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With Friends Like These
By Melanie Walker
Chapter 1
Dawn Summers
stood silently staring down at the blonde vampiress currently
curled as tightly into a ball as she could, considering that the front of her
body was a mass of wounds, on the couch. As William and Xander’s
voices rose in argument in the kitchen Buffy tried to curl even tighter into
herself.
Dawn
wouldn’t be surprised if she eventually disappeared into the crease of the
sofa.
She debated
internally for a moment whether she should go tell the two males to lower their
voices and then decided that Buffy deserved the discomfort she was feeling.
She’d
attacked William.
Hurt him.
In her mind
whatever pain the female was currently in was totally deserved. You didn’t try
to rape people that you claimed to love.
But her mind
also couldn’t block out the despair, the loneliness… the pain that she’d been
in when William had carried her into the house cradling her almost protectively
within his arms.
She couldn’t
understand the gentleness which William had cared for Buffy. Cleaning her
wounds almost tenderly, clothing her within one of his T-shirts, he would have taken
her to his room but Buffy had balked at that so instead he had settled her on
the couch, pulling a blanket over her before he went to deal with his angry
best friend.
If he felt
he needed to help her he should have taken her back to wherever she was
staying, cleaned her wounds there if he really needed to and left. Not brought
her back to the house where she had tried to violate him.
“Is she still
sleeping?” Dawn jumped when she heard William’s voice come from behind her. So
busy frowning in her scrutinization of the vampiress that she hadn’t even heard him approach.
“Yeah… Where’s
Xander?” she asked when the other male didn’t enter behind her brother.
“Left… he’s
a little upset.”
“Can’t
imagine why,” his baby sister let loose a very unladylike snort. “Why is she
here Will? Why didn’t you take her back to whatever hole in the ground she’s
living in and leave her there?”
“She doesn’t
have anything there; I needed the first aid kit to deal with her wounds… it
doesn’t mean anything Dawnie.”
“Sure,
right,” Dawn narrowed her eyes at him as he avoided her gaze. “How did she get
burnt anyway? Pretend I care.”
“It was a
cross,” William flinched as he stared down at her.
His baby
sister didn’t need to know how big the cross was and that if he hadn’t dragged
Buffy off it that both her and Xander’s wishes would
have come true and Buffy would have gone up in a burst of flames and dust.
Didn’t tell
her that even in her weakened state that Buffy had fought him tooth and nail when
she’d figured out where he was taking her.
Hadn’t
told either of them about the soul that Buffy had left Sunnydale to get. He
wasn’t sure what to do about that bit of knowledge yet he sure as hell didn’t
want to know what Xander and Dawn would do with it.
If either of
them tried to attack and stake her now she would let them. She’d probably open
her arms, close her eyes and breathe a sigh of relief.
“She better
not be here when I get up in the morning,” Dawn muttered, turning on her heel,
hair bouncing along her back she stalked away leaving William alone.
Waiting
until he heard her door slam shut he moved the short distance across the room. Kneeling beside the couch. With critical eyes he studied the
woman lying unmoving there.
Periodically
she would shiver, her face contorting into a mask of agony then relaxing. She
was in so much pain and he had no clue how to help her. Didn’t
have the first clue how to help her deal with her new soul.
And the only
person that could quite possibly understand would be Dru
and Buffy would probably drape herself across another cross if he so much as
uttered the other vampiress’ name in her presence.
Stroking her
forehead gently he gnawed on his bottom lip.
“What am I
supposed to do with you?”
**************************************************************************************
Dawn crept
slowly down the stairs, lightly stepping over the sixth one from the bottom to
keep her presence from being found out.
She didn’t
know why she was bothering, Buffy was probably still unconscious on the sofa,
Will slept like the dead unless you were standing right over him… but part of
her didn’t want to be caught checking on the vampiress.
Or bringing her blood. She’d been watching while she
was pretending not to and had noticed that the mug of blood that William had
given her to help heal her wounds had barely been sipped out of.
Actually
Buffy had ignored it unless William had pressed it directly into her hands and
when his attention went to Dawn or Xander she had set it back down and
continued ignoring it.
She didn’t
know why she cared. She was supposed
to hate her after all. She had attacked William, and thus managed to prove
Xander and William right… she had been just waiting for the right time to lash
out. She was a vampire, she couldn’t choose to be
good.
But even through
that all, even though she was still furious that Buffy had tried to hurt
William part of her still remembered the good times she’d had with her.
She could
vividly remember the blonde vampire teaching her how to play poker, watching
inane TV shows on TV, letting her talk about William during the summer he was
gone.
And even
though all that had stopped once William had returned part of her had been
thankful that she’d had Buffy over that summer.
Which is why
it was so hard for her to now try and reconcile the vampire who had attacked
William with the one that had sobbed along with her while watching Terms of Endearment.
Creeping
around the kitchen she found the packets of blood hidden in the back of
vegetable crisper that she wasn’t supposed to know about and moved through a
technique that she had done so often over the Summer of Will’s Death that it
was firmly engrained within her.
