Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Chp.35

The Decision's Made

All other info: Chp.1
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Dawn had screamed and ranted the rest of the day, after she’d been told about the plan to move Buffy to the god forsaken law firm that Angel had become the head of. It was wrong, and no one would listen to her.

Giles had finally gotten tired of the high-pitched yelling, and pulled the young brunette into the hotel office. “Dawn.”

The girl glares through the curtain of hair that had fallen in her face. The look made her look as if she were ready to kill. “I won’t let you take her to that hell hole.” She states through tightly, clenched teeth, her arms coming up to cross over her chest in defiance, and shakes her head, making the hair fall around to lay on either side of her face, instead of in it. Her eyes come up and lock in his. “It’s soooo not gonna happen, Giles.”

He takes in her total refusal, his own anger over-coming him. “Dawn!” He shouts, slamming his hands, palm down on the old desk sitting in the middle of the room. He draws a deep, and steadying breath, trying to rein in the Ripperesque feeling coming over him. His eyes glint with it, for only a moment. The breathing helps immensely, and he turns to see that he has the girls attention. “We’ve done everything we possibly can with the mystical side, we don’t have anything else that could possibly help her.” He sighs, and leans a hip against the edge of the wooden desk.

“Giles, no.” Dawn is a bit calmer, trying to rationalize. “There has to be something more Willow, you, or Lorne, hell even Angel, could do.” She turns worried eyes on him, hope radiating from her. Her eyebrow coming up in askance, as an idea comes to her. “Maybe, Willow can come up with another spell, try the mind thingy again?” She starts to pace, ticking everything she can think of off on her fingers as she passes back and forth in front of the English man and the desk he’s now leaning heavily against.

He watches her, listening intently at all of her ideas, and inane rambling that couldn’t possibly work. Giles slowly starts to shake his head, as it makes its way to his chest. “We. . . The gang and I. We’ve been over all of the options, everything that you can come up with, we’ve deduced that the magical means have no effect what so ever. We’ve done everything in that pretense that possibly can be, if we attempt more we run the chance of making her condition even more dire.” He takes another deep breath, afraid to look up and see the look on Dawns face. “I am against this choice of action, as much, if not more than you are. We haven’t any other choice in the matter.” He resigns him self, and lets his blue eyes, meet the angry ones of the girls, but then the anger turns to that of resignation, the determined tenseness in her shoulders falls, and she slowly slumps down in a chair by the door.

“I completely hate every aspect of this, you know?” She asks, sighing heavily, nervously running her hands over the denim covering her thighs.

“The situation is hated by all of us, Dawn. But if it can help out your sister, we are willing to take the chance.” His hands clamp down on the wood of the desk, forcefully. “It’s the only option, I’m afraid.” His shoulders fall in the same manner that Dawns had just a few moments ago.

The tension in the room turned palpable, if any of the others walked in they’d feel it and turn tail. But the two holding it have no idea just how thick it is.

Giles steps away from the edge of the desk, and makes his way around behind it. Falling the short distance into the wooden slatted chair occupying the space between the wall and the desk. He slouches into it, the set of his shoulders, and body showing just how defeated the man really is. The surrogate father’s eyes find the totally defeated eyes of the surrogate daughters, as he gazes intently across the dust-covered top of the old desk.

Dawn draws in a deep breath, and sets her shoulders determinedly. She decides to soldier on, her sister is what’s important now, but she still has more to say on behalf of the older Summers. “You do realize if Buffy wakes up and figures out where she is, she’s going to be stark, raving mad?”

Giles eyes had found a spot on the surface before him quite interesting, and as Dawn had started to talk he’d gazed in silent reverie at it, but at the mention of Buffy’s name he’d looked up at Dawn.

A breath comes from his chest. The circles he has to go around with this girl. He rolls his eyes, when he sees Dawn picking at a bit of imaginary lint on her shirt. She reminds him of a sixteen-year-old Buffy. “As I’ve already said, I despise this plan of action as much as the rest of you, and I also know that Buffy will be quite angry with us for taking her there. I swear if there were something else I could do. I’d do it in a heartbeat. But at this moment, right now, I believe after the last two weeks of trying.” He pauses, and looks directly into the huge blue eyed gaze of the girl across the room. “I believe that medical attention at this point is the best option, considering that we’ve tried every mystical, and magical option, at least three times each, there’s nothing else in that realm we can try that won’t do more harm than good.”

