone,” Spike tells her and she forces herself to look him in the eyes.

They’re sincere. As sincere as ever.

“But…”

“But that means I got a choice to make,” Spike says. “So do you.”

“I-I…”

“We have to go!” Veronica urges. “Buffy, I will personally watch Spike like a hawk if it makes you feel better, but you know him. You know how much he loves you, loves us. If that doesn’t convince either of you, I don’t know what will. But right now we have to save Jonathan and Andrew, save Willow, save Logan, save Tara. In that order. And since the person I care most about is second to last, I suggest you get moving.”

Buffy shuts her mouth and starts running again.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she says grimly. “But Veronica’s right. At least now you can restrain Willow if need be.”

Spike shoots a startled look at her and doesn’t say anything. Neither does Buffy. She’s too busy running. She can’t think about anything else. She’s not going to lose ground this time, she won’t. She won’t.