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A Friend in Need by slaymesoftly
 
Three
 
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Chapter Three
 
The small waiting room was crowded with Buffy, Dawn, Riley, Giles, Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya occupying all the available seats.  When the surgeon came in, followed closely by the young doctor who had been observing and assisting him, Buffy jumped to her feet, giving Riley an apologetic shrug as she almost knocked him off the bench.
 
“Miss Summers?” The surgeon looked around the room until the younger doctor touched his arm and pointed to Buffy.  “Ah, yes, there you are.  Well, things went very well. The tumor was easily isolated and removed, and we see no signs of it having spread. Of course, we will test the tissues for malignant cells, but I suspect it was more benign than we originally feared. Baring any complications, your mother should be fine and back to normal within a few weeks.”
 
“Oh, Doctor. Thank you! Thank you!” Buffy’s first instinct to hug the man until his ribs cracked was fortunately interrupted by Giles’s warning hand on her arm.
 
“That’s wonderful news, Doctor. Thank you so much.”
 
The man peered suspiciously at Giles and the eager Scoobies gathering around Buffy, but didn’t bother to question who all these non-family people might be. He just gestured at his intern and nodded.  “Ben here can give you all the details as to how long she’ll be in recovery, when she’ll be able to leave the hospital, and her home care.  She’s a very fortunate woman.”
 
The surgeon made his escape, leaving Ben to answer all the questions being thrown at him.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Buffy refused to leave the hospital until she had spoken with Joyce, sending Dawn home with Willow and Tara.
 
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Riley asked quietly, as the others were leaving. “I’m free tonight.” Buffy winced at the resigned tone of his voice. Riley had been at loose ends since getting his heart fixed. He still patrolled with her, not realizing that his presence was often more of a danger than help. Now that he was just a normal man – if a big, strapping, extremely fit one – he just didn’t have the speed and strength that he’d had before. 
 
“No, that’s okay, Riley. I’m just going to sit by Mom’s bed until I’m sure she’s going to be all right. Then, I think I’ll go home and catch some sleep.  It might be really, really late. Maybe morning.  I’ll call you tomorrow when I know what’s going on. Okay?”
 
“Sure. That’s fine. If you don’t need me—” He shrugged. “But you don’t usually need me anymore, do you?  All that talk about how losing my enhancements wasn’t going to make a difference was just that, wasn’t it? Just talk.”
 
Buffy made no attempt to hide her sigh. “Riley, I’ve got a mother who just had brain surgery, a sister who—” She paused, having not shared with Riley that Dawn was the mysterious “key” that Glory was searching for so vigorously. “A hormone bomb of a sister, a fashion-challenged demon of some sort, who’s stronger than I am and who keeps trying to kill me because she thinks I have her precious key.... I just don’t really have the time or energy to worry about your ego right now.” 
 
She shook her head and gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. That was—I didn’t really mean that.”
 
“I think you did,” he said stiffly. “Is that what you think this is about? My ego?”
 
“Well, no. I mean... I know you want to help me, but right now all I need is for you to... to be there for me when I need you.”
 
“That’s the point, Buffy. You don’t seem to need me. For anything.”
 
“I need you! I’m very needy!  I’m totally needy girl... I just... I just don’t need you the way you—for the things you think I should need you for.”
 
“Then what do you need me for?”
 
“I just need to know that... I need you to be my... my boyfriend.  It’s just, when you’re the slayer, that’s kinda a... different... position.  Not like what you’re used to probably.”  Buffy raised her eyes to his. “But I don’t know how to do it any other way. The world has to come first.  That’s what—who I am, Riley. I have to save the world sometimes... usually on a Tuesday—okay, that’s irrelevant—but at least once a year. I don’t know if Glory is going to be this year’s Big Bad, but she might be. It’s a little early, but she’s—”
 
“She’s just some sort of human-looking demon that’s trying to kill you. Why don’t you let the Army handle it? They still have a presence in Sunnydale. Let her catch a couple of grenades in the chest and—“
 
Buffy shook her head.  “Riley, she probably could catch the grenades and throw them back before you could duck. Or maybe just squeeze them into powder, I don’t know.  But I’m pretty sure your Army buddies aren’t going to want to go after a woman – no matter how stupid she dresses – until she’s killed several of them just to prove she can....”
 
“But you think you can take her on... alone.”
 
Buffy bit her lip and visibly debated with herself for a moment before she mumbled, “I’m not planning to do it alone. And that’s all I’m saying about that right now.”
 