She slowly nods her head, at the sense of what he is saying, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. “Yeah, I know, Giles. But do we really have to take her into the belly of evil?” She asks, her eyes coming to rest on the dusty top of the desk also.

“I see your point Dawn, but there’s no other option. You have to consider that L.A. General would have a siesta with all the questions they’d have. The first would be why we’d waited for so long to bring her there. From there the list would just keep going. It’s a necessary evil, I suppose. And the only way we can get her the kind of treatment she’ll need.” His hand comes up to scrub his face, and knocks the glasses from his nose in the process.
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She sat there listening intently to the man, who seemed more of a father than her own. Hell her father hadn’t even deemed them worthy of a phone call to see if they were still alive. Giles had been there; trying everything he could to help to heal Buffy. Understanding crossing her mind, she looks up as he finishes his diatribe. “I understand all of that, how on earth are we supposed to answer questions we don’t have the answers for?” She chuckles, sadly. “Well we have a resident witch, and she tried to walk in her mind, also there’s a vampire, and a watcher, who tried all the healing spells they could find. Oh wait we forgot to mention the green demon that had the witch sing for him.” Her sarcastic tone brought a small smile to the watchers face.

As he watches her roll her eyes, and smile, his smile turns into a full fledged one, and he laughed at the absurdity of the whole situation.

“They’d commit us, or laugh in our faces.” She continues, all hints of being sarcastic leaving her voice.
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But she glances up at him, and he sees the glint of fire and light flash for a moment in her eyes. It’s a look that Buffy used to use when she was determined. He didn’t know what it meant when Dawn threw it his way, but it reminded him too much of his catatonic slayer. It also made him wish that Dawn had been a potential, although she hadn’t turned out to be one, she would’ve made one of the best, probably ranking right up there with her sister. “So, you’ll go along with the plan, and let us take her over to the offices?” He tentatively asks, afraid that mentioning it again may make her angry. He lifts his glasses from where they’d fallen a few minutes ago, and awaits her answer.

She sits a few moments; not answering him, then tosses her head. “Yes.” Her answer finally comes out on a whisper. “You know I’m still under protest though, right? The only reason I’m letting you take her is I want her to come back, and if that means she has to crawl into the belly of the beast, then so be it.” She resigns the little resolve she still has, and slumps further into the chair.

“You know Angel won’t let them do anything untoward to her, and if he does there’s going to be an army of slayers, and a group of very loyal, and pissed off friends for him to face. So that’s the good side of the situation.” He smiles as the look on the girls face lightens with the possibility of kicking the souled vampires butt.

An evil grin comes across her face. “Not to mention one really pissed off sister.” She states. “And he doesn’t want me to get me mad at him.” She giggles, as a memory comes to her. “I might have to do that whole axe over the head trick that mom did that one time. You remember when Spike came to Sunnydale, and was out for Buffy’s blood?” Her voice falters as she mentions the bleached vamp, and her head falls against her chest. “If Spike were here he’d know what to do. He’d raise hell, and kick whatever, or whoever’s butt he had to. He’d get the information we need.” While she talks, Giles notices her posture slipping further. “But he isn’t here. He never will be again," her voice barely able to be heard as she whispers the words.

Giles watches her intently, and listens to every word spilling from her mouth. “I can’t believe that I’m going to say this.” He sighs. “But yes, I think Spike would have done everything in his power to get her the help she needs. Even though he was more of a pain in my side than a help most of the time, I’m going to miss the peroxided pest.” He grudgingly admits, and looks at Dawn with a smile on his face.

“I can’t believe that you actually admitted that!” Dawn exclaims, getting up from her seat, and finding her way around the desk to wrap her arms around the neck of the watcher.

“You must never tell any other living, or undead soul,” He warns her, letting just a bit of the old Ripper persona out for effect.

Dawn nods her head, smiling amicably. “I promise.” She's just glad that Giles had finally come to his senses about the bleached vampire. God how she wishes for Spike to show up in a flash of light, or something equally as cool. He'd find a way that wouldn't mean that Buffy had to be taken to Angel's hell hole, or as everyone else called it Wolfram and Hart.

(Here’s another chapter for all to enjoy, tell me what you think. Thank you to everyone that's reviewed, the last ones made me smile, which is something I really needed after the day I've had. You guys don't know how much those few words you write mean to me.)