She could
probably do it asleep if she needed to.
Mug from the
cupboard, slitting the bag, blood nearly to the top, reseal bag, return to
crisper, mug in microwave for 1 min and 16 seconds so she could stop it a
second before the buzzer dinged and woke the entire house.
She didn’t
know what was wrong with Buffy, didn’t want to know what had driven the cocky vampiress to allow the wounds that had been found on her
body… but maybe by bringing her the blood her Buffy, her friend, the vampire
that used to have cool nicknames for her would come back and explain what had
happened.
With a stern
expression on her face, because Buffy wasn’t going to get off without
explaining something to her she
clutched the mug in one hand and made her way to the living room. Peering
quickly up the stairs as she passed to make sure Will wasn’t skulking there
watching and stopped dead as she came upon the empty couch.
“Buffy?” she
turned slowly scanning the room then dropping the mug on the end table she fell
to her knees by the couch. Running her hand over the cushions, the floor and
breathed a sigh of relief.
She hadn’t
staked herself yet.
But there
was no sign that the vampiress had ever been there,
the blanket that had covered her was once more folded on the back of the couch,
nothing was disturbed within the room.
She was
gone.
**************************************************************************************
With a yawn
and a stretch William sauntered into the kitchen. He had glanced into the
living room and not seeing Buffy lying in a fetal position on the couch had
decided that she must be in the kitchen.
There was still blood packets hidden in the refrigerator… why he
wasn’t sure. He’d started throwing them out once everyone was safe from
Part of him
thinking he could use them to barter for information if need be, another part;
more honest then the voice that normally had control knew it was because if he
threw them out that it would be giving up on ever getting the answers he
needed.
Like why she
thought forcing herself on him would make him feel anything for her beside
loathing and hate.
So sure that
she was in the kitchen, probably being ignored by Dawn he was surprised when he
walked in with a Good Morning on his lips and found only Dawn sitting at the
counter eating a bowl of cereal.
“Where…?”
“She’s not
here,” Dawn stated never lifting her head from her avid perusal of the cereal
box. “She was gone when I got up.”
“Gone?” Will
asked with narrowed eyes hurriedly scanning the room for a stake… or a big pile
of dust.
“God give me
some credit Will… I didn’t stake her,” Dawn muttered as she stood, placing her
bowl in the sink she flounced past him with a glare.
“But where
did she go?” he asked bewildered. Buffy had barely been able to make it from
the kitchen to the living room.
Had Dawn and
Xander’s hatred towards her propelled her to leave
even though she was still injured?
And would
she still hide in the basement of the school knowing that everyone knew that’s
where she was?
**************************************************************************************
Anya moved
slowly down the stairs one hand on the railing, the other clutching a stake.
She hadn’t come to hurt Buffy but if the vampire was as tormented as she
thought she might be it might be her only alternative.
To
volunteer to put a friend out of her misery.
Because
regardless of everything else, regardless of their one time stint as lovers she
still considered Buffy the only member of the Scooby’s that was still a friend.
Even though Buffy could hardly be termed a member of that
‘elite’ little club that surrounded the Slayer.
She could
hear mumbling coming from her right and she moved quickly down the poorly lit
hallway, she would certainly have to say something to Xander about the lighting
in the basement.
Of course it
could wait until she was once more speaking to the man that had left her at the
altar.
“Not real,
no flesh, no bone… nothing,” Buffy was mumbling arms wrapped around herself as
she paced back and forth in the small room. Her head shook and her eyes were
wide. Anya was sure that if the vampiress stopped
moving that she would be trembling in fear and agitation.
Something had definitely put her on edge.
“Buffy?”
Anya called from the door, hands at her side as Buffy turned slowly to her eyes
wandering quickly to the stake within her grasp.
“Come to end
it all for me pet?” Buffy asked softly as her own arms dropped to her side. Anya
barely concealed her wince as she saw Buffy’s chest.
Someone had
done a nifty job on her, although it looked as if someone had bandaged her up
at one point Buffy must have been ripping at the gauze covering the wounds and
most of the angry red burns were visible through the ripped t-shirt that she
currently wore.
“Wh… who did this to you?” Anya whispered as she moved forward,
setting the stake aside she went to touch the angry red marks marring her
friends’ once perfect flesh and was startled when Buffy jumped. Shying away she
held her arms over her chest eyes wide as she stared at the vengeance demon
with something akin to horror.
“No
touching, never touching.”
“Buffy… they
need to be looked at, the wounds need to be dressed, cleaned.”
“Am
dressed,” Buffy glanced down at herself in confusion. “Not clean, never clean…
all gone.”
“Buffy,”
Anya said with mild exasperation.
“Visitors
coming, should I make tea?”
“What?” Anya
shook her head. “I…” she started trailing off when she heard the steps on the
stairs. Picking up the stake she had set aside she held it up and waited and
was shocked to see William appear in the doorway.
Simultaneously
the same question both issued from their mouths.
“What are
you doing here?”
**************************************************************************************
TBC