“Fine,” he said stiffly. “Keep your secrets. Apparently letting me in on your strategy isn’t one of your ‘needs’.”
 
“I can’t do this right now.”  Buffy sighed and shook her head again.  “I’ll call you later.” She went up on her toes to give him a kiss, but he just glared at her, then spun around and left without saying good-bye. She gave another sigh and headed in the direction Ben had shown her was where she could find her mother.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Joyce smiled at Buffy and Dawn as she pushed her dinner tray away. “Why don’t you girls go home and get some sleep?”
 
“I said I wasn’t leaving until I was sure you were all right,” Buffy insisted. Dawn nodded.
 
“I don’t need to go to school tomorrow. I already told my teachers that I might miss more than one day while you were in the hospital.” She beamed at Joyce and Buffy.
 
“Well, as much as I appreciate all this concern...” Joyce gave Dawn an “I’m your mother and I see right through you” look.  “... I’d really like nothing more than to get some sleep. And there’s no reason for you to sit there watching me sleep.  You’ve been here all day. And, Buffy, you’ve been here for almost twenty-four hours. You can come back tomorrow, after they’ve done all their tests in the morning, and we can talk about when I’ll be coming home. Go on. Get a good night’s sleep. You both look tired.”
 
“All right,” Buffy agreed with a sigh.  “We’ll see you tomorrow. Do everything the doctors tell you,” she added, giving her mother a stern look. 
 
Joyce laughed softly, wincing when it jostled her newly-patched up head. “This, from the girl who kept me running to the principal’s office every other week?”
 
“That’s not fair! I was busy with slayer stuff... usually....”
 
“I’m just kidding you, honey.  I’ll be good. I promise.  I want to live to watch my two beautiful girls grow up and get—” She paused as she remembered how dangerous Buffy’s night job was, and that they really didn’t know what Dawn’s being a “Key” might mean.  “Anyway, I’ll be good,” she finished with another smile.
 
“And we promise to grow up, get married and give you fat grandchildren,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes. “Do you really think we don’t know what you wanted to say?”
 
Wishing their mother a goodnight, Buffy and Dawn kissed her and left the room. As the walked down the hall, Dawn said, “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”
 
“That’s what the doctors said. We just have to trust—oh, speaking of... Hi!” Buffy smiled up at the tall, good-looking intern who had made it his business to see that they were informed.
 
“Hi,” he said back, shuffling his feet as if embarrassed.  “I’m glad to see your mother doing so well.  I guess she talked you into going home tonight, huh?”
 
“Yeah. She’s pretty much back to being ‘I’m the mom and I say so’ mode.” Buffy smiled at him again. “I guess it’ll be up to you to keep an eye on her.”
 
“Happy to,” he said just as his face fell and he began to shake. “Oh no! Not now!” He stared at them. “Run!”
 
Without another word, he whirled and ran into a nearby linen closet, slamming the door shut behind him.
 
“What did he mean, ‘Run’?” Dawn frowned at Buffy, only to see that she was equally confused. Torn between a slayer’s instincts to run toward the danger, and a sister’s instincts to protect Dawn, Buffy wavered until they heard a woman’s angry voice shrieking from the closet. Something in the voice was only too familiar, and Buffy grabbed Dawn’s hand.
 
“He meant RUN!” she said, pulling Dawn at almost Slayer speed down the hall and to the nearest staircase.  They half-ran, half tumbled down the two floors to the ground level, bursting out the emergency door and running to the parking lot. By the time they reached the car, Dawn was gasping and wheezing, only Buffy’s firm grip on her hand keeping her going.
 
Once in the car and safely away, they paused to regain their breath enough to talk.
 
“What the hell was that?”
 
“I don’t know – and watch your language – but that was Glory’s voice coming from that closet and somehow Ben knew she was around.  The question is, how did he know we shouldn’t be there when she appeared? And why did he go into the closet?
 
“Maybe he’s afraid of her and was trying to hide? Or maybe he was being a hero and trying to distract her?”
 
“And we’re right back to how did he know she would be after us?”
 
“Well, since she doesn’t know who/what I am, technically, she would have been after you,” Dawn pointed out.
 
“Beside the point. Somehow, Ben, who barely knows us, knew that Glory was not somebody I would want to be around.  And that she was going to be there any second – or that she was hiding in the closet, but that’s....” Buffy sighed. “That’s something we can figure out later, I guess. Meanwhile we need to find someplace safe for you to spend the night.”
 
“Are we doing back to Spike’s crypt?” Dawn sounded almost pleased at the thought of spending the night in a vampire’s damp crypt.
 
“I suppose so. We need to run by the house first and get some things. Maybe an air mattress and some clean clothes? Stuff like that. It’s going to be different, staying in the crypt all night. Not like just hanging out there for a couple of hours in the daytime.”
 
“I’m not going to be there by myself, am I?”  Dawn suddenly sounded much less enthusiastic about spending the night in a large grave.
 
“No. I’m going to stay there too. I’ll do a quick patrol while you get settled in, but then I’ll spend the night there too.”  She paused. “Just so you know... I mean, I’ll be back long before... but – Spike’s coming back tonight,” she finished in a rush. “So he’ll be there too.”
 
“Cool!” Dawn was completely undismayed that they might be sharing the crypt with its undead owner. “I haven’t seen Spike in forever!” 
 
As she pulled into the driveway, Buffy bit her lip, her knowledge of what Dawn was and when she’d appeared in their lives conflicting with memories of catching her peering down from the stairs when Spike had first come in to talk to her about taking down Angelus. And the hero-worship/crush Dawn had developed the previous year when she thought a harmless Spike was going to become her brother-in-law.
 
“No,” she settled for saying quietly. “None of us have seen him in a while. But Mom and Clem have talked to him on the phone.”
 
“Is that why you know he’s coming back? Did one of them tell you?”
 
“I called him,” Buffy said in a tone that requested no more questions.  A tone that Dawn blithely ignored.
 
“You did? That’s awesome! Are you guys going to get back together?”
 
“No! What’s wrong with you? You know that was one of Willow’s spells that went wonky. We never were together.  I have a boy friend, remember?”
 
“He’s boring. Spike is totally cool and sexy.”
 
“Dawn!”
 
“Oh, like you haven’t noticed.  Puleeeze!”
 
“This conversation is over. Finished. Kaput. Done. Dead and buried – like Spike... except not so much with the buried, I guess...” Buffy stomped onto the porch and opened the door, pointing inside.  “Go pack your stuff. I want to get out of here.”
 
`````````
 
While Dawn went to pack an overnight bag, Buffy threw a few things into a duffle bag and changed her clothes. Telling herself she was not putting on tight black jeans and a red sweater because she knew Spike liked the colors, she brushed her hair and teeth (no water in the crypt she assumed) and grabbed a jacket from her closet. She stared into the closet for a second, then reached in and took down Spike’s leather duster, which had been hanging there since sometime the previous year.
 
If Giles had wondered why she wanted it, he hadn’t asked, he’d just handed it over with a somewhat aggrieved, “Who knows if we’ll ever see him again?” 
 
Buffy hadn’t bothered to share with anyone the reason for Spike’s departure, and she’d been surprised at the reactions when she told them he’d left town. She would have sworn Giles was disappointed, and even Xander seemed to miss his irritating presence from time to time.  But they’d become used to his absence, just as they’d become used to his presence, and his name was rarely mentioned by the time Glory began to show up.
 
 
By the time Buffy had parked the car, wrestled the heavy, if compact, air mattress and all the other things she’d decided they needed from there into the crypt, it was well past full dark and she wondered how safe it really was to leave Dawn on her own.  Finally, settling Dawn at the table with her homework and a water pistol full of holy water, she collected her stakes and went out to do a quick patrol of Restfield.
 
She muttered to herself as she went, dusting a newly-risen vamp every now and then, complaining about how her slaying duties were being affected by Glory and the scuzzy minions that were now running around Sunnydale searching for the “Key”.  Which they now knew to be what Glory – a hellgod, according to the less-than-useless Council – needed in order to return to her own dimension. Which would have been fine with Buffy, except for the little problem with the Key being her sister.... And that opening the way to the hell dimension would allow all sorts of nasty things through, as it was unlikely to close itself behind Glory when she left....
 
 An unpleasant situation all around, and time was apparently getting short and Glory was getting more impatient.  Giles seemed to think that if she hadn’t found the key and opened the portal by sometime later in the spring, the opportunity would be gone for another thousand years.  Not that Buffy was looking forward to having Glory around for that much longer, but if they could just hold her off until the date passed, she’d stop looking for the Key and Buffy could concentrate on slaying her when she could.
 
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